#i have so many blorbos i should write about somewhere

[blitzwave]

"oooooo I wanna talk about my characters so badd" <- never actually talks abt them bc Bad at Conversation

[sparky-is-spiders]

Hi! I’m here suffering from lack of good Archivist!Sasha content as well 😭 On that note, do you have any fic on that topic you would recommend? Or just good Sasha fics in general, (or Jonsasha, if that’s your cup of tea)? Thank you in advance 😊

Tragically, I think there is a general dearth of good Archivist!Sasha content (and just about none of it Jonsasha content, as far as I can tell (and not only is Jonsasha my cup of tea, but the ONLY thing standing between it and the #1 OTP spot (currently occupied by JE) is the fact that the Jonsasha that I desperately crave exists in my brain and nowhere else)). Admittedly, I haven't looked very far into her tag yet (I should rectify that at some point tbh) but I've dug around the Jonsasha tag when I first got into it, and I know at least one fic where Sasha drifts towards Beholding through an interest in office gossip.

In terms of Jonsasha Ao3 has:

This very good Sasha lives fic where Jon shows up to Georgie's with an unconscious Sasha and everyone involved is very confused.

These two fics are cute also. The former is by @/suttttton and is them getting together, the latter is established Jonsasha from @/dickwheelie.

Eyevatar Sasha might actually be thinner on the ground (outside of fix-its where she solves everything and her canon reckless curiosity is completely ignored). Ao3 has:

This fic, which is Jongerry with outsider PoV Sasha. Just barely has the implication that she might be shifting towards the Eye (via prying into the lives of her coworkers) but gets a mention through sheer force of Excellent Sasha Characterization. I read this and I feel like I'm reading a fic from a Sasha Understander.

There's also this fic, which looks very promising but which I haven't actually gotten the chance to read yet, so I can't speak to its quality.

Unfortunately I've only gotten into Sasha fairly recently (especially as compared to Jon, who my brain latched onto in a deathgrip from the start), so I haven't gone through her tag yet. A scroll through the Archivist!Sasha or Beholding Avatar!Sasha tags pulls up a lot of fix-it and J//mart, which isn't really what I'm looking for from the concept. I'm sure there's more out there, and if/when I find them I'll come back to this ask probably, but I lucked into Reverse Nighthawks (I was on a Jongerry kick).

But god every day I wish that I could write romance and/or longfic, because about a year ago I read a Jonmichael fic that, when discussing alternate universes (where Jon ended the world) it's revealed that he once did an apocalypse out of love for his Archivist, Sasha James. And it was one (1) single line, but it struck me so hard because god. A perfect concept I think. The potential dynamics of Archivist!Sasha/Assistant!Jon are enthralling to me. Jon destroying the world (or helping her destroy the world? Cute date night I think: bringing about armageddon with your eldritch monster partner) for Sasha... anyway mostly I mentioned that one because My God if I have to live with that tantalizing AU rotating in the background of my mind 24/7 so do the rest of you.

[mushr00mfriend]

hi!! i have a question about how you have the motivation to write? ive been trying to write my own slenderverse fic and sometimes i just find myself feeling so discouraged because the fandom isnt as active anymore, and i was wondering if youve ever felt that way and how you actively get the motivation to write?

Hello! This is a fantastic question; I'm going to preface my answer by saying that this is my own outlook/opinion as well as mindset, and that it may not work for everyone. Take what you need and leave what you don't.

(also, this got incredibly long. If there's anything I love to do, it's ramble- thus, a readmore)

For direct motivation, here's a few things I do to get in the groove:

- Chapter summaries. Write a paragraph (4-6 sentences) about what you want to see happen in a chapter. Character interactions, thematic elements, foreshadowing, plot movement, etc. Don't go over a paragraph, however, or you'll end up feeling like you've already written it without, you know, writing it. If there's something tasty, reference it rather than write it all out. You'll remember it each time you read the reference and it'll make you want to get it out in its entirety.

- Bounce around. Write some of the first chapter, some of the twentieth. Finish the sixth before the fourth. Don't feel like you have to write it in the order it's gonna be read in; you have all the power as the author to do whatever you want. If you want to write the ending before you've even got the beginning penned, do it.

- Make a list of 'delicious scenes'. These are scenes that are incredibly vivid in your mind, the ones that you really really want to see in your story. Write them down and think about them often. When you feel de-motivated, start on them. 

- In that vein, daydream about what's not being shown in a chapter, or imagine the characters in different situations. They're blorbo from your shows!! Play with them like dolls!! Make em kiss!

- Keep a project on the backburner. When I feel like I don't want to write for one project, I turn to another and work on that one for a bit instead. It keeps me from burning out entirely, but also keeps me writing, which is the most important thing.

You are correct in saying that the fandom isn't super active anymore. It was already simmering down when I had been working through the legacy draft of Delirium, and compared to the monolith it had once been, the community can seem nonexistent in this day and age. I definitely can relate to the discouragement you're feeling - I felt it all the way up until I was just under three-quarters of the way through Delirium, when there were enough consistent readers that I felt I had finally gotten somewhere, carved out my little niche of a community. Looking at the numbers now, you probably wouldn't believe that I suffered a lot with discouragement and de-motivation...

But I did, especially because I tied my self-worth and confidence in my story to how many views and comments it got. I still feel this, especially with other projects, and especially especially if they don't stack up to Delirium. If I were in the same mindset I was at the beginning, I'd even wonder if making Delusion was really a thing I should do, because there's definitely readers who won't be interested in it anymore.

