#if the original poster tags the thing correctly

[baejax-the-great]

I have seven different tags blocked to avoid spoilers for the next dragon age game and yall just have to post everything willy nilly

[wingsdippedingold]

I couldn’t reblog this normally since I have the og poster blocked, but this is a pretty common sentiment in the community that I want to put my comment on:

Now I’m not gonna sit here and argue that there aren’t people who like Feyre more in the first book and consider her to be “better”, because people do, and I think it’s valid to think that as well as valid to not think that. To clarify I think neither, but more on that later. This is also a decently long post, I tried to make it concise but it’s anything but that 💀

I think comparing her character in the first book to her sisters (this post is specifically Nesta, but I’ve seen it done with Elain) is purely made in bad faith. Equating them in this manner blatantly ignores the obvious differences in characterization and nuance in their writing.

It is widely known that SJM has said that Elain and Nesta were just made to be caricatures and cartoon evil sisters and that she didn't initially plan for them to become anything more than background characters. They were meant to be flat and evil, because that’s all the purpose they had at the time. They were there to give Feyre a hard time and make us sympathize with her, and they did that.

No one is saying that that it’s silly to get hung up on Nesta’s actions because they “happened a long time ago and she had development”, they’re saying that because her actions were literally meant to be cartoonishly evil and not to have any actual depth or reasoning to them.

However, Feyre at the time was still a fleshed character that was supposed to be in the spotlight. Her character traits and depth were continuously shown off, whereas her sisters only existed to give her a backstory and struggle. Her character in the first book cannot be written off to the same degree as her sisters, and it’s false equivalency to think that it can be.

At the time the way Nesta and Elain was written was fine, but in deciding to change them to be actual characters with thoughts, feelings, and backstory, Sarah majorly fucked herself over. This is why she had to retcon things and add their own struggles later on and why you’ll see a lot of people defending them for their cabin actions; and as a side of the fandom who take her retcons as canon, you can’t pick and choose which ones you don’t want to take as canon solely because they change the your notion of the character. It’s a packaged deal, either you’re down with SJM’s narrative and story, or you’re not (I’m not), because guess what? The other characters around said character will also comply by these retcons.

But when you hammer it down so hard that these girls are horrible people in the first book because you couldn’t give the time of day to make sure you’re actually creating a cohesive storyline, rather than just trying to push out a character for people to immediately sympathize with, it’s hard to rectify that, and I often find it the mark of a bad writer (and poor planner) regardless if you weren’t planning on ACOTAR being a series.

I 100% understand Nesta hate, it’s hard to change your idea of a character when you’ve already been made to dislike them and like the character they initially antagonized. If she, or any other character, is not your cup of tea, that’s fine. Like what you like. Hate what you hate (assuming you stay in your lanes and tag correctly, which many of you do not do, and instead tag specifically to push your anti content into pro spaces and make people mad, but that’s a different topic) u, this circles back to my original point that you cannot equate the validity of the characters and writing of Nesta and Elain to Feyre in the first book.

Now do I agree that Feyre was her '"true self" in book 1 vs the others? No.

I think a lot of people, and a lot of antis, earlier Feyre lovers, and probably some of my mutuals, will disagree with me on this, but Feyre's character progression has always made sense to me. That's not necessarily to say that I like it, but considering her circumstances, the people around her, the environment, and her own personality and beliefs, her change and progression from ACOTAR to ACOSF makes total sense to me. I do think there's some inconsistencies, and I definitely think there’s a lot of situations where ACOTAR Feyre would react differently than later Feyre, but that’s just a product of her being a character with an arc and overall I can understand how she got from point A to point B.

I won't get into the details here, but if anyone's curious on why I think so, Imk, l'd love to talk about it

There’s also a good chance that the original poster of this will try to argue my way directly from my account, which is weird because I have you blocked, so I won’t see it, nor do I care to… so don’t? Idk man, save your energy, the stalking is crazy

[leptonyx-constellate]

You mentioned an idea for a “school for plurals” in one of your posts. I’ve never heard about such a thing before, could you expand upon it?

Ooh boy.

So, basically, some months ago, someone who was/is otherwise respected in certain parts of the plural--and especially endogenic plural--community made a post about how she wanted to found a "school for plurals". The idea sounded okay at first (although we had our own hang-ups as the post you're referring to described, namely with enforced nametags connected to simplyplural to show who's fronting), but then it was the revealed that part of the whole point of the school (if not just the whole point of the school entirely--details are a little fuzzy since it's been a bit) was to be a psychiatric experiment on the plural kids who went there. I don't remember all the details fully, but it ended up sparking some controversy, and it led to one of our beloved mutuals (hi :3) blocking the original poster after multiple years (if I recall correctly) of being mutuals with her. Which sparked yet more drama.

(We ourselves had blocked her some time before that--she had a habit of being, in our opinion, overly aggressive towards anti-endos in ways that would only push anti-endos further into their echo chamber, along with frequently cross-tagging into anti-endo tags specifically to piss them off. Honestly it's in part because of her that we now have our policy of "if you post in anti-endo tags, even if you yourself are pro-endo, unless you are a mutual who only does it on rare occasion, you are getting blocked" simply because she'd do it so often and we, having been posted to r/systemscringe already in the past, were already extremely wary and anxious about any chance of anti-endos stumbling across our blog(s) again.)

If you're looking for more information on the whole situation, I know @\anti-psych-pro-endo made some posts about it early on in the blog, along with the ensuing further drama that happened in the aftermath. It was uh, a bit of a mess. And if said beloved mutual sees this and would like to comment their own perspective on everything, we can reblog that here as well

[tutti-says]

Re: intersex, intersexism and me

I’ve had something I have wanted to say, something that has weighed heavily on me over the past few weeks. Something I’ve spent hours reading trying to figure out and understand the different sides of.

This is something that, of course, happened at the tail end of the conflict. I do not want to bring the entire conflict to focus. I am purposefully not naming names nor specifying incidents because I am not coming to you today as Tutti the defender, I’m coming today as Tutti the person. To start with - I am intersex, medically intersex. That’s as much as I am willing to divulge because it’s not something I tell really anyone and to say so here leaves my chest very tight. I’ve already had to expose many wounds and traumas I bear because I don’t believe I can correctly explain my point of view and why I feel that way without sharing. It is no burden nor shame to be myself, but I also don’t want to be the one “with the microphone” or anything. 

I wanted to talk to the original poster and try to explain things from my lens, but I didn’t know how exactly to approach them in a way that wouldn’t risk more harm. The poster was hurting. I was hurting. Everyone in this whole mess was hurting and it just wasn’t the time and hasn’t been - but I really would like to share my perspective. This isn’t even something I’ve talked about with my friends nor my wife. Honestly, I was so shocked at the post and the effects that rippled from there, I couldn’t even feel anything but numb at first. I felt my duty at that moment was to ensure the safety of lives that were now at risk, so I haven’t really brought up how this has affected me. 

To briefly (as much as possible) mention the incident without names because again, I would like to talk personally - there was a post about a tag on an Ao3 fic where the original poster labeled it as intersexism. My friend, knowing the writer and why the writer chose that specific tag, then reposted the post and commented about intersex people not being safe in writing. Unbeknownst to my friend - the original poster was intersex. 

I even replied to the post my friend made because I was confused on why the original poster called the fic tag intersexist, nor why intersex was even brought in. It felt to me like the post was saying persons weren’t allowed to write intersex fics. I was really confused and honestly a little taken aback as an intersex person myself. The original poster did not include my post in the thread, I don’t know why but I do claim that it was not with ill intent towards me, but I will include it here.  

The original poster saw the post and replies, and though I cannot speak of their feelings, I am sure the matter was hurtful to them to say the least. In return, the original poster made a thread detailing the events and their interpretation of what was said - and when I read it my heart sank. I know the people in the replies, and I knew what they meant by what they said in response to the original post my friend made. Most of the errors stemmed from difficulties in communication brought about by neurodivergence, which the original poster could not know of.  However, I cannot say that every reply I saw to the thread in the climax, a heated back and forth from other friends, was entirely innocent - nor were they in any way kind or understanding. Some of them hurt me, as fighting for diagnoses on anything is such an arduous task. But right now I want to talk about this from the perspective of an intersex person who knows the author, a trans writer, willfully choosing to not use a tag with intersex but dual gender because this was a fic about the author and their gender dysphoria finding ease through fiction. Knowing that the original poster did not read the fic but made an assumption based solely on the tag and prior instances made me really confused. Though the original poster didn’t name my friend nor the fic - they did misgender my friend and speak ill of them. Yet, I also understand how exasperating it is to see things that have hurt you by people who know nothing about intersex but use it and the erm - genitalia without care nor research. I wish more than anything that my friend or the original poster would have messaged instead of publicly posting - so they might have found understanding. To this day, my friend has not read the thread about intersexism. Their tumblr post saying goodbye was not in relation to intersex in the slightest, and they never read any of the replies. This was my doing. My choice to put my friend’s life first. I begged them not to read it. So if anyone is mad my friend did not see your replies on Tumblr or the thread on Twitter - blame me. I am solely responsible. I’m of two minds on everything - because it comes down to if perisex trans persons are allowed to write or contemplate having dual genitalia or if the thought in itself is intersexist. I know that people will think that because I carry a label of proship I couldn't care less - but I do care.  To me, in a world where awful experimentation etc. is still done on intersex people, it would be hard to write this without bearing the empathy towards intersex people and the hardships faced. And honestly, that isn’t done in a lot of cases. However, in the case of the particular fic that was being discussed, the writer HAD written and tagged in a way that respected intersex people while writing from the viewpoint of a person who is trans with the specific label of salmacian. So, I don’t believe it was wrong nor intersexist of my friend to write a fic using their own lens and a tag that made sense for the fic. It was not prejudiced, but rather heartfelt. 

At the moment though, I could say nothing against the unmountable tidal waves of hate pouring from both sides. I am still devastated at what occurred in a few short hours and how easily it could have been avoided. I feel heartbroken in so many ways because so many voices needed to be shared and nearly all of them were silenced. 

[beggars-opera]

how do I use tags correctly? like, whats the propper tag etiquette? I'm pretty new here and don't wanna screw this up haha

Tags serve three main purposes: they help others find your posts, they help you find your posts at a later date, and they serve as a way to add metatextual commentary to a post.

So, at a base level, if you want other people to find your post, or want a way to find the post more easily yourself at a later date, you would add purely descriptive tags like on any other social media site so people looking in those tags will see your post. For example, a post of someone baking bread might have #food #baking #cottagecore etc. Fandom tags often utilize abbreviations (tagging #OFMD instead of #OurFlagMeansDeath for example) and these are best found by searching around yourself and seeing which tags are the most active.

A few pointers here:

Don't tag hate. It's fine if you dislike something, but going on a rant about how much you hate a thing and then tagging it so that everyone who loves the thing will have to look at it is considered aggressive and rude.

People will often tag for common triggers like gore and rape as a courtesy to those using extensions to erase posts containing those tags from their dash. The exact format of these tags has never been formalized, but most use the #cwtrigger, #twtrigger, or just #trigger format.

Tags on original posts mean that post will show up when you search for that tag. Tags on reblogs do not make it show up in the tag page a second time and are only useful for internal blog searching.

You can also choose to use tags that are just for you, like #mythoughts or #myart, which allows you to search your own blog more easily. If you are an artist of any sort, using a tag denoting what is an original work is highly recommended.

Some people also use a tag specifically for posts that are in their queue, to let people know that the post is automatic and that they are not necessarily online at that particular moment. Getting creative with puns gets you brownie points. #scoobydoobyqueue

Tags specifically go into the tag section at the bottom of the post editor. Adding hashtags to the body of a post does absolutely nothing. You can, however, @ another user in the body of the post.

Tags are also often used for commentary purposes. They are sort of like whispering under your breath after you've publicly stated whatever is in your post. This can include musings, jokes, and other information that didn't quite seem important enough to put in the main body of the post. Every post of a beautiful woman does not need five hundred people writing "as I lesbian I am looking respectfully *googly eyes emoji*" in the post but you can 100% put that in the tags.

