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[kestrels-and-katydids]

[ID: blue digital banner that reads Support artists! Reblog Art. There is a red bird sketch and a green katydid sketch on opposite sides of the text. End ID.]

[saetoru]

this blog is now archived !! find my MASTERLIST here !!

hi guys, and here’s a long overdue post that i wanted to take the time to make after collecting as many screenshots as i can for a lot of rumors that i think need to be addressed. before i do that, i wanted to apologize to all of my mutuals who ended up wrongfully harassed in their inboxes for simply knowing me—the irony of this issue being about bullying all the while people on this app have been simultaneously being genuinely awful to other writers who have zero involvement has been ridiculous.

i would’ve made this post sooner, but december was very busy—as you all know, i’ve been working with two separate companies for my capstone projects, and i had final presentations with boards to worry about. and then a cruise which was fun, but i was offline. now that i’ve finally had time to enjoy my break and collect my thoughts, i’d like to voice my own side to the discourse i’m sure you’ve all seen posted by @/garoujo, who is now @/gojoath.

first and foremost, i’ve been on tumblr for almost 4 years now, and while i may not have the brightest moments on here (no one will be spot-free in that amount of time), i’d like to think that if i actually went out of my way to vicious or bully people, this would’ve come to people’s attention a lot sooner. i’ve had a relatively large following across all 6 of my blogs in my time here, and while i don’t like to get into the metrics of my blogs, the reason i point this out is because i have willingly started my blog over 6 times. 3 of these were sfw blogs under my nickname tee, another 2 of which were my previous nsfw blogs under a different alias, and saetoru which is the current one, where i finally decided to combine my sfw and nsfw writing into one space. i just wanted to bring that up because i had quite a habit of leaving and restarting blogs before this one, and had i been obsessed with outperforming other writers in terms of follower counts, i would not have left the previous ones as often as i did. 

that being said, i’ll also go through a timeline of events and how they’ve snowballed into an issue that is not as one-sided as most of you might think. i’ve been mutuals with emmie since my first blog, and i’d been mutuals with her through most of her blogs as well. we’ve never really had issues until her last blog @/garoujo, which she’d started after deactivating @/atsymu due to discourse regarding racism accusations. the reason why we had a falling out was because i felt that there were a series of odd coincidences that felt slightly purposeful, but i was still questioning whether or not i was looking too deeply into it to actually point any of it out.

admittedly, when i saw her first set of banners, i felt our layouts were a slight bit similar, but i really didn’t mind too much because i had been planning to change my banners anyway because i was bored of them. so i took that as an opportunity to do so. it just so happened that within a day or two of every time i changed my banners, hers would be changed too—i never said i owned the color gray, and i even fully acknowledge that the last two sets of banners, at first glance, wouldn’t be a red flag. because, like i said, i was more uncomfortable with the pattern of coincidences than the actual layouts. then i switched to my instagram theme, and not long after, i noticed her add instagram story visuals to her navi. again, no one ever said instagram was my original idea, and that no one else could use it, but it was an unsettling feeling having the same moot continuously make changes around the same time as you, and changes that are different enough that you can’t exactly point out an issue, but slightly similar enough that you can’t exactly ignore the slight oddness.

coincidentally, the same day, another blog (who i will not name bc they’re not very active anymore and are also not very relevant to this story) made the same theme as me and i was a bit peeved because this same blog is someone who has copied a few other things from me and a handful of other moots, so i made a subpost on my moots-only personal blog at the time. keep in mind, i made this post fully aware that emmie was on this blog because i didn’t intend for that post to seem like it was about her. but she reached out to me, and i explained to her the situation, and i even provided the relevant screenshots to show my points. i still considered her a decently good friend at the time, and even with the slightly off feelings, i was still adamant about brushing them off and considering them coincidences that perhaps i was being a bit too critical of.

it wasn’t until i woke up a few hours later after changing my theme and going to bed that i noticed she’d then fully switched to the insta theme. again, instagram is an app used by millions and, at one point, was a very popular theme used amongst most people on this app. i’m not entitled enough to believe i was the first person to do it, but like i said. there are just off vibes most of us will not help but feel when a series of coincidences continue to happen back to back to back by the same person.

there were, amongst these things, a number of other small touches that made me feel off. most of them i don’t remember by now or have screenshots of, so i won’t bother to go into all of them, but for reference, one example i’d also like to point out that i’d had the phrase “you’ve reached the hanmas” in my inbox when she was still on @/atsymu, and sometime after, her sfw blog @/loveatsu had the phrase “you’ve reached the miyas.” small things like this are not things i make an issue over and am more than capable of brushing aside, but like i have said and will continue to push firmly is that i felt there were multiple instances of emmie, in particular, making small tweaks to her blog shortly after me that made me feel were not all coincidentally similar. the issue was never themes or thinking i am the first or only person to do something a certain way, the issue has always been me countless times feeling that one particular individual is exhibiting a behavior that is persistent and uncomfortable no matter how minuscule the instances may be. maybe they were really just unfortunate coincidences that happened with poor timing, or maybe they weren’t. but i stand by the fact that anyone in my shoes would be valid to question the timing of each of these events over and over again.

i would also like to bring up kinktober (though this happened a while after the rest of what i will get into) because this was the first public discourse that emmie and i got into due to an anon’s claims of similarities between our posts. i had received an anon who told me “i think someone copied your kinktober masterlist” which i answered to ask if they could let me know who. they had come back to say it was garoujo, and i did not reply to the ask, instead, i made a post to vaguely tell the anon that i appreciate them letting me know, but i will just leave it be and continue on with my kinktober regardless of emmie’s mlist. i do think there were some vague similarities, but honestly not enough to really question it, so i figured a confrontation or issue was not necessary. a while later, several moots had messaged me to let me know they had received anonymous asks saying to “block @/garoujo she copied @/sakusins and she’ll copy you too” (or something along those lines, i don’t remember exactly.) i myself was very confused (and upset) by the situation because i did not, and still would not, want to be publicly name-dropped in other people’s inboxes over issues that do not involve them. unfortunately, it led to some not-very-kind asks to both of us, and while i am sorry she had to deal with that, it is not an apology from a sense of culpability. that situation was, and still is, entirely out of my control. i would not have seen the masterlist unless the anon had mentioned it, and i did not take part in having people send asks about her to other writers. especially not in a manner that was pretty much social suicide for me as well. 

(this is a poorly made collage i know lol but i hit the picture limit bear with me here.)

i would also like to point out that i am not the only individual who has had issues with emmie and feels she had copied them. although i cannot disclose urls (they have been blocked out for privacy reasons) here are a few conversations i have had with my own mutuals, and i would wager there are more people whom i haven’t talked to who also feel this way. they might be small enough instances that sparking issues over them was not worth it to all of these people, therefore she has never heard from people herself about this issue, but the point does still stand that this claim about emmie is not one i alone make, and is one that i have heard countless times before. her never being approached by these individuals for the sake of peace doesn’t erase that they have been, and are, upset by these events, and it’s a habit that she seems to continually partake in. i would also like to link this post where she has been called out by another writer while she was still atsymu, which was posted while we were still friends. i’ve actually had a discussion with emmie about that post, and at the time, i had quickly skimmed the post and felt it was perhaps a reach, but after my own experiences, i went back to reread the post and considered perhaps there was validity to it, and that this might not be a one time occurrence. plagiarism in manners such as this will always have conflicting opinions, and it is hard to sometimes tell if something is a coincidence, a popular and overused idea, or something that has actually been copied. my point is that a number of people have all felt that perhaps there is a good chance this was not an accident, and please consider that so many instances of people feeling this way might suggest that there is a certain degree of validity to the claim.

at the beginning of all of this, when the masterlist banners had first started bothering me, i was upset, and i chose to vent to an ex-moot of mine who most of you would recognize as munsonsins. abby has deactivated a long while ago, but she’s relevant to this because i had chosen to vent to her at the time, and this is more or less what later caused this situation to escalate. at the time of venting to her, i knew she wasn’t mutuals with emmie because, as you can see, she’d told me as such. 

one thing i would like to point out is that there were a handful of people i had vented to about my frustrations with emmie, but one thing i had always been mindful of was ensuring these were a) individuals who i considered close friends and not just random individuals, and b) were not friends or moots with emmie in the event that i accidentally made people who she cared about think lesser of her. had abby been mutuals with emmie, i would not have shared my feelings, and once again, i was not loose-lipped enough to just tell anyone because they’d listen. i told abby in particular because i had felt we were sufficiently close individuals who talked one-on-one and were able to vent to each other. a bit after i vented to her, though, she befriended emmie, which i had no such issues with because abby was/is her own person and is an adult who can interact freely and befriend whoever she wanted/wants to. 

not long after that, on the night before eid (this detail is relevant in the future) an ex moot of mine @/kazuwhora reached out to me. if you guys remember, there was a discourse last year that was all over dash about how writers on this app should be open to criticism. a lot of people (including me and kc) were upset by that sentiment—which is still valid. please don’t give constructive criticism to writers without their explicit permission !! but regardless, kc sent me a screenshot of a mutual of mine who had posted their opinion on this discourse, and their point was clearly that while constructive criticism is important in some aspects, writers do not have to be subject to receiving it should they not want to. unfortunately, i felt as if kc misunderstood what this individual was trying to say, and i was trying to explain it to her, but we got into a small argument over how we interpreted the post. i felt some of the things she was saying about this individual were inappropriate, and i had made it clear that i was very fond of this person, and it made me uncomfortable to be having this discussion. regardless of whether she saw my interpretation of the post or not, i wanted to drop the discussion, especially because it was the night before eid. eid is the one holiday i celebrate, and there are traditions i quite enjoy the night before, and i didn’t want them to be spoiled with a poor mood over a silly argument. unfortunately, she wasn’t very willing to drop the topic, and it ended up making me upset. so i posted this screenshot to my moots only personal from the conversation that consisted of my messages only and said, “tonight i had to explain what a debate is.” it was petty, perhaps, but very harmless, seeing as there was no context given and no names/pfps to indicate who the person was.

truthfully, i had vented separately to cat, eris, and abby about this argument because i was friends with the three of them at the time, but needless to say, venting to your friends about arguments is a universal action, and i believe it is something all of us have partaken in. 

eventually, i decided to softblock emmie because i felt it would be more comfortable for me on my blog to do so. after a bit, i was informed of a subpost that seemed like it couldn’t be about anyone other than me—to make things clear, emmie subposting me was not my concern. i did not hold it against her because she is more than entitled to have her own feelings and vents on her own blog, but the thing that did concern me was that it seemed slightly evident that she was aware of my feelings when i had never explicitly had a conversation with her. it made me question who would tell her, and as you may have guessed, the only person with whom i had shared my concerns who could also be in contact with emmie was abby. 

