#round wrapup post

[nicejewishcharactershowdown]

just want to say -- sorry for the drop off in the 2024 competition, polls will resume next month (May) just in time for Jewish American Heritage Month!

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

2024 tuesdaypost retrospective

it's hard not to make this all about my nearly full 365 days of unemployment. i have cut a great deal from this wrapup. thank you all for your love and support (often financial!) this year :') it has never been scarier to have no familial safety net and i really, really appreciate all of you relative strangers (i have met very few of you in person!)

jobs applied to: my best estimate is 4500 given my daily target balanced with periods of more acute despair and physical illness

interviews: 2

calls to the massachusetts unemployment agency: 73

cats spayed and/or neutered: 3 (phil, orange boy, ruby)

eclipses seen: 1

hurricanes: 1

completely fallow weeks: 5

i have GOT to be more specific about writing out loud what worked and what didn't work instead of resorting to "vibes were off". i also have to remember to be better about saying where i found things and saying the premise/genre of the film. i try to draft these on sunday nights so i can kind of mull things over for a bit, but that rarely happened this year.

highlights of the year: a tomato plant in a five gallon bucket, hotvintagepoll, the eclipse, my new zebrawood desk, throwing my own birthday party (NOT passive aggressive it was very comforting to be in full control), ren faire, the modern zelda games, genshin impact, heist films, naomi novik's temeriare series, Navigational Entanglements by Aliette de Bodard, the Popping Tins newsletter about tinned fish products, new joywave and beyonce and charli xcx and kesha albums, and an actual play podcast focused on critical worldbuilding smart characterization and fun interaction between good friends.

questions? comments? concerns? something about the structure/critique of these posts or a work i talked about really click or really not work for you? i would love to know!

listening

all the tuesdaysongs are in one spotify playlist below. if i recced a whole album (only did that this year with The Offline’s La couleur de la mer and Toshiyuke Honda's SONGS OF THE MILKY WAY ) i put the song i thought most representative of the album.

special shoutouts to the Well There's Your Problem engineering disasters podcast, the Sangfielle season of Friends at the Table, The 404 Media Podcast news/tech/culture podcast, and the Whale Hunting podcast about financial crimes.

i would like to find music through other avenues than the spotify weekly recs playlists, especially since the platform has noticeably nosedived after their last round of firing people. unforch i have yet to find a music influencer/blog/tastemaker/podcast whose tastes jive with my own.

-

reading

the sort of three broad categories of stuff i talk about in the reading section are articles, comics, and actual books. fairly pleased with my RSS feed, which is filling the twitter hole and also has a separate Real US News tab i can look at in a more controlled manner. people seem to have liked the article/book combo bc reading a book a week is usually kind of a heavy lift for people who are employed. as long as i do either an article or a book i feel like this category is checked off in my brain. i would like to do both more weeks and figure out how to do more concise book reports. i am pleased that people seem to like the couple weeks of giant DNF lists where i briefly state why i did not finish a specific older scifi paperback.

shoutout to @rae-being-naughty for introducing me to one of my favorite new authors, t kingfisher! what a delectable niche. those books go down SO easy. shoutouts also to the temeraire books, Trouble And Her Friends by Melissa Scott (what if neuromancer was good?), Dark Wire by Joseph Cox (nonfiction about the encrypted phone company the FBI shadow-ran) and Witch Hat Atelier.

the OPPOSITE of a shoutout to the most frustrating books i did not finish this year, a fragile enchantment by allison saft (the very weird fantasy meghan/harry fantasy au????) and jennifer dugan's the ride of her life, a cowgirl wlw romance that had some kid pop up in the second chapter and yell about how they shipped the leads and were making a tiktok about it. hello??????? huh????? i had that book on hold for SIX MONTHS. what the fuck did people see in that book???

reading and holding and interacting with a physical hard copy book is so much better for my shattered attention span, and i have giant bookcases full of physical books i desperately want to read, but i read ebooks so much faster. a dilemma that will for sure continue into the new year.

-

watching

logged almost 169 things on letterboxd this year so far (almost nice). the giant spike is when i watched a a dozen individually loggable betty boop shorts. tasty tasty stats.

saw one entire film (howl's moving castle) in theaters and i do not think i will be doing that again bc (while fun) it was a very anxiety inducing experience.

more tv and shorts and tv comprised entirely of shorts than i expected to watch this year!

watching highlights of the year:

-

playing

the gaming rig i bought in 2020 is really staring to show its age and only very light-resource pc games are feasible rn. very many thanks to both @sybilius and @pasta-pardner who both bought me games i will one day play!

spent most of the year with big open world exploration/puzzle/action games, as is traditional. barely touched a fallout this year, which is less traditional.

by hours, the ranking is probably

genshin impact

breath of the wild

tears of the kingdom

STUFF SORT on my phone

stardew valley

powerwash simulator

what are people interested in seeing in this section?

the trouble with this section is that has been a thorn in my side basically since i started this series, but games are such a part of my life it feels weird NOT talking about them? but talking about video games is difficult bc none of them are very good. i find myself Still a little burned out on them even after almost three years on from the video games job. finding something fun and free on itch or steam is very time-consuming. every time i talk about genshin i feel like i have to caveat it with one million Don't Play Gacha Games warning stickers like the ones that come on cigarettes. and i don't feel like a screenshot of whatever achievement i hunted on genshin in a specific week is very interesting to people.

maybe the solution is to cut this section for a while and have a special bonus add on section every once in a while??? i dunno. would love to know people's thoughts here on how to make talking about/telling stories about the games i play more interesting.

