#i worked like 5 months on this on and off why am i like this | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lunajay33 · 1 day

Text

Change Part.6

•🎀🩰🩷•

Summary: Y/n is a loner but loves ballet but her family doesn’t have enough money for her to dance at the studio, Daryl is a redneck who hates people and prefers bikes, until one day these two run into eachother and their lives change drastically, will Daryl toughen her up? Will y/n soften Daryl? Or both? How will things go when people start coming back from the dead

Pairing: Young Daryl Dixon x f!reader

A/n: This is going to be a series, it’s gonna start with how they met eachother and their lives before the apocalypse, eventually it’ll blend with twd story line!!

Part.5

•Masterlist•

It had been a week since the incident with the walker, Daryl refused to let me go out alone again and I didn’t blame him I didn’t want to be alone either it was too risky, it wasn’t just my life in danger, I had a baby to worry about and I refused to leave Daryl alone in a world like this, I rolled over in bed admiring his sleeping form, his hair all crazy, I love him so much and the fact that our family was just about to begin tore something from me that I always dreamed about

“Mornin” he grumbled as I ran my hand through his hair

“Sorry did I wake you?”

“Nah I was up a while ago just waiting for ya”

“Mmmm” I didn’t know if it was the pregnancy hormones or what but my mood was at an all time low and I didn’t wanna drag Daryl down too

“What’re ya thinking about” he asked as he squeezed my hip

“Nothing”

“Angel I know ya like the back of my hand, I know when yer over thinking”

I sighed hating that he’s always been able to crack me out of my shell he shown me time and time again that I can trust him with anything, he’ll we’re having a baby together why shouldn’t I tell him

“Just been thinking where my family are now, I know I haven’t talked to them in like a year but I still wonder if they’re even alive”

“The last time you talked to them they called ya a selfish slut, ya shouldn’t worry about them, all they’ve ever done was hurt ya angel, we got our own family now, one that’ll love ya more than they ever could” Daryl wasn’t much of a big speech kinda guy but when he knew I needed comforting he pushed that side of him away to be there for me

“Yeah I guess you’re right, like usual” I said laughing as he pulled me closer so I could lay my head in his chest

I was sat in the living room curled in a blanket reading the new twilight book hearing the rain patter against the windows, the smell of a roast in the oven that Daryl had put in, right when I got to the part where Edward was leaving Bella the phone rang, Daryl at my side handed it over scoffing at the caller ID

Caller ID: Jackson L/N

“This can’t be good” I sighed clicking answer and putting it on speaker

“Hello?”

“You need to come home” not even a hi or nothing

“Why? None of you have bothered to contact me in months what is it this time?”

“Dad lost his job, mom and dad need money for rent” I could see the anger written all over Daryl’s face

“Jackson I have my own life now, I can’t be helping you guys out ever time you need money, I have bills of my own and I don’t wanna waste my money on people who don’t even care about me”

“Are you serious right now?” He asked enraged

“Why can’t you help, you’re the one that got that football scholarship, I had to work my way through university and I’m still paying off student loans, plus Daryl and I have to pay for our house and car and motorcycle”

“You know what this is done, you’re out of this family for good this time, mom and dad should’ve gotten rid of you when they had the chance you selfish slut” the phone disconnected signalling he hung up

I looked at feeling my chest tighten, I never wanted this I was never the golden child in their eyes, I only ever felt like I mattered when Daryl came into my life

“He’s lucky this was over the phone or I’d beat him into the ground” Daryl groaned rubbing my legs over the blanket

“Why am I never good enough for them?”

“Ya got that wrong Angel, they ain’t good enough for you”

As I sat outside eating breakfast Daryl and Merle got ready for the day, Merle was going to Atlanta with some people from the camp and Daryl was going out hoping to find a deer he’s been tracking for a while

“I gotta go now Angel�� Daryl said as he stung his crossbow over his shoulder

“But I don’t want you to go” I whined getting up to wrap my arms around him

“I know but I’ll be back later this evening just try and stay around the other, don’t want another problem like last week” he said placing a kiss to my cheek

“Fine just promise me you’ll be safe out there, that you’ll come back to me”

“Promise”

