#HOW COULD I FORGET ABT THE SPACE GAYS

[pladoskif]

red/blue ships are just:

unhinged crackhead x even worse unhinged crackhead who just knows how to hide his nature better

[drdemonprince]

hey! i have a question abt your cruising guide if you don't mind, regarding something that (unless i totally missed sth, in which case i'm very sorry for wasting your time) i felt was completely absent but happens to be my main concern. (i'm already a huge slut, so anonymous/short term sexual encounters in themselves aren't the issue for me.) i'll put it bluntly: how am i supposed to pick anyone up in a gay male cruising space (irl/not on an app) when i look like a woman? i'm not a total stranger to gay bars, which is why i'm very sure that people in a cruising space are far, far more likely to take me as an intruder looking to be pleasantly scandalized than someone like them who they might want to have sex with, not to mention have sex with as a man(-adjacent). i also know it's likely that i'm projecting at least some of my dysphoria onto these hypothetical encounters, but it doesn't seem like an unjustified fear, either. i (fwiw: perisex, afab, some type of agender-nonbinary) have been on t for abt 9 months now, but i haven't had top or bottom surgery (i want both but so far it's unclear when that is going to happen) and my breasts are too large to be really concealed by a binder (not to mention that i can't fuck in a binder bc they give me awful headaches), i'm very short and ~curvy~, i have very little body/no facial hair, and people in casual daily interactions certainly don't hesitate to address me as a woman. it just seems preposterous to assume that there's anything abt me a man looking for another man could be attracted to. i guess it's possible someone could be a chaser after my specific type, but that's not an encounter i want to have right now. as far as my question to you is concerned, i want to have sex with a man who is into men, and at the very least won't see me as a girl wanting to be fucked like a man. i know that there is no way to objectively predict these things, experiences and tastes vary and so on, but i would be extremely grateful if you could share some of your experiences or give me some other pointers for how to approach this/what to expect. as it is, if i were to enter a darkroom, i assume i would be asked to leave, but preemptively telling myself that it's hopeless and to forget abt it for at least the next several years seems unnecessarily cruel, too. if there's any advice or experience you can share, thank you so so so much, and if not, thank you anyway for taking the time to read this letter of woe and for putting your perspective out there, it's been a balm to be understood. wishing you all the best x

Buddy -- it is (largely!) your dysphoria talking! Lots of queer men will wanna fuck you and they will wanna do it in a queer way. I walked around Steamworks fully tiddy out regularly and I had a great time.

It's true that in more general gay bars people will sometimes misread you, and that it will hurt, but trust me that lots of queer men are already attracted to you. If anything, I've noticed that in general queer spaces cis gay men sometimes default to assuming that you won't be interested in them and give a polite distance that they will happily do away with if they know you're looking and welcome their attention. A lot of guys don't want to accidentally be predatory to someone who they think might be a lesbian or not interested in men. (Again, being mistaken for something you are not really fucking sucks and can drive your dysphoria crazy, I get it, but do keep in mind that sometimes people do this out of a desire to be respectful, not because they're turned off that you're such a Womanly Woman or whatever.)

My first recommendation for you would be to GET ON GRINDR. Post some pics that make it clear what you're working with, physically, and list your identity clearly on your profile. When I first got a grindr I had a really slutty abs-and-underboob pic that got me a TON of attention from queer men, who treated me like a man, and it immediately assuaged all my concerns that I wasn't welcome on there. I think it will do a lot for your self-confidence and sense of belonging to try the same too.

Now, I don't want to be pollyannaish about any of this -- yes there are transphobes. In my experience they're mostly pretty quiet to trans men, they'll just pass you by for the most part. Yes there are people who will say awkward things. Block liberally and often and don't be afraid to stand up for yourself. But honestly, these are the kinds of issues you will run into within any dating platform, and the gay world is pretty damn blase and chill about the inclusion of trans men for the most part. You can absolutely put yourself out there -- and the sooner you do, the sooner you'll realize that your insecurities are not rooted in the reality of how other queer men mostly feel.

I wish I had put myself out there YEARS earlier! A lot would have changed for me if I had.

[menlove]

I saw a post abt how often lesbophobic women will post things about "the gays and the girlies" and the post was a joke post but it DID make me realize smth important, along w the recent discussions around straight women in lesbian bars

I think one thing that causes this is that these straight women are seeking out places where they aren't the object of attraction/sexualization. and so bc they forget lesbians, bi women, and bi men exist they think gay spaces will be this space for them. they think they can say "gays and women only!!!" and be safe from sexualization

and then they meet a lesbian or a bi woman or even a bi man in these spaces and they freak out bc now Someone Could Be Looking At Them

and like.... wanting to not be looked at sexually IS an understandable want, especially when you've been traumatized by that as most women have been. but what they forget is that a) queer attraction is not the same as a straight man's attraction b) they came into a gay space and are expecting there not to be gay women there and c) queer women ALSO face sexualization from straight men. pushing them out and deciding they don't fit in their Women and Gays space is ridiculously homophobic and misogynistic and completely ignores the impact that straight men's sexualization has on queer women.

what they really need to sit down and do is think about if the issue is attraction itself or the ways in which that attraction is expressed. bc often they conflate the two, but have no issue dating jakey from the office bc they saw him as a person first and not just a man looking to fuck them & he was respectful about his attraction. but they won't give that same grace to queer women bc they don't see them as people first, they just see them as predators who have infiltrated their Safe Sexless Zones. completely forgetting that queer spaces aren't sexless at all for queer people and when you enter them you are GOING to be assumed to be queer & people WILL act accordingly.

[abyssalzones]

I would love to hear more abt your college pre-egg-breaking fiddauthor thoughts if you'd be open to it

oh BOY would I

so when I think about college fiddauthor nowadays I mainly think about both my own experiences with ~navigating identity~ and how I would approach a gay FTM relationship from a semi-realistic 1970's angle, where you start to see a lot of what you'd call "milestones" I guess in LGBT history and public awareness. wait okay here's something I said to mer that can set a precedent for what I'm talking about

when it comes to me and my own journey of self discovery irt sexuality and transness, I feel like those two things are very intertwined, because the concept of identity in my eyes is very socially motivated. I've previously identified as a nonbinary lesbian and a transgender gay man respectively before getting to the point I'm at now, and don't feel like either of those things were incorrect necessarily, just how I felt at the time (and what I wanted out of a relationship, really). I think I literally got an ask ages ago questioning how I went from one to the other but Idk I don't think the gender journey is as simple or "logical" as people coming from a hetero-patriarchal perspective (that's a mouthful) seem to think.

and, And, from a Historical perspective, FTM experiences and butch lesbian experiences have Always been very intertwined, especially back in the early 70's when more people were starting to have some awareness (even in LGBT spaces) of this thing known as the Transgender Lifestyle. I'm flattening things quite a bit here and I know for a fact there's a lot of variation between experiences, especially depending on your social circles, but from what I can glean a lot of the time transgender men weren't very well known and so a lot of the time you would just ID as a butch lesbian and/or present as a man socially, sometimes for safety reasons. and there's a lot of overlap there too that continues into contemporary transmasc spaces today :]

historical justification aside I basically think college would be a major turning point for self-discovery in both of their lives, but more-so for fiddleford than ford? I've always assumed based on everything we've seen that fidds was basically the only friend ford had in college, which definitely would have influenced him in important ways, but other than that I think he invested most of his time in studying and developments in gender were an afterthought. ford's FTM identity starts from a place of "failing to be a woman" and then develops with his pride in being a huge weirdo. in my mind that can only really happen once he's in gravity falls and has basically sacrificed his connections with other people/the world to live as his truest self, whether that's researching anomalies or living as a man.

fiddleford, however, I always think of from the perspective of someone bucking to societal expectations for safety reasons. this is because of a lot of things: ford's possible feelings of abandonment in favor of Normalcy (who can forget "Go back to your doting family and a life of fear and compromise!"), his jumping into a nuclear family immediately out of college, But also packing up and driving to oregon in a matter of days after ford asks for his help... when he has a kid who could be no older than 5 or 6 at home...? I sort of see his presentation as a foil to ford's, trying to mimic cishetero ("hetero") normalcy vs. being the Lone Transsexual Freak. I've gotten horribly off topic from the college thing hang on

basically I imagine them in their uni days like two weird butch gay women that are just, totally socially unapproachable. fiddleford is the more outgoing of the two as he's been voted "most likely to actually have other friends" in my mind, so if anyone was going to gay & lesbian student association meetings it would've been him, but otherwise ford is too busy ignoring his feelings. "I don't care if I'm a man or a woman I'm too busy studying. go away." but of course they find enough solace in eachother's company and their different-but-distinctly-similar weirdness that it forms an unbreakable transgender bond. freak4freak if you will. fidds settles on a bisexual identity without thinking about it too hard because honestly the conclusion here is that it doesn't matter if his roommate is a woman or a man he just knows he needs to do terrible things to him over d&d&md (sorry) (not really that sorry though.)

it's actually funny you bring this up because I'd been workshopping a short comic set in their college era that touches on this stuff a lot. not sure when that will ever get done but I can tell you it's. uhm

yeah they're kind of weird.

[wrongcaitlyn]

How realistic or related to irl do you plan on making tgol? You have absolutely no obligation to make this fic very political, but it’s a bit insane how much our current real-world problems could have an affect on the characters 😭😭 So would you rather make it “lifelike” or will they belong to a more perfect world?

honestly... it's a bit complicated😭 i think that in my head, it's very realistic because i see things happening every day and think in my head "this is what nico di angelo would do" (yk, like actually supporting palestine, posting links to donate, donating himself), and also, i do think that he would be a very political singer. as in, he would definitely speak his mind about causes that are important to him - like laws against trans people, the don't say gay act... lots of other things too. so in my head, he absolutely is speaking on these matters (conservatives hate him)

however, my only thought abt writing that into the actual fic is just... where's the limit, then? if i mention something about him talking about a particular event, what about the several other issues that i'm not writing about? all of this is taking place in the past, and i'm already forgetting the characters' literal birthdays, so i would have needed to write it into the plot from the very beginning on what the political state of the us is, what laws are being passed, what politicians are being elected - logically, i know that all of these things have such a huge impact on the characters, as politics do, but i just don't have the time to do all that research (aka, going back into past news articles that describe all of that stuff throughout the past five years) for what is really a coming of age popstar au story that may be angsty at times, but isn't meant to be taken too seriously.

so the real answer is that i'm limiting the activism that i write into the fic to charity groups/other activists that are fictional. the chase space, for example, is helping queer youth, and i intend to (spoiler) make it so that he announces all the proceeds from a certain merch line will go to benefit that. the chase space isn't a *real* charity, but i do want to convey that he's using his platform for good - and that's the best way that i can see myself doing it/being able to incorporate it plot-wise. other than that, i think a lot of his posts are supporting various charities and he has petitions linked in his bio pretty much all the time, it's just not necessarily mentioned in the fic.

