#me posting something immediately and not relying on my queue like I have for like 4 months? who would’ve guessed

[monsterfuckerconfessions]

Words are being put in my mouth by some anonymous messages and some very unkind assumptions are being made.

Very long post under the cut-

I need all of you to understand that I'm playing this by ear. Longtime followers will know that every so often I will make a post about a new rule because something was brought to my attention.

Upon the creation of this blog, I had no idea what rules would be needed to foster a safe environment. Therefore, I added rules as things came up.

If memory serves, at the start of this blog, I didn't have any rules and that worked fine for quite a while because no one submitted anything that was harmful. As time went on, that of course didn't last and sadly people submitted things with slurs and other harmful language.

I admit I've made mistakes. A transmisogynistic slur made it onto this blog, which was quickly called out by a follower (thank you for that!) and I removed the submission in question.

When I posted my new pinned post with a list of rules and guidelines, I asked for input. I cannot predict every possible scenario so I admittedly rely on followers of this blog to call out things they think are inappropriate. Which is why when I received the recent message informing me that they found a submission to be offensive, I took it very seriously.

I will admit, I genuinely don't remember queuing the submission in question. It was likely submitted about two weeks ago and I have no idea what my thought process was when I saw it and accepted it. I don't want to make excuses, but I will say that I sometimes queue submissions when I'm not in a place where I should be doing so, such as when I'm extremely tired, or just woke up and still bleary, or after I've taken medication to make me sleepy.

I have made mistakes before when going through submissions when I shouldn't. I've accidentally posted things instead of queuing them, for example, or I've misread what someone wrote in a way that caused issues. I have been trying to do better about that as of late and not go through submissions when my judgement is impaired. I don't know if that was the case for the submission in question. I genuinely don't know. I am just sharing some of the mistakes I've made in the past and telling you I will try to do better in the future.

Though I don't remember my thoughts when I queued the submission in question, I do remember queuing other posts that made me personally uncomfortable when I read them.

I'm a bit torn here, which I tried to voice in my other posts on the subject. On one hand, I want people to feel free to talk about their thoughts and feelings. But on the other, I don't want those thoughts or feelings to cause harm to others. I've queued posts that made me personally uncomfortable (because I felt they insulted something about me) because I didn't want to censor people here. I didn't know how or if I should make a rule about such things. I didn't know how to handle it, so I went ahead and queued things that I found offensive to me personally, hoping that if others found it offensive as well they would let me know. Since no one did, I hoped that meant that I alone was made uncomfortable and thus it was an okay thing to have on the blog.

When the submission in question was brought to my attention initially, I immediately felt uncomfortable in how it was worded. I'm not fond of anything that calls something or someone gross.

I asked for suggestions on how to handle the subject on the initial post because, as I stated earlier, I do rely on followers of this blog to tell me how things make them feel and suggest ways to improve. This is a blog for the community so I always prioritize feedback, especially when I genuinely don't know how to handle the situation.

As stated earlier, I don't want to censor people's experiences. This is a place people should feel free and open to talk about their monsterfucker journey. But at the same time, I do not want the sharing of those experiences to hurt others. Which is why I asked for input. I received a lovely suggestion about making a rule that essentially means "don't yuck someone else's yum" and that is what I added to the list of rules and guidelines.

Ideally, I want people to be able to voice their preferences in a way that doesn't insult others. I hope that in the future, that can be done.

As for the deleting of the submission in question: I've been accused of deleting it in order to hide the full situation. That is not true at all. I deleted it because it was offensive to multiple people. I have not deleted any posts on the subject. I am not trying to hide anything I've said or done.

And in fact, I haven't deleted the post at all. It's been made private. You can view it here, if you wish to have a full understanding of the situation.

As for the other accusation thrown my way:

I don't think I ever stated that "this is a you problem." The post in question made me uncomfortable as well when it was brought to my attention and I 100% agree that it was inappropriate and offensive.

My issue with one of the messages I received is that I simply disagree that discussions about the human body are off topic for the subject of monsterfucking. A suggestion was made that I should have a blanket ban on any mentions of the human body in a positive, neutral or negative light and I cannot get on board with that as I feel that in many cases our views of human bodies influences our monsterfucking journey.

I hope future submissions can word such influences in ways that are not insulting to other people. I will do my best to not accept submissions that are worded similarly to the one in question.

Thank you all for your feedback and patience during this situation. I am always trying to improve this blog so that it is a place for all sorts of monsterfuckers to come together and share their thoughts. I apologize for not always succeeding in this and I do genuinely greatly appreciate when people call out my mistakes so that I can endeavor to do better in the future.

💖

[prettypangolins]

just got a scam dm that said:

Yo hi there! I’m very sorry to bother you at this time but I’m hoping if you’d be so kind to check the post that I pinned on my blog and maybe give it a little help by boosting/sharing it? it’s for my cat who struggles to breathe :((( and we need help to get him the tests that he needs. Thank you if you do as it would really mean the world to me and I understand if you don’t, still appreciate you and stay safe! Btw, please do send me a msg to reply or answer the ask privately instead as I dont want other blogs to think im a spambot or what, sorry for asking this, praying you’d consider! 🥲🙏

however the blog has only been reblogging and posting for 14 hours i'm just like... go away????

i saw a post about scams like this a little while ago, so i'm wise to it but it feels HORRIBLE bc kitty. but it's usually a scam. if you get one of these, report and block. you're not a bad person for not engaging - even if it's legit, you don't have to reblog/boost/donate just because you feel bad or guilty. but also, if you're getting a dm request like the above it's very very very likely someone trying to make money by pretending to be a legit person asking for help in a way that seems genuine but isn't. i've never seen this person in my notes. idk who they are. the wording of the pinned post is designed to evoke that 'omfg i want to help!' sad response by telling you how bad things are, etc. and get you to act without thinking

but details with this one are off. i mean, the pinned post says 'next payday is on june 10th' but today is the 12th of june now and 14 hours ago in was the 11th. prior to the 'please help!' post, 9 posts were reblogged in the space of 2 minutes (not too unrealistic for tumblr), then there's the help request, followed immediately by 14 posts all with exactly the same timestamp, which... you're either reblogging desperately without looking at what you're posting from the 'for you' or 'explore' page, or that's a queue, set to dump those 15 posts at that specific time to make the blog look legit at a glance (most likely what happened). the posts after that are at more random (last post was 5 hours ago, the dm was 4 hours ago)

so yeah i feel kinda guilty, but there are people out there who rely on this to manipulate others and take advantage of our desire to help so that they can line their pockets

(also if you feel guilted into reblogging to 'signal boost' a post asking for money, it's going to be seen by followers who reblog for the same reason and maybe even give money to a total stranger who told us something bad happened and has then let our desire to help and guilt over not acting do the rest. it's okay to break the chain. we can't care about absolutely everything or help absolutely everyone, and we just burn ourselves out if we try to)

[gullethead]

what is your opinion on tamsyn muir discourse (and also what is the discourse)

THANK you. okay warning for discussion of fictional sexual assault, real life CSA (not something she did), plus 2012-era homestuck fandom typical stuff

please rb this btw, unless you dont want to, in which case dont. also if you have any corrections or additional information to consider please add by all means

disclaimer: im not in the habit of writing essays defending whichever internet personalities i like. ill admit theres potential bias, given that i read the books before i learned about this, but im really being as objective as possible and i just think people are taking a misguided or half-formed stance on this. if you still dislike her or w/e after this thats, like, perfectly in your rights. im not defending an adult woman on the internet, im explaining the facts as ive seen them and understand them. additional disclaimer that i havent experienced sexual assault at all myself

okay so tamsyn muir is currently well-known as the author of the locked tomb trilogy (aka gideon the ninth and harrow the ninth), but for a certain section of tumblr shes also well known as urbanAnchorite, and used to be a big name fan on here up until around 2014 - pretty close to everything here is going to be from roughly 2011 through 2014, except for an interview im gonna get into, so 7-10 years ago. i was only vaguely aware of her until after i got into the locked tomb and saw people talking about this. with that in mind:

so the MAJORITY of the discourse revolves around a single fic she wrote on AO3. her account has 19 works in homestuck, and some of them are Kinda Weird to Pretty Bad in retrospect, but being completely honest this is the only one that isnt completely stock standard for homestuck fandom in that time period. like if we started casting stones about ten year old fandom stuff we'd be here all day

here is the fic (warning for CSA)

in most of the posts about it ive seen, theyve described it as a "rapefic," but actually reading it, it's a lot more nuanced than that description implies. its a dark story where a grown man abuses a girl, from the man's perspective, and the story ends with him being killed by her friend. the description of the assault is treated very seriously by the story and barely even touches on any actual sex, before immediately cutting to him being killed. its lolita if humbert got shot to death; the title itself comes FROM lolita

(sidenote - it was inspired by a prompt on kinkmeme, but that doesn't really mean anything vis a vis being intended for sexual enjoyment, and according to the note actually went against the spirit of the request)

ive seen fics, lots and lots of fics, that would qualify as the term "rapefic." it tends to be pretty fucking obvious when someone is using sexual assault as a fetish, and this is Not That

tamsyn herself actually responded to this in an excellent interview early last year. she gets into some Fandom Mom type language, but essentially says what i said above. in it, she also says this:

It’s not the first time I’ve been accused of being a paedophile. I grew up gay in the nineties. Homosexuality and paedophilia were enmeshed in society’s minds. When I came out, I got told that I shouldn’t be around children. I was used to that because it was common discourse, and it hurt like all hell, but it didn’t shock me. When I got called a paedophile by Twitter I got clotheslined. My support network had to get in pronto. I was very ready to have a hot date with a length of rope, a date I have arranged and cancelled multiple times over my life. I have had lots and lots of therapy over the years for various conditions, some of them lifelong and some not, but when that Twitter call-out happened it was hard to want to live. I thought I knew so intimately what I was doing with my fiction; my therapist was always so supportive of me writing about it. I have not been open about being a CSA survivor because, again, I grew up in the ‘90s. ‘Lesbian’ and ‘CSA survivor’ is just carte blanche so a whole queue of people can tell you, I HOPE ONE DAY, WITH LOVE AND SUPPORT, YOU CAN BE STRAIGHT. It was like, right this way to the invalidation booth. I didn’t even tell most of my girlfriends! I told one! It’s not a topic of discussion between me and my family; I am relying on them not reading my interviews so it can remain where it belongs: thoroughly undiscussed!

with this context it becomes... a lot more nuanced of a topic. an author who experienced CSA in addition to growing up in a cultural climate where gay people were pedophiles by default, especially growing up catholic in a rural community, wrote a work about childhood sexual assault (which also happened to be fanfiction) as a way of working through it for herself, which is... something a lot of artists do with their art? and in return she got a massive blowback on twitter accusing her of pedophilia and demanding she talk about a massively traumatic moment in her life

this is the major sticking point of the discourse, im not gonna get into anything else on this post, but this is my view of it. if you disagree or have anything to add then feel free to add on. again, i know what it looks like, but im not trying to uncritically defend a stranger just cause i like her book. this is the conclusion i came to after doing a lot of digging for myself

[honeysucklepink]

I posted 3,680 times in 2021

326 posts created (9%)

3354 posts reblogged (91%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 10.3 posts.

I added 1,827 tags in 2021

#darren criss - 700 posts

#this is the queue - 215 posts

#instagram - 172 posts

#video - 144 posts

#kitteh! - 125 posts

#nov 2021 - 123 posts

#ted lasso - 122 posts

#glee - 85 posts

#chris colfer - 71 posts

#klaine - 70 posts

Longest Tag: 111 characters

#can i add that i love how ismat's conflict is that sometimes she just wants to be a daughter instead of a queen

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Alex McDaniel July 21, 2021 10:55 am ET

There’s more than one moment in the fourth episode of Ted Lasso when I fall to pieces inside (and sometimes outside) no matter how many times I watch it.

It’s the night of AFC Richmond’s annual charity auction and the team’s owner, Rebecca Welton (played by the incomparable Hannah Waddingham), is running the show alone for the first time following a painfully public split from her ex-husband, Rupert. We already know Rebecca’s broader motivations at this point: She’s dead-set on burning her ex’s beloved football club to the ground after years of Rupert’s infidelity and the public humiliation that followed. What we don’t know is just how traumatizing her marriage really was or how it shaped Rebecca into someone fiercely determined to get revenge, regardless of how many innocent people she has to hurt to get it.

Rebecca is clearly at her breaking point by the time the auction begins. After  finalizing preparations and wrestling with herself over whether a stunning black gown is something she can still “pull off”, she finds out the gala’s musical guest, Robbie Williams, has canceled at the last minute. To make matters worse, Rupert (Anthony Head) shows up at the gala — because of course he does — though he had RSVP’d “no” — because of course he did.

We already knew Rupert was a lying, cheating liar, but it isn’t until a subtle comment to Rebecca that we start to realize the extent of the damage she’s recovering from in the aftermath of their marriage.

“Not too much champagne now, dear,” he tells her after she sips from her glass. “You’ve got to stay sharp for the auction.” It’s in this uncomfortable scene with Rebecca, Rupert and Ted (Jason Sudeikis) that we see her transform from a confident, commanding team owner to someone who suddenly can’t trust herself. She tells Rupert he should run the auction instead of her —”We both know they’d rather see you,” she says with no argument from him — and immediately leaves to collect herself.

There are many ways to emotionally abuse a person. Some do it with swift, painful blows to their target’s confidence. Some carefully gaslight their way into a position of dominance by reinforcing self-doubt at every opportunity. And some, like Rupert, do it with a dull knife, relying on years of tiny cuts of cruelty to slowly injure the other person until they no longer recognize who they are or how they’ve been so brutally wounded.

“That man, he knows me. I used to think his blunt honesty was noble rather than what it really is, which is just the cruelest way of hiding his own insecurities. He’d say wear this, eat that. And I listened. But now I’m alone. I’m alone, Ted. Just like he said I would be if I left. I don’t want to be alone.”

And that’s when I break. Every. Damn. Time. Because Ted Lasso, in all its beauty and award-winning brilliance, isn’t always an easy watch if you’ve been abused by a partner and left to clean up their mess. While I, like so many others, fell in love with this show for all of its warmth and goodness, I can’t ignore how drawn I was to Rebecca’s character because so many of us have lived through her experience, and more importantly, lived to tell about it.

That’s why I wasn’t surprised when Waddingham recently said she drew on her own experiences in a past abusive relationship when performing the role. For those of us who’ve endured abuse only to further damage ourselves by seeking vengeance over healing, Rebecca represents the complex ugliness of recovery, how hurt people can hurt people in pursuit of peace.

For as much as this show does to deliver a model of kindness, optimism and forgiveness, it’s also explores human relationships in a way that shows you don’t need a clear-cut hero and villain to tell a compelling story about people — particularly a character like Rebecca who spends most of the first season driven by revenge. It’s why she hires Ted in the first place, despite his complete lack of experience. It’s why she’s initially able to resist his disarming personality and growing connection with the team despite their poor performance on the pitch.

