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unproduciblesmackdown · 2 years

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I posted 2,999 times in 2022

489 posts created (16%)

2,510 posts reblogged (84%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@nothingunrealistic

@unproduciblesmackdown

@annabelle--cane

@mossdealer

@gradienty

I tagged 2,411 of my posts in 2022

Only 20% of my posts had no tags

#winston billions - 853 posts

#deh - 144 posts

#kleinsen - 66 posts

#tayston - 58 posts

#riawin - 57 posts

#will roland - 52 posts

#bmc - 50 posts

#asia kate dillon - 45 posts

#corned beef - 35 posts

#goosebumps the musical - 33 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#omggggg happy birthday asia kate dillon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ='] 🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌

My Top Posts in 2022:

what’s important in marble hornets is that entry 23 has the classic scooby doo hallway doors gag

77 notes - Posted May 26, 2022

🏳️‍🌈 🐠 🌈 finphasis

105 notes - Posted October 29, 2022

See the full post

137 notes - Posted September 10, 2022

i love the bmc bway decision for jeremy’s look. they were like hey cmere. put on this oversized sweater it’s so big on you and goes past your wrists. here fluff up your hair. he looks like he’s like fourteen when he’s supposed to be all of sixteen. they were like you’re baby. we’re putting jere bear in the damn script. tysm

148 notes - Posted May 30, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

ummmm princess tutu post here where the starting point / inspiration is “romance doesn’t particularly matter here lbr” which honestly is further inspired as a counterpoint re seeing occasional mention of like oh it’s Thematically Relevant that ahiru realizes she’s Not actually in love w/mytho b/c like, tl;dr it’s not really imo, when her having a crush at the start of things was always Kind Of beside the point. bring your mytho appreciation and/or willingness for that perspex to be illuminated & know that this will have plenty of tangents b/c it’s me & b/c already it’s like, this has to build on how there’s that essential theme throughout the series of Hope vs Despair as opposites. in fact, spoilers, idk this post is me getting down things i was just Thinking Through while trying to fall back asleep earlier, it’s like, the Hope overlaps with Love so much that it’s like, it might be Essentially the same around here. and i don’t know, maybe in actual life too, see you next week for poetry hour, but for now here’s a cut where i just really start going off on Ideas

anyways like whenever people are going like “people’s roles in pt are subverted and changed & they have to fight against them sometimes” it’s like Yeah but then when an example given is like “ahiru being In Love w/The Prince was Assigned to her & her Questioning that is a key part of the self acceptance & defiance needed to avoid tragedy” like No, again it really never mattered how much she was or wasn’t in love with him in like, a [becoming the princess] endgame romance soulmates way, b/c it was always about her having this genuine love for him that really didn’t hinge on that. and Questioning whether she wants to be with him is really more a matter of drosselmeyer having this shallow understanding / disinterest in the feelings & motivations of his own characters, when a) those characters are Real People (in their world. of course in Real Reality these are all fictional characters) and b) he just wants One Conclusion that’s as tragic as possible for fun, so saying like oh the princess marries the prince, the knight protects the prince, etc, as these simple but high stakes asserted goals for everyone’s roles, is conducive to that

like it’s right there in the first scene like, ahiru’s talking about wanting to dance a pas de deux with the prince, which is certainly potentially romantic, and it’s not like a secret once she’s human that she does Like him, but even then, once she does Sort Of get such a moment when mytho dances with her in the Fire Festival episode deal, she’s excited about having danced with him herself but a) is more substantially excited that Mytho Wanted To Do Something and did it, and then later b) isn’t bothered about him dancing with rue instead. and in that first scene, although she originally says she’d give her life for the chance to dance w/the prince, she also says he looks sad/lonely, and that’s what she repeats later and builds on to say that she’d give her life just to help him on that front in some way, which makes drosselmeyer appear again. drosselmeyer needs princess tutu to also want to restore mytho’s heart so that the story can reach a conclusion, rather than kraehe being fine with him having no heart if it means she can have him, while he wants tutu to also confess her love so that there can be that tragic ending for her, so wanting to generally help but also be with the prince would seem like the key elements to who should get to be tutu out here, while of course for ahiru she does actually want to help him more than she wants to Be With Him in the first place. it’s evident again in the season one finale wherein she does For Intents And Purposes confess her love through dance, but that love is also tied to, again, just wanting him to have his heart back and be Able to dance with her or do anything else, whereas kraehe’s love can’t reach mytho because her approach is a destructive and controlling one about trying to possess him as a Concept of the prince who should be with her as the princess. whereas tutu is like yeah i want you to have your heart back, and then if that meant you wanted to dance with me that’d be cool. and that when they Do dance together afterwards it’s sure Able to serve as an ending, but doesn’t need anyone to really more directly declare Love or eternal togetherness or anything, it’s all good b/c mytho has his heart back (i mean, he doesn’t, but only when there’s Definitely a season two, b/c otherwise you could believe that Love was the final piece. and even if you don’t you could just presume tutu kept doing her thing until he was good to go)

anyways and then season two when there’s like more blatant will they won’t they with her and fakir which, maybe unsurprising disclaimer that that just falls flat for me lmfao b/c a) i think their unfolding dynamic is fun re being friends and a team but everything else just feels kind of tacked on to that wherein also b) idk it never really seems to affect what ahiru does in any especial way lol which would potentially make it more interesting if she did. but otherwise it’s like well great job morally supporting each other out here, fakir’s having antics on his end, but other implications of like “ooh...romance???” are like idk, it just doesn’t do anything for me, and in the end, Again we don’t need any unambiguous answer when it’s like, we’re talking about accepting True Selves and not needing to worry about being alone and then that means hanging out with a duck on a lake, doesn’t really Need to be asked like, is this guy in Love with that duck? when again the love is There between all these characters and drives them already and any potential for romance is, if anything, just kinda like the bonus layer after everything else has already served as adequate motivation all around

anyways i have to go ahead and link it to Hope wherein like. it ends up firmly established that tutu is literally this embodiment of hope, which saves the day in the series finale, so that’s Relevant. and then the raven is embodying despair, but beyond like wanting to destroy the prince and all, that involves people not being able to be themselves, and having to give up on getting to be themselves, and we see from the raven himself and from the people who stand in for the raven / as that antagonist (so kraehe and/or raven mytho) that the general approach to interactions that aren’t just “im gonna kill you” are about trying to control someone, and possibly also still being like “im gonna kill you” but as a less imminent threat, or even “haha yeah you should also kill me, go for it” possibly, re mytho when his jumping in for episodic antagonist lets kraehe’s material become more about her as rue again, and her obviously feeling pretty hopeless with this new context like oh, also, she thinks the prince and kind of also the raven are the only people who even Could possibly love her, b/c of the raven.

