#anyway. I have a bunch of posts to reblog today

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

Thoroughbreds is my Jennifer’s Body

[ilkkawhat]

has tumblr been acting strange on desktop for anyone else or am i just cursed

[violetsareblue-selfships]

good morning!! <3

[ao3commentoftheday]

Your response in your reblog on the post about collections and series made me think of something since you mentioned that the works in the series are meant to be read in order and collections can be enjoyed separately. I have a whole bunch of AU stories (9 in total, possibly 10 if I decide to post the one I’m working on now) and I was thinking of posting them in a series since they’re all of the same fandom, the same characters are usually involved (meaning sometimes all while other times just a few of them), the only difference is is how they get together with their significant other. I figured putting them in a series would be good since the first AUs take place when the characters are in high school and then later on the AUs are of them in their twenties. But now I’m wondering whether I should instead post them as a collection. What do you think?

I'm afraid it's been so long since you sent this in that I'm not able to find that ask and link it here. Sorry about that!

I hope whatever I said wasn't as prescriptive as that. I tend to work in terms of generalities rather than in specific rules. That said, I do say a lot of stuff on this blog so it's entirely possible that was just how I felt that day.

Today, I would say that series definitely lend themselves to stories being told in a certain order. You can even re-order the works in a series if you write a new fic that you want to put in between two existing ones.

That doesn't mean that works in a series must be read that way, though. It's just a benefit to using the series function over a collection.

If having them in a series has worked for you thus far, I don't think you need to worry about changing it. I think series are probably the more common choice for grouping works together by a single author, anyway.

Unless I'm wrong about that? What do you all think?

[604to647]

✨Anniversary and Follower Milestone Celebration and Giveaway!✨

A little over a year ago, I returned to my old photography blog and repurposed it to what you see today - purging all my old followers (including the sex bots 🥹) and started from scratch and now... OMIGOD?! 😭😭😭 I've recently passed a follower milestone that seems unbelievable to 1 year ago Emily who screenshot when her post got 11 notes and sent it to Mr. 604 so excited (oblivious that one of those likes was me liking on accident 😂). I love you all so dearly for visiting me and reading my silly stories - every interaction and follow has been treasured. Sometimes I still can’t believe y’alls kindness towards me 🫣🥰

At this time last year, I also started writing my first fic, which has turned into my longest running series: Safest with You. Some of you have been with me and this series since the very beginning and I couldn’t be more grateful - the first one shot, Carnival Fright Night, was posted Oct. 13/2023 and Ch. 1 followed on Nov. 10/2023. Now one full year later, we've wrapped it up with the Epilogue😭😭😭

To celebrate, I would love to do two things:

1) A Giveaway! Everything in the first pic (full description below the cut) will be sent to one lucky winner! You don’t have to follow me or have read any of my fics - all you have to do to enter is say something nice about someone in our community. You can leave it in a comment or a reblog of this post, or send me an ask (with 🎁) - BAM! You’re entered 😁. No one needs to follow me - I just love it when people hype each other up and spread positivity 💕

2) Nonsense Outros. The first piece of writing I ever posted wasn’t actually a fic but song lyrics 😂🤭 specifically, Sabrina Carpenter Nonsense Outros inspired by Pedro characters 😂 They are silly and challenging to write and I want to do some more! If you want, please send me an Ask with 🎶 for a character or a link to a fic (it can be yours, someone else’s if they’re ok with it, or you can request one of mine even!) - I will read it (if I haven’t already!) and write you an Outro for the PBoi in the fic/character (or try, anyways! 😁)

You can do both if you want! And as many times as you want 🥰 until Monday, December 2, 2024.

Thank you thank you all again! 💋

It’s been a great year here with you all 🥹🥂🥂

Giveaway prize includes: Din Djarin magnet, postcard and washi tape, Barón Tovar Takes a Wife holographic keychain, Safest with You washi tape, one (1) copy of Pedro fan magazine, one (1) copy of Vanity Fair 30th Hollywood Issue, one (1) customized Pedro photocard holder (I will make you one based on your fave colours/themes and I also have a bunch of photocards for you to choose from or I can make you one from a photo you send!).

I am happy to pay for shipping and will ship internationally from Canada (when the strike is over), but yes it means you have to provide me an address. I am active in a collectibles trading community on IG and can provide references if it makes you feel more comfortable in doing so👍🏻.

Winner will be selected randomly via the Excel random number generator in the first week of December 2024. This giveaway isn't administered, sponsored, endorsed by, or associated with Tumblr.

Tagging a few lovely people to help spread the word and/or may be interested 🥰😘:

@aurorawritestoescape @milla-frenchy @yopossum @almostfoxglove @sawymredfox

@inept-the-magnificent @jeewrites @jessthebaker @nerdieforpedro @joelalorian

@magpiepills @secretelephanttattoo @joelmillerisapunk @holacia3 @galaxyedging

@tuquoquebrute @whirlwindrider29 @pedroswife69 @pedges-world @ghotifishreads

@penvisions @jobean12-blog @auteurdelabre @angiewatson @morallyinept

@mermaidgirl30 @arcanefox207 @baronessvonglitter @grogusmum @ace-turned-confused

@furiousmushroom @cheekychaos28 @72scsuze @toobsessedsstuff @mellymbee

@that1nerd-20 @alltheotps @evolnoomym @greenwitchfromthewoods @maievdenoir

@hipabbster23 @bitccchmood @bigbutchenergee @rainbowcat164 @the-strawberrythief

@johnssherlock221 @misstokyo7love @vivian-pascal @florxdexcerezo @fanficlover1414

@rarachelchel @heartbrokenlilbitch-nef @sunnytuliptime @kulekehe @guelyury

@rav3n-pascal22 @sjc7542 @kilamonster @mandoshoney @syd-djarin

@moonlessnight14 @lucienofthelakes @heareball @lillaydee @yorksgirl

@sheepdogchick3 @desert-fern

[vaspider]

Since I just turned off reblogs on another post that quickly went from "let's have fun" to "this is fucking awful, I'm taking away this toy," please read this BlueSky thread from rahaeli, who I don't think is on here.

Most of it I've c/p for ease of readability bc BSky's threading sucks.

Okay, it's time again to talk about what the experience of having a social media account with a bunch of followers (*) is like. (* "a bunch" of followers is platform dependent. I'm getting irritating shit at 2k on Bluesky I didn't get until 10k on Twitter.)

(Ugh, wait, nevermind, I hit 3k while I wasn't looking. Anyway.) Someone who has never had more than 100 followers literally cannot comprehend the sheer volume of the responses you get. Even if individual posts don't get a ton of replies, if you post with any frequency, it accumulates.

Once you hit the first degradation threshold, your experience gets a little bit shittier. It's overwhelming volume, but the people who are following you are mostly ideologically, socially, and culturally aligned to you. You have the same concept of social media manners.

You'll get a few duplicate comments, because nobody reads the comments before they reply, but they're mostly from cool people, so you just roll your eyes a little at the same joke five times. You still make friends. You still have fun and can wind up finding neat new people.

And then those neat new people retweet your stuff, and it starts reaching out to an audience of people who are less aligned with what you think of as social media manners. You start getting some replies you find obnoxious: they're in good faith, you can tell, but they just grate on you sometimes.

