#i feel like this has become a politics sideblog

[myfairkatiecat]

Oh, is this the place to put anonymous fanfiction?

But he still stepped a little bit closer--close enough that she could feel his breath on her cheeks when he asked, "Would you like me to list all of the complications?"

She shook her head.

She was pretty sure she could guess most of them.

And she didn't care.

"All I care about is how I feel," she whispered. "If you're only doing this"-- she held up their clasped hands--"because you don't want to hurt my feelings--"

He twined their fingers together and shook his head.

"Trust me-- this is what I've wanted form the moment I saw you, wandering through the halls with- him. I knew right away that I'd met someone incredibly special-- and every moment I've spent with you has proven how true that is. But is this really what you want?" He squeezed her hand, and she could feel him shaking when he admitted, "I can't tell what's going to happen."

Her mind filled with words.

Promises.

Confessions.

But somehow they felt like too much and not enough all at the same time.

So Michelle Obama tilted up on her toes and leaned forward, meeting his eyes as she lined her lips up with his-- careful to leave a tiny wisp of space.

A chance for him to change his mind.

Justin closed the distance between them.

And then . . . everything was new.

The soft press of his lips on hers.

The way their breath seemed to fall perfectly in sync while her heart and brain screamed, FINALLY!

Some tiny part of her had always wondered if kissing could really be as great as everyone claimed.

But kissing Justin Trudeau was So. Much. Better.

IS THIS A CHAPTER 42 PARODY

HELP

I RECOGNIZED THE WRITING IMMEDIATELY

Don’t take my sweet sokeefe and politics them😭

Since apparently “send ask fanfic anonymously to Katie” is becoming a thing

[simplysedusa]

Hey so I see you talk a lot about the corruption of Townsville on both a political and police/prison level and how villains are treated. I have similar ideas floating around in my head for my fic I'm slowly chipping away at so it's fascinating to see somebody else talk about this. Townsville's police and politicians are canonically shown to be very incompetent and I've always been surprised to see how this is rarely included or dissected within fanon interpretations and stories. I'm curious about a lot of things and don't want to bombard you with questions (worried about being annoying lol), so I'll just ask you one for now:

Where do the Ruffs fall into all this in your head? In fanon interpretations, it's common to see people talk about how the Ruffs were failed on so many fundamental levels. Their creation, being used as weapons and tools as opposed to having their needs met by children (with them often being portrayed as homeless), being subjected to horrific abuse by the police and in prison systems. I feel like people talk about their experiences a lot in fanon, but they don't really dive into them outside of "oh it was traumatic" as opposed to dissecting how horrific Townsville's justice system is, especially for vulnerable groups. Especially in regards to them being paralleled to the Puffs and the (conditional) privileges they have from protecting the city.

I think a more nuanced look at the villains of the show is something I always really appreciate seeing in regards to fanon, wish it was explored more. Excited to see what ideas you end up coming up with, particularly for Sedusa who's tragically underutilized.

I think as the Puffs grow to become more and more critical of the system, the privileges that the do have start to slip and many start to be wary of them like they were in the Movie. The Puff/Ruff species legitimately facing discrimination for who they are as nonhuman inorganic creatures is something I also think should be explored more, and how the Puffs protecting Townsville gives them conditional privileges.

I am overthinking shit to the extreme lol but I love dissecting this show and the potential it has in regards to exploring it's villains and deeper satire about the police/prison industrial complex.

Anon, it is currently December 9th, 2023, sometime past midnight as I'm typing. I want to include a date to this post because it might take me a while to come down from the high I've received from reading this.

Okay, so first of all:

"I love dissecting this show and the potential it has in exploring its villains and deeper satire about the police/prison industrial complex."****

🤝

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! I wish I knew who you were, Anon, because you deserve a virtual hug. It is so nice to feel SEEN. This is the second ask I've ever gotten on this sideblog and it's already one of my favorites, you are not annoying at ALL. Secondly, I have no idea where to start so I'll just dive right into the meat of this question and hope to God that I hit all the talking points that I want to cover lol.

I didn't want to go into too much detail about the Rowdyruff Boys given the fact that they are a few of the main characters of the stories in my head but I'll GLADLY do so here.

In my fics, I have the Rowdyruff Boys adopted by Ms. Keane.

Stay with me on this, PLEASE, lmao. It's not all sunshine and rainbows. She finds them when they're eight years old. They're starving, and powerless; the Chemical X in their bodies are working overtime just to keep them alive as they're on the brink of death...thanks to HIM.

If you want a Puff/Ruff centered fic (or just hero/former villain) to work, regardless of genre, you need redemption and forgiveness. While forgiveness is easier to portray, redemption needs a foundation to build upon. IMO, the only way to do that, would be to get the boys out of the influence of HIM and Mojo Jojo. In these fics of mine, Mojo is a permanent resident of the Townsville Correctional Center (name pending, imagine Arkham Asylum), a newly built prison made, strong enough to contain the Powerpuffs (hint hint, wink wink). Meanwhile HIM leaves the boys high and dry then goes M.I.A after their declaration of not wanting to "destroy the Powerpuff Girls" (If you really look at the post movie scenes of the Rowdyruff Boys, you'll see that at the end of the day, they just want to live life and have fun in their own diabolical way. You can even see this in Bubble Boy when Bubbles, disguised as Boomer ((iirc, it was either her or Butch)) suggests to blow stuff up and Brick replies "Nah, we blew a bunch of stuff up yesterday". These are elementary school aged boys, eventually, they're going to get bored and no amount of hate toward the Powerpuff Girls is going to change that). The boys being adopted by Ms. Keane, lays down a certain groundwork to start from; they need some sort of positive, older female influence in their lives that aren't the Powerpuff Girls or other love interests (especially to begin challenging their post movie misogyny). Plus, I also think they'll challenge her to not view the world as black and white as she occasionally tends to, and she's one of the only canon characters I think who would actually give them a chance.

Being adopted for them also means having to deal with: ✨ Townsville's Child Welfare System✨

And if The Mayor and the police are anything to go by, I'd imagine it isn't great (and now thinking about it, looking at Mitch's family issues that I mentioned, we see that the welfare system is SHIT lol) (Hell, you can take one step further and look at Jack Wednesday, the incompetent truant officer who's definitely their parole officer now). Ms. Keane wants to get legal guardianship over the boys after caring for them for however long, and I can see whoever's in charge of that wanting the boys to answer for the crimes they've committed against the city first. Long story short, it's a quiet case, as to not upset the citizens of Townsville, and the boys have to live in a group home for two years before Ms. Keane is granted her guardianship. For one, it's a confinement of sorts without having to jail them *(because as Ms. Bellum, Ms.K's lawyer, puts it, they are children and victims of circumstance), but most importantly, this allows the city to test out Professor Utonium's newest **(and most reluctant) invention: Antidote X handcuffs.

It sucks. They're subjected to religious zealots who condemn the boys as demonic abominations for coming back to life (as if it's their fault), weirdos with a superiority complex over kids, short tempered adults who hit first and ask questions never, other bullies in kids who are also victims of circumstance, and they're powerless. And honestly, aside from MAYBE the Powerpuff Girls, who believe the boys are M.I.A, and Ms. Keane, who'd care enough about their condition to make a stink about it?

So once they're finally out into the real world, having to spend an extra few years in house arrest, watching people tremble in their wake feels nice. And they (mostly and especially Brick) can't wait to blow this sorry ass popsicle stand known as Townsville once they're 18. They're not under Mojo's or HIM's thumb anymore but they're still mean, cold, rebellious, snarky, and conniving. And even if the newest girls in school, the Powerpuffs, don't see it yet, who could blame them? (This is only for one specific fic, keep in mind.)

Something I feel is highly overlooked in these types of fics would be the outside perception of the relationships between the Puffs and Ruffs, whether that be platonic or romantic. Because, sure, in a perfect world, everyone would see them hanging out and think the girls would be such a good influence on the boys, who would finally start to turn their lives around. However, we've seen time and time again that the city of Townsville has turned against the girls (and the girls against Townsville, Buttercup assaulted numerous albeit criminal, citizens to exchange their teeth for money, Blossom stole a set of $1000 golf clubs, Bubbles released an entire zoo into town, and they masterminded the robbery of a toy store with the Professor, as well as comply with the robberies of Femme Fatale, not to mention what happened in the movie), and there's no doubt in my mind that there'd be quite a few citizens who'd see any of the boys with any of the girls and think that their "villainous ways" are contagious and that the girls are being manipulated yet again. I could see this as a slow starting point for the said privileges to be revoked.

The parallels between the Puffs and Ruffs are CRAZY too. You have the Rowdyruff Boys, who never successfully killed the girls (granted they are still villains but their only "bone to pick" with society is the Powerpuff Girls)***, treated as scum of the earth for being kids listening to two of the worst possible role models ever. Then, you have the Powerpuff Girls, who've committed crimes and killed the Rowdyruff Boys once before, living life on a pedestal with their amazing dad and loving support system. Sure, you have the Powerpuff Girls reel in the Rowdyruff Boys to the "good side" by showing them that they're not as evil as people believe them to be and that they deserve to be treated as citizens. BUT, you also have the Rowdyruff Boys showing the Powerpuff Girls that they're only given this camaraderie as long as they continue to be used as tools for every inconvenience the city faces, that the city is taking advantage of their people pleasing ways (which no one ever talks about), and that they deserve to live their lives.

