#and entirely unused to wanting someone else so bad that they're the ones who look stupid

[rxttenfish]

....... oh my god nyall do know that miravi goes through an oblivious lesbian phase right. i have told nyall that right.

like miranda comes off as more comfortable starting relationships but thats just when she considers it low risk/low value. its why i keep bringing up her technically being demiromantic, as she's still very willing to start flings and relationships with people she's not actually romantically interested in, because she finds them fun and entertaining and flirting is enjoyable for her. when she actually catches feelings thats an ENTIRELY different ballpark, since now she has something to lose and something that can be used against her, and even moreso because she's scared of damaging relationships she wants to keep by having romantic feelings and having the social needs of a merfolk. add in a ton of discomfort around real intimacy from her title and her life as a royal and miranda suddenly feels like all her prior experience with dating means nothing because none of it DID mean anything to her.

and aaravi has her own discomfort with intimacy and actually being open with her feelings, because she so closely connects that to weakness and things people can use to hurt her, and she is INTENSELY afraid that the second she lets someone in her life in a more permanent manner is the exact moment that they leave her. she's also still terrified of getting into a relationship with a monster, especially because of repeating the history her mom had with her dad, and about it not being real and something that doesnt mean anything to miranda in turn. her hypervigilance over her body and her actions and her thoughts also don't help and she's a chronic overthinker, that what she's going to say or do will instantly fuck up everything she's worked hard to have, and thats ESPECIALLY a fear when it comes to more personal and intimate things. likewise, whereas miranda has experience playing around with dating and flirting, aaravi has none of that experience, and it makes her feel like she's doomed for failure from the start without a chance to get good at it.

and both of them have a lot of internal self hate and a lot of constant feeling that if they're not the best and perfect then they're flawed and broken beyond repair and the worst. so they're likewise both feeling the worry that they'll personally be the ones to fuck it up and what the other will find underneath the surface will be something repulsive and bad, and both are VERY scared of hurting the other, accidentally or otherwise.

and mind you both of them are being very obvious about their attraction to each other and flirting with each other and even going on dates (even though neither of them will CALL them dates), and its just a disaster all around. they're disaster lesbians. they're not even being subtle about it everyone can tell theyre blushing and falling over each other and everyone is just waiting for them to finally kiss and neither of them has caught on that the other feels the same way.

[confessionsofa-roleplayer]

Is it morally ok to RP someone else's OC with adaptations to 'make them more your own'? Long story short, my main OC was created as part of a DND campaign with people that are just acquaintances. Not super close or anything, but we're friendly enough and played a campaign together. It was fun. I wanted to continue writing as this character after the fact, but my character wouldn't work or be the same without all of the story and relationships I'd built over the campaign. Since then, one of my party members killed off their character. The other stopped playing their character entirely and wrote him off as just having gone away on a journey. They now write other characters. Only one of my party members still plays their character from that campaign.

None of them know about my Tumblr RP, since they're all mainly in their 30's or 40's and don't rp on social media. Just DND or MMORPGs. (I'm in my 20's, for clarification)

I feel guilty sometimes that I've taken aspects of their characters, including design choices, classes/races, etc, and made them into my own. There are some personality similarities too, but I've modified them a bit to fit with my adapted lore of our campaign and make them balance my character's flaw and personality as well as my writing style even better. They aren't carbon copies, but they are similar enough that if they saw my versions either in art or writing, they'd recognize them as derived from their OCs. Feels kindof bad not being able to show my "fanart" essentially of their characters to them, since they were huge inspirations to me, but I'm just terrified of a bad reaction.

Am I doing the wrong thing? Am I stealing? Or am I within fair use? I honestly do not know and the line is super blurry. Makes me feel really conflicted about the world I've built and the character development I've done on my own.

This... is a really morally grey area, anon.  And I don’t think you’re going to like what I have to say about it.  

Speaking as someone who plays DnD (as well as other similar-styled games) I wouldn’t be happy to find out someone from a former campaign was writing as a character I’d spent time and effort creating - especially without my consent.  I wouldn’t be raging or anything, but I would absolutely be upset that I wasn’t consulted first.  Now, if you’re not writing as them, and your character just thinks/reminisces about them now and then, that’s not a big deal to me.  But if you were to take my character and turn them into your own OC or an NPC that appears in your RPs, that would seriously bother me.

And consider - if you did the same thing in the RPC with an old / unused / abandoned OC muse that wasn’t yours, how do you think the person who created the muse would react?  And why is a character someone created via DnD any different?  

