#but when i noticed it made me go down the rabbit hole of this inactive blog and all the fics i first read 5-10 years ago

[shotorozu]

BABE , i saw a hc ( i think it was urs) where the boys’s s/o was really fashionable, ( as somebody that’s gone viral on pinterest a little too many times ) I WAS WONDERING , what if you did a todobakudeku ( separately please omg) with somebody that’s like the emma chamberlain of fashion and they own everybody’s pinterest boards and stuff AHAHA IDK , the amount of times somebody has said ‘ wait ur that one pinterest girl right?? ‘ ANYWHAHEEIE I LOVE YOU N HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!! 💗💗

pinterest famous s/o

character(s) : midoriya izuku, bakugou katsuki, todoroki shouto (bnha)

legend : [Y/N = your name] afab! reader, they/them pronouns (at the request of anon) strong quirk hinted; not specific

headcanon type : fluff, crack-ish (x reader)

note(s) : thank you anon!! so ok, i still used they/them pronouns even though the reader is afab (again at the request of anon) and whdjwkd sorry for the inactivity :,) also im gonna post more later so— sorry for the delay

»»————-　♡　————-««

midoriya izuku

when middle school midoriya finally got a phone, he downloaded pinterest for the sole purpose of looking at screencaps of heroes

but then, he hasn’t touched it a few months, because he’s been training with all might

then, when he finally had enough free time again— he decided to go on pinterest

but instead of finding any heroes he could look at, he found the prettiest human being he has ever seen in his entire life 💀

that person was a different type of beauty, y’know— they weren’t just fashionable, but their beauty was,,

timeless? that’s how he’d describe it. yeah. that person lived in his head rent free for a while

sadly, he feels like you’re that person he sees once in his life, and never again 😔　which isn’t the case

when he finally meets you, midoriya realizes that you look VERY familiar— someone on pinterest, that he unfortunately, didn’t know the name of

but then wait! he realizes that you’re that person. that one person that blew up on pinterest, and ended up in all of the fashion boards.

okay, you’ve been recognized a few times in the past, just because you were pinterest famous— but you didn’t expect him to recognize you

“wait,, you know me?” you asked him when you saw the realization sink in

and you were honestly,, flattered when he went on a tangent on how you were on all of the pinterest boards, and how your sense of fashion was timeless

but you know what’s the best thing of it all? when izuku developed a crush on you (and not because he thought you were just an attractive face)

it was very easy to find pictures of you online! he says it’s for research but,, he tends to look at them for a long time

probably has 3-4 pages dedicated to your hero costume— since fashion icon = fashionable, yet a very practical hero costume!

does he get jealous whenever people fawn over your looks, or whenever he sees comments in pinterest comment sections just asking for your socials in such desperation?

hmm,, yes? he does occasionally feel like someone like you, should be with someone as equally beautiful as you

he thought he was always plain looking, but you wholeheartedly disagree! in fact, you fell in love with his ability to pay attention to detail.

to the random creeps in the comments section, he just contacts the uploader and asks them to delete any malicious comments and it works 100% of them time.

on the brighter side, he helps a lot with taking your pictures (if you ask him to) and sometimes! he’ll even appear in them

izuku will always be your #1 fan!

bakugou katsuki

at first, you’d be like “katsuki owning pinterest? naaah.” but! i think he would

being an all might fan, he liked looking at all might screen caps— and while katsuki would be on the discreet side, he’d find himself looking at them whenever he has extra minutes to burn

not to mention, the cooking recipes on there aren’t the worst, so he doesn’t just use pinterest to look at screen caps of heroes doing their work

and, how could he forget that you’ve been bugging him to search for rare screen caps? he says that it’s useless— but he finds himself digging for you anyway,

which is whyyy

he finds an entirely different rabbit hole, and it’s way past 10pm, 3 more minutes wouldn’t wound him.

the blond doesn’t know how he even stumbled on.. this side of pinterest. the one that kind of hurts his eyes.

the more well known side of pinterest, that is covered in pictures of fashion boards, and the standard pretty person.

the ‘aesthetic’ side, kaminari calls it— it makes bakugou cringe, and he was just about to refresh his page

when he spots something familiar, it’s you‼️ well it wasn’t just you but, you were dressed in something,, nice.

like sure! you’re attractive. but that’s not why he’s dating you, there’s a lot of reasons as to why

but, he’s baffled. seeing you in a different light, and in such nice clothing, what more, when he sees that you’re actually everywhere. he hasn’t seen this much of you and your attractive ass before

katsuki told himself that he was going to sleep a few minutes ago, but now? he’s left admiring all of your pictures.

how did he not know that his s/o’s pinterest famous? you’re practically in every single board!

he confronts you the next day in an oddly weird manner, “you didn’t tell me you were famous on that stupid pinterest app.”

you’re sheepish, “welll, i didn’t know that you were going to stumble on that side of pinterest!”

he doesn’t say anything, and really! it looks like he doesn’t care about the newest discovery of his s/o

but he shows his feelings in his own way.

like, how katsuki insists that he finds a new outfit that you’d absolutely love— one that’ll fit with your aesthetic

and that he insists that he does your graphic liner, because you’re going to ‘poke your eyes out’

makes an entirely different account to reply to those simps and creeps in the comment section, sort of like

random pinterest user : “the things i’ll do to be crushed by them 💦”

pinterestuser461903 : “go touch some fucking grass.”

also would’ve commented “your art sucks” at the poorly done drawings of you in the comments, but knows you appreciated the art— so he doesn’t

(still thinks the fanart doesn’t do you enough justice)

he’ll be super proud when someone notices you in person like “yeah that’s fucking right, but too bad they’re super attractive and way out of your league.”

in short, it looks like katsuki doesn’t care at all about your pinterest famous life, but he’s your #1 supporter

todoroki shouto

i am certain for this one— he doesn’t have pinterest

well, he didn’t have pinterest, until midoriya convinced him to create an account, but it kinda just ended at that

but the person that actually made him use pinterest was sero, because he kept bugging him to give it a try

todoroki finds the app very practical— he can find screen caps of heroes in action, and he can also find oddly helpful tips in cooking (and in anything)

but sero was like “todoroki, what about the aesthetic value??” and todoroki didn’t really get that part to be honest 💀

todoroki, being clueless didn’t know what to search for— so sero being the wonderful friend he is, helped him search for it

and that’s when it happened. it didn’t take that long, but they eventually found an entire section just full of pictures of you; their classmate and crush

“is that Y/N?” mina notices what they’re looking at, and she observes the picture “oh wow— it is her! no wonder why she looked familiar.”

“it’s impressive! our classmate is pinterest famous!” they continue to look at every single post in each board, and todoroki’s left to observe in silence

he has definitely taken a liking to you, even if he didn’t realize it at first— he liked you because of your hard work when it came to training, personality and patience, not because of your looks

obviously, todoroki thinks that you look good in anything, trashbag style or not. but seeing you in this light was interesting.

so after training, todoroki would spent a good portion of his time scavenging for more pictures— not because he was obsessed or anything

but because,, he really liked your pictures. maybe it was because without you in those pictures, it would feel incomplete

he didn’t know how to approach you after this discovery, which is why he’s glad that you approached him first

“todoroki! what are you looking at?” you took a peak at his screen, and you’re baffled to see yourself, and that very famous picture of you

he’s quiet for a second when he realizes that you’ve caught him staring at your pictures, but he explains calmly, “sero accidentally discovered your pictures,, and i just wanted to take a peak at them, if it was okay,,”

and he’s relieved— well, you’re also relieved. you didn’t know how your crush would react if he ever saw those pictures, but your heart skipped a beat knowing that he enjoyed looking at them

“it’s alright todoroki,” you smile, honestly over the moon as you spoke “i’m really glad that you like them.”

sometimes you’d get shy whenever he’d go on pinterest just to look at your pictures, “todoroki, not that one! that one was really old,,” is what you’d say whenever he’d look at your older photos but he’d still look at them anyway 💀

at first, todoroki helped you in his own subtle way. since he’s quite the fashion icon— he’d recommend you clothes to wear for future pictures

he eventually confessed— and it was because you were talking to him while he was really tired, and he blurted out that he really, really liked you and you almost passed away because of his words

so yeah— it was a case of secretly admiring their beautiful best friend to lovers scenario

he’d go the full mile when it came to taking your pictures. he’d check the weather forecast just in case if it was going to rain for that date, and impromptu picnic photoshoot

that boyfriend that has pictures of you in his photo gallery, and has a backstory for each photo if anyone were to ask

also that boyfriend that knows how to take pictures, will probably even lay down to take them, even if you didn’t kindly ask him to

when you asked him to join the picture, he didn’t really know how to— but he made it work! and the both of you guys went viral

but this isn’t all one sided, no— whenever you guys would cuddle, shouto would simply stare at you with HEARTS in his eyes,

and even before he leans in for a kiss, he’ll stare at you with so much love in his eyes, while he traces his thumb across your cheekbones. man’s in love— you’re gorgeous.

he knows that you know that he’s not with you because of any ulterior motive, you both have mutual trust in each other— so it’s not something you guys will bother on questioning because you’re both hot asf lets be real

he’s not uncomfortable whenever people gawk at you in public— i mean, you two get stares on the regular. and how could they not stare at you? you’re very attractive, and he’s glad that people recognize that

but he’ll get protective if they’ll try to be a threat to your loving relationship with him, he won’t be afraid to be blunt

regarding the comments on each pinterest post— he hates it when people say things out of the line

always tries to hide them from you so you don’t feel bothered by them, but if you knew about them— he’ll be sad :,(

but he’ll end up mass reporting those nasty comments— and they always get taken down, because of the shouto todoroki luck

in short? man’s whipped, and the both of you guys are SO attractive together— what more if people knew about the om chemistry?

really— you being pinterest famous was just a nice plus, he fell in love with you for you

likes and reblogs are appreciated, thanks for reading!

i do not own bnha/mha and it’s characters. boku no hero academia/my hero academia belongs to horikoshi kohei, i only own the writing and i do not profit off of my hobby

do not plagiarize, reupload, translate, or use my works for audio readings without permission

[hypnoticwinter]

Down the Rabbit Hole part 3

When I wake up it's blazingly bright outside and I feel like death. It takes me a couple of moments to realize that my phone is ringing and without looking I reach for it, feel on the side for the power button, flip it around so it's right side up and then swipe to answer it. "Hello?" I croak and I almost laugh at myself, at how awful I sound. Whoever's on the line is going to think I'm super hungover. That'd be my assumption at least, I –

"Miss Dzilenski, where are you?"

Shit.

"Hi, Jim," I tell my editor. I hear him sigh.

"It's two in the afternoon, Roan," he starts. That gets me to perk my ears up.

"Is it? Fuck."

"Roan –"

"God," I groan, rolling over. I bump my foot on the edge of the bedframe. "Ow."

"Where are you?"

I think about lying for a moment then decide against it. "I'm in Gumption," I say, and at least it makes him shut up for a second.

"What the hell are you doing in Gumption? Did I tell you to go to Gumption?"

I hold the phone a little away from my ear. "Alright, Jim," I tell him. "You can drop the J. Jonah Jameson act, I get it."

"Did you at least send in that piece on the water plant downtown? I have that slated for –"

"I haven't even worked on it."

I can hear his blood pressure rising from over the phone. He's going to start making a little whistling sound soon. Steam will be coming out of his ears. "Alright. I've given you too many second chances as it is," he tells me. "If you aren't going to take this job seriously and at least show up on time and pretend to work on what you're supposed to, you can go work somewhere else."

"Okay."

"And don't even think about giving my name as a reference – wait, what?"

"I said okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay as in I quit, Jim," I tell him. I can feel myself getting mad but I stuff it back down.

“You quit! You quit? After all the things I’ve done for you, you just turn around and - !”

I hear Jim splutter for a moment, and then he takes a deep breath. When he speaks again he sounds much more in control of himself. "Roan," he says. I can hear him turning around in his office chair, hunching down so he can feel conspiratorial. There's a lump building in my throat but I ignore it. "What's going on? Are you okay? Are you –"

“I’m fine,” I say.

“Don’t bullshit me,” he says. “I know there’s something going on, you were acting strange on Friday, don’t try to deny it. Tell me what’s going on.”

“Jim, there’s nothing going on.”

“Roan, I’m trying to help you.”

With a deliberate effort I unclench my jaw. Fuck it, I think to myself. "I have HIV, Jim."

His reaction is amusing. Shock first, then sympathy, then rationalizing. "Oh fuck, Roan," he says, "I'm so sorry. Are you doing okay? Do you need any – wait a minute."

"What?"

"Roan, you haven't, I don't know, given up, have you? HIV isn't a death sentence any more, it's not the 80s, there are drugs –"

I can't help it, I laugh. I imagine I must sound pretty insane over the phone to him but it just bursts out of me and then comes pouring out until I'm done. He tries to talk, to get me to stop, but I can't, I can't stop myself.

"Roan," he says finally, when I'm done and I'm taking little gasping breaths that turn into sobs and I feel the tears roiling in my eyes and I ball my fist and hit myself hard in the thigh, cause I'd promised, I'd promised myself I wouldn't cry over this, goddam it – "Roan," he says, "what is it? You don't have AIDS, you're okay. You have insurance, we can figure something out."

"You don't – you don't understand," I tell him. "You remember that time six months ago when I had to go to the hospital?"

"Yeah," he says, confused, "but you were okay, you got a clean bill of health."

"It was a viral infection," I tell him. "And they gave me an antiviral drug to try and treat it, the same one you use to control HIV. Or no, not an antiviral, an antiretroviral, whatever the hell the difference is. Makes the virus inactive but doesn't kill it, because that was too dangerous or something. Fuck, I wish I'd paid more attention when the doctor was explaining it to me."

"And?" he asks. He's getting impatient. Why shouldn't he be? I've held up his day – hell, his life, enough with my bullshit.

"And I went into anaphylactic shock," I tell him. "I'm allergic to it. They had to give me epinephrine and adrenaline and all that shit. It was a near thing. I never told anybody cause I didn't want you guys to worry. But then I started worrying, so I went to the doctor and got myself tested, you know, just in case..."

I can hear him processing that for a moment. "Oh, shit," he says finally.

"Yeah," I say. I wipe my eyes. "So you're wrong," I tell him, "it's a death sentence for me."

"There has to be something –"

"There's not. I got the results back on Thursday. Positive."

"I knew something was wrong, you were acting so differently on Friday. Who'd you get it from? Did you tell –"

"You know who I got it from. And yeah, I called already. Don't worry about it."

"Wait, what are you doing in Gumption, anyway? That's..." I hear him clicking around. "Almost five hundred miles away. What, did you take a plane?"

"Yeah, caught one on Friday."

"Why?"

"I'm investigating. I've got a story."

"Roan," he starts. Something in his tone presses on a weak spot somewhere deep inside of me that has been bending and bending and snaps it.

"Fuck," I growl. He starts to say something then stops. I throw the phone onto the bed. "Fuck!" I scream. It sounds tinny and pathetic, even to my own ears. I want to break something, I want to punch someone. I look at the mirror on the wall and think about it and then scream again, a pathetic, wordless cry of rage. Then I see myself and I stop. I meet my reflection's gaze and then look away. Jim is saying something, his voice a tiny, scratchy creak from where I threw my phone, but I don't care. The anger is slipping out of me.

I look down at my hands and they're shaking. I let my lip curl, then I go back to the bed and pick up the phone again. "Hi," I say after a moment, not thinking of anything better.

"Needed that?" he asks.

"Yeah," I breathe.

"You should come back. We'll figure this out. There's plenty we'll be able to work out."

"No," I tell him. I don't actually think about it at all, I just say it. Zero conscious effort.

"No?" he asks, sounding genuinely confused. "Roan, why the hell not?"

"I'm working on a story," I tell him again.

