#but I still want to contribute to the fandom haha so here I am

[hoppipolla]

As early as episode 1, the drama has established that most characters rely on their sense of touch, especially Jom and Yai. Beyond the simple aesthetic of it all, the emphasis on hands is inherent to the way the characterisation is structured. 

The close intimacy between Jom and Yai during their sex scene is made possible thanks to the way their hands convey what they are feeling. 

Yai desires Jom and the way he reaches for Jom’s face as Jom is getting him undressed shows both his impatience and his overwhelming yearning. During this scene, Yai is battling between his physical desire and the fascination he feels towards Jom. His kisses are ardent but also gentle, like when he kisses the hollow of Jom’s shoulder or his neck. His eyes linger on every inch of Jom’s body, his hands slowly slide down Jom’s arms: he is mesmerised. And so is Jom whose expression is quite indescribable: a mix of quiet desire and deep love. 

Although the sexual tension is high, there’s a slowness to the scene that I feel grateful for. The directing lets the characters discover each other’s bodies and it’s so beautiful. 

Jom closing his eyes as he lets Yai’s kisses take him whole emphasises how he gives priority to his sense of touch, making him feel so tangibly Yai’s love for him. 

The two of them drawing each other near in a tight embrace before Yai guides Jom to the bed, doing so without ever breaking their kiss, seems to show how their bodies mirror their feelings. 

Just like @lurkingshan beautifully said in this post, Bright and Nonkul’s seemingly natural chemistry contributes to building such a real feeling of intimacy which is at the core of the story for the two of them (their characters) feel as if they’ve known each other forever. As the monk said, they are destined to meet each other and who knows how many times they’ve already met before? 

When Jom goes back to the past and sees Yai for the “first time”, their world collides and their hearts recognise each other although their minds are at a loss. Memories come flooding back but they can’t quite understand where they come from. 

This irresistible attraction they feel towards each other cannot be expressed in other ways than knowing glances and subtle touches and the directing of this series does both amazingly.

[inksword]

One thing I wish all communities of Worm (reddit, tumblr, the forum who must not be named, etc.) would do a bit more frequently is acknowledge Lisa's asexuality. Like, okay you can still ship her with all your favorite ladies but she could be ace about it ya know? This isn't even WoG aceness it's in the actual text of Ward from her own mouth. It's not totally unexpected just sort of a bummer that an extremely rare asexual character in a piece of media that I like gets almost uniformly cast as a lesbian without a nod to her canon sexuality.

She could still date girls! I personally think she's aro not just ace but since that wasn't explicitly mentioned she could still date girls within her canon characterization!

And before anyone throws a "Wildbow totally wrote her bi/lesbian he just doesn't know it, disregard canon statements of sexuality" like they do with Taylor:

Asexual people can have incredibly close friendships

Asexuals can make sex jokes or observations, sometimes certain jokes seem even more absurd or silly to us because we're asexual!

Asexuals can be hyper aware of how they are perceived in terms of affection

You know if Wildbow had confirmed her canon lesbianism in Ward people would cite that shit and not brush it off "because it's Ward and bad and I haven't read it" (okay some straight-dude spacebattles fanfic writers would ignore it but I don't think that's who I'm talking to here.)

IDK if I can remember every argument that people use to justify headcanoning her as lesbian but please please please just believe her own words and her own reflections on her life and feelings. Yes it's a Watsonian argument but I don't think there's a good Doylist reason to doubt her about it either.

I am not here to take away your ships just... venting a little I guess haha. Yes yes I know that technically every shippy drawing of her could technically be her being ace but when that's every shippy drawing with no acknowledgement it doesn't hit ya know? Like getting bi representation and seeing a character 99% shipped with one gender. I seriously don't want to dampen anyone's enjoyment of Tattletale or say you can't relate to her if you're not ace however!

Ughhh I totally feel like a wet blanket complaining considering I pretty much only contribute a drawing every four years to the fandom. I'll admit I don't voraciously read worm-fic so I may be totally off base and she gets acknowledged all the time in places I don't see. I guess anyone got any good explicitly ace Tattletale fics haha?

[pentapoda]

Well, i am writing fic again. Because i can apparently spend years lurking in mxtx proximal fandoms (shen yuan i love u), then a full year watching vox machina and then critical role campaign 1 and campaign 2, devouring all the caleb fic i can find and still not feel the energy to participate in the fandom. then be like no, no, this silly blue man and very serious tiny man with his violence ballet, this is where i have something to contribute (read, "someone did the au where the coinflip went the other way, right, right? huh i guess not, haha wouldn't it be funny if--")

???

Anyway it has been one month, i have written 25k, probably 15k to go, there is a Google slides doc with a diagram of the silken squall (its a giant kite, btw) and a map of the continent of marquet with to-scale color-coded annotations of each group's location and distance traveled by day, i have rolled stats for dorians parents (sorry dadvernwind, please have some extra guards, you need them), i made a ppt chart comparing parentvernwinds to the party's stats (y axis: win hearts [wis+cha], x axis: win fights [str + dex + con], bubble size: hit points) , i have a spreadsheet with the silken squall's land use and wealth distribution, ashton wants to know why he's so stressed when he's not even in the main pairing (jokes on him though he got to talk to dorian's mom twice and she threw out my arranged marriage subplot, look she says to me there's a marriageable young genasi right here who knows how to protect his own, they bonded over protective violence guys, ashton didn't notice), bell's hells sucked so bad at Orym's resurrection ritual i thought he might actually just stay dead, i had to go back and just let fearne lie,i gave the squall griffins to solve a travel-speed issue and now dorian's bitchy neglected griffin is the star of the last third of this fic, Imogen has emerged from the wings to live the horse girl movie she always wanted, and orym and dorian have not yet shared a scene together but i swear its happening soon

haven't written complete fic (not just a story set up) or anything longer than 10k since jan 2016 so.... this is good... tentatively optimistic here...

in conclusion:

(fcg isn't on there because the fic has bigger parts for orym, dorian, ashton, & fearne, but then i added laudna & imogen to make dorian's dad look better. ...it didn't work. XD)

[aerodaltonimperial]

I believe that everyone should evaluate relationships when those relationships are not working for them any longer, and that means it's one of those times that I have to do the same for myself in fandom, so.

As a caveat, I have a really fraught relationship with writing. If you've followed me for awhile you've probably started to put the pieces together, but yes, I do try to do it professionally, and no, it's not going well. Like, at all. Like, I'm actually really bad at it. Fantastically, laughably bad at it. And I've been trying to be successful for well over a decade, and at this point, fic is the only positive association I've got with writing at all. So my involvement in fandom is already colored by my failures outside of fandom, and it sucks that all of that ends up bleeding into this. But those failures are, unfortunately, huge, and equally unfortunately, massive issues inside my self-confidence.

