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peeterparkr · 4 years

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perfidy;tom holland|3

chapter 3: the background music

enemies to lovers au/enemies with benefits

story summary: Tom and you have been sworn enemies since you were young. However, you happened to be best friends with the twins. When one of your friends challenged you to break Tom’s heart, you immediately accepted to get back at him for all the times he’s hurt you. Old feelings might come back, while both of you try to go past your pride and your lies.

chapter summary: you get a chance to get closer to Tom, and you take it.

pairing: tom holland x y/n

warnings: swearing, alcohol, mentions of sex (? didn’t proof read

word count: 6k (whoops)

here’s a playlist

previous chapter next chapter series masterlist wanna be tagged?

Hi! I’ve been super busy I’m sorry! And I rewrote this like a thousand times but I like where this is going, so please! Tell me what you think, comments and reblogs are very welcome. (Btw it’d be cool if you listened to the songs)

It’s been a while since you felt your heart halt with excitement. You hadn’t felt your stomach jolt with butterflies since your first date with Timmy. And you kind of missed it, that ever lasting and wonderful joy to experience on a first encounter. The smiles, the tingle and the hand shaking. The little hints of flirting that led to asking someone out. It’s like walking into a movie theatre, with a promise of joy, with the taste of popcorn, and you find yourself walking in with excitement and getting transported into a whole new other world.

Love, like any movie, can be good, can be bad. Like a good story, one that’s promising and you can’t stop watching, and you want to see yourself in the emotions, and feel the air and the breeze.

Love is like movies, some of them you like, some of them you don’t. Movies make us cry, make us feel. Some of them make us laugh, some of them not so much.

And love, it has its own background music. Like in films, there are songs that just transport you back to that moment, to that scene. With Timmy, it was a calm song, too calm for your own convenience.

But Tom, not that you loved him, somehow had his own soundtrack. 80’s chaotic rock n’ roll. Rolling Stones vibes. Every time he walked into the room, it felt like one of those scenes in a movie, a bar with little lightning when the guy with blue jeans and white t-shirt walked in, cigarette in the edge of his mouth, walking in vainly, as if he thought everyone had their eyes on him. They probably did, if you were honest that made you hate him even more, but somehow it was interesting. A character that probably had no other personality trait than being an asshole.

It wasn’t always like that. Not that notorious, at least. Tom had changed from a 60’s chaotic rock n roll. Always rock n roll. You could picture it, if you had to imagine a scene from your childhood with Tom, you’d probably play The Kinks. Picture Book.

When Tom and you were younger, it was absolutely clear you didn’t get along. Constant hair pulling, insults, and pranks. A parade of hatred, yelling, fighting and very unnecessary arguments over very stupid stuff. And yes, Tom was still wrong, Robin Hood was not the superior Disney movie, just to clear that out.

Everyone said it: Those two can’t hate each other more. They were right.

At school, if you ever crossed paths, there’d be trouble. You’d often be at the principal’s office after having a heated argument with Tom or a prank, or…whatever you guys had come up with this time.

It was quite clear.

Your mother and Nikki, however, had a very different opinion on your relationship than anyone else, they were aware of your attitude and Tom’s, but they were still convinced they would fix it, and you didn’t blame them, you’d also be pissed if in the future your children didn’t get along with Harry’s or Sam’s, you’d try to force it as well. At a point, they stopped forcing the ‘future romantic relationship’ bullshit dream and settled with trying to get you guys getting along without fighting. They were sure that the fighting was probably because you had only a few things in common, so they pushed your activities together.

Add in some Johnny B. Goode to remember the following.

First, it was piano lessons. First class and you had already knocked down the piano while yelling at each other. You weren’t welcomed for a second class. Then it was baseball, and Tom had hit your nose with the ball, it had been an accident ‘allegedly’. It wasn’t. You weren’t welcome for that class either. Painting classes, you had painted Tom’s clothes all green and made his hair pink. The teacher had claimed she’d never seen two kids more unfit for art than you two.

So, yeah, it didn’t work out.

Eventually, Nikki and your mother decided to stop trying, or at least they gave up the extra classes. At least not together, Tom started ballet and you found joy in photography classes. You were getting along better since you didn’t have to actually spend time together.

So they’d just ask how your relationship was going and whenever they wanted to have tea together they’d avoid bringing you two together unless you were cool with each other. It made it very difficult that you were very good friends with the twins.

But you had had your secrets, even after everything, you still crushed on him from time to time. However, the last time you had had any kind of feelings like those had been when he had taken you to prom. Of course it had awakened something in you, but those feelings had never come back because he had broken your heart. What else could you expect from someone like him? After that, you’d promised yourself you’d never fall again for him. Not that you fell for him, but you promised that his smile would never make your stomach jolt with joy.

It hadn’t.

Let’s go 70’s music now, maybe. Come and Get Your Love-Redbone.

Even on your 18th birthday, the last time you ackwloedged you had made out---kissed- with him hadn’t brought any feelings. Or maybe, they had surfaced but they had been very different feelings. They were mostly confused and disgusted. THere had been one more thing but... You decided to ignore it. But you hadn’t really felt anything for him, less when you realized how big of an asshole he was to you.

You were sure he had never felt anything for you. He had made it very clear. ‘I’d rather eat a frog than kiss you’. Yet, he had kissed you.

You had once bothered him about it: “Hey Holland, I know why your face looks like that, you said you’d rather eat a frog than kiss me, so you ended up never swallowing that frog!”

However you were now facing a predicament. You had a month, a month to make him fall in love with you when he clearly had no interest in you.

That’s all you could think about as you had arrived at his parents’ place. You had been quiet on the ride back home. You hadn’t even told him how it had gone. But he had let you choose the music. You’d love to change the soundtrack on your relationship with Tom, maybe an 80’s more type of funky music.

You hadn’t told your friends about it, but you had told them you’d be going to a bar later to celebrate. But you had been quiet. You needed to think of something fast because you knew how your boss liked to work, and this was the opportunity of a lifetime. You’d be away for two months and if you didn’t come back with a script for her you’d be screwed. This was the worst timing, Tom was going to start filming in exactly three days, sure he’d start in London and then go to America, but you had to do something quick and come up with a lame excuse to hang out with him. Change the background music in your scenes with him.

How does one make your enemy fall in love with you? You thought of the possibility of changing the script and sending in an idea to Alessandra, maybe you could talk about something that was actually happening to you. The story of your breakup with Timmy? That could work, although your breakup had been extremely boring. No one would like to watch something as calm and boring and that probably was playing the worst music in history.

And if you thought about it, with Tom, it was like one of those sexy chaotic rock n’ roll songs.

How would you make him fall in love with you? And why did you want him to? That’s all you had been thinking about on the way home. Because there was a part of you that wanted him to feel the way you felt back when you were younger. You wanted him to feel that agony of knowing that you liked someone who would rather go eat a frog than to ever like you back. Someone who constantly found ways to hurt you. Who could ever fall in love with such a beast like him?

Tom led the way to the door. And you gave it a thought, all of this was now just a scene, something you were writing, but writing it along the way. And you pictured it on the script. How you could start and use some childhood scenes, and then, to this exact moment, with a little bit more of imagination.

Ext. 1989 London Suburbs-Day.

Y/N gets out of the car, an 86 blue porsche. Tom is playing with the keys and heading to the door.

Y/N

Hey, Tom?

You saw it, you could write it.

“Hey, Tom?” You asked. And you had to take a look at him, and really stare. So he’d know. You knew him, that was your weapon. You knew what he liked, what he didn’t, you knew the girls he’d dated. You had that in your favor, and you knew that Tom loved being noticed.

He noticed that you were staring and you saw him slightly concerned.

“Oh, you’re talking, good,” he said as he cleared his throat and then you finally arrived at his face, arching your eyebrows as your eyes met his.. He’d grown up, but you could still see that kid you once knew. “Are you okay?” He asked. And you saw him, he was weirded out. He noticed you were staring.

“Thanks for the ride, it meant a lot to me.” For starters, you could try to be nice.

He gave you an awkward smile. “Sure.”

You walked to the door now, but he stopped you.

“How did it go?” He asked. And you only patted him on the shoulder.

“Good, thanks for worrying,” and you placed a kiss on his cheek. And you thought of the camera, maybe a close up to the lipstick stain you’d left.

He went red and paused, triumphantly you opened the door and there was his whole family. Of course Nikki would do this. They knew how big this was and they loved making a big deal about it, especially since Tom had driven you.

This was awkward, it wasn’t like you didn’t feel comfortable with the Hollands, au contraire, but there was that pinch of guilt holding you back, you knew what you were going to do and you felt like everyone knew about it. Especially since they saw Tom was trying to scratch the remaining lipstick on his cheek.

But you walked in, Nikki was on the phone, and she dedicated a big smile to you.

“It’s your mum!” she mouthed. Your parents were currently having a perfect vacation in Paris, and if you were honest with yourself, you’d rather be third wheeling your parents than trying to come up with ways to make your biggest enemy fall in love with you. It sounded so dramatic, an enemy. Calling him that seemed so immature and childish. But there was no other way to call him. He was your mortal enemy.

Dom was the one to approach you and hugged you hello.

You didn’t know if they sensed your tension.

“Hey y/n, what’s with the long face?” Sam asked as he grinned looking at you, walking over. “Who died?”

“Her hopes and dreams, probably,” Tom said behind you. “And her sex life,” he laughed, earning a glare by Nikki.

“Tom,” Nikki turned stern.

“What? Didn’t she just break up?” Tom pushed with a smirk.

Nikki crossed her arms, “Thomas,” her voice was firm as she watched him leave for the kitchen, but then softened as she looked at you. “Y/N, long time no see! I see Tom drove you,” Nikki grinned.

“Yeah, he did, didn’t leave me alone” you chuckled. “He was nice, that didn’t last” you chuckled.

“Your brother is coming, too, by the way,” she informed you. Great. But how did it go?” She grinned. “Do you have a job now?”

“I….”

Harry tackled you from behind. “Yes, idiot! How did it go?”

You chuckled as you turned around to finally hug him. “Hi!” You wanted to tell Harry everything, everything, you hadn’t seen him in a while, he was too busy with his own things and his new girlfriend, Emma.

“Oh, you don’t know how much I missed you,” he said.

“Me too,” you grinned. “How are things with Emma? How are you?”

“Good, great, things are… great, I’ve got some news!” He chuckled. “But, okay, tell me everything about the interview, I’m so sorry I couldn’t-”

“Hey, it’s alright! It went amazing! I… Well, it’s complicated, but I kind of nailed it.”

“Really?” Tom asked as he was opening up a bag of crisps. “Then why were you quiet all this time?”

