#i deleted the fun facts section I JUST WANTED TO BE DONE

[genericpuff]

I WANNA TALK ABOUT THE FUCKING EISNERS-

i've been finding lately that there are so many topics i still wanna talk about concerning LO and its development and they just don't happen because i get distracted or busy and my brain is like "ok we're just gonna pretend we've already talked about it even though we haven't" JFKDLSAJFDASKLFJSLKA

Let's talk about the Eisners and LO's recent 'win'.

I've already briefly mentioned in previous posts that LO has had a lot of its awards and accolades bought for it. This is especially true for both the NYT Bestseller label (seriously, none of those labels are ever earned, it's not some top 100 list that you compete on, it goes to whoever is willing to pay for it or whoever an editorial column wants to highlight) and, of course, the Eisner Award, which is not exactly an award judged by the industry's finest (the judges this year were made up of largely comic book shop owners and librarians).

But we're not here to talk about that. I wanna talk about what happened after LO won its second Eisner.

First off, the fact that it can be nominated at all when it doesn't even really fit the criteria for their submissions is sketchy at best:

see: "new, professionally produced long-form original comics work posted online in 2022." LO is not 'new'. Sure, it has new episodes, but I don't think that really follows the spirit of what they meant by 'new'. The Eisner doesn't seem like an award that should be granted to the same series twice, is my point, and that's one of the many complaints brought up in the absolute dressing down that LO got in its announcement post on the Webtoons Official IG page.

Of course, you can see for yourself right here.

But for the sake of fun, let's share some of the excerpts here.

(and yes I'm sharing a LOT of these because frankly I don't trust WT to not delete them in an attempt to hide all the shit that's being thrown at their precious "baby")

While names have been censored to protect the users involve, I will say one thing - this isn't some attempt from antiLO/ULO members to brigade the series' win, there are other comic creators in this discussion as well from the Canvas section who aren't pleased with seeing LO win another Eisner when there are multiple new series from this past year alone which deserve more attention than they're getting. Again, see for yourself if you click on the link above, the vast majority of comments on this post are expressing their disappointment and you can tell from how they've been sitting at the top while all the positive comments are being 'pushed' to the bottom - the like counts say it all.

All of this, paired with the fact that LO didn't win a SINGLE user-voted award during the Webtoonies, goes to show that the Webtoons audience is over LO. They're done with it. It's not relevant anymore, the only ones who still keep up with it are the stans and those holding on in the hopes that the story gets around to resolving the SA plotline and gets its TV show (which I've also mentioned has a real possibility of not happening, at least not now when it would count the most LMAO)

It still gets more likes than any other series on the platform (for now) but you can tell during its current hiatus that when LO is out of sight, it's out of people's minds - despite many of these episodes now being weeks old, their like counts aren't going up, no new readers are being pulled in. And the fact that a series with over 6 million subscribers can barely scratch 100k likes nowadays is... really something.

And that's on its free to read episodes, it's FP episodes - where views count the most because it's where LO makes its money and initial views - aren't even a fraction of what the free episodes often take well over a week to gain at this point.

Episode 252:

And the midseason finale, 253:

Compare it to Down to Earth which gets 70k likes on average on its free episodes (though its current new FP is sitting at the 1k mark), is LO still bringing in higher numbers than other series? Yes. But it's clearly falling to a point where it's going to be on par with every other comic on the platform in no time. I can't even imagine what it's going to be like after it comes back from this poorly-timed hiatus, when all of its official fan groups have also been shuttered preventing people from staying in touch within their own fandom.

Awards like the Webtoonies are, while largely just for street cred, still audience-based, and I really hope the fact that the people have spoken not once, but twice through their engagement with the platform - both through the comment section on LO's Eisner win and the votes in favor of other series in the Webtoonies - will be a major wake-up call to WT that they can't keep trying the same things over and over again expecting different results. They can't keep stuffing money into LO as if advertising or awards are the reason LO isn't pulling in the numbers it used to. They can't keep pretending that LO still has the merit and credibility that it once had 5 years ago.

It's like that comparison from Super Eyepatch Wolf talking about why you shouldn't take advice on how to be "successful" from Youtubers who got famous 5+ years ago:

"Say you decide you want to become a carpenter, and particularly, how to build a nice chair. Think about the kind of person you'd want to learn that skill from. Would it be from someone who has built nice chairs every day for 20 years? Or would it be the guy who built one nice chair five years ago out of a special kind of wood that doesn't exist anymore, who has no experience with the kind of wood available to you now?"

LO is a byproduct of a version of Webtoons that no longer exists. It was fortunate enough to join the Canvas section when the Canvas section was still only lightly populated, before WT started trying to sell the idea that anyone could become "rich" on their platform (an idea largely perpetuated by creators LIKE RACHEL who only became big because WT threw all of their money at them), before Greek myth comics became commonplace (again, something that's a consequence of Rachel/Lore Olympus) and before the romance genre became largely filled with problematic "dark" romances (again, see Lore Olympus).

Do you see the pattern of what I'm talking about here? A lot of what Webtoons became known for was a byproduct of Lore Olympus and series like it, because those series did phenomenally well, due to being in the right place at the right time, so WT went "hey, cool, this makes us lots of money! Let's do more of that!" Obviously this isn't to say that Lore Olympus is the root of all evil here OR that it didn't have its own merit back in the day, but if you make a series that blows every other series out of the water in stats, it's only natural for a company to want to pursue more series and story tropes like it in the hopes that it'll replicate exactly what comics like LO did, completely misunderstanding why LO did well in the first place. At the time, LO's art was unique for the platform, and it was tackling a story that was extremely popular on platforms like Tumblr so it naturally gained a crowd.

But that was five years ago. Since then, the WT audience climate has changed dramatically, as it always does every few years; and LO and WT haven't kept up. We went through a phase of BL, isekai, and now WT seems to be in an odd limbo because it's still clinging to a series from three whole lifetimes ago, especially now with so many of its other signature series either finally ending (True Beauty) or walking away from the platform entirely (Let's Play).

At this point, Lore Olympus is a chair that was nice five years ago, but has since started to fall apart - its paint is chipping, and its legs don't stand up so well anymore - and WT is still trying to sell it you as the exact same chair - with cheap new paint and a few bits and bobs attached to try and convince you that the chair is new - but it's long past its prime. This isn't to say that the chair itself doesn't deserve to exist, just that it shouldn't be given so much proprietary advertising and attention when there are so many other works on the platform that deserve to be uplifted and seen.

LO was good for its era, it was successful for a reason, but we're halfway through 2023 and it's painfully obvious that the comic and the platform's audience is ready to move on to new territories. Webtoons just needs to learn to let go.

[zeddimusprime]

Trans Man Noah Diaz

The first time I saw Rise of the Beasts, I read Noah as a Trans Man, and that headcanon just solidified after my second viewing.

I’ll get the heavy reasons out of the way first, and work down to the most silly ones.

The section that was here before has been removed, because I was overstepping and someone rightly called me out on it. However. I’m not going to lie and pretend I didn’t do what I did. I deleted the comment that called me out because it made me feel bad, I panicked, and deleted it to save my own ego. It was wrong, it was cowardly, it was fucked up, and I shouldn’t have done it.

I truly am sorry, and have spent the last day sitting with myself until I stopped trying to excuse my behavior and just acknowledged what I did. I am not asking for forgiveness, I can only try going forward to be the kind of person deserving of it.

For now, I’m taking a break from this blog, leaving it on a queue, and I won’t be posting here for a while. Even though that isn’t the kind of person I want to be, I need to reckon with the fact that that is the kind of person I am. I’m sorry, once again.

1994 was also the year Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was put into place, which, for those too young to remember, was basically a policy allowing queer and trans people to serve in the military so long as they remained closeted, and prohibited superiors from forcibly outing them. Given that we’re never actually told in the film why Noah was discharged, it’s not unreasonable to think that it may have been because he got found out as trans.

The part that’s particularly personal for me is his relationship with Kris. I’ve also got a little brother that’s quite a bit younger than me, and I acted as an extra parent to him, practically raised him since we were both latchkey kids, and yeah, there’s no doubt in my mind that I’d face the apocalypse head on if it meant keeping him safe. All that to say, it’s comforting to think that Noah’s identity as a man is inseparable from his identity as a Big Brother, the way it is for me.

Most of my other reasons are less serious:

Noah wears a lot of layers and baggy clothes on his upper half, which yes, was part of 90s fashion, but it’s also how I dressed for most of my life, even before I realized I was trans.

Noah is also non-toxically masculine in a way that’s not unheard of but also not as common for men, especially service members, of that time period. Again, there may very well be a cultural component I’m missing here, let me know if there is, but this is just something I related to as a Guy Who Wasn’t Raised As One.

This last one’s kinda silly, but I’m a Car Guy, and one of the most gender euphoria inducing things I can do is work on my car. There’s few things that make me feel like Man quite like sweat on my brow and grease on my hands and a purring engine from a job well done. So for Noah to not only be a tech wiz but specifically a Mechanic? That was the thing that really sold me on this headcanon. (And that’s not even getting into the very fun implications of Noah being the one to repair Mirage, to get to know him so intimately, literally inside and out. Very nice.)

(I also love the idea that rather than being weirded out or taken aback at first like he is in some fics, Noah would be kinda weirdly affirmed to find out that not only does Mirage have some of roughly the same *equipment* while still being treated as and being a Mech, but his setup is the norm for Cybertronians. I can so picture Noah anxiously telling Mirage about his situation when they finally get together only for Mirage to be like “you mean other human mechs don’t have a 🐈??? Like, most humans only have one or the other?????”)

[bladeydp]

I only learned about this shameful affair a few months after the release of Fake Worlds End in late 2023. In this post, I will describe what happened and my subjective opinion of lunariamv as an active domestic Charon fan on the Internet.