He picked up some extra arrows and disappeared through the tree line

“Ya got him wrapped around yer lil finger don’t ya” Merle mocked

“Come on Merle can’t you just be happy that he’s happy, I know you don’t like me much but you’re my family now and I’m yours, plus I’m carrying your niece or nephew can’t we just be cordial for once” I said exhausted from his constant bickering

“Don’t matter ta me ya got knocked up, ya made my brother soft and yer gonna see ya ruined his life” he picked up his weapons and left the camp site leaving with the Atlanta crew

“God when do I catch I break?” I sat back down in the camp chair not noticing someone sit next to me until they talked

“You okay sweetie?” It was Lori

“It’s just Merle, always a pain in my ass, just been thinking about what’s gonna happen now with the baby and everything I’m just scared” I looked at here to see if she’d give me advice but here eyes were wide

“What?” I asked confused

“You’re pregnant?”

“Yeah, I guess we never really mentioned it”

“You know when I found out I was pregnant with Carl, I was a wreck I was young and scared and didn’t know what to do with myself, but the moment I saw him curled up in my arms so little without a care in the world, I knew what I had to do to protect him from harm, everything will be okay” she smiled patting my back

“Thanks, that’s help a bit I just wish it wasn’t in these circumstances”

“How far along are you?”

“About 4 months now, I’ve been taking my prenatals and everything”

“Well I’m always here if you have questions about the baby or changes you go through, but I have to go cut Carls hair”

Something clicked, maybe since this was a new start for Daryl and I and with the baby in this new world maybe I needed a new look, something to liven my spirits

“Umm Lori, would you be up for cutting my hair too!” I asked as I ran up next to her as she walked towards her camp

“I’d love to”

I sat next to Shane as Lori worked on Carls hair, he couldn’t stop complaining but it was adorable

“One day you’re gone wish you had her cutting your hair” Shane said laughing

“Doubt it”

“Trust me Carl, one day you’ll crave to be have these moments again with your mom, it may not seem like it but you will” I said seeing a little smile on his rosy cheeks

“Alright you’re all done” Lori said as she swiped off his extra hair on his shirt

I sat down in front of her as she wrapped a towel around my shoulders

“Alright how short do you want it?” My hair was down to my mid lower back

“How about just below my shoulder”

“That’s quit a chop”

“Well I need it”

She held my hair back and it a split second it was chopped, she straightened out some uneven pieces and it was done

“Well what do you think?”

“It’s really nice Mrs. Dixon!” Carl said with a beaming smile

“Well thank you but you can call me y/n sweetie” he was adorable I hope my child is as sweet as him

“It suits you perfect dear”

“Thank you! I should go clean some clothes done at the quarry, if you need anything I’ll be down there!”

I spent most of the evening down at the quarry cleaning and scribbling mine and daryls dirty clothes, laying them out on some rocks to let them dry, meanwhile dipping my feet in the cool water helping to sooth my ankles that have been getting a bit swollen

I looked around hoping no one was near, I haven’t been able to get a good proper bath in a while so I stripped down my clothes leaving only my bra and panties, submerging myself in the lake floating belly up watching the clouds pass by just like the time Daryl took me here

“Daryl Dixon did you drag me out here just to see me naked?” I asked smirking as he started taking off his shoes and pants

“Come on it’s nice out yer gonna love it” he said as he was stepping into the lake

I bit my lip feeling that thrill shoot through me, I stripped to just my panties and bra, I walked over taking his hand

“Aren’t you going to take your shirt off?”

“Ya sure?” I knew he was embarrassed about his scars but they weren’t his fault

“You know they don’t bother me, I love you for you, not what happen to you” I said squeezing his hand reassuringly

He lifted it over his head and threw it back over to my clothes pill

“Come on Dixon show me how great this’ll be, better not let me drown” I laughed as I dragged him in

“Still can’t believe yer my girl”

“And I’ll be your girl until you’re sick of me”

“Never”

“Well well well what do we have here?” I heard behind me as I pulled on my clothes after drying off

“What do you want Ed?” I groaned feeling that touch of fear he instilled in the women of the camp

“Showing yourself down here for the whole camp, you’re asking for it” he said stepping closer

“Leave me alone Ed”

“Ya ain’t got your man around who’s gonna stop me?”

