#so much drama in the community so i’ll just post random shit

[eclipseaotters]

Mad Jungkook ft. the Pink Frying Pan

So I just saw again on twitter that clip of Jungkook visibly getting mad on the courtside right after Jimin flinched during their badminton game.

If you need a recap of the entire thing:

1. Jimin gets hit near the eye with the shuttlecock. Jungkook checks on him. They continue playing.

2. Jimin flinches thinking the shuttlecock was gonna hit him again. Jungkook gets mad.

It’s all very dramatic. (/lh)

Anyway, it is a criminally underrated moment and should be given more appreciation than what we’re giving it.

JK was kinda agitated already beforehand. Hobi asks him every time the other team scores a point, saying “Jungkook, are you okay? Are you sure you’re okay?”

Jungkook reassures at first, saying (probably to himself) to just enjoy it. But it’s obvious his competitiveness is getting to him 😅

And then right when Jimin and Taehyung hit the shuttlecock twice (which shouldn’t be allowed), Jungkook repeats, “Cut some slack!” He says “Cut some slack once!” to let them off the hook for hitting twice.

And then he sees Jimin flinch!

You know how when you see someone flinch in a game and you only realize a second later that they weren’t hit, they just thought they were? Yeah. But you were worried in that very second so you kind of just…charge.

So Jungkook immediately goes, “Ya! Sportsmanship—“ and was headed towards Yoongi. What he’s saying is to give them another chance. He didn’t really have to walk to Yoongi for that. He was even clanging his pink frying pan. 💀

And then you hear Hobi laughing awkwardly in the bg, Namjoon looking at the staff, Jin wanting to move on saying “Next set, let’s get out!” and Yoongi going “It’s a competition. Be cool.” / “It’s a cold world out there for sports.”

It’s not really that deep but it’s so unnecessarily dramatic which makes it cute and probably funny for them in retrospect. Like if you consider the moments leading up to it, Jimin getting hit > the other team winning points consecutively > Yoongi not cutting them some slack > Jimin flinching.

Small moments really, but they kind of bring out both Jungkook’s competitiveness and protectiveness. Really cute.

[multiples-fandomswontkillme]

~Metal Family headcanons~

These are like my... general hcs)? which means I didn't include my main hc that Glam, Ches and Vicky are polyamorous, married and started dating after Glam met Vicky, and absolutely everything that implies for the kids and the relationships between each member of the fam. Maybe I'll make a separate post for that or maybe not! Who knows lkfwnlfqnf

Glam

Bisexual

Glam has constant nightmares and ocasional night terrors ever since he ran away home and is an active sleep walker. Ches helped him through the worse ones when they were younger, and learned how to deal with them, always preferring not to wake him up but being with him until the episode passed. Vicky has learned how to deal with them, though she normally asks Ches for advice with it cuz she comes out short sometimes.

He has PTSD. I bet it's diagnosed too, he takes medication and goes to therapy, it doesn't mean he still doesn't have his bad days anyway. He's trying to get better.

Glam has talked to Vicky about his past, his father and his family. This is a direct contradiction of Alina's confirmation that Glam doesn't talk about it with anyone but man FUCK THAT. We love good communication in this house, Vicky tries her best to help him, but there's only so much she can do to help.

Glam enjoys gardening, cooking and making models, he also likes doing his make up, painting his nails and dressing up in fancy, extravagant clothes even if he has nowhere important to go.

He likes taking care of everyone's hair, and constantly helps Vicky brush her hair cuz there's so much of it, Dee when he gets stressed over how tangled it can get, buys Ches hair products so he actually takes care of it, and chases Heavy so the kid actually washes, untangles and brushes his hair.

This one is kind of weird, but I refuse to think any adult in the family is unarmed at any time. Glam owns a taser and pepper spray. They're bright pink and sparkly.

This man cried his eyes out while watching Coco. He's hell to watch movies with cuz he talks and predicts what's gonna happen during the movie, judges them with scores at the end and all.

Vicky

Also bisexual!

Vicky's the one who does everyone's laundry most of the time. She prefers it that way since she's the only one that knows how to wash their black clothes so the colors stay vibrant. (This is based on my gf shaming everyone but Vicky cuz their black clothes always look so muted and almost gray, but Vicky's whole outfit is always the same vibrant black colors, so we decided that neither Glam or the kids know how to wash dark clothes)

She has anger issues, if it isn't obvious. I think she also has PTSD, mainly survivor's guilt due to her surviving the accident her brother died in. She blames herself and cannot bear to talk about it, in some sort of deep denial. If she can't remember, it can't hurt as much, right?

She has scars on the right side of her back and her hip, from the road rash she got on her brother's accident, she never treated it due to grief and it scarred badly. Apart from that, the scar of the caesarean section from Heavy's birth. She doesn't really mind both of them, they happened, nothing to do about them.

She likes watching boxing competitions, brawling matches and motorcycle repairing on TV. Loves doing BBQ's and going to the pool. Also an enjoyer of teasing her kids, kissing and loving her husband at random times, spending time drinking and bonding with Ches and bragging about her family and punching anyone who thinks they're not that cool.

Not particularly a fan of make up, skirts and dresses or any traditionally femenine-perceived stuff. But has been making exceptions due to Glam and Ches being unashamed of being seen as femenine, and actually rocking the looks. The internalized misogyny is kind of slowly dissapearing.

Apart from the guns she carries in each arm (I mean her biceps, have you looked at the size of those?? She strong) she has brass knuckles on her at all times. Glam gifts her new ones sometimes, she loves having multiple choices to punch people teeth in.

Loves horror, thrillers and action movies. Falls asleep during rom-coms and dramas. Ironically, loves gossip and talking shit about people. Enjoys hearing Ches talks about the gossip going on in the nursery home even if she doesn't know who the hell he's talking about.

Rest of the family under the cut!

Heavy

Heavy is a trans boy! He doesn't know his sexuality yet though, he's still figuring himself out. When he's older, i think he definitely dated some men but had better luck with girls.

Heavy has had innocent crushes on some girls on his class before, but they never turn into anything more cuz he's not the best at expressing himself. He follows the bother-the-girl-to-death-until-she-hates-you gimmick, and unsurprisingly, it doesn't work.

I'm sorry to break this to u but Heavy totally had an among us phase, and uses so much reddit and twitch slang... You know he does.

Likes bullying and teasing his brother to death. You know that when Dee had his first romance, Heavy was ALL up in his business being a tease and a bad attempt at a wingman. He means well tho.

He's not squeamish at all. Also has great pain resistance. This kid has picked cockroaches with his bare hands and loves cats, of course the cats have scratched him. He's tough!

Grows up to be the charming himbo he was always destined to be.

Dee

I hc him as demisexual. Kind of inherited his dad's tastes for the takes no crap, intimidating but pretty kind of people.

Can't cook. He tries but he can only do basics like rice, cereal, chicken nuggets or eggs. Complicated meals always burn or don't taste like anything at all. It drives him crazy.

Dee was a quiet and very well behaved toddler before Heavy was born. He never threw tantrums or got whims. After Heavy was born though, and despite the fact he understood his brother was small and needed special care, he started craving attention often and cried and got mad at little things. Typical jealousy of the oldest sibling.

The first time Dee fell in love with someone, he didn't recognize it was love at first. He just thought his interest on the person was born out of curiosity and aesthetic attraction, but as soon as he realized he seeked validation and companionship, that he liked seeing them smile, that he wanted to protect them, that he yearned for more time alone with them and that he wanted more than what just a simple friendship implied, it was an instant 'oh hell no'. He wanted those feelings to get the hell away, but unfortunately, they were there to stay.

Canonically likes MLP, psychological and horror anime like Death note and Hellsing, so I'm deciding he also watched Death Parade, had a FNAF phase, is very into The Walten Files. This guy enjoys any kind of specially dark ARG's and knows a ton of lore of real crime, unsolved cases, ghost appearances and other stuff. Doesn't believe in the supernatural, but sure is entertained by it.

He's a mess at romance. Flirting? His attempts at compliments are hardly flattering. Giving gifts? The best he can manage is jewelry and you can kind of tell he asked his dad for help. Dates? He's so nervous he's silent for most of it, but begins getting comfortable and having fun if his partner really knows how to get him down from his negativity cloud.

Ches

Pansexual.

He's very good with kids. He has the patience of a saint and he's laid-back, chill and fun but still is an authority figure who knows how to put limits. Sure, he's gonna let the kids light up a house on fire BUT hey, now they know everything about fire precautions, burns and how to treat them AND how to get away with arson. What an educational evening, am I right?

Due to certain info from the "Goodbye" official comic, I headcanon Ches as depressed. I don't want to elaborate a lot 'cuz of spoilers, but... God, everything related to his mom fucking hurts, man. How did he deal with all that?

Ches has been Dee and Heavy's babysitter so many times he cannot count them with all his fingers. He learned how to put those kids to sleep almost immediately (Sing Bon Jovi's "This ain't a love song" and any cheesy love song in a slow lullaby style and they're out), which movie were their favorite as kids (Heavy loved 'Monsters Inc.' and Dee never looked away during 'Meet the Robinsons'), how to console them after nightmares (Heavy needed reassurance, sweet words, and to be with someone until he fell asleep again. Dee just had to be tucked in, get his nightlight turned on and kissed in the forehead). He practically raised those kids along with Vicky and Glam.

More than once, Dee and Heavy have slipped and called Ches "Dad". Ches immediately gets his shit eating grin on and answers "Yes, son?" and does a couple of dad jokes just to mess and embarrass them. He's actually very flattered and surprised at how proud of himself he is for being a father figure to both kids.

Has a scar on the left side of his forehead due to a bottle his mom threw at him when he was younger, around the time he met Glam. He hates the scar with passion, it's a permanent reminder of the fact she never cared, that's why he always keeps it covered with his headband. Gets sad about it sometimes.

Ches likes to spend his time with a group of grannies of the nearby nursing home. He genuinely considers them his friends and gossips and hangs out with all of them on weekends. Bingo, billiards, walks in the park, soap opera marathons, you name it. I even designed them, gave them names and backstories... God, i just love the concept too much. I'll make some art about Ches and his granny gang FOR SURE, you're NOT ready for them.

Carries a pocket knife on him at all times. This man grew up on a bad neighborhood and absolutely knows how to defend himself, he can be intimidating when he wants to be and will pose a threat if needed. He's fucking terrifying when genuinely mad. Just cause he looks harmless doesn't mean he is, darling.

That would be all!

[sarcastic-salem]

I haven’t been interacting with the online Heathen community. Like at all. There’s so much drama and hostility over the stupidest shit.

“Oh, well actually you can’t worship them cause they didn’t have any followers 4,000 years ago!”

“Why do they have to have such a negative reputation?!”

Like, bro, who gives a shit?

If I feel a connection with a deity, I’m gonna worship and interact with them and as of 2022, they will have followers👌🏻

And there are so many people love and connect with “dark” deities. Who gives a shit about what some asshole wrote in a book 40 fucking years ago? Do you think a God really cares that some random ass human insulted them?

Why are you so fucking insecure in your worship — why are you so desperate to prove that you and your deities are good?

If you want to be good then how really being good, doing research, and changing people’s minds? It is fucking possible.

Don’t fucking yell at people who buy crystals because companies are exploiting slave labor. TELL US who those companies are, so we know not to buy from them instead of fucking demonizing a whole community.

Stop telling us that there are racists and ableist assholes in the witch community, and therefore witches are bad. Focus on the assholes and their harmful practices — call them out and leave the fucking rest of us alone.

Honestly, recons have ruined Heathenry for me. Cause I’ll just post some cool random fact that I learned, and they’ll swoop in correcting me and tell me why its bad because of something that happened 4,000 years ago, and pile on a massive booklist I need to read if I want to do things the ✨right✨way.

“Oh, but the way that author is controversial cause they used to be a fascist so avoid their early work and you really want this translation of this book even though its harder read cause it just makes more sense.”

When I do come across a random Heathenry post I just read it and move on. I don’t comment especially if I see a situation headed south. And I’ve learned that I need to ask questions instead of assuming I know everything because I read some article on Google.

I feel ready to start interacting in the Heathen community. By only following people that make me happy and comfortable, and by keeping my fucking mouth shut unless its my own post.

[j-reau]

a hiatus or something

I didn’t want to post this. I told myself to give it until morning and sleep but I’ve been laying here for over an hour and I can’t sleep and I know I’m not going to sleep until I get it out. And I decided I’m not going to do the pretend things don’t bother us mentality that tumblr likes, the don’t show emotions on the dashboard, don’t let people know you’re hurt or angry out of fear it’ll be seen as ~drama or whatever thing stop me from just saying how I feel. Because I feel pretty shitty? I’ve been feeling shitty for a few days now. Maybe more. Last week I told myself that the drama that had randomly cropped up was just too much and I wasn’t going to let tumblr be something that made me cry or panic or kept me up at night over bullshit like arguing with someone over things that happened years ago. So I set my focus on my friends, on my dashboard, on reminding myself why I love RP and why I’ve been in it for this many years, for so long, with all of these people. Those Valentines I posted were part of that project for me. It was a reminder, for myself and my dash about all of the human connection that happens here, all the people we meet, all the little pieces of each other we take on and take with us, all the ships, all the conversations, however brief.  From the people we just see on our dash to the ones we talk to about all our fears and insecurities. And how all of it matters. 

I know how much we all love to say calm down gregg, it’s tumblr RP. I know how we all loathe this hellsite when we’re being our worst. I know how we all talk about how we’re too old for this now or we’re tired. We’re just here to write. I’m just here to write. I love writing. But what brings us all back time and time again, what keeps us here is the fact that it’s not just tumblr RP. It’s a community. Whether you have a real life that keeps you busy or your whole life is here, whether you have plenty of friends offline or all your closes people live on discord, we’re all people. And we all take this with us. We make friendships and we talk to each other. We open ourselves up to the constant trust and fear of interaction, of  plotting, of who is going to reach out or send the meme. We build friendships based on that, we care for each other, we see each other’s bad days on the dash, and great days and inspiration. And it means something. It may just be tumblr RP, but it matters to us. Because of the people here, because we give a fuck about each other. Or at least I’ve always liked to hope we do. I have friends on this website I’ve had for ten years, some just for 3, and others just a few months. It always floors me how we can always come back to it, how we stick with each other or don’t, how we see the good and the bad and the ugly. 

So to get on with it, I wrote those Valentines.  I hit refresh on my blog and put the weird random drama in the past and moved forward. I made this blog for JJ only about 3 months ago. I don’t know how I got 500 followers in that short time but I did. And it’s. been the wildest experience I can possibly explain, having that happen so quickly, finding so many people out in the RPC that I hadn’t before on my other blogs. I felt fucking good. I was excited. Not just to write a character I had wanted to and loved for years but to find so many people who I vibed with. I remember writing a post about a month in and being so fucking ... floored. By how much I loved you all, by how amazing it was to be received like that still, to find people my age and who wrote things I liked and loved their female characters. I fucking love JJ. I LOVE THE SHIT out of my partners on this blog, even the new people I’m still itching to write with. And yet, I did that little refresh, posted my valentines , got ready to go and felt .... sad. 

I tried to explain it. I tried to tell myself it was a bad mood. I hoped maybe it was medication. But I couldn’t shake the weird funk. And everywhere I looked it seemed like things were .... not good. My friends taking breaks, people feeling sad too, relationships splitting, people I liked and respected separating themselves. Tonight, one of my closest friends I’ve made on this blog blocked me. Someone I adored and trusted and absolutely loved to write with. Tumblr says we’re not supposed to care. That we’re supposed to let people draw their lines in the sand and take their leave and maybe we are. Maybe it’s important to let people make their choices. But I also think it’s important as fuck to talk to your friends, to mean what you say when you tell someone they’re important to you. I think it’s important that we remember on the other side of every blog and discord user is a person. Who has bad days and bad feelings and cries and feels insecure and tells themselves it’s just tumblr RP even when they know somehow it feels heavier when it’s bad. This was a friend I had talked to at length about all of those exact things, about how personal the community can feel sometimes, about feeling replaceable or invisible, even for the toughest most confident most take no shit people. I’ve always considered myself a pretty tough, confident, take no shit person. I think anyone who has known me for as many years as I’ve been around has seen that first hand. I don’t like how sad I’ve felt lately. I don’t like the insecurity that’s making me want to know why things feel way or why people vanish without so much as an explanation. I had to block a mutual last week I saw making fun of me on their twitter. A mutual. Someone who chose to follow me and on a public place where my other friends could see it made fun of what I posted. And I just don’t know what we’re doing anymore. It didn’t bother me. I don’t have hurt feelings over it. That’s the kind of stuff I definitely know I’m confident about. But .... it did really fucking floor me. Because here we are, on a sight where users talk about positivity and not sending anon hate, and we can treat each other like that. 

