#but when I do make the effort. I think like 100-300

[reasonsforhope]

Your blog is a literal god send for me, I’ve been feeling so depressed, pessimistic, nihilistic and cynical at the state of the world right now and my fear of if I even have a future, but your blog is absolutely what I needed right now, so I can’t thank you enough. I’m just so happy to see someone who is hopeful and positive and not pessimistic, and it makes me legit want to cry tears of joy. How are you able to stay so positive and optimistic despite everything going on?

<3 <3 <3

As for how I stay optimistic and relatively positive? Lots of effort and hard work.

I'm not naturally an optimist. I spent most of my life (and certainly my adolescence lol) being pretty angry and cynical.

It's not that I never feel depressed or despairing about the state of the world. There's fucked up shit happening, indisputably, and hey, I'm trans, it's been a rough fucking year for that. But I guess I try to focus on the difference between passing moods and baseline worldview.

Some of the main ways I moved my baseline worldview to be optimistic and hopeful:

A lot of reading and looking at data and in-depth stories. The headlines never give you enough of the story - hell, most news articles don't these days, because they're so skewed toward negative news

Especially reading/looking at good news sites (I have a masterpost of good news sites here). There are good things happening everywhere that you never hear about. Mostly, you only ever hear about the good things when there's been a huge setback, which sucks!

I'm basically not on social media. Nothing except Tumblr, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and I only ever go on FB and linkedin briefly for business. It's fantastic, can't recommend ditching social media enough

I made sure I was doing something to help (aka I started this blog. I would also volunteer but my disabilities and a lot of logistics make that complicated)

My job involves reading a couple dozen self-help books a year lol, not gonna lie that def helps

Taking a long perspective of time. It often doesn't feel like it, but statistically, this really is the best time to be alive. (Here's a fantastic essay about many of the reasons why.) People really gloss over how much most of the past kinda fucking sucked to live in. 50% of all people used to die before their 15th birthday, for basically all of history until the past 200 years!! Imagine having to live with that. Imagine all of that pain and grief literally everywhere. I'm really happy about living in modern times, actually!

That last point is esp helpful to remember for me because I'm 100% for sure on the list of "people who would've died in childbirth" pre modern medicine (and my mom would've died having me, too). It was modern times or nothing lol

The vast majority of the world has spent the past 300 to 500 years being absolutely brutalized by white people and/or the West. There's still a lot of fallout to fix and colonialism to uproot, but I genuinely can't wait to see what people and nations will achieve with sustained self-rule and significantly fewer massive atrocities

Solarpunk and hopepunk stuff

I'm gonna make a whole post about this at some point but the fact that we eliminated scarcity in the past few decades actually changes the entire fucking game for the world (literally it's not a zero sum game anymore) and for the future. We're allowed a bit of a learning curve I think

I listen to the Rent soundtrack a lot and go "well you know what being trans right now sucks but being trans at the height of the aids crisis would've been way fucking worse" lol rip

Meds! Meds. Antidepressants and antianxiety meds unfortunately don't work for everyone (yet!), but also thank fuck for meds

Progress almost always happens in slow, tiny increments, with a lot of stops and starts and setbacks. You have to always remember that there are always people fighting somewhere, and if they're stopped, there will always be more people to pick up the fight in the future

#thesingingtennisball #ask #me #advice #hope #hope posting #hopeposting #not news #also tbh I highly recommend a basic understanding of statistics #and the ability to parse the basics of many academic papers #whenever I see a scary headline about some new study I check out the actual study and 90% of the time I end up going #“oh that's not that bad actually” #progress happens in tiny tiny i

[bennizone]

How do you deal with starting out posting art and it going kinda rough? I work really hard and it only gets two likes and then just sinks to the bottom of tags within a few days. It kinda kills my drive to make anything.

(I've been away for the holidays, havent had time to answer these!! might be from the same person? either way,)

I didn't get much traction in the beginning either - I remember getting 1-2 likes, too. It definitely feels really disheartening. I'm trying to remember what helped...Here's my thoughts:

1: whenever you see art that you like, COMMENT! especially on art from artists that are the same place as you, yanno, just starting out and/or their art journey is at a similar point. It helps sooo much to not only see BIG POPULAR NAMES on your dash all the time, so try to mingle with people that are gonna resonate with you on an even level.. It's more healthy to feel invested in online art because you share growth and exploration with others alongside you, rather than racing against people who already are super established following-wise or expertise-wise.

2: Why are you posting? I want to spark passion, joy, and inspiration in others!!! when I stay true to those words, my art seems to reach more people, because my soul is in it, which resonates better = more people like it and share it! It sounds like you're already putting a lot of effort in, so that's awesome, try your best not to lose the spark of joy. Take a break if it gets too rough, and try to clear ur head and return to the mindset of WHY you're posting in the first place. And pls don't be afraid to change your purpose if you ever want to, let urself evolve, it's normal! 3: I used to get 1-5 likes, and now I get an average of 100-300 on twitter and tumblr (sometimes i get more if my post suddenly gains traction but yanno)... and, on Insta (which I only started using recently, but ofc some ppl followed from other platforms) it's more like 15-60 on average. Some people would consider these numbers miniscule... I don't consider any of my posts "flops", I just have a smaller audience than some other artists. Also, I almost only draw OC-art, so it's more niche...... All that to say, give it time, especially if you havent figured out your Goal yet and you're still trying to figure out why you're posting/what kinda posts you wanna share, or if your art is kinda niche. There's a lot of reasons why you might still not have a lot of reach.

recap: If you manage to find some sorta goal and you interact with peers, and try to remind yourself you're still growing, I think you'll get to a place where u feel more satisfied! i wish you lotsa luck, this stuff is hard. the internet can feel pretty hostile tbh, please never blame/shame yourself from feeling sad sometimes, cus it's rly unfair. We just have to do what we can and try to stay true to ourselves!!!

this got rly long, i hope it's helpful to anybody who read it!! love u all!!!! xoxo benni

#text post

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

In December I got a job as a "park ambassador," which the description made sound like a desk job, an event coordinator, but actually turned out to be a manual laborer/groundskeeper. I got overwhelmed by the workload on my first day and quit the morning that would have been my second.

This month I got a job as a front desk clerk at a hotel. Those of you who follow me probably know that I had this exact job at a motel down in the Keys for years, so it was a lateral move, something familiar to fall back on, much easier than the suprise manual labor the park sprung on me. Well, turns out this place lied too because they're cross training me to be a housekeeper, which is ABSOLUTELY NOT worth my time and effort. That wasn't in the job description, and that was never brought up in the interview. Today was my first full shift, and it was horrendous from start to finish because there was simultaneously too much to do and not enough. What I mean is that every single task they gave me had ten or fifteen steps and substeps to follow in sequence, so even the simplest one was needlessly overcomplicated. There's a ton of shit to do, followed by long stretches of absolutely nothing. At my old job, my boss did not give one half of two shits what I did to fill the time; I could go on my phone or my laptop, I could read a book, I could draw, I could space out or take a nap, she didn't care as long as I immediately dropped what I was doing whenever the phone rang or a customer came to the door. No such luck here. I'm not allowed to read, I'm supposed to either sit there in silence or find something to do to look busy for the cameras. That's all it is, just pointless busywork. There are not 8 hours worth of tasks, but they expect you to do 8 hours worth of work!

Oh, and if the woman who's training me was really passive agressive all day about the fact that I asked her to go over the steps slowly so I could take notes and create a checklist. She made a really fucking annoying comment about how I'm the only trainee who has trouble retaining information, like I'm some drooling moron when it's literally my first day. She's younger than I am but she's already been married, had a kid, gotten a divorce, bought and sold two houses, and landed a career as a middle manager, so to her I'm lower than dirt, an abject failure, an example of how not to live your life. She made me feel about three feet tall, and the only thing that prevented me from calling it quits again was that I desperately need the money. This is the way it is: every day I'm scheduled is $100 dropped into my bank account. $15 per hour, 8 hour shifts, that's $120 per day before tax, something like $102 to $105 take home pay. I was hired to be part time, only two or tree days a week, but it pays weekly instead of biweekly so every Friday I'll get $200 or $300. This week they gave me a full 40 hours for training, so that's $500 if I can make it to the end of it without having another panic attack. If I imagine my boss handing me a $100 bill every day at clock out, I think I can get through this.

If they lied about the content of the job, I'm going to give it a solid 75% effort. I'm not gonna stress about meeting quotas or finding ways to look busy. I'm gonna keep using my checklists. I'm gonna keep them with me and go down them one item at a time in front of the customers because that's what I need to do, and if corporate doesn't like it they can fire me. This is just a job, not a career. I'm not an essential worker. I don't give a shit if a customer has a substandard experience. I don't give a shit if the elevator has scuff marks that need to be mopped. I don't care if someone leaves their laundry hamper next to the coin-op machines while they run. I am going to half-ass it all!

I have a disability and it has only gotten worse in the last five years. When I was in college I had good insurance and good medication, but now my plans have next to no coverage; the only meds I can afford are the msot common ones that doctors give away like candy. They don't work for me, but the good shit is too expensive, so i'm wallowing. I was barely able to function in the Keys, but I was driven by my goals of buying a car and moving out of my parents place; now that I've achieved both of those things, I have nothing to look forward too and have lost all motivation to even try. I am not alone, I know plenty of people who are in the exact same boat as me, but apparently none of them live within 500 miles. All my would-be peers up here are successful and functional. it comes easy to them. I'm the only one who seems to struggle. Surely I can't be the only one, but I never see anyone else like me in real life, only ever online. Are they just good at hiding it? Why can't I do that too?