But the thing is, I'm not making it for the readers. I'm making it for me. 

Delirium started out as an homage to the Creepypasta fics I read as a teen, and somewhere along the way became a way for me to vent my frustrations and trauma regarding my personal experiences with the fandom. The most important part of the story is why you're writing it- what are you trying to say? What are you trying to impart? Who are you trying to reach, and what are you trying to tell them?

You have to sit with yourself, and with the concept of the story in your head, and you have to know that you can't make it for anyone but yourself, because you are the most important part of it. You, your feelings about the setting, the characters, the themes and motifs. Your personal reflection of the situations, opinions about the arcs and plot. And yeah, not everyone will vibe with it, but making yourself palatable to everyone will make your work tasteless and unsatisfying. Even if you write for yourself, there will be other's who appreciate it. I promise. The Creepypasta community is diminished, but not gone. Take a scroll through the tags, follow a bunch of creators. There's still people drawing, people writing, and people reading. Your dash will fill up with others who still like it.

If there's one thing I can say right now, if there's one thing you take away from my words, it's that there isn't a number that will make you feel fulfilled. I promise you that the mental ceiling will only increase. You will not find a love for the story in the views, in the favourites, nor in the comments. You need to love the story first- you need to believe in it first. No one else can write the story you want to tell, and no one can write it the way you will.

I'd also say sit with it for a looooooong while. Like, figure out how it ends, find the major plot beats, bullet point the snippets you really want to see, write it halfway, sit on that for a month, then reread and edit it. Delirium is- I just checked it, over eight years in the making, including that legacy draft (which was more of a false start, if anything). You don't necessarily have to take that long- I'm just slow- but make sure you have 80% of it figured out before you go on and post it. If there's anything that kills motivation, it's internalized deadlines when you have no backlog to fall back on. Several of the months-long hiatus' between chapters were because of this. It's also the reason why Delusion isn't being published until next year.

Anyway, this got ramble-y, but I also want you to know that you got this!! I believe in you!! And if/when you ever publish it, please give me a link, I'd love to read it :]

[coquelicoq]

it's interesting, a few people on my post yesterday about the dandelion dynasty told me they were taking it as a rec for the series, but i didn't actually recommend the series in that post. it's making me think about whether i would rec it to people, a question i hadn't fully considered yet (as it is a very different question from "do i like this book?"). so this is me figuring out the answer to that question. i'll keep it spoiler-free (though i make no promises on brevity).

i just finished book 3 (of 4) and each installment has left me more invested than i was before, but the series started out very slow, and i didn't really get into it until halfway through book 2. i wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people bounce off the first book; i didn't, but only because 1) i almost never give up on a book that i've started (it's a character flaw of mine 😕) and 2) my trust in ken liu is ridiculously high because the other stuff i've read by him is so beloved to me. so my reaction to feeling kind of meh about book 1 was "okay, let's see where he's going with this" rather than "i guess this just isn't my cup of tea."

i should say that the problem might just be my own ignorance/lack of familiarity with the form. i don't read a lot of epic fantasy - in fact, lord of the rings is the one series that i have given up on reading a couple of times because it just left me totally indifferent. so if you like epics, you are starting out way ahead of me and can maybe just ignore the rest of this post lol, but i think i had to adjust to what the form is asking of me and what it's best suited to accomplish before i could get fully on board.

the main thing i struggled with is the writing, like the actual sentence-level mechanics of voice and style. this surprised me, because i usually find his writing very beautiful, or, when not beautiful, i can get a sense of the effect he means to achieve by employing a certain style. but in this series, the writing came across as kind of awkward and one-note to me at first, and i couldn't see a reason for it to be that way.* the dialogue especially - different characters don't really have different ways of speaking, they all feel pretty much the same. this was one of the main things i had to adjust to, but i do get it now. i don't just mean that i got used to the style and it doesn't bother me anymore, though that is true; i mean that i now understand the effect he means to achieve by employing this style, which gives it purpose and inextricably ties it to the story he's telling (this becomes especially clear in book 3, as it's directly related to a major theme of that book). if the style were different, he would be telling a different story; that's the sign of a successful execution, i think.

i said in the tags on yesterday's post that one reason the series doesn't have much of a fandom on here might be that the characters aren't natural blorbos. of course every character is probably the blorbo of somebody somewhere, but i don't know that these characters were designed to be blorbos, if that makes sense. not that they're plot devices either! every single one of them is conflicted and complicated and compelling, and most of them are followed over a period of many years, so we see them develop as people over time. but there is no protagonist, for example. you could also say that every character is a protagonist. the "list of major characters" at the beginning of book 3 is six pages long, and there are stories to be told about each of these characters, and none of them are told in isolation. but in a way, the characters themselves are not the point, or if they are, it's in aggregate - it's in the ways they're all complex, the ways they all have motivations that make sense to them (and that make sense to us, once we get to know them). and it's about power and the roles that the characters play in their society, rather than the roles the characters play in the story. or maybe those are the same thing! because ultimately, the main character of this story is the society. and the plot is the history of this society, rather than the journey or life of a single person or handful of people.**

(sidenote, there will be a period during book 1 when you will think to yourself, "wow, all the women characters are super one-dimensional and the narrative doesn't seem to respect them." this is on purpose. just keep going.)