I’ve been sitting up in bed for hours trying to figure out what to say or what to do. That’s what I do I guess. I try to figure out what to do, how we fix it, like somehow there’s some unified we and some responsibility to make things better. A lot of you have only known me for a few months so this probably sounds all kinds of nuts. And you’re probably going JJ you’ve been an emotional mess since the moment we met you. Because I feel like that’s how it’s been for the last few months. But that’s not how it’s always been for me. That’s not who I am. So for now I guess I’m just trying to figure out what I do. Instead of sitting here and spinning and trying to figure out how we as a community fix these gaping holes and the way we talk about each other like we’re disposable and treat each other like names on a list instead of people. 

For now, I think what I do is take a little break. It’s the very thing I don’t want to do. Because it feels like quitting and it feels like being scared away. So I feel the need to promise whoever has read all of this and myself that that’s not what it is. Maybe I’ll be back in two days, maybe two weeks, who knows. But I need a break. From whatever this feeling is that seems to have come over things lately. I’ve loved these few months on this blog so much. And maybe that’s half the problem. Maybe I got spoiled and this is the come down. Maybe I’m just an idiot who thinks what we all want on this website is to find people and love each other and write together. I never knew that me -- the person often accused of being aloof and feelingsless and distant would somehow turn into the emotional bitch on this website but here we are I guess. I just don’t know how to navigate this anymore. I don’t know how to put my heart into relationships and friendships that can just be switched off like we can just stop caring about people. I don’t know how to ignore people who say horrible things and do horrible things to each other just because we don’t want to see it on our dashes. I don't know how to give enough of everything to everyone so that every single one of my mutuals and partners knows they’re valuable to me. I don’t know what I hope to accomplish. I don’t know when I got to be so much of a raw, frayed edge on tumblr dot com but that’s how I feel. And I hope in a few days or sometime soon I’ll have an answer or at least get my hard shell back.

I want to keep writing. I want to keep talking to you guys. I don’t want to lose anyone. I truly mean what I say when I say you’re all important to me. I plan to still be around on discord. I’ll write on discord if anyone wants to keep writing. If we aren’t discord friends yet and you want to be, send a message. I plan to come back. I don’t want to abandon anything. I’m so deeply fucking sorry for this rant, for all the overflow of feelings lately, for anyone that’s had to listen to them, for putting them on your dashes, for fucking all of it. Please be good to each other. Please talk to each other. Please remember that if we’ve crossed paths at any point on this blog, I value you. I value all of your friendships, your writing, your shitposts, your dash commentary, your tiktoks you dump at me on discord. I love you. Every last fucking one of you. 

[shimmershae]

Just a few random thoughts and observations about Daryl’s Origins episode.

Basically my stream of consciousness bullshit brought over from Twitter, lol.  I almost didn’t watch the episode after seeing all the drama over there, but ultimately I decided to because frankly?  I don’t trust certain fans’ perceptions of events.  For reasons.  It’s best, I feel, to always watch with your own eyes and form your own independent opinions because this fandom is teeming with people that delight in tormenting other fans by being very selective and oftentimes downright misrepresentative about what they pass along.  

More under the cut because this is random and all over the place and basically excerpts of my live blogging while watching the special.  Did I mention it’s random?  

You know.  It sure would be nice not going into one of these things so apprehensive.  Maybe one day, hmm?  

First things first.  From the very beginning of this Origins episode, I’m reminded of two things:  1).  Our introduction to Daryl, his colorful Dixonese, and his particular brand of humor certainly stands out as one of show's more memorable introductions.  2).  TWD certainly regressed on the deer front. I mean.  Daryl's deer>Richonne's deer.

I’m never going to get over "On Golden Pond."  Never ever and look.  I actually liked Dale but Daryl spitting those words at him still makes me laugh until I'm weak.

Daryl's still searching all these years later.  Or is he?  Really?  Seems to me the man's found exactly what he's been looking for and he's been chasing it since he came back from those woods:  a future with his soulmate.  The one that happens to be his best friend.  OFC, I’m talking about Carol. Who else?  

How pretty and soft are baby Daryl and Carol?  Too pretty and soft for this tired heart to withstand.  Like I love all versions of them, but baby Daryl and Carol just hit different.  

My immediate thought re: the Beth comment-- Misreads the situation?  WTF?  Whoever wrote this script just had to re-inject some eww into the narrative didn't they?  All those damn dirty spoons.  Ever think about how much it probably reeks in that office space?

Moving along, though.  Here’s some real facts.  Carol is so intrinsically woven into the fabric of Daryl's story, the only way she can be removed is if they are literally both destroyed and cease to exist.  Something happens to Carol?  The man is going to be a reanimated body without a heartbeat.  Basically a Walker.

 An aside, I know they're not making me rewatch a scene I haven't watched since the first time it aired.  The way Negan's head bashing tendencies had me seeing red and wanting that barbed wire bat shoved up his ass every time I saw his face.  My JDM love really took a serious hit for awhile.  I'm never going to forgive the character that hateful act.  I just can't.

Somehow I wasn't expecting this to be a teleprompter-fest.  Like who wrote this script?  Hmm.   Sorry.  Don't mind me.  Lost in my thoughts per usual. You know.  It still strikes me as hella insensitive that Rick had Daryl leading the Sanctuary community knowing what he suffered there.  There's no way Daryl would have returned that kind of favor.  

Yep.  Leah still feels tacked on last minute.  A means to an end.  Sigh.   They completely glossed her over here.  Too bad they had that lapse in judgment with some other toxic waste.  I cannot believe they touched that with a ten foot pole.  It's just cringe-worthy and wrong.

"Daryl can't say no to Carol."  They say those words and I’m like “Join the club, my dude.  Join the club, lol.”  

You know.  All the Carol-related moments in this Daryl Dixon recap speak for themselves.  She's his person, dammit.

Okay though.  That reunion in the tall grass with the sun shining on them all golden and picturesque, after Alpha’s taken Daryl to show him her horde?  That's some romance novel shit right there.  "Look at me.  Just look at me."   I'm never going to recover from that moment or the discovery of Sophia.  They break my heart so.  

This recap is literally 2/3's Carol and the other 1/3 Rick and everybody else.  I mean.  It's so obvious.  Utterly and completely misrepresented by some agenda-driven folks.  

"We have a future."   Oh.  Just some pretty, meaningless words you say everyday to all your friends, lol.   Just friends my whole entire ass.  

"I'm never gonna hate you."  Okay, AMC.  Back up all the talk with some action that even the most willfully blind cannot deny, m'kay?  Because they're not going to buy it until you're explicit about it.  Just saying.

The amount of times "Carol" has left this man's mouth during this recap, lol, and some people keep wanting to ignore it. 

Aww.  Guess who they showed when Daryl mentioned family?  How sweet.  And when they mentioned purpose in connection with C0nnie, it was not any indication of romance, IMHO.  

Let me explain.  

By the time C0nnie is lost,  Daryl’s floundering because he feels he hasn’t been able to help Carol despite giving it all and pushing back his previously established comfort zone(s).  Enter these pair of sisters.  And they put him in mind of the good parts of him and Merle.  Probably they make him remember  the Greene girls when things were good and hopeful before they went sideways.  In some small way, he’s probably reminded of other family units like Rick and Carl and Lori and Carol and Sophia and later Henry.  And all of those people have something in common.  Well, besides being people Daryl has known and cared for.  They’ve seen their family units fractured and/or destroyed by tragedies wrought by the world they live in.   They made a point and emphasized that Daryl’s a searcher and also that family matters to him.  In some way or form he’s been doing his best to help repair or reunite all these different family members since the beginning and ultimately he’s failed to succeed each time.  So yeah.  He’s been given a purpose in a time of uncertainty again with her because this time he’s determined to get it right.  This time he wants to bring the two sisters back together the way he couldn’t do for the Greene girls.  Like I did not, do not read anything romantic at all into that comment. Just my take on things.  Obviously, everyone else’s mileage may vary.  I’ll step off my soapbox now.  Hopefully, maybe these words might comfort.  

So relax, lovelies.  It wasn't as bad as I feared.  Sure, they could have left that one icky comment out but they didn't and honestly?  I don't think it's a positive for that particular 'relationship' because it's something that's brought up to show just how messed up Daryl was.  Because grown men that have their heads on straight don't usually have those type of misreads.  They know they are inappropriate.  Like I'm not putting Daryl into the pedo category because I don't feel like he belongs there.  But I can see how him being so emotionally stunted and naive so far as interpersonal relationships and the nuances of friendship and non-toxic family could lend itself to him maybe reading more into those moments than were really there and not really knowing how to deal.  

Whoever wrote that teleprompter script though?  That particular asshole is probably grinning like a donkey with a mouth full of briars at all the unnecessary drama they stirred up yet again. Like newsflash, goober.  There are better ways to foster interest in your show.

They should hire a team of fans to do the promotion.  Fans that represent all factions of this fractured fandom so the promotion is well-rounded and not so heavily slanted toward any one of them but the diverse fandom as a whole.

Stop fanning the stupid ship wars and just celebrate the damn characters and the overall story.   Nothing new or groundbreaking to see on this first Origins story but hey.  Who doesn't mind a decent recap now and then?  That said, don't sweat not having AMC+ or feel like you missed all that much because you didn't.

I do have to say.  Them pretending B3th was the first girl to be nice to Daryl really had me going WTF.  

I mean, there’s this little exchange from Carol, the first woman to be nice to Daryl, probably the first person from the group--

"You're every bit as good as them.  Every bit."   

  AMC?  TWD?  Do you even watch your own show?  

There you have it.  My bullshit stream of consciousness, originally posted over on Twitter as I liveblogged the show.  Hope you got something helpful or of entertainment value from this.  

Goodnight, lovelies.  

Until next time.  

[rpbetter]

Wha-? Now people are labeling muns who just play devil's advocate and don't have strong feelings either way about what other people write? I didn't sign up to be a 'proshipper' just for not caring what other people ship. I don't care about a lot of things. Why the label for this particular thing? It sounds so dumb, like a way to yank in more muns who just want to mind their own business into drama and 'sides'. I agree with your post, I'm just angry at the rpc for being babies. And the labels...

I'm always angry at the RPC for being babies and the labels, it's alright, Anon.

I believe (and I could be wrong, because for the most part, I tried to stay out of any and all fandom-related things for years and years - I just want to enjoy the movie/shows/books, I don't need or want to discourse about that shit, you know?) that all of those terms originated in fandom, outside/predating transfer to the RPC.

I know when I encountered them initially, it was in fandom, not the RPC part of fandom...and at that time, it was just the label of people being "antis." A label they gave themselves by, literally, asserting themselves as "anti-character here-."

It's been my supposition that the RPC's transition to being more canon character and fandom-based than OC-preferred led to an organic transfer of more fandom-specific terminology (and behaviors). As places like twitter and tumblr became hubs of fandom and RPCs, they brought tags to the table. While that is an absolutely wonderful thing, it also means that we all started out tagging things with good intentions, only meant to be tags. You could tag something, pulling from a random fandom here, "anti-Daryl Dixon" from TWD and the plethora of fans who love that character could block it. It was a peacekeeping measure at that state, not a flag for discourse and drama.

Tag-language influencing and becoming an organic part of language, in general, is a whole other, though fascinating, topic, so I'm going to just leave that there. The point is, it happened.

And unfortunately, you quickly got people popping "anti-whatever" in their bios and blog descriptions. Not as a means of allowing others to avoid it, but as a means of making it really clear that they despised the character, fandom, ship, whatever. With purity culture 3.5 hitting in earnest, the reasons for despising those things became raised stakes. It wasn't a basis of simply disliking them anymore - you needed a dissertation how this thing was morally objectionable and destroying the world. Anyone disagreeing with you, by that logic, is morally reprehensible themselves and must be stopped. Raised stakes.

Actions cause reactions, too. People started making it clear that they were "pro" whatever, too. These became opposing designations, and honestly, I'm not sure who started up "proshipper" first. I only know I saw it being used negatively first, that doesn't mean it happened that way! What I've seen has been the entire ship/write/like what you want crowd being given that label negatively and taking it up themselves in the same way people are given to take up a lot of things they've been negatively called.

By "what I've seen," I don't just mean witnessing it happening in the wild lol it happened to me, as well. I reblogged a post about how shipping wasn't activism, and got an anon informing me that I was a disgusting proshipper (every time I reblog that, I get at least one person popping off in my RP inboxes, actually, it hasn't slowed down any). At which point, I, too, was very much like, I'm a what now? Yes, I am okay with shipping? What the hell is this person even on about?

So, it's my theory that in response to the anti movement, some people stated that they were "pro-ship and let ship" and thus...we got to be "disgusting proshippers."

Regardless, it absolutely is just another way of labeling people in order to single them out and/or keep feeding drama, yes.

And again, I feel you. I know labels, good, bad, reclaimed, whatever, seem to give a lot of people a grounded sense of identity, but I've always been uncomfortable with them. I don't understand the need for them, even if I get that they make others feel a certain way. I just want to feel the way I do, be the person I am, and have that person engaged with based singularly on my actions.

It's alright if someone else wants to freely label themselves in a way they feel is positive (though, I do wish that younger people, especially in the queer community didn't have this batshit pressure to do so, and correctly, the first time), but they've always felt threatening and restrictive to me.

As such, having people create and bestow a label on me for the purpose of designating me a problem is kind of an uncomfortable realization of why I feel negative about them. I don't like it, and it's part of why I don't like the bullshit of making this distinction in DNIs. By doing so, they're literally as hell singling people out...with a negative label they gave them for the criminal act of feeling like it's absurd to police fiction, instead, expecting adults to behave like adults when engaging with fiction and each other.

It's honestly forcing hostility and drama, when the point of being ship/write/like and let ship/write/like is not having that hostility and drama. It's merely a live and let live mentality, that's what y'all are attacking! The labeling is a rotting cherry on top that is so indicative of this same, legitimately problematic, behavior that goes on in the extremism I talked about in the post you referenced. It's...gross, let's just say that.

And I'm really sorry that it makes you upset, too! You don't have to label yourself, you can reject that and refuse to engage with those using it in this negative way. That makes me feel considerably less annoyed and disturbed! I'll totally joke about it, as I do fall into the designated parameters of being both "proship" and "anti-anti," but I don't actually label myself thus. I only consider myself a reasonable adult who has better and more serious shit going on than to worry about what fiction someone else is writing or enjoying.

Just...do be aware that, like myself and others, you're likely to be labeled if one of these hostile parties sees you reblog the "wrong" thing or make the "wrong" statement. You are being labeled in those DNIs for your viewpoint of wishing to avoid absurd drama. So, I'd advise, for your peace of mind, to try to avoid blogs stating that they're "anti" anything but drama/bullying etc., or who feel it necessary to put up those DNIs. You are who they're talking about, they just don't know it because you're not labeling yourself or being otherwise obvious about it :/

Try your best to avoid that changing, you deserve to peacefully enjoy RP! As disturbing as it is, as rightfully upset about it as you are, maybe it's a good thing you found out? In this way, I mean. Without someone bringing it to your inbox hatefully. Now you know what it means, that they mean you, and you can stay away from it! Try to look at it that way - there will always be people weirdly desperate to make their drama hobby everyone else's problem, you can only make an effort to stay out of it if you know what to look for, right?