And then *those* people start reposting your more viral threads, and you get people following you who are three degrees of separation from the people you are most likely to vibe with. And three degrees of separation is the second degradation threshold.

The second degradation threshold is where you start getting the constant, low-grade sand-in-a-pearl annoyances. The person who wants to argue with everything. The 15 people making the identical shitty "joke" that's actually just doing the exact thing you're complaining about, "ironically".

The people who look at a post that contains no question marks and think "there is an implied question here and I will answer it!" and leap to offer the most basic advice that you already thought of because you have existed for more than three seconds and can, in fact, think of the obvious answers.

The people who are spoiling for a fight no matter what, because you used one word in the post that is their particular berserk button and they're going to scream at you for hating waffles because you said you like pancakes even though you never mentioned waffles.

It is constant. It is never-ending. You cannot escape it. Every time you post anything at all, opening the app means wading through twenty garbage replies for every reply from someone who is actually cool and you'd vibe with just fine if you chatted with them.

You want to bitch about a minor annoyance? There will be 40 people all giving you the same useless advice. You want to squee about something you're enjoying that's making you happy? There will be 40 people coming to scold you because that thing isn't morally pure enough.

Every post. Every day. About 75% of the time you compose a post, you will get halfway through writing it and think "I can't deal with the replies this will get today" and delete it. You stop talking about things you enjoy, because you're tired of people shitting on them.

You stop complaining about the tiny annoyances in your life that you want to bitch about, because weirdly enough you already HAVE tried the first fifteen obvious suggestions you're going to get, and you don't want to spend an hour explaining why they won't work to everyone who's "helping".

(But you can't just ignore the "helpful" posts and not engage with them, because then you start getting accusations of being "elitist" and "standoffish" and jesus, lady, we're just trying to help here, why do you have to be so fucking rude and stuck-up, you full of yourself bitch.)

If you are any less gracious to the 40th person than that person thinks they deserve, there is a very good chance they're going to call you a cunt and drag allot their friends in to dogpile you and make the site unusable for at least three days.

The third degradation threshold is when you start needing to regularly call your local police department and politely remind them there are people who get very mad at you online and will try very hard to have you murdered by armed agents of the state and you'd appreciate it if they didn't do that.

I first had that conversation with my local police department in 2003. It's gotten faster now, at least? You usually don't have to start by explaining what social media even is.

Bluesky has tighter thresholds than Twitter did. On Twitter it was nicely exponential: the breakpoints were around 1k, 10k, 100k. Bluesky is running faster. I'm getting Twitter 10k annoyances at a Bluesky 3k. I am trying very, very hard not to switch over into Twitter 10k defensive posting.

I want to leave the defensive posting back on Twitter. I really do. I want to be able to bitch about a thing without having to wade through 20 "go try [extremely obvious thing]". I want to post about a thing I enjoy without 20 people yelling at me I'm bad for enjoyjng it.

There's a difference between arguing about an idea (which I love) and the onslaught of constantly infuriating replies plucking at your last goddamn nerve. And the more "last goddamn nerve" replies you get, the crankier you are, and then people lose their shit at you because you snapped at them.

So maybe let's all start keeping a few principles in mind: 1) if there's more than one reply, check to see if your point has already been covered. If it has, you don't need to repeat it.

2) Even the funniest joke gets old after the 20th time you hear it in 3 hours.

3) "I'm going to jokingly do the exact thing you just were complaining about because ha ha the real joke is I would never do that asshole thing" is never funny, and it is indistinguishable from you actually doing the asshole thing.

4) If there is no question mark in the tweet, think twice about offering "helpful" advice unless you and the poster know each other *mutually*, not just parasocially, you know it's likely to be new info for them, and you ask "do you want to hear how I handle this?" first and get an affirmative.

5) If you are going to ignore 4, ask yourself "is this a suggestion that someone with a reasonable level of generalized adult knowledge would think of trying within the first 15 minutes of approaching the problem?" If so, do not suggest it.

6) Do you really need to nitpick that grammar, spelling, or word choice? Did you understand what they were trying to say before autocorrect mangled it or they blanked on the exact word they wanted and found a close one? If you understood the meaning, don't be their volunteer copyeditor.

7) Is someone excited about a thing you hate? Are they having fun with the thing? Is the thing a front for white supremacist recruiting or organizing the overthrow of the US government? If the answers are yes, yes, and no, respectively, shut the fuck up and let people enjoy things.

8) We are all occasionally That Commenter. If someone you have a pre-existing relationship with replies to you and lets you know you're being That Commenter, it's because they have a positive enough impression of you they don't want to go straight to block. Treat this like the warning sign it is.

9) It deserves repeating: remember the Law of Large Numbers. Even if you only commented once, you may be the hundredth irritating comment that person got that day. Bluesky's terrible threading makes this worse: people don't keep a single thread of mounting crankiness the way they did on Twitter.

9a) If someone's top tweet sounds really annoyed at something, maybe check their timeline or follow back their nested self-QTs to see what level of irritable they're at and over what so you don't step straight on the same rakes they've been dodging all day.

10) However, remember that BSky also doesn't show replies made by people the OP has blocked in a thread. If they post about a pattern that's making them cranky and you look and don't see anything, they probably already blocked the worst of it. They still saw it in their mentions in order to block.

I really cannot overstate how absolutely exhausting and soul-destroying the experience of having a large account can be. It's also somehow still rewarding, or we wouldn't do it. But especially if you're a woman or a person of color or a female POC, that balance is really, really close most days.

And of course, the ones who stay are the ones who do find it still rewarding enough to keep doing it despite the constant irritations.

From here, the thread moves into a conversation about stuff specific to BlueSky, but the majority of the thread is truly applicable to Tumblr as well.

You may be the first person to comment "op lives on a planet without music," or "op has never heard of [thing OP didn't mention for whatever reason]," but you're probably not, and at a certain point, it becomes like someone tapping a sunburn.

So yeah.

[aroaceleovaldez]

since i was thinking about it the other day - If you're interested in running a fandom infrastructure blog, character/ship/group-designated compilation blogs are super easy, really popular/handy, and the more there are the more they can help each other out!

There's also a lot of different ways you can do them - some reblog only art. some will reblog everything relating to a character/pairing/etc (fics, headcanons, edits, etc). Some do the "[character] spotted!" or "Today, [character] is in [place]" gimmick blog formats. You can do just one character, or more than one character like a ship, or specific group of characters, etc etc.

And they're nice cause it makes it easy for fans of specific characters to find stuff about them, and those types of blogs can help each other out by sorting stuff by character (ex: If someone ran a Hazel-designated blog, they could sift through my Hazel tag on @deathsibs to find a bunch of Hazel posts, and I could look through their blog to find more Hazel posts for Deathsibs too).

Anyways below the cut I shall throw a list of blogs of this nature I know exist and then suggestions of blogs people could make if anyone is interested, alongside some misc tips.

