#i font know. ... what other tags that fit this post

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

All In 11

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, age gap, power imbalance, low self esteem, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: you meet a mysterious man on a night out with your sister. (petite!reader)

based on the winning option for this poll

Characters: casino owner!Bucky Barnes

Note: it's a new week

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

Your phone buzzes against your leg, ripping you back to reality. Your eyes widen and drift away from the stream of font. You sit up and mark the page with your finger as you reach for the jittering cell. 

You scramble to grab onto it and hesitate to hit the big green button. The screen doesn't look like usual, not that you get many calls. You tap the button and the image changes at once, Bucky startling you as he appears. 

"Hey, doll," he grins and winks at you, moving the camera to lean against something. "How's it going?" 

"Uhhhh," you drone, surprised. He can see you too. You know by the little reflection of yourself in the corner. "Hi. Fine." You put the book down with no mind to losing the page, "um, you?" 

"You busy, doll?" 

"Reading but... no." 

"Mm," he hums, "glad to see you enjoying your treats but... no pajamas?" 

He steps back and you get a view of him from waist up, the edge of a counter in the lower edge. You pout then give a sheepish smile, "sorry, I haven't... had a chance." 

"That's okay, doll, I just wanted a peek before I went to work," he undoes his shirt button by button and pulls it off, revealing his muscular torso. You gulp at the lines of his muscle along his stomach, "why don't you put them on now and give me a look." 

"Oh, uh..." you glance at the wall. It's late. You're pretty sure Roxie already left for work and your mom will probably be settling down. "Right, uh..." 

"Just want something to think of when I walk the floor," he purrs. 

"Sure, er," you nearly choke, "I'll just-- one sec." 

"I can wait, doll. I've been waiting, haven't I?" He purrs. 

You feel a pang of guilt. You place the phone down so the lens faces the ceiling and climb off the bed. He's given you a lot, too much honestly, and now you feel like you owe him. It isn't fair to take his kindness without anything in return. And he isn't asking much, is he? 

You dig in the bag, the crinkle loud as the only other noise is the subtle movement from his end. You fish out the soft pajamas and peer over, making certain the phone is still flat. You change far away from it, paranoid. 

You look down at yourself in the tank and shorts. Oh gosh. It's a lot less than you usually wear. Your legs are showing, your shoulders, and a bit of your tummy. 

"Doll?" He says and you flinch. 

"I don't know... I don't think it fits." 

"I'm sure it fits just nice," he insists, "show me." 

"Oh, uh..." 

"I'm just looking, doll, I'll only think of what I really wanna do," he snickers. 

You cross back to the bed and pick up the phone, careful to stay out of view. You turn back and prop it up on the dresser, overly aware of the unflattering angle as you do. You give a wide-eyed look and back up so you're all in frame.  

You hug yourself shyly and sway. 

"Let me see ya," he orders. 

You put your arms straight and notice how he leans in to look at the screen, smoothing his hair back. He keeps his hands over his dark strands and growls. A flutter starts in your stomach. 

"What do you mean too small? That fits your perfect," he says. 

"I... really?" 

"Sure, doll," he turns and you realise he's getting ready.  

He combs his hair stands straight. He grabs a new shirt and buttons it as he peeks again. You near the camera and move it so he can only see your face.  

"Damn, doll, I'm gonna be all over the place," he says, "you're so sweet and sexy." 

"Bucky," you squeak.  

"I don't lie. That's the one thing you should know about me. I will always let you know exactly what I want." 

You blush hotly and a tap on the door nearly makes you drop the phone. You hide it behind you and shuffle closer. You clear your throat. 

"Uh, yeah?" You call through. 

"Hey, honey, everything okay in there?" She asks. Shoot, she must have heard you. 

"I'm watching something," your heart hammers, "sorry, I'll turn it down."

"It's alright, honey. Just thought I heard you..."

"No, just a show," you wisp out.

You quickly back away and go as far from the door as you can. You look down at the phone as Bucky tucks in his shirt. Ugh, that was embarrassing. He heard all that; surely he must realise how lame you are. 

"Mom sounds real sweet," he says, "must be where you get it." 

"She's working tomorrow. Don't wanna keep her up," you explain quietly. 

"That's too bad, doll. I'll just have to keep waiting... wanting," he shrugs and pulls on a dark jacket, "what do ya think? Look good?" 

He poses for the camera. He looks great, as always. You feel smaller than ever. 

"Yes," you answer softly. 

"Yes? That's it?" He sounds disappointed. 

"Very handsome," you eke out. 

"Handsome?" He squints as he picks up the phone. 

"Er," you search your repertoire and borrow from his, "sexy?" 

"Are you asking or telling me?" He chuckles. 

You giggle. You don't think you've ever told anyone they are sexy. You've never been that bold. 

"Yes." 

"Yes?" He laughs. 

"You're, er, oh, sexy," you touch your hot cheek and look away. 

"You are adorable, doll," he growls, "that's exactly what I need to hear." He grazes his fingertips over his beard, "unfortunately I gotta get on it so... tomorrow." 

"Tomorrow," you confirm. 

"Don't worry about a thing, doll, just bring your gorgeous self." 

🃏

The next day is restless. It's worse having hours to wait around for... what? You don't know. 

You spend your time reading, or trying to. Breakfast is small, what your roiling stomach can handle, and you put on an outfit that you think is acceptable, not that you have much to choose from. It might be strange if your mom or Roxie notice the lack of uniform. You could say you change at work? 

Ugh, lie after lie. It's all so much.  

You don't get very far in the book and your phone buzzes, a reminder from Bucky that your fate is coming. You grab your purse and sit out on the stoop, the sunlight beaming down. It would be a nice say if you were so damn uptight. 

Merv pulls up in the sleek luxury car and you get up, checking over your shoulder to see if there's any curious tug on the curtain. Your mom's already at work but Roxie is puttering around somewhere. She could be sleeping or not. 

Merv gets out to greet you. He opens the door and you thank him. He sits in the driver's seat and Springsteen drones from the radio. You smile as he shifts into gear. 

"I know this one," you say. 

"Of course, a classic," he praises. "And how are you today, miss?" 

"Good, you, sir?" 

He laughs as he steers, "very good, miss. And how could I not be." He peeks at you in the rear view, "with sunshine in my backseat." 

You smile bashfully and cross your legs. You can't help the shake in your foot. You're more and more nervous with each second and turn of the wheel. 

As if noticing your unease, he turns up the music, "I like this one too." 

You sigh and ease into the drumbeat. The tempo keeps your heartbeat in check. You're thankful for his subtle comfort. 

You turn to watch through the tinted windows. You never noticed how scenic this city is. You never went many places to have the chance. 

He keeps the volume up and you let it carry you through the long journey across the city. He pulls up to the casino and steers around to the hotel entrance. You peer through then back at him in confusion. He turns the knob down. 

"Mr. Barnes says to give your name at the desk," Merv instructs, "have a good day." 

"Thanks, you too," you unbuckle the seat belt and sidle across to the door. 

You get out with reticence. Staring up at the grand facade, you're more unsure than you've ever been. You've come this far, you have to keep going. You really have no choice as Merv slowly rolls away.  

You step forward. It doesn't get easier the further you get. Your pulse hammers behind your ear as you enter the lobby and a flash of deja vu overcomes you. That night with Roxie, the morning after, and everything since. How does it all feel as if it happened so fast and yet so long ago? 

You go to the desk, feeling entirely out of place. What if Merv is wrong and you shouldn't be there? What if they just look at you and laugh? No choice, keep going. 

You stop on the other side of the desk and give a stiff smile. 

"Hello, welcome, checking in?" The modelesque concierge asks. She's stunning and you're all the more self-aware. 

"Uh, I think? My name is..." 

She keeps her pristine smile in place and her eyes lights up. She doesn't even bother typing into her computer. She flits away and returns with one of little folders with the room keys inside. Oh, this is really happening. 

You thank her and slowly back away. You make a slow advance towards the elevator and wait beside a couple with their suitcases. You step on with them, avoiding a glimpse through the transparent walls.  

You unfold the folio and read the number, pushing the floor number, then stand back on your heels. You keep your eyes on the door, the motion alone making you dizzy. 

The couple gets off before you. When it's your floor, you thankfully scramble off and take a deep breath. You once more check the number and follow the hallways to your assigned suite. 

You swipe the card several times, you still don't have the hang of it. The door opens and you enter meekly. You focus on every move. Shut the door, slip the card back in the folder, put it down on the corner table. 

You look up at last and let yourself marvel at the suite as you delve further in. The smell of pollen greets you with a large bouquet of roses. The suite is huge, even bigger than last time. Two rooms just the same and a full kitchenette and spacious bathroom. You don't go onto the balcony, not wanting to test your stomach. 

You go back inside and glance over the table draped in a red tablecloth beneath the crystal vase of flowers. There's also a tray of chocolate-dipped strawberries and various colours of macarons. You've never had the delicate cookies before but you'd watch countless recipe videos, wishing on day to try them yourself. 

There's an envelope too. You take it and run your nail along the sealed flap. You open it carefully and slip out the card within. 

'Enjoy yourself, doll. I'll join you shortly. B.' 

As if on cue, there's a knock on the door. Oh gosh, you're not ready. What does he mean? Join you? You hoped for a little long before... before... 

You stand frozen but when the door doesn't open itself, you go to answer it. You slowly twist the long handle and open it just a crack. You peer around the edge and blink in confusion. 

"Hello, dahling," the woman's affectation drags out her syllables, "well look at you, how precious." 

She presses on the door and you let her force her way in. You're dumbfounded. Who the heck is she? Another long-legged beauty you can't compare too. 

"Lovely hair," she remarks as she closes the door without a care, "oh, and your skin, yes, perfect canvas..." 

"Sorry, er, I think you have the wrong room--" 

"Mr. Barnes sent me, dahling," she trills in her way, "and I see you are very much in need of my visit so let's begin. Mm, yes, I have a vision," she struts forward, a rose gold chest in her hand, "not very much, you have a natural lustre I adore." 

You retreat as she advances on you. She lifts her chest onto the chaise and flips back the lid, revealing an assortment of precisely organized palettes and tubes. You're horrified and humiliated as you realise why she's there. Maybe you aren't as pretty as Bucky keeps telling you. 

[sotogalmo]

I'm not sure exactly how long Aunt Jane would spend in jail for committing multiple felonies (hiring vandals to trash Mike's place of work, being an accessory to what eventually became of them, etc) but I do picture at least over a decade in bars.

