#such unpleasant people how are they allowed to be the first interaction for people feeling scared and in pain

[annaraksta]

the two nurses working in my GP's office are like a spiteful witch and an unkind troll (both evil) that I have to battle to get through to my nice and professional doctor

[darkfictionjude]

Okay so I know this is a touchy subject already especially since certain people have already been bitchy about it before, but sometimes Crowny is genuinely difficult to play as. I feel super conflicted about them since they're the literal personification of "damn bitch you live like this?"

Realistically, progress isn't linear and different people get different results even if they do the exact same thing, but as of now it feels like they aren't really allowed to improve at all. If you study you're still mediocre leaning towards bad in terms of understanding. You try to workout you see absolutely no results, not even the tiniest bit. When it comes to the other characters, it's always one step forward and two steps back. When you give them a hobby or try to get them to pick up a skill they find little enjoyment. When people bother them they barely fight back or even argue, and when they do it's like a sarcastic quip or a grumble at most. By the end, they haven't even made a dent. These don't make them less of a person and it doesn't make them a failure since the world is quite literally out to get them, but it's like they aren't allowed any satisfaction in their life. (Yeah it's been like a month, maybe barely scratching two in the current timeline so maybe this contradicts what I first said about progress but I'm dumb as hell)

It's wild to go from the side quests, backstory segments, interactions with the ROs and then Crown family just for all the hype to fade when there's a segment with just Crowny all alone. I know that there's a reason for why they are the way they are, but I literally have to take breaks from reading their solitary moments sometimes because it seems to drag on. I know things aren't easy in this universe, I know the world is supposed to be cruel and unfair, but like can they at least get a cake for their efforts? Or a hug? Or be able to sleep through one night and wake up well rested?

I hope I'm not sounding like an asshole or a insane here. Personally, they're relatable in a lot of aspects. I may not have had supernatural shit going after me, but I had a lot of issues that many of their experiences brush way too close to. It's just the way it's presented that makes them feel like they're like the random piece of chewy cartilage in an otherwise perfectly cooked steak, unpleasant but I'm gonna eat it anyway.

I literally just wrote a whole ass book complaining, but I at least wanna say I do love your work, Crowny included even if my words seem to say otherwise, and I'm super excited to see what happens in the timeskip since i know this is like JUST the beginning. I'm like seriously praying my tone is coming off the right way if that's even possible. If you read through all this thanks. I'm not gonna hide behind anon because I at least wanna be able to explain myself if this comes across wrong.

but like can they at least get a cake for their efforts? Or a hug? Or be able to sleep through one night and wake up well rested?

Well no 😭😭

And that comes from the fact that they are self loathing, depressed as hell and have virtually no support system while dealing with things that they aren’t mature enough to handle, actually their mental health is getting far worse which is by design

I feel like perhaps some readers have not realized just how depressed crowny is. All the things you described about them finding little enjoyment, etc., are key markers of major clinical depression

I feel also people did miss the fact that crowny kind of exploded in the library they didn’t shut up, they didn’t let it go which I think is a positive because this is the first time they’ve have enough to say “enough”

Sorry but I like my things slow burn 💀 that Halloween party is meant to be a breakthrough for them and I think perhaps it’s been glossed over by some because what happened to James has gotten the most attention and the final moment in the woods. Crowny outed their “friends” for the first ever and fought back against their tormentor in only one single night. James for all his issues did the one thing that broke the camel’s back and pushed Crowny over the edge, all 7 episodes have led to this

Crowny is meant to fall before they come up that’s how I wanted it because realistically someone could not handle all of this without losing their mind. It has barely been two months, Crowny has only seriously hit the main plot in episode 4 which in the current timeline was about 3 weeks ago (from episode 7)

Truly the progress that crowny did make in episode 7 should have taken longer, people with crowny’s issues spend years in therapy before they feel they have the right to fight back.

There’s a reason episode 7 is the midseason finale. It’s not only about the plot but about crowny themself….

Dw you’re tune is fine I can usually tell when someone doesn’t think before they write 😭

[velvetvexations]

@ anon who was recently harmed by cis men and is struggling not to fall into misandry (or anyone else facing a similar thing).

As someone who has faced a lot of trauma at the hands of cis men, this is how I avoid falling into "all X are inherently evil" type thinking.

Trauma wants to help keep you safe, and part of what it's doing is going "the people who hurt you were cis men, and therefore someone being a cis man makes them dangerous". Which is an understandable conclusion to reach, but it's not actually useful for keeping you safe. The goal from here would be to notice what actions the cis men did that made them dangerous.

In my case, a lot of the cis men who hurt me choked me without asking my consent first. So when I notice myself having thoughts of "all men are evil" I redirect to "all men who choke their partners without asking for consent are evil" and if I can I try to go from that to "no one is inherently evil, but people who choke their partners without asking for consent are committing sexual assault and ignoring other people's boundaries, and regardless of if they're a good or bad person I would not feel safe around someone like that and I don't need to allow people who disrespect boundaries into my life" or the classic "it's not all men it was a few bad hookups/some bad exs". Notice your brain trying to broaden the generalization, and remind it that it's not actually helpful to go from "a few X have been untrustworthy in prior experience" to "all X are inherently untrustworthy", and bring it back as best as you can to the specifics.

Validate that your brain is trying to keep you safe. Focus on actions that people do when assessing whether someone might be dangerous like if they ignore when people tell them no, instead of falling into the trap of thinking that someone's identity has anything to do with whether or not they are safe. It's easy to fall into that line of thinking because "every cis man is inherently untrustworthy" is less effort than "I need to be mindful every time I interact with a cis man for potential hints that they might be dangerous", but you gotta remember that 1) people are not going to react well if you are distrustful or unkind to them for something outside of their control/that they haven't actually done and 2) it leads to a self fulfilling spiral of (in this case) cis men being unkind because they feel your hostility leading to you becoming more hostile leading to more mistreatment and that's a very unpleasant place to be in and a difficult position to get out of.

And like I get it. Trauma is hard. It's not fair that other people hurt you and now you have these sharp edges you never asked for. It can feel unfair to be hurt and then have to put in all this effort to take care of yourself and to not hurt others. I highly support complaining about needing to be the bigger person and how unfair this all is the entire time you're putting in the effort to do better. But also please know that despite how unfair it is and despite how difficult it is and despite how you shouldn't even be in this position in the first place, it is worth the time and effort it takes to help make the world feel safer again. To help yourself feel safer in this world.

Tl;Dr: the "all X are evil and inherently untrustworthy" is your brain trying to keep you safe, but is ultimately unhelpful in doing so. Focus on the specific actions/choices people have made that show you that they're unsafe to be around and why. Do your best to remember that a few shitty people don't represent their demographic, so complain about the specific shitty people and/or the awful things they do not the demographic they're a part of.

love this <3

[theteasnake]

I'm once again talking about Danny Johnson because fucking brain rot.

But also character analysis because that's how I show love to my favorite (comfort) characters. 🩵

I swear I'm not trying to flood the Danny tag.

I've seen a lot of characterization of Danny, ranging from abusive and manipulative to a man whore who's a perv.

And I'd like to throw in: just a very tired dude who happens to be mentally unwell.

The only thing keeping this guy from offing himself is his hobbies, which just so happens to be creating stories and murdering. Like, if things went differently and he didn't turn to murder, he'd probably just end up a horror writer (good ending).

Other than stories/killing, he has adrenaline, but those almost always end in a crash. And at some point, he's gotta settle down for bed.

He's never made any meaningful connections to anyone outside of his dad, and even then, it seemed very... unpleasant and complicated. Even he can't tell if he has positive or negative feelings for his dad.

Even if he interacts with other people, he's still isolated because they don't know the real him. He's people-pleasing to the max because his livelihood and survival depends on how likable he is, because why would such a nice and young man commit all these murders all over the country? The same can be said about him and his dad, he had to be what his dad wanted him to be. It's not said if his dad was physically abusive, but military dads who came back from war tend to have a track record of being unkind to their sons.

I don't think he's ever felt a moment of relaxation or peace. He constantly has to watch others and keep a distance, and even when he's alone at home, all he does is sit and stare over his work. He has no sense of identity outside of his murders and stories.

I also saw that the developers called him narcissistic, mainly as an insult, and I don't know much about NPD (I've seen others say he has symptoms and most likely has it), so I can't comment on that. But I don't think the insult is even justified, he's not using others for his own needs, he keeps others at arms length because as soon as someone gets too close, he's done for. He also doesn't seem to be too showy with his work outside of his Ghostface persona, it's even said that he's only written some of the articles on GF (meaning his job in Roseville).

I doubt he's even been in a genuine romantic relationship. He's probably entertained the idea just to keep face or to blend in more because it would be weird for a young guy to not be looking for a girl to settle down with.

Not to mention the exhaustion from getting up early, working a 9-5, then staying up late to stalk/kill, then having to constantly play a character and following a script almost 24/7, while being on alert nearly his whole life. Then then suddenly being thrown into a slower pace environment where he doesn't have to worry about dying or being caught or having to pretend.

I could only imagine the whiplash he had.

Not to mention being labeled the Entity's (basically the god of this realm) golden child and favorite. I wouldn't be surprised if that title also adds stress/pressure.

Sure, he probably enjoyed it for the first hundred or so trials. But eventually everything starts being the same, and it's always the same people each time, and he's only allowed to do so many things in the trials, it eventually gets boring.

He went from taking his time to learn his prey, planning out an extravagant kill to rushing everything and doing things on a whim or following the same script over and over again (check gens, expose people, chase them, hook them, rinse, and repeat).

And we don't know how trials actually work in universe, we don't know if they canonically get breaks or even if the killers get breaks, or if they actually have places to stay in in-between trials, or if they're just overworked with trials back to back to back. We don't know if he is even given a chance to explore things and himself in the realm because he sure as hell never got one in his world.

