#headcanon whatever you want just maybe STOP BITCHING IN THE TAGS FOR FUCK'S SAKE

[sevi-fuk]

thank you for the yang in a suit agenda it's so rare to see her as the one in the suit people just aren't enlightened yet

You're very welcome. The reason why I decided to start drawing for this fandom in the first place is simply cause I was starving for Yang in suit. For top Yang too.

There's a VERY special week soon, so get ready for full(mostly) week of Yang in suit. Honestly can't wait now

[lampmeeting]

For Toki/Magnus prompts! Hope that at least one of them helps spark inspiration!! 1.)In a surprising twist of events, it's Magnus who asks to see the latest Disney movie. 2.) They go through CDs that's in their native languages (if we go by the Magnus is Armenian headcanon) 3.) Toki ends up gifting Magnus something for his birthday or other way around 4.) Magnus actually tries to teach Toki to drive-

ohhhhh my goodness, ash, you have gifted me such wonderful ideas! T~T i’m SUCH a sucker for birthday fics, though, i dunno why. so i gotta pick that one. :3 all these other ideas are being stored in my brainvault for use in later things though, rest assured.

i went REAL self-indulgent with this aaaaahahahah... post-doomstar babey. magnus is having a hard time of things. this got so fucking long kjfgkdf

[tw for mentions of suicide]

=+=

After so many years of nothing on his plate, no band, no projects, no responsibility to anyone but himself, this pulled-in-all-directions bullshit was getting old fast. It had happened so quickly. Offdensen had needed a place for him to go once he could get up from the hospital bed, a place to keep him out of Mordhaus and away from the band, but close enough to keep an eye on him. He hadn’t had a moment to himself on his own terms since waking up out of the coma, and he kinda missed it. At least he slept in the coma.

Magnus left the latest staff meeting for the newly-built Dethklok Home for Wayward Musicians and returned to his on-site living quarters, aka his jail cell with a nice kitchen. There was a camera at the door to make sure he stayed or left when he was meant to stay or leave, and he’d been operating under the assumption that the place was bugged. Because why wouldn’t it be? 

And fuck his chest hurt. He unbuttoned his shirt and checked the incision in the hallway mirror. From just below the dip in his clavicle, a red, gnarled line split his chest for about twelve inches--a result of the surgery to repair the stab wound to his heart and whatever that fucking pipe had punctured. Awful. Just fucking awful. He wasn’t exactly taking care of it very well, either. Barely ate, barely slept. What did it matter, exactly? A fucked up scar to match his fucked up eye and his fucked up face and his fucked up life.

He took a deep, wincing breath and let it out as a long sigh. Whatever.

His phone rang. That fucking stupid “dethphone” everyone in the company seemed to have. Magnus fought it out of his back pocket, swearing as the little spines caught on his jeans. “What??”

“Oh! You pickeds up!”

Magnus swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. He still had no goddamn idea why Toki wanted anything to do with him. They’d had their little moment in the hospital at Mordhaus, blubbering like babies, Magnus apologizing and Toki just so damn happy to see him alive for whatever reason. And he still wasn’t exactly sure why he hadn’t been left to bleed out in the street. Would’ve been a lot easier for everyone, Magnus included.

“Magnus?”

Shit, he kept doing that--getting lost in his own head when he should be speaking to people. He’d probably talked to more people in the past few weeks than he had in the past few years, and his brain just wanted it to stop already. “Yup, I’m here. What is it?”

“Are you gonna bes at home laters?”

Where else would he be? “Yeah.”

“Oh goods! I’m on my way, pal!”

Magnus nearly swore at him. “I’m sorry, you’re what?”

“I’m flyins over! Sees you in a few hours.”

“Okay, but why--” But Toki hung up. Magnus threw the phone at the wall which only sent a shock of grating pain through his sternum. He pressed a hand to the incision. “Ahh, son of a bitch.”

