#hope you read the tags anon - idk why it was easier for me to write those than the post itself

[flowersforvax]

yeah i don't think the migration will have much of an immediate impact

but i'm worried more if other celebs and advertisers start making accounts here

and tumblr changing the ui or something to monetize the platform....that's terrifying to me

And you know, that's fair, absolutely - I just don't care for the twitter user panic I've been seeing ("oh no! the annoying people are coming back!" Sir, this is the annoying people website)

You're right, i can definitely see more brands and celebrities coming here but I just. I guess i'm just holding onto the hope the last months of changes to tumblr gave me; call me naive but it really seems like this last takeover gave the tumblr staff the freedom to finally listen to the users - as far as they can do that while also keeping the lights on - so. Knock on wood they're gonna keep doing that with shoelaces and crabs

[acid-ixx]

I have a question, well 2 questions to be exact that’s been rattling around in my head since I started reading platonic yandere batfam fics, why would reader stay in Gotham? I’d be sneakily stealing as much money as I could without getting caught as soon as I reach a “fuck these guys” mentality. Like, asking to have some money for groceries or something and just pocketing it so that I could get a bus ticket and leave the city. Would you do it if you were reader? It just makes sense to me “this place sucks, these people suck, I’ve gotten enough to leave”, this is with me assuming that reader has the means of course, if the reader doesn’t then okay, yeah that makes sense

And my second question, do you ever feel resentful towards Alfred when you read batfam photonic yandere content? I do sometimes, especially when the reader is neglected. I know this might sound odd but when I read these fics I recognize that Alfred could do more, out of everyone in the manner, I think Alfred’s word carries the most weight, especially with Bruce due to him raising Bruce. I also notice in some batfam fics that the reader doesn’t get mad at him due to him giving them attention, but idk it feels kinda like a slap to the face, knowing that I don’t have the power but he does and yet not exercising it until I’ve burned every last tie to that family.

I know my thoughts are a more “well you’re on the outside looking in” type takes, but idk, it hurts my heart knowing that if reader stays in that city, it will be far more easier for the batfam to find them, where if they were outside the city, they’d have a fighting chance to make a new life for themselves

On a side note, I think we are underutilizing the angst potential of reader legally changing their name and the batfam not knowing until months or even years later when reader leaves. Like Bruce and the fam would just have to sit and realize that reader hates/dislikes/doesn’t care about them enough to legally change their name from Wayne to whatever reader chooses. Jason was Batman’s greatest failure, but Reader would be Bruce’s greatest failure, and what a delightful public failure it would be if the tabloids were to somehow find out that one of Bruce Wayne’s biological children changed their legal name

I’m loving your batfam content btw, like it makes me want to create one of those “screw therapy, I need to fist fight my dad” tiktoks and tag Bruce Wayne, that’s what I can phenomenal writing!! And sorry for making this so long! Hope you have a great existence!

slight spoilers for future chapters.

this is one of my favorite asks... anon, you are so brilliant because your two questions tie into the reader's character so well and the flaws that they (you) conjured from years of neglect, so i hope my answers would suffice (i am answering based on the perspective of the reader from my series: again & again with a bit of my own perspective). tysm for sending this in, i actually really enjoy long asks and appreciate it when people take the time to send me these things!

why would the reader stay in gotham?

chapter one wasn't all the detailed about why they stayed in gotham. firstly, their self-worth had them reason that in no way, shape, or form would their family that basically estranged them would come running to them, especially not when the only time the reader could even stumble across them is by some miracle of coincidence. this also ties into their lack of knowledge about their family. sure, they know that babs is the oracle but do they know just how much access she has across gotham? not really. they know tim, like bruce, has a tendency to collect information about other people, but they don't know that they have contingency plans to be creeped out enough to get away from gotham and from their reach.

"it's not like tim or bruce or barbara considered you important enough to be stalked. hah, as if!"

and the third point is, despite bruce being a billionaire of some sort, it was stated that the reader was too well-behaved and quiet. how does this make sense? as you've stated, they wouldn't simply have the means to get out. seeing as they were sheltered by alfred and never really explored the concept of traveling far away, they never asked for money; the only advantage of being a wayne is having quite a lot of things served on a silver platter.

they have this sort of toxic bond for staying with the people who have hurt them and it materialized to them physically staying despite knowing it would only cause more pain than anything else, and they don't know that. plus, they'd rather not have the wayne name associated with them and getting money from cheques or credit cards would be too risky for the reader's safety.

they've only realized just how shitty their family is after more than 10-13 years of staying in the manor, and saving up to move to an entirely different place would be difficult, alongside college and the jobs they have to take. so the next best thing they could do is rely on any means of advantage they could get whilst also moving on to the path of self-discovery and recovery.

but that doesn't mean they're staying in gotham forever, definitely not. the moment the reader realizes that dick gained some sort of interest towards them, they're booking it out of gotham. preferably to metropolis or central city or even somewhere far, far away— they're naive, but not stupid. sudden interest towards them means danger rather than anything else. and they're aware that alfred is capable enough to pull strings, so that's why spoiler alert: they have a secret stash of money hidden somewhere and like any children of bruce, they inherited the capability to be smart enough to already back up their contacts and everything on their phone, buy a burner phone and even change their entire identity in one quick go right after they move into an entirely different city or country.

gotham is merely their practice course.

do you ever feel resentment towards alfred?

quite frankly, yes. the reader in the fic feels resentment towards everyone for a reason actually, but alfred's part was stated vaguely as to not spoil a future chapter that focuses on his perspective. they know that he has the more power inside the manor more than bruce has. everyone, and i mean everyone respects alfred, and it doesn't take a genius to know that if you mess with him, you're messing with an entire family of crime fighters.

it's not obvious, but the reader's narrative in chapter one is them trying so hard to delude themself into thinking things can be better until it's too late. so in a sense, there's false narrative coming into play.

"alfred would be too busy sometimes to attend your school ceremonies because he had to assist bruce with missions. of course, you understood his priorities. after all, he tried his hardest to make you feel less lonely inside the mansion, it wasn't enough but he was there at least."

at some point in time, alfred had also neglected the reader emotionally with the same reasoning as the others; he was busy with their father. and this all could've been avoided if alfred had tried to confront the entire family about it. i'm not delving deeper into this to really avoid spoilers other than pointing out some details in the first chapter.

just know that alfred relishes in your newfound favoritism towards him, and that he may or may not have pulled some strings himself from helping you become closer to the family.

the part about reading changing their name from (name) wayne to (name) (last name) is what made me so drawn to this ask. you have pretty much predicted one of the chapters that explored (name) wayne to the public eye. they're not so much of an internet celebrity because of their rare appearances in public, but that's what causes immense curiosity about their identity to uprise in gotham, and their fame was one of the means to get to you.

there was one news article published that was the reason that made bruce distant towards you.

but let's focus on what yan! bruce would've felt once he turns a full 360.

because the first thing he would do once he has you in his grasp is to change your last name back to his. you are not the child of a (last name), you are a wayne first and foremost, bruce's third child and his greatest mistake, quite literally. you were a product of a one-night-stand, and because he was drowning in despair from jason's death, he had failed to notice you. all his years of neglect, and he doesn't even know a single thing about you, simply because he refused to acknowledge your presence.

and you rightfully hated him, he should've accepted that. but your diary entries and the way you innocently thought of him destroyed any sliver of hope for a peaceful reconciliation. he hates how you were experiencing the same type of despair as him when it comes to battling your own monsters— you truly are a wayne at heart. he couldn't afford to let you get away any further. just like dick, he needs to fix it now or further sever the already broken ties you have with him.

it's not batman now, but rather bruce. bruce wayne had failed to save another one of his children, not as a vigilante, but as a father.

knowing bruce, he's quick to take into action and search for you.

holy shit, this is a really long post but i hope it does answer the questions ! im so grateful that you like my writing enough to write a really long ask, and i hope to see your messages more once the new chapters are published <3

[lilredghost]

Tagged by @ragnarlothcat (hey I hope you feel better soon! I am making you soup and lending you my favourite blanket!!) and @wibzenadarksiderwithasoftheart

1.) How many works do you have on ao3?

Technically 9 but it's really 8. I don't exactly count all tied up in knots as mine (more on this later)

2.) What's your ao3 word count?

82,315, excluding the fic above. I don't think I'll make it to 100k before the year is out, but it would be cool if I did

3.) What fandoms do you write for?

Just Star Wars, actually. I thought about writing fic in my last big fandom (The Witcher), but I didn't really feel motivated to write until SW. My first fic was actually DinLuke, but then I fell in love with the Prequels!

4.) What are your top five fics by kudos?

Tank Top - This is the DinLuke one! I guess it's in the lead cause it's got a 1-year headstart on everything else, maybe

Their fragrance came from you - Sir, that's my emotional support fic! I love this one to death, seriously. I know I kinda made my brand on kinky sex fics and this is very much not that, but...

Blindfold me (I'm the only witness) - I do feel like this one kinda embodies Obikin's insanity tbh. Weird boundary-crossing sex for sure

Lace Me Up, Hold Me Tight - Subby Obi-Wan in a healthy relationship my beloved <3

You can call me baby (You can call me love) - My first Obikin fic. Near and dear to my heart. Stands the test of time, I think. It's mostly just very sweet

5.) Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes, absolutely! I didn't used to, but now I try to reply to all of them, even if it's just with a few heart emojis.

A lot of the times when I read fic, I like to browse the comments to see speculation from other readers and what the author has to say about it.

Sooo I guess I reply to comments to spark conversation! I think it makes it a bit easier to ask questions / engage with the material as a reader, because they know I'll try to answer as best I can (and I do!!)

6.) What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

None of them!!! I don't believe in unhappy endings. Life is hard enough as it is

7.) What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I mean, they all have happy endings. But maybe Take Care of Me, Please? The idea of being loved and taken care of unconditionally is very appealing to me. I guess that's not surprising

8.) Do you get hate on fics?

Not directly on the fics themselves, but I have gotten, at this point, several anons criticising my writing and my fics here on tumblr. It's kind of exhausting because I feel like the obikin community itself seems so nice but SOMEONE is sending me these anons and it could really be anyone. It kind of makes me jump at shadows a little bit?

It's probably someone I don't know, rather than someone playing nice to my face and then sending me shit behind my back, but... What if it isn't? :(

9.) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Yep yep yep. Like I said, that's where I started. I'm sure people who subscribed to me were disappointed when I started Their fragrance came from you and Obikin didn't have sex for like... 40k words

I've done a little bit of a lot of different kinks, I think. Lingerie, somno, humiliation, boot worship, lactation, daddy kink... There are a couple I really wanna do still (pet play, body swap, etc), but at the same time I kind of want to do more of the ones I've already done? So idk, we'll see where it goes

10.) Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Noooope. I'm very interested in AUs, but I'm just not interested in crossovers

11.) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nah, I think that mostly happens to bigger authors, and I'm pretty new. I haven't noticed anything of mine anywhere else, but I also don't spend a lot of time on other fansites these days

12.) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Also no! It's a dream of mine, a little bit, but at the same time I see why no one would be particularly interested in translating anything I've written so far. No biggie

13.) Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Okay this one is mixed. I have participated in round robins in an obikin server (that's what all tied up in knots is), but there was never any real commitment to writing those things. It was just based on whoever was free and had inspiration. I've actually been thinking I'll take my name off all tied up in knots, cause I don't particularly see that going anywhere, and I feel weird taking credit for it

HOWEVER. I would love to write a collab with someone I know. I'm not sure if I'd be any good at it, but I'd try!

14.) What's your all time favorite ship?

I do feel like it has to be Obikin. I'm honestly a multishipper when it comes to Obi-Wan, but I got tired of all the anti-Jedi sentiment in some of the popular pairings (which is the same problem I had with DinLuke), so now I stick mostly to Jangobi/Kenfetti and Obikin.

15.) What's a WIP you'd like to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Disregarding the whole round robin fic, I really do hope to finish all of them. Keeping this section optimistically blank!

16.) What are your writing strengths?

Hm... this question took me longest to come up with an answer. I guess it's worldbuilding and smut (which are sort of on opposite ends of the spectrum, lol)

Worldbuilding obviously is more of a thing in longer fics, but I feel like even in smaller ones I'm able to incorporate background details that I'm dangerously fond of. For example, the super soft blanket Obi-Wan is very territorial over in You can call me baby (You can call me love) is a gift from Ahsoka. And in Your Body, Superimpose It On Me, Anakin's Padawan braid is in an ornate glass box on Obi-Wan's nightstand, and Obi-Wan takes a moment to, like, caress the designs on the box every day.

17.) What are your writing weaknesses?

Well... I can only really write according to the mood I'm in. This was not a problem for a year or two there as I wrote shorter fics, but then I started writing Their fragrance came from you... At first, I was super depressed and so was Obi-Wan. And then the tone got lighter as I started feeling better. But then, you know, I have several chapters where the characters are supposed to be happy and light-hearted and suddenly I'm depressed again and I can't write the next chapters of my fic and then I get more upset about it because it's really important to me and it just becomes kind of a vicious cycle of feeling bad and not writing.

Maybe I need a separate sort of vent fic for when I'm upset? But again, I don't like unhappy endings. And if it has to get better at some point, then I'll have a hard time writing that unless I'm actually feeling better. If that makes sense.

18.) Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Sooo I do definitely borrow words from other languages, but I always explain them first, and they're usually more like... concepts or objects that are specific to that culture. Of course the character is thinking/speaking those words in that language; there is no translation!

I've never had a reason to have whole sentences of dialogue be in different languages, but I guess if there was a fic which needed that, I wouldn't necessarily mind doing it? But the default is writing everything in english, because, yknow, the fic is in english

19.) First fandom you wrote for?

Okay I WAS gonna say that I already answered this with the dinluke thing. But I do remember writing fanfiction for Dinosaur King which (thankfully) never saw the light of day...

20.) Favorite fic you've ever written?

I feel like, as my only longfic, that's gotta be Their fragrance came from you. I know a lot of people write it off immediately because it's a/b/o (or even because it's supposed to be alpha Obi-Wan), but to me it's got everything. Enemies to lovers. Fun side characters. Pining. Battles. Betrayal. Romance. Sex. Even anti-heteronormativity!

To me it feels very much like I set out to (overambitiously) write an epic, and somehow I'm succeeding. I'm not saying it's the best fic that's ever been written, but it's far exceeded any expectations I had for it when I started.

Bonus: What fic would you want to rewrite one day?

Not necessarily rewrite, but I do wanna do edits to Lace me up, because the first few chapters are just not up to a comfortable standard of writing for me. And I'd be okay with leaving it that way if it was a standalone, but I really like its sequel. Plus I have some ideas for other fics in that series, so it would kind of put all that up to scrutiny again if/when I post a third installment

Tagging

Some of my friends already did this one and I'm not EXACTLY sure who has/hasn't been tagged yet, but (if you want): @anakinsthot @demon----dean @fishnamedsushi @secretsolarsystem

[grollow]

Hi, hello. Same Anon who sent the first ask. Just came by to say thank you so so SO much for taking your time to answer my ask in details and I appreciate it loads. Your long explaination is so SO beautifully well-written (like seriously, you're so good with words. How are you not writing your own book yet-???).

