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margarethx · 2 months

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I was genuinely surprised with the responses I've got on the first part of [THIS story]. It was such a random burst of motivation to write that I didn't even think it through and just posted whatever came out of my head. But I'm very glad that you liked it, since it's the first story I've showed to other people in like 4 years.

The working title will be "Assassinate them with Kindness", and I'll use that as a tag for later parts when I add them. It's also [available on Ao3] if you'd prefer to read it over there.

Enjoy <3

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The weird man does not go to Sam's group on Monday.

Which is not as big of a relief as Sam thought it would be.

Because if the man is not here... where is he? And why did he even ask if he could join the group? Was he just taunting Sam? Teasing him with the knowledge or Sam's schedule and whereabouts, but not revealing how and for what purpose did he get that information?

Sam briefly glances at his wrist, covered neatly by a long-sleeved shirt and a warm blazer. The day is way too hot for this type of clothing, but he refused to look at the bruises on his skin for more than two seconds after noticing them for the first time. He still feels the pain, but it's easier to make it fade into the background, if he pretends it isn't there at all.

In spite of his nervousness and constant worry, Sam leads his group like a true professional. Calm, collected, funny when needed. A shining example of an ex-soldier who has left most of their PTSD far behind by working hard to healthily rejoin society. Definitely not a person, who started carrying a gun in public again after singular weird encounter, and who constantly has to fight with himself to not look over his shoulder and check if there isn't anyone watching him from the shadowed backroom.

But the man was not there. The meeting went well. And all the people leaving the room with their polite "good bye's" and casual "see ya!'s" have no idea about the turmoil in his head.

"See you Thursday," Sam smiles pleasantly and grabs Tyler's hand with both palms, shaking it lightly, as a young vet stops by. "It's nice to see you again. It's been a while," he adds, hoping that his eyes convey genuine warmth.

Tyler is young - too young to deal with this sort of trauma. A typical example of a teenager pulled into a military machine by life circumstances, not because of any principled believes. He went to have a better chance at higher education afterwards. And he lost half of his right leg for it.

He is secretly Sam's favourite in the group, with his sense of humour and positive attitude. Though Sam is sure there is a lot of fears and sadness hidden behind all the jokes, because he acted the exact same way when he first sought out help after coming home. It was easy to see the reflection of younger Sam in Tyler's behaviour.

And it was also great to have someone in the group who could keep everyone's mood relatively light when topics were getting heavy, without making others feel as if their confessions were not treated seriously. It was, of course, Sam's job to control the atmosphere as best as he could , but on days like this - when he himself didn't feel stellar - it was a relief to not shoulder all the emotional weight of the meeting on his own.

"Is everything alright, Mr. Wilson?" Tyler asks, also shaking Sam's hands a little.

"It's Sam, we've talked about this," Sam smiles, deflecting by playing their classic game of arguing over formality levels of their relation. It's a bit worrying. To know that he can put on a mask and his vets might notice his distress anyway. But no one else said anything, so maybe he fooled the rest of them successfully?

"Apologies. Is everything alright, Mr. Sam Wilson?"

Tyler sends him a bright grin and Sam sighs. He doesn't have much energy left to argue or pretend. He did not sleep very well last week, to put it lightly.

"I'm alright," he finally replies without much conviction. "It's personal stuff, you don't need to worry about this. It should be resolved by the next meeting," he adds, hoping that this little lie will make his situation look like a solvable problem with the end in sight. Maybe if he believes in it hard enough it would even come true?

For now, it seems that Tyler buys the explanation and drops the topic. As they exchange goodbyes, he still glances at Sam with a slight frown, but he doesn't push. It'd be unusual if he did. As much as Sam loves working with these people and helping them, they're not that close. His vets don't get involved in his personal life.

...They don't know where he lives, for example...

Sam shakes his head to stop himself from thinking and gathers the papers on his desk with a bit more energy than the task requires. He needs to get out of here. The conference room he uses is relatively big, but the walls seem to get closer and closer, the ceiling pressing down on him.

He exits the building, taking long steps, and avoiding everyone's eyes. Fortunately, most people he passes don't know him, so he's not stopped for any conversations about his last weekend and all the fun his co-workers had while he sat on his guestroom floor surrounded by unhealthy snacks, and wondering if it's reasonable to invest his meager savings in an upgraded security system.

It's embarrassing, when he thinks back to those three days. It shouldn't be that big of a deal.

But something about that man... About his eyes. About the bruises he left.

Sam really tried to not look at them too closely to avoid spiraling again, but he's pretty sure his skin almost broke in some places, as if pinched too hard. The only reason he didn't notice it right away was probably the sheer rush of adrenaline that flooded him in that moment and dulled the pain.

Once he's outside, Sam leans on a nearby wall, out of everyone's sight, unsure of what to do next. Even though he spent the last weekend hidden in his home, the place did not feel safe. All he could focus on were unusual noises or the headlights of random cars passing by, casting uneven shadows on his walls. At some point he was sure one specific shadow looked like a person, but when he carefully peered outside, his garden was empty, with the exception of a small bat the flew in circles under the nearest lamppost, catching moths in peace.

Normally, he'd stay, watching the little guy and reminiscing about the time he too could fly at such speed, but it didn't feel safe, so he moved as far away from the window as possible.

All Sam wants right now is to get back to his bed and hide under the covers, go to sleep, and wake up to realize that the whole thing was just a dream.

His bag slips from his shoulder when he slumps against the wall and the strap catches on his wrist. He hisses in pain, reminded once more - as if he forgot, somehow - that his paranoia is actually justified and that his home is not some safe haven he'd like it to be. Because someone strong enough to nearly break his bones with a strong grip knows where he lives and could come back at any second.

If the guy was a real vet, why didn't he come to the meeting?

And again... if he's not here... Where is he?!

Sam readjusts his bag and straightens up. He cannot come home right now, but he needs to sleep somewhere. He could ask one of his new friends to take their couch for the night... but it's not Delacroix and his friendships here are not on the "sleepover" level yet. And if the man decides to look for him, Sam would drag the danger to someone else's home.

He's not that selfish.

Maybe he could find someone on a dating app and stay the night?

He shudders at the idea. It reeks of desperation even to his clouded brain. He would not do that to some random innocent person. And he would not do that to himself. He has enough dignity left.

The mere fact that he came up with a solution like that sobers him up a little bit. It sounds almost ridiculous and he's sure he would laugh about it one day... if he lives long enough to tell the story about his lowest point post-Afganistan.

What he needs to do is to go to a public space. A place with cameras, a nice crowd with enough eyes, to catch if something's wrong - but not crowded enough that a person would fade into the sea of faces and moving bodies.

With that in mind, Sam takes another deep breath to calm himself and marches towards the nearest bar he knows. The place is probably half-empty at this hour, but an evening wave of patrons should start trickling in pretty soon.

The inside of the establishment is a bit too dark for Sam's liking, but as he sits at the bar he feels some of the tension leave his body at last. Behind the bartender there is a freshly cleaned mirror, showing most of the tables, so Sam can keep an eye on the room while eating.

He's not in the mood for drinking - mostly to stay vigilant, not because he couldn't use a nice glass of whiskey right now - but the place offers some typical fast food options, so he picks them from the menu instead. He'll have to really push himself during the next training session to pay for the sugar and fat intake of the last four days, but he feels like he's earned the right to be indulgent for at least a while.