"What the hell kind of story? If you're in Gumption it's got to be about Mystery Flesh Pit, right?"

"You've heard of it?"

"Of course I've heard of it. Me and my ex-wife went there on our honeymoon. Nice place but a little creepy. Ancient history now, though."

"Oh," I say, feeling a little disappointed. "I'd only just heard of it."

"Roan," he says again, in that gentle little voice that I hate so much, "just come back. Do you need money for a plane ticket? I can –"

"Fuck," I mutter again.

"What is it?"

"Forget it, Jim. Forget I called, forget I said anything, forget I fucking worked at the paper," I tell him. I start to say something, then I stop, shake my head. "I get up every day and I don't do anything meaningful, I'm twenty-six years old and everybody has always told me how much potential I have, how lucky I am that I graduated from a good school and got a job doing something I love and now, now that I know I'm going to die –"

"You were always going to die," he points out.

"Shut the fuck up!" I hiss. "Now that I know I'm going to die, it means nothing, it doesn't matter, I'm nobody, I've done nothing, nothing I do from now on will ever be enough to mean anything."

"That isn't true."

"Yeah, it is. What have I done that's made a lasting impression on – on anything?"

Jim is silent for a moment. I hear him take a breath and blow it out. "When I got divorced," he says finally, "you were the only person at the paper who noticed anything was wrong, and when you followed me when I got off of work that day, you saved my life."

I laugh, then let it trail off when he doesn't join in. "You're serious, aren't you?" I ask.

"Yeah," he grunts. "I was going back home and I was probably going to drink a lot more than I should have, and, you know, getting drunk won't make you happier, it won't change how you feel, it just amplifies it. And I felt like shit. And if I went home by myself I would have just kept drinking and then I really think I would have shot myself. But you made me go to a bar with you and you cut me off after a while and when I got home things didn't seem quite so bad."

I start to say something, then stop myself.

"Anyway," he says, a hint of his usual gruffness creeping back into his voice, "you've made an impact in my life, at least."

"That's why you've given me all those second chances, isn't it?" I ask him. He laughs.

"Yeah," he says. "And because, you know...you aren't actually that much of a burden."

I snort. "Yeah," I say, "right."

"I'm serious."

"Jim, I'm gonna go."

"Come back. We'll sort this."

"Let me do what I have to."

"What do you have to do?" he barks. "Do you even know? Are you just saying that to get me off your back?"

I actually do laugh at that one. "Yeah," I tell him. "Yeah, I am."

"Alright, well...I want to at least see you before you die, if that's what you're so fucking convinced is your fate now."

"You're not treating the invalid very kindly."

"Shut up. I'm giving you a week off with pay, do with it what you will. Tracy and Mike will pick up your column, so don't worry about it."

"You already asked them?"

"I'm the boss, I don't have to ask them. Get your head screwed on straight. Call me as soon as you're back in town."

"Okay, dad."

"Shut up. Take care of yourself."

I'm smiling, even though I don't want to be. "Yeah, alright. You too, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. Don't worry about me. Call if you need anything."

"Thanks." I wait for a moment, then shrug to myself. "I'm sorry I probably fucked up your deadlines for today."

"Don't even worry about it," he tells me. I can practically see him waving his hand magnanimously. "It's not like anybody reads the paper any more anyway."

"See you."

"Take care."

Click and a dial tone. I get up from the bed and stretch, then get naked. I turn the shower on cold and light a cigarette, watch the smoke spiral up into the fan vent on the ceiling. When it gets wet I light another, and then another.

 * * *

 "You know," Peter says, glancing up at me, "I really didn't think you were actually going to bring dinner."

"What, you thought I'd forget?" I ask him, leaning forward and snatching a fry from the pile next to his elbow. He glares at me and shields them with his hands.

"I said you could have one fry."

"I bought the food, I get as many fries as I want."

"You bought it for me."

"Yeah, you're just borrowing it."

"This is loaned food? When do you want it back?"

He starts making retching noises at me and I cover my ears, make a face at him. "Stop it or I really will throw up," I tell him, "and then you'll have to clean it."

The 7-11 is as empty as Peter had promised, so empty that he's the only employee in the store. I can't stop looking at him and shaking my head in bewilderment and after a while he makes a face at me and asks what my problem is.

"I just still can't quite believe it," I explain, sneaking another fry.

"You could have gotten your own fries."

"When it's during the daytime," I say, ignoring him, taking another drink from my ridiculously large cup of Sprite, "none of this seems like it's real. Like, I look at you and I don't see the same guy I was talking to last night at three in the morning. It all seemed so serious, so life-and-death then, but now it's like, I don't know. Life goes on."

"Everything that's there in the dark is still there in the light."

"Yeah."

“I really am sorry for - you know…”

I give him a wary look. “Well, just don’t do it again and we’ll be fine.”

Peter nods. He seems a little embarrassed about it. He takes another bite of his hamburger and I shake my head at myself. This man had a gun on me last night and I just walked in here with food for him? What the hell are you doing, Roan?

"Thank you for dinner, by the way," he says, and I glance up at him.

"I figured you might want a break from 7-11 food."

"First rule of working at a place that serves food," he tells me, grinning a little. "Don't eat the food."

I laugh at that one. "Alright, fair point."

"I get what you mean," he says after a moment, "about it not feeling real."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. It's been a long time since I've, you know, actually been down there. Sometimes I forget what it's – what it's really like."

I reach down into my bag and take out the voice recorder, place it on the counter. He stares at it. "I won't record if you don't want me to," I say gently. His eyes flick up to mine.

"You realize," he says after a moment, "that whatever I tell you, if you ever publish it, if you ever put it out there – they'll get you for it."

"I'm willing to take that risk."

"I mean it. When you were doing your research, did you see any accounts by survivors? By rangers and park staff? Of the disaster, I mean."

"A couple," I say. "But they were..."

"Yes?"

"Unsatisfying," I finish, shrugging. He laughs.

"Unsatisfying. That's a word for it."

"Are you suggesting they were paid off? Or threatened?" I ask, clicking the voice recorder on. He looks at the tiny blinking red light, then back at me.

"Paid off, scared into silence, threatened, I don't know. Maybe a combination of the three."

"How do you know?"

"They did it with everybody. They did it with me; every ranger I know of got offered a very nice pension if they signed an NDA that had some...unusual stipulations in it."

"Like what?"

"It was just...very specific. Very far-reaching. And as far as I'm aware most NDAs out there don't make any vague threats to your friends or family."

"Are you serious?"

"Lady," he says, spreading his arms, giving me a disbelieving little smile, "after everything you've seen, you think I'm making any of this up?"

"I'm just trying to – I'm sorry, I don't want to imply that I don't believe you, it's just that, you know..."

"It's a little extreme. Yeah, I know."

"Did you sign it?"

"Didn't really give me a choice."

"I'm pretty sure that's illegal."

"Well, I mean, they gave me a choice – either sign it and get some hush money and live a nice, peaceful, quiet life, or don't sign it and live with the paranoia. There are a couple of online forum type sites for ex-rangers and park staff that I used to frequent and one of the guys there, someone I knew, actually, he didn't sign it."

"And?"

"You ever heard of gangstalking?"

"I haven't."

He reaches up, massages his chin through his beard. A nervous tic or something. Outside on the road a car trundles past and we both watch it go by. "The thing about it was, it would have been hard to prove that it was something organized. He started posting in kind of a diary format, every day at around seven or eight in the evening. He lived in, uh, I think Missouri, one of those states up north, so it was a way different climate but the same time zone. He said that he'd see people watching him, different people every time, although after a while he thought it might have been the same group of eight or so people wearing different outfits, wigs, things like that. He'd notice them staring at him if he turned around quickly, or he'd see a strange car he'd never seen before parked opposite his house."

"How credible was he?"

"When I worked with him I'd have trusted anything he told me."

"And afterwards?"

"How do you mean?"

"You said 'when you worked with him.' Does that mean you wouldn't have trusted him once you weren't working together any more?"

"I think that something must have been going on. I don't know for sure. He got erratic very quickly once he started posting about it, he wasn't getting enough sleep, he'd see ghosts everywhere."

"Sounds like he was paranoid."

"Paranoia's only paranoia if it's unfounded."

"How does that story end?"

"Two weeks after, he got hit by a car. Died on the way to the hospital."

“Hit and run?” I ask. Peter nods.

“They never found the guy who did it.”

"Could have been a coincidence."

"The idea is that that’s what you're supposed to think that."

I blow a breath out. His eyes flash.

"I told you you'd regret staying," he tells me, and I roll my eyes at him.

"In for a penny, in for a pound," I assure him. "And even if I can't use this in a story," I say, tapping the recorder, "who knows what things will be like in ten years? In twenty?"

"You're going to sit on it for that long?"

"Well, I –" I start, and then stop. He looks at me strangely. Of course I was going to say something like 'well, I’ll be dead but whoever I give my data to might' but I don't want to open up another can of worms. "I don't know," I finish, lamely, and we both know I'm not giving him the full truth, but he doesn't press me.

Peter looks like he's in his early to mid thirties but I haven't asked him his age. We've kept things pleasantly anonymous so far, which we both seemed to agree was the best way to do things. I don't know his family name; he doesn't know my name at all.

I can tell from the way he looks at me that he still thinks I don't know what I'm getting myself into. Sure, he might have a point, but I think I've at least demonstrated my resolve by now.

"Look, whatever," he says, taking another bite of the hamburger I got him. He wipes his upper lip with his thumb, still holding the burger. "I just want to make sure you know what you're getting into."

"I know."

"So what do you want to know?" he asks me. "Where do you want to start?"

"Start at the beginning," I suggest. So he does.

 * * *

 Peter got hired at the Mystery Flesh Pit in the middle of 1999, right after several other rangers had quit and they were offering incentives for transfers from other parks. Previously he'd been working with the Outward Bound group in the Boundary Waters in Minnesota, where he'd gone to school, and although the hiring call was mainly interested in other, experienced rangers, Peter caught their attention because he'd been present as an assistant guide when a previous Outward Bound group went through the Mystery Flesh Pit, with special permission from the park administration, a rather historic first for both organizations. Prior to this, the largest expedition groups that had gone through the Mystery Flesh Pit together were some of the initial mining teams that explored it back in the 70s.

The Outward Bound excursion had gone relatively uneventfully, with the exception of one cell of the 20-strong group picking a bad place to camp one night and nearly drowning inside their tents when a flood of gastric juices submerged them and began leaking in through a patch in the side of the tent that later proved to have been made using thread that wasn't acid-resistant. Although the three boys and the one counselor inside the tent weren't killed, they suffered acid burns on close to seventy percent of their bodies that required emergency evacuation to the medical center in the Lower Visitor Center, which, Peter explained, was a relatively rare occurrence. From there, the four injured members of the group were taken to the local hospital and treated, while the rest of the group continued on their excursion without any further issues. Peter had been one of the first members of the group to respond to the calls for help from the trapped cell, and had cut the tent open and assisted the guide ranger present in lifting the four people inside to safety, and it was this connection, and more specifically, this immediate willingness to put himself in harm's way to save others, that Peter claimed was the deciding factor in his application.

Although he started out with fairly mundane work at the Flesh Pit, leading tour groups and manning desks in the Visitor Center, specifically, his skill with bushcraft – or whatever the hell the word ought to be for the Pit - lead to a rapid series of promotions until he was one of a tight-knit crew of patrol rangers who would venture far beyond the relative safety of the lighted and fenced walking trails to respond to calls of distress, reports of animal or fungal activity, and in a few rare cases, fugitives reported to be hiding somewhere within the pit. Like most National Parks, Peter explained, Mystery Flesh Pit was big, and the sheer scale of it wasn't obvious until you'd been down inside of it, due to the majority of it being covered by the earth, and the top-side area of the park being relatively small compared to the underground bulk of it. Just like other National Parks, it was a vast area of relatively undisturbed and unobserved wilderness, which meant that, for criminals with strong stomachs, it was a good place to hide out. Although, he admitted, they retrieved far more of these criminals dead than alive. Some of them, he mentioned, they were never able to retrieve at all.

"What are the main hazards, down there in the Pit?" I asked him, and he shook his head and blew his breath out, then started to count on his fingers. One, dehydration, since the air in there is thick and humid and will leach the moisture out of you if you aren't wearing a closed-circuit suit. Two, digestion, since it's incredibly easy to slip and fall into one of the numerous sacs, gullets, craws, or other redundant and often inexplicable digestive organs dotted throughout the Pit, and although a ranger suit is acid-resistant it isn't acid-proof. If you're quick enough you might be able to piton your way out before you and everything on you becomes far too slippery for use, and then if that happens you'd better radio for help and pray someone gets to you fast. Double this risk if you're exploring somewhere there aren't maps, or where the maps are outdated. Most of the organs, he said, close to the Visitor Center, for perhaps a five-mile radius, are marked and blocked off, but those coverings can be damaged, or new ones can grow, given enough time. And if you go beyond that...

"There be monsters," I suggested.

He laughed. "That's number three," he told me. For the Pit is home to a vast menagerie of extremely strange creatures, invertebrate and vertebrate alike, which can be found in no other place. He tells me about things like the abyssal copepod, a gigantic crustacean roughly the size of an elephant, which can be found slithering and scraping in the deepest recesses of the Pit, some ancient off-shoot of the ordinary ocean-going copepod line, which normally is so small that it can't be seen with the naked eye. He lists off a dozen creatures with strange, suggestive names that call fantastic images and assumptions to my mind, things like a venous shamble, a ballast siren, a cloistropod, an amorphous shame. Some of these, like the copepods and the macrobacteria, I'd read of on Wikipedia, when I'd done my initial research on the Pit, but others are alien to me.

Most of these things, he tells me, although relatively large – Pit gigantism was a well-studied and observed phenomenon – were shy, retiring creatures, opportunistic feeders and scavengers, preying on terrene wildlife unfortunate enough to stumble into the Pit. Although, he corrects himself, some are helped to stumble. I frown at that and ask him what he means, and he tells me that some of the larger creatures migrate through the Pit in cycles related to breeding or to the phase of the moon, although how they can possibly tell what phase the moon is in from down in the Pit's guts, he can't say. And some of the larger, more aggressive ones, the copepods and the shambles and something that he refers to only as a 'leechman' (and waves away my question as to what the hell a leechman might be), they do sometimes venture up to the surface and pull things in.

I sat there and processed that for a while and then asked the obvious question: "But why the hell did you let them? There's only the one entrance to the Pit and there must be so many eyes on it..." I started, and then trailed off, for the obvious answer occurred to me, and he saw the look on my face and nodded.

"What I'm about to tell you," he said to me, "you cannot tell anyone. It’s not something They want people to know."

"But what's so odd about it having –"

"Of course it isn't odd that there's more than one orifice. That's a given. Who knows how many more are buried beneath miles of rock? Who knows the shape of the thing down there?" he said, pointing down at the floor. Without even really thinking about it I flexed my feet through my high-tops; the ground felt solid, unyielding. "What They don't want anybody knowing," he said, leaning in a little to me, "is where those orifices are. How far they are from the fence around the Pit."

I felt an indescribable knot of dread clench inside my stomach. I was confronting something I had already known, something I had suspected but had been unwilling to put a conscious voice to, even inside my own head.

"Miles," he whispered. "Dozens of miles. Almost eighty, the furthest one we know about."

"Eighty miles," I murmured, thinking of it. "It must be huge, enormous; it must –"

"There are containment buildings around each one, disguised as warehouses, construction sites, power plants, things like that. In the 70s they tried to seal them up but..."

"But what?"

"Let's just say it – the Pit – didn't like that."

I frowned. "But I never read anything about –"

"This was back in the 70s. They kept a tighter grip on things. When they integrated with the National Park Service, there was a lot less of that. You can't keep as much information hidden in a huge bureaucracy like that – unless it's something really serious, of course. Like, say, what happened on July 4th. This event in the 70s, it was way less tough. Nobody died, nobody got hurt, but people, especially people in leadership positions, they got scared. Took steps to make sure it wouldn't happen again."

