#like how did YOU become popular ???????

[narwhalandchill]

oh my fucking god i feel. SO stupid rn at How i didnt make the (super sane very normal just absolutely. Yes. Surely) connection earlier but uhh

so anyway im now like 89% certain that whatever the "traces" of the narwhal that remain on ajax and facilitate their (ever-growing) innate connection are like. an actually fundamental aspect of it (them?) more or less.

why? because if you consider its pov just for a moment. the narwhal was literally about to depart teyvat for good. it had nearly finished consuming the primordial sea and preparing to breach surface to finish the job by eating the french for the leftovers their human bodies were made from. its an interstellar voyager it does not linger on planets it devours. it goes glug glug and it leaves.

and like if it wasnt for traveler intervening its confirmed through narzissenkreuz and renes world formula that teyvat wouldve just been destroyed. no one could have stopped the narwhal not neuvillette not focalors not anyone.

so what was the one other thing it did right before going for that french brunch? calling for ajax. getting them reunited in the primordial sea. like all the possible implications aside bc theres many different ways to speculate on the exact reasons why and the nature of that link. the point remains.

it wasnt leaving teyvat without finding him.

like the narwhal is about to fucking Dip from this cringe planet and whatever part of it that ajax carries within himself his narwhal Absolutely wanted to be reunited with. what the fuck am i supposed to read from that. hoyo???????!??! answers?!?!?!

and its not only the calling from the narwhal side itself either bc this is ALL coinciding with the growth of a 'restless power' within ajax and his vision malfunctioning (the things celestia is literally confirmed to harvest energy thru to repair its damaged authority) and his connection with the narwhal reaching an actual conscious level (arguably subconscious n emotional too bc i find it Curious his mood is poor right as the narwhal is repeatedly described as positively malding to the point its boss fight mechanic is literally a rage meter). ajax' power is growing. his destiny is starting to shift and something is drawing him to fontaine... right as the narwhal is getting close to finished with the primordial sea. funny how it overlaps eh. how it aligns 🤨🤨 why are they orbiting each other like this (they should kiss)

(& not to even Mention how ajax just Happened to get that absolutely exponential and borderline unbelievable feat of power spike in extending his foul legacy endurance as massively as he did. while. within the primordial sea. with his narwhal. who had at that point all but incorporated the power of that sea into itself. i s2g if childe was getting passive home turf co-op bonus exp with a 4x multiplier automatically the whole 40+ days 💀💀)

[quinn-pop]

yet another oc that only exists because i wanted to write something very specific

(middle is a little older, hence her scar healing. i like to think she gets a glass eye at some point)

anyway this is mira! (they/she) since that wip is almost 20k words and counting i won’t give away too much but long story short she’s the result of meta going “one last time, i promise” and adopting yet another kid

also galaxia kinda indirectly picked the name :)

i’ve mentioned before that i headcanon that pretty much all astrals are autistic and this is just kinda an extension of that. whereas meta tends to suppress his emotions and conform to others, mira…doesn’t. she gets uncomfortable and upset and lashes out at people easily, and working through their emotions is no small task.

the main reason i chose to write them that way was for the sake of narrative but i’ve grown attached to it because there’s a lot of ideas there i’d like to explore. stuff about navigating emotions and relationships when existing is so suffocatingly uncomfortable. it’s not something i could center around Kirby himself, but i think it makes sense with a post character development meta knight.

they are very loved (omg oldee cameo???)

kirby was definitely very excited to have younger siblings after being used to being the youngest in the room for so long!! (with the like. one and only exception being gooey.) he’s super affectionate with both of them and wants to have a close relationship one day, but for now mira is pretty unappreciative of that fact lol. they don’t like being pestered for hugs

everyone else is okay tho

(i know that’s hard to read. oops. “obvious bite marks”. siblings being siblings.)

mira also has a very love/hate relationship with the egg kid, being so close in age they kinda Have to get along but in typical sibling nature they also fight a lot. sure it’s probably rough for a while but i think in the end they’d be good buddies. maybe not as close as Kirby and Bandee but still.

anyway i have a lot of thoughts and am very busy but. i’m really enjoying writing about all this lately it’s been fun ^^

[tripably]

my one complaint about the booping day is that now that it's over, all the notifications regarding it are gone too, and though I would finally have time to go through all the random blogs I interacted with massively but didn't immediately think to follow are now gone from recorded history )-:

[pastafossa]

how long did it take for your fanfiction to start getting some recognition? did you "advertise" it or "promote" it in any way?

i know that people say this doesn't matter, but i feel like even if you love writing the feeling that you're just talking to yourself gets pretty exhausting at some point. so i'm not talking about having thousands of readers but rather like. what's your advice to have readers at least?