I can just imagine Aunt Jane getting out and coming across a full-grown Abby in the grocery store with a teenage boy (Sammy Emily) and her niece turning on her heel and leaving with the boy.

And when Aunt Jane tries to protest, Abby just glowers at her coldly and states "When I was a kid, you saw me as nothing more than a means to get money for your cigarettes. You were willing to trash Mike's workplace, just to get him fired, you're just as responsible for what happened to those vandals you hired," she would then slowly approach her former Aunt, glowering at her with disgust and rage "Mike has a full-time job and he supports me in any way he can. He will always be my father figure. You lost, Jane Schmidt."

I mean, Abby wouldn't understand it at the time of the first film (being 8-10 years old) but as an adult, she would be absolutely disgusted by her Aunt and want nothing to do with Jane. Sammy would also be disgusted on Abby's behalf and even inform Mike, Vanessa, and Michael Afton that Jane tried to talk to them in the grocery store.

^ me going autistic over this AU.

Anyways‼️

ABBY‼️‼️ GET HER ASS‼️‼️‼️ Sammy telling Mike Vanessa & Micheal :((. Me too buddy, me too.

And, actually yeah. I do think that Aunt Jane would be staying behind bars for a very long time (I have 'experience': mom's husband is in jail, but it just sucks for him because he's not gonna steal again (and he actually stole the thing he stole because he grew up inna very difficult area. It was out of necessity), and bro has paid a WAY TOO LONG time in that cell then ANY OTHER FUCKING RAPIST OR MURDERER I CAN EVER THINK OF. He was there since he was a teen, and now he's an adult. In his 30s. It's only supposed to be a few years give or take. BUT NOOO, jails are fucked up when it comes to letting out people who WOULD NEVER DO IT AGAIN, and letting out people WHO WILL DO WHAT THEY DID AGAIN into society)

^ OOPSIES POOPSIES. sorry for that‼️‼️ I just- yeah- 👍 (I guess that does show that I do know about how jail works/etc. mom used to work over there. But it was fucked up and tiring methinks. So she quit and took another job)

[canonkiller]

Hi, I'm trying to do art commissions, but no one has commissioned me yet. Do you have any advice for attracting customers?

I wrote a lot of words for you in hopes that at least some of it will be helpful, so I'm putting the bulk of this answer below a read more to save people the scrolling. The quick and easy two tips that I find people forget to do the most are:

Is your art easy to find? Having a pinned post with a tag for your art, a link in your bio, or an art-focused / reblog-light blog (like this one!) make it so that people know you draw, and knowing you've been posting art for a while makes you less likely to be a scammer.

Is your commission info easy to find? People can't buy things that they don't know you're selling; clear and accessible links to your prices and terms are important.

Now for the real bulky meat of advice giving, where I say a lot of words that may or may not be relevant:

I have a lot of advice, but I do want to say before getting into it:

A lot of selling art (especially in a non-industry setting, like with social media commissions) is luck.

There is no one size fits all method for selling art, and it's best to go with what feels right to you (I'll go more into this later)

Tips for selling are not necessarily tips for creating, and there will be advice in here that I don't apply to myself. Determining what you do and do not implement is something you should decide for yourself and your work flow.

Your art not selling doesn't mean nobody cares about it.

Personally I think the idea of intentionally curating a single subject demographic of Customer and Consumer for your work is limiting and doomed to burnout in a non-industry space. I will also touch more on this later.

Now for the rest of it in varying orders:

✨ Attracting Customers

This one is going first because you mentioned it specifically. It is kind of vague though, by nature of the term, so what I advise doing is specifying.

When you are thinking of a customer, are you trying to appeal to:

People who will buy pre-made art products? (Pins, stickers, prints, etc)

People who will buy custom work? (Commissions for specific subject matter)

People who will buy art resources you've created? (Fonts, bases, texture packs, 3d models etc)

There's also frequency: a repeat customer of custom art will usually be appealed to more by a wide range of options (like illustrations), while you might get more single-purchase customers if you only offer a limited range of options (like only icons).

Demographics also, of course, play a substantial role in just custom art commissions; furries get lauded as high spenders, but they're also a huge community that is focused around OCs, so by statistics alone they will have more people with spending money and will be frequent customers of people drawing OCs. A narrower audience means fewer people, but often the spread of the people within that audience is the same - and at the end of the day, selling an art piece only requires one other person, it's just a matter of happening to find them.

The follow up question is of course the finding: the average artist in fandom spaces selling commissions does not have the platform or budget for an ad campaign. This, however, is also its own category:

✨ Posting Online

Right out the gate: anyone who has told you that just drawing x thing is the way to get easy money is wrong.

"If you draw more fan art, you'll -" wrong.

"Nobody cares about that, you should be drawing this instead -" wrong.

"if you need to sell fast, just sell porn -" wrong. And also re-evaluate your perceived lack of quality or value about the subject.

The things you will be able to create easily and consistently will be the things YOU, SPECIFICALLY, like to create. It is also entirely impossible that you are the only person on earth to have ever liked those things, which means that if you create them, there are people out there who will enjoy them.

It feels itchy to be like "and those people are Potential Customers", but it is true; your work will resonate with people. They will want you to create it. It is vitally important to your own well being that the things you create, that you want others to enjoy, are things you enjoy as well.

(This is also why the "just draw porn" joking advice that gets tossed around is particularly fucked up. You as the artist should not feel forced into drawing things you aren't comfortable with, and the vast majority of customers for explicit content also don't want the people making it to feel forced into doing so. It's basic consent. I have strong feelings about this.)

If you are creating things and putting them out into the world, they will find an audience. That audience may be one singular person! The number does not matter, because that's still a person who - again, sucks to frame ig this way - has the potential to buy things from you.

If you're constantly chasing a bigger follower count, more interactions, etc etc for the future, it can genuinely be pretty taxing on the people who want to support you in the present. When you enjoy someone's work, and want to support them, being told constantly that that support is not good enough is frustrating. Trying to follow your work should not lead to seeing more "likes are WORTHLESS and NOBODY reblogs my things" posts than it does art. You are a person making things to share with other people, and you have to remember it or you will burn yourself out into a desiccated husk.

TL:DR consistency is key and the easiest way to be consistent is to just draw whatever the fuck you live drawing in whatever ways you want to draw it, and then slap it on the internet somewhere and Keep Doing That

✨ The Actual Commission Information

this one is just factual really. A lot of artists have really shitty commission sheet layouts, because advertising graphic design and illustrative art are different skill sets. That's fine. You don't have to remake the wheel. A good commission sheet should include:

More images than text (if you can't see what the examples are when zoomed out, you have to rearrange or cut down on words)

Examples organized by price / type, and clearly labeled

Your personal favourites for examples - one really strong example piece is better than twenty tiny images of work you think is just "okay"

Contact information - having a method that works WITHOUT a social media account (email.) Is important and way easier to keep organized, imo

A SIMPLE list of strengths (the things you draw the best) and things you won't draw (common example: mechs). You do not need to list every fandom or subject matter. Limit yourself to a top five.

A clear and easy to type link for your terms of service. Carrd, and sites like it, is good for this. This will go into details about your process, what you will and won't do, permissions granted to the commissioner (like "no, you can't make an NFT with this"), your privacy policy (saying you won't sell commissioner details to third parties), and other stuff. You do not want to have all of this on your original post, because it should be thorough and you want your main post to be showcasing your work and not your legalese. Here's mine as a reference; if you have trouble writing your own, feel free to copy from it and make the necessary alterations for your work.

✨ There Was More I Was Going To Write But I Forgot

I have a different document of commission related talk here, which is also incomplete but in a different way. It's in my nature. Hopefully some combination of this and that can be useful to you. Sorry if they're not. I love you have a nice day

[gaywarcriminals]

hello! how are you going? do you have any svsss fic recs you enjoyed?

Aside from the usual Horrors, I'm quite well!! I hope you are too ^^

Oh wow, It's a bit hard to pick just a few because I've read a lot of SVSSS fics in the past few years, but here's the ones that came to mind/ I've been thinking about recently! (I'm excluding ones that I already recommended this week for the ask game, you can check out my "ask fish" tag to see those. Edit: I made a "fish recommends" tag too.)

Qijiu:

"i bury my voice for you" (series) by lithali. Space opera AU, Shen twins, everyone is aliens, intense qijiu longing, SJ’s unending font of angsty internal dialogue, and kinky qijiu sex feat transmasc SJ. I need more people to read this one!!!!!!!

"Palimpsest" by Azzandra. YQY loses his memories and tries to piece together how SJ fits in his life from what others tell him. I adore this fic, it's a really interesting examination of both their characters and why they love each other intrinsically. 

"You Were You, And I Was I" by MissMegh. Deaged qijiu being feral, clinging, and horny teenagers. Super cute and funny!

"what thing it is (that people most desire)" by Jinxed_Ink. A vaguely medieval AU based on an Arthurian legend where SJ disguises himself and blackmails YQY into marrying him for Revenge. SJ has Absolutely No Other Motive There. I didn't know how much I needed this particular brand of qijiu marriage shenanigans until I read it.

"I'm just as exposed (when i take off my clothes)" by owoxian. Qijjiu being weird and horny (as they deserve), being misinterpreted as abuse by accidental voyer MQF. 

"The Sect Leader’s Husband" by AMereDream. Canon divergence where YQY came back for SJ on time, and instead of becoming the QJP head disciple, SJ married YQY and became the power behind the throne. Cute power couple qijiu!!!

"The Heart Is A Sword" by Moonsheen. A-Su, a boy who is a sword, the emperor's weapon, is appointed personal attendant to the emperor's new consort Shen. PIDW post-canon.

Bingqiu:

"Rehearsal" by Prim_the_Amazing. Binghe, fresh from the abyss, uses a dream realm to run through all the ways his reunion with SQQ might go. This one is basically pure angst but it's SO good.

"How to Meal Prep - Household Tips, Recipes, and Ideas for a Better-Organised Life!" By x_los. Character study of 17-year-old preeminent housewife Binghe. It's cute, it's weird, and it's terribly tragic on account of the Dramatic Irony.

"Futility in Practice" by TGP. Time loop fic with a REALLY cool style of story telling. Repetitive but iterative text from Binghe, the non-looping character's POV as SQQ desperately tries to find the right answer to end the loop. Very angsty!

"it's not gay if you don't touch my ass ... unless?" by azunshi. Modern AU, SY wants to have sex with Binghe but ofc that would be gay, so instead he puts a cocksleeve up his ass for binghe to fuck instead. This fic is so deeply stupid (positive/complimentary), I love it, it's the exact brand of unhinged this whole fandom is slowlyy becoming.