Fucking Toki. He really didn’t want to deal with him tonight. All the talking, all the laughing. They hadn’t seen each other since he’d left the hospital, but he had to imagine Toki wanted to pick up where they left off before everything went to shit. Probably wanted to drag his ass to laser tag or something equally asinine. God fucking damnit, all he wanted to do was sleep.

Easing down onto the couch, he closed his eyes and tried to breathe. Even if Toki came over, it wouldn’t be forever. Time would pass, the kid would return to Mordhaus. It would be okay. Magnus would just have to be patient. He could be patient. He was good at that. Or at least he used to be.

All right. All right. He was fine. 

So he waited for Toki. He sat in front of the TV for a while, attempted to nap with no success, made a frozen dinner that he barely touched. Through it all, his chest ached with increasing discomfort, the result of being too rough with himself lately. He wasn’t allowed to keep pain medication, though. Definitely not opioids given his history, but not even over-the-counter stuff. Assholes. If he wanted to kill himself again, it wouldn’t be with pills.

Toki finally knocked on the door with his typical shave-and-a-haircut, and Magnus called him in. “There’s no lock.”

Toki poked his head in the door and the rest of him followed after. He carried a white box in both hands and grinned from ear to ear. Magnus wrenched himself up from the couch and tried to keep the twist of agony off his face.

“Surprise!” Toki cried.

“It’s hardly a surprise, buddy, you told me you were coming.”

“No, no, this!” And Toki shoved the box at him. “Opens it, opens it! Oh, I can’ts waits to see you’s face!”

Screaming expletives in the safety of his head, Magnus tilted the box away from him and slowly opened the top, fully expecting something to pop out. When nothing happened, he peered inside.

Oh.

It was a cake. Small, homemade. Buttercream frosting, and scribbled on top in icing were two stick figures more or less recognizable as Toki and Magnus holding hands under a rainbow. Across the rainbow in white icing it read Happy Birthday Magnus!

“I...forgot it was my birthday.”

“That’s okay. Toki remembers.”

Magnus set the cake down on the kitchen table and stared at it, chest throbbing. “Why would you do this?”

“What you means ‘whys’? Because we’s friends!”

“I’m no friend of yours, Toki.”

“Sure you ams! You wents kinda crazy but you’s gettins better now.”

“Oh, I dunno about that.”

But Toki kept smiling. “Eats some cake. Cake’s whats makes bad feelings goes away.”

Magnus didn’t have the energy to argue. Toki went into the kitchen and shuffled through a few drawers before asking, “You don’ts has a knife?”

“Nope, not allowed.”

Toki went quiet, searched a little longer, then returned to the table with a fork. “Here!”

Magnus took the fork hesitantly. “Just one? You’re not having any?”

“I can’ts has sugar, remembers?”

Of course he remembered. He’d given Toki his insulin injections for a month.

“So wait, you made a cake that you can’t eat?”

Toki just laughed. “I mades it for you, not me.”

For some reason that made Magnus’ eyes well up. He bit the inside of his cheek and forced it all down. The doctors had told him it was normal to be more emotional than usual during recovery, but god damn. It was a fucking cake and he wanted to cry about it.

Magnus shoved the forked into his little stick figure foot and took a bite. Oh. It was really good. He’d been living off TV dinners and cheap pizza, hospital food before that, and finally having something actually edible in his mouth was heaven. He closed his eyes, chewing reverently. When he opened them, Toki had his fists curled excitedly under his chin.

“So?? Ams good?”

Magnus went for another bite. “Yeah.” Popped it in his mouth. He couldn’t get enough, and before he realized how much he’d been eating, about a third of the cake was gone. He put down the fork, embarrassed. “I’ll, uh. Save the rest for breakfast.”

Toki hadn’t stopped beaming at him for a second. “You wanna dos something now?”

Ah, here it came. What exhausting fucking outing did Toki have in mind? An arcade? The mall? “Sure, just, uh, not anything too--”

“Thoughts maybes we could just hangs out here, watch a movies.”

