#because if I wrote a whole essay for you it might as well be tagged

[paganinpurple]

AO3 Etiquette -UPDATED

Based on both decent and not so decent replies, I have made some changes to my original post below.

It would seem a whole new kind of AO3 reader/writer is emerging and it is becoming clear not everyone quite understands how the website community works. Here is some basic guidance on how most people expect you to go about using AO3 to keep this a fun community archive that funtions correctly:

As well as likes, kudos is for when the story was interesting enough to make you finish reading. If it sucked or was badly written, you probably left. If you finished it, you liked it - so kudos.

If you really liked it, you should try to comment. It can be long and detailed or a literal keysmash. Writers don't care, we just love comments.

No critisism unless the author has specifically asked or agreed to hear it (so use your notes to say if you want some constructive feedback). Even constructive critisism is a no-no unless an author note tells you it's okay. No, posting it online is not an open invitation for that. Many people write as a fun hobby or a way to cope with, among other things, insecurity and just want to share. Don't ruin that for them. I've seen so many authors just stop writing coz they can't handle the negative emotions the critism brings, and it's only meant to be a fun thing shared for free (pointing out tagging errors is not included in this).

Do not comment to ask the author to write/update something else. It's tacky and off-putting and will probably have the opposite effect than the one you want.

There is no algorithm, it's an archive. Use the search and filter function to add/remove the pairings/characters/tropes etc. you want to read about and it will find you the fics that fit the bill.

For this to work, writers must tag and rate stories. This avoids readers finding the wrong things and missing the stuff they want. I don't care how cringy that trope is in your eyes - it gets tagged.

The tag exception is if you don't want to tag a million things or spoil your story, you can rate it as "chose not to use warnings," and maybe tag the bare minimum.

Don't censor tags. How can someone exclude a tag if the word isn't typed out correctly? There are no content bans for terms so don't censor them.

If the tags are mostly content/trigger warnings, especially if they are things considered very fucked up or graphic, you might want to use "dead dove - do not eat" to ensure people know that you're not messing around with tags and what they get is exactly what you've warned them about.

Character A/Character B means a ROMANTIC or SEXUAL relationship of some kind. Character A&Character B is PLATONIC, like friendship or family.

Nothing is banned. This is an rule because banning one thing is a slipperly slope to banning another and another, until nothing is allowed anymore. Do not expect anyone to censor for you. Because of the tags system, you are responsible for your own reading experience.

People can create new chapters and sequels/fic series any time after they "complete" a story. So it's considered perfectly normal to subscribe, even to a finished story. You can even subscribe to the author instead just to cover your bases.

Do not repost stories or change the publishing date without an extremely good reason (like a complete top to bottom rewrite or an exchange youve written for going public). It's an archive, not social media. No one cares what's the most recent, only what fits their tag needs.

Instead of deleting a story you wrote if you hate it - consider making it anonymous or orphaning it so others can still enjoy it, without it being connected to your name anymore. If you still want to delete it, fair enough.

It's come to my attention that metaworks ARE allowed on AO3, which is something I wasn't aware of. So if you do post an essay or theory, please tag it as such so others can choose to search for it or exclude it. Art is also allowed.

The only reason this archive works is because NON ONE PROFITS. Do not link to your ko-fi or patreon or mention monetary gain in any way or you violate the terms and risk having your account removed. If anyone does link, it leaves the archive open to people claiming it's for profit and having the whole thing removed.

I KNOW there's plenty more I missed but I'm trying to cover most of the basics that people seem to be struggling with.

I invite anyone to add to this, but please explain, don't berate.

[dianneking]

The Affair - Chapter 1 (Larissa/Reader)

Hiya! As part of my weekly writing challenge, I wrote this chapter over two writing sessions, and I chose not to wait for the fic to be finished before posting. It'll probably be a couple of chapters all together.

Pairing: Larissa Weems/You Rating: Mature

Tags: Morally Ambiguous Character, Swearing, Boss/Employee Relationship, Infidelity, Second-person POV, Teacher Reader.

Link to AO3 in the title

Next Chapter >

The Affair - Chapter 1

Waiting in the snow for a married woman , you thought, moodily pulling your scarf up to cover your freezing nose as yet another car passed, how the fuck did my life come to this?

You had never been one for thrills in life. If anything, you had been pretty boring: you’d always liked English class at school, always got straight As, never stepped a foot out of line. You never felt the need to, nor the appeal of being rebellious. You’d gone on to get a bachelor’s degree and teacher’s certification, and then you’d gone on to teach English in a string of small town schools.

There was only one aspect out of the ordinary in your life up until now; you could never settle down in one place.. You felt a restlessness, a pull towards something you still hadn’t found, and after a couple of years in a place, it inevitably built up until it was too strong to resist. And so you packed your bags, applied for a job somewhere else, and started anew. 

You didn’t think Jericho would be much different. Small town, 5 thousand inhabitants, only spots of interest a tacky historical reconstruction site and a school full of outcasts. The same one you had applied to. Nothing much to offer. You’d give it a year or two at most. 

You didn’t really care about the fact that you were teaching outcasts. They might drink blood or howl at the moon or whatever in their spare time, but they were teenagers that had to learn to write a proper essay just like anyone else. You prided yourself in your work ethic and told that to the board when they interviewed you. Apparently they appreciated that. Or there was nobody else who had applied. There had been some accidents during the last school year, apparently. The board had repeated several times that it had been a one-off and it had been taken care of definitively.They had all seemed very defensive about the topic. 

Once again, you shrugged it off. You had no time to waste on rumors and things of the past. The school had its quirks, sure, but all schools had, each in their own way. You settled in your quarters on the school grounds, and started reviewing your lesson plans taking into account the notes left by the previous teacher. You settled in for your usual routine of lessons, tests, marking that you were familiar with by now. 

And then she barged into your life, throwing routine and predictability to the wind. 

Even with your aversion to gossip, you’d heard about her. Larissa Weems, the best principal Nevermore had ever had, mysteriously injured in the line of work, supposedly trying to protect the school, and hospitalized for months after that. When talking about her, voices dropped to a whisper out of respect - or fear, you hadn’t been able to ascertain that. 

The day she had come back, you’d have thought royalty was about to visit the school, with the amount of fretting, of preparations, of nervous energy filling the halls and rooms. You’d had to let your classes work on assignments because they had been unable to listen to one word of what you were explaining. You had rolled your eyes in the privacy of your room. Seriously, you’d seen plenty of disruptive principals in your years of teaching, but one who could be so distracting even before she had set foot back in school? That was a first. 

You felt obliged to show up as well to the welcoming committee. The whole staff was there, as well as the student body. Some had even prepared signs, and there was a white banner draped along the balcony on which was written, in red paint, a very wonky Welcome back Princ. Weems . 

It was cute that she was so beloved by her school, you thought, but you were also thinking of how to recover the day of missed lessons, and how to optimize the next days’ so as to go back on track. You tried not to be too miffed about it. 

All of the thoughts of lesson plans and all of the lingering irritation at them being disrupted fled your brain at the sight of the first foot stepping out of the car. Shiny, varnished black shoes, showing off a milky ankle, and a shapely calf that look longer than any you’d seen (not that you made a point of looking at women’s legs all the time, but sometimes your eyes did wander…)

The skin on show was sadly cut off below the knee by the modest hemline of a woolen dress and it was at that point that Nevermore’s principal exited the car in all of her towering beauty, and your mind went completely blank, cause in all of their gossip everyone in Nevermore had forgotten to mention a small, key detail about the principal.

She was stunning. 

The most beautiful woman you’d ever seen was standing before you, waving and smiling regally, as the whole school cheered. You almost didn’t notice all the jubilant ruckus, your eyes too busy raking all over her figure, as if trying to commit every single detail to memory. Her slender, elegant hands, wrapped in leather gloves. The perfectly-tailored coat, in the same fabric and color as the dress. The sparkle of her gold jewelry in the pale winter sun. The perfect proportion of her face, the way the bright red lipstick brought attention to her smile.

Her light eyes were roaming all over the crowd, as if taking stock of known faces and new entries. Finally her gaze fixed on you, and you could see a spark of amusement flicker on her face at seeing you.

You belatedly realized that you had been gaping at her like a fish out of water.

The day after you had still been beating yourself up about the humiliation at being caught slack-jawed staring at your boss when she visited you in your classroom after you were done with the day’s lessons.

She rapped against the doorframe, but strode in before you could say anything. You scrambled to your feet, awkwardly, while she covered the distance from the door to your desk in a couple of long steps. She was wearing another dress today, a tartan dress with a belt that cinched her waist, underlying the shape of her hips and chest while still being completely work-appropriate.  

“So you’re the new teacher they have hired to replace poor Collins.” It wasn’t a question, but you nodded anyway. “I’m Larissa Weems. Usually, I have the final word on new hires. The board does a wonderful job but sometimes they lack a certain sort of practicality in their assessment of candidates, as it happened with the last hire. I wasn’t convinced by her spiel, but the board insisted and…well. I should have trusted my gut instinct.” Her eyes grew distant for a second, before focusing back on you with a hard gaze. You could see the speckles of lighter and darker blue mixing in her irises, and the perfectly applied make-up that highlighted their natural beauty.  You tried to shake yourself out of her charm. She could be trying to fire you, and you were busy ogling her! That’s not the kind of person you were! You cleared your voice, trying to think up something to say to help your case.

“I…”

“I know you have been hired already, and I am sure you are a perfect fit for the role. I’d just like to have a little chat together, nothing too formal, just getting to know each other a little bit better.” She smiled as she said that, and while you were sure it was supposed to be a polite smile, you couldn’t help the shiver that went down your spine at that. 