#personal #might delete later #my job #work #job search #hotel #rant

[swirlysmile]

it’s finally here

this behometh that i’ve written

word count: 3k

warnings: not entirely movie accurate! plot could be out of order and dialogue is not 100% correct, married couple fighting for a long period of time,

POORLY WRITTEN,

Pride

Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw never thought that the words “Arrogant prick” would be directed towards him. He’d never thought of himself as arrogant, much less a prick. Those words were reserved for Hangman, especially coming out of your mouth.

“Don’t you think that was a little harsh?” Phoenix asks, running up to you. 

“No. I don’t think it was harsh. Bradley needs to get over himself.” 

“Fair enough.” 

Rooster stood dumbfounded on the other side of the tarmac, head tilted and mind racing. You almost feel bad when you look behind you, he looks like a lost puppy. Bob is giving him a little pat on the back, saying something you can’t quite read. Hangman is standing nearby, toothpick in his mouth and cocky grin present. He’s happy that your ego-shattering insults were directed at someone else for a change. 

You’re sitting at the bar, it’s Sunday and the Hard Deck isn’t officially open yet. 

“Pen,” you say after recalling the situation “I can't believe I said that to him. He’s been sleeping on the couch all week,” 

Her eyebrows are furrowed, trying to make sense of the situation. That’s your Aunt Penny though, ever so reasonable. 

She’s wiping down the clean bar, reveling in its pre-spilled drink shine.

“Can you blame him?”

“For what?”

“Sleeping on the couch,”

“No. Not really.” 

You bury your face in your hands, elbows propped up on the bar counter. 

“He’s being so, so difficult!” You say. 

Penny nods, although you’re not entirely sure if she’s nodding in agreement or understanding. 

“It’s Pete’s fault too,” She offers, and all you can do is shake your head.

“He’s making an effort- Bradley is being prideful.” 

She sighs and steps away from the counter, headed towards the door. She unlocks it and you walk out, not wanting to be around when Rooster inevitably shows up.

“See ya around,” she says, holding the door open for you. Once you’re out the door, you turn back and she makes a ‘call me’ gesture, a makeshift apology for the lack of help she provided. 

You wake up bright and early the next morning, still not managing to beat Rooster. He’s been avoiding you, it’s obvious. You’re showering, and it’s likely he’s already on base.

“Bradley, you arrogant fucking prick! That could have killed both of you, and for what? Just because you’re so damn prideful? Because you can’t be professional?” 

It was running through his head. Not just the insults, but the underlying truth in your words. You never told him to forgive and forget, but he was trying to convince himself that you did, just to make his anger towards you more justifiable.

Surprisingly, he’s still on the couch when you walk downstairs. You’re not sure if you should wake him up or let him sleep, but with his habit he’s accumulated this week of being on base before you’re even awake, you decide to wake him up. 

“Bradley,” You say, and it’s the first word he’s heard from you in a week.

“I’m up, okay?” He semi-shouts defensively.

Instead of sticking around to hear more, you grab your keys and head out the door.

He shows up eventually, about 30 minutes after you give or take. His curly hair is still a little damp. 

You’re flying the course today, the nav system helping you follow it directly. 

“Hangman, slow the fuck down!” You shout, and much to your dismay, he doesn’t oblige causing you to “collide” with a wall. 

Everyone had similar problems, crashing, or going above the 300 foot max limit, getting “shot down” by SAMs.

“Why are they dead?” Maverick asked, and when Phoenix went to give an explanation she was shut down. “Don’t tell me, tell that to his family.” he says, voice low.

“You’re giving time for enemy planes to intercept,” Maverick scolds Rooster. It’s almost getting out of hand.

“We’d still have a fighting chance.”

“Against 5th generation fighters?”

“It’s not the plane,” Rooster says. “It’s the pilot.” 

“Exactly!” Maverick shouts back, and the silence is deafening. 

You’ve heard about tension you can cut with a knife, and this is most definitely one of those situations. 

“Rooster,” Hangman clicks his tongue. “You don’t get it. You’re not flying fast enough!” 

You can’t help but roll your eyes at Hangman, always adding in unneeded commentary. 

“Either a man flies like Maverick here, or a man does not come home. No offense intended,” He says, winking in Phoenix’s directions. She scoffs.

“Yet somehow, you always manage.” 

Then, he brings it up. Maverick and his involvement in Goose's death. You hardly have time to react when Rooster lunges at Jake, holding him back. He’s cussing Jake out.

“I’m cool, I’m cool.” Jake laughs, shrugging everyone’s hands off of him.

Maverick isn’t helping, his shouts of ‘That’s enough!’ doing little to cool off the situation. 

“We all know Rooster doesn’t have what it takes.” Hangman shrugs, turning on his heel to leave the room when Maverick gives the call. 

You return home with a killer headache, and a want to be snuggled into Bradley’s arms. 

“To the beach!” Maverick shouts, and everyone stares like he’s crazy, but nobody asks any questions. 

You can only imagine the look of shock on Admiral Simpson’s face when he realizes all his pilots are gone, but at this point you’re having too much fun to think much about it. You’re split into two teams, going along with Mavericks' latest idea. Dogfight Football. 

Rooster is keeping his distance from you, meaning he’s on the opposite team avoiding you at all costs. Hondo even joined in at one point. 

You fight the urge to run up and tackle Rooster right when you see him offer Mav a hand. You’re so proud, but you know he’s not completely over his grievances.  

Hangman is showing off, like usual, and Phoenix is preparing to knock him down a peg. 

Mav taps out, but the rest of the crew continues playing. You’re standing back towards the ocean, just in time to see Admiral Simpson walk up to Maverick. You’re wincing just imagining the scolding Cyclone wants to give Pete, but end up being thoroughly surprised when he turns a blind eye to the whole ordeal after a little conversing. 

Rooster has Bob on his shoulders, and you softly smile at it heading towards Penny.

“Did you see that, Aunt Pen-?” You ask, starstruck. 

“You’re going to need to be a little bit more specific,” 

“Bradley pulled Captain Mitchell up, do you think he’s getting over it?” 

She shrugs, a bit skeptical.

Everything winds down, and you’re so happy to be home. You walk into your house, the sound of Bradley’s record collection blaring. He’s in the kitchen, humming along and making some food. Even if you hadn’t been talking, he’d been leaving you food. 

“I’m proud of you,” you say, careful not to get too close. You know it isn’t resolved, but he took the first step. You’re slowly starting to wonder if your pride is worth the absence of him in bed, or in life really.

He doesn’t respond, and your heart aches a little, but you leave the kitchen anyway. 

When you walk back downstairs, after a relaxing shower, he’s curled up on the couch reading your favorite book. You grab a glass of water, opting to put the food he left for you in the fridge. 

You probably linger a bit too long.

The ‘argument’ with you is leaving a bitter taste in Bradley’s mouth, and it shows when he’s flying. It’s been 10 days since you last had a real conversation, and sure, maybe you had tried to talk to him last night but he was much too proud to respond until he got an apology. One that he didn’t think would come for a long time.

He’s up and at 'em’ before you are again, like he had been for the past week before he was so rudely thrown out of the groove. Damn alarm clock. He’s on base about 45 minutes before you, sitting around with nothing to do.

He’s starting to think this has gone a little too far, and that he’s to blame. 

Hell, he’s been sleeping on the couch all because of his petty rivalry with Captain Pete Mitchell.

“Good morning aviators,” Maverick says loud and clear over comms. Everyone is having a go at dropping the bombs, attempting to hit their targets. You’re scheduled to be flying with Halo and Fritz. 

After a few failed attempts, you’re back on the ground. Currently, Phoenix, Bob, and Coyote are in the air. 

“What the fuck is that?” you hear, and someone confirms that Maverick is trying to intercept. 

“Well, this just got a whole hell of a lot harder for us.” You say, chuckling. 

They make the decision to pretend like Maverick isn’t even there, to stay on course. 

“We’re almost there,” Bob offers to Phoenix and Coyote. 

You can hear Javy curse when they miss, 

A few seconds of heavy breathing, and you hear Maverick tell Coyote to level out. 

“Shit, he’s in G-lock, I’m going after him to try and get tone.” Maverick says, and the ringing in your ear returns for a different reason. 

You have confirmation he’s okay now, and Phoenix and Maverick are chatting when you hear shouts of a bird strike. 

“Climbing!” Phoenix says, going through all the protocol to save the plane.

“Phoenix, the engines are on fire, do not restart it!” Mav tries to say, but he’s cut off by the sudden drop of the jet. Phoenix is in the midst of one last ditch effort to save the aircraft, but is ultimately forced to eject. You’re praying that they’re safe. 

Rooster is still sitting in the common room, much later than he should be. His mind is racing. He’s concerned, worried for his friends, and his relationship. 

“Phoenix and Bob are alright, they’re being kept in the hospital overnight for observation.” Maverick says, snapping him out of his daze a little. He appreciates the gesture Mav made, worrying about him and all but really he’d just rather get to the point. 

“Why’d you pull my papers? Why did you stand in my way?!” He shouts, standing to slightly tower over Mitchell. 

“You weren’t ready.” 

“What? Ready to fly like you?” 

“No. Ready to trust your instincts! Don’t think, just do! Believe me,” Pete shouts, adding fuel to the flame. 

“My dad believed in you. I’m not going to make the same mistake.” 

Pete stares, dumbfounded with tears welling in his eyes. 

“Maverick,” a voice calls from the doorway. He’d do anything to get out of this conversation. “It’s Ice.” and his heart drops once more.

The funeral isn’t fun, not that funerals ever are. Somehow, it reminds Bradley of the harsh truth. Someone might not come back from this mission, and it very well could be him, or even worse you. 