*I didn't speak on this before, but I also headcanon Ms. Bellum attending law school, passing the bar exam in flying colors, as sort of a back-up plan. It couldn't hurt to know the law if you're planning on working in politics, she's just that bitch. I'd like to think she took the case pro-bono as a way to make it up to herself for not doing the same for her estranged niece (granted, her father's money and connections got Princess acquitted of all her crimes and a court ordered therapist, but Ms. Bellum would've defended her in a heartbeat regardless).

**This is also another headcanon I haven't touched on yet. There has to be someone in the governing office of Townsville who realized that these girls are practically unstoppable and that they needed a backup plan in case they choose to "turn on [them]". As an agreement to "allow the girls to save the day", Professor Utonium invented three things: 1.) Antidote X handcuffs, which are regular handcuffs with spikes on the inside to inject the user with Antidote X, rendering them powerless, 2.) Mini Dynamos, smaller robot versions of Dynamo to operate like robocops, and 3.) Help with the construction of the new prison.

***Yes they're still villains who've caused massive damage to the city, but they're only ever worried about the Powerpuff Girls. If they were as evil as their creators, they'd have killed every innocent civilian in their path. As far as we know, the Powerpuff Girls have a higher body count than the Rowdyruff Boys do. An INTENTIONAL body count, might I add.

****I wasn't gonna say anything, because this is long enough as is and I could do a whole essay alone on this but YES EXACTLY. It's very interesting how these criminals in the show commit some atrocious acts (theft, vandalism, attempted murder, crime of treason, kidnapping, assault, life endangerment, etc.), yet they're always released. 🐸☕

LMAO, that's it for now. If you have any other questions, I'll be happy to elaborate in another post.

[womenfrommars]

Juno, are you okay? You've been so silent lately...

Hi anon,

The other day I realised how long it has been since I was super active on here. Tumblr gave me a notification that this sideblog has existed for 3 years now. When I created this sideblog (to replace a deleted sideblog), I lost a lot of enthousiasm for this platform and the radfem/gender critical community. While I still consider these topics politically relevant, I am not as involved with them as I used to be. This in contrast to the fact that gender critical politics have become more mainstream now, as evidenced by the Imane Khelif controversy and legal threats made against JK Rowling.

I think at my height of popularity on here I spend quite a lot of time on Tumblr and that earned me a relatively large size of followers but you have to understand it takes a lot of invested time to even get to that level of popularity and in hindsight it's not worth it. I was mostly super active because I wasn't doing so well academically and wanted to spend my time on things other than my studies. So now when I seed popular bloggers being discussed I have more of an insight into how much time they invest in this platform (and I must say I was never one of *the* most known bloggers). Just because someone is super active on social media doesn't mean they're doing well mentally or otherwise and that might sound counterintuitive (some people self-isolate instead) but I really do think people use social media as a means to escape their ''real'' lives.

Thate being said, I think overall I feel happier now. During 2020/2021 my mental and physical health spiralled out of control and now I am still trying to pick up the pieces but I actually see some of my work paying off. I lost the excess weight I gained during Covid, I got some very helpful medication for my mental health, I started going to the gym, and more recently I got in touch with old friends. I do like the idea of using Tumblr more often as a sort of personal blog rather than a purely political outlet but in the past few years I also found myself gravitating more so towards Discord because it feels more intimate and private in a way

[cassiopeianscribe]

+++Concerning my disappearance+++

I don't know why am I doing this, maybe because I haven't outgrown my chuunibyou phase.

This is addressed specifically to my mutuals and ex-mutuals @transfem-monarchist-laura-rolla , @lesser-vissir , @madokatoru , @flowergirlmiwa , @manabekashiwa , @lisanees, @catgirlforeskin , @wingsofcope

Some of you may know that before I disappeared I was anxious about actually being trans and medically transitioning.

What I have concluded is that I actually don't have dysphoria. I have preferences that I haven't changed even since I had another mental breakdown in November, when I completely ghosted everyone, but they are not innate or constant. Rather they are purely psychological and connected to experience and ego.

On top of this, my OCD intensified tenfold, so I am not sure that I have any kind of identity anymore.

And on top of this, when I was shocked by detransition I... I don't know why I did this, maybe I was coping or just because I am ultimately immature, but for a month or so I played pretend with crafting myself an image of like byronic hero like Dorian Gray, and the result was so profoundly disgusting that I still feel tainted 8 months later.

All of this sum up to me really not being trans.

And then, with this experience, I started questioning politics of trans identity, and came to conclusion that it's politically unsound. Not because it's a conspiracy - people who today identify as transgender existed always and I have studied accounts of them that sound very familiar, and they don't want to destroy everything that's good, they just live their lives. But trans movement is a misogynistic and homophobic entity that has to be destroyed in favour of something that accommodates trans people while not harming more vulnerable people.

Yes, I have become a TERF ally (oh irony). I have a radfem sideblog where I still pretend to be a girl, like a pathetic liar I am*. I am still pretty protective of trans people generally and trans women specifically because I know you and love you and still have transfem online friends, but I can no longer support trans movement as it exists today.

Radblr is not a particularly good place, not going to lie - Imane Khelif situation was so gross that I considered leaving (at least blogs I follow all were on her side), and other kinds of gross prejudices exist. But also someone has to actually care about well-being of women, and beggars are not choosers, because all other gender critical groups don't do it out of any genuine concern.

I don't wish ill on trans people and in fact I am using other sideblogs to create an alternative movement that reconciles interests of trans people, cis women, and cis gay people. And since I know all of you as good and empathetic people, I hope that you soon will realize my vision (and I don't mean detransition - you don't have to stop being yourself for common good). But it's up to you to decide how to feel about me.

Untill we meet again under the Dharmic wheel.

*And also I have another sideblog where I pretend to be transfem, and on my main blog I am very careful about not giving away any hints of my gender. I am really bad at admitting my mistakes, yes.

[kharmii]

It is so true that the entire fandom has a massive obsession with furries.

And are also converting normies into furries. Sometimes when I see fanart of Sneasler and it’s drawn in a furry-ish way a big part of me wonders if this artist has a sideblog containing furry nsfw with Ingo.

Or those weird hybrid designs. (When I‘m able to look past the furry implications I can appreciate a creative design but I also can’t unsee potential nsfw stuff for a lot of these.) What icks me the most about this is that furry stuff is accepted and even embraced as to blankshipping is taboo and "the worst"…

Personally I’m rather someone who wishes to engage a lot more with the Japanese community since they are still very much have the old fandom culture intact.

(Also when I‘m leaning more towards blankshipper over here it’s because they’re less to throw hissy fits at everyone who doesn’t bend over backwards to their beliefs. They can be just as nasty on some topics)

And so much yes for your annoyance for the celebration of politics in fandom. I don’t know when this has become such an issue (especially when I remember that back in the day in a previous fandom called Hetalia [a series that was based on the idea that each country was represented by a human and being a bit stereotypical (in a way that was funny or made you feel called out)] people were constantly reminding everyone not to include current day politics in their stuff, that was no biggie back when but nowadays it’s normal to use fandom and fiction to push their political agenda on people… Be it characters waving certain flags of countries or beliefs and all those surgery scars everywhere… I don’t wanna see this kind of content. Though I’m at least somewhat happy that so far I didn’t have to see artificial "assets" down below in art.

The only way to interact with the fandom is to mute and block each political movement and only interact with certain content that doesn’t deal with all this nonsense.

I have said it before but I really enjoy sharing opinions with you. While a lot comes off as probably harsher than it’s meant to but I appreciate your opinion and your perspective.

That was absolutely meant to come off harsh because Submas fandom (Volo too) is a nasty little mean girl clique gone wild. That's how social contagion works. You'll have a handful of aggressive vocal petty little twats who will convince everybody that 'this stupid thing is acceptable and yet this other stupid thing that's equally as stupid and harmless as the other thing is not acceptable'.

Next thing you know, the few bad apples who draw top surgery scarred fat furries have the whole fandom thinking that's what everybody is into. Normies might be like, "Well, I actually don't like any of that because it forces me to have a wastebasket I puke in when browsing this fandom, but I don't want anyone to call me a bigot.."

Most fans might be drawn to beauty and good things, but the whole theme seems to be centered around dreck and wallowing in misery (the shipping end anyway. General is more upbeat). Since everybody has blocked me at this point, I'm one of the few who isn't afraid to say what a lot of people might be thinking (like most of you, don't lie. Nobody likes a fat furry chili fart in the face).

Side note: I had to unfollow someone last week because they put up a post about Submas celebrating Pride Month...and yet they had to put the dig in about 'Proshippers DNI'. Hey, Emmet's pronouns list is a mile long! -So what aspect of Pride do they celebrate? Is it okay for weirdos to wear dog masks around kids? Is it okay to give minors puberty blockers? -And yet shipping brother-on-brother action with fictional characters (that doesn't hurt anybody) is taboo? Would you be okay with a grown-ass man exposing himself to a minor at a Pride Parade, and yet a 20/15 year old ship between Volo and Akari is taboo?

Anyway, how about some good old Submas Angst?

Art credit: こんぶ。@konbu_0915_ Twitter.