It’s only late in the season, when Rupert cruelly shows up unannounced to tell her he and his new partner are expecting a child, that she realizes she’s never going to win at a game that requires hurting people, even if Rupert deserves to be on the receiving end of what he did to her.

Rebecca ultimately shows us there’s nothing pretty about processing relationship trauma and public humiliation — no magic scoreboard that can erase years of abuse if you have the upper hand. Even if she managed to destroy AFC Richmond, the thing Rupert (allegedly) loves most, it wouldn’t change what he did to her during their marriage or the damage he caused. And it certainly won’t absolve her of the responsibility to make amends with those she hurt when she was married or the people she’s hurting now by deliberately sabotaging a community’s beloved football club.

The catch is you can’t fully heal that kind of abuse without exhibiting the same vulnerability that led to being hurt in the first place, and that’s what we see when she finally comes clean to Ted about her intentions and gives him the freedom to destroy her reputation as a result. It requires more strength to do that than to act out of anger and spite. Anyone can pursue revenge. Not everyone can choose to surrender and start over.

That’s the pain and promise of Ted Lasso, a show buoyed by the power of personal connection. If Ted is intended to show us our highest potential as human beings, Rebecca shows us what happens when we’re so afraid of not deserving that connection that we’ll do anything to save face. She wanted so badly for her ex-husband to shoulder the burden of her own suffering. And it took being loved by good people to make her realize payback was only stealing her peace.

The beauty of Rebecca’s character lies in the complexity of who we can become as a result of being hurt, for better or worse. In a world where most of us out here are scared to death of being seen for who we are, Ted Lasso is a show that simply won’t let us avoid the pain of the human experience.

Instead, it shows us why that pain is necessary, why it matters, and why we don’t have to endure it alone.

49 notes • Posted 2021-07-21 17:14:53 GMT

#4

Top 10 Unscripted Glee Moments That Were Kept in the Show

I was actually surprised at a few of these!

50 notes • Posted 2021-09-05 02:13:29 GMT

#3

When you find out just HOW FUCKING STUPID the Facebook Outage of Oct 2021 was:

https://twitter.com/alexhern/status/1445130867073032195

[Image: a series of Tweets from @alexhern Text: a bunch of friends have texted me asking for a basic explanation as to what the hell happened to knock off all of Facebook so: Facebook (accidentally, we assume) sent an update to a deep-level routing protocol on the internet that said, basically, "hey we don't have any servers any more xoxo" Normally, this would be quite easy to fix. you just send another update saying "oh, don't worry, we have servers, they're here, xoxo". Things still break, it takes a while for the message to spread to all corners of the internet, egg on face, but liveable but Facebook runs EVERYTHING through Facebook So when its servers were booted off the internet, it also booted off… the ability to send that follow-up message and the ability to log-in to the system that would send the follow-up message and the ability to use the smartcard door lock on the front door to the building that contains the servers that control the system that sends the follow-up message and the messaging service you use to contact the head of physical security to tell them they need to high-tail it to the data centre out east with a physical key to override the smartcard door lock on the front door…]

107 notes • Posted 2021-10-05 00:18:50 GMT

#2

To Stephen Sondheim's memory:

(Original post had several more Glee-Sondheim moments)

211 notes • Posted 2021-11-27 00:45:11 GMT

#1

That second paragraph led to a wonderful meme:

Search “Wanting to be a good dad” on Twitter and enjoy.

562 notes • Posted 2021-02-19 00:51:38 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[nako-doodles]

check in tag 😌

tagged by the cutest babes @jaehyukkies @gimbapchefs @taesjpg @joenns @honsool @taehyungq @himbojin @jiminswn & @kimtaegis  mwah! ✨✨

1. Why did you choose your url?

namjoon bought a duck mold, ventured out into a snowy day in winter, and gave me the greatest tweet i have ever seen

2. Any sideblogs? If you have them name them and why you have them

the day i gain the ability to wrangle more than one blog ill let yall know

3. How long have you’ve been on tumblr?

*starts calculating time furiously and almost burns out her single braincell* ive been here since like freshman year high school.....so............2010? 2011? ive deleted and restarted like 3 times tho so.........also you can calculate my exact age now (as if I dont have my age on my carrd aiowgjiorajgo)

4. Do you have a queue tag?

no we dont tag we just chaos in this house *finger guns*

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

i took a break from tumblr and kpop and then decided I wanted to make a bts blog out of the blue

6. Why did you choose your icon?

i drew all these tiny snow ducks i might as well capitalize on them yknow? really embrace my duck persona (Kim Namjoon witness the person you have made me)

7. Why did you choose your header?

honestly my entire blog brand at this point can be narrowed down to the hour ish (probably) joon spent wrangling snow into duck molds, placing them together for the twt, and captioning them ducktan sonyeondan (im on the look out for new ideas im ready for a change lmk if you have ideas 🥰)

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

i think its this post?? of the babies on rollerblades from that one iconic dynamite stage. and on that note tumblr should be able to let me filter based on note count instead of forcing me to rely one my shoddy terrible no good math skills. asking me to compare numbers bigger than 0? despicable. 

9. How many mutuals do you have?

absolutely no fucking clue 🥰🥰🥰 i do love them to the moon (Kim Seokjin) and back tho!!!!

10. How many followers do you have?

ngl its still wild for me that even one of yall follow me thank you 🥺🥺🥺 its a great honor that you have bestowed upon me

11. How many people do you follow?

303 bc I like it when numbers are palindromes and also bc im bad at checking new blogs

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

would like you to direct you to my #shirley you cant be serious.txt tag

13. How often do you use tumblr each day?

i try my best to “clean out” my blog (reply to my dms/askbbox, check out my mentions, scroll for new content i may have missed etc.) in the mornings and evenings when i have the time. ive been kinda bad at this lately bc its been hectic here in shirley headquarters but ill get to everyone soon I promise!! (this sounds like bad. its not!!! its just that leaving things stresses me out? like how i like replying to texts as soon as i see them or reply emails as fast as i can. ‘unresolved’ correspondence feels rude.)

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

no im the type to unfollow/block/ignore if someone did or said something i dont agree with without a word

15. How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

i get the need for those signal boost posts and promulgating important information but (and this is going to sound selfish) tumblr is my destress zone. i go here when the world is being overwhelming and terrible. i certainly read and educate myself as much as my mental health will let me, and i try my best to promote information and donate whenever i can, but i feel like social media has caused some people here to be too into canceling, managing, and being performative in their ‘wokeness.’ like you HAVE to have a blackout pic on instagram and you HAVE to reblog all these posts and you HAVE to immediately cancel everyone who has ever made a mistake EVER with no nuance or context (or dare i say......humanity). like fighting for human rights and speaking up again racism and bringing attention to societal problems is just a checklist to go down instead of being things you should understand and try to improve? like being ‘unproblematic’ starts and ends with mindlessly reblogging ‘woke’ content. idk sorry for going on a rant. going back to your regularly scheduled lighthearted content in 3...2...1

16. Do you like tag games?

ABSOLUTELY TAG ME IN EVERYTHING PLS AND THANK MWAH

17. Do you like ask games?

ofc!!! i used to do a lot of ask games back in the day but work and the pixel art ive been working on has been eating up all my extra time (and i always feel bad if I leave asks unanswered for too long see: q. 13) i do have that clover moots post saved for when my mental health is up and i have the time to tho!!!! 

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

ngl the idea of being tumblr famous is hilarious to me bc it usually just the same 10 moots who share a braincell bouncing posts back and forth each other, but i do think all my moots are superstars that even class o super giants millions of millions of miles away are turning green w envy 🥰🥰🥰

19. Do I have a crush on a mutual?

i have a confession i have to make........i have a big phat standing crush on all my moots........its really embarassing............thats its bigger than even tae’s tush or joon’s tits..................pls let me down gently if you dont feel the same................

tagging: @cafejoon @stargazingjin @yoobijin @jinbestboy @jintae @jinv @taemaknae @butterful & anyone who wants to ✨✨

[aethylas]

For anonymous: a series of answers/clarifications/amendments on The Goldenrod Revisions! (I've answered these all in one post just to make it easier). Thank you so much for the asks, this helped me a) clarify my thoughts b) solve some canon continuity issues so I really appreciate them!

THANK U for agreeing to answer my questions! I'll have to ask them separately so they're not in 1 super-long impossible-to-read ask. I have 3 about 15x19, 1 about 15x20, 2 about 15x21, 2 about 15x22, and 2 about 15x23. quick disclaimer: i don't mean any offense at all by my question count! I didn't even notice these oddities the first time I read this; once I read it and accepted it as the true canon, I took a closer look and then noticed. but plz don't think these made your fic any less great!!

No worries anon! It is literally my pleasure to answer them and I am VERY very happy to find discrepancies with canon in the fic - then I can hopefully fix them and make the fic better :) Also I really appreciate the very systematic way you laid all these out, it really helped me reply, and also subsequently make a couple of edits to the fic!

For 15x19:

1. Why did Chuck trust Michael with the task of killing Jack? As God he should know Michael betrayed him in 15.08; did he expect Michael to disobey him again?

I think in this case we're/Chuck is relying on knowledge from the canon 15.19, i.e. Chuck would assume the outcome predicted by the show - that Michael WOULD betray the Winchesters/the world in order to please his father. So God assumed Michael would act the way he did in Inherit The Earth. But additionally, Chuck isn't actually very keyed-in to his own characters' motivations (esp. when love is involved) or very attached to certain results - he basically sends Michael and Lucifer to kill Jack because he figures it will entertain him no matter what happens - whether Michael and Lucifer kill each other, whether they kill the Winchesters/Jack, etc. - either Jack dies this way or Chuck will think of another way to do it.

2. How was Sam able to kill Lucifer? It was said only an archangel could kill another archangel with the archangel blade; was this a total lie or could Sam do it since he's Lucifer's true vessel? (plz don't change it to have Michael kill him; Sam being the one to do it was perfect, I just wanna understand how he could do it).

So glad you raised this because I honestly totally forgot! But now that you have, I have corrected that lore continuity with a line about biblical metaphors.

3. How is Rowena alive? She said she was dead in 15.08, so I initially assumed as a witch and the Queen of Hell she found a way to travel between Hell and Earth despite being dead. But then Sam says "Michael could've killed you" and then Chuck kills her twice in 15.21, both of which indicate she's alive here - does this mean Michael resurrected her when she summoned him?

God okay this is like - please call me out if this is incorrect or still confusing - but it's kind of like, based on the very inconsistent and confusing lore of the SPN afterlife that I assume Rowena is 'dead' but also 'alive' in the sense that Crowley was 'alive' and is now 'dead'. Does that make sense? She's not 'alive' as a human but rather as a demon (or something like it). So as Queen of Hell and a presumably demonic-adjacent entity, when she's 'killed' she gets sent to the Empty now vs. being 'killed' as a human and going to Heaven/Hell. (Based on when we see her in Hell, I assume she possesses her own body? Unclear. Just go with it. They've never been great with what it means to show vessels in Heaven/Hell etc.)

4. I thought asked all I wanted to know about Goldenrod but I just thought of 1 more thing: I don’t get why some dialogue implies Michael was dead? He mentions how he “found himself back on Earth” and tells the Empty it couldn’t stop Chuck from resurrecting him & Lucifer, but prior to 15.19 we last saw Michael leaving the bunker with Adam alive and well in 15.08, and it seemed like he was gonna stay on Earth for Adam’s sake. So what happened to him?

Oh that's a great point! I think that is actually just a confusing choice on my part that Chuck killed absolutely everyone including Michael/Adam in 15.18 Despair and THEN chose to resurrect Michael (but not Adam) alongside Lucifer when he was bored/wanting to kill Jack. I made some slight adjustments in-text to hopefully make it less confusing because I know that's different to the lore of canon 15.19 Inherit the Earth.

For 15x20:

1. How did the angels and demons in the Empty wake up? Did Michael use the last of his grace to wake everyone up? Were they already awake thanks to Jack blowing up in 15x18 or did they somehow sleep through that? (Not expanding on the Empty's claim that "you made it loud" is one of countless things I'll never forgive the actual show for, so THANK YOU for taking the show back to the Empty in the first place; I was just curious about this one element.)

So the Empty was already 'loud' according to canon, but since canon is vague on what exactly that means (thank you writers!...) I got the impression it meant the Empty wasn't 'peaceful' anymore but still powerful enough to suppress the beings inside, like the beings in there were awake and suffering but unable to rebel. Sort of what we see with Cas in this version of 15.20. Maybe like, additional suffering in sleep paralysis? Regardless, Michael does expend his grace to weaken the Empty enough that other beings wake up and/or are able to fight back and exist outside their own personal nightmare chamber. So whatever your impression of 'loud' is with regards to the other beings in there, assume Michael was able to free them from the Empty's control.

For 15x21:

1. Having Jack & Amara take out Hell & Purgatory was a BRILLIANT idea; I love that they ended all the places of suffering and changed the system. I just wonder - what happened to the souls and the demons still in Hell at that point, and the Leviathans and other monsters still in Purgatory? Were they just wiped out completely and sent to the Empty? Or did Jack turn them human and add them to the cycle? (I don't think the show clarified whether or not Leviathans have souls, so...)

No matter whether they were monster or demon or even angel, they would eventually be given human life. I broke it down to 'human enough souls' vs. 'not human enough souls'. Human-enough were immediately brought to life with memories and versions of their original bodies, and not-human-enough were sent to the Soul Queue to be born as infants. I assume Leviathan and most demons fall into 'not human enough', therefore, whatever tiny microbe of personality/soul they had was added to the cycle of rebirth and would be translated to a new human soul. Of course this might have a WILDLY different impact on the world depending on how many people go to hell in this system, how many people were 'human enough', etc.... But we're basically fudging those numbers a bit one way or another just to give certain characters the revival they deserve haha.

2. Did Cas drown and die after Chuck threw him in the lake and Jack left their limbo-dream world? If so, did he go through the same question-&-answer situation with Death that Sam & Dean did? Or was he with Jack & Amara when they rebuilt the world?

Cas was already dead/dying even when he was talking to Jack, he was sort of in a different version of the 'Veil' per se. VERY wishy-washy, but basically he and Jack were on a different dream-plane that they were jolted to in the chaos of the disorganised no-Death world.

I think Cas, Rowena, Lucifer, Michael, etc. as beings who were killed after the snap is a bit ambiguous. Rowena and Lucifer, I think, as entities who were demonic-dead or Empty-level-dead pre-Snap probably went through the reincarnation Yes/No Death questionnaire. Cas and Michael might not have since they were technically 'alive' and human before the Snap. Regardless, I think they probably wouldn't remember the interaction even if they had it.