Tattoos and piercings? Couldn't get them, those are identifiers and he'd stick out, plus it would leave a trail (idk in the 90s, but I had to give up ID to get my tattoo, and certain piercings need ID as well). He would constantly have to change his hairstyle and hair color, along with using makeup to make himself look different (that scar on his forehead is an identifier). He'd be forced to wear clothes that would match his current character's taste, never his own because that would be too consistent. He'd have to change up his way of talking (adding accents, switching up his vocabulary to match the locals, maybe even changing how his voice sounds). Constantly talking about topics he barely knows about because people around him enjoy it, pretending to be in the know to stay in the crowd. The only thing that he knows he enjoys is horror, but even then it doesn't scare him anymore and he only longs for the days when it did (and also probably rock considering his terror radius has some rock elements)

Who is he really? Who knows because he sure as hell doesn't. Maybe even that goofy side is just another facade to make others like him more.

I know a lot of his personality is hidden and not shown because it's supposed to be "it could be anyone" type of thing, but also, that could just play into the fact that he's technically a "nobody". Forever changing and blending in. I doubt even his Ghostface persona is the real him, it's probably just another character in his stories.

[heroes-among-us-all]

Maybe shigaraki having a crush on a league member and he gets her to sit in his lap while he plays video games?

Cute. You were way too goddamn cute. As much as Shigaraki hated to admit it, he'd turned into a lovestruck fool from the moment he laid eyes on you.

When Dabi had first suggested inviting another member into the League, he'd had his doubts. Shigaraki had since grown comfortable with the allies he'd accrued. He didn't want to expand his circle too much. He had a hard enough time trusting people as it was.

Needless to say, when you turned up to the hideout with that adorable smile of yours, he found it difficult to refuse. Obviously, he didn't trust you right from the start - you had to earn his trust, the way everyone else had. But slowly and surely, you made it clear that you were faithful to the League and proved time and time again that your ambitions and desires aligned with his.

Now that it had gotten to this point, Shigaraki could safely say that he had a massive crush on you.

And quite frankly, he hated it. It was an unfamiliar feeling, the likes of which made his stomach clench up uncomfortably. He was used to being in a perpetually shitty mood, but this was different somehow. Even though his chest got all tight when he stared at you for too long, the sensation wasn't wholly unpleasant.

As a result of being in constant turmoil and struggling to make sense of his own warped feelings, he ended up lashing out at you unintentionally.

"Get out of my way," he would snap on one occasion.

"Why do you keep staring at me? If you've got something to say, just say it," he might also sneer.

Put simply, he found it difficult to interact with you, because you brought out weakness in him. You made him feel shaky and uncertain. Timid and withdrawn.

But in spite of all that, you weren't deterred. You were always constantly smiling during every one of your interactions. If his words hurt you, then you certainly didn't let it show. You kept on treating him with kindness and consideration, which was quite frankly more than he deserved.

Shigaraki wanted to act on his feelings, but given that he had no experience in this department, he didn't know how.

So, he decided to stick with what he was comfortable with and use it to break the ice.

"Come in here," Shigaraki demanded. He was your boss, so technically speaking, you had to listen to most of what he said.

You were completely unfazed to have been summoned to his room. As always, you were smiling. Fucking hell, how was it possible for someone to be that cute?

"I'm here," you beamed. "What's up?"

Shigaraki pointed to the spot beside him. "Sit down. Stay here while I play my game."

"Oh. Is that all?"

"Yes," he frowned. "Is there a problem?"

"Not at all!" you chirped, happily bounding over to his side. Just as he'd insisted, you plopped down right beside him, getting awfully close. Shigaraki couldn't deny the fact that his heart was going crazy right now.

He gripped his controller a bit tighter. "Okay. Just stay there. Watch me beat this level."

His red eyes flickered towards the screen of his TV instead of staring at you. It was better this way. It was better for him to have something to focus on while the two of you interacted, otherwise he would risk making a fool out of himself.

Unfortunately, even his endless video game prowess couldn't quite compensate for how distracting you were. You were sitting so close that your shoulders kept brushing up against his, and apart from the low volume of the TV, the room was almost deathly quiet, allowing him to hear every soft exhale you let out.

Even worse, he started feeling stupidly self-conscious for some reason. He suddenly worried that you might not think he was good enough at the game and judge him for it. These self-deprecating thoughts ate away at him, and he could feel himself playing worse and worse as the minutes dragged on.

Shigaraki swallowed, fingers trembling against the controller. "I can't focus," he admitted. "I don't usually play this bad."

"What are you talking about?" you laughed. "You're a million times better than I could ever hope to be. It would have taken me more than a week to clear that last boss fight."

There it was again. You were comforting him, the way you always did. Normally, he hated feeling like he was being offered superficial pity. After all, people pretending to give a shit was the whole reason this hero society was a sham. But from you, strangely enough, it always felt genuine. He never had to doubt your intentions or read into things too much.

You actually cared about him. That thought alone was enough to overwhelm him with emotion.

Feeling emboldened by your encouraging words, Shigaraki mustered up the nerve to utter his next sentence.

"I think I'd play better if you were sitting on my lap," he mumbled.

Shit. Why'd I go and say that? She'll definitely think I'm creeping on her now.

But it seemed that you just kept on surprising him. That smile of yours that he'd since come to love didn't falter in the slightest. If anything, it just grew even wider.

"Sure thing," you grinned, and without wasting a beat, seated yourself right in his lap.

Now Shigaraki was panicking for a different reason altogether. He hadn't really thought things through this far. You were actually sitting on his lap. He could feel the curve of your ass pressing flush against his lower half, and already, his face was a mess of crimson hues.

You turned towards him. He noticed that your grin had become a bit more coy. "What's wrong?" you teased. "Isn't this what you asked for? Come on. I want to see you play some more."

"Shut up," Shigaraki grimaced, having to bite back the strangled gasp that threatened to leave his lips. He decided to rise to your challenge and keep on playing, not that it even mattered anymore. He'd already won big-time by getting to be this close to you.

Unsurprisingly, his gaming performance deteriorated even further from that point onwards. You knew exactly what you were doing to him, letting out giggles and wiggling your butt under the pretense of 'trying to get more comfortable'. Shigaraki was trying his damn best to keep his excitement from showing, but he imagined he was probably failing terribly.

"Hey, Tomura," you said suddenly. You placed a hand on top of his and slowly moved the controller out of the way. Your eyes sparkled with mischief. "Is playing video games really all you wanted to do? Before you answer, you should know that I can feel how hard you are."

Shigaraki's blush deepened. Right. You were many things, but an idiot wasn't one of them. Not that he'd really been subtle in the first place.

"I guess not," he admitted, awkwardly avoiding your gaze. "So, then... what else would we do?"

"We could make out," you grinned. Your face moved closer to his, and he had to remind himself not to get too excited and accidentally grab hold of you with all five of his fingers.

"I've never done anything like that before," he said, feeling a touch ashamed by the admission.

But he should have known better. He should have known you wouldn't care, not when you'd treated him more warmly than anyone else in his life.

"It's okay," you hummed, shifting your position on his lip so that you were now fully facing him. You let your arms dangle over his shoulders. "I'll teach you," was the last thing you said, pressing your lips against his.

[promethean-spe]

I will soon have the opportunity to play @anim-ttrpgs ’s Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, and already it’s character creation process has greatly impressed me! I firmly believe that a character’s interactions with mechanics are a reflection of the character as a person. Eureka is a game that I feel exemplifies this philosophy very well, and because of it, it prepares players to understand their characters better than other RPGs before they start playing. There are very specific reasons for this namely Eureka is very explicit about what it expects from players, it gives players impactful customization options and it gives mechanical significance to character choices.

Eureka makes what it expects of players very clear. The typical Eureka character is an average person, at least most of the time. They have to have 3 square meals and have to sleep at night, or suffer the very real mechanical consequences. The book dedicates a significant amount of pages to remind the player of this. At character creation this ethos manifests in 2 distinct ways. One is that the character’s total ratings for skills must be equal to the character’s total penalties. For example, you may have a 2 in firearms and a 1 in reflexes (a total of 3 ), this then means you have to assign a total of -3 to other skills. The other is a suggestion, not a rule, that players seriously consider why a character might have a points on any skills, and especially why they should have the maximum rating of 3 assigned to one or more skills. For context 3 is the highest skill one can assign at character creation and is more or less the equivalent of having 10 years of experience or a masters degree (it means characters will only fail 8% of the time!). The latter does something very important by inviting players to be curious about their character. It reframes the question “what can I do to get the best rolls in x?” to “why is my character good at x?” Together with the rules for assigning skills it in turn begs the question “why is my character bad at x?”. As I began filling out the explanations for each skill I even found myself writing in character! This resulted in things like “Everything is easier if no one notices me” to explain a +1 to stealth or “I’ll be blunt…” To explain a -2 to comfort. They’re little details but they help make a character feel more fully formed. In this way Eureka has players give their characters tangible reasons for being good at something and unwittingly think about their character’s flaws, and this is just the first step in character creation.

Eureka gives players meaningful character customization that can complement a character’s concept. The trait section is filled with traits that either change how core mechanics work for a certain investigator or add extra bells and whistles to already existing mechanics. This helps investigators lean into their strengths or even their flaws. I’ll give two examples with traits that alter how players earn a crucial in game resource, investigation points. The two traits in question are “Ask Questions Later” and “Just one more thing”. The former makes it so the investigator gains no investigation points from skill checks related to the investigation and instead they gain them for non investigative rolls. In essence this opens the door for characters whose core strengths are their physical fitness to shine! Is your investigator good at breaking down doors and restraining people but is otherwise not as investigatively minded? This trait allows you to lean into that! “Just one more thing” on the other hand makes you lean into your worst stats, by making you even worse at them and rewarding you for it. In essence all social rolls to an investigation, except social cues, get a penalty but you get more investigation points when you fail them. So if you’ve made a socially awkward or unpleasant character, it becomes a flaw you are now encouraged to bring into the fiction as often as you can. Whatever your concept is, there’s a chance that any of Eureka’s over 40 traits will give you a bonus for a character choice you made for mechanical or rp reasons.

Beyond just stats and traits Eureka cares about who your investigator is. I think all the mechanics I’ve touched on so far do that to a certain degree. But if one exemplifies this the best it’s Truths. A truth is a conviction your character has and, when they are adhering to it, they gain a +1 bonus to their next 5 rolls once per scene. It’s uncomplicated, and is not restrictive, your investigator is not expected to always act according to their Truths, but they’re very much encouraged to do so. The best part? By this point a player probably already knows at least one Truth about their character, i knew mine. Remember my character’s explanation for being stealthy? That was one of their Truths “Everything is easier if no one notices me”. This has more or less been my experience for every subsequent character I’ve made. Eureka more so than any rpg I’ve seen wants players to build upon their concept in a way that is coherent.