I guess we know how that turned out.

He told me the whole story, his story, not that of the park, not really. They touch and intersect and intermingle but I got much more of a sense of his relationship with it, with the park, with the people he worked with, with the gigantic animal that made up its walls and caverns, than just a history lesson with dry facts repeated on end until I was bored to tears. He told me of the terrible things he'd seen and on some occasions of the terrible things he'd done; of the time when he found a man with his leg gnawed off by a venous shamble, a slithering, snakelike, hissing thing that only attacks when cornered and otherwise lurks in the shadows of arterioles and veins, darting out to snatch a wayward macrobacterium or lesser copepod from time to time. He told me of the terrible fear and sickness he'd felt, watching the poor man, an unhealthy-looking fellow in his fifties in a gaudy rented tourists' suit, moaning weakly while the shamble had probed the ripped mess of his thigh with its feeding tubules, drawing forth gobbets of still-living flesh with a horrible sucking sound that Peter confessed haunted him late at night sometimes. He'd drawn his service pistol and put five bullets into the shamble before it had retreated and had had to force himself not to put a sixth into the man.

He told me of a time where he and a colleague had pursued a rapist from a ballast bulb down into a service access that opened into the raw, wet, pink wilderness of the Pit. Ordinarily it was sealed and locked but they had been doing maintenance on it and it was left shut but unlocked, and the rapist had gotten it unsealed and vanished into the darkness with no equipment, no light, no nothing. He had slipped on the helmet to his suit and gotten ready to pursue the man, but his colleague, his direct superior, a short, fiery head ranger he referred to only as Makado, had stopped him, and held his gaze with her steely eyes while she reached out and sealed the maintenance hatch, trapping the man out there, and then called on the general channel on the radio, instructing all the maintenance teams to double-check whatever hatches they'd used when they got back in. The rapist was never seen again.

"What's ballast?" I asked him when he was through with that story. He looked at me with a clever but curiously earnest gaze, as though he wanted my approval. He wanted, I realized belatedly, for me to tell him he'd done the right thing. He must have never told anybody this story before. And for good reason, since his inaction made him an accessory to murder. By this point it was seven at night, and I'd replaced the SD card in my voice recorder already. I had no judgment in me. I looked at him with wide, careful eyes, and an understanding passed between us, but I don't know if he understood what I understood.

Ballast, he told me, was a substance produced by the creature, by the Permian Basin Superorganism, a sort of magical panacea that the eggheads, in his words, thought was related to the thing's endocrine system and was involved in balancing its hormones. In humans, though, it partially reversed the effects of aging, provided an energy boost, had curative properties, and was a fearsomely powerful aphrodisiac. He told me of the ballast bulbs, vast pools of the stuff, secreted through whatever process, taken and pumped upwards into watered-down pools of it, a large infinity-pool at 5% concentration, and then progressively cozier ones with higher percentages, marketed as adult-only.

I’d seen references to this feature when I was doing my research but I hadn’t really believed it.

"There's no way the government was down with that," I told him, but he'd shrugged, said that it had been the main draw to the place back in the Anodyne days, that once the NPS took over they'd tried to de-emphasize and phase out that attraction but the pushback had been so uniform, widespread, and aggressive that the Powers That Be had eventually thrown up their hands and said 'alright, you damn monkeys, you want your aphrodisiac pools and anonymous sexual encounters? Fine! Don't get cum in the pool filters!'

His words, not mine. I asked if they still took the ballast out of the thing and sold it and he shrugged, said he thought they did but in much smaller volumes than in the past.

"Was it always just for medical purposes or did they, you know...could I like, go down to the store and buy a thing of ballast?"

"No," he shook his head, "it wasn't quite like that. They did put it in certain products though, seasonal stuff...did you ever have a Coke Heartthrob?"

My mouth fell open and then I shut it while I tried to think of how to answer that question. I saw his eyes dart down to my cheeks as I felt them start to prickle and he had the grace to blush as well and look away from me. "I'm sorry," he said awkwardly, "I didn't mean to...bring up memories."

I'd lost my virginity due in part to a Coke Heartthrob. I hadn't thought of it in years, ever since they'd discontinued it. I never knew why. I never knew what they put in it. I remember googling "when did coke get rid of heartthrob" at some point in 2009 and found out that 2007 was the last year they'd had it for sale. I went around feeling oddly nostalgic and disappointed for a couple of days until I forgot about it; I'd never known...

Whenever I thought of it I thought of the warm, fuzzy rush it gave me, not enough for any major high or anything but just a pleasant rush of pins and needles all down my body in waves, converging on my groin, turning into a vague heat and then into a throb along with my heartbeat. It certainly made me more...uninhibited, back then, seventeen, after school in the chorus room, that first time. Maybe he'd known what it would do to me, but I certainly hadn't, and even if I had I wouldn't have felt taken advantage of. He didn't have to buy me a Coke to get me eager the second or the third time. Or the fourth. Or the fifth, sixth, seventh...

I shook my head. “Curative properties,” I said. “What does that mean?”

“Miracle healing, they called it in the old days,” he said. “Some of that was exaggeration, but some of it wasn’t. Promotes cellular regeneration, as far as I’m aware, which is why it helps with aging. The aphrodisiac effect is actually just a byproduct.”

“Cellular regeneration,” I muttered. “So it could help you…regrow a lost limb?”

“I don’t know, maybe. They tested it but I’ve never heard a story about someone growing back a finger or an arm or something like that.”

I gave him a little grunt. I’d have to come at this obliquely so it isn’t obvious what my interest is. “What about diseases?” I asked. “Something like…I don’t know, polio, or HIV?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I was just a ranger. Maybe it could have, but I’m not sure.”

Well. A maybe is better than a no. This man is in the business of sneaking people into the Pit, maybe he could get me in as well. And if I were able to dodge the wildlife and not get - get eaten, either by the creatures or the surroundings, maybe I could…

Peter said something and disrupted my train of thought. I blinked at him and asked him what it was, and he said that my phone was ringing and, sure enough, when I actually paid attention to it I heard it vibrating in the front pocket of my jeans. I pulled it out just in time to miss the call; my dad, trying to call me back. I stared at it then put it back in my pocket, returned my attention to Peter.

"Did you need to take that?"

"No," I assured him. "Please, continue."

The Pit wasn't horrible. He made very sure to stress that to me. It was the best place he'd ever worked, something more than a job, more like a calling. He felt at home in the bronchial canals and the tubules and ventricles and aortas and what the hell ever else the thing has down there. There was, he explained, a scenic beauty to it equal to the likes of the mountains of Colorado or the Black Hills or the Badlands, or the endless forests of Minnesota, just a different sort of beauty, one that wasn't eager to share itself with the casual observer. The ordinary person, he explained, goes down the Flesh Pit expecting a horror show, wanting to be disgusted, to be terrified, to treat it like a thrill ride at a carnival. They can't get out of that mindset and everything seems horrible to them, from an innocuous herd of macrobacteria trampling along outside a fenced-off path to their habitual feeding ground, to a vast air-filled bladder with calcium deposits like stalagmites crenellating inwards like the spikes on an iron maiden.

"If you made up your mind before you went and saw it," he told me, "if you didn't even try to appreciate the Pit for what it is, you'd never come back. You'd go once and be grossed out and you wouldn't get what the fuss was about. But it can...it can touch you. It's the last wilderness on Earth," he asserted, a far-off, dreamy look in his eyes. While he's talking about the Pit he doesn't look nearly as tired and worn-down and dreary as he does normally. Something about it still animates him, fuels his sense of wonder. While he talks I find myself pondering, briefly, whether or not there's anything at all in my life I'm that passionate about.

He's halfway through telling me about a chyme deposit he found once ("what's chyme?" I ask; "half-digested food," he tells me. I almost make a face but I remember what he told me about going into the pit with preconceived notions and control myself) that had transformed over what must have been months in a digestive gland from a pile of deer carcasses into a pile of delicate, frilly, ribbon-like, waxy material that crumbled to dust when he touched it. Indigestion, Makado had explained when he told her about it, but something about its delicacy, about its uniformly rich creamy color, a symbol, at least in his mind, of purity amid the rugged, flesh-toned, vein-scored surroundings of the Pit, had touched him deeply.

My recorder makes a beeping noise to tell me that the third SD card is full. I check my bag; I have two left. Peter stretches, smiles at me.

"I need a smoke," he says, nodding towards the door. "Let's take a break."

We take a break.

 * * *

 I'm only on my second cigarette when the car pulls up. Peter's still on his first. The sun is cracking like an egg, bleeding over the hills that backdrop the town and casting warm orange light on both of our faces. The car drives up slowly, a big black SUV, looking better maintained than any of the other cars I've seen in town. No giant rust spots, no dents, no bumps, not even a burned-out headlight. It's dark enough that I can't make out who's driving. They pull crosswise along three spaces, horizontal to us, and roll down the passenger window.

Inside is a small, fragile-looking woman, maybe around thirty-five or forty. Her face is lined but still fair and her hair is long and black. Dark eyes, severe mouth. "Hello Peter," she says, her eyes flicking over to me. "Who's your friend?"

"My name's Roan," I tell her before Peter can answer. "Who's asking?"

She smiles at me faintly. "Erica Walken," she says, as though it ought to mean something to me. I stare back at her, take special care not to move my facial muscles an inch. I let the silence stretch out and when I feel it ought to snap I nod at her.

"Good to meet you," I say.

Peter shifts next to me. He's uncomfortable. Obviously he knows Erica. She turns her attention to him and I sneak a glance at him out of the corner of my eye under the pretense of taking a drag of my cigarette and meet his eyes as he sneaks a glance at me. He looks away quickly but not before giving me a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of his head.

"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" Erica asks.

"No," Peter says quickly, stepping forward, closer to her car. "Roan was just waiting for a ride."

"Oh, do you need a ride? I wouldn't mind dropping you off somewhere," Erica suggests, smiling at me. It isn't a malicious smile but I've found that the people who mean to do you harm rarely tell you they're going to do so. There's a prickle at the base of my stomach, a fragment of worry that I've learned to listen to. I shake my head.

"My mom always warned me about taking rides with strangers," I tell Erica, keeping my tone neutral.

"Suit yourself," she says, without even an ounce of attitude. Her eyes flick like roulette balls, fix on Peter. "Can we have a chat?" she asks him.

"Sure," he says, leaning in the window.

"Alone," she clarifies.

I roll my eyes at the theatrics, put the cigarette out in the ashcan. "I'll be inside," I tell Peter, and force myself not to glance back even though I can feel two sets of eyes on me as I traipse in the 7-11, let the door bang shut behind me.

Their conversation doesn't take long. Five minutes max. At one point she pulls out her phone to show him something. I can't get a good look at it but it looks like a picture of somebody. I'm too far away to make out who, and I don't want to be overt about my snooping. When they're done she drives off and Peter stands there staring after her for a moment before coming back in. He looks troubled.

"Who was that?"

"Erica," he shrugs. "She's with the cult."

I almost get soda up my nose. "Excuse me?" I ask, once I've recovered. "Did I hear you correctly?"

"Did you pay for that soda?"

"All this time and I'm not entitled to a free soda?"

"It's three bucks."

"Three bucks for a 20-ounce? And wait, hang on, what the hell do you mean by 'the cult?' There's a cult?"

"You didn't think there'd be a cult?"

I give him a deadpan look. "No, sorry, of course, I should have assumed that as soon as I entered Gumption I was suddenly going to be in a Lovecraft story. Do we have fish people as well somewhere?"

He doesn't get the reference. I think of explaining it to him but I really, really don't feel like I have enough energy for that. I wave his confused look aside. "What the hell does the cult want? Are they – what the fuck," I finish. I have too many questions, they're all zipping around all at once. "Are you with the cult?" I ask, finally, giving him a wary look.

"No!" he says quickly, glancing around as though he's afraid all of the nobody inside of the empty store with us might overhear. "I'm not with the cult," he hisses. "Don't worry."

"Is this something I need to be concerned about?"

"Just – look, they're harmless. Just a bunch of crazies who fell victim to the common human need to submit to a higher power. They chose the Pit, that's all. That's it."

"So why's it a cult? Are they mixing the kool-aid right now? Is this place going to be Waco 2 in a couple of weeks?"

"Christ, it isn't that crazy. They just get a little – there's this thing they do. They're secretive. Invite-only. Exclusive group and everything. They do a ripoff spirit journey when you get in, if you're serious about it and you pass their tests. Have to go down the Pit, hang out there for two, three days, come back with some kind of transcendent experience. All I do is help smuggle their initiate in whenever they've got a new one along with the other batch of crazies." He shakes his head. "Those poor motherfuckers."

"What did you mean the other night when you said you had been one of them?" I ask. I'd been waiting all night to ask it but there had never seemed to have been a good moment up until just now. I reach out with a deft motion and click the voice recorder back on. He looks at me and for a moment I wish I were a photographer, not just a hack with a DSLR I got off Ebay. "I don't want you to –" he starts, and then stops. I groan at myself internally, then reach out, lay my hand gently atop his, fingers apart, not clutching, just human contact. He looks at my hand and then back at me.

"I'm not judging you," I tell him. "I want to understand."

He considers that for a moment. He rubs his eyes, then nods. "Okay," he says.

He tells me about July 4th.

 Continue with Part 4

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[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth

Warnings: noncon sex (oral, m&f, intercourse)

This is dark!Steve and explicit. 18+ only.

Summary: The reader is a fic writer and her number one fan can’t get enough.

Note: This is probably the most meta shit I’ve written but for all the fic writers out there, this one if for you. Hope y’all get the good d you deserve but until then, here’s this!

Please let me know what you think in a reblog/reply! <3 please and thank you.

You let out a sigh of relief and hit ‘post’. It was almost pathetic but it was the best part of your day, or most days. Having something to share with others was nice. The fact that they enjoyed your work and your boredom-induced work made it worth the frustration. 

It wasn’t real writing. You knew that. Fanfiction was a genre to be laughed at. You didn’t admit it to anyone but there was a sense of pride to go along with the shame. 

That part of you was kept online. The darker parts; the lust, the angst, the fear. It all went hand in hand and no one would guess that the bookshop assistant was stevies-doll. It felt almost scandalous to have a virtual alter ego.

You closed your laptop and checked the time. More than enough to get ready for work. Plain blouse, grey pants, mary jane flats. You were the typical bookish girl with dreams that would never come true. 

The bus was late. Oh well. You’d still be there in time you’d just have to forego your usual espresso. Afternoons were draining and you often needed the boost to keep from nodding off in the last hour. You really weren’t sure why the shop stayed open so late; not many came out after five for books but traffic was relatively steady in the hipster village.

Nina met you with a frown. She preferred you at least ten minutes earlier. Tardiness had seen several other clerks fired and you had been the only to make it more than a year in the shop. Three in fact. This place was like a second home. A garden of ideas to plant the seeds of your mind.

When Nina left, you rearranged the desk. You moved aside her ledger and replaced it with your notebook, two pens to the right of it. In between the chime of the door and the rare customer queries you did most of your writing. When you reached a block you’d read, but today you felt particularly inspired.

The world was saved again. The news reports had shown footage of the daring rescue. As grim as the situation was, you couldn’t help but fantasize. The first avenger with his golden hair and sharp jawline was every woman’s Adonis. At least, you thought he was the very picture of perfection.

It wasn’t obsession. That was your mantra. You often argued with yourself. As much as you thought of the great Steve Rogers, it was only admiration. It wasn’t the possessive infatuation often found on social media. It was a hobby. An escape from the world. 

You bent over the notebook. The shop was empty. The dulcet tones of indie folk floated along the shelves. You set pen to paper and waited for the ring to draw you away from the world behind your eyes. 