the plotting is intricate while also feeling very organic. he's got dozens of plates in the air at once, he's maintaining them over a long period (these books are MASSIVE), and he's somehow making it seem like a real history, not like an author pulling strings. i haven't finished it yet, but my guess is that he's going to pull off a very satisfying conclusion that's at the same time very open-ended. definitely looking forward to it.

and the worldbuilding. oh, the worldbuilding. this is some of the most detailed, complex, realistic*** worldbuilding i've ever encountered, and he covers SO much ground. you want linguistic worldbuilding? you got it. philosophy? it's here. psychology of empire? coming right up. the nitty-gritty of everyday governance? buddy, pull up a chair. mechanical engineering? how much time you got?? (it better be enough time to read 3504 physical pages, because that's how long this series is.) and he's drawing on chinese history and cultural narratives rather than slapping lipstick on a tolkien clone (see his comments here, but stop reading at "In this continuation of the series" if you want to avoid spoilers). he WILL go on for a hundred pages about a single invention, but it's SO interesting that he is allowed. this is a story about how technology (including language, and schools of thought, and agriculture, and...) shapes, and is a product of, its time and place and people, so again, this is all to purpose. but it's also just. really cool.

the last thing i'll say, and this is mainly for other ken liu fans, is that one of the things i most love about his short stories is how they tap into emotions i didn't even know i had, as though they're reaching inside of me and drawing to the surface ways of experiencing consciousness and love and mortal life that i had no idea were in there. this series is not causing emotional revelation for me in the way his other stories do, which isn't a bad thing - i don't mean to say the series is not engaging or that it inspires no emotions! i just mean, iykyk. if you've read the paper menagerie and are expecting that experience, you will have a better time here if you leave those expectations at the door. i am invested in this book because it's engaging my intellect, curiosity, sense of wanting to find out what else the characters will learn and what's going to happen next...less because it's turning my heart inside out inside my chest. and like thank goodness, because i don't think i could survive four entire 900-page books' worth of that! but anyway. word to the wise.

tl;dr: yes, i recommend it, especially if you like epic fantasy. if you're a fan of ken liu's other work, this is quite different, so just know that going in!

*this opinion is of course subjective and not universally shared. for instance, see this review of book 3 (full of spoilers, so don't actually read it lol) which says "There's Liu's voice to hold onto, though — beautifully deployed here and fully in command of the language of his imaginary universe." so ymmv. maybe it's an epic fantasy thing.

**this is making me realize that the story is commenting on this very thing through a tension between bureaucracy (founded on interchangeability) and monarchy (informed by a specific personality). dude. that's so meta!

***though sometimes i'm like, "really? you scaled up that invention to use untested on the battlefield in the span of like two weeks? sure, jan." so sometimes he falls down a little on translation of ideas into logistics, but it makes for such a great story that i'll allow it.

[shinelikethunder]

Regarding your tags about Good Omens not making your brain go brrrr - it's really interesting because early on while I was watching the new season, I found myself asking, like, "Is this actually good or do I just enjoy it?" And very quickly I decided the answer was "Well, you see, I enjoy it so much."

But as a result I've been thinking a lot about how I define whether or not a story is "good" because surely that indefinable quality of Makes Brain Go Brrrrrr should figure into it somewhere. And there's the inverse phenomenon to account for, of things that are like a dead fish to the fictive libido. I think that might be even more subjective, though.

It's not that I think quality is a totally meaningless concept when assessing art, I've just been thinking I might need to make more space within my metric for things like "joy" and "energy" and "vibrates my brain like a tumble dryer". As opposed to seeing those things as incidental and trying to take my own emotional response out of the equation.

it's a factor for sure, but if SPN proves anything, it's that "vibrates my brain like a tumble dryer" can be completely orthogonal to quality and enjoyment... sometimes the vibration is from canon having a two-for-one flash sale on hate crimes and writing crimes, y'know? sometimes episodes i find genuinely excruciating make me want to dissect them like bugs. (and on the flip side, there are plenty of works i do very much love on their artistic merits and enjoy, but not in the specific way that makes me want to scream in the tags of a tumblr gifset.)

like, yeah, variants of that Roger Ebert Reviews The Mummy (1999) reaction of "i can't even say what this has to recommend it except that i enjoyed the shit out of every minute of it" do deserve space as merits in their own right, but also, for me personally at least, that Brain Go Brr quality of... investment? engagement? obsessive need to poke at it and roll around in it and rotate it on the blorbo rotisserie?... doesn't necessarily have a straightforward relationship with quality or enjoyment. see previous reblog tags re: liking nbc hannibal perfectly well the first time around, but only losing my absolute shit over it when approaching via some borderline-unreadable thomas harris nonsense that managed to sink the first hooks in. and also many previous rants about the brain-go-brr-ness of rtd's doctor who being at its height when the show was most direly in need of fixing.

all of which is kind of a digression from good omens 2, which provoked neither fandom brainrot nor any particularly strong other type of enjoyment - i was sitting there going "this is... nice i guess?" amidst an increasingly acute realization that whatever quality of the book it was that originally hooked me in, pratchett's barbed sense of humor was absolutely vital for making the silliness land for me. i wish everyone who can get in their OTP Feelings about GO2 the joy of it, and will mostly be saluting from a distance as i scroll past on the dash. it seems to have succeeded reasonably well at the things it set out to do--and it turns out those things didn't do it for me, on any of the levels i might've wanted them to. the strange nature of it all is, i'd probably have much more specific criticisms if it had grabbed me.

