#fun fact i still have like. three more sections to write

[kanerallels]

Me: Gee I sure hope this fan fic is pretty long it feels like it should be a long one. Maybe 5 or 6k words Me: *checks the word count* The word count: *is 5,130* Me: Me: Hmm. Well. I'm gonna succeed at my goal at least

[queer-reader-07]

a love letter to trans romance

because i can't be normal about media and i'm making it y'all's problems

hi hello and welcome to my mildly unhinged ramblings about love and gender. this post comes to you in three sections, enjoy <3

--

t4t romance novels made me believe in love again

the first romance book i ever read was The Feeling of Falling in Love by Mason Deaver. TFOFIL is a t4t (trans for trans) romance that follows a teenage trans boy, Neil Kearney, and a figuring-out-their-gender teen, Wyatt Fowler, as they get themselves wrapped up in peak YA romcom shenaniganary and eventually fall in love. cute, right? just a fun little romcom, not much more to it?

yeah well that's what i thought going in, but coming out of that book i was in tears. tears because i'd never read a story about trans love before. tears because at that point in my life i'd never allowed myself to fully claim the word "trans." tears because Wyatt made me feel so seen and so real.

there's this one scene where Wyatt is talking to Neil and they describe themself as being the kind of person who sometimes wants to wear makeup and dresses, but other times they like their body hair and scruffy beard. and i just remember nodding along and then absolutely melting because Neil takes it in stride, he comforts Wyatt and let's them know that they don't need to have it figured out just yet. Neil makes it clear that he's there, and that Wyatt doesn't need to come out to anyone unless they're ready.

Mason Deaver has another t4t romance, Okay, Cupid. and that similarly had me in my feels because there is something so special about finding people who embrace you for all that you are.

every t4t romance I've read has one thing in common, the fact that the love interests do not love each despite the other's transness. their transness is not an obstacle to love or to attraction or to adoration, it is an object of it. their transness is something to be admired and to be loved and to be cared for. it is not something the other has to "get over."

reading The Feeling of Falling in Love was the first time i ever thought to myself "maybe, just maybe, i can call myself trans and still be loved." because up until that point i hadn't let myself accept that i was some flavor of trans. up until that point i'd said "not cis" without ever saying trans because i was so scared my being trans would make me unlovable. t4t romance books showed me how wrong i was. they showed me that my ability to be loved was not dependent on my girlhood.

ha you thought i could write something this long on tumblr and NOT mention good omens? think again bestie

i have held a trans reading of crowley since i read the book and the show only solidified it for me. crowley canonically plays with gender.

he's dressed femme during the crucifixion scene, his modern look is a mix of men's and women's pieces, his hair is a Whole Thing in and of itself. i could go on but i digress.

but it's not just the way he plays with gender that informs my trans reading of him. it's also how his character arc can very easily be read as an allegory for transness.

an angel who falls (a girl who isn't a girl anymore)

a fallen angel turned demon (a girl who is a boy now)

a demon who isn't really a demon anymore (a used to be girl, a thought to be boy, is now nonbinary)

girl = angel and boy = demon is entirely arbitrary in this please don't read into it

now, you may be thinking "A how in god's name does this apply to trans romance?" to which i say, aziraphale falls in love with every version of crowley. aziraphale beams heart eyes at angel!crowley before the beginning and loves crowley as a demon for millennia and is so deeply and unabashedly in love with crowley in his not-quite-demon form of s2.

aziraphale loves all the versions of crowley because crowley's angel or demon-ness (gender) is not the reason aziraphale loves crowley. aziraphale doesn't love crowley because he's a demon or because he used to be an angel, aziraphale loves crowley because it's crowley. crowley in whatever clothes he chooses to where, crowley with whatever hairstyle he's fancying at the moment, crowley as he inhabits the shades of grey just a little more.

to me, that is so easy to read as a trans love story. you could argue it's t4t depending on how you read aziraphale, but to me, it's at the very least a love story between a mostly-demon who gets down to some gender fuckery and an angel who loves him very much.

fuck it let's talk about fanfiction

i don't think i could make this post without mentioning @ineffabildaddy's fic I'm Beginning to See the Light.

i have a complicated relationship with my body. i don't plan to ever medically transition because i don't want to make any permanent changes to my body. but there are days where all i want is to have a flat chest and hips that are flush with the rest of my body but instead i'm stuck with tits and an hourglass figure cis people always seem to focus on.

i don't hate my body, but the idea that anyone could look at it and not just see A Woman is beyond me. i walk through life being perceived as a very feminine woman even on the days that i feel the most androgynous. the idea that a lover could look at my body and still see me for who i am feels like a dream that could never happen.

and IBTSTL slapped me (lovingly) across the face with the message that, actually, i can be loved as my whole self and that there are people out there who don't look at me and see A Woman and those people don't love me any less. IBTSTL made me feel safe in my trans body because it said "you are worthy of love and adoration because your transness is not something to get past it is something to admire. it is something to love."

--

i think the point i'm trying to make here is this: trans love stories are so special to me. they've been so vital in my own journey to love and accept myself. they're the reason i can imagine myself maybe having romantic love in the future.

representation matters, it can quite literally change your life.

[monstersandmaw]

Here's August's offering for you! Hope you enjoy it - I had fun with writing it! We return to Starfall Springs!

Content: seemingly-grumpy, slightly older, scarred, Shire centaur meets peppy human female in a DIY store after his niece spills a lot of pink paint on the floor, and each is instantly attracted to the other. When the reader's truck breaks down a week later, it must be fate when the same centaur comes across her on the side of the road and offers to tow her truck to his mate's garage in Starfall Springs. One thing leads to another, and the two get better acquainted. Mention of alcohol, but no inebriation.

Nsfw: non-penetrative sex, messy intercrural sex, outdoor but not public sex, reader receives oral, cis female terminology used. Both parties also say 'fuck' a lot.

Wordcount: 9453

Preview:

Despite having moved to the foothills of the Glasspeak Mountains almost six months ago, you’d only been into the quaint little town of Starfall Springs a handful of times.

Now that you’d fixed most of the structural issues in your off-grid cabin — at least the estate agent had been very open with you about the modernisation needed on the property — you were turning your hand to making it prettier.

The urgency of the advancing year and the upcoming winter had driven you into a DIY frenzy over the summer months to get the place functional, and now that it was done, you never wanted to feel PTFE tape between your fingers, or see a wrench or a screwdriver again. You’d had drywall dust in places you never wanted drywall dust too. But, while the place was no longer letting water in from places it shouldn’t, or letting water out from places it shouldn’t, it did look very stark and very bare, with raw wooden surfaces and no colours or comforts.

Right on the edge of Starfall Springs was a small industrial park which somehow still managed to look leafy and quaint. The lot was made up of three large warehouses, one a rambling garden centre overflowing with verdant life, another a dealership for all sorts of motor-vehicles, from centaur-accessible vans to naga-accessible motorcycles, and the last was a DIY and home improvement centre, selling everything from plumbing supplies to lumber, and even offering bespoke kitchen and bathroom refurbishments. You’d saved yourself the cost of the latter by doing them yourself, but the staff there knew you like family for how many times you’d been back to ask where to find all the things you needed for the cabin.

You’d supported Dhurak’s small hardware store nearer the centre of Starfall Springs when you’d first moved there, thinking it would be better to support an independent business, but as it turned out, these stores weren’t franchises of larger chains, and were in fact also independent businesses. The parking in the centre of Starfall Springs also wasn’t great, especially since you drove a huge pickup truck, and this place had literally everything you could ever need. It even had a crafts section on the off-chance you decided to take up knitting for the winter months.

So it was that, halfway down the lighting aisle, you heard a high-pitched, whinnying whine coming from the next aisle over, followed by the stamp of small hooves and then a loud clatter. Someone inhaled sharply as if about to curse, and then a deep, resigned voice said in a rather clipped, northern burr, “I told you to let me get it down, Clara. Now we’ll have to pay for that as well.”

“I- I’m…” came a quavering response, and then the sound of a child crying in quick, ugly gulps.

You pushed your laden trolley around the corner and saw a huge, black-coated centaur’s muscular backside as the figure bent one foreleg and ‘bowed’ down at the front. To your surprise, he scooped up a much smaller centaur under her belly, like a fashionable lady grabbing a wayward handbag-dog, and lurched back up onto all four hooves. He stepped easily away from a slowly-spreading mess of spilled pink paint all over the tiled warehouse floor, still with the young centaur tucked under one arm.

Backing up a few paces on hooves that had to be as big as dinner plates, the figure set down the young child and said in a strained voice that was clearly trying very hard to be patient, “I’ll have to go and tell someone we made a mess. You need to stay here while I do that. Do not move, Clara, and do not touch anything else. You understand me.”

“Yes. I’m sorry, Uncle Jack,” she sniffled as she got a hold of herself again, cuffing at her face with her sleeve.

Unlike him, she was tiny, but like him, her equine coat was jet black, and the skin of her upper, human torso was dark. To keep her equine body warm from the nippy, autumn wind outside, she wore a cosy-looking pink coat like a horse rug, and her human upper body was swathed in a voluminous, pink puffer jacket. Her hair was tied up in two high buns that looked like mouse ears and secured with pink scrunchies. With her dark eyes all watery and her mouth crumpled up into a pout, she looked adorable, and thoroughly miserable.

‘Uncle Jack’ did not look adorable. He looked… intimidating.

If Clara perhaps resembled a shaggy little Shetland pony, her uncle looked like a Shire centaur, with massive muscles in his bare equine body, and a shaggy, dark coat. To your surprise, he had a short and traditionally-docked tail, and his lovely, fluffy, white fetlocks were now spattered with pink paint. The pink didn’t lessen the impact of his presence at all. Your eyes travelled up his torso, swathed in a brown, waxed jacket, up to his weathered face, and you tried not to let your shock show when you found a set of four, huge, scars slashing across his rugged features. He looked like he’d been mauled by a bear at some point in his youth. His textured black hair was long and tied back in soft, fuzzy dreads at the nape of his neck, with flecks of grey streaking through it at the temples. His eyes though, were a startling, sapphire blue.

He turned carefully in the limited space that the aisle afforded him, and caught sight of you. You’d stopped in the dead centre of the aisle, and there was no way he could squeeze past you unless you tucked yourself right up against the side, so you hitched him a shy little smile and nudged your heavy, ungainly shopping cart over to one side so he could pass.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, ducking his head in a tight nod. “I’ll get this mess sorted out.”

“Don’t worry,” you smiled. “You want me to stay with her while you go find someone?”

He eyed you up and down with a frightening scowl on his scarred face, and then he scrubbed one rough-looking hand over his mouth, his short, dark beard rasping against what you could only assume were calluses on his hand to make that kind of noise. “Would you?”

You smiled. “Of course. I’ve had my fair share of paint related disasters in DIY stores, trust me.”

The centaur gave you an odd look at that, but he didn’t pry, and just nodded again and turned to look over his colossal shoulder, where the poor kid was standing and sniffling beside the widening tide of pale pink paint. “Clara, this kind human’s going to stay with you, ok? Don’t give her any trouble.”

Clara shook her head, giving you a wide-eyed look that told you she wasn’t entirely comfortable with being left with a stranger, and then mumbled, “Ok.”

“I’ll be two minutes,” he growled at you, and then stalked off to find a store attendant.

Read the whole 9.8k word story on my Patreon right now, plus gain access to my entire Patreon back catalogue. You'll also get access to any free stories a week early, and you can come hang out in our chilled Discord server too.

[justmeinadaze]

Good Neighbors Part 12 (Steddie X Reader)

A/N: I have one more chapter of this guys *cries*. I'm going to miss them when the time comes!

Warnings: Steddie smut and all that that implies (I regret nothing), Cameo from Wayne being a cute grandpa and the elder Harringtons being assholes. Lots of fluff. Like ALL the fluff lol

Word count: 3012

“Wow. This place is beautiful.” You fling yourself excitedly from the dining room of the home you four were looking at into the kitchen. 

“Mom! The rooms upstairs are big!”, Dylan’s feet stomp as he runs down the stairs. 

“Kid! Chill out. We don’t live here yet.”, Eddie giggles as he follows after him. 

“It’s right within your budget and down the street from this guy’s school.”, the realtor smiles at your son. 

“What do you guys think?”

“I like it. It’s closer to Robin to so I can sleep in longer before picking her ass up.”, Steve grins at the notion. 

“Oh, you know me, babe. I come from a trailer so this is like a palace to me.”