The reason the question happened to the Winchesters AND that they remember it is Main Character Syndrome... they were the only people left alive when Jack and Amara did a hard reset, and that honestly Death took time to chill/exposition at them because he likes them. Really. Despite all appearances. Or respects them enough to let them know what's gone down, anyway.

Metatextually, it was really just to reaffirm to the audience that Dean (and Sam) want to live, in contrast to 15.20 Carry On 😅

3. Did all the snapped people (Eileen, Adam, the Waywards, etc.) also go through the Death question-&-answer process but not remember it, or did Jack & Amara just send them back?

Snapped people were reset automatically! Normally the new-humans also wouldn't remember their interactions with Death/reapers, just like in canon lore when someone like Dean has a near-death experience.

I realise this whole section and various other lore reformation parts of the fic aren't SUPER clear on specific logistics but on some occasions I'm like, I've done enough info-dumping, I don't want to overwrite exposition. But if you think it's worth clarifying certain points let me know and I can try to do so!

For 15x22:

1. The twenty something blonde guy in sunglasses getting hot tea, is that Belphegor? sure sounds like it but I wanted to confirm.

Yep!

2. Since Death mentioned that Jack only resurrected the angels, demons, and monsters from the Empty who had enough of a soul, and since all the human souls from the Veil went to Heaven as confirmed by Kevin's presence, how exactly are Anna's human parents and Bela alive now?

Great question - 1) I SOMEHOW FORGOT ANNA'S PARENTS DIED? Complete screw up on my part, I don't know how that happened. I fixed this so it's her grandparents now. 2) Bela was sent to Hell as part of her deal, so I was assuming she was a demon by this point in canon (since it would be... MANY Hell-years since she died.) Therefore she had a 'human' enough demon soul to be put back as a human.

3. Oh, and the tall woman with the flyer in 15.22; who is this supposed to be? Hannah I’m guessing?

To be honest I didn't have anyone in particular in mind for that scene; it was kind of a catch-all for missing characters like, it COULD be Hannah. It could be Raphael. Hell, it could be Abbadon. I didn't want to do a full shot of every single person missing from the cast who had died (esp since like - we wouldn't know who they were anyway! Their bodies would be different). So this one is literally just fill-in-the-blank. But if I had to assign a character there I'd say it would probably be one of the more arrogant angels like Raphael or Uriel.

For 15x23:

1. How is Bobby in the Roadhouse with the gang? 10x17 seemed to imply the angels were about to throw him in the dungeons to punish him for helping Cas; did Ash hack him out of prison, or was he never imprisoned at all? Also, is Jack not surprised to see another Bobby in Heaven because the boys already told him there was another Bobby besides the one he knows from Apocalypseverse? (I was half-expecting him to comment about that and confuse Bobby).

Oh that's a great point! I think that's another sort of fill in the blank since it's been five years since 10.17... even if he was in prison of some kind, I think it's likely either Ash helped him get out in the same way he helped everyone else, and since the angels were extremely short-staffed I doubt getting Bobby suitably imprisoned/punished was their top priority. But honestly I'm not super clear on how the angels intended to punish Bobby, I don't think canon is clear either... like, We Just Don't Know.

Finally I'd like to know, has Sam proposed to Eileen yet by the end of the final episode? The script doesn't mention a ring on her finger, and as Sam's fiancee, I'd assume she'd also have carved her name on the table. Sam mentions the innuendos Dean has said "in the past year," so it's been a while since Jack's prayer scene, yet Cas says Dean & Claire's argument was the last time they spoke, and it doesn't seem likely to me that Dean wouldn't call Claire in a year given how close they are...

Nope! I think Sam is saying 'I'm going to marry her' as a declaration of certainty of his feelings and faith in the future, not neccessarily as something that immediately happens. With regards to 'in the past year', that referred to the period when Eileen was alive during s15 as well! I assume Dean did teasing off-screen (and I mean, he did plenty on-screen too.)

I honestly think that Sam and Dean are just very very busy in the aftermath of the events of the 15.20 reset, like they have to deal with the new world AND try to wrangle all these hunters into this new system of collaboration. I didn't put Eileen on the table because she isn't there in the finale and because I do think the Sam/Dean/Cas/Jack family unit was a bit more central and important to the show, but maybe they add her (and any possible kids, if they have any) later on. God, imagine generations of hunters and/or Winchesters carving on that table. Sacred Artefact...

(1) Ok that's all the questions I have. Again, so sorry to blow up your inbox - I really appreciate your willingness to clarify these things! If there are some things you'd rather not explain and leave ambiguous, I totally get that. And in spite of these aforementioned confusing parts, I still ADORE your fic and will continue to read it whenever I feel like re-"watching" how Supernatural really ended! Thank you so much!! .... (2) I’m SO sorry to overload u! I know I asked a lot and I didn’t mean to sound like a hater saying “none of ur story makes sense”; that’s not what I meant at all! If this was a regular good ol fix it fic I wouldn’t have said anything but since u said u wanted it to wrap up the show as replacement canon, I thought maybe I should point out places that didn’t line up. But take as MUCH time as you need! Good for you working to meet your deadlines; I hope you succeeded!! And again I really appreciate you taking the time to answer whenever you have time—absolutely no rush!! Have a GREAT Memorial Day Weekend!!!

Anon thank you SO SO much for all these questions, as you can see it really helped me identify problems or straight up errors in my work wrt continuity and I'm so happy that means I can improve it. If any of the answers weren't clear or you think I should modify the fic to make certain things clearer than they are right now (other than the things I said I'd fix in-text for sure) let me know! It's really been a pleasure answering them too, I'm sorry it took me so long to get around to it, I actually went back and proofed/edited the whole fic as part of adding some of these corrections in (and that took like... three weeks...) and as you said, it's very important to me to get it as true to canon as possible so - yeah, just, once again, thank you!! You're wonderful! ♥♥♥

[ilovetheaffection]

18. What is one thing you’d wish to see more in the rp community? 

Patience. I admit before my grandpa passed away a couple of years ago. The 2 year anniversary is at the end of next month ( a few days before Halloween ). I didn’t have a lot of it. I think I had this thought from being in the rpc so long that people were there to write and if you didn’t write that you were somehow inherently lacking and that applied to myself. But, I’ve learned a lot in two years, and it’s something that others should learn too. A little patience goes a long way. Sometimes, people just don’t have the fuel to chug out replies, sometimes people have hundreds of drafts and memes and they are trying their very best but cannot get it done, some people rely on a queue and you should be willing to wait for it to post. If you aren’t willing to wait for your partner or expect them to drop their entire lives to do for you? You aren’t a good person. No one is here to entertain you. I’m not here for anyone’s entertainment ( contrary to my grandpa’s thought that I should get into stand up. )

22. Are there any red roleplay flags for you that make you back off immediately? 

People who only/exclusively write pregnancy threads is a huge one for me. It irks me a lot. It just screams like--fetish to me. It’s always the people who are like “I want to explore the beauty of childbirth and motherhood’ but literally write nothing else. Like, how did those people get to the point where they got children? Like where’s the build up. Why are they just *always* pregnant. It’s a red flag for me. I also think a red flag is possessiveness/demanding things. It’s one thing if it’s like in a funny way. You can tell when people are joking ( I mean I can’t always because I’m neurodivergent ). But, a lot of people can tell when someone’s being serious about demanding shit from you and when it’s like a ha-ha! If you don’t do this, I’m gonna kick your butt, jk. I think another thing that is just a huge red flag for me is people who post nothing but negativity all day and get mad that other people are getting roleplays but not them. Like, you aren’t going to endear anyone if you spend all your time going ‘woe is me’. Take a moment, examine what might be the problem, and try to find a solution. I also think a huge ass red flag is people who try to blacklist people from the rpc over faceclaims. Like, I get that some are just awful. We shouldn’t use them. But, like straight up adding them to a list of people not to talk to because you hate the people they are interacting based off faceclaims? Lmao. What????

6. Name 3 things you love most about your muse/muses.

I like that Aria is so supportive of other people. Even if she doesn’t agree with what they want to do. She will try to be there for them. She’ll obviously show you both sides and present why you should or shouldn’t. But after that, it’s all on you, and whatever you decide to do? She will be there for you. Unconditionally.

I like that Violet can be especially soft for people who deserve it but also violent as fuck if people are trash. She doesn’t take garbage from anyone about anything and you best believe if you talk about certain people in a bad way, you are getting your ass handed to you, and that’s not a joke. She’s fought people for less. Tiny but fighty.

I like that Taylor has no idea how adorable and sweet he really is. It’s unfathomable that anyone would like him to him and that’s something that I can really relate to. It’s great when muses have tons of confidence. But, not everyone does and that should also be represented.

meme for roleplay muns ( accepting ) || can’t tag it was a nonny. Thanks nonny! You the real mvp. *hands a random trophy shaped like chester cheetah*

[southern-belle-outcasts]

Rules- updated

Muses- Rogue (Marvel canon divergent 616 based), Nilza Valdez (urban fantasy OC), Farrar Kilpatrick (urban fantasy OC).Kaylee Starke (urban fantasy OC, Sara Lance- White Canary (Legends of Tomorrow CW/Arrowverse- ON HIATUS), Padmé Amidala (Star Wars canon- by request and hc memes or semi-plotted para threads ONLY. Memes you see CAN be used for this but I’m not responding unless we have a vague idea of where this is going as discussed). 

I don’t always follow. I try to keep my dash to things that spark joy. I reserve the right to not follow back or unfollow at all times, without need for explanation. If I am going to follow back, I will not do so until I can get the time to read your rules fully.

Blog is 18+ due to multiple facets of adult content. If I find out you’re under 18, you will be immediately blocked. No exceptions. I also do not ship with muses under 18. 

I do not tag all the possible triggers that exist. My content is pretty trigger happy- drug use, violence, language, sex, mental illness, death, pregancy and miscarriage, etc. If you truly have a trigger, hit me up and I can tag it for you, most especially for visuals but when it comes to my para replies with a partner that’s already cool with the content, I’m not tagging every little possible thing. Things I always try to tag: pregnancy, miscarriage, vomit mention, current events, politics, images of spiders. 

I do not require you to follow me to interact with me if any of this bothers you. 

I am a multi-para blog. One to three lines is not enough for me to work with and I will get both frustrated and bored. I have had enough years writing really short threads, I’m far more interested in having threads that give me details on your muse, their emotions, the setting, etc.

I respond with what I can get to at the moment and have the brain power for. I utilize rpthreadtracker and will try to get to the older ones when possible but this isn’t first come, first served around here. What has inspo at the moment is what’s getting posted. I don’t use a queue, I’ve tried, it never works. Feel left out, I really can’t help you there. I’m not half-assing a reply because you want me to kick you back a response the day of when I don’t have the words for it at the moment.

Reblogs/Likes: If you see that I’m utilizing a source blog, please reblog the meme/prompt from said blog. I understand when a source is deactivated, that I don’t mind. But I am not a meme source and will block if I’m being used as one.

Do not reblog an rp thread unless you are directly involved. Seriously. Don’t.

Fictions I have specifically marked reblogs allowed in caption or tag can be reblogged.

Liking here and there is perfectly acceptable. That’s normal. Mutuals please, by all means, don’t feel like you can’t like something I posted. However, liking every single post I put up clogs my activity. Please don’t, or you run the risk of being blocked. Definitely don’t scroll back through a ship meme liking ever post I’ve put up for the past three months. I think I burst a blood vessel that morning… Especially don’t like rp memes and not send. Just go to the source to like it if you’re saving it…otherwise you look dickish.

UPDATE- No NSFW will be written with muns below the age of 21, preferably 25+, otherwise will be a case by case basis for 21+

I do not roleplay for the purpose of shipping. I love my ships, I get involved with my ships, but I am NOT here solely for ships, and definitely not solely smut.

I do not require any sexual scene to be fully played out, you are more than welcome to tell me you want to fade to black. I’m not here for the sole purpose of writing smut.

I do NOT smut unless we thread regularly AND regularly interact OOC. NSFW threads are a means to getting to know my muse, and our muses’ relationship better. I don’t write it for the heck of it. I’ve made exceptions to this rule on occasion and it’s never left me feeling comfortable. As of 12/28/2020, any and all approval for NSFW is revoked unless you interact with me on a regular basis OOC and we have discussed comfort level. If you wish to plot further and get more interactions going, maybe an actual thread will evolve to NSFW content. If you have to rely solely on a meme on Sinday to elicit that kind of interaction, that’s your cue my muse doesn’t know yours well enough for a NSFW thread. 

Ships are unique to themselves, don’t expect identical interactions ever, and I do multiship. However, I have a few mains I will only ship with unless long time interaction provides enough chemistry to rule otherwise. I will only ship Rogan with @loganweaponx, and Matt Murdock/Rogue with @holyxdefender. I am not  limiting interactions to just those muses, ONLY the shipping aspect unless chemistry proves otherwise. 

While I only ship chemistry, you are welcome to yeet into my DMs and be like “hey fuckface my muse is crushing hard can we explore this?!” That does NOT mean the ship is guaranteed to pan out. Just because I agreed to explore this does not mean I mean I signed some contract on OTP status.

Do not come at with me with “I have a plot idea and it’s we ship our muses” or *throws smut meme in your inbox* and we never interact. Fast way to get ignored or blocked. 

UPDATE- unless you’ve cleared it with me, please do not make our rp thread interactions into your muse’s general canon. I did not sign up for that and it makes me really uncomfortable to think anything I write is being inserted into your muse’s canon and subject to critique in that manner. On that same note, I will not write with canon-inserts (forced oc child, parent, sibling, etc relationships) unless I have a means to not have it affect my own muse’s canon. I don’t even play canon ships until I’ve felt out our particular muse’s chemistry.

I do not have many triggers but I have a hardstop at m!preg (magical male preg), magical/spedup/otherwise exaggerated pregnancy, A/B/O, breeder, DD/l. I will not roleplay them, and if I see them on my dash I will immediately unfollow. Y'all are welcome to do as you want, but I’m not making myself uncomfy in my antistress zone. 

I will not use pregnancy/children as plot points but for a select few muse relationships where it is part of the natural flow of the ship and has been plotted as such, or our ooc relationship is good enough for you to know my stance on sending a pregnancy meme. 

If you have gotten this far, bless your soul. Have a chocolate chip cookie. Please send “room full of rocking chairs” to my DMs or askbox so I know I’m not chucking my words into the ether.

[marypsue]

The villain post...is good but also I threw it in my queue with a bit of a tag-rant about why GoF Voldemort really worked for me and then realised that could probably be its own separate post and anyway: the when and how you establish a villain's threat level is also important in people's takeaway from them.