“I didn’t want to talk to you,” you snapped. “Never share good news with your enemy.”

Tom rolled his eyes and forced a laugh.

You turned back to Harry. “But, hey, what is the news?”

“Um… let’s just… Have lunch.”

Before you knew it, you were sitting down listening to Harry and Sam, both of them making you laugh with their stories. Tom sat at the other edge of the table, far from you. This was how it usually went, him far away from you and avoiding any eye contact with you. Everyone understood it, and they didn’t try to push it that far anymore. There were times when you turned to eat, when things were bad, but right now it seemed like it was bothering Tom. You could see he wanted to join the conversation at times but he remained on his phone, or talking to his parents.

Your brother arrived and he sat near Tom, they were friends, and they could talk to each other. And although your brother was aware of your relationship with Tom, he had grown up with him, too so there couldn’t be any hard feelings against them. Besides, everyone in the family was aware of it. This was between you and Tom only, nothing to drag them in.

You caught Tom’s eyes a few times, and you had, against your will, dedicated him a smile or two. He hadn’t smiled back.

“Okay, so what’s the big deal, y/n?” James asked. “I mean, I love coming over for lunch here but, how did it go? Are you an official writer?”

You chuckled as you saw them looking at you. “I well…”

They frowned.

“Well, they asked me to write a script, for a new series, pitch in an idea, they’re giving me two months to write it and if they like it, I am officially working for them.”

“That’s nuts,” Harry frowned.

“That sounds like the worst job offer,” Paddy pointed out.

“Pads,” Sam frowned at him.

“It’s a competition kind of thing, if they like it enough, they’ll produce it,” you explained. “That’s why I’m not as...excited.”

“But it’s a chance,” Tom pointed out. “I… talked to your friend, he… Charlie, that’s his name?” He asked. “And he told me about that and how they’re only choosing between three people.”

Your eyes widened. He had talked to Charlie and that made you feel uncomfortable. “Yes, well, it’s a shot, it’s better than having nothing.”

“But wait, until then you have like… No job?” Sam asked.

You bit your lip. “Yup, but hey it’s… a good shot, I honestly thought Alessandra was going to fire me.”

“That’s nonsense,” James pitched in. “But okay, I’m still proud of you, little one,” he grinned.

You knew it wasn’t a big shot, but it was a chance.

“Yes, it’s still good.” Harry pursed his lips.

Nikki and Dom watched you, and you saw it in their eyes the same pity your parents usually had.

“But hey!” You tried to change the subject. “Harry’s got news too, right?”

Harry popped his lips. “Yeah, uh… I got… Well, I actually, ...it got in, the screenplay, they’re producing it,” Harry explained, and he said it with the softest voice as if he was trying not to hurt you. But this was weird, you already knew that part. “But well, we’re starting the production in a week in… Scotland.”

“That’s amazing!” You grinned.

And his whole family started to cheer for him, and the tension in the room faded out.

Except when Tom finally… realized something. “Wait, in a week?” Tom asked. “Then… you’re not...coming to help me out?”

And the table went quiet. Harry was Tom’s assistant, he knew schedules, clothes, everything. Harry was basically Tom’s boss.

“Yeah, I wanted to talk about that, too,” Harry bit his lip. “I can’t… I would’ve told you sooner so we could find another assistant but-”

“No, no, don’t apologize,” Tom cleared his throat. “I’m super excited I just… I need to find an assistant.”

And then you saw it. A chance, as if you had just wished upon a star and it had granted you an opportunity. If this hadn’t been the situation you probably would’ve called him out on being so selfish and arrogant and vain as you usually did, but this was unexpected as if the universe was trying to help you with your plan.

The family started to give him so options and they were trying to find a balance between finding somehting that could soothe stupid Tom and congratulate Harry

“What if… I’m your assistant?” You said, loud enough for all them to quiet down.

Tom laughed. “What?”

“Yeah, think about it,” you shrugged. “I don’t have a job right now, and it’ll be what? Two months filming? It’s a perfect time for me to help you out and write”

Tom frowned, staring at you. “You can’t be serious?”

“Why not?” You grinned.

“Because you can’t stand each other,” this time your brother popped in. “And being his assistant would mean spending this entire two months with him.”

“And he gets pretty annoying,” Sam said.

“I’m used to that, I can handle that,” you said.

“I can’t handle you,” Tom frowned.

“Now, now, Tom it might be… a good idea,” Nikkie said, and of course she would agree. Of course she wanted you to be around him, with hopes of you getting along. And right now, you wanted more than getting along.

“Yes, you’re both adults now, you can be decent, right?” Dom intruded.

“I can,” you smiled.

“No, you can’t,” Tom clenched his jaw.

“Oh, c’mon, Tom, help her out,” Harry said. “Besides, I’m sure she’ll be great, she'd be amazing at planning.”

Tom looked away. “I’ll… think about it.”

Lunch became quiet on Tom’s side of the table, while you kept talking to Harry and Sam. You weren’t quiet, and eventually ended up in the living room, having a laugh and waiting for it to get dark so you could go to the bar where you’d meet your friends.

You borrowed a hoodie and then you were good to go, Sam, Harry and you were about to walk out when you bumped into Tom who had also stayed, talking to your brother, who had just left.

Tom looked at the three of you and walked past you.

“Have fun.”

Usually, he wouldn’t be invited, but right now you were under very different circumstances. It felt different. And there was still that tinge in your ear telling you to back away, no one should play with fire unless you want to get burned.

“You can come, too,” you said as you turned around.

“What?” Tom frowned as he stopped.

“You’re invited,” you cleared up, as he slightly turned to you.

“Really?”

“Sure,” you smiled. “C’mon it’s my way to pay you for the ride.”

He clenched his jaw, but he quickly accepted it and joined you.

Before you knew it, you had a beer in your hand and he was sitting right beside you. You didn’t understand how or why, but he had been the one to sit without a warning. You were in your favorite booth at the end of the pub where you had a little bit more privacy. And you watched Tom, and his cap.

You didn’t stand him, why were you going to risk it all for this? And the idea of being his assistant was giving you a headache.

But you thought about it, how stupid it was of Alessandra to ask for a script based on real life. It was probably one of her most stupid ideas, and you knew that she probably was doing it because she believed of herself as a teacher that was giving the key of art to the interns. When in reality she was only pushing everyone back. But maybe this would be a challenge for you, you’d never written anything remotely close to a love story, only when younger, maybe, but you didn’t like writing love because it didn’t feel like a challenge to you. Maybe it was now.

Somehow, Charlie and Danielle had decided that the perfect way to get the evening going was to ask about your childhood.

There was a live group playing music, and somehow you felt it was a sign. 70’s and 80’s rock n’ roll. It suited the vibe, as the light was dimmed out.

“Man, I—If I’m honest, I think we probably have everything filmed,” Tom said, as he answered Danielle’s question of your childhood. “Y/N and Harry used to carry that camera everywhere.”

The beer in your hand was bittersweet, you had stopped counting how many you had had, Tom kept ordering you both beer, something advised by Harry and Sam, who had pointed out you both needed to be a little bit tipsy to stand each other.

“Really?” Charlie asked.

“Yes, we should pick that up again, you know?” You nodded, as you let down your beer, you brushed your fingers against Tom’s. “It's good to have memories.”

Harry grinned. “I mean we didn’t really stop.”

“No, but you know, we used to literally film everything we’d be filming this!” You pointed out.

Tom chuckled as he took out his phone. “Hey everyone, it’s Tom and I’m kind of drunk here,” he admitted to the camera. “On my side, you’ll be able to see a troll, one of a kind, viewer discretion is advised,” he pointed at you as you glared at him.

“Oh, piss off.”

“See? Oh maybe I’m wrong, are you a witch?” He smirked as he pointed the camera at you.

“Change a letter there, sweetheart,” Charlie grinned. “It’s not a w it’s a b.”

Harry snickered. “Oh, don’t give him ideas.”

Tom shook his head. “Nah, she’s more of a witch,” Tom said carefully as he turned to you. “The wicked witch of the east.”

“It’s the west, dumbass,” you corrected him.

“No, because the one who died is the one from the east,” he winked at you. “And I’m Glinda.”

“You know she’s the real villain of the story right?” You frowned.

“She is not.”

“No, she’s not but—“you chuckled. “I’m drunk. I dunno.”

But the conversation was flowing and you were hinting some flirting at Tom sometimes, like casually touching his shoulder or batting your eyes a bit more, and he was catching up on it. But your nature would show up and you’d end up mocking each other and rolling your eyes. If anything, you could blame it on the alcohol.

“You know, you know what you two need?” Charlie said between drunken giggles. Tom was recording again as he made silly faces to the camera but then started to record you.

“A burger,” you answered, turning back to Charlie.

“With chips, yes,” Tom agreed and you laughed and slightly leaned against him. You had significantly gotten closer to him through the night and you were sure his hand had landed several times on your waist. His hand was slightly now behind your shoulders, resting against the booth.

“No, you guys need to bone,” Charlie snaked. You felt your heart falling down and you quickly shifted away from Tom. He retracted his hand to himself.

Harry burst into laughter. “This dude is mental.”

“These two?” Sam threw his head back. “oh gosh, if you told them to screw they would actually bring nails and screw,” Sam laughed.

“Yes, I’d rather have grounds in my coffee than have to spend 5 minutes with him,” you said.

“And I’d rather eat a frog,” Tom chuckled.

“Just swallow the one in your mouth,” you giggled, poking his cheeks then proceeded to make more faces at his camera.

“I’m serious, all that hatred you’re showing it’s only a facade,” Charlie said. “All of it would be gone if you gave in to that sexual tension you’ve got going on.”

“Gross,” you stated

“It’s simple psychology,” Charlie explained, “you’re both rude to each other because you can’t have the other.”

Harry coughed, “That would never happen.” You saw Harry gulp down his beer,

“Why can’t people just accept we don’t like each other?” You wondered as you watched them.

“You’re like my soulmate but for hate,” Tom zoned out for a minute. “My soulhate.”

“Besides it’d be weird,” Harry pointed out. “We grew up together.”

“That would make it weird?” Tom raised his brow.

Charlie took a long sip of his vodka. “I’m just saying.”

“Well, don’t,” you rolled your eyes.

But the night continued, Charlie and Danielle left eventually leaving you with the Holland’s. The twins left and, you hadn’t accepted their offer to drive you home. Surprisingly Tom hadn’t left either, it seemed like he had picked up on your little flirting game. This was a good start.

“So, you really do want to be my new assistant?” He asked, as he snatched your drink out of your hand, taking a sip.

“I actually do,” you sassed as you took it back, sipping it. “I need a job and might as well have something to kind of do with a big star, you know?”

