#was dropped into discord at like 1am

[feralghxuls]

i would LOVE to hear more about jewel and em!!! (jewel is such a cute name for a ghoul aaaaa)

AAAH YAY i am excited to talk about them hehehe

i'll start with Em because jewel's backstory is a doozy

this is the picrew i made of Em!

i don't know much about Em yet, she's very cagey about her history, but she's an earth ghoul, very traditional butch, she is mates with Mist. she's pretty deadpan, no-bullshit type of attitude but she's very protective of the ghouls she likes.

she often does guard duty for ghouls in heat, particularly those who prefer to ride it out alone. she'll stand outside their door and fend off unapproved ghouls who come sniffing, make sure the ghoul in heat has plenty of food and water and supplies

she is a backstage ghoulie, typically in charge of uniforms but she's been known to fill in on drums or bass if needed during rehearsals and the occasional show

now for jewel!

i got carried away with her outfits so here's several versions of her picrew lol

jewel is very old. like really fucking old. all the ghouls are old if you count their time in hell, but she's been on earth since she was first summoned like a thousand years ago. i was going to try to sum up my notes on her but i was encouraged to simply drop the 1.5k words i have for her, so here skshfhsh

it's kind of disjointed at first but bear with me, it becomes more cohesive later. also featuring some element headcanons (quintessence specifically) and a light sprinkle of sister imperator hc. and me doing generous worldbuilding

besties wake up new ghoul oc just dropped

her name is jewel, she's an earth ghoul but she's been through the other elements (in order: air, fire, water, and now earth) & she's waiting to become a quinty soon (note: i think that quintessence ghouls are either born into the element like the rest, but they can also be made via element transformation rituals but only after they have been each of the other main elements first. doesn't really matter what order)

also she's trans. ghouls don't really give a shit about human gender ideas, but jewel is so enamored by humans and human customs that she just. decided to be trans. and i love that for her

(and also jewel and em used to have... Something. neither of them will give much more information than that

back when jewel was a fire ghoul apparently, so probably a long time ago, bc she was a water ghoul after fire and is currently earth and she tends to stay as one element for quite a while)

also just thinking about how quinties that have been made probably have tons of people they've forgotten about over the course of their element changes

waugh. i think there's definitely some important people jewel has lost memories of, she's very old and has been on the surface a long time

i think she may have even had a lifemate before, & she struggled a lot with memory loss after her first transformation and they tried to make it work but…

anyway that may be why she's a flirt but doesn't seem to be interested in engaging with anyone who seems more seriously interested

like i think she's aware she's lost someone very important but it gets hazy after that

like how when you Know you're forgetting something but you dont know what it is

and it's like. when you Know you have memory loss but you can't even remember what you don't remember

and you might be aware of some things you've forgotten, but then it's like well what about all the things you're not aware you've forgotten

[here is the Meat of the lore]

jewel's been around for a long long time, but unlike ancient (yes i know they picked the name quinn but whatever, i think calling them ancient is fun) who spends a couple decades or centuries topside but ultimately prefers it in hell with lucifer, whereas jewel was summoned once and stayed

after the very first church who summoned her crumbled, she realized she did not want to go back to the pit and bolted as soon as it became clear they were starting to clear out the ghouls. they might have tried to send them back, but it wasn't pretty and they decided it was more effort than it was worth so...the ones they caught, they killed. so yeah. jewel got the hell out of dodge.

she ended up just kinda wandering around earth for a while, until another (small, amateur) church of satan got the same bright idea to summon ghouls. she's topside but she still heard the call and made her way over to help out, which was good bc these guys had no idea what to expect with new summons and she was able to simmer down the chaos a bit before they mauled everyone for being idiots (most ghouls aren't exactly stable when first summoned, even with all of the precautions in place. so you can imagine the disaster that happens when a church that doesn't really know what they're doing tries a summoning)

needless to say that didn't last very long, and when this church realized they were in way over their heads (which took longer than you'd think after summoning literal demons), they had no idea how to send them back, but luckily they'd only summoned a few and they respected jewel enough to stick with her for a while.

they holed up away from humans for about a century or so before the call came again. it made the rest of the ghouls antsy and twitchy, and they refused to go with jewel when she wanted to check it out (she was now worried that it's another group of amateurs who are going to get themselves killed and release a bunch of fresh summons into the world)

jewel tried to stay with her pack for a while, but she just couldn't in good conscience not go see who was summoning, so she left & they became the first group of feral ghouls

(sidenote i think that there are certain rituals that are more likely to summon certain types of ghouls, and certain rituals that just get you a random ghoul, but ultimately it's one of those things where it's a bit of a grab bag of whichever ghouls may have been more inclined to respond, or, depending on the power behind the ritual, just yoinks a ghoul at random. and that even ghouls who are topside, if they're not already "claimed" they can sense the call too)

this is kind of her pattern throughout her life, with varying lengths of time depending on how successful a church is, and occasionally she'll drop off a ghoul with her original pack that is really struggling but really doesn't want to go back to the pit 

over time she starts to be able to distinguish between calls made by people who know what the hell they're doing and calls made by idiots. she tends to follow the call to the idiots and Be Terrifying in order to scare them off of doing this on their own again, but if she likes the church she's with at the time she'll collect them and bring them back with her to her church

...also eventually she figures out how to send ghouls home to the pit, and she will not hesitate to do so if they are dangerous topside & express that they want to go back. she'll be like, "you want to go home? done."

