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#and then after restarting it like 4 times it finally worked
six-of-ravens · 10 months
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idk what the fuck the ctv news people have done to their app this time, but I think it drained my phone to almost dead in like half an hour
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moonstruckhaze · 1 month
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boyfriend shirt...
update: if you like this art, please go check out this fic that @chessala wrote for it ╥⁠﹏⁠╥
update cont: this is the first time someone's ever written something for art that I've made, and I'm still so happy and touched beyond words that she wrote this. she was even kind enough to share the initial draft with me and asked for feedback and even worked in little suggestions i had for expanding on different parts of the writing, which was so fun and collaborative and I haven't gotten to do something like that in ages. I'm so overwhelmed (in a good way) and it feels like getting to beam the full mental vision of the scenario i had in my brain while working on this piece into the mind of anyone who reads it; ;
i know these close up crops are a bit silly but well. i did my best lol... the full version is up on my alt twitter linked in my pinned post ♡
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please also observe the little 🐰 logo.... it is silly & crucial....
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13 notes · View notes
saetoru · 9 months
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this blog is now archived !! find my MASTERLIST here !!
hi guys, and here’s a long overdue post that i wanted to take the time to make after collecting as many screenshots as i can for a lot of rumors that i think need to be addressed. before i do that, i wanted to apologize to all of my mutuals who ended up wrongfully harassed in their inboxes for simply knowing me—the irony of this issue being about bullying all the while people on this app have been simultaneously being genuinely awful to other writers who have zero involvement has been ridiculous.
i would’ve made this post sooner, but december was very busy—as you all know, i’ve been working with two separate companies for my capstone projects, and i had final presentations with boards to worry about. and then a cruise which was fun, but i was offline. now that i’ve finally had time to enjoy my break and collect my thoughts, i’d like to voice my own side to the discourse i’m sure you’ve all seen posted by @/garoujo, who is now @/gojoath.
first and foremost, i’ve been on tumblr for almost 4 years now, and while i may not have the brightest moments on here (no one will be spot-free in that amount of time), i’d like to think that if i actually went out of my way to vicious or bully people, this would’ve come to people’s attention a lot sooner. i’ve had a relatively large following across all 6 of my blogs in my time here, and while i don’t like to get into the metrics of my blogs, the reason i point this out is because i have willingly started my blog over 6 times. 3 of these were sfw blogs under my nickname tee, another 2 of which were my previous nsfw blogs under a different alias, and saetoru which is the current one, where i finally decided to combine my sfw and nsfw writing into one space. i just wanted to bring that up because i had quite a habit of leaving and restarting blogs before this one, and had i been obsessed with outperforming other writers in terms of follower counts, i would not have left the previous ones as often as i did. 
that being said, i’ll also go through a timeline of events and how they’ve snowballed into an issue that is not as one-sided as most of you might think. i’ve been mutuals with emmie since my first blog, and i’d been mutuals with her through most of her blogs as well. we’ve never really had issues until her last blog @/garoujo, which she’d started after deactivating @/atsymu due to discourse regarding racism accusations. the reason why we had a falling out was because i felt that there were a series of odd coincidences that felt slightly purposeful, but i was still questioning whether or not i was looking too deeply into it to actually point any of it out.
admittedly, when i saw her first set of banners, i felt our layouts were a slight bit similar, but i really didn’t mind too much because i had been planning to change my banners anyway because i was bored of them. so i took that as an opportunity to do so. it just so happened that within a day or two of every time i changed my banners, hers would be changed too—i never said i owned the color gray, and i even fully acknowledge that the last two sets of banners, at first glance, wouldn’t be a red flag. because, like i said, i was more uncomfortable with the pattern of coincidences than the actual layouts. then i switched to my instagram theme, and not long after, i noticed her add instagram story visuals to her navi. again, no one ever said instagram was my original idea, and that no one else could use it, but it was an unsettling feeling having the same moot continuously make changes around the same time as you, and changes that are different enough that you can’t exactly point out an issue, but slightly similar enough that you can’t exactly ignore the slight oddness.
coincidentally, the same day, another blog (who i will not name bc they’re not very active anymore and are also not very relevant to this story) made the same theme as me and i was a bit peeved because this same blog is someone who has copied a few other things from me and a handful of other moots, so i made a subpost on my moots-only personal blog at the time. keep in mind, i made this post fully aware that emmie was on this blog because i didn’t intend for that post to seem like it was about her. but she reached out to me, and i explained to her the situation, and i even provided the relevant screenshots to show my points. i still considered her a decently good friend at the time, and even with the slightly off feelings, i was still adamant about brushing them off and considering them coincidences that perhaps i was being a bit too critical of.
it wasn’t until i woke up a few hours later after changing my theme and going to bed that i noticed she’d then fully switched to the insta theme. again, instagram is an app used by millions and, at one point, was a very popular theme used amongst most people on this app. i’m not entitled enough to believe i was the first person to do it, but like i said. there are just off vibes most of us will not help but feel when a series of coincidences continue to happen back to back to back by the same person.
there were, amongst these things, a number of other small touches that made me feel off. most of them i don’t remember by now or have screenshots of, so i won’t bother to go into all of them, but for reference, one example i’d also like to point out that i’d had the phrase “you’ve reached the hanmas” in my inbox when she was still on @/atsymu, and sometime after, her sfw blog @/loveatsu had the phrase “you’ve reached the miyas.” small things like this are not things i make an issue over and am more than capable of brushing aside, but like i have said and will continue to push firmly is that i felt there were multiple instances of emmie, in particular, making small tweaks to her blog shortly after me that made me feel were not all coincidentally similar. the issue was never themes or thinking i am the first or only person to do something a certain way, the issue has always been me countless times feeling that one particular individual is exhibiting a behavior that is persistent and uncomfortable no matter how minuscule the instances may be. maybe they were really just unfortunate coincidences that happened with poor timing, or maybe they weren’t. but i stand by the fact that anyone in my shoes would be valid to question the timing of each of these events over and over again.
i would also like to bring up kinktober (though this happened a while after the rest of what i will get into) because this was the first public discourse that emmie and i got into due to an anon’s claims of similarities between our posts. i had received an anon who told me “i think someone copied your kinktober masterlist” which i answered to ask if they could let me know who. they had come back to say it was garoujo, and i did not reply to the ask, instead, i made a post to vaguely tell the anon that i appreciate them letting me know, but i will just leave it be and continue on with my kinktober regardless of emmie’s mlist. i do think there were some vague similarities, but honestly not enough to really question it, so i figured a confrontation or issue was not necessary. a while later, several moots had messaged me to let me know they had received anonymous asks saying to “block @/garoujo she copied @/sakusins and she’ll copy you too” (or something along those lines, i don’t remember exactly.) i myself was very confused (and upset) by the situation because i did not, and still would not, want to be publicly name-dropped in other people’s inboxes over issues that do not involve them. unfortunately, it led to some not-very-kind asks to both of us, and while i am sorry she had to deal with that, it is not an apology from a sense of culpability. that situation was, and still is, entirely out of my control. i would not have seen the masterlist unless the anon had mentioned it, and i did not take part in having people send asks about her to other writers. especially not in a manner that was pretty much social suicide for me as well. 
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(this is a poorly made collage i know lol but i hit the picture limit bear with me here.)
i would also like to point out that i am not the only individual who has had issues with emmie and feels she had copied them. although i cannot disclose urls (they have been blocked out for privacy reasons) here are a few conversations i have had with my own mutuals, and i would wager there are more people whom i haven’t talked to who also feel this way. they might be small enough instances that sparking issues over them was not worth it to all of these people, therefore she has never heard from people herself about this issue, but the point does still stand that this claim about emmie is not one i alone make, and is one that i have heard countless times before. her never being approached by these individuals for the sake of peace doesn’t erase that they have been, and are, upset by these events, and it’s a habit that she seems to continually partake in. i would also like to link this post where she has been called out by another writer while she was still atsymu, which was posted while we were still friends. i’ve actually had a discussion with emmie about that post, and at the time, i had quickly skimmed the post and felt it was perhaps a reach, but after my own experiences, i went back to reread the post and considered perhaps there was validity to it, and that this might not be a one time occurrence. plagiarism in manners such as this will always have conflicting opinions, and it is hard to sometimes tell if something is a coincidence, a popular and overused idea, or something that has actually been copied. my point is that a number of people have all felt that perhaps there is a good chance this was not an accident, and please consider that so many instances of people feeling this way might suggest that there is a certain degree of validity to the claim.
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at the beginning of all of this, when the masterlist banners had first started bothering me, i was upset, and i chose to vent to an ex-moot of mine who most of you would recognize as munsonsins. abby has deactivated a long while ago, but she’s relevant to this because i had chosen to vent to her at the time, and this is more or less what later caused this situation to escalate. at the time of venting to her, i knew she wasn’t mutuals with emmie because, as you can see, she’d told me as such. 
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one thing i would like to point out is that there were a handful of people i had vented to about my frustrations with emmie, but one thing i had always been mindful of was ensuring these were a) individuals who i considered close friends and not just random individuals, and b) were not friends or moots with emmie in the event that i accidentally made people who she cared about think lesser of her. had abby been mutuals with emmie, i would not have shared my feelings, and once again, i was not loose-lipped enough to just tell anyone because they’d listen. i told abby in particular because i had felt we were sufficiently close individuals who talked one-on-one and were able to vent to each other. a bit after i vented to her, though, she befriended emmie, which i had no such issues with because abby was/is her own person and is an adult who can interact freely and befriend whoever she wanted/wants to. 
not long after that, on the night before eid (this detail is relevant in the future) an ex moot of mine @/kazuwhora reached out to me. if you guys remember, there was a discourse last year that was all over dash about how writers on this app should be open to criticism. a lot of people (including me and kc) were upset by that sentiment—which is still valid. please don’t give constructive criticism to writers without their explicit permission !! but regardless, kc sent me a screenshot of a mutual of mine who had posted their opinion on this discourse, and their point was clearly that while constructive criticism is important in some aspects, writers do not have to be subject to receiving it should they not want to. unfortunately, i felt as if kc misunderstood what this individual was trying to say, and i was trying to explain it to her, but we got into a small argument over how we interpreted the post. i felt some of the things she was saying about this individual were inappropriate, and i had made it clear that i was very fond of this person, and it made me uncomfortable to be having this discussion. regardless of whether she saw my interpretation of the post or not, i wanted to drop the discussion, especially because it was the night before eid. eid is the one holiday i celebrate, and there are traditions i quite enjoy the night before, and i didn’t want them to be spoiled with a poor mood over a silly argument. unfortunately, she wasn’t very willing to drop the topic, and it ended up making me upset. so i posted this screenshot to my moots only personal from the conversation that consisted of my messages only and said, “tonight i had to explain what a debate is.” it was petty, perhaps, but very harmless, seeing as there was no context given and no names/pfps to indicate who the person was.
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truthfully, i had vented separately to cat, eris, and abby about this argument because i was friends with the three of them at the time, but needless to say, venting to your friends about arguments is a universal action, and i believe it is something all of us have partaken in. 
eventually, i decided to softblock emmie because i felt it would be more comfortable for me on my blog to do so. after a bit, i was informed of a subpost that seemed like it couldn’t be about anyone other than me—to make things clear, emmie subposting me was not my concern. i did not hold it against her because she is more than entitled to have her own feelings and vents on her own blog, but the thing that did concern me was that it seemed slightly evident that she was aware of my feelings when i had never explicitly had a conversation with her. it made me question who would tell her, and as you may have guessed, the only person with whom i had shared my concerns who could also be in contact with emmie was abby. 
at the time, eris had also voiced concerns that they had trusted abby with the ending of the plot for the diluc series they were planning, and coincidentally, one of abby’s friends had posted a fic idea eerily similar to their concept, to which abby had been commenting and reblogging more brainstormed ideas under. all of these ideas were very close to the plans eris had for their series plot, and understandably, they felt that it was not a mere coincidence that their entire plot was being brainstormed on dash by a person who was fully aware of their outline. i’d voiced my concerns with believing that abby may have also been sharing things i trusted her with, and as a result we both had made a few vague subposts that we liked from each other—a petty behavior, i will admit, but not something that i think is very out of the norm for a lot of people on this app. sometimes, we all just want to vent out our frustrations, and because we all more or less use tumblr as an outlet, these can sometimes be vaguely taken to dash. it’s not something that is ideally recommended (i’ve learned the hard way) but it’s also ?? not exactly something that only i’m guilty of, or is even a rare behavior. i think to shoot down one person for this behavior is quite frankly hypocritical. again, subposting isn’t a habit i would like to push as mature but it’s something i’d like to point out is very normal in this community, and is not something only i take part in. beyond that, i take to ensuring that whenever i do, i’m not explicitly exposing who i’m talking about in order to keep them out of unnecessary issues. 
after this conversation with eris, it kind of solidified in my mind that i did not want to trust abby with any more personal vents, or information, and i had ultimately decided to soft block her too. i had also decided to take the opportunity to softblock kc as well because i figured i might as well just remove individuals who i felt made me uncomfortable. this is, again, my right to do so to curate my own space. not long after, cat, eris, and i had been softblocked/hardblocked by a number of moots, and we were a bit confused, until cat ended up having a conversation with kc. many accusations were made about all three of us, more specifically, about me to kc by abby because the two of them had been discussing that they’d both been softblocked by me recently.
