#every day i log on tumblr and i see things so far removed from the source material its great

[aspennntree]

danny phantom is maybe the funniest route a fandom could take ever

[iamanartichoke]

So.

This post has been a long time coming for me, and it's likely not going to endear me to anyone, but if I don't get this out then it's just going to fester until I eventually leave tumblr and I don't actually want to leave. So, yknow, there we are.

That being said, I'm writing this for personal catharsis, not to affect anyone else in any way. I'm not trying to, like, make a stand or call out people or judge anyone, even though it will seem that way. This is just my perspective and my feelings, and since it's my blog, I feel like I should be able to write it.

Basically I've been doing a lot of soul-searching since the holidays, about my life in general but also about tumblr and fandom. It's gotten to a point where I give tumblr a cursory login a few times a day so I can check notifs/the dash and maybe post a thing or two to feel like I'm still active, and then I go off and do something else. It used to be that I was on tumblr constantly, and I was having fun, and logging in and posting and interacting, and while I'm not advocating for spending all of one's free time glued to the computer screen, I have to acknowledge that even when the majority of my free time was spent glued to this site (and AO3), I felt fulfilled. The way a hobby is supposed to make you feel, yknow? Something fun to look forward to, to get invested in, to feel a sense of accomplishment with. I was investing a lot of time here, but I felt like I was getting back just as much, to the benefit of my own mental well-being.

And I've met a lot of wonderful people here. Before I joined the Loki fandom, it had been a very long time since I'd been part of any significant online "friend group," so to speak. I'm most comfortable in lurker mode. I don't like to draw a lot of attention to myself. I was also never in a fandom before, not really. I had my hyperfixations and my beloved content, but it varied, and I just engaged with that material in my own way. Which was fine, bc it wasn't something that was a major part of my life. Not until I discovered Loki did I actively want to participate in fandom. I was thinking about this character constantly, I was seeking out fanfiction for the first time in years, and I was even inspired to start writing my own fanfic, which I hadn't done in literally over a decade (rip my Baby-sitters Club fanfics on FF.net). I felt for and related to this character so much that it wasn't enough to just quietly lurk on the sidelines; I had feels to share and things to say and I had found a community with so many other people who knew how it felt.

None of this is unique to me, I'm sure. Every person who engages in the Loki fandom, or has, or will, felt some kind of connection to this character that brought them here, bc casual consumption wasn't enough. We're all here bc of Loki.

So it really saddens me to see how fractured the fandom has become, and to reflect on my own role in it. I've been holding my tongue on a lot of things for months, out of fear of disappointing people I care about, or out of fear of becoming a target, or out of fear of losing my community bc, tbh, I don't have much else for social interaction, especially since covid ruined all our lives. But the less I said, the more I just ended up removing myself from the community, and the truth is that while I don't want to disappoint anyone, there are a lot of people here who've disappointed me. And it's not fair for me to not acknowledge that; I can't beat myself up for saying things or having opinions that disappoint others while also internalizing all of the disappointment and exhaustion heaped on me by others, so that I feel like I'm the only one doing something wrong.

And I'm not saying that to call out anyone; like I said, this is cathartic for me to write. And far be it for me to say anyone is doing anything wrong in fandom, bc we all have our own perspectives and experiences and they affect how we engage in fandom spaces, and that's fine. You do you, boo, and all that. (Asode from death threats and harrassment; y'all need to cut that shit out.) But it would be disingenuous to not acknowledge the ripple effect that some people's actions and words have on others, including me.

I was going through my old blog posts from the last, I don't know, year or so and of course everything was a mess in fandom then, too, but not nearly as bad as it is now. Ragnarok wank was still the most prevalent wank, along with the building anticipation/anxiety over the series. And I was thinking about how my stance on Ragnarok aligned me with a certain group of people, and how my stance on the series conflicts with that, and how it might seem to the casual observer that I've "switched sides." There's a whole lotta discourse from antis about not understanding how people who hated Ragnarok could turn around and love the series, and feeling hurt/let down by those opinions, and I just can't help but wonder what they're thinking about me or if they feel let down by me. But the thing is, I've never hated Ragnarok, and I don't love the series. I think there's a lot wrong with Ragnarok and I have criticized it a lot, that's all. I think there's a lot wrong with the series, too, but there's a lot that I like, or appreciate. So no, I haven't "switched sides," - I'm exactly where I've always been, trying to engage with the material from the middle. I've never seen anything here as just black and white, love it or hate it, and it baffles me that so many do.

Now, I will say that some of that wank re: "switching sides" is legit, in that there are a couple of specific people who took their love for the show to the level of deciding it made them qualified to say that people who didn't and were vocal about it were too blinded by their own trauma/mental health in general to see the show clearly. And that sentiment, intended or not, has ended up being echoed by a lot of pro-series people, maybe not even knowing where it came from in the first place. Things like that contribute to the toxicity in this fandom and make the gap wider, and I get feeling hurt by that especially when it comes from someone once considered a close friend. So I'm not, like, saying these feelings are invalid.

But at the same time, it feels like anyone who previously had negative things to say about Ragnarok and now has positive things to say about the series is lumped into the same category as the people mentioned above, and that's harmful, too. A few months ago one of my posts, for example, got linked in a discord server that I happened to be lurking in at the time bc a lot of mutuals were in it, and I don't care that they disagreed with what I had to say but I do care that they said "Oh I thought I could trust her," like my posting an opposing opinion that says nothing about any other faction of fans and is focused on the series material makes me an untrustworthy mutual. It felt hurtful to me and, despite being such a minor slight in the grand scheme of things, has definitely contributed to my holding back on posting things - not only bc being talked about behind my back is a weird trigger for me (I had a tough adolescence) but bc I feel like I don't know who's nice to me on tumblr while thinking less of me as a person and ostracizing me on discord (or DMs).

What I'm getting at is, I have aligned myself with and befriended a good portion of the "negative" side of the fandom, and I often posted about how criticism shouldn't be treated as such a taboo, that people can post what they want to, that discussions and civil - nay, friendly - debate are good and should be encouraged. And I still feel that way; I don't think criticism should be frowned upon, and I do enjoy discussions even if there's differing opinions. That hasn't changed - but, over the course of the show airing and the six or seven months that have followed, the negativity faction has changed. It has snowballed into such toxicity that it has severely ruined Loki, and the fandom, for me personally.

(If you're a series-anti and we're still mutuals, btw, I am probably not talking about you. I have unfollowed the people, mutuals included, whose posts I no longer want to see, and there are a lot of antis on this site that I do not know, have never or rarely spoken to, and have no connection to, but who are so visibly anti that one can't help but be cognizant of them and their opinions. We also have mutuals in common so their posts are often on my dash. This is about them.)

(That said, if you're not comfortable being mutuals with me or if my posts make you feel let down or some other kind of way, please just unfollow me.)

And I think what was kinda the last straw for me is that some antis are no longer tagging negativity. I mean, I've been noticing a decline in the consistency of tagging for quite awhile now, but in the last few days, they are now not tagging on purpose in retaliation of getting harrassment and death threats. Certainly those things are far from okay, and I get the sentiment, but at the same time, I never harrassed anyone or sent any death threats. I'm just trying to mind my own business and salvage something from this fandom that's rewarding for me, and now I can't even curate my own dash properly.

Which brings me back around to my statement that the negativity has ruined Loki for me. Because the thing is, for me, while I feel there is a lot to be criticized about the series, I genuinely do not agree with many of the antis' takes and I'm tired of seeing them bc they don't change, they just grow and snowball into more extremes to the point where it seems like if you say anything positive about the series, there's at least one anti in the notes saying that thing is abusive or harmful. It can be incredibly frustrating on a meta level bc I disagree but don't dare engage about it, and it's frustrating on a fandom level bc the negativity is relentless. Posts about Avengers-era/TDW OG Loki cross my dash and there've been comments added like "oh, remember when Loki had good writers/Marvel cared" etc. I've also seen an increase in frequency of antis hopping on a pro-series post and ranting, for lack of a better word, about why the show sucks; it has happened on my posts, too. A couple of weeks ago I saw someone complaining about Loki and the series on a post about the Dr. Strange trailer, which had nothing to do with Loki. Just yesterday I saw a post in which OP wrote some meta on the subtle ways that Sylvie showed she cared about Loki, only for an anti to reblog with some "give her her own show then, I'm here for Loki," take which, of course, encouraged others to reblog with "yeah we hate Sylvie and she's a bitch to Loki" commentary, and like - the fuck are you even trying to accomplish, at this point? What do you gain? Certainly not catharsis, bc clearly none of you feel any better, and you're not saying anything new, either. Nor are you looking for genuine discussion bc you're obviously never going to change your mind, no matter what anyone says. So why? It's like there's this inability to tolerate people's enjoyment of the series without feeling the need to remind them that it's abusive and shitty.

Here's the thing about negativity - it's fucking negative. It feels bad and it makes people feel bad. I've seen post after post after post of antis talking about how angry they are, or how painful it is, or how disappointed and furious and heartbroken they are. Those are absolutely valid feelings, and I share some of them, but they aren't pleasant ones. Nobody enjoys feeling that way. It feels bad to feel bad, and that's why tagging was utilized in the first place. So people could avoid seeing posts that would make them feel bad.

Like I've said, repeatedly, I have criticisms of the show. Like. I don't even like it that fucking much! I don't agree with the faction of fans who think it's the best, most brilliant thing ever. But I do think it has heart, and I do care about the characters (yes, I care about Sylvie and I care about Mobius and I care about their bonds with Loki), and I don't feel like feeling bad. I feel bad most of the time in my life; mental illness is a bitch. When I come to tumblr to engage in fandom, I'm doing so as an escape. I want to enjoy myself. If I want to feel bad, I want it to be bc of fictional angst and struggle, not bc every time I turn around it seems like someone else is trying to remind me that Loki's character was ruined by the show or that supporting any aspect of it, especially a ship, makes one transphobic or supportive of abuse. People's consumption of fiction shouldn't be tied to or reflective of their morals anyway, but also, all it's accomplishing is spreading the negativity so more people feel bad.

So, yeah. The level and relentlessness of the negativity is what has ruined my enjoyment of Loki and of fandom. Not wanting to write or post meta bc I feel like if I criticize anything, antis will take it as a green light to start piling on the hate is a big part of it, but it's also not knowing who's disappointed in me or feels betrayed by me or is even just spilling tea about me bc of something I post or share. It's not being able to read fic, bc maybe I saw a post that day that hit on one of my own complaints about the series, and it wasn't tagged, and that person wrote a whole rant about it, and now I can't stop thinking about it to the point that it's actively distracting me from whatever I'm trying to read. I don't care that that person had that take, but I do care that I saw it and it affected me bc they decided not to tag it.

That's just an example of how the negativity can get under your skin and start affecting your perceptions. And, I mean, maybe the thing wouldn't have bothered me if I didn't also agree with it to an extent, but I should have the ability to decide, okay, x thing sucks but it is what it is, I'm going to focus on z bc that's what I'm getting enjoyment from and I want to feel good right now. I don't want to see some negative thing about x. I don't want to acknowledge my criticisms right now. Or if I do, I don't want it to go down the slippery slope of "mhm x was kinda shitty and I wish it hadn't been done" into "x is -phobic and toxic and harmful, and the creators did it on purpose to fuck over Loki, and also that Sylvie cunt should die in season 2" like - asdhjdasjk forget I said anything, damn.

Like I said, I don't expect this post to endear me to anyone, and I'm sure I'll lose some followers and possibly mutuals. If I hurt your feelings, I'm sorry; if I seem like I'm attacking anyone, I swear I'm not. I'm trying to get this weight off of my chest so that when I come to tumblr I can breathe again. I don't have a solution for all this toxicity, but identifying it and speaking it is, for me, better than nothing.

Please do not reblog this post.

[thewakingcloak]

Debugblog: Darn Diagonals

I love and hate debugging. It’s frustrating to have a problem and have to work it out before you can continue being creative. On the other hand, it’s a puzzle, and I like puzzles. Working them out feels really good. Like beating that boss.

Anyway I don’t know if this is helpful to y’all, but I decided to write up a blog on my debugging process. (Maybe I’ll do more in the future under the “Debugblog” series??)

So here’s the issue.

In this gif, I’m ONLY pressing one key at a time: left, right, up, or down. But the player is moving at an angle somehow.

The weirdest part: this doesn’t happen all the time, and it only happens in daytime. This is baffling.

So the first step in debugging is we need to replicate the issue. When I initially found this bug, it was only happening on a random screen and just slightly so. I ignored it for a while. When I saw it happen again, I started making mental notes of the conditions in which it occurred.

Eventually I found a place where I could reproduce the issue consistently (in the gif above). This will be invaluable when testing! If the issue is hard to replicate, it’s harder to test and harder to check when it’s working.

The next step is usually the biggest one: finding the cause of the bug. Usually you want to isolate the issue, which you’ll see come up a lot as I move forward...

So anyway, the bug is with movement. I have two “movement” scripts. One that takes into account various environmental variables and modifies velocity--move_actor()--and one that actually moves the object and factors in collision--movement_and_collision().

I figured the first place I should go is my move_actor() script. I want to know if the extra variable in movement is being added to the velocity before movement_and_collision() is called.

One of the most common ways to debug is using a breakpoint. I could use a breakpoint here, but the issue is that this line runs every single frame I’m moving, so that makes movement difficult. Instead, I’m going to use show_debug_message() (I created console_log() as shorthand which also shows time and frame information).

(Full disclosure, I actually was looking at the code in the “else” block first, and the velocity was always being logged as 0,0 lol... because that only runs when the player isn’t moving. It’s okay to make mistakes!)

So I played the game and duplicated the issue. My guess was that there would be an extra y value added here, but lo and behold, there wasn’t. Check out some of the debug output:

[14:51:34.16493] x: -1.20, y: 0

[14:51:34.16511] x: -1.20, y: 0

[14:51:34.16527] x: -1.20, y: 0

[14:51:34.16543] x: -1.20, y: 0

[14:51:34.16560] x: -1.20, y: 0

This is what we’d expect: the player is moving left at 1.2 pixels per frame and y movement is 0. However, I am still seeing extra y movement in game. Unfortunately this means we did not find our issue yet, but it also means we can discount everything in move_actor() and before! Basically this extra movement is almost certainly in movement_and_collision().

Okay, so let’s clean up move_actor() and move into movement_and_collision(). This is an asset I bought from Pixelated Pope, so I won’t show you the whole thing (not that I was showing you all of move_actor() either), but I’ll show you the important stuff. This is near the end:

Yeah, so this never gets hit, lol. Let’s try earlier in the script.

Uhh... sorry this is hard to read (tumblr is not great for posting code). I’m logging lengthdir_x and lengthdir_y in the initial tile_and_place_meeting_3d() check.

Alright, so here are some logs. Yep. Here’s our unwanted diagonal movement.

[15:05:12.10597] x: 1.17, y: -0.24

[15:05:13.10613] x: 1.17, y: -0.24

[15:05:13.10630] x: 1.17, y: -0.24

Okay, so this script actually does have some recursiveness built in (it calls itself under certain conditions). That’ll make debugging this a little bit trickier. Let’s figure out which “recursion” this is being called on. In other words, I want to know if this is happening on the first run of the script every frame, or when the script calls itself. Luckily, this recursion functions via a “count” variable (which stops the script from infinitely calling itself lol). I’ll add that into my console_log().

I forgot to add a space, but that’s okay, we can still read it. it looks like it’s occurring when it calls itself (count is “2”).

[15:13:40.11644] count: 2x: -1.17, y: 0.24

[15:13:40.11661] count: 2x: -1.17, y: 0.24

[15:13:40.11677] count: 2x: -1.17, y: 0.24

I’m actually going to move this outside of the if block and see if it occurs during all calls or just on the second. Here are the logs.

[15:17:38.12612] count: 1, x: -1.20, y: 0

[15:17:38.12612] count: 2, x: -1.17, y: -0.24

[15:17:38.12628] count: 1, x: -1.20, y: 0

[15:17:38.12628] count: 2, x: -1.17, y: 0.24

Okay, we’ve confirmed it’s occurring only when the script calls itself. However, I think this is actually “correct” behavior. The movement_and_collision() script is doing something called “angle sweeps” for its collision checking. If it can’t find an opening (i.e. runs into a wall), it tries again at a slightly different angle. This allows the player to move along diagonal collision walls.

That means the issue seems to actually be in the collision check. It’s finding a collision where there should not be any, meaning the angle sweep gets triggered!

Okay, so the issue seems to be in tile_and_place_meeting_3d. This is my tile_and_place_meeting_3d() script:

There’s a lot of ground to cover, so I’m going to actually break this up so I can figure it out easier. Basically we want to narrow down to exactly where the issue is occurring. Isolating the issue.

The output of this is weird as heck, but yeah, it’s occurring in tile_meeting_precise(). I’m not colliding with any tiles--or shouldn’t be.

[15:36:49.45138] tile: 0, instance: 0

[15:36:49.45139] tile: 1, instance: 0

[15:36:49.45154] tile: 1, instance: 0

[15:36:49.45155] tile: 0, instance: 0

[15:36:49.45155] tile: 1, instance: 0

[15:36:49.45171] tile: 1, instance: 0

[15:36:49.45171] tile: 0, instance: 0

[15:36:49.45172] tile: 1, instance: 0

[15:36:49.45188] tile: 1, instance: 0

Okay, I could debug further, but we know which script the issue is in. I happen to know I’ve made a few recent changes to this script, so first I want to share the magic of version control!

I use git and store my code on a private github repository. This means I can go back and see a history of all changes made to this file.

Okay yeah, so what I’m gonna try first is to just take the old version and put it in  GameMaker and see if that fixes the issue. I do need the changes from the new version, but if I can pinpoint the issue as having been part of this specific change, I can rework it (probably).

You can usually do this via a revert but I was dumb and copy+pasted the old version and deleted the new version. Way jankier, BUT the old version fixed the issue! That means some change I introduced in the new version is causing the issue.

The next step is to redo the new changes one by one until we figure out which one is the culprit.

I recreated all my changes and the issue only occurs when I enable “SD tile collision checking”. How exactly SD collision works isn’t important to this debug process, but it’s essentially the opposite of “HD tile collision checking”, which is for the player so they can slide smoothly along walls. HD tile collision can be smooth because it uses enlarged colliders (the reason for this is a long story).

However, logging shows that the player object never hits SD collision checking. Interesting, right? Why would the player have a collision only when SD collision checking is added but the player never hits it? Well, I think the answer goes back to some of our initial discoveries when replicating the bug: it only happens in the day. Now, nothing changes for the player physics/movement between day and night, but other objects do call this script that are affected by day and night.

I quickly added a log to print out object names to see what other objects use this. It’s easier than doing a search all files for the script name because that could end up with all sorts of results, some of them not directly being called by the objects. [Note: I later found this actually is what is happening; an object is calling this script indirectly via another script] Anyway, here’s the log:

show_debug_message(object_get_name(object_index)); is a super handy way to print out the names of objects calling a script.

The logs showed a handful of items are checking collision: keys, heart containers, teleporters, etc. I want to start with the teleporters, though, since so far those always seem to be present where the weirdness is happening. Just a hunch.

Oh and guess what? Teleporter_obj is calling tlie_meeting_ground() in the daytime only. We know the issue only occurs in daytime. And tile_meeting_ground() seems like it could easily be related to tile_meeting_precise() right?

So the quick and easy check here is to comment out lines 8 and 9. And guess what? No more weird player collision! So now we have the culprit. But we do actually need this code. So... why is this interfering with the player?

First, I confirmed that it was indeed the tile_meeting_ground() script by removing it. Then I put it back and did some more digging. Interestingly, this script never calls tile_and_place_meeting_3d() (remember, that’s the script I modified and is causing the issue). So that’s a bit baffling. This is all it does.

I need to narrow this down more. I started by returning early if the object was a teleporter. I first did this on line 59 before calling tile_get_at_point(), then on line 60, etc.

Eventually I broke out each individual check and tested returning after each one so I could pinpoint which part of this script was causing the issue. Turns out it’s ground_z_get().

ground_z_get() determines... well, where the ground is. And guess what? It does call tile_meeting_precise(). AHA! Another mistake on my part. But we’ve established that’s okay. :)

The ground_z_get() code is not pleasant to post here, so suffice it to say, I changed the part where it calls tile_meeting_precise() to skip when it’s the teleporter calling.

This is definitely the problem.

