#anyway here's me putting the whole essay in the tags again

[shannonsketches]

something something foils moving in opposite directions Goku's always happy to seek and fight stronger opponents because he spent most of his life being the strongest guy in the room and Vegeta wants to be the strongest/is always exhausted to find stronger opponents because he spent most of his life having to navigate his survival around the whims of the strongest guy in the universe room and so Goku has a foundation of safety and stability and so spends his time craving challenge and adventure and Vegeta has a foundation of challenge and adventure and spends his time craving safety and stability and the overlaid section of their venn diagram is that the only way they know how acquire and maintain those things is through battle

[strang3lov3]

Pharmacy

Summary: (mall rats 6) Surrounded by medical supplies is a convenient time to slice your hand open. Joel wrestles your stubborn ass to treat your wound, then fucks you how you like.

Tags: Jar Jar Binks, Star Wars opinions, manhandling, descriptions of injuries (I tried to keep it as short and sweet as I could, bc I myself am a squeamish girl!! I was squirming the whole time writing this!!!) blowjobs, f masturbation, kinda rough unprotected PIV, creampie, dirty talk, reader and Joel have googly eyes for each other

A/N: as always thank you so much @papipascalispunk for editing. Thank you all for your continued patience with my writing, I am a busy busy lady and you may not get another fic from me for two weeks or more with the whole finals thing, but I do have lots of shit planned! One thing at a time bug one thing at a time. I wish I could write smut for my history of Indiana final essay but I don’t think that would fly with my nun-obsessed professor. Also, thank you @noxturnalpascal and @speckledemerald for hyping me up ❤️❤️

Joel is standing in front of a map of the mall, studying it intently. It’s been a while since you’ve been at the mall with Joel, actually. With the weather getting worse with more and more snow, Tommy is trying to keep travel limited to patrol. Supply runs for necessities only, and Jackson is in need of medical supplies. Rubbing alcohol, gauze, bandages, first aid supplies. There’s actually a medical building not far from Jackson, but it’s pretty well picked over at this point. 

“Mall has a pharmacy. A CVS or Walgreens, somethin’ like that. I’ll go,” Joel had volunteered in Tommy’s office. 

“I’ll come too,” you added as you were helping Tommy fill out patrol logs.

Joel sighed, “No.” 

“Why not?”

“Supposed to be a quick trip. In and out. Don’t need you gettin’ distracted by lotions and perfumes again.”

“Those are necessities,” you argue, “Besides, buddy system. It’s important for us to stick together.” 

“We are not buddies,” Joel scoffed. Tommy raised his eyebrows in amusement.

“No? What are we, then?” 

Joel opened his mouth as if to answer with something sharp and argumentative, but no words came out. His cheeks turned rosy as you both shared an odd look, with Joel’s hands frozen on the buttons of his coat. The pencil you wrote with felt heavy in your hand, held awkwardly on the paper as you stared at Joel. You didn’t mean for that question to come out the way it did. What was the answer to the question, anyway? 

Tommy filled the silence with his own answer. “I know what y’all are,” he smirked. 

Joel shot Tommy a warning look, then took your jacket from behind your chair and held it open for you. “Let’s go, then,” he said. You put your arms through the sleeves, zipped yourself up and left. You could hear Tommy chuckling to himself as you walked out with Joel.

You rode horseback to the mall. Still feeling awkward from the interaction at Tommy’s, you both stayed silent, but the ride wasn’t uncomfortable. You hugged Joel tightly, and Joel savored the warmth of your cheek on his back. 

“Found it,” Joel taps the map, “I remember now. It’s downstairs.”

“Ha!” you brag, “I told you. I knew it was downstairs. I was right.” 

“Yeah, yeah. We’ll throw a party when we get home,” Joel replied, taking off towards the dilapidated staircase. You follow close behind, dragging your fingers against the railing, letting your hand tap each of the thin rods that support it. One breaks off and falls with a clatter. Joel doesn’t bother turning around to see what it was. “You break these stairs, you find us a new way out of here,” he warns. Dramatic. You pick up the thin rail and twirl it as you walk behind Joel, then poke his ass with the piece of metal. Already exhausted by you, he sighs, “What’d you find now, trouble?”

“Lightsaber,” you answer. 

“What?” Joel tilts his head and turns around to finally see what all the noise and clattering was. You’re holding one of the thin rods from the railing, still twirling it. “No, put that down,” he tells you, “You’re gonna give yourself tetanus. Put it down, sweetheart.”

“Ellie lent me this DVD. Did you ever see this old movie, Star Wars?”

“Quit while you’re ahead,” Joel grumbles, rolling his eyes and shaking his head, “Ain’t that old, smartass. And of course I’ve watched Star Wars, who do you think introduced it to her?”

“Oh,” you reply, “Well, there was this character, Jar Jar–”

“Nope,” Joel cuts you off, “You’re done. Lost your talkin’ privileges. Drop your lightsaber and zip it.”

Still twirling the rod you ask, “You don’t like Star Wars?”

“I like Star Wars. What you watched is not Star Wars.”

“Yes it is, Joel. It was on the DVD.” 

Joel turns back around and keeps walking, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Yeah I do. Mesa–”

Joel interrupts, “Do not finish that sentence,” he warns, “God, that movie was so stupid. Took Sarah to see it when it came out, we ended up leavin’ halfway through and gettin’ ice cream instead.” You watch Joel smile at the memory as you approach the pharmacy and he holds the door open for you. You smile with him. Joel doesn’t talk about Sarah much with you, but he mentions her now and then, at least more than he used to.

You and Joel find the first aid aisle of the pharmacy. He knows what to look for, so he peruses the aisles and stuffs his bag full of supplies. Watching him bend over, you can’t help but poke his ass again. “Knock it off, space cadet,” he says, annoyed.

You giggle to yourself and toss the rod aside. You hadn’t realized the end that you were holding was damaged when you broke it off the railing. Fuck. It’s sharp, jagged, and slices your palm all the way across. The rod clangs on the ground and startles Joel. 

Joel turns around to see the rod on the ground, and you clutching your fist tightly. “What’s in your hand?”

“Nothing,” you answer, feeling your hand become warm and wet. 

Joel connects the dots. He bends over and checks the rod for rust and there’s none, thank god. But the end is very jagged, almost serrated like a knife. “Open your hand.”

“No,” pressing your lips together, you lower your gaze and open your fist slightly to check your hand, then quickly shut it. Joel watches your eyes go wide and the color draining from your face. “It’s n–mmm,” you hum, your voice shaky, “I’m fine.” 

“You’re not fine,” Joel reaches for your hand, “You’re hurt. Need to see how deep that cut is, clean it and–”

You shove Joel backward with your free hand, and he looks momentarily taken aback. There was a lot more strength behind that shove than he would have anticipated. You’re not playing, not teasing like usual. “Do you wanna try that again?” he asks, his voice firm.

“Don’t touch me.” 

Joel takes in your expression. You’re not trying to start a fight with him, you look worried, anxious, and defensive with pale lips and trembling hands. You had mentioned not handling blood or pain well before, but he didn’t know you were this squeamish, you poor thing. “I have to, hon.”

“Joel…”

Joel raises a hand in your direction, “Don’t argue with me on this. You need to sit down, I can tell you’re gettin’ freaked.”

“Joel,” you say his name again in a warning tone, much sharper than before. 

“I know,” he says softly, as he steps closer to you, and you step back, your feet hitting the wall behind you. You’re feeling more amped up now. “Just let me look,” as he reaches for your wrist and pulls you closer, his grip tightening when you struggle against him and try to pull your arm away. “Quit squrimin’,” he grits his teeth as he fights against your strength. Minding his own strength, and with one hand gripping your wrist, he moves the other to your shoulder and forces you to the ground as gently as he can. A sliced hand is bad enough, he doesn’t need you fainting and cracking your skull open. You kick your legs and punch against him, but he pins his body on top of yours, your free hand between your body and his leg.

“Get the fuck off me, Joel,” you spit, “Get off, get off, get–”

“Hey. Hey,” he says, his voice firm yet gentle, “Breathe, sweetheart. I know you’re nervous.”

You stare at Joel with fiery eyes, breathing heavily through your nose. Shallow breaths, probably not getting enough oxygen to your brain, but at least you’re breathing. Joel gives you a moment to settle down.

“I need you to listen to me,” he tells you, “I don’t know how deep your cut is. I need you to let me look.”

“Please,” you beg, “Please don’t.”

“I’m gonna be gentle,” Joel promises as he flips your wrist up, gently beginning to pry your fingers open, “You look at me. Don’t look at your hand. Just look at me. Will you trust me?” 

Nodding apprehensively, you keep your focus on Joel. He nods in response, then examines your palm. He bites his cheek and frowns. 

“Is it bad?” you ask shakily.

“Uhh,” he hums, “It’s not good,” he answers you honestly. You’re cut in multiple areas and by the looks of it, the gashes go pretty deep. “You might need stitches.”

Fuck that. You squirm under Joel with all of your might to force him off of you. 

“Stop thrashin’. Stop it,” he says, holding your jaw firmly and looking into your eyes, “I’m not gonna stitch ya. We can cross that bridge when we get to Jackson. But you are risking infection. So I’m going to stop the bleeding, wash it, disinfect, then wrap your hand. That’s all.”

He has a tendency to get frustrated with you, and you’re sure he’s beyond frustrated with you right now, but he’s not showing it. He looks sincere, but you’re still on edge and lacking assurance. “Promise?” you whisper.

“I swear,” he assures softly, rubbing your jaw gently with his thumb. When you nod in response, Joel takes his coat off and folds it, then slides it under your head. He needs you as comfortable as you can be. 

“We are gonna have to amputate, though,” he jokes as he pulls out a rag from his bag and presses it into your hand. You give him a dirty look. “Kidding,” he says. 

Joel removes the rag to see if your hand is still bleeding. You catch a glimpse of the cut and the blood in your palm, running down your wrist, “Oh god, my hand, Joel–”

“Don’t look,” he repeats, “Just keep lookin’ at me, sweetheart.”

But you don’t. You can’t seem to peel your eyes away, and you feel lightheaded. Joel notices.

“Tell me somethin’ new,” he says, distracting you from the pain.

“Joel, please,” you whine.

“Somethin’ new,” he reminds you.

“I saw a cat yesterday.”

Joel nods in response. “What color?” he asks.

“Uh, calico,” you reply. He’s reaching into his bag, pulling out his canteen and rinsing your hand out with his water. The cool water feels soothing on your palm. 

“What’s calico?”

“It’s when a cat has three colors, Joel,” you answer impatiently, as if the answer should be glaringly obvious to him. “Fuck,”  you hiss, as he pats the wound dry. The fabric feels irritating and painful against you. 

“Tell me more. Tell me good things.”

Following his instructions, you begin rambling. It’s not hard once you start. “I saw a cat and I kicked Tommy’s ass in a board game and his baby is so cute, by the way. Almost as cute as the cat.”

“You think cats are cuter than babies?”

“Obviously. Babies are gross and they’re noisy and I finished the sweater I was crocheting for Maria and the snow looks pretty and I love you and I…” 

Joel pauses his work on your hand momentarily. He doesn't hear anything else you say after those three words. I love you. It’s a fuzzy sort of quiet, he’s in disbelief. I love you. When your hand twitches, he pulls his focus back to you.

“...And I watched Star Wars.”

“Yeah,” he replies quietly, “You said that already, you said–”

“I did? Oh yeah. I guess I did.”

You’re clearly delirious, in panic mode, and not thinking straight. You don’t remember talking about Star Wars an hour ago, you don’t even realize what just slipped your lips a second ago. Joel smiles to himself. He’s suspected it for a while. He loves you too. But that’s a conversation for later. There’s a more pressing issue at hand, quite literally.

Joel clears his throat and blinks a couple of times. “Uhm,” he hums, thinking of something to say, “And you said you got that movie from Ellie? The Phantom Menace?” 

“Star Wars.”

“Yeah, Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace,” he corrects you. You shrug. “Unbelievable,” Joel says, “Thought I taught that girl better.” He reaches for a bottle of rubbing alcohol and keeps your hand open in his. “Alright, deep breath in and out. This is the worst part, then we’re done.” 

Before you have time to breathe in and out as instructed, before you have time to argue, Joel dumps the alcohol in your palm. You yelp and tug your hand away, but he holds it still.

“I know, I know, I know, baby,” he coos, “Almost done.”

“Joel,” you cry.

“Look, all done,” he whispers as tears off a piece of gauze and lays it over your gash. “See? All done. Just need to wrap it,” Joel prepares more gauze, “Makes sense you’ve identified with Jar Jar, of all characters.” 

“What do you mean?”

Joel begins to wrap the bandage tightly around your hand. “Clumsy,” he murmurs, “Troublemakin’... accident prone.” 

“I don’t think you like Star Wars,” you tell him.

“Not the prequels,” Joel replies, “Only good thing about the outbreak is that they couldn’t finish that godforsaken mess of a trilogy.”

“What do you mean, ‘prequels’?”