Voldemort's a vague, shadowy menace for most of the first four Harry Potter books. It works. He's a Big Bad, an outsized future fantasy threat for an outsized fantasy world our protagonist has only just dipped his toes into. While Harry's still at school and learning the ropes of the wizarding world, it makes perfect sense for him to be sort of a nebulous background threat. The moment he appears onscreen in Goblet of Fire - him, not a servant or a memory or a ghost - he kills a child. Onscreen. And not just any child, but someone we've grown to know and like and admire throughout the book. Abruptly, Voldemort goes from being sort of a fairy-tale villain to something real and shocking and very, very dangerous, before our eyes. We learn along with Harry just how heinous he is and what he's capable of. 

It's not at all a coincidence that this event marks an abrupt darker tonal shift in the series, though personally I think it fell a little flat by trying to maintain the status quo and not having enough Voldemort-being-heinous-onscreen. But I'm of the opinion that villains like Voldemort who suddenly Get Real should be conserved according to the Jaws Law of Conservation of Shark, and should only really be allowed to appear onscreen/show their true threat level in the last third or quarter of the story, so you can devote significant screentime to allowing them to escalate.

Speaking of escalating, once you have your villain establish their threat level onscreen, then unless you want to use them for comedic purposes, give them a redemption arc, or both, every time the reader sees them afterwards, they need to be taking it up a notch. Every time the audience sees that villain, they're going to think they know what that villain is capable of, which lowers the fear factor and the threat level in the audience's mind. In order to keep that threat high, you have to remind the audience, every time they see the villain, that they do not in fact have a handle on the situation, and things could always get worse. 

So, again, for a villain like Voldemort who suddenly Gets Real, it makes the most sense to have him Get Real closer to the end of the story, so there isn't much escalation necessary before the resolution. Otherwise, there's a risk of the villain getting silly and comedic in the opposite direction of the villain who never escalates. 

I'm thinking specifically of Phineas & Ferb vs. Supernatural here. The former has Heinz Doofenschmirtz, who is a comedic character partly because we the audience know the true threat level he's capable of and he never rises above it. This is also what the principle of Weird Villain Uncle is based on, where an entry-level villain doesn't stop being a threat but never escalates above the level he was at when the heroes were still green and didn't know how to deal with him. As the heroes grow, he seems like less and less of a threat in comparison, especially if he never comes up with anything new and worse. The latter...well, the longer SPN goes on, the less it seems to know how not to escalate its threats out of all scale and proportion, and the humour mostly appears to be unintentional.

For some things, too, establishing the villain as a real and serious threat right out the gate is necessary, so escalation runs the risk of sending them into unintentional comedy territory. That's where I'd say the ideas of scale and proportion come in. 

If, say, you're trying to establish a character as a formidable villain from the jump in a fun neon eighties nihilist cartoon-action-fest, having her first onscreen appearance be stopping an unstoppable force and destroying an indestructible object gives that immediate, visceral 'oh SHIT' reaction, and can easily and proportionally be escalated to singlehandedly taking out an army of trained soldiers and literally raising the dead. (This does, admittedly, also rely on a healthy dose of PRESENTATION!!!) On the other hand, if you're working on a serious war drama, your initial threat assessment is going to have to be a little more within the realm of actual human abilities, and your steps of escalation are going to have to be smaller and closer together - say, from shooting a dog to starving a prisoner to straight-up treachery.

In cases where a villain has to be kept closer to realistic, I've found it also helps to make their escalations more and more personal to the protagonist. Circling back to Harry Potter, the previous post mentioned Umbridge as an example of a great villain. And she is! A lot of that is that her heinousness is mostly onscreen. But unlike Voldemort, she never kills anyone onscreen, and yet she's almost universally more hated. 

Part of that is, I think, like the OP of the previous post said, because of how many people can relate to having an antagonist like that in their own lives. But I think part of it is also how each step of her escalation is aimed so directly and personally at the protagonist we're supposed to sympathise with. Voldemort feeds a Muggle Studies professor we've never met or encountered to his snake onscreen. That's heinous. That's escalation. And yet, because it's targeted so directly against a personal weakness of a character we're meant to sympathise with and have become attached to over the course of five books, Umbridge forcing Harry to write lines with the quill that carves up the back of his hand produces the more visceral reaction in me as a reader.

Anyway. tl;dr: unless you want them to look ineffective and silly, villains need to escalate. Unless you want them to look unintentionally silly, villains need to escalate proportionally to the story they're in and the abilities of the protagonist they're facing. And if you want to do a sudden tonal shift to bring the horror home, have them escalate Real Fast.

[myonlystorm]

AAAAAHHHH!!! I can finally post this ;;;;;;;;;;

After a billion complications with my laptop, I’VE FINALLY GOT IT BACK and can post @sewerpigeonart ‘s gift!!!! Their lovely apprentice Heron was such a delight to draw and the marigolds were a fun challenge! I was originally a writer for this event but when they assigned me someone who asked for art I just couldn't say no <3 I haven’t worked on art in awhile so this was a great chance, thank you again for letting me draw them!! I DID also write a story for them, if you’d like to read it, its under the cut ^__^ 

Home is where the Heart is <3

Vesuvia’s heat was a weighted blanket with only one benefit- it carried the scent of the bakery all the way over to Asra and Heron’s shop, making their stomach grumble. How long had Asra been gone this time? Heron could hardly stand them being gone so long, but they couldn’t deny that the garden smiled more every time Asra returned from their adventures. They wondered if Asra would bring some new plant to teach them about, or what Faust would have to say upon her return to her comfy resting place in the sunniest spot by the window. In all earnestness, Heron missed them both terribly, but gardening helped keep their mind off their absence. Gardening, however wonderful, could not truly compete with their hunger nor the scent of Selasi’s baking. If Asra had been here, they would have gone right away, smiling the entire way, Asra’s hand in theirs. Heron’s stomach growled louder in irritation, and the frustration at Asra and Faust’s absence managed to stumble its way onto their face, their brows knitting and lips pursing. Moments later, a sigh escapes their lips. A curious chirp looks up at them from a hiding place among the bright daffodils Heron grew, as a strange little goldfinch poked its face up looking at them before popping up closer to Heron.

 Perhaps, Heron might’ve dismissed it, but it kept hopping insistently, flapping its wings, while looking at them intensely into their eyes. It might have been odd to most, to see such a friendly little thing, but it was fairly normal for Heron, birds of all kinds seemed to just gravitate towards them, often bringing small gifts. This one in particular, however, had no such present and instead seemed to be demanding something. The flapping wings only seemed to become more insistent the longer they stared at it, so instead, they opened the door and held out their hand gently beckoning the bird toward them so they could land on them and be brought inside for a drink. The goldfinch rather, had other ideas, flying fast in a flurry inside, quickly disappearing from sight. Though they knew it flew too fast to keep track of, Heron looked around for it inside after closing the door, but without much for visual queues, as every bright scarf of Asra’s suddenly seemed to resemble the bird, they relied on auditory clues. A twitter here, a cheep or chirrup there, until the little one re-appeared in front of them, standing near their bowl of sunflower seeds, with a cute little attempt at pushing it towards Heron. It was hard not to laugh, and knowing the bird wouldn’t be able to crack open the seeds by themselves, they began to open up a few for it, eating some for themselves, holding some more out, (until of course, the bird’s beak began to hurt poking a little too much) but once it got gobbled two down, it flew up to Heron’s shoulder, and began to pull at their freshly braided hair. When they tried to help them down, it simply flew to their other shoulder, pulling yet again at their hair. When it became obvious Heron wouldn’t move, it flew over towards the front door, perching on the handle waiting for Heron, squawking to ensure it had Heron’s attention, bouncing impatiently on the handle until Heron stumbled over, reaching to open the door. It quickly flew outside, resting on the store sign, seemingly irritated at how long they were taking to lock up the shop, and once Heron stepped out onto the street, the goldfinch took flight again, heading past the market out towards the forest. 

Heron didn’t mind following it as there didn’t seem to be much of a choice considering how insistent the bird was, but it was a first for them, willingly walking out by themselves without either Faust or Asra… Asra. A sigh fell from their lips again. Though Asra hadn’t made any promises about when they’d be back, Heron wished they’d come back sooner, as they had already been gone much longer than they’d prefer. The finch squawked at them again, fluffing its wings eagerly, and Heron smiled a little, picking up the pace. Rather than continue leading, it perched on their shoulder, chirping or nibbling on their ear when they tried to turn around, or go in a direction stray from the path it had lead them to. It wasn’t a very worn pathway, if it could even be called that, but there was a strong scent that despite it being a mild repellent to most, they recognized it immediately and as a clearing came into view, the bird flew off, and Heron had to stifle a gasp.

 Asra and Faust, sitting in a ring of red and yellow marigolds, their back facing Heron. It was impossible to mistake the two. They couldn’t help it, they ran towards Asra, hugging them from behind. If their smile could get any larger, it would’ve when they heard Asra’s laugh, the cool squeeze on Asra and Heron’s arms indicated Faust’s return as well and Heron couldn’t help their own laugh, trying to get the words out of their mouth, “Welcome home Asra, Faust!” Soft white curls brushed past Heron’s nose as Asra pressed a kiss to their forehead, holding yet another marigold for them, special and one of a kind. It was large by most standards, and it seemed to glow almost as much as Asra’s smile. “I made it for you,” Asra murmured, “Helped!” Faust squeezed, and Asra laughs again, “Yes, Faust helped too.” The goldfinch fluttered down, chirping before landing on Asra and Heron’s hand, giving one last happy chirp, before returning as Asra’s magic. Looking at Asra, here, in their arms, made the present time the best possible.

Looking up at Heron, quite literally beaming with happiness, Asra didn’t so much mind the things that had been nagging at them previously, because now they were together, and there was only one thing left to say.

                                “We’re home, Heron.”

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

How long does it usually take you to make each exotic entry in your list? Do you bulk-make them and release on a schedule, or is it back to back?

Would you believe the original plan was to make them all before I released any of them so I could just post one a day all the way straight through? Hah. What a pleasant dream. I stockpiled about ten complete entries before I started posting, with another fifteen well-drafted and the rest only outlined. By now I have drafts set up for all current exotics but I’m down to posting them - or at least queueing them to be posted the next day - as I finish them. All in all each entry is probably 2 to 5 hours of work spread over a few days, more for certain special entries.

When (official) info is released on a new exotic I immediately make a draft entry with the basics - name, pull quote, type/slot/element, perk & trait info, and a reference image. I upload the perk image, straighten out the HTML, and set up the footer. That part’s easy. The bulk of the work is split between building the images and writing the Origin & Description text. Writing tends to take the longest, followed closely by making gifs, followed by making the fancy titles.

If the item has a complicated story or ties into a world element I haven’t yet discussed, I’ll spend most of my time writing, researching, annotating, and revising the text. Especially revising. Since I’m writing these entries for new players/non-players I want to ensure they’re a) accurate b) concise and c) comprehensive. So I double-check a lot of statements with canon instead of relying on memory to make sure I’m telling the story correctly. Sometimes I talk to other players about the history of certain weapons in the gameplay meta. I also spend a lot of time editing myself. It’s easy for me to go on a tangent about something I like and explain a lot of irrelevant detail that might confuse or bore a new player, but at the same time I don’t want to skip important aspects of the story. Summarizing is hard, my dudes.

I also make the fancy titles myself, and I’m far from a pro artist of any stripe, so that means picking out fonts, decorating the text, swearing at Inkscape, etc. Trawling the ‘net for images originally took a lot longer but by now I’ve worked out good sources for reference renders, ornaments, etc. and I’ve gotten better at finding Youtube videos and trailers I can mine for gifs. Doesn’t mean it’s easy, though; some exotics are really hard to portray in gif form, and sometimes I want to get an aesthetic just right and go through dozens of iterations. I make a lot more gifs than I end up using and getting the Taken effect on Whisper’s text to look right took a few evenings of tinkering, for example. But the result was worth it.

[universally-the-same]

Meeting another part of myself

Last night in therapy a very young, scared part of myself appeared.  We were trying to figure out  the root of my indecision in going to volleyball last week (even though I had an injury from yoga the week before).  For those who may not have seen it, I even posted a video on MCJ’s FB page last week on my indecision.  I felt so silly after posting it, but decided to keep it up on the page. And now I understand why, it was another avenue that I could reach out to for someone to help make the decision FOR me, so that I didn't have to make the decision for MYself.

The email I had written to my therapist that day was a cry for help.  Even though I logically knew I shouldn’t go to class that night, there was this opposing force that was not letting me make that decision peacefully. 

This is one piece of what I wrote in my email to her that day… It’s like all common sense leaves my body and I’m helpless to know how to take care of myself. 

My therapist, Katie, said that the reason that all common sense leaves my body is because my emotional brain is taking over.  She said there are times when the emotional brain becomes so strong that there is not enough space for both in that moment, so the logical brain temporarily leaves.  Such was the case last week.

As we started trying to unpack all of that, she asked what part of me was helpless.  As if on queue, panic overcame me and my eyes filled up with tears.  That scared little girl was present with us, in that very moment.  Katie had me take a deep breath, close my eyes and talked me through trying to tap into her.  Katie asked me how old she was.  I didn’t know.  I just knew that she was very young, the youngest part of myself that I've met thus far.  As I felt into her fear, tears began rolling down my cheeks.  Katie asked me what she was scared of.  And right away I heard my younger self say “my mom”. 

It was this weird few minutes of trying so hard to be compassionate and non-judgmental with her, but at the same time I was so incredibly frustrated by her answer.  It’s just layer, after layer, after layer.  I feel terrible for doing this, but I kept looking for another reason.  Waiting, encouraging her even, to tell me something new.  A different source of the fear.  But it didn’t come.  I couldn’t stay in that head space anymore.  I knew that being judgmental towards her wasn’t going to help anything, so I opened my eyes.    

As frustrated as I was by the answer, Katie knew how to help me decipher it.  And this, my friends, is what having a good therapist is all about.  She asked me how my mother reacted to my activities.  While I didn’t have many structured activities, I remember not being good at the ones I did partake in. 

There was gymnastics which I may have only gone to once or twice… I don’t remember, all I remember is that it made me feel bad about myself.  Then, I remember taking a few years of dance.  I can’t remember much of this period either, but I do remember being in the dance studio towards the end.  I remember learning that the next year we were going to be doing a lot more dancing on our toes which is something that I struggled with.  And I seem to remember being scared of the next year and not wanting to do it anymore.

I eventually ended up taking guitar lessons.  After determining that I was not really an athletic child, I was told that I needed to do something.  But I ended up quitting guitar because it hurt my fingers (which to this day I regret!)  and ultimately ended up taking several years of piano lessons (which I’m now thankful for, but at the time, I hated it.)

But before all of these examples came into my head the thing that really stood out to me, was that after the divorce, while I was living with my mother, I didn’t really do any activities.  I was literally forced to clean.  Like everything… from normal chores, to scrubbing down the kitchen cabinets, to washing the cars, and when everything else was clean I would be sent out to do garden chores. 

