Things Today’s Taught Me:

It's here!

WELCOME TO THE TUMBLR SEXYREMATCH

Hi, I'm sexymanotd. You may know me as the asshole from twitter who ran the original Tumblr Sexyman Tournament. I have tumblr polls now. Who's up for round two?

Here's the bracket—

Each round will last one day, and each matchup will get their own post. They'll all be tagged "#round one" etc on my blog, and I'll also update this masterpost with links to every poll.

Btw, my inbox is open for links to any fanart that might get made this time around.

As always, I hate some of these characters and I hope they get obliterated, and the winner will be taken to Baskin Robbins and given a small cone. My treat.

And I thought that only the number 4 (death) and 13 (unlucky) is bad news

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/727841287119814656/ehh-generally-they-were-like-ask-specifics-about Can you expand on writer’s block not being real?

--

Sure!

I think everyone who's ever made art has hit points where it's hard to go on making art or where a particular project isn't moving. So from that perspective, sure, a version of it is real...

But there's a particular version of it that's what a lot of people mean where you're A Writer™ and then the magic inspiration gnomes come and steal your inspiration juice. This is mostly nonsense, and quite a few author types who've actually finished long projects will tell you so.

When you sit down to a blank page and it stubbornly stays blank like your head, that's a symptom of something... and the something in question is often either depression and overwhelmed feelings that are taking over your whole life or an entirely correct instinct that your project is flawed and the next step is not writing that next scene.

Many people try to be pantsers instead of planners, get maybe a quarter into a project, and then choke. It's because they started with the kind of concept that requires planning, but they haven't planned. If your plot revolves around the characters eventually learning the meaning of life, you'd damn well better start with what you, the author, think that meaning is and work backwards. Same if your characters are solving a twisty mystery or complicated thriller conspiracy: you will not come up with a genius idea that ties everything together just by writing by the seat of your pants. If you don't go in with the ending in mind and some waypoints to write towards, you're going to choke. This is exceptionally common in grandiose fic concepts that are like "What if this true blue hero were a viiiiillain, oooooh!" where it's neat, but 99% of the point is showing us the work of getting from A to B. People write the prologue showing us the big concept and then flash back to how it all started... and then stop.

I see it a lot in projects that start with a character sheet for RP. Yeah, for RP itself, noodling along and figuring out what X would do in situation Y is great fun... but for many longfic/novel plot types, you will not arrive at a workable plot this way. You'll end up with a mess that can, at best, be used as brainstorming and completely rewritten from the ground up, using only key cool images or character observations. There are authors that start from individual characters and then see where they go. In my experience, they don't tend to be working in the genres that fic fandom types tend to want to work in. It's also something that often takes a lot more experience and skill than starting with a basic plot outline, and inexperienced writers often overreach.

It's not writer's block. It's a project that needs to be taken out back like Old Yeller.

Even the salvageable projects that are making you pause usually have some other issue like you not being clear on the central emotional themes even if you've outlined some factual plot. Or you've demanded that your characters do a particular thing for plot convenience, but you know deep down that it doesn't ring true. You can't write the next scene because there is no next scene. You need to rework the forced part till the rest can make sense.

And even more common than any of the above is people thinking that just because Danielle Steel sits down every morning and writes for eight hours, that means they can and should with no warm up or experience. Trying to force yourself to be a type of writer you're not—majorly overdoing it on any work, in fact—just leads to burnout and inability to function.

The way Puss is followed by two dogs and one teaches him to accept death and the other teaches him to appreciate life

I still just cannot believe they made Fred obsessed with portraying Toxic Masculinity in the Velma show.

Fred?

‘Ascot wearing’ Fred?

‘Metrosexual icon’ Fred?

‘Cried openly during the goodbye scene in Alien Invaders’ Fred?

‘Drinks his respect women juice daily’ Fred?

‘Unapologetically affectionate with Shaggy’ Fred?

That Fred? Obsessed with Toxic Masculinity? The audacity. The gall. The clownery.

Your lips are the sweetest honey I have ever tasted. Art By

hate to be that guy who reposts twitter screenshots but im obsessed with this answer. he is so fucking correct

TUMBLR SEXYREMATCH POLL MASTERPOST

I'll update this as the rounds progress.