“There was an original trilogy that came out before that movie you watched. Ellie didn’t show you them?”, and you shake your head no, “So you don’t know Han Solo or Princess Leia. That means nothin’ to ya?”

“Nope.”

“Jesus Christ. What about C-3PO? R2-D2?”

“Oh, yeah. I know them. They were in that movie.”

“No,” Joel disagrees, then looking baffled for a second before nodding his head as he remembers the hour he spent watching that movie with Sarah years and years ago. “Mm, yeah, you’re right. Guess they were,” Joel concedes, “We’ll have to rectify this, you know. Have a movie night sometime.” 

“Yeah,” you agree, “You can make me popcorn.” 

“I’ll make you popcorn,” Joel says, watching a smile form on your lips. “There it is,” he praises, “Missed that smile. Don’t like seein’ you upset like that,” he murmurs, finishing your bandage wrap and securing it in place. “What am I gonna do with you?” he asks as he presses a kiss to your palm before he lets your hand go. You can still feel the warmth of his touch on your skin as he watches you and your cheeks begin to warm.

“I know what you’re gonna do with me,” you whisper. 

I’m gonna kiss you, and I’ll tell you that I love you too. That’s what I’m gonna do with you, Joel thinks, his heart beginning to race.

“Tell me, sweetheart.” 

“You’re gonna listen to my Jar Jar impression.”

Joel sighs. He watches you with adoration, and he wants nothing more than to express that adoration for you. It’ll happen when it happens. He decides to let it go for now and play along with you instead, however you want to. You deserve it, after all. He’ll put up a facade like you drive him crazy and he’ll let you believe you’re really getting under his skin, just to watch you smile and hear you laugh like you really got him this time. And he’ll tease you back, at least once more. 

“Please spare me until I lose my hearing in my other ear.” 

You oblige, smiling and rolling your eyes. Still holding eye contact with Joel, you become acutely aware of the position you’re in, that all too familiar position. Faces close, bodies closer and staring into his sparkly, warm brown eyes with his weight pressing into you. Maybe it’s the adrenaline, the way he took care of you, who knows. Out of the blue, you’re turned on and Joel knows. Joel cocks an eyebrow when your breath hitches, when you bite your lip and begin to squirm underneath him, seemingly now uncomfortable, aroused no doubt. “Time and place, hon,” he smirks smugly.

Heat rises up your neck and your cheeks at his accusation, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Yeah, you do. I know how you operate,” he asserts. “What’s got ya all worked up all of a sudden?” Joel asks, his hand caressing your cheek, your jaw.

“Nothing,” you lie. Your skin burns where his fingers trace.

“I think you’re lyin’. I know you like when I get rough with ya, just wasn’t expectin’ ya to like it now of all times, when I had to wrestle you down to fix that gash in your hand,” Joel taunts, “You’re very stubborn sometimes, you know that?” 

“Challenging,” you counter his claim, “And I wasn’t being stubborn. I could have taken care of my hand myself. I didn’t really need your help.”

Joel knows that’s a lie. You did, in fact, need his help. Badly. 

“That right there is stubborn.”

“No,” you argue, “And I’m not worked up right now, either.” Joel makes an amused face at you, and you wince internally. 

Shit. You fucked that up. Overcompensated.

“Right. Course not.” 

Against your better judgment, you open your mouth to argue further but Joel hushes you. “What do I get if you’re wet right now, sweetheart?” he whispers, unbuttoning your jeans. Your tummy flutters with desire as his fingertips skate across your skin. “You’re more than welcome to stop me right now,” he purrs. He’s giving you an out, a moment to make a choice, but you don’t dare stop him. And Joel grins. He snakes his hand down your pants, underneath your thin cotton panties. The anticipation builds with the tickle of his fingers lightly dragging over your mound, his middle and ring fingers tracing over your lips. You gasp quietly when he dips his fingers at your core, his fingertips collecting your arousal. You stifle a whine as he pulls his hand away from your body, showing you his two fingers glistening with your slick. Joel clicks his tongue, “Can’t be comfortable,” he murmurs, his tone sarcastic and sympathetic all at the same time. “This all for me?”

“No,” you breathe shakily. Yes. 

“You’re lyin’ to me,” he mumbles, bringing his two fingers to his lips. His mouth makes obscene noises as he sucks them clean of your arousal, humming at the sweet taste. Before you can think, he’s pulling your pants and underwear down in one fell swoop, his fingers finding their place back at your pussy. “You could tell me the truth and I’d go easy on ya,” he offers, his thumb pressing against your clit.

You love the thrill, that feeling in your stomach. Joel gives you a moment to answer, but you don’t. “No?”  he asks before situating himself on the ground with you, backing himself against a wall and pulling you into his lap. “Gonna make it worse for yourself,” he says, spreading your legs apart and hiking up your shirt, one hand playing with your pussy and the other kneading your breasts, teasing your nipples, “Why don’t you tell me how much ya needed this, hm? How you want me to make it all better.”

You sigh, a soft Joel falling from your lips as you become wetter, more sensitive as Joel’s fingers dance through your slick folds. He pushes two fingers inside you, fingers curling into that spot that he so loves. His thumb rubs tight, steady circles around your clit and he flicks the thumb of his other hand across your sensitive nipples, the combination of actions filling you with a deep, hot pleasure. You rest your head on his shoulder, the scratchy hairs on his cheek pressing against your forehead. You reach behind yourself to touch him, tangling your fingers in his curls.

“We’ll do this the hard way, then,” Joel shoves you forward, careful not to use too much of his strength but enough to let you know that he’s in charge. He’s always in charge. He takes his folded coat from the ground and positions it in front of himself. He stands up tall, knees popping as he rises. “Since you have nothin’ better to do with your mouth than tellin’ lies…”  Joel snaps and points to his coat, “Might as well keep you quiet instead. Down,” he instructs, “On your knees. Do it now.”

“Yes, Joel,” as you assume the position.

“Ah, now she speaks,” he taunts, the quiet metallic clang of him undoing his belt buckle sending excitement shooting through you. “Open,” is his next command, “Nice n’ wide, hon, you know how,” he instructs as he pulls out his cock, hard and with a pearly bead of precum glistening on his head. You open your mouth for Joel, eyes wide and Joel taps his member on your tongue. “Keep ya from doin’ that stupid fuckin’ impression, too.”

Your eyes light up as you think of something quippy to say, but Joel slides his cock into your mouth to keep you from doing so. “Ah-ah,” he tuts, “Quiet.” He’s delicious, masculine, heady, and intense. He fills your mouth entirely and you swirl your tongue around him, tracing thick veins and salty skin. “Attagirl,” Joel praises you, gripping the back of your head and pushing himself further into your mouth. You nearly gag, pulling back slightly but he holds you right where he wants you, “Right there.”

He pushes you further than you’re used to, but not to the point of discomfort. His tummy nudges your forehead as your nose presses against dark curls at the base of his dick and you use your hand to cup his balls. As you hum against him, you wonder if Joel intends for this to be a punishment. His tone and the way he conducts himself is commanding, but the way he fucks your mouth is gentle. 

“Still not worked up, right? Don’t need me?”, he asks, staring down at you with raised eyebrows. You shake your head no, lying again. “Okay,” he says, “I wanna watch you fuck yourself on your fingers. But don’t come. Not until you tell me what I wanna hear.” 

Your eyes flutter shut as you bring your fingers to your core, feeling your arousal. You push two fingers into your dripping pussy, pumping them in and out and trying to mimic the way it feels when Joel does it.

As you fuck yourself, you hollow your cheeks around his thick cock, letting him feel every inch of your soft and wet mouth. He’s domineering above you, but his hand on your cheek is gentle, caressing your skin softly. He looks down at you through hooded lids and as your eyes flutter shut, you wonder what he’s thinking. 

The way you’re touching your pussy hardly counts as fucking yourself, it’s teasing at best, and excruciating at that. You rub circles around your clit steadily, subtly, needing more than what he’s told you to give yourself. With your fingers working your clit and your mouth working Joel, the familiar pleasure of your climax is just within reach. Feeling yourself reaching your peak, you look up at Joel, “What are you doin’?”, he asks, like he’s caught you doing something you shouldn’t be.

You pull your mouth off of his cock to whisper, “Please, Joel,” which garners an irritated look from him. Joel bends lower to grab you by your bicep and force you to your feet, spinning you around and bending you over an empty shelf of an end cap. He parts your legs and drags his cock through your folds with one hand, the other gripping your hip. 

“Need those magic words, sweetheart. Say it, ‘I need you, Joel’. Go on, now. You got it.”

With the leftover feeling of your ruined orgasm and Joel’s cock teasing your pussy, you fold immediately. “I need you, Joel,” you breathe, “I need you.” 

“Tell me more. How do you need me?” as he continues to tease. 

“Need you to fuck me,” you gasp, “Please.”

“Need me to fuck ya,” he repeats, amused. Joel notches the tip of his cock at your entrance, “How ‘bout that. Tell me somethin’ I didn’t know.” 

It’s a rhetorical question. He doesn’t give you time to answer before he buries himself inside of you. You groan at the sudden intrusion, how deeply he enters you and how full you feel. 

He doesn’t need to experiment with you, doesn’t need to vary how he fucks you. You grip the edge of the end cap with both hands as he finds his pace immediately. His cock hits you right where you need him. 

“Hey, hey,” he whispers, reaching for your bandaged hand, “Don’t hold that. S’gonna hurt your hand. Hold mine instead,” as he wraps his palm around yours. “Better?”

“Better.”

You’re lost in it all, his hand holding yours tightly and his thighs hitting your ass, his balls slapping against your clit. His face is right next to yours, his nose buried in your hair as he nips at your ear. 

“Fuck,” he grunts as he fucks you. He moans softly, his breath feels warm. Each thrust feels deep and intentional. “Good girl. Takin’ my cock so good.”

“Yes, Joel,” you moan. 

He makes stuttering, strangled sort of noises. His breathing is sharp and unsteady through his gritted teeth, and you wish you could see him like this. You can just about picture him perfectly, his messy salt and pepper curls and that deep set line between his brows. 

He fucks you hard and rough, both of you panting and moaning. Soon enough, his rhythm becomes frenetic and stuttering. “Squ– fuck, squeezin’ me too good, I’m not gonna last, sweetheart.”

“Let me come, Joel,” you plead, “Please.”

“I know, I know. Don’t need to beg me, darlin’,” Joel coos. He snakes his hand between your thighs and quickly finds your clit, his thrusts still steady and deep. He expertly paints circles around your clit as he becomes sloppier and frenzied. 

“Oh god, oh fuck, Joel,” you’re gasping, feeling your walls begin to clench and squeeze him, “Right there, right there, fuck.”

“Yeah, s’it, let go for me,” he pants. 

With a few more circles tracing your clit, you fall apart on him. You come with a loud gasp, gripping his hand hard. Even after he helps you ride out your orgasm, he doesn’t yet stop fucking you, and the sensation is becoming all too much. You bite your lip to stifle yourself as he chases his own orgasm, and he spills into you with shuddering breaths and grunts, painting your insides with his seed.

You catch your breath with Joel as he begins to go soft inside you. You feel empty when he pulls out of you, craving the weight of his hand on yours after he lets go. As your breathing slows, turn around to face Joel. His dominant, taunting demeanor is gone and he helps you back into your clothes, then examines the bandage on your hand. He frowns when he sees he’s crumpled it and dampened it with his sweat. “Hang on,” he murmurs, quickly reaching for more gauze to rewrap it. 

You touch his shoulder, “Just– let’s wrap it again at home. It’s just gonna get ruined again.”

“No, I promise I’m not gonna clean it again, I just wanna–” Joel stops talking when you reach for his hand. He looks at where his hand connects with yours, then looks at you. “Okay,” he says. He stares at you intently, as if waiting for you to say more. You look like you want to.

Hand in Joel’s, you walk together out of the mall. The horseback ride home is quiet. You hug Joel tightly, and Joel savors the warmth of your cheek on his back again.

“Joel?” you ask. 

“Yeah, hon.”

“You’re sure you don’t wanna hear my impression?”

“I’m sure,” Joel says, but you can hear the smile in his voice. 

as always, i appreciate all of my readers. please please please leave a comment/reblog/send an ask if you enjoyed, your comments really do mean the world and keep me going <3

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[seenthisepisode]

hi! I saw your post about the why episode title change why 11 scenes cut why lamp etc etc and I know some of it but not all, and I was hoping you could elaborate on spngate— if it’s not too much trouble— or point me in a direction where I can join you in the spn gate?

I feel ashamed for HOW LONG i let this ask just rot in my askbox (it's from january, apparently, now it's april. i thought maybe two weeks passed but NO. it was months. ANON I AM SO SO SO SO SORRY. I LOVE YOU WITH ALL MY HEART) but now with the power of this url and the wine i am currently sipping, let me give you the best, most thought-out answer that i possibly can.

I don't know how long you've been following/watching spn, so I won't get into real deep iceberg theories that go back to season 8 and jeremy carver, for the purpose of this essay answer I'll just stick to the year anno domini 2020, and will try to do my best to tell you what happened.