"Songs of a Wayfarer" by foxflowering. Ballet AU with young prodigy LBH and his teacher SY! 

Binggeyuan:

"to find an intended (a bit unintentionally)" by nyoomerr. This is the classic. Wandering cultivator SY accidentally doms Bingge into being a good boy. 

"broken glass, swept away" by aaeph. Modern AU, SY buys a home only to find it haunted by the centuries old ghost of a demonic emperor. Bingge tries so hard to push SY away over and over, but SY is a stubborn man.

Jiuyuan:

"Jump To The Left" by ValiantBarnes (Cimila). I'm not sure quite how to describe this one without spoilers, but essentially, older Shen Yuan finds and saves SJ in the era he was following WYZ. SY takes SJ as a traveling companion/sort of disciple. CW for mentions of incest/psuedo-incest (no actual incest though).

"Immortal Shen Does Not Do Online Deliveries" by Anonymous. SY, a young cultivator and scholar, goes to ask the reclusive immoral master SQQ for an elixir. SQQ toys with him a little <3. Mean SQQ and flustered SY.

Gen/ No Ship:

"Rat Trap" by Azaisya. LQG & SJ. LQG and SJ are kidnapped, they get truth serum-ed, and they're forced to confront their different background and conflicting morals and methods that stem from that. I think this is my favorite execution of "LQG learns SJ's backstory and Has Regrets", because their conflict is explicitly framed as a class divide rather than just misunderstandings, and it addresses the flaws in both their resulting worldviews to some extent. 

"Sit With Your Soul" by Tossawary. SJ & SY. This is a fusion with His Dark Materials, but no knowledge is required. Basically everyone has an animal companion that's connected to and represents their soul, and SY transmigrates into SQQ's. 

[aventurine-official]

((any tips for starting an rp blog?))

(Mod Minie's rp tips and tricks!

I have quite a few tips, but of course, they don't work the same for everyone. Feel free to use only what you think is necessary!

~ First of all, most definitely do make guidelines. Make the rules clear for people who will be doing rp with you, and respect their boundaries in return. It's most definitely okay to tell others you will not be discussing nsfw topics even if you are not a minor. I've just found that having rules is a nice way to set your boundaries and to avoid incidents easily. I have a rulelist in my intro post, and if you'd like to borrow it or interpret it into your own words or adapt it to fit your needs, then by all means!

~ If your rp blog is a sideblog, send your asks on anon, naturally. But no matter what kind of asks you send, it can be useful to tag your url as a signoff so that when the other person answers your ask, you get a notif from the tag.

~ One of the most "obvious" tips is to have different symbols or font styles for different parts of your rp. Every system is different, and none are expected to be alike. For example, many people use brackets ( ) for when they are speaking out of character, and quotation marks " " for when characters speak. I like to use italics and asterisks * * for my muses' actions, but there are many other ways to do so. Don't be afraid to be creative, as long as the difference is clear to identify.

~ Another tip is to slowly make yourself comfortable in the rp community you're in. Don't be afraid to talk to other moderators because most of them are really great people! This is also a skill that will come in handy later if you need to discuss the conditions for a rp thread or about doing rp for a certain ship together.

~ This is not necessary at all, but I highly recommend making tags. Whether it's to separate your asks from your reblogs, to sort interactions with certain other characters, or to identify your anons, tags are super useful for being able to organize your threads. As some people might not want to see the rp threads that get very long on their dash and instead want to see asks, that way other people can benefit from your tag system too by either following tags or blacklisting as they need. Also-- as a person who like showing some of my rp to other people, the tags are handy for me, too.

~ If possible, find a mod with a masterlist for your rp community. In my case, @/dr-ratio-official holds the HSR masterlist :) It can make it easier for people in your community to find you and to interact!

Mod Minie's rp advice!

These next ones are not tips, necessarily, but I find them incredibly important to know, especially if you're a beginner.

~ There is no rush. Rp doesn't have a time limit, and most other mods will be thankful they get a response from you at all and do not mind waiting from a few days to a month. Please do not let anybody pressure you into answering an ask or into replying to a thread when you do not have the energy. Rushed rp might not always be in character.

~ Don't worry about picking a character somebody else has roleplayed for! Picking a new character can be a handy choice to integrate into a community and to make yourself known, but you should only rp as muses you like! Don't worry if you share the same muse as other mods, just have fun!

~ Don't be afraid to have headcanons for your muse! You don't need to run around trying to prove it's true or get it approved officially. If your headcanons apply to your interpretation of your muse, so be it! If it bothers other people, that will be their choice to avoid interactions or not. In fact, I've often seen other mods agree with headcanons lsagdkagskf

~ Do not feel forced into discussing topics you do not want to discuss, whether in character or out. If you get an ask you'd feel uncomfortable answering, just delete it. It's easier and much less stressful.

~ Do not feel guilty about having favourites or about being someone's favourite, if your muse (or someone else's) has several mods who rp as them. Of course, certain people will have bias towards certain interpretations of characters. Some mods like doing more multi-paragraph rp, and will tend to interact more with certain mods who rp a muse versus other mods who rp the same muses. It's the same thing for more silly, less serious rp! It all depends what style you like, and I'm sure you'll find wonderful people who you enjoy doing rp with :)

~ Make sure your rp community (whomever you choose to interact with) is a safe and fun space for you and others! Do not be afraid to speak up if something makes you uncomfortable, and do not feel badly for cutting off interactions with a specific mod or anon if they do not respect your rules or begin to harass either you specifically or somebody else.

~ Lastly, just have a blast. That's what rp is for, bringing joy to yourself and others, as well as growing closer to your muse(s)!

I'm so glad you asked me for advice ahaha it makes me feel more experienced than I am! I hope this helps :) ~ Mod Minie)

[monarchisms]

oh yeah, now that it's closed, here's the post i wanted to make about that rt rebrand poll i made last week. this will be pretty long and kinda rambly, so feel free to just blacklist the "long post" tag :)

so like, i made the poll because of 2 main reasons: 1. because of a mix of comments i saw on other sites from people who also didn't know what color it was supposed to be, and 2. because of myself confidently believing it was some shade of orange until i switched from looking at it from my laptop screen to my phone screen.

it being a godawful shade of red/red-orange was mentioned in the article itself, which is why my question was phrased "what color do you guys think it is?" since either red or orange is both technically correct. going more into the specifics of the poll numbers:

tumblr doesn't show the specific number of people who voted for any given poll option by default, just the percentage, so i went digging and followed this tutorial to get the raw data using firefox's inspect tool. the final results are, with 934 votes total, red at 551 votes (59%), orange at 303 votes (~32.4%), and other/a secret third thing at 80 votes (~8.6%).

red winning wasn't a surprise, really, but i was pleasantly surprised at how many people didn't have a definite answer or switched between answers like i did. i can't exactly pin down why that is, but if i had to wager some guesses...

the color scheme has a high chance of being a callback to rooster teeth's Popular Web Series Red Versus Blue™:

and with a want/need for rt to rebrand, the idea of keeping the color scheme while also making it modern and pop out is really cool, but its execution is uh...

i couldn't fit everyone's tags, but you get the gist. it fucking sucks, man.

as @god-of-arts-and-crafts has pointed out:

orange and blue are complementary colors, with them being opposite each other on a color wheel except the people who made the rebrand chose a deeper shade of blue??? they couldn't even get that right, oh my fucking god, so while its technical color is red-orange, it can be overwhelmingly orange when paired with a similarly bright shade of blue, which is what's causing many people eyestrain. hell, the first time i looked at the picture when the news dropped, it literally gave me a headache lol

finally, as i've said in the tags of a different post about this eyesore, this is an accessibility nightmare. with the worst color combination possible, the colors used for the new font and logo are definitely not ada-compliant. there are free sites out there to test images for general accessibility issues. contrastchecker is what i use sometimes, and below is what i got using red-orange as the background and blue as the foreground, and vice versa:

(both versions had the same ratio and color difference lmao)

the americans with disabilities act recommends that the contrast ratio be 7 at the lowest, but should ideally be higher than that, if possible. this is objectively and subjectively a very bad corporate rebrand, and i really, really want rt to break their "no jokes on april 1st because that's our anniversary" rule this year. if for nothing else, then just so that people who haven't read the variety article and/or the reactions on social media aren't jumpscared once the new intros/endcards/whatever else start rolling in.

[epitomereally]

You’re so talented. Every time your fan binding pictures cross my dash I stare at them for *hours*. The amount of care and detail you put into your books blows my mind. I know you talk about the process for each individual book on your fic binding posts but I wanted to ask: how do you plan your fic binds? Do you visualize what the fic would look like if it were a book while you read it? Do the colors and illustrations you choose come to you as you read the fic, or after? How does your approach to fic binding differ from your approach to writing? Etc. I’m curious about your creative process, though the technical part is also super interesting!

Ps: I love all the fics you chose to bind but I was so excited when you picked GallaPlacidia’s Ship of Theseus - probably my favorite of theirs. You have great taste 😁💚

Eek Elise THANK YOU! I’m so flattered & honored. Also always happy to talk fanbinding, especially binding design (my one true love)!

I would say planning takes the vast majority of my binding time—it’s something I love and I agonize over and I struggle with—while the actual binding often goes quite quickly! I often start with one element that I’m excited about & feel fits the the specific fic: a color or spine stitching pattern or a chapter title concept or title page (like the hand-dyed cover + birds for You Open Always or the blooming morning glories for Meet Me at Midnight) and then, because I have no chill or a single subtle bone in my body, I just roll with that element through the whole book until it’s totally exhausted (wish I could spoil some of my upcoming binds here, but you will SEE VERY SHORTLY what I mean). Every single time I make a book, around the time where I’m printing out the typeset, I feel that I’ve made a grievous error in including one more item than I should have, like it’s way too much. An example is the blackletter ornate font I ended up using for the title of You Open Always—you can see in my draft Illustrator document where I was trying out tons of concepts using stock images that most of my title page concepts were with a much simpler, more modern font that I used for the chapter numbers. However, in the end, I’ve always been happy that I’ve gone completely 100% on my vision, even if it’s a lot. In that way, I feel like it’s like writing—I may be incorporating all the elements I want to see imperfectly and have doubts about them, but I’m still putting everything I want in there & I’m proud and happy for that, even if I still have more things to learn.

