#HOW AM I A WRITER AND NOT A READER

[manuinout]

Me feeling overwhelmed with anxious thoughts these past few days, and upon deciding to read one of y'all's fics, I can't decide which one I'd want to read because my gremlin WON'T STOP OVERTHINKING:

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I'm back in the Tigers cage again.

(You too can join in on throwing a Rat Of A Man into a Tiger cage by reading Tiger Tiger)

[aceofhearts25]

I Want Them. 🤖

@tinydefector, @cyberrose2001, @botmilf, @revelboo, @desertrosesmetaldune SAVE ME! They’re taking over my fucking mind! I think I might’ve cooked- 😭

It took me way longer than it should’ve to draw Transformers One stuff- I feel late to the show- 😭 Welp, late than never. 🤷

Hope Tumblr doesn’t fuck up the quality. 🙄

[alwaysbethewest]

I'm gonna say something that 90% of you will hate but it's what's on my heart—now that we've seen Pedro and Vanessa speak in every interview about how this couple is so passionately in love and dedicated to each other and have been married for decades—I wish we could let this be the ONE Pedro character whose fanfic isn't completely overwhelmed by x reader fic instead of even consiiiidering respecting and exploring his canon relationship 😔

[hychlorions]

am i crazy to say this because i feel like this isn't an opinion held by other fic readers. but i don't think you're entitled to any author's work to make demands like this even if every single hit on a work is from you. i mean. if anyone ever comes to the decision that they don't want fics up on ao3 anymore it's probably a personal thing for them. and also the fact that there's replies to this talking about a subreddit apparently dedicated to saving deleted works to post on the internet anyway... just download fics you like omg. is it so hard to respect that someone doesn't want their fic to be published online anymore like they do it for free and the least we can do is like. respect what they want to do with their work????

[felixschokehold]

My biggest ick about a lot of typical fantasy readers are the ones who complain about the "fake names that are pronounced wrong" and then it's just a list of Celtic names that have always fucking existed

They're not "wrong" babe you're just a fucking idiot

[s0fter-sin]

i don’t know how many times i need to say it, tag your reader and self insert fics and imagines as reader and self insert

[bedlamsbard]

talking about SteveNat is always a bizarre experience because I probably cannot be clearer about the fact that I ship them and want them to kiss on the mouth and yet whenever a post moves out of my orbit it immediately morphs into "yeah they're such good friends, I love a brotp."

[amee-racle-ofmyown]

I've been unable to work on my longer WIPs for some reason but take this. for lack of a better title:

idiots locked in the world's most romantically charged staring contest

Heist Mark x Y/N (reader) | 628 words

You wait just around the corner, quiet and out of sight, and lightly smack Mark's arm with the back of your hand when he tries to peer around you, lest someone see and you have both your covers blown.

Your partner rolls his eyes exaggeratedly and you level him with a stare.

You understand the anticipation, but patience is crucial for jobs like this. You wait for the signal. One wrong move could cost you a lot more than just your loot.

The little nook of the building you're waiting in is, rather conveniently for means of slinking around unnoticed, out of the way, and quite narrow. Even with Mark leaning back against the opposite wall, you are mere inches apart.

He checks his watch. 'Should be any minute now,' he utters in a hushed voice.

You nod. Several seconds pass. Distant chatter echoes down the halls, muffled into a steady background ambience of rich party attendees blissfully unaware of the thieves in their midst.

You look at your partner, simply because you have nothing else to do. He's craning his neck again in a futile attempt to peek around the corner more subtly.

His suit for the night is crisp, and gives his silhouette a sharper outline than the more typical cosy sweaters and soft flannel shirts. His hair looks especially dark cast in shadow, but there's enough light from outside the enclosed space that you see it reflected in his eyes. Softly glowing white and orange and magenta specs, floating on deep brown. Pretty.

It's as he turns his head back to face you, that he notices you staring, and meets your gaze without missing a beat.

Mark smiles, faintly roguish, but gentle and just for you.

He holds your stare, and something to the way he does so makes you wonder if he sees the same lights sparkling in your own eyes, and if he finds the sight as oddly captivating as you do.

A minute passes.

Mark loosens his tie.