the list of accusations we were told of is as follows:
me, cat, and eris have a “burn book” where we “blacklist people.” it’s important to note that every time this discourse resurfaces (this is now the fourth time), the “burn book” has fundamentally changed in its composition—it has changed from a discord server “burn book”, to a google doc “burn book”, to the current rumor that it was an entire blog that was used as a “burn book.” it is consistently changed to fit whatever narrative is trying to be pushed, and regardless, the rumor itself is entirely untrue and has been addressed multiple times. cat has had a tumblr theme, a collab theme, and a server theme all dedicated to the film mean girls. she simply had a channel that was to share the urls of minors to block for interacting with nsfw works, or people who were anti-dark content—this is something that i have seen in all servers i’ve been in during my time on tumblr, and is not a new concept for many of you either. it’s simply a precaution a lot of servers take to warn writers about potential minors to block, and potential anti-dark content harassers. the name of this channel happened to be “the burn book” because it was a mean girls themed server, so the name just fit. nowhere in this channel were other writers in the community “blacklisted” or spoken negatively of, and here are the screenshots of the channel. this was simply something abby had twisted in order to paint us negatively. here is the link to cat’s post addressing it for proof and explanation (i run out of pictures or i would include them myself.)
abby also claimed that i was using this channel to talk poorly about kc and a handful of other moots. this is also false bc this server had several strangers (as it was cat’s server and i didn’t know all her moots), but it also had several of kc’s mutuals/friends in this server as well. i’m not so dense as to talk poorly about other writers publicly in a server, let alone a server i know has people who are friends with kc
now, this next part, emmie has conveniently painted out to be about me, as i apparently harassed and blacklisted people for liking itto from genshin impact, but i have been playing genshin for over a year on this app, and quite a large number of you are my own followers who see my rambles and my writing and i don’t have to explain that i have never written for itto, nor explicitly expressed an interest in him apart from perhaps one or two posts from back when i did his story quest. i never had, and still to this day, have no interest in the character itto. i’ve skipped his banner, i plan to skip his upcoming banners should they come, and i have never written for him, nor do i plan to write for him. this issue with itto is between eris and another individual, and i do not have the details to this, as i was new friends with eris at the time, and i’m no longer friends with eris as of current time. quite frankly, even if i knew the details, i wouldn’t go out of my way to share them because it has nothing to do with me. plain and simple.
as you can see, there were a number of rumors spread here to kc by abby, and as you can see, all of which led me to seem quite vicious in character. i’ve provided, to the best of my ability, screenshots and receipts of why each of these is quite drastically out of context and far from true to what abby has claimed. 
i did in fact, after these events confront abby because i was genuinely appalled by the way she knowingly and purposely twisted things conveniently to villainize me. she expressed that she was upset and paranoid by the subposts that she figured were about her once i’d soft blocked her, so i apologized for the posts. she had conversations with both me and cat about the rumors she’d started, and she also apologized for them to both me and cat.
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the rumors that emmie has claimed about me in her post, which she conveniently provided no evidence of, are all rumors that are more or less a result of my differences with abby and kc. unfortunately, despite cat trying her best to explain to kc the falseness of most of these rumors, she didn’t really believe them—which is her business. to each their own. i’m sure if i had been in kc’s shoes and in one night, someone i had considered a friend had been painted to do a series of nasty things behind my back, i also would not know what’s true and untrue, and she is entitled to piecing together what she believes is her truth. what’s not fair, however, is for emmie to have no involvement/understanding of these events apart from a twisted narrative she heard from one person and dog pile them into her claims of my behavior to further paint me as a villain. emmie is more than entitled to have her beliefs on my character based on her own experiences, which she has provided her own evidence of, but simply slapping an “and i heard she also….” does not necessarily make claims true, and is very manipulatively thrown into the post to add a list of things that make my character questionable to further validate her point. 
not only this, but she has made a point to openly admit that she and her friends have collectively mocked me for my relationship with my ex-boyfriend, who they have apparently labeled as my “fake” boyfriend that i used to get attention on this app. quite plainly, i get enough attention on my blog that i don’t need a fake boyfriend to amp that up. but furthermore, i am a south asian, muslim individual. my parents are immigrants with very strict religious and cultural beliefs that i feel are very restricting at times, and though i love my family, i struggle with my identity quite a bit as i live in a very western culture that clashes quite a bit with my cultural norms. i do not get to freely explore my sexuality or even romantic life in general, unlike some of you. my parents have been kept in the dark about my relationship because them knowing about it is something that could quite literally create a rift between us, and i find it very insulting and almost suspicious that a white girl is making a mockery of my cultural struggles and my personal life. many of you are either desi or muslim or simply children of strict immigrant parents with quite stubborn traditional views. i’m sure plenty of you understand where i’m coming from when i say that i have to keep my relationship hidden from the majority of the people around me. tumblr is the one place i can anonymously share bits and pieces of my life without worrying about if it will literally cost me my relationship with my parents, so sometimes i may have overshared silly or pointless things, but that is because it’s my own way of being able to express myself and my relationship the way i have always wanted to. apart from that, dragging and making a joke out of someone’s personal life is quite unnecessary in this case. the issue is about tumblr discourse, and i find it very hypocritical that i am being labeled a bully when people, more specifically a white and privileged individual, is plain and simple mocking and poking fun at my personal life and situation that i have no control of. that is my piece on that. whether some of you believe i had a partner or not is not my business, nor do i have to go out of my way to show you evidence of my personal life. what i will say, however, is that there are a handful of close friends i have on this app who are involved in my personal life and have seen evidence of my love life through pictures and private stories on social media. quite frankly, these are the only individuals who i have to justify the validity of my personal life to, and it’s honestly quite violating for someone to stoop to dragging someone’s outside life into issues about tumblr. i extend a very genuine fuck you to every single one of you that have ridiculed my personal relationship and just know that you are extremely bold to consider yourselves above bullying when this is the type of behavior you admit to engaging in. individuals with complex familial relationships, and identity struggles between cultural norms, their ethnicities, and the western world are not your playground to make a joke out of. some of us have very real struggles, such as not being able to pursue careers in favor of arranged marriages, not being able to pursue actual relationships that mean something to us due to a lack of familial approval, being forced to bear children at young ages due to familial pressure, and so on. they are not laughing matters, and are a part of my reality. and before some of you get started—yes, it really is that serious. i have struggled my entire life with having white girls poke fun and tease at my cultural norms, and i refuse to allow another white and privileged individual who already has a record of racially related discourse walk away with once more poking fun at my personal struggles and not be called out for it. i hope you had a good, long, satisfying laugh emmie.
onto my next points based on claims @/anantaru has made about me. the main thing i’d like to really point out here is that anantaru and i have never, not even once, interacted to the extent of my knowledge. they claim that cat and i cannot stand it when people cross us in numbers and that we go through people’s likes in order to find minors and blank blogs to explain all the notes. a) i am very bad at checking for minors and blanks in my own notes, so this is not even a logical approach on my end, but b) this claim is made because cat made this post under the tags of a post going around last year that asked to hear unpopular ficblr opinions.
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what cat means to articulate here is that sometimes, when she is scrolling on dash and interacting with moots and their shit/talk-posts, she peeks at profiles she sees in the notes and has happened to catch minors lurking. cat, firstly, has never followed anantaru, so they are not a “victim” to cat glancing at their likes, but secondly, this is not nearly as psychotic as it’s painted out to be. cat is not, and was not, jealous of other blog's notes. quite plainly, she’s not exactly a tiny blog either, and she’s only stumbled upon minors in the talks-posts of moots, including me. shit-posts/talks-posts are easy to notice minors lurking on, and while most people recognize that it’s quite impossible to catch every minor and ageless blog in writing posts with numerous notes, a simple shit-post on dash is more simple, and her unpopular opinion was simply that blogs that grow rapidly need to be better about catching those minors because they are susceptible to having more of them lurking. it’s a really harmless sentiment, and she’s gently reminded me as well on more than one occasion to be more responsible about my habit of being lazy when scouting for minors in my interactions. 
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this is not out of jealousy, nor is it some sick and twisted habit she has to “explain” why people get more notes than she might get. it’s also out of a place of concern for her own content ?? i myself and plenty of other large blogs reblog from mutuals, and they are well within their right to be concerned that perhaps minors are lurking on our pages and interacting with works we reblog from our mutuals. cat has voiced this concern to me before, also out of goodwill and simple concern for my content, her content, and minors in general. there is simply no need to twist it into her viciously looking down upon large blogs and their notes counts and claiming they’re “only because they don’t block minors.” admittedly, though, i do need to be better about catching minors, and i have always appreciated her trying to keep me in the habit of being responsible about it. more importantly, it was a small passing comment under a post of unpopular opinions, a lot of them were hot takes, and this is hardly a serious one to get so heated over. 
i’d also like to point out that anantaru has claimed we blocked them for being a gatekeeper and because we’re jealous of their notes. 💀. a) i am very grateful and very happy with the level of interaction i get on my writing, as more people than i imagine leave me countless comments and reblogs. i have never had an issue with comparing my interaction with that of other writers because i have always been abundantly content with the interaction i get. i have no other comment on this other than cat and i blocked anantaru at the same time because we happened to see a post of theirs reblogged onto our dash that made a joke that we felt was a bit insensitive to/alluded to SA—i’m sure it wasn’t meant to be taken that way, but it made us uncomfortable regardless. while we are both dark content supporters, and i myself have read more than one fic that includes noncon in particular, it doesn’t mean we have to like/enjoy everything related to it and we simply decided to block them. i’m not going to bring this post up bc it’s simply not important. they are an adult who is more than entitled to make jokes on their blog and cat and i do not have to like them !! we simply did what we were well within our rights to do, and that’s blocking them.
there’s more they go on to say about receiving hate asks and that apparently it’s because of our “group of friends.” cat and i don’t have a group of friends. i don’t have any group chats with her besides the one with her boyfriend because i get along with him sometimes as well, and we used to play genshin together a lot when i was in low ar. not that i have to explain my friendships here, but i quite literally do not have a group of people to “send after” anantaru because people are well aware of my close friends, who i text with my personal phone number. i’ve posted silly screenshots of convos on my blog multiple times, and none of these friends overlap because i do not have a “group” of friends, just individual friends who i talk to one on one. cat is not friends with my other friends, and my other friends are not friends with her. there are no inner circles that conspire together to send anyone hate because i “tell them to.” and if there are screenshots of me explicitly encouraging someone to send hate on anon, i would love to see it. if i had sent my anons after anantaru, it would have to be a public post, and i’m sure if there were a post of such nature, it would have been brought to light by now. they have also claimed they were given multiple urls of mine to block. i only have ONE writing blog, @/saetoru, and the only other two that are still up are archived blogs @/hanmine and @/katsuphilia, which are side blogs attached to saetoru and have been inactive for several months. there are however, multiple individuals on this app who also go by the name “tee,” and perhaps we have unfortunately been mixed up as the same person, but the only blog i have is saetoru, so there is no other active blog they have blocked me from that belonged to me and was able to harass them.
not only that, but anantaru has claimed that one person off anon sent them hate with a kaeya url which they insinuate to be me. once again, you are all more than aware of my history of urls, and many of you have all been here to see them. i’ve never once had a kaeya url, nor have i ever been particularly interested in kaeya outside of a small number of posts on a rare occasion. my genshin favorites have always been characters from sumeru and, at one point diluc, and once again i don’t have to ?? explain my selfships to you all ?? but literally, i have nothing to do with a kaeya blog or kaeya account, and im unsure why it’s being thrown into my name. quite frankly, i’m not sure  what their moot has told them we have said about them, but the only conversations cat and i have ever had about anantaru was that one about the noncon joke, and that’s it. outside of that, there is literally no evidence of us speaking about this person because it simply doesn’t exist. 
i implore you all to, instead of starting public discourse over things you hear, confirm them first. had anantaru reached out to me or cat and expressed that they are upset that we are supposedly spreading false rumors about them gatekeeping, then whatever misunderstanding it might have been could have been cleared. i would like to also point out that it is not above bullying when you simply dump numerous accusations that you have heard through half whispers from moots and provide 0 evidence for them. i am perfectly aware of why emmie may consider herself to have issues with me, but i have never had an encounter with anantaru, and truthfully, i’ve never actually even read their writing before. my main (and pretty much only) experience with them is seeing the joke i saw reblogged onto my dash, and as i stated earlier, the only thing i did for that was block and move one.
and lastly, the other point i’d like to make is that numerous blogs who i have been objectively very kind to have come out to take the opportunity to stomp on my character and reputation. for example, tumblr user @/osaemu, who used to follow me and interact with me quite often. i have always been excited to interact with her because she was really supportive of my gojo writing, and at one point, i had a small area of concern with her using the same exact title as me for a gojo fic. below are screenshots of our conversation regarding the titles.