One last design element I want to highlight: BODY FONT! This is something I am still learning so much about and the Renegade Discord has been incredibly helpful (a recent message I sent: what font would you find in a pulpy 60s mystery paperback?). A gorgeous title page or chapter header or cover is great for setting the mood when you open a book, but the body font is 90%+ of what you see when reading, so I spend a TON of time trying different fonts to fit the vibe of the fic. I have no thoughts or advice or guidelines though—it’s like porn & you just know it when you see it.

I also get a ton of inspiration from fellow fanbinders, both on the Renegade Discord server & here on tumblr. A lot of time, I see a technique or cover or typeset and think that that would look incredible for XYZ fic. An extremely abbreviated list of people who inspire me daily: @a-gay-old-time (Emma, you're a BLESSING), @queercore-curriculum, @bindsbymunchkin, @pleasantboatpress (one of the most welcoming members of the Renegade server, in addition to being an incredibly inspiring binder), @chubsonthemoon, @no-name-publishing, @zhalfirin-binds, @dontcallmebree, @amywaterwings & @runawaymarbles. Sorry for all the tags, but want this as a resource for others! I would absolutely love to know how all of you come up with your artistic vision for the binds that you do (and please tag me if you post!). 

P.s. Ship of Theseus was a request from QC but I am SO HAPPY they requested it, because it’s one of my favorites too :)

[ro-botany]

@levemetal Hope you don't mind my bringing this out to its own post - I saw your tags and wanted to try to help!

So, ripping models is going to be a different process depending on how the game was made; what console it was on, what game engine its built in... There's no one-size-fits-all process, and it's going to require some baseline tech-savvy-ness.

But given that these tags were regarding Grima; I'll tell you more or less how I get models out of Fire Emblem Awakening.

A Ramble-y Overview of Fire Emblem Awakening Model Ripping:

Step 0: Gather your Tools

There's a lot of tools floating around intended to help with 3DS model ripping. Some are very pleasant to use and others are janky, so brace yourself.

For this, you will need:

Citra emulator (for extracting game files)

Paragon (for figuring out where models you want are)

FEAT (for decompressing game files)

SPICA (for exporting models + textures to usable formats)

Blender (for actually working with the models) (or whatever 3d modelling program you like; I only know blender though)

Step 1: Get a ROM of Awakening

Legally obtain one, of course. Assuming you have the game cartridge the 3DS hacking community can help you more with that. Definitely do not download any game roms from any online websites, why, that would be piracy!

Step 2: Extract the Game Files

Open up Citra, add a game directory and tell it where your rom is.

Right click the rom and select "Dump RomFS" to get Citra to start extracting all the game files. This will take a while. Wait for it to be done.

Once its done dumping the files, you're going to want to go to File > Open Citra folder. From there, navigate into "dump", then "romfs", then click the big nonsense folder name - that nonsense is Awakening's game ID, so, this folder is Awakening's game files.

All the models you could ever wish for are in here!!! We just need to actually find them now.

Step 3: Figure out which model(s) you want.

Time to go open up Paragon. This is technically a tool for creating mods of several fire emblem games, but we're not going to mod anything, we're just going to use it to figure out what models belong to which characters.

The github page has instructions on it, but basically you want to open up Paragon and start a new project for FE13. Create some random output folder for it and direct it to that, we don't care. But the "Extracted RomFS Directory" should be the citra folder I just told you how to get to.

Once you have the project open, there will be a lot of buttons and things. Don't worry about all this. The only two you care about right now are "Asset Definitions" and "Presets".

(Ignore the font; I changed paragon's font to awakening's font because i'm a nerd)

Most of the human characters are easiest to find in "Asset Definitions"; some under their english name, others (like Chrom) under their english base class' name.

Grima, though, you can find in "Presets" by searching for "boss".

This entry specifically is the one pertaining to grima's full body model. There's a lot of info here, but the highlighted panel on the right is the information you need; this is telling you the names of the files containing Grima's models and textures!

For human characters, typically the head and body fields will be filled in, and possibly the hair for characters with long hair. some have accessories, some don't.

This complexity is why we use paragon to check instead of checking every single model file manually like fools. (it's me, i'm fools)

Keep this window open for reference at the side for the next step.

Step 4: Go Get the Models

Make a folder somewhere on your computer to keep this character's models.

Then, go back to that Citra folder we opened up earlier.

Awakening's assets are split up into several folders. The folder you want is "b", which has most of the character and weapon models and textures. (This organization scheme is Not consistent between Awakening and the other 3DS fire emblems, watch out.)

In here, find the files paragon is telling you belong to this character, and copy them into your dedicated folder for this model ripping project.

Wow, look at all those files we can't use. Time to make them usable.

Step 5: Decompress the Files

Open up FEAT. Drag all those files onto the FEAT window. It will decompress them; there will be a copy of each file without the .lz file extension. You did it! They're decompressed!

Step 6: Extract the Models and Textures

Open up SPICA.

Click the little Folder button in the top left to open a file. Navigate to this folder you have your decompressed files in. Click on one of the decompressed files.

For MODELS, as in the .m files, you are going to click the Save button. Save each model as a .dae file, and give each a name that will make it clear which model this is - the body, the head, a specific accessory, whatever. (you can choose .smd instead if you want, but you will need a blender addon for importing smd files if you do.)

For TEXTURES, which are the .t files, there is an extra step. In the panel on the right, there is a small anime eye. That is the textures tab. Click on it, and the panel will change to a list of textures that are in that file. You should export all of them by using the special texture export button. DO NOT CHANGE THE NAMES the texture names are important.

Step 7: Blender Time

Tragically this is the most annoying part, and I can't even give you very detailed instructions off the top of my head because the exact steps are so tailored to each specific character.

Open up Blender. Go to File > Import > Collada (.dae) and import the character's component models one by one.

Each individual file will come with its own armature for posing! If you want to have a functional, posable model, you are going to have to join them together yourself. Normally this means taking a component armature, positioning it properly in relation to the body, parenting the component meshes to the body armature, joining the component armature to the body armature, and then taking whatever root bone the component had and setting it's parent bone to the right bone from the body armature. If you just joined a character's head on the body, take the root bone from the head armature and set its parent to the head bone from the body armature. Stuff like that.

Some of the weight painting may be broken, so when you pose joints on the armature some things will move incorrectly. I do not know how to get SPICA not to do that, and I haven't found any other 3DS model exporter that works with awakening that doesn't do that. Try exporting as an SMD instead. If neither dae format nor smd format works right, You're going to have to go in and re-do the broken weight painting manually. There is no shortcut to this. I am sorry.

You will also notice everymodel is split up into several meshes. If you need the character to be one singular manifold mesh, you're going to have to edit it to be that way yourself, in a way that does not destroy the UV maps. There is no shortcut to this. I am sorry.

Also: If it's Grima, be aware that their model is like 3000 blender units long. You will want to scale all their armatures down to 0.1 or something, because Blender does NOT play nice with stuff that big.

Anyway, textures.

In Awakening, a texture name ending in c0 is the base colours. A texture name ending in s0 is a specular map.

If the base colour file looks mostly transparent, that's because it's channel packed; the color and alpha channels contain two different textures. In Grima's case, the color channel is their actual colors, and the alpha channel appears to be an emission map.

So, go on into the shader editor, click on each mesh to open its material, and plug the textures into the right spots on basic shader node provided. Make sure to set the Alpha mode of the channel packed textures to say "Channel Packed". And you're good to go! You can see what the character looks like now!

If parts of textures should be transparent but aren't (like grima's eyes and wing feathers) you're going to have to figure out a solution for that yourself. I manually made my own alpha map for grima's eyes and wings, and it was Annoying but it was the only solution I could find.

Congratulations, you've done it!

You have successfully ripped a model from Awakening. Now go on and modify it however you need to; make better shaders for it, clean up the mesh and unwrap its UVs again for free plushie patterns, do silly posing shenanigans with it. Whatever your heart desires.

Good luck, dear reader, for you will probably need it.

[ramzawrites]

A different kind of self-hatred - 2k12!tmnt x rottmnt Reader crossover - Part 1

GEN

Part 2

Pairings: none

Characters included: Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Donatello, Raphael (Their 2k18 and 2k12 self)

Warnings: mentions of blood, stabbing and swearing

Series: A drabble somewhat

Summary: A little before and after moment of Y/N who after jumping universes tried to explore the hidden city only to come back with the answer to the question “If you punch yourself and it hurts are you weak or strong?”

Word count: 2113

Authors Note: Sometimes when I work on bigger projects I just write out moments that are in the middle of the story to get it out and on the paper so I might be able to work on it in the future or just as a way to remember. Since I don’t plan to do anything with this idea currently I thought I’d post it because why not 🤷maybe you guys will get some enjoyment out of this like me

Oh shoot before I forget, Reader is part of the 2k12!tmnt universe originally in case this wasn’t clear enough in this lil thing I wrote

Y/N has learned a lot over the last few days.

One, and probably the biggest revelation, other dimensions do exist and it’s possible to visit them. It certainly wasn’t a planned trip but if Y/N has learned anything over the years of being friends with mutant turtles was that you better just go along with the punches the world throws at you. Better to just concentrate on how to get out of the mess rather than how the mess started in the first place.

Two, being surrounded by your best friends and alternate versions of them was weird. Trying to address anyone in a group of eight people when there were only four names was a mess, hence why it got silently agreed upon that one half, the half Y/N knew, would be called by their full names and the new ones by nicknames. Let’s not forget the weird feeling of standing in front of what should be your best friends, but they were slightly off. Or as Mikey said, it’s them but slightly to the left or in a different font. Y/N thought that was a fitting description.

Three, Y/N might think they knew New York but they certainly don’t know this New York. Who would have thought that when you crossed dimensions there is a chance that the city you grew up in has a different layout.

Four, and the last thing, magic was real. In fact, there was a whole hidden city just for yokai who practiced magic on the daily.

So, when the turtles were busy with their alternate selves to see what was different and what stayed the same, Y/N decided to explore the Hidden City further. It’s been an interesting few days, so they knew their way around a bit and once again over the years they did learn how to find their way around better. Besides Donnie mentioned something about a magical library and when the others get the chance to learn more then Y/N would go out of their way to learn a few things on their own as well.

Also, it was a chance to explore. It’s mostly about exploring a magical city.

They made sure to not cross anyone else’s path in the lair as they snuck out so no one would try to tag along. Maybe they needed a moment after all to process all of this. Or maybe they just wanted to be alone, that’s a valid thing as well!

With their hoodie pulled up they ran happily through the Hidden City, sometimes stopping to take a quick peak inside shops or at stalls but they mostly made sure to stay on the move. They weren’t exactly sure if running around as a normal human was a good thing or not, but Y/N figured if they kept their hood up and continued walking it should be fine. After all they didn’t plan to stay long.

