#it was one of if not the first fandom i ever participated in and my love for it never really left

[bluishfrog]

HAPPY 1-YEAR OF DRAWING ANNIVERSARY TO ME!

(Warning: slightly longer post incoming cause sometimes I gotta be a sentimental bitch ok? So let's go on a little trip down memory lane.)

This day, a year ago, I made my very first fanart. It was dnf (if that surprises you, then welcome to being on my blog for the very first time). I drew a little frog face too so I could use it as a watermark (fun fact: I still use that very same first one).

I immediately put my drawing up on twt because I told myself that I wasn't gonna be afraid of having people see that I was at the very beginning of this journey and had no clue what I was doing. That instead of being bad at art, I was gonna be awesome at being a beginner who doesn't know shit.

I started with little doodles and silly comics and then I laughed way too long when the first drawing of mine that gained some attention was a dnf butt joke. At the time I was trying to balance shipping and non-shipping art so I didn't even draw dnf that much but in hindsight it's probably the only possible way this could have gone.

At the very end of August I woke up to @honelle56 caps-locking at me in my messages - I was very confused and tired (I am no morning person and I will never be, fuck off with your mornings) because Dranart liked my drawing of singing Dream. Dranart was my 17th follower on twt which is a useless yet extremely funny fact about my time on that hellsite.

I also drew human!patches because a) patches was and will always be my favorite dteam member and b) it was a really cute trend and while I do love drawing dream, george and sapnap, I was also quite happy to try drawing anything but a white man for once. And I really liked how the drawing turned out.

Much, much later, I tried to draw my first slightly more realistic looking drawing. I was extremely confused on how to draw anything like this. Especially their hair gave me tons of trouble but given my experience, I think it's not a bad attempt.

When hijacked smp started I obviously wanted to participate, and I drew c!blu who doesn't associate with any side in particular but instead serves soup to everyone who visits her tavern 'The Soup House'. She also wants to be paid in stories from all around the map.

One of the events I was most excited about was dnf week. I even collaborated with two talented writers and I drew the corresponding art for two fics.

(Fun or not so fun fact: when twt had like three hundred collaborative aneurysms about the situation at that moment, that was when I created this tumblr account. I didn't use it super actively (I guess I needed another situation to fully make the switch) but I at least started the account that now developed quite a bit since then.)

I didn't really draw at all through January and February and I actually kinda thought I would move on from that hobby and fandom (not because of negative feelings, just because I didn't really have the urge to create anything within this fandom) and then situations happened and now I am here; and for some reason that is beyond any logic and my understanding I am now even more insane about dteam.

Wild to me but we are rolling with it now, I guess.

Since I got here, I drew more than ever (I actually think I might have made more drawings in the month since I got here than I made the whole rest of the year). There's just such an active and funny community here that cares about fan works for the sake of creating and not just because a CC might see it.

Unfortunately, Tumblr won't let me add more than 10 images in one post (maybe fortunately for everyone who has this monstrosity of a post on their dash). So if you want to see all the progress I made since I got here, you can look at everything in my art tag. For now, I will close this post with one of the art works from the past month that I like the most:

Can't wait to see what the next year might bring :)

Love, blu

#blu rambles #like a LOT #but if you made it to the end of this post you get a hug <3 #bluishfrog art

[witheredoffherwitch]

Not here to start anything but did you not reach out to the person who was the victim of racism here to see her opinion on it? Because she's been quite vocal and clear that things with Em are patched.

Hi nonnie,

I am taking your ask because this ABSOLUTELY needs to be addressed. Your question is a prime example of why I made that post in the first place. So many of you are completely missing the point: this is not just about "fanfic drama" between two people anymore. The main post that detailed all the leaked text messages is WILD to me, because while they revealed some nasty mean girl behaviour from some, it also showed a blatant display of participation and encouragement in bullying, harassment, and racism from everyone involved. And yet, the most disturbing part is the reaction from your community. It's beyond baffling atp!

To answer your question in a nutshell, I joined this fandom after all that drama went down. When those texts came out, I was honestly confused and had to reach out to my own desi community to figure out what was going on. Turns out at the time, Shruie mentioned getting racist attacks but Bel had everyone convinced she was lying - and since Shruie was a considerably smaller blog, she was ostracized and her concerns were brushed off as mere ploy to get attention and sympathy. And now, with the recent revelation of Bel's use of rat emojis, do you see why that part is crucial here? Can you grasp why even the slightest knowledge of Bel's despicable behaviour is significant here? And, do you comprehend how the lack of condemnation only perpetuates a culture of racist hatred towards this person of colour? It's time to confront and acknowledge these issues head-on.

This drama happened back in July of LAST YEAR (?) and now it's being leaked? And you expect us to just forgive and forget because they made up with one person involved? Sorry, I'm not buying it. They only reached out to the victim because they had a falling out with the main perpetrator. If they truly take responsibility for their actions, then GOOD! But excuse me for being wary of this community who will coddle these grown ass women to tell them repeatedly how they are an “integral part of this fandom” or how they “meant well” while making these mistakes over and over again.

Some of us don't see this as just a petty fanfic squabble anymore. And if you still don't see it, then I don't expect you ever will. Your biases blind you - and frankly, I no longer have any interest in trying to make you see. This ain't my first rodeo with people who want to jump on the anti-racism train but are actually part of the problem. My post was meant to call out the toxic behavior that has gone unchecked for too long. Grace, @the-heartlines said it perfectly, so I'm linking her post here for those who need it spelled out more eloquently. This isn't about the fanfic community - because let's be real, I'm not even a part of it. You're all too focused on maintaining your little popularity contests and chasing upvotes to see how your own biases affect your actions. My words are for the rest of the fandom, who can see through the facade and finally speak out against this BS.

#anon asks #hotd fandom #fandom racism #fandom bs #fandom drama

[smilingbuckley]

So I was gonna stay away for a while but I need some advice on something and insta isn't really the place to go to.

About a year ago, I put all my old Teen Wolf fics on anonymous. They were Sterek fics (I think also one Scisaac fic?) And I was about... 15? I think? When I wrote them. Anyway, at that time, I wasn't aware - or maybe I was but didn't care yet, I don't remember - about the age difference between the characters being problematic. As I got older, that changed. At first I stuck to fics where Stiled was 18 or older, but then I just let Sterek go. I kept my fics up because I still spent a lot of time on them, BUT. Then someone on Twitter made fun of me for them. They started vague posting about me and judging me. I ended up putting everything anonymous because I didn't want to deal with that. I was like 15 when I wrote it. I don't ship it anymore. I moved on.

But now... I hate that my ao3 statisrics aren't correct. I think its about 40 fics, give or take? And I miss them being counted in my total works. And, again, I put so much time in them. I had fun writing them. It was my escape during some horrible times.

But that person on Twitter made me feel so ashamed, and I don't want to go through that again. I've been bullied enough in my life.

So now, I don't know whether I should ignore the impulse to remove them from anonymous collections.

I won't write Sterek again, I don't participate in that fandom, but I also can't ignore that that fandom was my safe space for a really long time. My first ever English written paragraph was a Sterek one shot on wattpad. I still feel some nostalgia. And it is a part of my fanfic history.

Anyway, basically I'm asking, what would you do?

Also, I wanna repeat again, right now I don't really ship them anymore. I love their dynamic, but I've turned it into a love for their friendship or relationship in general. I do not support any underage characters in relationships with adult. I've learned as I got older.

#Jules rants

[sunriseinorbit]

there's a literal popularity contest going on on persona twitter right now where people are voting for the so-called biggest fan of every character and i'm not sure how anyone sees that as anything other than borderline dsytopian

#hannah.txt #i'm just so tired #interacting with people in fandom is hell now because it's all either social media Content Creator marketing niche hell #or discord servers which are hell for other reasons #(never forget when i had to mediate a fight between two people in a server WHILE I WAS DRUNK #which all started because someone acknowledged my existence in the server for the first time ever instead of ignoring me entirely #and one of the people threw a bitch fit because they didn't like that i was getting attention over them) #i don't participate in discord servers anymore

[meta-squash]

lol @ someone commenting “these are great, you’re so talented” on my queer as folk u.s. fics which i wrote when i was like 17 or something and which are objectively terrible compared to a) pretty much any other fic writing i’ve ever done, and b) most other content in the fandom from back then

#qaf was my first *real* fandom #as in full participation through fanfics and forums and lj etc etc #i also only transferred my ''good'' qaf fics onto ao3 #all the ones i ever wrote are on ffn and lj but only like 5 are on ao3 #because they are bad

[neil-gaiman]

Hullo, not sure if you’re gonna see this but I got to see the BBC proms today and it was actually incredible to see the Good Omens theme being played (front row!!!!!) - like I knew that I was in love with this story ever since I first encountered it, but never has anything in my life felt so magical as the last couple of months - all thanks to this show. First I got to see the trailer (absolute heart palpitations it was like being yanked out of reality into a fantasy world making life worth living again), then all the promotional material and the early screening I got to go to, the official release I got to watch with one of my closest friends, the feeling at the end of the season where “IT’S REALLY HAPPENING”, the fandom coming together afterward and creating so much beautiful art and fan-content that was just so much fun to participate in, and now this concert which has 1) the Good Omens theme and 2) In The Hall Of The Mountain King (one of my absolute favourites among others)? You, sir, have created an ecosystem of something beautiful - thank you so much. This is all incredible and tonight was awesome.

Did you get to see the concert? It was so so incredible and so worth watching

I didn't see it!

[azrielgreen]

There's a reason I always moderate comments but i approved this one so people can see how truly vile it gets sometimes. I'm not arrogant. I don't think the way I write is better at all. Exploring them on an authentic level means exploring this, or any, version of them with wholehearted passion, not that this is the authentic interpretation of them. Writing intense stuff isn't a brag, it's a warning so people can be prepared for stuff like arguments and confrontations. I always over-warn for CW stuff so that, again, people are prepared. I never once have asked people to read it. It's just there and I've tried my best to a) write something i loved and b) thoroughly warn those who might read it. Any interpretation of the characters is valid and worth exploring. It's so sad to see a reeled off list of all the way Steve "should be" and the implication that nothing but strict canon adherence could ever be a passionate, worthy exploration. It's... only fanfic? It's not real. They're not real. Nothing is real and everything is possible and that's supposed to be what's fun about it.

I write the characters very intensely, so yes, they are often out of character, sorry for... warning about that? I write different backgrounds for them and play with the negative space of possibilities and potential and i do this with authentic curiosity and passion because I love doing it and i get very into it. Sorry for warning about that too, I guess? When I first started writing in this fandom, some people pointed out to me that I could CW warn for them being OOC and that was new to me, i didn't think I had to warn for that. I thought people would read the tags, like in other fandoms, and understand that the story would do different things with the characters but it became clear that this was actually solid advice as this was a fandom obsessed with "canon adherence" and policing. So I thought I would CW as thoroughly as I could so no one would be shocked or disappointed and then maybe they wouldn't leave an essay of hate in the comments.