Okay, maybe 2019. So, in june 2019, when the first scripts and drafts for s15 are presented, these things happen: 1. apparently, according to Berens, the confession scene is the first thing that was written for season 15. 2. Jensen Ackles is sat down and asked if he would be okay with this. (question is asked: why would they ask jensen if all he does in this scene is look at cas, he doesn't say anything, he does not confess, it changes nothing about his character, etc.; if you put the real tjlc tinfoil hat on you'd ask hey , maybe they asked him if precisely that is okay, if he is okay with the fact dean is practically silenced here but that's Deep) 3. Jensen apparently is okay with that, because it happens.

also this thing happens around the same time: 1. they write the ending for the brothers, and no matter what version of the finale we're talking about, Dean dies 2. Jensen Ackles is Not Okay with this. he calls Kripke who then, in a call and/or email assures him it's a good ending (Jensen says that) and also very quickly after that Jensen is announced to play Soldier Boy in Kripke's The Boys. make of that what you want

They film, blah blah, march 2020, covid happens, they stop production right after they film the confession. Last episode to air is 15x13, last episode they film is 15x18, they almost have a plane crush when flying to vegas con, and then, a loooong break until august 2020. Now, from what we know, there were two versions of the finale - the pre-covid finale they were supposed to film if the filming schedule wasn't interrupted, and the finale that happened.

What was supposed to be in the Original Finale/Pre-Covid Finale, we still don't know exactly, but from what the cast said, there was supposed to be a big cast reunion, Harvelle's Roadhouse in Heaven, Kansas Band (why are they dead?) playing there after Dean gets there and so on.

Anyway. July 2020. Misha does a livestream with Michael Sheen (the SuperGood campaign) where he says he is going back to filming the last two episodes in a few weeks. he said it LIVE. it's on youtube. people analyze the background from Misha's livestreams and photos and conclude he is in Vacouver, where spn is filmed. He also says that he is going back filming in a few interviews. Also here.

August 2020. They go back to filming in august 2020 to film 15x19 and 15x20.

August 20th, 2020, Misha's birthday.

I wasn't on set TODAY. so casual. of all days i wasn't there today.

August 24th, 2020, day 6/8 of filming 15x19, Angel with a Shotgun is hash tag Song of The Day while filming scenes of 15x19 (scene 28, 31).

September 4th, 2020. ALL THEY FILM, for the whole DAY, is one scene. They usually film a few. They film one. Song of the day? The Night We Met.

Somewhere before the episodes starts to air again, Dabb says only 30% of the audience will like the finale. Anyway, everyone concludes, Misha is filming, destiel is more or less going canon, but everyone including bibros is sure Misha is filming and will be there for the finale.

Originally, "Despair" was called "The Truth".

Finale airs.

It feels shorter (apparently it's not) but it does have an additional ad break. For Walker. But it feels shorter because of the "carry on my wayward son" cover montage that lasts too long and later it's discovered thanks to scripts that dropped that there are ELEVEN scenes that were filmed,, but didn't make it to the episode. The script that drops is also very telling, where scenes are just [OMMITTED]. It was explained that they wanted to have actor there but they didn't want actors to quarantine for two weeks to film one or two scenes BUT then that's exactly what they did with Jim Beaver lmao.

So yeah. I also remember Misha at a con (DarkLight?) where, after asked about the original ending, he answers that the original ending was something that would be better explored in fanfiction anyway. Theory rises he filmed and was cut off the episode without his or Jensen's knowledge because Misha sat down his kids to watch the spn finale (which was the first episode they were supposed to watch ever, why would he do that if he's not there?) and then, CW SPN twitter posts a goodbye video that has everyone from the cast and their mother BUT MISHA AND JENSEN ARE NOT THERE. Jensens sexy silence starts.

THEN THE WILDEST THING HAPPENS.

November 25th, the Spanish Dub. 15x18 drops in Brazil and Dean says "and i you" to Cas, after he confesses. No "don't do this cas" but "and i you". Tumblr stops working for two hours, people on discords are screaming, no one knows whats happening, someone claims Jensen was called in September 2020 to record some adlibs? To record the muffled sobs Dean does while on the floor. Theory is supported by the fact that in the Bazil version? When Dean sits on the floor? The sound that plays are birds. Chirping birds. Sounds don't match, what was Dean saying while crying on the floor, question arises.

Everyone decides there was a Rogue Translator who managed to hide from The CW Sniper (who is the reason actors just dont tell us everything) and translated some kind of Original Script. Voice Actors are invited to a podcast where they debunk this saying that it was added because the translator felt this was the right response or something like that. Anyway they debunk the fact that there existed, at any time, a version of a script, that maybe was send to them, where Dean says I love you too. This was a wild night, no one slept.

And like. I could make this post longer, but I am planning to, one day, make a huge masterpost with real sources about that because honestly you could write a book about it.

But tl;dr spngate is a theory that misha did film for the last 2 episodes and the changes they made were truly last minute (september 2020), they were going for a canon destiel, possibly human!cas engame, dabb was always on our side, and it's based on stuff like jensen actively hating the ending to the point he made his prequel after 2 years of radio silence, 11 scenes just cut from the finale, misha saying he is going back filming, and people like mark pellegrino saying the last scene he filmed was with alex and misha. also the onion field. why lamp is the theory that cas is represented and symbolized by lamps throughout the show and when dean dances with a Lamp in a drug induced dream instead of, say, some kind of a lady he is actually thinking about cas.

also there are little things like when jensen at an online con before the finale says that oh yes i am wearing a grey flannel but tomorrow? who know it could be blue and green. and we all collectively lost our shit. like when he said he is most excited to "tackle" with cas in season 15. or that "dean has no taste, clearly". WHY WAS YOUR PERMISSION NEEDED JENSEN

there are a lot of things i didn't mention here because i simply can't unflod this whole thing just like that but

but if you understand this picture you might be entitled to financial compensation

[radishhqueen]

ao3 questions!

thanks @plothooksinc for the tag 🥺💕 i am always psyched to talk about writing.

1. How many works do you have on AO3? Somehow I've reached 10 whole works... 9 of which are completed.

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 193,772. Shit I gotta write something to break 200k.

3. What fandoms do you write for? rottmnt pretty exclusively. I never have been so plagued by a media that I felt the need to write it down before. Insane that the ninja turtles got me.

4. Top five fics by kudos?

how to get very good at juggling - 1,079

vigilantism for fun and profit - 410

it's too early for this - 322

the ol switcheroo - 321

stuck between a rock and a hard place - 207

5. Do you respond to comments? Yeah!! At least if there's something to like, reply to. I get very giddy about doing it, so if you've ever received a rambling five paragraph essay from me uhhh enjoy my stream of consciousness.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I don't think any of them have angsty endings? Mostly bc i need all my little guys to be happy. the ol switcheroo is the fic that I cried the most writing though, hands down.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Again, all happy endings, but HMMMM how to get very good at juggling may be the happiest. It's a hard pick tho.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Nah.

9. Do you write smut? Not that anyone gets to see.

10. Craziest crossover? I've never written one! I tend not to seek them out, though there are definitely a handful I'm very fond of.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I'm aware of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Not that I'm aware of!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yeah! My friend and I have been co-writing a fic on and off since about 2018. It's just for us, really, since it's basically a post-canon fic of an RP that we were in from like 2009-2013ish? Anyway the lore doesn't make sense but the character dynamics compel me so here we are. I've got some snippets and some drawings for it in #rs tag.

14. All time favourite ship? Not a big shipping person!

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I intended on writing more for hot girl summer, but considering I haven't updated it in about a year, and I never really had a plan in the first place, and I feel like the last posted chapter ended in a very conclusive place, that ship has probably sailed.

16. What are your writing strengths? The Bit. She's my #1, I never forget. My favorite comments are along the lines of "please stop making me laugh during this very sad section". People have different tastes of course, but I find that consistent, oppressive angst is just not...appealing to me, and if the angst goes on for too long, I'll just drop the fic. I like to add a little levity to the mood, or at least some dark humor.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Ough. Planning is a bad one for me. I didn't have an outline for any of my fics, besides some rough mental plans. for the ol switcheroo, I didn't even have an ending figured out when I started writing it. Actually coming up with ideas can be difficult, and I usually need to have something actively eating away at my brain in order for it to make it onto paper.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language? Depends on if the POV character understands it or not. If they don't, I'll usually just write like "Character B said something in Spanish." If they do understand it, I'd write, "Character B started speaking in Spanish. "Do you drink milk?"" Maybe put it in italics if it doesn't seem super clear? The exception would be like, if a character is peppering words from another language, a bit like Leo and Spanish in rottmnt.

19. First fandom you wrote in? Technically I wrote some Pokemon fic back in like 2008. It was OC fic and I could not tell you for the life of me what it was about though.

20. Favourite fic you've written? vigilantism for fun and profit may be the one that I reread the most, though I do reread all the fics in the mean teen fighting machines series. The fic that single-handedly gave me Foot Clan brainrot. Casey Jones isn't even my favorite character in the show as written.

tagging @witchofthemoss @sroloc--elbisivni @crows-murder o/ i would love to see your words

[raayllum]

not really appreciating or understanding still the whole purity culture accusation for pointing out that people are well in their right to find a unhealthy power dynamic ship between Aaravos and a 19 yr old more uncomfortable than Aaravos and a middle aged guy well into adulthood - this isn't purity culture, this is, like, a really normal perspective and perfectly fine for the fanbase of primarily young people (if not children) to have, I don't understand what's worth getting upset about, is this just rehashed proship discourse or what

and I don't think you're really in the mindset to be having this discussion, considering I've said your main point of contention - that it is understandable and ofc absolutely allowed for the age gap to be what people find off putting about Claudia and Aaravos - over and over again:

like to be clear whatever makes you uncomfortable makes you uncomfortable, nothing wrong with that, block tags/people and curate your experience all you want

and I'm gonna be honest with you, on tumblr? TDP is an extremely adult heavy fandom. To the point that when I first joined the fandom back in 2018, I was one of the youngest, and still am, even in my early 20s now. And tumblr is a 17+ age site anyway, so young children shouldn't even be on here (and if they are, they had to sign a button saying they were older, and it's on them and their parents to figure out how to curate their online experience, soo).

So let me reiterate:

People are allowed to be squicked out by Claudia and Aaravos' age gap. But to act like there's a moral slant to it - Viren/Aaravos being better/fine/less morally problematic - is a facet of purity culture and culturally Christian attitudes towards sex. The issue isn't the discomfort, that's something that's often very personal and subjective, the issue is the moralization of that discomfort. Which, as a queer person, is very very similar to how discomfort and morality are utilized and weaponized against queer people and 'taboo' literature in general. Which again, as someone with a degree in English who also teaches the humanities for a living, is something I'm acutely familiar with.

"We have to be careful about what we portray in art because impressionable people may get confused between art and reality" is not a new take. It's the backbone of Plato's The Republic. It's what essays were written in opposition of in the 1600s. It's what 19th century British grammarians were concerned with when codifying 'proper' English down into the first real dictionaries. It's the same mindset curbing portrayals of LGBTQ+ people in media today, because when you moralize certain things, you put up emotional barriers than get in the way of actually dismantling the thing you're talking about in the first place. It's all the same shit. It's all the same moralized thought crime. And to say you should never question WHY something is uncomfortable is a surefire way to never question any bias you may or may not have - because biases aren't always bad, but they should absolutely always be examined so you can see where it's coming from. Yours and others personal discomfort is not a Standard, the same way what I'm personally comfortable with or discomforted by is not a Standard, but I'm not acting like mine is, and you are

'Rehashed proship discourse' is what helped cultivate the environment that led to a massive wave of harassment of the aro and ace communities online from 2013ish to 2017ish (which I saw first hand). It's also what led to me, a 16 year old, being harassed by grown adults and called a pedophile somewhat regularly for what cartoon characters I wanted to kiss, because I had the same opinions on not moralizing what people do in fandom as I did at thirteen, and as I do now.

If you look at any ship or dynamic with a large age gap and write it off solely because of the age gap, you're not engaging in critical thinking. It's a "you don't need to know why this thing is bad, you just need to know it has a label of Bad". It's as simple as that, and that's precisely the problem.

If you want to do more reading and to expand your horizons on the subjects I'm talking about (literary analysis, societal purity culture, upacking biases, etc.) I suggest this tag on my main blog, and feel free to come back and discuss. If not, have a good day, but I don't feel like continuing this conversation any further, simply because unsurprisingly, it seems that critical thinking is something you are struggling to apply, and I don't think we're going to get very far without it.

[thelador-s-mclargehuge]

Episode 1 Behind The Scenes!

Welcome to Amateur Hour! I mean this whole series is amateur hour, but stating out was REALLY amateur hour. So most of the way our videos worked is we would do a weekly video (Either podcast or Over The Shoulder game review). And I’d release a Funny Joke Video every two weeks. I was given Carte Blanch over my videos and basically just kinda did them on my own. So everything I did was suuuper rudimentary My scripts weren’t formated very well, there were tons of spelling errors, stuff I’d cut out I’d leave in the document and just remember I cut it out. But all this worked just fine because I was the only one looking at them.

