#like you know when you look up your own post on your own blog and it doesnt show up???? bugs me sm

[stellasdrafts]

The Light in His Eyes (Vendetta! Leon)

Summary: you have each other’s backs (Vendetta! Leon x DSO!Reader)

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: alcoholism (on Leon’s part), some vendetta leon comfort because that man needs it :(, no official relationship but mutual feelings are implied, pining…

Notes: a small Christmas-ish one-shot in january because it’s my blog and i make the rules (i forgot to post in december whoops). also sorry this one is christmas specific but christmas lights are very special to me and i wanted to write a little something about them <3

One of these days, these missions are going to kill you. You’re sure of it. You find yourself sitting on a rooftop overlooking the city, needing some fresh air after almost getting your head bitten off on call today. Being a D.S.O. agent isn’t for the faint-hearted and truth be told, sometimes you aren’t sure how you got this far in the first place. You close your eyes, deeply breathing in the cold, stuffy city air and listening to the night traffic below. What would it be like to live a normal, quiet life? For your only burden to be being stuck in the traffic below on your way home from your safe nine to five? Your heart aches when you have thoughts like these…

You’re snapped out of your mournful contemplation when someone clears their throat behind you. You whip your head around, startled. You barely register your fists clenching and muscles tensing up, ready to throw a punch or something, your tired brain registering the sound as the grunt of an infected.

“S’just me.” Leon lifts his hands, traipsing toward you. “Can I join?”

Your shoulders slump with relief. Truth be told, you wanted to spend time alone tonight, but Leon happens to be the one who saved your life today and you figure you owe him this much. “Mhm.” You nod and pat the freezing concrete beside you.

He takes the offered seat and leans back, propping himself on his arms. His warmth carries through the cold wind and seeps through your jeans. He’s only an inch or two away, after all. Despite your previous sentiment, his presence is oddly soothing. You’ve never met anyone as good as him in your field of work. He makes you feel safe, like somehow, you’re immortal in his presence because he always looks out for his team. It’s impossible, really. You know it’s a childish and dangerous mindset to have in this line of work, but there’s just something about him. You wonder how much that selflessness is destroying him from the inside….

Actually, the habituality of the liquor on his breath may already give you an idea.

“Quite a view, isn’t it?”

“Hmm?” You look up at him, noticing how his eyes are fixed on the sea of tall buildings before you. “Oh, yeah… I like the lights. I’ve always liked lights.”

A grin tugs at his lips. “Oh yeah?” He shifts to rest on one knee to get a better look at you.

You feel yourself melt under the older agent’s gaze. “Yeah. All kinds of lights…”

He just watches you for a moment and you find yourself silently cursing the extensive psychology training the government’s had you D.S.O. agents do. You’re sure he can read you like a book, seeing through the façade you’ve been tirelessly trying to keep up. He has his own, after all.

He looks out at the few festive lights wrapped around balcony railings and trees standing proudly in windows. “Like… Christmas lights?”

That reaches you. You turn your head to look at him with a dopey smile. “Especially Christmas lights. I miss them a lot.”

Your nostalgia must be contagious because he smiles at you too. You never see him smile anymore. In your few years of working together, you’ve never known him to be an extraordinarily sunny man, but it had worsened recently. Little to your knowledge, he likes seeing you smile, especially when it’s directed at him. “I didn’t know you liked Christmas so much. Maybe I should buy you a tree and some lights this year,” he jokes lightly.

You shrug, your smile fading a bit. “We never stay in one place long enough… And people don’t celebrate as much as when we were kids. It wouldn’t be the same.”

His expression softens considerably when he notices the shift in your demeanour. His lips pull into a much more familiar tight frown, his shoulders dropping a bit as well. “Yeah, I guess so…” he pauses for a moment, debating his next words. “We could make our own tradition, you know?”

You tilt your head, your smile fully sarcastic and sour now. “Sure. If we’re both still alive by holiday break.”

He grimaces, evidently not liking the sudden grim attitude, even if it carries truth. Ironic, you find yourself thinking, for a man with his attitude. “Don’t talk like that,” he chides softly, wrapping an arm behind you and dragging you a twinge closer. “I’m not letting you die anytime soon.”

And you know that coming from his lips, that’s a vow, not a weak promise. You lean into his warmth, the cold wind hitting you again now that you’re no longer in your cozy bubble of colourful lights and denial. “Right. Sorry…”

“It’s alright.” He gives your side a reassuring squeeze and resumes staring out at the dark skyline.

The two of you sit in comfortable silence for a minute or two, admiring (perhaps longingly) the people going about their lives in their apartments and offices. Parents putting their children to bed, couples cooking together, families watching what you self-indulgingly believe to be holiday movies in their decorated living rooms… Even the young man working alone at this hour of the night seems to sit with some sense of serenity. All possibilities of the lives you and Leon could have had if you hadn’t been pushed into the claws of the genius Division of Security Operations. He sighs – if in soul-crushing envy or in momentary peacefulness, you can’t tell. But his whiskey-ridden breath is warm and a welcome contrast to the cool winter night air.

You chew at your lip, getting a bit nervous. “You smell like booze,” you remark quietly.

“I know.” He chuckles and you know it’s a piss-poor attempt to cover how uncomfortable the topic of his drinking makes him feel. “You got a problem with that?” He scratches his neglected stubble.

You know a slightly hostile question is the best outcome for you. If it were anyone else starting an intervention, we would’ve raised his voice already. You’ve seen it first-hand with some other people on the team. “You’ve got a problem with that, Leon.” You stare blankly at the buildings ahead, your previous fascination and warmth for the sight dampened.

You feel Leon’s body stiffen beside you and his demeanour shifts. You look, and like you, he no longer seems as placated as he was a mere minute ago. His brows tug down and his gaze darkens. “Don’t do that. Not you,” his tone is surprisingly tender for being paired with his current expression.

He knows you mean well. He knows you’re worried about him. But he can’t bear having you look at him like everyone else does, like you have to tiptoe around him or like he’s always incompetent and inebriated. He looks away out of shame. He knows you’re right, but he’s stubborn and also knows that’s led to his downfall more than once.

“Are you even going to remember this tomorrow?”

Leon looks back up, his gaze stormy. His defensiveness gets the best of him, as it usually does in these situations. He’s angry, or at least he’s trying to be. But you’re sitting close enough to spot the gleam of self-hatred in those beloved blue eyes. “Why does it matter if I do or not?”

“Because believe it or not, our conversations actually mean a lot to me.” The weight of your words hangs between the pair of you for a moment. “And it’s dangerous to day drink with a job like ours. We never know when we’ll get called out. It’ll get you killed,” you add to try and save face as if you don’t care more about him than you do the other agents.

He cringes a bit more at that, and his anger falters in favour of discomfort. He sighs and leans an elbow on his knee, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look, I appreciate the concern, but you don’t have to worry about me. I’m fine.”

You tuck your knees up to your chest, even his body heat isn’t enough to cancel out the cold between you now. “That’s what worries me. You act like it’s fine, it’s normal. You don’t even act drunk anymore. You don’t… slur your words or stumble around or vomit everywhere. Apart from being angrier… depressed… you behave normally when you’re drunk.” You turn your body in his direction, trying desperately to get through to him. “You’re not even you anymore. Isn’t that scary?”

He exhales again, letting his hand drop from his face. He knows you’re right. Damn it, you’re always right, but he can never bring himself to admit it. “I… I don’t get what the big deal is. I do my job – well, if I might add. I don’t get into bar fights with random civilians… unless they ask for it. I supply my own drinks and keep to myself. So why’re you worrying?”

You take his face in your hands, your expression softening. Maybe he won’t lie to your face if he’s looking right at it. “Leon, drop the act, please.” From what you hear, he’s a shell of the person he used to be.

His eyes widen with surprise. He doesn’t answer anything for a few moments, your gentle touch making his mind go blank for a second. He can’t remember the last time anyone was gentle with him. He knows he can’t argue when you use that tone or when you have that look in your eye. “Fuck…”

He practically sags onto you as he lets himself feel everything he’s been drowning in alcohol for months. You have an agonizing way of making the tension in his body disappear with nothing but a few words in that honeyed tone of yours.