Pointers with this:

Eventually everyone gets the hang of what thoughts are important enough to put in the body of a post or reblog and what should be relegated to the tags. You can ask yourself "is this adding something useful to the conversation, or is it just me rambling or keysmashing?"

If your tags are witty enough, other users may deem them worthy of being included in the main post, screenshot them, and put the screenshot in their reblog. We consider this a peer review process of sorts and it is a badge of honor.

Again, being kind is a common courtesy. When you add tag commentary, the original poster and person you reblogged from are notified, and everyone can see it. So if you write in the tags that the post is stupid and that the OP is a cunt, congrats, you've just made the OP cry and you should probably not be on the internet.

Tags are comma delineated so if you are typing a thought in the tag long enough to need a comma, use a semicolon instead, otherwise the tag will be split in two. Likewise, quotation marks will not show up in a tag.

I hope this helps!

[lesferatu]

I have read a lot of Welcome to Tumblr posts for reddit people and I agree with most of it but something I haven't seen has to do with tag etiquette. I've seen people say "do whatever" and I don't completely agree with that specifically. What they should say is "there is no specific tag for each community, so don't worry too hard about it and if you want to talk in the tags, that is more than encouraged" but there are a few rules

So here's some tagging guidelines:

Only tag what is relevant to the post at hand. If you have specific tags for organization of your blog, then you can use those. If you tag irrelevant stuff, not only is it super annoying and clogs up the tag but you will be reported for spam and that can get you banned. So chat and keysmash all you want but don't tag something that's trending to get more attention and dont mention characters in the thing you are talking about who arent mentioned in the post. The search function barely works as is on a good day, don't make it worse

If you are unsure what to tag, search what you are posting about and look at what other people are tagging. Keep the above rule in mind. You can save your post as a draft if you are in the middle of writing and can't search

If I remember correctly, the first 5 tags count for the search feature and the first 10 tags (? Could be 15) count for filtering tags, which is important for tagging spoilers and triggers, if you do that

On that note: Tag Spoilers for new media

If you do chat (which again is greatly encouraged and is, in fact, half the fun) remember that the person you reblog from and the original poster (or OP) will get a notification and will be sent your tags, so be respectful. You *are* yelling into the void but some of the void can read

I wouldn't use "prev tags" right now, since staff broke the ability to follow reblog chains easily, so it's hard to find what you are referring to. If you must talk to the person you are reblogging from, do something like "prev tags: [insert prev tags here]" or "[insert prev tags here] <- prev tags" in your tags then say what your going to say

And just cause I know this has been a problem in the past, if you are here for minecraft youtubers/streamers, Do Not tag your posts as "minecraft" or "mineblr". That tag is for people who play the game normally to share their builds and the like. Again, you can search the specific youtubers/streamer/smp to get the tag that most people use for that specific community or use "mcyt" to find the general stuff

And last but not least, you do not have to tag! It is a personal choice. It'll get your own posts to the people who might like it, some people like to organize their blog (not me lol,) and tagging spoilers is just common decency, but reblogs dont show in the search, only the og post, and you don't have to tag if you don't want to; the people who follow you/look at your blog will see your post and nobody else

Edit cause I just remembered this one: don't main tag hate. If you hate a ship and want to post about it, don't tag the ship. At least tag it as "[ship name] hate" or "[ship name] discourse" so people who like that ship don't have to stumble across it on the main tag and can filter it. Doesn't have to be a ship, could be a show or a hobby or a book. People who enjoy a thing have just as much right to have a good experience on here as you have a right to hate that thing. Stay civil, it's the only way this place is as chill as it is now (and I say that as someone who's been here since the beginning. Whatever drama you find on here now is Nothing compared to what it was on this hellsite (affectionate) before)

If you can think of anything else, please add, and if you have any questions, just ask!

[lawlightweek2024]

hi, i am aware at this point it might be a lot of work, but would you guys consider tagging your posts according to type of fancontent? eg fanfiction, art, edit etc. id also love if you tagged it according to the prompt/day it was made for? but that's even more work and you don't need to do it at all, i don't mean to bother, just asking just in case there's a possibility you would consider this, thank you so much! i also wanted to add just a little thing, you don't need to tag your reblogs with multiple tags like "lawlightweek2024" etc, as reblogs do not show up in the main tag. posts will only show up in the tag if the original poster tagged them that way. i don't mean any offence by this, i just supposed you are probably from twitter and may not know. thank you in advance! no need to respond if you decide not to do these things and prefer not to respond.

hi there! i am soso sorry for not seeing this earlier! it’s no problem at all! i’ll go ahead and tag the reblogs correctly soon. i’ll keep this in mind for future reblogs too.

[feralghxuls]

i thought that if the original poster of say, a gifset, tagged all the necessary cw then it should be fine even if by reblogging those gifsets you don't follow through on tbe cw tags? is that not the case? i swear everytime i think i'm getting a grip on how tumblr works then no i don't. i'm asking you after your post on flashing lights warning cause you probably learn to figure out this kind of stuff when you use filters for things that are important (like my only filtered tag is taylor swift hakdjahfk). hopefully you can avoid headaches better from now on <3

oh! no problem, thank you for asking for clarification cause yeah tumblr is a little weird with tags. i actually had to go double check this because tumblr's built in filtering system has changed over the years. but yes, in theory, if OP tags their post correctly, it should be caught by the filters even if people who reblog it don't tag it

however i don't trust tumblr so imo i think it's better to be in the habit of tagging things like that when you reblog them just in case OP didn't, bc unless you also have that blacklisted or are reblogging directly from OP the first time they posted something, you're not gonna know if they tagged it #flashing or not unless you go check. and tumblr has made it very difficult to go directly to OP's version of a post

[fizziepopangel]

Who are the artists from your “happy all the time” post?

That is a really good question. I don't know for sure who the original artists aside from the first and second one of Stolas actually taking the pills and of him sitting in bed with his head in his hands because those I screen grabbed straight from the show while I was rewatching it for another post I was writing. All of the other work was pulled from Pintrest and only one has a signature in it (the darker image of Stolas crying), I'm not sure where the tagged signature is from but if I'm reading it correctly, its signed @m4gg0ts___

I do pull art from Pintrest in most cases if I don't directly screenshot pictures from the show so I'm not always very sure where the art came from originally, just the page I pinned it from and a lot of the time that isn't the creator, just another re-poster. The last thing I ever want to do is discredit an artist for their work, so if I use artwork that someone recognizes as their own or you recognize as someone else's, please reach out to me and let me know so that I can edit the post to credit them for their work.

[seirclys]

To the person telling us to blacklist the anti-tags and stop, quote-unquote, "intruding on them":

First of all, the unnamed poster also tagged the DITOEFTV/VADD tags in some of their posts. So it's not on us if we see it. If they didn't want to get a conversation in the open community, then they can just not tag it.

Second, when have we ever "cross-tagged shit", as you so politely put it? I distinctly remember that I was one of the people telling cross-taggers to stop and tag correctly? If you're referring to the multitude of tags underneath my posts, it's simply the different tags this fandom exists under. Stop saying shit that we didn't do.

Third, I'm sure I've been here long enough, seeing as I remember being on Tumblr for some time when it was sold to Yahoo in 2013. Don't think I don't know Tumblr etiquette; I've probably been here longer than many people.

Fourth, we don't "hate them/you" as you assume. I clearly remember asking the original poster(which I will not name) to clarify their opinion, and they used novel spoilers, so people can't come at me for "lording over my novel superiority", because they used the novel as a baseline for their argument.

We kept asking questions because they opened themselves to a conversation when they posted in the main tag. If you don't like it, then don't tag the main tags, then. Simple as that.

If they delete their post and block people in the argument in lieu of giving an actual rebuttal, then it's natural to assume some things. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I read the DITOEFTV novel at 4am and was extremely sleep-deprived. So I barely remember more than the manhwa readers who saw novel spoilers. Still, I'm able to do analyses and arguments because of my friends. Again, I don't claim "novel reader superiority".

Edit: LMAO I GOT BLOCKED BY JBE but I'm still going to get screenshots from moots sooo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edit 2: The poster- yknow what fuck it, @jeweled-blue-eyes you literally use novel spoilers in your argument. You can't say shit about "it's different from the manhwa!!" and about being a manhwa only when you clearly use novel spoilers, like Iklies being a prince of Delman, etc etc. SUOL-nim is working closely with the original author, the manhwa won't change as much as you think it'll be, to the point where Iklies gets redeemed or something. His dark side is LITERALLY a major plot point. You said stuff about how someone said you need therapy before blocking you immediately. I distinctly remember(because they were messaging a group of people) that they said "Oh god, she blocked me, she deleted my comments."

[selfdestructivecat]

Ok I’m sorry I’m about to go on a bit of a rant but this has been something I’ve seen a LOT of so I wanted to say something, at least to get it out of my system.

The Sanders Sides fandom has a pretty heavy emphasis on shipping, and that’s awesome! While the overarching storyline is really intriguing, it’s truly the characters that make the show shine. So obviously there is going to be lots of fanart and fanfics dedicated to shipping these characters. And there are a LOT of ships in this fandom.

And that brings me to what’s been really bugging me. If you are by any chance a content creator for this fandom and are making shipping art/fanfic…

PLEASE TAG THE SHIPS!!!

Not only is this good for your own post, as it helps your shipping content reach people who LIVE for that stuff, but it’s also helpful for people who are filtering certain ships. Some of these ships can really upset a lot of people, like if one of their comfort characters is shipped with another character they don’t like, or if they have a comfort ship that is being contradicted by another ship, or even if the ship itself just bothers them in a way they can’t describe.

THIS IS NOT AN ATTACK AGAINST PEOPLE WHO LIKE CERTAIN SHIPS. This is also not an attack against people who multiship. You do whatever makes you happy! But something that this community does (and one of the most WONDERFUL things about this community!) is that stuff gets reblogged and shared around a lot! So even if I don’t follow someone specifically because they post content of a ship I don’t like, it’ll usually get around to my dash because y’all are awesome about reblogging stuff!

So that makes it REALLY FRUSTRATING when I see content of a ship that makes me squick. I am not blaming the people who reblog. I often don’t tag in reblogs either. But sometimes I see content of ships I’ve filtered because the original poster didn’t tag the ship.

ALSO, and I know this can be a bit more difficult, but PLEASE REMEMBER TO SPELL THE SHIP NAME CORRECTLY!!!

The shipping names for the SaSi fandom are very tricky and often nonsensical, but if you misspell the ship, it will get past filters. So remember to double check your spellings!!! Ships with Virgil (aka names that include “Anxiety”) and Janus (“Deceit”) have been some of the worst perpetrators.

And I know that can be especially difficult for people whose first language isn’t English, so I understand that mistakes will be made, but please try your best! Other posts with that ship are a great reference!

Ok that’s all. Sorry again for the rant, and I appreciate you guys for listening. ^.^

(And if you ever see me misspell a ship name or fail to include a ship, PLEASE let me know! The last thing I want to do is make anyone uncomfy.)

[potahun]

flkasjdf the way i didn't even know there was a (even if small) fandom for tsme on tumblr and here i've been, crying to my poor non-pokemon fans about literally the same four episodes for the past two years (which was when i first got back into xyz, i grew up on it, phased out of it, and then came back haha)

but anyways the content you've put out this month is incredible?? the fact that there ARE other people who love these episodes when most of my friends don't even know they exist 😭 you're actually the best omg you're super super talented btw i love your art and your writing which is. the next point ig?

because even though i'm not the hugest alain/steven fan (tho you're starting to sell me on it haha) i actually read for as many revolutions back when it was updating/incomplete? i subscribed because i really enjoyed it nonetheless (and your worldbuilding and lore was so SO cool) and because i'm starved for alain content haha but i thought you did an amazing AMAZING job writing him and his mental state post-canon and i actually made a private bookmark with some quotes i really liked, so tysm for writing and sharing that! just wanted to say that since i got too shy to leave an actual comment back then 😅

but anyways this is really long and i really just wanted to ask if tsme month is for you to answer asks and provide much, much appreciated content or if other people can/should use the tag too? again, i didn't even realize this fandom even existed until last night because i'm a dumbass so apologies if this is a very silly question 😂 but i did a drawing and i was wondering if that should go under the tag or if that's not allowed flaksdf

sorry for this likely incomprehensible ask but you're amazing and thank you so so much for your content and contributions i can't say that enough 😭😭

HOLY.