whether that means that they all live in a perfect world or that the issues are still there and the activism is still happening, just not being written down, however, is up to you. i know that fanfic is often used as escapism (myself included), and i don't want to force people to see it as very realistic if they don't want to - but if they do, then that's up to them!

i think i, personally, see it as a mix of both. and the fic will cover general issues - like, for example, transphobia, homophobia, misogyny all still exist - and these issues will be confronted using things like the chase space and something else that i've been planning as a sort of background plotline. but specific political issues won't be written into the fic because of the aforementioned reason. but thank you for the ask!! i feel like i was kind of unintentionally avoiding confronting these things and it was good to finally put it to words! <3

[lotsofdreamb0ats]

(breathing in deeply) Ok. Here we go. Doodle-relevant tangent beneath the cut

i am repeatedly struck by how little we actually get for Character-Descriptive backstory on avdol compared to. glances. literally everybody else. iirc araki kinda mentioned it would be too mature for shonen jump w out much elaboration. although it is definitely not the case i do Really love the idea of avdol being gay and that being extremely relevant to how he met joseph

i imagine avdol as probably the most openly gay a man could be in 1980s egypt, which in my mind involves a lot of quick one-and-done flings with foreigners. avdol likes to come across as very serious, put-together and modest but there are a lot of points in sdc where we see that he is Just As Crazy A Bitch as the other crusaders. i imagine his greatest 'vice' is an impulsivity towards attractive men, something he can mostly keep under wraps if he keeps to foreigners and those he already trusts (other stand users, realistically speaking)

joseph joestar is an incredibly hot older foreign man, canonical cheater, and world-traveling bisexual menace. i don't even think it's that far out of reach to imagine them hooking up, unknowingly attracted to eachother by their stands -- joseph would've used his freshly-formed hermit purple without thinking about it, maybe grabbing a drink or a condom or something, and avdol would've been the first person to mention its existence.

its fairly understandable that joseph would warn him abt dio, either then or at a dinner or something within the next days after that. it's definitely something that was supposed to last one night and turned into a more real partnership/friendship by the coexistence of their stands.

that being said, joseph does have a tendency to leave his one night stands pining (glances at tomoko), and i really don't think avdol is immune to that. like i said, avdol is the type to resign himself to relationships with a 'foreseeable' outcome. for him, being both gay and a stand user, not many of those are going to last longer than a night, week, or month at most.

there's an odd security to following joseph around. i think a lot about avdol first visiting new york, a place that for the time would seem so open in its homosexuality, and joseph taking him to the local gay bars. avdol doesn't even drink, mind you, but the concept of a tangibly queer space is foreign to him in the way the foreign has always allured him, drawn him in. avdol is, for better or worse, easily whipped. the kind of person that believes in strings of fate and divination and destiny, even if he previously thought his own -- the idle company of endlessly fleeting faces -- had already come to pass.

avdol has a lot of guilt upon learning joseph is married (i go back and forth on whether joseph and suzi have a 'men are okay' clause, but honestly, avdol wouldn't know about it either way). it's not the first time it's happened -- he's been able to ignore visible rings before, given that men who approach avdol typically leave them dull and unpolished. it's a bit harder to when mrs joestar happily welcomes him to their home and insists their servant rosas call him 'master avdol.'

at least avdol comes to a much easier realization than tomoko does. there's nothing as obstructive as pregnancy stopping avdol from separating himself again and letting their more lurid relationship ease out into a tasteful, practical friendship. a part of him still aches over it, though. there isn't much avdol wouldn't do at mr. joestar's behest.

as for joseph, it's equally easy for me to imagine him unintentionally leading avdol on or genuinely some of sharing avdol's nonsexual feelings. i view joseph's cheating as serial, nothing against suzi q (i 100% believe there isn't anyone alive joseph loves as much as her, save holly. i will never ignore wife love for the sake of yaoi.)

he forgets himself, though, distracted by a pretty face in the same ways he used to admonish caesar for. if there's one thing joseph will admit to, given its practically benign nature, really just the truth of the matter -- muhammad avdol has a very pretty face.

the fact avdol x joseph is a rarepair is genuinely distressing to me bc while i am nonetheless an avpol endgame truther i KNOW avdol fucked that old man and im not normal about it. i have CHARACTER THOUGHTS ABOUT IT

[blindaysblogforturtles]

You know what? I liked better without all the representation. No, hear me out.

Before all this shit about rep started, the fandom decided what their interpretation was. If two females were very close, it could be friendship, but we could ship it with no consequences (ex. Shinigami and Karai 100% lesbo couple, Leosagi in 2003). Now they like. Decide a character is gay and don't do anything with that. And if you ship said character with someone of the opposite sex, then shame on you.

Like, are we forgetting the real deal of a fandom? Are shows trying to stop us from shipping and headcanoning things? Stop this shit. The one show I can say I like the rep is TOH but even then the fandom can be SO TOXIC for ships that aren't obviously lgbt.

So yeah. Do I like that ppl can see themselves in the characters? Yes. But that doesn't mean I like how they're going on abt it. Also if you need a character to be the same gender and/or sexuality to relate to them I think you're missing the point of fiction.

Listen, I relate the most to a gay coded anthro male turtle who lives in the sewers and teleports. I am, obviously, not even one of those things. Okay I am gay but my point still stands.

I think what I mean to say is, I'd rather we still had subtle writing where there's space for interpretation in media instead of showhorning things into other people's face and praying that some rando won't come and call upon the gods of cancel culture and the morality police because a character didn't end up with this or that other character, or the rep wasn't "done right". Just the act of expecting it to be "done right" is so frustrating to me; sexuality isn't a universal experience, it's personal and individual. Your experience is not like mine, and so I may relate to a character that, for you, is just bad rep.

That's it thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[unlimitedhorsepower]

I'm going to buy advertisement space in front of the parliament building to force everyone to go read my wip ryanyuri fanfic. It's right here. Free entertainment to see me write shit like "Ryan went outside, to the outside" bc I have the cognitive capabilities of a toddler and therefore have no object permanence, in the way of a word leaving my working memory and then me forgetting it immediately, and such typos will persist even after I've proofread it multiple times. 😕

I actually can't read fanfic myself bc I have a weak constitution (you have to have a very high IQ to understand this) but I navigated around like a sinking ship in a storm to see the average hits non-niche ships get and was immediately struck by a large bolt of lightning thrown by zeus himself.

Is loving Ryan such a crime?.. Truly, I am severely persecuted on this gay earth of 183 hits max on my tnb fanfic fame. Not only for my fat nuts but my mid anime man love as well? How could this be.... no... I refuse

In my opinion, as a guy with impeccable taste, everyone is missing out. My incredible prose is on par with any great classic writer... (it's not. I actually feel like I'm trying to learn how to write and I'm a baby chimpanzee presented with a task beyond it's capabilities. Yet I persist. Even if I am putting every object into the square hole in the baby playset. Every sentence of mine? Square. One day I'll learn other shapes, by hard work and dedication)

Well, a funny story abt my fanfics. I used to have many more but they attracted an incredible amount of t3rfs in the comments. I can only imagine they made some sort of concentrated harassment attempt as cowards are liable to do. So if it looks like I only write m/m to the viewers, things used to be different and better, but some proponents of society want to ensure nobody gets to have a good time. One like = one brick to better re-educate such people with<3

This is my last message.....goodbye

[littlebabycrybtch]

yknow part of my brain unfortunately kind of gets why ableism is being left behind by modern activists bc... so much of performative and hollow ‘activism’ today is all about being super fake and digestible for majorities, and the (better) side of it is being so ‘fuck with me and die’ that either way they might possibly shut up and leave you alone. so being like. ‘i want you to listen to me and respect me, but i have physical and/or mental vulnerabilities that make it harder for me to intimidate you into doing that’ feels like. such a doomed situation. you have less leverage to get ppl to respect you so fighting back is harder, but then when you ask the fake bitches to help your community out they ignore you bc you arent sexee funnee uncringe relatable enough and theyre way too used to the clique mentality to get their own help so they see you as unworthy of their time. so we’re just slowly being left tf behind. now ppl get cancelled and held accountable for the usage of literally every other slur but a celeb could probably use the r word IN their slur apology video and i truly think ppl would literally not even acknowledge it. i think if i said ‘you just used another slur dude’ ppl on twitter would be genuinely confused or fuckign accuse me of ‘’’’‘derailing’’’’’ the situation and bro like. hoh my god the co ncept. the fuckin thought of abled bitches ignoring their privilege bc of their other minority statuses and blatantly standing up for shit (usually in a way that benefits them the most) and then acting CONFUSED when we also request their help bc they are THAT ignorant abt us just makes me see red. especially bc disabled ppl are one of the Largest oppressed ‘minority’ groups, we can overlap with any other fucking minority. we exist in ALL of your communities, we ARE ‘relatable’ to you, we ARE trying to fight, we are struggling and you are leaving us behind. 

the r word holds so much fucking weight for us and noooobody is putting a stop to it anymore, i see it literally every single day now without Any backlash, and its EVERYWHERE. more and more boldfaced ableism is casually infiltrating leftist spaces. the systemic abuse and prejudice and violence and dehumanization behind it, this outdated medical term is not just a reminder and a product of its time, the connotations it created and ignorance behind it directly fueled and contributed to the forced imprisonment in asylums, the eugenics, and the oppression we ARE STILL EXPERIENCING TODAY. beyond the fact that yall truly forget america isnt the only place and the entire world has varying levels of how disabled people are legally treated, AMERICA STILL OPENLY OPRESSES THE DISABLED. remember when us gays got marriage rights and we were like ‘dont forget we still have shit to do’? wheelchair ramps and taking service animals on planes and $500 a fucking month to live on aint SHIT compared to what we still go through. WE LITERALLY STILL CANT GET MARRIED WITHOUT LOSING OUR BENEFITS. like. for fucks sake, the LEAST you ‘activists’ could be doing is CONDEMNING THE SLURS USED AGAINST US WITH AS MUCH SPEEDY EFFORT AS YOU PUT INTO CONDEMNING OTHER ONES!

[olderthannetfic]

Hey, sorry to ask this, but a few days ago I saw a post/discussion about the history of original work on ao3 (i.e. how and when it was allowed). I thought it was in my likes, but it's not, and I thought you had reblogged it recently, but I didn't find it. I was wondering if you have seen this discussion around? Or where I can find more about it? This specific post talked abt how who defended original work on ao3 were not the BNFs, if that helps.

That was me running my mouth in the reblogs of something or other. It’s just the one comment.