at the time, eris had also voiced concerns that they had trusted abby with the ending of the plot for the diluc series they were planning, and coincidentally, one of abby’s friends had posted a fic idea eerily similar to their concept, to which abby had been commenting and reblogging more brainstormed ideas under. all of these ideas were very close to the plans eris had for their series plot, and understandably, they felt that it was not a mere coincidence that their entire plot was being brainstormed on dash by a person who was fully aware of their outline. i’d voiced my concerns with believing that abby may have also been sharing things i trusted her with, and as a result we both had made a few vague subposts that we liked from each other—a petty behavior, i will admit, but not something that i think is very out of the norm for a lot of people on this app. sometimes, we all just want to vent out our frustrations, and because we all more or less use tumblr as an outlet, these can sometimes be vaguely taken to dash. it’s not something that is ideally recommended (i’ve learned the hard way) but it’s also ?? not exactly something that only i’m guilty of, or is even a rare behavior. i think to shoot down one person for this behavior is quite frankly hypocritical. again, subposting isn’t a habit i would like to push as mature but it’s something i’d like to point out is very normal in this community, and is not something only i take part in. beyond that, i take to ensuring that whenever i do, i’m not explicitly exposing who i’m talking about in order to keep them out of unnecessary issues. 

after this conversation with eris, it kind of solidified in my mind that i did not want to trust abby with any more personal vents, or information, and i had ultimately decided to soft block her too. i had also decided to take the opportunity to softblock kc as well because i figured i might as well just remove individuals who i felt made me uncomfortable. this is, again, my right to do so to curate my own space. not long after, cat, eris, and i had been softblocked/hardblocked by a number of moots, and we were a bit confused, until cat ended up having a conversation with kc. many accusations were made about all three of us, more specifically, about me to kc by abby because the two of them had been discussing that they’d both been softblocked by me recently.

the list of accusations we were told of is as follows:

me, cat, and eris have a “burn book” where we “blacklist people.” it’s important to note that every time this discourse resurfaces (this is now the fourth time), the “burn book” has fundamentally changed in its composition—it has changed from a discord server “burn book”, to a google doc “burn book”, to the current rumor that it was an entire blog that was used as a “burn book.” it is consistently changed to fit whatever narrative is trying to be pushed, and regardless, the rumor itself is entirely untrue and has been addressed multiple times. cat has had a tumblr theme, a collab theme, and a server theme all dedicated to the film mean girls. she simply had a channel that was to share the urls of minors to block for interacting with nsfw works, or people who were anti-dark content—this is something that i have seen in all servers i’ve been in during my time on tumblr, and is not a new concept for many of you either. it’s simply a precaution a lot of servers take to warn writers about potential minors to block, and potential anti-dark content harassers. the name of this channel happened to be “the burn book” because it was a mean girls themed server, so the name just fit. nowhere in this channel were other writers in the community “blacklisted” or spoken negatively of, and here are the screenshots of the channel. this was simply something abby had twisted in order to paint us negatively. here is the link to cat’s post addressing it for proof and explanation (i run out of pictures or i would include them myself.)

abby also claimed that i was using this channel to talk poorly about kc and a handful of other moots. this is also false bc this server had several strangers (as it was cat’s server and i didn’t know all her moots), but it also had several of kc’s mutuals/friends in this server as well. i’m not so dense as to talk poorly about other writers publicly in a server, let alone a server i know has people who are friends with kc

now, this next part, emmie has conveniently painted out to be about me, as i apparently harassed and blacklisted people for liking itto from genshin impact, but i have been playing genshin for over a year on this app, and quite a large number of you are my own followers who see my rambles and my writing and i don’t have to explain that i have never written for itto, nor explicitly expressed an interest in him apart from perhaps one or two posts from back when i did his story quest. i never had, and still to this day, have no interest in the character itto. i’ve skipped his banner, i plan to skip his upcoming banners should they come, and i have never written for him, nor do i plan to write for him. this issue with itto is between eris and another individual, and i do not have the details to this, as i was new friends with eris at the time, and i’m no longer friends with eris as of current time. quite frankly, even if i knew the details, i wouldn’t go out of my way to share them because it has nothing to do with me. plain and simple.

as you can see, there were a number of rumors spread here to kc by abby, and as you can see, all of which led me to seem quite vicious in character. i’ve provided, to the best of my ability, screenshots and receipts of why each of these is quite drastically out of context and far from true to what abby has claimed. 

i did in fact, after these events confront abby because i was genuinely appalled by the way she knowingly and purposely twisted things conveniently to villainize me. she expressed that she was upset and paranoid by the subposts that she figured were about her once i’d soft blocked her, so i apologized for the posts. she had conversations with both me and cat about the rumors she’d started, and she also apologized for them to both me and cat.

the rumors that emmie has claimed about me in her post, which she conveniently provided no evidence of, are all rumors that are more or less a result of my differences with abby and kc. unfortunately, despite cat trying her best to explain to kc the falseness of most of these rumors, she didn’t really believe them—which is her business. to each their own. i’m sure if i had been in kc’s shoes and in one night, someone i had considered a friend had been painted to do a series of nasty things behind my back, i also would not know what’s true and untrue, and she is entitled to piecing together what she believes is her truth. what’s not fair, however, is for emmie to have no involvement/understanding of these events apart from a twisted narrative she heard from one person and dog pile them into her claims of my behavior to further paint me as a villain. emmie is more than entitled to have her beliefs on my character based on her own experiences, which she has provided her own evidence of, but simply slapping an “and i heard she also….” does not necessarily make claims true, and is very manipulatively thrown into the post to add a list of things that make my character questionable to further validate her point. 

not only this, but she has made a point to openly admit that she and her friends have collectively mocked me for my relationship with my ex-boyfriend, who they have apparently labeled as my “fake” boyfriend that i used to get attention on this app. quite plainly, i get enough attention on my blog that i don’t need a fake boyfriend to amp that up. but furthermore, i am a south asian, muslim individual. my parents are immigrants with very strict religious and cultural beliefs that i feel are very restricting at times, and though i love my family, i struggle with my identity quite a bit as i live in a very western culture that clashes quite a bit with my cultural norms. i do not get to freely explore my sexuality or even romantic life in general, unlike some of you. my parents have been kept in the dark about my relationship because them knowing about it is something that could quite literally create a rift between us, and i find it very insulting and almost suspicious that a white girl is making a mockery of my cultural struggles and my personal life. many of you are either desi or muslim or simply children of strict immigrant parents with quite stubborn traditional views. i’m sure plenty of you understand where i’m coming from when i say that i have to keep my relationship hidden from the majority of the people around me. tumblr is the one place i can anonymously share bits and pieces of my life without worrying about if it will literally cost me my relationship with my parents, so sometimes i may have overshared silly or pointless things, but that is because it’s my own way of being able to express myself and my relationship the way i have always wanted to. apart from that, dragging and making a joke out of someone’s personal life is quite unnecessary in this case. the issue is about tumblr discourse, and i find it very hypocritical that i am being labeled a bully when people, more specifically a white and privileged individual, is plain and simple mocking and poking fun at my personal life and situation that i have no control of. that is my piece on that. whether some of you believe i had a partner or not is not my business, nor do i have to go out of my way to show you evidence of my personal life. what i will say, however, is that there are a handful of close friends i have on this app who are involved in my personal life and have seen evidence of my love life through pictures and private stories on social media. quite frankly, these are the only individuals who i have to justify the validity of my personal life to, and it’s honestly quite violating for someone to stoop to dragging someone’s outside life into issues about tumblr. i extend a very genuine fuck you to every single one of you that have ridiculed my personal relationship and just know that you are extremely bold to consider yourselves above bullying when this is the type of behavior you admit to engaging in. individuals with complex familial relationships, and identity struggles between cultural norms, their ethnicities, and the western world are not your playground to make a joke out of. some of us have very real struggles, such as not being able to pursue careers in favor of arranged marriages, not being able to pursue actual relationships that mean something to us due to a lack of familial approval, being forced to bear children at young ages due to familial pressure, and so on. they are not laughing matters, and are a part of my reality. and before some of you get started—yes, it really is that serious. i have struggled my entire life with having white girls poke fun and tease at my cultural norms, and i refuse to allow another white and privileged individual who already has a record of racially related discourse walk away with once more poking fun at my personal struggles and not be called out for it. i hope you had a good, long, satisfying laugh emmie.

onto my next points based on claims @/anantaru has made about me. the main thing i’d like to really point out here is that anantaru and i have never, not even once, interacted to the extent of my knowledge. they claim that cat and i cannot stand it when people cross us in numbers and that we go through people’s likes in order to find minors and blank blogs to explain all the notes. a) i am very bad at checking for minors and blanks in my own notes, so this is not even a logical approach on my end, but b) this claim is made because cat made this post under the tags of a post going around last year that asked to hear unpopular ficblr opinions.

what cat means to articulate here is that sometimes, when she is scrolling on dash and interacting with moots and their shit/talk-posts, she peeks at profiles she sees in the notes and has happened to catch minors lurking. cat, firstly, has never followed anantaru, so they are not a “victim” to cat glancing at their likes, but secondly, this is not nearly as psychotic as it’s painted out to be. cat is not, and was not, jealous of other blog's notes. quite plainly, she’s not exactly a tiny blog either, and she’s only stumbled upon minors in the talks-posts of moots, including me. shit-posts/talks-posts are easy to notice minors lurking on, and while most people recognize that it’s quite impossible to catch every minor and ageless blog in writing posts with numerous notes, a simple shit-post on dash is more simple, and her unpopular opinion was simply that blogs that grow rapidly need to be better about catching those minors because they are susceptible to having more of them lurking. it’s a really harmless sentiment, and she’s gently reminded me as well on more than one occasion to be more responsible about my habit of being lazy when scouting for minors in my interactions. 

this is not out of jealousy, nor is it some sick and twisted habit she has to “explain” why people get more notes than she might get. it’s also out of a place of concern for her own content ?? i myself and plenty of other large blogs reblog from mutuals, and they are well within their right to be concerned that perhaps minors are lurking on our pages and interacting with works we reblog from our mutuals. cat has voiced this concern to me before, also out of goodwill and simple concern for my content, her content, and minors in general. there is simply no need to twist it into her viciously looking down upon large blogs and their notes counts and claiming they’re “only because they don’t block minors.” admittedly, though, i do need to be better about catching minors, and i have always appreciated her trying to keep me in the habit of being responsible about it. more importantly, it was a small passing comment under a post of unpopular opinions, a lot of them were hot takes, and this is hardly a serious one to get so heated over. 

