#I wanted to write a character based vent but I couldn’t

[star-gamerxox]

The Wind Stopped

I remember the way the wind ripped around me, but I loved it. I loved the way it pushed through clothes as a kid and I could just watch the world move with the wind. How the wind moved around the world.

I became like the wind, bending around you and your world until she came into our lives. Slowly but surely she built walls and trapped the wind where it couldn’t blow.

The only wind needed to stop.

And now I’ve torn the walls down and climbed out and the wind is blowing again, but it’s weak, it bends too easily and it doesn’t blow through my clothes like it did when I was a kid.

It’s like I lost part of that strength even though I’ve escaped.

And every few months you come with bricks, rebuilding a wall she insisted she put to protect us.

I can’t survive without the wind, and you can’t seem to live without the walls to stop it.

But if I don’t miss the days where the wind could flow around you too.

I wonder if you miss the wind, or just the way the wind was trapped within the walls…

I wonder if you remember the wind, and the way it was before you put that ring on her finger, before the world changed forever.

Before my wind stopped.

Do you miss that version of me? The wildness, the beauty?

Or do you still just miss the way I pushed against the walls?

The wind won’t stop again, no matter how many attempts at a brick wall that you attempt.

[autistichalsin]

bloody claws in the dark

Please note: this is a trauma vent story, which is to say it's based on my own experiences as a survivor projected onto the character. This may not be as in character as what I typically write and due to the personal nature it might be uncomfortable for some to read. This is doubly so because this is extremely dark and deals with revenge fantasies. Please keep this in mind before reading. Thank you.

Summary: in his mind, he's killed his captors a thousand times.

In the real world, they died once. Quick, but probably painful, knowing Drow. Quick, and painful, and out of his sight, while he was busy escaping.

He doesn’t regret escaping. Not for a moment. He wasn’t going to let them be the reason he died. It brings a smug satisfaction, really, thinking about the fact that their worthless stupid pet bear, ugly darthiir outlived them. Got to see them die.

But it isn’t enough satisfaction. Isn’t enough that they died, or even that they died violently.

And that is where the split begins.

Halsin doesn’t normally think about revenge like this. Or at least, he hadn’t before. He had a big heart, so others said. He wasn’t always sure, though he tried his best to make it true. But whether he was or wasn’t good enough to be good, revenge was certainly on his mind now. 

In his mind, they haven’t died once. They’ve died thousands of times, all at his hand. He sees it when he closes his eyes. When he meditates, when ghosts of memories spring unbidden into his mind, when he sees chains or hears a bear’s roar that sounds just enough like his own.

He sees it, then. Sees it so painfully real that his jaw aches from clenching. He roars, sometimes silently, sometimes out loud; sometimes with an elf’s snarl and sometimes the mighty, warning snarl of a bear, not even having realized he had wildshaped.

It was worse in bear form. Then, he’d have to fear losing control. That his thoughts would turn real before he could stop it. The bear controlled his body more than himself, after all.

But in elf form he could close his eyes, grit his teeth, and growl. He’d see that bedchamber again. See their hideous infuriating laughing faces, hear their voices, that damned laughter.

His hand would clench, his breath speeding. Oh bear, what’s the matter? You can’t pretend you didn’t want this. I felt so sorry for you, you know, so worked up and so needy-

A cry of frustration. He’d fall to his knees, the anger spiking, spiking. Their voices would grow louder. Their faces clearer. He’d feel it. Lips on his. Tongues on his neck, lapping, making him shake, marking him, making him shiver in disgust and nausea grow in his belly-

And finally, when he couldn’t handle it anymore, would come the new images. Another death to add to the collection of ones he’d created in his mind.

Bear claws would tear their throats. They’d gasp and choke, the sound of blood sliding into their lungs and gurgling in the air.

He’d break free of the chains, and wrap them around their throats. Sometimes the deaths are quick. Other times he lets them faint and wake as many times as he wants. Makes sure he sees it register in their eyes that they’ve finally lost control of their pet bear. That their pet bear is going to kill them, but only when he decides.

Other times he has a knife. He’s never fast with the knife. He slides it inside of that man's stomach first, because stomach wounds are the slowest and most painful way to die. He chops off the man’s cock and balls, and then shoves them down the man’s throat. Lets the man choke to death on them, sometimes. Other times he makes him swallow it, and then stabs, again and again and again. But shallow. Not frenzied, controlled, because he’s in his elf form, and an elven hunter is methodical with their tools. He knows where to stab, where not to, what arteries will grant too fast a passing. He kills the man slow and painful while his matriarch watches, bound as Halsin always was, helpless to stop it.

And then comes her turn. He savors her screams, her cries as he stabs her too. He lies her on the man’s body, lets their blood mingle in a mockery of the bond they claimed to share. He stabs through her palm. Stabs through her and into his body. He breaks her wrist, savors the crunch of bone and the agonized wails. What is this, Mistress? He snarls at her, lip upturned. Couldn’t control your pet bear anymore?

And he stabs, and stabs, and stabs, the red covers it all. Until he can’t breathe, can’t stand, and his knife falls from his hand. Until his vision blurs, the red and the tears obstructing everything else, and he shakes with it. Trembles like a leaf falling from a dying oak.

In those moments he thinks maybe he is dying, the way his heart pounds, but he always seems to come back to himself eventually and his heart seems to calm.

And then there comes the strangest part. He feels angry and calm at the same time, after those deaths, somehow furious and yet detached from it. So overwhelmed with feeling that he can’t feel anymore, and yet he can, he does, it builds up inside him all over again and makes him want to kill kill slaughter them all again. Like a cycle he can’t stop, like the storm that stops and leaves a false, unnatural calm before resuming, as turbulent as ever.

And then come more deaths for his captors. More relished screams, more blood.

Until he comes back to himself, exhausted, entire body aching. Not satisfied, never satisfied, because it will never be real, and yet close to sated, having lived this fantasy for a while. He closes his eyes.

But then comes the reality, crashing back into him again. He never killed them. He never made them finally fear him the way he feared them. He never did anything but run, run, run.

Reality, clarity, all returns to him and with it is a new horror. Oakfather preserve me, fist over his heart, hand shaking with the motions, what is happening to me because how could he, how could he think such a thing? He isn’t supposed to want to torture someone, even them, isn’t he?

But that’s just what he thought of, again and again, and he doesn’t know what to do with it. Those feelings.

And then comes the bear. His only safe place, his only solace. He does’t have to control the bear. The bear can maim, kill, and it’s accepted that it’s just his nature. The bear isn’t good or evil, gentle or cruel.

He runs. Sometimes he hides. Hides from the other Druids- first his peers, and then, one awful day, his subordinates. Lets them think whatever they want, that he’s weak, running, hiding. An Archdruid who can’t control his wildshape? The new recruits ask, eying him with suspicion, even derision.

He cares not.

He gives himself over to the bear, until he is ready to be an elf again. Lets the bear have his violent side, his emotional side, his hurt.

And for his elf form, he leaves nothing. He leaves the crushing sadness and loneliness, the darkness.

One of his selves is nothing, is emptiness and pain, and the other is rage revenge fear pain.

He curls up in a cave in the Grove, sometimes alone, and sometimes with another cave bear- there are so many over the years- at his side. He never tells a soul what he’s done in his mind, for that would require telling them why he did it. He tells them a half-truth instead. That he can’t tame the beast. It’s true enough, even if the bear isn’t his only beast.

He has many beasts inside him. A caged one. A rabid one. A calm one. A reliable, caring one. An escaped pet.

None of them are happy beasts, but they keep him steady enough to keep him from being a monster beast. They let him keep those thoughts inside, limited to his memories of his captors and their endless deaths instead of someone real.

Maybe one day, someone will hear his pained roars, even the muted ones, and remove the proverbial thorn in his paw instead of fleeing. Maybe then, one day he’ll stop seeing his captors. Or maybe he’ll at least be satisfied by the deaths he creates in his mind.

He hopes.

[da-birb-writes-sometimes]

The Song We Are Drawn Towards; Floyd Leech

A song rests in the heart, calling out to the one who completes the harmony. Their match pulls at them, as the moon does the tide.

Main Character: Floyd Leech

Supporting Roles: Mrs. Leech, Jade Leech, Azul Ashengrotto, Deuce Spade (if you squint)

Content: Soulmate AU (I use the term soul match instead), gender-neutral reader, hurt/comfort/crack, reader is not amused, can be read as familial, platonic, or romantic and that was done on purpose, some Azul slander

Content Warning: Swearing, blood (Floyd)... just Floyd things (I love him, but he comes with his own warning). I don't want to spoil the ending but do read it with caution if it's triggering for you.

Word Count: 5 K

Author's Note: Please do not repost my works to other websites or into AI software. I will be writing more parts for this AU, but for other characters; you can guess who based on the hints I left in Azul & Jade's stories. I switch between third and second-person point of view. I struggled writing for four days and then I wrote 4.7K in one sitting, help me; that makes like 15.5K words in like a week. Don't worry, I do touch grass.

Azul's Story & Prologue | Jade's Story

Floyd was a bundle of energy, swimming all over the place, and excitedly talking to anyone and everyone who crossed paths with him. “Tell me, tell me, tell me!” He would pull at the fins and limbs. “Tell me about your soul match!!!”

Ever since he was first told the story of soul matches, he has been obsessed, wanting to hear everyone’s story that he happened to swim across. Most merfolk would just quickly swim in the opposite direction of the hyperactive young eel-mer. Others would humour him and tell him what it felt like. But his favourite by far was that of his parents.

“Mommmmmm,” he whined, clutching onto her tail fin so that she couldn’t leave. “Can you tell me the story of what it felt like feeling your soul match for the first time? And what it was like meeting dad?~” He looked at her with his biggest pleading eyes, even though he has heard the story at least a hundred times from both his mom and dad. “Pretty pleaseeeeeee?!~”

Mrs Leech giggled, and sat down on Floyd’s bed, kissing him on the cheek. “Aren’t you tired of hearing it, my little eel?”

Floyd clutched onto her arm, “Nuh-uh!”

She shook her head, amused by his insistence. “Well, for me, the song felt like the heat from the hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean; down there it may seem dark and lifeless, but there was a scorching heat that feeds all life.” She hummed, smoothing over a little nick that she noticed on Floyd’s arm. “And the pull… hmm, it was gentle, like the tugging of a cool current.”

Floyd sighed with contentment, finally settling down for the night. “Mom, what do you think my soul match will be like?”

Mrs. Leech tucked his hair behind his ear, “There’s no way to tell before it happens, my little elver. Only the Sea Witch knows, and she’s very secretive about those sorts of things.” She got a mischievous look on her face and kissed his nose. “But whoever is your soul match, be they mer, fae, beastman, or human, they will be lucky to have you.” 

“Mommmm,” he tried to push her off, but he didn’t mean it, his giggling giving it away. He got serious for a moment and hugged his mom. “No matter who they are, I won’t leave the ocean for them. I love you, mom.”

Mrs. Leech squished her son against her, placing her head on top of his. “I love you more, baby… And whatever decision you make, to stay in the ocean or go live on land, I will always love and support you.” Holding onto him tight, she placed a kiss on his forehead. “And that goes for you too, Jade, I know you’ve been eavesdropping.”

The mass of blankets on the bed on the other side of the room stirred, revealing Jade who was acting like he totally wasn’t listening in on their conversation. “I know, mother. I love you too,” he whispered, letting out a yawn, tired from the day.

“Oh, how did I get so lucky to have not one but two sweet sons?” Mrs Leech, still holding onto Floyd, swam over to Jade’s bed and had him in a tight squeezing hug. “I love my little elvers!”

Both of the boys accepted the squeezes, Jade patting his mom on the shoulder and Floyd giving back his own tight squeeze. Like mother like son, as some would say. “We love you too, mom,” they said in unison. And they all sat there, in a big eel squeeze.

…

…

When he woke up on his sixth birthday he was confused. Why wasn’t there a song in his head? Where is his soul match? 

The good mood that he was bound to be in that day morphed into confusion, hurt, and anger. But not like the anger he was used to, it wasn’t a hot, short, spark, instead, it felt festering, an ember wanting nothing more than to combust. So instead of staying around his brother, who only pissed him off even more because, of course, Jade got his soul match. He swam out to the edge of the reef so that he could be alone.

“ARGH,” he lashed out at a rock, scratching at it with his claws. “WHY?! WHY ME?!” He screamed out into the drop-off, no answer but the dark looking back at him. He felt hot, briny tears start to fall down his face. He had dreamt of this day since he could remember. He wanted someone to not be scared of him. For someone to look at him with joy. For someone to accept him. “WHERE ARE THEY?!”

By the time he got out the initial rage at his situation, he floated down into the sand and looked up to the filtered sunlight coming up from above. He was still angry, but it was something small, and it felt like there was something stuck in his throat and he couldn’t get it out. Sighing, he closed his eyes… I really should go home, mom and dad are probably worried…

Wait, what was tickling him? Ugh, that’s annoying. “Scram off, would ya,” he muttered, opening an eye.

Beside him was a cleaner shrimp, going over the new scrapes he had given himself during his moment of anger.

“Eh? A little shrimp like you is brave,” he chuckled, poking one of its feelers. 

The shrimp ignored the poke, still cleaning the wounds before moving up and going through his hair. Floyd was half tempted to swat it away for bothering him, but he didn’t. For some reason, he found the shrimp’s actions comforting. Like the ocean sent this little cleaning crustacean to help him heal. He was still mad, hurt, and confused, but if some shrimp didn’t mind him, even at his most volatile moment, then maybe not everything is as bad as it seems.

Eventually, though, he had to leave his new little friend and go home, and face his family. He wore a happy mask when he entered the home, trying to hide the festering part of his heart.