I hope any of this made you feel better about the fresh hell that is the RPC lol keep doing you, Anon! You're not the problem, infantile drama mongers are <3

[janiedean]

I started following you years ago because of your asoiaf content (especially j/b). I haven't been active in that fandom for a long time now, though, so you probably don't remember me but I just wanted to let you know that despite me being inactive in the asoiaf fandom, I still very much enjoy reading your takes on the series. 😊

The second thing I wanted to say is that I saw you like some Sex Ed posts I reblogged which surprised me because I had no idea you watched the show. xD That being said, what are your thoughts on the storyline they did with Adam/Eric this season? 🙃

hey!!! first of all I absolutely still remember you, glad to see you again!! <33

and that said: hahahahahahaha I watch SE since it started but I only talk about it when it's airing bc like... I don't have a fannish engagement and fandom until now had discourse I didn't care for, BUT hahahahahahahahahahahahahha let's say I just watched the breakup scene and I think it was complete idiocy bc never mind that it was my otp since S1 and I was very happy with how they handled it until now tldr

after they spent half a season showing them communicating, overcoming issues etc this felt like.... out of nowhere especially when they built the entire thing for two seasons already

like honestly you built it as a slow build for two seasons, frame it as adam standing up for himself asking eric to be with him in front of everyone and improving himself/getting out of his comfort zone to make it work, ADDING eric like... I mean again I said more than once that eric leaving rahim for adam when he was into adam in the first place wasn't a bad decision because if he wanted adam with all his faults no point in being with rahim just because he looked like the better option on paper so they frame it as romantic™ and all..... and all it takes for it to end is that eric kissed a random dude in a gay bar and AH WAIT WE'RE ON DIFFERENT ROADS just bc adam doesn't feel like going to a bar now?

also like... the fact that adam was going to get over it and push himself further and eric being like YEAH NAH THAT'S NOT GONNA HAPPEN and being dismissive of discussing it with otis as if it was an afterthought made him look like a jerk and eric's better than that so that was just bad

the fact that it was in a frame of 'we're NOT letting anyone be happy in this finale except ola and lily and at this point I'll just hope they never get on the writers's drama radar' and basically backing out of doing a lot of things that imvho could have been actually good decisions also wasn't.... great imvho and the fact that they basically fucked everything up in the last episode and a half when the run was really good until then........... idk I wanna hope they fix some of that in S2 but honestly I'm disappointed and if they wanted to frame adam's poem in like HEARTBREAKING MONTAGE they could have done it a lot better

I mean I don't understand the sense this entire thing was supposed to have other than making eric look like an ass who didn't even want to try ESPECIALLY when they framed adam as someone his grandmother would like (????) and DRAMA and WILL THEY WON'T THEY and honestly that... could probably tie up with how they did the otis/ruby thing fairly well and then like dropped the ball? idk but I'm absolutely not happy with this development

at this point like... I mean it was my otp since day one I started watching this dumbass show and if they manage to let eric make it work I'm not gonna complain because honestly but if next season adam and rahim hook up and eric realizes he fucked up majorly and in retrospective it doesn't make him look good wrt rahim either I'm not gonna complain because really what the hell

I just.... idk in the beginning it was going very well and they totally dropped the ball in a way that wasn't consistent with their usual narrative and honestly I really hope they don't go the way with eric like 'ah he can only do flings and not stick to one partner' because like.... they did very good realistical rep for everyone all around that would just... be... bad

tldr I hated the ending I don't like how they dropped an entire narrative they built for two years previous in a way that just made anyone invested in it pissed off and is2g if I see any adam bashing/AH BUT HE SUCKED IN S1 discourse on the dash it's instant muting because I have zero patience for that shit

tldr: BLERGH *shrug*

[momentsofbllove]

So after rewatching Until We Meet Again (because why not?) I finally picked Where Your Eyes Linger as my next drama to watch.

I picked it because it's very short (just 8 episodes, about 10-15 minutes each) and because I had seen a lot of posts about how great it is.

My dudes... I am three minutes into this show and already losing my mind! I'm going to liveblog while I watch it because I'm bursting with feelings and if I wait until the end I feel like my only response will be ASFJDGSHSAAAFHUAA!!, you know?

Anywho... spoilers ahead, obviously.

EPISODE ONE:

Literally the first line Kang-gook speaks makes me love him. That unspoken menace of 'if it was you that hurt my friend, I'm going to beat your ass for daring to touch him'.

'I was wondering why you didn't appear.' We are 2 minutes in and establishing that these two are always together. It's just a fact and apparently everyone knows it. Yes. Yes, good.

The ICE in Han Tae-joo's eyes when the asshole calls Kang-gook a servant... even though Kang-gook admits it easily Tae-joo goes from 'this is all fun and games' to 'i hate this guy with a passion' in .003 seconds.

Yeeeees! I LIVE for the 'hurt me all you want but don't lay a hand on him' dynamic.

And now we're following up that by finding out that Kang-gook is basically a whipping-boy?! What?! 😧

Oh god, and that sweet look of reassurance that Kang-gook gives Tae-joo when his dad threatens to send him away. These two are killing me!

And now we have taking care of each other when they're hurt. This show is hitting all of my favorite tropes. I can't.

We go from oblivious flirting to gay panic to rolling around on the floor together... and end it all with Tae-joo gently stroking Kang-gook's ear to win the fight. Just... 😳

What?! Who just walks up to two random guys at a restaurant and asks who's the top/bottom?!! Like... ask if they're a couple MAYBE if you have no sense of boundaries, but that? Good grief!

Okay, I like this girl. Her clear dismissal of Tae-joo is boss energy. She has no time for spoiled rich boys who think too highly of themselves.

Tae-joo is so pleased that Kang-gook didn't give her his number. I see you, boy.

Wait, so they're just sharing a bed? Do they sleep together every night? Or did Kang-gook crawl into bed with Tae-joo in the middle of the night? Tae-joo tries to wake him but didn't seem surprised that he was there. What is happening?

Ooooh! Kang-gook is jealous! That ear stroking is for him and him alone, Tae-joo!

Well gosh! What a first episode. They packed so much into 12 minutes of screen time.

On to the next one!

EPISODE TWO:

Tae-joo's devastation at Kang-gook playfully suggesting he shouldn't be his bodyguard any more. Dang boy. Be more obvious!

Oh no! Kang-gook thinking he can never be with Tae-joo because of class status... that's always the best part of these master-servant dynamics, but it still always hurts!

It's such a small line, but it speaks volumes when Kang-gook says there's 'no need' to check his phone. He's here with Tae-joo... why would he need to talk to anyone else?

And then to find out that Tae-joo gave his number to that girl and is telling him to 'experiment'? Tae-joo... why are you stupid?

I feel bad for this girl. She really needs to listen to her (weirdly invasive) mom.

The fact that Kang-gook only feels like they can act as equals when they're sparring...

Did Tae-joo just say he strokes Kang-gook's ear to calm himself down? Boy, that is NOT heterosexual behavior.

Did Kang-gook just hurt him for real?! Boy, why are you stupid?

Girl, seriously... listen to your mother.

Oh god, he's got a sling and everything! Kang-gook, what did you do?! The poor boy just wanted to admire your muscles. Smh.

‘What do I do about washing up?’ Hmmm. I wonder... 🤔😆

'I really don't want to.' Kang-gook, you are a lying liar that lies!

Kang-gook... why? You know you don't care about this girl. Don't be dumb.

This boy... you hurt your wrist not your brain, you cannot possibly be this useless!

But if it means we get Kang-gook undressing you, it's fine. Be as useless as you want.

And hair washing. What is it about hair washing? It is good every single time.

Alright, well this just keeps getting better and better. Good thing this series is short because I'm definitely going to need to watch it a few more times.

EPISODE THREE:

Repeating the undressing and hair washing from the last episode. I am okay with this.

And Kang-gook letting himself get a little indulgent, bless.

Oh NOW you're worried about him dating and 'neglecting' you? Where was that worry when you were handing out his number to random girls? You've played yourself, Tae-joo.

Yeah, I don't think Kang-gook wants to take dating advice from you, you idiot. You're a player. 😠

And poor Kang-gook has to watch you be a player... uhg. Get your shit together, boy!

What... what are you doing, Tae-joo? Are you... pretending to be on a date with Kang-gook? This is not how you teach someone to date! 🤦‍♀️

'Isn't it a bit boring when it's just the two of us?' BOY! How are you THAT oblivious?!

Oof, Kang-gook has found his limits. Poor thing. He desperately wants all these things that Tae-joo keeps doing. The ear stroking, the touching, pulling him in so close. But you can see it's killing him to have these things when Tae-joo doesn't mean it the way he wants him to.

Uhg, these episodes are so short! I know it was originally supposed to be a movie and they had to change things up thanks to shut downs (edit: I maybe was wrong about this? was it always supposed to be a mini-series but then they recut it into a movie? idk.), but I feel like hardly anything gets to happen before we're moving on. I wonder if I could find it somewhere in one long cut. I did.

EPISODE FOUR:

Okay, Tae-joo is cute in his glasses.

And Kang-gook being a worried mother hen. Precious.

What?! The injury was fake?!! You had him wash your hair and cook for you and FEED you for nothing?! Boy, explain yourself!

'He's really going.' You pushed him into this! God you're so stupid. 🤦‍♀️

Oh child! This is not what you tell a guy on the first date! 😬

Oh, haha. She was joking. Still... I don't think this girl knows how to date any more than Kang-gook does.

Han Tae-joo, are you really crashing the date you forced your friend to go on in the first place? What is wrong with you?!

Wait... why does that guy want to hang out with Tae-joo? Because he's handsome? But not in an 'I want to date him' sort of way. I'm confused.

Tae-joo, stay out of their date! I want to root for you here, dude, but you are going about this all wrong.

Aaand now he's insulting them. Boy... why?

He's making... Kang-gook... walk home. Because he's a whiny baby that doesn't know how to handle his own feelings. I can't with him.

Okay, I'm actually kind of glad that this is a short series. Because you know that in a full BL series this nonsense would last at least another 5-6 hours of screen time. Lack of communication seems to be the #1 BL drama trope.

I'm going to stop for now, it's past midnight. I'll finish the series tomorrow. Episodes 4-8!

[kaaras-adaar]

KNOWING YOUR PARTNER WELL CAN POTENTIALLY MAKE WRITING TOGETHER A LOT EASIER. REPOST DO NOT REBLOG !!

NAME:  Owl, K, Kmod.

PRONOUNS: He/Him

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION: I don’t mind. If it’s first interactions, I assume IM’s and asks is totally an okay way to communicate with me. If I feel we’re in for the long haul, then I’ll offer my discord (or add you if you offer). I generally only chat on discord with mutuals, tho. I will say, I’m REALLY antisocial. Some days, I’m too tired to reply/talk, even tho I’m online. My work is incredibly taxing when it comes to my people metre, so please never take offence if I’m not responding. Sometimes I’m online but not at my PC as well. I will reply when I can. Just know it’s not you, it’s 100% me! Ask all of my close RP buddies, and I’m sure they’ll all agree :’D 

NAME OF MUSE(s):  Kaaras Taashath Adaar 

RP EXPERIENCE/HOW LONG (MONTHS / YEARS?):  Oof... wow, I think I started Rping back in... maybe 2008? 

PLATFORMS YOU’VE USED:  DevART notes, email, livejournal, MSN, Skype, MERP forum, chat rooms, Tumblr. 

BEST EXPERIENCE:  Probably the people I have met here in the DARP community. Some of you are my closest friends, and I find that even with distance and time between us, we can still pick up like we’ve never stopped, and I really love that. Real life is busy and sometimes you just can’t talk all the time, and you guys understand that. I miss my days in the Transformers fandom, but mostly because I was younger and more carefree (the place was very toxic). Being able to write Kaaras has been such an amazing experience over the years, and I’m a lot wiser for it. 

PET PEEVES/DEALBREAKERS: Pet peeves, too much ooc content and too many RL (modern) FC posts on my dash. I don’t mind fantasy/medieval ones, but when I see FC’s with mobiles in a world I don’t write in, it feels very out of place for me. I have a really odd thing with FCs. Not a deal breaker, though. Dealbreakers?  Just don’t be a cunt. If you’re policing people how to write and being a cunt on my dash, I’m not interested. Callout posts are childish no matter who you are. I don’t care for your excuses and your white knightery. I’m too old for that shit, and it looks disgusting even if you’re trying to take the moral high ground. Just unfollow and be done with it. You don’t like the way they said or write something, then act like an adult and deal with it maturely. Leave the high school drama at high school. Politics is also a big thing that is starting to piss me off as well. I work hard every day, in healthcare, in the middle of a pandemic, on the front line... the last fucking thing I want to do when I get home is see bullshit politics on my dash when I deal with fuck heads all day at work. I’m here to WRITE and enjoy myself, not deal with the real world and its politics, let alone seeing people ‘splain. If I wanted to deal with that, I’d just stay at work all day. 

FLUFF, ANGST OR SMUT:  All. I’m a fan of all of it, so long as there’s chemistry between the characters and we’re going somewhere with it.

PLOTS OR MEMES:  I love both. Admittedly, memes are probably the best ice breakers for me, because I don’t have a lot of time to plot anymore--that and being so tired from work makes my brain frizzle out and I can’t even THINK of plots. Memes spike interest because some of the best PLOTS have come from memes. Both have their place, I’m just a tired old man who can’t think of plots much anymore, which is sad because I used to have so many ideas. Whether it’s because I’ve been writing Kaaras for so long that nothing seems new anymore? Or I’m just very tired and my poor, Aspie brain is too filled for new ideas to come in. IDK. But memes are a good way to start things! Also, they can be really random which makes Kaaras react in ways I’m surprised! But once we write a few times, then plots will be sure to come, and I do love discussing them! When I have the brain capacity :( 

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES:  Unless it’s just short bits of dash commentary or a one-off, I prefer longer threads. It’s difficult for me to delve into anything in a short reply. (Fox pretty much hit the nail on the head, so I’m keeping their response here).

BEST TIME TO WRITE: Whenever I have a day off work. Fridays are generally my best, because I’m home alone and have all the space to myself. Weekends I need to do errands, groceries and like to spend some time with my partner playing games or whatever. Generally speaking, Monday--Thursday I’m pretty dead tired. 

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S):  In some ways, for sure. We both have very high moral compasses, and we both see people as people. Kaaras has a lot more patience than I do, and is certainly kinder and more forgiving. We are both neurodivergent, and we both require our alone time to recharge. Kaaras is far more poetic than I could ever wish to be, and we’re both very blunt (although Kaaras is better at dealing with confrontation than I am). I would say that we can both be very quick to detatch ourselves from anyone/thing that is toxic as well. Both of us are absolutely fuelled with rage when it comes to seeing innocent people being harmed as well--he definitely gets that from me lol. We both love animals and have farm experience. But we are also VERY different in many ways, too. 

Tagged by: @ravusnightblossom​  Tagging:. @many-tales-told​ @sunlilted​ @andrastehope​ @aylenlavellan​ @dragonagedmage​ @wolf-at-worlds-end​ @wclfdreamt​ @nehraa-asaaranda​ and anyone else! Tag me so I can read! <3 

[i-dont-want-your-hysteria]

a message.

This whole post is full of things I’ve wanted to say for a very long time. So yes, this is going to be very long.

Before I begin, I just wanted to say I’m sorry to the innocent people who had nothing to do with this. I’ve never ever been involved with online/fandom drama before, I hate being in this position so fucking much with all my heart and soul, and I never thought in my whole life that I’d be in this position, either.

Secondly, this is about the DEF LEPPARD FANDOM ON TUMBLR. If you’re not part of this fandom, kindly fuck off :^) This is not about you.

This post explains why I feel this way. And to those innocent people who aren’t involved with this, I’m sincerely sorry if any of this has changed your opinions of me.

I’m in a mood and a half, so I’ll do my best to effectively tell everything from my perspective. Read if you want, but this is just what I’m thinking.

I’ve been running this blog for almost three years now. When I first joined this fandom on tumblr at the beginning of 2018, there wasn’t really a ‘fandom’ per se; all the main blogs were dead, no one ever really posted, and there wasn’t much content. I decided to start a DL blog of my own to vent my love into it and not spam my main account. 

Within a month, I could quickly see that some sort of renaissance was happening in this fandom; more blogs were popping up, more people were posting, and more people were just participating in general. There were memes now, there were conversations now- it was great! There was a real community; it was all about sharing information, spewing our love, getting creative, and interacting! 

There was integrity, and there was respect for the band as well as one another.

I, as part of this community, wanted to do everything in my physical power to contribute in any way I could. I was insanely active and hyper-productive and could not be stopped. I still haven’t stopped, but I certainly have slowed down significantly (due to lack of new activity from the band and increased mental health issues I won’t get into). I don’t want to be self-centered and say that I was “running” this branch of the fandom for the past 2.7 years, but I was certainly a big player in it, and I feel everyone agreed (and some still agree) with that as well.