But ultimately, people like this would only be satisfied if I deleted everything and stopped writing. I barely participate in this fandom as it is beyond answering asks and writing. I don't rec my own work. The thing i don't ever want, and this is why it was worrying seeing something like YD becoming "popular", is for people to feel like they *should* read my work without having gone and looked for it via the tags. Without having found it naturally, just by browsing and thinking "that's definitely for me". I've only ever posted for small rarepairs in the past so a couple of comments on a fic always made me so happy. I write for myself and the few others in the world who might like it. I have never written for an audience. If you don't like something I wrote, it's not for you. Genuinely. Move along to the next, no? That's what I would do.

This was so spiteful and targeted. YD is so old at this point, I just don't understand people who do shit like this. I don't bother anyone and I try to be here for anyone who needs me. I CW as thoroughly as I can. I don't think I'm better than anyone. I think every single iteration of these characters is worthy and valid and what matters is how fun they were to write, for the author. I had so much fucking fun with these stories that seeing this miserable little rant seems pointless to me. I don't care if you didn't like it. I don't care if it wasn't to your taste. Writing it was what I wanted. Sharing it is secondary, always. It's fanfiction, written for free in my spare time. I didn't take up space, I didn't trample anyone. There is no reason for this beyond spite.

I am sorry about the vest/jacket mixup, however. Truly, genuinely from the bottom of my heart devastatingly sorry about that. I know it'll take time for people to forgive me and maybe no one ever will, I have to make my peace with that.

Anyway, thanks for loudly projecting your feelings onto me and my work.

💜💜💜

[yandere-sins]

The Orcas’ Tale - Epilogue

Aye, that's the end of Nerrocan's story! I am happy and sad at the same time, I hope this last chapter from his pov will give you guys some of the answers you hoped for, and maybe create more questions that will be solved in the two sidestories with Lyr and Krill! Thank you all for participating in reaching this True End and I hope you guys had fun guessing (even though you always guessed right after the first chapter!) Thank you for all the support and encouragement sent my way throughout the story, and I hope you guys enjoy the last chapter ♥

Fandom: Original Content   Pairings: Yandere!Orca Mermen x GN!Reader   Warnings: Yandere, Sexual Content (Nerrocan being a bit horny in his thoughts but nothing actually happens, still lots of sex mentions), Violence (Threats, Description of killing others), Monsters, Blood mention, Gun mention, Dub-con touches/kisses, Animalistic behavior, Mention of claws/sharp teeth, Hinting at death, Long post

Mate.

That's the word the humans of this place told me when I asked them about this strange, burning feeling in my chest whenever I looked at you. Bubbles rose from my mouth as I kept saying it over and over, letting the sound of the word roll from my tongue, sweet and exhilarating as it mixed with the images of you I created in my head. Images of you smiling, laughing, sleeping on top of my chest. Your hands wandering, lips kissing, your body beneath mine. Even the dread of being captured, caught in a pool that could never compare to the vastness of the ocean, was no concern of mine when I thought of you, the pain in my body turning into your sweet and soft caresses with my imagination.

In a pod like the one I grew up in, the thought of two merfolks creating their own separate life was not one that was ever considered. Males returned from their breeding spree with other pods, back to theirs, their family, their place of belonging. We'd raise the children of our females, our family staying tight-knit and closed off to outsiders. A male would never bring back a partner to integrate and be the only one they loved. The only one they'd ever desire. It was selfish and wrong and brought risks to the pod, who could get sick or attacked because of the actions of one of their sons and brothers.

But the humans told me it was quite normal for my kind. Not the orcas, the mermaids. Sirens, that's what the humans called us, but they mixed up the description with mermaid ever so often. For fun? For practical uses? I didn't know. I didn't care. I didn't bring you back here, so I'd have to wreck my head around all the weird things you did. I carried you here because I remembered. Remembered others like me—sharks, whales, seals. So many of them, and all of them… happy. Content being held in these large but closed-off bodies of water, attended to by one of the humans in their slick garments and coats. Not at all bothered by the probing, painful experiments done to them as long as they got to rest in the arms of their mates. 

I still didn't understand it. But when I thought of you and called you my mate, knowing you were sitting just an arm's length from the edge of my pool, it was more freeing than escaping this facility back when my cousins and I had been captured. It felt right. Natural. It made no sense, but it made everything make sense. And I liked how it felt. I liked how you made me feel. I didn't care much about anything else, neither my past nor my future here, as long as you were with me.

At first, I had been hesitant around you, remembering the pain humans caused us, binding us and forcing us to sleep while they cut us open and injected weird poison into our bodies. I couldn't understand why my pod mates were so inclined to be around you, considering what the humans did to us, but now, it was almost as if I had forgotten their faces already, their actions of no concern to me.

Now I had you.

Swimming up to the edge of the pool, I reached out to you, my hand so easily fitting around your 'ankle'. Your lips quirked into a grin as you continued writing your report, and I slipped my finger below this strange yet comforting tight fabric you wore, tracing my claw along your 'calf'. You taught me all these words, and I didn't want to miss even one of them. I soaked up every vibration of your voice as if it was the calling whistles of my family, wishing to drown in the sounds you gifted me. After all this time, your 'wetsuit' became the most comforting feeling to me, but your skin's warmth was what excited me the most. You were alive; you were safe. I protected you. It's been all I ever wanted.

"When will you finish?" I asked, innocently enough as I found. Once I returned you to this place, you learned not to be so skittish around me, like a little fish hiding between corals whenever I approached you. I always knew I was stronger than you. You were prey where I was the hunter. You were no match to me, had no claws, no fangs, no poison to hurt me. But only when we spent more time out in the ocean and here, did I realize just how scary I was to you. Monstrous, even. You never said it out loud, but the silence whenever I hurt you accidentally while the humans experimented on me was more painful than any of your words could ever be. So I tried to be less like myself and more like you wanted me to be, even if that meant putting my wants and needs beneath yours. It had paid off, no matter the difficulty. 

You told me you didn't want to be interrupted while you did your studies, spending more hours leaning over your 'clipboard' than you did in the water with me. I wanted nothing more than to float through my tank with you; cared for nothing but you excitedly telling me about your finds and the strange food you had at the 'cafeteria' that day. Naturally, yours won over my wants, but being so close yet so far away from you was hard. If not for your skin getting 'pruney' and your body being so unsuitable to the water I needed, I'd have kept you in my arms all day—where you belonged.

"I'm almost done."

Almost. I hated that word. I wanted you now. In my arms, kissing the air into your lungs while I pinned you to the sandy floor of this pool. I learned a lot about myself after coming here, and one thing was: I wasn't a very patient male. Even when I needed to be, to make you, my mate, like me more, I couldn't banish these thoughts I had about you. They were partially influenced by my needs and wants, partly by the other humans who told me those cravings were natural. I needed to have you close, breathe your air, hear your voice, taste your lips to survive all of this. I wanted to be around you all the time, barely able to rest whenever you hid from me in your little 'cabin' next to my pool, closing the door that I didn't fit through and kept me outside. But I was wiser now than when I first had been captured. I knew I could make demands when I complied with the things these other humans wanted to do to me. They'd build me a home like the underwater cave, where I could live with you, nothing separating us and you having to rely on me to get in and out from. It would be our cave. A love nest. 

Letting myself slide back in the water, I pondered the wonders I'd been promised, my cock aching with need when I thought about making a family with you. Where I came from, there was no such thing as nesting and spending uninterrupted time mating with a partner. The thought of being tangled with you in our cave, covering you in my marks as you accepted my cock inside your warmth, was nothing short of breathing life back into me and testing my patience at the same time. We had yet to introduce the idea to you, but the other humans told me they'd make sure you'd finally accept the mate bond once they talked to you. So far, you called yourself my 'caretaker', and while I didn't dislike how it proclaimed me as yours, I wished you'd finally accept me as your mate like I had you. After all, it was me who was taking care of you—like I promised. 

I said I'd protect you, and though the experiments on my body hurt, I'd be happy as long as I got to be with you in return. And be with you I did, especially now that you put the clipboard away, your attention shifting to me. 

Immediately, I pushed out of the water and onto the metal grids spreading over parts of my tank so the humans could walk comfortably over my pool. You smiled softly as you scooted closer to the edge—closer to me—smelling like the sterile 'alcohol' everyone seemed to apply to their skin, but also of me, which I ensured by rubbing myself against you every chance I got. In the big ocean, you wouldn't notice the scent mark of another creature. You'd bite and carve your possession in clear view for others. But here, with everyone having a mate, the scentings were loud and clear. I, too, couldn't let any other creature here be mistaken about who you belonged to, even though they were all equally busy marking their own mates in the same way. 

I let you cup my face in your tiny hands, palms so small they could barely hold my cheeks, but it didn't repulse me. Unless I kept you in the water with me, your hands were warm and soft, your heartbeat pulsing so vigorously just below your thumb. Your touch could make anything better, be it the anxiety of being apart from you or the prodding needles and knifes cutting into me. As long as you were with me, there was nothing I couldn't endure. I just knew it. I knew it from the moment I tore the sharks limb from limb for daring to threaten you, ripping their hearts out for having the audacity to touch what was mine.

Wrapping my arms around your body, you chuckled as I drew you close, burying my head into your stomach and chest. Your heartbeat was my favorite sound, but the giggles almost sounded like purrs when I pressed my ear to your body. The differences between us were great, but I still found similarities if only I was given the time to look for them. I still didn't trust the humans and didn't have to like them. But I trusted you, and I did what I had to do to be with you. 

"Are you done now?" I mumbled, your hand combing through my hair while I nuzzled into you. You often brushed your hands through the strands, watched them float in the water, and played with them. It gave me a great feeling of satisfaction knowing you liked my hair. Liked me. We were simply meant for each other, considering how much I liked you too. 

"I am. Thank you for waiting," you confirmed, patting my head. My heart leapt at the gesture, so starved from only being allowed to watch you. I tightened my arms around you, ready to pull you into my tank and considering not letting you leave tonight. But before I could take you for a swim, your fingers clawed into my upper arms, and the dreadful screeching of the metal door leading out of my territory forced me to halt. 

"Professor!" you greeted the person entering our space uninvited, rudely interrupting my already limited time with you. I couldn't help but snarl at the man in the white coat, the very same one that had threatened you with death the first time you met him, the thought making me bare my teeth at him. I didn't have to like anyone of the other humans, but there was nothing to like about him in the first place for any of us. 

Anguish spread through me as you slipped out of my hold, getting to your 'feet' to greet the Professor. Disgruntled and shunned by you, I sank back into the water, watching the unnecessary closeness you two had developed over the last few weeks. Water splashed between your sets of feet as I couldn't help but thrash my tail, reminding the Professor to stay away from my mate. But it only caused you to whip around, hissing, "Nerrocan!" to remind me of my 'manners'. I knew he didn't fear me, and I knew I could easily kill him. But for the humans, he was in a position like Krill's mother had been to me. A leader. Someone they followed and trusted with decisions. Compared to my 'aunt', however, this male deserved none of my trust and loyalty. He neither earned it nor was I inclined to trust anything he said. He was faker than the sand at the bottom of the ocean.