“Here?”

“If that’s okay.”

Magnus let go of a rough, relieved breath. “Yeah. Yeah, buddy, let’s do that.”

They’d found an old black and white samurai movie just starting on TV and settled in on the couch to watch. Toki sat cross-legged, enraptured, making little comments (”wowee!” “oh, brutal!”) every time something cool happened. Magnus rested back and stretched out his legs, trying to find a position that didn’t make his pain any worse. And once he did, he began to doze off.

He jerked his chin up from his chest, flinching awake, pressing subtly at his incision. Toki noticed. “Are yous okay?”

“Think so.”

Toki looked at the movie again for a moment then turned back to him. “Can I sees it?”

“You don’t wanna.”

“I dos.”

Magnus grumbled and shifted to face him a little better, not liking the grinding sensation in his sternum as he moved. Made him feel a little sick. Still, he unbuttoned his shirt and parted it just enough for Toki to get a good look.

Toki’s eyes went huge with shock, and in the light of the TV Magnus could see tears gathering and threatening to fall. He buttoned himself up again in a hurry, flustered. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, kid.”

“I’m sorries,” Toki wailed a little, rubbing at his eyes. “Just looks like it really, reallies hurts.”

“That’s ‘cause it does.” Magnus couldn’t deny that. He turned back to the movie just in time to see one of the samurai cut himself open with his own sword. He put a hand to his chest again, feeling his repaired heart pounding away in his ribs. Being allowed to die like that would’ve been nice, he thought. By his own hands. An atonement for all the terrible, unforgivable shit he’d done. Not something he was supposed to fucking wake up from in a hospital bed. Toki was silent. Magnus snatched up the remote to turn the TV off.

They sat in the dark for a moment until Toki spoke, his voice small. “Do you still wants to do that?”

“To do what?”

“To...die.”

Magnus grumbled noncommittally. “Maybe. I dunno. It doesn’t matter.” He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. “More than anything I just wanna fucking sleep.”

The couch sprang up a little as Toki got up, and when Magnus lowered his hands he realized Toki was offering his.

“Then comes on. Let’s go to asleeps.”

Magnus looked up at him. This kid, this man, this god or whatever the fuck--why was he bothering? Why was he here, being so kind to him? Magnus didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve anything. Death, sleep, a friend. Not a goddamn thing.

Toki leaned down and took his hands. No one had touched him in weeks, and the last person had been Toki, too, now that he thought about it. “I means it. Ups.”

“...fine.”

He lumbered to his feet with Toki’s help and dragged ass into the bedroom. “You gets ready for bed,” Toki told him. “I’ll bes right back.”

In the dark of the bedroom, Magnus wormed carefully out of his clothes and pulled up a pair of pajama bottoms. He could feel the two halves of his breastbone click against each other as he reclined into the pillows, heard it in his fucking head, and he gulped down sudden nausea. His eyes drifted shut. He was so tired. But no matter how much he tried to sleep, there always came a point where he woke himself up, yanked himself from the edge of that deep, restorative sleep he really needed, as if he were afraid of going too far under and never resurfacing.

He heard soft footsteps on the carpet, felt the mattress sink a bit, and then something so warm draped over his chest and he groaned before he could think to stop himself. The pain retreated, not all the way, but enough to unknot his stomach. When he opened his eyes, Toki was there.

“Warms wash cloth,” he said. “It helps?”

“Yeah.” Magnus shuddered in relief, so grateful he could cry. And when Toki placed a hand so tenderly on his brow, he finally did. Just for a second. Just to get it out. “Sorry. Fuck...”

Toki smiled down at him, and even in the darkness he seemed to glow. Maybe he was a god.

“Try tos rest now. Ams gonna looks after yous all night, so don’ts worry abouts nothing.”

“...really?”

“Mm-hm.” Toki’s fingers started to weave into his curls. It was...nice. “Happy birthdays, Magnus.”