“Wonderful.” The realtor slams his briefcase on the desk and pulls out some paperwork. “Go ahead and fill these out. I can get that process started immediately. He points to sections on the documents, explaining things as you. “Now you and your husband will put your banking info and work information here—”, he gestures to you and Eddie. 

“Oh, um, I’m not her husband technically. Is that a problem?”

“No! Not at all.” He glances at Steve who shakes his head. “Ok, so then you’ll just put single for everyone and I’m going to need some more information for the three of you. I’m sorry for assuming. You said ‘babe’ and I just—”

“It’s ok. I’d like to marry her one day.”, Eddie leans over kisses your cheek. 

“Ew!” Dylan pretends to gag.

“Hey! You calm down over there.” The metalhead kicks his foot in his direction making Dylan laugh. 

################

“Hey Eddie.”, Wayne greets you guys from his place on the steps outside of his trailer. “And friends.”

“You smoke like Eddie!”, Dylan points at the man in front of him. 

“Oh my god. He used to have manners.” You look at him apologetically as Wayne chuckles. 

“Oh, don’t even worry about it, Y/N. That’s nothing compared to how this one was. Well, come on in. Where’s Steven?”

“He had to work but we were in the neighborhood looking at a house and I thought we could come by so you can finally meet this weird kid.” Eddie gestures at Dylan who responds by sticking out his tongue. 

“That’s thrilling. It will be nice to have a bigger place, I bet.”

The four of you spent the rest of the afternoon together. Wayne was wonderful with Dylan. You could see when they interacted that he was happy to be around a kid again. After lunch, he took your son outside to show him the land and the car he was trying to tune up. You grinned as you watched Eddie’s uncle point to things under the hood and explain to Dylan what they were.

After coming back inside to use the restroom, you found yourself distracted by Eddie’s room. You had been in here once before but because you were taking care of him you didn’t really get to look around. You ran your fingers over the posters on the wall, beaming at the doodles scrawled in random places. There were notebooks on the dresser and you grabbed one before lying down on his bed. God, it still smelled like him. 

“Get lost, Princess?”

“In your past, yeah.”

Eddie grins as he crawls into the bed, lying on his back beside you. You pointed at the writing in his journal. 

“Was this for you Dungeons and Dragons thing?”

“Yes, ma’am. One of the campaigns we did.” He watches your face as your eyes scan over the material. 

“This is really cool. I don’t understand why people would make fun of you for it. The fact that most of this came from your mind? Wow.”

When you turned your head to meet his gaze, you were met with his lips. “I wish we had known you in high school.”

You grin at him as you close the distance again, kissing him slow at first before it steadily grew more heated. Eddie quickly lifted his head, glancing out the window to make sure Dylan and Wayne were still preoccupied. 

“We’ll have to be quiet.”, he whispers as he presses his mouth to yours. Reaching down, you fumble with his belt buckle before unbuttoning his pants, pulling them down just enough to free his cock from his boxers. 

Eddie spits in his hand as your hips rise off the bed so you can push down your shorts. He pumps his length a few times before position himself outside your entrance. Your head lifts up slightly as you watch him guide his dick inside of you. You both groan as his head falls between your shoulder and neck. 

He’s quick and precise with his movements, knowing you both only have a short window of time. 

“Fuck, Eddie, baby. Just like that.” You murmur into the fluff of his hair as your hands tug at his shirt. His mouth attaches to your throat as he tries to muffle the grunts that escape. One particularly hard thrust hit your g-spot just right making you cry out causing Eddie’s hand to fly up and cover your mouth. 

“Quiet, Princess.” He chuckles as he bites his bottom lip. “You feel so fucking good, Y/N. Can you cum for me?”

With his palm still blocking your lips, you reached up pushing two of your fingers into his mouth that he eagerly sucks on, coating with his saliva. Bringing those digits between your legs, you rapidly began rubbing fast circles into your clit as Eddie thrusts into you faster to match your pace. 

As soon as he felt your pussy fluttering around him, he removed his hand replacing it with his lips as he swallowed and stifled every one of your whimpers as you came around him. He didn’t stop kissing you till his rhythm become sloppier and you felt him cum inside of you. 

Eddie gently pulls out before rolling on to his back and gasping for air. He takes your hand in his and bring it to his lips placing a tender kiss on the back of it. 

“I love you, Sweetheart.”

“Mom! Mom! Come check this out!”, Dylan calls for you outside. 

While you’re pulling up your shorts you lean over and kiss Eddie’s soft, beautiful lips. “I love you to.”

You smile at Wayne as you pass him, heading towards the hood of the car your son is leaning over while Eddie sits on the front steps with his uncle who offers him a cigarette. 

“I like them.” Wayne lights the cigarette before passing his lighter to his nephew. “Kid has picked up a lot from you it seems.”

“Oof. Hopefully not too much.”

His uncle glances over at him for a moment before focusing on the sight in front of him. “Eddie, you aren’t your dad and no matter what you think or feel you will never be him. You would never hurt that kid and that woman there would never allow it. She’s not your mother.”

Eddie’s eyes remained on you two but Wayne knew he was listening. 

“He called himself my son a couple of weeks ago.”

“And how did that make you feel?”

The metalhead smiled before taking another drag of his cigarette. “Proud.” When Eddie finally turned his head, he saw his uncle grinning. “Wayne, I never thanked you. For taking me in.”

Wayne’s grin grew as he tossed the butt of his cigarette into the yard. 

“You never needed to, kid,”

###################

Steve knocked on the door to his parent’s house before slowly opening it and guiding you two inside. 

“Steve, honey, are you sure you want to do this?”, you whisper to him as you wrap your arm around his waist. 

“Yeah. It’ll be fine, I’m sure. My mom wanted to meet ‘the kid I’ve been seen with’ and my dad is at work so it shouldn’t be too chaotic.”

“Steven!” A beautiful brunette woman meets him halfway in the living room and quickly envelopes him in her arms. 

“Hey mom.”, he grins down at her. “This is Y/N and this little man here is Dylan.”

Unlike with Eddie’s uncle something about Steve’s mom made your son nervous as he remained hidden behind your leg. The man beside you immediately notices and bends down to take the boy in his strong, protective arms. “It’s ok, dude. This is my mom. She’s nice.”

“Oh, that’s ok. I can come on a bit strong! Hi there.”

Dylan politely smiles as he gives her a small hello. His mother reaches out to shake your hand and you grin politely as well. She leads you all to a dining room table where lunch has been premade and set out. Your son jumps on one of the chairs and reaches for a sandwich. 

The atmosphere remained awkward as small talk was made. Steve had never really told you anything bad about his mom but you knew enough about her to be hesitant. If you had been her you never would have allowed Steve to grow up in the environment he had feeling unloved and underappreciated. 

“So Y/N, you were married previously?”

Her question shoved you out of your thoughts. “Yes ma’am I was.”

“May I ask what happened?” 

“Hey Dylan. My old room is down the hall there. Why don’t you take my phone and go watch something.”, Steve hands him his device before watching him disappear down the hallway. 

“Mom, that was rude.”

“What? I’m just curious!”

“It’s ok, Steve.” You reach under the table to take his hand in yours. “He was having an affair.”

“Pfft, I know how that goes.” You and Steve stare at her as she takes a sip of wine from her glass. “My husband tries to hide it but as you figured out they aren’t really good at it.”

“Can we not do this right now?”, Steve begs. As if on cue, the front door opens loudly causing his eyes to squeeze shut. “Shit.”

“Well, this is a nice surprise.”, Mr. Harrington throws his suitcase on the couch before entering the dining room. 

“Speak of the devil.”, his mom raises her glass in his direction. “How was work, honey?”

“Good. Good. Exhausting.”

“I bet.”, she spits.

“Should I go get Dylan?”, you whisper to Steve and he gently nods before reassuringly squeezing your fingers. 

You politely smile as you pass his father and powerwalk to find your son. 

“So, Steven… still playing the family man I see.”

“I’m not ‘playing’, Dad.” Steve rises from his chair to face his father. “Y/N and I have been together for almost a year. I love her and I love that kid.”

“Yeah, well, you can’t pay the bills with love. I heard you’re looking into getting a new house. That’s exciting. Can Family Video cover a mortgage? What about things children need to survive, Steven? Do you even know what a kid needs?”

“Do you!?”, Steve snaps. “I may not know everything but at least I know not to abandon him to fend for himself while I go off to work conventions and parties fucking anything with legs.”

His father straightened up, challenging his son with his frame. “You better watch who you’re talking to, Steven. There may a come a time, and knowing you there will be one, when you need some financial support and I won’t be there to bail you out.”

“Dylan, wait!” Your son flew into the room and pushed himself between the two men. He looked up at Mr. Harrington with angry eyes. 

“Don’t talk to him that way! Steve is my dad and you should be nice!”

His father looked down at Dylan in complete bewilderment. Steve collected him in his arms and the boy promptly wrapped his arms around his neck. 

“Do whatever you want, Dad but no matter what this is my family.” He reaches for your hand which you eagerly take and head out the front door. 

##############

“Hey, you good, little man?”, Steve asks Dylan as they enter your apartment. 

“I’m ok. Are you? When my daddy was mean to me it always made me feel bad.”

“I’m ok. Thank you for sticking up for me.” You son smiles up him before running to turn on the tv. 

“Hey, weirdo. I’m going to take Steve in my room so we can talk for a bit. Try not to burn the place down.” 

He scrunches his tiny face at you and you do the same back. Grabbing Steve’s hand, you lead him into your room. As soon as you turn to face him, his lips are on yours. He walks you back towards your bathroom, quickly shutting the door and pushing you against it. 

His mouth sucks and bites at your neck as his fingers pull at your jeans, roughly tugging them down. As soon as you step out of them, he lifts you by your thighs on to the counter. Steve holds your legs open as he sinks to the floor, pressing his face into your cunt.

You moan as his tongue invades your entrance. “Steve, please.”

He licks up your folds, pausing to wrap his mouth around your clit making your squirm. You watch him multitask as his hands reach down to pull off belt and push down his pants. 

“Steve, please.”, you beg again. “I want to feel you inside of me.”

He rises back up to his feet, pumping his cock with the precum that was leaking out before pushing himself inside of your needy pussy. Your arms wrapped around his neck as you whimpered. 

“Are you ok?”, he panted as he carefully pushed himself further into you. “You’re… really fucking tight.” His head falls on to yours as he leans in to place a kiss on your lips. 

“Yeah, I’m ok. Just go slow at first.”

“Anything for you, baby. I’m sorry.”

“Steve,” you giggle. “It’s fine. You two are just wearing this old lady out.”

A mix between a chuckle and moan escape his mouth. “You’re not old and I meant about today with my parents.”

He stood still when he bottomed out, just relishing in the feel of you around him. “Honey, you have no reason to be sorry.” You tenderly push his hair away from his forehead. “I’m sorry you have to put up with that.”

Steve begins steadily thrusting into you, sucking his bottom lip between his teeth. “Jesus…”

“You…you can go a little faster now.”

His arms loop under your knees, lifting them up and sliding you closer to the edge of the sink. With his cock pumping into you more rapidly at this new angle, you felt like you were coming undone. You clasped your hand over your mouth to control the urge to scream out his name. 

Steve feels your pussy tightening around him as he drops one of your legs to rub his thumb over your clit. Your body shakes as you cum, your hand lunging for his own. 

Gripping both your legs again, he thrusts harder into you chasing his own high. His waist sputters as he releases deep within your body. 

After he pulls out of your now sore and sensitive hole, he reaches for the washrag in the cabinet and cleans you up. 

“Steve?” He answers you with a hm as he focuses on his task. “You’re not like him, you know. Your dad.”

He throws the rag in the sink behind you and lifts you up to place you back down on your feet. 

“I know.”

“Steve.” You playfully raise an eyebrow in his direction as he slides your panties up your hips. 

“I just… you’ll never have to worry, ok? I would never make you feel like I don’t appreciate you or that I don’t care about Dylan.”

“He called you dad.” You smile as he blushes, pulling up his pants. “How did it feel?”

“Good. The fact that he feels that way about us… it’s an honor. Scary but…”, he laughs.

“Welcome to being a parent! It’s always scary but worth it. When he was born, I remember being terrified that I was going to fuck up but when I held him and he looked up at me I knew. I knew I would do anything I could to protect this kid and make him happy.”

Steve tugs on your shirt, pulling you to him for a hug. 

##################

“So… they are going to Rivendell to destroy the ring?”, Steve’s eyebrows furrow as he glances at Eddie before focusing his attention back to the tv. 