HOLY MOLY.

I am so

I mean first of all YES!!! tHere is a fandom! Small, but it exists (and I love it very much)!  and alskjdlakjdlkajlthank you so much??? I know I am not really great at either, BUT I do have a lot of enthusiasm  :DDDDD and willingness to put things out for tsme <3

And THANK YOU LOADS FOR READING ‘FOR AS MANY REVOLUTIONS’!!! <3333 AAAA I was very worried about writing alan’s mental state correctly, so that’s a huge relief to know you specifically enjoyed that part!! AND THE MADE-UP LORE!! AND WORLDBUILDING!!! AAAAA!!! The lore especially took me on a field trip, I had so much fun, but while drawing the trigrams and sequencing at 1am-ish I also distinctly remember myself thinking ‘wtf am I doing’ kasjdlkasjdk I still had tremendous fun tho. just the whole trigrams and dragon business was super fun to me THANK YOU!!

AND to tackle the last point: YESSSSSSSSSSS I started TSME Month just as an excuse to scream a lot, but you are MORE THAN WELCOME to use the ‘tsme month’ tag if you wish to! You don’t have to, of course, but are mooooore than welcome to!! I haven’t really scoured it until now because when I started it, I wasn’t truly expecting a response BUT I have been so, so, so happy to see that some people have also posted content tsme in the last few weeks :DDD I do go into the ‘tsme’ tag as well from time to time (among others), just to see if we have new content. All this to say if you do use the ‘tsme month’ tag, I would be thrilleddddd  Anyone is welcome to join in the screaming about tsme <333 actually that would send me over the moon

the only question for me is whether people feel comfortable with ME reblogging such content with the ‘tsme month’ tag again tbh! I guess people can tell me directly if they prefer me not to? I would of course tag, in the reblog, that the art is by the original poster!

[simadream]

(MOD) BathroomStalls Set by Dreama ♥

You might remember my stall set from last year. Well, the stalls from DU had me thinking about my set again and I decided to update them and add a lot more functionality!

This took a lot of work so please reblog and leave nice comments 🌼

Details and download under the cut~

TL;DR at the bottom

First off, this set is based off the meshes converted from ts3 by @ohmysims404. So shout out to them!

🌼 Description:

This set works just as my old set worked. You put down dividers one tile apart where you want stalls to be, place one of the toilets from the set, then with bb.moveobejcts on you place down a wall across the front of the stalls and place the stall doors facing INTO the stall. Then you delete the wall and the door will remain. This time, you can make stalls for toilets and stalls for showers. The stalls for toilets have a dedicated divider with a paper dispenser, and the stalls for showers have a dedicated divider which a small bench for your stuff and a hook for a towel. Dividers for urinals are also included. 2 tile wide stalls are  possible by placing down stall dividers 2 tiles apart and placing the regular door stall extender divider on the left and the regular door on the right. You can also use the wide door extenders (left and right) and slide the wide door in place using alt. See the room provided for an example of how it’s set it. There’s also a lot of little decor objects to make everything a little more detailed.

Watch this video to see how this works.

l the toilets, showers, and the tub have privacy disabled so sims can use them while there are other sims in the room. They also have a few updates to make maintenance less irksome. The packages with [TUNING] in them have the tuning xml -- don’t delete those!

The 2 urinals are recolors of Menaceman44's male urinal and @jpcopesims urinal. You need the meshes. | gave JPCcopeSIMs urinal Mecaceman's tuning so make sure you have that one if you want the other one to work.

| have also included multiple decorative objects, -- some of which you’d probably expect to snap to walls. However, | have removed wall-snapping to allow the most freedom. Tip: for these items place by lifting the item with 9 until it is at the correct height, then with alt down slide the item towards the wall/divider.

Many of the signs included are a select portion of @budgie2budgie​ Community and Bathroom Signs-- | just cloned them, added a few swatches, and made them not snap. Download the original if you want all the swatches (you do!). The posters on the doors are @budgie2budgie​ high school posters.

Oh and shout out to @peacemaker-ic​ for showing me how to get the shower water to come straight down! It looks great now!

🌼 A bit on versions:

Both Discover University and Outdoor Retreat included a 1 tile shower with a curtain and not a door. This means the showers in my download the for Discover University and Outdoor Retreat versions have a nice curtain swoosh sound when sims enter the shower. The basegame version showers for use the regular shower door open/close sound. If you have both OR and DU pick one.

🌼 Sample Room:

As there are a lot of modular objects that fit in particular ways, | have included the tray files for a bathroom in the download that includes all of the objects correctly placed. This room also has cc not included in the download. Get these under the recommended CC header.

🌼 SPECS:

ALL LodsCustom Specular/Normal mapsBG compabilityReasonable polymer count

Most are fairly low, like 500p or less. The higher ones are LOD 1 pipe toilet at 1.4Kp and the showers at 1.7Kp.

Found under plumbing -> toiletsVenue tagged (all!)Searchable by typing “BathroomStalls”

Made with ♥Sims4Studio♥

🌼 TOU:

Recolors encouraged - though don’t include the mesh. ALSO, I have remapped all the objects so none of the textures tile. Ask me if you need the UV map to recolor.

Do not include in builds. This set has custom tuning that might break. Don’t spread broken objects!

If I fall off the face of the Earth for more than 6 months and this breaks, feel free to adopt this set and update it.

TL;DR: This set works like the last set. With moo place a divider, place a toilet/shower in the stall, place a wall along the opening of the dividers, pace doors, delete the wall. Done. Look at the room included in the download (place tray files in tray folder) and you'll see how things work. There's 3 versions, BGC, one req. DU and one req. OR. If you have both DU and OR pick one. You only need 1 version.

🎥 Video Instruction: youtube showcase

🚨 REMOVE THE LAST SET IF YOU HAVE  IT 🚨 

 🚽 DOWNLOAD:

🧻 Urinal Meshes (required): Menacemann44, JPCopeSims

🧻 BASEGAME Version (sfs, no ads)

🧻 OUTDOOR RETREAT Version (sfs, no ads)

🧻 DISCOVER UNIVERSITY Version  (sfs, no ads)

🚽 Highly Recommended CC used in room included:

Air Freshner by JPCopeSims

TS3 Restroom Deco set converted by Veranka

4 blade fan by Illogical Sims

Budgie2Budgie Blue Posters

☕ buy me a coffee... or part of a stuffpack

@maxismatchccworld @love4sims4 @sccfinds​

Overview of items (no reshade/true colors):

[pearl-pilots-in-chains]

Come to My Window (All the Little Lights #2)

Fandom: Neon Genesis Evangelion

Ships: Asurei

Rating: T

Summary: Rei doesn't like summers much. She usually ends up spending most of her time alone. One afternoon, an open window changes things. Meanwhile, Asuka's unpacking is going great . . . just great. She's just about had enough when she's distracted by the sound of a familiar song.

Notes: It's time for Asurei to Asurock! This is the second part of my All the Little Lights Evangelion high school AU. A slight warning, there's some content in this fic that might be offensive/triggering. I tried to avoid getting too graphic or dark, but there are some clear depictions of depression and bullying, as well as allusions to familial issues. I just wanted to make sure I put a bit of a disclaimer. That being said, I think those parts are important to Rei's character, so I didn't want to leave them out.

The first song Asuka recognizes Rei playing in this fic is "Always With Me, Always With You," by Joe Satriani, and the band shirt Asuka is wearing in this fic is based on the art to the album "Karmacode" by Lacuna Coil.

This was originally posted to my AO3 on May 25, 2020. Hope you enjoy!

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Rei slumped down into the chair, letting her head fall back, her gaze tilting upward, until she was scrutinizing the ceiling. The faux-sky formed on it looked down on her, the painted stars flares of cream and flame that sliced out of the navy base. She thought it was a nice view. It had the power to draw her back, pulling away years to reach innocent memories. She could recall when the sky was first cast onto her ceiling. It had been her father’s idea, and it was his hand that brought it to life. She remembered watching him from her bed, sitting on top of the plastic wrap they had laid down, crinkling the glossy tarp between her fingers. It half-seemed to be a fragment of another world, a remnant of a different life. Now, the mural served as the sole reminder that her father’s presence had once filled her room.

She had thought about asking Shinji to help her paint over the false sky. She knew there was a can of paint in the garage that could match the ceiling’s original shade well enough. She could return it all to a blank canvas. Erase the constellations, fill the vacuum with blinding light. And yet, she never asked. She wasn’t sure Shinji would be willing to help if the request was made. There was a picture on top of his bookcase. It wasn’t in the front. Its frame stood behind one that displayed Shinji and Toji after a track meet, celebrating their respective performances. But it was still there, half in hiding, half revealed. She knew the day it had been taken. December 24, 2000. On the eve of their last Christmas as a quartet. Her memories of that day were nebulous, lost to the childhood haze that the painting day had managed to emerge from. The picture spoke enough to make up for the lack of recollections though.

Her mother was holding Rei in her lap. Rei was looking away from the camera, down at the floor. She looked far wiser, far sadder that a child should. She looked as though she knew too much. Yui was looking up towards the camera, a smile plastered on her face that failed to hide its fraudulent nature. It was took curved, too hooked, too forced. The eyes told the truth. Distant, worried, ashamed. Shinji was sitting by Gendo. He was trying to imitate his father, pressing his face into an amalgamation of the mask the adult wore. It was a shoddy disguise though, as his lips looked seconds away from tremble, and there was water in the corner of his eyes. Gendo wore the true mask. His gaze bored directly into the lens’s eye, staring it down, as though he was willing the time to work correctly through sheer willpower and determination alone. Or, perhaps he was merely compensating. The tinted glasses he normally sported were nowhere to be seen, which left his eyes naked, exposed, without a shield to fume behind. It was possible that the tight, angry smile which ripped through his lips and the needling glare in his iris were designed to make up for this. They had the opposite effect, however. Whereas his traditional spectacles contained and concealed some degree of his emotions, his posturing revealed the true extent of them. His spite, his wrath, his pride, all laid bare.

As a general rule, Rei didn’t keep photos in the same way her brother did. He had a greater appreciation for the physical mementos, the tangible preservation of a moment for posterity. Rei treasured the fleeting nature of seconds, minutes, days. The ephemeral essence of life. The truth that nothing was everlasting, nothing endured. Consequently, there were three pictures in her room. One of her standing by the front door, the day before her first day of elementary school. She looked brave in it. It wasn’t just a front, Rei realized. She had felt brave that day. Time had taught her, however, that there was a thin line between bravery and foolishness.

The second picture showed Shinji and Rei, mouths broken in laughter, dancing through the backyard, Shinji lunging out in an attempt to tap her shoulders. They had been playing hide-and-go-tag, as they referred to it, and he had found her secret spot behind the rose garden. Yui had snapped the shot the moment before Shinji discovered that his sister was faster than he had anticipated, and had ended up face down in the grass after his ill-fated leap.

The last picture was the newest of the three, though now passing the age of six years, another family photo. This one was dated August 16, 2005. The smiles were more genuine, even if they looked more worn. Gendo was over four years absent.

Shinji visited his father. He had since second grade. Sometimes once every other weekend, sometimes once a month, depending on how their schedules worked out. Rei never visited. She hadn’t seen Gendo in person in a decade. She was perfectly fine with her only memories of him being mostly vague, indefinite impressions of youth. They were painful enough as they were. She didn’t want to imagine having concrete memories.

Yui had never made either of them visit him. She never would. She understood while Rei chose not. If anything, she understood better than Rei herself. Rei was truthful unsure why Shinji chose to go. Perhaps out of guilt, perhaps out of regret, perhaps out of pity, perhaps some combination of the three. Whatever it was, Shinji chose to see his father, and Rei chose not to ask her brother to help remove the last physical trace of their father from her space.

Even beyond Shinji though, Rei felt a reluctance to erase the ceiling, to restore it to its first form. Her mind shied away from the choice, became anxious, and fell silent. Rei knew far, far too much about anxious silences.

