#this thing keeps crashing tumblr every time i try to post and it's not even good but if i lose it i will cry

[warystares]

FULL NAME orson montgomery lloyd GENDER / PRONOUNS cis man / he + him AGE / BIRTHDAY thirty-five / september 17th OCCUPATION funeral director at lloyd family funeral home AFFILIATION / ROLE hanging man / capo ORIENTATION / STATUS demisexual / single STRENGTHS meticulous + analytical + controlled WEAKNESSES cold + judgmental + remorseless

HISTORY.

tw: gore, death, mildly graphic depictions of autopsy

here's the thing about orson lloyd : HE'S AN OPPORTUNIST . he always has been. and the q u i e t ones ? well, they always get the MOST opportunities, don't they ? he might have been raised modest, raised humble — a fact that manifests still now in mild manners and a softer, slower cadence of speech ( he likes to take his t i m e, speak with precision and clarity ) — but orson has always craved more. he's always longed for MORE. as a child, orson roams the crowded pews of his family's chapel, spindly legs weaving between weeping widows and wailing parents. watching. observing. NEVER INTERACTING ! he learns at a young age that his parents are in the business of DEATH and that to be in such a business is a very careful thing indeed. their clients are wrought with very real, very VOLATILE and very DISTRACTING emotions, and so orson treads with care and caution. he uses delicate CARE in making sure his hands go unnoticed as they slip into the pockets and the purses of the mourning middle class ; and when he leaves ? he practices only extreme CAUTION as he exits, unnoticed, to the safe haven of a locked office door. these TRINKETS he collects, they're not what he truly desires, but they provide a DISTRACTION. from what ?

orson discovers the answer to that question at the age of twelve. it's the first time his father allows him to sit in the PREPARATION ROOM while he performs the embalming process on a body. he clutches his chair in a w h i t e - k n u c k l e d grasp and watches with eager curiosity as the scalpel makes its first neat, steady incision. ( over the years, the elder lloyd's hands will grow SHAKIER and orson will have to clench his fists at his sides until knuckles are once again DRAINED of blood as he watches his father FUMBLE not only a blade but a very delicate procedure. ) he can still vividly remember his reaction to the sight. VISCERAL — like every fibre of his being suddenly ELECTRIFIED. in a singular moment, a boy has realized his calling. and he quickly becomes OBSESSED ; sitting in on every body preparation he can, poring over the labels for various chemicals and preservatives and scribbling notes onto any scrap of paper he can. by fourteen, he's memorized the details of every procedure so that on his next birthday, his father might offer him the greatest gift : the opportunity to PRACTICE. to perform. he just knows he can do it. and, more than that, he can do it WELL.

and to his credit, orson lloyd is NOT wrong. in fact, if anything, he's p r o d i g i o u s. surgical precision would appear an inherent skill, and a PATIENT and METHODICAL technique promises consistent perfection. the clients are pleased. business is BOOMING, insofar as their business can, anyway. ( is his father pleased ? would he care for the answer either way ? it's no longer VALIDATION the young lloyd seeks out. ) he grows into the role upon graduating from university, taking up full - time residence at the lloyd family funeral home alongside his parents. it's only then that he discovers the business's FAULTS. and to their credit, it's truly through none of their own ; after all, not everyone has so keen an eye for OPPORTUNITY as orson, and he cannot fault them for lacking the wisdom to MOURN that of which they're unaware. but orson ? oh, he is acutely aware of all of the possibilities ; he might be ELBOW-DEEP in the thoracic cavity of a cadaver, but he's kept his ear close to the DARK UNDERBELLY of the city. he's not ignorant to what goes on behind closed doors, under cover of night. there's profit to be gained for ALL parties involved.

there is an unsettling air of MYSTERY surrounding orson lloyd's inheritance of his family's funeral home and crematorium. the general consensus is that both of his parents DIED, but the cause behind their passing is a source of significant speculation — was it old age ? illness ? a tragic accident ? whatever the cause, orson handles it as he does most things : QUIETLY. no obituaries are published and, perhaps more strangely, no public funeral service is offered. at twenty-five years old, he is the sole owner and operator of the funeral home. oddly enough, he almost seems PREPARED for the role. but there is no p r a c t i c i n g before he approaches hanging man with a PROPOSITION. there's no need. ( he's been thinking about this for years. ) by day, he provides mortuary and funeral services to the community of queens ; by NIGHT, he's dissecting cadavers piled at his doorstep by ASSASSINS like gifts from eager street cats before effectively DESTROYING their remains.

and it is DISSECTING, isn't it ? because orson never just BURNS the bodies. one might say he has an affinity for playing with them, but that's just NOT TRUE, is it ? it's not PLAYING if it has PURPOSE. and it does. there's a market for all these spare parts he's meant to dispose of, and orson is an e n t r e p r e n e u r ! more than that, he isn't WASTEFUL. ( if he derives his own personal enjoyment from the deconstruction of cadavers, well, you know what they say ! love your job and you'll never work a day in your life. and his souvenirs, well, he'll kindly remind you they're HIS OWN FUCKING BUSINESS, thank you. ) these days, it's rare to catch orson outside the walls of the funeral home, far too often busy with his work to leave unless his presence is REQUIRED elsewhere. he seldom sleeps, fueled instead by a near constant supply of CAFFEINE & NICOTINE. ( it's a wonder his hands are still so steady ! ) and should you happen to turn up at his doorstep and you're NOT dead, surely an unusual encounter awaits you.

CONNECTIONS.

to be updated soon !

OFFICIAL FILE.

*     ◟    :    〔   robert pattinson  ,      cis man    +   he + him    〕      orson montgomery lloyd , some say you’re a thirty-five year old lost soul among the neon lights. known for being both meticulous and aloof, one can’t help but think of  tesselate by alt - j  when you walk by. are you still a capo / funeral director  at  hanging man / lloyd funeral home  even with your reputation as the the anomic ?   i think we’ll be seeing more of you and several days' worth of half-empty paper coffee cups hanging haphazardly along the edge of a crowded desk, painstakingly pinned insects on display in sleek, simple shadow boxes, and the glow of a flame as it licks the interior window of an industrial cremator. although we can’t help but think of graverobber ( repo! the genetic opera ), jack hodgins ( bones ), and martin whitly ( prodigal son ) whenever we see you down these rainy streets. 

[stxneflxwers]

off-colored.

⋯⁂ summary. Aventurine woke up sick, now you're full of determination to keep him home – the place where he's allowed to be himself (and so you can take care of him.)

⋯⁂ a/n. barely edited lol. i wrote this in the tumblr post editor... :') anyway. SICK FIC TIME!!!!! I WANNA BABY HIM GRRRR

⋯⁂ characters. aventurine. gn reader.

⋯⁂ w.c. 971.

⋯⁂ cw. fluff/hurt comfort. established relationship. sickness and its side dishes. all lowercase. mentions of nudity. mentions of past trauma. (both are non-descriptive).

aventurine.

🌌 needless to say, he's not exactly thrilled to be sick – if anything, it makes his heart jump into his throat (and subsequently make him cough and choke on his own saliva even more).

🌌 for a split second, he thinks he's dying – but no, all that happened was him rolling off the bed and crashing to the floor with the blanket tangled around him. and then promptly getting thrown into a violent coughing fit.

🌌 you were, for a split moment, considering getting on his case for hogging the blanket again – and then you heard him hacking away for a solid few moments before he releases a very loud, stuffy sigh. uh oh, you think, that last long mission he had must've gotten him sick.

🌌 but then... you realize how you can take advantage of this and force him to stay home for once (definitely not because you want more time with him or anything. totally not.) you grin to yourself, believing it's your turn to win for once – he's hardly a sore loser when it comes to you.

you roll to his side of the bed and peek over the edge, "you sound sick." you blurt out – soft, unimposing.

"huh? uh... nuh uh!" he then sneezes behind his clothed arm after barely managing to detangle himself from the blanket.

"yeah, sure, totally and completely not sick at all. i definitely believe you." you scowl, although it's more playful than genuine.

"but... i've got work today–"

"you say that every day."

"but it's true!" he sniffles and wipes at his nose with the back of his black fabric sleeve.

"yeah, well, too bad!" you say and hop to your feet, already feeling excited over the notion of babying him all day. "you're staying home – coworkers and boss be damned."

he whines your name pathetically, "pleaaaaase..."

"no."

"pretty please?"

"no!"

"...with a cherry on top–"

"oh, shush. and don't you try to sneak out of the house." you cross your arms with an atmosphere of determination – all to make sure he gets better soon, instead of exacerbating any pain and malaise.

"haha..." he chuckles weakly (and dryly from his parched throat), "alright, you win."

"yay!" you cheer and help him sit on the edge of the mattress (that will certainly need to have its sheets changed soon), "good boy." you pat his head with such soft and slow strokes that he can feel the love melt into his bones and heart.

"aw... you just wanted to hear me say that you win, huh?" he teases – despite his ailed state – and smiles up at you, somehow even more charmingly than usual. "sure, sure, take advantage of the sick guy–"

"shush, you! it's not such a bad thing to have you home with me for once, anyway..." you sigh, a soft pout protruding from your bottom lip – your hand stills for a fleeting moment, making his heart lurch right back into his throat again.

"i'm sorry, i'm sorry – don't be mad–" he pleads, something he rarely does, but you've dealt with a sick kakavasha once before, you can do it as many times as you need to.

you smile sadly, your eyes pinching with apology, "don't worry – i'm not upset at all. i've just...missed you more than words can describe." you resume petting his soft hair – he's always taken such good care of his pretty blonde locks.

"i...i missed you too, babe." he sighs in relief, his heart settling back into its rightful place.

🌌 he's surprisingly compliant for the rest of the day – of course, he has his playful and teasing comebacks, but he never truly puts up a fight. even if he felt capable enough, he still wouldn't – not against you.

🌌 you do just about anything for him as he recovers – to drive home the point that you love him dearly and deeply. he barely asks for anything, though, so you end up going above and beyond for him – as a part of some weird, personal gamble with yourself. has he been rubbing off on you? you're not sure.

🌌 one of the worst (read: most difficult) parts of taking care of him is making him eat. he'll complain with a whine or groan and try to hide under a pillow or blanket. you're not sure if it's trauma-related or him just being a big baby over some minor nausea, but no worries, you've got it handled.

🌌 after a bit of half-hearted arguing, he succumbs to your demands and eats at least half of what you made him. he has an arguably small appetite and stomach due to his past, so you let him eat as much as he's comfortable with – as long as he actually eats.

🌌 one of the other worst parts of taking care of him is getting him to bathe with you helping him. he insists he won't fall asleep in the bath, but you don't trust his awkward laugh and blatant lie (or his half-asleep expression). once you've pulled your final straw, you give him a hard, long stare until he finally puts up his white flag and – yet again – succumbs to letting you help him out.

🌌 he's very shy when you're naked around each other – it immediately makes his whole face red, his blush even reaching his neck and upper chest. you giggle a little at him and he pouts, all you do is pinch his burning, red cheek. yet your gentle, loving teasing eases his aversion to any and all vulnerability. he, from thereon, complies with the rest of the bathing process.

🌌 when night falls upon your shared home, he's practically dead asleep. you feel fulfilled. and he's already looking better than he did this morning – the color in his skin slowly returning.

yeah, you definitely won.

[snapscube]

pls disregard if one of my posts has the mature content label when it’s first posted for the next little bit. i literally don’t know what’s wrong w my tumblr app/phone but for some reason this thing is completely broken. every time i try to add a tag the app crashes. it crashes when i add a picture sometimes. it just keeps crashing. it’ll save posts that im working on sometimes tho but then when i post the recovered version it’ll just add the mature content label even when i haven’t touched the setting at all. its a nightmare rn.

[mrs-snape5984]

“There is no other love, it's only yours…”

“You're all I want, all I love…” (“You’re all I want” by Cigarettes after Sex)

Yesterday I had a really rough day. It didn’t just feel like one of my regular “PEM-Crash-Days” (PEM = post-exertional malaise = the worsening of symptoms after crossing the boundaries of my condition, due to my disease ME/CFS). The whole day was also coated in a thick layer of sadness and grief…an emotional turmoil, which I could only barely endure. Well…mixing these feelings with another wave of fever and pain, seasoned with the incapacity of tolerating screen time, adding the suffocating sensation of loneliness….et voilà! The perfect recipe for a day in hell was created! 🙄

In order to cope with my emotions, I found myself drowning in my fantasies of teenage Severus and my undeniably self-inserted OC Jules…rewriting one of their short fictional scenes. Again, Severus was tormented by his own insecurities, getting carried away in self-loathing. I don’t know, how many times I’ve already written scenes like these. Jules encourages Severus to stay resilient, praising him for all those traits, which he only identifies as his flaws and weaknesses. But for Jules, there’s so much beauty, so much strength in his imperfections. She’s making his blemishes look like the most loveable attributes of Severus’ personality with her passionate speech.

When I wrote this little scene, I recognised something: I already knew, that I��m identifying myself a lot with Severus…but Jules’ words of encouragement and consolation to her beloved friend Sevy…well, they’re are also things, I would crave to hear for myself (how pathetic, huh?!). But since I’m struggling immensely with the acceptance of my own insecurities and fears, I’m not able to reassure myself of my own worth. It’s just not on the table for me!

So…I’ll just keep on telling Severus in my stories, that he deserves nothing less than the whole world…and that Jules will always try to make him feel loved and cared for. She will never stop to compare his flaws with her own weaknesses by explaining to him, how perfectly they’re matching. Jules will never grow tired to assure Severus, that his cynicism is the perfect complement to her sense of sarcasm. For the Slytherin girl, it's a clear sign for Sevy’s extremely high intellect, which is also something, that she adores about her friend. In Jules’ eyes, his bitterness mirrors a form of hypersensitivity, a characteristic, which she knows so well from herself. That’s why she’s acting so empathetically with Severus, whenever he’s suffering with his life…and Jules is convinced, that sharing those feelings will make them less unbearable! The girl even praises Severus’ stubbornness by telling him, that she’s enjoying every good and intelligent argument with him to clear the air between them. All together, Severus’ imperfections are pure perfection to the hopelessly devoted (and obviously love-struck 😅) girl.

I’m aware of the overdramatic nature and the unnecessary fluffiness of my short stories, but that’s the reason, why I’m writing them for my eyes only. It’s my form of a coping mechanism…the only way of allowing myself some kind of self-assurance and comfort…through Severus!

Some time ago, I found an artist here on tumblr, who made me fall head over heels for her tender style of drawing my beloved dungeon bat. Especially an artwork of her interpretation of the younger Snape made my heart ache with longing for him, so of course, I just had to commission @pssherri for an illustration of Severus and my OC Jules in their teenage years.

Sonja, you did an amazing job with this project and I can’t express, how grateful I am for your kindness and the dedication to your profession! It was a pleasure to cooperate with you on this idea of mine and I hope, you’ll be open to work on more of my requests some day. Thank you for everything, my dear!

🖤Severus & Julia🖤

🖤Sevy & Jules🖤

[moonshynecybin]

do you have any motogp fic recs?

yeah sure man. im gonna keep it simple (ao3 only) because i am a capricious bookmarker and refuse to wade through the weeds of tumblr fic as im not a natural tagger. no order just vibes. all of these i love and reread !

cant change that, cant change you by kingsquarding

Marc at the ranch for the (second) first time.

this fic is the platonic ideal of marc and vale post reconciliation being TOGETHER and at the RANCH and trying to make it WORK but they are also. still being a little messed up. themes include: guilt. injury. marc trying to get vale to stop treating him like glass and FUCK HIM already because he doesnt want to admit that their relationship/his body has changed since he was twenty. delicious.