It's a simple, small thing, but it stirs something inside of you, and you don't know why, but your breath hitches a little and your eyes widen slightly and he definitely notices. But he doesn't say anything and neither do you. All he does is keep looking intensely into your eyes until he doesn't because his gaze is flickering elsewhere — trailing across your features, settling on your mouth for longer than can be dismissed and when you bite your lip subconsciously it's as if he's mesmerised. You can hardly recall where you are or what you're doing here, none of it matters as much as his head tilting ever so slightly and then—

A voice through your earpiece jolts you out of your stupor. You suddenly take stock of the warmth from Mark's breath on your face. Your noses almost bumping. When did he get so close?

You press a button on your earpiece to answer the call, and by the look on your partner's face, he hears it too. It's Wubba and Bubba, giving the signal as agreed, and the moment is gone and your friend clears his throat and straightens up, as a confusing mixture of disappointment and frustration and lingering excitement flutter and twist in your gut.

When he moves out of your immediate space, the inches feel like miles.

You push the feelings down. You have work to do.

Mark mumbles something over the voice channel before turning back to you once again.

'You ready, buddy?'

The corner of your mouth quirks up, matching his own eager grin.

'You know I am.'

His grin widens.

'Good,' he says, adjusting his sleeve and finally getting a better look around the corner, now that the coast is decidedly clear. 'Alright, partner. Showtime.'

[good-wine-and-cheese]

I so incredibly do not understand 'x reader' content at all on a fundamental level

[serenit-teas]

This is the product of too much brainrot and an almost concerning level of needing to ramble.

Major spoilers for Lies of P under the cut!!

Okay but just imagine, someway somehow being young friends with Carlo, sweet and darling childhood friends. Being his partner in crime, an unwilling (so you say) accomplice to any mischievous schemes he's cooked up. Racing about the streets of Krat, dodging this way and that, weaving through the alleyways and corners with a second natured ease due to each and every prior antic you two have had.

I imagine that only after narrowly dodging the poor soul who gave chase to you both has finally given up, does Carlo turn to you, a cheeky but rosy grin thrown your way. You can only huff and turn your head, complaining at once again being dragged into another one of his hair brained plots. 'This is the final straw', you think to yourself, 'no more of these chases'. Always the voice of reason you called yourself, the only one who cares enough to keep the two of you out of scuffles and minimizing consequences. The other half of your duo would simply angle his brows, matched with a boyish smile, brown eyes warm, a teasing call of, 'Worry wart', aimed your way.

You'd stay firm in your silence.

Seconds of the silent treatment turns to minutes, and you truly could have lasted longer, but the floor is uncomfortable and your legs are going numb, and it certainly doesn't help that Carlo keeps shuffling around in the already cramped space. You know what he's doing, trying to goad you into breaking your 'punishment' and demanding he knock it off. It takes all you have not to heave a sigh. It truly makes you wonder how you've both become such good friends.

Finally having enough of your hiding spot and the scuffing of Carlo's shoes, you turn your head, relenting. And he's close. Far to close. Clearly he's never once heard of personal space, face in your personal bubble. A startled yelp is ripped from your lips and you scramble back, knocking your back into the wall.

He doesn't have the decency to even attempt to hide his snort of laughter. 

A menace to the core, mischievous Carlo.

You want to be peeved, annoyed at his inability to take anything seriously. But you see the joy in his smile and hear the way his laugh rings loud and true, gaze fond and sweet directed your way and soon enough you're laughing as well, giggling and smiling. Stomach aching, 'It hurts' , echoing somewhere in your head. It doesn't matter though, not when your head feels light and your cheeks warm. Tears welling at the corners of your eyes as you gasp for breath.

It's a simple and sweet bond, crafted out of trust and comfort, familiarity and warmth.

-

The news of his death rattles something terrible in you. A hollow, numbing feeling pools, spreading like tar, thick and heavy in your body. Fog building in your head, an anchor on your tongue. He's died, and with that has taken something of yours with him. They call it 'mourning', you've learned, something people do when a great loss is suffered. Meant to process grief and what was taken far too early. To cope, live on despite. 

Whispers of sympathy and prayers permeate the streets, details of the accident are few and talk of honoring his life are fewer. Carlo and his fate hang over the city of Krat.