i’d also like to point out that anantaru has claimed we blocked them for being a gatekeeper and because we’re jealous of their notes. 💀. a) i am very grateful and very happy with the level of interaction i get on my writing, as more people than i imagine leave me countless comments and reblogs. i have never had an issue with comparing my interaction with that of other writers because i have always been abundantly content with the interaction i get. i have no other comment on this other than cat and i blocked anantaru at the same time because we happened to see a post of theirs reblogged onto our dash that made a joke that we felt was a bit insensitive to/alluded to SA—i’m sure it wasn’t meant to be taken that way, but it made us uncomfortable regardless. while we are both dark content supporters, and i myself have read more than one fic that includes noncon in particular, it doesn’t mean we have to like/enjoy everything related to it and we simply decided to block them. i’m not going to bring this post up bc it’s simply not important. they are an adult who is more than entitled to make jokes on their blog and cat and i do not have to like them !! we simply did what we were well within our rights to do, and that’s blocking them.

there’s more they go on to say about receiving hate asks and that apparently it’s because of our “group of friends.” cat and i don’t have a group of friends. i don’t have any group chats with her besides the one with her boyfriend because i get along with him sometimes as well, and we used to play genshin together a lot when i was in low ar. not that i have to explain my friendships here, but i quite literally do not have a group of people to “send after” anantaru because people are well aware of my close friends, who i text with my personal phone number. i’ve posted silly screenshots of convos on my blog multiple times, and none of these friends overlap because i do not have a “group” of friends, just individual friends who i talk to one on one. cat is not friends with my other friends, and my other friends are not friends with her. there are no inner circles that conspire together to send anyone hate because i “tell them to.” and if there are screenshots of me explicitly encouraging someone to send hate on anon, i would love to see it. if i had sent my anons after anantaru, it would have to be a public post, and i’m sure if there were a post of such nature, it would have been brought to light by now. they have also claimed they were given multiple urls of mine to block. i only have ONE writing blog, @/saetoru, and the only other two that are still up are archived blogs @/hanmine and @/katsuphilia, which are side blogs attached to saetoru and have been inactive for several months. there are however, multiple individuals on this app who also go by the name “tee,” and perhaps we have unfortunately been mixed up as the same person, but the only blog i have is saetoru, so there is no other active blog they have blocked me from that belonged to me and was able to harass them.

not only that, but anantaru has claimed that one person off anon sent them hate with a kaeya url which they insinuate to be me. once again, you are all more than aware of my history of urls, and many of you have all been here to see them. i’ve never once had a kaeya url, nor have i ever been particularly interested in kaeya outside of a small number of posts on a rare occasion. my genshin favorites have always been characters from sumeru and, at one point diluc, and once again i don’t have to ?? explain my selfships to you all ?? but literally, i have nothing to do with a kaeya blog or kaeya account, and im unsure why it’s being thrown into my name. quite frankly, i’m not sure  what their moot has told them we have said about them, but the only conversations cat and i have ever had about anantaru was that one about the noncon joke, and that’s it. outside of that, there is literally no evidence of us speaking about this person because it simply doesn’t exist. 

i implore you all to, instead of starting public discourse over things you hear, confirm them first. had anantaru reached out to me or cat and expressed that they are upset that we are supposedly spreading false rumors about them gatekeeping, then whatever misunderstanding it might have been could have been cleared. i would like to also point out that it is not above bullying when you simply dump numerous accusations that you have heard through half whispers from moots and provide 0 evidence for them. i am perfectly aware of why emmie may consider herself to have issues with me, but i have never had an encounter with anantaru, and truthfully, i’ve never actually even read their writing before. my main (and pretty much only) experience with them is seeing the joke i saw reblogged onto my dash, and as i stated earlier, the only thing i did for that was block and move one.

and lastly, the other point i’d like to make is that numerous blogs who i have been objectively very kind to have come out to take the opportunity to stomp on my character and reputation. for example, tumblr user @/osaemu, who used to follow me and interact with me quite often. i have always been excited to interact with her because she was really supportive of my gojo writing, and at one point, i had a small area of concern with her using the same exact title as me for a gojo fic. below are screenshots of our conversation regarding the titles.

i am quite confident that this is a very polite interaction, and i was very clear that i didn’t think that her writing elements, including gojo’s parent dynamics and his dynamics with the reader, were copied or even something that i felt she needed to change. i pointed them out as a way of indicating that between these parallels and between the fact that i know she reads my rb! gojo series, i find it difficult to believe that our fic titles being exactly the same is a coincidence, and it made me uncomfortable—my concern was not how she wrote gojo’s parents or his dynamic with reader. i never accused her of stealing ideas that were mine alone to use, all i simply wanted to do was shed light on the fact that based on these parallels, i figured the names being the same was a touch difficult for me to brush aside as a chance similarity. i was very clear to outline that i know these dynamics and themes in writing are generic, and that people can pull inspo from them because i have done the same thing. my only concern was the title, which i politely asked her to change, and she agreed. case closed. i have been, again objectively, quite kind to osaemu, and i had no intentions of blocking her like a moot had suggested because i felt it was a very silly issue to block over since she was very lovely to me. 

i did, however, block her because she posted one-paragraph posts with multiple characters tagged. that’s not a crime on her end, and i’m certainly not here to police her posts in the tags, but as me and plenty of other people on this app have voiced multiple times, it is a bit irritating and feels like spam to see posts of these kinds in the tags so i blocked her. this is a very popular opinion and i refuse to be considered problematic for it. i am not here to police what constitutes an appropriate post to tag x reader tags on, and while i have made posts simply sharing my opinion on what i feel should and should not be tagged, osaemu is more than welcome to post whatever she feels she would like to into the tags. i do, however, block anyone who i come across who makes those kinds of posts because i simply don’t like them, and i don’t like seeing them. i don’t owe an explanation for why i block anyone, but seeing as i have been painted as some bitch for doing so, here is my reasoning. quite a lot of people agree on this sentiment, and to each their own, but i don’t enjoy seeing those posts. i did also unblock her at one point, as she mentioned. this is simply because a mutual of mine had voiced that they felt someone had copied the concept of their drabble, and i was helping them word a message to send, so i went back to this exact conversation to look back on what i said because it was a similar situation. as you know, blocking someone hides their dms from your dm list, so i had intended to temporarily unblock her just to see how i worded my message to help formulate a message for a mutual. there were no screenshots sent, i simply wanted to jog my memory of my points, that’s all. i did forget to block her again for a bit but eventually did, and that’s the extent of our interactions. i don’t recall posts telling people that i condone sending anons with death threats like she has claimed, and if she could point out the particular posts i have made where i encourage people to send anon death threats on my behalf, i would be more than happy to clear them up, or address them. 

i have admittedly, on a few occasions said in my responses to anon hate itself, the phrase “kys” out of frustration, and there are i’m sure conflicting opinions on that, but i do not regularly use this phrase in my vocabulary. i have been on the receiving end of graphic sexual and violent asks in my inbox regarding me, my teenage sister, and my mother, during my time on here, and sometimes out of frustration i have said less than dignified things, but this is not a constant behavior, and frankly, i think once people make graphic, violent, and inappropriate comments about my 16 year old sister, saying “kys” in response is not the greater of the two evils. it is a tad bit hypocritical to expect benevolence from me to an anonymous hate ask just because there is “another person” at the end of the screen when they have not extended the same sentiment to me.  

all of that being said, jumping on the trend to trample on someone while you have the opportunity to because you’re bitter they blocked you is also no better than bullying. apart from blocking osaemu, I have taken careful steps to always be respectful to her due to the very kind comments she’s left on my writing. leaving nice comments on my writing is deeply appreciated and welcome, but that doesn’t mean i have to subject myself to seeing posts i do not want to see on my dash on my phone. i pay for the phone bill, so i will cater my phone to show me what i want to see, and if that includes blocking a few people, i am allowed to do that !! i should not have to apologize for or be crucified for blocking someone and their feelings being hurt over it. 

not only this, but several of you have somehow started a rumor that i am 26 or even pushing 30. that’s nowhere close to the truth. i’m 21, soon to be 22, and i have stated multiple times i am an undergraduate college student. of course, there is no timeline to college, and people of all ages complete their undergrad degrees, but i have made it a point to vent about my concerns numerous times that i am very stressed about taking extra classes every semester to compensate for changing my major late because i want to graduate on time. my graduation year is 2024 (as would make sense seeing as i will be 22 years old), and if you don’t believe me, i have celebrated my bday on april 12th of every year this blog has been active. you’re more than welcome to check my archive to see if that’s true, and for further reference, here is a picture i have sent to mods of servers i am in to be accepted. (note that my url used to be hanmas before saetoru.)

although there is no shame in being 26 or pushing 30, the reason why i wanted to address this is that i wanted to point out that yet another rumor has been fiercely pushed on my name and has been believed to be the truth. no one has to walk away from reading this post assuming that i’m a saint and i have never done anything wrong or that i have been faultless in differences i’ve had with other people. but a lot, if not all, of these claims are exaggerated with 0 evidence, and people have just run with claiming them as true. i physically cannot deny a large majority of these rumors with evidence or screenshots because half of them are made by people i have never interacted with or talked to, and i cannot produce evidence for interactions that never happened. i have seen blank, burner blogs post stories of their experiences with me, one in particular that claims i dm’d them to tell them their hanma fic was breathtaking before i harassed them about their theme, boyfriend, and parents. a) i do not dm anyone to compliment their fics because i am simply too shy to do that. i would have only reblogged the fic with comments if i enjoyed it. b) again, there is no evidence on their part, and i cannot dispel this story with evidence of my own because evidence of conversations that never took place does not exist. and c) i would like to think i do not come across as dense enough to attack someone in their dm’s viciously about their boyfriend and parents openly with my account, where they could easily spread the proof around if it had actually happened. i am not responsible for people’s internet literacy, and if people believe every story that is shared with not even a small piece of proof that it took place, i cannot do anything besides simply urge you all to formulate your opinions based on what you see, not based on what you hear. 

i would also like to end things off with an apology to all of you—mainly because there was no reason for so many of you to be dragged into something that did not involve you and also because there are very disturbing and important issues going on right now in real-time in the world that are affecting a lot of people. i never want to be involved in something that takes attention off of important discussions such as genocide, and while many of you like to claim i am deflecting, i think it is quite telling that some people have posted nothing about something this important but have made multiple posts regarding discourse. i did not feel it was appropriate at that time to focus on discourse, and i still do not think so, but i wanted to leave off with my own statement.