You support his weight. Like you always do, as he always does yours. Because it’s just Leon. You’d never let him fall, in any sense of the word. “You know, how are you supposed to put up that tree and the lights you offered me if you’re too drunk to make sense of anything? I’m not letting you in my room at HQ if the drinks are making you a grouch, either.”

He does want to give you that, a tree grand and worth being yours, pretty lights you can stare at while you doze off in the evenings, Christmas itself… More than anything, he wants to make you happy. The thought alone makes him happy. He huffs and looks away to hide his smile. “Yeah, yeah. Damn you.”

You let out a breath and a smile of your own, feeling relieved that you got to him at least a little bit. “Try again, please… At least to cut back. We can do it this time.”

He tenses again at your request. It’s not an easy one, and he’s reluctant to agree, not sure if he can even will himself to cut back so easily. But you’re too close, too warm, and you’re using that damn tone in your voice that always gets to him. He wants better for you. For himself, too. A shot at a better life. “I’ll try. Try. For you, alright?”

You hum. “That’s all I ask.” You bring up a delicate hand and brush some of that pesky hair out of his face.

He practically melts into your touch, too tired to bother hiding the effect you have on him. You both know something has been lingering between you for a while, anyway. “Anything else you want from me?” he mutters in a teasing tone, trying to lift the atmosphere he feels he ruined.

You chuckle lightly. “Probably, but we’ll work towards those things later on.”

He perks up at that, a smug smirk toying at his lips as he picks up on the implications of your words. “Y’gotta be a little more specific than that.”

Your eyes soften. Not now. Not like this. “I’ll tell you when you’re sober.” Your timbre isn’t unkind – it’s careful, genuine… You’re trying to encourage him more than anything, knowing he always fares well with a challenge or an end goal.

The muscles in his face ease as well. He gives a small nod. “I’ll hold you to that.”

You feel a spark in your chest of something you haven’t felt in a long time – hope. “So will I.”

You’re more determined than ever to bring back that light to his eyes.

[judesmoonbeauty]

Wrapped In Wicked Romance Part III:

Nica Schwartz - Epilogue

This is a fan translation only. Please expect grammatical errors and translation inaccuracies. This is a full translation. Creative liberties are taken for characterization and smoother translation process. Cybird owns everything. Re-blogs are appreciated, but please do not post my translation elsewhere. Thank you for your support! ☾.

Nica: If that’s what you wish, I’ll always up for it.

The clever, sweet whispers in my ear felt like they were toying with my heart, enthralling me.

(But these aren’t his true feelings.)

I know because I’ve watched him all day.

(This guy whispers sweet nothings to everyone, and plays with their heart.)

I was surprised that he was able to make acquaintances just a few days after coming to England,

(Now that I think about it, I understand why.)

He can skillfully use words to penetrate someone’s heart,

Even if you’ve only met once, you’d remember him.

(Also, women are even more attracted to him.)

I too felt tethered to him, until I witnessed that lady killing her husband.

But, not now.

Kate: …..I don’t want to do that, because if I date someone, I want there to be mutual feelings.

Nica: Well then it’s perfect, because you like me right?

Kate: I don’t dislike you, but….

(It’s true that I’ve deepened my understanding of him by being with him for the day, but….)

(But, I still don’t know much about Nica.)

I grabbed the hand that was holding my chin, and stared him down with a strong determination.

Kate: It’s because you really don’t like me.

Deep indigo eyes ripple for just a moment like the water’s surface.

Kate: I don’t think it’s necessary to lie to yourself just to date.

Kate: Suppose I did like you Nica, and you were okay with it, I still wouldn’t date you.

Kate: Because I might end up hurting you.

Once more, rippling eyes illuminated by streetlights shimmer like waves.

His hand released my chin, and ruffled his hair with a fed up look on his face.

Nica:….You’re really weird.

The small murmur reached my ears, and the fake smile vanished.

Nica cracked his neck with a bothersome look and sighed,

Kate: ….That’s better.

Nica: What?

At least for me, I was a bit happy to see Nica’s true self.

Kate: You’re a friendly and smart guy, and that’s great, but this side of you is even better.

Nica: …..You’re a masochist.

Kate: N-no, I’m not.

Watching me deny it so quickly,

Nica: Haha.

Nica bursts out laughing, smiling like a happy child —

(Huh, so he can make an expression like that…..)

My heart squeezed as my eyes were enraptured.

Nica: Then next time, I’ll go tough on you.

Kate: You don’t have to do that.

He returned to his usual self and smiled suggestively.

Kate: I’m going home!

The clock tower in the distance signals that our relationship will end soon,

I picked up the bouquet of flowers that held today’s memories and turned to leave—

Nica: Kate.

When my name was called for the first time, I automatically turned around,

And Nica used his index fingers to lift the corners of my mouth into a smile—

Nica: We’re still a couple.

Nica: Shouldn’t there be a kiss at the end of a date?

Kate: Uh……

My eyes were fixed onto the lips that drew closer to me slowly,

Unable to break away, his breath reached my lips.

(Oh…..)

The moment his lashes grazed the tip of my nose, his scent intoxicated me —

The sound of the bell tolled, marking our end as a couple.

Nica: Ah, that’s too bad.

He stepped back, his scent dissipating, and to my relief, I returned to my senses.

(Why do I think that’s a little disappointing?)

A cold wind hit my painfully aching body, and I let out a sigh.

Nica: Should we head home, young lady?

お嬢サン - Here Nica is using using polite language with Kate addressing her as “Ojosan.” However, because of the katakana form of -san “サン”, it seems to indicate that he may be saying it with a foreign accent. As far as I'm aware, this is the first instance of him addressing her this way in an event.

— This is our distance.

[Transitions to the palace.]

The next day —

Kate: Harrison, Liam what are you doing here?

Liam: Oh, Kate!

I called out to them both who were at the end of the corridor, leaning against the wall and talking about something,

Harrison looked a bit perplexed.

Harrison: Can I tell you something?

Kate: Did something happen?

Liam: Actually -

According to them, it seems that the target of a mission they were assigned to was killed.

Liam: Seems like he was stabbed by his wife too.

Kate: His wife you say…..

(It can’t be that woman….?)

Even though my heart pounds, they keep speaking.

Harrison: The husband apparently purchased women through human-trafficking, and imprisoned them at his estate.

Harrison: He also raked in money by renting the imprisoned women to others.

Kate: That’s such a……

You can imagine just how the women were treated without even saying it.

Liam: That’s why we received the mission, and thanks to his death, the truth of the estate came to light.

Liam: The women were also freed, and we don’t have to go on a mission, but….

Liam tilts his head with a stumped look, and Harrison lets out a sigh.

Harrison: All the money that guy’s earned is gone.

Kate: Does that mean it was stolen?

Harrison: There’s no money at the bank or the estate, so suspicion’s falling onto the wife.

Harrison looked unsettled about it, but then a possibility popped up in my head.

(If I say something without concrete proof, it would only deepen the rift between Vogel….But, if he —)

(—Perhaps, he might’ve done it)

Kate: Ummm.

At that moment, my eyes met with a figure that appeared at the end of the corridor.

My attention was drawn to Nica who put his finger up to his lips and smiled suspiciously,

Kate: Oh.

Suddenly, a white bird flies by and I instinctively shut my eyes.

After I opened my eyes, he was nowhere to be seen, only a single white feather floating down.

(Nica Schwartz. A cunning person who likes to toy with love.)

(But, I wonder why I can’t dislike him.)

The day when my love is toyed with, may not be that far off.

[Event Master List] Dividers: @.adornedwithlight

Yes, please, I beg you Nica, please treat us more toughly next time!!!!

Tags List: @sh0jun @theimaginativelyreticent @sapphire-323 @velisle @nateko @greatwitchsongsinger @injudescoat @aeyumicore @complexivelovely @drachonia

If you are 18+ and wish to be added to my tags list, please comment below specifying the IkeVil suitor, or for all translations.