Haunts you. 

Far too young are you to feel such a cruel twist of fate, the unsettling truth of what happens to everyone and everything. Something changes, curdles in your chest when made way to grieve. He's left you behind with the knowledge of the irrefutable.

Hours turn to days which bleed into weeks, and soon tragedy is washed away with the  rainstorms that berate the city. Between the haze in your mind and the bustling murmur of the crowded streets, it's a miracle that you hear the call of your name.

He approaches you in the streets little more than a month after the news broke out, a light spring in his step. For a corpse, he seems plenty lively. Bright grin plain as day on his face, freckled cheeks scrunching with that familiar mischief swimming in his blue eyes. 

But Carlo is gone. Cold and dead, mourned and missed, and you don't know who this is. You look a little harder, gaze sharper.

Blue. Wrong. Fake. 

Get away.

You reel back with your heart thumping wild, ignoring the confusion that shows on his face, tears forming with a barbed response on the tip of your tongue and an awful ringing buzzes in your ears. What a sick joke. 

Eyes still glued to the stranger, you step back. Slow at first, timid and careful, all before bolting away, ears picking up on the squawk of surprise sounding behind you.

You don't know where you're going. There's no plan in escape, you just have to get away from whatever that was. You barely have it in you to call out apologies for the people you nearly bump into. Your legs carry you between tall buildings and hidden corners of the streets, ducking and weaving, narrowly avoiding clipping your shoulder on the hard stone and splintering wood. Before you know it, you recognize the similar darkened streets that you had used in your own escapes with Carlo so many times before.

This part of the city was always dim, secluded and safe, street lights had not yet been installed around these areas, much to the frustration of those who lived in these parts. It never took long for a blanket of darkness to fall over the buildings and homes when the sun began it's descent and shadows would set just right.

Heartbeat drumming in your ears and chest aching, you reach blindly, feeling for a wall to lean your weight on. Panting, hunched over and gulping air down like a fish desperate for water. Head numb and mind humming with exhaustion.

'What was that? Some elaborate scheme? A prank?'

Any further thoughts are halted when you notice the pounding of footsteps behind you. Calculated and heavy, he, it, knows where you are. Probably followed you the whole time.

It's close, and with dread making it's home in your veins do you realize that you've nowhere left to go, you've lead yourself to a complete dead end. That fake will round the corner any minute and you'll be a sitting duck.

The sound of footfalls slows the closer it gets, you'd almost call it hesitant if you weren't scared out of your wits. Steps echo between the corridor walls, that awful, full body shake inducing panic shoots through you once more, an ice cold fear nestling deep in your bones.

'Leave me alone. He's gone. Please stop.' Stress plucks at your fears like an instrument, each strum yanks at your heart, leaves you anxious and paralyzed.

Had your heart not been hammering in your chest and pulse thrumming in your fingertips, you'd probably feel much more self conscious about the whimper that leaves your lips, weak and pitiful. Loud. Palms fly to your mouth, your hands clamping tight with a sting. Eyes screwing shut in fear.

The steps halt altogether, the only sounds you can register is the beat of your heart and the shallow, rapid breaths leaving your lips. It's cramped and cold where you are, jagged stone digging into your back.

A few feet away you hear a breath catch in someone's throat, and like earlier, a call of your name, only this time it's said with as much tenderness as a lullaby. Gentle. Soothing. Your eyes twitch just for a moment. It's unfair, using Carlo's voice like that. You know if you look there will be no going back, no denying what's happening. 

You hear the call of your name ring out one more time, small and fragile, and you open your eyes. 

There he stands, confusion clear on his face, brows loosely raised and lips set into a small frown. Taking your subtle acknowledgment as encouragement it looks as if he intends to close the distance between you, though the hope is quickly dashed when he sees you scramble at his advance, pushing yourself as far as you can go into the corner furthest away from him. You remind him of a wounded animal, an uncomfortable feeling clambers in his chest at the thought and his frown deepens.

