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thedilucharem · 2 years ago

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Two Perpetually Broke Geo Dudes Hike Up Dragonspine for the Deceptively Believable Commission Worth 500,000 Mora (Part I)

What do you do when you read character lore and pick up on the fact that the respective characters are broke? Write about it, obviously. This is shamelessly and purely self-indulgent, as all things should be.

(by some tables at the Good Hunter)

Itto: (chowing down on his third Sticky Honey Roast) Man, this stuff's so good! Between this and the pizza, Mondstadt has some of the best food I've ever had!

Zhongli: (nodding in acknowledgment) Mondstadt's cuisine is . . . interesting. (sets aside his finished Sauteed Matsutake) This is not to say that it is not good, but I prefer Liyuean cuisine.

Itto: Well, you haven't tried this stuff yet! (plops a sizeable chunk of roast onto Zhongli's plate) Try some!

Zhongli: (looks curiously at the roast before cutting a piece and having a small bite)

Itto: (eagerly) So how is it, Gramps?

Zhongli: (chews thoroughly for a moment) The sweetness of the glaze blends well with the robust and hearty seasoning of the tender meat, also retaining the initial zesty flavor from the method in which the food was prepared. (hums in appreciation) The roast is quite delicious.

Itto: (swallows the rest of his food before belching quite loudly)

Zhongli: (blinks in surprise) Well, I suppose we'll certainly be sending compliments to the chef. (eats the rest of his roast)

Itto: (laughs to himself) Whew! (stretches his entire body in his chair) This was a great lunch and I had a great time! We oughta do it again sometime soon.

Zhongli: (nods in agreement) Yes. I am not opposed to eating out with you again as your company is always rejuvenating.

Itto: (grins brightly and claps him on the back) Yeah, yeah same here.

They make their way to Sara to pay for their food. Or try to.

Sara: That'll be 9,750 mora please.

Itto: Okay, lemme see here . . . (unceremoniously dumps out the content of his moneybag and starts counting out piles of mora)

Zhongli: (lays his hand on Itto's shoulder) Please, Itto. Allow me to pay for our meal as it is only proper for the person who invited the other to do so.

Itto: (raises an eyebrow skeptically) . . . you sure about that, Gramps?

Zhongli: If you are worried about my . . . cumbersome habit of forgetting my wallet, fret not! (pulls out a wallet from his pocket) I paid extra care to ensure that it wouldn't happen on this occasion.

Who wants to bet that the wallet is empty?

Itto: (audibly sighs in relief) Whew! You had me worried for a second there! (starts shoveling his mora back into his moneybag)

Zhongli: (reaches into his wallet) . . . that's strange. (digging around in his wallet) Hmm. (turns to Sara) Put it on the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor's tab.

Sara: (frankly) I'm sorry, but this establishment is local. We don't take credit here. And also (pulls out a piece of parchment and hands it to him) we couldn't accept that tab anyway.

The parchment read: "The Wangsheng Funeral Parlor will no longer allow the legally hired and maintained private consultant (read: Zhongli) to put down the respective business tab for any of the following locations (i.e. nations, counties, jurisdictions, prefectures, establishments) listed . . ."

Zhongli: (embarrassed) Ah. My sincerest apologies. (mutters to himself) I suppose that this would mean that I am short. (politely) If you may allow me to confer with my colleague for a brief moment.

Sara: (confused, but wary) Sure, I guess.

Zhongli: (bows his head as his cheeks redden slightly) My deepest thanks. (gently tugs Itto by the arm a way's over to the side)

Itto: (genuinely concerned) What's up?

Zhongli: (coughs into his fist) Ahem. (slowly) I do not recall how such a thing could've happened on our way from the winery, but my wallet seems to have a significant lack of funds.

Itto: (blinks) Huh? (thinks for a second) You don't mean you're broke, right?

Zhongli: (nods) Yes. I do not seem to have any mora. (opens his wallet, showing no mora) I was certain that I had some earlier this morning, but I do not know where it could have gone.

Itto: (inhales through his teeth) Alright, alright, don't worry about it then. Besides, I'm pretty sure I've got enough for the both of us!

Zhongli: (matter-of-factly) You do not.

Itto: (frowns) We haven't even counted em' all yet, so how would you know anyway?

Zhongli: (crosses his arms) There's no need to count them because it is already obvious enough based on the size of your bag. (shakes his head with finality) The mora you have is not the sufficient amount needed to pay.

Itto: (huffs) Well, how short are we?

Zhongli: Based on what I could notice at the time, a rough estimate would be that we are about 5,000 mora short.

Itto: (sighs heavily) Well, there isn't much we can do about that, huh. (starts thinking to himself) We'll probably have to pick up a small job or two around here to cover that.

Zhongli: (briefly deliberates before nodding in agreement) That is a good course of action to take as any other methods in my employ are not guaranteed to get us the mora we need.

Itto: (confused) Huh? What's that supposed to mean?

Zhongli: (deadpanned) Precisely what I said.

Diluc had forced Childe to swear on his Tsarista that he would no longer enable Zhongli to purchase whatever would catch his fancy to excess. He also vehemently refuses to pay anything for Zhongli unless it's for his own drinks at his respective establishments.