But I genuinely love being part of fandom. I've been in fandoms since I was 14 years old, for about 25 years of my life. I love being a part of the fandom environment, and I love the interaction, and I love the enthusiasm and flailing and just adoring whatever the source material is. Fandom is, honestly, one of the biggest things in my life, and it has been since I was a teenager, and I don't see that changing any time soon. And typically, I give 150% in fandom! I LOVE being part of it and creating things, and that's just something I've always loved doing, always used my time on. I know that I cultivate kind of a reputation of being CAPSLOCKY and flaily and just very excited about stuff and that's awesome, I love that I get to be so unfiltered and myself in fandom spaces because I feel like I always have to temper myself down in the "real world!"

But. I just don't think I can be the same in fandom any longer, not like this. I've been burned by people I thought were friends, and it's starting to feel like a very unequal distribution of enthusiasm, and I've got a full-time job and a young kid and I already have very little time for myself. It starts to feel really shitty when I'm giving so much of that time and it's just no longer coming back. And this is fine! Fandom ebbs and flows and that's just life; that's the nature of following something that involves real people, you know? Haha, things change and the source material shifts, and that's how it works. But I also know myself and my relationship with writing and self-confidence, and I know enough to know I can't keep doing this. When I start crying about fandom, it's time to step back. When fandom feels like throwing my time and love and energy into a black hole, it's time to step back. It's not good for my mental health any longer. I get too much silence and failure in real life, the last thing I need is to heap more on myself.

Again, this isn't anyone's fault! It's the nature of the beast. I brought a lot of this on myself by stepping away from half of the pairing that I really spearheaded in this fandom, and I'll own that. I don't regret that, even though that was when a lot of people also stepped away from me. And it's like, that's cool. I'm not making what you want any longer, and that content was what I was good for. But it's time for me to start conserving my energy as best I can, because I am still trying to (stupidly, fruitlessly) be successful in real life aspects of this dumb word-making hobby. So if you no longer see me showing up with silly capslock and excitement on your stuff, I'm sorry. I know that people liked it, and I was happy to give it out when I could. I'm happy with how I contributed to fandom during the boom, and I'm happy with who I was in the fandom. I'm still here, still watching, still obsessed, but I'm really stepping away from the creation/interaction side.

And maybe I'll feel better and start writing again and maybe I won't, and that's okay, too. I just didn't want people to think that I hated them or what they were creating because I'm not sliding into comments the way I used to. 💚 Anyway. Been quite a ride. I guess at the end of the day, I hope that I wrote something that you really liked, and that I was able to make you feel really warm and happy inside if you also wrote fic or made art. That's the impression I'd like to leave on people. 💚

[rmd-writes]

Hi!! I always love what you write, so I'm very excited to see whatever this secret project is! But for now I do have a question about beta reading. How did you break into it? For a long time I have thought that I would enjoy doing that for different people, and I like that kind of fine-tooth comb editing work. But I am not a writer myself, just an avid fic enjoyer, so it feels like I can't quite bring as much to the table or meet other authors in a mutual kind of way. And I would never want to imply that an author needed that extra help or anything like that by just cold reaching out to them. Sorry that so much about me haha, I'm not necessarily looking for any advice (though if you had any I would certainly take it) but I am curious about how you got into it and what your experience has been like! Thank you!!

Hi nonnie! Thanks for the ask!

Can I just say to start with, that as an avid fic enjoyer, you absolutely can meet writers and other creators in a mutual way! Everyone has a place in fandom and something to contribute. It would be a very lonely world for creators if people weren't there to enjoy what we make (and hopefully tell us what they're liking those things). Personally, I appreciate readers so much and I especially love seeing regular names pop up in my inbox 💖💖

As for how I got into beta reading, it started back when a pal in Schitt's Creek fandom was writing a fic and worried that she was going to lose motivation to write it so I offered to sit in the doc and cheer her on. Please note that my motivation for doing so was entirely selfish because it meant that I had early access to the fic that I desperately wanted her to keep writing 😅 that eventually turned into me beta reading that fic (and all of her fics after that) for her.

I started beta reading more frequently in RWRB - I'd signed up as a beta reader for an event, but around the same time I also got to know other writers via a discord server. Sometimes people would ask for beta readers and I'd volunteer - I'm still a tiny bit dirty that @three-drink-amy snagged the beta rights to bleedingballroomfloor's baseball boyfriends fic right out from under my nose even though she is far better qualified than I to beta read a baseball fic - so much so that she helped me with the baseball scenes in my rwrb lawyer au lol (please know that I love them both dearly, there is no internet beef here).

You say that you don't want to reach out to writers and imply that they need assistance, but honestly, sliding into people's DMs and letting them know that either I'm very interested in X fic that they're writing and would they like someone to beta read it or that I'm available in general to help if they want it because I love their writing is how I've ended up beta reading for almost all of the writers I do that for!! People are generally just thankful to know that someone is interested in their writing! It can be a lonely hobby sometimes and having someone to live in your docs or send snippets to can help balance the need for wanting to talk about your fics with someone or bounce ideas off someone and wanting to keep what you're working on under wraps.

God, this is getting really long, I'm so sorry. I've been rambling and I'm not even sure that I answered your question.

You asked what my experience has been like and for the most part, it's been very positive! I get early access to fics (I often say that my favourite way to read a fic is in google docs 😂), I get to cheer my friends on and sometimes they even trust me enough to let me throw ideas at them and write them into their stories - sometimes I even get to do this without actually doing any editing and that's just as fun. I love beta reading, I think there's something really special about being trusted with the draft of someone's writing and getting to help make it the best that it can be (what that involves looks different for every writer I work with). 💖

And all of that doesn't even touch on how much I learn from the writers I've worked with - it's definitely helped me improve my own writing!

[abbeyofcyn]

greetings! this is more on art stuff but i have to ask: how do you post stuff online without being afraid? i draw a lot and i do want to share my art but theres this very big and very loud part of me that is very insecure about it and i end up not posting it despite my friends encouraging me to do so. would love some tips if youre willing to share.

also your art is really nice (love love your concepts and how you execute them), youre one of the rottmnt artists on this site that actually pushed me to do comics in general lol

The secret is....that I am afraid of posting art.

Still am, but it gets easier.

I guess what I can give you is this quote I once read (where I cannot remember...)

"You can only be brave when you're afraid" and I always try to remember that when I do things I think are scary. I'm a very anxious person so I get to be brave a lot haha.

One of the first rottmnt comics I came across was by @/kathaynesart and it made me sob like a baby and made me want to contribute to the fandom and make others feel things even if it was just going to be a handfulof people. So I had motivation to post and face my fear.

When I first posted I ignored the app for a day and I don't get notifications on my phone. I also tend to plan in my art when I am either not able to look at my phone or while I'm asleep. It helps me on several levels.

I have to be honest though, it really really helps to get feedback from people in the form of tags and comments. You already have friends here so you've got a great start! (At least I assume they are on tumblr) My friends were there at the start too to encourage me although they're barely on tumblr.

In conclusion. It's okay to be afraid, find your motivation to share your art, check if it helps to post while you are away from your device and let your friends continue to encourage you.

So, although you are on anon, let me know when you post art. I'd love to see it and leave a comment or tag!