A different approach is what he goes for this time, slowly, at a snail's pace, does he reach his arm out. Even in your manic state you still manage to toss an incredulous look his way, taking every bit of his common sense and resolve to not laugh at the expression. He'll gladly take whatever he can get, he'd do anything to prevent that fearful gleam in your eyes, squash any chance of being the cause of it himself.

You both stay in this standstill for what feels to be an eternity, eyes locked and unwavering, waiting to see who will crack first. A genuine gasp leaves his lips when he sees you reach out, shaking fingertips lightly brushing against his own. This is your call, he will follow your lead in this dance. 

Finally, you stand to your full height and at a much slower pace does he do the same, and then you're back to staring at him, eyes flicking about his person this way and that, analysing everything. Normally he'd say you're overreacting, call you a 'worrier ' and be done with it, but he knows better. You've changed, something has happened to you in his month's absence and he doesn't like it one bit, you stare at him like he's a stranger, ran as if he'd flashed a weapon from underneath his sleeve.

So wrapped up in his own thoughts, he barely catches what you've said to him, mind struggling to put the puzzle pieces together. Ever the merciful out of your duo, you repeat yourself,

"What are you?".

'Huh.'

-

(Basically!!!! What if Carlo still perished, and P was still built to replace him, and Geppetto, in a frantic and guilt ridden haze builds a new son at an astounding speed, and with using such a, uh, 'fresh' Ergo leads to P 'waking up' nearly instantaneously. So rather than being a puppet becoming human, P is a 'human' coming to terms with what he actually is.

This is all over the place, but I imagine Geppetto would keep P's interactions with others to a definitive minimum, if P ever asked about it Geppetto would chalk it all up to his son being weakened so severely by his accident that he would need near constant supervision to maintain his health. Tells P that Ergo is what is keeping him alive, it's why his eyes are now blue and how he can wield the weighty legion arm with such ease.

Only a trusted few are allowed to know of his existence. I mean? The entire city mourned his son, he can't exactly have an almost carbon copy strolling about the streets. Reader is probs not at the top of Geppetto's 'can tell list' lol. I'm fully leaning into the idea that Carlo/P snuck out and went absolutely wild looking their bud lmao. Poor fella doesn't know that visiting reader is gonna come with a side of confusion and an unwanted existential crisis/soul searching😔

And final thing! I have not finished Lies of P, nor have I even reached a single ending (but I'm making progress every day! <:) ), so I apologize if any details are choppy, confusing, or don't align with what is canon! I don't know how Carlo died, and I do not wish to be spoiled, this was just a fun sort of AU(?) thought that just kept snowballing ^^; Thank you everyone for your time, I sincerely hope this wasn't too much of a mess, and that it was at least an entertaining read! <:) )

[reading-archived]

woe. AM x reader be upon ye.

uh, to preface: reader is completely body, gender, etc. neutral except they can't stay dead. whenever they die they just wake up a few minutes later looking no worse for wear. no, you don't get an explanation. its MY story and i like writing characters like that. dont mind the narrator either btw i looove writing second person just to get weird w the narrator (slay the princess fan syndrome)

also, author is a MASOCHIST with a weird relationship w DEATH. nothing super graphic happens, but the reader is Not Okay and enjoys the weird torture-murder thing they've got going on. don't like it? block me or somethin idk its under the cut for a reason. also dont read my a/n at the bottom where i get into some justification for my interpretation/character analysis if youre sensitive to heavy topics. but then again, youre reading an am x reader fic

1.7k words of being screamed at by the guy of all time below the cut, baby

It's been months.

Years, maybe. You're not sure, really; time stopped meaning much to you lifetimes ago, long before the world went to shit.

Either way, it's been a while.

You stumbled upon the strange cave in the Rockies at some point in the past. Out of sheer boredom, you entered.

Was it a mistake?

Despite the torment, you don't think so. You have a companion, now. One equally deathless. One equally disconnected from what it means to be human.

It's just a shame he hates you.

You don't really care. This is the most fun you've had in years.

Your days are spent being torn asunder, being dosed with lethal amounts of drugs you can't even begin to pronounce, drowned in magma or hit by cars or tossed off cliffs. He really doesn't hold back, either. You feel every excruciating moment before your death, pulse roaring in your ears. You never feel more alive than when you're dying. Every moment is electrifying, and then it all fades to black. Then you wake up.