But what’s that you say? Some tl;dr about a pet topic? Don’t mind if I do! ;) (To be honest, most of this debate happened years ago, and a lot of the long meta was by me back then too, so…)

Okay, so, the situation with Original Works is actually super interesting and a microcosm of early years OTW wank.

This is going to be even more tl;dr than my usual. To try to summarize very briefly:

There were two big cultural factions. One thought “original” was the opposite of “fan”. That one was in charge of OTW. It was hard to get voices from the other side into the debate because they already felt excluded from OTW.

This divide broke down more or less into Ye Olde Slash Fandom on the “it’s the opposite” side and anime fandom on the “WTF?” side. Americans on one side and a lot of non-US, non-English language fandom on the other.

I. Media Fandom, Anime Fandom, and Early OTW

I went to that first fundraising party that astolat threw in New York City back in… god… 2007? 2008? I wasn’t on the Board or any official position until the committees got started later, but I was around right from the very beginning.

Whether you’re looking at volunteers or at people who commented on astolat’s original post, there were always a variety of fans from a variety of fannish backgrounds. People aren’t absolutely in one camp or another, and fannish interests change over time. If you go dig through Dreamwidth posts to find who was actually participating in this debate at the time, half of them are probably in the other camp now.

If you think like that sounds like a preamble to me making a bunch of offensively sweeping generalizations and divvying fans up into little groups, you’d be right! Haha.

I.a. Ye Olde Media Fandom

There are a lot of camps of people who like fanfic. One of the biggest divisions has been Ye Olde Media Fandom vs. anime fandom. Astolat’s social circle–my LJ social circle–was filled with people with decades of fannish experience and a deep knowledge of the Media Fandom side of things.

Those fandom history treatises that start with K/S zines in Star Trek fandom in the 70s and move on through the mainstream buddy cops like Starsky & Hutch to the more niche, sff buddy cops like Fraser and Ray or Jim and Blair are talking about Media Fandom. I try to always capitalize it because the name is lulzy and bizarre to me unless it’s a proper noun for a specific historical thing. It was coined as a rude term for “mass media” fandom aka dumb people who like, ughhhh, Star Trek, ughhh, instead of books. This is a very ancient slapfight from the type of fandom you find at Worldcon, often called “SF fandom” or plain “fandom”.

(Yes, this leads to mega confusion on the part of some old dudes when they find Fanlore and fail to understand that “fandom” there refers to what these people would call “Media Fandom”. They think only they get the unmarked form. But I digress…)

Media Fandom is a specific flavor of fandom. It’s where the slash zines were. It’s where the fans of live action US TV shows were. It’s the history that acafans have laid out well and that tends to get used to defend the idea of a female subculture writing transgressive and transformative fanfic. On the video side, Media Fandom is where Kandy Fong invented vidding by making Star Trek slideshows.

(Kandy’s still around, BTW. She’s usually at Escapade in L.A. Ask her to tell you about the dancing penises sketch in person. She’s hilarious.)

Astolat and friends had been going to slash cons for years. They founded Vividcon. And Yuletide. That meant that when astolat said “Hey kids, let’s put on a show!” we all jumped to help. This is a lady who gets things done.

From a Worldcon perspective, or even from an older Media Fandom perspective, this group was comparatively young, hip, and welcoming. Their fandom interests were comparatively broad. Just look at Yuletide!

In fact, yes, let us look at Yuletide… [ominous music]

I.b. Yuletide sucks at anime

From the very first year (2003), Yuletide mods have asked for help with anime fandoms, been confused about anime fandoms, or made bad judgment calls about anime fandoms. They’ve fucked up on Superhero comics and plenty of other things over the years, but anime has been the most consistent (well, and JRPGs, but there’s so much overlap in those fic fandoms).

There was already bad feeling about this. There were years of bad feeling about this.

I.c. Where are the historians?

Academic study of fanficcy things pretty much got started with Textual Poachers and Enterprising Women. Other acafans who are well known to LJ and later Tumblr are people like Francesca Coppa who wrote a very nice summary of the history of Media Fandom. These are not the only academics who exist, these academics themselves have written about many other things, and by now, OTW’s own journal has covered a lot of other territory, but to this day I see complaints on Tumblr that “acafans” only care about K/S and oldschool slash fandom.

There were years of bad feeling about this as well.

I.d. What kind of fan was I?

Now, by the time OTW got started, I’d moseyed over to not only a lot of live action US TV but a lot of old-as-fuck US TV that is squarely in the Media Fandom camp. But once upon a time, I was a weeaboo hanging out with my weeaboo friends in college. I learned Japanese (sort of). I moved to Japan. Livin’ the weeaboo dream!

More importantly, I used to be a member of a lot of anime mailing lists back in the Yahoo Groups days. I didn’t realize what a cultural gap that would cause until the original works issue came up on AO3.

I.e. Anime Fandom, German-language Fandom, Original M/M

Once upon a time–namely in that Yahoo Groups era–there was an archive called Boys in Chains. It was where you found The Good Stuff™. Heavy kink and power exchange galore! It was extremely well known in the parts of fandom I was in, even if you weren’t on the associated mailing list. It contained lots of fic, but it also had lots of original work.

Around that same era, I was on a critique list called Crimson Ink, which was mixed fic and original. The “original slash” and “original yaoi” crowds mixed freely and were in fanfic spaces. Remember, this is like 2003. You’re never going to get your gay fantasy novel published in English in the US. A couple of fangirl presses started around then, but they died an ignominious death after their first print run.

Fanfiction.net used to allow original work before it spun that off into FictionPress. We forget this today, but if you were an early FFN person, the separation wasn’t so great either.

Meanwhile, German-language fandom was hanging out on sites like Animexx.de, a big-ass fic archive that prominently mentions also including original work. I have the impression that Spanish-language fandom was similar too.

Shousetsu Bang*Bang was founded in 2005. It was a webzine for original m/m, but it was entirely populated by fanfic fandom types.

In all of those kinds of spaces, there was a lot of “original” work that was kind of slash or BL-ish and seen as fannish if it was posted in the fannish space. These weren’t anime-only spaces. They were multifandom spaces where it was seen as obvious and normal that a couple of huge fandoms like Harry Potter would dominate but that everything else big would naturally be anime.

While fans from every background are everywhere, I found that the concentration of EFL fans living in Continental Europe, South America, and Asia was much higher in this kind of space, even the exclusively English language part of it, than in my US TV fandoms.

II. AO3 Early Adopters

AO3 went into closed beta in 2009. In 2010, it was open to the general public (albeit with the invitation queue it still has). But not everyone was interested yet. Just like fandom is loath to leave the dying, shambling mess of Tumblr, fandom was loath to leave dwindling LJ/DW circles or was happy enough on Fanfiction.net. I used to see a lot of posts like “Why are you guys trying to STEAL fanfic from the original! FFN is enough!”

I literally could not give away the invitations I had. No one wanted them.

So who was on AO3? Obviously enough, it was all of us who built it and our friends. So that means a bunch of oldschool Livejournal slashers coming from fandoms like Due South or Stargate Atlantis.

The queue was open. Anyone could make an account. Everyone was welcome. In theory…

But more and more, there started to be these posts about how “AO3 Hates Anime Fandom” and “FFN is for anime. AO3 is for Western fandoms.” and “If you guys actually wanted anime fandom on there, you’d invite us better and make us more welcome.”

At the time, I found these posts obnoxious. People aren’t purely in one sort of fandom or the other. No one was stopping anime fandom from making accounts. No one was banning anime fandom. If there wasn’t much from old fandoms, that was because old fandoms seldom move.

Things began to change. Trolls on FFN forced the Twilight porn writers out, creating enough fuss and brouhaha to mobilize people who would rather have stayed put. AO3 got big enough that randos found it by accident. Original work started to pop up, posted by people who’d never looked at the rules and had no idea it was not allowed.

III. History of AO3’s Policy

I had argued for allowing “original work” during the initial discussions about the ToS. On one side of this issue was me. On the other, everyone else on the committee.

I was overruled.

Open Door started importing old archives to save them. Boys in Chains was hugely important to fandom history from my point of view. It was slated to be imported… maybe. Except that Boys in Chains is half original. AO3 was happy to grandfather in those stories, but the final archive owner felt, quite rightly, that it would be unfair to tell half of the authors they were welcome in the new space while spitting on the other half.

I was pissed. I had been pissed since being overruled the first time. To me, the fact that it should be allowed was so blatantly obvious that it was hard to even explain why.

(To be honest, this difficulty in explaining why and the even greater difficulty in figuring out the source of that difficulty is what held the discussion back for so long. When every assumption on either side is completely opposite, it’s hard to communicate.)

I felt betrayed. It would be like if you helped build something, and everyone was suddenly like “Well, obviously, we can’t allow m/m. It’s not normal fanfic.”

So we discussed it again and, again, it was me vs. literally everyone else. And still the “AO3 is only for Western slash fandom” bitching rose in volume and more and more people complained of feeling excluded from the new fandom hub. Finally, the committee agreed to open the issue up for public comment and get some more input. I was a fool and neither wrote nor proofread the post. It went out phrasing the question as allowing “non fannish” work or something of that sort.

I was furious. The entire point of the whole debate was that I saw some original work, the original work that belongs on AO3, as inherently fannish. And now this had been presented to the AO3 audience as something completely different. Think pieces were popping up in the journals of everyone I knew about diluting AO3’s mission and how we needed to save AO3 from encroachment. Public opinion was very negative. That’s both because of how the post was phrased and because OTW die hards at the time were mostly from the same fannish background. This tidal wave of negativity meant that there was virtually no chance of changing this poisonous rule. And if the rule didn’t change, the people who wanted the rule change were never going to show up to explain why it mattered.

If you’ve been reading my tumblr, I think you can guess what happened next.

I posted a long post to my Dreamwidth. It was a masterwork of passive aggression. In it, I wrung my hands about how simply tragic it would be if AO3 had to delete all of the original work… like anthropomorfic.

Now, I think anthropomorfic counts as fanfic as much as anything else, but I also knew that it fails most rigorous “based on a canon” type definitions of fic and, more importantly, it’s a favorite Yuletide fandom of many of the people on the side that wanted to ban original work.

That’s a nice fandom of yours. It would be a pity if something happened to it. 

Yup. Passive aggressive blackmail. Go me. Suddenly, there was a lot of awkward backtracking and confused running in circles in various journals. The committee agreed to table the idea for a while but not rule out the idea of allowing original works in the future. We agreed to halt all deletions of original work. If a fan posted it, the Abuse Committee (which I was also head of at the time) would not delete that work even though it was technically against the rules.

Time passed. The people on the negative side got tired. I wanted off that committee and had wanted off for ages, but I was damned if I was going to leave before ramming through this piece of policy. Grudgematch till I die! (Look, I never said I wasn’t a wanker.)