“Noooo… they are going to Mordor to destroy the ring. They just left Rivendell.” You giggle at Eddie’s tone as he tries to not come off as annoyed.

“Mordor is the only place that can destroy it.”, Dylan’s eyes remain glued to the screen in front of him. 

Your phone on the counter rings and you smile as you get up to answer it, listening to them continue to banter. 

“See? He’s seven and he’s paying more attention.”

“I’m paying attention! There are just too many weird names to remember.”

“Hello?”, you laugh out. There’s silence as you listen to the person on the other end speak. “Oh my god. Thank you! Thank you so much!”

Steve pauses the movie as you hang up jumping towards your three boys with giddy excitement. “We got it. We got the house!”

“Are you serious?!” he gets up quickly, wrapping you in his arms.

“Wow, that’s fucking amazing. I don’t think I’ve lived in an actual house before.”, Eddie grins as you smack his chest before placing a kiss on his lips. 

“When are we moving?”, Dylan asks from his place by your side. 

You reach down to tussle his hair. “Um, next month. Jesus, there’s a lot we need to do beforehand.”

“Ay, Princess. Breathe. We have plenty of time. Tomorrow we can sort all that out. Today, we make fun of Harrington for not understanding Lord of the Rings.”

“It’s not my fault this stuff is confusing!”

#############

@adequate-superstar @kalinaselennespeaks

@luna-munson83 @decadentwombatmiracle

@katie-tibo @marsupiooo @local-stoner-bitch

@steamystrangerfics @lunatictardis

@actuallyspencerreid @moviefreak1205

@waylandmorgernsternherondal-blog

@kik51199 @strngrlytn @idkidknemore

@damon-loves-pie @k-k0129 @micheledawn1975

@eddie86baby @justmeandmymeanderingthoughts

@3rriberri @sashaphantomhive @chelebelletx @big-ope-vibes

[circular-bircular]

Now that I can finally sit down and take 10 minutes to write this post--

Earlier today, we finally dived into the littlescourse that's starting up again. I fucking despite littles discourse, but it's so important to talk about, especially since there are a lot of common misconceptions. So, I'm going to get my thoughts out under a cut.

Firstly, it's important to acknowledge that child parts and littles are not the same thing. Child parts are parts who are stuck in that trauma; stuck in that moment. They often split when you're that age yourself, and they still feel that age entirely.

We only loosely have a child part, and we don't indicate which of our 14 alters is that part.

Then we have littles. Little is a term used by the community to denote... a lot of things, honestly -- it has a fairly loose definition from what I've seen! The way I use it for my system is "Part that identifies as a child in spirit." That is because none of my parts are literally children; all of them can acknowledge we are 26, going on 27, and can accurately remember things. Only one part gets fuzzy on that, and that would be said child part.

Our littles are adults. Because I am an adult.

Now, to address some of what was said in the post from earlier (which I will not be linking, as I genuinely don't want to bother OP with this, but it's all things I feel need said):

something I HATE about syscords is that they have sections specifically for littles. they are CHILDREN. Why are you letting them have a place online?

I hate littles channels in syscords too, because often, my littles who curse, discuss severe trauma, and like to vent about adult matters are stuck with child parts. If your post is discussing child parts, then... I can understand some of your reservations, honestly! But I can also say, to each system their own -- maybe that system knows something I don't about how safe their child parts can be. I know I can let my child part talk in syscords without it being harmful for her, though we do keep a close eye.

I'm sorry, but caretakers in your system are there for your littles.

None of my caretakers look after my littles because our system only has three caretakers -- and two of them are our littles. We have Sie and LED, who are our emotional caretakers. The other caretaker is... Sie, but grown up -- Sierra. By your logic, my littles should be caretaking themselves! Which. They do.

Which, skipping around a bit, leads me to this point you made:

The fact that you let your littles participate in adult actions and they are "mature enough" when littles are there to heal your inner child that you LOST due to trauma makes me SO disturbed.

...

My littles aren't here to "heal the inner child that I lose due to trauma."

Straight up, that is not their job.

Sie's job is to help us understand that we can still have fun as an adult. She's there to remind us that childhood is how we define it, not how our parents did. She isn't there to 'heal our inner child' -- she's there to heal our inner adults.

LED's job is to regulate our emotions. We struggle with our distress, our fear, our shame. When it gets too much, he helps us to see the positive light in the world again. His job is also to process trauma and come to terms with what we've gone through in a healthy manner; learning how to grow up is his job.

And Gazi, her job is specifically related to Curtis's. Yknow. The sexual alter we have who we split to deal with our internalized homophobia and transphobia. Gazi, who is there to help him process his feelings. To help us all process our feelings, as we start to integrate more. She's newer, so it's hard for us to understand her role, but nowhere there do I feel "healing our inner child" fits.

Your system is not applicable to everyone. For instance, my system does not have an "inner child" who needs healed in that way, and even if we consider our one child part to need healing -- it wouldn't be their job!

Our mum (an adult, like you.) is a system and one of her littles isn't allowed to consent or have adult actions, you know why? BECAUSE THAT LITTLE IS A CHILD!!

Cool! My littles aren't like that. That was my point in my post.

Every system is different and I won't judge you for what you do. But the fact you openly say this shit on the internet as a GROWN ADULT makes me lose faith in the future for everyone.

This sounds a hell of a lot like judging me for what I do.

For most systems the littles chat is there for a reason and that's to protect them, especially if that system is a minor. Which in syscords, is mostly minors.

Never said they're inherently bad; I just said I wish more syscords allowed people to choose for themselves if their littles need to isolate in those channels.

As I MINOR (let me say it again.) MINOR with littles, for some systems I get why littles can't stay in main chat in syscords, it's for safety.

Cool! I genuinely don't know why people in syscourse are so insistent on reminding everyone that they're minors. It's okay to be a kid. I didn't describe anything graphic in my post. I simply mentioned "mature acts."

Obviously, as a 16 year old... You shouldn't be doing those mature acts! But I would hope that, by 16, you can understand that... adults... do mature things sometimes? And can find positivity, joy, and yes, healing through those mature things. I had hope that you were mature enough, yourself, to be able to acknowledge that adults do things you don't do.

Your system will be different you're an ADULT. but us, we're a MINOR, there's still things that we don't even understand and we're still going through my own traumas. You're able to recognise basic things without being disturbed and out right saying your littles can do outrageous shit like this.

You being a minor once again does not negate the ability to understand "Huh, maybe that person's experiences will be okay once I'm older."

I can recognize you're a minor and going through your own traumas. I never once said you need to let your littles completely loose to do whatever they want -- in fact, I strongly advise against it, especially if you're still in an active trauma situation. But. Minors can recognize basic things "without being disturbed" as well. That's not something I gained from being an adult. I knew how to do that at age 15 at least.

The reason the post even exists is to state our opinion and talk into the void about issues that either we have or others do. Not for you to compare your system to everyone else's. Respectfully.

I will be honest, I don't feel very respected, with my actions which have been incredibly healing for my parts being called outrageous, disturbing, and something to lose faith over. I'm really sorry that your post -- publicly put into the DID tags with the word "thoughts?" at the end of the post -- wasn't looking for other system input. I'm also really sorry that you're going to get a LOT more people explaining their thoughts on this, when it seems like the conversation is unwanted.

The fact is, your experiences are not just not universal -- they are also fairly uncommon. Many, many, many systems have found healing through letting their littles grow up and be mature. Whatever that may look like for them.

And then this last bit...

(I'm not pressed about this, but the way you've replied makes me feel physically ill from someone who has been taken advantage of not only as a child, but also has had to see our littles go out of their way to not be around a caretaker because they wanna talk to people and then hurt, harassed and exposed to disgusting content online because people are CREEPS. For our system, we CANNOT let littles into online spaces. Especially around strangers. Our littles have the mindset of a 16 year old. so, oh so sorry to stay it's different for minors.)

You've made a lot of bold assumptions here, entirely based on your own experiences once again.

I am a system who was taken advantage of as a child. I've also had my littles -- back when they were more akin to child parts -- go out of their way to not be around a caretaker. I've had my littles get hurt in the past, exposed to disgusting content, and participate in acts they could not, at the time, consent to. We were severely hurt by these actions.

I also changed. They changed. And we grew.

There is hope for the future, you know that, right? Again, I know you're 16, but I really hope you know that there will come a time when those child parts of you may grow up, or become part of you in their own right. There may come a time in your future when you will need to navigate romance and intimacy and "mature things" in regards to your littles. I don't say this to scare you, but to help you understand that there can be growth and change.

You don't need to make that leap right now -- again, please fucking don't, you are a LITERAL MINOR -- but understand that healing can come in many ways.

I compared my system in your post to help you understand the perspective of others who might be healing in ways other than yours, or even just the perspective of others who aren't like you at all. Not to say all systems have to be like mine, or that you HAVE to let your littles do things like what mine do. I'm not sure how many times I could've added, "This definitely isn’t the case for every system" like I did in the post, but... Yeah. Apparently I didn't make that clear enough.

Things are different for minors, yet. Thankfully, you've only got two more years left before maybe, just maybe, it might be time to start thinking about what your life may be like as an adult, and what healing may come in your future one day.

[robintherobiner]

Thoughts, explanations, and all that shit i had while writing my latest oneshot

Stand up comedians do NOT make good kidnappers - Robin_The_Robiner - Batman - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]

SO first up the name. Where did it come from? God knows. I started this fic like ages ago, wrote Steph's first section, and then promptly forgot about it for three months only to come back and scribble the rest out. I dont remember how i came up with the name, but i still think its hilarious so,,

Who is Cassowary? This universes Robin, duh! Since Damian was the first, i thought he'd go for a more intimidating bird. These birds have really sharp claws, and leave wounds similar to those of a blade. Huh. Who do we know who is really good with a sword? Exactly 😎

Writing Steph was hard because I don't know her very well, so I may have projected onto her a little bit (hence the excessive death jokes 😅). I hope it came across that Steph is a detective, like Bruce, but that she's doesn't lazer-focus on that stuff like him. Thats why she focuses on describing Junior at first, not the room she's in or the fact she's chained up. She knows these things, but she only brings them up when relevant. What good is wallowing over being chained up when you could be making fun of your kidnapper, huh?

I'm a bit worried that i didn't make it obvious enough that there is time between Steph's and Bruce's sections. Thats why when we finish Steph's third bit, she's shitting on Junior for dressing like the Joker, but then in the final bit, she's aware that it's Tim. The parts aren't happening at the same time, or right after the other. I hope that was obvious, but im not sure.

BRUCE'S BIT!!! I saw a post once saying that Bruce separates his personas very hard, and i really liked that. When he's talking about Batman, it's only referred to as Batman. When he's having more emotional thoughts, it's Bruce. And, of course, when he's dealing with Crystal (who i don't know very well so probably wasn't well written MY BAD YALL), he's Brucie. The guilt is in all of them, though. Fun stuff!

A big part of Stephanie and Bruce's relationship in canon is, from what i can tell, tense because of the way he treated her when he first met her. BUT in this fic, it's a bit lessened because Steph chalks his shittyness to the fact that he recently lost a son. Also, i think in canon a big part of why Bruce refused to get close to Steph was because of how she reminded him of Jason, which obviously isn't a problem in this universe. Bruce and Steph are still tense, but this time she has the eldest kid on her side pretty easily, cuz Damian feels guilt over Tim LOL

The death!! It's not overly explained, but I do have Tim's death all planned out and shit. It's a mix of the Joker Junior scene from Batman Beyond : Return of The Joker, and then also a little bit of canon. Instead of Bruce being out of Gotham, like in the film, it's that they have an argument. Similar to Jason and Garzonas situation, in how Bruce is angry at the thought of his partner killing, but more so using the Boomerang arc from canon (Tim wanting to kill his Dad's murderer)

Junior's mental state is wild. I'm not writing him with any particular mental illness, mostly because I'm not at all knowledgeable enough to portray something correctly. Instead I'm basing him off of Joker Junior's intro scene, and also me during some of my darkest moments! It's not Pit Rage (i don't lie how much the fandom pushes that onto Jason, similar to the Tim-Doesn't-Sleep idea in which it wasn't canon but then it got popular and was made so, i think) and instead just a extremely traumatised 17 year old!