First let's understand who lunariamv is. lunariamv is an online game maker (active on Tumblr and tiktok) who has been reviled by charon fans overseas for pirated charon games. lunariamv started out as a painter, but one day he started to imitate charon's games. At first, it was just the imitation of the painting style, and then gradually began to copy the original. lunariamv's Doom Stones is a direct copy of charon's Makoto Mobius. Not long ago, lunariamv copied Mikoto Nikki again.

Now let's talk about my personal feelings

My favorite charon character is Mikio from Makoto Mobius. I've only been active on Twitter for six months now. The first time I saw the Doom Stones CG I naively thought it was some unfinished work by charon. And then I was misled, like an idiot, and I posted it on Twitter. Later, under the explanation of the Internet fans, I found that what I saw was something contrary to heaven. (I ended up deleting that tweet because it was disgusting to think of copycat stuff as a family thing) and lunariamv drew Mikio as a man...

lunariamv, don't you get it? The decision to change the original in order to make it look less identical is disgusting...)

(" I don't Want People Who are hindering Me to Interact with Me "is like a thief declaring that he is stealing from people around him and not to stop him.) He claims to be artistic and aesthetic without any consideration for anything else, like A saying to B: "I like your dress, but you will be mediocre without it, so I will get the same dress as you." Let me make my position clear: I do not oppose those who learn from charon's painting style, and the later development of painting style depends on the reference in the early stage. But isn't it a little cheeky to copy the plot? lunariamv claims to be a charon fan, but she would rather draw a fan map of her own game than a fan map of charon's own character. In addition, lunariamv's early works were found to have been copied by overseas charon fans.

Like Matsuri? That's right, because lunariamv doesn't make people.

However, lunariamv explained the plagiarism: "I didn't do it intentionally, it was just for fun."

One day I robbed your house of every penny left, and when I finally tell you, "I didn't mean to rob your house, it was just for fun," you will be happy.

Why are you calling this guy Mikio? You probably know that I like Mikio, and I think you're getting back at me and the other Charon fans, right? lunariamv, I should have known you had no shame.

And this guy is trying to mislead his uninformed fans by branding his game as a Charon game.

lunariamv posted a video of herself playing the game she copied from Charon on YouTube. lunariamv's YouTube account:

I argued with him in the comments section of YouTube and was met with sophistry:

Even if you have no business purpose, no intention of making a profit, but you have done such a reckless thing, especially against the Charon group, lunariamv, I just want to ask you, is your conscience being eaten by a dog? You don't talk back to other fans, you don't talk back to me, you use the law as a shield when I'm judging, do you really think the world revolves around you?

So I went to tumblr to argue with this asshole. Continue to expose this guy's evil deeds under this guy's blog, and then he responded to me like this:

Who gave you the courage to be a thief and scold me for exposing your ugly face? First: No one listens to your guile, your guile is against ethics. Second, other fans are helping me. I only look at the facts. Third: I am 18 years old. I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child and had symptoms of delusional disorder. But I'm not retarded. I think lunariamv's comments have violated my right to personal dignity, mocking me as childish, retarded, and incapable of respecting others. No, have you ever respected other fans who come to you to talk to you alone? (There are private messages from overseas fans about how this guy's stolen work compares to the original, but this guy doesn't reply) Do you respect Charon? You're talking about respect here?

Not only was I scolded, but lunariamv wrote a short essay in order to "repay" my exposure:

(I have three requirements for you :1. Stop infringing 2. Delete the works that involve plagiarism 3. A public apology to Charon makes it spam?)Stop using the law as an excuse. I've seen that too many times before, "I don't take Inspiration as my own," and when you posted your last rip-off and shamelessly called it original, how did I tweet it back at you?

Just because you acknowledge and praise the original work doesn't mean you can copy it, but if you acknowledge and praise the renovation of my home, you can pick the door lock of my home? What bandit logic...) How can you proudly compare yourself to everything in the world? A: Do you think in other people's shoes? Don't you ignore other fans when they explain to you calmly? In my private letter to you, I just repeatedly emphasized my three demands. Did I verbally attack you? Isn't it true that you plagiarized? (" I'll Take Criticism with a grain of Salt, "and then you posted this quibbling essay.)

"You want the same thing as Charon, Please don't expect it," Then you don't fucking get involved with Charon, you can't be original? Your work is too misleading, and some Charon fans who don't know the truth have begun to defend you, really fucking "Congratulations, congratulations" ah)(you have violated the bottom line of Charon and Charon fans again and again, my evaluation is either apologize or delete the number roll, pretend what big tail Wolf)

This guy played Fake Worlds End and still insists he didn't plagiarize, knowing Charon went through a plagiarism scandal and still plagiarized, so it's a little cheeky to defend herself, right?

By the way, this guy is already copying mix ore.

Finally, I gave it to lunariamv with one of our famous Chinese poems. Anyway, that guy doesn't understand the broad and profound Chinese culture.

《诗经·彼阳》

彼阳若至，初升东曦。

绯雾飒蔽，似幕绡绸。

彼阳篝碧，雾霂涧滁。

赤石冬溪，似玛瑙潭。

彼阳晚意，暖梦似乐。

寐游浮沐，若雉飞舞。

あなたは少し能力と度胸があるならば、私の郵便受けに来て私のフィードバックを探します:tamasuyouaya@gmail.com

盗作って何ができるんですか?

[ofnightshadeandthornyroses]

Don't Hide

Paul × fem!reader

AN: reader has affinity for shiny things. Goblin child behavior. Reader also thinks in first and third person chaotic because I do.

AN pt.2: I'm doing the request but Tumblrs on more crack than usual and deleted my draft twice. Take this please as my peace offering.

On vacation from college you decided on Santa Carla. You were aware that you should probably be doing a summer job but your craft business does well on it's own and you really didn't feel like visiting your family. Having to physically see and hear their judgment and harsh comments that's already been omnipresent during your entire time at college.

Now in a cheap motel you open your suitcases and spare cash, fully intending to have fun tonight. You grab your ripped red jeans, mesh long sleeve top, and black tank, hurrying to get dressed and out.

Driving there didn't take long, probably due to the fact you might've broken a few laws. You were exited to finally go somewhere out of the scrutinizing eyes of your teachers or the judging ones of your dorm mate and parents. You find a place to park and wasted no time getting to the entrance.

You slow down, go up the steps, looking around with something probably akin to stars in you eyes. You were practically trembling with excitement at the sights surround you. You couldn't decide what you wanted to do first everything looked fun and it wasn't even all of it. You wanted to check out the ferris wheel, that patch stand, oh that stand has ice cream, oh there seems to be live music going on, and there's stand with pins over there and–!

Okay, slow down. You can do those all with time! You scold yourself, forcing yourself still.

What first? Well probably don't want to carry a bunch of things around all night so you'll come back to those. Your eyes fall back on the icecream stand. Bingo.

Walking away from the stand now happily with your cold, creamy cone in hand you pass the vendors with patches and pins with slight longing but no problem. Towards a section leading further into the board walk you pass another more vendors that you let your eyes scan over for your return. It wasn't a problem really, until your eyes caught sight of something shiny yet again zero in for probably the 30th time.

Again, no problem except this time you couldn't bring your eyes away. It was a necklace with an intricately cut bat with deep read eyes. The bat was mid flight and to its feet was connected a just as detailed blood moon. Touching it revealed that the moon also had little gems in it, explaining its entrancing glittering in the light.

I don't need it now. I'll get it later. I said I would. But that was for things unwearable, it'll be gone before you get back. It's SHINY. Before you even knew it you had payed for the necklace and it was around your neck.

You sigh walking further down the boardwalk. Curse your weakness for shiny things, but it just glints so nicely. Goblin like behavior is what your sister would call this. Your affinity for picking up random objects that stuck your fancy or collecting animal remains such as skulls, exoskeletons, and disembodied wings often earns you scorn from your parents, playful jabs from your sibling, and outright disgust most times from your dorm mate.

After you go on a few rides, your hair now tossed better than you could've done in the mirror, and played a few games, winning a couple small trinkets, (ring toss is fucking rigged) you find yourself at a carousel. Oh my damn Oh my damn Oh my damn fuck yeah.

Unfortunately it was in the middle of a ride at the very moment so with much sorrow you decided to head over to near by stand and get another frozen treat. By the time you got in line the ride was over and you could happily make your way up looking like a kid on a sugar high, which is most probably the case with the tempting stands throughout this wonderland promising cotton candy and other treats.

You picked a horse with blonde hair and blue decorations and latched on with your legs and hastily grabbing for the pole when it jerked to a start, still going at your icecream with one free hand. Leaning on the pole, you looked out at the crowd passing by along with the night sky and aloud the comforting motions of the horse to lull you into to a sense of ease.

Your ears caught the methodical sound of chains over the music accompanied by laughter and boots hitting the metal of the platform, causing you to perk up slightly from your spot. Twisting your head you see two boys come walking out from around the turn along with two others following right behind them. Practically hopping around the carousel they were definitely grabbing attention which their attire could do on it's own. Leather jackets, boots, chains, patches and mesh came your way as you settled back to your spot leaning on the pole.

You let your eyes drift towards them, enjoying the sound of chains and bouncing hair. They're eyes were drifting towards most girls they passed, locking eyes and leaving them staring after them. As they got closer one kept sticking out to you, kinda like when you see a specific item and you try to look at something else but your eyes just wander right back and you feel something tug. Kinda like your necklace, huh. A thought keeps flitting through your mind as you look on, pretty, sometimes accompanied with shiny.

The metal on his jacket and bracelets kept glinting in the lights of the ride as he bobbed through horses and his hair flew around his face looking like it could be either crunchy or fluffy. Hair products maybe? His friends came and went by and you continued looking at him while lazily working on your icecream. You kind of expected him to go right by like the others had but as a pleasant surprise turned to look at you and make that couple seconds of eye contact.

Meeting his gaze and cheeky grin, you gave him a lazy smile and a small wave, a small feeling filling you, before you turned to your icecream and him back towards the others. It was barely even a few seconds before you found your eyes drifting back in his direction just to find his gaze already on you.