"I've come to collect the research data from the last round of testing. Do you happen to have it on hand already?" he asked you, ignoring me and my attempts to signal him to stay away completely. Annoyed, bordering on mad, I had to watch as you retrieved your clipboard, humming thoughtfully as you went through the papers sticking to it before shaking your head. 

"I had them here somewhere, I swear! I must have accidentally left them in my room. Please wait a moment, I'll go and get them for you!"

With that, you quickly moved away, opening the door to your cabin and disappearing behind it. I was tempted to swim after you, already pushing my body in the direction of where you went and further into the pool, when the male called out to me.

"So, how are you finding your life here, Nerrocan?"

I could feel the growl building in my chest as he used my name so freely to annoy me. I'd have preferred it had he not addressed me at all, considering I was not up to chitchatting with anyone else but you—especially not with him.

"I take it you've gotten used to this place then," he monologued, looking up from your clipboard after reading your report. "We are delighted to have you, you know? Orcas have been eluding us for a long time, and the samples we've gotten from you have proven very successful for our research. I just wish we had another one here... You don't think one of your friends might want to join us?"

"They won't come," I snapped back instantly, already feeling like biting the Professor's throat out after this brief exchange. Human speech was hard enough to understand, but even I could tell his words were embellished attacks. He was nothing but greedy and had wanted me to spill the location of my pod from the very beginning. Whenever they did something to my body and my mind was hazy and unfocused, he'd take advantage and ask about the others and where to find them. Apparently, their 'trackers' were too old or broken to find my pod, but I wouldn't tell him their whereabouts, even though he was just as impatient as me. 

And no one would come, that much I was sure of.

I only realized it after coming back to this facility, but the others didn't remember. Not like I did, at least. What happened to their bodies either forced them to forget about this place and the way back here, or they were trying to forget to stay sane—at least Krill. Lyr had definitely changed after what they did to him. It had been a slow shift at first, his changes barely apparent. But as of late, something in him just… snapped. I didn't know the reason, but he seemed out of his mind most days without him even noticing. But I was pretty sure it was because of one of the experiments. And Krill seemed to pretend everything was fine for a while. We got away, and, once we returned to the pod, 'nothing happened'. But he must have realized it too that the three of us were clearly not the same anymore. That none of us could participate in the normal life in the pod, we were forced into again after our experience. 

But at least that meant they wouldn't come here. They wouldn't have to suffer again like I did.

The Professor's eyes narrowed, his expression telling despite him thinking he was unreadable. In reality, he hated being challenged. He didn't want to be questioned; he didn't want anyone to defy him. He was weak. A weak human male that could not deal with not being the most powerful in the room. And none of our kind—be it shark, seal, orca—had proven that point to him yet if only for the sake of their mates.

"You know, I'm surprised you brought your mate here," he suddenly said, his features sharpening after not getting the information he wanted from me. "There would have been a public beach just further north from here, barely half a day of swimming. Undoubtedly, you knew that?"

There it was again, an attack hidden beneath innocent questions. But this time, I couldn't help but dip lower into the pool, hide in the safety of my water, and consider leaving him standing there by himself. Then again, I couldn't trust him with you. You'd return any second now, and he had one of these 'guns' under his coat that could hurt you if I wasn't present to intervene. So I kept watching him, suspicious of his every move. 

"It's like…" he mused, bringing one hand to his face and tapping his chin thoughtfully. "Almost like you wanted to trap them here. After all, we wouldn't have let you and your friends go either had you not put up a fight and slipped from us. Perhaps you thought your mate wouldn't be able to leave you if you brought them here. That they'd need you like you need them, could that be it? You did it all while knowing they'd be imprisoned here with you and become unhappy, didn't you?"

A hideous, fake smile crossed his features, and it was almost enough to make me leap for him and tear his head from his shoulders. How dare he made such assumptions?! I'd have found great pleasure in crushing his skull and tearing that grin apart. "What do you know?" I hissed instead, baring my teeth. 

Humans didn't feel the mate bond. That's the first painful thing I learned here. A human male would never understand the suffocating feeling of being apart from his mate. He wouldn't know the fear and panic of letting them get out of your reach and how much any type of your mate's rejection hurt. How your mate's pain is your pain, just ten times as bad. On land, it would have only been a matter of time until I could no longer follow you. As big as the ocean was, the land reached far and wide, and it was I who was no longer suitable when it came to traverse it. He talked about your unhappiness, but you were allowed to study lifeforms you found interesting. You were protected by me and could pursue your interest without leaving me behind. Not being allowed to leave this place was the small price you had to pay in all of this. Smaller than what I had to endure for you. 

I did what you wanted. I brought you here as you asked me to. Back then, I didn't know how much my life had changed with you in it, but when they talked about having to kill you after we entered this place, there was no question about whether I'd protect you or not. And keeping you here with me was the only way to keep you safe. By staying here with you, I was keeping you alive, no matter what they did to me. Who cared if I remembered how these humans didn't want to let us sirens go the first time I ended up here? Remembered how many humans we had to kill and how many more of our kind we sacrificed to get out? This human male wouldn't understand, but I did. I sacrificed a lot to return here and stay with you, and I saw no fault in my decision to do what my mate wanted me to. 

"It's better this way. For both of us," I growled, and he let out a brief chuckle, amusement flashing over his features. 

"If that's what you want to believe," he said dismissively, his eyes crossing over the pool to the door to your cabin. Immediately, I felt the alert to his focus shifting, forcing me to swim over to that side so that, whatever may happen, I'd be the first to get to you. But to my surprise, the Professor raised his hands and shook his head dismissively of my worries. 

"I won't tell your mate what we just talked about. In fact, it's better they don't learn that their subject forced them into being imprisoned here despite knowing this would happen. They seem to enjoy their work, and they do it well enough. As long as you play nice and let us get our samples from you, we won't have a reason to come between you two. But you already know that, right?"

He was back to grinning like the mad human he was, taking pleasure in the suffering of others. I hated that he had once again attacked me with his words, defeating me in this fight. The Professor had explained to me before that he wouldn't want me to be unhappy and dissatisfied by taking my mate from me. But if I wanted to be with you, I had to do what they asked of me without harming anyone else. My actions may have 'imprisoned' you here, as the Professor liked to call it, but you weren't alone in this. In fact, I was sure we weren't the only ones in this kind of predicament. After all, there were countless other pairs stuck in this facility—willingly or unwillingly. 

"I got them!" your beautiful voice rang out as you exited your resting place. I tore away from the Professor, swimming over to you and chirping softly, gaining a smile from you. I'd never do anything to harm this lovely smile of yours. I wanted to keep it directed at me for all our lives. 

Even if that meant playing the Professor's games and agreeing to his deals.

You handed him a stack of papers before kneeling beside me, brushing over my head as I rose high enough on the platform to protect you. Your touch was soothing and reassuring, but I didn't let my eyes stray from the male beside you, hoping he'd finally leave us alone now that he had what he had come for. I wanted you for myself, but he was taking his time studying the results.

He only briefly glanced from the papers you gave him to me, a grin flashing behind his hand raised to his face in contemplation. It was an oath of silence, one I couldn't trust but had to be content with. I'd not get more than that from him. All he offered was forcing me to believe he'd keep his fake promises. If anyone was going to tell you, it should have been me, even if I felt undeserving of the accusation that I did something to harm you. But humans wouldn't understand. My mate wouldn't understand. So you certainly were better off never learning about this conversation. 

"All exceptional results! Thank you for your hard work!" he finally exclaimed. Immediately some of the tension stiffening your body vanished, and you let out your breath, smiling at him. 

"Any time, Professor!" 

After shaking his hand goodbye, the older male finally left for the door. But not without throwing me another glance and a knowing smile before vanishing behind the screeching metal. Immediately, I shifted my focus back to you, not wanting to spare a second of my time dreading this encounter as much as I did while it was happening. I had better things to do, more important ones. This time I'd let no one interrupt us.

"W-Wait, Nerrocan!" your words were stricken with infectious laughter, curling my lips into a grin as well. You couldn't even react to how fast I had picked you up by the waist and plunged you into the depths of my tank with me. Finding your lips even through all the bubbles we two caused, my gills flared, allowing your lungs to fill with my air as I slipped my tongue into your tiny, delicate mouth. Your taste was the sweetest poison on this planet, intoxicating and making me desperate for more. 

But your initial gentle hold on my shoulders turned rigid, being underwater still uncomfortable for you despite feeling so right for me. I already knew you had problems with prolonged stays beneath the surface after we traveled below it for days, and though I regretted leaving the only place that was truly safe to me, I did what was best for you, sliding my tail between your legs so you'd have a surface to sit on once we breached the water.

You inhaled sharply as you tore from my lips, coughing up some water that had slipped between us despite me making sure to lodge my tongue deeply where it belonged. Truth be told, I wanted more than this from you. I want to sink you to the bottom of the ocean where you'd have to cling to me for air, wrap your legs around me, and opened yourself up to my cock so I could breed you properly. Mate you, as they called it here. Claim and fill you with my seed until you were fully satiated with my spill. All while I'd get to drown in every kiss you gave and listen to your raised heartbeat every time I spread your hole with my cock. Then, you'd finally be mine, body and soul, unable to deny the mate bond any longer and give yourself to me completely until all my seed had been drained from my painfully aching cock. 

If only it were the right time for that. 

We'd need our love nest first and the other humans' talk, explaining why it was imperative you let me mate you. I needed the safety of a cover and to be left alone with you before I could bring myself to take you fully. Nowhere in this facility was safe, and I wouldn't allow you to be vulnerable to anyone else but me. I wanted to keep protecting you, even though I was considering abandoning all these precautions for my need to sink my burning desire into you, marking you beyond rubbing my scent off on you. I hated having to wait, but at least I still had my time with you. 

Holding you by the waist, I supported you, letting you regain your strength and focus. I listened to the moment you inhaled deeply and freely again, another beautiful sound, even if I liked you breathing the air from my lungs more. "Sorry…" I mumbled, not being sorry for putting you into the position you belonged. Trapped against me in a heated kiss, our bodies barely separated by the thin layer of fabric you wore. But I was sorry for you being so uncomfortable in the water, despite me being there, taking care of you. 

"All good," you mumbled, waving off my apology and smiling kindly at me instead. You had changed a lot, too, especially after spending so much time with me. I was thankful for every bit of understanding from you, bringing us closer together and forming the unity of our mate bond, even if you had yet to realize it. Floating through the pool with you on top of me was my favorite evening activity, the stars twinkling above us, despite only being visible at a few spots in the ceiling, through thick windows. Almost. It was almost like being outdoors with you again, free and alone, somewhere out in the ocean. 

"Do you miss being outside?" you suddenly asked, and my eyes fell back on you. You had gotten more comfortable on top of me, tugging in a leg of yours while the other drifted through the water next to my body. You had followed my gaze to the round glass windows above me, guessing what I must be thinking about. 

"Yes," I answered honestly, no need to hide the truth. Between staying here in this strange, imprisoning place with you and being back in the ocean with you, I'd have chosen the sea without a second thought. Both places were dangerous, and both had their sets of risks. But I was going to protect you either way, here or there. The only place we could not go together was the land you longed for—terribly so.