[baycitystygian]

well I guess it’s about time I made an about post!

I’ve been on this website for like six years or so and I never really made a proper intro post to my blog, so here’s a couple basics for new friends & visitors just dropping by!

-heather williams, she/her, 25, neurodivergent as fuuuuuck but not officially diagnosed with specifics yet (although I’m almost certain I have autism, there’s a possibility I have ADHD or both? looking into a diagnosis, but definitely ND in general)

my sideblog for my current hyperfixation/crush/hall pass is @heather-willz and it is all Paul Williams all the timeeeee 💕this is not to subtract Paul posts from this blog but rather to add more Paul posts to this beautiful world that allowed this phenomenal composer to flourish (can you tell I’m delirious as I’m typing this)

-if you’re a minor and you like a post of mine, that’s cool- but I post whatever I feel like so be warned, I don’t censor myself and I do have a wide range in my sense of humor so there will probably be adult themes™️ on here so I don’t recommend sticking around- or do so but only at your own risk! I also don’t interact with minors and I’ve always listed my age just in case it matters to someone happening across my blog.

-I generally don’t tag often unless A) I’m talking in the tags or B) it’s a hyperfixation that I want to go back to/keep organized in tags on my blog, if you’re a mutual and there’s anything you’d like me to tag that you filter/blacklist please send me an anon in the ask box letting me know! I’m happy to tag anything that might be an issue but I don’t really know if anything specific is a sensitive topic to a mutual unless they tell me and you can absolutely stay anonymous about it- do not hesitate if there’s any way I can be a better moot ❤️

-big procrastinator and very sporadic on here (even though I generally use this app as my morning paper) so I can take awhile to get to asks & sometimes I forget altogether, sometimes I save them in drafts then forget to check my drafts & I’m very bad about that and I am SO sorry cause it’s genuinely never personal 😅same with messages but I’m not unfriendly, I just have raging executive dysfunction

-I block liberally over political reasons, TERFS are blocked on sight, any blog I happen across that’s said/reblogged something that might generally be upsetting to me and, of course, bots get blocked too- I don’t engage in discourse so if you’re a TERF, right winger, or just a general troll just keep moving along or block me cause I just go right for the block button anyway. any hate has no home here, UNLESS it’s hate for bigots or cops ✨

-I check blogs of people I follow but I don’t necessarily check OP’s so if I’ve accidentally reblogged something from a shitty person (“OP is a terf,” etc) just slide in the ask hole and let me know cause the odds are almost 100% that I’m unaware

-I am a continually broke ass bitch that feels guilty every time I see a donation post and I feel awful every time I don’t donate because I literally cannot keep my own shit together. As a result I generally don’t reblog donation posts or any call-to-action posts, partially also because my blog is really for my own entertainment and I use tumblr as a lighthearted escape from the world. which has become increasingly difficult as of late but I still want to keep my blog as just fun posts or anything I find useful. I do care, a lot in fact… but it’s complicated.

-I don’t post original posts terribly often, mostly just reblog anything that tickles my fancy but vintage fashion/shows/music and rocks are my big ones on here. most original posts are just top-of-my-head nonsense or stuff I’m hyperfixating on

-if you’re a fan of Paul Williams, Barenaked Ladies, Bucks Fizz, Bay City Rollers/Rabbitt, Flo & Eddie, Howard Jones, Bowling For Soup, Wings (the TV sitcom but I’m also a Paul McCartney & Wings encyclopedia if that’s more your speed), Phantom of the Paradise, or Caroline In The City, those are all recent-ish interests of mine that have almost NO fandom so like. you’re automatically my friend now if you like any of those 😂

…I think that about covers everything I wanted to say, so sit back, relax, and have fun in my hodgepodge of a social media home ✨

[ddeardolly]

I remembered one time where Luma got so pissy and upset about someone asking about their self-insert, I mean, "OC based on me" on their old blog.

All this person did was ask some (pretty polite, if you ask me) questions about Luma the OC, and Luma proceeded to be extremely bitchy, rude, and condescending toward said person.

I think one of the questions that the person asked was why they aged their SI OC up when they were firmly against aging up any canonically underage character for any reason at all (yes, it included completely SFW situations, too, and yes, this was during the period where they wrote smut pretty regularly), and Luma freaked the fuck out on them for it. One question I definitely remember was them asking what the difference was between a self-insert OC and an "OC insert", as Luma likes to call it, and Luma took it as a personal attack, for some reason? Either way, they were a complete asshole to someone just asking a few questions about their character.

Then, without any sense of irony, they went onto one of their sideblogs to go whine about how no one wants to RP with them/include them in their applyfics. 💀

I unfortunately don't have screenshots of it, but I very distinctly remember that happening. Sorry if this isn't a whole lot of proof, but it's an anecdote I thought I'd share!

Luma goes against everything they stand for. Make it make sense!! This hypocritical, manipulative, and abusive user has an extensive history of bullying, harassing, and being generally nasty toward anyone who has the audacity to question or disagree with anything they say. Luma has no boundaries or sense of respect for anyone but themselves, and will use every tactic they have to defend their position. They will lie, twist your words, and gaslight you into feeling like it's YOUR fault for questioning their bullshit. They've done it time and time again!! Ugh im getting sort of off topic.

Anyway, yeah I don’t get how they’re saying one thing then doing the complete opposite??? Luma complains about hating stepcest and overall dark content and ageing up characters, yet ages themself up AND down AND proceeds to become mutuals with dark content creators !! Oh my god im sick of ittttr 😭✌️

[vertebrates-and-pieces]

✨Fun things to do with your f/o(s)!!!!✨

🌟OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT🌟

🌟OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT🌟

🌟OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT🌟

[finnlongman]

Couple of thoughts on the changing social media landscape etc...

This blog is, and always has been, a public/mostly professional space. The nature of Tumblr means I can have sideblogs for personal venting and off-topic posts, as many of them as I want, and this blog is fairly carefully curated to be a public-facing page. My mum looks at it sometimes, after all, so anything I post has to be something I'm willing for her to see.

(Note: I think sideblogs and stuff are very important. Everybody needs a space on the internet where they're not being observed by colleagues, supervisors, managers, readers, anyone to whom they owe professional responsibility. A place to be Weird and know that it's not going to impact on their job the next day. If you don't yet have those spaces and you're someone who uses the internet in a professional capacity, I recommend creating them; it's freeing. If you think you've found somebody else's sideblog and they haven't indicated that they want to share it with you, it's polite to pretend you don't know and let them have their Weird Place Space in peace.)

This is a LESS professional space than, say, my website, and I have different rules for myself than I did on other social media. My Twitter policy has long been not to swear on there, and to keep my account reasonably suitable to be read by teenage readers, current/future employers, and other authors alike. Here, I tend to keep my own swearing to a minimum but I'm more relaxed about sharing others' sweary content, and I'll reblog slightly more risqué things (usually relating to the vampire novel).

I've been happy with that balance. It's a place people can follow me as an author, as an academic, and as a person, and get a reasonable mix of my research, my thoughts, and updates on my books, without being unduly formal and without me ever feeling like I couldn't be myself here. And it's a place where I both create my own material and share that of others, tending towards sharing things that are educational or that relate to my own work, but also just vibing.

I've always known, though, that this was not a space for publicity per se. While I do share links to my books here and I know that a few people have bought TBA, I've never been under any illusions about the possibility of Tumblr as a place to advertise myself. Nor do I WANT to do that. Honestly, I've come to resent the pressure to use Twitter as a "brand", as a "promotion" opportunity, when for years it was just a place I hung out as a person. But I'd rather do that there than here, partly because it actually worked there.

If this truly is the decline of Twitter, I don't mind my online socialising becoming more Tumblr-focused. I'm sad about the loss, because I think I'll lose a lot of academic community and opportunities to learn that I previously found on Tumblr, and it's going to be a lot harder to connect with other authors, but it won't be impossible; I have both academic and author friends here. But what I DON'T want is for Tumblr to have to become my Professional Space to the detriment of the fun, low-key vibe I've had going here for the last 11 years.

I'm worried that, if all of my professional contacts migrate here, I will have to start putting a mask on here as well, and I'll feel more pressure to self promote. It'll start to feel like the chore that other social media has become ever since I got published and have had to start using the internet As An Author and not just as a person who also writes books. I am very happy for more people to join this site, but I don't want the side effect of that to be that suddenly all my colleagues are here and I'm in Work Mode all the time.

One of the things I've found hardest about the internet in recent years is the switch from what it was in my teens (place to be weird and unique and unselfconscious) to what it is now (place where I'm expected to be professional and might be observed by my boss, academic colleagues, publisher, readers etc at any time). And Tumblr was for a long time the last bastion against that, even if my mum looks at it. I'll be sad if that goes, because all the sideblogs in the world won't help if actually being here starts to feel like something I do for work.

Crucially, I think the problem is that for career reasons, I need something that does for me what Twitter was doing, but also I was not enjoying that aspect of Twitter and it was not feeling like a fun place to do that, so what I REALLY need is for my career not to rely on me managing to virtually hand-sell my book to people on the internet while I'm just trying to live my life...

Anyway. Just something I'm thinking about as I face down the possibility of this being the main place where I as an author can communicate with potential readers. I don't really want it to be... that, but it might have to be that, and I'm going to be thinking hard about how I navigate that.