As he eats, Sam observes other patrons suspiciously, looking over his shoulder from time to time. At some point he's sure he feels someone's eyes on his back, but no one new entered the building in the last twenty minutes and the people on nearby tables seem preoccupied with their own thoughts and conversations, so he's sure it's just the paranoia.

It's starting to get dark outside and the bar fills with shadows before someone turns on a few extra laps. There are more people sitting around Sam now, some staring in silence into their drinks, others talking casually, or flirting with the bartender, as per usual.

The guy behind the bar seems cute. Probably a bit younger than Sam's typical partner, but still in his bracket. He accepts the compliments with a calm smile not cutting them off right away, but not doing much to encourage the attention. Sam gets a little lost for a second, observing the man's hands as he prepares the drinks, almost hypnotized by the movents.

Suddenly, one of the patrons - one that's been sitting by the bar before Sam even came in - drops her wallet in a clumsy attempt to pay the bill. She smiles awkwardly at the bartender, who simply grabs the wallet for her from the floor, clearly used to similar shenanigans.

As the guy leans forward, a curtain of thin braids covers his face for a brief second and he glances somewhere in Sam's general direction from between them before standing up.

Sam freezes.

The man looks basically nothing alike the guy who stood at his doorstep last week, but something about that look causes the memories to flood Sam once again. He feels dizzy and the comfortable atmosphere of the bar becomes overwhelming and stuffy in a blink of an eye.

He nearly jumps out of his chair and makes a beeline to the bathroom. He's not sure why. He just needs to... Wash his face maybe. Look into the mirror and have a stern talk with his brain. Something. Anything! To finally calm down.

As he walks towards the bathrooms, he notices some man sitting in a booth he previously didn't see. He's dressed pretty formally, phone in hands, and an annoyed grimace on his face. He looks more like a person currently working than someone who just went for drinks to wind down after work.

His eyes meet Sam's which sends a cold shiver down his spine. For whatever reason, this man - looking like a banker or low-lever politician, which is a common sight in DC - scares Sam just as much as the creepy stranger haunting his thoughts.

He breaks the eye contact and darts towards the bathrooms even faster, nearly colliding with someone who exits the door.

There are three other people in the bathroom, two of which wash their hands and fix their hair in front of the mirror. Neither of them look particularly suspicious, but Sam keeps an eye on them anyway, walking towards the stalls and locking himself in one of them.

He sits there for less then two second before he realizes that he's made himself more vulnerable by isolating himself from the crowd, but he's really not sure what to do next. The brief moment of fear after seeing the bartender with hair hanging over his face seems silly in retrospect. He could've just ignored the panic, push the discomfort down, and go back to the main room. But the man in suit sitting in a secluded booth?

That was actually worrying. Because he didn't just look generally annoyed or angry. He seemed to be specifically mad at Sam. Which would be concerning with any other influential White guy, but in this particular instance Sam feels like there's more to it.

He hears another person enter the bathroom, interrupting his thoughts. Two of the people washing their hands leave. Someone else comes in. Sam keeps track of everyone inside and at some point he's pretty sure he's the only person still sitting here, so he quietly exits the stall.

Just as he expected, the bathroom is empty. It's a bit weird, all things considered. It's a Monday afternoon, sure, but this place is not alive just on the weekends and in the night, when students party. There should be a constant rotation of people going in and out at any point.

But the room is silent as Sam stands there, wondering what to do next.

He's pretty sure he hears some water running on the other side of the wall and muffled laughs, seemingly coming from a group of women washing their hands and talking in an adjacent room.

Sam's familiar with all the overdone jokes about girls visiting the bathroom way more often than guys or about them going there in hordes. And, stereotypical or not, there is some truth to those... but Sam's pretty sure it should not be this disproportional.

The man's bathroom has been empty for over five minutes. Which is way too long, considering the size of the crowd.

A motion activated light loudly going off in one of the stalls makes it even more clear that Sam's suspiciously alone in here.

He washes his hands just to do something when, finally, the door to the main part of the bar opens. A wave of sound - clinking glasses, loud conversations, a ringtone - fill the empty space until the door closes again, cutting the noise off.

Sam exhales with relief and moves to dry his hands.

Then he notices him.

The man from his porch, now standing behind him, staring straight at Sam in the mirror.

He looks even bigger now, taller, and more broad at the shoulders, his hair still covering the face like a greasy veil. His eyes pin Sam in place like a wild animal who's fight or flight instincts fired so many contradicting impulses in its brain that it ended up just freezing.

In any other situation Sam would feel vindicated. He was right! He was not safe, he was observed, and someone is going after him - for whatever reason.

He can take that useless sense of satisfaction and bring it straight to his grave.

The man doesn't move. He just looks at Sam or through him, maybe. As if he's mentally not here. Maybe his soul has also left his body, like Sam assumes his own did right now?

It's just like that day at his home. Awkward, tense silence and creepy staring. Sam feels the hairs on his arm stand up like a coordinated unit. His heart beats so fast and loud that it must echo on the bathroom's walls. If Sam's ears were not filled with ringing, he'd probably be more sure about that.

The man blinks, just once.

And something in Sam just... breaks.

When he'll think about it later he'll have no idea why he did it. But he simply turns off the water and turns towards the guy in one smooth motion.

"Oh, I know you" he says, tone casual.

The man frowns this time, still looking directly at Sam. One of his hands is hidden inside or his unzipped jacket and it twitches a little. Whatever he's holding there probably isn't a bouquet or a dove, he'll produce out of nowhere and present to Sam like a magician.

"Fancy meeting you here," he adds, like it's a normal conversation. Like they're friends from work or as if the man was his favourite cashier at a local store. "In the bar, I mean. Not in the bathroom," he jokes.

The man's face does a weird thing. It's difficult to tell what kind of emotion he wanted to convey, but he seems confused. Does he even recognize Sam? Maybe he's really not as mentally present this time?

The water drips from Sam's hands to the tiled floor - tiny rivulets running down his fingers. It's quiet again, just as before, until one of the other motion activated lights goes off in the stalls. Then the next one right after it. Click. Click.

The guy flinches twice, his hand moving under the jacket's lapels.

"Can I help you with something?" Sam asks finally. At this point it feels like his mouth is operating on its own, entirely independent on his brain. He's also there, but not really.

Maybe he's already died and hasn't realized?

"You didn't go to my meeting today." Why does he keep talking?! "Do you plan to join this Thursday?"

By some miracle, this question seems to work. The guy's eyes dart around nervously and he shivers as the last of the lights in the stalls section goes off. The room is dimly lit by now only by the small lights over the sinks. And Sam cannot ignore that they're still, somehow, alone in here.

"I'm sorry I didn't come today," the man says and he sounds sincere, though monotone. "There were too many people in there."

"Well, it's a group meeting," Sam smiles. "The people are kind of a given."

He feels like he's body is operating on a pure survival mode. It reminds him of his time in the military, in a way; of the time, where he had to put one hundred percent of his focus on staying alive and keeping other's from dying, too, but couldn't actually think about it. Because there were bullets flying by, and his hands were sticky with someone's blood, and there was a wound to stitch, and a person screaming. If he registered all of that in full, he'd just collapse on the ground, overwhelmed and paralyzed by fear. So it was easier to just switch his brain off and let the instincts and years of training take the wheel.