"Me too," you whispered after a brief silence, staring wistfully at the stars above. I slowed my movements, coming to a halt beneath such a window, allowing you not to twist your neck to see them better. "I wish we weren't stuck here. I wish you could be out there and be free, not having to go through these experiments that hurt you so much. But…”

"It's not possible," I finished the sentence for you as your voice trailed off. "Would you like me to break us out of here?"

You gave a short laugh, finally lowering your gaze back to me. Your eyes shone brighter than any star above could. Both the night sky and the water below us were things I loved, but they didn't compare to you, couldn't even scratch at your beauty. They only added to your charm but were never able to overtake it. If I had to choose between them and you, I'd still choose you. I'd always choose you.

"That's not something we should be thinking about, Nerrocan," you mumbled, your voice losing its usual loveliness, the sound turning sourly, the shine in your eyes dimming. You wanted to say "yes" badly; I could see that. Human language was difficult, but reading your kind less so. You often said things you didn't mean to please others, even me on occasion, instantly regretting your words despite trying to hide your feelings behind smiles. You and I both wanted to leave, but you thought it was too dangerous. You thought it was something even I couldn't handle, especially not alone. That you'd be a burden rather than my drive to fulfill your wish, and ultimately, I'd leave you behind to die. After all this time, you still thought so little of me.

I wanted your dreams to come true. I really did. 

But I held myself back despite that.

"It's not so bad here that we'd need to leave. We get good food every day and are safe from others. Besides, I get to hang out with you every day! It's not that bad, right?"

Your words made me happy, but they were conveniently woven lies. It was so easy to lie for you humans, be it for your own sake or others'. My kind would speak their mind without a second thought, but humans calculated their words carefully. Life here was awful, and you knew it. These people here did their horrible experiments on us sirens, sometimes lasting hours at a time, and their mates had to watch, some getting hurt in the action. As if that wasn't enough, they'd force the mates to write long reports and watch their broken, depressed, hurt sirens, forcing them to comply by actively involving them in the process. As the professor said, no one was allowed to leave, and the choice of where to go was limited to the places open to you and my tank for me. The people behind this place tried to hide how little they truly cared about us by making the pools more enjoyable for the sirens and their mates and making promises to provide and ensure the safety of the inhabitants of this place. I did trap you here, didn't I? 

Was I a selfish mate after all? Did I only bring you here for my own sake?

If so, what made me so different from the humans I despised?

"Yes," I lied. "Life here is not so bad."

I had you, at least. That's all that mattered to me. 

You smiled, but it seemed discouraged and sad. Perhaps because you knew I had imitated you with your lying. I was sure you wanted me to fight, to get us out of here and give you the freedom you desired. But the truth was that you didn't ask it of me, and I didn't want to let you go. Because our freedoms could never align with each other. Mine was in the ocean, and yours on land. Only here did we find a place where we could be together. Only here could I be with you forever, even if it meant we'd never be truly free. 

You leaned down, laying on my chest as you thought about all the thoughts you'd never let me hear. What you truly felt and wanted, but held yourself back, not wanting to be selfish or endanger us. Not knowing I was just as selfish as you were. 

I wrapped you in my arms, holding you and giving you all the comfort I could offer. If not this place, then at least I could be home to you. If you told me, I could be what you needed me to, and maybe one day, you would speak about what you wanted so I could act on them if they seemed right to me. But I could do all these things and more that would make you forget and free you of the burden that you put on yourself by being considerate and having to make decisions for us—right here. Just like I decided to come here and agree with the terms of the Professor in exchange for keeping you with me, I could do them for you. Once you made up your mind to agree to our mate bond, I'd make you forget all the bad thoughts you were having. The pain and despair. Instead, I'd drown you in pleasure and fulfillment as my mate. We'd both be finally content with where we were and not worry so much about the consequences of our decision. 

"I'm glad you're here at least," you mumbled, not allowing me to see your face. Read from it if you meant what you said or not. But regardless, it made my heart swell with affection for my little mate, my cock aching as it reminded me of my natural instincts. 

The day I'd make you completely mine couldn't come fast enough. You'd never be alone as I'd always be with you, my marks claiming you as mine, be it bite marks or spill dripping from your holes. You'd never have to face anything on your own again as I'd take care of you, protect you, and ensure no more suffering for you to endure like I had always promised. Whatever the future held for us, I'd get us through it, even if you didn't think me capable of it now. Once I mated you, you'd learn to have more confidence in me, seeing how well I can satisfy you. I just needed to prove myself to you again and again until you'd accept me completely.

"I am glad, too," I confessed, meaning it, hoping you could feel the sincerity in my voice.

Together, we drifted through the pool in circles for a long time in silence, the soft rippling in the water and your breathing the only sounds echoing around us, stars twinkling in a gentle greeting when we looked up at them. I wanted this moment to never end, for your body to never be pried from mine. I dreamed about the whole universe revolving only around us with no one to disturb this togetherness, no worries bothering our peace. Our world, free of pain and expectations, of lies and sadness. Just you, in my arms, with nothing keeping us apart. Together until the waters would take our bodies for our eternal rest.

And I knew I'd make this dream of mine come true, no matter what I had to do. No matter the suffering and pain I had to endure; the many more times you'd give me a gaze full of sadness, wanting to leave this place. Even if the Professor kept threatening me, I'd not let anyone take you from me, would not let my mate get hurt, or be forced into more sadness. I'd make everything better. I knew I could make it all better.

Because I belonged with you, and in return, you were mine. 

Trapped with me for all eternity.

My! Seems like you made it! I believed in you all this time!

Or did you?

Love is such a tricky emotion, like the tides that draw from the beach, only to return quicker than humans realize, trapping them. You can never be sure when these unassuming waters come for your life; the same goes for love.

Maybe you'd have wanted to try something other than this, but is it truly the worst outcome you could have wished for? Did you not want to be loved so dearly that someone would risk their life for you? Or was there something else you'd have rather achieved with your journey? 

I am pleased you followed my instructions, but I can see it in your eyes; there's still so much you haven't experienced yet. Who knows, maybe I can help you with that! I'd be glad to show you what happened to the other two orcas you were caught up with or what would have happened had you made a different choice on your adventure, but for now, this is goodbye. 

I hope you will find happiness in that new life of yours, so far from my ocean. I'm afraid not even I can help you escape from where you ended up. But who knows? Maybe you'll come to like it there. 

Just like everyone else.

#mermay 2023 #mermaids #mermen #yandere mermaid #yandere!mermaid #yandere merman #yandere!merman #yandere #yandere imagines #yandere headcanons #yandere scenarios #yandere fanfiction #yandere writing #yandere stories #yandere oneshots #yandere oneshot #yandere drabble #yandere x reader #yandere x darling #Yandere TW

[sgiandubh]

What happened with Barbour ?

Dear Barbour Anon,

My favorite kind of Anon, even if I know the question has recently been asked again and not in this corner. Never mind, I think it's time to talk about it, too.

I bought my first Barbour (entry-level, so olive) Bedale wax jacket 25 years ago, from their (long gone, now) shop on Boulevard Raspail, in Paris. It was a mandatory clothing item to own if you wanted to properly mingle with the law school crowd (it still is) and it ended up being one of my most prized possessions, possibly a part of me. I still have it somewhere, back home. Two more followed, along with a fetishist array of shirts, scarves, beanies and even one of those sturdy crossbody bags you can fit half a house in. So you can imagine my absolute thrill when I found out, very very late, that S had had a rather substantial collaboration with them, from 2016 and until 2019.

I am very bad with timelines, as you probably know and possibly even cackle about, but still: S was appointed as the company's first ever Global Brand Ambassador on July 16, 2016. His mission statement was very precisely defined by the brand and for some reason we'll analyze a bit later, this is important:

(Source, heh: https://www.astonbourne.co.uk/is-barbour-a-luxury-brand-unraveling-the-mystique-of-classic-outerwear/).

A shirt and vest signature collection followed in 2017 and 2018, with the contract being renewed. Advertisement was absolutely gorgeous and designed to shape a very positive image, both for S and the brand. Last autumn's SS Gin promo retained some of that irresistible aesthetic DNA and I discussed it at length.

See for yourself, Anon. The fandom endlessly discussed the first long clip (with the chocolate labrador), but I have no idea if these two have been seen, let alone debated. If they did, let that be my nostalgic mistake.

Spring/Summer 2018:

Fall 2018:

And then disaster stroke, with S's trip to Ha-wa-wee 1.0, in the spring of 2019. A short reel, featuring a rather agglomerated boat trip, was posted on socials. Unfortunately for S, it also featured an allegedly horrifying scene involving the 'traditional' bludgeoning to death of a tuna fish. Emotions ensued and as it often happens here, they spun out of control. Many people, including some of the most vocal S haters, tagged Barbour in their diatribes, filled with environmentalist indignation. They suggested this guy (who did not participate to the savagery and I would be even unsure he realized what was going on) was, by no reasonable means, a proper 'embodiment of the brand's identity, values and aspirations' (remember that mission statement?).

Tone deaf as ever in the midst of a serious PR crisis, S put friendship above anything else, and publicly praised the boat's owner, calling him 'the heart and soul of the island', if I remember well. I still would like to think he has no idea what the hell exactly happened. And then, when somebody finally (August 2019) asked Barbour on Insta about their collaboration with S, they got this politely dry, but clear answer:

"We don't have any plans for a collaboration with SH in the near future" means, in my book and to my understanding, "we are never going to work with this guy again". Truly, some people in here who dare to give morality lessons to others, should be proud of themselves: they did it knowingly and in a very organized way, using multiple sock accounts, to give the impression of a collective retching reflex. To cut the story short, the dread of any ad campaign on this planet.

The effort was genuine. The result of that collaboration was very good. Take, for example, this somewhat heartbreaking customer review by an American guy who has no idea who SRH is and who bought one of those jackets from a Barbour factory warehouse, in 2021, with a hefty rebate (70% off). Clearly something Barbour wanted to get rid of at all costs - what a pity and really what a SHAME on all those hypocrites who will never admit to a public assassination by the book:

This time, I am absolutely not sorry for the length, Anon. This is something that still makes me boil. Unfairness and cheap nastiness simply disgust me.

(Thank you, sweetheart, for the screenshot, always. You know who you are 😘😘😘).

#anon #fandom #shitshow

[end-otw-racism]

End OTW Racism Link Round-Up: Week 1!

We are now in week two of our action demanding that OTW live up to its commitments to address racist harassment & abuse, which ends May 31st! There was a lot of great discussion during the first week, so we wanted to post a round-up of some of the longer-form discussion/analysis that people have been sharing (we're going with posts on Tumblr, Dreamwidth, and other sites, as well as Twitter threads that are longer than three tweets). These are posts that we think would be helpful to consider as fandom engages in the necessary conversations about these issues.

If we've missed something you've written, we'll be doing another round-up of week two, so it's not too late! You can either submit it on tumblr, tweet at us, or email us at endotwracism [at] gmail [dot] com. We do reserve the right to only share posts that are in line with the intent of the campaign and that we believe are adding to the conversation.