Itto: (looks over towards the Good Hunter) (looks in the small alleyway) (blinks)

Zhongli: . . . (suddenly) Itto-

Before he can do much of anything, Itto throws Zhongli over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes before bolting down the alleyway as fast as he can.

Sara: (gapes) I- (more shocked than pissed) The payment?!?

Itto: (yells over his shoulder) Don't worry about the money, miss! We'll pay you back in like two hours!

Zhongli: (bouncing violently against Itto's back with each step) (uncharacteristically screeches) Put me down this instant-

---

Zhongli and Itto share one collective brain cell when they're left to their own devices and you will not change my mind.

I have no idea how long this is going to get as I don't control the length, the multiple allusions I've made and crazy ideas do. Also, if you notice the date of this cracktastic drabble dropping, I did not plan this at all LMAO. Happy birthday, dumbass [affectionate].

(inspired by the aforementioned commentary concerning this topic and this collection of headcanons)

#500000 mora is 500000 mora #long post #arataki itto #zhongli #sara #good hunter #mondstadt #diluc harem au

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jowritesthingss · 4 years ago

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A (Demi)Boy and His Demon: Prologue

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Pairing(s): LoSleep (Logic | Logan + Sleep | Remy)

Rating: Teen

Content Warning(s): lots of swearing, religion mention, demons mention, injury/blood (Remy gets a papercut)

Length: 1,418 words

Brief Summary: Sleep-deprived writer Remy accidentally summons a serious-and-seriously-fed-up demon named Logan. Prologue. In Which Remy Inadvertently Summons a Demon

Fic Masterlist!

In Remy’s defense, he hadn’t exactly meant to summon a demon in the middle of a coffee shop on just another typical Tuesday.

And they most certainly hadn’t meant to bind the poor sap to them for the rest of their (presumably now-shortened and miserable) life.

But there he was.

And that was exactly what he had done.

But—erm, well. We’ll get there.

“Remy!” a familiar voice chirped as said enby pushed the door open to his favorite haunt. “Do you how do?”

“Ugh. Like, horrible.” The answer was instinctual at this point. Usually it was just sarcastic, but on a deadline like this? Satan had nothing on the wrath of an editor.

The echo of the bell ringing bright through his ears, Remy walked over to the front counter, where his good friend and caffeine addiction enabler stood. They tried in vain to pretend that they were swaggering and not at all staggering from sleep deprivation and lack of caffeine.

“So it’ll be the usual for you, then, yeah?” Emile smiled, and god, for all the years they’ve spent working as a barista themselves, Remy would never understand how Emile could stay so upbeat while on-shift.

“You know it, gurl,” Remy answered, fishing out his wallet. “Although gimme the largest size this time, hun’.”

Emile clucked sympathetically, already turning and getting started on Remy’s iced coffee. “Deadline coming up?”

“Uh-huh. Tonight.” Remy sighed, slapping a ten dollar bill onto the counter. “I’m due to get the script for chapter sixty-nine to Remus, but like, he’s been too busy giggling over the number of the upcoming chapter to finish the one we’re supposed to publish tomorrow. Virgil’s on the warpath, and I’ve been roped into designing shit to make up for Remus falling behind.” He rolled his eyes.

“Golly, that sure sounds rough.” Emile slid some ice into Remy’s coffee before popping a lid on it, swirling it a couple times, and sliding it across the counter with some verbal sound effects to accompany it. He picked up the tenner and began to punch things into the cash register, counting out change for Remy. “But I believe in you!”

“Gurl, you shouldn’t. I don’t,” Remy snickered. They reached back into their bag, groping around for their reusable straw. Pulling it out, he popped it into his cup. “There’s a reason I’m the brains behind the writing of this operation, not the art. You think I’d be working with those idiots if I had a choice?”

“Yes, I do,” Emile said mildly. He handed over Remy’s change.

“Yeah, yeah. That’s fair.” Shoving his change into the tips jar, Remy rolled his eyes. Again. They did that a lot. Which, how could he not, when he was surrounded by so many dorks?

“Anyways, I’ll be in my usual corner, I guess.” Remy jerked their head towards their usual corner table. “Lemme know if you need any help back there, babe. Or if any tea needs spilling.” They winked at Emile from behind their sunglasses before turning and heading to sit down.

Once seated, Remy pulled out his laptop and the battered spiral notebook that he kept most of his ideas for their comic in. Exchanging their sunglasses somewhat reluctantly for a pair of blue light glasses, he booted up his computer. Then, after setting everything up in its typical position and connecting to the wifi in the coffee shop, Remy allowed themself a moment to sit back and sip at their iced coffee.

The contrasting tastes of sweet white mocha and bitter coffee filled his mouth, and Remy felt his shoulders relax for what had to be the first time in twelve to twenty-four hours.

Classes earlier in the day had been an absolute nightmare of scribbling in margins and surreptitiously typing the script up on his phone when professors weren’t looking. Then the night before had been a horror-filled dream sequence of exhaustion and trying to write actual content down without falling asleep on the keyboard and waking up with the L key imprinted on their nose and sixteen pages of keysmashes.

So suffice to say, Remy was not having a good time. But the iced coffee? It warmed their gay little heart. It made things just a bit more bearable on days like this.

All too soon the buzzing of his phone reminded Remy of their subsequent impending deadline and doom, and he came crashing back down to earth.