That being said I'm still unsure I'll warm up to it just yet. Since I've recently got into HK, I'd like to test the waters with other ships and see what sticks and what doesn't. That and I'm hesitant to try it cuz I've had... traumatic experiences with popular ships in the past with other fandoms and it left me scarred so...yeah. BUT thanks to your explanation and from others, I can definitely DEFINITELY understand the appeal and unspoken potential it has and I can and WILL respect you Grollow shippers for your passion and dedication to it ^^

Also I'd like to apologize again for causing so much trouble for you with the other Anons with my ask. I really never meant for things to get so out of hand with it. I'm genuinely sorry.

On a lighter note tho, when you mentioned 'vessel for the radiance' , I thought back to a lovely AU fic in AO3 with the same name and funnily enough, the MC in that fic is the son of the Radiance and technically the nephew of Grimm whom is arranged to be married to Hollow as a 'peace treaty'. Idk why but that was the random thought that popped into my head when you said it ^^;

Ah, you didn't cause me any problems, anon! All you did was show me why the asks I've received in the past were so frustrating. Tone and intent really makes all the difference. Don't worry!

Write book... (Sweats profusely and stares openly at Blinding, which I haven't touched in a few days) ... Uhhh (gulp)

Every time you call Grollow popular I have to do a double take. I guess it kind of is the most popular ship involving both characters, but in the scope of what I consider popular, I see so much more of certain other ships (Lacenet in particular, but I also see tons of Palewatcher-- both of which I support ftr, so this is not a complaint-- as well as Quirrel/the Knight) that I never really considered it to BE a popular one. Especially considering how dead our tag is on AO3 (lighting a candle and saying a prayer for the swift return).

If I'm being honest with you, I don't think it's a good idea to write something off just because you are intimidated by the way that fandom handles it, even though past experiences make that easier. I know that instinct -- I come from animanga background, trust me, I KNOW it well -- but at the end of the day, you might be limiting yourself. For a long time, I avoided fandom entirely as a result of that, and sometimes I think I was happiest when I was full gremlin not speaking to anyone churning out fics from the heart. I wouldn't trade my friends for the world but there's a certain inner peace that comes with connecting with fandom the way that YOU want to. It involves liberal use of the block button and blacklisting tags but it does, in the end, make the internet a more enjoyable place to be.

Whether or not you come around to shipping Grollow, though, I hope I've at least shown you that our side of the fandom doesn't bite. You're welcome in my inbox any time.

I've not read that fic! Maybe I'll give it a shot. When my massive pile of back reading is done. Sweats. I'm drowning under the weight of all the things I want to read while writers block beats me up and calls me names behind Applebee's.

[alarrytale]

He's sending out mixed signals. Since he's not naturally stereotypically gay presenting, like Louis is for example, he's not even recognised as gay by his own community. It's his own community calling him out. His fellow queers.//

That’s exactly why I will always have doubts about his sexuality while Louis is basically my comfort person because no matter that he has whole ass kid as his stunt for years, I have never questioned his sexuality because of his flamboyance and mannerism. When I’m worried about H, I look at Louis and his “I love him, I hate it” or just seeing him performing his love songs about H and it immediately comfort me that everything’s alright and they are alright and still the same. But when I look at H himself, he’s just too straight passing to make me stop wondering and questioning about his sexuality. And makes me worry what kind of stunt shenanigans he’s willing to do to keep appearing straight to gp. And even when queers, his own community, is feeling like they need to call him out, that’s just something…idk, but I would expect at least them to some kind of protect him. Please don’t come at me for this, but I’m someone who’s larrie for short time and before that I never thought about H other way than that he’s simply straight and just into extravagant clothes. Diving into main larries’ blogs and Harry’s sexuality tag caused some sort of revelation for me and it was like 5 mins before I became Louis’ fan and slipped into the larry rabbit hole at the same moment. I understand that H and Louis’ closets are very different because their careers and fame is different, but I’m just worried that altho H might fought to be where he is with his queercoding and being himself, I’m still skeptical about him and worried that he will go into some lavender marriage etc because it will be easier and better for his career than idk be officially “single” for at least an year without having rumours that he hooks up with every woman in his 2m radius.

Being new larrie will always have 2 layers of worries for me. 1st layer if they are still together and 2nd layer if they aren’t together, what if H actually end up with some woman as a way of giving up after year and years of fighting and staying in his closet until the end of times.

Ugh, I’m sorry if my thoughts are all over the place but I hope you’ll understand what I wanted to write.

Hi, anon!

I think it's so funny because i feel like most of this fandom has the opposite problem in reading H and L's sexuality. They read H as gay/bi no problem (even non-larrie harries do!), but they don't recognise it as easily in Louis.

I've said this before, but Louis has naturally stereotypically gay mannerisms, but he's masking it by presenting an overly masculine and laddy persona. With Louis you need to catch him unawares and in comfortable settings for him to relax enough to show himself as he is. He can also get away with singing i love him i hate it, without it being tabloid fodder. The gp won't know.

With H he needs to put on an exaggerated flamboyant persona to make people get what he's trying to put down. He's straight passing, so he needs to double down on the queercoding and femininity for people to get the picture. Some people read his doubling down as him being gender non-conforming or a very femme gay man sleeping in silk negligees. He might be, but i just read it differently.

I think they're together and have been all this time. I don't know how to assure you other than showing you the repeated patterns of behaviour and try to make you see past the stunts and heavy gaslighting. They're both proud gay men trying to survive and be themselves as much as possible in a hostile environment trying to surpress their real personalities to make their label money. I don't think H and L will ever stop fighting, or making their work environment better for themselves. Harry has gotten gayer and gayer on stage. So has his songs. I think his next album will be assuring to you. There will most likely be songs in respons to fitf there. It will be fun hearing his side of the story!

[illicitlimerence-writes]

my favorite place | d. ricciardo

pairing: daniel ricciardo x journalist!reader word count: 1.8k words. request: yes/no by an anon: "hi, can you do prompt 12 with daniel where reader is a journalism writer and she was so tired that she came home to the living room full of snacks, mcdonalds and disney+" i decided to use another prompt for this, i hope u don't mind! it's still the same plot, though prompt: low on money/homemade date from this prompt list. warnings: language. a/n: you get this one a bit early bc i'm a dumbass and posted it instead of scheduling it. idk if you've noticed from my previous fics but lately i've been loving the nickname 'lovie' and i intend to keep on using it lmao. PLEASE DON'T SEND REQUESTS FROM THE VALENTINE'S PROMPT LIST. i'll tag all the fics as illicitvalentine's so it's easier to keep track of them.

my masterlist / valentine's day masterlist

(plsss i'm so whipped for this man)

"(y/n), paul is out sick, can you cover for him?" your supervisor asks you.

"uhh, what do you need?" you stop typing on your computer, lifting your head to look at him.

"can you finish his article? the one about the politician's scandal?"

"politician? liam, i write about movies, this is way out of my league," you explain, opening the doc your coworker was working on. "this is going to take me hours to finish."

"sorry, kid, i don't have anyone else. tell you what, you focus on this one and i'll let someone else handle your assignments,”

“no! no, i don’t want someone else to finish mine, i’ll get everything done today,” you turn your back to him, spinning in your chair so you are facing your computer.

“that’s why you’re the best, thanks,” he says, leaving you alone to stress over the amount of work you had to do.

first thing, though, is texting your boyfriend to cancel your plans.

‘have to work late today. someone got sick and liam’s making me cover for him. i’m sorry, raincheck?’

since it was valentine's day, you and daniel had decided to stay home and cook dinner together to celebrate. but since you didn't know what time you'd be home, it was better to move it for another day.

you place your phone on the desk, sighing and rubbing the sides of your temples with your fingers. you take a deep breath, saving all your documents and opened tabs. you went to paul’s profile and opened his latest assignment, reading through his notes and the intro of his article, something about a politician denying human rights and people starting a riot in one of his rallies.

you feel sick to your stomach, this was exactly why you didn’t like writing this sort of topic, it was incredibly difficult to remain neutral when all you wanted to do was point out everything they did wrong.

you prefer to share with the world your love of films, of new opportunities and dreams that came true. of course, there was controversy as well, but you were allowed to give your opinion on those. not here, though.

your phone buzzes, and you look down, unlocking it and reading the text daniel wrote.

‘that sucks, darling:( don’t worry, let me know when you’re done and on your way home, x’

‘i will. love you.’

‘love you, so so much more, baby. don’t stress and overwork yourself too much, i need you.’

‘stop, i’m crying. ily.’

you don’t realize you’re smiling until you see your reflection on the black screen of your phone once you lock it. even just texting with dan helps you to clear your mind for a bit before diving back into a world you’re not too excited to know.

you type and type, getting lost in the sick and gruesome reality of the world you live in. you try your hardest to hurry up and finish it, but once you let yourself take a break and eat something, it’s already 4pm and everyone’s sending in their articles and research for approval. you sigh, munch on your food as you read over everything you had so far. it was pretty much done, you just needed to edit it and send it over to your supervisor. after that, you could finally finish your own projects.

it was a hard shift, from human rights to reviewing a film. but you were extremely happy once you finally had the thumbs up that the article was finished and you could go back to your own little bubble of movies and stories.

“hey, (y/n), some of us are heading to the bar down the street, you coming?” a sports journalist, brenda, asks you, smiling.

“thank you, but i’m not finished yet,” you hadn’t even realized that it was 6pm already, everyone was heading home now.

“what do you mean? you’ve been working nonstop all day, the sound of your keyboard is all everyone heard the whole day,” you smile, you loved the typewriter-style keyboard that daniel had gifted you when you started working for this magazine.

“i had to cover for paul,” you explain, “it was a hard piece for me, so it took most of my day. liam offered to hand my assignments to someone else but,” you shake your head.

“no one knows movies quite like you do,” she nods, agreeing with you. “well, good luck. i’ll see you tomorrow, happy valentine’s,” she smiles, waving her hand.

“happy valentine’s,” you whisper, sighing, you turn on your phone screen just so you could see your valentine.

a picture of daniel at the italian gp, covered from head to toe in champagne. he had this huge grin on his face, bright and euphoric as he held his trophy up in his hand.

just a few more hours and you’ll be in his arms, you comfort yourself with that thought to keep you going. you stretch, hearing your back cracking and get back to work, opening your previous tabs and documents, getting back into the groove quickly.

the time ticks by as you fill your doc with words that flow easily out of your mind once you're in your zone. throughout the course of the day you’d been working on this particular piece in the back of your mind, whenever you’d give yourself a little break, your head would travel to this article and build sentences on its own, so it was no surprise once you finally finished it.

you were proud, but you couldn’t give yourself too much time to celebrate because you still had one more to finish.

a little over an hour later, you finally finish. you send them to your higher-ups for approval and turn everything off once it is saved. you make your way to the underground parking lot, typing a message to daniel as you descend in the elevator.

‘just finished. on my way home. love you’

‘drive safely, love you xxxxx’

you smile, turning on your car and leaving the empty parking lot. there’s a headache forming in the back of your head, no doubt from staring at the screen for so many hours, and not getting enough food. your stomach protests at the thought, and you nearly get in line for the drive-through at your favorite fast food place, but your eyes are starting to feel heavy. you decide to be a responsible adult and go home instead.

sleep really starts to take over you as you park your car and grab your bag. you lean against the wall of the elevator as you go up to your floor, closing your eyes until you hear the bell and the doors opening. you step out, fishing your keys out of your bag and opening your front door.

the unmistakable smell of greasy food fills your nose, there’s light music playing from a speaker, the lights are dimmed and your favorite candle is lit, next to the tv. there’s a paused movie playing, showing the old disney logo. right in front, on the coffee table, bags of food from your favorite restaurants. from michelin-award-winning restaurants, to the classic mcdonald’s. as well as different candies, chips, all your favorites.

“dan?” you say, a lump that had been forming on your back throughout the day was disappearing as you dropped your things on the floor.

“darling!” he greets you, his head popping out of your shared bedroom. “how was your day?” he steps out, opening his arms and you immediately take the opportunity to slide your arms around his waist and pull him incredibly close to you.

“like shit. i just wanted to drop everything and come home,” you hide your face in his chest, relishing in the warmth of his arms around your shoulders, the weight of his chin on top of your head is comforting and familiar.

“i’m sorry,” he sighs, “i know this isn’t much but i thought this would make you feel better,” he says, referring to the things on your table.

“daniel, are you kidding? i love it, honestly.” you lift your head from his chest, standing on your tiptoes, and he leans down a bit, connecting your lips. “i love you, thank you. i was feeling horrible all day, but just seeing you makes everything better.”

“come here,” he untangled himself from you, holding your hand and leading you to the comfy sofa. he sat you down, throwing a blanket over your legs as you giggled. “first course, pick,” he smiled, you scanned the bags.

“mcdonald’s,” you pick, making grabby hands at him. he laughs and plops down next to you, “god, there really is nothing like the smell of fast food,”

“yeah, baby,” daniel throws an arm over your shoulder, and you lean your head against his shoulder, biting on a soft fry as he presses play.

“what movie are we watching?” you ask, pressing a kiss to daniel’s cheek.

“can you guess?” he turns to you, raising an eyebrow.

“oh, no,” you laughed, “not the rescuers-”

“the rescuers down under, baby!” he hollers, cupping a hand next to his mouth so even the neighbors can hear him.

“stop, we’ll get another noise complaint,” you threw a hand over his mouth, but he quickly grabbed it and started leaving soft kisses on your skin. “dan,”

“i come from a land down under!” he tries to sing, loudly, “where beer does flow and men chunder-”

“daniel!” you squealed, trying to shut him up between giggles.

“can’t you hear the thunder?” it’s even worse when he tries to hit the high notes. “you better run, you better take cover!” he smiles and you grab his face, thumbs dipping on his dimples, and bring his lips to yours. “hmm, you can shut me up like this all day,” he smiles, knowing his plan worked.

“idiot. i love you,” your heart is pounding in your chest.

“even when i sing these melodic tunes?” he asks, singing the last two words.

“especially then,” you nod, letting him help you up until you’re straddling his lap.

“happy valentine’s, my lovie,” he whispers, pressing soft kisses on your neck, cheeks.

“happy valentine’s, sunshine,” you say, a nickname you usually saved for special occasions. his eyes light up, you saw his smile widening, his eyes nearly disappearing behind the apples of his cheeks.

an hour later, you’re watching another film, now taking spoonfuls of the cookies and cream ice cream daniel bought as well. you’re watching a movie about a girl who has the ability to travel wherever she wants to.

“if you could be anywhere in the world, right now, where would you be?” you ask daniel, resting your chin on his chest, looking up at him.

“hmm… i don’t know,”

“come on, a place, any place, your favorite place,” you tease, poking his cheek with your finger.

“i don’t know, i guess… wherever you are. i don’t care where i am as long as i’m with you. you’re my favorite place.”

“whoa, you know, i was trying to be funny, you didn’t have to destroy me like that,” you giggle, hiding your face in his neck. “you’re my favorite place, too. you’re my home.”

[purplelurkinghini]

Dear purplelurkinghini,

I'm still high on the batman movie, or.. well,, the riddler in particular. I cant stop thinking about him, like, for real. Every day i wake up and check the riddler tag on this site, and idk what to do when i see not many new posts. I try to look for fics on ao3, but a lot of them are just... not my taste. As you might know, i have very specific tastes in fics, so its been really hard for me to find the ones i like. What do i do???????? I went on youtube but there's not a lot of new interview with the cast?? Im like, why isnt there??? I need content of the riddler. If people wont make them the way i like it, then should i just do it myself???? But like,,, i dont really have the time to do something like that. Maybe i do???? I mean--- Well actually, i finished a drawing of him the other day. Should i start writing fics of him too??? Arghhh but im not good at writing!!! Idk what to do now fhdjskhfskj

Love,

G.B. Anon

Dear G.B. Anon,

I, too, am still coming down from the high of having watched the film a little over a week ago. While my chest stopped aching like some highschool girl's would with their first love, sightings of bootleg recordings and low-res screenshots continue to fill my brain with the happy chemical.