Did you slightly panic? Yes. Ogling and making eye contact with someone is one thing. Looking back at them after said eye contact to find them looking like they're ogling you is a whole other. It took you a moment to realize he was making his way back and you had only a second to mentally prepare yourself.

In that second though all you could feel was a tug, something akin to when you would find an epic rock or a shiny bat necklace with moon. That second one is mostly more accurate. While being distracted by the new tug you felt you didn't realize he had made his way to you already.

"Hey there sugar." He said as he took the pole in his hand and swung around to your other side. "I know I couldn't have missed something as sweet as you around here," he leans in "unless you've been hiding from me." His teeth click around a lollipop in his mouth as he rearranges it and smiles that same grin as before. Given your state of being you kind of really hope you come off as sort of casual. "Well I'm not." You barely know what your doing. Is this the flirting my sister foretold? Am I doing it right?

All you know is that sometimes people think you are flirting when you're not and when you are people stear clear. But he seems to be anticipating something as his grin get bigger and the candy clicks against his teeth as he rearranges it again. His hair looks fluffy this close up but then again– hair products. Could be crunchy. No, stop.

"Not what, sugar?" You finish up your cone and say "From around here." Thank goodness your voice actually seems to be steady. Giving a cheeky grin yourself, you continue with "Also I don't hide." Lies. You're literally hiding from your parents right now. He moves the candy in his mouth again and your eyes follow.

Suddenly two thoughts popped into your head: hey we stopped and do it. Usually you're mentally beating your brain with a bat to prevent any intrusive thoughts that pop up publicly that could get you into trouble. Tonight though your brain seemed to be hyped up on the little adrenalin punch this interaction has been gifting you. As he goes to speak you grab the stick from his mouth, startling him. You hop off your horse and turn to him, "You ever wanna find me I'll be around here the next few days. Remember, I don't hide, so don't you go and start." You pop the candy in you mouth before hopping off. What the fuck am I doing.

You head out the gate with as fast as a pace as you can with out looking like you running away, feeling all kinds of giddy and anxious. Glancing backwater putting in some distance with the sight of what ever tragedy or miracle just happened (yet to be determined) you see him leaning against the rail with his friends talking. There's one thing that make your steps stutter before continuing though, he's already looking at you.

[justleaf]

Long post ahead. Looking at what's going on around our fandom, here's a pre-emptive guide on..

Reporting someone who is harassing you on AO3 and on Tumblr.

Making your case clear-cut

You're defending against an attacker, not instigating the attack. Find a post in which your harasser was the first to antagonise you, and use that.

It should be very clear that the harassment is meant for you. Were you tagged in a post in which you were harassed? Did your harasser leave a nasty comment on your post or fic? Did your harasser send you an Ask? Those will work. What's not going to work is if someone writes an essay on "People who step on legos for fun really suck", and you assume that it's directed at you because you like stepping on legos. There's no clear link in those cases.

Leave the evidence intact. Don't delete anything. If you're sent an ask, let it marinate in your inbox. If you're gifted a fic, don't reject it. Just leave it be.

Document. The harasser might delete their post or comment. Save the URL, and obtain a screenshot with time and date visible somewhere in the screenshot.

Reporting On AO3

Before you report...

Know what you're reporting by reading the terms of service. Search for "IV. Content and Abuse Policies" to get to the bit you're looking for.

After that, here's how to go about your report.

Click here to get to the page where you can file your report. If the link doesn't work, it's under "Policy Questions & Abuse Reports".

Keep it to just the facts. There is no character limit, but the people reading these reports are human and it would be nice if you made their job easier by being concise. State what the problem is, what you've tried to get it to stop, and what the harasser has done. Provide evidence, otherwise it's all hearsay.

Here's an example: I would like to report a case of Harassment (section IV.G of the ToS) directed at me by the user boatyard18. On 3rd January 2020 I was gifted the work linked in this report by boatyard18. The work included a message directed at me, in which they falsely claimed that I "love stepping on legos". To provide some background, boatyard18 has explicitly been asked to stop communicating with me on 1st January 2020 via a Tumblr post (linkhere). I have also blocked them on Tumblr in an attempt to stop communication. This has clearly not worked, as they have looked for me on a different platform to try and communicate with me. Thank you for your time.

Don't submit more than 1 ticket. AO3 works quite quickly and they look at every single report.

Reporting On Tumblr

Before you report...

Make sure you've blocked the user prior to their continued harassment.

(optional but helpful) Explicitly stated publicly or in a DM that you don't want them to interact with you.

Read and understood which policy is being violated.

These steps are important, because it will show that you've done what's in your power to prevent the person from harassing you and there's nothing left for you to do but take it up to Tumblr.

If all these check your boxes, here's how to go about your report:

Don't respond negatively, or just don't respond at all. Don't give the harasser you're reporting anything to use against you. Don't say anything that invites them to talk to you.

Click here to get to the form. Keep it short. The report form has a limit of 360 characters. State what the problem is, what you've tried to get it to stop, and what the harasser has done. Keep it factual.

Here's an example: I'd like to report that I am being harassed by the user boatyard18. I blocked the user as of 1st Jan 2020 and told them to stop communicating with me [linkhere]. Since then, boatyard18 has made a post linked in this report, in which they uploaded screenshots of my blog, tagged me, and wrote a message to me. Thank you for looking into this.

Don't submit more than 1 ticket within 14 days, unless you have something new to report. In my experience, Tumblr may take some time to take action and probably will not get back to you about the resolution. Unless 2 weeks have passed, then maybe it got lost or there was a glitch and you might want to submit another one.

That's it. Good luck, and I'm sorry you're being harassed.

[hislittleraincloud]

Tor, how do you write SO MUCH?! I’m out here struggling to reach 1,000 words and you’re pumping out 10K word chapters? Please teach me your ways 🙏

Alas, Young Jedi, I cannot teach the ways, as the ways are long and lifetime. I've been writing and drawing since I could pick up a pencil.

Reading for longer...there's a photo of me somewhere where I'm about 1 or so, and I had crawled over to a pile of Sunday papers, slid out the Comics section, sat my ass down in my diaper, and opened the paper like anyone else would open and read a newspaper...I was quite attracted to the Dick Tracy comic, and I remember seeing the words "Dick Tracy" but being unable to communicate anything about it because hello...I was a freaking baby. But my father was freaking out after my mother pointed to what I was doing and he rushed to go grab his camera (I remember his freak out too, he was so excited 🤣💕). If I can find that photo, I'll post it (it's somewhere, it was used on the photo posters printed for when my grandmother passed back in the 00's).

By the way, the science that says that babies can't have such memories is wrong. I am proof of that. My hippocampus must have been very highly developed/advanced, because I remember a shitload of things from when I was a baby, some of which I'd like to forget. Anyway.

I was also raised on Daytime Soap Dramas (aside from the usual Sesame Street and Electric Company that was for us kids on PBS). I've seen years and years of writers writing the wildest, most dramatic shit. I've watched characters come back from the dead with wild — but plausible — explanations. Daytime Soaps got and still get a bad rap, but depending on which one, the storytelling is compelling, which is why there were fans who stayed loyal to their soap (my mother was an AMC & OLTL loyalist...she didn't care for GH or non-ABC Soaps). How to write compelling stories is hidden in plain sight with those. Back from the dead? Check. Drawing out a scene for days because of the angst? Check. Cliffhangers? Double, triple, quadruple check. Cliffhangers are prevalent in soaps and probably the main thing that kept people coming back to the stories and wanting more. Media has changed, unfortunately, and there are no regular, daily dramas (well, GH is one of three surviving American soaps) that children are stuck watching because there's nothing else on TV to entertain SAHMs. SAHMs have their pick of apps, movies, and shows now, and most fans of soaps are generationally conditioned...like me, but my soaps are gone. (Fun fact: I appeared on Hulu with my dog via Skype to ask actor Robert S. Woods a question during their interactive OLTL session, when OLTL was shifted to Hulu. I was way too excited, since I'd been watching him for over 35 years. My dog, however, was asleep in my arms with his tongue hanging out...and that was caught on camera 💩). Some of it is highly repetitive, so it trains your brain to tolerate and accept the multiple variations of storyline that are, but aren't, the same.

But anyway, back to present day since ABC gutted their soaps in favor of bullshit no one watches: I write when inspired. Sometimes it comes out with strong weed (like a good Wenjax scene that I'm deliberating whether it should go into the main Afterburn story or into the Deleted Scenes). Sometimes I just write dialogue for a couple of hours. UVC was mostly dialogue when written at first (the fic wives have seen it in its halfway mark, when it was completely lacking Jon's exploration of her house).

I also write a lot of poetry and have done so since just before I met Allen Ginsberg. My father had exposed me to the Beats before, but I was too stuck in my kid head until I met the master at 14. I was enamored by him and his freeform writing, even though I was heavily into the American Romantics like Walt Whitman (such is going to be explored in the UVCniverse). But while I could write like them, I wanted more freedom of structure with lyricism, and Beat poetry (along with non-Beats like e.e. cummings and a few others) afforded me that. The bulk of my youth poems are gone/destroyed when my fucking ex and fucking building manager emptied my apartment when I was in Rome ten years ago (so if I go quiet in November, it's me mourning those poems...since I'm not like Jon or Cairo, I can't retrieve them from m brain 😞 I have a really sharp memory, but it's not like theirs... it's more like ABW's). FTR, in my youth I was also a huge Edgar Allen Poe fan, and won the class contest to write like him in the 6th grade. I might've mentioned that before. First prize was a large (the big bar type) Hershey bar. I gave it to my father bc I didn't like regular Hershey chocolate LOL. At the time, my favorite book was a very old dictionary/thesaurus/almanac combo book, and reading bits of it every day helped my writing.

Writing poetry for me is a little harder these days, but the muse is whispering a little, and 'In Three Bites' (from the screencap I posted before about the shit I'm writing) is Jon and Cairo slinging a form of poetry at each other during class via text. Poetry can be practice for bigger things, so look into just writing down your thoughts. Stream of consciousness writings, stuff like that can be poetic or it can be rambling, who cares? Write.

