#Now back to your regularly scheduled scrolling lol
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Saturday Six (Stuff)
My oldest cat, KittyMeow, passed away on Tuesday. She was 19. (=^-ω-^=)
My parents really upset me over it, when they said they'd do something to help, and then decided they wouldnt do the things they said, and didn't even discuss it with my son and I. Thankfully my ex is helping us get some closure.(*｀へ´*)
I think the boy cats have noticed that KittyMeow is gone. Reggie has taken up residence on her old bed. And Boots seems to want to fight him over it. It's really cute actually. I think Socks misses his sleepin buddy, and also her leftover food lol. (^・ω・^ )
I've been hit or miss doing these a few times because I've been working on this big project still. But I am really, really close to being done.٩(•̤̀ᵕ•̤́๑)ᵒᵏᵎᵎᵎᵎ
We got snow and cold so early here, that it feels like it's been winter forever already.ヾ(*´ー`)ノ
Even though I hate accounting, I might start a part time job doing accounting for other people. Idk, we'll see what my accountant comes up with. (ෆ ͒•∘̬• ͒)◞
#Saturday Six#November 26 2022#About me#Personal#Please do not rebloggle#Carey rambles about her boring life and her kitty especially#We miss KittyMeow#But she was very old#Anyway life goes on and we have other kitties to enjoy#I hope y'all have a great day or night wherever you are#Hugs from mom or just a friend whatever you need right now 💜 💙 💚 💛 ❤️ 💕 💖#Thank you for continuing to read this ever time I post it#I appreciate you all so much for being here#Now back to your regularly scheduled scrolling lol
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Every time I see another show get renewed I get aggravated we haven’t heard about S7. Normally it’s far too early to worry about such things. But this isn’t a normal tv season. Also a lot of shows have been renewed early on so far from other networks and some on ABC. We’re only 3 eps in so I know I should be more patient. I have a good feeling we will get this announcement. But does anyone have any insight on what the holdup for S7 announcement is? It’s been their top streamer for Hulu almost every week this season. It’s a popular veteran show. Feel like that makes it a no brainer IMO.
Should I just chill and be more patient? Its not my strong suit LOL Also this mini hiatus has my brain thinking extra on things I probably shouldn’t. Haha I know part of this is just me overthinking things. *sigh* Just needed to rant and see if anyone in this lovely fandom of ours had any TV insight to why ABC dragging their feet with it. You may now go back to your regularly scheduled scrolling. 🙃
#chenford#the rookie#tim bradford#lucy chen#tim x lucy#lucy x tim#eric winter#otp: doing my job#s7#gimme gimme gimme#i want it so bad
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Is Mikasa going to tell their moms the part where she was awake at 2 am anxiously looking at her phone, praying that the asshole would text her for a booty call?🤣🤣
SORT OF !! LOL!! this one is just plain chaos tbh
Why does she always find herself in the same situation, it’s a question she asks regularly.
Because even at home in the comfort of her own room, she can’t escape him, can hear him playing irritatingly loud music as he drives down the street, her universal signal that he’s home now.
And it just so happens to coincide with the fact that she’s horny as hell and hoping for a booty call.
But when it’s been ten minutes and she still doesn’t receive a text, Mikasa allows herself one of her rare guilty pleasures, the thing she’d rather die than admit to even herself.
She looks around her room, and after deeming it safe, she taps the ‘photo’ app on her phone, heart accelerating in her chest, pulsing with adrenaline.
At first, her dedicated iPhone photo album seems innocent, spattered with silly photos of her and Sasha, pictures of her work schedule that she should really delete, homework she’d sent to Eren, a few selfies she’d taken for Instagram.
And then, as her thumb hovers over the ‘albums’ section, things take a turn for the worst, more so as she clicks an album entitled ‘anime crushes’.
And as she scrolls, and scrolls, past poorly doctored photos of Itachi Uchiha, and worse yet, Inuyasha she finally finds him…
Eren Yeager, her neighbour, and the very colourful array of nudes that he’s sent her (and she has sent back, but she’d rather die than admit that).
And she clicks on one that always gets her just a little too hot, always pushes her right over the edge, that smirk, that dark glint in his eyes, the way he looks at her right before he sinks in, fucks her silly, hungry for it.
Already her hand is slipping down to her panties and she’s imagining all the ways in which he can–
Her door opens and Mikasa screams, her phone going flying and one can only imagine the absolute terror that overtakes her as Mikasa comes face to face with none other than her mother.
“Darling, are you okay? You look flushed,” Her mother asks in concern, coming over to place a hand over her daughter’s forehead, checking for a fever.
“Mother!” Mikasa hisses, “I’m not,” She shoves her hand away, “I’m fine I was just–”
“What? Where is your phone, what were you doing?”
So fucking nosy, she curses her mother’s inability to let things go.
“I was reading a scary story.”
Lies!
“Well you better not have broken it young lady, that cost your father good money, now where is it?”
Mikasa scrambles to find where she’d thrown the phone, waving her mother off, “It’s fine, I’ll get it, what did you want anyway?”
Her mother makes a tsk-ing noise, “I was coming to ask if you want me to put your laundry in the dryer, don’t take that tone with me young lady you live under my roof–”
“Yes mom, I was just umm busy, it’s fine, that would be great I appreciate you, if you could please just,” Mikas gestures towards the door as she continues to rummage around her comforter, looking for the damned device.
Her mother gives her a stern look before reluctantly stepping towards the door, and it’s then that they both spot it, her Iphone sitting innocently in the middle of the carpet having flown much farther than Mikasa could have ever anticipated, swathed in a pile of panties Mikasa has yet to put away.
But even from far away, the image on the screen is obvious, in high definition, full resolution colour and also, because Eren’s dick is simply that big, of course it can be seen by even her infamously blind mother.
It’s quiet for a moment, a pregnant pause as her mother examines the very impressive erect penis on her daughter’s phone screen.
“Mikasa,” Her mother takes a deep breath, reaching down to grab the device, a somewhat exhausted lilt to her voice, “Darling whose penis is that?”
“No one’s, Mom GO AWAY!” Mikasa makes to grab the phone away, but at that exact moment, the menace himself chooses to text her, the booty call she’d been waiting for, his name written in all caps next to a skull emoji and another much more incriminating emoji…
EREN 💀🍆 10:00 PM
Wyd ? 👅
“Huh,” Her mom releases a little huff, “I see the Yeager boy is good for more than just mowing the lawn.”
Mikasa wants to scream.
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ally!!!!! i’ve always loved You Know Where the City Is but wow this is the best chapter by far! like i’ve gone from obsessed to mega ultra double obsessed. everyone talking about wrapping fic!matty in a bunch of blankets and feeding him some soup is so real- you always manage to make the most cozy sweetie pie characters no matter what the fic is about. (it goes without saying that fic! taylor much like the real deal is just perfect and i love her)
counting down the chapters till we meet fic!george. so intrigued to see how there relationship will play out since you said it might not be what we expect…. love a good surprise!!!!
im practically bursting with excitement to read the christmas fic and any of the prompts you have been working on but good things take time! please don’t feel rushed to give us new content you already do so much for the sickfic matty community lmao.
hope you have a happy holiday break🥹 sending love always (also don’t be alarmed if i reblog the majority of your prompts on here soon- i have such a bad habit of liking a fic and then scrolling past it once i’ve read it so i need to go back and hunt for them all and actually save them for next time)
Ahhh thank you SO MUCH for this lovely ask omg, and thank you so much for always being so lovely, and kind and supportive 🥰 I apologize this took me a few days to respond to- I usually try and respond to asks on my laptop because I find them easier to formate and alas I had not been back on desktop Tumblr until now.
I'm so, so, so happy to hear that you enjoyed the newest chapter of You Know Where the City Is! I went back and forth on that chapter a lot (an original draft included a trip to Target lol) but I'm really pleased with how it came out and am glad that other people like it as well! Fictional!Matty (and Fictional!Taylor) could REALLY use a hug oh my gosh. They are both going through it and the worst part is they don't even realize how unwell they all 🥺 Fictional!George will be making his appearance very soon! All I can say is that Fictional!Matty is an unreliable source of information 👀 I hope people end up liking how it plays out!
I'm so excited about the Holidays fics but WOW I hope I can actually finish them in time! I haven't even finished the first one yet and I feel like the holidays are getting closer and closer faster and faster 😩 one second is was the beginning of November and now suddenly it's the end of December?! Who allowed this to happen!? I'm behind on the little schedule I made for myself- but hopefully I'll get them both done! Of course my plot bunnies are like "ummm Ally we have all the inspiration for this completely unrelated project!!!" and I'm over here like "not NOW"
We will hopefully be back to our regularly scheduled prompt fulfillment and sickfic programing after the holidays! I'm sorry about the delay, I know people are looking forward an end of SATVB / IV situation fic and I promise I am working on one!! Alas I have just also been really busy with real life.
Thank you so much for the love and I hope you have the most wonderful holidays as well! If you're ever looking for all of the prompt fills I have filled - they can be found here!
Thank you so much again for your kind words, for reading my fics and for your support! You are just so lovely and I am so grateful for your kindness! I hope you are having a wonderful night / day and will hopefully have some more fic ready soon!
❤️Ally
#allylikethecat#ask ally#fanfiction#keep it kind#you know where the city is#thank you so much again#im sorry this took me so long to respond too#and that i havent gotten any of the sick fics out#but thank you so much for reading#and being so lovely in general#and im so happy you're enjoying the fake dating fic#i love it and them both so much
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algknlkjwe
#ive been tryna avoid making my personal posts on tumblr but i can't post this on my finsta so i reckon i gotta do it here lmaoooo#feel free to scroll past this if you don't wanna deal with my drama lol#im just Sad today#someone i really like very much and fell for very hard this summer is being deployed to Afghanistan very soon#i can't say im in love with him or anything because that's a Lot and Too Much but i really care about him a lot#and im not even in the same state as him so i can't be there to say goodbye??#we kinda stopped talking when i moved to nyc and it broke my heart and not to be dramatic but now it's breaking even more so that's cool#anyway if you know who this is about don't spill the beans because i've done a good job of keeping my feelings a secret#and i don't wanna ruin things in the last couple weeks#anyway sorry to be depressing#back to your regularly scheduled shitposting#personal
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me, scrolling thru ur blog for my daily regularly scheduled serotonin: wow a marluke update! gonna save that for myself as a treat
oh, what’s this ?
HOMESTUCK????
QUADRANTS?????
AND NOW YOU GOT ME THINKING ABOUT IF LUKE MIGHTVE PROJECTED A LITTTTLE TOO HARD ON HOMESTUCK CHARACTERS. WE KNOW HE WAS A SHERLOCK STAN, WHAT IF HE DOWNLOADED TUMBLR, DISCORD, ETC?
AND BY THAT SAME VEIN MARIUS IS PROBABLY OLD ENOUGH TO START HAVING UNADVISABLE FREE INTERNET ACCESS.
what if vyn and artem had tumblr blogs
look what you’ve done to me i’m in sheer pain
-🤡
HELLO, CLOWN!!! i cant remember if youve messaged before with this designated emoji but the clown after This Whole Ask made me cackle. i honk my clown nose along with you.
man, i KNOW luke was into fandoms. i KNOW he has discord, in fact i have an entire fic draft that has this whole fucking premise, it's titled "→ lukeonthebrightside just slid into the server."
lemme get the rest of it, heres the summary without any scene excerpts:
The year is 2021. Luke Pearce, fifteen years old, is told by the school guidance counselor that he needs more friends. Too shy to interact with his non-Ria classmates, he ends up going online and joining an ACD Sherlock Holmes fandom Discord server.
heres a scene i managed to scribble before i made 85 more tot wips:
thegeekery
You can’t be serious. Please tell me you’re not serious. You Cannot be 15 years old, holy shit. How are you 15 years old and in a server for Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock fans. The books. You're messing with us, you are not 15.
lukeonthebrightside
?
why would i lie about being fifteen?
thegeekery
To give us an ulcer, like you usually do?
I mean this in the most loving way possible, btw.
WaffleTime
YEAH LMAO, TO PUNK US?
it’s not out of character for u lol
lukeonthebrightside
[attachment.png]
thegeekery
Uh.
WaffleTime
BOY??? IS THAT YOUR FUCKING BIRTH CERTIFICATE????
OH MY GOD
thegeekery
Okay, no, hold up, real talk Luke, you should not.
Be sending stuff like this.
To a server full of strangers.
Actually, can we get a @mod in here? I don’t think I have the EQ to handle this very well.
lukeonthebrightside
huh
why
did i do something wrong
thegeekery
Luke, that has your address on it.
jeeperscreepers
Give me a moment, I’m backreading.
Oh, geez.
Hm.
lukeonthebrightside meet me in DMs please.