Existing blogs:

Deathsibs (Nico and Hazel, sometimes Bianca & rest of Death Fam)

Seafamblr (“Sea Fam” / Poseidon & Jackson family)

Decentpipers (Piper McLean & Occasionally others)

Ethannakamura-spotted (Ethan Nakamura)

Alabastertorrington-spotted (Alabaster C. Torrington)

Dailykanechronicles (The Kane Chronicles) (Inactive)

The-toarchives (The Trials of Apollo)

Othrysbulletin (The Titan Army)

Smartwatermagic (Annabeth Chase x Alabaster Torrington x Percy Jackson)

Pjoracheldare (Perachel - Rachel Dare x Percy Jackson)

Percy-x-luke (Luke Castellan x Percy Jackson)

Percicoforlife (Nico di Angelo x Percy Jackson)

Percico (Nico di Angelo x Percy Jackson) (Inactive)

Solangelo (Nico di Angelo x Will Solace)

Solangelo-hub (Nico di Angelo x Will Solace)

Jasicocentral (Nico di Angelo x Jason Grace)

Thejasiconet (Nico di Angelo x Jason Grace) (Inactive)

Valdangelo (Leo Valdez x Nico di Angelo) (Inactive)

Thevaldangeloship (Leo Valdez x Nico di Angelo) (Inactive)

Pipazellove (Piper McLean x Hazel Levesque) (Inactive)

Percabeth-discord (Percy Jackson x Annabeth Chase) (Spotty activity)

Suggestions:

Rest of the Titan Army - Silena would be easiest, since she's one of the most well-known ones and has a lot of stuff outside of TA content, particularly with Ruegard. Luke would probably be second-easiest, especially with the uptick in stuff from the show. Chris might also get an uptick from the show, and depending how s2 goes Alison might be very popular soon. Kelli doesn't get a lot of fan content so you won't have a lot to reblog there but it'll be really nice for the starving Kelli fans. Also will be easier given Othrysbulletin sorts by character so you can find a lot of TA stuff there to begin with (and you'd be helping them out by sorting more).

Percy - One of the easiest, no question. You will never run out of Percy to reblog.

Nico - The other easiest option besides Percy. And people love Nico-centric stuff so you will not only have an endless supply to reblog, but people will also probably flock to you for a nice curated Nico feed.

TKC or MCGA-specific characters. Or HoO-specific characters or PJATO. It's been awhile since there was a lot of Argo II-centric stuff in the fandom, but there's a ton of old stuff. And it's difficult to find TKC-specific (rip the inactive existing TKC blog) or MCGA-specific stuff these days, so having a nice curated feed of it would be a great resource.

A lot of ships! Ship event blogs sometimes double as these types of blogs, but a lot of the old ship-centric blogs for major ships in the franchise became inactive a LONG time ago or were deactivated. Tbh the solangelo one probably only still exists cause it's such a latecomer to the major canon pairings. Closest one we have for percabeth that I know if is percabeth-discord, but they're more focused on their discord and their activity is spotty rather than a regular feed. The old percabeth ship-dedicated blog deactivated and the url is now unavailable. PERCABETH doesn't even have a proper dedicated ship blog in the pjo fandom. That is the state we are in. Frazel doesn't, Jaspiper doesn't, Shelper doesn't, Valzhang doesn't, Valgrace doesn't, Fierrochase doesn't, etc etc. We USED to have these blogs but now we don't.

Literally I mean it when I say you could take just about any character or pairing or group from the fandom and make a dedicated feed of only posts about them and be the only one doing that. Or the only other blogs doing that haven't been active in 5 years. Save for the list I made above, there's barely any anymore.

Anyways if you make one PLEASE tell me and send it to me; I will add it to my lists.

Bonus tips for running character-dedicated blogs:

Queue is your best friend! Seriously, I just draft posts every time I find them for the character in question and will set up a queue to post one thing daily. Especially if you have a preset list of tags you use, just fill up the queue every once in awhile and you're all set. The more popular the characters of the blog in question, the easier this will be.

Tag systems! Tag by character. If you're primarily reblogging then your tag system is almost entirely just for personal organization on your blog, but it's super useful. I still kind of wish I had been tagging by OP on deathsibs but even just tagging characters and post type is super handy, for both yourself and others. And if it's a character-centric blog, tag ships.

If your blog has multiple characters, i personally like to arrange posts so it's split relatively evenly and will cycle through characters. Like on Deathsibs, the queue order rotates between Nico days and Hazel days. If a post has both of them, or it's just Bianca or one of their parents, it doesn't count as either a Nico or a Hazel day and the next post of one of them individually will resume after. Ex: The queue will be like Hazel day (no Nico), Nico day (no Hazel), Both, Hazel day (no Nico), etc etc so on so forth.

For group blogs, every post doesn't have to include all of them. Deathsibs is mostly split between posts individually featuring Hazel or Nico but not the other, with a mix of posts featuring them both added in. This adds a nice variance.

As a feed blog, you shouldn't curate things to only your tastes. Reblog artists and writers from every skill level (ESPECIALLY if it's a character or ship that's not as popular), reblog both old posts and new posts, reblog fandom tropes you may not personally enjoy, and if it's a character-specific blog don't be afraid to reblog a variety ships of that character even if you don't like all of them (just make sure to tag the ships). If you are making an infrastructure blog then the intention is that it's not just for you, it's a public resource, and you need to keep that in mind. This will also help keep your queue from drying out. If this is something you don't think you can do then this type of fandom infrastructure blog may not be for you. If it's something extremely popular you can maybe pick-and-choose to a degree (like goodness knows I will never reach the bottom of Nico posts) but you should still include a wide variety, especially of common things.

I can also always answer more specific questions if people have them, based on my own experience running blogs of this nature, so feel free to ask!

Anyways, happy blogging!

[daycourtofficial]

Hi! So I love your blog and have read practically all of the main 10 Acotar fan fiction blogs on Tumblr and was wondering if you had any recommendations for authors that you think are underrated or don't have as big of a following/like counts on their posts that you think are worth reading?

Also another question sorry: I've never rly considered reblogging works because I have no followers and my account is totally private but I read today that authors prefer to see people reblog than like their works. I was just wondering if the was true because if so, I'll start doing it, I just always thought it was pointless if my blog is so unused.

Hi! This took me like a week to answer because I was compiling a list of other authors. Let me give some love to some authors that I love and adore and would give little forehead smooches to. I’m really not sure about notes/quantity of notes because I don’t really notice a trend in note count for others, but I’ll highlight some authors I love and have devoured all of their fics, some authors I’ve read only a handful of fics, and some authors that are pretty new that I’m excited to see more of. This is basically a masterlist of some of the authors I follow 😅

Also if anyone has any other authors they’d like to hype up, feel free to drop their @ in the replies.

Anyway roll credits:

@shadowdaddies @imaginesmai @serpentandlily @prythianpages @danikamariewrites @readychilledwine @thehighladywrites @thelov3lybookworm @nocasdatsgay @tsunami-of-tears @tadpolesonalgae @parkerslatte @assriels @utterlyotterlyx @utterlyazriel @imagineaworld @b00kdiary @writeroutoftime @callmeblaire @heartless-tate @sarawritestories @sapphicmsmarvel @throneofsapphics @throneofsmut @milswrites @grandlinedreams @arrantsnowdrop @littlestw01f @starsxblazing @eve175 @itsswritten @aboggoblin @stormhearty @acourtofladydeath @illyrianbitch @illyrian-dreamer @loneliestluvr @solbaby7 @b0xerdancer-writes @azrielsdove @assassinsblade @azrielslightintheshadows @lalacliffthorne @bubbles-for-all-of-us @fieldofdaisiies @historiaxvanserra @fairydustblossom @readychilledwine @secret-third-thing @acourtofwhatthefuck

There are so so so many writers who are phenomenal that I’m sure I’m forgetting. Also I had tagged a bunch of people and it got lost so I had to try to remember who all it was so I’m sorry 😞

As for your other question, it’s very writer to writer dependent. Personally I try to reblog a lot of writing because I have a following and want to promote other writers, but it doesn’t bother me when people don’t reblog my fics. To me, support is support, whether that’s comments or likes or reblogs. I would assume though if you have a blank blog, the reblog won’t really matter to most.