“Don’t you touch me or you’ll be sorry”

He stepped closer squeezing my jaw now face to face

“Like I said ain’t no one gonna stop me” he said as his other hand started to wander down my arm

Before he could get any further he was ripped away Shane throwing him to the ground

“Touch her or anyone else again Ed and I’ll beat ya to death I swear, come on y/n” I gathered up all the clothes I washed and ran to Shane’s side as he lead me safely back to the camp

“Thanks, I didn’t know anyone was around”

“Ain’t your fault, Ed’s one sick man you stay away from him, stay with the group until Daryl or Merle gets back”

I sat down next to Amy folding up the laundry still to shaken up to have conversation that’s when a car alarm was ringing around the quarry, the group was back and it felt a little better knowing Merle would be here while Daryl was gone, Shane shut off the car alarm and others filtered out of a cargo truck

Lori and Carl had their moment with their “back from the dead” father and husband which was incredibly heart warming but then I realized something

“Where’s Merle?”

Please please please give me some ideas for this story going forward🩷 How should I incorporate the ballerina story line into the new world??:)

Taglist: @pinchofthetwd @bigbaldheadname @strawberrykiwisdogog @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @l0kilaufeys0n7 @deansapplepie @severelykinky @tesfayera @daryldixmedown @secretsicanthideanymore @mordilwen-of-mirkwood @secretsicanthideanymore @superbowlisgay @pollito-chicken @minnie-min @writer-ann-artist @twisteduniverse5 @heidiland05 @lettersfromyourlove

35 notes · View notes

taylor-titmouse · 2 months

Text

hey i want to talk about how you should be promoting your work as an erotic author/illustrator

i'm writing this up because the marketing aspect of my work as an erotic author/illustrator is a science to me, and also because i'm the guy who gets unreasonably annoyed when i see other creators not properly advertising their work. you presumably want to make money off your work. this post will be written under the assumption you want to make money off your work but are doing a bad job at it. it will be very confrontational. if you read this and feel attacked you're right and i am attacking you.

this is geared toward selling erotic comics/writing/books/art as products. i will probably write more than one post about this subject so if i didn't touch on something you want to know more about, comment/send me an ask and i'll keep it in mind for the next one.

i will start with my first and least specific but most important point:

DON'T GET FUCKING CUTE

hi are you paying attention. i'm gripping you by the sides of your face. do not get fucking cute with what you are trying to sell. you are not a big enough property to get cute, nobody LIKES it when big properties get cute, and you are selling porn. you have to own this. you have to be up front about this. don't be tongue in cheek, don't be all teehee i wonder what this could be~, don't be secretive. you are selling a product. you have to fucking act like it. you are an adult selling pornography to other adults. i am GRIPPING your HEAD you NEED to understand this.

and to be clear when i say 'cute' i mean coy. i don't mean cutesy, as in the aesthetic. you can be as hello kitty pastel ten emojis a post uwu as you like when you're building your audience and generating hype. but when you start trying to sell, don't be vague, don't be sarcastic, don't mislabel your work as a joke and assume everyone is on it. because they're not.

you must always assume 75% of the people seeing the thing you are advertising have no fucking idea who you are. and that includes a huge chunk of the people who already follow you. they do not know who you are or what you've been working on for two months or why they should care about it. they just got here. somebody just reposted it. they are seeing it for the first time. most people are only looking at social media for a tiny chunk of their day. they are not keeping up with you. you cannot get cute about what you are trying to sell because nobody knows what it is until you tell them.

okay are you still with me. we are going to talk about clarity now.

YOU GOTTA TELL ME WHAT IT IS

good lord the amount of times i have gone to buy somebody's comic or book and had no idea what's actually in it or what it's about. who are the characters? why should i care about them? what do they do in it? what is the premise of this thing you want me to spend $5 on? why would you not tell me? i'm shaking you again. please i have to know what i'm buying i only have so much money to spend on porn.

porn, arguably more than any other genre, relies on knowing exactly what is in it. you do not want to surprise your readers with a kink they were unaware of! and on the flip side, you do not want to miss out on your target audience! if your book contains a hot spider babe laying eggs in an elf, you have to say so. not just so people who don't want to read about eggs know it isn't for them, but so the people who are egg crazy can see that and go "oh fuck YES i love EGGS here is my $5 and an extra $2 tip for catering to me specifically". a contents/features list is as much an advertisement as it is a warning!

