#if it's not happening to anyone else: i keep getting bots' posts in the different mcyter tags that i follow and they

[floralscented]

I’m sorry to be that person but i simply can’t understand what happened with artyandink, i love their posts and bots and i would just like to understand better what happened since the posts and everything weren’t really clear for me 😭

so basically the very short & sweet ( update after finishing writing it: it was not short or sweet ) answer is that she word for word copied one of my writings, alongside many of my other ideas ( at the very least mentioning wanting to do them at the same time as me so she could put hers up first and get validation for an idea that wasn't hers, i imagine, but that's speculation ) and then when i stopped letting it happen and called her out on it, she blamed it on photographical memory of all things, but at least stopped, so i thought it was done.

phase two is when she started being incredibly rude and passive aggressive to me or anyone that would listen about how we didn't interact with her stuff anymore, and how it wasn't fair. which is honestly incredibly rich, isn't it? because she rarely interacted with our things, or gave them the recognition that she wanted in return. but really, it wasn't about fairness and doesn't matter if things are interacted with equally or whatever, she was just mad nobody was hyped for her things anymore because the only things we saw from her, weren't her own ideas.

in between this phase & phase three is when she starts genuinely harassing me personally. messages on discord privately, tagging me in a public server if i don't respond in time ( we have a six hour time difference! when it's morning for her, it's the dead of night for me! ), private messaging me on tumblr, sending asks on tumblr. literally all in the same 30 minute span max. always asking things along the lines of if i think she's a bad person, or guilting me personally, about never interacting with her things.

this is not like an excuse or whatever, but at the time, i was hardly posting on tumblr / less than i am now, because everything i wrote got taken, so i lessened it a lot. i was only ever on tumblr to post my things when i did, and that was it! very rare! so interacting with her things was hardly ever on my mind!

phase three. personally feels like a crashout to me because it's actually insane. the same day that she again messages me, this time asking if i got an anon abt her, which alone is crazy that even happened because who talks shit about someone, to someone else? that they might not even know follows? i tell her no, because it obviously feels shady as fuck. and so she starts being really weird. things like, well i got this ask in the screenshot i'm sending you, and a second saying you definitely got one, but i don't have the screenshot of the second, because i deleted it, but not the first. shady, right? anyways. same day as all of this, she gets on the server like, hey guys, i'm gonna let my friend take over my entire tumblr & discord, her name is dani. hope this is okay! and not even two seconds later, she was suddenly 'dani.' please keep track that this is her second persona. so obviously, she gets kicked because it's weird as fuck, it was honestly just something you had to be there for to see how weird it was, i guess? she changes her tumblr user to daniisms, starts messaging all of us ( in the server, i have not clarified! ) privately and stuff, saying that well, arty was just depressed, that's why she gave away the entirety of her accounts. like any of that makes sense to do.

phase four is actually the most diabolical one because she gets blocked! by all of us! because again, it is weird as fuck. this is when she private messages people again but now her excuse is, oh, NONE of this was me, i've been gone for a month, this was a hacker. so hackers steal supernatural writers tumblrs and their discords, somehow, which mind you, how would anyone even know her discord user? it's nowhere on her account from the last i saw, and so genuinely, how would a hacker know this information to hack her there? so hackers make up an imaginary friend to blame their issues on, and when it fails, that's when they leave your account to you? and also you just so happen to conveniently come back right when the hacker is gone?

the text messages she used in her 'evidence' were faked. you can recreate them exactly in iphonefaketextmessage, something that every writer i've talked to knows, because we've used it at one point for our own writing. suddenly, now that 'she's' back on her own account, she's continuing fics that her hacker made.

she's clearly convinced herself that i'm an enemy and that i'm stupid all at once, because even to this day she is bringing up my name to people that she wants to befriend now that people aren't interested in being friends with someone so conniving and honestly? psychotic at this rate. she apologizes in my messages for everything, still not taking any accountability, and then to everyone else & where she can be perceived, she's trying to discredit whatever i say while trying to paint herself as a savior for "shutting down anyone that says a thing bad about dahlia."

even in her defenses against herself, she literally cannot stop herself from trying to take away from what SHE put me through.

i hope this is further clarification. a lot of the evidence of things i say in here is in my first post, and there's also more i didn't talk about. this was supposed to be short & sweet but it is an incredibly complicated manner, and i just want to be done with it, but she won't stop bringing me up.

and i hate that i have to say this at all, but i really, truly hope this isn't you, arty. seriously. the consequences of our actions are tough, but that's why they're consequences. if you see this, and i know somehow you will, even though i keep you blocked and don't talk about you except for the one post i made and one reblog i did yesterday when you again had my name in your mouth, please leave me alone.

[bowenoke]

there are so many things wrong with this website but the one most terrifying to me rn is the weird ads that aren't weird in a quirky way but weird in a 'get me called down to hr if I open Tumblr at work' sort of way. also what the fuck is happening in the minecrafter tags because. yikes

[jinogasux-fr]

Santae banned me without telling me why and won't unban me unless I send them my photo ID

Hey guys sorry for not posting in… forever? I just suck at social media lol. But you may have seen that I've reblogged some posts that advertise Santae in the past, but please disregard all that. I've since deleted those posts after learning how the site is managed and, after what happened to me a few days ago, I feel as though I should go public about this. Because boy did I just get fucked over.

Anyway, yeah, what it says in the title. On October 24th, around 10am EST, I was restocking my user shop when the entire webpage went white. I couldn't access the site at all and, when I tried to look for the Discord on my server list, it wasn't there. I knew what this had meant. I got banned from both the game, and the Discord - this is important to keep in mind for later.

I didn't receive any Discord DM or email notification about my ban, so after asking a mod what their support email was (and yes, I later verified that this is indeed their legitimate support email), I sent them this:

After a few hours, I get this back in response:

There's so much I'm confused about here. I think the one that screams out the most is that they're asking me to show them my photo ID so I can get unbanned. Absolutely not. I refuse to do this. This poses a massive security and privacy risk. They straight up banned my account, gave this half-baked explanation, and told me I need to send my personal information or... I stay banned?

Let me make something clear: The only personal thing they have on file about this account is the email address that I created my account with, which I've also used to contact them. My real name, date of birth, anything of that nature would not be connected because this was not asked for during account creation, therefore this wouldn't actually prove I'm the account holder. Theoretically speaking, I could show them any ID in the world and for all they know, that's my real information, because they have nothing else to go off of. They even say as much in their privacy page.

Secondly, "account has been compromised"? What does that mean? I think anyone's interpretation of this would be that my account got hacked. But if my account got hacked, why wasn't I informed of this? I had to reach out to support, they did not reach out to me first. That means my password, which I may share across other sites, would have been known to someone else and thus I should've been warned of this immediately, not roughly 5 hours after the fact.

Thirdly, what, was my Discord "compromised" too? If an automated system had flagged my account, does that system somehow interact with a Discord bot so they ban a user on both at the same time? How does that work? That makes no sense as to why they'd ban me on both the game and the Discord for something like this, which is why I'm calling bullshit.

Let me tell you what I think happened.

Recently, Santae has been in some really hot water with connections revealing their relation to an older petsite, Lurapets, which has a history of scamming and artist mistreatment, as well as proof coming out of them using AI art for their NPC art. You can find these posts on the @santae-salt blog if you want to see for yourself, but I'm also linking them throughout this post.

Once the post about them being directly related to Lurapets was released, several users that the Santae staff thought might be involved in the creation of the post got banned. As it turns out, I was banned at the same time as these users.

After speaking with the @santae-salt admin, we are both of the belief that I, a regular user, got caught up in this mess because they're assuming I'm an alt account of someone else and staff demanded to see my ID because they didn't think I was a different person. It may turn out to be wrong, and yeah that sounds a bit far-fetched, sure, but really, what else can I go off of here?? Santae staff has given me a very questionable and refutable explanation as to why I've been banned, and their radio silence after I refused to send them my ID is just making me believe they don't think I'm real. They don't want my photo ID to verify I'm the account holder, they want my photo ID to verify I'm not someone else.

This is unprecedented. I've never seen any petsite ask for a photo ID in any situation, and after asking around, not even those banned from Santae were asked for this. It's just me! This is an incredible attempted breach of privacy, and, with Santae now under doxxing allegations, I really don't feel confident they'd keep my personal information… well, personal.

I messaged back almost immediately after they responded to me where I told them I would not send my ID and I had asked if there were any other way I could verify myself to get my account unbanned. I've received no response so far, and after what I've learned, I feel like I'm not going to get one at all.

So, let this be a lesson to you: don't waste your time on Santae. You can be the most obedient player out there. You can abide by all their rules, be a nice and generous player, or just be minding your own business, but if they so much as think you're associated with someone who they think has wronged them, you'll be banned.

And they can't even be bothered to properly tell you why.

[moth-scrunk]

I really love getting spammed with the same inbox message about someone asking me for money and help! That surely makes me feel better about myself and everything going on around me. I should get more of those often!

adjusts the microphone I'm holding and clears my throat

(TW: Mention of the war and thus injuries and death, also includes my massive rant so if you do not want to read it, here's the warning. Also, lots of swearing)

STOP FILLING MY INBOX WITH CRIES FOR HELP. I KNOW YOU ARE BOTS; YOU SPAMMED ME 4 DIFFERENT TIMES TODAY BECAUSE OF MY POSTS. I WILL REPORT YOU IF IT KEEPS HAPPENING, AND I DO NOT LIKE DOING THAT.

YOU ALL KEEP SPAMMING ME WITH "HELP!!" AND PICTURES OF CHILDREN WHO LITERALLY LOOK LIKE THEY ARE DYING. I DONT KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO BUT BLOCK YOU THE SECOND YOU APPEAR IN MY INBOX. YOU FUCKERS LITERALLY SENT ME A PICTURE OF SOMEONE WHO HAD AN OPEN WOUND.