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i am quite confident that this is a very polite interaction, and i was very clear that i didn’t think that her writing elements, including gojo’s parent dynamics and his dynamics with the reader, were copied or even something that i felt she needed to change. i pointed them out as a way of indicating that between these parallels and between the fact that i know she reads my rb! gojo series, i find it difficult to believe that our fic titles being exactly the same is a coincidence, and it made me uncomfortable—my concern was not how she wrote gojo’s parents or his dynamic with reader. i never accused her of stealing ideas that were mine alone to use, all i simply wanted to do was shed light on the fact that based on these parallels, i figured the names being the same was a touch difficult for me to brush aside as a chance similarity. i was very clear to outline that i know these dynamics and themes in writing are generic, and that people can pull inspo from them because i have done the same thing. my only concern was the title, which i politely asked her to change, and she agreed. case closed. i have been, again objectively, quite kind to osaemu, and i had no intentions of blocking her like a moot had suggested because i felt it was a very silly issue to block over since she was very lovely to me. 
i did, however, block her because she posted one-paragraph posts with multiple characters tagged. that’s not a crime on her end, and i’m certainly not here to police her posts in the tags, but as me and plenty of other people on this app have voiced multiple times, it is a bit irritating and feels like spam to see posts of these kinds in the tags so i blocked her. this is a very popular opinion and i refuse to be considered problematic for it. i am not here to police what constitutes an appropriate post to tag x reader tags on, and while i have made posts simply sharing my opinion on what i feel should and should not be tagged, osaemu is more than welcome to post whatever she feels she would like to into the tags. i do, however, block anyone who i come across who makes those kinds of posts because i simply don’t like them, and i don’t like seeing them. i don’t owe an explanation for why i block anyone, but seeing as i have been painted as some bitch for doing so, here is my reasoning. quite a lot of people agree on this sentiment, and to each their own, but i don’t enjoy seeing those posts. i did also unblock her at one point, as she mentioned. this is simply because a mutual of mine had voiced that they felt someone had copied the concept of their drabble, and i was helping them word a message to send, so i went back to this exact conversation to look back on what i said because it was a similar situation. as you know, blocking someone hides their dms from your dm list, so i had intended to temporarily unblock her just to see how i worded my message to help formulate a message for a mutual. there were no screenshots sent, i simply wanted to jog my memory of my points, that’s all. i did forget to block her again for a bit but eventually did, and that’s the extent of our interactions. i don’t recall posts telling people that i condone sending anons with death threats like she has claimed, and if she could point out the particular posts i have made where i encourage people to send anon death threats on my behalf, i would be more than happy to clear them up, or address them. 
i have admittedly, on a few occasions said in my responses to anon hate itself, the phrase “kys” out of frustration, and there are i’m sure conflicting opinions on that, but i do not regularly use this phrase in my vocabulary. i have been on the receiving end of graphic sexual and violent asks in my inbox regarding me, my teenage sister, and my mother, during my time on here, and sometimes out of frustration i have said less than dignified things, but this is not a constant behavior, and frankly, i think once people make graphic, violent, and inappropriate comments about my 16 year old sister, saying “kys” in response is not the greater of the two evils. it is a tad bit hypocritical to expect benevolence from me to an anonymous hate ask just because there is “another person” at the end of the screen when they have not extended the same sentiment to me.  
all of that being said, jumping on the trend to trample on someone while you have the opportunity to because you’re bitter they blocked you is also no better than bullying. apart from blocking osaemu, I have taken careful steps to always be respectful to her due to the very kind comments she’s left on my writing. leaving nice comments on my writing is deeply appreciated and welcome, but that doesn’t mean i have to subject myself to seeing posts i do not want to see on my dash on my phone. i pay for the phone bill, so i will cater my phone to show me what i want to see, and if that includes blocking a few people, i am allowed to do that !! i should not have to apologize for or be crucified for blocking someone and their feelings being hurt over it. 
not only this, but several of you have somehow started a rumor that i am 26 or even pushing 30. that’s nowhere close to the truth. i’m 21, soon to be 22, and i have stated multiple times i am an undergraduate college student. of course, there is no timeline to college, and people of all ages complete their undergrad degrees, but i have made it a point to vent about my concerns numerous times that i am very stressed about taking extra classes every semester to compensate for changing my major late because i want to graduate on time. my graduation year is 2024 (as would make sense seeing as i will be 22 years old), and if you don’t believe me, i have celebrated my bday on april 12th of every year this blog has been active. you’re more than welcome to check my archive to see if that’s true, and for further reference, here is a picture i have sent to mods of servers i am in to be accepted. (note that my url used to be hanmas before saetoru.)
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although there is no shame in being 26 or pushing 30, the reason why i wanted to address this is that i wanted to point out that yet another rumor has been fiercely pushed on my name and has been believed to be the truth. no one has to walk away from reading this post assuming that i’m a saint and i have never done anything wrong or that i have been faultless in differences i’ve had with other people. but a lot, if not all, of these claims are exaggerated with 0 evidence, and people have just run with claiming them as true. i physically cannot deny a large majority of these rumors with evidence or screenshots because half of them are made by people i have never interacted with or talked to, and i cannot produce evidence for interactions that never happened. i have seen blank, burner blogs post stories of their experiences with me, one in particular that claims i dm’d them to tell them their hanma fic was breathtaking before i harassed them about their theme, boyfriend, and parents. a) i do not dm anyone to compliment their fics because i am simply too shy to do that. i would have only reblogged the fic with comments if i enjoyed it. b) again, there is no evidence on their part, and i cannot dispel this story with evidence of my own because evidence of conversations that never took place does not exist. and c) i would like to think i do not come across as dense enough to attack someone in their dm’s viciously about their boyfriend and parents openly with my account, where they could easily spread the proof around if it had actually happened. i am not responsible for people’s internet literacy, and if people believe every story that is shared with not even a small piece of proof that it took place, i cannot do anything besides simply urge you all to formulate your opinions based on what you see, not based on what you hear. 
i would also like to end things off with an apology to all of you—mainly because there was no reason for so many of you to be dragged into something that did not involve you and also because there are very disturbing and important issues going on right now in real-time in the world that are affecting a lot of people. i never want to be involved in something that takes attention off of important discussions such as genocide, and while many of you like to claim i am deflecting, i think it is quite telling that some people have posted nothing about something this important but have made multiple posts regarding discourse. i did not feel it was appropriate at that time to focus on discourse, and i still do not think so, but i wanted to leave off with my own statement.
i would also like to apologize if i have ever come across as unkind during an experience with me; it is never my intention to be that way purposely. i have a habit of being petty sometimes and can be a bit short-tempered, and it’s something i work on. with as large of a following as i have, sometimes it’s better not to say anything at all than say it—however vaguely it might be. i hope some of you who also have larger followings keep that in mind so that you can avoid discourse erupting into something grand scale. please vent to people you trust and be wary of having a habit to subpost. but mainly, please remember that people trusting you with their feelings and troubles is not something you should take pride in spreading. there is nothing to be proud of about sharing people's private socials, urls, and conversations. while i am not always able to keep my temper under wraps, and while i have had my fair share of petty moments, i, to the best of my ability, have always made sure that i don’t come across as intentionally cruel or mean, nor have i purposely broken someone’s trust. sometimes i have retaliated back a bit fiercely, but i stand by the fact that i never purposely chased or drove anyone off, mocked or belittled them, or sent people over to dislike/hate them. i have at times vented to those who i believe are people i can trust, sure—but this is something we as people are all guilty of. there’s no way any of us can hold one person more accountable than others for partaking in closeted conversations that are never meant to get back to people and hurt them. 
i genuinely loved, and still love, writing very much, and i have always appreciated every ask, every reblog, and every comment. writing is a hobby i am greatly passionate about, and it’s always a hobby i was very excited to share with people on here because i don’t get to share it with people irl. i don’t willingly tell people irl that i enjoy making elaborate plots about anime characters, and i have always been very excited to share that hobby with you all, whether you are a reader or writer. i’ve read fanfiction for a very long time before i ever decided to try my hand at writing it, and i would never want to knock other people down simply because they “surpassed” me. i enjoy finding writers to read from, especially those who write better than me, because they are where i draw the most inspiration and motivation from. the moots i look up to most are moots who are in my opinion, far stronger writers than me, and moots who i always firmly believe deserve much more reach than i do on their stories because they’re far more fleshed out and in-depth than anything i can produce. and i am proud of them !! and even those of you who feel you are stuck not getting as much reach as you would hope, i am proud also of all of you for picking up a google doc or pen and writing and trying, whether you choose to share it or not. i will always strongly encourage you all to try your hand at writing if you have ever considered it because i have genuinely built such a better sense of self-esteem when being able to incorporate pieces of myself in my stories and express parts of who i am—i think some of you might really enjoy the catharsis that writing brings, and if you ever debate on trying it out, please do !! you might become really passionate about it. 
anyway, this post is abysmally long. none of it is to clear my name in hopes that i will be “un-canceled” (LOL) because i have decided saetoru is long overdue to be put to rest. i hope you can all, at the very least, allow other writers some peace and stop harassing them in their inboxes for knowing me (because that is also bullying and very ironic of you), and i hope you all got some sort of understanding of where i am coming from. if you think poorly of me, that’s okay. i have an opinion of myself, and the close people who surround me, that i am confident in, and while i may not have always handled things in the brightest of manners, i am well aware of what my intentions have always been. 
i’m deeply grateful to all 41k of you, and thank you for reading my works and allowing me to write for you !! thank you for all the very, very kind asks that i never got a chance to fully answer each one of, and thank you especially for all the supportive comments and love on the writing i’ve posted. they might be silly fics you read once and moved on from, but they’re all pieces of me, my life, and things that are important to me, and as cringe and cheesy as it sounds, it means quite literally everything to me when people read them and take away something from them. 
also, as a parting gift, i will be posting the nerd gojo, ex-convict geto, and a marriage rb! gojo fic to my ao3 (also saetoru) for those of you who have been patiently awaiting those wips to enjoy. please (a little more patiently) keep your eyes peeled for those <3 i will no longer be posting or active on saetoru, and in the event that i keep writing, it will be posted on my ao3, so you all will know where to find me !!
so for the last time, i love you my little runts !! wishing you all the best, and goodbye to my lil saetoru bestees. 
mwah !!
— tee <3
ps. i also have turned off reblogs for this post and limited replies to people i follow only. a lot of you will jump to say that it’s simply because i am “hiding,” but it is solely because i have said my piece and i intend to move on. thank you and have a lovely day shawtee ✌🏽
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blueishspace · 14 days
Text
Looped Sun
*"You won" that's the last thing he remember saying to Scar as he wins Secret Life, he is... weirdly proud of him actually. Is that weird? Maybe. Then he feels himself being pulled back and-*
Loop #1
Grian woke up back in the desert, he couldn't understand how...and why? The Watchers surely wouldn't do this.
This time he tried to save Scar, maybe he could change the game a little? Doing it the same just seemed like a waste of an opportunity, and in the end if he was being honest getting to play Third Life again wasn't that bad and getting back to Hermitcraft after was even better.
He knew now that the moon was coming as soon as he stepped foot in s8... He was a bit frantic and got a few side eyes from the hermits that... slightly hurt but he managed to get everyone earlier then last time so that was a plus!
Season 9 on the other went by in a breeze, he joined Ren this time around to have some fun and managed to avoid the emperors destroying Grumbot so that was a plus.
Secret Life was just ending, this time with new tasks he didn't get to try last time, everything was good and Pearl won and-
Loop #2
Grian was back in the desert.
Maybe, he tought, he was supposed to fix stuff? Well, he could wait for Third Life to be over and warn everyone of the moon crash ...he had to tell everyone that he was a watcher but they took it well and he managed to get everyone into a different server.
Then, Ren taking the throne, he had joined him last time so maybe he was supposed to oppose him from the start, he could resist from resisting from starting a resistance.
When it came time for Secret Life he had to admit that he tried his best really to fix everything he could-
Loop #3
Back to the desert it is, that's fine... After 3rd Life he just had to not do wars and be as nice and kind as he could. He was fine really, it was a bit hard to not crave the chaos... At least the life games were a good way to let go and go feral.
This Secret Life had gone well, second place wasn't so shabby, now it was time to-
Loop #4
The desert sands were starting to get to his nerves, Scar noticed his distaste for them and made a joke about Anakin Skywalker because of course he did.
He didn't try anything weird this time, he just tought and tought and tought... was last in two games and got worried looks from hus friends but finally-
Loop #5
He got it! He just needed to win every single life game! Why didn't he think about it earlier? He's got pratice now, It's going to be a peace of cake!
...
Double Life, of course it was Double Life. Scar died and he got out first... By the time Secret Life ends he accepts that-
Loop #6
Stupid stupid stupid! He shouted at Scar! He's horrible! He didn't mean to but he hurt him... Mumbo shouts at him, that never happened before but he deserves. He didn't ever think he would make Scar cry like that, he's an horrible friend.
Grian locks himself in his base and when the moon crashes he greets it with a smile-
Loop #7
So permadeath can cause the loop to restart? Good to know...
He tests it again this time, just to be sure, logs off the server and jumps into the void between worlds, it's painful but-
Loop #8
This time he's determined. He's been doing this for ten years now. He wins every game, every single one. His friends say the game is rigged but he doesn't care because he did it!
He won! Secret Life ends with another victory to his name! He won-
Loop #9
...
...
He logs out of Third Life and hides in a cave for the whole season 8 until the moon crashes.
Loop #10
He says there's a glitch, Third Life is cut short and he never makes the others. It's hard to pretend nothing has happened but he manages.
By the time Secret Life should have happened he's in hus base, he can't be sent back now-
Loop #11
Nothing he do works, why doesn't it? Maybe he just hasn't gone extreme enough... it tooks a while to get the tnt but soon the entire server is rigged with tnt. He looks with manic glee as Third Life is destroyed.
He becomes a cultist for the moon and then an evil king before Ren... His friends are worried for him but they don't get the chance-
Loop #12
Maybe he's just supposed to play it straight, exactly like the original. He doesn't understand why it would be that but he has exausted all options.
It is extremely dull but he managed to get as close as possible to the original... He crossed your fingers as you tell Scar that he won-
Loop #13
He was going to figure this out, he built a time machine once back in season 6, he could do this.
It took a while to build another time machine but all he had to do was travel to a time after Secret Life and-
Loop #14
Keralis, Joe or maybe X? One of them must be able to help, he was sure of it.
He asked each of them but despite all the help they gave-
Loop #15
It was another Third Life when it happened, he and a yellow life Scar were walking on the desert sand, close to the ravine.
Scar: Oh! Almost fell down! Wouldn't want to do that again!
How did he know that- wait, had he said again? Did he... maybe there was hope!
Grian: Scar? What do you mean again?
Scar: ... Oh! Right uh I mean dying! Don't want to do that again?