“...thanks, buddy.” And Magnus slept.

[ca1e70-deactivated]

a list of my entirely way too niche headcanons ive actually implemented for everyones imagination:

name options ive used and refuse to retire: david elizabeth strider (sometimes i dont feel like being a douche to others and saying thats not his name), harley davidson strider, and david james strider for the sake of simplicity

im not gonna tell yall the like. oc exes ive given him bc thatll take eighteen years. 

i dont rlly have an explanation on the ghost thing besides the fact he just can? ive occasionally pulled from family ghost stories and experiences bc i somehow got landed with family members who lived in a haunted house for a decade and enjoy scaring me with all the stories (including the time my cousin literally died on the kitchen floor from a bronchial spasm and one of the friends that was over asked my aunt later what was up with the old man she saw in the corner of the room that night - my cousin is fine btw shes just a huge bitch and a third grade teacher and i dont like her)

whether or not hes done drugs is based on absolutely nothing besides how im feeling in that moment. either hes the designated driver and sober friend forever or he got fired from his job after doing a line at work during graveyard with some random customers theres no inbetween (this absolutely happened @ waho. if dave works at waho hes a mess of a person and thats on the diner itself.)

ok look i hc dave w/schizophrenia besides when i was 14 i had a hyperfixation with learning about it and then at 16 was prescribed a medication and had side effects so wack my therapist genuinely thought 14 yr old me was onto something and its a weird way to cope with the idea that lady put in my head that i might “develop it in my twenties” which i turn 20 this year and i havent been able to stop obsessing and panicking over the prospect so PLEASE dont come in my inbox calling me ableist im not out here all harley quinn in suicide squad with the voices ok hes medicated, he goes to therapy, the hard fast delusion that lil cal was nearly sentient and informed bro of every single thing dave did no matter how asinine it was is no longer a debilitatingly affecting him ANYWAYS

i actually use the chicken/egg farming family pretty often just because its hilarious to me to give dave like. an actual mom and dad. hes literally an uncle to like three different kids he just never visits because they make fun of his skinny jeans and he hates one of his (incredibly bare-bones ocs all of them) brothers who threatened to bash his head in with a little league bat after dave broke his star wars lego set apart on accident (but not rlly) so their parents were like “why dont you stay with your brother in the big city for a lil while champ” and then they just never picked him back up? and thats on favoritism 

the other one is that his name is actually david reed and hes the middle child of a family of three who literally live the standard golden retriever white middle class life only they went to disney land or something equally as dumb one year when dave was like 6 and he wandered off so bro literally just went “huh free game” because frankly he was an idiot who thought maybe i should take this kid home because its real dangerous in parking lots and then it was too late to NOT have it seem like a kidnapping and thats why daves never had a summer job, seen his birth certificate, or gone to school. but vaguely remembers what kindergarten was like and having a pet dog and calling someone mom as a kid. 

im not making a bullet point about his sex life headcanons just use your imagination and acknowledge the fact bro essentially worked within the sex industry and i enjoy putting dave through trauma as a catharsis 

i stopped doing this one usually but if he did go to school hes been in percussion since fifth grade and played the drums in his high schools jazz band as well as various edgy teenager garage bands he likes to pretend dont have a youtube presence and that hes absolutely never been shirtless in front of plenty of his classmates because he wore a hoodie to a show like an idiot. idk occasionally ill put him in an actual band he doesnt hate but keeps separate from his lil turntechGodhead internet persona (which i will ALSO touch upon in a sec) until they wind up getting looped into a tour with some bigger named band that has a show in *insert beta kid here*’s city and hes gotta come clean solely so he can visit his online friend. sorry derseasterous thats the one time weve ever run into each other and i made him have a crush on one of his bandmates i was in my anti-daverose phase where i made dave a hoe and also didnt want to admit i still loved the ship all these years later 

i hate it so much but you know the whole vr loli trap voice shit that was popular a while ago? hes fucking baller at it for some reason. he did it as a joke while talking to bro and they both about shat their pants. if im feeling real ambitious, hes got a separate soundcloud solely dedicated to doing dumbass rap covers or making his own but in the voice under the pseudonym elizabeth “beth” davids that he will never admit is his. well, he will, but hes gonna be really fucking embarrassed about it. irony or not.