i would also like to apologize if i have ever come across as unkind during an experience with me; it is never my intention to be that way purposely. i have a habit of being petty sometimes and can be a bit short-tempered, and it’s something i work on. with as large of a following as i have, sometimes it’s better not to say anything at all than say it—however vaguely it might be. i hope some of you who also have larger followings keep that in mind so that you can avoid discourse erupting into something grand scale. please vent to people you trust and be wary of having a habit to subpost. but mainly, please remember that people trusting you with their feelings and troubles is not something you should take pride in spreading. there is nothing to be proud of about sharing people's private socials, urls, and conversations. while i am not always able to keep my temper under wraps, and while i have had my fair share of petty moments, i, to the best of my ability, have always made sure that i don’t come across as intentionally cruel or mean, nor have i purposely broken someone’s trust. sometimes i have retaliated back a bit fiercely, but i stand by the fact that i never purposely chased or drove anyone off, mocked or belittled them, or sent people over to dislike/hate them. i have at times vented to those who i believe are people i can trust, sure—but this is something we as people are all guilty of. there’s no way any of us can hold one person more accountable than others for partaking in closeted conversations that are never meant to get back to people and hurt them. 

i genuinely loved, and still love, writing very much, and i have always appreciated every ask, every reblog, and every comment. writing is a hobby i am greatly passionate about, and it’s always a hobby i was very excited to share with people on here because i don’t get to share it with people irl. i don’t willingly tell people irl that i enjoy making elaborate plots about anime characters, and i have always been very excited to share that hobby with you all, whether you are a reader or writer. i’ve read fanfiction for a very long time before i ever decided to try my hand at writing it, and i would never want to knock other people down simply because they “surpassed” me. i enjoy finding writers to read from, especially those who write better than me, because they are where i draw the most inspiration and motivation from. the moots i look up to most are moots who are in my opinion, far stronger writers than me, and moots who i always firmly believe deserve much more reach than i do on their stories because they’re far more fleshed out and in-depth than anything i can produce. and i am proud of them !! and even those of you who feel you are stuck not getting as much reach as you would hope, i am proud also of all of you for picking up a google doc or pen and writing and trying, whether you choose to share it or not. i will always strongly encourage you all to try your hand at writing if you have ever considered it because i have genuinely built such a better sense of self-esteem when being able to incorporate pieces of myself in my stories and express parts of who i am—i think some of you might really enjoy the catharsis that writing brings, and if you ever debate on trying it out, please do !! you might become really passionate about it. 

anyway, this post is abysmally long. none of it is to clear my name in hopes that i will be “un-canceled” (LOL) because i have decided saetoru is long overdue to be put to rest. i hope you can all, at the very least, allow other writers some peace and stop harassing them in their inboxes for knowing me (because that is also bullying and very ironic of you), and i hope you all got some sort of understanding of where i am coming from. if you think poorly of me, that’s okay. i have an opinion of myself, and the close people who surround me, that i am confident in, and while i may not have always handled things in the brightest of manners, i am well aware of what my intentions have always been. 

i’m deeply grateful to all 41k of you, and thank you for reading my works and allowing me to write for you !! thank you for all the very, very kind asks that i never got a chance to fully answer each one of, and thank you especially for all the supportive comments and love on the writing i’ve posted. they might be silly fics you read once and moved on from, but they’re all pieces of me, my life, and things that are important to me, and as cringe and cheesy as it sounds, it means quite literally everything to me when people read them and take away something from them. 

also, as a parting gift, i will be posting the nerd gojo, ex-convict geto, and a marriage rb! gojo fic to my ao3 (also saetoru) for those of you who have been patiently awaiting those wips to enjoy. please (a little more patiently) keep your eyes peeled for those <3 i will no longer be posting or active on saetoru, and in the event that i keep writing, it will be posted on my ao3, so you all will know where to find me !!

so for the last time, i love you my little runts !! wishing you all the best, and goodbye to my lil saetoru bestees. 

mwah !!

— tee <3

ps. i also have turned off reblogs for this post and limited replies to people i follow only. a lot of you will jump to say that it’s simply because i am “hiding,” but it is solely because i have said my piece and i intend to move on. thank you and have a lovely day shawtee ✌🏽

[wish-grantzed]

𝟙.𝟘 || Hello there! I’m 3-?-3... but most people just call me Postman or Victor!

ⁱ ˢᵘᵖᵖᵒˢᵉ ˢᵒᵐᵉ ᵖᵉᵒᵖˡᵉ ᵃˡˢᵒ ᶜᵃˡˡ ᵐᵉ ᵃ ˡᵒᵗ ᵒᶠ ᵒᵗʰᵉʳ ⁿᵃᵐᵉˢ... ᵗʰᵉ ᵉᵐᵇʳᵃᶜᵉ, ˢᵖᵉᶜᵗᵉʳ, ᵏᵉʸᵇᵒᵃʳᵈ, ᵗʰᵉ ᵖʳⁱⁿᶜᵉ, ᵖᵃᵖᵉʳᵇᵒʸ, ᵃᵘᵗᵘᵐⁿ ʳᵉᵛᵉʳⁱᵉ... ⁱᵗ��ˢ ᵃ ʳᵃᵗʰᵉʳ ˡᵒⁿᵍ ˡⁱˢᵗ﹗

But you can also call me Chuuya, Bun, or Fuyu if those suit your fancy more too! This is my edit blog where I do a whole host of fun source-based edits, which you can learn more about under the cut!

I used to run @kin-of-the-sheep​, and @kinning-business​ before that! Needless to say, I’ve been in the kinhelp and edit game for a while now! ☆

Since I wanted a bit of a fresh start, I decided to go ahead and make a charming new blog, so send those pretty letters my way if you’re interested in an edit! But please read the info below before requesting!!

Oh, and just so you know, all my work is free to use unless stated otherwise!

Requests are currently open!

𝟚.𝟘 || REQUEST INFO BELOW CUT

✉ || RULES

I may simply deny/delete requests if they don’t interest me, apologies! I’m going to do this in lieu of an overcomplicated blacklist/info page!

You may send in multiple requests at once, just please do them in separate asks. Requests sent in while the inbox is closed, however, will be ignored/deleted. (But you can always send asks just chatting or asking questions, even if the inbox is closed!)

I only do edits from my source list for now, apologies!

✉ || SOURCE LIST

Please note that ALL sources are technically somewhat selective, as I'll simply delete or decline any requests I don't wish to do! ^^"

Identity V

Bungou Stray Dogs

Genshin Impact

Cookie Run

Pokemon

Danganronpa

Doki Doki Literature Club

Honkai Star Rail (tentative, don’t know much about source yet)

Toilet-bound Hanako Kun (anime only in terms of characters, please)

Murder Drones

The Amazing Digital Circus

Assassination Classroom

Fire Emblem: Awakening

Food Fantasy

Helltaker

Steven Universe

Ib

Angels of Death

Animal Crossing

Vocaloid

Kid Icarus: Uprising

Sonic the Hedgehog

✉ || EDIT TYPES/TAGS

ALL EDITS CAN BE FOUND UNDER THE “COMPLETED EDIT” TAG!

Icon Sets (Tagged: Icon Set), default icons will be 250x250, square, and still frame. They can be any size, gif icons, or circular upon request.

Reply Icon Sets (Tagged: Reply Icon Set), reply icons; the default is 1000x300 (250x250 icons)!

Phone Wallpapers (Tagged: Wallpaper Set), you MUST provide dimensions when requesting. Otherwise, just please provide any specifics for aesthetics, themes, or what you want on them when requesting from me! I will not do computer/desktop backgrounds, unfortunately!

Tumblr Layouts (Tagged: Profile Layout), default Tumblr layouts will be three 250x250 icons and three matching 640x60 banners, but can be any size upon request.

Moodboards (Tagged: Moodboard), a set of 9 images to make an aesthetic image board surrounding a specific character(s) or ship. Please clarify desired themes/colors when requesting. May vary in style/template.

Stimboards (Tagged: Stimboard), a set of stim gifs in a board surrounding a specific character(s) or ship. Please clarify desired themes/colors when requesting.

✉ || SIMPLIFIED BLACKLIST/DNI

DNI if you ship pedophilic ships, are anti-LGBTQ+, or believe that problematic media cannot be consumed or kinned from even if done-so critically.

I will not do requests that contain the following topics:

Kuzupeko (Fuyuhiko x Peko) from Danganronpa

Kaeya x Diluc from Genshin Impact

Medcore/Hospitalcore/etc. 

Any content that is inherently sexual in nature

I also will not entertain Chihiro gender discourse on my blog; anything goes in terms of their pronouns/gender identity, as long as you clarify what you want in a request, and are respectful to alternate interpretations of the character and/or kin canons.

[versadies]

Hihihi! Just wanted to say your writing has really inspired me to get started and I can't thank you enough!! Your writing is just so fleshed out and interesting... can't get enough really.(evermore is taking my guts frfr) >< A question, if it's no trouble, how do you design your themes and such? They all look gorgeous and just tidy in a way :0 If you don't mind, can you share the process and programs you may use? Ofc you can ignore this, no pressure!!<3

AWWWW TYSM ANON YOURE SO SWEET 💗💗💗💗 i wish u luck on starting ur blog, im sure its gonna be amazing 😍😍😍😍 and id be happy to fill u in on my themes !!

my programs are basically picsart and phonto (for the titles and fonts), and if i feel like the theme im aiming for is something that cant be done on picsart, i just go for canva! i mostly edit on picsart tho bcuz of how i can just grab a genshin character sticker that the app has and not worry about erasing bgs or anything :DDD

when designing my themes, the first thing i do is to go find a color palette from color hunt and choose whatever i think is good in the eyes or suits the characters that will be in the banners and all. if u dont know what you want in ur theme, u can just go look for graphics that can inspire u — be it in tiktok, pinterest, etc. !

overall that’s all i can say tbh since i usually just improvise whatever i want on the theme until it looks pleasing in my eyes, so go as crazy as u like on ur theme :DDDD

[shozaii]

Hello! I'm new to your blog and I'd like to ask for a transfer student (gn if its easier on you) from Texas to UA. Like class 1A is told that they're having a new student from Texas and they think to throw a wild west welcome party. Reader doesn't have the heart to tell everyone they're from the city so they just go along with it and maybe them and bakugou end up alone after the party and get to know each other some? Thank you!!!