He watched you. “You think we will last without fighting?”

“No.”

“Then?”

“Well, you’ve got a better idea? Have anyone else for the job? You start in three days” you pointed out.

He rolled his eyes. “I know, I know.”

“Besides, I know you, Tom, for better or for worse,” you admitted.

He clenched his jaw. “I guess. You do realize we’ll have to spend an awful lot of time together? And that you’ll have to travel with me?” He was condescending.

“It’ll be strictly business, won’t it?”

“Yes but-“

“I’ll be as professional as I can be, Thomas Stanley Holland,” you grinned

“Don’t call me that.”

You giggled. “Little Stanley…”

Tom frowned. LY/N, see? This. This is what I mean.”

“Ah, c’mon Stan,” you laughed. “I won’t be showing all your embarrassing pictures and telling your stories to everybody.”

Tom stood up, ready to leave. “That’s it.”

You pulled him back down. “Tommy, I’m joking.”

He glared at you. “I don’t trust you.”

“You think I trust you?” You laughed. “We both can lose a lot here, Tommy, I won’t be risking my career in spite of yours.”

He bit his lip, looking away.

“Tommy, please.”

“I...fine. But I need you to understand… You’ll be spending time with me.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” you said, but it came out very poisonous, earning a scoff from Tom. “Why are you scared?”

“Because I honestly think this is the most time we’ve shared without tearing each other apart,” he shrugged.

You stared down at the half full bottle that you’d been sharing. You took it into your hands.

“Ah, it’s the beer, probably,” you grinned

He took it from your hands and sipped it. “Right, alcohol makes us nice to each other.”

“You call this nice?” You took the beer back.

“I’m not trying to ruin your life so yes,” he smirked, taking it back.

“Am I ruining yours?”

“Kind of,” he admitted.

You smirked as you finally took the beer back and downed it. “Good.”

“Shall I remain drunk all the time, then?” He laughed, his laughter was dragged.

“Dunno, it’s up to you, you do tend to get a little nicer,”

He laughed. “Me? You’re the one who hasn’t been able to keep her hands to herself,” he pointed out as your hand had brushed his.

You clenched your jaw. “And you haven’t pushed me away,” you smirked, as you took his hand and pushed it away.

Tom licked his lips as he stared at you. “Well.” He shrugged, as he placed his arm back behind you, resting it back on the chair.

“See? Alcohol.”

He laughed. “I can’t be drunk all the time.”

“I can.”

“Y/N.”

“Tom, I’m joking, and I genuinely want to help you,” you said. “Besides, I’ll have time to write this script.”

He rested his hand on his head, you could smell the alcohol even from that distance. “What will you write about?”

“Dunno, I’ll see.”

“You’re good, don’t worry.”

You rolled your eyes. “You’ve never read me.”

“I’ve read many of your scripts,” Tom scoffed. “Not only the ones when we were little, I...also the ones you’ve shown to Harry, they’re all good.”

You frowned. “Thanks.”

“I don’t see why you’re so stressed about this.”

“Because… it’s complicated,” you shrugged. “It’s not...something I usually write.”

“Hm. Is it a love story what you need to write?” He mocked.

“I well, kind of, so shut up, you know I hate writing those,” you rolled your eyes.

“Hm, you do, now?”

“Yes, I don’t think I’ve ever written some true authentic love story,” you admitted. And you hadn’t, you really hadn’t.

“Because you’re the villain of the stories, you said it when we were kids. The villains will never…”

“Never find love, I know. Maybe you’re right. But you’re the villain in my story so…” You wrinkled your nose.

“We’re doomed.” He bit his lip.

“Or…” You grinned.

“Or?” He frowned.

“Maybe the villains end up falling for each other,” you suggested, shooting your shot.

He laughed to himself and turned away. A slight blush upon his. “Hm, hinting a crush again, y/n? I think I’ve been clear with you before, you’re not my type.” His voice had turned darker.

“Oh, please, Tom, I’d never fall for some jerk like you,” you pushed.

“You did once.”

“I was 9 and stupid”

“Oh, right you’re not 9 anymore, but you’re still stupid,” he grinned.

You shrugged. “But not as stupid as to be one of those many who’d fall for you, you know?” “Ah, the I’m not like other girls cliché,” Tom laughed, rolling his eyes.

“Yes, but it’s not really a cliché here,” you pointed out. “I mean if we’re honest, I know you enough to know you’re an asshole, and everyone else sees you through the cameras, you know?”

He raised his brows. “I guess… yet...You’ve always been different, y/n, you know? Like, I’m always on the edge with you.”

You grinned. “Are you now?”

“Yeah, one minute you’re flirting then the other you’re doing this,” he pointed at your glaring face, as you felt yourself blushing ignoring his gaze. “it’s weird. I never know if you’re flirting or not.”

“I’m not,” you crossed your arms. “Not with you.”

“Then who were you flirting with all night? Harry? Sam?” Tom pushed.

“No… Charlie.”

“Charlie? The gay guy,” Tom laughed.

You flipped him off.

He smired. “See? Just two seconds ago you had your hand in my hair.”

“Alcohol.”

The lights were dimmed.

“We should… get out of here, I’ll get us an uber.”

You walked out, tipsy enough to walk and just slightly cold. You knew that asking for his jacket would earn only a laugh from him. He had been just nice enough now, and you knew this could blow up. But you felt dizzy, and to keep yourself steady you grabbed his arm. He didn’t move as he stared at his phone.

“You’re always like that, you know?”

“Like what?”

“You’re like polar opposites in one person,” he commented.

You pushed him away. “Ah great, am I bipolar now?”

“No, no, that’s not…”He closed his eyes. “Not what I meant.”

The car arrived and you both hopped into the backseat.

“That’s not what I meant,” he continued.

“Then what did you mean?” You crossed your arms.

“I don’t know.”

You glanced at him. “And you’re worse, you’ve been playing with me since kids.”

“What does that---?” He frowned. “I never-”

“You always gave me hope.”

“I didn’t. Maybe you were too busy dreaming with me and misread everything, I’ve never liked you.

“I’m not implying you liked me,” you snapped.

“Then?”

“I’m implying you were an asshole.”

The driver widened his eyes as he looked at you from the mirror, you saw he was trying to suppress a smile.

Tom clenched his jaw. “Ah, that I am, but, please, sweetheart but you and I could never be.”

“I know, mainly because I despise you.”

He scooted closer. “And because I’m cool and you’re you.”

“And I’m me?” You saw him getting extremely closer.

He held your chin. “Look at us, y/n we come from different worlds.” He was leaning in.

“As long as I remember we grew up in the same one, yet you still managed to become an asshole,” you pushed his face away from yours.

“I think we’re getting a little bit mean again,” Tom rolled his eyes.

You remained quiet.

“I don’t know y/n, maybe they’re all right, I—”

“Who?”

“Everyone maybe we—have to I dunno,” He placed his hand on your leg and you raised your brows.

“What?”

He slowly wrapped his arm behind your shoulder and leaned closer. “I feel like we need to loosen up a little y/n.”

You felt your heart racing, you were angry, you didn’t like this and you didn’t want him to believe that you actually still fancied him, but this was all working, this is exactly where you technically wanted to have him. So, you had to give in.

“And what do you suggest?” Your voice was low.

“I don’t know, I’m giving in to all your flirting,” He laughed as he scooted closer.

You turned around, and laughed. “My flirting?

It felt like late 60’s, rock n roll

Tom, turned your head back to him. “Please you’ve been doing it since you came out of that interview.”

“Hm,” you nodded. “I remember being quiet.”

“And I remember those lips on my cheek,” he gently poked your lips, and maybe it was the alcohol speaking for itself but you wanted to kiss him, and kiss every single spot on his skin.

You cleared your throat. “Ah, please Tom, I was being nice,” you rolled your eyes.

But then you felt his lips against your neck, you instinctively closed your eyes.

“Hm, maybe be nicer?” he kept kissing your neck.

“Nicer?”

“You know, lips on mine,” he whispered.

You rolled your eyes. “You’re drunk, Tom”

“Maybe, but you are, too,” and with that he sealed the deal and closed the gap, combining your lips with yours. And maybe the driver had done it on purpose, or maybe it was faith or your imagination,, trying to get a perfect soundtrack for you, but ‘You Shook Me’ by Led Zeppelin was just the exact song you needed to listen to while kissing your enemy. But how far were you going to let yourself go?

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nobodysuspectsthebutterfly · 3 years

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Hello! If you don't mind me asking, are you planning on watching House of the Dragon? I'm personally unsure about it. I was cautiously optimistic about it since D&D are not involved, but the recent casting news have been ugh disappointing imo. What do you think?

Hey anon! Sorry to say I kind of mind you asking because my inbox is still closed (to everyone except my secret Santas, which is why the ask page is accessible at all), but then I realized it’s possible if you’re on the mobile app only, you haven’t seen said note in my askbox, or my FAQ, or anything of the sort. And with older metas of mine being reblogged recently, it’s possible you may be confused. (I hope you’re on mobile only and not just ignoring my requests.) So I wanted to inform you of that... but also, y’know, I kind of wanted to make a post about the HotD cast anyway? And this ask is as good a prompt as any... so, you’re lucky, but please don’t push your luck. ;)

So, straight up: I currently have no plans to watch House of the Dragon. HBO is not getting any of my goddamn money, I don’t trust like that. And hunting down illegal livestreaming sites is a pain in the ass and I regret ever doing it for GoT, as well as regretting getting drunk every weekend enough to dampen my senses to ever tolerate that show. Yeah it’s different showrunners and writers, I know. It’s still (mostly) the same executives at HBO and even if the pervert producer is gone (or is he?), you know they still just want to sell sex and violence and dragons to an audience that thinks fantasy is for geeks.

Also, considering that Fire & Blood’s story of Dance of the Dragons has very little actual narrative or dialogue, and the historical record is deliberately untrustworthy, that gives them pretty much full rein to do whatever they like with the story and characterization and words without even being slightly obliged to GRRM at all. Furthermore, since the story is wholly political with virtually none of the magical side of ASOIAF (excepting dragons), and honestly does not have much in the way of themes or depth that main ASOIAF or even D&E has, I think it will be very hard for an adaptation to show even those brief sparks of quality that used to make me wistful GoT couldn’t be that good all the time and eventually just made me frustrated and depressed. Note I do like the history and characters of the Dance despite myself, despite its many many many textual issues, but I don’t need to see an adaptation, I have a very visual imagination. I don’t watch a lot of television to begin with, I don’t see why I should start again with this.

