#but we keep specifics about ourselves off this blog. there's people out there who will hunt your main down and harass you about system stuf

[your-system-said-what]

christ we're almost at 200 followers. I shouldn't really be surprised that this blog has gained popularity due to system communities often being found online and especially on tumblr

and yet I am surprised, because this blog started as a very silly thing and we're not the kind of people to extend reach as far as possible

don't really know what to say except thanks for sticking around, and thanks to those who send in asks and help keep the blog going :]

[spitdrunken]

THIS IS INCREDIBLY SELF-INDULGENT BUT. MY BLOG!

notes: power imbalance, sexual harrassment, murder mentions.

rotating a thought in my head where 'you' are an increasingly popular erotica writer from the pride ring. with writing, you've hit a bit of a niche, as a lot of the big porn producers (VoxTech's subsidiaries) are not exactly known for their riveting dialogue or personalities. no one's there for anything more than that, but there are demons who do want a bit more 'meat', so to say, with nowhere else turn. that is where you come in!

it's not enough to make a steady living off of, not even when you start taking incredibly specific commissions, but it's never been more of a hobby anyway. you are completely anonymous online, keeping care to use throwaway emails and accounts for everything. still, voxtech's products are utterly inescapable: it's either using them, or using nothing at all. (and those rumours about their boss vox having complete control over his technology, even after selling, has to be a rumour... you hope.)

meanwhile, as your penname continues to grow more and more recognizable, it falls in the vees' meeting room. valentino's immediate suggestion is just to kill you. people in the comments keep comparing his dialogue to yours. what the fuck is that about? who the hell watches porn for the DIALOGUE in the first place?

velvette, while shrugging her shoulders, only adds that their new releases tend to go trending, prior to release. fucking far from the top of that list, but still. trending is trending.

vox, sighing internally, plasters a smile on his face. there's really no need to kill new up and coming talent, val. we should suggest them to work for us instead. and if they don't... we can simply prevent them from working. they'll make up their mind, then.

you return to your laptop to an utterly inescapable pop-up describing the opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to work at voxtech! it's a whole wall of text, describing your pay (higher than you would have expected), where you will be living (in one of the appartment buildings owned by voxtech), and when to head to their main office. there is no word on denying the contract, an utter impossibility, it seems. not that you'd dare. vox's and the radio demon's showdown was the talk of the ring for days, and apparantly, all that rancour was the source of alastor denying a contract of his own. that really is more shit than you can handle in your undead life now. so, you take the job.

as your stories are starting to get heavily promoted, velvette absolutely insists that you add in at least a couple of looong clothing descriptions, based on her tastes. she's such an overwhelming, pushy presence, that it's hard for you to say no. she goes on about how, if it gets popular enough, people might be interested in somewhat similar outfits. probably not, though, let's be honest with ourselves. she makes you model them, all the while telling you that you really wouldn't be allowed to breathe in the direction of her studio otherwise. when you ask her why you absolutely have the one modelling, she just rolls her eyes. you based large parts of their appearances after you, didn't you? might as well make you look the part.

valentino is one of the worst parts of the job. compared to everyone else, he hardly pesters you, but he's still a terrifying presence. he'll give you 'suggestions' and make you steer your work in certain directions, getting too close and blowing smoke into your face. he gives a graphic description of how he jacked off to one of your stories, just to see your response. (this is a lie: why would he jack off if he can just call some stupid whore over to do it for him? also, he doesn't read.)

if a part of one of your stories ever gets a 'porno adaptation', he's having you play the part of the director, and has you sit in during the entirety of the viewing. you can tell he takes great pleasure out of any of your discomfort, or any of your fumbling- until it's too sloppy, and then he gets mad, of course, and you end up leaving the room with shaky legs.

vox seems to be the nicest one out of the three of them. really, he's only ever been courteous to you. but you've seen him flip his lid during the aforementioned 'radio demon fiasco', which you have been wise enough to never mention, so you still walk on eggshells around him. he can also get pretty pushy about deadlines, so you're not taking any chances.

he insists on having semi-regular meetings with you about the sales figures of your most recent works, wherein you also have to describe your process on other projects and pitch new ideas. frankly, you wish these meetings could be an email! but even when you tried to broach the subject, telling him that, surely, the company leader's time is much more important than this?

he simply brushed you off, telling you that he can decide for himself who and what to spend his time on, thank you very much. now, please continue. he'll inform you of the latest kinks and dynamics that have been most popular, though with some peculiar additions as well. you swear that, sometimes, the main character really does seem to resemble yourself in those suggestions, and the love interest a member of the vees...? you're certain you're just imagining it.

[mcytblr-archive]

Early MCYTblr Interviews: georgeeehd

today's interviewee is reese/georgeeehd/lmanburg/tommyofcolor! dreamlying member, mcytblr og, and the person who discovered that dream wasn't registered to vote. below is a transcript of questions and answers!

Q: What was your experience in wider MCYTblr?

A: I don’t have much experience with wider mcytblr. Maybe I used to reblog Grian stuff on my main blog, before all this DSMP shit. There wasn’t much of a Dream community when I started posting, much less one for DreamNotFound (surprisingly, Dreamnap was the popular ship of the two early on????? so bizarre to me), so I dug out my microcosm immediately. There was never a wider myctblr for me.

Q: What was your experience in critblr/dreamlying specifically?

A: The notion that dreamlying is the spawn of critblr is interesting to me, because I agree with you now, but I wouldn’t have at the time. Critblr was a tumblr community. Dreamlying was a friend group, predating critblr. I considered myself dteamblr for a really long time— I never felt aligned with the critblr movement because that was always Jason’s territory, really. I don’t mention it to nitpick or to scold, but like, I’m into this archiving thing, too, so I wanted to opine on how we label these groups. Maybe there should be a distinction made between what we considered ourselves vs. what we actually were.

My experience in proto-critblr was pretty cushy because it was all mine. Me and my contemporaries had a following, we were respected, we had smart things to say, we were funny, established, etc. Think, “The School of Athens.” I definitely grew a bit of an ego with how popular I was, which I’m sure will come across in this interview, haha.

At times I felt a little unchallenged, like people were only agreeing with me not because I was right, but because I was saying anything at all. At the same time, I was incredibly defensive and insecure, so the little pushback I might have gotten would bother me terribly. I was probably overreactive and mean. I was fifteen then, and I’m nineteen now, so there’s lots of things I would’ve handled differently, if I could.

In terms of my experience with dreamlying, I like what Ozzie had to say. We were all just very, very good friends. There’s not much else to it. In my first discord server, “dream lying” was a hidden messaging channel where we could critique Dream Team freely. “Dream lying” was supposed to parody the phrase “dream truthing.” So we were basically this tiny little secret society, at the start. There was no way we wouldn’t have hit it off.

Q: Are there any events that stand out to you?

A: A lot. Too many. Some are more personally relevant than historically relevant, and I don’t really know where to draw the line. The voter registration fiasco was a big one, but there were other smaller things… I was always in some fuckin’ controversy or another! The magic 8 ball says, Ask again later.

Q: Was being in MCYTblr an overall positive or negative experience for you?