Tumblr

beatrice-otter: Why AO3 needs to be accountable for reducing fandom racism in its internal culture and the archive [link]

pretty-weird-ideas: End OTW Racism and the “Fed” Accusations [link]

aretethegreattelleroftales: You don’t understand what EndOTWRacism is asking for here, and because you clearly do not understand it, you should have known better than to speak on it. [link]

vex-verlain: In response to the reactions I’ve seen to #EndOTWRacism [link]

unrealromance: I don’t really understand how people don’t know the difference between ‘whoops I’ve fallen into a racist trope’ and 'I am literally writing hate speech that is unveiled, mask off’. [link]

pretty-weird-ideas: Codification of a Living Document as a solution to Harassment on OTW [link]

indifferentvincent: RE: End OTW Racism Derailment [link]

elumish: In light of some of the backlash to the End OTW Racism protest, and particularly the concern that an anti-harassment policy would lead to abuse of reporting mechanisms or censorship of unpopular authors/ships… [link]

seepunkrun: How to Find and Attend OTW Board Meetings [link]

indifferentvincent: The people who use the excuse of saying ao3 is an ‘archive’ and so 'must preserve’ the most vile, intentionally racist fics just sound like the most privileged motherfuckers on the planet to me. [link]

spacebeyonce & pretty-weird-ideas: wow this is such a normal and rational thing to say about having a diversity consultant to help ao3 fix their bullshit. [link]

indifferentvincent: I have to assume this is in regards to my promotion of the end-otw-racism call to action, because I don’t know what else it could be referencing. [link]

princeescaluswords: Writing Doesn’t Happen in a Void [link]

mousieta: There is a place, a magic place, a giant, ever growing park filled with sandboxes of every color and shape imaginable. [link]

Twitter

spacebeyonceart: alright so I want to talk about this post I made two years ago now that the #EndOTWRacism ball is finally rolling. [link]

generalfrings: This shit makes me so goddamn angry, yall. [link]

eruthosish: One of the calls of #EndOTWRacism is to improve the AO3's Terms of Service and how the AO3 deals with fanworks that are part of an offsite harassment campaign, so I wanted to share a story about the only time I have ever reported offsite harassment and had Abuse agree with me. [link]

buttonthemdown: They've proven they can move quickly *when they want to*, but the fact the OTW hasn't made an official statement acknowledging their lack of action and pledging to do better sends a signal they don't care about their POC fans. [link] 

Clonehub7567 Seeing the reactionary dismissals of #EndOTWRacism from white fans who pretend to care about racism is reminding me of the backlash i/we got for #UnwhitewashTBB. [link]

hydrochaeris3: ppl who are worried that not participating in the call to action will get them labeled racist..... first of all once again yall are showing that you care more about what others might label you than putting forth tangible effort into caring for a community [link]

m_sketchyart: If you think that #EndOTWRacism is censoring your escapism, here’s a thought to chew on: why is being anti-racist a threat to your escapism? Is true escapism not also leaving racism, antiBlackness, fatphobia, abeism, misogyny, etc out of your escapism? /rh  [link]

lunedraws: Have you wanted to walk the walk and not just talk the talk, re: racism, in one or more of your fandom spaces? This is a concise and timely line of actions we can take. [link]

aliasmarionette: One thing I see a lot in #EndOTWRacism comments which are in favour of the status quo is assumptions about who we mean by fandom, and about the user base of the Archive. [link]

SapphicScholar: New profile photo while participating in the important fan-led campaign to demand that OTW make good on the promises it has already made to address issues it has already acknowledged as problems in the archive—that is, instances of extreme racist harassment and abuse [link]

Fansplaining: Since the endotwracism campaign has begun, we wanted to highlight the timeline they've put together about the OTW's communications re: hiring a diversity consultant since their initial statement of commitment in the summer of 2020. [link]

gwenpendrcgon: ive seen so much backlash over #EndOTWRacism which shouldnt surprise me (also majority of this comes from tumblr is also to be expected) but most if not all backlash received by this event is done is such bad faith and complete wilful ignorance [link]

fiercynonym: so op of the #EndOTWRacism post on reddit dm-ed me and the situation is even more fucked up than i originally knew???  [link]

kitschlet: seeing a lot of people confused about what the OTW can do to address racism [link]

generalfrings: poor AO3 maintaining a 'absurdly heavy site'. all that text! [link]

RukminiPande: Fan scholars should be paying attn to #EndOTWracism. [link]

Saathi1013: The thing to notice about all the assertions that people know who's behind EOTWR is like... Okay, there are a few things, actually [link]

buttonthemdown: If you think that victims of racism need to "develop a thicker skin" you're a fucking racist [link]

mousieta: if i could have people understand one thing abt #endotwracism right now is that This issue matters not because racism makes you feel bad, or uncomfy, or squicky but because racism is actively harming Real Living Breathing Fans right now. [link]

fiercynonym: okay so…you know how OTW has been saying, when asked at meetings, that they have a budget surplus of about USD $1 million? well…manogirl & i did some digging, and it might actually be more than TWO AND A HALF MILLION USD. [link]

runpunkrun: Speaking of OTW Board meetings, if you're interested in attending, here's what you need to know [link] 

Dreamwidth

satsuma: A Chronic Habit of Avoiding Responsibility? #EndOTWRacism [link]

bcgphoenix: I have a lot of feelings about OTW and End OTW Racism as a book conservator/general preservation person, most of which verge into tl;dr territory. [link]

killabeez: Looking at past archive policies [link]

nyctanthes: End OTW Racism (Fannish Fifty #47) [link]

chestnut_pod: Be more democratic, be more autocratic, OTW [link]

Other sites

Lady’s Weblog: End Racism in the OTW [link]

The Rec Center: #384 Final Thoughts [link]

Stitch’s Media Mix: I’m Supporting #EndOTWRacism [link]

#end otw racism #racism in fandom #otw #ao3 #organization for transformative works #archive of our own #fandom racism #link round-up

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

aita for telling someone they're a horrible person and making them relapse?

trigger warning: self-harm, suicide(?)

so im, like many teenagers online, an avid participant of fandom spaces and my current favorite is genshin impact. if you've ever interacted with the genshin fandom you may guess where this is going but i happened to find myself liking a ship that is the big nono ship in this fandom (aka the incest ship, kaeluc) but since i mostly stick to my space and don't really interact with anyone that doesn't already have content of this ship on their account id never gotten into any hot water over it.. until recently.

this person, ill call them rick, suddenly liked a bunch of my (non-ship related) posts. normal interaction, i didn't think anything of if and moved on. (i didn't even notice at the time, but they unliked all of the posts before what happened next, i assume as they realized i was a proshipper and didn't want to associate with me.) next thing i know, the same user is in my askbox, sending me the most vile, hate filled messages i have ever seen.

ok... no biggie. i delete the asks, block them and move on with my life. but it doesn't stop. i had never in my whole life received hate online, but now for the first time ever, i had a dedicated hater, sending me anonymous asks at all times of the day. death threats, dox threats, telling me to kill myself, calling me a degenerate and all that, all with the same consistent writing style. now, one could say that maybe this wasn't rick, and maybe not even all the same person but i really feel like this is the only reasonable explanation considering i have like 6 followers and my most famous post has 3 notes. i don't think im important enough to have that many haters.

so, i did the only thing i could think to do: turned off anon asks. then the asks started coming from random throwaway accounts. ok...turned off asks. then it was dms. turned those off too. THE FUCKING COMMENT SECTIONS OF MY POSTS.

dedication isn't enough to describe this. at this point it's actually becoming distressing to me and im considering closing my whole account cause i just wanna get away from all this. im 16, i don't have the mental capacity to spend all day policing my social media because someone wants me to die for liking fictional incest.

so i very reluctantly unblock rick and send them a dm. i very gently ask if they are the person who has been sending me asks/dms/etc and if they are, if they could please stop because it's become genuinely distressing to me and i just want to be silly on a website. they block me.

alright, im now out of options. everything on my profile is blocked at this point and i don't even want to post anything else so i just kind of leave the account behind for a while. when i come back, i discover that someone HACKED into the account and defaced the whole thing (changed pfp, deleted posts etc etc) so now im genuinely bummed. i go to rick's profile and guess who has been unblocked? i ask them if they can please answer my question. they don't answer but instead tell me i deserve everything ive gotten and i should choke for all they care.

i tell them they're a terrible person and go absolutely off the rails like the dumb, upset teenager i am. i didn't say anything particularly horrible (mostly i just tell them about how awful they've made me feel over fictional shit that really doesn't matter and how i just wanted peace) but i definetely wouldn't like to receive a message like that. and rick didn't either, because they blocked me.

well, since im sure you're wondering where this comes in, here's where i kind of feel like an asshole:

i continued to stalk rick's account on a different blog (because i was bitter. ok?) and they've been posting about how they relapsed into self harm because of a message they received from a stranger and how they've been crying non-stop and this is the worst relapse they've had in years and etc etc and i just got this pit in my stomach. this person's bio says they're 15! i don't want to ever be the reason a fifteen year old is hurting themselves! i've been feeling like a piece of shit ever since (esp since i also deal with sh) and i just feel like the worse person ever. i honestly don't know if i was just acting like anyone else and this was an unfortunate consequence or if i need to go pray for god to forgive my sins or something.

aita?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole #suicide cw #self harm cw #ship discourse

[roger-that-cap]

delicate

bradley bradshaw x fem!reader

warnings: cheating (it’s not bradley who does it but it is on the reader), slight emotional cheating, alcohol use, uh that’s it really! unedited as always!

word count: 4.4k

summary: bradley bradshaw has a best friend. he is also in love with his best friend. it’s a shame that everything’s just a little too delicate to mess with.

the way that i’m actively participating in this fandom is literally so funny to me considering i swore off posting my work in any fandom in like 2022 but here we are. my obsession with the white man with the mustache cannot be thwarted by words of the past. or the man with the cute glasses. or the cocky one with the toothpick. but we’ll take it one day at a time

also this is inspired by delicate by taylor swift ofc 🤪 this is for all my lover girls/boys/friends who want hot guys to dream of them. we are cut from the same cloth and we are two sides of the same coins.

Bradley Bradshaw was an outgoing guy. He was the guy that stopped the music just so that he could put on a show of his own. He was the guy that walked in late, expected attention, and got it. He was the guy that took other people out of their shells. He was confident in a way that was endearing. He was steady on his feet and he never faltered.

Until he met you.

The first time he saw you at the Hard Deck, he was intimidated. You were having so much fun on your own with your little group, clearly civilians who ended up in a bar full of sharks in uniform. That first night, all he did was look from afar.

The second time he saw you, your group was a little smaller, but you were still sporting that same smile. He was close enough to hear you turn a few men down over the course of the night, and that was enough to throw him off again. If it was meant to be, he’d see you again, he thought to himself.

And then he saw you again.

It was the night Penny finally put a karaoke machine in the bar. Bradley managed to convince all of the squad to come, simply because he scheduled himself for at least 3 songs. So they all showed up, and just as he was about to start thinking of what his opener was going to be, the bar music stopped and the karaoke machine started playing, accompanied with girly laughter.

There you were. Standing right at the front of the room with sunglasses over your face and a mic to your lips, fighting a smile as you started a one woman rendition of “End Game” by Taylor Swift.