When I did actually have time to myself, and was allowed to hang out with my friend Kim who lived behind me, there was always a lot of fear involved.  I was constantly checking the clock to make sure I wasn’t home late, if Kim wanted to do something, there was so much fear because I either (A) had to get permission from my mother, which would result in her telling me no and getting mad that I asked, or (B) I would risk doing it without her knowing and possibly getting caught. 

Choice A had immediate consequences that I had to endure, while choice B had more severe consequences -- but only IF we got caught.  Which there were a few times that we did.  Even so, most of the time I ended up choosing option B, which would ultimately lead to a constant heightened state of fear and paranoia thinking that she was going to see me.  When we were protected enough doing whatever it was we were doing, I would finally let my guard down and have fun, which I suppose is why I kept taking the risk.   That and the possibility of not having to deal with a known immediate consequence.  

In my position of having an abusive mother, I was constantly in this limbo of I’m damned if I do, and I’m damned if I don’t.  Most of the time, there were heavy repercussions either way.  So last night, we determined that in these instances where I have to make a decision in my present life, that that’s why I rely so heavily on having others tell me what to do.  Because in those moments where that paranoid little girl shows up, it’s the safe way out.  Someone else is making the decision for me. 

I feel like this actually makes so much sense. 

We made a lot of progress last night and I felt tired, but good, about everything when I left Katie's office.  On the drive home, I connected with that little girl again and apologized to her.  I told her how I was sorry that I wasn’t able to protect her back then, but how I could protect her now.  I told her how my mother is no longer in the picture.  That she hasn’t been for a very long time and that she didn’t have to be afraid of her anymore. 

As I consoled this young part of myself, a sick feeling began churning in the pit of my stomach.  At first I thought it was anger, but then I wasn’t so sure.  It would make sense for it to be anger, but with the nausea I was feeling, I’m leaning more towards the emotion being disgust.  Whatever the emotion was/is, it’s directed at the fact that my mother has been out of my life longer than she was in it, yet her presence in those early years has had such a powerful effect on me that I’m just starting to truly understand it all these years later. 

As frustrating as that is, I have to acknowledge the fact that, yes… I could have started this work earlier, but at least I’m doing it now. And every piece that I unravel helps me feel like I’m able to take that much more of my power back from her.  For anyone who has suffered trauma in their lives (or anyone really), if the thought of therapy even casually enters the peripherals of your mind, please, please, please go.  Talk to someone.  I put it off for years and finally making the decision to go has been so incredibly worthwhile.

The other lesson I pulled from my experience last week (again, thanks to Katie’s outside perspective) was that I’m still incredibly hard on myself.  I may not call myself names anymore, or be outwardly harsh and critical, but I still put incredible expectations on myself.  Over the last few years, I may have allowed myself the grace to fall from perfection, but I definitely still have a deep routed belief that I’m supposed to have my shit together, and in the moments that I don’t, not only do I fall apart, but I then judge myself for falling apart. 

My intuition is telling me that I'll be introduced to that highly judgmental part soon.  I'm actually kind of looking forward to meeting her and hearing her story.  I definitely want to help her heal too. Like I said earlier… its just layers, upon layers, upon layers.   

*this blog post was originally posted on my My Curvy Journey blog on 11/7/2019 and moved to my Universally the Same blog.

[natural-0-games]

Let The Flames Begin: Tune Tuesday

Alright y’all might have seen that this account’s been starting up for the first time in a while. We’re actually going around and doing stuff, cool. There’s one simple reason for that, and this is me, Lexi, the one behind this whole thing talking: I’ve decided to cut out all the toxic people in my life and extend my vetting for letting new people in. (queue this music because I’m allowed to have musical overlays on my textposts it’s tuesday! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_ohWuaNPWo ) If you’ve been reading my other posts you can probably piece it all together, but in the last 6 months I found myself a decent friend group at college... at least I thought I did. See, originally it was just me and this real chill guy who I won’t say the name of because internet, so I’ll just call him E. E and I met up near the start of the school year because E was just such an approachable person that even I could overcome my big NPC energy to talk to him. We got to talking, and decided it would be cool to start up a club for RPGs at the school, so that players and gamemasters could draw from a pool of people to make sure everyone got the experience they wanted. Then came D (again, not their name because privacy, but also y’know, I can’t resist calling him a D because he’s a d i c k), he was originally pretty chill, but almost immediately he ripped the club idea from my hands and decided all on his own without any input from me or E or anyone else that the club was going to include all tabletop games. Alright not at all what the club was supposed to be about, but okay. So a month rolls by, and D has determined that the club is going to do RPGs at most once a month. You know, the thing we were designed around in the first place, not ‘each campaign once a month’ which I could vaguely see to prevent burnout but nah, nah he means ‘one official club campaign session spread across all campaigns per month’. What. The. Fuck. Then it’s October, and I’ve got this cool idea, reverse trick-or-treating, you know that thing where you go door to door and give people candy? It was gonna be nice, and cool, and I told the whole friend-group about it at the start of October. Other shit happened in October regarding people I look up to and the discontinuation of my absolute favorite show, so there’s that. But the important thing to this post happened on Halloween, that day when they all said they’d join me going around giving people candy, and we’d all have a good time. I’d arranged it for six... six rolls around, no one’s there. I check the group discord, and I’m like ‘hey, where is everybody?’ only response is from E, saying that most people are at dinner and we should probably reschedule to later. I reply that it’s understandable and rearrange for 8. I get a message from B (only time she’s mentioned) saying she’ll be able to show up for sure. No one showed up. Only one person at 10 who came to console me because I kinda exploded in the discord server because I’d been planning this all month and no one fucking showed up. Yeah I cried myself to sleep that night, don’t judge. So now it’s November, and I finally put into action a plan I’d wanted to work on since the start of college: A larp league at the school, only problem is I’m going to have to craft the system from nothing. Alright, I’ve got inspiration from said favorite show ever that was cancelled in october, I’m going to base it around that. I then tell everyone in the friend group and they encourage me, I tell them I’ll be running a christmas event after thanksgiving break, they say that’s awesome. That’s when I realized I’m going to need to make over 1200 abilities because each of the 40 classes needs 33 abilities. I asked them for any suggestions, got a grand total of 0. So I worked my ass off, far more than is healthy, and got... absolutely nowhere because there was no chance in the first place. Right before thanksgiving break I tell them ‘hey, there’s no chance of me finishing the whole system in time, we’ll use a simplified edition i’ll come up with now’ they gave approval. I made a whole mini-system on 3 hours of sleep. I went home for thanksgiving break and caused my whole family extra stress during their move by needing to make swords for this event. So the day of the event rolls around, I’ve got everything set up, I’m out of the field, waiting. The event starts at 11, and that’s when i get there. No one’s there. ‘That’s okay’ I figure, ‘they’re not exactly punctual, they’ll be here in 15-20 minutes’. They are not. At 11:30, E shows up, I ask him where the fuck everyone is. Turns out B is still asleep despite giving me confirmation she’d be here last night, D and the rest of the group are at breakfast and have no intention of showing up despite being 25 seconds away, and E doesn’t see anything wrong with this. I waited until noon, still no one, so I gave up and headed back to my dorm, I’d informed them on the discord that if no one showed up by noon I’d cancel. And I fucking seethed. These people didn’t give a single fuck about me, or my time, or my effort. And after a few hours of calming down, past the tears, past the attempts at breaking things, I got onto the discord server, and I told them, in no indirect terms, that repeatedly encouraging people to devote time and effort to projects for the group, to get them excited for their events, to say that you’ll be there, and then all ghost without a word was absolutely abusive and I didn’t want that in my life. Instead of even a single attempt at an apology, or even a bullshit excuse, they all started yelling at me and kicked me from the server, the club, and the friendgroup. So that’s where I am. I don’t give a single fuck about people who disrespect my time. I don’t give a single fuck about people who think that just because someone has bigger problems than me my problems don’t exist. I don’t give a single fuck about people who bail on plans without a warning or remorse. And I feel so free. So I’m turning all the effort on projects I was making for those toxic assholes inward, I’m making the shit I love, and if you don’t enjoy it, you don’t have to be around me or use my stuff. Sure the first few apprentice games and such will be free, and the proof-of-concept for anything will be free, but if I’ve put in serious effort? If i’ve put in 150 hours already (like on a certain larp system...) and it’s not even a tenth of the way done? You bet your left buttock that I’m not giving that away for free. If I’m going to make something I want to get something out of it. So there’s that. And just because I know I need help here, I do have some open positions: Sabrina needs a pilot, and that’s the fancy lore way of saying I desperately need an artist, because my art is shit and while I have no idea how to make UI-interactive games, I’m going to try my best to learn. Elluwen needs a pilot, and that’s still a fancy way of saying I need playtesters. I’ve been relying on my friend groups too much for this, posting a message about this new game I’ve got that’s nearly done, and waiting 2 weeks to get a single person to even try to play it. Meanwhile I’m playing it repeatedly to try to find bugs and their version is almost completely replaced. and several more... honestly to just put it clearly: I need reliable people in my life, and if that means setting up a patreon for people to see sneak peaks and be playtesters through, wonderful! If I can find an artist willing to be on call for my projects, and of course still pursue their own endeavors, I can’t afford a full-time artist, that’s amazing.

I know what you’re here for, at least on tuesday, you want the shitposts, I’ve still got those, but everything above is far more important.

This week’s themesong: Let The Flames Begin This week’s cryptic meme: Slowly ripping the limbs off an effigy This week’s mood: Focused Anger This week’s character: Lokeeda

[pizzas-will-rule-the-world]

What happens in the dark

Relationship: Blush

Word count: 1872

Era: Canon

Edited: Yeaaa kinda

Additional tags: Uh badly written accents, slightly misogynistic conversations, mentions of prostitution

Read on Archive of our own!

”Hey, Mush! You in for a game?”

Mush stops abruptly in his tracks and looks over his shoulder. Race is playing with his dices, his hat laying forgotten on the floor beside him and a cigar hanging unlit from between his lips. Other newsies are starting to gather around him: In the lodging house, games with Racetrack are almost as popular and highly sought after as good headlines. Now there are six or so boys sitting on the floor, mostly those who are the youngest and least experienced in losing money. They are chatting excitedly among themselves. The slightly older newsies are less interested. Albert is laying in his bunk, but he’s eyeing the dices like he is considering if getting up from his comfortable position would be worth the money he could possibly win. Buttons and Henry have both gone to their respective homes, just like Davey did a while ago with an exhausted Les leaning on him heavily. Jack is nowhere to be seen, but if that means he is out visiting Katherine or just up on the roof is unclear. Mush had hoped that everyone would be too distracted to notice him leaving.

Race raises his eyebrows. ”Well?”

”Uh,” Mush says, unknowingly moving backwards towards the door. ”I’s thinking of, um, taking a walk.”

”A walk?” Finch passes by him, hair damp from washing himself before going to bed. ”It ain’t even light out.”

Mush continues to creep backwards until he can feel the hard surface of the doorway against his back. ”Imma just get some fresh air,”

”Let him go,” Albert says. ”He is probably meeting a girl, ain’t that right?” He has gotten hold of Race’s cigar, and is toying with it before Finch takes it and puts it back on Race’s bed.

”Mush ain’t got the smarts to keep a girl,” Romeo pipes up from his seat on the floor. There is a wave of snickers going through the group, and he looks pleased by this attention.

Race nudges his side. ”The only way he’d keep a girl is to pay her, ain’t that right?” There is a sound of agreement from Albert’s bunk.

The insults are good hearted and not uncommon in the lodging house, so Mush only smiles. He hopes it looks casual. ”No point trying to keep a girl with you beside me, Race,” he says. ”Ain’t my fault you’se keep scaring the pretty ones away, with your ugly mug. Now piss of and let me go on my walk, will you?”

He hopes to all the gods he does and doesn’t believe in that no one is going to question this. It seems like he is in luck. Race just grins at the banter and put his focus back on the game in front of him. Albert has taken back the cigar again. Finch only shrugs at Mush before throwing himself into his bunk.

Mush takes this as his queue to leave and quickly backs out of the doorway before anyone can stop him.

Finch had been correct, it’s almost pitch-black outside. The sole thing illuminating the area outside the front door is a wonky lamp post glowing ominously a few feet away. The warm light doesn’t reach to all of the crooks and hidden corners of the building. Mush glances over his shoulder more than once, trying to listen to any sound that might indicate someone watching him. He could probably soak anyone who’d dare to pick a fight with him. That doesn’t mean he necessarily wants to, though.

After another few seconds of silent waiting he starts walking. He doesn’t go far, only a couple of steps before turning right and sneaking around the corner of the building. There is a wired fence to keep unwanted visitors away from this area, since you can climb up to the few windows of the sleeping quarters from there. The fence was put up about a year ago, after the problem with newsies sneaking outsider friends and, if they were particularly daring, girls, into the lodging house had gotten out of hand. The fence is made out of thin metal and makes a lot of noise when Mush puts shakes it. He scales it anyway and silently cringes every time he thinks the sound of rattling fence can be heard out to the street or through the windows upstairs.

He manages to get over the edge without attracting the police or tearing his clothes, and he jumps the last few feet to the ground. His heart is beating hard in his chest, and he glances around. Here it’s even darker without any sort of artificial light. Only the half moon and the stars overhead makes it possible to see where he’s supposed to put his feet. He glances up towards the building looming over him. The lack of light should make it impossible to see what is happening, if someone was to glance down from any of the windows. That thought is comforting.

The air smells of old trash and urine. It stings his nostrils uncomfortably, but he ignores it. Without good sight he has to rely on his hands to not walk into anything. He thinks he must look pretty ridiculous like this – walking agonizingly slowly with his arms stretched out in front of him – and he is glad no one can see him. He can hear a small scattering around his ankles and he hopes the rats will ignore him in favor of the rotting food all around. Rat bites aren’t something he wants to deal with, he has enough trouble keeping himself from catching fleas from Buttons.

His foot his something solid, and he takes a sudden step backwards. His heel bangs against something behind him, and there is the unwelcome sound of metal rasping against the ground.

There is a beat of silence during which he doesn’t move, doesn’t are to make any sound. Did anyone hear that? The possibility of someone catching him out here makes his stomach curl. How would he explain himself? None of is friends would buy any excuse as to why he’d rather walk through stinking trash than be inside playing dice.

Then he can hear the sound of breathing right in front of him. ”Mush?” The voice sounds too loud for the otherwise calm and still night, but it’s also very familiar.

He can feel himself releasing a breath he was holding in. ”Blink.”

”Yeah,” Blink confirms and Mush can feel himself relax almost by instinct. ”Was beginning to think you was ditching me.”

”Nah,” Mush whispers. ”There was a holdup, Race tried to rope me into a game of dice.” His hands travel forward until they find Blink’s chest. It’s solid and warm, rising slightly in time with the puffs of air escaping his mouth. There is a small feeling of dismay in Mush stomach. ”I can’t see ya,” he complains, and Blink laughs quietly.