[captainclickycat]

So while we're on the subject, here are some other thoughts.

I found Neil Gaiman's online presence - and the more overzealous members of his fanbase - annoying. And please stay with me here, I promise this isn't me trying to be smug or claim I "knew all along" or anything. There's a huge gulf between finding someone a bit annoying and thinking that their behaviour online is less than stellar occasionally and suspecting them of being a sexual predator. I don't think there could have been any way of me "knowing all along" without reading everything in the worst possible faith, which I'm not willing to do and which I maintain is not a good or helpful approach in general. And to people who genuinely looked up to him and felt completely blindsided by the news, I'm really sorry. It wasn't your fault and I hope you can do something kind for yourself today.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. I didn't like the way he handled criticism of his work, a lot of the time. I don't think creators are obligated to personally listen to and address every negative opinion of their work, or explain every individual aspect of it that someone disliked. But I felt like a lot of his responses to feedback tended to lean into and encourage praise, while being a little disingenuous and sometimes belittling towards criticism. (And really, why feel the need to respond to everything when you could just ignore it?)

I didn't like the way he always felt the need to weigh in on fandom debates or throw out "word of god" explanations for this or that thing, including when nobody even asked. (Want to know who inspired the "I don't care what the author said" comment in my bio? Take a guess.) Especially when some of them felt engineered to paint him and his work in the best possible light.

Again, I'm not drawing attention to all this in an attempt to claim any one thing was a blatant red flag or must have been down to some sinister motivation. That's not the point I'm trying to make.

But it is one of the reasons that I was always deeply uncomfortable by the culture of hero-worship and "touch not god's anointed" that always seemed to exist around him. Like regardless of whether or not you thought this or that criticism against him was warranted, the way people would treat him like some kind of messiah who deserved nothing but praise and lose their absolute shit whenever anyone said anything remotely negative about him was absurd. Nobody deserves that, regardless of what they've done.

But at the same time... you know, I liked his work. Not just "I liked the stuff he co-wrote with someone else" or "I liked the films and TV shows he worked on with a whole bunch of other people." I liked the books he wrote by himself. They had some parts worth criticising, sure, what doesn't. But overall I thought they were well-written and funny and thought-provoking and I enjoyed myself when I was reading them. Neverwhere is the first book I had a crack at re-reading in a different language, which should tell you how much I liked it. And I didn't even dislike everything he posted on the internet. I thought some comments were pretty funny and/or insightful. I even reblogged the odd post.

And I wasn't all that vocal about any negative feelings I had towards him, because... well, frankly because a lot of the negative feelings I'd seen expressed by other people about him tended to look like "he's the devil incarnate, his work sucks, he's the worst person alive and he secretly hates every marginalised group and people should feel ashamed for sincerely liking his stuff."

And I didn't agree with that either! I didn't want to be roped in with those people. I didn't feel comfortable around them, any more than I felt comfortable around the Neil Gaiman Defense Squad, Working Tirelessly Day And Night To Aggressively Stamp Out Any Criticism Of Our Lord And Saviour.

And honestly I'm not entirely sure what kind of broader point I'm trying to articulate here, or whether I'm just working through stuff in my head. But I will say that this kind of polarising, zero-sum-game approach to criticism is... bad. It's just bad. It makes it so people are reluctant to put forward any kind of nuanced stance, for fear that they'll end up getting pigeonholed into one oversimplified category or another, or it ends up pushing people towards one extreme stance or another out of sheer frustration or contrariness. And it makes it incredibly difficult to have any kind of actually productive debate when it comes to criticising media, or criticising creators. Inevitably people's hackles are going to be up whichever side they lean towards more, and a lot of people with valuable input will inevitably end up going "yeah, I can see how that's a good point, but also the last person who brought this topic up with me deemed it appropriate to send me a barrage of messages telling me to kill myself about it, so forgive me if I'm not interested in engaging any further."

Obviously a culture of hero worship inevitably makes it a lot easier for predators to operate, and I have no doubt that being inundated with messages about how wonderful you are and how everyone who's criticising you is in the wrong must make it a lot easier to rationalise your actions. But I feel like this tendency to paint everything in terms of "are they a pure uwu blameless smol bean angel OR the devil incarnate" is incredibly unhelpful regardless of what side you come down on. The "devil incarnate" crowd can be part of the problem too.

[swiftsaltsweet]

-falls over- I got the last chapter I wanted to post for the Rangshi bomb day done~! (well I did it before midnight my time)

εミ(ο_ _)ο

Please check out the Rangshi tag on tumblr, and the Kyoshi/Rangi pairing tag on AO3, a bunch of amazing artists and writers also participated in the Rangshi bomb drop~! <3 \uwu/ I'll be sure to reblog their works on here tomorrow~! (I wanna take my time adding comments in the tags sjakf)

For now, I have to recharge my sleep bank ヽ(´ཀ`」∠)_ I have a deficit I need to replenish uwu;;

For next week, it will most likely be a Yokoya Days chapter (the flashback chapter that's been....pushed off for so long jfkldafsl TT0TT That being said, I'mma try to make a dent in the Arc 1 final of Hunt! (as well as the next chapter of Thief for the anniversary)

Anyway hope y'all enjoyed today~ -falls over again- εミ(ο_ _)ο

[insanelyadd]

Hello this a long shot call, am Marystella Majuma a citizen of Palestine. I am here to request for your support to help get my insulin (Humalog), just an injection for today to save my life please I beg.I was diagnosized with type 1 diabetes and due to current situation in Gaza I'm unable to get my insulin injection as a result I'm here begging for little financial support to help me purchase insulin for this week. Am sorry if am sending you again this request, kindly donate any amount please. My donation link is in my pinned post🇵🇸

Hello scammer. Your blog has only existed for a single day but you reblogged a bunch of stuff to bury that fact. I would like to see the post where your fundraiser (which goes directly to a paypal account) was verified. I'm really curious about the specific wording of your pinned post, so I googled it.

So anyways you are a despicable fraud. The first duplicate post even includes the same images. Curious how all of the images of insulin and glucose monitors (By the way do you mind telling me why you have two totally different ones? That seems a bit superfluous) are strictly in English. You are repulsive.

[soaps-mohawk]

Okay so this week...

With October being tomorrow (I know where has September gone?) That means it's the first day of Kyletober!!!! 🥳

So, that being said, I still have a bunch of replies and asks regarding CRCB, so I will be posting those throughout today and tomorrow to get them through and of course if any come in during October then I'll answer those as they come. Just because I'm taking a break from it doesn't mean you can't talk about it.

But also the first Kyletober fic will be posting tomorrow. It's posting at the same time CRCB usually does (5 am pacific) and I'll be linking the fic on the taglist blog post (once I get up) as well as adding it to the masterlist which is linked in the navigation post now. I may also queue it to post throughout the day as well just for those that come straight to the blog to find it.