You're standing there, at Iceman’s funeral, to pay respects to a man you’d never had the pleasure of meeting, but one that was important nonetheless. You can see the tears that threaten to spill from Mav’s eyes, and hear the heartbreak in the sobs of Admiral Kazansky’s wife. 

You’re reminded of another harsh truth. Funerals are gloomy, and it’s likely you’re going to be in attendance of another funeral soon. 

The minute that Admiral Simpson announced the new mission parameters though, you’re sure that you're going to be in attendance of a few funerals in the near future.

You hear your peers whisper to each other, saying things that made this plan even more unsafe than Maverick’s. 

When Mavericks' voice pops up over comms, everyone's a little shocked but not surprised. Your attention is immediately ripped from Admiral Simpson, towards the screen showing the course that Maverick is flying. 

“I don’t see an event scheduled for you?”

“Yeah, well, I'm going anyways.” Maverick says, and even Cyclone is watching the screen 

“Nice.” You hear Phoenix muse. For some reason, you can only stare at Bradley, his jaw clenched, but he’s looking at the screen like his life depends on Maverick succeeding. You can faintly hear Maverick say ‘climbing’ and that’s when you hear the click, letting you know that he did it.

The room erupts into cheers, but Admiral Simpson is looking unimpressed. 

“No way, that bastard did it!” Omaha says right as Cyclone leaves the room. Phoenix is smirking, just a little, and even Hangman looks happy. 

Bradley can’t say he’s not a little excited by the victory Mav procured. 

The next day, when Maverick is back on the job, (as team leader for the upcoming mission no less,) Rooster isn’t surprised. Mav sure gave everyone a hell of a show, and Warlock probably pushed the issue to Admiral Simpson. Just a bit of a nudge in the right direction. 

What Rooster wouldn’t give for one of those right now. 

He’s watching you from the other side of the room, talking to Bob with a small smile, and for once, he’s jealous of Bob. 

You’re side-eying Bradley, silently begging him to come over and strike up conversation. Not that there’s anything wrong with Bob, no, Bob’s actually pretty interesting, and good at conversation despite what some people seem to think. You just miss him. 

Maybe it’s pathetic, sitting in a room on the carrier praying that Mav will send Hangman to his death and not Rooster.

Not before he’s apologized, not before you’ve apologized. 

The world, or Pete Mitchell, works in mysterious ways though and your stomach drops hearing Rooster be called. 

Do you approach him? Kiss him goodbye? Do you wait for him to come up to you? 

His pride wouldn’t allow him to forfeit that easily, and you know it, but you’re hoping he decides to say goodbye anyways.  

The tears flood your eyes too quickly when he walks right past you. 

You’re on reserve, waiting in a fighter jet in case, god forbid, anything goes wrong on the mission. Your head is aching, probably due to dehydration thanks to the tears that just seem to keep coming. You’re doing your best to silently sob so that you can still hear comms. 

Everything’s going smoothly so far, and you can only hope it stays that way. Mav hits the target and calls on Rooster for a status check.

“Almost there, Mav.” He says. 

Rooster is freaking out a little. He knows this is dangerous, and he’s not even at the hard part yet! 

He’s cussing when Fanboy’s laser is going crazy, praying to whatever god there is that he will hit the target when he drops in blind. 

He pulls up, the G’s weighing on his body.

“Smoke in the air! Smoke in the air!” 

The comms are getting overwhelming, there’s too much going on at once and it’s terrifying. 

“Talk to me Bob,”  and then,

“Shit, I'm out of flares! I can't shake ‘em” and that’s enough to induce tears again, and you hear Rooster say a strand of curses. 

“We can’t go back,” Phoenix says.

“He’s gone, Rooster.” And Bob sounds just as defeated, but like hell Rooster isn’t going to go back.

At this moment, you hate him for his decision. What if Mav had been gone, done for? Rooster would have been too. 

Mitchell knocks Bradley into the ground, and when Rooster stands up he doesn’t hesitate to argue with Maverick. Old habits die hard.

“You should have been back on the carrier by now!” 

“I saved your life!” Rooster says, trying to defend himself.

“No, I saved your life! What the hell were you thinking?” 

“You told me not to think!” And Pete has no remark to that. It’s true, he did say that and at this moment he regrets it. 

Rooster throws his arms up into a slight shrug motion, and Maverick stares at him, dumbfounded.

“It’s uh, good to see you.”

“Good to see you too.” 

Rooster’s not sure how he let Mav drag him into this.

He’s currently sitting in an F-14, or as he likes to call it, a bag of ass. He’s made it clear to Maverick about his problems with this plan, but they don’t have much of an option. 

“Mav, this is a taxi-way. Not a runway. This is a very short taxi-way!”

You’re ready to sob, still in your plane, everyone’s back except for Rooster and Maverick. You suppose you should be grateful that nobody else has a scratch on them, but not when you think that he’s gone. 

Then, you hear confirmation that Rooster is up in the air and you’re so, so grateful. 

You can't hear anything from their department, just confirmation that the radar says he’s in the air. 

Hope is dangerous, and you know that.

“Dagger spare requesting launch.” Hangman speaks, and you’re surprised when he’s granted permission, but you’re so happy. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your savior speaking.” Hangman says, and you can feel the smirk dripping off his words. Yet, you can’t find it in you to care when Maverick roughly lands the plane.

“Lieutenant Bradshaw,”

“Other Lieutenant Bradshaw,” he says, smiling. He’s ready to forget the whole thing, and at this point so are you. 

“You’re a fucking idiot.” you whisper, wasting no time to kiss him for the first time in a few weeks. It’s what you missed, the feeling of his stupidly gorgeous mustache rubbing against your upper lip, and his slightly chapped lips rubbing against your own.

“God, I missed you.” He says, wrapping his arms around your waist. He doesn’t want to break from you when everyone comes over to celebrate, but he reluctantly does so anyway, even accepting a truce in the form of a handshake from Jake Seresin.

He sleeps in your bed for the first time in a few weeks, and god you’ve missed his arms around you. 

Even his terribly loud snoring is desirable right now, and so you hold onto his arms a little tighter. 

You could talk about the fighting tomorrow, but for now you were going to make up for lost time. 

#top gun #top gun maverick #bradley bradshaw #rooster #bradley rooster bradshaw #bradley ‘rooster’ bradshaw #rooster x reader #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley ‘rooster’ bradshaw x reader #bradley rooster bradshaw x reader #phoenix #bob #hangman #omaha #yale #halo #fritz #coyote #fanboy #payback #fic #top gun fic #top gun maverick fic

[youngtomhardy]

LSD (2023) promo shot by Camila Noriega. Edited by Euan.

For as long as I can remember I feel like I’ve had to fight for everything in my life. When my parents outed me, I was verbally abused and eventually made to sleep in the garage. It wasn’t so bad, my dad had converted it into a makeshift studio right before. So there was carpet, insolation, etc. Still it was fucked up, I was only 15 at the time. I only had my bed, some books, and a lot of hurt. I ended up running away for weeks in order to show them I wouldn’t tolerate the mistreatment. It worked, but only because I fought.

Let’s go even farther back: I picked up music by ear in middle school, this is where I learned about my perfect pitch ability. I was quick to learn, dedicated, and honestly a natural born talent. For some reason though, the band teacher seemed to hate it. I understood his annoyance when I would only play the top line rather than my part. But what about later, when I learned to read music? He seemed to hold a grudge, always talking down to me. My friends would openly talk me up to the director in an effort to move me to 2nd or 1st chair. Still, he never budged. This attitude continued with future instructors all the way up until my senior of high school, where they seemed to finally appreciate me. I always checked myself to see if I was rude or cocky, thinking maybe a kind demeanor would win them over. Looking back, I had 0 confidence so that wasn’t it... I just did my best. At the end of my senior year I finally got 2 awards, one including a small scholarship that helped pay for my laptop. That went a long way and I’m grateful, but damn did I have to fight for any type of recognition in my youngest years.

Flash forward a few years, I’m trying to break into the industry as an artist. I have like 300 listeners and it’s starting to slowly grow after my collab with Steve Grand. I see a lot of small queer artists getting press on a VERY popular music publication — no, it’s like THE music publication. I decided to shoot my shot… BOOM. Sexually harassed by the head editor! From the very first message!!! Why am I surprised at this point? I decided to play along in hopes of getting a feature, because who wouldn’t? I was powerless. I remember he was trying to sext me while I was in Mexico visiting family. It was humiliating. I respectfully shot it down and the next day he suddenly, “didn’t have the bandwidth” to feature my upcoming single Fluids. Go figure. Luckily, a group of other very small artists that were being harassed came forward and made a big fuss in the press. I knew I had to make my voice heard, this was my only chance to put an end to it. Guess what? We did. Finally, once that editor was removed, I finally got my first ever major feature. Crazy how much went into that single moment, huh? Once again, I fought.

Now, I face an entirely new monster. An invisible one that is literally programmed to be biased. As much as everyone wants to deny it, it’s true. TikTok. The beast that every artist — small to big — is enslaved by until further notice. Now let me say, I truly am thankful for the growth that the app allows. I’ve never had such easy access to an entire audience. That being said, and i know this sounds dramatic, but it’s just 100% true… we’re in hell. This app is relentless. The pressure to blow up is insane. The pressure to then maintain it once you do blow up is insane. The low attention spans. The coming and going of big name labels. And when you don’t blow up, when you don’t get an offer, when views suddenly plummet… you spiral and think, “what’s wrong with me? what aren’t I doing right? aren’t I interesting enough?”

Directly after that spiral, you go to an influencer party or a label mixer where you meet a kid just like you. Perfect pitch, musical savant, a natural born talent. Just. Like. You. Except they come from a family that loves who they are & nurtures their talent. They get found by Justin Fucking Bieber, just by chance! They get an A-List songwriter as their mentor. They date an A-List teen celeb. Everything lined up for them from day fucking 1. So they’re cocky, arrogant, a little snobby, but overall pretty kind when you’re around. You don’t even have room to be jealous. It’s more like, this deep sadness knowing what could’ve been. It’s toxic thinking so I try not to let my mind go there.