A: Undoubtedly positive! I don’t even know where to start with this question. I met a lot of wonderful people that I still keep in contact with today, right? But beyond that, I feel like being in this community helped me grow a lot, like, personally. I was thinking and writing a lot. I learned so, so much, about people, about the internet, about fandom, about myself. It was such an expansive experience.

I guess I should mention that my time with mcytblr was incredibly stressful. My involvement in the fandom weighed heavily on my mental health. I felt very watched, and I still do. At my worst, I was hospitalized. (I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t mention my mcyt-induced mental hospital stint in my mcyt interview.) None of that really moves me, though, ‘cause it was all just part of the experience, and I find it all pretty funny, looking back.

Q: A few people have mentioned the account mcyttruth in relation to you, specifically around a callout post. What happened there? [I had misremembered-- I meant to ask this to Jason lmanburg, not Reese lmanburg.]

A: The mcyttruth callout wasn’t about me, but my discord server, dteamblr 2. I was not as involved here— at this point, critblr was in full bloom, and this server was like a rendezvous for people who liked dreamlying and modcord blogs (modcord was another friend group, like dreamlying, but critblr-based).

Regarding that callout specifically, I don’t know. Probably, there were too many r-slurs, too many jokes about hating Ranboo, the usual. There were a lot of callouts (for me or for people I was friends with), and I never really took them seriously. I mean, honestly, the url “mcyttruth” alone is derivative. Do you know how many times I’ve read the words “mcyt” and “truth”? Everything about this is a blur to me.

Q: I suppose I would ask-- given the current events surrounding many of the creators who were popular in 2020/2021, do you feel that dreamlying has been vindicated in their criticisms of creators?

A: Yes, but I would have said yes in 2020, because who these people are was as obvious to me then as it is now. Our criticisms weren’t like, headcanons that we made up to be mean, they were plain old observations. Wilbur was openly mentally ill, creepy, and generally dismissive of other people. Not to say that there aren’t good things about him either, but, of course this is the kind of guy to make his girlfriend clean up after him. There’s a million cautionary tales about guitar stringers with floppy hair under a beanie, whiny song lyrics, and a masturbatory approach to self-loathing.

Dream’s not this person anymore, so that’s not why I bring it up, but think back to when his old Reddit account was exposed for being active on r/The_Donald. That was everything we were ever talking about! That was Dream being exactly who he was— a young white man from Florida. I love Dream, always have, always will. Acknowledging that he is/was a whole person with flaws and unsavory politics, I think, is truer fanhood than the idolization everyone puts him through.

You use the word “vindicated” to acknowledge that we were heavily criticized ourselves. Most of that was on the basis of privacy— you know, whether or not it’s okay to speculate on people’s personal lives. It doesn’t matter that we were “right” so often, that we still are, and always will be, because people will focus more on the original sin of having speculated in the first place.

I used to love vindication because it made me feel smart, like I could see things that no one else could. Now it just makes me sad. I don’t think it has anything to do with smarts, nor would I care if it did. I think people just don’t let themselves think that far. You know, “I don’t want to make assumptions,” “It’s none of my business,” “It’s not that deep,” etc. Maybe there’s no instinct to look deeper at all. It really just makes me sad.

Q: Is there anything else you'd like to add/have archived?

A: I’d like to ask everybody to stay critical. The hivemind response to recent events have shown me that this fandom remains as shallow, unthinking, conformative, elementary… as it was four years ago.

Thank you for conducting these interviews in the first place. It's nice hearing everyone’s voices again.

[cinamun]

Hello Cinamun! I wanna start off by saying I love your blog very much, and your story is my favorite on Tumblr so PLEASE don’t block me!! But, I have to wonder if you’re starting to add drama just for chaos sake? We’re still in the middle of all the stuff with Dira/Ryker/Rah that’s unresolved, and now Jayce, who we’ve only seen as loyal and honest is gonna have an affair? It just feels like a bit too much. Can anyone be happy and secure for once? Does everyone have to go through pain and struggle every time? Hope is dealing with grief while being a first time mom of twins, and I have a soft spot for her so maybe I’m biased but I think she deserves a happily ever after. Black women deserve peace and happiness, along with all the BS we go through, there’s room for both. I really appreciate you as a writer. I just don’t want you to feel like you have to give us non-stop trauma just to keep up with the story.

Hey friend! Thank you for the kind words. But now, let us ask ourselves some questions, shall we?

"and now Jayce, who we’ve only seen as loyal and honest is gonna have an affair? It just feels like a bit too much."

Firstly....

Why do you think this man is going to have an affair? Why do you automatically assume that? ESPECIALLY after all of the qualifiers you gave him. Its only too much if you're *making* it too much.

Hear me out....

If you're new here, yes, it might seem like "too much" so I ask, too much of what, specifically? Implication? Subtext? Friend, that is THEE best part of writing. Your head is spinning so when and IF a shoe drops, you never see it coming. So again, "too much" of what, specfically?

"Can anyone be happy and secure for once? Does everyone have to go through pain and struggle every time?"

Nope, you're not new here and I can tell because you started with "please don't block me" so you MUST know that I get your second question all the time. So you're not new here you just rebranded to fucking troll me, and I hate that, but I'm gonna entertain you while I wait for my flight.

If you think pain and struggle is coming because Jay ran into a student in a coffee shop on campus, you need to ask yourself why you assume there will be "pain and struggle" every time. I enjoy mindfucking you, it might not be painful or a struggle but you might be shook and question your life choices when I'm done.

As for your last few sentences, I am a Black woman so I write about the experiences of Black women. You're anon so I don't know if you're a Black woman, I don't assume the identities of my readers.

Myself and a bunch of IDENTIFIED Black women readers have been over this topic already, about Black women deserving joy and our happily ever after. It is absolutely true that we do. So for you to assume the characters in this story wont get their happily ever after because they are Black women says more about you than it does about me as an author and Black woman.

Initially I was going to block you because if you want happy shit in every plot, every arc, you can find that on other blogs. I write real shit. I don't sugar coat a gotdamn thing. But I decided to just let you make the decision of unfollowing me if its "too much" for you. I am actually writing what I like to write about and if that's non-stop trauma then so be it. If people don't like that then its on them to stay or go. Fortunately, I am NOT writing non-stop trauma and anyone who feels like that clearly isn't reading the same story as the rest of the room.

Would you like your wings to go?

[fandomsandfeminism]

I'd like to delete that conversation off my blog, because I really want to avoid potentially platforming our former friend there. But I did want to just preserve my thoughts about gate keeping language, specifically on "weird" Labels.

Labels are not some inherent biological reality to which we must conform in order to be correct. You cant zoom in on someones DNA and find a little tag that says "cis lesbian" or "genderqueer bisexual" or "demi-boy asexual panromantic." Labels, pronouns, these words are *tools.* they are rhetorical shorthand for people to describe, quickly, aspects of their experience to others. They are great for building community and discussing issues, but they aren't like *fundamental* to our DNA or something. They are only an approximation we use to try to sum up the complicated reality of ourselves to others.

So this idea of demanding that people use or not use specific words, insisting that their identity or use of labels is incorrect in some way? It doesn't work. People are using those labels and pronouns because they communicate information effectively. They say the things they want to say.

