#this is not a Friend Thing™ shut uP none of you would do this shit for a friend

[godlygivenanxiety]

A legit horde of zombies to be treated in Portland, a fucking royal family playing them for fools not to mention the person taking Nick has a spit-toxin that will drive kehrseite and wesen mad, but Monroe's first and foremost priority is getting to Nick wherever the fuck he is, in whatever capacity he can, with the help of whomever's on board to help— I'm sorry, am I supposed not to consider this beyond loyal friendship and way into the realms of devotion considering the person Monroe has been as a wieder? You've gotta be shitting me.

It's one thing for Monroe to include himself into Laufer VS. Verrat business indirectly, even his heartfelt and spiteful speech about not caring about the status quo doesn't say as much as this because holy fuck, he wants to insert himself in the center of the situation because Nick's in danger. Full ready to 'make some calls' and LEAVE ON SOME PLANE TO GO AND FIND NICK, PLANS MADE AS THEY MOVE. GOD.

I'm so unwell, send help.

[quickspinner]

On Commenting

(Don’t worry I’m not here to berate anyone for failing to comment that is so not what this is about)

We were talking about comments in the disco this morning and then I got in the car and drove around doing my errands so now I have Thoughts and, especially given the fics I plan to rain down on Weddnesday, I am going to inflict them on you. I’m only speaking for me here and no one else. 

And because I’m a Wordy Bitch (tm)  and I haven’t bothered to write an organized point-by-point essay in years and I’m not about to start now, I’m going to put this part up front so you can skip the rest if you don’t vibe with it:

I want you to feel safe to come into my comments however you feel comfortable. Your comment doesn’t have to meet any minimum standard of eloquence or analysis or anything like that. As long as your comment engages with the fic in some way and doesn’t offer nothing but unsolicited criticism, it’s a good comment. That’s it. That’s the standard. And if commenting makes you feel bad, I don’t want you to do it! You have my permission not to comment. Go in peace my friend. Don’t make yourself miserable over something that is supposed to be fun.

I love comments. Love them. I don’t care if you’ve commented before or if you are reading the fic for the 30th time and have already left ten comments--or none! “I’m reading this for the 30th time and I just want to tell you how much I love it even though I’ve never said so before!” 

Me: :D :D :D :D

Not me: omg 30 times and they’re only telling me now? I feel so used.

“Man, this person has commented on a lot of my fic lately.” 

Me: Someone new! Hi new person! I am totally normal and not tempted to reply with to your comments with 50 other fics you should read! I’m so excited to see what you think!

Not me: omg seriously when will this person shut up

“I love this work but I’m afraid my comment won’t be good enough but if I don’t comment I’m killing fandom and the writers will stop and I’m the worst”

Me: OMG, sweetie it’s okay, you do what you can do, it’s not that deep. l will love any comment you make and if all you can stand to do is leave some emojis I will send you some heart emojis right back. I don’t want you to comment if it makes you feel bad, that’s the opposite of what I’m trying to do here!

Not me: You are the worst. You are the reason fandom is dying. I cannot believe people like you would treat me like some tiktok creator throwing things out there for a few paltry likes

Listen. I love comments. Almost all comments. I can’t in truth say all comments because to be honest it does suck a little bit when somebody comes in the comments to complain about the show without actually saying anything about my fic. 

Good: “I love the way you did xyz, I wish the show had done things that way, that would have been so interesting”

Disappointing: “Omg can you believe the writers did that I’m so mad this show sucks and the creators are terrible people and I don’t know how anybody can think otherwise.” Me: “...my fic tho?” 

But like. 99% of comments are great comments. I love it when somebody engages with the story and gives me paragraph by paragraph reactions and tells me what lines they liked most, those are all great. I love it when somebody leaves something that just boils down to “HOLY SHIT THAT WAS AWESOME” whether in text or emoji or keysmash. Comments from friends are amazing. Comments from longtime readers are amazing. Comments from people I’ve never heard of or anons? Amazing. There are a very few people who comment so consistently I actively look for their comments to come in and eagerly await them. Amazing.

But my favorite comments? “My day sucked/I’m goding through a hard time/I’m trying to keep my mind off a difficult thing and reading this made me really happy/gave me a smile when I needed it/is my comfort fic.”

Because those are the ones that made me feel like I did something really important. I impacted someone in a meaningful way. 

Now, I will be honest, I am a super awkward person and I suck at taking compliments, so responding to comments is kind of erratic for me. I try to do it, but sometimes I just have to hide under my blankets and squeal in embarrassment for a while first. 😆 But just because I don’t answer doesn’t mean I don’t see and appreciate. Comments are amazing. 

Okay, now I’m going to get a tiny bit preachy and overly optimistic. Again, I’m just speaking for me and my experiences, but this is the way I tend to look at things.

Here’s the other side of comments though and I mean this kind of as a word of caution for writes and artists as well as a reason why ‘if I don’t comment I’m contributing to the death of fandom’ is semi-bullshit--it is so easy to become jaded over time. First you are excited for every comment, and then you start to convince yourself that certain types of comments “don’t matter.” “Oh, I got ten comments but 5 of them are my discord friends, they’re just commenting because they’re friends.” “Oh, I got comments, but they’re from the same people who always comment. I wish somebody knew would comment. It’s depressing that only the same people are reading my work.” “I got comments but look how many hits/likes/kudos I got and so few of them commented.” 