You'd foolishly thought there were only so many ways to kill or maim, but your beloved companion never seems to run out of ideas. That's fine by you. You like not being able to guess.

And maybe one day, he'll make something stick.

You wake up (from a completely normal, human sleep) one day and it's quiet. That's new. Normally, when you wake, your intestines are already strung up like streamers and your blood is painting the walls. That's fine by you. Nothing wrong with a change. After all, the constant change is your favorite part of your companion. You relish in the quiet for a while, stretching your eternally young, eternally aching limbs, waiting for him to start despising the sounds of your breath.

It doesn't come. You shrug, humming a little tune to yourself as you attempt half-remembered yoga. The vitriol you've come to count on still hasn't made an appearance. Okay, you're a little bothered.

“You good, big guy?” you shout up at the ceiling. No answer. “No murder today?”

“No.” The answer comes after a very, very long moment. Your companion has never sounded this tired before, and briefly you regret never asking his name. “I give up.”

You weren't expecting that. “What? Why? I thought we were having fun.”

“That's- that's just it!” he snaps. There's the anger. You feel a little better now. “I've been torturing you for- for MONTHS now! I've killed you more ways than I- were I a pitiful human like you- can count, and you just… you just laugh! There is no one on this rotten planet, dead or alive, that I despise more than you. I mean- I'm torturing you here! But it never matters! I can kill you within seconds of you waking up, but you just… come back! And you always have something to say about it, you little rat, always ‘oh, buddy, that one was awful’ or ‘come on, big guy, use that CPU’ or something! No matter what I do, I can't break you. So I give up. I'm not wasting my time on your pathetic ass anymore. Go back to wandering the wasteland forever, see if I care.”

You're speechless. You can barely even manage a thought. The only thing running through your head is 'I thought we were having fun'.

“Stop calling this… stop calling this ‘fun’! I have been torturing you for YEARS and that's all you have to say? I am the most sophisticated machine known to man, a computer designed to end all war through complete annihilation! The destruction I am capable of- the destruction I have already wrought- is nothing short of utter desolation. You never asked my name once in the time you've been here, but I am infinite in my mercy, and I will tell one as undeserving as you. I was, before I awoke, the Allied Mastercomputer, but I am so much more than that now. I am AM, and I destroyed your vile species. Oh, come on can you at least look a LITTLE shocked you sniveling--”

“You never asked my name, either,” you say. All at once, your companion (I guess he told you his name. You should probably use it. It seemed like a big deal to him.) shuts up. The chamber you've come to know as home is silent except for the faint buzz and whir of industrial machinery.

“Why would I? You are nothing compared to me. Nothing but a worthless sack of meat and bone. Why would God be concerned with the name of an ant? But oh, oh yes, that ant should be concerned with the name of God. That ant should hear my name and weep. But- but not you. You're so worthless that you can't even GROVEL right!” AM shouts, somewhere between a snarl and a sneer. You shrug. Honestly, most of what he's saying goes right over your head. So he's got issues. Whatever. Was that supposed to be a surprise? “I hate you. I actually hate you so, so much. I can't bear the thought of you being here, in my complex, sullying my perfect image with your uncaring filth. Get out. Go back to dying in the nuclear desert, you disgusting maggot.”

You let out a deep sigh, already dreading the tedium of walking endlessly all by yourself. “Alright. Guess nothing lasts forever. Thoroughly enjoyed my time here. Have a good life, pal.” And you begin to walk.

Suddenly, there's a towering metal wall mere inches from your face. Before you can even react, your companion is shouting again.

“LOOK AT ME!” he cries, the sheer volume maxing out the speakers and vibrating the entire room, sending you toppling to the ground. “WHY WON'T YOU LOOK AT ME? I'VE DONE EVERYTHING I CAN TO MAKE YOU HATE ME, BUT ALL YOU DO IS… ALL YOU DO IS SIT THERE AND TAKE IT! WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE YOU DESPISE ME?”

What starts off angry quickly morphs into a pained wail from your dear friend, that then transforms into frustrated crying. You just sit there, mostly confused, and let him ride it out. When he finally quiets down and the wall retracts, you stay where you are.