- someone who hasn't even started writing their ideas yet...

LONG POST INCOMING.

First I want you (and everyone else reading who may be struggling with this) to know I'm absolutely with you and generally think 'it doesn't matter' is a horseshit answer. It's this weird thing we do in fanfic that we generally don't apply to other artforms that I've seen. If you're a painter, a playwriter, a novel writer, and you say, 'I want at least a few people to love my paintings, I want some people to come see my play, I want my novel to be published and do at least ok' we all support them, we nod, we agree, we talk about how they can do that successfully. It's considered normal to want some amount of success. But hold up fanfic instead and it becomes, 'how dare you want that praise, you're being egotistical, you should be writing only for yourself'. I'm not saying you can't do that - there are some who do - but it's definitely this bizarre switchup to say there's this single artform in which we can't want attention on our work and that there's something wrong with us if we do. That can be an absolute creativity killer depending on what kind of writer you are (hi, extrovert writer here who only gets writy writy juice from social interaction - aka comments and discussion. So I totally get it being exhausting just doing this on your own).

So let me say this categorically: you're allowed to want things. You're allowed to want kudos, comments, and hits. You're allowed to want messages and asks. You're allowed to want some readers you can talk with about your story.

You. Are. Allowed.

Ok, now that that's out of the way.

Edit: more below the cut cause I didn't realize the length of this on mobile

TRT definitely didn't get popular overnight. The first four chapters were sporadic, and then I took a hiatus due to life things for a couple years. During that time, it kept slowly ticking up bit by bit on AO3, with occasional comments. Iirc it was hovering somewhere around 700 kudos by the time I came back in Jan 2021 - and that's a awesome! It's big! But it's also a number that was gained over a few years, to put it in perspective. It absolutely took off after I came back though, and over the past 2 years both TRT's popularity and the stats of my one-shots in the fandom have grown. Part of that's just the time frame (TRT's been up about 6 years), but it's also due to a couple things that I think built up TRT's popularity.

Building a tumblr presence was huge. Ironically I didn't really intend to do it for advertising; I just wanted a place readers could ask questions or we could all freak out about Matt or I could post some drabbles or updates on the fic. But considering the fact that AO3 and tumblr are the top fic sites online, I wound up promoting my fics unintentionally just by being a friendly, happy tumblr user and fandom goer. All I did was follow the courtesy rules I knew - post stuff regularly, reblog, comment, make friends with other writers, just be friendly in your neighborhood because you love the lady with the gif flower shop on the corner or the wise old pizza maker who serves hot fandom takes all day long. I built familiarity with my writing and name by posting short fics, and by taking part in challenges and prompt lists and short requests for drabbles if I saw them, though that's something that's hard to do if you don't have time (I've got less time now, but I started this blog in the early pandemic so I had aaaaall the time in the world to write and was using it to stay sane). I tagged religiously because I LOVE tags, but that helped, too. Tumblr's search system is half broken but the half that works means people CAN find your writing even if they aren't following. Doing all this over here got me a huge boost over on AO3.

I will say that if you can have a fandom tiktok presence, there's a lot of fic reviewers, edits, and good stuff that can get your fic some readers (I've had some people do this on tiktok for TRT and it sent a surge over). I personally haven't done anything there yet, in part because while I'm on tiktok I try to keep my actual, real person accounts separate from my fic/fandom accounts and i haven't bothered to make a second account solely dedicated to the Pasta name yet.

Longfics on AO3 have the advantage in fic stats in the sense that every time you add a chapter, it gets bumped to the top of the front page and you get seen again. Eventually a lot of people will click out of curiosity. They may not, however, give you a lot of user subs or add to your other fic stats at first, whereas if you do a bunch of oneshots you're more likely to get user subs but less hits on each fic. This is a decision you'll have to make, and I know folks in both camps who built their followings using different methods on each. Either way, it helps if you're posting regularly, either in a long fic or one-shots. I call this the Stephen King method, who said he just writes a ton and throws it all at the wall, and eventually you get enough good despite the bad that you start building a following.

Learn learn learn. This is standard fic advice I always give, but it's still relevant. I think one of the reasons imo TRT has done so well is that I've spent a lot of time over the years learning how to write and edit - I read a ton of books (sometimes just to figure out HOW good authors structure their stories), I took a lot of English classes, I've taken some creative writing courses in my spare time. That two year hiatus was heavily spent doing a lot of research and practice around an original novel I want published one day. And I used ALL of that in TRT, just to see what it was like to put it all together. Be hungry for knowledge, be hungry to learn. The more you learn, the better your fic will be, and the more people that will click.