[idyllic-affections]

a letter from aphelion. ♡

a letter to all the people who have made my year in one way or another. there is no particular order to this post, and some of you may find that i don't have much to say, but all of you who are on this post are here because i can recall times i've enjoyed speaking to you or seeing you in my notifs or just existing within the same space as you. i hope you all have only the best year possible next year—it seems like most of us need and deserve a good year, hm? though i regard myself as quite a gentle and sentimental soul, i struggle with putting it into words. it's ironic, considering i am a writer. i mention this because even if the things i say in this post are quite silly and lighthearted, just know that i earnestly mean what i say and each and every one of you has contributed to my year in a memorable way <3 may we all have a good 2024.

       dear @lillonvia,

YOU!!!! YOU!!!!! HELLO. HI. MEETING YOU HAS BEEN SUCH AN HONOR AND SUCH A DELIGHTFUL PART OF MY YEAR!!! i love the little silly conversations we often have—i think it's probably a good thing that we share so many random fandoms. it's as if we lived somewhat similar lives growing up despite growing up in such vastly different environments <3 but anyway, i think the fandoms we share are really helpful in being able to have such fun conversations!! we have many things to talk about!!! despite the vast difference in timezones!!!! please go to sleep at normal hours!!!!!!! /lh

       dear @starryshinyskies,

HI AVERY <3 i was literally always so delighted to see you in my inbox back when you were still ⭐️ anon, and i still feel that kind of joy now! you have so many good and fun thoughts to share with me about things i've written and i love that... i hope moral injury ch. 2 will give you that same kind of brainrot again when it does finally come out!!!! if it doesn't that's okay too HAHA but i always love hearing your thoughts on... literally anything ever!! i have some fics of yours that i've been meaning to reblog btw, so maybe watch out for multiple essays in your notifications in the coming weeks LMAO

       dear @aroacenezha,

MAJI I AM SQUISHING YOU LOVINGLY IN MY HANDS or i can just look at you fondly if you don't want to be squished. i am okay with that too <3 i often think about how we met and i think it's both kind of funny and kind of nice. "baizhu would hate dottore" agreed so real so true that post was so correct in so many ways RAAHHH 🤝 the nice part of the way we met being my baizhu series. despite me having NOT updated it any time recently, has brought a lot of people into my inbox and sometimes into my life and i think it's very cool. i love when people feel seen. and furthermore please always send me your oc thoughts and your blorbo thoughts i love them so much 🙏🙏🙏

       dear @soleillunne,

ALYYY MY LOVE MY BELOVED you are so precious and treasured.... i love what you do, i think your writing is beautiful and has such a poetic quality to it. and i love when you appear in my inbox and notifs!!!! though tumblr is very mean to you and always eats your asks.... you are important to me and so many other people and i hope you always know that. genuinely. you are such a kind and wonderful person and you are always loved.

       dear @heiayen,

YOU. *GRABS YOU* *EVILLY* you. you are so. idk but YOU ARE. can't think of a good word. no words, only vibes. you are vibe-y. /lh you're another moot that has the most top tier responses to things, even non-fanfic posts. you just have Things To Say, and in the best way possible. your thoughts are so fun..... i interact with you rather often—more than some people realize, perhaps—and you are a dearly beloved presence in my life 🫶🫶

       dear @zeldadou,

though we haven't talked too much recently, i still think of you often! i love seeing your art and the way it changes and develops... and i love hearimg your thoughts about things or when you send me fun things you think i would like <33 you are a very kind person in my eyes, whether you realize it or not.

       dear @june-again,

i hope life treats you well, always. you don't deserve anything less. i think of you fondly! your kindness is and was very remarkable and treasured especially when i was first adjusting to tumblr and posting my fics and whatnot..... by the time we met, i was still very new, so i appreciated any kind interactions (i still do of course! it's just a bit different when you're new to a website like this haha)!!

       dear @kaixserzz,

I FUCK WITH YOUR THOUGHTS DUDE YOU SEEM TO COME INTO MY INBOX AT THE MOST RANDOM AND UNEXPECTED OF TIMES AND DROP THE MOST HEARTBREAKING ANGST POSSIBLE??????? HELLO?????????? ARE YOU. DOING OKAY??!???!!!! YOU WAKE UP AND CHOOSE VIOLENCE. ESPECIALLY WITH KAVEH. WTF (me too tbh 😇) /lh please always send me any platonic thoughts you have i will entertain all of them fr 💥💥💥 you have such good thoughts in that brain of yours 💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

       dear @archonsbane,

i haven't spoken to you much, so forgive me if this seems or comes off as a sudden or jarring tag, but i do enjoy talking to you. fatui moot <3 you GET IT get it about the harbingers' dynamics. i hope we have more opportunities to speak sometime! (and if that sentiment isn't shared, that is totally fine. i would respect it either way 🫶)

       dear @lesanyanyas,

we only became mutuals recently, but i hope you know that i always thought of you as one of the "blorbo from my notes" kinds of people haha!!! i always saw and recognized you whenever you were in my notifications or my inbox and you always have such delightful and fun things to say <33

       dear @umgatochamadopercyval,

CLARA HIII you are such a remarkable person, you know? you've been nothing but kind and understanding, and you have such fun thoughts and ideas!! i love hearing about them sm. even if my responses are delayed, just know that you are always welcome to ramble in my dms about your ocs or your fic ideas and i will never find it to be annoying or anything. it isn't annoying. it never is.

                                                 sincerely,                                                                           aphelion.

there are people who did not make this list, and to those people, i hope we can become closer in 2024! if you aren't on here, it's truly only because i've hardly spoken to you. so... perhaps that is something we can do next year! i think of all my mutuals very fondly. i don't think of any of you as "less than" just because we haven't spoken mwah mwah <3

[roslynwrites]

Hi there!

I found you from your beautiful, stunning, nothing short of perfect fic, Incendiary! Apologies if you don’t want new fans/ commenters (feel free to ignore this message if it’s a lot!)

But because reviews were turned off I just had to let you know how amazing the fic was - somehow! This is not an attempt to ask you about your next chapter status or anything like that but to really applaud you for the work you’ve given us for FREE. I think zutara fans in general have felt alienated by the community (esp when creators of the show have openly mocked us) so finding like minded people & quality fics are seriously one of the things that make me so happy.

My brain rot with Zutara died a few years again & then I started watching the live action … saw the infamous scarf scene and well spiraled right back in. Last time I was obsessed with the pairing, was before your fic. So when I stumbled over it this round I ate it up within 2 days … despite having to be up early haha. It was such a master piece even as I write this comment I’m in awe. I wanted to leave detailed reviews on each chapter but honestly the way you built the story, woven canon elements into it & structured the dialogue was breath taking. You brought back so many details and even though it’s canon divergent - everything made sense. It’s not one of those ‘it’s outrageous but for the sake of the fic whatever’, it actually worked WELL.