“FLOYD!” His mom crashed into him, squeezing him tight. “Where were you?! I was worried sick! Are those scrapes? What happened to you?!”

He squeezed her back, not as strong as he would normally, debating whether or not to tell her the truth. But he saw his dad and Jade whispering to each other, no doubt talking about his soul match. His eye twitched, “I was just curious about where they were,” he whispered. He wasn’t lying, but it wasn’t the entire truth. The truth could always come later.

…

…

…

Floyd was walking around campus, bored out of his mind. Azul and Jade were at the entrance ceremony for the new minnows. As was his main source of entertainment. It wasn’t his fault that Riddle was so amusing when he gets all red from anger, just like a goldfish. So he was just going around, a bad mood apparent, so people quickly walked in the opposite direction when they saw him.

“Ugh! There’s nothin’ interestin’ hereeeee,” he muttered to himself. Even getting lectured by Beakfish is better than utter boredom. He rolled his eyes, thinking about Azul giving his stuffy formal speech to the new minnows in their dorm. “Tch, boring.”

Hmm, the sun did sure feel nice though. Maybe he would take a nap like Sea Lion did. So he found somewhere where he wouldn’t be disturbed, stretched out, and closed his eyes, dreaming about the Coral Sea. 

In his dream, he was back near the drop-off, by the rock he nearly destroyed during his outburst when he first realized he didn’t have a soul match. Over the years, he wasn’t nearly as bitter as he once was, but it still stung. But he was alone, his little shrimp friend was nowhere to be seen. “Little shrimp,” he called out, but his crustacean friend didn’t appear. Maybe they too got tired of Floyd and left. Or maybe they were… maybe a predator finally caught up with his little friend, as he always thought they were too brave for their own good.  “Little shrimp?” He called again, but still nothing. But then a net came down from above, catching Floyd in its wake. He struggled, but something else was there. A faint song.

Floyd gasped awake in a cold sweat, heart pounding and racing. “It was just a dream, snap out of it,” he hissed to himself, shaking his head. Ugh, why did it feel like he was still caught in that net though? And that song was still stuck in his head. Stupid dreams.

Oh, the sun is setting, Azul and Jade have got to be done with sorting out the freshmen by now. Heh, wonder if there are any interestin’ minnows around? Eh, Azul is bound to bring some entertainment by getting some chump in a contract. That at least would bring in some fun. 

Groaning, he stretched out and got up, making his way back to Octavinelle, still not quite in a good mood but not in a bad one. He was just floating in between.

Azul and Jade were conversing among themselves when he entered the room, Azul looking more agitated than he would normally. Huh, that’s intriguing. 

“Somethin’ has all your tentacles in a bunch, Azul.~” He leaned against the house warden’s chair, getting into his personal bubble. Ugh, he still felt weird, and that song was still there.

Azul shot him an annoyed look but ignored him trespassing in on his space. “It has nothing to concern you with, Floyd,” he huffed, massaging his temple. 

If even mentioning that it has nothing to do with him, it just puts Floyd on a mission to discover exactly what it was.

Jade chuckled, mirth in his eyes. “He will just keep on pestering you if you don’t tell him, Azul” his smile was sharp and he looked over to his brother, his smile widening. Floyd also smiled, getting further into Azul’s bubble.

“Fine,” Azul snipped, “if you must know the ceremony didn’t go exactly as planned.” This didn’t satisfy Floyd, as he just got further into the bubble, prodding. Azul sighed, knowing it would just be better to get it over with so he didn’t have to put up with the eel’s antics. “I had to clean up someone’s mess, chasing their wayward familiar throughout campus. They also sent the mirror into a tizzy. Satisfied?”

Well, that wasn’t all that interesting. “Awwww, and I thought you’d finally met your cuttlefish, Azullll,” he whined but got out of his personal bubble.

Azul’s eye twitched at the nickname Floyd had dubbed his soul match but didn’t say anything, knowing that if he did, it would just end up with him lying in bed with a splitting migraine. “No,” he dusted off his chest, “we have no control over when we meet our soul matches, and you know that.”

Oh, Floyd knew that very well, he didn’t need Azul subtly shoving it in his face either. Even if the other man wasn’t privy that Floyd didn’t have a soul match.

…

…

It’s been about three weeks since Floyd had that dream, still feeling like he was stuck in a net, and that infernal hum of a song hasn’t left his mind. By now, everyone on campus was aware that it was better to avoid him than risk getting on his bad side. Ugh, is this what it feels like to have a soul match? 

He squinted his eyes, and stopped dead in his tracks, pausing in the middle of the hall. Is this what it feels like to have a soul match? His eyes went wide, still frozen in the hallway. IS THIS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO HAVE A SOUL MATCH?! After all this time, was there finally someone?

He started running, letting the pulling sensation guide him. Feeling the ebb and flow of it, the only kind shared with soul matches. The dream! Maybe the Sea Witch sent it to him? Finally gifted him the blessing that she has given others? He tested the waters by messing with the volume of the song in their head and he felt it falter like they were surprised by it. Where are you? But as soon as he started giving chase he stopped. People gave him weird looks, but he paid no mind to them.

His hands turned into fists, and he shook slightly, his joy and excitement shifted into bitterness and anger. WHERE ARE YOU?! He shouted at them through the song, letting out over a decade of bottled-up emotions into the open. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?! But all he got in return was the gentle hum that had started it all.

“Floyd, are you alright? You seem out of sorts,” Jade hummed, eyes boring into his soul, searching for what could have possibly caused the sudden running. Calculating.

Floyd frowned back at his brother, but he knew that he couldn’t just outright tell him, as he hadn’t told anyone about his soul match situation. So instead he bit down on the inside of his cheek, hard enough to draw a bit of blood to distract himself. “Eh, thought I just saw Goldfishie, but it was just someone else.”

Where are you? Where the fuck are you?! Where were you for all these years?!

…

…

You were enjoying some lunch with your friends — if you can call Ace and Grim your friends. At least Deuce was considerate enough to make up for it… most of the time. The four of you were chatting, mainly Grim and Ace complaining about homework and the professors, but your mind was elsewhere. In the three short weeks that you’ve found yourself in Twisted Wonderland, they have somehow squeezed their way into your heart, even though they make you question your life decisions on more than a daily basis. On some days it was an hourly basis.

But something else has also been on your mind than just being in some sort of dimension themed on a beloved yet problematic movie studio. There’s been a song playing in your head since you arrived. It hasn’t been very loud, but it seemed to change in its emotion frequently. You could tell when it was excited, bored, frustrated, and you had no idea why. It was fine the first day, as you just chalked it up to inter-dimension technicalities, but it has persisted.

So, there you were, sitting with your friends, enjoying your lunch. Or you were until you were rudely interrupted by the song in your head screaming at you. “Shit,” you hissed, dropping your fork, and covering your ears even though it did nothing to help with the sudden onslaught.

Ace, Deuce and Grim all gave you looks but turned back to the conversation they were having. Not thinking anything of it. But someone else noticed, pushing up his glasses before leaving. You paid no attention though, as your attention was elsewhere.

Inside your mind was a voice, it had started quiet, and full of wonder. Where are you? But then it turned venomous, bitter, sharp, and screaming. WHERE ARE YOU?! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?! You didn’t really know what to make of it, and it’s not like Crowley in all of his ‘kindness’ and ‘generosity’ gave you an encyclopedia to explain any of this stuff.

Deuce shook your shoulder gently, pulling you from out of your thoughts. “Hey, are you okay? You’ve been staring at your food for a while…”

You shook your head, ignoring the screaming in your head, and gave him a reassuring smile. “Ah, I’m okay, just was thinking is all. Nothing to worry about,” you shoot him a smile as reassurance. Deuce still didn’t look convinced but he trusted you and dropped the subject.

Where are you? Where the fuck are you?! Where were you for all these years?! The voice seemed to scream through the melody. WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU?!

…

…

…

Floyd’s mood has only been worse since finding out that he had a soul match. Even with the amount of obsessive screaming he sent their way, all they sent back was that gentle hum. Ugh, it was really annoying. He was half tempted to just hunt them down so at least he knew who he was mentally screaming at. But he would always clench his fists and stop himself. As much as he would like nothing more than to see their face as they saw him running at them, he wanted a good reason to do so. 

Yes, even though he was harassing them through the song, he wanted a reason why he should seek them out. He was just… hurt. He didn’t know how long he would feel like that, but it was something that was difficult to shove aside, even if they were the person that was supposed to make him happy. He couldn’t just forget about it.

Sighing, he clutched his shrimp plush to his chest, inspired by his shrimp friend from his childhood. “Eh, little shrimp, what should I do? Should I seek them out, or should they find me?”

The shrimp plush just looked back with its unblinking eyes. If it were his actual cleaner shrimp, they would have shuffled around in his hair, looking for scraps and reassuring him in their silent manner. Even though the plush was silent, it was still reassuring in its own way.

He heard Jade shuffling around in his sheets, but Floyd knew that Jade slept like a rock. He shook his head and walked to the Octavinelle lounge area, plopping down onto a sofa by the aquarium, criss-cross apple sauce style, still holding on to his shrimp plush. His reflection looked back out at him, eyes searching, but there were no answers. Just his own conflicted thoughts, the gentle humming of his soul match, and the snores coming from some dorms.

The gentle pitter-patter of footsteps took him away from just staring into the aquarium. “Azul?”

The footsteps and intruder on Floyd’s pondering and staring at the aquarium time was none other than Azul, wearing his house robe, matching slippers, and a hair bonnet. Azul squinted his eyes, as he wasn’t wearing his glasses. “Floyd,” he sounded just as equally confused to find someone else awake at this un-Sevenly-like hour. “What are you doing up?”

“Eh, couldn’t sleep,” he wasn’t in the mood to tease Azul for his sleep get up. “You?”

Azul sighed, “You and I are in the same boat then… don’t you dare utter a word about this to Jade.”

Floyd looked down at his shrimp plush and looked back up, “Don’t mention it.” He looked back into the aquarium, most of the fish were hidden away for the night, but other sea creatures were swimming and scuttling about.

Azul cleared his throat and continued on with his business, whatever that might be at this hour, leaving the eel to his thoughts. Perhaps he could solve not just Floyd’s current down mood but also answer someone’s burning questions.

…

…

…

By some cruel twist of fate, you found yourself in the Mostro Lounge VIP room against your will, having been carried there by none other than Jade Leech. You would have put up a fight, but in all honesty, you would rather be carried bridal style than like a sack of potatoes. You don’t even know how you ended up in this situation, last time you checked, you hadn’t made a deal with the scheming house warden of Octavinelle. So why did he seek you out?

“Prefect, I’ve heard through the grapevine that you’ve been… troubled,” he said in his overly nice business voice.

You squinted your eyes at him, knowing better than to trust anything he says at face value. “And what exactly have you heard,” you countered. 

Azul looked at Jade and he exited the room. That doesn’t seem like a good sign. He waited for a few moments before continuing. “That you’ve been distracted, not all there. Oh, don’t give me that look, I don’t want a contract with you,” he rolled his eyes upon seeing the stink eye you were giving him.

“Then what do you want, Azul? Last time I checked you only did things for others if you got more out of the deal than them.” Yeah, you were being sassy, but he tricked your friends, your dumb friends, so he deserved the attitude.

Azul sputtered at the comment before pulling himself together. “I’m just looking out for others in the same boat as us.”

You raised your brow, “Us?”

“Yes, us, Prefect,” he pinched his brow. “I take it that you have a song in your head?” You nodded and he took it as a sign to continue with his monologue. “Much as I suspected then. You have a soul match, which I take wherever you’re from doesn’t have. You have a bond with a mer. It can be familial, platonic and or romantic, a match made by the Sea Witch herself.”

You blinked, letting all of that sink in. “Uh, but why?” Literally, why? Why would the Sea Witch match you with a merperson?

Azul just gave you a look, “Why not? It is not for us to question why the Sea Witch chooses our matches.”

“We should question it though,” you snap at him. “We should question everything! Like why? Who is it to determine our fate?” The stress of the past few weeks had finally caught up, and you were scared, stretched too thin, and tired, so damn tired. “I didn’t ask for this! I didn’t ask for any of this!” You smacked your hands against the desk. You were going to say more but shut your mouth. You were talking to Azul Ashengrotto, who was known for using others' weaknesses against them. Why were you letting this all out into the open with him of all people?

Azul sat there, with a small shocked expression. “Just let me know if you want help finding them,” he slid you a piece of paper. Despite your better judgement, you take it, shoved it into your bag and left without saying anything else. “Hope to speak with you soon, Pre-”

You slam the door in his face before he could say anything else, shaking slightly. Sighing to yourself, you take out the piece of paper, now crumpled and creased.

“A song rests in the heart, calling out to the one who completes the harmony. Their match pulls at them, as the moon does the tide.” That is what the Sea Witch told us. I know what you think of me, Prefect, but all I want is for you two to meet. If you wish to seek them out please feel free to see me. - Azul Ashengrotto

…

…

Floyd sat in the Octavinelle pool, still festering over everything. Even though he was still in his human form, he didn’t want to leave the pool. Everything was quiet until he hissed in pain. Ah, so after all this time his soul match decides to make a commotion? Damn, they sounded pissed, their anger clear in the song… but also tired, so tired. Huh, so maybe they weren’t too different from him.

Where are you? He sang, reaching out softly this time. He didn’t like this feeling, at least not from them.

Surprisingly the song snapped back at him, much like his shrimp friend would when he came to them all banged up. Why do you want to know?!

Well, that gave him pause. Heh, maybe this Shrimpy was more gutsy than he gave them credit for. Heh!~ I want to findddd youuuuu!~ He sang, a giggle escaping his lips.

I don’t want you to find me! Leave me alone! I didn’t ask for this! I don’t know you! Stranger danger! STRANGER DANGER! 