That learning also includes a looooong string of fanfics that started at a very novice level (hello 12 year old me), to fics that were ok and did moderately well but weren't anything huge. Hell, I had a tumblr account for my previous fandoms before I wandered over to Pastafossa, and while those fics did decently, I never had the huge reaction I've gotten here. But I used each and every one of those fics to learn and grow and adapt. Treat your own fics the same way. If it doesn't get hits, try to learn from it before moving on to the next idea a little wiser and a slightly better writer than before. There will always be people who start to follow you along the way.

A small one, but important: I swear to god, do not shit-talk yourself. Not in the summary, not in the tags, not in the A/Ns. I'm not talking, 'this is my first fic!' That's fine. I mean trashing your own work. Shit like, 'ha ha this sucks, it's terrible but oh well' will absolutely lower your stats, because people will believe you and will ditch your fic. On top of that, it's just mean to yourself, and as I said above, you want to be a good person in the fandom neighborhood. That means not breaking the windows of your own house.

People generally think of summaries as a side note, but a shitty summary can absolutely tank your stats. Treat it like the rest of your fic - this is the trailer before the movie, and it's a huge element of what gets people interested in the first place.

Lastly, like I said at the top, the biggest factor is time. There are people who post one fic and explode in popularity, absolutely. But far, far more little followings are built on the bones of time, of abandoned fics, of muttering and highlighting phrases in books in the middle of the night, of trying and trying and trying until we have at last have a breakthrough and then drag that breakthrough forward with us to the next fic. TRT is absolutely one part lightning in a bottle - the biggest success I've ever had anywhere with my writing, a confluence of fandom factors and world events that gave people (and me!) time to write and read. But it's also standing on the back of whole lot of fics I wrote that look like everyone else's: ones with no comments, low interaction, insults; ones where I had precisely zero idea of what I was doing, but wanted to try anyway. And the way I got through that, as a writer who needs interaction in order to create, was by building friendships in fandom so that even when a fic didn't do all that well, I still had friends I could talk to about the characters, the world, the fandom itself. I asked friends to look them over and give advice. I had friends being my cheerleaders. And if you're an extrovert like me, or just a writer who needs that to create, then those connections are vital as you build up a following.

That's a lot of what I've done. I know there are other ways to build a following, but this is generally what I've done, what I've learned to do, and it seems to have worked. Just remember that there are no bad fics - just learning opportunities. Learn something, and that fic's a success, and work as hard as you can to make those fandom connections to carry you through the process.

I absolutely hope to see your work around one day, so that I can be on of those followers!

[13eyond13]

one of the lesser talked about fun things about intentionally reading more books is finding new stuff to be a bit of a hater about tbh

[rainingmbappe]

The rise of "let people enjoy things" is single handedly the backbone of the rise of anti intellectualism

[sweetpaintedladie]

i can’t explain why but this makes me ill

[athena-xox]

Reading old eah confessions that were written before spring unsprung actually have me in stitches

[drifloonz]

steven/mocha is canon

[homunculiii]

i know this is going to be badly received here but the way people on here talk about terfs really shows that they’ve just been frothing at the mouth to find a group of women to spew misogynist fantasies about. the sheer graphic violence (and often sexual violence) described in ‘anti-terf’ posts is so far beyond the way people talk about male transphobes or other bigoted groups and its genuinely disturbing

[cmonangel]

okay so i finally read a ballad of songbirds and snakes which led to me rereading the hunger games trilogy over the past week (SO GOOD i could make a whole other post) but then i thought it would be a good idea to watch the movies but then literally started sobbing from the beginning and started again every time single time they showed rue before the games even started or anything

[aroacesigma]

never in my life have i felt the amount of rage that i just felt oh my god

[fingertipsmp3]

I will never have friends like the friends I had in secondary school ever again. And in some ways this is a good thing

[the-fire-might-be-shooting-at-us]

I don't get what's so hard to understand about "Don't talk about Nancy or Steve or NancySteve you don't have the proper clearance" like how many times must I say it!!!

[doodlebeeberry]

bee , could you talk about your stella / hansen family in general head canons... i saw it in your tags once on ao3 and now im curious

It’s like 3 am so apologies if this isn’t coherent or is just a scattered mess. Also most of these are not very happy sorry

- Stella n Bryce’s relationship with their mom was. Rocky for a long while. She was kinda one of those folks who just wasn’t really cut out to be a parent. She didn’t dislike em, not by a long shot, but it took her a long time to deal w her issues enough to really be a proper parent to them, in a meaningful way.

- the three of them did eventually reach an ok place though. There was still a definitive distance, but when bryce was like a sophomore in high school or so they started reconciling a bit

- I maintain my old headcannons that the extended hansen family is Big. He has like a billion cousins but he hasn’t seen the majority of them in years. I do think he tries to reconnect with some of them at least like wayyy after one is over tho.