The teaparty scene was put in there because I wanted Tim to have a hobby that he could share with his mom (because god knows everyone hates Janet because they mess up her character and only look at fanon) and that also can be used to show his mental state. Hence, collecting figurines, and playing with them! Yippee! Thanks to my pal Leo over on discord for suggesting this hobby!! (it was originally stuffed animals but I thought Batburger toys would work better)

Damian and Duke both were the first kids, instead of Dick and Barbara. Instead of Batgirl, we have Batkid, and then instead of Oracle, we have Signal. Damian is Shrike, because that is the most common hero name I see for him and I couldn't think of another. I may go back and change it to Nightwing, because I like the meaning of the name, but it would come from Superboy (Jon) instead of Superman in this universe, so maybe it comes later on? Not sure. need to think on that!!

Drake Manor was, in canon, only bought after Jack woke up from the coma. But, i decided to take the fandom route in which the Drakes always lived there, simply because timeline wise it works better for me. Also in canon, Jack doesn't need the wheelchair by the end, but for my fic, he's not out of the coma long enough for that. I also added a fun basement which defo doesn't exist in canon, so just turn a blind eye to that!

If you saw the original post, you'd know that Bruce was supposed to find Steph through a series of taunting clues. I changed my mind though, because I'm not good at clues, mysteries, or cases. So, a gift with the address is sort of dissapointing, but who cares?

Steph's feelings about Tim are sort of iffy. A really popular headcanon is that Jason was Tim's robin, and thats not true. I'm pretty sure Tim just,, didn't care about Jason? Idk exactly how he felt, but whatever. Steph doesn't hate Tim, in this fic, she just sort of hates how he was as Cassowary. Bruce is full of guilt and won't say a bad word about him, but has plenty of criticism for Steph, which leads to a sort of resentment. He was Cassowary though, so there is also some adoration in her heart. Basically, she switches how she feels about him depending on the situation.

Jack and Robin. In this universe, Jack doesn't know Tim is a superhero. Tim does still take a break, but it's to spend time with his dad after he awakens, not because he's threatened. Dana also (unfortunately) isn't around in this fic, so Jack has more time to spend with Tim. It's sort of a win-lose situation though. More time with Tim so they get closer, but without Dana to calm him, Jack's little bouts of fury are stronger (remember how he fucking ripped out a TV??) so their relationship is more strained, which is why Tim does go back to being Cassowary, just for a bit, before his dad dies.

Hints are sprinkled in Steph's bits that tell on Tim's identity. Not many, because I'm really bad at hints and subtlety, but there are a few. Mentions of shock burns (the electrocution duh), Zesti instead of tea (which is Tim's canon favourite drink, not coffee!!), and his wish that Steph stops being a hero.

Tims motivations are a reverse of Jasons canon ones. Jason forgives Bruce for not saving him, but is mad he wasn't avenged. Tim forgives Bruce for not avenging him, but is mad he wasn't saved. Aint that fun? Thats why instead of beating her up, Tim kidnaps Steph for three days to resemble the three weeks he was held captive before he died. Yippee, allegories! (i think that word isn't right, but i can't think of the right one??!! english is HARD)

WOW i had a lot of thoughts and explanations and shit for that oneshot, huh? 🤭

[jessequinones]

Writing Advice: Lore Chapters

I’m sure we've all read them before, an entire chapter dedicated to just lore, they aren’t normally fun to get through and you might even skip them (don’t worry, I won’t tell). However, despite the hatred for these chapters, why are they common? I think these chapters are common because we writers tend to get stuck in our lore and we forget what's important, and what's made just for us.

You see when creating a new story, there’s gonna be a lot of lore. However, much of the lore which gets created isn’t needed for the reader and trying to figure that out is a bit challenging. This all depends on how much of a world-builder you are. If world-building comes naturally, then you could create everything from the flora to the weather system which will help determine what your islands look like.

If world-building isn’t something you enjoy, then the lore you create might just be enough for your story but that’s it, however, there’s still gonna be lore that’s not necessary even if world-building isn’t your forte.

You’ll need beta reader's help to determine which part of the lore feels necessary and which feels filler but let’s continue.

Lore chapters are most of the time created as an afterthought. When a writer forgets to add in some lore, and they go back to a spot where it’ll be prevalent, stick it in the book and move on. You can figure out when this happened because if you skip these chapters, you won’t miss much. If you, the writer forgot to mention some lore, and none of your beta readers are confused, you probably don’t need to add in the lore if no one else asked for it.

Lore chapters also aren’t what people tend to care about when reading your story. In fact, from my point of view, people only start to care about the lore at certain points. One, if there are blatant lore mistakes. While reading a story for the first time, the reader will get a basic understanding of the lore. Just enough to follow the story, but not so much where they’re an expert. If there’s an obvious plot hole within the lore, they’ll notice and care about the lore a bit more as even from their basic understanding, some parts of it aren’t making sense.

Two, when they’re invested in your story. If you have dedicated fans, who read each of your books, talk about your books, make fan-fiction, art, etc. Those fans will start paying more attention to your story's lore. These fans are great, but sadly, don't make up the majority of your reader's base. These fans might not mind the lore dump chapters as they’re already invested so if you want to write for them, go all for it. If you still want to keep your average reader engaged you might want to change a few things and I got a few things you could try.

Spreading out your lore: This will take practice because it’s also easy to figure out when the author adds a paragraph of lore that can be easily skipped through. However, having lore sprinkled throughout your story will do a better job of keeping your readers engaged with your world, instead of having it all in one chapter.

Try to avoid big paragraphs of text: If you have a paragraph that takes nearly half of the page if not more, a lot of readers, myself included will probably skip over it. I’m not dyslexic, but I need separations in my paragraphs. Reading a wall of text does tend to make me start to blend words together and I won’t absorb anything. While there’s no rule on how big a paragraph should be, I’d try not to make mine no more than four sentences long, keep in mind a sentence can be as short as three words, or twenty.

(Now for a wall of text after I said I try to avoid them).

Try and explain the lore over multiple chapters: If it’s important to know the history of your story, and world, don’t put all of that history in one chapter, spread it out, and even retell it a few times to make sure there’s a better chance your readers will know what’s going on. While it’s the reader's fault, if they skip over sections of your story and get confused. They won’t blame themselves for what they did as they’ll believe they were justified in skipping parts of your story. I’m not saying you need to change how you write to appease these readers, but try having the lore be told in a few chapters might help. The best thing about this method is even for readers who don’t skip over lore chapters and would've read the same lore a few times now. They can skip over a section they already know and won’t have to worry about missing anything important because they already know it. This kind of writing is a bit more advanced as you have to juggle between people who skip lore chapters and people who don’t. Beta readers are great at figuring out where to cut or add your lore.

Make those chapters interesting: This might seem a bit harsh, but lore is history, and not everyone likes history. When they read lore, they're reading history and not what’s going on in the story. It doesn’t matter what kind of lore you have, or how important it is, if it feels dry compared to every other aspect of your story, people will skip it. Not to mention if it feels like the plot of your story gets halted in these chapters, people will skip them because they want to continue with the story. Beta readers are a great way to figure out where the lull is coming from and tell you what they found exciting leading up to the lore dump. You can figure out where to go from there. What I normally do is have character growth in between those lore chapters. Have the characters discover something about themselves, have a relationship grow, or even have it break during these sections. Just add something in the background to keep the reader engaged, but make it where they can’t skip over the lore because if they do that, they might skip something else.

Try not to have lore chapters near the end of your story: If your story is building up to fighting the big evil, and there’s a lore chapter just slapped in the middle...yeah, that's not great. Even if it’s really important. If the readers are gearing up for a fight, or whatever the ending is and it gets paused...readers won't be happy with it. These lore chapters are normally important because it’s where the main character will discover something that’ll change the outcome of the climax of the story...but if it’s halting the buildup, it doesn’t matter how important it is, people will skip. Think of it like riding a roller coaster, if the coaster is slowly reaching its highest point, you don’t want it to stop just before it gets there and have it explain to you the history of said coaster.

Overall, there are multiple ways of dealing with lore-heavy chapters, and again, beta readers are your friends. If you’re unsure if the lore chapter you have is needed or not, send out different versions of your text, one without the lore-heavy chapter and one without and see what the reaction you get. If the people who didn’t have the lore-heavy chapter were able to follow along just fine, but those who did have the lore chapter said they skipped over it and were still able to follow along, unless you really want to keep the lore, you probably don’t need it.

[bloodgulchblog]

In light of what others have asked about the Banished, do you ever feel like the narrative writers (not all, but by-and-large) haven’t been interested in telling stories about morally complex aliens—writing them as people, in other words?

After years spent waiting for the post-war setting, for me the Kilo Five trilogy’s messaging signaled that 343 weren’t interested in telling that kind of story, especially after more years of alien terrorists who really want to kill humans again constantly being centered (while seemingly ignoring that the Great Schism was A Thing) and with the Swords of Sanghelios being deemphasized to the point where only a paragraph in the 2022 Encyclopedia’s “Splinter Factions” section was dedicated to them while the Banished got three dozen.

With some of the new story shards and Halo: Outcasts I feel like things are starting to turn around, but I do worry that they’ll shift back.

I don't know anything about anything for real but I think what's going on is this:

First and foremost, before it is anything else, Halo is an investment Microsoft is trying to make money on. The way it does this is primarily by selling purchases in a live services video game where you compete at running around shooting other players and (only recently) sometimes computers. They do make money on merch and things like books and such, but it's not remotely as much as they make on shootman video game.

They have a huge incentive to continue telling stories where running around shooting is the main action. Ergo, the stories Halo's writers tell need to create excuses to have this action and to make that part seem fun and enticing.

(The fact that Halo's pvp has never really had anything to do with events occurring in the lore doesn't really matter, once they have the campaign story excuse game for the multiplayer. "It's a training exercise for Spartan-IVs" was a very late addition, and oldschool Halo didn't bother framing it at all because nobody cared. Frankly, I think most people who play Halo PVP still don't really care.)

So, Halo's not interested in post-war and anything that amounts to recovery because it doesn't do a lot to contribute to Halo's core goal of making shootgame money that keeps convincing Microsoft that the people who make Halo should get the paychecks they need to afford to live indoors and eat food.

I do think there are people working on Halo who are interested in and curious about these ideas, and I really do think the Arbiter and the Swords of Sanghelios and the Sangheili in general are house favorites. (Why else would they be finding excuses to continue bringing the Sangheili into the games even if they can only fit them in as part of the Banished now, when the Sangheili are the species the Jiralhanae probably hate the most?)

Honestly, Halo isn't good at deep or complex characters of any species most of the time and when things are good it's because someone managed to give them some extra love somewhere. Halo has never needed a watertight, emotionally intelligent narrative. It just sometimes skates close on things like the Arbiter, and even though the Arbiter's arc is easily the strongest part of Halo 2's story the gamers hated it and that's why it was so curtailed in Halo 3.

They gotta make shootman games, and sell the shootman games, and that requires an acceptable enemy. For a while they were pivoting toward having Forerunner enemies, but now those are associated with an unpopular time in Halo (especially Halo 5). And Halo is at an age where it feels like every new thing about it is "trying to return to the roots" so... shooting familiar-looking aliens that people have nostalgia for.

Frankly, this is the biggest reason why I'm sighing and waiting for them to bring back the Flood again even though I'm really just not looking forward to that. It feels inevitable.

[iciatheguardess]

Hiiii it’s meeee elsie

conflicted Elsie

Look, you know as well as I do that I love TAOCC to freaking death

but like

I may have to partially step away from it after the current arcs are over.

these goofy goobers took over my life for the last three-ish months, and while I’ve had an amazing time, it’s…caused me to neglect other parts of my life, and restrict myself more than I should when it comes to how I am on this site. I’ve stated my intention to try and branch out multiple times but I never go through with it because I just…I have things to write here! I can’t! And yeah it’s fun but sometimes I get hurt even if people don’t mean to, like, I’ve gotten legitimately ill from this once or twice.

But I feel like even trying to step away a bit is somehow abandoning all of you or betraying your trusts. I want to stay friends with you guys, but my actual life and Irlsie has to come first most of the time, because I am not JUST Elsie, if that makes any sense. Elsewhere is and was always meant to be a sona for some interaction, maybe some friendos, but nothing this…involved, because I can’t put all of my social effort onto the internet because no matter what I do, the internet is not a completely genuine place, and I’ve accepted that. There are some parts of my personality I just don’t use. You don’t really ever see calm Elsie or mental illness Elsie or sappy Elsie, maybe once or twice, and that’s intentional. This is Writing Elsie’s blog, lol, but there’s other Elsie that needs to be allowed to exist outside of the internet, and I can’t neglect her or my actual life for the sake of this.

I honestly don’t know what to do here. I love these characters on a very personal level, and have poured my heart into them, and I don’t want to straight up leave them. Even only partially separating myself seems kinda pointless because I know what happens when someone gets really behind on the lore and has to be caught up on even just a day’s events to explain why Character A looks like this now or Character B is referencing this event, etc. etc.