Our vocabulary changes. We no longer call ourselves "inverts" or "homophiles" like we used to. Terms like transvestite have fallen out of common use (though some still use the term.)

We've broadened labels and found vocabulary to describe the shades of difference between genderfluid and genderqueer and agender. Bi and Pan. People who once would have used the same label now use many different labels to express the shades of difference between our experiences. And even within labels, diversity exists. Not all bi people are bi the exact same way. Not all trans people are trans the exact same way. Not all lesbians are lesbians the exact same way.

And other people having a different experience and using different words than you aren't an attack against you. We're all still who we have always been. The community has always contained this diversity. The community has always had people who have a vast multitude of gender and sexuality and presentation queerness. The rainbow is a spectrum.

(Truly, if you have never read our history, especially Pre-Stonewall, it will change your life. I can recommend some great resources if you want.)

He/him lesbians and gay non-binary people and whatever other labels people use? Those people have always been here and are using the language we currently have to best describe their experience to you. Instead of telling them that they are *wrong*, especially during this most beautiful month of Pride, instead- just listen to what they are telling you about who they are and believe them.

We're all in this together. Other queer folks aren't your enemy.

And, as I've said on other posts this Pride Month- there's power in the word Queer. In seeing us all as part of the same word, the same group, with beautiful diversity within that rainbow. All those more specific labels, while useful and wonderful, don't make us wholly different groups. Just different aspects of 1 community.

[rock-swag-tournament]

Fossil Tournament!

After the mineral tournament (and probably after the rock tournament), I think it would be fun to have a fossil tournament!

I don't think there are any fossil/paleontological tournament blogs? If there are please let me know and I will totally back off if someone has done this before/is doing this. And if someone really super wants to make this happen immediately, I don't want to hoard this idea until after the rock tournament.

Anyway, I thought about this way back when, but it seemed kind of difficult. There are so many fossils out there. And they're all so DIVERSE! And some of them are really really close to living species today. They get fossilized in different ways! There are invertebrates and vertebrates to worry about! There's a lot going on in the world of fossils. But I kind of want to try this anyway.

I am trying to think of rules to make this manageable, but I don't want to exclude people who may not know a lot about paleontology beyond an interest in fossils.

Right now, here is what I'm thinking as far as ground rules:

Please be as specific as you can be/as is reasonable. For example, brachiopods are part of the phylum brachiopoda. For the paleontology classes I took, we really only concerned ourselves with differentiating brachiopod orders and didn't bother with anything more specific. If all you can do is "brachiopod," I'll take it! Even for vertebrates, while Tyrannosaurus rex is a well known species, I could not tell you any ichthyosaur families because ichthyosaurs are more known as an order. Meanwhile, crinoids are a pretty popular fossil but crinoidea is a class. So I ask people to just be as specific as they can be.

The genus and species must be extinct to be included. Families and orders do not need to be extinct, but they should have been more abundant and diverse before the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction (the one that killed the dinosaurs). That's where I draw the line! If it was popular in the last 66 million years, I don't want it.

Please keep it to only Kingdom Animalia (aka no plants). I feel like fossil plants are not well known enough.

Anyway, PLEASE tell me if people are interested in this or if this sounds like a terrible idea/no one would care/I'm doing it wrong.

[hoaxs]

i don't like those hateful blogs they give me the ick and i don't trust them i see their posts because of reblogs i come to you because you respond in a mature way more than that blog and her friends do i am sorry if i didn't respond better but it's really hurtful to me seeing these blogs turn on people that we thought were friends and also accusing them of being stalker blogs everyone has been getting weird asks these last few days ever since the block out trend started it angers me that people think it's someone who stalks someone and you all know who i am talking about and i don't want to get involved in it either i am tired of seeing that stalker drama on my dash because it's giving maya/manthapaige stalker drama again and im not getting involved.

im thinking of revamping it also because it hasn't been fun being in this fandom and these blogs just want to come at each others throats and accuse us of being someone else etc etc sorry to drag you in i just thought i shared my opinion on what i was seeing i didn't want to start drama with you at all you have always answered my asks respectfully and i appreciate that.

okay, i do want to answer this respectfully anon but i also need to ask that this particular drama not be brought to me anymore. if you really want to talk, my dms are open and i will have an adult conversation with anyone who wants to talk about this.

im about to sound off but please, anon, you specifically, do not take it personally because this isnt at you. this is at this entire situation.

below the cut.

i dont see hateful things being spewed on my dash. people keep telling me its all over and i just... dont see it? but i dont like... religiously check anyones blogs but jaime so otherwise i have no idea whats going on in anyones world at any given time. being hateful is never necessary and fixes nothing in my opinion especially when it comes to a pop star and the in's and out's of her choices. but i dont think thats a reason to be hateful to anyone back? anyone spewing hateful behavior will automaticlaly give me the ick, too because hate is icky. but i dont see it so i dont get the ick idk. i think we all need to take a step back and remember that this is the fucking internet.

THE FUCKING INTERNET. where everyone has opinions and even their cats chime in with hefty opinions too!! everyones screaming at each other with opinions all day every day. hit the block button bestie it will give you so much peace.

the block button is your best fucking friend! hate someone? block them. dislike someone? block them. irritated by someone? block them. disagree with someones points to the point it makes you sick to your stomach? block them.

i dont love a hateful attitude but that doesnt give me the right to go spread hateful commentary either.

it comes down to you and your choices at the end of the day - if it bothers you and you let it continue to bother you or you dont unfollow or block and follow the kinds of blogs you want to be surrounded by then i just dont know how to help or what to say. i cant make the internet stop being the internet. but i also cant just not chime in when asked about things because i will get yelled at because its the internet.. so its a choice we all have to kind of make for ourselves.

and everyone has a right to enjoy their time online and you get to kind of make it what you make it.

thats what i want to be taken from this

i dont give a fuck who is involved or who were talking about. none of what i just said is directed at any individual person or group, its just being thrown into space because this keeps getting brought to me.

ok, im prepared to be cancelled or yelled at or accused of being evil or whatever it is yall are going to have to say now.

[updates-on-docm77]

About the Mod(s)

Elo! Our primary mcyt account is @mcwhytubers but any replies will come from @theentityvoidserver.

Our Doc factive (system alter/introject of an irl person) was the one who had the idea for this blog and will be the one primarily running it, so feel free to address us by the name Doc or if it would be too confusing due to the nature of this blog, we also go by X, Entity, Ren, or Scar. We collectively use he/they/xe/it pronouns. [Edit: we’ll sign off our posts as ‘Mod [name]’ for whoever posts.]

We are (unfortunately) rather human and live in the USA (Eastern Standard Time for us), so if Doc posts before noon his time/5 am our time, we will be late to getting around to posting about it. Along with sleeping through half of his day, we also currently work a morning job throughout the week. And we have ADHD. And while being many in the head, we are one in the body. So, this will not be a strict, minute-by-minute, every single notification update account. We will be late, miss posts, and not always see when he’s on other people’s streams.

That being said, we have notifications on his Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch accounts. We know he’s also fairly active on Reddit and will try to remember to check up for any comments he’s left there. Please let us know if there are any other socials of his that we may have missed!

What we plan on posting:

We plan on posting his tweets and photos and linking any links that he’s posted.