She looks like a predator closing in on prey , your mind unhelpfully suggested. 

You swallowed, suddenly conscious of your sweaty palms and increasing heart rate. 

“O-of course, ma'am." was all you could meekily say. 

"Perfect." she purred. "Meet me at seven sharp at the Lilac Lounge. I'll have a private booth reserved."

To be continued...

Next Chapter>

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[spiritualviolation]

HEADCANON FREE SPACE - GRIAN

from the response to this post

hi hello!! this post is a free space for people to come by and share their headcanons about a specific mcyt character, and this post is for grian!

grian is like. one of those chars that are just headcanon central, so i thought it be appropriate to start with him

not-exactly-rules but some guidelines + my own headcanons under the cut!

- GO ABSOLUTELY NUTS!! share as MANY as you like, i literally don’t mind if you’re going to make a ten page essay about your headcanons. just go wild, just as long as it sticks to the character of this post! bc if it i do multiple characters on one post it might get overwhelming and messy

- you can either do it in the tags or you can just reblog and add to this, i don’t mind as long as it’s convenient for you! you can add to other people’s rbs but i do think it would be better if you rb it straight off this post, but that depends on you!!

- if you want to reblog with your design as well so you can explain your hcs, go ahead! i would absolutely love to see how people design the characters individually!!

i will probably make a masterpost for this but for now we’ll start humble, but i’m aiming to release one post per week, but maybe would speed it up if my schedule allows me!

so yea, go wild!

i will probably start with the life series peeps first but i am thinking of maybe doing qsmp peeps as well after!

my grian headcanons cause i wrote a whole thing in my notes app:

- in my hc, the forms of watchers are dream-like and amorphous, basically visual mindfucks in appearance. grian who was fairly new to the watchers still kept his regular human form, but those who have been watchers for a very long time eventually would lose their individual human identity, and is assimilated into the collective that are the watchers. grian, if give or take maybe a century, the same thing would have eventually happened to him.

- his wings, gifted to him when he was ‘taken’, are generally amorphous and shifting, and you can never focus what shape they’re supposed to be (they can give you a headache the longer you try to look at their genuine form), but he can disguise them in any shape he wants (bird wings, dragon wings, etc.) so it doesn’t hurt to look at them.

- grian cut off his association with them just several months after he was taken, joining hermitcraft not long after, estranging themselves from them.

- he can still use his powers (which include astral projection, and etc.), but because of his cut ties they’re significantly weaker than the average watcher. for example, watchers can ‘watch’ over an entire server, but grian can only ‘watch’ one person at a time.

- his reasons for not wanting to be assimilated into the watchers is that he knows what it’s like to have been pushed and forced to take up a role against his will (ahem high school ahem), and it’s hurt him and he won’t want to let it hurt him again. aside from that, he finds that the watchers are extremely boring, considering all they do is observing passively from the sidelines and all that, which is the complete opposite of how grian likes to operate. he finds it extremely restrictive and prevents him from actively participating in things. not wanting to be confined to that, he cut ties with them.

- however he still uses his powers for troublemaking and mischief, and also to help others when they need it. he doesn’t consider himself affiliated with the watchers because he thinks it’s merely some godly title and also because he wouldn’t want anyone to think him differently, so he doesn’t really hide it.

- as he denied his watcher status very early into joining them, he still has the physicality (stamina, energy and such) of a regular human. only his wings are amorphous instead of his entire form since his wings were given to him when he joined them.

- made the life smp as a fun game for his friends, but in my hc, they did a test run before starting 3rd life. it was during that test run when the watchers seized control over the server.

- during 3rd life, he put admin restrictions on himself to remove his wings so he couldn’t fly and it was fair game for the rest.

[ggukiepie]

girl in luv (boy in luv pt. 6)

pairing: jungkook x reader

summary: jungkook finally tells you what you've been wanting to hear for so long...but you're still not happy

tags: bil!couple, college!au, bff!jk, two idiots in love, angst (what's new), fluff, happy ending !!!, kissing hihi

wc: 3.5k

a/n: lmaoooo hi im sorry this took so long. i didn't like what i originally wrote so i scrapped the whole thing and well here it is! i hope u guys like it. this is the last part for the series. tho i do plan to post some drabbles here and there (like their first time together maybe) but no promises anw thats its bye happy reading !!!! series masterlist / main masterlist

~*~

Your phone suddenly buzzes—someone was calling you. Though, instead of answering it, you stuff your phone between your couch cushions to block out the noise. You don’t dare look at your screen, sure you’ll get tempted to answer the call—whoever that was. You haven’t got much social interaction these days, always choosing to go straight home after each class, eating by yourself, declining invites to parties and hangouts. It’s not like anyone’s forcing you to be this way. You did this to yourself, really. You’d rather be alone than hangout with people. You didn’t have the energy to do so. You just wanted to be in your bubble a little bit longer.

Deep down, you know you’re craving to talk to someone. Anyone. But somehow you always end up alone. With your thoughts.

Self-sabotage, if you will.

The thoughts don’t help either. Your mind always drifts to Jungkook. Sometimes you think about him and his girlfriend. Most of the time, you think of your friendship. You missed what you had, even though you had to guard your heart every time, even if you got your hopes up at the simplest of actions. You missed being with Jungkook because for the time you were with him, he felt like he was…yours? There was no doubt that you were his. Had been from the start but didn’t realize it till later on. Your heart always craved for him, yearned for him when he wasn’t with you. Your heart felt lighter when you were together, be it doing the most mundane of things or sharing a special moment.

If you could just toughen up and tell him how you feel. But it was easier said than done. He already indirectly rejected you when he got together with some girl. But why would he reject you if he never knew how you felt? Maybe you were too busy protecting your heart, protecting the friendship you might lose if you would’ve confessed. You never thought he’d feel the same, even though you had moments that felt like he did.

You shake your head to rid your thoughts. You try to focus on writing the essay in front of you. Your Friday nights felt different now—stuck doing homework while your friends were partying.

You’re finally two pages deep when you hear frantic knocking on your door. You check the time on your laptop and see it’s a little past one in the morning. You suddenly rush to open your door, scared that you’d get a noise complaint all of a sudden.

You stand frozen, mouth agape at the scene in front of you.

“Huh?” you dumbly say.

It’s your three closest friends in your doorway. Jimin and Taehyung are somewhat conscious—at least they’re standing upright. But you notice the sway in their stance and you can smell the alcohol off of them. But it’s Jungkook between them that makes you freeze. He’s passed out, you’re sure of it, and the only reason why he’s sort of standing up is because Jimin and Tae have his arms around their shoulders.

“Why are you guys here?” you finally say.

It’s Taehyung who speaks up, smiling that smile he has when he wants something to go his way. When he has a plan that you might say no to (which you usually do). “Jungkook,” he points at Jungkook, as if you’d confuse him with anyone else, “is drunk.”

“I can see that,” you deadpan.

“And!” Tae rushes to say, like you’re about five seconds from shutting the door in their faces. “He kept asking for you. So we are simply complying with his request.”

“Because we are great friends,” Jimin pipes in. Taehyung nods in confirmation.

“Me?” you whisper, as if Taehyung were referring to anyone else. Your mind isn’t any better than his drunk one at this point.

“Yes!” Jimin whisper shouts. “Now let us in, he’s kinda getting heavy.”

Jungkook makes an incoherent sound from where his head is leaning on Tae’s shoulder, drool making a wet patch on the poor guy’s shirt. You take pity on your best friend and step aside to let in all of them, even though your heart’s racing because Jungkook is in your apartment.

Holy shit.

You watch them bring his unconscious body to your couch (they actually drop Jungkook and giggle all the way to your door, saying their goodbyes without looking back).

You huff at the sight in front of you. Jungkook’s cheeks are flushed red and he’s a little bit sweaty. Though, he looks so peaceful sleeping on your couch. Was he really looking for you?

You get a glass of water and two aspirins, placing it on the coffee table near him. The moment you near him, you kneel by his head and wipe the stray hairs on his forehead. You look at Jungkook, like really look at him. His eyebrows are scrunched together like something’s troubling him in his dreams. His lips are in a slight pout, lip ring glistening under your light (when did he get that, anyway?), little puffs of air coming out his mouth.

“Am I…” he mumbles. Your heart races. His eyes are still closed, but his mouth continues to move. “Am I at ____’s?”

Your heart seizes at the sound of your name. You gulp and nod slowly, then realize that he can’t hear you. “Yeah…” you trail off. “You’re in my living room.”

“Oh,” your best friend says as his eyebrows scrunch up some more. “Missed you.”

You sit back on the floor and hug your knees to yourself, preparing for whatever it is that he might say next. A drunk man’s words are his sober thoughts, right?

“Jimin and Tae said you were looking for me?”

“Mhmm,” he mumbles. “Wanted to… tell you somethin’”

You shake your head. Though your heart yearned to know, you also do know it’s not the right time. Not when he’s drunk. He might just regret his words now the next morning, which might even hurt worse than what he’s about to say. “Save it for tomorrow, Kook.” You push yourself off the floor but he stops you by holding your wrist, albeit weakly.

“Nuh uh…” he whispers. “Need to know…now. Broke up with Jiwoo.” He opens his eyes slightly and looks at you right away.

“Jungkook—”

“Like,” he continues to say, “I did it for you.”

You feel your anger rising, your body heating everywhere. “I didn’t tell you to do anything,” you firmly say.

Jungkook moves to sit up and you take a step back. “No,” he shakes his head slowly. “Jus’ didn’t feel right.”