I get asking for help, I get pleading for someone, ANYONE to save you, but spamming my Inbox with the most horrendous shit is NOT going to get you help. All it does is get you blocked and turned away instantly by me. I have stated TWICE. TWICE now that I will not be talking about this, but I guess you people just won't get it straight.

I will not be supporting any of you, not because I do not have the money, but because your pleas have gone so far as to show a child BLEEDING FROM A WOUND, to try and tug at heart strings. Oh, and it worked to! Just that it only tugged on my last bit of patience.

I get that so many of you are bots and people fishing for money, and to that I purely say to go to hell and rot. To be taking people's real-life horrors and taking it to post and get money from it? That's pathetic.

Rant over, I am not happy with how many times I have seen blood and gore. I love blood and gore art, but these people sending me photos of wounds have made me lose my stomach over it.

"Why are you talking about this then? Just delete the messages and move on"

I have. Ever since I first ranted about this, I have. I have been deleting one after the other after the other after the OTHER. Even when I block some of them, they come back on ANOTHER ACCOUNT. I wish I was making this up. I am fully convinced these are all bots now, and that is just so, SO upsetting to me. All of this is so upsetting. I asked not to be given these asks, I have asked not to talk about it, but alas the bots just keep rolling it in. Block after block the same message gets repeated.

I just wish this shit would stop. I just wish I didn't have to be bombarded with these people begging for help I cannot give.

[franki-lew-yo]

There is a right and wrong way to handle the blow after blow of injustices happening in the world to innocent people. You are only one person and I say this as someone who's having a LOT of sudden changes happen within my own life that's stressing me out/pulling me a million different ways-- you have to collect yourself before you can help anyone. But, that doesn't mean you have to say 'I can't do anything', not care, or worse try and blow off every post about the crisis as being bots or scammers.

Making this post on account of Natalie Wynn, a youtube critic I otherwise like most of time saying this very badly-worded thing. I hope she at least takes back this tweet and apologizes for ever making it cuz cuz yeesh. Natalie wtf??

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I'm really mad at the assumptions that every other Palestine/Sudan donation MUST BE an inherent scam. There are actually a lot of explanations for why a campaign looks the way it does, why they talk like bots with lots of copy+paste, why people make a few accounts for the same campaign, ect. This does not exclude the possibility that yes, scammers+bots do exist and you should be wary. The reason people are getting 'tired' with donation bloggers asking for help is because they genuinely don't have time in their own life to stop and go through the campaign pages to see for themselves, let alone donate. Add to that the fact that, as people fleeing an active genocide, people are going to post photos of their condition or lives and those are going to get graphic without proper warning in a lot of links, it's s t r e s s f u l. No, definitely not as stressful as living in fear of being murdered by IDF soldiors or bombs every day, but stressful. In our empathy, we don't want that to happen and we want to save innocent people from this horrible reality, not ignore it/justify it/take part in it. But, if we want to do this right, we do have to put aside time we don't always have ourselves. We can make time if we try for it.

I don't type out that last sentence to shame you all into trying 'or else you're not a good person'. I type that out because I genuinely, earnestly believe in people like me. There is so much ugliness and awfulness in this world, but people can come together if they try to fund anything.

What I've learned from therapy is that self-care doesn't have to be at odds with your social justice. In fact, if you find they constantly are at odds; you use other people's trauma and hardships to emotionally/verbally hate yourself and those around you; you insist you can't contribute to a cause unless it directly benefits you personally, that's a serious thing you need to talk to your therapist about.

The activism for Gaza has had another shift in awareness in the last two months. Now, sadly no; charities alone can't save anyone. There's no sign of a ceasefire. Now is the time for donations and campaigns to evacuate. You have to navigate it well so you know what you're doing with the money and time that could literally save lives.

My process for taking in information is collecting as many fundraisers+campaign links in one place, then setting aside a time of day where I can go through them, sort them out, read up on their situation and then make my decision to donate or not. If I can't donate because, like now, I'm low on funds and in debt (thanks murica), I share the campaign and try my hardest to push it in the direction of people who also want to help and who are looking for campaigns to donate to. I'm all about reblogging a pinned post with resources/vetted status and try to update the rest of the world reading with me how a campaign is doing by screencapping the gofundme pages.

We can be better. We are better.

Keep up the boycotting. Donate and spread the word of fundraisers. Update others like you when you yourself can't donate. There is always someone.

[writingwife-83]

Ok listen, this is gonna be a bit of a rant/thinking out loud. I’m gonna put it below a cut, but basically this is gonna be about having my fics restricted on AO3. I’m feeling pretty frustrated and conflicted and I’m going back and forth quite a lot.

For the background, I’ve had all my fics on AO3 restricted for about the past 9 months now. And when I say that, I mean that you can’t access them unless you have an AO3 account. The reason I chose to do this is because I started to get nervous about A.I. scraping online. I absolutely don’t agree with AI writing and art, and I didn’t want those programs to have access to my writing. Restricting your fics on AO3 isn’t a guarantee, but it seemed that was at least a reduced risk of bots accessing writing. So anyway, having restricted my fics in that way, it’s been… a bit of a trial lol. Any AO3 writer who has done this with their fics will say the same I’m sure, but it’s pretty lousy seeing your views, comments, and kudos plummet. Yes of course we partly write for ourselves, but we wouldn’t be posting online at all unless we wanted people to see and enjoy it! If I didn’t care about the feedback and stuff, I’d just keep my writing to myself. So obviously restricting people’s access to my writing has really sucked.

So here’s the thing, I really can’t decide what to do going forward. My feelings about A.I. have not changed at all. I still don’t support it. But I’m not sure whether restricting access to our fics is truly making the difference between AI accessing them or not. What I mean is, I’ve heard from some sources that the AI writing programs have long ago been developed by scraping for writing content on the internet, and that it’s not really something that they’re still actively doing. So basically, long before A.I. was a hot topic, any available writing on the internet was already accessed. If that’s the case, then there’s really not much being accomplished by having our fics locked up now. A.I. writing already exists and is being used, and it’s already been programmed based on available written works.

As far as the risk for people copying and publishing our works on other shady sites, that risk has always been there, and restricting the access to our fics doesn’t change that. Anyone with an AO3 account can hit copy/paste and that’s all it takes. I hate that risk, but tbh the only way to eliminate that is to stop posting online and remove all the existing fics. That’s not something I’m willing to do.

It does annoy me that so many people don’t have an AO3 account, because if everyone did, this wouldn’t even be a decision to make. I still feel like there’s no logical reason to use AO3 without an account. It’s better as a reader for so many reasons, which I don’t feel like taking the time to get into right now. So part of me feels like, I shouldn’t have to unrestricted my fics, everyone else should just make accounts! But I also know that’s never gonna happen. A handful of lovely and supportive people made accounts when myself and others locked their fics, but on a larger scale, not much changed. Again, the stats speak for themselves.

Like I said, this is kind of a rant and I’m just sharing the different thoughts in my head about this. I can easily make an argument for both sides, either to continue to restrict my fics or open them up to the public again. *sigh* idk, maybe I’m not the only one feeling this way. feel free to share your thoughts if you have any on this topic!

[mychlapci]

User earthstellar here again because I saw your post about werewolf Drift and Rodimus and I honest to god had a fic drafted of this exact thing for Halloween and then the file corrupted and I gave up, so here's what the plot was:

Essentially, the Lost Light has to make a stop on an unknown planet in order to search for energon crystal deposits, as the ship is running a bit low

Rodimus insists on going out to explore it-- The planet seems to be heavily organic, and something is preventing the ship's scanners from working as they normally would.

He doesn't want anyone else going out as a landing party because they don't know if it'll be safe or not, but Drift insists on going with him, to keep Rodimus alive in the event they run into something weird.

They do indeed run into something weird-- Some kind of techno-organic thing, not Cybertronian in origin (probably?) but definitely aggressive and very, very fast.

It gets a few hits in on both of them, and they drag each other back to the Lost Light in order to head to the med bay. They pass out as soon as they get inside. Everyone assumes it's from energon loss, due to the deep cuts all over their armour.

When they wake up, they are in the med bay as expected, but they are now cyberwolves.

Their internal comms are different now, they can't access them and they don't seem to work anyway, and they have a whole new sensory suite and it's a little overwhelming.

But they also can't speak (like a beastformer would be able to), and therefore can't communicate to anyone that they're still there, they're just... cyberwolves.

They understand each other; They have some kind of new language data pack, able to interpret each others barks and whines.

But to everyone else, their captain/co-captains have turned into fucking huge giant cyberwolves and seem to be more animalistic than a beastformer would be and nobody knows what the fuck to do.

Gradually, cyberwolf instincts leak in more and more to their cognitive processes; Drift doesn't want to sleep anywhere other than curled up by Ratchet, and Rodimus doesn't want to curl up anywhere other than beside Drift, so Ratchet's habsuite becomes a temporary kennel of sorts until everyone figures this out.

By a couple cycles in, while Drift and Rodimus are still very cognizant and self-aware, their cyberwolf instincts get harder to ignore. Prompts keep popping up on their internal HUDs that they couldn't understand at first but now can't ignore, instinctive drives, like chasing flight-capable crew members and treating mini-bots like pups and play-fighting (to be fair, a thing Drift and Rodimus already do lmao)

And gradually this could turn into them not being able to ignore mating instincts, maybe Ratchet has to break up a little dog fight that broke out in his hab suite after the cyberwolves worked themselves up running around Swerve's getting petted (mostly Rodimus, Drift is more touch-averse) and playing ball with various patrons etc.