"If you're worried about confessing in front of others, it's okay." He keeps talking and the man's stare becomes even more intense. His eyes seem very blue, even in the poor lighting, which Sam didn't truly notice before. They look cold, but not because of the colour. More like there's not enough life in them. "There's no pressure to tell your story right away. Some people in my group love talking. Other's just sit and listen. If no one's up to talk, I take over and give a little speech," Sam grins.

And he somehow knows that if he looked into the mirror to his left, his smile would look genuine.

"I don't like talking," the man says eventually.

"I figured," is Sam's reply. "Like I said, I won't push you to say shit."

It's probably not the most professional way of phrasing it, but he's not at work and, frankly, he's about to be murdered, so it's not like they'll reprimand him for inappropriate language.

"Also," he continues, "I can give you a number to one of my colleagues who does one on one therapy sessions. That way you could..."

"No."

"...avoid groups," he finishes awkwardly. " Fair enough."

"Do you do it? The therapy? One on one, no people?"

Sam doesn't. And he'd probably lie about it, even if he did.

"Not these days. I already have a ton of work with groups. If you want to see me, specifically, you know where to find me."

Clearly.

"I do," the man confirms like it's not the creepiest thing Sam's heard in his entire life.

"Well, I have to go now," Sam tries, hoping that if he sneaks out of the bathroom fast enough this whole nightmare will finally end. If the guy's here to kill him, he's doing a pretty bad job right now, so maybe Sam could just... walk away from the situation. Surely, he won't get stabbed in the back in the middle of a bar? Right?

The guy's face contorts in a painful way and he finally removes his hand from under the jacket. Sam tenses, but the gloved palm is empty. At the same time, the guy sways a little on his feet and grabs the wet counter with both hands.

Before Sam has time to process what's happening, he's already next to the guy, holding his elbow carefully and looking straight into his eyes. The pupils are dilated and then suddenly small like a poppy seed, changing in a matter of milliseconds. Sam's never seen anything like it.

"Are you alright?" he asks unnecessarily, trying to keep the man from falling face-first into the sink.

They look at each other and the man seems panicked, more than anything. The unwashed strands of brown hair hang over his eyes, but this time Sam's too worried about him to let himself spiral again at the now familiar sight.

The counter makes a strained noise and a small crack appears on the surface. Sam imagines his own bones turning into dust under such grip and his wrist pulses with pain he felt in the background for the last few days.

"Are you okay?" he asks again, sounding more urgent this time. He doesn't even care at this point if the man's here to kill him. Sam's a paramedic first, and if someone's fighting for their life nearby, he'll always drop everything to make things better. Even if his body might end up in trashcan behind the bar for the effort.

The man blinks, licks his lips, and takes a ragged breath. There's a weird grey cast to his face now and he didn't even look that healthy to begin with.

"I have to go," he whispers finally and stands up. His forehead shines with sweat and his pupils are wide again. "Thank you," he adds quieter and walks away unnaturally fast.

He's there. And then he's not. The door closes so quietly behind him, that Sam doesn't even register the sound.

Sam sits down, not caring about the wet and disgusting floor and stares at the opposite wall in silence. In the women's bathroom someone laughs out loud and a sharp sound of the shattering glass reaches him from the bar.

It almost feels like he's lost his hearing for a while and it suddenly returns to him. As if he's been under water and came break to the surface once more.

He also tastes blood on his tongue and realizes he must have bitten it at some point without realizing. The unpleasant sting of a cut is what finally helps him to come back to himself. He cannot stay in this place a second longer.

He washes his hands again so they stop feeling as clammy and touches his face with them too. The cold water helps a lot, but his own eyes look wild in the mirror.

As he exits the bathrooms, he looks over the crowd that gathered inside since he fled the bar. Just as before, most people don't even look in his direction and he realizes that the man in a suit who stared at him earlier is gone as well.

Then, he turns around to close the door and suddenly he's faced with a bright yellow sign that warns: "Under Maintenance" in bold, black letters. An official looking printout below adds: "DO NOT ENTER".

None of those signs have been there before.

All Sam can do at this point is grip his bag, lower his head, and exit the bar as fast as possible. If he is getting strangled or stabbed today, he at least wants for it to happen in his home.

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Shoutout to tumblr for glitching a making me feel like I've lost over 700 words of a draft <3 That mini heart-attack was very necessary.

Btw, funny thing about this chapter is that I've basically spent the entire time thinking that I'm doing too much. Like... I keep pushing Sam deeper and deeper into this spiral, but nothing really happened to him. It's not a big deal, calm down, man.

But then I have to remind myself that if some suspicious looking man knocked on my door, told me that he got my address from a person I don't know, asked me where I worked, and grabbed my arm so hard it nearly broke... I would simply perish on the spot from the stress xD Or I'd spent the rest of my life paranoid, even if nothing more happened.

So I think Sam should be allowed to have a 4-day almost panic attack, as a treat.

#sambucky #sam wilson #bucky barnes #winterfalcon #the falcon #winter soldier #captain america #ca:tws #onlysambucky #assassinate them with kindness #ATWK #my writing

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clanofjones · 4 months

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MERRY (late) CHRISTMAS!

I started this on Chrismas Eve and I just finished it five minutes ago, but I think it's pretty good nonetheless! Quality got scrambled tho, so click for better quality LOL

L to R: (I am sorry for the tag if you don't celebrate or didn't want to be in this, I will do my best to change it if that it the case)

@fanatess, @theosb0rnway, @3mutantsinatrenchcoat, @paytato435, @karonkar, me, @delicatechildwitch, @allyheart707, @friskebits, @zeawesomeness, @tinker-the-dragon, @yelenapines, @justletmereadmycomics

There are so many others I wanted to include, but my canvas is not that big! I love you all regardless!

For those pictured, I am feeling sentimental, so have a nice sentiment under the cut ^^

Fanatess: You are always super sweet to me, and you let me rant about silly tropes and fic ideas! Thank you so much. (Fun fact, I own the tree hat in the art, and it gives me 'you' vibes)

Oz: Oh my god, literally where to start. You are absolutely amazing, and I have to thank you so, so much for letting me rant about random crap, even if it makes no sense. You’re like. The best person I could have made an AU with.

Three: Gotta say, I don't really know you all that well, but what I do know is that you are so kind and awesome. Your asks always brighten my day, and it's always awesome to talk to you!

Payto: They say great minds think alike. Regarding Casey Junior, I think we might be thinking exactly the same. LOL. Thanks for letting me bounce ideas off of you regarding the best boy. We've taken over the "au-rant" channel and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Kar: You are like. SO COOL. I stand by that statement. You are one of the coolest people I’ve met online, and my brain straight-up short-circuits when I remember 'yes, we are friends with this guy, and this guy knows we exist. Holy shit.' Weird world, ammarite?

Me: SELF LOVE, you guys! If this many awesome people care about me, then I'm probably pretty awesome too, right? YAY! Friends!!

Ally: If our server had a yearbook, you’d win “kindest person” or whatever the actual title is. You get the point! You are always so kind and inspiring to me, and thank you for the extra encouragement to actually finish this!!

Del: You are so sweet and kind and creative it's unreal! It's been so fun so far getting to interact with you and I look forward to more of it in the New Year!

Frisk: Thanks for somehow always being there. Whenever I shove some janky art or concept into a server, you’re almost always the first one there with encouragement, a compliment, or something to add. Thanks for the extra encouragement on this thing's completion as well!!