Now we know where obj_teleporter is calling tile_meeting_precise() and this is starting to make more sense. When I was confused about the tile_meeting_ground() code not being related to the tile_meeting_precise() code, I was wrong, because tile_meeting_ground() indirectly calls it. And we already knew that obj_teleporter called tile_meeting_precise() somehow (otherwise it wouldn’t have shown up in the output log). This is it.

Okay but that’s a patch, not a true fix. I’m going to undo it, roll up my sleeves, and dive back into tile_meeting_precise(), the source of all our woes.

Looking at this script further, I think I may know vaguely what’s going on here. It creates a checker object that matches tile collision. Now, this is a local variable, and when place_meeting() is called, it’s against the instance id, not against all obj_precise_tile_checker. But just for kicks, I’m going to destroy the instance before the script returns to see if this is the issue.

This worked!!!

As to why, I was a bit confused at first. This is all local variables, right? One object calling this script will have local variables that should not ever affect another object calling this script with its own local variables.

But the secret is up here:

A bit of optimization so that we’re not constantly creating a bunch of collision checkers every single frame. What is happening is the first time this script is run (say an SD one), it creates a tile checker and sets the size (later in the script). Then when another object comes in (say the player with HD/smooth checking), it sees that a checker object is already created and does not create an appropriately scaled one.

I’ve got a better idea than using instance_destroy()... I’ll create an SD and an HD tile checker object. That way we can create both and they can exist at the same time without interfering with each other.

Here we’re just creating an HD checker if we wanna use HD collision checking (just the player right now lol) and SD checker if we wanna use SD checking. Boom. I removed the instance_destroy() from this script and here we go...

That fixed it!

And the final step: test everything! Of course you should be testing after each incremental change so you know exactly what fixes or causes the issue (which we did). And I already tested walking. But let’s make sure our teleporters still work. :)

I tested a bunch of ‘em, but here’s everything working as expected!

Yay! 

I hope this was helpful to you!

Peace

[ri-ahhh]

van life

I wasn’t gonna post this because it’s just like an overload of unrealistic softness but now that we know that they’re selling the van I think now is the best time if I’m gonna do it lol.

Also I’m sorry I can’t make this shorter on your dash by putting a ‘keep reading’ break. Tumblr is shitty and permanently fucked on my desktop where it just won’t load the page once I’m logged in so I have to do everything through mobile🙄

6k

warnings: fluff, smut, kinda unedited

***

MJ sighs as warm morning sunlight kisses her skin through the passenger window of the tiny house van. She and Grayson had decided to have a beach day to themselves — the first one of summer — and she could’t be more excited. Nothing makes MJ Macias more content and at peace with her life than laying under the Pacific sun until her nose freckles and her skin takes on that healthy golden hue. Wrinkles are a risk she’s willing to take as long as she has a nice, long podcast, something to munch on, and, of course, a good view of her boyfriend in the surf.

That view of him rivals the one of the ocean in her opinion, which is just past his window as they cruise down the PCH on their way to Malibu. MJ wiggles her white-painted toes on the dashboard and smiles as she watches him sing along quietly (and off-key) to the Tame Impala song filling the cabin of the van. She loves his profile so much: the perfect slope of his nose; his full lips; the chunk of hair that swoops across his forehead.

She lifts their clasped hands from where they rest on her thigh with their fingers threaded together, and kisses the back of his wide palm.

“You’re so handsome, Bear,” MJ murmurs against his skin.

Grayson stops singing long enough to look over at her and smile brightly, his eyes hidden behind his black Louis Vuitton sunglasses. He pulls their hands towards himself so he can copy her kiss, only to her her own soft skin.

“My pretty Peach,” he returns with a squeeze to her palm, making MJ flush the color of her pet name. “Always so beautiful in the mornings.”

MJ hums and takes her turn returning their hands back to her lap, trailing her long nails up and down his muscular, veiny forearm. Apparently they’re equally as headass for each other today. “Just in the mornings?” she teases, tickling the sensitive patch of skin near the crook of his elbow.

She can’t see his eyes roll, but she imagines they do as his grin turns playful. “Of course not, but especially in the mornings. Your hair is in that cute braid and your skin is all silky soft and your eyes are extra green.” He takes his eyes off the road for a moment to appraise her looking exactly as he described. “And, you know, usually on the weekends you’d still be naked at this time. I like that part about mornings, too.”

“Oh, Lord,” she laughs with a shake of her head. “Grayson!”

She gasps his name and giggles harder as he completely catches her off guard by moving their hands right over his hardening cock. MJ squeezes him reflexively, and Grayson gives a little grunt as he shifts in his seat with a smirk.

“What?” he asks in mock defense, placing both hands back on the steering wheel. “I had to show you how much you affect me! I only have to think about you naked in our bed and it goes up.”

“That’s sweet,” MJ says, stroking his dick one more time before moving her hand further down his thigh, “but if you think I’m giving you road head in this car on this twisty road, you’re very mistaken.”

Grayson makes an obnoxious little whiny noise in defeat, pouting playfully and muttering dejectedly, “I knew we should have taken the Tesla.”

MJ raises an eyebrow. “Well, we wouldn’t have been able to bring your surfboard. Or be the first ones to christen the tiny house.”

“Oh, shit,” Gray says quietly, surprised. MJ smiles at the small victory of teasing him, her eyes diverting back to the beautiful scenery ahead of them as her mind wanders to all the things they can do in that makeshift bed.

“How about road hand, then, to start it off?”

She lets out a frustrated huff, his request interrupting her daydream. If there was ever a scenario where she didn't trust Grayson, it was one in which he was receiving any overt sexual pleasure whilst controlling a giant motor vehicle.

“Gray, I love you, but you’re pushing it.”

“Understood.”

***

It takes about half an hour for them to reach their destination, but MJ knows it was worth the drive as soon as they exit the car and she inhales the clean, salty air. They park at a little camping lot they had reserved a spot in for the day, the glittering ocean a mere few hundred feet away.

“Surf looks good,” MJ remarks, her hand shielding her eyes as she gazes out at the water. It always makes her a little nervous when Gray goes out in big swells, so the mild waves are a happy sight for her. “Nice and small; just how I like ‘em.”

Grayson looks out as well as he climbs on the roof of the van to retrieve the surfboard. “Funny, I happen to know for a fact you like ‘em long and wide,” he jokes. He just couldn’t help himself, apparently, his wide smile looking down at her from the top of the ladder a clear display of how proud of the stupid joke he is.

MJ watches the exposed muscles in his arms and shoulders ripple under his skin as he begins wrestling with the hooks and ties securing the board to the roof racks. The sight combined with his words and thoughts of what transpired earlier in the car makes her center pulse dangerously.

Needless to say, he’s successfully turned her on despite her best efforts.

“You’re insufferable, Dolan,” she says with a shake of her head. Her body feels heated from his innuendo and also the midmorning sun that is steadily raising the outside temperature. She pulls off the hoodie she had thrown on in the chilly early morning and steps into the back seat to haul out the cooler and beach bag.

“Yeah, but you love me,” his voice comes from right behind her. She turns around and yelps in surprise when she sees Grayson peeking his head upside down into the cab from the roof. He’s inches from her and is just dangling there like an overgrown monkey, which makes her fall back in the seat in a fit of giggles. He wags his brows at her playfully. “Ooh! Spider-Man kiss!”

MJ rolls her eyes good-naturedly and happily scoots over to clasp his cheeks in her hands, granting his wish by planting a sweet kiss to his lips. The scruff on his chin tickles her nose peculiarly, but she’s not mad at it. “Too much. I love you too much, you goof.”

Finally, with all their beach supplies in hand, they walk together towards the ocean. The private beach that they can access with their camp site is quiet and secluded. Best of all, it isn't clogged with tourists or people in general, which they both greatly prefer. Less people means they’re less likely to be bombarded by fangirls, or paparazzi, or any other unwanted distractions from what MJ hopes will be a perfect day.

As soon as the texture under her feet changes from firm concrete to sunken sand, MJ is stopping to remove her flip-flops so her toes can dig into the fine powder. This moment of first stepping on the beach is one of her favorite experiences, as minute and insignificant as it seems.

She looks up at Grayson, who glances back down at her questioningly. “Race ya,” she challenges suddenly, hauling ass to a perfect open spot on the wide expanse of beach. If there’s one thing she and her boyfriend have in common, it’s a highly competitive spirit.

“Cheater!” Grayson calls after her. He has the surfboard under one arm and the cooler slung over his shoulder, but everyone knows Grayson Dolan is the last person to turn down a competition. Which is why he does his best to catch up to her even with the obstacles in his arms holding him back.

The finish line is also only in MJ’s head, so she stops when she finds a spot she likes. She drops their bag and turns around with her arms raised like Rocky. Grayson isn’t very far behind her, being as in-shape as he is he’s reached her quickly, but he slows down earlier than he really needs to so he can take her in. Her breasts heave beneath a leopard print bikini top, loose hairs escape from her messy french braid, and her long legs glitter with the sand she had kicked up on her run.

She’s the most beautiful, dorky, amazing woman he’s ever seen and she is his.

MJ watches smugly as her boyfriend stalks over to her. “I wi—“

Grayson releases everything he’s carrying to the sand and grasps her face in both hands, pulling her in for a long, lingering kiss. MJ lets out a little squeak of surprise, but she melts into him half a second later. Nothing warms her soul more than his lips on hers, and she wraps her arms around his middle to bring them as close together as possible.

When he pulls back, Grayson stares at her with complete, obvious adoration. Ethan would have called him a simp if he were there, that’s how sappy his twin looks. Grayson can’t help himself, though; he is a simp for MJ, and, truthfully, he doesn’t give two shits who knows it as long as he makes her smile up at him like she is now, every day.

It’s why yesterday he had casually opened a new browser window, convincing himself he was just curiously window shopping on the ring section of Tiffany’s and the like… even after he got sucked into the customization tool on one website for nearly two hours.

Shaking his head and biting his lip through a grin, he traces the freckles on MJ’s cheek. “I want a rematch later.”

MJ squeezes him and smacks his ass playfully before releasing him and reaching into the bag for the big blanket. “You’re always such a sore loser,” she teases, unfolding the cloth and weighing it down with Grayson’s help. She digs through the bag again and hands him his wetsuit. “Go catch some waves. I have to catch up on this podcast by this really sexy guy and his twin brother.”

If there could be snapshots of the rest of the day, they would have been out of a picturesque rom-com. For a while, MJ rests on her tummy as she watches Grayson glide through the water, his deep voice simultaneously reverberating in her ears through her AirPods.

Eventually, when he’s done surfing — looking like a beach Adonis when he walks up the shore with the top half of his wetsuit folded down at his hips, surfboard under his arm and his wet abs glistening in the sun — he joins her on the blanket.

In the early afternoon MJ props herself up on her elbow, appraising his form with hungry, appreciative eyes as he tans on his back next to her. He has his hands pillowed behind his head, which causes his biceps to bulge and her thighs to clench. MJ is lost in him as she trails her finger over the features of his face — down his button nose, smoothing over his arched brows, across his rosy cheeks, against his pillowy lips. She smiles as he sighs contentedly and drops a peck to the tip of his nose before settling with her cheek on his chest. He smells like tanning oil and ocean and that clean, woody musk that MJ knows as him.

Later, they wade around in the sea between batches of sun bathing. At some points, he’s holding her waist-deep in the water with her legs wrapped around his middle and arms around his neck, lips connecting occasionally amidst easy conversation. Other times they have full-on water fights that have her squealing and him laughing as they splash each other back and forth.

It isn’t until the orange and pink hues of the sunset paint the sky that they’re brought back to the beach for good. Once they rinse off and have all of their things collected, they head back to the van.

MJ removes her bikini inside while Grayson reattaches the surfboard to the roof. She slips on her sweatshirt and a fresh pair of soft shorts just in time for him to carefully crack open the back door to make sure she’s decent.

Grayson smiles widely as he crawls in on the already made bed where she sits and is piling her damp hair into a messy bun. “So fucking beautiful,” he murmurs, giving her a lingering kiss while her hands are still mid-twist in her long hair.

A pleasant warmth swoops through her belly at his compliment; it had taken her a while to get accustomed to not only how often Grayson rains sweet praises like that down on her, but how sincerely he means them, too.

She hums into his mouth right before he pulls away. “I left your shorts there, baby,” she says, gesturing behind her with her head. Gray thanks her and she starts to dig through the cooler as he tugs his swimsuit down his inked legs, following them back up with the clean shorts.

They eat dinner with the back doors wide open, a perfect view of the sun setting below the ocean’s horizon right in front of them. A pleasant breeze floats around them in the van, cool and refreshing from being picked up right off the water. MJ nuzzles her cheek on Grayson’s bare shoulder, and he presses a kiss to the top of her head as she chews her last bite of tofu.

“Thank you for such a perfect day,” MJ says a minute later, gazing up at him while he takes a sip of La Croix. “Seriously, I can’t remember the last time I felt so…carefree. Loved. In love. Not that you don’t make me feel those things every day, but… y’know. Today was just great.”

Her hand reaches to caress his stubbly cheek, a soft smile at the corner of her full lips. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Gray.”

Grayson looks down at her silently, but his eyes say everything his lips don’t. He tucks his can and their empty tupperware back into the cooler, tossing the bag into one of the back seats behind them so it’s out of the way.

He cups her cheeks in both hands, wasting no more time in bringing their mouths together. MJ sighs and shifts so she’s that much closer to him, just as his tongue prods gently at her pliant lips to coax them open.

They make out like that, slow and deep, with the soundtrack of crashing waves wafting through the open doors. Gray lies her down and supports the back of her head with his forearm, his free hand swooping up and down her side before settling in the dramatic dip of her waist as he pulls away just barely.

Eyes closed, their breaths come heavy and mingle sweetly in the minute space between them. Grayson suddenly lets out a little incredulous huff, shaking his head and diving back in blindly to suck softly on her bottom lip. MJ lets out a little moan and digs her nails gently down his bare back, her eyes fluttering open.

“What?” she asks with a little smile of her own, nuzzling her nose against his in an Eskimo kiss.

Grayson’s hazel orbs meet her green ones, and the hand resting on her waist comes to cup her face once again so he can stroke the new freckles that litter her high cheekbone.

“I’m gonna marry you,” he answers, chuckling at her shocked little gasp. He hurries to clarify himself. “One day, when we’re ready. You’re my world, MJ. Maybe it’s selfish, or self aggrandizing, but hearing you say that makes it so obvious to me that you’re the only person I’d ever want to spend the rest of my life with. Because I feel the same about you. I only ever want to make you feel that way; nothing makes me happier.”

MJ is stunned into silence. Grayson isn’t exactly the most eloquent person, so somehow she reasons that his perfect delivery of such meaningful words means they’re truly heartfelt. Not that she would have doubted him either way, but their relationship has suddenly shifted even deeper in the matter of one day. One simple, amazing day.

She feels the prickle of tears behind her eyes, and bites her lip through a watery smile as she raises her hand to run her fingers through the back of his hair. No matter how happy she is, her instinct for dealing with any emotions is to deflect with humor. “Can’t wait ’til I pop out a few of your babies. From the sounds of it, you’ll be worshipping the ground I walk on.”

That hits him right in the baby fever, his dick hardening even more behind his shorts at the thought of her belly swollen with his child. Joking or not, she’s absolutely right.

“Fuck,” he whispers, grinning as he ducks his head to nibble her favorite spot just behind her jaw and right under her ear. “How many of my babies? Hm?”

“Mmm,” she sighs, scratching lightly at his scalp, considering the question seriously. “Four little Dolan babies, I think. Three boys and a little girl.”

“Yeah,” Grayson agrees easily, making his way across her jaw with soft little suckles. “But make that three girls and a little boy, and you've got a deal.”

MJ giggles and grabs his face so they’re staring each other in the eye again. “No actual baby-making until there’s a ring on this finger.” She wiggles the digits of her left hand, which Grayson grabs and kisses the back of with a smirk. If only she knew just how close that moment might be. “But we can always practice in the meantime.”

Grayson nods and hitches her leg up his hip as he ducks down for a surprisingly chaste kiss considering her invitation a second before. As much as he wants her, he has a need deep in his chest just to be close to her for the moment. To feel her hold him and nuzzle into the warm crook of his neck, sucking gently on that freckle there to make his head swim like after a nice glass of wine.

MJ is just as happy with that arrangement, and she lets her body be still and her breaths tickle the sensitive skin at his collarbone. The ocean breeze billowing through the open doors of the van is cool and salty and comforting.

“It’s crazy,” Grayson whispers after a few peaceful minutes, his fingers starting to trail up and down her covered back slowly. MJ pulls back a little so she can see his face. He isn't looking at her, but rather out the open van doors at the last moments of the sun setting behind the water. “I remember feeling exactly this way the first day we met, only now it’s…more. You felt right then, so right it was scary. And here we are. How did I know that you were my person as soon as you let me walk you back to that tent?”

MJ smiles and her belly swoops. She thinks back to that night, how scared she had been and how instantly — well, as he said — right Grayson had felt the minute they crossed paths.

“I did kind of seduce you,” she chuckles, lifting her head to nibble at the underside of his chin and reveling in the sensation of his deep chuckle vibrating against her lips. “Maybe you’re just under my Black Widow spell. Have I never let it slip I’m only after your money?”

Grayson laughs louder, squeezing her to his body tighter. “Nope. But that’s the MJ I remember falling head over heels for in a matter of hours. Smart and witty and sweet and so fucking pretty with her green eyes and bright smile.”

MJ stares up at him with stars in those emerald eyes he adores so much. He is unreal to both see and hear; his skin has turned olive and his hair has the crisp of the ocean still in it, and the fact that he can still pinpoint the little things he liked about her from so long ago…

“Do you love me?” she asks quietly. It’s so ridiculously unnecessary to ask, he tells her multiple times a day, every day.

“So much, Peach,” he murmurs back predictably, finally swooping down to capture her lips like she wanted earlier, tongues meshing instantly.

He tastes so familiar and sweet. She wants to devour him slowly, intimately, like she has a thousand times before.

“Close the doors?” MJ gasps after the simple swipe of his thumb over her nipple through her sweatshirt makes her thighs tremble and her hips grind onto his half-hard erection. Something about the heartwarming intimacy of the day has translated to her body being physically sensitive beyond belief.

Grayson nods and sits up, reaching for the switch of the fairy lights MJ had hung up a few weeks ago before slamming the doors shut on the nighttime scenery.

While he does as she asked, she scoots up to rest her head on a pillow and watches his bare, chiseled torso glow in the dim, sensual lights. Right as he turns around he catches her struggling to free herself from her hoodie.

“Let me do it, Peach. I wanna do it,” he breathes, dipping down to kiss her soundly before tugging upward on the hem of the soft fabric. MJ drops her head to the pillow to break the seal of their lips, lifting her arms up so he can pull the garment over her head.

Grayson flings it to the front of the van and brings their mouths together so quickly, like he simply can’t be away from her lips for longer than a second. His hands reach up and cup the pliable mounds of her breasts, which are several shades lighter than the rest of her chest. Clearly, he could care less, and MJ sighs softly as he massages them firmly, his calloused palms creating delicious friction on her hypersensitive nipples.

“Still the prettiest tits I’ve ever seen, too,” he smirks, making his way across her jaw. MJ smiles too, eyes closed in bliss as he kisses the familiar trail down her sternum. Predictably, his warm lips suction around the bud of her left breast, and she lets her mind wander through the pleasure to flash back on the first time he did this.

“We’re still kind of in a tent, too, y’know,” she gasps as he switches sides, letting out her first moan of the night when he scrapes his teeth against her. “Just…more bougie.”

Grayson hums, quickly getting lost in the feel of how soft her tits are and how much he loves the sensation of her hard nipples under his tongue. He drops his hips down so he can grind his full erection against her hot center, eliciting wanton gasps from both of them.

MJ groans again, the feminine sound literal music to his ears and the perfect reinforcement to keep going. She hooks her legs around his waist to hold his hips against her, thrusting up against him as he continues to bite and lick and suckle her breasts.

“Holy shit, Gray, right there… I’m gonna cum,” she whimpers, grasping at his hair to hold him down where he was sucking perfectly on her breast, and continues to grind roughly on his dick. Sure enough, a few seconds later she’s shuddering with the most intense orgasm she’s ever had without manual stimulation. Even from Grayson.