After a while, some other fans came forward with more types of “original work” as evidence that it should be allowed. These were from parts of fandom none of us on the committee knew a damn thing about.

This new evidence combined with the gradual accretion of original stuff on AO3 without the sky falling eventually led us to quietly rule Original Work a valid fandom. There was never even a big announcement post. I slipped a word to the Boys in Chains mod myself.

IV. What Were They So Afraid Of Anyway?

So why were people so resistant? Seems like a dick move, right?

Not exactly.

I mean, I was enraged and waged a one-woman war to change the rules, but the other side wasn’t nuts. The objections were usually the following:

I just don’t get why it would be allowed. It never was in my fannish spaces.

Most of our members don’t want this.

Most of the examples of things that ought to be included are m/m. We are privileging m/m if we allow it, and AO3 already has a m/m-centric reputation that can feel exclusionary to some fans.

AO3 is a young, shaky platform that can barely handle the load and content we already have. If we open to original work, we’ll be opening the floodgates. The volume of posting will be so high, it will drown out the fic we’re actually here to protect.

Protecting stuff that doesn’t need protection because it’s not an IP issue would dilute OTW’s mission.

If we allow it, idiots will try to turn AO3 into advertising space, posting only the first chapter and a link to where you can pay to read the rest.

If we add another category of text before we add fan art, that’s a slap in the face of the fan artists we are already failing.

These arguments all make perfect sense in context.

Obvously, the issue with the first two is that different fannish communities have different norms. I knew that a very large community disagreed with the then current AO3 policy, but since so few of them were around to comment, it seemed like a tiny fringe minority.

The m/m thing is… complex. M/M content with zero IP issues is at risk. It is always at risk in a way that even f/f is not (though f/f is also always at risk). Asking for m/m to be exactly equivalent to f/f or m/f in numbers, tropes, whatever is ignoring the historical realities. In our current moment of queer activism in the West, we treat all types of queerness as part of one community with one set of goals, but once you get to culture and art or even more specific activism, this forced homogenization is neither useful nor healthy.

OTOH, AO3 really did have PR problems related to the perception that we gave m/m fandom the kid glove treatment. That objection wasn’t coming from nowhere.

AO3 was shaky. It was tiny when I first brought up this argument. Hell, it wasn’t even in closed beta the first time we discussed this. Part of what made the quiet rules change possible was AO3 organically getting much bigger and OTW having to buy many more servers for unrelated reasons.

The “floodgates” thing was put to rest by tacitly allowing original work before the rules change. We had a period to study how fans actually behaved, and as I predicted, only a small amount of original work got posted. It was indeed mostly things like original BL-ish stories or original work that had been part of a mixed original/fic fest, exchange, zine, etc. Currently, the “Original Work” fandom on AO3 only has 76,348 works. That’s pretty big compared to individual fandoms but tiny compared to AO3’s current size.

The commercial argument was spurious because commercial spam had been against the rules from the very beginning. OH THE IRONY that nowadays AO3 has all these idiots trying to post the first chapter of their fanfic and then direct you to where you can buy the rest.

AO3 has plenty of fanfic of public domain works. One of the problems with gatekeeping original work is that any way you try to distinguish it (not based on a specific canon, not an IP issue, etc.) will apply to some set of obviously allowable fandoms.

As for fan art… OTW has failed fan artists. They needed protection as much as or even more than fic writers. Just look at Tumblr! If we had succeeded at making DeviantArt but allowing boners, fan art fandom could have been safe all these years. Or when Tumblr inevitably shat the bed, we could have scooped up all those people instead of them scattering to twitter and god knows where.

OTW has failed vidders too, at least in terms of preservation. I know I’m not the only one who thinks this. Other major people from like the first Board and shit have discussed this with me offline. Doing some kind of vidding project, possibly outside of OTW is on a lot of our to-do lists. But at least one of OTW’s biggest victories has been that copyright exemption. OTW has demonstrably done really positive things for vidders that other organizations and sites have not. As a vidder, I never expected to see good hosting for the actual video files, and I’m quite content.

But fan artists… yeah. That argument makes sense at least from a place of frustration.

BTW, for the love of god, if you’re a n00b to OTW stuff, please do not reblog this post excitedly telling me that hosting fan art is on OTW’s road map, so yay, good news. Someone always does that, and it’s so irritating. I haven’t been involved in OTW in years, but I used to be, and I know what is on the roadmap. The couple of you who do heavy lifting on sysadmin and coding and policy things are welcome to weigh in as usual. I know none of us like that we can’t host fan art. It’s not what we intended.

Nonetheless, I found this argument to be the perfect being the enemy of the good. If we can save more text now without losing much of anything, we should do it. The fact that we’re fucking up on the fan art front is not a reason to spread the misery around.

V. Is “Original” the Opposite of “Fanfic”?

Okay, so that tl;dr above is why “BNFs” were on one side and “nobodies” were on the other. BNFs from one cultural background founded OTW. BNFs from the other cultural background weren’t even aware that the debate was going on.

But what was the underlying philosophical problem in even having the conversation?

It took me a long time, but I finally worked it out: We had two completely different ways of categorizing writing, and they were so baked into how we phrased questions that everything ended up being unanswerable to the other side. Here is what I came up with:

Schema 1

Fanfic - based on someone else’s IP

Original Work - the opposite

Schema 2

Non-Fannish Work - School essays, stories you are writing to try to sell to a mainstream publisher

Fannish Work Type 1 - based on other people’s characters directly (i.e. fanfic) Type 2 - based on tropes or whatever (“original slash” and the like)

Now, in the current moment when half of Tumblr just got into Chinese webnovels and the m/m ebook industry is thriving in English, original, tropey, BL-ish work is no longer different from “things I am trying to sell”. But this is how the divide was circa 2005 on fannish websites, and it’s the divide that was driving this internal OTW debate.

VI. Let’s Summarize the Camps One More Time

So, again, the debate makes perfect sense if you understand who was involved.

On the mainstream “But that’s not fanfic? I’m confused?” side:

Big US TV fandoms in English

Fandom historians of K/S–>buddy cop slash–>SGA, etc.

Americans

On the other side:

Anime fandom

“Original slash” fandom that had already been chased off of everywhere

People upset that AO3 wasn’t farther on translating the interface and supporting non-English language fandom.

People upset about US-centrism in fandom

Yes, I am very white, very American, and by now very into old buddy cop shows, but this was basically how the breakdown worked. It meant that something that looked like a minor quibble to one side was really, really not.

[revivebook]

u know I was going to come in here and yearn for my eb fanfic arc because the twt space made me think about it but then I realized I'm sending the dude I'm crushing on soft anons about how cool he is and how I think about him all the time

this literally is my eb fanfic arc, I walked myself into it without even realizing

I don't know why I'm surprised I'm literally called soft anon but [gestures hands in a vaguely confused way]

anyways, one of these days I'm going to forget to click anon and I think it'll be funny depending on how long this had been going on

- soft anon :]

HDKSXJSHSJSVXJSBDNBD

PPL WHO ARE NOT SOFT ANON LOOK AWAY DAMN U LET ME BE GAY IN PEACE

THSIJ IS SO. THIS ASK MADE ME. You have a crush on me and I am going to Explode about it whatthefuckohmygod

I’m changing your tag I have decided. You deserve the new one and I will not take criticism. YOUFVHFFUCKIN.. HOW DO YOU THINK I FEEL OH MY GOD. There could have been Anyone on the other side of that ask you sent but it was You and now I don’t know abt you but I care about you so much I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT?? I think about you when you don’t send something for a while and I wonder about how your days been and whenever you tell me about something you’re working on I take a moment whenever to just. Think really hard to hope that it’s going well akdbsnxbjsxgn I. really really really like you okay

I Cannot Wait to know more about you and talk to you more it blows my Mind????? I want. To Know You and whether that be because you click a little bit too far left one day or because you let yourself be known Purposefully. Clenches fists. I’ll be waiting for you ok I’m set on it now

—love (intensely), ram

[simpingforthisonedeer]

Chapter 4: At The Mercy

Summary: Julius' loneliness threatens to choke him but it's okay, because Aika is there to make sure he breathes. 

Oh, and he's kinda gay and there's a daughter and an assassin.

Notes: I didn’t mean to make it angsty in the beginning like that but it just kinda happened and uhh there’s abt 4599 words in this chapter sooo enjoy!

“Aika?”

Julius and Aika looked at each other in horror.

Oh, shit.

 Raymond slowly opened the door to find his niece and successor sitting incredibly close, legs crossed, and a glass in their hands as they looked at him with carefully guarded expressions. Or as carefully as two drunks could be. Aika jolted with a silent hiccup and excused herself quietly. Julius looked over at her fondly and bumped his knee with hers in sympathy.

Oh, something was definitely up. He’d thought he heard some strange noises in here, quite different from the murmur he expected to hear from standing near the doors. He thought there was something going on between the two, considering the fact that they seemed so familiar during the meeting today. Raymond thought they were perhaps friends, but they threw secret looks at each other too often and for too long to be just friends.

Looking at them now, there wasn’t a wrinkle nor a hair out of place, unnaturally so. Maybe nothing happened. Maybe they just clicked when they started talking.

Julius spoke up first.

“Aika had let me know that she is your niece, Master Raymond. She had also agreed to continue providing me with information from her network.”

“That I did. Space boy here, and Captains Marcus and Leah also know about my—our operatives here.”

“Space boy? Jayce, Evan and Ellie?”

“This man uses Spatial Magic and says he doesn’t and yeah, who else at MK headquarters?”

Raymond sighed heavily when he noticed the empty whiskey bottle. Julius’ shouldn’t be drinking yet there he was with a half glass but he only seemed slightly tipsy and with the way Aika’s looking around the room, she was completely sloshed.

“Okay, as long as you two are on the same page, we’re good,” He nodded at Julius. “Could you please drop her off at the nearest house to the Demon Skull in Hage? I know it’s asking a lot but she can’t really ride the broom in her...state. I would owe you one.”

Julius stood up and bowed his head with a polite smile.

“No, sir. I owe Miss Aika one. She helped heal the curse on my liver,” he pressed his formerly injured side to emphasize. “The least I could do is take her home.”

“Oh, that’s great! I’m glad you’re doing better now.” It didn’t surprise him that she figured out a way around his particular curse. She had always been quick on the uptake on all cases she had the chance to observe. This was no exception and he couldn’t be any prouder.

Raymond noted how he didn’t say drop her off. He watched as the two shared an amused look. Julius offered a hand to Aika and she stood up next to him and pressed into his side. 