[choccy-zefirka]

Emergency Follow-Up Book Club Meeting

[Won't really make sense if you don't read Part 1 first, but Tumblr will hide this post if I add a link, so search "book club" on my blog]

Attending: Bellara, Harding, Lucanis, Neve, Davrin, Taash, Emmrich, Rook

Book: Adventures of Dolor the Daring, Volume 49, by I. L. Literatus Evaraas Mercar (Rook)

Notes taken by: Neve (Bellara was too overexcited to hold a quill)

Notes:

Important preface: This will likely be the serial’s last volume ever to be published. According to the paper sellers and my own sources, there is currently a lot of public outrage around the scene where Dolor gets hit by an enemy mage’s ice spike and, aside from wounding them for dramatic suspense, it also shatters a glamor amulet around their neck, revealing that they were not a human, but a Qunari all along. Reactions from (human) readers have included, to my knowledge: verbose letters to the publisher decrying the serial’s “forced diversity” in character backgrounds, as apparently it was already bad enough that the supporting cast is “teeming” with elves and dwarves; threats to the author as an “agent of the Qun” trying to “falsely paint their kind in a positive light”; laments from anguished mothers that their children will now think that the “oxmen” are all friendly heroes (I would point out that children have no business reading crime serials in the first place, but we know there’s no stopping a particularly determined twelve-year-old with a yearning to see a throat slit); and even high-brow critical essays insisting that Dolor has so far proven themselves to be far too quick-witted and intelligent to be a Qunari.

Rook opened the meeting by going over all of the above; which, according to them, was precisely what they feared when they picked up writing as a hobby. “It didn’t take you too long to figure out that Dolor’s adventures are based on my own,” they said, looking at me specifically (they did not seem angry, at least; though I suspect that Rook has trained their facial muscles not to betray them when they are angry, to put humans at ease). “But do I look like someone these adventures might happen to? In most people’s eyes, at least?”

Bellara and Harding disrupted the meeting to give Rook a hug.

Taash further disrupted the meeting with an offer to beat up every qalaba that made them feel like this. Lucanis supported them and volunteered his services to do it “more elegantly but also more permanently”. The offer was appreciated, but graciously declined.

Davrin asked if Rook regretted revealing Dolor’s true identity. Rook said they did not, and added that it was not a revelation, but a last-minute twist, which never would have happened if it were not for us. “I have been avoiding your book clubs because I was so embarrassed about my little secret… But it turns out I never had to hide it. Not from you.”

BEL, I CAN SEE YOU LOOKING OVER MY SHOULDER. I AM NOT GETTING SENTIMENTAL. I AM JUST KEEPING AN ACCURATE RECORD!

Harding said that she found Dolor’s sendoff to be “quite lovely”, and in her mind, they are still out there, fighting evil mages on the streets of Tevinter as their true self, with their friends by their side.

Bellara stopped trying to contain herself and erupted into enthusiastic gushing about the final scene, where the heroes get a moment to breathe as the villain is dragged away by a very Rana-like templar, and the mage Flosculus gently tends to Dolor’s wounds. In the previous volume, Dolor assumed that their feelings for Flosculus were not reciprocated, and decided to bottle them up. This volume still ends before the two can have an open conversation — but the delicate touches of the healer’s glow-infused hands all across Dolor’s bandaged torso, and the soft whispers asking them to tell him where it hurts “had more spice than the one romance we read that made Lucanis walk out of the room in a straight line”.

I am inclined to agree.

Emmrich laughed at no, that would be too mean-spirited; let’s say, was very amused by Bellara’s stumbling over the word “spice” and told her, “You can say eroticism, dear. That was the intent, after all.”

Rook has quite a few vitiligo spots on their otherwise slate-grey face, and that makes it a little more obvious when blood rushes to their cheeks. Which it certainly did in that moment — as they admitted the healing scene was Emmrich’s idea, and they merely “did their best” to commit it to paper.

To which Emmrich said, “And you described everything marvelously, my darling. I hope you know that all of us in this room are deeply grateful to you for sharing your work with us”.

I am also inclined to agree with that last part. But also, let it go on record that Emmrich held Rook’s hand while talking. If he ever blinks those big eyes at me again and claims that he had “no idea” everyone in the Lighthouse knew about him and Rook, I will just point to the evidence.

The meeting concluded with everyone reassuring Rook that, despite what happened to the Dolor serial, they should never stop writing. Harding even said, tearing up a little, that Varric would be proud. That made Rook blush again; are they finally beginning to process what happened? I cannot be certain.

Once we settled down, dice were rolled to choose the next book. It is Emmrich’s turn now.

Taash begged him, with a groan, not to choose any of the “thousand-page academic shit”. He protested that he has amassed “quite a collection of enjoyable romance stories” over the years — and took Rook’s hand in his again.

I see you, old man.

[stellar-solar-flare]

Congrats on your 200+ followers, Stella! You deserve every single one, and more. 😊

For your dream date drabble event, may I request:

Steve Rogers + a day at Disneyland?

I can’t wait to check out all the drabbles you post! 💜

Thank you Rach, you are so incredibly kind! I immediately knew where this one was going when I read the prompt, so I hope you like it!

This drabble is a part of my 200+ follower celebration, Dream Date Drabble Event.

Every Bit As Magical

Steve Rogers x Avenger!Reader | fluff, romance | established relationship | 567 words.

My blog is for people 18+ only, minors DNI.

Notes: I just love the idea of attentive boyfriend Steve who lives to make his SO happy with everything that is in his power.

I do not own anything Marvel or Disney related. This is an unofficial fan work. No copyright infringement intended. This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.

After years of working with the Avengers Initiative, you were no stranger to being on the Quinjet, but when Steve had insisted on not telling you the destination, you knew this had to have something to do with your birthday coming up this weekend.

And when he had tied your eyes while you’d been somewhere above an ocean, gently whispering that he didn’t want to spoil the surprise as he’d gently put the soft satin covering on your eyes, you’d barely be able to stay in your seat.

He had led you out of the Quinjet, taking your hand in a warm, certain grip. Okay, honey, I’m going to need you to get in the car now, the seat’s right there, that’s perfect, he’d cooed, and even as you had no idea where you were, you couldn’t have felt safer than you did with him.

When the car stopped, and Steve went round to open the door for you and help you out, you were practically bursting with curiosity. You heard a collection of various languages, sounds of a bustling happy place.

“Alright, honey, we’re here,” he said, and you could hear the pride and love in his voice even before he removed the fabric from your eyes. “I love you. I hope you like it.”

There was a spark in the blue of his eyes, and when he moved from out of the way, you saw the building in front of you. The grand, fairytale-like architecture of the hotel would have been recognizable even if it hadn’t been on your Pinterest boards. The five-star hotel right at the gates of the park stood proud in front of you, looking every bit as magical as you’d always imagined.

“Steve… Is this… Are we…” you managed to get from your mouth, certain that you were going to faint any second out of sheer happiness. “You brought me to Paris just so we could visit Disneyland here?”

You turned to him, eyes wide, and the smug smile on his face told you that you weren’t dreaming. He pulled his hand from behind his back, holding two pairs of Disney Ears. Careful as ever, he set the ones that had a polka dot bow on top of your head before leaning in to kiss your forehead.

“I know you always said you wanted to visit,” he said, as he bowed his head to let you put the simple black ears on him. “So I wanted to make that dream come true. Our luggage – I know, Nat helped me decide what I should pack for you – has been taken from the airport here, and we’re booked for the next five days so that we get the full experience.”

It was all you could do to kiss him at that point; simply leap to him, wrapping your arms around his neck and pressing your lips to his. He was laughing, hugging you to him and gently caressing your back.

“I love you so much,” you whispered when you finally felt like he’d gotten the message. “You are amazing.”

He replied with a smirk and then made a theatrical bow, gesturing towards the entrance of the hotel.

“Your suite awaits, Your Royal Highness. Once we check in, you can bring out the immensely detailed park visit plan I know you have, and I shall await your orders.”

Thank you for reading! I always cherish hearing your thoughts, so please leave a comment if you have the time and energy.