That being said, I'll likely get behind on responding to asks and comments and such especially this week. I will be tagging all the asks and reblogs with "#kyletober spoilers", so if you can't read them right away then you can filter that tag to avoid spoilers. I also always tag comment reblogs as "#comment reblog", so if you don't want to see fics reblogged 103820 times, then you can block that tag as well.

There won't be any posts on the weekends, weird I know. Kyletober will be posted during the week. The first week you get four fics and then from there until the last week of October you're getting three on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Don't stress too much about the schedule, just follow the taglist blog and she'll guide you lol.

Anyway yeah. Just wanted to let everyone know that's how things are going to go. The masterlist is undergoing some cosmetic updates so the look will change here soon, but otherwise I'm super excited for Kyletober. Let's give our babygirl malewife pretty princess some love 💚

[spagheddiesquash]

so today i was in the mw oc server talking abt some stuff i noticed about jawbone (+ some other theory stuff as well!!)

so first of all. two kind of obvious details:

he is green (“yeah no shit sherlock” i hear u thinking. trust me there is a reason why im pointing it out)

his pupils are triangular. nobody else in the show so far has had triangular pupils. (well. i mean commander tezzoree’s eye has a triangular pupil but she hasnt made an appearance in any episodes yet and i doubt the two characters are connected)

just making this point known for now. we will hold this thought for later in the post.

another thing: so in the ref sheet of him posted to the mw tumblr back in september i believe(?), his name is written as “jawbone (a.k.a. scythelord)”

you know where a character by the name of “scythelord” has shown up already?

on a wanted poster, thats where!! he has a bounty on his head!!!

which means that tyneen and her crew are probably after him, which probably explains why they’re at the thicc chicc casino. (how do i know jawbone is there? because ricket is there, which i know because he is shown interacting with both shrike and tyneen, who we know are both there)

now. remember that thought from earlier that i told you to hold until later? now is the time to bring it back.

ok so. we already know that colors and shapes each have their own respective significance in this show, and colors and shapes are chosen deliberately.

with that said:

correlation?? maybe???

ADDITIONALLY:

this further cements my belief that ep 4 will have a LOT in it regarding the cataclysm or some other related thing. why?

(2nd pic comes from the VA application doc. unfortunately i dont have any better quality pics of it)

despite the poor image quality in the second pic, you can still tell that both of these characters have some sort of magenta (or pink i guess?) type of theming going on in their designs.

also if we look at campions, like, the flower

you can see where im trying to go with this idea.

i did a whole bunch of examining colors today in light of this, actually!!! quick fun fact for those unaware: RGB and CMYK invert into each other.

and then after i made that image i started sorting things into what colors they are. (white and black have been omitted from the screenshots simply because there doesnt seem to be any significant things tied to them)

obviously this list is probably incomplete and i will continue to add to it, of course.

(my main inspo for even thinking about CMYK for theories in the first place was @toastedclownery btw!! GO CHECK OUT THEIR BLOG IF U HAVENT ALREADY THERES SO MANY COOL THEORY POSTS THERE!!)

one final not-as-relevant theory that’s really more of a prediction: i really think joel vargskelethor is gonna be in this upcoming episode, whether it’s in whole or in part. i mean, he already voiced the duende in ep 3, so it’s not like its impossible or anything. also “scythelord” happens to be the name of joel’s band as well (which you should DEFINITELY check out if ur into metal!!!!! absolutely amazing stuff) OH OH AAAAAAND

id like to direct your attention to the title of this update, which is “the bone zone,” which i believe to be a skeleton metal reference.

also jawbone/scythelord has the little sweden viking helmet thing on the wanted poster. AND HES GREEN! LIKE FREN!!

for those who dont know, this is fren (also known as vargfren i think)

so yeah. these evidence pieces combined with the fact that zeurel has made dozens of “vargskelethor animated” videos (which is how i got into zeurel’s animations in the first place actually!!) are what led me to make this prediction.

anyway, i hope you guys liked this theory post. it’s not an update on the web, but i figured id try doing something new. though, if youd like to see the web, here’s a view of the full thing currently:

but yea thats all i really had. ill reblog with some additions if i think of anything else. bye for now!!! :^D

[corvuscorona]

"You Never Forget Your First Love."

The other day, a mutual (hi! you know who you are I think probably hello hi! thank you for the Posting Impetus!) said something that made me curious (for, like, the 80th time, actually; lol. I Have Thoughts) about something: what's the split on people who subscribe to the "Stranger of Paradise probably intended for us to believe that Jack & Sarah were in love" mindset, vs. not? In general, but ESPECIALLY around these parts.

I genuinely didn't read it that way myself (& I do NOT normally give media (general) this much credit, but the writing in this game is sublime; I had no choice but to fully engage Scholar Mode on it), + I think it's interesting that SPECIFICALLY any of my fellow tumblr people / AO3-heads / Gay People Online / etc. seem to have. (I expect nothing from people who haven't been basting themselves in the same online sub-subcultures as me for over a decade. They're allowed to write wrong things on wikis, and have done so already; it's whatever.)

I wanna metapost badly again, so let's go. Join me. No poll. If you have an opinion on this, I'm looking directly into your eyes and beckoning you towards your own keyboard + also the reblog button / comment section, like a weird ghost. What did you think when you first played the game?? What do you think right now? What are you about to think after you have read a bunch of my words. Tell Me. I Need To Know This.

Spoilers for, idk, everything? Today we will use everything we've got to talk about Princess Sarah.

1. As a Narrative Element

This game makes a point of referring to Sarah as things like "a symbol of hope and peace" as often as possible, & when it isn't doing that she's usually in the role of An Object Or Device Of Some Kind, anyway. She's important because she's capable of holding light and dark in balance & SOMEONE'S gotta hold onto this dark crystal for safekeeping, and also we're gonna need to upset that balance on purpose later. There's that conversation in the Wicked Arbor about whether the Strangers would "choose" her (as opposed to "treasure") as the "reward" for succeeding in their mission[1], & there's the one in the Sunken Shrine where Jed asks Jack what he thinks of her and Jack says that he doesn't care about her as a person[2] BUT that protecting her is mission-critical (lol), too.

Sarah's death is metaphorically charged. It's the point of no return: the dark crystal breaks, the balance of light & dark gets extremely ruined, & Literally All The Darkness In Cornelia converges in one place (Fool's Missive XXVII). That's the payoff for the "symbol of hope and peace" motif, and communicating this idea that "the metaphorical light of hope just For Real Died, Like Catastrophically Imploded, No Take-Backs" feels to me like it was the highest priority here. Second-highest goes to "Jack had way more humanity before, but he set it aside on purpose and is actively in the middle of losing the rest of it." "Sort of." "I'm not getting into what counts as humanity or doesn't because if I did we would be here forever."

Basically, I'm saying that the tidiest read on the situation is "Jack despairs because Sarah dying means in a very literary and final way that everything is ruined forever, which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with, like, Love (romantic)." I don't think the text of the game is particularly signaling that Love (romantic) is involved, and I think that if it meant to, it would be more obvious about it. You could bundle "an romance" into the "humanity" thing if you wanted to, but I'm not inclined to, based on some additional list items that you can read below this one.

[1] The fact that Neon ALSO says she feels bad for her for being thought of in this way only reinforces my conviction that the game is pointing at Sarah & yelling "REMEMBER THAT SHE IS MOSTLY A SYMBOL!", tbh. Who wants to go point out how freaky the mechanics of Being An Royalty are w/ me and the boys??