Grayson himself can hardly believe it; they have a great sex life, but he can’t remember the last time he had gotten her off just through some intense dry humping.

He isn’t going to question it, though, because it only means one thing: she’s as voracious for him tonight as he is for her. He growls when she starts to come down and surprises her with his mouth planting roughly back on hers. MJ kisses him back lazily as her mind clears some, smiling and fluttering her eyes open to meet his dark gaze when she feels his middle finger replace his tongue in her mouth. She closes her swollen, pouty lips around the digit and sucks, holding onto his hand and maintaining complete eye contact with him when he moans softly. She pulls his hand out of her mouth and pushes it into her shorts.

“Fuck,” he rasps, collecting her slippery cum against his finger, swirling it against his thumb before trailing his middle finger up to her clit. He soaks in her expression as her eyes roll back at the first contact, his favorite reaction she has to his touch. “Fuck, MJ. So fucking wet for me.”

MJ nods quickly, opening her eyes again to watch him watch her. “Lemme taste,” she whimpers.

She pulls his hand back up and doesn’t wait for permission or leave him time to process her demand as she sucks the slick moisture straight off his finger, the taste of herself gracing her tongue causing her pussy to gush even more. When his brain finally catches up, he’s immediately ripping his hand away from her with a harsh groan and hooking it around the back of her neck to kiss her deeply. His tongue plunders her mouth as he searches for traces of that sweet, earthy tang he knows oh-so well. MJ’s hands distractedly push at the waistband of his shorts, desperate for the feel of his dick in her hands.

“Please, baby,” she whines against his lips when they break for air, using the moment of clarity to tug more determinedly at his shorts. “Need you.”

“Need me where?” he teases, backing up so she can’t reach him as he pulls her own shorts down her long, newly tanned legs. Once he flings the scrap of fabric to join her sweater, he ducks down and swipes his tongue quickly over each of her nipples. “Here?”

MJ groans and shakes her head, her brain not operating at enough capacity to tease back, it’s so clouded with desire for him. “Gray…”

Grayson smirks and grabs one of her hands that are coasting down his back and attempting to pull him down against her. He cups her petite palm against his pulsing erection, sighing a little when her fingers wrap around him through his shorts instinctively. He drops his hand and brings it to her pussy, his fingertips dancing delicately against her swollen lower lips. His head swims at how wet she is and how the solid feel of him seems to have brought her mind back to earth, because as soon as he lets go of her hand she delves past his waistband to grip him directly.

“My dick, baby, you need my dick?” he asks softly, his voice a little high and his breath pitchy as she strokes him steadily now.

MJ moans and her pussy throbs simply at his words. She nods hastily. “Need it in me,” she manages, meeting his heated gaze as she gives him a firm squeeze. “Love your dick.”

“Yeah,” he sighs, his touch leaving her as he helps her in getting him completely naked, kicking his shorts off when they reach his ankles.

He takes a moment to gather himself and to slow down, trying to get himself back in that intimate headspace they were so deep in earlier, so that this doesn’t turn into just a hot, hard fuck. They love that, and it’s kind of their bread and butter in the bedroom. But he wants to hold her close and savor her body, to pass that loving energy between them in the most special, physical way.

MJ’s chest heaves as she watches Grayson hover above her, staring at her, and she parts her legs to welcome him back into her space. He looks like a fucking Greek god in the low light, his hair curly from the saltwater and sweat, his skin golden and his muscles bulging. She can’t possibly want him any more than in that moment.

“C’mere,” she whispers, reaching her arms out and making grabby hands at him. She can’t allow another second to go by without the sensation of his smooth skin against hers.

Grayson smiles sweetly at her, eyes sultry as he lowers himself at her request and presses their bodies together from chests to centers. She cups his cheeks and scratches her fingers against his scruff as they kiss slowly, deeply, desire building intensely once again as they grind together at the middle.

“Please, Grayson,” she finally says again.

All thoughts of any more teasing are out the door as Grayson obliges her. He dips his fingers in her pussy, testing her readiness and using her sweet juices to coat his dick.

MJ spreads her legs up and out, bent at the knees, and she throws her head back with a gasp as he enters her in a short thrust; a little more on the second, until he bottoms out with the third.

“Fuck me,” she whimpers, her hands pushing on the firm globes of his ass.

Grayson obeys with a groan, drawing his hips in and out steadily. “Wanna fuck you slow,” he says in her ear, thrusting all the way in and all the way out. The warm clutch of her perfect pussy is so intense at that tempo that he shudders and his eyes roll back. “Slow and deep, Peach.”

“Yes,” MJ agrees, her breaths coming in fast despite the maintained speed of his dick. He’s working her up so good, and she leans forward to bite into the junction of his neck and shoulder out of habit to keep her sounds muffled.

“Yes, baby,” she squeals quietly when her minute adjustment shifts the angle just right for him to hit her spot over and over. Her nails claw at his back, scraping over the work of art that is both his rippling muscles and the picture of the lions inked into them. “Oh my God, keep fucking me like that.. like that…”

The air confined in the van is warm and thick. Sweat drips from the ends of his hair, his hot breaths fan over her forehead, and his chain dangles enticingly across her face as he stares down at her all blissed out beneath him. Nothing turns him on more than her words of encouragement, which are usually muted due to the fact that his omnipresent twin brother lives across the hall. But now that they’re alone, in nature — just like the night they met — all filters are off. It makes him even more determined to get her to cum so hard she forgets any of those sweet praises she’s mumbling other than his name.

It’s already so, so good, but as soon as he gets on his knees just enough to gain more leverage to thrust even harder into her, that knot in MJ’s stomach starts growing in a fantastically unfamiliar way. Her eyes roll back and Grayson reaches a huge hand up to support her head against his shoulder, sensing how perfect the angle is for her and wanting to help her maintain it. She’s getting tighter and wetter around him, so much so that he has to grit his teeth and hiss to avoid having to pull out and stop.

“MJ,” he moans into her ear, tugging on her lobe with his teeth, an unspoken warning that he’s close. He’ll hold on as long as he can, but he absolutely needs to get her there first.

In the back of her mind, she comprehends his cue. But she’s so focused on reaching the bursting point of that expanding ball behind her belly, she can’t help but selfishly draw every ounce of pleasure she can from him. She thinks she knows what’s going to happen, and it will be a first-time experience for both of them.

It’s only going to take a few more deep, hard thrusts, and she’ll be there. Almost there…

“Gray!” she squeaks, squeezing a hand between their bodies to push against his abs, just in time for him to pull out and her to gush all over him and the blankets serving as makeshift sheets beneath them. It’s an indescribable release that washes over her, her own loud, shaky squeals of pleasure distant noises in the back of her head. She can only see colors behind her closed eyelids, greens and blues and lavenders sparkling in her mind’s eye like a mystical fog.

Grayson can’t believe what he’s seeing. His shocked and aroused groan sounds obnoxiously loud and foreign in his own ears; the fact that he doesn’t bust his nut right there on the blanket next to hers is a miracle. Instinctively, he reaches his fingers down to help her through it by rubbing her clit, huffing out an incredulous laugh when her thighs clamp instantly around his hand and a little more of her juices come out, soaking his hand. His name tumbles repeatedly out of her lips, just like he was aiming for and unwittingly exceeding his own expectations.

He’s painfully hard as he leans over her again, kissing her through her mindless whimpers as she starts to slowly come-to, her damp thighs opening once again and allowing him to slip between them. Right where he belongs.

“MJ?” he whispers, stroking her brow softly and watching her face intently. “You okay?”

Eyes still closed and breasts heaving, MJ takes a second to respond, but she moans quietly and nods, puckering her lips in invitation for him to meet with his. He obliges, indulging her for a moment until he can’t wait anymore. “Where do you want me to cum?”

“Inside,” she breathes at once, reaching down to grasp him and bring him to her dripping pussy. Grayson flinches at her sudden grip on him and the overwhelming wetness against the sensitive head of his dick. “Come on, Bear. Want you to cum hard inside me.”

With a groan, he slides back inside her, and a few hard, sloppy thrusts later, he’s shooting deep in her pussy. He’s never cum so hard in his life, and he whines into her mouth with the timing of his spurts. She hums contentedly, obsessed with that feeling of warmth that comes with, well, his cum.

“So good,” he murmurs when he’s finally done, pulling out of her slowly. He grabs a spare towel and cleans up the liquid white that follows him dripping from her center. “That was incredible, MJ. You’re incredible.”

MJ shakes her head in agreement, clapping a hand to her forehead and giggling softly, her knees bent and swaying side to side. “I thought we had done everything to try to get that to happen. Turns out we just had to go back to the beginning.”

Grayson lies down next to her, turning her head with a gentle hand on her cheek so he can press their lips together. “I love you,” he says simply. “My pretty Peach.”

MJ grabs a blanket and tosses it over the both of them, brushing her nose against his once they’re cuddled together. “And I love my Gray Bear. Mine.”

“Yours,” he whispers in affirmation, tucking her head into the crook of his neck until they’re both lulled to sleep in their cozy little bougie tent.

[broadcast-storm]

Pinebook Pro Struggles

My Pinebook Pro has been riding the struggle bus lately. It's at the point where I'm starting to think that I need to drop Manjaro XFCE on it and start considering a different operating system in the hopes that what I'm experiencing are OS issues rather than device or firmware issues. This wouldn't exactly be new territory for me, as just a couple of months ago I finally gave up on using Manjaro XFCE on my Star Lite laptop. I simply ran into too many bugs with Manjaro and swapped to Xubuntu, where things have been going much more smoothly for me. I'm not confident that an OS swap will fix what I'm experiencing now, though.

Initially, Manjaro was a significant step up for my Pinebook Pro, which is old enough that I received it running the old Debian image that was so highly customized that a sizable number of software packages on it couldn't be updated, making it a security breach waiting to happen. After seeing the amount of love that Manjaro was getting in the Pine64 community, though, and how invested the Manjaro folks seemed to be in working well with the Pinebook Pro hardware, it seemed like a smart move. When Manjaro KDE became the default OS on new Pinebook Pro units, I decided to flash Manjaro XFCE onto my device's eMMC. It was exciting to go from not being able to update anything to having updates available constantly. I'd typically only use my device once or twice a week, and basically every time I fired it up there would be a significant number of updates available.

The honeymoon didn't last forever, though. One of the initial issues I saw was with respect to the battery. Unlike Debian, Manjaro features both a "Suspend" and "Hibernate" mode for sleeping the device. To my understanding, Suspend is supposed to remove power from most of the hardware but keeps the RAM warm to facilitate waking seamlessly and rapidly, though this obviously comes at the cost of draining the battery more to keep the RAM powered up. When using Suspend, I could let the device sit for about a day and half before it would be completely drained. Hibernate, on the other hand, writes the content of RAM to the swap space -- enabling Hibernate will actually fail if you've forgotten to create a swap space -- to save on power but still allow for the state of the device to be saved. That being said, if you don't have any applications waiting between sessions, the time to return from Hibernate and to boot from being fully powered off is, to the best that I can tell, exactly the same. As a result, I'm better off simply shutting my device down between uses.

While the battery can cause annoyance, I've since discovered far more significant issues. One is that the wireless NIC is periodically not recognized by the operating system when I either boot or wake the device. It'll simply show that no network devices are available, and using the XFCE UI to toggle networking off and back on makes no difference. If I was more savvy in the realm of Manjaro/Arch, I may be able to do some further troubleshooting via the CLI. Given that Debian-based distros are my forte, though, I typically just reboot and hope for the best since that's faster than grabbing another device which is connected to the Internet in order to start looking up solutions. A reboot will typically fix the issue, but not always. Earlier this week, I had the exact same behavior after a reboot. At that point I just shut down my Pinebook Pro and used another device for what I wanted to do. I left the device off until I decided to write this post, and I was happy that after a few days of sitting in the corner my laptop was able to connect to WiFi once again.

The firmware woes don't end there, unfortunately. The trackpad on the Pinebook Pro has always been a bit of an issue, with a very noticeable latency when using it that made precise movements very difficult. Clicking large buttons on web pages was simple, for example, while clicking the small x buttons in XFCE to close application was a struggle... especially for applications which weren't fullscreen, meaning that the button wasn't forced into the top-right corner of the screen. I had hoped that this problem was about to be solved a few months ago when new firmware was released that dramatically reduced the latency. After following the well-written community documentation to go through the slightly nerve wracking process of flashing the new firmware -- which included a small but non-zero chance that the ability to use the trackpad could be completely bricked -- things were working much better for me... until they weren't.

While the new firmware worked great most of the time, I started to periodically see problems where touching the trackpad with my finger would cause the cursor to "jolt" as if simply touching the surface were registering that I moved my finger about an inch or so either up or down. This wouldn't typically manifest itself immediately after a wake or boot, but would randomly crop up after I had been using the device for some time. When it happened, though, it made using the device nearly impossible. While I could fight against it to move the cursor where I needed it to be, lifting my finger off the trackpad and then tapping down to register a click would cause the cursor to jump either up or down, meaning that I was clicking on either 1.) nothing or 2.) the wrong thing. At that point, I was back to struggling to interface with the device enough to reboot it and hoping for the best after that.

While trying to write this post the first time, I ran into yet another issue which may be related to the last problem and may be something entirely new. While using the Tumblr web UI to write the post, my device suddenly kicked me back to the login screen as if I had opted to lock the screen. Weird. I tried to enter my password in order to log in only to discover that the keyboard wasn't working. I could still use the trackpad to move the mouse cursor, but tapping on it would no longer register as a click. I eventually discovered that I could still physically press the trackpad to click and used that to just reboot the device rather than running off to dig up an external keyboard that I could connect. The reboot once again seems to have restored functionality, though I lost all of the blog content that I had written.

While I'd like to switch operating systems and get away from Manjaro since that made my life significantly better on my Star Lite, I'm at least a little concerned that my issues are mostly firmware related and may not be fixed by a different flavor of Linux. If I do switch to anything different, I'd prefer it to be Armbian since I'm most familiar with Debian-based distros.

It's also worth mentioning in closing that trying to use the device in the way that I am is explicitly not what the Pinebook Pro is designed for. It's meant to be used by people wanting to do things with the ARM processor, and bugs like this are something to be expected in a community effort this large. I definitely don't mean to throw shade at the work anyone in the Pine64 or Manjaro communities is doing; it's my issue for how I'm wanting to use the device. I'm still hoping, though, that I can find a configuration a bit more stable so that I can basically have a Linux laptop that amounts to a full POSIX-compliant terminal and a decent web browser.

[viostormcaller]

Thinking about it, it kinda sucks just how little new horizons has.

Like... I love the game to pieces and maybe this is just bc im in a shitty mood (which i am) but like... god this is gonna be long and ranty and I'm sorry in advance that mobile tumblr doesnt have the read more feature

For starters, holidays are all scheduled on the company's terms, meaning in 7+ years or so there will be no more in-game holidays because by then they'll probably be thinking about/getting ready to release the next installment of the series on whatever console is out at the time and they won't want to update new horizons anymore. And adding onto this, you need the internet to download the updates. What happens to the players who don't have internet?? Can they just never experience the holidays like bunny day and toy day and turkey day? That takes a HUGE part of the fun of the series out right off the bat. Sometimes making everything rely on the internet is a bad idea. Idk if anyone can like tell me if having no internet means you can't take part in the holidays, but like... god if that's true thats really sad.

They recently took out the hybrid flower and big fish islands, which makes no sense whatsoever why they would do that to a game that has so little, but ok?? It's not like that feature was hindering the gameplay any

There's a lot of furniture but Not a Lot of Furniture, you get me? They took out EVERY set except the classic set (renamed "antique") that you can buy for an insanely high price, and the log and wooden block sets that you can craft, but other that that it's all unrelated items that aren't part of any set, aside from the cute set and diner and throwback sets which as far as I can remember are the only other sets you can buy in the game. No alpine, no ranch, no minimalist, no princess or gracie, no modern or sleek, none of that. And 90% of all the buy-only furniture in the game is just the color variants. You can't even customize them! And it's hard as fuck to find the color variants you want, much less for completing a furniture set

And speaking of which, your starting villagers don't get their default house interiors. Your first three + your two starters from the tutorial days have the same generic layouts. You NEVER see what their houses are supposed to look like, and even if you give them the wallpaper and flooring they're supposed to have (if you figure that out online somewhere), their house doesn't change (I tested this with Sherb and was kinda disappointed).

And stuff is so EXPENSIVE. I know it adds a challenge but my final loan was NEVER 1 mil+ bells in New Leaf. And you can't even expand the extra first floor rooms you get. I'm literally getting less for WAY more. The biggest rooms you get are the basement and upstairs rooms. The first floor rooms aside from the main room really don't have a lot of space and with the different furniture they DO offer, I don't have a lot of room to put things in. But it's not like I can even afford it anyway -- just a freaking air conditioner was 63,000 bells. In New Leaf it was 2500. That's a MASSIVE jump. And the kitchen items are so freaking expensive, as well.

And speaking of houses, for someone who was literally in the real estate industry in the last game, tom nook adds very few house exterior options. And the even more shitty thing is that a lot of the colors straight up don't match. They couldn't even add a plain white roof.

God and the fucking DIY recipes. I know I've said this before on my other tumblr but the RNG for this game is the worst I've ever fucking seen. There is no reason why, two months into the game, I can be given a recipe for a simple DIY bench, which EVERYONE LEARNS IN THE TUTORIAL. Who the fuck am I giving it to?! No one, because literally every player knows it already, and you can't gift diy recipes to villagers! And I keep getting repeats of recipes. My villagers give me fruit DIYs all the time, it's so rare for me to get any new ones. And two days in a row I've gotten the recipe for the deer head mount thing from the same villager. New recipes should 100% take the priority before repeats. This game is slow paced, sure, but that's just frustrating. It doesn't make me excited to learn more recipes, it makes me feel like I'm never gonna learn any new ones because I'll get the same fruit DIYs for a week straight.

And speaking of which, you can't put trees, bushes, or flowers in your storage, which to me makes literally no sense. I can fit a giant ass fountain in my storage but I can't put a flower plant? Really? And speaking of storage, for a game that added 300 whole slots for mail instead of the usual 10, I will never understand why they decided to halve the amount of items a player can order a day from the nook shopping, AND make it so that it takes a whole day to get there instead of making deliveries at 9 am and 5 pm like in New Leaf.

And the fact that they made it so hard to get non native fruit and flowers and shit??? Like they at LEAST added Lief so flowers aren't as much of an issue anymore, but you actually have to travel to other people's islands just to get all the fruits?? I know you have to do the same thing in New Leaf but the reason why this is an issue for me is because you have to pay for online access, meaning most of those nook miles for planting all the fruits are locked behind a paywall unless your villagers can gift them to you. And your mom, when you first start the game, has a chance of giving you the one fruit that's on the non-native fruit mystery island, meaning you'll only get ONE new fruit and not two separate ones (for example, my sis got pears from mom but her non native fruit islands have cherries i believe. I got pears from mom and my fruit islands also have pears. Doesnt help that that's the one fruit i hate lmao). They also took OUT a bunch of fruits, like mangoes, durians, lemons, bananas, lychees, persimmons...

And the fact that your nook miles rewards are ISLAND LOCKED. That is the WORST SHIT. Not everyone has the ability to play with others, bc no internet or no money for the subscription every month. Not everyone WANTS to play with others bc maybe they get social anxiety (like me, which is why i havent asked for things that are impossible for me to get even though i want them for my island or house), or maybe they simply just don't want to. But the fact that each island has their own color variants of the same goddamn rewards that CANNOT BE CHANGED makes me so upset. I do not want nor should I have to rely on others to get the items I want because my game doesn't have my preferred color variations. And it's not like I'm far enough in the game to have anything worth trading for said items, nor do I have the bells.

And Isabelle does next to fucking nothing and I'm really irked about how they made her character in this game. Yeah she's cute, but that's ALL she is. She became more ditzy than anything else. She doesn't let you know about visitors in the town or the plaza or if a bridge or incline was built bc of a completed donation goal. Like really useful info to know would be if Flick or CJ is in town or who is selling stuff in the plaza. Flavor text is nice but if that's all you say 24/7 it loses its charm. In New Leaf she was helpful and hardworking and super focused and on top of things. Idk why they changed that aspect of her. I know her role in New Horizons isn't as big as it was in New Leaf, but still.

And then there's glitches that STILL haven't been patched (as far as I know anyway), like the game-breaking villager corruption glitch (which you'd think nintendo would have made a priority but they're too busy removing other features it seems) or the house exterior glitch.