meanwhile there’s also drosselmeyer who wants characters to have enough hope to continue the story and to provide Setup for the later tragedy, but also wants them to be able to despair at the Correct time (namely, the Ending, when tragedy is great / players dropping out of the narrative is fine) and all these characters are dealing with their stories being controlled by someone who does want to push things towards more tragedy. which like, surely Not Very Coincidental overlap of tragedy, despair, and control there. drosselmeyer has a degree of control over everything, though it seems More direct the more people are getting into the “staged” zones, or say, being in his clockwork puppets behind the scenes world, whereas edel’s function was to try to exist within the world and direct the story the way drosselmeyer wanted it to go, rather than him just being able to do it himself (or necessarily Wanting to do it himself, since he’s just here to be entertained, and even if he Could write it all into reality, seems he might instead be letting it play out w/o more interference b/c that’s more fun for him), but we see even through edel, who’s entirely a puppet rather than a person and definitely has never had a heart in the first place, that she still manages to become interested in and understand more about emotions and arguably have them herself, since she ends up having motivations in conflict with drosselmeyer’s and takes actions he didn’t direct, and if that goes for her, it has to go for his created characters turned real people, too, even when, say, they don’t have their heart

which idk i’m making up segues as we go here, but at the start, you have people who see mytho as a Concept and how he has a role in whatever role they imagine for themselves. like rue seeing him as the prince to her princess, or fakir being threatened by his being the prince to his knight, and their sort of begrudging alliance when neither of them want mytho to have his heart restored b/c rue knows he could wind up with someone else and fakir knows if the story could possibly resume, as the knight, he’d have to die. yet they both see mytho as enough of a person to also want to protect him, which is sure a manifestation of love that we see around here. but that protection also involves control: they both control what mytho gets to do, when they know that otherwise anyone Else could potentially direct him around, b/c mytho can’t know what he wants or doesn’t want to do, but he would if he had his heart. which they Can’t return, b/c apparently only tutu can do that, and evidently drosselmeyer hasn’t tried to give either of them the ability to return it, but even before it’s started to be returned they’re both decidedly Against that happening. and when they do realize it’s being returned, you have rue taking that role as kraehe and doing everything she does trying to stop tutu or tell mytho about how he Has to be with her, and just kind of shove fakir out of the way if he’s trying to interfere with the latter, while he’ll Also get in on trying to stop tutu, and while when push comes to shove he won’t really try to oppose mytho once mytho tells him what he does or doesn’t want, it takes a minute to get there, and his approaches to trying to stop mytho from regaining his heart are the classics like, tell him he sucks all the time, lashing out like hitting him that once, the “if i lock him in a dark room forever that’ll be so depressing it’ll just make him stop having feelings” effort lmao like it’s not gonna work....instances of the connection drawn between control & despair like, thinking of someone acting out of despair as, say, despairing of their being any other options for themself. which someone else can try to push them into by telling them there’s no other option / trying to put them in a situation where they seemingly have no other options

and it’s interesting how it’s not only like oh Despair / thinking you have no options is only something antagonists engage in, because we can say it’s in the choice to Self Sacrifice as a way to protect others, which comes up a lot, for example, mytho’s drive to protect defenseless things as a quality that motivates him even when he has no emotions. and you have the finales where, in both cases, fakir has to figure out how to fight anyways (and the second time around is inspired to risk tapping into his Author Powers again b/c he’s aware of how everyone’s been protecting him, like mytho managing to stop his dramatic Evil Self from just killing fakir w/a sword lol), and the first time around tutu’s supposed to see no other option but to save mytho by confessing her love and thus vanishing into a point of light, but she trusts in her own feelings and thus herself and refuses to give up, in the series finale, it’s rue who sacrifices herself by confessing love (which now manifests as her desperate to save mytho from the raven rather than her standing in for the raven, when she was willing to control him just so she could possess him, whereas now it’s been made entirely obvious to her where that approach wound up) and ahiru has to again face down despair, but then brings in Hope in the end for everyone else’s sake even when it seems she has no options b/c she seemingly can’t do anything. fakir won’t give up writing even when it seems he can’t do anything (and is told that), mytho won’t give up by shattering his heart again and figuring he can only die in the end even after defeating the raven, and ahiru’s apparently like summoned some form of the original tutu via all this Hope, wherein it’s sure interesting how original tutu apparently Also self sacrificed but did successfully give the prince hope in the process, because people are considering the self sacrifices in the first place to protect others, who in turn might try to stop them from doing that to protect Them, and that means creating other options / convincing them of other options

so tutu is out here sure creating options for mytho by returning his heart, and the reward in this for her is all about helping him and seeing him getting to be more of himself again and exercise his agency. which is so genuinely important to her that she also was ready to give up returning his heart / being tutu at all when she thought she was only hurting him and that he might not even want his heart returned; and that returns again in the next season when she again can’t know if he wants his heart back b/c he again can’t be his full self to communicate the answer one way or another, but she’s realized that she’s had a piece of his heart with her all along and that that being the source of her power to return his heart means that regaining his heart was always a genuine desire of mytho’s and why they should risk everything now to restore his heart in full when they don’t know that’ll go great. and at that point it’s obvious that rue no longer acts on her love through the Despair angle of thinking that her only option is him loving her, so she can only accept his loving her being His only option too, thus trying to control what he does so she can own him; now rue is acting out of hope, encouraged by tutu, where even if she can’t see it working out she knows that acting on that despair Isn’t The Way and is now trying, even as distantly as this, to work with mytho’s genuine self and what he wants, even just trying to let him exist again, really

and it feels like all the Birds all over the place might have to do with the freedom and creation in hope vs stifling and limitations via despair, what with flying and all, not to mention one intro being about the fairy tale with someone who wants their Magical Winged Lover to be guaranteed to stay with them, so magically removes her wings, but the wings were the source of her life, so she dies. it’s like kraehe with mytho in season one, where by trying to control him / remove his freedom she can technically be with him by virtue of like, yes, he’s physically present, but she can’t actually engage with him as a person nor he with her in turn because, as i’ve just remembered, her ripping away his feeling of Love while kissing him just shuts down his access to his emotions again, which is sure Something, tap into some [metaphorical trauma response?] if you want maybe....she can’t truly be with him as a person, with any actual relationship, when her efforts at getting there via the despair/control route are incompatible with him getting to actual exist and live as his full self, even if he’s technically physically there, she can’t truly just Have Him like that....meanwhile, mytho has this affinity for / connection with birds, he saves that canary chick who’s trying to fly in the first episode (and Does manage to fly when tutu also steps in to save them both), and ahiru is also actually a bird (who can fly a bit but seems to struggle with that) while tutu appears to others as either a swan or a figure with wings for arms (which might be tutu’s Original form as well), and ahiru as a girl is already out here supporting mytho as a person so that in that moment that’s just like, Scream, there’s that instance in the first episode of season two where he says that ahiru is like his bff and the person he feels he can trust most? or i think what he says is she’s the one person he feels he can tell anything. and then never knowingly interacts with her again lmao like scream....but the fact that Relationship is established even without him knowing she’s tutu where he still feels like yeah i can trust this person with my heart too, in essence. and to tie this back to the Ostensible premise of all this lmfao, it’s clearly not particularly outright Romantic, but that really doesn’t matter, and when he eventually at least realizes tutu is like, a duck, obviously he has no negative reaction to that whatsoever like yknow what, sure, who Isn’t kind of a bird, god bless you

anyways i think it’s sure neat how like. sure maybe only a few people know mytho’s literally a fairytale prince with literally no heart, and everyone else just thinks he’s like kind of weird / mysterious, but ahiru notes he doesn’t seem to be happy / seems lonely and she hopes(tm) she can help change that, and soon embraces knowingly returning his heart, even though she could’ve taken the route of going yeah oh since he Can’t want anything, why both returning it, if his current experiences Can’t upset him, why try to give him anything else.....she sees him as a person from the start, and wants him to have as much ability to want and enjoy things as possible, whatever he chooses to do with that. Couldn’t Be Me when ppl think mytho’s just boring or he’s basically not a person like, well again in reality none of them are people b/c they’re characters, but in that world like, even with yes him being technically a character There, drosselmeyer’s creations Are just real people, where even the actual puppets can gain autonomy and have wants and feelings of their own, and ahiru was sure always able to treat edel like a person, too