Since you mentioned being inspired by the movie (drawing fanart, yes?), I say you make Edward your muse and write what you want to read. Yeah, as someone currently struggling with writer's block, I can only write when I get slapped in the face by my muse and only for as long as the sting lasts. Yeah, I do know it's easier said than done.

Even so, I still recommend writing.

Below the cut, I've continued the snipped you inspired (yes, you were my muse for a few minutes there). It isn't much, and I hope you know I don't mean to squick you (now that's a word I haven't seen used in forever), though I will say it is more of the power play you said you enjoy.

CW: light bondage

With your mouth taped shut, and your wrists bound together and cradling your bound feet, you had no choice but to even out your breathing. You had no choice but to be quiet like the good boy the Riddler had sucking on his rubber-gloved fingers before throwing into the back his own car.

You did, however, have a choice in being a witness to the crime since, of course, he hadn't used his roll of gaffer tape on your eyes. And so you saw that pig Pete Savage be syringed and strangled until he squealed like sow and passed out.

Oh, but the body he slacked against, even with his slimmer frame, was not without strengh. Even as he struggled to shove Savage into the back of his own backseat, he moved like a man high on his triumph, taking his time to taste that sweet, sweet victory. He cracked his neck, moving it from side to side, and rolled back his shoulders. Then, he wheezed, whiffing the air. He breathed in the blood he was about to spill so loudly, you heard him from inside your car.

The echo of it snuck its way into your ears and poured out of your nose through a wheeze of your own. It was surreal, hearing him, seeing him, witnessing him just beyond your window. It was unreal hearing him in the air around you instead of through your speakers. The Riddler might as well have been another streamer with a gimmick if he weren't right there. If he weren't moving towards you, tall and proud and predatory.

"Daddy's all done," he sighed, satisfied, as soon as he swung open the door. "How's my baby doing?"

After watching the ball you were curled up in because of his quick and stinging bondage work, after watching you whimper before him, and wiggle closer to him, he giggled. He looked down at you with the flickering neon light catching in his glasses and making them glow, and he giggled.

"I wasn't long, was I?" He reached for your face and pulled the tape off with no concern for the pain. "You can still make it home by midnight." He wiped the wetness from your lips, suppressing another laugh behind his mask as your mouth opened for him. "You've been so good for me," he said in a sing-song voice. "Good boy."

Then, pulling away his hand along with the tape, he took his time tracing your wrists and anchles, but didn't pull at the bonds. Instead, he inhaled as you tried your best not to exhale and let out a whimper. You tried your best to be good.

"I can't set you free," his voice dipped as he detached himself from you completely leaving you cold and curled up in the same ball. "You have to do it yourself," he pulled out a switchblade and snickered, and the sound of it did make you whimper. "I know you watch my streams, so you couldn't have missed the fan-favorite top escape tips."

After placing it between your bound plams, he pulled himself away from you and out of the car. And before leaving you to cut yourself five times before tearing the tape, he ducked his head in, tilted it and parted with you with one last word of praise: "Be a good boy and don't make me smear your DNA all over that pig." Spreading out his gloved fingers and the saliva still stuck to them, he waved before slamming the door shut: "Goodbye."

[citrinesparkles]

I hope you don't mind me asking, but do you have any tips for anyone starting their own x reader(s) blog/doing requests? If not, I hope you have a nice day either way. :)

hey lovely!! this is such an interesting question omg. i don't mind at all!!

i do have some thoughts based on my own personal experience (i, in true citrine fashion, went full babble mode on this so that'll be under the cut!) but i think the tl;dr of it is have fun and be willing to experiment. (also if any of you lovely folks reading along at home want to drop your two cents in the replies or otherwise add to the conversation please feel free! i can only offer my perspective and i love hearing others)

if you have any follow up questions or want more specific advice, feel free to shoot me a dm! i don't bite, i promise.

okay. hi.

first thing's first: starting an x readers blog!

right off the bat, my absolute most important advice is this: be gentle with yourself. you're trying something new. even if you've been writing your whole life and been on tumblr since it was founded, this is a new way to combine those things. new adventures have bumps and blocks and you'll have trial and error before you really find your way (and likely after you find your way, too!) and that is fine. take your time, try to enjoy the process, and be kind to yourself.

for me, a lot of finding my way- and i mean A Lot- was just looking at other imagines blogs and asking myself what i liked about them. for example, for me, i get inspired by angelz-dust's incredible dialogue and use of details in her writing, beautiful desktop theme, a super user friendly masterlist, and clear and concise rules page. i also love unmotivatedwrit3r's intro post with both masterlist and rules, grounded stories, and that their blog is super easy to navigate. (i could go on and on, but my point is, look at your favorite writers. why does their writing appeal to you? why does their blog appeal to you? how can you incorporate parts of how they run their blog into how you run yours (obviously without stealing other people's work, haha.))

shaping your blog takes time, but can be a really fun process if you let it!

some of the things i find most useful for my blog are a good desktop theme, a useful pinned post, a masterlist, a mobile masterlist, and a tagging system i'm very comfortable with.

(idk how tumblr savvy you are, anon, so if you would like advice on any of those things specifically please let me know!)

technical tidbits

something i've found super helpful as both a writer and a reader of imagines is when a fic has an intro. as an example, i'll use my fic cat. the section at the top tells the reader what they're getting into; in my case, i like to list any qualities i've written the reader with (in this case, the reader is not referred to by gender!) so the person reading knows if it's something they can relate to (or, if not, if it's something they're interested in anyway). i also include what character i'm writing about, how long the piece is, any fun facts or relevant information i think the audience should know (like thanking my darling angel for being my beta reader/enabler/cheerleader), and also any content warnings i think apply. in this case, i also linked the next chapter of the fic.

if the post is long, throw a read more/cut on there! (i do this for posts that are longer than 1000 words, but you can use any measurement.) it makes navigating your blog (and any tags you post in!) muchhhhh easier.

back up your work. no, seriously, save often, and save your fics in a secondary location. i use google docs, but you could use word, a private discord server, your notes app- just make sure to save it! and just a heads' up, tumblr drafts can be a bit of a gamble. i've had posts post themselves prematurely, posts disappear entirely, and formatting glitch. (also? be prepared to reformat your posts.)

(i also save drafts i hate or can't get to work. sometimes i find a way to recycle them later on!)

don't be afraid to use tags, but try to stick to relevant ones. tagging your fics with unrelated characters or fandoms is unlikely to get your work any extra attention- and if it does, it's not likely to be good. i use several different imagines tags (because people call imagines lots of different things- [character] imagine, [character] x reader, [character] x you, and [character] x y/n are my go to tags.).

i also find it really helpful to use consistent content warning tags (such as "fire cw" or "blood cw").

self reblogs are a great thing. i have a queue i maintain almost religiously, so i queue mine, but you don't have to! but don't be afraid to reblog your work. people follow you to read what you post, and they may not see it the first time around! (i usually post at night, reblog the following morning, and once again the following night.)

accepting requests.

disclaimer: requests aren't my main source of inspiration. i write from movies, music, things i see irl, my literal dreams- i say this because i've seen a lot of writers get discouraged by a lack of requests (especially early on) or frustrated because they can't complete requests as quickly as they'd like. i think it can be really refreshing to take a break from them occasionally and write from another source of inspiration, if you can.

that being said! to answer your actual question, the biggest suggestion i have is to set basic rules. if you are asking for requests, what are you willing to write? what's a hard no?

it's okay if those things take time to figure out- or if they change with time! but having some basics down can be a huge help for requesters.

also! you're more likely to get requests if you allow anonymous asks. (this was, last i checked, not allowed by default. i would recommend switching them on in your tumblr settings if you would like to take requests.)

i really hope some of this helps- and again, if you have any questions or would like any other input, please feel free to send another ask or dm me <3

[road-rhythm]

For me, shipping is Y/Z = explicit content so ppl know. My default for DNI notes is to respect boundaries because people have reasons to curate their own space, but what happens if I interact with someone's ao3 where they don't have that note and I didn't know beforehand until I read their blog, or if I just don't see the note until after interacting? Ao3 is easier because people tend to DLDR or have more boundaries, but idk how to account for other cases? That's just one question I have.

ETA: It turns out page jumps don't work in ask-reply posts, so the topic list below—which was supposed to be navigable—is just dead text. Nor do the footnotes work. I am disproportionately bitter about this but cannot fix it.

I'll level with you, anon: I was thrown for a loop that anybody would ask this blog, of all blogs, for advice. But the issues I understand your questions to be about are interesting to me, so while I'm not sure I'm the best resource on this, I will answer as well as I can.

Which brings me to the first thing I want to say: any time you're going to argue on the internet, it can't be with the motivation of changing the mind of the person you're arguing with. You probably won't. Therefore, the payoff needs to be something else. Often people get into debates in the hope of convincing onlookers rather than opponents; while that does have a better chance of success, my own motivation is usually more that I want to organize my thoughts about the topic.

With some of these questions, I get the feeling that you're looking for articulate responses to be able to give when you want to push back against people who are trying to dictate how you participate in fandom. If so, you should know that being articulate won't fix that. It won't protect you from hate, criticism, or general malcontent. It can give you clarity about your own positions and feelings that's very worth having, but it won't by itself defuse any emotional tensions or forestall people who are already upset with you. Articulateness can help a conflict management strategy, but it isn't one.

A cool side effect it does have, though, is helping you build a better friend group by making it easier for like-minded people to understand what it is you have in common—and what you don't. That won't remove all conflict from your online social life, but it can help bring it to manageable levels.

Before I respond, I'm going to go through your asks and paraphrase them. These are the questions I think you're asking; if I have misunderstood something, which is probable, please feel free to let me know.

1, C2: What ethical obligations does a DNI note impose?

2a: How do I not feel bad when I have a different opinion from other people I'm interacting with in fandom?

2b: How do I not feel bad when enforcing my boundaries?

3: Why do some people go after others who write content that happens not to be to their taste?

4-5: Why do some people go after others who interpret or interact with canon in a way they disagree with or that happens not to be to their taste, and what should I do about it?

6b: If I engage in discussions with people who see something very differently from me, how do I maintain my own boundaries without feeling bad if people get personal and invalidate lived experiences which I based my meta and fiction on? (verbatim) (elaboration/example of 2b)

6a: If I write something that is somehow different from my previous output and it turns out someone can't handle it, does that mean I have harmed them?

C1a: If I write something that is somehow different from most other output for that pairing/trope/etc. and it turns out someone can't handle it, does that mean I have harmed them?

C2: What responsibility, if any, do I have to followers or subscribers who are distressed by content that I have tagged but which they find somehow distasteful or objectionable?

Rather than taking these one by one, I'm going to talk about a few areas that I think intersect most of these questions somewhere. Fair warning, anon: this is long as hell and I'm pretty sure most of it isn't even what you were looking for. I hope that enough of it's useful enough to make it worth your while, and if it not, sorry. Whatever sort of reputation I have, I'm fairly sure it's not for giving people what they actually wanted.

DNI notes (block me yourself, bitch)

Why are people?

Expectations, surprises, and distress vs. harm

How do I not feel bad?

———————————————————

DNI notes (block me yourself, bitch)

[W]hat happens if I interact with someone's ao3 where they don't have that note

Not a thing,

and I didn't know beforehand until I read their blog,

not a thing,

or if I just don't see the note until after interacting?

and not a single, solitary, country-fried thing.

DNI notes are interesting to me, partly because I'm not sure where they came from. They seem to be a fairly recent phenomenon, but no one agrees on what platform primarily popularized them: one source says Instagram, another Twitter, another Tumblr. My perception is that DNIs are much more common among younger users, say under 25 or even under 21, but I don't have data to back that up. (If anyone does have any sort of reliable information about DNIs' emergence/use, please drop it on me somewhere!)

Anyway, here's my thought about DNIs as boundaries: they aren't.

Not to say I will disregard a DNI note if I see it. "W*ncesties DNI!" lets me know I'll probably be happier not interacting with whoever has that in their profile, so the note is already serving most of its practical purpose. For that matter, I'll avoid interacting with someone who has "Hellers DNI!" up top for the same reason: I'm not in the category named, but it's still a good clue I don't want to get involved and that there will be content I don't want to see. In that capacity, it's like hazard lights on a car. Another stripe of fan will see a pointedly offensive DNI and deliberately violate it, at which point the note gets to serve the rest of its practical purpose; viz., stirring shit for the bored and attention-starved. In that capacity, it's more like a mating signal. Those setting the bait and those taking it usually deserve each other. Either way, the DNI achieves a goal.

But it's not how you set a boundary. It might even impinge on others', inasmuch as it attempts to foist a kind of contract onto random strangers. Again, it's not the not interacting that I think most reasonable people will dig in their heels about when confronted with a DNI—it's the implication that they have been invested with the responsibility of curating someone else's internet experience for them merely by that DNI existing. It's trying to say that this line in your Twitter bio automatically creates a covenant between you and all who read it, and maybe even those who don't.*

Reasonable and effective boundaries don't work that way. It is fine to express preferences about what topics you dislike or prefer to avoid, and your Twitter or Tumblr profile is a fine place to do it. It's the "About You" section, after all. But if your emotional wellbeing depends on strangers on the internet clicking through to your profile to check if you have a note banning all shippers of, IDK, Dobby/Davros from interacting with you before liking some GIF you posted on a site that is designed to disseminate your post as widely as possible, you fucked up somewhere.

Interpersonal boundaries can be societal or individual. Societal boundaries are things like personal space (so, variable by culture), and you don't have to set them yourself, though you may unfortunately be required to enforce them. A fandom-relevant example would be an expectation of freedom from targeted harassment online, which is socially recognized and codified in the TOS of pretty much any site that allows users to interact with each other. You shouldn't have to tell anyone in advance not to send you unsolicited dick pics, blitz your DMs with slurs, or drop suicide bait in your asks.

Individual boundaries are ones you cannot reasonably expect others to know unless you tell them. A preference for all individuals who enjoy a given fictional pairing not to speak to you in any context falls here. Yes, even if the pairing is kinky. Yes, even if it squicks you. Yes, even if it medically triggers you.

A DNI note isn't a good faith effort to tell anyone this preference. Blog and microblog profiles aren't like TOS consent pages—and they're definitely not like the consent pages you click through to use AO3. Unlike a TOS pop-up, you have no technical means to force eyeballs connecting with your posts to pass over your profile first. Short of pasting your DNI note into every post you make, then, you have no reasonable expectation that the people viewing your content will ever see it.

Leaving the issue of the DNI note's visibility to one side for a moment, what about the "I" part? So long as you're being proactive about notifying people of your preferences, do you get to claim any extent of interaction as a boundary? Can you declare content you publish off-limits to a class even for consumption, and claim their reading it as a violation? If you've got a line on your blog or a tweet somewhere telling people, "Do not consume my fanworks if [X]" and you expect this to restrain all members of X from reading your fic over on AO3, it's plain why that is dumb; but what if you paste "Do not read if you ship Dobby/Davros" into the header of every chapter of every fic you have on AO3? Do people have an obligation to respect that boundary?