And it's bad enough that your game saves to your fucking system a la Fantasy Life. But even WORSE, no one can have separate islands on one console. It's not enough to own two copies of New Horizons. Each player has to own one copy of the game and a whole new Switch just so they can play on their own islands. Parents can't usually afford that (aka $360 for each kid give or take) so for a game marketed towards kids, I don't know why they thought that was a smart move (well, I DO know, and that's because money, but still). And to top it all off, cloud saves are not supported normally. If you lose your game or your switch and aren't subscribed to nintendo online, well, it looks like all your progress is gone! And there's nothing you can do about it. And they directly claimed that they did this just so people can't manipulate the game because it's supposed to be played in real time. But people can still fucking time travel by setting the system's clock! They achieved nothing except to make the players frustrated!!! If you make a game you need to accept that the player is going to play how THEY want to. You shouldn't try to make everyone conform to the way YOU want them to play. That just makes you a controlling asshole and the game loses a lot of its fun.

This game was 60 bucks and they took so long to make it and we ended up with less than we got in New Leaf. The main thing they gave us was a shit ton more clothing items (which I really like). Like I said, I love this game to pieces and it's actually one of my favorite games right now. There's so much I love about it -- I certainly don't hate it or anything. But this game has SO MANY flaws, a lot of which are needless. And I think the kid in me just misses the days where you can pay for a game and get the whole game right away. No updates in tiny batches, no content locked behind paywalls, no day one patches, no reliance on internet connection and multiplayer... mainstream companies have all gone really downhill with that shit and it just disappoints me to no end. But because Nintendo is kid-oriented, I think that's where it hurts the most. It was supposed to be accessible, family friendly fun like back during the days of the Wii and the DS. But companies get so wrapped up in competing with each other and trying to make the most money that they forget about all that. I dunno. It just sucks.

If you read all this, god damn I'm surprised XD I got super ranty and I apologize. But I'm in a sad mood and I after learning about features they've taken out I just had to get all this off my chest. It's been weighing on me since the game released, especially since for months prior this game was all I could think about and I was really looking forward to it. It just let me down in a lot of ways, I guess.

[cravingmarvel]

Apartment - Epilogue

Pairing: Sebastian Stan x Fem!Reader Warnings: Swearing, a little angst, sarcasm as always Summary:  You just moved from Germany to New York, working as an editor at a newspaper. So what happens when you find out your favourite actor lives in the apartment across from yours? And how will people react when you share your story on your Blog dedicated to him? What will you make of this situation? A/N: Wow here we are... the last of the last... I can’t believe that after 2 YEARS I managed to finish this series completely... I apologize for the time it took, but I just had no idea how to write it and in retrospect.. I’m glad I waited this long. A HUGE thank you to @buckisthatyou​ for helping me with this!!! I love you!!! 

Anyway... I hope you guys love this as much as I loved writing this and I’ll see you at the end of the chapter :)

MASTERLIST

Apartment – Epilogue

I carried the last of my boxes up the stairs, weighted down a little by the contents of it. This one got lost on its way here and I’ve been desperately trying not to cry over it. It’s been almost three months since Sebastian and I moved in together, but this little fucker had to get lost.

As I pushed the door open with my shoulder the light that flooded into the room filled me with butterflies. Just seeing the living room full of life and personality put the biggest smile on my face. I placed the box next to the bookshelf and started to unpack the books inside. I moved some of the cacti out of the way, they are definitely taking over the place.

I felt a hand on my hip and jumped slightly.

“Hey, how’s it coming along?” I turned to see Sebastian.

“Very nicely, but I do think we need to calm down about the cacti.” I pouted and he kissed my cheek.

“Hm, maybe.” I caught the cheeky smile as he walked away.

The move was easy, finding an apartment wasn’t. We came across a beautiful, two-story apartment in the heart of Manhattan that was pretty close to my new workplace. After my move back to New York, we went straight to looking for a place to share. He said he wanted it to be right in the heart of the city, but close enough to central park so our future kids could enjoy some greenery.

I laughed at him, but the thought still filled me with butterflies.  I was excited to share my life with him, even if that came with a price. Some people just didn’t like seeing him with me on his arm and they made a point in showing it. Just a few weeks after I came back, we made an appearance at some award show, the photos I was tagged in on Instagram were mostly nice, but a lot weren’t so. My dress was too tight, my hair done terribly, and I felt worse because I made those choices. It was me to blame.

Despite the weight I felt from those comments, I knew I could step away from it whenever I pleased. I don’t have to put up with it. No one does.

With the shelve decorated to my liking, the apartment was almost finished, there were a few pictures that I wanted to hang on the walls, but that could wait.

 Two Years Later

 “We’re having spaghetti tonight.” Sebastian called from the kitchen; he knew I’d love it. (The spaghetti, not him calling from the kitchen.)

The chill of the night falling over New York put me in the mood to get comfy. I climbed up the stairs to our shared bedroom, crossing the room to the closet. I decided to change into my pyjamas, a decision I did not regret as I felt the soft fabric on my skin. I investigated the mirror to admire my husky onesie. I look cosy as fuck and I feel cosy as fuck.

The table hasn’t been set when I came down to the dining room and Sebastian noticed my confusion. “We’re having dinner outside if you don’t mind.” He filled to plates with food and gave me a quick kiss as he walked towards the balcony. I followed him out to discover the table beautifully set with flowers and fairy lights.

“Oh wow. This is so fancy.” I said while sitting down opposite Sebastian.

“Thank you, I actually put a lot of effort into this. By the way, cute outfit.” I looked down to the fluffiness that I was wearing and in the reflection of the glass next to me, I could see how weird I looked. “Yeah thanks.”

The husky and the Prince.

We soon devoured our food and just sat and laughed while drinking an alarming amount of wine. New York has never looked so pretty; this might just be because Sebastian is the foreground of the scenery in front of me.

Suddenly, Sebastian stood up from his seat. His face lit up with a smile on his face as he slowly went down on one knee. I was just about to register what was happening, my jaw slightly dropping.

“Y/n.” Sebastian held my hand in his, a red velvet box in the other. “I never knew this day would come so soon. I always thought I’d be fifty years old, still looking for the woman who I’m going to marry. And then you came along. Standing at my door with your ridiculous robe.”

I chucked, tears swelling up in my eyes.

“So, will you, Y/n, do me the honour and marry me?”

I stared at him, the tears now rolling down my face. “Yes.” I breathed out.

He slipped the ring on my finger, a diamond reflecting a million rainbows in the light of the sunset, hovering on the horizon of New York. And it dawned on me.

I just got engaged to Sebastian Stan, and I’m wearing a husky onesie.

 -

 Sebastian decided it would be good for me and his sanity to hire a wedding planner, even though I told him I could handle it on my own. I hate having someone else step on my toes and interfere with my plans but listened to him anyway and hired someone who could help me organize the day and everything around it.

While I still had a whole month to prepare the final details, I was sure we covered everything necessary that involved the venue, decorations, dress and every other detail I could think of.

I shuffled my shoes from my feet and walked over to the kitchen making myself a nice cup of coffee. I got a text from Sebastian telling me that he’ll be home by eleven, filming dragged on until then unfortunately, but it gave me some quiet time to get back to going through my planner trying to catch any mistakes I made.

I’ve never really been one to dream of the perfect wedding, but since starting this project of mine, I felt my need for perfectionism take over.

I grabbed the little folder, my laptop and my phone walking to the couch. I snuggled into a blanket, putting my mug on the coffee table. After a few hours of flipping through pages and finding no mistakes at all, which was usually the case, I grabbed my phone, my thumb hovering over the Tumblr icon. I hesitantly tapped it logging into my account.

A thing I occasionally did was search my own name. I know I shouldn’t, but something vile within me couldn’t stay away from the opinions of others, strangers, online. I scrolled through endless amounts of posts about myself, cringing and cry laughing at some of the posts. The memes were the best part about it, some people were just too funny. I came across some fanfiction about me… yes fanfiction… about me, skimming over the words. They weren’t bad… it was just a little strange reading it myself, but who am I to judge? I wrote fanfiction about the same man I am engaged to once a few moons ago. Ok more like a year ago, but my point still stands. I can’t judge.

But all fun had to come to an end when I stumbled upon posts about me that just weren’t so nice to look at. Some poking fun at my body, the way it looked in a certain outfit I wore while I was out with Sebastian, some straight up telling me how old I looked and some saying that I’m just not the right fit for him. I couldn’t say they hurt, but a little part of me, the very insecure one, believed them. But something I haven’t come across yet popped up right after all that was a post about me being a fan.

I was slightly intrigued, pondering in my head whether I wanted to read it or not. I could shut my phone off right now, I could step away from this and breathe, but something pulled me in, sucked me right in.

I couldn’t say the post was disgusting nor was it far away from the truth the further I read. The person articulating themselves very well. My stomach turned and twisted.

-I’m just asking myself how she fell in love with Sebastian? How can she know for sure that what she feels for him is actually love? If I got together with him, I would ask myself this. Even if it hurts, I would still question my feelings towards him. Is it actually love, or just the fan inside writing its own fanfiction? And let’s take this even further, they’re getting married… what if she realizes that after all, what she was feeling wasn’t love, it was just the fangirl inside, fulfilling her own fanfiction?-

What if… I’m not in love, but rather satisfying the fangirl within me.

 -

 I awoke to the soft morning light peeking through the white thin curtains, a weight on my middle pulling me closer to the body laying next to me. Sebastian laid on his stomach, his arm draped over my back, his hand gripping my waist as he exhaled deeply. He was in a deep slumber, but still keeping me at his side which made it impossible to move away from him.

I worked hard on removing his arm from my body to climb off of the bed, looking back at Sebastian as he shifted in the bed, rolling over to his back. I walked over to the bathroom connected to the bedroom to proceed my morning routine. I took off my baggy shirt and underwear, stepping into the shower to wash off the sweat of the night. Sebastian surely knows how to keep me up to a time where I should be sleeping.

I felt my muscles relax under the warm water, my hands gently massaging my body with fruit scented soap.

I left the shower, wrapping a towel around me, to turn my attention to my skincare routine, washing my face, putting on my serum and moisturizing my face. The door opened to Sebastian walking in, hugging me from behind, kissing my shoulder.

“Good morning, love.” He said, sleep sill in his voice. Sebastian stepped into the shower and I changed back into the comfortable shirt.

I made breakfast for the both of us before I had to get to work, Sebastian had a day off and I envied him for it.

We ate breakfast and I headed to work, but not before Sebastian pulled me into his arms, kissing me passionately. He took my left hand admiring the diamond ring on my finger. “I love you.” He said and I was out the door.

I arrived at work, dropping my bag on the desk, since the summer holidays were on their way, so are the people wanting to get away with their children and spouses alike. I turned my computer on preparing myself for the eight hours of recommending hotels, flights and things to do at their destination.

My boss, Linda, walked up to me an apologetic look on her face. I braced myself for what’s to come.

“Good morning, Y/n.” She sat down in front of my desk, a sandwich on a plate on her lap.

“Morning. What’s on the menu for today? Anything special?”

Linda laughed, dropping her head. “Y/n, I have to ask a favour. I know your wedding and honeymoon are on their way, but there was an incident. By the way, how’s the planning and your husband to be?”

“Good… good, I have everything set, nothing seems to be missing but a couple thousand dollars in Sebastian’s wallet.” Linda found this one funnier, throwing her head back, almost dropping her sandwich on the floor. “What’s the incident?”

“You know how Beck has a habit of finding ways to destroy her leg?”

I nodded, calling back to the many times Beck has had issues in keeping her leg in one piece. Not that she’s breaking it, rather bruising the shit out of it.” “Yeah, I do.”

“Well she done did it again.” We laughed in union. It became an inside joke by now. “I need you to fly to London for three weeks to inspect and review this hotel right in the heart of the city. It’s under a new owner and quite a few things have changed, I could ask Annie, but she’ll need to find someone to watch her kid. Don’t worry, you’ll be back in time for your wedding, which by the way, I can’t wait for. I already have my dress!”

I stared at her for a second. A trip to London was the last thing I thought I’d be doing right now, especially with the wedding just four weeks away. I pondered and the idea jumped around in my head. It would be kind of nice, getting out of the city, get my head in the game. Maybe think about my intentions of marrying Sebastian… try to find out if the fangirl inside is responsibe or not.

“Ok, sure, why not.” I smiled, Linda clapping her hands together, her Sandwich threatening to fall once again.

 -

 I arrived at home, taking my shoes off along with my coat. Linda gave me a folder with all the necessary information about the trip and all the points I needed to check out.

The only person that I now needed to confront was Sebastian.

I walked into the living room, seeing him sprawled across the couch, wrapped in a blanket. “Hey, babe.” I said while approaching him. I sat down and laid his head on my lap. I leaned down, kissing his lips tenderly.

“How was work?” He asked, closing his eyes.

“Good. Y’know, a lot of people preparing for the summer.” I pondered for a moment, trying to find the right words. “Seb? I need to tell you something.”

He sat up immediately, his eyes looking onto mine desperately. He took my hands into his. I knew he was worried.

“I- I accepted a job to go to London for three weeks, to inspect a hotel, I know this is very close to our wedding date, but Linda said I was the only choice next to Annie, and she would have to look for someone to take care of her child.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow. First thing.”

Sebastian exhaled deeply, looking away from me. “Feels like running to me.”

“Sebastian…” I squeezed his hands in mine. “I’m not running, nor and I going to stand you up at the altar, I just… have to figure some stuff out.

“So, you are running? What’s there to figure out?” “Did I propose too soon, should we postpone the wedding?”

It was me this time, exhaling, looking away from him. “I’m not sure if the feelings I have for you are my own or just an imagination from the fan I was- still am!” I looked at Sebastian, pleading for him to understand. “I don’t want to leave on bad terms or move the wedding to another day. I just have to figure out if I’m going to hurt you.”  

His gaze finally met mine and I knew. I knew he didn’t understand the way I hoped he would.

“Y/n, I know that you love me and There’s nothing that changes that whether you were or still are a fan of me, I don’t give a shit. But if this is what you need to steer your mind into the right direction and lay your worries to rest, then do it.” Sebastian leaned in, kissing me softly. “I’ll be waiting for you, no matter what.”

Tears threated to fall down my cheeks, I didn’t know if this would resolve the storm within me, but I knew this was good, for both me and Sebastian.

We went to bed, holding each other tightly, tangled between the sheets, his hands on my body feverishly roaming every inch.

 -

 I packed my suitcase with my necessities, suddenly dreading my departure. I got a text telling me that my ride to the airport was downstairs.

As I stood at the door, Sebastian pulled me into a tight hug, whispering in my ear over and over how much he loves me and misses me already. I looked up to him cupping his cheeks with my hands pulling him down for a passionate kiss.

“I love you, Sebastian.” I couldn’t cry right now, but I’m sure he knew I wanted to.

He kissed the back of my left hand, his gaze lingering on the ring. “Come back and marry me, Y/n. I want to be your husband more than I wanted to be anything else.”

“I will.”

“I love you, Y/n.”

With that, I was out of the door, into the elevator. Mentally preparing myself.

 London, here I come!

-

A/N pt.2: YES!! THERE WILL BE A SEQUEL TO THIS MASTERPIECE!! I have thought about it, consulted with @buckisthatyou​ about it and have come to the conclusion that I need to write it. And because we all want to know what it’s called:

House. It will be called house and no one can stop me.

Anyway, since I already wrote a Thank You post I will keep it short and sweet. 

Thank you all for waiting for me to write this. If i had written it earlier, I probably would've not come up with a sequel. So everything has a purpose... right?

Thank you for reading and I will see you in

House!

[edge-lorde]

hp update: its been a long time, boys. ud think that with this plague outbreak id have more time for shitty phone games, and ud be right! however, the time i normally might use to make tumblr posts has been taken up by reading lotr orc fanfiction non-stop for at least 1 full month. id still be in the thick of that obsession even now if only the fics would update. that is how i find you today folks, for the first time in many weeks i am staring at a screen with nothing to do. so come with me friends, theres no better way to fill the soulless void we are all in than reading a nice long tumbler post. 

disclaimer, first of all, a lot has happened, i prefer to keep these updates as plot spoiler free as possible but do to extenuating circumstances i feel like it is necessary to say, [SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER BELOW]

that rowan fucking died,

i wont say exactly how, but i will say that her death was animated as were animations of myself and a few others reacting to our friend fresh corpse. obviously meant to be serious moments but the animations made it seem almost comical. 

i saw at least one post going around right after this update that was like ‘how could the game devs do this to us..... how could they hate rowan so.... this is punishment from on high’ and its like.... u guys do know what a story is right? the events of  a story are not typically done to punish less faithful fans, im pretty sure they were planning to kill rowan off from the beginning. this isnt disney im pretty sure the writers are not writing each chapter the night before its released by popular vote. 

that little “are we drifting away..?” scene with rowan makes more sense now. there was a bit in one of the scenes where the kids all reminisce on rowans life and the mc talks about it being the last real one on one time they had with rowan. a nice bitter sweet moment. i dont hate this turn of events. its a good reminder that actions have consequences and we are way past they days of “should i wear a hat or scarf?” its YA time now. 

i did manage to take 1 screenshot from this time, i had commented that before that when rowan said she didnt have many friedns that barnaby seemed to be hanging out with her without be there as a friend buffer and here was his reaction to her death:

;_;

the funniest part in all of this however, was of course cedericks reaction to rowans death “but she was so young....” LOL fuckin RIP.

lets see... what else.... i forget a lot of what happened but i think there was a time sensitive quidditch event in there somewhere? if so i  dont remember it. what i do remember of the quidditch pals is that im gonna play beater now, skye is being weird and cagey about it, andre is involved.... the others are there.....

sidenote, i love the shitty b characters they throw in to be like yes you know this person but no they are not cool enough for u to even think about befriending. the first one of those is face paint kid, and now we have another, who is a former beater girl with horrible bangs named bean who didnt go to any classes for a whole season so she could just play ball 24/7 and got kicked off the team.  this is a character who only exists to provide an explanation as to why there would be a beater position open but i love them on principle. 

right now im in the midst of another time sensitive event, this one is a bother-your-brother-at-work-day event where recent hogwarts graduate bill weasley is bullied by myself and his younger brother charlie into letting us go with him on one of his curse breaking jobs. 

so for those unfamiliar, bill works for the magical bank of england.... and his job seems to be “retrieving treasure” for said bank. in the books, there is a bit where he takes his family on one of his trips to egypt, where his job seemed to have been tomb plundering indiana jones style for the posterity of the english bank :X. i wont explain here why thats bad but its bad. 

the game devs however in this instance, at least SEEM to be doing what jkr couldnt do by attempting to salvage what is left of gringotts bank and form it into not a super shitty implications factory run by horrible jewish caricatures. bills mission is to retrieve a goblin made artifact that was taken by dragons, so no going to foreign countries to steal things from other people! only going to a dragon reserve to rifle through animal nests. they even appear to be providing us with a likable goblin character, egad!  

my hope for this event is that we get a plotline about how maybe, goblins arent shifty human haters for no reason, and in fact they hate magic humans for very understandable reasons, like being forced to go into hiding with the rest of the magical world even though only the humans wanted to do that, and maybe despite running the bank in england they still dont have a lot of political sway in the world of wizards and witches, and have to rely on the faith that said wizards and witches wont fuck them over at every turn, even as they see how they treat other non-humans, such as house elves, which they desperately dont want to end up like. and maybe they DONT only care about gold... maybe thats a human stereotype based on the fact that theres a long history of humans not respecting goblin ownership customs.... which i could get into..... but i wont.... i just....... very badly dont want them to suck ;__________;

i know i said its ok to still like a piece of media as long as you recognize the problems with it, and i do, but once this game is done im gonna stop hp posting all together. ive been feeling more and more uncomfortable making these posts lately.  