But it turns out the dog fight was an instinctive "no Ratchet is MY mate" kind of thing and Ratchet does not realise this until he starts to figure out that they're competing for his attention etc.

something something

Eventually they sort of figure out how to reverse the altered transformation sequence, but not fully, so when Drift and Rodimus enter their root modes they still have cyberwolf features like ears, tails, claws, etc. -- And their HUDs are still throwing up instinct prompts.

So they still don't want to go back to their own hab suites, Ratchet eventually gives in because they make the argument that this is their first night in root mode again and what if something weird happens again??

And they end up Doin It.

Bonus: Ravage figured out more or less what was happening before everyone else did, but didn't tell anyone because he figured they'd sort it out eventually, and also it's more interesting to him to not help. He did, however, immediately tell Nautica about "new cyberwolves on board" and Velocity nearly had to barricade the medical bay, lmao. and also Drift and Rodimus following Ratchet around in their wolf forms made him miss Soundwave ;__;

(HI FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WELCOME BACK FROM THE DRAFTS)

okay. so, i will be honest with you. i don’t think i made that post. i probably didn’t even reblog anything like that. but i did make a post about transformer werewolves and so i’m answering this anyways because i need everyone to know that i’m open to talk about transformers werewolves. (and perhaps you just understood The Implication of my werewolf posting and knew what i was asking for) (and this has nothing to do with my teen wolf thing shut up)

I love werewolf Rodimus and Drift <3

At first they’re pretty aware of what’s happening, not that they understand it, but they know that they’ve turned into mechanimals and no one can turn them back. Slowly though, it does not matter as much, as the instincts take over... Drift and Roddy start walking with more practice in their step, moving faster, becoming stronger, their hearing and sense of smell get better as well. Ratchet is, unfortunately the designated handler for these two. They insist on curling up besides him every night and he’s then forced to recharge with two absolutely massive cyberwolves huddled up on top of him. it’s as annoying as it is endearing.

hgrhhh Roddy and Drift eventually sinking into their breeding drive. They already sleep with Ratchet in their den hab-suite, they should get to mate with him too. The dominance fights don’t get too bloody but you know Ratchet’s very angry at the two of them.

Drift and Rodimus turning back but they still insist on sleeping with Ratchet. It might have been a bad idea. Their breeding drives are in no way sated yet, they start to rub up against Ratchet, trying to get their smell on him, scent him, make him theirs, a simple instinctual response that Ratchet thinks it the two trying to get frisky, which... isn't too far from the truth. Before be knows it he's got too strong cyberwolves mouthing at his panels and then at his bare array, barely even bothering to get him prepared before Drift finally mounts him... Rodimus tries to growl at him but you know Ratchet shuts that up right this moment. He'll wait for his turn, like a good puppy <33

[mac-aro-ni]

Housekeeping Notes

Hello to the various new followers of this blog in the last few months!

I have noticed that some of you seem to be brand new tumblr accounts. I appreciate you following this blog so quickly after joining tumblr! It warms my heart that so many aromantic people are able to find this blog so quickly!

However, I have only realized this because of certain "common practices" on this site, and I'm worried that some of you might be getting blocked by other blogs you try to follow! If your blog is completely blank (no icon/profile picture, no title, no descriptions, no posts, and all the default settings like having your likes and follows publicly visible), you unfortunately look indistinguishable from a new spambot that hasn't started their second phase of operation yet. A lot of users on this site block accounts that are blank, out of an abundance of precaution for removing spambots from their blog so they don't get spam links in their replies/reblogs. Spambots start by following a massive number of accounts and existing in silence for a week or more, then suddenly start posting stolen pictures from the internet before moving on to posting content that breaks TOS and is full of links trying to scam anyone who clicks them. A blank blog is not a guarantee that in a few more days, you won't start spamming them.

Luckily, there's an easy fix! Simply pick out an image of any kind to act as your blog icon, change your title to anything a human would write ("I'm new!", "~lurking~", and "not a bot" are all perfectly acceptable options), and change your description (a lot of us do mini bios there, but you can also just have something like "I'm new to tumblr and figuring out what I want on my blog still" )! Another quick fix is to make one (1) single post that clarifies you're still adjusting to tumblr, and leaving it as your only post til you start reblogging stuff.

Don't be afraid to hit reblog! It's kinda like retweeting, or sharing on Facebook, or saving a pin to a board on Pinterest. You don't have to add anything to a reblog, but you have the option to add tags (which can be used to organize your blog into different topics like having different boards on Pinterest or albums on Instagram, or to just talk about the post in a way that requires more effort for someone else to include in their reblog from you) or to add text/images/links to the body of the post (that's how those long chain posts with many different blogs adding on their thoughts happen!).

Reblogging is the lifeblood of the site. Tumblr has added algorithmic options to the dashboard in recent years, but most of us prefer to use tumblr the old-fashioned way and only see posts from people we follow. Reblogging is how you get a post in front of your followers! It's how your followers get to know you! Have fun with it!

Liking is the bonus extra-love button, or for when a post is one you like but for whatever reason you don't want it on your blog(s). Reblogging is a better method of engagement, but liking isn't completely useless like a lot of people try to say. Tumblr has added a thing where, if your likes are public, your followers might occasionally see a post that you liked on their dashboard. Most of us keep our likes private, though, so many people aren't aware this is a thing now, and we like things specifically to engage but not show it off on our blogs, so we don't want our likes showing up on people's dashes. I tend to like a post when I would maybe spam multiple reblogs of it but don't want to reblog it several times in a row and clutter up my own blog, or when it's a discourse post I agree with but don't want to spread the discourse around. Artists will often mention things about reblogs being better than likes and it is for this simple reason: reblogging means you are putting it in front of more eyes, and thus helping the artist find buyers/commissions and build their brand. If you follow an artist and hit 'like' on everything they post, consider reblogging some of them so more people see their art and they can get even more attention for their wonderful talent/skill!

Some other things:

For anyone who hasn't checked this blog's homepage out, you may be unaware that this blog is not a main account. It's a group sideblog, one that I do not own. The owner hasn't logged in to tumblr in years, so there won't be any calls for additional moderators for the foreseeable future (as I am unable to add new members myself because of the permissions set by the owner). I am currently the only active mod for the account, so only my main is currently linked in the bio. You can follow me on that blog if you want to get to know me better! I post way more stuff there, just because it's not focused on a single topic like this blog is. (Because this is a sideblog I cannot DM from this account, either, so if you ever need to DM me for some reason you need to go to my main and DM me there.)

I try to answer asks I get here as quickly as possible, and the anonymous option is on! I do my best to reblog things from all across the spectrum of aromantic experiences, but I only have my own experience to base my judgement on, so if there's a particular flavor of aro content you'd like to see more of (posts for a specific identity, more art, more comics, whatever), just send an ask and let me know!

[liswjournal1113]

You're Real

Hello ghosties!

I know I haven't been around lately. It wasn't because I forgot about you, quite the opposite really. The strangest thing happened after my last post. I got some likes. Seeing as how this is a dead website, I'm sure you can see my concern. I thought that it was fake, bots that liked my stuff to look human. I tried to ignore it but the doubt ate away at me.

Being the curious person I am I went digging. Thanks to my ADHD, I sort of fell down a rabbit hole looking at other blogs on here. That's when I found it. A memorial for a famous actor that "died" a few months back. The scary thing is, they are still alive. Will and I just watched their latest TV show on HBO a few nights ago. It scared me so much that I closed the browser window and turned my computer off. I refused to touch it for three days. Then, I scrubbed my internet history and did a deep clean of my computer with some programs Will had installed for me. When I checked again, you were still here. You are real and not from my world.

I have no idea what I have done and it scares me. But, I'm still fascinated by this website. Everything is so different! Like, Aang and Katara got together??? There is no Amazing Spider-Man III? Natasha and Hulk got together in the MCU (My Romanogers heart is breaking)? Who the heck is Tom Holland? My mind is spinning. I don't know if this is something I did or if I stumbled upon a website that someone had already spelled. I can't tell anyone about you all. Not the coven, not my sister, not even Will. Besides, I've only gotten like three likes. It's not that many.

I should just close this website and report it to the authorities or to the Circle, yet I find that I don't want to. Being able to speak openly like this for the first time in over a decade is so...liberating. I lost a lot of friends when I married Rick at 18. They didn't approve and thought I was making a mistake. They said he was gr00ming me (definitely don't want to get any attention for words like that). I didn't care then. I know better now. They were right, but the bridges were already burned to ash. I lost almost everyone else that was left after the divorce. They were Rick's friends and told me I was making a mistake. The vampires I understand. They hate each other privately but do an amazing job at keeping a unified front. Dawson, I can understand. Rick has been in his life since he was a kid. They're best friends. He's the godfather of his kids. My mother and Val hurt the worst. I don't talk to Mama much these days. Val's started to come around, but she's a Southern woman through and through and will stand by her man. I can't blame her. It's the way we were raised.

For the first time since I married Rick, I feel happy. I feel like I can be authentic with you. It feels good. I'm going to keep this blog going (at least until a. I get caught or b. I have nothing left to say).

I will leave my next post to you, ghosties, if you would like.

I'm open to either. If this poll doesn't get any attention, I'll probably just ramble on about something else. I'll need the excuse to let my mind wander. I'm home sick in quarantine for a week until I recover from Dragon Scale Fever so I need the distraction while Will is working in the other room (he works IT and is mostly working from home). He's already had it so he's not in any danger but I can't see my mortal relatives or my niblings until the pustules on my arm scab over and my temp dips under 100 degrees (Fahrenheit).

With that no so lovely imagery, I'm afraid it is time for me to go, ghosties. The "dragon scales" are mostly on my right arm so moving it is incredibly painful. Good night and I will talk again with you soon.

~Lis

[smalltowncryptidfucker]

This pinned post is long overdue at this point, but hey, better late than never, right?