She was the “Silent Ikari,” after all. That was one of the names which had been ascribed to her. One of the kinder ones, really. She was never called them to her face, of course. Not that people said much of anything to her face. She supposed that it might be out of respect for her brother, the Ikari most people liked. But they still spoke, in voices loud enough and near enough for her to make their ‘observations’ out. Maybe they thought she was as deaf as she seemed mute. Maybe they just didn’t care if she heard. After all, they could reason that she had no real ‘excuse’ for being withdrawn, closed-off, that ‘emo girl in the corner.’ She just thought she was ‘too good for them.’ The genius who was smart enough to have skipped a grade, who could probably skip another, but ‘just didn’t feel like it.’ The one who all the teachers thought was practically perfect, even if they worried she was ‘a little on the quiet side.’ The one who had a friendly, and moderately popular brother, but was herself too ‘stuck up’ to even bother talking with anyone. And if they didn’t play up that she was cold and arrogant, they played up that something was wrong with her. That she ‘wasn’t all there,’ or had never figured out ‘how to be a human.’ There were words that stung even more, especially when she was younger, when she learned what they meant, but she preferred not to reiterate them in her mind. She didn’t need to give the speakers that power, that lasting blow. All the same, a memory crept into her head unbidden.

It was one of the first times she had sat away from Shinji and his friends. She had felt like a burden to her brother, and she had been tired of always hanging on to him, even if he had never minded. Even if he had wanted nothing more than to make sure she was okay. He was smart enough to know her reputation, even if people avoided saying things in front of him. He had gotten into a fight, a real fight, with someone who he had called a friend before it, over a passing comment the friend had made about Rei when he thought Shinji wasn’t paying attention. After that, Rei had decided to give her brother space. She didn’t want to be the weight that he felt bound by. She didn’t want to be the shadow that he felt as though he had to protect. He hadn’t been happy about it, but he had understood and agreed when she had talked to him. If there was one undeniable fact about her brother, it was that he always did his best to empathize, even when it was clearly difficult for him.

She had picked out a table along the fringe of the room to sit at. Somewhere out of the way, to avoid unwanted attention. She hadn’t wanted to be alone. She never had. But by then, it had seemed too late to change the perception of the faces she saw. The disregard, the amusement, the disgust. They had seemed immutable. And so, she hadn’t tried. She had done her best to be invisible. Because it was easier than fighting against a tide than felt overwhelming. She was too afraid of drowning to do otherwise.

She had heard the boy’s conversation with his friends before he approached her. Her hearing had always been above average, and when you heard your name spoken in first cautious, and then careless, tones behind your back, you got used to honing in on it. There had been a dare. A bet as to whether or not he could get a date with the ‘broken girl.’ They had all been at the age where suddenly, exploring previous unknown urges and interests seemed of the upmost importance. Well, most of them had been. She hadn’t. She still wasn’t. Not in the same way, anyhow, or to the same degree. At least, she didn’t think so. They spoke of crushes, and flirting, and love, and sex, like objects on fire, that burned the skin when they were handled, but were worth the flame. She thought of them in muted terms, as though she was touching the same once-scorching objects, but after they had passed beneath a waterfall, the flames all-but vanquished, only the occasional ember remaining. They were safer to hold, to handle, but the appeal, the allure in the danger, was gone, their extinguished state irrevocable.

His stance had been casual as he walked over, but there was a cruel, cocksure glint in his eye. His tone betrayed just what he thought of her, and what he thought of himself. She was an object, a means to an end (the money involved in the bet), and that was all. He was the lad who was going to win the bet, and she should feel lucky to be used for that purpose.

“Hey.” His tone had dripped smooth self-importance, self-exaggeration. “I’m Maximilian.” He had used his full name, not the Max he went by, as though he could make her persuade by the sheer power of possessing what he no doubt thought was an ‘exotic’ name.

“Hello.” Her reply had been quiet, not really timid, though it could have been mistaken for such. Any who had been less caught up in himself would have recognized that it instead bespoke that she had no interest in talking to him, was aware of what he was doing, and want no part of it.

“I’m going to sit here.” It hadn’t been a question, hadn’t been a request, had been a statement, had almost been a command. A command to accept the fact that she was in his presence, and should treat him with the respect his conceited conscience told him he deserved.

She hadn’t said anything in response to that at first. He had taken that as the acceptance he desired, and taken the seat across from her. “So, you’re Rei, right?” The tone was aggressive, as though he was going to dismiss whatever she said, because he was certain he knew who she was. She had imagined that if she said, simply to deny him, he would have ignored it and preceded ahead as though she had said ‘yes.’ He had been the type of boy who could go either one of two ways. On one hand, he could cross too hard of a line earlier enough that he still had a chance to learn how to be something better. On the other hand, he could grow up to be a man who refused to acknowledge refusals, because he felt he has the right to what he wants. The worst kind of person, Rei thought. The kind who thought that others very selves were second to their own desires. Rei wasn’t sure which path he had ended up taking, but she was very glad that they had gone to different high schools, although she felt bad for whoever ended up being the target of his interests there.

Instead of saying ’no,’ or merely staying silent, Rei had cut to the chase. “I don’t want to go out with you. Please leave me alone.”

This had thrown him for a loop. That much had been clear. He had expected her to at least hear him out. His opinion of himself was high enough that he hadn’t even considered outright disregard, the very same treatment he had intended to give her. The result of course, had been that he had become angry. Furious, really, she imagined, though his sheer pride kept him from making a scene, considering he cared too much for his image as the ‘cool guy.’ Instead, he had leaned in, breaking into her bubble, to spit the words in her face. “You don’t know what you’re missing, stupid bitch. It’s not like anyone ever going to ask out a freak like you. The most attention you’ll ever get will be from some white coat in a psych ward.”

She hadn’t flinched. She had known that it would be her downfall if she did. That breaking was what he wanted, her visible suffering was what he was craving in that moment. He had realized she wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction after a few seconds, and strolled off, still cocky, but surely fuming internally over the fact that he hadn’t managed to get a reaction out of her. Not a twitch in her lips, a blink in her eyes, something to show that she was shattering beneath the calm exterior. Not that she wasn’t. She just knew how to delay the collapse. It had happened later that day, in the safety and solitude of her room, a silent sort of disintegration. No tears, no screams. Just a widening hollow feeling that consumed her from the pit of her stomach, reaching up into her chest cavity, groping at her lungs, sucking the air into, folding her in on herself until she felt small enough to simply stop existing altogether. It wasn’t an uncommon experience in those days. Before she learned how to grow numb to the words, numb to the spite. That came later though. You had to experience enough pain, enough cover crumbling, to learn how to ignore the barbs that brought it on.

She had never told her brother about that particular incident. She hadn’t wanted him to start another fight on her account. She wasn’t sure if he had ever found out. She guessed it was likely he had, although she wasn’t sure what he had done about it (though she thought it was probable he had done something).

The abuse had never been physical, never public, rarely direct. There had been no retaliation for that incident either. She supposed on all accounts that it was because people were afraid of what her brother might do. Or perhaps not her brother, but more accurately, her brother’s friends. She liked them for the most part. The track team members her brother was close to were an anomaly, in that they were some of few decent people she had ever met in the schools she had attended. It was a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. Knowing that she didn’t have to worry about making her brother choose between his sister and his friends. At least not anymore. He had discarded the ones that had tried to sway him away from the familial choice. She supposed then, that he had already made his decision. She felt guilty for that. She felt guilty often, when it came to her brother, and what she perceived as the difficulties she brought into his life. She knew how much he worried for her. Worried that she was afraid, worried that she was hurting, worried that was lonely.

The most painful part of the guilt was knowing the her brother’s fears weren’t altogether unfounded. No, she supposed, they weren’t unfounded at all. She would characterize her feelings as more anxious than afraid, but the other two concerns she knew he held were accurate. The latter led to the former, in a way. She had discovered there was nothing quite like the feeling of isolation, of division from others, to exacerbate preexisting pain. To make it metastasize, grow into something greater than itself. Seclusion bred sorrowful things when it revealed what was latent.

She had never had her brother’s power with people. He had a natural sort of charisma about him, as awkward as he could be at times. He seemed to draw people to him. More important though, words came easy to him. He could carry a conversation when it dashed against rocks, and somehow bring it out to the far side relatively unscathed. Whether it was a matter of skill, or a matter of luck, social things seemed to turn out positive rather than negative for him more often than not.

Words had never come easy to her. Not when she was talking to someone other than her mother or her brother. She could read cues, interpret signs, and understand context well enough, but there was somehow a disconnect when it came to putting all of that into play when encoding something herself. Ironically, and perhaps appropriately, she couldn’t articulate why. She only knew that it made everything harder. That the persona she conveyed caused people to say she was ‘cold,’ or ‘dead,’ or ‘inhuman.’ Those her knew her well knew this wasn’t the case, but aside from her family, the only people who fell into that category were Shinji’s closest friends, who had spent enough time with him, and by extension, with Rei when she was around, that they read her demeanor differently. She didn’t really have friends of her own, she knew that much. It had been that way since she was a child. She had worried her teachers in kindergarten by the fact that she seemed to turn away all the kids who tried to connect with her. This hadn’t changed, and by the time she headed to junior high, no one tried anymore. The teachers had kept worrying of course, but as she got older, this worry had been offset by their satisfaction and appreciation of her academic performance; apparently, at the end of the day, even elementary school teachers cared more about a child’s grades than her ability to fit into classroom society.

She hadn’t understood it then. Hadn’t understood why her responses, her reactions shut others down. It was only after hearing the covert comments too many times that she had realized what other people thought of her. And by then, the road to remake her reputation had seemed entirely too insurmountable.

That perspective had resulted in her leading a life that was half-spent in sequestration. The silver lining to that, of which she constantly reminded herself, was that she had devoted plenty of time to pursuing her passions, even if it was at a solo capacity. The filled bookcases in her room were one testament to that. The filled folders on her laptop were another, and the guitar resting in its stand by her desk was a third. The lack of company had done wonders for her creativity, she supposed. Was it a worthy exchange though? That was all in the eye of the beholder.

Pulling her gaze away from the ceiling, Rei brought it to rest on the guitar sitting by the desk. The chrome elements of Stratocaster-imitation form glistened in the sunlight from the window above her desk, opened to let the breeze flow in (a partially successful attempt to offset the heat without resorting to blasting the AC, because Rei preferred a more natural solution). She knew it would be at the earliest, four hours before her brother made it home. His shifts had been extended recently, on account of another employee quitting. And of course, her mother wouldn’t be home for at least another hour after that, a timetable that had become the new normal over the past several months. There wasn’t much for her to do in the meantime. Shinji was officially the house chef, because he argued that it was a way for him to ‘destress,’ which was his way of saying that cooking was one of his favorite pastimes, and that he didn’t want anyone else in the kitchen, which he had unofficially declared his ‘dignified domain’ in one of his more emphatic (and comedic) moments.

Rei didn’t particularly like summers, primarily because of how empty they often ended up feeling. This summer had been particularly forlorn one, as with her brother spending nearly all of his time either working or in the company of his new friend Kaworu (she suspected that the her brother and the ashen-hair boy would be dating soon, not that she resented Kaworu; from the two brief interactions she had had with him, he seemed quite nice actually), she had been left to her own devices for days on end. At this point, her routines, as much as she appreciated them, had begun to feel somewhat monotonous. She had taken to browsing blogs lately, in search of a new potentially hobby she could try out to add some diversity to her day, but so far, she hadn’t had much lucky finding anything that she had gravitated toward with any great enthusiasm. She had briefly considered trying out her hand at archery, before swiftly coming to the conclusion that as enticing as her visions of Legolasesque prowess were, the actual effort that would undoubtedly be required to achieve any degree of proficiency wasn’t something she quite felt up to. The fact that even if she did manage to become a competent archer, her chances of being able to skate down a staircase atop a shield would most likely remain negligible was also a bit of a buzzkill. And so, at least for the moment, her current hobbies would have to suffice. She decided that tomorrow, she would take a walk down to Off the Shelf! If she was going to stick with what she knew, it wouldn’t hurt to at least get some new reading material. Well, new to her anyway.