-

making

the tuesdayposts as a whole have been both very good and very bad for my mental health, bc i really needed a project to work on to break up the soul crushing monotony of writing cover letters. however writing the tuesdaypost every week was often a very anxiety inducing expereince bc i felt like i didn't do much. or did stuff very unevenly. the "point" of the tuesdayposts is to remind myself every week that absorbing a lot of different things helps me stay on a more even keel. esp in times of great unrest. unfortunately, a year of unemployment.

i saw my siblings twice, managed to actually write and post christmas cards, framed a bunch of shit, discovered a new favorite soup, and did some indifferent gardening and cross stitch.

the making section this year tended to be more lifestyle blogging/what i cleaned. a lot of weeks i did not have Anything in the tank except basic vacuuming and halfhearted wiping counters down.

however??? i managed to post three fics??? two were previously written but at least they are no longer languishing on my harddrive??

this goofy little NFT genderswap blondeyes has the craziest hits to kudos ratio on anything ive ever written.

i really do intend on finishing this cait/fahrenheit 5+1. the stars have not been aligned.

this very brief crossover has gotten some of the loveliest comments!!! when i am done directing and choreographing the big prisoner/arcade argument in my brain i am excited to actually write that.

im genuinely for real afraid to ask or expect anything of 2025, but here it comes anyway!

[lutavero]

2024 Creative Round Up

Tagged by @evan-buck , @heartstringsduet , @alrightbuckaroo , @carlos-in-glasses , @guardian-angle22 and @emsprovisions @reyesstrand !

I... know this is really late and on top of that I had a rather back-half-heavy year, so to speak. 💀 I debated long on whether to even make this or not because before September I didn't really post anything, my motivation kinda left me, but then the new episodes really brought it back and I still know how to make gifs. 😅 So here are some of my loved sets, bolds are absolutely favs!, with hopefully all working links!

2024 MayTarlos + no personal space gifset I LS daily 3x13 set

2024 SeptemberThe season five countdown set I All the sneak peak and 5x01 sets: Tarlos 1, 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ; the 126 gifsets 1, 2 , 3 and this Owen & Tommy talk

2024 October In total, I made 34 sets, so I'm listing some of my favorites: This TNT scene , Parallel Tarlos reunion hug, TNT hug, Wyatt's no good very bad shift , Judd & Tommy , The infamous 'you made dinner' scene , TK & Tommy talk , Owen & TK father son set , the 1x02 - 5x05 parallel set and Flirty TK set

2024 November In total I made 29 sets, , so I'm listing some of my favorites: Tarlos' romantic dinners at home set , the surprise lore TK & Owen set , the barn rebuilding scene , TK & Jonah set , the birthday party Tarlos set , 'You're now family Carlos' set , TK & Owen talk set , the tipsy Carlos/karaoke dare set , Tarlos dancing through the seasons set , Instigator! Carlos set , the 5x08 on-call/Sam's here for the drama set , TK & Jonah at the prison set , Carlos now loves sleeping in set and Carlos' ties and shirt combos set.

2024 DecemberThe cemetery cheek kiss , Carlos' speech at Gabriel's grave , Carlos feeling ready to become a father , Carlos in 5x09 , TK & Judd & Owen parallel set , Tarlos holding onto each other set , Carlos' TK smile set , Family dinners at Owen's set and my absolute favorite is the AO3 wrapup set I made for secret santa for @tellmegoodbye .

I really hope to bring this energy with me to 2025, and to not have such a long hiatus, to still love this show as much as I do now, and to maybe surprise some of my favorite writers with some sets. 👀

[theaceofskulls]

I need it to be known that awhile back, I burned out on Warframe hard.

I cycle through live games like it a lot and usually I take a bit of time off and come back to them regularly, but there was just a lot of stuff right before I quit that slowly wore away one me.

It started with Railjack, a gamemode I was really looking forward to feeling like a clunky reset that was entirely an uphill grind before I could get to any of the fun parts and continued with the battlepass like systems that eventually saw the release of Glassmaker coming out alongside its third open world, Deimos.

Deimos felt bad, and the current season which would regularly spawn in enemies into the mode while you were trying to work on things made it worse. and it was yet another content island with a very confusing design to me with enemies with too large threat radiuses and several elite enemies with confusing damage resistances.

I felt behind on everything and feeling less and less like I was enjoying the rewards I was getting, but there was one big update that I was waiting for: New War.

When that dropped and it felt like it focused on a dev's pet project while downplaying the things I was looking forward to and then dropped an endgame mode that was on top of all the other ones I'd yet to fully master, I hit my burnout without knowing it and held on lightly until Angels of the Zariman, another endgame mode where the rewards appeared to be all for decorating an apartment with a confusing new faction system and yet another "we got to a part of the game I really wanted to see and this is it?!" moment.

I left the game entirely for two years, only occasionally checking in. When it was announced that Steve would be stepping down to focus on Soulframe, I couldn't even properly get excited at that despite snagging a beta key. Hearing Rebecca take the helm had me interested, as well as seeing the 1999 stuff interested me but I couldn't drum up the excitement I used to have.