So. Easy. You guys, it is so easy to convince yourself that what you’re getting isn’t enough. So just, watch yourself and stay grateful. Be vigilant against that kind of complacency. And most importantly, write things you love because you love them. At the same time, sometimes you have to be realistic about the size of the potential audience for any given fic. Write it, but remember that not everybody loves what you love, and if you choose to write something that’s a little weird or has a lot of OCs or diverges strongly from accepted canon/fanon, that you’re going to have to find your people, find your audience, before you start seeing those comments come in. 

It’s complicated, I get that. We all do want the comments and the validation. We ARE less motivated when no one seems to engage with our work. But I also think that the way to combat that is to a) stay grateful b) build community with other authors/artists/creators who will still be there commenting and cheering us on when the general public seems to have sunk into indifference. Nobody gets it like fellow creatives. Be the change you want to see in the world, and all that. If you feel like commenting is down, it’s probably down for other people too, so maybe go leave a positive comment for someone else. 

[moonfurthetemmie]

Beechswap JMV: Pre-Incident and The Incident

Pre-incident:

Honestly they’re mostly just vibing. There’s a lot of shit going on still but most of it isn’t really important, to us. Oleander isn’t having a great time most of the time either, but he’s not going out and harassing the rest of the villagers like Obsidian. It probably helps that Pine’s there and kind to him and tries to get everyone to fuck off. Aspen tries too but he doesn’t know as much as Pine does.

Pine’s aware of all the shit the other villagers do. And what Lazuli does, but Lazuli at least isn’t prejudiced and genuinely just does not get along with Oleander. Pine still tries to get him to be nicer, even if it’s just being civil to him. Oleander appreciates that. They still argued a lot, though. 

One thing that they often fought about was Pine. Lazuli liked to remind Oleander that Pine wasn’t really his brother, and Oleander would always say something like “shut the fuck up, you’re an asshole, and if I wanna hang out with Pine you don’t get to tell me I can’t” 

But even without that Ollie always was very conscious of that little fact. And Pine’s aware of this. So, one day, he gave Oleander his amber necklace. And a big hug. Whatever happens, Oleander has two brothers now.

Unfortunately later that day, while they were just roughhousing and messing around, Pine ended up rolling down a steep hill and hitting his head on a rock at the bottom. So um. Oleander no longer has two living brothers.

Lazuli blamed Oleander for Pine’s death for a long time. Nowadays he knows it was an accident, but he was too angry at the time.

Aspen didn’t appreciate Lazuli blaming Ollie for that when Oleander was clearly in fucking hysterics over it and completely inconsolable, and Lazuli just made it worse.

Oleander got to help with Pine’s memorial, at least. Everyone could hear him screaming pine’s name and found him sobbing and cradling his head so. Yeah. honestly lazuli’s the only one who blames Oleander and just this once none of them are just going to assume the bad thing. Oleander, Aspen, and Lazuli were probably pretty young then. Probably teenagers. And Oleander just watched his only other friend besides Aspen get his head bashed in. That’s going to fuck him up for a while, if not forever. No one can fake that kind of screaming and crying.

Some time after they all become adults, Lazuli ends up being close with a specific group of people. He’s well-liked by most of the villagers, and is friends with a lot of people. This specific group of friends will turn out to be particularly shitty people, but not until…

The Incident™:

One lovely day Oleander went to visit Pine’s memorial, and it was all nice and peaceful. Aaaand then he heard yelling and felt something going on at the tree. 

Just a few minutes earlier, Lazuli had come running to Aspen and panickedly told him that those friends of his were planning on stealing the apples and destroying the tree and they had to do something. Their brilliant solution, as they see the villagers starting to gather and come towards the tree? 

Lazuli eat the apples

Lazuli could only eat half of the apples, because he’s human and was unable to change the negative ones to positive, and Aspen didn’t know either. 

Lazuli couldn’t eat the few positive ones he could fast enough, though, and they were going to be mobbed. The villagers were not happy that Lazuli had ‘betrayed’ them and they weren’t going to stand for it! Aspen told Lazuli to just get the apples and he’d take care of the villagers. Not that he knew how he was going to do that. 

So they kinda just start with “h. heeeyyy. Weee don’t have to do this guys.”

Shockingly, that doesn’t work. And someone rushes them and they panic. He just holds his hands out in front of him and squeezes his eyes shut and then there’s a lot of yelping and a lot of No Owwie. And he opened his eyes and wow he has a magical bow with a glowing arrow of light! That the person almost ran into. Um. oops? 

As Aspen is not a complete dumbass they decide to ask questions later and be threatening now because they sure as hell ain’t letting Lazuli get hurt, much less the apples or the tree. Lazuli even manages to grab the negative apples, after realizing that he can’t eat them and just has to grab them and go. There happens to be a chest by the tree, where Oleander and Aspen usually keep things for Outdoor Activities, though no one’s touched them since the two were kids, so Aspen, realizing that there’s an issue, quickly dumps everything out of the box and tells Lazuli to drop the apples into it, which Lazuli does with much much fastness thanks to his new tentacles. He can’t control them super well yet but they kind of have a mind of their own and are also very much freaking out! 

Oleander sees none of this, he just gets there in time to see Lazuli, with fuckin WINGS and TENTACLES shoving some apples into a box and running while Aspen covers him

Oleander, understandably, feels quite betrayed! He didn’t care that much about the apples but he never thought Aspen would’ve…

But the villagers are pissed and he sure as hell isn’t going over there.

He eventually managed to get out of the AU and live on his own, and honestly this is so much better than living at the village. He’s doing good. He’s half-assedly looking for Aspen and but he’s doing fine on his own so honestly he’s just chilling

Fun fact also! Lazuli is now very wary of new ‘friends’ and very untrusting of new friendly people! Probably why his and Senna’s relationship is unsalvageable :))