Instead, I try to be okay with knowing my story is different — long, winding, sometimes painful, but always beautiful. I won’t stop fighting until I get what I deserve. Not now, not ever.

- Disco Dad

#michael medrano #disco dad #stache papi #tumblr diary #leather #hot pink #retro futurism #pop music #pop star #indie artist #dear diary #music industry #me

[mack-anthology-mp3]

Out of the ineffable husbands,which one is your fave?. Aziraphale or crowley?. Also what are your headcanons on their relationship?.

:0 a good omens ask!!! hehe thank you :)

ough how could i choose?? i love them both <33 but i'm going to have to say crowley is my favourite ahhhh i just love himmmmmmm <3. i think he's my favourite because the way he shows his love for aziraphale is just so sweet, and like me he's a massive dork who is trying to be cool :)

my hcs for them - relationship-wise i think they are alloace, it just makes the most sense to me. once they (eventually) have a Talk About Feelings and realise they're both deeply in love with each other, they'll definitely be romantic and sensual and queer platonic and everything, but i just... don't see them actually *sleeping together* no. sleeping together yes 100% but *sleeping together* no. i think they would both make the effort if they wanted to but i don't think they'd want to and i have literally no justification why i think this but yeah <3

crowley at least is demi in my mind, aziraphale i can imagine occasionally having a bit of a pash on someone else but only for like. until he remembers crowley is there lol. asjnasjnasnja they love each other so muchhhhhhhh

i think they *almost* kissed in 1941. almost. like so close they wondered afterwards if maybe they did. or it was the most gentle barest brush of a kiss and afterwards they wondered if maybe they didn't. (which gives me a fic ideaaaaa ooughhhhhhhh).

i also think they have been meeting very regularly since rome - every few years at first, then every few months, until pre-s2 when they're practically living together. only seeing each other in the flashbacks we're shown just doesn't make sense. even just in 1601 when crowley says 'we've done it before, dozens of times now' about the arrangement, and yeah it has been 900 years since wessex, but i can imagine aziraphale took A Lot of convincing to get to the arrangement in the first place, plus meeting up just for lunch and hanging out & other stuff. i don't think crowley was dragged to hell for 30 years after 1827 either. 'last month crowley and i etc' 'and that was the last of him i was to see of crowley for quite some time *past tense, he's seen crowley since, that makes it like. just under two months max*' like. idk how exactly people think they got to this stage in their relationship based on a handful of meetings in the last 300 years but ok all hcs are valid :)

and, i think aziraphale is far more aware of his feelings than crowley is, even though he hides in under layers of denial & repression. he knows *exactly* the depth of love he feels for crowley and would do anything to be able to show it, but is still scared that it's wrong and that he *shouldn't* feel that way - but he knows he does. crowley is more along the lines of, he feels the feelings but doesn't stop to examine them as much. like he does examine his feelings, but in his view how aziraphale is feeling is more important than how he, crowley, feels, so he doesn't ponder it as much. ahhhhhhhhhasjanksn they just need to sit down and talk to each other. and then hug. and then properly move in together lol <3

#thank you so so so so so much for this ask!!!!! #you have no idea how long i've been hoping someone might ask me about them lol :D #almost didn't realise i had so many thoughts on them even though i think of them. every day. the brainrot. <3 #this isn't the half of it lol #thank you so much!!! #sorry to all my music followers. good omens be upon ye

[lemon-wedges]

Heey just wanted to tell you that I adore your art, especially the way you draw Barok. You humanised him in a way I've never seen an artist do. All your characters, but especially him, look like real, soft, approachable people. I can almost see their chests expanding, I can imagine them laughing and breathing, I can tell how in love your ships are, which is very special and very rare

Your art makes me extremely emotional

(also where did you study, what books did u read, how long did it take you to learn to draw like that??)

AH thank you for the sweet ask! it really made my day to hear this TTuTT

As for your other asks, ill put them undercut with some photos and links to stuff!!

I've been drawing for about ahhhh 16 years( 8 of which are actually like serious school stuff than just a hobby) but tbh its only really been in the last 3 where i feel like ive been making actual progress in improving my stuff. but thats my personal path in art and its always gonna be different for you or anyone else.

anyways 3 years ago i made some changes to my drawing habits and study methods that were like. real specific to where i wanted my art to go (cleaner lines, better foundations, gesture, etc etc). I worked on thing one at a time tho!! it can get overwhelming real quick if youre not careful. So the stuff im gonna give you is geared towards....well, me? both in content im searching for and just the classes that resonate how i like learning

OK BOOKS:

CLEANER LINES. I use to have a habit of making like EXTREMELY sketchy and unconfident lines. This is a landscape book that i literally just copied every single thumbnail. Helped me get into the habit of both using only a few strokes to get an idea across and breaking down complicated subjects into shapes

ANATOMY. Morpho series. Its not a how-to-book tho its just a compilation of an artists break downs. This one is my fav tho. And helped a lot when i was struggling to understand like ALL BODY PARTS

CLOTHING. This is probably my fav clothing book. Very short and published in the 1940s. Its helpful specifically to ME cause its clothing is closer to TGAA outfits(mens) than more modern books LOL

And now CLASSES. I do actually have an art degree from a university and let me tell you. I was left SEVERELY lacking any skills i needed to go into the industry I was interested in 👍 (not cause of the professors but cause the school itself was actively killing its art department :p) So i was kinda just left looking into online stuff on my own (AND COMMUNITY COLLEGE!!!! MY BELOVED AFFORABLE CLASSES )

NEW MASTERS ACADEMY. Its a subscription-have access to all the videos for a month to a year- kind of thing. cheapest is about $40 a month. REALLY REALLY helped my anatomy and foundations. Steve Huston: Good for entire step by step anatomy break downs. Micheal Mattesi & Karl Gnass: Gesture. I've watched a handful of other videos but these instructors were the most helpful to me

DRAWING AMERICA. A lot more pricey. Around $100-$300. but youre basically paying to own the recorded classes and keep them forever. I've only really taken Will Westons classes cause he focuses on BGS and props. But he also has some nice composition stuff thrown in there too.

(I've taken a LOT of online courses and the thing about a majority of them is that they arent really taught by professors or teachers so they tend to be more like a giant Tip video than an actual lesson plan. And if u haven't taken an art class before the difference is HUGE)

and i think thats it? i guess if theres anything else i can give u its this tip:

you mentioned my art is humanizing. Thats a comment ive heard a few times and i guess its odd to say but i dont really know what youre seeing? Like i understand the "ships in love" but cause i did go out of my way to draw sappy love faces 10 bajillion times until i was satisfied. But alive? hmmmmmm like THINK i might know what you may be responding to. Its a combo of the gesture and my effort in trying not to loose the energy of the original sketch when i go to clean it up. And what ive figured out is this. Youre not outlining or tracing your under sketch youre REDRAWING it .

i put the under sketch and clean up next to each other so hopefully this makes sense but like. when i do an under sketch im only really focused on building the figure. When u build a figure youre drawing out bigger shapes and breaking them down into smaller and smaller ones. Lines feel like they have more energy at this stage because the circles and cylinders are fully drawn out, making them have a continuous momentum. So then when it comes to the clean up stage. im not looking to trace the exact lines i drew out (if u notice my final isnt a 1 to 1 copy of the og) im trying to follow the flow of the original lines. thats why youll see lines go thru the figure sometimes, its me trying to keep the energy in that line even if its not suppose to be very long.

idk if this makes any sense at all.....and maybe i should have recorded me actually drawing this out but [shrug emoji] i could do it later if anyone is interesting in wtf is happening here. CAUSE I SWEAR ever since i started cleaning my sketches like this i started to get those comments. but also i could be wrong too.....then i REALLY dont know what im doing ahahahah

Anyways, i hope something in here ends up helping you anon!!! GOOD LUCK ARTING I BELIEVE IN YOU :O

#asks #art reference #the art of a lemon wedge #ALSO :D #ahaha barok is one of my favs to draw so im like extra happy you like him

[writingquestionsanswered]

If I want to build up a platform from tumblr would it be okay to reblog and post whatever I feel is meaningful and good to spread and I enjoy seeing or would it need to be just writer/writing stuff? How would i go about doing it? Wouldn't people steal any excerpts I write on here to gauge interest? Should I even write the thing if no one is interested? Sorry this ask de-railed a lot from its original query but hope you'll still answer all of them. Have a delightful day!

Concerns About Building a Platform on Tumblr

There are lots of great questions here, so I'll try to tackle them all. ♥

If I want to build up a platform from tumblr would it be okay to reblog and post whatever I feel is meaningful and good to spread and I enjoy seeing or would it need to be just writer/writing stuff?

If you want to build up a writer/author platform on tumblr, then you will want the bulk of your posts to be related to writing and writing-related subjects. Writing-related subjects would be things like books and bookish things, coffee and tea, stationery--anything that feels writing adjacent to you. However, you can definitely mix things up a bit by sharing inspiring images, things that make you happy, fandom stuff, etc. Just make sure these posts don't drown out the writing-related ones.

How would i go about doing it?