You leaned on the counter and scribbled the first line in ink. That was always the hardest part. Then again, the beginning was always more exciting than the end.

‘The day the earth went dark, there was but one beacon left to shine…’

-

It was amusing at first. The thought of another person spending so much time writing about him. That someone would fabricate an entire universe in which he was entirely different. Somewhere out there was a woman who wore the pseudonym ‘stevies-doll’.

Steve knew he should have been perturbed by the fact. The idea of another so consumed by him that they would post almost every other day about him. He couldn’t remember how he stumbled on the small blog. A decent following but nothing close to viral. 

The first story he read was cute. It even made him feel warm. The second was very much the same. He clicked through to another, this one more serious. Grey and daunting. A few more and he stumbled upon one he found most interesting, the letters NSFW emblazoned across the top. He googled the acronym and clicked back to the tab. Excited almost.

When he finished, he was warm in another way. Hot, almost. The things he read, the idea of him doing them, was almost arousing. Of course, he had never done any of it. Had never been more than the perfect gentlemen. Sweet and doting. That was how love should be. But that wasn’t love, no, that story was sex. Pure, unadulterated fucking.

He forced himself away from the computer after that. He needed to sleep. He had intended to browse his email quickly but he often found himself in the oddest rabbit-holes. That was definitely the deepest. He shook his head and chuckled. It was funny.

The next morning he awoke and went about his usual routine. He was out the door by seven. Off to save the world. Or wait around for it to need saving. At Stark Tower, he listened to Tony with his eyes on his phone. It wasn’t anything important. Some recounting about how he had scared Pepper with a nano-spider. 

Steve gave a half-hearted chuckle and Tony went back to his screen. “Tough audience,” He muttered to Bruce who merely shook his head.

Steve leaned against a stool and squinted at his phone. He stared at the google search. Why had he typed it in? Somewhere in the tedium of Tony’s chatter, he had keyed in the name. He hit the first link and his phone loaded slowly. 

His own face stared back at him. The banner was a press photo he had taken over a year ago. His bright eyes were staunch beneath the mask as he stared off into the distance. She had posted again. His thumb hovered over ‘read more’. Did he dare? 

He looked up to make sure he was not being observed. The two scientists were too distracted to care about his online activity. He stood straight and cleared his throat. “I’m gonna hit the gym,” He lied. A grumble from both scientists as they squinted at the floating screens. “Right, have fun.” Steve said dryly as he left them to their work.

He stepped out in the hall and pressed his thumb to the screen. He bent his head over the phone as he walked blindly down the halls. Neither Tony or Bruce noticed through the window that he had gone entirely the wrong way. Steve didn’t either as his eyes flitted over the screen.

‘The day the earth went dark, there was but one beacon left to shine…’

-

You couldn’t believe how much your blog had grown in the last few months. You didn’t know if it betrayed your unexciting life or your one-track mind. Both, maybe. But it made your everyday responsibilities a little less tedious.

And the messages were even better than the hit count. Several had messaged to say they loved your work and went so far as to call you an inspiration. It was flattering but it was easy to remember who you were. No Stephen King or JK Rowling. You wrote silly one shots with limited development. 

Today your inbox had been steady. Every time you found yourself bored at work, you opened the app and you had another message. Most of them short or even just emojis but nice nonetheless. And there was one you were waiting to answer

So long and in depth you had to give it more than just a thanks. You opened it several times and reread it.

‘Your story is really interesting. I think the way your portray Steve is believable. In this type of writing you rarely find anything realistic but your writing feels genuine if not entirely accurate. I would say you capture the essence of Steve perfectly and his actions at least make sense.

I always enjoy your updates and even look forward to them...especially the NSFW ones. ;)’

It was one of the few users who didn't use the anonymous feature and also left a complete comment. It was refreshing and you had come to look forward to their commentary. They went by CapUSA. Another Steve fangirl who was surprisingly inactive outside your blog. Her page was almost a clone of your own. They liked every post, reblogged, and commented. What more could a writer ask for?

Original characters maybe and not just fantasies of someone who’d never know of her existence. You closed your laptop and sighed. It felt like time. You could feel the block at the back of your head. The little thrill you got was wearing off and it felt like a phase better left to fade with your emo days in high school and that month in university when you dyed your hair purple.

You readied for work. Back on days that week. Opening was always easier. It didn’t feel so drawn out. Nina would be in at one and you’d keep her company until four. It meant little time for writing. Maybe that was for the better. You needed to start planning. For the future. For something truly your own. A fantasy so detached from reality that it would make market and maybe even a dime.

That was your dream. You didn’t want to be the listless fangirl forever. Ugh, how you hated to even call yourself a fangirl. No post today, you resigned. Maybe none tomorrow. You’d have to work up the courage to announce your hiatus. Life was calling and for once a sliver of genuine inspiration. 

And the bookstore. It was Shakespeare’s birthday, which conveniently was also his death day. This meant two for one on all of his works. Nina also  hired actors to stand outside the shop and re-enact famous scene from the playwright’s repertoire. They wouldn’t arrive till noon but you had a lot of set-up to do. Enough to keep you from thinking of the disappointed messages that would fill your inbox.

-

Steve scrolled through the pale pink blog for the dozenth time that morning. It had been two weeks since stevies-doll posted. The longest two weeks of his life. He wasn’t sure when it had become a staple in his life. A ritual almost. He’d read her latest fic as he laid down and try to clear his head of blood and grime. Lose himself in the person she dreamed he was. The man he had come to envy. Fictional but all too real in his head.

But there was nothing. At first he re-read and read again. But that grew old. He knew almost every story by heart at this point. He could recite the intro line to most and he fell asleep as his imagination reconstructed the things he had never done. 

Her banner flashed across his sight when he woke, the image of his blue eyes staring beyond him. He’d come to think of her Steve as an altar ego. The beast buried deep inside of him. He was tired of being the nation’s golden child. Their unwavering moral beacon. He wanted to be him and she had helped him figure out who he truly was.

But she was gone. No green dot above her name in the chat window, her last post dated fourteen days ago, her blog like a time capsule. The ice that had preserved him for seventy years. Where was she?

Then a thought struck him. A devious one. He had been on enough missions to know his way around a computer. He considered himself quite savvy after living nearly a decade ahead of his time. It was simple enough. He tracked down many a drug pin this way and they were often concealed behind walls of encryption. He doubted she had more than a store-bought antivirus, if that.

He climbed out of bed and booted his computer. His leg shook impatiently and he tossed his phone just beneath the corner of the monitor. He rubbed his palms together as the home screen loaded and he clicked on the browser.

Her IP was simple enough to find. Right-click, inspect. When he found it, he felt his heart jump. This was a line. A very clear one. If he did this, there was no going back. He let go of the mouse and leaned his chin in his hands. He stared at her page, split by the window of code, and his jaw ticked.

He hit back and went to the messenger. He clicked on her name and his fingertips ran over the space bar. He didn’t know what to say. He’d send her little asks about her fics but he never messaged her directly. Would she respond?

‘Hey,’ He typed slowly, his fingers sped up with each key, ‘I’m a fan of your work. I think it’s excellent. I just wanted to check in and see if you were still writing for this blog.’

He hit enter and waited. He focused on the grey dot beside her name. If she saw this, it likely wouldn’t be until morning. He checked the time and sighed. It was late. He had an early briefing with Tony and he should try to sleep. 

He hovered the cursor over the x but the dot turned green and he paused. The little ‘...’ blipped in the bottom of the chat box and the ding of her reply was music to his ears.

‘Hey, sorry. I know I’ve been quiet lately. I’ve just been so busy with work. I’m a bit behind at the moment. Thank you though for following me. I always enjoy your comments :)’ He read it several times before he could reply. Before he could even think of the words to.

‘It’s okay. We all have responsibilities. Take your time.’ He wanted to tell her to hurry up but who knew? She might be someone important, like a lawyer or teacher. He could wait. As long as there was hope. 

‘Thanks. I appreciate that. Really.’ That response was quicker. Curt, almost.

‘I don’t want to overstep but are you okay?’ His cheeks were hot.

‘Ah, you know, life.’

He scratched his chin as he leaned back in his chair. Slowly he sat forward and typed. It took him three tries to get it right. Concerned but not pushy. ‘Anything you wanna talk about?’ He waited. The three dots appeared then faded. Several times before her answer blipped up.

‘I don’t wanna trouble you but I appreciate you asking. Nothing I won’t get over.’

‘Ok, no problem. Just know that if you need it, I could listen. It’s could to talk about stress.’ He laughed at himself. He should take his own advice. He had a horrible habit of letting things pile up until he burst at the seams.

‘Thanks again. I’ll ttyl. I gotta get some sleep. Have a good one.’

‘You, too,’ He replied a bit too quickly. ‘Talk to you then.’

-

You were ready to post again. It had been almost a month since your last fic and you had been reluctant to return. You couldn’t help checking in daily to see your notifications and scroll mindlessly through your own content. And your offline writing had come to a halt. You were stuck and you didn’t know how else to cope but fall back on what you knew.

Your new friend had helped too. CapUSA had quickly become a stalwart of your blog. She, or he, you still weren’t sure, spoke to you almost everyday. They encouraged you to try one more fic as you mulled over a certain prompt. Why not? It would be like a writing exercise. Maybe it would help you with your original writing. Take some of the pressure off.

And you didn’t just talk about writing. You talked about the bookstore and Nina’s incessant complaints. You talked about the stresses of your lives. Friends, or lack thereof. Cap seemed a popular person and recounted stories of the latest drama. A close knit group of friends who acted more like adversaries. It was amusing and made your forget that your life was rather empty.

You hit post and smiled. That familiar rush rolled over you and you snapped closed your laptop. You were already dressed and ready for work. You crammed in the quick editing session before the bus was due and now you’d have to run for it.

Back on afternoons. It was rainy and you were soaked by the time you got to the shop. The weather always helped traffic and you ducked behind the counter where Nina was tending to the line with Cara, a new addition. The curly-haired blonde reminded you of old Hollywood. Her high cheekbones and rose lips rivaled Monroe’s.

“Do you want me to start early?” You asked as you tucked your bag under the counter between them.

“You better. I’m gone in ten and Cara’s only on til three.” Nina muttered. “We got a new shipment. Boxes are at the end of the aisles. We’ve not had a chance to touch ‘em.”

“Okay, I’ll get right on it,” You pin your name tag on and stepped back around the counter. She was in one of her moods and all the better that you avoid her until she left. You went to the end of the history aisle and opened the box against the wall.

‘You working?’ The vibration drew your attention from re-arranging the non-fiction section. The message floated in a bubble on your lock screen. You smiled. This faceless stranger felt like more. Of course, virtual friendships were often fleeting.

You glanced down the aisle, both Nina and Cara were squinting at the computer as a customer waited patiently for them to figure out their conundrum. You swiped away the lock and typed swiftly with your phone hidden behind your leg. 

‘Closing. Here all night.’

‘Oh :( you got company at least?’

‘For a couple more hours. But no shortage of work. :/’

‘Damn. Should I leave you alone?’

‘Up to you. My responses might be sporadic. Boss isn’t very pleasant today.’

‘Cool. I just read your new fic.’ 

‘Yeah? Sorry I haven’t checked my notifications just yet.’

‘No problem. I left a comment is all.’

‘What are you up to?’

‘Taking a break from driving. I should actually get back to it. It’s a long trip.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘To see a friend.’

‘Ah, ok. Well, drive safe.’

‘I will ;) See ya later.’

‘ttyl :)’

-

‘Nina’s Nook’. Steve read the crooked moniker several times over. He couldn’t believe he was actually there. That she was inside. He made good time on the road. An eight hour trip in six. Of course, he hadn’t exactly abided the speed limit. His impatience had turned to recklessness. So unlike him.

The sky was dim. The summer nights came later and later. She’d be done in an hour. The streets were dying down and the door hadn’t chimed in almost as long. He felt nervous all of a sudden. He tried to shrug of his anxiety and took a breath. 

She wouldn’t know it was him. Well, she might recognize him but she wouldn’t know he was CapUSA. He couldn’t wait to see her reaction. Steve Rogers in her bookshop. In this town. It would be a story she would recount for the rest of her life. An encounter she would never forget. 

Oh, he’d make sure she remembered it.

He crossed the street. A single car passed as he stepped up on the curb. It was much quieter than New York. No honking, no shouts, no hissing sewers. He liked it. It was quaint. He stood before the door and peeked through the glass. There was no one behind the desk. But the sign read open and the lights shone in welcome.

He pushed down the handle and slowly opened the door. The bell announced his entrance and a small voice called from the corner of the shop. “One moment, please.” He heard the shuffle of books and light footsteps. She emerged from the far shelves and his lips parted at the sight of her.

He had seen her before. Her few photos on Facebook and Instagram. He had found those shortly after he ferreted out her IP. He couldn’t see much but her privacy settings allowed him a glimpse into her real life. Her smile was nicer than in her pictures. 

“Sorry, I was--” She stopped short as she saw him. She blinked. He closed his mouth as hers fell open. Her voice was higher when she spoke next. “I was just sorting some stuff out. I--How can I help you?”

“Um, a friend recommended a book to me and I was passing by, I thought maybe by chance… you might have it.” He kept his voice even. The same one he used for his press conferences.

“Do you have a title?” She asked. He could see her fingers tremble. The guilt as her eyes rounded. She was thinking of all the things she had wrote about him. He was thinking of those too.

“Jeez, you know, I’ve totally forgotten but the author was, uh…” He pretended to think and his eyes drifted down her body. Her flowered blouse was boxy but her pants hugged the curves of her hips and legs. She clasped her hands together and the gesture pushed her chest together between her arms. “Margaret Archer--er, Atwood.”

“Hmm, she’s done a lot. Do you know what it’s about?” She pulled her hands apart and wiped her palms on her dark pants. His eyes followed the movement. He wanted his hands there. Wanted to feel her thighs against him.

“Something about an apocalypse...um, a character named...Snow--Snow something.” He acted like he coudn’t remember. Couldn’t recall that it was stevies-doll who had recommended the very book. 

“Oh, Oryx and Crake, I think it is. It’s an interesting one.” She smiled, proud to have figured out the riddle. “If you will, it should be with our most popular books.”

She hesitated as she passed him. He followed her as she went to the shelf just beside the counter. She hovered her finger before the titles as she read them. She bent as she got lower. He admired her ass as she did. He tucked his hands in his pocket before he could reach out.

“Yeah, I think it’s in sci-fi.” She stood and peeked over her shoulder. “It’s just over here.” She led him down the narrow aisle to the end. “Starts just here so Atwood…” She scanned the shelf, “Here.” She pulled out the book and held it out to him. “We have it in hardcover too.”

He took it and felt the raised letters on the cover. “Thanks.” He didn’t even acknowledge the book in his hand. The aisle was so tight she was trapped between him and the wall. She gave a sheepish smile and he turned to press his back to the shelf. “Sorry. Go ahead.”

She nodded and squeezed past him. Her chest brushed against his torso and she pretended not to notice. Once past him, she cleared her throat. “If you need any help, I’ll be up front.” She turned before he could respond and her watched her go. He never would’ve guessed the mousy shop assistant would have such a lurid imagination.

-

You were in disbelief. It couldn’t be. Steve Rogers in your book shop? No, you were dreaming. Or was it a nightmare? Oh god, why had you written all that stuff? You needed to delete. Now. You could hear him. The floor creaked as he moved slowly down the aisle. You hoped he would’ve taken the book and gone. The longer he stayed, the worse you felt. Your cheeks were on fire.

Your phone vibrated. You swiped the screen and found a new message from CapUSA. You sighed and rubbed your eyes. You should just pretend you didn’t see it. You unlocked the phone and read the message.

‘Hey, how’s work?’