However, I’m not going to avoid spoilers or discussion, and I’ll probably follow the show the tumblr way, through gifsets and video clips and people bitching on their blogs etc. If, somehow, by some miracle of good screenwriting and acting, the show manages to transcend its source material, I’m sure I will be informed. And then, if and only if then, I may try watching. (Without, of course, giving HBO any of my goddamn money.) We shall see.

(Though I certainly don’t know why anyone in Targ standom would ever watch a Dance adaptation considering almost every Targaryen and everyone else in the story is terrible except Helaena and the kids, and considering how the story ends, unless y’all are gluttons for punishment? (I do not comprehend hatewatching, sorry.) It’ll probably be fun at first to see the adventures of those “precious silver douchebags” (to borrow a friend’s tag), but eventually rocks fall, everyone dies, including the girlboss you know you’ll hope the story will be changed enough that she succeeds. Just letting you know now, she won’t.)

That said. I’ve been following the casting news and I think the hate/fear/wild screaming is entirely overblown. Yeah, I know, but wait, just listen. On Friday I officially welcomed @naomimakesart to the “favorite character is now played by an actor who looks nothing like most fanart and is mostly known for wildly different roles” club. I still remember that day in September 2009 when my brother texted me “yarp”... and that right there is the thing. Yeah. Rory McCann looks very little like most pre-GoT Sandor fanart... but many fans grew to love him anyway. (There are some who never did, of course. And yeah the character went off the rails by the end, but truly, who didn’t. Having seen his audition, having spoken to him and heard him wistfully talk about book scenes he loved, I’m convinced if Rory had only been given Sandor’s actual scenes and such, he would’ve killed it. Sigh. Deep, deep sigh.)

And Rory isn’t the only one. Neither of the actors for Jaime and Cersei were considered “beautiful” enough at first. I recall very clearly people bitching about Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (about his nose particularly?) because they had wanted Tarzan-era Travis Fimmel to be Jaime. (Seeing people bitch because current-Fimmel isn’t playing Daemon made me laugh out loud for both BEYONCE?! meme -type “why would you ever cast him omg he doesn’t fit my headcanon Daemon at all”, and amazing amounts of fandom flashbacks.) Lena Headey was “too square-jawed”, “too mean-looking” (since at the beginning you should never be able to guess she’s evil), “too dark-complected”, “too mannish”, not at all attractive enough. (Tricia Helfer was the most common “but I wanted” for Cersei, btw.) And of course “they don’t remotely look like twins, ugh!” Note, there’s receipts for all of this, none of it is made up. (Unfortunately.) Those two actors are just the ones whose casting wank I recall most clearly, particularly because oh how the turn tables.

Also. You know, there’s a post with Matt Smith and Mark Simonetti’s TWOIAF Daemon going around with shrieks of horror... and I’m finding it maddening in a “am I crazy? am I the crazy one???” way, because Matt looks like the painting. Their features are not that dissimilar.

Same deepset eyes. Same cheekbones of doom. Same thin lips. Same protruding chin. Same high forehead. Same invsible eyebrows ffs. Matt has a squarer jaw, and a longer more rectangular face, and a wider nose, but considering that Daemon’s features are not described in the text, and this is the only official ASOIAF artwork that shows Daemon’s face straight on, I can for sure see why he was probably shortlisted to begin with. And that’s not even getting into to his role in The Crown, which I’ve heard is very well played with politics and palace intrigue... and if you doubt Smith can play seductive/roguish and/or evil (depending on how you LARP as a Westeros historian), or look good with long hair... well. I do not want to watch the movie, but this trailer is disturbingly enlightening.

And as for Rhaenyra... y’all know this show is starting at the beginning of the story, right? When she’s a teenager? Not a voluptuous MILF? Yeah, Emma D’Arcy doesn’t look like a Magali Villeneueve painting (though who does, good lord), but you know who she does look remarkably like? Harry Lloyd.

Same jawline. Same nose. Same thin lips. Same sharp cheekbones. Notably, same kind of sharp cheekbones and deep-set eyes as Matt Smith. HBO evidently has a concept of a “Targaryen look” that’s a little bit quirkier than supermodel-Greek statue-gods on earth, yeah, fine. But it’s consistent, and they look like family, and that-- that is good casting.

And yeah, in a few months to a year or so, you’ll see them in costume and wigs and makeup, you’ll see them in motion and speaking lines, and go Oh. That’s different. Never mind. And while people will make fanart of the show depictions of the characters and those will probalby get popular, they’ll also keep doing fanart of their pre-show headcanons, and those too will be popular. (God knows when I draw or visualize book!Sandor, Rory does not come to mind, lol.) Either way, there’s no reason to panic. We’ll live.

(Though will we live well? Got to wait on the writing and showrunning for that, alas.)

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olderthannetfic · 4 years

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Hey, sorry to ask this, but a few days ago I saw a post/discussion about the history of original work on ao3 (i.e. how and when it was allowed). I thought it was in my likes, but it's not, and I thought you had reblogged it recently, but I didn't find it. I was wondering if you have seen this discussion around? Or where I can find more about it? This specific post talked abt how who defended original work on ao3 were not the BNFs, if that helps.

That was me running my mouth in the reblogs of something or other. It’s just the one comment.

But what’s that you say? Some tl;dr about a pet topic? Don’t mind if I do! ;) (To be honest, most of this debate happened years ago, and a lot of the long meta was by me back then too, so…)

Okay, so, the situation with Original Works is actually super interesting and a microcosm of early years OTW wank.

This is going to be even more tl;dr than my usual. To try to summarize very briefly:

There were two big cultural factions. One thought “original” was the opposite of “fan”. That one was in charge of OTW. It was hard to get voices from the other side into the debate because they already felt excluded from OTW.

This divide broke down more or less into Ye Olde Slash Fandom on the “it’s the opposite” side and anime fandom on the “WTF?” side. Americans on one side and a lot of non-US, non-English language fandom on the other.

I. Media Fandom, Anime Fandom, and Early OTW

I went to that first fundraising party that astolat threw in New York City back in… god… 2007? 2008? I wasn’t on the Board or any official position until the committees got started later, but I was around right from the very beginning.

Whether you’re looking at volunteers or at people who commented on astolat’s original post, there were always a variety of fans from a variety of fannish backgrounds. People aren’t absolutely in one camp or another, and fannish interests change over time. If you go dig through Dreamwidth posts to find who was actually participating in this debate at the time, half of them are probably in the other camp now.

If you think like that sounds like a preamble to me making a bunch of offensively sweeping generalizations and divvying fans up into little groups, you’d be right! Haha.

I.a. Ye Olde Media Fandom

There are a lot of camps of people who like fanfic. One of the biggest divisions has been Ye Olde Media Fandom vs. anime fandom. Astolat’s social circle–my LJ social circle–was filled with people with decades of fannish experience and a deep knowledge of the Media Fandom side of things.

Those fandom history treatises that start with K/S zines in Star Trek fandom in the 70s and move on through the mainstream buddy cops like Starsky & Hutch to the more niche, sff buddy cops like Fraser and Ray or Jim and Blair are talking about Media Fandom. I try to always capitalize it because the name is lulzy and bizarre to me unless it’s a proper noun for a specific historical thing. It was coined as a rude term for “mass media” fandom aka dumb people who like, ughhhh, Star Trek, ughhh, instead of books. This is a very ancient slapfight from the type of fandom you find at Worldcon, often called “SF fandom” or plain “fandom”.

(Yes, this leads to mega confusion on the part of some old dudes when they find Fanlore and fail to understand that “fandom” there refers to what these people would call “Media Fandom”. They think only they get the unmarked form. But I digress…)

Media Fandom is a specific flavor of fandom. It’s where the slash zines were. It’s where the fans of live action US TV shows were. It’s the history that acafans have laid out well and that tends to get used to defend the idea of a female subculture writing transgressive and transformative fanfic. On the video side, Media Fandom is where Kandy Fong invented vidding by making Star Trek slideshows.

(Kandy’s still around, BTW. She’s usually at Escapade in L.A. Ask her to tell you about the dancing penises sketch in person. She’s hilarious.)

Astolat and friends had been going to slash cons for years. They founded Vividcon. And Yuletide. That meant that when astolat said “Hey kids, let’s put on a show!” we all jumped to help. This is a lady who gets things done.

From a Worldcon perspective, or even from an older Media Fandom perspective, this group was comparatively young, hip, and welcoming. Their fandom interests were comparatively broad. Just look at Yuletide!

In fact, yes, let us look at Yuletide… [ominous music]

I.b. Yuletide sucks at anime

From the very first year (2003), Yuletide mods have asked for help with anime fandoms, been confused about anime fandoms, or made bad judgment calls about anime fandoms. They’ve fucked up on Superhero comics and plenty of other things over the years, but anime has been the most consistent (well, and JRPGs, but there’s so much overlap in those fic fandoms).

There was already bad feeling about this. There were years of bad feeling about this.

I.c. Where are the historians?

Academic study of fanficcy things pretty much got started with Textual Poachers and Enterprising Women. Other acafans who are well known to LJ and later Tumblr are people like Francesca Coppa who wrote a very nice summary of the history of Media Fandom. These are not the only academics who exist, these academics themselves have written about many other things, and by now, OTW’s own journal has covered a lot of other territory, but to this day I see complaints on Tumblr that “acafans” only care about K/S and oldschool slash fandom.

There were years of bad feeling about this as well.

I.d. What kind of fan was I?

Now, by the time OTW got started, I’d moseyed over to not only a lot of live action US TV but a lot of old-as-fuck US TV that is squarely in the Media Fandom camp. But once upon a time, I was a weeaboo hanging out with my weeaboo friends in college. I learned Japanese (sort of). I moved to Japan. Livin’ the weeaboo dream!

More importantly, I used to be a member of a lot of anime mailing lists back in the Yahoo Groups days. I didn’t realize what a cultural gap that would cause until the original works issue came up on AO3.

I.e. Anime Fandom, German-language Fandom, Original M/M

Once upon a time–namely in that Yahoo Groups era–there was an archive called Boys in Chains. It was where you found The Good Stuff™. Heavy kink and power exchange galore! It was extremely well known in the parts of fandom I was in, even if you weren’t on the associated mailing list. It contained lots of fic, but it also had lots of original work.

Around that same era, I was on a critique list called Crimson Ink, which was mixed fic and original. The “original slash” and “original yaoi” crowds mixed freely and were in fanfic spaces. Remember, this is like 2003. You’re never going to get your gay fantasy novel published in English in the US. A couple of fangirl presses started around then, but they died an ignominious death after their first print run.

Fanfiction.net used to allow original work before it spun that off into FictionPress. We forget this today, but if you were an early FFN person, the separation wasn’t so great either.