And the way I’d send people their lines was I would *send* people their lines over discord and have them send me back an audio file that they’d recorded. I didn’t even really do any audio directing aside from a couple of notes. I might have directed Dalsson and TheDragonLover (heretofore referred to as Dergo), but that was it.

For anyone who might want to make a narrative series, uh… don’t do this with your main cast. If you have a guest star who knows what their doing and might not be comfortable being directed in a discord call with a stranger, that’s fine. But for everyone else you’ll just end up playing phone tag for a a couple of VA lines that won’t be nearly as good if you just set the people down in a call and told them what kinda performance you want them to give. A thing that, And I cannot stress this enough, they will be fine with you doing and in fact would much prefer this to the alternative.

And if you sit multiple people down in the call and do their voice lines in one day, that’s just way better! Your actors will be more comfortable with more friends around, and after the session is over, you have multiple scenes worth of voice lines to work with! It’s one of those “We do this thing like this for a reason.” kinda deals.

But ultimately a lot of the What Worked for those videos I’d put out every two weeks, and the video essays, did not really work here. But anyway lets look at the actual video.

The like first scene you can see how the cutting around is really off. That’s because the footage of me just standing there lasted, like, 3 seconds and I had a minute of dialogue, so I HAD to keep cutting if I wanted to use that footage. I should have just started a new save and rerecorded it but… again amateur hour.

But. The first joke here I think is really good. I have a lot of thoughts about it, so I’m going to make it a separate thread. There’s quite a bit going on there and I’m really proud of it.

But the beginning of the video, and the beginning of the series as a whole, is just kinda me moving from bit to bit like I did in the previous Joke Videos. These started out as those with a tiny bit more structure.

The Conversation with Elderbug here is what got Lordfrezon to get a better mic. Like this video convinced the man to get a better microphone. But you’ll notice Elderbugs mouth keeps moving when he’s not taking. I didn’t start putting a still picture over the talking characters yet

The quirrel scene is probably the best put together in the entire video. The editing is sharp. and I realized I could like, just reverse the video of him looking at the Black Egg to make it a little more dynamic.

But most of the dynamic-ness of these scenes comes down to me zooming in and out of characters faces for emphasis. The footage I’m working with is a character with a one second animation loop and another character staring up at them. So I gotta do a lot of cuts and zooms to make it look like a conversation with multiple emotions in it is happening. And I already had a pretty good grasp of that thanks to the joke videos! Say what you will about youtube video editing, but it sure teaches you how powerful quick cutting for emphasis is!

This was also before I started putting Reverb on every scene that takes place in a tunnel… which most of them do, and if there’s one thing I love, love, love playing with, it’s reverb. Sound design is my passion tbh. It is also the only thing I have any formal training in! I was taught it by a bunch of 80s rockers who showed me how to use an old analog soundboard for live mixing! And I’ve always held to the idea that 75% of video editing is sound editing, and 95% of that sound editing is shit no one would notice unless it wasn’t there.

There a little after the Quirrel scene I got *extremely lucky* and found a sign mender. Which is a really rare event. Just immediately out of the gate I see that man. I’d never seen him before I was getting footage for the video and he blessed me with his presence like an angel. Thank you Sign Mender! You gave me a great bit about property destruction!

The Cornifer scene is firstly, a great look into how a voice role evolves over time, and secondly, a great exemplification of what I started this with. Just Direct Your VA’s. You’ll notice how Saine’s performance on his first line here are worse than any of the other ones he’s given. He didn’t know what I wanted. And if I would have simply directed him, that wouldn’t be a problem!

He did, however get to delever the funniest lines of the video. And he did a great job with those! And, another thing to Saine’s credit is he does a fantastic job as Iselda! Man eats up that whole scene! Just great shit there!

Sly’s change is less in that the voice evolved as time went on and more I changed the character. I focused more on the Shopkeeper aspect rather than the teacher aspect as his Central Thing, and ultimately I think that was the best choice. Surly Shopkeeper who can “Show You Da Ropes” Is always a great character and he’s a lot of fun to write. Also all the thing’s Sly says about ‘God’ put me in a bit of a bind because “Okay, so why the hell does this guy know about The Radiance… a thing that a lot of people were lied to about for decades?” So I had to come up with some stuff for that. But that’s the kind of problem I love solving. Because it goes from “Weird plot hole” to “Ooh new character aspect! let’s give this man some depth!

Dergo’s performance as Myla is the best one in the video. And it’s great that’s the case too, because of how much *that* kicks off a lot of the story. But, yeah 10/10 no notes. Dergo is incredibly good at this shit.

The end bit with the snail man is probably my biggest regret of the video. It very much does not fit in with the tone of everything else. It’s kinda something that just happens in the first episode and I hope everyone forgets about. The implication he just murdered the snail guy is funny but it doesn’t fit in the wider whole. Whole scene just is not very good tbh. I also probably should have had someone else voice the Snail man as well.

And I wholeass forgot I used a different font for the credits! But I think that’s that for the first episode. IT’s kind of just a collection of thoughts, but the episode is just kind of a collection of scenes so, there we go!

[sflow-er]

After reading The Magic Trick You Didn't See, the essay by @ariaste, I've got some thoughts on Maggie and Nina (well, mostly Maggie) that I kind of want to write down to make sense of them. I'm putting them under the cut to spare anyone who isn't interested in GO2 or hasn't seen it yet and doesn't want to be spoiled.

[Before I start rambling, I want to stress that I haven't really been active enough in the GO tag to know if a similar theory has already been presented. Also, I realise I could be way off the mark here, this is pure speculation!]

So to recap the basic premise of the essay mentioned above, much of what we see in GO2 could have been altered by the Metatron using the Book of Life, aka. the Chekov's gun that never went off. I'm not sure if I subscribe to every aspect of that theory (for example, I do think that wee Morag really died, and that it's possible Aziraphale only started drinking alcohol in the 1900s, although I'll admit some of the bits where he turns it down are harder to explain than others).

What I do fully agree on is that Maggie often feels more like a character than a real person in this fictional world. Something about her just feels off. The essay cites many great examples, such as her abrupt mood swings and her uncanny valley reactions (especially her line at the ball, about how suddenly knowing the steps is "just what we do", and her zoning out right before the demons attack and then suddenly starting to antagonise them).

Anyway, this got me thinking. If Maggie was a character written by the Metatron, why and when would he have started writing her in the first place?

Well, what if there was cleanup to be done after Adam fixed things at the end of GO1? All the events of that week were altered, but what about everything that happened before? Because that's the thing that jumps out to me about his line to the Devil: "You're not my father, and you never were." Meaning he also altered the past.

Which begs the question, if Adam was never the Antichrist, what became of The Chattering Order of St Beryl? Did it ever exist at all? Did Hastur still destroy the convent and kill most of the nuns? After all, the book says their sole purpose in existing was to deliver the Antichrist - who never was, as of the end of GO1.

Keep in mind that the burning of the convent happened eleven years before the events of GO1. I assume there would be a lot more paperwork involved in bringing to life people who already moved on from the earthly plain over a decade ago. They wouldn't even have a life to come back to, which is where the Book of Life could come in.

Now, I know Neil has said that Maggie and Nina are not the same people as Sister Theresa and (Sister) Mary in GO1...but that would still hold true even if they were just altered versions of themselves.

I'm not sure about Mary/Nina. It's possible that Adam himself changed her, as she was still alive at the time of the shift. Maybe her parents didn't raise her as Satanist after all (as they did in the book), or they didn't give her a biblical name like Mary, or she changed it. Or perhaps Nina was always her real name, but she became Mary when she took her vows and kept it when she became Mary Hodges. Perhaps this is what her life would have looked like if she never joined the Order.

It's also just as possible that she really is a different person who simply looks the same, much like Beelzebub is the same person who simply looks different. Either way, she remains a real human person.

As for Theresa/Maggie... Well, we don't know how she was raised, or if Theresa was her real name, or anything else really. I don't think that matters as much either, because the main point is that she already died 11 years ago.

It's mentioned time and again that people can't just be resurrected willy-nilly, and it's left quite unclear how Adam's powers worked, exactly. Perhaps God told the Metatron to smooth over the ripples (after all, the whole thing was part of Her plan all along, and She usually leaves it to the angels to implement Her plans). The Metatron then decided it was easier to make up new characters based on the people who died years ago than to truly bring them back to life, much like the angels in the Job minisode figured that giving him seven new children was even better than resurrecting the old three.

And since the Metatron was creating Maggie anyway and had the power to write her a completely different life, why not take the chance to also place her close to Aziraphale? The Metatron plays a much more intricate game than most of the angels, and he's extremely committed to seeing the plans through. Surely it would occur to him to keep tabs on the dangerous rebel who consorted with a demon and played a big part in stopping the first part of Armageddon, in case the two of them tried to meddle in the second part as well.

So, by a few strokes of the Metatron's heavenly pen (or keyboard), Aziraphale is suddenly Maggie's landlord in GO2. Of course, it's normal for shows to introduce new characters by making existing ones act like they were there all along...but if we accept the premise that Maggie isn't actually real, Aziraphale never even mentioning his tenant when the bookshop burned down and the world was about to end in GO1 definitely works in our favour.

Anyway. I'm not sure how serious I even am about this theory - it only just came to me this morning, and I wanted to write it down to get it out of my head. So if you disagree or think it's too farfetched, that's totally fair!

[sunshine-zenith]

1, 4, 18, 19, 24 from this ask game

Thank you for the asks!

Heads up y'all, this one is a bit long and the questions dig deep, so mind the tags lol

1) What font do you write in? Do you actually care or is that just the default setting?

I stick with default Ariel Size 11. Times New Roman is kinda the only other font I can take seriously when writing, and it’s kinda tainted from years of typing out essays and media releases for school and my old job

4. What’s a word that makes you go absolutely feral?

Recalcitrant and pluperfect — two words that I don’t think I’ve used in any of my writing but I love working into conversations when I can (bonus — they’re both words I learned from reading fics)

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end.

From By Your Side Again (sorry, this is a long one, with even longer rambles, probably, but I put a lot of thought behind the headcanons I included here)

Spoilers for Nimona (both the film and the graphic novel), and obviously the fic

“...Your arm?” Ballister eventually asks.

“Just dislocated, don’t worry. I can move it fine, the sling is probably overkill.”

“I heard Todd broke his.”

“Good for him.”

They both chuckle weakly before Ambrosius stands.

Ballister’s eyes glance away before meeting his again, looking apprehensive. “Speaking of, could you… plug my arm in? If you’re okay with it.”

Ambrosius blinks, turning to face the arm on the counter. “I- sure. Of course.” Walking towards it, he sees the robotic prosthetic is in three parts -- the arm itself, laying palm up (-Ballister’s arm falling, almost mockingly slow, the sword falling from it as Bal screams and looks at him in shock-). He sighs through his nose, counting to ten and grounding himself back in this moment. As horrible as he feels about his actions, this arm, right here -- it's not about him and he’s not about to make it about him. He’s not going to make Ballister pretend the arm doesn’t exist. Beside it is something that looking like the upper right part of their chest armor, but thinner and more form fitting, with straps attached to it -- what the arm connects to, Ambrosius guesses, with the straps presumably going across Ballister’s chest and under his left arm to hold the whole thing in place. On the other side is a thin, tiny crystal-like device on a tray. Ambrosius runs a finger along the edge before giving Ballister a hesitant look. Ballister quirks an eyebrow that had Ambrosius nodding, confirming his curiosity.

“That chip reads my brain’s signals, sending it to my arm to make it work like my other one,” Ballister begins. “It's not necessary for the arm to work, but without it, my arm wouldn’t be quite as….” he wiggles his fingers as explanation. Ambrosius nods again, silently urging him on. “It's a hybrid -- electronic and body powered, as well as mind controlled. When it has no charge and the chip isn’t connected, the wires react to movement in my shoulder, which can open and close my hand and- you’re smiling at me.”

“Am I?” Ambrosius asks absently. It's hard not to smile when Ballister gets passionate about something. “Should I stop?”

“No, no, It's just… I missed your smile.” Ballister’s voice dips low enough Ambrosius almost misses it. Clearing his throat, he says, “Anyway…?”

Just another thing they need to talk about eventually. Ambrosius lets it go for now, because he’s worried he’ll get choked up if he gets into it. “How would this even reach your brain?” He asks.

“Well, I cracked my skull open when the ground gave out that night.”

Ambrosius laughs at the unexpected answer. “Oh, of freaking course you would, Bal!”

“Wait- I- That was a joke, obviously I was joking!” Bal gives him an offended look that only makes him laugh again. “It goes in my ear, why would I- why would you think-?”

“That you’d do DIY brain surgery? Because you’re you, Bal. I mean….” Ambrosius gestures to the arm behind him. “I always said if you weren’t so squeamish, in another life, you’d be a mad scientist.”