GENERAL GAME NOTES; theres been some new layout changes and such. 

most notably the stairs screen has been changed from a bulleted list of all locations to a screen with tiles picturing an image of each location along with the name + icons of all classes at each place. there is one additional location that is new and yet to be unlocked, and the dragon reservation is appearing temporarily as its own tile as well. i prefer this method of getting in and out of a temporary location to how they did it with car during the last christmas special. the stairs icon also now stays in the corner when you scroll through locations, allowing you to open the stairs menu without scrolling all the way back to the left. 

they also moved a few of the buttons down into the lower left corner rather than the left side & combined the story button and sidequest button. they added a little camera button as well, just like in the dormitory, that makes all the icons in a location disappear and look better for screenshots. 

the daily special add offer thing now has its own button in the top right corner of the screen, and idk if i mentioned it before but now there are daily challenges that appear in the sidequest screen that offer small rewards for completing 3 tasks per day + a better one if u get all 3. the prizes are things like 4 energy, 75 coins, 3 monster food. the better rewards are usually either more coins, 8 energy, 3 gems, or 1 notebook. i think that it does all the different color notebooks but i cant remember for sure if i ever saw the gold one up as a reward. i like this addition in any case. if you dont pick up ur reward by the end of the day, the next time u log on it will force u to stop and accept them, and if one of the rewards is energy and ur energy bar is full, it does not seem to stack beyond the bar so watch out.

 the character stats page is now more zoomed out so you can see your full character instead of just from the waist up. no change to the leaderboard. rowans face in the friendship roster is now a still black and white image that says ur friend may be gone but friendship is forever u-u. 

rowan has been removed from all classes. in the classes where the minigames involved her, those minigames have passed the mantle onto other friends in the class. in potions that person is now liz helping u find stuff off the shelves and in tranfiguration that person is badeea. bless these girls for helping mc get through it. touched my heart. 

theres been a few fun little “i know u have more free time now so uhhhh have some energy” prizes like they do sometimes when they dont update on schedule so thats been nice. just a few days ago they gifted us 3 gold notebooks the same way. :O. 

theres also been a few instances of a energy happy hour where for a limited time energy takes less time to refresh. normally it takes 4 mins for 1 energy to do this but during happy hour its like 2:30 mins. :U its all very interesting.

and that will have to do it for tonight my friends, ill do a post for the dragon event when its done because i do like it so far and i do like getting to bully bill with charlie. 

until next time, remember.......

[theycallmebecca]

Can you do #6 with Chris? Thaaaanks!

Here is story #5 for this week and story #17 of 25! Once again, I am going to take this weekend off and I’m going to try and right the last 8 stories. *fingers crossed*

So this is my third? drabble that mentions a treehouse and that’s because I totally want to have a treehouse someday. Like the kind features on the Treehouse Masters show on Animal Channel. Google it, they’re amazing.

Since Tumblr can sometimes be a brat about links, I will reblog this post with a link to the masterlist, prompt list and tags.

Title: The Treehouse

Pairing: Chris Evans x reader

Rating: PG-13ish

Warnings: nothing really, just a few things here and there

Prompt #: 6 - “Holy shit! I didn’t think it was that big!”

Disclaimer: This work of fiction is not to be reposted, used or translated without my permission.

Spending the weekend with Chris at his house in rural Massachusetts had become something of a habit for you during the last month or so. You loved the peace and serenity his quiet country home offered in place of the busy hubbub of Boston. Spending quality time with your boyfriend wasn’t too bad either.

This weekend was going to be a little different, however, because he’d promised his niece and nephews that they could spend a weekend with him before school started back up. He’d called you earlier in the week to ask if you wanted to come help him with the kids (despite the fact that you both knew he didn’t need your help) and you had said yes.

Now it was Friday night and the five of you were sitting around the kitchen table eating pizza and salad.

“Can we go to the treehouse after dinner?” his younger nephew asked, in between slices of pizza.

“You guys have a treehouse here?” you asked.

Simultaneously, the three young faces turned to you with astonished looks.

“You don’t know about the tree house?” his oldest nephew asked, his tone one of disbelief.

You shook your head.

Now the kids faces turned towards Chris, all three giving him looks of accusation.

“You haven’t shown her the treehouse!” his oldest nephew exclaimed.

“She’s only been here a few times,” Chris replied, defensively. “And it’s been too hot to spend a lot of time outside.”

Your eyes met his as you mentally added that the two of you had spent most of the past weekends in a semi-state of undress. Both in and out of bed, having finally taken your relationship to the next level after a few months of dating.

“She needs to see the treehouse,” his younger nephew stated.

“YES!” his niece agreed.

“Fine, we’ll take her to the treehouse after dinner,” Chris replied. “But you all have to eat salad so I can tell your mom you ate veggies.”

The three kids groaned, but ultimately each ate a serving of salad.

Forty minutes later, the five of you plus Dodger exited the house through the backdoor. The boys and Dodger ran ahead while you walked with Chris and his niece, each of them holding onto one of your hands.

“The treehouse is in the Enchanted Forest,” his niece told you as the three of you headed to the wooded part of Chris’s property. “And it’s better than my friend Susie’s treehouse. I told her that, but she didn’t believe me.”

Chris chuckled on your other side as his niece talked your ear off as the three of you walked.

As you neared the so called Enchanted Forest, you could see why the little girl called it that. The trees were so massive that they completely blocked the treehouse from view until you were nearly there.

In fact, you didn’t realize that you were there until you saw that the boys and Dodger were waiting for you, Chris and their sister. You turned to ask Chris a question, but froze when you saw what looked like a wood cabin in the tree.

Your mouth dropped open and you stared at the house. The kids giggled with glee and even Chris chuckled.

“That’s the treehouse?” you asked, still in shock.

“That’s the treehouse,” he confirmed.

“Holy shi–itake mushrooms!” you stated, catching yourself just in time. “I didn’t think it was that big!”

“Do you want to go up?” Chris asked you.

“Uh, yeah!” you replied. Then you gave him a look that mimicked the look the kids had given him at the table before saying, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this place!”

“I apologize, my mind must have been elsewhere,” he said, giving you at look that you told you exactly where his mind had been: getting you into his bed.

“COME ON, SLOWPOKES,” one of the boys called from somewhere above you.

Chris took your hand and led you towards the custom, curved, wood staircase that led up to the treehouse. As the two of you climbed, you noticed that the structure was being supported not by one tree, but by several.

The stairs gave way to a wooden porch that was bigger than the living room of your Boston apartment. There were two full sized picnic tables and a barbecue grill that was protected from the elements via a special, built in cubby.

“Come on, the inside is the best part,” Chris’s oldest nephew told you.

“Give her a second,” Chris told him, reaching out to ruffle the boys hair. “It’s not every day you find yourself 10 feet off the ground and in the trees.”

“Remind me not to look over the edge,” you muttered, still in awe over the treehouse. The house itself resembled a log cabin with a peaked roof. It looked charming and maybe a little like the Lincoln Log houses you’d built as a kid. “Shall we go inside?”

The kids cheered and Chris stepped forward, keys in hand. He unlocked the door and then stepped back so you could all go inside before him.

One of the kids flipped on a light and you found yourself once against open mouthed. The majority of the building was one single room that was setup like a family room with a couch and a table to sit around and play games. A small kitchenette with a microwave, mini fridge and sink were on the far side, next to what looked like a closet.

“That’s the bathroom,” his niece told you, pointing to the assumed closet.

“You have plumbing out here?” you asked Chris.

“Yes and no,” he replied. “We had water and electricity run out here, but the toilet is a compositing one. It was too far of a walk to go back to the main house if you had to go to the bathroom.”

“Not for us guys though,” his younger nephew stated. “We can just -”

Chris clamped his hand over the boy’s mouth before he could finish. “No need to tell her what we can just do,” he told him. “She already knows what boys can just do.”

The boy just shrugged and, after his uncle removed his hand, said, “You want to come up to the loft? That’s where our toys are.”

A wooden ladder with handles on either side led to a lofted area that covered the back half of the cabin. It wasn’t a large space, but it was big enough for three kids to each have their own space to place with the multitude of toys and games available to them.

“I wish I’d had something like this when I was a kid,” you remarked. “Your uncle must really love you.”

“He does, he loves us tons,” his niece stated. “He tells us all the time.”

You glance at Chris and saw him smiling at the little girl.

“Can we play for a while?” Chris’s oldest nephew asked.

“Thirty minutes,” Chris replied, after glancing at his watch. “And then it’s back to the main house to get your pjs on so we can watch a movie before bed.”

The kids cheered and started pulling out their favorite toys. They didn’t appear to notice or care when you and Chris climbed down the ladder.

“This place is amazing, Chris,” you said as the two of you sat on the couch with Dodger curled up on his dog bed nearby. “Thanks for finally showing it to me.”

“I would have shown you eventually,” he said with a chuckle. Then in a much lower voice said, “Maybe next weekend you’ll help me christen this place.”

“You mean you haven’t done that already?” you asked. Normally you didn’t pry into his past relationships, nor he you, but you couldn’t help it in this case.

He smiled and replied, “The reason this place didn’t come up sooner is because I built this place with my family in mind. This is where we can come together and get away from the world.” He squeezed your hand. “But like in every other part of my life, you seem like a piece of the puzzle that just fits perfectly.”

“Chris,” you cooed before leaning in to kiss him.

“So is that a yes?” he asked once the two of you had parted. “Are we going to breakin the hide-a-bed next weekend?”

“THERE’S A BED IN HERE?!” a voice exclaimed from above. “I wanna sleep in here!!!”

You dissolved into a fit of giggles while Chris groaned.

[slow-smiles]

The plan to tell Emma’s parents about her relationship with Killian gets derailed when she is kidnapped by the Dark One. Captain Duckling. Revelations, reunions, adventures, and smut ensues. ~8.7k

The grand finale to the My Princess, My Pirate series. This is part two of four. Also just… ya know, screw the canon timeline, use your imagination.

Read on AO3. Read on tumblr Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4

The Swan of Misthaven. Part Two.

Emma awakens with a sharp gasp on the floor of a massive chamber with no windows. The stones are cool under her back, but her skin feels hot, her heart racing. She sits up slowly with a groan. She feels hungover, but multiplied by seventy. A sharp headache makes her feel like her skull is being split in two, oppressive fogginess makes focusing on anything nearly impossible, and a pressing, cloying nausea pushes insistently against her gag reflex. How did she—

The last thing she remembers is the clearing, making the deal with Rumplestiltskin to keep Killian alive, and now here she is. Wherever here is.

The empty chamber is massive, even bigger than the ballroom at the palace, with several support columns evenly dotting the floor in fifteen foot intervals. The air feels dank and heavy, and Emma wonders if this is an underground dungeon of some kind. The stone making up the walls and floor is dark, rough like limestone, and the space is dimly lit by sparse torches along the walls. She doesn’t notice any doors.

She rolls herself to her knees, and at that point the nausea wins the fight and Emma throws up. As she heaves against the floor, her mind is spinning, barely able to pick up a thread of thought aside from where am I and how did I get here.

“There’s no way to avoid the physical aftereffects of having a suppression hex removed, I’m afraid.”

She wishes she could say that when she heard Rumplestiltskin’s voice behind her, she leapt to her feet and demanded to know where she was being held. She does try, but as soon as she gets to her feet and turns, a wave of dizziness and nausea knocks her back to her knees, her hands bracing on the floor. She can’t help the miserable whine that escapes her at the feeling of illness and discomfort running through her.

“And unfortunately for you,” he continues, the click of his boots against the stone ominous in the quiet of the chamber, “the more powerful you are, the more severe the side effects.”

She wrangles enough clarity of mind to say, “What are you talking about?” before her body starts to heave again.

The ringing in her ears doesn’t drown out the sound of him saying, “I must admit, I was surprised to find one on you. The fairies have never dabbled in hexes before to my knowledge, and it was surprisingly well-crafted.”

“What?” Emma chokes out again. Gods, she feels awful. (Even worse than the last time she’d drunk whiskey and blacked out for the entire night. To this day, she doesn’t remember going to sleep or waking up; she had come to, still drunk and vomiting with her pants laying nearby, behind a blacksmith’s forge. Thankfully, Killian had awoken behind the shop next door, doing only mildly better than she, and found her in her sorry state, and they mutually assured their hungover partner got home. This had been relatively early in their courtship, and it was strangely freeing in a way, to see each other essentially at their worst and most stupid.)

“Ding-ding-ding, dearie,” he chirps, so close to her ear, she nearly falls sideways in surprise. How did she not hear him get closer? “You’re a lucky winner.”

“Of what?” she asks, hopelessly confused and desperate for someone to just explain what the hell is going on.

She turns her head to finally look at him directly. His smile is predatory. “Magic.”

Emma barely hears him, or registers his meaning exactly, because her body has quite suddenly decided it’s had enough. Her head drops, she sees white sparkling at the edges of her vision, then sparking across her hands, and before she can say anything in response, she passes out.

***

It’s just over a day’s-worth of hard riding from the palace in Misthaven to the village just across the border where the former Queen Regina lives, and given that they set out in late afternoon, the time comes to set up camp sooner rather than later.

The quiet cooperation between the three of them is not as awkward as Killian imagined it might be. The King and Queen move around each other like a well-choreographed ballet. He’s quietly amused by the two royals in travelling gear (that is far too nice to truly blend in) who are extremely well-versed in camp craft. He fills in where necessary, and by the time the darkness settles, when the light from the moon and stars are barely enough to see by, David volunteers to take first watch. Snow thanks him, collapses into her bedroll, and is asleep in minutes.

Killian finds himself staring at the orange flames next to Emma’s father in silence.

Emma is supposed to be with him for this part, he thinks. Emma is supposed to be here to guide him. And he--

He’s not supposed to be this person anymore. This person whose every waking moment is consumed with thoughts of how he wants to watch the life drain from a man’s eyes. With Emma, he likes to think he’s become someone worthwhile. Someone who is a part of something. Someone who he’s proud to say he will be for the rest of his life.

When they decided that it was finally time to tell her parents, come out of the shadows, he thought he’d be able to be that person. That honorable man worthy of care, worthy of note, worthy of their daughter’s hand in marriage, someday.

“You should get some sleep,” David says, startling Killian out of his reverie.

He looks over at the King, the details of his face made sharper in the shadows cast by the flame. He looks every inch a man of royalty--classically handsome, even in his age. A regal bearing, even when seated on a log in the woods. The crow’s feet around his eyes and the smile lines around his mouth only serve to make him look sage and wise, perhaps even kindly.

Killian answers him honestly, “I’m not certain I could if I tried.”

David looks away into the flames, and a heavy beat passes before he says, “You are the absolute last person I ever pictured Emma with.”

“Pardon?”

David chuckles lightly. “I know Snow doesn’t want to acknowledge anything is real until we have Emma back, but I don’t have the same restraint.” Another chuckle, this time deprecating. “Of all the people in the world, of all the potential romantic suitors she’s met, and it’s you.”

Killian doesn’t appreciate the direction this conversation is going. “What we became was up to her as much as me.”

“Sure,” David says, but it doesn’t sound precisely like agreement.

Despite knowing ( hoping ) that he’s a better man now than he was, he can’t change the fact that he can be a bit of a snarky asshole. “There’s clearly something you’d like to yell at me for,” he says, fully prepared to regret his words but unable to stop them from spilling out, “so why don’t you get it out of your system now.”

The King snorts softly. “Which part do I yell at you for? You’re a murdering thief who is apparently over a century old--yeah, I didn’t forget about that--and somehow you’ve managed to capture my only child’s affection.” He leans back, crossing his arms over his chest.

There’s a part of him that says I don’t know how I did it either (which is only true in spirit, as he still doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve her love, but knows that Emma’s heart was only won when he consistently proved that he was in this for the long haul.) The part of him that speaks isn’t so keen on sharing that vulnerability, so he replies, “Well, give me time, I might just grow on you.”

David grunts. “Like a wart. Or an infection.”

Killian grits his teeth before giving the King his most winning smile. “I suppose it’s a good thing Emma’s feelings for me aren’t up to you then, isn’t it?”

Emma’s father grimaces, and there’s that honest voice deep down, the one beneath the arrogant, brash exterior, telling him that Emma is going to be quite cross with him for trying to get under David’s skin like this.

“Were you ever in the military?” asks David then, the segue so unexpected Killian is momentarily disarmed.

“Yes,” he answers, surprised, but quickly buckles down again. “Can you instinctively sense when someone’s had a stick thrust firmly up their arse?”

David barks out a laugh and steals a glance over at his sleeping wife to ensure he didn’t wake her. “You sometimes stand like someone who was military. And you certainly commanded attention in the Council room.”

“Be careful, Majesty, that almost sounded like a compliment. Might give the wrong impression.”

“Just an observation,” David says. A beat passes before he asks, “So what made you turn pirate?”

Killian doesn’t miss a beat and answers, “The dismal pay of a Navy man can’t hold a candle to looting a ship for treasure.” He winces at the automatic defense mechanism. This is the father of the woman he loves, his future father-in-law if he has his way.

David doesn’t miss the wince, and a thoughtful expression crosses his face. “You’re a piss poor liar for a pirate.”

“On the contrary, I’m actually quite good,” Killian answers.

“Is it really such a bane for you to tell the truth?”

Killian sighs, trying to quell the urge to deflect with a lie or a glib jibe. “It’s not a time of my life I care to revisit often, even in memory.” He looks over at Emma’s father, whose silent, probing gaze prompts him to continue. “Fighting for king and country means nothing when your king is a corrupt, underhanded, immoral man who’d sooner throw his loyal men into a meat grinder than even sniff something honorable.” Killian looks down at his hook, idly dabbing the point with a finger. “My brother trusted him. It was the last mistake he ever made.”

“I’m sorry,” David offers.

Killian smiles tightly. “My brother was the best man I knew. A good captain, honorable to a fault, as stubborn as the day is long. The king didn’t care that he’d died. Probably didn’t even remember Liam at all. I refused to serve any monarchy from that day forward. They took everything from me,” he says, voice hazy with memory, “so I was going to take everything from them. At least among thieves, there was honor.” He turns to David again, “No offense, mate.”

“None taken,” David replies, then chuckles a bit. “Kind of ironic that you went and fell in love with a princess, then.”

“No one is more aware of that than me,” Killian says. “I suppose that gives us something in common--falling in love with women far above our stations.”

David huffs a laugh, but doesn’t respond for a long while; the only sound is the crackle of wood in their fire, and the distant song of crickets. Killian almost wonders if the King had fallen asleep when he speaks again. “Emma must mean a lot to you, if you’d go through the trouble to rescue her.”

“She means everything to me,” Killian gently corrects. “I’d go to the end of the world or time for her. Anything if it means she’s safe.”

“And she for you, I take it?”

Killian smiles. “Yes.” He looks back over at David. “I know that I’m not the ideal you envisioned—”

David waves a hand and interrupts, “No, you’re not. And I’m—” he sighs and tips his face skyward. “Given the lengths that you’re going through to save her—coming to us, getting arrested, potentially almost getting executed, throwing yourself back into this feud with the Dark One—” David looks back at Killian. “Looking at it from that perspective, it’s crazy for me to not approve. Snow and I married for love in spite of the circumstances, and I always hoped for the same for Emma.”

Killian feels like his chest is about to burst. Despite everything, could it be that Emma’s father really can forgive his past mistakes?

“This doesn’t mean I like you,” David quickly says, but it’s without heat.

Killian laughs.

David continues, “If you really want to earn my approval,” he points across the fire to the empty bedroll, “you’ll go to sleep.”

Killian rolls his eyes and replies, “If me having a lie down means that much to you—” Killian mock bows from his seat and then makes his way over to his bedroll. “Then I’m much obliged, Dave.”

“Do not call me Dave.”

“Sorry, can’t hear you over the sound of all the sleep I’m getting.”

David grumbles, but doesn’t say anything further.

Killian stares up at the stars, his thoughts a barely cohesive mess. He wishes Emma were next to him so he could tell her about them, try to make sense of everything that’s happened today. Gods, and it really has all been today. He started off this morning with Emma on his ship, not a care in the world and a tremendous weight removed from their shoulders.

Now, here he is, sharing a campsite with the King and Queen of Misthaven, trying to find his footing with his love’s royal parents, and hoping dearly that he doesn’t make a mess of things.

But that itself seems so trivial in the face of Emma being in the clutches of the realm’s greatest evil, and them having no idea why he’s taken her.

Killian’s never been much for spirituality or worshipping deities. He’s been on the sea long enough to know the superstitions, to know about Poseidon and Ursula and Calypso, and all the other gods and goddesses of the sea to whom many crewmen give offerings and pray in hopes for a safe voyage.

But Killian has seen too much, lived through too many years and too many crews to believe their feeble oils and branches, foodstuffs and whispered words make any difference. A strong wind may fall upon murderers or travelers, a storm may wreck a peacekeeping mission or slavers. The sea is nothing if not fair.