Earlier this year after the latest round of 1999 previews, I was interested enough to see if my burnout had worn off and while it did, I don't credit that for why I've stuck with it again. There's been a legitimate change in direction to the game while I've been away, and while a few of the grinds I've missed have the telltale signs of why I burned out, going through the content since then, especially with the major overhaul to the UI and damage system has made this whole game work for me.

I stated in a previous post that 1999 also manages to successfully leverage its story quest into its grind correctly and after a few days of doing the actual grind, I don't just stand by that statement, I feel this is an absolutely amazing teachable design by comparing the older content that caused me to burn out (to be fair, 1999 isn't perfect and I have some stress points)

The story quest doesn't just leave on a "now that's over, go grind out content to get your rewards" it emotionally charges you with "this grind works towards emotions that we've played with in the story" and also does a good job of throwing rewards your way very early and very often. I noticed this same pattern with the Whisper in the Walls content when I got to it, but it's clear that this has taken further lessons.

The fact that the story content has an epilogue that I managed to get unlocked within three days of playing with it, which didn't end the grind nor my reasons for wanting to continue, really goes a long way as well. Compared to New War which launched without its epilogue and required weeks to see it through (and even then, it would be two mainline updates before Duviri which had almost half of what I consider to be the complimenting material to New War), Angels of the Zariman which immediately petered off its story, Duviri which felt like the grind was completely separate from the story, and Heart of Deimos where the story wrapup was entirely contained by the faction grind (and the correct way to actually do that faction grind was actually counter intuitive as I'd learn later), it's clearly such a learning moment.

The fact that engaging with the faction is done in more than just missions (but the missions themselves having the NPCs in them helping you) is also such a huge change to the way the game felt. I'm engaging with this update because I want more and more, not just chasing the gameplay rewards (which often felt out of reach if I didn't manage to cross that threshold to endgame that felt out of reach).

I do think that a lot of lessons need to be applied backwards throughout the game but the things I've seen in the past couple updates it's gone through are incredibly promising. Whisper in the Walls providing catchup mechanic and alternate ways to obtain rewards from other annoying grinds was inspired, and I'm once again engaged with the game and looking forward to seeing where story threads go.

[guessthatrec-poll]

Guess That Rec: Round 2 Matchups

Hi, everyone! Round 1 of Guess That Rec was a smashing success, and polls for round 2 will be out tomorrow afternoon! The matches for the round are:

#2 vs. #3

#5 vs. #7

#10 vs. #12

#13 vs. #15

#17 vs. #20

#21 vs. #24

#26 vs. #28

#30 vs. #32

#33 vs. #35

#38 vs. #40

#41 vs. #44

#45 vs. #47

#49 vs. #52

#54 vs. #55

#58 vs. #60

#61 vs. #64

Some reminders for those who might be new to this blog:

Polls are based on which of the Bad Recs sounds most appealing to you.

Guessing is encouraged and a vital part of the tournament: preferably, guesses will be posted in the replies of the poll or in the ask box, rather than in the tags, so that your followers don't see your guess before reading the recs or voting in the poll, as well as to keep all guesses in the same 2 places so they're easier for me to keep track of. (I can't actually stop anyone from doing this, but I'd prefer if you didn't!)

Since most people following this blog have likely read all the recs by now, guesses in the askbox will be posted as they come in from here on out.

Polls will run for a week, and results will be posted on Saturday 2/1, along with the identities of the losing recs and a wrapup of their correct and incorrect guesses.

Have fun and happy voting!

[words-for-cat-bracket]

round 4 wrapup post coming in a few hours, tumblr mobile is HELL and i have rehearsal until 6 and can't use tumblr on my computer at school

[fzzr]

Spring 2023 Anime Wrapup

Original Post:

This sure was a season. I finished 14 full-length series, plus some OVAs and carryovers. Undisputed show of the season Oshi no Ko and underrated hit Dead Mount Death Play lead the pack, but there's a range of other content between hate-watchable and actually good as well.

New Stuff:

Oshi no Ko (My Star) - Holy shit. I don't want to say much to avoid spoilers, but it was a 10/10 candidate from episode one and still might end up there on rewatch. For now 9/10, you MUST watch this. There will be a post forthcoming when I process it for a while.

Isekai de Cheat Skill wo Te ni Shita Ore wa, Genjitsu Sekai wo mo Musou Suru: Level Up wa Jinsei wo Kaeta (I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivaled in The Real World, Too) - They put the entire power fantasy in the title for your convenience. It's not a great message that all you need to do to become popular is inherit a bunch of money and literally magically change your entire body, but here we are. The power fantasy is truly stratospheric - for example, he accidentally seduces a model and is proposed to by a princess in the space of one episode. The "animation" (or lack thereof) doesn't give the at best mediocre plot the support it needs, alas. A very generous 6/10.

Jigokuraku (Hell's Paradise) - Samurai Suicide Squad with a hearty helping of EDGE and a surprising amount of heart. The action was good, even though it sometimes felt like they ran out of time to make things truly excellent. 8/10.

Kanojo ga Koushaku-tei ni Itta Riyuu (The Reason Why Raeliana Ended up at the Duke's Mansion) - Another villainess anime, this time with the twist being that she becomes a villainess on purpose in order to save her own life. Most of the time the plot foreknowledge twist was used to undermine typical shoujo tropes rather than heighten them. Between that and the nothing ending, I found it oddly muted. 7/10.