‘It’s fine.’ You answered. What could you say? Who would believe that Steve Rogers had walked in your door?

‘I just was thinking about your last fic.’

‘Oh yeah?’ You peeked over at the far aisle. The floor no longer whined with his weight.

‘Yeah, I’d love to re-enact the last scene.’

‘Sorry?’ You sent the message and it went unanswered. ‘I don’t get it. What do you mean?’

‘The one with the girl on her knees. Begging to be fucked.’

‘Okay? I still don’t understand.’ Your heart jumped. This was really weird.

‘Or maybe and I could fuck you on that counter you’re standing behind.’

You hit close and locked the phone. You dropped it and looked around the shop. You rushed out from behind the counter and glanced out the window. You turned the latch and the floorboards groaned. You turned and pressed yourself to the door. You forgot he was there. 

How could you forget something like that?

“Sorry, uh, we’re closing up,” You felt around for the lock, “I was just--”

“That’s okay. I think I’m just about done.” He slapped the book against his palm and placed it on the corner of the counter. He set his phone on top of it with a flourish. “Why don’t you flip the sign and we can get started.”

“What are you--”

“Do you prefer I call you by your real name or stevies-doll?” He leaned against the counter and smirked. “Or I can just call you doll. I know you like that.”

“No,” You exhaled shakily, “Y-you can’t be…”

“You’re not happy to see me?” He asked. He didn’t sound like the hero you saw on the news. Barely looked like him now. His pupils dilated to darken his blue eyes and the shadows of the shop cast his face in sinister tones. “You can call me Stevie if you like.”

“I...What I wrote, it was just...” You spluttered. “I’m s-sorry.”

“You don’t have to be.” He pushed himself away from the counter. “I’m not mad. Intrigued really.”

He stepped closer and your ears pounded as the adrenaline coursed through your veins. You turned and fumbled with the lock. The door opened an inch before his hand slammed it shut again. He easily flipped the lock back into place and spun the sign with a flick of his thumb. 

“You can close early and we can have some fun...maybe inspire a new fic.” His arm was around your waist and you grabbed onto his thick wrist.

“They’re just stories.” You kicked as he pulled you away from the door. He tugged the blind down over the window. “Stupid fantasies.”

“Well, consider this a dream come true, doll,” He spun and let you go. You collided with the desk and gasped as the air was knocked from your lungs. “I think you remember this scene.”

“What do you want?” You clung to the desk as you turned to him. 

“You know, I’m everything people think I am. Straight-laced, valiant, boring.” He planted his feet and stared you down. “Or was...until I found your blog.” His tongue ran across his bottom lip. “It gets lonely on the road. At first, your blog was like a secret companion. It gave me something to look forward to but then it made me think. So many things I never even knew I was missing out on.”

“Please, I don’t know what you want from me,” Your voice cracked. Your fear surged and left you shaking against the counter.

“I want…” He tilted his head and his eyes flashed, “You.” He paused and pushed his shoulders back. “On your knees.” Your eyes rounded, “Oh yes,” He raised a finger, “Naked.”

You stared at him. You were frozen in place. The counter your only support from melting into a puddle. His nostrils flared as he exhaled; long and drawn out. 

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” He snarled and his hand balled into a fist.

You gulped and held yourself with one hand against the counter as you bent to unlace your oxfords. You kicked them off with your socks and mustered your strength. You stood on your own and unbuttoned your shirt. You kept your eyes on the aged carpet stretched across the hardwood.

You dropped the blouse onto your shoes and unzipped your fly. The wool trousers slid halfway down without help and you untangled your legs from them. You added them to the heap and stood straight.

“Look at me,” Steve ordered. Your eyes snapped over to him. “Good.” You reached back and he raised a hand. “Stop...I wanna do it.”

He waved you forward and slowly you stepped away from the counter. He bared his palm in a gesture for you to halt and you hung your head. “Eyes up.” He corrected as he came closer. He walked around you and stopped just behind you.

His thick fingers touched the band of your bra and ran along it until they met at the hooks. He carefully unclasped it and the cups fell loose. He tickled your arms as he pushed the straps down them. He took it and flung it away from him. His hands came up to cup your tits and he pushed himself flush to your back.

“You always wrote so vividly of me but...I never knew how beautiful you truly were...how good you feel.” He squeezed and slowly lowered his hands. He dragged them to the side of your panties and slipped his fingers beneath the elastic. He bent as he guided the panties down your legs. “God, that ass.”

You shivered and his hands cradled your ass. He ran his rough palms along your cheeks and up your back. They settled on your shoulders and he pushed down firmly. “On your knees.”

He stepped back and you unsteadily got to your knees. He walked another circle around you. You could hear his dusky breaths. Glimpsed how his hand ran over the front of his jeans. 

“Now ask, like a good girl,” He stopped before you and stared down with a smirk. “Go on, doll, I know you want it.”

You closed your eyes and swallowed. You grit your teeth and gather what was left of your wits. A story. That’s all this was. The letters could be backspaced and no one would know better of it. 

“Please,” You recalled the last scene you had posted. The tingle which had flowed through you as you hit the button. What had she said? You opened your eyes. “Please, I want to...I want to make you happy.” You shuddered as the words whisked from you. “Can I?”

“Can you...what?” He taunted.

“Can I suck your dick?” It was barely a whisper. 

“Oh, well, since you asked so nicely,” His hands were on his belt as he spoke. “But I have a different scene in mind for tonight. A new one.” He unbuckled his belt and cracked his neck. “I want you on the counter. On your back.”

You made to stand and his hand went to your head. He held you down. 

“Crawl.”

You weakly dropped forward and turned. You crawled on hands and knees as he followed, stopping just in front of the desk as you followed his pointed finger to the other side. You stood and lifted yourself onto the counter and laid on your back. He guided your head over the side as he pulled you close and his hands found your tits again. He tweaked your hard nipples and you bit your lip.

He rescinded his hands and finished unzipping his pants. You tried not to watch as he pushed his pants down, his briefs too. The blur focused and you gaped at the size of him. He gripped himself and you snapped your mouth shut. He grabbed your chin and squeezed.

“Now, now, don’t act like this isn’t what you wanted,” He pressed his cock to your mouth and you were forced to open as his fingers threatened to crush your jaw.

He slid inside and your gasp was stifled as he met the back of your throat. He forced himself further and you threw your arms out. A clatter of books and papers as you swept them off the counter. He lingered at his limit and wiggled his hips. You arched your back as you choked and he grabbed your tit, kneading it as he slowly pulled out.

He pushed back in just as you gulped down air and you writhed atop the desk. He thrust in and out of your mouth. You gagged and groaned. The noises only fueled his fervour and he sunk in over and over until your head pulsed. The spit smeared around your lips and his balls.

He pulled back and slammed back in suddenly. His motion slowed as he came. He grunted, his breaths stuttered by the staggered rock of his pelvis. You clawed at the counter top and kicked until you could breathe again.

He slipped his cock from between your lips and his cum leaked from your mouth. You sat up and coughed. His hands were on your shoulders again. His fingers danced along your throat as if to ease your struggles.

“Come on, that’s just the first act,” He drew away and you glanced over your shoulder. “Turn around.” 

You turned on the desk and he pulled your legs over the edge. He pushed your knees apart and stepped back to admire the view. You dug your nails into the lip of the counter to keep yourself from closing your legs.

“I know you’ve been dying to see this,” He grinned and pulled his shirt over his head. 

His cock hung out of his pants. It twitched as he tossed his shirt at you. You caught it. It smelled like him. He shoved his pants down without pause and he hardened again. You dropped his shirt and looked away guiltily. 

Had you not written this scene a dozen times over?

He was completely naked when you looked again. He came close, his hands on your knees as he knelt before you. You tried to pull your legs together but he held them apart. He shook his head and tutted. 

“Just sit back and enjoy,” He licked his lips. “Trust me, it’s better than you could ever imagine.”

Your shock took over completely. You watched as he bowed his head and you felt his hot breath on your thighs. When his tongue met your pussy you gasped. He delved between your folds and swirled around your clit. Your nails went deeper into the wood and your thighs shook. It felt good. It shouldn’t, though.

He buried his face deeper and you watched his golden locks from above. He reached over blindly, his large hand found yours, and he guided it to the back of his head. He held it there a moment before letting go. You clung to him as he hands glided up your thighs and he framed your vee with thumb and index.

You arched your back and moaned. It was your declaration of surrender. You couldn’t resist it any longer. The heat stirred inside of you, the flames licking at your thighs and back. You urged Steve closer though he couldn’t possibly go any deeper. 

His hands slipped down to the outside of your thighs. Your legs closed around his head and held him there. He tipped you slightly and you curled around him as he continued to lap. Your breaths mixed with throaty hums and you fell back. 

You had one hand still on his head and the other in your hair as you cried out in a mighty climax. He didn’t stop until you were shaking across the counter. When at last his mouth left you, you shivered. A sudden coolness washed over your body. He stood and you looked at him through the haze.

He grabbed your waist and pulled you to your feet. You wavered and he spun you quickly. You caught yourself on the desk and he slapped your ass. “That’s it,” He purred. “You’re getting it now.”

He nudged your shoulder until you were bent entirely over the counter, your toes barely met the floor. He rubbed your ass and pulled your cheeks apart. His cock poked you as his hand slipped lower and he tickled just below your ass. You squirmed and he chuckled.

He felt around and his cock slipped lower as he bent his knees. He dragged his tip along your folds before prodding at your entrance. He shoved his hand between your legs and forced them apart. 

He pushed inside and slowly stretched you around him. Your head shot up at the strain. A mix of pain and pleasure as he got deeper and deeper.

You whined as he bottomed out and his hips bucked almost instinctively. He hit your cervix and you cried out. He eased out and pushed back in. He repeated this again and again, his motion careful. Deliberate. He brought his pelvis flush to your ass and groaned.

“Fuck,” He slapped your ass again. 

He drew back and slammed into you all at once. All restraint was lost and he thrust mercilessly. His pace was wild. You reached out to grab at the edge of the counter, your hips hitting the other painfully. The spark had caught and you felt the flame about to burst. 

Your orgasm was surprising. More agony than pleasure. You whimpered and pushed your head into the counter as you heaved. You could barely breath as Steve never wavered. He fucked until you until your walls ached. Until they turned numb and you were nothing but a mewling fool before him.

He bent over your, his muscled torso against your sweaty back. He rutted atop you frantically. His hips jerked as his grunts deepened. His breath caught and he swore. He lifted himself off you and you felt the warmth spill down your ass and thigh. 

You laid breathless as he panted behind you. He rubbed his cum into your skin with two fingers and you shook. You tried to push yourself up from the desk. He caught your hip and shoved you back down.

“Oh, we’re not even close to the finale,” He pinched your ass and you squeaked. “Not to mention the epilogue.”

-

tags to be added in reblog

[plays-the-thing]

Netflix’s Witcher: What Makes a Good Adaptation? – A companion piece

If you’ve somehow found this without seeing the video first, here’s a link:

In this video I analyze the screen adaptations of Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, and the Witcher series. I use the comparisons of the three to discuss what makes adaptations in general work and to explain why I feel the Witcher is heading down the road to mediocrity.

However, this is a hugely complicated subject, and the works themselves are also complex, especially Martin’s work. I make plenty of claims in the video that a reasonable person could disagree with without any explanation for why I think they are true. Unfortunately, if I were to go down every rabbit hole that I touch on the video would be hours long, so I have to gloss over some potentially confusing or controversial statements.

Enter this post. Here I will be attempting to pre-empt any questions that I think people may have, and go through my thought process on certain claims. I don’t recommend that you read the whole thing. Each explanation will be followed by a timestamp and relevant quote from the video that I am expanding upon so that you can quickly search the page and find what you are looking for.

 I’m sure there will be things I don’t think to cover, or things that are poorly reasoned both here and in the video, so feel free to ask additional questions. Just please check to make sure you aren’t asking something that I already covered here.

 I will also be attempting to give as much credit as possible to all the wonderful writers and creators who have influenced my thinking with regards to these works. I’ll be linking as much as possible to my sources, as well as to additional content that expands on ideas I mention. Also I’ve included some personal tidbits and commentary, just for fun.

 Under a cut for length.

INTRODUCTION:

Huge props to the people who put together the behind-the-scenes footage of LOTR. I’ve watched all the bonus footage numerous times in my life. If you have any interest in the nitty-gritty of how movies get made, I can’t recommend it enough. It really shows all the work and complexity that goes into making movies. That they even get made at all is honestly incredible, especially massive undertakings like LOTR.

[3:30] And if you've ever wondered what the hell happened to The Hobbit, to me it seemed like they were indulging all of these worst impulses instead of catching themselves and editing them out like they did in LOTR.

As soon as I saw that they were making three Hobbit movies my hopes plummeted. It just reeked of executive meddling, and of trying to make the story into something it just isn’t. Lo and behold, that’s what we got: sticking in loads of unnecessary and thematically incoherent material to stretch out the runtime and make it more “epic.” I couldn’t bring myself to watch past the first one, but Lindsay Ellis has an excellent video series exploring in detail what went wrong with the trilogy.

PART ONE: LORD OF THE RINGS

[8:40] If you followed the events and the chronology of the book they would just hang out with Faramir for a little bit and then the movie would end

Technically it’s more complicated than this because that’s already following the revised movie timeline. In reality, Frodo would have just left the Black Gate. They *are* moving the events around to some extent, usually by a few of days here and there, but they can’t move stuff together that takes place weeks apart or the whole timeline would crumble.

[9:55] You can call it the theme, the soul, the spirit, the point, or whatever else you want, but the great works of fiction have something at their core that pulls everything together and elevates it into art. It’s a difficult thing to describe, but I think this scene perfectly tapped into the soul of Tolkien’s work.

Huge shout out to Bob Case and his video “Blame of Thrones” for first introducing me to this concept and the language of the “spirit” of a work to describe this phenomenon. In many ways the first two parts of this video are merely building on the LOTR-GOT comparison that he makes in that video, digging a little deeper and looking at more specific and concrete (and spoileriffic) examples of what he’s talking about so that we can apply these ideas to the Witcher…and beyond. Like all his work, it’s excellent. His YouTube is pretty much inactive these days, but he also occasionally writes content for Shamus Young’s blog if you want more of his work.

PART TWO: GAME OF THRONES

Alright, here it is: the section that really caused me to want to make this companion piece. Earlier I mentioned that I have sympathy for the GoT showrunners, and I really do. Martin’s work is incredibly complex, and so this section dominates the blogpost because there is so much to explain and no way that I could explain it all in the video without incredible bloat.

First I should mention that I, and all the writers I am going to credit here, share a very specific interpretation of Martin’s work. This isn’t the only interpretation. I doubt it’s the interpretation of the majority of readers. Obviously, I fully believe it is the correct interpretation, but the showrunners clearly had a wildly different one.

People who have this interpretation express it in different ways. Joannalannister collects hers in her tag #the-meaning-of-asoiaf. PoorQuentyn expresses it here, and in his analysis of Davos, Quentyn, and Tyrion. Other writers express it in their own ways.

With my lit degree hanging over my head, I can’t help but see it as a problem of competing artistic movements. To me, HBO’s Game of Thrones is part of the art movement of the past few decades, namely postmodernism. Art movements are complex, but basically postmodernism is the cynical reaction to the sincerity of modernism which came before it. Cynicism is, I think, the defining trait of Game of Thrones.

But it is NOT the defining trait of the books. In my view, Martin’s ASOIAF is part of the art movement that we are moving towards, which is starting to become known as metamodernism. Metamodernism is a reaction to the nihilistic pessimism and cynicism of postmodernism, and replaces it not with the unbridled sincerity of modernism, but rather oscillation between the two modes. It can be both ironic and sincere, deconstructionist and constructionist, apathetic and affectual. Once you have peeled back all the layers however, it is ultimately hopeful and optimistic. It embraces a sense of radical optimism. In metamodernist works optimism is often radical because the world the characters live in can be so dark. But that darkness serves only to highlight those characters that can hold fast to virtue amidst such darkness.