We know he posts about a lot of fan art and while we will not repost a full image of the art here (reposting art is bad!) we will give a link to the artist from wherever they posted it- Reddit, Twitter, etc- and if they’re on Tumblr, we’ll link them here too!

Speaking of fan art, we also plan on posting- if we find him asking before the video comes out- anything about the next video thumbnail!

If we see he’s on someone else’s stream, we’ll post about it. And if you see he’s on someone’s stream- such as Cleo, whom we don’t really watch, feel free to send us an ask about it! We primarily only watch Scar, Ren, Joe, and Cub for streaming, so anyone else is fair game to pop a notification to us about it! The same thing goes if he pops up in someone else’s video! We aren’t going to be hyper specific, such as just noting when he’s online while someone’s streaming, just only when he’s actually around in their stream. The only exception would be if he’s chatting about something important in the server chat.

And if he ever posts on Tumblr (therealdocm77) again, we'll reblog that as well.

Tags we use:

'doc update': any updates about him will be posted with this, most likely with some of the below as further sorting helpers if someone is looking for a specific update.

'doc tweet': any (re)tweets that Doc makes will be posted with this

'doc Reddit': any Reddit messages of his will be posted with this

‘doc photo’: any photo of either Doc himself or photos Doc posts

‘doc art’: any fanart that doc has retweeted and/or commented on- both generally and for the thumbnail requests

‘doc video’: any YouTube videos Doc posts (or if he happens to post a video on twitter)

'doc live': if/when Doc goes live or if Doc is in someone else's live stream.

‘thumbnail spoilers’: If you want to keep the thumbnail a surprise, I would recommend avoiding this tag! (Side note: if Doc has asked for credits but they haven’t responded, we aren’t going to tag it unless someone asks us to)

‘not an update’: rather self-explanatory- posts that aren’t updates about Doc. wouldn’t recommend blocking this one though because we may post updates about ourselves not being able to update and such.

This will be deleted if Doc ever says he's uncomfortable with update accounts.

(userboxes by sweetpeauserboxes)

(userboxes by boxesbybeans)

[introjis]

Singlets, systems, fictionkins and such are welcome to send requests! We only ask you follow these rules for your FREE emojis:

1) NO discourse, we don't care about it, we don't want anything: syscourse or otherwise touching this blog

2) ALL emojis can be used for anything as long as it's not against any religions/ beliefs (in harmful methods of forcing/removing such things) and/or exclusion in Igbtq+ spaces such as any phobia of it. ACC and such uses are ABSOLUTELY OKAY. Just Credit Back Here Please!!

3) No 5+ changes, if the character in the same outfit/series/season if already in that emoji pose insert a request FOR EACH CHANGE TO THE PREVIOUS ONE: this is so if someone needs only one of those changes or is going from one of those changes and not the final one YOU wanted it makes things a LOT better and easier for EVERYONE involved! (if it's a minecraft youtuber skin or season/series specific ones or anything like this we will count those as SEPARATE characters, as to make it less complicated for others)

4) no ships here reflect the cc!'s or any actual person's things. Treat them with a disconnect to their sources/references as this is PRIMARILY for INTROJECTS and SYSTEMS to get emojis of themselves.

5) As this involves the above: we will not do any mouth to mouth kissing because although this is a FUN THING if we get kissing emoji requests for great age gap characters/people who (ALTHOUGH are close in age/it's all legal and NOT like a 5+ agegap involving minors or anything full consented relationship in your system) it might draw shipcourse which we do not want to touch with a 500ft pole.

6) No nsfw, we CAN do minor gore and everything like that will have warnings as this is to be a SFW place for regressors and caregivers

7) make sure there's a BASE EMOJI before requesting a character version of that emoji(we will make some exceptions if things are too slow but they will be posted first before your requested character/other ones are), and we have a REFERENCE otherwise we will GOOGLE and go off what is most common designs/visuals or ones we find most interesting if it's a non-oc easily findable character like Mario,

8) NO art here relates to OR support of ANY other person besides ourselves: if your fandom/person you're requesting us make emojis of is problematic that's on YOU for requesting them. Keep in mind these are likely alters of problematic medias/people and that's OKAY. Just expect us to have a) left that fandom b) have NO idea what goes on there and thus be completely neutral on having made them. With that being said do NOT call us a "stan" or fan or anything unless we confirm such. (This includes the dream team fans for palestine thing we are participating in and working to rebrand as to disconnect from the dream team. We are not dream team fans or stans we just know a few who are and wanted to reach out and do our part to help palestine by offering our art and writing/other things to boost donations.)

[thelonesomequeen]

Hey I was going to try to message yall but yall have that off to only people that you follow. I don't know why yall blocked me on my other account but if I said something or did something just let me know and I could try to fix it! I loved coming on your page and interacting with some of your posts and I would even ask yall questions on anon and yall were always so nice to me so if I said anything please just let me know! My other account name is marvelhockey but if yall dont want to unblock thats fair, thank you for just letting me say this and I hope yall have a good day!

——————————————————

Here’s the thing. We don’t actually enjoy blocking people and we don’t do it just to do it. We don’t block people for simply having a difference of opinion as long as comments remain respectful or you can at least handle getting the same energy you give in return. If you can have a conversation? Cool! If you want to be a dick? Bye bye. If you or someone you know has ever been blocked by us it’s for harassment (the kind of asks where we’re called names or told to kill ourselves) or you’re out there talking shit about us. We’ve either seen it ourselves or it’s been sent to us. In your particular case, we saw you talking shit and liking comments of others who have. That’s what warranted the block.

Hey, we get it, some cool new blogs said they’d block all of you for even liking a single post on our page and that scared some of you away from interacting with us again. You don’t want to be kicked off of their pages. You want to follow along with what’s being said. We get it. We aren’t here to play bullshit games with you like that. We haven’t asked you to pick sides and we’re not going to. We’re not going to block you for simply engaging with other blogs like they’re threatening to do. We don’t care that much about any of this and we’ve said time and time again that we’re so over the fandom blog on blog drama that we somehow keep getting sucked into. But if you want to talk shit about us, then you don’t need to be here.

We don’t owe anyone our mental health. We don’t owe them access to our blog. Quite frankly, we wish tumblr had a privacy setting because we’d go private at this point. We would like it better and I’m sure some of you would too. The drama that’s coming from grown adults these days is pretty sad and we want no part of it. It’s also sad that we have to keep saying that because people keep coming at us for simply existing. Sometimes that means blocking people so we can try and cut out the extra drama. We just want to chill and chat with others from time to time like we’ve been doing for years now.

We don’t mean to come across harshly, but it’s such a wild thing to watch someone say they love coming here while turning around and talking shit about us on another page literally within minutes. So which is it? You like it here or you don’t? Because you’re spinning two different stories at the same time.

We have no problem unblocking anyone if they still want to follow along, but we ask that you not be a hypocrite. Don’t come here talking about liking our page and then run to another blog to participate in perpetuating drama or dragging us. We don’t think that’s too much to ask. If we’ve blocked you (you meaning anyone, not just this specific person we’re replying to) at some point and you’d like to request that we unblock you, I’m sure you can find a way to let us know. We really are water under the bridge type of people and can unblock people and let it all go. We just ask that people not be hypocritical in return.