[r00kiec00kie]

Unnecessarily Detailed Dislikes

Please repost, don’t reblog. Answer the questions for your muse and tag some people.

Muse name: Sorbet Shark Cookie Least favorite nickname: None Least favorite color: None (They get to see so many bright new colors on the surface! Sorbet loves them all!) Least favorite season: Winter (Swimming becomes difficult when smaller bodies of water freeze over in Cookie Kingdom...) Least favorite weather: None. If Sorbet swims deep enough underwater they don't have to worry about weather. Least favorite—hot or cold: Cold. Least favorite holiday: Easter (just... what is it about eggs that inspires Cookies so much? They don't get it.) Least favorite food: Bear Jelly Burger (Nothing against the Jampie Diner, but it just doesn't hit Sorbet's taste buds right...) Least favorite flavor: Bitter Least favorite drink: Coffee (It's just so bitter!! How coffee mages like Latte Cookie and Espresso Cookie enjoy it, Sorbet will never know... Even the coffee Latte Cookie offered was far too bitter for Sorbet's liking.) Least favorite scent: Cooked Cake Hound (GingerBrave seems to be with Sorbet on this one...) Least favorite sound: Cookie crunching or crumbling Least favorite book: Wizard Cookie's entire library. It's so booooring! Least favorite movie: Doesn't watch movies. Boring. Least favorite tv show: See above Least favorite school subject or area of study: Politics and Magic. Adventure and treasure is much more exciting! Least favorite aspect of their job: Sorbet and Sea Fairy Cookies are the only ones whose dough doesn't get soggy, which means being out at sea is especially risky for all of Sorbet's friends. Least favorite fictional character: Doesn't know any :D Least favorite person: Dark Enchantress Cookie Least favorite trait in others: Being evil, mostly. Sure, being boring also sours Sorbet's jelly, but at least that can be fixed with some playtime. Least favorite place: The Witch's Oven. From what GingerBrave has... or rather, hasn't told everyone, it sounds... scary. Least favorite thing to talk about: Complicated magic or politics Least favorite thing about themselves: They look scary to any few souls who live underwater, so before coming to the surface after being enchanted into a Cookie, Sorbet struggled to make any new friends. They also don't like talking about the process of becoming a Cookie, or who may have enchanted them. (It's a good thing about the bubble voice, then, because Sorbet can pretend everything is okay and their voice can't betray them when no one understands what they're saying!) Least favorite sexual position: N/A Least favorite daily chore: Laundry. The butter soap makes Sorbet's dough feel tingly and funny. Least favorite style of clothing: High-and-mighty gaudy types, especially those who fight with swords. Princess Cookie and Knight Cookie are okay, but Cookies like Clotted Cream (whom Sorbet has only met like. once, ever) make Sorbet wanna splash them with a Cannonball. Least favorite activity: Listening to boring lectures, especially about how much trouble Sorbet tends to make whenever Cookies are out at sea. Least favorite superpower: None. They're all pretty cool-sounding! Even though Cookies naturally have superpowers anyway... Least favorite thing about humanity Cookiekind in general: Quick to fear the unknown, and Sorbet is very unknown... Least favorite thing about being in love: Ew, cooties!! Least favorite thing about death: Leaving Cookies behind...

Tagged by: Stolen from @magician-under-the-moonlight

Tagging: @countarganan @i-am-a-galarian-yamask @i-am-a-unovan-yamask @i-am-a-skitty and anyone else who wants to join in :D

(In case you didn't know, this is another sideblog of mine-- I'm Sylvia Reviar <3)

[cleanlenins]

Hello Lenn!

I’ve been following your mc sideblog for a like, a few months(?) and have been reading to be truly free since the first chapter and I just have to say:

You are literally my favourite fanfic writer. Between updates I just keep rereading to be truly free over and over again. It’s just so brilliant, every sentence is just so !!!! Idk how to describe it, I don’t think I can describe it, you can just tell you poured a lot of love, energy and time into it and it paid off so well! All the scenes just work so well. And the characterization! You capture everyone’s personality perfectly and I love how you write Techno. I get so hyped for your updates I’ve literally spoken about it to real life friends lol. Also! You introduced the politics and worldbuilding so well so well that I just me wanna know more.

I’m sure you get this a lot, that you’re a wonderful, really talented writer.

(Also that ask you sent anarachy-and-piglins, yeah how are you able to get me SO hooked with one tumblr ask? that was amazing I will be thinking a lot about it thank you very much, if you have even one crumb to share about it I would love to hear)

You know anon, first I gotta thank you because I did NOT realize I had asks turned off on paladinpalindrome. That's a big oopsie on my part. And you sending this ask let me know I did that so now I can fix it. So, omg thanks.

Second of all, I am currently a puddle of goo. Just, goo on the floor. This comment was so nice, I just completely melted. I am the first goo to be able to use a keyboard because you are just SO INCREDIBLY NICE. I don't even know WHAT to do with you telling me I'm your favorite fanfic author. I am overjoyed that you enjoy my story that much. I'm having a blast writing it, and it just makes it so much fun knowing that others like it to.

You saying you reread it is breaking my brain. Like asjkhks. Someone liked it enough to reread. I'm blushing. Blushing is something goo can do, right?

I do pour a lot of effort into it. I want it to be good. I enjoy making it good. Even if sometimes I get a little stuck, I love the story so much and want to do it justice. Sometimes I feel a little like I am being a bit too much of a perfectionist with it, seeing little flaws that are probably not there or not a big deal, but I think that is everyone who tries to make art or write or create in general. Like, Characterization? I try really hard on that. Like really really hard. I want it to feel authentic. I don't want the characters to feel ooc. But I also want to indulge in the writing tropes that I find fun. Which means thinking of realistic reasons for those situations to occur. And I am so so touched to hear that I am doing that successfully. It makes me feel great.

Also, the politics and worldbuilding is so fun, but also INCREDIBLY exhausting. Why did I make the world so big, oh ancients. (The answer was because it's fun but keeping everything straight is very hard).

I'm so incredibly happy that you think I am doing a good job. That is-well, goo-inducing. I don't have the words to describe the happy bubbling feeling. I am twirling my hair.

I'm assuming you mean the Dark Royal SBI ask I sent to Anarchy-and-Piglins. I don't have a ton of concrete ideas on it yet. If I do write it, I won't post it until I have the whole thing written out. Just because that would maybe help me NOT blow it up into a 100k word monster like To Be Truly Free has become. Maybe. Hopefully.

As for crumbs with it, hmmm. I kinda like the idea that Tommy doesn't like Techno at first? You know, he's jealous of all the time that Will spends with Techno and so he isn't warming up to him. But at a dinner, Techno secretly offers to eat Tommy's vegetables that he doesn't want to eat (they were carrots, why would Tommy want to eat carrots? ew). When Phil turns his back for a second, Techno scoops them up in his hand and shoves them all in his mouth in one bite. When Phil turn back, all of Tommy's veggies are gone so Tommy can go play. Techno has to pretend that he doesn't have a mouth full of food, because that isn't very polite. Luckily, its not all that strange for him to be a little less talkative. Tommy starts to warm up to him after that.

Phil knew, of course, but he wanted his new sonboy to get along with his kids. However, he doesn't give them a chance to do it again so Tommy still has to eat his veggies.

Thank you so much for the ask! And thank you for your kind words <3 <3 <3

[mxndwitch]

PSA

This is a PSA about the changes that will be implemented on this blog from now on. I will put them under a read more, so that I don’t clog anyone’s dash, but I would kindly ask everyone to take a look at them and then decide for yourselves if you want to keep following me, or not. 

I am going private and mutuals only. That means I will no longer reply to people who are not my mutuals and most likely stay away from following blogs first. Following people has become such an anxiety inducing task in the last year that I will just keep my inner circle small. If you follow me first and I decide not to follow back, please don’t take it personally. I will be much more selective with who I follow from now on than I was before.

I will unfollow people who have never interacted with me/ have not made any effort in a couple of months to interact. I understand that life is busy and sometimes the muses just prefer certain people, but I don’t want to clutter my dash with people who have no interest in actually being mutuals. I don’t collect writers for the follower count, but actually want to write with the people I follow

Anon will be turned off until further notice, so if you’d like to send me hate, I guess you’ll have to do it while showing your face

I have already unfollowed all inactive blogs. If I have accidentally unfollowed one of your sideblogs, please let me know. Sometimes I forget who is who

I will not tolerate any hate on my dash whatsoever. That includes anon hate, continuously shitting on MCU content, gatekeeping, gaslighting and general lack of human decency

Last but not least I’m gonna be very blunt here and put it out into the world once and for all ( with the preface that if this is a reason for you to unfollow me, no hard feelings bruh. Do whatever you need ): I will not change my fc. I am aware of the gatekeeping culture concerning the Maximoffs in the fandom and this past year has been the absolute worst for me here when it comes to getting hate, solely over the fact that people cannot separate the MCU from the comic contents. Yes, the Maximoff twins had an entirely different background in the comics than they have in the MCU now and I would have appreciated it to remain the same, but fact is, the MCU did not have the legal rights to use the comic background and therefore created a completely new origin story. Elizabeth Olsen has poured her heart and talent into portraying Wanda Maximoff and I will not stop using her to cater to other people’s needs for political correctness ( or their idea of it ). I have personally met and worked with Lizzie and she was one of the kindest, most considerate people I have been blessed to encounter. She has never personally done anything to me that would make me want to stop supporting her and I am tired of defending myself for my choice. I have lost year long friendships over this debate and the constant hate i have been getting for over a year now has gotten to me. I have been very close to leaving recently, but I will not let other people take away something I thoroughly enjoy. I’ve had Wanda since 2015 and I will not throw away 7 years of writing a character I have loved since the moment I first saw her on screen.