But there’s a point where it’s not healthy anymore. Where things reach a place where I have to admit that this can’t be my entire life anymore. And I’m not entirely sure what on earth I should do about it…

If I do somewhat step back, it’ll probably be right after the vacation arc ends. i’m gonna pour my fluff loving heart and soul into that thing, don’t you worry. But you shouldn’t expect another dungeon or something like that from me unless I have a VERY good reason and a well formulated plan. Yes, I’ll probably still engage in shippery and fluff, as well as analysis, but mostly within the bounds of characters and dynamics we’ve already established, and not much farther than that. My one exception to the “after the vacation arc” rule would probably be Yelena’s arc, because of how long things in that section tend to take, for various reasons. Yelena’s arc is barely started, and stuff takes possibly days to move even a few hours in-universe. Sooooo….yeah, I wanna finish that, I’ve put too much work into it already to just stop it.

…dang this was only supposed to be a paragraph…

…pls halp, I have no idea what to do lol.

Ok. I've read over this a couple times.

First off, I'm talking to you as L here, and not Star. I am very, very proud of you for acknowledging this and understanding that this is getting unhealthy. I think it's very smart that you dont want to neglect your yourself irl and the fact you're saying this, and saying exactly what you'll be doing, I'm really proud of it.

To give you a clear answer, if it's going to help you irl then I think stepping back is smart. Especially from the trauma and angst, because that stuff hurts a LOT and it can be really, really detrimental and negatively affect irl things. What I DONT think is that it's betraying anyone. You need to be able to put yourself and your needs first in order to be your best self, and everyone understands that you can't be on tumblr 24/7 because, well, that's really really really really unhealthy and not good. I'm really glad you're telling me about this though so I, and everyone else who sees this, knows.

TAOCC is really great but there's a LOT of heavy things on here and with everything going on, it can be super weighing and really affect people irl. I can speak from experience because honestly, I'm in a similar situation. I won't speak much about that though. It's definitely addictive and can get really really unhealthy if you let it, and honestly it's not hard to let it.

I want you to do whatever you feel is best for you, no matter what that entails. Fei and Tails and Xeya and Kumo and so many others and I love you so much and do NOT want you neglecting yourself and your life irl for this- it's meant to be entertainment, not a lifestyle.

I think it's smart to finish Yelena's Arc before partially stepping back. And I think it's even smarter to not want to do another dungeon, because that whole thing was a massive angst-fest and I think it negatively affected people more than they care to admit. Shippery and fluff and minor things is a good boundary.

I'll wrap this up now, but again, I'm in full support of this decision because I want you to be at your best. You're right, you're not just Elsie. And it's not fair for you to only be Elsie when you're so much more than that. If stepping away from tumblr will help you take care of the other parts of your life that we aren't involved in or aware of, then please do so because no part of you and your life should be sacrificed for the sake of entertainment.

Again, I'm really, really proud of you for admitting this.

Please know we'll always support you and you're super important to all of us, so don't ever feel bad for putting your needs first. Irl things should always come first.

But no matter what always remember:

WE LOVE YOU SO SO SO MUCH AND YOURE SUPER IMPORTANT AND WE WANT THE BEST FOR YOUUU ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Everything I said is applicable for everyone else reading this too. Taocc is fantastic and we love it but it shouldn't completely take over your life. It's okay to take a break or step back fully if it means the best for your health and irl life. Please remember to take care of yourselves- and everything that Elsie talked about here is FANTASTIC self care. It may be hard, but it's also the best decision she can make for herself and may be the best decision for others too.

Alright- I think I covered everything. Don't ever feel like you're betraying us Elsie- it's not betrayal, it's self care. We'll still be here for you, always. Never forget that ❤️❤️❤️

[miloscat]

[Review] Sonic the Hedgehog (PS3)

An embarrassment, frankly.

After playing Forces and actually liking it, I figured I'd give a chance to the franchise's biggest punching bag. Turns out that in this case, I agree with the popular consensus: Sonic 06 is broken and unfinished, with a messy story, bad controls, and crippling performance issues. I've heard it described as entertainingly bad, but I just can't go along that far; I had a miserable time with this game. Let's get into it, shall we?

Although I'm still not ready for my Sonic doctorate, I'm progressing well in my studies. I've played enough of Adventure to pick up that Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) is trying to be Adventure 3 in all but name (and speaking of the name, this game is not to be confused with the Mega Drive game, or the Master System game, or any of the handhelds or animated shows or comics or movies of the same name... the title is the first of many stupid decisions in Sonic 06). A big group of playable characters, more open levels than what would come later, exploration of hub areas, and a heavy focus on story and cutscenes with interweaving plot threads. It's fine in theory, it's just that every individual piece breaks down in various ways. As opposed to previous Adventure games, there are just three main stories (Sonic, Shadow, and new character Silver who is basically just Dragonball's Trunks) with the other hangers-on popping up only temporarily within certain levels.

Sonic's story, such as it is, revolves around Elise, a filler character who is a gormless and feckless human princess and frequent damsel in distress; she gets kidnapped out of nowhere at least five times and dies in a plane crash once, necessitating time travel-based rescuing. Elise’s role in the story when she’s not being kidnapped is alternately mooning, pining, emotional outbursts, and having a tragic backstory. Also, on several occasions Sonic the Hedgehog literally tells her she should smile more. Textbook misogyny, WTF. On top of this is the uncomfortable subplot about a potential romantic connection between her and Sonic, which always fails to feel earned or appropriate. The one saving grace of the character is the mildly amusing idea that her design is loosely based on the chicken animal that you free from badniks in the early games.

I know it sounds harsh but Elise almost single-handedly drags down the whole "story" aspect of this game. After progressing Sonic's mode you unlock the others and theirs almost feel like real plots, centering around stopping Iblis—the mindless beast of fire who ruined Silver's future—and Mephiles—a scheming creature of shadow—before they reunite. Even these stories don't really hold together though with their disjointed plotting, time-hopping, and contrived interactions. Not to mention the utter humourlessness, and the sheer awkwardness of everything from writing to line-readings to mocapped movements. The fact that it's seemingly incompatible with Blaze's backstory in Rush was annoying to me personally, and ending the story with a closed time loop "it never happened" resolution is just the icing on the rotten cake.

I must also mention another decision made in Sonic 06: why game look like that? It falls into the trap of early HD striving-for-realism and falling far short, but it also feels unfitting for Sonic. After all, the hedgehog himself and his anthro friends are as cartoony as ever (almost expressionless faces notwithstanding), so putting them next to the human-looking humans really jars, especially the redesigned Eggman. And speaking of, his robot army is at its most militaristic and entirely whimsy-free... just another in a long line of missteps for ol' 06.

Now all this could be swallowed if the game was fun to play. You should be able to predict that indeed it isn't. Sonic's playstyle is the stinkiest of the lot, particularly the autoscrolling running sections that feel barely functional and were the biggest cause of lost lives (I did not appreciate starting over a ten-minute level due to these abominable segments). His moveset is simple, just a homing attack and not much else, and without a targeting reticle it's unpredictable. He has some sloppily implemented extra powers that are unlocked in a shop; hilariously they're supposed to drain your special bar but due to some error they just don't, so you can use them infinitely for what that's worth.

Shadow is similar, with a combo attack and ranged stunning bolts, but also has a lot of vehicle sections which while awkward are playable enough; meanwhile Silver plays like an entirely different game. His psychokinetic powers let him pick up and throw enemy projectiles and physics objects. It's janky but his slower-paced, almost puzzley levels felt ever so slightly less like the game was constantly falling apart at the seams. There's 9 playable characters in total and none of their abilities work very well; among the others Knuckles and Rouge were pretty fun with their gliding and climbing completely breaking level design, while Blaze (another big reason I wanted to try this game, an opportunity to play as my favourite character in 3D) has a fun moveset with a double jump and a homing attack that actually keeps momentum and flings you around. Like everything in the game it's slippery and totally jank but in a way that actually feels fun sometimes.

I even sprung for the "Team Attack Amigo" DLC (now only available on PS3!) which remixes the levels for play as Tails, Blaze, and Omega (aka projectile spam bot). I should say that each campaign takes you through the same nine levels, sometimes making them new, sometimes reusing whole segments which gets old. The lowest point of the low are the boss fights, another area where the phrase "barely functional" comes to mind. These are tedious to the extreme with a lot of waiting, and several of them recur in each campaign. The worst is fighting Silver, who can instantly grab you psychically and hold you for a long pause before throwing you, and then catch you again as you recover with no chance to make any input. Wonderful!

The elephant in the room for Sonic 06 is its performance. I guess being rushed to release in an unfinished state actually has its downsides, which take the form of horrendous slowdown throughout the entire game experience. Having seemingly almost any number of objects or any amount of level geometry on screen starts making the game chug, the action not dropping frames but rather slowing to a crawl as you agonisingly float mid-jump waiting for your next input to register. And this is despite having pretty severe pop-in not too far away from your character. For what's supposed to be a fast-paced action game it's frankly unforgivable. And speaking of things that you wish ran faster, the loading screens are interminable not just for their length but their frequency: deign to do a side mission and you'll sit through a long load both before and after a character gives a tiny snippet of dialogue until you're allowed to try it, and if you fail then get ready to do it all again! They really add up!

I could go on: the camera is atrocious, the music is forgettable, Elise is incredibly cringe-inducing—oh wait, I covered that already. To be fair there is one bright shining spot and it's from my new old friend Tomoya Ohtani: the main theme His World stands among my favourites from Forces, a strong melody that mixes rock and orchestral with even some rap and makes it work! Watching the credits four times may have been the most pleasant part and it's all thanks to this song. So that's my big takeaway from Sonic 06: the rumours are true, it sucks big time, don't play it unless you're a real loser like me who doesn't value their time, it's a monument to Sega's staggering incompetence, but hey this one song is really good, maybe give it a listen!

[neoaya]

Hot take!!! (Nuclear tbh)

People are way too shitty to the LW devs, especially Yumeno Rote.

This guy is responsible for every single piece of non-story card character art in the game, that includes units, costumes, alts, expressions, Music Video CGs, etc. Seeing as a new unit is released per week, along with 2/4 event costumes and 2/3 rebirth costumes at the end of the month, this guy is at MINIMUM drawing 8 fully detailed illustrations and backgrounds per month, for three and a half years straight.

The only other gacha to my knowledge that has one artist doing all the character art like this is Limbus Company, which even then has a significantly longer period between new art being added to the game. (I'm aware there are likely a lot more, but most to my knowledge have multiple artists)

So when I see a post criticising Lost Word, what do you think is being criticised 90% of the time?

Is it:

The fact it's a gacha game

Genuine criticism of the game itself and its mechanics or story

Hell, even criticism of the questionable work practice of having one guy do all the game's art

If you guessed 4, "near insignificant nitpick of Rote's art, AUs shown, or a VA (in a game where you can pick from 3 for every character) because it doesn't fit within their headcanon in a game about multiple different universes" you'd be correct!

Don't get me wrong, I have seen the first two plenty of times, but they're always either fair critiques or people who just don't want anything to do with gacha games and don't care which is understandable.

But for 4? The sheer amount of hatred and seething vitriol people express for details most people wouldn't think twice about is insane to me. It never seems to come from a sincere place of disappointment but rather fear to fit in, like "Oh this relates to me, I better lay in to it as much as possible since everyone else shits on it, wouldn't want to give people the impression I'm weird for liking it after all". It just seems depressing to me that people feel the need to act miserable out of peer pressure and not wanting to stray from the popular opinion.

As someone's who played the game since launch at this point I feel more than qualified to tell you it's FAR from perfect, hell I wouldn't even call it all that good. Gameplay fluctuates from playing the game for you to forcing you to have a full understanding of the meta, grinding is a chore, drop rates are far too low, the nature of the game forcing normally evil aligned characters to act more reasonably, and I unironically think the lack of representation and downright bad writing for Aya until now is singlehandedly responsible for making her drop by one place 3 years in a row in the THVote popularity poll.

So why do I still play it after all this time? Because I genuinely just want to see what they do next. I like seeing what new takes on characters they come up with, I like seeing where the story goes, what the next event will be and I love Rote's art and all the other art contributed by the JP community, I even think the Hifuu and RoM section of the story is genuinely good. It's nice to have a constant and reliable stream of Touhou media to read through in-between the wait for actual new games.