Kimi wa Houkago Insomnia (Insomniacs After School) - I didn't finish this yet, because I don't think I'm ready for the emotional punches it's setting up. Not dropped, just not done.

Skip to Loafer (Skip and Loafer) - A country-girl-in-the-big-city shoujo story, in which our protagonist good-natures her way through a whole stable of stock high school antagonists. I like that given only twelve episodes to work with they didn't speedrun to parts where relationships happen, and instead let the story take its time. This is the first time since Hyouka I've really liked something with this sort of sedate pace. Looking forward to more! 8/10.

Tengoku Daimakyou (Heavenly Delusion) - A trip through the post-apocalypse featuring spooky monsters, bioethics failures, and a mix of hope and despair at how people face life after the end. Worth a watch, but be aware there's some extreme content. 8/10

Yamada-kun to Lv999 no Koi wo Suru (Loving Yamada at Lv999) - Shoujo for gamers! Unlike Raeliana above this shoujo with a twist did it for me. For personal reasons I appreciated the respect paid to online relationships. Convincing characters and relationships plus distinct and consistent art make this a very honorable 8/10.

Otonari ni Ginga (A Galaxy Next Door) - A guy touches an alien princess funny and they're married now. Yes, another one. This time, she's his manga assistant. Very light and fluffy, despite the subtheme of family alienation. 7/10, though at the high end for myself.

Dead Mount Death Play - Reverse Isekai! With a name like that you'd expect some serious edge, and there is some. Surprisingly though the themes are very wholesome. This was the biggest surprise of the season. I didn't watch it in the first round of shows, but when I looked at it out of curiosity it blew me away. 9/10, you should really watch this.

Tonikaku Kawaii - This is a sequel, but I hadn't watched the previous season, so it's new to me. I added it later in the season mostly out of curiosity. It turned out to be another entry in the impossibly perfect significant other microgenre, like The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten. As with Angel Next Door, the point is that you should be an actual good person. This time it's about the rewards of getting married as soon as possible, and here are step-by-step instructions. There's a subtle-but-not-subtle supernatural undercurrent that becomes increasingly obvious in season 2, as well. 7/10.

Sequels:

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls' Story Season 2 - What can you say about a show that introduces multiple dangerous forbidden techniques in the middle of a tournament arc... of golf? Anyway here's lesbians doing more wacky special moves. If you're into weird sports anime you're sure to be into this. 8/10.

Dr. Stone: New World - There was a lot more yadda yadda this time, so it fell a bit flat. The less they show Senku's work coming up with things the more they feel like instant win buttons instead of things they worked for. I had hoped the cast size constraint in the second half of the season would have let them go back to spending time on inventions, but alas no. 7/10.

Kimetsu no Yaiba: Katanakaji no Sato-hen (Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Swordsmith Village Arc) - Yep, it was more Demon Slayer. I'm pleased that Demon Slayer has mostly maintained its quality, in contrast with My Hero Academia which fell off a bit in the middle there. 8/10.

Kidou Senshi Gundam: Suisei no Majo Season 2 (Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury Season 2) - The robots (and lesbians) are cool, but I don't see how it's possible to miss the "war (and unfettered capitalism) is bad" message. It's also a new take on Revolutionary Girl Utena, which I've been meaning to re-watch and write about for some time. No excuse now, I suppose. 8/10.

Uma Musume: Pretty Derby - Road to the Top - I forgot to put this on the first list because it's a four episode ONA that hadn't started airing yet. As one of the weird sports anime I actually enjoy, of course I was up for even just a small arc of it. 8/10.

Carryovers:

Kubo-san wa Mob wo Yurusanai (Kubo Won't Let Me Be Invisible) - Finally a bulli anime I can enjoy, thanks to it not actually being bulli for very long. In the end this was a sort of nothing-in-particular show, falling somewhere in the fuzzy area around impossibly perfect SO and teasing anime. As expected it's almost all frosting and no cake, but I did enjoy my time with it. 7/10.

Itai no wa Iya nano de Bougyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu. 2 (BOFURI: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense. Season 2) - This fell off a bit, and I think I know why. It suffered from the same thing as later Dog Days seasons, where it used its expansive cast by shuffling who hangs out with who. This provides less novelty than the original concept of "what will they get up to now" did, and it also necessarily slows things to a crawl as we need to see more perspectives on every event as a result. Still, the characters remain fun and the game is as busted as ever. 7/10.

Dropped:

Kaminaki Sekai no Kamisama Katsudou - Garbage. A fetish fest with godawful CGI. Rancid vibes. You'll never know where it's going. You may have trouble looking away. I did eventually, though. Dropped at episode 10. 6/10.

Isekai One Turn Kill Neesan: Ane Douhan no Isekai Seikatsu Hajimemashita (My One-Hit Kill Sister) - Lots of Rule D edging. The quality isn't the most consistent, the tropes are basic, and little of value is to be found here. When it's good, it's actually kinda good. Unfortunately it got boring. Dropped at episode 10. 6/10.

Edomae Elf (Otaku Elf) - Elf in real world! Wooo! A nice comfy show. Not much happens, but it's cute enough. Got boring in the end though. Dropped at episode 10. 7/10.