The characters would do those things had it been a more mature show, aged up, different circumstances. I love that. I also appreciated the lack of focus on kataang and having Katara be more than just a trophy - she felt so true to her essence. I’m not sure what I was even looking for scrolling absentmindedly thought Ao3 but finding your masterpiece was really not something I’d dream of. I did think loosely of a forced proximity, marriage trope for them and you executed in such a satisfying way. I can say that I am so so happy for coming across this. I think I’ve learned alot from the way you write as well. You did such a good job with some of the sequencing and ahhh just a true delight and joy to read.

All this to say I’m so very thankful for your contribution to zutara nation!! You gave the fandom such a priceless gift I know incendiary will be a fic I come back to often to reread and marvel. I hope everything is well with you🫶🏼

This ask made me tear up a little with happy tears; thank you so much for coming here to send this to me, you wonderful person <3

It's interesting you mention the alienation of the zutara fandom in relation to other parts of the fandom, it's actually something I ponder a lot. Fandom dynamics are so interesting in general to me, and every fandom is a little different. I am not a Zutara veteran by any means, I sauntered in quite late to the party and I don't really interact much with other parts of the fandom nor in any discourse, but even to reclusive old me I think it's fairly obvious that the creators deciding it was a great idea to essentially declare open season on personally insulting a large portion of the fandom based on fictional shipping tastes had a pretty large impact on how the atla fandom interacts lol.

Which is, of course, a shame, but cultivating fun, relaxing spaces is still thankfully possible, and I do think that the loud troublemakers (regardless of ship) are a small percentage of fandom; the chill people are usually just quieter and have to be actively found. I am sooo glad my fic could deliver some joy and feeling of like-mindedness for you :)

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

sorry to message but i just wanted to yell because I saw a post and yOU’RE THE AUTHOR OF FALLOUT FROM THE FADE ???? oh my goodness it’s my favourite fic ive read it SO many times.

i left a comment on ao3 last night because i finished reading it again and i just genuinely hope one day you finish it (i understand you have much going on i am just greedy).

but yes thank you so much for creating it, fenris and hawke are everything to me and this fic is my canon no matter what happens in veilguard. 💜

hahaha HELLO yes that is indeed I... I guess i do owe a little bit of an explanation here since its been uh... like 4 years since I last updated, yeah :| But it still makes me so happy that even after so long people still enjoy my little pile of suffering and yearning!

I don't know how many people who used to follow it are still on tumblr (I think a lot of people i used to write with/who would comment have deleted their tumblrs and AO3 accounts in the intervening years alas) but i do I owe anyone remaining a little context I guess lol. Long story made short is like very shortly after my last update i got broken up with unexpectedly from my 4 year relationship, and went into a bit of a spiral about it. I didn't fully stop writing at this point (though I think nothing I wrote in that like... year or more ended up posted anywhere), but I did realize that when I went to work on my ongoing stuff I was in a place where I was like... only wanting to write about anger/losing relationships rather than healing ones. And that part of me wanted to change some of the things I had planned for the following parts and ending of Fallout From the Fade. And so I decided to take a step back from it for a while to see if I actually wanted to make those changes when I was less bitter or if I wanted to follow my original plan.

And that took me about a year, emotionally. However by then I had actually left my prior job (where I spent a lot of time hiking/camping in the wilderness of Utah with no internet, and I used that time for writing), and started graduate school courses. Aaaannnd grad school has been slowly eating my life since. I've only posted I think one other fanfic since then, and it was a very short prose-poem one shot. Another contributing factor was my gaming tech was too old to actually play Trespasser when it came out, and by the time I got a laptop that could handle it, I had to replay the whole game but I was working full time, etc... and i felt really disconnected from the DA fandom since I couldn't read all the new fic/understand all the lore deep dive posts/experience it with everyone else simultaneously. Oh yeah and I work a second job as a professional mermaid in varying degrees of intensity depending on the season/oportunties available haha.

All that being said. I actually have written more of FFtF in the last 2 years. But like I said in the other post I made kinda recently, the long gaps between my later updates (vs the ones I was doing way more regularly in 2016-2018) had me rethink the approach I was using to write and post it, which was a chapter at a time. It felt like stringing people along in kind of a mean way to dump a chapter and then vanish for another year, and I knew I couldn't promise consistency while doing a masters/PhD program. So I've been kind of fiddling away at it slowly still, both actual writing of following chapters, and some substantial firming up/drafting sections in my outline to get to the eventual ending and ensure it's more cohesive than a lot of my slapdash chapters. But! Idk! I do also def work slower without the fun of having an audience, and miss that. and I never actually asked of the people who are left and still wanna read more of it, if they'd rather just get a chapter every 6 months or so as I scrounge it out. If you are one of those people and have an opinion def let me know.

I will say, the imminent presence of Veilguard does have me more inspired and creative again, and some of that has been going to Fallout. Especially since I'm no longer watching the videos/gameplay bioware is putting out since they have SOOO many spoilers and I wanna go into the game at least semi blind, so my creative energy has to go towards my personal stuff rather than joining everyone else in speculation and hype now. I'm definitely not promising I will have it close to finished by October when Veilguard releases, because I'm still in grad school and the next months are busy for me in terms of mermaid work too, but I am hoping I can make some good chunks of progress between now and then. But then if I say that and can't follow through after all I also don't wanna let people down.

Anyway yeah, it's sort of a lot of conflicting thoughts. But I'm still rotating Hawke and Fenris and this fic in my mind even these years later... which for me is honestly pretty normal. I mean I have whole original novels/worldbuilding ideas/etc that I've worked on for 10-15 years in my own time haha, I've been writing fiction for fun since I was like 10, so I think I also just think of stories/writing across a bigger timeline than people who start writing with fanfiction (which is MUCH faster paced) than original fiction. The difference of course is no one sees my original stuff so there's no one to care if i take 2 years between chunks of progress. SO I guess what I am trying to say is, yes definitely it is not abandoned, I am plodding away at it bit by bit, I also hope I can finish it one day!!!! that is within this decade i hope! whether or not anyone else is left to read it but me haha

[blizzardsuplex]

You don't know what you've unleashed El <3 Sappiness in 100 words or less each under the cut!

In general: After being on the outside looking in with Tumblr for a long time, I finally joined somewhere around the midpoint this year. I was kind of active for a month before major events in both my family and long-standing hobbies made me disappear. The me from even a few months beforehand probably would have never come back…but I did, and I couldn’t be more grateful for it. It’s just really fun to be on here, in a way I haven’t experienced for a while—so, if you're reading this, whether we actively talk or not? You’ve contributed to that. Thank you.

Drea @shes-a-voodoo-child: I knew you first as a brilliant writer, but little did I know that you were also a gracious member of fandom/Tumblr, even to someone like me who blundered into a cold call (thank you for not immediately blocking my empty blog, haha!) Nowadays, though, I know you first and foremost as someone I’m glad to call my friend—even if I must admit I still look up to you with stars in my eyes. I only wish I had more interesting things to talk about with you, because I really enjoy whenever we chat things like music or wrestling!