But in the darkness, he prays to any deity that might listen that the world might be unfair in Emma’s favor.

***

Killian awakens with a jolt, the taste of a bitten off shout in his throat and he sits up. The sky has lightened from pitch black and lit with stars to a deep purple, lightening slightly toward the eastern horizon. Early, and not late enough to say that it is yet dawn. He hadn’t been planning on falling asleep, didn’t think it would be possible with the unrest in his mind, but after a few hours of silence, it appears his body made the choice for him.

His heart is racing in his chest, the lingering images from the nightmare scattering but leaving the fear as a gaping maw in his chest. He runs a hand across his face, trying to gather his wits, but he still feels strung out and uncomfortable. Like all of his defenses have been stripped away.

Perhaps he should take a walk. There was a small creek nearby, and perhaps splashing some water on his face will remind him that the nightmare was just that—a nightmare. A garish, twisted vision from his mind that has been stuck on a fear-anger cycle for far too long.

He wishes again for Emma, to speak to her, to have her set his mind at ease, but she’s—

A shudder goes through him as one of the nightmare’s scenes comes to the forefront of his mind again, Emma without a heart, Emma lying on the deck of his ship, Emma crying and begging for him to save her—

With a frustrated, flustered huff, he sits up to find Snow White staring at him. The former bandit princess turned conquering queen has a thoughtful expression on her face, as if he were a particularly interested puzzle.

His breath is still coming in pants, and his heart is still racing in his chest, but Killian is still able to manage a realization. “I missed my watch.”

“You didn’t miss it,” Snow says. “I didn’t wake you. I figured it was the least I could do after I had you thrown in prison and then threatened to have you executed.”

Trying vehemently to turn his manner to conversation rather than lingering on the dream, Killian shakes his head and says, “You’ve nothing to apologize for. Were I in your position, I’d’ve done the same thing.”

Snow smiles. “I appreciate that. You seemed like you needed the rest, at least—” she shifts a bit before she can meet his eye again. “For the last few minutes, it sounded like you were having a pretty bad nightmare.”

Killian stiffens. “I hope I didn’t disturb you,” he replies, and moves to stand, do something with his body that could help alleviate the intense feeling of vulnerability under scrutiny now skittering across his skin.

“You didn’t,” Snow says, a kind warmth in her voice and manner that seems like it should calm him rather than rile him.

“That hasn’t happened in a long time,” he says, as if that explanation should be some sort of comfort. To her, to him, he doesn’t know. His heart still races. He refocuses, remembers how to calm himself. Just because he hasn’t had one in a long time, doesn’t mean he’s forgotten how to get over a particularly intense nightmare.

He shifts on the bedroll so that he faces the flames of the fire. A bit burned down from what they were the night before, it’s mostly charcoal now, but it functions well enough. The slow, steady motion of the flames makes his breathing wind down, and he focuses on the beat of his heart. Draws a breath in deeply, and then lets it out slowly. He repeats this until his body doesn’t feel like it’s about to leap out of his skin.

“If I may ask,” Snow says after the long silence, “who is Milah?”

Killian immediately tenses, his jaw subconsciously clenching; this isn’t the same kind of stress he felt when he awoke. It’s the same kind that came along with David asking him questions about his past last night—and Killian’s about tapped out of defense mechanisms at the moment.

Snow says, “You said her name and Emma’s name a few times before you awoke.”

Perhaps it’s not so much that he’s exhausted his energy to defend his vulnerabilities after the nightmare, perhaps it’s just them. Snow and David, Emma’s parents. They’re the ones who made her, after all, so everything that Emma is came from them. He’s not good at refusing Emma, and her mother seems to hold the same sway over him.

“A long time ago, before Rumplestiltskin was the Dark One, he was just a man. A man with a wife named Milah.”

Gods, but centuries have passed, and it still feels like someone’s pulling his heart out every time he says her name.

Killian continues, “She and her husband had a son, who she loved very much, but couldn’t fix the deep sadness she carried with her. She used to tell me that sometimes it felt as though she were born during a long night, and that darkness lingered with her no matter how often she bathed in the sun.

“And she decided to leave her husband and her son and come away with me.” A knife of grief goes through his abdomen. “We loved each other, and she didn’t see another way out of her unhappiness. So when I left port, she came with me.”

“And her son?” Snow asks.

“We made plans to go back for him that never came to pass.” She’d often confided her insecurity about her motherhood, but had gone no further than that. Privately, he thinks that Milah had been afraid to see her son again, to admit to him that he hadn’t been enough to make her happy where she was.

But that is too intimate a memory to share.

“Later, when he was the Dark One, he found us; accused me of stealing her, as though she were some bauble to be passed around.” He shakes his head, and has to blink a few times to control the wetness at the corners of his eyes. “Milah was brilliant, but she had a bit of a temper. And she just… let the Dark One have it on the deck of my ship. Her words were sharp, and she knew exactly how to hurt him. He didn’t really care for that.”

He tries to be as clinical as possible with the next bit, “So he lashed me to the mast, pulled her heart out, and crushed it. He cut my hand off that day, too, but the pain of that was nothing compared to losing her.”

Snow silently stands and comes to sit next to him, and reaches out to take his hand. Killian doesn’t remember his mother much, but he imagines that being comforted by her might have felt like this.

He blinks harder against the moisture in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” she murmurs. “I understand now, why you were so afraid.”

“Oh, I’m still afraid, believe me.”

“Not like that. We’re all afraid for her, but for you… You’ve already seen this story play out once, and it ended horribly for you.”

“Is this the part where you tell me to have hope that it will end well?”

Snow laughs a little at that. “Yes, because if we don’t have hope that something will work out well, then what’s our motivation to do it in the first place? But beyond the hope, you should hold onto that fear too. The most insane, amazing acts of courage happen when someone is the most afraid,” Snow looks into his eyes with a startling intensity, “and we’re probably going to need some really insane, amazing acts of courage to get Emma out of there.”

As soon as dawn breaks, the trio are on their way. They ride until early afternoon, when they slow their horses to a walk and enter the small village. It’s along a bustling trade route, located between the sea and the next nearest inland city, so it’s well on its way to becoming a full-fledged town.

Snow leads them to a small estate just at the edge of the village. A modest home sits to the left of the front gate, and beyond that is a truly impressive equine complex consisting of several pastures that are clearly well-kept, a large A-Frame barn that could likely house dozens of horses based on the size, and a few dirt and grass arenas for competitive riding purposes. It is a spread that is certainly only rivaled by the royal stables, and those might be found wanting compared to this place.

A youth of possibly fifteen or sixteen years is leading a stocky gray mare out of one of the pastures when he spots them. “Greetings!” he calls out. The mare he is leading seems to protest the quickened pace as the boy strides toward them, but he does not slow. “My name is Henry Locksley. Welcome to Riverside Farm.” The lad seems to have a practiced gaze for horses as he takes stock of their three mounts. “If you’re looking for nightly board, we are happy to accommodate.”

Snow dismounts and turns to the young man. “No, we’re actually looking for your stablemaster.”

Henry looks a little surprised. “Oh, okay. She was in the stable with Roland last I saw her. If you’ll follow me, I’m heading there now.”

“Thank you,” Snow says. Killian and David dismount as well and the trio begins following the young Henry towards the stable.

David asks, “So, Henry, does your family live in the village?”

“My family owns the farm, so we live right there,” Henry answers, pointing towards the home at the front of the property.

Snow’s small “oh” of surprise is almost unnoticeable, but Killian glances over to find her face the picture of shock. She quickly schools her features to neutrality once more. “So your family—they work the whole farm by themselves?” she asks, the epitome of polite interest.

Henry nods, an eager tour guide. “My mother is the stablemaster, my father mostly does maintenance and sales and then whatever else my mother tells him to,” he says with a laugh. “My older brother Roland is a whiz with numbers, so he does our bookkeeping. My little sister Eliza is a hand just like me, but she’s also studying to become a blacksmith, so she’s at the forge in town right now.”

“It’s nice that your family is so tightly-knit,” Snow says, her tone changing to barely-constrained curiosity.

Nodding and smiling, Henry doesn’t seem to sense any odd mood from the group before him. “My mom says that love creates happiness, so keeping those you love close to you is the best way to make yourself happy.”

Killian can’t read the expression that crosses Snow’s face then. “Wise advice,” she replies.

They reach the stable doors, and Henry swings them open. Inside, it looks as tidy and clean as the rest of the farm. The center aisle is made of brick, an exorbitant expense that gives the barn a high class sensibility. The brick is flanked by wood-planked stalls, and the low ceiling plays host to a few small swallows in the support beams. A pair of mangy barn cats roam around, but the central focal point at the moment is the woman with her back turned to them.

She stands bent over next to a mid-sized black gelding, his front left hoof propped up between her legs. She’s softly muttering to herself when Henry calls out, “Hey, Mom, there are some people who want to see you.” Killian, Snow, and David all halt by the entrance, but Henry keeps walking, placing the gray mare into an open stall on the right hand side.

She doesn’t turn yet, still bent over the hoof. “Henry, you’re going to have to ride into town and get Eliza home, because Lady Gerhardt’s horse is going to need a new set of shoes.”

Henry groans. “But I was going to take Blizzard on a training run!”

The woman drops the hoof and straightens, and begins to turn. “You can still do that later this aftern—” Her words abruptly drop off when she sees just who her visitors are. The former Evil Queen quickly composes herself and finishes, “This afternoon. Before you go, can you run and get your father? Tell him to meet me at the house.” And with a quick nod of her head, “And make sure their horses get properly hitched and watered.”

The sorceress who once terrorized thousands of people over a dozen kingdoms is dressed in riding breeches and lace-up paddock boots, with a thin, brown leather vest over a red button-up shirt. Her long hair is pulled back in a simple braid. The raven-black locks that once held crowns, and had been so famously, elaborately styled, is shot through with gray streaks. She looks like any other stablemaster across any of the dozen kingdoms where she’d left heartless bodies strewn across the lands.

Henry glances between Regina and their visitors with poorly-disguised confusion, but Regina gives him a look that quickly has him agreeing and scurrying off to do what she asked.

As the stable door closes behind Henry, Snow steps forward. “Regina.”

“Snow. You’ve aged.”

Not rising to the bait, Snow observes with a noticeable amount of strain in her voice, “You have children.”

“I do.”

Killian meets David’s gaze behind Snow’s back, trying to convey confusion. What should we do?

David just shakes his head imperceptibly.

Snow continues, “And a husband.”

“Yes. I noticed you brought yours along. Hello, David.”

“Hello, Regina,” he replies, managing a polite tone the just verges on chilly. A shepherd David may have been once, but Killian knows that’s a politician’s voice right there.

Regina’s dark eyes then flit over to Killian, taking him in with a detached air. “This would be a lovely family reunion if you hadn’t decided to bring the Handless Wonder along.”

“Good to see you again, Majesty,” Killian replies, acidic.

Both Snow and David look over at him. “How do you know her?” David asks.

“Former villains support group,” he answers without missing a beat, not wanting to delve into the thorny history he has with the old queen.

“Not important right now,” Snow mutters, and strides forward so that she’s only a few paces from Regina’s side. “We need your help.”

Regina’s mouth purses. “I could hardly be your first choice, unless we're already scraping the bottom of the barrel for help,” she says with a pointed look at Killian before she reaches for a bristled brush in a box next to her. “Why come to me?” She begins to brush the black gelding.

A heavy beat passes before Snow answers, “Rumplestiltskin took our daughter.”

The brush pauses on the horse’s flank.

“How long ago?” Regina asks quietly, then resumes brushing the horse.

“Yesterday,” Killian answers. “We won’t be able to get near him without you.”

Regina snickers, “All those years hunting the Dark One and still can’t perform under pressure?”

“Oh darling, I perform under pressure just fine.”

Regina turns an acerbic eye on him. “Not when I asked you to kill my mother.”

“What?” David exclaims, looking between the two of them, but Killian rolls his eyes.

“Still on about that, are we?”

“This isn’t helpful,” Snow snaps. “He knows what can kill Rumplestiltsken,” she points a finger in Killian’s direction. “and you can get us into the vault where he keeps all of it.”

Regina looks mildly surprised at Snow’s outburst, but ultimately settles on impressed. “Why did he take her?”

“We don’t know,” David says.

“He said that he had use for her,” Killian says. “But that was all.”

Regina looks contemplative for a moment. “Product of true love could be useful,” she murmurs. She turns fully to Snow, seeming to warm to her topic, “When did Emma start manifesting magic?”

“Manifest—Emma doesn’t have magic.”

Regina snorts. “Believe me, she does. I could literally feel her magical signature exploding across the land when she was born.” She begins brushing the horse again, but it looks more like a reflexive movement than with any real purpose. “Either she’s a very late bloomer or there’s—” Regina freezes a moment, her lips parted. A furrow appears between her brows.

“There’s what?” Killian prompts.

Regina gives up on the futility of brushing the horse and drops the brush back in the box and steps fully into their conversation with her arms crossed over her chest. “A suppression hex.” Regina laughs, acidic. “Oh, classic Blue. Didn’t want to get her hands dirty herself.”

“Regina, what are you talking about?” Snow asks.

“After I gave up on casting the Dark Curse, but before I was banished,” Regina explains, “Blue came to me while I was imprisoned. I was—” she clears her throat before she continues, “—I was under the impression that I’d used up the last of your mercy, even if you believed me about stopping Rumplestiltskin’s plans. She asked me for a favor, and if I did it, she would counsel you to grant me clemency.”

“But Regina, you—” Snow tries, but Regina holds up a hand.

“It doesn’t matter. She asked me to create a suppression hex. Easy enough, so I did it. I just had no idea who she wanted it for. I’d always thought it was for an unruly fairy she wanted out of her ranks.”

“But she used it on Emma,” David concludes.

“So it would seem,” Regina says. “Maybe to hide her potential from Rumplestiltskin, or even from me. I doubt she ever really bought my change of heart,” she finishes with a scoff.

“Is he going to ask Emma to finish what you started, then?” Snow asks quietly.

Regina purses her lips. “Hard to say. Maybe he’s found a different avenue.”

“How do we get her back?” Killian asks impatiently. His mind has been conjuring worst case scenarios since Rumplestiltskin appeared in the clearing, and as salacious and shallowly entertaining as it might be to watch Regina snipe at the King and Queen, he’d much rather get on with finding Emma.

Regina examines him a little more closely this time, head tilting in a way that, unsettlingly, reminds him of the Crocodile. “You love her, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he answers plainly.

Regina seems to take it in as information, categorizing it in some list in her head before nodding. “We should take this to the house.”

***

When Emma awakens again, the hangover-like symptoms have mostly faded and left behind a strange feeling of sensitivity. Everything is too bright, too loud, too sharp. Like scratching a sunburn, it’s raw and a bit painful. She’d been in and out of consciousness since that first time she’d awoken, but she has no concept of how much time has passed.

At least she feels a little less scattered, the fog she’d felt hanging over her completely gone.

She’s still in the same chamber, but she’s alone this time. Her ability to stand has returned, but she takes it slow. Thankfully, no strange symptoms make a reappearance.

She looks down at her hands, and turns over Rumplestiltskin’s words in her head. He said that she has magic.

There’s not—there’s no way.

There’s absolutely no way he can be right, and yet—

“Deep down, you know I’m right.”

She whirls around, hand flying to where her sword would normally rest before cursing.

“No weapons for you, dearie. Not after last time.”

Now that she can properly focus on his face, Emma can’t find any evidence that she’d put out his left eye with her knife. “What, you looking for an apology?”

Rumplestiltskin’s answering smile is chilling. “Of course not. Apologies are fool’s sentiment. No, no, I usually prefer something more concrete.”

Emma grits her teeth. “Like what?”

He tuts lightly. “Not just yet. We need to wake you up first.”

Before she can ask what he means by that, he makes a few quick gestures with his hands, and she notices the red, filmy mist that she knows is his magic rising around him. With another quick gesture outwards, the magic explodes from him, whooshing around Emma like a sharp gust of wind off the sea, but ripping through every support column in the chamber.

Several of the ones closest to them immediately collapse, the sound like a dozen cannons going off at once. The rest are evenly cracked through at the base and begin to shake perilously, the entire structure around them trembling. Emma braces her knees through the shaking, and looks furiously at Rumplestiltskin. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Fix the columns, Emma,” he says.

“Are you fucking crazy?” she exclaims, eyes darting upwards. The shaking has increased, and visible fissures are appearing on the ceiling where the columns are starting to crumble away. “You’ll kill us both!”

He giggles. “Oh, it won’t kill me. Just you.”

“I don’t have magic! I can’t do this.” Rubble is starting to fall from the ceiling, massive chunks of stone plating crashing to the floor. Emma yelps and jumps to the side when a sizeable piece crashes to the floor not three feet from her.

“Oh, but you can!” he says. “This should be child’s play for how much power you have.”

“This is insane,” Emma says, quieter this time, frantically trying to find an exit. True to her first observation, there are no doors to this chamber. She’s stuck.

Fear burns in her throat, I can’t die, not now, I can’t die, Killian is waiting for me, I can’t die now, we have plans, not now, not when everything is starting to fall into place—

It happens between one heartbeat and the next—another column collapses, this time falling straight in her direction. She dives away from it, tucking and rolling to stand again. The column hits the floor right behind her, the concussion rattling her teeth and throwing her forward.

She falls.

She rolls, tries to get up as quickly as she can, but then there’s a stone from the ceiling falling straight at her.

No time to dodge. No time to run.

Either Rumplestiltskin is right, or she dies.

She thrusts her hands out in front of her, hoping for magic but all she can think of is how badly she wants to get out of here, of how badly she wants to see her parents again, see Killian again, by any and every god, she does not want to die today—

She closes her eyes.

She takes a breath, thinking that this could quite likely be her last.

And then she takes another.

And another.

She opens her eyes.

The stone hangs above her, suspended by a white mist that flows like liquid from her hands. She spares a look around her. Everything is frozen by the white mist, the columns held up, the falling debris stuck midair.

It’s unlike anything Emma has ever seen before, and it’s all coming from her. She can feel it, a strange pull against her heart, but it doesn’t hurt. It’s more like the excitement she felt as a child on the morning of Yule, the anticipation she feels when she hasn’t seen Killian in a month, the physical reaction of joy and love made manifest.

Emma laughs, and with a snap of her fingers, everything is fixed. Like time flowing backwards, the damage is swiftly undone. The stone effortlessly knits back together, leaving no trace of the damage that was done to it. The plating from the ceiling that fell and shattered against the floor pushes back together and floats easily upwards, slotting back into the architecture.

When the last column is standing once more, Emma finally drops her hands.

“What did I tell you, dearie?” Rumplestiltskin says. “Child’s play.”

***

Snow isn’t sure what to expect when Regina says they’ll meet her husband at the house. She only has vague recollections of what Daniel looked like, and even less of an idea of what he’d been like as a person, so to say she doesn’t know what Regina’s romantic tastes are like is a severe understatement. She imagines that Regina’s partner would be a high-born person like herself, a bit prim and classist, maybe abrasively rude in that way rich, egotistical men can sometimes be.

To say that she is shocked to find that Regina’s husband is the one and only Robin Hood of Locksley would be an even more severe understatement than the first.

He is surprisingly warm and welcoming, the friendly dog to Regina’s aloof cat, and something in Snow feels settled, satisfied, happy even. She’d always hoped Regina would find happiness, would find forgiveness and redemption in her own way, and it would seem that she’s found it; more than that, she’s also found someone to share it with who seems to be her perfect complement.

Robin invites them to sit, and offers to put a kettle on so that they can have some tea. While it warms, they all take a seat in the dining room.

It’s hardly the expensive setting Regina grew up with, but it’s certainly nicer than most homes in the village. Solid construction, a fine, tile floor covered in warm rugs, and furniture that runs more along the function line than the style.

They fill Regina in on the particulars of their plan--in as much as their plan has particulars--and Snow takes it as a positive sign that she doesn’t dismiss it outright. “As long as Hook knows what we need to grab, I should be able to get us in,” she says. “But there’s the possibility he’ll see us coming.”

“His visions have never been precise,” Hook points out, but Regina shakes her head.

“When it comes to his own death, I’ve found he has uncanny accuracy.”

“So we split up,” Hook suggests. “He knows I’m coming. If we can manipulate his visions so that he doesn’t know you three are coming with me, we’ll have the element of surprise.”