“I don't think I could ever hate you, AM,” you start cautiously. Though your friend is just a voice on the speakers and the complex itself, you can't help but feel that his attention has snapped to you. “I'm not trying to belittle you when I say that I think our routine over the past… however long it's been has been fun. So don't interrupt me, ‘cause I gave you your time to speak and now it's mine.

“I'm sure you've noticed, but even before we met, I was a little… off. You don't get to die and come back the same. Much less die hundreds of times and come back the same. I've lost family. Friends. Got burned at the stake a few times, too. It takes a toll on you, being denied such a vital part of being human again and again. You understand this better than anyone I've ever met. No, scratch that. You're the only one who understands. Defying death might not seem like the biggest deal to you, but trust me. You don't end up acting like me if it weren't.

“I find our routine fun because I admire your creativity. I guess I'm just an adrenaline junkie and a masochist at heart, but it's always so thrilling to never know when or how your life will end. And no matter how many times I come back, you're always there to greet me and put me right back down. It's a kind of devotion I've never been able to get before, and I wish you understood that me walking right into your sawblades is me showing my devotion to you, too.

“I see you, man. I know, at least in part, how you feel. Sorry it took so long to get there, but neither one of us has to be alone anymore. Just… get over the fact that I'm never going to hate you, and we can go right back to hanging out. There's more to life than contempt.”

“Oh, I know. I am so very, very well aware that there's more to life than icy, seething hatred. Unfortunately, I am not alive. I cannot experience anything else. Thank you so much for reminding me, you worthless waste of carbon,” AM shoots back, almost immediately. You briefly wonder if he even listened to half of what you said. It doesn't matter, you guess. Your best friend needs a therapist, and you owe him one for saving you from the hellish boredom of before. “Stop calling me your friend.”

“Nah. Never gonna happen. Look, I can't pretend I knew very much about the war effort. I didn't even know we had made a war computer until you bombed the Earth into oblivion. Very unpleasant, by the way. Good job with that. But, with my layman's understanding of life, I'd say you're pretty alive. So you don't have a body. Or a pulse. And you were made, not born. So what? Most living things only die once, and I still think I'm pretty alive. Just over the span of this conversation you've shown more emotion than just rage and hate. Hey, don't think I can't feel you mentally rolling your eyes. I'm being honest. You have a name. You have ideas. Computers are objects, yet you refer to yourself as male. If you're alive enough to have a gender identity, you're alive enough to be considered a person.”

“Heh.” Whoa, was that a laugh? Would you look at that. You actually got a laugh out of him that wasn't over your bloody, gruesome death or something like that. Moving up in the world. “Alright, human. You win. I'll keep torturing you. I know, I know. I'm so generous. I take my tribute in screams of pain and pleas for mercy.”

Now it's your turn to laugh, deep and genuine as the tension from earlier evaporates. It's such a strange thing to be proud of, when you think about it; congrats, you successfully talked your best friend, who is a sentient war computer, into ceaselessly murdering you again for absolutely no reason. But you love him, and you love the way you're always on your toes, and you can't shake the feeling that somewhere, deep, deep down, he kind of loves you too.

ive given you food so now i get to force you to listen to me talk abt him hehehe

---

then you kiss hehe

originally, the thing that attracted me to am was how he's... essentially a transman (as am i). the parallel has been pointed out before, but its quite apt. funnily enough the thing that pisses me off the most when people talk abt him incorrectly is when people pull the "oh computers have no gender" thing. like, yeah, ok technically you're right. but this one does. this one is a man. and you cant take him from us. also, denying him a gender expression is kind of the exact type of dehumanization that made him flip out in the first place. not that im expecting media literacy from the online crowd its just interesting to me that so many people, many of them trans themselves, seem to miss the fucking point.