running out of steam here lmfao & i always of course take long pauses in writing these so remembering what was going on takes even more effort lol but as a fun postscript like galaxy brain of autistic appreciators of mytho lmao like, that’s me, it’s Fascinating like again i don’t think [oh boring] about him not having feelings, i think that’s interesting & fun of him lmfao. and of course it’s not about like oh autistic people Can’t feel anything, or that they even feel any less, any more than it’s about autistic people all being fictional princes who can summon a swan sword and defeat the raven or anything. but it’s like, thinking of people being seen as Not Expressive Enough and how that must mean they don’t have feelings (and the fact like also mytho sure does Have the capacity for those feelings, and there’s even some ambiguity about whether those feelings are still Active while separated from him / affected by things that are happening to him, but he just can’t draw from that at all until its returned) or those feelings are like, diminished / deficient. also thinking of, i forget the word for it, difficulty identifying what you’re feeling, wherein you know it’s like, being autistic where people misinterpret how you’re expressing yourself or a lack of some particular expected/desired manifestation of expression, and react (negatively) to that misinterpretation (thinking of like. all the times people around mytho are reacting to misinterpretations about him and his intentions and feelings. second episode where mytho hasn’t had a single heart shard returned yet, but already is getting hit by someone b/c while he’s giving No Reaction and expressing No Emotion b/c he can’t feel anything yet, she’s reading this like desire to sabotage her / disdain for her into it) and people being left to wonder if They’re the one misinterpreting their own emotions / ways they’re expressing it when nobody else is recognizing this or responding to that, and rather asserting they must be acting on some xyz other emotion actually....and all this pushback as mytho Is exploring his own genuine emotions and trying to act on his own genuine wants and interests even while other people are like what no, that’s ridiculous, cut it out, etc, and being shocked & surprised when he does show some open expression of [whatever emotion] like, king of not masking lmao. thinking of how i could surprise ppl with the most mundane things like “i think basketball is fun” like i have a zillion opinions & things i can talk abt & i’m fairly spontaneous & excitable & theatrical & talkative as hell but like the “default” or safe approach i have has none of that and people will then just assume like oh if it’s not being shared with me in a way that seems obvious enough or expressed Naturally / Correctly Enough, it must not be there at all. and ahiru just seeing mytho as a person in the first place and gaining the ability to Help Him Be Himself because of that. i think it’s soooo neat and i love that funky little guy, again s/o to the wisdom of autistically enjoying mytho as a character

and you know i think that’s ahiru of course acting as this force of Love by supporting mytho’s personhood & autonomy & wanting him to have options and the ability to actually choose b/w them, and Hopefully i connected that to Hope b/c you know, it’d be Despairing to figure actually no she’s not going to try to help him and there’s nothing anyone can do and this is the only way it can be. where people’s love for each other in all ways and all combinations around here is about not giving up, wanting to give the other person hope / getting hope from that person. the heart shart tutu gets is hope, wherein even interacting with her lets mytho feel hope, and where in turn there’s that line in the season one finale about her wanting to protect him and that the way she feels when she sees him is what lets her become tutu, wherein clearly also that is powered by the hope heart shard, so another love / hope link, wherein does it even seem like that love being Romantic was what really mattered, vs just that it’s a more general love for him as a person, where Liking him sure can fall under that, but it’s clearly never really that big a deal, like, even recognizing rue as a rival doesn’t introduce any conflict when instead ahiru’s like wow i love rue she’s the best yeah if she was with mytho that’d be cool, she’s my best friend now, i want the best for her too....there’s no like, “oh she Liked mytho at the start b/c she was Supposed to, it was an imposition of her Role” like that might be more of drosselmeyer’s assumption but what Really mattered from the start was simply wanting to help him, and Everyone Wanting To Help Each Other keeps being what wins....ahiru gets to be tutu for that reason, not b/c she’s determined to be with him romantically, which, you know, it’s also pointed out that tutu’s role being so Tragically Fated means you’d have to accept not getting to be with him anyways, in theory....and what motivates her re: mytho was never imposed, it’s love powered by hope & vice versa, and even when season two is all will they won’t they abt her and fakir that never like gets in the way of her main goal still being helping / protecting mytho, b/c again, that was never Just All About Liking(tm) Him anyways, so if she ever wonders about Liking(tm) anyone else it’s like yeah okay that actually is not that related lmao, her crush on mytho in the first place is mostly just like, funny and lively lmao. Wish the would they wouldn’t they material in season two was that way also b/c then it might’ve been engaging / interesting to me lol, but if it’s enjoyable like cool then, it’s just not really in conflict with anything actually lmao or that glorious defiance. all the climactic moments of the like ultimate Hope and Love saving people isn’t outright about romance. b/c this is all about any forms of relationships really, it’s not like oh yeah this way of treating people is good for Romance, but not other kinds of love, or vice versa

170 notes - Posted May 28, 2022

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briannaswriter · 4 years

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I was told I should take the high road. I should just accept that Hillary refuses to speak with me again. I shouldn’t expect answers from someone who won’t give them - has never given them. At the same time, I don’t feel like I can genuinely let this go without talking about it in a format that isn’t DMs.

This is really long, sorry? But I wanted to get all of it out because I want to be free of it, I don’t want it to keep being an ache in my heart whenever I think about it.

tl;dr at the end. Feel free to reply, idc, I’ll get back to it tomorrow.

I met Hillary in a group called @/heroesrpg in about 2012. While I was there, I operated under two pseudonyms: Miranda/Isa and Bea. The why for that is a long story. I have nothing negative to say about Hillary here! She was a great friend who taught me a lot about writing and challenged me to become a better writer. I don’t think I would have gotten this far without writing with her. When I left heroes in about 2013, we didn’t keep in touch. I didn’t really stay in the RP world so I didn’t pay attention to it.

In 2014, I was invited to join Ashbourne at her behest. I don’t recall the specifics of how I found it, I think it was simply me reaching out to her again and finding out she was in a group which she invited me to join, too. I ended up playing a woman named Nadeya Khan who was in a ship with her that was later discarded. Later I picked up Shiloh Morgan, the best friend of her character, Adam, and later Mira Lowell, the elder sister of her character Meyer.

I won’t lie, these dynamics were a lot of fun and I enjoyed playing them.

I was upset that my ship with Nadeya and Adam was discarded (I have a distaste for Adam and the FC Ben/edict Cumberba/tch now, I’m petty, sue me), but I think it was more sucky when all threads with them trickled to a halt. To me, it felt like my character was no longer important because it wasn’t a ship, even if a friendship dynamic would have been just as interesting. I ignored this feeling.

I was sad to leave the group, but I was uncomfortable with an interaction from another player and feeling pushed aside in favor of other ships so I made the decision to leave.

I did keep in touch with Hillary, or I attempted to, but once we were no longer in a group together, we just sorta drifted. We didn’t talk for the longest time here and I forgot her url for a long time. Frankly, I’m not sure how I found it again!

We started interacting again in about September 2018 when I think I reached out to her. This eventually ended with the creation of @lethe-rpg where we could write about old time favorite characters - and we wrote so much in Lethe’s run. Everything from romances, to long-lost parent, to siblings, to best friends, to unrequited loves. We wrote nearly twenty characters each and over ten ships in the time Lethe ran from September/October 2018 to June 2020 when it closed. Or, I should say, we wrote all of these things in theory and a lot of it happened behind the scenes in DM’s between us. When we did write things, they would frequently reach only a reply or two before we had to move onto the next one because she didn’t want to finish the one before. I’ll fully admit that I found this frustrating after a while - but I found it difficult to say no to her about anything, or to speak out against her.