Grian: Is time...repeating for you?
Scar: Grian? You too?
Grian: Oh thank the end, Scar!
Scar: Grian? You're here too? Why are we back here?
Grian: I have no idea.
And the two embraced eachother.
Next
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axelsagewrites · 1 year
Text
Daemon Targaryen*The Restaurant
Sugar Baby Series Part one of five, next parts linked at bottom
Pairing: Modern!Daemon x reader
Platonic: Cregan Stark, Sara Snow, Jace Velaryon
Summary: After a horrible night at work the reader finally gets some good news
Warnings: bitchy customers
Word count: 2370
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Masterlist Here
Moving out was one of the best decisions you had made. Moving in with your best friend Sara Snow gave you the freedom you always craved but with one slight problem; being alive is fucking expensive.
Being a server was not as easy as many seemed to believe. You worked at the Dragons Den as a server which was the most exclusive restaurant in Kingslanding. Even to work there you needed connections.
Luckily for you Sara had managed to get a job as a host through her friend Jace, who is admittedly still denying his major crush on her, and lucky for you both the grandson of its owner, Rhaenys Velaryon. When a server position opened, she instantly referred you and Rhaenys, who interviews all her staff personally, seemed to take a liking to a girl trying to be independent.
You'd think working in a fancy place would mean the guests would have more decorum. However, you would be very wrong. It was as if rich people got off on causing problems for the staff. Dealing with their ridiculous requests was one thing but what was worse was when the Hightower’s came in. They seemed to get off on the fact they knew the owners, despite Rhaenys not really caring about their existence but not wanting to restart another family drama. Alicent always sent her food back at least twice while Otto constantly tried to wiggle down the bill despite constantly trying to flex his watch or car or whatever else you pretended to care about.
When you walked in the restaurant tonight the sorry look Sara gave you from the host stand made you internally groan. "Is it seriously my turn again?" you asked her as you clocked in at the tablet at the host stand. 
"Aly had them last time and Cregan is one write up from being fired and I cannot risk that," you loved Sara's half-brother, you really did, but if he skipped his turn one more time you were ready to fight him in all his 6ft jacked glory. "C’mon do it for me," Sara said, batting her eyelashes dramatically at you. 
"Ugh fine," you groaned as you tied your hair up, the lobby currently empty thankfully, "How many of them and when?" 
"4 of them at 6.30," Sara grinned at you as you finished getting ready and putting your apron on, "Not sure who's coming with them, but it was made under Alicent so only one way to find out," 
The beginning of your shift was normal, peaceful even. Your first three tables had all left a 25% tip, so you were already perky to say the least. That was until you watched Sara walk your worst customers over. Alicent had brought her husband, for once, as well as her stepdaughter of the same age. Rhaenyra had always been lovely to you, but it was rare for her to come at the same time as Alicent. However, what really caught you off guard was the newest silver haired man. 
You knew practically all the customers by name from the sheer amount of gossip you got from Sara who seemed to know everything about everyone. However, you had never seen him before, but your eyes were locked on him as he slinked across the restaurant, his lilac eyes scanning the room. Definitely a Targaryen you thought. You were knocked out your thoughts when you accidentally met his eye and turned away quickly, pretending to look for menus as you disguised your blush. 
“He’s smirking btw,” Cregan chuckled at you from beside you at the server station and you quickly hit him with a menu before turning to go to your demise.
"Hi, my names (Y/N) and I'll be your server tonight," you greeted as you placed down the menus. "Can I get any of you started with drinks before I leave you to look over the menu?" 
"Could I have-" Rhaenyra had started but was cut off by Alicent who finally looked up from her phone. 
“This tables dirty,”
The fun begins. “I can move you to another- “
“No this will do,” she cut you off, “took that long to be seated in the first place,” you saw how Rhaenyra shrunk in her chair and how Viserys refused to meet your eye, “Water for the table, lemon, a whole lemon sliced not just two silly little slices,”
“Of course, ma’am,” you said, pretending to jot down the nonsense she always sprouted.
The only one not sulking or avoiding your gaze was the mystery man who was glaring at the oblivious bitch, “I’ll have the salmon, whole potatoes not mashed, peas not green beans, extra sauce but hold the lemon on the fish,” she said her words quicker than the speed of light but luckily the kitchen had pinned her ridiculous order to the board so you just scrawled ‘that bitch’ on the note pad which had become the code for her. “He’ll have the duck, hold the sauce,”
“But I like the sauce,” Viserys finally piped up however quickly looked away like a scorned child.
“It’s bad for you heart,” she glared at him before turning back to you, “Well aren’t you gonna ask them what they want?” she said gesturing to the embarrassed Rhaenyra.
You nodded and turned to her as she gave you her order with an apologetic smile. Finally, you turned to the mystery man, finally getting to have a good look at his perfectly sculped cheek bones and that intoxicating smirk he wore, “I’ll have the alfredo; however, it comes,” he said, shooting Alicent a smile when he ordered. “Thanks, dear,” when he looked back at you, you struggled not to blush as you wrote the order.
“Okay guys I’ll be right back with your- “
“Why don’t we have any water?” Alicent cut you off and it took everything in you not to force feed her your notepad.
Forcing a smile onto your face, “I’m just about to get it- “
“Okay then,” she rolled her eyes and turned back to her phone.
As you turned to leave you heard the man speak again, “She’s not a magician you know?” the man’s voice said but you had no time to eavesdrop as you had to rush about to do the hundred other jobs your manager demanded you to.
Aemond used to be a cool guy, even if at times up tight, when he was just a bartender. However, when he got promoted to manager through total skill, totally not complete nepotism, a stick got shoved so far up his ass he was now able to taste it. “Quick steps, quick cheques,” he quipped as you rushed past, sweat practically dripping down your forehead with your now full section.
The dinner rush was hitting hard tonight and even Cregan, the phone addict he was, hadn’t checked his phone in the past couple of hours. However, he had managed to tell you as you grabbed food from the pass that the man at your table was Daemon Targaryen and he had just relocated back to Kingslanding after running the Targaryen headquarters in Riverrun. You weren’t exactly sure what it was the Targaryen did, something money related or maybe tax, but whatever it was it made them the richest family in Kingslanding, something Alicent and her father were quick to gloat about.
The rush seemed to give you the superpower to carry all four of the desserts at once to your most demanding table. “Who had the cherry tart and ice cream?” you asked, desperately trying to not crumple from exhaustion.
“Not shocked you don’t remember considering it’s been 20 minutes,” Alicent grumbled.
Tears threatened to prick your eyes, but you refused to give her the satisfaction, “Sorry the kitchens backed up tonight- “
“I don’t need your excuses,” she cut you off.
You took a deep breath before asking again, “The cherry tart?” you asked, your arm starting to waver.
“That’s mine,” Rhaenyra said, and you sighed in relief as you sat it down.
Then the same thing happened with the chocolate cake which Viserys refused to claim till your third ask. “Cheesecake?” you said for the third time.
“That’s hers,” Daemon snapped as he took the plate out of your hand and thrust it in front of Alicent who was blissfully unaware on her phone. “Then that’s mine, sorry bout that love,” Daemon said as he took his plate out your hand.
“Its alright sir,” you said, desperately trying to stay composed. “Enjoy,” you said before rushing off, picking up a check from a table that had just left and heading to the server stand to press it into the computer.
When you opened the check your eyes screwed shut, tears seconds from falling as you punched in the tip. $12 on a check of $198. You rushed to press the numbers before practically running into the kitchen.
Cregan was leaning in the corner, practically inhaling some stolen fries when he looked up to see tears falling from your eyes, “What’s up?” he asked as he rushed over to you, fries in hand, “Fry?” he asked holding out the plate.
“12 bucks on nearly 200,” you spat, shoving the salty fries in your mouth, “I’m barely gonna break even by the time I tip out tonight my first tables were great but everyone’s being so cheap tonight,”
“Time to lean- “you heard a smug voice perk up from behind you. your eyes screwed up as you tried not to swing on Aemond as he spoke, “-time to clean. Don’t you have a table?” Aemond said as he went to stand beside Cregan when his face fell, “Are you okay?” he asked, his managerial face finally falling.
“Just fucking peachy,” you spat as you grabbed another fry before rushing out of the kitchen leaving the cooks to yell at the new manager in your leave.
You had two tables left: an old couple and the Targaryen’s. The old couple left you thirty on 180 which while not great was better than twelve bucks however at least they didn’t bark orders at you all night. As you waited for Alicent to wave you over you debated whether this job was worth it all. The clicking across the restaurant made you lean over to the not worth it side, but you weren’t quite ready to quit yet, rent was due tomorrow and who knows maybe Daemon was a generous tipper and would get the bill.
When you dropped the cheque at their table your stomach dropped when you saw Alicent throw it at Viserys. When you went to punch it in you genuinely considered how much you could withdraw from the ATM before he caught you. $9.21 on a $289.79 tab.
“Night folks,” you smiled as you dropped the check back, Aemond watching you from the kitchen window.
“Did you get your tip?” Viserys asked as he slipped the card back in his pocket.
How much jail time would you get for slapping a millionaire, you wondered. “Yes. Thanks sir,” you said with your fakest smile which oddly seemed to leave him satisfied before you rushed off.
“Can I go?” you asked Aemond through the kitchen window. He tried to stutter out a no but when he saw your eyes water he finally agreed, and you rushed to clock out and thrust money into the tip out jar. You were left with a whole $20 bucks from that 10-hour shift. Plus, your hourly wages which were honestly just laughable despite how high end this place was.
Sara tried to ask how it had gone but you brushed her off as you grabbed your jacket from the coat check and practically ran for the door when you saw the Targaryen’s approaching. The air was cold against your skin, your cheap jacket doing little for you as winter approached. You walked a few paces down from the restaurant to the bus stop and crouched down, leaning against the wall to catch your breath waiting for the bus which was always late.
There was no one around to see your tears fall so you let them. After all they were the only warm thing around. When you heard footsteps, you quickly whipped them off your cheeks and stood up, not about to get mugged as well as this night went. “What did he tip you?” your head whipped round to meet the sorry eyes of Daemon Targaryen.
“Its alright,” you tried to say but he insisted, stepping closer. You looked up at him, his face perfectly lit by the moon and streetlamps, “9 bucks,” you half laughed, your eyes rolling as you turned away. “It doesn’t matter. Some nights are just shit,”
You heard him ruffling in his pockets but didn’t turn around. Being murdered by a millionaire might be fun you thought. “Here,” you turned round at his voice, but he was already pressing the money into your hand. “You don’t deserve this shit,” he said, his hand still holding yours, “Get out you still will,”
“There’s nothing else for me to do,” you said, keeping your hand in his larger one. If not for your tears this might have been a cute moment.
“I doubt that doll,” he said before looking up the street, “That your bus?” he asked, and you nodded. “Get home safe love. And keep that to yourself alright?” he said, and you nodded as you slipped the cash into your pocket without counting.
“See you around?” you asked as the bus pulled up.
“Definitely,” he nodded before turning to where a sleek black car began honking at him, “Gotta goes love. Night,”
“Night,” you said despite him already being away. you quickly got on the bus, paying from your lousy tip money before taking a seat up the back of the bus.
You quietly took out the money from your pocket to count it, your eyes scanning the bus to make sure no one had moved to sit further up the bus as you counted, “Holy shit,” you whispered under your breath as you counted the bills. 3-hundred-dollar bills and a slip of paper with a number on the back.
Call me when you quit – D.T.
Part two here - Part three here
Taglist: @clairacassidy @valeskafics @starkleila
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lover-of-mine · 3 months
Note
https://www.tumblr.com/lemotmo/755374254590246912/can-we-take-a-minute-to-talk-about-how-todays-bts
This is spot on. The BT fandom has worked so hard to completely try and twist the narrative 9-1-1 has put forward. I’m not surprised Oliver is blocking people and not promoting the ship because there isn’t anything worth promoting and if I were him or a showrunner I would also be annoyed that a small amount of fans are trying to hijack a storyline. BT fans act like the general audience loves Tommy when I genuinely think the general audience just does not care one way or another about Tommy. Because the show has not given any reason to care about him. The only people that care so strongly (either liking or disliking him) are fandom people online who are stuck in discourse. That is not the majority of viewers. We’re going into season 8 - we don’t have a guarantee of how many seasons are left. Now that they’ve moved networks and we’re given the green light they’re going to focus on the storyline that wraps up their main characters arcs in the most satisfying way (which based on everything we’ve seen in this show is Buddie) not trying to start from scratch for both Buck and Eddie with new relationships. And if they DID want to pair Buck and Eddie with other people they would’ve actually tried to develop Buck and Tommy in season 7 and they very purposefully didn’t.
clickable link for the post because it's very spot on
The thing with the cameos is that it turned a narrative that was supposed to be about Buck and turned it into a narrative about Buck and Tommy. There is nothing in canon that backs up the idea that Tommy is anything other than just some guy. The show didn't restart at season 7 and if they wanted to make Buck and Tommy something with a fighting chance, Tommy would've existed in the narrative beyond the coming out plotline. Taylor's storyline was complete with beef with lafd personnel and a canon tragic backstory. If they wanted to make people care about Tommy they would've. They made it with Taylor with 4 episodes. You want me to believe they couldn't do it with Tommy after 6? Lou was putting out headcanon after headcanon and people took that as gospel as if he was reading scripts and had input from writers when Lou said in an interview that they didn't even tell him what label Tommy was supposed to have when they filmed the kiss. The show created a very clear narrative that shows that the relationship is not that serious. And if we are taking word of god as canon, Tim said that it's a "level entry relationship" and used the word "first fling" multiple times. First implies a second and fling is as unserious as it can get. The actual show is saying something, the creator of the show is saying the same thing. But sure, the actor they are paying and prompting has more say than the actual source material 🙄🙄. This story is about making Buck bi. Nothing else. If they wanted to make this be a Buck finally found his person, they would've developed Tommy into someone who's at least a little bit likeable, not continuously make him look worse every time he opens his mouth. If Oliver really is frustrated with this and blocking people because people hijacked the storyline he's telling, he has every right to be. He wanted to tell a nice story about Buck being bi and now he's caught having to dodge people who want him to walk up to the creators and say they have to marry Buck and Tommy by 802 or else he walks, when he clearly just wanted it to be about Buck's identity. Somehow Buck got pushed to the background of his own story by this very loud group of people while being aided by an actor who's creating a pr nightmare. The story is about Buck exploring bisexuality not about Buck falling in love with Tommy and it's painfully clear. The fact that people can't see it because someone paid a dude 100 and something dollars to say they are "thriving" is madness and shows the lack of basic media literacy.