Meanwhile, German-language fandom was hanging out on sites like Animexx.de, a big-ass fic archive that prominently mentions also including original work. I have the impression that Spanish-language fandom was similar too.

Shousetsu Bang*Bang was founded in 2005. It was a webzine for original m/m, but it was entirely populated by fanfic fandom types.

In all of those kinds of spaces, there was a lot of “original” work that was kind of slash or BL-ish and seen as fannish if it was posted in the fannish space. These weren’t anime-only spaces. They were multifandom spaces where it was seen as obvious and normal that a couple of huge fandoms like Harry Potter would dominate but that everything else big would naturally be anime.

While fans from every background are everywhere, I found that the concentration of EFL fans living in Continental Europe, South America, and Asia was much higher in this kind of space, even the exclusively English language part of it, than in my US TV fandoms.

II. AO3 Early Adopters

AO3 went into closed beta in 2009. In 2010, it was open to the general public (albeit with the invitation queue it still has). But not everyone was interested yet. Just like fandom is loath to leave the dying, shambling mess of Tumblr, fandom was loath to leave dwindling LJ/DW circles or was happy enough on Fanfiction.net. I used to see a lot of posts like “Why are you guys trying to STEAL fanfic from the original! FFN is enough!”

I literally could not give away the invitations I had. No one wanted them.

So who was on AO3? Obviously enough, it was all of us who built it and our friends. So that means a bunch of oldschool Livejournal slashers coming from fandoms like Due South or Stargate Atlantis.

The queue was open. Anyone could make an account. Everyone was welcome. In theory…

But more and more, there started to be these posts about how “AO3 Hates Anime Fandom” and “FFN is for anime. AO3 is for Western fandoms.” and “If you guys actually wanted anime fandom on there, you’d invite us better and make us more welcome.”

At the time, I found these posts obnoxious. People aren’t purely in one sort of fandom or the other. No one was stopping anime fandom from making accounts. No one was banning anime fandom. If there wasn’t much from old fandoms, that was because old fandoms seldom move.

Things began to change. Trolls on FFN forced the Twilight porn writers out, creating enough fuss and brouhaha to mobilize people who would rather have stayed put. AO3 got big enough that randos found it by accident. Original work started to pop up, posted by people who’d never looked at the rules and had no idea it was not allowed.

III. History of AO3’s Policy

I had argued for allowing “original work” during the initial discussions about the ToS. On one side of this issue was me. On the other, everyone else on the committee.

I was overruled.

Open Door started importing old archives to save them. Boys in Chains was hugely important to fandom history from my point of view. It was slated to be imported… maybe. Except that Boys in Chains is half original. AO3 was happy to grandfather in those stories, but the final archive owner felt, quite rightly, that it would be unfair to tell half of the authors they were welcome in the new space while spitting on the other half.

I was pissed. I had been pissed since being overruled the first time. To me, the fact that it should be allowed was so blatantly obvious that it was hard to even explain why.

(To be honest, this difficulty in explaining why and the even greater difficulty in figuring out the source of that difficulty is what held the discussion back for so long. When every assumption on either side is completely opposite, it’s hard to communicate.)

I felt betrayed. It would be like if you helped build something, and everyone was suddenly like “Well, obviously, we can’t allow m/m. It’s not normal fanfic.”

So we discussed it again and, again, it was me vs. literally everyone else. And still the “AO3 is only for Western slash fandom” bitching rose in volume and more and more people complained of feeling excluded from the new fandom hub. Finally, the committee agreed to open the issue up for public comment and get some more input. I was a fool and neither wrote nor proofread the post. It went out phrasing the question as allowing “non fannish” work or something of that sort.

I was furious. The entire point of the whole debate was that I saw some original work, the original work that belongs on AO3, as inherently fannish. And now this had been presented to the AO3 audience as something completely different. Think pieces were popping up in the journals of everyone I knew about diluting AO3’s mission and how we needed to save AO3 from encroachment. Public opinion was very negative. That’s both because of how the post was phrased and because OTW die hards at the time were mostly from the same fannish background. This tidal wave of negativity meant that there was virtually no chance of changing this poisonous rule. And if the rule didn’t change, the people who wanted the rule change were never going to show up to explain why it mattered.

If you’ve been reading my tumblr, I think you can guess what happened next.

I posted a long post to my Dreamwidth. It was a masterwork of passive aggression. In it, I wrung my hands about how simply tragic it would be if AO3 had to delete all of the original work… like anthropomorfic.

Now, I think anthropomorfic counts as fanfic as much as anything else, but I also knew that it fails most rigorous “based on a canon” type definitions of fic and, more importantly, it’s a favorite Yuletide fandom of many of the people on the side that wanted to ban original work.

That’s a nice fandom of yours. It would be a pity if something happened to it.

Yup. Passive aggressive blackmail. Go me. Suddenly, there was a lot of awkward backtracking and confused running in circles in various journals. The committee agreed to table the idea for a while but not rule out the idea of allowing original works in the future. We agreed to halt all deletions of original work. If a fan posted it, the Abuse Committee (which I was also head of at the time) would not delete that work even though it was technically against the rules.

Time passed. The people on the negative side got tired. I wanted off that committee and had wanted off for ages, but I was damned if I was going to leave before ramming through this piece of policy. Grudgematch till I die! (Look, I never said I wasn’t a wanker.)

After a while, some other fans came forward with more types of “original work” as evidence that it should be allowed. These were from parts of fandom none of us on the committee knew a damn thing about.

This new evidence combined with the gradual accretion of original stuff on AO3 without the sky falling eventually led us to quietly rule Original Work a valid fandom. There was never even a big announcement post. I slipped a word to the Boys in Chains mod myself.

IV. What Were They So Afraid Of Anyway?

So why were people so resistant? Seems like a dick move, right?

Not exactly.

I mean, I was enraged and waged a one-woman war to change the rules, but the other side wasn’t nuts. The objections were usually the following:

I just don’t get why it would be allowed. It never was in my fannish spaces.

Most of our members don’t want this.

Most of the examples of things that ought to be included are m/m. We are privileging m/m if we allow it, and AO3 already has a m/m-centric reputation that can feel exclusionary to some fans.

AO3 is a young, shaky platform that can barely handle the load and content we already have. If we open to original work, we’ll be opening the floodgates. The volume of posting will be so high, it will drown out the fic we’re actually here to protect.

Protecting stuff that doesn’t need protection because it’s not an IP issue would dilute OTW’s mission.

If we allow it, idiots will try to turn AO3 into advertising space, posting only the first chapter and a link to where you can pay to read the rest.

If we add another category of text before we add fan art, that’s a slap in the face of the fan artists we are already failing.

These arguments all make perfect sense in context.

Obvously, the issue with the first two is that different fannish communities have different norms. I knew that a very large community disagreed with the then current AO3 policy, but since so few of them were around to comment, it seemed like a tiny fringe minority.

The m/m thing is… complex. M/M content with zero IP issues is at risk. It is always at risk in a way that even f/f is not (though f/f is also always at risk). Asking for m/m to be exactly equivalent to f/f or m/f in numbers, tropes, whatever is ignoring the historical realities. In our current moment of queer activism in the West, we treat all types of queerness as part of one community with one set of goals, but once you get to culture and art or even more specific activism, this forced homogenization is neither useful nor healthy.

OTOH, AO3 really did have PR problems related to the perception that we gave m/m fandom the kid glove treatment. That objection wasn’t coming from nowhere.

AO3 was shaky. It was tiny when I first brought up this argument. Hell, it wasn’t even in closed beta the first time we discussed this. Part of what made the quiet rules change possible was AO3 organically getting much bigger and OTW having to buy many more servers for unrelated reasons.

The “floodgates” thing was put to rest by tacitly allowing original work before the rules change. We had a period to study how fans actually behaved, and as I predicted, only a small amount of original work got posted. It was indeed mostly things like original BL-ish stories or original work that had been part of a mixed original/fic fest, exchange, zine, etc. Currently, the “Original Work” fandom on AO3 only has 76,348 works. That’s pretty big compared to individual fandoms but tiny compared to AO3’s current size.

The commercial argument was spurious because commercial spam had been against the rules from the very beginning. OH THE IRONY that nowadays AO3 has all these idiots trying to post the first chapter of their fanfic and then direct you to where you can buy the rest.

AO3 has plenty of fanfic of public domain works. One of the problems with gatekeeping original work is that any way you try to distinguish it (not based on a specific canon, not an IP issue, etc.) will apply to some set of obviously allowable fandoms.

As for fan art… OTW has failed fan artists. They needed protection as much as or even more than fic writers. Just look at Tumblr! If we had succeeded at making DeviantArt but allowing boners, fan art fandom could have been safe all these years. Or when Tumblr inevitably shat the bed, we could have scooped up all those people instead of them scattering to twitter and god knows where.

OTW has failed vidders too, at least in terms of preservation. I know I’m not the only one who thinks this. Other major people from like the first Board and shit have discussed this with me offline. Doing some kind of vidding project, possibly outside of OTW is on a lot of our to-do lists. But at least one of OTW’s biggest victories has been that copyright exemption. OTW has demonstrably done really positive things for vidders that other organizations and sites have not. As a vidder, I never expected to see good hosting for the actual video files, and I’m quite content.

But fan artists… yeah. That argument makes sense at least from a place of frustration.

BTW, for the love of god, if you’re a n00b to OTW stuff, please do not reblog this post excitedly telling me that hosting fan art is on OTW’s road map, so yay, good news. Someone always does that, and it’s so irritating. I haven’t been involved in OTW in years, but I used to be, and I know what is on the roadmap. The couple of you who do heavy lifting on sysadmin and coding and policy things are welcome to weigh in as usual. I know none of us like that we can’t host fan art. It’s not what we intended.

Nonetheless, I found this argument to be the perfect being the enemy of the good. If we can save more text now without losing much of anything, we should do it. The fact that we’re fucking up on the fan art front is not a reason to spread the misery around.

V. Is “Original” the Opposite of “Fanfic”?

Okay, so that tl;dr above is why “BNFs” were on one side and “nobodies” were on the other. BNFs from one cultural background founded OTW. BNFs from the other cultural background weren’t even aware that the debate was going on.

But what was the underlying philosophical problem in even having the conversation?

It took me a long time, but I finally worked it out: We had two completely different ways of categorizing writing, and they were so baked into how we phrased questions that everything ended up being unanswerable to the other side. Here is what I came up with:

Schema 1

Fanfic - based on someone else’s IP

Original Work - the opposite

Schema 2

Non-Fannish Work - School essays, stories you are writing to try to sell to a mainstream publisher

Fannish Work Type 1 - based on other people’s characters directly (i.e. fanfic) Type 2 - based on tropes or whatever (“original slash” and the like)

Now, in the current moment when half of Tumblr just got into Chinese webnovels and the m/m ebook industry is thriving in English, original, tropey, BL-ish work is no longer different from “things I am trying to sell”. But this is how the divide was circa 2005 on fannish websites, and it’s the divide that was driving this internal OTW debate.