over time she develops this affection for humanity in the way that very old characters tend to, but also a deep sadness bc she watches the same patterns over and over (and also she keeps getting attached to humans…)

so by the time the church that starts ghost forms, she's been around for....probably a good thousand years. they summon. she comes. there's something different about this group, a darker kind of determination she doesnt see a lot. first of all, theyre not scared of her or the other ghouls they summon. (following the idea that seestor is Old As Fuck, way older than she should be, i think at this time she is just a sister of sin. but she's there. and so is mister saltarian)

but needless to say, jewel is intrigued, and she was between churches anyway, so she stays. this group is the most ruthless she's seen with dismissing ghouls & summoning more, except sometimes they don't even send them back to hell, they just kick them out (they give no shits about releasing ghouls into humanity, they kinda want to see what happens). by now jewel has set ghouls up to live as a feral pack dozens of times, and the first ghoul the ghost church just kicked to the curb, she took them back to one of the nearby (kind of. it wasn't really that close) feral packs, but when it became clear they were going to keep doing this, she started helping the ghouls who got kicked out get set up in the mountains nearby (a lot closer than the other pack, but definitely far enough away from civilization they wouldn't cause any trouble. probably. generally, ghouls that form feral packs like that want nothing to do with humans anyway, but they have no qualms about eating any who stray too close)

this church is fucking ferocious about snapping up any wayward humans and bringing them into the church, they don't shy away from rituals, and jewel is fascinated with their idea for spreading the good bad word. there's been satanic bands, that's nothing new, she's hung out with a few of them & picked up some instruments (she tells me she's good buds with candlemass sjdhdh)

but a church forming a band primarily of ghouls and whatever the hell nihil is, that is new. so of course jewel wants in, and she's their most valuable ghoul so they let her (the amount of times she stopped them from doing rituals that would've gotten them all killed or stopped fresh summons from going on rampages is not small, and they respect that)

and that brings us to current times

...also actually though. the current clergy were the first ones to figure out the element change ritual topside (usually this is done only in hell, it's dangerous topside if you don't do it right) and they were going to do it on some poor random ghoul until jewel stepped in and said they should do it to her instead. and that they really want her to look over their ritual first

which actually i think quinn (remember ancient ghoulie? yeah him) steps in too, gently reminding jewel she hasn't been home in a thousand years and she may be a little rusty. he, however, does this all the time in hell, and oversees the whole thing to make sure they don't fucking kill jewel on accident

which brings me to the point that quinn and jewel met when she was quite young, i think they knew each other in the pit but more in the way that you know of the Big Boss Man in the company you work for and he pretends like he remembers you when he visits the store

but anyway, he was fascinated by her dedication to helping the dumb little humans and makes a point to find her whenever hes on the surface, and they are pretty close these days. although she mostly finds him annoying and thinks he should be doing something besides using the humans as his personal entertainment whenever he's topside, but they have the kind of bond you can only have with someone you've known for a thousand years, so there's that

[inceptionwatchparty]

Inception Watch Party Survey 2023 is OUT!

It’s that time of year again!!! Get ready to gear up for Inceptiversary!

We want to know what you want to watch!!! Please use this survey to provide your opinion on watch party movie choices for Inceptiversary 2023, the fandom’s month-long celebration of Inception!

Your choices are not guaranteed, but they’ll be taken into account as the movie schedule is finalized. If you have any other films you’d like to watch that we’ve forgotten to include please mention within the survey in the “Other” field.

Survey closes Friday, June 16th, 11:59PM CST (Saturday, June 17th, 5:59AM BST/4:59AM GMT, Saturday, June 17th 2:59PM AEST).

For reference our last Inceptiversary watch parties occurred on Fridays at 9PM EDT (Saturdays at 1AM EDT), Saturdays at 4PM EDT (8PM GMT) and 8PM EDT (Sundays at 12AM GMT), and Sundays at 8pm EDT (Mondays at 12AM GMT), for six weekends over July & August. The movies were streamed through the Inception Discord server. 

Please see the FAQs for further info - any questions please do not hesitate to drop us an ask!

[patchworkgargoyle]

ooo i’d love to hear about Roll for Perception!!

Aw, this one!! It's my first foray into an outsider POV Steddie fic! It's a modern!no UD!AU from Dustin's POV, where Hellfire is playing a long-distance d&d session, inspired by this post. Steve and Eddie have gotten together, but haven't told the party yet. Dustin hears someone, and sees part of him in the background and proceeds to tease Eddie about it, not knowing who it is. There's a Reveal, of course, though I've yet to write that bit because this poor wip has been languishing in my googdocs for a few months now 😅

But here's how it starts!

Dustin made it a habit to wait in the Hellfire discord's voice channel earlier than anyone else. It was the only way Eddie would hear out his theories, complaints, and suggestions for the campaign after he'd gone on for an entire hour after a session and Eddie had to literally shout over him that it was now 1am, and he would like to go to sleep now please-and-thanks. And so, after apologies and much discussion, Dustin hopped on roughly an hour early and waited for his DM to join. Luckily it didn't actually bother Eddie. He claimed that he did actually like the feedback and used some of the suggestions, if rarely, and it ended up being a way for them to chat about life shit now that Eddie lived in Chicago but Dustin was stuck at Hawkins High for one last year.

So when the discord chimed to let him know someone had joined, Dustin didn't expect this.

"-gonna take a nap," said someone distinctly not Eddie, punctuated by a yawn.

"'Kay, enjoy your beauty sleep, sweetheart. I'll try to keep it down." Now that was Eddie, sounding more affectionate than Dustin had ever heard.

A sound like a snort, or maybe Eddie bumping his mic, was followed by, "Yeah, sure."

Silence stretched on for a minute and Dustin realised he'd been completely forgotten, and he absolutely would not let that stand. So.

"Did you seriously have your booty call over before D&D, Eddie?" he asked, distaste dripping from every word.

Something loud dropped on Eddie's end. "Jesus fuck–Henderson, give a man some warning next time.

[checkers-dance]

HELLO CHECKERS. IM SO FUCKING SORRY. IM HERE AGAIN JVJFNVFNVJV. listen. whenever anything tragic happens to me i feel like i need to report back to you, its a tradition to me. anyway, this actually happened a few days ago but i was so emotionally distraught and so embarrassed of myself that i was avoiding telling you about it but here i am. im sorry to you and your followers for making u read this shit but i was going through an arc.