Floyd could imagine a shrimp scuttling back and forth, snapping their pinchers at him and it made him laugh even more. Awww, Shrimpy!~ I’mma hunt your ass down nowwww!~

The song rang sharp, oh yeah, he would be hearing a ringing in his ears for a few hours due to that. GO AWAY!

I’m comin’ for yo ass, here I comeeeeee~ He laughed one more time before pulling himself from the pool, excited for what was about to come. You kept me waitin’ for this long, only fair for me to find you!~

Azul could hear Floyd’s laughter from his office. This wasn’t exactly how he was imagining on helping Floyd find his soul match, but oh well, it’s best for them to meet on their own terms anyway. Hey, you could have done it the calm way, but with Floyd as your soul match, he should have expected the eel to do things the… well, the Floyd way.

So Floyd went running down the hallway, still soaking wet and dripping water everywhere, laughing like a madman. Some other mers looking for their soul matches gave him weird looks, but they minded their own business. “Oh, Shrimpyyyyyyyyy!~ Where are youuuuu?~” He sang out, still laughing.

Meanwhile, you were on the way back to Ramshackle, eyes shifting everywhere since your soul match seemed to change their tune all of a sudden. I’m coming to get your ass, Shrimpy!~ Kept on being sung in the song, so yeah, you were rightfully scared shitless by this entire situation. Who the hell wouldn’t be if they were in your shoes?! So you were trying to make a beeline back to the safety of your dorm. Maybe you should have made that contract with Azul after all… instead of being hunted for sport by someone that some octopus lady decided was your match. And why did they insist on calling you Shrimpy? Weren’t shrimps like the cockroaches of the ocean? What the hell my guy?

“SHRIMPY WHERE ARE YOU?!~” A loud voice rang down the hall.

Oh shit. Oh fuck. You chanted to yourself. Should you try to make a last-ditch effort to make it to the safety of your dorm, or should you hide in the broom closet until they leave? Run? Hide? The increasingly fast footsteps made the decision for you. It was a dumb decision, yes…

...You booked it.

I HEAR YOU RUNNING SHRIMPY!~ They sang in your head with glee. Heh, cute that you think you can escape me!~ Best hope you’re a fast runner Shrimpy!~

What was their issue?! LEAVE ME ALONE! WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?!

They pouted. They had the audacity to pout?! But Shrimpyyyy, you’re my soul match! Stop runnin’ so I can catch you! My ‘problem’ is that I don’t have you!

Oh Sevens, you can hear them catching up with you. You would never make it to Ramshackle at this point. Shit. Maybe you should have hidden in that broom closet… THERE! An open door! You got in and quietly shut the door, holding your breath.

“Shrimpyyyyyyy! Marco!” They called out, running past the door. “Come on, Shrimpy! It’s not nice to hide!~”

Once you couldn’t hear their footsteps or their horrifying version of Marco-Pollo, you took in some much-needed air. Silently thanking your lucky stars that they went by your hiding spot. Yeah, maybe you would sleep in here for the night since they would still be able to get you until the sun rises… if you could even sleep.

SHRIMPYYYYYY, WHERE ARE YOU?~ OH SHRIMPYYYYYYY!~ Yeah, definitely not sleeping. So you sat in the closet until you saw the rays of sunlight seep beneath the cracks.

Yeah, you’re taking Azul up on his offer, since this is starting to feel like a horror movie and not something from fanfiction you would read back at home.

…

You looked everywhere before setting foot into the Octavinelle pool room since your soul match was definitely in there somewhere. “Pst, Azul?” You called out, hoping that he would answer.

His head popped up from the pool, a faint glow coming from beneath the water. “Ah, Prefect. Did you change your mind?” 

If by change your mind you mean be scared shitless, then yes. But you held the comment back. Eugh, it felt like you were being dragged into the water, but you stayed on land, the song deafening. If it was this loud for you, then it was probably the same for them. “Help me,” you pleaded with the merman.

“How so,” he said, smug.

Your eye twitched in annoyance, “They are hunting me, Azul. Hunting me!” You hissed. The water rippled, but nothing emerged. “So help me, Ashengrotto!”

But the air of helpfulness he had earlier was gone, this bitch. “I could just go get him for you-”

“NO!” You shouted, realizing your mistake last minute. No, no, no! NO!

Oh? Shrimpy came to me instead? Oh, Shrimpyyyyyyy?~

You tried to get away from the edge of the pool, but you weren’t fast enough; a clawed, webbed hand latched itself onto your ankle. And a familiar face smiled at you with a wide grin. “Found ya, Shrimpy!~”

You gave Floyd a sheepish smile, “Heyyyyyy, can we talk about this? Hahaha…”

Floyd just giggled before dragging you into the water with him, “Nope!~”

Ah, shit-

Bonus!

Azul and Jade looked at you and Floyd, Floyd still curled around you like an extra-large living feather boa.

“You know, not even I would be so cruel to the Prefect,” Jade looked at Azul, giving him a side-eye. But there was a large sadistic smile on his face.

Azul rolled his eyes, “I gave them the chance to meet him peacefully, and they chose not to. It’s not my fault. And you are a horrible liar, Jade.”

Jade just chuckled before looking back at his brother. “Hmm, it’s Floyd, so we both know it would most likely end in something… chaotic.”

Azul sighed, but he was happy for Floyd… and glad that his bad mood was gone, dealing with that for the past few weeks has been hell.

“AZUL! JADE!” You yelled, trying to pry off the eel, “HELP ME!”

But the two just looked on and didn’t interfere.

Fin!

I'm really happy with how all of Octavinelle's parts came out, and I had a lot of fun writing the characters. I have 7 more characters for the Soul Match AU planned for the future; no promises of when those will come out though, mainly waiting for more lore... since SOMEBODY seems to get the most traffic.

Hoped you enjoyed reading!

Link to Masterlist

[smolghostbot]

Battle Against A Real Threat (Part 2/2)

Part 1 Here

A Non-canon AU where Contralto’s neighbor wasn’t Clay, but the worst possible person it could be. A vent piece/character study of sorts. The pacing is weird and this is my first time writing an actual "fight", so don't expect a masterpiece, but I hope other people enjoy it regardless.

Word Count: 2.9k Content warnings: Whump, tiny whump, kidnapping, injuries, threats, alcoholic whumper, snapping Contralto’s psyche like a glowstick. Major (deserved) eye injury in chapter 5.

======

Chapter 4: Bathtime

It had been… at least a few weeks since Contralto was captured. She was starting to lose track. Her body was battered and beaten, but her spirit was… mostly intact. Luckily, she had a little knowledge of how to heal herself, but some of the injuries were more than she could handle.

“Good morning, little Connie. Do you want breakfast?”, cooed the human.

“... Yes… please,” snarled Contralto.

“Oh, I didn’t even have to ask you this time! I really think we’re getting closer, you and I. Well, here’s your food and water for the day.”

“... Thank you.” Contralto said, clearly not meaning it in the slightest, but she knew that the human wasn’t expecting politeness, they were looking for submission. So she’d play their little game, until she could find an escape.

“Oh, you remembered the magic words! Well, thank you for being so cooperative!” they said with a fake smile plastered on their face as they opened the cage door and dropped off a small pile of sunflower seeds and a cherry tomato. If nothing else, the human had respected Contralto’s diet, and on days where she behaved she was fed plenty of food.

“Oh, by the way, today will be a long day of work for me, so don’t go anywhere, will you?” said the human, a slight mocking tone in their voice. Contralto simply stared at them, not willing to entertain this game today.

“Well, see you later, Connie,” the human said before once again leaving the sprite alone in her little cage.

Contralto had tried to pick the lock, but it was too heavy and at an awkward angle to move from her position inside the cage. She had tried to pry the bars apart enough to sneak through them, but couldn’t quite get them to budge. Clearly, her captor has spared no expense with this cage.

Resigned, she sat down and began to eat the sunflower seeds.

-

It was a bad day, Contralto thought with a sigh as she heard the slamming happening outside of the human’s bedroom. She always hated these days, as they were when the human tended to be the most aggressive.

As the door opened, and the human came in, Contralto could already tell they had been drinking based on their exaggerated movements. She kept her head low and tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, but their blue eyes darted over to her cage after only a few seconds.

“Oh, Connie…” they cooed, with that voice that could almost be mistaken for genuine if she didn’t know better.

“... What?” bluntly replied Contralto, not wanting to anger the human.

“Oh, don’t seem so upset, Connie, I was thinking, it’s been a long and stressful day, and I think playing a little game may help. What do you think?”

There was a silence that followed the human’s request, and Contralto knew they were waiting for a response. “... Whatever,” was all she could reply, not wanting to agree or argue.

This was clearly not the right answer, at least according to the human, as they walked over to the cage with their brows furrowed. “That doesn’t sound very excited. You’ve been alone all day, surely you want to spend time with your favorite person?”

Contralto couldn’t keep herself from turning away from the human spitefully, with a simple “You’re not my favorite anything”.

She wasn’t even surprised anymore as the cage door flung open, and she was quickly grabbed by the human. At first, this had terrorized her, but she had made peace with the fact by now.

“You know… I think I want to get to know you better. Let’s tell each other some things about ourselves. How about we start with a simple one… what’s your name?” The human spoke, a glint of frustration in their eyes. Contralto instantly knew what they were getting at, and refused to play along.

“I know what you’re doing, human! You’ll never get the answer you want. My name is Contralto, Hero of the Sprites, Defender of the Helpless, The Hero Who Never Gives Up!”

The human could only chuckle, before stroking the sprite’s hair with their thumb. “Oh, you poor, poor little thing… I think you need to understand who’s the helpless one right now…”

“What are you going to do, break my arm again? Go for it, I don’t care anymore!” yelled the sprite, defiant as always.

“Hm… you know, you’re right. Our little games have grown a bit stale… I have an idea…” the human mused, as they began to walk out of the bedroom, into the kitchen. Contralto noticed just how unchanged the apartment was since the last time she had been out here. If anything, she almost felt like more mess had been added to the existing clutter. The human placed Contralto into a plastic container, as they began to dig through their cabinets.

“Here we go… this pot is more than big enough.” The human hummed to themself, as they began to fill a pot with water and put it over the stove.

“What… what are you doing?” uttered Contralto, as her mind raced with the possibilities of what they were doing. The human continued to ignore Contralto until the water had started to bubble, when they looked at her plainly and spoke a few chilling words.

“You’ve been here for a few weeks, and I think it’s time you had a bath.”

Contralto instantly began to panic, as the human grabbed her out of the container and held her over the pot, the steam causing her to sweat and starting to burn her skin.

“That is, unless you want to have a nice conversation?” the human spoke.

Contralto could only stare wide-eyed at the human, awaiting their next words, before they finally broke the tension. “So. What’s your name?”

This was it. This was the lowest point of her life. She knew there was only one way to get out of this… mostly unharmed.

“Contralto, Hero of the Sprites, Defender of the- AAAAH!” She screamed, as the human slightly loosened their grip on her as Contralto wrapped her arms desperately around one of their fingers. For the first time in her life, she needed this human to hold her, or else she was going to fall into a pot of boiling water.

“Sorry, I missed that. And you better speak quickly, my hands are a bit slippery in this humidity. Now, what was your name again?”

The heat from the steam alone was burning her body, and the human was slowly spreading their fingers… they wouldn’t drop her, right? Right?

“I- I won’t say it! My name is Contralto!” she cried, before shouting again in fear as the human loosened their grip even further, and Contralto could feel herself slipping further down.

“Is it? Interesting… I thought it was something else… you know, I’d like to think we’re both honest with each other, wouldn’t you?”

“I… I know you’re bluffing! You won’t get rid of me that easily!” Contralto shouted, before being lowered closer to the boiling water.

“You know… this is getting awfully hot… I may let go soon…” The human mused, as if they weren’t holding a life in their hands. They adjusted their grip ever so slightly, causing Contralto to slide ever closer to the bubbling pot below.

“I-it’s Contralto! My name is Contralto!”, the sprite tried to profess bravely, but her voice squeaking in fear revealed her true feelings.

The human, clearly starting to get agitated, switched up their grip so they were holding Contralto between their index finger and thumb, directly over the water. Contralto could feel the heat from the boiling water through her boots, and the steam was burning her eyes as she stared down in terror.

“Hm… this is getting frustrating. I’ll give you one. More. Chance. What’s your name?” spoke the human, annoyance in their voice.

“M-my name… My name is… You can call me… Connie!” Contralto screamed, as the human slowly lowered their hand. As she said the magic word, the human pulled their hand away from the boiling water, and stared at her with a wide, devious smile.

“Oh, that’s what you were saying, apologies! It’s lovely to finally get to know you, Connie!”

The sprite was flushed, her life still flashing before her eyes, so much that she didn’t even have a chance to respond. Her captor clearly noticed this, and spoke again after a moment.

“That is your name, right, Connie?”

Defeated, Contralto could only nod a “yes”, before hanging her head in shame.

“Well, you know Connie, I wasn’t lying about the bath. But because you seem so upset by the hot water, we’ll just have to use cold water instead.” The human said, filling a cup with ice water from the fridge. Contralto hardly had time to protest before she was dunked, clothes and all, into the freezing water.

Luckily, this “bath” only lasted a few seconds, though it was enough for the sprite to feel the whiplash in temperature. Once she was lifted out of the water, her captor looked at her and said, with that fake smile glued to their face, “Now, wasn’t that nice? I bet you appreciate me giving you a nice cold bath, right?”

“... Thank you…” was all Contralto could say, her fight for the day gone.

Chapter 5: Escape

It had been… two months? Three? Since Contralto has been captured. The tree outside the window had regrown its leaves, so it was at least early spring by now. In that time, the human had continued their little games, trying to break Contralto’s spirits. Her blades, which were previously kept in their nightstand, had been moved to the dresser, just barely out of reach. She had to greet the human each day with a please and thank you, and of course, when asked her name, she was forced to respond with that cursed nickname.