Many games claim to be “fiction first”. These games are usually very light in mechanics, which is justified because it allows the story to take center stage, so they say. Eureka is by no means mechanics light, but it’s so far the only game that has truly felt fiction first at character creation. I believe the game being opinionated about its own mechanics broadly helps in this regard. It sets up expectations that one can then work within to make their characters more believable. I’m very excited to get to play it

[luvscr]

price, ghost and alejandro reacting to m!reader's sh scars (hcs)

cw/tags: depression, sh, scars, hurt/comfort, angst, fluff fluff fluff, probably ooc characters but idc🫶

apologies for any grammatical erros!

long ass note:

so i got this request which i won't be showing in case it might trigger someone nor will i tag the person who requested this bc im not sure if he would be comfortable with it. i've never written about sh hurt comfort before, simply because i didn't feel like i could do justice for the comfort part but i tried my best and tried to make it not so triggering. your media consumption is your own responsibility, please proceed carefully and do not read if you're not in the right mindset. if you're struggling, i know it's hard but please reach out to a loved one or even me. you're not alone, you matter.

—

price:

it was purely on accident that he saw your scars. he wouldn't mention it to you but he would ask around, people you interact with if they've heard or seen anything. when they asked questions he would simply shut them down or use his rank and pull the "classified information" card. he wouldn't really know what to do, given he's your superior so it was kind of his responsibility, so he got in touch with kate to help him find a therapist. his first instinct is to get professional help if needed. he would invite you to his office so it's just the two of you and make you comfortable, even make you a cup of tea. he would approach the topic carefully and wouldn't force you to tell anything you didn't want to, reassure you that he's not upset, he just wants to help. if you refuse to get a therapist it's okay, he completely understands and will offer you to talk to him instead. he may come off as stern sometimes but it's just because he genuinely cares so much about you and is worried constantly, no matter how old the scars are. he would try to think of alternatives for you to put that energy into if you still struggle and would be there anytime to comfort you. he kinda acts like a dad (like w everyone bruh)

—

ghost:

oh sweet lord this man. he kind of had a feeling when he noticed that even in the hottest weather you only wore long sleeved clothes. he would notice them when your sleeve and the somewhat shorts you had on accidentally rolled up. you just ignored his eyes burning holes through you, given it was normal for him to just stare menacingly at anyone. (not on purpose tho he just looks mean by default) i wouldn't say it would trigger him, but it would definitely stir up some unpleasant feelings inside of him because of his past. he knows exactly how you feel and wants to help you, no matter if you're a friend or just some rando at the base. just like price he would approach the subject carefully, knowing well how hard it is to reach out for help and how it's even harder to open up and actually talk about it. he isn't the best at comforting but he's is a damn good listener and he'll let you know that if you need him don't hesitate to talk to him even if it feels useless. will crack those stupid jokes of his to make you feel better lol tbh i feel like he would be the best kind of person to open up to because he relates so much, he completely understands the feeling of being ashamed of self-destructive activities and would be the sweetest during a relapse. would caress gently the older scars on your body if you allow him to :(<3

he strikes me as a very straightforward person bc of the graves scene. my dude just straight up told the cabrón to stfu (as he should!!) so based on this i think as soon as he sees he's all up in your business. of course not with the intention to make you uncomfortable but he just wants to make sure you're okay and is absolutely willing to help whether it's finding a therapist or just giving a shoulder to lean on. he values every single person in his life and would literally do anything for them and obviously you're no exception. ngl it would be kind of uncomfortable and awkward as you're not used to so much attention especially surrounding your mental health, but he just wants to do good and he's willing to do anything to help and i mean anything. you need a break from work? done. a hug? you don't even have to ask. he will do everything for you if you feel too drained to do even basic things such as cooking meals, helping you shower if you're comfortable with that and etc. basically becomes a househusband for you!

—

alejandro:

[goodluckclove]

Writing Third-Person Subjective POV (A Guide?)

So earlier I asked if anyone wanted me to attempt to give writing advice on anything else. Shortly after that, my editor @xarrixii asked me to provide some insight into what I'll tentatively call third-person subjective POV, which is essentially just third-person limited but with the internal characterization of the narrator baked into the prose itself. They used an example from chapter one of my book Blind Trust, which I'll show below.

I don't really see why Arri suggested this particular passage, so I'll compare it to a bit from the sequel Migration Patterns that I think might showcase the style better.

So this was a strange request to get. Mainly because it never occurred to me that this narrative style would be something anyone would want advice on how to do. It kind of goes against what a lot of other people - online, at least - say about 1st vs 3rd-person POV. I've heard people say it's sacrilegious to have a lack of objectivity in third-person narration. Which is fine. I get that's the thing for some writers.

I'm also certain I didn't invent combining the goals of both POVs like this. I am absolutely a product of all the writers I've ever loved. I will say I've been doing this particular style since I started writing at 12, so when I saw Arri's request my second thought was shit man I genuinely don't know how to explain how I do this or how someone else could do this.

Uh, but I'll try? I'll try.

(No one is allowed to point out the typos in the excerpts below. It's a first draft and I've now analyzed my own work enough that I simply must put away the manuscript for a while)

What draws me about third-person subjective is that it has the personality and character of first-person, but with an added sense of dissociated detachment that I enjoy and relate to. I enjoy the way multiple people can be in the exact same place at the exact same time and take in their environment in entirely different ways.

I'm in a cafe right now, late afternoon. It's a little warm. Sunlight through the windows. Wooden chairs, wooden tables. It's mostly empty. There is a mural on the wall of what I imagine to be an Italian shore side.

This is an objective description of my surroundings, but what I enjoy doing is seeing how they change depending on who's experiencing them. If I were wearing different clothes it would probably be too hot, and mixed with the hard chairs and the height of the table I might end up fidgeting a lot - perhaps creating some slight sense of anxiety. The mural might provoke an unpleasant or wistful memory in me. Maybe I got drunk the night before, so drunk that I'm no hungover to the point where the unobtrusive light and conversation the next table over are unbearable to me.

Maybe everything is fine in the cafe, and it's a beautiful blue day, and the barista gave me a second free cappuccino because the first one she made didn't have the white chocolate syrup I suggested. But all of it feels vacant and lifeless because, just the night before, my wife was sacrificed to the Outer God Nyarlathotep. There are plenty of circumstances, external and internal, that might change the way a character perceives the settings they're in and the people they interact with.

And I just personally think it's fun when the narrator at the time clearly isn't addressing that their inherent bias plays a role into this. It's literally baked into their perception of reality, so much so that the prose doesn't treat it as an exclusive thought. it's just how they see the world. They either don't realize it, or they know and either accept it or decide not to think about it too hard.

I can use Songbird Elegies as an example. I truly don't like when writers use their own work as examples while giving advice, but since it's in the context of something I specifically do, I'll give myself a pass. Uh, in Blind Trust, the central POVs are Edgar, Scott, Katy, and Tenzin. I refine this a little more in Migration Patterns, with each chapter showcasing an Edgar and Scott POV pairing or a Katy and Tenzin POV pairing. I'll occasionally throw in a moment where the reader can follow Regina (Scott's mom) or Ollie, mainly in a particular sequence where I think breaking the existing rhythm creates a striking effect.

It's definitely possible another reason why I do this is because I don't feel super confident in the distinction between characters in terms of dialogue. I'm sure it's there. I've at least been told it's there. But I think the separation in terms of narrative style is far stronger.

So far Edgar Gallows (POV in the first excerpt) tends to perceive things a little more poetically. A lot of the way they see the world is sort of - grumpy brooding? Like angsty, but not in a sexy way? There's definitely an undercurrent of a severe anxiety disorder. They will also get really into describing food.

The second excerpt is following Ollie Goose Bergeron, the Head Distiller of Bluerose. It's the only part in the series so far that is directly from her POV. I think what I posted is a decent example of how her brain works - at least while she's in Professional Adult mode. She's got a sharp, focused eye and picks up on details quickly. In a crisis situation (Which is what her excerpt absolutely is) she jumps in to take action while still keeping a fairly cool head.

Someone like Katy Delaney is kind of a cross between these two previous mindsets, as maybe seen below.

So Katy's a career server, and she also has an eye for detail - though for entirely different purposes (Mainly to scope which patrons will tip well and which would start shit). She's also kind of snarky by nature, and on this particular day she's in an extra kind of shitty mood.

Writing Tenzin Onyliogwu in third-person subjective is definitely when things start to get a little more complicated. She's very much the most objective narrator - she tries to be, at least. There are moments of poetry, mainly in the many moments in Migration Patterns where she struggles with no longer living in the past and actually interacting with people and moving forward in life. This is incredibly difficult as, unless you're someone she has an established relationship with, she is just terrible at reading body cues and usually has no goddamned clue what to do in certain social settings. As seen below.

Uh. What else? Scott Skylark Kaufman curses more. He swears the most because he decided as a kid that it's a great way to express strong emotions. He also is occasionally very confident about things that are either arbitrary or straight-up incorrect. In Migration Patterns he definitely has the most abstract relationship with the narrative, but I. I don't really know how to get into that.

So I don't really know what else to say. At this point I've analyzed my own writing to the point where I have now started to think that all of my intentions might not actually be expressed on the page at all. But I imagine someone has to think otherwise, otherwise the person on Tumblr who has read Blind Trust twice wouldn't think to bring up how that's a thing I know how to do.

In short? The way I see it, in a multi-POV story, it's cool to express that different narrative characters notice different things. They have a background that effects what they interpret day-to-day events to a degree so profound it might go entirely undressed. This can be depicted through detail choice, word choice, and even sentence structure. They can know they do this or they can not know. Doing this creates a lot of opportunities for contrast as their reality is implied to be different from how they perceive it. It's also a cool way to show the silent growth of a character. It's wacky and free and not usually a crime.

[generalhumancloudalmond]

Part 1: Tea

Part 2: Friendship

Ending 1: White lilies

...