Sipping once more at their iced coffee, Remy set it off to the side, slipping in his earbuds and focusing in on the Word document in front of him. They began to type.

Three hours and two refills later, Remy had finished chapter sixty-nine, had sent it to Virgil to look over, and had even started on chapter seventy for a good measure.

Until Virgil sent back his edits, Remy’s focus of the moment had shifted to designs for chapter sixty-six, which Remus should’ve started drawing a few days ago, but nooo, the asshat wasn’t even done shading sixty-five, which was supposed to be posted in...Remy consulted their phone...in roughly six hours now. Fuck.

Remy couldn’t draw for shit, but they could research like nobody’s business, and designing and sketching was simple enough, so he wasn’t entirely unused to getting dragged into stuff like physical character designs and the creation of symbols and outfits (Remus was far too oafish and uncoordinated when it came to fashion, anyway).

Shaky as Remy’s art was, Remus certainly knew how to pick out what he liked from Remy’s miserable excuses for sketches, at least, so their partnership worked well enough...even if Remy privately thought his similarly-named partner acted like a dolt and smelled like minute ramen (and not even the good kind! more like the shrimp kind, and what the fuck kind of imbecile eats shrimp-flavored microwave ramen).

Finally satisfied with the roughly-sketched summoning circle that they had copied from the web, Remy exited out of Google Images.

Summoning circles, Remy had to admit, were a new topic of research for him. Their story—a Good Omens-type comic centering around an angel and a demon trapped in the human world—had required plenty of research into religion and religious imagery, of which they had not been a fan, but for some reason summoning circles had never really cropped up on their radar.

Remy may not have been a fan of the concept of angels, but he certainly wasn’t a fan of the concept of demons and the occult, either, so digging through the ominously dark websites had been...interesting. Eventually they had just given up and straight-up copied a summoning circle at random. They could take that and go from there, adding their own flair to it.

Remy looked down at the shaky summoning circle he had sketched out before him. It was kinda lopsided, but it was whatever. It was also much too boring, if you asked him. When they sent Remus their final reference, they’d put a note in the margins telling him to add some of that weird gory imagery stuff he was obsessed with. “Creep would really like that, huh,” Remy muttered aloud to himself.

Scrutinizing the copied circle for a few more moments, Remy mentally listed out some of the changes they wanted to make—an extra line here, a circle there, take out that square—and they reached into their backpack for one of the random looseleaf sheets of paper he always had floating around in there. Only, they grabbed at the wrong corner of the paper.

Feeling the sheet of paper slice into their pointer finger, Remy quietly hissed out a breath. “Fuck.” He drew his finger out of the bag, pulling it up to his face to get a good look at the injury, and shit, the papercut was bad enough that it was actually bleeding.

“Goddammit,” Remy cursed as a few drops of crimson splattered onto the paper in front of them, blurring over the details of the summoning circle he had drawn.

Remy popped his finger into his mouth and sucked at the smidgen of blood leaking out. Deciding to actually look at what they were sticking their hand into this time, they turned to the left, fully intending to practically stick his head into his bag to find a napkin and that pesky sheet of paper both.

This was how they came to be aware of the person who appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, to stand to the side of their table.

Prologue || One || Two || Three || Four || Five || Six

This was supposed to be a one-shot, but Remy told Logan to hold their coffee and then bullied me into making it a prologue and six chapters’ worth of useless gays. I accept my defeat with dignity and insist that it was, in fact, actually my decision in order to get used to writing multi-chap things again before I tackle my Big Bad AUs.

Want to be added onto any of my taglists? Shoot me an ask or a message here or via my other social media!

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thessalian · 6 years ago

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Thess vs Facebook

Back when I used to work the private hospital up near Baker Street, before they made us redundant by shutting the unit down under our noses, we had a fair few temps pass through. One of them has apparently been stalking me on Facebook. Very quietly. And just waiting for the opportunity to say whatever has been on her mind for ... lemme see, she was one of the ones who left relatively early in the proceedings, so somewhere in the region of two years.

I didn’t go into any great detail about what’s going on with my life on Facebook. I never do. I did, however, grumble about my recent job luck, in a very abstract way. Mostly referring to bad ergonomics, bad organisation, and some fairly dodgy reasons for having my contract terminated. I didn’t say that, though. I just grumbled about wishing that I could find just one job that didn’t do that.

So this temp basically goes, “Did you ever think that maybe it’s not them; it’s you?” She said she found me lazy and arrogant. She insulted my personal grooming. And then she said that “brains aren’t enough and if you figure that out, life might go better for you”.

Yeaaaaaaaah okay, let’s examine that.

First of all, yes I did wonder whether it was me and not them. I do so every time. I have quiet panic attacks over what I could have done better. Most of the time, I can’t think of anything. Granted, most of the time it’s because the things that ended my jobs haven’t had a damn thing to do with me. A whole NHS Trust being forbidden from hiring agency staff isn’t something that can be prevented by working harder (if that’s possible) or improving my attitude. Neither is an entire hospital unit shutting down with no warning. As for the most recent thing ... I’m not entirely sure how nearly constant, “Can you please just confirm this word for me? I can’t read this handwriting,” or “Sorry to interrupt, but I’ve done all the reports. What should I do next?” (or, in the case of the one before the one I just lost, “I’m done with all my consultants’ letters and I know your email is kind of packed; would you like me to help clear yours as well, save you some stress?”) is arrogant or lazy.