Not only was she my friend, but I very much looked up to her. I considered her a mentor as much as a friend, and her approval meant a lot to me. It meant agreeing with dynamics I didn’t enjoy

pushing for a ship between my character Wesley and ANY of hers. Even if it was already mentioned to her that I had an ongoing connection with another character. If I tried to make this dynamic a friendly connection instead, it was promptly dropped altogether.

trying to get a ship between Gemma and Nate when I mentioned point blank that I didn’t want a pre-planned romantic thing with him after his other one failed.

the fact that Gemma and Lily didn’t get like any interactions completed together until I relented a little on Gemma/Nate. Any mention of them was largely forgotten. Half the time, Lily was treated like a child who hadn’t experienced any pain. Not just from Gemma, but from Gabe and from Hillary herself, who seemed to think that my young FC meant nothing compared to the history I had written for this character. Lily in general was ignored until she brought Lachlan along and prodded him into a ship with Lily. Do you know how many starters I wrote on Lily that were ignored?

the fact that Pat/Kate were the oldest ship in the group but they had like one completed thread the entire time lol.

the fact that Odette/Kate were the oldest family dynamic in the group who had like three NOTES between them.

the fact that Odette/Orion became a ship later who were just... never written. I can be honest now, I found them boring and I’m wondering if she felt the same, or if the lack of writing made me dislike them. Either way, Orion became a drain on my Odette muse, just as the lack of Kate/Odette was.

most stuff with Odette makes me sad. I feel like I had really good connections for her that... didn’t work out, and maybe I took to long to address it.

Mira/Andreas is a dynamic I blame myself on. I did feel sorta like I wasn’t getting anything written with her old ship, and I think me and the mun were drained on it, so while Mira was on hiatus and the mun for her last ship, Clark, was debating letting him go/killing him off, I didn’t mind discussing a new ship. I wanted this ship to be a slow burn, I wanted proper closer on the last one because it was a good ship and the mun is a good friend. This was handled with so little tact on her part, we were instantly hitting ship dynamics from the beginning and I found it callous. I dragged out replies just to avoid it. A shame, because I loved the dynamic, but the way it was handled put a bad taste in my mouth

she wanted an August/Delilah ship? Which I didn’t really want, but she’s really good at convincing you bit by bit that it’s a great idea. When I finally jumped onto this ship and flung myself into it, we got like two notes into it and nothing. Are you seeing the theme yet?

I got nothing against Arthur/Cora because I loved writing them, the only thing I did dislike is how rushed they were and how little I got to explore some of the Riverborn aspects of Arthur’s story with Cora. Also a pregnancy happened hella fast.

But I did have something against the Meadowes dynamic altogether: we had so many pieces of it to use that were never written. I failed sometimes on my part, but a lot of it was Hillary getting easily distracted by something else. Cora/Faolan were rarely written beyond the first reply to a thread. Gabe/Faolan were often two notes in and done. Faolan/Alistair lasted a bit longer, I was impressed. Gemma/Lily was mentioned above, but I’ll also mention how often she tried to take pieces of Faolan’s history and twist it to be her character’s pain without any consideration to previously discussed lore or connections. It wasn’t even about a connection anymore - it was about making her character the focal point. Look at how the Daniel Bisset, Aurelie, and Gabe things turned out: half of the plots were twisted to benefit Gabe’s momentum in the story, and the pieces of angst that should rightly lingered on Aurelie were shifted to the side. I didn’t even write that ship, and sometimes looking at them made me feel like a discarded sweater, but they were cute. Anyhow, this is long, moving on.

Faolan/Saby. I literally almost forgot about them, but like... Legit, I’m glad this ship ended because Saby was wholly too dependent on Faolan’s feelings for her, which he couldn’t even acknowledge because he was still in love with his two centuries deceased wife. Was this handled gracefully, did we get to slow-burn some of their stuff in writing? Sometimes. But again, they weren’t really written, and the ship was pushed and pushed, even when I wasn’t really interested in writing it because I didn’t want a ship for him yet.

Aliza/Tien was twisted out of me piece by piece, prodding at the parts of the Aliza/James connection I found uncomfortable (like the murder, like how difficult it was to plot after a point) until Tien seemed like the best answer. This was late enough into Lethe that I woke up enough to cut the ship off and drop the dynamic. In hindsight, I regret letting this even get so far.

Jonas. Just... most of the things written with him lol because he was constantly pushed onto my characters and others. Jo was hinted as a thing, Wesley was hinted as a thing, I think Nate was at one time. It definitely opened my eyes to the fact that she wanted a ship and that dynamics outside of that were largely ignored.

Do you know what it was like to put your heart into a character / story that was ignored ENTIRELY because she didn’t ship with them? Do you know what its like to be excited about a friendship or sibling or parental dynamic that... stopped getting written because your friend only wrote the character for a ship and the next shiny thing attracted her attention and instead of letting the character go, she made you think the next reply was right around the corner? Do you know how many threads we wrote that didn’t go anywhere, and how thrilled I was to write them still because I thought each time it would be different?

TL;DR: if it wasn’t a ship dynamic, it wasn’t written. If it was a ship dynamic, it was sometimes written. If you weren’t doing any of those things, you were ignored.

TL;DR 2: Do not misread this, please. I understand that RL comes first, I understand that dynamics change, that you’re allowed to change your mind. But do you realize how often I was strung along, or how often I was shoved aside? How hard it was to keep a character going sometimes because their big connection was only important for about a week?

and biting my tongue when my own feelings were callously ignored

when we wrote a ship between Selene/Gabe which was later discarded for a ship with Aurelie which had a much better chemistry, but was handled with little tact for my own feelings as I received constant updates on how their ship progressed, and also how the friendship we developed between Selene and Gabe was just dropped altogether - as it was with Adam/Nadeya so many years ago - instead of revamped to fit a changed dynamic as we discussed ooc.

when I would message her and be ignored unless it was about one of our ships

like the fact that I became an admin in Lethe to help her out and eventually the burdens of handling it were on my shoulders. I don’t mind this, but when it came to asking her for help on simple matters (sending me the psd for banners when I switched computers and no longer had it, posting a bio, skimming a post so I could verify it was okay to post, plotting out future events, posting unfollows/follows for people) or asking if she could write something from an admin post, getting a “sure! I’ll do that later!” and then finding out it wasn’t done for a week until I sucked it up and did it myself. We addressed this eventually, but Lethe ended shortly afterwards.

So. That’s how the last two years have gone, and lord knows how much I’ve forgotten. Hillary and I wrote so much over the last two years, and we definitely grew close. I thought we were beyond just writing friends, that we might have been real friends (after all, we sent christmas/birthday gifts to each other. Hell, I still use the mouse pad she gave me).

I ignored the way she ignored me if we weren’t writing something interesting. I ignored the way she didn’t care about my characters even passively until I shipped with her in some form. I ignored how it felt when entire sections of a back and forth DM was ignored if she didn’t care about the character. I ignored how she refused to write with other people because she disliked their FC, or she didn’t want to write with the mun, or she found the character boring. Half the time, she found a character boring because she didn’t bother learning about them, and the moment she did read about them, they were intriguing. I ignored how she belittled my other ships with other players because “oh I don’t think they click” or “imo that one is boring” or tried to poach those characters to one of her ships. I ignored how she made me feel like a part-time friend sometimes and her best friend other times.