With a barely audible sigh proceeding from her lips, Rei pushed herself up and out of her chair, and left the corner of the room, strolling over to her desk lackadaisically. She retrieved her guitar from its stand and plugged it into her practice amp, positioned alongside the desk. Flipping the amp on and turning the volume to a decent level, satisfied with her other levels. She then set herself down in her desk chair and rolled her volume knob up. She paused for a few seconds, thinking of a good song selection. After a moment, she made her decision.

The first palm muted notes sprung out from the guitar as she picked through the intro, before launching into the melody itself, the pensive tone pervading the room. She allowed the traces of a smile to steal onto her face. It was a beautiful song. One which promise never to leave, never to vanish. One whose titled she liked to think vowed to be with her always. It was a piece she was content to return to. That always seemed to make her day a little less lonely.

Perhaps then, the particular events brought about by her playing that afternoon could only be considered highly appropriate. If one was to take this view, then perhaps it could be called an act of fate, rather than a mere coincidence, that Rei did not think to close her window before she started playing on that particular occasion, something which she habitually did, half out of shyness and doubt of her own talent (unfounded doubt, of course, as anyone who had heard her play could attest to), and part out of respect for her the elderly couple who lived next door, whom she suspected were probably not fans of some of the more ‘enthusiastic’ music she played (which was to say, progressive metal). It would, however, be unfair to Rei to blame her for failing to realize that the elderly couple had moved across the country several months before to live closer to their family. It wasn’t as if she interacted with them frequently, or in fact, paid much attention to them at all. They had kept to themselves, something which she also did. On the other hand, a better case could be made to label Rei a bit on the oblivious side for not noticing the new neighbors who had moved in several days before. That had been a bit more of an affair, though not one which either Yui or Shinji could have been aware of, considering it occurred during the day while they were both absent. Rei, on the other hand, had no such excuse. Her excuse would be, if one were to ask her for it, was that she had been particularly engrossed in rereading one of her favorite books on that specific day, which was in fact true. All the same, it meant that she was unaware of her new neighbors. And furthermore, unaware that one of them would soon hear her playing. And of course, logically, this also meant she was unaware that her life was about to change. However, a lack of awareness rarely averts something from happening, and it certainly did not in this case.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Asuka glared down at the figurine in her hands, scowling. “Dammit,” she grumbled to herself, pulling away the now-severed head from the body of the dragon, and inspecting the jagged break. She spared a glance at the unraveled square of bubble wrap in the box below. “Well that’s just great.” With a sigh and a shake of her head, she set the broken figurine down on top of the bookcase. “I’ll have to fix you later. Gotta ask Misato if we have any glue, or if it’s lost in one of the boxes out in the garage.” She scowled, and turned back to sorting through the contents of the box. She extracted two more figurines from her their bubble wrap entombments, and was pleased to see that her cobra and sorceress were both still intact. Setting them on the shelf beside the beheaded dragon, she grab one of the discarded pieces of bubble wrap and held it up to the light coming through her window. “I guess you didn’t totally fail,” she remarked dryly, before crumpling the strip in her hand and listening to the series of satisfying pops that occurred as a result.

Tossing the now-pointless piece of plastic into the trash bin by her door, she set her hands on her hips and surveyed the pile of boxes that had yet to be unpacked, a hoard still big enough to lay claim to an entire corner of the room with a vengeance. What next? She ran her eyes over the bare walls of the room, finding the off-white coloration unappealing, to say the least. When was this designed? The 80s? Posters it is.

While she now had a goal in mind for the next step in her unboxing/room design (she preferred the latter description, because it sounded more dignified in her mind, and didn’t serve as quite the same reminder that she had just moved, but in all reality, the former was the more accurate description), finding the objects she needed to accomplish that goal was easier said than done. Opening yet another box, and discovering once again that the objects of her intentions were not within (said box instead contained several stacks of CDs, relics of a time before MP3s were the absolute norm), she set it atop the growing pile of boxes that had failed to contain her quarry, with a derisive glance at the blurred face of Avril Lavigne that stared back at her from within. “Why do I even still have you?,” she muttered as she folded the lid back over. And more importantly, why the hell didn’t we label more of these? I blame Kaji. Because yeah, the person who basically didn’t pack up any of my stuff is to blame for why I didn’t label it. Right.

With a roll of her eyes (mostly directed at herself, if she was being honest), she grabbed one more box from the trove. If they’re not in here, I’m taking a break. This is so stupid. As she opened this particular box, she was at that point not surprised to find that rather than the posters she sought, it instead contained two tight rows of game cases. Well, at least I found something decent. Box in hand, she made for the living room. I’m pretty sure Misato left the bottom shelf of the tv stand empty for these.

She was partway through the process of shelving the games when she felt her pocket vibrate. Pausing her activity, she pulled out her phone and looked over the text that had just arrived.

Tiffany H: How’s day four of the move-in going?

Asuka considered the question for a moment, before writing her response.

Asuka R: About as well as the first three lol.

Asuka R: As in, tedious

Asuka R: How’s life in Terahburg?

Tiffany H: Oh, fun. Same as always, tbh.

Asuka R: Aww, and here I thought you’d be sweet and say it was boring without me or something ;)

Tiffany H: Oh, I mean, you’re right! Whatever will we do? Life’s lost all purpose now that you’re gone xD

Asuka R: Now that’s more like it!

Tiffany H: We’re all lost without you Asuka! We’ll never see the light again without you!

Asuka R: And don’t you forget it!

Tiffany H: In fact, the entire town might perish out of sheer sorrow! Our lives our meaningless now!

Asuka R: Okay, that might be a bit of a stretch. . .

Tiffany H: Ya think? Lol

Asuka R: Hey, don’t stop on my account!

Tiffany H: I’m running out of material here *shrugs*

Asuka R: And here I thought you were a true thespian!

Tiffany H: Yeah, but talking about you gets boring after a while. ;)

Asuka R: I’m hurt. Deeply hurt. *turns nose up*

Tiffany H: There, there, you’ll survive. Just don’t drink the Asherdale kool-aid and forget we exist. Lol

Asuka R: Asherdale kool-aid? Seriously?

Tiffany H: Like I said, I’m running out of material here. Don’t @ me.

Asuka R: Uh huh

Asuka R: Right

Tiffany H: So, what’s the ‘dale like? We got any competition?

Asuka R: I’ll let you know when I figure out what the ’the ‘dale’ is

Tiffany H: Ur 1mp0ssebl3

Asuka R: My eyes are scarred now, thx

Tiffany H: You deserved it. So, what’s the ‘dale like?

Asuka R: Best adjective = boring

Tiffany H: RIP

Asuka R: No competition so far, so you don’t need to worry. The best they have going for them is an

arcade.

Tiffany H: An arcade?

Asuka R: Yeah, I saw it when we were getting into town. Looked it up, it’s some sort of retro deal.

Tiffany H: Retro arcades? Is that a thing now?

Asuka R: Apparently it is in the northwest.

Tiffany H: Whelp, sounds great

Asuka R: Oh yeah, fr

Tiffany H: Well, enjoy ur arcade. I gtg get ready for work.

Asuka R: Ok, say hi to Amanda for me!

Tiffany H: Will do! Ttyl!

When she had finished shelving the games, Asuka made her way back to her room, a determined glint in her eyes (not an unusual expression for her). Alright, now it’s poster time! I don’t care if I have to go through every damn box in that corner, I am finding them! I’m not going to let an outdated 80s color palate get the best of me! And plus, her mind added as an afterthought, Once they’re up, maybe it’ll actually start feeling a little more like my room. And less like someone else’s room, that I’m just staying in. A frown briefly crossed her face, but she tossed it away, steeling her mouth into a resolute line.

Approximately forty-five minutes later, the stack of boxes was no longer a stack, but instead a small pond spread across half of the room. Asuka, meanwhile, was red in the face, and looked as though she was a few steps away from steam vents cartoonishly bursting out of her ears. One final, unopened box sat in the corner, the last remnant of the toppled tower. She knelt by it, her face spelling murder, and began to cut through the tape with her pocket knife. . .

“Verdammt, wo sind sie?! Das ist lächerlich!” (Dammit, where are they?! This is ridiculous!)

She punched floor next to her, gritting her teeth as she looked down at the contents of the last box, namely a set of drum skins, and her stick bag. Still glowering, she removed these items and headed to the spare room. Might as well put these with my kit anyway. She couldn’t deny that one positive of this house was the presence of the extra bedroom, which meant that her designated practice space was no longer a garage. That was definitely a positive. Even if it one of the only ones so far.

Setting the sticks down by her stool and the drum skins alongside her drum cases in the corner, she looked over at the kit with a degree of temptation in her eyes. I should probably at least try to finish unpacking, now that I covered my entire room. But . . . I mean, it could help me calm down. And ignore the fact that we probably forgot the box with my posters somewhere. Walking over, she took her seat behind the kit and grabbed a couple sticks from the sling that hung off the floor tom. Just something to blow off steam. I don’t need to practice a song or anything. She was about to count herself off (out of habit rather than necessity, really), when an adventitious sound reached her ears. She blinked, pausing. That sounds . . . oddly like “Always With Me, Always With You.” She looked around, searching for the source of the faint guitar playing she had picked up. Her eyes locked in on the window behind her, which until that moment, she hadn’t noticed was partially open. Rising from her seat and dropping her sticks back into the sling bag, she walked over to the window and looked out.

This particular window looked down on the strip of the yard which ran alongside the building, and faced the house next door. She couldn’t be certain, but it sounded to her as though the music was coming out of one the windows of that house, which also happened to be opened. Her interest piqued, she decidedly to get a closer look. She headed for the stairs.

Emerging out into the backyard, she made for the wall that marked the border between her family’s yard, and the neighbor’s property. It wasn’t much of a wall, really. It only reached slightly higher than her midriff. She looked down at it skeptically. Well, I could practically step over this is if I wanted to. Guess they’re not too worried about trespassing.

Outside and closer to the guitar playing which floated out into the air, it was relatively easy to determine that its source was indeed the window she had identified earlier. Glancing up toward said window now, Asuka pursed her lips, faced with a bit of a decision. One one hand, she could forget about it and head back inside. She had determined the location of the unseen guitarist, and considering he or she was her neighbor, it seemed like there was a decent chance she’d be able to find out who the guitarist was eventually. On the other hand, going back in and continuing with her unpacking wasn’t the most enticing of options. In the end, she chose the path that let her procrastinate on facing her bedroom’s recently introduced ground cover.

Climbing up over the half-wall, she jumped down into the neighbors’ yard. She decided that if she ran in to any sort of trouble, or said neighbors turned out to be less than thrilled by her trespassing, she could book it back to her house with relative ease. It wasn’t as if the wall would provide any significant barrier. Plus, it’s not as though I’m going to try to break into their house or anything. I mean, I’m going to go ring the doorbell. Though I suppose I could have just gone out to the street from my house and gone over that way. Oh well. This’ll be fine.

Still listening to the solo (which, as she heard more of it and paid greater attention, she had to admit sounded quite good) rolling down from the open window, Asuka walked up along the side of the house, and curved around to the front until she found herself standing directly in front of the door. Alright, here we go. Plan ‘avoid unpacking’ #1, activate! Reaching up, she pressed in the doorbell and waited. She heard a bell-toweresque recording play from somewhere close by the door inside in response to the ring. That’s an interesting choice for a doorbell. Sounds sort of like an antique clock. That might not be a good sign . . . I can’t imagine anyone under the age of fifty using that for their doorbell. Oh well. If it turns out the guitarist is a retiree or something, I can always still act polite or something, say I thought his or her playing sounded pretty good, and then bail. Simple enough.

Asuka waited for a good thirty seconds, wondering if someone was going to come to the door. After a few more moments, she decided that the answer to that question was probably a definitive ‘no.’ Hmm . . . now the question is, do I ring the doorbell again? Or do I just head back home? On one hand, they might have heard it and just don’t want to answer, and in that case, I don’t want to be the jerk who can’t take a hint. On the other hand, maybe they just didn’t hear it the first time. That’s a possibility too. Which means it might not hurt to wring it again. Asuka pulled out her phone and looked down at the clock on the lock screening, waiting for it to change. I’ll give them another minute. If no one comes by then, I’ll ring it one more time. And if no one shows up after that too, I’ll head back to my place.