So, be warned. If you believe that Martin’s work is all about controlling the Iron Throne, and believe that cynicism is for the wise and honor is for fools, we just aren’t going to see eye to eye.

[12:45] Ned is a competent northern politician who has some trouble adapting to southern culture. Through a combination of bad luck, some understandable mistakes, and a misconception about his position, he fails in his goals.

The show didn’t invent the idea of Stupid Honorable Ned. Plenty of people believed this, even before the show. Obviously I believe they are wrong. If you would like to read more about it I would suggest Steven Attewell’s analysis of Ned’s chapters that he does on his blog, particularly Eddard XI and Eddard XIII. Steven does a much better job of analyzing Ned as a political actor than I ever could.

[13:00] Most of these changes are subtle…the best example is the council debate about whether or not to assassinate Daenerys.

Many of the ideas in this section are pulled from two essays by turtle-paced: Poor Doomed Ned and The Argument to Assassinate Daenerys. Turtle goes deep into the details of the differences between the Ned Stark of the books and the show, and I skimmed some of their comparisons for my argument. Steven Attewell’s analysis of this chapter is also worth reading.

[14:09] It’s a good argument, and I think in the books we are expected to mostly agree with Ned, both morally and politically.

When I say “expected” I mean from the authors point of view, which of course relies on me being correct about my interpretation of Martin’s work. Obviously I think I’m right, but if you don’t agree with my interpretation you may not agree with this statement.

[14:16] Notice also that the supporters of the assassination: Littlefinger, Varys, Renly, and Pycelle are all villains (all except Pycelle are trying to destabilize the kingdom), and the people who oppose it, Ned and Barristan, are heroes.

Each of them represents a different sort of evil. Littlefinger is a scheming sociopathic villain. Varys is a well-intentioned extremist whose willingness to commit utterly heinous acts in the pursuit of his goals makes him a villain. This is because, as Huxley puts it, “The end cannot justify the means, for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced.”  Renly is narcissistic ambitious evil, willing to throw a realm into war to satisfy his own ego, and is totally uncaring about the lives of other people. It isn’t precisely correct to say that Pycelle is a villain because he represents the banality of evil. He thinks he’s just doing his job, but he’s morally bankrupt and politically corrupt.

[16:40] It would take too long to list all the ways that Tywin is awful, and everyone knows it.

To clarify, I mean that everyone in-universe knows it. For some god-forsaken reason, some readers seem to think that Tywin was just being effective after he unleashed the Mountain on the Riverlands and violated every military and political norm in Westeros.

If you are going to say that he is “Machiavellian” I would encourage you to actually read The Prince, where Machiavelli says “Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred” and goes into the reasons why.

[17:17] Tywin on the other hand accomplished a lot of short-term gains by being as treacherous and dishonorable as possible. But this has a cost: by proving themselves fair-weather allies they surround themselves with the same. Nobody trusts them, and so their allies scheme and betray them.

Oberyn and Doran are both scheming in their own way to revenge themselves on the Lannisters for the deaths of Elia and her children. The Tyrells poison Joffrey and scheme to spirit Sansa away to Highgarden.

[17:36] Ned failed due to a couple of minor mistakes, some bad luck, and treachery.

I mention a few times that Ned, and more broadly the Starks, get “unlucky.” Again, Steven Attewell does an excellent job of documenting this with his keen eye for how GRRM cheats political realities, but I’ll note a few of the many ways George has to bend over backward to screw the Starks.

In AGoT Catelyn leaves King’s Landing roughly around the same time that Tyrion leaves the wall, and both are on horseback. In order for them to meet at the Inn at the Crossroads Tyrion has to travel roughly 2,000 miles in the same time that Catelyn travels 400 miles. This is basically impossible, but necessary for the plot so that Catelyn can lose Tyrion at the Eyrie. If she had caught him somewhere further north she could have simply chucked him into her own dungeons and managed his trial herself.

Cersei has been trying to kill Robert for goodness knows how long with just as unreliable methods as “get him drunk on a hunt.” In order for Ned to get screwed she has to succeed in killing Robert at precisely that moment. If it had failed like every one of her other attempts she is most likely dead, because Ned would tell Robert the truth about her children as soon as he got back.

In order for Theon to take Winterfell, veteran military man and castellan Ser Rodrik Cassell has to stupidly empty the Winterfell garrison while he knows that Ironborn raiders are running loose in the North, not even leaving behind a mere twenty-five to fifty men that would have completely thrashed Theon’s assault. If Theon can’t take Winterfell, the Red Wedding doesn’t happen (as Martin has told us that the real inciting incident of the Red Wedding was the fall of Winterfell).

[17:41] However, killing him was a terrible idea, and backfired on the Lannisters instantly.

Continuing this theme, the Lannisters were in an absolutely horrible position at the beginning of the War of the Five Kings. They pretty much just have their bannerman in the Westerlands. Stannis seems to have the support of most of the Crownlands, and he and Renly are splitting the lords of the Reach and the Stormlands (with Renly having the larger chunk). The Starks have all the support of the North and the Riverlands combined. The Lannisters are surrounded by enemies who outnumber them on all sides. Killing Ned immediately jumpstarts a war that will almost certainly crush the Lannisters. That it didn’t took some very thin plotting and improbable developments at times, but overall George made it work. For more analysis of this, again check out Steven Attewell Blog: Race for the Iron Throne.

[17:48] Tywin was killed by both a guest whom he considered his ally, and his son.

I firmly believe Oberyn poisoned Tywin. Here’s a good rundown of the evidence. Beyond simple means, motive, and opportunity it also provides neat answers to lingering odd questions like why Tywin rotted so oddly and aggressively, why Tyrion knew he would find him in the privy, why Oberyn was willing to chuck his life away for a confession before seeming to have secured revenge against Tywin.

It’s also thematically juicy. I love the idea that Tywin, who so egregiously violated Westerosi norms culminating in the total breach of the social contract at the Red Wedding, was a victim of contrapasso. He can’t be protected by social norms, so he gets poisoned by his guest and ally. Did Tyrion know he was dying? Had he put it all together? Was that bolt really an act of mercy? Perhaps it was one final service to the Lannisters, to keep the dream of their alliance with the Martells alive. Who knows, but boy is it interesting to consider.

[18:13] his alliances fall to pieces, and his children are abandoned by even their own family.

I’m referring here to the infighting between the Tyrells and Lannisters (and Martells, though they never had any intent of staying true to the alliance) after Tywin’s death (though there was some before as well, just intensified after Cersei takes over from Tywin). Kevan forces Cersei to take the walk of shame, and Jaime and the rest of the Lannisters abandon her to that fate.

[19:41] Just like Lord of the Rings, and the Witcher, ASOIAF is clearly dedicated to anti-violence. Not pacifism: all three works have heroes dealing out retributive violence in order to try and restore justice.

I understand it might be odd to suggest that three works which feature so much violence can be dedicated to anti-violence, but depicting something is not the same as endorsing it. I would argue in the case of Martin’s work in particular that his depiction of violence, so un-romantically brutal and direct, is intentionally revolting, and therefore is designed to be anti-violence. Martin purposefully makes you want revenge on certain characters, gives it to you, and then forces you to stare at the inhumanity of this thing you thought you wanted. Yeah I wanted Theon to pay, but not like that. Yeah, I wanted Cersei to pay, but not like that. Yeah, I want the Freys to pay, but I don’t think I’m going to like what Stoneheart is going to do to them.

There is a certain amount of this in the Witcher as well. I can specifically think of one scene in The Blood of Elves, but I promised no Witcher spoilers.

The violence in LOTR is much more romanticized, but as Faramir says: “I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” The hero is still Frodo, who doesn’t fight anyone or anything in the whole story. Frodo is a pacifist, but his pacifism is enabled by others who are willing to fight.

[20:07] In a Dance with Dragons Daenerys allows the old slave-holding class to maintain too much power and so they immediately attempt to continue the old violence of slavery. Daenerys did not commit enough violence against the slave-owners, so they were allowed to continue existing, and as long as they existed they were always going to abuse and oppress the ex-slaves.

A couple years after the release of ADWD, an obnoxiously wrong and poisonous idea began to creep into the ASOIAF fandom: Daenerys’ violence against the slaveowners in Slaver’s Bay is dangerous and immoral, and peace is the better option. This idea was most persuasively argued in the Meereenese Blot’s series of essays.

I’ll quote some of the conclusion here:

“They are supposed to feel this generic distrust for everyone, and to fail to grasp that their peaces were actually quite successful. Dany is supposed to conclude — wrongly — that her behavior through most of the book was silly and foolish. And if you came away with those impressions too, it’s perfectly understandable…The whole plotline is designed to maneuver Dany into a mental place where she’ll decide to sideline her concerns for innocent life, and take what she wants with fire and blood.”

This idea, much like the idea that Daenerys is some sort of unhinged fascist just waiting for the right trigger, makes me unbelievably angry. This idea that I am supposed to value the life of the slaveowner and the slave equally, and that maintaining a “peaceful” slave-owning society is an acceptable alternative to violent revolution is so fundamentally revolting to me, that it turns my stomach even to write that sentence.

Some fans went even as far as to suggest that Daenerys’ occupation of Meereen was a parallel to the US occupation of Iraq, and that she was engaged in erasing an authentic slave-owning culture that she despised. If you read the above series of essays, you can see that they are, at the least, enabling that kind of thinking.

To be clear, I do not consider any slave society to be worth a damn thing. Anything that continues it is evil and all that attempts to destroy it is good. That being said, once again Steven Attewell does a better job than I ever could of rebutting the ideas of the Meereneese Blot, and explaining how the correct parallel of Daenerys’ actions in Meereen is the American mistake of abandoning radical reconstruction. He describes her actions in Meereen as abandoning a revolution half complete. I highly recommend reading it, especially if you are American. 

Martin is not a pacifist. He has said he would have fought in WWII. He demonstrated against Vietnam. As far as I know, the first time George ever used the words “Fire and Blood” was in a book released in 1982 called Fevre Dream:

“I never held much with slavery […]. You can’t just go… usin’ another kind of people, like they wasn’t people at all. Know what I mean? Got to end, sooner or later. Better if it ends peaceful, but it’s got to end even if it has to be with fire and blood, you see? Maybe that’s what them abolitionists been sayin’ all along. You try to be reasonable, that’s only right, but if it don’t work, you got to be ready. Some things is just wrong. They got to be ended.”

Daenerys is a slave-freeing, slave-owner-killing Hero with a capital H. She has made mistakes. I weep for the lives of the slaves that she has thrown away by abandoning her revolution, by failing to give the people of Astapor the strength to defend themselves, by maintaining a false peace that allows the Meereneese KKK to kill ex-slaves in the night.  I shed no tears for the slaveowners that she has killed. When you treat other human beings as property you forfeit your right to Prosperity, Freedom, and Life. Preferably in that order—I would prefer that a slave society could peacefully transition, that those who attempted to continue it could be locked up, and that bloodshed could be avoided. But sometimes violence is necessary.

Daenerys will make more mistakes, I am sure. I believe that she will swing too far in the other direction, temporarily. But that’s a topic for another time.

[20:57] She comforts the hound even as he threatens her and helps him on his path from violence to peace.

Sandor did not die, despite what the Elder Brother told Brienne. He uses his words very carefully, to suggest that the Hound is dead, but that Sandor Clegane the man is simply “at rest.” He has become a brother of the isle.

“On the upper slopes they saw three boys driving sheep, and higher still they passed a lichyard where a brother bigger than Brienne was struggling to dig a grave. From the way he moved, it was plain to see that he was lame.” - Brienne VI, AFFC

[21:40] If they don’t understand why Tywin is a villain then of course they won’t understand why the Others are the main villains of the series, and will probably replace them with some blonde queen. And if you don’t understand that the cold of the human heart is the real enemy than of course you’ll think you can stop winter by just stabbing it. Like Tywin would.

In the books the Others are the villains. They are what the whole story is building towards, much like in LOTR the story builds towards Frodo casting the ring into the Fire. Martin has said that he thinks that the finishing chapters of LOTR, like the Scouring of the Shire, were important, so we may see something like that, but the clear emphasis will be on the existential evil, and cleaning up Cersei or Aegon “Targaryen’s” mess will be a clear step down in importance. It’s something that the heroes have grown beyond, but still need to handle, just like Saruman in the Shire.

[22:04] There’s nothing wrong with liking Game of Thrones, or disliking Lord of the Rings, or anything else.

I really do mean this. I am going to be critical of things you like, and am going to praise things you love. People are different, that’s to be expected. I am not here to pretend that people should only like the things I like. I’m interested in what makes these stories work. I said much the same thing in my last video about some of the new Star Wars properties. People tend to get really attached to the media they like (I’m no exception) and that can color our perception of criticism. Do try to keep in mind that if you like something I criticize it isn’t an attack on you. You have a sacred and personal relationship to the things you enjoy that no one can take from you. I like all kinds of stuff that other people might consider bad, and that’s okay. Actually it’s great, because it gives us something to talk about.

I may genuinely hate Game of Thrones because it butchers something I came to love, but that doesn’t mean I have anything against the people who do like it for their own reasons. We’re all just out here enjoying what we like.

PART THREE: THE WITCHER

There is less in this section for two reasons. First, I promised not to spoil anything past the material covered in the show and I’ll stick to that here. Second—full disclosure here—I haven’t read all of the books because after Blood of Elves I got pretty bored and from what I had heard they did not improve in quality, and if anything got worse. Having already felt that going from the anthologies to Blood I was happy to end my reading there.

If something I say is contradicted by a later book that I didn’t read feel free to let me know.

[23:31] First I should mention that Sapkowski’s works are not on the same level as Tolkien’s and Martin’s, who are the best and second-best fantasy authors of all time. I have enjoyed the Witcher books that I have read, but they are not anywhere near as complex or beautifully written.

This is just my opinion, see above paragraph. I really do think that it’s a pretty common opinion though. I’ve read it before, and you often see people recommend the first two Witcher anthologies in a “if you like it maybe see if you like the rest of them?” sort of way. Book sales numbers also support this, though by all accounts they are exploding in the wake of the show.

But, one potential issue is that I’m reading a translation so I have no idea how good Sapkowski’s prose actually is. You get a lot of sentences in the US edition like: “it must be both bothersome and irritating.” Translation is art, not science, and passages like these make me worry that the translator is just translating each phrase without worrying about all the subtlety that makes language beautiful. These are minor examples of course, but they worry me about what else might be changed. So take my criticism of his writing with a giant, translated, grain of salt, in that I don’t read Polish.

[23:58] Despite this, Geralt the Witcher has been worming his way into popular culture for years, interestingly on the back of a series of video games

Google trends clearly show that the video games are what primarily generated interest in the character before the show. There were no English editions until around the time the games started coming out, and the US editions all feature concept art from the games on the covers. The release of the subsequently translated books after the games received very little attention in comparison to the games.

[24:15] In my opinion, that decline of focus on Geralt was the greatest weakness in the books, and the focus on Geralt is the greatest strength of the games. Because Geralt is at the core of what made Sapkowski’s story and world engaging in the first place. He is a fascinating character in a way that Ciri, who is a fairly standard fantasy “chosen child,” could never be.

This is just my opinion, and I explain why I think Geralt is so great in the subsequent paragraphs. Reasonable people can disagree on this, but I’ve come across more than a couple fantasy characters who could be generically described as “royal orphans with special powers.” It’s not exactly novel. Geralt is pretty novel, at least in terms of what I have read.