I ignored the way she didn’t help with admin problems even when she knew admin duties were taking a toll on me as people demanded more and more from me. Not even when we discussed ways to handle things on both our parts to make it easier and promptly ignored them the first chance she got.

She made me feel so important when we would headcanon things. It felt like my characters were important, and that I was a good writer with clever ideas and intriguing characters, and that writing her was reaching a pinnacle that others couldn’t reach. She never said this, I’ll give her credit for that, but I have to admit, I felt like my characters didn’t work out unless I had a connection with her.

The last few months were eye opening. I had already spent the last year frustrating from her lack of leadership as an admin, and anger for the way she ignored people’s feelings even when it was pointed out and gave the bare minimum when interacting with other people, and sadness for the fun dynamics we had discussed but never wrote beyond the posted biography. When Lethe ended, I was ready to let it go and move on, I said my peace about my admin things and letting the characters go meant a fresh start. To me, we were friends REGARDLESS OF BEING IN A GROUP TOGETHER OR WRITING TOGETHER. You don’t talk about ooc things and ic things as much as we did only to stop talking the instant you’re done writing together, right?

Wrong. She didn’t even help us close the group that she created, or helped us discuss things with members who weren’t sure what was happening. I gave her time, just short messages about random things because I wanted her to know that I didn’t hold Lethe’s end against her, that we were friends anyway. Those messages were ignored. I gave her more time and then after nearly a month or maybe two, I finally messaged her on tumblr with a brief snippet on how thankful I was to know her because she helped me as a writer, and apologized if I implied Lethe ending was her fault (which I still agree that it wasn’t entirely, it was a situation handled callously and frankly I still think people should have considered that Hillary was barely 3% of the admin team at the time since Ally and I were shouldering the burdens of everything else). I mentioned how I felt like our friendship was being ignored because we weren’t writing together, and how I had thought after nearly two years of talking that we were friends enough to chat once in a while at least, but if we are only RP friends, let me know so at least I don’t have to fucking think about it.

Do you think that got a response?

It didn’t. She didn’t log into discord to chat about it or something else, she didn’t respond to the message, nothing. She quietly unfollowed me and then blocked me. She unfriended me on facebook, I feel like that’s answer enough.

I’ve known her at least eight years and while some of those times were brief, the last two years were most certainly not. And not only does it make me angry that I’ll never know whether she just dislikes me, or whether I made her uncomfortable, or what, I’m also just... really upset that I lost an eight year friendship. There’s only one person I know longer than her and I had hoped that, if not real friends, then we would still be able to meet up in another group together someday. Now it’ll never happen again, and it devastates me. I can count my friends on one hand and I thought, you know, that she was one of them. It feels like a physical blow whenever something comes up on the dash that involves her. I feel so stupid for thinking we were friends when she showed me her priorities in Ashbourne, when she showed me in little pieces here and there throughout Lethe. I feel stupid for writing this entire thing and crying about it. I feel stupid for assuming.

And I don’t know how to talk about this in a way that’ll let me say goodbye to it because I do need to let it go, but I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll lose my ability to write because she’s been such a big part of the writing journey for me.

So here it is. Eight years of friendship summed up in however long this is and here I am, trying to let go - and still a little part of me hopes she’ll see it and reach out about something, anything. And a bigger part that’s angry and doesn’t want to talk to her ever again because I don’t want to do this another time.

tl;dr:

I miss my friend Hillary, but also she’s kind of a shitty friend who only seems to care about people when they are writing with her and I’m an idiot for thinking anything else when I’ve had eight years to learn it. Likely if she did find this post, it’ll be misinterpreted in every way until I’m not only an idiot, but also I’m a bully who didn’t give her time and space, who pushed things on her she didn’t want, who she pitied. Because it just occurred to me now how easily she can warp the truth, how she can prod things bit by bit, until it fits just how she wants things to look that’ll benefit her the most. I love my friend, but I’m done. No matter how much I miss her, I deserve more than to be the butt of whatever joke she wants to say to make this sound cool.

#shush mira #I was gonna post this later but fuck it #long post #like.... really long post

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centavrvs · 4 years

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⧼ saoirse ronan, cis female, she/her / kitchen fork by jack conte + & once you were the wildfire, eager to devour, leaping from branch to bush, but then the rainstorm came and now, now you are the cold, abandoned hearth, empty flames snapping at those who get to close, afraid they’ll realise what isn’t there, & the click of the door as it shuts behind you is the only greeting you receive as you wonder how anyone ever knows what to call “home”, & as you sit in your old patchwork armchair, perpetually cold fingers clutched too tightly around a slightly chipped mug of tea you can’t help but think maybe only you are the answer to the question you have been asking your whole life – where do I belong? ⧽ ━━ hey, isn’t that HEATHER PETTIGREW? i read a daily prophet article on them, once ; the TWENTY THREE year old half blood WITCH is a SLYTHERIN alumnus who has gone on to be a PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR AND PART-TIME FLOURISH AND BLOTTS ASSISTANT. i’ve heard they can be quite INGENIOUS & PUNCTILIOUS, but i don’t know… they came off very CALLOUS & MERCURIAL in that interview. it really is hard to know what to believe these days though, isn’t it?

[ PERSONALITY ]

heather is not a very open person. she tends to keep to herself and hold everyone at an arms length

to anyone who knew her at hogwarts - this is a complete switch around from how she acted back then. she used to be loud and in your face, refusing to be ignored

if heather has retained one trait from her childhood it is her penchant for unintentional cruelty. her distancing can come off as cold and her social self-defense mechanism tends to aim at hurting others before they can hurt her

speaking of a social self-defense system, heather, despite outward appearances, has a tendency to snap without warning when under emotional duress or when others try to get closer than she wants them too. a proximity alarm if you will

but if you manage to make it past this, you will find heather is actually very clingy and a very loyal friend (almost gryffindor-ish)

she loves puzzles and solving problems (hence, private investigator) and strives to become extremely successful at her investigation job but people do tend to think twice before hiring her (being a pettigrew and ex-death eater and all)

books! reading is one of her favourite pastimes and that has nothing to do with the sense of relief escaping into a fictional world brings

the friend you can sit in companionable silence with but also the friend who will talk to you for hours about an obscure concept she stumbled across and also the friend who will whisper slightly mean jokes in your ear so you laugh and get all the weird looks while she escapes unscathed

doesn’t buy into the blood purity bullshit and if she’s being honest with herself, she never did

crippling fear of abandonment / never finding a place to “belong”

tl;dr: not coping with what happened during the war

[ THE LOVERS ]

The year was 1996 and Peter Pettigrew was a traitor, a cheat and a liar. In the midst of the first wizarding world war, he had betrayed his friends and switched sides. He would eventually go on to be the catalyst for the death of countless friends of his, the orphaning of a child and the rebirth of the dark lord, however, in the moment such misdeeds were merely shadows of the future. Right now in fact, Peter was simply at a bar. A muggle bar. Talking to a muggle girl. And her name was Angela Coates.

And such is the story of how Heather’s parents met. It was never a relationship, per say, more of a friends-with-benefits, minus the “friends” part. For Peter, this was a break from the wizarding world and its war, and it posed no risk of awkward questions concerning allegiance. For Angela, it was a way to blow off some steam. No strings and certainly no commitments. That is, until January of 1997 and Angela found herself knocking on Peter’s door with, sick to her stomach with nerves. The door opened and after a relatively quick argument, it shut again. Peter had made it clear – he didn’t want a child and he refused to play any part in the baby’s life. Angela was all of 20 years old, single and pregnant.