You feel tears welling up in your eyes and you finally walk to your bedroom, slamming the door and locking it shut. You block out the sounds of Jungkook weakly calling out your name. Your fists clench in anger, the words Jungkook just uttered replaying in your head over and over. He couldn’t just dump his problems, turn around the narrative and make it seem like you made him break up with Jiwoo. That you asked him to end things with her because it didn’t feel right. And he forced himself into your home, your personal space—and drunk at that! He knew all your weak spots and used it to his advantage.

You hope he’d be gone in the morning. You don’t think your heart can hurt any more.

You hear pans clinking which promptly wakes you up. You weren’t able to sleep that much, actually, knowing Jungkook was right outside your room. You guess he stayed in the morning. He’s either cooking in your kitchen, or someone’s trying to steal your pans.

Rubbing your eyes as you open your bedroom door, you spot Jungkook by the stove with his back turned to you. He seems to be making scrambled eggs—which is the only thing he can make confidently.

“Morning,” you say. You might as well clear the air as early as now. You watch his back tense for a millisecond before he turns off the stove and sets the pan on your dining table. He turns to face you and brings a hand up to brush his hair back, a nervous tick of his that you noticed a few years back.

“Good morning,” he mumbles.

“So,” you start.

It’s so awkward you might cry again. When did things get this out of place? You start to rethink your feelings. You haven’t even confessed yet it feels like you’ve lost your best friend already. What if you confessed? What would happen then? You felt your heart closing just thinking about it now. Was your friendship really that fragile? You and Jungkook hardly fought but even if you did, you always made up right away.

“___,” he says. You look up, eyes meeting his instantly. “About last night… I’m sorry I suddenly barged into your place. I guess I really forced Tae and Jimin to bring me here.”

You nod and lean on the wall behind you, preparing for a long talk with him.

“I just really missed you, I guess—”

“Do you remember what you said last night?” you ask harshly, cutting him off so quick his shoulders tense.

Jungkook swallows nervously and nods his head. “Yeah and… I don’t know if there’s a better to say it, really. But we did break up, ____. She just wasn’t it for me.”

“And you said you did it for me,” you say, pushing him to just get to the point.

“Yes, because I realized that my heart never belonged to her. It belonged to you. Still does,” he says in a rush.

You eye him sharply, staring at his features and expression to make sure he’s completely telling the truth. You want to believe him, you really do, but why would he say that then be with someone else.

“It doesn’t make sense,” you finally say. “Why did you get together with her, then?”

“I don’t know—”

“You don’t know,” you repeat, and Jungkook’s eyes widen in panic. “You think you can come running to me right after a break up? Like I’m some second option? You don’t love her enough so you run to me instead?”

Jungkook opens and closes his mouth, mind thinking quickly to say something. His hands start to tremble and he brings a hand up to push back his hair. “I didn’t mean that,” he says hoarsely. “I didn’t realize it soon… And—” he stutters to catch his breath. “I was just scared—”

You’re fuming at this point. How could he do this to you? To just play with your feelings like that? “Get out.”

“____—"

“I mean it, Jungkook,” you shakily say. “You’ve hurt me enough. Just leave, please.”

He looks at you longingly, doe eyes watering before he nods and turns to the door in silence. You watch him put his shoes on before he leaves, not sparing you a glance. You don’t realize you’ve been tearing up as well, wiping the tears on your cheeks. Walking to the kitchen counter, you realize that Jungkook made chocolate chip pancakes. Your favorite.

It’s been a week since the incident with Jungkook and you haven’t talked to him since then. You also missed your weekly brunch with your friends, too afraid to face Jungkook. Thinking about it now, were you a little bit too harsh? Maybe. You thought you’d finally be happy upon hearing his confession but instead you pushed him away, shut him out. Because you’re scared. Terrified. Things were already going so well with Jungkook when you both were just best friends and you don’t think you can lose him forever should you actually get together and then break up.

Funny since it feels like you’ve lost him already.

It’s 8 am and you’re all alone in the student council office, trying to get some studying done as you were restless staying in your apartment. Staying there just reminds you of Jungkook, so you’ve been spending your mornings here before the other people arrive.

Suddenly, the door opens which is unusual. You usually have the place to yourself for at least another three hours. Curiously, you look up and find your best friend standing by the doorway, laptop and coffee in hand.

It’s silent for a moment, the both of you drinking each other in. Jungkook looks like he hasn’t gotten much sleep, eye bags dark and skin lackluster. You suppose you don’t look any better, knowing you barely got any sleep the past few days.

“Hi,” he finally says. You’re glad you have the long table separating the two of you. You don’t think your heart can handle being physically closer.

“Are you here for something?” you ask hesitantly.

“Can I…” He trails off, looking at the printer by the corner. You’d be laughing by now under normal circumstances. You nod instead, because it’s bizarre seeing Jungkook here asking if he can print something, which is something he liked to do back when your friendship was intact. The room is silent as you see him connect his laptop to the printer, both of you avoiding each other’s eyes. It’s too silent, actually, that it’s driving you a bit insane.

“How many pages?” you ask.

“Uhm… Fifty?” he says like he’s unsure.

“Fifty?” you repeat in a gasp. The printer is free, sure, but it’s ancient. Fifty pages will take too long and you don’t know if you can stand being in the room with him for half an hour or so.

Jungkook hands you the coffee he brought with him. “I bought you coffee as thanks.” He smiles ever so slightly and watches as you take a sip. Of course, it’s your usual order at the café down the street.

He looks at you expectantly but you’re too busy looking down at the coffee in your hands, too nervous to lock eyes with him. A few seconds later you hear him exhale and it’s just the sound of the printer in the room.

Your chest feels so tight all of a sudden like it’s ready to burst out of your ribcage any minute. It feels so heavy, so constricting that it’s starting to hurt physically. Is it really worth it harboring all this anger and pain? For conjuring up these theories in your head that will make you push him further away?

You shake your head to yourself and look up expecting to lock eyes with his, but his back is turned to you.

“Did you really mean what you said last week?” you blurt out.

Jungkook jumps in surprise and whips his body to face you, doe eyes wide. He looks surprised but he also looks relieved, and your heart breaks a little more seeing the relief cross his face the moment you talk to him.

He starts playing with the hem of his shirt absentmindedly. “I did,” he mumbles. “I mean every word I said, and I’m really sorry that everything had to turn out this way when I could’ve just been brave and confessed all those years ago.”

You nod your head at his words and process what he just said. Deep down you know you believe him, but it’s hard to keep that in mind when the hurt outweighs the truth. You look up at him with a sad smile on your face. “Why now, Kook? After all these years.”

He sighs and leans on the chair in front of him. You notice his shoulders deflate and his back hunch a little. He looks tired and you feel your own tiredness in your bones as well. “I was just scared. Us being friends was so comfortable and so good… I was just scared of things changing and me losing you.”

You bite your lip to stop yourself from crying. Looking to the side of the room to avoid his stare, you whisper, “And I know—” you choke on your words and clench your hands in frustration. “And I know I’m at fault as well—for assuming and pulling away once you got together with her. I had no right because we’re just…friends.”

It’s quiet save for the printer and his feet shuffling on the floor. You turn towards him to see Jungkook slowly walking to where you’re sat. Once he’s standing in front of you, he raises his hands towards your face but stops midway. Like he’s about to hold you but he’s hesitant.

You’re tilting your head to look up at him, eyes shiny with tears but lip turned upwards in a small smile. It’s ok, you mouth, because you don’t trust yourself to speak right now. You watch Jungkook hold your face in his hands, thumbs going behind your ears to rub at your skin slowly, fingers splayed on your cheeks to wipe your tears away.

He gathers your face in his hands, thumbs gently brushing the tears streaming down your cheeks. “I’m sorry, baby,” he whispers shakily. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m so, so sorry.”

You nod your head absentmindedly, heart squeezing at the affectionate way he talks to you.

“I really am sorry,” he repeats. “I… Yeah, we’re just friends but I’d like to believe that we both just know. That you felt my love the same I’ve been feeling yours ever since. Even though we’re just friends. But…I know better now.”

You look at him confusingly and he looks away from you and smiles, his cheeks turning a light shade of red. You watch in silence as he plays with his lip piercing distractedly. Finally, he turns to you still with that smile on his face. His thumb starts playing with your lower lip but he’s looking at you with so much adoration in his eyes.

You’ve seen this look on him before, every time you’re with him, and now do you only realize that it’s a look full of love, desire, yearning.

“It’s scary if we do become something more and I end up losing you,” he starts, “but I’d rather live a life of at least knowing what it feels like to love you and be loved by you, than doing nothing at all.”

Tears are streaming down your face but you’re smiling so wide and Jungkook’s doing the same as well, with his nose even scrunching up and his dimples showing.

“I think it’s normal to feel scared,” you finally reply. “But I’d also rather live a life of us loving together than loving from afar.”

It’s silent for a moment as you and Jungkook stare at each other. He’s wiping off your tears which makes him cry a little more, so you wipe his tears next. You’re both crying now but with happy smiles on your faces and it prompts you both to laugh.

“We were kinda stupid, huh?” Jungkook says in between giggles.

You nod and giggle back. “A bit silly, yeah.”

“Can I kiss you?” he suddenly asks. Your heart starts racing and your palms get clammy. You start feeling nervous but it’s the good kind, finally getting to do something you’ve been anticipating, been waiting for ever since you realized your heart belonged to your best friend.

“Please,” you whisper.

Jungkook wastes no times in leaning forward, his grip on your cheeks tightening just a bit, pulling you upwards to meet his lips. Your lips finally touch and it steals your breath away. Quite literally.

Jungkook’s lips are soft, slots perfectly right in between yours. He kisses how he holds you—gentle and careful. Your heart skips a beat when you feel his tongue, and you grant his wish by opening your lips just slightly.