Start by putting a little thought into the platform you want to create. If you know what you want to write--what genre, what type of stories, etc.--you can look there for theme inspiration. For example, if you write warm and fuzzy romance, you'll probably want a blog theme and title that reflect that. Something like "Hearts, Bubbles, and Words" for example. Once you have your blog setup, start following other writing-related blogs, bookish blogs, blogs with pretty pictures or things that make you happy--any blog that is likely to post things you might want to share. Then, you just start re-blogging the content you want to share, and posting the content you want to create. Some things to help build followers:

-- follow blogs that look interesting to you -- like posts that show up in your feed -- re-blog and add your thoughts on posts that merit discussion -- reply to posts when you have something to add -- send questions and comments off Anon -- show support when people share their own writing -- write posts about blogs you enjoy and tag them -- post your own writing and use proper tags

Wouldn't people steal any excerpts I write on here to gauge interest?

Stealing isn't near as common as you would expect it to be, but it can happen, and for that reason it's best not to share big excerpts (or a lot of small ones) of anything you plan on publishing. In fact, it's best to keep WIP details as mum as possible. You can share a little, but don't go overboard. Instead, write things specifically to share on the blog. Might someone steal it and try to pass it off as their own? Maybe, but it's unlikely, and if they do there's little chance they'll gain anything from it. And if you want to drum up interest in your WIP, try posting things like mood boards, inspiration photos, short essays about your writing process, that sort of thing.

Should I even write the thing if no one is interested?

Yes. The point of starting a writing blog to build up a platform isn't to gain 30k followers overnight and get thousands of reblogs.

Gaining a following takes time and effort, and the reality is you could have 30,000 followers on tumblr and that doesn't mean you'll get thousands of notes on your posts. Social media experts consider a good follower to engagement ratio (on any platform) to be between 1% and 5%. So, if you have 100 followers on tumblr, if you're getting a few notes on each post, you're doing great. And for someone with 30,000 followers, 300 notes per post would be good engagement.

And I think you also have to have realistic expectations, too. If you need a ton of engagement to feel like people are interested, you might be disappointed. Because another reality of social media is that some people don't engage--meaning they don't like, comment, or reblog--but that doesn't mean they're not reading and enjoying your posts.

Here are some past posts you might find helpful!

Guide: Getting Your Writing Noticed on Tumblr Guide: Author Platforms-What, Why, and How? Guide: How to Promote Yourself as a Writer/Author via Social Media Gaining Reader Interest (After Sharing Writing Online) 8 Ways to Improve Your Writing Blog

Good luck with your writing blog! ♥

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#writeblr #writing tips #writing community #writers of tumblr #writing help #writing advice #wqaadvice

[tainbocuailnge]

i think one of the primary factors behind granblue fantasy’s continued success is that it’s a game that’s very easy to come back to. the barrier of entry for granblue has always been pretty high and has only gotten higher with the years despite repeat attempts from cygames to make the early stages of getting started easier, because in “streamlining” old content they ended up just removing a lot of it which means you have barely anything to do in the game until you hit rank 100 where all the actual content is. I used to really hate the “100 rank tutorial” jokes for being exaggerated but they’ve gotten increasingly real over the years.

however once you’re past that barrier and have a grid and are at the player rank where you have shit to do the granblue fantasy content schedule is very comfortable with you either playing the game nonstop for days or completely ignoring it for months, because regardless of when you last opened the game there will be like thirty little tasks you can juggle working towards and there’s a valor badge event coming soon if you need a more specific goal and all that’s really changed is there’s more characters now and more swag outfits to put on your player character and also they’re letting you skip over some of the more annoying chores now and slipped another 300 ap recovery items into your inventory. being a browser game means it doesn’t even hoard valuable storage space when you’re going through a period of not playing it. there’s going to be new jacked up endgame raids but whatever ol reliable team you set up a year ago is definitely still going to work in whatever raid you made it for, and that raid is probably still going to be relevant to you if it’s the last thing you were farming so you can pick up right where you left off.

so even though my relationship with granblue has been rocky the past few years to say the least, whenever some seasonal campaign comes around I often end up playing for a while again anyway because even if the state of the game progresses it doesn’t feel like i’m left behind. whenever the mood for some number go up strikes my ex game dot granbluefantasy dot jp is ready and waiting.

when it comes to long running live service games and especially gacha games that can’t easily go back on having released something before that’s actually a very hard balance to strike so i think granblue really does deserve high praise for managing to not leave players that don’t actively keep up behind. and I think especially the past year or so they’ve made a lot of respectable efforts towards making sure the older stuff that you put a lot of effort into back when it was the best you could get still remains relevant as the game progresses which is part of why i have a more positive attitude towards the game again lately too. the extra grid slots for bahamut and ultima weapons in both sandbox (casual content) and revans raids + super ultimate bahamut (hardcore endgame content) are a great move when there’s always more new fancy weapons fighting for a grid slot that these former endgame must-haves couldn’t compete with anymore.

the class design on row V classes and recent mastery bonuses for row IV to go with it are a good example too because they clearly made an effort to have row V be both a clear upgrade but also more demanding to use (stricter mainhand requirements due to aux weapons, high commitment for farming shields and manatura) so there remains reason to use the row IV counterpart that you put all those masteries into to get row V in the first place. class design in general has been genuinely really good lately both in visual design (slutty gran outfits) and how it plays. so here too coming back to game dot granbluefantasy dot jp after a long time away you won’t find that everything you worked so hard for is now obsolete but rather that you can just keep playing your favourite class forever and make it fuck even harder if thats what you want

and i say things will be mostly the same whenever you get back but i also think introducing battle system v2 and the recent change to qilin were pretty ballsy moves and good signs that cygames continues to think about the long term health of the game even though they blatantly always wanted to be a console game dev and it felt like they’d put all the competent people on GBVS and relink for years. actually maybe the fact that relink is finally coming close to being a real game is why mobile granblue is getting better again recently. anyway. lord forgive me but i’m back on my shit (playing granblue fantasy again)

#lanceblue

[immortal-elements]

Hey! You there! Looking to make a gen 3 legendary weapon? Are you sitting on a ton of spirit shards and imperial favors that you don't know what to do with? Want to make legendary crafting in your future infinitely easier? Sell your gen 3 legendary on the trading post! This is a process that will reward you for a bit of patience, setting TP buy orders rather than insta-buying, and adding a few low effort weekly/daily "chores". I'll explain the process under the cut.

I am being 100% serious when I say this. Gen 3's are selling for upwards of 2k gold, (I sold aurene's weight for about 2.2k after TP taxes). Subtracting the cost of all the materials used for that, (yes, even the Antique summoning stones, jade runestones, and Ambergris, etc), a large portion of the cost of that legendary is comprised of a few items/currencies that dont necessarily have a gold value (like spirit shards and imperial favors. And well, a gift of battle and map completing cantha, 250 exotic luck, and a ball of dark energy, I do a little bit of WvW now and then, and I have an artificer condense all my luck for about a week, and I do enough strikes and raids to have a couple balls of dark matter, so depending on what you like doing ingame this may be a little more than a simple shopping list).

If you have extra spirit shards and imperial favors, you can just take that profit and craft another one, and repeat the process, you make about 300-500 gold. Source for all the prices on this is gw2efficiency's calculator, so you can number crunch for your specific case there.

You can increase the profit even further by adding a few daily/weekly "chores". Jade runestone farm in echovald or just parking an alt at the end of the Kaineng jumping puzzle, weekly Antique Summoning Stones from arborstone, arborstone fishmonger's daily catch, dragonstorm to name a few, but none of these are mandatory. (The alt parking and weekly Summoning Stones are such good value/effort that you should highly consider it. the only Summoning stone that isn't worth it to buy is the one for imperial favors).

If you need an easy kickstart, the new daily rewards system has starter kits for gen 1 legendaries, (all you need to finish it is a world completion, a gift of battle, 250 obsidian, 200 spirit shards, and either a gift of might or magic), which will get you at least 1k gold.

Crafting gen 3 legendaries really isn't that hard when you can just buy all the materials on the trading post. While this does have a significant startup cost, I think that there are relatively easy ways to get that initial cost, reasonable ways to maximize profit with a little bit of patience, and extremely worthwhile rewards.

So if you've been really grinding away on that legendary, before you decide to keep it for yourself, consider selling it and making it again, but faster this time.

#gw2 #source: im currently up about 1k gold and 4 days of grinding away from crafting it again #ive only been working on this legendary for a week and its gonna net me another 700g #its easily one of the best gold-making methods if you have a little bit of patience

[abarbaricyalp]

Hey! I absolutely adore your fanfics and I've started to come up with ideas for my own fics but somehow I'm stuck at actually writing them down in a fully formed version, I just have vague plot ideas and moments I want to happen in the fic but actually transforming it into a fanfic feels impossible to me -- I have a few lines here and there written out, but those are just tiny scenes. Maybe I just lack the creative drive and I'm simply not a writer. Still, I wanted to ask, do you have any advice for anyone who wants to get into fanfic writing? Where do you draw inspiration from?

Thank you so much for such kind words! I'm so glad my stories resonate with you! ❤️ And it's so exciting to hear that you're venturing into your own story making 🎉🎉🎉🎉

I've been thinking about this question since I saw it and I think my answer boils down to "you have to train your brain to be open and be thinking constantly." (Of course, by constantly, I don't mean you have to be taxing and straining yourself every single moment) Being a writer feels like a full time job (or hobby!) sometimes because my brain is always going. Does that streetlight inspire something? Is that weird tree a candidate for a new character? Was that joke funny enough to use in a fic? Do I wanna set something in an antique store just to include this weird timelessness vertigo I have? I'm gonna take a picture of that "cow crossing" road sign to use later.

I have been writing for as long as I can remember. I have distinct memories of being five years old and squirreling away stories in drawers all over the house. I've always been a voracious reader. My inner voice never stops. And my imagination has always been stronger than my attention span 😄 All of this to say, it feels like stories come pretty naturally to me, but that's because I've been making them up my whole life. I'm very sorry if this is not so helpful.