If this is something you feel strongly about and cannot tolerate, that is absolutely fine with me. Everyone has their opinions and personal preferences and unlike some people, I will never tell anyone what to do with their own blogs. We are essentially all here to write and to develop the characters we’ve fallen in love with. For some that comes with the faceclaims of said characters, for others it means finding a new one they like more. Both is absolutely valid and should be respected. I wished the fandom would be a more considerate, open minded, tolerant place for all of us to peacefully exist in, but since that is apparently not possible, we all have to do what we can to make our dashes safe spaces.

Thanks if you have read all of this. If our ways part here, I wish you all the best and hope your future in the fandom will be fun and filled with amazing plots. If you decide to stay, I am looking forward to interacting with you in the future.

Cheers, Katie <3

[joshnekuu]

Sometimes I feel bad that my blog is such an eclectic mix of things depending on what mood I’m in or literally just whatever comes across my dash that I feel like reblogging. Like depending on the day it’s a pretty varied mix of memes, fandom stuff, various aesthetic pics, serious stuff, and misc.

And sometimes I feel like I should just have separate blogs for various things- a specific blog for my fate stuff, a specific blog for aesthetic things (which I do have a few aesthetic sideblogs but I’ve always tried not to make too many because I don’t want it to become something overwhelming for me). I feel like there’s not much point sharing my feelings or opinions a lot of the time because I just reblog so much shit it’s going to get buried immediately anyway, and I feel like no one knows me so they can’t really care about me because who am I anyway?? Just a rando who bounces back and forth between anime memes and political discourse and bug pics.

And yeah it’s my blog, I can do whatever I want, but idk. I just feel isolated on here sometimes. I feel like I used to be more interactive. I used to talk about stuff and answer questions and whatever but now I just keep my feelings in the tags of things.

I don’t want to split every little interest of mine up into a dozen blogs dedicated to a single thing, but at the same time I feel like I need separate spaces to talk about certain things because I wind up feeling like my current blog just isn’t a space for talking about anime aus and stuff anymore because it’s just too busy and has too big a mix of content.

[wordsablaze]

Touch And Go

day six, where dick realises there’s no way to fit back into his life after returning from spyral...

A/N: blame spyral for this, i’m still mad about it. whumptober prompt: touch starved

-

Cold had become a constant in Dick’s life.

Cold words, cold stares, cold nights, cold shoulders, cold drinks, cold reports, cold hands, cold everything .

He thinks the cold might have been the worst part of being undercover. Because sure, the risks and the deadlines and the uncertainty hadn’t exactly been fun, but the cold had been something beyond awful: the cold had been lonely.

Dick grew up surrounded by people and love and warmth, and then he grew up around fewer people and more subtle love but somehow just as much warmth, and then he became a part of the people and love and warmth that yet another version of his family was growing up surrounded by.

He didn’t always do a great job of providing love and warmth, he knows, but he tried. And he liked to think that it had worked because every time he felt like the nights were too dark or too long or too haunted, nostalgia had only brought back memories of smiles and bickering and warmth that fuelled him to keep working, to keep fighting, to just generally keep going.

Only, he must have thought wrong.

He must have, because now he’s back to living normally and he’s actually allowed to exist in daylight and everything should be fine, but it’s not; he hadn’t been foolish enough to think everyone would forgive him immediately - pretending he was dead is far worse than dropping off the grid for a few days after a fight - but he had apparently been foolish enough to think everyone would forgive him at all.  

Nightwing returns with relative ease but Dick Grayson finds himself unwanted.

He’s unwanted when he tries to talk to Jason about the classics he’d read to cope but finds himself met with only vague comments about their opinions being mismatched. He’s unwanted when he offers Tim help with his research for a case he’s been looking into all night but finds himself met with barely polite dismissals. He’s unwanted when he offers to take Damian out for some fun but finds himself met with scowls and excuses that only half make sense.

So he stops trying to be wanted.

He leaves Gotham.

He finds a new place in Bludhaven and spends every night throwing around threats and punches until the crime rate drops to unprecedented low levels, then continues to patrol as if his life depends on it anyway. He won’t admit it, but it somewhat does.

And he knows he’s getting a very strange reputation because every gang has a different theory about his return and why his puns are often mixed with bloodlust and why he never seems to sleep, but he couldn’t care less - he doesn’t let himself care because caring is warm and he is oh so cold and there’s no changing that.

Some days, usually after bad nights, he craves warmth. He craves hands running gently through his hair, he craves arms wrapped tightly around him, he craves fingers intertwined seamlessly with his own, he craves and craves and craves so badly that it hurts.

There are no painkillers that work against this kind of cold.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s summer or winter, the cold sticks to his skin like lichen to a rock. He wants desperately for someone to replace it with the warmth of human contact but his only option is getting into fights and although trading punches with the criminal underworld can be a good distraction, he’s still on his own again by the time he gets back from patrol.

“Richard?”

Well, he’s usually on his own.

He flinches at the sound of his name, not having heard anyone say it for far too long, instinctively unsheathing his escrima sticks and positioning himself defensively because he can’t think of anyone who would be in his apartment unless they’re trying to kill him.

“There’s no need for that, it’s just me.”

Me?

Me, who?

Dick drops his escrima sticks, not sure whether he does so because something in his head tells him the voice can be trusted or if he just doesn’t care enough to protect himself any longer.

“Richard?”

This time, the voice sounds concerned and Dick finally looks up.

He blinks.

And blinks again, because there’s no way Damian is standing in front of him right now.

There’s no way anyone can be standing in front of him right now. He hasn’t spoken to any of his family - if he’s even still allowed to call them that - for weeks and they’ve given no indication of caring what he’s been doing or even where he is so Damian being here is illogical at best and another hallucination at worst.

“Richard- Dick? Are you hurt?”

It’s the use of his preferred nickname that jolts Dick out of his shock. He swallows and shakes his head, pulling himself upright and resisting the urge to ask how Damian is doing, how everyone is doing, how the people he loves but isn’t loved back by are doing without him.

“Damian. It’s uhm, it’s really nice to see you. Is there something I can help you with?” he asks, smiling.

Damian frowns at him, glancing between his abandoned weapons and the awkward way he’s holding himself before clicking his tongue. “Alfred would like to invite you back home for dinner.”

Dick laughs.

“Home?” he echoes.

The manor hasn’t been his home since he died.

Home is people and love and warmth and the manor is none of those things. It can’t be any of those things because everyone living there hates him and everything about the place leaves him feeling empty and everywhere he goes, he is always alone and cold.

“I would also appreciate your presence,” Damian adds softly, stepping forwards.

Under any other circumstances, Dick would congratulate his little brother on expressing his feelings. But now he knows better than to think Damian would tolerate that so he just steps back, wrapping his arms around his stomach and clenching his hands into fists around his suit. “No, you wouldn’t.”

“Richard, I-”

“It’s okay, I know you can’t forgive me,” Dick interrupts, knowing that anything Damian says would probably break him to the point of no return. “You don’t need to explain, I don’t blame you. I- I love you and… and I understand. And I’m sorry- I’m so, so, sorry. I just- I get it and I’m so sorry.”

Before Damian can get any closer, Dick grabs his escrima sticks and all but flings himself out of the window, knowing that he can never go back to that apartment and will most definitely have to relocate once more. But that’s okay because anything and anywhere will be better than being reminded of the people he will never see again, of the love he will never share again, of the warmth he will never feel again.

-

accidentally turned him into a more angsty elsa, oops-

-

thanks for reading !! masterlist | dc sideblog: @batfamvibes

[utilitycaster]

Actual Play: How it works

This is a collection of how I think of actual play as a medium, because TTRPG actual play is a unique one - a combination of improvisation, a rule set, and randomizing elements. This isn’t fully comprehensive, and I may add to it in the future as I come up with more ideas. I’m also thinking of providing some examples/more in-depth stuff for the items in separate posts, so please let me know if that’s something you would want.

Most of the observations here heavily skew towards D&D and Pathfinder actual play, as they are what I know best. Other systems I’ve listened to (PbtA, Cortex, Savage Worlds) fit in here as well, but this may not apply to all actual play, particularly GM-less games or games that are primarily played as one-shots.

Finally, and I say this only because it is a recurring problem on the social media that I happen to find incredibly irritating: you are also welcome and encouraged to have other opinions, disagree with me, dislike all of this, etc. If you have things to say, my inbox is the best place; this is too long for multiple reblogs and this is a sideblog so replies are tricky. However, if you are the kind of person who is inclined to say things like “Actually, there was an exception to this rule! It’s in the backmasked audio at 06:59:32 in the outtakes of episode 192c of Dungeons and Discotheques! :)” I would like to provide you with this actual play line quote from Adaine Abernant in Fantasy High: I think that you feel like you have a lot to offer, and please take this the right way... you don't.