By contrast, she typed so very slowly and I did a good percentage of her work, at least on the typing side. I ... am not sure where that counts as lazy. I mean, it did mean that I seldom had time to do anything else for anyone else, particularly when I also had the theatre list to deal with, and maybe she wasn’t aware of that part of things; maybe she just assumed that if I turned down her request to do something, it was because I didn’t feel like doing it, not because I was busy with something else. I don’t know.

As for the personal grooming ... lady, that’s your opinion. I didn’t and don’t do makeup. I didn’t and don’t do suits unless I have to. I don’t exactly have a massive clothing budget so no, I’m not a fashion plate, and I prefer to stick with smart-casual and above all, comfort than being all Public Face Spiffy. If I was on a reception desk, I’d pull out all the stops. As I was hidden in a back office, I figured good hygiene and basic smart casual was enough. No one ever had any complaints about my appearance. ...Then again, no one had any complaints about my work ethic either.

Yeah, I know I shouldn’t let it bother me. I deleted the comment and blocked her and moved on. Mostly because ... well, I was there at least a year after she was long gone. I don’t know under what circumstances she left, but given that the response to the brief termination of my contract there was, “Get her back NOW!”, I’m not sure ‘lazy’ is really all that accurate. Arrogant? I think that’s in the eye of the beholder, most of the time. I don’t mean to come across that way but recognise that I occasionally can, particularly when exasperated. And when being asked to do things a colleague can do just as well when I already have eight or ten things on my plate that need to get done ... I tend to get exasperated. No one else experienced this problem. OfficeMate would have slapped sense into me if she thought I was giving her shit, I can tell you.

So if I know I shouldn’t let it bother me, why am I thinking / writing about it now? Because I need to examine it for any truth it might contain in case there’s something I could improve. It’s been years and even the spots I know are problem areas for me have been improved. Some things can’t be - at least not until a more solid job happens. I didn’t appreciate the crack about my appearance, I can tell you that ... but it’s interesting to see yourself through the eyes of someone who made your life miserable when you worked together. She was always so nice both to and about me at the time. I think I keep underestimating how two-faced people can be.

So this is me reassuring myself. I am most assuredly not lazy. I work on the self-defense mechanism that manifests as know-it-all arrogance every day and will continue to do so. As for my personal grooming ... lady, you want to buy me a new wardrobe? Go right the fuck ahead.

My bosses have never had anything but praise for my work in general. Still, the last thing I need is someone I haven’t spoken to in years and found affable but high-strung telling me that my bad luck is my own fault because I am a human garbage fire, without even knowing the specific shape of my bad luck.

So now I’m depressed again. Still. More. I dunno. But I did delete the comment and I did block her and once I get this properly compartmentalised and emotionally processed, maybe I’ll just think it’s sad that she either got bored enough to Google my name or has been watching my Facebook account for years waiting for the perfect opening to slag me off.

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bunabi · 7 years ago

Note

Do you mind me asking if something I do can be perceived as offensive and/or how to properly handle it if I do wind up offending someone? Feel free to say no bc I do understand it's not your job to educate me lmao.

Dunno if you needed this privately replied to so lemme know and I’ll delete this post. But I’d like all my mutuals & followers to know where I stand on this.

The short answer is: not really. Its not something I’d like to do in my downtime. And Id prefer not to be anyone’s go-to offensiveness analyst like a personal PR consultant for post-callout damage control. Like knowing if somethings anti-black -- for example -- is as simple as searching ‘list of black stereotypes’ and seeing if any of it is present in your work. You don’t need my help for that.

If you need sensitivity readers or somethin of that nature theres users you can pay to do that. Thank you for asking me if its ok in advance tho. :(

#replies #glaringapollo

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kyberled · 8 years ago

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☀ ♦ ♥ ☢ ✖

the salty af munday meme

☀ What’s your rp pet peeve? –> Ship forcing. This is literally the best way to get me to unfollow or even block another mun. I’ll explain what ship-forcing is below, but yeah, that’s one of them.

♦ What was a mildly annoying thing that has happened to you rp wise? –> See above. It happened once on my Warren blog, and once very recently on here. Now, a bit of a definition, here - I don’t see ship-forcing as asking me if I want to ship, or saying your muse has a crush on Braig - heck, that can be flattering (though I prefer if we know each other, first - it can get a bit uncomfy for me, kind of like virtual catcalling, I guess, when complete strangers tell me how attractive they think Braig is). I don’t see it as someone’s muse having feelings for Braig, one-sided or otherwise. All of these things are A-Okay, and can be quite fun, too! What I do see ship forcing is when someone asks if they can ship with Braig, and instantly, as soon as I say ‘we can give it a try’, deciding that our muses are suddenly soulmates, even if they’ve hardly said four sentences to each other, before. I see it as asking to ship, then immediately dropping the thread where they were actually in the process of meeting each other to have them now in the middle of a date, which, given the context of where, when, and how said date was taking place would likely have gotten them both killed. I see it as pestering Braig to do something ‘romantic’, having both Braig and I say no, he doesn’t want to, and the other person keeps pushing, regardless, or getting upset when Braig decides to respond with something not romantic and replying to that with some rude, snarky comment. ‘Uh, I think [muse] wanted Braig to do [X], actually’ - Yes, that has happened, before. I’ve been vagueblogged about, spammed on and off anon, been told I’ve made peoples’ depression/anxiety worse, had on-blog events ruined and muses killed and simply been harassed at all hours of the day because of ship-forcing and my trying to deal with it gently and politely, instead of just flat-out saying ‘no’ or ‘I’m not comfortable with this’. So, if it ever seems like I’m coming down too hard on someone in regards to shipping, I swear I don’t mean to come off as abrasive or rude - I just learned the hard way that you’ve gotta be blunt about your comfort zones or else things go south faster than a flock of geese on an adrenaline high. Basically, to sum this novel up: As long as you respect my boundaries, we’re good; if I haven’t told you you’re skeeving me out, we’re good. If I have told you you are, and you keep doing whatever it was, we’re not so good.