Honestly, no, sorry. You chose to post it on a public archive. If the thought of some freaks who are into twisted shit reading your lovingly crafted tales about your comfort characters makes your skin crawl, then frankly, that discomfort is something you're inflicting on yourself. (I would wager that inflicting it on yourself is even the point.)

Not all boundaries are reasonable or necessarily deserving of respect just because they're there. Replace "wincestie" or "heller" or "anti" or "bronly" with a religious or ethnic group, and this becomes instantly apparent. Asking, "are we obligated to follow a DNI if we know about it?" is pretty much just asking, "are we obligated to respect someone's preferences whenever we know them?" And the answer is always some combination of "depends on the preferences" and "depends on the situation."

There's a difference between being exposed to content and being exposed to people, and there's a difference between interaction and association. I can't think of any matter in fandom that would override your right not to associate with anyone you don't want to. No TOS can allow someone to be your friend. On the other hand, there's all kinds of crap that could override your preference not to have a group of people you think have icky ships interact with you via matter you've posted.

"I don't want to read Wincest/DeanCas/whatever the fuck": fine and reasonable boundary. "I don't want to hear a peep out of any member of a group of people I devote large amounts of time and energy to slagging off in public": not a fine and reasonable boundary.

(Whether members of the group in question should avoid interacting for their own sake is a separate question.)

It's not someone else's job to hide themselves from you. No matter how repulsive you find them, it's not their job to create the conditions that will allow you to pretend they don't exist. Especially if you're not actually going to.

Erring on the side of respect is a good rule of thumb: absent some more compelling interest, do as people ask. But 1) people may indeed have more compelling interests, and 2) if you're asking other people to assume responsibility for your experiences on the internet, there's already no respect there. You can't put that on another person, particularly not a fellow fan who doesn't know you and is no less likely to be dealing with their own shit than you are. You can't do it both in the sense that it cannot be accomplished and in the sense that you are kind of an asshole if you try.

Are DNIs all created equal? Obviously not, because "X/Y shippers DNI" != "Buddhists DNI," et cetera. So what about DNIs that are about real-life stuff rather than ship wars, like "racists and TERFs DNI"? Personally I find those a lot less eye-rolly than the fandom ones, but if this is the only or the most effective way you can find to send the message that you disagree with bigotry… ehhhhh? (When was the last time fandom had its biggest problems with anyone who'd admit to being either of those things, anyway?)

What about "minors DNI"? Not wanting to talk to children you don't know is indeed a reasonable boundary, for many reasons, but you can't rely on a note in your profile to establish it. Not discussing adult content with minors you're not responsible for is a societal boundary—because the designation "adult content" is a societal boundary—and it's codified on all the platforms we're discussing, including AO3, with requirements to tag in some way. Not wanting to discuss anything with minors at all is an individual boundary, and you will need to set it accordingly.

So I won't say that DNIs are Bad or never serve any function at all, but most are on the same wavelength as "unfollow/block me if [X]!!1!" Like, block me yourself, bitch. I'm happy to ignore all kinds of people, but I ain't curating your social media for you unless it comes with dental.

Why are people?

Why do people attack other people "who write certain content"? Why do people go around telling other people they're "wrong for interacting with media in [some] way"? Why are people constantly treating hobbyist fiction as "a moral thing" and cause for flame wars or outright harassment? Why are people like that—and in fandom, of all places, this thing that literally exists for fun?

I shouldn't waste time seriously trying to answer those kinds of questions, but it's a guilty pleasure. Dynamics in fandom fascinate the fuck out of me lately. I've got a shortlist of factors I've been considering as underlying causes for the kinds of conflict you're describing, most of which interact with or reinforce each other: tribalism, id-buttons, hypervigilant reactivity, conversion kink, and safe exploration.

The short version of all of this: emotional reasoning is a thing; news at eleven.

Tribalism: is a gimme. It might be kind of unsatisfying, but it explains at least half the dumb shit we do (we, homo sapiens and we, fans). What else can you say? Groups define themselves against outsiders as much as they do by common ground within. And we're all hungry for identity, so that's a lot of juice going in. Both sides of any given ship war will do this, SPN's most definitely included. I don't even think it has to be an evil thing: it does aid bonding; that's why we do it. But it's a strong force that tends toward conflict and self-righteousness, and on that level, it doesn't really matter how good your "side's" actual position is. Tribalism brings out the worst in us a lot more frequently than it does the best.

Which really sucks if you're a multishipper. If you're actively fannish about two or more ships (or characters) that fandom at large has decided are opposed to one another, you're going to see the worst of each side while being treated as suspect by both. I don't know your exact situation, anon, but it sounds like that's you.

I don't have a great solution for you. It sucks; it'll continue to suck; the way to make it suck way less is to curate your fandom experience aggressively, so if you're getting shat on coming and going by friends who can't tolerate ships they don't share with you, get better friends.

Same for cliques within a ship. In my experience those are usually organized around purity/fanpol stuff or "anti-anti"-dom: the subgroup defines itself by what it abhors, so crusading against those atrocities is the primary bonding activity. It sucks; it'll continue to suck; the way to make it suck way less is to curate your fandom experience aggressively, so if you're getting shat on coming and going by friends who enjoy one end of your creative output but can't tolerate the rest and think they're entitled to govern all of it, get better friends.

Id-buttons: really just my personal shorthand for that thing that happens when we experience strong emotion without clearly understanding what has triggered it. Being upset and not knowing why is an unpleasant state, but not a particularly dangerous one. Problems start when we misattribute the cause.

How well do any of us understand our own inner workings? In fandom we talk about idfic or (my fave) describe things as "iddy." Id-stuff is powerful, highly individual, and belongs to a realm reason can barely touch. Why do I love the psychic nosebleed trope? It's dumb as hell. It's dumb. Why do I love it? Fuck if I know. All I can tell you is that the sight of Sam Winchester trickling red out of his over-sized nostrils hits my eyeballs, travels a fast track down to the depths of my psyche, and mashes a button in there that I experience as extreme gratification. My prefrontal cortex knows psychic nosebleeds make no sense. My id thinks psychic nosebleeds are fucking marvelous.

A lot of fic, God bless us, goes whole-hog on whatever is iddy for the author; as such, idfic tends to be Marmite. One fan's kink is another fan's squick, and that goes as much for stuff that's not sexual in any obvious way—maybe goes double. The psychic nosebleeds that make my id do the Bulbasaur eyes make many others facepalm. H/C? It's love it or hate it, and even those who love it often require that very specific characters occupy very specific roles or they're gonna nope out. The id wants what it wants. Nudge an iddy dynamic two inches in the wrong direction and it becomes a live wire of squick and/or cringe.

Squicks I conceptualize as: this thing took aim at a button your id doesn't have; so it hit your regular, squishy brain matter instead, and since it wasn't designed to do that, the whole experience is like chomping down on psychic tinfoil. Ew, but you spit the tinfoil out and carry on.

Then there's stuff that hits our ids in ungood ways that go beyond squick or cringe. If there are green buttons waiting in everybody's id, there are other buttons that are very, very red. Like the green ones, we don't always know where they are. We may not even suspect they exist until they get hit, and—here's the kicker—even when they do, we still don't necessarily know what the fuck just happened. And it's hard to sort it out when you just got laid out flat by an emotional tsunami.

The stronger an emotional reaction, the stronger our need to explain it. Not just that, but the more important we assume the cause must be. So when people's red id-buttons get smashed, they need a framework to explain what just happened to them, and moral frameworks tend to feel satisfying because morality is important.

Another way we might misattribute the reason for our upset is if the real reason is somehow unpalatable. Why might it be unpalatable? Well, it could be bound up in issues that we're not ready to look at for one reason or another, including trauma. It might be something we think reflects poorly on us, like ingrained prejudice. Or it might be something we think is objectively dumb. The lengths we'll go to to justify a dumb antipathy are impressive. The justifications can be well reasoned, and insightful, and even accurate; but the really high-voltage emotions are still coming from a different place that happens to be dumb as a psychic nosebleed.

That combination is hard to get past, because admitting that some reasons for a preference or antipathy are basically dumb feels like you're invalidating others that might not be dumb at all. But that's all that is: a feeling.

Incidentally, the absolute last thing most fans will admit as a reason for any conviction is their ship.

Anyway. Here again, I do not have a great solution for you. Telling somebody they're confused about the real reasons for their own emotions is unlikely to go over well, and frankly, even though I believe it happens to all of us very frequently, I don't think it even should. Especially if you yourself are going to proceed to offer theories of your own as to what those real reasons are to fill the void. Emotional reactivity isn't something you can persuade someone out of; the best you can do is be watchful for it in yourself.

Hypervigilant reactivity: Not all disproportionate reactions are about id, though. A reliable source of heightened fear, anxiety, and, yes, anger is hypervigilance. A hair-trigger danger meter makes us susceptible to interpreting as threats things that are not; once we feel threatened by something, we are far more likely to erect justifications around the feeling than examine whether it's realistic. That's just human nature.

Many if not most antis are not trauma survivors, but as @soulless-puppy​​​ has pointed out elsewhere, if you want to recruit people to a cause, trauma-related hypersensitivity is very exploitable. Give or take a few outliers, it's not like anybody is sitting around twirling their moustaches and asking themselves, "How can I manipulate trauma survivors to spread my puritanical or pro-censorship message today?"; it happens stochastically. But thanks to social media, it does happen.

Conversion kink: Why are so many fans who demand moral purity in media (and/or fanworks) drawn to fandoms like It, or Hades, or Hannibal, or Supernatural, of all things? Why are some people marching into tags or fanworks that clearly indicate the ships or other features they contain only to object to the contents? Why aren't they just… watching and reading shit that has the messages and representation they ostensibly want entertainment to provide?

Outrage is addictive; anybody with a Twitter account knows that. But these folks aren't just hate-reading or hate-watching. Some of them have devoted literal years to ranting about a given ship, or lambasting fanworks they find offensive, or even campaigning for a show to change course to give them something they consider Good Representation and/or Healthy (usually in the form of canonizing a specific ship). That's a lot of time and energy, and while fiction does impact us—else why bother reading it—most arguments that problematic fiction is morally liable for widespread social ills are easily rebutted by things like the fact that sexual violence was not less common in 1823 than it is today. Triggers are very real, but it's pretty odd to vigorously oppose the existence of fanworks with content regarded as commonly triggering while enthusiastically consuming canon that makes the same content its bread and butter. Media and stories that tick a lot more of the boxes these fans say they want ticked are out there. So why can't they stop reading or watching the "bad" stuff, or at the very least shut the fuck up about it?

The first thing I suspect is: they don't find the "good" media that compelling. The unproblematic stuff doesn't speak to their id. But, see above re: dishonesty about our own preferences and emotions: they think unproblematic is what they should want, so they sure as shit can't admit the fucked up stuff turns their crank because it's fucked to hell.

And the second thing I suspect is that they get off on making other people change.

Metaphorically, of course. I'd class this as a non-sexual kink, where the gratification lies not in the object—canon, fanwork, or just somebody's position on the internet—being Good or being absent, but in causing the object to transform. So, a canon that's already Good isn't worth much to these people because they didn't make it be Good. And if they do harass a fan into taking down a Bad fic or artwork, that will be gratifying only for a moment; once the thing doesn't exist anymore, they will have to seek out something else that's Bad, because they get their dopamine hit from seeing the world change to conform to their vision.

Whether there's anything more to this than your basic widespread human need to mind everybody's business but your own, I've no idea. The best solution to this one is to tell those people to fuck off to the ends of the earth and then ignore them.

What all of these factors have in common is that the only thing you can control to improve your experience is yourself.

Expectations, surprises, and distress vs. harm

I understand your anxiety in 6a and C1 as: "What happens when someone comes into my work with expectations that are not met?" And I guess the question underneath—apologies; I’m running the risk of mistaking what I'm personally interested in for what you're trying to ask—is, "What is the compact between author and audience, and what does it mean to break it?"

Since you’ve chosen my blog to ask, you probably have some inkling of what my position is already. Perhaps you just need to hear somebody else say, "Fuck the haters, write what you want"; perhaps you need to practice saying it yourself. I dunno. In any case, "Fuck the haters, write what you want" is pretty much the upshot.

Let's back up a minute. I'm going to clear some of the relatively trivial examples off the board first, then get down to the messy, meaty core. Spoiler: there aren't any pat answers down there.

Your example in C1:

[I]f i have an audience that is used to certain content (for example fluffy Sam/Cas)… but then I write a fic that some people might not be able to handle the tags with because i changed what type of relationship it was (so like, unhealthy Sam/Cas) and they aren't used to me writing content differently, do I just tag it? What if someone can't handle something I wrote and isn't expecting to see that tag? Is that my responsibility?

First of all, whether you're at fault if someone follows you, sees a tag they don't expect—not even the fic; the actual tag—and is distressed… no. Hell, no. Even if the distress rises to the level of injury: no. If the tag itself is an obstacle for you, that really, truly sucks, but it is going to have to be your part to manage your needs there because no one can possibly do it for you. Tags are the system everybody else uses to curate their own experiences. So asking a tag not to be used is really asking for all content described by the tag not to be posted at all (because without the tag, no one can filter out the content).

Nobody has the right to ask for that in a shared space. You may, from time to time, encounter someone throwing a hissy fit to the tune of, "I shouldn't have to filter out incest/pedo/abuse/this thing that is neither incest nor pedo nor abuse but that I'm going to call all of those things because it squicks me personally!" Perhaps you will wonder—worry—if they have a point. Why should they have to filter out such terrible things?

Because it's none of their business what other people jack off to and they don't own the platform, that's why. If they want a space where they don't have to curate their own experiences, they can build it themselves or rustle up a few million and come back when they've bought Tumblr. Until then, they can fuck off.

(Unless you want to commit to a path of education that requires a shitload of self-restraint and bears fruit slowly if ever, though, don't bother explaining any of that to them. Don't fire back at them, which will confirm them in their sense of being aggrieved. Just block them and move on.)

But I'm assuming the meat of your question is whether you're at fault if someone is upset or indeed triggered if they expect one thing from a tag, but your content, though correctly labeled with said tag, delivers another. And my answer is, still, no. Hell no, fuck no, Christ no, sorry but no.

Your example uses a ship. A ship! Something as broad and open for interpretation as a whole-ass ship! It's shortsighted to expect a genre or even a trope to portray only one dynamic or strike one tone, but a friggin' ship? Hell will freeze before an entire fandom agrees on what the "default" dynamic for a given ship is in the first place, but let's suppose for a moment that it were possible and this condition did obtain. Suppose that one day, to a fan, everybody agreed that the default dynamic for Given/Ship is "unproblematic and fluffy" and achieved 100% concord on what qualifies.

Then the next day, somebody new reads or watches the canon for the first time and excitedly dashes off a darkfic.

No, seriously; if we say that "fandom norms" need to be respected as a baseline, what the hell are new fans supposed to do? Perform a lit review before posting so they can flag any departures from a fandom consensus that almost certainly doesn't exist? Run a poll to check what everybody else expects from Given/Ship before they tag their fic, accurately, with Given/Ship? What percentage reporting should we require on that poll, is 80% of all fans sufficient and are there membership lists somewhere to establish who is or is not a fan?

"Hang back in respectful silence and observe our traditions" is a reasonable instruction to, like, postulants in a monastery or congressional interns, but it's a bit much as an entry requirement for squeeing about a TV show.