Somehow I don't feel that guy in the middle would want to come on livestreams 3 and a half years after launch if he didn't find it fun, same goes for all the artists and doujin circles that have contributed their art and music, especially those with more than one card or song.

If you want anyone to blame, blame GoodSmile for publishing this game and making this the complete extent they're willing to promote it and Touhou as a whole. (Last new character from them was a Reisen nendo from six years ago btw!)

In conclusion, I think LW has objectively done more good for the series than harm. You can not understate the fact that this game is responsible for introducing Touhou to so many new people and giving the spotlight to characters that are otherwise overlooked. Inaccurate character portrayals are rarely an issue when the series embraces differentiating itself from the source material, that's the nature of doujin culture. That and it seems silly to try and gatekeep people who got into the series through Lost Word, telling them they're experincing it wrong only serves to turn them away and I don't blame newcomers when official touhou media is still hard to come across in the west and the three most popular games in the series still don't have a digital release.

As a tangent, I used to have a problem with how Aya was depicted in a lot of fan media, even from people here, but a friend taught me I shouldn't let those alternate interpretations ruin my enjoyment of her and that I shouldn't fault them for seeing her that way. I feel others should be able to learn from that.

(I definitely forgot some stuff but this is ranty enough as is, I just wanted to get it out of my system)

[snickerdoodlles]

Timeloop for the wip game 👀 (I love me some time shenanigans)

me too!!! a timeloop story is the doomed hero trope on steroids and it's so good ❤❤

(*other timeloop ask for friends catching up)

besides the angst fun, what i'm most excited about for this WIP are the POV changes!! this fic is in three parts: Kim POV, Big POV, and Chay POV.

Kim POV: the angst. the fun. the drama. obviously because it's me, there's so much KimChay in this section, because Kim's awkwardly flirted with Chay before this and while he's telling himself all his hanging out with Chay means nothing, Chay's rolling out his big romance guns and Kim is being so swept off his feet. not only does he exhaust every reason to hang out with Chay, he also starts letting go of those excuses to hang out with Chay, because if everything resets come morning, it doesn't matter what he does with Chay now. except, of course it does, he is falling deep and his already weak excuses for why he certainly doesn't like Chay are crumbling under the weight of each loop. his days with Chay just get better and better until he has the perfect day with Chay. it wasn't even planned, things just fell naturally into a full day date where they played hooky and enjoyed their time together and a day full of spontaneity and genuine connection.

and it crushes Kim. that is a day he will never actually get back, not even in his memory, because Chay doesn't remember it. there's no point in even trying to recreate it, not only because a second time would ring hollow, but also Kim literally wouldn't be able to (i'm not explaining my timeloop physics in this post, but it's not groundhog day). Kim has the most perfect day with Chay and then gets absolutely run over realizing he has all these memories of and secrets from Chay that Chay will never be able to share with him again, and it rips him to shreds ❤

...okay, i didn't mean to just gush over the KimChay part of his POV like that, i'm just super pumped to write that angst. but actually tho, the first scene i wrote for this AU was the scene where Big gets a bullet in the head as the price for Kim's recklessness, because Kim's primary goal thru all of this is still to uncover Korn's secrets. in fact, this story had actually started shortly after i'd written like. two? lines of Kim & Big almost-friendship in my Silver for Truth fic draft, gone "hey, wait, omg" and then those musings bumped into my love for timeloop stories...some time shortly after that, and i just had. so many shenanigan ideas for these two in this context. then i immediately dived head first into the angst, but this was originally Kim & Big shenanigans.

i also did not realize i still have this many feelings to gush about Kim's POV alone tho so in the interest of trying to keep this post from getting too long, only teasers for the Big and Chay POVs because i'm evil:

Big POV: Big gets sucked into the timeloop sometime after Kim's mostly given up. Big is way too much of an overachiever to do nothing for eternity and decides he doesn't give a shit if Kim's being weird as shit, he's gonna damn well investigate this nonsense around Porsche himself because Kinn's fucking him already and Big does not want another fallout as bad as Tawan's, thank you very much. this eventually leads him to Chay, who is, much to Big's despair, not only the secret subject of Kim's affections (Big didn't even know Kim had those!), but also more insane than Porsche, Kim, and the entire timeloop combined. he also keeps making Big ponder the big questions like what he wants from life, Chay is just Big's personal handcrafted hell, someone save him.

Chay POV: Chay never enters the timeloop. writing his outside POV is so much fun 😈

[ WIP game ]

[twig-tea]

Love in the Big City Part 4: Having Trouble Letting Go

Processing part 4 was so much harder than the other three parts, for me, and I think the clear and concrete shift within the narrator and how he narrates in this part is why. Young has spent the last 3 parts pretending he doesn’t really feel much of anything; in my Part 1 write-up I called him an emotionally unreliable narrator and this is the first part where it feels like the emotions are present in the text rather than inferred based on my own experiences with the situations he’s described. It’s telling that his descriptions of Gyu-ho are, in his words “preserved under glass” (love that we both felt compelled to call out this quote @wen-kexing-apologist)  but his descriptions of his emotions grieving Gyu-ho in this part are the closest we get to true emotional vulnerability from our narrator.  

This chapter is also “about” Young’s relationship with Habibi, but it’s very clear that this relationship is only important to Young in that he was involved with this person while he was processing his grief at losing his relationship with Gyu-ho. I don’t know that the narrator would say that, but it’s how I read this section. Young's interactions with Habibi feel much more reminiscent of his relationship with Hyung in Part 2; lacking in vulnerability.

This is about a Young who is grieving what he lost by letting Gyu-ho go. The grief is ugly, and messy, and doesn’t come to any real resolution. But the fact that he’s actually feeling it, like @lurkingshan discussed in her post,  gives me hope that Young is able to find happiness again in future, and this time allow himself to keep it.

This reminded me a lot of the ending of The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese, except we didn’t get to the part where the protagonist sits himself on the stool in the middle of the apartment, we’re still at the place where he’s looking at the ashtray in his garbage bin. This chapter left me so deeply sad for this reason, even while intellectually I see it as a critical step towards catharsis, processing, and eventually change. When I think about it, the ending of the book does give me hope for Young’s future happiness, but not with Gyu-ho, and not anytime soon. 

There are a few things that stuck out to me in this part; the way Young is ironically the most “present” he’s been in the whole novel and is also so dissociated from what’s happening in his present and is instead reminiscing about his time in Bangkok with Gyu-ho; The way Young tells the story about getting antiretrovirals in Thailand and how he wishes he’d known about the post-exposure prophylactic properties of PrEP (reminding me of my own sentiment about how I wished he knew about and had access to things from my Part 3 write-up); and the way Habibi feels so much less formed as a person than the other characters central to the other parts–which feels intentional and like result of good writing, rather than a gap. 

Regarding the adaptations and what I’m looking forward to as per @bengiyo’s questions, I keep thinking about the visual metaphors in this book and how well they’ll translate to screen: the blueberry stains on Young’s fingertips in Part 1; the pesticides and park grass in part 2; the bloody lip in part 3; and the crashing lantern with Young’s wish to be forever with Gyu-ho are all ones that come to mind. I’m also thinking about the many different ways Young managed to convey the concept that he was "toxic"–the latest in Part 4 being the dream in which Gyu-ho is taken over with dark ooze–and how heartbreaking I’m going to find those visually represented. With a visual medium so much more can be done with those recurring themes, and so I suppose the part I’m most excited to see in the adaptations is how the creators fill out the world that, by nature of having been a book written in the first person, does not have a ton of description. That gives the adapters a lot of room to have fun with the details.  

@hyeon-comb put it better than I could come up with, that one of the overall takeaways I’d love people to have from this book is that it’s ok to have made mistakes, to live with regrets. Like @bengiyo said in his post, I know Young, I love Young, and I see myself and many of my friends in Young, Jaehee, and the T-aras, and I want them to be happy (or, at least, happier) for their own sakes.

I loved the Acknowledgments and Translator’s Note (both of which appear at the end of my epub version of the book, which is why I’m discussing them now) and how both talk about the thrill of being depicted on the page. I want to call out how critical this is, and how much I loved that aspect of reading this book. This story felt queer, and queer in ways that were familiar to my experience (even though I’m not a man nor Korean nor ever been to Seoul). But I still share so many of these experiences, and have friends who have experienced even more. And the power in having those experiences represented accurately in a story is one that is still rare enough that it’s thrilling every time. I also love Young’s sense of humour and his devastating reads; I’ve loved his character since “you all have faces like rat dicks” followed by the table flip. 

I think this book does an incredible job of telling a story from the perspective of a character who have been the instrument of their own unhappiness and who is struggling with the result but thinks it was the right decision–and letting us, the audience, experience his emotions while also having enough distance to see where he’s not able to have perspective, where he’s made assumptions, and where he had value in the relationship before he gave it up. It’s not an easy balance to walk. I hope that this book gives others some perspective on the choices they may be making on behalf of others that they don’t realize they don’t have to make. 

[pepperonijem]

v. more myself than i am || all my love

“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” - Wuthering Heights; Emily Brontë

Summary: lego aisle arguments turn into confessions over waffles... Pairing: high school!bucky x f!reader Warnings: food mentions Word Count: 4.1k A/N: fun fact, as soon as bucky got home he stared at the ceiling while listening to jazz (also surprise early post!!)

previous chapter || back to library || next chapter

“Welcome! You guys are nearly an hour late,” Scott chastised them as soon as he opened the door.

“Sorry,” Bucky heard you apologize ruefully as you handed the gift bag of Lego and candy to Scott. “Somebody had a stick up his ass so it took us a little longer to get around.” Bucky scoffed at the pointed look you gave him over your shoulder as you walked past Scott and into the party.

You were glad to finally be away from Bucky, if you were being honest. The silent car ride was suffocating, and you couldn’t help but be angry at him for his question earlier. 

“Why do you care so much?” 

Because they’re his friends, you had reasoned. Because you care about him and they mean a lot to him and you would like to mean a lot to him. But you can’t really admit that to the guy who publicly rejected your confession and is now your roommate that you’re kind of friends with. 

It was the “kind of” friends that irked you the most. He didn’t make any sense. Some days he was kind to you, and some days he was the same icy James Barnes who didn’t even read the letter you had spent hours writing. But unfortunately, no matter how he acted at any given moment, he was still constantly on your mind. So much so, that you didn’t even realize your best friends had appeared in front of you with a beverage to offer until you heard his name.

“What happened to Bucky?” Wanda wondered out loud as she looked past you to where Scott was interrogating him at the front door. 

“I overheard Scott asking what he did to piss you off,” Steve explained as he gestured towards you. 

Wanda hummed in acknowledgment. “So then what happened to you?” She asked with an eyebrow raised.

You let out a sigh as you accepted the soda from Steve, opening it up and taking a sip before you explained what happened in the Lego section of Target earlier that day. You also explained why Bucky’s comment frustrated you more than it should and how you honestly felt kind of silly for being so bothered by it.

“Stop,” Steve said as he led you outside to the patio where he sat beside you on the bench and wrapped an arm around you. Wanda sat down on your other side. “If it bothers you then leave it at that, it’s okay to be upset especially with someone as confusing as Bucky.” 

You looked across the yard to see him laughing at something Sam was explaining and you found yourself smiling despite yourself. “I just wish I knew what he was thinking, you know?” You confessed. “Or even better, I wish I didn’t care what he thought of me.”

It felt more than a little bit silly to still be upset by his words. A part of you wanted to believe that he didn’t mean to be malicious, to have his words dripping with a hint of venom. Why do you care so much?  However, that part was overshadowed by the way your heart still continued to ache at the sight of him, wishing that you could make him laugh the way his friends did.

Now it was Wanda’s turn to let out a sigh, causing you to turn to her. “It’s no use lingering on it,” he commented. She stood up and extended a hand out to you and Steve to help the two of you up. “Do you remember when we were little and we watched Hocus Pocus for the first time?” 

Steve smiled at the memory. “How could I forget? I was traumatized after the cat reinflated itself.”  You let out a laugh too and reached out for Wanda’s hand, forming a circle between the three of you.

“Are we doing a calming circle?” you questioned. Wanda nodded as you and Steve shared a look, both of you chuckling at the idea. “Okay, think soothing thoughts, you guys. Soothing thoughts.” 

It felt, for a few minutes, as if you were children again, spinning around in the park with your two best friends. It was easy to forget the world outside of your bubble, especially when the three of you were mostly just shouting ridiculous things. You were sure that if anyone else at the party saw you three, they’d be laughing at the silliness of the situation.