SO ANYWAY. after the lucas apparition my dear friend rebo became suddenly obsessed with what happened. you need to understand she's relatively normie, like, she knows abt the weird shit i get up to but she knew nothing abt the enceeteeverse, i think she was deliberately ignoring it for her sanity. but the lucas apparition devastated her and i think as some sort of coping mechanism she tried to find meaning to our shared trauma. so she was wondering. why did lucas choose us. what do we have in common. for some fucking reason she got the idea to combine our discord colors and she got lilac. she then googled lilac enceetee (IM TRYING NOT TO SAY THE ACTUAL NAME BC MY ASKS TO YOU SHOW ON SEARCHES AND IF ANY NORMAL PERSON SEES THIS I WILL DIE) and apparently they released A SPECIAL VERSION OF STICKER THAT WAS LILAC???? so my friend was determined. she decided to listen to the WHOLE ALBUM. i joined her eventually. our thoughts on the music are irrelevant, but what you need to know is that at some point we started looking for clues on the lyrics and if something reminded of us a song we would jump to that song and try to find a meaning to it. we called it the nct arg. this went on for A WHILE. eventually noxia and our friend lynx and joined us and we were all just fucking around deciphering the clues.

we got so into it. and at some point we did actually find what you could call a message if you want to, except it was in all in our heads. its such a good example of the way the brain searches for pattern.

after a long search, our clues lead us to this video. i can still remember the way we were all screaming at like 1am... you need to understand that at this point i was so invested in our made up story that for one small second it didn't compute that this was a a prank. like my heart dropped to my stomach vnjfvfnvjvnjv OBVIOUSLY I IMMEDIATELY REALIZED WHAT WAS GOING ON BUT THATS HOW FAR GONE I WAS...

so the rest of the night was us trying to figure out who the fuck made the video. i was so tired at this point, so while everyone was arguing i was just looking up dumb shit on youtube. and i thought haha wouldnt it be funny if i looked up "lucas horror game." so i did. checkers.... i found a game called LUCAS THE BASEMENT. I THINK THIS IS WHAT BROKE ME. IDK WHAT HAPPENED BUT THAT GENUINELY MADE ME SO UPSET??? I FELT SO OVERSTIMULATED AND IRRATIONALLY ANGRY, ITS VERY FUNNY LOOKING BACK BUT THE HORRORS FELT SO REAL... i calmed down. sort of. and then i keep looking up dumb shit, as if i hadn't just learned what that gets me. i looked up "lucas the hedgehog" bc idk i thought it sounded funny. the first fucking result had the word STICKER in it. THIS MADE ME FEEL WORSE. I WAS SO GENUINELY UPSET NVFJNVJFVN

eventually it was revealed that it was both noxia and lynx fucking with us. i was so tired, i just left call and went to bed. but you need to understand the distress was so real to me i genuinely didnt sleep well that night. like i woke up and it felt like i didnt sleep at all. THIS IS GOING TOO FAR, IM TIRED.

anyway. do NOT listen to encee fucking tee, it ruined my life, i want to escape. i keep seeing patterns everywhere. its consuming me. i cant remember when this was but one day a mutual saw me having an enceetee breakdown and said "im starting to genuinely feel bad for you" NOOOOO JFVNJFVNNFV. im ok. im fine. lucas isn't real.

Oh ghskfkskfks I forgot abt the asks showing up in searches based on keywords, rip. Every time I get another ask like this I think the lore can't get any worse AND THEN IT DOES. I can't believe they pranked u, that's so funny but so 😭😭. Also someone should make a meme out of this w the dominoes falling and the first step is becoming obsessed w the lucas in the basement jokes and we still haven't reached the last step. Anyway thank u for keeping me updated on this, at least ur pain and confusion had a purpose (sending me funny unhinged asks abt encetee shenanigans)

[nanoyorks]

Welcome NaNoMail

Welcome, or welcome back, to NaNoWriMo in Yorkshire for another year of fruitful writing. The 25th year of NaNoWriMo and at least the 20th year of NaNoWriMo in Yorkshire. We’re so excited to be back and have you with us, whether you’re an old hand, new to NaNo, or just new to Yorkshire. 

We are really excited to have you with us, and hope that you can join us in some of our many events. In Yorkshire, we prioritise enjoyment over targets - you will not be shamed for not hitting the 50k, you are not in competition with anyone but yourself (unless you want to be, that’s up to you). This is a space for creativity, self-indulgent whimsy, and writing for the joy of it. All are welcome, even if your goal for the month is one sentence.

NaNoYorks Community

Once again, we are hanging out mostly on our Discord Server. Discord is a free voice and text chat platform designed for gamers but perfectly suited to our use. It can be accessed through the browser or through the apps for computers and phone.  We have designated channels for different channels and parts of the region, so you can get support from people who are writing similar things to you or organise events local to you, crafting, cooking and sports channels for procrastinating in, and the all-important pet photos.

We have plenty of writing channels going and members all across the region (and the world) so you’ll be in good company with us. If you have any trouble getting onto Discord, drop me (Lexy Needham) a NaNoMail and I’ll do what I can to help.

We also have a Tumblr for the first time this year. We’ll be using this to post inspirational memes, writing advice, reminders to back up your novel, and probably cat photos. Please note that we cannot guarantee the all-ages suitability of Tumblr posts, due to the nature of Tumblr.

Events

In very exciting news, we have got clearance this year from HQ to start again with in-person events. With Covid cases still lingering, we do advise you to proceed with caution and follow the guidelines for choosing a safe venue, but if you have an idea for a session at the library, your local coffee shop or a community centre, you’re more than welcome to submit them to the Events page and we’ll promote them within the region. We are also in the process of getting this year’s stickers to where they need to be, and have a stock of last year’s if you missed out.

Although we are venturing back into the wider world for members in the big cities, we’re going to be keeping up our online schedule alongside in-person events, and still have our open-doors policy. Anyone is welcome to come and join our online sessions, wherever they are in the world. All of our online events are listed on our Google Calendar and hosted on Zoom.

Lurking is entirely welcome and encouraged at our Zoom events. If you want to talk about writing and your project or show us your cat, you are more than welcome to do so, but if you really just want to sit with camera and mic off and hang out with us, that’s also fine. 

All of our Zoom sessions are all-ages events, and we would ask you to keep the language and themes appropriate. We may, however, relax these rules on a Friday night, if everyone present is over 18 and agrees to relaxing it, to allow people to discuss more mature themes from their writing if they wish to.

Upcoming Events

With November just around the corner, our events are coming thick and fast. This weekend we have our final Preptober event, which is the ‘Quick and Dirty Novel Planning’ session and a kick-off party to get to know each other. That’s 2-5pm on Zoom.