🍄HELLO IT IS I!!! THE SMALL TOWN CRYPTID… guy… sometimes I regret my url choice LMAO🍄

Just a brief explanation of this blog:

This is my main!! I have… three side blogs… and counting… 💀💀 Two of which I hardly use, but they’re still there LMAO. Here they are in case you want to take a look:

💖 @smalltownotomeenjoyer - This is my blog where I shamelessly post about otome games. I post there more frequently than this blog tbh… what does that even say about me?

💗 @smalltownhostclub - This is the one I started for OHSHC, but decided to include Black Butler, mostly because I felt like it.

❤️ @ultimatesmalltownnerd - This is the newest one. I post about Danganronpa here, because I’m cringe trash- but I’m free.

Okay, self-intro time:

🍄‍🟫Pronouns: She/he/they. Gender?? I HARDLY KNOW HER!! (No but seriously, gender is a rule I intend to not follow by any means. It’s totally chill if anyone else has a gender they like, but I don’t, so… I’m just going by the beat of my drum lmao.)

🍄‍🟫The most bisexual individual you might ever meet. This applies to every gender identity, and no I don’t care that Bi technically means two. You can fight me on that.

🍄‍🟫I’m over twenty. No, I don’t trust the internet enough to give an exact age.

🍄‍🟫You can either call me by my url, any combo of my url, or Flynn. Flynn is a name I’m trying out rn, so that might change.

FANDOM TIME!! (These will be the fandoms I post about here, specifically. There are a lot, and I can’t guarantee I will consistently post about any of them.):

✨Gravity Falls

✨Homestuck

✨Fullmetal Alchemist

✨Bungo Stray Dogs

✨Stardew Valley

✨Avatar the Last Airbender

(Might add more as needed.)

Things you should know:

🪴Originally, this was going to be a T+ blog, but I’m gonna up the rating to M. Not because I intend to post NSFW stuff, but because I want to be safe rather than sorry. Enter this blog with that in mind.

🪴I block people- a lot. It’s not personal, but some people post content I don’t like. I only report bots, so if you’re a bot, you’re getting the block/report double whammy.

🪴I believe cringe culture is stupid, and am trying really hard to embody that as much as possible. I’m gonna post about whatever fandoms I want, and that’s final. You guys should try it, it’s so fun.

🪴If you want to block me, go for it! I mean that positively, if my content isn’t your cup of tea, I don’t mind. I realize my stuff isn’t for everyone. I’m mostly here for my own entertainment, and if people like what I post along the way, all the better!

🪴I use a lot of different, typically gendered terms of endearment (ex: man, gurl/girl, dude, girlfriend, etc), and I use them on everybody, regardless of whether they actually fit the gender the terms are meant to convey. HOWEVER!!! If you don’t feel comfortable with me using specific terms, jokingly or otherwise, let me know!!! I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, even if my intentions are good. I might slip up occasionally, but I’ll do my best.

🪴I’d love to hear from you guys!! If you wanna DM me, send in an ask or whatever, I’m totally chill with that! Keep in mind though, that 1) once again, I am in my early twenties, so keep that in mind if you wish to interact with me. I will do my due diligence to keep things appropriate on my end, so long as you do so yourself. And 2) I have… bad social anxiety, and poor time management, so if I don’t respond to a DM or ask right away, I promise I’m not trying to be rude, I’m just struggling to be a functional human being right now, lmao.

That should be it. If any edits to this post happen, they will be listed below. ENJOY MY CHAOS!!!

(Posted 7/30/24)

(Edit 8/2/24: added a fifth thing to the “things you should know” section.)

(Edit 8/10/24: added a sixth thing to the “things you should know” section.)

[axoelle]

hey does anyone else keep getting randomly flung into twelve different tumblr live streams a second or is it just me

i had to write this post elsewhere and copy-and-paste it here really fast before it did it again

this has been happening periodically for like a couple months and i can only assume it has something to do with the bot infestation this accursed site has never fixed

[shitpostroundhouse]

I don't run this blog as if I'm a person talking to other people. It's just a humor repository. I rarely interact, because it's only in emergencies, like a scam on tumblr or other dangers. These rarely get on my radar, but I throw down when I see it.

It's a bad idea to every put personal info about yourself (or anybody else). You don't know who or what is lurking, trolls, lurkers, bots harvesting data and content. For example, your age could be cross referenced with all kinds of random info you post about, going back as far as your blog goes. Easy for bots or anyone with some basic software. And who knows what motivation there is? Your politics that somebody doesn't like, or your perceived politics, or values, opinions... Or they're just a psycho. There are lots of psychos on tumblr. Or bots who, well who knows what all they're getting up to. Harvesting data to hand over to the Chinese or North Korean governments, Russia, big pharma? Jeff Bozos? So, age, sex, location, job, hobbies? I suppose if any of these are vital to what your blog is about, like if you post about your favorite trains. Or you discuss important things that happen at the clinic you work at. But your specific age? That's got to be the riskiest one. Once that's out there, you're much closer to being identified specifically. Over years of blog posts, you might let it slip where you live, the field you work in, hopefully not your name IRL.

And requiring others to include their specific age? Really, requiring any data others may not feel safe posting anywhere online.

And I just want my blog to look a certain way. This blog doesn't have anything to do with my identity. It's not about me. Any demand to post personal details is presumptuous, entitled, unsafe, and just really bratty.

Just as I have a right to post what I feel is safe for me, and keeps me safe here, so does everybody. Posting "Minors DNI" is wholly appropriate. How many minors won't get the idea to make up a fake age if they're so motivated to interact with over-18 blogs? How does posting that request protect you from... anything? Isn't it more about your guilt vs plausible deniability? "He said he was 18. It's not my fault." The whole scenario just gets creepier the more we analyze it. Risks vs safety, right? Encouraging age-posting is the danger. Posting 18+ or 21+ or any other standard is legit, but telling others what they are or are not allowed to do is not your responsibility. It's over-stepping and creepy. I'm kind of doing that, but look at the context. Everything being equal would be to keep your needs on your blog, minus telling others what they are required to do, or face banishment. I may as well declare that I will block anyone who reblogs my posts unless they include their real first name and place of employment in their bio.

Our very inherent right is to block anyone we aren't comfortable with, without any obligation to state why. So many different kinds of blogs deserve to be blocked, I could never list them all, and most of the ones I'll block wouldn't pay attention to my bio, much less follow instructions. I could list five types of blogs I don't want anywhere near me, and they'll still follow or reblog or comment. I'd say some are even more likely to engage.

But it's reasonable all the same to say, "I'll immediately block anyone who's hateful, uses slurs, is obsessed with Go-Bots fan-fic, or thinks that sardines are OK to eat. (I like sardines, but I doubt I'd ever bring it up online.)

[babycharmander]

If you think you have never stolen artwork, read this post.

So, art theft. If you've been a follower of mine, you've heard my barely-coherent rants about this before, but I thought it might be more productive to make a more coherent post on the subject.

If you're wondering about the title of the post here, it's because I feel like a lot of people aren't really grasping what exactly art theft is, and a LOT of people, even well-meaning ones, do it without even realizing it.

"But wait," you say. "I would never STEAL from an artist!! I never claim it as my own!" And that's all fine and good, but you're missing something here.

To start things off, what IS art theft? (It's not what deviantART said it was several years back, I'll tell you that much. *cough*)

We all know what art is, so let's talk about theft. Dictionary.com defines "theft" as "the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny." Okay, makes sense, but what about that other word there, stealing? Dictionary.com defines "steal" as "to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force."

From those definitions, we can go on to define art theft as, specifically, "taking art without permission or right." In the context of art, that typically involves reposting it (not reblogging--reblogging is different) or using it for other things.

And there, my friends, is the issue.

If something is taken or used without permission, it is stolen. Permission is the important thing here--if an artist says "oh yeah, you can go ahead and use this!" then it's not stolen. You have their permission. But if you DON'T have that, then it IS stolen. It IS theft.

"But I'm not claiming it as my own!" you say. But you don't have to claim it as your own--the act of taking it in and of itself is an act of theft.

"But I said 'credit to the artist!'" The "credit" thing is a whole other conversation, but here's the short of it: The entire point of credit is to direct people to the source of something. If you are not directly linking to where you got the art from, you are not giving credit. "Credit to the artist" is not actually credit of any kind whatsoever. (Also, Google and Pinterest are not sources.)

"But I DID link back to the artist!" Okay, now this is where it may get confusing, because you may think you're covered because you actually did give credit. Here's the problem: if you reposted it or used it without permission, regardless of whether you gave credit or not, it's still stealing.

I'm bolding this because it's a point that a lot of people get tripped up on. Let me explain it this way: If you went into your neighbor's house and took something of theirs without their permission, but you told people "oh yeah, I got this from [neighbor]'s house!" that that would still, of course, be stealing, and it's no different for art.

Another thing is that even when you credit, people don't always check the source. Very recently I found a case where someone had reposted a piece of artwork of mine to Pinterest that was deliberately made to look like it came from the source material (it wasn't meant to confuse anyone, though--the description of my original post made it very clear that it was fanart). The person who reposted had linked back to my original post. The problem? The comments had people asking if this was official, where it happened in the source material, etc. Despite the fact that the source was right there, no one thought to look at it.

Even if you link back to the source, if you did it without the artist's permission, it's still stealing, and still causes problems for us artists.

"But I just posted it to my Pinterest--" DO NOT DO THIS. DO NOT POST AN ARTIST'S WORK TO PINTEREST IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THEIR EXPLICIT PERMISSION TO DO SO.

"But this artist friend of mine says they're okay if I post their work to my Pinterest so long as I link back to them!" Good for your friend! But the fact that your friend is okay with it doesn't mean that all artists are okay with it. For me, personally, I am very not okay with my work being posted to Pinterest, and say as much on my art blog description and posts (which people tend to ignore).