“Rain, movie marathons,” you called out, struggling to keep up with the speed of the circle. “Standing still!” You added and immediately felt your own momentum leading you to crash right into Steve’s chest. You could feel the rumble in his chest as he laughed and wrapped an arm around you, trying to help you keep your balance.

“Feel better?” You heard Wanda call as she embraced you as well from behind. 

Was there any way you couldn’t feel better? Sandwiched between your two best friends, you couldn’t feel any safer. When the three of you finally broke apart and stumbled your way back to the patio bench, you let out a contented sigh. If life was hard, if life was cruel, at least it was kind enough to give you Steve and Wanda. 

“You know,” You began. “I’m really glad we’re going to university together. I don’t know if I can imagine not being with you guys.” If you weren’t already feeling upset about literally everything else, you wouldn’t have noticed the pointed look Wanda gave Steve, who looked away quickly. “Am I… missing something?” you asked tentatively.

“Yeah,” Wanda repeated. “Are we missing something?” She raised an eyebrow at her friend who turned around with a guilty look on his face.

“Listen, I–” Steve started to speak before you heard Peter call your name as he ran to you from across the yard with your phone held up. You glanced at Steve who let out a sigh of relief at the interruption. He looked all too relieved to be out of the hot seat. 

Peter handed you your phone, just as it stopped ringing. “You left your phone inside,” He panted. “Your dad’s been calling for like 10 minutes.” 

“My dad?” you asked as Peter nodded. “He doesn’t usually call while he’s at work.” By now, the effects of your calming circle had sadly begun to wear off, and been replaced with early grumbles of anxiety. You stepped away from your concerned friends to find a secluded space to call your dad. 

It only took two rings for him to answer. “Hey, honey,” he greeted, already sounding apologetic.

“Hey dad,” you replied. “Is everything okay?” you asked tentatively, trying to stop your mind from immediately jumping to the worst case scenario.

You could hear him let out a sigh before answering you. “Yeah, everything is going well,” he said. “So well in fact, that my boss wants me to stay here for the rest of the month…” the end of his sentence trailed off as he waited for you to respond.

“What does that mean?” You asked, even though you already knew the answer.

“It means I won’t be seeing you until next month at the earliest,” he replied. It had been over a whole month since you had seen your dad, the night he dropped you off at the Barnes residence, and it was the longest you’ve ever been away from him.

To say that it was hard to be away from him was an understatement. For so long it had just been you and your dad. Besides Steve and Wanda, he was your best friend and your number one supporter. He was your shoulder to cry on, your favorite gossip-buddy, and you missed him. Phone calls with him lately have been far and few and between, and they couldn’t match the excitement of coming home from school to have a snack with him while you talked about your day. On top of that, there was a senior awards ceremony this week, and you had been excited for your dad to see you receive an award from the literature and writing department. 

But you didn’t want him to know that, so instead you put on a smile and pushed the tears back down. “It’s okay dad,” you replied to him. “I miss you, but I’m sure they’ll miss you more at the restaurant. Besides, Mr. Barnes and Bucky have been making sure I eat all my meals and drink enough water and get enough rest.” You let out a chuckle to really seal the deal, hoping it was enough to convince him.

“Okay,” he let out a relieved sigh. “I’m glad you’re okay. I’m really sorry again, but I’ll see you soon, I promise. I love you,” he added.

“You too, dad.” As soon as the red button was pressed, the tears began to spill from your eyes. If it wasn’t for the argument you had earlier with Bucky and the anxiety you felt about what Steve was going to tell you, it probably wouldn’t have been this hard. But sometimes, things just add up and make you sad. And that’s okay. You were thankful for the pair of arms that wrapped around you and the soothing voice that reminded you of these things because it was definitely hard to remind yourself.

“Hey,” Wanda called to you as you rested your head on Steve’s shoulder. “Is your dad okay?”

You nodded softly. “Yeah, he’s fine. But he said he won’t be coming home till next month.” By now the tears had kind of stopped and you took a step back from Steve, still feeling anxious about what news he would tell you. “Steve,” you asked tentatively. “What were you going to tell us earlier?”

Steve’s eyes suddenly couldn’t meet yours as he looked across the yard to where everyone else was gathered. “Don’t worry about it,” he replied. “I’ll tell you another day.” His smile didn’t meet his eyes and his words did not convince you to not worry about it. But now was not the time to push him and instead you let it go, letting a beat of silence take over among the three of you.

“There’s something about sunsets in October that just feel poetic,” Wanda mused aloud as she looked to where the sun was beginning to dip into the horizon. “Do you think the sunset is just as beautiful everywhere?” 

Although you know she didn’t mean for it to, Wanda’s question made you sad again. Was the sunset your dad saw just as beautiful as this one? Was it just as beautiful when he saw it without you? Or was he like you? Unable to see the oranges and reds in the sky fading into indigo without remembering the smell of the mug of his special hot chocolate that was always waiting for you on cold fall evenings.

Suddenly, all you wanted to do was be away from everyone. While Steve and Wanda were busy discussing the beauty of the sunset, you found yourself sinking back towards the door. It seems however, you weren’t the only one who wasn’t feeling the party mood anymore because you suddenly found yourself alone in the kitchen with Bucky, who was still watching the party going on outside with a far away look that made you wonder what was on his mind.

Unsure what to say, you stood at the kitchen island beside him and stared out into the yard where the rest of your friends were about to start party games and let the silence rest between the two of you. You weren’t sure if it was because of the weight of your dad’s call outweighing your petty argument from earlier, but you somehow felt safe here in Bucky’s company, comfortable even in the silence.

The silence sat for what felt like minutes until Bucky spoke first with a much softer voice than he used earlier. He sounded tired. Resigned. “Wanna get out of here?” he asked, looking at you for the first time since you had entered the kitchen. You nodded in response, thankful that he was the one to bring it up and not you. “You can head to the car first.” You honestly feel a little bit guilty that you were about to leave without saying goodbye, but as if Bucky noticed the way you shifted hesitantly, he added “I’ll make sure to give your regards to the birthday boy… I’ll say you weren’t feeling well.”

He handed you his keys, the jingle of his many souvenir keychains providing you with a sense of familiarity. You watched as he walked back outside and put on a smile that didn’t feel as real as the ones you had seen earlier, and made your way to the front door.

“You’re leaving?” A familiar voice called from behind you. Your hand froze on the doorknob as you turned to see Steve standing what felt unfamiliarly far away from you. 

“Yeah,” you replied sheepishly. “Bucky  said he was ready to go home.” That wasn’t really what happened, but for some reason you felt guilty for not wanting to spend time with your best friends and their best friends.

“Oh,” Steve acknowledged. He paused for a second, letting his eyes wander anywhere else before continuing. Why was he awkward all of a sudden? “I could just take you home if you wanted to stay longer,” he finally added, his hand coming up to run through his golden hair as he hesitantly took a few more steps in your direction. 

On any other day, you would have taken him up on his offer, but thinking back to his words earlier, you had a feeling that making the choice to go with Steve would lead to more bad news and that was just something your heavy heart could not handle any more of tonight. So with a soft shake of your head, you turned him down. “Sorry,” you apologized with a sad smile. “I can’t tonight.”

Steve nodded and took a step backwards, wringing his hands together uncomfortably before shoving them back in his pockets, as if the question meant more to him than he was willing to let on. “Another time then,” he said with the same hollow smile he had earlier before offering to open the door for you. He watched you walk into the now indigo evening, watching until you made your way to the passenger’s seat of Bucky’s car and only finally waving goodbye when he heard the lock of the car door, making sure you were safely inside.

Something felt off today, you thought, not just with your own emotions, but with everyone else. There was an air of unnamable sadness that seemed to sit on everyone’s shoulders and it made you feel a little guilty to be wallowing in your own when you could be caring for your friends. It was an easy rabbit hole to fall into, especially sitting alone in the cold and darkness of the car. Realizing how quickly you could snowball, you opted instead to turn the key and start the car, reaching over to start the heater and the radio.

Thankfully, it wasn’t long before Bucky opened the driver’s side and entered the car. “Thanks for starting the heater,” he said with an echo of a shiver in his voice. He plugged his phone in before opening his GPS app. “Do you want to go home?” The tone in his voice implied that he did not.

“Can we drive around for a bit instead?” You asked as Bucky hummed in response. He closed out of the app, opting instead to put on his driving playlist as he pulled out from his spot and onto the road.

Much like earlier, the drive was silent. But unlike earlier, there was no tension that lay like a bridge on fire between the two of you, but rather there was comfort like opposite sides of a still lake. You found yourself looking up at him, admiring the way his left hand rested on the top of the steering wheel, and his right hand on the gearshift. His dark hair, disheveled from brushing falling leaves out of his hair outside, reminded you of the night you drove home from the football game. 

It was much colder outside than it was that night, but at this moment, you still felt warm. Much like that night, he was glowing in the city lights. You hoped he couldn’t see you staring at him, but part of you felt like even if he noticed, there was no need to look away. 

“Bucky,” you called his name in a whisper and he turned to glance at you before turning his attention back to the somewhat empty city streets. “Do you hate me?” The question surprised even you as you said it. But before you could make an attempt to retract it, Bucky pulled into a parking lot and quickly parked his car before looking at you with a more serious look than you had seen on him before.

“No,” he answered firmly. “I don’t… hate you.” Honestly, you didn’t expect him to answer that quickly, or with that much conviction. Bucky looked at the surprised, blank look on your face. You don’t think he expected it either. “What made you think that?” Was he… hurt by your question?

The slight pout on his lips and the way his eyebrows scrunched together made you want to take the question back altogether. “I…” you began, unsure of what to say. Would anything you said even change anything? Deciding that words left unspoken now would be silence you regret later on, you took a deep breath before continuing. “I just never know what you think about me. I know it shouldn’t really matter, but it does. To me, it does. Sometimes, it’s like we’re in sync, like we know each other’s thoughts, but then we argue in the middle of the store and I suddenly feel as small as I did when I first tried to jump off the swings and sprained my wrist in kindergarten.”

You knew that now that you had started, there wasn’t any way for you to stop until you had run out of things to say, so you let yourself continue. “I want to know because I hate not knowing. And I know you know what that feels like and I also know how much you hate it too. I’m tired of this weird back and forth, and all this whiplash. There’s too much uncertainty in my life right now, and if I could find even one corner where I just know what’s going on, I’ll take it, even if it means knowing you want me far away from you. So tell me again, and tell me honestly, do you hate me?”

You were breathing hard now, and you prayed that the tears that threatened to spill would recede. There was a bit more you wanted to say, but you knew it wasn’t the time. Balling your fists up to hide how badly your hands were trembling, you looked down at the center console where Bucky’s hand was trembling just the same, as if itching to move. You found the courage to meet his eyes to find a surprising tenderness in their soft blues.

“I don’t hate you,” he said again with such softness it made your heart stutter. He swallowed before opening his mouth to continue, but not knowing what else to say. For a second, you just stared at him. His features were now tinted with hints of blue and red as you saw the reflection of the neon sign of a diner in his crystal blue eyes. Were you going crazy or was he leaning ever so slightly into you?

Before you could realize your eyes were beginning to flutter shut or the way your hand was inching toward his on the center console, you were interrupted by the gnarliest growl from your stomach. Suddenly time was frozen until Bucky’s deep laugh broke the silence, soon followed by your own fit of laughter. The two of you pulled back quickly, Bucky running a hand through his hair. For a second, the two of you were silent, unable to look each other in the eye. Were we about to… kiss? The idea bounced around in your head until the sound of Bucky’s voice cracking snapped you out of it. This was not something to fixate on right now.

“I think I, uh… owe you some waffles,” was all he said before turning off the engine.

About an hour and half of a stack of waffles and a very large and very sweet milkshake later, Bucky asked you a question. “Did you actually like The Stranger?”

You were confused a second before it faded into surprise that he remembered that interaction. “I did,” you answered honestly, cutting into another piece of your waffle. “But I don’t think I like it as much as I used to.” Bucky hummed in thought as he stuffed a whole strip of bacon into his mouth as you laughed at the sight. “Why do you ask?” you asked in between giggles.

“I was reading it again,” he answered after swallowing his bite. “And like you said, it’s just not as good as I used to think it was. Then I remembered what you said to me that day, about stories about life not having meaning.” 

You took another bite as you waited for him to continue and watched as he began to mindlessly fidget with the bottle of maple syrup. “I think you’re right about that,” he mused. “Maybe you and I have started to find more meaning in life.” He looked up at you with a small smile.