Ze: I haven’t interacted with you much, but when I have, you have been nothing but nice and welcoming! If we’re being honest, I was pretty nervous but you’ve been super cool to me, and it means a lot!

Tinker: It’s always crazy when you share fandoms with the gang outside of The Main, Soul Encompassing One, and I find it so fun to have someone else to discuss them with! Hatchetfield and TMNT enjoyers unite! *high-fives you* You've also got such good takes!

Yelena: If not for you, I wouldn't be on Tumblr at all in the first place! For that, you've earned a place in my hall of fame. I know we don't talk often anymore, but it's always so exciting when I see you on my dash!

justletmereadmycomics: (slightly embarrassing, but I don't know a name to call you by ._.) You are one of my closest beloved mutuals! I have loved getting to know you, it always warms my heart whenever I see you in my activity! You are so funny and smart, keep just being you!

You're all so smart and creative, it bewilders me how we met in the first place! Either way, I'm so grateful for it, and I wish you all nothing but the best in the New Year!!

#my art #merry christmas #mutuals #well #like half of you #i love you guys #i love my friends #I hope I got y'all's sonas right-#I love you all so much with my entire heart #discord server #sonas #others sonas #my sona #happy holidays

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pan-magi · 5 months

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On one hand, I hate that I'm making a vent post on this fandom blog. On the other hand, I am really annoyed and in a bad mood for unrelated reasons so I'm going to do it anyway.

I want to murder and destroy all the porn bots clogging the magi tags. It's infuriating.

"Because you follow #magi

*porn bot post*"

No, no, no. GO TO HELL.

Magi is already a small fandom. A lot of religious and spiritual blogs also use it. Even if they don't tags things with magi exclusively, I get a lot of Madoka Magica blogs recommended to me because of the series' full name (Puella Magi Madoka Magica). Nothing against them, of course, love existential magical girls. Point being I can bet none of us give a fucking shit. Leave our small tag alone!

I could just not visit the your tags page but the "because you follow x" posts pop up on home and following regardless. And I like checking in on random tags sometimes. It helps to not miss posts from people who simply have Magi as their anime of the week or whatever.

I do hate just to make this a vent post, so I'll add some anecdotal Magi stuff that I've already been thinking to make a shit post about. Unfortunately, I have not had anymore fandom related dreams. *

I will blab about the screenshot I chose for this though. I lowkey adore that scene. Morgiana just casually kidnapping her friend, so they can talk it out. (For reference, it's when she meets Alibaba in the Fog Troupe hideout and then just picks him up and leaves).

The funny thing is, they're not really friends at this point? Out of the trio and their relationships so far, Alibaba and Morgiana haven't had much time together. Morg is grateful that Alibaba freed her, yet I'll say they both are better friends with Aladdin right now.

Morgiana does bring this up. Her reasoning for taking Alibaba is so that he can talk to Aladdin and they can sort out their shit. She could see that the kid from Alibaba giving him the cold shoulder and is like "no." It's heartwarming. It's not something I'll recommend, sometimes people need space from each other and kidnapping is bad, still though- I love it lmao.

Best trio, ngl.

*I have since had a sorta Magi related dream since first writing this about a week ago. In it I met Ohtaka, except I've only ever looked at a few pictures of her before and know for a fact that how she looked in the dream isn't how she is irl. Maybe that's why it took me forever to recognize her. The first half was us basically meeting and talking about trivial stuff, not Magi or Orient because of not recognizing her, and the second half was me realizing my missed opportunity of fangirling and trying to find her again when she was not busy to get one of my volumes of Magi signed. Not in a desperate way but more of "ahhh, I'm so dumb and missed my chance. Bummer." I was way more melancholic about it compared to if I ever had the opportunity in real life. As if I knew it was a dream and not get too worked up about it.

My dreams are a lot more convoluted and trippy but that is the gist of the Magi related portion of the dream. The rest is irrelevant for this. Don't remember too much of it anyway.

That's all I have. This turned out long and I may trim it up. I feel better after typing it. That is what matters.

Fuck porn bots and may this small fandom prosper without them.

#magi #magi labyrinth of magic #magi: the labyrinth of magic #honestly why i do tag a few different versions of the name #magi is such a grab bag tag lol #stupid bots #i want to burn all of them down *gets flamethrower*#vent post #long post #includes photo edit #strong language #the screenshot i chose is especially relevant for me bc i hc morgiana as ace

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essektheylyss · 1 year

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World Wizard Entertainment: After Hours

I did want to write a little thing now that I am done making a vicious mockery of Vince McSam, because this was really a WILD week and I do love a debrief.

Honestly, when I sat down to make a bracket last week, I was not committed to posting it, I was not going to make any graphics, and I definitely was not planning to run a tournament.

....Obviously that changed, but you already know that.

Really I just wanted to figure out how hard it would be to properly seed a tournament in fandom. I've already talked about that elsewhere so I won't get into it, but when you're building a tournament, you want it seeded for intrigue in later rounds, even if round one match-ups are very lopsided.

But once I had it, I was thinking about how different polls have gone in the past. Specifically, I had written a post during some earlier polls with Laerryn and Essek competing that was commenting, you know, if we're talking duel, Essek loses, 100%. He'd have a prayer in hell of winning, and there are no gods here or whatever. And the poll in which Laerryn and Essek were matched up, which Aabria made a very funny joke about, wasn't even a wizard poll! It was just sexiest character or something. But the thing is, a lot of polls have been really vague about what criteria to vote on, and there's a reason for that! A lot of polls like that are going to have an obvious winner. And because of how these spread, you are going to have a lot of people voting purely on popularity or name recognition, including plenty of people who are not super engaged in fandom since there are lots of lurkers (and we love them! hi, lurkers!), and also random people outside the fandom who just vote on any poll, so you have to account for that.

But we have polls now, and fandom is fun and chaotic, so I wondered... could you game it for an unexpected result?

I cannot turn down a challenge once I've come up with it for myself, so at that point, I actually built a tournament.

For a lot of the week, in all but the most meaningless and random of situations, I thought the answer was no! We got Ludinus kicked in the first round, which I mostly did to stir up a little drama, because round one was pretty calm and quiet.

By the quarterfinals, it got tougher. At that point there were more folks engaging, but a lot of the tags were, "Didn't we already decide this?" and I was like, well, no one is watching March Madness year after year going, "Well, Gonzaga* is the best and that's decided I guess," (except maybe Gonzaga fans, but knowing some of them, they are really serious about their basketball). They're there because there's chance involved. A great team can lose to an underdog in an early upset. Also, there's always the bracket contest, which is another layer of gamification that adds some interest. (Sidebar, can you tell yet that I wrote a paper on gamification when applying to grad school? Lulz.) But like I've mentioned, fandom polls are highly stacked to be popularity contests. How do you introduce some chance and intrigue?

As it turns out, you call the Veth stans, which I sure wouldn't have guessed, so I'm glad they turned up anyway.

But in all seriousness, with a poll like this, it's really not about deciding who is The Wizard. (For the record, with my url fully visible, the answer is absolutely Laerryn Coramar-Seelie. She is seeded first for a reason!) It's about seeing if you can be weird and wacky enough, or maybe just heartfelt and sincere enough, to turn the tide of what's expected. But it's only fun if it's collaborative.