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Today I was forced to do internet banking for the first time in like four years (sad) and they’ve put in a bunch of new security shit I don’t understand and all my info like my phone number and stuff was out of date, so I had to physically go into the branch and actually ask the teller “can you please help me do internet banking” like I’m some doddering old dear who doesn’t understand this newfangled World Wide Web thing and IT GETS WORSE, because they’re like ‘okay so the easiest way to deal with our security is if you have our app on your phone’ and I DO NOT WANT apps on my phone and I grumble about this in the most Old Man Way possible but they say it’s the easiest so fine, we can do that, only there’s an in-bank security step for authenticating the app so the lady helping me has to sit down and wait while I pull out my old scratched beaten-up dinosaur of a Barely Counts As A Smartphone, wait forever for it to wake up, and open the app store.
I do not know where the app store is.
Okay, this lady explains to me (she is very good at customer service and there’s absolutely no sign on her face that she is baffled how someone like me can even be alive, even though logically she HAS TO be thinking that), it should be in your apps. Look at your apps.
I do not know how to look at my apps. I use like 4 apps (call, text, photos, music) and I put them on the front screen thing ages ago. I push all of the buttons on the phone and apps do not appear. There’s nothing in settings or anything either.
Try swiping up, she says.
I try this a few times. My phone does not register the contact. On the fourth time, it realises that I want it to do something, and oh, there are the apps. We install the app. We do all the sign-in and authentification code shit and it does not work. We do it again and it does not work again.
“If I had a checkbook I’d be out of here by now,” I say. She laughs because it is true. We’ve been here for twenty minutes. I restart my phone to see if that’s the problem and grumble under my breath about how banking never used to be so complicated. As I open the app again, I ask how people do internet banking if they don’t have phones.
She seems puzzled by the question. “We have ways for them to do banking,” she says, “but most... most people have phones.”
She’s probably right. You probably need a phone to survive if you’re homeless these days.
The program loads now but catches us in an endless sign-in loop and the problem, we learn from a supervisor who’s wandered over (presumably to see how helping one idiot put an app on their phone could possibly be taking so long) is actually not on my end. There’s something wrong with the version of the app that the woman assisting me has put on my account on the computer (that’s her half in this operation), so we have to uninstall the app on both systems and reinstall it. Fine. I uninstall the app. Now to go to the app store.
I have forgotten how to access the app store. I push all of the buttons on the phone and apps do not appear. There’s nothing in settings or anything either.
Try swiping up, the woman says.
Oh. There’s the app store.
We install it and get caught in an endless loop again but I am computer savvy enough to know that if restarting and reinstalling doesn’t work then sometimes just trying the same thing over and over again will make it work for no reason, and it does, after I sign in three times in a row we can FINALLY authenticate the app and I can FINALLY use it for two-factor authentication and I CAN FINALLY DO INTERNET BANKING AGAIN.
“Thanks for your help,” I say.
“No problem.”
“I’m sorry it took so long,” I say.
“It’s really not a problem,” she says, and because she’s a professional it’s totally convincing, but I have helped people with tech before and I know how much it sucks. I look at this woman who, on any other day, would be a good few years older than me, but not today. For today, I am a doddering 96-year-old woman who wishes for a simple chequebook and does not like smartphones.
I get up, and I pick up my bag and my walking stick, and I leave the bank, thinking about the scarf I’ve been knitting and how much more work I have to do on it. I wonder if I should bake scones tonight.
I have already forgotten how to open the app store.
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artiststarme · 1 year
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The Party Forgets Steve's Birthday
Thank you for the prompt @nburkhardt ! I hope it meets your expectations!
Now with a Part 2!
~*~*~*~
Steve was used to being forgotten. His parents regularly left for months at a time without regarding him at all, his old friends at school had only ever seemed to remember him when they wanted to use his house to throw a party, and his own girlfriend conveniently forgot about him when she chose to sleep with the guy that gave him his first concussion. He was well past being surprised when people neglected to think about him. 
So he really shouldn’t have been surprised when everyone forgot his birthday. 
He woke up the morning of his twentieth birthday to an empty house and an even emptier heart. Just like every other day, his parents were off on a business trip ignoring his existence. They hadn’t even left him a message congratulating him on making it to twenty, a feat Steve never thought he would accomplish. The mailbox was just as empty as it always was and it was like Steve didn’t exist to his parents at all. He didn’t know why he expected anything different. He’d been ignored, cast aside by them, his entire life and he still had the gall to expect things to change. 
Steve had a shift at Family Video at 4 until close so he had to change out of his pajamas eventually. But right up until the moment he had to leave, he sulked from the comfortable nest of blankets on his couch. He grieved the loss of love from his parents that, looking back, may have never existed in the first place. 
He also waited for his friends to call. Eddie, Robin, Nancy, or Jonathan had to know it was his birthday today. He’d told them enough times and Robin had called him a “troublesome Taurus” at least once. The older teens may not have enough excitement over just another birthday to come over to his house but surely they would call. But as time marched on, his phone sat silent despite his staring at it. 
Well, he was seeing Robin at work so she was probably just waiting to tell him in person. And maybe the others were throwing a surprise party for him. The Party threw a birthday party for each one of the members on their special day so maybe it was Steve’s turn this year to be introduced to the tradition. After the horrific Spring Break from hell, he thinks he deserved it. 
While the Party was fine now, this encounter with the Upside Down had been their worst yet. Max was in a coma for two weeks before she woke up but the repercussions of Vecna’s mind-melt were permanent. She was now blind and she still hadn’t managed to leave her wheelchair over a month later. 
Eddie was ambushed by demobats and ripped apart even though his job was supposed to be the decoy that was out of danger. Steve had to give him CPR to restart his heart through the shock then had to sprint with him out of the Upside Down and into the nearest car in the Rightside Up, a car that he had to hotwire with Eddie’s minimal guidance. Then they had to clear his name with the police and townspeople that wanted nothing more than the outcast to go down for a crime he didn’t commit. 
And Steve. While his injuries were less severe than the others, his skin would always show the scars from the demobats. His neck was still blemished and his abdomen was sunken where the bats tried to use him as a meal. Mentally, his self-confidence was gone and he had nightmares every night about the feel of the teeth tearing through his flesh. He almost didn’t make it out of there this time which made this birthday all the more special. 
When he walked into the video store for his shift, all of the kids and Eddie were there. Steve had the brief thought that they were probably putting their final touches on the surprise party but that passed quickly once they turned to look at him. 
“Oh look, your esteemed babysitter is here which means he can deal with you. Now, if you don’t mind I’m going to go hang out with other grownups instead of sticking around with you children. Bye now!” Robin told them dramatically, waggling her fingers in their faces. She turned to Steve, “hey Dingus, your children have been trying to rent a rated R film for the past twenty minutes. You deal with that while I go on my date with Vickie. Toodles!”
Steve didn’t even have time to say anything in response before she made her way to the back to clock out and left his sight. He was still watching where she used to be when he heard a throat clear. It was fucking Dustin, of course it was. The little bastard had a smug smirk on his face and wiggled his eyebrows. 
“Gross dude, no. I keep telling you that it's not like that with Robin and I. Get your head out of the gutter,” Steve told him, rolling his eyes and shaking his head.
“We can see how you look at her! It’s not rocket science, Steve. Just ask out the pretty girl already and stop being a lonely loser,” Dustin told him in a sarcastic tone. The other kids nodded while Eddie left to awkwardly look through the horror aisle full of movies he’d already seen. That fucker knew Robin was a lesbian and was just leaving him to suffer through this alone, on his birthday no less. 
“Look, I’m not talking about this today and I’m not renting you a tape that’s rated R. Is that all you’re here for?” Maybe this was a ruse and they were going to shower him with birthday wishes. 
“Oh come on! Eddie can rent it for us under his name!” Dustin whined. 
“I said no.”
"But-" Dustin started.
“Whatever, let’s go guys. Steve’s just being an asshole today,” Lucas said from his spot near the door. 
Will tucked his head down instead of acknowledging the asshole comment but still agreed, “we can go to the arcade!”
“Steve’s an asshole everyday. Today he’s just being unhelpful. If we wanted someone useless, we should’ve asked my dad,” Mike sneered at him. 
Being compared to Ted Wheeler was too much for Steve and the brats were starting to give him a headache. “Whatever dipshits, get out of my store. Go bother someone that cares. Bye!”
With some angry mumbles and grumbles, they shuffled out and made their way to the arcade (or so Steve assumes). Eddie poked his head out from the horror aisle then and upon seeing the coast was clear, hopped up to situate himself on the counter. “You having a bad day then?”
Steve sighed, “yeah you could say that. They were starting to give me a headache.”
Eddie hummed and poked Steve’s leg with his toe. “What’s up with you today? You seem… mad. Did something happen?”
Steve wasn’t mad, he was disappointed. He was disappointed that he didn’t mean as much to anyone else as they meant to him. The Party was his family but he was just an inconvenience to them. That was a common theme in life and many people have told him that through the years. His parents, Tommy and Carol, Nancy, some of the girls he’d taken on dates. Every single one of them considered him to be an inconvenience at best, a disappointment at worst. 
He really thought that he’d collected a good group of friends over the past few years that would treat him better, that didn’t just want to use him but loved him as he did them. Apparently not. 
He said as much to Eddie. “Do you ever feel like you mean something to someone and then it turns out that you don’t matter as much as you think you do?”
Eddie’s face twisted and he pulled a chunk of hair to cover his mouth. But he still nodded slightly before clearing his throat and answering his question. “Um yeah, I feel that way around you guys all the time.” 
Steve shot him an alarmed look but he continued. “It’s not meant to be a dig at you or anything! You guys have all been friends for so much longer that it just, it still feels like I’m an outsider still. You know?”
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I feel like that too, man.” Eddie went to cut him off but he continued speaking. “No, seriously! It just feels like no one gives a shit about me even after all these years. Like, I woke up today thinking everyone was going to be calling me and coming over, just making a big deal all around, but no one did. I mean, it’s not like anyone’s ever done anything big for my birthday before but I just. I expected people to care this year.”
Eddie’s face slowly paled the more Steve spoke until his skin was practically translucent. “It’s your birthday today?”
“Yeah,” Steve chuckled sardonically. “I finally made it to the big 2-0. I kinda expected to have a party today since everyone else in the Party got one for their birthday but it’s fine. Even now I’m still just the babysitter, I guess.” 
Tears started to well in Eddie’s eyes and he lunged behind the counter to give Steve a hug. “Stevie, big boy, I’m so sorry! You deserve so much more than just a party today, baby. And you’re so much more than just the babysitter. You’re family to all of us, man.”
Steve shrugged again, “maybe that’s the problem. My family has never liked me either so that’s probably the case here too. It’s fine, I got my hopes up and I shouldn’t have. No one’s ever cared before so why would they start now?”
Eddie went to speak but a customer came in. Steve took their presence as a sign and pushed Eddie gently away from behind the counter. “I have to go help them, Eddie. See yourself out, okay? I’ll see you later.”
And then he was off to do his job and ignore the fact that Eddie was still watching him with tears in his eyes. He had other things to deal with today than Eddie’s hurt feelings. Like helping customers and trying to stomp down the soul-crushing disappointment in his chest. After all, what else could he have expected for his birthday?
Permanent tag list: @doubleb11 @nburkhardt @zerokrox-blog @newtstabber @i-less-than-three-you @carlyv @pyrohonk @straight4joekeery @trippypancakes
If you want to be tagged on all of my works, let me know!
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luthsthings · 20 days
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Sims 4 x 10 Years!
Ten years ago today, I booked the day off on my work schedule and played a lot of Sims 4.
I'd been a Simmer since 2000, after one of my kids asked for the game because they'd seen it at a friend's house. I played The Sims, and then Sims 2, and then Sims 3. Sims 3 and my computer didn't get on too well, and I fought it a lot, wanting to play rotationally as a micromanager! When the Sims 4 trailers started coming out, I felt like they'd finally made a version of the game that was really for me, as a micromanaging rotational player who doesn't want to restart for new packs and new worlds, and who likes some quirk and exaggeration.  
So on September 2, 2014, I installed Sims 4. (I'd preordered, of course!) I downloaded trailer Sims from the Gallery (I still have a soft spot for Amber -- in one of my saves, back around 2015, she married Elvis Presley). I giggled at Sims sticking their fingers in their ear while they cooked. I got annoyed by the push-ups. I completely failed at making a roof. A Sim read a book while on the toilet and I was delighted. I took my Willow Creek Sim to visit the bar in Oasis Springs and enjoyed the view there (I like the dinos).
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I made a self-Sim and spent lots of time tweaking her face till my husband came into the room, glanced at my monitor, and said, "Hey, that's actually you!" She's still my self-Sim (over on my avatar there). I just update her look now and then as I update my own.