VI. Let’s Summarize the Camps One More Time

So, again, the debate makes perfect sense if you understand who was involved.

On the mainstream “But that’s not fanfic? I’m confused?” side:

Big US TV fandoms in English

Fandom historians of K/S–>buddy cop slash–>SGA, etc.

Americans

On the other side:

Anime fandom

“Original slash” fandom that had already been chased off of everywhere

People upset that AO3 wasn’t farther on translating the interface and supporting non-English language fandom.

People upset about US-centrism in fandom

Yes, I am very white, very American, and by now very into old buddy cop shows, but this was basically how the breakdown worked. It meant that something that looked like a minor quibble to one side was really, really not.

#fandom history #fandom meta #original work #cowboyformitski

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steponmepinkjun · 3 years

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so i was thinking of starting a blog dedicated to a certain fandom BUT 1) i am new and 2)idk anything. you're the only blog i'm quite familiar with and so i was wondering how do i go about doing this? it's not the arcana btw

Blogging on tumblr is easy-peasy, there's a reason I've been on here since 2007. Make a side blog, pick a url that relates to your fandom, dress it up, and start posting—boost content you like, tag things appropriately, and never repost without consent from the creator (reblogs are your friend! And they boost engagement much more than likes!). But that's just the technical part. There's no wrong way to run a blog, as long as you're not being an asshole or stealing people's content. I started this blog as a place to dump my hyperfixation content—I never had any intention of gaining followers or making my own content. I just started screaming into the void, and the void screamed back.

I think the most important thing is that you have to be doing it for your own enjoyment, not for anyone else's. If you can imagine running this blog for a long time and never gaining a single follower, and still would be able to have fun with it, that's the best headspace to be in. Your blog is like a public diary, it's the place you splash your thoughts, and the motivation should be just that. If you're looking for fame or validation or a solid following, it won't be much fun. People generally regard people who ask/plead for followers/engagement as being annoying and disingenuous, but more importantly if your happiness online hinges on others approval, you'll find yourself struggling to keep up with making content that you don't enjoy just to keep the spotlight on you.

The flip side of the coin is this: the key to engagement is genuinely enjoying what you do. When people see a happy person, they flock to them! An example of this is how everyone I know irl knows me as one supremely hilarious bitch—which is totally justified, because I genuinely think I'm the funniest person who has ever lived or ever will, I always have, I crack myself tf up constantly! I don't say things to make people laugh, I say things to make myself laugh, and my joy invites others to laugh with me. That's all you can do, that's all a blog is—an invitation. A way of saying, "Here's my world, you're welcome to step inside, if you like." I run this blog because I like it, I say things I like, I post things I like, I promote things I like, I share my joy, and that invites others to join in, too. It has also allowed me to welcome people who are similar to me and enjoy the things I enjoy; I have made some AMAZING friends through this, people who I can no longer imagine my life without.

Be true to yourself. Curate your experience, and share your joy. Have fun with it. Be KIND, be compassionate, be open-minded. Practice internet safety and prioritize your privacy. Remember you are beholden to no one. And by God choose a good theme, beloved!

#Steppie gives advise #I love this being asked of me when I literally am a garbage person and this blog is my garbage can #I am a raccoon and this blog is a hefty bag of my rotting interests #But it is very fun #And I did meet my wife this way so

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coup-de-maine · 5 years

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How to enter a fandom - RPC

Hey guys, time for a friendly PSA from yours truely~

So I’ve been in and out of a lot of fandoms, made friends, enemies, frenemies, grave mistakes and happy accidents. I also see a lot of people come in other fandoms. Most of yall do great but I see some people carry in this weird sort of self deprecating attitude that can immediately turn rpers away from them, which results in; more of that self deprecation. So Im here to hopefully help out with the best ways to enter a fandom or an rpc, make your presence known and make lots of wonderful friends.

Now the first, and most important thing, and I notice a ton of people struggle with it is:

General attitude.

Let me give two examples of some first time posts.

“Hey! I’m new to the fandom. I know my bio and my theme sucks but would anyone like to rp? Maybe?”

VS.

“Hey! I’m new to the fandom. My bio and rules are located here, though they’re still under construction I’m really eager to develop them with interactions!”

Now I know the first one is tempting for a lot of reasons. You might not even feel like its all that bad, but up next to the second one it actually sounds a little...depressing, monotone, dry. Even though they start the same, one ends with me feeling like: this person really doesn’t put effort into things, they dont even really want to be here. All my threads with them are going to be lazily written or probably written with half baked enthusiasm.

The second person is happy to be here, eager to interact, admits that since they’re a new blog not everything is perfect. Yet, they don’t talk down on themselves or make it seem like anyone who talks to them will only be taking pity on them.

This is actually a big problem I see in the rpc. Making people take pity on you for interactions and the rule with that is simple:

don’t make people feel like they have to take pity on you.

It’s a knee jerk reaction, I know. We’re all awkward humans on the internet who want to play up our faults. Who wants to say “My stuff is SO awesome! It’s the best”???

Well. You do. You’re new to a fandom. People already have established relationships, character arks, possibly with another version of the muse youre playing. Backstories so detailed it’ll make your head spin. You are literally selling yourself to these other rpers. Don’t sell them “A vacuum cleaner that sucks. No, not sucks up the dirt, it just sucks. Like me, Im trash and dont even have a working vacuum” No one wants to buy a vacuum cleaner that sucks.

Hate to break it to you, but when you say you suck, or your stuff sucks; people are gunna believe you. Or they’re just gunna pity you. And thats not great either.

Heck you might think; why not? So long as they rp with me, whats wrong with that?

Well... lots of things but mostly; pity isn’t a good feeling. Nobody wants to feel guilted into rping with you. Imagine seeing someone on your dash constantly posting about how no one likes them, their character or interacting with them. How they wanna die because they never get asks, no one likes their starters. (Sound extreme? I’ve seen it.) It makes you feel bad right? It makes you wanna like them but like- where do you even start??? They don’t even like them?? What common ground do you have?? “Hey, I see you hate yourself... uh... I hate you too?” Not great. Actually bad. You don’t know how to approach this person without becoming an emotional crutch, and you know they’ll latch on to you and suck every positive emotion out of your body so how do you win?

So lesson one is; People don’t want to be forced to feel so bad that they rp with you, they want to feel inspired to. Inspire some dudes! (or non-dude identifying people)

Presentation!

This is everything. Present yourself. You don’t need flashy icons or a cool promo- let me tell you, I’ve made some shitty promos in my life. See Here

That was my promo for a long as time. Until it was THIS that a friend made for me (A friend that I made. Through how awesome I presented myself. Thanks Vee, if you see this I still love you)

I can’t stress enough how important attitude is because I’ve had both a shitty attitude and a great one in the RPC and let me tell you, nothing kills a blog faster than a shitty attitude. Wanna make a self deprecating posts about that meme that you got 0 asks for? NUH UH. Think again. PITY = BAD, SHORT LASTING FRIENDSHIPS. INSPIRED = SUPER AWESOME HAPPY FUN TIMES FOREVER.

Yo, present yourself in a way that makes people wanna approach you. Get them interested, say something wacky or edgy or if your character is self deprecating then self deprecate through them but DO IT IN A FUN WAY. The people who care about icons and fancy promos usually aren’t worth lasting friendships either. Sometimes they literally spend more time formatting than writings something worth while for you. (some of you really balance it and just love formatting but u know im not talking about u Im talking about those that literally wont talk to us that dont)

So present yourself well and be genuine.

--- WAIT WAIT WAIT- be genuine?? What if my genuine self is self deprecating and negative?

[JOHNNY TEST NOISE]

HELL NO shut the what up I know you’re not, I know that’s a reflex to cover up how insecure you are, I know you hate how pathetic and small you feel so you point out all the things wrong with you before someone else can. That’s not you, and you are capable of more than that.

Dude. (and non-dude identifying peeps) I’m gunna say it again. I’m gunna say it a million times; one day it will sink in. Everybody feels that way.

What?? Octo ur so cool and confident tho

You know how you never noticed?? CANT SEE MY HANDS SHAKE THROUGH THE COMPUTER.

DONT KNOW HOW LONG I HESITATED BEFORE SENDING THAT ASK MEME TO YA.

The internet is a playground because you can trick people into believing whatever you want about yourself. YEP even good things!!! You don’t have to wear your flaws on your sleeve, and you certainly don’t have to wear them like a full body cast that prevents you from doing anything fun in your life.

Take the cast off, take a risk. You literally have nothing to lose. Especially if no one interacts with you as is anyways.

Be mindful

This is more of a trick I use to make myself feel better. I don’t follow a lot of people so my dash is pretty slow. It’s fairly easy to tell when people are and aren’t active/online so I literally have to trick myself sometimes but;

If you reblog a meme and get nothing, step back and ask yourself; am I sure anyone even saw it? and are the people who did maybe to shy to send anything? Or maybe nothing in that meme applies to their character.

As a mute character I am VERY restricted to what memes I reply to. As a character who speaks VERY LITTLE I am VERY restricted to what dialogues I can send at all. This means I’m required to edit memes a little (this is allowed by most meme creators btw) or I need a very good relationship with a character in order to say/sign that many words at them.

And worse case scenario, queue it and reblog it again/later. Its no biggie, some memes don’t make it.

Self reflect

Check out people on the dash. Do they have interactions? What are they like? Is their character more welcoming? Maybe you’re character is more intimidating. You might need to actually seek out interaction.

Tumblr has this huge enigma where everyone wants asks but no one wants to send them. Curious anons come from someone, magic anons come from your peers, followers, friends. Some of them are pretty obvious. Want asks? Send them. We really need to get the ball rolling with this because its honestly a problem. Show some initiative and reach out. It actually feels pretty good seeing someone react to your outrageous anon. And its a lot of stress relief if you play an otherwise very serious character to get to branch out and be silly.

So you send asks, you like starter calls- why isn’t it working?

Well, a stranger knocks on your door and tries to get to know you. Its a little awkward- it can work sure in some cases. But in most you’ll probably close the door and phone the police.

The RPC isn’t as strange as that but what’s easier? Talking to a muse you’ve never met from a blog you’ve never seen before? Or writing a thread with your best bud, throwing in inside jokes and references to your favourite shows- teasing each other about that one embarrassing thing that happened to your muse- yeah. Yeah you get it.