One starting point I've often come back to (even as a long time writer) is to WRITE stories the way you TELL stories. How do you talk to your family or friends when you're recounting an event? That's telling stories. How would you explain something you saw to someone taking a statement? That's telling stories. How do you recap an episode of TV or a book you read? That's telling stories. Sure, it's not as flashy and verbose as some written fiction, but it's still telling stories. And you may find that that is a voice you relate to as you're writing. Plenty of authors have a straight forward style. The more you stretch that story telling muscle, the more likely you are to find the rhythm of the story and your voice. If you're finding it difficult or daunting to write down a whole idea at once or you can't find the link between A and D, write down how you would describe it to someone. Nothing ever has to be a final draft, certainly not a first draft.

Similarly, start small. I can't tell you how many of my stories began as single lines of dialog or a quick scene image. It's totally fine to write 50, 100, 200, 300 words because that small aspect interested you. (It's fine to post that! If that's all you want to say or share about it!) I have a whole file of small moments like that, which I go through every now and then to see if the rest of the story has found me yet. Quite often, I think you may find that as you sit with a line or an image for a while, something else is going to slot into place. Maybe not the exact next line, maybe just a plot idea, maybe a character dynamic or new relationship. Let these things come to you. Or write down your idea and then just keep typing, even if it makes no sense. Writing is kind of like fishing sometimes. I just keep casting my hook out and waving the pole around until it catches on something. (You know, how normal people fish) Inspiration is important, but it's not the be-all and end-all of writing. Unfortunately, it's usually just the bait on the line. Writing can be a bit of work. You have to put in the effort after an idea grabs you and you have to keep writing on your own. There is, unfortunately, no divine delivery most of the time.

Inspiration is one of those things that you have to train your brain for. (Seems counterintuitive, I know) But hear me out: in any given day, an author will experience the same sights, sounds, news, movies, songs, and phenomena that every else around them does. Any of those things can trigger you into saying, "wait, this could be a story." I have plenty of posts on here where I talk about AUs based on movies or songs or video games because at the moment it struck me that this situation could be repurposed for a fic or a story. Interacting with other art in the world and learning to recognize tropes, emotional triggers, arcs, plots, conflicts etc etc and then how to play with and break them is definitely one way to train yourself to be open to Inspiration and new ideas.

Once you do have an idea, write it down. I promise you will not remember it, no matter how cool it was. Keep some paper or a designated notes app for these things. Be as thorough or vague as you like. I have so many random lines, character names, AUs, plots, and images saved. Ponder these things, especially if you're really grabbed by one. Think about what you would like to see with it. Who else is filling out the space? What is the end goal? Writing is full of big questions that may be answered easily, may need to be forced through, or may need to sit back and rest for a moment. I wish I had better advice here, but it really is just that sitting with your inspiration for a while can help your ideas so much, especially if you're stuck. Ideas want to talk to you. They (you) just need to find the words.

So inspiration doth strike. Now what? Like I said, now is the work. A whole fic will likely never come to you all at once. Take what you know of the fic-- your lines, your images, your trope etc-- and write them out. Then begin making the connective webs inbetween. This where the verbal story telling comes in. Quick lines often blossom into full scenes. Even if they don't, no biggie. You're learning the story here. You're getting to know it. You wouldn't expect to understand a person fully upon just meeting them. I've even created outlines before with my big ideas, then just kept getting more specific in the subheadings until much of the full plot was there and waiting.

This takes practice. Finding (and trusting) your creative voice is a skill that can be worked out the same as any muscle, but you do have to put in some hard work with slow results. Don't be afraid to backspace or go in a different direction. I can't tell you how many of my stories were supposed to be one thing but ended up going in a completely different direction to great results. Tell It To The Bees was supposed to be a quick, goofy Three (or five) And One story about Bucky getting caught talking to the bees, very silly and light, but once I started writing it, it became such a different story and I think it's so much better for it. Inspiration, imagination, interest, and desire are all working in tandem (or fighting) as you write. Along with learning to be open to inspiration, you must also learn to listen to these instincts as you write. Which really just takes practice and trust. I'm sure you are already in tune with these things inside of you. Let them roam as you write too.

It sounds like your creative voice is awake and kicking! Now it's just about putting in work-- pay attention to the world and art around you, write often and badly and slowly and smally, and figure out what connective webbing looks like for you. Stories really are living things. You have to give them the space, attention, resources, and love to grow, and you have to help them along. Don't be discouraged that you're just beginning this journey but can't sprint to the finish line right now. Writers are also living things, who need space, attention, resources, and love to grow 😊 Just keep writing and taking risks and you'll see a pay off.

Oh! And READ! READ EVERYTHING. Creativity rarely grows in a vacuum. You have to see good art to make good art. You won't know what possibilities are unless you're out seeing what other people are doing. A certain turn of phrase, a camera movement, character interactions, descriptions, these all can inspire you or just give you the knowledge and confidence to grow as a writer. Read everything you want, watch everything you like, listen to music and pay attention to the lyrics or the instrumentals, devour podcasts and news stories, go to art museums and make up stories to go along with the pictures. The whole world is there to teach you and help you grow.

#writing #about me #i answer things

[alfredo-swauce]

Wax Artist and the Fandom

Alright so I have a LOT to unpack right now with Wax Artist as well as the fandom and how they go about treating wax artist mains and the character as a whole. I would like to say before I start that I am black. However I main Wax Artist. I ended up spending like $300 to get his S tier skin, and then everyone found about about the whole Physiognomy bullshit. As someone who doesn't typically have that kind of money anymore, Its tragic HAHAHA like genuinely it sucks. Had I known perhaps I wouldn't have tried to get it. But I digress.

So what's the whole issue here other than Philippe being a racist? Well. I want to bring up a few points in this post about why I think half the shit the fandom says about him is stupid AND why I think attacking his players (who have no control over his story) is ridiculous and childish.

No one is taking an effort to reach out to devs about the psysiognomy. Like how are you gonna tell myself and other wax artist mains to kill ourselves or call us racist for playing a character that we LITERALLY cannot control. I've had like 3 people (including an old friend who said it as a "joke") call me a disgrace to black people for maining him. Yknow how bad that hurts? As someone who's of mixed race and doesn't feel like they fit in anywhere, that shit absolutely sucks.

People are asking for NE to remove Wax Artist from the game as a whole. Now this one, I can understand to an extent. However, many people do not want this. His backstory (MINUS PHYSIOGNOMY) is interesting, certain headcanons make his character so much more fun; like him just being a silly man who makes wax sculptures, etc. His character design is interesting and very pleasing, It really shows his mental and physical decline as well. All characters have some importance in the story, Wax Artists importance is unknown but I bet he plays a bigger part and will somewhere down the line.

Most white characters are likely racist depending on the time period. It's obvious that not everyone who's white in the game is racist, like historically not everyone was. However given the time period of some of these characters, there's a good chance they could potentially be racist. Now of course this doesn't excuse the fact that Wax Artist is problematic, but I feel like in a realistic sense people tend not to think about where these characters are from AND when they were/are alive. Do I want ANY of the characters to be racist? Absolutely not, but I do strongly believe that given the time periods, it wouldn't surprise me if more white characters had some sort of racist ideology that just wasn't brought up yet.

A lot of people aren't even aware of the racist undertone in Wax Artist's story. I have been playing Wax artist for over a year now and the amount of people I've met who don't even know Wax Artist's story is problematic is insane. Like I'll say he's racist and people are like "wait deadass??" It's nuts. I get these sort of encounters nearly everytime I talk to a player. It's important people know about this issue so we can push for change. I haven't seen a single person try to change his backstory and that fucking sucks. I've seen what we can do when we all come together, and this change could be made so quickly if we work together.

Perhaps there are other things that could've been said but these are the main ones that I think about. I GENUINELY believe we could make the change to Wax Artist's story if the fanbase just listens. I've tried countless time to spread the word on Twitter, but that proved to be a fruitless task. I'm hoping that here I could spread the word a bit more in asking that you email NE and ask them to remove physiognomy from his story as a whole, because believe me I 100% believe his story doesn't need this element at all. He could just be a criminologist who makes wax figures. Easy. So please PLEASE help me out here, I've been practically begging for months now and it's getting exhausting.

NE emails:

[email protected]

[email protected]

or preferably you can comment on identity V's posts asking for the removal of physiognomy from his story. From here on out I'm just gonna keep asking for it every chance I get because otherwise they won't listen. My voice alone will not be enough, so please help out!

thank you so much for reading and I hope you consider helping out. This is very important to me and other wax artist enthusiasts.

#identity v #idv wax artist #identity v hunter #idv

[loudestcloud]

Is it worth buying the cheap off brand Film red Shanks bear?

This is the real one vs the off brand before fixing and the most important differences are the film red logo on the foot / lack of logo, the huge color difference and the lack of the cool box to display him in. I like the brighter color of him tbh makes him less gloomy. The off brand has wonky eyes and nose too but it's not too noticeable in person if it's not pointed out to you. I got mine from eBay for £15 and I know what you might be thinking. "£15!? For a 22cm bear?? You call that cheap?" Yes. Yes i do because the real brand one is £100-£300 so yeah, he's cheap. (£15 is $19 and £100-300 is $125-$374 USD for anyone wondering)

This is mine once he was all fixed up!

Effort to fix: 4/10. I think he's worth it.

Here's what to expect and how to fix your off brand / how I fixed mine up.

In these pictures, you can see the long red string on his foot and the messy parts on the shirt. Loose string was all over the place in all colors, even the back of the collar. I cut off the long strings and then decided that the ones on the shirt can be tucked in so I did that but if you don't have a small sewing needle, you can just cut them off or if you're brave enough you can burn them off as burning them prevents them from fraying again.