[jedusaur]

Congratulations on getting on the the Tor best book list! It’s so impressive that you put out an anthology without a massive staff or company to power the project.

Have you ever instructed/podcasted/blogged about how you went about doing that? Tips and tricks or steps to achieving such an impressive goal, basically? I know a lot of writers who have talked about doing this exact thing, but no one who has actually seen it through. Any links you can recommend? Thx!

thank you so much! early on in the process of creating our first anthology I did think about writing up some kind of comprehensive how-to for others, but the honest truth is that there is SO MUCH to learn at every step that putting together a resource like that would be a project on the scale of a book in itself, if not a series. so I guess that's one thing to know: taking on a project like this is a whole lot of work.

on a general level, I would say the most important things to keep in mind:

google everything, always. I could not estimate the number of articles on publishing/fundraising/etc I read to the nearest hundred, and some of them saved me from catastrophic mistakes. no single how-to resource is going to cover everything.

develop relationships with people who can answer the non-googleable questions. this is the only reason Speculatively Queer ever got off the ground at all: I had friends and benevolent acquaintances who knew what they were talking about and took time to explain things to me. I'm not gonna walk anyone through the entire process step by step, but I will try my best to pay it forward if folks reach out with specific questions!

you're gonna have to figure out business taxes. it's gonna suck. do not commit to a project like this unless you're willing to deal with taxes that suck. (I will not answer questions about taxes, sorry, I hate them and Isabela hates them and we refuse to think about them any more than we are legally required to.)

if you're thinking "why does everyone do it this way, that makes no sense, I'm gonna do it a different way" be aware: there IS a reason everyone does it that way, and if you don't put in the effort to find out that reason ahead of time, you're likely to find out the hard way. we did some things differently from industry standards (e.g. not including an exclusivity clause in our contracts for anthology contributors, which I have never seen from any other publisher) but we educated ourselves and thought those decisions through.

I do not recommend diving into an endeavor like this solo. there have been tons of moments when one of us was too burned out to make an important task happen and the other stepped in, or when I said "let's do it a different way!" and Isabela said "hm, I wonder why everyone does it that way though" and saved our asses. I am incredibly fortunate to have a business partner whose professional values and editing philosophies match up well with mine, and I would not want to do something like this alone.

[spookyboywhump]

How would you recommend someone who's been here awhile as a whump blogger get more... engagement? I will post ask games and get virtually no ask or such. :( when I first started I had crazy engagement but now it's just gone. Makes me feel a little bad like I did something wrong? Aaa I'm sorry xx

Ahahaa anon this is an interesting ask to get at an interesting time. I’m going to do my best to help and give advice with what I’ve been wanting to try out as this is something that I have been thinking about a lot lately as well. I’m going to put this below a cut as I often feel. Weird talking about things regarding engagement and I understand some people don’t like those conversations but y know it is what it is

Let me start off with, I’m sure you didn’t do anything wrong friend! I have noticed engagement has gone down a lot lately, not just in myself but in blogs that I follow that were VERY active and got lots of engagement back when they first started posting, and while they’re still very active and absolutely fantastic and talented writers, they still aren’t getting the attention they used to. I want to add a quick disclaimer that I understand engagement and attention is not everything, that we are supposed to create for ourselves, we are not simply content machines here to please an audience but also. When you go from having constant engagement with your work to what feels like none, it does feel a little discouraging, if not a lot discouraging and leave you wondering what changed. I think that’s normal. While we should create with ourselves in mind, it’s also just human nature to want to connect and interact with others who also enjoy our creations!

Onto the next thing, I have a few theories as to why engagement in general may have gone down. Obviously, I don’t know who you are or what your specific situation is so these may not apply! But they are things I think about when I think about this

Personally, I joined as a whump blog in 2019 and gained a bit of a following RIGHT before Covid lockdowns. Around this time a lot of people were home, a lot of people had way more time to write, to read, to interact with each other, I recall this time as being very active for everybody, between the Whump community online and whump discord servers, nobody had anywhere to go or anything else to do so we were all online indulging in what may have been a new hobby and new and exciting space for some people.

Following that, Covid lockdowns ended. People went back to work, back to school, and suddenly a lot of us just. Can’t be as active as we used to. This community seems to be full of neurodivergent people, I imagine a lot of us are struggling to balance school/work, household responsibilities, and our hobbies and things like writing or keeping up with our favorite series may fall to the side unfortunately. People graduated high school, started college, started jobs, these will take up a lot of time so I’m not really surprised to see a decrease in general activity.

So just like those things mean a lot less people are likely to be active as much as they used to, it may also mean you aren’t as active as you used to be. Again, I don’t know your situation personally, but I went back to work in February of 2021 and since then I have written. Less and less. It’s actually kind of depressing when I see time stamps on things and realize how little I wrote at all in 2022 because work was such a drain on me and even now, I struggle to have the time, energy, and inspiration all at the same time to write when I have other things that need to be done as well. My own engagement has gone down significantly since when I first started, so I understand exactly what your talking about, I post about my oc’s constantly but I struggle to really write and it’s very rare to get asks about them the way that I used to (that’s not to say it never happens and I love seeing the ones I do get in my inbox but I have noticed a change that I don’t think is exactly significant to just myself)

(Split this up cuz it was too long for one lmao) I mostly assume it’s due to less people being active as per the reasons mentioned above, there are names I used to see often that have since disappeared and I think about often, but also I know it’s partly on me because I just. Don’t write as much as I used to. People engaged when I had writing for them to engage with. I don’t have that very often any more so they don’t have anything to work with. That’s understandable. I often find myself getting in a mood where I’ve convinced myself everyone has lost interest and if I’m being completely honest that poll I posted was to see if something I was wondering about was correct because I have always noticed a slight uptick in asks or requests regarding one OC but unfortunately I still write primarily for myself and that one OC just. Isn’t the one I want to focus on all the time and I worried I was failing a lot of people by focusing on what I liked.

Anyways that’s all to say. I understand what you mean and this has also been on my mind a lot lately. But I’ve also been thinking about what to do about it.

For one thing, for the same reasons I don’t write as much as I used to, I also don’t read as much as I used to, I miss connecting with other people over THEIR work as well. That doesn’t always mean they’ll be into my stuff, they don’t have to be! I love that they’re creating at all and I want to enjoy it and engage with them over their creations as well! Of course I understand we shouldn’t be interacting just in the hopes it’ll draw attention to ourselves, but it’s also the natural outcome of things. If we aren’t able to reach out to others, they likely won’t reach out to us or look into what we’re doing. There’s quite a few of us, it’s easy to miss some really awesome blogs and really awesome work just because we end up in our own little circles.

Posting your writing or art or whatever it may be regularly, especially being sure to put it in the Whump community tags allows for more people to keep up with it or new people to find and support you and potentially garner new interest if you feel like people have lost interest in what you make. Personally, my goal with doing whumptober is to start writing and posting somewhat regularly again, in a way that more and new people may see it. This is also something I need to fix up but having a good master list is great for people who are new and want to catch up!