The problem with Pinterest--and reposting art in general--is that we artists don't know when it happens unless we're told, or unless we find it ourselves. It causes us to lose control of our art. And because of this, our art can spiral further out of our control, because when our works get posted to Pinterest or other similar websites, people who have no grasp whatsoever on how art works will just take it as "free art" and then use it for whatever they want.

That's how a piece I spent 20+ hours on was used as a poster for a paid event, without my permission, and without any payment or credit to me.

If an artist has said nothing about Pinterest (or other similar image sharing sites), your default should be to assume that they don't want their artwork posted there.

"Well I didn't repost someone's art, but I did use it for my avatar/RPing icon/video/fic cover/photo edit--" That's still stealing. If you're using it without their permission for any reason, that is stealing. Not to mention, the artist may not be cool with what you're using their art for anyway. (Looking at you, people who use platonic art in your shipping videos.)

“I MEANT to ask them for permission, but I forgot!” This can ONLY happen if you used the artwork BEFORE you asked for permission. You can resolve this by asking for permission BEFORE you use it, rather than assuming the answer will be “yes” and using it before asking.

"But it took me a really long time to make that icon/video/cover/edit!!" How long do you think it took the original artist to draw their piece? It doesn't matter how much work you put into modifying someone else's art--if you're doing it without their permission, you're still stealing.

"But I couldn't find the original artist! I tried to find them, I really did, but I couldn't. Is it okay to use their art then?" No, because you still don't have permission, and by reposting it anyway, you’re continuing to make the artwork spiral out of their control.

"What if I found the artist, but they speak a different language from mine? I can't ask them for permission, so is it okay if I repost their art anyway?" NO!! DO NOT DO THIS!! If there is a language barrier, use Google translate or find someone to translate for you and get a hold of the artist that way to ask them for their permission. The language barrier is NEVER an excuse to steal artwork. There are plenty of non-English-speaking artists who have taken ALL OF THEIR ARTWORK OFFLINE because the art theft was completely out of control. (And this isn't just exclusive to English-speakers stealing art from people who don't speak their language. It happens artists who don't speak English stealing art from English-speakers, too, but as this post is written in English it doesn't do much good for me to rant about this here.) If you can’t ask their permission, do not use it!!

"But what about reblogging?! Isn't that the same as reposting?? Should we not reblog art at all then?" No, reblogging (or retweeting) is not the same as reposting. If you reblog art, you keep all the information that we attached to the art, including our blog name and the description attached to the art. Reblogging/retweeting actually helps us artists A LOT, so as long as you're reblogging from the original artist (and not someone who's reposting their art), by all means, reblog our art!

"What if I just want to share someone else's artwork on Discord or show it to a friend?" This one's a bit different and is not actually as problematic. If you want to share our work on Discord or whatever, just link directly to where we posted it. Please don't post the art itself, unless you're doing it alongside a link because Discord won't show a preview or something.

"What about a forum or a site like Reddit?" This one's a bit different, since due to the way Reddit functions, if you LINK to the art, you have to go directly to the artist's original page to view it. (At least, that’s what it’s like the last time I was active there.) In a way it's roughly the same as with Discord--be sure you're linking directly to the actual post rather than just uploading the art on its own--but I would also ask the artist if they're okay with it, because they may be a member of the subreddit or forum and want to post it themselves, or they might not want their work shared to specific communities. (Some communities have a function where a bot will repost the artwork to Imgur, and some artists don't want that done with their art.)

"What if I'm saving it to my computer/phone to look at later, or making it into my desktop/phone wallpaper?" IMO this is fine, since your computer/phone files aren't public, and neither is your wallpaper. It's only a problem when you post it to public places without our permission.

"What if it's art I commissioned?" Well... like... in that case, it's art you paid for, so unless the artist you commissioned laid out very specific terms for you, you should be good to use that art. Like, at most, the artist may ask you to credit them somewhere in your blog description if they drew your icon or something, or credit them in a fic description if you commissioned a fic illustration from them, or something to that effect. It's really something you should have already worked out with the artist beforehand, but for the most part you should probably be fine to use art you paid for however you like.

"What about art I requested?" This is a bit different from commissioned work. Just because the art was drawn at your request doesn't mean it's explicitly yours (unless it's like, a drawing of your original character or something). Some artists take requests more as suggestions, so the art they draw in response to a suggestion or request is still theirs. Treat this as you would any other artwork and ask the artist for permission first before you do anything with the artwork you requested from them.

“What about NFTs?” ... Okay this one I can’t really go over too much because I barely understand it in the first place, but NFTs are BAD for artists and are a form of art theft. Do not turn people’s art into NFTs. This is a crappy thing to do. (If you want more information on this one, you’ll have to look it up yourself. It’s a form of cryptocurrency and it’s confusing.)

“If you don’t want your art stolen you shouldn’t post it in the first place.” This is fascinating logic. Try applying it to something else and see how it holds up. “If you don’t want your merchandise stolen, you shouldn’t open a booth.” “If you don’t want to get poisoned you shouldn’t eat food.” “If you don’t want to get punched in the face, don’t walk outside.” Yes. Flawless logic. Truly.

"Why do you care so much, anyway?! I'm sharing your art because I like it! That's a compliment! Shouldn't you be happy?" Well, we're certainly glad you like our art, but the problem is... as I've said before, reposting our art causes us to lose our control over it. When we lose control of our art, that damages our livelihood. As I said before, other people have made money off of my artwork. As well, some artists lose jobs because when their potential employers check out their portfolio, they may find artwork that's been reposted everywhere online, so they cannot hire the artist because they believe they may have stolen the artwork in their own portfolio.

Your reposting an image you thought was cute to Facebook or Pinterest could cost an artist their job. Think about that.

So, tl;dr, keep this in mind: you need the artist's permission to repost or use their artwork. If you do not have it, it is stealing, even if you credit the artist.

I know this post is really harsh in places, but this is such an important thing for all artists, and there's so many misconceptions about art theft online. And I feel like one of the biggest problems is that when some people see posts on art theft, they ignore them, because they think they've never done it or would never do it, so that's why I worded this post the way I did. I'm not trying to hurt anyone--I just want people to understand what art theft is, how it affects us artists, and how you can avoid it. Thank you for reading.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

I know you’ve talked about how all the Cullen pairings are eventually going to implode - glad someone said it - but I was wondering if you wanted to talk a little bit about what you think Meyer INTENDED with the pairings - tropes and whatnot? And what you think would have to change in her narrative to make what was intended what we actually saw on the page? Or — what do you think each cullens’ Perfect Spouse would actually look like?

Anon is referring to this post.

And well, you've certainly given me quite the challenge.

Some Musing Ramblings Before We Begin

Sort of like asking me to make Dramione work, I'm not sure I'm the person to ask this. Anyone who reads my work knows that... well, that's a lie, every story I secretly write is a love story. But it's not Twilight in any way shape or form.

Twilight simply isn't a story I would set out to write. This isn't a good thing or a bad thing, it just is, which means that asking me to make Twilight work the way Meyer intended is probably not your best bet.

But I'll try regardless, it's what we're here for.

Bella/Edward

Meyer intended Bella Swan and Edward Cullen to be the best and brightest of all the pairings in Twilight. They have the love and devotion of Carlisle and Esme, the physicality and sexual attraction of Rosalie and Emmett, and are such a grand love that even depressed Marcus takes note. This is the love story that drives the entire series.

Edward is an improvement upon Carlisle, a Carlisle with even better control, and the most beautiful man you ever did see. He's also a gentleman, a man of his time and from an era where chivalry was alive and men courted women. Bella is one of those disturbingly altruistic people who makes you feel bad about yourself just by being in the same room. She's incredibly selfless, kind, and also quite brave.

Together, despite their ups and downs and the many obstacles in their way, they're disgustingly perfect.

However, that's not what we get. On Edward's end he's... Edward about loving Bella. On Bella's end, she has no idea who Edward even is but she does know he's beautiful and special.

And to get what Meyer actually wanted... Christ, Anon, I'll try.

So, the first problem, if Edward was truly a good person then Twilight would never happen.

Edward would have his first day of Biology, miraculously maintain control, and flee to Alaska as he does in canon. However, he would not return. Edward in canon returns due to his budding obsession as well as his wounded pride, in fleeing Forks he feels he has lost to Bella. When Carlisle later points out that a girl's life is on the line, that Edward is foolishly endangering this girl solely for his ego, Edward refuses to acknowledge this.

A good man would never have returned from Alaska, the Cullens would have moved in short order, and Bella may or may not have died in a parking lot or in Port Angeles.

That said, what if Bella is not, in fact, Edward's singer? Then there's not this constant debate of him eating her or his creepy, budding, obsession with his personal brand of heroin.

Well, the trouble with that is that Edward would then never notice her. Even were Edward not a colossal dismissive dick, required per this ask, Bella is one mortal out of many and someone he shouldn't grow close to. Associating with her just exposes her to unnecessary danger from him and his family. Edward is a guest in our world, nothing more, and a kind Edward might chit chat with her in Biology but even if he had a growing crush he'd keep his distance.

As he tried and failed to do in canon, actually.

Basically, change Edward alone, and it's not enough. The Edward Meyer wanted would never get together with Bella. At least, not without a lot of AU-sauce.

But let's look at Bella for a moment. Bella's character also has to be entirely stripped down. The Bella of the books is extremely depressed and her infatuation with Edward is fueled in part because of this. Edward's obsession with her gives her worth.

Obviously, in this new and improved edition of Twilight, Bella can't use either Edward or Jacob for validation. She has to be able to stand on her own two legs. If she does use either for validation, then the relationship must come to an end, as she and her significant other realize just what it is Bella's doing.