There were some times where disagreements happened. There were times where many of us knew that someone else was crossing a line in a post. We knew what qualified as “not okay” in terms of being perverted and such. We’d solve this by not blaming, not hounding, not sending anon hate, not calling out, but by presenting facts, talking maturely, and trying to right the wrongs as maturely as we could.

Yes, it was possible. Was.

I don’t think you guys realize just how much content I’ve contributed to this fandom. I have spent basically every single day of the past 3-ish years trying to spread information/content/photos/videos/links/etc. to everyone who follows me (and everyone who doesn’t). This fandom was (and I cannot stress this enough), literally my entire life for the past 3 odd years, and I really wanted to spend the rest of my life contributing to it the way I’ve been.

I don't think anyone on here realizes everything that I have done for this community. Because of me:

this fandom has access to Animal Instinct for free

this fandom has access to the rare picture disc interview

this fandom has numerous scans of photos that may have not ended up online otherwise (I also paid $70 to have access to some of these. You're welcome.)

we have Fabulist Icons content

we have a decent amount of fanfiction that doesn't only focus on the boys banging each other/sex in general (seriously, this simply didn’t exist on here before I started posting my shit)

we have a little more fan art

we have content from Phil's and Ross's books

we have hundreds (yes, literally, HUNDREDS) of edits/moodboards/memes/etc. that I made myself

we have gifsets of things that no one else would have made

we have achieved justice a lot of the time when content was stolen because I have defended everyone without question/rallied up armies the second I heard it happened

some of you have gotten updates on news/facts/history/details/etc. that you’ve never even heard of

probably a shit ton more things, but that’s all I can think of for now. You get the point.

But that’s only half the story. This band and fandom has given me so much to cherish over the past few years.

Because of this fandom and the people (that were once) in it, I have:

met Rick in person

met, quite honestly, my two best friends ever, @ballistic-lipstick-dream-machine (my true Terror Twin) and @paper-sxn (adopted little sister/cousin)

became in contact with Phil's guitar tech from the mid-80s (Mike)

gained creative ambition to play guitar, create art, write stories, make edits/gifs, travel, and basically just better myself

began a record collection that is now in the hundreds and gained a lot of knowledge from it

discovered a whole new genre of music

found a community/culture where, for the very very first time in my life, I felt like I BELONGED.

fallen in love with something and someone for the first time

felt like I actually mattered to people, like I was actually important (because people would always come to me for information or help if they needed it)

basically impacted every corner of my life

just about a million other things, too, but I will be here all night if I try to list them all.

To put it delicately: Def Leppard and this fandom on tumblr absolutely changed my life, and was the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.

I have spread so much information around, you newer people wouldn't imagine. I have gathered and seen so much information, you wouldn't believe how much I know and how much I've learned. I have bounced back and forth between formats time after time again that I feel like I’m stuck in a time warp. I have edited so many things on non-professional programs that I am an MS paint expert. I have been here so long, that I’ve seen 98% of the people in this branch of the fandom rotate in and out at least two or three times. 

That being said, all of the toxic people in this fandom will most likely be gone within the next 6 months. 

Def Leppard has taught me so much, but a big thing was love and loyalty. It's clear that the majority of people in this fandom (read my lips- I am N O T saying anyone’s names. I mean that.) do not know the meanings of either of these words. I've been practically running this fandom on Tumblr for nearly three years now, you’ve seen all that I’ve done for you, and what have I gotten in return?

Slander, cyberbullying, disrespect, consistently stolen content, etc. That’s what I’ve gotten. I’ve never attacked anyone on here, and that is still something I won’t do.

Yes, I am against slash fic, and I can’t believe that THAT’S the only reason why I’m being torn down like this. Something so dumb and immature as that has torn my beloved community in half. I have never attacked ANYONE for writing slash fic, yet I’ve been getting attacked since August (it is November now) for simply believing it is wrong to openly admit you want the boys to fuck each other.

(I’d also like to point out that someone from the KISS fandom ((god knows why)) had the balls to call me “homophobic” for hating slashfic. I can’t even begin to explain how much I laughed at that.)

I just wanna say that these are REAL people you’re writing about, you know. Don’t you think THEY would be against it? I know I cannot stop anyone from writing slash (I’ve said that before, but no one seems to remember it). I don’t think any of you realize that there is a certain line you shouldn’t cross when it comes to the internet, and being perverted in such an explicit and disrespectful way is one of them. We always had integrity in this fandom, and slash was never part of something we stood for. We knew when to stop, and we kept the slash on rockfic.com (where it belongs imo. That’s like their element).

I was very confused when more slash fics started appearing on tumblr this year. Now, it seems like that’s all there is, and I’m disgusted.

Whenever something close to that happened in 2018, everyone would be totally against it, and we’d talk it out and explain. While we all had our fair share of horny (and maybe then some) in this fandom, but we always knew where to draw the line. That was the line. That line doesn’t exist anymore, apparently, and nobody knows how to be mature and respectful to the band, to each other, and just for fuck’s sake. Now, I’m being slammed that being perverted for them fucking their best friends is “just fandom, bitch” and “the norm” and that it’s done “out of respect”, which I will never understand. You can’t use “slash” and “respectful” in the same sentence, and you can’t change my mind, but I know I can’t change yours, either. 

Slash is not, nor will it ever be, respectful. This fandom has become toxic.

Fanfiction is an outlet for creativity to be used for fun, not to be used as an excuse to project your sexually perverted sexuality headcannons/fetishes onto innocent, REAL, LIVE people. If all you write/read is them having sex with each other, then it really makes you wonder if it’s about “respect” anymore, doesn’t it?

In my opinion it’s fucked up that it’s “normal” and “just part of fandom” to create sexualities for- again- REAL, LIVE PEOPLE, and it’s everyone’s first instinct to argue that it’s fine, apparently? If you “respect” your idols so much like you claim you do, then why don’t you maybe respect their actual orientations instead of creating masturbation material for random 12 year olds and boomers, perhaps?

I don’t know what I did that was so fucking wrong in your eyes, as I’ve always tried to keep integrity in this area of tumblr. 

I'm very deeply hurt, more than I've ever been by this. It physically hurts me to admit that this fandom has become as toxic as it currently is. I don’t feel welcome here anymore at all, despite practically running things on here for so long.

I don’t know how I could ever live without this fandom, but now it looks like I’m going to have to try, or at least try and rebuild it on my own (again). I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop posting about Def Leppard, and after all, I only started posting about them for myself to begin with.

We were supposed to be the good fandom, the happy fandom, the fandom with no drama. I am ashamed to be associated with you now. I tried to stop it as best as I could, and hoped people would back me up, but I’ve received nothing but hate for simply trying to preserve some dignity.

You guys have been immature to say the least, and I find it very hard to believe that some of you are legal adults (but let’s be honest; most of you toxic people are probably too young to even be behind a computer, anyway). 

I’ve had to block some people that I really didn’t want to, but the deed is done. Keep your slash to yourself, tag it, do a read more, post it somewhere else, even- that’s how you co-exist. Just don’t come after me because I think it’s wrong. I never came after anyone specifically like that.

This isn’t goodbye, but I certainly am leaving for a while. I hope I got my point, my history, and my perspective across.

And I hope you’re fucking happy, because you’ve destroyed something I loved.

-Rachel

[aewriting]

There was a post going around yesterday.  I reblogged it from @partsofthesamecosmicbeing . It talked about when a super-specific piece of dialogue just drops in your head, complete with, like, inflection and details and blocking and everything.  Well, that happened to me yesterday, and this morning I sat down and wrote this.

Warnings for relationship drama and difficulty communicating.

***

  “What’re you doing, Alex?”

Michael watches Alex pause, push back a little from the computer.  He doesn’t turn around.  “What I’ve been doing for the last six hours, Guerin. Watching fucking – “ he stops. Takes a deep breath.  “Going over some of the recovered video files from Caulfield.”

Torture tapes.  That’s the shorthand, Michael knows.  “Um, yeah.  I figured. But that’s, that’s not what I…” He exhales, deeply.  “Never mind.”

And that gets Alex to spin around in the chair, look at him. “What, Guerin?”

“It’s just… I saw you at the Pony last night.”

Alex raises an eyebrow.  “Huh,” he says, as if he’s vaguely amused. 

Enough time has passed, now, that Michael’s allowed back in.  Enough time since he and Maria mended fences, and enough time since he hadn’t started a fight, hadn’t fucked a townie on the actual premises. 

Apparently enough time had passed for Alex, too, because he was there, full force, last night. Tight jeans.  Mussed hair.  Leather jacket. 

And a young-looking, vapid-seeming guy. 

Alex is frowning now. “I didn’t see you.”

And Michael knows what he’s thinking.  How did he miss him?  Not in a good way, but in, like, a protective way. Maybe a, a PTSD way?

“I was there and gone, man.  Not there long at all.”

Alex relaxes a bit at that. “Okay.”

As soon as Michael had seen the guy’s hand on Alex’s ass… Alex allowing a guy’s hand on his ass in the middle of the Pony… well, that’s when Michael had left.  Fled to the truck. He’s trying.  He really is.  He promised Isobel. Liz. Maria.  He’s doing better.

“We done, or…?” Alex is looking at him expectantly.  Things between them are… fine.  Like, they are cordial. Polite.  They don’t hang out, outside of Project Shepherd stuff.  Michael is pretty sure that any chance he had of being a friend to Alex, a real friend, was jettisoned when he started dating Maria.

He still wants to try.

And he knows he shouldn’t be bringing up Alex’s new… boyfriend? Hookup?

But here they are.

 “I… I’ve never seen that guy at the Pony before.”

“Guess you’d know,” Alex fires back, then looks a bit sorry.  Michael looks down. “I…” Alex clears his throat. “He’s just passing through. Visiting a cousin at the base.” Alex shrugs.  “From Austin.”

“Mmm…” Michael murmurs.

Alex cocks his head.  “What?”

Michael shakes his head.  “Nothing, just…”  He’s aware that he shouldn’t push this.  Very aware. But he has to know. “That… that what you usually like?”

Alex is frowning. “What do you mean?”

Michael shrugs, tries to look like he doesn’t have a very personal stake in this.  “With guys.  Young like that?  Pretty? I dunno…”

And Alex’s eyebrow quirks up. “Oh my god,” he mutters to himself.  “That’s what this is.” He shakes his head.

“I, I shouldn’t have – “

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Alex says tightly.  “You know, I thought we were doing a good job, Guerin.  Keeping things business only.”

“Business only, yeah,” Michael repeats.

Alex is staring at Michael now, scrutinizing his face. “I can’t figure you out,” he murmurs, half to himself. “Like, what is this?  You don’t want me, but no one else can have me bullshit?” He shakes his head. 

Michael’s eyes narrow. “This guy have you, Alex?”

Alex leans back in the chair, work pretty well abandoned now.  “He put up a Grndr profile. And seeing as I’m one of, like, five out guys in a 100-mile radius of the base,  we matched. End of story.” Alex scoffs a little.  “Beggars can’t be choosers, Guerin.”

“Beggars?” Michael retorts, incredulous. “You serious right now?”

“Don’t.” Alex says, holding up a hand.  “Don’t even right now, Guerin.” He falters. “I… I’m making my peace with this.” He gestures to his leg. “It’s slow going.  And if you were Liz, Maria, even, I’d let you talk me down.  Tell me I’m still hot, tell me I’ll find someone, tell me that anyone really worth having won’t care.” He shakes his head.  “But don’t you do it, cause we both know better.”

Michael’s eyes are wide. “It was never about your leg – “

And Alex isn’t looking at him now – can’t look at him.  “You know, with you… I do believe that.  I believe it when you say it.  But that means it was about everything else. The rest of… of me, and I can’t…”

And Michael watches Alex just, like, shut himself down.  Blow out a steady breath.  School his features.  Go rigid through the shoulders and sit up straight. 

Look at him with a cool, blank face. 

“I think I’m done for tonight, Guerin.  Let me log off and I’ll be out of here.  You staying or should I lock up?”

Michael’s never been able to do that.  He, he wishes he could, sometimes.  Just go blank, not broadcast his hurt and pain right on his goddamn face, for all to see.

He wishes he could do it. He wishes Alex never did it.

“You said you wanted to be friends.”

Alex’s face scrunches up, and he bites his lip.  “That was before… god,” he mutters. “That was before you dated my goddamn best friend, Michael.” His jaw is clenched.  “We, we are colleagues right now. Okay?”

And Michael has been so good, and tried so hard, but –

“And what’s bar guy?”

Alex’s eyes widen and he looks at Michael, angry and disbelieving.  “Bar guy is a random fuck, Michael. I’m sure you know what that means, and why someone might seek that out, yeah?” Alex narrows his eyes.  “Not every time can be fucking cosmic, right?”

Michael recoils, and Alex sees it.  Looks immediately regretful.  “Shit, I’m sorry.”

“No, I…” Michael shakes his head.  “This has all probably been a long time coming.”

“Shit,” Alex mutters. “It, it has, but… wasn’t how I wanted this to go.”

“No, it… it’s fine. You’re living your life, man.  I shouldn’t have, shouldn’t have brought anything up in the first place.” Michael starts backing up, toward the exit.  “I’ll, uh, I’ll go…”

“Wait,” Alex says. Michael freezes. “Why…” he breathes. “Why do you care?”

Michael can’t hold back the broken little laugh that escapes him. “Fuck, Alex, you know why.”

Alex closes his eyes, briefly.  “I… we do this too much, Michael.  Dance around shit, don’t say the words.” He looks at Michael, now.  “You know how many times I’ve wondered if I’d just… said things a little differently, if it would have made a difference to you?  To us and how all this went down?” There’s pain on his face, right there in the open.  “Please, I’m… I’m asking you, Michael.  Why do you care?”

And this isn’t the time for it, or the place. Michael knows that. He knows. 

But…

But Alex is standing right here, right in front of him, open and vulnerable, as close to begging as he gets, begging for the truth.

And who is Michael to deny him that?

“I care because I love you, Alex.”

[ladyfl4me]

Hi please yell about boyd and stern in TCOS and TMWCIFTC :D!

Anon, THANK YOU for enabling me, you have my fucking life in your hands

I’ll preface all of this by saying that everything in this post is related to my long-form Amnesty works, The Moth who Came In from the Cold and The Children of Sylvain. If you haven’t read those, then you’ll be pretty damn confused, so I guess now is as good of a time to plug them - and the series - as any. A heads up: I started it back in 2018, and everything in TCOS is just… very VERY loosely associated with Amnesty canon at this point. Same root premise, same characters, but back in 2018 even I couldn’t predict where arcs 4 and 5 ended up going. TMWCIFTC was written as the logical progression, in my head, of an alternate arc 4, and everything that happened in TCOS is based off of that progression. It’s got almost no connection to the actual canon at this point. I’ll be recapping some of the more important plot points for context, though.

Here’s hoping the read-more works. This was 7 pages long in the google doc I prepared this in, so I apologize in advance to everyone on my dash if this got fucked up. Spoilers for TMWCIFTC ahead, as well as general vague spoilers for Amnesty.

So everything’s coming up roses. Fantastic. Let’s start with the biggest thing: how the characters of Agent Stern and Boyd Mosche have changed from canon to this AU.

Boyd’s Changes:

We’ll start with Boyd, because this motherfucker is UNRECOGNIZABLE from canon. On god, that is all Griffin’s fault. Pretty much all of Boyd’s character was concentrated in arc 4 of Amnesty, and honestly? He was a fantastic character there. Loved him as a counterpart to Ned. He gave off an air of “the ends justify the means” in almost everything he did - especially how he was willing to do anything, including blackmail Ned to hell and back, to get back to England - which I’ve grafted into my version of him. The angst-loving part of my brain seized on the tragic possibilities of his relationship with Ned and was bumping “No Children” by the Mountain Goats every time they interacted. Great stuff, interesting complexity, was genuinely surprised when he kicked it.

All that happened after I introduced him as a character in TMWCIFTC. My version of him retains the smooth-talking Britishness of him, with the aforementioned “ends justify the means” logic for everything; I’d probably sort him as a chaotic neutral, with basically all of his points in wisdom, charisma and strength with very few in intelligence. I tried to work with that for the start. We knew nothing about Boyd at the time I was writing TMWCIFTC, so my brain wanted to fill in that blank for jokes and giggles and haha funny’s and was like, “Yo what if Boyd was a Sylph this entire time? Wouldn’t that be fucking hilarious?” 