So in that regard, from my own personal standpoint, yes, I think you made an unwise choice.  I also think you know that already, since you yourself state your own fear and guilt surrounding the situation.

I would say you have a couple of options at this point, anon, if you’re looking for a way to assuage your guilt:

You can alter these characters to the point where they’re completely unrecognizable to the people who created them.

You can retroactively ask for permission, and if they say ‘no’ you’ll have to do something to remove that character from your RP world.

Neither of these options is an easy one, but I really don’t think you should keep things as they are.  And I think you already know that.  My feeling is you need to stop trying to justify your actions, accept that you made a poor choice, and start trying to fix that choice.

Then again, I won’t deny that this hits a little close to home for me.  So, maybe our followers will have different opinions/ideas on this topic than I do? Would anyone else like to weigh in on the anon’s situation?

~ Mod MJ ~

[snowbazzle-dazzle]

This is?? kinda specific?? but can you write something where they're still at school but no one's seen Simon in a few days and Baz is rly worried and then in the middle of the night he just hears the door open and Simon is there all cut up and bruised and starved bc he was kidnapped by the humdrum for whatever reason and was like tortured by him and then Baz, being the Protective Boyfriend™ that he is, helps care for Simon and cuddles with him and comforts him and stuff? 😬

this was super specific but also super adorable, so,,, here you are! i wrote this in like, 45 minutes without any proofreading or editing, so sorry if it’s trash and thanks for the inspiration!

When Simon had first gone missing, Baz thought nothing of it. It wasn’t exactly normal for him to go somewhere for days at a time, it wasn’t un-normal. He, like everyone else, just assumed that the Chosen One was finally getting his chance to go on a quest with The Mage, who had also been gone for days. Watford was filled with whispers.

The seed of doubt was planted in him when The Mage returned; without Simon. He assured everyone that Simon would be back soon, but Baz wasn’t an idiot. He could see the uncertainty in the man’s beady eyes.

Thus, it began. For days, he waited for Simon to return to Watford. Though he would never admit it, their room felt empty without him in it, as if Baz was sucking the life out of it, the leftover life Simon Snow had left behind.

At every meal, he watched the doors, half expecting the git to march in and start stealing scones out of the oven before they were ready, the way he’d done in their first year. It never happened, of course. Simon was nowhere to be found.

He interrogated Penelope on the sixth day. “Just out of curiosity, where is our brave young hero?” he asked, taking a nonchalant seat beside her in the dining hall. The poor girl had been eating alone this past week, with even Wellbelove locking herself in her room for meals.

“You think I would be here if I knew?” she snapped, picking at her roast beef.

“What, you expect me to believe that Snow left without telling you where he was going?” Baz laughed. “I have a hard time believing he goes to the toilet without letting you know, Bunce.”

Penelope didn’t look amused, however. Something in her face made him stop laughing.

“I’m not saying he left without telling me,” she said slowly, not making eye contact. “I’m saying he might have never gotten the chance.”

What she was saying dawned on him slowly, and his stomach sank. “You think he was… taken?”

“I don’t know anything for certain,” she said. “All I know is that nobody knows where he is, his phone has stopped even ringing when I call, and he’s been gone for six days.”

That was all Baz needed to hear to confirm his worst suspicion - and most terrible fear. He could feel his heart clenching with the reality of the situation, could feel his intestines tying themselves in knots.

Simon Snow had to be alright. If he wasn’t, what hope did that leave for the rest of them?

Instead of saying that, though, he said, “Good. We could all use a little less heroism in our lives,” and walked away.

                                                        ***

That night, he lay awake for hours, trying to gather the will to hunt but failing to do so. The catacombs were so dark and cold, and Baz wasn’t sure if he could take another dark and cold night.

Another Simon-less night.

                                                        ***

Nobody noticed Baz slowly receding, not even Dev and Niall. Nobody noticed the way he stopped talking in lessons and started gazing out the window instead, nobody noticed the way he ate less and spoke less and joked less. Nobody even noticed when he got back an exam full of red pen marks and ‘See me’ written across the top, which hadn’t happened to Baz Pitch in all his years at Watford.

Nobody except Penelope. She knew the feeling too well.

                                                       ***

When Simon finally came back, it was the middle of the night, and Baz was awake.

He hadn’t been sleeping enough recently, and it showed. The bags beneath his eyes were gigantic and he looked even paler than usual. His only company in the dark room was the draft.