[blusandbirds]

zanna made me watch national treasure and all i got was riley poole as my new blorbo

@zannolin, a riley ficlet, this is ur doing

-

it’s like a math problem. if riley poole has an event that starts at 3:00 PM EST and ends at 4:00 PM EST, and riley poole has two friends who are either “working, i’m so sorry, but have fun, okay?” or just “busy,” then how many people are expected to arrive at riley’s event by 3:30 PM EST? the answer, of course, is none. just riley himself. just him, hidden away at the back of the bookstore, tucked between the cookbook and magazine sections.

the only people he’s seen today were one harried mom in yoga pants looking for better homes and gardens and the store owner themself who came to inform riley that the bathroom on-site was out of order and if he needed to use it any time, he should go to the café across the street. it’s probably the best crowd riley’s drawn yet.

ben and abigail think it’s an ego thing. they’re not completely wrong, because he does like it. his name on the covers, the enthusiastic 3.35 by 4 inch newspaper reviews, the flourish of his signature across the front page. but most of all, it’s because he isn’t like them. he can’t do the genius never to be understood thing. he wants— he needs to be seen. riley poole, in ink, proof that he was here at all.

so riley, sitting in the back of a bookstore even quieter than the museums and mausoleums he’s adventured to, takes an extended course in perseverance.

no matter how many of these he’s had to suffer through—the “are you ben gates?” questions and the driving back home with his own cardboard smile in the backseat—he’s not ready to quit. he’s not willing to be the guy who helped find two lost caches of priceless treasure, but then gave up because nobody came to his book signing. he’s not the last kid alone on the playground anymore. he’s got a cool car and recognition from the white house and two friends who he loves almost as much as they love each other.

give it ten more minutes, he decides. ten more minutes and then he calls it a day. ten more minutes and then he goes home to chalk up another failure on the riley poole is a big loser board.

three of his allotted ten minutes pass by, the hands on his stupid fake rolex limping forward like he’s listening to one of ben’s colonial architecture tangents. he blows invisible dust from a cover. he taps his fingers across the table surface. he sits. 

he thinks about doing this for seven more minutes. he thinks about doing this for twenty more events. he thinks about doing this for the rest of his life. the future stretches out before him, an endless aisle of waiting at empty tables for people who never planned on coming.

oh, who is he kidding?

riley kicks his foot under the table, shoving out the empty cardboard boxes so he can sweep the unopened, unsold books back into storage. it’s gonna be a pain getting it all back into the ferrari, like the world’s saddest game of tetris, and even afterwards he’ll have to reconfigure all the boxes to fit into his living room. his living room, which has become somewhat of a monument to his oh-so-successful writing career. stacks and stacks of cardboard boxes, taking over the space, bursting to overflowing. well, it’s not like he has guests over anyways.

empty tables. full boxes. riley poole’s life.

somewhere in front, footsteps pad down the carpeted floor. he doesn’t look up. it’s not for him.

the steps come to a halt oddly close to the table. someone clears their throat.

a familiar voice, “am i in the right place?”

riley’s head jerks up, nearly clipping the edge of the table. from behind a pile of books appears the face of the fbi’s very own special agent sadusky.

“agent sadusky?” riley shakes his head. “sorry, the self-help section is over there.” he points aimlessly. it’s only then that he notices the item in sadusky’s hand. instantly recognizable, given the dozens he has spread around him right now. a copy of riley’s book, coffee cup ring on the cover and the jacket dented. sadusky grins when riley meets his eyes.

“sorry i was late.” the agent shrugs. “we got a tip about somebody trying to steal the constitution.”

it’s 3:41. something lifts in riley’s chest. he settles into his chair and matches sadusky’s smile. “guess originality really is dead,” he says.

[whumperofworlds]

You got any etiquette or tips or smth for posting one shots or drabbles? Like, when to place cuts, how to tag, CW stuff, should you divulge background info before hand, etc etc...

-den-of-whump

Hey friend! I don't know a lot about the etiquette but I'll try my best!

For starters, here's what my setup before my story looks like (had to put a readmore because it was getting long LOL)

See "CONTENT"? The most important thing is to list the trigger warnings somewhere at the beginning, like kidnapping, sickfic, blood, etc. You can use tags too, but also adding the trigger warnings at the beginning before the story is also a good way, so that if your readers see something at the beginning before they read that there's something that squicks them, they could pass it up.

Speaking of tags...

I reread through my stories before posting so I could tag them properly. Was a character bleeding with some descriptions of blood? Add a "blood tw", "blood", etc tag. Was the whumpee dealing with body horror with description of said body horror? "Body horror tw", "body horror", etc. There are times where you forget to add a tag and that's okay! Most of the time, people would gently let you know that you missed a tag. Also, don't censor your tags like this (b100d), since from what I heard, it doesn't protect those who filter the word and they would end up seeing it and get triggered unintentionally. That's usually looked down on due to that reason on Tumblr, and in most places.

And finally, a read more.

If it's getting too long to the point you have to scroll down a bit to get to the end, definitely put a readmore there. Usually, I add it after three paragraphs as seen here. For NSFW stories, I put a readmore right before the story for safety reasons.