Onto the thoughts, below the jump!

On narrative devices and rules and the random element:

Foreshadowing is possible, but limited to specific circumstances. A GM can (and should) foreshadow! The point of foreshadowing is to set expectations, and GMs should have hints that indicate things about the world that the party may encounter later, provide potential plot hooks, or otherwise provide the party with information. Similarly, players can do things that nod towards as of yet unrevealed elements of their backstories. However, it is impossible to deliberately foreshadow plot resolutions, because it is unknown what they will be. That doesn’t mean that in retrospect things may happen that echo back to earlier events, but the intent to foreshadow was not there - it’s a happy accident.

I don’t want to say normal narrative rules don’t apply because what are the normal narrative rules, really? However, I think an important thing to emphasize is that narrative satisfaction is not guaranteed. This is especially true if the cast has agreed character death is an option, but even beyond that, an unlucky or lucky roll can seemingly cut an arc short or take things in a weird and unforeseen direction. Because there is an element of randomness, randomness will occur. This, along with the character agency I discuss later, is one of my favorite things about actual play. It strips out the need for a moral or message or specific beats - not that those can’t arise, but they can’t be forced - and as such it can make for unusual, creative, and very true-to-life stories even in a fantasy setting.

On character role, viewpoint and agency:

Actual play stories have an ensemble of viewpoint characters (the PCs). This is perhaps the clearest restriction that exists, at least in all of the game systems I’ve mentioned. There is no good way to depict NPCs acting on their own unless the PCs have a way to observe them, unseen (magical or mundane). It is extremely difficult to have one player play multiple PCs, and if a player leaves there is not a good way to recast their PC. This doesn’t mean NPCs can’t do things with each other offscreen that have implications for the story, nor that PCs can’t come and go or become NPCs, but it does mean a good GM is very careful about NPC interactions because it gets very boring and non-collaborative very quickly to watch someone talk with themselves.

The PCs hold a level of agency that characters in other media do not. Statements about how the characters have a mind of their own in original fiction aside (sidebar: I am team ‘they don’t, you just didn’t realize that the way you wrote their personality and the way you wrote your plot conflicted until you actually started writing it out, which is very understandable’) PCs do in fact have a mind of their own separate from the GM and from each other.

Something I like about this is that unless you are coming up with conspiracy theories regarding the interpersonal dynamics of the players themselves (in which case I think you’re both a creep and a weirdo (derogatory)) or if the GM is not respecting player agency (which I feel is usually very easy to see; see below for more on that) you do not get cases of “these characters are together simply because the author felt like pairing them off” as can happen in scripted media. Any romantic relationship is, inherently, a mutually agreed choice between the originators of these characters, and more generally any plot or relationship necessarily needs to have something that appeals to all characters involved. It may be as simple as “these are my friends and I want to keep hanging out”, but, despite this being improv, it’s a medium where saying “no” is always an option.

With that said there is still room for players to be uncooperative or selfish. It’s rare, but it does exist, and I’m personally of the opinion that it’s in part the GM’s responsibility to have a conversation with that player and to not play into their attention grabbing. That said, with one notable exception, all the accusations I’ve seen about this have seemed to me to be more “I don’t like this player/character/ship/arc and I am going to claim they are stealing focus, despite it being justified,” and not genuinely about a player being obnoxious.

Agency separate from the person who creates the world is perhaps the most unique element of actual play and at this point I’m going to talk a little about how a good GM fosters that.

I’ve said before that when a GM has things happen that are not at least mostly a direct response to character actions, they are typically either world-building or a hook, and can be both. I think of this sort of as a variant on Chekhov’s gun, actually; the gun doesn’t have to go off, ultimately, in actual play, but it is saying the following:

This is a world where there are guns hung on the wall sometimes.

Someone else might do something with this gun.

You can attempt to do something with this gun before they do.

And then the players decide how they want to interpret it and what they want to do, and the dice indicate the level of success in doing so.

A good GM should encourage the players to explore and be creative, and more than anything, reward agency. This doesn’t mean rewarding it with success; rather, it means if someone explicitly indicates they want to interact with an element of the world, you should give them the tools such that eventually, they can try to do so. You can also give them reasons in-game why they should change their mind, or make it so that it’s almost certain to fail if that is reasonable, but if you are trying to flat-out shut it down without providing an in-world reason why, the cracks will almost certainly show.

One important thing to remember about GM-ing: GMs will probably come into the game with some ideas of what’s going on in the world, and some level of understanding of what the world looks like. That will be influenced by the players, both in terms of the consequences of their actions and choices, and also by what the players are interested in. Which is to say: even if there is a session zero, and the GM states a specific premise, that can change! Characters develop, player interests change, dice rolls do weird things, and so a good GM absolutely must if not kill their darlings at least remove, recycle, and adapt them based on the direction of the game and motivations of the characters. Even in a plot-driven campaign, the players and GM and what makes them happy needs to drive the story, because fundamentally, this is a game that should be fun. Which brings us to...

On the Watsonian and the Doylist in actual play:

Stepping back for a second: the context in which people are creating fiction influences them. End of sentence. It’s ridiculous to think it doesn’t. This means everything from political events and worldwide trends, to the media the creator is consuming or has consumed, to personal life events. There are always going to be in- and out-of-universe explanations for choices in fiction.

In actual play, the players and GM know the underlying rules of the world, and it’s difficult to truly split the party and have everyone not involved leave in a way that feels fun, so everyone always has information that they can’t really use in-game. Also it’s a fully improvised medium that is primarily theater of the mind, so unconscious choices, misunderstandings, and accidents are frequently not edited out, and people are human. Which is to say I think it’s important to take this into consideration in one’s analysis; it’s not that you can’t incorporate a Watsonian reason for something that happened, but Doylist reasons are given a weight that they may not have in an edited work.

Three of the Doylist reasons beyond the misunderstandings and accidents I wanted to cover are metagaming, awareness that this is for an audience, and character knowledge.

Metagaming exists in many TTRPGs, and it’s not actually inherently bad. When a DM in D&D says “that just hits” you get an idea of the AC of the creature, and you know your own attack rolls, and you can make decisions based on that, when, in a ‘real’ fantasy battle scenario, you probably wouldn’t gain all that insight from a single hit. The rules of the TTRPG are considered part of normal acceptable metagaming. There’s also the more general one; if you start the first session in a tavern, there is an unspoken expectation that the PCs will interact and form an impromptu group and not just quietly drink their ale and leave - basically, the rules of improv still apply. This is a good thing. And finally, there’s the acknowledgement that you are people with feelings and this is a game and so if someone is upset you stop, or you have discussions about consent between sessions that inform actions in-game. Metagaming just gets obnoxious when someone rolls a nat 1 and then argues that this is obvious information and they should know, or looks up every monster in the manual when you encounter it instead of playing true to the character’s knowledge.

In actual play, the ‘hey fellow tavern-goers, would you like to be a group’ form of metagaming, the “oh right this is a story and we should move the story forward,” is even more important than in home D&D games. This is where I recommend listening or reading some Q&As or watching some after shows, because you’ll hear players talk about this. A 5-hour shopping episode or extensive foraging can get boring to watch or listen to (and unlike accidentally boring or frustrating things, are pretty easy to predict and avoid). On the flip side, a risky choice might seem more appealing when you know there’s an audience who would love the payoff.

I am personally, perhaps unsurprisingly given what I said about player dynamic conspiracy theories and randomness (or, outside of this post, my strong dislike of certain popular fan theories), not a big fan of creators catering to audiences’ every whim...but it’s unavoidable that they will take the audience experience in mind.

Finally, character knowledge, which is the opposite of metagaming - when a character knows something the player doesn’t. This is sometimes covered with, for example, GM statements like “you would know, as a person with history proficiency, that this country is actually in a regency period.” If the character had, in improv, before the GM had a chance to say that, mentioned the king, that’s just because the player did not know that and had made an assumption.

Personally I find going deep down the rabbit hole with things like this - “why doesn’t this character, who CLAIMS to be from this country, not know this?”, or clearly OOC statements - tends not to actually spark any interesting theories, but that is, ultimately, an opinion.

A few final thoughts on different formats of actual play

True livestream/live-to-tape (Critical Role, Into the Motherlands, and the second season of Fantasy High): the main thing to keep in mind is Doylist explanations are even more important because there is quite literally no editing. Also, there will possibly be some of those more boring stretches or even a little OOC metagaming discussions within the structure of the game, because there’s no way around it.

Editing, but primarily just to remove long explanations/math and doing soundscaping (NADDPod, Rusty Quill Gaming): Pretty similar; a lot of them even make the choice to leave in OOC metagaming discussions, so it’s mostly that there are fewer cases of people slowly adding numbers.

More extensive editing and possibly some predefined other elements (TAZ, most Dimension 20 shows): this may fall into a more traditional story structure. It’s not to say that there won’t be surprises, because the players do still have agency, but the ‘rails’ might be a little more apparent; there might be some DM monologuing done after the fact (beyond just cleaning up the audio) or choices that were not scripted per se, but not exactly improvised either (think how D20 tends to have pre-set battle maps and earlier seasons had a pretty strict RP/Battle structure.