Write what you know to practice, even if it's a private diary entry. Expand your vocabulary. Collect thesauruses and READ THEM, and write down (with a pen/pencil on paper) the most interesting words that appeal to you and remember/retain them for future use — don't just let your teachers hand you a list to memorize (do what they tell you to do re: vocab words, but don't be limiting yourself to what they want you to learn). Learn a second language, one that is structurally atypical to English's SVO [subject, verb, object], so that you can see the world from someone else's culture. Never stop learning words that are new to you. Never stop learning like that, would probably be my ultimate advice.

But also? Fuck word counts, unless you're writing a 100 word drabble. In fact, write more 100 word drabbles. It will teach you to pick and choose your words for effective expression of the scene/thought. I don't really worry about meeting word counts, unless it starts to get long (which is where AB is, and which is why I've had to split chapters up). Half of the UVC/MG ones I listed are at under 1K words so far, but I'm not concerned about word count on them and probably won't be, unless one of them turns into a monster (I can see 'Project Drop Down' (Cairo meets Bea) taking that turn, but I can probably make that one a 10K one shot). Don't struggle to get to 1K. Just write what you want and need to. It'll go where it needs to go, especially when you're inspired. And if you never get inspired over an idea? Move on to the next one, or move to something that does inspire you enough to write over 1K of it in one go. Some people are satisfied writing 200 word 'chapters'. I am not. There's too much going on in my head to limit everything to 200 words, so I just keep writing and writing. Might be genetic, since my father's been opining to me about how he needs to type up all of his writings (and I have a Paperblank journal that I gave him to fill up, which he did 💀).

Write!

And keep writing to whatever passion calls to you. If it isn't calling, don't angst over it. It's not the end of the world if you can't get to 1K.

[marzipanandminutiae]

Edith's house is a combination of the Masonic Lodge (interior) and Dundurn Castle (exterior - you see it in the butterfly picnic scene, and then later at the funeral) in Hamilton! I grew up going there and it's a ten-minute walk from my workplace, so whenever those scenes come up in the movie I'm very Leo pointing meme.

Oh nice!

I knew about the Masonic lodge and I recently learned that Dundurn Castle was used for parts of the park scene, though I don't know if it was just for the (sadly deleted) picnic or the butterfly scene as well. The exterior of the Cushing house does appear to still be the Masonic lodge, though, much as I hate to correct someone who knows the area far better than I.

Edith's bedroom window is at the top of that little rounded semi-turret section to the left of the arch, which can be seen when the servants are lighting the lamps on the night of the party.

and just because I want to ramble about other filming locations I know about, another part of the lodge's interior was also the conference room at Carter's office, it turns out! fun fact: apparently that mural was done for the movie, but they kept it afterwards

Market Square in Kingston, ON stood in for the street outside Edith's would-be publisher's office:

which was Victoria College in Toronto:

And it turns out more than one room from Casa Loma was used! Not only have I been in the McMichaels' ballroom:

but also the hotel lobby:

and Thomas' and Lucille's hotel suite:

and the morgue where Carter's body was brought:

exterior shots preceding Depot and Chill happened at the Schmidt-Dalziel Barn:

and tragically, our beloved Allerdale Hall was here, and exists no more:

Pinewood Toronto Studios backlot, aerial view.

I still maintain Universal should have found a way to keep the set intact at their theme park. maybe house a museum dedicated to their long history of horror/Gothic/monster movies there. but it is what it is

thank you for the info, and for giving me an excuse to ramble!

[itsevanffs]

For the writing ask game, 19 & 29?

19. what is your most-used tag on ao3?

'age difference', surprisingly (or not). it's currently got 8 uses, but that will be nine when i'm done with this motherfucking pornshot i'm still wrestling with.

29. what's your revision or editing process like?

so, my editing process is kind of unique, i think, in the way that it's not much of an 'editing process' at all. i tend to edit on the go, which is to say, as i'm writing i hop back to the previous paragraphs and adjust things that need to be adjusted, smooth things out that feel janky, and adjust plot beats when necessary (which includes frantically pinging my friends for kinks to include.) it's a part of the writing process. i don't actually sit down to edit.

i do have a revision process, though, and i can show you it.

----

want to know more? have a look at this ask sheet for fanfic writers, and choose a number! or, if you can't find the question you'd like, just pop me one of your own in my ask box, which is open to anons and non-anons alike.

----

the first step in my revision process, much like plotting an extremely complicated fic, is to note down every big story beat i've got. (i've been organising to rewrite/revise my fic 'in the dark', so that makes for the perfect example. spoilers ahead, mostly for published chapters.) in practice that looks like this:

this list (of which i will not show its entirety) goes to article 74, which is in fact the end of the fic. when i'm revising a fic i plan out to the precise end, and i won't move on from this planning stage until i have the end in sight. this happens with the big, complicated fics too, which is why you haven't seen any of them yet. (sorry.)

next, i digitalise the list and strip or add certain aspects. the digital list is 75 articles long, and has, among other things, 'drunken mistakes' removed, as well as some articles later in the story (around the middle) added. it's very rudimentary and not padded in the slightest, and often 'masked' so to speak since i tend to write in public:

these are all published scenes, so it's nothing you haven't seen before.

next, i go onto the detailed outline, which sections the articles/scenes into chapters. itd's revision will have 17 chapters. the summaries of the scenes range anywhere from this to this to this:

these include a short (ish) description of the scene itself, underneath a chapter (in this case, the chapter's title, too, since i have already chosen those, but in other circumstances it would just be a number), and can include offhand comments by me about, well, anything, can be detailed, and can include allusions to overarching story beats (like in 10, with tom setting lily up as complicit, which is a theme that comes back multiple times across the first half of the fic).

then i start rewriting:

this does say 'annotated' but it's not very annotated. shh don't tell my old self that, it's a secret. i start with copying over old paragraphs that i particularly like (see: opening sentence, 3rd paragraph, partly) and rework the spaces between those paragraphs to flow more coherently.

meanwhile i choose sections to 'discard':

these are scenes that i don't intend to include in the final story that i'd written before in the heat of the moment which i later felt added no meaningful contribution to the text, and at worst even ruined the pacing or undermined a theme i was trying to set up.

important: I NEVER GET RID OF ANYTHING. a collection of, like, twenty to fifty thousand words has a file size of maybe, at the absolute most, half a mB? which is nothing. for reference: cumulatively i've written almost 700k of words that i can meaningfully measure (so in my google docs alone) and, assuming i have nothing else in there and it's just writing, i've used 3.5GB of 15GB of storage. (fun fact: google docs are not the only thing i keep on my google drive! i do huge spreadsheets, have old songs on there that i haven't deleted yet, and 2.66GB of that 3.5GB is a single recording of a radiohead glastonbury performance.)

that's almost 200 stories, averaging at well over 3k a piece (i've got averages, since i'm a bit of a data freak), totalling to less than one gigabyte in storage. the original version of in the dark is my largest document file at 72,551 words and 155 pages, and it is just shy of 750KB. trust me: you have space for every story you'll ever write and then some. never ever get rid of anything you write, because one day you'll be sorry.

i've reused countless old ideas for new ones. 'at the expense of the world' is half as old as i am (wouldn't you like to know) but i only found a way to express it in a way i liked earlier last year, wouldn't you know it. so, yeah, even when i completely turn a fic upside down and shake it out, i never ever get rid of even a single word. i always keep a copy of the complete original somewhere. and i suggest you do the same! you may find yourself recycling ideas later.

but that's my revision process, which is marginally more in-depth than my editing process will ever be. hope this was at least somewhat interesting.

[risu5waffles]

Watching @soupum 's stream yesterday was definitely the highlight of a pretty murky day. The kid has chops; i had a great time, we all supported a good cause, it was heartwarming and fun.

Which, let me tell you, i really, really needed. Had a headache start setting in round the end of Tuesday's shift, and it just kept kicking my arse even through aspirin most all Wednesday. i've been getting headaches more frequently recently, and that bothers me. None of them, thank Entropy, have been migraines; it's been a while since i was getting those on the monthly, and they really kicked the stuffing out of me. But still, in the end, regular old garden variety headaches can be just as enervating, and any continuing change in health for the worse is a cause for at least light concern.

But it was my day off, and i couldn't just watch a stream all day, as good a time as it may have been, my brainmeats wouldn't have let me hear the end of it. i got some recording and editing done to catch us up to next Friday. i'd really wanted to work on my big project, but the spoons and thinking power just weren't there. This one's important to me, and i really don't want to fuck it up.

So, i thought, why don't i toss together a little hub, quick-like, you know? Nothing too flash, maybe practice a bit wiv parallax (i will always go to bat for a good endless scrolling parallax). This was not exactly not a brainmeats-intensive thing to do, and it certainly wasn't quick, but it was low stakes enough that it didn't amp up my anxiety, and let me feel i was being productive for myself, not like a thing i had to do.

i like how it turned out, really. For a real simple set up, it's relatively effective. i'm going to want a few more layers of depth to really make it look good, and i think the water and land layers here should be swapped, so it doesn't look like the train is up to its windows in a river, but yeah, it works. Something i figured out working on the big project, that little Savannah section of it, is if you've got your cameras tight enough, you really don't need to be emitting all that many things as once. When i did this for the old review show, and i think the environmental pieces were traveling almost to the end of the create mode space before getting destroyed, even though we were using an viewable area not much larger that what we see in this set. That was simply way too much, and it played all holy hell wiv the thermo.

The set is haunted tho'. Like, i had so many weird buggy things happen trying to put together this train. i was lucky that i thought to at least snag footage of the entire car getting deleted when i rewound, but, like, that was the third time it had happened. i have absolutely no idea why. Something deep in my profile is seriously fucked. i suppose it's not surprising since it's been active since almost LBP1's release, and has been used across two regions' games, two systems, and a handle change.