El @spaghettisaurusrex: Honestly, at first I thought you were too cool for me—you teach swordfighting, for God’s sake! But you’re also an incredibly chill, incredibly nice person, who I’m always glad to see in my notifs on Tumblr or Discord. And, of course, thank you so, so much for writing and talking the fairy tale AU with me; it was a fraught journey on my part, but it also turned out one of my fave pieces I’ve ever done. We should write together again next time!

Izzy @limbreaper: So much to say, so little (self-imposed) space to say it. I never thought I’d have a friend like you, honestly, especially considering everything’s that happened. Forever grateful that you’re in my life (if only for now), and I hope you have as much fun talking to me as I do talking to you—and if we drift apart one day, though hopefully later rather than sooner…I won’t forget your kindness sending that message to a stranger. It really did mean a lot. Hopefully there’ll be authentic PH food options where you are some day.

Jackie @tekkers: I’ve admired your GIFs/ZSJ content from even before I was active on tumblr (yeah, I was a tag delver), so to find out that the person running the blog is a really cool person on top of everything? Chef’s fucking kiss. Thank you for listening to me for a couple of hours that one time and offering to finagle with Highspots TV for me. Also, you have great taste in music! We should start swapping recs again (though I don’t know if I’ll ever give you something that I loved as much as Emotionalism!)

K @onlyposersfallinlove: We don’t talk as much as we might be able to, but I hope you know that I’m thinking of you and hoping for you always. Whether your goals be in the spheres of fandom or private life, you deserve to achieve them, because you have the right to be happy. May whenever you read this be wonderful—at least just that day.

Kerri @sublightsleeper: You’re a thief in the night, except you both bring the day when you pop up and also are not a thief in the slightest (unless you want to be, because thief classes are cool). Either way: you’re a very nice, creative person and talented writer, and I always smile when you take the time to say hello!

Pastel @zsjbrightensday: It takes a lot of bravery to post a creative work to any sort of public—and now you’ve done it twice, with even more on the way! I’m really, really glad that you feel safe enough to do so, and I am excited for whatever is next in your WIP list! Also, you’re just a very nice person and I always am happy to get asks from you.

Poke @theaerialassassin: I hope you liked your present! Joking self-aggrandizing aside, you are a great friend and a great person to exchange ideas with and be around. I hope that school and life treats you well, and that you know that, whenever or wherever doubts may creep in, you know you have people to turn to (including both those around you physically and the people in your phone, if you’re so inclined). You’re there for us, too, after all.

Rosa @rosabellebelieve: As I’ve told you recently, I’m so very glad you were active in the notes of Drea’s posts and were receptive to the virtual post-its I left on your desk, haha! You’re wonderful to talk to, and though I wish once more when DMing you that I had more interesting things to say because I just enjoy when we converse, I know that whenever we do it’s a great time. Thank you for being my friend!

Syb @fang-revives: How does your garden grow?—well, it’s almost winter, as you said. But I’m always glad to see your gardening pics cross my dash! I hope that the last of this year’s tomatoes were good, and that when the world wakes up in a few months for spring your plants will be the most verdant verdure this side of the US-Canadian border. Also KENTA is cool I guess (I kid; he definitely is. Have I sent you the KENTA/Marufuji hour long match my friend compressed to sub-8 MB?)

Vera @scissormedaddyass: On top of being super duper cool, you’re a very level-headed person and I deeply appreciate that. You’re also a great writer and just…so fun to talk to/participate in fandom with (let’s go sailing the internet’s seven seas, haha). Very glad I met you. I hope your walks remain pleasant and that the yar-harr fandom you’re a part of isn’t too sad about what happened. ;)

[little-fierling]

The fandom is so lucky to have you! We appreciate having you here and all that you contribute to it ❤️❤️

1. What brought you into the fandom?

2. What character(s) do you feel the most connected to and why?

3. Out of all of SJM’s books, which one means the most to you and why?

4. Out of all of the SJM couples (fanon, canon, endgame, etc) which one means the most to you and why?

Keep doing you ❤️

Thank you lovely Anon. ❤️

1. I was house sitting my friends place, and I felt like I wanted to read a book after a long time. I searched for Kindle books, and ended up choosing ACOTAR since I had heard the name somewhere before. I read all ACOTAR books in a week and then instantly started rereading them. Good thing I had all the time in the world back then haha.

I was so hooked that I joined Reddit and then Tiktok to discuss the books with others. My IRL friends hadn’t read them and I had to get an outlet. I’m still here every day after two years.

2. Lucien. My apartment was already full of fox stuff, I am a redhead and I love autumn. Need I say more. 😆 I instantly knew I’m going to like him.

3. This is perhaps a surprise since I mostly talk about ACOTAR, but my favorite SJM book is Tower of Dawn. I broke my spine, hip and tail bone in a horse riding accident some years ago, and I really connected with what Chaol went through in ToD. It was a healing experience for me too.

4. Less surprisingly: Elucien. I love those two and I cannot wait for their book. Regency romance vibes and reformed rake trope. 👌😮‍💨 Lucien is my favorite character, and I see so much potential in Elucien story.

[m1ckeyb3rry]

SHSHSHS HONORARY MUTUAL SHUT UP IM SO HONORED!!!! Also @/i-am-so-strange you’re too kind!!!!! Hsjshsjs always happy to provide more bllk content hehe but also thank YOU for supplying us with that glorious art I really got a kick out of seeing that LMAO I’m ngl stressing hiori is one of my favorites HAHAHA

BRO I LOST IT AT THE YUKI MARIOKART!!! We’re literally being stalked it’s insane….yes Reddit is definitely….a place…..honestly I only really use it when I wanna see non bot reviews for things and occasional bllk news because there’s usually at least one chronically online member active whos posting the latest stuff….

LMAOOOO NO ITS SO FUNNY HAHSGSHAAH ok but that makes more sense I feel like it’d be hard to expand too much on a request like that!! I love how it coincidentally lined up with Isagi being difficult/not as interesting to write about though LMAO

Wait that’s a good point HAHAHA maybe your inner tabieitaken agenda seeped out and you attracted side character enjoyers (me)……is that a sign to slide in secondary main character thoughts /j that is pretty hilarious though……I mean granted I also contributed to the hiori pile a bit when I sent in that like…(wanted to put this note in here that I straight up FORGOT what I wrote omg let’s see how long it takes me to scroll and find that ask I could’ve sworn I wrote it down somewhere but the fact that I don’t remember exactly what I wrote down is kinda embarrassing LMAO)

LMAOOO no because I love the idea of building up ego nation and just leaving like idk those cheesy stories where the lore is like yeah our great founders/creators one day disappeared HAHAHAHAAH I forgot that the man canonically doesn’t do laundry or cook decent food so that’s true too I’m here for the long ride though if you do end up writing that at some point then we can truly become the fake ego nationals LMAOO