Red lycoris

Platonic!Yandere!Mori x Child!Fem!Reader x Platonic!Yandere!Dazai

Dazai didn't like your interaction with Mori since the days of the underground hospital. It made him feel an unpleasant mixture of jealousy, fear and anger. The reason for this was, mostly, that Dazai perfectly understood the calculating nature of former doctor, the teenager knew how convincing Mori could be if he wanted to get something. And this is why he should have found you before him, that's what he thought, until he found out that the boss has been processing the documents about your adoption for the second week.

"You didn't tell me you'd already found her, boss."

"Dazai, I can understand your offense, but you didn't tell me you were looking for her either."

"I thought it was obvious that I would be looking for my sister."

Morey shuddered. Today, for the first time, Dazai christened you his sister, as if hinting that he also has the right to be near you. The boss thought for a second, then looked up at the teenager and smiled.

"What is it that turns out? Will I have to call you son when I adopt her?"

"Don't you dare!"

Glancing at the wall clock, Mori quickly signed another document and carefully folded all the documents into a file, headed for the exit. Without thinking twice, Dazai went after the elder. However, he was still not allowed to attend your adoption, after giving instructions to the boy, Mori slammed the car door and drove off after you. Dazai could only wait.

The next day, when Dazai stormed into the boss's office after a mission with a report, he saw you. You looked even worse than the day you left the underground hospital. Throwing the report on the boss's desk, he ran up to you.

"Y/n!"

You nervously clutching the skirt of a new dress that turned out to be big for you, you were worried about Atsushi. Tears began to form in your eyes, the words of the director, when you threw a tantrum that you were not going anywhere, thundered in your head.

'Because of you, there are so many problems with the tiger, it is you who provoke him to attack other children, so the fact that someone want to take you away is nothing but a gift of fate for the whole orphanage...'

Dazai stopped right in front of the sofa where you were sitting, he began to act more slowly, as if afraid to do something wrong and scare you off. It was a rare demeanor for Dazai and it also hit your nerves. Why does everyone behave differently? Why is Elice throwing herself at you like you're the closest person to her? Why is Mori acting like he wants to please you? Is it because he became the boss? Why is Dazai so neat? Why doesn't he tell you everything head-on, as usual? Of course, people change, you understand that, but not everyone and not for the better, especially people from the mafia.

God, you want to go back to the same simple and naive Atsushi as you yourself so much.

"Y/n, I..."

He really wants to comfort you, not because he wants to get your love and affection earlier than Mori, but also because he's really sorry for the condescending attitude he gave you in the hospital.

"I'm sorry, as a brother, I..."

"Dazai, for me you are the same brother as Mori's father, namely no. And I really don't understand why you wanted to play family so much, especially with me."

Previously, you would have been pleasantly surprised by the fact that they consider you their family, but now, after all the mockery in the orphanage and Atsushi's consolations, there was a huge amount of hatred in you, both for the whole orphanage and for these two as well.

"Y/n, why did you get up? You need more rest now. Look how pale you are, and I suppose your head is still spinning..."

Mori came up to you with a glass of water and a pill.

"Take a pill first, and then go to bed. Dazai, wait for me here."

After waiting patiently for you to drink the medicine, Mori took you by the elbow and led you to your room. Yesterday, he realized that you would be stubborn and refuse any help, so today he did a lot without asking your opinion, only informing you that now he would take your temperature, bring food, give medicine and everything like that. Like it or not, he was going to take care of you.

Dazai, looking at this, felt like the confidence that he would be able to take you away from Mori was rapidly leaving him. He was late.

[torakan]

PART FOUR!!

another part in one day?? crazy me. it’s as short as the precious one, but since we’re done with putting our comic into words, i hope next parts are gonna be longer ^^

previous

That was one of the weirdest weeks in my whole life. Not only I’ve seen a little person… a little person, can you imagine?! In my apartment! I was so shocked holly molly… not only I’ve seen something strange like that, but I also scared them away so easily and after that I’ve been feeling like poop this whole time. Seriously, why does every little thing start to cry or runs away in fear when I approach? It’s been haunting me ever since I became an adult and now, when life has finally given me a chance to make up for this, showing a creature I couldn’t even imagine to exist, I had to screw up. I did my best not to disturb it, to be even more quiet than usual and to seem friendly if it wanted to approach me, but it all seemed useless, the things I left for them remained untouched. I checked that place almost every day, hoping to see at least something that could serve as a hint that they would want to make contact, but it was in vain. I’m ashamed to admit, but I even cried over it once, and I really hope they didn’t see me in that state. It’s just that that day a whole bunch of unfortunate things came together, and I somewhat couldn’t stand it anymore and... yeah, let’s not think about it, shell we? Haha.

So, after a week of looking for any signs, I decided to stop to not scare that creature again if they were still there and not to destroy myself with how desperately I wanted it to reach out. However, right when I promised that to myself my eyes, this time accidentally, landed on that little corner and imagine how surprised I was to find out that something has finally changed! I quickly took the bottle cap out of there and, taking a closer look, saw that there was another little note among other things. On it there was written a text: “I m fine dont wory. Please dont tell other beans about me. And dont bother. Rules.”

Well, at least now I knew for sure that this was an intelligent creature that spoke the same language as me and it satisfied my curiosity a little bit. It was so nice to finally receive an answer, I felt so relieved after reading this, you can’t even imagine. I was quite worried about them not to get in trouble because of me or to be safe… Though those few mistakes that they made in the writing I thought were so cute, it even made me chuckle.

But the last word “Rules”… Was it their name? Or were there any rules that didn’t allow them to interact with humans? I mean, why would it be forbidden in the first place? Probably, the experience of those creatures’ previous generations interacting with humans wasn’t that great. I bet it was even unpleasant to say the least, knowing how cruel most people are, that’s no wonder. But just in case it IS their name, which I should consider being a possibility, I’ll include it in reply. With that I simply wrote: “Okay, Rules” and left it with the piece of chocolate in the same place. If they didn’t want me to trouble them, I must try my best not to. That would be the least I could do, but at the same time… I’ll never be able to forget the fact that they are my neighbour, so I guess it’s only natural from now on for me to be extra careful around the house.

At with that another week has passed…

as always, comments and suggestions are appreciated ^^

tags: @gtzel @smallsday

next

[williamvapespeare]

This is a mundane question, but it's one I think about a lot for my writing and I'm dying to know your thoughts.

When you write the boys, what rules do you follow for how they phyasically interact with the world? (i.e. What do they feel when they get thrown real far? Can they physically feel each other? What do you do about their clothes?)

Happy New Year friend!

First of all, happy new year friend!! I hope you have an excellent start to the year and I'm so excited to be blessed by more heartwrenching boys content from you in 2025 <3

but this is such a good question!! i think my answer is probably kind of boring, but initial thoughts are that i tend to try and be vague about this sort of thing unless i really have to, because it allows people to read their own headcanons about specific world building stuff into whatever i write. most basically: the boys can feel each other and they can feel other supernatural creatures and sometimes supernatural objects if it is plot relevant, and not much else. that's definitely poignant for metaphorical reasons, like "i have only ever known softness from you and either violence or nothingness from the rest of my eternal existence etc etc"

one thing i LOVE doing is to put the boys into very specific supernatural situations where they're suddenly able to feel things for the first time since their death (it's usually bad things, i'm sorry lads). in the grand scheme of a life cut short is just a little angsty thing i wrote for a prompt (breaking point) but i put them inside the head of a dying child psychic, whose brain then (understandably) tries to fight them off by throwing them into various unpleasant memories. it was fun to show how they both had weird relationships to pain and discomfort and to think about the physicalities that most stood out (like, Edwin noticing Charles' eyeliner smeared over his cheek, which would Never happen normally, but not realising his hand is bruised because that's such a minor thing compared to being torn limb from limb?)

also i feel like clothes definitely change if theyre feeling particularly traumatised or something (LOOVE the charles gets wet and disheveled when he's feeling sad of it all!!) you gotta Tam Lin the boys sometimes...as a treat. but also, i don't have much of a personal hc about whether they can change clothes at will or anything...which i will defend with the fact that they probably don't think much about clothes normally because theyre so used to just being able to wear whatever they're wearing :P

Sorry for the rambles and thank you so much for the question <3

Director's cut ask game

[baticeer-sims]

I'd like to hear your soap box about romantic standards! I use ACR at the moment but reading that "unpopular opinions" post got me curious about other options 👀

Hiya! Thanks for asking. I absolutely love Romantic Standards, I could NOT play without it these days. I used to use ACR in the past though, so I tried to make a balanced list of the pros and cons for me. But then it got REALLY LOOOONG because I'm a wordy person sorry, so it's under a cut.

The quick TLDR of it is - I feel like ACR creates romantic chaos that's often unpleasant/nonsensical to me, while I feel like RS creates romantic drama that makes sense and also allows for a lot of variety in how different sims will feel about their relationships.

By the way, I use Midgethetree's edited version of RS because it's modular (you can pick which parts you want) and the documentation is way easier to understand lol. If you have any trouble with mod conflicts or with getting RS set up the way you like, feel free to ask me about it and I can help you out with what exact files you need.

The full soapbox under the cut!!

One thing I want to say is I think a lot of people have been playing with ACR for so long that they don't know what their game will be like without it? And they underestimate how much autonomous romantic interaction will still happen between sims. A key here is that sims can't autonomously interact romantically unless they have compatible gender preferences, and townies or CAS sims always start with 0 preference, so a vanilla hood without ACR will feel low on the random flirtations unless you use something like the Sim Blender (or similar) to randomize everyone's gender preferences! (And ACR gives out random gender preferences automatically, so you might install ACR, see a lot of people interacting romantically for the first time, and assume you can't get that without ACR when all you needed was the gender preference setting, yknow?) But I can assure you that with ACR removed, my sims are definitely still getting into plenty of unexpected romantic entanglements and exciting drama.