ROUND ONE:

Lewis Pepper (Mystery Skulls Animated) vs. Professor Venomous (OK KO) WINNER: LEWIS

Guzma (Pokémon) vs. Bill Cipher (Gravity Falls) WINNER: BILL

The Warden (Superjail) vs. Almond Cookie (Cookie Run) WINNER: ALMOND COOKIE

The Once-ler (The Lorax (2012)) vs. Megamind (Megamind) WINNER: MEGAMIND

Sans (Undertale) vs. Junkrat (Overwatch) WINNER: SANS

Tony the Talking Clock (Don't Hug Me I'm Scared) vs. Black Hat (Villainous) WINNER: TONY

King Dice (Cuphead) vs. Raymond (Animal Crossing) WINNER: RAYMOND

Wheatley (Portal 2) vs. Doc Ock (Marvel) WINNER: WHEATLEY

Nagito Komaeda (Danganronpa) vs. Dr. Habit (Smile for Me) WINNER: KOMAEDA

Cecil Gershwin Palmer (Welcome to Night Vale) vs. Slenderman (???) WINNER: CECIL

Jack Skellington (the Nightmare Before Christmas) vs. Turbo (Wreck-It Ralph) WINNER: JACK

Ingo (Pokémon) vs. Bruno Madrigal (Encanto) WINNER: INGO

Purple Guy/William Afton (Five Nights at Freddy's) vs. Spamton (Deltarune) WINNER: SPAMTON

Alastor (Hazbin Hotel) vs. Loki (Marvel) WINNER: LOKI

Arataka Reigen (Mob Psycho 100) vs. Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice (all versions)) WINNER: REIGEN

Herobrine (Minecraft) vs. Benr(e)y (Half Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware) WINNER: HEROBRINE

ROUND TWO:

NOTE: Starting round 2, I'm ditching the bracket and opting for randomized matchups. The left side will stay on the left and the right will stay on the right, but otherwise it'll be shuffled.

Wheatley (Portal 2) vs. Lewis Pepper (Mystery Skulls Animated) WINNER: WHEATLEY

Bill Cipher (Gravity Falls) vs. Raymond (Animal Crossing) WINNER: BILL

Tony the Talking Clock (Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared) vs. Almond Cookie (Cookie Run) WINNER: TONY

Sans (Undertale) vs. Megamind (Megamind) WINNER: SANS

Loki (Marvel) vs. Nagito Komaeda (Danganronpa) WINNER: KOMAEDA

Cecil Gershwin Palmer (Welcome to Night Vale) vs. Herobrine (Minecraft) WINNER: CECIL

Ingo (Pokémon) vs. Jack Skellington (the Nightmare Before Christmas) WINNER: JACK

Arataka Reigen (Mob Psycho 100) vs. Spamton (Deltarune) WINNER: REIGEN

REVIVAL ROUND: The Once-ler (The Lorax (2012)) vs. King Dice (Cuphead) WINNER: THE ONCE-LER

ROUND THREE:

Tony the Talking Clock (Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared) vs. The Once-ler (The Lorax (2012)) vs. Wheatley (Portal 2) WINNER: THE ONCE-LER

Sans (Undertale) vs. Bill Cipher (Gravity Falls) WINNER: SANS

Cecil Gershwin Palmer (Welcome to Night Vale) vs. Nagito Komaeda (Danganronpa) WINNER: CECIL

Arataka Reigen (Mob Psycho 100) vs. Jack Skellington (The Nightmare Before Christmas) WINNER: REIGEN

ROUND FOUR:

Sans (Undertale) vs. The Once-ler (The Lorax (2012)) WINNER: SANS

Arataka Reigen (Mob Psycho 100) vs. Cecil Gershwin Palmer (Welcome to Night Vale) WINNER: CECIL

ROUND FIVE/FINAL ROUND:

Sans (Undertale) vs. Cecil Gershwin Palmer (Welcome to Night Vale)

Tumblr Sexyrematch info

When I was a teenager and still on Neopets I was part of a pretty big Star Trek guild and eventually became part of its council, with the solemn duty of creating weekly polls. Well one day I created the poll "Which would win in a fight? Borg Cube or Death Star?". Naturally, since this was a Star Trek guild, the answer was overwhelmingly "Borg Cube", but someone did have the rationality to point out we were biased.

So I look up a pretty prominent Star Wars guild and message one of their council and ask them to poll the same question and get back to me in a week. They do, and naturally the fuckin geeks said "Death Star".

So then I look up a Stargate guild and messaged the lead council member, saying the same thing, and they get back to me almost immediately saying that the Death Star would immediately one-shot a Borg Cube but they would never be able to do it again to another Cube. And I took that wisdom back to my guild and we were mollified, and for one moment the Nerd World was peaceful.