as for re: who the characters are and why should i care, i'm sorry but you need to learn how to write sales copy. you have to write blurbs. you have to get good at the shit that goes on the back of a book. we all hate it but we have to do it. i want to know who the characters are and what the context is. i, personally, am not interested in contemporary stories as much as fantasy and historical. please tell me what genre this porn exists in so i know if it aesthetically appeals to me. pull some books off your shelves and see how they do it. hell man go look at mine.

while you're there, note that every single book of mine has a sample of what's in it. this feels like such a no-brainer to me but again! the amount of times i have gone to buy somebody's work and they don't show me what their work looks like! you gotta give me the first page or two! just enough that i know if i like the way your writing sounds, or the way you draw your comics! i don't know you! i am not going to trust that you're good at what you do just based on a cover. the cover is to get me to this step, it is not the only step. you have to show me that you're worth spending my money on!

to put it less cynically, you want to catch my interest. you want me to go 'oh i want to see more of this', you want me to go 'ahh i want to know where this goes!' you need to get me invested and craving more. earn my $5!!!

YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT EASY TO GIVE YOU MONEY

hey go look at your bio right now. go look at your pinned post. do you have a link to your patreon there? do you have a link to your itchio/gumroad/whatever? do i have to click more than once to get to the places you want me to go to give you money? why? why are you making me click twice? have we learned nothing from every website making you click an extra time when they make some stupid UI update and how much it pisses us off? i have already given up, i have forgotten you, i am not giving you my $5 today. put your links in the easiest places to get to them.

god literally as i was writing this post i went to go find somebody's itchio to see how they described their work and it was not anywhere on their profile. grabbing you and shaking you PUT THE LINK WHERE I CAN FIND IT. don't make it hard! make it easy! i am a dickhead sitting on the toilet scrolling, saw your post, and was interested enough to read further. but you made me go to your bio to find your linktree and oops i have already gone back to my timeline to look at the boobies in the next post. stop wasting precious bio space on DNIs and put your fuckin links there!!!

this is more for the twitter people, but: just put the link in the damn post. just say the word commission. just say it's for patreon. "wuh wuh the algorithm" it is not the damn algorithm it's that everybody hates advertising and nobody wants to retweet ads. putting slashes in the words doesn't do anything and you look like a fool. i have posted so much art that says it's 'a commission for ___" and it did exactly as good as any other art despite having the word commission in it. and by doing the slashes you just made it impossible for anybody to search your account for your commission information (which should be at the VERY LEAST in a post under your pinned tweet if you're not actively posting about them being open).

okay that went on a tangent i'm going to back to the point of putting the link in the tweet. put it in the first post. not in the first reply. don't tell them to go to your bio. put it in the post people are actually going to share. it's fine to put more information in the thread but people are only ever going to share the first post. so put the link there. you have to make it easy. putting links in tweets can hurt you algorithmically, even in the replies. so you're better off having it in the post that actually gets seen and shared. i don't want to open the tweet and scroll to get to your sales page where i ASSUME you will have put all the information anyway. put it in the tweet that just got retweeted by itself onto my dash!

also you have to share it a ton of times. i repost my shit every few hours when i'm trying to push a new product. as i said before people are not 24/7 looking at their timelines. they missed it the first time. they missed it the second time. they didn't get paid yet that week but they were after the eighth time and you reminded them again so they finally bought it. that i will still get sales every time i repost a book ad weeks after release says there are always people who missed it, or who only just showed up.

abandon your pride and shill. shills pay their bills. anyone who gets annoyed about it isn't giving you money in the first place. don't worry about looking like a sell out. don't apologize for plugging your own work. post about it often, post about it in different ways. post about it. post about it. you are not going to make money if people don't know you have something to sell them. if you want to make a career out of it, you need to act like it.

I DON'T HAVE A FOURTH POINT

kisses your forehead. i'm sorry for yelling at you. i've been making and publishing and selling adult art for the past two-three years and have got myself to the point where it pays my rent, and i got there by paying attention to what does and does not work.

please do your best to make money. i want you to make money.

as i said above i plan to write more posts on this subject, such as cover design, how to actually write sales copy, and best practices with running a patreon, but if there's things you would want to hear more about leave a comment or send an ask! i will probably be less aggressive on future topics. these are just things that have grinded my gears for a grip.

#tt talks writing #tt talks drawing

3K notes · View notes