I didn't expect this amount of visible plastic backing. I didn't even know this was common cheap practice until I saw a video about plushie making recently but apparently it is. So, to fix this, i took my de-seamer, cut it and pulled it out by hand. I'd recommend tweezers if you have any and more so if you have short nails like mine just because it's a bit hard to grab.

Also the foot embroidery, the white is over the outline a bit but it's not that bad and hard to notice in person. You could draw or sew over if tho if you really wanted to do something. Also if you've noticed, the 3rd claw mark isn't on both sides of his eye and I didn't decide to do anything about that because I don't think hand embroidery would match well enough to look good.

Here's what he looks like fixed up. I decided because the shirt's cut had raw edges that I'd loop stitch around it to keep fraying down to a minimum in the long run. So now the shirt is safe and his face is fluffy.

As you may have noticed, this bear has 2 arms. I joked about cutting it off, my mum joked about crocheting a sea king sleeve for him and my sibling told me to leave it but in the end, i did this

I sewed the cape to the shirt to cover his arm. In the picture you can see it a little bit but i didn't want to sew it to the trousers because they come off separate to the shirt and cape and i like that that's an option, even though I'll probably never take them off anyway. When i get fabric paint I'll probably paint that part of the shirt black but you guys can just cut it off and glue a patch over the hole or glue the cape down if you cant sew.

#one piece #one piece film 2022 #one piece film red #One piece film #op shanks #redhair shanks #one piece shanks #red haired shanks #shanks #shanks film red #op film red #film red op #film red #op fr #film red shanks #film red bear #One piece bear #One piece plush #One piece toy #anime merch #one piece anime #One piece manga

[plasmasimagination]

Hello^^ I saw your match up and I was curious if I could get matched up :) (btw Congratulations on hitting over 300 followers!!!!!!

Fandom I'd like to be matched with: Honkai star rail

Character I'd like to not be matched with: Herta and Astra (I don't have anything against them I swear 😭)

Ok so my name is Kristina but I prefer close friends or family to call me Kristi or even Kris^^. I'm a cis female(she/her) lesbian + demi aroace, I'm a Capricorn with a Aries rising and a Capricorn Sun and Moon, Infj, my aesthetic is more like crowcore aesthetic (I adore trinkets and collecting them) and my favourite band is starset.

Appreciate wise I'm short with pale skin and slightly visible freckles, I have a dark brown wavy pixie cut and dark brown hooded eyes

Personally I'm really introverted and don't like to attract too much attention but I always had a thing and a hobby for creative work such as drawing, painting, writing, sculpting and now I've been able to pick up taxidermy, in which is one of my favourites alongside drawing, and thought years I've been praised for my talent but did get labeled as lazy because I don't put the same effort to things I don't like such as school/uni. And whenever I discover something that interests me such as phycology and astrology, I'll always put 100% of effort to find out more and more about it and after I'm sadisfied with my research I never feel burned out but when it comes to school work it drains me out completely within a really short time

(Bonus, my love language is gift giving, quality time and physical touch)

Anyways have a good day/night and don't forget to hydrate!!!!

HI THERE KRISTINAAAAAA. Okie so to get to the point I won't waste your time. . .

I match you up with . . .

GUINAIFEN

Hear me out, hear me out. I think you guys would get along just fine

I like to give every introvert an extrovert partner so they balance each other out, and I think you two would be cuties

I have a feeling that even if your personalities might not match at the first glance I enjoy to think that she would absolutely hype you up in everything you do

Shes your biggest admirer, your biggest fan, and she will sometimes post about your amazing artworks/creations, even though it may seem embarrassing she just wants to hype you up, but she'll stop if you don't want her to

As you said your love language is gift giving , I like to assume that you make cute artworks/ creative little handmade gifts to people

And oh god,Guinaifen would be whipped. She can and will hang it around her house and keep EVERY.SINGLE.THING you gave her.

She might seem like "too much" or "overhelming" but she's actually very calm when she's around you.

She usually keeps quiet and listens to you talk

Shes always there after you come back from school feeling stressed, she'll let you rant to her about everything that's on your mind, she'll definitely just sit there holding you in a hug and stroking your hair

She'll always feel bad about your burn outs and sometimes she doesn't even know what to do so she just sits there zoned out

But after she spent more time with you, she also adapted and figured out what to do when you're feeling that way

love you so much, don't forget to eat and drink babe :}

#guinaifen #x reader #honkai headcanons #honkai x reader #honkai star rail #honkai star rail x reader #honkai star rail x gender neutral reader #hsr imagines #hsr spoilers #hsr x reader #hsr icons #hsr fanart #hsr

[phoenixtakaramono]

2, 12, 26

<3

Re: Questions for Fic Writers

Thank you for the Ask, anon! So sorry it’s taken awhile to respond but finally I’m on a brief break from writing so I can finally answer this! (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)♡

I do have to give everyone a warning. After Question 2, I do get a bit nitpicky and kinda specific of what I personally do not like. Please don’t take offense, luvs. <3

2) Go to your AO3 “Works” page, to the sidebar with all the filters, and click the drop-down arrow for “Additional Tags.” What are your top 3-5 most used tags? Do you think they accurately represent your writing habits?

I had to lol a bit looking at them. So disregarding the Fanart and Illustrations tags (I usually make a cover art for my long fics), what we’re looking at are:

Developing Relationship: You’re talking to a slowburn romance writer. By nature, I am also very much demisexual irl. And I am an avid consumer of light novels and danmei where 100-300 chapters in, they finally hold hands or kiss, and I have to scream into a pillow and kick my feet in delight upon reading it (the number is an exaggerated hyberbole, haha, but you get the gist). It’s the developing relationship that makes the experience special imo so I like to spend more time and effort showing how these characters can come to fall in love with each other in my own works.

Possessive Behavior: So, irl, I would hate this. Dear lord, I would run for the hills if a man showed an ounce of possessiveness and has essentially revolved their life around me to a disturbing degree (it’s not cute being love-bombed and isolated from friends and family, etc). But since this is fictional and the love interests tend to be canonical d*ckheads whereby possessiveness is very much in-character for them, and especially if it’s for a dark fic, I will serve you psychotic yanderes or clingy, obsessive Male Leads who love only the Main Character and would end the world just for them. I am so used to wholesome healthy cookie-cutter relationships irl, so I like to explore the opposite in fiction.

S*xual Tension: Same as the developing relationship. I mean, yes, I can write the NS/FWs and can churn them out with a straight face, but it’s usually not the focus of my works. It’s the s*xual tension where it’s at. I wanna see chemistry. I wanna see it sizzle. I want to see them pine. When I write a romance, I want to make it clear from the start how well-matched these two characters are for each other and, why, yes, you should continue to read my super ultra long fic if you want to see how I will make them kiss and make love to each other.

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence: Alright, this one is especially indicative of my writing habits and the stories I tend to write, aka Post-Canon AUs. It’s very much What-If scenarios that keep me up at night and inspire me to write what you read. I don’t think there exists a fic of mine which is not either an AU or an AU - Canon Divergence. For me, after I finish a source material, usually I want to see a continuation of the same characters—with their core essence and personality kept as true as possible. And that is also indicative of what I write. What I like to read myself extends to what I like to write.

Fluff: I like fluff as much as the next person, but I like it when it’s earned. When that coldhearted Love Interest who’s grown embittered gradually warms up to the Main Character and entwines their fingers to slowly bring their hands up to their face to softly plant a kiss to the back of their hand, or the Main Character who’s grown to be besotted with the Love Interest and nuzzles their face into their chest as their arms wrap around them, sharing body heat as their bodies spoon up against each other—you see what I mean? It hits better when it’s earned (when you see their journey). Since my fics tend to be long, I also like to inform my readers that, yes, there will be fluff in the story. They’re coming.

Character Study: I do use a lot of my fics as an opportunity to do a character study on some characters that fascinate me, whether it be a character introspection or their POV, etc. Some fics are more obvious think-pieces and character explorations disguised as stories. It’s exploring my love for a character, seeing what makes them tick, and condensing their essence down to mere words on a page.

Canon-Typical Violence: I’m a detail-oriented writer. 99% of the time, what I write is on the graphic end. I go lush with the sensory details and descriptions. And for the source materials with canon-typical violence, I feel obligated to include violent scenes in my own works so it feels like you’re reading an extension of the universe. I also tend to put this warning up just in case, just so readers have been forewarned.

The last tag is pretty self-explanatory I think, considering the fics I write are 🔞 queer literature between two consenting adult fictional men, haha. Nuff said.

12) Are there any tropes you used to dislike but have grown on you?

So, funny thing about me and my love-hate relationship with tropes…. In the spirit of honesty, this is a bit of a landmine to navigate for me, haha. I’d answered an Ask about this (if you do read it, skip down to the Contrarian Tendencies section), as why I tend to develop an aversion to tropes and clichés that’s affected not only what I consume as a reader but also affect the content I write. So if my brain happens to identify a pattern of tropes or clichés or popularly used words or even popular fanon nicknames for characters, I will instinctively dislike the fad 90% of the time on sight and I will go outta my way to avoid any fics/ stories/ shows/ manga/ manhua/ manhwa that even mention them—unless the creator is intentionally satirizing a classic cliché or reinvents the wheel to breathe new life into a tired trope. As an analogy, think of how fatigued some of us have become of the generic superhero movies being pumped out via DCU and MCU—and then think of how The Boys (TV) is like a breath of fresh air. It’s the execution and originality for me. I like it when there’s a clear attempt on the writer’s part to be unconventional. I love trope subversions and deconstructions. That’s kinda how my brain operates with tropes. I can’t exactly explain why my instinctive aversion to fads exists for me. It’s probably the predictability/ unoriginality and sensing a popular fad that kills it for me. It might be because as much as I am a bibliophile (person who loves reading books), I only have a limited amount of free time and don’t like to spend it on something that’s completely unoriginal with the usual tropes that come with the premise/ genre which comes across like beating a dead horse with a stick to me, and it shows me that the writer has put little to no effort into trying to come up with something new. So unless it’s intentional or satire, it’s pretty much become a compulsion for me to dislike clichés, fads, and generic cookie-cutter writing on sight.