WaffleTime
ohhhhh somebodys in TROUBLEEEEEE
i got super emo about this wip actually, i wanna go back to it because i wanna explore luke's younger days before super spy training and terminal illness fucked with his head. i am convinced that even before those things, inside of luke, there was like...this want to be with people. and yet this fear that he doesnt deserve to be.
also i just want to write luke being a stupid kid doing stupid kid things on the internet and having a server of very protective fandom adults bonking him on the head and telling him to be safer online and also to be less hard on himself
irt to marius on the internet, i talk about that (and vyn being hilarious on twitter) in these posts!!: nxx boys on social media: part 1 tiktok. part 2 vyn on twitter.
i.....do not believe vyn would be on tumblr. if he did, you will have to give me some time to figure it out. artem, however, i have thought about and to me, it's possible he would have a tumblr.
actually, heres a secret: i was planning on making a STUPIDLY IN CHARACTER artem rp blog. like, not even styled as an rp blog. it's. it's Artem's Blog. the blog title would be "My Thoughts" and his bio is just "Hello. I hope you find this interesting." and his theme is the default theme and all he reblogs are movie reviews and recipes. nothing in the tags ever. and many long posts about his interests with linked and Chicago Manual Of Style cited sources. no pictures. he was born in 2001, the era of "dont even put ur name online."
im....still on the fence whether i wanna do that blog actually kJBSJDKFS IT WOULD BE SO FUNNY
in this entire response, i did not tackle how luke interacts with homestuck. because im saving this for another ask i have in my inbox, asking me what luke's classpect would be. and now i have to become a hermit in the mountains, studying the lore and theses on classpects, to come up with my view and opinion.
youre in pain, clown? i am too.
and ive come to enjoy it :')
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No one is more aware that they didn’t hit their last writing “deadline” than me - and guess what, it’s probably not happening this week either.
I’ll preface this rant by saying I am beyond grateful (and amazed?) that people like what I’m tossing on AO3. I’ve said it before but I wholly planned on doing a one-and-done fic with my first but the support y’all gave me encouraged me to do more and I genuinely LOVE working on projects for the Thirst Squad.
HOWEVER - a few days ago I got an anon that kind of... set me off. I was asked why the last of my kinktober stories was taking so long to post. I didn’t even reply to it because I was feeling so discouraged. I won’t get into the “fanfic writers create content for free!” tirade, because we sure do, but I, at least, like doing it and I don’t want anything in return. I wouldn’t write all this filth and commit myself to eternal damnation if I didn’t enjoy doing it. But I’m still, regrettably, a real person with real obligations outside of the fandom. I love providing this uhhh... specific subset of fiction for y’all but I am still a person.
If any of y’all sent that message that I didn’t reply to, let me give you a few reasons why the fic isn’t done. I know I don’t have to share these excuses - no, not excuses but realities - but I’ve never been anything but honest on this blog and I’m still annoyed:
- I am half way through my first high risk pregnancy and I’ve been VERY sick throughout. Y’all know how hard it is to write sexy stuff when you can’t keep even plain oatmeal down? It’s not sexy. Not even for a second.
- In addition to being a human host for a chaotic baby, I am still working a non-essential job 40 hours a week. On my feet. Catering to plague rats in two masks and a shield in a swamp.
- LOL SURPRISE WE RENOVATED ABOUT 70% OF MY HOUSE IN ALL OF THIS and they’re still not done fixing damage from years ago.
- Did y’all know there’s still a pandemic on? Wild I know. My mental health is dead and buried and when I do finally sit down to start working on anything, inevitably I start doom scrolling and have to walk away from my computer to keep my blood pressure down.
- I’m just tired. And I don’t want to put out anything “sub-par” by my standards just to hit a deadline for a project I’m working on for free. That’s pretty much it. That’s the story.
Truly I love y’all. I really, really do. I love this fandom and I will always think on this bitty little sect of the community with a tremendous amount of joy and love and gratitude because you have gotten me through the hardest chapter of my life and given me some of the most important people I know. But please, don’t ask ANY content creator where their next work is in this climate. Because there was a point this week where I thought to myself that maybe I didn’t want to contribute anything anymore.
Now back to your regularly scheduled Star Wars shitposting and thirsting. Thanks for reading and for the support I’m still not entirely sure I deserve.
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YOON JEONGHAN
Series : To all the boys
Pairing : Yoon Jeonghan x reader
Type : non idol au, ex-lovers au
Genre : angst, drama, fluff, romance
Warnings : one curse word lol
Word count : 1k approx
Synopsis : You decided to write some letters to every boy who was a part of your past as your last message after getting diagnosed with chronical disease.
MAIN MASTERLIST
[Received, 15.10.2020] | next
"They have got to be kidding me, giving us such horrendous amout of assignments."
Jeonghan's room was nothing but a nightmare of any university student, papers splayed across the whole floor, important files being kept neatly at one side of him, laptop with multiple tabs open on his laps.
He didn't even bring his coffee inside his room just in case he trips on it and it spills on all of the hardwork he has been doing from the past week.
He gathered all of the things and neatly stacked it in his desk, falling onto his bed he let out a loud whine of relief that finally all of his work was done.
He stayed like that for few minutes before reaching out for his phone to open up his socials.
Jihyun : don't forget to eat your meal, I don't want you to skip it while you drown yourself in work, love you.
"You know I will eat my food no matter what why bother being so worried."
He, instead of replying just shut down the chat room and wondered out loud throwing his phone beside him.
He has been dating Jihyun for a little over 5 years now and yet he wasn't as interested in her as he used to be years prior when they first started dating, well after meeting you to be precise.
Jihyun wasn't fun, she didn't challenge his head, she never doubted his actions, always blindly trusted him when he himself knew he didn't deserve to be trusted.
And that was boring, he wanted a relationship where he could playfully banter with his significant other, where his partner would be as sarcastic as he was and always had a comeback to his remarks but Jihyun wasn't like that, she always apologized for everything even when it wasn't her fault.
Maybe that's the reason he still yearned for you, maybe that's the reason he every now and then had this urgent urge to hold you in his arms like he used to.
"I can't believe I have a girlfriend who would give me world and here I am sulking over how after our breakup I'm the one who's always reaching out to you and beg you to talk with me y/n."
He reached his phone again as he opened up your messages, he scrolled up to see only his messages asking if you had a time to spare to talk with him from your busy schedule, which he knew wasn't so busy and you were just ignoring him.
You had deleted his contact but never blocked him letting him be in the delimma of always being a message away from you yet he knew you were gone far away from that.
You're heartless, he concluded. He made you heartless and he was proud of it but he wasn't ready to be the victim of it and experience it in first hand.
How could you be so merciless with someone to whom you've shown your softest side possible? You didn't back away from accusing him for your anxieties and low self esteem and he genuinely felt awful for treating you the way he did.
But that didn't mean for you to cut him off from your life like that, he still wanted to be your go to person, he still wanted to be your first priority, someone you would look up to when you were upset because he knew you would never let anyone see that side of you.
He wanted to be the shoulder you could cry on, he wanted to be with you and wipe your tears away, fuck, he wanted to be in relationship with you again if it wasn't so impossible.
He sighed, he was once again getting lost in the thoughts of you, he always hoped you would reach out to him and tell him that you're ready to take him back, he would leave everyone else for you.
You were his rock and he hates himself for letting you go easily and taking you for granted. He got up from his bed to make a coffee for himself and relax.
It was always like this, he had been getting lost in the thoughts of you for a quite while now and even though he knew it was natural for him to miss someone who was so dear to him, past weeks have been way too difficult for him.
It was like he was yearning for you not only emotionally but he wanted to feel you physically, he wanted to hold you in his arms and cry about how difficult university life has been like he used to.
Ofcourse he did have Jihyun for that but all that girl do is give him sympathy and tell him she's there for him but he doesn't want that.
He wants her to cradle his lap and kiss him senseless so he would forget about his tensions for a good time and then hug him tight stroking his hair and distracting him before calming his nerves by talking his problem out with him and coming up with a solution, something he got habitual to when he was with you.
But she wasn't you and he was starting to realize it more as the time slipped through his hands. He did everything he could to keep you by his side and he was starting to doubt why he wanted to keep up the burn-out flame of his and Jihyun's relationship when he had someone as amazing as you.
He didn't wanted to break off with Jihyun cause she was his first love and she never treated him wrong but he realized late that in the long run he didn't want someone as naive as Jihyun to be with. She couldn't handle him although she was trying her best, she just couldn't.
He made his way towards the couch in the living room to drink his coffee leisurely when his eyes landed on an envelope.
He doesn't remember receiving a mail as he wondered if it was of Jihyun since she had spent whole day with him yesterday.
He called her before touching the envelope.
"Jeonghan, you wanted something? Are you stressed? Want me to bring something?"
He closed his eyes momentarily, she was always too worried about him and he didn't like it, he rather preferred being babied by you cause you didn't like babeing people.
"Nope, but stop worrying too much please, I'm not a baby, plus I called you to ask if you by any chance have left an envelope of yours on my table?"
"Ohh the envelope it isn't mine but its addressed in your name-"
He cut off the call throwing his phone to the side as he reached it, reading his name on the envelope he knew it had to be you, there's no way it wasn't you. He knew you.
The smile which he wore was starting to make his cheeks hurt but all he cared was about the envelope and your handwriting.
He tore the envelope taking out its content to see two letters and a sticky note fall out on his lap.
"You're still the same, you have your own unique ways of expressing."
📩 Yoon Jeonghan. I know, when you touched this letter you knew it was from me and I can imagine you smiling widely while reading this. See, how beautiful I made your world. Why Jeonghan? Why did you break me? I've been stuck up on you way more than the time we have spent together. Why did you do that?
He smiled ironically, he was breaking too, he had been stuck up on you way more than you did, you indeed made his world beautiful and he beat himself up regularly for playing with your heart.
"I love you y/n and I hope your stubborn heart would realize it soon, you don't want to accept that fact because you're scared but why would you suddenly send me a letter? It's making me feel scared, the sickening feeling inside my stomach isn't helping at all, I hope you're fine."
#Yoon jeonghan#Seventeen Jeonghan#Jeonghan au#Seventeen au#Seventeen series#Seventeen#Jeonghan imagine#Seventeen imagines#Jeonghan blurb#Seventeen blurb#Jeonghan drabble#Seventeen drabble#Jeonghan one shot#Seventeen one shot#Kpop#Kpop au#Kpop imagines#Jeonghan series#Jeonghan scenario#Seventeen scenario#Seventeen angst#Jeonghan angst#Jeonghan yoon#Angel yoon#yoon angel#seventeen#seventeen scenario#seventeen au#Seventeen x reader#Jeonghan x reader
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hi! i'm writing to you because i have a strong feeling that your blog is being sadly overtaken by zutara being problematic. i'm afraid you are focusing on how bad sh*t is on the other side of the fence, aka the main tag, instead of positive things happening here. you have some great content, but for some reason, it seems toxic zutara is distracting you from all the good content waiting for u, and all the good content u could make more of.
i appreciate the concern, darling, but no, not really, tbh? halloween and the day before yesterday i had the influx of asks (which were more about k.atara/the s.outhern r.aiders than anything else) but that's died off and im back to my regularly scheduled programming, lol. if it seems like im not posting a lot, it's because of class and work, not because im caught up in a fictional shipping war. like the amount of original content i produce always takes a nosedive during weekdays because i rarely have free time, lol. nothing to do with ships!
also, i assume this ask means well, but technically it is my blog which means i can post whatever i want. i don't think you meant to be condescending, but it does come off a little bit that way.
so yeah. my queue runs with 5 posts a day, and sometimes im able to hop on quickly in the evenings and rb a bit from my dash. when i scrolled down my blog just now, it's pretty typical posts, with fanart, memes, and gifsets. i think you may have just seen the stuff from halloween and sunday. so have no fear, basically! my blog is doing just fine and i am perfectly content with my experiences on here
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Saturday Six (Stuff)
I forgot how freaking HOT southern California is. Ughhhh. I was boiling the whole time (especially with the high humidity) we were there. But we did have a lot of fun, despite a few boo-boos. ＼(^▽^＠)ノ
Fall is definitely making itself known here in Eastern Washington. It's very chilly & autumn breezy today.(•̀⌄•́)🍁
Why is it that every annoying thing happens at once, and it all costs money you don't have? Ugh. (¬д¬。)
Yay for my stupid back going out yesterday.・゜・(ノД`)
My kittehs have been so happy to see us back at home though. (=^-ω-^=)
I do love that it's soup weather, again though. (∩❛ڡ❛∩) ॱ॰⋆ӵᵘᵐᵐᵞ♡♡♡
#Saturday Six#September 17 2022#About me#Personal#please do not reblog#Carey rambles about her boring life and has a lot of bitching to do today apparently#Mostly because she's dying from the back pain and and extreme lack of funds#Finances are very dire for sure and I don't like it#Hopefully the yard sale next weekend goes well#Anyway sorry to vent into the void#I hope y'all are having a good day or night wherever you are#Hugs from mom or just a friend whatever you need right now 💜💙💚💛❤️💗💕💖#Now back to your regularly scheduled scrolling lol
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Dysophonia (3/3)
Of course Allister would be up- Allister, who has no bedtime and regularly checks who’s online (and sometimes knows without checking at all)
He gets a flurry of new messages, and decides (against his better judgement) to open the chat up again:
[(11:58 pm)
🌊: any1 awake
bsides al hes always here
🐲RH_HL: me
allister: :(
Melony: Allister you really should go to bed!! 🛏⏰💤 You need your rest so you can grow up big and strong!!
🌊: mel has that ever worked
🐲RH_HL: lol
allister: hi piers
🐲RH_HL: what
oh snap
hey piers!!!!
🌊: heyy
Melony: Good evening piers! ☺️👋🏻
🌊: good 2 see u
🐲RH_HL: @championtime get in here mate I know you’re up
allister: <gif of a banette waving>
sorry that took a while to find]
He watches it scroll for a while, wondering if he’s actually delirious.
[championtime: Whaaaaaaaat
🐲RH_HL: piers is here
championtime: Seriously?