[fanficsbysteve]

Note: You can thank @weewoo911 for this idea not leaving my brain so I had to write it before I could continue on my other WIPs. Thank you for this and I hope you enjoy. I’m ignoring the Abby thing because that was BS, and I don’t like it. This will probably be multiple chapters. All from Tommy’s POV cause its more fun to write. Not sure how many chapters though. I'll keep you posted as I write them.

***

Tommy sat at the second floor table, his phone out, mindlessly scrolling through the various apps he had downloaded. Twitter, Tumblr, those kind of apps. The ones where you created a username and maintained some level of anonymity. He loved being able to spend time just looking at things he enjoyed without people knowing what he was doing or who he was. Lately all he had been doing though is reblogging images of actor Evan Buckley. Evan Buckley in “My Heart Yearns.” Evan Buckley in “Christmas in the Poconos.” Evan Buckley in “The Things That Ate You.” Evan Buckley in “What Happens Happened.” This man was currently the king of the B-Movies and Tommy loved every single one of them, owning many of them on DVD or Blu-ray so he could watch them over and over again.

Tommy was a gay man and was coming to terms with his homosexuality. He hadn’t told anyone in his life yet. That wasn’t any of their business. But he was slowly hating himself less as the days progressed. Maybe he would tell someone when he didn’t hate himself as much as he did, maybe Hen would be the best option. She was an out and proud lesbian with a loving wife, she wouldn’t judge him like he judged himself. He felt dirty looking at the pictures he did online. He felt horrible just thinking about the things that he wanted all those men to do to him. Particularly Evan Buckley. That man could do things that weren’t in any holy book to him, and Tommy would probably thank him for it. And it still made him feel dirty inside. Not nearly as much as others. Just a little. Nothing Evan Buckley did could make him feel completely like he was a horrible person going to hell.

So, Tommy was scrolling while they sat around the 118. It was quiet *knock on wood* and Tommy was enjoying the quiet time. They had finished all their various “chores” and Bobby was already cooking some dinner. Everyone knew to leave Bobby alone while he was in the kitchen, “Seen any good movies lately?” Chimney’s voice broke the silent revery that Tommy’s mind had taken. His real name was Howie Han, however everyone called him Chimney. Nobody really knows why, and Chim likes to keep it mysterious. Tommy thinks its because Chimney’s are tall and built well. However, their Chimney is anything but that.

Tommy looked up from his phone, “Nothing really. Just the usual B-movies that nobody really watches.”

“Why do you do that to yourself?” Hen asked looking up over the newspaper she had been reading, “They are always so painfully bad.”

“I know,” Tommy smiled, “But they make me laugh. You never watched Mystery Science Theatre 3000? They basically made a career out of watching the worst movies that cinema has to offer. And they are gloriously bad. Making up commentary for them is half the fun.”

“I’ll just have to take your word for it,” Chim replied, “I took Tatiana to see that new Marcel movie. Can’t remember what I was called but it was ok.”

“I’ll stick to my sappy RomComs and B-movies,” Tommy replied, “They never disappoint me to the point of forgetting a title.”

Tommy went back to his phone. He was on Tumblr right now, curating his queue, enjoying his timeline. It had taken him some time, but he had finally gotten it to the point where he enjoyed just spending hours scrolling, finding new posts for his own blog and queue. He admitted that he was a bit of an Evan Buckley stan account at this point. His posts were mostly either pics of Evan Buckley, gifs of Evan Buckley, videos of Evan Buckley, or stories written about Evan Buckley. He was just so handsome, and it made Tommy’s stomach turn itself over and over. From the tattoos that covered his body in special places, so that adorable little birthmark above his eye. Tommy wanted to plant a kiss on that mark so badly.

Tommy went to the kitchen to get another refill on coffee. He hadn’t slept much the night before but that was his own fault. He had gotten distracted by watching Evan Buckley movies and he just wanted to finish at least one. One lead to another and suddenly it was an hour before he had to get up and get ready for work. Tommy visibly yawned as he poured another cup, “Late night?” Bobby asked while he cooked.

“Just got distracted,” Tommy replied, “Didn’t realize what time it was and just didn’t end up sleeping much. Coffee is my best friend today.”

“I’ve had those nights,” Bobby smiled, “Usually they involved a beautiful woman.”

Tommy choked a bit on his coffee at the face that Bobby made at him, “um…uh…yeah…beautiful woman,” was all that Tommy managed to get out of his mouth before he hurried away, his face beet red.

He sat down in his chair and pulled his phone back out. He went back to his absent scrolling, smiling inside at all the new pictures of Evan Buckley that were appearing online recently. He had gotten a starring role in a TV show that hadn’t been announced yet, but Tommy was a premium member of the Evan Buckley fan club, so he got all the insider information. He admitted that it was childish to have that membership, but nobody knew who he was, and he was the only one who knew he had it, so why not. It got him all kinds of insider information, and he was a Millennial, so he was allowed to do this. Evan was supposed to be filming the pilot for this show he was cast in sometime in the next few months. Tommy would definitely be watching that show.

“Dinner’s ready,” Bobby announced as he put plates of food on the table. They always served family style, taking what you wanted from the plates and passing them along. It was a tradition that Bobby had started. It was never like this during the Gerrard Era or any of the other dozen chiefs they had since. Just Bobby wanted to make the changes that made working at the 118 better.

“So, I have an announcement to make,” Bobby said as everyone had plated up their meal and was starting to eat, “We will be having someone come and shadow us a little bit for the next few months. They will be filming a new show called HotShots soon. It’s a show about firefighters, and they want some of their actors to get some firsthand experience. To add to the realism. The higher ups have approved of this as they feel this would be really good PR for the LAFD. Several different stations have had different actors who have been cast in the show come shadow us for a bit.”

“Any idea who we got?” Chimney piped up, “Hopefully it’s Samantha Callens, I heard she was cast in something and maybe it was this. She can really learn what its like to be a female firefighter from our Hen here.”

“Shut it Chim,” Hen piped up.

“No, we have someone different,” Bobby said. He pulled out his phone to check his emails, “Give me a second here to find it. Ah yes, we have someone named Evan Buckley coming.”

Tommy did a spit take with the coffee he had just been drinking, sending it flying across the table. Nobody was sitting across from them so that was a blessing, “You know that guy?” Chim asked having dodged to the side to avoid the coffee, Chim was in the chair next to the spot opposite Tommy.

“No…not really…he’s just been in a couple movies I’ve watched,” Tommy stuttered, trying to wipe up the coffee he spat all over up.

“Well, he starts tomorrow,” Bobby said, “And I expect everyone to be on their best behaviour.”

Tommy sat down in his chair, his heart racing and threatening to burst out of his chest. Evan Buckley was going to be here, in the 118, with Tommy. Tommy silently took his phone out and looked at the top of his Tumblr page, staring at his username: kinardbuckleyxoxo was all it said. Tommy knew that it was going to be a long few months. Very pleasant. But also, very long.

***

Note: Chapter 1 complete. Chapter 2 the real fun begins. I usually try and make sure that I have at least a buffer of a few chapters going before I post but I wanted to get this out into the universe so that people can let me know if they enjoy it. So, leave me some comments and likes and give me any feedback you want. Also if anyone has a fun title idea, please let me know cause I'm at a loss. (I may have written this in an hour and a half after I woke up and saw the idea from @weewoo911)

[pr0blematic-h0unds]

You are disgusting. Do you have any idea how harmful this is?? Do you have any idea how damaging this is?? You're targeting minors with this kind of content, and your damaging their minds! They'll grow up thinking that this kind of behavior is okay! And the world will be full of incestuous freaks like you! That is not a world I want to live in. I can't believe you people are okay with this. How many people. How many people are like you? How many people think this is okay? Be a normal person and go outside. I can't believe it. What would your parents think?? Would they be okay with you saying this is okay? Why do you even think this is okay? Don't fucking say the "Fiction doesn't affect reality." bullshit. You aren't using this to cope. You aren't using this to have fun. Your using this because your disgusting and want to do bad things to innocent people! Fuck you, unkindly.