[ THE EMPRESS ]

TW – MENTIONS OF DRUGS, AND ALLUDES TO NEGLECT

On the 27th of October of that very year, Heather Debbie Pettigrew was born. Heather because Angela had read the name in a magazine and like the sound of it, Debbie after the lead singer of Blondie, Angela’s favourite band and Pettigrew because Angela thought in some odd way this was making Heather a part of Peter’s life, something he clearly didn’t want. A revenge move that only ever served to hurt Heather, but Angela was not to know this.

Circumstances aside, Angela was not cut out to be a mother. She was the quintessential twenty-year-old, living life hard and fast and Heather was an unexpected speed bump that didn’t do much to slow her down. As soon as Heather was old enough, she was sent off to daycare, while her mother worked full-time to put money in the bank and the pockets of local drug dealers. Angela wasn’t entirely incompetent. She knew to keep most of her illicit activities hidden from her child (as far as Angela knew, Heather had no idea – Heather would tell you otherwise). The longest time Heather would spend with her mother was while sat on the couch watching television, her mother out cold beside her. Desperate for the attention of others, Heather was by no means a well-behaved child. This, combined with the assortment of strange incidents and accidents that Heather seemed to get herself into that had no plausible explanation was too much for Angela. When Heather was eight years old, Angela realised she couldn’t keep living the life she was living and care for Heather. And so Heather was dropped on the steps of a foster home, with a note that gave a few details about her and she never saw Angela again.

TW OVER

[ THE MAGICIAN ]

By the time Heather joined her first foster family, she had long since accepted that Mummy didn’t want her and, despite what she had said – she wasn’t coming back. The adults had told her that she didn’t need to lash out all the time and that she should try sit quite, behave properly, but none of them understood. When she said she didn’t know how Emilia’s doll had ended up in pieces, she meant she hadn’t even touched it! Heather tried to fit in with these people, she really did, but this was a muggle family fostering a magical child. After a particular incident involving a broken window and a trip to the hospital (magic was, ironically, not involved in this), the family decided that Heather just wasn’t for them. Feeling left behind once more, Heather was quickly matched with another couple eager to foster. But the branch had already been burnt and she was not to be reaching out to these people any time soon. A welcome reprieve soon came in the form of a lady wearing robes and a pointy hat knocking on the door of the couple’s flat in Birmingham. The explanation for previously unexplainable scenarios calmed the couple considerably and Heather felt a small flame of hope spark in her chest. A magical world? It all made sense now. Of course, she didn’t belong here, she was a witch.

Heather’s first step into Diagon Alley will forever hold a place in her most cherished memories. The sounds, the sights, the smells – everything felt right. She was whisked through the usual first year trip around stores, buying robes and cauldrons and books and a wand! Hogwarts couldn’t come quick enough. And the sorting ceremony? It all sounded fascinating. Personally, Heather was hoping for Ravenclaw, but she knew not to have any solid expectations.

Which was lucky, for although the hat certainly considered the blue and the bronze, in the end it decided that silver and green would suit Miss Heather more. A choice that Heather would later come to question. For in Slytherin house Heather came face to face with her first taste of blood purity. And she didn’t like it one bit. Who were these older students, to question her “blood status”? And how was she to know? Determined to uncover any knowledge of her family, Heather poured over the student records in the library until – there. Peter Pettigrew, graduated 1978. It fit! Heather was more than a little relieved. At least one magical parent. She had been worried she would be one of those, what did that older boy call them? Oh yes, mudbloods.

But the discovery of her father’s name opened another can of worms – where was he? Ever the independent child, Heather was determined to find out on her own. And she did, stumbling upon an old article in the Daily Prophet. He was dead. Murdered. By his own best friend. She truly had no proper family left ( her mother stopped counting long ago). Hogwarts, while a chance to be in the world she belonged to, did not help build a strong relationship with her foster family. Heather rarely saw them, choosing to spend her days in summer exploring wizarding London or, when she was older, spending the nights with the muggle teenagers who partied too loudly down the street. Home was simply a stop-over. She belonged at Hogwarts now.

In her second year, Sirius Black, notorious mass murderer and the man who killed her father escaped from Azkaban. Heather was terrified. And angry. But mostly terrified. She hated that man, hated seeing his stupid face in the Daily Prophet, hated hearing his awful name whispered in the halls. How dare he rip the only family member who would have loved her away from her, how dare he rob her of the chance of a proper home? For surely, if her father had survived that horrific attack, he would have raised her, her would have taken her in. Instead, she was left alone and Black now roamed free, free after escaping Azkaban and free after slipping through the ministry’s fingers once more.

And the very next year, Cedric died. It was the first of many darker stains on Heather’s memories of Hogwarts. Despite what the Ministry said, what everyone seemed to say, she could sense a tense current winding its way through the halls of her school. Voldemort or not, something dark had returned from that graveyard.

[ THE EMPEROR ]

Heather was 16 years old when she discovered her father was in fact, alive. Standing in the Slytherin common room at the start of her fifth year, the murmured conversation of two older students reaching her ears. Heather was 16 years old when she discovered her father was alive and he was a Death Eater. The force of such a revelation left Heather reeling. She couldn’t pay attention in class, she couldn’t finish her meals, she couldn’t sleep. He had been alive this entire time. Did he not wan- no. No of course he would have wanted her he, he just must not have known! Yes, he was unaware of Heathers existence and it would be up to her to go to him. Heather grabbed all her doubts and questions about her father’s secret (lie?) and shoved into a deep, dark corner of her mind where she could hopefully ignore them. She had a purpose now. She needed to see her father. And to do that – she would join the Death Eaters. The stories Heather spun to convince herself were many and varied. This was a chance to belong to something bigger than just Hogwarts, she needed to pick the right side in this war anyway, this would keep her safe. But above all – this would make her father proud. Never mind the bitter weight in her chest that burned with something suspiciously like guilt, never mind the whisper-quite voice in the back of her mind that pleaded with her to do better, be better. This was the right choice. (Spoiler: it wasn’t).

[ THE TOWER ]

Heather was 17 when she killed a muggle. She was 17, shaking hands barely holding onto her wand at her side as her body went cold along with the one on the floor in front of her. It wasn’t meant to end like this, it had been a simple enough task, capture a muggle for the Dark Lord, something she could, she should have been able to undertake on her winter break. But then he had a knife and objects were being thrown and...and now someone was dead. The mark flared to life, the burning a welcome reprieve from the numbness that had spread from her hand, across her whole body. She was to meet the Dark Lord himself.

Heather was 17 when she first saw her father. The Dark Lord was speaking, addressing those before him but Heather heard none of it. All she could see was that thing, all but crouched at the feet of the man in front of him. He was a starving dog begging for scraps. And he never even looked at her. Not when she entered the room, not when Voldemort started to speak and not when she was called by her name. The world Heather had painstakingly built in her mind, each brick filled with another lie to get her out of bed in the morning, was crashing down around her head. Peter Pettigrew didn’t want her.

Heather was left with nought but the rubble of her life and the mark chaining her to all she hated splashed across her arm. She drifted through her sixth year, hoping and praying for the first time in her life to be left alone. And then came the Battle of Hogwarts.