It was another night of their usual performance, with the human grabbing Contralto from her cage and tormenting her, but today was a little bit different. The human was particularly drunk tonight, and after an evening of threatening Contralto with the microwave, they had roughly thrown Contralto back into her cage before falling asleep… forgetting to lock the door. This was her chance, it was her only chance of escape! After making sure the human was sound asleep, evident by their snoring, Contralto slowly and carefully moved the door, sneaking out and grabbing her blades. She could make a run for it, get to the kitchen and never be seen again… but there was something she had to do first.

The sprite made her way down the dresser, using a pile of discarded clothes to cushion her fall. She made her way over to the human’s bed, where they lay on their stomach, face pointed to the side. Perfect.

Contralto climbed the blanket, which was half-off the bed, and made her way up to the bed. This was stupid, thought a part of her, which wanted to run. But Contralto was nothing if not determined to teach this human a lesson. She gently made her way over to their face, knowing that this may get her killed, but she had to try. She could feel their breath with every exhale, freezing each time out of instinct. Eventually, she made her way to her target, the human’s closed eyes. As she looked at their eyelid, she readied her blades. She was under no assumption that she would kill the human, she had grown past that delusion. But she could leave a mark. Channeling her power, and wishing a goodbye to her blades, drove her prized blades into the eye of the human.

The human tried to open their eye in shock, only to roll over and scream in pain as their eyelid tore. They slapped around the bed, trying to catch Contralto, but the sprite moved with a determined speed, jumping off the bed and hiding beneath it. The human swore and screamed as they looked around underneath the bed for their little captive.

“Connie! What the fuck! I’ll make you regret that!” Screamed the human, as Contralto hid.

“That’s… not my name!” shouted the sprite. The human tried to grab in the direction her voice came from, but she had already started moving again.

“You… ungrateful… PEST!” shouted the human, as they moved their hand to catch the blood pooling on their face.

Contralto knew she had to run, now. She made her way to the door, using the piles of discarded clothes around the room and her naturally better night vision to hide herself.

“Where are you?! Get over here, NOW!” screamed the human. “I’ll tear you apart when I catch you, you brat!”

Finally, Contralto made it to the door. She wasn’t sure if she could fit underneath it, and if the human opened it while she was underneath… she had to take the chance. As she slid under the door, feet first, she saw the human make eye contact, their blue eye staring at her.

“You-!” they shouted as they made their way to the door, but not before Contralto made it under the door successfully. She began to sprint, only knowing the exit in the kitchen. As she ran down the hallway, the door opened, and the human looked towards her. They instantly began chasing her. Contralto was ready to dodge their hand, but wasn’t expecting them to go right for a kick, which sent her flying across the room, knocking the wind out of her. As Contralto laid on the floor, trying to get up, the human walked even closer.

“Oh, you’re still alive? You really are a durable one. Well, you’ll wish you weren’t after this…” they said, as they finally tried to reach down and grab her. Contralto rolled away, running between their legs to try and make the intoxicated human lose their balance. It almost worked, but the human regained their composure soon after, resuming their chase. Contralto ran under the couch in the living room, a technique she learned from one of her parents to avoid humans. She was so close, about halfway to her destination. It was a small clearing, then the kitchen, then the hole behind the cabinet where she’d be free.

Just then, the couch started to lean, and Contralto couldn’t resist squeaking in fear as she saw the human lift up one side of the couch. With the human’s hands full, Contralto took the chance to run towards the kitchen. The couch behind her hit the ground with a loud thump, as the human shouted at her. “There’s nowhere for you to run to, you pest! Get back here!”

The kitchen, she had arrived in the kitchen! The cabinet was only a few feet away, to a human. Contralto dashed towards it, but was cut off by the human stomping down right in front of her. “I don’t know where you’re going, but you sure as hell aren’t getting there, you little pest!”

Contralto looked around, planning a way out, and decided the only way out was through. She ran forward and started scampering up the human’s sock, causing them to shake their foot to attempt to dislodge her, sending Contralto flying away again.

“Now I’ve got you!” The human cried as they reached for Contralto, but she had one final trick up her sleeve as the human’s hand wrapped around her, as she chomped down on the skin between their thumb and index finger with all the force she could muster.

As expected, the human’s hand flung open on reflex, giving her a chance to slip away and finally make her way to the cabinet, where, thankfully, the hole in the wall remained undisturbed. Contralto snuck through the door, before giving a final adrenaline-fueled shout, “Consider yourself defeated by Contralto, Hero of the Sprites, Defender of the Helpless, The Hero Who Never Gives Up!”

Chapter 6: Epilogue

It had been four days since Contralto had escaped. After her escape, she had collapsed from exhaustion, and pain once the adrenaline wore off. Luckily, she was found by a neighboring sprite, a lovely person named Harmony, who had helped her patch herself up. Together, they had sealed the entrance to the human’s apartment, with a scrawl of “DANGER” on the wall nearby to hopefully warn any future sprites that this apartment was decidedly unsafe.

Though she had lost her prized blades, Harmony happened to be a tailor, and gifted Contralto a sewing pin, which the hero gratefully accepted as her new weapon of choice.

“Are you sure you’re okay to leave, Contralto? Your arm is still, um…” said Harmony, concern in their voice. After all, Contralto was still in pretty bad shape… not even the healing power of two sprites could undo that much damage in only a few days.

“I’m fine. This has taught me something… My quest can’t wait even a second longer. Who knows what other sprites are suffering the same fate as we speak? I have to save them, Harmony!”

Harmony seemed reluctant, as they knew Contralto’s quest was a foolish one. However, they had learned in the few short days of knowing her that nothing would stop Contralto. “Okay… just, if things go south, you can always come back here, and I’ll do what I can to help, okay? You’re not alone, Contralto. Take care of yourself.”

Contralto nodded, as she turned and left, heading to a new apartment to resume her goal. She didn’t know how she was going to win, but she would never stop fighting.

[thestobingirlie]

Hello to start with I was concerned about where u went but then realised oh new username excellent crisis averted...

ALSO the main reason I'm in ur inbox is I need a little shitty steve characterisation vent so here goes:

I keep coming across (accidentally) those characterisations of steve (in steddie context) where he's like "i love to be subby and give up control bc I've always had to be in control and it's a relief to take a break from this." And like. canonically steve is the one whose autonomy is always the most hijacked like he's just dragged along with the major plot decisions everyone else makes - i remember a beautiful piece of meta i read a while back that summarised its point in a line like "steve hasn't made a single decision for himself since he chose to go back in the byers house in s1."

Also i believe you've discussed a bunch in the past (or one of your mutuals did?) that he is very much a take charge kind of guy, taking as an example all the russian base shenanagins and his role in those.

And that plus societal/peer/parental pressure (particularly during 'king steve time') to be a certain kind of guy and live a certain way makes me think in fact he would be the complete OPPOSITE??? In regards to needing to give up control if anything I think he'd want to take it back (both in a life decisions and potentially in Sexy Situations kind of way).

Optional extra point that i change my mind on back and forth, in the particular context of steddie I'd almost put eddie (if you had to place them into this specific d/s retaking/giving up control dynamic which you absolutely don't have to) into that characterisation of feeling relief in not having to be in control, as he's the one always having to constantly push back against society and assert his "freakishness."

Long rant over, thank you for always being the blog I can click onto and scroll if I want to read a salty accurate take about fandom characterisations!!

glad you were able to find me again! honestly it’s still kinda crazy to me that people like… recognise my username and seek me out lmao.

i will always be here for some salty takes. you know that post that’s like, what if my hobby is being a hater? literally me.

oh i love that line! yeah, i think it’s really interesting how steve has increasingly not had any control over the direction that his life is going in. he’s a character that is very much so at the mercy of others. like, thinking about the last two seasons, he was tied up and beaten, then strangled and eaten. even looking at the very way that he’s getting injured, it’s all something that he couldn’t fight against!

getting back on topic tho, yeah, i really dislike the super subby idea of steve that is incredibly pervasive throughout the steddie fandom. it just feels so out of character. like, obviously sexual preferences don’t necessarily have to align with a persons personality, but they just really aren’t writing about steve anymore.

yeah no i agree, steve has admitted that he went along with shit in high school because he wanted to be perceived a certain way, so i think it would make more sense that he would want to take that control back in any way he could, be himself in a way he couldn’t before. also. not to get crass, but steve just seems like someone that really enjoys giving, even in the bedroom. like, he wants to make sure the other person is having a good time. and so, i think it makes sense that he would want at least a little control over that.

yeah, i do not think d/s dynamics make sense for steddie’s relationship, and i think it’s kinda weird that people feel the need to make their sex very restrictive and kinky. but also i agree that i think it makes more sense for eddie to be… the not in control one. i also think eddie would like the feeling of being desired. like, eddie is an outcast, he’s a freak, even if he’s welcomed that role. i think he would definitely enjoy king steve being the one, kind of, reaching out and going after him, in that way.

but yeah, i do not like subby steve, and i think it’s weird the extent to which people have decided that steddie’s sex life has to involve kinks that often directly contradict their characters. obviously, enjoy what you enjoy and have fun writing smut, i just do not like it.

[busiest-bee]

I’m scared to post this but if I don’t I’ll beat myself up about it. Fuck it we ball

I’ve been trying to put my emotions into words All day. But then I remembered. Oh right yeah. I can just. Say It.

Anyways Me being a loser (vent? I don’t know) under the cut

(Cool divider made by me using some splatoon assets I got off the wiki btw :•3 )

(This is kinda long. Way longer than I originally wanted. So super sorry about that)

Anyways for a little while now I’ve been considering that I Might be some form of nonhuman/otherkin. Specifically a shapeshifter, but dogs, cats (both big and small), wolves, and bears are things I relate to heavily as well. (Not sure “relate” is the best term for what I feel but ehh I’m having a hard enough time with this as is) The dog, wolf, and cat parts are because of the kind of shapeshifter I..am?? That feels kinda crazy to say (and saying THAT is giving me some serious self doubt. But as they say, Fuck It We Ball).

Edit (8-24-24)- adding in cuz I just remembered: some visual similarities to lizards/reptiles so throw a little bit of That in the mix idk

Anyways yea the type of shapeshifter I’m talking about is actually a species I’ve been Sorta developing over a couple years now, it’s all come about pretty naturally tho. It’s basically just my brain saying “hey I Hate these parts of being a human. Let’s do something else” idk how to word it. So the kind of shapeshifter I am is more so based on what I hate about my irl body. That definitely plays into my gender dysphoria, and vice versa.

The bear part I feel less strong about, but it makes sense I guess. That came around when I had an intense hyperfixation on Splatoon. My favorite character is Mr.Grizz. Who is a bear. That hyperfixation was also the catalyst for me trying tinned fish!! (This is important to me bcuz I’m an Incredibly picky eater. Not fully relevant to the rest of this but Oh Well. I’m already oversharing on the internet in an attempt to come to terms with my identity, why not share a fun fact, Yknow?) Ever since that I’ve also felt very strongly about salmon. My favorite fish (I didn’t have a favorite fish beforehand) is sockeye salmon I LOVE them. They’re beautiful. They’re poetic. I want to eat them. Also my current layout (as of writing this) is splatoon themed. Specifically Salmon Run and golden eggs. I love the way the world of splatoon makes me feel. I want to be completely immersed in it. Golden eggs look so tasty and are so gender I HAVE to eat them.

I don’t know if this is a kin thing or if I’m just thinking too hard about it (that could apply to this entire post but eh) but I also relate (again, maybe not the “correct” term but I’m working with what my brain has so shh) to Chara from Undertale. Idk something about a little kid falling down into a mountain full of monsters, being adopted by said monsters, and giving themself up just to try saving them…their cannonical distaste of humans…something about them as a character really feels so intensely Me. I don’t think I Am Chara, but. Idk. This is all very new to me (admitting that I feel these things at least. I’ve been consuming some kin content for a while now. It’s fun!! Love moodboards and stimboards so much they’re so fun)

And maybe, if anyone has even read this far, u might be asking “bee! Your name is Bee! Your account name is bee themed!! Are u a little honey making freakazoid out to get lost in the pollen sauce?”

To which I say:

All jokes aside. I don’t know man. Bees are very me, I am very bees, but I tried looking at bee kin/therian posts and i couldn’t really relate as well as i hoped. Although I might’ve just not scrolled down enough to find something that I really deeply felt in my gut. So just. Think of me like a fancy car (except creature) with a cool bee themed skin or something idk. (To be fair itd make more than enough sense for me to be a..kin?? Therian?? I don’t know. Of a bee. I have so many bee things. One day I will have more)

I’m still unsure of labels, if anything I just prefer the term nonhuman, gets the point across without being too specific, and doesn’t give me any of the bad icky feelings that make me feel like I’m lying no matter what I do or say.

Anyways yeah this was long and dumb and honestly? I’m terrified to post it. Ive been struggling to get my words out all day and I’ve been posting like a madman. But I guess using my social media as an outlet for all my emotions I otherwise wouldn’t really have anywhere to put will do that.

Sorry if none of this made any sense, I’m really trying to not only understand myself, but also to then Describe that understanding to other people. And I’ve never been very good at having people understand me.

If I end up realizing I was wrong I will promptly dig a hole in the ground and let nature overtake me and cover me in moss

(Also just a note: if anyone sees this, Reads this, and decides to like. Reply or reblog with words of encouragement/understanding or really Anything. I might not reply bcuz I have really bad social anxiety, especially on the internet. But trust me when I say that I read everything people say in the tags of reblogs, comments/replies, all of it. It’s all greatly appreciated, it really truly is.)