To my mind, these are the biggest features of Romantic Standards that I just can't get with ACR:

Random chance of crush/love status: I could never play without this now. As you probably already know, normally two sims automatically get a crush or love when they interact romantically with 70+ shortterm or longterm relationship respectively. It's kinda predictable and boring to me. RS, specifically the "slower feelings" file, makes it so that crush/love flags are added randomly with the chance being based on the sims' chemistry with each other. This also allows for some amazing Drama Potential where you could have 2 sims interacting and one is completely in love with the other but the other has no feelings for them at all! It's otherwise impossible to do that. This makes crush/love flags actually feel meaningful to me, like they represent real human feelings, instead of just being able to know that if I decide one day to smooch my best friend they're guaranteed to fall in love with me.

Simple jealousy system that makes sense: I could never get my head around ACR's jealousy system to make it work the way I wanted. I felt like sims would have their token values changed even when I set them to be static, and stuff like that, and it just was so complicated to figure out what values I wanted... OTOH, this is how jealousy works in Romantic Standards: If a sim is in love or in a committed relationship (steady/engaged/married), and they see their love/partner interact with someone else romantically, they get mad about it! Unless you put a "no jealousy" trait in their inventory (then they won't get jealous over anyone) OR if they also have crush/love flags for that 3rd sim (this, allows for you to have polyamorous relationships). I find that easy to understand and to work well for a majority of situations. There's also an option where they won't get jealous over love, only committed relationships -- but I prefer the also-in-love version because it combines really well with the previous point about crush/love being randomized! You can frequently get situations where A is in love with B but B only has a crush, so B will be willingly flirting with other people and A might get their heart broken over it because they thought this was serious... It really generates a lot of interesting storylines.

Sims don't cheat on their partners if I don't want them to: I know ACR is supposed to have settings that will make sims stay faithful, but I was unable to get it to work consistently, and I feel like I've often heard other people say things too like "I didn't want this sim to cheat but 🤷 ACR just did that". With RS, if a sim is in a committed relationship they can never do autonomous romantic interactions with someone else unless 1) they're Romance aspiration or 2) they already have crush/love for that other sim. You can of course still direct sims to cheat if you think it makes sense, but I don't have to worry about anyone's marriage falling apart if I want them to stay together. (Also, you can override this for specific sims by giving romance sims a "hopeless romantic" trait, or non-romance sims a "commitment issues" trait.)

Midge's version of RS is modular so almost all of the stuff I listed above is separate if you only want part of it.

On the other hand! Here are the things that ACR does that I've missed or that you might miss:

Autonomous woohoo and try for baby: Your sims won't woohoo on their own anymore. I found that I didn't really mind this? The woohoo timer in ACR feels kind of mechanical to me, and a lot of times they'd be starting to do it in situations that were really inappropriate (like other people are in the room and they're stripping naked on the sofa at 9am). And I don't mind the lack of try for baby either because I prefer to decide when my sims have a baby based on if they roll a want for it, or if it just happens from risky woohoo. I've noticed that simler90's original version of RS has an optional plugin that allows for autonomous woohoo but I don't know if it works with Midge's edited RS. I haven't tried it yet bc I don't mind not having auto woohoo. If anyone has, let me know.

Can't woohoo on the sofa and can't woohoo in one menu-click: My god it's so much easier to be able to click "casual...woohoo" than relax on bed, ask other sim to join, wait for them to get there, cuddle, then woohoo. Something to note is that there is a "stripped down" version of ACR which only retains the Casual Woohoo interactions and was made to be compatible with Romantic Standards. However in my experience (and that of a few other people I've talked to) the jealousy aspect of this so-called compatibility... still doesn't quite work correctly? So the "casual woohoo" option, if you have stripped-ACR, I think it will still go off of ACR-jealousy (which is impossible for me to understand lol), instead of RS-jealousy like everything else in the game? It can definitely cause situations with jealousy reactions that aren't working how they're supposed to. So um... the crazy thing that I do, personally, is keep that stripped down ACR in my game but with all the autonomy completely disabled in global overrides, at which point it is doing literally nothing other than letting me tell them to casual woohoo if I want them to woohoo on the sofa. And I just make sure to never use that option in a situation where jealousy is a possible concern, in order to avoid the issue where it doesn't work correctly. It's kind of overly complicated a thing to do just to get sofa woohoo but I'm just saying it's an option 😂

No autonomous First Kiss: This is it! The one thing I truly do miss from ACR and would really love if someone made a mod for it one day! I love when my sims do stuff autonomously and surprise me. But First Kiss is a non-autonomous action, and what's more, sims can't roll the want to "Kiss so-and-so" if they haven't already had a first kiss, so I find it kind of hard to decide when my sims will have their first kiss. I'm always like, why can't you do it for me!

The other major difference is that the "Casual" romantic interactions from ACR have lower thresholds for acceptance than the default Maxis interactions. I personally don't see this as a positive because... well... I've been playing this game for so long, I kind of know how to get sims together at this point, I really don't need to make it even easier 😅 I'd rather have RS making it a little harder for sims to fall in love. I use a lot of other mods for other aspects of the game that make it harder overall because it's more fun for me.

Also! So, I was going to give you a list of other romance-related mods that I use in my game along with RS, but then I realized I could be lazy and just give you a link to my friend @alice-in-strangetown's mods list, because she & I have pretty similar taste in how we like romance to work in this game and I use basically all the same romance mods as her :P because I started using RS after finding out about it from watching her TS2 livestreams.

If you want to try RS on a neighborhood that has ACR but you're not sure if you'd like the playstyle, I recommend temporarily replacing it with the "stripped down" ACR version (and disabling autonomy), because that way your sims will keep their ACR tokens if you decide you don't like RS and want to switch back to using ACR. Of course, it's technically possible to have both of them at the same time, but the key thing about ACR is that all of the "Casual" interactions in it are completely separate from the vanilla maxis interactions so mods that affect default maxis interactions or maxis jealousy (like RS does) won't interface with ACR interactions and vice versa.

I hope all of this was helpful, and that maybe it convinced you to give Romantic Standards a try! Like I said, if you need any help getting it set up I can give you advice or a more detailed guide on how to install it (I think the documentation's pretty straightforward tho).

[mrowmrowmrow9]

Bridgerton books: rank & review

I recently read all of the bridgerton books. Why? I...don't really know. Morbid curiosity, perhaps? Here's how it went anyways!

General thoughts

Whether a book was supposed to be really bad or really good, I think what I felt mostly while reading all of them was just...underwhelmed. It's rare that a subpar book is made into an excellent show instead of the other way around, but here we are. Anyways, one of my main critiques is that Julia Quinn just has kind of a bland writing style. She writes these conversations that just go on forever and run in circles without actually getting anywhere. I finished all of the books pretty quickly, and the endings felt almost abrupt; it was hard to believe the book was over because it often felt like so little had happened. But what bothered me the most about these books was definitely the male love interests. Besides the rage and possessiveness, they basically felt like the exact same guy written eight times over, with some slight changes. After reading a few I was desperate for something different - a guy who's awkward, or sexually inexperienced, unpopular with women, plus-sized, freaking short. Anything 😫

Now for the rankings!

#8: The Duke & I (Daphne & Simon)

I give this one a 4/10. It was more or less exactly what I expected, but I did manage to read through it, so points for that I guess. Their whole relationship just felt kind of icky and unhealthy. And Daphne in particular was very bland as a character. At least in the show, they had some sizzling chemistry. The best part of this book was the 2nd epilogue - Polin cameo!

#7: To Sir Philip, With Love (Eloise & Philip)

6/10. Philip was a bit of a dick and I'm salty that Penelope is neither in this book nor any of the others after it (I read this one last) even though Colin is, although that's not super relevant to the quality of the book. I would say that I liked this one about the same as #6, which is to say there were parts about it I liked but even then it was kind of just okay. I really didn't like the way Philip was always demeaning Eloise, especially when he said she wasn't allowed to have complaints about their marriage because his first wife killed herself!! Anyways I’m super curious to see where the show goes with Eloise, considering everything that’s different about her and Philip from the book.

#6: An Offer From a Gentleman (Benedict & Sophie)

6/10. I liked this one more than I thought I would based on what people said, although Benedict was definitely still an asshat. But at least he apologized for...some of it? I did like Sophie a lot as a character, and was very invested in her story, so that's where most of the rating comes from. Excited for season 4!

#5: Romancing Mister Bridgerton (Penelope & Colin)

6/10. Penelope was pretty great in this book, and so was Lady Danbury, but Colin felt almost unrecognizable from the show and from what he's like in the other books as well. It's almost like Julia Quinn thinks that in order for a male character to be a love interest he has to be violent and forceful and other unpleasant things. No thank you! The scenes in the church and at the engagement ball were especially icky, and the sex scene was just kind of...weird. Altogether, I was pretty disappointed considering show!polin owns my heart 🥲

#4: It's In His Kiss (Hyacinth & Gareth)

6.5/10. I thought I would like this one a lot based on what people said about it, but Hyacinth and Gareth just didn't really draw me in, individually or as a couple, and the mystery plot didn't feel very interesting to me. I did love the way Hyacinth and Lady Danbury interacted, though, that was super fun.

#3: The Viscount Who Loved Me (Kate & Anthony)

7/10. This one was great, just not quite my favorite. Enemies to lovers dynamic was a lot of fun, although it felt kind of ridiculous and improbable that they were forced to get married just because of the bee sting thing. Otherwise, I had a good time!

#2: When He Was Wicked (Francesca & Michael/a)

7/10. The sex scenes were great and focused more on female pleasure and empowerment than the others, so kudos for that. Michael was also a much more decent person than many of the other male love interests. The only thing that really bothered me was the lack of Bridgerton family scenes and dynamics, since most of the book takes place in Scotland. I'm curious and excited to see where the show goes with the gender swap when they do Francesca's season.

#1: On The Way To The Wedding (Gregory & Lucy)

8.7/10. I wasn't prepared for how much I liked this book! I adored Lucy, and her whole thing about needing things to be straightened out and even and liking to count is something I can relate to. The plot felt plausible, and yay for a bit of gay rep in Lord Haselby! I kind of wish Lucy had been less of a helpless damsel in distress near the end, but oh well. Gregory was enjoyable as a character and together they made a great couple. I loved the 2nd epilogue as well. This may sound strange given it’s the last in the series, but if you're going to read a Bridgerton book, I'd say read this one!

If anyone's still here, thanks for reading this insanely long post 😘😘

[psalacanthea]

Hi I'm Lauren I'm new to this app, I'm just trying to make some friends. Can i be your friend?