Yeah, all should be just fine!

Everything was not fine.

When Y/N rounded the corner back into the lair again they were met by shocked gasps. Eight pair of eyes stared at them as they desperately held onto a wall to keep themself up.

“Uh… so… Something happened.”

Donatello was the first to jump up “What the shell happened to you? Is that blood? Is that a knife in your hand?!”

There was indeed a silver dagger stuck inside the hand that hung uselessly next to their body. It was something they tried not to think too hard about right now.

He immediately made his way to sling one of Y/N’s arms around him to help them stand, Leo was close by since apparently this Leo was the medic of the team.

Leonardo looked worried but Y/N already knew that he would probably give them a stern talking to later since they just snuck off like that in a different and foreign dimension. As if getting the absolute snot beaten out of you wasn’t punishment enough.

“ ‘S fine! Didn’t you teach me once not to pull a knife out when you get stabbed?”

“That’s not fine!” Donatello retorted angrily “And maybe but still! That’s not what I meant!”

Leo begun moving “Let’s bring them into the infirmary and bandage them up.”

The small group started to walk but Y/N pulled on Donatello “Wait, wait, wait. Raphael?”

Said turtle rose his eyebrow as he waited for Y/N to speak, confused what could be so important that they couldn’t wait for it after being bandaged up.

“You remember the whole talk of if you punch yourself and it hurts, are you weak or strong? I can confidentially say I feel really weak right now.”

He blinked for a second as he no doubt tried his best to understand what they just said “Y/N did you do this to yourself?” Obviously he sounded very unsure of himself since this sounded just as ridiculous said out loud than inside his head.

They chuckled “Kinda? I met alternate me, and they are a bitch.” There was an insane amount of venom dripping out of their words, their face scrunched together as if they just smelled something horrendous.

“What?!” Both Mikey’s exclaimed simultaneously. The two seemed to get along the best by far in this group. Y/N could definitely not relate.

Y/N nodded “Yeah. Spotted them and they just fucking attacked me.”

Leonardo pulled his eyebrows together “Why would alternate you just immediately attack you once they spot you?” His mind no doubt already running a mile a minute trying to decipher this situation and wondering if this will be a problem that they all had to deal with.

“I don’t know. Probably saw their only chance to finally kick their own ass and took the chance?” Y/N chuckled weakly only for it to evolve into a coughing fit.

Leo hissed at that “I mean I have heard of self-hatred, but this is just ridiculous.”

Y/N would have loved to make finger guns at Leo for that but frankly they were just tired, and their body ached, so they just accepted their fate of hanging off Donatello’s shoulders like a wet towel. Speaking of Donatello, he was holding on to Y/N without much trouble. He was just busy eyeing them over with worried eyes, probably already determining what wound to deal with first.

“Our selves and our alternates selves do look considerably different how did you even know it was you to begin with?” Donnie asked seemingly unconcerned with Y/N’s condition. To be fair Y/N was just as unconcerned as him, after all they were still able to talk coherently. That meant something, right?

“Maybe we should do twenty questions after we took care of them?” Donatello brought up but Y/N shook their head.

“Nah, I can answer this. For starters they actually looked very much like me only they had like scales and claws and a tail. Like they were a full-on dragon human looking person. Also, I asked for their name and seeing how we otherwise shared the exact same face I just assumed they were my alternate self.”

“Wait” It was Raph this time who spoke up “Did they just approach you, you exchanged names and then they beat the hell out of you?”

“Pretty much.”

He winced in response.

“Okay, let’s take care of Y/N because the more we stand here the more I’m worried that they are bleeding out with the way they are beginning to slur out their words.” Leo finally stopped the interrogation, moving Donatello and Y/N along before more questions could be thrown their way.

At first Y/N wanted to protest but they had to agree with Leo on this one. The world was a bit wobblier than it should be. Damn, maybe it was a miracle that they managed to get back into the lair on their own after all. But they got back on their own, so, who is laughing now? Honestly it’s probably still Alternate Y/N.

Inside the infirmary the two turtles began silently bandaging up the wounds as Y/N sat on a stretcher. It was when Donatello took a look at Y/N’s neck that he let out a silent “Yikes.”

“Oh, yeah, they fully held me up by my throat using their tail. It was crazy. I bet you are seeing the imprints of their scales right now, right?”

Leo took a second to inspect their throat as well “You know we’ve been talking about why it hasn’t happened yet that we met your version here while other us are friends with you but suddenly I am kind of glad we haven’t. No offense.”

“None taken. You should be. Other me is a bitch and they are lucky they are some sort of dragon person, or I’d have kicked their ass for sure. I’ll kick their ass next chance I get.”

“Normally I would make a comment that making self-deprecating jokes like that is bad but, in this instance, I can understand your sentiment.” He smiled as he started to disinfect the wounds.

“Where were you that they just attacked you like that?” Donatello asked as he began investigating their stabbed hand. Which still hurt like hell by the way but again Y/N tried not to think too hard about their hand, instead they just concentrated on how much Alternate Y/N sucked. Even if their blood red metallic looking scales looked cool.

Man, why did Alternate Y/N get the cool looking scales and not them? They definitely deserve it more than the feral one.

Y/N thought for a second as they tried to get back on track again, remembering that Donatello asked them a question “Uh, I just left a library. By the way Leo I saw interesting posters of you and your siblings there. But yeah, left the library and literally ran into myself.”

“Hey, Leo, we gotta pull the dagger out. Y/N this will suck.” Donatello let go of their hand to grab some bandages to no doubt press on the wound once the weapon was out of their hand.

“Hehe, they might have kicked my ass, but I got their magic dagger.” Y/N chuckled to themself, ignoring how the two medics began crowding around their hand. They were just happy that they stole this dagger from their annoying self.

Leo looked at Donatello with a raised eyebrow “Are they always like this when they get beat up?”

“Oh, they are definitely loopier than usual but actually? Kind of yeah. I remember one time they dared a Foot Ninja to stab them with one of their swords so they could legally take it back home.”

Leo let out an amused huff “Really?”

Donatello sighed “Yep. They were really annoyed when we didn’t let that happen.”

“I could have had a cool sword...”

This time it was Donatello who looked at Leo with a raised eyebrow as if to say “See?”

Y/N was so caught up with their seeming victory of having, definitely, stolen the dagger that they were caught by utter surprise as the metal left their hand and the feeling of bandages being pressed down on the wound appeared.

After a lot of cursing and wailing their hand finally got disinfected and properly bandaged. They won’t be using their left hand for a while now as it seemed. And as Y/N grabbed the cleaned dagger to put it through one of their belt loops, Donatello gave them a disappointed sigh and shake of his head.

Y/N just mouthed “Mine.” To him.

But Leo had other ideas “Actually, let me have a look at that dagger. You said it’s magic? Maybe we can find some things out as you rest.”

“But-“

It just took one look from Donatello for Y/N to give in. When Donatello wanted to, he could be even more stern than Leonardo.

“Yeah. Sure. It was crazy they just kind of threw the daggers through the air and it could change directions and even change their form.” They placed the dagger safely into Leo’s open palm.

“Now, go rest. Maybe in a few hours we have more info on other you and we can decide what to do.” Donatello pushed the human down on the stretcher who just kind of let it happen, having been through this spiel a few times already with him.

“Knowing me, they are probably just an asshole and there isn’t much else. I still wanna kick them.”

Leo snickered as he patted Y/N patronizingly “And you will, sweety, after you slept for a few hours.” His voice up an octave, obviously joking around.

“Will do, mom. Man, no matter what universe Leo will always be a mom, huh, Donatello?”

[stevetown]

On The New Tumblr Desktop Dash

I've been using the new Tumblr desktop dashboard for a few days now and I have some Thoughts that I thought would be useful to put out in to the wild. Most of the reaction I've seen has been...abnormally harsh about this UI update, so I think it would be interesting to actually go through the changes and point out what I like, what I don't, what I think could use some improvement, and maybe break down a little about why those Twitter comparisons are way off the mark.

More below the fold, but the tldr for me is - I think it's great! At the end of the day, I feel like I use the desktop version of Tumblr more and more since the change. Whereas before I used to just pick up my phone and refresh the app, now I get a hit of dopamine flipping over to the Tumblr tab when I need a work break.

The change is clean and logical, and as someone who came to Tumblr a year ago and still never quite grokked what all the icons at the top meant, having them spelled out is much nicer than guessing what they mean, even for someone who has become more familiar with the site. And to be clear, from what I can tell that's the goal of this change - to make it easier for newer people to use Tumblr and find their way around. Despite all the hate this change is getting, that is an unabashedly good thing.

The Left Nav

It's really, really clean. The old dash had a lot of unused space on the left, it makes sense to carve some of that out to have a menu that actually lays out what each icon means. The font size and style is comfortable without overcrowding. It just feels more...confident? Like these are the features Tumblr has. Use them! It's also just a more familiar web browser experience for anyone who has been using web apps since the dawn of email.

The badges also fit much nicer with the left nav. They don't float above an unclear icon, they're right next to what it says on the tin. You got 20 new posts to read, buddy. 5 new notifications. 1 anon ask. It's just better on my eyes.

I do understand the gut reaction that things are "too" cluttered. One of the first things I did was snooze Tumblr live and that helped me out a lot. Just removing all of the noise of live tags and loading-in thumbnails of people I'm not interested in watching went very far. It brought the post content further up on the screen.

A little before and after snoozing Live:

Explore

I didn't even know what Explore was used for before. It was a compass icon. I think I thought it was some kind of search? I can't remember if I ever clicked on it before. Explore is much more interesting to me. It makes me curious. For a site that struggles with getting new users to find new content, it's a beacon that says "Find some cool new stuff!"

My problem with Explore is that clicking on it...doesn't get me much. The landing page just takes me to a feed from @todayontumblr that almost never has any content that I'm interested in. The "For You" tab on my regular dash is where I go mining for new blogs, along with "Your Tags." If Staff finds this change leads to more Explore click-throughs, I'd love if the tab itself get some love and made it a hub for finding new content easier. Maybe mixing up a feed of any tags you're following, trending posts, and other algorithmically sorted goodies that I'll want to take off the shelf and put in my chronological dash. I want it to be a place with the goal of encouraging me to follow new blogs.

Live

The transition to the Live page doesn't feel good to me. You're taken to a totally different kind of page, and the UI jumps all the way to the left. It feels like you're going to a separate site. At least when you snooze Live it also removes the menu item. That's really nice! But I'll save Live thoughts for another day.