Oh wow you’re right
Brb buying a lottery ticket
Melony: That is not nice Leon 😡
🌊: lol
🐲RH_HL: lolol
Melony: 😡
🌊: leon respond 2 my email already
championtime: Anyway what’s up Piers
Ok listen I was GOING to
But then SOMEONE pinged me
🐲RH_HL: excuse me i am not the reason you’ve been putting off checking your email for three days
championtime: Why are you even awake right now Nessa
🌊: waiting 4 ur email
allister: mr Leon is very busy
🐲RH_HL: oh not you too
Leon you’ve corrupted the child
Melony: leave Allister alone 😡
How have you been Piers 😊😊]
He doesn’t know whether or not to respond. It’s really late, he ought to be trying to sleep. And... let’s be real, they probably don’t care. Still, they did ask...
He waits, one hand over the phone keyboard. When there’s no further messages:
[pierzzz: awful, if you really want to know
🌊: ?
championtime: ??/?
Melony: Oh no 😱😢
🐲RH_HL: oh hey no wait what’s up
Allister: :(
pierzzz: voice is gone
🌊: yyyyikes
pierzzz: also probably I am dying
allister: oh no
Melony: Piers you should not say things like that 😱 there are children present 😡
allister: it’s okay i know he’s joking
Melony: I meant Leon
championtime: HEY
🌊: lololol
🐲RH_HL: seriously though are you ok
pierzzz: will be eventually
championtime: Losing your voice must be a big deal
pierzzz: oh it is
would be livid if I wasn’t so bloody tired
🐲RH_HL: just ur throat? or are you like
oh
pierzzz: caught a cold or something
barely made it through the show tonight
even looking at the screen is making my head hurt like hell
🌊: turn ur brightness down genius
pierzzz: it’s on minimum smartass
🐲RH_HL: why did you even do the concert
pierzzz: came on too fast
was fine this morning now I’m just
☠️
championtime: That sounds more like the flu mate
🐲RH_HL: yeah
pierzzz: oh fantastic
Melony: Oh no!! 😢
Are you going to be ok?
pierzzz: ill be fine
just gotta sleep it off
championtime: You sure?
🌊: was that a pun
🐲RH_HL: can and will corvicab over there if you are actually dying
pierzzz: what no what
championtime: No to who
pierzzz: all of you cut it out
wait
championtime: HA
pierzzz: nO NOT YOU
allister: :(
🐲RH_HL: got it be right there
pierzzz: STOP
Melony: Raihan, calm down. It’s past midnight, taking a taxi at this hour is a little unreasonable.
pierzzz: THANK you melony
Melony: You can pay him a visit tomorrow morning. 😊
pierzzz: i have never been so betrayed in my life
🌊: lolololol]
Piers briefly considers throwing the phone against the wall.
[🐲RH_HL: in all seriousness though mate my schedule is clear tomorrow
pierzzz: don’t waste your day off on me
you’re not allowed
🐲RH_HL: says who?
pierzzz: says me
🐲RH_HL: why
pierzzz: what
what kind of dumb question is that
🐲RH_HL: Give me one good reason I shouldn’t
pierzzz: w
🌊: raihans using caps what timeline r we in
championtime: And punctuation
It’s like I don’t even know him anymore
pierzzz: i don’t ws’
🌊: typo
pierzzz: i dont want to be a bother
gone from this chat for months then the first thing i do when i show up again is complain
allister: is that why you waited so long to speak
championtime: I bet it is
pierzzz: i don’t ever speak here i don’t know why i’m even in the chat still
i don’t come to any of the league functions i’ve only ever met a couple of you in person once
i’m an awful gym leader
i don’t deserve your attention
🌊: wow
ok
suddenly feels like im sitting in on smth super personal
🐲RH_HL: piers
pierzzz: i’m sorry
that was too much ill
i should go
championtime: No don’t
allister: <gif of a sad shuppet>
Melony: Oh, dear...
🐲RH_HL: stop
piers stop it
right now
pierzzz: what
🐲RH_HL: stop talking about yourself like that
pierzzz: everything i said was true
🐲RH_HL: those last two parts definitely were not
pierzzz: raihan
🐲RH_HL: listen
i
we’re still friends right?
i know i’ve said some bad things to you in the past
stuff i regret
and i know we don’t see each other much anymore
🌊: do i hear secret backstory
🐲RH_HL: but like
Melony: Nessa, shush.
allister: yeah if you point it out he might stop
championtime: Guys, cmon
🐲RH_HL: i still care about you???
if you’re in a bad spot and there’s something I can do
I wanna help you out however I can
pierzzz:
championtime: I’m shocked you’re talking this much
Usually with me you’d just pretend to drop it and then show up anyways
🐲RH_HL: Leon shut up
championtime: :P
🌊: sounds like him
allister: one time he showed up at my gym in the middle of the night without even asking
🐲RH_HL: I’m ignoring all of you
especially you Allister I genuinely don’t know what you’re going on about and that’s not a can of wormadams I want to open right now
Melony: Oh, dear.
🌊: yikes wtf
🐲RH_HL: Piers
Are you sure I can’t come over tomorrow?]
...
...Piers gives up.
[pierzzz: if you really want to
i won’t stop you
🌊: dawwwwwww
Melony: Awwww!
pierzzz: shut up all of you before I take it all back
🐲RH_HL: nessa if you ruin this im making it rain in hulbury for two weeks straight
🌊: HEY
it was Mel too
championtime: I’m glad to see you two getting along
Wish I could join you but I’m swamped
🌊: hey yea that reminds me check ur email
championtime: 3dsjkvdcjosko
pierzzz: god no
full offense I think being in the same room as both of you at once would actually kill me
allister: mr kabu says that sometimes
championtime: Does he now?..
Melony: 😅
🐲RH_HL: ill pull up a picture of leon on my phone
he’ll contribute exactly as much as the real one would have
pierzzz: sounds about right
championtime: HEY
🐲RH_HL: u know im right mate
🌊: leon ur email
pierzzz: he’s right
🌊: leon ur email
🐲RH_HL: leon ur email
championtime: stop
🐲RH_HL: leon ur email
🌊: leon ur email
pierzzz: leon ur email
championtime: TRAITOR
🌊: lolololololololol
Melony: It’s getting late, and I’m not one for Bother Leon Hour. I’m going to go to sleep now. Good night, everyone! 🛌💤
pierzzz: me 2
🌊: nooooooooo
stay up and help me spam Leon
pierzzz: would love to but
again
dying
🌊: boo
🐲RH_HL: let him sleep nessa
allister: i can help
championtime: .
I can’t get mad at you in front of melony
🐲RH_HL: Mel left
championtime: you tiny judas
🌊: leon ur email
allister: mr leon ur email
🌊: you’ve got the spirit at least
pierzzz: bye
🐲RH_HL: See u
pierzzz: yeah ok]
He turned his phone off, and stared at it for a few seconds after the screen went black.
If he didn’t know better, he’d say his headache went away a bit.
Hm.
#piers#pokemon piers#nessa#pokemon nessa#leon#pokemon leon#allister#pokemon allister#melony#pokemon melony#raihan#pokemon raihan#pokemon#sword and shield#swsh#fanfiction#drabble#?#this took SO LONG#im not happy with it but i wouldnt have been happy with anything i needed to just put a bow on it and move on#h
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Toilet-bound Hanako-kun Chapter 18: Mitsuba (Part 1)
Previously: we wrapped up the little mermaid arc. Hanako and Yashiro’s relationship continues to evolve while they figure out where they stand and how they want to move forward. In relation to that, Hanako confirmed that the person he killed was his younger twin brother and he promised to tell Yashiro the whole story in the future. We also met what I assume will be our complete group of antagonists (at least for the time being): Natsuhiko, Sakura and Hanako’s brother. Their dynamic so far seems to be (surprisingly) quite playful and lively, but also Hanako’s brother murdered the puffer fish with such glee that I just (;;⚆_⚆)
Now onto the next chapter!
Welp, I didn’t intend to take another long break but life happened and I have the attention span of a goldfish. As a way to also make myself stick to a schedule, I’m gonna try my best to do these recaps as regularly as possible. We’ll see how that goes.
This time we open with Kou and his friends talking about a rumor that says that the entrance to the middle school is haunted. I’m guessing this means that this arc will be a little more Kou-centric? Especially since he and Hanako were the ones in the cover of this new volume. I wonder if he’s gonna do his own thing with Hanako and/or Yashiro chiming in like in The Young Exorcist Arc, because that would be cool.
Okay, so apparently the ghost grabs you when you’re changing your shoes. And judging by the ominous “Hey” speech bubble, I’m guessing this rumor is true just like the others, then (not like I was expecting anything else, but still) Also Kou’s friends are very cute, they look like they deserve hair ruffles.
(ﾟдﾟ；) Σ(ﾟДﾟ|||) JFC that’s much more terrifying that I thought it would be. Also!!! does that head angle give anyone else crooked man vibes? no? because it’s giving me some horrible flashbacks to that game.
The chapter cover page here is that image (from ch 16) that has our three babies looking ready to tell some ghost stories. I wonder if it’s something that this site did or if the volume itself repeats this page. Nevertheless, I still love this page, they look very very cute.
The title this time is “Mitsuba”, which sounds like a name and I’m only saying that because I think I might have heard of another character with that name. Then again, my japanese is very limited, so I could be completely wrong. If it IS a name, I’m guessing it’s gonna be our crooked man’s over there since most chapters so far were named after the different supernaturals.
Moving on, Kou shows the ghost that he decided to mess with the wrong guy by promptly throwing them against the shoe lockers. RIP ghost (again).
Oh! Kou says that the ghost is wearing a school uniform, so he was possibly a student here. Interesting! Now, we don’t know when this boy died, but this means that Hanako isn’t the only ghost that has an attachment to this school. The question then would be why this boy is here specifically and not somewhere else.
OH!!!!!! There he is!! He’s the pink-haired boy, right?? Okay, so, it’s been a while, but I mentioned that I had seen two spoilers when my instagram feed decided to betray me. One was Hanako’s brother and the other was this boy here! I saw him two times in two pieces of fanart with Kou. I didn’t know he would appear so soon! Ohhhhhh that’s exciting! I’m guessing he must be important in some way, right? He looks really cute! and now I feel bad about the crooked man comment (even though his neck really looked kinda funky in that one panel). Are they gonna become friends?? Is Kou gonna expand his friend list to two (2) ghost friends?.......oh, god, I hope Teru doesn’t object to this one too. Well, no, I don’t think he would; he wants to exorcise Hanako because he considers him a danger to the school (and I’m not saying that Hanako doesn’t have the power to hurt others but like…….his brother really seems like the bigger threat right now ngl……...Although, do they even know about him? Because we know that Kou’s grandmother (?) was the one to seal Hanako away and his family knows that he killed “someone”, but do they know about his twin?)
Hey, there’s my other two children! So they are gonna be involved in this arc as well, cool.
OMFG KOU! Sweetie, no! Like, I get it, he’s a ghost that tried to grab you and he could have hurt someone but he looks so helpless, like a scared puppy! I get tying him up but was the duct tape on the face really necessary? I mean, no one else besides the other supernaturals and Yashiro and Teru would have heard him, right? I can’t even be mad at him tho, look at how excited he is about catching a ghost ಥ‿ಥ
Anyway, it seems like he went to Hanako to check how he could deal with the ghost. And awwww!! It’s because he doesn’t want to exorcise him, either! He’s really committed to this new path, huh? Good on you, Kou, I’m so proud.
Hanako gives the boy a long silent look and tells Kou that since the ghost is there probably because of some unfinished business, that means he should help him solve whatever they are. I mean, if countless movies have taught me anything, it is that this plan should probably work.
Omfg Kou just keeps yanking this little ghost boy around. Please be careful with the ghost child. Yashiro shows her concern over the idea (understandable, Kou can be overly enthusiastic and we don’t know anything about this new boy). Hanako says it’ll be fine and he also confirms that the boy is not really dangerous now (the “now” is kinda concerning, though (⚆.⚆) …..but then again, since I saw him and Kou in fanarts, I’m guessing things will turn out okay), and that if things take a turn for the worse, it’s just more work for him because he’s the mediator. Hmmm, that’s quite a solemn look on his face. I think he mentioned this when we met the mokke as Yousei-san, but he wants to avoid killing/getting rid off apparitions whenever possible, right? That’s why having Yashiro as his assistant works in his favour. So that means that he probably doesn’t want to have to “deal” with this ghost, but since that’s the nature of his role, he has no other choice if push comes to shove.
(ALSO, this is a side note but it just hit me: since Hanako doesn’t seem to know this ghost, that means that he’s new? or maybe that he recently acquired the ability to manifest? could it be because of the rumors? like, he was just doing his own thing and suddenly the rumors forced him to haunt the entrance?)
Anyway, we cut back to Kou and ghost boy.
Omfg this poor child. Kou, please untie him before he starts crying.
……………………………...oh my god. I- well, I expected many things but this was not one of them. Like, he has every right to be angry but wow this child has a mouth on him. But also it could be because of the way it’s translated but it’s very funny to me that his insults range from “i hope you drop dead” to “dummy head” pffft.
I-..... He’s really nothing like I expected omg what. Sweetie, breath, trust me when I say Kou would be one of the last people to even think about doing something like that.
OMFG I JUST SCROLLED
Pffffffffft why is that so funny?? I can’t be the only one that read that in the spongebob narrator voice.
But yeah, it looks like he got it all out of his system. Now Kou is trying to maintain his “cool guy facade” so that ghost boy will respect him (I think it’s gonna take more than that to achieve it, but we’ll see). He also tells him that he comes from a family of exorcists but that backfires spectacularly because the boy basically calls him an otaku. RIP Kou, he really can’t catch a break pffft
Ghost boy keeps being sassy and that makes Kou threaten him with his staff. Good thing he doesn’t know that it’s sealed and that it doesn’t really work.