The trouble is, what does this not-depressed Bella have to fall in love with? Yes, Edward's beautiful, and that certainly goes a long way, but in canon he's a dick. Bella even thinks to herself that he's a complete dick (even when he's trying to be charming). Luckily for Edward she later decides that this is cryptic and therefore appealing.

Well, in AU land, Edward might be so damn charming that Bella likes him anyway but we come back to Edward keeping her at a polite distance.

So, what we need is a terrifying villain. Let's call him Angelus (though per Twilight this would probably be James). Angelus is a vampire that will force Edward's hand. For whatever reason, he decides to torment and ruin Bella's life, ending the hunt in either eating her or turning her into his bride. Angelus' existence forces Bella to be in the know and for Edward to have to take extreme action.

The pair become closer, grow through undoubtedly horrific trauma, and through said trauma Bella understands not only the pros of being a vampire but the terrifying cons.

Basically, it'd be this story. Just replace the name "Carlisle" with Edward and "Edward" with James.

Alice/Jasper

Alice and Jasper are supposed to have this ineffable, mystic, connection where they're together because... Alice saw them together. And in a way, that's true, but it's supposed to be a thing of beauty, soulmates if there ever were any, and instead it's this dumpster fire with nothing holding them together.

This one's easier in a way, well, sort of. Alice would have to be a completely different character and we'd have to see a lot more of Jasper.

Alice has a bad habit of treating those around her, even those she loves, as chess pieces. She'll put them in significant danger, court their misery, so long as it gets her the future she wants.

And she's extremely controlling.

Right away in the opening of Midnight Sun we see this and how it affects her and Jasper's relationship. The novel opens with Alice hovering, scanning the future for Japser fucking up, while Jasper just sits there in misery. Due to her obsession on making sure Jasper doesn't eat students, she actually misses Edward's plan to massacre Biology and his many plans to eat Bella Swan.

Even if she wasn't, this isn't good for anyone to live with. Jasper has very little concept of free will, whatever happens to him, whatever he'll do, Alice tells him and the worst possible option is always on the table.

For Jasper/Alice to work either Alice's gift needs to go (and that's... sort of all Alice is) or she has to tell no one any vision ever unless under extreme circumstances.

Which would be devastating for Alice. Rather than this mostly well-adjusted, perky, girl, Alice would be crippled by her gift. The weight of the world, everyone's free will, rests on her shoulders and she has to constantly avoid temptation to simply pick everyone's future for them.

Without the attitude Alice has in canon, I think she'd go mad with such a gift, or else be consumed by the responsibility of it.

Then we get to the mess that is Jasper. Jasper's complicated, and I don't want to get into it here, but his love story would have to be... too large to be put to the side like that. The redemption he'd need is not one that can be shoved into a few paragraphs told to Bella, it's frankly the kind of story that would drive an ordinary story.

So we'd have to see a lot of Jasper and Nouveau Alice. Which, of course, detracts from Bella/Edward which is the main point of the story.

Honestly, I take it back, there's no salvaging this relationship. They would have to be completely different people to the point where they're entirely different characters wearing nametags 'Alice' and 'Jasper'. Alice couldn't have her gift, which informs her entire character, and we'd have to see way too much of Jasper who is ultimately a tertiary character.

Carlisle/Esme

Thoughts on Carlisle/Esme.

Carlisle and Esme is a very 'spiritual' relationship per Meyer. They're... mom-bot and dad-bot. Alright, fine, they're the perfect parents with this deep love for each other and a very parental bond with Edward especially. It's the relationship Edward admires the most in his paired off family.

I don't even know how to fix this one.

Again, they'd have to be such different people. The trouble with Esme and Carlisle is that they share no values and are plagued by massive miscommunication. The Carlisle who is perfect for Esme... No, wait, this Carlisle is perfect for her, but that's because she's in Esme Land.

The Carlisle that would be perfect for a grounded Esme is not the one that exists. She'd want someone who would always put the family first, who would treasure her above all other things, that's not Carlisle.

Carlisle, similarly, would want someone that truly shares his ideals. That's not Esme.

So, we're back to nametag land, because one or both have to completely change for this to work. (Not to mention that Esme's probably not supposed to be Esme).

So, I've got nothing for this.

Rosalie/Emmett

I actually think these two are what Meyer intended. They love each other but are mostly held together by attraction. They're a very physical couple and good for the most part but inherently lesser than Bella/Edward.

Sure, I'd argue that they're the most put together couple in the house, but I think they're meant to have flaws. They work well together, but every other relationship in the Cullens has to be a step up or at least have something more to it.

Something Edward and Bella can be better than.

Conclusion

Dear god. Did I only manage to somewhat address Bella/Edward? Was that it? This was worse than I thought.

[kenshisthoughts]

Tumblr, Has a culture.

So I've been on tumblr for, a long time now. Prior to the great (And failed) NSFW Purge (That did nothing but get rid of legit NSFW artists and left the bots cause seriously 99% of my attempted followers all had links to 'dating' sights) This was my secondary account and i deleted and remade the account. So I've been around for awhile. Now Tumblr's culture took a bit of a hit during the great purge, not because our culture was the NSFW stuff (Though it did make up a not insignificant sub-culture) but due to all the non-NSFW accounts that left out of protest for this behavior. However Over the years I've seen a lot of tumblr videos and in the more recent years I have been watching a lot of P.M. Seymour Va, and Bettina Levy. Something I've realized from them more recently is an Odd phenomenon, Something that Only became more clear with all the recent Twitter nonsense. Tumblr, May be the only Social media with something resembling a culture.

Now obviously some joker is going to say "Yeah, a Bacterial culture." Because the internet is full of unoriginal ideas that get passed off as 'hilarious' to people with either an underdeveloped sense of social experience or an overdeveloped sense of self importance. Now what is it that gives me this concept of a Culture? Well there is simply a concept that I cannot find anywhere else that I know of. Heritage posts. Tumblr is the only site that I can think of where one can occasionally find and reblog a post from the forever ago era. Now some of you might say "well you can do that on-X site" Yes, there are other places You technically can do this, but do you? Does anyone? Twitter does not seem to do this, it isn't as if a tweet can't be brought back, infact many of twitters most stupid moments have been caused by someones X-year old tweets being dragged up from the muck of their past to be used as gotcha cards or justification of enragement devices. It is never a case of "omg i remember this thing from forever ago remember when twitter was only X years old?" Reddit? Reddit is literally a sub-culture coalescence machine. Usually posts that become nostalgic in some manner tend to do so by breaking away from Reddit and reaching youtube, twitter, and/or tumblr at some point, but it also doesn't just come up On reddit cause reddit keeps it's groups separate so any seriously nostalgic post that survives might come back in that specific sub-reddit but it isn't going to invoke nostalgia in the sites very bones. 4-Chan? Well They also seem pretty separated, sure there's overlap but the different boards are practically separate sites at times, plus Most things nostalgic on 4-chan end up being invoked as nostalgia on other site, mostly youtube, but on 4-chan? Honestly it's hard to say.

On Tumblr tho? "You like the color of the sky okay, which one?" "Flesh cloud ready to help you with your art!" The names Pukicho, Gaud, Sixpencee, and even P.M. Seymour Themselves. Tumblr has posts, and names, that are near universal, which is super rare on a social media site, which much like actual social groups has those who only interact with their own. It's so wild to consider that this is a thing that has happened on a Social media site, but even before the purge some of this was true. Tumblr had a wider amount of people touched by key posts then any other social media site. Infact It was something brought up in a recent video that Twitter for all it's power on social media has considerably less accounts then you would think. Even if no accounts where bot accounts it actually stands at fewer accounts then Tumblr let alone facebook and Reddit.

And yet, Noone would ever say twitter has a unified culture. Atleast not in good faith sense calling 'Outrage culture' a thing is an insult to the concept of culture and ignoring the fact that a lot of twitter users are just artists trying to art. You couldn't really accuse reddit of having a unified culture or facebook. Maybe you could accuse 4-chan of having a culture, but that would probably be a very negative one given what 4-chan became infamous for.

I think in a way Tumblr really has become something the other sites aren't, and in a way that noone could of expected. I'm sure other users could add their own experiences or examples of culturel heritage posts that tumblr has that I simply couldn't remember or put a real name to when writing this.

[goonlalagoon]

The stars must look on forever || Second Star to the Left

Bell Summers is supposed to be minding three Scouts.

Three months in, Gwendolyn Hartley hasn’t answered a single one of their calls, and all they can think is maybe I already failed. When the comms finally spark to life, they almost fall off of their chair in relief even as they snap accusing protocol down the line because it’s better than saying thank god thank god thank god you’re alive thank god you’re okay to a stranger.

It’s a thought that will repeat.

Read on Ao3

(Spoilers through to end of ep. 10 below)

Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything, they must just look on for ever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was.

- J.M. Barrie Peter Pan

When they receive the data packet detailing their three assigned scouts, Bell spends the whole night curled up reading through every detail, narrating key details to Gigo. They’ll read it all again in the morning, and again a few weeks later, and again the night before landfall, until they’ve memorised it - the scant personal details, names and pronouns and birthdates, the more detailed medical records (you can’t monitor someone’s physical condition without knowing the baseline, without knowing that Mikail mustn’t eat tomatoes and the schedule for when Hartley has to do regular maintenance on her prosthesis), the dense reports on what’s known of their destination planets. They use up highlighters and scrawl on post it notes.

Strictly, it isn’t Bell’s job to know the first thing about the planets beyond the elevator summary, but they were a scout before they were a minder. The structure of the dossier hasn’t changed a bit, and they absorb it all. They don’t know what they missed, on their failed expedition, but they won’t let it happen again. They can’t.