If you have history or at least an idea what someone is like, you will want to interact with them more. I don’t know if you’re some mean... meanie pants whos gunna smack my muse because he offered you a cookie. And maybe you are, but if I don’t know you, or know that your muse is deeply traumatized by cookies, I might take that as you saying “Ew no get away I never wanna rp with you”.

It sounds harsh, but I KNOW it happens. It STILL happens to me, even with people I’m friends with. Even if someone has multiple blogs and I get on fine with one muse, if the other hates me I might get uneasy about sending in asks cause I feel like I’m directly bothering the mun (who I love on this blog but WHAT IF THEY START HATING ME THERE TOO???)

Separation is tricky. We all get jealous or feel neglected when our partners focus on another thread/ship or send mean angsty replies which is why its important to check yourself remind yourself you have value, mun =/= muse and that it’s all in good fun.

Have Rules

UGH no!!! Not rules I hate rules, I dont want to restrict anyone!

Listen. I get it. I was a rule-less blog for a long time. But you know what? You need them. Not just for you, but for the people who wanna interact. I still feel the need to ask people who have rules what they are and aren’t comfortable with. You might not realize it but shit can go down in rps especially in certain fandoms. Even if its just the basics. Write them. They matter.

Unless you’re fine with someone literally controlling your character, or a blog you dont even follow who RPs David Letterman tags you in a smutty thread where your muse and him are married and he’s heavily pregnant with 4 narwal baby’s I- I think you can see where I’m going.

If its just the basics, thats fine, everyone loves seeing that. No god modding, not forced shipping, ect- great. Less for me to remember. Add to it if you need to. Everyone experiences rp different. Make your experience a comfortable one.

(And stay tf away from me Preggo-letterman)

Step away.

If you’re feeling negative, just step away. Do not make a big post about it alerting everyone who follows you because they might not all respond well. If you have close friends in then fandom you can go to, talk to them, vent a little, or just remove yourself and get those feelings out. But remember that no one here is equipped to be your therapist, and we cant all be expected to take the burden from you. It is up to you to regulate your emotions. Use coping skills but please don’t make the fandom or your blog a toxic place to be.

You don’t feel good, and no one reading your posts feels good, and building friendships on not feeling good is just... completely not good.

Im not saying you must be sunshine and rainbows all the time, but feeling bad feels bad and even though rping is just a hobby and a past time you are still reaching into other peoples lives. Leave a good impact, try to be someone you would want to meet in the rpc. Make it a better place.

Tips and Tricks

If you leave with nothing else, please take these:

Send Messages.

IM people, send them asks, get to know them before RPing.

Be kind.

Be generous.

Be enthusiastic.

Be happy.

#PSA!!!#Im so so so SO sorry its so long #I tried really hard to make it entertaining #anyways I just get a lot of people asking me how to enter the RPC and...#I wish I had heard this shit when I started lmao #rp #tumblr rp #roleplay

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a-trainers-tale · 5 years

Note

(1/4) I'm so happy to see that this blog is back from hiatus, it's such an amazing idea! If possible, I would love both a trainer and team description! I'm a fairly easy going person in most areas of life, and would generally prefer to go with the flow rather than cause any sort of conflict. I’m a very rules oriented person, and hate breaking rules for any reason. I often find myself getting lost in thought, and have a hard time focusing on reality for too long.

(2/4) I’m an avid storyteller, and love Dungeons and Dragons, as it gives me the ability to escape from the real world every now and again! I try to be kind to everyone I meet, and my friends often say I’m one of the nicest people they know! I make a habit of saying really dumb things to make people laugh, as there’s nothing I love more than making people happy! Despite this, I am very introverted, and I often need to take breaks from those I’m close to in order to recharge a bit!

(3/4) I love the outdoors, and I’m an enthusiastic backpacker/hiker/camper (One of my life goals is to hike the entire Appalachian Trail!). I take an optimistic view of most areas in life, and believe everything will work out in one way or another! I’ve always loved playing Pokemon, because I like the idea of being able to take control over my life and go on adventures with a team of superpowered animals that I could treat like close friends!

(4/4) The ability to become close friends with Pokemon through battling and shared experience, as well as the ability to befriend new people through those same battles, is really exciting to me! I also love how unique each Pokemon team is, and that every Pokemon is someone’s favorite! Thank you so much for taking your time to read this, I know it’s a lot to go through! I really appreciate everything that you do with this blog!

Trainer class: Hiker

Hiker’s are personable and above all else warm-hearted. Hikers put their trust in their Pokemon and rely on their team to not only keep them company while adventuring but also to grow with them and thrive in the outdoors and in areas where none of you have been before. As a hiker, you represent an anchor for any who might come across you in the middle of nowhere or in the mountains, younger trainers might look to you for guidance and mentorship as you make your way through the mountains. Your love of hiking and indulging in the outdoors brings out your Pokemon’s excitement and allows them to feel comfortable wandering with you. Your adventures might end up delving into ranger category due to your desire to follow rules, you might end up enforcing rules in the outdoors where people don’t think anyone is watching. Your adventures will also help your creative juices flow and you are sure to encounter a lot of interesting people and Pokemon to tell stories about!

Partner: Luxray

Luxray enjoys being intimidating and proving its strength to onlookers, and sometimes it will get carried away and scare other Pokemon off. You will need to assist Luxray in learning how to exude strength while still being kind and welcoming. Luxray is ultra protective and might get in the way of your adventurous spirit in an attempt to keep you safe, so you might need to get good at understanding Luxray and communicating with it. Luxray’s strength and stubborn nature will help you feel safe and give you a sense of stability no matter how far from home you find yourself.

Team: Ledian, Poliwrath, Stantler, Tropius, Carvanha

(btw thank you so much for liking/rebloggin/interacting so much with my blog!! it always makes me feel so happy to see you liking/reblogging things!!! ^^ and thank you for being so patient!!!)

#wat-tambor

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galathynius · 6 years

Text

Faking It - Chapter 4

Summary: Aelin has been invited to a wedding, but she can’t stand her extended family, and she certainly can’t go alone. The only problem? She doesn’t have a date. At this point, she’ll take anyone. The slightly irritating and definitely attractive barista at the local coffee shop has been flirting with Aelin for a few months, but it’s not until she’s desperate that she gives him a chance. It’s supposed to be a one-night-only, just-as-acquaintances kind of thing, but it doesn’t go quite as planned…

Author’s Note: Sorry today’s chapter is late, my friend hasn’t been able to get out of the house much recently and I took her to see The Greatest Showman (which was awesome, btw). Idk how I feel about this chapter. It’s mostly filler but the good stuff (i.e. the Rowaelin) is coming, I promise. | Reblogs are greatly appreciated :) Let me know if you want to be tagged in future chapters. A new chapter will be posted every Sunday at around 4:30 pm EST.

Tagging: @howtotameyourillyrian @becarefuloflove @drawtofeel

Chapter List | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Out of every man in Orynth, with all of Lysandra’s many friends, the one person that had agreed to be Aelin’s date was the one who she had made an embarrassment of herself in front of.

“Aelin, this is Rowan.” Lyandra smiled. “But I think you knew that.”

Aelin opened her mouth and then closed it again, unsure what to say. Aedion looked amused.

“When she mentioned your name, I figured it was you,” Rowan said. “Small world.”

“Uh, yeah. It is.” She glanced between him and her friend. “How do you know each other?”

“Mutual friends,” Lysandra said simply. It wasn’t much of an explanation.

‘Right. Well, um, help yourself to some snacks, and bathroom is over there if you want to get changed. Lys, I need your opinion on my makeup.” Lysandra followed Aelin to her bedroom.

“So, did I make a good choice?” Lysandra asked, perching on the bed.

Aelin opened her closet and pulled out her dress. “Did you know I knew him?”

“Not until I told him your name. it’s a funny coincidence, isn’t it?”

“It was definitely not what I was expecting.” Aelin disappeared into the bathroom to put on her dress. When she came out, Lysandra had changed too. “He’s nice enough, at least. Tonight won’t be absolutely unbearable.”

“I don’t think I could’ve made a better choice.” Lysandra grinned.

“Wasn’t he the last person you asked?”

“Yes, but he really was the best option, so it’s fortunate everyone else declined.”

Aelin rolled her eyes, going back into the bathroom to put on her makeup. Lysandra followed, gushing over a new palette she’d bought the day before. Their easy conversation eased the dread in Aelin’s stomach. Her best friend’s presence at the wedding would make it much more bearable.

Before they left the room, the girls paused to look at themselves in the full-length mirror on the wall. Aelin picked a red dress that hugged her form. Lysandra had gone with midnight blue. While neither of them particularly wanted to spend an evening with the Ashryvers, they didn’t mind the opportunity to get dressed up.

“We look too good to waste it on your cousin’s wedding,” Lysandra observed. “We should crash another, better wedding instead. I doubt it would be difficult to find one that will be more fun.”

Aelin laughed. “I wish we could. Look at you. You’re going to knock Aedion off his feet.”

“That’s the idea,” Lysandra said with a faint smile. “I’m sure you’ll knock Rowan off his feet, too.”

Aelin shook her head. “I dress up for myself.”

Lysandra flashed her a grin. “That’s the only way to do it.”

They emerged from Aelin’s room to find Aedion dressed and helping himself to the food. Lysandra rolled her eyes, muttering, “Typical.” Aelin laughed and went to retrieve her shoes.

Rowan stepped out of the bathroom. Aelin’s breath caught at the sight of him. She’d only ever seen him in a black T-shirt and tan apron, and she had to admit he cleaned up nicely. He paused when he saw her, giving her a small smile.

“You look great,” he said.

Aelin returned his smile, blushing slightly. “Thanks. So do you.” She swallowed. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, I’m all set. Is everyone else ready?”

“They will be once Lysandra manages to get Aedion away from the food.”

Rowan chuckled. Aelin realized she’d cracked a joke. It was surprising how easy it was to talk to him, like they were old friends. The realization made her self-conscious, and she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Mercifully, there was the click of heels on the floor, and Lysandra and Aedion appeared.

“Ready to go?” Aedion asked.

Aelin sighed. “Unfortunately.”

Aedion wrapped his arm around his cousin’s shoulders. “It won’t be so bad. You get to spend all night with me.”

“Sounds great,” Aelin said sarcastically.

“Hey, you should be thanking me for bringing Lys along,” he said.

“You brought Lys for yourself,” Aelin pointed out.

“Yes, but she brought you a date, so you’re welcome.”

Aelin shook her head. “You’re annoying.”

“Maybe. But significantly less so than all of your other cousins.”

Aelin couldn’t disagree.