On Tuesday night we’re going to do our second kick-off party, for those who like to start writing at midnight. We’ll go from 11pm on the 31st to 1am on the 1st. Make a start on clearing up the leftover Halloween chocolate and your novel at the same time!

Then on Wednesday night we have the first of our regular mid-week write-ins. These are from 9-midnight every Wednesday and Friday throughout the month. We also have our Sunday afternoon sessions from 2-5pm.

And before you know it, it’ll be the weekend, and Double Up Donation Day. This is NaNoWriMo’s biggest fundraiser of the year, and there’s a lot of prizes up for grabs as well as the donor goodies (there’s an enamel pin badge available for Double Up Donation weekend only!) This year NaNoWriMo are fundraising towards a 3 year goal to build the organisation’s capacity and prepare for another 25 years of supporting this thriving and vibrant writing community.

Resources

If you’re panicking, stuck with your project, or just want to brush up on your prepping tools, we’ve got resources a-plenty. Along with all the helpful wrimos in the Discord, we also have our NaNoWriMo resources folder, which contains plenty of guides, templates and other useful documents that we’ve been gathering in our travels.

The resources folder also contains our Preptober slides, which covered tools and resources, character and location design, research, and our Quick and Dirty Novel Planning session. And the NaNoMails for the month will be going in there too.

On the NaNoWriMo site you’ll also find plenty of resources like Pep talks from years gone by, the sponsor offers, which, as always, includes 20% off Scrivener and their extended NaNoWriMo trial.

That’s all for now! Hopefully we’ll see you at one of the online write-ins through the month!

Lexy

[cursivebloodlines]

the way i've just dropped 2 answered memes that have been sitting for years and bouncing <3 a third on the way tomorrow because its after 1am and i need to be up at like,,,, 6.... oops.

ALSO i haven't forgotten messages!!! i've been so caught up writing that i've neglected everyone. i just got over excited about dishing up old stuff and being like hai frens. anyway!!! i'll reply properly to messages tomorrow! again if u want to talk i'm on discord as OopsieJadey#2183 bc i don't have tumblr on my phone! whenever i put the log in deets in it wants to create a new account???? like no???? i don't want that lmao. anyway! love u all goodnight xx

[sylvctica]

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

✿ NAME:   aid! what i’m most known as, shorthand for Asuraid which is just my online handle in most places.

✿ PRONOUNS:   she / her!

✿ PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION:   mmm, mostly thru tumblr IMs / post replies? obvs discord is the best, but because i’m so low spoons for social energy i am a lot more picky with adding people there. :[

✿ NAME OF MUSE(S):   sylvie and my gaymer boy oc! tho i’m not very active on him, i do still have access to his account.

✿ EXPERIENCE/HOW LONG (MONTHS / YEARS?):   uhh, overall i started roleplaying when i was around 12-13 on devART, moving onto tumblr circa 2013 ( so i was around uh ... 14ish? ). so i’ve been writing on here for almost a decade at this rate LMAO ...

✿ PLATFORMS YOU’VE USED:   skype, discord, tumblr, devART, iphone messages, msn for like one person ... never tried my hand at forums, or rather i did early on and dropped it because the format was odd for me w/multiple people going on at once.

✿ BEST EXPERIENCE:   honestly getting to meet the people i talk to now, esp @afacere since we’ve been at the hip for years now; a lot of Hideki has been influenced by her, and we’ve been each other’s friend support pillars for years. honestly, taking the plunge to bring sylvie to tumblr ( since i had been in a heavy hiatus at that point off hideki ) also counts here.

✿ RP PET PEEVES/DEALBREAKERS:   tiny fonts, tiny themes / docs / carrds ... thankfully it’s not terribly prevalent but sometimes i do come across some of them where you either can’t read the text well because it’s too small, or it’s too blended into the background / too contrasting, so it hurts to look at, or the background is misaligned to the text box because other resolutions werent taken into account and i wanna bite my own arm off because it’s like ... pls. this is what ppl see first and where your primary info is. thankfully, dash view mitigates it for themes, but it makes me take -10 hp of damage.

✿ FLUFF, ANGST OR SMUT:   mmm, i guess fluff? mostly just due to sylvie’s personality, i do tend to lean more into silly light-hearted stuff. angst i do enjoy but it’s harder for me to write just cause i’m slow and for angst i really need to do it in the moment of it happening to feel it. smut ... i dont write on here ueueueue. sylvie does fucc tho.

✿ PLOTS OR MEMES:   memes, mostly because over the years i feel like i’ve lost my brain for generating plots. not that im not up for it!!! im just ... very, very very slow and work off spontaneous stuff better ( and discussing stuff more in depth ooc ). i bounce better off an existing base rather than no base.

✿ LONG OR SHORT REPLIES:   mostly short since im often pretty tired, so dash commentary is pretty prevalent. that’s not to say im not open to long replies!!! i enjoy writing them, they just take a lot of spoons for me the longer they are ... though sometimes stuff unintentionally gets long because sylvie rambles.

✿ BEST TIME TO WRITE:   whenever my brain doesn’t feel like death ... it really is sporadic, though most of my writing time ends up being at night because that’s when it’s the quietest and i’m free ( ... almost, my parents are playing a loudass movie rn even at 1am ). otherwise i do just write when i feel the muse for it.

✿ ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S):   to a degree? it’s hard not to put aspects of yourself in an oc, even if subconsciously. sylvie is more-so what i aspire to be in confidence, but we do have some overlap ... especially in our humour. their unfiltered thoughts are my unfiltered thoughts, but i just have a filter to keep them in LMAOOO. we also deviate off topics very easily and ramble about things.

[elesssar]

was curious to find out when i first listened to bts. due to the magic power of spotify and google drive i can ascertain it was on some random monday in april 2017, after the weekend in which soph jess and i binge watched the fast and furious films and i added a song to a playlist of f&f-esque music that i definitely drove my shitty tin can car around hamilton listening to so. there you go.