Priyanka isn’t a surprise; they knew that strings were being pulled specifically to line them up to be the assigned minder for Pri’s mission, because Pri’s uncle knew that if it came down to it Summers would burn every tenuous bridge they’d managed to rebuild to get her off the planet, and damn the consequences. They’re all so, so proud of Pri for getting through training, for being clever enough and strong enough and driven enough to make it, and they’re so worried too. Bell would burn any bridges, of course they would, but not every danger has enough of a time window to drag resources into place.

Mikail on paper seems promising - when his comms unit splutters into life as he’s speeding through the stars, months into the first year of expected isolation, he seems promisingly eccentric. He’s a cheerful rambler to Pri’s quiet snark, chattering about the reading he’s doing and the experiments he ran on the side back in training. They listen, gauge his wellbeing and start the slow work of building up trust, and try to ignore the smile tugging at their lips. This burring curiosity would serve him well, they think in the early days, exploring and studying and mapping out a whole new planet, so long as it didn’t kill him. It was their job to make sure it didn’t, that he remembered to eat and sleep and build proper shelters. That he remembered he couldn’t live off of curiosity and scientific glee alone.

Hartley doesn’t respond at all.

Bell checks all of the reports they can, to see if the signal is disrupted or there’s any suggestion that there’s been a technical issue, but everything shows up as working. They can see readouts of Hartley’s vitals, pulse rate and oxygen levels, so they know she’s alive. Probably. If one thing has gone wrong with the shuttle, who knows what other bizarre glitches may have cropped up.

They tell themselves that everything is fine, that there must just be a wire loose in the radio unit or, much more likely, Hartley has just decided that she doesn’t need a scout-minder and wants to go solo, has decided that Summers is an unnecessary and patronising addition to the mission. They submit false reports on Hartley’s well being, because they have absolutely no issue with lying to their superiors when they know the consequences for revealing that one of their three scouts has gone radio silent before even making landfall.

They talk to Pri and Mikail regularly, review condition reports on all three of them, ping Hartley every day and get no response.

They tell themselves that everything is fine.

  Bell Summers is supposed to be minding three Scouts. 

Three months in Gwendolyn Hartley hasn’t answered a single one of their calls, and all they can think is maybe I already failed. When the comms finally spark to life, they almost fall off of their chair in relief even as they snap accusing protocol down the line because it’s better than saying thank god thank god thank god you’re alive thank god you’re okay to a stranger.

It’s a thought that will repeat.

  Retrieving your scout bot hadn’t been a tradition for Bell’s local program. They wonder if it’s one that other programs have, or if it’s just Hartley’s program, one of the small, unofficial differences that most of the time no-one ever knows about. It’s not like scouts regularly get the chance to compare notes outside of their cohort.

 If they kept to their class promise, Pri and Mikail had been familiar enough with their minder after three months to not inform them of where they were going - neither of them were in the habit of thinking aloud to their bots, either, which would have made it easier to hide that they weren’t strictly following protocol. Gwen was defiantly independent, uncaring of her unexpected monitoring, and Bell wanted to cheer her on and reign her in at the same time.

 They guess most places have a tradition or two, some secret pact amongst scouts who are pointing themselves out to the stars and seeing where they land. Something to tether you, when you set foot on a new planet and know you’re on your own, something that ties you back to the people you left behind. Bell takes a moment to be grateful that their pact hadn’t been quite so risky; instead of venturing out into the unknown before even setting up a shelter, they had sworn to wake up early, ignoring all the schedules and warnings and automated messages prompting them to get their full six hours - find somewhere high and climb up to watch the first sunrise on planet.

 They’d scraped the skin off their palms clambering to their highest point, winced as they cradled the thermos they’d carried up with them and the warmth stung the broken skin. The ground had been damp, seeping through the seat of their trousers, a bite to the air that made their nose run, but they’d done it. They’d pointed Gigo in the right direction to record the sight, this first dawn over a new horizon, the first day of their new life.

 Despite everything that happened, the nightmare things had turned into, the bitter taste on the back of their throat whenever they think back to the way it had gone, it’s a memory that brings a smile to their face even as they scold. It’s a memory that they might not have thought to be precisely worth it, if they’d known at the start what they’d learned by the end, but it’s a memory they cling to all the same.

 They can’t help but be a little glad that there’s some kind of tradition for Gwen, too, even as they worry aloud about structures and protocols and whether Hartley is going to have the shelters up in time.

 The shelters have air filtration built in, have temperature regulation, and are designed to withstand the harshest of conditions. If everything turns to dust, they think the shelters will keep their scouts alive for long enough to find a solution.

  They direct all three of their scouts to build an emergency beacon, the one deviation from the protocols that Bell told themselves at the start that they’d not only permit but encourage - no, insist upon.

 The union had fought so hard for assigned minders, for check ins on alternate days and a reliable source of human contact, citing studies of mental well-being and the importance of support networks, but it all went one way. Bell would call their three charges every other day, talk to them or listen in as they went about their business for the mandated four hours, and review any data packets the scouts copied them into when they were sent out to home office - to monitor for adhesion to proper protocol, for signs of strain, and for their own scientific curiosity. The scouts would answer the call, update them, then be stuck waiting a day and a half for the next call. If there was an emergency, they would have no way to reach out, to ask for help.

 If something happened, Bell wouldn’t know until they tried to call and no-one answered.

 The beacons meant that the scouts could at least ping them, a request for contact that would tell Bell to drop everything and grab their headset. With a few quick instructions, the beacon could be altered - honestly, any of the scouts probably knew enough engineering to figure it out themselves - so that it wasn’t locked to just the one frequency.

 If there was an emergency, if their scouts were let down by all official channels, Bell wanted them to be able to reach out to anyone else who might listen, to have the choice to burn their own bridges for the sake of living. They thought, sometimes, that if it had just been them they wouldn’t have called on the smugglers, but they wouldn’t ask the same of these three scouts; looking through the dossiers, curled into a narrow bunk on a half decrepit station, Bell had already known that they’d beg them to do whatever it took to survive.

 It’s not even that they’re that much younger than Bell - only a few years their junior - but they seem it. They seem so painfully young, practically children for all that they’re in their twenties. Still caught in the excitement of it, lost children pointing themselves at the stars and planning to map it all by hand.

 Bell had been that young, once, before everything - before they spent years alone on a planet, before they were told your lives aren’t worth saving and turned around to save them anyway, before all of the ongoing consequences of that choice drove the knife that much deeper.

  What are you going to do if something goes wrong? snipes scout Hartley, her first day on planet as she’s standing on shaky legs, leaning on Boots because she managed to get bitten by something venomous on her little jaunt into the undergrowth. Listen?

  Bell splutters something back, because they know how useful this can be - someone to talk to, someone to do research when you’re stuck, knowing that someone picked up the phone and heard you out. Knowing that someone out there will notice, if you disappear for good.

 They don’t sleep well, staring at the ceiling over their bunk, thinking. They know it can help - they know they can help, that Hartley would probably be a lot more inclined to listen if she knew that her minder had walked this road themselves - but they can’t hide from the harsh truth.

 If it comes to it, if one of these three scouts finds themselves trapped in an apocalypse, sends up a beacon to say it’s all falling apart and I have no way out - all they can do is listen, and hope it’s enough.

  Priyanka falls ill, and they don’t notice.

 Pri has been important to them for years, but they’ve never been close, exactly. They know each other mostly from stories shared by Pri’s uncle, and there’s a level of familiarty that you don’t get from those kinds of tales, from a few months’ worth of regular check ins. Hartley notices, sees something amiss between the lines of the letters Pri sends her, and she does the only thing she can, flags it to their shared scout-minder - she does the only thing she can and speaks up, hoping that someone will listen.

 Bell wonders, later, once Gwen has been proven terribly right, if maybe this is the first time that Hartley has thought of their presence as anything other than an annoyance. Pri, once she got over the change in expectations, had been glad to have a semi-familiar presence on the line, someone who she could trade family gossip with when she felt like it and had worked out an agreement with for the time when she didn’t want to bother with conversation, and Mikail had been cheerful enough from the start to have someone to talk to about all his ideas and findings, but Hartley had always seemed - resentful, maybe, like having Bell shatter her solitude was unwelcome, for all that she seemed to agree with the union on the practicalities of providing a life line of contact.

 Pri fell ill, and Bell didn’t notice.

 They remind themselves, over and over, that it hadn’t been obvious. Gwen, Mikail and Pri had studied together for years, lived in each other’s pockets as they made the same harsh choice to leave everything they knew behind with no guarantee they’d ever be able to get any of it back. It makes sense that Gwen had seen something Bell didn’t, they know it makes sense, but they can’t keep from going back over every report, replaying every conversation, trying to pick up the hints of a change that they hadn’t seen.

 What else would they miss?

  They lose Mikail to a storm, nothing but static when they try again and again to call. Bell hunches over their monitor in their tiny cubicle, punching buttons with fingers that want to shake, hoping that if they try just once more it will go through. They’d known the risks, all of them, of course they had, but -

 This was what they’d feared most, when they took the job. If a planet collapsed, if it came to it, they had strings they could pull with the smugglers, had learned already where they drew the line. The worst news they’d expected to have to deliver would have been bad news, the settlement office doesn’t care about you at all and won’t cough up any of their copious spare change to save you, but good news I’ve got some friends on their way, so sit tight and keep the line open. But they’d known the statistics for scout missions; they’d known that they’d be stuck on one end of a line through accidents, through unforeseen dangers.

 Bell had wondered, on sleepless nights, what they would do if they called one of their scouts and got nothing in return. They’d thought they would have gotten used to it, what with Hartley turning off all comms for literal months before they finally made contact, but this was different. At least with the shuttles they’d had the readouts, vital signs and tracking, to guess that things were probably okay.

 Mikail was just gone, and they thought about what Gwen had told them, what Mikail had never mentioned directly for all his endless chatter - of all the scouts, of all the planets, they’d sent the one who hated water and despised swimming to a place he couldn’t escape the sea.