(Cool ass Mr.Grizz divider made by me with an asset from the Nintendo online app in Wandercrust I think. Though I believe all the pics u can get from that are also on the wiki) (I should make a salmon themed divider holy shit)

[superfluouskeys]

i wave my wand & command u to speak on hopeless, a fic that has lived in my bookmarks for time immemorial.

ohhhhh thank youuu!!!  hopeless was my first wolgraha fic!  It was based on 10 kiss prompts that I decided to make loosely related and kind of flesh out a story for my WoL.  I was just going along cheerfully enjoying FFXIV until Shadowbringers but idk man several things about that part of the story just have my number on speed dial you know!  I was like okay I’m gonna have to write for this to get the rocks out of my brain, ergo I’m gonna have to actually develop an OC.

I pretty much made Adrienne specifically to ship her w/ G’raha so I find it extremely funny a. how quickly I became attached to her for her own sake and b. how I feel her chemistry w/ other characters developed since she was initially conceptualized to complement G’raha specifically LOL.  I previously had a hard time “bonding” with my own OCs and I feel this really marked a turning point in that regard where I was able to focus in on character ideas that really appealed to me enough to form that connection, if that makes sense.

There’s also like a huge gap in my AO3 works from March 2020 until January 2021 when I started writing for FFXIV.  I remember I kept wanting to say something about what I was going through at the time and how I was feeling about my writing and about writing generally, but anything I tried to say barely made any sense because I think I didn’t even know what was going on with me.  There was a period of time where I felt like maybe I just wouldn’t write anymore because I didn’t have it in me.  Nothing inspired me, and nothing I had been working on pre-pandemic even remotely appealed to me anymore.  I felt like it had been written by someone else.

In retrospect, it makes perfect sense, right?  But it was hard to understand the feeling from the middle of it.  And I didn’t want to be cold or disrespectful to the people who have loved my work over the years, but I also couldn’t find a good way of venting my frustration about how I was feeling, so I think I often ended up coming off that way despite my best intentions.

So my main goal in doing the kiss prompts was to not angst about them too much, to just get them done without much editing, and to write something fairly different from what I usually wrote in the past.  I felt like it would be a good challenge for me because as I mentioned I really love unresolved tension and agonizing slow burn, but I think maybe I love it too much LOL, so sometimes when it finally came time for the culmination of the tension I would freeze up because I had built it up so much that I was afraid the payoff wouldn’t be good enough!  Ten shortish prompts where they literally had to kiss felt like a perfect low-stress challenge to help shake my brain loose on this very specific issue, and for that reason I think it’s very sweet and pleasant to read where a lot of my other work is more fraught and angsty LOL.

I really don’t even know if this dialogue feels particularly in character, I was straight up just calling myself out for a laugh:

A dull terror is beginning to take root in her heart, the one that has borne the loss of countless others, the one that has already lost him twice over, and she searches her mind frantically for something to say, something that will keep her from spoiling the moment with things she can’t do anything about. “Is that your idea of a proper courtship?” she wonders, instead, trying at a teasing tone. G’raha looks up.  “Is it not to your liking?” he counters.  “If you’d prefer, I could go and sit across the room.” “You’ll do no such thing!”  Adrienne tightens her grip on him instinctively. G’raha’s grin widens, and his tone turns dramatic.  “Perhaps in a few months, our hands will brush, and I’ll write you a sad letter about it.” “I hate you so much.”  Adrienne laughs weakly, but she cannot bring herself to loosen her grip on him, lest he slip away from her yet again in her negligence. “I don’t think that’s true,” says G’raha pleasantly.

It’s funny, now that my life is like pretty normal and okay again, I’m back to mostly liking fraught and angsty things, but at the time I feel my personal life was so bad that I really needed sweet and pleasant in my escapism!

Fanfic Writer Director's Cut Ask Game!

[bluedalahorse]

Rambling? Venting? Idk. Vulnerability. Let’s call it vulnerability.

I don’t know if I want to even tag this because I’m trying to protect my verbal processing abilities right now and my eternal comfort movie Luca is playing in the background, so this isn’t going to be formal or polished the way I usually like to be when I’m posting, but… anyway, it totally kinda knocks me over that there are people out there who insist YR S2 wasn’t well written or Lisa is a bad writer or something because… something something our-oversimplified-version-of-wilmon-is-better-than-canon-nuanced-wilmon or some reason or other.

And I mean, when I say it knocks me over, I don’t mean it surprises me. That feels fairly standard for the internet and fandoms. I’ve been in fandoms long enough to know there’d be people with those takes. But I guess it knocks me over in… a Tired kinda way? A Deflated way? Something like that.

YR is special to me because of when I watched it the first time in summer 2021, and the things that were going on with me at the time. First, I saw it when I was completely burned out on Franchise Media (TM) and like, so incredibly exhausted from the MCU and how much everyone was still talking about it. It was refreshing to watch a show, not based on any existing IP, that delved into characters’ flaws and vulnerabilities, and that didn’t apologize for making you feel emotion and didn’t rely on quips or winking really obviously at the camera or whatever.

Second, I watched YR when I started my MFA in writing for children and young adults. The further I’ve gotten along in my program, the more I’ve felt that young people and adults alike deserve stories with moral complexity. And when we write young people as characters, the more we need morally complex stories for those characters. Teenagers live in a world that isn’t easy to navigate, and we do them a disservice when a story’s moral questions are too swiftly answered. As part of my program, I probably would have thought about issues of justice and human rights in YA lit regardless, but YR really pushed me to think of these issues in writing beyond just “good representation/bad representation.” (Which is important, but not the sum total of what authors should be focused on, and sometimes I feel like members of all fandoms overuse the word “representation” to justify their preferences. Sigh.) ANYWAY I love the way YR consistently resists easy answers and leans into its tensions. I love the way it’s always asking us, do you really want to find catharsis there? Certainly it doesn’t resolve issues by having superheroes shoot lasers at sky beams. I imagine season 3 will attempt to find some resolution for certain long running plotlines, but I also imagine what it doesn’t resolve will have the potential to open up some really interesting conversations, if we let it. Ugh, I just. Love dissecting the craft in this story! I love taking YR apart and seeing how it works.

Third, I discovered YR around the time I started to seriously think about ways in which I might be neurodivergent. (I’m doing my first intake call with a local neuropsych group in a few weeks.) While I have related to various ND or ND-coded characters before, Sara is pretty important to me because she was the first of these characters I connected to while exploring that aspect of my identity. I can see a lot of my child and teenage self in Sara’s arc; I wasn’t a horse girl but I did once beg my parents to send me to private school because I thought I’d be bullied less than in public school (they didn’t send me, because we couldn’t afford it.) I read novels set at boarding schools with a certain fascination because I imagined it as a place I could reinvent myself and be the best version of myself. I now know that I was romanticizing a pretty classist and elitist experience, but as a young person I didn’t really have the perspective to see and understand that. So I feel like I get where Sara is coming from, and I feel like her arc is such an important addition to the themes of the series. Like, we’re pulling the gilded veneer off of a really messed up system! Someone has to be drawn in by all that gold. When criticisms of season 2 boil down to “Sara had too much screen time” I like, can’t even be rational about it ahaha. (I hope people can forgive me this. I’m not saying Sara did nothing wrong, but I’m saying she has an important place in the story.)

Fourth, @heliza24 and I were friends before YR, but we were able to take our friendship to a newer and more exciting level while collaborating on our fanfic. And now we have ideas for original pieces we can write, too!

Idk like. I’m not saying YR or Lisa are perfect. I’ve got my quibbles with like the occasional thing here or there. Season 3 could still let me down. But I love it because it’s a well-crafted story with dynamic characters and resonant themes. I love it like I love Tana French and Elena Ferrante’s novels. I love it like I love Revolutionary Girl Utena and the history of the French Revolution and Socrates’s Antigone and Oedipus. I love it like I love Adib Khorram’s Darius the Great is Not Okay. I love it like I love so many of the songs in Ragtime and Les Misérables. All of which have their own flaws, but really make something in my brain light up and be happy.

I’m not really sure what my overall point here is. I think I just wanted to express this because I am currently having A Lot Of Feelings about other things in my life, and this feels like a place to rechannel them. And maybe if you read this far you got a chance to know me a little better, too.

[ruruumin]

learn about me.

based on my previous mutual tag game (i originally reblogged it but my answer is sort of long hahahhh)

✦ what is your blog's goal/intent? (what made you start one?)

from the beginning, my blog has always been a safe space for me to vent or express my feelings. despite being a writer since i was twelve, i’m not very good at communicating or talking about my emotions. it’s sort of ironic that someone like me, who’s a big chatterbox, can’t say the truth or be honest. 

when i first started writing it was for selfish reasons. i didn’t have anyone writing for my favorite characters so i decided to do it for myself. it would eventually develop into writing for others because of the massive support i got on tumblr and quotev. but now, after a few years, what i want to do with my writing is to express how i feel, and let others hear my voice, in the hopes that they could connect with me.

✦ what is your story? (what made you get to this point? any memorable experiences you want to share?)

as for my story. i’ve had a lot of friends in the past that have abandoned or used me, so it’s in my nature to put distance between anyone. i became a very self-conscious person, and that would affect my relationship with others greatly. when my ex-girlfriend broke up with me, history started to repeat itself once more. friends i went to for comfort and help had abandoned me. and i would eventually come to learn that one of them had been using me to get closer to my ex, and he would confess to her when we broke up. i couldn’t express to her how i truly felt at the moment when we talked again, but if i were to tell her now, it’d be that i was heartbroken and betrayed.

however, i’ve met many amazing people on this site. and i have many supportive friends outside of it. i understand that while i may not have had the best experiences, and it caused me to form thorns around my heart, it shouldn’t hold me back from the people who do care about me. 

i’m still learning to put down my walls, so i’m not entirely perfect. i’m still struggling to talk to my friends about how i feel. i’m still struggling with being mindful and listening to others. i’m still struggling at managing my emotions. i’m still struggling to lower my pride. but most importantly: i’m trying not to hurt others just because i was hurt. 

 i’m just hoping that you could have patience and wait for me on the other side.

✦ what is your biggest dream?

my biggest dream is being happy. i know that sounds extremely vague because happiness is not sustainable, and its not something you can actively keep in your life forever. you're bound to feel other emotions. however, what it entails is doing things that will make me happy, or at the very least, as happy as i could be.

i'd like to write for video games or tv shows. i'd like a nice, comfortable home. i'd like a nice car to drive around in. i'd like to see my friends more often. i'd like to take my family out to eat.

though besides all of that, i would like to get married to someone i really love. i am a hopeless romantic and i still have eyes for a special someone.

✦ if you had to use one song to describe yourself, what would it be?

try again by JAEHYUN.

✦ what mythical creature would you be and why?

hmm...although i made this question myself i think my answer is going to have to be really abstract and not mythical at all.

i'd like to be a star. i've always envisioned myself as one, and its very clear in all my writings that i have a strong fascination with the concept. it was something i had brought up to my ex-girlfriend and i've kept it in my heart to this day. starlight was what she called me, and i still find it to be one of the prettiest nicknames i've been given (her calling me dumpling was a pretty close second).

the origins of why i feel a close relationship with a star is sort of tragic. i always felt a hard time connecting with anyone because of my niches and hobbies. and even though i would be praised for my work, it all seemed meaningless when i had no one by my side. a distant star remains alone, even if they are the brightest to shine.

it has changed overtime though. and i've come to appreciate the beauty of them, and i don't see myself as the same person i was a year ago. i have wonderful friends who are also stars. and stars don't have to be lonely when they're surrounded by equally beautiful people.

✦ share with me your favorite fic on tumblr!

my favorite one is going to be afraid to lose you by awlumii (truthfully i like all of their works, however this one is still stuck in my head). the ending is slightly suggestive but nothing nsfw.

[jam03312000]

Okay ... Be nice to me this is my first time posting, or even letting anyone read something I have been writing. I am EXTREMELY nervous, but I think it's about time I push myself out of my comfort zone. I have been writing short stories since I was... Probably ten. I started with stories of animals, then westerns, and eventually tickle stories. Fanfiction, or just something I thought of or dream about. I'd love to have people give me ideas, or tips, or friendly criticism... So anyways... Here goes nothing...🥴🫣😬😶‍🌫️

This is a ticklefic involving the Avengers.

Bucky, Steve, Peter, Tony, Piper, Wanda, Loki, Thor, Clint, Bruce, Sam, (I named the character Lucy in this one. Also I don't remember when I wrote this... It was a while ago.)

There is some minor cussing but that's it.

(How do I manage to get myself into these sort of messes ALL the time?) Thought Lucy as she was hiding in the vents of a Hydra base that was supposed to be ‘out of commission’. Lucy had joined the Avengers when she was only ten. Tony had found her orphaned and alone on the streets of a town he was on a mission in and couldn't bring himself to just leave her there. Him and Piper pretty much adopted her, as well as Peter Parker. They aren't officially adopted, but that didn't stop her from calling them mom, dad and Peter her brother. She's now almost eighteen and is constantly getting herself into trouble, trying to prove she is good enough to be part of the Avengers.

“This ‘out of commission Hydra base’ is the most in commission base I’ve ever seen.” She growled to herself, “I was only supposed to take out the one moron that was supposed to be here and get back home before anyone realized I was gone.” She shook her head and crawled through the vents till she was on the roof, praying for a miracle.

When she climbed out of the vent she was grabbed by some Hydra agents. Before they could get to the door to drag her back to the man she was there to kill in the first place, the two agents fell down dead. One with an arrow in the back, the other with a knife.

“So much for getting back before anyone noticed.” She whispered to herself turning around dreading what she knew was coming.

“LUCY! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE!” yelled her Uncle Clint.

“ALONE!” yelled her Aunt Natasha.