[goldensunset]

1. i went to bed at 1am

2. couldn’t fall asleep so i checked my phone at 2am to see the new art that dropped

3. stayed up in hype until 3am

4. woke up at 7am and checked my phone to hear that the dark road ending and kh4 had been announced and that characters like brain and strelitzia had been spotted and that there was a new engine and a new sora, went back to bed

5. woke up again at 8:45 to see said images in the discord server

6. got to actually watch the video myself at about 11am to see and hear everything in context as well as learn about the other game that had been announced

7. commence endless hype

[lovemeleo]

Me without You (Part 2)

Alrighty y'all, it's finally here. Time for Part 2 of Me without You! Though they didn't know it, the discord server helped choose the ending for this one.

Nuny and the SW world belong to the lovely @lumosinlove.

If you haven't read it yet, here's Part 1 and you can read my entire Nuny series here on ao3.

***

It’s been three days since Zhenya left, and Jackson had never felt so lost. Normally at the end of a season, they’d take a breather for a couple days, just chill around the house. Sometimes they’d even go on a road trip. Jackson tended to get inside his head a bit so it was better to be out of the house.

He hadn’t gotten much sleep after his conversation with Zhenya the night before. There was around a 7 hour time difference so they tried to keep the conversations to decent times to not mess up sleep patterns too much, but Zhenya had plans with family the entire day, planning to slowly begin the process of coming out. Instead of his normal afternoon call time, Zhenya called him as soon as he got up which meant Jackson didn’t get to sleep until around 1am.

Waking up the following morning was a bit rough, his warm bed still calling his name as he dragged himself to the kitchen for coffee. Jackson didn’t want to stay in bed though. Zhenya wasn’t there, so what was the point?

He wasn’t the only one who was not taking Zhenya’s absence well. The cats were confused about their missing dad as well. Loki had climbed up on top of the fridge, waiting for Zhenya to take him down but he never came. Jackson had to get a chair so he could reach the giant cat and help him down. Pumpkin had taken to sleeping on the Russian man’s pillow, and Milo tended to look for him in the shower. Milo and Pumpkin were still sprawled on Zhenya’s side of the bed when he left but Loki trailed after him.

Jackson went to pull down his coffee mug, reaching for Zhenya’s as well before he realized it wasn’t needed. Damn.. maybe this was going to be harder than expected. Setting the Stormtrooper mug back in the cabinet, he filled the cats’ bowls as the coffee brewed. He was even more off-kilter than usual today, anxious for Zhenya who would be going through the difficult steps of coming out to his parents. Jackson remembers how nervous he was when he told his parents, but he was lucky. He had Zhenya next to him.

Maybe he should just fly to Russia.. Just to be safe. What if he needed him? No.. Zhenya said he had to do this by himself. This had been a frequent argument he had with himself since the moment he left the airport.

Today, he was getting out of the house. Smitty had called, asking him if he wanted to come out with him and his kids. He was taking the three to the zoo so Allison could get some rest, and asked if Jackson minded being an extra pair of hands. Eager to get out of the house and see the little munchkins he had very quickly come to love, Jackson said yes.

To be honest, he was pretty sure Zhenya had told Smitty to keep an eye on him.

After a quick shower, Jackson pulled on Zhenya’s hoodie from when he played for the Flames over one of his t-shirts. It was one of Zhenya’s favorite hoodies, worn and soft in all the right places. It was also Jackson’s favorite to steal. He loved that it was big on him and just felt like Zhenya was wrapped all around him.

As he pulled his shoes on, the doorbell went off. His eyebrows furrowed as he glanced up at the door. He wasn’t expecting anyone. When he opened the door, Brady was standing there.

“Hey, man. Thought I’d just pick you up since you’re on the way.” He said with a smile, pulling Jackson in for a hug.

Jackson couldn’t help but lean into the hug, the lack of human interaction obviously getting to him. “Sounds like a plan to me. Thanks.” He grabbed his wallet and keys after pulling away, making sure his phone was tucked into his pockets.

Brady led the way to his car, climbing in the driver's seat, “I appreciate you coming with me. Don’t know that I'd be able to handle all three of these hooligans by myself at the zoo.” He said, glancing back at his kids with a grin.

A chorus of “Uncle Nado!!” came from the backseat, Brady’s youngest cheering from her carseat in the middle. Olivia was born not long after the 2020 season, and was coming up on two years.

“Hello, tiny gremlins!” Jackson said with a laugh, pulling on his seatbelt as Brady started towards the Gryffindor Zoo.

The kids were already bouncing in their seats, rambling over each other as they talked about all the animals they were going to see. Max was excited for the aquarium while Noah just wanted to see the Lions, of course. Olivia’s favorites were the penguins.

“Allison told me they’re allowed one plushy per kid this time.” Brady said with a huff. Jackson couldn’t help but laugh at his friend. Last time they had gone to the zoo, their entire van was filled with plushies. Brady had tried to blame Jackson, and while he had bought them all one or two, Brady was the main culprit.

Getting everyone out of the car was an adventure all its own. They had to bring the double stroller because Olivia spent most of the time in there, as she still got tired easily and while Noah said he was going to walk the whole time like his big brother Max, he usually ended up climbing in the stroller once or twice. Little legs could only carry you so far.

The lions were right in the front when they got in, Noah running as fast as he could to the railing of the exhibit, “Dad, Uncle Nado, Look! They’re just like you!” He said, his face lighting up as he watched the lions prowling.

“Yeah, bud. That one even has long hair like Uncle Nado.” Brady said with a grin, pointing out the male lion with the full mane.

Jackson laughed, leaning on the railing next to them as he held Olivia’s hand, “You’re just mad ‘cause Allison won’t let you grow your hair out.” Brady shoved him, laughing as they carried on throughout the zoo.

They made their way into the aquarium, the kids running ahead a bit to see all the different fish with Jackson and Brady following at a more leisurely pace.

“So…” Brady said, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.

Jackson let out a huff, “Here it comes…”

Letting out a chuckle, Brady elbowed him in the ribs, “Hey, don’t be a shit. I just wanted to ask how you were doing. It’s been a long couple months for you with your leg, and then with Zhenya being gone.. Just wanted to check.”

“I’m alright.. Leg doesn’t really bother me, been keeping up with my exercises from PT. And Zhenya.. I miss him. It’s only been three days but fuck I miss him.” Jackson replied, tugging on the sleeves of his hoodie as he watched the kids.