Raymond raised an eyebrow at that. His suspicions were all but confirmed when Julius didn’t push her away. He would often keep drunk and excited women who threw themselves at him at an arm's length but he was perfectly fine with Aika. He smiled internally. While it was none of his business who his niece consorted with, he couldn’t think of a better match for her. They were both ruthlessly ambitious people with hearts of gold. He knew their professional relationship would be a match made in heaven but the personal interest they were showing in each other was a pleasant surprise. Julius was already like his son and his imminent successor, and the thought of having him around as family made him smile.

Julius picked up the file of his papers and tucked them into his robe pocket. He wrapped an arm around Aika’s shoulders and shared a smile with her.

“Oooh, I want to see how it feels to teleport,” Aika slurred as she grinned at Raymond. “Bye Uncle! Give my regards to Aunt Lydia.”

“Good night, sir. See you tomorrow.”

He nodded officiously as they phased out of the room.

Aika stumbled a bit as they suddenly found themselves on top of the Demon Skull. Julius wrapped an arm around her tightly as the wind threatened to knock her off her feet. She thanked him and cupped his cheek as she pressed a tender kiss on the other one. He stared at her, dazed.

“What was that for?” He murmured as he touched his cheek. Aika looked at him strangely then a mischievous smile lit up her face when she understood that he was genuinely confused.

“That was for going along with my charade that I was more drunk than I really was, for catching me when I was going to fall, and for having a really kissable face. All good reasons, don’t you agree?”

“Oh.” He looked away with a small smile. Aika paused for a moment when her heart skipped a beat at his smile. She was falling hard and fast, but it was exhilarating. She couldn’t help it. Maybe it may not go the way she wanted but for now, he was what she wanted. 

Though, she found it strange that he was a little shy and hesitant. He was a handsome man. Surely he was used to the company of women? Aika tilted his chin back towards her and looked at him imploringly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Julius quickly denied as he looked away again. Maybe he’s worried about the war?

“Are you worried about the war?”

“Well, yes. But it’s not about that. It’s just—” he seemed to hesitate. “I’ve never been with someone as Julius.”

She tilted her head.

“What does that mean?” He seemed alone as guilt flashed across his features.

“I’ve only ever had flings with people in disguises, with transformation magic. I was too focused on becoming Wizard King that I would either risk scandal, distraction or getting my significant other hurt. By doing this, whatever this is, I’m exposing myself.”

Aika stood silently for a moment as she watched him with a heavy heart. While a small, but a loud part of her wanted to ask about the transformation magic, the implications of everything else he had just told her caused a painful twinge in her chest. Each moment she stayed quiet, the more regret racked up on Julius’ face. He stepped back and moved to turn around and walk away but Aika stopped him.

She took both his hands reverently and sighed. She had one simple question.

“You’ve never fallen in love?”

He was taken aback by that before his eyes grew somber.

“Once,” Julius answered truthfully.

“As Julius?” He hesitated.

“I’ve fallen in love as Julius...but he never looked at me that way.”

Aika’s eyes grew wide. Well, that wasn’t expected.

“He?’”

Julius panicked.

“I meant ‘she!’ ‘She!’ It’s a woman!” He laughed weakly as he rubbed the back of his neck in defeat. “Please forget everything I said,” he extricated himself from her grasp and turned away. “I’m going to go home and pray that you forget. I had a lovely time. I look forward to working with you in the future. Good Night!” Julius clenched his hands and moved to teleport.

“Wait!” Oh, boy. He was probably going to regret this but he stayed.

“I get it!” His shoulders slackened as he swung around in surprise.

“What? Get what?”

“I like men too so I get it!”

Julius let out an incredulous laugh as the last of his anxiety melted away. This ridiculous woman! If he wasn’t falling for her already, he was now.

“But the question is, do you like women?”

A smirk crept up his face. Wasn’t it obvious? He stepped into her personal space and cocked his head at her.

“I think you know the answer to that,” he murmured as his eyes flashed darkly.

“Mm, I had to make sure,” she pressed herself flush against his front and ground her leg into his half-erect cock as he hissed in pleasure. “Because you see, I do too.” She smiled when his cock twitched against her thigh.

“You like women too?”

“Yes, you got nothing to worry about. Just another thing we share in common,” she fiddled with the collar of his fur cape as she stepped back. “Now, getting to the part where you feel exposed. We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. There is no need for anything except a professional relationship between us if that is what you want.”

“What do you want?” She paused. She wanted a lot but this wasn’t about her. His face was closed off, nearly emotionless if not for the little quirk in his eyebrow.

“Me?” He nodded. If he wanted to know, then here goes nothing.

“I want you, Julius,” she grazed his cheek with the back of her knuckles. “But if trust is what I need to make you mine, then I’ll wait. I’ll wait for the war to end if that’s what you need. I’ll begin to help you more in a professional capacity, keep talking about all things magic with you, make excuses to take you to dinner, run my hands through your hair when no one’s looking, hope that when you become Wizard King, you’ll start to open yourself up more and I’ll probably fall in love along the way, because as terrifying as it is, I see a beautiful soul and I can’t help but be attracted to it like a moth to flame,” she wiped the involuntary tears that gathered at the edge of her lashes as she swallowed the lump in her throat. Due to her drunken disposition, she had basically laid her soul bare and Gods above, that was terrifying. She was really a dumb drunk.

Aika looked up at him with no small amount of hope as Julius stared at her, dazed. He felt a warmth blossom in his heart that made his toes curl and his hairs stand on the end. He had never been on the receiving end of such raw and emotional confession. Love was a far off dream for Julius ever since his very unrequited feelings for Zara, whom he had admired for being the shining example of a Magic Knight, then grew to love because there was nothing more charming than his smile.

Then here she stood, hope in her eyes as wind swept through her hair behind her, a fervent confession hanging between them. Not once during the night they had met and today had Aika never called him anything besides Julius. He wasn’t Captain Julius to her, or even the next Wizard King. He was just Julius. Not some fake name, fake face, or personality. He could belong. The realization made him feel like his chest was going to explode.

Julius held her face between his hands and pressed his forehead to hers as he composed himself. She wrapped her arms around him and cradled the back of his head and nudged him to bury his face in her neck.

Aika felt her heart beat like the rain as his breath quivered against her neck. Did she say something wrong? Was he okay?

“Could you,” he swallowed thickly as he tightened his hold around her. “Could you please just hold me tonight?”

“Of course,” Aika exhaled in relief. He pulled back and his eyes were slightly glassy and his face somber.

“Are you alri—”

He claimed her lips with his in an explosion of desperation. She wound herself tightly around him as she arched into the kiss. He kissed her till they couldn’t breathe. He kissed her with all the words he wanted to say but couldn’t. He poured his all his hope and thanks into it, hoping her brilliant mind would somehow catch it.

Aika tried to pull back to look at him and make sure he was okay, but his lips would seek hers again, open-mouthed and deliberate, determined to consume her whole.

Julius finally let go, slowly, his fingers still buried in her hair.

She found it hard to open her eyes as she swayed lightly on her feet.

“I like you too…” She blinked up at him with wide eyes when he spoke.

“You are the first person to not fawn over me because I’m a Magic Knight Captain or something or another. Talking to you was really fun,” He seemed a little shy to admit it but Aika smiled gratefully. She liked the fact that he liked to communicate too. “and you have a very kissable face too,” he said with a laugh. Aika drew him into a short kiss as they both giggled.

“You still want me to hold you?” She took his hand and looked searchingly in the direction of her house. Julius resisted a blush.

“If that’s okay with you. I don’t even know why I asked.”

“It’s completely fine. As long as you’re okay with my daughter accosting us in the morning.”

Aika winced when he whipped his head around. Whoops, that slipped by accident. Tomorrow was Saturday and a large part of her was always happy to see her daughter on the weekends, so of course it slipped.

“Daughter?”

“Er, yes...She’s ten and I only see her on the weekends.” He looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time.

“Wh-what happened to the father? If you don’t mind me asking…”

“I don’t mind and he’s still around. We share custody that is all,” she assured him as they walked to the edge of the demon skull.

“...Was he your husband?”

“Oh no! I was never married!” Aika laughed. “He just wanted my firstborn in exchange for a favor. That’s all.”

“What?!” He looked at her hysterically. “What kind of favor?”

“I mean, it’s a long story but he changed the tide of a war at my request and he wanted my firstborn so I instead made a deal to have his child,” she shrugged. “Life was strange back then.”

Julius gaped at her.

“I have so many questions.”

They looped arms as they floated off and down the demon skull. 

Aika told a story of a man she met who called himself Arthur. She told him how Arthur changed the course of history many times in exchange for riches or favors. She explained how when she was trying for a child with him, she had become good friends with him and he agreed to let her raise the baby for a year and then share custody. She left out the part where he was actually a fae and only agreed to father a child with her, a human, as part of an unspoken eugenics experiment. They both were secretly fascinated by the fact that a half fae, half human hybrid would almost certainly have two attributes and therefore two grimoires.

“That’s very nice of him,” Julius laughed. This was the most bizarre story he had ever heard in his life.

“I know! They come every weekend so Holly could spend time with me.” Her face broke into a grin. “She’s amazing.”

Julius looked at her with keen interest as she described Holly to him. Moments like these were when he regretted the fact that he didn’t start a family sooner.

“She has blonde hair, my eyes and the most adorable freckles across her nose and cheeks,” Aika giggled in remembrance. They turned right past a thicket of trees. “She may be young but she is determined to be well-versed in world politics and—” She immediately tensed up when her house came into view. She noticed that the lights were on in the living room of her house and the mana masking the fresh remnants of forbidden magic in the backyard was gone.

Julius looked curiously between Aika and the modest-looking two-story house.

“Is that where you live?”

She nodded tightly as her eyes roved over the front of the house, scanning for forced entry.

“Your family seems to be up,” he murmured disappointedly, completely oblivious.

“Julius,” she hissed. “I live alone and Holly does not come on weekdays. It’s a rule we enforce religiously for safety.”

Aika let go of him and flexed her wrists. The wards around her house were also down, meaning someone broke the stone tablet that holds the mana in place.

“Be on guard. We may have a home invader on our hands. I’ll explain later.”

Julius’ back immediately straightened, his eyes sober as he looked at her searchingly.

“Are you sure it’s a cause for concern,” he whispered loudly as they moved silently towards her home.

“Yes, I get assassins sent after me at least once a month. I wasn’t kidding when I said I got chased around the world for my magic.”

He threw her an alarmed look as she shook her head, assuring him that she will explain later.

They wordlessly jumped over the walls surrounding the house and creeped towards one of the windows that gave them a view into the living room. Aika peeked in carefully and nearly choked on her breath when she noticed who sat on the armchair directly facing the front door.

Julius cursed softly behind her.

“Is that your daughter?”