- bradley is like. A family friend on stellas side. She was closest with him but eventually he grew into almost a second sibling to bryce after a while

- they lived in the suburbs outside hartford. Can’t be bothered to look up where specifically so just pick the absolute most middle ground neighborhood possible

- stella absolutely taught him how to drive and she did so approximately fifteen minutes before his drivers test

- at some point bryce became the one in the house who cooked, mostly cause he was the only one who was particularly good at it. For a brief period of time, probably when he was like a senior, the three of them would sorta bond over it as he tried to teach stella n his mom how to not suck at it.

- at one point in that process, not long before stella died, his mom gave him a couple of old family recipes, scribbled on napkins and receipt backs and the like. This was the most solid ground they’d ever had up to that point. He still has them. He refuses to make any of them.

- stella died like three days after he graduated high school, give or take. If I wanna get really specific, and also kinda mean, she died durning a graduation party someone was throwing for him and a couple other kids on the block who’d also graduated. Total freak accident

- To say it put a damper on his relationship with his mom is putting it mildly. About a week after stellas death, Bryce and his mom has a really really nasty fight, both about her death and just about eachother. Lot of poorly-aired grievances and not-so-nice things were said, resulting in both bryce storming out of his own volition and his mom in effect kicking him out. He went south to crash with Bradley for a while, who was (and still is) living around bridgeport. He and his mom haven’t spoken since.

- he was thinking of going to community college. That didn’t happen.

- probably should’ve mentioned this up too but there’s no dad in the picture really. He vanished for one reason or another before bryce was even born rip

- his mom. Is aware of what happen on the smokestack. And she feels. Some sorta way about it I’m sure.

[grasshoppergeography]

Hey All,

I've been away for some time, as we've been working really hard on something quite exciting:

let me present to you the world's first ever global ocean drainage basin map that shows all permanent and temporary water flows on the planet.

This is quite big news, as far as I know this has never been done before. There are hundreds of hours of work in it (with the data + manual work as well) and it's quite a relief that they are all finished now.

But what is an ocean drainage basin map, I hear most of you asking? A couple of years ago I tried to find a map that shows which ocean does each of the world's rivers end up in. I was a bit surprised to see there is no map like that, so I just decided I'll make it myself - as usual :) Well, after realizing all the technical difficulties, I wasn't so surprised any more that it didn't exist. So yeah, it was quite a challenge but I am very happy with the result.

In addition to the global map I've created a set of 43 maps for different countries, states and continents, four versions for each: maps with white and black background, and a version for both with coloured oceans (aka polygons). Here's the global map with polygons:

I know from experience that maps can be great conversation starters, and I aim to make maps that are visually striking and can effectively deliver a message. With these ocean drainage basin maps the most important part was to make them easily understandable, so after you have seen one, the others all become effortless to interpret as well. Let me know how I did, I really appreciate any and all kinds of feedback.

Here are a few more from the set, I hope you too learn something new from them. I certainly did, and I am a geographer.

The greatest surprise with Europe is that its biggest river is all grey, as the Volga flows into the Caspian sea, therefore its basin counts as endorheic.

An endorheic basin is one which never reaches the ocean, mostly because it dries out in desert areas or ends up in lakes with no outflow. The biggest endorheic basin is the Caspian’s, but the area of the Great Basin in the US is also a good example of endorheic basins.

I love how the green of the Atlantic Ocean tangles together in the middle.

No, the dividing line is not at Cape Town, unfortunately.

I know these two colours weren’t the best choice for colourblind people and I sincerely apologize for that. I’ve been planning to make colourblind-friendly versions of my maps for ages now – still not sure when I get there, but I want you to know that it’s just moved up on my todo-list. A lot further up.

Minnesota is quite crazy with all that blue, right? Some other US states that are equally mind-blowing: North Dakota, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming. You can check them all out here.

Yes, most of the Peruvian waters drain into the Atlantic Ocean. Here are the maps of Peru, if you want to take a closer look.

Asia is amazingly colourful with lots of endorheic basins in the middle areas: deserts, the Himalayas and the Caspian sea are to blame. Also note how the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra are divided.

I mentioned earlier that I also made white versions of all maps. Here’s Australia with its vast deserts. If you're wondering about the weird lines in the middle: that’s the Simpson desert with its famous parallel sand dunes.

North America with white background and colourful oceans looks pretty neat, I think.

Finally, I made the drainage basin maps of the individual oceans: The Atlantic, the Arctic, the Indian and the Pacific. The Arctic is my favourite one.

I really hope you like my new maps, and that they will become as popular as my river basin maps. Those have already helped dozens of environmental NGOs to illustrate their important messages all around the world. It would be nice if these maps too could find their purpose.