So—

I specifically wrote Ambrosius with his arm as in a sling to both nod to the moment in the Nimona Graphic Novel this fic based on (where Ballister Blackheart’s arm is in a sling). I specifically gave him a dislocated shoulder because a) you can see his injured arm hanging limply as he approaches Bal after Nimona’s sacrifice, and b) I wanted to give him an injury that didn’t break continuity — his arm clearly being injured after the Director shot him and he was blasted to the ground, but it not being in a sling in the epilogue while Todd’s was

I wrote Bal’s prosthetic as a hybrid — biotic, mind controlled and body powered — instead of just biotic for a couple reasons.

In universe: he DIY’d it himself while on the run from the law, so it doesn’t need to fit solidly into one or the other. Who’s gonna stop him? Insurance coverage? Research funding? Nah, he’s out there probably salvaging parts from abandoned flying cars, he can do whatever he wants with his design

Out of universe/my personal experiences: my mother was in an electric wheelchair nearly the last decade she was alive, and while thing offered her a lot of autonomy, it was also, frankly, a clunker. One time when I was a teenager, we were going down the sidewalk when the battery that powered her chair just fell out.

I remember spending a good ten minutes trying to just pick the thing up to put it back in, it was so heavy. Luckily a nice jogger happened to be running by and stopped to help me lift it, but like. Y’all. When the cheapest electric wheelchair insurance will swing you loses its battery, it does not convert into a manual wheelchair. My mother physically could not move from that spot. Neither of us had good cellphones at the time and anyone we could’ve called wouldn’t get back to us very quickly, so if that jogger hadn’t stopped to help me lift that battery who knows how long we would’ve been stuck there

Since then, whenever I encounter fantasy mobility aids that rely on super high technology or magic or whatever, I just mentally tell myself that it’s a convertible/hybrid model that also functions without electricity/magic/etc or that they totally have a backup readily available just off screen, just because this memory is not a super fun one for me

As for why I specifically had Bal need to charge his arm/likened Bal’s arm charger to a phone charger, it’s because I’ve seen battery prosthetic users with above joint amputations (specifically, admittedly, above the knee amputees) describe charging their prosthetic as being like charging a phone

(Video examples by Alex1leg and Josh Sundquist, both above the knee amputees.)

I specifically took a moment to make Ambrosius unconsciously smile because I love his smile. I love his smiles for Bal. I love that little moment at the beginning of the movie where he tells Bal, “they’re going to love you,” before a smile grows on his face as he says, “like I do” — likes he’s excited and overjoyed he already gets to love Bal and the thought of others loving Bal makes him so happy. I love that moment where, when they see each other for the first time post-chop, when Ambrosius says, “Bal,” you can see his lip quirk up, like Bal’s name is just of of those sounds you can’t make without smiling a little. I love Ambrosius smiling because of Bal

The “chip” was my hand waving how Bal’s prosthetic could balance so well and had such fine motor skills when he’s basically finished DIYing it right before rushing off to the Institute. Many advanced biotic arm prosthetics do use brain scanning to interpret their user’s brain signals. Eh, its the future, if they can include holographic coins when venmoing tips to street musicians, Bal can DIY a neurolink in an alleyway while on the run from the law and probably having a hemoglobin of 3.6. I made it “crystal shaped” to mirror the crystals Nimona left behind after stopping the Director

Also Bal is absolutely feral enough to casually do brain surgery on himself. I just didn’t go that route because his signature finisher in the movie is headbutting people wearing helmets with his bare forehead, and thinking about it too long made my head hurt

Lastly, my favorite bit of characterization from the graphic novel was Blackheart’s love of science (I even specifically referenced Nimona shapeshifting into Blackheart and shouting “SCIENCE” in a set of notes I took for my friend for our cell bio class), and while I love the movie I am a little sad they didn’t lean into it. The “in another lifetime” line is a blatant reference to the epilogue of the graphic novel

19. Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going?

I guess my “journey” started in elementary school — I would draw pictures and tell admittedly impressively sequential stories about them. My mother would transcribed these stories, stable them together, and show my teachers, who in turns told me I should become a published author one day. I wasn’t sold on it at the time, admittedly (I’m dyslexic and I was bitter about it as a kid), but all the adults around me figured I’d either go into healthcare or become a writer (my peers figured I’d either cure all disease one day or become the next Jack the Ripper, so make of that what you will).

(spoilers, I'm going with both)

(the healthcare/writer thing, to clarify. Not the scientist/serial killer thing)

My first degree was in English/Creative Writing, and I worked as a journalist for a couple years. I’ve even got a couple poems and a short story published in small magazines.

My mental health took a dive after some personal loses, including the death of a beloved irl writing partner, combined with a shitty work schedule (listen if your job promises only 35 hours a week but actually has you working 50 across five days, not including travel, with promises of punishment if you call out and refuses to offer part time, run), so I haven’t had the motivation to publish anything original lately. I’m hoping once I’ve got my second degree in nursing, I’ll be able to land a job that lets me survive off of three day work weeks, so I’ll have time to focus on poems and novels (I don't care if my work days are long, as long as I enjoy what I do and can get them out of the way as soon as possible)

For now, I’ve dedicated myself to my fanfics (instant gratification upon publication babay)

24. How much prep work do you put into your stories? What does that look like for you? Do you enjoy this part or do you just want to get on with it?

If you can’t tell, I overthink as many small details as I can lol. I try to plot my stories out in advance and research things in advance. This part of the process does lead me to procrastinating often, though — I’ll plot the entire thing meticulously, tell myself, “wow that was a lot of work,” then I won’t touch the story again for weeks. The thing is, once I do start writing, I let myself have freedom — the characters and plot will go where they go whether I want them to or not, so I don’t try to fight it. If there’s a specific bit of dialogue or action that I want, I’ll write that part of the story first and hope the before bits don’t go too off track to get there smoothly

I’m also the worst as guessing what my word count will be — it’ll either be half as much or twice as much as predicted and I won’t be able to tell you what the word count will be until it’s ready to go live

[literary-illuminati]

Books I Read In September

45. The Oleander Sword, by Tasha Suri

Pre-ordered this, and I’m entirely happy with what I got. I mean it’s got intrigue and angst and the literal and metaphorical selling of souls and lesbians and eldritch horrors and war crimes, what’s not to love?

But really, I’m pretty sure I already made the joke, but SFF lesbians and weird power dynamics around fealty and martyrdom sure are a pair, huh? (Or maybe that’s just a random bit of selection bias in the books I read/see talked about, but eh. I should catch up on Montress.)

Anyway, Malini is a joy to read, and the Yaksha are absolutely gorgeous and come across as rather believably alien, though I really do wish they weren’t quite so straightforwardly malevolent, and the temple/palace intrigues with whatever the asshole emperor’s name was and his priests was great. Can’t wait for book 3.

46. None the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

My other pre-ordered book of the year. And look, I am largely outsourcing my opinions on this book to the ongoing 24/7 symposium digging into every bit of symbolism and possible reference in these things going on here in the tag. But, like, book good. 

Also Pal and Cam, my beloveds. And Nona is adorable. 

I need to go scream in the wilderness a bit again.

47. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

This month’s attempt to acquire some Culture, via what was apparently the most influential book of 2007 (literally recommended to me because a coworker’s book club is doing it). 

But no, this was good! Very much of it’s time, though less in a ‘dated in a bad way’ way, and more in a ‘future generations of college students will get assigned this and told to write an essay about the cultural fallout of the War On Terror.’ 

It really, really committed to the whole ‘life story told in a conversation over dinner’ framing device, to a degree that books basically never do - the prose of the whole thing still felt conversational and like it could actually be said by one person to another. The constant asides to the cuisine being served and the order of the courses and everything did eventually start to grate, though. 

The big central twist is, well, barely a twist - except that the title gives you a very definite idea of where the protagonist’s arc is going to end up that you bring with you into the book. Still, really well done.

I’m surprised you don’t see the janissarya analogy made more often in modern polemic. Shoe doesn’t exactly fit, but close enough that you’d think it’d get some use.

48. Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

I really do adore Murderbot stories. They’re just perfectly sized for a lazy afternoon or two of reading, they’ve got the plot structure of a tightly edited 40-minute tv episode, and they’re just great fun comfort reads. Perfect book pringles. (Also Murderbot is one of the greatest protagonists of all time).

This one in particular would have honestly worked pretty well as a finale to the series? Or, since it clearly isn’t, I guess ‘works as a season finale’ is the better way to put it? It resolves the central underlying plot thread that’s been running through the books so far quite nicely, anyway. 

I totally admit that aside from Murderbot only, like, four characters have made a sufficient impression that I can reliably identify them by just their names, though. 

49. Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky 

Hey, I finally finished the last Hugo nominee! Now to start feeling properly guilty about failing to answer that ask about my ranking/opinions from a month ago. 

But no, this was good. The only Tchaikovsky I’d read before was Children of Time/Ruin, so this was definitely a change of pace (obvious similarities in setting aside). The whole central conceit of ‘fantasy setting is actually the result of an apocalypse destroying a technologically advanced civilization and the descendents of the survivors viewing the remnants as magical relics and sorcery’ is so thoroughly cliche I think people just stopped writing it for a couple decades, but the execution is really well done. 

Nyr and Lynette are both fun POVs, anyway, and I absolutely adore anything that has multiple POVs seeing/taking part in the same events and interpreting them wildly differently. The one chapter that had two columns with Nyr providing exposition on one side and what Lynette&co actually understood him as saying on the other was great. 

Tchaikovsky also did a really excellent job of capturing the whole horror and grief and ennui of being the Last Of Your Kind better than I usually see, and also saying Fuck the Prime Directive, which is always appreciated. 

Also incredibly endearing that Nyr’s whole transhuman civilization gave themselves giant badass horns and then collectively decided to pretend it was for pragmatic utilitarian reasons. 

50. Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells

Because it’s 2 murder 2 bot month, I guess (but no all my holds on these really did just come in at once).

So apparently this was actually written after the novel, which I only found out after finishing it, but chronologically it seems to have taken place before? Which conveniently means I didn’t accidentally ruin any big twists for myself.  

Anyway, this was a fun detective story sort of thing. Murderbot being continuously annoyed at how much harder the lack of a dystopian panopticon made their job was a great running gag.

51. The Thousand Eyes by A. K. Larkwood 

Because it’s magical lesbians month, I guess. 

But no, this was a fun read. The whole setting and tone were very, hmm, D&D? Like a real mixture of super fantastical elements and generic fantasy things given different names (there are elves, and orcs, and for some reason specifically yuan-ti) and then the vision of society and the economics and the mindset and vocabulary of everyone who hasn’t been asleep in a ditch for ten thousand years is just incredibly modern. Not a complaint, it’s just very much a thing. 

My actual complaint is that this was like four different discrete stories stacked on top of each other and put into a compactor until they all fit in one book. There were a lot of times where I was kind of left feeling that Larkwood was relying on me knowing how a given story/character arc goes so she could just skip through the high points and then resolve it without necessarily building it up beforehand. 

(I also have a perpetual dislike for the plot beat of ‘oh no, the abusive cult who raised you was just doing their religion wrong. We’ve got a direct line to your/their god and he’s actually a great guy!’)

Interesting how minor a character Csorwe is in this one compared to Unspoken Name, really, but Shuthmili and Tal are both incredibly fun POVs so can’t say I really mind. Tsundere dragon goddess of betrayal and destruction was also a great time. 