It was clear by the grin on your face that you were doing it purely to make your friends laugh. He watched you in awed silence, dancing all over the small space and laughing when you took a misstep.

“She’s more ballsy than even you, Bradshaw,” Hangman said, nodding up to you dancing. “Or maybe the word is obnoxious.”

“She’s so cute,” Natasha said, laughing. “I love it.”

“Big reputation, BIG reputation,” you were saying into the mic, leaning halfway over.

“I’d have to be so drunk to do that,” Bob muttered to himself, but even he couldn’t deny the guts it took to go up there even as a joke.

The song ended, and you kindly handed the mic to the man standing at the machine, a sheepish look on your face until you were surrounded by your laughing friends.

“You gonna top that, Bradshaw?” Jake asked, and then Bradley looked over at you again, still smiling.

“I’ll let the bar cool down and prepare for me,” Bradley said, still looking over at you. It was then that Jake caught him.

“Why don’t you go talk to her?”

“Huh?”

“You should talk to her,” Jake repeated, and Bradley frowned at him. “She's pretty. Looks nice enough.” There was a pause, and then that ever-mocking smirk that came to haunt everyone’s dreams. It meant Jake was up to something. “Or I will.”

So, he did. He walked up to you, thinking it couldn’t possibly be that bad. The worst thing you could do was say “no”, and he would take that in stride. He never had to before, but he would if it meant he could just talk to you. Just see.

He was walking up to you, coming from behind, and then it was like you knew he was coming, because you whipped right around. And then he caught your eyes and all he could say was, “I love your hair.”

He kicked himself in that moment, but he realized afterwards that was probably what saved him. It was a strange comment, but it was better than a sleazy one. It was probably the only reason you didn’t tell him to leave you alone right away.

“Thanks!” You looked him up and down, but it wasn’t super flirtatious- you were just looking, like you were searching for a genuine compliment to give him. You just looked so sweet. “That mustache and shirt combo is awesome. I wish I could pull off colors like you.”

And that was the story of how you and Bradley became close friends. In the beginning, he told himself that he was okay with being just friends with the pretty middle school teacher. He was totally okay with you having a boyfriend, because he was your friend, and only that. But every time he saw you smile and laugh or how passionate you were while creating your lesson plans, he couldn’t help but know that he was lying to himself.

It didn’t help that your boyfriend was a piece of shit. Originally he wasn’t one outright, it was just the little things. He walked on the wrong side of the sidewalk. Bradley witnessed him make you split the tab at the bar. He had a wandering eye. He touched you only when another man got close, almost like he was guarding a treasure rather than protecting the love of his life. It was all wrong, and it all left a sour taste in Bradley's mouth.

The sour taste only got worse when five months into knowing you, that same good for nothing boyfriend of yours got another girl pregnant.

Bradley could have sworn that he was going to get discharged for beating up an enlisted man the first time he heard the news. You were crying, bawling your eyes out over the phone in the middle of the night, crying so hard you were nearly throwing up. You told him that you were calling him because you had nowhere to go and you had to get out of your house. He didn’t blame you. In fact, he had never driven so fast.

So, you stayed at his house that night. One night turned into three, and then three nights turned into a week, and it snowballed from there. At first, it was easy to hide his feelings. You were sad, and making a move was the last thing on his mind. All he wanted was for you to feel better, and soon you eventually did. But his selfish mind almost wished that you never had, because the second you started smiling again in his house, in such close quarters to each other, he felt his resolve slipping.

He felt the words coming on the tip of his tongue every morning. You left earlier than him to go to your classroom and set up, and you always left coffee out for him. Sometimes you made his eggs if you had enough time. You made dinner more often than not, insisting on doing that if he wasn’t going to charge you for staying with him. And then you would pick the best movies and you liked the ones he picked, too. You sang in the shower and the bathroom you used always had makeup and face wash and a comb in it, but you still kept it neat. The words were close to escaping his mouth, but when he clamped his teeth down and held it in, it made that same sour taste that your boyfriend did.

That very sour taste in his mouth was there at the bar when he realized he was watching you far too often for it to be friendly. The last thing he wanted to do was make it seem like he was trying to make a move on you while you were clearly still trying to get over what your ex had done.

“You’d better get your girl, Bradshaw,” Jake drawled, and Bradley rolled his eyes.

“She’s not my girl and she’s a grown woman, she can do what she wants,” he said tiredly, his voice so monotonous that the words sounded rehearsed. He knew that all his friends knew that they were, and it seemed like everyone but you had caught on to the hopeless romantic act he was hiding.

“Well, she never drinks and she doesn’t look like she’s handling it too well.” And then Bradley’s head whipped to the side, just where he knew you were.

Just as Jake said, you were walking up to the karaoke machine, an equally drunk Natasha by your side as you looked through the selection, no doubt about to pick something obnoxious. You weren’t as alert as you usually were, and it worried him. You hated being out of it, that’s why you never drank. He walked up to you quickly, knowing that if you started a song there was no taking you away until it was over.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Bradley said from behind you, and he saw your shoulders tense. “I think it’s time to wrap it up.”

“Wrap it up?” You slurred, looking up at him with those pretty eyes that always made his heart skip a beat. “Wrap it up?!” Natasha grimaced at you and then at him, already knowing exactly where it was going. “You know who didn’t wrap it up-”

“It’s okay, that’s not what he meant,” Nat rushed out, turning to look at Bradley. Natasha was one of those that could be four times over the legal limit and no one would no. He envied her in that regard. You were clearly the opposite.

“I just wanted to sing a song,” you said, poking Bradley’s firm chest. “You gonna let me sing a song, Rooster?” There was something about the way you said his callsign that had his cheeks going red. You always called him Bradley, except for when you had that one look in your eye, the one that really had him biting his tongue. “You gonna get off that perch and sing with me?”

“I think it’s time to drop you off at your place,” he assured you without even thinking, but he immediately wanted to swallow his own words when Natasha shook her head rapidly.

“I got kicked out,” you hiccuped, giving him a pointed look. “I sleep in your bed, remember?” You had no idea how much he wanted that to be true.

“Not in my bed,” he corrected quickly when Natasha’s brows shot upward. “In my house.”

“Well, you should probably take her home before she starts a song,” Nat whispered. “She was about to pick “Cowboy Casanova”, that was going to be a disaster.”

He chucked a bit as he touched your arm, his heart fluttering as you looked up at him with your pretty, expressive eyes. His laugh died in his throat. “A-are you ready?”

“Do I get a Bronco ride?”

“You sure do,” he said, and then you two were walking out in the night.

It was easy to get you in the car. You were an easy drunk, just loud. He buckled you up easily and shut the door as you started your own rendition of some Taylor Swift song you had probably told him to listen to.

After your song ended, the ride was quiet. He was happy with the quiet. He was happy because that meant he didn’t have to open his mouth to talk, which meant that he could physically roll his lips shut. Closed lips meant that there was no possibility of him saying something and fucking up a good time. But he couldn’t ignore the fact that you were grinning from ear to ear.

“You’re all smiles now,” he couldn’t help but point out, and he saw you turn towards him.

“You make me smile,” you said easily, still drunk, but it made his heart skip regardless.

Once again, the ride was quiet besides the purring of his Bronco and the occasional blinker noise. Even the music was turned down, but your head was bobbing to some imaginary beat. He couldn't help but make himself see this as a nicer moment than it really was, as a sweeter moment. In reality, he was taking you home because you were about to drunkenly sing a Carrie Underwood song that was going to have you feeling humiliated by the morning. In his mind, he was simply taking you home and making sure you got inside safely. In his mind, it was a simple night, free of drama. There was certainly no cheating boyfriend and no tears.

“What do you dream about?”

Your quiet yet certain tone broke the tension in the atmosphere of his Bronco. “What?”

And then you spoke again, somehow sounding completely sober. “What do you dream about, Bradley?”

“Uh,” he said, feeling his cheeks get a little pink. “I guess it depends.”

“Sometimes I can’t help but wonder-” a small burp escaped your lips— definitely drunk—, “do you ever dream of me?”

His heart stopped. He was so glad you were drunk. There was no way you were going to be able to remember the way he uncharacteristically stuttered or didn’t respond for a few seconds. There was no way you’d remember the flush of his cheeks under the bright light.

“W-what?”

You seemed deadly serious. “Do you ever dream of me?”

“I…” almost to his place. Almost to his place. “I think about you a lot,” he settled on saying, his voice much higher than usual.

“Thinking is nice. I can take thinking as the answer. At least thinking is on purpose,” you reasoned with yourself, seemingly to have forgotten he was even there to begin with. “But dreaming is different.”

He was intrigued. His heart was racing, and his hands felt sweaty on the steering wheel. “How so?”

“Dreaming is you being unable to escape a thought,” you said, and he wondered just how you were managing to get your point across so easily while being so smashed. “Dreaming of someone would mean that you think of them even when you’re not thinking. Your subconscious mind lies with them. It’s deeper.”

You were right. He hadn’t thought about it that way, but you were right. There were plenty of things that he swore he was over that he still had nightmares about and every time they happened, he had to face the music.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I really hope you think about me enough to see me in your dreams.”

He couldn’t say anything. What was he supposed to say? That he certainly did, and that every free moment his mind had meant that it was a free for all full of you and everything about you? Hell, he had once even thought about what your next classroom theme could be. You were that embedded into his mind.

“Wait, is it cool that I said all that?” You asked, blinking up at him slowly as the car came to a stop in your driveway. “I just get really in my head sometimes, sorry if I ruined tonight,” you said, shaking your head with a huge smile, as if you didn’t just rock his entire world in a ten minute drive. “Okay, goodnight.” And then you were jumping out of the car.

“Woah,” he called, racing around from his side and picking you up off the ground. You were laughing, clearly not aware that you had just fallen all over the cement of his driveway. You held onto his arm as he walked the both of you up to his front door, and you almost tripped on a crack in the cement.

“My keys.” You had them in your hand, and for a second, he just watched you calmly struggle with that stupid little smile on your face, like you had all the time in the world as the key kept missing the hole that it didn’t even belong to. “Maybe it’s the wrong door.”

He couldn’t help but laugh when he took the keys from you, already halfway forgetting your conversation from earlier. He held onto your keys as he unlocked his door with his own. He opened the door easily and let you in, prepared to tell you goodnight and go right to his room and try to forget the other was right on the other side of the wall, like you two had done so many times before.

“Where ya going?” Before he could even answer, you frowned at him. “You’re ditching me?”

He turned back around. “Do you need help?”

“I’m a big girl, I can take my dress off,” you said with a grin. “But I- I don’t know. I don’t wanna be alone yet.”

“Okay,” he breathed out. “Okay, you don’t have to be alone.”

And so you weren’t. He stood at the doorway of his guest bathroom, the one that had the makeup and pink towel and even a pink rug. He had given up the space to you without second thought, and as he watched you dart around in it and start to take your hair down and take your makeup off, he couldn’t help but feel his heart swell. You looked so comfortable in his house. It was all he ever wanted wrapped up in just one moment.