Watching your school turn into a battleground, watching your peers lie dead in the hallways, watching children fighting for their lives – Heather didn’t feel like a child anymore. She felt like a soldier, reluctantly shoved into a fight she didn’t start. But it was amongst the chaos and the death that Heather could finally attempt at what her conscience had been screaming for her to do. Disguised by rubble and school robes, Heather fired spell after spell at the very Death Eaters she could have been standing beside. And then Voldemort lost.

[ THE PRESENT ]

The war and everything leading up to it doused the fire that used to roar in Heather’s chest. She was pardoned, for fighting for the “right side”, (and no one ever knew about the muggle) but it doesn’t feel like it. Some days it feels like she is hated more for her last name than the dark mark on her arm, especially after the truth about Sirius Black came to light. She feels torn in two - on one hand it feels like a worthy punishment for her misdeeds, on the other - she just wants to live her life and she can assure you no one hates Peter Pettigrew more than she does. But Heather is tired of fighting. So she simply does whatever job someone will hire a PI with two social strikes against their name for and she works part-time shifts at Flourish and Blotts and when she comes home to an apartment emptier and colder than her bones feel, she does. not. cry.

#//*- [ heather | about ]#nox.intro #second time round babeyyy #death tw #drugs tw #neglect tw #abuse tw

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ibelieveinahappilyeverafter · 5 years

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Hi, I have some questions of advice, because I too want to be a commission writer. First, I have a PayPal account, I have not used it because I plan on using it for tumblr, how do I easily link it with my Tumblr account so I can get paid? And how do you get noticed as a commission writer on tumbr? For the longest time I have been writing for free but now I need to make the extra money, so how do I get noticed on tumblr as a commission account?

Hello! I wasn’t at all expecting a question like this, but will be all too happy to answer! I will be putting a Read More under this answer since it’s quite long, but essentially I will be going over the basics of PayPal, Growing Your Audience, Marketing Yourself, Pricing and Terms, and Commission Alternatives.

First, a little backstory for those who don’t already know why I find myself qualified to discuss this. I’m a freelance commission writer, which means I take monetary commissions for writing very much like an artist would take commissions for art. In my case, I specialize in fanfiction and certain fandoms, but I do offer original work if anyone wishes for it.

(tl;dr - I write people what they want to read for money.)

Keep in mind this ‘guide’ is only so comprehensive where I’m still learning about all of this myself, but for further reading there are dozens of commissions artists who have put their own wisdom online and many of the same practices can be used (and you might be able to use this guide even if you’re an artist). So, let’s start with PayPal!

PayPal

First, to answer your original question, you cannot ‘link’ your PayPal to your Tumblr account, but there are a few other things you can do.

What most people do is that they have a ‘button’ on their Tumblr pages that allow for PayPal donations. This is where you’ll be able to click the button, which acts much like a subscribe button would on other websites, and you’ll be taken to a PayPal page where you’ll be able to donate however much you please. A guide on how to add a PayPal donation button to your Tumblr page can be found here: https://www.jessicamullen.com/2011/02/17/how-to-put-a-donate-button-on-your-tumblr-blog-or-website/

If you still find yourself confused, doing a Google search on ‘how to put paypal donate button on website’ or ‘on tumblr’ yields many more results.

Another thing you can do, that I personally do myself, is linking your accounts. What this means can apply to many different things, but let me take you over a few of the quick basics.

With PayPal, please keep in mind that it is not a bank but a money lending service. What this means is that you should not keep large amounts of money in your PayPal account at any one time as it is dangerously easy to lose that money. A good way to solve this is to link your bank account to your PayPal account.

Linking your bank account allows you to transfer your funds in PayPal to your bank account, the timing usually being 1-3 business days, but being completely free. If you send $54.21 to your bank, then $54.21 will appear in your bank. Here is a WikiHow article on how to link your bank account to your PayPal, but please keep in mind that a Google Search will turn up even more results: https://www.wikihow.com/Link-Your-Bank-Account-to-Your-PayPal-Account

Another link you could do, in a sense, is to use the same email for your Tumblr and your PayPal. While this does not need to be done, I personally do it to allow for easier correspondence between everything I do. No matter what, though, make sure the email you give to any potential customers or clients is the same email you use for your PayPal, as this helps make things easier in the long run.

The reason for this is due to PayPal Invoices.When doing commission work, you should always, if possible, use a PayPalInvoice to accept payments on what you do. This allows not only for a papertrail, but it’s a safer way to handle money and not unexpectedly lose it ifyou’re working with a rotten client (of which there can be many in today’sworld).

As this is a more complicated process, here is a YouTube video on how to create and send PayPal Invoices: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNr1_4vPY5c : but what you’re essentially doing is laying a paper trail andgetting a receipt, which allows you to keep track of any and all funds you makethrough your commission work (which proves useful for taxes if you make enough or fall within a certain bracket).

At the basics you will create an invoice, write down the price of what you are getting paid, leave any thank you notes or Terms of Service notes (such as giving refund information and so on), and then send it to the mail your client gives you. Please keep in mind that once the invoice is paid and the money appears in your account, you will need to do further steps.

When the money appears after a paid invoice it will have a blue notice on it that says NEEDS ATTENTION, although sometimes it doesn’t and this is where you will need to be vigilant, and this means you will click it and it will take you to a page asking for shipping information. If you are doing digital goods such as writing in this case, you will need to click a dropdown menu that will talk about your shipping options. You will need to click Order Processed and then accept the change which will allow PayPal to know that there will be no physical shipping done. Take a look at the picture below for an example.

This is very important as, if you do not do this, PayPal will think you are scamming your client and refund the money to them, so always be sure to do this step. If you’re uncertain, there are many PayPal help guides through a Google Search, or just on Tumblr. I have a few articles tagged on my own blog that have proven helpful: https://ibelieveinahappilyeverafter.tumblr.com/tagged/paypal

While PayPal can be difficult to work with, it helps in leaving an official and legal trail that allow you to track your funds, which is an excellent thing in today’s world. Hopefully, this section helped you get through at least the basics.

Growing Your Audience

Commissions are a wonderful way to interact with the community you’re a part of and make money at the same time, but it won’t prove as helpful if you don’t know how to grow the audience that will be after your work.

First, and most obvious I believe, is finding your audience. What this means is that if you plan to write fanfiction for commissions, then be active in the fandoms you hope to gain clients from. Post your writing of stories, headcanons, ideas, and get people’s attention on your work. It’s also a great idea to interact with people on your posts, get personal, and make a name for yourself.

For me, personally, I’ve been actively writing in fandoms for well over a decade of my life, primarily with Danny Phantom, Gravity Falls, and, these days, My Hero Academia. I have been attempting to do writing commissions since sometime in 2015, but it was not until this year that I began to see clients because of my involvement within My Hero Academia, which is a large, popular, and ongoing fandom.

If you don’t currently have any ties to the larger or higher traffic fandoms, then there are times where you will have to remove your feelings from the equation and get into fandoms that you didn’t think you would like. A large part of this is that you are now doing a job and this is a business, and that means you need to notice trends and follow the crowds.

What I mean by that is that if you see social media fixating around a new fandom, hop into it, start writing, and gather people’s attention. A new fandom, especially, is great because this means fanart and fanfiction is limited, and people will be searching for good stories for the characters they love.

A big reason I use Tumblr is because of the follower count. If I start posting for new fandoms, then I can watch my follower count to see if I’m gaining or losing an audience and whether the gain vs loss is worth it. Personally I’ve moved on from Danny Phantom in many ways because there is no one willing to pay to consume work there these days, but that’s not so in other fandoms.