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

ok its me again hi AAAHHHH this is so nice i feel so warm im lying on my bed kickin my lil legs i cant believe this thank you for being nice omgggg now im on a roll im gonna say things about julian hkdhjgdgjf

only one song really that i scanned the whole tag looking for to see if anyone said it before and i was so surprised that i didnt find it and i went to check the official playlists on spotify cause maybe its on there already and thERE ISNT ONE WHAT???? i had the muriel one liked on here and id never checked any other ones out lmao but like i swear there had to be one?? like maybe they made it first and its somewhere separately??? julian is like the most popular one how the hell does he not get a spotify list is that how this tag was created?? *gasp* am i discovering the ~fandom lore~

(just gonna say you dont actually need to answer any of that in detail dont waste your time gksgkydgjf im just screaming into the void cause i was so flabbergasted after those 3 whole minutes of research i put into this)

ANYWAY the actual song would be House of Wolves by our lord and saviour MCR! its so good for him with his whole Woe is Me drama king vibe lol and the plaguey thematicssss mmmm delicious TELL ME im a BAD BAD BAD BAAD MAAAAN aight you lil masochist i see u and the "you better run like the devil cause they never gonna leave you alone" you get it caUSE HES A FUGITIVE DO YOU GET THE DEEP UNRAVELABLE METAPHORS DO YOU GET IT DO YOU G aight shut up hkhfjtdy anyway

ok i lied jystfhte heres another one i just remembered i really wanted to put here its not new but just in case somebody hasnt seen it yet lmao its such a masterpiece ill do anything to give it its due here ya go

https://youtu.be/61HltPN_k3g

and the other thing im really glad to have seen people mention here is musical songs cause thats one of the things i love about him the most like yass we love a thespian king slay grl so then anytime im binging a musical there always come the intrusive thoughts of "aw hed love this one" and "oh hed be great for this role" like i went to see f-ing swan lake with my f-ing grandpa and one of the major takeaways i got from the experience was (UH IM GONNA PUT A SPOILER WARNING HERE? I GUESS? IN CASE ANYONE CARES HELLO JULIAN BAD ENDING SPOILERS AHEAD DO MOVE ALONG NOW IF YOU DONT LIKE THAT AVERT YOUR GAZE CITIZENS LMAO LIKE YOU HAVENT SEEN FANARTS N ADS ALREADY ALRIGHT ALRIGHT) "omg jules would be so perfect as that bird guy villain IN HIS BIRD GUY SHAPE TOO OMG WITH THE WINGS ON STAGE THIS IS AWESOME WHY CANT I DRAW GOOD GODDA-"

anyway hed love hadestown (hed at least try to cast muriel as hades cause hes perfectly intimidating for it but theres way too many lines which okay Maybe but AND he has to sing???? nah hes out bkgdhkdt) i dont know what hed think of pierre natasha & the great comet cause its maybe a little eccentric i suppose but i think hed appreciate the cultural roots of the vibe with him being fantasy ruso-slav-ukrainian-whatnot heritage i reckon and hed definitely have a blast at a live performance and hed ABsolutely join in with the actors in between the rows at some point and theyd ABSOlutely let him cause hes that good and game recognize game cmon hes gonna show you amateurs what a real kazotski looks like

i can also see him enjoying sweeney todd, for its delightful edgyness, maybe even some themes relatable for him, and his sappy ass would SO memorise Pretty women to whip it out at an opportune serenading moment khgdturshc im so cringe and loving it

well i cant think of any more shows to throw him together with so thus ends my soliloquy wow i cant believe thats how you spell that anyway i hope anybody who knew what the hell im talking about enjoyed all that jgfztits see you in another 20 minutes when i come back like "AND ANOTHER thing-

Yay, it's the character song essays anon!! :D

I'm glad to see you back, and I will once again be re-linking the song you shared below and adding your suggestions to the tag ^.^

And frankly, I'm 76% certain that one of Julian's love languages is theatre, especially musical theatre. That could be tickets, that could memorizing the lines from one of this favorite scenes and reciting it back to him, it could be showing up to every single performance he's involved in :)

I'm glad to see you back in my inbox, friend, feel free to message me if you ever want to obsess over the characters together! Cheers -

brainrot

[bugbyte]

1062 Days

I had a pretty terrible doctor’s appointment yesterday and have been kind of cycling through a million feelings about it like some kind of unhinged unicycle. (No, I cannot ride a unicycle.) Anyway, if you missed yesterday’s panic posting, the pain people kind of went “oh well” and shoved me off to the MMJ people, which is fine, except costly and not covered by insurance and I am broke. I did receive a Ko-Fi donation that should theoretically cover a chunk of whatever the appointment costs and the amount of relief I am feeling right now is enormous, so thank you, anon donor. One way or another I’m going to figure this out, which is far more hope than I had when I started today. I woke up, wide awake, at 6 am this morning, having a panic attack because I felt like I’d just been condemned to a life of never being able to do or experience anything ever again, but now I feel like there’s a chance.

We’ve been driving back and forth to a city about an hour away to deal with all of this stuff because there seem to be a lot more specialists there (it’s through a university hospital, which has been a really good experience primarily, except for the pain people? wtf) and an hour isn’t that bad in the scheme of things. Anyway, it gives me way too much time to think, and after yesterday I started counting days since all of this started going downhill for me (thank you Siri for doing the math) and yesterday it was 1061 days. Today it’s 1062. I’m just flabbergasted that it’s been that many days and I’m just supposed to go home and make dinner and pretend everything is fine. This is how my brain works: I want to put data to things, I want to turn that into a visualization because I feel like no one ever understands the words coming out of my mouth. I’m thinking about making some kind of animated visualization of how much time that is, how much loss it is over time, because that’s how I process I guess. Or maybe some kind of video essay about it. I don’t think people who aren’t directly experiencing (or living with/caring for/close friends with) chronic pain really understand what a grieving process it is. I feel like I have no sense of time anymore, because all the days are pain.

Anyway.

Doing a read more here for some slightly unpleasant-er medical stuff, so please check the tags if you think it may bother you to read.

This week is a gauntlet of multiple things because it’s just how it fell. If you are lucky enough (and I hope you are) that you aren’t dealing with medical stuff on a regular basis, you might not know how overtaxed everyone is now and how ridiculously hard it is to get an appointment anywhere, for anything. A while ago we made a rule around here to not schedule back to back appointment days because it’s really physically demanding for me, but when you have no choice but to schedule things months out…sometimes you don’t get a choice, and it’s awful. I’m paying for it today after two days of this, in stress and physical testing and sitting in a car for long stretches. Anyway, that sucks.

But at least today was a much more positive experience than yesterday, in a number of ways. Somehow in this entire year of tests and visits and drugs and whatever, this is somehow the very first time I’m actually seeing a neurologist, which was pretty interesting and revealing. In this whole time no one has noticed how flimsy my ankles are, and somehow I never think to talk about it because I just basically walk on eggshells all the time trying not to injure myself by…walking. But today it got noticed, and maybe that’s something I can press someone to do something about. Before my health turned into a flaming car wreck I used to run marathons and I do not know how I did this. I feel like I got away with something I shouldn’t have.

So one of the most interesting bits of today, which relates to some past stuff I’ve written about and haven’t talked about more because it’s all kinda in flux still, is even more genetic testing. The first one was a whole panel looking for connective tissue disorders (spoiler alert: they found something weird, it’s just not what anyone expected, and I get to talk to somebody and find out more next year lol) and now we’re checking out a different but more specific gene for a type of muscular dystrophy, which might also explain some of the issues I have. Essentially: I’m a huge mess and my body is crumbling and it would probably be prudent to start weeding out which problems are caused by which weirdness. Exciting! I got to talk it out with a genetic counselor (again) and a student, which was cool, because I like being able to contribute some of my weird physiology to their knowledge so hopefully they can help somebody else like me in the future. I got to opt-in to putting my genes up for (anonymized) research, which I was also pretty excited about because I’ve got the weird in me and hopefully it can help somebody. I like chatting with folks like this, I am enthusiastic about research and improving treatments and it’s nice to feel like I’m contributing something from this whole mess. Genetics as a whole is really interesting to me, I’ve been reading a ton on it since my first outing getting tested and there’s so much possibility for improving peoples’ lives if we just knew a little bit more. In another life, where I’m not squeamish about blood and am good at math, I like to think I’d have gotten into genetics. I have feelings about it.

The cool part of this is they were able to do the testing right on the spot this time. I still have to wait a while on results, but I didn’t have to go through any approvals or waiting for test kits or anything. No, instead I just got stabbed several times for blood. I used to be petrified of needles and I still feel pretty bleh about it but I guess that’s the equivalent of exposure therapy or something. The poor nurse today was not a good needler but she was really nice and tried really hard so I can’t be upset about it. I did get stuck in the dang hand, though, which is my absolute least favorite place to get stabbed. Ugh. Weirdly, my opposite hand is also aching like ME TOO and I’m like NO, NOT “YOU TOO” but here we are. At the beginning of the year I started keeping a needle count for myself because somehow it helps mentally to know how many times I’ve done this, and so as of today it’s 22 for the year but it’s probably going to be more before 2024. Getting over it has made me start thinking about getting a tattoo someday, though. I know it’s a different process and sensation probably, but it was always the stabby bit that put me off in the past. I want to get my cat’s paw prints done on my leg, in the spot where he used to put his feet when he sat with me while I was having a bad pain day. One day I’ll get there.

Anyway, I feel like I learned a lot today and got to sign off on contributing a little of myself to science, which is a good feeling. And it was really nice to deal with people who were actually compassionate as well as excited about their work. Makes up a little bit for the bad day I had yesterday.

Gauntlet week continues. Hope you’re all well out there. Working on being a little more well in here, too.

[cheylouwho]

Hello Chey!!! This might seem EXTREMELY random, but I am doing a school report for my advanced ELA class about the whole history of Tweek x Craig, since my teacher is doing this whole, “we need to become an expert on something,” and I just wanted to choose this, since Tweek and Craig is my special interest right now!! I’ve been trying to find some genuine experiences from when the episode aired, and I remembered you made a post about it, but I cannot find it ☹️. I’m not sure where it is, and if you have a link of it, I would greatly appreciate it!! I’m sorry if this may cause any inconvenience, since it is my first tome ever really interacting with someone on tumblr. I would also like to thank you for that fanart archive!!! I love just looking through all the submitted art, and stuff that didn’t make the cut!! Everything is so well put together, and I will make sure to credit you for everything!! My work still needs to be sourced anyways! Again, big big apologizes if I just end up wasting your time, I’ll try to find it again in my spare time.

Omg anon thats AWESOME like. seriously. get ahold of me after you write it I would LOVE to read your essay

Here's a link to the retrospective post I made: https://cheylouwho.tumblr.com/post/713535040390397952/the-south-park-fandom-and-the-5-stages-of-grief

Feel free to hit me up about more information. I would def look at the "stuck in fourth grade" sp team blog for posts around the time, the official forums (before they allegedly get deleted eep, I gotta go do some archival), the fanart archive for some of the art, and some stuff in my "analysis" tag which related directly to the episode and some thoughts I had as well as others. Hope it goes well!

[willel]

Why is twitter so toxic? I think you wrote something about it some time ago, that on tumblr, for instance, there’s no immediate incentive to write a hit post and then to come up with the most outrageous claims that create "engagement"? Or because it’s not really about direct conversation made of short messages when everyone wants to "win" the argument, but favors calm analysis instead. Anyway, I just can’t go there anymore right now, too much hate and stupidity, I’m glad there’s still blogs like you and a few others to enjoy some ST escapism.

Twitter's short form context was pretty great when it came out years ago. "Tweets" were generally someone putting random thoughts out in the aether or a quick notification or an alert to check out news on this site or that site. I feel like it wasn't meant for what it is today, for people to be interacting with each other in a meaningful way. Like, what are you gonna talk about in 100 characters or less? That's why you'll sometimes see old tweets of celebrities floating around of the most random nonsensical statements with no context. That's what twitter was as its core.

Now combine that with people starting to use twitter for more than just random thoughts that popped into peoples head. It started to be used for political activism (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) and fandom activities.

We all know how bad politics fandom can get on long form sites like tumblr and reddit. Imagine how much worse it is when you cut away all context and nuance to fit in a tweet.

Imo, it set twitter on a downward spiral. Doesn't matter how much they increase the character limit, the culture now is tweet fast. React fast. Argue fast. If you lose, resort to other means. Anything to win. Anything to get your tweets more attention that the other person.

It's like a game. I'm sure that plays into the desire to be "famous" that a lot of social media enjoyers crave.

I'm not saying tumblr is much better, but I feel the culture here is more like "take your time" or "time doesn't matter, old stuff is good". Tumblr does have an issue with people not reblogging content, causing good posts and content to go unnoticed given there is no real algorithm here, which is sad. But for the most part, ain't nobody here trying to get famous. Everything is talking and creating stuff for the sake of it.

Most of the time even the people arguing here are arguing about stuff that happens off site or they stay in their corners and tag correctly. (if you don't tag correctly and start fights on purpose, I immediately assume you must be from twitter)

People who have been here on my blog for a while are probably thinking "Tch, what do you know about fandom conflict?" and let me tell you, in my youth I participated in a ship war. It was just one,but still. I didn't resort to name calling or doxing people though, that's for sure. I wrote essays and essays in response to people, defended my ship, made stuff for my ship (which I still do), the whole shebang. It was all here on tumblr and deviantart. I do have a twitter for that fandom but I don't use it for any drama. I can say the drama on twitter is MUCH WORSE than anything I experienced on tumblr.

That is the ST fandom on twitter in a nutshell. No one can mind their own business. They're constantly spying on each other, posting using common search terms of the people they don't like and then acting surprised when the people they don't like respond to them. It's all like a game. Every blue moon when I go there to see if there's WillEl things, inevitably I will see shippers using it to fight against each other or crap on Will or El.

Once a week it's the same suspects saying the same things over and over again. Finding something pointless to be mad about. Sending angry anon messages. Never actually sitting down to enjoy the ships/relationships they claim to be a fandom of. Cannot mind their business and always have something negative to say. Denying what is literally in the show because they personally don't like it. Literally the worst kind of people to have in your fandom. (I associate that kind of behavior with like.... Riverdale drama or something. Sorry if you're a Riverdale fan. Lol)

In conclusion, yeah. I think twitter is that way because the short form context has breed a culture of "win or lose". Mixed with a little bit of celebrity idolization and a desperate desire for people to interact with you even if it's negative.

[p3rry-pi3]

Pin pooooost!

Updated: 9/17/2024 :3

I cannot believe I didn’t bother making a proper one sooner

Anyways, info under the cut cause this thing is long as heck, and I didn’t mean to make it that way.

Uh. I shall give a gold star to whoever reads the whole thing, but DO NOT SKIP the DNI part.