I had a lot of fun, and I found myself using Sims as a new creative outlet in ways I hadn't so much before. I felt creative.
Eventually I confessed to my daughter that I'd actually played with my self-Sim. Here she is as a scientist back in 2015. Once upon a time, in an earlier version of the game, we -- me and my kids -- were playing with "us" in game and I died in a model rocket accident. This was traumatic and I was not supposed to play with "us" anymore. This time I did not die.
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And here I am still playing! (But my hair went white.) I've had three-day saves and seven-year saves (RIP that save!). I've played every pack, but there are still base game things I haven't done! Sometimes I get really caught up in too much micromanaging with the game (townies really do often need fixing), then a new pack comes out and I try new things and it's a lot of fun again. It makes me laugh.
I've also made new friends in Sims communities and helped lots of Simmers keep playing the game. I started doing that back in 2014. A lot of the Sims community back then was focusing on what was bad about Sims 4. I was having fun with it, though, and enjoyed helping other people on the Forums who just wanted to do that.
That just kind of... morphed. It turned into some Forums posts gathering scattered info about upcoming packs from the various places SimGurus were saying things (I stopped doing those a couple of years ago -- there are websites gathering that info now, and a lot less places it turns up too). It turned into threads gathering info about mods that got broken in big game patches... and that was way back in 2015! I'm delighted that it turned into a whole thing in the community, with different places providing the info different ways. Getting to know the modding community after starting that has been a lot of fun. I even brushed off my old programming knowledge from high school and took over some mods from a modder I'd gotten to know well. I do like the lack of punch cards in modern programming!
I'm also super thankful to EA and Maxis for inviting me some years ago to be a Game Changer (the program that morphed into the EA Creator Network). I love the connections I have with other creators and storytellers and support people in the EACN, even if I feel really tiny next to the big names with their thousands and thousands of followers (but a quick thank you to my little group of Patrons! I appreciate you a ton!). I am also very appreciative of the gifted packs from EA that I receive as part of the EACN. They've helped make it a little bit easier to volunteer my time to supporting other Simmers, even if I do now have to put disclaimers on gameplay content I post, which sometimes feels a bit silly.
tldr: Happy 10th Birthday, Sims 4! I hope it's a fabulous one.
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And now I'm going to grab some lunch, do some chores, then dive back into my current save. Cassandra has two love interests to consider, and that jewel is charging up. Plus she really needs a cat. And some actual income. And some improvements in her spellcasting (my previous save's Cassandra was a Mermaid). And that's not to start on Alexander building some skills before he heads off to uni for Robotics...
Psst... 
Don't forget to mark on your calendar the next anniversary. The Sims franchise will be 25 on February 4, 2025! 
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kineticpenguin · 5 months
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I've seen fans of the Fallout show insist that the NCR hasn't been effectively retconned, but I find it hard to see it any other way.
For one thing, the Fallout show is taking place during a time when the NCR should be at its peak, which means it has electricty, rail transport, etc. They're not living in salvaged pre-war garbage, they're making their own shit. And yet, despite taking place entirely in what should be core NCR territory, it's mostly Wasteland™ in the show.
For another, the characters speak of the now-nuked Shady Sands as basically being synonymous with the NCR. When Lucy sees a frankly baffling billboard that says "Welcome to Shady Sands, First Capital of the New California Republic - Population 34,852 - Established 2142," she has a bit of a crisis because her Vault's whole schtick is that they're waiting for Reclamation Day, the day when it would be safe to return to the surface and restart civilization, "and it already happened without us." Maximus reassures her by saying "If it makes you feel any better, it didn't work out," and then goes on to show her the massive crater where Shady Sands used to be. It really seems to imply that this was a deathblow to the NCR.
(I say that the billboard is baffling because "Welcome to the First Capital of" any country is a bizarre thing to put up when that capital city is still standing and it makes even less sense to put it up after it's been knocked flat. It only kinda makes sense if it was added as an afterthought for people like me re-viewing this to see WTF they've done to the NCR, and they didn't want to fully commit to killing it off when they did it.)
Finally, Moldaver's faction seems to be strongly implied to be the last remnant of the NCR. They fly the flag, the survivors of Shady Sands in Vault 4 view her as a religious figure, she's known elsewhere as a warlord or "that crazy lady up in the hills." The climactic battle between her soldiers and the Brotherhood at the Observatory rather strongly implies that this is the final blow to the NCR as they are wiped out.
As with Fallout 3, a whole lot of side characters sacrificed everything they had for the ultimate goal: to get a miracle tech MacGuffin to restore a utility to a dead, ruined city nobody lives in.
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On the Subject of TAOCC Angst
Hiya hiya hello, it’s me, Elsie lol. Time to throw in my two cents, maybe make a THIRD FREAKING POLL (so sorry q.q), and present us with some options.
WE NEED TO TAKE THIS SLOW AND THINK LOGICALLY BEFORE MAKING ANY MAJOR DECISIONS. THIS IS NOT OUR FINAL DECISION, THIS IS A MASTERPOST AND TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT PEOPLE WANT.
Let’s start with being very blunt. TAOCC is a bit of a directionless mess right now. We’ve got tons of characters, which isn’t a bad thing on its own! But unfortunately a lot of these characters have the same mod (hi hello i’m kind of part of the problem :’D). This means that we have a Simarillion’s worth of lore and not much of an idea of how to move anywhere with it. If anyone joins or returns after hiatus, they’ve missed a ton and have to figure it all out again from scratch, especially because we do not have ANY form of filing system for any of this. Too many characters, too many events, no organization, and a borderline insane amount of angst.
So, we have a few options of how to move forward here.
Autumn’s Solution/reset
Reset. All of it. Start with the characters and nothing else.
Pros: No more angst! And we get to have all that bonding all over again.
Cons: This doesn’t factor in backstories, and how backstories are often angsty and will instigate angst pretty much no matter what. Angst kind of has to exist in-universe forum the very nature of TADC itself, and just starting from scratch won’t change that.
2. “Move forward”
Don’t change the past, but do change the future. Make things slow down, but not because of any major event. Just have things Calm. Down.
Pros: less angst!
Cons: still too many characters. And still a lot of pre-established lore and no way to file it.
3. Extinction.
Kill off/incapacitate/retire half the characters. Then have the remainder unite over that and fix stuff.
Pros: less characters, possible less angst
Cons: extreme angst in the process.
4. Abandonment/new game/Lann’s solution
Restart with new characters. Or just make a new rp thing entirely. Maybe make a filing system this time around lol.
pros: less characters, less angst maybe.
cons: pretty much anything getting rid of all of our work over the last few months is kinda…wasteful and extreme, in my opinion.
5. “Software update”
A less extreme version of the reset, where we have a software update installed. Keep the old lore/characters, but dampen the angst for later. Give the characters some new coats of paint maybe, and figure out which characters to focus on for the near future.
pros: less angst, doesn’t break the lore or delete our hard work
cons: we still have to figure out what the heck to do with these characters and make a deliberate effort not to have as much angst
6. Other/anyone else’s solutions
exactly what it says on the tin.
tagslisting ALLLLL the mods:
@star-on-a-beach @sh4tt3rg1rl @silhouette-anon @feiar @lightthepathwithalantern @bob-the-cemetery-ghost @yourlocalboxhead @starbies-hellhole @andy-aka-lilcsca @castingspellsinyourasks @theautumnalcat @tailsbot98761 @master-dealmaker @anartistwithamask
AND MORE I THINK THAT I’VE JUST FORGOTTEN!
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luvmmarner · 1 year
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ANDREI SVECHNIKOV - HATE HATE HATE
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This was written for @comphy-and-cozy apart of the summer fic exchange! I know it’s really short the next few chapters will have over 7000 words. I was rushing to get everything mapped out and I changed and rechanged so much shit! I restarted 5 times and I restarted like a week ago because nothing made sense, but now I have a whole plot mapped out and everything! There will be 10 chapters so no need to worry! This is more like a prologue! I promise! I decided to make it a readers pov however I’ll post many other povs in the behind the scenes readers name and stuff like that. Hopefully that makes sense! (It’s 1AM help me deal lord)
A big thank you for @wyattjohnston for letting me be apart of this and I’m so so sorry for delaying this for so much days. Holy crap! I promise I’ll get all the chapters out as soon as possible.
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1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Word count: 1K
TW: reader gets drugged (that’s it nothing bad)
It was immediately obvious that you detested him after you had your first encounter with him. You felt frustrated by his arrogant and excessively confident demeanour. You were unable to comprehend how your brother Sebastian Aho initially connected with him. Both of them were interested in different things, with the exception of the fact that they were both on the Carolina Hurricanes and loved to play hockey.
You hated him or did you?
enemies to lovers + brothers best friend
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If it wasn’t the sunlight waking you up it was your brother and his loud obnoxious friends over. Today was the same as every other day since their shouts were so loud that they resonated throughout the walls, and the buzzing of your alarm clock didn't help matters either.
“Wake up and come downstairs sleeping beauty” you heard your brother Sebastian call from all the way downstairs. All you could do was groan at the request. You didn't want to get out of bed, nor did you feel like getting out of it. Even if you didn't have to work today, all you intended to do was relax and take it easy.
You decided to listen to the voices downstairs and suddenly recognized a voice that you had never heard before. The voice had an accent that was anything but typical of someone from North America. It was abundantly evident that whoever it was, they were from Europe.
When you had been considering whether or not you should go downstairs, you heard some movement coming up the stairs.You believed it was your brother at first, but when a hand caressed your back, you were taken aback.
The voice asked, "What are you doing in the middle of the hallway, young one," as his touch was still lingering before it finally moved away from you.
"First of all, I'm not young, and second of all, who are you?" You shot back your response using the most condescending tone you were capable of producing.
"My name is Andrei. And yours? Actually you don’t need to say I already know it and regardless I’m just going to call you young one." When he had finally turned around to face you, he inquired.
There was no denying the fact that he had a stunning appearance. It was obvious that he was much taller than you, and his perfume smelled like a combination of apple cider and pumpkins. His accent did not help matters either; it just added to the hotness of him.
“Don’t call me that ever again." You responded back, clearly irritated by the way he called you young one. You weren’t young by any means and just because you lived with your brother doesn’t mean you were.
“Cool well I could careless what you have to say by the way your brother asked for you to come downstairs. I'll see you down there once you decide to stop staring at me.” Andrei said in a cocky voice which just made you even more irritated and mad. Who does he think he is calling you out like that.
“I wasn’t staring” You told him as he chuckled and turn away down the stairs. You heard him say “Sure sure sure.” Before his voice disappeared alongside many other voices in the house.
Your brother yelled at you as you made your way downstairs, telling you to come sit down and introduce yourself to the others.
“Come here and introduce yourself, these are my friends I train with.” It was said by your brother Sebastian.
You responded to the request by rolling your eyes.
You sat down on the sofa immediately crossing your legs and staring at the guy in front of you. The guy I you just had an interaction with the guy who called you “young one”
She shouldn't be sitting with us, she can't be more than 5 or something," Andrei said. Inquiring while casting a sideways glance at your brother, Sebastian then joined the others in what appeared to be a simultaneous fit of laughter.
You had no choice but to hurry back to your room because there was nothing else you could do. You weren’t going to sit there as he kept making fun of you/ if one thing wasn’t obvious is that you had a strong dislike for him.
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It was unlike any other typical day that had come before. You happened to be invited to join the girls as they headed out to the club to celebrate Brianna's engagement.
You and your friends came to the conclusion that the best way to celebrate would be to first go to a pub and then go home.
You had a difficult time choosing between the dresses, but in the end, you went with the glittering silver dress that was covered with beads all over it and was only slightly shorter than the others.
You didn't give a second thought to whether or not it would be a good idea to wear it, particularly given the fact that you were a female in the company of a large number of other females; nonetheless, since you didn't even give it a second thought, you simply slipped it on and joined the girls in the car.
As soon as you arrived at the club and were able to enter, you made your way straight to the bar and placed an order with the bartender for several alcoholic beverages. You acknowledged their kindness and then turned to look for your friends, but on the way, you were unlucky enough to run into someone.
Their hands grasped your waist to prevent you from falling to the ground. Once you made it to your feet their hand didn’t leave yours.
“Woah watch where you're going young one.” The voice said. You didn’t even need to think twice who it was. You knew it was Andrei. The cocky European voice was a clear indicator.
“Are you following me or something? Are you obsessed?” You said as irritation ran through your veins. You detested his arrogant grin as well as how he spoke with utmost cockiness you’ve ever heard before.
He paid you no mind, instead emitting nothing more than a muffled murmur as he drank from his glass. You made the decision that you weren't going to let that dampen your spirits, and instead you were going to have the best night it was even possible for you to have. You set your drink down and proceeded straight to the dance floor after doing so.
You danced for a few minutes, then went back to your drink to have a few more sips of it before joining your friends for some more dancing.
You were immediately overcome with feelings of lightheadedness and dizziness upon dancing for quite some time, it was to the point where you found it difficult to stand. Your vision suddenly went black and you were sure that someone had caught you before it became completely dark.
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pt XII good omens sEAsOn 2 (the non-traumatic part) episode 1
Alright yes I know, I know, it's been two days since the livestream. I was reading fanfiction. Don't blame me, love made me crazy, and all that. I'm enjoying myself as much as I can before we get to the season 2 finale. But here we go, season 2, episode one, maggots:
[on reading this back after finishing, a lot of text is my being in love with Crowley. mainly, points 3, 4, 9, 14, 17, 18, yes I have issues, feel free to skip that for an absolutely concise and precise summary]
Before the livestream starts, everyone decides that there will be no spoilers whatsoever on the chat, even hidden with the black, because I have a tendency to keep clicking and revealing them. I'm sorry, temptation and all. I have emotional support fruit, an apple, two kiwis, two sapotes and two bananas.