☢ What fads/trends are you so over? –> I don’t really keep up with trends enough to know lmao. I mean I guess I’ve seen a few, but they don’t really bother me. You do you, and all… Though, I guess I never entirely understood the whole ‘personified objects’ thing? I mean, you do you, and all, but it just never made sense to me.

✖ How has Tumblr RP changed since you started? –> It hasn’t, not really. I think the only real changes have been purely aesthetic, like small text, contained themes, etc. I really don’t care what other people do, as long as they’re happy and not hurting anyone.

♥ What’s the WORST thing that has happened to you rp wise?

[Under a cut for length]

Okay, so, I told two of my rp horror stories over on Xig, so I’ll tell my third one here. Since I gave the other two pseudonyms, we’ll call this one ‘Cheeper’. Cheeper was someone I had met when a mutual friend we’ll call Battery allegedly recommended my blog to them. Now, Battery was someone I had approximately zero problems with. Really friendly, sweet guy, talented writer, great sense of humour, one of my favourite people to write with. So, I figured, if Cheeper was a friend of Battery’s, they must be cool, too, right? … Wrong. So, things start out okay-ish, as they always do, but things get downhill pretty fast. Starts off with small things, like ignoring asks or dropping literally all of our threads without letting me know. And I understand wanting to drop threads or not being able to get to everything in your ask box, but when that happens consistently, it gets a little disheartening.

The next little thing was when they started making AUs of my muse, and expecting me to write them. Lemme say here that I am totally fine with people suggesting AUs for my muses. That’s where this blog came from, Rodi suggesting a Star Wars AU where another one of my muses was Obi’s padawan, so, again, I’m fine with AU prompts. What I’m not fine with is when someone writing a really detailed version of my muse without consulting me at all, and then expecting me to write that AU they made with no warning and no problems. Cheeper comes into my IMs listing this novel-length AU detailing not only how their muse changed, but how mine did, as well. Basically, the entire idea was that their muse, who in canon was a big tank-type character who had been straight-up abusive to multiple characters, and turned them into a small, fluffy little mage who was actually a good guy and hadn’t done any bad things, and was being forced to do the bad guys’ dirty work, whereas my muse… Was suddenly the abusive one. For absolutely no reason. In a way that not only completely contradicted all of my personal headcanons - all of which were posted and easily viewable on my blog - but also went against all of what canon had showed us about my muse, and quite frankly made me really uncomfortable. I mean, you’ve seen some of the stuff I’ve written, you know I’m down to write some pretty messed up stuff, but to straight up turn my muse into a child abuser, WITHOUT CONSULTING ME AT ALL, just so your muse can be the good guy? That doesn’t fly so well. On top of that, writing such a detailed version of my muse and expecting me to play it for you? Why not write it yourself? I mean like I said, I am thrilled with AU suggestions, but, hell, keep it to a sentence or two, tops. Let me experiment and develop my muse to fit the AU myself, thanks. … And, while these things were pretty irritating, especially when a few of them happened over and over again, it got worse.

A lot of the time, when I’m having OOC conversations to get to know another mun before we start writing together, I look for a sort of ‘spark’ or ‘click’ - something that shows this person and I are gonna get along. For a lot of people, including my favourite partners, this click is basically immediate - just this instant ‘wow, we’re gonna be good friends, this is great!’, and, for others, it takes a bit longer, and that’s totally okay! Some people take a while to open up, or maybe it wasn’t a good day for one of us, I totally get it, happens to me, too. How quickly the click happens has absolutely NO BEARING ON MY OPINION OF A PERSON WHATSOEVER. There have been I think only three or four times I haven’t clicked with someone - twice on Warren, once on Xig, and once here. If I message you first, send asks, tag you in things, like your posts, etc, we’ve clicked, don’t worry. Anyway, Cheeper was one of these rare occurrences where there was not only no click, there was the opposite of a click. At first I thought it was just ‘cause our first convo was a bit awkward - from what I remember, it was basically just ‘hi, My name is [Cheeper], I’m [Battery]’s friend and he recommended your blog so I thought I’d give you a follow’, you know, typical ‘hi, nice to meet you’ type thing, I didn’t think much of it. Unfortunately, that was the only pleasant conversation we had.