As they piled in the car, Aelin hoped that things wouldn’t be unbearably awkward with Rowan. The majority of her conversations with him had been maybe two minutes. Just about the only thing they’d ever talked about was coffee. And her bad mood. And her complaints about her family. Crap. She wasn’t off to a very good start, and she’d likely be no less irritable around said family. She couldn’t believe Rowan agreed to this.

Luckily for her, Aedion and Lysandra were chatty, and they were sure to include Rowan in the conversation. Aelin didn’t know if it was because they were generally friendly or because they knew Aelin was not, but she was thankful. Left to her own devices she would have nothing to say.

She was surprised by how much she learned about him. He was working at the coffee shop to help pay for law school, which he would be starting in the fall. He didn’t have much family, and lived with his aunt Maeve, who Aelin had remembered him mentioning, until he was able to go off on his own. She had not been kind to him, which had made him want to do something meaningful with his life, so he decided he wanted to be a lawyer.

Aelin felt a little guilty about complaining about her family to him. Yes, they were horrible, but she’d never had to live with them.

They arrived at the church. Aelin wished she could just turn around and go back home, but it was too late now. She prayed it wouldn’t be as awful as she worried it would be, and that they wouldn’t hassle Rowan too much.

She hoped it wasn’t a mistake to bring him.

#allison writes #faking it #chapter 4 #rowaelin fic #modern au #rowaelin #rowan whitethorn #aelin ashryver galathynius #fanfic #aelin galathynius

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itsyaboisayori · 6 years

Text

Why I’m questioning Sayori

I said I’d make this post so here it is! Even got on my laptop to properly do the post :p I’m just kinda winging this but I’ll try to list out everything I can. If I forget stuff I’ll go back and edit it later so if you’re curious, keep watch! I’ll reblog any time I make edits, at least somewhat big ones.

Also, replies are welcome! I’m open to constructive criticism and anyone wanting to offer new viewpoints. I accept that I’m still learning and nothing is for sure yet. Also tbh anyone telling me I sound like I’m kin is validating as heck so if you’re thinking it then I’d appreciate you saying it ahaha, but please don’t lie to me because you think you know what I want to hear. I want the truth. I don’t want to be a confused mess ;n; And I know all/most of these could be COMPLETELY unrelated to being Sayori fictionkin, but I feel like they’re worth mentioning anyways. It’s more like, a bunch of little coincidences rather than big solid evidence, I’m aware of that and that’s a big reason why I’m questioning and not for-sure Sayorikin.

One thing I realized just a couple of days ago is how, since I was a kid I’ve had this like, ideal thing I guess? how do I put this into words lmao my brain is dumb,, I guess a fantasy, that I’d fall in love with a childhood friend, like someone I’m close with from a young age but strictly friends for a long time. I’ve always been in love with the idea of falling in love with your best friend. And of course that’s what happens to Sayori, due to her programming in DDLC. And if I’m kin with Sayori from other game(s) rather than just DDLC then it definitely could be something unrelated, just a coincidence.

I’m like, really drawn to DDLC?? Maybe just because DDLC is a great game and I love all the creepypasta type stuff behind it all, all the theories and dark shit, and also I think just as a cute dating sim it’d be great anyways (but nowhere near as great). But idk, when I saw it I immediately felt kinda drawn to it but maybe that’s just in my head or for some other reason like the characters look nice or smth.

Also it REALLY gives me feels. It makes me feel things in general. I rarely get genuinely scared from fictional stuff anymore but this game fucked me up. I’m still scared to play it on my own because, even after watching multiple youtubers play it multiple times, it still fucking scares me.

The Sayori suicide scene and her poem- especially the poem- really get to me. I saw people making hanging puns in the previous video before her death so it was kind of spoiled for me but even still, it got to me. And the scene where Sayori is freaking out because you deleted Monika before playing the game REALLY gets to me,, like I just understand that overwhelming, helpless feeling. Especially finding out why she acted that way, it’s so fucking hard to watch that scene and normally I’m not affected by this kind of stuff. So either DDLC is extremely good at psychological horror or I have some sort of connection to the scenarios, whether that be just that I’ve been through similar things and am projecting (not really that I remember though? idfk brains are weird) or ya know,,, I once lived as someone in DDLC or whatever.

(TW self harm/suicide/choking) Probably has no real correlation but when I have panic attacks/flashbacks (unrelated to DDLC I mean) I feel like I’m choking or like I can’t breathe. And when really frustrated I tend to choke myself? Sayori died from asphyxiation instead of her neck being broken, by accident because she used a stepping stool instead of something higher like a chair and jumping off. Btw I’m okay, I never actually choke myself to the point to causing permanent damage or anything, and of course I’m not saying this is like, okay or anything. I know it’s bad but I’ve done it completely on impulse, and this was all before learning DDLC even existed. I’m working on getting better and I’m not going to kill myself or anything, just thought I’d mention this.

I relate to her personality,,, so fucking much. Not just the whole pretending to be happy to make your friends happy thing, but how she is as a person besides her depression. Tbh I feel like a lot of people relate to her because of her depression and how she deals with it, but like she’s so much more than that. She pretends to be dumb but it actually pretty smart. Maybe she’s not the best with words but I think she’s a lot more intelligent than some people think. She’s so cheerful, maybe even annoying, and is kind of the class clown, and is a total weirdo sometimes but it’s GREAT and just,, same lmao. Like “looks like my boobs are getting bigger again >:D” is something I’d say lolol I just love Sayori so much, like idc if I’m kin with her or not she’s still fucking amazing.

Another reason I relate to her but probably is like not at all proof I’m Sayori or anything, just thought I’d mention anyways, but I was kinda like, really in love with my guy friend in high school for years, he’s actually kinda like MC in some ways, like he was kinda popular with girls but not like Popular(tm), super nice and couldn’t directly say no, but he knew I was in love with him (or at least knew I had a crush on him but he probably had no idea I liked him THAT much but hey neither did I for a long time lmao) and didn’t like me back and even started intentionally avoiding me. Like, he would make up an excuse to not give me a hug, like he was late for class, but hugs only take like a fucking second what the hell?? It sucked but like when the player turns down Sayori I Relate.

I just,,,,, want to hug Natsuki like she’s fucking adorable and I want to protect her the most bc she’s like a precious child and she’s obviously abused by her dad. Tbh Yuri is a little creepy and for some reason I don’t like her that much but I mean I’d still hug her. I don’t hate Monika, like it was just her programming to do all that stuff she did so I don’t blame her and she’s p cool and I’d hug her too tbh. When Sayori interacts with Natsuki it makes me feel all warm n fuzzy. Like I don’t think in my canon Sayori and Natsuki were dating or anything, I think I/Sayori am/was just really protective? Idk, thought I’d throw that out there.

I also heavily relate to wanting to be a mediator and wanting to help everyone get along and be happy. I often (try to) play that role in this life. I’m extremely empathetic, so that’s prob why, but I can’t stand when people are fighting or can’t see each other’s point of view. Though it also frustrates the FUCK out of me when people refuse to or just absolutely cannot see any point of view but their own. Maybe that’s not really a Sayori thing but ye

When I look at Sayori I get the same “that’s me!” feeling as when I see my kintypes. Who knows though, maybe in a month or two it’ll fade, we’ll see I guess. But right now it is Very Strong. Like I’ve somewhat questioned being fictionkin with other characters before but I’ve never had the “that’s me” feeling this strong with anyone else. Ruby from RWBY is a close second but I still think she’s just a kithtype.

I feel like having a past life or whatever as someone who was experimented on kinda makes sense?? Maybe I just enjoy horror a little too much but I really think if I am Sayori I’m kin with her like actual her not just the DDLC version of her. The new game hasn’t even been announced yet but I’m so excited, mostly because I feel like I want to learn more about my possible past life I guess. I wanna see if things in the second game connect with me or if it’s just DDLC. But I feel like, if I’ve had any past lives as any humans, they were probably really dark or smth. I kinda have a dark mind I guess and that would just make sense to me lmao, like I’m 21 why haven’t I grown out of my edgy phase, why the fuck am I still really into creepypasta? Damn.

I’ve been kinda obsessed with DDLC lately. I have BPD so it could totally just be a BPD obsession thing and maybe this obsession will fade and someday I won’t care too much about DDLC, only time will tell. Also I’ve had the song Your Reality stuck in my head for a week straight but it may just be a catchy song and I tend to have a song that kinda automatically starts playing in my head occasionally, usually lately it’s been Sad Machine by Porter Robinson (good song btw highly recommend)

Most likely unrelated but Sayori’s hair has been described as “strawberry blonde” on one wiki and my hair is like, light brown but reddish, though it looks more like Monika’s hair, especially because I keep my hair long. I’ve been kinda wanting to cut it but I like having long hair tbh and I feel like a lot of ppl don’t want me to cut my hair haha, though I really wanna get a short wig and maybe wear that occasionally (esp bc I’m non binary and wanna pass as more boyish sometimes, I know society will never accept me as nb bleh but anyways). Though, it’s been said that the reason her hair is short is because it’s easier for her to deal with, but I’m not 100% sure if that’s canon. Though I guess it doesn’t matter much? cuz multiverse stuff n all but, still.

Speaking of her appearance, she seems to not care too much about how she looks, which I relate to haha, especially because of depression n stuff. I mean I have Crippling Social Anxiety(tm) so I do care to an extent but usually I’m like, if someone likes me they’ll like me for who I am not how I look anyways. I don’t feel the need to dress super proper to impress anyone in casual social situations, like making friends or even going on dates (though I’ve only been on a real date like a few times and they were with my gf who I’d already been dating online for a while). And yeah a big reason she’s so careless about her appearance is depression but I think if I wasn’t depressed and she wasn’t depressed we’d still both have that mentality like, we don’t need to impress anyone with our appearance so it’s better to just dress how you want, whatever way makes you feel comfortable and happy with yourself and your body, than focus on being proper and stuff.

Maybe I’m just projecting but man I feel like a lot of stuff I do and my ways of thinking and stuff are very Sayori(tm). I feel like I am so much like her, like she’s so me. Though of course, maybe my reason for being kin with her is purely psychological. Maybe I “became” her after seeing DDLC. Maybe I am her because I relate to her so much. But again, only time will tell. If I still feel like I identify as her (which, currently, I most definitely do) in a couple of months or so, then I guess I’ll start calling myself fictionkin. Idk.

#dc #tw suicide ment #self harm ment #ficitonkin #kin #ddlckin #ddlc kin #sayorikin #sayori kin #ddlc fictionkin #doki doki kin #doki doki literature club kin #hey uh I'm open to suggestions/comments/etc as long as you're not like here to tell me I'm stupid for thinking I'm fictionkin or some shit #thanks #questioning kin #questioning fictionkin #I appreciate help and advice guys

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