Gonna suspend disbelief for a minute and assume this is true. :) If it is!

How to Make Friends on Tumblr Dot Com! from a fandom perspective

1) Look for people with common interests and follow them.

The first step in finding friends on tumblr dot com is finding people who like the stuff you do. Fandom tags are great for this! Use the search function to look for fandoms you like. Find people who are talking about the things you like! Follow them.

IE: You have 'Owl House' in your bio. Use the tumblr search to look for Owl House, or if you want to specifically look for a ship, look up CHARACTER x CHARACTER. IE: Luz x Amity.

Once you've found the fan stuff you like to see, you can use the more common fandom tags fans like to use, like 'TOH' for 'the owl house' and 'lumity' for 'luz x amity'

2) Interact with the people who make and interact with the stuff you like.

There are many ways to interact on tunglr dot com.

LIKES- Hitting that heart button on a post. A like is just a thumbs up, an acknowledgement, an 'this is cool'. This is the equivalent of a passing smile. It shows someone 'I'm friendly!'

You can also use likes to bookmark things you want to reblog later, but you don't have time for right now!

REBLOGS- This is you showing things you think are cool to other people, and just saving them to look at later. Your blog is for you. It's your neat rock collection. It's your pictures in your locker. It's your scrapbook.

Leaving TAGS on your reblogs (the bar at the bottom of a post that says 'add tags') allows them

a) to be searchable on your blog. If someone sees your blog and also likes Amity, they can search for it and see all the cool Amity stuff you found if you've tagged it properly.

b) to leave notes for the creator of the post. Things like 'woah this is cool'. It's the equivalent of leaving someone a nice note. Something they can look at, save, and smile about later. Tags hold no social expectation for the creator.

It is ALWAYS better to reblog things without tags than to not reblog them at all. Why? Because we're all here to share stuff, and not reblogging because you can't do it 'right' kills the ecosystem. Sometimes I don't have the spoons for tagging. So I reblog without them.

If you feel like you have something to ADD to the post, and to the fandom discussion, you can always reblog with a post of your own added! Don't be shy about this. It's a basic function of the site. It isn't rude to do!

Being a dick in the reblog, however, is rude. If you don't like something and want to make a post about it, or you disagree, make YOUR OWN POST. You can do that. :) Just tag it appropriately so you find your target audience.

IE: You hate the Lumity ship. Do not tag your negative post LUMITY, as it will show up to all the people who like the ship. That's rude. Find the tag specifically for Lumity haters, your true brethren. Usually they're something like ANTI-LUMITY.

COMMENTS-

Comments are for when you want to say something about a post, but not add to it directly. More immediate and personal than talking in tags, commenting also invites a response from the poster instead of everyone who looks at your tags/reblog post.

Comments are NOT for telling a poster how much you dislike their opinion, their fandom, ships, or anything else like that. DO NOT DO THAT. It will not make you friends. Unless your goal is to befriend other unpleasant people. In which case um…try twitter?

ASKS-

It is OKAY to send people asks, like you sent me this. It's a good thing! It opens conversations and helps you show someone that you're interested in them as a friend! My profile specifically says I'm open to asks, and many other peoples' do too.

Just keep in mind that this is social media, and tumblr has a culture of anonymity. That means don't get too personal with it. Don't ask people things like their age, real name, relationship status, etc.

If you have trouble with social cues, it can be fraught and stressful to send asks. That's understandable. It isn't necessary to use asks to make friends.

If you do send asks, be aware: asks also do not always get answered. That's the nature of the site, and it's okay. Sometimes people forget they reblogged an ask game (me). Sometimes it's not a question they want to answer. Sometimes they don't have time/energy/context right then and there.

There are MANY reasons an ask won't be answered. No one owes you a reason or an answer. If that upsets you, sending asks may not be for you.

Please keep in mind this is an overview, and everyone is different. Check pinned posts and bios for specific preferences! <3 This is how you start being part of a fandom, which is the first step to making friends!

3) Being a Positive Part of Your Ecosystem

Now that you are interacting with the people who post the things you like, and interacting with the fandom either big or small and being a part of it, you should be adding TO the fandom in some fashion. And yes, supporting fanwork creators by reblogging, tagging, and giving likes IS adding to fandom. One big thing to remember, though.

FANS DO NOT MAKE CONTENT, FANS MAKE FAN WORKS.

If you want to keep your ecosystem friendly, casual, and fun, please treat fandom artists, writers, curators, meta-posters, etc like people. That means not having expectations of public-facing behavior, social purity, speed of creation, fandom loyalty, or manditory interaction with other fans.

a) finding followers

If you look for other fans who are reaching out for interaction, you will find people who will follow you and interact with you. Look for people posting questions, ask games, artists and writers posting their works. Look for people who are sharing what they love, and love it with them.

Interact with the people who interact with you!

If a stranger follows you, check them out! Maybe you guys have common interests. Maybe you vibrate on the same frequency.

If someone follows you back, that makes them your mutual. It doesn't really mean anything no matter what people say. All it really says is 'your stuff is cool, I want to look at it, too.' It means they vibe with you.

This isn't twitter. You don't have to be 'mutuals' to interact with each other. There are many people I like a lot that I do not follow. Why?

Because I don't want to see their Tumblr interests on my dash. Maybe they're in a fandom I Do Not Want to see. Maybe they're really into a ship I dislike. Maybe they post something that grosses me out. So I don't want to see it.

That's literally it.

Being a positive part of your ecosystem does not mean being a perfect uwu bean. It doesn't mean always being upbeat. It just means that you support the things you care about because you want to keep seeing them. It means befriending people because they seem cool. It means being genuine. It means not pushing your expectations on other people.

It also means accepting something kind of sucky.

NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO BE YOUR FRIEND.

It's a fact of life that sucks, but it's true. Put your effort in where it's rewarded. Give back what you're given from others. Don't try to fill a bucket with a hole in it.

b) using messages

DMs (direct messages) are another thing that varies from person to person. But, if you want to get to know someone on a one-to-one level, DMs are the way to go. Oftentimes people put their DM preferences in a bio or pinned post. Not everyone does.

DMs are a way of saying something in private, like sharing a link to a funny post you know they'll like(you can always use @(theirname) in the text box of a reblog if it's a tumblr post), talking in-depth about something you'd both mentioned in posts, or asking about something personal they'd posted on their blog, like a favorite recipe, or movie, or something like that.

DMs are more personal and not everyone is comfortable with them.

You should meet people at the level of friendship THEY want to give, not the one you want to have. If someone wants to chat with you in comments but not in DMs, then that's what you should do. Giving people a chance to opt-out when you message them is polite, and if they express on their blog having social anxiety, it might help them.

But DMs are not scary, or forbidden. You just have to respect people's boundaries and be clear while you're getting to know each other. If it's hard to tell if someone is okay with something, ASK. You're not a mind reader :)

c) blocking

What? How is blocking people good for fandom? Well...it's a little thing I like to call:

STRESS MANAGEMENT

Some people are assholes. Some people have Bad Takes. Some people live to pour poison into a fandom. Some people like to attack others and make up crusades so they can feel socially superior and morally pure. Some people just have a bad vibe. Some people just happen to have lots of fandom friends so you can't stop seeing their posts even though you disagree.

Block saves lives.

It's not an insult to be blocked. It's not mean to block people. It's curation. It's getting rid of things that introduce things you don't want into your happy little fandom tide pool.

Your ecosystem might be poisoned by That Ship, or a fandom headcanon, or a show you just don't want to see. Block it, baby! Block people, block tags, block me. Block it all. If you love someone you follow but hate the show, don't block them, block the show tag!

It's like magic!

See only what you want to see. Give only what you want to give. Find people who want to see and give the same things you do. Support them, and if they're worth your friendship, they'll support you too. Do not chase people who don't have the time, energy, or desire to interact with you on the level you want.

Keep it chill.

That is how you make friends on tumblo dot comms.

Being said, I'm not into The Owl House or your other listed interests! I hope you find people who will be a happy part of your personal tide pool of cool weird stuff. Good luck out there.

[thedo0zyslider]

Long Forgotten But I'm Still Here - 4k words

Oli has some feelings about being thrown into Empires and forgotten by all his friends. And none of them are the good kind.

A03 Link

This new world--Empires as Oli had begun to call it--was quite a rollercoaster, to say the least. Being thrown into a new world randomly, separated from all your friends, was not pleasant. Zero out of five stars, bad yelp review, unpleasant experience, would not recommend. 

He’d declared himself the king of Afterlife, which is what he’d called the one before this one, because everyone else had died. They’d used up all their lives or disappeared, leaving him in an empty realm. Until he’d been shoved into heaven that was, to this day he still didn’t know what that was all about, only that once he’d gotten there he hadn’t been allowed to see Sausage; who he knew was up there, for the record. Miss Pearlescentmoon also made a great first impression, by promptly throwing him into some random wilderness, in a world that was decisively not his old one. 

If Oli was being honest he’d fucked around for a little while, doing whatever stupid idea came to his little head. He’d settled on a beach, in a poorly built wooden house that he deemed a megabase, with a little wolf companion to keep himself company. It soon became him and this strange little dog he’d tamed, named Sausage in memory of his long gone friend, against the world. It had been them against the mobs, the elements, everything. Even the Warden, a fateful encounter that had killed his beloved pup and left Oli friendless and alone. Again. For a third time, but that was okay, that was fine, because he could do other stuff. He could do stuff that didn’t involve other people, like burying his late dog on some random patch of snow. Like killing the ender dragon, a creature he had once respected and revered, and stealing its unhatched egg. 

He could do things like floating in an endless void for god knows how many years, a stolen baby dragon clutched close to his chest and listening to some vague murmurings of a poem about love and players and the end of some kind of game . He could do things like being spit back onto his beach, his house now missing and in a world clearly full of people. A world clearly full of his friends, if the ever familiar building styles said anything. 

It was kinda jarring really, to see almost everyone you care about and have them not remember you. It was fine though, nothing Oli couldn't deal with. It was just a little weird, how all his friends were both different and the same at the same time. Well. the ones that were actually with him anyways. 