MEGUMI I love megumi too omg bruh the recent events in jjk are really not good for the soul someone bring back megumi and his shadow animals :( Ah yes very brief Yuta interlude LMAOO (pi slapped so hard) also SHDJSH GET OUT SHIN AHS MY FAV TOO I also really liked Kija too!! I’m still sad that they didn’t continue with the anime though I heard it’s because it was just promo for the manga? Man. Ok but being converted by content is a little too real it happens to me too often….you know what’s funny. I saw a tiktok roasting Karasu for being number 3 and then like disappearing and I remember saying to my friend “yikes I don’t even like Karasu but why’d they do him so dirty” haha. Ha. I have no idea how it spiraled from there but it was quite literally shortly after that moment. But yeah I’ve definitely been converted by a good edit or piece of art! I’m pretty certain I started liking chigiri after seeing some fanart someone showed me LMAO

No I have full faith in you….you’re cooking in Michelin chef mode…so take your time LMAOOO it really does make me realize yet again that no one is serving Karasu nation like you s2 bring my man some justice….ok genuinely crazy has me really curious like if we’re talking genuinely crazy via Mira standards I’m eyeballing something around 30k (don’t say anything to this LMFAO)

WHEN I TELL YOU I LAUGHED SO HARD “I’d stay downstairs when my brother has friends over” IS SO FUNNY??? I’m actually crying but also agree!! I usually don’t watch as much slice of life to begin with so

the oikawa thing is actually so funny as a running joke now but I think (I’m also not a hardcore hq fan nor have I dipped my toes in the hq circles on social media) it stemmed from people actually thinking oikawa was really mean…? Maybe?? But if that was the case I’m like…..he seems pretty regular to me….seeing people put him next to like Sukuna and Kenjaku though is so hilarious LMAOOO

“#unfortunately idt I am built for the sports manga/anime life” AHAHABAAHHAAHAH you really were in for it LMFAOOOO

The soccer dudebro side of the fandom…ah yes….you know sometimes I forget dudebros actually watch and then I’m painfully reminded by some power scaling tiktok…this is also oddly specific but I remember seeing Maddie on tiktok talk about how she traded some blind bag keychain pull with a dudebro and gave her Kunigami to him for nagi or Reo or some Nagi Reo combo keychain and I really thought to myself like wait dude bros watch and buy merch?? Then I realize it makes sense that he wanted Kunigami LOL

HAHA Honesty translating is so fun and gives me more opportunities to use the target language too so I got you!!! <3 Classic Otoya activities indeed….CHATTER X CHATTER CHEMICAL REACTION IS CRAZY guys we are devouring bllk itself we devoured kaneshiro now he’s gotta give us his seat as bllk creator!!!!!! And also ok good I’m glad LOL I didn’t want to be like rapid fire pinging your inbox and messing up anything HAHAH

Oh…omg…….wait I hope that all worked out ok for you because omg….yeah that’s so awkward and honestly sounds like a nightmare…..hoping you get some platonic male irls too!!! Maybe you just have too much rizz LMFAO well….at least you didn’t find out during the actually dinner ig!

-Karasu anon

LMAOOO idk if i follow you or not but trust i would if i don’t…you’re like one of my tumblr besties atp HAHAHA one of my elite employees 🫡 and YES that art cracked me up poor hiori was struggling

to be honest if i’m looking smth up or i have a question i always go straight to the reddit results…truly it’s the best place for research questions because you can tell by upvotes how accurate smth is and especially if you’re looking for an answer about the contemporary world it’s better to get answers from people who live that experience vs study it!! so i can never be a full reddit hater even if some sections of the community are horrific

HAHAH i think a more focused prompt like that might’ve made me struggle for ANY character but yeah it coinciding w isagi definitely made me do a double take…although i would def write for him again if anyone else ever requested for him LMAOO i just wouldn’t seek out writing him on my own the way i do w tabieita and nagi

LMAOOO i give off a general aura of side character enjoyment 😩🙏🏻 that was back when my blog was only nagi themed too and he’s pretty popular so i’m surprised i didn’t get more reqs for him too!! you can always slide secondary main character thoughts my way 😋😏 but yeah i just found it funny that i’ve gotten more reqs for karasu than literally any other character…maybe too it’s because once i wrote for a side character the people who are into more random characters realized i would write for them and came to req?? vs people who like more popular characters have a wide range of people they can req/read from so they might not even see my blog in the results compared to me being one of very few authors who writes longer fics in the hiori/karasu/otoya/etc tags…idk if that makes sense but it could be one explanation

no because idk if you saw the vol30 color spread with the coaches but why is ego looking lowkey kinda…like sure i’ll join ego nation myself if i must HFJDDNJSSN

OMG YONA OF THE DAWN FAN???? you are officially my fav person ever I LOVEEEE YONA OF THE DAWN I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU ALSO LIKE SHINAH BCKDNFJSDJDMSN WHY ARE WE THE SAME PERSON 😭😭😭 he’s my fav ever omg…besides him i rlly liked hak and soowon 😓 but shinah is my number one my bae my man 👹 forever hoping for a reboot of the show because from what i’ve heard the manga is sooo good and yona is such a well written fmc!! i need them to get mappa level animation and finish the whole show 😔 i’m surprised they haven’t yet it’s one of the most popular mangas i’ve heard?? i know SOOO many people would watch it if it came out plus it would appeal to such a broad audience because it truly has everything 😩 okay sorry for the brief rant i just love yona of the dawn i wish the fandom wasn’t NONEXISTENT because it has so much potential for fics art and analysis!!

i’ve learned to never say i don’t like a character because almost immediately after i WILL fall in love with them!! idek how i started liking karasu because after season one i could not tell you who karasu otoya or any of the others were (i did remember liking yukimiya though)…after i finished the show i was SET on not reading the manga because i thought it wouldn’t be as fun as watching it animated but the same mutual who convinced me to watch the show told me to read the manga and eventually i caved 😩 and that was when i was like “ok lowkey why is karasu so fine…” but it wasn’t until i took a break halfway through third selection to read epinagi that i really became a FAN 🤔 at least i think that’s how it happened HFJDJSN i don’t remember it as well as i remember becoming a fan of nagi (didn’t gaf abt him until i realized i was lowkey giggling at his scenes in team z vs team v…tried to hold out as a rin fan throughout second selection but it was impossible and then i was the number one nagi fan before i knew it)

i will not comment on your prediction 🤐 but michelin star meal OMG i can only hope it’s that good…truly i am doing what i can for karasu nation 😭🙏🏻 laying a foundation for those to come after me (aka his fandom which will surely grow after s2) 🤞🏻 i wonder what his fanon version will look like actually 🤔 are we going to get fboy tabito??? hopefully not because aiku and otoya are right there but bby karasu is a sarcastic dark haired handsome asshole who’s secretly a sweetheart so i do fear he’s going to be bastardized a la the itoshis a bit 😔 at least i can imagine him being flirty even if i do think he’s too much of a loser and undercover loverboy to ever sleep around or anything

i guess by slice of life/chill anime standards oikawa might seem mean?? like he’s nothing compared to sukuna/kenjaku or even kaiser but in comparison to others in the show he might be ruder hence the general perception of him being as such…no idea though 😩 i agree it is funny seeing him in the top villain compilations

LMAOOO I HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN TO ME TRULY now i’m in so deep but like i love it…the bllk community on tumblr is also rlly fun and i’ve made so many mutuals/friends because of being active in the fandom which has been awesome!! no regrets for sure