You see, Cheeper had the habit of starting conversations with some variation of ‘how are you?’. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? Well, in typical Canadian fashion, I always did my best to follow social protocol and be polite, and say ‘I’m good/fine/great, thanks, how are you?’, and, much like Han Solo, I learned that there are some situations you shouldn’t ask that question. Every time, without fail, Cheeper would say some variation of ‘bad’ or ‘horrible’, and proceed to dump literally all their life’s problems on me, and I mean all of them. I’m perfectly fine with letting my friends vent/rant to me as much as they need, and offering advice is a pass-time of mine. But, I had only known this person for- Less than a week, when this started (I hardly even knew their NAME I had to look it up on their blog), and they kept going on and on about some really personal shit, like hours of how they hated their job and school was stressful, and their family was aphobic and never used the right pronouns, literally everything about their personal life, no matter how private it was, just- Constant negativity, all the time. It was literally all they spoke about, ever. I don’t know anything else about them, just that their life was terrible and they decided to use me as some sort of verbal stress ball. Even if I tried to divert the conversation to a different topic, or just ignore them entirely, I’d still get floods of negativity and complaints. And what makes it even better? They had a frickin therapist! This person, who had a professional, trained therapist, would spend hours unloading all of their mental/emotional burdens on me, an untrained stranger who had only said ‘hi’ to them once. And, after they had dumped all their baggage on me, they’d say, ‘oh, gotta go, it’s time to go to my therapist’. And, honestly? That was the only time I felt safe to post on my blog. Yes, you read that right - it was the only time I felt safe to post on my own blog. I honestly could not make a post on my blog without Cheeper spamming my IMs with boatloads of stress-inducing negativity. And, call me selfish, call me insensitive, call me whatever you want, but, fuck, I had my own problems! I was in university, trying to get law school level grades, while working a part time job to try and help my family out when we were struggling financially, doing what I could to make sure there was enough food in the fridge for my younger brothers, trying to help my grandma take care of my grandpa, trying to keep up with my martial arts - which I have to do in order to keep my job - and trying to write multiple essays for both my younger brother and myself, as we were prepping for our black sash tests, but he was also trying to get into film school, so I’d volunteered to write the sash essays for him, and, let me tell you, I did not need to play counsellor to someone I didn’t even know on top of that. And, like I said, this happened constantly, and I’d get a new flood of messages every time I so much as hinted at being online.

And believe it or not, it got worse, Sakrine.

I remember there was one conversation we had (’conversation’ being used loosely, of course) towards the end of our interactions where Cheeper was complaining at me, as per usual, and mentioned how all of their friends were blocking them without saying why. Funnily enough, I was planning on blocking them soon, myself (probably should have done it a long time ago). But, lo and behold, right after saying how they were always getting blocked, Cheeper goes and says ‘but you’d never block me, so at least I have you. You’re my best friend, Jay’. And I’m sitting here really uncomfortable because, uh, no, we’re not best friends, and I have no idea what gave them that idea, since I never told them anything of the sort, and in fact barely spoke to to them at all, both because I didn’t much care for their company, and because I could hardly get a word in edgewise - and, even if I could, how does one respond to a total stranger badgering you for advice on how to deal with their family not handling their being out well? I’m not out to my family, and I don’t think I ever will be, so, again, how can I give that sort of advice to someone I don’t know?

About the time this was happening was when I met and was chatting with Rodi, who’s actually one of my best friends and the light of my life. Like I mentioned above, it was at her suggestion that I decided to make this li’l OC mess that we know and love here. He was originally gonna be a verse on my other blog, until I realised that I’d have tags for a Jedi verse, a padawan verse, a Sith verse, etc., and that was too many for one AU, so I made a sideblog. Then, after only a day of having that, and a bit of encouragement from both Rodi and Milla (my main Talon), I made this stand-alone blog for my son, and I was having a great time.

Cheeper, however, was not, and made sure I knew it.

Now, my muse for that blog had been steadily dying, mostly because of this, but also for a few other, more minor reasons, and I felt way more comfortable here, was having more fun, and generally just enjoying myself way more on this blog than the other, so, naturally, this is where I spent most of my time. Within a day or two of my neglecting Xig, Cheeper pops into the IMs to complain about me, to me. Yes, I am dead serious, this is an actual thing that happened. They start badgering me to go back to my other blog, and, I dunno if this has ever happened to you, but, it’s really disheartening. I explained to Cheeper that I felt more comfortable on this blog (though I didn’t tell them why I felt that way on Xig; Perhaps I should’ve), that I had more drafts and asks on this blog, and that I had more muse for this character at the moment, so I’d be spending my time over here, at least for a little bit. Their oh-so-eloquent response was, and this is a verbatim quote, ‘boo, you suck.’ And I had absolutely no idea how to respond to that, so I didn’t. I just sat there, staring, feeling an interesting concoction of shocked, annoyed, and offended. About a minute later, they added a ‘lol, just kidding’, and proceeded to… Continue… To complain about me, as well as about their life and still expected me to give them advice and solutions I didn’t have. I’ve never had someone act more entitled to my time and energy as this person did.