talking abt seperate soundclouds and stuff ive always had it where turntechGodhead was his like. essentially internet fucking persona facade shit he used because we all had that phase where we wanted memorable urls and stuff but also didnt want to totally ignore the nagging fear of people finding you in real life, until it turned into real life ppl finding you on the internet. so he also has basically an adjacent set of social media under the same name but its just a boring username i havent decided on so everyone he knows irl doesnt mix up with what hes made for himself as TG and the people he knows as TG dont know what highschool he goes to. (this occasionally comes with the territory of ppl on parp being pissed that daves “lying” or “hiding things” from his friends as if he was doing it out of spite instead of just keeping embarrassing tagged photos and videos from football games or when he ate shit at the skatepark from fucking with his “rap career”)

every once in a while i get on a kick where hes just german. like, i just replace houston texas with hamburg germany and have him apply to a university in whatever state is applicable for whoever im chatting with and it goes from there? sometimes he moved when he was little and went through the whole visa thing, sometimes he didnt go through the visa thing, sometimes hes a dual citizen because of family and shit, its all dependent on what suits the situation best. 

one that ive been fucking with for a while but hardly break out (until recently with like 5 roses in the span of one day hell yeah) is that he has a neighbor at the end of the hall who is like a thousand year old witch lady that hes basically adopted as his mother figure in lieu of not having one and shes totally cool with it, especially bc when she kicks the bucket she fully plans on giving dave all her occult stuff so her figure-skating coach and realtor daughter doesnt sell it at a garage sale and lets it all go to waste. she also once brought rose up by name in a conversation without any prompting of her existence which dave didnt realize for days, and then one time cryptically stopped and stared at an empty space in the wall, went “she has potential, you know.” then looked at him sitting on her kitchen counter with a smile “lots of it” and hes thought about that weekly ever since. (it is important to note one of the occult items he leaves her is literally her own personal book of shadows shes been filling out for decades its like a 600 page leatherbound book dave has no idea what its used for but the sheer amount of homemade spells and etc in it is like. gonna murder rose the second this chick gets her hands on it i promise you.)

theres the standard strife shit? im not rlly gonna get into those theyre all basically cookie cutter bullshit. its just standard bro and dave abuse talk. i like to inclulde the whole 24hr live cam up in the apartment that definitely watches dave in every room besides his own and the bathroom, but that quickly delves into the prospect of middle-aged men stalking him online and basically sexually harassing him in his own god damn home by talking about how they can see him just trying to take his shoes off in the living room after getting home and frankly? its not one of my best takes! but once you throw it into the headcanon bin, its there forever. 

he actually really does do something with his photography but not enough to warrant anything exciting, but he has his own branding for it and regularly takes pictures of his friends or anything else he thinks is moderately interesting enough to take pictures of, but those are just thrown into shoeboxes under his bed in favor of posting genuine shots because he wants to keep his image intact and blurry photos of jade smiling in the tree they climbed up together while bec paws at the base of it while whining isnt exactly something he wants the whole world to see.