Somewhat relatedly there are broad story structures, which is more of a spectrum, ranging from sandbox (Critical Role) to very clearly GM-driven missions (TAZ Balance and, to an extent, Amnesty); nearly all of the other shows here fall into a structure of “here is your overall goal, how precisely you get there is up to you although, like any GM, I will provide in-story information on where it may make sense to go that will often funnel you towards specific places.”

I do have a theory that since TAZ Balance in particular was an entry point for so many people, it takes them time to adjust to the more sprawling, unpredictable, and difficult-to-organize stories other actual play can have, but ultimately it is a matter of personal preference and all of these still fall into the category of actual play.

[coffeestainsandcashmere]

Let No Man Steal Your Thyme - (older Dramione), Part Four

Well, here’s part four for you! It’s really just part three continued, but since I didn’t want the previous part to be 7k words or so long, I split it up. The total wordcount is 12.4k words now!!

Thank you very much to those of you who’ve commented and sent me lovely owls on here to let me know you’re enjoying it! (this is a sideblog for me, so I don’t respond to comments on posts, but I do answer asks as Cashmere).

I know a lot of folks (me included) don’t like starting to read WIPs that are unfinished, so thanks to those of you who have hopped on now. Consider yourselves honoured beta readers! It’ll go up on AO3 when it’s all posted on here and completed.

No real warnings for this one, just some discussion of their past relationships (for both Hermione and Draco) before the plot thickens and things warm up a bit in part five. Not sure when that’ll go up - it kind of depends on how much feedback I get on this one I guess! Comments and reblogs feed an author’s muse after all.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

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At her wry smile and tiny shrug, Malfoy laughed, apparently reassured. “A little,” he repeated softly to himself under his breath.  

After a heartbeat she shot him a sidelong look and added, “You’ve changed so much, Draco. I can hardly believe it, but it’s clear as day.”

He did a little double take at the sound of his name on her lips, and then he smiled. It was such a tiny, fragile melting of his expression that she nearly missed it.  

“I mean it,” she said, tightening her fingers on his steel-cable forearm for a fraction of a second. “I don’t know if it was the war or your marriage, or becoming a father, or something else entirely, but… you’re not the same person you were back at Hogwarts. Not at all.”

“Thank fuck for that,” he hissed. “I had a hell of a lot of growing up to do. I think I did ninety percent of it in the space of sixth year. But Astoria helped steady me after… after Hogwarts and all the bollocks and bullshit of the aftermath of… of… you know.”

“‘Bollocks and bullshit’ is a mighty casual way to say ‘a short stay in Azkaban and three years of house arrest’, Malfoy. That’s got to change a person, for sure.”  

He shrugged. “I’m just glad it’s all in the past now. For the most part, anyway.” The silence that followed spoke volumes of the baggage that they were all still hauling around with them, of one kind or another.  

They wound their way across the park’s pathways with no particular direction in mind. As the glittering waters of the Serpentine drew into view in the deepening dusk, she murmured, “I’m glad you came tonight.”

“Me too,” he said, voice little more than a low rumble above the sussurating wind in the trees. “Theo seemed on fine form, and it was nice to see Pans again. It’s been a few months. Longbottom looks good too,” he added as an afterthought. “He grew into himself, didn’t he?”

“Mmm,” she nodded. “Never would have called his and Pansy’s relationship though. I thought she went for the bad boys like you and Blaise…”

Malfoy snorted. “I’m a ‘bad boy’ now, am I? That’s an interesting spin on my past.”

“Maybe not so much ‘bad boy’ now as ‘grumpy reclusive Mr. Rochester’. How about that?”

“He one of your Muggle heroes?” he asked without sting.  

“Yeah. He’s Jane Eyre’s leading male. A bad-tempered rich man who has a big house in the middle of nowhere and a secret deranged wife in the attic.”

“Well, I hit three out of the four criteria…” he said and Hermione’s heart lurched as she remembered he wasn’t a bachelor but a widower.  

“Shit, Draco, I’m sorry,” she said. “That was thoughtless of me.”

He shook his head, the silver hair of his forelock tossing about as he chuckled, an entirely unfamiliar sound which she decided she wanted to hear again almost immediately. “It’s fine, Granger. You haven’t got a malicious bone in your body. Besides, it was a long time ago.”  

They came naturally to a halt in front of the man-made lake and stared out at the lapping water for a time before she uncoupled her grip from his arm and shucked her coat back on.  

That done, she drew in a deep breath and paused, leaning her forearms on the back of a cast-iron bench overlooking a flock of huddled, plastic pedalo boats moored up offshore. Malfoy remained a pace behind her, back straight as an arrow, his hands tucked into his pockets now that she was no longer hanging onto him.  

A fair few Muggles were out and about, some walking lazily as she and Draco had been, others pounding along the pavement on their evening run, and a good number were walking dogs. The sheer mundanity of it all struck her deeply for a moment and her breath caught in her throat.  

“Granger?” he asked in a soft voice.  

She straightened and turned to look back at him over her shoulder. “I was just thinking how close we came to losing all of this… Sometimes it seems like a million years ago, and others…”

“Like yesterday,” he finished a beat later. His eyes glittered in the half-light, pale lashes ghostly and ethereal, and in the dark, his pupils were wide and black and inviting.  

“Let’s keep going, hmm?” she chirped.  

In fact, he walked her all the way back to her rather modest apartment in Muggle London. “You didn’t want to live closer to work at the bookshop?” he asked as she fumbled for her very ordinary, Muggle keys with half-frozen fingers.  

Giving up, she murmured a quick ‘alohomora’ and pressed her hand to the extra ward she had placed on it. “I’ve lived here since I moved out of the house with Ron. Never seen any point in looking for something bigger or whatever. It’s cosy, and it’s just me anyway. You want to come in? I’ll have to tweak the wards if you do.”

“I… I don’t want to be a bother,” he said, his expression pinching.  

“No bother. It’s a three minute job, if that.”  

He looked torn, teetering on the edge of a refusal, but as she swept her curls back out of her face and blinked up at him, he seemed to waver, and finally he nodded. “Alright. Yes please.”

“Stay put. I’ll be right back,” she said, and left the door open so that he wouldn’t feel like a stray dog shut out in the cold.  

After setting her bag and coat down on a sofa in the main living room, she stood and centred herself, reaching for the wards with her magic. They thrummed reassuringly as she wove a slightly different pattern into them, allowing Draco Malfoy to come and go, and then she released the magic once again.  

“Ok!” she called to him and he stepped tentatively inside, shutting the door with a polite click behind him and levering off his fancy dragonhide Oxfords at the doormat.  

There was something so intimately sweet about seeing him pad across the fake-wooden lino of her living room floor in his dark socks that she couldn’t help grinning.  

“Those are some powerful wards you’ve got up,” he commented as he blinked curiously around the room.  

“Hangover from the Ministry days, I suppose. Plus this is technically a Muggle building, so I can’t have anyone noticing anything strange. There’s another witch here, up on the seventh floor, but we don’t see each other often. You want something to drink? I’ve got tea or coffee, and a small selection of wine, though nothing nearly as nice as what Theo has on tap…”

He smiled. “A tea would be lovely.”

She ducked out into the tiny galley kitchen and lost herself in the simple task of filling and boiling the Muggle kettle. She turned to find Malfoy leaning his shoulder against the door frame, hands cupped under opposite elbows, watching her with that owl-like intensity again.  

“Muggle kitchen,” she grinned almost sheepishly. “Magic is great for a lot of things, but some routines just can’t be beaten.” Ron had always hated and mistrusted things like electric kettles and refrigerators, not quite fully understanding the way it grounded her in her Muggle upbringing.  

“I’m not judging you,” he said, voice low and slightly hoarse. “I’m just interested. Do you mind?”

“No,” she said, fishing in the cupboard for her selection of teabags. She held the cardboard box open for him to select one and her eyebrows rose when he chose a delicate mint and chamomile one, but she offered no comment. “I can give you a masterclass in using Muggle kitchens if you like.”

His lips pulled back into a broad, dazzling smile and he laughed. “Go on then.”

“Fridge,” she said, opening it and showing him. “Keeps things cold; powered by electricity. Freezer, keeps things, well, frozen…” She continued her tour while the tea steeped, and by the time she was done, the tea was ready and they made their way back out into the humble living room, with a second-hand sofa and a battered old coffee table with more ringed coffee-stains on than visible surface.  

Her stomach rumbled and he raised an eyebrow at her.  

“I didn’t get a chance to eat anything yet, other than nibbles at Theo’s,” she cringed.

“Don’t let me stop you having something for supper then,” he said.  

“I’m not going to scoff a freezer dinner on my own while you sit there and watch me,” she blurted, laughing. “Unless you want to join me? I’ve got a couple of pizzas in the freezer. Nothing fancy, but they’ll be ready in twenty minutes or so if I put the oven on now.”

Malfoy looked like he’d missed something somewhere but was too embarrassed to ask, so he just said, “Pizza? Sure. The last time I had pizza was when I took Scorpius to Rome.”

“Well,” she said, setting her mug down on the table and heading into the kitchen. Over her shoulder, she called, “I can guaranteed these won’t be nearly as good as those were, but they’re pretty tasty. I think they’re both chicken and pesto - is that alright?”