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking - ‘they were probably just some kid, Jay, young people can be like that at times, you’re taking it too hard’, and, hey, I thought so, too. I was nineteen years old when this was happening; Cheeper was around 24 or 25. Yup, this person was about five or six years older than me, and a grown-ass adult the entire time. And like I said, they were constantly acting entitled to everything I did, like I owed them something. There was another time where I’d actually gotten a bit of muse for my other blog back, so I went on, answered a bunch of asks, slammed out some drafts, sent some memes, answered some IMs… It was a really productive evening for me. Once I was finished, I came back here and got a bit more done. Next morning rolls around, and Cheeper messages me with ‘I miss you, dude. You’re never on Xig, any more.’ I tell them that, actually I’d been on last night, for a few hours, at least. Their response? ‘Well, I wasn’t on.’, after which they kept complaining about how much they missed my muse and my writing. I get this was probably supposed to be flattering, but it really wasn’t? Especially considering that, while they were going on and on about how much they missed me and wanted to write with me, they were completely ignoring the THREE STARTERS I had written for them in the weeks leading up to this point. Hadn’t even given them a like, which I like to do to let someone know that, even if I’m slow as all Hell - which I tend to be - I have seen it, and it’s in my drafts. So, I mentioned this to Cheeper, said ‘you know, I have a couple starters for you on the other blog, why don’t you check those out?’ ‘Oh, I didn’t see them, I’ll give them a look.’ And then, blissfully, they stopped messaging. Little while later, a few days, I got another message from them (keep in mind I never contacted them or interacted with them first, since, rude as it may sound, I was kind of hoping they’d get the message), and once again they were whining about how I was never on Xig again, so I went to check the starters again, and… Still no notes. So I ask them about the starters, and they say ‘I couldn’t find them’. You know how I looked them up? [my blog’s url]/tagged/[cheeper’s url], and, bam. There they were. I told Cheeper this and even sent them the link to their tag. They said okay, that they’d check it out later, and started complaining about their life again. I was serious when I said this was the only thing they talked about, outside of basically harassing me to write with them. Few days later, they get on my case AGAIN for not being on Xig/not rping with them. I check the THREE FUCKING STARTERS again, STILL NO NOTES. I ask, and ‘oh I just don’t have muse for them right now lol’. And I’m left sitting here like, okay, do you really want to write with me, or are you just mad I’m not dedicating all of my attention to you and your godawful AU muses? I mean, I have NOTHING against AU muses - that’s where this kiddo came from, after all - but AUS WHERE THEY PUSHED MY CHARACTER TO BE A FUCKING CHILD ABUSER WERE APPARENTLY ALL THEY HAD MUSE FOR. And my character was a moral fuckhead I admit but he WASN’T OVERTLY ABUSIVE THAT WAS ONE OF THE REASONS I WAS COOL PLAYING HIM AS THE ANTAGONIST HE WAS AND JUST. And as well, when I have no muse, it’s apparently a major fuckin’ disaster and they complain to the ends of the earth about it and go on and on about how I should still be writing that character and how much they miss me, but when THEY have no muse I have to accommodate it and make allowances and write with them anyway???? Like???

So anyway yeah they proceeded to ignore those starters for months, and every time I posted a new starter call,they’d like that, I’d post a starter, they’d completely ignore it, then come crying and complaining to me, berating me and all but sobbing about how much they missed me.

BUT IT GETS WORSE STILL, SAKRINE.

After a while, Cheeper starts asking me about Star Wars. And I’m torn between ‘fuck no, this is my new safe place, and I’m TRYING TO BE SAFE FROM YOU’ and ‘well maybe if they get into this series they’ll stop getting upset with me for not writing on a blog I have no muse for and am not comfortable on’. So they ask me what they need to watch to understand Star Wars. I tell them to watch the movies, since those are the unchanging canon, no matter what Disney did to the Legends material. Apparently they don’t even have the attention span for their favourite show, so they can’t watch the movies. They complain to me about that for a while, because apparently I care. I did not. I tell them that everything Star Wars - or at least, in the era I write in - revolves around those movies. I tell them they can just watch the PT (and explain what the different trilogies are) and that will get them caught up with where I write. Nope, can’t do that. So I tell them there are book versions of the movies they can read, instead, and there are also comics and stuff they can look into if that would be better.

Nope, don’t have the attention span for books.

Complain about that to me for a while, then ask what they absolutely HAVE to watch to understand.

I tell them about the Clone Wars show, give them a link to the relevant KissCartoon page. They ask how long the show is - I tell them the number of seasons (mention that 6 is unfinished), and the average length of an episode.

Nope, don’t have the attention span for that, either.

They reiterate that they hardly have the attention span for their favourite show, and once again complain to me before asking me what the /HAVE TO WATCH/ to understand.

I tell them that they’re free to try interacting with my muse on their KH blogs, since I’m open to crossovers and still, for some ungodly reason, trying to be civil.

They keep asking about star wars.

I mention the video games.

Don’t have the attention span for video games.

So this person, who apparently can’t watch movies or TV shows, or read books or comics, or play video games, is asking me what source material they need to know to roleplay a Star Wars verse.

I, as a last-ditch and mostly sarcastic effort, give them a link to Wookieepedia. I’m a terrible person, I know.

…

They don’t have the patience to look through the wiki pages.

I’m all but smashing my face against the keyboard now, while this person is COMPLAINING TO ME ABOUT HOW LONG STAR WARS IS.