And not to sound like hopelessly optimistic but like. Don’t give up. And focus on creating with yourself in mind. You didn’t do something wrong, things have just changed, I forgot to mention this above as it just came to me but I remembered tumblr started doing that thing where you need an account to send anon asks which will have axed a lot of people who were lurking without an account and didn’t want to make one. I know it feels disheartening and discouraging because we want people to enjoy our work but the only way to get that is to keep working. Your work still has value even if people aren’t engaging the way they used to and I’m sure that it’s great! The people who love it the same as you do will find it I’m sure, and I’m wishing you the best of luck!

[sixth-light]

I posted 2,059 times in 2022

110 posts created (5%)

1,949 posts reblogged (95%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@ilikesallydonovan

@darlingofdots

@raedear

@angualupin

@starfoozle

I tagged 2,036 of my posts in 2022

Only 1% of my posts had no tags

#in the queue - 1,241 posts

#wheel of time - 210 posts

#wot book spoilers - 134 posts

#tumblr stuff - 90 posts

#the old guard - 89 posts

#ofmd - 89 posts

#wot tv show - 88 posts

#lgbtqia - 72 posts

#fandom - 69 posts

#fanart - 52 posts

Longest Tag: 134 characters

#and she only asks about food in the context of 'are you having any digestive issues' and monitoring of things like iron and b vitamins

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

I am extremely not going to dignify that 'walkable cities ARE ableist actually' post which has crossed my dash with a reblog, but four things to keep in mind:

'Walkable cities' is almost always a shorthand for 'cities which deprioritise cars as a mode of transport and make it possible and enjoyable to travel by other modes instead', rather than a call for everybody to walk and only walk everywhere all of the time. We live in a golden age of micromobility options, for starters. And when most people do not need to use cars, it will be much easier for people who do.

Advocacy for walkable cities and active transport often does slide right into ableism and fatphobia and this needs to be directly challenged whenever it appears (as someone who has been a cycle commuter my whole adult life and overweight for all but five minutes of my whole adult life, if I never hear "if everybody cycled we would solve the '''obesity epidemic'''!!!" again...)

AT THE SAME TIME, while this will change in degree from place to place, the Venn diagram between 'people who advocate for walkable cities' and 'people who advocate for accessible cities' has a significant degree of overlap. There's probably at least one car-centric conservative out there who genuinely advocates for accessibility by the law of averages, but it's neither a coherent nor common position. Walkability IS a form of accessibility. It is not accessibility for everybody but no single kind of accessibility is, which is why we need cities with MULTIPLE kinds.

Therefore, as with goddamn near everything in life, if you actually want to see more accessible cities...advocate for more accessible cities, and what that means for you. Going 'but there are some people who will always need cars therefore walkable cities is ableist' does exactly nothing except turn people off the idea of change. Say what you want to see. Be specific. Imagine better futures. TL;DR - cui bono when we lock ourselves into "cars vs walkability"? you guessed it - people who benefit from the (observably harmful) car-prioritising status quo. so is this assertion always a cynical psy-op? No. Does it function as one in practice? fuck yes. be smarter.

2,024 notes - Posted November 21, 2022

#4

 As of the morning of 17 Jan, local time, regarding the Tonga eruption: even nearby governments have extremely limited information on what has happened/is happening on the ground. Recon flights have not yet launched. The internet is down. There are 36 inhabited islands in Tonga and there has been no confirmed contact with most of them. There has been no formal government-to-government communication. We know there was a volcanic eruption, a tsunami, and significant ashfall following. That’s a good 90% of what’s reliably known. 

The impetus in these circumstances is always to “do something” but the reality is that there is almost nothing anybody outside Tonga can do right now. Quite frankly, if you don’t have a direct personal connection/knowledge I would hold off even on donating to fundraisers until there’s more clarity on what is actually needed and where that help can best come from. (It remains true as with almost all disasters that money is the best and most useful thing you can give; however, given the limited info/lack of contact and how little most people on the internet know about Tonga, this is going to be prime scammer territory.)

A lot of social media content that purports to describe local conditions is likely untrustworthy - there’s only been a few verified videos and images, because of the undersea cable being out of action. RNZ, which has an excellent and very active Pacific bureau, is being very conservative with its reporting because it does not want to promote misinformation. Just...cool your jets on this one for a few more hours or possibly couple of days, everybody. We don’t know what we don’t know. 

2,343 notes - Posted January 17, 2022

#3

I am very pleased for everybody losing their minds over Our Flag Means Death (I shall be watching it on the weekend) but if it’s alright, I’ll just be over here in the interim losing my mind that Tumblr’s new boyfriends are the Say No To Racism guy and the 2Degrees Ad Guy. 2022 is really Something Else 

3,149 notes - Posted March 25, 2022

#2

The thing that has been vexing me lately about Fantasy Historical Sexism (vs the real kind) is how it flattens out actual historical politics - particularly in the high medieval period, sexism against female rulers was a tool for people who were already their political opponents for political reasons, rather than a common primary motivator for contesting inheritance. Fairly large numbers of women in medieval Western Europe inherited estates ‘suo jure’, in their own right - not even getting into things like the political power of abbesses (who could often be those same women in retirement, or their sisters or daughters or mothers). 

Historical fantasy tends to be so obsessed with having One Special Woman Who Is Fighting Sexism that it actually erases from the popular conception of history the women who were already there, and the complexity of their lives, and it’s just...very...dull. 

4,379 notes - Posted September 13, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I think one of the things that makes OFMD feel freshest is how it balances being a romantic comedy and being queer - specifically, a romantic comedy about queer men (& Jim). Queer men are not unknown in the romantic comedy genre! But what makes the show stand out is how exceptionally careful it is to ensure that the fact of their romances, and of their queerness, is never the source of the comedy. It’s never meant to be funny that someone is queer, or that someone is in love. Coming out, even in the most casual and incidental way, is never used as a punchline. 

And yet, it’s also not a utopia where stereotypes about queer people and homophobia (the things that ultimately fuel those kinds of jokes) don’t exist - they do! But every time somebody tries to make them funny, it falls completely flat. It steps outside the acceptable bounds of the genre and the characters react to it in that way. Homophobia isn’t a central obstacle, it’s a faux pas. It’s not allowed to be funny and it’s also not allowed to take up space in the narrative by being the thing the characters must overcome to get their happy ending. Which is a hell of a balancing act.

That scene with Izzy trying to mock Black Pete and Lucius is absolutely crucial to this tone. These characters know they’re in a comedy and they react to things like they’re in a comedy, but they don’t react to his mockery like it’s a joke OR like it has power to shame them. They react like Izzy is embarrassing himself by failing to read the room - like he’s a bully, but a pathetic one. You can be evil in comedies and still be funny, but Izzy is committing the cardinal sin of failing to be funny...and what that does is draw very clear boundaries around what the show is going to allow as a legitimate joke. Homophobic jokes can only be funny when the people making them have consensus from the rest of the group that they’re funny. Instead, in this show, it is clear instead that they are acts of violence and (attempted) control. Which defangs them, because the ultimate power in a romantic comedy always comes from acts of comedy. I find it extremely powerful for a queer romcom to look homophobia in the eye like this and say “nah” than either to ignore it completely, or to make it a central problem.