Che Spettacolo! by serve_cunt

“What do you think,” Vale says, and leans against the doorframe. “Will he come?” Uccio stays silent. Of course he will come, he wants to say. In what world does he stay away? In what world can he resist?

sending uccio to the cuck chair. outside POV rosquez always hits for me becuase they match each other's freak in so many ways its fun to see what antics they engage in as obsevered by someone more normal. in this case. uccio. also helps get around vale's shit ass communication because its him through the eyes of someone who KNOWS that vale is being WEIRD. even if marc doesnt. fun and SEXY. academic au by the same author ALSO slays

of crashing and burning (and falling for you) by Anonymous

It has always been Marc and Valentino, Valentino and Marc. Two rivals inseparable on- and off-track throughout their careers, their story so closely intertwined they might as well have been the same person, dominating their beloved sport between the two of them. Then Marc breaks his arm, Vale loses their championship, and they are left trying to pick up the pieces. AKA a rosquez same age AU.

someone wrote out. elle and i's same age au. and it was so perfect i legit struggle to answer asks about this au now because im just like. its in the AU !!! its all here !!! really nails vale in this specific scenario imo... all the love and resentment and self-imposed walls and. my favorite of all. the exact way these guys talk in press conferences. like their exact diction. hits the spot beautifulperfect

arms out like an angel by yekoc

“Does Marc still work here?” he asks. He can’t think of the word for performing. “I dunno, man,” the guy says. “Sorry, I’m new.” Vale blinks at him. “Find out,” he says, and then, annoyed at himself for the impatience, “if you can. I came a long way.”

the efficiency of word choice in terms of characterization in this one really moves me... every line has implications !!! sexy ones even !!! and theres so much baseline CHEMISTRY and inability to really STAY AWAY from each other but also. a tense little undercurrent of slight misunderstanding and hurt that makes it stand out... i also just love fics where marc pushes back just a lil and vale has to like. figure out what to do with that. in a horny way. yekoc's bezzcele also goes crazy if you wanna think about nipple piercings as much as i do

All I Wanted by agnst-crrnt

The first time it happens is just after Marc’s 10th birthday. He’s about to complain to his parents about how Álex always finishes the milk and then puts it back into the fridge, when the faces of his parents’ blur in front of him. Marc closes his eyes, trying to make it better and grabs onto the edge of the table. He can hear his mama ask him if he’s okay, before everything stops. or Rosquez Time Travel Au, where Marc randomly gets teleported through time, always ending up somewhere around Vale

hey thats my friend. rosquez time travel au as ive said my favorite thing to think about maybe EVER !!! really love the strict marc POV on this one and how you REALLY see the. youre in love so you go. and his just. his ceaseless romanticism and optimism wrt to vale and their relationship that fits this fic concept SO well. guest appearances from pedrenzo as well yayyyyy

i give into the fall series by lestelledreams

Her and Pol were good; they did win a gold at Junior Worlds after all, and that’s not something anyone can just go out there and do. But her and Valentino – they could become great. Mar’s never been more sure of anything in her life. or, The first year of Mar's and Vale's partnership.

genderbend figure skating au where marc gets to have all his weird injury complexes explored AND it gets slutty AND we get to see his freak ass ambition. imagine if motogp was a pairs sport (like actually not just in a fake way) and marc had the option of pairing up with vale. imagine how crazy he would go trying to make that happen adfhdflk

a hundred ninety-nine degrees by hardlythewiser (sequinedfairy)

“You should fuck me again,” Bez says. It trips out, all his defenses worn down by the long, annoying day of meetings, by the feeling of Cele above him, pressing him down into the couch, by Cele’s bright clear gaze. Above him, Cele doesn’t smile with his whole face, scrunching up his eyes, like he did the first time Bez asked. He doesn’t smile at all, just keeps looking at Bez. “Really?” he asks. “I didn’t know – did you like it, last time?”

cele tops lets GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. some fics just. have an ability to pierce directly towards what actually and precisely makes a pairing or a situation or a dynamic SEXY, while also revealing a new facet of said dynamic that i've never thought about in depth before. this is one of those. fuck him!!! make him cry !!!! perfect !!!

i was having a sweet fix of a daydream of a boy (whose reality i knew was hopeless to be had) by babynflames

In Motegi 2005, Hiroshi Aoyama wins his first race during his home GP, Dani Pedrosa gets second while hiding a fractured humerus and Jorge Lorenzo is handed a one race ban for riding in a irresponsible manner after nearly colliding with Dani and causing de Angelis to abandon the race, leaving the third position to Casey Stoner. The haircutting is incidental.

dyke PEDRENZO. fic that is fun and funny and filled to the BRIM with the kind of homoerotic tension you can only have between two teenage dykes in direct competition who dont even know theyre horny about each other except they REALLY kind of do. also. the best sports rpf to me always engages with a sport on a sociological level... also just love the writing style on this. direct and avoidant at the same time. very dani in sexuality crisis to me aljfdhl

[sturniololuv08]

█▓▒▒░░░Master List░░░▒▒▓█

Wattpad Voting (Voting for the next story to be written!)

Chris, Nick, Matt Spotify Playlists

Name the Girl (Interactive)

The Moment (Just a Random Poem?)

ⓡ𝐚𝐍𝓭Øм 𝓼𝓱Øя𝐓丂

Matt Sturniolo Short (Rated R)

Bat Matt (Dorky Batman Short)

The Christmas Present (Nick Sturniolo Fluff)

The Stand-In (Chris Series)

Part One

Part Two Coming Soon

Part Three Coming Soon

Kings Of National City (Also on Wattpad)

The Crystal Kings are the top reigning gang in National City, California. Elmer, their leader, runs a tight operation. With Nick and Chris doing drops, making plays, and helping call the shots everything is running smoothly. Since Matt struggles with anxiety he lays low in the background, often. That is until their rival gang, The Nightshade Reapers, start moving in on their turf.

What do you think is going to happen when The Nightshade Reapers start playing dirty and wreak havoc in The Crystal Kings' personal lives?

More importantly, is Matt going to be able to step up when things start to get dangerous?

Warnings - This story is about Matt, Chris, and Nick in a GANG. So I don't have to state warnings every single time I post, any of these chapters may include: Violence, Gang activity, Rape (Implied), Fear, Blood, Graphic Descriptions, Drugs, *Adult Language (*Probably in everything I write TBH) Read At Your Own Risk

Chapters:

Dirty Drop (3)

A Meeting (6)

Abdominal Aorta (7)

The Fill In (8)

Case In Point (9)

Double Dealing (10)

Who Is She? (11)

Where Was Here? (12)

The Familiar Voice (13)

I'll Prove It (14)

"Chris, What The Fuck!" (15)

♥S♥o♥n♥g♥ S♥h♥o♥r♥t♥s♥ (Requirements)

The Background Brother (Matt Fluff)

Candy Girl (Chris/ Sex and Language)

I Need Something More (Matt Smutt with a Hint of Edging)

Her (Chris Smut)

That Feeling (Matt Sturniolo Smut)

The Game

Part One (Matt - PG)

Part Two (Matt - PG)

Part Three (Matt - R)

𝕆𝕟𝕖 𝕋𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘

Chapter 1 and 2

3

Chapter 4 and 5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

🍕🍟🥪 𝓡𝓮𝓬𝓸𝓶𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓭𝓮𝓭 🥙🥡🍖

Tumblr: @sturnlsstuff

mask on (ghostface!matt)

mask on 2 (ghostface!matt)

mask off (ghostface!matt)

— you pick up an unknown call, finding out you've been watched for a while and the evening takes a turn.

Tumblr: @teapartyprincess4two

End of the World- M. Sturniolo

summary: No one deserves to die a virgin, not even at the end of the world.

Tumblr: @chestersturniolo

One try - You finally convince Matt to let you have ‘One try’ of his joint, and of course, right on time, Chris comes home to find you stoned

Tumblr: @ariestrxsh

Young God Series

Part One - Summary: Your older brother is back in town for summer vacation, and he brings home his childhood best friend, matt sturniolo, who can't seem to keep his eyes off how much your body has changed since he's last seen you.

Part Two - Summary: Your brother's childhood best friend, matt sturniolo, takes your virginity, and the two of you begin sneaking around in plain sight.

Part Three - Summary: Your protective older brother has always warned you to stay away from his best friend, matt sturniolo. after losing your virginity to matt, going against your brother's judgment, the two of you start sneaking around in plain sight.

Ongoing

Tumblr: @vanteguccir

Car Crash M.S.

SUMMARY: Where an amazing date night leads to a devastating car accident, leaving Y/N severely injured and Matt hospitalized and feeling extremely guilt.

WARNING: Car crash, blood, gore (nothing too extreme), mentions of surgery and death.

[wip]

Hello! Would you ever consider bringing back different post types, especially audio? I appreciate that audio posts now display the artist, song title, and album name, but unfortunately newer audio posts don’t play in Tumblr-based music players like egoisticalgoat.de or robinpx.github.io/boombox because they’re read as text posts. Thank you for reading!

Answer: Hey there, @stepintomusic!

Sadly, the answer here is no. We’ve been moving away from legacy post types and towards the Neue Post Format—a format that allows multiple types of media in the same post—for many years. The new features available in NPF basically guarantee that we won’t ever switch back to the legacy format.

(If you’re interested in peeking behind the scenes here, there are a few posts about NPF over at @engineering.)

Now, to get into the meat of the issue. While it would be amazing if we could support every third-party tool forever, the reality is that we can’t. We’re a surprisingly small team to begin with, and even if we weren’t, that support would come at a cost.

To start, there’s the development tax. Now, would it have been cool to ensure all third-party tools (and all custom themes) worked 100% perfectly with posts stored as NPF before releasing NPF to the public? Yeah, it would have been… for third-party tools and custom themes. For us, it would have meant delaying NPF (and all the features it brings with it) for months, possibly years. Imagine a 2023 where Tumblr still doesn’t have polls: that’s the alternate future we’re talking about here.

And then, there’s our maintenance tax. The engine that powers Tumblr themes is already incredibly complicated—complicated to the point that we’re already finding it difficult to maintain and add things like, as you mentioned, NPF audio metadata. If, every time we found some third-party tool that doesn’t play nice with the latest changes, we tried to make an affordance for it… the engine would just become even more complex. And it would do so quickly, and complex to the point of being impossible to keep up with as a maintainer.

There’s a great article here by a former Mozilla developer about the pitfalls of prioritizing a third-party ecosystem over your own software. Did you know that Firefox was essentially a single-threaded application until 2018? This meant it would still visually lock up when saving files to disk, or collecting crash data. Chrome launched in 2008 and was multiprocess from the start. But it took Firefox ten years to catch up because supporting all existing third-party add-ons was seen as necessary. (Spoiler alert: in the end, they had to drop support for those add-ons anyway.)

My own recommendation around third-party software like this is: get in contact with its developer! If something in their software isn’t working, there’s nobody more qualified to update it. (Or, if they’ve abandoned the project but had made it open-source, maybe someone else could step up to maintain it. Maybe you! You never know until you try.)

I talked about the maintenance tax from the first-party side, but let’s talk about it from the third-party side, too. As a theme author and add-on developer myself, I have long accepted that the cost of maintaining these things can never be zero. When your software interacts with an online service, and that online service is being actively maintained, your software also needs to be maintained.

I hope all this has been enlightening! Thanks for your question, and please, have a great day.

—April

[bibbityboppitybillyharvgrove]

Stream Crasher- E.Munson

Summary: Eddie Munson is a well known streamer who keeps his private life out of the public eye. His fans get a little glimpse of his life with his wife when she crashes his stream on more than one occasion.

Pairings: Modern!Eddie x Wife!Reader

Warnings: Female Reader, mentions of food, Eddie is a mechanic and is a gamer in his free time, (Let me know if I missed any)

My full Masterlist

Author's Note: It's been awhile, I've been in a bit of a slump lately but I'm trying my hardest to get out of it. I'm working on a few things right now so keep an eye out.

Word Count: 1.1K

My asks are open for questions, suggestions and feedback

Feedback is welcomed and encouraged!

Enjoy!

gif not mine

Eddie Munson was a name well known across the gaming community. He was right up there along with Pewdiepie, Jacksepticeye and Markiplier. It took him years to get where he was and he wasn’t even expecting it, he was a mechanic who played video games on the internet for fun. It was his hobby and he never seemed to view it as a job, he always had fun with whatever game he was playing.

His fans had known that he was in a serious relationship, he and his girl lived together, had been together since high school and had been best friends their whole lives. He never revealed much about her, just that she was funny, gorgeous and a high school English teacher.

One night, Eddie had been streaming, he was replaying The Last of Us before the show came out, when he heard a gentle knock on his game room door. “That you, sweetheart?” He called back to the knock. The door creaked open, light from the hallway streaming through.

“Yeah, I brought you some snacks and I refilled your water,” She replied from the doorway. Making her way to her seated boyfriend, who had just paused the game and turned his chair so he could face her, she handed him the plate that held some cut fruit on it and his water bottle, now filled with ice water. She did this every time he streamed for over two hours, knowing he gets grumpy when he doesn’t eat.

“Thank you, baby. You wanna watch for a bit?” He asked her.

“I wish I could but I have to grade some papers,” She pouted at him. He pulled her down so she was straddling his lap and pulled her in for a sweet kiss, completely forgetting about the stream he had going on. 

“When you want to take a break, you know where to find me. I love you.”

“I love you, more Eds.” With that she planted a kiss on his cheek, got up from his lap and exited the room, shutting the door gently behind her. He turned back to the stream and continued about his way as if nothing ever happened. His eyes occasionally drifted over to the chat to answer questions, which were now all about his girl.

One comment stood out among the rest, “'That was my English teacher'. Well, I’m glad you have my girl for an English teacher. Please respect her privacy though. I don’t want to throw her into this world of social media and content creation,” He lectured his chat. He didn’t want her thrown into the toxic world that social media was, she wasn’t big on social media to begin with. She had Twitter, Tumblr, TikTok and Instagram, all of which she never posted much, just enjoying the content others put out. In one of the many cutscenes, he turned most of his attention to the chat, snacking on the peeled orange sitting on the plate in front of him. 

“For those of you asking, my girl and I have known each other our whole lives, we were best friends for years until I had the balls to finally ask her out our freshman year. I was convinced she had a massive crush on our friend Steve but boy was I wrong. We’ve been living together for 5 years. Once we graduated high school we got an apartment with the money we made at the bars we worked at. Once she graduated from college, we moved into our house. She's working on her masters right now, on top of working at the high school in our town.”

“One of you just asked if we’re engaged. We aren’t, we actually just got married last month. She hasn’t changed her last name yet, she plans on that once the school year is over so it doesn’t confuse her current students. Married life is great, not much has changed, it definitely feels great to finally call her my wife,” Eddie chuckled. He heard the door creak open again, turning around to see his wife in the doorway with a wide smile on her face. “Were you eavesdropping, sweetheart?” He teased her.

“Is it eavesdropping if you’re technically talking to yourself?” She teased back. 

“I-I don’t have anything. What can I do for you, beautiful?”

“Thought I’d take you up on that offer of watching before. I can’t read another paper. Like I swear I drill them about grammar and yet they are still using commas in places they don’t belong, the run on sentences, not taking my suggestions that I left on their rough drafts and don’t even get me started on using ‘your’ in a formal research paper,” She vented.