There are no fireworks or sparks or anything grand like that. Your heart suddenly feels calm and at ease. Like this is what you’re meant to do. It feels like coming home for the first time where everything feels right. You feel a great weight lift off your shoulders and you know you’ve made the right decision by choosing love.

Jungkook pulls back but only slightly so he can catch his breath. He keeps his forehead pressed against yours and when he speaks, you feel his lips move.

“I love you,” he whispers, and the way he looks at you with his eyes, like it holds so much love and adoration and it’s all for you. “Wish I said it sooner but I don’t want to think about that. Don’t want to live and continue on with regrets. I’m so happy to have you like this,” he whispers shakily. “So lucky to be able to love you like this.”

You kiss him again which causes him to smile so wide that his dimples pop out. “I love you too.” You giggle again. Saying it is so freeing and it feels so normal too. Not some grand epiphany or realization. Like you’ve known ever since. Like your heart has felt this way throughout your years of friendship with Jungkook and only now are you able to verbalize it. You know you’re lucky, too, to be able to have him in this way. But you don’t want to give too much credit to luck. You believe yours and Jungkook’s love were destined ever since.

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Ok I am in rant mode again, sorry, this blog just happens to be a place where I dump all my thoughts negative and positive both, unfortunately for all who follow me. But I have seen some bad and incorrect takes from anti darkling/darklinas. So here’s just a few things I want to say.

Firstly LB has never stated that she based the darkling on her ab*sive ex. This is misinformation that was spread by antis. The only thing she has ever said about an ab*sive relationship was that she wrote the first book, Shadow and Bone, at a dark time in her life right after she had got out of a bad relationship. She has said in the past that the darkling was inspired by every bad boy she’s had a crush on in fiction including david bowie’s the goblin king. 

So it seems from these comments like the character was supposed to emulate those types of characters that woman find attractive, the ones you would fall for. 

I’ve also seen the argument that LB clearly wrote the darkling as a villain, well LB might disagree with you there as she herself has said on multiple occasions that she doesn’t write villains: 

LB says that the darkling believes he is doing the right thing and that ‘you can make a case for most of the choices he makes, even the despicable ones.’ So if LB says that she doesn’t write villains and that you can make a case for his actions you can’t really blame darkling fans for doing the same. 

The truth is LB promoted the heck out of both the darkling and darklina (or as it was known back then Darlina and Alarkling) when she was writing the og trilogy, even admitting to ‘fanning the flames’ when talking about people shipping m*lina and darklina and was clearly encouraging the shipping of both ships: 

She also put out teases for the darkling and darklina:

And promoted darklina fan edits even using the ship tags: 

It was only post the release of book three that she changed her tune, likely because of all the backlash she got about the ending of the books. So no LB wasn’t always against fans shipping darklina or liking the darkling. All of this information is easily found with a simple google search, I wasn’t even in the fandom back then being a show watcher first and yet I was still able to learn all of this with minimal difficulty. 

Which brings me to the whole darklina being an allegory for a older man manipulating a younger girl and how the darklina fans ‘missed this’. Well if they did miss it then it was for a very good reason, but the truth is darklina’s didn’t miss it, we just didn’t think it made sense within the narrative, the darklina fandom have talked about it, myself included, in fact I’ve already posted a whole pretty much essay on the topic. But let me explain why some people may have ‘missed it’ and why it doesn’t work in the story or with darklina as the allegory. The first is because LB chose to use an immortal/immortal couple for this allegory. The thing with immortality in fiction, especially as love interests, is it makes age pretty much meaningless. The whole point of immortals is that they are ageless. Immortal ships have always been accepted within fiction and this whole age gap issue has never come up before. Nobody was going omg but the age gap yuck with Bella and Edward when twilight came out, or when Magnus and Alec got together in Shadowhunters or with any of the ships in Vampire Diaries. Yet now anti’s are trying to use the argument that the darkling is 100s of years older than Alina and that’s creepy all of a sudden. Sorry but not in my book, an immortal is always going to be significantly older than anyone else what’s the alternative they spend eternity alone, never knowing love? At least with darklina they are both immortal. Another reason why it doesn’t work is because of how the darkling is described in the book, he is said to not look much older than Alina, so in the books he looks like a teenager. So of course people weren’t going to pick up on the older guy/younger girl allegory because the darkling isn’t presented in the books as an older guy. He’s described the same way every other immortal being in every YA book at that time was. It’s also worth noting that I am not sure if LB ever actually said that darklina were supposed to represent a older guy with a younger girl or whether that was something the fandom came up with. I’m not saying she didn’t just that I myself have never seen a direct quote from her that I recall and I wasn’t able to find one. I think the first time I heard of it was when someone sent me an ask about the topic. I know that she has said it was meant to serve as a warning of attractive and charismatic men being able to manipulate young girls but I don’t know that she herself has ever talked about an age gap or specifically mentioned older men? 

Another thing that I have been seeing alot of are comments like darkling/darklina fans only like him because he is hot. What bothers me about this is firstly even if that were true and the only reason people liked him was because he is hot, so what? There’s nothing wrong with that, its fiction and fiction is used to escape for a bit, its for enjoyment and entertainment, so if that enjoyment and entertainment comes in the form of staring at the hot guy irregardless of whether they are the hero or villain, let them be. Why are you criticising the way someone enjoys fiction? Sometimes a gal just wants to look at the hot guy. Secondly its just a really irrelevant argument because the darkling is not the only hot, charismatic character in the books or show. M*l is also described as being attractive and charismatic with no shortage of friends and girls, Nikolai is another character that fits that description, so by this argument the only reason M*l fans like him is because he is hot, and the only reason Nikolai fans like him is because he is hot. Thirdly its just plainly not true, whilst I am sure there may be some fans who only like him because he is hot, again nothing wrong with that, most fans like him for a variety of different reasons because he is an interesting and complicated character. As someone who spends a fair bit of time in the darkling/darklina tags the most common reason I have seen for fans liking him is because of his dedication to the grisha, his willingness to fight for the grisha something that he has dedicated 100′s of years of his life too. Personally I like Aleksander/the darkling because he has a sympathetic backstory, because he is fighting for the grisha and when seeing that they had no place to go where they could be free from fear he vowed to make them a safe place, a sanctuary, of course I am going to root for that goal too. I like him because he is complicated and complex and despite being an immortal being who has become deeply effected by past traumas there is still something beautifully human about him, particularly in the show. I also like the connection he has with Alina, the whole yin/yang of it and them being each others balance. I love the complexity and angst of them having this deep connection and pull to each other but also having this anger and sense of betrayal, how they have to try and navigate around having different points of view and seeing the world in a different ways, it makes for a very compelling story and their chemistry in the show is electric. The fact that he is hot is merely a bonus, but even if he wasn’t a conventionally attractive person I would still like his character because of those complexities, because of that connection he has with Alina. But one thing this rant has done is make me curious as to what my other fellow darkling/darklina fans like about the darkling? What drew you to the character? Anyway that’s enough ranting for one day, again my apologies, I am going to go and rewatch season 1 of shadow and bone in preparation for season 2′s release tomorrow...sheepishly shuffles off my soapbox, waving awkwardly.   

[alpaca-clouds]

German Solarpunk - Did I Mess This Up?

A bit ago, I was doing the thing I will do from time to time: Go through book releases on Amazon (yeah I know Amazon sucks, but what can I do? I literally do not even have a small bookstore around) and putting Solarpunk-stuff on my wishlist (hint: My birthday is in a month). However, doing so I realized one thing: There is a surprising number of German novels that are listed as Solarpunk... With only one issue: None of them are punk. Or even much solar. And I cannot help but wonder: Is this my fault?

Now, this question might seem presumptuous, or even narcissistic, until I tell you something else: Solarpunk was very much a non-topic in German Scifi/Fantasy writing until 2021. Looking through google it was mentioned in like two or three blogs, and there was one group in Hamburg, who was promoting the movement-part of Solarpunk. But writing wise? Yeah, not really a thing.

And then, during the pandemic, in summer of 2021 I made a thread on twitter about the genre. And somehow that thread went viral. People loved it. They loved the idea of Solarpunk. And especially in the pandemic, it just seemed the time was rife for this. I got a chance to write essays on the topic and the genre for several fantasy publications in Germany between summer 2021 and summer 2022.

And those books that I found on Amazon tagged as Solarpunk? Yeah, they released between 2022 and today. Which is why I have to wonder: Did I mess this up? Did I not communicate it well enough?

I did indeed never talk about the punk factor. Mostly because back then I assumed it was a given. Sure, I knew that Germans were not that big on doing the whole punk aspect with Cyberpunk either. I just thought, well...

I am not going to name names. But let me just go through some of the stuff I found.

A trilogy releasing between 2022 and 2024 about an AI taking over a world. Very much a Cyberpunk setting, though not with particularly strong anticapitalist themes. There is not even a lot of environmental or renewable stuff in this story. No fucking clue why it was tagged as Solarpunk.

A fantasy trilogy that started releasing early 2023 (and is not yet released in full), which only thing that might imply Solar-anything is that it features a sun goddess as an important character.

A game with its own short story collection, which is simply a fantasy post-apocalyptic setting, though at the very least it does have some environmental themes.

A scifi novel about slavery - that very much also has a Cyberpunk setting.

Another scifi series about people in Cyberspace. This one I know was originally just tagged Cyberpunk and when Solarpunk started to get hyped, the author just added the tag to it.

A fantasy fairytale retelling, in which I know for a fact not even a single environmental theme is featured.

And I am honestly just wondering: What is happening here? Do people not understand what Solarpunk is? Do they not understand that it is more than an aesthetic? I definitely made that one quite clear. Or do they just use the tag because right now it definitely is a very hyped topic in Germany. I mean, like fuck. The news made a segment about Solarpunk earlier this year! The bloody main news show we have in our country. A variety of news papers also wrote about it during the last two years.