It’s very very smart writing and acting and it should be cited every time someone tries to whine about comedy and boundaries and not being allowed to be homophobic/transphobic any more. You can be extraordinarily funny about queer people and be received well. Queerness just can’t be the punchline. 

10,662 notes - Posted April 1, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[phoenixiancrystallist]

I posted 53,811 times in 2022

That's 11,910 more posts than 2021!

350 posts created (1%)

53,461 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@prismatic-bell

@hearts-guided-key

@lunarlegend

@thatrandombystander

@neato-burrito-scream-dorito

I tagged 5,180 of my posts in 2022

#my husband is so beautiful ugaiz 😍 - 358 posts

#bobbi's being weird again - 348 posts

#art - 342 posts

#the great artscapade of 2022 - 309 posts

#my art - 298 posts

#precious chocobean - 158 posts

#heralds of the queue - 118 posts

#friend oc - 106 posts

#untitled gunpla comic - 90 posts

#khdr spoilers - 88 posts

Longest Tag: 141 characters

#he's taking his li'l paw and putting it on my hands or my arm and then meowing and staring at me like 🥺 because i'm not actively petting him

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Day 185 and it's a super important day, y'all! It's @lunarlegend's birthday!!! Happy birthday, Luna, I drew you a Stella, hope you like it!!! :D

14 notes - Posted July 4, 2022

#4

Jim "Treasure Planet" Hawkins is trans and you can't change my mind. My evidence? His theme song. The whole damn thing. But most specifically the lines "I want to tell you who I am. Can you help me be a man? They can't break me, as long as I know who I am" and "they can't tell me who to be, 'cause I'm not what they see."

18 notes - Posted March 29, 2022

#3

Hey y'all, can you do me a favor and check out my bestie's Etsy shop? She just got laid off from her job and she could use the financial help, especially with holidays coming up.

She's got a lot of cute designs, like this shirt here and this cool mug that I'm gonna get for myself when I get paid and a purple pillow and y'all know how I feel about purple (it's the best color, you should get the pillow). There's more, even a paraffin wax candle if you want one of those! She's got a couple Halloween designs for you Halloween lovers out there, too!

See the full post

25 notes - Posted November 17, 2022

#2

I keep thinking of how cruel of an insult "also-ran" is to Lea. To anyone else it's meaningless drivel—hell, I kind of lol wtf'd at it at first—but to Lea? Axel? Who's whole thing is "got it memorized" and wanting to live on in people's memories forever? To be called so worthless and forgettable that the only thing you can say about him is "yeah he was there, too, I guess"? Fuck, that must have hit like a blow to the gut.

And it was a deliberate choice on Xemnas's part, because he knows Axel's whole thing. He knows Axel's primary motivation is to matter and be remembered. But who remembers the also-rans?

It erases everything Lea has accomplished and relegates him to a true nobody—not a Nobody, but a nobody, nobody special, nobody worth mentioning, nobody worth caring about—all in two syllables specifically chosen to punch him in the gut.

On the surface, it seems like a weird translation choice. Something anachronistic, or maybe even a mistranslation, but I don't think it is. I think the translators picked the exact right insult—one that would be a hard miss to anyone else, but undermines everything that Lea is. And the more I think about it, the more it makes me hate Xemnas for that deliberate cruelty (and applaud the translation team for selling it).

Idk man I'm just having weird Lea/Axel feels today

31 notes - Posted May 2, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I just realized something, and I kind of feel dumb for only now realizing it, but if you only play the numbered Kingdom Hearts games and Dream Drop Distance, you're experiencing the story how Sora experiences it. You know just as much about what's going on as he does.

The side games are only necessary if you want to fully understand the whole entire story, but if you only care about Sora and what Sora's doing and how the story affects Sora? No need to play Roxas or Xion's part of the story, or Terra, Ven, or Aqua's part of the story, or the Age of Fairy Tales, or even Data-Sora and pre-CoM memory-wipe Sora's stories. Sure, Coded and CoM and Days help, but Sora doesn't know what happened in them. He wasn't there. He didn't directly experience Coded and Days, and he's forgotten CoM (though the memory links reside in his heart). But the side games—again, except Dream Drop—were either about other characters, or were written so you don't have to play them to understand everything Sora does. Maybe there was a scene or two (baby Sora and Riku meeting Aqua) that is relevant, but he was also, what, four? Who remembers random strangers saying weird things to you when you're four? It happens all the time, adults are nuts and you don't have a whole lot of life experience so everything is weird to you anyway.

Or maybe I've been cooking on an empty stomach for an hour and it's starting to get to me. Idk. I expect I'll feel the same after I eat, though.

92 notes - Posted April 13, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[beserkerjewel]

Hey I saw your post and I would like to politely chime in if you don't mind

As a fairly well known writer in the caratblr community, I don't want to speak on behalf of all of the writing community but I can speak for most when I say that a heavy majority of us have very very specific guidelines and rules for what we write, and the reason most of us have a bigger following or tend to "boast" about our own writing is because smut, at the end of the day is still writing and can still be considered art.

Now I am very much aware of some other writer's on here who don't really have restrictions and write about some pretty traumatic stuff, and i have comforted numerous mutuals over some really gross anons who send in really disgusting asks, such as borderline incest, child porn, etc.

So while I do agree, we shouldnt be encouraging these specific writers for indulging in these suck fantasies, I found it a bit innapropriate foe you to generalize and kind of belittle the writing community as a whole

For most of us, our writing is our safe space and we try really hard to keep it that way for both readers and ourselves and to be constantly belittled by people who do not write content is kind of hurtful

I don't want to make you feel like I'm calling you out I honestly just wanted to let you know my personal opinion, and I want to get your further thoughts on this matter

Oh i nearly forgot to mention the critiques!

I do wholeheartedly agree with this, I have seen tons of writer's not be able to take critiques but I do think there is a difference between and actual critique and striaght up hate or passive aggressiveness

A lot of the times people don't know how to properly give a critique and end up just hating on something they just don't personally like

If you don't like it then don't read it

I know I personally have gotten "critiques" that were solely based off of a dislike of the genre I was writing in, and that is pretty hurtful

Just because you don't liek a genre or a kink or anything related doesn't mwan the work is bad!

Now for any writer's who are reading this, when you do get actual critiques please don't take it to heart!! I think we can all always improve ourselves as writer's and to blatantly disregard info that could potentially help kind of just makes people not want to read your content so please be mindful!

Okay this ask is making me very amused (derogatory) but you're 19 so I'll be nice.

I'll start by saying I'm coming from the point of view of someone who is also a writer, unless you think that the title of "writer" only applies to fan fic and not original fiction? If you take even a cursory look at my blog you'll see that I'm very loud and open about being a writer. So it's odd that you immediately assumed that I'm just a random know-nothing reader with no experience and/or who doesn't know what I'm saying unfairly being mean about writers when that's not the case. That honestly irked me a lot.

I'm not sure where in my post I say that it's bad to boast about your writing as a fan fiction writer, and I'm not sure how you interpreted it that way, but that's not what I'm saying at all. All I said was that it's odd to me that there's a general movement in the fan fic writer's community that wants fan fiction to be seen as an art form on the level of published works, but will absolutely NOT take any criticism about anything, whether mundane or actually terrible. It can’t be both ways tbh.