You can't expect anyone else to know exactly what your expectations are in a fandom. More to the point, you can't expect anyone else to sign on. And if you're an author trying to gauge other people's preexisting expectations, you can't be sure of accuracy. Or uniformity.

Assuming that you've offered your example as an example merely, though, I don't want to get too hung up on the details of it. However obvious and universal a certain expectation may seem to us, it will never be shared by or obvious to everyone, and a failure to make peace with this is a major factor in most wank about specific fanworks. But the salient feature in the situation you're describing is that you are aware that your work will run against the grain of some readers' expectations. You know the mismatch is there. You have a reasonable expectation that they will be surprised, and experience tells you some of them aren't going to like it. So if you know some set of potential readers expect X, and you know this thing you wrote subverts or defies X in some way, do you have a duty to notify those readers in advance? Are you hurting them if you don't?

I want to take a minute or several to look at the notion of harm in fiction. (Look at, not dismiss.)

In the fandom spaces I happen to watch, it's become oddly common for people to talk about stories as perpetrating harm, storytelling as a brand of violence. The rhetoric has ramped up even more during the pandemic, as the end of Supernatural closed the conditions under which that fandom's TJLC-esque conspiracy theories operate, all the usual terms get extra-weaponized in the wank bubble that accompanies most series finales, various hashtags focused on this idea of narrative-inflicted harm get bandied about on Twitter, etc.

Mind you, even in fandom, these are still outliers; pull up any really large forum and find a post to the effect of either "an author harmed me with their correctly labeled fanfic" or "canon harmed me by failing to conform to my expectations," and the bulk of the responses you'll see will be asking if OP has lost their grip on reality. Outside of fandom, stuff like that just gets laughed out of the room. This is a niche problem. Of course, the niche matters to me, so the problem does, too; and "subculture" does not mean "hermetically sealed jar."

As far as SPN goes, this too shall pass, but it’s possible this "stories = attacks" framework is going to be with us for a while. @ameliacareful​​​ sees puritanical fan culture/teen culture as part of a broader societal pendulum swing between extremes of permissiveness and conservativism, and as such, part of an ebb and flow that's been present for all history and inevitable. She terms it "the New Victorianism"—and she points out that though OG Victorianism (predictably) became a cage and always had radically different implications for members of different social groups, many of its traits began as responses to real threats and abuses women faced. (Unevenly applied depending on women's socioeconomic status and ethnicity, but what ever isn't.)

The non-fandom example my brain keeps going back to is the US marriage equality movement in the ’00s. A big part of the push for marriage equality (which is intertwined with fights for a host of other civil rights issues such as employment, housing, and adoption rights) has been trying to convince straight society that LGBTQA+ people are Just Like Them.

Don't be afraid of queer people getting married/adopting children/teaching your children, Straights! Queer people, too, enjoy planned communities, financial stability, station wagons, pedestrian infrastructure, farmer's markets, fantasy football, keeping Obama 2012 bumper stickers on your car long after they begin to peel, and optimal neighborhood saturation with Panera Bread, Just Like You.

What? Leather daddies at Pride parades? Oh, no, we completely agree with you: not suitable for children. But please know, that's not all of us. "Queer" is not a synonym for "kinky" any more than it's a synonym for "deviant," and we hate that some people are out there giving society the wrong idea. In fact, we'd like to ban leather from Pride. It's not that we mind what consenting adults do in private, you understand, but there’s a time and a place. We want Pride to be for everyone. Here, Straights: have a rainbow lei and don't be afraid, because we are Just Like You.

No doubt my tone gives clues to my personal feelings about respectability politics, but here's the bitch of it: it weaponizes ideas that are in some wise true. Queer people aren't some fucking exotic species; and we did and do have to counter lurid misconceptions; and "queer" isn't a synonym for "kinky" and is sometimes treated like one; and there are prevalent and pernicious ideas that queerness is inherently obscene laced all through our culture that do untold material and psychic harm to queer people, and it's not even that much of a leap to think that maybe leather daddies at Pride help keep those ideas alive in some people's minds.

So I can understand a desire to purge "deviance" from the image American cultural consciousness holds of queerness. I can understand queer teens wanting to be able to hold hands with their crush and explore innocent young romance without feeling the weight of centuries of cultural baggage on their shoulders, or indeed to have a thoroughly normal adolescent sexual relationship that isn't construed as an act of rebellion in and of itself. I can understand not wanting your existence to have to be a rebellion. I can understand queer adults just not giving a damn about leather or kink and not wanting to hear about it and not particularly enjoying all the straight onlookers who, because they associate queer sexual orientations with kink, now believe they know something about total strangers' sex lives and who not infrequently feel at liberty to fucking talk about it with them as a result. I can understand wanting to be accepted, at any age. And so on, and so forth, because there are millions of queer people of all ages with varied lifestyles, interests, political leanings, and feelings about all this shit, and that's before you even leave America, never mind the West.

I can understand, which is why I try to be gentle about it when I tell anybody who wants to chuck free expression under the bus in favor of respectability politics to get fucked.

The point I went spelunking down that thousand-word digression for is that while I think the push to subject stories to moral tests is not born out of nothing, it's misguided, and ironically enough, ends up being actually immoral. Cultural pendulum swings happen. That they are inevitable doesn't make all of them a good idea.

In fandom's New Victorianism, stories are assessed not as engaging or boring, effective or flat, interesting or bland, beautiful or trite, but as good rep or harmful. Not even just harmful, but harm. When these fans call a story "traumatic," they're not using hyperbole to express that the story evinced strong feelings on account of being engagingly written; they mean it literally.

Their use is incorrect.

It would be overstepping to say that stories can't ever contribute to trauma, because it seems clear to me that microaggressions can and do contribute to trauma, and fictional representations can be microaggressions.† However, that legitimate use has (much like "grooming") been co-opted in onanistic motte-and-bailey arguments so long and so hard it's lost all meaning in common fandom discourse—and 90% of the time, it's not what these people are talking about in the first place.

Rather, they're using it as a synonym for "triggered."‡ As in: "Reading this story triggered me, and that is trauma."

Being triggered is not trauma; it is a trauma reaction.

Does it still suck? Oh, yeah. Is it reasonable to want to avoid it? Very.֍ But they are different things, and the distinction matters in a discussion about whether publishing/broadcasting particular stories constitutes harm.

Distress is not harm. Distress may accompany harm, but it may accompany a hell of a lot of things. Distress is not a signal that someone is hurting us. It signals something, and we should pay attention to it, but to assume it indicates someone with whom we are currently interacting or whose work we’re reading has just harmed us is a misinterpretation.

In the case of a trauma reaction to a story, the distress stems from past harm. The person who has perpetrated that harm is not present. The story is not perpetrating harm; the author is not perpetrating harm. Someone else perpetrated the harm, likely years before, and they're either not around to eat the consequences, are too powerful to have consequences visited upon them, or both.

But here's this fanfic author, just an AO3 comment or a Tumblr ask or a Twitter dogpile away.

Say an author posts a story, accurately (whether or not all readers agree if adequately) representing its content with rating, tags, summary, and/or other front matter. Someone with a history of trauma reads the front matter, takes it seriously, and still thinks that what's inside won't surpass whatever emotional limit they're prepared to deal with at the moment. So far, so much good faith from all parties.

The reader decides to read, but even though the front matter was accurate and their assessment of same was reasonable, nevertheless something in the story takes them past their limits. It could even be something like your C1 example: you post unhealthy!Sam/Castiel with tags and a rating and summary that are faithful to the dynamic the story explores; but a reader who's only ever seen fluffy, wholesome!Sam/Castiel, and who due to their perspective doesn't connect the dots on the very real clues your front matter provides, reads the story; and something in it intersects somehow with (say) a personal history of abuse such that the reader ends up with an experience far more intense than they foresaw.

Perhaps the fic even triggers a flashback to the abuse they experienced. Possibly the flashback has material consequences: the reader misses meals, or uses self-harm to try to counter their distress, or snaps at a client and gets written up at work. Suffering both the immediate distress and all its ripple effects, they accuse you of causing them, giving you an earful about how harmful your story was. After all, they were fine before they interacted with your story, and look at them now.

Yikes on a bike. Did you, the author of this unhealthy!Sam/Castiel fanfic, do this to this reader? Is your story harmful? Are you culpable?

No, you fucking well didn't; no, it fucking well isn't; no, you fucking well aren't.

You know who harmed this person? Whoever perpetrated their abuse and whatever social structures enabled their abuser. Apparently your story reminded them of their abuse, and that sucks, but it's not the same thing and if they're lashing out at you, they're forgetting the first rule of Fight Club: their mental illness is not their fault, but it is their responsibility.

In interactions like this, there is a culpable agent somewhere—but usually it's so far outside the immediate exchange that it can't even be complained to much less forced to make amends. Precious little justice will ever be forthcoming from most abusers or abusive systems. That is a very hard thing to live with.

Defenses of CNtW or darkfic tend to devolve into "Well, it's their own fault for not taking the tags/their own mental health seriously" pretty fast. Which, to be fair, is probably because often that's exactly what happened. But it's not rare for people to read the front matter, maybe even consult with a friend who's read it, carefully consider whether the story is for them, and still find painfully that it is not. They weren't stupid, and they weren't cavalier, and they weren't lacking for information. So what went wrong?

Nothing.

The author didn't do anything wrong. The reader didn't do anything wrong. The tagging/rating system was not deficient. The story was not some innately abominable superweapon that should never have seen the light of day. Everything worked here. The reader might revisit their criteria for selecting reading material—but they might decide they won't be changing anything because the risk is still worth it to them, and so long as they continue to take responsibility for themselves, there's nothing wrong with that, either. It is possible to have an interaction where people get hurt without anything actually being wrong, or anyone acting wrongly, within that interaction.

But accepting "I got hurt even though no one was at fault here, not even me" is really fucking hard. Most of us need to blame somebody: it's preferable to conceding a lack of control or the impossibility of justice from the parties who actually owe it. We need to believe that somebody in striking distance fucked up.

Conflating pain with wrong done by a proximate agent is the fallacy that allows, even requires, people to recast "I experienced distress when I read this story" as "this story harmed me." Doing that robs our experience of the story of much dimension, completely fucks our conceptual relationship to the author, and sends our collective conversations about storytelling straight to hell. Maybe this is all part of that New Victorianism pendulum swing and there's nothing anybody can do to shift its path; but if so I'll probably spend the whole of the cultural moment getting progressively more flamboyant manicures on both my middle fingers, because I hate the whole thing so much.

Having, I hope, gotten some clarity about questions of culpability and harm, I want to circle back to expectations and the author-reader contract.

On the most recent episode of the Conjoined podcast, @teiandcookies​ gave a particularly insightful response to a question she and @lovetincture​ received about "misleadingly" presented fics. The question is nominally about CNtW, but Tei illuminates how it's only incidentally about tagging at all. The following excerpt starts from 02:27. Bold text is my emphasis.

TEI: An anon sent us the following question:

…I've been burned in the past by fics [where] the author sets it up on purpose to look like one kind of fic and then puts in rape or major character death or extreme gore, when if the fic was what people thought, obviously they never would have clicked, and that feels mean-spirited to me. Just not warning is one thing, but when you're putting other tags you know are popular to lure readers to read something because they're going to think it's something else, then that's fundamentally dishonest….

…I think even a couple months ago… my initial reaction would have been, "Well, how often can that be happening?" More recently I have been doing a volunteer role with the OTW and… as a volunteer, I have now been seeing more of this kind of stuff…. Obviously this gets into questions of intent, and how can you tell what someone's artistic intent is; and there are many, many cases (probably the majority of the cases) where you really can't. However, there are some pretty clear-cut cases where you can say, "Yeah, this is just a fucking troll, and this person literally just wants people to be upset by this and that's what they're getting off on." So, I think that's the kind of thing that this person is asking about, and I have to agree with them that, yup, that absolutely happens.

But I think the word "trolls" is maybe more important in that sentence than any other, because I think this is… a conversation about trolling that is disguised as… a conversation about Choose Not to Warn. And it's easy to get those mixed up, maybe, because trolls use the tools that are available to them….

So you can't stop the misuse of your tools, right? Every platform has different tools, and every platform has people misusing those tools differently. And I think… you can go down some unfortunate paths if you convince yourself that you can stop trolling if only you find the correct set of tools. Right? If only you make people use the site correctly, then they'll use the site correctly. Because that's just never gonna happen.

So you can't stop it, [but] I think what you can do is decide whether the misuse of a tool is worth the correct use of the tool. So, for sure, Choose Not to Warn is one of the tools that trolls have on AO3 to convince people to click or, y'know, trick people into clicking on things that they wouldn't otherwise click on.

It's certainly not the only one. Another really obvious tool that trolls have if they want you to click on something that is not going to be anything even close to what it looks like it is, is, for instance, relationship tags. Because something that people may not know is that the only tags on AO3 that are enforceable—as in, if they're wrong, you can report them to Abuse and they will be changed or deleted—are fandom tags, language, rating, and warnings. So if those things are egregiously wrong, you can essentially force them to change it; but other things, like relationship tags (significantly) and any additional tags, if they're just flat-out wrong? That's not against the Terms of Service.

Here Tei gives "the top-kudosed Reylo fic" on AO3 as an example and points out that while this trolling could perhaps be circumvented by making relationship tags enforceable, it would be completely impractical "to have a team of volunteers litigate whether every single fic qualifies as being the relationship." She concludes:

I think the question isn't so much, "What do we do about trolls in general?": it's more, "Is this tool worth the price of admission?", and the price of admission is it being used wrong. In this case, paying the price of admission is just that sometimes you're gonna click on things you wish you hadn't. And this is where it's totally reasonable, I think, to disagree about what prices are worth it to pay.

I think for me, the fact that someone could use these tags in a way that is intentionally misleading is an acceptable price… and there aren't solutions that would easily eliminate that problem in a way that wouldn't have [their] own much larger costs, so to me, I kind of look at this right off and say, "Yeah, this is okay, this is worth it." Other people might feel differently. But I think it is important to make sure that we're talking about the prices of various things and not just laboring under the delusion that there's some kind of Platonic ideal of a set of features that are impossible to abuse, because I don't think that really exists.

From your acute anxiety about hurting people, anon, it's apparent that whatever your motivations as a writer, you're not trolling. I pulled this out because—well, partly because it's just a really good discussion that places probably half the tail-chasing around CNtW in its proper context. But also because I want to place the conversation about the author-reader contract and what stories "owe" us in its proper context, which is that benefits have costs.

What, presentation-wise, is the Reylo example actually doing? It's leveraging readers' expectations and AO3's front matter conventions to get people interested in one topic to enter the story and, once they're there, telling them something they might not want to hear. At the level of that particular fic, that process can fairly be labeled a mere bait and switch.

A lot of people will slap the "bait and switch" label on pretty much any story that subverts their expectations, though, and I think often an apter concept is Trojan horse. If the author knows the audience expects one thing, and leverages that expectation to say something different—even if the horse is constructed out of 100% ethically sourced clue-by-fours—then yes, it is a bit like they're sneaking a message past the reader's… well. Here, some might say, "past the reader's boundaries," and revile it as an act of disregard and violation.

Some might rather say, though, "past the reader's preconceptions," casting it more as a technique to force an audience to confront something overlooked or ignored. Including their own biases. If this is a trick, such subversion seems to say, it's a trick you're playing on yourself.