 They had never met their scouts, but they had seen them in photos. There hadn’t been pictures included in their briefing information because it wasn’t necessary, but Bell had wanted a mental image of the people they were speaking to, so they’d looked up the relevant records in the system. Pri they’d seen in pictures before, shared by a proud uncle, but Gwen and Mikail had just been names with attached heights and weights until they called up the photos attached to their official IDs.

 It meant they could imagine - Mikail, on his island, frowning at the waves and smiling at his scans. Mikail, caught in the water, washed away in a storm surge - they see it, over and over, whenever they try to sleep.

 The beacon pinging them is so unexpected that they think for a moment they may be dreaming. They’d thought it too late, that everything must have been washed away along with their scout, but here he is reaching out to them. The emergency, against protocol backdoor channel that they’d insisted on was doing its job, and they were so glad. They drop everything, as promised, as planned, and when Mikail’s voice come through their headset they bury their face in their hands, even while they fight to keep their voice even.

 What else had they missed? Pri, poisoned by something in the air that crept into her system and twisted her brain in circles. Mikail had been quietly studying an alien species without mentioning it, had learned enough to make a call that they wish he didn’t feel he had to make.

 They lose Mikail to the sea, after all.

 That he was choosing to dive and keep swimming helped, but they lose him all the same.

  Gwen’s planet lights itself on fire, and all they can do is listen.

 They wonder, somewhere in the midst of the panic they’re fighting not to allow to bleed through into their voice, if this is some kind of punishment. If this is another penalty, some kind of justice, you let your settlers down and now you have to be stuck watching, always watching and never able to do anything useful.

 They’d been stuck listening as Pri struggled to diagnose the changes to her own brain, to the silence on the end of the line when Mikail was swept away, to the quiet certainty of his decisions after that. They’re stuck listening once more as Gwen runs back into the oncoming fire to get their maintenance kit, because if she leaves it behind there’s little enough point surviving anyway.

 They don’t know who they think it’s a punishment from, and they don’t voice the thought because they know it isn’t, really. They do. Bell knows, as well as anyone, that knowing someone is listening even if there’s nothing to be done can mean everything.

 But it seems like so little, one hand clutching the edge of their wobbly desk in their narrow cubicle to ground themselves, pressing their headset closer to their ear like that will somehow help, like being a millimetre closer to the ear-piece can make a difference to Gwen as she tries to outrun a wildfire. It seems like so little, to be able to only promise to pass on any messages that Gwen wants, to swear they won’t stop until they’re delivered, if they’re the last words Gwen ever gets to say.

 It seems like so little, and that’s before they learn the truth, learn that Peter will never read any of the letters.

 Peter has been dead the whole time, and later Bell will think they should have guessed - neither Mikail or Pri had mentioned him much at all, even when Mikail had been listing off who he wished he could talk to about his decision, the limited handful of people who he wanted to be told the truth if it was safe to. Gwen had never shared a single snippet of a letter from Peter, for all she repeated gossip about her sister and stories from her other friends on their own missions, and Bell thinks they should have guessed from that alone rather than assuming it was just too private.

 They hadn’t - they hadn’t thought they knew everything about Hartley, of course they hadn’t, but Gwen narrated her day to Boots and, by extension, Bell whenever they called. They’d thought that Gwen was the one they weren’t missing anything from - no unrecognized illness, no secret alien encounters.

 Just a grief they hadn’t known she was carrying, a loss she was still learning to live with.

 They think maybe they know, now, why Gwen had been so reluctant to have a voice in her ear, that first day, setting out to rescue a scout bot she’d sworn to retrieve. Why it had mattered so much that this was her first achievement, once her boots touched the ground of that alien planet for the first time.

 Gwen’s planet is burning and neither of them know what she’ll have left in the world when it dies down, so Bell does the only thing they can and tries to fill the uncertain silence with a story to hold on to.

  When Amelia lays out gleeful threats, promises of justice, it’s Gwen that Bell calls.

 Their head has been spinning since they hacked into the archives - they’d bought into the conspiracy theory, somehow, half convinced themselves there was a big reason for what had happened, something that would answer all the questions they’d lived with for years. Something that could ease the burden of guilt on their shoulders and caught at the back of their throat.

 Well, they had their answer: a skipped scan. A check they forgot, let slide because they were busy, a protocol they set aside to juggle other things - yet another warning sign they’d missed.

 Gwen insists otherwise, points out the ways they can’t be blamed, the way they wouldn’t blame any of their scouts if positions were changed. Points out that maybe it wasn’t a conspiracy, but there’s still something dodgy going on. There’s still something here - in the way these records are hidden, restricted, when they should be public record.

 If there was nothing here more damning than the record of what Bell missed and the price their settlers paid - it would be a cautionary tale, something held up in class for the overconfident new scouts: here’s why you should stick to protocol, kids, even when it seems pointless. This is why you can’t get complacent, get comfortable, can’t trust that after five years you know everything about your planet and you can relax.

 But it’s hidden, and they refuse to let that stand. They’ve wondered, so often over the years, if being made to do nothing but listen helplessly is the punishment for whatever mistakes they made. They know that’s what their employers think, those in the know about their history, shaking their heads and murmuring about how at least this once-promising scout can put their training to use. Those that can do, do, and those that can’t, teach. Or, as the case may be, listen.

 They listened, and they know that mattered.

 They listened when Hartley raised concerns, pushed for scans and tests to uncover what was ailing Pri, what could be done to save her. They listened to Mikail when he begged to be declared dead, gone, pleaded for them to be the one to break his family’s hearts because he couldn’t stand to be the reason his planet and its people were destroyed. They listened to Gwen while her home burned, talked to her through the panicked flight and the post-adrenaline slump.

 Sometimes all you can do is speak, and hope someone is listening.

  Twenty years for the murder of someone still alive. There’s an irony there, but they’re not sure they appreciate the joke. Less for good behaviour, so they try to curb their tongue, suppress the urge to fix things and instead try to maintain a stoic silence when they want to stand up to anyone who thinks to shove them around.

 After the first time they throw a punch in prison, because someone crosses a line and it’s all too much, because they can’t let it slide and still be them - it occurs to them, bandaging up bruised knuckles and wondering if they tell Gwen about this or try (and probably fail) to hide it, that it doesn’t matter.

 They aren’t here because the people in charge really think they committed murder – no unbiased court could look at assembled an emergency beacon out of spare parts and scout who hated swimming drowned after his entire camp was destroyed in a massive storm and conclude that it was remotely related, let alone intentional: they’re here because when they were told the price of freedom was lying to – lying about - their settlers, denying their dead justice, they said not a chance in hell.

 This isn’t a flawed attempt at justice, this is a punishment.

 They won’t be allowed out early, even if they’re the perfect prisoner. They have to live with this, and if that means getting a few bruises and scraped knuckles - well. They’ve never been afraid of a fight, and they weren’t the best at following the rules even before they realised just how little anyone in power cared.

 Gwen writes to them, and they can’t help checking in - are the crops growing, is her leg holding up, has she done her monthly environment scans (yes, yes, and of course, Bell) - all of the questions they had written out years ago to cover in regular check ins.

 They wonder who has taken over as scout-minder, who’s talking Pri through her newfound challenges as best they can without stepping too much on her fiercely independent toes and trying to figure out the change in cadence that signifies Hartley has switched to talking to Boots rather than whoever is on the line. They wonder if anyone is trying periodically to ping Mikail, hoping against hope that this time he’ll answer, that by some miracle he survived (they wonder if he’s figured out how to get his own messages to Gwen, once he realised that conference calls had always been an option except for bureaucratic limitations)

 They’re checking in, lists of questions and signs to watch out for briefed to them in advance, but they’d ask anyway, even if they’d never been told to ask.

 This stopped being about making sure that the scouts who’d had so much money and time invested into them remained at optimum performance sometime around the first time the call connected and they were taken on a completely out of protocol wander through Gwen’s new home in search of a defunct scout bot and a new horizon.

  They’ve come a long way, since the first long weeks of trying and failing to reach the third of their assigned scouts over the comms, since the first time Gwen picked up the call to discover that instead of an automated message she had a live - and somewhat irate - scout-minder waiting on the other end of the line.

 Bell knows that there’s no point trying to call until the ship is in sight of the planet, that they won’t have the signal or the range to reach Gwen until it’s a matter of hours before they meet face to face. They try anyway, thinking with retrospective fondness of the first three months, calling a number that never picked up no matter how often they tried.

 They wonder what’s going on, on planet.

 This is the first time they’ve been out of contact from Gwen since the first relieved moment when a call went through, when Scout Hartley made landfall and resigned herself to turning the computer and all its notifications back on. Bell thought at the time that being stuck just listening was bad, but they never thought they’d have months with no contact at all, no way of knowing. Everything had seemed fine, and the settlement ship was en route, but they knew how quickly things could deteriorate.

 Then again, Hartley had managed to coordinate a prison break remotely and apparently undetected despite using official comms channels to do it under the settlement offices’ collective noses. She was probably fine and managing to do a lot of impressive and yet wildly off protocol things that would delight and exasperate Bell in equal quantity.

 Honestly, Bell would like to say they’re surprised that this is the kind of woman they fall in love with, but they’re not; they’re years past lying to themselves like that.

 The planet comes into view, and they reach for their headset again. In a matter of hours, it won’t matter - neither of them will be stuck just listening, offering up ideas and research and stories to carry each other through, calling for help and hoping someone pays attention.

 But for now, the comms unit splutters, Gwen’s voice filling the storage bay they’re illicitly camped out in, and Bell presses the headset closer to her ear like that will help them hear more clearly, will make it easier to know for sure that Gwen is really okay, unsuspected and untouched by the fallout.

 I’ll see you on the ground, they promise, a distant star falling to the earth at last, and watch the horizon come into view.