i also pretty often but him into either paleontology OR i put him down as trying to become a mortician because he thinks handing roadkill once he graduated from museum giftshop specimens to doing his own taxidermy on the side has prepared him enough to perform an occasional autopsy and start embalming real human corpses. (sometimes i put my own desires in and make them his bc i have to project at some point and put him through the same EMT course i dropped out of bc it was one semester and he already has pretty decent first aid skills, but he definitely didnt expect it to be as fucking wild at times as it is, but whats he gonna do? get a job back at waffle house? the company hes working for just offered to pay like half his associates in paramedicine tuition and hes already got all his pre-recs done when he started for paleo. at least its a stable job and hes got the ability to be compassionate in the moment) 

im running out of things that ive done to the poor kid. OH 

hes not a virgin he had a girlfriend all four years of high school (shes also one of his optional and designated exes plz keep up) and their relationship ends in one of two ways: she dies in a car accident a week before their high school graduation, or she stops talking to him entirely a week after their high school graduation until a couple years later she gets into (guess what) a car accident with her current wife/girlfriend and dies which leaves behind their daughter. who just so happens to also be daves daughter. her name is hannah and i love her like my own but no one ever likes her and thats on the conditioning of dirk. does dave end up taking her in? yes. shes awesome and the first time he takes her to the park to like run off some fucking steam she disappears for two minutes and dave is moderately terrified until she comes back holding a dead baby squirrel and thats the moment he realizes huh maybe things really do be genetic.

ok at the bottom of the list im gonna add the couple of times hes been a camboy which usually coincides with the live apartment cam thing and the amount of people in his dms calling him hot or whatever, but typically its more of a started the day he turned 18 and basically dipped around 20 in favor of showing up randomly with no warning to complain about a video game dick in hand because it gives him an outlet that wont annoy his friends bc this is the fifteenth time hes had a lot to say this week about a certain boss battle and also the comments fuel his ego and daddy issues.

the last one wasnt the bottom but literally unless its explicitly proven otherwise every time anyone rps with me there is the underlying fact dave strider was a goalie on his high school lacrosse teams all four years and (shocker another one) definitely had the hots for one of his teammates like major hots like first gay experience hots. like it was painfully obvious that teammate also liked him back hots. like one night at a team sleepover one of the other guys was like can yall just makeout and get it over with were fucking tired and dave really had the balls to be offended and ask what the fuck they were talking about while literally sitting halfway in the mans lap bc for some reason they had to share the same chair. 

he is also guilty until proven innocent of being the worlds biggest loner outside of that sports team and even though hes literally a jock he still opts to eat his lunch alone in the hallway or something like that and has a tendency to leave girls on read, but bc hes got an in with the rest of the jocks hes basically drug around to plenty of parties and since hes conventionally attractive enough and popular in the aloof way that he is, hes got plenty of tagged insta posts and twitter directs and snapchat streaks going. 

THESE WERE ALL NO GAME AND DONT INVOLVE SHIPS BC I LIKE TO KEEP MY OPTIONS OPEN AND THEYRE LITERALLY ALL BASED OFF RPS IVE DONE I HOPE YALL JUDGE ME ACCORDINGLY

[regrettablewritings]

So . . . I need to say some stuff

As anyone who knows me or has held certain kinds of conversations with me could tell you that I am the absolute worst at confrontation. Even if it’s in regards to something more positive. However, as this post is about something rather negative, it will be harder for me to express exactly what I mean without feeling like I’m coming off as an ungrateful or bitchy. However, as this is an apparent concern for many content creators on this site, I don’t think it’s fair to assume I am.

Please allow me to word-vomit an explanation:

Communication aka I’m a Talking Human Being:

Before I started this blog, I had a tendency to send headcanons and AUs to other blogs through anon. In fact, I still do this quite often, and usually to great effect both on the blog-runner’s part and their followers. One day, I got brave enough to submit a soulmate AU drabble set to a Tumblr user who is no longer on this site and a few people asked for more so, after speaking with said Tumblr user, I was encouraged to start Regrettablewritings. Now in my bio, I refer to this place as a “dumping ground” for my pieces. That isn’t just there out of self-deprecation: This was literally just meant to be a place where I put my stuff. All the ideas I had, the headcanons, the one-shots, etc. I never once indicated that this was a place that took requests.