And here's where I say it all comes back to collaborative narrative and storytelling, because when does it not with me, but seriously—I seeded Veth pretty high because she was a PC, but wasn't sure if she was going to hold that far through the polls. By the time she was, I wasn't asking, "Why is Veth beating Yussa, the most no-brain cell wizard in the northern Exandrian hemisphere, with one wizard level?" It was clear that the Veth fans had decided to make this their mission.

So I do hope the takeaway, based on everyone making content and giving speeches and doing a fun kayfabe, is that you can make a really interesting and fun tournament by committing to the bit. You have to get ridiculous and you have to stick with it, but that's... really what fandom is. It's really not about "is my fave gonna win," and it's honestly not even about who wins (you may have noticed that the winner section of my results post is... small, which is intentional), it's about building a little story together.

And I'm really glad we all did that. I feel like I need to go around and do a virtual 'good game' high five to the Veth stans, and the Caleb stans, and Aabria herself, and everyone who wrote in defense of someone and put on a kayfabe and ran with a bit, because it really was a fun roller coaster of a tournament.

And if you didn't join in this week, but kind of wanted to, I hope the next time someone runs a tournament you just go for it! I was also a lot more timid about fandom participation as a teen, but honestly, if you are really excited about, I don't know, Realmseer Eskil (who is super cool by the way), don't take it too seriously and write an overwrought defense of them! Make a funny meme! Be sporting about it, come up with the most ridiculous reason you can name to vote for them, and run with it.

(Also, my other takeaway is that it is really easy to ape the overblown wrestling host voice. Please do it, it's literally so funny.)

#*please note I do not know if gonzaga is first seed this year but I do not care. I am not a basketball fan.#world wizard entertainment #this is when I take off my 'overblown bit' hat and put on my 'cheerful but tired TA' hat #unfortunately '17 bits in a trench coat' is more accurate of a commentary on myself than it has any right to be #this may not remain rebloggable but for now it will stay.

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fireandiceland · 8 months

Note

you mentioned in the tags that you like austrias portrayal, any particular reason why? i ask with best intentions possible since i always look forward to his canon appearances and i’m really curious how an austrian feels about him. that’s if you’re up for it though lol.

Hey, it’s completely fine to ask this. I think I’ve gotten asks about how I feel about him as a character before lol

First of all I think aph Austria aka Roderich really captures that mentality of always complaining before thinking further. I don’t know why but we don’t just accept something, there needs to be complaining first and then there’s a high chance it will be accepted without any or only minor changes. But agreeing to something without calling it unnecessary and or giving in without questioning the purpose behind it all (even if there’s no actual explanation desired) is something I can easily identify with as an Austrian. 😅

It’s canon that Roderich’s state of health is party dependent on how Germany (I think mostly his economy) is doing. I’m not sure I’m how far that transfers to real life, I guess as an EU member we’re kinda dependent on the strength of every other member, but what is true is that Austria often seems to see what Germany is doing before doing it ourselves. Like the Pfandsystem for plastic bottles and cans. This is also the reason why we’re still waiting what our government is going to do when Germany legalises marijuana cause now they say no we won’t do that but we know how it was with other things lol 👀

Back to the topic: cake! Austria is seen enjoying cake quite a few times in the manga and in the anime too! My family often has cake in the afternoon when guests are over or sometimes even for breakfast on weekends when there’s some leftovers from a party or whatever. Having a piece of afternoon cake with a cup of coffee or tea is something very casual to me, like we do it so often it’s not for special occasions. It can be a random Tuesday and my grandma has a Sachertorte at the ready 😇

Also that thing about walking slowly 😩 as someone who has inhabited the Gay Walk (ya know that thing where people in the lgbt+ community are said to walk fast for some reason) I am suffering in big crowds cause people are so fucking slow. But adding onto this I think especially in the mountains people have a high endurance, going hiking or just walking longer distances so we might be a nation of slow walkers but we don’t get tired that easily (at least that’s not something I’ve observed in my circle. My friends and I are just lazy and we can admit that.)

I just churned this out in one go right after waking up cause I felt like it so I might add more later if I can think of sth but thank you for the ask and I hope this gives a brief view of why I personally feel like he’s a good representation of the Austrian mentality (or at least the stereotypical one lol) 😉

#aph austria #hws austria #hetalia #Riva.ask #roderich edelstein

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taomyou · 5 months

Text

The Romance of Reimbursements - Chapter 16

Pairing: Levi Ackerman x Reader Status: COMPLETED Summary: There’s a guy you see every Friday on bus 143, and you think he’s pretty hot. It wouldn’t hurt to tell your best friend about him, would it? or, you and Levi take the same bus home from work every Friday, and you fall in love slowly, clumsily, and with all the time in the world to fold as many paper stars as your heart desires. Word Count: 7.7k Tags: slow burn, friends to lovers, modern au, office au, fluff, romance, meet-cute, matchmaking (A/N: this fic is entirely available on ao3 here if you would like to read it there instead!) Chapter Navigation Accompanying Playlist

the feeling not understood

When you're comfortably situated in your usual seat on bus 143 on Monday after work, you reach to take your phone out of your pocket to give yourself something to occupy yourself with for the next 45 minutes. You see a text from Hange, so you smile and go to unlock your phone to read it.

Hange - 5:20 PM

Remember to leave saturday free!!! We're celebrating Moblit's birthday with everyone at Sina's :D

You - 5:22 PM

his birthday is today, right?

Hange - 5:23 PM

Yup!!

You - 5:23 PM

tell him i say happy birthday ^^

Hange - 5:24 PM

What makes you think Im seeing him today?

You smile to yourself and shake your head. Right, they still don't know you know they're together.

You - 5:25 PM

i never said you were going to see him today i simply don't have his number to tell him myself

Hange - 5:25 PM

WAIT HAVE I NEVER ADDED YOU TO OUR GROUP CHAT????? Oh my god I cant believe we've gone this far without adding you IM SO SORRY

You roll your eyes.

You - 5:26 PM

it really isn't a big deal, i don't need anyone's number

Hange - 5:26 PM

NO NO I MUST RIGHT MY WRONGS Honestly tho we never use it anymore bc Levi has had us muted since like february and we have to text him separately anyway STILL I AM SO SO SORRY LET ME ASK THEM RN IF I CAN ADD YOU

Before you can even come up with a way to tell them that you really don't mind that you haven't gotten access to this apparently dead group chat, you see a text from a group chat titled The Hottest People Ever. You giggle at the title before switching over to see what's going on there.

Hange's typing when you get loaded in, but they're taking a while to type out whatever they're trying to say, so you go to check who's in the group chat. There's two numbers you don't have saved (presumably Mike and Moblit), Hange, of course, Levi, and Erwin.

Erwin's number is actually saved as "Erwin (WORK, DO NOT ANSWER)" because you haven't had the chance to change it since becoming better friends, so you quickly remove the parenthetical before clicking back to the chat.

Hange - 5:30 PM

Hello!!! WELCOME TO THE GROUP CHAT ASTRAEA!! Everyone say hi pls :D

Unknown Number - 5:31 PM

Hello! This is Moblit :)

You - 5:32 PM

hi!! happy birthday ^^

You quickly go to add him to your contacts, as well as Mike since he’s probably the other number you don’t already have.

Moblit - 5:33 PM

Oh, thank you!