“Yes…”

Holly’s hands were in her lap, covered by a blanket but it was obvious that they were tied together along with her ankles also covered by the blanket. Her eyes were alert and focused resolutely on the front door, no doubt waiting for her arrival.

Aika scanned the living room with measured breaths. Anyone who dared to touch her daughter were going to feel the wrath of a thousand Suns. She knew they couldn’t do real harm to her because that was simply the nature of Holly’s magic. Her spatial magic simply didn’t allow anything to touch her if she willed it. But if Holly let herself be restrained, it meant she was waiting for either Arthur or Aika to deal with the threat.

Where on Earth is Arthur?

“We should go in through the front door,” Julius looked anxiously at Holly. “The unsub is probably hoping to ambush us as we interact with Holly since they went through the lengths to cover her restraints up.”

Aika agreed.

“We have code for anticipating surprise attacks like this. I’ll ask for the time and she’ll tell me which direction the unsub is hiding or will come from if they don’t attack already,”

They linked hands and nodded, all psyched up. They stood in front of the door and Aika raised a hand as she took a deep breath, and knocked.

“I’m home!” she exclaimed with false cheer as she opened the door.

“Hey, mom—Oh. You brought someone home.”

“Yeah, I hope you don’t mind,” she looked knowingly at Holly.

“What time is it? I already made some bread and tomato soup if you want to eat.”

Holly exhaled sharply, her eyes darted behind her.

“It’s really late. I think it’s 11 o’clock.”

Immediately, a dark figure jumped out of the closet door at Aika’s eleven o’clock, which was right behind Holly’s chair as they threw something in Julius’ direction. 

Julius caught it inside a light blue orb as his hand hovered in front of him.

The attacker held a dagger into Holly’s neck as their hood fell, revealing a gray-haired, fit man, who seemed to be approaching his fifties.

“Surrender now, Sarkany, or yer daughter’s dead, ” he growled in a foreign tongue. Aika vaguely noted it was a Thessalonican dialect as she scanned the man for any identifiers like a crest, tattoo or anything that could show any affiliation.

“Where’s your father, Holly?”

“Dad’s in the closet,” she swallowed thickly as she grew greener. “His daggers are iron.”

Aika tsked. Iron was deadly poisonous to the fae and could make half-fae sick. But she wasn’t going to be worried about Arthur because tonight was the waxing moon and his innate Moon Magic would neutralize any iron poisoning.

The man snarled as he pressed the dagger harder against Holly’s neck.

“I don’t think you understand the seriousness of my words. Perhaps a cut or two would drive the point home?”

“No, I don’t think you understand,” Julius began in Greek, much to Aika’s surprise. “If you don’t let go of her now, there will be a hole in your chest,” He raised a spheroid of his mana encircled by Roman numerals.

She waved away the many questions that popped up as she urged him to put him hand down.

“It’s alright, Julius,” Aika nodded permissively at Holly. “Come here, Holly.”

Holly slackened in her seat and phased through the dagger and restraints holding her in place. She turned to her attacker with a feral smile as he was caught off-guard by her movement. 

Then suddenly, he was slammed against the wall as his dagger clattered to the floor, his form pinned against the wall like a cross by an unknown force.

Holly walked up to her mother with an overly-pleased smile and leaned forward expectantly.

“Good job, Holly,” she praised with a laugh as she patted her head, subtly healing the little knick in her daughter’s neck. “You’ll make a brilliant operative one day.”

“Operative? I’m going to be the Queen. ”

Aika huffed. Her daughter wanted to be the Faerie Queen, a title earned by passing a series of rigorous tests, evaluations of intentions, and demonstration of significant power capable enough to protect all fae. It was one of the most difficult jobs in the world and she couldn’t be any prouder as a mother to see her daughter dreaming big and working hard.

“Woah! What kind of magic is that!?” Julius exclaimed, enthralled by what he had just witnessed. “You just passed through the knife and blanket! Is that some kind of evolved version of spatial magic?!”

“...yes?”

“Oh my god, that’s so cool! I’m Julius by the way!” he offered a hand for her to shake. “Nice to meet you!”

“Hello, Mr. Julius...Nice to meet you too,” she threw a baffled expression at Aika as she slowly shook his hand. “I’m Holly.”

Aika examined the hovering object inside Julius’ spell. He badgered Holly with questions while she threw concerned looks at their captive, who strained against the invisible force holding him in place. Aika paled when she realized what the assassin threw. It was a flat circular token with explosion runes inscribed onto them. Anything that touches the flat side would explode irreparably. If it touched a human being, it would be an instant kill.

The assassin threw that at Julius. He hurt Holly and Arthur. Her vision flashed red.

In a blink, Aika was on the other side of the room where she threw a solid punch across the man’s jaw. His head whipped to the side and spat blood as it dribbled down his chin.

“What’s your name?”

He grinned toothily, showing off his bloody teeth.

“You’re already dead, Sarkany. We will all be dead.”

She punched him again. This time his head lolled unsteadily, skirting the edge of unconsciousness. Julius tried to turn Holly away from the scene but she shrugged his hand off and shook her head. Her mom was usually far more composed but today was unusual. 

Holly sniffed and nearly gagged when her incredibly sensitive nose picked up the smell of whiskey and something musky coming from the man next to her and her mom. She scrutinized Julius and raised an eyebrow when she noticed a faint, blue, star tattoo on his forehead similar to the one her mom was sporting. She also noticed that he was this kingdom’s mage warrior, a Magic Knight, she faintly recalled.

“Let’s start again. What’s your name?”

“Sven,” he rasped.

“Sven. Why are we all going to die, Sven?”

“I hurt your daughter and her father,” he wheezed. “I attempted to hurt your Greek friend over there,” he looked up at her with a crooked smile. “You’re going to kill me and the moment I die, I’m taking everyone in this village down with me.”

Aika’s heart stuttered at his words. There were no visible runes on him so she tore his tunic apart and stared at the bright, red runes carved into his chest. If he died, he was going to use the release of his mana to power an explosion big enough to wipe out the countryside. If she spared his life, she would have to make sure he didn’t kill himself. That wasn’t going to happen going by the crazed look in his eyes. 

Aika hovered her hand over his chest and tried to undo the carved runes but just as she predicted, he had mana resistance. She used her last potion on Julius and the potion wasn’t on the market yet.

“What’s wrong?” Julius padded over silently to her side.

“He is going to kill himself if we hold him captive and when he does, everything in a 2 kilometer radius is going to be destroyed by an explosion.”

She closed her eyes and concentrated. She had a bad feeling about this. She needed to make sure.

Aika sped up the time of the mana around her and strained her senses to pick up a sound, a vision or even a smell.

She coughed violently when the smell of smoke and burning flesh filled up her lungs and her ears rang faintly from an echo of a detonation.

“Aika, are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she stared hard at Sven as she swallowed the lump in her throat. There was only one way that the explosion was inevitable. “Holly, can you open his mouth wide?”

Holly flicked her wrist and an invisible force pried Sven’s mouth open. Aika and Julius strained to look inside and their eyes widened when they noticed more runes. These ones were the same as the ones on his chest but they only needed blood to activate, blood which was already in his mouth.

He was dying anyway. His mana was slowly being sapped to power the runes and his chest was expanding outwards to build up an explosion.

“Holly, let go of him!” She needed to get him as far away from here as possible. 

“Wait, what? What are you doing?” Julius exclaimed as Aika picked up Sven from where he crumpled on the floor. She jogged to the front door and kicked it open.

“Julius, watch over Holly for me please!”

“Wait, I can contain the explosion!” He called out as he followed her outside. She whipped her head around.

“Are you sure?! This is forbidden magic. I don’t think it’s that easy.”

Julius nodded, his brows furrowed in determination.

“We need distance but I’m sure I could do it.”

“I’m going to throw him high. Could you contain him then?”

He nodded, his fingers clawed as he gathered his mana.

Aika put her arms under Sven’s armpits and held him tight and began spinning to gather momentum. She spun until she was blur then changed course, tilted sideways and flung him straight up as she accelerated his speed with a touch of her magic.

Julius shot his spell after Sven’s ragdoll form and it caught up to him when he broke through the clouds.

For a moment, his prone body stayed suspended inside the spell, and with a flash, he exploded.

From where Julius, Aika and Holly stood, they heard a faint bang and a small ball of light up for a few seconds before it was silent.

Aika felt faint as everything caught up to her. She collapsed to her knees in relief and buried her face in her hands.

“Oh my fucking god, we all nearly died.”

Notes: I have a genuine question: Is my writing ok? Like idk I think its readable and im not like insecure abt it but no one besides my beta comments on my writing so idk what yall thoughts are.

Next chapter we meet Arthur, some hand-holding ;) and the final battle begins.

[another-dra-anew]

jasper told me “you could always just make hcs for the beta au” and now my power has gone out of control, part 3/??? aka: he requested these this time

~*~ Beta Syouri

•asmr yuri infodumps to syobai abt space

•yuri totally confessed to syobai i'm right, it's my au and i'm right

•at least. that's how they call it

•syobai is the type to go "ily bro!!" and even he doesn't know if he means it platonically or not

•so yuri was like "...well i don't mind bc i love being ur friend and i'd be happy to be ur bf if that's what u wanted"

•syobai is oddly casual abt it?? he's all "haha sure dude sounds great!!!"

•so yuri is a bit thrown off

•that is, until a few days later when syobai starts knocking at yuris door at 1 am, armed with a variety of snacks, a plethora of movies, and the intense desire to cuddle

•yuri falls asleep comfy in syobais arms, at around 7 in the morning, and doesn't wake up until 2pm, where he sees that his role with syobai has almost switched, with syobais head now on his chest, and he just kinda goes "...oh, there's the loving energy"

•it takes the class a hot sec to work out they're dating!!

•bc even before hand, shsl scaredy cat yuri was prone to clinging onto syobais hand/arm, sitting in his lap, etc etc

•it takes the observant/investigative group of kokoro, sora and nikei spending multiple days looking around at how they're acting before they realize what's going on

•not that syobai and yuri are trying to hide anything!

•yuri just. does not want the attention

•anniversaries and the lime with them is fun!!

•syobai will "convince" some rich man into giving him a boat to use for a week

•so they spend the time sailing around bc syobai is happy, and yuri never really goes on boats back home, so! it's good times all around

•syobai. constantly forgets that yuri has money too

•so yuri will get him some expensive gift and syobai is just :00000!!!!!!

•despite all his money, syobai,, doesn't really have a home?? it's just a hassle for him;;

•which means that when he does go to yuris house for the first time, and he just sees this massive house, he's really awestruck

•pov: u bring ur bf to meet ur parents for the first time and watch as he gets them drunk and gets them to give him half of the family fortune while sipping his grape juice.