My Home Hero - It's hard to think of anything recently that used tension and suspense to this degree. That said, the every-episode cliffhangers eventually got exhausting and turned me off and I stopped keeping up. 7/10 not for me.

[jellicle-brawl]

And that's a wrap on round 1! Round 2 will be up in the morning, I need time to get everything put together, so we're taking a break today. I'll also be posting a round wrapup later today, once I'm at my computer.

See you then ^_^

[mcspirkholidayfest]

Everyone, gather round for a McSpirk party!

2018 hasn't been an easy year for many folks, and even in recent weeks Tumblr has been a leader of the chaos in our lives.  McSpirk Holiday Fest’s staff has felt the weight of the upheaval deeply but, calling on our collective determination, we decided we had to see 2018 through to the end.

And our Creators agreed.

For that, we must take a moment to applaud each of our seven participants and give them a big THANK YOU.  Without you, Creators, the final Round of 2018 could not have carried on.  Despite adversity, this fandom has truly experienced a season of sharing!

We had in total 8 fills, from art to fanfic, for 2018's Round Five: Winter Holidays.

Please enjoy these wonderful gifts of McSpirk.  Let each one add to your experience of ringing in a brand new year!

FANART

Prompt by @drmcbones : Jim gets Bones and Spock matching ugly Christmas sweaters. They are not amused.

Fandom: AOS

Fill: Stay Warm by @tiirabird-art

–

Prompt by @waywardconsultingtimelady:  The trio explores a Christmas themed planet. Snow men everywhere, giant candy canes stuck in the ground.  I’d prefer it if they didn’t meet the locals of the planet and just wondered alone through a Christmas wonderland. Really cheerful locals if you prefer to have them come across some.

Fandom: AOS

Fill: More Fanart! by @tiirabird-art

FANFIC

Prompt by @movingplant: Jim, Kirk and Spock prepare a Christmas meal together (for Christmas dinner, or they bake Christmas cookies). Maybe for the ship-wide holiday celebration, or for their own private little celebration.

Fandom: TOS

Fill: Holiday Season at The Intergalactic House of Parsnips by @urbanspaceman

–

Prompt by @trek-tracks : It’s always an ice planet. Bones hates ice planets. But Jim wanted snow for the holidays, and so “shore leave” is on a damn cold rock. It’s beautiful, though, so Bones decides to go exploring to see what he can find for Jim and Spock (or possibly he hears something that triggers his doctor sense). Now he’s trapped behind a whole bunch of ice that’s decided to crash down, and of course he brought a medkit, not a phaser. Someone’s bound to find him eventually, but he hopes he has all his extremities by the time they do. He also hopes it’s the Captain and the XO and not a hostile new lifeform. Or if it’s a hostile new lifeform, he hopes they’ve heard of spiked hot chocolate. It’s always an ice planet.

Fandom: TOS

Fill: In Winter Snow Angels Sacrifice by @klmeri

–

Prompt by @waywardconsultingtimelady :  While sleeping Jim is transported to a Winter Wonderland and he must find Bones and Spock. I imagine that the alien is doing this inside Jim’s mind but it’s still very real and has consequences. But Jim physically appearing in the Winter Wonderland is also fine.

Fandom: AOS

Fill: Tis' the Season by @snarkysnartes

–

Prompt by @whomerlockwood :  I love fluffy Christmas/winter McSpirk! What about old married McSpirk? Something like in Star Trek IV, but with a snowy winter scenery. They are in a small rustical hut for a few weeks. Maybe they are skiing. Or building a snowman. Something like Spock feeding the birds in the snow, Bones showing more of his family recipes to them and bickering with Spock about it. Spock freezing pretty fast (so he is always lulled in fluffy warm clothes). Jim reading in the evening or playing chess with Spock. Bones finally trying to teach Spock in poker (maybe Spock is secretly good in it?). Jim cooking breakfast for them (maybe pancakes?). [Gosh, I could go on with such things for hours, haha]. Jim goes hiking with all of them. Maybe it’s one of the occasions where Spock is not refusing a Brandy. More Spock and Bones bickering and they’re both asking Jim who’s right and Jim only sighs. Bones and Jim cooking together. Ok, I think I have to stop now, haha, you probably got the idea of what I’m suggesting. I don’t expect someone to make it all in one fanfiction, but a few aspects would be great though.

Fandom:  TOS

Fill: Don We Now Our (Gay) Apparel by @iwillstaywiththemforever

–

Prompt: Olympic figure skating AU complete with alliances, rivalries, and drama

Fandom:  AOS

Fill:  Silver and Gold by @captainsandraclassof2029

–

Prompt: Secret Santa on the Enterprise.  Romantic gifts are being given like gangbusters, and everyone desperately tries to figure out who their secret Santas are.  Possible name-trading shenanigans.  Possible mistaken guesses with hilarious consequences.  Possible extra gifts given to someone who is NOT the actual name that was drawn.  Possible downright lies about who has given what to whom– until all is revealed at the last minute!  

Fandom: AOS

Fill: Secret Santa by @waywardconsultingtimelady

[red-black-aesthetic-bout]

RED AND BLACK TOURNAMENT: ROUND ONE UNDERWAY

Polls will be released every hour throughout the day (10 am - 7 or 8 pm EST) for the next week

Submit character propaganda or descriptions at any time via ask box or reblogging

Tags

redblack tournament (poll tag)

redblack propaganda

round wrapup

round 1 (etc.)

mod speaks

ask answered

character info post

lightning round (prelim tag)

winners

redblack reblog (reminders to vote at one day left)

About the poll, info, and guidelines

Round one matchups under the cut!!