Not only do I prefer the second formulation because I value being surprised, but I have some beef with the first one. I think it's the reader falling down on their half of the author-reader contract. It looks a lot like disavowing, when convenient, the fact that cognitive and emotional manipulation (if you want to call it that) is exactly what we come to fiction for. It's one thing to complain that the massage you got sucked, but it's shitty if your whole one-star Google review is bitching that the process involved laying on of hands.

So what is the line between artistically justified subversion and mean-spirited baiting? Good faith, probably; but what's "good faith"? "Clear-cut" cases like the Reylo fic aren't usually what people fight about. I'm not even as convinced as Tei that the clear-cut ones are what her anon is thinking of, because when people are upset about a surprise, they tend to form immediate, vehement opinions about the motives and intent of the surprise's author. I know this for reasons.

Readers don't only end up surprised because authors are trying to surprise them; there are real disagreements about what's obvious, and I want to keep that in sight. But deliberate subversions force us to evaluate what the contract between author and reader actually is in a way that accidental surprises do not. What do authors owe audiences? What do audiences owe authors? What are we all showing up for?

When you get all the way down to the bottom, the question is, "Should art be safe?" And I come down, really hard, on the side of no—not because I think "challenging" should be the default instead of "comforting," or because I think challenge is more important than comfort, but because I think art's ability to comfort is inextricable from its willingness to challenge.

And because it can't be safe. Sometimes experiences aren't what we expect. Sometimes they're exactly what we expect, but they hit us in ways we don't. Sometimes they're exactly what we expect, and they hit us exactly how we were told they might, but advance knowledge is not the same thing as living. Sometimes there's no way to be warned for something.

Someone might point out that driving a car is never risk-free, either, but it's still a moral imperative to take every step to reduce the risk that we can. Behind the wheel, efficiency or entertainment or style have no business overriding safety. Or take architecture: you don't build a structure that has a one in a thousand chance of collapsing no matter how cool it would look or what emotions it might inspire. Why should authors be held to a different standard?

Stakes are why. If a writer fucks up, people lose interest or get offended; maybe justly, but they're still breathing. If a structural engineer fucks up, people die. This isn't some kind of side-issue or technicality; it's one of the major functions of storytelling.

Art is one of the safest experiences open to us—even when it's uncomfortable. That's why we do it. It's sandboxing.

I don't want to be dismissive of the impact stories can have, whether we're talking about their impact on our mood, the complex interplay between art and society, the mirrors they hold up to us individually or collectively, or any of the other ways they are important to us. If I didn't believe fiction mattered, I wouldn't spend so damn much time making it, never mind thinking about it.

But I do think here in our fandom bubble, we sometimes overstate its… not importance, but consequence. It does matter that the events in fiction are not real. Bizarre that we've arrived at a place where it needs saying, but apparently it does. A lot of voices in this echo chamber have gotten in the habit of giving fictional and real-world experiences equal weight. That's why it's so easy for people to conflate distress with injury, why it's so hard for them to distinguish trauma reactions from trauma.

Some of the greatest vitriol I've seen toward CNtW or the very idea of shock in literature has been from fellow fanfic writers. I don't think that's coincidence. Who else is more invested in elevating what we do? That South Park episode with San Franciscans smelling their own farts comes to mind. Look: surprises, even nasty surprises, can be totally fine in fanfiction because art has no duty to safety, only duties with which safety can be either compatible or incompatible. I'll cheerfully die on that hill. And when people get all, "Think a lot of yourself, do you?" over calling fanfiction art, my internal response is something along the lines of, "Bitch, I'm not the one out here making it out to be life or death."

If the first mistake of art is to assume that it's serious, the second is to assume the unserious isn't important, and the third is to run around being a fucking asshole about art you don’t like.

So where does that leave us, on a practical level? Those of us out here on the mean streets of fandom, just trying to make some porn?

A bit later that Conjoined discussion, @lovetincture​ quotes Margaret Atwood quoting Alice Munro: "Do what you want and live with the consequences."

That. Do that.

At 17:46, Tei points out that "[t]here's a difference between 'consequences' as in, 'I know that this thing might happen' and 'consequences' as in, 'this is in the right.'" It's a crucial distinction. Plenty of reactions are predictable, but not all of them are just. Some of them are predictable precisely because they're unjust. Directly protesting an unjust reaction is often a waste of energy, but just knowing for yourself which is which can take a lot of the weight off.

The possibility of encountering bad actors is the price of admission for both reading and posting fanwork. On the posting side, there are certain stories (and ways of presenting them) where you'll know it's going to generate backlash. There are others where you won't see it coming, but you can accept that the potential is always there. It's up to you first to decide whether the backlash would be just, and then whether this thing you want to say is worth weathering any backlash that’s unjust.

If you decide it isn't, the consequence you live with is leaving the thing unsaid.

Here's what you owe your readers, whatever you know about the expectations they're walking in with: respect. Compassion. The best story you can tell that day. Whether that feels like a warm hug or a backhanded slap depends on you, them, and the story.

Here's what you don't owe them: more of those things than you owe yourself.

How do I not feel bad?

There's kind of a lot of this question salted through your others. "How do I not feel bad while establishing and enforcing boundaries that will let me have the experiences I want in fandom?" "How do I not feel bad while writing and sharing the things I want to write and share?" "How do I not feel bad while exploring sensitive topics, and myself, and what it means to communicate through art?"

Anon, the answers are above my pay grade either way, but I think "How do I not feel bad?" is the wrong question.

In the process of becoming who you want to be, and writing what you want to write, and building the relationships you want to build, and discovering and integrating into the communities you want to be a part of, you will do things like distance yourself from people you once called friends, disagree with people you once agreed with, disagree with people you still agree with on other matters, lose respect for people you once respected, embrace new people of whom old acquaintances disapprove, and experiment with everything from liberal application of the block button to stone-cold skullfucking porn. Even if you act faultlessly at every turn, which you will not, you will sometimes feel bad doing it. You will feel bad when you break off a friendship, or someone breaks off a friendship with you. You will feel bad when a friend wants you to wade into an argument that you know will suck the time and creative energy right out of your day, forcing you to weigh up which sacrifice will leave you least dissatisfied. You will feel bad when someone flames your fanfic or harasses people you care about over shipping. You will feel bad if you censor yourself to try to avoid being targeted.

So a better question is probably, "How do I feel as comfortable in my own skin as I can?" And one of the most helpful things I've ever done toward that goal, personally, is work on accepting that sometimes I will feel bad.

That doesn't mean accepting any level of discomfort without question, any more than the fact that not everyone will like you is license to be a raging asshole. But I've generally found that in running, BDSM, and interpersonal relationships, there is a distinction between good pain and bad pain. I can't always correctly assess which I'm feeling. Nor is it a strictly black and white thing, any more than bodies or morality are. But I can generally figure out what really matters to me and thus when discomfort is worth it if I try, and I get better at it the older I get.

Compromises are part of life. People disagree about which ones are acceptable. There is none that will please everybody, so I recommend pleasing yourself and being forthright about your selection.

Or as @stripy-tights put it once, "Self-actualization is giving yourself permission to say, 'Fuck you, the horse you rode in on, and your extensive DNI list that includes people who wear pink on Wednesdays.'"

Good luck. You'll be fine.

——————————————————— ———————————————————

*Note that "[X group of fans] are disgusting" or whatever does not have the same problem. It's clearly designed to be dickish, but it doesn't seek to transfer responsibility to an unconsenting party; it's not posing as a covenant. Here in fandom, we are all a beautiful rainbow of infinite, slightly different ways to be assholes to each other.

†From a tagging/warning perspective, this is a case that's largely irrelevant, because tagging/warning debates are about the onus on authors to label their own work, and authors who are writing the kind of works that are bona fide microaggressions are not going to be aware of or admit to it. You wouldn't debate about whether Margaret Mitchell should have tagged "racism" for stereotypes like Mammy and Prissy, because Margaret Mitchell was never gonna see the problem.

‡Often they're using "triggered" as a synonym for "upset," but I'm not interested in judging whose use is or isn't in good faith and don't think an attempt to do so should be part of this argument.

֍Here is where often, in tagging debates, someone pipes up to say that the literature suggests trigger warnings may do more harm than good by encouraging survivors to "see trauma as central to their identity," and that what's needed to improve symptoms is in fact exposure therapy, to which fiction—being fictional—is ideally suited. I'm sure well informed people could debate this point, and if you're an educator considering how to present your syllabus, you might actually need to; but within fandom, this whole question is interesting but functionally moot. The only people who get to decide when or whether or how someone undertakes exposure therapy are they and their therapist. So please leave the efficacy of avoidance as a coping strategy the fuck out of tagging debates, or at an absolute minimum, let them who have never procrastinated on their taxes cast the first stone.

[cotccotc]

SKZ REACT to...

 ✰ you coming out PART 2 !!

part of my eight as fate event !! ( requested by anon ♡ )

genre/s: ot8 reaction headcanon, gn reader, platonic, fluff & humor

wc: ~1.3k

warning/s: descriptions of coming out as non-binary, brief mentions of gender dysphoria, my dumb commentary once again (hehe), these are just my opinions and ideas !!

a/n: i reference the first version of this reaction a few times and i recommend reading it first !! i got some really sweet responses to the original so i hope y’all like this one too :) OH ALSO i should mention that i decided to make it platonic since i found that easier and more natural to write.

✰ CHAN

i feel like even if he already knows a bunch about gender identity, non-binary and genderqueer people, dysphoria, pronouns, etc. he would definitely enjoy you giving him a full rundown on it !! and specifically what your interpretation is and how you identify

BEST LISTENER EVER !!!

do you remember that vlive where felix is talking and chan’s just sitting back and looking at felix with immense amounts of love in his eyes? yeah…

he’d be so. incredibly. proud. of you.

idk why the chan portions of these reactions have both been super sappy but anyways-

he’d be very dedicated to using your preferred pronouns and finding new ways to compliment you !!!

his google search history would most definitely include “genderless adjectives” and “enby dad jokes” and he’d keep a running list on his phone

chan: “what do you say when your non-binary friend is sad?”

you: [dead silence]

chan: “their, their....” [giggles]

KSDFJ

✰ MINHO

my first thought is that he’d be the type to ask for your new pronouns and immediately use them in a sentence.

for instance, say your new pronouns were xe/xem. he’d immediately say, “well, i’m very proud of my y/n, and i love xem very much.”

so then i’d start crying in the background.. blah blah blah omniscient narrator struggles :’)

i can’t see him being anything but casual and accepting !!

if you want to talk about things, he’ll most definitely let you, but if you don’t want to he won’t push.

but regardless, he just wants you to know he supports you in whatever way he can.

would also politely correct people if they misgender you in public !!! he wants you to feel safe !!!!!

i saw him as a wingman in the other reaction but in this context he’d definitely serve as your personal information pamphlet for people who you might not know too well.

random person: “what exactly does that mean?”

you: “it-”

minho: “WELL ACTUALLY-”

✰ CHANGBIN

just like in the first version, he’d get pretty emotional !!

i think he would really sympathize with you even though he can’t fully understand what you had to deal with externally or emotionally.

honestly that would probably make him even MORE emotional.

the fact that he can’t fully relate to those complex feelings would really tug at his heartstrings as he listens to you speak. he really wishes he could understand your struggles more, and maybe even take on the burden for you.

but let’s get less emo, shall we?

ok picture something with me bestie:

first, he casually refers to you using your new pronouns in a group conversation.

next, after the topic changes in the conversation, you look at him while the others continue talking.

this mf WINKS and flashes you the silliest smirk

you let out a little chuckle and you both continue on in the conversation

[end scene]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH anyways-

✰ HYUNJIN

i feel like he might question his own gender identity a little as well sometimes, especially due to what people say online (like calling him “pretty”, the edits some people make, praising him for breaking stereotypes, etc.)

so, he probably understands a bit deeper than some of the other members might.

in that same vein, i think it might make him a little bit emotional to hear your story !!

over the years, i think it’s plain to see that he’s become more comfortable with expressing his more feminine attributes, which has always comforted you as his friend.

he understands the feeling of being uncomfortable with the gender roles one is expected to follow, so he empathizes with you.

in terms of his actual first reaction, i think it would be pretty similar to what i suggested in the other version of this.

(my bias is showing but oH MY GOSH I STILL THINK THIS WOULD BE SO CUTE-)

“woo~” *insert little jazz hands here*

…

[cries] anyways-

you feel really comfortable coming to him with this, and you’re happy when you do !!

✰ JISUNG

maybe it’s because i’ve seen tweets about it, but i feel like this dude knows everything there is to know about modern gender identity topics and neopronouns and stuff

after the initial awkwardness of the conversation (and a big supportive hug ofc) he’d be stoked to talk about it !!

would ask for your pronouns right away !!! he might also do the thing where he uses them in a sentence.

“y/n !!! ze’s so cool !!!!!!!”

i think if he saw someone misgender you (by accident) he wouldn’t correct them for you out of in-the-moment nerves, but he’d be very proud of you if you do it yourself !!

might buy you a snack afterward tbh

but if HE ever misgenders you OHHHHH goodness gracious

HE WOULD FEEL SOOO BAD AH

EVEN IF IT’S LIKE.. THE NEXT DAY

he’d get so very embarrassed and apologetic SDKFJ you’d have to really assure him that it’s not that big of a deal since he’s still adjusting to things, but he’d still feel like he has to make it up to you in some way

would probably buy you snacks again LMAO

✰ FELIX

i think he would be really excited !!

we know felix really loves and is passionate about androgynous/genderless forms of expression, especially in regard to appearance, so he’d probably really enjoy talking about gender and stereotypes with you !!

(if you’re comfy with it, ofc)

honestly, felix would be really encouraging and would help you gain more confidence !!!!!

if you ever feel like trying out a new look, he’d be like “OK BESTIE LET’S GO SHOPPING”

tbh he’d probably try it out with you !! or if you hang out often, he’d probably subconsciously start finding inspiration in your style and adopt it a bit himself

on days where you feel a bit down for whatever reason, especially in regard to dysphoria, his first instinct would be to cheer you up by reminding you how unique and cool you are.

and it’s not just because you’re nonbinary but also because you’re just a super cool person !!!!!!!!!! and i think so too !!!!!!!!!!!! never forget it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so overall, i feel like felix wouldn’t be very hard to come out to once you get over your initial nerves, and the end result would be super fun :D

✰ SEUNGMIN

i think his initial reaction would be pretty similar to chan’s !!

he also seems like the type to be super, super diligent with adjusting to whatever pronouns you feel comfortable using or words you’re okay with him using to refer to you.

(maybe it’s because we know he was a good student and he’s diligent with practicing his english. training his brain to correct itself would be like studying for him lol)

for example, instead of calling you “pretty” or “handsome,” he might even try simply pointing out a part of your appearance that he thinks looks especially great !! something like your eyes, your hair, your outfit, etc.

your hair looks great today, btw. anyways-

aside from that, i think he would just try to be as courteous as possible without making a big deal out of things.

and if he ever slips up with your pronouns, descriptors, etc, he’d be super quick to apologize and correct himself before keeping the conversation going like normal !!

there’s just generally a lot of mutual respect all around :)

✰ JEONGIN

this is somewhat similar to my other version of this reaction, but i think he’d just be really intrigued and a little shocked

IDK WHY I KEEP THINKING HIS ABILITY TO GAUGE THESE THINGS IS SO BAD DKFJ every time i think about someone coming out to him i just can’t help but picture him being like “reaLLY??? since WHEN”

still, something deep within my soul is telling me that jeongin would truly think you’re the coolest person on the planet.

being as he can’t personally relate to this, jeongin would be pretty psyched to hear about your journey to finding out !! kinda the opposite reaction to changbin lol

honestly he’d be a super good listener !!!!

he’d hear you out for however long you explain things to him, and if you ever get a bit emotional, he might smile at you or reach out to hold your hand :’) or both :’’’’’)

then, when you tell him your preferred pronouns he’s like “oH okay !! coOL !!!” lmao

so, he understands the concept and is super happy for you but he just didn’t really expect it !!

tags: @stayndays​, @hanniiesuckle17��, @leggomylino​, @freckledberries​,@kisskissbanggang​, @mr-jisung-main​, @childofthecosmos​,@kpopscape​, @skzwriternet​, @hyunsins​, @sleepylixie​, @sunshine-skz​, @vera-liscious​, @moonlit-lixie​, @thatrandomoneinthecorner​, @sunshine-skz​ ( join my tag list !! )

©️ cotccotc 2021 ~ all rights reserved. do not repost my work on tumblr or other platforms.