Watching the digits on the screen, Asuka gave a small nod to herself as the moment passed. She reached forward and gave the doorbell a final ring. Once again, she heard the recording play from within the house. You know, I think I’d get pretty tired of that if it was my doorbell. Just imagine what that would be like if someone tried to prank you by ringing it repeatedly. That would get real annoying, real quick.

After another solid twenty seconds or so, Asuka came to the conclusion that no one was coming to the door. Shrugging, she turned and headed back out toward the sidewalk, content to make her way home. Well, I tried. Guess I’ll find out who the guitarist is another day. Unboxing time it is then. Lovely. However, as she turned away from the path up to the door and angled herself back toward her resident, she heard the faint sound of the guitar carrying out from alongside the house. This time, however, it was a different song. She paused, narrowing her eyes in focus as she searched for the title. Oh, come on, I know I know this one. It’s not Satriani though . . . I don’t think it’s Vai either. Dammit, who is it? She shook her head, disgruntled with the fact that she couldn’t place the tune. Fantastic. Now that’s going to be stuck in my head and bugging me for the rest of the day. Presque vu sucks like that. It was at that instant that another thought snuck into her mind. The guitarist could be the only person home. That would explain why no one came to the door. If they’re practicing, they might have earbuds in or headphones on, which would mean they couldn’t hear me. So, I’d have to get their attention with something else. And their window is open . . .

Asuka practically sprinted the short distance back to her house, a confident grin across her face. When she finally emerged from the back door roughly five minutes later, she was glad to hear that the mysterious musician was still playing. Once again, the guitarist had moved on to a new song. This one, however, Asuka recognized. “Tender Surrender,” she murmured. “Not a bad choice.” At this point, Asuka was almost certain that whoever was playing was probably a good bit older than her. I mean, seriously, Steve Vai hasn’t been big since the nineties. At least, I don’t think so. I mean, I only know him because of Kaji, so that definitely says something. But hey, I’m not a guitarist though, so who knows? Maybe they still adore him or something. All the same, her desire to avoid completing (or at the very least, returning to) her unpacking process outweighed her potential concerns. Plus, her new plan kept her even further away from the person whose attention she was trying to get. Which meant that if they didn’t care for her methods, she could be long gone before they could do much about it. The logic of her strategy was moderately convincing, if she did say so herself, even if it was purely designed to give her a somewhat rational justification to her better judgment for her own procrastination.

Pulling herself up and over the sad excuse for a dividing wall, Asuka found herself in the as-of-yet-nameless neighbors’ yard once again. She strolled over a little closer to the house, positioning herself so that she was in a direct line with the open window. I have to say, this is one way I never expected that year I pitched for the softball team in middle school to come in handy. She looked down at the construction in her hand, the centerpiece of her quickly-concocted scheme. Guess all of that packing newspaper might turn out to have a second purpose too. Hopefully it’ll do better at this than it did at keeping Misato’s shot glass collection intact. With a chuckle to herself, Asuka rolled her arm back, lifting the paper airplane into the air, and let it fly toward her target. It soared upward, its arc accurate, and slipped straight through the open window, disappearing from her view.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rei was nearing the close of the song. Her plectrum had been relegated to a secondary position, pinched between her pinky and ring fingers, to keep it from obstructing her fingerpicking. Only the pads of her skin now met the coils of steel, coaxing melody from the taut metal. Though the piece was not an anthemic one at any point, never attaining any great summit or volume in its course, it had still diminished from its peak, drifting back into itself as the notes grew more wavering, less forceful. They now resembled soft, intermittent tears intermingled with trembling gasps, though whether these expressions were borne out of sorrow or ecstasy was a mystery offered up to the beholder’s mind for judgement.

In her mind, Rei could hear, could feel the presence of the band about her. Every feature, each individual auditory fragment of the track came to her as she moved her fingers, by memory rather than sight. She listened as the band’s accompaniment slowly gave way, dissolving into pleasant stillness, sending its light and focus toward the guitar’s shuddering cry, until it was the only sound left to fill the emptiness, in soundscape both physical and mental. But fill this space it did nonetheless, each caressed, drawn note wandering through the fold’s of her shut eyes, dancing over the defined, stringent edges of her desk and shaving them down into something smoother, unbroken, winding. Blurring the room she half-saw through the image she conceived, transfiguring the elements of the space to abstraction, melting the absolute and the tangible into the fantastical, the speculative.

As she glided into the final phrase, she slowed even further, elongating the notes, letting their voices sing louder than her conducting digits. She had led the song to its conclusion, she let the song itself lead what was left. It extended, sweeping over the growing seconds, echoing as it reiterated, reprising and refusing to fade. Rei followed the draw, her fingers seemingly moving of a will other than her own, glad assistants in the art. At last, the final reverberation arrived, pleading, yet peaceful. There were seven notes left, which dwindled to six, and from there it faded to five, a receding handful.

The fifth note was about to declare its presence when the moment was broken. Something struck Rei’s forehead, fracturing her concentration and dream state alike to shards. Her fingers fell from their unconscious ballet, the necessary pressure absent. The string buzzed against the fret before it died an abrupt dead, cut off by its impact against her lax digit. The song was stripped into nothing, the ending cumbersome and unheeding, true closer beyond its grasp. Rei’s eyes tore open as her hand plunged away from the neck, dropping limp to her side as she stared sightlessly at the desk before her, her blank visage betraying no hint of her acute bemusement.

Rei dropped her pick onto the top of the desk, and lifted the instrument from her lap, returning it to its stand once more. Slanting her head downward, she reached out and retrieved the ostensibly offending object from the floor by her feet. Lifting it into her lap, she rotated it around in her grasp for a few moments, examining the shaped newsprint, complied into a new structure, a form capable of flight synthesized from ink and pulped fibers. Adjacent to weightless, an insubstantial avian, an artificial imitation. Its name was derived from bellowing metallic brutes that claimed the skies as their domain, raging turbines thrumming, incensed engines clamoring, the bellow of war on their wings and a cold caterwaul in their grinding wheels as they wrenched away from the ground and took their place in the belly of the beast. Such a marked difference, an undeniable dichotomy, between this tenuous newspaper lark and those titanium pterosaurs that prowled the clouds at humanity’s behest. To think that both such beings were constructed and christened by the same species was a perplexing, confounding concept, one which spoke to the multitudinous nature of sentience. It could give attention no less assiduous than the sedulous scrutiny bestowed upon the architecture of alleged advancement to the most minute of pursuits. The value of each undertaking determined by the engineers, by the consumers, by whatever society observed its progress.

It was curious, the capacity which such a seemingly innocuous, inconsequential object possessed to act as a conduit for contemplations of the existential and philosophical varieties. Nevertheless, Rei pulled her thoughts away from such metaphysical meanderings and extracted her eyes from their glazed gaze, elevating them from the errant examination. Equally curious were the origins of the airplane. Her emphasis adjusted accordingly, Rei rested the newsprint coated craft on her desktop and rose from her seat to survey the yard from her window.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Asuka watched the empty window closed, scrutinizing the vacuum that had devoured her airplane several moments earlier. It showed no signs of providing any sort of reaction to that consumption. However, Asuka was nonetheless certain beyond any shadow of a doubt that her newspaper agent had fulfilled its intended purpose. Moments before, the song, which had crawled to a languid and hazy, yet subtly rapturous, finale, had come to a clipped conclusion. There was no mistaking that the ending was unintentional. The last note had been mostly-dead, the tone dulled and buzzed out, a quickly recognizable accident, that had been replaced by silence in an instant, the bum note sheared from existence before it could linger. That . . . was rough. Ooops. Well, hopefully they don’t get too annoyed.

At first, Asuka had expected that the guitarist would take one of two routes. On one hand, the musician might immediately make an appearance, due to the sudden interruption, and apparent derailment of the song. This had seemed to be the most probable outcome to Asuka. After all, most musicians didn’t appreciate being disrupted while they were in the midst of a piece. On the other hand, the guitarist might first finish the song, and then come to the window. Though the second possible outcome seemed somewhat less likely than the first, Asuka knew that there were many individuals who took their musicianship seriously to the extent that they would merely continue onward as if they had never been disturbed in the first place, until they finished their performance. Of course, given that the guitarist was practicing rather than performing, Asuka didn’t expect that this would be the case.

This was all to say that Asuka was not prepared for the reaction occasioned by her action. Or, to be more precise, the lack thereof. Asuka had firmly expected the guitarist to do something. Which was why she grew progressively more and more agitated, albeit it in an understated manner, as the seconds flew by and it appeared as though her ‘delivery’ had prompted positively no response whatsoever. No one appeared at the window, nor did the playing resume, and furthermore, there was not so much as the slightest audible outburst in response to the disruption. Aside from the botched note and the vexatious silence, there was nothing to indicate that the guitarist had even noticed the paper aircraft.

Asuka tilted her head as she continued to stare up at the window, her cheeks and lips creasing downward into the beginning of a frown. Come on, do something. Or are you actually going to just ignore that? Of course, there was no answer to this question, given that Asuka had inquired it of her own mind, rather than posing it out loud. The stillness stretched longer, no termination in sight. Asuka rested a hand against her hip, before dropping it back to her side. That might send the wrong sorta message when they finally decide to show up. If they decide to show up. Asuka’s frown had now passed its infancy, maturing into a full-blown line of irritation. Which is looking less and less likely. A measure of tension had filled the air, as anticipation of a reaction had turned to exasperation, and perhaps a portion of perturbation as well. The tension gave no indication that it had any intention of abating prior to Asuka’s departure. Well that’s just great. Dammit, I guess it’s back to my lovely, most definitely not covered in a mound of boxes room. Fantastic. Rolling her eyes, Asuka half-turned to withdraw, when a figure suddenly appeared in the window. Asuka hastily righted herself as her gaze locked in on the arrival. Took you long enough.

The person looking out of the window was not who Asuka had been expecting. The figure’s blue locks glistened vaguely in the sunlight as it touched them. Her eyes were dark, a rich, bark-like brown, the hue of tilled soiled moistened by a smattering of a rain. They practically gleamed with racing thoughts, deep pools of incalculable deliberation. It was the overall aura of her face, however, that knocked Asuka from her stride. It was expressionless, utterly unreadable, beyond the definitive certainty that the mind behind worked tirelessly and furiously. Asuka could discern no trace, however slight, of any sentiment or emotion in it. The emptiness, the absence, was uncanny. Asuka’s mind raced as well now, seeking an explanation for the void she beheld. Maybe I’m just too far away. After all, I’m a good distance from where she is. Maybe if we were closer, I’d be able to tell . . . something. Her attempts at persuading herself that this was a reasonable explanation failed miserably. The argument was woefully, blatantly incorrect. There was no denying the simple fact that the girl’s face, despite the fact that it appeared as if she was no older than Asuka, perhaps even younger, could have easily belonged to someone who spent years perfecting the perfect vizard. Somehow, I get the feeling that she’s never lost a poker game.

The duo’s encounter began in silence, both parties merely taking in the other, no words exchanged. Asuka did her best to hide her own feelings of confusion, as well as residual irritation. Can’t match her poker face, but I might as well try to not look too worked up. When the silence had lasted long enough to become uncomfortable, especially when combined with the force of the girl’s undeviating gaze, Asuka decided she would have to break it, as it didn’t seem feasible that the supposed guitarist would be the one to do so.

“Hey, you sounded good!,” Asuka called up, doing her best to sound both amicable and positive, in spite of the fact that these weren’t the foremost sentiments in her mind.

The girl said nothing in response, though Asuka briefly thought she spotted the barest, vaguest hint of a smile alight on the edges of the girl’s mouth for a split second. Well, no news is good news, right? And who doesn’t like a compliment? Guess I might have to do the heavy lifting in the conversation though. “That was Tender Surrender, right?”