Or to put it differently: Given the genre gets hyped here right now, there is a good chance that you might actually be abled to push something onto one of the big publishers by tagging it with Solarpunk.

And I... I mostly feel frustrated. Because people really do just ignore what the genre is about. Hell, half of the stuff does even ignore the aesthetic and just goes... Well, I don't bloody know what the people are thinking.

But a part of me wonders, whether I should have made more of an effort in communicating the punk aspects. Sure, I talked about how it is anti-capitalist and all that, but... Yeah, honestly. I don't know.

[itsoneofthemuses]

tagged by the one and only, the inimitable @rememberthismomentx

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

62

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count?

225 819

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Generally only one at a time, but I've technically published fic in five fandoms: The Rookie, Community, Supernatural, Archer, and Thor.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

if you smile at me again i may do something stupid (The Rookie)

don't wanna stop just because people walking by are watching us (The Rookie)

let me go under your skin, let me find the demons that drive those heavenly limbs (The Rookie)

you be screamin' now they banging on our door (The Rookie)

i've got time, i've got love (The Rookie)

5. Do you respond to comments?

I do! As much as I can! You could probably rope me into a whole ass conversation because I don't know how to end the call and response.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

The as of yet publicly unpublished "random angst prompt" which will breach containment eventually, after I clean it up.

As for published fics, angst is not my forte, so I don't do it often, and it's rarely actually that angsty... But maybe a tie between we drank a toast to innocence (The Rookie) or between the drinks and subtle things, the holes in my apologies (The Rookie)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Uh... Hmm. 95% of my fics have happy endings so it's hard for me to judge. Maybe my recent one, she's just a girl and she's on fire (The Rookie)?

I also took a few steps past sappy in you're one of the few things that i'm sure of (The Rookie) and Life Lessons in Absurdist Storytelling (Community)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

All my good luck must get used up here, because I really don't.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do write smut! And I guess it's mostly the cishet kind because those have mostly been my ships (special place in my heart for Troy/Abed).

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I've dabbled, on occasion, but it's not really my go-to. I have an unfinished Supernatural/Community crossover and that's about it.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Don't think so!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? 

Not that I'm aware of.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I've riffed back and forth in comments and on discord or email, but no, never a properly co-authored fic.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Oh gosh, well, I'm still here with chenford but Jeff/Annie will always have my heart even if I'm not involved in the fandom anymore.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

The only WIP is the aforementioned Supernatural/Community crossover and, like, sorry... It's probably never happening. I do have a jucy lay-turned-chenford fic that has been under construction since 2021-ish.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I like to think I'm funnyish and can get some decent banter going. Not totally sure what my writing strengths are... Entertaining myself, most probably.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Ha, well, this I could write an essay on. Occasionally my worst impulses run away with me and I try to be really poetic and it just comes off cloying, I think? Or incoherent, maybe.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I can passably write some French and I might occasionally, if the situation calls for it, use google translate (Community was initially centred around a study group for Spanish, for instance) but I typically stick to English as it's the language I know best and the one, usually, that my characters know best too.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Ha, I don't know if I want to admit this... But X-Men (the comics, not the movie, my fics predated the movies 😅)

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Ooh, I'm terrible at picking favourites, but I enjoyed both of my vampire slayer AUs: 'cause i know you and you know me (The Rookie) and Special Topics in Demonology (A): Vampire Basics (Community).

And, fine, fine, not popular in a shipping community obviously, but as the founding member of the Let Lucy Get Laid Brigade, I wrote a few fics featuring Lucy with other partners for #30daysoflovingforlucy and cast various Canadians, and it was just fun. All five fics are part of my series but baby it's okay if i am still the best you had

Obviously, anyone who would like to participate should (would love to see gif makers like @detectivechen or @relentlessescapism answer these kinds of questions...), but for the purposes of spreading the joy far and wide (no pressure), @dollsome-does-tumblr, @write-or-wrong88, @doomedship, @jakelovesamy, @universallongings, @farfarawaygirl

[22degreehalo]

Pulling my hair out........

Whyyyyyyy are people SO DESPERATE to find ways to justify harry potter being an awful book that nobody ever liked. Why is is SO GODDAMN HARD for people to just admit that a bad person could make a good thing!!!! Even a pretty decent thing!!!!! As if millions of people around the world didn't sit down to read over a MILLION WORDS for fucking nothing!!!!!!!!!!

Because I work in a library!!!!!! Harry potter is still so goddamn relevant guys!!!!!!!! We still have harry potter signs up!!!!!! There are still so many kids reading them for the first time!!!!!! Still soooooooooOOOOO many spin-offs and 'wizarding world crochet' and 'the science of Harry Potter' and 'essays on Hogwarts' and literally anything you can think of!!!!!!!! I wore a cheap-ass witch hat and two separate people asked me if it was a 'Hermione hat!'!!!!!!!! And my coworker dressed up as Professor McGonagall!!!!!!! Another coworker has an 'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good' lanyard!!!!!! Hell, my aunt in goddamn America moved in to a new apartment and do you know what event they put on to bring the tenants together? A Harry Potter crafts day!!!!!!!!!!!

Christ all fucking mighty, regardless of how you personally feel about it now (or back then, if you were ~oh so smart~ enough to uhm Acktchually have hated it from day 1), it was a global phenomenon that got millions of kids into reading. Was it in the right place at the right time? Yeah!!!!!! Just like literally anything that becomes a phenomenon!!!!!!! But IT HAPPENED, and *to this day* Harry Potter is a global symbol of reading and wonder and childhood and it's been fucking decades and you simply cannot change that now!!!!!!! You know what people still to this day recommend to people learning new languages? Reading Harry Potter, because it's immediately assumed of everyone that you'll not just be familiar with the story but know all the beats well enough to follow along with the story even when you can't fully understand what you're reading!!!!!!!!!!

Just oh my fucking GOD, I know this is an unhinged rant but I still keep *hoping* that *this time* if I take a peek behind those filtered tags, I might see a post with some vague tangential reference to reality as it pertains to the most popular modern book series of all time, but as always: nope!!!!! God for fucking bid we acknowledge even for a microsecond that Goodness and Beauty are not inextricably intertwined!!! Absolutely anything to justify ourselves as True Of Heart because we, The Good Ones, would never commit such thought crimery as having positive emotions about a work of art whose author later became a transphobe!!! And of course we can't possibly ever praise the work's anticlassism messages oe statements of tolerance or diversity, because that means Saying She's Right About Everything Ever, so we have no choice but to continue this vicious cycle wherein people only ever hear bad things in this goddamn stupid echo chamber and that just becomes the 'objective truth'!!!!!!

God I'm just fucking waiting for when somebody posts some old letters of Tolkein's and suddenly everyone remembers that he was an old white Catholic man who started a lot of the goddamn racial charicatures HP is blamed for and wrote a whole goddamn race of Always Chaotic Evil sentient beings. Where's all that ~hopepunk~ ~ohhh it's about community gathering together (unlike Harry Potter which idk I guess the MC just did everything huh)~~ bullshit going to go then? Not that I think LotR is actually objectively bad, even though I tried to read it and didn't like it and never cared for the movies at all (they're just action movies. They're literally just action movies in a fantasy setting yall I'm glad you guys enjoy them but to me they're pretty goddamn boring 90% of their runtime) because I am a person capable of nuanced thought and acknowledgement of the concept that sometimes other people can find meaning and enjoyment in things that I myself do not without being objectively wrong!!!!!!!!

[ponyguru]

Okay, I'm probably way behind everyone else, but I just watched Hilda Season 3 on Netflix, and I have Thoughts about the finale. (Behind a cut, since it's exclusively spoilers for the very last episode, ha! I'm not gonna tag this for the fandom or anything, I just feel like I have to vent this somewhere or else I'll explode!)

Okay, so I literally started this season thinking, okay, a guy wrote the original graphic novel, but it's not going anywhere with shitty takes on women, so that's great, right? I'm really happy with that, and relieved, because men generally seem to not be able to write women well.

And then we get to the last episode, and it's literally just "oh hey, your mom spends the entire series acting as the human Stick In The Mud who prevents her minor child from going on death-defying adventures, but it's okay! because it turns out she's actually a half fairy who lost her parents tragically when she's ten! Now she has them back!

Ohhhh wait, because we don't want to awkwardly fold these new fairy characters into the existing universe - erm I mean, for plot reasons, her parents who she tragically lost as a child can't ever come back to see her again! So being a mom is unending tragedy, with a deadbeat fuckboy ex husband, her only family being some bitchass aunt who spent her whole life lying to her, financial struggles, and completely cut off from the people she misses most, who she only got to see for a few hours before being ripped away from them again.

Happy ending for all, hooray! Fireworks!"

Like are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?

This ENTIRE SERIES is centered around the idea that "the established status quo is wrong, and Hilda is the one who can repair that balance even if it doesn't seem likely because she's just a little girl", but we get to the Fairy Realm, and suddenly it's "whelp, can't do anything, sorry mom! bye bye fairy family forever!"

The only saving grace for the series ending on a stupid-as-fuck note might be that, since it's the last season, they simply didn't have time to wrap things up in a better manner, and for all I know, the graphic novel has a completely different take on this whole situation. But seriously, I felt so bad for poor Johanna, whose entire character arc seems to be "get used to being miserable, honey, cuz you're not the main character."

Or, alternately, 'a mom's only meaning is in her child, and she has to sacrifice all happiness for herself for the sake of her child, because once women have children they cease to exist as individuals,' but maybe that's a whole other rage essay to type out. GRRRRR.