Fun fact, this is probably the second or maybe possibly third time i've ever used the phrase girlcock, so you can log that in your lore books, i suppose.

[phoenix-is-the-hottest-thing]

so uh! i saw your post from earlier asking about whether your fics have taught me anything and i just wanted to pop in and mention that while it's not exactly ~teaching~ in like a teaching me a fun fact kind of thing, thought crimes actually really helped me compartmentalise and work through a lot of my... stuff?? like i've never done anything like sin mal has, but i've definitely done a lot of things as a kid that im not proud of and reading through thought crimes and specifically the sin sections gave me just. a lot of relief? and taught me that i can actually move forward and not have to. continually live in the shadow of the bad things i've done, and that i can move forward and just. learn to be better? and it wasn't (just) this fic that helped me with it ofc, like a lot of it was just echoing things my therapist told me, but seeing in the context of a character i initially started off despising but who i started seeing myself in more and more as i read through both thought crimes and the actual sin mal backstory comic was just. it was good and it was helpful. idk i'm sorry for dumping this on you, and please do delete this ask if it makes you uncomfortable bc that absolutely wasn't my intention but yeah. thank you for that.

🥺

Not uncomfortable at all! It makes me very happy to hear. You may think that’s not the kind of “teaching” I had in mind but… just look at the title of the fic.

It’s a story about dealing with guilt, and it helped you deal with your guilt through one of the ways it explored its own theme. That means it did its job.

That makes me extremely happy. (Wow I really should update it soon though.)

(You can read There Are No Thought Crimes here)

[iztopher]

listen. i know this is a cop out. but i genuinely want to know the answer to all of those ask meme questions, so let's just say please answer any of those questions you want to

OMG no if this is a cop out it is an incredibly flattering and sweet one, and i am delighted to do it

...under the cut because this is going to get a little longer because i am in fact doing all of them! (that i haven't already done, anyways)

1. what's the fic youre most proud of?

i keep calling don't you dare go down the best thing i've ever written, and i'm standing by that for the foreseeable future. i put together a lot of stuff i'd been thinking about for years in that fic and i'm really satisfied with how it all came together

2. what's a fic that took you to an emotional/dark/hard place?

this is a really fun question for me because it's kind of embarrassing, because my answer is... i don't have one that i've posted! the fics that take me to a hard place are the ones i have trouble writing the most, so a lot of times they don't get finished. and when they do, i tend to not post them (see question 4).

3. what fic are you emotionally attached to?

nearly all of them! but if i had to pick one, lovely things (but you're the loveliest). it took me a couple years to write, and the last two chapters were written when moonie was visiting me for a week and with a lot of encouragement from her, so i have a lot of good-sad associations with it.

i'm also currently writing a te'ijal character study that is no where near finished yet but has been my quiet close to my heart passion project for a couple years. i'm so scared to work on/finish/share it because i want it to be Perfect and i'm trying to suck it up and do it anyways because the most important thing is that i get it out there!

4. what fic of your own do you read for comfort?

another embarrassing answer which is... none of the ones i've posted publicly, because i have a tiny treasure trove of fic i've written just for this purpose HAHA. they tend to be much rougher around the edges and not up to my standards for characterization (i often joke they're part of "Communication AU", which is an AU where everything is the same but characters who would never openly communicate are willing to do so) because they tend to get into topics that I genuinely do not know how to write when everyone is being cagey/secretive/repressed.

5. what fic of your own won't you read?

the ones i deleted from my computer/external drive </3 but nah otherwise i'll read any of them.

6. what's the hardest part of the writing process for you?

FINISHING THE DAMN THING.

i'm constantly writing like 5-10 fics at a time and flitting between whichever one strikes my fancy the most, which is really fun for the experience of writing and really hard for actually... getting any of them ready to share...

not to mention endings are hard. my little mermaid au outline is currently on the third or fourth version of its ending.

7. how does receiving or not receiving feedback/support impact you?

i cut my teeth on the aveyond fandom, so i tend to go into a fic expecting 2-4 people i know personally to read it and not much anyone else. receiving feedback/support makes me happy & receiving any response beyond what i expect makes me ECSTATIC, but i tend to fair pretty well with not getting it, either.

9. what's your writing process like?

get idea! immediately write as much of the idea as i have, in rough chronological order, but skipping over any sections i don't have in mind yet. then I fill in the rest of it with an outline... unless i don't. (sometimes, if i don't have specific ideas for a fic beyond the initial concept, i kinda just trail off and then pick it back up and keep making stuff up.) since i write mostly oneshots, if i don't have to skip anything in this stage (and i actually made it through to the end), my rough draft is finished at this point! i often still outline for oneshots, though, if i do get stuck/skip sections.

so if i haven't finished my rough draft, then i slowly chip away at that outline every time i pick the fic up again. or just keep going from where i left off in the trailing method lol. i edit a lot as i write at this point in the process, which i'm trying really hard to curb, because i think it's one of the things that makes it hard for me to finish.

once i have the rough draft done, i edit it through a few times. for each edit i make a new copy of the document and just make the changes in there. i tend to tackle each draft fixing a different aspect - one will be cleaning up any plot/logic errors, one will be tightening up characterization and dialogue, etc. when I write te'ijalahad, I tend to have a draft specifically for adjusting nicknames/name usage because otherwise I'll default to "wife" and "husband" for everything and half the fun of these two is the variety.

then, when I'm like, okay, this is pretty good, I give it one more read through where I look at everything all together and edit it. if I'm feeling pretty confident or trying to keep the fic a relative secret, I do this stage alone; if not, this is the point where I enlist a friend to beta for me!

also the one unhinged process of this is every time i get stuck / pick the fic up for the first time in a long while / get to the final read through i write it directly in AO3. I have been told this is chaotic and dangerous

10. how has writing positively impacted your mental health or overall mood?

writing is one of my relatively many creative hobbies & like any of them it makes me really happy to do! i love the feeling when the pieces all click together. it's just fun! writing is also special and particularly satisfying because sometimes when i'm doing game dev or drawing or whatever and i can't figure it out i get pissed off lol but i never get like... upset when i can't figure out a writing thing. i just let it simmer and come back to it.

i'm also trying to work on writing more vent/heavy/comforting stuff as a way of handling my emotions instead of getting stuck in them & spiraling but i'm kind of bad at reminding myself to do that

11. Has a fic you’ve written ever caused issues/controversy?

no and for that i say thank god (although sometimes i get worried about that. i don't think i need to be though)

12. What’s your perfect environment to create/write?

my own desk <3 i love when it's dark outside or raining but i'm not picky haha

13. Do you take pride in your writing, or does it embarrass you? Why?

hell YEAH i take pride in it. that doesn't mean it doesn't embarrass me sometimes, though i'm honestly just proud of myself for finishing a project, so looking back at a fic that i got through enough to post always makes me feel really good. also, i (usually) write characters the exact way i headcanon them, so i'm always like wow... i'm so proud of this characterization... like wow i wonder why it's almost like i wrote it exactly to my tastes. also sometimes the way i use language makes me feel like "oh yeah i did good".

14. Do you compare yourself to other writers? In a positive or negative way?

not really! when i read by other writers i try to take note of aspects of what i like about it and if any of that is my present in my writing/i could make it be present, but other than that i try to mostly take a "wow! two cakes!" approach even when my own writing is concerned.

15. How do you think your writing has improved over time?

relatively recent past: i have a tendency to overexplain myself, and i think my improvement is clearest when i've stopped doing that and have trusted my words to speak for themselves more. or: i feel like i've gotten more direct in what i'm trying to get at?

longer: what i just said on a larger, way more visible scale, and also i feel like i've done a good job at figuring out what i actually want to write and sticking to that. i've gotten more confident and firm in my characterization, stopped trying to write romance because i thought that was the best way to write characters interacting, let myself stop trying to write non-aveyond fic when for me fic writing is for fun and that's what's most fun for me, etc. also i feel like i've gotten more comfortable with using language in a less than 100% literal way.

16. Do you re-read old fics? Is there a time in your writing you won’t go back to?

i would theoretically read any of my old fics that i haven't outright deleted from existence, but i tend not to read anything i wrote before college. i gotta dig out the external drives for those and it's very rare that feels... worth it...

everything on my ao3 I reread fairly often though dghksdl at the end of the day i am a huge part of my intended audience and it only makes sense i read the fics i wrote partly for myself!

17. What’s the best engagement/interaction/feedback you’ve received from someone who’s read your work?

oh man I cannot pick because I'm genuinely so grateful for everyone who reads my stuff and gives engagement <3 my favorite type of engagement is anything where someone says a favorite part, though, whether that's as general as a scene or as specific as a line of dialogue/writing (also shoutout to xzoni who has written multiple play-by-play comments on my fics)

...actually the best engagement i've ever gotten is that on don't you dare go down, literally like 10 different people responded to it by pointing out one or both of two specific lines and being like "this part was so good/my fave!" the like, unanimous agreement that some of that writing was really good? was such a good feeling and is probably part of why that's the fic i'm proudest of.

18. Do you only write when you’re inspired, or do you try and sit down at specific times and write no matter what?

(grimacing) inspired ... i'm trying to work on that. i've found that when i try to write every day, i do, but my other hobbies fall by the wayside, so i'm trying to make sure i write/draw/game dev at least one day a week and then fill in the rest of the week with whatever i'm inspired to do. good compromise.

20. What’s the greatest gift you’ve gotten from your writing?

oh man not gonna lie this is a little metaphorical for me. on a very literal level, a lot of my fics are essentially gifts for myself - i wanted them to exist & knew i was the only person i could be Certain would make them. and that's really nice! to have content to go back to and appreciate.

and on a broader meaning level, i feel like it's given me a sort of confidence that feels really nice, and has let me engage with some really cool people over the common interest of writing, even across fandoms or original content. it feels really cool to talk to people (such as yourself) about Writing TM and be like, wow, I have this thing in common with really cool people whose work i admire!