Awhh guys look!!! Hosts first hate comment!!!! Lol, funny you think were gonna get affected by a coward who hides behind anon <33333333333

We know were disgusting lolllll, were a lil sociopathic rainbow fag dog who has thoughts that belong in the psych ward on the daily but wdc <3333333333

Also lol we are using this to cope??? Who are you to tell us how we cope with the absolute horrible shit we endured for fucking years. If it doesn't fit your morals womp fucking womp we literally could care less.

Yall think by sending us hate that were magically gonna 'see' how us abusing PIXELS is more wrong than REAL FUCKING VICTIMS LIKE US who survived literal hell when they were at their most vulnerable and unable to do shit but take it.

Yall say you're trying to protect real victims of this shit? Well guess what, most of yall are nothing but double standard assholes who are so stuck up your ass that you ignore the fact that you unapologetically treat us like we deserved that shit. NO ONE, DESERVES THAT SHIT. No matter what they are.

Also, the whole 'targeting kids' thing, im sorry but people tend to forget that fandom space was never intended to take care of kids and be their little safety haven to watch their stupid little pixels waddle around. That is up to their parents, we are not the kids babysitters here to watch them and cater to their young minds.

"It'll damage their minds!!!" Okay?????? Not my problem the fuck?? I could care less because again, NOT MY PLACE TO CATER TO KIDS!!! I'm not gonna drop to my knees infront of a fucking 12 year old and be all:* "OH MY GOD1!1!1 IM SOO SOWWY THAT I POSTED TWO SIBLING CHARACTERS HOLDING HANDS YOUR POOR MIND IS RUINED FORGIVE ME PLZZZZ!!!!!!!!" lmaooo yeah no id rather punch myself in the balls then do that xD

Suck my fat cock and choke on it babe because we cope how we want and little wimps like you are stuck behind your computer heaving and foaming at the mouth because were over here happy and alive just posting little doodles.

Come say this shit off of anon, you won't. If anything you wouldn't even have the balls to say this stuff to our face.

-

Also, we know that you're just copy pasting to other proship blogs ;)

You're not creative, hop off our dicks and take your own advice to touch some grass because it reallllly isn't a good look for you <3

[icelogged]

tagging hayden’s photos with ed tags is extremely irresponsible. stop it.

[delta-piscium]

Trying? Trying??? By learning. By succeeding!

(about this and my text under the cut)

this is very nice actually thank you so much <3 <3 and like, i probably do need to give myself more credit in general but also i am still very much learning and stumbling and figuring digital art out (and for the most part it is so fun)

I’m gonna ramble about this a bit so bear with me and also i apologize lol, but that art was done after a month of getting increasingly more frustrated with everything turning out so badly and eventually realizing that I was trying to 1. copy a certain look/style that i’ve internalized is what fanart and digital art should look like and is very far away from my style/comfort zone 2. i was trying to do everything digital allows without being comfortable with it or understanding it

so (and this took me a month to realize ? ??) i did what i already knew from doing acrylic and oil painting in the past and could somewhat easily transfer to digital without having to know more than the basics, like i didn’t use a lot of the things digital provides or allows for. i used layers for my own peace of mind but without actually needing them and did some color adjusting (honestly, the color adjusting digital lets you do is such a blessing to me) but the only fancy way i really utilized the medium was making it a gif (which is so fun and a lot easier than i would have thought, like honestly watch me make any future art into gifs too) but there are so many things you can do with the medium with settings/effects, different brushes, tools to use in the process etc that i just do not understand what they are or how to implement them so i am very slowly learning digital art as a whole new medium rather than just being able to use it to adapt what i already know

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

If Edelgard starts a war on cats it would be a CATastrophe. Bad pun aside, it really speaks volumes when people are so enamored and defensive about their fave that they're willing to say "racism, genocide and terrorism is good actually". Fiction may not affect reality most of the time, but it exposes views that some people share that makes you go "yikes.".

I can't believe I didn't even think of that when I wrote it LOL.

For people missing the context, this ask is in response to a reply I wrote on another post.

When it comes to media, it's one thing if there's nuance to the situation and it's not as direct (is she being brainwashed? Controlled? Forced? Somehow unaware? Shown to be conflicted about her actions/what she says? etc). In her case though that's not present and she means what she says. Even still, liking her as a character is fine.

It's different when people start using real life situations or making outright harmful rhetoric, which is something they do both to lift their favorite up and to vilify her enemies (which is why they have to reach so hard, and farther than their arms actually can reach to make up reasons to hate Dimitri. It's not him, it's the fact that they hate anyone who opposes Edelgard, and if Edegard wants them dead they also want them dead. Unfortunately that also turned into demonizing those with mental illness).

Fiction in and of itself doesn't affect reality or indicate what a person is like irl, but their behavior toward others is no longer fiction. Story wise you could argue it makes an interesting character to have these flaws and villainous traits, but it's another story entirely when people double down to insist their characters' actions are just and they go into detail to force it down people's throats - 99.99% of the time unprompted, when that character actively associates with people who have willingly and intentionally committed genocide and aims to do the same herself by finishing the job.

Which you'd think she wouldn't because... those same people wiped out all her siblings, but okay. Somehow the CoS is worse than them. I guess bc Agarthans are human at the end of the day, so no matter how inhumane and atrocious their actions are, they get a pass as long as there's a non-human in the vicinity. Racism typically goes hand in hand with genocide, so. Yeah.

It's not even just that though - it's how the arguments go that indicates if a person is just trying to defend their favorite. If they start brainlessly spewing harmful rhetoric at real people, and if what they say would actively defend real life issues, it's concerning. It's the manner in which they defend their favorite. If the way they argue is exactly how American-hard-rights defend themselves, it starts becoming uncomfortable for people and no longer applies to just fiction.

If what you argue sounds exactly what irl politics sounds like, that's a pretty powerful indicator of who you're dealing with. It doesn't matter if they are or claim to be American-left (specifying because Random said it's different in Europe!). If their arguing points shit on all the values American-lefts stand for, they are not, whether they like it or not, arguing for the left (which all stans claim to do, and then they start regurgitating American-right political stances, extremely often at the expense and discomfort of actual American-lefts. Might I remind you that one of them, a straight man, used abortion and gay marriage both being legally in jeoprady as a gotcha to argue for Edelgard).

It doesn't matter what you claim you're doing. If your arguments actually start reflecting things that can be real, you need to be careful about how you word it. Houses deals with a political atmosphere very heavily, which shouldn't have really been a problem... but it got too close to real life politics within the fandom and people's true colors started to show.

It should have been "I love Edelgard but damn some of what she does is fucked up" and not trying to vehemently defend every singular word she's ever said. As I've mentioned in my very lengthy "why the writing failed Edelgard", the writing is partly to blame for people being divided on her, but it's the fans' own faults if they can't draw a line between liking her character and supporting things in a way that makes it sound like you'd support them irl.

It's even worse that all that nonsense picked up really badly right around the time Ukraine got invaded and Putin was out there spewing nonsense. It became a sensitive issue to have people defending Edelgard invading other countries proudly with false claims/propaganda, because the arguments fell perfectly to a T in line with what Putin was doing.

Evidently that didn't matter to the people who never touch grass and waste their time and energy only thinking of defending Edelgard instead of just enjoying her character, but then, they don't really even enjoy her character; they just enjoy their made up version of her who fights for what they want her to fight for instead of realizing what she's actually doing. These people would be damn easy bait for irl politics and it shows. Dangerously.

So for anyone arguing about your fictional favorites, remember that context is important and how you treat the topic(s) at hand are just as important. I absolutely adore a villain just like Edelgard because of good writing, and there are points I can actually defend him (if you've been on this blog for more than like a week you prooOOOObably know who I'm referring to AT THIS POINT lmao). That doesn't mean I'm going to call invasion, racism, etc good and just for his better talking points to be achieved.

In my opinion Edelgard ended up poorly written because the writers wanted to be bias in the context of the story but couldn't properly justify the atrocities. I'll be honest, if this is how they handle (main) female villains, I'd rather just not have them. I'd rather go back to the days of Petrine and Hilda who were side villains and allowed to be as disgusting and horrendous as they wanted.