[2] I will give the Wiki WrongPosters this: I can totally see this as some kind of irony thing, given that he's still missing like a fucktillion of his memories when he says it. However! As mentioned above, I have other reasons not to read it as evidence that he was ever, like, romantically interested in her.

2. As a Sheltered Youth™

We don't have a TON of information to work with RE: Sarah as, like, a person, but here are a couple of hard facts to start with: she's 19 (per the data book, but she'd have to be somewhere in the 18-to-early-20's age range regardless or her whole deal wouldn't really make much sense, imo. She's a baby...!), and she's royalty. I think this ties into her utility as a walking metaphor, among other things; she's archetypically young, fresh, & idealistic. I'd call her naïve but the game obviously isn't interested in portraying it as a weakness, so positive words only; why not.

You could argue that people look to her as a symbol of hope because she hasn't directly experienced enough strife to exhibit hopelessness or fear in response to bad news in the abstract. I find it interesting that before Jack, like, knocks the wind out of her & tells Sophia to take her outside so she can see for herself how bad things have gotten at the end of the game, she says that her duty is to die with her people if she has to, & it doesn't even seem to occur to her that she could lead at least some of them away to safety...? When she changes her mind, she still talks about herself as a symbol before she ever uses the word "leader". She sees HERSELF in terms of symbols and metaphors, and takes action based on her designated role As One Of Those. Not very practical.

There's also the dialogue you can have with the queen the first time you're allowed to run around in the throne room at the beginning of the game, where she asks Jack to smile in front of her daughters (NOT just Mia; daughters, plural). Even if she only means "dude can you be polite please," the fact that this is The thing she has to say to Jack is telling. Is it going to upset your 19-year-old daughter to see that the Guy Whose Job It Is To Kill Monsters looks serious? Why do you think this? Does your 19-year-old daughter understand how serious the situation is, generally speaking? Do you not WANT her to for some reason? Boats don't work anymore unless a weird elf messes with them first. Not thinking very hard about the implications of this is something a sheltered person does.

Residual time loop un-memories aside, a young woman in this situation is so obviously going to have a huge crush on Jack Garland no matter what. He Is So Cool, first of all, & he's also Different from the adult men she gets to see on an everyday basis (family, guards, rando townspeople[3]...). It's not like the political social scene could POSSIBLY be thriving in this world, either; it all seems to be one kingdom we're dealing with and they're kind of busy with the external threat of being Under Fucking Attack By Monsters. Does she even get fun treats like "handsome visiting dignitaries" & what-have-you? The game doesn't present us with any potential options, here. Jack is mysterious, he has special-boy Warrior of Light status, his one job & apparent life's purpose is protecting the kingdom she loves, he's pretty nice to her (even in later cycles he at least goes out of his way to be polite!), & additionally, he's shredded. THIS makes sense to me.

There's a Q&A in the data book that has something to say about JACK as a symbol & what that has to do with this whole thing but we'll get there. We'll get there.

[3] Tangent: what's up with how Cornelia's entire adult male population appears to consist of aging queens. Why did they only make models that look Like That for the NPCs? It's awesome but I have 1 quastion

3. JACK JUMPSCARE !

I'm not about to say that he's just humoring her, or anything, but please humor ME for one second & put yourself in Jack's shoes. Not the default shoes; we can have more fun than that. Maybe the Banded Boots. Blurple ones? Shaped like a cartoon would wear them? Big spikes on the back for no reason? I love those things. Anyway, you're Jack. You're working for literally the king, & the work means Everything to you for reasons you can't even necessarily explain except to say that it JUST does. The king's eldest daughter (very young adult; Never Been Outdoors; a little overly-sociable but nice enough & what do you expect from a princess, anyway) has imprinted on you like a duckling for whatever reason. You would be nice to this person, yes? You'd be patient with her while you're in town. You have Brutal Murders to be doing, but not until, like, 2 days from now, or whatever; you're sharing space with her in some capacity in the meantime & it's in your best interests to keep her happy. (You probably even enjoy doing this, if you're Jack of a Way Earlier Cycle; I'm in no way ruling that out. Sharing your music collection with an enthusiastic Baby Adult? That's fun. I think he was probably having fun. Okay, you can step out of the fun purple shoes if you want; the Humoring Me Minute has concluded; thanks.)

Also, @2000sanimeop and I think that if Jack felt that way about her Astos would have been a little More Something about how much it was gonna suck for him when she died. In Fool's Missive XXVII he uses the word "painful," but that's about it. He doesn't even bring it up in XXV, which is the one where he says he's curious about whether she'd survive being turned into a fiend (side note: Astos fucking rocks. Why did he write that down?? I love him). & Hey SPEAKING OF ASTOS,

4. I wouldn't put Jackstos on a wiki, either.

The writing in Stranger of Paradise, SERIOUSLY, WITHOUT EXAGGERATION, is some of the best I've seen in literally anything ever. It suits not just its medium but also its sort of Place in History Relative to Other Video Games & the things it chose to DO with that medium & that niche INSANELY well. It is CUSTOMIZED. It's SO INTENTIONAL. I can't get too far into this or we'll be here all day, but the essence of what I want to say here is: there are relatively few facts presented to us by this game, compared to the implications we can go about drawing from those facts & other, external sources of context.

Sarah calls Jack her first love; that's a fact. No facts are presented to us that REALLY say much one way or the other[4] about what Jack thinks of this, himself; "fucktillion memories missing" Jack says he doesn't care, but he's missing a fucktillion of his memories, and DLC2 Jack has a set of dialogue options (hi Anne the Malboro I love you Anne the Malboro) that can point either way depending on what the player chooses, which is kind of nothing, on balance. As the audience, we can (should!) draw whatever conclusion we want about it, but none of those conclusions are text.

[4] I WILL GET TO THE DATA BOOK IN ONE SECOND. HOLD ON.

And, okay, please let me level with you. Let's be on the same page. Jack & Astos had some kind of thing going on, imo, OBVIOUSLY, but I want to be CLEAR and I want to get CREDIT for the things I'M bringing to the table to help generate this conviction. I drew that conclusion & I read that reading based on subtext, context, personal history, personal preference, & sheer gay zest for life. It is also, emphatically, NOT TEXT.

Astos refers to Jack with the ol' "...friend" in Fool's Missive XXI. He calls him "my Jack" in Fool's Missive XXXI. Canonically, textually, he has some big fucking COMPLICATED fucking feelings about this man. These are facts. If you're playing this game as Some Guy, I can see how you could potentially absorb these facts & still pay them much less regard[5] than I did & continue to. My argument here is that god I wish I lived in a world where Some Guy could extend the same courtesy to me and not treat Sarah's textual affection for Jack as something that necessarily indicates Some Kind Of Reciprocal Romantic Whatever, Definitely, Obviously, Of Course.

[5] Longer Tangent: I have been informed that the Some Guys of the world are currently pretty good at Recognizing a character that behaves in a way that's Pretty Gay, but tend to stop there, possibly for the combined reasons that A. they're not very familiar with a lot of the the ways gay relationships often work (you know, soul resonance. mutual recognition. sharing a brain etc.) and B. the Object Of Affection is usually the player character and they subconsciously shy away from thinking of a Guy They're Supposed To Identify With as gay. This is practically a lead-in to an entire separate post I could make, so I'll leave it at that, lol.