“I’m sorry, baby, come sit. Teenagers just don’t listen,” Eddie sympathized.

“Oh I’m aware. You never did, Mr. I don’t need help to pass O'Donnell's class. Mr. I can pass history without studying even though I never paid attention,” She teased him.

“You little snake! I ended up getting help didn’t I? My personal teacher helped me pass.”

“I sure did. Now get on with your stream. I wanna watch you kill some clickers.”

He had turned back to his monitors, where the game was paused, pulling his older gaming chair over so she could sit. As he played, she answered some of the questions coming through on the stream. She was out of the camera’s view, Eddie making it a habit to turn his camera further away from his right side and more to the left. A few names she recognized but she lit up when she saw some more familiar names to both her and Eddie.

“Honey, look! The kids and Steve are watching! Hi guys!” She squealed in delight. She loved seeing that their friends were supportive and frequently joined in on Eddie’s live streams. “For those asking, no, Eddie and I don’t have kids. The kids are our friends that are a few years younger than us. I used to babysit them when they were younger, Eddie played Dungeons and Dragons with them in high school, had a whole club and everything.”

“No need to out me as a freak there, baby,” Eddie joked, his eyes finding their way to his wife’s face, seeing nothing but love and joy in her eyes.

“What did I tell you about calling yourself a freak? You were just nerdy with really long hair, that’s all. Still are really nerdy with long hair but I married you, didn’t I?”

“You did indeed. And I’m very happy you did.”

“I’m very happy I did, too.”

[siyzuii]

HAVE YOU SHIFTED ALREADY GIRLIE? plus, you're a kpop stan and a shifter, THAT'S AMAZING XOXO <3

omg my tumblr keeps crashing i swear

anyway to answer your question! after surviving a lot of shifttok misinfo and 4 years of doubt i can finally say i have shifted a few times but only to parallel realities for now. i still see it as an achievement though!

the first time it was because i was losing my belief in shifting and i saw a lot of demotivating anti-shifting content but i just intended to shift to a parallel reality and did my own thing and boom guess what IT HAPPENED

it eased my doubts immediately and now i can shift to parallel realities effortlessly and sometimes even unintentionally, happens every 2 days or so.

buuuut that’s not my dr yet! i know i’m getting closer though (as you can see in my other recent post lol) and i’m getting vivid dreams about my dr and shifting and yesterday i also got REALLY close but i got woken up before i could ground myself there.

i would say i’m gonna try tonight (writing this right before bed) but i can’t say try because i KNOW i’m going to

good luck on your shifting journey i know you can do it! 🙏 if you’re seeing this just know that i doubted myself and shifting in general for (almost) 4 consecutive years, i even convinced myself it was just delusions for a while and it was all just so hard but here i am now, getting closer to ultimate success! i believe in you and everyone else who might be reading this! <3

[bigskydreaming]

So, been awhile! Apologies for that - took a step back from most social media sites for a few months because the accumulated stresses and everpresent urgency to most things I've been dealing with for the past five plus years finally caught up with me and I kinda just....crashed, and needed some time to get my head on straight. Or whatever the non-obvious-pun version of that might be for a Known Bisexual. Everything was getting to be too constantly 'stop and go' for me, if that makes sense.....like I'd TRY to be more present on here, TRY to work on things like my patreon and fic and meta and stuff like that because I've really wanted to get back to creating actual stuff that people enjoy instead of being like My Issues: The Latest Installment and the like, but then something else would crop up and kill my momentum before it even really got going and I'd have to duck away yet again, and rinse and repeat.

HENCE! I took a more dedicated, extended leave to try and get into a headspace and build a buffer that better lends itself to me getting back to the kinds of posting/writing conditions I've thrived under in the past. It took longer than I thought, but I've never been good at accurately estimating things lol. I've still been on twitter somewhat sporadically, since a huge part of why I hate that site is its format makes it all but impossible to really get to ranting at length...y'know, as I do, my tried and true time-suck method of procrastinating...and with everything going on in the world these days I didn't want to disconnect entirely even though I did need time to work through some shit. BUT I DIGRESS.

Point is, felt like I needed something more substantial than the optimistic-but-lacking-in-actual-energy-and-planning measures I've attempted in the past couple years in order to get on top of things and achieve a measure of consistency and stability again. Less shooting for the moon because I just WANT to be back to my older, happier/more content patterns, more....putting some actual time and thought into how I can realistically make that happen instead of just trying to will it into existence through sheer stubbornness. Because obviously, THAT always works.

ANYWAY. It'll still be a couple days before I get back to regular posting/reblogging patterns or much of any of that at all.....don't be confused if you see some blink and you miss them temporary posts from me over the next day or two. I'm testing out the formatting and layout of a bunch of posts and graphics made for my patreon and original fiction stuff, since the preview post function doesn't always work with read mores in a post and they're all gonna need that lol. If anyone's up for it, I am finalizing the price/reward tiers of my patreon and could use some thoughts on the different levels - I think I have them mostly figured out but wouldn't mind some additional perspectives on how I broke things down and if I'm missing some alternatives. Just message me directly if you'd like to weigh in or lend me your thoughts!

I've never wanted my tumblr to be all about fic or just original content or anything like that, so the patreon's meant to kinda keep all that separate beyond just generalized update announcements on here. The blog will remain just a regular multi-purpose smorgasboard of my reblogs and thoughts on other posts and meta about my various fandoms and all that jazz. The patreon discord will have spaces having to do with my various fanfics, but they'll never be exclusive to it in any way, and every fic update I make will still be on my blog same as always. I've been building masterlists of all my Dick Grayson meta and all my Teen Wolf meta, as well as headcanons and writing snippets/scenes that never got posted elsewhere because I didn't consider them full fics, and I'm starting a series of posts that lean directly into my tendencies to be an Overly Opinionated Asshole who - historically speaking - has never been, uh, shy, shall we say, about Having Thoughts about various fandom patterns or trends.

So....look out for the upcoming "Kalen Vs Fandoms" post series. What? It sounded catchy to me. First up:

"Fandoms' tendency to pick one character per fandom to have every other character introduce as the dumbest person they've ever met, but no its okay, they're actually really fond of them and universally defaulting to a judgmental or patronizing shot at their intelligence every single time they're the topic of conversation among other characters just naturally happens to be part of every single other character's love language - is this perhaps NOT as endearing or affectionate as fandoms tend to treat it as?" Aka "How many people can actually say they'd be comfortable with the idea of every single person in their family or friend group leading with "I genuinely think they're stupid but I love them anyway" each time they talk about them to someone else, and if you don't think that's a normal conversation starter for people to have about a loved one, why do so many fandoms attempt to treat it as such?"

.....the length of post title should not be taken as an indicator of how long each post is. If people want to draw their own conclusions about post length based solely on the fact that they're, well, by me.....I mean. That's totally your prerogative. Nothing I can do about that!

Post topics will run the gamut, if for no other reason than gamut is an amazing word that doesn't get used enough and I wanted to use it. From "Its totally valid to project onto characters and use fic as a way to work through various issues via that projection but how much does this have to do with how defensively people react to the slighest criticism of character choices in their fics as though personally attacked - discuss" to "Criticizing and condemning the writers of source material for specific things - to rave reviews from followers - only to then do the exact same specific things in your own fics - to rave reviews from followers - while claiming that the mere fact of being a fan not getting paid for writing those specific things somehow makes them less worthy of criticism.....are we all seeing the problem here."

There's a slight chance those titles are perhaps....somewhat unnecessarily asshole-coded, but like, in a whimsical way! I think. Whatever. I'm sure it'll be fine!

Will either rhyme OR reason be involved in the order of post topics? No. Not even a little bit. Next question.

Aside from "Kalen vs Fandoms" I've been putting a lot of thought into what other topics or content I can expound upon at length, to the possible interest of people. I'm good at writing and editing and analyzing narratives. Not claiming to be the best, just not trying to fish for compliments or anything. I think my analysis of narrative and character choices has generally been of interest in most fandoms I've been in, but when I'm IN a fandom, I do personally invest in favorite characters and stories that inevitably put me in opposition to takes from fans of other characters and stories within that fandom, and when that happens, the Horseman of Discourse inevitably follows and I....do the discourse. Look, I am who I am. I see the discourse, I engage with the discourse. Unless I don't care about the topic of discourse, in which case I don't, because that discourse doesn't matter. Obviously.

SO! In the interest of posting about narrative analysis and breakdowns of writing choices, character arcs and the like but WITHOUT engaging in The Discourse, I'll be making an easy-to-find post of fandoms or source material whose characters and narratives I'm familiar enough with TO have opinions or analysises of, but for whatever reason, the fandom has never clicked for me and I've never actually felt a desire to be part of it. Thus I'm not likely to be invested or compelled enough to follow up on anyone disagreeing with my personal thoughts or analysis or various character arcs or narratives, because its literally just like, my opinion man, presented for no other purpose than to potentially be of interest to anyone who might be interested in it. No actual follow up needed on my part because I'm not particularly chuffed if people have different takes, they're totally valid, mine don't exist for the purpose of being defended there, they just exist because Opinions, I Had Them, Here Look. Or Don't. Its Totally Whatever.

Because I don't feel as strongly about these pieces of media as I do fandoms I'm personally invested in, it is trickier to come up with a comprehensive list of ones I can weigh in on. So please feel free to hit up my inbox with any fandoms, narrative or character arcs you're curious about my take on, and I'll let you know if they're fandoms I consider myself a participant in, and thus not really right for this series, or if they're something I'm just not knowledgeable about.....but if they're not an actual fandom of mine and I AM familiar enough with them to have an analytical take or response, I'll add them to the masterlist/post as a potential topic.

This series will be called and tagged "Kalen Vs Writing Choices" (That I Personally Don't Like Or Think Could Be Better). The parenthetical part is there solely to be a disclaimer clarifying that my ego is not so great that I think that My Subjective Take on the writing choices made or not made is the only one that matters. I mean, I don't intend to include the disclaimer as part of the actual tag and will mostly leave it as y'know, like, something IMPLIED, but the disclaimer still exists and thus counts. That's totally how that works.

And that's how I've chosen to awkwardly segue into the final intended-of-three post series.....Dramatically Abrupt Tonal Shift Ahoy!

This next part will get long, but I would truly appreciate it if you gave it a read despite its length and even if - especially if - the next topic isn't one you typically look for my take on, or even avoid my take on, because I don't think I'm likely to ever express my thoughts on this matter any more genuinely or directly than this. Like I'm not trying to guilt anyone or anything like that, its more I'm just trying to say if you ever read ANY single post of mine when it comes to the next topic or pick a post to base your decision on whether or not TO wade into something I have to say on this subject, I would appreciate it if you made that this next part here, as I think it best conveys where I'm coming from when it comes to most any post I make along these lines.

So. The thing is....most people who've followed me long know that in the past I've frequently been extremely vocal on topics of rape, incest and abuse, specifically through the lens of being a male survivor. These absolutely are personal for me. This has led to me having a lot of Overly Opinionated Takes on these topics and how they're talked about, depicted and treated within fandom conversations, fics, and social media spheres and conversations at large. I've also pretty obviously not posted on these topics nearly as much in recent years as I once did - but not because I feel any less strongly about them.

And that's one hundred percent because it's frustrating as hell to see a very good portion of the posts I make about any OTHER topic in my usual fandoms go on to accumulate hundreds of notes....while NONE of my posts on these topics ever break out of my direct circle of mutuals. I don't say it to be egotistical - look how many notes I get on stuff - I say it because its literally objectively factual, and the disparity is dramatic, and the disparity is a PROBLEM. Especially given how much the topics of male rape and abuse - in SPECIFIC - tend to be, within most of my past fandoms.

This disparity has a very clear reason for existing too: people have never been shy about citing that they refrain from reblogging or referencing my posts on these topics because they feel like I act like I'm the only opinion that matters on them, the sole authority to be listened to here, that I use my status as a male rape survivor as a cudgel, to shut down opposing takes or points of view.

Which I would totally be fine with or understand if not for the fact that I've always gone out of my way to express that I don't want or expect my opinions on these matters to be taken as anything other than my personal opinions born of my personal experiences, which I cite because they're relevant. I don't think that survivors should have to disclose their status or personal history or details in order to have their opinion heard on these topics, but I deeply resent how often survivors making the choice TO disclose their personal history or relationship with these topics in order to directly unpack how that informs our perspective....is weaponized AGAINST us, in order to shut down and discredit OUR takes even while literally accusing us of only disclosing in order to do the exact same thing to others.

Something that I've posted about a LOT in the hopes of getting it spread throughout fandoms that regularly talk about male rape is for literal decades I've seen people harp on about how men can be raped too, believe male survivors, don't believe the myth that men can't be raped, etc. Which like, I appreciate the sentiment, but the thing I've tried to express for years is that in my personal experience, and those of a lot of other male survivors I've talked to - this is not really the biggest or even ONE of the biggest issues most male survivors face.

And the fact that for all that there are many survivors in fandom who have made the difficult choice to be open about their traumas and recoveries - which I ALWAYS respect, as that is never easy for any of us - a huge part of why I've always made a point to disclose my own history as a male survivor is because there just flat out aren't a lot of perspectives from MALE survivors in specific, being circulated in pretty much any of the fandom spaces I've ever been in over the past twenty years. I don't even slightly think I'm any more of an expert or authority on topics of rape or abuse - beyond how they pertain to my own personal experiences - than any other survivor. But as long as the topic of MALE rape and abuse in specific, how men are affected by these things, how society reacts to us and treats us in the aftermath....as long as these are the topics explicitly being discussed.....I do think my perspective as a male survivor is pretty fucking relevant, and admittedly, I tend to get pretty heated about pushing BACK against attempts to invalidate it or shout it down as though I somehow have LESS of a stake in or right to be heard in these particular conversations. And I get how this has at times come across as attempting to dominate a given conversation.

But like.....I'm also going to point back up to the part where I said earlier....I'm an Overly Opinionated Asshole. I say it somewhat deprecatingly, for the lulz, but also not. I'm very passionate about conversations and topics I feel strongly about and I don't make apologies for it. And for the most part....this has NEVER stopped people from reblogging or liking posts I make about pretty much any other topic....despite me not really coming across that differently in most of them, compared to how I come across in most of my past posts on topics of rape and abuse.

See....I'm in complete agreement with everyone who emphasizes that rape isn't a gendered issue. That it can and does happen to individuals of any gender or identity. But the reason why I've always found the focus on 'remember that men can be raped too' more performative than helpful is because for almost twenty years, I've been posting on these topics in various fandom spaces and trying to express that in my personal experience, something that REALLY deserves to be talked about more is the fact that rape is not gendered. But rape CULTURE very much IS.

Like it or not, we live in a very gendered society still. While yes, men can be raped too.....for a number of reasons - most of them born of sexism and misogyny in specific - the conditions, catalysts and reasons for men being raped are NOT interchangeable with those at work in instances of women being raped, as an example. Because the way society treats men and women in pretty much EVERY situation is different. Similarly, the way society REACTS to men and women disclosing they've been raped is different. And so on and so on.

So 'remember that men can be raped too' has some basis in societal claims that men can't be raped or that rape IS a gendered issue....but not as much as I think most people tend to believe. And twenty years after I first started searching out perspectives of other male survivors in online fandom spaces, beyond just real world physical support groups, I'm STILL hearing 'remember that men can be raped too' dominating all conversations about male survivors just as regularly and repetitiously as it was twenty years ago....as though the world has not changed at all, and the needle on this particular facet of male survivorhood hasn't changed an inch in the past two decades when no, actually, it very much has.