The girl remained silent, but gave a small nod of her head, her expression unchanged. Asuka decided she would interpret this as an encouraging reaction. I mean, she doesn’t seem angry that I disrupted her earlier, so all things considered, I’m going to take this as a success so far. “Steve Vai is pretty cool. Classic 80s guitar, you know?”

The girl nodded again, blinking as she did so, before resuming her stare. Is that the first time I’ve seen her blink?, Asuka wondered. Because I think it is, and that’s more than a little bit unnerving. Because I’m almost positive she’s been staring at me for a couple minutes. No way, she must have blinked earlier. People don’t go minutes without blinking. That would be . . . unusual . . . and most likely not healthy for your eyes.

Asuka decided to try out a different subject. There’s got to be something that will get her to talk . . . right? Maybe? Hopefully . . . ?

“Anyway, I heard you earlier, and I wanted to see who the good guitarist was.” She bookended this with an agreeable chuckle, that was roughly eighty-five percent forced. “I’m Asuka Kaji. I just moved in to the house next door,” she pointed back over her her shoulder, “a few days ago.”

The girl tilted her head as she received this information, giving Asuka the impression that this was in fact new to her, and she was taking some time to process it. A few more seconds passed, and at last, the girl spoke. “I’m Rei Ikari,” she paused, and then added, “Thank you.” Her voice was soft, but carried down from the window fairly well all the same. It had a calmness to it, that matched up perfectly with her reserved demeanor. It was nearly a monotone, but not quite. There was a note of inflection in it, an element of what Asuka thought was cheerfulness, though it was difficult for her to be certain.

This time, Asuka was the one who tilted her head. Well, at least I got her name. Not sure why she’s thanking me though. “What for?,” she inquired, maintaining her amicable exterior, which was somewhat less forced than it had been several seconds earlier. Perhaps only seventy-five percent at this point, possibly even seventy.

Rei answered in the same voice, devoid of all but a hint of pleasantry. “For the compliment. I’m glad you like my playing.” Asuka hung on to that hint of pleasantry, decoding it to mean that Ikari was genuinely happy. At least, I hope that’s what it means. Although, she could just be putting on a front just like me. I’ll say she’s genuine for now though. It’s easier to be friendly when I don’t have to constantly second guess the other person.

Asuka smiled again, an expression which was mostly real. “No problem. Like I said, you sounded good.”

Rei nodded to this, but didn’t say anything immediately. Instead, she looked down, at something obscured from Asuka’s sight, and then back up at the other girl. “Would you like to come to the door? You won’t have to shout up from there?”

Asuka wasn’t quite sure that the volume she had been speaking at could be deemed shouting per se, but in comparison to Ikari’s subdued volume, she supposed she could see the logic in the other girl’s words. “Sure. Sounds like a good idea.”

“I’ll meet you there,” Rei intoned, not deviating in the slightest from what appeared to be her default voice. Stepping away from the window, she disappeared from Asuka’s view. Asuka set off along the side of the house, making for the front door, considering their conversation so far as she did so. Okay, saying ‘default voice’ might be a bit harsh. Makes it sound like she’s a robot or something. I don’t think she’s AI. I mean, probably not. She allowed herself a quiet little chortle as she rounded the corner and strolled over to the porch. She paused in front of the door. Guess I don’t need to ring the doorbell. Which means I get to avoid the antique clock. Or bell tower. Whichever one it sounds like. Probably both. Either way, not hearing it is a positive.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the door in front of her opening. Rei halted in the doorway, looking at Asuka. Up close, Asuka couldn’t discern any substantial differences from what she had already observed of Rei’s demeanor. However, the hints of a smile which she thought she had spotted earlier were more pronounced now that Asuka had a better view, making Ikari look moderately more genial to Asuka’s eyes. Huh, maybe I was right. She’s more friendly when I’m not looking up at her framed in a window. And I thought that argument was absurd. Even though it was my argument. Ha! Shows what you know, me!

Asuka smiled back at Rei, the most genuine one she had offered Ikari so far. Abruptly, Rei held out a hand toward Asuka. She looked down, and her smile fell a bit. The blue-haired girl was holding out the paper airplane to her. “Is this yours?,” she asked, giving no signs that she was angry, which threw Asuka off once again. Alright, maybe she’s just at good at hiding when she’s upset as she seems to be at hiding when she’s happy. Then again . . . I don’t see anything. Not in her face, or her posture. And she still smiling. Well, if that’s what that is, I mean. Maybe I didn’t actually disrupt her? Maybe she just messed up on her own? Or maybe she really doesn’t care?

Asuka nodded slowly, assuming an empathetic expression, less cheerful and slightly more chagrined. Just slightly, however. She wasn’t one to act particular embarrassed, even if she was. Not that she “Yeah, that’s mine. Sorry if I threw you off, by the way.”

Rei extended her hand a little further, offering the miniature parody of an aircraft to the redhead. “It’s okay. I was nearing the song’s conclusion anyway.”

Asuka accepted the offered airplane. “You sure?”

Rei nodded. “Yes. Your technique isn’t bad.”

Once again, Rei managed to say something that Asuka was not anticipating. My technique? Where did that come from? This is kind of getting on my nerves. A little bit, anyway Who just randomly switches topic mid-conversation like that? “What technique?”

“Your folding technique. It’s effective. Do you make origami?”

Oh. That is not what I expected her to say. “Ah, okay. Thanks. But no, I don’t.” I mean, technically I have, but I don’t need to tell her about how great that went. Damn cat. Since when do cats eat paper anyway? When did that become a thing? And to think people say dogs are the ones who will eat anything.

“I think you’d be good at it if you tried,” Rei said sensibly.

“I’ll let you know if I ever try it out.”

Rei nodded, her faint smile becoming somewhat more defined, as if this was the most logical and appropriate response, and she appreciated that Asuka had used it. Asuka decided it was time for her to get in another question, before the conversation took an additional unpredictable turn. “So, do you go to Sarea High?” Might as well figure out if she’ll be going to the same school as me in the fall. It wouldn’t be a bad idea at all to know some people before I get there.

Rei only nodded again in answer to this question.

“Cool. I’ll be going there in the fall. You a,” she made a quick estimate of how old she thought Ikari looked to be, “junior?”

Rei shook her head. “I’m a senior.”

Well, I was only off by a year, that’s not too bad. “Me too.” You know, for expecting the mystery guitarist to be some guy in his forties, it turns out we have a lot more in common than I thought.

Rei didn’t respond to this information, but merely continued to look at Asuka, her head tilting slightly to the side, the smile on her face seeming more prominent than ever, though still more of a light impression than a defined expression. Asuka met the girl’s gaze for a moment, and matched the bluenette’s smile with a wider one of her own. I mean . . . she’s kind of unusual, but she doesn’t seem so bad. Could definitely do with talking a bit more, but whatever. “Are you in band?”

Rei shook her head. “No. I’d like to be in jazz ensemble though.”

Asuka grinned, and remarked, “I mean, from how you sounded earlier, I’m sure you could tackle jazz. Plus, it’s fun for guitarists!” Is it my imagination, or is that a tiny tint of blush I see on her cheeks right now.

“Thank you. Again,” Rei said softly. “I haven’t auditioned though.”

Asuka’s smile faltered, and she pursed her lips. “Why not?”

The imprint of a smile and the vague reddening slipping from her face, Rei shrugged. “Nerves, I guess,” she answered.

“Ah. I understand.” I’ve been there. Who hasn’t? But hell, she’s definitely good enough to make the cut! Especially in a town like this. I highly doubt they have a great jazz scene here or anything. Asuka paused, but then set off again, more animated, “Well hey, you should audition this fall! I’m going to be there! So there’ll for sure be someone else there who knows you’re a fantastic guitar!”

The mild coloring that Asuka suspected was a blush most definitely returned to Rei’s face with this comment. Without meeting Asuka’s gaze, a strange change from her pattern up to that point, she replied, “Maybe so.”

“Well, think about it at least.”

Rei nodded, and after another handful of seconds had elapsed, asked, “What instrument do you play?”

“I play drums,” Asuka answered.

Rei looked back to Asuka once more, her indistinct smile back on her face. “Are you going to do marching band?”

Asuka shook her head. “No, I prefer playing with a full kit. That’s why I’m going for jazz ensemble instead. It’s what I did at my old school back east in Terahburg.”

“That makes sense.”

“Yep,” Asuka stated smartly. A new idea had emerged in her mind, one which didn’t seem like a half bad one. “You know, we should jam together sometime. Since we’re literally next door to each other.”

Rei said nothing at first, but Asuka noticed that the blue-haired girl’s eyes looked more distant now, practically looking straight past Asuka. She was tempted to turn around, to see if there was something behind her worthy of attention, but she somehow doubted there was. She’s probably just appraising the idea. She seems like the type of person who thinks things over. Thinks things over intensely, to be precise.

When the space between the two girls had lapsed into silence for approximately thirty seconds, Rei spoke up. “What type of music do you like?”

Asuka gave a small shrug in response to this. “The short answer is, I like a lot of stuff. I’m open to pretty much anything. And the long answer is, well, long.” She let out a little laugh to accompany her quip. “But, you might be able to tell,” she shot a pointed glance down at her shirt, which featured an image of a man removing his face from his skull to reveal a bundle of bandages beneath it, an action which was surprisingly depicted in a manner that wasn’t particularly gruesome (which she personally thought a rather unusual choice for a gothic metal album cover, but she enjoyed the art nonetheless, a fact evidence by her possession of the shirt), “I like metal.”

Rei’s eyes followed Asuka’s indication, and studied her garment, taking in the image. “That is interesting,” she commented, giving no real suggestion of her actual opinion of the artwork. “However, I’m not familiar with Lacuna Coil.”

Asuka curled her lips into a wry half-smile. “Not enough people are. They’re pretty awesome though. If you like gothic metal, that is.”

Rei nodded gently, in a manner that came across as fairly noncommittal. “I’ll have to check them out.” Her tone didn’t particularly evince true interest either, thought Asuka couldn’t say that it suggested the opposite for that matter. It fell in line with almost all of Rei’s speech, in that it was nothing if not neutral and more than a little ambiguous. I guess you could call it balanced. It could go equally toward either side.

“So,” Asuka began, “What about you?”

“As in, what type of music do I like?,” Rei countered, seeking clarification.

“Yep.”

“I enjoy instrumental music. Especially when the guitar is the main focus.”

“I get ya, that makes sense,” Asuka remarked with a nod .

“But, I am open to many types of music as well,” Rei added.

“That always cool. Variety keeps things entertaining.”

“Indeed,” Rei agreed, though her voice showed no particular enthusiasm. The sentiment more closely resembled an acknowledgement of a basic principle that could only be recognized as a fact of life, rather than an identification with a specific, shared perspective. After this observation, she fell silent once more. Asuka tilted her head to the side, waiting for the other girl to continue, but she did not seem eager to break the silence which had descended. Well, she basically avoided that question. Or at least, she avoided giving a direct answer to it. I could press the issue, or save it for another time. Oh come on, I’m not one to save things for another time. She doesn’t seem to mind me too much so far. I’m gonna roll with that.

Asuka decided to reiterate her point. “So, what do ya think?”

“About what?,” Rei asked, her eyes twitching momentarily.

“About playing together sometime?”

Rei tilted her head to the side, before righting it and nodding. “I think that would be a good idea.”

“Cool!”

“Yeah,” Rei concurred, the smallest vestige of excitement briefly filling her voice. Asuka picked up on the alteration, as quickly as it passed. That sounded encouraging!

“Well, hey, let me give you my number, so you can get in touch with me when you want to. That work for you?

“Okay.” Rei extracted her phone from her pocket, a movement which Asuka mirrored.

It was when she glanced down at her phone that Asuka noted the time. Her eyes widened for a brief second. Crap! It’s that late already! Seriously, I’ve been here that long? I probably need to actually try to finish unpacking at least some of those boxes today. If only so I can move across my room without climbing on top of them. Oh well . . . all good procrastination has to end eventually.

Rei cradled her phone in her hands for a few moments. Asuka got the impression that Rei was a little hesitant (for whatever reason) to hand it over for Asuka to put in her number. Selecting a different strategy, Asuka opened her contact profile and held the phone out for Rei to see. “Here, you can just copy off of that. If you don’t want me to put my number in yours, I mean.”