I'm sure the intended meaning was, 'ohhhh it's so woooonderful having a chiiiiild you'd sacrifice anything for them, including your own happiness', but that's bullshit because the entire series is about Hilda breaking down magical barriers/beings and making things work out for the better. But not when it comes to her mom, I guess???

[1tsjusty0u]

actually you know what. ganondorf. what can you tell me about him

hehwhwhahahahahahahhhhahahahahahhahHAHAHAHAAHAHQHAHAHAHAHAHA YESS…. YESS!!!!!

ok so. the thing is for the mmain fic? i dont know how he will. fit in. like i have timeloop related ideas which i. need to do eventually. but generally speaking i dont know how to give him a good ending or even how he’ll effect the plot. but also i dont want to ignore him because he is very vital to the plot. honestly i might do a flowey for this in that he interacts sparsely, more to the end of the game. thanks toby fox

BUT ANYWAYS to me ganon really isnt. a twist per say? like with link im making his death be different and the reader is going to have to find out what happened (or immediately Know based on the tags and such and instead of finding out their horror??? only grows i hope because they basically have to watch a guy who they know something bad will happen to. like siffrin in stars and time when you’ve played sasasa). but for ganon his deal is basically almost canon except im highlighting how fucked up it is i guess. we already know hes under the castle, but the devs never expand his motives. so im trying to do that

so. spoilers?? i guess??? also its pure stream of consciousness be warned

ok so firstly totks whole Pre Hyrule thing doesnt exist here. im not doing that. the zonai are non-gods who literally just sailed into the country and happen to know magic. they also dont make the same type of ruins associated with the zonai in totk. their ruins match up much more with the ruins in faron and the animal-esque designs. also theyre extremely vague and none of them become the king. i can draw you some zonais if youd like but the whole zonai thing in totk makes zero sense especially with botw and theres actual contradictory information in this essay i w

because of this rauru and sonia Might exist, but they will be Extremely Different. im not making rauru a zonai if he does exist too, though mineru still might be one just. heavily redesigned. so theres no power struggle to lead to ganondorfs imprisonment- something else is the cause of that.

as to what? i have no idea yet </3. itd probably be similar to the exile of the shekiah when the helped with the calamity, ganon being seen as a threat and something to be exterminated. ganon may not have helped or interacted with the monarchy, but it didnt change what the king and queen viewed of him. though i dont think any prior games or legends “influenced” this- as in they didnt follow any prophecy or something, but they basically ingrained the roles of the past into being completely static if that makes sense. zelda is always the pretty princess with wisdom and powers of the goddess (and hylian), link is always the hero always with the master sword and courage (also always hylian), and ganon? always the oppressor. always the king of evil, king of the gerudo. always a threat. in the same ways these roles hurt zelda and link pre cal, these roles ESPECIALLY hurt ganon, just this time more directly. its almost like how certain laws target marginalized groups and by proxy accidentally hurt literally everyone else. but he was just a “threat to hylia” in some way or form, either due to something or just by existing. or both. but an incident probably lead to his imprisonment. all things considered i should. really work on this..? though thats complicated because if the shekiah just noticed the pattern of the calamity then people would have to deal with two separate events rather than just one, which could work but the “inciting incident” of the 10000 year calamity being beaten is almost null and passed on to another. at that point i might as well do what ive seen other fanfics do before totk came out and wrote about the zonai- grouping them together in the same time period and make the sealing of ganon himself as the person the 10000 year sealing of the calamity. however that wouldnt make sense with the tapestry…unless the tapestry isnt accurate to what happened which Is possible but still why go through all the effort to lie about becoming his calamity form? showing him as not human would fit with how they view him but still they couldve made him look like a monster- like a lynel or his pig forms, not a boar like cloud. so. i almost want to ignore his backstory entirely and only focus on him being well. trapped. i just dont know if this is the right move to make, as much as being trapped under the castle Is a backstory its not really a fleshed out one or one that shows his past connections or who he was as a person. though that does kind of fit with what he is now. uhm so yeah i have no idea im sorry

but to his. not-really-a-backstory backstory. like in totk, hes under the castle. everybody has forgotten this, the rulers being warned about.. Something under the castle, and to not speak of it like zelda says in the intro to totk. theres a locked gate, maybe with some stolen shekiah tech (used by the king/someone when the shekiah were exiled and hunted, getting scrap parts before they were buried) to secure it. or maybe they just like about it being protected by the goddess so no one can open it and because its such an easy lie to check everybody believes it. though i genuinely think its locked extremely well, either with past magic, the triforce when a past zelda or queen had it and sealing ganon was sealing the gate as well, sheikah tech, or something else. i say that because at some point youd think the yiga would literally just walk in if it was a lie. the shekiah tech is a bit dicey because the yiga probably know way more about it than the shekiah (except for purah and robbie), however. i was going to argue they might not actually know that much about the tech which while it would depend on yiga to yiga i feel on some level they could absolutely break into it. (i used to think it was a parallel to botws general amnesia, forgetting their goal of originally helping hyrule, but after reading gboh the possibility of them changing it over time actively is probably a lot better, especially with it adding agency and also them being Rightfully Angry at the monarchy and eliminating those who stand as its biggest supporters? or pawns. and rereading the wiki page for them i cant remember how i thought they “forgot” their goal. ok sorry!! honestly i like to think some sheikah and yiga before being truly separate still made tech in secret, either to prevent something in the future or to help themselves (the sheikah being ok in the rain because of the tech in their outfits.) kind of like a third group that eventually faded out due to amnesia or became a yiga and Remembered. ok anyways) but yeah. on one hand Itd Fit and be such a slap in the face to the sheikah in general, but also the yiga should and probably would know how to break it down. that is if they even know the door exists, and the only reason they dont break into it is because they dont know It Exists because it wasnt built by them and ganon isnt able to communicate with them, or at least communicate with them well. in that scenario they could and Would be able to break down those protections which would actually make sense.

ALRIGHT. under the castle isnt the same as totks under the castle, and while it might…??? be the same one in the Trailer, that would require the zonai which, while they have their own mysterious plotline here (they magiced so hard they ended up in the sky), and theyre absolutely Important, i dont know how important they were in ganons sealing specifically. i like the zonai having some secret involvement of it and i also like having more zonai ruins, but i dont think the royal family would tolerate them At All because theyd also be a threat like the sheikah. they built literal labyrinths and actually know about the triforce more explicitly (the sheikah also seem to, or the ancient sheikah). them casting themselves off into the sky makes sense because who else could do that, But Yeah. theyd have their own documented versions of what they did, and i like to think they were fairly involved in hyrule as a whole. anyways sorry i just need to come up with how he was sealed and how it makes sense. god i used to have hopes and dreams about totk. we couldve gotten a new major god. and yet,

OK ONTO THE ACTUAL. PERSON IN THIS. GANON IM SO SORRY. yeah lets just say hes only Mildly Pissed about being under the castle for 10000 years (<- any words i could use now can not describe the sheer anger and hatred he has. like. its like genuinely wanting to kill someone if that makes sense. besides that being half the literal case, its . ok so you know how in totk the hands let out a shrill scream when they spot you, rushing over to kill you and choke you without thinking? its like that. wanting to make others feel the pain he felt for years and years, with an added touch of genuine hate and wanting to Hurt Someone or see them get hurt). hes being forgotten by everyone- his people the hylians, the shekiah, either people who he used to love or people who actively helped and encouraged his imprisonment, it doesnt matter when they all forget and dont even seem to care. its like he never mattered in the first place, what happened to him just something inconsequential and might as well not exist at all. He might as well not exist at all. but hes awake, rotting and tearing apart down at the bottom of that chamber always awake and always there. he cant move on yet, he needs to get out he needs to get out he has to get out

so!! his main focus is escape!! anyone who dies either had to or isnt something he thinks about. something something a means to an end, if people die so be it. plus if hes going down hea bringing hyrule with him, clawing onto it. he isnt mindless, guardians trying to ravish important locations like the temple of time and the akkala citadel, tactical locations. the malice is more of a by product of the original 100 year calamity, but it serves to help ganon keep and Eye out haha but also block and cover things. i like to think theres malice in guardians and thats why the master sword reacts to them. anyways, in botw he has a butterfly esque cacoon, and a spider like body made of sheikah tech. he was probably building a New Body as his means of escaping. why he made it like that? no idea. he definitely wouldnt live a quiet life once he was out and i think its an accidental by product of wanting to kill people/punish them in a sense. maybe he was going to have two bodies, like mettaton EX where the box body would be in this sense ganondorfs “normal” form where his spider form would be his Kill form.

if he wanted to be king of hyrule, this would probably be why. i dont really think he would, but if he did he’d do it both to punish those who wronged him while making sure what happened to him wont happen again, making sure the hylian royal family is never in a seat of power again. but right now he wants people to pay.

this also ties into him being “a calamity”; as hes trapped under the earth, i think he’d have an effect over it as well. trying to claw his way out from under the earth, parting the dirt in which it looks as if its breathing, sand piling over making sounds described as screams (though in real life its described as singing). in a way hes a part of it, but not by choice. hes the very thing you stand on and yet hes dismissed.