The reason why I feel so strongly about offering up my perspective as a male survivor in a relative absence of seeing other male survivors' perspectives circulated is I honestly believe the reason this is so consistently upheld as the biggest problem facing male survivors is its a carry-over from women attempting to be heard and believed when disclosing....which makes sense and is completely understandable....as long as there's a complete absence of male survivors offering up any perspective that's to the contrary.

But the fact that we live in a gendered society where rape culture, not rape itself, still very much IS gendered due to being a product of....living in a gendered society....means that the differences in how society treats and reacts to men and women affects every aspect of how society treats and reacts to men and women survivors. And that starts with disclosure itself. In my personal experience - and fully acknowledging that I don't speak for any other male survivor in this moment, and I absolutely do believe there are those who have experiences to the contrary, and that matters too - MY experience, which also matters, is that not once in the twenty years since I've started disclosing about my own rape, or the csa I experienced as a child - have I actually had an issue being believed.

With full acknowledgment of how unfair it is, how gross, the reality of living in a sexist, patriarchal society where male privilege very much exists, is that while men can be raped too, this traumatic thing that happened to us does not in any way actually invalidate or negate our male privilege. It doesn't turn it off for the duration of our experience or any time its relevant to our experiences going forward. We carry that privilege with us through our recoveries and the rest of our lives just as much as we did before it, because its an inalienable result of being in a society that allocates privilege solely on the basis of being born a man who identifies and presents as a cis man (with respect to trans individuals having another axis of experience that very much differentiates all matters pertaining to rape culture, in comparison to cis men, just as much as in the case of cis women, albeit in different ways).

And the gross unfortunate reality of our society is that it ALWAYS prioritizes believing men over women, in all matters......especially cis white men like myself.

So the simple fact is....even the act of disclosure - and the likelihood of being believed when voluntarily choosing to share the information that we've been raped - means that a cis white man like myself does not receive the same reaction as most women receive when attempting to share that same information. Society preconditions a lot of people to be more receptive to taking cis white men at their word, comparative to affording anyone else that basic respect.

Getting people to believe me when I say I was raped has never been the issue for me that other individuals face.

But that doesn't mean that my disclosure doesn't result in issues for me.

Because while being raped never invalidated or negated any of my cis white male privilege, neither did having cis white male privilege negate the possibility of me being raped - OR the fact that society ALSO preconditions people to be really fucking shitty about survivors.

(Hell, ANY kind of living victim....with this also being very relevant to abuse survivors, survivors of physical assault, etc. Much like people can be overflowing with empathy for unborn children who can't offer up any take to the contrary to whatever people want to say "in defense or support of unborn children," only to turn around and cease caring about most of those babies the second they're born, people tend to be just as overflowing with empathy for deceased victims of abuse, rape, assault and the like....who, y'know, also can't offer up any take to the contrary of whatever they say or claim about what they WOULD want, what they DO deserve, etc. Present those same people with a living child or a living victim who can and DOES have an opinion that doesn't match what those people feel it SHOULD be? Watch attitudes shift VERY quickly, as allllll that empathy hurriedly flushes down the drain as though it was never there).

But the point is, my cis white male privilege is always here regardless. But that doesn't mean rape culture isn't shitty enough that it can't find a way to circumvent even that in pursuit of discrediting/invalidating/ignoring survivors, just like that privilege can be circumvented in order to create the situation where a man is raped in the first place.

Its just....the gendered nature of rape culture means HOW those attempts to discredit/invalidate/ignore male survivors manifests.....doesn't look the same as when it leads to just outright disbelieving other survivors when they attempt to disclose.

And that is how I can be listened to and reblogged on most any other topic, no matter HOW I go about presenting myself in those posts or conversations - ironically in no small part BECAUSE of my cis white male privilege - while only getting crickets when I post on these topics, BECAUSE people only choose THOSE posts to make my presentation or level of intensity a dealbreaker, and thus their very reason for ignoring anything I have to say there. Not because they don't believe me, but because the WAY I say it is too aggressive, too biased, too emotional, too intense....its an attack on their autonomy, an attempt to override whatever they previously thought or believed about the subject and just force them to adhere to my take.

Because the thing about living in a sexist, patriarchal society is.....that IS a thing that cis white men often do, and a lot of society is structured to make it easier for us to achieve this in most instances, frankly. This just happens to be a rare exception, because for a lot of reasons that would make this post even longer - and that again, I've often posted about before - upholding and reinforcing rape culture on a society wide level supersedes the usual focus on accommodating INDIVIDUAL cis white men in having their opinions heard and circulated.

I'm trying to be as frank as possible here about the intersection of privilege and experiences of being a male survivor because I don't believe its to anyone's benefit to be disingenuous about it, and I do think that it doesn't actually supplant the fact that male survivors do have just as much right - and NEED - to be heard and listened to about our experiences with rape and perspective there, and have those ACKNOWLEDGED, as anyone else.

Its just....the existence of privilege and how that differentiates most experiences in a gendered society matters, and thus.....it needs to be part of the conversation rather than just treating all responses to rape and survivors as agendered, just because rape itself can and does happen to people of all genders.

There's actually a fair amount to get into when it comes to differences in a lot of mens' disclosures vs womens' in my experience, but just as an extension of what I'm talking about here, one of the specific elements in my experience is that men often don't have a problem being believed about having been raped or abused.....but one of the predominant responses is society is heavily preconditioned to view male rape and abuse survivors as almost inevitably feeling they need to exert a similar power over someone else in order to claim back their own feelings of pride and safety in their masculinity. Effectively.....most every male rape or abuse survivor I've ever talked with at length shares a similar experience of being believed when they disclose about being a survivor....but noting a clear and direct shift in how whomever they disclosed to interacts with them....with EVERY expression of anger or outrage - particularly in the matter of their rape or abuse - being viewed as evidence of us being ticking time bombs who are inevitably primed to explode and take out what happened to us on someone else.

There's being cautious around cis white men, for example, because we're cis white men, which I totally get and am not expressing an opinion on. I'm just saying even with that acknowledged, there is a SHIFT in how people interact with me after I've disclosed to them personally, in how they....scrutinize me, for lack of a better way of putting it, in very noticeable ways and areas. Like its consistent. And think about how its not totally true that media doesn't portray men as being capable of being raped or abused, typically. Think about how often you've seen procedurals where the backstory of the rapist or abuser of the week is specifically THAT they were a rape or abuse survivor themselves, usually in childhood. Its NOT that society doesn't believe or accept that men can be raped too. Its that society is primed to default to viewing the very act of men being raped as an indicator of the shift from them being a man to being a man who is likely to become a predator themselves.

Rape appears all the time in regards to male survivors in media. Its just it usually just appears in the context of men who arent presented AS survivors, but rather as predators or aggressors themselves, and their past victimization treated as a catalyst rather than a trauma. This is not to excuse any such character or depiction of course, its simply to emphasize that the very angle from which male survivorhood is approached in most contexts is different from that of other survivors. Just like the angle from which their survivorhood is approached is different from that of male survivors. And thus the issue most men have with disclosing in my experience is NOT that we're afraid we won't be believed....its that we're afraid once we disclose, we'll be viewed as inherently more dangerous because our victimization primes us to be that much more likely to inflict ourselves on others in some attempt to reclaim our masculinity.

And its categorically NOT about any group of survivors having it better or worse than others, which is why I LOATHE people saying variations of 'you wouldn't say that about this if it happened to a woman' because anyone attempting to pit male survivors against other survivors en masse is NOT doing so for my benefit or with my endorsement. The point is just that each way society and rape culture interacts with a different group of survivors presents different problems and issues that need addressing, and aren't interchangeable.

There is a REASON why the subject of Dick Grayson's anger - usually in the context of things that have happened to him - is so important to me, specifically in terms of ensuring that its treated as something he's allowed to have....rather than an indicator that he's going to messily explode his life in a way that impacts everyone around him negatively.

Now.....if you've never considered that aspect of rape vs rape culture and how it can differently affect and shape the experiences and recovery of cis male survivors versus trans male survivors and nonbinary survivors and survivors who identify as women.....I ask that you consider what else my perspective might be able to add to actually productive, meaningful conversations about rape, rape culture and survivorhood, that you never would have thought TO think about before, without male survivors bringing it up based on it having played a role in personal experiences.

And then I just ask that you please think about the implications of someone known for being a vocal presence in certain fandoms, with a fairly sizable number of posts widely circulating throughout them......never having posts about male rape and survivorhood circulated to any noticeable degree, despite writing DOZENS of them, in all kinds of different moods, ways and intensity levels.....and all of them while active in fandoms where male rape is regularly discussed or focused on due to certain characters or storylines......and ask yourselves if it maybe seems a little off for the disparity to be THAT large. Again: I have written DOZENS of posts on this topic. All with less than twenty notes. I'll be composing a masterlist of them in the near future as well, but for now I'm just saying. Please just think about that.

While I'm going to make an effort to be more deliberate in how I approach this topic in posts going forward, tonally and in terms of word choice, I do have a right to be just as passionate about it as any other topic, and it is FUCKED UP to think that my personal experiences here should be pointed to as the very REASON I should need to be LESS passionate than I am anywhere else, in order to be heard or listened to. Still. I am not actually trying to override anyone else's viewpoint, present myself as some kind of ultimate authority, or shut down other survivors in any way....I'm just trying to uphold the relevancy and importance of adding my own perspective to the conversation.

I don't want to be the only voice listened to here. But as long as my voice is relevant, and I don't see or hear a lot of other voices speaking from a similar standpoint, I would like to be a RESOURCE on topics of male survivorhood, rape and recovery, from that particular standpoint. And even if and when other male survivors might perchance add their own perspectives with experiences and takes contrary to mine....I welcome that! Because mine is not the only one, cis white male survivors are no more a monolith than anyone else, and none of that will in any way actually invalidate my own perspective or experiences or render them no longer relevant at all.

Being a resource on a topic that has always been everpresent in most fandoms I've gravitated to - which has often been a reason FOR me gravitating to those fandoms in specific.....that has always been my ONLY goal with these kinds of posts. NOT an authority.

So, having my posts - which for all my willingness to write them, has never been easy for me and probably never will - reframed in such a negative way, dismissed and even weaponized against me - has over the years demoralized me and made it harder to find the energy TO tackle these topics, as much as I'd like to. But I do feel that I've found a second wind when it comes to this and think I'm ready to wade back into being Overly Opinionated on these topics as well.

So that's the third of the three post series I'll be starting, "Kalen vs Topics of Rape, Rape Culture and Survivorhood As Perceived Through A Singular Personalized Cis White Male Lens, Presented By (and With) My Middle Finger At Any Attempts to Subvert Or Undermine My Thoughts On Them By Reframing Them As Me Trying To Gatekeep Male Survivorhood No Matter How Many Times I Use The Words IN MY EXPERIENCE or IN MY OPINION, Which I Do A Lot, Because This Has Been Happening For A Very Long Time, And I Am Tired, But Still Very Opinionated, And Still Very Here, So Bite Me I Guess."

.....I'm still workshopping that one's title. Its a process.

ANYWAY. At the moment, I'm aiming to make one post of each once a month, and if I do more than that great, but not trying to pressure myself to do any more than that at the moment in the interests of Realism. We'll play it by ear. If I have more free time or energy than expected, maybe I'll do more. Its not like I have a shortage of Very Opinionated Opinions, after all. You've met me.

BUT I DIGRESS.

So in the interest of not making this long ass post any fucking longer, not that anyone really expected otherwise from my first post back in months, like could I REALLY even claim to ACTUALLY be back if all I had to show for it was some weak little lackluster drabble that wasn't even 3,000 words? Methinks the fuck not -

Well, have an abrupt and anticlimactic finish that comes out of nowhere despite giving myself literally 4,900 words to build to something appropriately profound or meaningful or whatthefuckever. Y'know. Your standard Kalen Classic. The abrupt and anticlimactic wrap up I mean, not the profound and deeply meaningful one. Eh. You get it.

Did ya miss me? I missed you!

PS - I was Informed that we are almost to the end of Tommy T's Tenure, is it almost safe to come back to Nightwing comics? Does anyone know when his last issue is? Have we planned the party yet? Who's on balloons, we definitely need balloons.

[writingwife-83]

Hello! How do you imagine the first time Rey would wear Ben's sweater? 🦋

Yay for filling another long overdue prompt! 😅 Since I know you love my fic Somewhere Out There, I decided to write this little one shot as a bit of a prologue to that fic. It seemed to fit well. And I was obsessively listening to the song “I can’t hear it now” by Freya Ridings when I wrote this, so that’s where I got the inspiration for the title from. Go listen to the song, it’s got great angsty reylo vibes! 😭 (posted to AO3 but once again tumblr won’t let me link)

Silence So Soft

Rey woke with a gasp, so deep and violent that she nearly felt like she was choking, like surfacing from those dark waters on Ahch-To.

Sitting up, panting and resting her forehead on her knees, she blinked the blur of tears from her eyes. Just like she’d done the night before.

Just like she’d done every night for two full weeks.

She was exhausted, tired of feeling like she was grasping at life, trying to keep a tight grip, when it really felt easier to let go and slip into nothingness. She wished she didn’t feel this way, when the whole galaxy was rejoicing all around her. Everyone else had gotten what they wanted. She’d been left with only a gaping hole within her very soul.

The nightmares wouldn’t stop since she’d lost Ben. Sometimes he slipped away silently, like he had in reality. And sometimes he spoke, begging for her help as he faded and disappeared. Sometimes he reached for her and she couldn’t reach him, couldn’t even grasp his hand in those final moments. But no matter how she was forced to watch him go, she always woke in tears, feeling gutted and miserable.

Rey shivered a little, the perspiration beginning to evaporate from her skin and leaving her chilled. She stood slowly from the cot in her tent, knees still feeling a little weak. Everything on the base was quiet and still, and no doubt all were sleeping, so Rey quietly padded over to her little case of possessions and opened it in search of a cloak. But that wasn’t the first thing she saw.

She’s put this particular item away, almost afraid to see it and touch it at first. But she’d kept it… because she had to. She couldn’t let it go.

Rey gingerly lifted Ben’s black sweater from where it lay, holding it up and watching as a bit of moonlight shone through the gaping hole in the right side. She laid the heavy knit fabric on her lap, running it through her fingers, softer than she ever would have guessed. But then, of course it was. This was what laid against his skin, underneath everything harsh that he presented to the galaxy.

Unable to resist, she lifted it to her nose, breathing in deep and instantly feeling herself carried back to the moment where she’d woken in his arms. That sweet, blissful moment when she feared nothing and the future before her seemed bright and promising. It all came crashing in around her faster than she ever could have predicted.

Rey clutched the fabric tighter, feeling her eyes fill again at the bittersweet memories. And then, as quickly as the thought occurred to her, she was lifting the sweater up and over her head, letting it fall down around her, snuffing out the cold and sadness.

She released an audible sigh as the soft weight settled on her body. Somehow it also lifted what had been weighing heavily on her. All that loneliness faded, just a little. She could almost feel him again, feel that little crackle of energy when they’d connect through the Force. What she wouldn’t give to feel that prickle on the back of her neck at that very moment. And then she could almost feel his fingertips against that same spot, the way he’d supported her, even after he’d brought her back to life.

Crawling back into her cot, Rey laid down and snuggled into her pillow and blankets, feeling more at ease than she had in two weeks. She closed her eyes, somehow not minding the silence as much as she had before. There was a sort of peace in it, a clarity. She didn’t feel so alone anymore. Ben wasn’t really gone.