And that’s what I did. What happened to make this version of Boyd was a bit of a random “perfect storm” of influences and choices, which really only got sharpened because of my one-shot The Devil Went Down To Georgia. That one’s the main source of all Boyd lore, even though I barely reference it these days because he’s gone so far off the rails it’s a miracle I can keep him straight. 

I’ve talked about The Devil Went Down To Georgia a lot in relation to Boyd on here. TL;DR, I decided to make him two things: a violinist and a Sylph/cryptid, specifically the Jersey Devil. Yes, he is still British. I chalk it up lore-wise to a few things: the original Jersey Devil is more of a distant relative, Boyd crossed over from Sylvain and ended up in Britain sometime after that, and just willingly chose to keep up the British persona Bastard. I don’t think about it too much. He’s been a criminal from the very beginning; he’d been in prison on Sylvain, went through some shit there that made him steal a crystal and book it, and he continued to do crime on Earth to survive.

The violin thing is mostly me desperately wanting a character to have that background, because I played for seven goddamn years and want to put that knowledge and catharsis somewhere. Boyd probably either picked up a Sylvan instrument that was similar, or learned it in the early 20th century when he came to Earth, and just held onto it. He held onto the skills and got good - good enough that he could have gone professional, and tried in 2007, but that didn’t go super well, as anyone who’s read TMWCIFTC can attest. 

In terms of the type of cryptid he is, I’ve made the Jersey Devils a subspecies on Sylvain that takes cervids (deer, moose, etc.) or bovines (goats, antelopes, cows, etc.), as well as canines/felines of any shape and size, puts them into a gashapon machine with pterodactyl-style wings, awful teeth, and a snake’s tail, and calls it a day. You can get a tiny Jersey Devil that’s a combo of a tiny cat and a dik-dik; you can get a jacked nine-foot-tall terrifying amalgam of a lion and a moose, with a fucked-up mouth of multiple rows of teeth and huge claws.

That last one is Boyd. Don’t call me a monsterfucker for this, I have no defense.

So where does that leave him in relation to the Lodge? Back in 2018, before I started developing the lore that factors into TCOS about Sylph communities outside the Lodge (namely the Manhattan Sylphs that Leo worked with when he was a Chosen One), I figured that it’d be funny if every single cryptid kinda just… knew each other, or hung out near the Lodge. As you know if you’ve read TMWCIFTC, he got into some trouble in 1967, which Barclay, Indrid and Mama “bailed him out of.”

Once they found out he was a fellow Sylvan, though, it became less about “report this guy to the authorities” and more about “we have to make sure we keep an eye on this guy so he doesn’t get himself, or other Sylphs, in trouble” thing. He basically became Mama’s mostly-socialized half-feral cat, slinking through the halls of Amnesty Lodge, eating random food, falling asleep wherever, sitting in rooms where people are doing interesting things and just watching them. And everyone... kind of likes him. Sure, he doesn’t have a sleep schedule, and they have to get soundproof panels installed in his room at the Lodge because he’ll stress-practice violin at 3 in the morning, and he keeps shoplifting stuff from local stores to give to people like a cat bringing back dead mice. But he’s a good man. And he’s getting better every day.

Then he got got by the Ashminder in ‘98. He bolted, completely forgot everything about the Lodge but had the address of a former Lodge resident on his body after his memory was wiped, found a still-alive but memory-wiped fellow Lodge dweller, and fled to that address. Boyd lived there for years, trying to clean up his act and try to anchor himself a bit. Then in 2007, something on his path went wrong, and the stress break he went through after that made him run from that place. That’s when he met Ned, and they had a few years together before Boyd ended up in jail.

Then, once they killed the Ashminder and the memories it had eaten came back, Voidfish-style, Boyd remembered everything: the people who’d taken care of him, the friends he’d made, the love he’d found, the time and effort he’d put into getting better, the rewards he’d reaped because of it. He remembered fighting monsters and defending them. He got hit with it all at once, and missed them. His parole date was coming up; he could bide his time until he was released, and run down there.

But then, at the start of TCOS, Something Happens that makes all Sylvan disguises and spells shit the fucking bed; his disguise spell, which has been hiding a nine foot-tall jacked demon out of hell, flickers, and the invisibility spell that had been put on his disguise item to hide it failed. Boyd knew he was fucked if the jail folks found out he was a Sylph, so he decided to fucking Kool-aid Man out of there, becoming a wanted man in the entire state of West Virginia and getting a bit roughed up in the process.

But hey. Whatever it takes to get home, right? 

Stern’s Changes:

Stern’s changed too, though, and here’s how. It was relatively simple to tweak him, because so much of him was a blank slate to begin with. First: that name. Garfield Kent Stern is his full name: Garfield for the cat/Deals Warlock, Kent after Kent Mansley, the irritating dipshit FBI agent antagonist from the classic animated movie The Iron Giant. Poor bastard. He started as a walking meme who I was going to kill off; I came up with that name long before we got his real name in canon, and didn’t want to retcon it out. 

I’m a sucker for secret connections and familial ties, too, and back in 2018 the headcanon gashapon gave me “what if Stern was a cousin of Duck’s, but there was family drama that made their parts of the family split when they were kids, so now 30 years later they don’t remember each other?” 

And that’s exactly what I did. Gary is Duck’s first cousin on Duck’s mom’s side; their mothers are sisters. Gary’s uncle Arnie was a Secret Service agent who tangled with an Indrid trying to stop the Kennedy Assassination once, and he keeps telling that story at Christmas, much to everyone’s chagrin. Gary remembered those stories, and even received Indrid’s old disguise glasses - knocked off his face during his uncle Arnie’s chase - and carried them with him for a long time.

He didn’t start off as a baby cop, though; he was more interested in hitting the books, finding out the logic and doing the research to figure things out. I have him become a history major, getting a PhD with a few bits and bobs here and there that I haven’t worked out yet. Whatever the case, he spent a LONG time in academia, from undergrad starting in 1996 to graduation in about 2005. 

Things weren’t as peachy as he thought they’d be, though. Gary wrote and published his thesis, like a good little PhD candidate, but someone was watching him. In his thesis, he’d been trying to cobble together various cryptid-related legends across the word and making connections between them, among other things. He’d managed to link up and explain something that Unexplained Phenomena had been trying to figure out themselves. They immediately intercepted his thesis, kept it from being disseminated anywhere else, erased all copies of it after graduation, and reached out to Gary independently to bring him on.

Make no mistake: he went willingly. Despite the whole thesis coverup, Agent Gary Stern wasn’t coerced into being a government stooge, and he wasn’t blackmailed - he was given an offer to work with the cryptid cops, and he enthusiastically took it. Government benefits were decent, he’d heard; post-grad options were looking slim, especially going into the recession. In his mind, there was a bit of allure to it all, too. A secret government organization looking into suspicious and possibly supernatural things all over the nation? Fantastic. More opportunities to do research. He was in. Gary accepted their offer and started basic FBI training in 2007 - the same year Boyd had that mental break and went AWOL, returning to his life of crime and meeting Ned.

Biggest mistake he’d ever made. But then again, if he didn’t take them up on that, he wouldn’t be here, would he?

So he joins UP, goes up the ranks. They had him researching and charting the Bigfoot case for a while, and he was the only one who was willing to work on it at all because… well, Bigfoot sightings weren’t as sophisticated as some of the other projects that were out there for UP. (See: Area 51. We don’t talk about Area 51. Nobody talks about Area 51. Definitely nothing shady and unethical going on in there, no experiments on anyone or anything, no sir.) 

Gary’s diligent, though, and doesn’t like to back down from a challenge. That’s all hunting Bigfoot was: a challenge. No personal stake, no empathy. It was a job to get done, even though an entire person’s life was at stake.

And he got so caught up in this challenge that, when he went to Kepler, he EASILY got attacked by the Ashminder and destroyed within an inch of his life. He got the very memory of his job and intent in Kepler torn out of his head; once the Ashminder died, and those memories came back, they didn’t feel like his anymore, or like they’d been part of his life plan to begin with. Overcome with confusion and guilt, he decided to clean up his act and try to work against the FBI, with Mama’s blessing. 

His goal? Quit the FBI, get them off the Lodge’s back, and then see what happens next. Maybe he’d go back to academia, or teach, or something - just get as far away from the FBI as possible, as far away as he can be from hurting people. But he’s got to bide his time, because if he bolts now, they’re going to get suspicious and put the Lodge in even more danger. And that’s where he is now.

So why have they changed?

Simple answer? I don’t want to rewrite them to fit with canon. I just don’t. I don’t want to make Boyd human; I don’t want to change Gary’s name to Joseph and make him a Bigfoot groupie. I don’t want to rewrite hundreds of thousands of words of work to fit last-minute decisions made in the end times of Amnesty’s canon. My fic has diverged so much from canon that the canon versions of the characters don’t belong here anymore. Besides, Stern was such a background character in arcs 3 and 4 that he barely mattered, making his reappearance in arc 5 a bit of a clumsy follow-through, and Boyd was a one-act wonder. A little expansion couldn’t hurt. Making Gary something other than a direct antagonist made the narrative load a little easier, too, at least on my end. I hate giving a cop screen time, but it’s easier to justify his existence by rewriting his backstory and making him slog through the hell of a redemption arc. He’s had that coming. 

This leads us to TCOS, though, where the arcs of our player characters turn a bit more towards the plot, as opposed to the emotional fulfillment they got in TMWCIFTC. Characters like Gary, Mama, Boyd, and Alexandra take center stage for emotional and backstory development, while the original player characters take a temporary backseat. Alexandra’s a key linchpin of the story as a whole, both emotionally and narratively; Mama gets lore expansions and has personal things to settle; and Gary and Boyd are… here. So:

How do these two work with each other in TCOS?

It’s great. It’s fantastic. These two are my favorite to write in TCOS because their conflict is just so fucking FUN. On the one hand, you have an almost-ex-FBI agent who’s been taken in by the Lodge, is related to a Pine Guard member, is trying to keep his coworkers off the Lodge’s back as sneakily as possible without drawing suspicion, and is desperate not to screw up this second chance he doesn’t think he deserves. On the other hand, you have an ex-con who got a second chance from the Lodge, sees them as his last best option to be safe as long as nobody reports them, and wants to keep them safe out of a sense of familial obligation he’s reluctant to admit to, even to himself.

That’s two people with questionable morals, with a semi-familial attachment to a place that gave them second chances, each seeing the actions of the other as a threat to their - and everyone else’s - safety. Claws come out almost immediately.

At the start, Boyd and Gary go together like apple juice and toothpaste. Boyd sees a narc who’s threatening the one safe place he has left; Gary sees an impulsive, selfish threat, a domino that - if it falls - threatens, you guessed it, the one safe place he (and other people, sure) has left. Boyd breaking out of jail means the entire state of West Virginia, and probably the whole East Coast, is on high alert looking for him, and if that attention comes anywhere near the Lodge? They’re fucked.

Neither of them believe that the other is capable of change or anything but selfish, malicious harm. Boyd has more of an argument than Gary because Gary is still actively reporting things to the FBI, but in Gary’s defense, the moment that he stops reporting anything to them, they’re going to suspect things and might end up sending more people to the Lodge. The Pine Guard can’t afford that, so Gary has to play by the rules until he’s in a position where he can quit. I’ll pull a specific argument they have from TCOS that I feel really exemplifies this:

"I don't want you to get caught."

Boyd scoffed. "Something tells me you're not worried about me."

"I'm not."

"Well, thanks."

"I'm worried," Gary went on, "about someone seeing you, and connecting you to the Lodge. You just used the hot springs as your personal landing strip, in broad daylight. We're on the upper half of the mountain. And I don't know how big your Sylvan form is, but -"

Boyd grinned. It looked more like a snarl. "Oh, plenty big enough," he said.

Gary ignored that. "Big enough for someone to see you from down the mountain?" he challenged. Boyd's lip curled, and he looked away. "Yeah, that's what I thought. I'm just thinking ahead. What if someone came beating down our door looking for you? What if it was a cryptid hunter? What if it was the cops?”

"Yes, yes, fine, alright," Boyd snapped. He threw his hands up. His eyes were hard and cold. "It'd put us in danger. I get it. But you're still here. I think the damage is already done."

A knot of cold rage formed in Gary's stomach. "I'm trying to keep this place safe, Mr. Mosche," he spat. "I've got a responsibility to keep."

Boyd scoffed. "Oh, you have a responsibility? To Amnesty Lodge? That's fucking rich."

"You've got one, too! It’s about time you started keeping it!"

They’re both very, very set in their ways and their ideologies, and they take a long time to get to middle ground. 

One of my friends described it as middle child syndrome in overdrive. Gary thinks Boyd’s the Lodge golden child, come to replace him in the Lodge inner circle. Boyd thinks Gary’s the Lodge’s new redemption-arc fixer-upper, come to replace him. And both of them feel thrown off by that, because they both thought that the Lodge was accepting them completely into the inner circle. It’s unfamiliar, it’s confusing, and when the Lodge as a whole regards them both with suspicion/unease (Gary) and polite detachment due to the passage of time (Boyd), it makes them both feel on the outside.

And when you’re in the same shitty canoe, you’ve gotta row it or sink. So that’s exactly what they do. 

Ultimately, they get faced down with bigger and worse foes that snap them out of their spat, because their common interest is “keeping the Lodge safe” and uniting will help them get there. When they do start to have each other’s backs, though, that’s when they reluctantly start to get to know each other. Gary feels like something’s off about Boyd and eventually suspects - thanks to some comments from Haynes and some digging of his own - that Boyd had something to do with the fire that burned down Aubrey’s house, but it remains to be seen what he’ll do with that information. (The Gary of November 2018 would have turned Boyd in to the FBI. The Gary of almost six months later, though… a different story. It’ll be interesting.)

The kicker is, they’re both really similar, at the heart of it. Both of them were the Lodge’s fix-em-up pet projects, brought into the fold in an emergency and protected/cared for as long as they swore to clean up their act. They see each other and feel a bit out-of-place, though - something contributed to by the way the Lodge treats them.

Gary’s still held at a distance by many, despite being Duck’s cousin and a mostly-valuable member of the team, because the stench of the FBI is still on him - how he dresses, how he walks and talks, how he acts. And Boyd has just swanned back to the Lodge after 20 years gone, with all his memories of the Lodge from back in ‘98 driven back into his mind - and part of him is expecting the Lodge to be the exact same way it was when he left. But it’s not. You can’t go home again. The Lodge has moved on without him, which he never expected, and coming back to them is… awkward.

It’s simple. They don’t know what to do with a version of Boyd who’s missed the past 20 years of their lives; Boyd doesn’t know what to do with people who have changed from the folks he knew 20 years ago. He’s lost, floating, and alienated, like going to a high school reunion after not having spoken to a living soul since graduation. It sucks for him. And the only wholly unfamiliar face there, other than the main Pine Guard - who he’s mostly fine with, except for Ned - is Gary, and he can’t help but be irritated with him. That changes, though.

What I essentially want to do is set these versions of the characters up as foils. Similar characters, similar pasts, similar situations that got them to this point. All that’s different is how far in their respective arcs they are. So I’m going to have them be friends. Give each other a chance in the face of a bigger threat, open up a little more, have conversations, talk about things with each other because they’re the only ones around to listen. The Lodge gave them second chances when they needed them most. Maybe they can do that for each other.

This is also to say, I would be a massive fucking liar if I say I haven’t considered having that unfold into a rivals-to-lovers arc. Yeah, I said it. I’ve considered it, at length and in serious detail, since I started drafting the arcs for TCOS. In fact, that’s what I’m probably going to do. I’ve gotten too hooked by the possibility to give it up. I outlined hypothetical futures for the whole cast after the final battle in Sylvain and, given the things I want to happen in that battle and the messy post-war fallout, it makes sense that these two would gravitate towards each other.

It makes a lot more sense in context, believe me. They’ve got a long row to hoe before they trust each other enough to become friends, or even push the envelope towards a romantic relationship - they’d have months and even YEARS to wait to pull that off. Whatever I end up doing with them, they are easily my favorite part of TCOS to unravel, mostly because I  - and, honestly, everyone else - probably never saw it coming.