Everyone else is probably busy, going by the fact that there’s no other texts that come in, so you exit out of the chat to scroll through SNS.

In the middle of you reading some random news article talking about the economy, you get a text from Erwin.

Weird, he never texts you. If anything, he’s the type to only call.

You tap on the notification to see what’s up.

Erwin - 6:05 PM

Sorry for the late notice, but could you stay late tomorrow? I need help with something.

The period at the end of the message comes off as way more passive aggressive than you’re sure he intended, but you still feel intimidated by the relatively minor punctuation.

You - 6:08 PM

Sure.

You cringe when you go to send the message, the capitalization and punctuation too serious for how you normally text, but you figure that’s good enough of a way to respond to Erwin (who was just speaking to you as your boss and not your friend).

You hope that he takes offense to your reply, actually. Who actually wants to stay even later than normal at their fucking office job?

You get home soon thereafter, and while you do your homely chores and get dinner ready, you try your best to take your mind off of the impending doom that awaits you at work tomorrow. Knowing how the workflow has been for the last… four months now, Erwin’s probably asking for your help for the rest of the week and not just Tuesday.

At least you have Saturday’s dinner to look forward to. Maybe you can tell the waiter to pick Erwin’s credit card in the roulette.

✰

The next morning when you leave for work, you're unsurprised to see Moblit walking out of Hange's apartment, arms full with bags of gifts. You both wave to each other in greeting, and because you're both headed in the same direction, you end up walking together.

“Need help with the gifts?”

“No, I’m alright. Thank you for offering, though!”

“You sure? Your arms are, uh, pretty full.”

“Yeah, I don’t mind.”

There’s a door between where you are and where the elevator is, so you go ahead and get that open so he can get through. You push the button for the ground floor, and he thanks you before the both of you step into the lift.

“How’re you and Hange? You guys look really happy together,” you tell him in earnest.

“Oh! Have they finally told you? I thought they wanted to keep it a secret, like, for fun.”

You roll your eyes. “They haven’t, you guys are just terrible at sneaking around.”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “Yeah, I guess we are. I run into you practically every time I’m leaving their place.”

“Yeah, I don’t really know what you were thinking with that,” you say.

The elevator beeps once you’ve reached the ground floor, and you step out first so you can hold the doors open as he stumbles out. He thanks you, and before you split paths, he answers your question from earlier.

“And we’re great, I feel like I’m falling in love with them all over again,” he beams. “I’ve had a crush on them since uni, but I didn’t really know what to do about it until a couple months ago.”

You reflexively smile and go to put a hand over your heart. Moblit’s such a sweet guy, you really couldn’t wish anyone better for your best friend.

“You guys are so cute,” you gush. “Drop hints to go public, yeah? I have a bunch of candid photos of you and them walking in the courtyard here, and I’m sure Hange would want them.”

He perks up. “Wait, could you send those to me? My phone wallpaper is just an old picture of us at graduation, but I’ve been meaning to change it.”

You nod enthusiastically. “Yeah, of course, I’ll get them to you!”

You wave goodbye to him, and he gives you a nod before heading off to the parking lot and presumably back to his car.

Ugh, you hate the both of them (in a “they’re so cute, I need to strangle them” kind of way).

As you’re walking over to the bus station, you sigh, remembering what Erwin texted you yesterday.

Thinking about it presently, what is there for you to even help him with? He definitely is the better lawyer between the two of you (objectively, at the very least), so what does he need you specifically for?

Yeah, you most definitely will be making sure his card gets chosen on Saturday.

✰

Turns out, Erwin needed you to review some work reports, entrusting the task to you while he's gone at higher-up meetings. You were right to assume that it wouldn’t be just Tuesday—it was Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Reviewing such paperwork isn’t particularly difficult, but it takes fucking forever, and you can’t afford to make any mistakes. Because of this, the next couple of days pass by slowly, with both nothing and everything happening all at once.

Unfortunately, the slow pace doesn’t mean anything anyway because you aren't able to get even a second to breathe, and when you finally go to take your seat next to Levi on Friday at 3:02 PM, you can only greet him with a defeated sigh.

It’s a miracle you’re here at all, considering how late you’ve been coming out of the office for the last 3 days. How you managed to get all of your work done before this exact moment, you have no idea.

You’re too exhausted to try and strike up conversation in the moment, so you prop your briefcase up higher so you can put your head down on it comfortably and close your eyes.

“Sorry, is it okay if I rain check on talking today?” Your voice comes out weaker than you intend it to, but you’re much too tired to pay any attention to it.

You feel a bit of weight at your left side, and you’re unsurprised when you turn to see that Levi’s lightly tapped his shoulder against yours.

“Yeah, get some sleep.”

You hum tiredly. “I don’t need sleep.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yep, I just need to quit my job,” you whine. “Ugh, I still have to go grocery shopping, maybe I’ll go tomorrow.”

“Are you actually going to do that? Quit your job?”

“Of course not, but it’s nice to dream.”

Your mind actually is too busy to let you fall asleep even with your head down, so you just sit there quietly, waiting for the bus to eventually get to your destination.

For whatever reason, it feels like it’s enough to just be sitting next to Levi. Your nerves leave you slowly, and you eventually get to settle further into your spot and enjoy as the scenery passes you by.

It’s the middle of spring, so the flora on the route is in full bloom, lighting up the way with bright colors and visible gusts of pollen.

You wish you could muster up the energy to talk to Levi—to ask him about his week, to tell him about yours.. You’re not physically tired; you very well could.

But when you turn to look at him, he looks content with the silence that covers the two of you, going by his stare out at the same flowery paths that pass by in the window.

You open your mouth to speak, but you can’t find the words to say. Somehow, you can sense that if you do talk, he’s just going to tell you to shut up anyway.

Or maybe he’d look up the definition of “rain check” on his phone to make sure you understand what it means.

You smile gently at the thought before putting your head down again on your briefcase, and you close your eyes. Not really to sleep, but you might as well try to get some of your energy back before heading home.

✰

When the bus’s sound system tells you that you’ve reached Rose, you lift your head from your briefcase and yawn, making sure to cover your mouth. “Get home safe, Levi,” you tell him, slowly blinking yourself awake.

When you wave goodbye to him, however, you’re taken off-guard by the warmth that takes over you when he takes hold of your hand and gently pulls you up.

You get the message quickly enough and scramble to get your briefcase secured in your other hand, but you’re unable to ask any questions as you try to get yourself oriented enough to get off the bus.

You manage to tell the driver a “thank you,” but other than that, you’re at a loss for words until you’re both safely on the sidewalk, the bus leaving a huge gust of wind behind it and blowing both your and Levi's hair in all directions.

The two of you just stare at each other, daring the other to speak, but you hardly feel like you’re the one who has to do any explaining.

And he probably feels the same way, because he wordlessly turns away from you and lightly tugs at your hand. When he starts walking, you have to jog a step or two to catch up with him.

“Where are we going?”

He doesn’t slow his pace, instead giving a squeeze to your hand. The contact is hardly meaningful in that he’s probably only holding your hand to drag you around, so you won’t take it as anything else.

“Surprise.”

Well, you doubt he could take you anywhere surprising, especially when you know that the only things in the immediate area are Magnolia Floral Company, the supermarket, and his car, but you suppose you’ll entertain him. Not like you have anywhere else to be anyway.