[bisluthq]

So idk I am feeling conflicted bc you know how there’s a sect of the lgbt community who are all like “go listen to real queer artists and stop trying to make Taylor seem one of us through your lyric analysis” like.

I mean I get what they’re saying and it’s not even like Taylor presents as a great ally lmao but like... I feel like that argument just forgets that 1) closeted people exist and 2) straight people can write songs that can be analyzed through a queer lens

Like I mean there is a severe lack of out mainstream artists and I get we should absolutely support the ones that are Bc it makes it easier for closeted people to come out the more mainstream it is... but like... idk. I do think some people take Taylor’s sexuality too far and to consider her a gay icon is just like not it right now... but like her music slaps and you don’t have to be straight to relate to it. There are so many of her songs that I listen to and think of my ex gf when I do so it’s like? Maybe Taylor didn’t write DBATC for a woman but I ascribe it to one when I listen to it and like that’s the point of music you know?

Idk I get why some lgbt people are annoyed by her but like... I just feel like no one considers that being closeted is a thing and I think some lgbt people fall into the same default that straight people do and just assume everyone is straight unless they have a huge coming out announcement. And like that’s not fair to anyone tbh.

Yeah look I mean I have MANY thoughts on this:

1) shit doesn't need to be canonically gay in order for it to be relatable. Same as how straight people can and SHOULD relate to queer storylines too because WE ARE ALL HUMAN. No one is ever going to write a banger of a breakup song like Adele. Do I think she has a fruity bone in her body? I mean like maybe she's kissed a girl at a party one time but like all her songs are for her about boys. But they're not necessarily about boys for me. And that doesn't make them worse or less relatable. I'm allowed to ugly cry and listen to Turning Tables and I don't have to picture a bloke when I do that.

2) that's true for minority/majority art in general. Minority groups generally find ways to identify to majority groups, but I LOVE it when majority groups identify to my minority identities. Like yaaaaas goy straight bitches please go stan Broad City. The girls are SO Jewish and... so bi... but like I WANT YOU TO LIKE IT and relate. And most people I've spoken to feel that way regardless of identity. Like, obvi the point is not to appropriate but like yes I'm going to bop and sing to Formation and I'll not say the hair line when I'm singing it in my car - y'all should lowkey know by now Lemonade is like one of my favorite albums because I reference it that much - there are lines I skip but the PREMISE of like being with your group of girls is completely relatable to me. Do I get the nuance she's communicating? Cerebrally but obvi not like to my core, but it's a dope song, and I can have fun singing it.

3) those are two important sidebars and bring us back to Taylor. IMO it's okay to like Taylor's music in a gay way in the same way we queer people like Adele's or even in the way goy straight girls like Broad City. Like it's okay if she didn't mean it that way and she didn't mean to speak to us but did via the human experience and that's like beautiful y'know and makes her a phenomenal artist.

4) it's also important to realize that yes Taylor could be closeted but besties she's not like... revolving her life around it. She has made a choice to live a hetty presenting life and - here's where we get to the kicker - she has fostered the bullying of queer fans who pick up on themes in her music and ship while having no issue with hetty weirdos. And that makes me HOPE she's queer in some way and not homophobic because if you are an ally and you're letting people speculate about EVERY boy you're in contact with but lose your shit when it looks like you kissed your female friend, ehhh that's on you. You're a bad ally and a bit homophobic.

5) which brings me to "why I hope she's queer": fundamentally because it'd make her less stupid and more likable, and it'd make her faux pas missteps more understandable because it was like ~personal and she struggled, and it'd make the signaling she's done (and don't start this I never include ship shit I always talk about sus statements and flag usage etc and it's in my nat talks gaylor tag) more understandable.

6) if she's straight eh people have just as much right to queer read her songs as we do with Adele and Lana. It doesn't matter.

Maybe Taylor Swift is straight. If so she has a LONG way to go in terms of allyship, and a long way to go compared to just about every pop star who has come before her. Like she's a problem dudes. She's a homophobe because she's allowed a fandom which allows folklore songs to be assigned to HARRY but freaks at Wonderland being assigned to Dianna Agron.

Maybe she's bi, and I wish society would allow for that but I don't think it does especially not in her case.

Either way I wish hetlors would get off truthering because it doesn't matter.

So someone thinks she's gay. Cool. Make like Elsa and let it go, why can't that be the case? Again, I am CONVINCED Blake, Scarlett, Emma W, and a host of other celebs are straight. I won't truther someone who's saying Emma and Bonnie shared rooms together because I'd be like "lol Bonnie has the range but Emma doesn't but fair enough" and leave it at that.

Being OBSESSED with this issue is weird.

And before some anon says - I'm not obsessed. Maybe she's straight, I think she could be bi, maybe she's a lesbian dealing with comphet. I'm not her and I don't know! But what I am veeeery convinced of is she ain't no gold star.

[adorablele]

𝘁𝗮𝗴 𝗴𝗮𝗺𝗲, the interview.

tagged by: @zhongriot​ (thanks lovie <3)

1. Why did you choose your url?

I wanted something simple and easier to remember than my previous url (@/hae-sicheng) and it fits with the fluffy theme of my works

2. Any side blogs? If you have them, name them and why you have them?

yesuhhh I have like three or four I think?? there’s only three listed in my about me tho 

3. How long have you been on Tumblr?

not long too long! I created an account in July of 2019

4. Do you have a queue tag?

it’s been so long since I’ve posted on this account that I don’t remember if I do lmao, I don’t think I have a queue tag for this account

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

I was already reading fanfic on tumblr, but finally decided to create a writing blog when I saw my friend post a fanfic on wattpad. I thought I’d give it a go on tumblr since I had a lot of drabbles/blurbs that I created on my phone in notes.

6. Why did you choose your icon / pfp?

I was in a xiaojun phase and thought the blue was cute

7. Why did you choose your header?

since I’ve started this account, the header (mobile) has always been a gif of water, so I chose water. I thought it’d be calming too,  set some good vibes ya know

8. What’s your post with the most notes?

a jaemin blurb

9. How many mutuals do you have?

a lot that I am too lazy to list, but I haven’t talked to a lot of them in a while. I hope they’re thriving and staying hydrated and living their best life because they deserve the world <3 

10. How many followers do you have?

an amount that I’m surprised I have considering my inactivity 

11. How many people do you follow?

over 100 

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

uh,,,, I can’t recall

13. How often do you use Tumblr each day?

I used to use this app like everyday and for about 2 hours, but recently it’s been like twice a week to reblog things for networks and that takes about 30-45 mins usually

14. Did you have a fight / argument with another blog once? Who won?

nahh 

15. How do you feel about ‘you need to compare this’ posts?

idk what those are 

16. Do you like tag games?

I love them! they’re very fun to do, so tag me if you have no one else to tag :)))

17. Do you like ask games?

I too love ask games!!! I love interacting with my anons or anyone who decides to slide into my inbox!!!! so hmu bbys

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is Tumblr famous?

they’re all popular and fun and fresh 

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual?

no, but I love them none the less <3

tagging: @hyucksie @the32ndbeat @wh6res @lideria @jeonginks (eiko I forgot your nct account) @jaetyhm @sleepingrenjun @neocity-sarai and anyone else, feel free to join my loves 

[seijorhi]

asks :)

Below the cut 💕

OMFG I JUST READ UR SPLIT FIC AND AHHHHHHHHHHHH IT WAS SO GOOD. Ur such a good writer I’m jealous

BBY!!! I’M GLAD YOU LIKED IT!!! but fr no need to be jealous it’s just some horny ramblings 👉👈

I just wanted to say that I LOVE your haikyuu fics! Especially the Oikawa/Iwa soulmate au one! Just a quick question tho, would their darling be able to turn the duo against eachother? Like maybe she/he/they prefers Iwa more than Oikawa and that could lead to some competition?

ok i’ve talked about this a little bit before in another ask but my tags are a mess and i can’t find it but tbh i think it would be almost impossible for their darling to actually turn them against each other - even in a tiny way just because their own relationship with each other is rock solid. Iwa knows how to deal with Oikawa at his worst and vice versa. if you do end up showing preference to one over the other - say you cling to Iwa because he doesn’t go as hard on his punishments or Oikawa because a pissed off Iwa scares you they’re gonna notice, and there is nothing like a little exposure therapy to cure your fears.

Inquiring minds need to know: does the slasher trio fuck you in front of their victims? When they’re alive? When they’re dead? Both???

Bruh.... I think you know the answer to that ;)

I just read Final Girl and I just wanna say that it scared the shit out of me??? I rarely watch horror let alone slasher movies and most of the time I imagine what would happen if they keep one of their victims and your fic just damn. It was scary good

you have no idea how happy that makes me?? because like when i write fics i’m trying to convey emotions and build tension and stuff but until somebody else reads it you never know if it’s actually worked?? so this makes me all 🥺

Yo I just read your Shiggy fic the chikan and boy oh boy I am a huge fan of it. He’s so gross but it does something to me and I don’t know why but I’m here for it. Also I love your writing I may or may not have just binged your blog but it was so good and I just could not help myself 😅, anyway I hope you have a good day!

SHIGGY SUPREMACY!! no but i took so long with that fic and now i just wanna write a bunch more creeper shigaraki i love him sm! anyway thank you fo being such a sweetheart - i hope your day’s going well too!!

Idk if it's thirsting hours, but I'm a horny bastard, so I'm just gonna express myself. Every time, I watch Ushijima show emotion and get excited about volleyball, I think about Outrunning Fate and daydream about the kind of face he would make while he rails a resistant, crying reader. And I feel like Tendou would just watch his facial expressions for a while because this is a side of Ushi he's never seen, and he just wants to admire him. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. @ks350

so it’s not exactly a secret that Ushi’s a little... stoic, but with things he genuinely cares about - volleyball, and you guessed it, his adorable little resistant soulmate - that’s when he lets himself soften a touch, smiling easier, seemingly without even realising it. He tends to get a little carried away when he’s fucking her because he’s honestly just so fucking content, this is exactly where he’s supposed to be and nothing else matters, not even your pretty tears and soft whimpers for him to stop. Of course Tendou’s gonna watch!

Okayyyy so I just read Split and, as always, your writing is superbbbb. Osamu acting like he was innocent in the whole situation? Atsumu being the sadistic little shit that he is? 💯 My brain is just full of thoughts of the Miya Brothers that I decided to read their Soulmate AU this early in the morning and I noticed how the party was set in the new captain's house.

And OMG as third years Atsumu's the new captain of Inarizaki and holy fuck there's a huge possibility the reader, their soulmate, just lost her V card in either of the twin's room or bed. Wouldn't that situation be a cluster fuck that drove them both crazy to do those things at the end after denying reader? Goshhhh I love this little subtle details in your fic. You are such a genius writer that endless possibilities are available to be interpreted by us readers. Thank you so much Rhi 💖💖💖 @pamdamonyum

👀 sqirugpq3urnioklnjk you’re a sweetheart 

but can you imagine if it was Atsumu’s bed and he was the one to find you and the soccer captain? because like i genuinely debated about having them kick his ass and i think in that circumstance... not even Samu would be able to hold him back!

❤️❤️😍😘💕✌️

I love you too, you funky little anon

Ok omg split was amazing! I have to share smth tho when my bro and I were kids (like pretty young), when one of us did something “bad” we’d be like “no that wasn’t me it wasn’t me it was my evil twin,” and like then we’d forgive the other and shit talk abt our “evil” versions bc it wasn’t the “good” twin’s fault lol. So the “Osamu you promised!” “Osamu isn’t here rn,” had me dying. Like so perfect. What bs. Then the end with Osamu “I couldn’t stop him” miya like oh yeah ofc just your evil twin nothing you could have done 🙄 like it was so perfect, I loved it!

aw that’s actually really cute tho! i honest to god think that Osamu’s worse in this one - at least Atsumu never pretends to be anything other than what he is. Osamu’s just as toxic and warped, but he acts like the hero, like it wasn’t his obsession that started this all

So, I just read the Dear Old Friend Osamu drabble and I couldn't help but grin. The implications I got from it and the initial one-shot were the following;

1. Atsumu is a titties man, considering how much he bit and teased them in DOF.

2. 'Samu I don't have a favourite twin how dare you is an ass man considering how many words of that drabble were dedicated to his thoughts lingering on the titular dear old friend's arse.

And I'm just LIVING for it because they really do complete each other in that regard. But also because 'Samu strikes me as the kind of guy that likes face sitting and spanking his partner while they sandwich his face between their thighs. And Atsumu strikes me as the kind of person that likes just randomly fiddling with his partner's tiddies because tiddy = fun.

Also, hi! I love your writing! Pretty sure this is my first ask, even though it's not, really??? @pavlovs-titties

ahh you’re so sweet, thank you bby!!

and yeah, Atsumu’s definitely a tiddies kinda guy and Osamu prefers ur butt (but also not me writing that little drabble because i wanted to tease the idea Osamu have his turn leaving his mark on the reader by spanking her till she’s nice and sore 😉)

Baby, you were amazing ❤️! I don't know how I still get surprised by your awesomeness, but I do. You're amazing and no one can tell you different 🥺🥰

💖💖💖 sdfghjhgj you’ve got me all blushy and soft, thank you!!! 

the jokes on you tho because in actual fact you’re the one who’s amazing?? ily!!

[roscgcld]

JJK manga spoilers at the undercut! long tanget at the undercut!

(Continued for the storytelling!) Okay so 👀 in a very tragic turn of events where Gojo tries to Yuta-style his way out of the Prison Realm, but it goes oopsies and he's actually 'dead' dead and MC stares in disbelief at what she's seeing because this can NOT be real, oh but I'm sorry it is. And this is the one thing, the image of his best friend lying dead in front of him, that gives Geto much longer control over his body and he crawls over to Gojo and his hands are shaking.

(Part 2) He's clawing at himself to wake up from this nightmare to no avail. Nothing will change what's happened and MC flips, kicks him in the face, grabs him by his clothes and slams him onto the nearest surface yelling about how "is this what it takes for you to finally snap out of it?!" why couldn't he have done it sooner??! MC is filled with rage. That's not Geto. She knows it's not Geto, but she's just so angry from her warped sorrow and tells him that even though he changed so much.

(Part 3) and did all those things as a Curse User, she still grieved for him. She missed him so freaking much, dreaming of what could be with all of them together. She hated the fact he had to die because of those actions, and now??? What good is snapping out of it now when she knows she'll have to kill him again because the real Geto already died once before and once she ends the life of whatever is controlling him, the remnents of Suguru will die out again as well. Shes losing them both again.