I also want to clarify that I have a section with Palestine content, I know people aren’t willing to always look under the cut to actually look for that kind of stuff (I’m saying this as, most people not generally, but sometimes I do the same thing, as shitty as our attention spans are, I think it’s still important that you check these posts out and reblog them. I have been DEATHLY terrified to reblog and post on this account but that shouldn’t stop anyone from at least reblogging this stuff seeing as this stuff is 1000x more important.)

I’ve copy linked posts where you can find: journalists to support and follow, how you can help Palestine donations or not, what you can do to prevent the voting for more weapons in Israel <- this could be outdated!!, and what to boycott.

Do not, and I mean DO NOT skip that part. I can’t control your actions but YOU can control YOUR OWN. I trust you to reblog, like, and share the posts I link.

Let me know if I should make this a separate post for you to reblog, but I hope this makes it GLARINGLY CLEAR on where I stand.

TW; teeth as header in the start and end :]

🪐🥞🪐🥞🪐🥞🪐🥞🪐🥞🪐

Main info

Hey! I’m Perry! Short for Peregrine :)!

I’m a minor (above 10+, I wanna keep this a 13+ space cause of the cussing and my interests in horror art and other scary games. You kind of have to be 13+ to be on here anyway.)

I’m pretty spiritual

I’m a 4w5 intp. Idk what this says about me to others but uhhhh yeah.

I study the Paranormal and psychology

I like making headcanons and theories :]

I genuinely enjoy character analyses and overall enjoy video essays on media like indie horror and video games

I love hardcore horror and gore arts of all sorts. So beware of some of that. Ofc I’ll put warnings, just lemme know if I missed something. I also cuss a lot on here! So beware of that :)!

It’s come to my attention people have been posting real life gore of stuff like hyenas and actual victims so…That’s not the gore I meant. Fictional gore; FICTIONAL!

I’m new to the tagging system even now, so figuring stuff out is hard, but I’m equipped with enough knowledge on it and will put warnings in tags and captions since I recently learned you can block tags. Which helps loads.

Please be patient with me!^^

I’m trans, transmasc, and genderfluid. My pronouns are he/they.

I’m also working on getting a career or two in film :)!

💫🧇💫🧇💫🧇💫🧇💫🧇💫

Extra info

My favorite colors are purple, red, black, white, and neon pink.

I’m multifandom

Reblogs are much more appreciated but I’m grateful for likes.

I like mixed media.

Pls use tone tags :]

Please reblog artwork! Shitposts are fine for just likes. Text posts to.

I usually stick to canon ships because certain fandoms make it weird, but I haven’t seen anything in the main fandom I’m in, so I like to ship some.

I’m a multishipper. (Again, this applies to certain fandoms.)

I’m generally inactive here and there, but I like posting most of my fanart here when I can or remember I also post stuff on here.

I cuss on here so beware of that ig

I am half Samoan :]!!

I speak fluent English but I am learning some German.

I have social anxiety and anxiety so posts can sometimes be slower than usual since I’m almost always on my own toes. And because I have anxiety, if I’m being awkward, it’s nothing you did or said, I’m just like that in general.

I have horrible memory so if I post twice on the same day or hour it’s prolly because I forgot about it.

I reference lots of lemon demon and jack stauber.

I blame the jack stauber fanbase for my lemon demon obsession.

I’m the oldest of two brothers so you might hear about them here and there but rarely so.

I’m kind of an idiot, so please be patient if I ask you a third time to repeat what you said.

I have ADHD took a lot out of me to confirm I do. So posts may come later or at the same time due to this.

Biiiggggg undertale and fnaf nerd.

I’m an over analyzer who loves theories. Did you know I’m also an overthinker? (<- sarcasm.)

I don’t dream. I have nightmares instead. That’s where I get most of my OCs.

None of my stuff has age ratings unless it’s like tough topics to touch on or something horrifying.

I ramble lots and ramble even more in tags, so there’ll be lots of tags of just me rambling

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Free Palestine! 🇵🇸🍉

DO NOT SKIP THIS PART!!!!!!!!!

It’s a genocide not a war!!! Z//onists FUCK OFF!!!!!!

I tried to make little watermelon emoji borders so they wouldn’t be confusing, but idk lmk if the borders help section it

I will also continuously update it if needed, and I take constructive criticism if I need to change anything, and no, ‘the only criticism I have is the fact you support Palestine’, or something, isn’t valid criticism. I’ll block you, and it’s not even a funny thing to joke about.

Links I have so far (I wanna remind ppl that if you don’t like seeing your link here just lmk and I’ll take it down, I’m just tryna share the word and I’ll soon make a post on its own abt this cause I think it’d be really important to make a separate post on this)

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Miscellaneous.

(This one is sort of just based off someone else answering an ask but I wanted to copy link this one anyways since by the looks of it, they have a lot of pro-Palestine posts)

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How YOU can help Palestine.

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Palestinian journalists.

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No more weapons for isntreal, ceasefire now.

This could be outdated or time sensitive.

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What to boycott.

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Places you should go

My unvale

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/ratt3nkonig__?igsh=NzA1NGpxYjZ1bGF2&utm_source=qr

Yapping account that won’t let me link for some reason

🎪💌🎪💌🎪💌🎪💌🎪💌🎪

Pfp creds:

https://pin.it/1Jt3pb5eS on Pinterest :3

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Tags I think u should check out on here!^^ /nf

Some doodles :) (doodles that are 9 times out of ten fandom related)

Bugsnax ramblings (I ramble about headcanons, theories, characters, in game stuff, etc.)

Mind rambles (theories, it’s a new tag I’m working on updating soon.)

Rambling about shit (shits and giggles at 3 AM)

Bugsnax shitpost (mother load of idiocy from yours truly)

Some doodles (not aware this existed prolly isn’t even from this blog, not used as much. At least I don’t think I dunno.)

🎸💤🎸💤🎸💤🎸💤🎸💤🎸

Hyperfixations

Bugsnax

Lemon demon

Jack stauber

Mother Mother

Indie horror art

Analog horror

Spiderverse ITSV & ATSV

Franbow

Sallyface

Undertale

Undertale AUs

DHMIS

Mr. Plant (from Ashur Gharavi)

CoD MW2, Cold War Black ops (18+ content CoD blogs DNI)

Venom (Mostly the movies, but I also enjoy the comics.)

TF2/Team Fortress 2

Death Note (anime) (pray for me…)

Attack on Titan (anime) (I’m revisiting my anime phase, clearly…)

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DNI!!!

LGBTphobes

Furry haters/anti-furrys

Proshippers/comshippers.

Ableists

MAP (not the art collab meaning, but the other meaning)

Anti-antis

Racists

Z00ph1les

Zi0nists

Anti-microlabels (it is extremely important to me that you understand this is something that’s part of me to a spiritual level. I will fight you.)

In terms of the fandoms Death Note and CoD, I’d like it if you’re not a 18+ CoD blog. I am a minor and since 18+ is unwelcoming to minors - pls do not interact. Mello x Near shippers are thin ice but it’s not like you can’t interact. They just make me uncomfortable when shipped together cause I view them as brothers more than anything and I see them as L’s little honorary brothers (or his kids as canon was originally gonna be) too. So any Meronia shippers are not unwelcomed but I am hesitant to accept any interaction from them. Matt and Mello shippers are fine. Same with Matt and Near.

If you’re anything of the above, please get off my page/blog.

I don’t have much of a DNI, just be respectful and mindful.

Might expand if needed.

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Did you read it?

Did you read the whole thing or at least the “DNI” parts?

Here’s a gold star, as promised: ⭐️

Alright. Go nuts. Be respectful.

[theshelbyclan]

Brains

Summary: After finally being accepted into the family for who she is, bookworm Shelby sister faces new challenges after finishing school and they invite her again to be a part of Shelby Company Limited (part 2)

(gif by @thomasshelbyltd​)  A/N:I remember writing this story, Books, and being so scared to post it, because usually the Shelby sis stories are of her being such a badass and I wanted to try something different. And strangely enough, this became one of my most popular stories. A few of you have requested a part 2, so I’m just going to tag those here: @smcc212​ @flysafepapi​ @clairecrive​ @playmydrum​   I’ve been debating how to continue this, but I wanted to keep the focus on John, as well as involving the other brothers. But mainly, I wanted to do justice to the reader character. Let me know what you think of this! Words: 3392 *** Once again, you were sitting at the Shelby kitchen table, doing your homework. Nose buried deep in a few books and hunched over, slowly destroying your back, you were working hard on an essay. This one you were actually extremely proud of: you were comparing six different poems on the war and writing about the emotional effects it had had on the soldiers, even if they did survive the war. Being a Shelby, you knew a lot about it. But, being Y/N, you knew a lot about poetry. So, you were certain this essay was going to be a good one.

“Why do you need five books?” Finn asked. Your twin was sitting next to you, as he often did, and simply watched you work. His question wasn’t a critique or anything like that; he was genuinely curious. Finn Shelby couldn’t read, but he was always intrigued by the fact that you could. “I’m comparing these poems, see?” you showed him, “from three different authors.” “What’s an ‘author’?” “It’s a fancy word for ‘writer’,” you shrugged. He nodded slowly. Aunt Polly entered the kitchen, back from getting the shopping, and with a slight look of disapproval, she gazed at her table, which had absolutely no room left for her groceries. You followed her eyes and immediately apologized. Then you proceeded to collect your books and put them all on the floor. “Thank you,” Aunt Polly said pointedly, but Finn protested with, “How is she supposed to finish her essay now?”

“What’s it to you?” his aunt shot back. “It’s important,” he called out, “She’s doing this whole thing about injured soldiers, like, in the head. And she has five, five, books she’s using, because there’s different auto’s she’s comparing, right?” “Authors,” you whispered, lovingly.

Things had changed ever since that day you came home crying after being bullied and threatened by the boys at your school. At school things were unfortunately still the same, even though those boys never dared touching you again, but you still found yourself alone most of the time and people whispered hurtful things behind your back. At times, it got to you, but now your siblings treated you very differently. John had become very much aware of how his words and jokes affected you, and he’d bettered his ways, as well as warning the others. Now they all tried to take an interest in your studies, even if they didn’t understand it. Finn, your darling twin, tried the hardest, but he’d always been there for you. “Authors,” Finn repeated, and continued, “It’s really important that she finishes this on time, because she’s top of her class, Aunt Pol, didn’t she tell you? And it’s her last year at school, so she wants to make the most of it, isn’t that right, Y/N?” You nodded solemnly. His praise made you feel warm inside, but he was right: you were fourteen now and this would be your last year at school. The lessons weren’t much of a challenge anyway and you often asked for extra work simply to fight the boredom, but still you enjoyed learning immensely. And you had no idea what you would do with yourself once your time at school would be up.

Your Aunt Polly seemed to notice the frown on your face and decided to soften a little. She often didn’t know what to do with you, it was like you and her were complete opposites at times, but she still cared deeply. So, she said, “Go and ask Thomas, Y/N, he’ll let you work in his office.”

With a sigh, you picked up your things from the floor again. Immediately, Finn sprang to your aid and took a few books in his arms. But when Polly was busy again, you whispered, “No, take them upstairs. I’ll work there. I don’t want to bother Tommy now.”

And so you continued your essay, sat on the floor with books all around you, in the cold bedroom you shared with Finn. *** After a few more hours, you had finally finished writing up your final version, the one you were going to hand in. Stretching, you stood up and you shivered. It really was cold in the small room, practically dark now too, and your limbs were protesting against their maltreatment. “Y/N?” John put his head around the door, “Finn told me you were working on an essay. Something about poetry or books, or something. Did you finish it?” He really was trying these days. You held up the paper in a proud manner. But John said, “Fucking hell, girl, have you been sitting here all afternoon? It’s bloody freezing in here!” “I suppose it is a little cold,” you agreed, as you pulled your jumper, well actually Arthur’s old jumper, closer around you. One of your hands touched your arm and you felt like a clump of ice burned you for a second. John frowned and walked into the room. Then he crouched down next to the fireplace and quickly got to lighting the fire. You tried to protest with, “There’s really no need, john…” But he didn’t listen. Instead he said, “Remember that castle I promised you, the one with the library and the staircases? I’ll make sure that library has a fireplace, where a fire is always burning.” “Thank you, John,” you smiled. “What are you sitting on the floor for?” You shrugged, “Polly needed the kitchen table and I needed to finish my essay.”

“On the floor?” he asked incredulously, “I’m not having that. Come with me, you!” You followed him out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Once downstairs, he grabbed your hand and sort of dragged you with him in his excitement. Together, only slightly against your will, you entered Arthur’s office at the betting shop, where John announced, “Y/N needs your desk.” “What? Why?” Arthur had questions written all over his face. Not really knowing what to do, you held up the essay again and waved it around a bit for effect. “Is that the essay Finn told me about?” he asked, also obviously trying very hard, “Let me see then.” And when you handed it over, like the proud brother he praised, “Look at that. That’s a lot of words, that is. Probably the right ones too. Well done, sister!”