•oh!! they go shopping together a lot, and yuri feels very thrown off if he doesn't watch syobai pay for 20 kids to get something to snack on, tip all of the workers at least 50%, slip money into peoples bags, etc etc

•yuri goes to sleep over at syobais dorm for the first time and syobai is h y p e d

•he immediately covers yuris eyes, and turns the lights off - the ceiling and walls are covered in glow and the dark stars. the walls have accurate constellations on them.

•syobai has immediately prepared star/moon shaped snacks. yuri almost cries

•if yuri ever has a especially rough day, syobai just goes "oh self care time??"

•he'll go all out grabbing anything and everything to make yuri feel better. in under 90 seconds, yuri is sitting down under a blanket, eyes shut as syobai cuddles him, just letting him vent abt how people are dumb and won't respect that he's uncomfy with certain things still

•they have dates that are just. using window markers to draw on every window they can find. class 80-As dormitory looks like a galaxy

•syobai: haha ur tiny so u can't fluster next by initiating kisses

yuri, abt to prove him wrong: oh?

•rich gay bfs who spend their money on each other and those around them spend all their time holding hands and comforting each other: more at 8

[faunusrights]

OFFAL HUNT REMASTERED LIVEBLOG // CHAPTER 19

IN THIS EPISODE OF MURPHY IS SCREAMING, CONSTANTLY, TRAPPED IN THEIR PERFECT NIGHTMARE:

Glynda was saying: “I know we aren’t friends. I know we aren’t partners. I know you’re a criminal. But—I think I can trust you. I think I have to trust you, even if you’ve done awful things before.”

EVERYTHING GOES WRONG BUT LIKE SOMEHOW WORSE THAN EVER? LIKE A WHOLE NEW BRAND OF LOW. LIKE CINDER’S GOT A PICKAXE AND THE CENTRE OF THE PLANET CALLS FOR AID.

IT’S BEEN A WHILE HUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but dw offal hunt, like the rising of the sun, the arrival of winter, and the eventual downfall of capitalism, always returns. so lets go.

(i just quickly reread chapter 18 liveblog to remember what happened and Ah Yes I Remember Now. The Suppressed Memories)

The place was emptier without Glynda. Quieter.

/gunshot oh we’re in danger right out of the gate huh? we got some yearning right out here? right now? how quickly the turn do tables.

Cinder appraised her work, holding the beige coat up to the light and squinting.

man i forgot. i FORGET. how much i just love cinder in this fic. sometimes she kinda zones to the back of my mind where she sits waiting for me to start thinking about her again, but now i remember that this cinder is Peaque. look at her GO, minding her own BUSINESS. im proud of her. does she know i love her.

It didn’t take long to don her new, fire-proofed clothes.

in another world, in a more comical plot, she used asbestos. it didnt go well.

The subtle warmth of the Dust teased tension from Cinder’s stiff muscles, even as she marvelled at the strangeness of her own bedroom’s space. It seemed bigger now than it had the last two nights.

h

She chose not to dwell on it.

h

i choose to dwell on it! ME!!!! I CHOOSE TO DWELL ON IT. HEY CINDER WHAT THIS GAY SHIT. hello. ma’am. can we look deeper into this. i, for one, would like to, and i, for one, think its of value to think abt this. that said, small segue

Quietly, Cinder murmured, “I didn’t freak out.”

THE FACT SHE SAYS IT ALOUD LIKE EM AND MERC CAN HEEEEEEAR HEEEEEEEER i am. INFATUATED with this family. cant wait for the 100k spinoff thats basically an elongated beach episode where they go to like. alton towers. or butlins. six flags??? thats a thing in america right??? anyway. beach episode. call me. (wink wink nudge nudge push push shove shove)

 We had to stop back in because Merc left his favorite binder, and it was 2 in the morning, so it was easier to crash here for the night than mess with the ship’s autopilot.

them,,, THEM!!!! mercury is just a son and childe. thast it. he canot change this. i love these kids so much i am SHAKING THE MONITOR RN!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAA

Stuck here in one of the homes they’d shared, Cinder missed them terribly. Missed the sound of their voices and the easy comfort of their presence. Finding the time to contact them had been difficult, between managing Glynda and Hati both, but Glynda was gone, and she’d sent Hati onwards to Atlas. She remembered her call with Emerald, before arriving in Umbraroot; she knew it had not soothed her or her fears.

im sorry was this chapter targeted at me, specifically, as a human being on planet earth? GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE THIS FAMILY!!!!!!!!! THIS WONKY OLD BANDAGED UP FAMILY UNIT!!!!!!!!!!!!! i thrive every time they are mentioned on the page. it is a blessing. my succulents grow stronger each time they show up.

“No,” Cinder argued softly, “I had to. Mercury, you deserve to hear it from me as well. I am sorry. And I am promising you: I’ll come back.”

For a long, heart-wrenching moment, he was completely quiet. It was good that Cinder was alone in the apartment; laying herself bare like this would be unbearable with an audience.

GODDDDDDDDDDD AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

i am OBSESSED WITH THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IM GOING TO BE THINKING ABOUT THIS UNTIL I D I E. of all thing the remaster does better than og, this is just. SPEEDING AHEAD. this whole CONFLICT this whole MESS just makes everything so much RICHER its like when u splash some wine in yr fancy food or stick some cinnamon on yr favourite desserts u dont NEED TO but it adds that lil SOMETHING,,, that little KICK that just ties the flavour profile together and in this case ofgughugguhu it just GIVES SO MUCH. im making SNOW ANGELS in the WORDS on the PAGE.

“Mercury. If I could prove it to you, I would. But you have to—trust me. For just a while longer.”

“It’s getting harder,” he said. He didn’t sound like he was lying just to hurt her. That wasn’t spite. That was honest anger. And it made her feel like dirt.

im less picking these for specific instances of like, things i want to say, but more just because bits of this r rly just so /chef kiss. cinder has these.... endearingly (take that whichever way u like) human qualities in OG to rly make u realise she had ties to add to her #Doubt but the remaster is just AMPING it up and u FEEL IT and ive never been more SYMPATHETIC to a round-faced sinnamon bun of assholery and fire id DIE for cinder fall and this is a fact PUT IT ON MY GRAVESTONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Is there anything you need?” What was this? Cinder could barely focus on her words. It felt like... “Anything? At all?”

“We’re fine.”

“Mercury, wait please—” She was losing him. “I think—”

“Just hurry up.”

The line went dead.

this place is not a place of honor.................. no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here........................ nothing valued is here................ IM DYING

Cinder began to type out her response, and that was when the nausea really kicked in. 

[...] 

She recognized this now.

Glynda.

stress stress stress stress STRESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

There shouldn’t be anybody. Cinder had done everything in her power to cut Glynda from people who would interfere. To isolate her. Make it easier to bring her to Atlas, to the frozen north, to her mother and the machine…

Cinder’s esophagus quivered; furiously, she shut her eyes and thought of nothing.

god cinder don’t remind me that you’re an asshole and dipshit and also a moron im trying to be NICE and CARE ABT YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! STOP REMINDING ME YOU’RE A PIECE OF SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

FOR FIVE MINUTES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The front door clicked open.

Cinder couldn’t have said how much time had passed, only that it had passed slowly. What she did know was that it was Glynda returning, the sensation of boils bursting wafting off her soul. It crawled over Cinder’s flesh. She curled in on herself.

There were mites under every nailbed. Salt in her weeping mouth.

offal hunt’s brilliant use of this horror aspect is something i have tried previously to emulate and here’s a fact, take it from me: that shit is HARD. offal hunt consistently able to whack those real nasty, really Disgusting vibes on the head EVERY TIME is a work of art. i mean, kc and diesel do not fuck around, and therefore i am NOT surprised, but it’s only when u try this shit yourself that you realise: this is hard! this is difficult! it’s a huge testament to how GOOD this fic is in every way. also this whole fucking body horror aspect is something i didnt know this fic needed, but it did, and here we are. 

Thickly: “Things were going okay. If you hadn’t gotten nasty, I might have smoothed things over. I could have fixed things with my son.”

with my son

with my son

with my son

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I CANT TAKE IT EVERY TIME ITS TOO MUCH FOR TO BEAR I CANNOT HANDLE IT I CANNOT STAND IT ITS LIKE BEING SHOT JUST DIRECTLY IN MY DICK

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

im like sweating rn

Glynda said, “I’m scared.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

I SAID IM SWEATING

Glynda asked, “Are you lying to me?”

And Cinder said, “What?”

“About me. About Witches. About Ozpin—” Cinder’s guts went sour. “—About anything. I need to know if I can trust you.”

I SAID I! AM! S W E A T I N G

“I know you’ve lied to people. Hurt people.”

Adrenaline and the image of her kids’ faces behind her eyes made a potent, sick cocktail. “—Not. Now.”

so lets like double back to when i said hey was this chapter written to target me specifically and as it turns out, yes. yes it was. yes it was and as MUCH AS I AM LIVING FOR THIS MOMENT THIS SWEET BUILDUP THE EXPLOSION AND THE CRATER IT ALL LEAVES BEHIND

I

AM

so this next bit is like. i cant really quote one section but as i was saying in Vague DMs, this whole bit feels like wading through mud. usually if you say something consumes energy to Read it’s in a Bad Way when yr bored but this is more like. you Feel cinder all over everything feels so sluggish and it’s like dragging your own corpse around as you try and leave and you’re TIRED and your LEGS HURT and you’re kinda thinking god what if i just fell face down for just a moment of my LIFE.

The putrid weight of Glynda’s soul filled the room until there was no space left for her.

it’s like being trapped in a sauna, like getting stuck in a humid waiting room. where do you GO. what do you DO. god this whole section is fantastic and offal hunt NEVER fails to fucking nail the Vibes but reading it is HARD. i literally keep having to stop and breathe like ive been holding my breath. jesus h christ.

a small intermission for a mood:

“Get fucked.”

back to regularly scheduled hell

Out of the bedroom. Down the hall. The walls were sweating with heat. She tasted smoke. 

i love that i just said how i feel like im trapped in a sauna and it turns out: thats because me and cinder both, baybee!!!! hahahaha help

Glynda’s soul chewed her to the marrow. “Move, Glynda.” 

cinder being hunted at the start of this fic: teehee! im running away! now im gonna getcha! heehee! arent i clever :) cinder being hunted now: this uh. this blows, actually,

Cinder’s pulse roared in her ears. Her hands twitched. She smelled Ochre Brown’s round face melting off. His wide smile shattered with each of his teeth, going black and popping like corn.

this chapter is probably my favourite so far for this blending of so many elements. i cant even begin to like. THINK STRAIGHT about how all of this is tying together. the lore. the THEMATICS. like i said this character rly is just Rich with what og lacked and oh is it RICH. im gonna read this chapter in future and see so much that i know ive already missed. holy shit.