This is just me though! It’s not a measure of what I think a writer’s skill or creativity is! I’m just an eccentric contrarian with hipster tendencies, haha. I just typically don’t like following trends in writing, and prefer to pave my own path to do my own thing. This aversion is similar to how I am as a writer. As an example on the smaller level, while not a trope, sometimes in fandoms I see a character affectionately being given non-canonical nicknames. For me…if I see it, chances are I will likely just drop the fic I’ve been reading, no matter how well-written it is and how amazing the plot and characterizations are. If I think a nickname has overstayed its welcome, I have reached a point where I won’t even come ten feet of it in my own stories. When it has reached that level of nausea for me, I have essentially developed an allergy to the nickname—that if I see it in any other franchise I have yet to check out but know that name exists for a character, I will avoid that other fandom like a plague just so there’s no cross-contamination of my writing or reading material. (So I’m not gonna name names because I don’t want writers to think I’m calling anyone out—because this aversion is only specific to me and is not a metric of the true quality of a writer’s work—but as a general example, it’s one of the reasons why I don’t like “Johnny” being used for a certain character in The Boys that have shown up a handful of times across various authors’ works already—because my brain associates that with another well-known character from CoD (🧼) who coincidentally shares the same first name (John) who also canonically has a certain nickname they’re known by (Johnny)—and what a funny coincidence that it’s the same as their nickname for a character I’m reading about in this different fandom. It could be very well that it’s cute so that’s maybe why some writers use it (which, I have to say this: don’t let me stop you; it’s your fic so do whatever you want; I encourage you to continue so in fact; this is just me being nitpicky to a fault) but there are writers I know who are in the CoD franchise as well as The Boys. So I just cannot remove the association my brain has made and that’s personally why it’s not my cuppa tea.)

“A-Yuan” is a good example, for the character Shen Yuan from SVSSS, where I saw it everywhere in the fics I read, disliked the fad because my brain strongly associated “A-Yuan” with a character from MXTX’s other work, MDZS, so it was incredibly jarring to me on principle, but over the years—and especially engagement with my cute readers—it has grown on me. A-Yuan though is probably the one exception I’ve made so far where I will read works with that fanon nickname while also include it in my own work myself. No other fanon character nicknames for other fandoms so far have pierced through the barrier of my initial dislike to the other side. If you ask me for reasons of how this manifests for me, it can differ. 1) It’s too cutesy and can be immersion-breaking if it’s not done right or if it’s out-of-character (especially if no one would call them that in the source material). Or 2) the nickname reminds me of another character from a different franchise, which makes me feel like I’m reading about an entirely different character from that franchise than the character I want to be reading about. Or 3) it makes me feel like I’m reading about a writer’s Original Character and not the actual character I’d wanted to read about so I feel like I’ve been misled by unintentional false advertisement. Other examples are (in no particular order of which fandoms they come from): Hanni, Dray/ Drake, Johnny, Tommy, Sesshy, Sev, Jimmy, BeiBei…I could go on but I already feel my soul has shriveled just mentioning these. In my opinion, just a made-up fanon nickname or petname being mentioned once or twice or a handful of times is okay, or if it’s said mockingly or if it’s like an earned thing to show relationship growth, but dear lord if that cutesy nickname has replaced the actual character’s first name for, like, 90% of a fic and has become their go-to. This also applies for Original Works. If I have to read a character calling someone by something corny like “Little One,” “Goddess,” “little lamb,” “cub,” or “kitten” for the 3,000th time in the same work and it’s not the writer trying to be ironic or funny, I will take a fork to my eyes.

As for actual disliked tropes that have grown on me…gosh, there are none. None, zilch, nada. It’s either A) I dislike it wholeheartedly and will go out of my way to avoid my pet peeves, or B) I like something and will continue to read 100 iterations of it because everyone does it differently so it’s refreshing to see everyone’s different take (I will read any dark fics revolving around a villain or antihero or hero-turned-ruthless with a scheming mind and twisted motives; I eat that up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and will love it till I’m in my 90s or buried in my grave). There’s no coming back once I’ve become fatigued by something. And if I have come to dislike something, I will loathe it with every fiber of my being and nothing can convince me otherwise once I have put it on my Do Not Like list. We’re talking about tropes I find insufferable like unnecessary miscommunication/ misunderstandings leading to a fall-out/ unnecessary poor communication leading to unnecessary drama, fake-out deaths (if not done right), love triangles (if not done right), damsel in distress (if not done right), unnecessary and undeserved character assassination character bashing to make way for a ship, etc. Now can there be exceptions to this? Yes. God, yes, they exist. But these are the tropes I rarely see executed well. And if it’s not executed well, it grinds everything to a screeching halt for me and I notice its existence even more. I will however make a strong attempt to persevere and patiently read on despite so in hopes that it gets better to see what the hullabaloo is all about, but even I have my limits for how long I can keep holding on.

26) Would you rather write a fic that had no dialogue or one that was only dialogue?

First of all, why? Hahaha. Secondly, I guess I’m going to be nitpicky here as well. So unless it’s a satirical fic where there’s only one character (lmao, y’all recall that infamous Groot masterpiece?), I would rather write a fic that had no dialogue because at least I can differentiate everyone’s introspection and thoughts, interspersed with descriptions and other storytelling elements. Maybe instead of dialogue, they communicate via telepathy or body language. I’dunno, but it’s certainly more flexible. It’s just a small pet peeve of mine where I read a story where there’s a large chunk of dialogue—but I have absolutely no clue who’s speaking. It’s frustrating. And is a surefire way to break my reader immersion and take me outta the story.

#ask #anon #ty for the ask <3 #phoenix talks #questions for fic writers #I very much go scorched earth on things I dislike #which means I have erased it from my life and 99% will not read it or include it in my own writing #it’s even extended to words I will not use 99.9% of the time in my own writing #said words include ‘whine’ (in a 🔞 context); ‘s/he blushed’; the list goes on #you’ll notice such words are virtually almost nonexistent in my writings #I felt bad that I answered two of these questions with negativity but I am being genuine #(hopefully it’s an interesting insight into me as a writer for you!)

[madame-fear]

i'm just going to ask this because i want to see if i'm alone on this one or not (and warning i'm going to be explicit because there's no other way)

some days ago one person in my fandom posted a fic about oral sex with the bsd characters and the title was that, like, straight up that sentence. and for the record i thought: well i've seen this concept a milion times already, even me i wrote about this a lot of times, nothing new (i even made a bet with myself saying: surely it's going to be the ''does he prefer to give or recieve'' type of fic that was really popular in anime fandoms years ago lmao)

well in any case, it wasn't that specific fic troupe but it alternated between giving and recieving between certain characters. and as i read through it, even if it was good, i thought to myself once more, bro, i've seen this a milion times already. just pwp, the same concept, since i was 17 or so.

and what a surprise when i check the notes. 700, 37 reblogs.

and my problem with this comes here, because, i feel so frustraetd whenever i try to do the same concept, even if it has been reused 100 of times, just because newer stuff doesn't work well for small accounts like mine, because they get ignored. but suddenly, when another account does the same idea i wanted to do, they get so much interaction? like how do you even manage that? i'm 100% sure i could post the same and not even get 10 reblogs (because it has happened) and suddenly another acc does it and they get so many

i'm a petty bitch ik but like- i dont get it. new stuff doesn't work because it's either too much or it gets ignored, the same concept doesn't work either because it's been seen too many times and gets ignored as well, but would you look at that, a bigger account or even someone who only has 100 followers more than me has that many interactions

then this writers come to you saying that interactions don't matter lmfao

My darling love,, don’t even worry about that, I totally get how you feel, this is pretty much universal since it happens in ALL of the fandoms I guess. This is more common in the HOTD fandom than you think!!

Interactions are absolutely fundamental to us writers. And anyone who says otherwise either doesn’t want to admit it, is trying to cheer you up or smth, or I don’t know — but it’s not wrong at all to admit we not only write for our own satisfaction, but as well for interaction. Interaction is what keeps us motivated to write more things, knowing people will see and appreciate your effort by commenting, reblogging, or liking your work.

In the HOTD fandom it happens the exact same. Maybe you write headcanons, or a one shot with a particular plot for a particular character (or several), and maybe you get... At a maximum, 80 notes. But a popular acc does it? They are exploded in notes. 30 reblogs, 300+ likes, 15 comments. Good for them! But perhaps it’s the same reused plot thousands of times and no one even cares about small writers, they just straight up go praising the big accs and exploding them in interactions, while smaller accs are left out.

And for small writers, seeing people favouring certain accounts more than others, that just lowers your motivation and makes you feel like shit; sometimes even making you want to stop writing. So yes, interactions do matter despite anyone else saying otherwise. And trust me I get how you feel because it happened to me so many times that it made me feel awful, like some people don’t even TRY to focus on smaller, new writers. :/

#interactions DO MATTER 🗣🗣🗣 #Help your local small writing acc by encouraging them with sweet words if you can! #kay <33 #writer community #writers on tumblr #┆ ⤿ 💌 come chat with amira .ᐟ ୭ #— [. 🫂 ] ; my mutuals <3 #loving my mutuals <3 #my mutuals <3 #ask box open #ask box messages #ask box #✧.* amiraverse