Brady squeezed his shoulder, his eyes flickering between his kids and Nado, “That’s normal, Jax. I’d say it would be abnormal if you didn’t miss him.”

A shriek from Olivia had both their heads whipping in her direction, but it seemed to be one of delight. Her face lit up as a turtle swam past the window again. Both men let out a quiet sigh of relief.

“I know it’s normal. I just- I just wish I could be there for him, y’know? It was hard enough for me to come out to my folks, and I knew they would be supportive. He doesn’t have that luxury, that knowing.” Jackson said with a sigh, his hand absentmindedly checking that his phone was in his pocket.

Brady let out a soft sigh as he nodded, “It sucks, it really does but no matter what happens, he knows he has you. He’s got the team. We’re all here for him.”

Jackson could only nod, a shaky breath falling from his lips as they reached the end of the aquarium. Olivia ran back to him as quickly as her little legs would take her, automatically reaching up to him. “Up? Up please?” She said, puppy dog eyes in full effect.

As if he could say no to that face. Jackson quickly swooped her up, setting her on his hip as they carried on. After a couple hours of walking around, they stopped at one of the restaurants to grab something to eat.

“We still have to see Liv’s penguins, Dad.” Noah pointed out as he ate a couple of his french fries, a map of the zoo in between himself and Max.

Brady was already nodding as he wiped up Olivia’s face, sauce from her pizza smeared across her chubby cheeks, “We’re not gonna miss the penguins.” Jackson couldn’t help the fond smile as he watched his friend with his kids. He always enjoyed watching their family dynamic, and just being with them. Normally Zhenya would be there too, throwing the boys over his shoulders and running around with them or letting Olivia play with his hair.

Damn, Jackson missed him.

And then, as if he knew Jackson’s phone went off with Zhenya’s ringtone. It was the Imperial March from Star Wars, and it had been his ringtone for as long as Jackson could remember. Brady shooed him off as soon as he heard the ringtone, reassuring Jackson that he could handle his own kids for a little bit.

Stepping out of the restaurant, Jackson quickly answered the phone, a smile spreading on his face, “Hey baby, I was just thinkin-”

His smile dropped as he was cut off by a sob from the other end of the line.

“Zhenya? Babe? What’s wrong? You gotta talk to me, baby, you’re scaring me.” Jackson pleaded, his heart feeling as though it was shattering at the sound of his boyfriend falling apart.

His breathing was ragged as Zhenya let out another sob before he finally was able to get it out: “T-They kick me out. M-My Mama and Papa, they kick me out.”

continue reading

[mi6-cafe]

Once Upon a September...

...in a quiet little cafe, the patrons were sitting quietly, reading fanfics from this year's past Fest. Some tried to write, some tried to draw, but the Fest drop is real and everyone felt very mellow. Then, from the back kitchen came three witches shouting good news to all: It's fairytale month!!

That's right, this is your month to retell those classic tales you grew up on with a MI6 twist. Will little Cinderella Bond get to go to the ball? Is the fearsome Baba Q really so frightening? And just what will Eve find when she climbs up the beanstalk that suddenly grew in the MI6 garden?

We welcome all kinds of fairytale inspired creations, and if you're overwhelmed by all the choices, we've created a prompt table for you to mix and match and get yourself started. You can also check out here for a list of tons of fairytales, and check out this blog post for tips to get started writing your own fairytale. As always, tag your creations with #MI6CafeChallenge for us to find and reblog.

See wordpress for a plain text version

The Saturday Cafe: September 11th and 25th

Come join us in the fandom Slack as we write, draw, sprint, plot, brainstorm, cheerlead, and generally have a good time trying to get things done together. If you’d like an invite to the Slack, go ahead and message @castillon02 or @christinefromsherwood or @spiritofcamelot!

The Eastern Hemisphere Readalong, September 5th and 19th at 9am GMT

Come one, come all to our readalongs, which will be hosted by @christinefromsherwood and @soufflegirl91 on Discord in the #readalong voice and text channels!

We’ll be reading any and all the fics you bring to us. The only condition is that they have to be shorter than 2.5k and at least one of the people present has to be able to read them without blushing.

And also: everyone awake, half-awake or insomniac is welcome.

The Western Hemisphere Readalong, starting again September 11th at 9PM EDT/6PM PDT/1AM UTC

Slightly different from the Eastern Hemisphere one, we’ve picked a longer fic to read a couple chapters of each week. We'll be picking up with chapter 10 of Moments by Duochanfan. Catch up before then and join us!

Weekly events:

WIP Wednesday: You can post an excerpt of your WIP on our post or make your own post and mention the @mi6-cafe. Either way it’s a fun way to show people what you’re working on, Bond fandom or otherwise.

Supportive Sunday: Our rec post day! If you’ve enjoyed a fancreation that you’d love to share, reply to our Supportive Sunday post with a link and why you love it! Or create your own post and mention the @mi6-cafe .

Weekly Bond Movies: Join Womble on discord on Sundays to watch one of the Bond movies. See the watch party calendar for details.

Want to host your own event in the Discord or elsewhere? Let us know about it so we can add it to the calendars!

Calendars

Watch Party Calendar MI6 Cafe Calendar   If you need help adding these calendars to your personal one, check out this post.

[sewingbear]

The first stitches 

I’m about to go on a rant about dai and this piece. It’s long as heck so it’s going under a read more. Long story short I bought dragon age inquisition, love it, and here’s my character card. I’ll probably make two more cards.

Hi hello howdy, I am 6 years late but here I am. My girlfriend streamed DAI during a group discord hang out and I was like “This game looks fun 👀”. Then I bought it at 1am highly questioning my late night purchase. I’m gonna be honestly my other friend in the chat was making it sound like a really bad game, so I was going in with the lowest expectations I could possible have. I was thinking I was gonna hate the game and regret spending money on it but h o l y f u c k i n g s h i t!!! I LOVE THIS GAME. I probably should have played the other two games before but it’s fine. 