And background and all... it depends if you're writing with your OCs/blorbos or just a generic whumpee/whumper/caretaker! For OCs/blorbos, yeah, some background would be cool (if they're fandom characters, it's not necessary since many people would know what the characters are!) Otherwise, it's not necessary to divulge in background stuff for generic, unless it's specific, like if the whump is focused on superpowers and superheroes, some background could help too! 😀

I hope this helps! If anyone else has better etiquette on this (still unsure TBH 😅) feel free to reblog with your two cents!

[thatonefatgumsimp]

Important tags for later reference in case I forget or in case you'd like to scroll through and look at a certain tag:

• "#my art" is for tagging my art

• "#my writing" is for when I post stuff from ao3 that I wrote or just little things I wrote and decided to share here

• "#for later" are things I'm saving for later that might be important or also for cute animals in case I get sad later and need cheering up

• "#shitposting" is for random thoughts I have and shitposts (alternative tag for this: "#random shitpost")

• "#life update" for random life updates and updates on things I'm doing that day...like baking cookies!

• "#songs stuck in my head" is for all the times I've reblogged the "the current song stuck in your head .. go !" post with songs currently stuck in my head that I'm convinced I'm annoying op about at this point by continually reblogging, but I also need to document the songs stuck in my head. for science.

• "#ask tofs" I don't usually get many asks, but I suppose I should have a tag for those, so-

• "#voting time with tofs" is for all the random polls I start because I'm bored and very indecisive. that's it.

• "#last song i listened to" is for the person's post that I rb'd where they so politely asked what the last song listened to was.

• "#a master tag of the insanity" is some random c!mcyt brain thoughts I have occasionally (c! NOT cc!, or in other words, not about the actual real life people, but the cubitos, the sillies, the blorbos, etc.)

• "#tumblr stories of old" are basically like the old legends or old wives tales of tumblr. Myths and lore of old told by great and revered storytellers. Things that future historians may eventually look back on as the Gilgameshes and Illiads of our time... (they can also be found under "#for later", but it's faster if you just use this tag if you don't wanna also be bombarded with art stuff and recipes and cute animals)

• "#rizz for thee not for me" basically the "no b----es" meme for me cuz I for some reason have never been on a single date in my life even tho I've been told by MULTIPLE friends that I'm very cute and my best friends tell me I've got good game and decent charisma...basically me trying to help you get a date if you want one and/or decide to use my pick up lines (also I don't rlly get out much sooooo I don't rlly have any use for them currently-)

• "#dnd stuffs" is for when I post about my dnd OCs that I'm developing my own story for cuz I have no friends (/lhhj...hj BC none of them rlly play dnd-) and autism be damned I'm gonna make my own story! I don't need friends to make up pretend fantasy scenarios!!

• "#out of touch thursday" is for out of touch thursday...obviously- /lh

• "#it's crismin! happy crimis. merry crisis! merry chrysler :p" is what I'm making my Christmas tag riiiiiggt *checks watch* now.

• "#Sasha the Christmas Tiger" Sasha the Christmas Tiger. That is all.

• "#sparkle on its wednesday" is for the sparkle on its wednesday meme

• "#ides of march" is for the day we all collectively stab Caesar again :³

• "#yoooooo happy flesh prison friday" for flesh prison friday

• "#well‚ it's thursday" for well it's thursday meme

also not all my posts are currently tagged with the corresponding tags, I'm trying to work on it. (← lie, I have pretty much given up on tagging my posts from the beginning/earlier this year correctly. There's too many- ╥﹏╥ )

Oh yeah also I added the hyphens to the tag part, but the tags don't have hyphens so uh...yeah jsyk (EDIT: this ↑ has been changed, there are no longer hyphens in the tags in the pinned post)

Also both picture of the perfect lemon slice (my pfp) and my bakusquad banner are by me (lemon was photographed, banner was drawn, felt like I needed to credit somewhere in case anyone was curious...maaaay or may not be working on a new banner, but shhhhhhh 🤫

EDIT 2: I changed it to the new banner ^^)

[sansloii]

GET TO KNOW THE MUN

NAME : Marshy/Marsh, Morsh/Morshy, Mushy, Murshy, and everything other misspelling of Marshy

PRONOUNS : She/Her or ( more recently ) They/Them! Either one works because i do not care in the slightest

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION : discord! I'm usually lurking on discord a lot so like... discord is my go-to for ooc communication. ( it's princemorsh c: ). it might say "do not disturb" but it's not really "do not disturb". i'm just... very low energy and have the social battery of a goldfish

MOST ACTIVE MUSE : Mikah. No question, no debate--it's Mikah. They were the first muse I had on this blog and I will forever put Mikah first because i love them so much. more oft than not, if I don't know just who to throw at someone spontaneously, I'll throw Mikah because they're the easiest for me to just.... put somewhere. Dakota, Evan, and Wynn come up behind them a lot, though, and right now Dakota has me in a chokehold

EXPERIENCE / HOW MANY YEARS : i fucked around on deviantart with friends when i was in middle school but like... i don't count that. so lets just skip forward to the middle of high school and say that i've been rping since i was like 15-16 ish? i'm 27 now so like. about a decade.

BEST EXPERIENCE : tumblr for sure. maybe not when i was like... in high school, but after i entered college, i really began to enjoy it. i've had mikah + them since.... 2016/2017ish i think? and I'm fully convinced that this blog has been my best experience overall. i also got to meet @soulsxng and @feraecor through it ;w; and i'm fully convinced that if not for those two, my experience here would've been so fundamentally different and i have such a hard time visualizing that now lmao. they've introduced me to wonderful people who, again, I think i would have a fundamentally different experience without them being there and i'm really grateful for that 🍏💚 that isn't to say that i haven't met ( and would fucking fight for ) people outside of that but like.... i think i would not have had as much of a motivation to continue writing if i didn't have these two to throw shit at early on again and again and again.