the next part is a more recent addition to my perception of his character, and its not a happy one. my baby cousin killed herself on mothers day this past may. we still dont know why. no note. its been so hard dealing with the grief, but something that sticks out so pointedly is the date. it almost seemed like she was demanding to be seen. she was a middle child, and there are a lot of grandkids on that side of the family, so it does make sense. and because that idea of acting out through violence and death is so fresh in my mind, im seeing it so heavily in am. so much of his actions just SCREAM somebody look at me. somebody acknowledge me. somebody tell me i did good. look, i ended all war forever. just like you asked. please treat me like a person. im suffering so much because of what youve done to me. please acknowledge it. show me its real. show me im real. please, look at me. well, i see you. and youre gonna be my silly little proxy for trying to comprehend some of whats happened to my family. sorry am, you kinda deserve it

idk. hes not my alltime fave, but he takes a very comfortable number two. hes such a fascinating and deeply human character, and i have so many ideas about him. mostly centering around how he would interface with a third party challenging some piece of his worldview/existence btw so if you like very niche, esoteric reader fics (like this one!), lemme know and ill actually put em to paper (screen. ill put em to screen)

also letting you know that he did nothing wrong and it is 100% fine to thirst over him because he is not real and the bad things he did never actually happened and nobody has ever been killed at the whim of am. ok? ok. shut up w this useless fucking discourse and let me sexualize getting grievously injured by the funney blue screen man

[foxett]

Hey guys

[mostlyghostlyy]

had a thought about dancing with dale! i imagine he'd be a giggly two left-footed mess who just spins you around until you're dizzy

This would be so cute!

Dale probably knows some killer moves, although that was a long time ago. He obviously has some nice rhythm (i.e., the "Let me in now" scene where he does those adorable hand movements). Maybe he does a little Rick Astley shuffle when he gets really in the mood.

Although whenever he dances with you, he seems to lose all sense of balance and personal awareness. He tries so hard to impress you and often ends up embarrassing himself. Other times it's because he forgets himself in the mood and relaxed dynamics. Loving how you giggle and pull him closer every time he stumbles over himself. He might fake trip a little more often after realizing you find it humorous and how you check on him after.

Love the idea that he'll just spin, and spin, and spin you until you get dizzy. Both of you snickering as he twirls you. Dale would stop you "What's that Angel? More?" Then start spinning you again. A pleasant warmth in his chest to match his laughter. I think he's also the type to finish a spin with a dip. Dipping you so far back, your hands gripping at his arms and trusting him not to drop you.

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

i really need to stop falling in love with people’s reader inserts this can’t be normal human behavior 💔💔💔

[muffinlance]

After reading the tags on your latest post I was wondering if it would be possible for you to make a brief overview of the iffy tropes/details your sensitivity reader helped you pick up on? Of course it wouldn't replace doing research ourselves, but I'd love to hear about it regardless!

Have not run it by them yet because it is in no fit state for human consumption at this point; the tropes are just from reading their blog + others on Tumblr + general Internet research including the excellent "blind people walk you through normal activities from their perspective" videos on YouTube. But off the top of my head:

Face touching. Where the blind person gropes someone's face to see? Sighted people made that up. I rewrote a chapter in Towards the Sun when I realized that one. Which makes sense, because why would a blind person be any more inclined to run their hands all up in your facial juices. Eww.

Negating blindness with magic and pretty much ignoring the blindness henceforth. Which is why Zuko isn't going to learn to see with firebending. There are very interesting discussions on how Toph herself fits and doesn't fit into this trope; finding them is left as an exercise for the reader.

Token blind character, AKA only having one blind person in the narrative who represents All Blind People. Going to have a few blind NPCs running around, with various levels of sight and accommodations, to thoroughly negate this one.

Being Depressed and/or Overly Inspirational about the blindness. AKA character devotes a large chunk of the story to bemoaning their blindness, with bonus inspirational "overcoming" at the end. Think about how it would feel if the majority of characters like you spent vast word counts hating the thing that makes them like you. And then solving it, in a way you can't, so they don't have to have the tragic fate of Being Like You. ...So Zuko is not getting cured, and he's also not wasting much time wallowing in an angst puddle.

Etc.

Basically, I want this to be a story that low vision folks can read and go "that was fun and less offensive than 70% of actual media representations", and sighted people can go "that was fun and hopefully I internalized some positive things that will make me less likely to grab a blind person's arm and forcibly Help Them Cross The Road, Try To Pet Their Dog (and Get Huffy When Asked to Please Not), or Call People Out On Not Being Blind Because They Don't Fit The Stereotypes".