“There was only supposed to be one guy not- “

“Forget it, Lucy. Get in the Craft. On our way home you better come up with a pretty good explanation. Your parents are going to kill you.” Her uncle Steve said as he knocked a Hydra agent off the roof with his shield. As she walked past him to get into the Craft he whacked her on the back of the head.

“OUCH! Uncle!” he glared at her.

“Don’t even. You know you deserved that.” She rolled her eyes and sat down. Her Uncle's Bucky, Bruce, Clint, Steve, Thor, Loki, Sam, and her Aunt's Natasha and Wanda all climbed in.

Lucy’s eyes went wide.

“Wow! Everyone, but dad and Peter are here!” Bucky sat down next to her and wrapped his metal arm around her shoulders.

“Of course we all came. Our niece was in trouble.”

“AGAIN!” Sam said staring her down.

“Lucy, this is becoming an everyday thing and it needs to stop,” Steve said giving her a look that was mixed with worry and frustration.

Lucy gave him her best sweet and innocent look as she tried to lighten up the mood by saying, “This is the first time I’ve snuck into a Hydra base.” Nobody laughed.

Bucky pinched her side.

“Don’t! Please!” she asked in a whisper not wanting the others to realize what he was doing and join in. He grinned and pinched her side again. She wiggled and squirmed trying to get free, but he just tightened his hold on her until she couldn’t move.

“No! Uncle, please! I’m begging you!” he ignored her. Working his way down to her hips (Which was her ‘sweet’ spot), she gasped and bit her lip doing her best not to make any noise, but he grabbed her hip and she lost it.

“UNCLE BUCKY! NO! AHHH!!” he grinned.

“Good idea Buck!” said Wanda.

“Yeah! Get her good.” Thor chuckled as he leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest.

“When you’re done Bucky, I want a turn.” Loki said with his arms crossed and glaring at Lucy.

“NO! NO TURNS! AHHHH! PLEASEHEHEHESSS!!” Lucy screamed and pushed on Bucky’s hand, but nothing worked. She couldn’t get free. “NOOO!!!!!”

“You do realize Lucy, that when we get home your dad, mom and Peter are going to do much worse, when they find out what happened.” Said Bruce.

“NO! You guys CAN NOT tell them!” Lucy’s phone started ringing. Bucky stopped tickling her so she could get her phone. She found it in her pocket, pulled it out and saw her dad’s face on the screen. “Crap. It’s him. Does he know?” They all shrugged. She sighed and answered.

“Hey daddy!” she tried to answer as happily as possible praying that he didn’t have a clue what had happened. That prayer dissolved.

“WHAT THE HELL WHERE YOU THINKING!”

“Dad…”

“WHY WOULD YOU DO SOMETHING SO STUPID!”

“Dad…”

“YOU AT LEAST COULD HAVE TOLD ME SO I COULD’VE GONE WITH YOU!”

“Daddy…”

“AND YOUR MOM! YOUR MOM! OH MY GOD YOUR MOM! YOUR MOM IS SO CLOSE TO KILLING ME! LET ALONE WHAT SHE’S GOING TO DO TO YOU WHEN YOU GET HOME!”

“Dad…”

“NOT TO MENTION WHAT I’M GOING TO DO TO YOU WHEN YOU GET HOME!”

“Dad!”

“YOU’RE IN SOOOOO MUCH TROUBLE YOUNG LADY!”

“DAD!”

“WHAT!”

“CALM DOWN!”

“ME CALM DOWN!”

“YES! YOU CALM DOWN!”

“LUCY!”

“WHAT!”

“GIRL!”

“Yes?”

“Don’t you Dare start acting sweet and innocent! What were you thinking!”

“Dad can we talk about this when I get home?”

“NO!”

“Dad…”

“Lucy.”

“Dad the phone is cutting out I’ll have to call you later.”

“DON’T YOU DARE!”

“Bye.”

“LU- “She hung up.

“Did you really just hang up on your dad, Tony Stark?” Bucky asked with a look of shock on his face. She sighed.

“Yeah…” she looked around at everyone they all looked shocked and a little sympathetic. She sighed.

“I’m dead aren’t I?” They all snorted, chuckled, or grinned.

“Definitely.” Bucky said poking her in the ribs. She squealed and grabbed his hand.

“Please don’t!”

“Yeah Buck. She’s going to get that A LOT when she gets home.” Steve said winking at Lucy, who groaned and buried her face into her hands.

“And not just her mom and dad, Peter’s going nuts.” said Sam holding up his phone. “Fourteen messages in three minutes.” He rolled his eyes and started texting Peter back. “And driving me nuts.”

Lucy sighed.

“Great. Just great. Well nice knowing you guys.” She said leaning back against Bucky’s arm, laying her head on his shoulder, and closing her eyes. Bucky chuckled, kissed her forehead and put his chin on the top of her head.

....

Okay so that is just the first part of it, I just thought I'd post that and see what people think before posting any more... So... Is it okay?🤞😬

[shipsgaysfordays]

7, 10 and 17 for the fanfic ask game?

(the plot of the first fanfic you've ever written, coming up with titles, favourite line you've ever written?)

Thank you so much for asking<3

7 is a difficult one for me, what I think is arguably the first fanfiction that I remember writing is something that I honestly do what to anonymously post someday because it’s one of the few long works that I’ve completed. Without giving too much away, it was a musical script (all the songs are shitty lyrics with no chords because I don’t really do music well) and it was very much a dark comedy. I was inspired by this idea my best friend had had in creative writing club, and so my idea was kind of a sequel set in the same world as her’s. I’m unsure if it’s fanfic simply because there’s not very much basis on like a fandom or things like that, it’s more random popular characters, but I had a lot of fun with it.

Arguably the first true fanfic that I did was some small thing I wrote on here for wolfstar, or if you count twitter roleplay then I did do that for a few months in 2021 in a fandom I choose not to name.

10 depends, a lot of what I’ve done lately have been responses to those wolfstarmicrofic prompts so the titles aren’t too difficult since I can simply title it the same as the prompt (my favorite title I ever did is when I wanted to do the same prompt twice and decided to title the second “Reasonable 2: Electric Boogaloo”). Titles not based on prompts mainly just come from the dark recesses of my mind, I normally come up with titles soon before posting it, but there has been one WIP that I’ve been making that is explicitly based on a title because I was texting with my friend and she wrote something wrong and it was far too funny for me to not do something with it.

17, oh I have a really hard time narrowing that down, I think I like my work better whenever I’m able to write comedic, like I write so much dramatic angsty shit but more often that’s venting (though there’s actually 1 fic that I wrote that may look like venting but surprisingly is not) and I feel like whenever I do comedy it could possibly make people smile (if the jokes land, honestly I wouldn’t know if they do of course)

Anyways, some of my favorite lines:

 Remus’ eyes widened. No, no, no, no. They couldn’t have. Chocolate is sacred to him. “PADFOOT WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO THE CHOCOLATE???”

 “Look, look, look, look,” Sirius held their hands out in front of them, “It’s okay Moony, I wouldn’t do anything more than good fun. You’re gonna laugh, I know it.”

 “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU–”his shouted was interrupted by laughter, his own uncontrollable laughter. That bastard.

(Olive Branch)

Love isn’t known for being reasonable, or at least that’s what books seem to indicate. But fiction is fiction and the real world has more rules. Society and all that.

(Reasonable 2: Electric Boogalo)

 “Can I ask you another question?”

 “No, this question is already one too many, you’ve filled your quota for today good sir and I will need some compensation for this,” Sirius smirked.

(Painting On Your Crush Can Be A Bit Awkward)

As Remus continued silently fuming at a poster, Sirius coughed for a second and finally spoke again, “Sooooo Moony…are you having a staring contest……with a poster…of the moon? Don’t blink now, I think you might just crack him. YES, the moon blinked, YOU WON, MY CHAMPION, MY HERO! Siriously though love, can you look at me please?”

(Moons All Around Him)

[followingherstar]

Processing The Circumstances

I don’t know how or where to begin.

It’s been five days and finally, my thoughts and feelings are making themselves known to me. My initial reaction was “No. No.” My next reaction was to check in directly with people I know in the BIPOC and LGBTQIA communities as I am concerned for them. Let them know I’m here for them to vent, scream, cry (ax throwing if anyone is up for it). I won’t break anyone’s confidence but I will say no one is in a great space. Wednesday was still awful so I made a donation to the ACLU.

I’m still angry from 2016 and now I’m angry from 2024. This did not end how we wanted but I will not stop fighting. I am not here for anyone who says let’s come together and agree to disagree. This is not about political differences, this is about moral character which I will never be lax about. Never under any circumstances is supporting a rapist, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, fascist, authoritarian individual something I condone. Ever. The fact that two intelligent, capable, competent women (one of whom is of colour) lost to that says quite a bit about people’s character.

When I was in college I took a world religion course as part of my requirements. What stuck with me was that religion is meant to help an individual make sense of the world around them. Based on that, it really does not compute to me when others are forcing their beliefs on others. If your beliefs are working for you couldn’t you consider that the other person has beliefs that work for them? All of this is said as someone who is agnostic but knows going back to large organized religion is not happening due to all the people using it as an excuse for discrimination.

Over the past eight and a half years I have been involved with my employer’s DEI Cabinet Programming Committee. Through this I have learned so much that textbooks and school never did. It still pisses me off to no end that people are treated horribly simply because of their skin color, identity, or orientation. You really want to know about discrimination? About how policies affect someone’s day to day existence? Listen to them. Their lives matter. They deserve rights and opportunities like everyone else.  After you listen you show up for them, you advocate with them. Actions speak so much louder than words.

White women have not always been the best at uplifting others. As a white woman, I have no issue admitting that reality. This election cycle in addition to donating to campaigns and posting online I also wrote 200 postcards to swing state voters. Am I perfect? Ha! No. I did however try to make change and will continue to do so.

On a personal note, I’m angry about reproductive freedom. If you don’t like abortion then don’t have one. That simple. Don’t like IVF? Don’t go through it. As someone with 28 frozen eggs, NOT EMBRYOS but EGGS, it is up to me what should happen to them. I am the person who went through giving herself shots, going to appointments, and having blood drawn. I am the person who had the procedure. Me. The whole process of an egg retrieval was one of the most physically and emotionally exhausting experiences of my life. The fact that anyone anywhere thinks they have any right to make a decision for me? Well, my own mother will tell you not to get me angry at you. So if I’m already pissed off that the rights of other people are being harmed I am probably not going to want to be a sweetheart on this.

By far this is not my best writing but I needed to try to process. Clearly, I have more of that to do.

 “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”

Until next time,

A

[stereogeekspodcast]

[Transcript] Season 5, Episode 3. TIFF 2024 Round-Up, Part I

Greetings film lovers. The Stereo Geeks were recently at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, and they have some reviews to share in Part 1 of their TIFF round-up.

Mon chats about All We Imagine as Light and Aberdeen, while Ron takes on Jane Austen Wrecked My Life and The Listeners.

For more TIFF film recommendations, find Ron and Mon's reviews at womenwriteaboutcomics.com

Listen to the episode on Spotify.

Aberdeen premiere at Toronto International Film Festival 2024.

MON: Hello and welcome to a new episode of Stereo Geeks. I’m Mon.

RON: And, I’m Ron.

MON: In today’s episode, we’re reviewing a few films that we caught at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. 

RON: Yeah, we watched a bunch of films, and one pilot episode. We’ve reviewed them at Women Write About Comics and we’re doing a few reviews here. 

MON: We’ll have two episodes on the round-ups, and this is episode one. I’ll also mention that the reviews are spoiler-free, because, good, bad, or ugly, we don’t want to ruin your viewing experience.

RON: So, what are you reviewing today?

MON: I’ll be chatting about All We Imagine as Light and Aberdeen.

RON: Sounds great! I’ll be chatting about Jane Austen Wrecked My Life and The Listeners.

MON: All We Imagine as Light is based in Mumbai. The film focuses on three women — nurses and roommates Prabha, played by Kani Kusruti and Anu, Divya Prabha, as well as Prabha’s friend and colleague Parvaty, played by Chhaya Kadam. 

I’ll start off by saying that I completely misread the synopsis and went in with very different expectations for this film. The way the synopsis puts it, it seemed like All We Imagine as Light was a story about secret romantic love between women. That’s definitely not what it’s about! Imagine my disappointment. That doesn’t mean the film is bad — I was engaged through most of it, but then it lost the plot. 

RON: Oh no! I’m the one who recommended it to you. 

MON: Yeah, but it wasn’t all bad. Each character has a distinct personality and character arc. Some make more sense than others — Parvaty is full of righteous indignation and rage over being evicted from her home. Chhaya Kadam is a particular delight to watch as Parvaty in this film. 

Anu is young and grates against the confines of the life she’s stuck in. Plus, she’s pursuing a clandestine relationship that is unfortunately frowned upon among many in India. That relationship crosses religious lines, and this issue has got a lot worse in the past few years. I like that the film doesn’t lean into tropes of hate crimes, though.

Prabha was the one character whose story was a little too abstract. I mostly got it — it’s about being apart from a loved one and what happens when distance seems to destroy a relationship. Unfortunately, I couldn’t gauge what her arc was supposed to be — she was central to connecting different parts of the story but seemed less of a character herself. 

One thing I particularly enjoyed was the acting in All We Imagine as Light. It’s so natural. And I love that the director and editor Payal Kapadia and Clément Pinteaux, let the actors perform without unnecessary cuts and edits, or overlong gimmicky oners. You feel like you’re in the room with these characters because the actors make their characters’ actions so believable. Yes, the cook is going to keep cleaning while she’s talking, but she will stop and gesticulate wildly when she’s venting. Yes, Prabha will keep her eyes on the fish so it doesn’t burn, but can’t help but stop and look at her roommate who’s made a frustrating request of her. I absolutely love that about this film. It’s so easy to get lost in the story because you are part of the story. 