[24:49] He suffers many of the same psychological problems that characters like Tyrion and Brienne suffer from in Martin’s work

The technical name for these kinds of issues is “internalized bigotry.” This happens when you get treated consistently horribly by the society you live in due to some fundamental fact about yourself that you didn’t choose, and eventually you begin to believe and “internalize” their opinion of you. For example, people expect Tyrion to be unlovable, conniving, lecherous, and debauched. Eventually he simply leans into these characteristics, because in a way it’s almost easier to be what people expect you to be.

[25:48] To top it off, he hides all this inside a cynical and nihilistic exterior, he pretends he doesn’t care when in fact, he cares more than anyone.

The shot that accompanies this, of Geralt looking intently at what’s happening in the room while others tend to be watching with a sort of mild curiosity like you might at an unexpected circus performance, did an awesome job of conveying this idea.

[26:36] This was kind of a cool idea, but predictably their scenes ended up being generally less interesting and engaging then Geralt’s. Yennefer’s were sometimes fantastic but Ciri’s rarely were.

This was the opinion of fans that I most commonly observed. I don’t have any empirical evidence of this. If you have any that either supports or contradicts this please let me know, I would be fascinated to see it. I could see someone really loving Yennefer’s scenes, and I personally enjoyed a lot of them, but I don’t understand how someone could walk away from the first season with Ciri as their favorite character of the three. I’ll come back to this in a later section.

[27:40] In many ways the first two books, and the games, have more in common with Sherlock Holmes than they do most other fantasy stories.

Really a more accurate comparison would be Philip Marlowe since Geralt is definitely more of an American Pulp detective than a British one. I do love the similarity between Geralt’s Witcher Senses in The Witcher 3 and Sherlock’s detective vision in Crimes and Punishment. I can’t make the same comparison to a Philip Marlowe game, because no one’s made one yet.

Actually that’s not strictly true. There was one game that came out in 1996.

[28:12] But Netflix’s Witcher has barely a whiff of detective fiction anywhere. I think this has caused a lot of fans to feel alienated by the show, even if they can’t explain exactly why.

It’s not reasonable to expect people to know why they like or don’t like something. It’s a feeling, and unless they have experience with writing, narratology, literature, film studies, or just read a lot of tvtropes.org, they are not likely to be able to put their finger on what it is. This causes people to disproportionally blame the things that are most obviously wrong. The premiere example of this is Jar Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace. Jar Jar was obviously bad, but he doesn’t even come close to the top ten biggest problems with the movie. It was much worse that there was no main character or understandable plot and drama. Check out Red Letter Media’s legendary review for more on that.

I think a similar thing happened with Ciri, in that her story was sort of obviously underwhelming and so received a lot of flak, but there are deeper problems with the show.

[32:04] The third change is more subtle, but I’m worried that this Geralt genuinely believes in neutrality.

Just like Ned, the showrunners would not be the first to espouse this view. This quote in particular about “evil is evil” is obnoxiously peddled about as a justification for fence-sitting despite the fact that Geralt’s actual behavior doesn’t support it at all.

I don’t know for sure if the showrunners genuinely think Geralt tries to be neutral. There’s some evidence for yes in the first episode, the Borch episode, the Striga episode, and a couple of others. There’s strong evidence for no in the Duny/Pavetta episode. We’ll just have to see.

To be clear, when I mean “neutral” I mean in the face of immediate violence or injustice. Geralt often doesn’t care who is king, as he explains to Ostrit. But he won’t let a Striga continue to kill people just for coin.

[37:20]  When the writers took away Ned’s best arguments for his actions, when they took his story of existential triumph, of not compromising his morals, and turned it into a simple tragedy, they showed they clearly did not understand his heroism.

See PoorQuentyn’s explanation of existential heroism, and how it applies to ASOIAF.

[37:58] In the books, Ciri and Yennefer are included in the story through their connection to Geralt, because he is our hero and the foundation of our connection to the world. In the show they are included before ever having met Geralt, and they take up time that could have been spent focusing on those devilish detective details that make Geralt’s stories and character work.

Originally this video had a lot of discussion about how well these two other characters worked, but it ended up being kind of useless because it comes down to personal opinion, and the writers failure to properly use Geralt massively overshadows whether or not someone liked or didn’t like either of the other two leads. Again, I get why someone could like Yennefer’s scenes. I get why someone could maybe even like her scenes more than Geralt’s. Anya Chalotra did great. I thought the writing was a little weak at times, but on balance pretty decent. Geralt gets the benefit of all his stories being straight adaptations, and she didn’t, so it was a pretty decent job.

On the other hand, I thought Ciri’s storyline was a giant waste of space. When I think of all the best moments in the show, Ciri doesn’t show up in any of them. She spends the entire season running away from and interacting with fairly minor and forgettable characters that did not need to be introduced in this season. Calanthe, Eist, and Mousesack were great characters and the actors gave great performances, but that did not make up for the fact that her storyline went nowhere and did nothing to justify its inclusion. If someone loved Ciri’s storyline I would genuinely be interested to know why.

[39:10] I do have some sympathy for the writers of the Witcher.

Many times in this video I mention sympathy for various writers. Moviemaking is a massively complex undertaking. If you know anything about the difficulty of getting these things together you’ll know that it’s an absolute miracle any movie gets made and takes herculean effort from everyone involved. Television series are arguably even worse because they are longer, more complex, and often have a lower budget despite that. The people involved are honestly doing their best, and I recognize that, even if I criticize the product.

[39:47] They are in this unfortunate position where they can’t really pull the majority of their writing straight from the books because the material isn’t really strong enough by itself.

The books are very dialogue heavy. As I allude to, the one scene that was very close to the book is that scene with Filavandrel and it’s just obnoxious because the two characters just dialogue at each other. It goes on even longer in the book. How well that works in a book is up for debate but it wasn’t going to work on the screen, and it didn’t.

These problems are not insurmountable though. You can put other footage over these monologues. You could have included some footage of Elves fighting in their war. You could have footage of the “cursed” daughters of Lilit being locked in towers or autopsied while Stregobor explains it. I get this is more budget, but that budget went other places.

On the other hand some great scenes that I think would have translated excellently shot-for-shot from the book with little additional budget, like Renfri and Geralt in the Alderman’s attic, are entirely cut. Ah well.

[40:25] Well, I have my theories, but it in the end it doesn’t really matter.

I have a sneaking suspicion that somebody thought it needed to be more “epic” than the first two books are, so we got all this princess and political stuff in early. If there’s any merit to the idea that this series “copied” GoT, it’s somewhere in here, just like how the Hobbit got poisoned with all of the “epicness” of LOTR.

[44:54] Lastly, I’m gonna do my best to put out more regular content going forward. I’m aiming for at least one video a month.

I place no limitation on topics. It’ll probably be mostly media analysis, but if I’m honest I’m just going to write about whatever interests me. That’s the best way to keep myself interested.

That being said, if you have something you think I should analyze let me know. If I’m interested, I might do it.

[ladylynse]

Hello, I apologize if you have already answered what I am about to ask. When you write a story how do you develop the plot? And do you ever think about plot holes? If so how do you prevent those?

Hi, Anon. Thanks for asking!

I start with my idea. Sometimes it’s as simple as “it would be hilarious if Maddie saw Phantom get hit with the Booo-merang when she knows it reacts to her son”. Sometimes it’s a paragraph or two or ten of random ideas smushed together(technical term)--this is more or less the stage my DPxML fic is at. There’s a lot of me going, “Oooh, this would be fun” or “ooh, or I could do this”, and I’ll actually talk to myself like that in my notes. It’s long, ramble-y, grammatically incorrect, and basically the equivalent of me brainstorming some sort of initial idea, the root of the story. (I’m already rambling, so the rest of the answer will be under a read more.)

I then start doing a bit of research on stuff I’ll need to write the story. Depending on how long I’ve been in a fandom, this can be very basic stuff (people’s names) to more specific things (what day does Adrien have fencing?) and will always include some sort of cheat sheet for myself if the characters use slang (like Randy. And Jake.). If I come up with any ideas--or potential ideas--while doing that, I jot them down. Even if it’s a couple lines of dialogue or a way to end a scene, at some point, if I can write that scene into the story (eg Gwaine saw Merlin’s eyes glow gold.) All of this starts in my initial fic document and eventually gets moved to a scrap file associated with that fic. Do not delete ideas/scenes/dialogue/anything even if you aren’t currently using it. You might be able to recycle them into a different fic or later in the current story.

Then I start writing. To see if it’ll work. Even if I don’t have a very clear idea of where things are going yet, and certainly no idea of the end. Sometimes I need to try a few different ways to start a story (Reflections went through various iterations. Mockingbird and my DPxML fic are still in that stage) before I find one that seems to flow. That’s when I look at the situation the characters are in (or about to be in) and try to figure out their actions and reactions to the stuff I’m putting them through. And then I try to let that drive the plot. It’s something I’ve gotten better at over time--making it less obvious that the characters are doing that because that’s the way I want the story to go--but my best plots tend to be character-driven. (This may or may not help you avoid some plot holes. Depends on what the plot hole is. It’ll hopefully help you cut down on the “well, why didn’t they do that like they always do?” sort.)

If you need a character to do something that’s not in character for your plot to go the way you want, you need to give them a reason to act out of character (eg Danny not telling Jake his secret because there’s a paranormal studies/ghost hunters convention in town--and because Jazz keeps ragging on him). If you can’t give them that reason, then you need to find another way to achieve what you want to happen without them doing that--or change your initial idea for the plot. Even if you start with a plan in mind, you will probably have to tweak it at some point. This is normal. You’re just adapting to your story. Sometimes, a story will get away on you--it’ll write itself in a direction you weren’t expecting or past the point where you’d initially figured it would end (hello, Treachery)--but, at least in my experience, if it’s the characters driving the story that way, and you let them, it can actually turn out to be a better story than what you’d initially planned. (Again: Treachery. The unplanned part ie second half is much better than the planned part.) It’s just a matter of keeping them reasonably in character so that things don’t get too out of hand. 

I only think about plot holes once I notice them. Honestly, I’ve gotten good at patching. If something doesn’t occur to me, I can’t prevent writing it in. It’s not so much plot hole prevention for me as adaptation of the story to make it more acceptable once I realize it’s there.

Sometimes, when I’m editing a chapter or rereading something to remind myself of the story thus far/what’s happened, I’ll see something that doesn’t work that I’d missed before. (Random note on the ‘remembering what’s happened’ bit: if you plan a long fic taking place over multiple days, do yourself a favour and make a timeline for yourself in your scrap file. So much easier. That’ll allow you to make accurate references like “last week” and “three days ago”. I did this with Shattered and regretted nothing.) Once I notice a plot hole, I consider the damage. Have I posted something where it’s already stated? If I haven’t, repairing it typically isn’t that hard, though of course it depends on what it is--you just need to give it some justification, shaky or otherwise, or do a bit of rewriting to patch it up. Once it’s firmly written in and you don’t notice it until chapters later, your best bet is writing in justification for it later. In some cases, this involves you turning your plot hole into a plot point. It may be a small plot point or it might be a significant one that will actually shift your intended story a little bit. I did this a lot with my earlier Doctor Who crossovers. I got quite good at retroactive patching there, and my plot hole turned into foreshadowing, although in all fairness all of those involved time travel to one degree or another so that made things a bit easier; I didn’t have to stick to the rules of the actual universe. 

So here’s a plot hole of mine that’s recent that you might have noticed if you’ve read Down the Rabbit Hole: the note on Toby’s bed. Why...why are they communicating that way? Why go to the trouble of sending a note to him that way? Why not just phone or text or email? I missed that initially. And now I see it. And now I have justification (that hasn’t yet appeared in-fic) for not communicating by normal 21-century means. Depending on how things go, it might be hinting at something bigger, or it might just be a small one-off thing.

Now, in case you’re interested in my disaster of a ‘planning paragraph’, this was how Masks began--and please bear in mind I’d seen ten episodes, subbed, at this point and wasn’t entirely sure on what stuff was called:

Blademaster. Fights with knives. Unless it’s someone fromAdrien’s fencing class; the transformation could make that thing deadly sharp.That’s better, actually. Go with that. Marinette actually beats Adrien to thetransformation because she was skulking around waiting for him to come outafter class/lesson/club/whatever it is is over (to just ‘happen to be there’and try to ask him to catch a movie or something in casual conversation) andheard the commotion, while he got caught up in the fleeing people beforemanaging to sidestep and transform. Ladybug hasn’t managed to get the swordaway from Blademaster in the meantime and nearly gets the cord of her luckycharm thing cut for her trouble. Chat Noir shows up and pretty much fences withhis quarterstaff thing until Blademaster starts to cheat, at which point hevaults over him and tags him from behind, hoping the distraction is enough forLadybug to free herself from whatever she ended up in. Evil moth guy isdemanding the gems, so Blademaster starts trying to take a slice out of ChatNoir, who evades rather than parries, trying to draw Blademaster awayfrom…something…and Ladybug takes over when he’s backed into a corner and needsto turn to scale the wall. She yells at him to get the something away if he’sfigured out what Blademaster is after—she hasn’t, yet; just that the blade isprobably what the akuma is in—and Adrien, being there for the transformation,knows exactly what happened and can oblige. But he isn’t long out the door whenhe hears Ladybug scream; Blademaster had either grabbed another blade orsomehow acquired something sharp—I’ve never fenced; I’m not entirely sure howsharp those things are—and while avoiding one blow, she jolted off the courseof the other and got her earlobe sliced off/the gem ripped out. Blademaster hasa gem—moth guy is rejoicing and demanding he now get the other one—andMarinette, with one hand clamped to her ear, has to get out of there despitethe pain because as much as she needs to get Tikki (?) back, she doesn’t wantto risk her identity and—more importantly—she’s not sure how much longer shecan remain upright. She hits the change room or office or something, aiming fora first aid kit or at least a wad of toilet paper, and Chat Noir is shocked theLadybug is gone. He manages to defeat Blademaster and retrieve her gem, but itis inactive, and while he manages to catch the dark butterfly in a fencingmask, he doesn’t have the means to banish its evil OR to erase the ill that hashappened here; that’s Ladybug’s turf. But how is he supposed to return hergem—return her—when he doesn’t knowwho she is, and his own transformation is wearing off? (Marinette will bepulling a new hairstyle or modelling a hat or just plain skipping school—ifthere IS school; what day was fencing class again?—and getting Alya to coverfor her with her parents on the pretence that she’s trying to work up thecourage to do something with Adrien, perhaps, and she really doesn’t want tohave that conversation with her mom,when in reality she’s just trying to find Tikki. Not sure what happened withTikki, exactly. Needs to regain energy, which Plagg (?) would know and informChat Noir accordingly, but with them trying to keep secrets from each other….)

and that will give way to notes like this:

Tikki, PlaggMiracle Stones/MiraculousHawkmoth

Ladybug – lucky charm at end, always ends up with somethingshe doesn’t know what to do with at first and then figures it out; yo-yocompact; BOTH EARRINGS for the miracle stones…but maybe ripping one out woulddeactivate the other. She is the ONLY ONE who can cleanse the akumas. Chat Noir – (allergic to feathers), ancient destruction/cataclysm; batonYeah, if that ring comes off, the Kwami is forced out and the detransformationis right awayPlagg is SUCH a glutton, he’ll even chase after stuff he thinks is food

----

Okay. Adrien picks up Tikki and Miracle Stone, so Marinettefinds nothing and tries to track down Chat Noir, but Tikki, once recovered, canjust tell Adrien who Marinette is. Problem solved. That’s not fun. Unless Tikkidecides to respect Marinette’s wishes?

Or maybe they each find one earring, and Tikki isn’t wellbecause they’re divided?

Adrien and Marinette can both find nothing—Marinette because she hasn’t achance to look, Adrien because he doesn’t know TO look—but unless Tikki’strapped there, she gotta be able to get out.