Some people, he found out slowly and over time, weren't here. Callum was the most notable absentee, to Oli at least, though he doubted anyone else even knew there were people missing. The fox had always had such a presence in his lifetimes, even if could only remember a few. It felt like a big chunk of the blonde was missing, and he silently mourned the absence of his furry friend. Lauren, his fellow Enderian, wasn't here either. (They hadn’t been Enderian's for long, or at the same time, but Oli didn't care for those technicalities. They were still fellow Enderians.) Though he wasn't sure if Lauren would have fared too well in this world, she did have a tendency to fold like a wet paper towel. Meghan and Mika were missing as well, and it was frankly strange to see Shelby running around without them. At least she still had Joey, and Katherine, he guessed. 

Oli had figured all that out from observation mostly, because he was not ready to interact with people after spending god knows how long in the void. So he’d wandered around as stealthy as he could, investigating the nearest tavern he saw. Said tavern seemed to belong to Gem, but before he could even process that Fwhip had showed up and was shoving him in jail. Apparently that ancient city his dog had died in was the one Gobland was built above, and stealing from it thousands of years ago, before anyone lived there, was a crime . 

He’d ended up being stuck in that miserable cage for a month, a month ! It was honestly torture, admittedly a little (more like very) inhumane of Fwhip, and had probably given him a fear of enclosed spaces, so that was great. He’d been stuck in that stupid fucking cage, left with nothing but his horrible, horrible thoughts and rotten fucking cave pork. He hated pork after that, didn’t think he’d ever be able to stomach the damn meat again. Oli and Fwhip had been friends, friends , and the bard had just been shoved in a cage like that didn’t matter, just because the little goblin couldn’t remember. 

While in the cage he’d wondered why no one remembered, and why they simply just couldn't. He wondered why Pearl couldn’t just snap her godly little fingers and make everyone remember who they’d been before, however many centuries ago that was. Then he wouldn’t be in a cage, then he wouldn’t be forgotten and he’d get his beloved friends back. It really didn’t feel like all that much to ask for, in Oli’s opinion anyways.

The blonde hadn’t paid much attention to whatever community service he had to do after being freed. All he cared about was the freedom from the cage and Fwhip’s horrible goddamn cave empire. All he’d paid attention to was that he could actually walk more than five paces again, and the fresh surface air blowing through his unkempt hair and making it windswept. He’d pay whatever fine he’d been taxed with later, when fwhip eventually came knocking at his door. For now he set out, back to the one place he knew best in this weird little world. 

The blonde had returned back to his beach, which was apparently a little ways away from Gem. He had a feeling that Dawn’s princess was faking, and that she did remember him, but he wouldn’t press for details. He wasn’t even sure he could handle that knowledge emotionally, so Oli was very content with not knowing. It did bug him though, that she wouldn't at least drop the act when they were alone, if only to make the world feel a little less alien and isolating than it was turning out to be. Instead Gem just acted like she was an innocent little sun princess, and also dubbed him a bard. 

He only focused on Gem’s little act for a day, before setting off to sea. Oli was a little sick of this world. He wanted to go back home to Afterlife, where his original friends had lived. He wanted to go back to the orb and his other builds, maybe even see if some people had returned from their disappearances. This world, the one he’d dubbed Empires, was weird, strange and hostile, and it wasn’t home . 

He’d sailed and sailed for a few days, going decently far out. There was land he could see sure, but it was strange and uncharted, which was reassuring. It was away from people, and maybe that meant he was getting closer to home. Maybe he hadn’t been shoved into a different world at all, maybe this was just another corner of Afterlife’s vast, mostly unexplored world that he could leave and ignore for the rest of time. 

As soon as Oli had gotten his hopes up he had to sail back, because there was something, some kind of force above the water stopping him from going further. Because of course there was, because of course he was stuck here and couldn’t go home. As he traveled back Oli bitterly wondered if this strange border was just a him thing, and if Joey and his other friends had ever found it during their times with sea bearing origins. 

Oh, yeah actually, speaking of Joey , the man had bloody attacked him! The pirate man (because Joey was a pirate now for some reason, and with an empire that matched the whole theme as well) had been rambling about skeletons or something as he sank Oli's small boat. He'd been free in this world for five minutes and people were already trying to drown him! 

From there he'd washed up on the shore of Sausage's empire, who had kindly nursed him back to health after his attempted murder. Sausage still looked the same since Oli had last seen him, helping the man ascend to the heavens. He could tell this was the same Sausage though. There wasn't really a reason, more of feeling than anything. Joey had possessed a different, oh what's the word? Vibe. That's it. He'd had a different general vibe to him. This pirate man was still Joey of course, just more....devious than the previous version Oli had encountered. More pirate-like, if you really must. Sausage however was the same, there was no doubt about it. Sausage still worshiped the same god, which made him a little more suspicious, and now he looked at the mural of Santa Pearl with more disdain than wonder than he had before.  

Oli suspicions of reincarnation were confirmed when Sausage mentioned visions, but he couldn’t pry on that one because the man had thrown him at Katherine as soon as he was fully healed. Apparently he needed a new change of clothes, or something. Oli hadn’t been paying much attention to what he wore, so he didn't notice until it was pointed out. Being almost drowned by a friend will disorientate you like that. 

And for some unfathomable reason Katherine had dressed him as a bard! A bard ! He wasn't a bloody bard ! Being musically inclined didn't make him a bard , but it was fine. Everything was fine and not weird. It was just like changing origins in Afterlife, wasn't it? Instead of regular old Oli, he was bard, just like how he'd been an Enderian and then had to adapt to being an axolotl. Oli could adapt, that was easy. Sure, he'd adapt to being a bard, just like he'd been adapting to new things his whole life. 

(If part of him was tired of adapting; of losing friends, then he didn't think about)  

Yet despite that he'd left Katherine's place feeling sour, yelling about how he wasn’t a bard. If there was one thing that didn't change, it was Oli's commitment to the bit. 

The newly made bard wandered the land for a little while after that, which gave him plenty of time to get used to the versions of his friends he was now stuck with. Everyone was still the same deep down, even if they'd formed into slightly different people. Sausage was the exception though, because he was literally the same person. He was worried about running his mouth just a lil, as mentioning past lives didn’t tend to go very well. But Oli also had a need to be annoying in an endearing way, and that need always won over his anxiety. So he set off, newly obtained lute in tow, and walked around until he found signs of civilization. 

The first person he encountered, Scott, was still full of sass and his hair stayed dyed a teal blue. Oli started to wonder if it was even dyed at some points and if he was just born with weird hair, but it had to be, because he'd been blonde before as an angel. He wouldn't be surprised if this Scott had dyed his hair either, he was a very colorful and creative man. It made for quite the pretty empire, Oli did have to admit. That man still knows how to make a good block palette. 

Joel’s empire was very close to Scott, close enough that you could see it from the latter’s house. He’d heard Joel was a god and Oli had hoped he would be like Pearl and that someone would remember him. But no, the sky god was like everyone else, he had no memories of before. Which was just dandy , didn’t hurt that one of his closest friends forgot him. Nope 

Instead of remembering Joel had just called him weird and then introduced him to his child. Because Joel having a kid was normal and not a shocking development. The kid, very creatively named Hermes, was apparently Joel’s and Sausage’s, and had been an armor stand before being brought to life by the two. Joel had a living armor stand for a son but sure, Oli was the weird one. That was totally normal. 

There was also a new person, one Oli had never met before, their name wasn’t ringing any kind of bells. Her name was False, and she was setting up a little steampunk themed area near this world's Scott and Joel. He hadn’t paid this newcomer to much attention though, he could always meet her later. There was plenty of time, for now anyway. Never know when God's going to throw you into a strange new world after all. Plus, from what he’d heard, False tended to be skittish, suspicious of everyone, and was very good with a sword. The bard would meet her later if it meant avoiding another murder attempt. 

Katherine still kept her usual love for pastels, but her kingdom was apparently corrupted and being taken over by a mysterious black substance. All of the builds were split, one side being the princess normal style of building, and the other decayed and ruined. Oli’s second visit hadn’t lasted long after learning that. He did not want to get involved with any sort of curse, nope, no thank you. 

He’d avoided going to Fwhip again, because he’d seen enough of that damn cave, and headed up the mountain instead. There he met Lizzie, who was once again living life as a small, furry, mischievous little animal. This time she was a cat instead of a kangaroo or raccoon, and still acted the same as Oli remembered. It was a little reliving, to know that his friend was still her unique little self, even if she didn’t remember him. Though Lizzie did seem more inclined to go along with his seemingly nonsense ramblings of the past, so that was a plus. 

The Mayor of Animalia had warned him of a witch though, and Oli immediately made it his goal to find this supposed dangerous and scary witch. The witch wasn’t scary in the end, because it was Shelby. She, like everyone else, didn’t remember him, and was just a little spookier than he last remembered; almost like her shadow origin at the very start of Afterlife. 

From there he’d wandered to a mesa, where he found the second to last person he had yet to know. The hot and dusty biome was inhabited by Jimmy Solidarity himself, the very man who’d given him community service and freed him from his stupid little cage. Oli already did not have a high opinion of the man, because he was working closely with Fwhip; other than that he seemed fine. Except for a slightly different vibe, one more troubled than before, he was basically the same Jimmy the bard had used to know. 

The last person he met was his favorite, one that hadn’t actually been in Afterlife. This guy, Pixlriffs, was his favorite instantly. The archaeologist was a stranger to him, someone he could look at without a thousand memories flying through his head. Pix listened to whatever he’d ramble about, be it his past of whatever random topic came to head. The man seemed to be genuinely listening as well, and Oli wouldn’t be surprised if he took mental notes every time. There was a connection there of some kind. He didn’t really know why, the bard could just tell this man was different, that he wasn’t what he seemed. It was nothing sinister, not in the slightest, just a feeling that Pix also knew more than he was maybe letting on. 

It was these little encounters, his time on this server that the bard replayed over and over again in his head as he returned to his beach. He set up shop permanently this time, deciding to build tents as an empire, because they were easy and only really required him to collect wool. He went through the motions, gathering materials, building, sometimes socializing, thinking and letting all his emotions bubble up inside him. Oli didn’t want to deal with them, because he was adapting again, that all he had to do was adapt again and everything would work itself out like it always did. 