“Ms. Fall,” she said. “The White Fang requires your presence immediately.”

NOT NOW

Cinder stood there looking at it for a moment. Her thoughts were slow. Copper-tinged. Something small and indulgent whispered to her through the blood-fog.

It was obvious enough what would happen if she got into this car. The driver would take her to a secluded place, where she would be ambushed by a squadron of battle-hungry White Fang grunts.

They’d try to take her down. And she was a killer, wasn’t she? Ochre Brown wailed in her ears with every thump of her runaway heart. Her hands itched for action; her teeth, for blood.

She’d burn them black.

never mind! you are already dead,

She thought about Glynda. About her saying that if there was trouble with the Fang, she wanted to come. That she would fight for Cinder.

She thought of Glynda’s question: What aren’t you telling me about Ochre Brown?

Yeah, fuck that.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!! WHAT A CLIFFHANGER!!!!!!!!!! WHAT A MOMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!! MORE MOMENTOUSLY: WHAT A CHAPTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this is EASILY my favourite chapter so far. EASILY. everything about this was peak offal. the relationships. the dynamics. the dialogue. the vibes. the Grossness. the fighting. the EVERYTHING. this is some other level and its BITCHIN. PEAK. that said im now very tired. im going to have a cup of tea and Consider Things for a few hours. brb.

[sagamemes]

disastrio’s 'the pin list’ text starters.   below and under the cut, you can find ~100 messages dug up from the pins of the cursed group chat of three international friends. slightly edited for roleplay purposes. spelling errors opted to keep in tact to maintain the Energy(tm). edit as you please. tw: nsfw, mention of abuse.

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   u should know by now i'm not as much a complete person as i am several sitcom tropes stacked in an anxiety blanket

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   things that should not be present in making spaghetti and meatballs: sparks   [ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   things that were present when i was making spaghetti and meatballs two minutes ago: sparks

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   give it a good deep fry and it'll make reddit front page

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   you piece of fuck

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   i'm not making this up it's a real post

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   i just really don't like the look of american hollywood boys apparently

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   quit trying to post porn [name]

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   what's deeper than emotional? are you going to /fuck/ the house?

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   i genuinely don't know what i expected googling that thing but that was not it

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   i legitimately don't know how you're expecting me to reply to this

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   i'm setting up my bfu episode

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   u might finally be free of "[full name] fucks."

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   plural of jerry's is jerry'ses

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   you're sharing so there's a trail in case someone ( maybe yourself ) goes missing when ur backs are turned

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   i have yet to whip out dicks young lady

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   lizard brayo

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   fuck the fuck off tunglr

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   what are Christmas goblins if not depression goblins with prettier aesthetics

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   we're just two bitches trying to watch [actor] and then go to bed

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   maybe complaining is what gets it off.

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   well yeah, it's hard to knock on a door that doesn't exist

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   murdered by demons is our go-to

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   we sound like the casting calls for the leads of the same gay cowboy movie

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   any blanket is a weighted blanket when u carry the weight of ur sins

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   We have some Amazing 🌈Bottoms🌈

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   [name] i am confiscating ur thumbstacks

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   YOUR HUBRIS BECAME YOUR DOWNFALL

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   what can i say i'm a sexual deviant and i can't be stopped

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   the stars neglected me. they haven't assigned me a fetish

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   i'm pretty sure 'you are going to be the death of me' was like. the disclaimer of this entire squad

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   swipe right if you dare!

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   but it tracks for the pachycephalosaurus

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   I SWEAR TO JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   this chat is going to give me an aneurysm

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   "fully automated luxury gay space communism" is the best tag i've ever seen

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   why don't you have a stockpile of mothman memes

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   i really do owe my life to the aesthetic

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   u coax the worst things out of my mouth and then [screenshot/save/pin] them to record my mistakes

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   ur not allowed to die its just the rules

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   you two are going to be the death of me

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   why are you paying for microsoft office in 2019

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   it's nearly [zodiac] season, bitches

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   i see your "will make content for rarepairs" and i raise you "will make content for pairs literally no one has ever considered and probably for a good reason"

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   i was DOOMED and thus so are all of u

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   i am going to snap your fingernails vertically in half

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   own that garbage

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   oh fuck that suck

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   we were building a desert set which was less exciting and more construct-y but it did lead to the following conversation:   [ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   guy walking in: chickenwire, huh. what's gonna come out of that?   [ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   me: quicksand

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   viva la resistance motherfuckers

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   well the ass and the face are the most disturbing part

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   it was still very much about the shape of his teeth

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   a real whoosy boi

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   if i suffer y'all suffer that's the rules

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   also icb ur liveblogging your crime

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   granted i do still want the [body part(s)] to be attached to the person and not just laying around somewhere

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   i'm gonna go with "have repressed all memories of this by tomorrow and even looking at this conversation for context isn't going to provide us with information"

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   ... Well if u ever commit a crime and need to change ur hair ur all set

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   oh god i'd completely forgotten about the teeth conversation

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   something about that ass Haunts me

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   [name]'s teeth are,,,,,,, h*t

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   ur not late, any time is a good time to hate capitalism

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   oh shit [name]s pulling out the big guns

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   listen as far as the things you could come back to go i think this is a good one

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   Amateur theatre energy is alarmingly similar to redneck ingenuity energy

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   threat acknowledged

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   i take it back i don't want any more information

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   what do we say to the god of baby germs

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   and then Goth happened

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   turn everything into a photishooot

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   but u also would have got pictures of me depositing the tiger in the cow shed

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   i feel like you constantly forget that i'm always full of Good Points

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   you want to punish urself by seeking unhealthy relationships. also the stars say u may want to have ur feet fucked

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   "white orc sex slave" is not a phrase i thought i'd hear today

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   yeah raw sexual energy

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   [name] perks up at the mention of lying to the fbi lmao

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   yall are dumb and i love u

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   HOW CRYPTID IS THE COWBOY IF U CAN TELL HE'S INDIFFERENT

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   [image file saying 'mothman respects your position but must express his dissent. also you're going to die.]

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   ...do i need to make the vampire joke

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   ur amazing and so good and so important and lowkey i'm crying abt how much i love u and u deserve every good thing i love u thanks for coming to my ted talk

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   look me in the eyes and tell me steve wouldn't crawl up thanos's butthole to save the world and get bucky back

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   [name] i am going to choke you

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   my brain was immediately with "she took the shirt off to wipe away the blood of someone, possibly someone she murdered, and then had to put the shirt back on

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   i literally never know what i'm going to come back to when i open this chat

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   i make no excuses for who i am as a person

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   i am going to jump off the edge of the earth.   [ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   and that's not me saying flat earthers are right that's me saying i will flatten it myself and then jump off

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   i'm trying to show sympathy you fuck

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   what can i say, i'm an escapist bitch

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   i never want to see dick and clown in the same sentence ever again

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   oh fuck off. i don't know what they've done but it's [name] so it's gonna be bad.

[ 𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃 ]   icb we have a test run on new year's eve

[gejnialnie]

im thinking about sp/op season 5 again and how i feel similar to when i watched season 6 of vol//tron, in a sesne that i really do not care about canon or what creators say is or isnt canon, for me it just. exists on the same level as fanon.

(im putting my reasons “why” under the cut bcos its long and im just basically rambling to myself):

i mean. its not AS BAD as v*ltron.

and yes, i am thankful that we got gay kisses and gay relationships confirmed on screen, (netossa saying “my wife” on screen? very good) its really important and all that stuff but you know what, id love if they actually put effort into their endgame relationship that (supposedly) is a “heart of she-ra” (and didnt make a stereotypical villian out of their only (very alien like looking) nb rep from whom they made a big deal out of to just use them in one episode for comedy and then delete their existence until 5 second finale cameo (no im not still salty about dt what r u talkin abt)) i think we should expect more from show on streaming platform, especially from dreamworks that was met with outrage after their queetbaiting with v*ltron.

i know i may sound like priviliged bicz but i expected catr///adora kiss in one way or another, at very least in the background. i didnt expect for them to say “i love you” and to make a dope utena ass scene though. and i did like this scene, it was a little bit cheesy but i like cheese... i didnt really enjoy the journey to the shop to get that cheese though.

the line “you never gave up on me” makes me go “... :\ “ because... adora litterally did give up on her. remember how season 3 ended? remember the look adora gave catra? remember her punch? remember that catra almost destroyed reality and actually killed angella? remember that scorpia left catra because she couldnt bear catras abuse? and then forgave her after seconds without full apology? the redemption showed in season 5 works only if we forget about seasons 2-4, because. man. was that rushed and unrealistic. i believe there was too much focus on catr/////adora and too little on catra herself. like. i believe catra would benefit if she spend more time away from adora, maybe if she escaped from prime on her own or smth idk, maybe she would discover something about herself outside of “im in love with adora” maybe she could get redemption arc ala zuko or some szit. catra deserved to be her own person and not just “the girl that loves adora”. her whole being revolves around adora, its honestly not healthy (i mean she almost destroyed reality out of spite, if this doesnt say something about her relationship with adora idk what does). like, is this really a romantic story we all wanted? for me its very unsatisfying.

and i still think people forgave/trusted catra too quickly, and yes i think that about perfuma too. i honestly think it would be really good messege if at least one person didnt forgive catra and for catra to heal despite that, because! when u used to be a szitty person of course not everybody will forgive u! but u still can try to heal! u cant and shoudlnt aspire for all people to forgive you and writers had an oppurtinity to show that with catra but i guess not.

adora got a little more space to be her own person but it still feels like she didnt live up to her own potential and in the end her whole being ended up being revolved around catra anyway, even tho season 3 finale stated otherwise.

this cartoon could be a great show about forgivness and redemption but... its just not. just because it has gay kiss in it it doesnt make it automatically great, you know? there was a massive decrease in quality in the last season.

same with vol*ron, there was a massive decrease in quality in last seasons but just because they confirmed shiro to be gay and there was gay kiss at the end it doesnt make it automatically great. thats why these two shows feel familiar to me (and in its style kinda, also in advertising themselves with “diversity” (v*ltron saying “we have a queer character!” and then sidelining him, and shera saying “we have a nonbinary character!” and then sidelining them) but for some reason people seem to forgive shera for its shortcomings, maybe bcos it wasnt as tragic, and we got actual representation but my point still stands.

(also i see some people say that “shera will open doors for lgbt+ creators” and im just here looking at legend of korra and su like--- hey, doors are already open, shera may open them a little wider or make sure they wont close but this show isnt some gay cartoon jegus....  did we all forget that we got gay wedding and gay kiss on national television for kids, these cartoons did so much for lgbt+ creators and people seem to ignore it just because they prefer shera/dont like su anymore. i truly believe we wouldnt get such great catra////dora kiss without rub///pphire wedding)