Rey’s eyes flew open again, wide and bright, darting back and forth as her thoughts flew in a hundred directions at once.

Of course…

Ben wasn’t really gone.

Rey hugged the sweater tighter against her body, her chin wobbling a little, but not in grief anymore. No, now it was replaced with determination. She knew what she had to do.

It was time to find Ben Solo.

[firespirited]

So, uh, I had a nervous breakdown - emotional meltdown - mental overload and guilt spiral of sorts that culminated in 5 fully blank* days and nights (*I keep a "times, meds, symptoms and activities" notepad). It's over now as far as I can tell as the cause has stopped, I didn't harm myself beyond some self neglect or cause pain to anyone else. I'm ok, picking up the pieces and determined to get treatment.

Not even sure if those are the correct terms and feel kinda uncomfortable using them like I just "spontaneously broke" as opposed to getting broken down by others but no one here is ready to talk about that so Emotional Breakdown™️ will have to do. Now that I've done a bunch of research and self-examination it was more of a PTSD reaction, a prolonged emotional flashback that I didn't know how to stop and with no outside relief or help.

Long post under cut

I was unfortunately mentally lucid and reacting to very real things but in an emotionally disproportionate way... which was actually not very impressive at all since everything but the sobbing and some talking to myself was happening on the inside, in the foetal position in my pitch black room because who knew? Stress in the neck or face sets off the mega migraines 🙃.

Very uncinematic. Barely an inconvenience to my flatmates. I force-fed myself bread, water and whatever meds might cause withdrawal if discontinued, fed Lily her pain meds at around the same time every night. I'm going to get a good grade in not being a danger to anyone or myself 👍👍👍

I began sedating myself as soon as the urges for inside pain to be visible on the outside got strong enough to actually visualize concrete ideas. Nothing with withdrawal potential: a few months worth of anti allergy meds, M eventually called the doctor once I ran out and had to tap in to my sleep meds, 5 days in to the full-blown meltdown.

Why sedation? I happen (lol no, it's actually pretty related to the ptsd) to be an expert on all things suicide and didn't want those thoughts to even get close to started.

My doctor is stellar, she believed me, didn't act like my grief was unwarranted, prescribed more anti-histamines and kindly but firmly told me to stop blaming myself for other people's choices, we just can't control how other people choose to act. The self loathing had started from a seemingly obvious pattern and spiralled way out of any kind of logic. That grounded me a little on Wednesday.

We talked over my options : the local psych ward is the opposite of restful or safe for migraines; the care homes have waiting lists, especially in summer when people drop off the elders to go on holiday but she's going to try and find me a slot if the current home stability breaks again. Not having any extended family or local friends meant no escape and that didn't help mentally either.

I feel like I've had a really bad flu, I feel very fragile. I feel like things have been very unfair but also not safe enough to indulge any anger about it, not here and now so a sort of numbness has settled in... emotional that is, the migraines are stomping my head and also irritating the bowels because why not add insult to injury? 😂

Mum's violent mood swings were over on Thursday morning and on Friday I decided I had to face life, get back in the saddle before fear could kick in and helped sis go to an appointment that she was very nervous about. Just about managed then crashed the rest of the day.

It felt good to be useful 😊💖and I needed the perspective of there being a whole wide world out there, not just the lovely tumblr folks in my phone 🌸💕🌸 who are close but also unreachable.

Moral of the story, if there is a moral to any of this, … ? Repressing your fears and emotional pain for 30 years will turn you into a sobbing blob with little to no control so don't assume you're handling things because, yes technically you are, until your last tether breaks and then you're just a trauma response at full volume.

Oh and flashbacks don't automatically happen visually or in nightmares like in the movies. I already knew that for me, specific memory flashbacks seem to cause a hollow and weak nauseating feeling like when adrenaline is wearing off but now I know emotional flashbacks are more of a paralysing overwhelming series of waves of many strong feelings. One of the more identifiable red flags among the general mess of emotion for future episodes would probably be irrational and very potent guilt/shame.

So uh yeah, sorry I haven't checked in for over a week or done much of anything, I'll try and catch up as soon as I can 🥰

So now it's beyond confirmed : I have PTSD from stuff that ended over a decade ago, stuff from far older too, you think time heals all but it doesn't heal untreated wounds and I'm going to seek treatment no matter what.

It's mortifying to talk about but if I tell you lovely people, well, I can't run from it any more.

I'm also going to need to set boundaries with some very fragile people but not without the help of an expert, I've been caring for sis and her borderline tendencies for over a year this time around and not been allowed to set limits. Mum's crossed a line she can't even see yet. It could be months before that's a subject we can safely approach.

I have a post in my drafts from last November about finding great happiness in a bare room of a few boxes, a mattress and the internet and how I'd be quite content to live that way again: peace really is worth it. It's like a letter to myself that this was coming and reassurance that I've been happy before despite frightening change and financial poverty.

I have duties to my family and they too have been good to me - there's the expectation that therapy will "toughen me up" to better manage but I can tell from just that disastrous first session with mum present, that boundaries will be part of the deal. That's the most frightening and delicate part. I have been eldest daughter, big sis, selfless friend and good kid™️/parenting kid from my very first memories, any change will be perceived as not being me any more (maybe even to myself), it'll also go against deeply ingrained societal and personal habits.

__________

In other news Lily turned 16, she is happy and healthy. She's been with me for 9 years.

I was hoping to train a new therapy dog as she's been retired for a couple of years and even lined up a sweetheart of a rescue called Vanina. That can't happen yet. Or maybe that's something I need. Idk.

I don't expect any major pivot in the doll hobby, watch habits or Patreon/support to friends at this point but it's all in the air.

Looking forward to getting back to normal and also cherishing (in an odd sort of way, maybe that's not the right word) this moment as a "survived it!!" thing but also "WOW you needed help and it's overdue".

Take care of yourselves lovely people. See you soon.

[packedandstrapped]

Trying to find that one text post about a butch4femme couple flirting with a baby butch and the femme suckin off the bby butch’s orange strap b4 they all go inside 😭 i remember it on your blog but tumblrs search wants to kill me specifically

Is this it? This scenario has taken up a lot of real estate in my brain lately.

Kinda want to invite a shy, inexperienced butch over and hang out on the patio talking about cars and boots, dogs and woodworking. Maybe throw a ball back and forth. Let my wife flirt with them all evening with her tits pouring out of a tight top. Watch their butch hand move over their denim clad cock to cover up how hard they get when she touches their shoulder and offers a glass of cold lemonade. Baby butch eyes staring as I smack and grab her ass as she heads back in the house.

"You want her to take care of that? She's really good.” I'll ask after a few torturous hours of expert level teasing from my wife. I look directly down at the bulge they can't keep their hands off so they know exactly what I'm talking about. There a long pause but I’m not uncomfortable with silence. I like seeing them squirm a bit. Before they can finishing squeaking out “uh are you suuurrreeeee?" l've let out a quick whistle to give my wife the signal she's been straining to hear all night.

She struts back out like a woman on a mission, lust reflected in the darkness of her eyes and looks over to me with a wink. She confidently kneels between our friend's thighs and slowly pushes her hands up their thighs, fingers meeting at the zipper. This is maybe my favorite part. Disbelief in the hooded eyes of a weak butch with a femme on her knees. My wife dips her hand into their now unzipped jeans and pulls out a thick, veiny, bright orange cock and immediate devours it. I watch that gorgeous head of dark hair bobbing up and down on a slick construction cone of a dick. She stops and laughs a little. “why do all dykes love orange?” then traces the head across her upper and then her bottom lip.

My own dick twitches at the sight of this but I’m a grown ass butch that can keep it together so I just continue to watch from a few feet away.

They continue. I start to hear little grunts, gasps of air, keys on a belt loop jangling, long labored breaths, and even an “oh god.” The butch looks over to me almost looking for approval. I don’t know what exactly they’re asking for, but I give my approval. Have your way, you harmless little thing. The butch takes one hand and laces it between thick chunks of my wife’s silky hair, grabbing onto her scalp. The other hand under her chin, holding her still. And I watch as they replace her movements with their rotating hips. Slowly fucking her mouth as they please. As if they’ve been picturing this for hours. I watch as their head falls back against the wicker patio furniture. They quicken the movement of their hips, raising their ass up to take as much as they can. Over and over. My wife shoots me a quick smile despite a cock in her mouth. I know she loves this. This might be her favorite moment. I watch this mesmerizing show for just the right amount of time and then I see it coming. Sweaty butch forehead and neck, hips and thighs finally crashing down to a stop, abs tightening over and over beneath a thin black tshirt, legs shaking, and an arm flung back to grab on to something, anything for dear life. My wife works her come-down magic, slowly milking out every spasm and groan. Lips dragging up the bright orange shaft, her eyes never leaving the butch’s face, wanting to drink in every ounce of the god complex she so rightfully earned.

I give my own dick a firm rub over my jeans and I don’t give the butch more than twenty seconds to recover before I help my lady up off her knees. I hold her hand, leading her inside and yell over my shoulder “Come on in. Now you can watch me fuck her.”

[alteration-au]

I am rambling a lot in this post. If you see this because I tagged you, I just wanna tell you that you and your art, be it writing or drawing, is amazing so you don’t have to read through this entire thing.

As of the 25th of December 2023 this AU is three years old

(Well, to be 100 % accurate it was the 20th with a little oneshot)

Putting it all together (according to AO3 statistics and excluding all the tumblr post on the @traitor-on-board story blog and the very few on @adventure-time-alterationau) I've written 126,855 words for this AU in the past three years.

According to my word document I have for ToB, that Blog has additionally 46,258 words alone.

The whole Henry Stickmin fandom is special to me. It's unlike any other fandom I've ever read comics and fanfics, admired fanart and animations or created content myself for.

It's fun to create for this fandom.

We've been given so many characters with so little background information and one of the things I love the most is seeing all the different designs, backstories and characterizations of the same characters. Be it the ones in the background with only a bio with a single sentence, the references to other games like Mario and A hat in time or the main characters like Henry, Charles, Ellie, Reginald and so on.

And I've barely seen people argue about their different headcanons.

Granted, I've grown past the part of my life where I actively seek out drama and noone is obligated to publicly or at all answer rude anonymous asks, but I haven't really seen anyone make a post about how a certain character can't be trans or gay or have a certain type of backstory that they do not agree with.

We can all be peaceful and appreciate each others creativity and love for the fandom and characters. Even if that love means to put them through hell and back and traumatize them beyond belief. (I've never written so much angsty stuff in my life...)

So... in celebration of me not having abandoned any of my stories yet and me roping my friend into this fandom to the point where they share their work with this fandom (btw. "Rare Hearts" on AO3) a thank you to all the blogs / people, aside from every single Kudo, Comment and Star on Wattpad, AO3 and here, who inspired me in the first place and keep my love for this fandom alive. And if you've made it this far I highly encourage you to check them out.

@ending-the-cycle-ask (Which is one of my favorite comics of all time. Is it a comic? Ask-blog with drawings? Comic with reader-input?)

ask-crashed-copperright and run-away-toppats (Which sadly doesn't seem to exist anymore...)

@sir-subpar and @jazzstarrlight (Who both seemed to have moved on from the fandom. But it doesn't change that they're both talented artists and are still doing great work)

@ask-thsc-blog (Who has so many posts that I'll just finally need to take an entire weekend off to scroll all the way down to catch up with the story again)

@unicwolf (Who I am constantly bothering to beta-read my stuff or help me with color theory. And just art in general)

@capturecharlesau (Whos' Terrence (and entire AU) will never leave my brain again because of his story and the similarities and differences he has to my Terrence. And my Terrence would try to murder CCTerrence)

[goldfishlover73]

27 and 29?

27: nervous about posting a fic

Every single one? I'm waiting for those "this is bad and you should feel bad" with everything I write. Especially with my Gai centric/rare pair stories. I want to do right by the characters and I want to make sure they are right (and good). I don't want to miss something.

TLDR: I overthink everything.

But the real answer to your question is Mago

Mago was a story I reluctantly posted. I wrote this story and held on to the finished work for years. I 'wanted' to post but also was very scared. Between the OC and talk of depression/suicide...I wanted to keep both sakumo and Hoshi safe.

But you, tea, might be thinking of that one story that hasn't been posted. And it will remain unposted.

The world isn't ready for it. And I'm not ready to post it.

29. Snippet from an unposted story or something removed.

I'm on my phone so I don't have access to that one, so here's one from isekai

Under the cut because I'm not a monster

This is from my isekai "that time I got hit by a bus and ended up in ninja land where I stole your girl" (or some thing like that)

Kakashi is a recovering drug user. This is a scene that was removed for a few reasons, but I liked it.

Kakashi starts relapsing and searches for Sakura, but she's away in Suna. He ends up finding Sasuke, who helps him out.

Copying to Tumblr removes all my italics.

... Good luck

Kakashi forced himself to breath through his nose as his entire body pulsed. “Your eye…it can do something for this? Yeah?” Everything hurt. Everything. 

Kakashi lifted his head, watching Uchiha move around his kitchen with easy, preparing tea. It was weird.

“You did this to yourself?” It wasn’t really a question. Kakashi didn’t answer. Uchiha didn’t need one. “No.” It was like a nail in his coffin. Uchiha glanced up at him. “You must know the pain.”

Part of Kakashi knew this and the other half wanted to punch Uchiha. To take his sword and ram it through his gut. To take that tea cup and throw scalding tea at him and then bludgeon him with the tea kettle. Even though he knew the other man could easily take him down.

Anger and rage built up in Kakashi’s gut as Uchiha sat down at his kotatsu and carefully made tea.

For one.

Kakashi’s lip curled as Uchiha sipped tea.

“How long?” Uchiha asked after a few minutes. Kakashi was silent. His body pulsing painfully. 

“Forever.” Kakashi mumbled.

Uchiha studied him for a moment before blinking. He nodded. “Then we wait.

“Forever.”

If you're still here...a very weird treat. From the wip vault circa 2010. NaruSaku modern day au

There was a heavy rap on Sakura’s bedroom window. She bolted out of bed. She tumbled sluggishly out of bed, spinning around almost drunkenly before she realized where the sound was coming from.

The green glow of the window. Silhouetted was Naruto with a slightly panicked look on his face. Moved quickly to the window, stopping when she eyed the clock on her night stand.

3:23 a.m.

“Naruto-” She opened the window, “What in the hell-”

“RememberwhenItoldyouI’dshowyoutheuniverse?” He said quickly, lowly, not taking a breath as he grabbed her arms and roughly pulled her down. “Now. We go now.” His voice almost absorbed by a low hum.

Sakura pulled back, mainly so he didn’t try to pull her through the window pane. “Naruto-”

“Sakura, we have to go.” He came through the window and grabbed her by the waist. The sound was getting louder and the green lights started to flash.

“What’s...what’s going on?” She slithered out of her window into the dry mulch. She looked around. The neighborhood looked like it did most nights, except for the loud hum and the green, and now blue lights, flashing wildly.

“The planet is being invaded and we have to leave now.” Naruto roughly grabbed her arm and started to drag her towards his house.

“Invaded?” Sakura tripped over a rock, almost crashing down. Naruto didn’t stop. “Invaded by what?”

It was then that giant fireballs started falling from the sky.

Naruto stopped and looked up to the sky. “The Akatsuki.” They stood there, frozen as the fireballs became more numerous.