(a/n):hello anon! thank you so much for the request!! this is really interesting and i hope i did my best!!🥰

p.s- so i read this over and over again and what i understand from here is that reader comes from the city; not from the wild west. i hope i got that right! :’’)

———————————————

texas beaut .

a bakugou katsuki x reader oneshot

“did you hear?! we’re getting a new student!!”

“a new student? cool! i can’t wait to meet them!”

“do you think they would give me their number? now i’m worried...”

“oh my god. shut up you idiots,” bakugou told his friends, having the last few bites of his dinner in the dorms.

“what’s your take on the new kid, man? pretty sure you have something to say,” his red friend said, ignoring the cue for them to quiet down.

“huh? i don’t know. heard they were from... Texas or something. damn deku was talkin’ about it,” he said.

he watched as his friends jump up and down, discussing on even bigger plans. he did hear a few - mainly a welcome party, showing them around school, so many things that he knew he could show interest in. knowing him, he was about to play the “chill guy who’s pretty nonchalant about the new kid thing.”

i mean, they’d probably be an okay person. he thought while zoning out.

“hey, bakugou! we need you for this!”

^^^

“settle down, 1A!” iida said for what seemed like the umpteenth time today, as everyone scurried to their seats. the discussion of the wild west themed party was still going on,and it’s halfway done.

in came aizawa-sensei with his sleeping bag. “now. i’ll make this quick. all of you have heard it - we do have a new student. come in, y/l/n,” he waved his hand to someone outside the door, as the class turned to the door, waiting for someone to enter.

as y/n entered, they received various ‘oohs’ from half of the class. 

bakugou turned to look at the whole scene unfolding, and when he did, he didn’t regret it. 

usually, when it’s someone new, he tends to look away from it as soon as possible. it didn’t seem to buy his time. but right now, it was the total opposite.

his palm which stayed on the jaw now went out of it’s place.

something about y/n pulled him into curiosity. they’re from a different country. they have decided to travel all the way from Texas to UA. of course there could be a reason. but to think that they transferred here - wow.

aizawa-sensei snuggled into his yellow sleeping bag, giving you the floor.

you adjusted your tie, taking in deep breaths. “hello! my name is (y/n) (y/l/n)! i’m so glad to be here! i hope to know much more of your school and also to be friends with everyone here!”

while talking, you took a good look around the classroom.

there was a green-haired boy, eyes gleaming with excitement. a red-haired boy with cute pointy teeth. a girl with pink rosy cheeks. a girl who has earphone jacks on her ears. a dual-color eyed boy.

a spiky blonde haired boy, with ruby red eyes, looking directly at you. something about it was very peculiar.

a few questions in and you noticed your homeroom teacher crawling out of his sleeping bag. “you done? alright. head over to your seat there. the next teacher should be here pretty soon. 1A, you know what to do,” he said, walking out of the door.

you made your way to your assigned seat, and sat down. moments later, a few of your new classmates turned to look at you, introducing themselves. you laughed. it was definitely a new kind of feeling.

especially when you felt the same bright red eyes looking at you.

“um, what’s that boy’s name over there with the blonde hair?”

^^^

“hey.” you heard him say as he approached your desk after a whole day of stealing glances. you weren’t weirded out by that either - considering the fact that you were curious about him too.

everyone talked to you during the school hours, except for him.

it was only the both of you left in the class. the class rep, iida, handed over the key to him. they left, saying sorry a number of times because they had lots of work to complete back in the dorms.

you did need assistance back to the place too. you weren’t used to the school just yet, so having one person as a company would definitely help.

“oh, hello! um, i’m still new to all this, but how do i address you?”

“king explosion murder.”

“woah! really?” you chuckled.

“no,” he snorted at first, but then looked away immediately. “bakugou. look,i’m gonna get straight to the point. i got a pretty tight schedule, ya know? now, put these on.”

“blindfolds? oh, they have cute little eyes on them! are they yours?”

“hah? no way. it’s dunce fa- kaminari’s.”

“okay... wait, but why do i need to put these on?”

“just put them on and....and trust me. hurry up.”

you obliged, sliding them onto your eyes. he then held your arm, indirectly telling you to start walking.

so you did. he was a great company, even though you didn’t get to see his face. he held you back in case you looked like you were about to fall/ hit something nearby. other times, he was quiet.

and it wasn’t like it was awkward silence, either. it was a pristine one, as there were small talks in between. him trying not to snicker with how you stretch your arms out to walk, and him giving you directions.

it was nice.

he then told you to stop, and you heard a large door opening. he brought you in, and you assumed that he closed it behind the two of you.

“alright. take ‘em off,” he mumbled.

the second you did, you saw party streamers flying everywhere, with balloons hanging. you saw the entirety of 1A wearing cowboy hats or boots, and bandanas either tied on their wrists or their necks.the decorative banners had little horses on them, with mini Texas flags, and basically what you would see in the wild west. kaminari was playing the harmonica with so much of passion.

it was cute, but this was all for you?

but how were you supposed to tell them-

“welcome to UA, y/n!” they screamed, rushing over to you, with some engulfing you in warm hugs and high-fives.

“oh my lord! this is amazing, thank you so much!” you smiled widely, clapping your hands. “and the decorations! this is amazing!! i really appreciate your hard work.”

maybe now’s not the time. a cake, self-made. and the decorations. some were handmade, you could tell by the adorable drawings. the setup itself was glorious. so no, you didn’t want to shatter their efforts.

this was still amazing, regardless.

“so, are you ready to cut the cake y/n?! sato and bakugou worked on it,” mina - the pink haired girl - pointed to the both of them.

“of course! i’m pretty sure it tastes so good,” you said, walking towards the wide table with the lovable bunch.

^^^

the common room was cleaned up really quickly. not a lot of mess was made but cleanliness is priority for sure.

“so... you were zoning out quite a lot lately. what’s up with you?”

bakugou looked into your eyes. you gulped a little, setting down your drink. “nah, it’s nothing-,”

“was the cake out of taste?” he raised an eyebrow. “pretty sure i used the right ingredients. sugar boy over there knows his ways with desserts. or was it the food?”

“woah, woah, chill out bakugou! no, the cake was perfect.i loved it a lot. like,i would eat it again.”

he cleared his throat, backing away. “damn it. okay, cool. then what was up with you? no one asked you up to this point, so there.”

“um... okay. you have to promise me not to tell anyone about this then.”

“i knew it.”

“wait! it had nothing to do with the party. absolutely nothing. but keep it a secret. promise me?” you held out a pinky finger, waiting for him to do the same.

he looked at it, hesitated; but gave in anyway. “whatever. i promise. what is it?”

“how do i say it... i’m not, um, from the part of where the wild west is? more like.... i’m not exactly from this part of Texas. yes, i am familiar with this type of culture, but i wasn’t exactly raised with it.”

he blinked a few times, and nodded. “oh.”

“and it’s not like i wasn’t hating it at all! this was already one of the best moments i’ve had so far in the academy; which makes me look forward to more! it just made me sad that i did have to admit it sooner or later. on the other hand, i was so happy.”

“geez, i told them about it,” bakugou placed a hand behind his neck. “gonna have to ask this again - was this whole party thing okay?”

“yes, don’t worry about it!”

“i’m not worried! i just didn’t want to think i wasted my time prepping for this!” he said. 

so he was worried.

“worried or not, this was very eventful. you’ve outdone yourself, bakugou katsuki.”

he smirked. “ha, you don’t seem bad yourself.”

“why, thank you. the same goes to you, good sir,” you bowed.

“hey. multiply that by 10.”

“no fair!” 

the talk went on for quite a while. the bakusquad were bewildered by how bakugou didn’t seem to complain to you about his bedtime, but then again, they loved seeing their friend - usually really worried about his schedule - finally beating it while making friends with the texas beaut.

———————————————

(a/n): beaut ; a fine example of something. it sounded really wholesome to me, so i went with this title. i hope you liked it! <3

[hrmphfft]

controversial opinion time I guess but

hey gang? hey, gang. gang, hey. blaming your fans for them not reblogging your content enough (and saying that they’re Directly Responsible For Tumblr Dying) is an extremely passive aggressive, mean thing to do, and also completely ignores so many other reasons as to why engagement has changed on this site and posts don't circulate like they used to.

for one thing, whenever I see these posts, I rarely see the ops acknowledge the HUGE HIT to tumblr's userbase following the 2018 policy change/implementation of tumblr's terrible content filtering algorithm. tumblr lost roughly 1/3 of its engagement (https://mashable.com/article/tumblr-lost-a-third-of-its-users-after-porn-ban/) and countless content creators with it. some of them migrated to twitter and other sites, some of them seem to have straight-up vanished into thin air, and countless others lost their biggest or main userbase with barely any time to shift gears to something else. that's a huge, website-shaking change! but so often in these 'reblogs vs. likes' posts I don't see anyone acknowledging that and it makes me really upset!

you can't talk about the ways tumblr has undoubtedly changed these last few years and NOT address the nsfw ban! it's completely unfair to your fanbases to shift the blame of the biggest displacement of users the site has ever experienced on...the users who had no say in the policy change and reacted accordingly when the site started softbanning everyone, and filtering all sorts of tags from the search function (including important sfw ones, lest we forget The Entire Furry Fandom on tumblr discovering that basic-ass tags like #furry and #anthro were being blocked when the ban rolled around), and making uploading anything vaguely beige-colored a dice roll. tumblr still hasn't recovered from that, and unfortunately probably never will, not without some hail mary of policy changes and overhauls.