RON: Yes, this reminds me of how I felt about another Indian film at this year’s TIFF, Superboys of Malegaon – the acting was so natural. I’ve written about it at WWAC.

MON: And, the cinematography by Ranabir Das is stunning as well. You can feel the heat and sweat from the crowds in Mumbai. You see the dark dinginess of the unkempt buildings. But, when the story moves to the seaside village in the final act, the camera perfectly captures the verdant forests, the dark caves and the beautiful beach side. And yet, it doesn’t forget to showcase that India is mostly a hot country, and with it comes flies and insects. 

RON: It doesn’t sound too bad. Where did it go wrong?

MON: Two-thirds of All We Imagine as Light was riveting to watch but the third act dragged on for way too long, and honestly, I felt it didn’t know how to end. The ending posits solutions that aren’t sustainable beyond the credits of this film. After spending nearly two hours immersed in such a gritty and realistic reality set to the languid pace of real life, the contrivances in the third act take away from that immersive experience. So my lingering impression of the film is that it was a suspenseless and tedious watch, even though most of it did a wonderful job of capturing the everyday life of these three women.

This is a mostly accomplished film and I love that Indian films are spotlighting everyday women and their needs and wants and desires. All We Imagine as Light is not perfect but it’s still nice to see stories with multi-dimensional female characters. 

RON: Well, from one disappointment to another. I was looking forward to watching Jane Austen Wrecked My Life. This sounded like such a sweet film. A disenchanted woman failing to find romance because of the influence of Jane Austen novels. 

Agathe, played by Camille Rutherford, runs a book shop in France but hasn’t been able to find her own Mr Darcy. When her best friend of ten years, Felix, played by Pablo Pauly, enrols her in the Jane Austen Residency in the UK, Agathe reluctantly agrees to go in the hopes of kickstarting her novel. And just as she’s leaving, she has a romantic moment with Felix. 

But at the residency, Agathe meets Oliver, a descendant of Austen. He’s played by Charlie Anson. They don’t hit it off at all and chafe against each other’s existence until they don’t. 

United by their ineptitude at life—Agathe calls herself the Palme d’Or of losers—they fall in love. Classic love triangle.

MON: Ooook. This sounds complicated. 

RON: Tell me about it. I really liked the first twenty minutes of this film. The characters were interesting and the dynamics between Agathe and Felix, as well her sister who she lives with, felt very strong and believable. Then Agathe and Felix kiss and the vibe just changed.

Yes there were funny moments after but I was so confused by what direction the film wanted to go. Agathe and Felix are the embodiment of the best friends-to-lovers trope and the first act spends a fair amount of time setting up why they’re great friends and could possibly be great partners. There’s such an easy camaraderie between them and they have a thorough understanding of each other. 

Felix is a commitment-phobe and Agathe is living in fantasy land and they both get it. But then Felix is gone for the majority of the film and that connection fizzles out. 

Agathe tries and fails to write at the residency, all the while trying to navigate her complicated feelings for Oliver and Felix. I wish the film had picked a lane—either the best friend becomes the romantic partner or the dark brooding stranger who is basically Darcy brought-to-life fulfils Agathe’s fantasy. Having both muddled the story and made it feel like the movie was just trying to get to its plot milestones without setting the groundwork for those moments.

MON: Booo! I was really excited for this film. 

RON: I know you were and that’s why I was. I also felt let down by a couple of plot points just being dropped. Agathe has trauma from her past but it’s mentioned a couple of times and that’s it. If it doesn’t inform her actions in the rest of the film, why have it in there at all? 

I also got very confused by the timelines. The trauma Agathe suffered was six years ago but she’s been having romantic difficulties for two years. So are those two events connected or not? And when and how did Agathe realise that Jane Austen was the reason for her unfulfilled fantasies?

I was left disappointed in this film. Especially when the end basically wrapped everything up in a neat bow. The ending felt rushed and underserved the characters.

MON: Yikes! Well, I’m happy to report I’m about to discuss a film that didn’t disappoint. Aberdeen is not a film about Scotland. It’s a wonderful, hard-hitting story about navigating life as an Indigenous person in Canada, and the film, rightfully, received a standing ovation at its premiere at TIFF. 

In the film, Aberdeen is a Peguis First Nation woman who's having a seriously rough time. She’s played by the truly phenomenal Gail Maurice. Ron, you may remember her from Night Raiders, which was at TIFF a few years ago, and still one of my favourite TIFF films.

RON: That’s amazing. I love Night Raiders. Tell me more about Aberdeen. 

MON: We meet our protagonist when she’s asleep in a drunken stupor on a park bench. The police treat her as less than human when they try and wake her up. She’s arrested almost immediately for being drunk and disorderly, and while she’s rambunctious and nonchalant, this latest arrest hits her hard 

Her brother, Boyd, played by Ryan Black, wants to wash his hands off her, especially as he’s struggling with some bad news and he’s had to give up the care of his great niblings due to his personal issues. 

But Aberdeen’s struggles have only just begun — she’s lost her IDs and most of the film is a crushingly painful look at the unfair and unjust hoops that people from Indigenous communities and nations have to jump through to prove who they are and where they come from to a bunch of white bureaucrats. 

It’s a heartbreaking and heart-wrenching story about just how much colonialism has continued to affect Indigenous communities in Canada. The bureaucracy of having to prove who you are to the people who stole your land is… horrifying. 

The film employs humour but never lets you forget that the situation that Aberdeen is facing is anything but amusing. The story and dialogue did feel stilted at times, but it’s telling the real struggles of people who’re quashed under the boot of colonialism, so if it wants to be pointed and on-the-nose, then let it!

Aberdeen ends on a note of hope, but unfortunately, also a message that you have to play the game and work within the system even when you’re angry. It’s an unfair battle, but that’s the battle you’re stuck with. 

RON: Wow. This sounds like a must-watch.

MON: It is. Co-writer and co-director Ryan Cooper wrote Aberdeen 10 years ago, and he based a lot of the film on his own experiences and those of people he knew. At the premiere screening I attended, Cooper even talked about what hell it was when he lost his IDs once. 

I wasn’t surprised to hear that all their first-choice actors signed on to act in the film. I love that veteran actor Billy Merasty, who plays Aberdeen’s friend Alfred in the film, said in the post-screening Q&A that he loved how utterly gay his role was and how being gay in Winnipeg is not as big of a deal now as it was before. I’m delighted to hear that!

Merasty also said that all the characters in the film are named after streets! That’s a nice bit of trivia for everyone. 

I’m so glad I went to the world premiere of Aberdeen. The standing ovation and emotions in the crowd had to be felt. Listening to the directors and cast get emotional about how their own experiences informed their performances was not something I would have wanted to miss. 

I hope people throughout Canada watch this and learn just how unjust the settler society is to the people whose land Canada was made on. 

Ron: That’s amazing. I hope I get to see it. Turning to a very different topic, I caught the first episode of The Listeners at TIFF. It was a press screening. When I came haring in looking for a seat at the screening, I was unsure if this was even a real thing. I couldn’t find it on the internet. There’s another film called The Listener which also has Rebecca Hall, but it wasn’t the same story. So, I was relieved when I found a line of people waiting for it. 

The Listeners is about a schoolteacher, Claire, played by Rebecca Hall, who starts hearing a distracting humming noise. Nobody else can hear it and people don’t believe her. Her husband, Paul, played by Prasanna Puwanarajah, is understanding but he can’t quite get it because there’s no evidence. Then Claire finds that someone else also hears the sound and that connection brings her solace but also begins to unravel her life.

MON: Sounds like a strange premise. What did you think about it?

RON: I really enjoyed this! I’m looking forward to watching more if it comes to Canadian television. I’m pretty sure I had read about people in a small town or village in England who were hearing a humming sound that others couldn’t. Not sure if that was a hoax or if this show is based on that story but I like the concept. 

The first episode has these undertones about the medical community and not believing women. It’s not a huge part of the story but it did strike me. Claire has to advocate for herself quite a bit to get the tests she needs. But what does a person do when they know something is different, even wrong, about them but they have nothing to back up their feeling? And there are physical manifestations from this hum—Claire gets headaches and nose bleeds, and she can’t sleep because of it. Since nobody can understand what she’s going through, that obviously makes her cranky at school and with her friends and family. 

I feel like the show kind of captures what people with chronic illnesses or chronic pain go through. Nobody else really knows that something is always hurting so you have to keep living your life but sometimes it gets too much and you can’t keep being on your best behaviour. I don’t know if I’m reading too much into the episode or if all these layers were intentionally woven in. If it’s the latter, kudos to the creative team because I got all of that. 

Of course, because it’s a British production, the story doesn’t go in any of the expected directions. For most of the episode, one student is a real thorn in Claire’s side, Kyle, played by Ollie West. He’s got his headphones on in class, he keeps falling asleep. He’s a nuisance. 

So guess who’s the only other person in town who can hear the hum? Kyle!

What I found really interesting is that Kyle has been on this journey for longer and he’s already been doing his own investigations. He’s as relieved as Claire is to find a fellow listener. But Claire immediately shuts down any connection because she’s his teacher and they cannot engage with each other outside of class. 

Eventually they do because they’re looking for answers but I liked that the show reflects society as it is now—it’s weird for teachers and students to hang out beyond the boundaries of school because so many teachers over the years have done absolutely horrid things. I can see this particular plot point going places in upcoming episodes. We got a short preview of the rest of the season and Claire trying to solve this mystery with Kyle is going to bite her, for sure.

And I hope to see what happens next. Fingers crossed the show comes to a channel or service I can access!

MON: Well, that was truly unexpected. 

And that’s all for Part 1 of our TIFF 2024 round-up. See you next time with more TIFF reviews.

[bellmo15-blog]

I've Lost My Passion For Writing

The title of this journal isn’t a joke. I have seriously started to lose my passion that I once had for writing.

I’m sure by now a lot of you have noticed I haven’t been writing any stories of any kind. Or at least anything substantial. You could say that those two stories I have shared about those really awkward plays I saw as a child or the only time I’ve ever actually gotten to play on a real Gamecube while in hospital count as stories but those are more just me retelling events form my past that have stuck with me. And there’s a good reason I haven’t been writing a lot. I’ve HAVE tried to write proper stories. About my OC’s, about fictional characters I like, but I always never get very far into it and sometimes just stop entirely or get distracted by other things I have more fun doing. And there’s a good reason for THAT two. I just haven’t been enjoying writing as much. It’s one of those things I have slowly been coming to terms with a lot recently. In fact the only long form things I’ve even managed to get written up the past few months have both been satirical and if you couldn’t tell from how I wrote those, my way of venting about how modern critics are obsessed with hyperbole and being overly angry and also poking fun at that “Nintendo has FORGOTTEN about Super Mario” video because nothing say’s Nintendo has “””forgotten””” a property like releasing so many games in that franchise in the Switches now almost 7 year life cycle.

To give you an idea of just how bad this has been, the last story about one of my OC’s I wrote was back in April of last year. It was a parody of the Peaches song from the Super Mario Bros movie but sung from the perspective of my girl Mikaela and she was singing about Nessa from Pokemon Sword and Shield as I do have the two in a relationship and loved that part from the film. And before that the last proper full story I wrote was in September of 2022 of Tom Nook from Animal Crossing finally being fed up with some people not paying off their loans at all and taking action tasking my sona Michael with collecting the debt from one of those residents who originally started as a joke OC I made for an April Fools day joke. That’s a pretty big gap to have as someone who is a writer which is actually why I originally tried experimenting with Micro Stories at first since they were only about like two or three paragraphs long and didn’t take much effort out of me. But even those I started to fall out of wanting to do.

So why have I stopped having a passion for something I use to love doing ever since I first started on DA? Well, it’s not for one single reason but actually a couple.

1; I’ve started to find it boring! No matter what I want to write, no matter how much I love the idea and no matter how much free time I end up getting so that I can do a lot of writing, usually about like 5 or 10 mins in I get board of writing and more often than not I end up thinking to myself “I would honestly rather be playing video games or watching a show I’ve been meaning to watch.” Plus, I can only write “this character said this” or describe what someone looks like or is wearing so much before I get bored.

2; Written work is something I’ve always struggled with anyway. I grew up on TV and video games and very little written stuff which might sound ironic coming from me but it’s true. I once tried reading one of the Harry Potter books as a child and I got one chapter in before thinking to myself “I’d honestly rather be watching the movie that’s based off this book.” Hell, I even tried reading the in game books in Skyrim but when I did I would always go “I’m spending my time in this game doing THIS instead of going on an epic and exciting quest?” The only time as a child I’ve ever read a book all the way though that wasn’t one of those ones that only had like two short paragraphs on each page and was like 15 pages long was in 2009 when a friend let me read an old Choose Your Own Adventure styled Super Mario book but that only because it was on a school trip, we were on a long train ride that took several hours and we weren’t allowed to bring our handheld games systems with us so there was practically nothing else to do. It’s a problem I have been trying to fix for many years and sometimes I do read stories on DA when I get the chance, but written works just always been something I’ve struggled with even as a child.

I mentioned before that this is an issue that my passion for this has been dwindling for a while and I’ve tried to find ways to get around this. At first it was writing little short stories to attach to my pics. I was mainly inspired to do this by the likes of other’s like IncredibleIntruder who like me is into hypnosis and especially belly dancing but also puts little short stories in the descriptions of the stuff he commissions and uploads to his page and still continues to do so to this day. I HAD experimented with this kind of stuff before coming across there content but it wasn't until I started seeing some of there commissions I really started to take my stories for my pics seriously. And I’d continue to do this for a lot of my commissions as well. Even if it was a pic the artist didn’t give me permission to upload like with that Symbiote Shantae and Rottytops pic I’d still write a story for it! And eventually, I just only wrote up a short synopsis of what happened in leading up to what we see in a pic in its description because I wasn’t having any fun with these stories anymore. Which again, sucks that I feel that way because I do think about this stuff a lot. Especially the pics based around my self insert sona, something I’m extremely proud to have created, because the whole reason that exists was born of decades of me having a hyper active imagination and always imagining myself actually in the worlds of the games I play, especially ones that let you play as customized characters such as Wii Sports Resort or Mario Kart Wii, and making up my own little Kingdom Hearts styled crossover universe but wasn’t just relegated to stuff belonging to a single property… And also the lore not being a headache to get used to.