Anyways it’s been like 2 months now and I’ve played the game all the way through and I’m already on my second play though. I’m almost done with the second play though and I’m already thinking about what I wanna do for my third play though. I am hyper fixating on this game soo fucking much. Of course I’m gonna draw stuff for it. I already drew my first dwarf character (Well a concept) and made a dai theme card for some other ocs i have. I’ve been wanting to make my own card for my character for a while now but I just could not for the life of me figure out out I wanted it. I honestly wanted my character to be holding halla fawn in her arms but I just couldn’t draw it to save the life of me. I also wanted halla running in it and it took me forever to get a good placement. 

I’ll probably get around to drawing fanart but I’m gonna put that on the back burner for the moment. 

So, I put a heck ton of symbols on this and I know most people aren’t gonna notice them so I’m just gonna state what they are here. 

-The sewing project my character has in her hands is suppose mean the start of the inquisition. The thread turning green is the anchor. The needle is also being held in the left hand which you know has the anchor in it. Also I just like sewing. It’s one of my main hobbies. If I was an npc I feel like it would be one of the factoids you’d learn about me. 

-The tree on the right is supposed represent the chantry. A dying order in need of change. The leaves on the ground represent those who die in the conclave and the single leaf is those who remain. The tree can change and adapt (like in autumn) or die due to the sudden temperature change (The mage rebellion/the over all change in politics)

-The shadow of tree is suppose to represent how the chantry looms over the main character. How they’re gonna drop a bunch of responsible on you for being the herald. It also just looked cool af so I did it.

-The background has a lot going on and it’s on purpose I swear. I really like the halla’s design and I enjoyed the golden halla’s fetch quest so I thought I’d make a nod to it. 

-I felt like I didn’t really draw my character super dwarf-ish or at least you can’t tell since they’re not next to someone. So I was thinking the top part of the background are suppose to be the surface and the middle/dark area is the stone/under ground. I try to put some straight line dwarf like motif in there to be like roots. Always there, never fully gone, even on the surface. 

Not a symbol but thought I mention it but like I’m not a big fan of the dwarf smuggler backstory but I understand it because it’s probably the best way be at the conclave. Anyways I picture my character living a more simple life and is just really good at archer. I want my character to look cute and god damn it I’m gonna make her look cute. Unlike the game giving me such uncute clothes options. I will also have long hair just try and fucking stop me >:/

I’m gonna make two more cards. I wanna make one that’s like my champion card and the other is a romance card. I like to think this is the card I get at the start like the other party members get. 

Anyways thanks for reading this if you did akjhawrjhkfadjkhqas 

[general-light]

HELLO! I’m Kade, but please call me Light or General. This is my MCYT sideblog (my main is @zacixn) !

My pronouns are they/he, I’m transmasc, and I am 20 years old. It's a new era - I'm radionwave on Discord.

I used to make analyses on the Dream SMP, centering around Wilbur’s arc, and his relationship with his allies. I also authored c!Wilbur’s DSMP wiki page. NOW, in 2023 onwards, I drop by trafficblr to post art for the Life series.

I also used to write (my AO3s are KadeAK (zacixn) and alivebursoot), but I don't do it anymore.

Under the Cut: General rules for the blog, personal tags, and DNI preferences.

-- General Rules 🍁 (Updated for 2023)

> This blog is SFW, completely - please don't send me anything weird.

> I do not do discourse. If I think your ask is trying to spark an argument, I will not answer it.

> I’m doing this for fun! Ultimately, I post for myself, and myself only. I really don’t mind much, I am relatively okay with most things, but keep in mind that I am not a Machine, and I do have feelings LOL.

> I don't like Dr/eam. I don't want to talk about Dr/eam.

-- Personal Tags 🍁

#art tag 2023 - For any art posted in my "nouveau" era.

#i ramble - Extended analyses or opinion posts about character arcs and general Dream SMP topics. (Archived)

#i chronicle my edits - Used whenever I decide an edit I’ve made to Wilbur’s character wiki is worth a Tumblr post... for whatever reason. (Archived)

#thanks for the ask! - General ask tag, used on all ask content.

#queued ask - Used when I post an ask via queue. I do this when I’m up early (before 3pm GMT) or when I have a lot of asks I feel like writing at once.

#mutual ask ✨ - Self explanatory, an ask sent by one of my mutuals.

#no main tags: not a canon post - Used on asks that don’t necessarily reflect canon content, and therefore don’t need to go in main Tumblr tags. (Archived)

#no main tags: not going to flood them! - Used when I am fearful of flooding main Tumblr tags, even if the content is actually canon-related. (Archived)

#wow i am posting early in the day - Not a content tag. I use this when I post before 4pm GMT. (Archived)

#wow i am posting late in the day - Not a content tag. I use this when I post after 1am GMT. (Archived)

-- DNI Preferences 🍁

> Basic DNI rules apply - if you’re a homophobe, transphobe, islamophobe, racist, alt-right, MAP/pedo, ableist, or any form of bigot, you can leave.

> Exclusionists, transmeds, etc. are unwelcome here.

> I’d prefer if NSFW and discourse blogs do not interact at all.

> Philza Minecraft /j

[actor-mark]

Red Candles Pt 3

Open The Door

Holding your breath, and taking one last glance down the hall to possible safety, you steel your nerves and slowly push the door open.  Thankfully it doesn’t creak but it feels like it just might if you aren’t careful enough and you take the extra precaution, ever so slowly pushing the door open to peek inside.  Within?  Not so harmless after all. It’s just Mark! 

He’s in a disheveled mess of his grey suit, jacket off and slung over a chair, sleeves rolled up and tie loose with the collar button open. Hair a wavy mess and strangled into some sort of ponytail at the back that’s honestly useless for the rest left loose in glorious dark mane.  Papers scattered all over the ground, his desk, the wall, with red strings going everywhere like some sort of mad theorist.  The light of the room coming from the laptop left on a side table currently displaying a word document full of frantic bullet points. Casting the room in soft blueish light. 