...not to say this is a little metaphorical for me and then Keep Talking but actually one more thing on this answer is that i remember being like, 9 years old and reading aveyond fic by these authors in their 20s, who i thought had such detailed and thoughtful characterization, and being like, man! i hope i'm like that when i grow up! ...and now I literally am? I'm 23 years old and writing about those exact same characters and I'm proud of that writing & satisfied in my characterization and headcanons, and honestly i feel like one of the greatest gifts writing has given me is the gift of an incredibly achievable goal that i still had to spend 10+ years getting to and feel really proud of myself for doing so.

[foxstens]

over 100 hours into this game and it still leaves me speechless

so i found out you can actually go to outskirts from outer expanse via this subarea called facility roots. the entire thing is literally like 4 screens but before you get to it there’s this long drop where pictures of the past plays. i knew it would happen since it was mentioned in the post where i even found out about this but fuck i still cried

and it leads to the one-way path and long swim section where spearmaster’s campaign starts. it was such a cool moment oh my fucking god. so then i proceeded to delete the save and restart bc i want to do a survivor run where i get all passages

then the opening cutscene played and i cried again and it got me thinking about how you go into this game thinking it’s about finding slugcat’s family but then when you talk to pebbles it turns into slugcat trying to escape the cycle BUT THEN when you dive into the lore and turns out it’s actually a story about these struggling supercomputers created by a previous civilization and slugcats are actually just their messengers.

it’s such a weird thing bc to me one of the things that makes this game so interesting and so fun to play (and probably so polarizing for everyone else) is the fact that it’s really not about the player. but then when you think about it, it kind of is? bc survivor and monk do actually have their own stories and they’re not messengers for the iterators so in their case this really is a rat-in-manhattan sim with a utopian sci-fi backdrop

whereas for every other slugcat (bar the one that doesn’t exist) their story revolves solely around what they have to do for someone else, whether that be delivering a message to pebbles or saving moon or ascending everyone - idk how to explain it but there’s a very big difference between the two and i freaking love it

ugh im so sad about saint. i wanna go back to moon and pebbles and i wanna go through rubicon and i wanna reach the ending myself so i can feel the emotions. but i do not have the patience and i literally can’t with the lag. and at this point i should be pretty much done with the game but i dont wanna be so i guess ill get all passages. and try artificer. and do gourmand’s food quest. and do smth with spearmaster bc i love him. ugh.

[achilleid]

Laisrén Blackfern ed.

— oc questions

BASICS

What’s their full name? Laisrén Blackfern

What does their name mean? Why were they named that? Laisrén is a celtic name derived from “lassar” meaning flame/fire. Blackfern is a chosen last name. If you asked him, he’d try to say he picked it because of some profound reason, like because ferns are resilient and hardy plants or something, but he entirely picked it because he thought it sounded cool. 

Do they have any nicknames? Rén. Pronounced like “rain”. 

How old are they? Time functions really oddly in the Sidhe. When he last lived in the human realm, he was seventeen human years. That was nearly a century or more ago by human time. Physically he appears about 32-33.

When’s their birthday? December 29th (human) or 9th Day of Winter (Sidhe)

What’s their zodiac sign/element/birthstone/etc.? Do they believe that holds any significance? Capricorn/earth/tanzanite-- Laisrén believes in zodiac signs in a very nonchalant way. He is from a magical world where all kinds of weird stuff happen when someone is born, so being told some aspect of his personality is theoretically identifiable by his “sign” he’d probably just shrug like “Sounds legit.”.

What’s their species/subspecies? Do they have any special/magical abilities? He is a half Seelie/half-Unseelie Folk. Folk are presented in my world like a combination of elves and fae. Seelie are generally characterized by their more warm toned skin colors, affiliation with the light, spring and summer, Unseelie are associated with autumn and winter and tend to favor darker, cooler tones. Laisrén is a mix of both types. There are stereotypes associated with each kind of Folk, but ultimately it is entirely based on the individual.

What “class” do they belong to (for fantasy characters)? If none, what weapon do they favor? He would definitely be a Ranger class, duel-wielding swords and using a bow. 

APPEARANCE

What do they look like? Laisrén owes 90% of his appearance to Levi Ackerman from Attack on Titan I won’t even lie. So he is roughly 5′9″, has dark black undercut hair and dark green eyes. He has a warm beige skin tone that darkens in the summer. 

Do they have a face claim? Nope!

What’s their style like? Clothes, hair, makeup? His go to outfit is a black doublet with a silver jerkin over the top. During combat, he favors a set of dark leather armor and a dark cloak. Lots of dark colors. For a half Seelie, he dresses almost exclusively in the dark or jewel colors favored by Unseelie.

How do they carry themselves? What’s their default expression? Perpetual resting bitch face. And he carries himself with an air of self-assuredness and confidence that is entirely unforced. It is just how he is. Granted, he could look cool and collected and inside his thoughts are going a mile a minute. Very good at hiding how he feels.

Do they have any physical ailments or disabilities? Laisrén was saddled with a curse at a young age. His skin, starting at the fingertips of his right hand, is turning black and spreading upward. As of present day, his hand has blackened up to his palm. His nails grow much sharper and faster on that hand as well. Laisrén covers this with gloves.

PERSONALITY

What’s their alignment? Lawful Neutral

Which one of the 16 Personality Types do they fit into? ISTP

What are their hobbies and interests? Do they have any particular “favorites” (food, books, and so on)? He is a big fan of games, especially strategy games. He would love Risk, History of the World and other games like that and probably plays Folk equivalents when he can. Chess too. He’d enjoy card games there were not luck based. He also does like to read and his favorite meal ever is high tea. The man will try any blend of tea ever created and he loves having a nice herb garden.

What are they bad at? He is not the best cook. Food is something to just be consumed as quickly as possible for energy, so getting him to sit down and have a meal and just ENJOY it is very hard. He also is a fitful sleeper and is very bad at picking up on subtext or subtleties when speaking with people. He does not take hints. He does not even know a hint is happening.

What kind of things do they dislike/hate? Disorganization, MESS in general. This is both literal and figurative. Messy emotions will have him cleaning the same room, polishing the same armor or sharpening the same blade in a wholly meditative process trying to either work through or ignore his feelings.

Do they have any vices/addictions/mental illnesses? His secret vice is his love of sweets. Food is mere fuel until it is chocolate and covered in strawberries or something and then he is like “.... okay maybe a few bites.”

What are their goals and motivations? Currently? Managing his curse, keeping an eye on his “niece” and her son. Caring for his mother secretly. His goals later become more aligned with the main character’s and becomes ensuring the safety of those he cares for. Full stop.

What are their manners like? Any habits? He is not impolite, but he can be brash. He knows how to behave in different situations though, so his “brash” on the field and his “brash” at say a gathering or a meeting is very different. He has a habit of clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth when he is annoyed and only ever breaks eye contact with someone if he is feeling wholly and deeply vulnerable. 

What are they most afraid of? Living for centuries upon centuries only to turn around and realize he has done so alone and always will.

BACKGROUND

Where were they born? What was their childhood like? He was born in the Sidhe, but within a week was abandoned in the human realm. His childhood was spent raised in an orphanage during the early 1900s on Earth. He lived in London and sometimes falls into a cockney sounding accent when he is tired. 

What’s their family like? Well. His mom is thought to be absolutely bonkers because she pulled a changeling thing. And she is, on some level, mentally not all there. In Folk culture, there are some events that can cause a Folk to become trapped in one emotion and unable to overcome the enormity of it and remain “stuck” there. His mother fell into a Despair upon the death of her partner, so he cares for her and the remaining family of her human adopted son from the shadows.

What factions or organizations are they a part of? What ranks and titles do they hold? He is a Hound of the Wild Hunt and Captain beneath the commander responsible for training new recruits. He trains the soldiers of their ranks.

How do they fit into their “story”? He is at one point in the story, love interest, secondary protagonist, secondary antagonist. 

Where do they currently live? What’s their place like? He resides in a home called Elden Keep, which is a an old fortress manor that once was used as a hunting lodge. It has a western tower with a turret. It is a house of rich brown woods and plush green carpets and a very lovingly tended to garden.

How do they eventually die? WELLLLLLLLL-- they eventually succumb to the curse, but it is temporary. More like an emotional and mental death and then a rebirth. 

RELATIONSHIPS

Do they have any friends? Would they consider anyone to be their best friend? His commander Eimer and his fellow captains. Later, he becomes closer friends with Cyra’s group.

What’s their friend group like? What role do they play in it? He is definitely not even the oddest of his group, that belongs to Dillion, the resident mad scientist/mage (he’s nice! just eccentric). It is a nice blend of people and neurosis haha.

What’s their love life like? (See also: ship question meme.) Do they have any kids? Prior to his relationship with Cyra, Laisrén would have casual encounters, but nothing serious. His longest fling lasted probably off and on for a few months. He has no issues with accepting and reciprocating sexual advances, but has not had a lot of experience with feelings being mixed in until Cyra. With Cyra it starts physical, but ultimately he realizes it is satisfying in a way that past ones have not been because his emotional needs are being met.

Who do they look up to? Who do they trust? He looks up to and trusts Eimer above everyone. He is his best friend, his commander and his fellow Hound. They went through recruitment together, battles and all kinds of bad shit. 

Who do they hate? Do they have any enemies? His enemies unfortunately, when revealed, are some powerful people. He grows to hate Queen Nevan and by extension, Druth, Cyra’s uncle and the Queen’s grand commander.

Do they have any pets? He has a few horses, but he’d never refer to them as “pets”.

Are they good with kids? Animals? Good with animals. Kids he is shockingly popular with, even if he doesn’t really make an effort. They appreciate his honesty and the fact he talks to them like they understand things.

[bladeydp]

I only learned about this shameful affair a few months after the release of Fake Worlds End in late 2023. In this post, I will describe what happened and my subjective opinion of lunariamv as an active domestic Charon fan on the Internet.