For example, the pic of my sona becoming an Ankha Drone I had this whole story planned out while it was getting worked on of them walking into Ankha suddenly in their home on their island with two other Ankha Drones and would be the ones converting my sona into one of them. Then there’s the one of them in the coils of Naga Shantae which would have been right after an encounter with Risky Boots and both my sona and Shantae being very exhausted and Shantae offering some nice and snug coil hugs until we were both ready to head home. And the Techno Drone pic where the story would of involved them knowing about SuperTechno (the artist of that pic who’s sona turns characters into fembots) hypnotizing ladies into being his Fembots while still extending it to males, not being aware of the fact that many of the Fembots in Techno’s army were kidnapped, asking if he could allow himself to be a drone with one of the main reasons he wants this and allows himself to be hypnotized a fair bit is because of not having the best mental state, something I obviously am implying I sometimes have and this was my way of projecting onto them. Similarly, the Ashour Drone pic I got of my sona was going to have a story of them finding Shantae as an Ashour Drone and confused on why she’s the way she is which leads him back to Ammer (again, artist of that pic and who’s sona is a freelance hypnotist hypnotising willing people into being his Ashour Drones) and after looking into him and his drones a bit more offering to be one of his Ashour Drones for a similar reason to the Techno Drone one. Even my most recent pic of my Genie AU sona with Urbosa I tried to write a whole story of her originally finding the lamp and the two of them exchanging some dialogue before using hypnosis on her to influence her wish for a massage.

And yes, this applies to Mikaela pics as well. The collab I got with Violet Scales featuring both our OC’s I wanted to write a story of Mikaela stumbling upon a snake basket housing Jermisha during one of Mikaela’s erotic photoshoots as an explanation as to why she was already dressed in bedlah to begin with. The pic of Naga Mikaela mummified I wanted to write a story of her trying to surprise attack Eliza from Skullgirls to potentially add to her harem but backfiring and resulting in Naga Mikaela mummified by Eliza and coupled with some taunting from the 1000 year old Egyptian Vampire followed by her telling the Naga that she’s going to make a great display peace for her place. Even the pic of Naga Mikaela with Sharah I considered writing a story about her finding Sharah’s ring and putting it on not knowing that there was a cute genie girl inside and that’s how they met.

Hell, even writing this I struggled with doing and the only reason I pushed though was because it felt wrong to not have any new full-length stories without giving an explanation on why. Now at this point I’m sure a lot of you would be saying “Oh there’s an easy solution for this. Just use something like ChatBotGT or some other AI program to do the stories for you! Does all the work and gives you more time to do other things.” But I hope you NEVER fucking said that because telling me to use a style of generative content, which is notorious for being built of stealing other people’s work and passing it off as something ‘original’ just to get over my own lost desire to write is fucking stupid! Honestly, I think the better and more healthy option for me is to just stick with what I’ve been doing for the last few pics. Short descriptions and a brief summery that still add’s lore to my characters if needed. That might disappoint a lot of you who followed me solely for the writing but let me ask you this. What do you think is more important? Me forcing myself to slog though writing a story I’m not having fun writing and even if I do finish it my reaction will be more of a “thank God that’s over” reaction than any sort of positive one or doing shorter stuff that doesn’t take as much time to do and I know most people probably don’t even read anyway (sadly) so I can focus on what I enjoy more?

In fairness I knew this would happen eventually, because how many stories have you heard of creators who have lost their drive and motivation for what they enjoy doing? Need an example? How about Hideo Kojima who didn’t even want to work on Metal Gear Solid 4 originally because he just didn’t have the same passion for this franchise as he did once and the only reason he even agreed to work on 4 in the end was because of all the death threats he got from fans? Or how we almost got a new Jak and Daxter game in between the release of Uncharted 2 and The Last of Us but it ended up being cancelled because no one at Naughty Dog felt any motivation to make a new Jak game and they literally went “Are we really doing this because we want to or because of marketing reasons?” Or how about Geroge Lucas having to put up with so much hate and harassment from Star Wars fans though out the 2000’s just because of how he was telling the story that he created to the point where it just wasn’t fun for him anymore and gladly sold the franchise to Disney when offered without a second thought. (And before any revisionist historians try to comment “umm, no actually! That’s not it! Your just being a Disney apologist!” Clearly you don’t remember what George Lucas said in an interview one time before months before the Disney buy out. “Why would I make any more, when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a horrible person you are” anyone?)

So yeah, I’m sorry if this is sad news to anyone. But because I lack the passion I once had you really shouldn’t expect any new long stories for a good long while.

[a1asta1r]

I GET TO TALK ABOUT HIM LETS GO!

I pretty much had to make a Soc OC for the production I’m in cuz I’m part of the Soc ensemble lol. I can’t draw so there’s no art of him so </33

Ps: if I talk about character dynamics, like Daniel with Paul or Dally, it’s entirely based off how the actors in my play interpret the characters & how we interact in the play! Not entirely based off the book or musical at anything

My boy Daniel <33, some people call him Danny but he really only lets Chuck (who’s also part of the Soc ensemble in my show, played by my best friend) call him that without putting up a fight.

Born & raised as a Soc in Tulsa, he is 17 years old & a senior at school. Both of his older brothers went to Ivy League schools. One is currently at Harvard for law, the other graduated from Cornell for engineering. He’s expected to also go to an Ivy League school, but he doesn’t really want too. Although he’s good at school, he doesn’t like at and doesn’t want to continue.

Because of his extreme anger issues, he was sent to the school counselor who suggested he get a journal to vent in. That journal is abandoned on his desk, the only thing written in it is how dumb the idea was.

He honestly doesn’t like Bob or Randy, he just hangs out with them because of Chuck, who’s his best friend, and Paul, who he’s not as close with but is still one of his closest friends. The three of them kind of have their own group within the bigger group. Daniel is indifferent on the others in the group.

Daniel is borderline jealous of the greasers and their relationships with each other, though he’d rather die than admit that to anyone (except for the one time he drunkenly admitted it to Chuck, but they haven’t mentioned it since) he doesn’t have the best relationship with his family and he only has two real friends, so seeing all the greasers have this found familt and everything, he can only wish to have something like that.

He fights because of insecurities. Part of it is the jealousy he feels talked about above, but also he feels the need to prove he can be just as intimidating as people like Bob or Paul. He is the shortest of the group, & with the fact he has a very androgynous look, he feels like he needs to prove he’s just as much of a man as the rest. (This is what happens when a trans guy plays a rich 60s dude </33)

Absolutely hates cutting his hair, he thinks he looks better with long hair but once every few months he cuts it because of both his insecurities and comments from other socs. While it’s long he usually puts it up anyways.

He’s gay and knows it, he just refuses to acknowledge it and hates himself for it. Paul was actually his gay awakening in his freshman year, but that went away quickly.

Actively has a crush on Dallas, but is trying to avoid it as much as he can. He works at the nightly double at the concession stand and one night Dally started bugging him. He was trying to get Daniel to sell him the snacks for free, and part of his plan to convince him was flirting. While he was annoyed at it, Daniel couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Dally after that.

Jealous of all the relationships Chuck has been in and gets annoyed when he brags about it, saying he’s been single his entire life b/c of the gay thing

Was one of the Socs that went to Dally in the hospital and taunted him about missing the rumble

Actually fought Dally a little during the rumble. He got Dally to run from him by Biting his ear. Daniel still doesn’t know entirely why he chose to do that, but Dally was choking him and he needed a way to get him off.

(Off topic but my productions rumble is SO COOL I’m gonna miss it when it’s over)

There’s probably more about Daniel I could talk about but I think I’ve tapped enough. I’m thinking of actually writing a little smth about him finding our Dally died but idk yet.

I could post a photo of my costume during the show and give you an idea of what Daniel should look like, but since all my photos have other cast members in it take a picrew instead lol

(His shirt is blue but that wasn’t an option on the picrew lol)

Starting a reblog game: RB w/ your own outsiders OC!

if enough folks do, I’ll draw them together or something lol, it’ll be fun!

So these are blatant self inserts for my sister and me

(Info & backstories under the cut because I’ve put waaaay too much thought into this)

and again, pls do reblog/tag me w/ your own Outsiders original/self insert characters! (Drawings and/or written descriptions!) Making OCs was one of my favorite things to do as a kid, so I figured it’d be fun to bring it back here lol

(And to reiterate- if enough of ya’ll do this I’ll draw ‘em all together like a greaser-sona gang! So don’t be shy ok??)

-got sent to Tulsa from Seattle in 1961 at ages 13 and 11 to live with their mildly neglectful uncle, due to their mother getting cancer and being unable to properly care for them. Their father was lost at sea when they were little, so they had no one else to go to.

-in Tulsa they go by their mother’s surname, Biondi, instead of their father’s, because interracial marriage isn’t legalized in Oklahoma until ‘67. They try to pass as just Italian. This works better for Naomi, who takes more after their mother than their father in looks.

-Naomi is good friends w/ Ponyboy- she relates to him a lot, from the dislike of fighting to the love for sunsets (legit Ponyboy reminds me of my sister so much irl) (She’s also low-key got a crush on him and Sodapop which is pretty funny)

-Jesse is closer to Two-Bit, Dally, Steve, and Soda. And he really likes fights. They’re exciting and make him feel tough. When he stops to think about it it does make him a little uneasy how much he’s grown to like them, but usually he just ignores that

-Naomi disapproves of crime. Jesse used to oppose it too, but the more time he spends without good role models and parental figures, the more his morels loosen. Tries hard to be a good example for Naomi though

-Jesse met the gang through Sodapop originally- they were thirteen and some Socs were jumping Soda, and Jesse jumped in and helped him out. Soda explained to him what the deal with Socs and greasers is, because there’s no greasers up North

-Naomi met the gang separately through being classmates with Ponyboy. They were working together on a school project, one with him writing and her drawing

-So Jess and Naomi spent a solid few months hanging out with different members of the same gang, completely unaware they had the same group. They eventually end up running into each other at the Curtis house, and both are totally shocked. Two-Bit, who knew the whole time, nearly died laughing

-Naomi is friends with both Socs and greasers, because she isn’t really either- she’s financially a greaser, but she has a crazy high GPA for someone who has ADHD and dyslexia in the 60s, and besides that, she just doesn’t like what she sees as pointless rivalry

-Jess loves pointless rivalry. At least until people start getting hurt. Then he starts to get angry.

[kirby-antagonists-anonymous]

Welcome to Antagonists Anonymous! <3

What is this place? - It’s a blog run by a select handful of people, here to give everyone in the universe who’s been deemed an “antagonist” at some point (and maybe some other universes too) a safe space to vent their frustrations! Whether it be from a loss, or your plan failing, or even from something smaller, like your minions not listening or a certain pink puffball standing in your way, Antagonists Anonymous is here for you! Reformed or not, everyone is welcome on this blog! :>

Our rules are as follows:

~ No being rude to the mod team please! Jokes are fine, but please don’t be genuinely hateful towards us, as we’re all people like you, and we are trying to do better. ~ Respect your fellow antagonists too! Easier said than done in some cases, but please just try to be nice. ~ All posts should be sent in from the askbox! Make sure that your posts are anonymous or else it kind of defeats the whole purpose of the blog. Unless you don’t want to send something anonymously, that’s fine too. ~ That being said we do NOT tolerate hate speech, bigotry, or NSFW. Please take that elsewhere, because this is NOT the place for you. ~ If you’re an alternative version of one of the mod staff, you are welcome here! Just... please do not try to impersonate us in any way. It’s not funny. ~ The team may try to guess who you are based on your post. Please specify if you don’t want to be identified! ~ We accept personal questions as well! But please, don’t get too personal. (i.e. Don’t bring up what could be considered traumatic events for our mod team.)

How did this blog form? - Well, originally, it was simply a support group for antagonists’ assistants. The people they make do some of the heavier lifting. Once we realized there weren’t as many of us as we thought though, we decided to cut the “assistants” bit and focus solely on the antagonist part.

Okay, so who are you? - Well, the person writing this currently is Mod Susie! Pleased to make your acquaintance. But we also have a full mod team here, made up of five members!

~ Mod Susie (she / her, current president of HWC (Haltmann Works Co.)) ~ Mod Taranza (he / they, former assistant to Queen Sectonia) ~ Mod CS (he / him, former NME sales rep, currently working at HWC) ~ Mod Dark Meta (they / he / it, former knight of the Mirror World) ~ Mod Escargoon (he / him, former assistant to King Dedede)

Why is that your icon? - We couldn’t agree on one. I decided to go with something universally adored, like a Waddle Dee! Cute and functional, just like me! If it changes that’s because someone else changed it manually even though I have told them NOT to do that. ~ Mod Susie

( actual info under the cut btw. )

hi there, i’m bonnie!! ( @springbonnie-fanclub ) and welcome to my weird little kirby rp blog!! this was an idea i had for a drawing originally but eventually decided it was good enough to become its own thing. 

all i really have in the way of rules is no nasty stuff, and to just be nice and patient please!! i am one person running this blog and i can’t always guarantee your ask will be up immediately. 

also this blog follows me and my friend’s personal au and interpretations of kirby lore!! hence why there are anime characters present on the mod team. just wanted to clear that up

that’s about it, have fun on this blog!! :]