I mean I get it’s a lot but I tried to break it down?? And last I checked I’m not George Lucas like I’m sorry but it’s not my fault, my problem, or in my power to change? And I tell them it’s 40 years worth of worldbuilding and try to help them break it down again and they just KEEP FUCKING COMPLAINING.

And after like. Two hours of me trying to reason with them and help them out they say ‘I’m not even interested in star Wars, I just want to write with you’.

And now, maybe I’m reading into it too much. Maybe I listen to too many narrated Let’s Not Meet videos too late at night. But holy shit, I have never felt like I had a legitimate stalker until that moment. It was one of the most uncomfortable things that has ever happened to me. I had zero idea how to respond, and so again I don’t think I did. Or, if I did, it was to again try to explain to them that there was a lot of material, and they should [leavemethefuckalone] focus on things they were interested in, especially if they didn’t think they could handle just the show. So they complain to me about that for a bit, before moving on to other topics to whine about. Always comes back to how I’m not writing with them any more (meanwhile, the countless starters I’ve written them are still being ignored, as are any and all threads we had on the go at the time. Everything’s either been ignored, abandoned, or both, all without letting me know.).I honestly don’t remember how that conversation ended. Just thinking about it makes me blank out and get a sort of mild pins-and-needles feeling. I mean, I get it was probably supposed to be flattering, and if we had been friends it might have been, but coming from this person? Alarm bells were ringing like a retro emergency evac PSE.

AND IT GETS WORSE STILL, BECAUSE FOR SOME REASON I STILL PUT UP WITH THIS PERSON.

So, enter me, just going back to uni for the spring/early summer semester. Our stage sets itself in my campus’ bookstore, at about noon or one o’clock in the afternoon. The line from the bookstore stretches from the counter, at one end of the store, wraps around the perimeter of that very large, very spacious room that was at one point a lecture hall, goes through the hall to the next room which also used to be a massive classroom, wraps around that and goes out the back door. I had to get up for an 8:30 that was across the field that day. I had non-stop class until this point, I had had no breakfast (though I think I had a sip of orange juice to keep from conking out), I had been waiting in line for close to an hour, my arms were full of heavy textbooks I dreaded having to pay for, and I only had one hand free for typing, and there was a chance I’d be late to my next class if this line didn’t get moving. As you can imagine, I wasn’t much in the mood for talking (though I think I made the effort for Rodi and Maddie (my best friend from public school who I still talk to) since I enjoy talking to them and it made me feel a bit better). Anyway, I’m in line, tired, irate, and scrolling through tumblr, and Cheeper messages me with a ‘hey’. Oh fuck, I think, this isn’t good. I greet them anyway - just a ‘hi’. I’m only giving one word answers at this point, since I’m not in a chatty mood, and, as I mentioned, I’m typing with just my thumb and that fucking sucks and takes forever, and I’m also trying to keep my place in line. Cheeper starts asking me about school, and I’m very confused, because never once in the months I’d known them had they ever taken an interest in me or my life. ‘so you’re in university right’ they ask. I remember most of this conversation word for word, and you’ll see why. ‘yeah’, I reply. ‘What year?’ they ask; ‘Second \o/’ I say, adding an emoji b/c I love that one. ‘Cool, what’s your major?’ they ask, and I’m getting hopeful that maybe they’ve turned a new leaf and my patience with them has been rewarded. So I tell them ‘Classics \O/’ with a slightly more excited emoji, and they tell me that’s cool, mention their major is in foreign languages - I think Chinese? Maybe Spanish? This is the one message I can never remember in its entirety, because the next one almost knocked me over. I replied with ‘cool’, and a half second later, Cheeper asks,

“Are you out to your family yet?”

This complete fucking stranger, this grown-ass adult I barely knew, straight up asked me if I was out to my family, yet. I have never been asked that question before or since. I am out only to people on tumblr, and a small group of my most trusted friends from high school. And this person had the fucking audacity to ask me right out if I was.

I was shocked.

I will not lie to you, I almost dropped my phone. I think I stopped breathing for a second, and I nearly lost my place in line. I was torn between just being frozen and being fucking livid. After a moment when I didn’t respond, they added, ‘Can I ask that?’ And I swear those two messages are tattooed into my mind.

“Are you out to your family yet?”

Holy fuck.

So I manage to collect myself enough to type out ‘no, I’m not’.

‘Damn,’ they say. ‘Because my mom keeps messing up my pronouns and I wanted to know if you have any advice.’

Because why the fuck else would they care about me, right?

And then they proceeded to complain about their life and their aphobic family to me AGAIN, for HOURS, but at that point I’d been ignoring their messages and was instead talking to Maddie for advice on how to handle the situation. I had no idea what to do. I was lost. Like. I wanted to block them so bad but they’d been subtly guilt-tripping me about it for so long (’you’d never block me, you’re my best friend’ was just the start of that, tbh) that I felt bad for it? And Maddie was just like ‘jay no that’s fucked up get rid of them’ and I did.

I have never once regretted it and holy fuck it feels amazing to get this shit off my chest.

And yeah, so.

That was one of my worst RP experiences.

Are you out to your family yet.

I’d sell them to Satan for half a stale corn chip I swear to Christ.

#n1hr1k #&& give the sun a head start; ooc #I wrote you an essay sakrine im sorry #&& as best i can; answers

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