but anyways. hes very mad. link would describe him as “actively wanting me dead” in the timeloop au. his blights are described as screaming in the fic and i like to think thats ganon screaming in rage, pain or both. hes also not green here i should mention that. his form down in the dungeon i like to think has ghouls protruding from it like theyre melting into one and other and are reaching out with their hands, grabbing at whatever they can. hes pretty chill but smug post imprisonment, mostly a quiet cocky. less one for dramatics and rather plays it straight. likes pink and also is a fan of the desert right under spectacle rock. in the timeloop au hes also in the timeloop with link which causes problems. speaking of theyre pretty alike, and wreath would be like him in the timeloop au if he didnt already exist like percy jackson and luke. they could be friends in theory, but their circumstances drove them apart (hey like the wind waker post). hes a big fan of water buffalos, bulls, goats, cats and dogs, and sand sparrows. sand sparrows are his favorite animal in general and almost made it a symbol of the gerudo. id like to associate him with moths thanks to queen gibdo (shes not in this au she doesnt exist here). might actually like spiders as well as other insects. kotake and koume exist here :] . i think some of the gerudo havent forgotten, and thats why the hylia statue is way less in use, though it still being there is an act from the gerudo from the present ish. he likes soft and airy clothes. a lot more regal in the presence of leaders of their respective races- like the king or queen of the zora, the king and queen of the hylians, etc. likes hearty soup but also straight voltfruit juice. doesnt like hydromelons. he and zelda would hate each other, zelda Especially and their anger at each other almost cancels each other out. zelda is Very mad at him. chronic pajama wearer, gets a gerudo clothes person to make regal clothes with the same fabric from pajama clothes. sometimes he sleeps in them but other times he doesnt. big fan of the concept of magic, and likes chuchu jelly a lot. hes more prominent in the timeloop au honestly and im sorry for that. id like to give him an actual arc but well. i dont know how i would do that…….. also i want him to have a happy ending for once but i dont know if thatd work with this story. especially because of him killing the champions. him being an omen would be fitting, but still. him being punished narratively for no reason is stupid if that makes sense. his reason for doing what he did wasnt bad, but what he did by proxy was. i dunno death doesnt feel right for him, at least yet. he was happy though, once

ok sorry if this trailed off its. 5:40 am . i need to eat and sleep

[welcometololaland]

Lola, your tag and anon ask reply for the exasperated Carlos set are so spot on. Thanks so much for putting the set on my dash. It’s brilliant! Please know that when I saw it and your tag (exasperation is his love language), I was immediately recalling lines from the (epic) Mesh Shirt fic you wrote a bit ago. I just want to say that I think you capture this particular love language of Carlos’ so beautifully in your writing. It stays with folks (hi, I’m folks lol).

“Carlos gives TK a look that he hopes conveys exasperation rather than amusement. He’s feeling a weird mix of them right now, but it shouldn’t be surprising. TK somehow manages to occupy the very niche status of the love of Carlos’ life and also the bane of his existence, and he kind of wants to see how far TK will take this, but he also has self-respect.”

The niche status line is truly incredible. 😂 That’s the part that came to my mind when I saw you put the set on my dash. It’s the whole thesis statement of Carlos’ unique love language for TK.

These other two lines are also pure gold:

“TK is the light of his life, and sometimes that light blinds him a little, but it’s only a temporary thing.”

“…Carlos wonders for a brief second where the hell all of his self-control has gone, because it used to be watertight and now it’s full of holes.”

These are all so good and so fitting! I could keep going because you’ve peppered more just like them throughout all of your Tarlos fics, but I gotta go to bed so I’ll stop here lol. Grateful for the way you depict their love in your writing and the laughs you bring out of us with one exasperated Carlos Reyes. 😂💖 Have a great day!

Thank you so much, Sonia! You are truly such a gift and I am so honoured by all of the above!

Perhaps it's only because I've been in this fandom for a short while, or maybe it's just my writing style, but I feel like it's so much easier to express my thoughts and feelings about Carlos, TK and their relationship through fic, rather than in expressing a particular head canon/responding to an ask. Then, you came in with the above - all this other stuff that I honestly forgot I wrote, but it definitely reflects how I feel about Tarlos - and it conjured some feelings. So thank you, and also sorry in advance for the essay.

You know, they (vaguely waves hands) always say that you should never expect the person that you're in a relationship with to change for you, and I think in TK and Carlos' case, that rings very true. They're very different personalities and they remain very different personalities - one a little more reserved, perhaps more cautious. The other with a tendency to be a little more rash and impulsive.

I think my favourite thing about Tarlos is that although they're quite different, their personalities complement each other so well. Not only in the way that they soften out the rough edges of each other's less ideal qualities, but in that they bring out and enhance a lot of the really special ones. As the chaotic Lone Star timeline continues we see Carlos flourish - his fun, friendly, snack-king, i-am-the-loving-dad-of-this-group energy becomes more and more evident, alongside the sheer amount of character development in s 3, and I love that. I like to think that his relationship with TK has given him the safety and the encouragement to let his guard down a little more, be a bit sillier, express his love for everyone by running around and making sure they're all well fed.

Certainly, I don't think Carlos has ever been boring, or too uptight. I just think we didn't get to see as much of that energy from him in s 1 (although we did always get to see the exasperated energy - that has been right there from "if I was a less secure man, I might be bothered by the fact that i worked up the nerve to ask you out, and you spent the entire night talking about another guy" to "at three eighteen in the morning?").

Also, Carlos might slander TK for his habit of eating at 2am or trying to live off AA doughnuts, but don't tell me that Carlos-Do-You-Need-Me-To-Cook-You-A-Whole-Ass-Dinner-Reyes wouldn't eat his feelings on occasion. He definitely has a guilty pleasure of some kind and I need to know what it is.

Don't even get me started on TK. That's a story for another day, but this man really went from TK-I-Hate-Everyone-And-Everything-Strand to TK-Soft-And-Sweet-As-A-Marshmallow-Strand, and you can't tell me that Carlos giving him a stable and loving relationship - something TK has clearly always craved - doesn't play a huge part in that. TK needed someone who would let him be prickly sometimes, see all his flaws and fears, and love him just a fiercely anyway.

If anyone can do that, it's Carlos.

[butcherlarry]

I was tagged by @burins in a people I want to get to know tag meme! Thanks for the tag!

Last Song: I was actually listening to this in the car as I was coming home from work today, Sexkiller on the Loose by Carpenter Brut. I really like this whole album, Trilogy , and listen to it all the time when I'm traveling. It's nice thinkin' music for me, but I have to be careful because it's very easy to speed when listening to the upbeat songs.

The last podcast I listened to was the most recent Behind the Bastards episode, discussing Michael Lewis and the terrible book he wrote about Sam Bankman-Fried. I also completed a re-listen of BtB's six part series on what a bastard Henry Kissinger was, in honor of his death.

The last book I read was Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis. I might have stayed up until 12:30 am finishing it, and was VERY TIRED when I went birding the next day. Reading this book finally pushed me to get a library card so I can read the next book, Truth of the Divine. I've been holding out on getting a library card for the last couple years because my life has been so hectic with multiple moves. I've finally settled down enough where I can get a library card, and this book was the push I needed to finally do it.

My favorite color: purple! I just really love that color. If you look in my closet, you'll see a lot of purple clothes :)

Currently Watching: What everyone else on the Internet is watching, Hbomerguy's Plagiarism video essay. I couldn't watch it all yesterday and have one more hour to go!

Last Movie: Barbie! I watched it with my two best friends over a discord chat. One of them hadn't been able to see it yet, so we watched it together. It was also lovely to catch up :)

Sweet/Spicy/Savory: Hmmmmmm. I'm a sucker for sweet things, but sometimes that gets to be a little too much for me. So sweet and savory or sweet and spicy are always favorite combos of mine.

Relationship status: Single. Not really looking for anyone either. I'm starting to suspect that I'm aro as well as ace.

Current obsessions: BIRDS. Omg, birds. I blame my cats for this, I got a bird feeder to hang outside a large window at my old apartment to entertain them. Well, it ended up entertaining me too. Now I have a nice camera, multiple bird field books, and I go to the local arboretum every Sunday to go birding. It's my "go out and touch literal grass" day. And it's so much fun to see the birds throughout the year, especially seeing which ones stay in the area and who migrates/come back. The dark-eyed juncos and white-throated sparrows are back and I'm SO HAPPY to see those little guys! I post my pictures on my bird tumblr or Bluesky, as well as the Batfam discord server I'm in :)

Last thing I googled: How to take the FUCKING knife guard off our back up meat slicer to clean it. I wanted both slicers going because we had 100 POUNDS (45+ kgs) of deli turkey to slice for my company's holiday party and it was dirty from the last time it was used. I have NO IDEA how the FUCK we got it off the first time. It should be simple! There is a long pin/bar you unscrew in the back! But it still wouldn't come off!! I think there is some kind of safety we're not triggering, but I have NO CLUE what it is. The manual it came with and the manufacturer's videos on YouTube were NO HELP. I blame the French (the slicer was made in France).

I'm tagging @ktkat99, @betta-male, @sunny-in-gotham, @halehathnofury, @froizetta, @superbattrash, @lizyarikus, @sisaloofafump, and anyone else who would like to join! No pressure though! :)

[storybookprincess]

20 questions for fic writers!!!!!!!!! tagged by @ilgaksu (yes, we HAVE been mutuals since the dawn of time & yes we HAVE diverged fandoms wildly and yes we DO deserve this as a treat!!!!!!)

1. How many fics do you have on AO3?

87………… dear god……

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

377,923

dear god……….. take 2!!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

pretty exclusively animanga fandoms these days. hunter x hunter has been my home base for a while, but i dabble in other series too!!!

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

personally i don’t enjoy discussing stats (outside of word count) because i think it encourages comparison, even if unintentionally, and i used to struggle a lot with that. sort by kudos exists for the curious, of course, but i don’t want to go out of my way to emphasize stats

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

oh gosh, i used to be RELIGIOUS about replying to every single comment i received, but that's since become a bit unmanageable with my current work & life schedule. i'd like to get back to replying at least a little bit, though!!