“Get up, Arthur,” John demanded, as he started taking papers from his brother’s desk already. But when he went in to grab the bottle of rum to put it on the cabinet, you joked, “No leave that, I might need it.” Two pairs of big eyes stared at you, because even though they all did, you didn’t drink, and you quickly mumbled, “It’s a joke, don’t worry.” Okay no more jokes, you thought to yourself; too confusing for them.

As Arthur protested, John started lugging his desk out of the office, but eventually your eldest brother yielded and helped him carry it through the betting den and up the stairs, passed Aunt Polly, who obviously had so many questions. Arthur explained, “She has essays to write, Pol. Long ones.” Sheepishly you followed them and Aunt Polly asked you, “I thought school was almost done? This is your last month. Why do you need a desk now?” A little shy, you replied, “Not sure…” She smiled comfortingly at that, “We’ll find you something else to do, love.” But you weren’t at all sure of that. The sight of everyday boredom hung over you like impending doom. Once upstairs again, Arthur went back to work, but John stayed behind. It was like he was searching your face for clues as to what was really going on. Then he asked, “Are you not sure about your essay?” “No, I am,” you replied quickly, “I guess I’m just a little sad there’s only a few left to write. I’d like to do…more. You know, before my time’s up?” “I hated school…” he mused, “Glad to be free of it.”

“But I don’t…” And again you felt so very different from the other Shelby’s. John’s face suddenly lit up with an idea and he took your hand and guided you back down the stairs again. Polly called out, “Now what?” but no one really answered her. Your brother took you to his office and slowly opened the books, “I think I’ve made some errors in here along the way. I was wondering if you could help me?” “I appreciate the gesture, John…” you started. But he interrupted you, “It’s no gesture and I’m not just trying to give you something to do: I’m really struggling with this. I’m good at keeping the books and setting the odds, and my adding up is a vast improvement from bloody Arthur’s, but there’s things in here I can’t quite work out. Here, you see?” he pointed, “These numbers don’t add up and I can’t work out why.” Against your intentions, you now squinted over the book with him. After a few moments, you’d worked it out, “This is the one from Kempton, right? And next to it is the Derby, but the same horse ran in both, which should have an effect on the odds, but it didn’t. Also, you’ve mixed up your active and passive funds here, you should probably have different columns for them, so you’ll know our actual winnings, not the entire sum.” “See!” he called out proudly, “You’re good at this! You’re the smart one after all.” “You’re smart too, John, I know you are,” you protested. Looking at the books again, you noticed, “What’s this? Why are these the odds for Oxford’s Pastor? I thought that race was fixed.”

“It was, I think? I can’t remember…” he mumbled. “You should talk to Tommy about that, because if it is, the odds are wrong, and it means we’ve invested money into the jockey. Also, it says here a sum went to the widow from Garrison Courts, the one who lost her son to the explosion, but this shouldn’t be here, because there’s a different fund for that. Your numbers won’t add up and I’m guessing Polly already noticed.” John grinned a little, slightly embarrassed but mostly impressed by his little sister, “I thought you didn’t care for Shelby business.” You nodded, “I don’t. I don’t agree with what you do most of the time, but I still listen when all of you speak.” “So what do I do?” he asked. “Talk to Tommy and make sure his business and books match yours, make sure Aunt Polly checks these figures against the safe and you need to redo this month at least because these columns…” you looked up and saw puzzlement written all over your brother’s face, “Never mind, I’ll do it. You just talk to Tommy.” Eagerly, John left you the books and practically bounced out of the office. His plan had worked.

*** It had taken you about a week to sort the books out and in that week, you’d learned a lot about races and betting. There was a lot to consider, especially now that they had a legal racing pitch, as well as all the illegal betting taking place. And then there was the Garrison, your ownership designed to launder the money, but it was more important than ever that the books were kept neatly, otherwise it wouldn’t work.

Strangely enough, you enjoyed the work. At school, you’d always been more of a language student. Of course, the maths weren’t a real challenge, but you felt passionate about literature and poetry. But this, this wasn’t just a dry job for you to do; it felt like a puzzle that you had to solve. Finally, a challenge had presented itself again. “Y/N?” Tommy came into John’s office one day while you were working, “Come with me. Take those books.” Obeying at once, you picked up the heavy ledgers and followed him into his office. On the table, he had his paperwork laid out for you and you understood at once he wanted you to compare the books to each other. Evidently, John had told him about the discrepancies.

“You want me to fix these too?” you asked your brother. “If you can,” he commented, “My books are in order, I’m sure of it, but they need to match the others.” You looked at them and noticed Tommy’s were indeed a bit more neat. You told him, as gently as you could, “It would really help, Tommy, if you didn’t just plan everything in your head. I mean, if you talked to us about it and told John which races were fixed and what strategies you were planning next. If not for his sake, but just to keep the whole business in order.” He smirked, “Whatever happened to not getting involved, eh?” You looked at him, but didn’t reply. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to get involved in the family business or wanted to distance yourself further from them; it was that you weren’t comfortable with what they did. You appreciated all they’d created for this family and you certainly didn’t take the moral high ground. You yourself just didn’t want part in the illegal business. Tommy noticed your hesitation and decided not to push the subject. So instead he said, “John tells me you’re leaving school soon.” You nodded sadly at his statement. He continued, “What is it you would like to do?” You thought about it for a long time and finally decided, “Not be a girl?” Because that really was the problem here. The kids of Small Heath weren’t offered many chances, but sometimes, some really clever boys did move on to get an apprenticeship somewhere, like a newspaper or a firm. You’d even heard of some getting tutors and going off to university. But not girls. Your brother frowned, “I’m not alright with you not having the same chances as any boy. If you want to continue studying, I’ll find a way.” Smiling shyly, you said, “I appreciate it, Tommy, I really do, but there’s no point. Small Heath school doesn’t prepare me in the slightest for any further education and there’s nowhere I could go, even if I wanted to.” “You want to go to Oxford?” he asked straight up. You blinked, not having realised he’d picked up on your long-lasting dream of studying in some other city, let alone somewhere as prestigious as Oxford. “I’ve heard that two years ago, they started admitting female students over there.” “They’ve admitted them before, Tommy,” you corrected him, “Only last year they were able to get a degree.” You’d followed the papers with interest on the subject, silently daydreaming about being a part of that group of young women, walking the halls of that old, old place of learning. “What’s fucking point in going there if you don’t get a degree?” he half-joked, “How about I make some inquiries, eh? Maybe someone I know has a way in. You’d want to study English Literature, right? I’ll get you in. And if you need a tutor or some other fucking school to get you ready, I’ll make sure that happens, eh? If that’s what you want, I’ll make it happen.” Without speaking a word, you hugged your brother around his waist. Still, you weren’t certain he could manage it, but the fact that he knew what you wanted and was willing to try and make it happen, meant the world to you. Then you realised, “John put you up to this, didn’t he?” “He may have mentioned it.” You smiled, but continued the hug a little longer. After a while, you broke free and immediately turned into your practical self again, putting the different financial books side by side, “This will take me a while, but I can do it. Is it alright if I work in here?” Tommy lit a cigarette and nodded at his sensible sister, “Yes. You could have your own office, you know, if you take on the position permanently.” Politely, you smiled, but still holding your ground, “No, Tommy. I don’t want to be part of the illegal business.” *** Against all hope, Tommy had indeed found you two tutors. You’d finished school with top marks and even the side-eyes from all of the other girls couldn’t bring you down. Also, your family cheering loudly from the front row helped a lot. And then a different, very exciting, new chapter of your life started. Every Wednesday and Thursday, you had lessons at your teachers’ houses and the other days, you were expected to do a lot of work on your own. You loved every second of it.

Arthur’s desk really came in handy now. All your books were perched on the sides and one look from John and he’d decided on building you a bookcase: ‘the start of your own library’, he’d said. And then one evening, late at night, when you were still working, he came in and asked you to come with him. “Tommy’s changing things,” he explained as you followed him, “and he needs the brains of the family to do it.” You had no idea who he was talking about and it took you a while to realise he might mean you. This filled you with some dread, because you still had no intention of joining the family business. Downstairs, you saw the family gathered around the table. A family meeting was obviously in full swing and apparently, they wanted you to join them for the first time. Tommy announced, “Welcome, Y/N. Why don’t you take a seat?” All eyes were on you, which you didn’t like, so you politely declined and prayed to God this wouldn’t take long. The head of the family continued, “As I mentioned before, Shelby Company Limited is now in the position to make a lot of money, both here and in London, and I plan on making the bulk of our money legally from now on,” Tommy looked directly at you as he spoke, “Someone in this family, the first Shelby to go to university probably, has changed my mind.” “Minor fucking miracle,” Aunt Polly mumbled, not without pride. “Now, Y/N,” Tommy pointed at you, “If I’m going to do this, I need your help. You’ve gotten the books in order for us and I know you’re busy with your studies, but I need an advisor. Now, I know you don’t agree with the business as it is, which is why I want to change things. I need you to do the legal books, John will do the others, but in six months’ time, I want most of what we do to be legal. Can you help me with that?” You sighed and thought about it long and hard. On the one hand, you were still firmly behind your decision not to get involved. Also, you had other things on your mind, such as your studies and your new ambition to get into Oxford. But you loved your brothers dearly and you wanted to support them where you could. And now, evidently, Tommy wanted to get away from the cut-throat gangster life. Loyalties torn, you decided to help them become good, as you’d always known they could be. So, you said, softly, “Alright.” A loud cheering erupted at the table. Feeling yourself getting red, you looked down, but John quickly came up to you, arms outstretched in a proud manner. And you realised you never would have been here, still studying and this close with your family against all odds, if it wasn’t for him. “Welcome to the business,” he said, “the new business.” *** Masterlist

[thedramanotes]

Last week I started using tumblr again after years and it's like I'm rediscovering what fandom feels like.

So from the perspective of a writer in a fandom, here are 6 things I noticed that sets this space apart and why it feels like homecoming to me.

(Keep in mind my fandom is relatively small and that may be heavily influencing my positive experience.)

1. THE HASHTAGS ACTUALLY WORK

[Okay serious caveat: They only work when ya'll aren't using hashtags to write entire essays 😅 but just to put in searchable key phrases (though I LOVE the tag essays and more on that later).]

I think the hashtags work because the user base is small and there isn't a ton of spamming of tags happening. So when I look up something like "Seo Inguk" tumblr gives me every post actually about Seo Inguk and not 900 things that have nothing to do with the actor but where he's tagged anyway to increase the reach of the post (as happens on instagram and twitter where hashtags are a strategy not a real search tool).

2. THE USER BASE IS SMALL

This is probably the reason tag spamming is at a minimum here, searchability of content is high, and it's easy to find people who are thinking/pondering/dissecting the same things in your niche fandom as you are.

But what's notable is that tumblr kept sending me notifications about badges I won by liking other people's posts. The analytics for my own account gives me bare bones data for how the posts are performing. And it's clear that while tumblr wants me to write more, it's not interested in having me obsess over post performance or reach.

I know the site has lost something like 80% of its users in the last few years, but it seems to have improved the space. One of the major reasons I left about 4 years back was because I couldn't find much original content in a sea of passive reblogs of pretty things on my feed. At the time it felt like people didn't want to post their thoughts here any more. That definitely seems to have changed for the better.

3. TUMBLR UNDERSTANDS THAT PARTICIPATION FOSTERS CREATION

We're in the middle of a massive fan wave of feelings for dramas like Extraordinary Attorney Woo and Alchemy of Souls, so my posts were quickly found and read by other fans and I got to chat with a lot of people in just the last week.

Tumblr doesn't seem interested in pushing people to become creators (with all the obsessing over stats and influence that entails). It's far more concerned with whether I'm engaging with the content in my space.

4. THERE IS A LEVEL OF FAN EQUALITY

We all have writers and artists we love to follow (and I've found quite a few whose works make my heart bleed already) but despite some tumblr accounts having massive follows, there is a kind of equality within the fandom.

People are willing to build on each other's posts by reblogging and adding their takes and by writing essays in hashtags 😆, which creates new transformative content that's original and keeps my feed fresh.

5. THIS FEELS LIKE A SAFE SPACE

This is a big one. I haven't fully figured out why tumblr feels like a safer space to think out loud than twitter, instagram, or even my blog yet.

It may be because of the smaller user base, the demographic that uses the site, or it may be because there's no character limit to text posts and that allows people to explain their thoughts fully with as much context as possible.

It may have something to do with the reblogging format. Just having that option available makes every post feel like a whole community's work.

The problem with just the post and comment structure is that the OP's opinion is on a pedestal, while everyone else sounds out under it. But reblogs with no character limits lets people properly sound out their reservations or agreement on equal footing.

6. TUMBLR DOESN'T WANT ME TO BE AN INFLUENCER

And like I said at the start, I'm back on tumblr after years away with a completely new account, yet my posts are reaching a lot more people interested in exactly what I want to talk about than on other platforms which ask me to make their sites my second career if I want similar reach.

But, I just want to talk about kdramas and write my feelings.

So, this fits me exactly. 👌