[votederpycausemufins]

I'm finally back with another chapter of the hermit tommy fic, Surprisingly Familiar, after months of writers block caused by depression (among other things). A full explanation is found in the notes of the Ao3 version. A link to that is featured in the masterpost of the fic which itself is linked on the masterpost of my writing that's pinned to my blog (a lil complicated, but it keeps things organized)

I am also willing to talk to people on discord if people want. The main server I'm a part of is the Daily Grumbot server. I won't give a link since tumblr doesn't like posts with external links, so just go look for the post at dailygrumbot.tumblr.com!

With that, reminder that the hermit tommy au was created by @petrichormeraki and also anything suspiciously specific said by hels!techno might have some meaning to it, and enjoy the story!

Techno was put in charge of helping carry Doc around. Out of the group, he was the needed balance of being able to lift someone or something that heavy as well as having good mobility. Also Doc didn’t seem to want to be helped if his amount of hissing was anything to go by. 

While his missing cybernetics didn’t remove a leg or anything, his missing arm was heavier than his remaining one, so it was more of a difference compared to when he lost his original one. That paired with also losing his eye at the same time made him both unbalanced and without depth perception. They originally tried to let him walk on his own, but Doc instead quickly managed to start falling to the side before crashing into a wall after dealing with the uneven, vine-covered ground. So he was carried.

Without needing to focus on trying to keep upright, Doc instead was left to start mumbling to himself. It was a mix of various languages he knew, but for the most part in ones the others didn’t understand. And even with what they could understand every once and a while, it still wasn’t enough to know what exactly it was about. But at the very least, it seemed to be that he had some theory on what was causing this. Probably.

But they couldn’t really slow down to try and get an answer out of Doc. With what they had found earlier in the treehouse base and the strange animalistic noises they heard when finding Doc, the remaining members of the group knew they needed to keep moving.

“You know, if we can’t get answers from Doc, we might have to circle back.” Techno spoke up.

“We’ll have to circle back sooner or later. It’s not like we have a lot of space.” Mumbo replied, gesturing above them. They were still in the large dome of vines, which seemed to keep them mostly safe from the vines themselves, but whatever monster was around was a different story.

“Yeah, I get that.” Techno huffed. “The thing is, while I can carry Doc around better than most of you. I still can’t do it forever. So it might be nice if we head back or someone else tries carrying him.”

Since Mumbo had been the one to reply to Techno, everyone else used that as a bit of an opportunity to move a little bit faster and let it seem like Mumbo moved closer to offer. Once he realized, the redstoner sputtered a bit before relenting and taking Doc from Techno. The hand off didn’t go quiet so well, Mumbo nearly collapsing when he was given the brunt of Doc’s weight, but he recovered quickly and managed to carry him rather well.

“I guess carrying robots all day builds muscles, eh mate?” Phil asked, hoping to lighten the mood a bit.

“I suppose that’s part of it. But moving blocks around for building and redstone helps some too I would think.” Mumbo suggested, though it only got a shrug.

“I thought building wasn’t really your thing. I thought others did that.”

“We all do a little bit of everything.” Xisuma spoke up, though his voice was a little muffled from the vines over his helmet. “Mumbo tends to work more on the redstone side of things, but he’s not stuck there. And he does better at building than Grian at redstone.”

Phil laughed a bit at that before conceding. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Plus redstone’s not all that practically useful if it’s not built somewhere, huh? Can’t really be a door if there’s no building for it.”

“I mean I can still share the designs.” Mumbo huffed a little, his mustache turning into a frown, which simply drew more laughter from Phil, up until Paul, who had been quiet that whole time, shushed them all.

Everyone stopped, not saying a word, even trying to breathe as little as possible. They stood still other than adjusting their feet to best stay in a still position as well as ready to run or fight if necessary. Sounds that were distinctly not from the group came from the foliage around them, the question was if some creature was making them, or if it was simply some sort of breeze through the leaves.

Just as it looked like they were safe enough to keep moving, Doc hissed loudly, and then the creature Xisuma had seen before pounced from some bushes and other nearby greenery. Phil was the first to react, not as burdened by vines as the others. He slashed at the creature with a sword before it tried swiping its claws at him, barely being blocked by the sword in time.

Techno jumped in to help, attacking the creature from behind, hitting it with his axe, which ended up being rather ineffective. In the bit of stunned surprise that caused Techno, the creature swiped at him with enough force to knock him away and onto the ground. 

Since he had only just handed Doc off, Tech was already feeling a little exhausted. That and the fact that the creature seemed to be affected by combat differently made everyone worry. One of their remaining fighters was practically out for the count and they still didn’t know what would happen if any of them died. 

Before the creature could attack once more, Paul ran in, not with a sword or anything, but just slamming into the thing with his body. The group was still close to the edge of the dome of vines, close enough that with that attack, the creature broke through the wall of vegetation. Though it also seemed to be a sort of foe to Doc, the vines didn’t seem to care and also started wrapping and restraining the creature, it trying to escape its growing prison.

While the group was thankful that the jungle was taking that thing away, they were not so pleased that in getting the creature that far, Paul had to do the same. The vines also attempted to pull him away, likely to trap him with all the others that had been taken.

Xisuma was the first to try and drag him back, Techno and Phil still recovering while Mumbo dealt with Doc. Still, with Xisuma already being so covered that his breathing was hindered, the most he caused was that now the both of them were being dragged in.

Just as Phil rushed to help, there was a yelp from Mumbo as Doc had escaped his grip and rushed as best he could to Xisuma and Paul, hissing loudly. Everyone braced themselves on instinct, ready for an explosion, but it thankfully never came. The vines receded and let the pair go, allowing them to leave the edge of the dome and drag Doc with them.

“Holy fuck, what here you thinking?!” Phil shouted at Doc. “Were you trying to get some of us killed?!”

Doc just sat on the ground quietly, Mumbo and Xisuma both worried for their friend, but unnerved with how vulnerable he seemed. Doc wasn’t even mumbling or hissing any answer, just being completely quiet. 

“Fine, I guess we’ll just rest here. Hopefully whatever you did didn’t also give that thing a chance to possibly escape and attack us again.”

“Phil, calm down.” Techno tried to speak up. “Whatever he did worked. We don’t need to dwell on a what if right now.”

“I can’t calm down right now. We have been stuck in this whole thing for who knows how long and we’re going to be here for who the hell knows much longer. And while I would love to leave, I also don’t want it turning into a giant waste of time because someone almost screwed it up for all of us!”

“Can’t die here.” Came a mumble and everyone looked towards Doc. “They won’t…” Doc continued before it devolved into hisses.

“Doc, we can’t understand that last bit.” Xisuma spoke up, making Doc quiet again. “While he shouldn’t be yelling, Phil does have the slight point about how we should try and find a way out of this quickly. What you know would help a good deal.”

After a moment, Doc looked at his right arm, at least what little was left of it, as well as moved the stump. While the message that there was something related to his missing arm involved, Paul was the one to provide more context. “What’s Dinnerbone got to do with this?”

“Wait, you’re saying he really lost his arm to Dinnerbone?” Techno piped up. “Bruh, that’s kind of cool to hear.”

“If I recall correctly from what Doc has said, the two fought and Doc won, and as a sort of revenge, Dinnerbone just removed his arm.”

“Sounds like a sore loser.” Phil joked, having calmed down a little bit with the discussion helping to find a solution as opposed to running around more. “Is this all supposed to be more revenge?”

Doc shook his head, speaking again, but in a language none of them understood all that well. Still, the little information already given was a clue. They just needed to figure out what it meant.

“So,” Techno spoke up first. “Is this being caused by at least one of the gods?” It was that or it was supposed to be revenge by something else, which could have been the case, but was unlikely. And with Doc nodding, then of course it was the first idea.

“Is it still revenge?” Mumbo asked next. “You said it wasn’t more revenge, but maybe… another one got upset?”

“You think multiple gods could be upset at him?” Phil asked incredulously.

“I interacted with Notch, Dinnerbone was on the Mindcrack server a few times, Herobrine is a hermit as well as one of the Deaths.” Paul paused before adding on one more piece of evidence. “And also there’s Etho.”

Mumbo also jumped in before Phil could say more, looking like he might try to refute it. “Doc also has a knack for breaking the laws of the universe simply because he can. While most of it is taken well… I wouldn’t be surprised if something wasn’t.”

“Okay, fine, divine punishment. What for?” Phil conceded, looking at Doc, but was really fine with anyone answering. What he didn’t expect was Doc to nod and manage an answer, simply repeating “punish”. “Well… that’s just great.”

“So… punishment for something. The question is what for.” Mumbo spoke up, rubbing his chin before then asking. “It’s not due to another fight you had, right? Because then that would be the revenge we already said it couldn’t be. So, is it for any of your… disruptive redstone?”

Doc shook his head, doing the same when he was asked if it had any connection to the hivemind Doc had mentioned here and there. From there, there was a bit of sidetracked conversation with Techno comparing Doc’s hivemind to his chat and Phil’s crows. But eventually, they got back on topic.

“So, if it’s not any of those other things, what exactly could they punish you for?” Xisuma asked, and then everyone was quiet to let Doc respond, but he didn't. “Doc, whatever it is, we can’t help unless you tell us. It may be bad, but if we want to-“ 

Xisuma was stopped as Doc finally spoke up. “Knowledge.”

“What?”

“Know… shouldn’t.” Doc tried explaining, but only half the words could be understood. “…punish too…”

“That’s not great.” Phil huffed. “It’s something you’re in trouble for knowing, forbidden knowledge or some shit, so we can’t help out since we can’t know what it’s about?”

Doc agreed with Phil’s explanation, which had Mumbo place a reassuring hand on Doc’s shoulder. “Doc, I’m sorry that we can’t help you with that part… but if The Jungle was your punishment for… whatever it was, it already happened.”

“He’s right.” Paul spoke up, looking back towards Doc from where he stood leading the group along. “It seems this is about you worrying about the secret slipping and everyone else getting punished, but here we are, surrounded by that happening, probably to a greater extent than it would actually be, and you’re still tight lipped. I think that means you wouldn’t let it slip.”

Doc nodded in agreement, but the group could tell he didn’t fully agree. “Want to… though…” Doc spoke, careful with his words this time to make sure they could all be understood.

“Sorry, that’s not something we can really help you with.” Techno spoke up, the tone of his voice more lighthearted to try and lighten the mood at least a little. “Phil’s already a dinosaur, so Paul must be just as old, plus he knows some of the gods for better or worse.”

“I belong in a museum.” Paul responded, with a tone of voice that implied some sort of inside joke, especially with Phill laughing and even Doc managing a weak laugh.

“Whatever. What I’m saying is he might somehow know what you’re having trouble with. And if not him, then someone else. It can’t be everyone is off limits, right?”

“If not me, someone else from your server?” Paul suggested. “If it’s godly punishment, then for someone safe you might want to talk with I-”

He was cut off by a hiss from Doc, loud enough that no one could tell what Paul said, at least until he apologized and spoke again. “Sorry, I’m uh,,, bad at remembering chosen names it seems. Joe I believe then.”

With that mention, Doc nodded, and everyone took that as the answer to what had been said, not realizing that it was less of a mistake and more of an excuse.

“Even if you can’t talk with any of them, it doesn’t mean you can’t talk to anyone at all.” Xisuma then said, hoping to give a suggestion. “Even though you can’t talk about it directly, you can still voice your worries. Being direct could get you hurt, which is a reasonable fear, but hopefully being indirect won’t get you in trouble. And now that we know the… safe information, you could come to me or Mumbo, or any of the other hermits. Though they would need a summary of what we’ve learned. Not to say we learned what you’re being punished for!” Xisuma quickly corrected at the mention of learning making Doc hiss.

“I think what they’re all trying to say.” Phil spoke up. “Is that there’s ways to get around the whole di-vine punishment and still talk about your feelings so it doesn’t screw you up on the inside. Because keeping it all close to the chest could hurt you.”

That seemed to be what finally got to Doc, because as he nodded, the vines started to disappear, followed by just about everything else around them, before being replaced by the next false reality they would have to go through.

.

.

.

Everyone was still silent from Grian’s question. No one was sure exactly what to say, though for wildly different reasons. One thing that was certain was that Death, any of them, having an interest in you, likely wasn’t a good thing. 

Sahn, who had been the only one making noise with some humming, finally clued in and spoke up first. “Oh wait? Was that question for me? Sorry, I didn’t realize. …Um, what was it again? I already forgot.” 

“I uh…” Grian nervously started, unsure now with the shift of tone in the room. “I don’t exactly know who this ‘Warrior’ is. I’ve heard about him a few times, but not enough details. And so I want to know who he is and what exactly is going on.”

“Oh, that first part is easy!” Sahn smiled, cheering up quickly. “He’s officially known as The Warrior of Death! He’s got another name too but I’m not allowed to use it. He’s one of… two? Or wait was it four… I think it was four deaths. But I help him out! And have been since I died.” Despite Grian not liking Sam and not knowing too much about Sahn, he still winced at the mention that Sahn was indeed, and had indeed, died. “I forget exactly why. I think there was something weird. Maybe something about… tents? No… hurts… no it was… somewhere in the middle. Anyway! He wanted me to find you for some reason! I don’t know why because you have Sally, and what should have been enough.”

Grian tensed at the mention of his recently acquired pet chicken, now questioning if there was more to the animal. “And how would she have been ‘enough’?”

“Well my boss really likes chickens. Oh, and other similarly related animals! He can know what just about any of them see. Wait is it any, or all? Maybe both? I don’t remember.”

‘This is probably just because of your current time stuff.’ Astrid signed. She had no clue if that was the case or not, but it was better to come up with an excuse just in case.

“Yeah, she’s probably right.” Flora agreed. “Maybe he’s just wondering why a new death kid just appeared.”

Sahn looked like he wanted to disagree with that, but was stopped as Silski walked through him and picked Grian up. “This isn’t going anywhere. You’re coming with me to an… emergency meeting.”

Grian just kicked at Silski. “First put me the hell down, second, what are you even talking about?”

After a moment, Grian was put back down, though with a huff from Silski. “I’m in a team with a few people. We call ourselves the council. One of the people included is your mom. Other than the actual Deaths, she’ll probably know the most about this. Unlike this ghost.” And Silski attempted to gesture to Sahn, but had no clue where the ghost was and did so in the wrong direction.

“Wait what d'ya mean his mum? I thought he was like, Grifter’s cousin? Though I also think I heard Eepr say he was a clone.” Toob was the one speaking up.

“Uh, well I was supposed to pretend to be some sort of relative, but Flora figured out quickly and so I just didn’t bother?” Grian admitted sheepishly, Flora butting in a moment later.

“Yeah I didn’t know about faking it. But enough has already happened in this world, so one more thing isn’t all that surprising.”

“Well I don’t care.” Silski grumbled. “Are you coming with me or not?”

“Sure…” Grian replied hesitantly. He wanted some sort of explanation. There was already enough going on and enough unanswered questions that he wanted some of them to be answered. That being said, the possibility of seeing his mum felt off. Some of it probably came from the fact that this wouldn’t be his actual mother. But it also might be the simple fact that… he didn’t remember her at all. Grian still had a few memories he was clinging onto of his brothers and dad, but his mum was a different story. She was barely ever around due to her ‘job’. That, mixed with Grian having been so young and it having been so long, he honestly didn’t remember what she looked like, how she sounded, what she was like at all. He would know this warped copy of her better than his own mother.

As Silski started to leave, Grian followed, Astrid managing to tell him that she and Flora would keep in contact with their comms. It reassured Grian a bit, which helped, though when he turned back, Silski had gotten pretty far already. 

Grumbling a bit, Grian flew to catch up with the sculk hybrid, nearly face planting into the ground when he landed. “The offer to get carried still stands.” Silski piped up. “Last time I am though, because honestly I’d like to stay away from you and your smell.”