When the livestream starts, it has to be restarted, because I am an incompetent nincompoop and have somehow managed to muck up my settings. And it is absolutely imperative that I watch the opening scene.
So then I do. And immediately have to consume my emotional support apple because I am so fucking in love with Crowley. Already? someone asks. Yes bloody already, I need that apple.
Thanks, guys. I'm broken. Crowley. Just. She looks so peaceful and untraumatised, so delighted with the plans, so full of wonder at what she's creating. Let there be light, she says, and rather than seeing Crowley turn off a streetlight with a flick of his fingers, we get to see her create nebulas. Aziraphale looks at her and he's just instantly so spellbound, and who would bloody blame him? His wings just do a slight dip of realisation that he's fucked when Crowley says the gorgeous line. Look at Crowley. Worried about the apocalypse. Smiling at Aziraphale, and we can see Azi's concern because something as pure as that has to be protected and Aziraphale knows what Heaven will do to Crowley if she dares to ask questions. Crowley is angelic and filled with light and Aziraphale sees that and tries to keep her safe with his words.
Hey spoiler alert, it doesn't work, Crowley's wings are greying even as she protects Azi and Crowley falls and I hate everything and I am filled with unbridled rage.
UNDERSTAND? RAGE.
I am speculating how much pain and torture Crowley went through when she fell into Hell that first time. I am told to not ask questions I don't want answers to.
Maggie sells records, Aziraphale is a cutiepie, and Maggie is very gay for Nina.
Crowley is lounging on a park bench, suit and skinny tie, just being all sexy and demonic and probably contemplating nihilism.
Crowley spreads awareness about duck health. No bread, guys. Frozen peas. He also angsts a lot to Shax (whom I keep mixing up with Michael) about the meaning of life. Someone points out that this is very Barbie of him. "do you ever think about death". Ah, Crowley.
More lesbians gaying. I would kill for Nina's hair.
JIMBRIEL IN THE HOUSE. I WON'T SAY ANYMORE ABOUT HIS ENTRANCE BECAUSE THIS IS NOW A TOPIC OF CONTROVERSY. BUT JIMBRIEL IN THE HOUSE.
Aziraphale, ah I love him, absolutely fucking panics and has the loading symbol over his angelic little head at all times. FINALLY, THIS SHOW IS A COMEDY.
Crowley is leaning on his Bentley and mmmmhm his arms and his lounging and his personality I am back to crunching on my temptation emotional support apple.
Sorry back to the summary. Jim finds Aziraphale funny and says he loves him. Someone points out that this was the fandom upon encountering my dumbass self. "You're funny Asmi we love you."
Aziraphale is a little bitchy babygirl, really just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing. Just absolutely slaying through every Jimbriel scene. 100000/10.
Six shots of fucking espresso in a big cup. Crowley, I love you. Can I love Crowley any more than this? Yes I can. My love for Crowley is like the universe, infinite and yet ever-expanding, explosive with entropy.
Crowley holds the door open for Aziraphale and holds his plate and honestly what absolute husband (gn) behaviour.
CROWLEY MEETS JIMBRIEL WHO IS FUCKING DUSTING AND LEAPS BACKWARD AND JUST RELIVES TRAUMA WHILE JIM IS CHILLING AND AZIRAPHALE IS STILL GAY PANICKING. I LOVE THIS SHOW.
MARRIAGE QUARRELS ABOUT ADOPTING JIM, JUST ANOTHER DAY IN THE FELL-CROWLEY HOUSEHOLD.
Coffeeshop AU lesbians time.
Heaven is horrible.
MURIEL IS BABY I LOVE THEM HELLO CUTIEPATOOTIE.
There is an ethereal paper file.
Beezlebub beezles their way into Crowley's car and is very concerned in Hell about finding Jimbriel.
Nina's partner is a toxic ass don't worry about it.
Sulky Crowley says he's back and apology dance time mmmhm.
Miracle hide Jimbriel time, but they've got to be subtle. They do the miracle. Jim is glad to have friends.
They are very proud of themselves for their subtle miracle.
THEY ARE SO FUCKING USELESS. FUCKING USELESS LITTLE GAYASS DISASTERS JESUS LORD IN HEAVEN. LITERALLY IN HEAVEN ALARM BELLS ARE EVERYWHERE.
GREAT JOB, GAYS. GREAT JOB.
End of episode one. Take this screenshot.
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30sims4ever · 22 days
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30+ Sims4Ever Save File
30+ Sims4Ever is a group of adults aged 30 and up. The group was created back in May at the request of a Redditor. The group has taken off since then with 165 members with the anticipation of more leading up to the drop of our save file.
We are looking to release 4 worlds as early as December 1st and as late as December 31st:
Willow Creek
Magnolia Promenade
Newcrest
San Sequoia
Willow Creek (Heavily inspired by Georgia)
Lore:
The biggest industry left in Willow Creek is tourism, and even that is beginning to fade. Desperate to revitalise the city, the mayor relaxes several local restrictions to allow more fishing, and restart the previously decommissioned riverboats. Meanwhile, he heavily advertises to the movie industry, leading to a surge in movie tourism after a major period drama is filmed there. Overall, the plan works, and Willow Creek begins to distinguish itself as a destination, but the costs are high. The historic downtown area is cleaned up but also gentrified, and many workers can’t afford to live nearby, being pushed to the outskirts of Newcrest. The fishing and riverboats have brought in tourists but also gangs of environmental protesters, angry at the pollution and habitat destruction. But hey, the money has been good, and construction on the mayor’s new estate has finally finished.
Newcrest - 90's Time Capsule (Heavily inspired by Maine)
Lore:
Newcrest has a reputation as a quiet bedroom community. The schools in the area are some of the best in the country for beginning and intermediate education. One such school is Newcrest Charter, a well-funded private school. The reputation is glossy on the outside but there are cracks.  The police chief and Charter administrator have a deal to keep both their kids out of trouble - one with the law and one with their grades.
Mayor Azalea Simmons is oblivious to this scheme, and likely any others in the world. Unlike her surrounding politicians, Azalea doesn’t get wrapped up in legislating mumbo jumbo, she’s too busy keeping Newcrest affordable, and pleasant to live in. Which in her mind means - keeping it 1996 forever.
Magnolia Promenade (Heavily mixed with Georgia & Maine)
Lore:
Many of the buildings in Magnolia Promenade are old. Once historic structures like schools, warehouses, and homes, many have been converted into businesses. Maerina Walsh owns one such business in the prestigious shopping district - a quaint bed and breakfast. She has a reputation as an absolute nightmare of a boss. It's said to be lucky if she fires you on the first day, as she punishes others with impossible or gruelingly menial tasks. There is a longstanding rumor among locals that the ghost of an employee she once locked in the basement now haunts the establishment, though older residents say the ghost dates back to the original building. Maerina is well aware of the rumors but hasn’t disputed them, because as many people as they scare off, they also attract potential customers looking to catch a sight of the ghost.
San Sequoia (Heavily inspired by San Francisco)
Lore:
Ricky Pyler has grown San Sequoia into a major contender in the pharmaceutical and medical fields. Many large companies, production facilities, and conventions have relocated to the city, bringing a boom to the economy. Pharmaceutical companies have manipulated development deals, health information, and begun to illegally dump their waste in the river that runs downstream to Willow Creek. Zara Marquez, has been a nurse in San Sequoia for decades. She’s noticed an uptick in certain illnesses that are symptoms of this pollution which has brought her to run for Mayor herself. Another campaign opponent comes onto the scene in the form of Caleb Vargas - a rather young man from the business sector. Nobody really knows who he is, but he is extremely and strangely well funded. In reality he’s starting to bribe and bankroll many of Ricky’s old contacts with the intention of using them for his own devices
The contributors to this save file are as follows:
mstyBL95
s0pran0d1va
Nowheregirl94
Kylynara
Rieche
sabrinaakayy
whiskyrick
phronetiq
sparkersims
Tatselk
prncssHermione88
southernpeach
*More contributors will be added to this in the coming months as we update as we have left lots open for monthly challenges to our discord memebrs. If you are over the age of 30 and would like to be apart of our save file please join our discord server here: https://discord.gg/3552rQ7r
Important to note:
As we move closer to the deadline for the release of the save file a release of which simmers worked on which lot will be released
A list of all expansions, game, stuff and kit packs will be released advising what was used for the save file. There are no pack restrictions for contributors
All townies will have base game outfits so that no single townie is walking around partially naked
All townies have been assigned careers, children have grades and everyone has a relationship with their current houehold and others
Ghosts will be available in game
Townies will be added to clubs
Newcrest is a 90's time capsule
All lots that have additional structures were built in mind that if the structure differed from the lot type it would not impact the overall gameplay. (this means that a lot set as a Resturant with a resturant and movie theatre does not impact the overall function of the lot)
All lots have been game play tested
There will be a tool mod version of this game
Any simmers who are not comfortable downloading a tray file or those playing on console will be able to follow a legend to download from the gallery to upload lots and families
What to Expect in the coming months:
As we move closer to deadlines we will have more members submit. From the time members submit the lot is play tested by a second person to ensure that everything functions correctly and the lot has met minimum requirements. Once that is completed we have the file upload to the save.
Streetview pictures
Pictures of the lots
Picture and bio of the contributors
Lot details - Member, traits and pictures
World map overview filled in
Townie pictures and global lore
A list of all packs used in the save file
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rorywritesjunk · 10 months
Text
Let’s be one another’s present tense
Buggy ‘rescues’ you from an abusive situation, and after a less than stellar introduction, he has you audition for his crew to keep you safe. You want safety, security, and joining a circus seems like the best idea.
Rating: R-ish for now. Warning: Swearing, brief nudity, snarkiness to one another. A/N: This has been sitting in my head as I worked it out for an Anon’s request. I have been really intrigued by this and wanted it to be just right. Also, it gave me the chance to ask my circus obsessed friend about different routines and we bounced some ideas off each other. This is also a touch different than other things I’ve written, which is why I’ve been taking so long to work on it and get it posted. Enjoy!
Title comes from “Crater Lake” by Lady Lamb.
Chapter 1 + Chapter 2 + Chapter 3 + Chapter 4 + Chapter 5 + Chapter 6 + Chapter 7 + Chapter 8 + Chapter 9 (NC-17) + Chapter 10 + Chapter 11 + Chapter 12 + Chapter 13 + Chapter 14 + Chapter 15 (NC-17) + Chapter 16 (NC-17) + Chapter 17 TAGLIST: @lostfirefly @neuvilleteismybby @fluffybunnyu @sinning-23 @the-angriest-angel @ane5e
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Chapter 3
Settling into life in the tent was easier than you thought. The cot wasn’t that comfortable but you had a blanket and a pillow and it was your bed that you didn’t have to share. No one on the crew made any comments about the newcomer sharing a room with the Captain, but they knew better than to start gossiping. And it was just the room, not the bed. That was very clear and you were grateful for the space.
Though Buggy needed to work on not being naked in the room when you were in there. In the weeks since you arrived, you had woken up at least five times to a very naked pirate getting dressed and while you shrieked at him the first three times, the fourth time you tried to pretend to be asleep while the fifth and final time you allowed yourself a moment to see what he looked like underneath the makeup and uniform. You liked seeing his long hair that he kept hidden away, and he was quite hairy on the chest and stomach, with the color matching what was on his head. You tried not to look down further past his waistline, but you got curious and so you looked and well, damn. 
He caught you looking that morning and said nothing, but he winked at you before pulling his pants on.
You couldn’t look him in the eye the rest of the day. 
You were ending your fourth week at the circus, now having been there a month. Your black eye was long gone, bruises healed, and you were already feeling more rested from your time in the tent. You had acquired an old Marine uniform for your gig, somehow finding enjoyment in wearing the uniform while pretending to drown. Buggy wanted you to make it a performance with you faking the drowning while you held your breath under water. He refused to let you go longer than three minutes and there was a freak ready to pull you out of the water if you tried to push it. 
And while it was… different having someone looking out for you, it was nice. You were friendly with them now, some offering you tips on your performance to get the reactions from the audience (who, as you learned, had no choice but to watch the show as they were chained to their seats). It was, for you, a nice restart to life.
You interacted with your captain the most when you were in the tank, practicing holding your breath. He did it ever since your audition and you wondered if he was worried over you pushing yourself, but at the same time, he also paid that much attention to the others, though he started waiting for you to get out of the tank with clean towels to get you dried off faster and Cabaji was standing by with a hot cup of tea for you. 
No one else got a hot cup of tea, just you, but it was just to warm yourself up after being in a tank full of cold water for almost an hour. Lemon ginger seemed to be what was available, and after you mentioned in passing to Cabaji about once having a lavender and mint blend, you were surprised to have it a week later. Cabaji said nothing as he handed it to you, though he glanced at his captain as Buggy handed you a warm towel.
You didn’t say anything to Buggy but you did smile at him as you took a sip of it. He pretended not to notice.
After a month in the tent you felt a little more comfortable with him. You called him Captain, he called you Cupcake, but occasionally you’d call him an asshole when he annoyed you or he’d call you a diva if he felt you messed up your routine (how do you mess up holding your breath?). It was chaotic at times, the two of you throwing petty insults at each other while everyone listened. 
After one rehearsal, where you kept coming up for a breath every 45 seconds, Buggy finally couldn’t take it. 
“Did you forget how to hold your breath already?!”
You spat water in his direction before splashing some out of the tank at him. “Hard to concentrate when you keep staring at me through the glass, you asshole!”
“I’m making sure your technique is right!”