If writing a lead villain who is female won't work because they can't stop pushing their bias into the writing (don't even look at poor Petra, she got SKEWERED in CF and especially in SB) and it reflects poorly, I just don't want it. I know men at the writing table for some wild reason throughout the years have been unable to properly write females (which like, why. Just write human beings. But no, they seem to act like females are a different entity entirely), but if that's going to remain the case, I don't want them to write them in situations like these because they clearly can't handle it. They treat Edelgard as a trophy wife who has to be perfect for them and not as a complex, legitimate person.

Mind you, I also made a post before about how Edelgard is separated from other female villains by being drawn as "attractive". Ishtar gets treated much better than other female villains as well, with Heroes going as far as to outright shit on canon and give her an alt where she "joins the Liberation Army", which... the whole point of her character and her fighting in that war was that she was on the opposite side but wasn't a bad person. I could argue similar things for Burian, but that's more headcanon/literally based on just his death quote lmfao.

Point being, Ishtar is drawn to be attractive. Petrine and Hilda are not, and are outright villainous, terrible, not complex people at all (Hilda is a hypocrite, but she's not complex). Edelgard was drawn to be attractive, and was thus not treated like a villain proper. Unfortunately this got warped into the fandom we know now, but... like we both said, the way they argue for her is pretty telling and honestly pretty scary. Let's not forget that they've spewed death threats at people simply for not liking Edelgard.

No, that last sentence was not a joke nor an exaggeration. In a way it makes sense though, considering they defend genocide, racism, etc.

[skitskatdacat63]

Yayyyyyyyy finally working on my pinned post :D having fun :D

Its funny to me cause I'll do these super organizational things for fandom purposes and genuinely have fun with it, but then would rather die than be even remotely organizational for school

[double--cross-d]

.

[jimingyue]

Cat Tumblr Dashboard Simulator

🖋️ meowful-musings Follow

🕊️ birdwatching Follow

what's wrong with dry food??? my humans feed me it all the time and i think it's fine

💀 elusivehider-deactivated948204

op wheres the natural feeding option

🌲 outdoorsy Follow

you guys are getting fed?

#im a barn cat so maybe im missing something here #meowtthew don't look

7,192 notes

☀️ pawsitive-affurmations Follow

ITS OKAY TO BE A MOGGIE

ITS OKAY TO BE A MOGGIE

YOU ARE NOT LESS VALID IF YOU ARE NOT A SPECIFIC PEDIGREE!!!!!

☀️ pawsitive-affurmations Follow

extra special shout out to cats who have "common" coat colors. grey tabbies and black cats i am rubbing against your head affectionately <3

🪤 m0usetrap01 Follow

as a grey tabby i really needed to hear this :"3

#i feel like i never see positivity posts for moggies even tho we're the most common type of cat....

154,688 notes

🎵 rage-against-the-meowchine Follow

i cant believe there are cats ACTUALLY advocating for kittens to be separated from their mothers before 12 weeks??? kittens still need to learn how to interact with other cats before being placed into their furever home omg you guys know you're advocating for undersocialized and aggressive cats right

❤️ loving-paws284 Follow

um op some of us??? matured early??????? i was separated from my mother at 7 weeks and i turned out fine... interesting how you assume that kittens being separated from their mothers at a younger age will lead to the degeneracy of the next generation...hmm i wonder where i've heard that before...

🐈 fluffy-the-cat Follow

OP got bit too hard during a play-fight as a kitten and it shows XD

🐟 tunafeesh Follow

also op have you ever considered that just because somecat is kind of scared and unable to deal with strange cats or humans, it doesn't mean they don't deserve to be adopted?? you sound like a vet psyop honestly

🎵 rage-against-the-meowchine Follow

oh meow god saying that kittens should be fully weaned before leaving their mother is NOT veterinarian rhetoric and i never said that they deserve to be euthanized!!! my mother literally died when i was 3 weeks old and it seriously messed up my development so stop putting words in my mouth, thanks

anyway friendly reminder that underweaned kittens are prone to illness and often struggle with basic cat behaviors like litterbox usage, and in some nyavinces it's even considered kitten abuse

#discourse #cant believe "kitten abuse is bad" is controversial now

32,456 notes

🍃 naturalliving Follow

BORN TO DIE

WORLD IS A FUCK

猫神 Kill Em All 1989

I am trash cat

410,757,864,530 DEAD BIRDS

#outdoorliving #outdoorcats please interact #outdoorcat friendly

48,971 notes

🎣 salmonpurina Follow

can't believe cats are uncritically reblogging that born to die world is a fuck post. i know it's funny but op is literally an outdoor cat truther

#like cmon now you just have to go to their blog #lulu speaks

34 notes

💀 tabbystripes-deactivated098712

gentle reminder that pushing cups off the table is not cute and can cause a lot of distress in your human!!!! gentle reminder that our teeth and claws can easily hurt them more than they can hurt us!!!!

🐰 evil-tabbystripes Follow

evil reminder that the cup should always be pushed off the table. evil reminder that you should always bite and claw at your human no matter what. you can do whatever you want forever

💀 tabbystripes-deactivated098712

make your own pawst

💀 laser-point-deactivated8574721

umm i know a tomcat who did that and his human ended up putting him down so...

👬🏻 nyasunaruenjoyer Follow

Nyaverage shelter cat behavior

#not nyaruto #re-nyab #pickles shut up

545,460 notes

🌈 nyaoi-warrior Follow

saw two male cats sleeping together on the porch today. homeow behavior imo

💡 discourse-meows Follow

hey um what the fuck??? it's really not okay of you to go assuming other cat's sexualities, especially cats you don't even know???? as a queer cat i'm VERYY uncomfortable. real-ass cats didn't consent to your nyaoi fetish, thanks

🌈 nyaoi-warrior Follow

1. i was making. a joak

2. i'm literally gay???

#literally what's your pawblem

7 notes

🎩 amazingcatshow12 Follow

reblog if you've ever caught the laser pointer

🎩 amazingcatshow12 Follow

i know you fuckers are lying

🍭 gaykittens Follow

this tom hasn't caught the laser pointer

🎩 amazingcatshow12 Follow

shut the heull up

988,653 notes

🐾 b-e-a-n-t-o-e-s Follow

grey toebeans >>>>>>>>> pink toebeans and don't let the haters make you believe otherwise

🐁 ladymouser Follow

op shut the fuck up ALL toebeans are beautiful!!! just bc you're miserable and insecure doesn't mean you can bring others down based on things they can't control

🐾 b-e-a-n-t-o-e-s Follow

oh so the cat-human separationist wants to preach to us

[goatsandgangsters]

how to find literally any post on a blog in seconds (on desktop)

there are so many posts about ~tumblr is so broken, you can’t find any post on your own blog, it’s impossible, bluhrblub~

I am here to tell you otherwise! it is in fact INCREDIBLY easy to find a post on a blog if you’re on desktop/browser and you know what you’re doing:

url.tumblr.com/tagged/croissant will bring up EVERY post on the blog tagged with the specific and exact phrase #croissant. every single post, every single time. in chronological order starting with the most recent post. note: it will not find #croissants or that time you made the typo #croidnssants. for a tag with multiple words, it’s just /tagged/my-croissant and it will show you everything with the exact phrase #my croissant

url.tumblr.com/tagged/croissant/chrono will bring up EVERY post on the blog tagged with the exact phrase #croissant, but it will show them in reverse order with the oldest first 

url.tumblr.com/search/croissant isn’t as perfect at finding everything, but it’s generally loads better than the search on mobile. it will find a good array of posts that have the word croissant in them somewhere. could be in the body of the post (op captioned it “look at my croissant”) or in the tags (#man I want a croissant). it won’t necessarily find EVERYTHING like /tagged/ does, but I find it’s still more reliable than search on mobile. you can sometimes even find posts by a specific user by searching their url. also, unlike whatever random assortment tumblr mobile pulls up, it will still show them in a more logically chronological order

url.tumblr.com/day/2020/11/05 will show you every post on the blog from november 5th, 2020, in case you’re taking a break from croissants to look for destiel election memes 

url.tumblr.com/archive/ is search paradise. easily go to a particular month and see all posts as thumbnails! search by post type! search by tags but as thumbnails now

url.tumblr.com/archive/filter-by/audio will show you every audio post on your blog (you can also filter by other post types). sometimes a little imperfect if you’re looking for a video when the op embedded the video in a text post instead of posting as a video post, etc

url.tumblr.com/archive/tagged/croissant will show you EVERY post on the blog tagged with the specific and exact phrase #croissant, but it will show you them in the archive thumbnail view divided by months. very useful if you’re looking for a specific picture of a croissant that was reblogged 6 months ago and want to be able to scan for it quickly 

url.tumblr.com/archive/filter-by/audio/tagged/croissant will show you every audio post tagged with the specific phrase #croissant (you can also filter by photo or text instead, because I don’t know why you have audio posts tagged croissant) 

the tag system on desktop tumblr is GENUINELY amazing for searching within a specific blog! 