I've seen some pretty ageist shit regarding content engagement as well that tries to paint younger users as just Not Getting how tumblr functions vs. other social media sites like instagram and twitter, and on top of that just showcasing a really uncomfortable disconnect/animosity towards new users whose only crime is being younger than op and also more experienced with other social media platforms, it also is just. it's really unkind? it's super rude? how can you call your followers too clueless to know how reblogging works and then expect them to support your content via reblogging and not feel like you're insulting them until they give you the result you want?

moreover, lots of young/new tumblr users get the gist of tumblr's controls and get it very quickly! technology literacy is becoming more and more a part of everyday life for everyone, and if you really think that a teenager can't understand that reblogging puts a thing on their follower's dashboards, one of the main functionalities of the site (and also very similar to twitter, one of tumblr's main competitors), I really don't know what to say. sometimes people just straight-up don't want to reblog stuff to their blogs, and that's okay.

there's also a tendency to ignore the ways that blogging on tumblr has changed as its userbase has became more well-versed in its functions and, frankly, a portion of the userbase has grown up on this site. when I first started blogging on here, I was 17, I didn't use tags, I commented unrelated (and frankly sometimes really regrettably rude) replies directly onto artist's posts, and I basically just reblogged whatever I vaguely liked, and a lot of things I didn't totally get but thought Looked Cool/Funny so I reblogged anyways.

and that's fine, that's pretty par for the course of being young on the internet and doing whatever you want and having a good time (barring the rudeness, being respectful to people is the ideal), but as time went on my interests changed, my time spent online changed (I went from highschool to college to a full-time job that limits my time on social media), and I began engaging with tumblr's content differently. I made sideblogs for interests and content themes I didn't want on my main blog, I started liking stuff and then going back through my likes to reblog posts later, and generally speaking my number of posts a day dropped and I stopped being able to catch up on my dashboard every single day. and I'm sure my experience isn't unique for some other people on here.

a lot of the tumblr users I've known for a while just don't have the same level of intensity in fandoms like we did years back, not because of any malice or selfish, content-hogging intent, but because our priorities have changed. I definitely miss a lot of things about years past on tumblr when fandoms were booming and new Big Name Creators were cropping up all the time, and to be fair that's still happening on parts of the site if you know where to look! it's just different now. time has passed. people have changed!

that isn't to be defeatist and say that we can't show up for content we enjoy and reblog it, but instead that people can feel differently about stuff they used to adore, and be more particular about one thing or another they reblog, and straight-up miss stuff that they would have really liked but just didn't catch up on for a myriad of reasons. and that's also okay. engagement on tumblr is really, really tied up in personal preferences, and sometimes it feels like it does that more than most other social media sites. this is kind of the wild west of internet presences and everyone operates differently on here as a result.

and probably the most touchy point of all: no one is obligated to give you validation on the internet. no one. not even if they've read all of your fanfics you've worked really fucking hard on for forever and a day, or your comics that you've spent months, years, a lifetime researching and creating, or your beautifully, painstakingly timed and masked fan videos. they can absolutely consume any of these, and more, and they're still not obligated to reblog your work or promote you. it's not fair, yes, and it's completely understandable and super relatable to want recognition for the work you've done and the ways you've brightened other people's lives, but online most of your fans are still total strangers to you, and trying to control the behavior of total strangers because you’re owed their acknowledgement isn’t a healthy mindset to have.

and you can say that any fan of yours stops being a fan after they drop you for you lashing out at them for not unquestioningly giving you space on their blogs like you're owed, but being upset at being accused of bad behavior for what amounts to not wanting to reblog something this time around and changing your opinions based off of that is also a very understandable thing to do.

and that isn't because of any sort of innate cruelty, or pointed attack towards you. it's just because there is always a disconnect between the creator and the creation, and some people will never bridge that gap and engage with you more, or build a parasocial relationship with you, or seek out ways to support you. and plenty of others will do the exact opposite! it's a total dice roll because you're dealing with a lot more people than you realize scrolling past your content, and every person is different, and some of them don't fully understand how reblogs help a creator, and some of them do but just don't want that content on their feed, and none of them are inherently bad people for that.

I'm not saying creators have to be perfectly kind and civil and praise their fans all the time, but when you engage with your followers like it's a battle where you have to keep devising new ways to get them to share your content, it just comes across as super disingenuous, and people cop to that very fast. 

it also, frankly, can make longtime fans who reblog your work regularly feel like their interest doesn't matter, and wasn't good enough, and that then it really is their fault that other people (other STRANGERS ON THE INTERNET) don't engage with your content the way you wanted them to. you don't owe them perfection, but that doesn't mean it isn't still an unkind thing to do.

so like. what can we do about this?

asking users to reblog your work is totally fine and can help! calls to action work more than nothing at all. it's possible to be respectful when asking people to reblog your work without also guilt-tripping them with "likes < reblogs" banners and passive aggressive tags/comments. generally speaking guilt is a really shitty motivational tool, and tends to breed more resentment than actual outcomes people want. like this post for example! I wouldn't have sat down and typed this all out if I didn't resent the hell out of being told I'm, personally, the reason tumblr is demonstrably not an ideal website for building a fanbase anymore. if I had that much power over this website I would have given the whole thing to the xkit team years ago and reveled in a functional website instead.

changing the way you post content might help! every site has its ideal posting days, times, and reasons for why some are ideal for one site and not another. doing a little research (https://sproutsocial.com/insights/best-times-to-post-on-social-media/) will yield some potentially helpful tips and tricks that might result in a post reaching more people. utilizing tumblr's search function is also important, and understanding the limits of the tag function (ie. only the first 5 tags of a post are used for tag searches) can help change one's habits to something a little more effective. this is why I tend to leave my tag babbling until after the main fandom/category tags on my posts, so that tumblr's jankass search has a better shot, haha

broadening your online presence can definitely help! this is by far the most terrifying option since it involves branching out onto other social media platforms, some of which really don't lend themselves to whatever fandom/content one produces, so like the other two above it's only a suggestion.

I keep coming back to twitter and instagram, but that's mainly because they're the two other powerhouses of social media right now, though admittedly they only really cater towards visual media (and mainly imagery, not longer video pieces), and they have their own weird quirks to learn and jank to deal with. but given how precarious tumblr's status has become in some ways, trying to build a presence on multiple sites means that you reach more people across the internet, and also means that if tumblr does yet another website-shattering policy change, your eggs aren't all in one basket.

of course these options aren't foolproof, and won't work for everyone in some cases or not at all for others, but my main point in all this is this: tumblr has irrevocably changed, its userbase has changed, and we are limited in the ways we can directly influence it, but there are still options. I'm by far not a social media expert, but then again none of the posts I've seen so far were made by social media experts either, so I honestly don't feel too bad for throwing my hat into the ring while we're all thrashing about in confusion

y'all aren't wrong that things have changed, but I'm begging you to have some compassion and to try not to turn the relationship between creators and consumers of content into a battleground, especially when a lot of the influences on these changes are things entirely outside of any of our's direct control.

also because it makes y'all sound exactly like this:

[mayquita]

Pictures of Reality (14/16)

Happy New Year everyone! Thank you so much for all your support and for continuing to give this story a chance.

Summary: Emma Swan returns to her birthplace, Storybrooke, in search of a fresh start after a life marked by abandonment and betrayal. After a year there, she finds the stability she needed and also the possibility of learning about one of her passions, photography. Killian Jones, a former British war reporter with a tragic past, establishes himself in the same town as an instructor of photography, following in the footsteps of his best friends, the Nolans. What will happen when their paths cross? Will their common passion for photography help them heal old wounds?

Rating: M (Language, mature themes, implied sex)

Warnings: Alcohol abuse, mentions of the loss of a limb in an armed conflict.

Other ships / Characters: Although, obviously, this is a cs fic, Snowing plays a major role here, mainly David. In fact, the story contains three different points of view, those of Emma, Killian and David. Also, Henry appears in the story as Regina’s adopted son but he is not Emma’s biological son.

Beta: I’d like to express my gratitude, as always, to my beta @jarienn972 I’m aware that you have had to deal with a monster of more than 100k words and English is not my mother tongue, so I value your effort even more.

Artist / art: Go visit @imagnifika’s blog and enjoy her amazing art.

Art for the prologue/ Art for chapter 1 / Art for chapter 2 and banner / Art for chapter 3/ Art for chapters 4-5  / Art for chapters 6-7/ Art for chapter 8 / Art for chapter 10 / Art for chapter 11 

Special mention to @saraswans , thank you so much for your perpetual support, for believing in me when I doubted myself and for offering ideas to make this story grow.

Don’t forget to go read and enjoy the rest of the amazing csbb stories and art.

Word count: ~ 4100 (116k total in 16 chapters)

Also on (From the beginning): Ao3 / Ffnet (Current Chapter) Ao3 / Ffnet

Tumblr: Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10  Chapter 11  Chapter 12

What to expect from this chapter?  We’ll see how the relationship between Emma and Killian develops now that there is no longer any secret between them. Besides, will Emma be able to forgive The Nolans eventually?

CHAPTER 13

Emma Swan. Storybrooke - May 6, 2018

There was something intrinsic in the fact of dating a professional photographer, any excuse was appropriate to take out the camera and portray the world through it. Whether it was walking out holding hands but stopping every few minutes to immortalize the arrival of the blossoming spring to Storybrooke. Or spending a lazy Sunday morning under the sheets of her (their) bed, taking selfies and competing for who would get the most awful grimace (he always beat her, the dork).

Other mornings, however, Killian felt an impulse of creativity that made him wake up at dawn and grab the camera to satisfy his need to make art. He always told her that she was the one to blame, that she had become his muse and source of inspiration. And that her apartment was located in one of the best places in Storybrooke, at least at that time of the day, when the sun's rays fell directly on her window and made her glow - literally — his words.

From that morning after the first time-make up night, she had learned to secretly love those days. There was no doubt that Killian had become an expert in making the most of her potential and in making her feel powerful, able to achieve whatever she set out to do, whether it was getting a good close-up in a photo or leaving all her inhibitions behind to become a sexy improvised model.

She knew that today was one of Killian's creative days when she woke up alone in bed that Sunday morning in early May.

"Good morning, love. Are you up for a photo shoot?" Killian asked from his favorite place in the room for these occasions, her (their) old armchair.

She ignored him at first, stretching arms and legs, too lazy to leave the bed just yet. Something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye though, one of his button-up shirts, the black one made of a silky fabric, hanging on the back of a chair. Suddenly, the idea of the soft fabric sliding over her naked torso was too appealing to let it pass. After all, she also had her creative side, right?

She got up right away with a new purpose in mind, grabbing the shirt on her way to the bathroom and stopping only for a second to give Killian a quick peck on the cheek. "Just wait here." She murmured as she winked at him and kept walking without waiting for his reaction.

Once in the bathroom, she put on the shirt, which by chance, matched her tiny panties in color, leaving the buttons open and the sleeves rolled up to the middle of the arm. Next, she washed her face and brushed her teeth, put on her contacts and applied a light layer of lip gloss. Finally, she brushed her hair to add an extra shine to her golden locks. Once satisfied with her reflection in the mirror, she returned to the bedroom, ready to give a show to her boyfriend.

Before climbing back to bed, she cast a sidelong glance at Killian. Seeing him that way, positioned in a corner of the bedroom, camera in hand, as if waiting for his prey, ignited a spark of lust inside her, eliminating any possible previous reluctance as she offered him what he was looking for.

She sat back on her heels with her back to him, letting the shirt slide down one of her shoulders, leaving it bare. She turned her head slightly, giving him a seductive look over that shoulder, while putting the tip of her index finger between her teeth.