I'm very happy that we're on the same page about all the nasty stuff that pops up in fan fic! However that doesn't stop the fact that there are so many of these stories and it's difficult to impossible to call it out without having dozens of writers descend on you to defend their right to traumatize others, so I would absolutely be remiss if I didn't mention that.

The truth about writing is that, once it's out there, you have little to no control over who's gonna see it or what they'll say or think. People are gonna have opinions on your writing, and not all of it is gonna be nice! You're right that sometimes people can be hurtful for no reason, but sometimes critique that is worded gently and respectfully causes a lot of fan fic writers to lash out hatefully and declare themselves victims of a harassment campaign, which is strange and off putting. That's what I'm railing against in my post and generally speaking on when I mention this.

Finally, I just want to mention that I don't think fan fic is inherently bad, but I do think there are a lot of short comings in the fan fic community, both in the writing itself and in the people, that needs to be addressed.

[hearthandheathenry]

so I’m not sure if this is a sort of ask you’d be able to help with.

I’m very much a believer in mundane before magic. Things like do I have a headache from the lights or is the energy bad in a room? yknow

Anyway- in my head I know it’s silly, and that it’s just my hormones from being on my period- but a part of me thinks that’s it a bit of an interesting coincidence that the peak of my period was on the solar eclipse. This month I’m a few weeks off than regular and it sucked wayyy worse than usual. I was running hot all day and the eclipse was awesome but at night I had a bad fever. I was feeling my emotions worse than normal.

And- again here’s the part that I doubt the most/ think it’s probably just my brain making it up- I cannot for the life of me stop dreaming and daydreaming and thinking about this person I’ve not seen before. Now I’m no stranger to dabbling in more casual manifestation and attraction of friends and good opportunities. I’ve prayed to different gods or left offerings while asking for a friend or someone who could be a partner. The god I’ve been recently making offerings for and researching is a lesser known one from antiquity. Very much fertility and weather- I wonder if now my periods will just be worse since starting my worship lol.

In the back of my head I sorta wanted to do something on the eclipse anyway. It’s not a specific person, but I can’t stop thinking about this gorgeous person. It started when my period started but it’s continued after it. Again this is where I doubt the most since duh I just keep thinking about my ideal guy etc, but, I also had some weird dreams, a lot of imagery of Set from kemetism and birds and this person all jumbled together. Plus while out and about I saw a lot more Egyptian imagery and birds and romantic symbols and shit. It’s just in the very back of my head that I’m thinking maybe my past manifesting/spell work efforts are gonna pay off. Or maybe even someone is doing something and attracting an energy and I happen to be more sensitive to it. Idk just weird coincidences that have been irking me.

Sorry if this ended up being a weird ramble but I really wanted to write out how I was feeling and thought fuck it might as well send in an ask since I never really have much to say.

feel free to not respond if u don’t wanna 👍

also props to ur blog it’s very informative much luv :)

I didn't realize I received an ask, so sorry for the delay and thank you for your patience! I'm always happy to chat or give my 2 cents about anything!

First, I absolutely believe the eclipse can affect your period, so no worries there and it's not crazy or anything. Our menstrual cycles are based on the lunar calendar, every 28 days or so (some are just slightly longer or shorter, but the average is 28 days) and if the moon can affect the tides so completely, it absolutely can affect us humans who are 1 made up of a bunch of water ourselves and 2 are also energetic beings that can be sensitive to magnetic changes like any other being. There's some really cool research videos from NASA showing the magnetic fields around earth moving with the eclipse, feel free to check them out! Everything around us, especially large things with massive energy like the sun or moon, can absolutely affect our bodies! I'm not sure if you were in the path of the eclipse at all, but I'm in northern Illinois and we were at about 93% totality by me and even with that, you could absolutely feel it whether you were inside or not. My husband, child, and I all got huge bursts of energy and it was very overwhelming. My husband described it as an anxious feeling as he's not yet super in touch with his bodily feelings and energy and didn't enjoy the experience, but I could tell for me it felt very neutral but overwhelming, so I leaned into it and used to get excited and get things done. It was again though, very overwhelming, which is why a lot of people don't enjoy eclipses or claim they're chaotic energy. A huge burst of energy will always feel weird! Everyone around us and anyone who we spoke to absolutely felt the same. SO, in conclusion, absolutely could your menstrual cycle be affected.

Now, in regards to the imagery you've been experiencing and you looking into kemetism, I did a little digging myself since I'm not super familiar with kemetism and I found some pretty interesting things! I started off researching the God Set(Seth) since you mentioned him, and noticed the egyptianmuseum.org had mentionrd him being associated with eclipses, not just storms and such, but even more than that he had a long-standing tiff with the God Horus the Younger who ultimately bested him and took over his late-fathers throne. Horus the Younger was represented by a falcon and associated with healing, protection, the sun, and the sky. I'm not sure if this is the God you were making offerings to, but perhaps he is the one answering your calling and you are getting glimpses into a little about him and his journey to steer you towards recognizing who is answering you. They do say that if we focus on something we want, we begin to see it everywhere, even if we don't want to, but also many spiritual people who reach out to their Gods and Goddesses report seeing representstions and messages from them before they realize who is trying to communicate with them. So, perhaps Horus the Younger is the one trying to make contact with you. Or, if you've been manifesting a good partner for yourself, perhaps the man you've been seeing is closely tied with Horus or perhaps follows him spiritually. Or maybe he even just embodies the good characteristics of the God and your brain is choosing to represent him in this imagery. There's a lot of "what ifs" from an outside perspective, and only you will know what rings true to you and your situation. Hopefully some of my ideas and such will spark some clarity on your situation and you will figure out what messages you're receiving from the universe to continue on the path you want to lead. I definitely implore you to open your heart to the messages and synchronicities that appear to you in your life, as our guides are always walking along side us in our journey and the universe whole heartedly supports you in every decision you make. Not everything is a sign, but if it feels like it is, then it probably is. Learn to trust your gut and lead with instinct and be open to the energy around you, and just use your brain to keep you in check from becoming too far gone so that you can still be safe within your reality, instead of held back by anxiety or worry about simply being weird.

On another side note, just with the period and everything, I personally implore you to also maybe use this as a sign to learn more about your menstrual cycle if you've been working with fertility gods and your cycle was suddenly changed by the eclipse! There is so much us women aren't taught and we usually find out ourselves as adults doing research. Understanding the phases of our cycle, what's going on in our body and with our hormones, etc are all things that can lead us to better health, better periods, and a better understanding of ourselves biologically AND spiritually (you'd be amazed at how much power a woman holds thanks to her cycle). There's also so many cool unexplainable things that happen in regards to a woman's body and our ability to create! Did you know at the moment of conception when a sperm meets an egg that there's a flash of light scientists can't explain? Did you know that breastmilk is so complex and tailored to each baby and feeding that we can't reproduce it in a lab? Did you know that your energy levels directly follow your menstrual cycle and affect everything you do from weightlifting or exercise to needing to eat more or less to needing more or less sleep? Theres so much knowledge we've lost that women are now reclaiming and teaching and I love every part of it. I think every woman (and man tbh) should go on a journey of learning about their own fertility cycles and such.

Hopefully this was at least a little bit helpful for you! Best of luck on your journey!