caveat: this assumes a person HAS a desktop theme (or “custom theme”) enabled. a “custom theme” is url.tumblr.com, as opposed to tumblr.com/url. I’ve heard you have to opt-into the former now, when it used to be the default, so not everyone HAS a custom theme where you can use all those neat url tricks. 

if the person doesn’t have a “custom theme” enabled, you’re beholden to the search bar. still, I’ve found the search bar on tumblr.com/url is WAY more reliable than search on mobile. for starters, it tends to bring posts up in a sensible order, instead of dredging up random posts from 2013 before anything else

if you’re on mobile, I’m sorry. godspeed and good luck finding anything. (my one tip is that if you’re able to click ON a tag rather than go through the search bar, you’ll have better luck. if your mutual has recently reblogged a post tagged #croissant, you can click #croissant and it’ll bring up everything tagged #croissant just like /tagged/croissant. but if there’s no readily available tag to click on, you have to rely on the mobile search bar and its weird bizarre whims) 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Happy Public Domain Day 2025 to all who celebrate

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/17/dastar-dly-deeds/#roast-in-piss-sonny-bono

In 1976, Congress set fire to the country's libraries; in 1998, they did it again. Today, in 2024, the flames have died down, and out of the ashes a new public domain is growing. Happy Public Domain Day 2025 to all who celebrate!

For most of US history, copyright was something you had to ask for. To copyright a work, you'd send a copy to the Library of Congress and they'd issue you a copyright. Not only did that let you display a copyright mark on your work – so people would know they weren't allowed to copy it without your permission – but if anyone wanted to figure out who to ask in order to get permission to copy or adapt a work, they could just go look up the paperwork at the LoC.

In 1976, Congress amended the Copyright Act to eliminate the "formality" of copyright registration. Now, all creative works of human authorship were copyrighted "at the moment of fixation" – the instant you drew, typed, wrote, filmed, or recorded them. From a toddler's nursery-school finger-painting to a graffiti mural on a subway car, every creative act suddenly became an article of property.

But whose property? That was on you to figure out, before you could copy, publish, perform, or preserve the work, because without registration, permissions had to start with a scavenger hunt for the person who could grant it. Congress simultaneously enacted a massive expansion of property rights, while abolishing the title registry that spelled out who owned what. As though this wasn't enough, Congress reached back in time and plopped an extra 20 years' onto the copyrights of existing works, even ones whose authors were unknown and unlocatable.

For the next 20 years, creative workers, archivists, educators and fans struggled in the face of this regime of unknowable property rights. After decades of well-documented problems, Congress acted again: they made it worse.

In 1998, Congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Act, AKA the Mickey Mouse Preservation Act, AKA the Copyright Term Extension Act. The 1998 Act tacked another 20 years onto copyright terms, but not just for works that were still in copyright. At the insistence of Disney, Congress actually yanked works out of the public domain – works that had been anthologized, adapted and re-issued – and put them back into copyright for two more decades. Copyright stretched to the century-plus "life plus 70 years" term. Nothing entered the public domain for the next 20 years.

So many of my comrades in the fight for the public domain were certain that this would happen again in 2018. In 2010, e-book inventor and Project Gutenberg founder Michael S Hart and I got into a friendly email argument because he was positive that in 2018, Congress would set fire to the public domain again. When I insisted that there was no way this could happen given the public bitterness over the 1998 Act, he told me I was being naive, but said he hoped that I was right.

Michael didn't live to see it, but in 2019, the public domain opened again. It was an incredible day:

https://archive.org/details/ClosingKeynoteForGrandReopeningOfThePublicDomainCoryDoctorowAtInternetArchive

No one has done a better job of chronicling the fortunes of our fragile, beautiful, bounteous public domain than Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle of Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain. Every year from 2010-2019, Boyle and Jenkins chronicled the works that weren't entering the public domain because of the 1998 Act, making sure we knew what had been stolen from our cultural commons. In so many cases, these works disappeared before their copyrights expired, for example, the majority of silent films are lost forever.

Then, in 2019, Jenkins and Boyle got to start cataloging the works that were entering the public domain, most of them from 1923 (copyright is complicated, so not everything that entered the public domain in 2019 was from that year):

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2019/

Every year since, they've celebrated a new bumper crop. Last year, we got Mickey Mouse!

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/15/mouse-liberation-front/#free-mickey

In addition to numerous other works – by Woolf, Hemingway, Doyle, Christie, Proust, Hesse, Milne, DuBois, Frost, Chaplin, Escher, and more:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/20/em-oh-you-ess-ee/#sexytimes

Now, 2024 was a fantastic year for the public domain, but – as you'll see in the 2025 edition of the Public Domain Day post – 2025 is even better:

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2025/

So what's entering the public domain this year? Well, for one thing, there's more of the stuff from last year, which makes sense: if Hemingway's first books entered the PD last year, then this year, we'll the books he wrote next (and this will continue every year until we catch up with Hemingway's tragic death).

There are some big hits from our returning champions, like Woolf's To the Lighthouse and A Farewell to Arms from Hemingway. Jenkins and Boyle call particular attention to one book: Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, its title taken from a public domain work by Shakespeare. As they write, Faulkner spoke eloquently about the nature of posterity and culture:

[Humanity] is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance…The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

The main attraction on last year's Public Domain Day was the entry of Steamboat Willie – the first Mickey Mouse cartoon – into the public domain. This year, we're getting a dozen new Mickey cartoons, including the first Mickey talkie:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mouse_(film_series)#1929

Those 12 shorts represent a kind of creative explosion for the Disney Studios. Those early Mickey cartoons were, each and every one, a hybrid of new copyrighted works and the public domain. The backbone of each Mickey short was a beloved, public domain song, with Mickey's motion synched to the beat (animators came to call this "mickey mousing"). In 1929, there was a huge crop of public domain music that anyone could use this way:

Blue Danube, Pop Goes the Weasel, Yankee Doodle, Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, Ach Du Lieber Augustin, Listen to the Mocking Bird, A-Hunting We Will Go, Dixie, The Girl I Left Behind Me, a tune known as the snake charmer song, Coming Thru the Rye, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Auld Lang Syne, Aloha ‘Oe, Turkey in the Straw, My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean, Habanera and Toreador Song from Carmen, Lizst’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, and Goodnight, Ladies.

These were recent compositions, songs that were written and popularized in the lifetimes of the parents and grandparents who took their kids to the movies to see Mickey shorts like "The Barn Dance," "The Opry House" and "The Jazz Fool." The ability to plunder this music at will was key to the success of Mickey Mouse and Disney. Think of all the Mickeys and Disneys we've lost by locking up the public domain for the past half-century!

This year, we're getting some outstanding new old music for our public domain. The complexities of copyright terms mean that compositions from 1929 are entering the public domain, but we're only getting recordings from 1924. 1924's outstanding recordings include:

George Gershwin performing Rhapsody in Blue, Jelly Roll Morton playing Shreveport Stomp, and an early recording from contralto and civil rights icon Marian Anderson, who is famous for her 1939 performance to an integrated audience of over 75,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial. Anderson’s 1924 recording is of the spiritual Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.

While the compositions include Singin' in the Rain, Ain't Misbehavin', An American in Paris, Bolero, (What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue, Tiptoe Through the Tulips, Happy Days Are Here Again, What Is This Thing Called, Love?, Am I Blue? and many, many more.