“You don’t even know what I’m doing!” You shot back. “Why don’t you get up here and show me?”
“Did you forget something?” He looked at you like you were an idiot as his hands popped off his wrists. Oh, well, you kind of did forget he couldn’t get in the tank because there was occasionally sea water mixed in and you didn’t think it would be fair if the captain drowned during your practice routine. One hand flipped you off while the other went to the top of your head, dunking you under water just for a moment before returning to Buggy. 
You came back up and grabbed onto the ledge, sticking your tongue out at him before your helper hoisted you out. Buggy didn’t wait around with towels, but Cabaji was there with your tea while you climbed out of the tank and went down the ladder. You took the cup and grumbled something about annoying captains and he needs to shut up while taking a few sips. Cabaji did get you one towel in the end, which really didn’t do much to dry you off, so you marched back to your shared room, leaving a wet trail behind you. 
The room was empty, which was perfect because you didn’t need him critiquing you getting undressed. You shut the door and set your tea down before grabbing a dry pair of pants to put on.
“‘Oh, I’m just making sure your technique is right!’” You repeated mockingly as you pulled your wet clothes off and draped them over a chair. “‘Oh, did you forget how to hold your breath?’ Blah blah blah, I’m Buggy, I know everything even if I never did that routine before.” You dried your face with the towel before moving onto the rest of your body. “Asshole, distracting me while I’m trying to practice not drowning.” 
“I wasn’t distracting you, just making sure you weren’t distracted.”
You stopped what you were doing and turned around to throw your wet towel at him. He managed to enter the room without you noticing and he was lucky it was just a wet towel you threw at him and not your tea. You were very naked and you really didn’t need him in the room with you while you were that exposed.
“Really? The door was shut!” You snapped as you hastily pulled a pair of pants on. You didn’t grab a shirt so you went to the wardrobe to find one, grabbing the first thing you saw. It was one of his, but honestly, you didn’t care because you didn’t need to be yelling at your captain while topless. “Learn to knock, asshole!”
“It’s my room first!” He shot back as he threw the towel on the ground. “You get the privilege of sleeping in here, so watch it or you’ll sleep in the lion’s cage!”
“At least the lion wouldn’t barge in on me when I’m naked!”
“You’ve seen me naked countless times! What’s the big deal?”
“I told you to stop being naked when I’m in the room!” You exclaimed. “Boundaries, Captain, boundaries!” 
 “You never said anything about me being in the room while you’re naked!”
“I shouldn’t have to!” You rubbed your face as you sat down on his bed. “It’s like talking to a brick wall.”
“At least I’m better looking than a brick wall.” He grumbled as he kicked the towel away. You sighed and nodded.
“You’re not wrong about that.” You retorted. “I’d rather look at you than a brick wall. You at least talk back.”
Buggy crossed his arms and just shrugged as he looked you over. “Well, you seem okay. Just don’t drown. Cabaji likes having you around and he’s been more focused since you arrived.”
Huh, weird, okay. You shrugged as you looked up at him, your hair damp and hanging loosely around your face. It was a bit of a nuisance in the water and you thought about cutting it short, not to mention drying it was obnoxious. Buggy looked you over again before he walked over to you. He reached out and touched a lock of your hair before tucking it behind your ear.
“You need a better hairstyle, Cupcake.” He told you as he pulled his hand back. With how loud he was, passionate, intense, he had these random moments of being soft and gentle around you which completely threw you off. You never knew when to expect it but you liked seeing it wondering if he was like this with the others. “That’s the next thing we have to work on. It’s only been a month, y’know, but I want you to look your best when you perform.”
“What d’you have in mind for my hair?” You asked. You almost regretted it because he was now grinning at you and in the short time you knew your captain, that grin meant something chaotic was about to happen.
~
So, you didn’t really hate the haircut but you didn’t love it. 
Neutral, you were neutral, and you whispered to yourself that your hair will grow back. You shouldn’t have let Buggy near you with a knife after you two argued, and you made the mistake of telling him he was getting your hair way too short and… he may have taken a chunk of hair off that he didn’t mean to because you jerked away from him suddenly. 
At least he evened out the mistake by doing the same to the other side. 
Your hair was shorn on the sides, with it tapering up to the top of your head where he trimmed it so you still had some body to your hair. You could style it if you wanted, letting it stick up in any direction, or let it sit on the top of your head. Cabaji thought you copied his style, and maybe you did, but his hair was at least longer and could easily comb over to either side. Your hair looked like you let someone with a knife too close to your head and that someone didn’t quite know what they were doing, but they wanted to try it anyway.
Yea, you weren’t going to let Buggy near you for a haircut again.
“It’s going to grow back, it’s going to grow back.” You chanted quietly every day for two weeks. Admittedly, having less hair meant you spent less time drying your hair, and you now didn’t have to figure out how to keep it out of your face when you were getting out of the water. Before it was just a rubber band, but your bangs had been at that length of too long to be out of your eyes but too short to be in a ponytail and since Buggy gave you a new style, your bangs sat just above your eyebrows now. 
It wasn’t a terrible haircut and he had looked rather proud of his work. He even gave your cheek a pinch when he was done, and it didn’t really hurt but your skin was pink where he touched you, and honestly, you were starting to get used to him touching you.
A month and a half under the tent and you were seeing that Buggy was often touchy with his performers. Not in a creepy way, but his hands would guide them to make sure they hit their mark right, or he’d detach his feet to use as markers for Cabaji to steer his unicycle towards. It was at your seven week mark that you saw him start to get a bit touchier with you.
He kept a hand near the tank while you practiced holding your breath, ready to pull you out if your helper wasn’t fast enough. His other hand would take the tea from Cabaji and give it to you by the time you got down the ladder while he walked up to you with warm towels. The hand that was at the tank grabbed a towel and draped it over your head to help get you dry faster. You appreciated the help, recalling your audition when several of your fellow freaks swarmed you with towels, drying you off quickly to make sure you were okay. 
Now it was just the captain taking a few minutes to help you out.
It was kind of nice. He made sure your hair was dry before wiping your face with the towel, though you had to tell him to be a little gentler as he poked you in the eye twice. 
“Oh please, that’s not the worst thing I can do to you.” He said with a smirk as you stuck your tongue out at him. “Watch it with that or I’ll cut it out.” 
“You haven’t yet.” You shot back playfully as you draped the towel over your shoulders. “I’m going to change into dry clothes so please don’t walk in on me this time.”
He winked at you and you just rolled your eyes as you left the area. The banter was something you started to get used to. Yea, you two still got into petty little arguments, but who didn’t when you worked together? Buggy knew what he wanted from his performers, and while you never ever thought you’d be any kind of performer, you found you liked it. You liked the reactions from the audience, and you liked watching the others perform (watching someone breathe fire never ceased to amaze you). 
Honestly, you wished you joined the circus sooner.
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Insufferable (4/7)
Previous chapters: 1 2 3
Next chapters: 5 6 7
Wavs: 1 3
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Velvette tried to stave off the panic by focusing on Vox’s work responsibilities, her fingers typing at the speed of light. Unfortunately, her anxious thoughts were moving just as fast. Had she made a mistake by giving him a fever reducer? What if she’d fried his system and now he was shut down? How long would it last? How could they fix this? Would any medicine work on Vox? Could the antivirus be re-enabled, or was this the end? Should they get a new screen for Vox, would that fix it?
“Velvette, darling,” Val said, “you look like you’re about to give yourself an aneurysm. Slow down!”
“This is all your fault in the first place, you bastard! If you hadn’t been such a selfish, dimwitted, arrogant… GAH!”
“I already said I’m sorry. I can’t change the past.” He withered a little under Velvette’s icy glare. “Look, I bet we can find a new compilation of people embarrassing themselves on social media! Do you want to watch together? I can make some popcorn!” he said with a smile.
“But the TV is broken!”
“Yeah, but Vox’s laptop isn’t.”
Velvette hesitated for a moment, but then nodded. She could use a break after all this.
They watched for a little while until Velvette realized she did still have in person work (you know, the work she had before this whole mess) to attend to. She put the laptop back in the cage. “Don’t break anything while I’m gone. And try not to let Vox break anything either!” Valentino just waved.
***************
Shortly after Velvette had returned, Vox stumbled into the living room again. His screen was so dark Velvette could barely make out his facial features, which meant Val was probably seeing even less. Velvette quickly shoved the laptop and her phone back into the Faraday cage. “Morning Velvette, Val,” he said weakly but enthusiastically.
“It’s 6 o’clock,” Valentino said with a frown.
“WHAT?” he asked, his voice distorting in anger as his claws dug into the table and Velvette and Val shared a look of uneasy Déjà vu. “You mean I missed my interview by 9 hours, 9 FUCKING HOURS, and NOBODY WOKE ME UP??”
“Right, that’s it,” Velvette said, marching up to him. “We’re doing an antivirus scan.”
“What are you talking about? And what about my interview?”
Velvette sighed. “I did the interview in your place, because you’re sick. You have a virus, which is why we need to run the antivirus. And you would know this is the third time I’m telling you, if it weren’t for you’re fucking shit-arse corrupted memory banks!”
“Oh.” Vox’s fans were deafeningly loud in the silence that followed. The Vees began to wonder if Vox had lost his voice again, when finally the silence broke. “Hhhh’TTTZZZZZZCHH! Hhh’hhhh’hhh’hhZZZZZZSSH! Heht’dzzzzzsch! HhhhrrrggggZZZZZCHT! Fucking hell!”
Velvette handed him a handkerchief she’d procured during his latest nap. He stared at it awkwardly. “Velvette, I don’t have a nose. What exactly do you expect me to do with this?”
“It’s to cover… oh, never mind,” she said, taking it back. With Vox’s memory failing, now wasn’t exactly the best time to be trying to teach him new things.
“The antivirus?” Val asked, trying to get the conversation back on track.
“Right,” Velvette nodded, staring at Val in a way that clearly said “I’m not snitching on you yet but don’t count on me not to tell on you later.” She turned back to Vox. “Do you know how we would go about running the antivirus scan?” Vox tried to speak but once again sound was failing him. “Perfect. Just what we needed.”
Thankfully, Vox seemed to be capable of pulling up the interface on his screen without needing to talk, though he did have to restart the process a few times when his screen glitched out from coughing fits. Finally, the scan had begun.
It didn’t get far, though, before Vox’s screen started flickering and his breath started hitching. “No no no no no no no no!!!” Velvette protested. “Not now, please Vox! Just wait a little longer.”
“What’s the big deal?” Valentino asked. “I didn’t know you were into edging,” he said with a smirk.
“Ew, no! If you’d been paying any attention, you’d know what I’m talking about. If coughing restarts a process, I reckon sneezing will do the same. If we can’t keep him from sneezing we’ll never get this scan done.” Valentino placed a finger over the center of Vox’s screen. Velvette stared at him blankly. “What are you… he doesn’t even have a nose! Do you really expect that to work?”
Val shrugged. “I don’t see you coming up with a better idea.”
Velvette frowned, having no rebuttal to that. But against all logic, it seemed to be working. The screen flickers got more spaced out and less intense. Val’s finger was covering up most of the progress bar, but eventually the task was completed. “Okay, you can put that finger away now, Val,” Velvette said.
It was as if a dam had opened. Velvette barely had a chance to see the “virus detected” (yeah, obviously!) message before the screen flickered violently and Vox unleashed a torrent of sneezes unlike anything any of them had witnessed before. “Hhhh’tzzzzsh! Zzzzzcht! Hhhh’dzzzt! Heh’tZZZZZZZCHT! Hah’TTTZZZZZZZZZSHT! HAAAAAH’ZZZZZZZZZZST! Hhhhhhh’ZZZZSHT! ZZZZZSH! ZZZZZZZST! D’ZZZZCHHHZT!” It continued on in this manner for at least ten minutes with barely any time to breathe. Velvette noticed out of the corner of her eye that Valentino appeared to have been trying to count the sneezes, but he seemed to have given up fairly quickly. Eventually, Vox regained his breath. “Fuck my life. I never want to do that again.” Val made a mental note that he now had a powerful tool in his arsenal should he ever need to threaten Vox.
Velvette was focused on the screen which had now returned to the antivirus scan results. “Well, the good news is, it found the virus.”
“I know that face,” Vox said, still sniffling. “How screwed am I?”
“Well - it’s got an estimated time of how long the fix will take.”
“And?” he asked impatiently. Then he coughed so loud he couldn’t hear a thing. “Sorry, what was that?”
“48 hours to 2 weeks.”
Vox gave his head a light slap and a shake. “Ugh, sensors really must be busted on this thing. Because I cannot possibly have heard you right.”
“No, you got it. It’s 48 hours to 2 weeks.”
Vox’s face fell. “How the fuck am I supposed to deal with this for that long?” He started crying and Velvette once again passed him the handkerchief, although this time he seemed to know what to do with it, at least for the eyes anyway.
“Bit of a wide range, isn’t it?” Val asked.
Velvette shrugged. “Probably to account for whether or not the virus, uh… fights back.” All three of them grimaced. That was not a fun possibility to consider.
Vox sighed. “Please just put me out of my misery.” Val nodded solemnly and walked over to his gun collection. “Wait, no, not that! I’m not that desperate yet.”
Val stepped away from the guns. “Ok. But if you change your mind, I’ll be there.”
Vox groaned. “Just start the scan, Velvette. Before I facepalm so hard I break my screen.”
Velvette tapped the start button, and a pop-up appeared. “Warning, some systems may be temporarily offline while resources are devoted to the antiviral treatment.” Velvette looked to Vox for approval, who shrugged.
“Not like I have a choice. Besides, how much worse could it get?” She tapped the button and Vox, for the third time in the past eight hours, collapsed.
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