"Bloody hell, woman." He growled from behind his camera, making her almost lose her pose in an attempt to prevent an incipient smirk from drawing on her lips.

She let him take a few pictures, staying in that position with only slight changes. Then, following his instructions, she tried a new posture, this time sitting in front of him, leaving the shirt open enough to reveal only a glimpse of her curves.

There was something impossibly appealing in Killian's stance, a mixture of professionalism as he helped himself, holding the camera with his stump and watching her through the lens with a clinical eye. But there was also something more primal, only revealed when his eyes slid from the visor to her body, offering her a hungry look that had the ability to make her skin tingle with anticipation. The fact that he was shirtless and that his pajama pants did nothing to hide his arousal, far from deconcentrating her in her improvised task of posing for him, caused her postures to become much more suggestive and her gaze to be much more provocative.

The photo shoot ended earlier than expected though. Before she could react, Killian was over her, capturing her mouth in a searing kiss with the ability to take her breath away. She resisted, still reluctant to finish the seduction game that she was enjoying too much.

"I wanna see those pictures." She managed to ask as she tried to reach for the camera Killian had dropped on the bed.

"Later." He mumbled pressing even more against her, his teeth playfully nipping at her bottom lip.

Her resolution began to dissolve as she held back a moan bubbling in her throat, her blood running hot and spreading a burning sensation all over her body.

Still, she tried again, distracting him with the first thing that came to mind, while she reached for the camera. "I'd like to choose one of those photos to upload to Instagram. Or maybe I'm not allowed to share photos of half-naked women either?" Although her voice came in a shaky exhale she hoped to have endowed it with enough innocence.

He raised his head looking for her gaze, the blue of his eyes almost gone. "Two things, darling. First, you are allowed to upload whatever you want to the bloody Instagram. And second, I'm really tempted to share the marvel I've got for girlfriend with the rest of the world, but I prefer to keep you to myself."

"Just for the record, you are not allowed to share photos of your naked girlfriend on Instagram. Although maybe I wouldn’t be opposed to the photo with the bare shoulder…” The diversionary maneuver was enough for her to finally grab the camera and sneak out of his arms. "It's my turn, now. So go and pose for me, Jones."

Killian's eyebrows went together in confusion, as if he had not yet processed what had just happened. When he finally seemed to realize what she was planning, his eyes widened. "You can’t be serious, love."

She stood up, moving away from his reach, holding the camera in the most professional way possible. "I assure you I am, buddy."

"Look at me, Swan." He complained through a hiss as he pointed his hand at his more than prominent tent in his pants.

"I learned from the best, professor." A spark of interest appeared in his eyes, while he gave her a predatory look. "Give me your best, Killian, and I promise you will have your reward, later." A wave of heat flowed to her core, in anticipation of what he would be able to do, as she bit her bottom lip and watched Killian through the lens.

She definitely loved her life now.

//

Gone were those times when she had no choice but to share her photos with herself, or when she had to settle for taking selfies or taking pictures of random people in the streets, since no one had stayed around her long enough for her to reveal her passion.

Now photography was present in practically all facets of her life, but Emma wasn't going to be the one to complain, not when the fact of living surrounded by photos implied that Killian's image was always present, even though they were physically separated at some points.

It was not that they were separated for long, really. From the moment they had made peace, resuming their relationship, she had begun to add new routines to her life, in which Killian was always included.

Now, two months later, they spent most of the nights sleeping together in her apartment. That first night of make-up sex had been the prelude to many ardent nights, full of passion, nights where they buried their inhibitions while discovering all the secrets of their bodies and the magic that they were able to create together.

The dark room of his apartment, a witness of his first kiss, now also hid the secret of insatiable encounters, the faint red light causing the flame of lust to ignite at the very moment when the door closed behind them.

But dating Killian Jones not only meant enjoying the best sex of her life, it was more, much more. If she had already fallen for him despite his stormy gaze and the burden he carried in his very soul, now that he was dropping layer after layer, revealing his true essence, Emma's feelings towards him had grown with such an intensity that she sometimes felt a kind of vertigo seizing her.

That feeling could be overwhelming at times, but she had stopped being afraid to feel and express her feelings towards others. It was as if, once she had admitted that she loved Killian (at least to herself as it was still too early to express those words aloud) the walls around her heart had finally fallen down, leaving before her a new and unexplored path, with some dangers lurking, but also full of promises.

For the first time in a long time, she could say that she felt happy, experiencing a normal life, hanging out with her friends, going out with her boyfriend, or going to double dates with the other new couple in town, Elsa and Graham. She had even begun to consider the possibility of not keeping photography as a mere hobby but of continuing to expand her knowledge in an official manner.

There was a small parcel of her heart that still remained closed though, its access almost impenetrable. Her parents. Two months later, she hadn't been able to forgive them yet, the betrayal in the form of a bleeding wound still too fresh.

That was not entirely true, she had indeed forgiven them for having given her up for adoption, even though she hadn't felt strong enough to hear the full story.

What had hurt her most had been their later behavior, the fact that, in the first place, they had taken advantage of Killian's blind loyalty to them, and also that they hadn't trusted in their own daughter to tell her the truth and would have been content to stay by her side as mere friends.

Killian had tried to bring up the subject several times, always tentatively, knowing that he shouldn’t push or he would end up getting the opposite effect.

She appreciated those attempts, she really did, because she was aware that he not only did it for his friends, but also for her because, according to him, she deserved to have all the love in the world - especially that of her own family after so many years without it. But it was as if something inside her, like a protective instinct, prevented her from taking that first step that would bring her closer to them.

But she was frankly tired of that situation, tired of the fact that each time she entered her bedroom, even if she tried to ignore it with all her strength, her gaze inevitably landed for a few seconds on the closet door that hid the box containing fragments of her past in the form of a handful of letters.

She also felt bad for Killian, for the fact that he had to compartmentalize his life in such a way that his girlfriend and his best friends —his family— didn't coincide in the same place. He had not stopped seeing them, she did not have the heart to even think about it, but he clearly proceeded with caution, afraid to say or do something in relation to them that could affect her. It was unfair to him.

Since David's visit to her apartment, she had barely met them, only on occasion had she run into them while walking down the street, or had they met by chance at Granny's, generating such an awkward situation she sometimes ended up crossing to the other side of the street to avoid them, or swallowed her food quickly in a desperate attempt to spend as little time as possible under the same roof as them.

Deep down, she was aware that it was up to her to end this situation once and for all. Sooner or later, she would have to trust them, at least to let them explain themselves. The idea of being able to add another level of normalcy to her life, including her family, was also becoming more appealing. The problem? She hadn't the faintest idea how to do it without getting even more damaged in the process.

Maybe it would be a good idea to start with small steps, such as not running away each time she met any of them.

David Nolan. Storybrooke - May 8, 2018

"How is she?" David asked Killian, knowing in advance that the answer would be the same as the one from the previous day.

"She's fine, Dave." Killian always answered like that, in an almost apologetic way. Then he would go on to tell him some small detail related to his daughter, with the simple purpose of getting him to keep her close, even if it was indirectly.

They had agreed to meet at Granny's for lunch, like every Tuesday since Killian had started the new course. In fact, Killian was busier than ever. It seemed that his talent was beginning to be recognized on this side of the ocean and more and more people were interested in learning through him everything related to the world of photography, expanding to the point that he had decided to start a free online course so that any interested person could acquire the basic knowledge. Art and talent do not understand money , it was one of his mottos, which he put into practice whenever he had the chance.

Even so, he always managed to share moments with his friends. Tuesday lunch had become a tradition added to the already existing ones, such as Sunday lunch in David's apartment, breakfast with Mary Margaret on Mondays and Thursdays and his sporadic collaborations in the newspaper.

It was evident that Killian was making great efforts to keep their relationship intact despite what happened with Emma. He couldn't be more grateful for it, but that also meant adding even more burden to the guilt he endured. His actions should not affect his friend in that way.

"She is seriously considering quitting the job and starting to study to become a journalist." Killian's voice brought him back to reality. The pride evident in the words of his friend, matching the one he felt. "You know that from what happened, her relationship with Regina has not been the same again. If she keeps the job, it's just for Henry, frankly."

"I guess it runs in her blood." David could not help but smile at the thought of his daughter following in her father's footsteps. "And as for Regina, you already know that my relationship with her has always been complicated. But she found our daughter after all, so I guess in a way, I'll always be in debt to her." He admitted, although he was still angry at her for being the one to confess the truth without caring about the consequences.

"It was Emma who found her way back to Storybrooke in the first place. Regina only offered her a way to stay." Killian replied in a harsh tone, not bothering to hide his dislike for the mayor. He did not blame him, honestly. Regina's action had caused his relationship with Emma to nearly end.

The little bells above Granny's entrance door announced the arrival of a new client, capturing the attention of both friends, who were sitting at the counter.

David's heart skipped a beat when he realized that it was Emma the one who had just arrived, as if she had somehow been summoned. When her gaze met him, she remained still for a moment, her eyes wide in surprise.

David could not prevent a sigh of resignation from escaping his lips. He was not surprised by her reaction, it had always been the same in recent weeks. He even anticipated what would happen next. She would approach Killian, murmur any excuse and leave in a few seconds.

In fact, once the initial impact was overcome, she began to walk with hesitant steps towards their position. David cast a sidelong glance at his friend, who also seemed equally surprised at her presence there. He was looking at Emma as if there were no one else in the room, though, with a special glow in his eyes that had only begun to appear since he met Emma.

She barely had time to get to their side when Killian got up and greeted her with a kiss on the lips maybe less chaste than it should be appropriate in a public place. David looked away discreetly, still uncomfortable at such public displays of affection. Killian might be his best friend, almost like a son to him, but, in spite of everything, in his eyes, Emma was still like his little girl.

"Hi guys," Emma said after separating from Killian, a small smile adorning her lips, while she offered him a shy look. "I didn't want to interrupt you, I just forgot it was Tuesday."

This is new, at least she hasn’t ignored my existence, David thought as he tried not to read too much in her reaction. She was just surprised to see them, that was it. Even so, he decided to offer her an escape route so that she would not be involved in any kind of uncomfortable situation.

"I should go..."

"No," Emma cut him off, looking back at him. "I mean... it's not necessary. It's your day together, guys. I just came to grab something to eat... It's an excuse, actually, Regina was especially picky today. I needed a break." Emma was rambling, clearly nervous about the unexpected encounter, but at least it seemed that she was doing her part to keep a civilized conversation, so he was going to grab onto that even if it was the only thing she could offer at the moment.

"I can relate, Regina may be difficult to deal with sometimes." David offered in what he hoped was a carefree tone, but even so, he held his breath, waiting for Emma's reaction.