Thanks for the ask, anon. This made my week. So sorry for the long response, but I have so many thoughts on what I’m doing with these idiots, and putting them down on paper was really fun. Any other questions or comments about this? Fire away, I’d be more than willing to answer! 

[curiositydooropened]

Self-Isolating Together

“No.” It was a good thing Steve had the reflex to catch the door before Robin slammed it in his face. “No way, shitbird. It’s called self-isolating for a reason, and it’s the same reason I got a one bedroom apartment without you. This isn’t happening.” 

“Come on, Rob,” Steve whined, sneakered foot trapped between door and jam, fingers wrapped tightly at eye level. She grimaced at his touch. “Work booted me for two weeks, and you know I can’t be alone that long.” 

“Go back to Hawkins then.” 

“It’s like a ten hour drive by myself, and my parents are stuck in Europe.” 

“Shit. Are they okay?” The sudden sympathetic switch to her voice signaled her surrender, and Robin stepped backwards into her apartment.

Steve shrugged, pushing the door open to let himself in. “As of eighteen hours ago, Mom sent a text and said they’re fine. Just stuck.” 

“Jesus.” Robbin hugged her upper half, chewing on her plump bottom lip to weigh her options. He was in now. Not like she had the strength or willpower to kick him out. Well, she could, but he knew she wouldn’t. She rolled her eyes.

“I love you, best friend.” He waggled his eyebrows.

She scoffed. “Just don’t touch anything until you wash you hands. Dump your bag by the door.” 

He did as instructed, dramatically holding his hands upward and avoiding obstacles on his path to the kitchen sink like a surgeon between sanitation and the Operating Room. He washed with soap and water, loudly humming Happy Birthday to appease his new roommate.

“Ha ha,” she spoke dryly, leaning against the counter beside him. “You aren’t staying for two weeks, you know. I’ll murder you before then.” 

“As soon as I’m a nuisance, I’m out,” he agreed, rinsing suds down the drain with nearly scalding water.

“Okay. Get out.”

He flicked water at her as it dripped from his fingers, and she squawked, snapping the hand towel to his arm. He yanked it from her, drying his knuckles before tossing it aside and leaning beside her. He’d let a little spill over the sink and he felt the water slowly dampen the waistband of his jeans. He sighed. “So, what do you wanna do, roomie?”

“I actually can’t stand you.” She groaned, bumping his elbow with her own.

— — —

They’d settled on an Alien franchise marathon, which Steve would have never agreed to without Robin’s coaxing. And yet halfway through Aliens, he was nodding off at one end of the couch and Robin was texting on the other. He nudged her with his toe.

“You going to spend time with your houseguest or what?”

“Hm?” She continued to stare at her screen, tapping away, the soft blue light illuminating her freckled face. 

“Earth to Robin,” Steve toed her again. “I need attention.” 

“You need a girlfriend.” 

“I have you.” 

“You need a real one. One who likes boys.” 

“Yeah?” He sighed, puffing up the pillow under his head. “And where am I going to find one of those?” It seemed to be Robin’s life purpose to try to set him up with someone. Maybe she thought he was still attracted to her and needed a distraction, but any semblance of a crush faded the day he saw her wolf down fifteen hot dogs in a competition and immediately vomit them back into the tin bucket beside her.

“The inter, I’ve told you a million times.”

He groaned. “You know I hate those dating apps. It feels so objectifying.”

As much as the woman race appreciates your fall from grace as Slimeball of the Century, you have to suck it up and get yourself back out there. Because this pathetic, whiny Steve wouldn’t exist if you finally got laid.”

“Well unless you’re offering, we’re supposed to be self-distancing. So I don’t see that happening for at least two weeks.” 

Robin shot him a sly grin, wagging her phone in his direction. “There are other ways, my dude. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to bed.” She leaned forward and turned up the volume on the television.

“You’re disgusting!” He yelled in her general direction, chucking a throw pillow at her. It hit her bedroom door where her smug face had been.

He rolled over and pulled out his own mobile device. Maybe she was right. His thumb hovered over the Tinder logo. He had several matches in the city, and a few DMs he hadn’t replied to. It just felt icky, for lack of a better term, like he wasn’t really trying to get to know these women. They definitely weren’t trying to get to know him. No one actually cares what his favorite cereal is. They’re just trying to figure out what to stock for the morning after. 

His brain overrode his finger and he ended up on TikTok instead, scrolling through endless videos of the nerds dancing with their siblings and trying to keep entertained during their own quarantines. Dustin posted a video an hour, documenting his day in a night vision filter, like a data log in a found footage film. Only he hadn’t done anything more interesting than eat four Snack Packs. So it was a typical Friday for him.

Steve checked Snapchat next, an app next to no one used, but the familiar notification from Nancy sent a familiar little flutter to his stomach. She’d sent a selfie in a face mask filter. It gave her thick, black eyeliner above a black leather mask, very much the contrast from her bubblegum pastel aesthetic. 

He smiled, using the same filter to respond. He retook it a few times, getting the right angle to illuminate his face from the glow of the television. bitchin’

He typed El’s new favorite phrase. She’d recently discovered the punk subculture of the 90s and used phrases like “bitchin’” and “gnarly” on every Insta story and TikTok caption.

He was shocked at the immediacy of Nancy’s response. Her next photo was dark, her soft features lit only from her phone screen. She lay on a fluffy pillow, curls tickling her cheekbones. A concerned look furrowed her brows and puckered her lips. Are you at home?

He snapped a photo of Robin’s television. nah. convinced rob to take me in.

Again, she responded quickly. This time, she was smiling. Good. Glad you aren’t alone.

His heart swelled. He knew it shouldn’t, knew he should be over her by now. It had been two years, and she was with Jonathan, and they were happy. 

He sent a photo of the dark room around him. me too. nite nance.

Nancy’s eyes were closed, nose scrunched around a smile. Night, Steve. Miss you. xx

He shut off his phone and rolled over, letting the sounds of flame throwers and machine guns drown out the dull ache and gaping voice in his chest.

— — —

Steve didn’t anticipate accidentally starting a fight on the first full day, but there he was, gangly legs tucked under him on the couch, mindlessly scrolling when Robin went in on him. All he’d done was offer to PostMate Mediterranean from their favorite place down the street, half-jokingly. Robin did not find him humorous, and he jumped at the slamming of her refrigerator door.

“No, dingus, we cannot just ask a random stranger to handle our food in his disgusting car two blocks just so we can eat.” 

“Great, so we’ll go pick it up.” 

“What is wrong with you? Can you take nothing seriously ever in your entire life?” Her tone, though always vaguely insulting, held no such understanding or humor. Instead her words felt cold, piercing.

He turned to look at her, nostrils flared and fists clenched on the edge of the linoleum countertop. “Whoa, Jesus, Rob, I was joking. Thought I’d lighten the mood. What’s your deal?”

“My deal? My deal, Harrington, is that I’ve somehow managed to confine myself to this tiny shithole with someone like you, who is constantly trying to ‘lighten the mood’ when the rest of the Goddamn world is going through something traumatic.” 

Steve fought back an eye roll. Robin Buckley, ladies and gentlemen, drama queen, people’s rights activist, extraordinaire. He really should have anticipated this. Instead, he stood from his crumpled position on the couch and stretched his limbs over his head. “Alright, alright. If it’s bothering you that much, I’ll leave.”

Robin harrumphed, hands on hips, bare foot tapping against beige tile. She didn’t respond, or stop him as he shut his laptop lid and shoved it into his bag by the door. He pretended to ignore her as she let out a dramatic sigh and crossed to her pantry cupboard.

“We have pita and hummus. Is that going to be enough for you, princess?” She scoffed.

“Ooh,” he shrugged. “I was hoping for falafel.” 

She reached into the cupboard and extracted a can of chickpeas before tossing it across the room. “Start blending.” 

He caught it and joined her in the kitchen to help place vegetables and pita on a serving platter for the both of them. Four carrots in, he bumped her with his hips. “Is everything okay though? End of the world aside?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” She avoided eye contact.

“Robin. It’s me, Steve, your best friend.” 

She sighed and shrugged under his knowing gaze, and she shot a displeased look at her phone charging near her keys and wallet on the counter. “Francesca’s pissed at me.” 

“Ah,” Steve nodded, slapping a hefty dollop of hummus onto her pita and then his own. “And Francesca is...?”

“The girl I’m... I don’t know. Seeing, I guess. Texting, calling, FaceTiming.” Robin threw her hands in the air for dramatic effect. He supposed you could take the girl out of drama club, but it never really left the girl, did it?

“Why is she pissed?”

“Because,” Robin spoke through a mouthful of pita. “She saw you being an idiot on my Insta story earlier.”

“And?”

“And I’ve barricaded myself from the world with you and I have committed to only communicating with her via the internet, dingus.” 

Steve picked carrot out of his molars with his tongue, contemplating her predicament and ways to fix it. He supposed he would also be pissed if let’s say Nancy was dating him but decided to hole up with Byers, before they were dating, of course. But that was a totally different ball game. “She knows you’re gay, right?”

“Yes, Steve, she knows I’m gay, but like... it doesn’t look great on my part to tell her countless times it’s safer to stay indoors and then let you waltz in like you own the place.” 

“Okay, well, do you even like her?”

“Yes!” Robin sighed, dipping her half eaten pita directly into the hummus. So much for the spread of germs. “I do, I really like her. Like, really, really like her.” 

“So invite her over now.”

“No, God no. Jesus, no wonder you’re single for life.” 

“Hey!”

“I just mean, if I invite her over now, she’ll think it’s just because she wants me to, and it won’t feel genuine. And I’m really not prepared for her to meet you. I can’t scare her away.” 

“Okay, unfair,” Steve prodded her hand with his carrot. She swatted him away. “Have you told her how you feel?”

Robin stared at her plate, shaking her head like a guilty five-year-old asked to apologize to a classmate. 

“That’d probably be a good start.” 

“Yeah? And who are you to give me relationship advice, Harrington? I saw you Snapping Nancy shirtless pictures this morning.” 

Steve had been caught in the act. He tried to played it off so smoothly too, also posting fresh-out-of-the-shower thirst traps on his Instagram to make sure Nancy wasn’t suspicious of his lack of wardrobe. His snaps to her were all smiles and dribbled toothpaste, relatable and modest, asking her how quarantine was going and if she had any book recommendations for the long haul.

She did, Don Quixote. And she shared her suggestions in a perfect powder blue camisole, makeup free, with her hair clipped up on the sides and out of her face.

“Steve,” Robin scolded. “You’ve got to get over it. Nancy’s happy, and she’s far too nice of a person to cut the cord and break your heart. So you’re going to have to be the one to stop contact.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled into his hummus.

— — —

After a long day of mutual sulking and watching various garbage content on their separate devices, Steve and Robin decided to open the bottle of Stoli at the back of Robin’s cupboard. She had some cranberry juice in her fridge left over from her last UTI (“TMI, Rob!”), and they decided to pour a couple of glasses and toast to Mother Russia.

It was a habit they’d been out of for a couple of months, trying to separate Hawkins life from life in the city. The vodka was reserved for particularly bad nights, long car rides, and the middle of cattle pastures. The night of Billy Hargrove’s funeral was one of those nights. Seeing Max that beat up over her dick of a brother was hard for all of them to watch. Knowing they’d had a hand in it was somehow more difficult to deal with.

Now though, they seemed to be celebrating the end of the world and being bad at girls and things, Steve couldn’t really remember. His head felt fuzzy, and his entire body was warm enough to strip off his sweatshirt by the collar.

“Why are you always naked, Harrington?” Robin cackled, tossing a tv remote in his direction. 

It bounced from his chest and thudded against the concrete floors, and the two of them howled in laughter. 

“Okay, okay,” Robin breathed, clutching at the stitch in her side. They’d gone drink for drink, and she was easily further gone than Steve, lacking experience and body mass. “Truth or dare.” 

Steve sighed, running a hand through his hair. He shrugged. “Are we five?”

“Truth or dare, dingus!” 

He laughed with her. He couldn’t help it. She was infectious, hyper and annoying, but endearingly so. “Fine, truth.” 

“Are you... still in love with me?”

It was her control question, like in a lie detector test. He thought she used it to see his mood, to gauge whether or not he was really going to play the game. 

“No, freak,” he responded, toeing at her exposed thigh across the couch. “I’m not still in love with you.” 

“Fine,” she threw a dramatic hand to her brow, giggling to break the fourth wall. “Your turn.” 

He sighed. “Alright, truth or dare.” 

“Dare.” She shot him a look with that fire in her eye, the one he’d seen time and time again in the face of real danger. Only now, the only danger was the world outside those four walls, a world without toilet paper.

“Okay, I dare you...” He looked around the apartment for something she could do that would feel mildly entertaining at this point in time. 

“I dare you to let me infiltrate your Tinder.” Robin cut him off, grasping his direction with tired movements.

Steve snorted through an eye roll, pulling his phone from between the creases of his legs for her to use. He supposed there wasn’t too much harm. He’d never speak to those women again, best case scenario, and worst case, she’d say something awful and he’d have a girl at a waitress if this self-distancing thing ever let up. Robin wouldn’t say anything awful anyway, being hyper-aware, hyper-“woke”, as they say.

“Yes!” Robin cheered, crawling closer so he could see over her shoulder. He’d gotten yelled at about proximity earlier, but apparently drunk Robin was blissfully unaware enough. He was just happy he didn’t have to think of a dare.

She spent a few seconds swiping, matching a handful of times, but she quickly grew bored of scoffing at girls she didn’t seem fit for her dingus. She switched over to the messaging function.

“Oh my God!” She squawked upon entry.

“What?” Steve laughed, picking apart the names to see what had her so shaken. None of the names sounded familiar or at all remarkable, just a lot of Jens and Jessicas and Stephanies.

“You haven’t responded to any of these women, dingus!” With a sigh of disapproval, she started her journey to find Steve Harrington love, like a virtual set of the Bachelor. 

“It looks like you had some rapport with Dana a couple of weeks ago. What was wrong with her?”

Robin scrolled through Dana’s profile. She was hot, curvy, short hair, kind of a badass. She was a hairstylist, it looked like. Her opening line was even about how great Steve’s hair was. He shrugged. “Nothing, I guess.” He wracked his brain to remember their interaction. He supposed it was during a particular Snapchat dry spell. Was it Valentine’s Day? That was a busy Tinder weekend for him.

“Well, I’m messaging her again.” 

And it went like that for a half hour, Robin scolding him at poor love life decisions and quickly trying to patch up broken contact with strangers. He was shocked to have received a few responses. People must really be bored. 

A few of the women responded “Hey, ghost”, which prompted Robin into drunken lectures about why Steve needs to be kinder to the women he communicates with. He agreed. It’s shitty to ghost people, but he knew Robin would be just as disappointed if he told every woman on the app he wasn’t interested because his heart was still wrapped up in his high school sweetheart, the love of his life.

Finally, Robin had connected with a girl named Roxanne, who owned a parakeet and happened to follow Steve on Insta after their last encounter around Christmas. Roxanne was still single, appreciated his (Robin’s) apology, and was happy to chat about life through the messaging function on Insta. Robin tutted Steve’s head with her hand and sent herself to bed, hiccuping. Her job was done.

— — —

Robin woke him up at 6AM because he was screaming in his sleep. He didn’t remember his dream, though nightmares usually rotated between five set situations. He was either with Byers and Nancy and the lights, or his pool, or the junkyard, or the secret base, or the mall. According to Robin, he was screaming for “Hargrove” to “watch out”. Ah, the mall then.

He was dripping with sweat, and Robin fetched him a large glass of water while he traipsed to the bathroom to towel off. He didn’t look hot, pale skin slightly green, normally lustrous hair clinging to his forehead like rats fighting their way out of the sewer. He splashed cold water over his face, ignoring the lingering doom that tickled at his spine and hung out just over his shoulder. 

“There’s pain meds in the cabinet,” Robin called softly.

He swung the mirror toward himself, ducking in the cramped bathroom. The generic brand bottle sat on the lowest shelf. It rattled it his hands as he removed the child-lock lid.

“Grab me some, will ya?” She groaned.

He popped two in his mouth, palming two more to meet Robin on his makeshift bed, covers tangled and strewn on the floor. They traded pills for water, and the cool condensation of the glass felt nice in his hand.

He collapsed in the spot next to her.