The writing is too good for that kind of assumption! I'M SERIOUS!! It's mind-blowingly subtle & endlessly fascinating to hold up to the light & view from every possible angle, and "Jack & Sarah were in love" + "Jack & Astos were in love" are BOTH ANGLES. I'm personally very very interested in giving the text credit for that. I think it's impressive. I think it's really, really cool, and I think it was on purpose. Speaking of which,

5. Word of God agrees with me, btw

This is from the Q&A section on page 156 of the Confidential File. The translations below are my own (I think they're straightforward enough, but lmk if you know more than me & I'm actually being stupid in there somewhere. Alt text has the JPN, if you want to copypaste it or something). Someone asked:

Why is it that you established Garland as someone Sarah has a romantic interest in?

The answer is from Daisuke Inoue (director, one of 3; the other 2 are from Team Ninja; he's from Square Enix):

That was because, from a narrative standpoint, we wanted Sarah to be the kind of person who holds onto hope. You can imagine that she saw the "hope" to save the world in Jack, a potential Warrior of Light. Sarah is seen by her people as a symbol of a bright future, but if there were nobody to give her hope, that might destabilize her emotionally. As for whether she felt genuine love for Jack, or just mistook her feelings of admiration towards him for "first love," we'll leave that to your interpretation.

The first time I read this, I thought the question was implying the aforementioned Reciprocal Something, but on closer inspection that doesn't even seem to be true! "思い人" seems to indicate a directional relationship; as in, the question assumes that Jack is an object of affection to Sarah, but assumes nothing about what Jack thinks.

Also, the answer uses the word "初恋" (hatsukoi), which is a very established Concept as far as "first love" goes, but in that one cutscene, Sarah says "初めての恋" (hajimete no koi), which is. Different, but I couldn't tell you how, lol. It's Not The Exact Same Phrase, but I'm not sure whether it's meaningfully different in this context. If I had to guess, I'd say that IF ANYTHING it could be a way of saying "first love" without invoking the cultural CONSTRUCT of First Love (as much)? But it's whatever. The localization holds up. All sources show that Sarah had Feelings about Jack, and all sources CONSPICUOUSLY neglect to mention Jack's feelings about her.

It was on purpose. This is my license to be as annoying as I want for one second here. I am right. All the other writing in this game is notably subtle, efficient, intentional, and skilled, AND ALSO, WHEN do you ever see anyone write such a richly beautiful, mostly-subtextual relationship between two men, which can easily be read as a romantic thing, and NOT explicitly canonize a very possible romantic relationship between at least one of those men and a woman, like not even in an interview or anything. What the fuck, man.

I'm putting away the Respectable Scholar Hat now. This is so funny. The person asking this question didn't EVEN go as far as assuming Jack & Sarah had any kind of Actual Romance going on, & the answer STILL dials it back to "she might have been conflating her feelings about Jack AS A SYMBOL with actual affection, also. We'll let you decide : ) ". This game is everything ever.

[heartbeatlicense]

ok so there’s been a lot stuff going on today with multiple writers on here including myself finding out that our works have been reposted on wattpad without ANY of our permission. despite this specific account doing this for over a year by now, basically nobody was even aware of it until today.

there’s a bunch of things wrong about doing this but one specific thing this person said to justify it really ticked me off.

this is a really shitty excuse for taking the MULTIPLE works from writers to a whole different app where most of them aren’t even on.

the main point i wanted to make for this post is that if you want to have a place to store all the fics you like, the reblog function is such an easy way to do it. all you have do make a side blog (optional and very easy), reblog whatever you like, and add tags to make it easy to find again. it’s so simple and it benefits EVERYONE involved especially the writers.

artists and writers on this site have been saying this FOREVER, over and over again.

personally i LOVE it when people reblog my fics and add their own tags especially if it’s thoughts and commentary on what they had read. it’s highly motivating and it makes me feel like there’s actual community on here. doing this can really make a writer’s day.

this person also mentioned that going through their own likes is a basically a whiplash going from fluff to smut. the thing is… there’s already a solution for that. taggingggggg!!!! if you want fluff then reblog those fics with fluff tags. if you want smut, then reblog those fics with smut tags. etc. etc. etc. it ain’t that difficult.

for the offline reading part, that’s so fucking silly man i can’t. bro honestly i would’ve much rather preferred if this person copied and pasted my fics onto a private note or document for their own personal enjoyment. but noooo they had to copy me and other people’s entire stories PUBLICLY without even making sure that it was alright to do.

anyways to wrap this up, the account name is ohmyjung. unfortunately i don’t think there’s really a way to report them for this since it seems like wattpad really care more abt stealing from published works. so the best we can do right now is hope that this person takes everything down (even if apparently they’re blocking writers for confronting them????)

update: the evil has been rid of. round of applause for everyone’s hard work. my point still stands though. if you want to genuinely show appreciation a really good fan fiction you have read, then throw in a quick reblog. it means a lot

[tarithenurse]

Inhuman

Fandom: MCU Pairing: Bucky x fem!reader, eventually Loki x fem!reader, Stucky, more (some canon, some not). Word count: 2014. Contents: Surveillance, homeinvasion, boredom, longing, success. A/N: Spam-updating today as I'll be gone for almost a week with minimal chance to post. Any questions are welcome. Please comment and like and reblog. Let me know if you want a tag.

Chapter 20

... Reader’s PoV ...

The days snail by with little to distract your mind or lift the mood.

Daisy and another team have finished sorting out a new protected settlement for the Inhumans that have sought refuge with SHIELD. Only a few people know the actual location, and as the refugees are send off to their new home, the base gets quieter. They will have three full teams of agents to help protect them as well as a bunch of safety measures to fend off any intruders.

This of course leaves HQ with an eerily empty atmosphere despite the fact that there are added guards there too. They’re friendly people and you’ve gotten to know a few of them by first name. Even so, it’s hard not to feel like they’re around to keep you in rather than anyone else out.

Granted a few moments in the cafeteria with the director, you broach the subject tentatively. “I don’t wanna sound ungrateful for the protection...but when –”

“When you can go home?” He’s busy removing the raw onions from the salad side dish.

You nod. “It’s been almost a week.”

“I don’t suppose Vasiliev gave you a date for his next visit?” The sarcasm’s strong with this man. “Until we know you’re not running any risk by leaving you’ll have to stick it out. Y’know that.”

“And if he hasn’t in a month? Or three?”

But Coulson just shakes his head, gives you a soft smile that somehow isn’t pitying, then changes subject to cooking.

… …

The days are almost exactly alike after you were put in house arrest. You get up, train alone, shower, and have breakfast. Then there’s work (no need to take a day off as you’re forced to be around anyways) followed by sparring with whoever feels like it (so in other words you often end up on your own...again) before finally running out of distractions in the evening.

It’s one of those late evenings that you’re on your own in the break room when the phone beeps, alerting you to a presence home in the apartment. Accessing the feed, you see a shadow in the darkness of the living room, but without the glitters to help identify the person it takes a long time for you to realize it’s not Vasiliev or even just a burglar…at least you don’t think so because the intruder finds a pitcher and fills it with water and proceeds to try and salvage the few plants you’d acquired.