Grian accepted, though instead of being actually carried, he instead perched himself on Silski’s shoulders, which apparently stunk less to him. “Okay I know I tried cleaning myself up when we got back from getting the stuff on my wings checked out, I shouldn’t smell that bad.”

Silski was quiet for a moment, trying to think of what to say that also wouldn’t reveal the secret Astrid had told him. “For all we know, whatever time magic sent you here is ender based. Which is weird since that’s almost impossible to find in pretty much any world, but what else would explain it?”

Grian was pretty sure that by any world, Silski meant the worlds of this reality, not the one he and Grifter were from. Which could make sense if whatever was annoying Silski was unique to the other world he had recently come from and why here and there, the sculk hybrid had mentioned the smell not being as bad. Still, he mentioned that Sense apparently smelled, so what did that mean for him? Just another question to ponder, Grian supposed. In fact, he could even ask about that. “So wait, then what about Sense?”

“Ugh, him. I’m not exactly sure why he smells like death and rotting and whatnot, which makes you seem a whole lot better in comparison. But even ignoring that, I can’t say I’m a fan of him. In the short time he’s been here, Sense has been a prick to me. I didn’t think I did anything wrong, and he sure won’t explain if I ask. I have some guesses, but those might not even be right.”

“Some people can just be assholes.” Grian replied, but then thought about it more. In a world where Taurtis was gone, he had found Perfect Sense. They had been together and seemed madly in love with each other and even had kids. And here was someone saying how bad Sense actually was. Or probably was. He didn’t really know either of the two well enough to know who had more of a point. And, if he did end up the same way, like Grifter, would he potentially turn a blind eye for love? Not if it was really bad, right?

“I can hear your brain going at full steam.” Silski spoke and pulled Grian out of his thoughts, which he realized were probably being spurred on by his audience. “Oh good, that worked. I’ve been trying to talk to you for a while.”

And Grian found that they were already approaching the cottages where Flora had taken him to when she dragged him along while visiting her mum. He hadn’t realized he had zoned out that badly, but Silski also seemed to move pretty fast, so that also probably helped with how short it felt.

He shivered a bit, ready to go into the hopefully warm cabins, only for Silski to walk right past them. Grian complained, but was threatened to be thrown in the snow, so he reluctantly kept quiet. Finally, they reached a bit of a clearing, but nothing really seemed to be there. Which was even more frustrating since Silski stopped moving. Grian still waited a moment, but when nothing happened, he started to say that it all seemed to be a waste of time. Unfortunately, before he could continue, Silski yanked Grian off his shoulders and into his arms before essentially throwing Grian into the middle of the clearing. 

Grian yelped at being thrown, before quickly wrapping his wings around him to help brace for impact. He hoped the snow would also help, and it seemed it did because when Grian did land on the ground, it didn’t hurt at all. It was really cold, but didn’t hurt. But, when he went to sit up and yell at Silski, he found it hard as the snow seemed to have swallowed his wings. Enough snow to weigh them down and make them hard to lift. As he tugged to pull one of his wings free, his audience was suddenly pointing out that his wings weren’t the only things the snow was covering. 

The amount of times Grian had seen quicksand be mentioned in stories had made him assume it would be more common that it was in everyday life. Suddenly finding himself being swallowed up by quick snow made him try to think over what had happened in all those stories. Unfortunately , all he could come up with was people grabbing onto nearby vines. He wasn’t really in a vine filled forest. And there weren’t even any branches due to them being in a clearing.

Grian ultimately resolved himself to the fact he had been betrayed. He was probably going to die, though thankfully it wasn’t going to be permanently. Unless, of course, Silski had planned ahead. As the cold started to become so unbearable that it hurt, Grian figured he would just have to see when he died. And then he fell onto some wool.

Silski fell down from the ceiling a few seconds later, though he landed on his feet. “Come on, we still need to get to the meeting room.”

Grian didn’t move from the floor, just staring up at Silski. “I’m not dead, right?”

Silski huffed before yanking Grian to his feet. “No. It’s a secret entrance through the snow. There’s others around that are traps to trip people up, so don’t go telling people how to find this place.”

“I thought you guys just met out in the open?” Grian said, recalling when he had first seen the group.

“Yeah, that’s for the public club stuff.” And Silski led Grian down the halls of what seemed like some sort of old structure. “Sure, that’s fun and all, but really, we tend to focus on stuff like this.”

Silski gestured, before cursing and realizing that they were still on the wrong side of a door, which he then led them through, and showed the place off again, though with a little less grandeur. Still, despite that, the room definitely looked amazing to Grian. The room was still clearly the room of the old structure, but at the same time it had been updated in a way. Banners hung to the walls proudly and torches held in what looked like sconces adorned the walls. In the center of the room was a strange table. There was a large wooden disk on top to make it into a table, but the base seemed to be something else. 

Curiosity getting the best of him, Grian moved to the table and lifted the disk, staring at the dark magic in the center and the sort of scarlet colored hints accenting it, looking like stars covering the sky. Before he could admire anymore, a hand slammed down in the disk, nearly pinching Grian’s fingers. Grian looked up to see who had done that and found a girl glaring daggers at him. He assumed she would be frowning if it weren’t for the bubble gum she was blowing, which made him flinch when it popped. But he didn’t seem to be the only one startled by the noise as a hiss came from his left. 

Grian took a step back at seeing a creeper, not dealing with them all that much so far, but knowing what they could cause. However, after a moment when it didn’t explode, Grian realized that it was actually a hybrid rather than an actual creeper, and also they had a lot of cats with them.

“Oh come on!” Bubblegum girl glared at the creeper. “How are you still flinching at that?”

“Y-you did it t-too soon.” The creeper shuddered out, almost like they were still cold despite how warm the room was compared to the temperature outside, or should it be considered above? “I d-didn’t get a ch-chance to process it.”

“I duh duh duh- that’s what you sound like. You’re still just a little cry baby.” Grian, though the insults weren’t pointed at him, still winced at them since they were coming from an unfamiliar person that could potentially turn to him at any second.

“F-fuck you.” The words sounded more confident than the stutter would imply. “I got in here j-just like everyone else. And I d-didn’t get a f-free pass, like s-some people.” And then their gaze turned to Grian, also being a glare, which did not help Grian’s confidence with being there. And Silski had yet to say a word, so he didn’t expect the sculk hybrid to speak up and tell them to back off. But someone did.

“Leave him alone. Unlike everyone else, as you are comparing him to, it seems like he wasn’t here willingly.” And Grian looked to see another person enter the room, someone both familiar and not. Someone, though he had forgotten the face of, he could still remember that it was different. His mother, or this version of her at least.

“Speaking of.” Silski now spoke up. “I’ve got answers to your questions about that, as well as a bit more. But the simple answer is that Grian is apparently just Grifter from the past.”

“The simple answer?” The alternate version of his mother asked, and Grian wondered if she could tell he wasn’t the real Grifter. It was probably because of his wings. Grifter apparently made his look more like the real one’s, so maybe he could pretend the opposite?

“Well, he wanted me to pretend otherwise to try and keep things simple. Who knows what someone might want out of the possibility of time travel. So he helped with changing my appearance to really throw people off.”

“I see.” Was the answer before his not mum looked over at bubblegum girl. “Ekke, I believe you had wanted clarification on something?”

Elle popped another bubble before sitting up in her chair. “Yeah. We saw him before. I think he saw us too, but didn’t come running over even though you two said he went missing for a couple of years when he was like this, right?”

“W-we were really y-young then.” The creeper spoke up. “He pr-probab-bly wasn’t sure i-if it was us.”

“Okay fine, whatever.” She chewed loudly and leaned back in her seat, the chair teetering on its back legs. “If ya don’t remember their names, they’re Euro and Krys.”

“Ekke!”

“Whaaat? Just make it quick for the kid so Sil can actually start the meeting.”

Silski sighed before moving Grian to sit in Silski’s chair before the sculk hybrid propped his arms up on the backing. “The main reason we’re here is that someone outside of Grian’s immediate family seems to be taking an interest in things, which could lead to some extra insight on Grian appearing, but could also be cause for concern. Grian’s here to supplement any information I haven’t pieced together from the rumor mill as well as be a sort of… well, not lie detector exactly. But you know what I mean.”

“Uh, I don’t.” Grian spoke up, before being silenced as Silski reached a hand down before covering Grian’s face to shush him. That worked all of two seconds before Grian shoved the hand away and then sulked in the chair.

“S-so… your m-mention of n-non imme-“ Euro wasn’t able to finish his sentence before Silski started to answer. Grian thought it was a bit rude for a moment before noticing Euro didn’t seem upset by it, so maybe it was a normal thing.

“Yes I did mean it was still about someone in your extended family. It seems to be Death. The other one of course.”

Grian watched as Krys clapped a hand to her mouth before slowly lowering it at Silski’s added clarification. “Oh. That’s… strange. You’re sure it’s him?”

“Considering Grian’s got a chicken following him around plus someone saying they literally work for the guy, I’m fairly certain.”

“Lovely…” Krys sighed, rubbing her temples before pausing to pick a cat up off of the floor and hand it to Euro in a fashion that seemed like it was a common action. And it seemed helpful since Euro had not reacted well to the confirmation.

“Is he okay?” Grian asked the group in general, concerned about his… pseudo brother? He guessed that was probably the best way to describe Euro, though he obviously wouldn’t say it aloud.

“Right, you wouldn't know about it, would you?” Silski spoke up. “Did Fleur and Astrid at least tell you about how people get into this world?” Grian thought it over, thinking Flora may have made some small comment about it. But apparently needing to take that long to answer was an answer of its own. “Alright, who wants to explain?”

“I will.” Ekke raised a hand. “So before you were admin, we had this asshole named Nightmare. He said the place was open to just about anyone to join, but to make sure the place wasn’t completely flooded, there was a sort of test in the way. He got ahold of a way for people to have to deal with their ‘biggest fear’ or whatever. If you could get past it, it meant you were strong enough or some bs. Plus, if you showed up together with someone, then you had to go through theirs as well. And if you failed the test by succumbing to it or dying, you would fail. Depending on how, it could just be you booted, or could be everyone. Turns out part of the reason he was so insistent was because this place is screwed the hell up because of the guy interested in you, and trying to get out is only easier than getting in because of that test.”

Grian’s heart dropped at the last bit of information. Sure, most of it didn’t sound great, but he kind of wanted to leave to get back home eventually, and time travel wasn’t really the easiest thing in the first place. Plus, if the person interested in him had messed things up that badly… well, who knew what that meant for him. “Well… uh, what does that mean for Euro?”

“A few things really.” Krys was the one to speak up before showing off some scars on her neck that made Grian flinch. He had seen similar ones on Flora, but they were mostly covered with fur. Without that, they looked a lot worse. “As you know, your father is one side of death. Nightmare knew that and… didn’t want him involved. So he made sure to find ways to cut contact between him and us. Some of that included him involving your uncle once he did learn about what had happened to us.”

“Oh… so dad’s…?” Grian trailed off. It wasn’t his dad, not really, and he hated that he needed to keep reminding himself that. But again, he still wanted to see his family again, no matter what version of them it was.

“Wile sees him most often, your father makes it a bit easier to leave. Not by too much, but enough.”

Grian nodded before thinking of another question. “Uh, do you guys need to go through that whole test every time? Or did I guess, since it’s not around anymore from what Grifter told me.”

“Th-thankfully n-no.” Euro hissed out. “If I h-had to see th-those two every time, th-the potato t-torcher w-wouldn’t be en-nough.”

“Potato torcher?” Grian asked, eyebrows raising in a mixture of shock and concern. “Is that-?”

“A sentient potato really screwed Euro over.” Ekke spoke up. “One day it was ‘oh you are suck a close friend! Come to my wedding because we are such good friends’ to ‘why are you so upset I tried threatening a child with doxxing’ all the way to ‘here’s every time I and some others you thought were friends actually hate you for that we decided to tell you all at once instead of pointing it out in the moment for you to work on, why the hell didn’t you ever improve or change?’ ignoring the fact that they changed the context of some of those things. It, pardon the language, really fucked him over for ages. He tried joining this place not long later and I’m surprised he made it through alive. It was like a reverse beacon stealing nightmare. Not the person of course.”

“That… is a lot to unpack.” Grian spoke up, glancing at the creeper hybrid. “Are you sure he’s okay with you sharing all that?”

“Pretty much.” Ekke shrugged. “He’s terrified of sharing it directly, so doing it through other means works better. I’m totally free if you ever want to do the same. As long as it’s not also something that causes you disdain for potatoes and certain conifer trees because I don’t think I could handle two of that.”

“It’s uh… mainly rabbit based.” Grian admitted quickly, hoping it would resolve the topic. Which it seemed to with Ekke nodding before Silski coughed to bring attention back to him and then get them back on topic.

“Anyway, again, Warrior named death is involved again. I already mentioned he has someone around that’s working for him. That someone said they were here for Grian specifically, but also for someone going by the same of Spore.”

“Oh n-no…”

“I can’t be certain that it’s anything related to sculk though.” Silski paused to give Grian some clarification. “The Dark, aka what’s through the portal that is this table, is fungal like, and fungi have spores.” And Silski lifted the board on top of the table enough to show off the portal briefly to Grian. “The worker specifically mentioned that Spore was asked to interact with Perfect Sense and help with his redstone poisoning.”

“Which could be from redstone immunity which fits if it is sculk based.” Krys agreed. “Or might not if they’re interacting with his kind.”

“His kind?” Grian asked, wondering if it had something to do with Silski’s ‘ender’ mentions.

“There is a very long story about that.” Krys answered. “But a simple thing is that he’s not really from around here.”

“Ah.” Grian nodded, realizing that was probably more connected to him and Grifter not being from around there either.

“Okay next bit.” Ekke spoke up, getting a frustrated sigh out of Krys.

“We still need to be careful about the ‘entrance exams’ apparently.” Silski spoke, using air quotes around entrance exams. “Astrid came back mentioning a pretty big group was stuck in a reenabled test. There’s a chance it’s still connected to Warrior because of how big the group supposedly is. The person who showed up already is a ghost, so they likely got a free pass.”

“How m-many is a large gr-roup?” Euro asked, getting an answer of ten people, which made him hiss and hide by snuggling into cat fur.

“They hopefully won’t come through then.” Krys spoke, though she still looked concerned. “Did Astrid mention any progress?”

“Not directly, no.” Silski started, then quickly added before anyone could reply, “She did mention a ‘king’ is part of the group, so if they do make it through…”

“I understand. If something happens to you, we won’t fault you for it.”

Silski shrugged, and Grian looked for some sort of answer, though he wasn’t given one. “I still might as well give the rest of the information I’ve put together. It’ll go to a whole lot more use if it’s not stuck with me.”

“Okay spit it out half n half.” Ekke got glares from everyone with working eyes, but didn’t seem to mind, just waiting for Silski to continue.

“This next part is probably going to get me in trouble, but I don’t trust Grifter.”

“What?” Grian turned in his seat to look at Silski. “Uh, but he’s me?” He then wondered if Silski had realized that they weren’t the real Grifter. “Why say it in front of me if-”

“Because you should get a heads up.” Silski replied, cutting Grian off, then further explained when Krys asked him to. “Look, he’s the new admin and everything, and I swear my distaste isn’t just because of the company he keeps, though to me it’s a very good reason.”

“That’s my future husband you’re referring to.” Grian complained before Silski whacked him.