Wait, Adrien’s chivalrous. He’ll respect Ladybug’s wishes.Even if he hates it

----

If Plagg can’t see, when they transform, Adrien won’t beable to see, either.

“What do you mean, I can’t transform?”“If we transform, this thing would get sucked in, too, and you won’t be able to do anything.” [lines from the Rogercop episode]

Statue set on green stone (granite?) with the top edgejutting out about chin height for Adrien

-------------------------Nope, gonna have to go back and change Blademaster’s restoration to Phillipebecause that DOES seem to be after Ladybug’s restoration. [turns out I was right the first time with this, but I’d checked with someone else and they’d thought no one changed back until after the Miraculous Ladybug bit, so I’d changed my initial plans here, and a few months later we got an episode that confirmed that, no, the magic link just needs to be broken, things don’t need to be fixed yet.]

[a-perverted-sentimentality-blog]

((Rar anon AGAIN (sorry if I clog your ask box ehehe ^^") Ah! Thank you very much! You are big help! It will be helpful to have WinRAR because I cannot down load things that are in .rar files, which sucks (I think that's right word?) because some things that people put for download are really nice, but I can't have! Edit Grim Reaper?? So have cheats on, kill a sim (2? Because brothers??... Is there even two grim reapers?? Eh?? Confusing) in family, and then add grim reaper(s) to family? (1/?)))

((Don’t worry about clogging my ask box, it’s fine :). More under cut because the “BL00 can’t shut the fuck up” tag is extremely apt.))

((Okay so, in order to edit the Grim Reaper, you’ll need a mod over at NRAAS Industries. Specifically, Master Controller. You will need the base mod, and I think the cheats module. I don’t know for certain since I don’t play without the cheats module, so I’d recommend getting that too just in case. 

Once it’s installed and you’re in game, everything you click on will have an extra interaction, simply titled NRAAS. This is totally fine. Click on either a computer or City Hall and then select the new NRAAS option, and then Master Controller. If you get two Master Controller options to click, click on the one with the orange circle on it. It looks like this:

(Ignore all the other options there, those are irrelevant to this. These are all other NRAAS mods I have in my game, 10/10 would recommend.)

Once you’ve clicked the Master Controller option, you should get a new menu that looks like this:

Select “Sim”.

Then “Advanced”.

And then, “Edit in CAS”.

From hereon, there will be a list of options to filter out the Sims to search from (like age, gender, supernatural status and so on). Alternatively, you can immediately hit escape, and Master Controller will load every single Sim in town. Everyone. From premades, to your Sims, to randomly generated neighbours to NPCs.

Once Master Controller has loaded the Sims, scroll down to Reaper, Grim:

Click Grimmy’s name, hit the accept tick, and the game will begin loading up Create a Sim. 

Load up the full body outfits category, and then put Papyrus’ clothes on. The poor guy will be headless and footless at first, like this:

...Ever so slightly weird! The boots his Sim use require World Adventures to be installed, otherwise you’ll have to find something else. Also his gloves require Seasons, but I keep forgetting the add them. Whoops. But anyway, now that he’s headless, put the skull you found on him and presto!

It’s Papyrus!

I do apologise, that was stupid. :v

Once you’ve made Paps, sort out stuff like changing his name, traits and lifetime wish, then you can click the little button in his portrait at the bottom of CAS to save him to your bin.

Oh and your English is fine, no need to apologise! I hope that’s all easy to understand, Master Controller looks pretty daunting at first. 

Also this is unrelated to Undertale, but I would recommend several other NRAAS mods, just to help improve the quality of your game. 

Overwatch helps to clear up any errors that can be caused, remove inactive Sims’ inventory cars, turn off TVs and radios, stuff like that. It does a town wide check at 3am. This does not mean that your saves are immune to corruption. But it should help increase a save’s playability. 

Another thing to help extend a save’s lifespan, so to speak, is to do a total town wide reset periodically. Say, once every four in game weeks, or if you notice something not acting quite right. Master Controller can do that. Again, from City Hall or a computer, click NRAAS > Master Controller > Town > Reset Everything. You’ll then get a conformation message:

Accept, and then it’ll begin. This will very likely take some time! I don’t know how long exactly, I never thought to look into it, but be patient with it. 

Anti Magic Scroll is good if you have several Sims in one household that learn the same things. Say, alchemy potions or recipes. With this mod, the book won’t disappear after initially read, so other Sims can read it too. No need to buy multiple expensive Amnesia recipe books for a house of cooks!

Careers. Want to make use of custom careers? You’ll need this!

DebugEnabler. Initially I’d been recommending this to help clear up game errors, but I think dumb ole me was getting confused between that and Overwatch. Still would recommend DebugEnabler, even if only for doing dumb stuff like making gold statues of Sims. I mean it sounds useful for a save with Mettaton in it :v. Do be careful with it though. I personally haven’t noticed any problems occurring from overusing the debug options, but better safe than sorry, huh? 

Hybrid. Got Supernatural? Want to make the biggest Mary-Sue of them all, the mythical werewolf-vampire-fairy-genie? Use this! I don’t know how this works without Supernatural though. All occult statuses can be used with it, so maybe it’s possible to make a genie vampire if you’ve got only Late Night and Showtime, for example. I promise and guarantee nothing.

Portrait Panel. Are you insane, like me, and fancy sometimes playing more than 8 Sims in a household? You’ll need this. Otherwise you’ll have to manually cycle through portraits of extra Sims with the space bar and that’s a pain in the ass. Portrait Panel ups the limit of portraits to something mental like 20+. 

Register. Want to change role Sims, like festival workers, consignment store specialists? This can also be used to alter the number of wild animals in your town with the Pets expansion, and turn off the tourists from World Adventures. This does not get rid of the NPC magician/acrobat/singers from Showtime though. So either ignore them if you have that expansion, or GO FULL MURDER. It’s fun. :v

Retuner. Annoyed by some seemingly arbitrary restrictions EA places? Change ‘em! This allows children to use rabbit hole functions like raiding the hospital or grocery store for plasma, young adults and older life stages to pull pranks on the school, let children blog or use the phone camera. Or let pregnant Sims do stupid risky shit they shouldn’t like go hot tubbing, roller/ice skate, or even smoke if you have the cigarette mod. I am a terrible person when it comes to Sims. :P

Story Progression. This replaces EA’s own bland, lifeless story progression with a new one that can be tweaked as you see fit. You’ll get notifications (which can be turned off) whenever Sims do something like start dating, marry, get divorced, fall pregnant, have babies, have affairs, adopt pets, take a job, learn a skill etc. This will cause your game to lag. The more modules, the worse the lag. I have the base mod and it is worth any slow down in my opinion, but obviously you may disagree. 

Traffic. Playing a medieval world and want to get rid of cars? This is your mod! It also does things like can increase or decrease the number of ice cream vans or food trucks but why the hell would anyone want to increase the number of ice cream vans those things are creepy and have legitimately stalked my Sims before :|

Traveller. Want to send your Sims on holiday to another town, custom or EA made? This is how to do it. This can be altered in the settings to let pets, pregnant Sims, inactive household friends, babies and toddlers to travel as well. World Adventures isn’t required unless you want to travel to those particular holiday towns.

If you’re of age, I would recommend Woohooer on the same site as well. I won’t go into details about it because I don’t know the ages of anyone who’ll read this and I’m personally uncomfortable recommending a sex mod (even if it’s only for the Sims) to a minor. 

I think that’s FINALLY everything I had to say now, holy shit. Let me know how it’s all going, and if you need more help!))

[userpoe]

I was tagged by @fisforfulcrum thanks sweetie 😘

Why did you choose your URL?

I was really getting back into my sequels spin and wanted something short and snappy to change to, but I also wanted it to be connected to Poe in some way. Since all the good Poe urls were taken, on a whim I checked to see if zoriis was available. It was, so I changed to it and it...just sort of became my brand? I don't ever wanna change from it I don't think...unless a really good Poe url opens up anyway, which I doubt. And I get a serious seratonin rush whenever anyone refers to me by my url in the tags idk why.

Any side blogs?

I have my x reader fic blog @luminouspoes where I use to reblog all my recs + post my fics before I decided to move all my bullshit here. I'm also co-mod of @thedamereynetwork because I love my babies.

How long have you been on tumblr?

Since 2011/2012. I didn't really get active on here until late 2013, though.

Do you have a queue tag?

the classic and very original "queue". I use to do the snazzy quotes thing but I can never stick to one for very long. I've debated here and there making a new queue tag, maybe with a sw quote, but eh who has the spoons for that.

Why did you start your blog in the first place?

Initially back when, it was meant to help me with my nonfiction writing. Instead, Tumblr ended up being instrumental in me discovering fanfic and honing my fiction writing craft through that. I remade my blog a shit ton of times as a teenager, though, and the thing that kept me coming back was all the pretty content and my friends. Plus, where else am I gonna be this weird on? Twitter? Hell no.

Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

Because I thought the Poe emoji on the Star Wars app was precious. Then, for pride month, I decided to add the aroace flag behind him because well. I'm asexual and dubiously aromantic, and I hc Poe being aspec, so I thought it'd be nice. Did you know his second X-Wing kind of has the same color palette as the aroace flag? It's pretty damn cool still not Black One but cool

Why did you choose your header?

Because @abelmorales and @michaelperry are responsible for me falling head over heels with Michael Perry and I wanted to include (1) soft perfect angel teacher man on my blog somehow fjsjsjskss so soft af flannel clad grading papers Michael it was.

What’s your post with the most notes?

This Poe gifset here, which astonishes me given how many braincells I had to rub together to figure out how to phrase the captions (the irony, I know). I guess we have a thing for competency and forearms in this fandom?

How many mutuals do you have?

A few! Dunno how many dunno how one would know that.

How many follows do you have?

Too many, in my opinion??? There's almost 1.2k of you now and I don't know why you're all here but I appreciate it nonetheless.

How many people do you follow?

Little under 200 and most of those are inactive anymore. I'm pretty picky abt what I follow cos of my anxiety and also idk if you've noticed but most of my interests revolve around shit that's been over for several years. And a lot of blogs are really ship-oriented, and I just...don't vibe with shipping communities so I try to stay on the outskirts of all that.

Also I'm pretty guarded about who I follow due to years of casual aphobia being thrown around this site, and now wariness about how blogs act abt neurodivergent folk and characters

...but if anyone knows of any more active Oscar blogs that are nice abt Poe and the sequels or moffat era dw blogs...please let me know fjdksks my dash is always dead

Have you ever made a shitpost?

With my brand of humor I think most of my jokey posts kind of teeters on it. But I don't think I've ever outright done a shitpost.

How often do you use tumblr each day?

*coughs* pretty often. I'm a slow scroller, so it takes me awhile to get through the dashboard to start with and I also like checking the edit tags and then if I go through a blog I can end up going down a rabbit hole of looking through their posts or their tag about a show or movie or character I like and then whoops where has the time gone. But I'm kind of pulling myself away from scrolling so much on Tumblr, if anything so my dashboard is a little more active when I do hop on, and also so I can get some other hobbies in like writing or reading (working through the second to all the boys book rn!)

Did you have a fight with another blog once?

*laughs my ass off* no. I stick to my lane, if someone posts something that I'm uncomfortable with or I disagree with, I just... unfollow? I'm not interested in vague posting people either, I don't see the damn point. This is my little internet cottage and I don't see the point in fighting the village when I can just ignore them and care for fellow wanderers, ya feel?

Though, come to think of it, I have told off a fair few anonymous asks who were trying to bully my friends or mutuals but. I don't know if we can really count that or not.

How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

[wibbles hand] I think some can veer a little too closely to guilt tripping the readers, but if it's something really important, I understand the urgency.

Do you like tag games?

I do! They're a lot of fun, I just wish I had the spoons more often to do them. I also tend to freak out because I never know who to tag because I'm simultaneously worried I'll be annoying if I do tag someone, and if I forget someone I'll make them feel left out.

Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

First off, Laura's answer to this question is so damn precious I'm going to cry, love you babes. Second of all, I genuinely think all my mutuals are Tumblr famous. Like in my head I'm just like "that person is so fucking awesome oh my god they're so cool I bet they have so many followers they deserve it all their posts are exquisite". I love my mutuals and there's a good chance (see: yes) that if we're mutuals I consider u my friend in my head I'm just too shy to admit it out loud yet jdjdks

Do you have a crush on a mutual?

I literally get hearts in my eyes everytime I go down my dashboard. I am platonically kissing you all on the cheek and giving you cocoa. I love you.

no pressure tags: @bee-dameron @djarinsbeskar @michaelperry @abelmorales @starryeyedstories @misterrimpossible @exlibrisastra and @princedimitris and anyone else I may be blanking on

[invisibleraven]

Tagged by the always lovely @merihn 💜

1. Why did you choose your url?

So a potentially little known fact about me; I love Raven from Teen Titans. She's probably the character I'm closest to in terms of personality. So she became part of my username. The invisible part is because that's how I usually feel.

2. Side blogs

I had two, one for my wedding, but I haven't touched it since (almost 5 years ago now) and the other where I blogged about shows I was watching, which again, I haven't touched in years.

3. How long have you been on tumblr?

Since 2011

4. Do you have queue tag?

I do not. I have my queue going like 3 times a day, and it's loaded up until...mid-August at this point? So yeah.

5. Why did you start your blog?

Honestly I started using Tumblr to follow Glee/Klaine blogs. It's was part way through season 3, I was looking for some fandom content, and I feel down the rabbit hole that is this site and haven't really looked back since.

6. Why did you choose your icon?

I've changed my icon a few times, but I am enjoying my yin-yan fish. I'm probably going to change it soon, once I get art for my JaTP BB fics, because I am so excited to get fan art for something I've written

7. Why did your choose your header?

Actually I just changed my header, and my blog title! My new header is Reggie doing his hair flip, because it's the most swoon worthy Reggie moment, and my blog description now includes my title as a devoted Reggie Peters fangirl. I changed the title to a line from Closing Time, for obvious reasons if you've been reading my fics. Also I ADORE that song, and one day I will get some of the lyrics tattooed on me.

8. Post with the most notes?

My post with the most notes is actually a OMGCP/Zimbits proposal headcanon I wrote ages ago, and am still in awe that it took off like it did. After that it's a link to the real estate listing for when they were selling the building they used as Dalton on Glee.

9. How many mutuals do you have?

A baker's dozen

10. How many followers do you have?

199, but I have no idea how many of those are even active, since I know a few of them have no content on their blog

11. How many people do you follow?

118, I tend to unfollow people after they've been inactive for over a year or if their interests change to the point where I'm basically just blacklisting everything they're posting about.

12. ever made a shitpost?

I mean, maybe? But I doubt it.

13. How often do you use tumblr each day?

Probably too much. I check it A LOT. To the point that my husband made up a song about it. So yeah...

14. Did you ever have fight/argument with other blog?

I mean, I've had disagreements with people on here, and that stupid blacklist thing happened, even if I tried my best to stay out of it aside from my one post regarding the issue.

15. How do you feel about “You need to reblog this” posts?

I hate them so so much. I will basically never reblog them, mostly out of spite. If I care about the issue, I will blog about the issue, or do something about it IRL, but feeling like I have to prove myself or my beliefs sets me off, and I hate people who only want performative activism

16. Do you like tag games?

OMG, YES! Please tag me in all the things, notice me sempai!

17. Do you like ask games?

I love them, please involve me in any ask games, come talk to me in my inbox, I really am very nice, I don't bite!

18. Which of your tumblr friends/mutuals do you think is famous?

I mean, I follow a few celebrity tumblrs, but other than those, I don't think being 'Tumblr famous' is really a thing like it is on other social media platforms

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual?

I mean, I love you all, but no. If we ever meet IRL I will of course, give you tons of hugs and baked goods though.

Tagging @daintyduck99, @aroacethetic-shitpost, and whoever else wants to play!