”I know,” he says and takes Mush’s hand in his own The warmth emitting from his skin travels to Mush and lights him up like a bit of dry wood caught ablaze. He drags Blink towards himself and removes any distance between them. Blink is a steady figure who simply embraces Mush without any sort of hesitation. Mush can feel his own heartbeat and wonders if it’s noticeable to Blink as well. He doesn’t ask, but instead lets his hand find Blink’s face. He strokes his cheek slowly.

Blink’s breath hitches. ”Think anyone can see us?” he asks, and Mush stops.

”No,” he says honestly. ”Not even we can see us, Blink.”

He laughs at that and it makes Mush break into a smile. ”You’s got a point.”

After getting that out of the way, Blink doesn’t hesitate but instead leans forward and catches Mush’s lips with his own.

When they both sneak back into the lodging house a good while later, they do so with flushed cheeks and feigned innocent looks. It is quiet in the sleeping quarters, most of the boys already sleeping or trying to fall asleep. Blink releases Mush’s hand before walking in first. Mush stands still and counts to twenty over and over again until he is completely certain it must be enough. He goes inside, trying to not disturb the ones sleeping. After first shrugging off his suspenders and then his shirt, which is already halfunbottoned, he sits down on the bed and starts the work of getting his shoes off. A small cough makes him stop and glance up.

Race and Albert are both looking at him from their respective bunks in their shared bed, Race with raised eyebrows and Albert with a knowing smirk on his lips.

Mush can feel his face growing warm under their stares, but gives them a look which he hopes is perfectly innocent. His heart is in his throat, and he swallows to force it down to where it’s supposed to be located. ”What?” he whispers.

”A walk, huh?” Race says and breaks into a grin as well. Albert snickers.

Mush blinks. ”Yes,” he says and lies down on the mattress. It’s too hot to use the blanket, so he kicks it aside. ”I like walks.”

”I bet.”

There is a second or two of silence, but he doesn’t dare glace at the bed beside him in fear of the worst. Instead he keeps his eyes fixed on the underside of the top bunk, where the mattress has sunk down from the weight of Specs.

”Don’t forget to cover up the bruise you got there,” Race says with a teasing tone. ”You don’t want people think you got into a… fight, do you?”

Mush’s fingers brush against his neck and he swallows. Dismiss. They ain’t got any real proof, after all. Deny it all. ”Don’t know what you’re talking ’bout.”

Race scoffs. ”Sure,” he says, but Mush can hear the sound of him laying down as well. ”If you ain’t gonna tell us Imma just have to ask the girls down by the bowery.”

Mush looks at him. ”The… The bowery?”

Race looks triumphant, like this is a confession. ”That’s right. No worries, we won’t tell no one.” He grins. ”But hey, nice going.”

Albert lets out a small laugh, which is immediately met by someone shushing him from across the room. Mush glances at him. His hand is covering his mouth and his body is shaking with silent laughter.

Mush’s heart rate is slowing down considerably. The bowery girls, famous for their good looks and low prices. That’s okay, then. Actually, it’s more than okay. It’s an opportunity. Tomorrow, he will go down to the bowery and ask them to cover for him. He knows a couple of them, used to run errands for them before starting to sell papes. If he find the right ones, they will help him.

”Ain’t got nothing to say, Mushie?” Albert asks. He has finally stopped laughing, but he is still smiling cockily.

Mush glances from him to Race, who looks very pleased with what they believe is proof. He sighs and rolls over. Suddenly he is very tired. ”Go to sleep, Al,” he says, and closes his eyes to the sound of his friends cooing mockingly.

Taglist!

@mckpricely

@kreativekiss

@wafflesareh0t

@lifeform-42

@fanfictionrecommendations-com

@yaboigrass

@modern-race-owns-airpods

@jan-jan-jan-jan-jan-199

@thats-our-que-boys

@spotrash

@theprincelypariah-blog

@romeo-in-a-trenchcoat

@and-i-lostmy-shoe

@uiopp11-blog

@i-aint-tapped-out

@camrynkatherine

@everyonecalmdown

@technically-whizzy

@rivertellsstories

[danyka-fendyr]

As the Raven Flies: Part 3

Okay, everybody, you know the drill at this point. I write, I edit, I queue and post, and then I sit here desperately awaiting your feedback while hoping Tumblr didn’t royally screw this whole thing up. Ah, the joys of posting your fic on a barely functional site and trying to keep a schedule. The good news is, the apocalypse is always tomorrow depending on who you ask, and it’s always 5 o’clock somewhere, so just hang in there kids!

Wordcount: 2641 approximately because I may have written this last minute sue me

Taglist: @dreamwritesimagines @rhabakoli @disengagefrmreality

(Look! We’re at three people in the taglist now!)

Vivien tried to listen in on their conversation, but they went outside to talk, much to her chagrin. Slowly, what little she could hear of their voices faded away. And then she was fast asleep, gone until the next morning.

Vivien hated mornings more than anything else in the world. This was for two reasons, the weekday reason and the weekend reason. The weekday reason was, of course, that she had to go to school. She didn’t exactly hate school, but she would have honestly preferred to just learn of her own volition. Not to mention the anxiety deadlines gave her. Reason number two was just that she had to wake up. There was just something so pleasant about sleeping when you were as exhausted as Vivien was all the time.

“Vivien, sweetie, you have to get up. You have school.” Karen’s voice spoke softly from above her as Vivien groaned, refusing to open her eyes.

It was always so bright during the day. She hated it. She hated everything.

“I don’t want to go. Can’t I just call in sick?”

“Sorry kiddo, but that’s not going to happen unless you start puking into my potted plant.”

“Darn it.” Vivien cracked open an eye to glare balefully up at her current nemesis, former role model.

“I made smoothies,” Karen bribed her.

“Really?”

“Really. I also made you a lunch to take to school and set out some clothes for you. All you have to do is get in the shower.”

“Ugh. I guess.” Vivien crawled out of bed, body limp and floppy. “Thanks Karen.”

“You’re welcome. Now go!”

Vivien hopped in the shower, borrowing Karen’s toiletries. She already had a spare toothbrush here since Karen let her sleep over pretty often. Said she needed to get away from the boys sometimes, and Vivien agreed.

She plugged her iPod into the alarm clock dock, unashamedly playing Love Bug. What? The Jonas Brothers made a comeback. They were totally cool again.

She pulled on the clothes Karen had put together for her that Matt had brought over after finishing his nightly patrol. Admittedly Matt had only been able to find them because after the first time this had happened it had gone so poorly she’d left a few spare sets of clothes laying around in her room where Matt could find them, but she’d give him credit anyway. She also may have done some lip-syncing and dancing, but that was between her, God and the downstairs neighbor.

She headed out to the kitchen, and Karen handed her a smoothie in a Mason jar with a straw. “You, missie, are going to be late, and so am I. Go!”

Vivien swung her backpack (also courtesy of Matt, bless his soul) over her shoulder and ran out the door to catch the bus as Karen pulled on her heels, nearly flashing everyone in the hallway while also narrowly missing landing on her face. Vivien steadied her with one arm before taking the steps two at a time, just barely making it before Janet closed the bus doors. She flashed the elderly lady a smile before finding a seat.

School was what school always was. Mostly boring. Her AP classes were fun, but everything else was painfully easy. It wasn’t that Vivien thought she was smarter than everyone else. In contrast, she was firmly under the impression that everyone else was just very, very, abysmally stupid. Poor creatures.

Eventually, her school day started to come to a close. She survived her second least favorite part, gym, only to make it to the worst part of her day. Every Wednesday, like clockwork, she reported to the school counselor’s office. She wasn’t required to do so by the school, but she was required to do so by her own mind. She had conditioned herself to want to do it by buying herself a soda afterwards. It sort of worked. She still hated it, but she was here, wasn’t she?

She took a seat on the other side of the counselor’s desk, trying to seem pleasant and dare she say it, happy.

“Hello Mrs. Brannigan.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“Hello Miss Fairchild. How have you been since we last met?”

“Oh, the usual.” Vivien fake smiled again. She did a lot of that here. “Just working hard at my studies.”

Mrs. Brannigan nodded. “And making new friends.”

Vivien grimaced. “I have friends, Mrs. Brannigan. They just don’t go here.”

Mrs. Brannigan nodded, but she didn’t seem like she believed her. “I just think it would be best if you were friends with some of your peers as well.”

“I’m friendly with my peers. Isn’t that enough?” Vivien jutted her chin out, sharp eyes drilling into the counselor.

Mrs. Brannigan did not balk. Mrs. Brannigan didn’t seem like the kind of person to balk. She seemed like the kind of person to continue blinking placidly even if the building was burning down around her, her mousy brown hair coated in ashes and her dark eyes clouded with smoke.

“I’m afraid not, Vivien.” Oh good. They were dropping the formalities now. “You need friends at school. People you can rely on.”

“I rely on Mr. Carp to give me a good art grade.”

Mrs. Brannigan had the nerve to give her The Look. The sort of look you give someone when you want to convey that you are absolutely done with their nonsense. Vivien was very familiar with this look. Not only had she been on the receiving end of it many times, but she had also leveled it on Matt and Foggy many, many times, even though only the latter half of that duo could see it.

“Do you ever let yourself be happy, Vivien?”

“Yes.” The answer was immediate, and apparently, it was too quick for Mrs. Brannigan.

“What makes you happy then?”

Vivien blinked at her. It wasn’t like she could tell the woman that leaping across rooftops at night and fighting criminals was what made her happy. That would get her put in an institution, at best.

“Music,” was the first thing she choked out.

“How so?” Mrs. Brannigan folded her hands together, placing them on the desk and leaning forward.

“I like dancing to it. You know, just...by myself. It’s fun.”

Mrs. Brannigan nodded. “Well, at least you still know what happiness is.”

Vivien was pretty sure it was meant to be a joke, but it hit a little too close to home. She knew this was supposed to be good for her, but she really did hate it. It wasn’t that Mrs. Brannigan wasn’t a nice lady, but Vivien liked to handle her problems herself. This was entirely too foreign and unpleasant and exposing for her.

“And your family?” Mrs. Brannigan spoke softly. “Have you...been to visit their graves lately?”

It was like someone had found Vivien’s off switch and abruptly flipped it. The light fell out of her eyes, the fake smile from her mouth, and she became just another mannequin sitting in that office, eyes glazed and staring into the distance. She was just...empty.

“Every Sunday. I bring flowers after church.”

“That’s good.” Mrs. Brannigan’s voice was soft, and her face conveyed that she did not think anything that was happening right now was good, an understandable reaction when your patient completely shut down.

“Yeah.” Vivien stared down at her empty palms sitting in her lap.

Uninvited, her brain conjured up an image of them covered in blood. She could hear ringing in her ears, and she closed her eyes tight against it. She shook her head, shaking his voice out of her ears.

Her eyes were wet when she opened them again.

“Well, I think that will be all for today,” Mrs. Brannigan said.

She sounded disappointed, but they both knew she wouldn’t get much farther with Vivien like this. She had tried their first few sessions, but it never worked. At some point, she pushed too hard, and Vivien shut off. They were just working on waylaying that point at the moment.

“You should work on making some new friends though. I’m sure your classmates are all very nice people. Perhaps someone who sits next to you?”

“Okay,” Vivien said numbly.

They both knew she wouldn’t really try. Or maybe she would, and she just wouldn’t try hard enough to succeed. What a familiar feeling that would be.

“I’ll see you for our next session Miss Fairchild.”

“Yeah. See you then. Thank you Mrs. Brannigan.”

Vivien took her backpack, grateful she always saved her counseling sessions for the last part of her day. She swung by one of the vending machines to buy a cream soda before heading out to catch her bus. She popped her headphones on, drinking her soda as the driver pulled the bus forward. 

She stared out the window on the way home, trying to think of anything that wasn’t the color red. This was difficult, considering the fact that Matt wore almost entirely red. She did her best though, trying to take herself back to this morning, when she had been happy with Karen, taking breakfast onto the bus.

But the truth of the matter would always be that she could never go back to who she was.

So instead she escaped. Usually her coping mechanism involved punching people, but that was probably not the best option at this very moment in time, so instead she chose a more literal form of escapism. She pulled George Orwell’s 1984 out of her backpack, flipping to the middle of the book. Was it required reading? No. But it was interesting, that was for sure.

She spent the rest of the bus ride drinking cream soda and reading her book, avoiding the attention of other students. Lately, that hadn’t been much trouble. There had been a certain amount of morbid fascination with her after everything first happened, but it only took a few months for that to wear off, and then came what always came to survivors of great tragedies. She became a social pariah, someone no one wanted to be around or actively interact with if they could help it. After all, no one liked a reminder of the darker moments of their lives, and the walking talking ones were the worst kind. Vivien knew this better than anyone.

She used to have friends. Of course she had. You didn’t get to your senior year of high school without ever having any friends at all, fake or otherwise, and Vivien had the oddly good fortune to be something resembling not unpopular. This fell apart quickly though after her own great tragedy.

Some of them decided that she was simply no longer worth socializing with. That might have hurt if she hadn’t been dealing with far more pressing losses. The others she managed to slowly push away. It started with her new, unapproachable personality. She was pointedly aloof, exaggeratedly lifeless. She didn’t want anything to do with anyone, that much was clear.

She had a few friends who were more persistent than that though. Sometimes she missed them. Right now she missed them. Maybe they had pitied her, maybe they had loved her. It was hard for Vivien to tell the difference these days. Either way, she had to actively tell them to go away, scream at them until they ran for the hills. After everything that had happened to her, she just wanted to be left alone.

She just wanted to be left alone.

“Hey, Fairchild.”

Vivien’s eyes snapped open. She had closed them, head resting against the back of the seat at an awkward angle that would have left her staring at the ceiling if she had kept her eyes open. After a few moments of that undesirable view, she changed her mind and decided to rest her eyes for a minute.

The face she now saw hovering above her own was disappointingly familiar. Wide blue eyes, half a smile, and night black hair that was longer than it probably should be, but not long enough to necessarily be considered long. She only knew him because he had been the only person in the entire school not to spend a brief period trying to bother her as much as he possibly could during the brief interim where she was a person of interest. She sort of didn’t hate him for that, which was unfortunate, because she was pretty sure she was about to.

For a long moment, Vivien considered telling him to go away. Mrs. Brannigan’s voice echoed in her head though, begging her to just please, please try. She sighed, rolling her eyes before rolling her neck, turning around and deciding to play nice.

“Hello Hunter. Your hair is stupid.”

He laughed. She had known he would. He was good at that. Laughing in the face of adversity.

“Thanks. So, how have you been?”

“Oh, the usual. Annoyed. Unapproachable. Trying to decide if I should be goth or punk.”