Hey! His name really is Mitsuma (thank god, I can finally stop calling him ghost boy). He really isn’t the cooperative type, huh? Also what’s that bottom left face omfg Please just let Kou know, he just wants to help.
Like, I know they’re brothers but wow Kou looks so much like Teru right here, scary face and all. But yeah, anyway. A picture? Like, he lost a picture that he treasured? Or maybe he wants to take one? Or he wanted to take a picture with someone else?
Ohhhh, okay. So he was part of the photography club and there was a picture he wanted to take before he died. Or so he thinks. So like, do you lose part of your memories when you die? If so, could it be because of the passage of time or as defense mechanism of some sort? If his camera is still at the club, then that probably means that he was a student here not too long ago.
We cut to Kou helping Mitsuba take some pictures (and being attacked by birds in the process), And from the looks of it, it’s all on purpose and Mitsuba is having way too much fun with the power he has lol Kou, in turn, keeps zapping him with his staff when Mitsuba gets too cocky. Boy, these two already have quite the dynamic, I can’t even imagine how chaotic they’re gonna get in the future.
Kou then points out that Mitsuba has taken pictures of scenery and animals but none of people. Mitsuba admits that pictures of people are better if you want to win awards but then cuts himself off. Hmmm. Does he like to take pictures of nature better because of his artistic style or could there be a deeper meaning behind it?
Here’s your reminder that I really really love Kou ಥ‿ಥ He’s such a good boy I just ಥ‿ಥ ಥ‿ಥ
“I’ll pass” PFFFFFFFFFFT these two give me whiplash, I swear. Mitsuba is freaking brutal (and I’m kinda living for it ngl).
Hey, one of Kou’s friends, Yokoo, is back!
Oh????? Did Mitsuba went to the school recently? Were they in the same year??? Kou didn’t look like he recognized him, so maybe he was in a different class?
Ah, they actually were in the same class during their first year. Is Kou in his last year of middle school? So….they were in the same class two years ago?
Oh no. Mitsuba died sometime last winter in an accident. It looks like he has a big scar on the back of his neck; if that’s how he died, it seems like it was quite painful. This poor child ;; Yokoo mentions that they weren’t really that close to him (and that’s very clear considering Kou’s reaction). I wonder why Mitsuba didn’t say anything. But then again, Kou didn’t really give him any signals to work with, I guess he just decided to keep quiet.
Oh! It looks like Kou is remembering something now that he’s been reminded.
oh my god…...look at them…….babies ;;; they look so young ;;;;;; what happen??? why did they stop talking?? just because they were in different classes?
Oh, that’s…….that’s heartbreaking. To desperately reach out, again and again, and to come out empty handed every time. And I feel like it’s such a common fear too, the possibility of being forgotten by everyone you care about. That would be such a hit to your own self-worth. Oh, sweetheart….This poor baby needs so many hugs.
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Hello everyone! I have hopefully returned to your regularly scheduled programming.
Anon answers (and a question for you!) below! 👇
1-5. I was only a little surprised to say that Blush won by a goddamn landslide. Dom!Spencer just does something to people, I suppose, lol! Breathe got second, so Show Me The Ropes will just have to wait. I’ve still been writing a lot despite not posting, so whenever my Beta and I have time (please send her good vibes - there’s a lot going on for her!), you guys will be drowned in my content.
Sorry about that.
6. I do want to write more Lesley! Right now my only request for him is fluffy smut of Sub!Lesley making a sex tape. More goofy than sexy, IMO. I have an idea for Raymond and Wes I want to do first.
Actually, which appeals more to y’all?
Dom!Wes putting a leash on you, or Raymond fucking what he firmly believes is a ghost (you’re not, which he realizes later after he runs into you)?
7. I was SHOCKED to see Defining Family win by so much. Since it is so much longer than the other two fluff fics, we’ll see if we finish editing it first. I’m glad you guys are interested, though. I was worried (I’m always worried - but my last three works weren’t well received, so I’m more worried than usual).
8. I unfortunately not only don’t read works, my memory is akin to a very specific type of chaotic 2008 Neopets fan page. I don’t even remember which of MY fics include that.
If you want suggestions for fics, I recommend asking @dreatine, who is extremely knowledgeable and would be more than happy to discuss fic recs with you. She’s a genius and she’s super nice.
9. Unfortunately that still doesn’t bring us any solace. I’m grateful that people have at least stopped sending multiple requests to me, but they still tend to send it to a bunch of “smaller” writers and then a couple “bigger” writers and that is just... the WORST feeling ever.
Because I’ll tell you what happens: people are scrolling through the tags and see a story summary line, and then go “I’ve already read this” and keep going. That writer loses the chance to share their work, and it makes them feel like garbage. It will always feel, to us, like you are just using us and don’t really care about the impact, even if you just don’t realize (which is why I talk about it all the time.
dontkissthewriter and I organized a fic swap, right? We had to create a posting schedule for everyone involved because we were scared that if we didn’t, the smaller writers would be buried and not get a chance to have their works read.
All I’m asking if that you respect writers. When they say something makes them feel used/like garbage, just try not to do it. It’s really easy to change up a request so that they aren’t the exact same. If you can’t, then only ask one person or at least tell us so we can coordinate. We just want to be respected for our time and work.
10. KEATON. Oh my god I love him. Also, I’m glad you liked It’s Not You, It’s Her. I absolutely hated writing that piece - lmao! But I did get to write the rant that Spencer really needed to hear in the show, so.
I actually plan on incorporating a similar conversation in a fic eventually. Not sure which one, but I really hate how no one told Spencer in the show that he was idealizing the fuck out of a relationship that probably would have gone poorly, anyway, considering the little of their dynamic that we did see.
11. I’m so glad you enjoy it! I would give a preview of Part 19 but my writing is super chaotic right now. I am working on it! Promise! This chapter is going to be long.
12. Awwwe this is so sweet. I’m glad you enjoy my page. I really love you all and I love having the chance to entertain you and be part of your lives however I can.
Sending love back. I hope you have a wonderful day. Stay safe xoxo 💕
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I don't understand kaylors either tbh. Like the last time they were seen together was 2 years ago, meanwhile Karlie got married to some rich dude she's been dating since forever and Taylor is with Joe and is clearly happy lol. Also, how do they explain Taylor saying the albums are about him lmao.
Ugh, I actually have so many thoughts on it. I’ve fallen into a bit of a hole because it’s FASCINATING.
So I know it was a big “ship” towards the end of the Red era/1989 era. (Side note: I’m super not okay with real people shipping if it’s not a confirmed thing. These are people, not characters.) And so-called Kissgate was a thing, I guess, but Taylor herself seemed to debunk it. I don’t know, they were very close for a bit there. But then they didn’t interact at all for years and totally seemed to have fallen out, which Taylor very much alluded to in a lot of places.
Fine, whatever. I figured it was dead, maybe some people still reminisced about the “Good Ol’ Days” of Big Sur and VS Fashion Shows. Except, turns out, it’s a full-on tinhat conspiracy built around a lot of weird reaches and assumptions.
Karlie has been with her now husband since before she even met Taylor and they seem pretty happy from the little I’ve seen. Taylor and Joe have been a low key, confirmed thing for a while. I have no reason to doubt either relationship because I don’t know these people and, by all accounts, they’re solid, real couples.
I could write a whole essay about the Joe references in rep and Lover. I mean, LONDON BOY?! And she told people they’re about him! Why doubt that? Why take the words of a woman, who has spent most of her career having them twisted and manipulated, and twist and manipulate them?!
Also, Taylor has stated she’s an LQBTQIA ally. She’s literally receiving a GLAAD award for allies. I’m inclined to believe her on that.
Ultimately, it’s harmless fun to play what-if with your favorite celebrities. What if so-and-so dated what’s-his-name or wouldn’t it be cool if Jo Schmo was gay? Sure, have fun. But Kaylor seems to have gone way past that. It’s kind of become insulting to a lot of people involved.
I know saying this may make people come for me or whatever. I’m genuinely not interested in becoming an “anti-Kaylor blog” or having to explain myself to anyone. I really just do not understand this subset of Swifties and had some thoughts. 🤷🏻♀️
Okay, back to your regularly scheduled scrolling!
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I Got Stoned And Started Typing To Post On FB (And Ended With Something That Could NEVER Get Posted)
Hah. I hit my vape pen a bunch and then this happened:
This afternoon, after taking way too many hits of my *state tested, clean and safe* vape pen, I was surfing hulu on my laptop while scrolling through facebook on my phone and playing Stardew Valley on the PS4 every few minutes in between and I suddenly, in fact altogether _casually_ thought to myself, “I wonder if I’d want kids and be able to take care of them if I made it to 38?”
And the thing is, that is literally the most positive organic thought I’ve had in my VERY busy, VERY chatty brain in almost two years. It is the first thought I have had regarding a potential future that wasn’t colored by the idea that My Mom Is Dead So Nothing I Could Do In Life Would Mean Anything Or Be Possible Because She Isn’t Here To Experience It Too Or To Help Me Through.
This stoned, distracted, completely mindless and unfocused random little insignificant thought... is the first time in over a year and a half of thinking, that did not immediately end with, “She’s Dead So You Can’t Ever Hope For That Anymore Because It Means Nothing Now That She Can’t Be There To Experience It Or Get To Be Proud Of Me For Once” and also, “Nothing Is Possible Without Her Because Without Her I’m Alone And Unable Forever Unless Someone Else Takes Over Helping Me But That Will Never Happen And I Will Never Be Ok Or Able On My Own.”
I mean, no wonder I’m doing so poorly and also dealing so badly with her death?! Being close was great in a lot of ways and awful in others. Our codependent enmeshment was deeply and traumatically unhealthy. Having to be your mother’s best and only friend at 8 years old is... really weird. And abnormal. But then, so is developing a diagnosable anxiety disorder and eating disorder at FOUR YEARS OLD is kind of abnormal too!
The thing is... some physical aspects of puberty for me started very early. VERY early. All aspects of puberty seemed to start earlier in me than a lot of girls in my class, in my grade. So maybe it makes sense too then that I would develop these psychological issues so early, particularly with the stress and fear of moving from Texas to Michigan and leaving the first friends I remember having, how terrified I was of change and meeting new people, trying to make new friends. I was so painfully and obviously shy. I was so afraid of people.
But anyway. No one caught the anxiety disorder until I did myself.... in college. I lived with a totally unchecked anxiety disorder and pretty high-but-not-yet-extreme depression from the ages of five and eleven/twelve respectively, and the first time I got ANY help was at the age of 19. No wonder I was sick for so long. The fucking eating disorder is suuuuch a perfect(ly horrifying) coping mechanism. And since it was my primary, and often only, coping mechanism for many many many years, as in almost ALL of the first two decades of my life. Two decades of drilling this into myself of How To Relieve Stress And Self Soothe = Disordered Behaviors And NOTHING ELSE.
Is it really any wonder why I’m like this??? I am dealing with the loss of my only family; my best friend by leaps and bounds and freakin lightyears; my entire and very giving safety net - so I could try something new or move away or whatever and I knew I was safe because if it didn’t work out or I tanked I could ALWAYS go home. Always.
I’m also dealing with the loss of... the person who never let me try things because she was a control freak so I could never learn from her; the person who taught me the
passive aggressive ➡️ passive aggressive ➡️ very aggressive
method of responding to interpersonal relations, which I mean... how could anything go wrong?! 🙃🙃🙃
I’m dealing with the loss of a relationship where my mom once, in all seriousness, asked me if I’d have a baby if I didn’t have to take care of it, she would take care of it for me.
Like, I know part of her was “joking” but... she wanted to be a grandmother. She wanted to see me have a career, a family, security.
But also who sort of benefited from my continued illness; my inability to cope or work; my low functionality, my constant need of help, support, and validation... they made her SO frustrated but also kept her busy and kept her from being alone, kept me with her but also sometimes was too much for her so it was upsetting, because surprise - crazy people gon turn up a notch higher than you can predict, and don’t ever forget that.
I am mourning this relationship that either fully shaped or strongly influenced almost every issue I have now. I don’t mean to shirk responsibility, just to be clear - I have to actually try as much as is literally possible to fix the things in me that are broken. I have to find a therapist and go to therapy. Trust my doctors, try a hundred different meds that might ALL make me horribly sick or even more crazy or both as side effects while still trying to build some kind of life. Maybe, eventually, find one, but also... get out of bed every day. Shower, brush your teeth, get dressed, GET OUT. Grab your coat boots keys purse and go outside. Make it into your car, drive it down a few blocks (depending on where you want coffee/are you reading a book or can you play HP there/etc), get coffee and sit and read or play a bit or work lines or whatever. Make your to do list there! Lay out a plan for the day. Schedule at least two work items then set a timed break for video games or whatever. When the alarm goes off, you MUST get back to work. Two to three more items earns a longer break to play OR taking care of any other immediate need stuff and then going out or something.
If you want to get some casual exercise, go to either mall. Walk around for Shopkick, the game, and to get your blood flowing at least a teensy bit while working out rarely used muscles and burning juuuuust a few calories.
You spend SO much goddamned money on delivery, when actually — Going out yourself is SO much better for you. It is obviously MUCH cheaper, but it’s also good to get out of the house even if only going to and from the car and into the store or restaurant or whatever, and it’s very VERY important to drive the car regularly, to keep the battery functional and the guts ok. ((Also RE: CARS — Next warm day, that Prius goes through an intense car wash. Need to get that shit out so it stops stinking, prob growing mold ugh ugh need fix!))