Mark was currently holding three different pieces of paper, a pen in his mouth, another behind his ear, and another in his hand, almost likely he’d maybe forgotten where he put that pen, grabbed another and then rather than lose focus by dropping the one in his mouth, grabbed another one. Or maybe he just really sucked at finding where that pen went.  After opening the door just a touch further, perhaps Mark’s time in this place had made him aware to slight movements, maybe it was bad timing as he’d turned around at the same time and lifted his head up from the pages to look at the door and make eye contact, but he sort of froze for a moment.  One might have expected the color to drain, or for him to be startled but he just sort of stood staring for a moment, as if trying to figure if you were real or some figment of the house. Then his eyebrows went up. “HEY!” there went that pen. “What’re you doin’ here? It’s like 1am!” He looked to his watch “3am! - wait really? Oh shit” He quickly scurried to the laptop, bringing up discord and checked a few messages before setting it to its desktop screen.  “Sorry uh- HEEEY! How ya doin? Everything ok? You should have called! Er-. did you call?” He fished the phone out of his left pocket.  “If you did I didnt get any- ah. everything ok? It’s pretty late! Ah- I mean, not that you aren’t welcome to stay or anything! Just kinda odd- er.. Can I getcha a tea or something? Hot chocolate? Coffee?”  Mark haphazardly started rounding up the stray papers, shuffling them together into a pile and setting them on the desk nearby.  “Or- Wait... did you come here for that thing? I bet it was that right?... or-..?” 

Your Choices are as follows: 

Point to the papers  Ask Mark about his work and what he was up to. There’s a lot of papers everywhere, a lot more crumbled in the waste bin. 

Nod in agreement Why yes you are here for that “thing” and a drink sounds great actually! Nothing wrong with hanging out.

OOC: A not so unanimous vote this time but still fun to see!  thank you everyone for voting!  We’ve met our trusted partner in crime, lets see how far down this rabbit hole goes eh?

[tsurangaconundrum]

Dude i love the internet sometimss i go to someones blog and theyre like “sideblog is at x” and im like !!!???! DUDE???? Sometimes i think i know three people but they turn out to all be the same person on different accounts and it makes me love them more. Theres someone, like longtime friend, on my discord server who im not entirely sure is actually a separate person or another account for the same person but like. Ive known these people for like 3 years now so i cant really ask??

I feel like ive said this before but worst thing in the world is not knowing if something you do or experience is normal -

My sisters dog is growling at nothing right now but she was kinda asleep and now shes up and wagging her tail so probably im not about to get nerfed by a ghost. If i dont send this ask you’ll know ig.

- anyway so then youre googling hospital robots at two in the morning and for some reason the internet doesn’t know what you mean by that. Idk the human experience is so varied and seriously what how are there so many ways to do things the world is so crazy. I wanna live in the same house with someone i share no language with and see how that would work out. I think im pretty good at nonverbal communication and also it would be rad af to halfway not know whats going on half the time but it would be in a fun way this time. My neighbor, when i was bad at chinese or having trouble learning or whatever offered to drop me off on the streets of beijing and pick me up three days later, he said by then id know the language. At the time that scared me, and i dont know how good of an idea that specifically is but idk id do it. Its just so wild how many things there are yknow??

Honestly i feel like i had other funnier things to say but i cant remember any of them so instead how about you tell me how youre doing? How was your new year and being back at school and whatnot? Seen any cool critters?

omg hi dba! answer for this and the rest of ur asks under the cut!!!

i think u can ask. i dont think its that rude. its a wide internet out there. im really careful abt keeping track of sideblogs and im super weird abt like who i follow i have neuroses abt it and stuff but so anyway i do keep exact track of who is who. if i interact via a sideblog i constantly keep track.

as for the varied and wild human experience yes so much. i dont think its a good idea to do that but my dad said when he lived in south america for a little while as a kid he picked up spanish really quick so it's true. i love thinking about the complex inner lives of everyone around me. andrew garfield voice i think you could fall in love with anyone if you knew their story.

my new year was very boring lol i literally watched doctor who on da couch but it was good. as for critters i was getting high a while back (sorry kids. dont do drugs etc) and a deer literally came out of the woods and walked right by me. like it was not 5 feet from me i could have reached out and touched it. it was sososo cool.

okay so when u sent this i was actually blogging while on a discord call with tumblr user transfagshit / carriecoded and so we were a little incomprehensible on the dash. our blogs should be viewed together in tandem from that night in order to piece together any jokes

analyzing supernatural actually has nothing to do with being smart and everything to do with bullshitting. all analysis is going hey you know what would be funny. if i said this. i have a post somewhere that keeps being tagged as like meta and or whatever and i genuinely have no idea what i was saying. i typed it frantically at 1am. so clearly its at least a little bit bullshitting. its not exhausting at all because were all doing it as a bit. writing supernatural posts fills the hole in my heart that having not taken an english class in 2.5 years left. its a hobby.

fsdakjsfdlkjf thanks bro. it'll be okay. someone died recently. which hasnt been fun. but i'm okay. or i will be or whatever. life goes on etc. i'll be fine! nevertheless he blogged etc

the only thing with the omega variant is it is the last greek letter, which means we would have to do the million other variants first. which would suck. but god if we got there we would NEED the laugh. we earned the laugh. for getting through that. also dont apologize i love receiving ur asks!!! bussin. i feel like that word had a real cultural moment 5 months ago and i havent seen it since thank u for reminding me. i hope youre also having a lovely time wherever you are

[zombiesun]

also, and you can ignore this if you want cause i have no self-restraint, but ur post about always confessing first reminded me of how my boyfriend and i got together lol. he was blackout after a close family member's funeral and called me at midnight/1am, and told me that he wouldn't mind if i wanted to be more than friends with him, and like a dumbass i thought that this was a purely platonic thing to say?? and then a few weeks later i was dropping him off at home (after what would have almost certainly been a date if i was smarter) and he told me he wouldn't mind dating me again, and i was like 'oh yeah haha but like we're just friends lol'. and then a few Months later we were watching derry girls together over discord, and i don't remember how it came up but he offhandedly mentioned wanting to kiss me, and it (finally) clicked for me lmao. anyway, all this was to say that i completely get needing to confess at the right time, even if you know that your feelings are mutual

this literally is the sweetest thing in the world.................there is nothing I enjoy more then the incredibly straightforward person confessing to someone who is like "haha, that's cool - " thank you for sharing this with me....it reminds me of my last partner who when I said "bro, we should just talk about how we're into each other" and they looked at me flushed and was like "as bros.....?" and then I kissed them