“Look, he’s your future version. I’m sure you think that makes him immediately trustworthy, but I don’t think that’s the case. You want to go to your home and change the past? Well what if he’s in the version of the timeline where he tried that and it’s a lost cause? You were mumbling about someone completely different when you came back from some ‘training’ with Grifter, and based on context clues, I think it’s someone you want to change the past for. Maybe Grifter thinks it’s fine to screw them over to keep things how they are, but you might not.”

“Who’s to say it wouldn’t be purposely screwing them over that I want to cause?” Grian asked, getting an answer from Euro.

“W-well, if you wa-ant to do that, then y-you would just want to d-do it f-for you, but Sils-ski said you w-want it f-for the other p-person, which i-isn’t a dist-tinction made lightly.”

“Okay, fine. So what if that is what he’s doing? Maybe he’s right.” Grian spoke back, though if it were the case, he wouldn’t be happy with it.

“That’s just one possibility. There could be other things that are going on. Like the fact that he’s training you at all is worrying.”

“How so?”

“What exactly is he training you for?” Krys asked, and Grian quickly gave the answer, which seemed to concern her. “Oh, yes that is worrying. Listeners are particular about things, Watchers just as much.”

“Watchers?” Grian asked. It wasn’t something Grifter had mentioned, at least not that he could really recall.

“They’re counterparts to Listeners. It’s not something I’m an expert on, not in the slightest, but the two are made to be balances to one another in more than one way, to the point that just one Listener can affect things on the other side greatly. If you’re learning early, it could cause some issues.”

“Well, Grifter’s been constantly going to wherever other Listeners are and telling them about what’s going on.” Grian explained from what he had been told. “If they haven’t made a big stink about it, then it must be fine, right?”

“G-grian, you k-keep saying th-things that you’ve b-been told.” Euro spoke up. “B-but have you g-gotten any p-proof? Saying th-things c-can be r-really easy comp-pared to actual p-proof.”

Grian wondered for a moment if maybe Euro had a point before he remembered that Grifter had given him some proof. “Yes, I have.” He looked over at Krys, knowing she would be able to verify what he was saying on some level. “The other person who’s been staying with you, Flora’s mom Sadie, she’s seen the physical proof I’ve been given about everything.”

Krys paused before nodding. Sadie had mentioned something to her of that sort. That confirmation seemed to help Euro and Ekke, but Silski was another deal. He knew a bit more than he could say, for fear of completely screwing things over. Sure, proof could be proof, but it still wasn’t something first hand. Even something like what Grian was mentioning needed to be verified. And if it was anything like what he assumed from what little info he’d gathered about what the so called proof was, it seemed like something that could be manipulated, giving half truths and leaving out certain parts to cast Grifter in a better light than reality.

“Now, I would like to circle back to something you mentioned before.” Krys spoke up, directing her statement to Silski. “This ghost you mentioned could have easily gotten through to this world, but it sounded like this Spore person is also around if the ghost has already contacted them. That is what you meant, yes?”

“Right.” Silski grumbled. “My guess is they either managed to be separate from the big group, or they got in through alternate methods.”

“Like what?” Ekke asked, then Silski patted Grian’s head. “Him?”

“Me?” Grian asked, looking up at Silski for some sort of explanation.

“Just because it could be they’re connected to sculk doesn’t mean they definitely are. You guys crashed at our house after you met with Cerus, which happened because you owed Wassa. And you owed Wassa because after Grifter took you off-world to train, you came back with some sort of substance on your wings that appeared after you were in a mushroom valley or something.”

“Uh… cave but the rest is pretty accurate.” Grian mentioned. “How much are they talking about me behind my back?”

“Just stuff they want another opinion on.” Silski tried reassuring Grian. “Plus, they’re not entirely convinced Grifter’s telling the full truth either. Fleur’s wondering things with the ghost around and Astrid’s still wary of him after her whole curse incident.”

“Right, that.” Grian reluctantly agreed. He still didn’t think that was the case, that Grifter was lying. He had been handed proof, shouldn’t that be enough? “Well, uh, if we’re worried about the Spore person, since we know they’re connected to the death you’re talking about, if they were somehow brought over by me, someone should have noticed.”

“You mean like noticing you had gunk stuck all over your wings?”

“Not all over them!” Grian argued, then hesitated before adding on. “Just… noticeable enough that it bothered me. But that doesn’t take much!”

“Then show your wings off to the others.” 

Grian froze at the suggestion. Not because showing the mycelium off could be bad, but more the idea of him showing his wings off to two people who were supposed to be his family. They would know he wasn’t supposed to have these bright colorful wings, so the best explanation would be that they were disguised that way. But you couldn’t really color them differently since the shape was different too. So it would have to be some sort of illusion, but something like that should also hide the mycelium. And since they knew he was supposed to be Grifter’s past version, he couldn’t use some other excuse. He didn’t know how to make an actual illusion himself to make his wings look like how they were ‘supposed to’ while also showing off the mycelium they hadn’t quite gotten rid of. Especially since he couldn’t really look at his wings since they were on his back.

“You hesitating isn’t a great sign.” Ekke spoke up, then made Grian flinch as she blew and popped a bubblegum bubble.

“I… I’m not a fan of anyone looking at them. I barely tolerated getting them inspected before, and that was only because Flora and Astrid were there.” Grian fumbled before giving his excuse. It wasn’t exactly a lie, he had gotten used to his wings being messed with back home… mainly by Sam. If the circumstances were a little different, he probably would let the group look, but for now, he couldn’t. “I know technically you’re part of my family, well I mean you are.” Grian then had to quickly cover almost revealing things. “It’s just, I haven’t seen you guys in years. If it weren’t for showing up here in the future, it sounds like I still wouldn’t have seen you for a few more years. We might be related, but you’re still pretty much strangers to me.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Krys agreed. “However, if you could potentially come back with one of those two at a later time, this is pretty important.”

“We’ll see.” Grian answered, then looked at the others. “So, is that about it?”

“I th-think so.” Euro said, then looking to Ekke, who nodded.

“Alright then, let’s go.” Silski spoke up, then started to stand before Krys held up a hand, making everyone pause.

“There is one more thing I think we should discuss.”

“And what’s that?”

Krys sighed before speaking again. “We’re under the assumption that The Warrior is after Grian due to his time displacement, but I’m not completely sure. Technically, it could be that, but it may not be just from curiosity.”

“What do you mean?” Ekke spoke up, now sitting in her chair properly and looking at Krys. Looking over to Euro, Grian saw he looked just as concerned.

“My husband is not the biggest fan of Grian, or rather, Grifter. It takes a bit of explanation, but the long and short of it is that despite being death, they can be killed, and Grifter could potentially do that.”

“He could what?” Silski asked, surprised and nearly shouting. Grian was just as surprised. Was she saying that he would want to- no, it was just speculation, right?

“How do you know that?” Grian asked, voice wavering, before getting his fears confirmed that Grifter had tried to kill Deathza. The only thing reassuring Grian at that point was the following information that it occurred before Grifter was put in prison, meaning before he was replaced with the current Grifter.

“Okay, let me get the full explanation out of the way, it will make things a whole lot simpler.” Krys spoke, then pulled out a sword. Grian worried about why the weapon was drawn before the blade was used to carve into the table. “Our universe is really two universes. Once upon a time, they were just one, but that’s not the case now.” And she caved a line down the middle of the square she had originally carved. “Most people think of them as mirrors to one another, but that’s not exactly the case. Think of it as more of a set of scales. If you put weight on one side, a matching weight needs to be placed on the other side. It doesn’t need to be immediate, but the longer one side weighs more, the more likely it could eventually crash against the ground and potentially break the scale itself.”

Grian looked at the scale that was carved onto the table, one side on each side of the middle dividing line. While the scale example worked, the mention of most people thinking of the two as mirrors made Grian also take that into account. If it was so common, then there had to be some things that fit better with that explanation. Like, if he were here, could the actual past version of Grifter be experiencing the same thing? Or if the real Grifter were also on this side, what did that mean for the side Grian was from. “Uh, do the sides have names at all?”

“A few.” Krys agreed. “Aey and Enne, Wels and Hels, Kall(Kæll) and Glöd, there’s a good amount. We’re in Aey and the other is Enne. People are usually from one or the other, but the gods are not, and there are rumors that there are some people who could still be from the before. I would doubt that’s the case since again, the scales. They can be tipped for a while, but certainly not that long.”

Grian nodded, but then looked up from the diagram to ask a question. “So, what does that have to do with now?”

“I’m getting there.” Krys assured, then dragged her sword over the place where the scale connected. “Aey and Enne can still interact with one another. Mentioned before were the Listeners and Watchers. While they are mainly considered part of Aey and Enne respectively, they interact with both sides, with at least one of each assigned to each world. Along with that, their kind are not restricted to which side they come from. Another example of interaction is for the deaths. Two deaths for each side. They represent the two sides to death itself for their respective half of the universe.”

Krys drew a pair of circles on both sides of the split, putting an extra dot in one of the circles on what Grian assumed was the Aey side. “Despite them being the embodiment of death in its various forms, they aren’t gods. I wouldn’t say demigods either, but even lesser gods isn’t right. And then powerful practically immortals is a mouthful.” Krys sighed. “As long as the deaths are deaths, they are able to go between worlds at will, ones from both Aey and Enne. For the most part, they will stick to the side they belong to, but for certain cases they will interact with the other. The biggest reason for that is that there’s one rule placed on them by the gods. They cannot be the ones handling the souls of their family.”

While it made sense, Grian was still surprised by it. Whenever he was dealing with the possibility of dying back home, he always recalled that his mother was death. He didn’t know the full ins and outs of it, which was obvious now, but he had hoped that if he did die, stuck as a ghost or not, he would still potentially get to see her again. “So… if I end up dying…”

“Your father wouldn’t be involved, even if it would fall on his portion of death.” She paused when Grian opened his mouth. “This explanation is already long enough, I’m not explaining those sides.” And Grian’s mouth snapped shut. “Your uncle also wouldn’t be involved due to that as he is still part of your family. It affects mostly direct bonds, children, marriage, adoption too for Flora’s case. But because of all that, neither death of this world could deal with any of us, so that would fall upon the deaths of Enne. Or, it could fall upon the duty of a new death.”

“Which would happen if one of them were killed?” Grian asked, pretty sure he was following along.

“If they were killed or retired or whatnot. Their title would pass on. If they willingly leave the position, then it would be given to who they also willingly pass it to. But if they are killed, it passes to the one who defeated them.”

And suddenly a lot of things made sense. “So, you’re saying that my uncle, this ‘Warrior’, might be interested in me because Grifter could kill him. And… and he might want to kill me first? To erase Grifter so he couldn’t even try?”

“Smart kid.” Ekke spoke up, but then looked to Krys to confirm if that was what she was trying to imply, earning a nod.

“Before, I would have said that it couldn’t be the case, but there’s also the fact that Silski has implied your… ‘scent’ could be from something connected to Enne. But that doesn’t entirely matter right now. What does matter is why the Warrior is really interested in you.”

“Then I guess we’ll need to start grilling the ghost he had show up. You guys owe me and Toob for kidnapping Jane. And making him stay at our place. And making me deal with the ender fucker more. Just, you guys are in charge of interrogation.”

“Okay fine, that’s fair.” Grian agreed. “So, now are we done?”

“Yes, now we are done.” Krys agreed, then stood from her seat and flipped the table board over, revealing other carvings. “Oh, uh. I guess we need another one of these.”

“Not it.” Silski spoke up, then picked Grian up, ignoring as he squawked a bit. “I need to get him out of here and then back to my place. Among other things. So bye.” 

By the time they were back out in the snow, Grian didn’t really notice the cold all too much, instead focusing his thoughts on everything that was talked about. Okay well he did eventually focus on the cold because it felt like it was freezing his wings off. The feeling did subside enough for him to start thinking again, making him think he just got used to it. And that was a fair assumption, seeing as how he was right before with the fact that he couldn’t see his wings well, including how the mycelium stuck in them receded in time with his feeling of the cold.

.

.

.

Jrum, along with a number of the Hermits, were at spawn. He held a weapon in his off hand, but his main hand was sparking slightly. Not because he was damaged or anything, no. Vee, along with some help from Hoodie, had been teaching Jrum fairly well on how to use magic. And by fairly well, he meant he had learned the basics well enough to not explode and said it was good enough for him. 

While Jrum trusted the two enough to teach him, that still wasn’t by much, but the only Hermits who could have taught him were busy or unavailable, and the other magic users weren’t in a compatible style or whatever Joe had said about it. 

Speaking of Joe, he and the other opped Hermits had finally found the issue with the whitelist. Whether it was Grifter’s doing or someone else’s, people who were supposed to be ignored by the whitelist, specifically Watchers and Listeners, were now being checked. And since they weren’t officially on the list, they couldn’t get through. That being said, the reason Vee had gotten in was because of an exception Xisuma had added for those under a certain listed age. He had added it after a small fiasco that had happened when the bots were first given their bodies. There was also supposed to be more to the rule, but it was assumed that the fact Vee was from Hels was messing with it.

Either way, it led back to why everyone was at spawn. After adding the main people who were being kept out by the issue, Vee had been allowed to add her father onto the list. Though the Hermits were reluctant since he had associated with Grifter before, he hadn’t seemed to know the actual truth. Still, he probably knew the most out of everyone involved that would be willing to talk to them. And if he did cause issues, then Pix or Zloy could be called in.

When someone finally appeared, the Hermits all prepared just in case there were problems right off the bat. Fortunately that didn’t seem to be the case, and the Listener just looked over the Hermits before Cub gestured that they could relax a bit. As soon as he did, Vee ran out from the crowd, no longer being held back by Stress. 

The Listener merely let Vee tackle him with a hug before attaching herself to one of his arms. One of his six arms. The arm lifted until Vee was in front of his face, which had milky white eyes that probably couldn’t see well if at all. “Papa! You’re here!”

“I am.”

“And you’re like this! Jungle gym time!”

The Listener laughed before bringing another arm up, which she also hugged onto. As she continued to hang from his arms, the Listener looked at the Hermits to answer the main question he assumed they had. “I don’t feel comfortable showing off my regular look to you guys. This is how I look when all… Listener-ified. I think you have seen how Grian looks when he’s the same.”

“You mean when he looks more like a giant harpy?” Scar spoke up, getting another laugh out of the Listener.

“Yes, like that. I managed to get these things.” And he moved his extra sets of arms that Vee wasn’t clinging to.

“Jungle gym Papa!”

“Yes, it could also be called that.” And then he pulled Vee away and put her back on the ground. “But it’s probably better if you go play somewhere else.”

“Aww, but you just got here!”

The Listener sort of seemed to glance up at the Hermits before speaking to Vee again in a stage whisper. “Well I think these guys want to make me do boring adult things with me. Probably meetings and paperwork and presentations.”

“Nooo that’s dumb!”

“Well you can run off so you won’t have to suffer through it with me.”

Vee nodded before running over to Jrum to play with him again. Jrum reluctantly followed, but did his best to go slowly to hear as much of what he could.

“Alright, so are we going to be talking here, or do you guys have a special meeting room?”

“We have one of those if you don’t mind the travel to get there.” Cub was the one who spoke up, and then Jrum caught the Listener nodding.

“It’s no problem Mx…?”

“Huh? Oh don’t bother with that, just call me Cub.”

“You never know, better safe than sorry.” And then Jrum saw him shrug, which looked weird with extra arms. “You can call me Joeyish.”

And then Jrum was finally pulled out of hearing range, and also dealing with Vee panicking from seeing a fish.