"Just sometimes?" Killian snapped, making an exaggerated grimace of disdain, causing a chuckle on David and a giggle on Emma, who took advantage of Killian's absent-mindedness to steal one of his onion rings.

"Hey, those are mine, get your own." Killian huffed, putting his hand and prosthesis over the plate in a protective manner while making a pout, which caused a new attack of laughter from Emma.

David remained there in awe, observing the scene without even daring to participate for fear of breaking the moment. She seemed so relaxed, so happy, that he had to repress the need to take a picture and immortalize the moment for eternity, his heart thudding in his chest.

After stealing another onion ring from her boyfriend, she caught the attention of one of the waitresses to place her order and then returned to them.

"So, Killian just told me you're thinking about starting to study to become a journalist, Emma." David commented tentatively, in an attempt to make that magical moment last a little longer.

"Yeah. I'd start in September. I guess it's something I've always wanted to do, taking pictures and telling stories." She shrugged, the corners of her sides twisting upward.

"It's a good idea. You know, anything you need, you can count on us." He offered, trusting her to grasp the true meaning of his words.

"Thank you." Emma nodded, her cheeks flushed slightly, while she held his gaze for a few seconds. The moment passed soon, though, as she refocused her attention on Killian.

His friend wrapped his arm around her shoulders, holding her close, as if he, with that simple gesture, was supporting her in some way, making her feel safe. Then Killian gave him an appreciative look, while nodding almost imperceptibly.

David was not sure that he would live long enough to thank his friend for all that he was doing for his family, making Emma happy and trying to build bridges between them. He only hoped that this was the first of many advances that would come in the future.

When Emma left a few minutes later, she turned around just before she reached the exit door, offering David a soft smile, causing the flame of hope in his heart to look brighter than ever. He couldn't wait to tell Mary Margaret.

Killian Jones. Storybrooke - May 9, 2018

Killian decided to spend the next morning locked in the darkroom developing photos, taking advantage of the fact that he had the morning off and that Emma would be working, which meant that she would not be a distraction this time.

Even so, he wasn't able to fully concentrate on the task. That room had already witnessed several amorous encounters between them although for him, the most important memory shared with her in this place would always be their first kiss.

Killian grabbed a photograph with the tweezers to extract it from the development liquid and hung it delicately on the rope he had placed for that purpose in a corner of the room. He couldn't stop his lips from drawing a smile when he observed the smiling face of Emma in that image. The memories of the previous day, when she had been relaxed for the first time in front of David came to his mind then, warming his heart.

Just when he was about to carry out the same process with the next picture, his phone started buzzing on the table. Unknown number.

"Hello?"

"Good morning, can I speak with Mr. Jones, please?" A polite, female voice asked from the other side of the phone.

"That would be me. Who is calling?" He replied cautiously while he held his breath. There was something in the woman’s tone that made him uneasy.

"I'm calling from Storybrooke's General Hospital, sir, since you were listed as one of David Nolan's emergency contacts and we haven't been able to locate his wife..."

"She is a teacher, she’s working right now." Killian cut who he supposed was a nurse off. At the same moment he had heard the word hospital, all his senses were on alert, while his heart beat frantically against his chest. "What happened?" He forced himself to ask in a controlled voice, holding the phone tightly against his ear.

"Uh, I'm afraid that Mr. Nolan has been involved in an accident. He was hit by a car..."

No.

A paralyzing panic crawled up his throat while his ears stopped working properly, preventing him from listening to the woman who was still offering him details. Swallowing hard, he forced himself to take a deep breath, letting out the air slowly through his nose in a desperate attempt to keep his composure.

"...he seems to be out of danger, but given that he has lost consciousness..."

"I'm on my way. Thanks for informing me." Killian cut the poor nurse again, feeling bad for a few seconds since she had been kind enough to him, but he could not waste more time, needed to take action before a new wave of panic gripped him.

He clenched his jaw and blocked any disturbing thoughts, burying any memory of the past that could take advantage of that moment of weakness to beat him.

Instead, he set himself a goal - pick up Mary Margaret on his way to the hospital and make sure his friend would be okay. He didn't contemplate any other option.

With that goal in mind, he grabbed his phone and wallet and left his apartment, cursing himself for not yet having been able to purchase an adapted vehicle that would allow him to get to his friend sooner. Instead, he had to literally run to school while wondering how he was going to break the news to Mary Margaret. Only at that moment did he remember that he also had to give the news to another person and his heart sank in the process. He would have to inform Emma that her father had suffered an accident.

//

Thanks for reading. Let me know what did you all think :)

There are only two chapters to go, the final chapter and the epilogue, so whatever happens to David, it can't be so bad, I'm not that cruel, am I? Also, Emma will read the letters, finally!

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

ok so first off. I’m white so anyone who wants to come tell me to Delete This Post or just get angry @ me in my notes or dms I 100% understand and will take any and all criticism bc this is NOT my space to speak.

....I’ve seen a lot of VERY VALID TAKES around tumblr abt the Massive Juggernaut Of Violent Racist Culture that is ao3 and white fandom (esp Old White Fans) at large. I hade some thoughts, from the white side of things.

first off:

THESE TAKES ARE 1000000% CORRECT.

I, again, as a white person, dont need to stamp my validation on it, but im stating this loudly up front so that hopefully a few ppl might read further:

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I’ve been aware for a long time of phrases like “cancel culture”, “censorship”, “puritanism”, “Fandom Is Free!!!” etc etc etc used by, to be honest, 90% or more of white fans to justify VIOLENTLY RACIST WORK and gaslight, and more often than not threaten, fans of color who speak up. White Women Tears, it’s an old ass trick.

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HOWEVER

and here’s the However:

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The fans who do this, while absolutely racist scum.... had this “argument” handed to them on a silver platter.

by who???

by younger white fans.

because none of these Older White Fan fuckbags or their opinions could have kept the amount of respect, credibility, and loyal puppy-dog followers they have without the new growth of Younger White Fan fuckbags who don’t just go out of their way to equate their NOTP being canon with Actual Racism/ Homphobia/Pedophilia/ ACTUAL HATE CRIMES ON THE LEVEL OF KILLING REAL HUMAN PEOPLE, but ALSO

1) ignoring the role of the CREATORS of bigoted/harmful work and going after fans, who, while absolutely complacent in a fandom by participating in it... did not MAKE it

2) deliberately refuse all attempts by others outside their cults to find common ground

and 3) actively campaign for censorship of huuuuuge swaths of fan content that centers queer themes, kink, or is made by older fans, EXPLICITLY BY EQUATING THIS CONTENT TO ACTUAL PHYSICAL ACTS OF VIOLENCE

....all while having blm banners, ACAB in their bios, rt-ing fundraisers and absolutely not donating to them, donating to joke kickstarters to kill random fans, and not so jokingly calling the cops, fbi and swat teams, and sending death threats, doxxing, attempting (laughable dumb) acts of terror, and arguing for vigilante and STATE BACKED VIOLENCE against those same fans.... who, guess what, are ALSO VERY LIKEY TO BE BIPOC.

I can NOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. saying “white fans, as a whole, and ESPECIALLY the ao3-supportive community, are active in maintaining a racist community and defend themselves by crying ‘Censorship Puritans & Death Threats Oh My’” is true. but it ignores the growing community of Im-Not-Racist-I-Have-ACAB-In-My-Bio YOUNGER white fans who are more than happy to hand that argument to the “Olds” ready to use by lumping Deeply Set Systemic Racism in with “My Fav Is OOC In This One Fic :(...”

because two groups of white people who claim to hate each other, are actually, consciously or not, working in perfect tandem to prevent any change to fandom’s racial bigotry.

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Look:

you want to call out the “Olds” for their shit? they all say “Oh LOOK AN ANTI DEATH THREAT CULTIST PURITAN 1984 BIG BROTHER SPOILED BABY!!! ohhhh gonna tell me to Do My Taxes???” and send death threats after u.

want to call out younger whites for Not Exactly Helping? if you’re younger than * insert current Maximum Age Of Being A Good Person here * your post will b co opted by dingbats who argue that the masses of fic killing off bipoc characters in horrific ways is morally and practically the same as a 3 yr age gap between fictional adults...

...and if you’re older it’s “wowwww lmaooo look at this Crusty Old Hag I bet they * do whatever the Bad Thing of the week is * go do ur taaaaxessss arent your 3+ kids hungryyyy while you neglect them to HARASS ME, a MINOR..... oh no mODS HELP HELP IM A POOR WITTLE KID THIS BIG SCAWY ADULT IS ATTACKING MEEEEE”

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TO SUMMARIZE-

OLDER WHITE CREATORS AND COMMUNITIES LIKE AO3 NEED TO BE HELD FULLY ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE RACISM THEY BLATANTLY CHAMPION. BUT THE SAME IS TRUE FOR THE YOUNGER WHITE-DOMINATED FAN SPACES THAT HAPPILY THROW MINORITIES, ESPECIALLY BIPOC, TO THE WOLVES FOR THE SAKE OF ESCALATING A FAKE WAR, OVER FAKE PROBLEMS, WITH THE WHITE FANS FOUR YEARS OLDER THAN THEM.

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I am not going to pretend I know how to solve this. All I can say is that anyone saying “well of COURSE The Olds are Racist they support The Bad Ships(tm)”.... shut the fuck up you’re doing the same shit from a different blog theme.

...And, in my opinion??? Outside of some VERY specific scenarios that make themselves VERY obvious, the combination of Shipping and Race into a singular “Fandom Discourse” is an obviously white supremacist idea that equates real human suffering with cartoons having sex. so like. if I have any advice?

Keep Actual Racial Issues out of shipping wars, and keep shipping wars out of Race Based Criticism. YES this also includes the anti/proship BS too. If you consider a ship so tied to race/bigotry/racial caricature that the two cant be mentioned separately? mayyyybe thats not the best ship to use as ammo for P3d0 accusations and death threats agains That One Community You Dont Like.... unless.

you know.

you never cared about BIPOC fans in the first place and just wanted to sound like a Cool And Right Good Person while you sent gore pics to ppl u think Ship Wrong.

...yeeeesh that was a longer rant than I expected to write...

god, remember when Supernatural AND Voltron killed off their single WOC in the final 3 episodes but it was only ever brought up as, like, SuPpOrTiNg EvIdEnCe in the 4+ yrs of fandom outrage over 1-2 gay couples???? but yeah sure “only The Olds (cough-proshipperpedonastykinkyadultwomen-cough) are nasty stinky uglee racists” 🙃🙃🙃