But I should’ve known it’d happen and for that I will take responsibility for not suggesting otherwise. I was never truly set on the idea of doing requests at all because I’ve seen the stuff that people send in by the droves and there was no way I would be able to keep up or provide what was desired and at top quality. However, I feared that completely avoiding or turning down the ones that inevitably came in would result in issues. Blame my paranoia.

I’m still not entirely sure as to what to do with the requests I get. Some, I will admit, I do fulfill. But for the most part, I don’t always feel up to it. Especially considering that I have, by no exaggeration, nearly 20 ideas already stockpiled. Of these pieces, some have been in the works since I started this blog and I’m always trying to figure out which ones to focus on the most so I go, “Hey, I got this, this, and that. Which ones do you wanna see?” And you know what I always get? Nothing. Nobody says what they want from the list. So I sigh, delete the post after having it up for a week, and do whatever I can when the motivation hits me.

Not long after, however, I start getting entirely different requests. Always. I know it’s not intended, but the idea I can’t help but get is that my original content isn’t exactly what anyone is looking for no matter how much work I’m determined to put into it.

I reblog ask memes because maybe if I prove that I’m human behind the screen or showcase that “witty personality” my real life friends keep talking about, maybe it’ll prove that I’m approachable. If I’m lucky one person will message me and I have to stop myself from begging them to please ask more, lest I look desperate.

So then I figured if I reached out to the nearly 400 followers I currently have and tried to connect with them, then maybe there’d be more luck in the realm of communication. But when I tried Sleepover Saturday, only two people “showed up.” And they weren’t even the people who liked the post where I asked if anyone would do it, or the people who told me to go on ahead and do it. So that was the end of that.

For months, I’ve debating bringing up this issue. I didn’t want to look like a snooty bitch, but I also wanted to express how I felt about the situation. I may write to express myself, but I also write and in the way I do to entertain. In real life, I am very cynical and bitter and a bit of a crybaby with a bottled up temper. But the truth of the matter is, I love making people laugh and feel better. The world is already so full of shit; I just want to put a little goodness into somebody else’s day, even if it’s a weirdass fic about everyone’s favorite Cuban lawyer having a past as an adult dancer or whatever. So when it feels like I’m only needed when you want something, and then shelved until then, it doesn’t make me feel good. It makes me feel like the ideas I want to give you aren’t good enough. I know the notes may suggest otherwise, but we’re gonna put a pin in that for a quick second.

The feeling of discouragement often effects my willingness to write. I’ll still do it because, in truth, writing is one of the only things I can do reasonably well. But what’s the point in doing something well if you feel like you’re being taken for granted for it?

I ask you guys for your opinions and feelings on things because I genuinely need to know. I function by playing around with options. Any friend of mine, in real life or online, will tell you that if I’m working on a project (be it painting, fanfiction, or essay), I will throw my ideas out there or ask you for your thoughts on the matter. For fuck’s sake, I’ve heckled @xemopeachx and @ohbelieveyoume about cologne suggestions for one sentence in a piece I’ve been working on! That is how thorough I tend to be about the weirdest shit. But I also do it because I feel you guys deserve that kind of effort. I need a lot of things explained to me in depth to know how they work, so I make it an effort to use that as a means to help others see exactly what I do. I’m already hard to comprehend in real life. Please don’t let me think this effort is for nothing.

Summary: I work hard to give content but never hear anything back in terms of what you would like to see next. But when this happens, it’s like I’m posting from the void and nobody can see it. However, suddenly people are willing to fall into the void if only to make a request. I try to reach out and be more friendly, but even those are disregarded. I don’t know what to do.

Notes: Regarding Likes, Reblogs, and Messaging:

This is something that a lot of content creators talk about. If you’ve seen a post about always reblogging art, chances are you’ve seen a comment saying something like, “Same goes for fanfic writers.” This isn’t riding on coattails or anything, this is some real mess. And, on top of that, there’s an extended difference between art feedback and writing feedback. Because with artists, exposure for them can lead to commissions. Writers? We do this for free. However, this doesn’t make feedback any less deserving.