But I mean JUST THINK how much money you’d have left, maybe to even treat yourself to better things, and also if I stop ordering, I will 100% lose weight. So muck fucking weight lmao. And with a job, I’ve got two sources of income coming in! And hopefully still medicaid for as long as I can possibly have it 😭
This got REALLY away from my stoned assssss BUT. The original point is this:
I thought about myself as potentially being alive six years from now, which is very much not what I see lately but which, for once, didn’t automatically sound like a punishment, and I thought of myself six years older and wondering if I might be better enough to be an ok caregiver and also have a relationship that could sustain children coming in, and I was able to and did have one?? That’s SO bananas to me lol. It made me feel... weirdly hopeful though.
#stonerthoughts#soliloquy#depression#mentalillness#dead parents club#orphan#codependent relationships#dysfunctional family#suicidal ideation#ramblings
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March 7th-March 13th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive
The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from March 7th, 2020 to March 13th, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:
What is your overall marketing/promotion strategy for your webcomic?
Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)
I don't know if this counts as a strategy, but these are some of the things I do to promote my comic or my work in general. 1. Most important from what I've noticed (which I have been failing at due to stress and self-doubt lately) is to post updates to your comic frequently and consistently. It seems somewhat silly that simply putting your work out there is the best way to grow an audience, but it really is. Newly posted chapters frequently get shown on more pages and thus detected by the algorithms and potential readers. It also helps to establish trust with current and returning readers. 2. Participating in art/comic events, forums, and other comicking communities (such as this one). In a way, this isn't really marketing directly, but it is good to build connections with other creators! 3. Conventions! I actually have gotten a several new readers/followers from attending cons. It's also nice just to talk to people, get your name out there locally, and to make a little bit of money while at it. 4. Social media promotion. Tbh, this hasn't been super helpful to me, but more eyes is always a win in my book. I try to post almost every day, even if it isn't art or comic related. Having some kind of social media presence at all, even if it's small, shows people that you are working hard to connect to others. Also finding the right hashtags definitely helps with visibility.
kayotics
Overall, my strategy for marketing is to be authentic and just keep plugging my stuff. People will come if they like it. I work as a marketer for my day job, so I know what I COULD do, but I really don’t do that much since a whole marketing plan would take a lot more time than I have available to me. Some of the stuff I do otherwise: - regular updates. This ones pretty important for retaining viewers I already have. Any good marketing strategy is thinking about retaining people, not just getting new ones - self promo: this usually is on top webcomics or on social media. I get a LOT of traffic from top webcomics, and I get a good handful of people from social media. - conventions, like mentioned before, can be a great way to get people’s eyes on your stuff. I have a postcard that I hand out to people if they come by or they purchase something. - the thing I don’t do enough is post more art outside of the comic, or even just little previews. If I were dedicated to marketing, I’d be sharing sketches or illustrations on social media to grow my audience.
DanitheCarutor
Ah you know, I don't really have much of a strategy. At some point I promoted as much as I could on Twitter, adding my comic to those share/promo thread, getting in on relevant hashtag events, participating on WebComic Chat (whenever I remembered to). I've done a little promotion on forums, but there is really only so much you can do since only so many people hang out there and if your work is super niche like mine, they will pretty much avoid your promos at all cost. Lmao Other than those I don't really do much, at some point I attempted to use Instagram but the site/app is very stingy about offsite links. I also started a Facebook page, although if you don't have the money to boost your promos and don't usually have a lot going on with your comic outside of weekly updates, it won't get a whole lot of attention. I've also tried to be more active, but I'm not a good conversationalist, and I tend to be kind of a thread/conversation/mood killer so I try to avoid talking outside of Q&A prompts like this.
eli [a winged tale]
Same Dani, I used Instagram for a while too and I just don’t think the platform is a good fit for my vertical scroll comic (see exhibit 1) Twitter is a mixed bag as well and I think unless you have a solid following already, it’s hard to gain traction. What really helped was being on Webtoon’s staff pick for a couple days. I’m not sure how Tapas picked up but it’s reassuring that there’s a couple of followers gained every week when I posted regularly. So it really does sound like the first step is to have a steady update schedule (working on the buffer! Got a month’s work down today). It’s just challenging because while I could upload one page a week but on the vertical scroll sites it seems like a longer episode (6-7 pages) is valued more as a solid update. Love hearing everyone’s thoughts and hope to learn from y’all! (edited)
LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)
Consistency and con attendance were big ones for me, but something I learned worked well (and was really fun to do) was creating really fun, really dumb, non-canon bits of art every now and then. Following meme prompts or funny ideas from other people. If your comic can afford some humor being thrown its way, making people laugh is a great way to get some attention. No one needs to know the details of your story - they just need to relate to the characters/humor somehow. I had more than one person come across my dumb, meme-y ancillary art and go “Welp, I want to read your comic now.”
eli [a winged tale]
Memes to the rescue! What has been your favourite to do? And which one has surprised you in its relatability/popularity?
LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)
Two shots of vodka.
Also that terrible sweater meme. Everyone is required to do the terrible sweater meme. People eat it up.
eli [a winged tale]
Too good
Ahh I can’t wait till I can actually write silly adult characters
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Now that you mention it, the nice thing about the terrible sweater meme is it works with a WIDE variety of comics.
eli [a winged tale]
I would love to do a meme with y’all
Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)
"Came for the story, staying for the sick memes"
Spring-heeled Jack
I try to post updates every friday when my new pages go up on Patreon. And then I make my big post when my tapas and website update at the end of the month. Between all that, I have little flyers that I carry with me and if I'm ever in a shop that has a little self promotion section, I plan on tacking up a flyer. I do conventions, and this will be my first convention season while actively making a comic, so flyers will be handed out then as well.
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
My comic isnt very comedy-heavy, and even for the funny scenes, my sense of humor isn't compatible with most people's. So a lot of the memes out there just don't work. But terrible sweater meme doesn't have to be hilarious. It can be just cute, or even weird.
Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)
For me, uh lmao. I sometimes make some funny strip panels and it was received well even though it's not polished for my liking lmao
Spring-heeled Jack
Keii, I feel you. I'm not good with comedy and my comic isn't meant to be funny, either, so I don't know how well a comedy meme will help me.
Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)
overall, I try to be honest with just self promo and asking when I have a chance "Hey pls check out my comic lol"
eli [a winged tale]
Or maybe just something relatable? Seen a couple caption this on tumblr
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
I think instead of memes, what I'm gonna do is my characters cosplaying more well known characters from works that have some tonal similarities with my own. This isn't just for advertising purposes; it's something I've been wanting to do for a long time for myself. But I'm realizing it can serve some of the same purposes that memes do.
Spring-heeled Jack
That's extremely cute!
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Keyword being "SOME" Tonal similarities... Some of them aren't very similar but have a couple of parallels, etc.
Spring-heeled Jack
Oh for sure. Even if you could find that 'perfect match', it might not be a great cosplay for them, and give too much away
Are "draw the squad" prompts still a thing? I love those
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
The One White Dude and the Tiger Dude in my comic will definitely cosplay Calvin and Hobbes at some point.
Spring-heeled Jack
LOL
omg please, Keii
eli [a winged tale]
YES
LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)
Yeah, not every comic will have super memeable humor - but whatever you can do to break down that wall between you and a potential reader and go “Hey! Look at this. Is this relatable? Do you get the reference? Etc” Is a very good bet
Also yes squad memes are PERFECT
You can boil down your comic’s relationships so simply.
Spring-heeled Jack
I have four couples in my comic so those "ship dynamic" posts might be fun
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
What are squad memes?
eli [a winged tale]
I also need to be educated about squad I mean all the memes
Spring-heeled Jack
OH MAN!! They are fun as heck. You can find templates and it's a very simple character design in the template, but the poses are super silly. And then you just draw your characters in place of those simple figures(edited)
If you google "Draw the squad" you will find a bunch
renieplayerone
Oh! Ill have to try that! These squad bases look fun!
LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)
I still have one of those I need to finish Back when I first started sharing my work, I was surprised and delighted at how quickly people shoved it through a meme filter.
Maybe that’s another thing! If marketing opportunities present themselves as a surprise, try running with them and see where they take you Within reason, of course. Never feel forced to follow anything that people respond to in a particular way. Just take it into account and see how you feel about it.
renieplayerone
(Im here to lurk on this week's question, i have no strategy and need ideas haha)
eli [a winged tale]
Omg draw the squad looks
too many to choose
mariah (rainy day dreams)
I love draw the squad poses so much TuT I wish I had more time to draw within more of them. I think I always get a little dishearten about making memes because I feel like I need to make my jokes full illustrations but I never have time for much extra content beyond ballpoint pen sketches :T
Mei
Honestly I don't have a marketing or promotion strategy for my webcomic. I make updates every week, and I post it on my twitter and kinda plug it there. I'm actually god awful at trying to make people read my comic because I'm a little bit nervous about it, to be honest. So I just sort of leave it there and see if people find it, half the time. That being said, I tried to promote it pretty hard at conventions last year. But that didn't go as well as I'd hoped. I'm hoping to make flyers with QR codes so that people can scan it, and it'll take them to the landing page/tapas for the comic. That might be a bit easier than getting them to just search the title, plus having a flyer is a nice bit of promotion if I get the opportunity?! Making memes and drawing characters in different clothes or in squad things sounds like super fun tho and I might look into that in the future
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
It's nice to hear everyone talk about this topic. TBH I had completely stopped promoting my comic because I got too scared of backlash, being a disappointment, etc. (Initially I'd attracted a number of people who weren't actually my target audience, and that led to some less than ideal results.) But some time last year, it occurred to me that 1) I'm making this comic for my reader self (or my "hypothetical taste twin" as I like to call it)... which means 2) I only have to appeal to people like me. So I started asking myself, "What would I have to say/do to get me to read this comic?" and that made it significantly less intimidating. I haven't actually started doing self promo (though I did start plugging my updates on Twitter at least). But most future self promo I do will be based on that ^ question.
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
(oh god, I was just checking out the latest update for one of the Korean webcomics I read, and the new episode is about a hikikomori... who says "I want to change, but I can't step outside because... maybe there isn't a single person out there who will understand me." THAT WAS ME but with comic promo. Well, I'm getting better and I also hope this character will, too, though knowing this comic his chances aren't so great lol...)
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
I hope that wasn't too awkward to share! Tl;dr I really think the "what would I have to say/do to get ME to check out my comic" is a good approach for anyone else feeling intimidated about doing self promos.
In the same vein, but on the opposite side of the coin: I'm curious to know, what were some things that got YOU to read someone else's comic?
Some of my own answers to that aren't very relevant to what we can do for our own comics: e.g. I'm Korean and when Naver has a new comic in their pro comic lineup, I may check it out. I'm also a member of SpiderForest and I check out the applicants' comics during the app season. Stuff like that aren't really good promo options that we can take. But things that may be relevant: - 'Evocative scenery shot that doesn't show the face/ doesn't focus on the face.' MY WEAKNESS. That kinda pictures feel subtle and kind of lonely to me, even if it's a group shot. And I like stories with those vibes. -Promo includes an evocative quote. Could be from the comic itself, or from something else like a classical literature or whatever. The creator of Ark (https://www.arkcomic.com/) does this sometimes and even though I'm already following Ark, those promos get my attention.
eli [a winged tale]
Definitely the art promo now that I think of it! Merch, posters, banners etc. If the art intrigues me, I definitely take a look at the site/blurb/first chapter
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
I wonder if we can semi-workshop promo art at some point? Not really intensive like "change xyz" because that's not always feasible with art, but just impression feedback like, "this pictures gives me these vibes, and makes me expect this kinda story"
I would be curious to see everyone's even if we don't workshop
eli [a winged tale]
YES
Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)
Yesssss
chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]
Yes please. I don‘t promo besides update notices simply because I have no clue to start.
Mei
Sometimes I get really attracted by the style of the story? I immediately started reading Wolfsbane because the art was cool and different from a lot of whta I'd seen on Webtoon up until that point. And then the story was perfect for me. What keii said about writing for yourself is right. Patrick Ness once said you should write the stories your younger self would have loved to pick up on a shelf
and I think that's a pretty evocative thing. At the end of the day, you should be enjoying what you're writing (hopefully). And if you enjoy it and you're having fun making it, that can rub off on the people reading it, or you find the people who like that similar vein of story?
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
(It's also 100% legit to write stories for your current self )
Mei
(oh yes 100% that's what i'm doing HEHE)
Tolkein wrote LOTR because he was like
in love with worldbuilding
was there a market for such a strange type of novel at the time? No. Definitely not. Did he write it anyway? YEAH HE DID
Deo101 [Millennium]
I really wanna do an art workshop yes.
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Aight, anyone who wants an impression feedback from me, post your promo art in #art_help
Warning, my impressions may be totally off lol
Deo101 [Millennium]
Also I don't do much marketing. Mostly I try to get in with communities and learn about making comics, I just want to improve my craft. All I really do is make my updated every week, and share whatever art Ive made on my Twitter or whatever
Okay! I think I only have my cover on my phone, but on my computer I also have my banners and icon. So I'll share all those in a bit when I'm at my computer
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
(off topic but I'm sick, and when I'm sick or very tired I constantly misread words. I read "my banners" as "my bananas" and I was very confused for a couple seconds.)