Activity/Messages/Inbox

I never knew how much I suspected these things were a bit redundant, but I'm glad now that they're separated and labeled correctly. I don't have to remember what the face icon/mail/lightning bolt all mean or why they're different. Things are much cleaner in that regard.

I don't really care for the popups when you click on them. Those do feel cluttered to me, like I'm going to lose sight of my dash, or the notifications. I don't have much UX advice here, other than to say I think I prefer how the Inbox is handled, where you're just taken to a full page view of the page. However maybe another solution would be how the Account and Settings icons are conducted...

Account/Settings

This is the section that sold me on the new dash. On the old dash, I found navigating the Account and Settings options...ephemeral. I was afraid I was going to lose my place if I didn't find the menu I needed. Here, having them slide out as a drawer, keeps me in place and lets me orient myself easier. It's made exploring settings overall frictionless. I've changed dash palettes like ten different times just because I could and it was easy to find. Maybe something similar for inbox/messages/activity would make the UI feel more consistent and less overcluttered-feeling?

I do notice that the Account dropdown adds a new scrollbar which makes things like the t logo and badges jump to the left. That can be a bit disorienting.

TumblrMart/Get a Domain

The Get a Domain menu item is fine, but TumblrMart feels like it needs some love. On a new refresh, clicking the icon loads for a total six seconds before the mart pops up. By this point, if I wasn't intentionally testing, I would have just moved on. Again, I also just don't like pop-ups like this. Feels loosey. Much prefer the full-spread domain page you get.

Create

This is maybe my least favorite change. Every time I switch to my Tumblr tab, I see it in the bottom left and think it's the "Where were we?" button. When I do want to create a post, it feels like I have to travel far to get to the button, and then I have to travel again when the dots come up to select what type of post I'm making.

I wonder if just tucking it at the bottom of the menu under "Get a domain" would be better? Or at the top of the menu? Not sure. I feel in my jellies there's a better spot for this one.

On Twitter

If I can address the most frequent criticism I see on this site, which is that @staff are trying hard to "ruin" Tumblr by "turning it into Twitter," I understand that gut reaction.

But I'd encourage folks to think about that for a minute. UIs change, and a left-aligned nav is extremely common for a reason. Since the dawn of email, menu navigation has been relegated to a left sidebar. Twitter is not "burning to the ground" because their nav bar was on the left. Having a left sidebar means literally nothing in the grand scheme of what makes a website what it is.

What, truly, has this nav update changed? It does not change the functionality of the site at its core at all. It doesn't change what you can post, how you can post, what content you find, reblogs, or tags. For a site that struggles with new users "getting" the site and finding their way around, this nav change makes it much easier to settle in with something a bit more ubiquitous to the modern browser-viewing experience.

Thus leading me to believe the only reason people hate on this change so vehemently is they don't want to see new users or any effort at all to attract them at all, and I think that's exclusionary crap. Knock it off.

Change is Scary!

That said, the change is scary! Having your muscle memory interrupted isn't fun and can take a while to get used to. Every change has a growing period. I get that. For me, I got over that period fairly fast, but I recognize this process is different for everyone, especially those who have been around here for a lot longer than I have.

The change is also open for valid criticism. There are usability and likely accessibility concerns for sure. Staff needs time to iterate, and they need to know what problems are actually worth fixing and addressing. "I hate it turn it back" doesn't help anyone - it doesn't help Staff, and it doesn't help new users who are trying find a new place on the internet to call home after *shakes fist at the rest of the internet.*

I really like this change as a starting point, and I can't wait to see it iterated on further.

And on a small end note, if you also have thoughts and opinions that you want to tell Staff, please, please, please remember there are other human beings on the other end of line.

[miagwynwrites]

Henlo tis I @emeraldbabygirl! I’ve decided to make a blog just for my writing as I feel like my main blog is becoming a bit too messy and tbh my brother found my masterlist and I was so embarrassed so I’m making a new blog.

Hopefully this introduction won’t be too much but I did want to say that my main blog is the tagged above incase anyone sees a familiar fic floating around and thinks I stole it. So far I’m not sure if I’ll actually rewrite my fics and post them here or if I want to just reblog my older fics to this blog. However I will be writing all new fics on this blog from now on.

Another thing that I might do is reblog other fics I like on this blog too instead of my main but I’m not exactly sure if I will do that or if this blog with only be for my own writing.

I’ve been wanting to make this introduction post for a bit but I was still thinking of how I want to run this blog and what info I want to give out in my introduction. I would love to make this blog pretty though as I’ve seen a lot of writing blogs, especially my favorite ones use cute emojis and cute fonts and setups and gifs and things and I really want my blog to be aesthetically pleasing and not an eyesore. So far this introduction is doing just that but I don’t know how to make it all fancy and things so any tips and tricks are greatly appreciated! I just want one blog that I really like and think is pretty as my main blog is super messy and my others aren’t as pleasing to the eye.

So far not a lot is set in stone as far as who and what I write for. I am however not taking requests because I really suck and getting fics written and posted and I don’t want people to get impatient with me if their requests aren’t out soon. This being said, in the past I have freely written fics for my friends on my own time but those were not requests I just wanted to make something for my friends. Right now I’m writing for kpop idols mostly but I do want to write for jpop idols and thai idols and I have written some ideas for non kpop idols. I think it will just depend on what I’m into at the time. Maybe I’ll write for anime characters I’m not sure. As far as which idols again it depends on my mood and who I actually want to write for. You might see a lot of VAV and E’last and I do want to write more for those groups but it all just depends on how I feel and what I’m into at the time. Also IMPORTANT! I mostly write nsfw and some slightly darker themes so just be aware and I will be using better descriptions and making use of the content tags to help as well but just a warning this blog won’t be all fluffy and happy.

My masterlist won’t be up for awhile as I’m really going to rewrite it and make it fit this blog better I suppose. Also please don’t expect new fics until after I get my old fics and my new masterlist up and running. I might not be on this blog often but just know that I’ll be working behind the scenes trying to fix and improve my fics for this blog. If you are interested in my works you can always read them on my main @emeraldbabygirl they are all still up. I’m debating whether I want to delete them from my main blog or not, I’ll need a lot of time to think and prepare.

With small things like emojis and maybe anons because I’m thinking about allowing asks on this blog I’m just not sure how I want to go about it. Same for my tagging system. It’s going to be a bumpy ride in the beginning but I hope with some help and a lot of hard work I can get things to smooth over. Sorry if this intro is too long but I wanted to get all my thoughts out and share what this blog will be about. I’m already dreading the rebuild of my masterlist but I will do a little bit at a time and hopefully she’ll appear here. 🦬

[shellxrls]

hiiii!

I'm starting a blog and have no idea what to do lol, and since I love your blog aesthetic i was wondering if you have any tips??? (sorry if this is overstepping lol, ignore this if it is)

-🌻

hey!!

it’s not overstepping at all i love questions like this. so for me, it was a lot about finding an aesthetic i like and going off that. there’s a lot of ways in which you can do this:

- i recommend going on pinterest and trying to create a moodboard to fit the aesthetic you want for your blog, its a good way to plan & envision and it can help if you want to add images to your blog later.

- for headers/borders/banners you can search up ‘[colour/design] headers’ in either pinterest or tumblr. tumblr has some great and rlly creative banners if you’re looking for something with patterns or more intricate, and pinterest is good if you’re just looking for a certain colour or a very specific image.

- for symbols of any sort, you can just look up ‘symbols’ on google and browse through the websites, maybe make a list of those you think match the aesthetic you want to portray, and later use them when doing bullet points or any formatting.

- if you want to implement emojis in your blog, try to create a list of emojis that all resonate with a certain aesthetic or even colour so you can refer back to that list later.

- try to learn how to work with tumblr and its formatting - i won’t explain all of it here bc it’s a lot, so maybe look up some faq on google. once you’ve learned how to manipulate it you can start implementing more complicated format choices. for example, you can make things bold, you can choose specific colours or even gradients, you can even change fonts and make something smaller or indented. there’s basically a ton you can do even just in-app, and it’s all very helpful

for general knowledge:

- tagging is super important, if you want to get any reach at all you need to make sure to tag all your posts.

- try to make your page as user-friendly as possible. make sure everything is laid out neatly & easily to find, and people won’t get confused going through your blog. you can do this by adding links to different pages, organising certain posts by certain tags, and etc.

- tumblr’s algorithm runs off the basis of reblogs, not likes, so do everyone a favour and don’t only like posts - reblogging keeps posts alive and boosts them to a larger audience.

i hope all of this was helpful, do let me know if you have any other questions and good luck in starting your blog!!

[cryingoverspilledmilks-blog]

Kismet

Fandom: The Glass Scientists

Current rating: T

Chapter: 1

Title: Fugue

A/N: This fic is sort of a canon-divergent, wish-fulfillment drabble piece that started as a lot of different fics i wrote that i discovered had scenes that would fit better together as a single fic, and so i took snippets from those and stuck them together and whittled the whole mess down into something more manageable. Lots of late night editing sessions for something I'm doing for free, but I was motivated to finish this by someone being so very enthusiastic in the tags on the WIP excerpts I posted, which was honestly such a delight to wake up to. Thank you so much btw @greedycanine I really appreciate that boost and I hope I meet your expectations in the full chapters :)

The comic has updated several times since I began writing this, and I did add some non-canon elements (for instance, that Lanyon Knows, which is a common enough trope in this fandom and one that I enjoy immensely.)

The flaws in this one might not be as glaring as my over-anxious mind anticipates, but if you notice them, I probably have too. It is likely best read as a self-contained hypothetical with hints of canon plot woven in. It's a bit messy, but I think it may be enjoyable nonetheless.

Here is the first part of this great beast. It consists mostly of a conversation, beginning with some emblematic Jekyll and Hyde mirror-bickering. I thought it would be interesting to explore one of those moments where Hyde has something insightful to say, even if it's something of a means to an end for him.

The font changes are something of a fanfic guilty pleasure for me, but they're also a tool I love to use to show who's speaking and how, without necessarily using a dialogue tag every other line, especially when we have two characters who have the ability to communicate both in ways only they can hear and in ways others can.

Hope all of that works for y'all. Happy reading :)

Chapter 1: Fugue

“Are you ready to let me back out yet? Believe it or not, hanging over your shoulder all day does get old.”

"Not now."

“Why not?”

"I don’t want you getting involved in this. We've just made it through into the thickest of this whole ordeal. There’s still too much at stake."