Then, suddenly, the door flew open.

“Shit,” said a familiar voice.

The door closed more softly than it had opened, and sounds of loud scuffling filled the room. For a moment, Baz dared not open his eyes.

What if he opened them and it wasn’t Simon? He dared not hope.

But he knew it was Simon when there was a crash from the bathroom and another loud curse. The air filled with the scent of smoke. It curled around him like a lost pet found again, comforting and familiar.

Baz had no time to bask in it, though, because he was throwing back the covers and bounding out of bed. He was running for the bathroom, grasping for the lights, he had to see Simon-

And there, looking washed out under the fluorescent bathroom lights, stood Simon Snow.

He looks terrible, thought Baz, before he crushed him in his arms.

He really did look terrible. His skin was pale and bruised, his hair matted with dirt and blood. He had tiny cuts all along his arms that he suspected were deeper than they looked, and his eyes were shiny with tears. But none of that mattered as Simon reached up to hold Baz in an equally tight embrace, because Simon Snow was here, and Simon Snow was safe.

To Baz’s alarm, his thin body began to shake. Simon went limp in his arms, both from injury and exhaustion. Baz held him up, held him steady.

(It was easier now that he was so skinny. He had always been underweight, but this was ridiculous.)

“Simon…” he said.

Simon just shook his head and held on tighter. And he hated himself for it, but a part of Baz liked this, liked having Simon need him. Liked feeling needed.

They stood in the doorway to their bathroom, two enemies clutching at each other fiercely. Two boys.

Slowly, Baz loosened his hold on the other boy, but didn’t let go entirely. Simon didn’t feel stable enough to stand on his own. He led him to the edge of the shower and sat him down on the edge of it.

“No, no, ‘s alright,” Simon was mumbling.

“We’re just going to clean you up, Simon,” said Baz. “You’re always a bloody mess, Snow, but this is ridiculous.”

Oddly enough, Simon seemed to listen to him. He stopped struggling and let the warm water run over his head, down his back, wash the filth off his body and down the drain.

They sat there for a long time, letting the water wash him, before Baz realized they were holding hands. His cheeks flushed and he tried to pull his hand away, but Simon just tightened his grip.

A long silence followed.

“Aren’t you going to ask me where I was?” said Simon finally. His voice was so weak it made Baz want to cry.

“I was getting to that,” he said.

Simon let out a shuddery breath. “I was… was…” he clutched Baz’s hand like a lifeline, “… with the Humdrum.”

Baz inhaled sharply, looking at Simon’s beat up body in a new light. The Humdrum had done this?

He would kill him. Her. It. Whatever The Humdrum was, Baz would kill it.

“He- he did the thing where he… sucked me away. Except this time, I was alone, and I didn’t know what to do, and before I could think he was holding me down and hurting me-” he cut off with a sharp sob, and Baz bumped Simon’s shoulder with his own. A comfort bump.

“At first… it wasn’t so bad. I thought I would wait until he got tired and then r-run for it… but he never got tired… the opposite. The more he hurt me, the s-stronger he got.”

“You don’t have to talk about it,” said Baz softly, though his soft voice did little to disguise the fact that he was already plotting to murder the Humdrum. For hurting Simon, the creature would pay.

But right now, Simon didn’t need murderous intent. He needed someone to be there. And Baz was the only one around.

“I want to talk about it,” he said, stubbornly. Baz chuckled and nodded for him to go on.

Simon flushed. “There’s actually… there’s not much more to the story.”

“How did you get away?” he asked.

A new darkness dawned on his sunrise face. “He tried to kill me. He hurt me before, but never came close to killing me. Then, all of a sudden, he… he tried, and I went off. And somehow I wound up here.”

“Home,” said Baz, sounding a bit stiff to his own ears, a bit unused to this… kind way of speaking. “You wound up home.”

Simon seemed to search his eyes for something, and seemed to find whatever he was looking for, because he leaned his head on Baz’s shoulder and sighed. His head was warm and heavy. Baz was afraid to move and scare him away.

“Is that what this is?” he asked. “Home?”

This time, it was Baz who searched Simon’s face. He saw many things in that face that he knew so well, many things even he had never seen before. But one thing was missing. Hatred.

There was no hate in Simon Snow’s face when he looked at Baz. The thought filled him with warmth.

“Yeah,” he whispered, putting an arm around Simon and holding him even closer to his side. “You’re home, Simon.”