Deo101 [Millennium]
My bananers
Feather J. Fern
I am terrible at marketing my own work, but I am very good at marketing other people's work. I use the "you would like it for this reason" to grab people. Unfortunately I can't do it for my comic because I am bad at seeing the good in my own work oof. I am getting better at it though.
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
That's a really good way to do it!
And I can relate. My own hangup is a little different, but it can be extremely difficult to be brave for sure, whether in front of other people, or just in front of your own brain that constantly judges you.
Feather J. Fern
Yeah I was talking about a friend's comic and then the person I was talking to was like "Don't you write comics" and I was like "ahfoofjw yeah but don't look at them"
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
I was thinking a lot about the whole "it's like [well known work] meets [another well known work]" approach that was discussed earlier. And I think that could be relevant here. Like, think of something that has either influenced your comic significantly, or just happens to have some core similarities. How would you market that thing? Could you market your own thing using a similar approach -- since there are similarities?
I'd thought of a really good example to compare HoK to. Then I got sad because the said example is extremely obscure outside of Korea. But now I'm like, hey, people don't have to KNOW that work. I can do this differently. I can talk about HoK the way I could talk about it.
('it' as in the other work that's obscure outside of Korea)
Feather J. Fern
I do think that's a good fast shortcut but I don't like using it becuase the shortcut sometimes makes people angry when they don't get what they like out of those two things
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
That's why I said to NOT actually bring up the comparison work
Don't name it
Just list the traits that are shared in common
Feather J. Fern
Oh sorry
I miss read
(And my name changed colours all the sudden?)
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
It's a confusing topic, so no worries
It means you leveled up
Feather J. Fern
OWO!
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Say you want to compare your work to... I dunno, DBZ, because it's got super strong aliens duking it out barehanded, blasting ki-like energy attacks, etc. Don't name DBZ. Talk about your work the way you'd talk about your favorite aspects of DBZ. "My comic has super strong aliens duking it out hand-to-hand! YEEEAH!"
OH MY GOD I NEED TO DO THIS NOW.
Feather J. Fern
Yeah! That's what I would do. (But it also helps for me that my comic has no hard reference points) but for my new comic, people are gonna compare it to Zach Bell, and Angelic Layer i think
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
I'm gonna write up some drafts that I will revise and tweet at a later time
Feather J. Fern
So I jsut got to you know, not promo it as such XD
Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)
I want to do this too for a quick pitch
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Do it (shop talk or story help maybe?)
I'm writing a vomit draft for mine
Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)
Yee
Feather J. Fern
I think I will do it for Story help
(Also so I can help flesh out my new project lol lol)
eli [a winged tale]
Kei I might be suuuuper off since I read only the beginning but I sort of thought inuyasha but Korea and handsome boys
LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)
Sometimes you don't even realize your story can be marketed as "blah meets blah" until much later down the line - I've only started realizing the number of existing properties I've absorbed unintentionally into my comic. It's not how I'd market it on a serious front, but to a friend for story help, heck yes.
But a lot of people on Twitter seem to do that strategy for PitMAD and it works great for them, so... shrug
I guess it still belongs in a "pitch arsenal," as it were
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Yeah, the one "blah" I just thought of is something I hadn't realized for all these years. But it makes so much sense now that I look at it.
eli [a winged tale]
See that’s where I got confused but I think this is what I’m gonna aim to do: - pitch to readers: inspiration but this awesome unique thing in the comic - pitch to other comic makers: the Logline - pitch to agents: comparison works if requested and longer pitch depending on their format - pitch to family: just read it plzthanksbye
renieplayerone
or alternative pitch to family: Please dear god never read this
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
That's me
Oof... Writing the 'promote your comic by talking about the traits it shares with Another Person's Work,' I made myself cry, and that is definitely a sign I'm on the right track.
eli [a winged tale]
Right track is good!
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
It took me years to even think of an 'other more popular work' comparison for Children of Shadow. XD But at the same time, it's really different from the works I compare it to, so it's hard to say 'Read this if you like X or X because it has a few similarities in theme and tone, but is still very much its own thing'.
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Yeah which is why I'm not even gonna namedrop my X.
I'm just straight up gonna talk about 'My comic has [this trait]' (and X shares that trait, but no one needs to know for the purpose of that pitch)
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
To answer the weekly question... I really don't have a marketing strategy. Marketing is my achilles heel, so I generally just throw pages up and hope someone sees them. I don't really understand social media nor do I have the energy to sink tonnes of time into it, which seems to be one of the biggest requirements for being picked up by algorithms. So my marketing strategy is just.., keep making comics and talking to other creators and hope for the best
eli [a winged tale]
I think that’s still solid Capn
Ultimately you need a product to promote
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
It's something that helps me, because while I can talk about my favorite works done by others, I feel stuck when trying to do the same with my own. So it's basically telling my brain, 'hey, you already know how to do it with other stories. Do the same thing with your own.'
eli [a winged tale]
So true Kei
renieplayerone
thats my strategy too. best case you market it great, worst case you've made a new friend so win win :3
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
My incredibly low numbers after 14 years of making webcomics beg to differ but... maybe someday I can hire someone to help me market.
eli [a winged tale]
I’m using the comic platforms rather than my own site so... sort of relying on their algorithms. I imagine it can be harder if you just post on your own website?
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Sometimes the platforms don't help much if their audience isn't into the type of comics you make
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
I post on both my own website and on platforms, but the algorithms for WT and Tapas don’t seem to like me, haha.(edited)
renieplayerone
yeah same
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
One of my top favorite webcomics got a front page feature on Tapas once, but it wasn't the kind of a story that gets a lot of traction there, so it still didn't get very popular. And that was in no way a measure of its quality. It is an excellent comic, just not a good fit for that particular place.
renieplayerone
I get far more views on my site, but I get way more engagement on Tapas and WT
I actually treat those two mirrors AS marketing for the main site(edited)
eli [a winged tale]
Exactly renie! Good perspective!
I never know what different platforms tailor to...
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
Yeah, what Keiiii said. I make dark fantasy comics and both WT and Tapas favour romance, especially comics geared towards a female audience and drawn anime style. My comics aren’t particularly feminine and romance isn’t much of a focus, so they’re just not what that demographic is into.
eli [a winged tale]
I’ve been trying to remember how I came across my favourite comics and usually it’s through the art (interesting characters, unique dynamic style that I enjoy) and the first chapter holding promise (able to see what the character wants/will have to change into)
Romance has always been the best seller in the story world I think
Oh and most recently hiveworks and other web publishers have great recommendations too per genre
And comic conventions are always fun to meet creators. Sometimes If I feel I jive with someone I’m an instant fan
renieplayerone
I absolutely need to get better at having confidence enough to make friends at conventions x_x
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
I have noticed my audience grow a bit since joining Spiderforest. They’ve helped me get a bit better at promotion, though marketing just isn’t my talent, lol.
renieplayerone
im always terrified haha
eli [a winged tale]
It’s a big step for sure renie! It took me like... three years going to VanCAF as an attendee before actually exhibiting and making friends(edited)
Mei
I know i'm late but i personally detest the 'this book is X meets Y!!', even though I get why people do it. I just wish they'd describe it to me like what if I'd never read either of those books......
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
I would really love to get out to cons, they sound like a great opportunity for connecting with other creators. One of these years I’ll be able to get to one!(edited)
Deo101 [Millennium]
yeah im usually kinda like "okay, well are you doing anything new or are you just doing those things :/"
renieplayerone
I exhibit with the Boston Comics Roundtable and I still havent gotten the courage XD
Mei
yeah, cons are really fun even to attend or to make friends! I find it really tough though, I'm so intimidated;;
yeah Deo... same... it's like
sure, I could pitch a story as two things. Like I don't know "The Walking Dead meets Shaun of the Dead" which is semi redundant anyway
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
I only use it to give people a framework for the kinds of tones and themes they can expect from my work when I have to keep my explanation short and sweet.
renieplayerone
they should have badges that say "Hi i want to make friends but you are all so awesome its intimidating be kind"
Mei
or you know... use those words to just describe the story? It may be a personal preference, some agents LOVE comparisons
Yes renie, yes!
i'd love a badge like that like
pls talk to me i'm scare
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
Sometimes a few words can’t fully describe a story as well as saying: ‘It’s a little bit like X meets X but if you add [insert unique thing your story does]’
Mei
I personally find that it depends a bit too much on people having read those books or stories before. BUT if you're pitching to an agent, they've usually read those books
so then they get a sense or vibe of like, what the genre is
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
It’s all down to preference, really. Your own and the person you’re pitching to. If you don’t want to use comparisons to describe your own work, that’s valid, but try not to dismiss people who do.
Mei
so I get it, I just don't like it personally xD I think a lot of the times it takes away from your own voice and story
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
That too is part of the reason why I'm not namedropping the works
Just having my self-promo self learn from my 'promo other people's stuff' self
Mei
yeah for sure, it adds that level of excitement to your own work that you'd give to others?
eli [a winged tale]
I think a cool exercise might be to check out someone’s work here and see how you would promote it
It’s always good to see from someone else’s perspective
LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)
yessssss, all of my friends have been much better at promoting than I am
mostly because they have no shame regarding it but they also just... know what sounds cool
Mei
Oh i'm very good at promoting my friends' work
I sold his DnD book to a kpop stan who doesn't like DnD and doesn't play, and it was a crowning achievement
eli [a winged tale]
Like for yours I’d probably say... Manta Ray princess finds herself very much dead but is given a second chance to revive her friends and save her kingdom... just need to find someone very much living and very much not afraid of the seaghosts they have become
LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)
SOLID
though now I imagine Phaedra as a Manta Ray in a dress which is... not entirely untrue
eli [a winged tale]
LOL omg I haven’t even thought of that! Just thought manta Princess is a hook
Mei
Me, pointing at Cheth "I mean look at him, LOOK AT HIM and tell me you don't want to read this"
LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)
I guess for my work I market it from four potential angles: 1) The princess is cool and has a sword, 2) The villain is the best character, 3) The environments ain't bad, and 4) THERE'S A DOG
again, you gotta know who you're talking to and what they already like
eli [a winged tale]
In a world where a fallen god became trapped in the sea, a dead princess is given a second chance to fight for her life with a mysterious sea-bitten boy and undo the sea ghost curse that plagues the world.
Dammit I repeated world
Mei
hey... the environments are GREAT
eli [a winged tale]
Yeah Lady your environment shots are
LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)
ok I do try BUT BACK TO MARKETING
The number of times I see someone marketing their comic with very epic-sounding descriptors or broad generalizations... then that one day where they're finally like "oh, I have a character who turns into a hamster at nighttime" and people are like 'I'M SOLD'
And then they go ".... THAT'S WHAT YOU ALL WANTED???"
often it's those little weird details that get people interested
Deo101 [Millennium]
I wanna read about the were hamster please
Mei
sometimes I think the simplest and maybe slightly silly lines are what grabs people?
when things sound TOO epic i feel a bit intimidated
eli [a winged tale]
takes notes
Mei
but if someone were to sell me a big adventure epic as "it's hamsters and they fight the forces of evil" i'd read it
LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)
god yes
"Four small creatures band together to defeat a great darkness overwhelming their homeland."
No.
"Hamsters fight evil."
YES
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
I.... I have no idea how to snappily describe my comics. XD
eli [a winged tale]
Same... I got to kids with wings for hair then my brain short circuits
Mei
i'd say it's the way you'd tell the story to a close friend
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
The best I came up with was 'Teenagers with supernatural powers team up with woodland critters to defeat monsters' but it sounds more adventure-y and doesn't really get at the fact that it's a dark story with horror elements and everyone's mentally ill.
Mei
like they come up to you and go "what's your comic about" "oh you know, my stupid comic's about mutant hamsters that take over the world" or something
(don't call your comics stupid none of your comics are stupid they are great)
Deo101 [Millennium]
"plant man and his goth boyfriend babysitting a ton of bozos" would probably be mine then
Mei
BEAUTIFUL
i'm sold
Deo101 [Millennium]
ghsakgjhgkhkgahgk my target audience...
Mei
i do think tho like this form of comedic one-lining may not work for something dark?
Unless you go "Spooky horror about cats that become humans at night!"
would need experimentation
eli [a winged tale]
It’s a balance I think.
Kids stranded on an island with weapons explore the darkness in human nature - Lord of the Flies
Mei
ooh yeah that's a good one!
LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)
A space explorer stranded on a foreign planet must join forces with the indigenous population and save his ship before his life support runs out.
Alternately
Small man goes to war with small carrot people
Pikmin
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
@Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios) I wonder if one could describe CoS the way how people might describe Evangelion, but with magical powers instead of mechs.
Teens, monsters, mental illnesses
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
Probably. Though I've never seen Evangelion, but those three words work very well.
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
The relationship dynamics are way different, but yeah, those three things...
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
Also add trauma and cute lil animals and you have Children of Shadow. XD
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Evangelion also has trauma (though I don't know if you'd like it; this isn't a rec, just a promo discussion!) and it was refreshing to see at the time
A teen trying to fight huge monsters, even if he was doing it inside an equally huge mech, could lead to traumatizing experiences, and it was the first time I saw that seriously explored
Hmm, so I guess "teens, talking animals, monsters, mental illnesses feat. trauma" ?
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
I don't know if it's similar at all, but that description reminds me strongly of Eureka 7. Wow, was that series intense,
🌈ERROR404 🌈
I really liked how the end happened - it was a nice solution to the lack of budget issue and told the story of his psyche reall well
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
Though Eureka 7 was intense in a good way. I found the ending kind of unsatisfying, but admittedly I find the endings of 90% of animes unsatisfying (probably a cultural clash). But I enjoy them for the journey more than the ending.