“You okay?”

He shrugged, staring blankly at the various liberal paraphernalia on the wall behind her television. “I guess. I don’t really remember my dream.” 

“I didn’t know you were still having them.” 

“I’m not, really. Just when I like... drink. I think that might be the trigger.” 

“Shit. I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be,” he kicked at her ankle. “I’m the one that pulled it out of the cupboard.” 

After a long silence, Robin spoke with the least conviction he’d heard from her... ever. “You know you couldn’t have done anything, right?” 

Steve turned to her with furrowed eyebrows, wondering what the hell she was going for here.

“With Billy.” Her voice broke on the boy’s name. “He was long gone. I mean, the shit that was in his system. He wouldn’t have made it anyway.” 

Steve felt his face flush, and he ducked his head. He supposed they’d never really talked about it, about Billy, even on their most open of nights. They talked about being tortured, drugged, barely skating back with their lives or at least minimal brain damage. Robin never knew the extent of guilt that Steve harbored for his high school rival, how responsible he felt for the kid’s death. If only they had more fireworks, if only they closed the gate faster, if only he’d hit his car a little harder.

“I know, Rob. It’s just weird. I’ve never seen anyone die before, and I knew him. You know? We partied together. He kicked my ass once. Like, we had lockers next to each other in the locker room.” 

“Okay, we might need to unpack that one later.” Her tone was teasing, but soft, gentle with him. 

Steve snorted and shook his head.

Robin reached across and pulled his hand into her own. It reminded him of that time on the roof in the rain, before all of the trouble unfolded. 

“I love you, dingus.” 

“Love you too.” 

— — —

Work started the next morning, leaving the two of them propped against the countertop, staring at their laptop screens and sipping matcha from handmade mugs. Steve had been “fortunate” enough to work customer service for his dad, which typically involve emailing people about their various issues with finances. Last week’s stock market plummet had been a fun one. Steve felt overjoyed when Mom convinced Dad to force him to work remotely in order to avoid getting sick. 

Robin was a sort of jack of all trades. She did a lot of translation online, transcriptions and whatnot, headphones heavy and covering both ears. She couldn’t hear Steve talking to himself. He might as well have been alone. Occasionally, during the week, she’d hop into her bedroom to Skype her students. She taught private lessons for kids with various woodwind instruments. That alone made her pretty decent money.

Steve found himself drained within the first few days, unable to concentrate and needing an out. Luckily, Robin made up a grocery list and sent him out. She told him to be very careful and only touch the essentials. And that she’d be waiting by the door with soap and water upon his return. 

So, he shoved a beanie over his mess of hair and went out. It was cold, for March, and he didn’t appreciate the chill of frost pulling at his nostril hair and giving him the sniffles. One little inhale was enough to send a woman gasping with terror as she crossed the road. 

He made it to the corner store and soon realized he’d have to abandon his list. The shelves low of stock, and by the looks of it, they’d be wiping their asses with their hands in a few short days. He got what he could, piling it into Robin’s reusable bag, only touching the essentials. And he made sure to use the self check out on his way out. 

He made it back out the cold streets, bags slumped over each shoulder, and his phone started ringing from the buds in his ears. Hands full and incapable of reaching his phone in his back pocket, he struggled to press the tiny headphone in his ear. “Hello?”

‘“Steve? Hey.” Came the soft response of a voice he’d never forget. 

“Nancy?”

“Yeah, sorry, is this a bad time? Are you working?”

“No, no, no, no. This is fine. I’m just uh... getting groceries.” A bag slipped down the crook of his arm and he wondered how the hell women carried purses on a daily basis. 

“How was the grocery store?”

“Practically a wasteland.”

His heart did a backflip at her chuckle. Nancy’s voice was like a breath of fresh air in the stale, eery climate of a city under quarantine. It was like, as soon as she started talking, he could smell flowers blossoming in the park, feel the spring breeze roll by. She lifted the bitter cold.

“Have you been keeping yourself busy?” She asked.

He shrugged. “I’ve hunkered down with Robin, so we’ve just been watching old movies from the 80s and eating a lot of hummus. How about you?”

“Also 80 movies marathons. What a coincidence.” 

“Anything good?”

“Jonathan forced me to watch The Evil Dead finally, and it actually wasn’t bad.” 

Steve scrunched up his nose. He wasn’t sure if it was to block the wind or the scent of Jonathan’s name lingering in the air between them. “You turning into a big horror fan then?”

“God, no,” she cackled on her line. “I still prefer staring out the window looking longingly at empty streets. Feels like the end of the world, doesn’t it?” She snickered.

“A little bit, yeah.” He chuckled. “But, nothing we haven’t dealt with before.” 

She went quiet then, well, quieter. A knowing...something passed between them. She thought of Barb, he knew, and he thought of her, back to him, arm outstretched with a gun. A pitter of panic surged through him.

“Steve,” she barely spoke.

“Yeah, Nance?” He hadn’t realized he’d stopped walking. He picked up his pace again.

“Do you think this has anything to do with...?” She didn’t need to finish her thought.

“No,” he spat out before he had a proper answer. It terrified him, the idea that people were trapped in their homes, waiting for the world to crumble in vines and flower-mouthed faces. He glanced across the road at a woman delivering groceries to her neighbor. “No, Nance, I don’t.” The two women turned to smile and wave. He feebly attempted to wave back.

“How can you be so sure?” There was the stubborn Nancy he knew and loved.

“Because,” he smiled softly to himself. “If he was taking over, we’d be alone, isolated, sure. But something about this feels like it’s pulling us all together. Don’t you think? I mean, people are bringing their neighbors groceries. Have you seen the amount of instagram lives this week? Dozens. And did you watch that video of Italians singing from their balconies?”

Nancy chuckled. “Yeah, I did.” 

“See? If the world was ending, we wouldn’t be so supportive of each other.”

She paused for a moment, soaking it all in before her soft response. “You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington.” 

He grinned, struggling to lift his arm enough to push the button for entry into the apartment building. Robin buzzed him in without question. “Well, I’m back, and I’ve got to put the groceries away.” He climbed the stairs a few at a time. 

“Okay. Stay safe. I’ll snap you later.”

“Please do. Thanks for calling.” He wrapped his knuckles on Robin’s front door. 

“Tell Robin hi!”

“Tell Byers hi.”

Robin shot him a confused look, giving him a wide berth to dump the bags on the counter and wash his hands. With hurried goodbyes, Nancy clicked off the phone. 

“Longer than that!” Robin scolded when he turned off the faucet. 

Smiling to himself, he turned the water back to hot and scrubbed for a second time, loudly singing the chorus to Toto’s Africa. 

“I hate you.” Robin grinned, unloading the groceries into the pantry. 

Steve sprinkled her with water from his fingertips and dried his knuckles with the towel. 

---

First, I'd like to preface this by saying my heart goes out to those effected by the CoronaVirus/COVID-19. This fic is in no way making light of this week, I just wanted to write the story stuck in my head. If you would like to learn more about the virus and dealing with quarantine, please head over to my post, where I will drop several links with information including how to sew masks for health care professionals and where to send them in. Thank you and please enjoy!

[izzy-b-hands]

I *need* to know the history of your fandoms, dear 2012 Tumblr OG 😆

alkfdjsa

Well

Gonna put this under a cut because there’s always a full story with me lol

I originally started a blog because I was lonely while my mum was away from home recovering from a very bad broken ankle (multiple surgeries, metal in her leg, she’s since recovered but it still gives her issues.) Due to her not being able to get up and down stairs, she was staying at my grandparents, and I was on my own in the condo for the very first time, essentially living completely on my own like the college student I would become, since I graduated HS in 2012. 

2012 was my last year of high school, and I had either drifted away from or actively pushed away my friends irl (untreated depression, anxiety, PTSD, undiagnosed ASD, and dealing with it all by huffing and cutting meant I was a real asshole lmao, putting it mildly.) But with my mum gone, that meant I was going days without talking to anyone aside from a teacher or two, and even my introverted ass needs to talk on occasion. 

I knew nothing of Tumblr, but I had recently started watching Dr. Who at that point, and reading the chapter books written for the series, so I blogged about that at first. When Sherlock came around, I got into it briefly, then got pissed about the shitty writing and have an intense dislike for Steven Moffat to this day (stay off my lawn, Steven. I’ll fight you via script writing.)  

I was also dipping my toes into the LOTR and Hobbit fandom at that time (I even briefly rp’d as Elrond w/someone on here. All gen rp, don’t hold it against me lol. But I dipped out of that fast, there was a shit ton of drama I didn’t want to deal with.) Made some great friends there that unfortunately either aren’t on here anymore or rarely post, but I hope they’re all well! 

Those were my ‘big three’ for the longest time. Way back at the start I also dipped a bit into Supernatural, but again...shit writing made me fall out of love w/it pretty fast. Funny enough, I did watch it long enough to get my mum into it, and she’s still a fan. It got her through a painful part of her life, so even if I don’t like it anymore, I give it props for helping her like that. I also mingled in the Star Trek fandom some, but just a bit. 

Before I got into the Pacific and everything I blog about now, I had a period of just...like nothing. I reblogged random shit on my dash, had like no tags or decent organization, and considered deleting but realized I liked having access to a community where I could meet new people, since that’s not really a thing in my home town or anywhere else irl. Tumblr has its shit, but what community doesn’t? I’m happy to still be here, and grateful that I was able to build any readership for my writing here. I don’t think I could have done that on any other site for sure. it also essentially gave me a place to vent and work on myself where no one except the ppl on here could see it, which was a gift too. 

I didn’t envision having this blog by this age, but I also thought I’d be dead by now (tbh still kind of shocked I’m not lmao. That doesn’t feel real all the time, but that’s for another post.) Despite everything, it’s nice to still be going, still be on here, and to have found the fandoms I have (like Queen-I was always a fan since I was young, but I had no idea there was an extension of the fandom on here, and I’m so glad I found it!!) 

My first fandoms are def what the kids call ‘cringe’ (or not, maybe, idk I’m 25 w/no kids and I live like I’m fifty, I fully admit I have only the barest idea of what ‘the kids’ do now. As long as they’re safe and having fun and not getting traumatized by shit like rotten.com like I was when I was younger lmao) but overall? They gave me an outlet to do something other than hate myself and fear for my future, and I give them kudos for that. 

That’s p much it though, my Tumblr/fandom history lol. 

[nosferatyou]

New Tune: Chapter 5 (Jake Kiszka x Reader)

WC: 3.3k

Warnings: Cursing, mentions of emotional abuse, and some sick guitar solos.

Summary: Two guitarists meet at a Rock Festival, only having a week with each other before they have to return to their own lives. The bond they create is unfeigned and resolute.

“You have fun last night?”

“Huh?” I look up from my guitar to see Asa, sporting a confused look on my face.

He shook his head and laughed to himself, handing his phone to me.

“You must've really gone overboard last night if you don't remember this.”

Some random Greta Van Fleet fan account had posted a video of Jake and I from the night before. The both of us jumping off stage and into the pit, and pictures of us in the mosh.

“Scroll down, there's more.” Asa suggested, waving his hand towards his phone.

I guess all these accounts tagged the whole band to get our attention, and it definitely had mine. Multiple people had taken pictures and videos of us together, some accounts more… professional than others. Many were excited to see Jake with a girl, but all were mostly confused as to why he was moshing in the first place. It cracked me up honestly. I quickly sent some of the posts to myself before handing it back over to him.

“You think this will have any repercussions?” I asked, a worried look creeping over my face.

“I doubt it, at least not for us. We barely have the following that they have, even then our publicist is so used to the shit that you get into.”

“I guess so, I just hope it isn't a problem for him. Id feel awful it was.”

“Well you'll see him later right?” Asa asked. 

“Yeah, I’m sure we are just gonna laugh about it, but I honestly didn't think this would happen.”

“Y/N, everyone will have moved on by tomorrow morning, don't stress too much.

“I'll do my best.” I said meekly.

I don't even want to know if any of the articles have reached my boyfriend Sam. Knowing him he's already well aware, and seen all he can. I just don’t want to think about that right now, or any of this. The both of us should be able to have fun without it being blasted everywhere. 

I glanced over to my phone, which I haven't touched since yesterday, and god knows when the last time I actually charged it was.

 Asa noticed what I was looking and asked “Y/N when was the last time you checked your phone?” 

“During our last practice..” I said hanging my head in shame.

He nodded, staring at his coffee, seemingly lost in thought.

“If you ignore him now he's just going to get more upset.”

“Asa, you think I didn't know that?” I snapped, my voice raising.

I caught myself and took a deep breath “I’m sorry, it's just, my patience is wearing thin, I just need to get home.”

“I don't know why you're with him, Y/N. This is abuse and you know it!” He raised his voice, feelings he was holding in finally getting let out.

“He has never hit me and he never would.” I put my guitar next to me, it doesn't seem like I will be needing it anymore.

“You know that's not what I mean. The way he treats you? The possessiveness? None of it is okay. You just outright ignoring him because its too much to handle just shows me that deep down you agree. You ignore everything that's hurting you, I've known you long enough to realize that much.”

I just stayed quiet, my head hung low. Everyone knew the truth, everything he was saying was true. I always knew it. I just. He’s what I deserve, with the way I treat myself and the life I live. It's not something anyone can handle. I'm not going to find anyone else who can. So I'm okay with Sam. He's the best I will do. At least I think he is, but I don't want to put anyone else through having to love me.

“Y/N I care about you. We all do you know? You're family and to see you put up with everything he drags you through is just…” He stopped to think of his words. “You have such a big heart, he never will deserve you.”

And with that he got up and walked to the back of the bus, not before letting out a huff and running his hands through his hair.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I had been a bit shaky all day. Everything Asa said was starting to get to me. His words creeping through my mind every other minute, and then it’s all i could think about. Along with the drama I caused with Jake and his community, but I have to put on a happy face for the boys and it's nothing a bit of liquid courage couldn't help. 

I knocked on their door three times then stepped back. Adjusting the guitar strapped to my back. All of their cheerful voices suddenly stopped before I heard someone loudly clamber their way towards the door. It swung open, almost slamming into the side of the bus. A very excited Sammy was behind it, a giant smile on his face.

“Y/N! You’re here! Come on in.”

 He squished against the wall to let me in and then closed the door behind me. I was greeted with the sight of all the boys at the wrong instruments. Jake on the drums, Josh with a guitar, and Danny playing the bass. Sam ran from behind me and grabbed the mic from the stand. 

“This ones for the ladies.” He said with a smooth voice, wiggling his eyebrows at me.

He counted off and they all started playing “When a man loves a woman.” Sam practically overpowered everyone else with his singing, which was arguably him just screaming the lyrics. The rest of them kept up though, which was unsurprising. Josh tripped up on his part a couple times, but for someone so new to the instrument he killed it. 

They all finished off the song by just wailing on their instruments, and of course, Sam just screaming into the mic. When all was quiet he asked into the mic,

“Well?”

“Fucking fantastic, all of you. I would have brought my trumpet if I knew you guys would be doing this!”

“You play trumpet?” Inquired Danny.

“Been playing for about 15 years. I started back in high school and just never stopped.” I explained while unpacking my guitar.

“Jake you couldn't have brought around a cooler person.” Said Sam, grabbing your case and tucking it away.

“You all are way to nice. But I at least brought my guitar, so let's get to jamming.”

***

“Did you attempt to learn all of our songs before coming?” asked josh, who seemed very impressed with my skills after playing through their set list.

“Found a couple tutorials, so kind of. I also am just a professional at jamming. Don’t forget that I’m also a musician.”

“Oh it's definitely not forgotten.”

Jake stepped into the conversation asking “Think she can handle Black Flag?” A suggestive look on his face.

Him and Josh made eye contact, both nodding and looking back over to me. Man, I hate the fucking twin talk.

“I think it's right up her alley.” Josh said looking back over to me before going back to his spot at the mic stand.

They all talked among themselves for a moment before getting set up again and back in their own spots. Sam sat on the couch, Danny in the back nearer to the bunks, Josh upfront, and Jake and I standing where the table was. The amps were everywhere and kind of evenly distributed. They luckily had an extra for me, and a couple of pedals that Jake wasn’t using. I mean it was just Comp and Reverb, but my guitar already had a funky tone to it.

Josh counted off and Jake went right into it. Tapping his strings faster and faster, Giving me a playful smile. When he got faster I mouthed “Show off.” He just smirked and went into a heavier riff. 