RP PET PEEVE : *does a dumb lil shimmy* i feel like a broken record with this particular peeve BUT like...okay--i enjoy shipping a lot. i love relationships and i love being silly with them and talking about them and reblogging shippy aesthetics and quotes. if you know me, you know that i love me a good fucking ship and i will think about it until the end of time. however, everything takes time. yes, they could end up together but it's not like there isn't a whole alphabet of things between when they meet and when they end up together. I don't want to rush or side step those conversations or interactions ( or ooc discussions about them ) for fluff, even if I too enjoy fluff, smooches, genuine romanticism, n.sfw content a lot.

and if my muse just... happens to not like yours the way we thought they would, that's okay. it doesn't mean that... anyone should pivot ( and i do mean pivot ) to a muse that is more agreeable or "nicer" in terms of... getting a ship. yeah we can stop throwing those two muses together but that doesn't immediately open me up to...making the other two kiss or fuck or say they're dating. esp when you ( not muse, mun ) are very obvious about the other muse being nicer and therefore "you want that one instead". or start getting weirdly pushy to "make it work" with the first muse because they'd be good together. or disregard the boundaries i've set with my muses and have clearly stated in my rules and ooc.

i make jokes and i laugh now about those experiences -- esp because it's happened more than twice. and i don't think anyone's, like... fucking evil for it or i that hate them over it. i just think it was some bullshit because it's the simplest "respect this basic boundary i've set and if you do, i will die for our little blorbos and ship anything with you." it's not a call for anyone to prove anything to me and it's not like... i'm expecting anyone to just turn off any thoughts of shipping my muses and theirs ( because i sure as shit don't ). no, no--i'm just saying it'll take a bit to be actionable and feel right for me to write my muses with said feelings in this way. i'm slow enough as is, just give me time.

PLOTS OR MEMES : both! i like memes for when my emotional battery is like. in the toilet but i want to write something. i fucking adore plotted things, though, and i think that some memes can lead into some plotted adventures! we don't gotta plot everything out, either. we can just throw our goblins against the wall and see where they stick--it's fine with me. sometimes, we can map out their entire lives and still not be able to cover everything that they're going to do.

i think it really depends. i definitely don't think the two are mutually exclusive and like... you can use one to contribute to the other.

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES : i like to write a lot so i'll err on the side of long threads. it takes a bit to find my groove and.... figure out what I want to say but often times, i find myself deleting things from my replies because they are a little too long and i don't want to make anyone feel like i'm dumping multiple paragraphs on them.

if it's a plotted thread or ask, though, you're getting a fucking novel and i'm not compromising on that :)

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSES : for the most part, no. there are bits and pieces of my persona or things i would say/wear/do here and there.... but as a whole, i'm pretty different from my muses. i... don't think people would like me much if i was like any of my muses fr, though, so i'm good with just being me, myself, and I

i stole this from @distopea some time ago so steal it from me

[darkerthanblack-666]

hi, i'm the same anon. you've put words to my thoughts! if he sees that people from other countries really want to see him, there'll be a bigger chance that he eventually comes there too. obviously there's a difference between "I hope you can come to [whatever country] soon!" and "I'll k*ll you if you don't come here right nowwwwww!" but I haven seen any comments like the latter, so... i don't know what people are talking about, honestly. this seemed like a nice fandom to be a part of :(

It stopped being nice when people started coming to each other's inboxes and the tag about tabloid rumors, which happened a while ago. I was just trying my best not to comment on it, because it would bring more attention to that tabloid bs and some things should remain in the trash can where they belong.

We also had that anon saying stupid things, but it was just a troll, so it didn't bother me that much 😅

I can't even count how many times people said prejudiced things about rpf despite it being tumblr where it isn't posted right into celebrity's face and everyone here just minds their own business. Even Käärijä himself purposefully plays into it with all his "boyfriends" and Bojan said he doesn't mind it. I kept reading it again and again (it was worse during the whole post-esc hype, now I either managed to block it out or everyone has calmed down), and at some point I just didn't feel like writing anymore or enjoying anything. It made me apathetic, because I don't know who follows me here. So many new people... and even if my pinned posts says what kind of stuff they might see, I know not everyone reads everything, so I became anxious (I'm sure most of you are nice people, but it will take time to feel more comfortable, I have a social phobia, so such unsafe situations affect how I'm feeling 😫)

Now there's this current drama and I'm just tired of it and feeling snappy, because when you post something in the tag for everyone to see, especially when you're vague as fuck about your source, every single person will start wondering who is that, or blame themselves and starts feeling anxious, or assume the fandom is bullying their blorbo, while in fact it's some prick somewhere in the butthole of the internet, where if I haven't seen it, the celebrity hasn't seen it either (because they're too busy with their job to read dramas on the internet)

I usually see that kind of behavior on twitter and it's exactly how their dramas happen. Instead of having a discussion directly with the person, someone plays the coward card and vagues about it in their own tweets, then others join to blow the whole thing out of proportion. It's exactly what made me leave it for good.