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
I haven't watched Eureka 7, but the storyboard artist (one of the storyboard artists maybe?) for that anime is one of my favorite artists.
DanitheCarutor
Ah, a little late, but regarding the snappy promos I'm in the same boat as Cap'n with not knowing how to make one. At least one that would be ridiculous and totally not fitting the darker themes. I agree with all the people who have a generally hard time coming up with a pitch for their work, while having an easier time promoting other people's comics. Honestly my comic can be super boring to people who don't like pretentious, non-fantastical, angsty, character study types of stories. So it's really hard to think of a way to make it sound interesting without spoiling anything. Man! That thing when people come up to you, asking what your comic is about! Me: "Oh! Ah, it's uh, kinda sad and it has uh mental illness" -trails off with uncomfortable laughter- Them: Oh cool. -has a look of complete disinterest- Someone was actually extremely enthusiastic about the vague description of my comic, which somehow made me a mix of uncomfortable and excited.
Eightfish (Puppeteer)
I saw the conversation about blurbs and I just thought of one for a comic I'm working on! "An ecologist and a bird have a conversation about ethics"
I haven't started the comic yet so please send your critiques(edited)
and first impressions
(of the blurb)
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
"Angsty character study with a heavy dose of mental illness" <--- Could this descriptor work? @DanitheCarutor
Eightfish (Puppeteer)
kei said exactly what I was just typing
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Great minds
Eightfish (Puppeteer)
oh, i just realized i've read dani's comic
I think your description is fine?
The artsy, angsty comics I follow all have kind of short, tongue in cheek descriptions
it's hard to capture the tone of an emotional comic in one sentence so they either joke about it or make it intentionally misleading
for example Drop Out's description is something like "two friends go on a road trip" and Fritz Fargo's description is "a human dumpster fire in the 90s"
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
The dumpster fire one is insta-effective
Eightfish (Puppeteer)
Dani, maybe make your description shorter if anything?
Something like, "An emotionally stunted alcoholic attempts to make amends"
and then follow it up with kei's line about it being an angsty character study
RebelVampire
Im not gonna stop the convo cause it is on topic. However, i do want to remind ppl these #creator_babble chats are permanently archived. So thats something to keep in mind if youre gonna workshop.
Eightfish (Puppeteer)
I asked before in this discord about making my own blurb better. The main critique I got was that I included too many things that I thought were interesting and unique that a new reader probably wouldn't care about. Like how the mc's powers work. But though it's unique and important to the story, it's not going to be a main reason someone reads the comic. I revised the blurb to remove extraneous info and make the tone of the comic more apparent, and I think now I didn't lose anything and made it more concise.
I think maybe agtahr could also be summarized a bit more succinctly
DanitheCarutor
Yup, you did once upon a time but said you stopped reading it a while ago. (which is totally fine, the reason is understandable.) The mix of yours and Keii's descriptions do sound a lot better than mine. Lol Thank you Fish and @keii’ii (Heart of Keol)! I've noticed people really like the word 'angst' when you describe heavy stuff. At least when I was a teenager everyone found it appealing. I'll tinker with it a bit and use Drop_Out and Fritz Fargo as a reference. Anyways, I'm going to stop talking now, don't want to bog down the main topic.
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
That's a good point; 'the best things about this story' and 'things that should go in its blurb' have an overlap, but they aren't always the same.
Eightfish (Puppeteer)
Yeah, I did but I'll probably pick it up again eventually. I remember enjoying it. If you do want to keep talking, we can move to shop talk?
mirandalorian
babbling I have the first three episodes of my webtoon ready to post tomorrow and I’m really excited and feel kinda proud that I made it this far...even though it’s not very far. It’s far for me without posting immediately end babbling
Feather J. Fern
I forgot to ask, but if people are tabling at cons, do you guys have promo stuff at your con tables for your comics?
Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)
Mostly a business card, but yes
carcarchu
i never did but my table partner one year had free postcards she gave out with purchase / to passerbys with her comic info and an illustration on it
kayotics
I always keep free postcards to advertise my comic on the table right next to my business cards.
LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)
Yep, the free postcards did wonders for me last year. They disappeared quickly!
Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)
Buisness cards and postcards~
Feather J. Fern
Seems like Business and Postcards are the way to go.
Mei
business cards!!
i might be making flyers/postcards for my comic next time though! :D
sagaholmgaard
I haven't done much to promote my comic but I've gotten some good ideas reading through this, thanks! I currently plug my updates in twitter and instagram with a cool/fun panel from the new page. I do also share WIPS and try to engage through my instagram stories (Asking things like, 'what type of benders would the Reclaim squad be in an avatar au' and making doodles for the answers), but that only reaches those who follow my IG. its good fun tho. I've done memes with the characters a few times but I didn't get much attention, LOL. But it's fun so maybe worth trying again
Spring-heeled Jack
Today I went into a locally owned comic shop and went to the guy that owns it and said "I'm a local artist and I'm writing a comic. Could I give you some small flyers to let people take?" And he said yes, and then asked if I have any physical copies. I don't yet but told him I'll bring some by when I have them. He then let me know he carries other local artists! Something cool to think about if you have a local comic shop.
Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)
ooo that's good to know
I droped off my zines at my local comic shop but maybe I'll drop flyers of my webcomic too lmaooo
Spring-heeled Jack
I also just ordered a business card carrier so I can tote some around with ease. I carry my flyers in my sketchbook. You should totally ask, it never hurts! Carry a few extra just in case you find yourself in a new area and find another cafe or comic shop.
I ran mine off on my at home printer on some nice quality but regular weight paper. I might need to get some more professionally done.
Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)
I keep a handful of business cards in my wallet -- that way, any time someone says "hey, that looks cool, what are you drawing?" they get a card with the title and URL. Slowly but steadily burns through the supply.
DanitheCarutor
Seeing if my local book shops will carry copies of my comic when I print them eventually is something I'm kind of excited about! My town is hardcore into supporting local artists and writers, so that'll be something neat to try out. Although I'm a little nervous that the rating might be a little too mature for what the vendors want on their shelves.
I know of using postcards to advertise, but never heard of fliers. Maybe I'll give that a try.(edited)
Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)
I use double sided business cards, so on one side, it showcases some of my art, and the other side has contact info, a link to my comic website, and a QR code. It's been pretty helpful so far at conventions.
Nutty (Court of Roses)
You guys have all these sophisticated answers to this and my answer is just "scream on every social media platform I can reach and every person I meet about my comic."
Though I may not scream at people irl,,,
snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)
Let's see... I have a twitter where I repost my comic pages, and a couple mirrors that help reach different audiences. I've also carried around business cards that have my comic's URL on it. One fun strategy I've used is doing review-exchange things, in an I-critique-your-comic-if-you-critique-mine way (with the assumption that most people who read all the way through Super Galaxy Knights end up liking it). Though, that isn't really viable anymore now that the comic is 600+ pages, cuz nobody would ever agree to that trade lol. And... that's pretty much it? Though, I should note that my goal with Super Galaxy Knights isn't to make the most popular comic I can so that I can make a living off ads or patreon or print sales or whatever. If I ever do manage to make money off the comic, it'll be in "spinoff tech" (basically, video games or other media based off it). (it's the reason why a bunch of early Starstuff Stories fleshed out the abilities of the characters they focused on) I would like people to read the story because I think people would like the story, but it's not like my future depends on its popularity.
Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS
We (me and Q) are gonna (hopefully) tabeling at cons this year! I thought about doing free non permenant tattoos with our comic things. Also we have beautiful zines of the first chapter to sell. but a free postcard is also good
Desnik
promotional strategies...ah...the biggest thing I did for my first webcomic, RAWR! Dinosaur Friends, was simply update on a general platform (tumblr), using a consistent schedule and the same tags every time. That allowed some of the bigger biology/humor/critter blogs on tumblr to find me and I got a lot of people reading from their generous reblogs. I found some more niche crossover from sci-comm blog comments and dinosaur toy collector forums, because sometimes I'd have a comic that would coincide with paleontology news. It was mainly about finding my niche and bringing my stuff to that niche. To those struggling with finding readers, I would recommend distilling the contents of your comic and then reaching out to people who buy/read things like your comic. I've definitely made friends from general 'webcomic' forums and discords, but in terms of building a readership it's all about finding the niche and catering to it in a human way
In general I highly recommend shopping around for stuff like hobby blogs/forums/groups/discords that have some relation to the content of your webcomic. Those people DO want new content related to their hobby, but they don't really deal well with salesy pitches. Just be human and also a nerd for that hobby, too (nerdy enough to make webcomics about it)
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Yeah, it's like fan comic for an existing IP with an existing fandom, except it's a fan comic of a 'thing' rather than an IP (e.g. you make a pirate comic? Great! Nobody owns pirates, but there are lots of pirate fans out there!).
LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)
The very first customer I had at the first con I tabled at, came over and said "I like ghosts! I like the ocean! I'll take it!" And wrote me later saying it was exactly what they were looking for.
And honestly it's all because I make sure every cover has something spooky and something watery, and the genres are in the title I make it very easy for people to understand what it might be like.
Eightfish (Puppeteer)
omg the genres are in the title
that's genius
LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)
Definitely not planned But it helps so much!
I think if authors have a rule on certain symbols/motifs they MUST make sure come across on covers/posters/etc, that can be a good marketing strategy. With some wiggle room, of course.
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
I... I feel like I can barely even describe what my comic is, which makes it so hard to market. 'Do you like comics with cute animals and eldritch horrors and angsty teens that have superpowers and hidden religious symbolism everywhere?!? Then my comic is for you!' What even is that demographic, because I sure don't know.(edited)
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
@Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios) If you take away the cute animals part, that actually sounds like stuff a lot of teens are into/ a lot of people were into when they were teens. And most people love cute animals, so adding that to the mix, in theory, shouldn't reduce the accessibility too much. Buuuuut CoS has its unique flavor that's decidedly different from all the "angsty teens, eldritch horrors, religious symbolism" stuff I consumed when I was younger. I don't know how to describe that flavor, nor how to utilize it for marketing. But yeah, maybe some food for thought?
Eightfish (Puppeteer)
I've used short phrases that are sort of representative to describe my comic. Examples include "consensual mind control" "a guy whose ideal life is not being entirely alive" "friendship" and "anticlimactic conversations"
I have no idea how effective any of those are
someone tell me pls
LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)
As someone who just started reading your comic last night I think consensual mind control is a really cool descriptor. I haven't heard that too much before.
Eightfish (Puppeteer)
!
that makes me happy
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
@keii’ii (Heart of Keol) Heh, I'm not sure what that unique flavour is, either, but it might have something to do with me avoiding the typical 'chosen one' structure that most teen fantasy literature has. The characters are all (except Fawna) a part of the hidden world already rather than discovering it, and everyone's pretty much running around like chickens with their heads cut off rather than having any power over their situation (which is kind of a huge part of the theme of the comic). It's definitely different than the typical urban fantasy, so it's been really hard to find which audience that appeals to. From what I've gathered based on the people who comment on my website, it's mostly academics in college or beyond, for whatever reason. XD
Eightfish (Puppeteer)
Honestly I think for almost all comics their first pages were what convinced me to keep reading. Even with Phantomarine I was ambivalent about the description but then I saw the first page, and though, yeah, I'm into this.
Maybe my own comic can be the same way
LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)
Exactly the same with me and your comic - I was also all about that first page It's a powerful thing! I think for anyone about to delve into a comic - which is, by nature, a very visual thing - it's going to be that visual that ultimately pushes them over the edge.
Eightfish (Puppeteer)
maybe my description should just be ascii art of my main character O-O |
-(edited)
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
^ It's why I tinkered with the first page of HoK soooo many times even after it went live. But it wasn't enough; it still gave off the wrong impression as to what kind of a story one should expect. Finally, more than a year after I started posting it, I redid like 1/4 to 1/3 of chapter one from scratch. Even though it will never be perfect, I can live with it now. chapter 2 on the other hand... It's an imperfect intro to the right story, rather than an intro (good or not) to the wrong story.
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
To be honest, my intro probably doesn't hit the right notes to explain what my comic is about, which may be part of my problem. It starts out seeming more like an anthropomorphic fantasy than a dark urban fantasy / horror story. That's just something I think I'm going to have to live with, because I'm tired of reworking old pages (I already do it far too much). I think my best solution is drawing a new cover that showcases the tone and subject matter better than the one I'm using now.
Eightfish (Puppeteer)
oh god, you reminded me of the 3 cover pages I spent hours on only to later scrap. Then my current cover page I did in one hour after it came to me at 4am(edited)
and it was perfect
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
XD
and my page redoings were after the reboot.
Eightfish (Puppeteer)
Cap, I don't know how representative it is of the story but I looked up the Ashes cover page and it's very impressive
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
Yeah, I already redrew my intro once.... and this is the third iteration of this comic. And I'm currently redrawing the first two chapters of my other comic. I'm so sick to death of starting over. -_-
@Eightfish (Puppeteer) Oh, thank you!! I like to go all-out on covers, heh.