“Ugh. That’s how you see every situation you can’t directly micromanage. It’s like the whole of your world is always resting oh-so-precariously on the head of a pin, ready to be upset by the slightest deviation from your expectations. Lighten up just this once, won't you?"

Henry sighed heavily at that and slid his finished page to the far side of the desk, thinking better of his initial impulse to reply. Pulling a fresh sheet of paper into view and dipping his pen into the inkwell again, he continued to write, attempting to ignore the familiar but currently disembodied speaker.

“Don’t act like you can’t hear me all of a sudden," the voice grumbled impatiently.  "You know, I’ve noticed something lately, Henry. You always insist on framing our situation as though you’re the most responsible party between the two of us, but you never seem to have any really substantial backup plans on hand, in case those delicate matters you like fussing over so much go awry. You never give yourself a real margin of error, despite the fact you're always angsting over what could go wrong.”

Ink pooled slightly on the page under Henry’s pen as he paused, scoffing at the insinuation that he’d been anything but diligent. “And you do?” he prodded back sarcastically, speaking aloud this time, his voice firm but quiet. He was rather aware of precisely how audible he was behind his office door. It was more risky to communicate this way, but he seemed to have an easier time filtering himself when he wasn’t trying to speak internally, and that was important when he was dealing with his incorporeal counterpart.

The lengthy mirror standing off to one side drew his eye when he heard the reply.

“Oh, I always figure something out, one way or another. Surely you know that better than anyone.” 

Henry rolled his eyes at the hazy silhouette that suddenly could be glimpsed in the mirror’s reflection of the opposite wall. “Abandoning every situation that doesn’t go your way and playing hopscotch all over the city’s rooftops is not a backup plan,” he muttered bitterly, composing the end of a follow-up letter for a prospective sponsor before setting the page aside to let the ink dry.

“It can be, if you’re clever enough," the shadow replied. "Also, you're one to talk about giving up easy. Just a few weeks ago I watched you nearly forfeit your whole operation just because Lanyon told you he didn't think things looked sound after you passed out mid-speech. Face it, you’re all or nothing when it comes to solving problems. What is that about?”

Another exasperated sigh as Henry spared another glance at the shadow in the mirror. "Can we not do this right now? You only ask these questions because you already know what gets under my skin. You don't really care about the answers, do you?"

When the shadow spoke next, it was with a mockery of a hurt tone, the dark shape leaning back slightly. A silhouetted hand rested against an approximation of the chest, in a gesture best described as theatrically wounded.

"Why, you insult me, dear doctor. I'm only curious, for both of our sakes, being as close as we are," came the snidely-sweet reply.

Henry narrowed his eyes. “Do you honestly expect I could believe you truly care about what happens to me? After all you've put me through? You take such joy in my misfortune. Really, you can drop the saccharine nonsense, Hyde."

Letting the name slip from his mouth was a mistake, but wouldn’t be costly this time since they were alone- and he only uttered it the one time, Henry reasoned quickly. It was mostly to try to quell the dread in his stomach at the prospect of someone in the hall happening by as he said it out loud, in an otherwise perceptibly empty room.

Hyde vanished from the glass, only to reappear, more thoroughly illuminated, in the empty air near the desk, looking slightly more like a person than an apparition now, as well as irritated.

“I’m trying to tell you that you might actually benefit from trying things my way. Be a little more spontaneous. Roll over the bumps in the road, instead of just counting on things going the right way the first time, every time. It was funny to watch you flounder at first, I must admit, but honestly it's just getting old. I wonder what would happen if you switched things up and proved me right," he paused briefly, noting Henry's contemplative expression.

"And another thing!" Hyde exclaimed, pointing at the ceiling for emphasis. "You told me you'd let me out after the exhibition, then not at all, and now here you are again running yourself uselessly into the ground. The bourgeois types you find yourself groveling to yet again are notoriously hard to satisfy. Why should you have to rush if they already know what you and the others are capable of?"

Stretching a little as Hyde went on, Henry stopped a moment and glanced out the window with a pensive look in his eye.

“That's one of the few times you’ve been right about something, amongst all those snide remarks.”

“Hey!” Hyde sounded affronted at first, then did an almost comical double-take. "Wait, you agree with me?"

“I can certainly see what you mean, even if I can't abide by that advice in the same way you might,” Henry began. “We need everyone's projects to come together smoothly if we're to maintain what good standing we've managed to acquire with our sponsors. They have high hopes and even higher expectations after the splash everyone made at the exhibition. We would need to plan for every eventuality within reach of what we set out to do, but… I do miss things while trying to account for the unexpected, don’t I? Always, something unforeseen gets in my way.” Henry turned in his seat and reached into the cabinet above, pulling out a leather-bound notebook tucked behind a row of vials. Flipping to the first clean page, he dipped his pen into the inkwell once more. "Somehow the fact you managed to worm your way back to the front of our mind to pester me once again is not one such surprise.."

Hyde furrowed his brow in displeasure, rolling his eyes at Henry's little jab. “Of course it isn't. Did you really think I could be held down so easily? You made it harder for me to take over the body on my own, but I'm still here." he paused for a moment. "How long is this going to take?" 

“Not quite as long as you seem to be concerned about. I just have to jot down some…alternatives so I remember them while the subject is fresh,” Henry spoke mildly, but his expression was disgruntled and contemplative.

Hyde rolled his eyes, and did not look at Henry's page, whose looping, slanted script looked far too dull for him to devote attention to at this hour, restless and bitter as he was.

Henry went on, "I'm still upset about that stunt you pulled on the stage, but I'm certain you figured that out already. It was cruel even by your usual standards."

“Cruelty is the very thing I'm made for, but now that you mention it, I actually did you a favor by dragging you down into the dark and the quiet," Hyde spat."You're just addicted to working until you pass out. It's a real fuckin' problem."

As he grew more impatient, the East-London drawl that Hyde had picked up since his creation was seeping further into his inflections. Beneath that, there was a slight but distinct lilt which gestured toward shared memories of Glasgow, making an uncommon cocktail of tones that were unmistakably signature to him. Like so many things about Hyde, Henry noticed, it produced a quality both familiar and foreign. It was, fittingly enough, a faintly haunting thing to witness, a reminder of just how right Hyde always was about the extent of their connection.

Henry squinted his eyes shut as if to abandon that train of thought, trying to remain bearably numb to the reality of being forever stuck arguing with a living distillate of the most confusing parts of himself. “If I'm doomed to be addicted to anything at all, as you say I am, I'd much rather it be something useful,” Henry replied coldly after a moment, the page under his pen nearly full.

Hyde paused, nose wrinkled in defensive chagrin. "I don't concern myself with counting the ways I can be used by others. At least my addictions don't rely on people telling me what to do," he muttered. "Are you done yet?"

Henry shook his head in stiff silence, much to Hyde’s dismay. He gave a frustrated groan. “You can pick this up tomorrow! It’s getting close to evening by now, and you always take so much longer with these things than you say you will."

Once the page was dry and flipped over, there was no reply but the continued, now noticeably forceful scratching of Henry’s pen. His brow was creased with irritation, a deepening frown on his face. 

Hyde growled in frustration. “Jekyll!”

Henry grit his teeth, snapping a look over at Hyde that was a mixture of anger and anxiety. "Must you be so childish?! Don't think I don't know what you're doing by now, I am not as much of a fool as you seem to think. Why should I go out of my way to let you out again, when you have proven time and time again that you don't know how to keep your excursions from ruining everything I strive for?"

He could not stop the impatient edge from entering his voice, as much as he'd wanted to avoid raising it tonight. As he spoke, Hyde's features twisted into a mask of indignation and rage.

"You don't know the first thing about ruin! Try being in my position for a change- less than nothing, a ghost of a ghost! And for what? You have no idea how lucky you really are. My entire existence is eaten up by watching another man live a life I could do so much more with if I was given the chance!"

Jekyll shut the notebook with a forceful swipe of his hand down against the desk, eyes downcast. "I would love to see you try living my life for once," he replied flatly, "If perhaps you weren't so preoccupied with immediate gratification, maybe I'd even trust you with making an attempt."

"Perhaps if we had any more of that potion of ours made, I would be able to seriously debate if I wanted to take you up on that. But I am mostly stranded now, and it isn't my fault I wound up that way. You're the one who made that call." Hyde shot back, moving phantom-like toward the doorway that led to the other portion of the office, where many of their experiments had taken place. 

Jekyll tucked the notebook into a drawer under his desk, slamming it closed in irritation. "Not your fault? I had to destroy it. You would have found some way to get your hands on it when I was needed most, because that is what you always do! You didn't give me another choice!"

Hyde's image distorted slightly for a moment, like smeared paint on canvas, before resolving itself, as if reacting physically to emotion. "There is always another choice! This is what I'm talking about. All or nothing. We are two parts of a whole, you know that. Or, at least you ought to by now."

His voice, as well, seemed faintly doubled, the translation of a will to be heard. "You need me around, you know you do, even if you can't admit it. How many times have you watched me indulge in what you couldn't? How many times have you deliberately sent me into the world to voice the thoughts you must otherwise claim to revile? How much benefit have you reaped from our cooperation? You can't keep me locked away forever. You will always need the outlet I provide."

Jekyll's head began to ache a bit the longer he considered Hyde's point. It was true, he knew, that he found a secret kind of fulfillment in watching things he could never partake in play out vicariously from behind Hyde's eyes. This was a fault, really, or at least he thought so. However, a fault that he had not managed to shake off, for the better part of fifteen years. It would take a lot of willpower to break a habit like that after so long. That was partly why he had destroyed the potion to begin with. He knew Hyde was probably right, that he was not really strong enough to resist the temptation of such freedom.

Technically, the potion could be recreated if it was necessary, though it was always an arduous process. They had needed to do that many times over a decade and a half. But Jekyll had cut himself off from that last ready-made batch as a last desperate bid for control, and had thought never to make it again.

Thinking about how much work still needed to be done before the lodgers' new project deadlines was a miserable uphill battle. Even now, deep down, he wanted to be somewhere else tonight, doing anything besides wearing himself out, cooped up in the office for the umpteenth time. Acknowledging that, even privately, felt like a betrayal of a higher caliber than even Hyde's, but the thought persisted even still.

He sighed. "Well...be that as it may, you are still an enormous liability. And, besides which- what do you even want me to do? What remained of that batch of the potion is gone now."

Hyde paused, and his expression shifted, from anger to mild disbelief, and finally into a smug, cheshire smile. "Well, I have been thinking about that, and I realized- it's not all gone," he moved toward the tall, solid wooden cabinet against the far wall of the office. It was the one Jekyll kept things that were risky to have visible behind glass (copies of the will written in his name, for instance.) It was also, Jekyll realized with dawning horror, where Hyde kept his physical set of clothing tucked away when Jekyll was in control. 