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i'm a happy ending girl through & through so i think the closest i have to an angsty ending is this tiny lil 1k leopika oneshot i wrote for the greed island server!!!

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

what i'm getting from these questions so far is that i do not remember my own fics very well anymore & might want to go revisit them someday bc i am struggling to answer this one!!

that being said, i am a bit fond of this one from facts about stones, which was my big bang fic this year!!

“Let’s stay together.  For as long as you’ll have me.” “Forever, then,” Gon replies. Killua used to hate the thought of forever.  Life was something to be survived: minute to minute, second to second, breath to breath.  If his mind ever wandered further into the future than a few days, a sick, dizzy feeling would overtake him; the thought of this misery stretching on, gray and endless, was more than he could tolerate. But now, as Gon leaps over that very creek they’d played in so many times with a loud whoop, Killua finds that something has changed. “Longer,” he says. “Forever would be too short a time.” “Okay,” Gon agrees, a smile in his voice. “You and me. Forever, and then what comes after.”

8. Do you get hate on fics?

i was about to say that i've been fortunate enough never to get a hate comment BUT THEN i remembered how someone once wrote me a five paragraph essay (i'm not kidding) about how a character's behavior in a fic didn't make sense & was poorly written. god that was incredible

but on the whole, no, i'm quite quite lucky that i don't receive much negativity

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

not yet..............

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

i'm a very boring person & thus don't vibe particularly much with crossovers. the most i've done is like........ very vaguely fairy tale inspired aus & the like. i wish i were a more adventurous writer bc some of the stuff people come up with in crossovers is ridiculously creative

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not a whole fic, but back in my bnha days, i had someone lift a scene literally beat for beat from a tddk fic of mine. i was a lot younger & less experienced in the fandom space back then, so i'm very glad, although perhaps a bit surprised, that i just closed the tab & moved on. life's too short to stress over that sort of thing

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes, one into russian & one into spanish on wattpad!!!!!! they both felt like such huge honors!!!!!!

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

i could pretend to give this some thought & come to a difficult decision, but it's killugon. it's far & away killugon. let's not kid ourselves here

14. What’s a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

color in your cheeks

i think the idea has a ton of potential, but my execution of the first two chapters strikes me as rushed & impatient & a bit sloppy as a result. i think my only option is rewriting it from scratch so i can have a product i'm satisfied with

15. What are your writing strengths?

i pay a ton of attention to the flow of my prose & really endeavor for the sentences to have a lyrical quality. outside of syntax, i think i'm quite good at describing physical & emotional experiences extremely vividly

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

well well well, if it isn't my old nemesis, actually having a plot....... we meet again

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i don't have enough fluency in my non-native languages to pull this off & i find it challenging as a reader, but i think just about any choice or device can work if it's serving a narrative purpose & doing so effectively

18. First fandom you wrote for?

the year: 2008

the platform: fanfiction.net

the fandom: rent

listen we all start somewhere & i had a BLAST writing those silly little musical theatre fics, even if both they & the source material don't hold up 15 years later

19. Favorite fic you’ve written?

i worked so hard on it that i just have to go with divine magnets

am i missing a question???????? is this really only 19????? i'm so confused!!!!!!!! anyway tagging @ladycrescentvenus @clood @carochinha @chubsthehamster and @anyone else who wants to do this just say i tagged you!!!!

[courfee]

people’s takes on fic stuff fucking baffles me. i see people going on and on about word counts and complaining when updates “take too long” or refusing to read wips entirely bc they’re too impatient and i just… i cannot understand this shit.

i know that the majority of these people have had to write something for a class in school at some point. it took you weeks to write a five paragraph essay for a grade. most of the time, that’s less than 1k words.

there’s nanowrimo, where the usual goal is to write 50k words in one month. which is understood by participants as an incredibly challenging goal. it’s hard. most people who start don’t complete it in time. it takes a lot of dedicated time. it’s exhausting. and there are so many fics out there that are significantly longer than this - and you can read them for fucking free!!!

it breaks my brain how people don’t seem to understand how much effort and time it actually takes to write something.

it’s even wilder to me that people will just skip over fics entirely based off of how many hits or kudos they have. why even bother searching by ship or tags or what have you if you’re just going to discount 90%+ of your search based off of how many people read it before you. the more common place that becomes, the less amazing fics will end up getting read in the first place. it takes hits to make hits.

all of this is just so wild to me i cannot wrap my brain around it. and i hate going into fic writing for this fandom knowing damn well that i’m in a fandom where people who might genuinely enjoy something i spent hours of my time on will never even consider glancing at it because i’m not “popular” enough. i don’t publish fics for clout and approval, but there’s a reason why i share them in the first place. i’ve written plenty of fics just for myself, or for a few friends to read. but if i take the time to publish and post something, it’s because i want to share it! i put it out there hoping that other people might enjoy it like i do. because sharing that feels good. and it sucks to think that there are people who might have shared in that enjoyment with me, who will never see it because we’ve started putting this weird standard on shit.

i don’t know about other writers, but that’s exactly what i’m talking about when i say that fandom dynamics as of late are sucking the joy out of creating. i write because it brings me joy. i publish/post/share because seeing something i wrote bring someone else joy, brings me even more joy. and watching this whole shitstorm of people being shit to fic writers or completely discounting most fics for one reason or other, just cuts that down so much for me.

idk i have a lot of thoughts and feeling about this but at the end of the day it frustrating and, at times, a bit heartbreaking.

honestly you said it all. all of this.

one thing i wanna add is in regards to nanowrimo: 50k words in a month (1667 words a day btw) is incredibly hard and a lot of people don't manage it, but a common factor i've witnessed between those that have done it is that they went into it having fully planned out their stories. because writing isn't only putting down words on paper, you have to figure out what to write, if you want a great plot you usually have to plan for that, and even once you've written it all you still have to go over everything and edit it. there is even more time and effort that goes into writing that people don't see and just take for granted. it's absolutely a labor of love, and the labor part is strongly emphasised here, and still we offer it for free only for people to be bitchy about it

i just hope you keep the joy of it all, because the entire point of fandom should be that it's done for fun and with the purpose of bringing you fun...

sending you all the love there, at least we are enough people in this fandom who write and draw and cosplay and make edits and all the other things there are for creation that we can support each other through it all

[hopeymchope]

Acknowledging my unexpected success/pondering my blogging future

Sometimes, instead of just posting about Danganronpa or anime in general, I veer off the unexpected path and post something totally unrelated. When I do this? It's mostly for myself; I never really expect to receive much of an audience.

Which is why the overwhelming success of my loooong post about the death of the Veronica Mars fandom has got me completely shocked. It might not be my most popular post ever yet, but it's escalating in exposure so quickly that I can easily picturing it getting there.

I'm grateful to so many fellow Tumblrinas (are we even still calling ourselves that) for their incredibly kind and enthusiastic responses to it. I've read EVERY SINGLE tag you've added, I've seen EVERY SINGLE reblog note, EVERY goddamn reply. And I'm just... gobsmacked. It's amazing to go to be a writer and finally, FINALLY feel like you wrote something a ton of people both READ and LIKED READING. Like, holy shit. Thank you so much. My day job should be so lucky! My fucking fanfics should be so lucky! lol

This, but with total sincerity.

I also feel a tad guilty, because that deep dive into the Murder of the Veronica Mars Fandom is so NON-INDICATIVE of my usual content on this blog. Which is why, in the wake of this massive response, I'm wondering if I should make a whole series of posts about fandom histories on here (tagging them as such), or maybe create a new side blog for those projects instead? Maybe make the side blog, then reblog such posts here as well? Or something?

...not sure whether any of that is a good idea right now. Posts of this type obviously take time, and they wouldn't be common in any arena, but investigating the history of fandoms I'm not even a part of is a casual hobby that I can get really passionate about at random intervals. So it'd be fun to go down this road again, and see if other people enjoy another such trip.

And maybe you/they wouldn't care! Maybe I just tapped into a hotbed of Burnt Marshmallows lurking on Tumblr. Maybe it doesn't matter what else I write such an essay about, because I need that established base to make people interested. But... I can't be sure until I try.

[papas-milferia]

tbh some of the people in the fandom are so damn weird like- Ugh so I'm not the most proud of it, obviously, as I don't post about it but I do like to sometimes look at the not safe for work side of the fandom. But I slowly feel myself stopping cuz it just doesn't worth it- like especially some of the really weird guys there, especially those that don't even tag stuff right really fucking annoys me. Also just the way how some of them absolutely disregard certain characters being minors and doing other problematic stuff. Though I do appreciate this fandom didn't like, pick these people up, and made a huge call out post and blew it out of proportion- just like, warning each other, talking about it like hey I saw this person legit comment on nsfw art of a child that's kinda gross, you should block them or like- the way how the forum handled that one guy for his stuff as well- I do enjoy this. Though it also makes it harder for newer folk because they may be approached by these guys and them not knowing- can lead to a lot. Tbh I especially have big opinions on Bea but not about to go on a spiel about that rn cuz there's so much and I already wrote a whole damn essay for you, sorry about that

YEAH NO I AGREE!!! The nsfw side of this fandom...morbidly fascinates me. And honestly if both characters are adults go nuts but some people on that side just. Don't have a filter. You can make your porn but DON'T TALK ABOUT IT IN SPACES THAT AREN'T EXPLICITLY SEXUAL? LIKE SOMEONE'S DMS WHEN THEY DIDN'T CONSENT TO THAT?

I'm glad the fandom doesn't start drama much (that might be what I'm doing here rn but. I don't particularly care tbh LOL) and just quietly spreads the news about these people. I do agree though that it SUCKS to see people unknowingly interacting with people like Bea. Block Bea everyone because I said so. This is a fascist dictatorship now