PLEASEEE the dudebros are awful but also hilarious to me like lowkey i love them because they simply are so unreal like NO ONE irl talks like that 😭 one time i commented on a bllk dudebro’s tik tok and my comment was the only one he responded to despite how many of his fellow dudebros also commented…tell me that was the most interaction you’ve had w a woman in weeks without telling me 😓 but also omg the chokehold that kunigami and barou have on dudebros HAHAH i’m always scared to say i like barou because i need to specify it’s NOT in a dudebro way it’s in a “he’s my housewife and i love him very much” way

PLS WE DEVOURED KANESHIRO FR entering destroyer mode now…watch out the tongue’s abt to make an appearance 😩

unfortunately i have a lot of accidental rizz 😔 one time i actually didn’t realize i was on a date (i thought it was a family hangout) until the guy’s mom told us she was leaving so she didn’t third wheel us and then i had to pretend i had a boyfriend so i could escape 😭 that was a crazy day because that guy knew i was in love with his best friend?? so idk what he thought he was doing there…anyways this time i just pretended like my father wasn’t allowing me to hangout with anyone so i got out of it 😪 unfortunately no matter how hard i try to have male friends irl it inevitably ends up with them asking me out and me saying no 💔 one day it will be different i hope 😩

[carminavulcana]

RRR fandom appreciation post

This fandom hardly needs me to write an appreciation post to know how much I love it. If it isn't obvious, I would like to reiterate that I am obsessed with how obsessed you all are about engaging with this entertaining, fascinating piece of art that is RRR.

The best part about this fandom is that not a single person here is an uncritical admirer of the film. I am always awed by your ability to love RRR, its characters and universe, while also being mindful of its real-world criticisms. This sort of maturity and space for debate is invaluable in a fandom.

Each one of your stories and works of art brings a smile to my face. And as I sat down to go over older RRR posts, I realized that the sheer volume of content that y'all have produced is impressive! I have missed so much of it that I will spend the entire next weekend just catching up, I think.

I also want to use this space to say thank you to some of my friends in this fandom.

@vidhurvrika you and I go way, way back. I hope you would write me more stories for RRR. But what you have written so far is absolutely beautiful. And I love you for being my gateway to South Indian cinema and my go-to person for when I need a safe space to obsess in peace.

@fangirlshrewt97 Your works are some of the earliest things I read in this fandom. As I have told you before, I really enjoyed your writing and I am so grateful that you went ahead and pretty much breathed life into the RRR tag on AO3 all by yourself.

@ronaldofandom hello fellow Bheem/Jenny fan. Dude, what would I do without you haha! Thank you for vibing with me on these two, for constantly reading my stuff and egging me on to write more. Additionally, thank you also for contributing to the Bheem/Jenny space. We need more of them!

@ladydarkey You are such a rock of support in every way. I love your willingness to engage on all sorts of things, including stuff that has nothing to do with this fandom. You are a gem of a human being. Please always remain your sweet, kind self.

@kaagazkefool Doodles, why did you change your name? I like calling you Doodles. And Doodles you will remain to me. On a more serious note, girl, you get a mention here for your poetry and for getting me on an emotional level. Again, I feel like we connect differently on your Urdu writing. It is a breath of fresh air.

@veteran-fanperson Your translations and your interpretation and your patience in teaching us about Telugu culture is so precious, I can't say it enough in words. Your writing is phenomenal and I hope you write more for us soon.

@badtabbywhitecat You are one of the cutest people in the fandom. Because you are a self-professed cat. And absolutely nothing can beat the cuteness of a cat (except for maybe a dog, but since we have no dogs in the fandom...). I want to thank you again for setting my lullaby to music, for engaging with harebrained, bloody, gory, angsty ideas in the middle of the night, and for your amazing art. I loved those paintings you made of Ram and Bheem. They are among the best works of art I have seen in this fandom.

@yehsahihai I think it is safe to call you the baby of the fandom. I won't say much. But I hope you know how much I value all the conversations we've had. I am sorry I am usually not very communicative. But please do know that I value you and appreciate you very much!

@rambheemlove We hardly ever get a chance to talk to each other. But I want to say thank you for inviting me to the Discord server and for loving and appreciating Bheem as much as you do.

@detectivejigsawpines Thank you for being one of the most supportive people I know in this fandom. Again, I am often unable to respond to the comments you leave on my works. Please know that I savor each word of encouragement you give me and I am grateful beyond words for the support.

I know I gotta end this post somewhere. I still have so much to say. Maybe I should save it for the next fandom event. @fangirlshrewt97 thank you for organising this fandom bingo. This has been so much fun!

[rollercoasterwords]

hey! I'm sorry if you've answered this/spoken about this before, and if so please just point me in the direction of your previous answer. but I recently had a trans friend who asked me to stop interacting with the wolfstar/marauders fandom. liking/reblogging posts and reading fanfics within the marauders fandom are the only way I interact with jkr/hp. I would not do anything to directly give her money, but my friend's argument is that every like and interaction with the fandom makes it more influential, which translates to more money. as well as not boycotting hp entirely is a slap in the face to trans people. so, I've stopped reblogging content because I don't want to negatively impact my friend or any other trans people, but I don't personally think I'm doing any harm through engaging with fanart/fanfic.

obviously you're engaged in the fandom, so I'm kinda looking to have my opinion validated... but I think you're very smart and that we share similar values, so I respect your thoughts and any advice you have for this situation. thank you <3

honestly anon if ur looking for like a nicely-wrapped post of "here's why it's okay to interact with harry potter fanfiction" then u have probably come to the wrong place, as this is a topic that i still have conflicted feelings about myself! but. if u want a little essay of my thoughts on the matter then here u go xx

so, first of all - yes, obviously i still interact with hp fandom. however, i'm not going to pretend that i don't understand your friend's point. i get the logic behind the argument that giving any attention to any sort of harry potter media in this day and age helps keep harry potter relevant, which contributes to jkr's influence, which is an influence she actively uses to hurt trans people. i understand why ur trans friend would feel hurt or ask u to stop interacting w hp media altogether.

however, trans people are not a monolith, and there are many trans people who continue to interact with hp in a variety of ways. for me, the space i've carved out in fandom over the past year or so has been a little online haven since i have to remain closeted irl for the most part. hp fanfic has been an important outlet for me to explore + express things abt my own trans identity. but i am also very aware that within the broader trans community, i am not one of those who is most vulnerable to jkr's rhetoric + politics. at the end of the day, there are trans people who don't care if you spend money on hp, there are trans people who don't care if u interact with fandom as long as u aren't spending money, there are trans people who think u shouldn't touch hp with a five-foot pole, and all manner of perspectives in between.