Bracket 1

Ruby Rose (RWBY) vs. Vanitas (Kingdom Hearts)

Mello (Death Note) vs. Rhaenyra Targaryern (House of the Dragon)

Kuga Yuma (World Trigger) vs. Kiki (Kiki’s Delivery Service)

Clifford (Clifford the Big Red Dog) vs. Dracula (Castlevania)

Kai Satou (Your Turn to Die) vs. Ladybugs/Ladybirds (real life)

Zuko (Avatar: the Last Airbender) vs. Kuro (Katamari)

Kate (Shadows House) vs. The Cat (Ghost Trick)

Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (Marvel comics) vs. Red X (Teen Titans)

Elric of Melniboné (The Elric Saga/Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion Multiverse) vs. Naomi Armitage (Armitage the Third)

Alucard (Hellsing Ultimate) vs. Keith Kogane (Voltron: Legendary Defenders)

Lance (Sym Bionic Titan) vs. Panpeus (Gitaroo Man)

Six-Eared Macaque (Lego Monkie Kid) vs. Flick (Animal Crossing)

Watchdog (Jupiter-Men) vs. Crowley (Good Omens)

Eye of Sauron (Lord of the Rings) vs. Ylfa Snorgelsson (Dimension 20: Neverafter)

Razer (Jak X: Combat Racing) vs. Kieran Valentine (Monster High: Why Do Ghouls Fall In Love?)

Wei Wuxian (The Untamed/MDZS) vs. Giant Horse (Breath of the Wild)

Shadow the Hedgehog (Sonic the Hedgehog) vs. Black Sonichu/Blake (CWC’s Sonichu)

Sailor Mars (Sailor Moon) vs. The Toy Soldier (The Mechanisms)

Ada Wong (Resident Evil) vs. Jack Spicer (Xiaolin Showdown)

Tophat (The Nightly Manor) vs. Marceline the Vampire Queen (Adventure Time)

Parr Family/The Incredibles (The Incredibles) vs. Pioneer 9 (17776 and 20020)

Guilmon (Digimon) vs. Julian Devorak (The Arcana)

Miles Edgeworth (Ace Attorney) vs. Sundancer (Worm - Parahumans)

HAL 9000 (2001: A Space Oddyssey) vs. Eas (Fresh Precure)

Harley Quinn (DC comics) vs. Itachi Uchiha (Naruto)

Scorpia (She-ra and the Princesses of Power) vs. Redcloak (Order of the Stick)

Scarlet Kingsnake (real life) vs. Hornet (Hollow Knight)

Maka Albarn (Soul Eater) vs. Toa Tahu (Bionicle)

Thorn (Scooby Doo and the Witch’s Ghost) vs. Litten (Pokémon)

Maned Wolf (real life) vs. Orko (He-Man)

Rebecca Rubin (American Girl Dolls) vs. Lucifer (Obey Me)

Death the Wolf/The Wolf/Lobo/Death etc. (Puss in Boots: the Last Wish) vs. Joker (Persona 5) Bracket 2

Miles Morales/Spiderman (Marvel comics) vs. Cynder (Spyro)

Edelgard von Hresvelg (Fire Emblem franchise) vs. Sanguine (The Elder Scrolls)

Artegor Nexus (Galactik Football) vs. Beidou (Genshin Impact)

Barb (Trolls) vs. Mao Mao (Mao Mao Heroes of Pure Heart)

Wrathion, the Black Prince (World of Warcraft) vs. Vox Akuma (Nijisanji En)

Romeo (Minecraft: Story Mode) vs. Hua Cheng (Heaven Official’s Blessing/TGCF)

Sharkface (Red vs. Blue) vs. Ashley (WarioWare)

Carmen Sandiego (Carmen Sandiego) vs. Beatrice (Umineko no Naku Koro ni)

Claire Stanfield/Felix Walken (Baccano!) vs. Deathgripper (How to Train your Dragon)

Default Mii Brawler (Super Smash Bros Ultimate) vs. Silver (Pokemon franchise)

Joui Jouki (Ordem Paranormal) vs. Banica Conchita (Evillious Chronicles)

Dreadking Rathalos (Monster Hunter Generations) vs. Black Widow Spider (real life)

Celestia Ludenberg (Danganronpa) vs. Gira/Kuwagata Ohger (Ohsama Sentai: King Ohger)

Garnet (Steven Universe) vs. Black Knight (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

Scott Summers/Cyclops (X-men) vs. Heather Chandler (Heathers)

Lon (Sendokai champions) vs. Edward Elric (Fullmetal Alchemist)

Darth Maul (Star Wars) vs. Defective Turret (Portal 2)

Easthies (Witch Hat Atelier) vs. Grim (Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy)

Zagreus (Hades) vs. Freddy Kreuger (A Nightmare on Elm Street)

Black Rose Dragon (Yu-Gi-Oh!) vs. Marian Hawke (Dragon Age 2)

Michael Burnham (Stark Trek franchise) vs. Mapo Tofu (Food Fantasy)

Flapjack (The Owl House) vs. Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Ladybug (Miraculous Ladybug)