When you’re taken to the front of the supermarket, you’re hardly surprised, but you still play along. “The grocery store? I never would’ve guessed!”

He rolls his eyes and flicks your forehead, eliciting a whine from you. “Really, now?”

While you rub at your forehead to make a show of the pain (it really doesn’t hurt at all, it’s just in good fun), he drags you both over to get a shopping cart. He puts his backpack in, and you follow suit with your briefcase.

He lets go of your hand to push the cart, and you feel like you miss the warmth. It’s hardly winter, and the weather is definitely warm enough, but your hand feels… cold, all of a sudden.

Instead of weaving through the lanes like you’d think he normally would, he stops at the very beginning of the produce section and just stares at you.

You blink owlishly at him. “What’re you looking at me for?”

He rolls his eyes, almost ruefully so. “You’re the one who has to get groceries, or did you forget already?”

You raise an eyebrow. “That’s why we’re here?”

“Yes, so start putting shit in and let me pay while you’re at it,” he says. Before you can protest, he continues. “And none of your ‘stop paying me back’ shit, we both know neither of us are letting up anytime soon.”

You’re still frozen in place, at yet another loss for words, but when Levi reaches over to seemingly try and flick your forehead again, you move out of the way to get out in front of him. “Okay, okay, but you have to get something too. I don’t want this to be a waste of your time.”

He scoffs. “As if I have anything better to do right now.”

You lead the both of you through the aisles, looking at anything and everything. You’re hesitant to add things to the cart, but even when you put things back on the shelf, Levi moves to put them in anyway. You chastise him for it, telling him you don’t want him spending too much money on you, but he just flips you off and continues to follow you as you venture through the store.

At the checkout, he’s quick to get ahead of you so you don't get the chance to pay, and you just roll your eyes before loading everything on the conveyor belt.

When the cashier hands the receipt to him, Levi scratches both the singular and total prices out with his nail before handing the long sheet to you. “For you to make your stars.”

You take it from him with a nod, and you tuck it into your pocket before helping him put everything back in the cart. He pushes it out for you, and before you know it, you’re both in front of his car.

“I assume you’re driving me home.”

“No, you’re gonna have to haul all of this stuff back to the bus,” he deadpans. “Yes, get in.”

You laugh. “At least let me help put everything in your car.”

He shakes his head, but he lets you do just that. He wheels the cart back to its designated space in the parking lot after handing you his keys to start the car, and you get yourself situated in the passenger seat after you do that. By the time he comes back, you’ve already torn off your first strip of paper, and you’re looping it onto itself.

He reaches over you to his glove box, and from it, he pulls out a small box of blueberry merlot tea. He puts it between the both of you on the little open space, probably because your hands aren’t free in the moment.

“Did you take me grocery shopping because you forgot to bring the tea with you?” You ask.

He hums to himself as he goes to back out of the parking space, his hand on the back of your headrest. “Maybe,” he replies, “but Erwin’s been complaining about work a lot more than usual, which means you probably had a tough week too. Might as well help make you feel better while you’re here.”

You sigh. “As if it isn’t his fault I’ve been so busy at the office. That fucker asked me to help with reports all week.”

“Or so I’ve heard. Don’t worry, I chewed him out for it already.”

You laugh, and you shake your head. “Thank you, I guess.”

As always, the drive is silent, save for the rustling of paper. You reach your apartment easily enough, and he goes ahead and parks in the parking garage for the building. You hand him the stars you’ve made from the receipt, and he reaches over again for his glove box to put them away.

You know he’s going to do it anyway, so you let him carry some of the groceries up to your apartment with you. When you reach your unit, you get your keys and open the door to let him in to get everything set on the table.

You’re still at the door, watching as he does that, and when he comes back to you to leave, he gives a curt nod.

“Get home safe.”

“Stealing my jokes now?”

“I made it first.”

You blink. “Huh? When?”

He rolls his eyes. “When I dropped you off after our Valentine’s Day disaster.”

You sigh, shaking your head. “You still make fun of me when I say it.”

“It’s only funny when I say it.”

“You get home safe too, then.”

He nods, and you watch as he starts to walk back in the direction you both came from, and before you can stop yourself, you yell out his name.

“Levi!”

He isn’t too far, so the volume really isn’t necessary, but he still turns around. “What?”

You look back and forth between him and the groceries that’re set on your dining table, and you think for maybe two seconds before deciding that it’d only be fair for him to at least have some use for your groceries, seeing as he’s the one who paid for them.

“Do you want to stay for dinner?” You ask.

He stares blankly back at you, but after checking the time on his watch, he eventually shrugs and walks back over to you. “Sure, but only if you let me help cook.”

You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, and you open the door further to let him inside again. “Okay, fine.”

You go to quickly change out of your work clothes, not wanting to get them dirty with anything in the kitchen, and you bring back the same set of clothes Levi wore last time he was over so he can do the same. He excuses himself to go change, and you hum to yourself as you get everything sorted out so you can figure out what to cook for the both of you. Levi comes back out relatively quickly, his work clothes neatly folded up, and he sets that at the edge of your dining table before joining you in the kitchen.

You aren’t able to figure out what you should make, but it seems that Levi has more cooking knowledge than you when he naturally takes initiative in deciding for the both of you. Of course, he asks you if it’s alright to use any ingredients before he does, but you wave him off every time and tell him that he doesn’t need to keep asking.

You let him guide you throughout everything, listening along as he directs you to chop this, stir that, whatever it is. There isn’t much room for any other conversation, but that’s fine with you.

Dinner gets made quickly enough, and with a pot of blueberry merlot tea between the two of you, you start to eat.

You take a sip of the tea first, though, and you give it a solid 7/10. He does the same, but he gives a 5/10, citing the fact that it doesn’t have caffeine as reason for its lowered rating.

You both take the time now to talk about work, since you weren’t able to earlier on the bus, and conversation flows easily. Talking about the misery of the last workweek makes up for the trouble because it lets you completely let go of any of the anxieties you had about it, and when Levi talks about the hell that is grading college papers, you know he feels the same as you do.

After you’re both done venting about work and your coworkers and your clients and practically everyone else in the world, the topic shifts over to Moblit’s birthday dinner the next day.

“Are you bringing a present?”

He shakes his head. “He’s not a gifts person, never accepts them from anyone.”

You go to cover your mouth to stifle your giggle. “Right, right.”

“How’s that funny?”

“I saw him leaving Hange’s place on Tuesday, he was bringing home a bunch of gifts from them.”

Levi sighs, shaking his head again. “I would say I’m surprised, but I’m not.”

“Does he like sweets? I’d feel awkward showing up without at least that.”

“That’s not a terrible idea, but knowing him, he’s probably going to give it all to Hange.”

“That’s alright, still better than nothing,” you muse, swirling the teacup in your hand. “We could make something together. Maybe you could bring some of it home for Isabel and Furlan, too?”

Levi hums. “If you’re fine with it.”

You nod, going to take another sip of your tea before gathering your now-finished plate and utensils to bring to the sink. You hold out another hand to Levi’s spot at the table, and he shoos your hand away before getting up himself to put his tableware into the sink.

He tries to start washing them, but you gently shove him out of the way before turning on the faucet.

“Remember what we said? No washing dishes at the other person’s place.”

He doesn’t give any contest, but he grabs the small dish towel that hangs on a ring above your sink, and he waits next to you so that he can dry the dishes before putting them away.