Rei looked at the offered device for another moment or two, and then nodded. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Rei inspected the displayed information for a moment, and then quickly typed something into her phone. “Got it,” she announced.

“Awesome.” Asuka withdrew her phone and slid it back into her pocket. “Look, I gotta bounce. I still have lots of unpacking left to do.” She grinned and chuckled. “My room looks like a minor tornado or something tore threw it. So that’s fun.”

“It was nice to meet you,” Rei responded quietly, but the expression on her face gave the words weight. The impression of a smile that had lingered there for much of the conversation at the door had finally blossomed into something which could be firmly identified as a smile, even if it was a small, uncertain one.

“You too!,” Asuka agreed cheerily. Alright, now the question is, what will she interpret as a proper goodbye? This question proved unnecessary, as Rei gave Asuka another small nod, and then retreated into the house, closing the door behind her, in a startlingly swift burst of activity. Asuka blinked, shrugged mentally, and turned to go, trotting back out to the sidewalk.

Well, all things considered, I’d say that counts as an utter victory. Mystery guitarist turned out to be both under the age of thirty, and overall, pretty likable, at least, I think so. Not to mention I have someone to practice with already, and I’ve only been here a few days. And she lives next door. That’s a pretty great coincidence, I can’t lie. And best of all, I avoided unpacking for a solid half hour more. That’s the real success story here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rei didn’t leave after closing the door. She remained in the hall, watching the girl through the peephole as she departed. She couldn’t say exactly why she did it, only that it felt like the appropriate thing to do. When at last the redhead disappeared from her field of vision, she turned away from the door, and made her way to the kitchen. A strange sensation had developed in the pit of her stomach as they conversed. As with her logic for remaining at the door, the reason behind it barely escaped her mental grasp, as did an appropriate name for it. At best, she could characterize it as an unsettling experience, but not an unpleasant one. The feeling of a warbling tremor creeping up toward her chest, and then shying down and away once more. It played just beyond her reach, content to lurk there. Her first thought had been that perhaps food would lay the disturbance to rest. However, as she sat at the table and contemplated the granola bar she had retrieved from one of the cabinets that ringed the kitchen proper, she came to the abrupt realization that she lacked both the appetite and interest to eat it. Dropping the item in question back onto the tabletop, she tilted her head back to consider her kitchen ceiling. She decided that she preferred this view to the similar one she had observed earlier in the day.

There were fewer unpleasant memories wrapped up in this one. At least, that was the explanation she provided to herself, citing it as being the rationale reason for her mood. Because, clearly, it made perfect sense that studying the structure of the kitchen ceiling would fill her with a disconcerting, apprehensive excitement, but excitement all the same. Any other explanation would beg further questions. Questions she thought it was far, far, far too soon to be even touching upon. And that was without taking into account the fact that the excitement shied away from analysis. She suspected any efforts to investigate it would only yield confusing results. Results that led to the very same questions she wished to avoid. The safer alternative, then, was the ceiling. She was excited over the ceiling. Surely, if inspecting the ceiling of her bedroom could trigger a cascade of doubts and memories, inspecting the kitchen ceiling could make her feel giddy with an opaque happiness, until her brain was too muddled to focus on the shapes in the plaster and they meshed together into an indistinct collage of lines that made her eyes water when she tried to trace the maze she envision within it. Right?

[tortilla-of-courage]

Intimidated to post in the Linked Universe tag because its full? Wtf? Its not just tagging for people to see, its organizing your blog! I use your "

LU tag on your blog to see the assorted LU stuff without reblogs in the way!

And seriously, if people being too intimidated by a poster to tag their shit is a problem, wtf is the superwholock tag every time they wake up?

The LU tagged stuff is tagged correctly, if they dont like it they can block you, or filter the search by image! Jfc 20 posts are seriously too much? When you dont even have to read them and just scroll past??? Its not like you're reposting the comour of the sky 100 times in the LU tag every day, this person is making a mountain out of a mole hill and needs to go eat a homemade meal and take a nap

i mean, in a way i get the other anon? like, sometimes i can answer up to like 50 asks daily here. at least. maybe more, maybe less. and that's without my original posts i sometimes sprinkle in. i don't tag all of those, usually only the ones i feel are worth sharing, precisely not to spam, but i do get i still make a lot of posts daily

yeah, sorting stuff by post type is an option, but tumblr's search system can be... innefficient sometimes. they could block me, that's also true. i'd say they could block my asks tag, if that's the thing bothering them, but i know by experience that just shows a big 'this post has X tag' and it's just as cluttery.

i'll probably just come up with a personalized tag for lu asks so they wont show up in search but people that want to look for those (or block them) in my blog can. i physically cant go back and edit the tags in older posts becuase i have a total of almost 3k posts in here (both originals and reblogs), but from here on out i'll just tag more appropiately lol. it's really not that much of an issue for me

[yourehomesickiunderstand]

About/Rules/Verses

Hello, and welcome to my Bofur RP blog. This post is a HUGE wall of text, if you are on desktop and would like to see it a little tidier, please see the separate pages in the sidebar to the right. 

Promo Post Found Here

About the Mun

1. Firstly I am over 30, own a house, have a husband, 1 baby, 2 cats, and a wealth of commitments and responsibilities. I will do my best to reply in a timely manner, but will state up front that sometimes life gets in the way.

2. I am in EST and work M-F from 9-5, plus a half hour commute. Please understand that I can not post from work, and will not be posting during those times.

3. In addition, I am Mom to a very active toddler who is my priority over writing and who’s nap schedule tends to dictate when I can post.

4. My native language is English, though I can understand French, and a little bit of Spanish and Japanese. Don’t bank on me carrying on a decent conversation in any of those languages though.

About the Blog

1. When I first set up this blog I didn’t realize that secondary blogs can’t follow back, ask, or submit. My main blog name is Saffity, so if you see that blog follow you, it’s me. If I send an ask or submit, I will mention this blog name so you don’t get confused.

2. My inbox, ask, etc. is open. Please feel free to write me any starters, questions, or whatever.

3. Please send any critiques or suggestions to me. I’ve been on Tumblr forever, but have never really been a poster. If you see me doing basic noob mistakes with my posts that can be easily fixed, please let me know.

4. I will be tracking #yourehomesickiunderstand so please use that tag with our threads.

Mun’s Playing Style

1. I prefer my Bofur straight. I understand Boffins and other ships and have no qualms with them, I’ve been known to enjoy a good fluff fic once in a while, but this Bofur is straight.

2. Please send me an ask or fan mail if you would like our characters to have an already established relationship, I’m totally cool with it. I respond to all cannon characters as known as it shows in the books or movies, but if you are an OC and want something other than a “Nice to meet you” please let me know first.

3. I’m willing to do some fluffies, but not full on smut, if the thread calls for smut (which will often happen), I’ll fade to black when I’ve gone as far as I feel comfortable with. (Don’t worry, I’ll fade when I’m ready, you’ll never get any angry messages from me about going too far.)

4. Bofur here is multiverse, au, indie, whatever you want to call it. I’m sure he’ll fit into whatever crossover or world you decide to drop him in, he’s very easy going after all.

5. I tend to write in the past tense, third person. If you’d prefer a different style, just let me know and I’ll try to accommodate.

6. I’m bad with my images, so bad! I’m still figuring everything out, so if I’ve royally screwed something up, please let me know and I will delete and repost correctly.

7. I am super okay with editing anything I write if it doesn’t jive with your character or where you want the plot to go, please just let me know.

8. I mainly play on mobile, as such, I’m not able to cut my posts down. Please do so whenever you feel the need/want, I won’t be upset.

Head Cannons that go across all verses

1. Bofur has a Northern Irish accent and his hat, always his hat.

2. Bofur has named his hat Bundushathur, which in Khuzdul means “Cloudyhead” and will sometimes refer to his hat as a sleeping rabbit. If Khuzdul does not exist in the verse (like Modern) then the hat is called Cloudyhead and still referred to as a rabbit.

3. Bofur is the everyman, he isn’t special or high born. He is good natured, friendly, and the world’s best wingman, even if it means connecting someone he pines after with someone else. He would rather see them happy and keep their friendship than try to force his feelings on them or lose their friendship because of his pride.

4. The main characteristic about Bofur is that he is unimportant in the hierarchy of society.

Main Verse - The Hobbit/LOTR

Bofur is 4'6" but fairly thin for a dwarf.

Bofur is a dwarf who’s family line comes from Moria. He is of the mining class. He was born and raised in Ered Luin with his brother. Shortly after Bofur became an adult, his parents died, leaving him to raise his brother. Shortly after that, Bifur was injured in an orc attack. Bofur and Bombur took Bifur in, however there were a number of difficult years as they all got used to Bifur’s new personality.

Once Bifur was stable enough, the brothers decided it would be a good idea to head out and find new customers for their skills. They ended up at Bree, opening up a shop to sell Bifur’s fabulous toys, and offer tinkering services.

During their stay in Bree, Bombur got married to a passing female dwarf and moved his overly large family near the shop. Bifur and Bofur live together in living quarters at the back of the shop, Bombur lived with them until he got married.

Bofur travels around Middle Earth, usually west of the Misty Mountains, and most often between Bree and Ered Luin by way of the Shire. He collects supplies, sells wares, and visits many friends and family that are about the lands.

When Thorin calls for assistance in taking back Erebor, Bofur and his kin lock up their shop and head for the Shire.

After the quest they settle in Erebor, though Bofur heads back to Bree to close up their shop and settle accounts prior to settling in for a long life of enjoying his 14th share of the treasure.

Head Cannons that can totally change if my partner is a Bifur or Bombur

1. Bofur’s father was killed in Moria at the battle of Azanulbizar, his Mother died in an Orc attack when Bofur was in his 40s. He has taken care of his brother ever since.

2. Bofur took Bifur in after Bifur was orphaned as well, the three are like brothers, having shared the experience of loss and growing up together.

3. Bombur stopped speaking after their mother died. Bofur’s tried to get him to speak, and has managed to get him to speak sometimes, but usually just small replies and often with much prodding. Bifur and Bombur use the same sign language to speak to each other and those who don’t speak Khuzdul. Bofur takes care of both of them and is the one who speaks to customers.

Modern Verse

High School

Bofur is not popular, though he’s friendly and basically knows everyone. He enjoys shop class, classical music, and historical literature.

Studious and hard working, Bofur can often be found with his nose in a book, when not sitting on the bleachers playing the tin flute he always has on him.

College Student

Bofur is a TA in college. His major is historical literature, and his goal is to eventually become a professor. His passion is delving into historical fanatasy from cultures other than England and Western Europe.

He enjoys learning languages in order to read what he is researching in its original state.

General Modern Adult

In most modern adult verses Bofur is a general labourer, most often a janitor. If he is a teacher, he teaches music and drama.

Ice Cream Shop

Bofur runs a small home made ice cream shop that is part of a coffee shop run with a companion or family member (his partner can be any member of the company). He makes a variety of flavours, and offers lactose and gluten free varieties.

He prides himself on being able to guess his customers’ favourites on sight (like the movie Chocolat).

Marvel

Bofur is a janitor within shield. He can be found on the helicarrier, within the Avengers training base, or basically anywhere the heroes may be destroying things that need to be cleaned up.

While he is quiet and without powers, he has wisdom and a patient ear to lend to those supers who require a moment to vent.

Star Trek

This is the only verse where Bofur stands out. Bofur is a red shirt, but by some miraculous turn of events, he has gone on a number of away missions and made it back alive. Poor Bofur would love to get off the enterprise with his life, and shirt, in tact, but it appears some of the higher officers like to see him lose his mind and suggest him for more away missions, even if only in jest.

Head cannons that exist in all modern verses

1. Bofur and his family are from Northern Ireland, though Bofur travels around, goes to school abroad, and in general can pop up anywhere in the world.

2. Bofur is short for a male - 5'6", with a stocky build, and fairly strong.

3. Bofur’s younger brother Bombur is still at home (or married with kids depending on their age).

4. Bofur’s parents took Bifur in after he got injured during Armed Forces training, as Bofur’s family lives closer to the rehab resources that Bifur requires.