“Ah, but your prep aesthetic is working so well for you!” He said, with feigned dismay.

Vivien cracked a smile, despite her best efforts. “Yeah, well, I’ve been keeping an eye on Jessica Jones, and her whole leather jacket thing seems to really be working out for her.”

“Fair point. I would like to counter with the fact that it is the woman that makes the clothes, not the clothes that make the woman.” James Hunter settled his arms on the back of my otherwise empty bus seat, resting his head on them.

“If that’s true, then why should I keep the prep clothes?” she countered.

She thought for sure that would stump him, but he didn’t miss a beat. “Because I like them. Not that my opinion particularly matters, as you have made very clear, but wouldn’t you rather have one of us insignificant fools like your clothes than none of us insignificant fools?”

I thought about it for a moment. “Alright. I’ll keep the button downs, Hunter, but only because I don’t want to go shopping.”

“Heaven forbid you have to buy anything that isn’t a sweater vest, am I right?”

“I don’t wear sweater vests.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

“Sometimes you do.”

He was right. Sometimes she did.

“They’re hand me downs, okay?”

He took his head off his hands to raise them in the air, a gesture of surrender. “Hey, I’m not judging Fairchild.”

“I just want you to know that I’m only talking to you because my therapist said I need friends.” She wasn’t sure why she told him that.

“Well, normally I would say that Mrs. Brannigan is full of it, but I think she might actually be right about that. You’ve been painfully alone since the beginning of the year, are you aware of that?”

��Acutely so.”

“I would ask what happened there, but that doesn’t really seem like any of my business.”

Vivien raised an eyebrow. She had...not been expecting him to say something so utterly self-aware.

“Not yet, anyway. I expect you’ll want to be friends first before you tell me why you have none.”

“And who said we were going to be friends, Hunter?”

“I did. Good news Fairchild, you are no longer beholden to Mrs. Brannigan’s unreasonable demands. I promise to be low maintenance.”

She squinted at him before the corner of her lips quirked up a little bit. “Cross your heart?”

“And hope to die.”

The smile fell right off her face. “Don’t do that.”

“Right. Sorry. Uhh...hope to get high.”

Vivien snorted with the unexpected humor of it. Everyone knew Hunter was clean as a whistle.

“There you go. We’ll have you smiling again in no time, Fairchild.”

“No promises Hunter.”

The bus screeched to a halt as she spoke.

“As much as I would like to extort some promises out of you in turn, I do believe this is your stop, Vivien.”

She looked up, and sure enough, they were in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen.

“See you tomorrow.” He smiled at her again, and she told herself that she only smiled back out of obligation.

“See you tomorrow, James.”

[bluerighthand]

Growing Up A Shelby - Chapter 3: 1901

Previous Chapters: one two three /?

Chapter Summary: Ada starts school, Tommy thinks about girls…and boys, and a furry friend is introduced to the family (much to Polly’s distress). 

This chapter is basically a load of domestic things strung together. Fluff, family shenanigans, minimal angst (but there is a whole storm of angst heading your way).

Notes: Due to recent events I’m taking a break from tumblr/the internet, but here’s me resurfacing to post a new chapter and add more stuff to my queue. I’m really sorry for the wait, but I hope you enjoy <3

Words: 5,654

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15542805/chapters/38607311

Warnings: homophobia, brief mentions of death, gun violence and child abuse

“Oh, will you sit still” Polly groaned, smacking the back of John’s head. He stopped wriggling, for a grand total of five seconds, before resuming his task of trying to kick Arthur under the kitchen table. “John. I will shave your head right off I swear to God” said Polly, attempting to guide the razor across the back of his head.

“I am sitting still!” he protested, bringing his feet behind the chair legs to prove his innocence. Arthur’s legs could still reach however, and he waited until Polly was deep in concentration before sending a hard kick to John’s shin. At his cry, Polly slammed the razor down onto the table.

“Out” she said, pointing Arthur towards the door. She didn’t want to actually cut anyone, despite them both driving her absolutely mad. “Acting like a bloody child”.

“That’s a bad word” John informed her. Not as bad as the ones she wanted to use. Arthur took his time, dragging his feet along the floor and ‘accidentally’ knocking John’s arm on the way out.

She needed wine. And whiskey. In the same glass.

Ten minutes later, John’s hair was done. He scurried off immediately, leaving Polly’s warning about kicking his brother hanging in the kitchen. Cleaning the razor, she called for Tommy, but there was no answer. The imminent return to school (signified by the fresh haircut) must have him up to his neck in summer homework, she thought optimistically. Who was she kidding…

Cutting Tommy’s hair in the past had been a long and arduous task. It was easier now he was older, but he still hadn’t fully recovered his dignity from the baldness incident of 1896, and was therefore extremely cautious when it came to having his head shaved.

She entered the boys’ room to see Tommy leaning out of the window, arms resting on the sill. Thin wisps of smoke curled above his head, and Polly shivered, the autumn air from outside chilling the room.

“Thomas” she said warningly. He jumped, quickly flinging his cigarette down onto the street below, and spinning round. She glared at him in frustration. “Where do you keep getting those from?”. He shrugged, but at least had the decency to look sheepish under her gaze.

“It’s bloody freezing” said Polly, tugging the window down and flicking the latch. “Let’s get your hair sorted and you can go and play”. Tommy followed her out of the room.

“I’m too old for playing” he lied, eyes falling on his wooden horses on the landing even as he spoke. Polly shook her head, remembering a time when nothing could prise Tommy away from his toys. She’d seen the way he stared at older gangs on the streets, his natural curiosity pulling him into something that was very hard to get out of. She pushed the thought away. Tommy was only eleven for God’s sake, he had years before his father’s devilment emerged.

Haircut done and school bag packed for the following day, Tommy returned to his spot on the window sill. Arthur was on the street below, and having tired of annoying John, was throwing a deflated ball up for Tommy to catch. Arthur didn’t play with him as much as he used to, so Tommy was happy to join in, missing the hours they used to spend dreaming up worlds together. Tommy was the first to see Ada and Uncle Charlie heading down the lane, and he waved, grinning as Ada held her new school bag aloft. She spent the rest of the evening buckling and unbuckling the thing in excitement, and hardly slept a wink that night. Tommy didn’t have the heart to tell her school wasn’t nearly as fantastical as she was imagining.

The morning arrived, bright and chilly, and the family gathered in the kitchen for breakfast.

“Our Ada, all grown up” said Arthur, holding Ada’s hand as she twirled, crumpled pinafore fanning out. Not quite a ball gown, but it could have been for the way everyone cheered.

“And you’re going to be in my class Ada!” John cried.

“God help their poor teacher” said Polly under her breath. Tommy laughed, pulling on his jacket. After Polly had extracted three cuddly toys and a plate from Ada’s bag, they left the house, Arthur and Polly waving them off at the door. Arthur had finished school in the summer, and now worked in Charlie’s yard, chopping wood, hammering nails, fixing things. He was good at all that stuff. He wasn’t paid much, but earning three pennies a week was a lot more than others his age were doing for their families.

Polly was ecstatic either way, as Arthur’s income enabled her to quit her cleaning job in the evenings, and enrol in an accountancy class at a night school across town. The first class wasn't for a month or two, but she was already beside herself with excitement. Finally, finally, her life was starting. She was slightly apprehensive about leaving the kids on a regular basis; who knows what trouble they’d get up to, but she’d given Arthur a nice long talk about responsibility, some of which had hopefully stuck.

Jane was there of course, but she’d spent the vast majority of the past few months’ asleep upstairs, which unfortunately Polly didn’t see changing anytime soon. At least there was an adult in the home, in case Arthur decided his friends were more important than babysitting.

Ada kept up a constant stream of chatter on the way to school, about exactly what she should learn and exactly how it should be taught to her. Tommy tried to cut in with some brotherly advice; listen, do your homework, don’t punch anyone with these surnames or I’ll be the one to get it in the neck etc., which was naturally ignored. It would be okay though. Ada could look out for herself, and already had a mean right hook on her if anyone got nasty, much to Polly’s delight and their mother’s horror.

By the time they arrived, the yard was bustling with kids, and Tommy quickly lost sight of his siblings as John pulled Ada off towards the schoolhouse. Spying Freddie and Danny amongst their classmates, he elbowed his way through the crowd to reach them.

“Alright Tommy” greeted Freddie, throwing an arm around his shoulders. “You’ll never guess what Danny’s got”. Tommy looked to Danny, who grinned widely as he pulled him close to whisper in his ear.

“No way” Tommy said when he pulled back, in an equally hushed tone.

“Found it in me dad’s coat last night. He’s gonna sort that Whitton out I reckon” said Danny.

“Or that mad horse of yours” said Freddie, laughing at his friends’ matching frowns.

“Jus’ cause you don’t even have a horse” said Danny.

“When can we see it?” asked Tommy eagerly. Guns were not uncommon in Small Heath, far from it in fact, but he’d never actually held one, never fired one. Blades were far easier to steal, so staring at the outline of his father’s gun through his jacket was the closest he’d got thus far. Arthur Snr had never let his gun out of his sight, even when he was drunk, and Polly used to joke that it was the only thing he could be relied upon for. He’d taken Arthur out shooting once, to Tommy’s jealousy, but his rather graphic descriptions of what he’d do to anyone who stole his gun was enough to put Tommy off.

Danny’s dad was as forgetful as anything, much like his son, making this gun a far easier target.

Before they could make plans however, the bell rang, and the boys reluctantly made their way towards the extension. This building, made for the older kids, was far more makeshift and patchwork than the main schoolhouse, and Tommy wasn’t looking forward to their winter classes. Other than that, things were looking up if Arthur’s time in the top class was anything to go by.

He’d hardly turned up for one thing, and whenever he caused trouble a sweet smile was enough for Mrs Changretta to look the other way. Unfortunately, school restructuring meant that Tommy missed out on Mrs Changretta altogether, and instead ended up with a rather frail looking elderly man called Mr Pearson.

He seemed to live in a constant state of exhaustion, and also looked partially sighted, meaning Tommy was looking forward to bunking off without Pearson even noticing his absence. After ten minutes of silent work only disturbed by the whizz of paper balls Billy was lobbing at the back of Tommy’s head, Pearson went so still in his chair that they all began to speculate whether he was still breathing or not.

Turns out, he was, and Tommy let his daydreams carry him off for the rest of the morning rather than listen to any more drivel about algebra. Lunchtime rolled around, and he, Danny and Freddie entertained themselves by acting out what would likely happen to poor Whitton at the hands of Mr Owens’ gun.

It was strange to see Ada running around the yard. She’d never liked being left behind while her brothers went off to school. And now here she was with them, wearing an oversized pinafore that used to be Polly’s, a wide gap toothed smile on her face and her freshly cut bob dancing around her shoulders. She bounded up to Tommy a few minutes later, holding hands with another girl, and Tommy just managed to catch that her name was Jessie before the two ran off again.

After school, Danny’s mother was waiting by the gates, Danny turning back to shrug apologetically at his friends as he was pulled away. Tommy and Freddie glanced at each other uneasily. They decided to go the pasture that afternoon, instead of playing in the streets…not that they were scared or anything. And if they walked John and Ada home first, nobody had to know.

An hour later, Tommy and Freddie were stretched out on their backs in the field, horses galloping around the paddock nearby as clouds meandered across the sky. It was almost too cold for this now, and Tommy wanted to be outdoors as much as possible before he was forced into Arthur’s old winter coat every time he left the house, which was too thin to keep him from the chill, and merely stopped the free feel of the breeze against his skin.

“Do you like anyone?” asked Freddie. The question came out of the blue, they’d been discussing Danny’s father a second ago, and Tommy turned his head to look at Freddie, his profile clear against the sky.

“I’m not that cold am I?”.

“Not like that” Freddie laughed. “I mean a girl. Do you like any girls?”. Tommy had known what he’d meant. All he heard from Arthur these days was ‘girl talk’, when he wasn’t ignoring him in favour of Irene, or Erin, or…who was it now?

“Do you?” Tommy asked.

“Yeah” said Freddie sadly, “but she doesn’t like me back”.

“How do you know?” said Tommy, propping himself up on an elbow. He didn’t like the sound of this. It was the first he’d heard about it, and he and Freddie told each other everything, didn’t they? Freddie turned his head away before he spoke.

“Because she likes you Tommy” he said, the intonation giving away his annoyance. Tommy frowned, before sitting up fully.

“Is it Greta?” he asked. She was the only girl who ever played with him, other than Ada of course. She was funny, smart, and pretty too. Freddie nodded, not moving from his spot on the grass. “Freddie” groaned Tommy, poking his friend in the shoulder. “She probably only likes me cause I’m the only boy that talks to her”. Freddie shrugged.

“Are you going to kiss her?” he asked.

“What? No!” cried Tommy, realising too late that his reaction was far more opinionated than Freddie was expecting.  “I mean” he tried again, “she’d like you much more if you only tried speaking to her instead of putting worms in her desk”.

“Hey” protested Freddie, “how was I to know Billy had moved seats while I was ill?”. They laughed for a while at the memory, before Freddie spoke again.

“I’d like to kiss her”. Tommy felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. Maybe he was getting ill. But as his eyes flicked down to Freddie’s lips as he smiled, Tommy wondered if there was another reason his insides were full of butterflies.

He’d pondered this matter rather a lot lately.

The first thing he’d heard about homosexuals had been from his father. They’d been walking home from the boxing ring a few years ago, Arthur Snr having had one too many whiskeys, and come across two young men in an alleyway shortcut to Watery Lane. One was leaning against the wall, whilst the other rested his hand on the bricks behind his head, leaning in close. They were just laughing and talking, and Tommy wouldn’t have given it a moment’s thought if his father hadn’t stopped dead in the street, turning down the alley.

The men were already long gone by the time his father had staggered to their spot, but he spent the rest of the trip home muttering about them, and it was the most Tommy had ever heard him speak of the Bible. He’d been too young to understand it then, but now?

He sighed.

He probably didn’t need to worry much about what his father thought anyway. They’d only seen him once since their disastrous trip to London, when he’d turned up one weekend at the boxing ring. He’d bullied Arthur into fighting him, and then left whilst his son was still bleeding on the ground. He hadn’t even gone to see their mother, nor Polly.

Tommy had been close to confronting him, but Arthur wouldn’t let him, holding firmly onto his wrist as blood dripped down his chin. Tommy thought about him sometimes, wondered where he was, but was nevertheless glad to have him out of the way.

The walk home was quiet, both Tommy and Freddie lost in thought. A dark raincloud had settled over Small Heath, and didn’t let up for weeks, sending everyone into an irritable mood. Danny’s father had died in hospital, from multiple gunshot wounds. Of course Tommy knew guns could kill; that was the point of them, but…weren’t they only supposed to kill bad people? The hero never died in his storybooks. Maybe Mr Owens had been a villain after all.