First let's understand who lunariamv is. lunariamv is an online game maker (active on Tumblr and tiktok) who has been reviled by charon fans overseas for pirated charon games. lunariamv started out as a painter, but one day he started to imitate charon's games. At first, it was just the imitation of the painting style, and then gradually began to copy the original. lunariamv's Doom Stones is a direct copy of charon's Makoto Mobius. Not long ago, lunariamv copied Mikoto Nikki again.

Now let's talk about my personal feelings

My favorite charon character is Mikio from Makoto Mobius. I've only been active on Twitter for six months now. The first time I saw the Doom Stones CG I naively thought it was some unfinished work by charon. And then I was misled, like an idiot, and I posted it on Twitter. Later, under the explanation of the Internet fans, I found that what I saw was something contrary to heaven. (I ended up deleting that tweet because it was disgusting to think of copycat stuff as a family thing) and lunariamv drew Mikio as a man...

lunariamv, don't you get it? The decision to change the original in order to make it look less identical is disgusting...)

(" I don't Want People Who are hindering Me to Interact with Me "is like a thief declaring that he is stealing from people around him and not to stop him.) He claims to be artistic and aesthetic without any consideration for anything else, like A saying to B: "I like your dress, but you will be mediocre without it, so I will get the same dress as you." Let me make my position clear: I do not oppose those who learn from charon's painting style, and the later development of painting style depends on the reference in the early stage. But isn't it a little cheeky to copy the plot? lunariamv claims to be a charon fan, but she would rather draw a fan map of her own game than a fan map of charon's own character. In addition, lunariamv's early works were found to have been copied by overseas charon fans.

Like Matsuri? That's right, because lunariamv doesn't make people.

However, lunariamv explained the plagiarism: "I didn't do it intentionally, it was just for fun."

One day I robbed your house of every penny left, and when I finally tell you, "I didn't mean to rob your house, it was just for fun," you will be happy.

Why are you calling this guy Mikio? You probably know that I like Mikio, and I think you're getting back at me and the other Charon fans, right? lunariamv, I should have known you had no shame.

And this guy is trying to mislead his uninformed fans by branding his game as a Charon game.

lunariamv posted a video of herself playing the game she copied from Charon on YouTube. lunariamv's YouTube account:

I argued with him in the comments section of YouTube and was met with sophistry:

Even if you have no business purpose, no intention of making a profit, but you have done such a reckless thing, especially against the Charon group, lunariamv, I just want to ask you, is your conscience being eaten by a dog? You don't talk back to other fans, you don't talk back to me, you use the law as a shield when I'm judging, do you really think the world revolves around you?

So I went to tumblr to argue with this asshole. Continue to expose this guy's evil deeds under this guy's blog, and then he responded to me like this:

Who gave you the courage to be a thief and scold me for exposing your ugly face? First: No one listens to your guile, your guile is against ethics. Second, other fans are helping me. I only look at the facts. Third: I am 18 years old. I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child and had symptoms of delusional disorder. But I'm not retarded. I think lunariamv's comments have violated my right to personal dignity, mocking me as childish, retarded, and incapable of respecting others. No, have you ever respected other fans who come to you to talk to you alone? (There are private messages from overseas fans about how this guy's stolen work compares to the original, but this guy doesn't reply) Do you respect Charon? You're talking about respect here?

Not only was I scolded, but lunariamv wrote a short essay in order to "repay" my exposure:

The original link:

(I have three requirements for you :1. Stop infringing 2. Delete the works that involve plagiarism 3. A public apology to Charon makes it spam?)Stop using the law as an excuse. I've seen that too many times before, "I don't take Inspiration as my own," and when you posted your last rip-off and shamelessly called it original, how did I tweet it back at you?

Just because you acknowledge and praise the original work doesn't mean you can copy it, but if you acknowledge and praise the renovation of my home, you can pick the door lock of my home? What bandit logic...) How can you proudly compare yourself to everything in the world? A: Do you think in other people's shoes? Don't you ignore other fans when they explain to you calmly? In my private letter to you, I just repeatedly emphasized my three demands. Did I verbally attack you? Isn't it true that you plagiarized? (" I'll Take Criticism with a grain of Salt, "and then you posted this quibbling essay.)

"You want the same thing as Charon, Please don't expect it," Then you don't fucking get involved with Charon, you can't be original? Your work is too misleading, and some Charon fans who don't know the truth have begun to defend you, really fucking "Congratulations, congratulations" ah)(you have violated the bottom line of Charon and Charon fans again and again, my evaluation is either apologize or delete the number roll, pretend what big tail Wolf)

This guy played Fake Worlds End and still insists he didn't plagiarize, knowing Charon went through a plagiarism scandal and still plagiarized, so it's a little cheeky to defend herself, right?

By the way, this guy is already copying mix ore.

Finally, I gave it to lunariamv with one of our famous Chinese poems. Anyway, that guy doesn't understand the broad and profound Chinese culture.

《诗经·彼阳》

彼阳若至，初升东曦。

绯雾飒蔽，似幕绡绸。

彼阳篝碧，雾霂涧滁。

赤石冬溪，似玛瑙潭。

彼阳晚意，暖梦似乐。

寐游浮沐，若雉飞舞。

あなたは少し能力と度胸があるならば、私の郵便受けに来て私のフィードバックを探します:tamasuyouaya@gmail.com

盗作って何ができるんですか?

[duckprintspress]

How to Edit an Over-Length Story Down to a Specific Word Count

One of the most wonderful things about writing as a hobby is that you never have to worry about the length of your story. You can be as self-indulgent as you want, make your prose the royalist of purples, include every single side story and extra thought that strikes your fancy. It’s your story, with no limits, and you can proceed with it as you wish.

When transitioning from casual writing to a more professional writing milieu, this changes. If you want to publish, odds are, you’ll need to write to a word count. If a flash fiction serial says, “1,000 words or less,” your story can’t be 1,025 and still qualify. If a website says, “we accept novellas ranging from 20,000 to 40,000 words,” your story will need to fall into that window. Even when you consider novel-length works, stories are expected to be a certain word count to fit neatly into specific genres - romance is usually around 80,000 words, young adult usually 50,000 to 80,000, debut novels usually have to be 100,000 words or less regardless of genre, etc. If you self-publish or work with a small press, you may be able to get away with breaking these “rules,” but it’s still worthwhile to learn to read your own writing critically with length in mind and learn to recognize what you do and do not need to make your story work - and then, if length isn’t an issue in your publishing setting, you can always decide after figuring out what’s non-essential to just keep everything anyway.

If you’re writing for fun? You literally never have to worry about your word count (well, except for sometimes in specific challenges that have minimum and/or maximum word counts), and as such, this post is probably not for you.

But, if you’re used to writing in the “throw in everything and the kitchen sink” way that’s common in fandom fanfiction circles, and you’re trying to transition only to be suddenly confronted with the reality that you’ve written 6,000 words for a short story project with a maximum word count of 5,000...well, we at Duck Prints Press have been there, we are in fact there right now, as we finish our stories for our upcoming anthology Add Magic to Taste and many of us wrote first drafts that were well over the maximum word count.

So, based on our experiences, here are our suggestions on approaches to help your story shorter...without losing the story you wanted to tell!

Cut weasel words (we wrote a whole post to help you learn how to do that!) such as unnecessary adverbs and adjectives, the “was ~ing” sentence structure, redundant time words such as “a moment later,” and many others.

When reviewing dialog, keep an eye out for “uh,” “er,” “I mean,” “well,” and other casual extra words. A small amount of that kind of language usage can make dialog more realistic, but a little goes a long way, and often a fair number of words can be removed by cutting these words, without negatively impacting your story at all.

Active voice almost always uses fewer words than passive voice, so try to use active voice more (but don’t forget that passive voice is important for varying up your sentence structures and keeping your story interesting, so don’t only write in active voice!).

Look for places where you can replace phrases with single words that mean the same thing. You can often save a lot of words by switching out phrases like “come back” for “return” and seeking out other places where one word can do the work of many.

Cut sentences that add atmosphere but don't forward the plot or grow your characters. (Obviously, use your judgement. Don't cut ALL the flavor, but start by going - I’ve got two sentences that are mostly flavor text - which adds more? And then delete the other, or combine them into one shorter sentence.)

Remove superfluous dialog tags. If it’s clear who’s talking, especially if it’s a conversation between only two people, you can cut all the he saids, she saids.

Look for places where you've written repetitively - at the most basic level, “ ‘hahaha,’ he laughed,” is an example, but repetition is often more subtle, like instances where you give information in once sentence, and then rephrase part or all of that sentence in the next one - it’s better to poke at the two sentences until you think of an effective, and more concise, way to make them into only one sentence. This also goes for scenes - if you’ve got two scenes that tend towards accomplishing the same plot-related goal, consider combining them into one scene.

Have a reason for every sentence, and even every sentence clause (as in, every comma insertion, every part of the sentence, every em dashed inclusion, that kind of thing). Ask yourself - what function does this serve? Have I met that function somewhere else? If it serves no function, or if it’s duplicative, consider cutting it. Or, the answer may be “none,” and you may choose to save it anyway - because it adds flavor, or is very in character for your PoV person, or any of a number of reasons. But if you’re saving it, make sure you’ve done so intentionally. It's important to be aware of what you're trying to do with your words, or else how can you recognize what to cut, and what not to cut?

Likewise, have a reason for every scene. They should all move the story along - whatever the story is, it doesn’t have to be “the end of the world,” your story can be simple and straightforward and sequential...but if you’re working to a word count, your scenes should still forward the story toward that end point. If the scene doesn’t contribute...you may not need them, or you may be able to fold it in with another scene, as suggested in item 6.

Review the worldbuilding you’ve included, and consider what you’re trying to accomplish with your story. A bit of worldbuilding outside of the bare essentials makes a story feel fleshed out, but again, a little can go a long way. If you’ve got lots of “fun” worldbuilding bits that don’t actually forward your plot and aren’t relevant to your characters, cut them. You can always put them as extras in your blog later, but they’ll just make your story clunky if you have a lot of them.