“Not to barge in,” Robin says, “but as someone with experience breaking into the Dark One’s palace, I may have a solution for you.”

“Experience breaking into his palace,” David repeats.

Robin nods. “I still have the glamour.” He reaches into his pocket and withdraws a small green clover. “When Regina told me what was going on, I figured this might come in handy.”

“Oh good, a plant. Emma is good as rescued,” Hook says.

Robin doesn’t seem annoyed by the sarcasm. “It’s a six leaf clover, mate. Not only capable of casting a powerful glamour spell, but hides one from magical sight, including--”

“From seers,” Hook realizes.

“It was how I managed to sneak in last time,” Robin explains. “Would’ve worked like a charm had I not been captured. But,” he pauses to wave a hand, “that’s neither here nor there. The magic is still good. It could hide all of us.”

“Us?” This comes from Regina, who is looking at her husband like he has two heads.

Robin just smiles at her. “For better or worse, my dear.”

“How did you escape?” asks Hook, who is leaning forward, gaze intense on Robin. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“Admittedly, it was luck. I would have died painfully had it not been for Belle.”

“The heir to the Southern Reach, correct?” Hook asks.

“Yes,” Robin answers. “Both fortunately and unfortunately, she left him many years ago. I helped her get to DunBroch, and last I’d heard, she happily married the queen there.”

Hook sighs deeply. “So she is no exit strategy.”

“No, she isn’t. She’s been out of his grasp for decades now, and I’m not eager to ask her to throw herself back in.”

“Not suggesting she does,” Hook replies. “We’ll just need to be careful with how we plan to get out.”

The kettle whistles from the kitchen, and Robin excuses himself to go fetch it.

“What about Emma?” Regina asks, standing; by some wordless agreement with her husband, she goes to the cabinet near the wall and removes several teacups, saucers, and collections of tea leaves. As she places them in front of her guests, she says, “If Rumple wants her for her magic, then she’s probably strong enough to hurt him.”

“She already did,” Hook says, and that draws their attention.

“How?” David asks.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he says. Robin renters with the kettle and pours each of them a serving as Hook explains, “We were in a meadow, where you used to teach her to shoot,” he says to Snow, and she feels her breath catch.

Despite accepting Hook’s story as truth, the fact that her daughter loves him doesn’t feel real. It seems more like a story, a fiction recorded in pages for entertainment’s sake. But small things like that—that Emma showed him that field, an intensely personal and special place for their family—say that this is an undeniable reality. Something real that Emma kept perfectly secret all these years.

“Neither of us were armed. Why would we be, it was just—” Hook stares down at his tea, tipping the cup and watching the liquid move. “It was just supposed to be a nice day out. He appeared in the clearing and froze me as soon as I tried to charge at him, but Emma had a knife in her boot.”

“That’s my girl,” Snow says softly.

He looks up at her words, and his answering smile is wistful. “She’s a marvel.” It’s said with such softness, such tenderness, that Snow feels an ache rattle in her chest. It might not feel real in a lot of ways, but with each passing time she hears him speak, she starts to understand a bit more how Hook feels about Emma. She knows David doesn’t quite approve, and she wouldn’t say that she does, yet, but she can’t say in moments like this that she disapproves either.

Hook continues, “Now, this is just a regular knife, right? But Emma threw it and put out his eye. He bled. I’ve hunted the Dark One for nearly three hundred years and never have I seen him bleed. No legend or story or recounting has ever said anything about him bleeding either.”

“He’s vulnerable to her,” Regina concludes.

“He won’t tolerate having a weakness,” Killian says.

“No,” Regina agrees, “but he isn’t so short-sighted that he won’t try to make use of her before he kills her or traps her or permanently imprisons her or takes her heart or—”

“Enough, Regina,” David says. “We get it.”

“And she’s shown no signs of magic at all?”

“Not that I can remember,” Snow says.

“They might not be obvious,” Regina replies. “Maybe when she was a child, she leapt out of a tree and landed poorly, but came away unscathed. Perhaps she was exceptionally good at getting her way, past the point of reason. She likely wasn’t doing it on purpose, or with any sort of finesse.”

“She always had an affinity for injured animals,” Snow says, remembering. “There were no miraculous recoveries or regrown limbs or anything, but even the wild animals seemed calm around her and were willing to let her handle them while injured.”

Regina nods. “Could be a sign of strong light magic. Was there possibly a time when she accidentally set fire to anything? Not like that,” she says at the alarmed look that crosses Snow’s face, “but just a candle lit while she was particularly emotional? Happy or excited or perhaps angry?”

Hook shifts in his seat, a contemplative look crossing his face at that. “I think--” he starts, but he cuts himself off.

“What is it?” Regina prods.

“Nothing,” he says, and Snow can’t help but notice the tips of his ears going red.

Regina doesn’t look amused. “Save me the trouble of deducing and just tell me what you think you saw.”

Hook clears his throat, looking pointedly anywhere but at the current company at the table. “I might have—uh—noticed a lamp lit that I thought I’d put out. After an—” he reaches up to scratch behind his ear, the blush spreading from his ears down his neck and to his cheeks, “intimate moment.”

David makes a choked noise beside her, and Snow elbows him. “Not now, Charming,” she whispers.

Regina blessedly doesn’t press or make any quips. “Strong light magic,” she repeats.

“What does that mean for Emma?” Snow asks, happy to move on from dwelling on her daughter’s sex life.

“It’s the safest kind of magic--drawn from positive emotions, has never caused any recorded emotional spirals, with no known physical detriments. Acts of True Love are made from it. Not much is known about it because of its rarity, but from what I do know,” Regina looks directly at Snow, assurance in her posture and tone, “Emma isn’t like me.”

Snow lets out a breath. It’s a startling statement of personal clarity from Regina—something that Snow never knew her former step-mother would be able to have. To know the damage her own actions caused, to be able to tacitly admit that those actions weren’t something to aspire to, were something to be feared, even… it’s more than Snow ever expected or hoped for.

“So what can Rumplestiltskin do with her power?”

Here, Regina’s expression sours. “If she’s as strong as I think she is? Anything.”

***

“Focus, dearie. Make the mirror show you what you want it to.”

The image wobbles for a moment, and Emma feels like she might snap her jaw with how hard she’d clenching her teeth to just get the goddamn mirror to cooperate. A second later, the image solidifies, showing the Emerald City of Oz. Once she finds it, she lets out a breath and relaxes a bit, the magic holding.

“Impressive,” Rumplestiltskin says. “You are a quick study. Quicker than any I’ve ever taught.”

“Still doesn’t tell me what you brought me here for.”

His answer is acidic, “I promised I wouldn’t kill the pirate; that was the extent of our deal. I am perfectly happy to remedy that if you’re keen to continue prying.”

Emma suppresses a growl. “Fine, but you’re going to have to tell me eventually.”

“And why is that?”

“A lot of this magic is about visualizing, right?” she waves a hand at the magic mirror, still displaying the Emerald City. “I wouldn’t have been able to conjure that if I didn’t know what I was trying to conjure. So whatever it is you clearly want me to do, I’m not going to be able to do it unless you tell me.”

He stares at her silently for a beat, and Emma knows she’s right, but she really, really hopes she hasn’t offended him. She’s heard horrific stories of what the Dark One has done to his enemies, and she doesn’t care to find out if those were true.

Instead of replying to her, he turns, grabs a book off the table behind him, and slaps it down next to her.

This book looks strange--the binding foreign, the printing unlike anything she’s seen in the Enchanted Forest, the paper perfectly white and evenly toned. There’s an illustration in the book, unbelievably detailed and inked across a whole page. “This is--” she says, running her fingers across it, “This is incredible.”

“It’s from another realm,” Rumple says dismissively. He nods at the mirror across from her. “Conjure an image of it.”

The illustration is of a structure unlike anything she’s seen before. It’s like a massive spire, flared at the base and climbing impossible heights into the sky. It’s not stone or brick, but crafted of what looks like crossing iron bars.

Underneath the image is a caption. Tour Eiffel, 1890.

“What realm is this from?” she can’t help but ask.

“The Land Without Magic.”

Emma raises a brow. They built this thing without magic? Interesting. “If there’s no magic there, how can I use magic to see into it?”

“Child’s play,” he says again, like a reminder.

Emma rolls her eyes. Right, because she’s apparently so powerful. Emma was never the greatest at her studies, but at least her tutors were more specific than this.

She focuses her attention on the mirror again. Despite the lackluster instruction, it seems easier this time than it had the first few. Reaching for images from other realms is still a bit dicey, the one from Oz being the hardest so far, and she feels a similar stretch in trying to see this spire, this Tour Eiffel. In her mind, she focuses on the illustration, wonders what would be around it, imagines the people that might walk past it.

This image doesn’t even flicker. It just springs to life on the mirror after a few moments of concentration.

It looks taller than it did in the illustration, she notes, but then she catches a look of Rumple out of the corner of her eye. He looks absolutely astonished, and she realizes he wasn’t expecting her to get it.

She feels a bit of savage satisfaction at that. Serves him right for underestimating her.

His astonished look doesn’t last long, as he stands at attention like an army commander and gestures for her to follow him.

“Come now, Emma,” he says. “I have a task for you.”

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, May 2 2020

Welcome to my latest summary of recent ecommerce news, resources & studies including search, analytics, content marketing, social media & Etsy! This covers articles I came across since the late April report, although some may be older than that. I will do my best to keep posting these at least once every 10 days if not sooner. 

Have any topics you would like to see me cover in more detail? Drop me a line here on Tumblr, or email me through my website. I’m also on Twitter and YouTube if you prefer social.  

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

If you sell on Etsy, this is your reminder that the Offsite Ads program kicks in on May 4, and people who make under $10K a year on Etsy can opt out if they want to avoid the additional fees. I have a summary here. 

Issues with mail delivery during the pandemic continue. Canada Post has suspended on time delivery guarantees and warns of December level volume.  USPS is not shipping to 113 countries, including many APO addresses. 

I am still interested in posting articles and lists of resources for small businesses and artists during the pandemic, so please pass on any good resources you know about. HubSpot did a page for Australia, and one for the United States.  See my previous edition for a longer list. 

ETSY NEWS 

Mask sales have created a huge boom for Etsy, but also some busts. “Suddenly millions of people were logging on to Etsy, searching for masks nine times every second, the company calculated.The site was not ready for the rush….There are now 50,000 sellers on Etsy who have each sold at least one mask; 10,000 have sold at least 100. Etsy staff spent time calling the most popular sellers to weed out scams, but also to ensure well-meaning sellers were not over-promising.” There have been many threads from sellers whose shops were de-indexed due to both bots and to Etsy wanting to limit their sales until they catch up on open orders, creating a lot of complaints at a time when their customer service response is hugely delayed. 

Some sellers report receiving listing credits for masks, although several who received money did not sell masks, and many others who did sell masks got nothing. 

Another Seller Handbook post on what people are looking for while they are under lockdown (TL;DR: home decor, activities, bath & beauty) , as well as suggestions for how you can pivot your shop. They include the top search terms for each area; some examples: washable paper towel, garden, birthday gift,  printable wall art, puzzle, board game, puzzle adult. “As shoppers transform their living spaces for multifunctional uses like working, exercising, and homeschooling, they’re looking for cozy comfort as well as fresh, on-season style updates that offer mood-boosting appeal….113% YoY increase in searches on Etsy for “home office...127% YoY increase in searches on Etsy for “indoor garden...“Face mask” was the top searched term for the last five weeks (as of April 23, 2020)” Finally, “In recent Etsy buyer research, one third of shoppers who anticipated purchasing on Etsy in the next three months reported planning to buy gifts.” [Although the article doesn’t mention this, I strongly recommend emphasizing somewhere in your shop that you can send the order directly to the gift recipient, if you sell giftable items but sales are down right now. I am getting a lot more requests for gift notes than usual, and more people are paying for tracking so they know when the gift arrives.]

A study says that 30% of Etsy sellers do not save for emergencies, and 74% want Etsy to help them when emergencies arise. 

Two new features for users of Etsy’s USPS labels: free pick up requests, and easy customer return labels. 

Etsy launched an exclusive collection with Joseph Altuzarra. 

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

Moz just came out with an excellent guide to keyword research that you all should at least bookmark to come back to later, even if you don’t do keyword research now. The introduction contains a good definition of long tail with a graph; “Only about 20% of the keywords people search for will be popular "head" terms. The majority of keyword phrases will be less-frequent, long-tail keywords.” There’s even a downloadable 2-page cheat sheet on the basics at the end. 

There may have been a Google search update around April 16, but I am mostly posting this article for the graphs showing search volatility in the past 1-2 months; those changes in the second half of March into early April seem to be mostly user-driven due to the pandemic, rather than algorithm changes. 

Backlinks are not all created equal, and time is sometimes one of the factors in weighting them. [text and video] 

This analysis of near 12 million Google search results turned up some interesting correlations with ranking. Not surprisingly, sites in first place have many more backlinks on average than the other sites on the same page. It was a bit surprising to learn that page loading speed didn’t correlate with ranking at all (that may change once everyone goes to mobile first indexing in the fall), nor did using the keyword in your title tag. “Pages in Google’s top 10 results contain 65% to 85% of the keywords that they’re ranking for in their title tag. However, we found very little (if any) correlation between keyword-optimized title tags and higher rankings on the first page.”

Google may delay its move to complete mobile-first indexing by September, depending on how sites are managing due to the recent disruptions.

Some businesses are moving the money they spent on advertising over to SEO, because there is a longer-term payoff vs. a short term impact from someone seeing an ad on a given day. Good SEO can get you ranking on many search engines for years, if you are lucky. 

(CONTENT) MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails) 

Not surprisingly, the top times for social media traffic have changed during the pandemic; here’s an updated list. 

Thinking of starting a YouTube channel? Here’s a beginner’s manual including screenshots on how to set it up, as well as tips on YouTube SEO & other marketing tactics. 

Don’t know what to put in your email newsletters? HubSpot picked 17 examples they think are awesome. 

Facebook rapidly revamped & expanded its video chat option to compete with Zoom & Houseparty, called Messenger Rooms. Note that “Room calls are not end-to-end encrypted, but Facebook says it does not view or listen to calls.” The are also working on the ability to charge people to watch live streams. 

Twitter had a good first quarter but the stock still fell because it does not look like they are recovering from the pandemic effects very quickly. 

ONLINE ADVERTISING (SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA, & OTHERS) 

As mentioned in my last edition, Google Shopping is now offering free listings on its US platform, and rolled out a bit early for some even though the start date was given as April 27. Your Etsy listings will not be shown in the free ads if you opt out of Etsy’s Offsite Ads program, and you are not allowed to add marketplace listings to GS yourself, but this may be something you are interested in for your website, if you sell to the US. Some tips on setting up Merchant accounts correctly for this here and here, and optimizing your listings here. If your standalone is on Shopify, they have instructions here. 

As ad prices are dropping for some items on some platforms, it has become easier for small businesses to start campaigns, especially experienced online sellers who can now take advantage of the ecommerce boom. [I agree with this for the right types of items or service, but I don’t think it is going to work for everything.]

New to online advertising, and don’t know where to start? HubSpot has a good introductory overview here, with details on the main options available. 

Google is offering ad credits to small & medium sized businesses as pandemic relief, starting in late May. Note that you need to have been running ads last year with Google to be eligible. . 

Google Ad users will soon need to submit proof of identity & location, starting with US users. The move is to help prevent scammers and increase transparency. Early response to the announcement is mixed. 

Facebook is no longer forcing advertisers to use its Campaign Budget Optimization, meaning businesses will continue to be able to set different budgets across all of their campaigns. 

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING 

If you have an ecommerce site built with Wordpress, here’s how to track your email newsletter clicks through Google Analytics. 

And for your ecommerce site, the best alerts to set up in GA. 

Bing Webmaster Tools has a great feature that tracks traffic to connected accounts other than your website or blog - but Twitter has been removed from this list. 

There are far more Instagram analytics apps than I thought. 

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS 

Many ecommerce platforms/website providers are being pressured to reduce the fake COVID-19 disinfectants on their sites, including eBay, Facebook, Shopify & Alibaba.

There is a new app that lets buyers shop with multiple businesses who run their sites through Shopify, called Shop. Among other things, it will feature businesses local to the user: “A recent survey of global consumers by Ernst & Young found that 34% of respondents are willing to pay more for local products amid the pandemic.”

Shopify’s stock is flying high right now, and it has become the second-most valuable company in Canada, in part due to the surge of sign ups after the start of the pandemic. 

Since page loading speed is important to buyer conversions as well as SEO, if you have a Shopify site, you will want to read about which themes are the fastest & slowest to load. A few are ridiculously slow, & you will want to consider your goals if you are thinking of using them. 

Jeff Bezos has moved back to managing Amazon operations due to the pandemic. “Bezos was also personally involved in Amazon’s decision to suspend third-party vendors from shipping non-essential items to Amazon’s warehouses, helping ease the load on workers so that they could more efficiently ship goods like baby products, groceries, pet supplies and personal care products.  He also signed off on Amazon’s move to halt tactics it normally uses “to encourage customers to put more items in their shopping carts”.

Meanwhile, Amazon VP states that Amazon has done a lot for sellers during the pandemic, including suspending “repayment of all Amazon Lending loans for sellers in the United States and the United Kingdom until April 30.” I guess that is why their profit fell to only $2.5 billion in the first quarter of 2020 despite their gross sales being up 29% due to the pandemic buying. 

Amazon’s pilot program for verifying new sellers by video calls is continuing; contrary to previous reports, they say they are not using facial-recognition technology, but they are checking photo ID against the video call. 

eBay has extended its suspension of most seller performance standard rules until June 19 for sellers in the UK. They are also extending their free listing offers, and after banning mask sales are now apparently envying Etsy’s sales and are encouraging sellers to make fabric masks.They are also planning a way to confirm sales that involve local pickups [podcast & transcript]. 

eBay had lower 1st quarter results than they & others had predicted, so the stock went down. Here is the call transcript for those interested. 

BUSINESS & CONSUMER STUDIES, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 

The pandemic sales trends have switched from hoarding essentials to food & home comfort items. “As spring eased toward summer, cooking at home also began to include gardening. "We see continued growth in gardening," said Ventry. ... Growing herbs, he said, played well with the home cooking trend, too. "We saw similar trends from 2008 to 2010, during the recession."

Ecommerce sales are way up, perhaps 50% up in the US right now, and some of these people will continue their increased online shopping, so it is a good time to launch many types of new campaigns. (warnings - some “not safe for work” language) 

HubSpot has been producing a weekly pandemic report on its customers core business stats, such as website traffic & sales rates. They speculate that we might be seeing a bit of an overall recovery as of last week. 

MISCELLANEOUS

There are still more good work-from-home articles coming out that can also be relevant for those of us who have been doing this for a while now. Using a schedule to be more productive is a common topic. As is managing to be productive with kids around. 

[kindabraveandlittlestupid]

Why Tumblr Chooses Censorship

It’s a strange day to jump online and suddenly hear about a major policy change on Tumblr from a few people I talk too. Words like “Total Bullshit”, “End of Tumblr”, “Burning Garbage Heap” and so on tossed among them to describe the policy change. Curious enough I logged on began reading over all the purposed changes and I admit I am a bit disheartened. Usually when a digital institution like AOL, Yahoo, Napster, or MySpace falls it because they didn't evolve and became stagnant in what they were providing the internet. I can’t think of a time where a site willfully regressed its own freedom of speech on a broad scale and basically swallowed a poison capsule that destroys their user base (perhaps deservingly so) but here we are.

That point aside, I am trying to have insight and hindsight to understand how/why they were pushed to this reckless conclusion (I will be leaving foresight out because I think Tumblr lacks foresight, the exodus from Tumblr will dramatically change the culture of this site likely for the worse). Tumblr like any social media medium is struggling in the current age of the internet; Bots, Far Right Extremists, Fake News, Illegal Porn, Data Theft, and so on. Many companies are walking this fine line between trying to combat these problems while preserving freedom of speech.

I struggle to find my own footing on this topic because I believe that society with LESS censorship historically does better. You look to countries in the past that repressed sexuality, individual thought, and so on; those countries were often the ones to invite the rise of repressive groups doing atrocious acts in history. While on the other hand because of this open and free social media platform we all see the echoing of those same repressive groups (who are also on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and Youtube) and to simply say/do nothing about their posts will inevitably allow them to rise still. This is where I struggle as I believe in that concept of a free society but I do feel that removing fake new stories is essential for the health of democracy.