Sure, it hurt that none of his friends remembered him. But he was fine, he was over it. He just masked whatever he felt with his normal comedic relief attitude. That always worked before, so why wouldn’t it work now? It definitely wasn’t unhealthy or anything, definitely wasn’t coming back to bite him. Nope , not at all.  

He broke down when he next saw Sausage. 

Oli sat there in Sausage’s arms, feeling pathetic as he sobbed his eyes out to a man he barely knew. But he did know this man, he knew him well, they’d been best friends and that was why he was crying. He was crying because no one remembered him, and it hurt and he couldn’t ignore it anymore. 

He barely heard Sausage’s comforting murmurs over the sound of his own sobs. Such a kind person Sausage was, to comfort Oli in such a moment. He was the one person who could maybe understand, with his visions and what not, but Oli wasn’t sure if he even would. How could he? The man didn’t even remember what his visions were about, which was arguably worse, but that wasn’t the point. The point was Oli remembered, and Sancuatry’s ruler didn’t, it wasn’t the same, it would never be the same. 

Sausage shifted them both until Oli’s head was buried against his chest, dampening the nice fabric of his shirt. The bard felt bad about that, despite the fact Sausage had been the one to put his head there. It was a really nice shirt. “Shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay.” Sausage muttered quietly, hugging the bard to his chest more. Hands began to stroke his hair tenderly, Oli leaning into it. He didn’t want any of that to calm him but it did , because Sausage was apparently great at providing comfort. 

Oli always hated crying. It made him feel stupid, his face all puffy, nose runny and his eyes red. So now on top of having a mental breakdown he felt stupid, and in response just tried to hide himself more in Sausage’s kind arms. The brunette just couldn’t sit there and let him suffer though, no matter how much he knew Oli wanted to do just that. 

“Now, what has you so upset, querido ?” Sausage asked softly, tilting Oli’s head so the latter would make eye contact with him. The bard met his gaze hesitantly, hating how he kept leaning into Sausage’s soft touch. He didn’t want comfort, he had never wanted to cry in the first place. He wanted to go home, back to his beach and his multicolored tent to mope by himself. He wanted to go home and watch the rain that was currently falling from the back of said tent and let it lull him into a fitful sleep, as he’d done far too many times for his short residence in this world. But no, he was here, in Sanctuary, losing all his dignity in an empty town hall, to a man who didn’t remember what they were once before. At least no random citizen was here to see his sob fest. 

Oli didn’t respond at first, just stared back at Sausage with still watering eyes. He cracked eventually though, only because he could tell Sausage wasn't going to let him go until he did. 

"It's, it's like your visions or whatever…" Oli began, looking away. "Like how you remember things and you don't know where they're from? I do that, but I know what they are." He explained it slowly, taking a few pauses in between his words. He was lying, he was lying through his teeth to Sausage . Oli didn’t get visions, not even anything close to that, he just had to know everything ever. He hadn’t been blessed with reincarnation, he had to remember everything . But he wasn’t going to cry again no, he wasn’t, not if he just gave himself a chance to breathe. "Like your sunflowers? I knew who they were from as soon as I got here." He ignored how Sausage stiffened under him slightly, before forcing himself to relax again. 

Sausage made a quiet humming sound, seemingly a little lost for words. "Do you…remember anything else? Like my sunflowers, I mean?" 

"I remember bloody everything , Sausage!" Ah, there goes the dam he'd been trying so hard to build. Oli clutched the fabric of one of their shirts; he couldn’t tell who's due to hot tears running down his cheeks again. "No one else does!" He snapped. "They just think I spout nonsense!" 

No one had told the bard that exactly, but just because he was comedic relief didn't mean he was stupid . He knew the certain look Scott had given behind his back when he talked about the latter's time as a vampire. He knew the face Joel made when he thought people were mad. Oli knew these people too well, he knew all their little cues and everything. They hadn’t needed to say he was crazy for him to understand. 

Oli waved his hand in dismissal. "But it's fine," He continued. "I'm fine, I'm just a silly little bard getting worked up over silly little-" 

Sausage's grip tightened on him, and it was the closest he came to being anything but gentle all night. "Stop deflecting, Oli!" He hissed. "It's not fine because you're not fine, because you're crying over this." Oli wanted to break again, but he wouldn’t. He'd listen to Sausage scold him and he wouldn’t cry, because he was better at hiding his emotions than this and wasn’t supposed to break in the first place. "It's not fine that you lost all your friends and it's not fine to pretend ignoring it is healthy!" Sanctuary's ruler squeezed him into a tighter hug as he finished speaking, clearly dead set on not letting the bard go. 

"I know," He whispered, burying himself closer to Sausage's warmth again. It was really all he could think to say

"Then why ?" Sausage asked, sounding so worried and desperate it hurt. 

"Because what else was I supposed to do? Act all sad and depressed and weird everyone out more?" Oli snorted, sarcasm and slight irritation dripping into his voice. There was nothing he could do but his usual unhealthy habits, nothing his brain would let him even attempt to try.

"You could’ve talked to someone!" The brunette hissed, grip tightening around the smaller in his arms just a little, but not enough to hurt; just enough to convey his concerned frustration. 

"They wouldn't understand, Sausage. No one else but you could-" 

Sausage cut him off quickly. "They’d at least listen. People here care about you, Oli, even if they don't remember who you were to them. I don't remember but I still care!" He said, and yeah maybe that was what got through Oli’s stupid, stubborn head. Maybe that was what made his damn break again and made him stop trying to fight with his friend’s perfectly reasonable solutions and kind words about his unique problem. 

"You were my best friend," The bard muttered, almost too quiet to hear. Yet it seemed to echo throughout the otherwise empty town hall. 

Sausage responded just as quietly, and the response echoed just as loudly. "And I'd like to be that again." 

They sat in silence after that, only for a little while though. Oli shifted into a more comfortable position, silent tears dripping down his cheeks. Sausage kept his tight yet caring grip on the bard, not going to let go until Oli started to feel better, or told him to leave. Kind words and comforts were muttered into dyed blonde hair, and it reminded the bard of his time in the void. He was again surrounded by silence, feeling numb as words of kindness and care were mutated into empty air. 

"Do you…wanna talk about it? That is, if there were people who didn't come here, could you talk about them? If that helps?" Sausage asked it slowly, carefully, almost hesitantly. Oli was just as slow in his response, only nodding after a minute of careful consideration. Hiding from the brunette seemed a little useless, especially with the chance he would remember their old home too one day.

"Well….there was Mika." Oli muttered, beginning to tell of people he shouldn’t know in this world. He told the tales of the missing, some of the dead, to a man who’d lived alongside these strangers once upon a time. Sausage just hummed every so often, an indication he was listening, and stayed as a steady comfort when more tears spilled down cheeks that were flushed red from crying. 

Maybe this world wouldn’t suck so bad, with moments like these. Maybe this could be home, one day, and maybe it'd be a bit more permanent this time. 

[annoyinglandmagazine]

A Song Only You Can Hear Chapter 3

Beleg sat down next to him at lunch later that week, dragging with him half the rugby team. ‘So you’re rooming with Feanorian right?’ Fingon blinked ‘Yes? Why is that a problem?’ Beleg shook his head frantically, ‘No, of course not! I’ve got no quarrel with Maedhros-’ ‘speak for yourself,’ Mablung was very quickly told to shut up.

‘Ignore him he’s being childish, I just wanted to see how you were settling in. Switching schools in third year isn’t easy and, well, living with Feanor’s kid is probably a bit of an adjustment.’ Well what was that supposed to mean? Sure, Maedhros was a little tense sometimes but he’d never shown any indication of being anything but civil to his classmates and Fingon had been under the impression that he was well liked enough. Beleg seemed to be a pleasant sort so Fingon decided to give him the benefit of the doubt but readied himself to defend his roommate if needs be. Maedhros had clearly been trying his best to make him feel welcome here and the idea of anyone being rude about him made Fingon fill with an unusual amount of righteous anger, even for him.

‘Why would there be a problem?’ He asked, keeping his tone light, he always had a strength for putting people at ease which allowed him to see who’s company he’d enjoy and who he’d enjoy getting into an ill advised fight with at the edge of a sports field. Beleg looked uncomfortable which was either an indicator of a lack of enjoyment of gossip or of having something deeply unpleasant to say. ‘Well there’s no problem as such, but, you know, his father, well.’ Definitely the former then.

Mablung had no such qualms. ‘Feanor’s a massive prick.’ ‘Keep your voice down!’ Beleg looked back and forth as if expecting either Maedhros or the aforementioned Feanor to materialise behind them. ‘He’s- eccentric. Let’s go with that. He’s- well he’s a genius, don’t get me wrong, and from a very respectable family, but he’s always been a little- less than respectable himself.’ He didn’t seem to know how to continue so Glorfindel chimed in.

‘He’s a scientist and about a hundred things besides but he has the tendency to piss people off. A lot of people. Important people, very publicly and very thoroughly. These people including but definitely not limited to, the King, the Church, Mablung’s parents, my parents, the Prime Minister and just about everyone else he’s ever talked to.’ This clearly being a topic everyone had something to say on one of Glorfindel’s friends from down the table added his two cents.

‘Aside from all the public arguments and aggressive letters his personal decisions have always been a little unusual for someone of his standing. Eloped at 19, Irish wife, a daughter of a blacksmith no less, bare minimum of servants even though he could certainly afford them, never hosts in his house and,’ the boy leaned forward at this as if importing a great secret ‘apparently he’s an aethist.’ He then left without any further comment. ‘That’s Pengolodh for you. Collects gossip like an old maid, but we love him anyway,’ Ecthelion said as he watched him go with a disbelieving shake of the head.

Fingon came to the conclusion that all of this seemed oddly good natured by the standards of most boys his age he’d interacted with before. He also decided in a split second judgement that he liked them. He saw the way they talked to each other and wanted to be involved, and hey they’d tried to talk with him right? The first step had already been taken. ‘You said something about rugby tryouts?’ He’d have thought it was impossible a few moments ago but somehow Beleg grinned even wider, and Fingon almost had to look away from the brightness. Ecthelion on the other hand groaned into his hand, ‘Oh god, they got another one.’