“Perfectly.”

Oven on, she returned and folded herself into the squashy armchair which sat at right angles to the sofa, tucking one leg up beneath her and drawing the other foot up beside her. Malfoy, of course, sat like he was about to take tea with the Queen, while she felt like a pretzel on a shelf. A comfy pretzel though, she thought as she reached for her mug.  

“I’m glad we walked back,” she said after a moment. “I can’t believe I worked myself up into such a tizzy over Ron like that. It’s so childish…”

Malfoy sipped his tea and then cradled it between his long, pale fingers for a moment. “What happened between you two? I thought you three were —”

“— the ‘Golden Trio’?” she purred, voice laden with sarcasm.  

He made a conciliatory gesture with his head but said nothing more.  

She sighed. “We were. I mean, Harry and I are still super close - I’m James’ godmother after all. Ginny’s the sister I never had, but something went wrong with Ron somewhere along the line.” She knew exactly what the final blow had been, but there had been a myriad other issues on both sides before that. “I think… I think he felt like he never had a real niche, you know? He was always second fiddle to Harry in the heroics and quidditch departments, and, well, everyone knows I was the brains of the trio,” she said self-effacingly. “That’s not to say that he’s stupid — he’s not.”  

Malfoy scoffed at that, and for a moment she saw the petulant, petty little thirteen year old he had once been. A deeply sceptical look filled his eyes, and he looked like he was physically biting his tongue to keep himself from disagreeing with her.  

“No, really,” she scowled. “He just makes stupid, split-second decisions without thinking anything through. I’m not defending what he did or how he behaved at the end of our marriage, but…” she sighed heavily and drank a mouthful of too-hot tea that scalded her throat on its way down. “He’s in a pretty good place now with Lavender. We just… rub each other up the wrong way, even now I think.”

“Theo said he was being an arsehole earlier,” Malfoy pushed.  

She shrugged. “A bit. I think he carries a lot of bitterness towards…” she gestured vaguely in Malfoy’s direction, “… Slytherins? I’m not really sure. Stupid house prejudices that a lot of witches and wizards clearly never get over. As if one moment in our history defines us for the rest of our lives, or as if we’re limited to the characteristics of the house we were sorted into at the age of eleven… It’s just so fucking dumb, Malfoy!”

He laughed softly at that.  

“What? You don’t agree?”

“No, I absolutely agree with you. I was enjoying hearing you swear, that’s all. Forgive me.”

She flushed and looked away, anger leaving her as swiftly as it had come. “Ron has a lot of insecurities, and a few of them centre around me, but… I guess I just wasn’t enough for him in the end.”

“How could you possibly be ‘not enough’ for someone, Granger?” Draco asked in a hoarse whisper. “And you were the bloody Minister for Magic for Merlin’s sake…! What more did he want from his witch? Morgana herself reincarnated?”

She laughed long and loud at that, and Malfoy seemed to relax a little in the wake of his little outburst. “My reign was very short though,” she said as she stood and took the opportunity to put the pizzas in the oven. When she returned, she asked carefully, “What about you and Astoria?”  

“What about us?” he asked, voice even and steady, though his eyes swirled softly like Trelawney’s crystal balls, hiding their secrets behind a shifting sheen of silver.  

“Were you happy?”

Malfoy’s eyes slid away from her to stare unseeing at a point across the room, and he sat back against the sofa cushions, still nursing his cheap, Tesco mug between his hands.

“Yes,” he said eventually. “For the most part we were. It wasn’t… earth-shattering or anything, but it was pretty good, all things considered. It was arranged by our families, you know?”

She nodded.

“I knew Astoria’s older sister, Daphne, far better than I knew her, but Daph promised to an Austrian count already. He’s actually very nice. I’m glad for her.”

“I vaguely remember Daphne from school, but I didn’t have many classes with her as we got older.”

“I’d met Astoria a few times before it was all formally arranged, but even then, we only met a total of perhaps five or six times before the wedding proper. It wasn’t the huge event my mother had always dreamed of throwing for me, but with my father in Azkaban and me under house arrest, the mood wasn’t really there, you know?”  

Hermione did some quick maths and realised he must have been only nineteen or so when he’d been married, and her eyes widened. She’d only been twenty-two when Ron and she had tied the knot, but still, that struck her as very young. Scorpius hadn’t been born straight away though, and there had been vicious gossip about blood-curse-related infertility until the little mandrake had arrived. Hermione been about to make the leap to Minister at the incredibly tender age of twenty five when the attack on the Manor had taken place, and Scorpius had been mere months old at the time.

“Toria and I grew to know each other better,” Draco went on, “And in time, I think we came to love each other, in our own way. She certainly adored Scorpius before the blood curse took her.”

“What was she like?” Hermione asked in a whisper.  

Again, Malfoy sighed and closed his eyes with his head tipped back to rest against the sofa cushions. “Quiet, intelligent, articulate, easy-going most of the time, but when she got passionate about something, she could be pretty stubborn. Scorpius inherited a lot of that from her.”

“He looks like you though,” she said. “I mean… almost exactly like you did at that age. It gave me quite the turn when I saw the two of you on Platform 9 3/4 you know?”

He smirked and cracked an eye open. “Tell me about it,” he said. “Mother is always calling him ‘Draco’ instead of ‘Scorpius’. It drives him nuts.”

They shared a laugh at that. “Your mother lives with you at the Manor then?”

“Yes and no,” he said, shuffling a little and getting comfy again, relaxing his torso more casually against the arm of the sofa at last. “She moved out of the main manor when Toria and I married. Now she lives at what we affectionately call the Dower House. Officially it’s called Nightshade Cottage.”

“Ominous name,” she said and he smiled again.  

“Apt though. There’s a rambling, stone-walled potion-garden round the back of it, full of all sorts of interesting plants, and a stunning rose garden at the front. It’s really beautiful in spring, and rather potent in summer.”

“You make it sound almost welcoming,” she said without thinking and he huffed a dry laugh.  

“Parts of the estate really are lovely, Granger; its sordid past notwithstanding.”

When the beeper went on the timer, Malfoy jumped and looked confused, but she laughed and showed him. She did use her wand to cut up the pizzas though, and by the time they were seated back on the sofas with plates in their lap, they resumed their easy talk as if they’d never been interrupted. Watching Malfoy in his fancy clothes and eating pizza with his hands was almost too much for Hermione to bear, but if she focused on his voice too much instead, she found herself mesmerised on that front too. Who’d have thought that Hermione Granger would have found herself growing more and more attracted to Draco Malfoy all these years later.  

Long after they’d finished eating, they spoke a little more of Scorpius, and how Malfoy guessed he was getting on after his first week at school. “Of course, he hasn’t written to me yet, but I’m hoping he might pen something this weekend…”

“You worry about him, don’t you?”

“Constantly,” he snorted. “One of the burdens of being a father, I suppose.”

“Of being a good one,” she amended, and she didn’t miss the way he swallowed thickly and blinked his glassy eyes rapidly a few times.  

Then he sighed expansively and then levered himself to his feet. “It’s late, Granger, and I should probably be going. I’ve got a meeting to get to early tomorrow morning in Scotland, and I still have a bit of paperwork to do tonight.”

“But it’s the weekend, Malfoy,” she said as she rose too. “You can’t have to work, surely?”

He nodded and shrugged, but made his way to the door and slid his feet back into his shoes without further comment or explanation.  

A little, fluttering, doxy-wing cloud of nerves shimmered to life in her chest as they stood face to face at the door. Malfoy swallowed again and hitched a tiny, lopsided smile. “Thanks for tonight, Granger. And…” he faltered and shook his head. “Yeah,” he said roughly. “Thank you.”

“I feel like I should be thanking you,” she said. “You got me out of my funk and walked me safely home.” She ran her fingers through her mass of curls and didn’t miss the way his eyes flickered to watch the movement before he blinked and turned away to open the door, clearing his throat.  

With his fingers still on the handle, he paused and looked back over his shoulder. “My pleasure, Granger. Sincerely.”

Hermione barely managed to offer him a watery smile before he was striding off down the corridor.  

She lingered in the doorway long after his footsteps had faded down the stairwell — apparently using the Muggle lift alone had proved too daunting for him. After she locked the door and recharged the wards behind her, she picked up his empty plate and mug to put them in the dishwasher.  

As she passed the dresser that had once belonged to her mother, she caught sight of a moving photograph of Crookshanks. The half-kneazel was staring at the flat’s front door with his yellow, lamp-like eyes wide. “What do you think of him now, huh Crooks?” she asked the photo. “Bit different, eh?”

Photo-Crookshanks purred and circled in the bottom corner of the frame a few times, bottle-brush tail twitching, before returning to his fireplace and curling up with a look of contentment on his face. God, she missed that cat.  

“Yeah. I think I like him too, Crooks,” she said. “Merlin help me, but I think I like him too.”

.

Part Five

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I’ve only written all 12,410 words of this because people told me they liked it, otherwise it’d have stayed on whatever the first chapter was, so if you want more, let me know with a reblog! Feel free to send me an anonymous owl too if you’re more comfortable doing that.

Anyway, take care, and more soon, I hope. I’ve got a fair chunk plotted out, and it should take us up to Christmas in the storyline (it’s September now for them).

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