He started playing slower and once the rhythm section joined so did I. I could tell by their nods that they were planning to come in, so in tow I joined with them. Josh joined in with heavy and raspy vocals, with this being a much darker song. He nodded to me and put his pick in his mouth holding it there. Telling me this will be a softer portion. But that didn't last long, because Josh started screaming and Jake joined in with a heavy solo in his typical style. Keeping eye contact with me the whole time. He smirked at me and just kept playing, doing his back bends, wailing on his guitar in the upper register. I played rhythm just to amuse him during his solo, I saved my best for later. I noticed how quickly his hand went back to the position from before and  I joined him for the main riff. We all went back into that flow again through the next verses, and then Josh let out the same scream as before.

 I gave Jake a wink and then stole his solo from him. At first replicating what he did in the beginning of his. He laughed and shook his head, reacting to me showing off. After a bit I broke off into my own, a heavier tone than his. I stepped on the Comp and the delay pedals to add my own personal flair. I'd be kidding myself if I didn’t say I was showing off in that moment. I pulled out all my best guitar moves and licks. I kept with their flow of course, but I put more of a Eric Clapton meets David Gilmour. Bending the shit of of my strings, working up and down the blues scale. Using this moment to get out all of my frustrations and anger. I beat that guitar, wailing away, putting out everything I could. I did just as Jake did, keeping eye contact with him when I could, a smirk on my face. I was playing well, same as him even, but I wasn't going to beat him this way. I threw one more smirk his way and swung the guitar onto my shoulders in one confident swoop. Seamlessly playing with the guitar, tapping in the upper register of my guitar for a bit, then upon hearing Josh start joining in with vocals I swung it back down, and made eye contact with Jake again. He laughed with a smile on his face and we both joined in on the main riff. With the song coming to a close we all harmoniously closed out the song with a quieter tone. But of course not without Josh's expert screams and Danny beating those drums to death. 

 We all let out a huff and sat in silence for a moment. Sam broke the silence by saying

“Jesus Christ the two of you killed that. Jake, you shouldn’t be surprised if your spot in the band is stolen.”

Jake directed his attention back to me, a goofy smile on his face.

“I definitely wouldn't be. She lived up to her end of the bargain, that’s for sure.”

I was full of adrenaline, I felt the same way I did after every show with my own band. The smile on my face and my breathlessness made it clear. These boys gave a new challenge that no one else has provided. Especially Jake, throughout all of tonight we kept our eyes on each other. Only leaving to catch cues, but even then we both merely missed some, which didn't go unnoticed by the rest of the boys. 

His contact doesn't just happen when we are playing. Whenever we are together his attention is all on me. Especially when we are with the boys, hes quieter than when we are alone. He sits back and watches everything unfold. I’ve definitely noticed, but i'm unsure if he has.

I catch his eyes when he finishes his sentence, it gives off a look of intrigue more than anything else. 

Before I could get in my words josh Piped in,

“I don’t know what your talking about, Jake, but you are sure as hell right. She's absolutely fantastic.” His eyes dropped for a moment in shame. “And I admittedly have never heard any of your songs.”

“Well that has to change doesn’t it?” I said with a playful smirk.

I grabbed my phone and an aux plugged into one of the amps. Starting off with one of our earlier pieces, which was heavily blues inspired, but still kept our psychedelic style in it.

We all squeezed onto the small couch and just listened to the music. I was pretty nervous because I knew their musical domain more laid in folk than anything else. They all bobbed their heads along, and their concentrated looks on their faces made it impossible to determine what they were feeling. 

I stopped it after a couple of songs, and turned to face them.

“So? Are we god awful?” I asked.

“Honestly I love how you're truly mixing the new with the old. The organs and the guitar mixing together has a very Doors vibe. It's got something very unique to it all, Y/N. I love it.” Danny said, his focus drifting of to think of the right words. 

“I personally love the way your guitar is standing out. Its tonality is really something else, very you.” Jake reached over and squeezed my hand, and my cheeks burned red. It was like they had a mind of their own. I quickly turned to Sam who was sat next to me so maybe Jake wouldn't notice.

“Okay so.” He said with a very determined look on his face. “ Let's talk organ player, because I really like his whole thought process and-” He was cut off by the sound of my phone ringing over the speaker. Dread filled my whole body and I tensed up. All of the thoughts I had repressed during tonight came flooding back. Jake who still had my hand in his, took notice to that.

“Fuck I shouldn’t of brought that.” I said to myself.

“You gonna answer that?” Josh asked, a quizzical look on his face.

“I-”

“Y/N go answer it, You know you should. We will be here when you get back.” Jake said softly, he looked at me with compassionate eyes. He squeezed my hand one more time and let go. 

I let out a shaky breath and went to go pick it up. I unplugged it and walked off the bus to get some privacy.

The air that was normally dry and burning was now frigid compared to it. I shivered as I stepped off and hesitantly hit the answer button. 

Wow two phone calls in one week that's a new record.” Annoyance extremely visible in his voice.

“You only picked up because you know you're guilty.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and let out a long sigh.

“ What am I guilty of Sam?” I paused and let out another huff. “I’m honestly confused.”

He spat out “ Your’e fucking sleeping with that jimmy page wannabe.” 

Anger bubbled in my gut. His constant accusations were starting to get on my last nerve.

“Sam are you fucking serious? Honestly I don't know why I put up with your shit.”

“You put up with my shit? Are you fucking serious Y/N?” I get ignored by you every damn day for 

God knows what reason.” He stopped for a moment. His angry tone switching to something more of condescending. 

“I think you owe me an apology if anything.” I could practically feel his judging eyes through the 

phone.

“ I mean you ignore me, sleep with other men, and leave me here to deal with all of it. Alone.” 

God at this point I’m starting to see what Asa is saying. Sams getting on my last nerve.

“I owe you nothing.” I said curtly.

He just laughed.

“Seriously, Sam. I owe you jack shit for all you've put me through.” 

“Ooh is Jimmy Page getting in your head about us? Giving you false confidence?” 

“I’m not fucking Jimmy Page!” I yelled a bit too loudly for how close quarters everything was. But my volume stayed there, if not increased.

“You see one article about me having actual fun and you’re getting so fucking jealous that you throw accusations around to rattle me up and ruin my good experiences at work? I worked so fucking hard to get here and you can’t handle me getting all this attention can you? You seriously can’t trust me can you? Fuck you, Sam.”

Rage boiled in my veins. I couldn't keep still in my spot, I was pacing rapidly back and forth, and my free hand was clamped so tight my nails broke skin.

Even if I wanted to do stuff with Jake I have enough decency to keep it in my pants. 

He stayed silent, his fragile ego probably breaking over the fact that I could finally stand up to him.

“ You really can’t handle your liquor or the truth can you?” He simply said.

That bastard. 

“Oh Fuck off you free loading bitch.”

I hung up and threw my phone to the ground in a plight of rage. 

I marched around in circles, whisper yelling curse words to myself to calm any anger I had. 

I don’t think I can take his abuse anymore, I just feel so stupid for even taking it in the first place. How the hell did I not see any of this? I'm an actual idiot for not seeing his bullshit. 

I took a final deep breath, picked up my phone, and marched onto the bus.

All the boys were standing in positions around the room that could only be described as “Act natural”. All of them gave me a nervous look when I re-entered. 

With gruff tone I said “Who wants to play an Im angry and want to let out steam song?”

All of them very quickly grabbed their instruments and got into position.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a very long (and loud) rendition of “Sweet Leaf” we all collapsed to the couch in exhaustion. Usually one song wouldn't have had any of us beat but prior we had been playing for at least three hours. They all put something into that last song, I obviously let out all my frustrations into that song, and I guess they had as well.

We sat in a peaceful silence for awhile until Josh finally spoke up 

“Well while you were… Out. We all finally discussed an idea pertaining to you and we came to a mutual agreement.”

I gave him an obvious look of confusion, and then looked over to Jake whose entire face was washed in excitement.

“Josh why does that sound like you’re about to murder me?”

He laughed and said “ No need to worry, darling! We were just wondering if you wanted to join us for our encore tomorrow? We all obviously play well together, and we’d love to have the honor of sharing the stage with you tomorrow.”

A huge smile broke out on my face, excitement now evident in me as well. 

“Fuck yeah I want to! What song were you thinking?”

“Well now that's up for discussion, but I have a couple ideas that I think will blow people out of the water.”

“I can’t wait. It'll be a fantastic way to end the week.” 

“The feelings mutual.”

[rpbetter]

Hey there, check out this pinned post first!

Thanks for visiting Roleplay Better, where I believe that you can fucking do better! That kind of language, however, is why it is important for you to read this post before proceeding.

This blog and its posts are meant for an adult RPing audience; be over legal, adult age in the USA, 18+. Do not interact by submitting, asking, reblogging, commenting, or liking unless you are over eighteen years of age. By interacting with RPB or me, Vespertine, you are assumed to be following this rule. If you are breaking this rule, you will be blocked.

I have that rule because this blog can/will/does address topics inappropriate for a younger audience. Those can include, but are not limited to:

not safe for work - violence, injury, sexual language, smut, substance use

“dark topics” and themes like violence, unhealthy relationships, mental illness, trauma, graphic injury, dubious consent, substance use, and so forth addressed realistically

foul, sexual, and otherwise “Adult” language

 unpopular opinions and approaches about writing, RP, fandoms

“negativity” since literally anything can be, and my whole point here isn’t about holding back; it is likely that, at some point, in some post or another, a shoe will fit you-you need to be mature enough to handle that without taking it as a personal attack on you

images and links that may contain things inappropriate for a younger audience

this blog is founded upon the idea that fiction has reflections in reality, but that fiction does not utterly equate to reality. You should write with realism, your characters should be people in their own right, and you should absolutely be addressing many popular topics responsibly, which is to say realistically. I do not support or otherwise condone purity culture, so while realism is a big deal here, fiction = reality arguments are a no

seriously, you have no idea how fucking salty I am! I try to be fair, reasonable, and mellow with everyone, but it can and does come out.

This blog tags for common, major triggers, but it is not for those easily triggered or particularly sensitive. By proceeding, you take responsibility for yourself...like a mature adult. I expect you to utilize blacklist, unfollow, and block. Tag format is simple, it is literally just the word in most cases, with “cw” and “tw” added to particularly common things. Example, a post containing a breakdown of forms of dubcon will be tagged #dubcon #dubious consent. If that was specifically of a sexual nature, since tumblr is unfriendly to using Not Safe For Work now, I will be using #notsafe for sexual topics. In the event that this needs to change, it will be posted about, the previous tag left intact, so that you may update your blacklist.

You are always welcome to send me an ask or private message requesting a particular trigger be tagged for you. I try to check blogs I see following, especially if I follow back, so that I can tag what you require. However, I’m a person, I’m an ND, ill, busy person though, I do make mistakes!

If you find yourself desirous of telling me to tag in a hateful way, don’t. You will not be responded to with an apology and kindness. Do not be rude, it’s uncalled for when informing someone of a problem or making a request.

I will run the blog largely on a queue, and will not be following many people back. This is not personal! I just like to try to provide content at many different times, have a life elsewhere, and I am so happy that you love your fandom, but it might not be something I’ve enough interest in to have on my dash.

Don’t tumblr message me. Use the inbox or submit.

Due to recent events, I am changing this rule. It’s hard for me to receive messages unexpectedly, and I hate to imply that I’ll be able to get to these quicker because it isn’t the truth. Quicker, better responses come from the inbox. However, there have been too many incidents lately in which people needed to speak privately and had to make that a request. If you’re having a problem and need to vent, request sensitive advice, etc.? It’s alright, go ahead and drop me a PM, y’all. I’ll get back to you as soon as I am able. Please, do not be angry with me if I respond to inbox things or my queue is running! You’re important to me, I just might not have the requisite social cognition and energy you deserve at that time.

Aggressive inbox messages will be responded to in kind. I don’t care if you are on anon or not, if you haven’t an ounce of polite communication skills, I won’t have them either. This is not a “we don’t publish anon hate” blog.

I highly encourage asks and submissions on any and all RP topics, and it’s perfectly alright to be salty as fuck in them, you can totally vent here, but don’t take out your frustration on me or be demanding of me. I am always happy to help with information, advice, or just a response to your venting-it’s important to know someone is listening. However, it may take me a few days to a week to get to you, be patient. 

If you are going to vent, leave out usernames. This isn’t a callout or burnbook blog. It’s fine to state characters and fandoms, but if this becomes a problem, it’ll have to change. I don’t want this becoming a salt blog for one or two fandoms I very likely can’t even stand. Practice the fine art of alluding to things, its good experience for your writing! Besides, RPC problems are RPC problems, I promise. It might feel like it’s just your fandom, but there is something relatable in all corners.

I will not overly police comments. Keep the slurs and shit out of it, though. If there is an issue going on pertaining to a serious instance of hate speech, or behavior I, personally, deem as too inappropriate and/or immature to be taking place on my post, I will step in. Otherwise, I expect everyone to be adults in the comments and reblogs too. If you want to argue with each other, that’s your business. If you want to argue with me, I’m not sorry in advance.

Addition to the above: this is not a blog in which it will be tolerated that commentators or those submitting with the URLS are targeted for callouts, shaming, or other instances of bullying. No, I cannot make those people stop bothering you by blocking them, but the least I can do is address that by shutting down their access to this blog and it’s posts by blocking on the URLs I have for them. And I will. Fuck that “we can’t be responsible for” shit. It’s my blog, it’s my content I’m putting out there, I’m not going to just ignore shit like what went down over on COAR, thanks. Not. Cool.

This is definitely not a place for:

people who think giving muses labels, including top/bottom “dynamics,” is a good substitute for character traits, personality, and development

those with no reading comprehension skills

folks dependent upon aesthetics and aesthetics-based purple prose as filler for actual writing

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y’all who see writing as an obstacle to getting down to action, be that smut, drama, or fight scenes...it’s literally a writing hobby

politics, any manner of phobe or ism, violent/non-inclusive feminists, purity/rpc/fandom/content police of any manner, and exactly any manner of racism, sexism, or religious intolerance - I give not a shit if it’s popular to hate the straights, for example, I neither believe in nor tolerate reactionary classifying of any group as blanket-statement evil

people who are going to tack onto my posts shit like, “it’s okay, OP, you can say x character.” Trust me, if I were talking about one character, I fucking would name drop them, don’t bring me into your fandom drama, I doubt I know or want to know who that anime guy is who looks like 12 other anime guys to me.

About Vespertine

You can call me that, Vespertine. I’d rather you didn’t go with Vesper, but as it is unfortunately so likely to happen, I won’t feed you to the dogs over it either. RPB Mun is also acceptable.

I’m alright with either she/her or he/him, they/them is also fine. Apparently, that was big enough clue-in for the poor reading comp crowd, so while I feel it is not of importance, I’m nonbinary, yes.

Late 30′s, chronically ill but still working adult with neurodivergence. I’m both busy and Busy, and always sick. This limits my brain power and ability to be here. I have an active RP blog that I won’t be sharing to keep responsible distance. That is always going to be my priority, it is my primary hobby.

Please, don’t tumblr message me totally random things if we don’t have that kind of relationship! I’m too ill and busy, and it really fucks my nerves to have a bunch of messages/have to suddenly interact socially with people. Don’t do it. Use my inbox, use the submit, comment on posts. I cannot do random messages of “hey” and so forth.

I only do written RP, don’t expect me to understand much of anything from tabletop. I’ve RPed for the last 23 years consistently, on every platform from AOL chats to forums to messengers and here. I also don’t do RP in discord, so I’m sorry, but I can’t advise you much on anything with a word count, except to stop it for serious RP. Other than that, I promise you that I’ve seen the trends, the drama, the fandoms. I can give a lot of advice and perspective on a wide range of topics, situations, and characters! When I don’t have a clue at all, I’ll try to do enough research to give you an answer.

Do I come off as a horrible, strict asshole? I do! I’m not going to say that I am just a shy bean who is more scared of you than you are me. I’m not. I’m honestly feral, but have common decency, compassion, and sense. All of which are lacking in the general RPC. So, if you can inbox/common/otherwise interact with anyone else on this site, you can totally handle me!

Honesty and openness are policies.

And in the spirit of that, I repeat; you can fucking do better, tumblr RPC!