Red-winged Blackbird (real life) vs. Pucca (Pucca)

Overblot Riddle (Twisted Wonderland) vs. Quattro Bajeena (Mobile Suit Gundam franchise)

Pyramid Head (Silent Hill) vs. Lord Hater (Wander Over Yonder)

Sigmund Sinclair (The Reckoning) vs. Vash the Stampede (Trigun 98/Trigun Maximum)

Ranma Saotome (Ranma ½) vs. Valerie Gray (Danny Phantom)

Mephone 4s (Inanimate Insanity) vs. Regina (Doki Doki Precure)

Mordecai Heller (Lackadaisy) vs. Sideswipe (Transformers G1)

Satan (Lil Nas X’s Montero music video, and also Christianity or something) vs. Zealot Carmainerose (Epic 7)

Zero (Code Geass) vs. Yor Briar (Spy x Family)

Vincent Valentine (Final Fantasy franchise) vs. Ryuko Matoi (Kill la Kill)

[discworldbooksbracket]

And round 2 is complete! We're taking another break today and tomorrow, and round 3 will begin on Saturday, because I think we could use a breather.

I'll post a round 2 wrapup tonight; I'm on mobile till after work. See you then.

[cospinol]

final nanowrimo wrapup post btw!! 

i was hoping to make 75k this year but ended up flaking out the past couple of days b/c of migraines, but redo still managed to scrape by as my longest nano ever (about a hundred words up on psd) :’) i firmly believe that the amount of plot covered here should only amount to ~35-40k at the absolute most, though, and i’m really looking forward to trimming it down in the first round of editing. but i’m also really looking forward to continuing into next month, partly because i didn’t make it to any of the 3 stopping points i was aiming for (the actual end of the first arc, the end of the court scene, or the argument at the town) but also partly because i’ve been having so much fun writing this!

and the last paragraph(s) of the month, for posterity:

good night (for now) to the most fun nano i’ve written in a long time ^v^)b

[leverage-bingo]

Leverage Flash Bingo 2021 Wrapup!

Congratulations everybody!

We have reached the end of the first flash bingo for @leverage-bingo! Thank you all so much for participating.

Submissions can be made until noon Eastern on August 1, 2021. Please remember to post your masterpost and fill out this form.

Your masterpost is basically a post that gathers all your fills for this bingo and helps us keep track of things when giving out badges.

Minimum to include in your masterpost:

•Card & prompt: (example) Card 2- Sunflowers

•Title: (example) Fluffy Disasters

•Pairing: (example) Eliot/Hardison/Parker

•Spoiler warnings: In the event your work has spoilers for episodes or new characters of Leverage: Redemption... please list what episode you spoilers are for. In the event your pairing includes new characters or you did an art... perhaps a warning at the top will be enough. Tagging it on the tumblr tags would probably help too. (Yes I got busy and haven't finished them yet) 《if you don't have spoilers for Redemption in your fanwork, you do not need to include this》

•Link: You link the fanwork here whether it is another post on tumblr or a post to Ao3.

-------

Now. Beyond that use your best judgement on what to include for each fill within your masterpost. Think about what you'd like to know before seeing a fanwork. Ratings (Ao3 rating system is fine), warnings (violence, adult content, triggers, etc), and summaries are common ones to include. If you have further questions about masterposts please don't hesitate to contact us mods.

Masterposts are due by August 7th. Badges will be emailed after that. We here at Leverage Bingo have both badges for completing a bingo and Participation badges. Only got one fanwork done and posted (like me) you get a Participation badge.

Thank you so much for participating!! Hope to see you all this winter for the first regular bingo round for Leverage Bingo.

--Mods Wick and Gav

[a-blrofonesown]

Fall 2018 - Once More Into the Breach!

Hey everyone! The new semester starts up next week, and I wanted to take the time to introduce myself a little more fully and talk about what I want to do with this blog going forward. Right now it’s mostly just a dumping ground for posts or art tutorials I’ve found, and I want to give it a little more purpose.

My name is Nikki/Nikkil, whichever you would prefer, and I’m a storyteller. I’ve been actively writing since about 2007, and drawing or painting since about 2009. I’m studying illustration and creative writing at university, along with things acting and playwriting. I like experimenting with new ways of combining various forms of media to see if I can tell stories that resonate with people that maybe connect with visual or physical input more than they do the written word, because everyone deserves to be able to enjoy stories in their “native language”, so to speak. I write predominately upper YA/crossover adult stuff, with a focus on science fiction and fantasy.

I created this blog last year, around the same time that I made it into the illustration program. The title is a riff off of Virginia Wolff’s “A Room of One’s Own”—I wanted to create a space where I could come and talk about the things I’m trying to achieve in my studies, to have a sounding board with other students, to basically have somewhere where I could say, “when I am here, I can be successful and in control of my studies.”

I mention in my about section that I’m autistic. I’ve got a few other brain things, like ADHD-inattentive type and OCD tendencies, all of which can contribute to a pretty scattered mind and a hard time with executive functioning skills like task initiation and time management. In the past, this has made it pretty hard to consistently stay on top of schoolwork because there were just so many moving parts. However, another part of my autism is my special interest in education and learning. I really, really love learning about how to learn and focus and improve. I have a gigantic catalog of articles, videos, and short ebooks on my phone waiting to be read and assimilated. When I was in high school, I always felt like there was something that other people knew that I didn’t. Somehow, they had been told how to manage their time and their coursework, and they had time for work and extracurriculars and leisure and they could just keep track of things. I want to be that kind of person—in control of my own life.