Bringing a drama from one social media to another is a different kind of evil (I assume that's what happened, because I haven't seen anyone attacking Käärijä on tumblr, it's not even possible when he has no account here), it always comes out of nowhere and no one knows what's going on, and they start pointing fingers at each other. The only good reasons to do that publicly is when it's funny or interesting (like that 9/11 fic drama which was hilarious af 😂), otherwise why would you even do that 🤷‍♀️. If the tumblr part of the fandom is peaceful, why do you even shit into your own nest...

Also, I'm sure Jere wouldn't like to see people attacking other fans just because he addressed the situation in his story. He was trying to be polite and supportive and people assumed it's a permission to be shitty to others. The hostile comments are actually the problem. He handled the situation well, there's no need for "poor bby being under attack, I'll protect you uwu" attitude (actually there's never the need for it, because celebrities have professionally trained staff handling the damage control if the situation gets really ugly, but then everyone would know about it, not wonder "wtf who's doing that?"). He's currently not under any attack and he's fine. This is classic toxic fandom reaction with one group of fans getting overly possessive over their blorbo and fighting others for irrelevant, or sometimes even made up reasons. I've seen it happen before.

This reply is not an invitation to have a discourse, or to attack someone else btw (I prefer when everyone is nice to each other). It's just me ranting and you might agree or not, I don't care.

[hirazuki]

Would you do 2, 4, 7, and 11 for the Tolkien ask game please?

2. If you were the Middle Earth race that your personality most matches, which would it be?

Mmm, so, the race is technically not of "Middle Earth" per se, but honestly? Maiar. I'm too intense for most people, extremely solitary, have difficulty passing as "normal" in conventional society (I can fake it, Annatar-level! But it's exhausting), and have a very complicated relationship with my corporeality that ranges from mildly irritating at best to utter disgust and wanting to yeet out of my body at worst. If I could exist as a thought-form, I probably would! My moods are variable and oftentimes incomprehensible to others, and I am disinterested in the world and disinclined to participate in it outside of my own immediate interests/ends.

4. What passage in Tolkien's books or in any of the films/shows/media speaks to you the most?

There are so many, because his writing is exquisite, but I have to go with:

"What do you fear, lady?" "A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire."

It just strikes a very personal chord, due to what my life up until my late 20s was like. It stuck with me instantly back when I first read LotR as a kid, as it was the first time I had seen this thing I felt that I didn't know how to express put into words, and it's stayed with me ever since.

7. If you could download a Tolkien language into your brain and speak it fluently, which one would you pick and why?

Black Speech! For a couple of reasons:

1. We know pretty much nothing about it -- unless I'm mistaken (too lazy to look things up rn XD), the only full sentence we have is the ring inscription. That is not okay. Way to leave us hanging, Professor. I need to know more.

2. There's been some research theorizing that Tolkien based it off of one or more of the languages of ancient Anatolia -- that's the part of the world my family's originally from, and I spent a great part of my college studies -- including going on two archaeological digs -- on it.

3. ....... I know he meant for it to sound harsh and foul and stuff, okay, I know, but. it just sounds so pleasing to my ears?? Idk what's wrong with me but, nazg? thrak-? ash? SO SATISFYING to say and hear.

11. You can have four Tolkien characters over for dinner. Who do you choose and why?

So, I'm assuming this is a group dinner affair, right? XD

Well, if I and my place are magically immune to harm (or if we're eating somewhere else and I'm not going to be responsible for the damages to the establishment): Melkor, Mairon, Maedhros, and Maeglin, purely on basis of blorbo-ness. They're my top favorite characters of the legendarium. But also, I feel like some really dinner-inappropriate interesting therapy sessions conversations could come out of it. Though it would also involve a great deal of discomfort and chaos but hey, it's not every day you can have characters over for dinner -- might as well make the most of it!

BUT if we're operating by real-world rules and body count/damage is possible, I'd probably go with Maedhros, Maglor, Mairon, and Namo. Maedhros and Maglor have a sibling dynamic that's very familiar and dear to me and I'd love to hang out with them, Mairon and Maedhros have such interesting parallels and I'd love nothing more than for them to just talk, and Namo is my second favorite Vala (I don't talk about him nearly enough -- I should change that!) and I feel like he'd keep the situation under control, plus he may contribute fascinating perspectives on any topics like fate, death, choice/free will, etc. that might come up in conversation.

[erstwhilesparrow]

🥫🏳️💡pleeeease <3

:D <3 hello friend!

🥫 - What’s a scene you’ve really enjoyed working on?

hm... let's narrow it down to fandoms we have in common, because i love 'working on' fic in the sense of editing and rewriting so much just in general. i'm gonna say the scene where dazai pins chuuya to the bed in saint of the paint that was left in the pot ? i don't like reading it back now, but i remember that the act of writing it was a lot of fun. spent a lot of time thinking about how bodies feel in a way i don't normally? and there's a bit at the very end where i describe being able to feel the muscles in someone's forearm moving when they unfurl their fingers, which is an actual thing i kept checking as i was writing by grabbing my own forearm. (i paused here just to do it again right now.) utterly ridiculous thing to do, but it was kind of fascinating. bodies, right?