Kabocha
Promotion... ... is that a thing you can eat? ... A few things I've tried is business cards -- tweeting about it -- posting about it on dA... I try to stay away from services like Tapas and Webtoon because I'm not formatted for those sorts of things, and I fear I'll probably just frustrate myself. It's a delicate balance right now between remaining happy with my work and getting it seen, but overall, I guess I'm not too stressed about it since it's not a source of income for me... I just... like making comics. I've also done conventions -- Conventions are fun, don't get me wrong, but nowadays they're a really low return on interest for many shows for original stuff (except slice of life and "oh no I did a bad" types of zines -- people seem to really enjoy things like that since it's often pretty easy to relate to). They feel like they used to be easier for selling original work, but the market's gotten rougher because there's so much competition and only so many dollars. if I ever print, I'm probably going to have to lean on some marketing-savvy friends for help... Hopefully things haven't changed too much by then. I think the tool that's worked best for me in the past few years has been doing guest comics here and there, as well as using topwebcomics, oddly enough. TWC was pretty good for referrals when I started doing comics way back in 2006~2007...
sagaholmgaard
Since the topic is about promotion... Do yall know if there are any twitter hashtag events for webcomic creators? My friends in the indie game industry have certain hashtags that people can post in during specific times every week - do we have anything similar?
Kabocha
#Webcomicchat!
https://webcomicchat.com/for-creators You may also find this page helpful
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
#webcomicchat is great because you get to talk shop while talking about your own work! It's not just "look at my comic"
sagaholmgaard
Ahh!! Thank you!
LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)
I know some people do #WebcomicWednesday - not sure how official it is, but it gets some attention!
sagaholmgaard
I'll check that one out as well!
Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)
There's also #comicartistsunite too
chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]
webcomicchat always looked like fun, but I definitively am on the wrong side of the globe for the times it's going on
mirandalorian
Promotion is difficult. I always feel like I'm being too pushy, even for something that's free. I also feel like I built up a following that had nothing to do with comics or art and so when I switched directions to head that way, i don't get the response I would like. Reading all the thoughts here has been really helpful tho. Just got to put them into practice
Feather J. Fern
I think my current attempt for promotion is at least being more willing to promote. I have to force my fear of "I shouldn't tell people because it's not as good as (blank)" and just shove my comic into a spotlight
LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)
If anyone is worried about bothering people, putting variety into your promotions will make things more palatable for people for sure. I have one person on my timeline spamming the same exact post over and over again, almost daily, and it doesn't seem to be doing them any favors There's no need for a promotion every day. The people I see that do a more-obvious promotion tweet, like, weekly, or every two weeks, seem to get good results from that Sometimes less is more
mirandalorian
I need to get to that point Feathery. And ya, daily is a bit extreme imo. But I have to figure out the good balance
Feather J. Fern
Even weekly I don't do it because I feel like I am spamming and I feel awkward
Oh! Speaking of promotions, one way I found I got my comic promoted was by doing guest comics for other people! I got lots of viewers after each guest comic I did
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Yeah, for social media promo, e.g. on Twitter, you want to make your actual tweets have value -- not just things being linked off the tweets. (This is where gag-a-day kinda comics have an advantage, because each strip has entertainment value and you can just post the whole strip in a tweet.) Obviously this doesn't apply to every promo tweet; so like, weekly promo tweet that's solely about the links, as mentioned by others, is fine. But yeah, aside from those, you wanna make your promo tweets fun to read.
Feather J. Fern
Also cameos! Cameos are a great promo
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Not gonna lie, I am lowkey paranoid about doing cameos. Someone I know had to remove their cameo of someone else's character, because that other person objected to their character being in the print version of the comic.
chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]
Uff
Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)
oh rip
Feather J. Fern
Oh man, that's rough.
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
I'll never even print HoK but I can still imagine someone being all "NOPE, I CHANGED MY MIND" at a later time
Feather J. Fern
I am planning to do some cameos for other people, not that Go Figure will ever be in print but I can see that problem. I think what I would say is that if you want a cameo you have to be 100% certain
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Might be a good idea to have a very simple agreement thing you can have them sign
Feather J. Fern
Yeah I was going to have a written consent form
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
"I agree to let you do a cameo of my character, and to not be a jerk about it at a later time. Signed"
Feather J. Fern
Signed and dated by both parties XD
Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)
There's also the broad hashtags like #webcomics and even things more geared to genres like #drama and #fantasy and so on. Doing art memes helps sometimes, too.
mirandalorian
What do you think the best hashtags to use are? Is webcomics too saturdated?
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
I'm not sure about the best hashtags, but my biggest thing about hashtags on Twitter : don't use a bunch of hashtags in a single tweet!
For broad hashtags like #webcomics or #fantasy, I gotta wonder if anyone's actually checking those out...
mariah (rainy day dreams)
Yeah, I usually tag my update posts with #webcomic and my comic's name, but honestly I have no idea if #webcomic has ever helped out my post ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
mirandalorian
Ya, I typically keep it to two or less, but i always wonder if webcomic is actually useful lol
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
takes note to use something more specific than #webcomic in my next update tweet
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
I think it may potentially be useful as a label for someone who's just found you on that platform, and is not sure what you're promoting. But beyond that...
Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)
I usually use #historicalfiction and #webcomic. Not sure which one helps more, but well, there it is.
mirandalorian
Ya, I should use the genre tag too.
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Do people even search genre tags for that matter lol (a bit pessimistic, but still a genuine question)
like, I'll be the first to admit, I don't hashtag search to look for new comics to read. I don't think I ever hashtag search ANYTHING, unless it's like..... a very active trend that I am interested in (e.g. an upcoming video game that I'm looking forward to)
Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)
Well, the tags are popular enough to be suggested by twitter so I'd think some use them, probably likeminded folk.
mariah (rainy day dreams)
Same keii. I mostly use hashtags to look for fan art, exclusively on Instagram.
Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)
There's also a trend of "art sharing" tweets. I have found a couple of artists and webcomics through that kind of event, but again, the turnover isn't anything to write home about.
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
I wonder if readers make use of the search more than us creators do?
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
I doubt it, Lee
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
:/
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
I never use it as a reader, at any rate, though I don't know if others are like that.
mariah (rainy day dreams)
Though, actually that's not true, I have used hashtags to look at more things being posted within art events. So inktober, mermay, hourly comic day, etc.
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
But art event hashtags are useful, because -- like I mentioned before -- those tweets provide entertainment value without anyone having to click on offsite links. e.g. the #StartToFinish tag that's hot right now.
mariah (rainy day dreams)
I have followed new artists from those tags though and then checked out their off-site stuff. It's definitely a more round about way than someone specifically looking for comics to read via hashtag
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
From my limited observation, when people are looking for comics to read, they tend to ask for recs rather than do hashtag search?
"Anyone know of some good magical girl webcomics?" etc
which is a bit of a bummer for us creators, because that is completely outside of our control. Nothing we can do about it.
Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)
here's the popularity for the #webcomics tag
So SOME people use it.
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
@Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight) I'm gonna guess it's mostly creators using them to promote, rather than readers using them to search.
Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)
Also it seems to be peak in popularity in the USA
@keii’ii (Heart of Keol) the graph implies interaction, really.
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
What counts as interaction?
Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)
tweeting it and searching it
what I'm saying is we can't know.
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
I don’t so much in Twitter, but I personally DO search hashtags on Insta to find new art.
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
It's true, we can't know. I just personally can't imagine anyone searching for #webcomics to find stuff to read
mariah (rainy day dreams)
Insta is definitely hashtag game city.
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Yeah, IG is a different beast
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
Comics don’t generally gel so well with Insta’s format, though, so I’m usually seeking art and not comics.
Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)
just to be safe, occasionally use it
To be honest, I'm probably more likely to find and become a fan of webcomics here on this server than any social media
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Yeah, I wouldn't say "don't use #webcomics" -- use it if you have no other, more specific tags to put. But on Twitter, you don't want too many hashtags, so if you got more specific ones... use those instead!
Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)
I feel somewhat self conscious in getting an instagram. But I'll get one most likely.
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
It might be a good idea to switch up your tags regularly? Choose two or three from a relevant list each update and see if any of those tweets get a noticeable boost in engagement.
Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)
Yeah that sounds a good strategy
speaking of, any other creators into historical webcomics?
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
I don't seek them out, but there's some that I read.
Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)
yours is touching upon the historical keii with the joseon-style elements.
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
It's definitely not historical but yeah, got the aesthetics going for it!
Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)
Yeah!
I must admit, I'm a bit starved for like-minded creators. I mean people that create historical webcomics. I know and follow a few but that's not nearly enough.
(if I'm babbling too much for creator babble please tell me!)
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Babbling is fine! But this might be better for #general or possibly shop talk as it's not related to this week's topic?
Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)
oh sorry, there's a specific topic here too?
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Yeah, all the channels under CTP Activities have a... topic thingie that changes weekly
Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)
okay got it. I'll take it there. Sorry :/
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
Don't be sorry, be glad to chat about this stuff in another channel
chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]
With insta please be mindful that if you‘ll always post with the same hashtags, their algorythmn likely will assume you‘re a bot.
mirandalorian
Oh really?
I definitely did not know that.
chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]
Yup, it‘s a big annoyance. At least it was that way half a year ago, how is the algorythm now? Nobody knows.
I kinda hate insta, but it‘s the platform with the most interactions for me, although I don‘t know if it goes beyound liking my panel cutout.
chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]
Instagram does it‘s darnest to lock the user into theor own ecosystem.
mariah (rainy day dreams)
Yeah, hard same. I definitely get the most likes there, but I get very few referrals from insta.
chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]
Funnily, the only social media where I KNOW I got at least one reader from is pillowfort and their teeny-tiny webcomic comunity!
mariah (rainy day dreams)
I keep wanting to hop over there, but also starting a new social media sounds exhausting TuT one day.
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
I need to start using PF
chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]
It‘s pretty chill, reminds me of the hey-day of livejournal, with great filtering - more intended to create many small communities than one giant pot like twitter.
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
I don’t think any platform’s algorithms like me. I get very low engagement no matter where I post. I’m just not good at figuring out what these platforms pick up.(edited)
chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]
I still have three invites left for this week.
Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)
Does cross promotion work for you guys at all?
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
A little bit? But I think my comics are a hard sell, so I generally don’t get a lot of referrals when I cross-promote with other creators.
chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]
It‘s how I found this community; but otherwise, nope.
Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)
Now I need to check out your comics Lee. I'm intrigued!
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
Haha, if you want to! If they’re not your cup of tea that’s a-okay.
mariah (rainy day dreams)
I still have three invites left for this week.
@chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa] if you don't have plans for those invites, I would definitely take one and follow you first
Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)
About the hashtag thing on Twitter..... I have found the hashtags #webtoon #webtooncanvas and #celebrateCANVASday to be particularly useful for those of us publishing on Webtoon Canvas. I have gained a few new readers from this, and the official Webtoon Canvas page often retweets when these hashtags are used.
mariah (rainy day dreams)
That's good to know. I'm planning to start mirroring on Webtoon so I'll have to be sure to remember to use those tags.
keii’ii (Heart of Keol)
I need to fix my series on WT first. But I'll give those hashtags a try once that's been done
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
I tried using webtoon hashtags a few times, but their page never retweeted me. It seems either random, or there’s some hidden requirement for getting a rt.
Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)
i use the tag sometimes but I found it more responsive if you have a vertical scrolling format comic
then they're more likely to respond to you
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
Oh, yeah.... I use a traditional page format.
Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)
same rip
Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)
I do combine all my pages into long episodes at the ends of chapters, so it’s kinda scrolling, but they’re just traditional pages stacked on top of each other, lol. WT definitely doesn’t like that, but I don’t have the time to reformat hundreds of pages.
Feather J. Fern
Also promo thought, I randomly joined people's streams before and then got hooked on their comics after seeing them draw on twitch or something like that
Pistashi
I struggle a bit with promo stuff, because I get too self-conscious about self-promoting and I'm the type of person that ends up doing too much of it or none of it
at the moment I'm working on making a press kit and sharing it with some blogs and networks about comics
but still, what I usually do is join groups and try to talk with people that works with art and comics
this is kind of more inclined to networking and meeting new people to talk about what we like than promoting my work to potential readers
nothing wrong with that, but looking with a more critical eye I still have a lot to learn about building an audience and reaching people who could become future readers
chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]
I wonder HOW much a large social media following is worth. Insta‘s shown me that it isn‘t necessarily translating into readers.
carcarchu
in my experience followings on different platforms are non-transferable. same goes with having a large following on your comic itself, doesn't necessarily mean having a lot of followers on your art accounts. that's why they say "don't build your sandcastle in someone else's sandbox"
Pistashi
that makes a lot of sense
kayotics
If you’re building your following around your own content (original art, comic updates, etc) then the likelihood that the following is transferable is higher, but it’s still not 100%. You’re competing with everything else on their timeline too.
RebelVampire
i think a thing to consider with webcomics especially when it comes to social media is that a good portion of people who follow comic creators on social media are other comic creators, not people who are just readers. and the good majority of comic creators do not have a lot of time to read other webcomics. While there are certainly exceptions, I see those very few and far in between. So the conversion rates for social media right now are super low until the dynamic of the communities on the platforms changes.
kayotics
I’d agree with that, but also having a social media presence has definitely opened up some doors to being seen by other creators, many of whom are professionals. It’s good for networking, might not be the best for gaining and retaining readers.
RebelVampire
Oh yeah for sure. My point was about conversion factor
its factor in networking is a whole other matter entirely
and is indespensible
kayotics
One thing that I didn’t mention for myself is that networking has helped a LOT with getting new readers. Word of mouth, is always the best way to advertise, and other webcomic people giving you a plug can see some really strong results
#ctparchive#comics#webcomics#indie comics#comic chat#comic discussion#comic tea party#ctp#creator interview#comic creator interview#creator babble
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