The approach of Christmas and the school holidays cheered everyone up a bit, as did Danny’s return to school at the end of November.

Tommy also had a new hobby; dancing. Smoking around the back of the town hall at night had become something of a habit. It was quiet, as quiet as you could get in Small Heath, as the majority of the pubs and gambling dens were on the opposite side of the town. Tommy liked to lean against the brick wall and smoke, gazing up at the night sky. In the summer, they opened the windows, and Tommy could hear violins and cellos and countless other instruments from within, tapping his foot along with the rhythm.

Freddie often accompanied him, but Tommy wasn’t sure how he felt about Freddie these days. It was nice to spend the evening alone sometimes, away from his siblings and friends. Tommy had wandered across to the hall, hoping to hear the music, but the chill of autumn had been supplanted by a bitterly cold winter, and the windows remained firmly shut. He shivered, regretting this decision somewhat as he saw a mother and son cross the street ahead of him, both decked out in thick fluffy coats and scarves. Night had fallen, and he could feel his fingertips going numb as he deliberated what to do.

The large clock on the building opposite chimed nine, and Tommy made his decision, slipping in behind an elderly couple entering the hall. He ducked behind a column, watching people in their fineries enter the main auditorium. There was a door on the right, marked with that tempting ‘Do not enter, staff only’ sign and when there was a lull in arrivals Tommy crossed the empty hallway and pulled open the door to reveal a staircase.

Pleasantly surprised it wasn’t just a cupboard, or something equally boring, he climbed the stairs to the top. Judging by the amount of dust on the handle, nobody had been up here for a long time. Tommy blew the cloud of fluff away, pushing open the door to reveal the loft. Boxes littered the floor, the sad remains of bent flutes and snapped violin strings poking out. There was a dusty old gramophone, and a few cracked records strewn about the place, but other than that it was all beams and lead pipes and spider’s webs.

The building was old, and the boards creaked dangerously under Tommy’s feet as he made his way across the attic. The screws in the floorboards looked loose and rusty, and Tommy could see gaps where they’d fallen away up ahead, providing chinks of light where the missing tiles in the ceiling offered only black.

Not stopping to consider the fact that this could be a very bad idea, Tommy continued walking, swinging around a beam and crouching down at its base. Through a small gap, he could see the orchestra far below, a few metres ahead. The rows of seats to the side of the dancefloor were mostly full, and Tommy was surprised to see what he assumed were people of standing in the audience. Small Heath wasn’t exactly known as a cultural centre.

He moved further into the room, and decided a stronger looking horizontal beam would be a good place to sit and listen to the music. He clung to a dusty pipe for support, swinging his legs across and pushing himself up onto the beam.

It wasn’t the most comfortable; in order to balance himself he had to twist around awkwardly to grab the post behind him, but when the music started up again and he caught glimpses of the dancers swirling below him, it was worth it.

The sound here was much better than from outside, and the protection of the mostly formed roof prevented the bite of that chilling cold that numbed his fingers and wound its way down to his bones. He swung his feet in time to the music, the thrill of being somewhere he definitely shouldn’t and nobody knowing it putting a giddy smile on his face.

“What are you doing?” came a voice. Tommy started, craning his neck to see a girl standing in the doorway. She was dressed well, too well to be a Small Heath kid, buttoned into a crisp white blouse and a navy petticoat. The long blond hair trailing down to her waist made her look like the princess in Ada’s storybook.

“The door was open” she said. Shit. “It’s staff only, so I thought I should take a look”.

“You’re staff?” said Tommy, disbelievingly. She had to be at least three years younger than he was.

“My mum’s performing” she said proudly. “I can go where I want”.

“What does she play?” asked Tommy, peeking back through the gap in the floor, relieving the strain on his neck.

“Don’t you think we should talk about this after I’ve rescued you?” she said, exasperated. Tommy squawked indignantly.

“I don’t need rescuing!” he insisted, trying to look relaxed in his precarious position. The girl looked at him expectantly. Right, of course. Time to get back without falling through the floor. Tommy scanned the area, noting the spots he’d used to get here, and the surrounding beams. It suddenly looked a lot more complicated than it had ten minutes ago. Steeling himself, and slightly annoyed that this girl had interrupted a perfectly enjoyable evening, he slid off the beam and began to make his way back across the floor. The girl was shifting nervously, and brought a hand up to bite at her nails when a board gave a particularly loud creak.

“Not there!” she cried suddenly, and Tommy flung an arm out to stop himself instinctively, glaring at her.

“You’re not helping” he said. She fell silent for a moment, watching him right himself and manoeuvre around a couple more beams.

“I’m Grace, by the way”. Tommy didn’t answer, more focused on removing his foot from a floorboard that looked as if it had mere moments before it snapped. “What’s your name?”. Tommy jumped, swinging from an overhead pipe for a second, which protested loudly at his weight, and landed in front of Grace. He did a mock bow, and she laughed.

“Tommy”. A smile.

“Your clothes are filthy” she said, gesturing to his dusty attire.

“Yours aren’t, rich girl”.  Brushing himself down, he leant against the doorframe. She held out her hand.

“Do you want to dance?”. Tommy was slightly taken aback by this.

“I don’t know how” he said after a moment.

“I’ll teach you. It’s easy, come on!”.

“Which one’s your mum?” asked Tommy, once Grace had pulled him through the hall, on the right floor this time, and up to the stage.

“The singer, right at the front” said Grace, beaming. “We’re staying in hotels and travelling around England so she can perform. Isn’t she brilliant? They say I could be a singer myself someday”.

“I’d like to see that” said Tommy.

“Come on, let’s dance” she said, pulling him into the crowd. Tommy was stiff and self-conscious at first, treading on Grace’s feet and glancing around the room for any familiar faces. Grace laughed when they stumbled, but not in a cruel way, and Tommy soon found himself smiling and pulled into the rhythm of the music. By the time the orchestra took a break, Grace had taught Tommy some basic steps, and they twirled amongst the other dancers for an hour or so until they collapsed, exhausted, into chairs next to the stage. Grace’s mum came down from the platform to greet them, eyes widening as she glanced at her watch.

“Say goodbye, Grace” her mother instructed, glancing at Tommy distractedly, and waving over a friend to take Grace back to the room.

“There’s another concert next Friday” she said, “this is our last stop before we go back to Ireland. Would you like to come?”. They made plans, and Tommy waved goodbye and slipped out of the door before Grace’s mother could ask any questions.

His walk home turned into a run in an attempt to warm his blood, but his fingers were still shaking by the time he slid his key into the door. Polly had finally been persuaded to get him one cut after she’d found him half way up the house, clinging to several knotted sheets at three am, Arthur half hanging out of the window in an attempt to pull him up. Avoiding the creaky stair, he crept past Polly’s door and into his room.

John was fast asleep under the covers, but Arthur wasn’t home. It wasn’t uncommon these days for him to be gone, but Tommy usually lay awake until he heard his brother’s footsteps on the landing, or the rustle of the sheets as he slid into bed. He didn’t come back at all that night. Tommy caught a few winks of sleep, but woke whilst the sky was still dark, watching the street from his window until the orange sunrise dragged itself wearily over Small Heath, the dark clouds finally dissipating.

Arthur turned up around lunchtime, mostly sober, and Polly, having had quite enough of the lot of them pressed a few pennies into their hands for the fair. Charlie came round in the afternoon to visit his sister, and enjoy a hot cup tea away from the yard.

Polly took advantage of his visit, enacting her plans to rearrange the sleeping arrangements in the house without the hindrance of her nephews and niece. The boys were getting far too old to be cramped up in one room together. In the past year, Arthur had started growing at a slightly alarming rate, much to Tommy’s distress. He could wear his father’s old clothing now, which was useful, but his long limbs were also causing some problems. He'd been shaken awake by an indignant Tommy on more than one occasion, having accidentally smacked him as he rolled over in bed.

But Tommy’s nighttime wanderings and susceptibility to nightmares made it clear he still needed his older brother. However much he’d deny it. John, although small, was extremely messy, and seemed to relocate every single toy in the house to their bedroom floor on a regular basis, which infuriated his brothers to no end. Despite John and Ada bickering at least five times a day, they were inseparable, and so close in age it only made sense for them to share a room.

Polly felt no remorse in chucking out her brother’s old boxes of files, endless sheets of paper and grand business plans, which took up an entire room on the landing. Who the hell needed two offices? Especially if they were never even home to use them?

Curly was called in from the stables to help, and soon John’s bed was squeezed through the doorway and moved into the now clean and empty room down the hall. Ada’s new bed, courtesy of Charlie, followed, and Polly inwardly cheered about having her own space back after four years of sharing with the youngest Shelby. Jane managed to make it downstairs to see the new arrangement, and say a sentimental goodbye to the Shelby cot.

“I remember putting little Arthur in here” she said, running her hand across the wood. Polly smiled at the memory. She was only seven at the time, and was beyond excited to have a baby to look after.

“I reached through and he gripped onto my finger” said Polly fondly. Little teeth marks, John’s handiwork, covered the posts, and Polly had an exasperated smile on her face as she observed the marks where Tommy had actually removed two of the posts and wiggled out. She’d found the empty cot and loose posts on the floor the next morning, and was in complete panic until she found him curled up on the floor under Jane’s bed. God knows how he’d done it.

“I’ll keep it out the back” said Charlie, “then you can have it again if you need it”. He quietened, a deep crease in his forehead.

“We won’t need it” said Polly, firmly.

Jane nodded sadly, before giving Polly a teasing smile.

“Maybe for children of your own, ey Pol?”.

“Give over” she laughed. She’d had quite enough of putting children before her career for the time being. But…maybe one day they’d use the cot again.

The boys’ room looked huge without John’s bed, and they spread out Arthur and Tommy’s, Charlie surprising Polly later that afternoon by delivering a small desk he’d been working on. It slid neatly between the beds, making the room look cosy and far more practical than before.

It was a far cry from a few winters past, where the cold had been so bad, and the price of wood so high, they’d chopped up the beds to burn in the fireplace. They spared the cot; John was only a baby, and Jane’s bed, but the boys and Polly were on mattresses until the following summer. She’d tried to make it fun, like a camping game, but the novelty wore off after a few nights. Even when they had beds again, Tommy would wake up in a cold sweat more often than not, thinking he could feel bugs crawling over his skin.

Later that evening, Polly glanced over her library books one last time. It had been hard to remind her brain how to do calculations after such a long time, but she felt more confident now she’d got some practice in. She couldn’t believe it was finally happening. Practically jumping with excitement, Polly entered the kitchen to grab her bag, stopping in her tracks at the scene within.

The entire floor was covered in hay. Her first thought was that Tommy had brought one of the horses into the house again, but this time the culprits were Ada and John. They were sprawled in the middle of the floor, heads together, giggling at something Polly couldn’t see. Their heads snapped up when she coughed pointedly, gesturing at the mess.

Curled up in Ada’s lap, was a small shivering rabbit. It was white in places, but its paws and sides were a dirty grey, the fur matted and unkempt.

“Ada” Polly said calmly. “Why is there a rabbit in our kitchen?”.

“Because she’s cold”.

“It’s a boy” said John.

“Is not” retorted Ada, cuddling the animal close. To its credit, it didn’t seem to mind. Any other being that could tolerate the Shelby children should be given a medal in her view. That being said, it was still a dirty rabbit, and it was still in her kitchen.

“I don’t care if it’s cold, put it back where you found it. And look at the mess you’ve made” said Polly, moving some hay out of her path with her shoe.

“Aunt Pol, you just destroyed the turret” whined John.

“Turret?”

“We made her a castle to live in” said Ada. “Out of hay”.

“For God’s sake! Get it out, now”.

“No!” Ada cried, “we found her all alone outside, she doesn’t want to go back out there”. Polly pinched the bridge of her nose. She didn’t have time for this. And she would not have her good mood ruined a by a bloody rabbit.

“Ada Jane Shelby, you listen to me. If that rabbit is still in this house when I get home tonight, you’ll not sit down for a week”. Ada glared right back, and would have likely folded her arms if they weren’t full of fluff. John leaned over, holding something orange out to the creature. It sniffed the air, nose twitching, before tucking in.

“That’s not the carrot I bought from the market today is it?” Polly asked in a low voice. John shook his head, the lie written all over his face.

Slamming the door, Polly marched down the lane. Let Arthur deal with the bloody thing, just think about the class, she told herself. Despite her anger about the mess and the wasted food, she was still excited. It was quite a trek to the school, but Polly supposed accountants in training didn’t want drunkards bursting in on them halfway through a lesson. She arrived right on time, and swiftly closed the door on the frigid air she’d left behind.

By the time the lecturer arrived, there were around twenty students, most of whom had clearly travelled from out of town. She was the only girl, which she had been expecting, but it still sent a shiver of unease down her spine as the men turned to stare at her. No worries, she calmed herself, it would only take one woman to put this lot to shame. Deliberately busying herself with her books, she avoided their gazes and glanced over the course overview once again, trying to concentrate. Bloody rabbit. Arthur had better get rid of it.

“Something troubling you?”.

Polly started slightly, and looked to her left. A man had slid into the seat next to her, leaning on the desk as he smiled. His eyes were a deep blue-green colour, and his dark hair was styled upwards, a few strands falling around his face.

“Just- just a rabbit” she said. He laughed, and Polly faced the front quickly as the tutor called for their attention. If this stupidly attractive boy made her mince her words, she’d have nothing to do with him. She’d learnt that lesson four years ago.

The class was just as she’d hoped. She couldn’t quite process that she was actually here, and the life she’d dreamed up for herself when she was just thirteen was finally starting. Polly was pretty sure she spent the entire two hours with a deranged smile on her face, but she didn’t care. She caught the man’s eye from time to time when he smiled at her, and became more confident, even leaning over at one point and correcting a mistake he’d made. She wasn’t sure how he’d react and could imagine the earful she’d get from her brother if she did such a thing to him, but the man just nodded and listened, eager to learn. She liked that.

The class ended far too soon, but Polly packed up quickly, thoughts of what the kids could be getting up to in her absence taking precedence. She paused near the door, glancing back at the man she’d sat beside. He was engaged in conversation with some friends, and Polly smiled before ducking out of the room.

She was already anticipating the following week, planning to get some practice at the harder problems before the next class. She made it halfway down the dark street, before she heard loud footsteps behind her, instinctively reaching for the pocketknife hidden within her coat. Spinning around, the man from the class had caught up with her. At her expression, he waved his hands in apology.

“I didn’t mean to alarm you” he said, “I just-”

“I should be going” said Polly reluctantly, thinking of the children.

“Stay” he said, reaching for her hand, “have a drink with me. If not tonight, perhaps some other time?”. She bit her lip, enjoying the feeling of his fingers intertwining with hers. Should she go for this?

“I don’t even know your name” she said.

“Edward” he replied, kissing her hand. “Edward Gray”.