(Part 4) "What went wrong those 11 years ago??!" They're both such idiots, she thinks, crying furiously. Stupid mistakes, stupid actions. What was Satoru thinking? Why would he try something like that? Why couldn't they have communicated better, why did all those little things have to add up until they got to this point, something that never should've happened? The pain and the sorrow, the hammering of her heart and difficulty breathing is too much. "I can't live in a world without Satoru."

(Part 5) And Suguru looks so sad, and he tries to tell her it's the real him- she knows, tells her that he's sorry. Tries to crawl over back to Satoru's corpse, MC tells him bluntly that he better not lose control as she lets him while keeping a careful eye on him, she won't let Satoru get hurt if the Thing takes over again. She can see in between his words and mumbling to his friend's corpse that he's fighting, and fighting even more once he tells her the name of what's controlling him.

(Part 6) "Kenjaku." He pleads with her, crying out her name to listen as he says. The Thing was after the Six Eyes, with Satoru dead another will be born, but a baby cannot replace The Strongest, the Honored One, (oh how she knows, Satoru was all she had left.) What he asks of her, is impossible. She cannot defile his body in such a way. To take out his eyes, replace her own with them. Her body is compatible to different cursed energies, like moldable clay, and with Shoko's healing.

(Part 7) the transplant has a chance of working flawlessly. She hates it. Satoru is worth more than his stupid powers, but Suguru is trying hard to fight Kenjaku twisting his tongue and silencing his voice, he's croaking out desperately, that if she wants everyone to live, for all her friends to live and defeat The Thing then she must. The Six Eyes have always been its worst enemy. She cannot let that power die out when the world needs it for salvation. She agrees.

(Part 8) She apologies. For kicking him in the face. It's fine, Suguru says, he's forgives it, and he knows it was somewhat deserved. Its time now, they know what needs to be done. It's over quick and easy, one shot through his heart, and not a trace of blood drops to the ground, the wound seared shut from the heat of her attack. The only traces of Suguru Geto that remains on this earth are the bloodstains miles away from here in Shibuya, at the Tomb of the Star, where destiny was destroyed.

(Part 9) Before she ends it all, she makes a wish. If they were to be reborn again, it'd be nice if they could find each other once more and make sure everything goes right. Suguru had smiled when she let her technique go. He too, had promises to keep. "Say hello to Satoru in heaven for me." She forces a smile on her own face, tears having not yet dried. No use holding onto her rage as she takes away Suguru's life. That shouldn't be the last thing he sees.

(Part 10) She'll have to comfort herself with this, that they were at least together now. She hopes they can rest peacefully, it'll be the only kind thing given to them at this point. It'd been far too long and they deserve that rest so long overdue from the harsh tales their birth had woven into them. (Reaching for Gojo's eyes feels like betrayal. Note: I want that one line to be a total opposite of another line earlier on in their fight where she says, "Well then, come dance with me in hell!")

(Part 11) when fake!Geto probs said something about sending her there as a farewell or goodbye or whatever, idk haven't worked that bit out yet lol. It's so I can contrast the change in her negative mindset to being much calmer, to think of something more positive for those two. That 'that's' where they'll be. Suguru isn't the kind of evil Kenjaku is. It's the final acknowledgement and fully giving up her hatred.) Omg this is so long, I'm sorry. I hope its enjoyable at least??? *hearts and hugs*

Lol whoops, I forgot to mention but MC also kinda slaps Suguru after kicking him in the face and it's that moment of being stunned that lets her grab him, it's good that the "real" Geto doesn't fight back because geez Kenjaku controlling him is way too strong, a long-distance fighter and a great martial artist. At least then it's easier to get him in a chokehold and try to rip off the stitches hiding that cowardly brain.

Idk why but I think it’s cause I have no idea who your MC is that I am not really following lol. And I am not that great with canon material, but I am sure that Gege has mentioned that there isn’t much of Suguru left in his body. Cause even though his technique and his heart and all is there, I think the brain (or Kenjaku)’s power is to not only take over the host, but also shape themselves around the core of the host’s spirit. So in general it’s kinda like Mahito?

But I guess I enjoyed it? Idk it’s a lot, I can’t process much of it because I think I am too in the dark of your MC, but I also enjoy the entire thing? Idk, I am a mess of how I should feel cause I can barely process the entire Shibuya Arch lol. 

Also does that mean that the Gojo clan does not have a head anymore? How is that going to work? Or are they going to take her in as the new head? Wouldn’t the world’s axis shift too cause because she isn’t the original owner of the Six Eyes. She doesn’t know how to use his Technique - I am assuming she is a no name before she took his eyes. Doesn’t that mean that open up an entire new Arch in your timeline as it is?

Honestly, now that I look over it again, there is so much going on that I am surprised that there are people out there with such rainbow brains to be able to think of something as insane as this. There is so much detail that it kinda blows my mind lol. 

But I love that you shared so much cool ideas with me, anon! if you ever write this, do tag me so that i can read. or tag me in your entire MC timeline - I would love to explore this even more!

[turning-dreams-into-chaos]

Upcoming Requests

As I promised, I’m popping on to post a list of all my requests I’m doing. I know I have asks and messages, but I’m not going to go through them right now, but I appreciate all your support everyone. I’m not tagging people who requested until it’s posted because most of these are anons. Please like and reblog this, just so others are aware of what I’m doing, and comment which pieces you’re looking forward to the most! It’s a LONG list, so I’m adding a read more option. I’m not posting these in any order, that’s just how they’re listed. 

Also check out my writing challenge in my bio!

Requests: 

Bellamy Blake: 

Can you do a Bellamy x reader? which takes place in season 3 with the chips that take away their pain. The reader is going through something and wants to take it but Bellamy stops them? Love your writing and don’t care about the haters! 

Hi! It’s me again. I’ve got this BellamyxReader idea where the reader has become more and more reckless, and when she kills someone she doesn’t even flinch. Everyone’s worried, especially Bellamy. When they get to restrain chipped-Raven and they’re taking shifts to check on her. While it’s the reader’s turn, Raven says something that makes her snap. I have 2 ideas for the end: either the readers goes out and points a gun to her head or she points it to Raven. Either way, Bellamy stops her. (I was thinking that maybe no one knows about it and that the reader’s been keeping it under control with the meds Kane managed to give her before she was sent to earth with the 100 (maybe she could be Kane’s daughter).Then, when Jaha started chipping everyone, ALIE ordered someone to steal her meds and she didn’t really want to tell anyone about the missing meds. She started to go through the maniac phase of it, and people around her (Bellamy, Clarke) started to notice that something was off Then, coming back to my original request lol, Raven told her that they stole their meds to mess with her and you can connect it with the rest of my other request)

Hi there, I was wondering if i could request an angsty/fluffy S5 Bellamy fic based on the song “Hesitate” by the Jonas Brothers? Thank you ☺❤

Is it possible to get a bellamy one-shot or something based on the song “I hate you, I love you” by gnash and olivia o’brien? I’m not really picky (at all) by what the plot is, but I feel like it’s a good song to write a fic about, thanks girlie 💜 ~ Posted!

Okay soooo I have this on my mind for aawhile!Are you able to do a Bellamy Blake x plus size (if you want) reader imagine based on the song “Don’t wanna fall in love” by KYLE… if you want though!

Hi! I have a request What about a Bellamy x Reader based on the song Happy Pills by Weathers?

Would you be willing to do a Bell x Reader based on the song ALARM by Anne-Marie? Maybe something in season 1, but you can decide a different season if it’s easier☺

Your song fics are so goooddddd! Can you PLEASE do one based on If the World was Ending? Its by JP Saxe and Julia Michaels. Can it be a lot of angst and maybe a cute ending if it works? Thank you!!!!!

Hi!! I love your work! I was wondering if you could write a Bellamy x reader based on the song Hot Girl Bummer by blackbear! Thank you ❤️ have a nice day!

Could you maybe do something Season 1 Bellamy where he's tough and lets everybody "do whatever the hell they want" but he's bossier to you and you're a rebellious spirit but he's actually being hard on you because he really really likes you and he doesn't want anything to happen to you (he's bossy in a roundabout way so he makes sure you get dinner and are safe and stuff) and maybe something happens and she gets hurt cause she's mad at him and he admits his feelings for her? Sassy and sweet?

Sirius Black: 

hello! can i request an imagine in which reader is Lucius’ little sister, so she has a bad reputation among the marauders, but on their last year, her and Sirius are supposed to work on a project together so they start spending more time together and he realises that she’s not like her family at all, so they start developing feelings for each other? maybe they even kiss in the end? hehe. thanks!

Hey sweets! I was wondering if I could request a oneshot with young!Sirius please? Something with a lot of mutual pining? Also if the reader could be in Ravenclaw that would be really nice :) Thanks anyways 💓

can i request an extremely fluffy (floof upon floof) and wholesome fic with sirius? :’) thank you

Could you please write a Sirius x reader where the reader is a Gryffindor but is very quiet and cold and Sirius tries to get closer to her?

Hey! I saw that your requests for the marauders were open. I would like to request a Sirius oneshot where he has a crush on reader who is super sassy and will not give him time of the day. He is a bit sad and so maybe James takes it upon himself to get them together? Maybe as a bonus they help July get together too? Thankyou 😍

Hey! How are you? Thanks to Seira I discovered you were writing for the marauders! So I was thinking could you right something on the marauders (Sirius x reader) were it’s full moon and they’re in the muggle world. Moony is stuck in the middle of a village, there is a lot of muggle around him so the reader (who is an animagus too since she’s a marauder) save him but finish hurt by a villager so Sirius protect her and carry her away? I hope it’s understandable and sorry if my English is bad :) 

Barry Allen: 

Hiii! One last request before you close them! Maybe a Barry Allen x reader where the reader has got “dark” powers? I picture her like Billie Eilish in her music video “Bury a Friend”. I don’t know if I explained it clearly 😂

James Potter: 

I really love your works on Harry Potter (basically marauders) Can I request 14, 16, 18, 23, 28 for James Potter. Can reader be Remus' twin sister, a Gryffindor? I I would be really happy to read it. Also if possible can you make a happy ending for it? I trust you can write a perfect fic! Thank you:) (are you still open to this kind of requests?)~ Posted! 

could u maybe work on a lil james potter fic (cus ur reqs for him are open)? one where he's trying so hard to get a girl in the quidditch team (but she's bolder than he is so she tells him she'll only join if he goes on a date w her) i thought it'd be pretty cool... thank u 

I don't know if you are taking one shot requests but if you are, I would like to request a James Potter x reader (different houses, not specified) where they enter a Hogwarts Couples Baking Challenge and they're just having fun. Thanks!

Remus Lupin: 

Hi!!! Could I get a gender neutral!reader x Remus?? Something with mutual pining maybe?? Also I would love if the reader is in hufflepuff!! Thank you!!!

Hey! Can I request a oneshot with Remus where he likes reader who is Lily's best friend and us smarter than her too and is also a prefect? He asks for her help to study and accidentally confesses his feelings at the same time/or confesses during one of their prefect rounds? Thankyou!

can i request some angst for younger remus where it's a couple days after the full moon and he looks for the reader so they can cuddle (they're already dating) and he finds them kissing another guy, and he asks reader why and the readers like "i dont want you anymore, i love this guy, blah blah blah" and he's heart broken but later somehow reader's friend finds out the guy gave them a love potion and fixes it, and reader has to try to explain to Remus that it's what happened but he doesn't (1/2) believe her, and it's all angsty because he's mad at her but in the end he understands or something like that, and i am SO sorry that this is so long, and i love love love your writing~ Posted!

John Murphy: 

 I think 18 by 1D would be such a cute song for Murphy! I saw your requests were open for him (THANK GOD because your writing is incredible!) and I was hoping you wouldn’t mind? Thanks love!

John Murphy with a reader that got her arm or leg or both taken on earth and it’s about her recovering and John helping her. If you can’t do John then sorry for bothering!!

Undecided: 

I wasn't going to ask this because I already requested something (believe me when I say I read the moment I knew lots of times already), but just trying it won't hurt me, right? (right? 😭) I need something based on lover of mine by 5sos it can be bellamy, sirius, james, remus or bucky, whoever you think would fit better. thank you for putting up with my shit 🤧 love you tons - 🍑 (Undecided because I haven’t figured out who to write for yet, I think it might be Bucky)

So this is hella randombut can u do a eli goree x reader ship. Eli played wells on the 100 and mad dog on riverdale btw. Anyway can it be were your also famous actor and played in the 100 and riverdale ect and u guys are playing a game on the jimy falon show and your picking random QUITIONS from a dec of cards abd most of them are things having to fo with ur friend ship (u guys are like bestfriends and everybody ships u2) reader picks random card that says I asked you out would you say yes? (Undecided because my requests aren’t open for Eli and I’ve never written for an actor before, but I kinda wanna write this despite my requests not for him. So idk yet. Question: If I do write this, do you Eli to say yes? and do you want them together? No promises on writing it, but send me an ask and let me know please.)

[marvels-writings]

I’m very curious as to how the process of writing these masterpieces goes. Honestly can you describe your typical writing experiences? Like how do you get in the zone of writing? How long does it usually take? How do you inspire your creativity (songs/ real life interactions/ prompts)? Also please know that I love you and your writing thank you for amazing work!

Oh, uh, well, this is a bit more complicated than you would’ve expected. But quick backstory, my parents don’t know about this blog (and i’d like to keep it that way) plus if they found out now they would kind of explode and never let me write again. So, i write whenever they aren’t near my room, and I’m playing music all the time, it helps to keep me from getting distracted. 

And about inspiration, most of the stuff i’ve posted are requests, there’s a few that are my original creativity. Those are based off of songs, prompts I’ve read before, and a few of my close friends. But mostly they are requests.

But anyway, this is so weird to explain. (i would also like everyone to keep in mind i’m trying my best to respond to this but i’m 14 and a self taught (except for school) writer))

So my ‘typical writing experience’ would usually start with like just me going into the massive google doc (i can share it but you would only have access to viewing, maybe commenting) where I every single one of the drabbles and series (in the order they were written (cause i’m kinda a control freak)). Then i decide what I’m in the mood to write, (i copied and pasted all of the requests and i have a to do list).

So like I get some really really long requests sometimes which I know will take forever so I don’t do those unless i have enough time to finish. I try to do as many series as i can but the experience is weirder to describe. 

Like i just sit there for a few seconds thinking of like 10 different ways the request could go and then decide the best way it could go. This is usually the angstiest yet happiest one i can write, which i think is the best. 

Writing them gets even weirder tbh.

So my brain is hella weird, it’s in like 50 places at once. Writing is basically unifying all of those voices in my head and putting them as one, onto words on a document. It’s one hell of a relief to be honest, it’s why i started this blog in the first place.

While I’m writing I just have the idea in my head as well as the character, so I’m constantly thinking, what would I do if I were them. which is easier than thinking what would they do bc you are a real person, so it’s easier to project a character onto yourself rather than just have a character if you know what I mean. 

All of them usually take anywhere from 15-30 minutes from when i start writing to posting. In the 15-30 minutes if I’m stressed out the drabble will be funnier and sarcastic, if I’m tired it won’t be too great, but anything else it should be normal. and i def would not call any of them masterpieces. 

Thank you so much for feedback and i hope this is what you wanted, plus I wouldn’t call them masterpieces but THANKS!!! love you anon! and idk if i should add a tag list to this