“Do you wanna know what broke me the most?” You asked out of the blue as you started to wipe your lipstick off, eyes connecting with his in the mirror. You took a deep breath to wind up for the next round of words even without his response. He knew that you were going to talk regardless. It was one of the things he loved about you.

“I wasn’t even sad about the fact that he cheated. I was happy.”

He was thrown on his ass again by you. You had a habit of taking his breath away more than once a day, probably once every two hours or so to be exact, but this was different. You were pulling no punches. You were throwing hand grenades in the form of words tonight, and he wasn’t even sure you were aware of it.

“It gave me an excuse to leave him. But then there was three or so moments and I realized the reason I was okay with it was because I was finally free of guilt, because the whole time I was with him- I’m an awful person,” you started sobbing and you let yourself sink to the floor, sitting on the pink rug. His brows lifted to his forehead for a split second before he went right down to the ground with you, and his hand found your skin and your back soothingly.

“You’re not a bad person, not even close.” He shook his head. You were an angel. He was genuinely convinced of that.

“I wanted you the whole time.” you slurred, eyes wide but not as present as he wanted them to be. Not while you said the exact words that he had been harboring since what felt like the beginning of time. “Almost ever since I met you. And I can’t help but feel sick when I think about how what he did is my karma.”

He was in shock. He didn’t know if he was more surprised about the fact that you were being so open about something that he was so hush-hush about, or about the fact that you said you wanted him. You wanted him. This was something out of his wildest dreams- just as you had predicted. And then he crashed back down to reality and realized you were drunk off your ass in a party dress, so fucked up that your legs were going every which way and your lipstick was smeared.

“Nothing happened, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he said quietly, ignoring the fact that his stomach felt like it was doing a Simone Biles level floor routine.

“But I would’ve,” you admitted, “if you had given me the sign.” Your bottom lip wobbled, and then you were full on sobbing. “I’m a disgusting person. Awful. Oh my god,” you whined, hands over your face as you hyperventilate on his wooden floor.

You were fucked up.

You were so gone, there was no denying that. He forced himself to let the words go in one ear and out the other, and when he took a few deep breaths of his own, he realized that you were still crying.

“You’re not a bad person, I promise.” You didn’t say anything, but after a few moments, he was sure you weren’t going to change your mind. “I think you’ll feel better if we cleaned you up.”

Your mascara was running, your lipstick was still smeared, and you kind of looked like a hot mess, but you were still gorgeous to him. You always would be. You didn’t say anything, and he took a makeup wipe from the counter and without a word started to wipe your face.

It was a silent exchange. Probably because the both of you were too scared to say much else. You let him wipe your face off and then he helped you stand. You let him take your heels off for you. He left for a few seconds and came back with some of your clothes, the nice pajamas he knew you liked to sleep in, and then started the shower and left. You were in and out.

When you were all done, he was sitting at the table. It was late, but he was drinking a beer with his back turned to you. He heard you clear your throat, and he had to stop himself from jumping.

“Goodnight,” you said quietly, and when he said it back, he heard you turn around and walk back to the room he had given you, and the door hut.

He wasn’t going to sleep well at all.

§§

It was Sunday morning. The worst morning for this situation to be happening. If it was a weekday, you would’ve already been gone, at least. He would have had the whole day to think about how to go about it. But it was Sunday morning, and neither of you went to church. You were stuck.

He didn’t expect you to be up. He knew that he could probably walk to the kitchen and be in the living room for most of the morning without you coming out. Your hangover had to be awful. So, he padded out of his bedroom, rubbing his face and going straight to the coffee pot.

That already had coffee in it.

“Hi.” His entire posture changed.

How he had entirely missed you sitting at the table, he didn’t know. But there you were, a cup of coffee in your hands and a small smile on your face.

You were beautiful. He didn’t know how you didn’t look like you were hit by a bud considering how messed up you were last night, but how could you ever? You always looked so out together and so cute. Of course you could smile with a hangover.

“Good morning,” he said, his raspy voice coming out surprised. He was looking at you cautiously, not quite sure if you remembered what happened. “How’d you sleep?”

“Like a baby,” you said, now you were grinning. “It was so nice. Peaceful.” He decided that you definitely didn’t remember a thing, and he relaxed.

He ignored the wave of sadness that came with the loss of tension.

“What about you?” You asked, genuinely wondering, and he sighed. “You have any dreams?” He took a look at you from over the coffee mug he was drinking from. “You know I minored in psych, I love dreams.”

“No, no dreams,” he said, trying to shut out that whole conversation from last night. “I just can’t believe you’re waking up so… happy. Everyone but me and Bob was so drunk.”

“I had a rough night? I cried a lot, huh?” You asked, and he almost laughed in wonder. How did you not realize that he was literally in love with you? How could you forget that the words you said last night were probably the most important ones he had ever heard?

“Yeah, but it’s okay. Everyone has a rough night every once in a while. I’m surprised you don’t have a headache or anything.”

“Yeah. It’s probably canceled out because of the lack of stress I feel now,” you said, and he nodded his head when he assumed that you were talking about shedding the skin of the man that was holding you back. “It was real nice to get all that off my chest.”

He froze.

You were just drinking from your mug, making annotations in your book. He was staring at you with wide eyes as he tried to understand what to make of what you just said. “Thanks for taking my makeup off, too. That would have ruined my skin progress.”

Holy shit, you remembered everything. “What?”

You had to be playing with him. There was no other way. You finally shut your book, and then you leaned forward on your hands and looked at him with your eyes, one of his biggest weaknesses. “I meant everything I said, Bradley.”

“You remember?”

“Yeah, I always do,” you said, shrugging your shoulders. “That's why I don’t drink. I do things I normally wouldn’t but I never have the luxury of forgetting, so I always wake up embarrassed.”

Did you realize that you were holding his heart in your hands? “Are you embarrassed now?” Please don’t be embarrassed that you said those things. Please don’t be embarrassed because they’re not true. God, let it all be true.

“Only if you want nothing to do with me,” you said softly, looking at him with such vulnerability that it made his heart skip a beat.

“Are you kidding?” He finally said, and he knew then that you were right about letting the feeling lift off of his chest. “You’re in my dreams almost every night, that’s gotta count for something.”

You made the first move to get to him. He realized then that you were a master at making the first move- he had only done it once (after striking out twice) but you had done it twice in two days. And then you were all in his space, breaching it with a certain confidence that made him weak in the knees. It made him want to hold you and hold onto you.

“Almost?” you asked, and as he looked down at you from so close up, he knew what he had already suspected to be true; he was a goner. “I want every dream.”

“Who would I be to deny you?” And then he made a move of his own, kissing you and effectively tying the score 2-2.

*******

AH

#bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw fic #top gun maverick #tgm fanfiction #bradley bradshaw fanfiction #bradley bradshaw fluff #hell yeah mfs #surprised i’m doing all this again especially bc i’m in nursing school so very busy #but here tf i am #my fics #i was not even gonna post this i have a 9 am and it is 12:16 am #please enjoy as best as you can lmao

[rat-rambles]

Ok Alastor shippers of all sorts, I'm going to put in my two cents and before I get into I'm a pro shipper all around just don't be mean to each other and tags are there for a reason.

My credentials: I'm an gray ace, aro person who's been around Fandom a very long time. Personally I've been initiated with the “but al is ace aro so you can't ship him” discourse and first off that's not true both because we can date -I Have a long term Partner- and because I've explored a lot of my queer identity through Fandom and fanfics and I think others should get the chance to do the same. I'm sure a lot of people will learn they’re ace aro because of alastor. That being said ik a lot of you writers out there aren't ace aro and are new to the topic so I'm going to go over some of my personal suggestions of how you could make Canon compliant works. (And if you do any or find any please send to me I'd love to see it)

Oblivious Alastor

Canonically this man doesn't know he's an ace in the hole. And I don't believe an egomaniac like him would assume that there's anything “different” about himself. ik when I was a baby ace I thought everyone was just being dramatic basically before realizing I was the exception. I can see this going 2 ways.

Radiostatic (pre show): vox is obviously completely smitten with al and al sees dating a more powerful overlord as an advantage(which vox in the past was the more powerful of the two). And Al starts getting slowly more and more uncomfortable and vox gets pushy in a very manipulative way.

Radioapple: enemies to friends to lovers? After Al and Luci become close friends, Luci starts to catch feelings for Al and Al agrees to date him seeing as he is fond of him and he's a very powerful ally so why wouldn't Al date him? As the relationship progresses they’re both confused by Alastor's behavior. Luci tries to be respectful. You know maybe he's just very against pda. And al doesnt understand why he's not feeling the things he's meant to.

I can see Al reverse heteronormativity- ing his way into assuming he's gay because he's NOT straight.

Malicious intent

Same as the last one except Al knows he doesn't have feelings for them like that and is trying to be toxic and uses them. IE what if Al was a gold digger actually.

Maybe I am in love?

Al actually thinks that he MUST be feeling a romantic connection because this is the closest he's ever been to someone and once again, gets steadily more confused as he realizes what he and his partner are experiencing is different.

All of these can end in nice queer platonic bliss and I think any story where Al and his partner discover he's ace after establishing the relationship is inherently interesting.

Last note some ace vocabulary

Ace and aro are a spectrum. Typically with ace people they will self identify as either sex positive, sex negative, or sex neutral. With Al it's generally head cannoned that he's sex negative but that's not explicitly Cannon and sex positive and neutral aces are valid.

Sex negative: is self explanatory it's what everyone thinks aces are; I don't want sex ever the idea grosses me out ect.

Sex neutral: is when someone doesn't have the desire for sex but isn't repulsed by it either. If they are in a relationship and their partner wants to have sex they’re open to it but don't expect initiation on their part.

Sex positive: people have a hard time understanding this because it's the seperating of the need for sex from the want. Typically if a sex positive ace were to never have sex again they'd die happy but if they have a willing partner they are happy to participate. It builds intimacy. It feels good, it's nice but it's not the same as being allo and having that cardinal lust.

note: please know what type your head cannoning Al as in your works when writing it, although people of course can change which they feel they align with, it's important to know how he's feeling about it.

I'm not as familiar with aro terminology but like with ace it's more about the drive the need the anguish. Al wouldn’t in cannon crave romantic connection.

Like with ace it's not actually cannon what type of aro he is some aro people are completely repulsed by the idea of romantic relationships or they only like it in theory (which playing around with the idea of Al liking a relationship in theory but not in practice could be a lot of fun.)

The gray romantic umbrella are aro people who can have romantic attraction to some degree. They’re still aro you can head cannon Al as it but please do a little research into which one you think your version of Al would identify with there quite a few so I'll spare the list here.

Demi romantic is when someone can develop romantic attraction for very specific people, very rarely. These people won't be on Bumble but might fall for someone after knowing them for a few years (or an indeterminate amount of time, my timeline was a year and a half I shit you not) a lot of you are looking for that.

As for kink. Lots of queer people especially are into kink because it's intimate, it's physical, it requires trust but it's not actually inherently sexual a lot of the time. And we do know that Al likes torturing and being dominant so yeah he'd be kinky that's completely canon compliant.

At the end of the day Al is ace aro in the show and that's what counts. Have fun be creative, explore the depths of your queer little minds and please be nice to each other.