I’ve always enjoyed the opportunity to be methodical. I like making plans and reporting back on them. I like the accountability of it, not because I dislike the drop that comes if I fail to do as I’d intended, but because I love the buzz that comes when I succeed. There are a few things I’d like to do with this blog going forward to try and harness that phenomenon.

#OneMoreDayOfProductivity - A riff on the #100DaysOfProductivity I’ve seen around the blogosphere. I like the idea of trying to build up streaks for important habits. I like the look of the unbroken chain. However, something I’ve recently been trying to do is not fail before I have a chance to succeed. Trying to decide to do something for 100 days when it is still only day 1 has enough psychological weight as it is, and if I’ve tried and failed to do something like it before, it becomes that much harder to believe I can do it. One day, though? I can do one day. I can do one day of writing, one day of planning, one day of drawing. I can do this one day at a time. Who cares what happens tomorrow? This is about today.

Weekly Wrapups - I used to work at a place with a professional development program, and each week we would meet with a coach and review our goals and plan out action steps for the coming week. We’d adjust plans as needed to reflect how our actual progress was going, accounting for unexpected difficulties or successes. Right now, I have a coach I meet with to help me with my executive function skills, and we do the same thing with my school work. I’d like to do a post in tandem with that, to go over what I’ve succeeded at this week and what I’d like to change or implement going forward. I’d also like to do a roundup of posts or videos or other resources I’ve come across over the week that have to do with relevant topics like mental health, creativity, education, art, etc.

Masterposts - I don’t have a lot of original content to round up into a master post, but I do have a HUGE selection of third-party resources. I’d like to make a series of masterposts that I can update as I work through my own catalog. I want to make it easy to use these resources to find the kind of information you’d be looking for, so I’d include little blurbs talking about what the article or post or video had to say and what I liked about it. I’d reblog them every so often as I update them, and I’d probably set up a permalink on the side of the blog so you could find them easily. Some topics I’d like to cover would include:

Mental Health in College

Executive Functioning Skills

General Study Skills

Creative Thinking (for brainstorming, writing, drawing, design, etc.)

Reading and Comprehension

Focus and Productivity

How to Art

How to Write

Self Care and Self Regulation

How to Adult

Motivation

Apps and Tools

and whatever else I find while I trawl through my massive archive!

I’m pretty excited to get back into the swing of things. No matter what happens, I always see a new semester as another chance to do things right. The studyblr/studioblr community is such a wonderful place—you all congratulated me when I got into my program last year, and so much of my archive is filled resources that you’ve put together in your own time. Let’s do this together, one day at a time!

Some places you can find me:

The Studioblr Collective Discord: It’s a great community full of wonderful people! You can get help on projects, post progress shots and final pieces, troubleshoot programs, or just hang out. You can find more about that here.

@nikkilbook : My main blog. I mostly do cross-posting from here, with the occasional reblog and the rare original post. Sometimes you’ll see bits and pieces of the shenanigans my sister and I get up to.

@nikkil-rp : A writeblr/roleplay blog I started to showcase the characters and stories I’ve been working on, both in words and art. There are a bunch of handy permalinks along the side to my project character pages.

Words and Worlds: My Wordpress blog, where I put my original fiction, complete with the pertinent illustrations. Everything up to the first act of each story (which currently means everything) will be open to be read.

Artstation: My full portfolio, complete with progress shots. The progress shots are my favorite part of any project—I love seeing how it all comes together.

DeviantArt: A more casual portfolio. This has some of my older, pre-university work, as well as a few short written pieces. I’d like to get this one up to date, particularly with some of my sketchbook work, but that’s lower on my list of things to do right now.

[smorgasbordinvitation]

Smorgasbord Blog Magazine - Weekly Round Up 21st - 27th November 2021 - Thanksgiving, Relationship WrapUp, Toto, Christmas Book Fair, Book Reviews, Memories and Humour

Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – Weekly Round Up 21st – 27th November 2021 – Thanksgiving, Relationship WrapUp, Toto, Christmas Book Fair, Book Reviews, Memories and Humour

Welcome to the round up of posts you might have missed on Smorgasbord during the week. I hope those of you celebrating Thanksgiving this week managed to do so with family this year. Christmas here in Ireland is looking a little dicey with rising cases in line with the rest of Europe. I am grateful to have had my booster this week and it looks like the majority of Irish people are taking advantage…

[sallygcronin]

Smorgasbord Blog Magazine - Weekly Round Up 21st - 27th November 2021 - Thanksgiving, Relationship WrapUp, Toto, Christmas Book Fair, Book Reviews, Memories and Humour

Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – Weekly Round Up 21st – 27th November 2021 – Thanksgiving, Relationship WrapUp, Toto, Christmas Book Fair, Book Reviews, Memories and Humour

Welcome to the round up of posts you might have missed on Smorgasbord during the week. I hope those of you celebrating Thanksgiving this week managed to do so with family this year. Christmas here in Ireland is looking a little dicey with rising cases in line with the rest of Europe. I am grateful to have had my booster this week and it looks like the majority of Irish people are taking advantage…