Momentarily flicking away from the feed, you follow a hunch that’s got the butterflies in your belly flapping about and send at text to Bucky’s old number in the hopes for the best. Flicking back, you watch…and watch...and finally, the person does pull out a cell phone illuminating the them in a sharp blue-ish light from the screen. Even if you can’t see the face clearly there’s only one person with a jawline like that who’d worry about the state of your home.

The answer beeps in, making you giggle. *Polo?*

Finger’s dance over the phone, creating a new text to Bucky. *Look up at the light fixture and wave.*

It’s still very, very wrong for someone to break into an apartment...the least he could’ve done was ring the doorbell first. That too, would have sent a message to your phone. You can see him type in a response after he’s done as asked.

*I take it you learned some tricks now you’ve entered the business.*

Before you’ve got time to think up something witty there’s a new message on the small screen, asking when you’ll be home.

*No clue. Been grounded. But feel free to come and visit me here. You can also explain you sneaking in and where you’ve been.*

*What’s that supposed to mean?* *The grounded part.*

Now the bastard’s made himself comfortable on the couch and is flicking through a book under the light of a little lamp in the corner like he owns the place. You’re mostly annoyed because you’re not there with him, having to watch through the surveillance how perfectly right it looks for him to lounge around there and it makes you want to be there with him more than you’d realized. Fuck, I’ve missed him. That, of course, you did actually know, but the pang of longing is breathtakingly powerful, making your fingers tingle with the need to write exactly that to him…but you don’t.

*Long story short: you’re not the only one who’s been snooping around. Other intruder was not welcome.*

Watching him on the feed’s like seeing a mime perform a series of emotions: surprise, worry, anger, but also curiosity are making him change his posture. Rather funny seeing as he should be a cold-ass assassin-spy-person.

A series of short questions and answers about your current state and the severity of the event follows before you get around to telling him about a bunch of letters waiting for him if he can find them, leading to a lapse in the communication where you can watch him type things and, supposedly, delete it again before finally getting a vague response about it “feeling weird to snoop like that”.

*Rich coming from a guy sitting in my couch when I’ve not even invited him in.*

*Good point. Be a good gal and don’t drive your nannies mad.*

Clapping the book together before getting up, he waves to the light fixture and the hidden camera before sauntering out of view. Switching the feed, you see him enter the storage room and moments later he leaves again with the bundle of letters which he tugs under the jacket as he exits the apartment.

...

Next time your phone goes off with an intruder alert, you’re lying in the bunk. Clicking on the phone, it’s not Bucky you can see, however. The shape’s thin and crooked, and even without you power you’d recognize him and the faintly glowing eyes anywhere. The way he sways from side to side, searching the empty room for traces of you, sends shiver down your spine in much the same way a big spider next to you would…but he disappears again into thin air without doing anything else.

You know what to do, and it only takes two rings before Coulson’s picked up the phone. “He appeared?”

“Yeah but hold your horses...he left again when he saw I wasn’t there.”

The disappointment’s almost audible, and you can imagine how the director must basically almost deflated. “We ought to send a team to recover any possible evidence –”

“No need to…he only stood in the same spot and didn’t touch anything, so there’ll be nothing to find. Get some sleep and we’ll go over this tomorrow, sir.”

“Fine, but don’t go anywhere.” As if I could even if I wanted to...I’m not the one that can teleport.

… …

Most of the morning has passed normally, considering that normal is starting to become a mild onset of cabin fever, until you’re sitting at breakfast. That’s when the interrogation starts. It’s not that bad really, but frankly there’s not a lot you can say that can bring them any further and so eventually you’re let off the hook again with the promise that Fitz can have a look at the feed to see if there’s anything you’ve missed.

On the way downstairs to the infirmary, you stop by the lab to give him access to the feed with strict orders only to look at that one feed (admittedly: apart from you coming home a bunch of times there’s only one extra, but you don’t want to share Bucky’s return with anyone else until he’s ready).

“Oi, before ye leave, [Y/N], I’ve tested out the Rosetta implant on rodents just to see if it’d cause any damage and so far it’s promising.”

“Still not a fan of Radcliffe’s work.”

“Bu’ his other inventions were rather brilliant and well thought through! C’mon! Just think about it...”

“...prep a file about the thing then. All of the work on it. No promises though.”

Scientists are a special breed, you muse as you walk out the lab, leaving Fitz scrambling frantically in an attempt to do two things at once.

...

Sadly, there’s nothing at all to do at work so at lunch Kate decides that you can take the rest of the day off. With nothing better left to do, you decide to go see if Mack’s back from the “Band Camp”, as everyone has started to call the Inhuman safe heaven.

Yes!

You can already hear the music playing even before you get close enough to sense him in the work shop where he often can be found tinkering with an engine or some other project of his. AC/DC....not a bad choice. He looks up from behind the motorbike he’s been getting ready for you under the pretense that it’ll be easier to navigate through the city than a car.

“Perfect timing!” That smile can always make a day better.

“Good to see you back. How’s it going with her?” Nodding towards the bike. Even for an amateur like you it’s clear that it’s a beauty.

“She’s ready to be taken for a spin.” He gets up while wiping his hands in a cloth that might actually be countering the intention he had for doing that. “Now, you just need to learn how to treat her right ‘cause I’ll be damned if you ruin my work on this baby.”

“Understood, sir. Let’s hope that there’s anyone competent to teach me.”

Adding the last bit might not have been wise...at least it causes the filthy cloth to sail straight towards your face. Good thing you’ve learned how to duck things from both Natasha and May.

...

Riding a motorbike’s in some ways easier than it seems yet just as you think you’ve gotten the hang of it and have it all figured out there’s something that makes it entirely different from anything else...at least if the only other references are riding bicycles or driving cars. The weight for one’s very obvious when trying to turn a corner or standing still, but you avoid tipping over even with the terribly slow pace and eventually Mack doesn’t look as worried anymore.

He beams proudly. “I’ve to get going so that’s it for today. Not bad though.” It sounds genuine enough.

He’s just about to pick up the last few tools when he stops mid motion staring at something behind you. Fuck. You’ve sensed it too. Someone just appeared, and you know exactly who it is.

Turning, you force yourself to greet the man. “Vasiliev.” You hate yourself for the weakness with which you utter the name.

Mack’s picking up a wrench, trying to keep his movements slow as if he doesn’t want to startle a wild animal. The comparison might not be that far-fetched but it’s not the man’s looks that are the worst...it’s the smell. The room’s quickly filling with the sweet, putrid stench of rotting flesh.

“You don’t need to hurt me.” The voice’s still raspy and guttural. “I have come freely, yes? You can keep me safe from him?”

“From whom?” Mack’s still holding on tightly to the wrench but has otherwise not done anything to cause alarm.

Even so, Vasiliev looks scared out of his mind and his eyes are darting around the room as he whispers almost inaudibly: “The Mad Titan”.

A bunch of people are running down the hallway towards the workshop and it’ll only be a few seconds before they’re there.

“Let’s take you to a safe spot. Don’t run and don’t fight.”

Vasiliev nods, slowly lifting his hands up above the head. They’re webbed (partially, at least) and the nails look more like claws extending from each bony finger, making them seem grotesquely long. In an instant he’s surrounded by people pointing guns at him but to his credit he doesn’t flinch...not even when he’s shot with a Stunner. After that it’s easy, though repulsive, to carry him to one of the white pods.