Beware of info-dumps. Often finding a more natural way to integrate that information - showing instead of telling in bits throughout the story - can help reduce word count.

Alternatively - if you over-show, and never tell, this will vastly increase your word count, so consider if there are any places in your story where you can gloss over the details in favor of a shorter more “tell-y” description. You don’t need to go into a minute description of every smile and laugh - sometimes it’s fine to just say, “she was happy” or “she frowned” without going into a long description of their reaction that makes the reader infer that they were happy. (Anyone who unconditionally says “show, don’t tell,” is giving you bad writing advice. It’s much more important to learn to recognize when showing is more appropriate, and when telling is more appropriate, because no story will function as a cohesive whole if it’s all one or all the other.)

If you’ve got long paragraphs, they’re often prime places to look for entire sentences to cut. Read them critically and consider what’s actually helping your story instead of just adding word count chonk.

Try reading some or all of the dialog out loud; if it gets boring, repetitive, or unnecessary, end your scene wherever you start to lose interest, and cut the dialog that came after. If necessary, add a sentence or two of description at the end to make sure the transition is abrupt, but honestly, you often won’t even need to do so - scenes that end at the final punchy point in a discussion often work very well.

Create a specific goal for a scene or chapter. Maybe it’s revealing a specific piece of information, or having a character discover a specific thing, or having a specific unexpected event occur, but, whatever it is, make sure you can say, “this scene/chapter is supposed to accomplish this.” Once you know what you’re trying to do, check if the scene met that goal, make any necessary changes to ensure it does, and cut things that don’t help the scene meet that goal.

Building on the previous one, you can do the same thing, but for your entire story. Starting from the beginning, re-outline the story scene-by-scene and/or chapter-by-chapter, picking out what the main “beats” and most important themes are, and then re-read your draft and make sure you’re hitting those clearly. Consider cutting out the pieces of your story that don’t contribute to those, and definitely cut the pieces that distract from those key moments (unless, of course, the distraction is the point.)

Re-read a section you think could be cut and see if any sentences snag your attention. Poke at that bit until you figure out why - often, it’s because the sentence is unnecessary, poorly worded, unclear, or otherwise superfluous. You can often rewrite the sentence to be clearer, or cut the sentence completely without negatively impacting your work.

Be prepared to cut your darlings; even if you love a sentence or dialog exchange or paragraph, if you are working to a strict word count and it doesn't add anything, it may have to go, and that's okay...even though yes, it will hurt, always, no matter how experienced a writer you are. (Tip? Save your original draft, and/or make a new word doc where you safely tuck your darlings in for the future. Second tip? If you really, really love it...find a way to save it, but understand that to do so, you’ll have to cut something else. It’s often wise to pick one or two favorites and sacrifice the rest to save the best ones. We are not saying “always cut your darlings.” That is terrible writing advice. Don’t always cut your darlings. Writing, and reading your own writing, should bring you joy, even when you’re doing it professionally.)

If you’re having trouble recognizing what in your own work CAN be cut, try implementing the above strategies in different places - cut things, and then re-read, and see how it works, and if it works at all. Sometimes, you’ll realize...you didn’t need any of what you cut. Other times, you’ll realize...it no longer feels like the story you were trying to tell. Fiddle with it until you figure out what you need for it to still feel like your story, and practice that kind of cutting until you get better at recognizing what can and can’t go without having to do as much tweaking.

Lastly...along the lines of the previous...understand that sometimes, cutting your story down to a certain word count will just be impossible. Some stories simply can’t be made very short, and others simply can’t be told at length. If you’re really struggling, it’s important to consider that your story just...isn’t going to work at that word count. And that’s okay. Go back to the drawing board, and try again - you’ll also get better at learning what stories you can tell, in your style, using your own writing voice, at different word counts. It’s not something you’ll just know how to do - that kind of estimating is a skill, just like all other writing abilities.

As with all our writing advice - there’s no one way to tackle cutting stories for length, and also, which of these strategies is most appropriate will depend on what kind of story you’re writing, how much over-length it is, what your target market is, your characters, and your personal writing style. Try different ones, and see which work for you - the most important aspect is to learn to read your own writing critically enough that you are able to recognize what you can cut, and then from that standpoint, use your expertise to decide what you should cut, which is definitely not always the same thing. Lots of details can be cut - but a story with all of the flavor and individuality removed should never be your goal.

Contributions to this post were made by @unforth, @jhoomwrites, @alecjmarsh, @shealynn88, @foxymoley, @willablythe, and @owlishintergalactic, and their input has been used with their knowledge and explicit permission. Thanks, everyone, for helping us consider different ways to shorten stories!

[serabellymrph]

xKIT PART 3: EDITABLE REBLOGS (now known as Trim Trail Items)

So, for this example, I'm going to be using a few friends' posts that I've seen go wonky (their text and images will be blurred, it's simply for example purposes) to show you some little errors that don't happen in comparison to the new version of xKit.

Now, I'm someone who is newer to xKit, but I've used both versions.

*There is no preferences section, which is why it's not included.

Part 1 || Part 2

EDITABLE REBLOGS (because that's what us roleplayers really want, let's be honest.)

HOLD ON--PANIC MODE! I CAN'T FIND THE REBLOG EDITOR!

First of all--take a breath. Cutting posts is easier, but it's located in a different spot.

Step 1 is to enable the beta editor on Tumblr.

If this is what your editor looks like, then you are currently still on the legacy editor. You absolutely need to switch to the Beta Editor. If you're not sure how to do that:

Looking in the upper right hand corner of your browser, you will see the toggle for your beta editor. Make sure you don't have a post in there. It will absolutely wipe whatever content you have in there. Save it to something else and you should be able to paste it back in, though you may have to contend with fixing a little formatting.

Most keyboard shortcuts still work in this editor, and for the most part, it appears the same as the legacy editor. You have your title, your blog dropdown, your option to add cuts/readmore, music, links, all of that. Some options, like changing to indented, bulleted lists, numbered lists, or bigger text are found when you select a block of text. This is the same way that it functions on the mobile editor.

FUN FACT: Ever resize your window and have your entire post disappear because it switched editors? This is because the "mobile" version of Tumblr uses the Beta Editor as its DEFAULT EDITOR. When you resize your browser window down, it detects the resolution of your browser, and will automatically switch to a more mobile-friendly (or reduced screen size) view for you. If you're using the beta editor, you can resize all you like, and you won't lose your posts!

Now, let's see what the Editable Reblogs actually look like now.

The posts above are all from DASH VIEW (or blog view, in this specific case -- as I was viewing one of my dud blogs. I was going to rename this blog, but I don't play to play this character, so I'll leave the blog up for people to actually view and see how it works. Panicking because you forgot to cut your draft? Don't-- you can cut right from the dash, too. Look for the little scissors!

This portion is actually from drafts. What it effectively done is just "removes old trail items" -- meaning that it removes everything BUT the last item. See that cute little scissors icon? THAT'S IT. THAT'S YOUR EDITABLE REBLOG. THAT'S HOW YOU CUT. You click that cute little scissors icon, and bam. THAT. IS. IT.

No backspacing.

No fucking up when you delete too much. (been there, done that.)

No fucked up formatting for your friends who use icons looking weird among the indents.

It preserves it. It preserves the new formatting. It does not accidentally post your drafts when you go to save the draft. THEY STAY.

*one small issue I have noticed is that you need to cut BEFORE you post. It was giving me issues before, but it's possible that the issue has been fixed. It did not appear to cause an issue in these drafts but be forewarned about it. Just hit cut before you edit the draft! Remember - draft, cut, write. DRAFT, CUT, WRITE. DCR. DRAFT CUT WRITE.

SO WHAT DO THEY ACTUALLY LOOK LIKE?

Let's remember for a second what the old cut reblogs look like... and what funky things happened to them.

Now, let's look at something in the new post editor. Here's what a post with some images looks like that's saved in my drafts:

Here's what it looks like after we've cut it. Note that the new xKit version does not, in any way, alter the actual FORMATTING of the original post. This is what the legacy editor does; it changes the formatting of the post, which is why you get all kinds of weird issues like images making your first paragraph indented and no matter how many times you mess with it, it just doesn't work. You don't have to remove images from your partners' posts so the formatting works, because there's nothing being changed with the formatting in the first place.

THE FINAL STEP: MY OLD REPLIES ARE STILL IN THE LEGACY EDITOR. WHAT DO I DO????

Sometimes, you may run into the issue where, in attempting to cut, it will tell you that legacy posts cannot be cut/altered from your drafts. There's two workarounds to this.

Workaround #1: REPOST IT! This one is the simplest. Take your last reply, copy it into a new post, and start again from there. The same way you might when moving asks to a new post if someone didn't already make a new post from it.

Workaround #2: Edit from the mobile app. Note that I specified the mobile app; this is the only way I've found that works for me. I went into my original post (meaning the VERY FIRST POST OF THE REBLOG CHAIN -- so the very first post you posted to start that thread), edited it from the mobile app (iphone, ipad, android phone or tablet, whatever fits your fancy) and just changed something small--bold a word, italicize a word, change a punctuation, something that made the post fundamentally different.

This pseudo-forced it into the new post format, and from there, I was able to cut. Posts made in-between that were edited with old xKit won't matter--they'll just stay as they were, and you don't have to touch them. Only the first post of the thread matters in this case.

REGARDING USERS USING OLD XKIT:

Please note, if you're still using the old xKit for editable reblogs, but your partner is using the new one, they will not be able to cut your posts. The old xKit outright changes the reblog structure and puts their old reply as part of your new reply, while removing EVERY old trail item including their old one (and it appears as nothing more than indented text in your response). As a result, there's nothing to actually cut for the new xKit, so your partners won't be able to cut. You need to be aware of this if you've decided not to make the transition. Don't go bitching to your mutuals for not cutting their posts when they are using the new version and you're still on the old one. Either run both if you're still going to use an old, glitchy addon, or switch entirely. Otherwise, deal with it.