If you think this advice is harsh or not something you’ll be able to do, then try to focus on growing an audience in what you do like, but keep in mind it might not be as profitable as you’re expecting.

Growing your audience is a long, involved, and on-going process. It won’t happen overnight, but just starting and noticing the trends of what is happening is a great place to begin.

Marketing Yourself

As I mentioned in the last section, you are now running a business that is you, yourself, and I, essentially, and that means you now need to think as a business owner. In today’s world that starts with social media.

Social media isn’t just a way to keep up on memes, but it’s a way to let people know what you do, what you can do, and what you’re willing to do. Tumblr is a great place for writers as it’s a blogging platform that allows for the sharing and expansion of ideas (even with all the flaws it has today), but there are other social media sites that will allow you to market yourself and what it is you can do.

Tumblr allows you to post large portions of your writing and entire stories in a way that’s easy to read and easy to share. It also allows you to monitor your following count and have an archive of past work you’ve done, one that’s easily taggable so people can see examples of your work whenever they wish. It’s also an easy way to always have your commissions information (such as prices) available by making it a page on your blog. For now, I’ve found this is the best place to have the core of your business and commissions (especially if you’re involved in fandom).

Twitter allows for quick thoughts, quick links, and quick information. This is a good site to use for updates on your commissions, links that will bring in traffic to your tumblr, and growing a user base that’s more personable with you. This has as many drawbacks as it does advantages, but remember that while you don’t want to share your life story, customer service is a big part of commissions. Put on your retail smile and speak softly.

Instagram is typically a better site for artists, but writers can use it either to showsnippets of stories as captions under relevant pictures, to network withartists who will be able to help you in the future, and even just posting inprogress shots of some of your stories if you wish.

Facebook is not a website I have much experience in, but you can use it to start a page and have your clients comment and talk about the stories you’ve done for them. It’s a good place for testimonials and local based work, but not as good for digital goods such as writing and art.

The goal of all of this is to brand yourself. What do you write? What do you want to be known for writing? Are you a writer whose easy to work and get along with? Have your clients been happy with the work you produce for them? Are you worth whatever prices you set?

A brand isn’t just a catchy logo that people remember, it’s what you’re known for best, like Payless being known for affordable footwear. What sort of writing do you want to be known for is the question you will be trying to answer when doing your commissions work, although this doesn’t mean you have to work alone.

Earlier I mentioned networking with artists who can help you in the future, and this is because artists and writers can work together. If you’re having a hard time pushing your commissions, consider approaching an artist you know, one who is doing their own commissions, and suggest a 50-50 split to team up together, writing for a client and then drawing an accompanying picture.

While this may not be as profitable as commissioning on your own, it will allow you to grow your audience and client base as you will be showing your work to the artists’ audience, which means they can become yours, too. It’s a great way to spread your audience, work with other artists, and be a bigger part of whatever community you become a part of.

Overall, remember to always have sample work and examples posted where your clients can find them easily, be personable and friendly when dealing with those who buy from you, and keep in mind what exactly it is you’re trying to sell.

Pricing and Terms

There is no one good way to price your art. Every writer and artist is different and every writer and artist will continue to be different. While you and your skills are worth money, it is good to keep in mind that this is now a business and your prices, while reflective of your skill, must also be affordable to the audience you cater to. If you tend to write for an audience that is mostly teeangers and young adults, it might do to start with lower prices and work your way up to higher prices as you gain experience and clients.

This section is short as, truly, there really is no clear and cut pricing guide for your work, but below is a sample of my commission prices that I have settled on for the time being if you wish for an example.

*500-999 words = $5

*1,000-1,999 words = $10

*2,000-2,999 words = $18

*3,000-3,999 words = $24

*4,000-4,999 words = $28

*5,000-5,999 words = $30

*6,000,6,999 words = $36

*7,000-7,999 words = $42

*8,000-8,999 words = $48

*9,000-9,999 words = $54

*10,000-10,999 words = $60

*Complete Story: 30,000 - 40,000 words = flat rate of $250

*Editing: flat rate of $10

When it comes to your ‘terms,’ this means that you need to decide what you will not write. A lot of writers who take commissions for subjects they’re not comfortable writing means they don’t write their best and, many times, say they regretted taking the commission at all. You don’t need to explicitly state what you will not write when you post your commission information, but be sure to have a list in mind so you can decline clients when they contact you. For an example of a commission page, here’s mine: https://ibelieveinahappilyeverafter.tumblr.com/commissions

Commission Alternatives

Now that we’ve gone through all of that, there is still the chance you will fail the first time you open your commissions. I have had commissions open for many years but, as I said, I did not start gaining business until this year. So, in case that happens to you, here are a few alternatives you can use; ones that I personally use myself.

Patreon is “a crowdfunding membership platform based in the United States that provides business tools for creators to run a subscription content service, with ways for artists to build relationships and provide exclusive experiences to their subscribers, or “patrons.”” What this means is that it allows you to provide exclusive content to those who pay you on a monthly basis.

In the case of writing this means you could post exclusive content behind a paywall, typically $3 to $5 per month, and those who enjoy your writing will pay to see it. Keep in mind that it takes hard work and some luck to do well on Patreon and I, personally, still only have a few Patrons to my name.

A good way to boost and advertise your patreon, however, is to place it on each story or long post you personally make and post, as this will give people an idea of what you write and allow them to check out your Patreon for good information. My typical tagline is:

⍣ I have a Patreon! Support me!⍣

Ko-Fi “allows creators like you to receive money from fans of your content. Create your page and button and share it anywhere on the web. Anyone who clicks your link can support you with a ‘Ko-fi’ (a small payment that is roughly equal to the price of a coffee).” What this means is that when you make a Ko-Fi anyone who ‘buys you a coffee’ is giving you $3, and they can stack the coffees so if they buy you 5 coffees then that’s $15.

A good thing I like about Ko-Fi is that they are automatically linked with PayPal, so when you sign up all the money you make goes directly into your account there. A thing to keep in mind, however, is that you must check order processed on all Ko-Fi payments on your PayPal like you would with an invoice. Each Ko-Fi you get must be individually attended to, but it’s a good, safe way to get one-time donations. You can also tag it on all your writing posts like so:

☪ I have a tip jar! Buy me a coffee!☪

There are a few other alternatives to Writing Commissions, but those are the two I use, trust, and know best, but if you see some other avenue don’t be afraid to explore it!

Last Advice

Let me begin by saying all the information in this guide is by no means comprehensive, but can apply to art and original work just as well as it can writing commission fanfictions. The point is to market yourself, find an audience who will buy your work, and keep churning out work as much as you can.

Another thing to keep in mind is that this will not be easy. For every writer I’ve seen offering commissions, there are a hundred more artists with their own commissions drowning it out (which is why I recommend teaming up with artists when and where possible).

I have been writing in online spaces since roughly 2009-2010, but I didn’t have the idea to start writing commissions until 2015. It’s only been this year that I have been contacted to write and have successfully made money off of my work.

A large part of this is finding the right following, but don’t be afraid to interact and be a part of a community. Writing is an expression of art and an amazing experience, especially in fandom circles where communities are forming everyday, but writing for money turns it into a business, and that means you need to learn how to market yourself and prove that your skills are worth the amount you ask for.

I hope you’re successful in whatever you choose to do and I further hope that this guide proved helpful. Write well and happy days!

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