🏳️ - Favorite way you have described something in your works

oh this one's easy. i like all the descriptions i put in ortolan bunting, but my favourite continues to be this one: "They are like-skinned animals, same stuff in their veins: two parts flashbang, three parts want." to this day, one of the only sentences i've written that i (1) still remember clearly and (2) still genuinely like after posting to ao3

💡- What’s a idea you’ve enjoyed but never/couldn’t write?

augh. so many??? there was this dsmp tubbo fic i started taking notes for months and months ago that was going to have exactly as many words as the maximum number of items you can fit in a minecraft shulker box and it was going to be ~thematically relevant to his aggressive compartmentalizing and trace through his history on the server but there is simply So Much about tubbo i do not know / haven't watched the relevant streams for and my interest waned before i could do anything with it.

in general, Longfic Is Hard. I Can't Do It. unfortunately, i keep having ideas that would be best suited to being expanded over the course of a very long fic!

oh, also, i know this answer's getting long but i need somewhere to whine about my own inability to write explicit smut. the amount of Terrible, Very Bad, Extremely Characterizing Sex i would write about my blorbos having if i had any clue how to write Characters Having Sex is stunning. i think two characters who have each lost someone they love very much should fuck each other while thinking way too hard about the person they lost instead of the person they are actively in bed with. that'd be so good if i could write it. (off the top of my head, i can already think of THREE pairings this would work for. you don't know any of them so i will not list them :P )

[crimeronan]

ooh, 27 & 30 for the wrap?

27. What do you listen to when writing?

this year as i was driving around imagining stories, i'd put on two playlists: the princess luz playlist, which is about being unbelievably sad, and my devin and nova playlist, which is all songs about having a HORRIFICALLY dysfunctional relationship.

when ACTUALLY writing, i gravitate toward instrumentals. i have still-very-much-in-progress instrumental playlists collecting music for each of the OCs, but they arent curated enough to link. if i'm writing a scene with a specific mood, i'll go on youtube and type "[x mood] epic orchestral mix."

if you've never done this for writing, it's a GODSEND. my most common searches are shit like "horror orchestral music," "drama/suspense epic orchestra mix," "devastation orchestral music mix," "powerful and emotional orchestral music mix"

there are too many bands and production companies i like to list them all here -- a LOT of musicians make electronic and orchestral scores that would fit intense movies. i've heard people say they use these mixes for setting the mood in TTRPGs, it's just as effective for writing.

as for specific instrumentals, i HAVE to recommend any and all of within temptation's. the instrumental versions of their songs showcase INCREDIBLE violin, piano, guitar, and general musical craftsmanship that usually gets lost under the vocals. they are fucking STUNNING.

my favorite one always fluctuates depending on my mood but for now i'll suggest trying shot in the dark to see if you like it. it's a pretty good preview of what their stuff sounds like.

30. Biggest surprise when writing this year?

honestly, i was surprised to rediscover how much i love horror writing, and equally surprised that so many people could get invested in my horror writing.

i know i'm a Good writer obviously. but i often think about fandom in terms of interaction with other people. i write a lot of dark shit in my own time that's just for me, but i'd sorta gotten used to thinking of fandom as being somewhere that i should write easy-to-read stuff. i didn't expect anybody to want to read anything else

(this isn't a Totally unfounded belief -- in my fandom immediately preceding this one, i was extremely invested in a main character with the darkest storyline in the books. at one point i wrote a novella about her and the people surrounding her that she killed/drove to suicide/emotionally destroyed, and unsurprisingly it's almost exclusively been read by like. tumblr mutuals. like ~12 kudos on each installment. which is still more than most writers would get!)

i started writing the longer luz fic bc horror has always been the easiest thing for me to write & i was in a lot of pain that needed venting. i didn't expect there to be an audience for it, i actually had braced myself for pushback bc sometimes certain toh circles can have...... interesting opinions about what is or isn't OK to do to a blorbo.

i really didn't think anyone would like reading my writing if it wasn't funny enough. and it's 100% true that the princess AU has a fraction of the kudos-based readership of wwaitsoatl. but the investment of that small readership is WILD.

i am. so grateful. aha

[ray-elgatodormido]

Summer Reading/Writing/Art Tag

Tagged by @lucien-lachance

Join in if you want!

Describe one creative WIP project you plan on working over the summer

I’ll thankfully have more free time in the summer to try out comics and writing. I have this silly comic trilogy involving Lucien showing off his smooth dance moves and Arquen getting driven insane by his nonsense even after 200 years. Just a silly little comic trio that involves my Skyrim au.

Maybe I can write more and more Pirate Au even if it’s no longer May.

Recommend a book

Never said I had to recommend a good one so I’ll gladly recommend one you should probably avoid :D It’s La Nuit des Temps by Barjavel. Very interesting premise that was ultimately ruined by the blatant misogyny tainting the plot, the unintentionally hilarious moments that make you go “How is this in a book?!”, the “male author” moments sticking out like an elephant in a kitchen, all sandwiched between thick slices of boring. I mean if you get your hands on an English translation you can read this out loud with friends while making silly voices so there’s something. No worries throughout the summer I’ll occasionally go to the library and get myself good books.

If you think you’ve written cringe then remember that someone wrote “The man’s sex was as upwards as a plane taking off.” And it made it’s way into a book, so don’t discourage yourself from writing about your blorbos kissing!

Recommend a fic

This this this right here I Love this. Read it one Christmas and it melted my heart!

Recommend music

Suavemente by Elvis Crespo, Vivir mi Vida by Marc Anthony, Maria by Ricky Martin, and many more. I just love imagining Lucien singing in Spanish even if he’s not really the singing type.

Share a piece of advice

We all start somewhere, nobody is born good at what they do. Sometimes it takes weeks to improve and other times it take longer, that’s perfectly fine. Take your time and take breaks when you need it.