I imagine the reason why sexual images are the target is that Tumblr makes things so easy to post. It's not hard to imagine pictures of minors getting liked or reposted from one blog or another happening. The problem is many of those pictures will circulate for a long period of time not being flagged as underage and there is good chance that every user has knowingly or unknowingly looked at an image like this on the web. I explore the porn side of Tumblr and have once or twice encountered a Tumblr full of these images at which point I couldn't close that tab fast enough and get the hell out of dodge. So Tumblrs solution of handling this problem instead of playing whack a mole with these underage accounts? Ban all adult content.

I can understand this motivation being a foolproof way of making sure there is no underage porn because there will be no porn. I imagine the result will be very effective, so effective that the various members of the community be they straight, bi, or gay who had their own private collection of legal adult material on Tumblr will stop visiting the site. A slow-moving exodus of users from Tumblr this site to perhaps a new blogging alternative that isn't so restrictive. I don’t suspect Tumblr will be closing its doors the week after the policy kick in (though they will see a HUGE decline in traffic) but even the PG accounts will likely move on because a sizeable user base shifted away and people want to be where the party is at. And much as I love Tumblr, it will not be here (sadly).

PC Culture VS Censorship Culture

One thing I noticed on the various posts is some people attempting to blame this policy change on the PC Culture. I am not sure I believe that as a valid argument. While I don't get along with PC Culture all the time (part of my free society is believing that humor is apart of it and PC Culture doesn't always like humor), I do think PC Culture has a broad/accepting view of orientation and sexuality. Just important is people having the right to explore those thoughts and feelings of their own free will. Tumblr has been one of those sites allowing emerging gay men and women to find others like them but also explore their sexuality with images/gifs/videos. What Tumblr might have not noticed is that the site itself is kind of a cultivation of the best images from the web, sure you can find some pretty hard porn on occasion but of all the adult sites on the web, Tumblr provides an almost artistic lense to the images that come thru the site.

Censorship can come from various political/social/religious groups but this sort of censorship against the human body, sex, and sexuality, in general, comes from a very conservative mindset. People who don’t wish to see nudity in any form on any medium; people who think a woman's nipple is lewd, that breastfeeding publically is disgusting, and that anything remotely sexual is a sin. And by the nature of Tumblrs policy change their beliefs align themselves alarmingly close to these individuals.

There is a thin veneer of progressive views on the site that remains where they say they are ok with this and that like gender orientation surgery but its just that a veneer. Once a person has transitioned anything that is shared of their new body (nudity or sex wise) beyond the initial transition falls into the realm of ‘smut’ by Tumblrs policies. I imagine the perception they are trying to sell us is “Hey we are still the same progressive safe haven for LGTBQ community! Stay with us!” but secretly thinking “Everything you enjoy in the bedroom is horrible and we fucking hate you.”

Perhaps I am being hyperbolic in that statement but damn if it doesn't feel like a vast policy of censorship on the human body. And whenever this happens (historically) it always comes from hyper-conservatives.

A General Attack On Expression and Orientation

I touched on this topic a little bit above but I feel it's worth stating again that Tumblr might be losing its safe-haven status for gender expression and sexual orientation. When scrolling through Tumblr you will likely see those new expressions of genders that is beyond that of ‘traditional’ male and female definitions. And while I don’t have any attraction to some of these new expressions, I understood why they are there and don’t get upset if/when the cross my feed. Like two men having sex my mind thinks “Not for me but I am sure that will make someones day”. I view sex (in all its forms) as natural, I don’t have to be into it for me to be ok with it (if that makes sense). It’s visual participation if that image you see isn't a turn on for you and does nothing for you, simply move on.

Tumblr’s policy doesn't seem to care about this concept of visual participation and while it is taking away my straight/lesbian porn I enjoy. It is also sweeping up all these new forms of expression and orientation in the process.

I am not sure what else to say... I am a straight male and I try to have a deep empathy for other people when I can. I feel this argument can be better structured but I also come from a position where I don’t know all the details. I add this to the post because Tumblr seemed to go out of their way to suggest that they would protect this community but from a long view that doesn't seem to be the case.

A Lessons To Be Learned

I am not going to say fuck Tumblr. I don’t want to see them fail. I liked what this space was about and what it provided. I prefer they reconsider changing the guidelines and consider a different course of action but I also understand why they want to do this. It’s “The Easy Way” to do things. If they ban all porn then it simplifies managing underage nudity and allows the site to have less criticism drawn to it.

I do, however, think this broad censorship approach will ultimately hurt the site and the community though. People will leave, alternative websites will arise and Tumblr will eventually become no more. I am not going to tell anyone to boycott or delete their accounts. I plan to collect my writing and images, backup my favorite adult gifs (might need to buy a hard drive) and settle into this new reality. I know I will personally be visiting the site less as I used to look at porn here at some of the better cultivated Tumblr archives. That lack of traffic by me and all the other users will hurt the company. I hope they understand eventually I won't show up at all and over time, eventually, no one else will either. Maybe the site will survive and change into something else but right now under these conservative policies of censorship, Tumblr won't last.

Sad Regards, Michael California

Update: Posted this originally with a woman in a shower with large censorship bars over the naughty bits. Flagged despite the fact she was more covered than most Sports Illustrated models. I know I just wrote above I am not advocating leaving the site... but after all this and the fact that Tumblr Support finally responded to a far-right Tumblr blogger photoshopping/doctoring a PM conversation we had before posting it to his blog. I feel as though Tumblr A) hates sex and sexuality B) not only enables but protects racism and harassment on this website. I think it’s time to move on.

[wolfie407]

A Statement

Hello everyone!

You may have come here in curiosity of what I posted on the Moon Guard Secrets Tumblr in regards to Niklos Adamant and “my involvement” with the horrific situation that has been brought to light recently.  First and foremost, as you can see, I generally do not use Tumblr so please so forgive my formatting.  Secondly, I must express that I am saddened, angry, frustrated, and just about every negative emotion in the book every time I think of this story.  To have me tied into it makes it all the worse.

As I said on the MGS post, I am Nevari, though I have been also known as Redmayne (whom Niklos has named me as being involved and yet again, not a shroud of evidence backing such claims) but more importantly, Janessa, the former GM of the guild, Whispers of Windrunner.  These current days I am pretty much off playing other games or being involved with different communities because of the results I suffered from the malicious slander I have endured from Niklos along with several other people.  This post is to simply back my own words up and well, hope that the community finally realize how scummy these people are.

Now, I will state this situation was about 2-3 years ago to my recollection.  Around that time, I was playing my death knight, Redmayne who unfortunately was a part of the Remnants of Lordaeron guild.  Ultimately, the guild was not a fit for me and I wasn’t in it for very long at all.  The situation that is currently being discussed at hand, well, I wasn’t even around for that.  In fact, I did not even hear about situation until my guild was targeted and sabotaged last year.

As Janessa, I was the GM, creator, etc of Whispers of Windrunner the day that void elves were released.  I took it as an opportunity to build something great for the community while giving myself a fresh start, looking forward to the RP to come.  I built and practically slaved over my guild from the ground up almost entirely on my own.  I did not expect to have my guild immensely popular and in demand right out the gates and I wasn’t prepared for it at all.  

While the numbers and popularity of Whispers grew rapidly, I knew I needed help and sought out officers who were willing to take on officer responsibilities.  Among them were a couple whom I thought I could trust and whom I felt I related to.  This couple is known to be Elysiae and Shandor/Mordren.  I never knew them, never heard anything about them, and I really enjoyed their company.  They supported me and showed they wanted the guild to succeed and throughout some of the growing pains, Elysiae gained my confidence.

This was short lived however.

Not long after I decided to make her my Co-GM, she had caused a LOT of drama with other members of my guild on ooc spectrums. I also over time lost faith in my officers because they suddenly became inactive or not around as much without notice.  I was literally slaving over the guild, prepping guild events, making a website, talking with other people to get RP going, etc etc.  When I am being pulled 16 different ways at once, it’s taxing and there were some days, I just wanted to do an RP away from everyone else as a break.  Apparently that isn’t allowed.

Anyways, an IC situation had happened with my own character against Baldassar who is known to be a member of SLP.  It later escalated where Maxen was involved along with many other people.  Everything that was happening was completely IC and I had even messaged Maxen during the heated RP if he was ok OOCly because I am constantly worried about OOC/IC crossing.  All seemed well and was fine.

Apparently not.

The next day, Elysiae and Shandor get Galmone involved, saying that I should step down as a GM because of the RP and the fact that I am, Nevari, and despite all the work I’ve done, me being GM isn’t good for the guild.  I believe the term they used was a “GM Wash.”  I dunno, this was a year ago.  Anyways,  I was absolutely outraged by this and said flat out it wasn’t going to happen.  No sooner did I end my Discord call with them, they went to undermine me and sought out to degrade me in unspeakable ways.

I have a recording of them doing this in the act.

Immediately Shandor/Mordren says that I was kicked out of Remnants of Lordaeron because I rp’ed raping a 12 year old to death.  At this time, it had been 1-2 years since I had even been a part of that guild... but neither here nor there needless to say this allegation was beyond shocking and hurtful to me.  Upon investigation where Shandor had heard this from, it was found out by my partner at the time it stemmed from Rennali.  

It doesn’t end there.

The recording had circulated.  This was my biggest mistake.  At the time, I felt I needed to defend myself by circulating it to show the extent people will go to bring someone down.  It backfired because people didn’t look at the context of my guild’s situation but the context of the rumor itself.  

With this allegation looming and the recording now spread, it of course reached “big boy” ears.  I adamantly fought the allegations, proclaiming my innocence to no avail to Maxen about all of this yet I was still punished for something I had no involvement with.  I was removed from all of the RP groups because of this even though there is not a single screenshot in the world that can even remotely link me to this incident.  Of course after Shandor and Elysiae’s antics, I immediately removed them from the guild.

I was punished because of the testimony which came from Berenal and Niklos.  Berenal came to Niklos asking about the situation and Niklos gave damning testimony which was 100% false and complete slander.

See following screenshot:

All of this caused huge rifts in my guild.  My friendships were torn apart, people left because of the controversy, my Rp partner at the time gave up on it and left.  After all of that emotional trauma I endured, I couldn’t move on and I relinquished the guild to a worthy member who offered to take the reigns.  I was beyond devastated and hurt in ways beyond imagining.  To be frank, I ended up having to go to therapy over this.

I do have regrets on how I handled the situation but I can’t exactly change the past.  What was done is done. 

Now, as far as the actual situation goes.  Supposedly Rennali heard this rumor from someone named Hranu but I have 0 clue about that side of the story.  Regardless, without a shroud of evidence to the claim, she chose to continue to spread the lie by talking to other people who ask about it “because she was told this therefore she can talk about it.”  Though this isn’t a post about my conversation with her afterwards, this is more about Niklos.

Niklos knew I wasn’t involved 100% and he took it upon himself to come up with a narrative to damn me.  Just recently, he posted yet again I am STILL involved with this situation yet I have multiple statements from various witnesses and people involved that I had no hand in it whatsoever.  

I also would like to point out the following discussion with Niklos.  Please note the following things:  1.  He approached me out of the blue because we had a mutual discord server.  2.  This conversation was during the hectic time and before my conversation with Rennali.  I put this in an imgur because I wasn’t sure how Tumblr would format it.

https://imgur.com/a/t3BjU4c

Anyways, why this didn’t come out about his enabling and defending of these individuals back when I was being wrongfully persecuted is beyond me but I am glad that there is a sense of justice in all of this.  I haven’t even been around much these days but what I find hilarious is that I logged on a character he knows me for and within literally 5 minutes, he was talking ill about me to a friend of mine, another screenshot I have mind you.

Though yes, I am glad to have Brady and others clear my name and I do hope Niklos gets everything that’s coming to him.  If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask me on my Discord Wolfie#0156.  I seldom check this and felt that this needed to be said so I have my own peace of mind.  

[reinelefey]

@staff

Here's the thing.

There are many well thought out pieces that have been written in response to your actions for December 17th, 2018. But here is my two cents.

My blog has somewhere near to 20,000 posts. My blog is not a popular one at all, with only about 400 followers. I have had this blog (and others) since before the mishapocalypse, since before dashcon, since before Superwholock, and before various other fandom events.

This blog has been through URL changes, theme changes, and content changes. I began my Tumblr life as an Assassin's Creed RP blogger. (Yeah, it's that old.) I have friends on this site from before I graduated high school.

And this is the only place that I have to SEE them, to know they're doing alright. I have spent nigh on 10 years curating my blog, posting my interests, and learning new things, and making new friends. I have spent nigh on 10 years following the community guidelines, being irked by post limit, and seeing all of the new iterations of Tumblr dashboard, via app, and desktop.

I have spent nigh on 10 years watching this community grow, and change, as I have. I have watched people discover themselves, build their bravery to show their discoveries, and ultimately come to others here for support in learning themselves more thoroughly.

I have been happy to do this, and take my place among the Tumblr geriatrics to watch the new generations discover themselves, and help where I can. I have been happy to see this site, and its people grow older, and wiser with each year. I have reveled in the chance to spread information, and to spread love, and to spread hope. I have reveled in the privilege to be a positive influence on others, or at least a light to show the way to a better direction.

I have reblogged artwork, artistic nudes, and to my secondary blog, several guides on how to safely perform sexual acts, for those who might be interested in in learning about these things, but have no other way to learn. I have gatekept that blog away from underage minds and eyes as much as one can on the internet.

This secondary blog is curated specially for the specific people who would seek out the information, and look to receive education. And now?

Now I am in danger of losing my blog that I have spent nigh on 10 years curating to my interests, tagging for my references, and enjoying with friends who have become closer than family.

I understand the need to keep minors safe, and believe in this wholeheartedly. But I also understand and believe wholeheartedly in the fact that people should not be afraid to log onto a blogging website because there may be Nazis, and racists, and paedophiles looking to interact with them. I understand and believe wholeheartedly that porn bots should not be able to interact with children, and that beloved children's shows should not have porn in the tags for them, and that there needs to be stricter guidelines on tagging, and what is allowed in a tag.

What I do not believe is that posts about body positivity which include the "female presenting nipple" or posts about breastfeeding which contain the same should be flagged as explicit. What I do not believe is that posts which teach safer practices of binding one's chest which contain a trans man's nipples should be tagged as explicit. What I do not believe is that you are doing what is best for a MASSIVE Multiuser platform that is sometimes the only thing that keeps people alive, or reminds them to take their meds, or reminds them that they are loved, and accepted.

I do not believe that the implementation of the newest algorithm while stop the problem with your porn bots, and I do not believe that it won't delete blogs who, like mine, have many thousands of posts that it is now necessary to go through, to be sure there isn't a post that will trigger your algorithm cueing a loss of EVERY POST, and the history of that blog on this website.

Why do I not believe that? Because my secondary blog was tagged explicit-- and it was-- but not all posts which were explicit werre tagged. Nearly all images containing women's nipples (artistic or not) were flagged, and every post I had which depicted an interracial coupling, (whether sexual or otherwise) were flagged, most posts containing vaginas were flagged, and some containing sexual acts were flagged. Even some images containing no genitalia were flagged.

Even a post showing only my throat with lovebites was tagged explicit. (and won't allow me to have a review for it.)

But, an equal amount of pictures that were very much explicit were not tagged. Mostly the images that contained white penises, or similar. I have manually deleted these images from that blog in an effort to save the safety information posted there for future use. The blog no longer has a red bar stating it is flagged. We will see how long that takes to change.

You have attempted to address the porn bot problem in the most backward of ways, which now penalises your actual userbase who would very much like to keep their blogs. You have created a panic, and a danger of mass exodus for this site, and more over, you have created a rift in a place where fandoms once went to unite. Many of these people will lose contact with people that they have known for nigh on 10 years (ARE WE NOTICING A TREND YET?) that have become staples to their dashboard, and checking on their blogs became a staple of their day.

You will, in essence, be the divorce that splits the family in two. The only question that will come is "Who gets the kids?" So far, the front runners are other websites that do not have all of the functionality of Tumblr, nor the ability to deal with the sudden influx of users that they will gain on the seventeenth.

You have begun to sound your own death knell like Yahoo has so many times before, with instances such as geocites.

The porn bots are endemic, yes, and there are difficulties in removing them. But this? This is not only putting the cart before the horse, this is putting a saddle on the horse before it is even born. This, like the foal in the metaphor will cause things to falter, and fail.

I have had this blog for nigh on 10 years, and I expect to see its death in nigh on 10 days.

Perhaps you should hire the xkit guy to help you out?

[digimonascending]

So first things first, Chapter 7 is out in the normal places. Featuring additional jellies.

Secondly, I’m afraid this is gonna be the last thing I post on this particular sideblog. It seems as if it’s been removed from Tumblr’s search engine and the whole site it threatening to collapse anyway.

I was never planning on putting the whole chapters up here anyway, and I do try and post everything in other places. So, I shall leave this final picture here and bid my farewell. I will still lurk around on my main blog but probably won’t post anything.

If you want to follow Ascending stuff, I’m on DA and Twitter as HawkinaJazzyHat, which is also my main blog here. There is also the Digimon Ascending site which contains Error 404 and all related stories; links are on the above sites. Episode updates are every Sunday, and there are many more stories still to come. No matter the platform, I don’t plan on giving up on this anytime soon.

I’ll be logging off Tumblr after this post for a few days. As far as the FDD stuff is concerned, this is as far as I’ll take this on this particular blog.

Thank you very much for all the likes, reblogs and support during this blog’s short life, and I hope to see you around elsewhere.

Enjoy many jellies, penguins, adorable goblins and much additional character trauma in the future. And stay awesome.

[rococospade-main]

This whole thing is so weird. Liking a piece of media doesn’t mean you endorse the creators views. A drawing of two aged up child characters standing next to each other isn’t pedophilia. Being able to remove one post and person from the site completely doesn’t mean it’s a feasible thing to implement side wide. Tumblr has like 200 staff. There’s probably more of the posts we all want gone made every minute than there are tumblr staff members. Moderation has got to get better but responding to this with “so you could do this all along and just choose not to” is ridiculous. Completely removing the post and blogger does seem like an overreaction but given she’s deleted or privated most of her socials (importantly without hiding the stuff on her tumblr people had issues with, so this isn’t an attempt to hide it) and also given how many people seem to think “this person likes Harry Potter” is a callout of a horrific act of bigotry I feel like there may be some stuff that went on privately in terms of harassment. Like this still seems quite over the top but maybe not as much as it seems with the info we have. I find it hard to believe this went down in the way everyone is reading it. Very chronically online moment from the tumblr user base today. Especially given that half of them are literally enjoying Dracula right now.

You are absolutely correct, someone's fictional taste does not dictate their moral or political stances. And this is super weird. I'm mostly cocking my head because like... she called a staff member a freak and a terf and then was surprised when it... got her nuked.

You raise good points about whether the ban and deletion is mass implementable, because yeah, it likely isn't. I do think how staff responded is ridiculous, but that's due to the extreme normalcy of harassment on here. Suicide baiting is common. Harassment and ban evasion are common. In the past if not now, mass reported blogs could be taken down without someone actually reviewing whether the reports were accurate. So this feels a little like "ah, so some people are more equal than others, I understand".

re: the person who got banned, whose name I'm keeping out of my blog where possible... I'd honestly say that her name being attached to the call out is pretty damning: it's making serious accusations (it calls someone a predator and a nazi) over fanart. Maybe not the smartest move, in addition to being wildly disconnected from reality. Staff are bigger fish than no-name bloggers.

It's been two days and I'm already exhausted by the number of "they were banned for calling staff an HP fan!" takes. Her screenshots have her calling a staff member a freak for liking Attack on Titan. I don't know about you, but my back goes up when I see the word "freak". It's usually trotted out by a very specific and very pro-harassment group on here. And I don't have any faith in "i didn't tell anyone to go harass her" because as far as I can tell... that particular group doesn't need to be told.

Now, I'm gonna assume the she who hid her socials is the staff member because... honestly, I'm not following this very closely, and hopefully I can keep that up. But uhh, if she wasn't getting harassed before this I'm sure she is now. I haven't been able to escape this and it's only been two days, I might log out for a week or so.

LOL. Dracula is different because (incoherent mumbling noises) and antisemitism only counts when it was done in the... 2000's? I don't know, it's late and I'm tired, and your post is excellent, thanks for taking the time to write it. It brightened my mood :)