(and if any of you make works related to this please please please send them to me thanks)

#hazbin alastor #alastor #radiostatic #radioapple #radio silence #acespec #ace #aro #arospec #aro pride #hazbin hotel #ace alastor #aro alastor

[stjohnstarling]

I did a little googling about Fifty Shades of Grey's origins as a fanfic and oh my god I have opened a terrifyingly deep rabbit hole. It's so much more than Fifty Shades. I think all of self-publishing might be an offshoot of the Twilight fandom. I'm going insane.

This essay explains a lot. Twilight fans got sick of Twilight but still wanted to participate in the fandom, so they got creative:

There were stories where vampires didn't exist (like Fifty Shades of Grey). They got CRAZY popular within the community because they were essentially just generic romance novels with characters we already knew (made it easy to write and consume, as we already liked and cared about the characters). Though there were always nods to the original Twilight series within them, you didn't even have to know Twilight to enjoy an All Human-AU. I've gotten tons of reviews on my fanfic where readers say they've never even picked up the book. By 2010, probably a good 75% of Twilight fanfic being produced was All-Human. It was literally a chore to find a fanfic that had anything to do with vampires.

Twilight fanfiction diverged from its source material to the point where it was only a minor tweak for most popular authors to drop the Twilight link entirely and publish their fanfic as original novels. From a comment on that essay:

Seriously, Twilight fandom got really crazy big for a few years there. It was not totally uncommon to get multi-million clicks on a semi-popular story. It's weird looking back on it and calling it "Twilight fandom" because it was really more like "Romance Novel fandom". For real, for a period there, calling a Twilight fanfic author a 'Twilight fan' would be the ultimate insult. But they never stopped writing about Edward and Bella! It's so weird

And from the main Twilight article on Fanlore:

So what we've created in our neck of the woods are people using their fanwork to gain a huge audience, then removing the fanwork, filing it, publishing it, and sending cease and desist letters if the fanwork is shared. (The published works are then marketed back to the fandom via author profiles and banner ads on the archives.)

Fifty Shades of Grey was the first of these to explode, but it's far from the only one. Every single one of EL James' fanfiction contemporaries I've looked into is not just a self-published author but among the biggest self-published authors in the world, many of whom were foundational to shaping the look and feel and tropes of the medium. Twilight fanfiction is absolutely foundational to all of self-publishing.

This explains so much about the mainstream parts of the industry to me. I don't think they've ever fully gotten out from under the weight of the Twilight fandom, even to this day. It's still the same stuff, look at this. From a former fan's ff.net profile:

My BFF Angel and I (who met through [writing Twilight fanfiction]!) are co-writing writing a dark YA series of standalone romances, with so many of my fave themes. Trauma, bullying, addiction, social issues, violence, pretty rich high school boys being douchebags, hurt/comfort, frantic dry humping, you feel me you feel me.

The resulting book series from 2021 has tens of thousands of Goodreads reviews.

#original post #fifty shades liveblog #I'm going insaanneeee

[alicedrawslesmis]

I know I just said I didn't want to just be complaining about everything so I'll try to word this in a more constructive way asdfghjkl

It's hard to be an Eponine fan in a world where the musical -and On My Own specifically- is sooooo mainstream. Because imo as much as On My Own itself is kind of a half-decent, if simplified, encapsulation of Eponine's struggle with her love for Marius if you analise the lyrics in isolation, the musical as a whole, her role in the narrative as the unrequited love diva (I'm also simplifying here. I don't think this is super fair to the anglo musical, but compared to the book there's no question of how they reworked her into a glamorous 80s diva contralto because musical theatre has usually very strict gender roles), did her so dirty. So dirty. And imo often her character is reduced to her pining in fandom as a result. And I don't like that, personally.

I love that girl so much. I love that she is just young enough to still be a child but adult enough to be aware of her social role. She has one foot in the gamin life and one foot in the adult world. I love the tragedy that is the fact that she likes the beauty and pomp of high society girls and wish she could have silk shoes but knowing she can't.

And also being super resigned to her class despite it, she doesn't believe she ever will have any of that. She resents that too, somewhat. The tragedy of her knowing that she couldn't be with Marius because of his social class and her accepting that (angrily? sadly?). I love her self-banishment as his guard dog because of this. I love her drunk sailor voice. I love how manipulative she is and that she isn't Marius's friend at all. He's just her one neighbor who wasn't a total asshole one time. He was, later. But not at first. And she can't be in his head and know he thinks she's kinda despicable because crime because Marius is a judgemental little shithead.

And Eponine isn't an idealist, she's resigned to her position. I understand why she gets paired with grantaire in fics but her canon narrative parallel is Javert, they both believe they are excluded from society from their outcast position and so become the watchdogs for it. Eponine a kind of guardian (in her own words a devil, not an angel) and Javert the same. That's why he's the one person who sees her in the barricade, he's the same as her. Marius saw her but that's only cause he had a use for her in that moment, as soon as she didn't he forgot all about it.

I think also Gavroche, with his ability to be kind of a figure above the narrative, with his gamin skills of being almost omnipresent is something Eponine used to have, but with her age she's starting to lose that. She's starting to grown old enough that she's required to be IN the world and not supercede it. Gavroche is also almost there, if he had been allowed to grow up he would've lost that ability too. They both inhabit this sort of magical surreal world superimposed on our own.

A lot of Les Mis and Notre Dame de Paris can be kinda described as magical realism, I would go so far as calling them urban fantasy. And characters like Babet, Thenardier sometimes, Gavroche, Eponine (and Javert sometimes as well) are inhabiting this magically charged layer. This reality that's imposed Over the real world.

Talking about that One Series Of Wizard Books is a bit passé rn so uh. Doctor Who. Particularly the initial New Who seasons before they got that huge budget. That's a good parallel to what I'm getting at. The real world is still the same but there are certain characters that inhabit this mystical overlayer and are able to transverse from one to the other (Javert can't really because he is stuck forever outside and the second he understands that you CAN'T be an unbiased outsider who only enforces the norm without participating he freaks out and literally dies about it). Eponine is right in the eye of the storm tho. She manipulates reality to get her way, to die with Marius, because that's as close as she can get to being with him. And she manipulates reality to protect him too. Contradictions be damned. She has many contradictory feelings that make her complex and cool and an awesome character whom I love and wish would stop being reduced to the glamurous mysical theatre role with a single black stain on her face and a beautiful actor and a big unrequited love song about a random boy (whose personality was also changed for the musical and I argue is probably the character that was most fucked up by it in the public perception because he's such an weird little self-insert of an even weirder guy. But I get it, the musical is long enough as it is).

Anyway, I wish eponine could be more of a mongrel, a little gremlin. A little rat child that's just beginning to grow into an adult and is self aware of her role in the narrative society. She's a teenage girl which already sucks to go through when you're not constantly starving and cold and being forced by your father to work and do con jobs. Marius is the object she attaches herself to, but it could've been literally anything. Javert did that with the social order, he protects and guards it. She just chose Some Guy instead. Which, we all have that one friend who does that too. Like girl you're too good for him. Come on let's get you sone ice cream. And clean clothes and a roof. Literally anything. Bread.

I think if Eponine had a roof over her head and like, food on the regular she would forget Marius exists. Same as Cosette if she had moved to England. Like he'd be that one intense crush they had as teenagers. Can't say the same for him tho. He would hold onto that for the rest of time.

#rambling #idk. anyone has any thoughts? #if you disagree with me. go right ahead and say your piece! I'm open to being contradicted here #I'm no authority asdfghkkflsbsg like I'm just some rando on the internet with a les mis blog #long post

[roach-works]

Hi!!!! I recently read When the Wolf Comes Home and I loved the premise the where the fic was heading. I know it hasn't been updated since 2017 so I was wondering if there was any intention of finishing it? I know it's possible you've moved on from that fandom and that is totally fine! If you are, would it be possible to share where you wanted to take the fic? Thank you, I absolutely loved your writing!!!

im a little stuck on that one because yeah i do sometimes noodle a little more on it and i had a pretty solid plot for the first year, after which i was going to be Very Firmly Done because so many rewrites attempt to take on the whole seven year span and founder on the complexity. but the problem is im really ambivalent and undecided on how much i want to participate in harry potter fandom at this late date, with JKR going mask-off nazi sympathizer. it's a weird situation where you can't argue for death of the author when the author is annoyingly alive and arguing that you should be dead.

im deeply reluctant to denounce people still participating in a fandom that i myself found incredibly fun and rewarding for, yknow, several decades of my life, and i don't think i'm better than them, just fortunate to be more interested in other projects.

but ambivalence towards the fandom and deep resentment towards the creator aren't really a productive headspace to actually write in, and i also don't want to finally work through my own doubts, finish another chapter, and then get my head torn off by people who are certain that i'm supporting JKR's toxic fuckwittery.

all in all it's easier and more rewarding to play with other fandoms and work on my many original projects.

where the fic was going:

as far as i remember, in When The Wolf Comes Home, draco was going to get his dad to hire lupin as his defense against the dark arts tutor and rent out the shrieking shack for the man to work out of, thus circumventing the curse on the DADA position and giving draco a werewolf mentor and independent bolt-hole.

quirrelmort was going to continue trying to figure out how to use or dispose of draco on his way to get the philosopher stone, a side-plot draco knew almost nothing about. draco would continue to try to maneuver harry into quirrel's way and snape out of his way, with indifferent success. harry and ron, lacking any voice of reason to temper their enthusiastic partnership of 'baby griffindors looking cool in front of their first real friend ever', would continue to believe that draco, the saddest wet puppy, was an evil monster and the cause of all their misfortunes. draco would continue to be the most mentally and emotionally unstable kid in the castle, taking all the heat off neville, who would end up looking fairly cool and collected by comparison. rita skeeter would feature somewhere in there, hired by narcissa to write little puff pieces on how tragic and brave draco was being about going to school with such a tragic disability.

remus lupin would end up with a full schedule tutoring DADA students about to take their NEWTs and OWLs and make a bunch of money. with lucius as his patron and PR agent, he would be accepted in hogsmeade as a dashing and heroic warlock who had been off having reams of secret agent adventures as dumbledore's key man in the muggle world. remus would not really know what to do with this but eat as much as possible and smile gamely when lucius showed him off to people.

eventually towards the end of the year quirrel would get rid of draco by orchestrating a fight between ron and draco where ron cut his fist on draco's teeth. this would count as a bite and draco would get thrown in azkaban and belatedly realize that he had completely and totally forgotten about sirius black's whole Saddest Wet Dog situation. sirius would do his best to take care of his tiny insane werepuppy cousin until the malfoys and longbottoms and weasleys combined to lever draco back out, using ron's ashamed testimony. draco would immediately turn around and reveal scabbers. the malfoys would end up looking like champions of truth and justice and the weasleys would, unfortunately, have to just stand there and smile gamely for the cameras.

while all this was happening harry would go after quirrel with hermione and neville and take him down. dumbledore would show up at the end, when voldemort was defeated and sirius was exonerated and several deep family feuds had been laid aside, to dispense twinkling paternal wisdom.

draco would kick him in the fork.

THE END.

#time traveling baby werewolves #writing #fic