“You might be onto something,” you replied. You already knew that though. That book stopped being your favorite the day he stole it from you. After that, you were much more interested in the story you were telling with your own life than the hollow life of the man in The Stranger. “What books do you think are actually good then?” you asked curiously.

“It’s kind of dorky,” he began, a blush creeping into his cheeks as he pushed around the remains of his dinner on his plate. “But I’m a big fan of Jane Austen and all those classic romances.” You let out a surprised scoff. You weren’t expecting Bucky to be such a romantic. He rolled his eyes as you grinned at him in shock.

“No way?” you remarked. “That’s so… literature-teacher-esque of you.” You leaned back in surprise  as you took another sip of your milkshake.

“I know,” he agreed. “You should see what my books look like. It’s every literature teacher’s fantasy.” He tried to fight back a smile but immediately failed when he saw how excited you seemed to be upon learning this information.

“Why don’t you be one then?” you asked. “Like seriously? I think you’d be a great teacher. You taught me math, so obviously you’re some kind of miracle worker.” Part of you was joking, but when you saw the way he ran his hand on his cheek to hide the furrow in his brows, it began to sink in how great of an idea it was.

Bucky leaned his chin into his hand. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never really thought about being a teacher.”

“Well maybe it’s time to start,” you replied cheerfully. “What was your original plan?” Now that you were thinking about it, you realized that for a man of routine and planning and detail, he seemed to have a pretty fuzzy idea of what life would be like after high school. Every time someone mentioned college plans, he’d give some vague and lofty idea to pacify whoever was asking. 

“Honestly,” he answered. “I don’t really have one.” His shoulders fell as if he had been waiting for a long time to admit that to anyone else but himself. “What about you?”

“I’m going to be a writer,” you replied with a smile and Bucky couldn’t help but mirror it back to you.

“I believe it,” he agreed. “You’re a great writer.” Your smile turned into a look of confusion. Where had he seen your writing before? You had never written anything outside of your diary except essays for English class. 

Bucky let out a cough as he saw signs of recognition light up your features. “I mean, I heard you were a great writer,” he tried to cover up. “I overheard some of the teachers talking about giving you a writing award at the ceremony.”

The compliment he was paying you was shadowed by the memory of your phone call with your dad earlier. Bucky quickly picked up on the sadness that swept over your features.

“You okay?” he asked softly, his head lowering to try to meet your own lowered eyes. 

“Yeah,” you replied unconvincingly before you let out a sigh. “My dad isn’t going to make it to the ceremony. He called me at the party.”

Suddenly, it was Bucky’s turn to piece things together. “Ah,” he replied. “I see.”

You cleared your throat and put your face in your hands. “But it’s fine, it’s just a piece of paper,” you tried to convince yourself, but Bucky saw past it. However, he could also tell that it wasn’t something you wanted to talk about anymore and you looked at him gratefully when he changed the subject. He waited a beat before clearing his throat, finally getting you to look up at him.

“So,” Bucky began. “How many more pancakes do you think we can demolish?”

You couldn’t hide the smile on your face as you prayed to anyone who heard your thoughts for you to be as content as you were right now.

[generic-whumperz]

Bullshit & Masterlist(s)

THIS BLOG CONTAINS ADULT (NSFW) CONTENT, VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED! 

(This ain’t a daycare, minors kick rocks)

Hang your scruples at the door, horrors dwell within.

Side blogs:

•@generic-whumper (SFW whumping) •@generic-throw-away-blog (random bs & some fandom stuff) •@generic-writing-tips (exactly as it sounds) •@generic-horror-slut (for just straight up horror and gore)

The Aid Masterlist (current WIP, 18+)

Apocamerica AU

Other works can be found at the bottom of this post under “Story Stuff,” but there isn't much else because I'm focusing on The Aid for now.

Congratulations, you have stumbled upon another (generic) whump blog, hence the name! Blog est. Aug 2023. Currently just working on one story right now (yay hyperfixations), that is slowly consuming every waking thought. Help

Fun facts to share with the class:

I prefer to be anonymous on here, so just call me “Generic/Gen,” them/them, mid (quit lying to yourself) late-20’s.

Dyslexic bitch & silly goose—please excuse typos, misspellings, and any grammatical errors! I re-read and edit as best as I can, but my brain be playin’ tricks on me, and shit falls through the cracks! Just manage your expectations is all I’m sayin’, I’m not a professional.

I’m (unfortunately) an American and my obnoxious word choice will probably reflect that.

I’m currently a full-time college student taking a single class because I suck! But still, any written works I choose to share will not be uploaded on a set schedule (I write slow, my brain only occasionally works, & yada-yada), I apologize in advance!    

I run a queue—and nah I won’t tag it.

Lover of cryptids (Mothman fucks), paranormal enthusiast and certified Haunted™️. Weird shit WILL leak into my writing eventually. Don’t be surprised if a ghost or skin walker makes a cameo. It’s more fun this way, just go with the flow.

House plant addict. They are all my children. Ask me how big my monstera is ;)

Irl I’m a (professional) stained glass artist

What You’ll See Here: 

All types of Whump; I’m talking all of it bay-bee (detailed types below this section), including: polls, writings, prompts, tropes, scenarios, art, gifs, etc.

Reblogs-a-plenty

Really bad home grown memes 

Whumpy rambling coming straight from my delirious brain

My own sub-par short stories, ficlits, and maybe even an eventual series or two

My own mediocre art

I fuck with a lot and don’t really have any “squicks”, but to narrow it down, the prime pickings are:

All gender & POC whump (including lady whump, lady whumpers, mixed gendered Whumpee & Whumper combos, etc. Errybody getting whumped ‘round here. But yes I love to see men particularly in distress and blubbering bloody messes, sue me.)

APOCALYPSE

CULT

SLAVERY

TORTURE (especially in explicit detail)

Cannibalism & weird blood shit

Gore and body horror (including puke and all that)

Hurt/no comfort, I prefer maximum pain and immense suffering, with no silver lining.

When I do dabble in comfort—recovery and caretaking is preferably longer with nuanced healing journeys and after character has been through absolute hell.

Physical, emotional, and psychological whump (if there’s all three it’s a magical trifecta of hurt)

Drug (illicit and otherwise)

Dehumanization

Captivity (short & long term)

Vampires & zombies (these are my weaknesses)

Multiple Whumpees, multiple Whumpers

Family of whumpers (this is niche I know but fuck is it my kryptonite) 

The biggest POS and/or terrifying Whumpers imaginable (for the love of all things unholy, make them shamelessly bad and vile)

Chains, restrains, collars, gags, muzzles, rope (etc.)—just tie that biz-nitch down!

Explicit stuff like non-con, dub-con, forced drugging, etc. Wreck that bussy.

Other Story Stuff & Random Things:

Subject X: BB217 Intro

[vvatchword]

In Which I Get Zooted (and Talk about Paradise Lost for some reason)

Part 2 (View Reblogs for Flavor) ->

I am reading Paradise Lost again. Jesus christ it is so good. The first time I read it I had to get used to Ye Olde Englifh Poetic Conventionf and didn’t do very well. Fortunately, I read lots of early modern English in the distant past—it’s like a language I’ve mostly forgotten. That means that repeated exposure has reopened the prose to me. Eventually, I’m going to have to pick up a book about John Milton himself, because there are definitely some alien theological and historical points whizzing right over my head.

I don’t know what it is about Paradise Lost. Reading Dante was painful outside the Hell part… Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress makes me want to kick him in the pants. or die (Dante’s cuntiness goes a long way, that said)

But like every time Milton writes a Satan speech you just wanna do a fistpump. Just the most conniving, fascinating character. Every other fucker in the “good” section pales by comparison. Hell—I’ll just say it: all of the devils are beautifully written. They feel like real people. Half of the time, you’re nodding along with them, and there’s a point where you have to kinda look over your shoulder at Milton, like… buddy do you have any idea what you are SAYING.

The way that everyone talks about Paradise Lost, you’d think the whole goddamn text was about Satan. It’s not. Three of the ten books focus on Satan. All the others are about the war in heaven, Adam and Eve, or the Fall. Look here: if all we had were the books about Adam and Eve and God’s tried-and-true, this would still be great literature, but it’s greater because the stilted, proper characters clash against what are supposed to be our villains. We are literally being forced to ask the question: WHY do the devil and his minions sound like the people we’d rather know? If Milton’s God were real, I’d be straight-up scared of him, okay. I’d be in the “shit shit shit I hope he doesn’t see or think of me ever” camp.

Fun fact about Paradise Lost: people got mad at it for presenting the devil so well. They assumed that Milton was pro-devil somehow. This is because people have been bad readers since the beginning of time.

Milton is not pro-devil. He’s fallen into the problem that everyone has with writing God, which is: we have to explain why life, an extremely chaotic dumpster fire, is actually according to Divine Plan by a Big Guy Who Loves You! (Really!), but the more you try to explain the Plan the more you have to explain why God isn’t doing X or Y, until finally you have so many asterisks that essentially your religion is *teleports behind you*

So not only can no one read, no one can admit the real problem: how fucking shitty god and the angels are by comparison, and how they are, by all rights, being written correctly.

See, how ELSE could Milton have written God et al, that’s really the question. He does his best, and he’s very, very good at it. Look, I’ve read a LOT of religious texts over my life—and across the board, God is represented this way. CS Lewis wrote some wildly enjoyable fiction, but every time Jesus or God has to show up without the handy-dandy Aslan mask, everything stutters to a halt.

There are even points in the story where Milton has to tell you why what a devil is suggesting is sinful. For example, here’s the devil Belial giving his suggestions for how to deal with God now that all the devils are in Hell. So far, he has suggested not acting at all: God’s power is not only great in strength, it is great in cunning. He cannot be tricked; he cannot be beaten. So why not just wait it out? Don’t poke the tiger. Maybe the tiger will show mercy someday, if the devils don’t get used to the pain eventually:

“This horror will grow mild, this darkness light, Besides what hope the never-ending flight Of future days may bring, what chance, what change Worth waiting, since our present lot appears For happy though but ill, for ill not worst, If we procure not to ourselves more woe.”

Uniquely among the other devils—Moloch, Mammon, Beelzebub, and Satan all speak in this Book—Belial gets an addendum.

Thus Belial with words cloth’d in reason’s garb Counsel’d ignoble ease, and peaceful sloth, Not peace.

I can just imagine Milton reading it out loud to a friend and then that friend saying, “Hey, that Belial guy has the right idea!” and it’s like the tenth time that Milton has read this to someone only for them to look at him like, “Yeah, why not?” so Milton grumpily flops down at his rustic table with a quill and he’s grumbling about how everyone is a fucking idiot since he most clearly counsel’d IGNOBLE ease, and peaceful SLOTH, not PEACE, fuck thee, Thomas, thou slipshod bastard

In sharp contrast to Belial, Moloch—the first speaker—suggested fighting God until he just erased the devils from existence. Which is, you know, a mood.

It’s like the only way that you can represent god in fiction is as a one-dimensional cardboard cutout. The religious are terrified of judgment even while writing him and every time he shows up he’s boring and constipated. Of course we like the devil better: he’s more likely to give us a fair shake. God would fucking crush you like a beetle in slow-motion, ensuring you felt every pang, and he’d talk about how great he was the entire time he did it, and how he loves you, actually. Oh he loves you so much. There went your liver! Juiced. with love

So well are the devils written—so sensible, so motivated, so grounded—that the final devil to speak comes out of left field. Let me set the stage:

So far we had Moloch—future child-eater—suggest eternal war, with the aim of dissolution; Belial, who’s just like, why not chill and let the future bring what it may; and Mammon, who expands on that with “let’s actively seek ways to enjoy ourselves, altering everything around us until we form a world that meets our needs.” All of these devils focus on the pain of Hell, the loss of “bliss” (which I’m assuming is meant to imply both feeling and place: painlessness and Heaven, specifically), and the disgusting idea of returning to God, who they abhor.

Beelzebub brings up the idea of finding Earth, one tiny little planet that God made with a special creature called Man, and fucking around with it.

I had gotten so into the devils’ speeches—I was very zooted—that I had to do a double-take and then run back to re-read them.

“Bub, baby,” Belial should have said, “what the actual fuck are you talking about.”

Perhaps this is only me, but I couldn’t help but think of the vastness of creation, and the absolutely miniscule goal that the devils chose for themselves. The devils fell for nine whole days and nights, and Earth supposedly lies past dangerous voids and environments past understanding. It’s a big step down: go from fucking with the Creator to the Created, and not just any Created: some dumb human babies.

It’s the first break with the devils’ characters, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

to be CONTINUED.....