I’m not trying to complain here, but nobody writes 7-21 pages worth of content to get 100+ notes where only about 12 of them are reblogs. Now I, as well as many others, will give leeway: There is a definite stigma against people who read fanfiction and they may not want it on their blog. I get that. A lot of writers do. But when the reblog to total note ratio is 12/115, 14/192, and 13/207, things get . . . disheartening.

Because guys? Writing is HARD. I know you may see this statement all the time, but that's only because it's true: You have to remember all these words so you don't sound repetitive, you have to paint a clear enough picture without sound prose-y, you have to somehow translate exactly what the image in your head is and pray you don't lose people along the way, you have to SOMEHOW get from Point A to Point C when Point B is either exceedingly blurry or even nonexistent. And, perhaps the hardest of all, YOU HAVE TO BE MOTIVATED! It takes so much energy and focus just to write one page, especially if you have a hectic life going on beyond the screen. And guess what? A lot of, if not, all writers do!

For example: For the first two and a half months of running this blog, I wrote on my phone for most of the time because I didn't have a laptop and the only times I could use the computer lab in my dorm was when others were done with their work. (To gain a better idea of how vexing this can be, please note that A Practice in Happy Memories was written on my phone and that bitch is 6 pages in Word. Try doing that and see how tired of it you get.) And I’m one of the lucky ones: You’ve got people going through some rough stuff in their lives, people raising families while holding down a job, coming on this hell site to write and share their thoughts and ideas. I’m just some 22 year-old black chick with seasonal depression and increasingly crippling social anxiety and an aggressively negative view of the world!

Forgive me for sounding cocky, but I would like to think I deserve better than, like, 8 reblogs on a 60-noted something I literally tapped to life in-between homework and depression naps. Really, though, every writer who’s had to do this deserves better. The amount of talented writers who bust out quality content in spite of broken technology or, you know, having a life outside of the computer yet don’t get treated with utmost appreciation is unreal.

I’m not trying to shame people here, but if you can’t reblog, then reply. Or send a message. Even if it’s on anonymous. Trust me: You message a writer saying you love their crap, you will make their day and they will treasure that thing and look back on it when they feel like crap. For those of you that do reblog, please tag it. It literally only takes a few seconds. As @locke-writes put it in his own post about similar issues, writers really want/need to know what you thought. A like is equivalent to a quick nod and distant pat on the back. A reblog without a tag is a bit better, but still doesn’t get across exactly how you felt, what we did right, etc. A reblog with comments, even in the tags? Makes our fucking day!

Likes? They’re literally just the person who walks by your free sample booth, takes the sample, and doesn’t even acknowledge your existence.

I know I should feel grateful that I have as many notes as I do at all. However, a ridiculous amount tend to come from people who 1) don’t even follow me, and 2) they’re just likes. I have nearly 400 followers already and the same small handful only ever add into the notes. And even fewer actually comment or anything.

This is a common issue for a lot of writers: We just want to be seen as more than just story-making machines. We desire validation for the time and acknowledgement for the effort we put into something we feel we’re skilled at. But a lot of people may feel uncomfortable talking about it in fear of seeming ungrateful or anything but this feeling just drives them closer to wanting to quit writing altogether.

I’m not quitting Tumblr. At least, not anytime soon. But I still need you guys to know this because it’s been boiling up inside me and it’s driving me nuts. Anyway, I’m sorry if I came off as bitchy here as that wasn’t my intention. My intention was to give you a look into some part of the mind that a lot of writers have. Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

Summary: Reblogs > Likes. Reblogs with comments and tags ∞ > Likes. And if you can’t reblog, reply or send a message. Your content creator worked to make that piece come to fruition and they deserve to know how they did. They’re not being paid for it despite the amount of time and energy they gave for it, so payment in the form of feedback is the least that they could be given.

In short: Appreciate your fanfic writers. Let them know what you think because every little compliment sticks with them.