for me personally, there are caveats to my interaction with hp + the way i navigate the ethical minefield of jkr. i don't think there is any reason to ever financially contribute to hp, whether that's buying merch or games or going to hp themeparks or whatever, and i discourage people from interacting w hp within the context of any sort of profit economy. i try not to interact with hp in a way that will grow the popularity of the franchise in any way - i post fanfiction on ao3, where the people reading it are gonna be people who are already part of this space that are seeking it out, and i have this tumblr blog which is, essentially, the same deal. i'm not trying to advertise my fic or get people to suddenly develop a new interest in harry potter, if that makes sense. this is part of why tiktok remains a bit of an ethical quagmire for me, because i feel that the way people interact w fic on there often blurs the lines between being inside or outside of a profit economy.

i also think it's important, when interacting with hp in any way, to acknowledge jkr's influence and the inherent shittiness of the source material. i don't think it's enough to go "dobby wrote the books haha!" and act like we can just ignore jkr, bc her shitty politics are built into the book. i think it's important to engage critically and to consider how you're building off the source material and whether ur unintentionally perpetuating the biases in the text by copying and pasting them without further examination. i talk abt this more in this post

and, of course, i think it's important to vocally stand against jkr + her politics, and to support trans people within + outside of fandom spaces in whatever ways you can. i think it's important to stay educated + engage with theory + politics in a way that goes beyond retweeting posts or watching tiktok clips. jkr isn't just transphobic; her sexism, racism, classism, fatphobia, homophobia, ableism, antisemitism, and overall horrible neoliberal politics are very much built into the text of hp, and if u are not actively educating urself on these issues it's gonna be easier to just internalize them without realizing it.

for me, these are all considerations that affect the way i interact with hp + the extent to which i interact with hp. however, there are people out there who would probably tell me to get off my high horse + stop acting like there are more or less ~morally pure~ ways to interact with hp, bc at the end of the day there's no ethical consumption under capitalism and people writing hp fanfiction isn't really harmful in the grand scheme of things. there are other people who would tell me that it doesn't matter what mitigating factors i'm using to justify my hobby; any contribution that keeps people talking about hp keeps jkr relevant, and i should be able to find other shit to write about. and like....i understand the perspectives of both those people, y'know?

i honestly just think this is a decision where every individual needs to weigh the scales themselves and decide what they're okay with. it's not my job to police or justify the ways people do or don't interact w hp media; if someone's interacting with it in a way i don't like, then i block that person or just don't interact with them. if someone sees me interacting w hp fanfic + thinks that makes me a shitty person, then they can think that and we can go on living our separate lives. some trans people continue to find comfort + community in hp fandom spaces, other trans people feel deeply hurt by the continued existence of these spaces. there is no single answer to What Supports Everybody. your relationship with your friend is something specific to your situation that you'll need to take into account when weighing your own feelings about interacting with hp; the only advice i can really offer is that i think it's better to critically consider the various perspectives people have on this issue without reducing it to a black and white case of two sides where one must be right and one must be wrong.

[tuiyla]

why did you distance yourself from the fandom if you don't mind me asking? miss seeing you here

Hey Anon, that's sweet, thank you. I haven't been active on here at all so it's less distancing myself from any particular fandom as it is being a lot less online in general. The second half of this year in particular has been the craziest, most eventful of my life and so being on here just fell off my radar entirely. The plan was always to return, to answer asks I'm so, so guilty about never getting to, to make the gifsets I wanted to make, to write the essays I wanted to write. That's still the plan, in a way, but I have to be honest and say I have no idea when or if I'll return, certainly not in the capacity I used to be on here in.

I'm hoping to chiller start to 2024 but I think it'd be a shift to put myself back in those fandom shoes and mindset. Don't get me wrong, I still sometimes randomly remember how much I love Santana and how frustrating Glee is when it doesn't live up to its potential. But yeah I've been way too preoccupied with Life to truly get back to that. Mostly in a good way, no one has to worry about me or anything. They say if someone disappears off Tumblr they're either doing really well or really badly. I've had both, but mostly been doing well and making the most of life.

It's crazy to think back on how many hours I used to pour into this blog, into the fandom. I genuinely did love answering asks with elaborate theories and making gifsets, I found that process to be really creatively fulfilling but it took up a lot of my time. The simplest I can put it is that I got a life, haha, and that's not shade at people who are still active. If anything, it's shade directed at myself for being such a full send or no send person who either lives on here or doesn't find the time at all.

I really appreciate everyone on here, people who are still active, people who reach out, people who shout out my old stuff. It's sweet and makes me feel good about the time and effort spent on contributing to the fandom. We'll see what 2024 brings, I am very much deluding myself into thinking I will one day reply to all unanswered asks and such. Hopefully it's not just a delusion.

Thanks for reaching out Anon, and to all who've enjoyed my stuff and presence on here, thank you. Happy holidays to all, and to emphasize this isn't goodbye haha, this is me checking in and letting y'all know I'm still kinda around and hope to be more active at some point.

[lambden]

🌟2022 AO3 WRAPPED!🌟

thanks to @peaktotheocean for this!

Works published: 49! more than I expected, but I published a lot of tumblr drabbles this year so that probably accounts for it

Word count: 124,134. jesus christ that is so many

Hits: 25,994

Bookmarks: 738. nowhere near last year's but still unbelievably high for my average!!

Most popular by kudos: everyone LOVED this geraskier fic heartbreak & horseshit, seconded closely by this lambden fic haha... unless?

Most hits: same as above, heartbreak and horseshit SWEPT

Longest: at 17,032 words it's an AU I wrote for another fandom that was roughly inspired by ALOTO- the movie, not the show! if anyone here is for some reason into dead by daylight or wants to read about baseball ladies, here you go!

Shortest: this is barely a fic. a tidbit of fluffy eskel/jaskier

Most comments: by far it's my modern geralt/netflix jaskier fic somewhere out there, the response to that fic was beyond gratifying and overwhelming! i am working on a part two and it should be up before 2024 LMFAO

Fic that made me cry: I don't really cry at my own writing but this cahir/eskel space pirate/robot AU is one of my favourite things I wrote this year that touches on sadder themes

Fic that made me smile: i always have fun with the flash fic challenges and this fill I did where a peacock becomes enchanted with Geralt is probably my favourite from this year! I also really like this stranger things fic I wrote but this is a witcher blog so I'll try to keep it witcherly haha

Gifts: I know this probably means gifts FOR other people but my favourite gift from someone else was this sickfic, it carried me through the whole year to be honest 💖 otherwise, this Ciri & Letho secret agent AU was requested for a friend by a friend and it made me very happy to write!

Events: I wrote a few fics for the flash fic server, and also participated in the Yennefer Big Bang and the Witcher Fic Writers winter exchange. I had varying successes with these events, and I feel a little disheartened leaving this year with a bad taste in my mouth about some of what happened. But I am proud (or trying to be) of what I contributed and very grateful for all that I did receive, and for my dear friends who helped edit and cheer me on through uncertain times. Writing is just a fun hobby for me so next year I'm definitely not going to let the stress get to me the same way. (Also, because it was brought up by Cole, I'm seconding the desire for a Stranger Things flash fic server!)

Tagging: @faetxlity @jaskiersvalley and whoever else might like to complete this! consider yourself tagged