On the art front, we're getting Salvador Dali's earliest surrealist masterpieces, like Illumined Pleasures, The Accommodations of Desire, and The Great Masturbator. Dali's contemporaries are not so lucky: after a century, the early history of the works of Magritte are so muddy that it's impossible to say whether they are in or out of copyright.

But there's plenty of art with clearer provenance that we can welcome into the public domain this year, most notably, Popeye and Tintin. As the first Popeye and Tintin comics go PD, so too do those characters.

The idea that a fictional character can have a copyright separate from the stories they appear in is relatively new, and it's weird and very stupid. Courts have found that the Batmobile is a copyrightable character (Batman won't enter the public domain until 2035).

Copyright for characters is such a muddy, gross, weird idea. The clearest example of how stupid this gets comes from Sherlock Holmes, whose canon spans many years. The Doyle estate – a rent-seeking copyright troll – claimed that Holmes wouldn't enter the public domain until every Holmes story was in the public domain (that's this year, incidentally!).

This didn't fly, so their next gambit was to claim copyright over those aspects of Holmes's character that were developed later in the stories. For example, they claimed that Holmes didn't show compassion until the later stories, and, on that basis, sued the creators of the Enola Holmes TV show for depicting a gender-swapped Sherlock who wasn't a total dick:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/dec/22/lawsuit-copyright-warmer-sherlock-holmes-dismissed-enola-holmes

As the Enola lawyers pointed out in their briefs, this was tantamount to a copyright over emotions: "Copyright law does not allow the ownership of generic concepts like warmth, kindness, empathy, or respect, even as expressed by a public domain character – which, of course, belongs to the public, not plaintiff."

When Mickey entered the public domain last year, Jenkins did an excellent deep dive into which aspects of Mickey's character and design emerged when:

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/mickey/

Jenkins uses this year's entry of Tintin and Popeye into the public domain to further explore the subject of proprietary characters.

Even though copyright extends to characters, it only covers the "copyrightable" parts of those characters. As the Enola lawyers wrote, the generic character traits (their age, emotional vibe, etc) are not protected. Neither is anything "trivial" or "minuscule" – for example, if a cartoonist makes a minor alteration to the way a character's pupils or eyes are drawn, that's a minor detail, not a copyrightable element.

The biggest impediment to using public domain characters isn't copyright, it's trademark. Trademark is very different from copyright: foundationally, trademark is the right to protect your customers from being deceived by your competitors. Coke can use trademark to stop Pepsi from selling its sugary drinks in Coke cans – not because it owns the word "Coke" or the Coke logo, but because it has been deputized to protect Coke drinkers from being tricked into buying not-Coke, thinking that they're getting the true Black Waters of American Imperialism.

Companies claim trademarks over cartoon characters all the time, and license those trademarks on food, clothing, toys, and more (remember Popeye candy cigarettes?).

Indeed, Hearst Holdings claims a trademark over Popeye in many traditional categories, like cartoons, amusement parks, ads and clothes. They're also in the midst of applying for a Popeye NFT trademark (lol).

Does that mean you can't use Popeye in any of those ways? Nope! All you need to do is prominently mention that your use of Popeye is unofficial, not associated with Hearst, and dispel any chance of confusion. A unanimous Supreme Court decision (in Dastar) affirm your right to do so. You can also use Popeye in the title of your unauthorized Popeye comic, thanks to a case called Rogers v Grimaldi.

This all applies to Tintin, too – a big deal, given that Tintin is managed by a notorious copyright bully who delights in cruelly terrorizing fan artists. Tintin is joined in the public domain by Buck Rogers, another old-timey character whose owners are scumbag rent-seekers.

Congress buried the public domain alive in 1976, and dumped a load of gravel over its grave in 1998, but miraculously, we've managed to exhume the PD, and it has been revived and is showing signs of rude health.

2024 saw the blockbuster film adaptation of Wicked, based on the public domain Oz books. It also saw the publication of James, a celebrated retelling of Twain's Huck Finn from the perspective of Huck's enslaved sidekick.

This is completely normal. It's how art was made since time immemorial. The 40 year experiment in life without a public domain is at an end, and not a minute too soon.

You can piece together a complete-as-possible list of 2025's public domain (including the Marx Brothers' Cocoanuts, Disney's Skeleton Dance, and Del Ruth's Gold Diggers of Broadway) here:

https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/cce/

[hayatheauthor]

10 Subtle Ways to Show Love Without Saying “I Love You”

Subtle gestures can convey deep affection and understanding without the need for words. Here are 10 subtle ways to reveal just how much your character cares, without using words:

1. Surprising Them with Their Favorite Snack

Character A notices Character B eyeing their favorite treat at a store/party, and later surprises them with it, showing they're paying attention to the little things.

2. Fixing Something Without Being Asked

When B's favorite [object] breaks, A quietly repairs it and leaves it for them to find. This doesn't have to be about objects, e.g. issues like not having a ride home and A picks them up without B asking.

3. Leaving a Hidden Note

A slips a small note into B's bag or coat pocket, something sweet or funny; could be good after a minor fight, or if B has a dangerous career.

4. Covering Them with a Blanket

B falls asleep on the couch, and A drapes a blanket over them gently. Again, cute if it's after a fight.

5. Warming Their Hands with Theirs

On a chilly day, A takes B’s cold hands into their own without a word, offering warmth and comfort.

6. Offering Their Jacket

As B shivers in the cold, A instinctively hands over their jacket without waiting to be asked. Post-fight cuteness x3

7. Cleaning Up After a Tough Day

B comes home exhausted, and A has already tidied up the space. Great if they're married with kids.

8. Brushing Something Off Their Face

When B has a strand of hair or speck of dust on their face, A gently brushes it away; a classic, intimate action.

9. Waiting Up for Them to Get Home

A stays up late just to make sure B gets home safely, greeting them with a warm smile or a cup of tea when they walk in.

10. Running an Errand They Dislike

Knowing B dreads a particular chore or errand, A does it for them without making a big deal, or when they’re stressed/sad. 

Looking For More Writing Tips And Tricks? 

Check out the rest of Quillology with Haya; a blog dedicated to writing and publishing tips for authors!

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Hello, Tumblr. 

If you joined us before November 2022 and predominantly post on web, you will be familiar with the two post editors—the legacy editor and the “new” web editor (formerly known as the “Beta editor”).

Beginning May 15, we’ll gradually be working to remove the legacy editor as an option for creating new posts. New posts created on web will be created in the new web editor. We hope to complete this change by July 15. 

This change only affects accounts created before November 2022. Newer accounts already default to the new web editor.

This will not affect posting on the apps because we switched to this new editor on the apps about four years ago. If you use the apps, you’ve been using the new editor all this time!

This will not affect what you can include in a post, only how you get there: You can still include all the different types of media in a post, only now, you’ll do that via the new web editor’s content blocks instead of selecting a post type from the post type bar at the top of your dash. So, if you’re halfway through a text post, and you decide that what this post really needs is your pet reptile, then click on the little red image icon in the post editor, select an image, and voilà. Lizard boy steals our hearts.

If you still prefer to post on web using the legacy editor, please keep reading because the rest of this post is for you.

How can you prepare for this change?

Once we have completed this update, you won’t be able to create posts using the legacy editor. You will be able to edit posts made using the legacy editor, at least for now. 

Start using the new web editor ahead of the switch. This will help you help us troubleshoot any issues you might encounter. It’ll also mean you’ll already know the ropes before the switch is final. 

Talk to us. Send us feedback. Especially if you’re switching from legacy to the new web editor. We want to hear about your experience: Are there any specific workflows or features in legacy that you want to see in the new editor?      

If you use a theme, make sure to check whether it supports posts made using the new web editor, and update it if that’s not the case. 

For those of you trimming reblogs: @rpschtuff has created an incredibly detailed master post that gets into the nitty gritty of that practice in the new web editor.

XKitters: XKit Rewritten was explicitly designed with the new web experience in mind. This means that you will need to use XKit Rewritten when creating posts in the new web editor.

That’s all for now. Remember, you can always get in touch with us. If it’s regarding the new web editor, then Support is the place for you. If it’s about something else, @wip is your guy.