Among them was a tattered overcoat, with two stolen vials of HJ-7 tucked into the inside pocket.

Enough for exactly one last night on the town before the potion would have to be remade entirely. A final obstacle in the way of true control. A pacifying bargaining chip to buy himself more time before the pair of them would argue like this again.

Hyde seemed to recognize the way Jekyll's eyes shifted in thinly-concealed conflict, bordering on panic, and if it was possible, his grin widened.

"You remember the night I went to Blackfog, don't you, Jekyll?"

[lockejhaven]

I posted 1,444 times in 2022

That's 1,359 more posts than 2021!

202 posts created (14%)

1,242 posts reblogged (86%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@lockejhaven

@365runesofwriting

@midnight-and-his-melodiverse

@queerlilchinchin

@enchanted-lightning-aes

I tagged 1,337 of my posts in 2022

Only 7% of my posts had no tags

#0 - 67 posts

#other writers - 184 posts

#answers - 115 posts

#others' writing - 98 posts

#locket rambles - 96 posts

#lockejhaven - 89 posts

#others writing - 84 posts

#resources - 84 posts

#inspo - 71 posts

#boop - 70 posts

Longest Tag: 69 characters

#feel free to confront me directly so i can fix what my brain has done

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

»»—————————-　𓆩❤︎𓆪　—————————-««

rage of the kindhearted is an astounding tragedy.

it commands a silence, a long-awaited recognition from those that mistake it for weakness.

it condemns such broken judgement, that swallows respect as if unconditional, and consumes patience as if infinite.

it pounces at throats laid bare, long past a futile snarl of warning, chest aching with inconsolable defeat.

and above all else, rage of the kindhearted is an imminent ending.

»»—————————-　𓆩❤︎𓆪　—————————-««

~ Of Fables & Feathers,

🕊️ Locke J. Haven

locket’s tags:  ╔═════════════════════╗

@365runesofwriting@enchanted-lightning-aes@thepixiediaries@midnight-and-his-melodiverse@perasperaadastrawriting@fearofahumanplanet@orphicpoieses@thepoetpromptsociety[ your tag could be here... ]

╚═════════════════════╝

35 notes - Posted August 29, 2022

#4

“I never stood a chance, did I?”

“That, my love, is the tragedy of it all. Once, you did.” Spirit crouches down beside Warlock, listening to their rasping breaths. Her empathy is empty. Her words drip with hollow meaning.  “When you stood by my side; when you understood the joy and worth of the world, you had as many chances as you could have wanted. Instead, you just had to follow your destiny.”

Warlock laughs. A brittle sound, dragging and clawing its way up their smoke-scorched throat. “There is no chance with people like you. People too caught up in their own definitions of right and wrong. While you kill those that may threaten the peace, I stand alone for the innocent.” They break off into a coughing fit before determination spurs them to continue, “That truth will follow you. It will settle at the bottom of your stomach, until one day, you will find yourself overcome with the burden of your actions.”

--

locket's tags:   @365runesofwriting  @enchanted-lightning-aes  @thepixiediaries  @midnight-and-his-melodiverse  @perasperaadastrawriting @fearofahumanplanet

44 notes - Posted September 17, 2022

#3

↪ 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚖𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝 + 𝚜𝚑𝚎𝚎𝚝 --- a notion template

»»—————————-　𓆩❤︎𓆪　—————————-««

Hello, my sprites!

I've been super busy lately with organizing my characters, and as I was working, I had the idea to make a notion template based on my own masterlist. The template includes a general masterlist page and a character sheet template. There are two versions available with different fonts for legibility vs. aesthetic.

Please reblog if you use this!

VERSION 01 Default

See the full post

67 notes - Posted October 19, 2022

#2

a writeblr masterlist

Hello hello! I've made a masterlist for aaaalll of tumblrs writers to apply to! All are welcome; simply fill out the form, and I'll add you!

Please make sure that... - the icon you link is 200px by 200px - your description is as short as possible - you have only linked one blog for the masterlist

the form // the masterlist

91 notes - Posted September 2, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

PSA

Tumblr is struggling right now.

I know a lot of veteran users are a bit nervous; that we'll lose the one 'typical internet hellsite' to the 'capitalist hell' that has taken over most other popular media sites.

But that is exactly why it is INCREDIBLY important to educate the new users, and not just, try to scare them off. Education is the biggest way to gain allies and keep the site as we like it.

The site with blogs based on creativity; on stories. On art and writing and music, and NOT advertisement and force-fed content lacking critical thinking.

It's going to take a lot of energy, I know. And it's a serious pain in the ass that this has happened during NANO, of all times. But if we want to keep our safe space, it's necessary.

So if you see a user follow you, and they have nothing to their blog, give them the benefit of the doubt. Tell them about how NOT to look like a bot, and direct them to some tumblr guides.

Educate users on why we like this site, and what we can do to keep the freedom we have. And why that freedom is a good thing.

Our strongest defense is education.

Please, please reblog this, along with any and all guides you find. Share resources on other platforms. Send them to your non-tumblr friends.

899 notes - Posted November 7, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[chrisevansluv]

LSA and their narcissism and total lack of self awareness... they're out for you & your blog because they couldn't find out where chris is (they even posted a pic of an AC appliance for reference). They started the day claiming you run a private thread over there and are kicking out ppl (how many threads do they need to NOT figure out anything about Chris's life?? Lol 70?? ) & Now they're claiming you're nuts bc you posted what an anon sent you about a dance school. Carly has given interviews about the theater scene in MA btw the resident troll over there mila / mute harassed his nephews, tagged them in comments calling CE a pedo. She used what they posted about Tara's ig, the follows, the like abd she made a video about it and is still bullying family members and friends. We all know you're bored, lsa aunties, because you can't bully CE's gf in case he has one but learn that you're the ones who need to go and STFU

PS- give no fucks about them and keep on being like this. A normal person

Other anons:

"Yup, for some weird reason they seem to love talking shit about me. Good for them// I really hope that you do not pay attention to this, because this is nonsense. You have a wonderful blog and you have the right to publish whatever you see fit. And they definitely need to first look at themselves and study their own publications full of shit. The problem is clearly not in your blog ❤️"

"It's hilarious that LSA is judging anyone. They are the worst at conspiracy theory shit and all the reaching they do on a regular basis. It's their fault that most of these rumours go on forever. Unbelievable that they would preach the moral high ground here."

"Sorry but stalking his family that hard that you know where Ethan and Stella are and in which dance school is just way too much…// And sorry mod but actually posting about it was not cool. It’s not one’s business. These are people living there normal life.😔"

***

Honestly, I know I shouldn't have posted that ask in the first place. When I got it, I was debating on whether to post it or not, and ended up posting it because it was answering to something else another anon was saying (and thought that by blocking details and key words nobody, or at least not as much people, would be able to tell where it was).

I also know some fonts on RT just used this as an excuse to jump at my throat and have a field time (when they know they've done way worse shit). As if they genuinely gave a shit about privacy, boundaries and his family after everything they've done and said the past months. They can go and argue with the wall or go spill their theories and hatred to one another.

*Tbh I don't even check those threads myself, because I know what a toxic place it was back in 2020 (and I'm not really curious on whether it got better or worse). I don't really care.

[twistedyapping]

my relationship with tumblr

i feel like i should do a yapping session bc i havent in a while and this topic keeps popping up in my brain so im gonna take u thru a journey of what my relationship with tumblr has been like for the last. Eons.

to start, right now i fucking love tumblr so much- i have genuinely never enjoyed posting on an app more and like don't get me wrong im sure this one has its issues, as does every social media app, but this one to me is at least the most tolerable.

my relationship with ig is mid at best, i like it but it's kinda lame and posting on it???? Bro i post like MAYBE once a year at best.

my relationship with twitter is pure hate and also non-existent bc i got so sick and tired of it that i caved and uninstalled it like a month or so ago and haven't wanted to go back on it since.

my relationship with tiktok is also mid at best, posting is closer to a chore tbh even though i dont do it regularly at all- i also get stressed trying to keep up with reach and stuff so i kinda just dont 😵‍💫

my relationship with facebook is non-existent.

my relationship with pinterest??? God bless that app but i dont post on it- i just go there for editing content and silly content, that's it.

This app tho??? God bless. I barely even scroll on it- i mostly come here to post, which makes it the only one of it's kind on my phone (90% posting, 10% scrolling)

but when i do scroll on it, it's so refreshing- i just see pretty space pics and stuff bc that's what i wanna see. i dont see argument after argument or cancellable offense after cancellable offence like on twitter, i dont see lame stupid stuff that im not interested in like on ig, and i dont get over/understimulated out of my mind like on tiktok.

However! This was not always the case for me with tumblr. in fact, it used to be quite the opposite!!!!

i used to hate tumblr with every fiber of my being- if i ever came to it, it was out of desperation. desperation for silly content (which funnily enough is kinda what drove me back to it after all these years)

it was overcomplicated, i hated the vibe of everything i saw, i hated how public it felt, etc- But ofc this was way back when i had a horrifically foggy head on my shoulders and barely knew who i was so 😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨

it felt claustrophobic for me back then, like literally somehow- and now it feels very comfy and i love the idea of just sitting down and writing a post on astrology or posting my image edits or even my fallout photography or sumn-

it just feels like the perfect place for me somehow- Like i can write abt whatever, write abt astrology, post photography, post edits, look at space stuff, whatever!!! it makes me feel more like an artist bc it gives me a space to do everything i wanna do

and omg dont even get me STARTED on the customization for each blog u can have BROOOOOOOOOO that's literally my favorite part- i fucking LOVE changing my whole blog's vibe down to the FONT dude it genuinely makes me so happy 😭😭😭😭😭

and who knows!!!! i might even end up with another blog at some point for like writing short stories or something bc i do love doing that- definitely wouldn't fit in with this yapping blog tho But another blog means another one to customize!!!! Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳

and my posts on here- well not so much on this blog tbh i think i havent found the right tags yet But on my other 2, my posts actually do pretty well, especially the astrology one- and it's such a switch from ig's shitty algorithm and tiktok's inconsistency-

this one is actually like. Kind of consistent. and it makes me feel like im doing something right by posting here tbh and probably even if my posts did ass, i would still make them- bc like. It's fun. 😮‍💨

anyway ya that's abt it- i wanted to do a yapping session before bed yknow- this one's a little shorter than most But that's ok 🥳🥳

- 🌙 -