The running water is loud enough to fill your relatively small apartment, so neither you nor Levi feel any need to talk. While Levi finishes up with drying and putting your tableware away, you take out your recipe book from one of the upper cupboards.

You check the time on your phone: 7:31 PM.

It's quite late already, so you flip through the pages to try and find something that doesn’t take that long to make. Levi is done with getting everything put away shortly thereafter, and he comes up next to you to watch as you figure out what to make.

“Is there anything he likes in particular?” You ask.

“He likes brownies,” he answers. “Do you know how to make those?”

You look over at him, mock offense on your face. “You think I don’t know how to make brownies?”

He puts his hands up, sarcastically so. “Sue me.”

You shake your head with a smile, and you go to close your recipe book. “I will.” You start heading over to your cabinets to get the ingredients, knowing already what you need. “Could you get some eggs and butter from the fridge? Just take out everything you can find.”

“Yeah.”

Soon enough, there’s a hefty pile of ingredients on your kitchen counter, and now you’re the one directing Levi to do things. You turn on the oven and get the ingredients measured out, but you leave everything else up to Levi.

Brownies are certainly not complicated and you could have very easily just made these on your own, but you still feel happy to be making them with him. He struggles a bit here and there, but he doesn’t give up, which is more than you could say for Hange whenever you’re in these situations with them.

It’s weird. Ordinarily when you teach other people how to bake, they feel more like a hindrance to the process than any help.

You let Levi finish mixing the batter while you get the pans prepared, and you can see a faint smile on his face when he goes to pour it all in.

It warms your heart to know that he’s having fun, even if he doesn’t quite know what he’s doing.

You’ve just finished putting away the dirtied utensils and food scale, so you come over to where he is so you can help scrape off the rest of the batter from the bowl.

You quickly get some star confetti sprinkles from your cabinet to put on top (you know, to make the brownies more birthday-esque, or whatever), and you hand the shaker to Levi once the lid’s off.

After that, you open the oven door for him to slide the pans inside, and you close it once they’re all neatly put in.

Looking over at him now, you laugh when you’re met with a better view of his flour-dusted front. “Can I take a picture?”

“Fuck no,” he scoffs. “How long do they take in the oven?”

You shrug. “40 minutes, give or take.” He looks past you and at the bathroom, and so you assume he wants to wash up. “You can shower, if you’d like.”

“I am never taking a shower here ever again,” he laments. “I’ll just go change back into my work clothes.”

“My shower really isn’t that hard to use, but that's fine,” you tease.

He walks past you and into the bathroom, making sure to stop by at the dining table to pick up his clothes on his way there. You go ahead and get started on washing even more dishes, and you hum to yourself as you scrub them clean.

Levi comes back just in time to grab the drying towel a second time, and he does that next to you while you wash the soap off your arms.

For the rest of the time the brownies bake, you and Levi migrate over to the couch and turn on the TV. Thankfully, you find a decently entertaining episode of Shark Tank to put on, and you and Levi shout at the TV when the contestants pass on offers from the Sharks or when the investors say something stupid.

The oven beeps to tell you that the brownies are ready, so you excuse yourself to go take those out to cool. You’re quick in doing so, and not even three minutes later, you’re back on the couch, screaming at Mark Cuban for passing on an especially cute line of plush animals.

You and Levi spend the next hour or so keeping up with this. Thankfully, all the contestants in this extended episode are incredibly bad at their pitch, so there’s no hard feelings from either of you when practically all of them leave the Tank without any deals.

You doubt that Levi understands the business lingo any better than you do, but you’re glad he finds as much fun in yelling at the screen as you do.

The ending credits roll, and you stretch upwards, yawning. “What time is it?”

Levi checks his watch. “10:15.”

You hum. “Let me get some brownies for you to take home.” You get up from your spot on the couch, and Levi follows closely after you. You grab some cellophane bags, twist ties, and star tags from your cabinet, as well as some disposable gloves for yourself.

You move everything over to the dining table so you can sit while you work, and when you come back with a knife to cut everything, Levi’s there too.

“Can I help?”

You nod with a lazy smile on your face.

“Please.”

You slip on your gloves after giving the bags to Levi, and you carefully go to cut out neat squares from the pans.

“Where’d you learn how to bake?” He asks.

You sigh. “It’s been a while since anyone’s asked me that.”

“Sorry,” he apologizes quickly.

“No, you’re good.” You hum as you reangle your knife to start going in the perpendicular direction. “I don’t know, everywhere? I watched my mom do it as a kid, and I picked it up as a hobby when I was in high school.”

“You didn’t come out of the womb with a whisk?”

You snort. “No, but I might as well have. Could you open a bag for me?”

He does, and you slip in the first brownie.

“Thanks.”

“Did you ever want to be a baker? Not that law isn’t admirable either.”

You nod, careful as you continue putting away brownies. Levi continues holding out bags for you to do it efficiently.

“A little, but I didn’t really consider it when I got older. It’s still fun, though, I like it a lot,” you tell him.

“Evidently.”

You smile, shaking your head. “Yeah, I’m sure.” One of the brownie’s hasn’t been cut properly, so you set that aside for you and Levi to have later. “It’s nice anyway, everyone likes being friends with the baker, so it made socializing easier for me.”

“Had trouble making friends?”

You shrug. “I guess, yeah. I was always busy with school, so I never really went out. Baking just gave me another crutch.”

He nods in understanding. “If it’s worth anything, I don’t think anybody now only sees you as a free baker.”

“Not even Isabel?”

He scrunches his nose and aggressively shakes his head. “Absolutely not, she never fucking shuts up about how much she loves you.”

You laugh. “She’s a sweet kid.”

“Hange used to call you ‘Sugar,’ though. Before we knew your name.”

You cringe. “That’s the name they chose for me? I couldn’t get something cooler?”

He nods nonchalantly. “They would not shut up about how they hit the jackpot getting you as a neighbor because you’d always come over with snacks for them.”

You laugh at the memory. “Yeah, I was still used to baking for groups of people, and I didn’t know what else to do with my leftovers.”

By now, all the brownies have been put into their bags, so you go to throw away your gloves, get the pans in the sink, and come back with two pens to write on the tags. You hand one to Levi, and you tell him to just write whatever he wants for Isabel and Furlan, and you can do the tags for Moblit.

You make sure to put that one misshapen brownie on a plate between the two of you, and while you write, you both take small pieces from it.

“Did Hange ever give me a different name or did they stick with Sugar?” You ask.

“You know them, they never change names for anyone,” he complains. “They say it works anyway, since you’re apparently so sweet.”

“What, you don’t think I am?” You tease. You’re both looking down at your writing so you don’t catch his reaction to that, but he does take a while to respond.

“I never said that.”

The two of you continue writing on the tags in silence, and soon enough, all of them are being looped onto iridescent twist ties. There’s more than enough for Levi to take home with him even after you have a good amount prepared for Moblit, so you have to excuse yourself to grab a bag for him to put his share in.

You hold the bag open for Levi to put everything inside, and you laugh when you see that he’s addressed Isabel and Furlan with curse words instead of their names on his tags. He helps you put Moblit’s share into some boxes that you had leftover from when you made all that shortbread for him a while ago.

You watch as Levi slides on his shoes, and before you can open the door to let him out, you remember he still has your clothes.

“You can just leave the clothes you borrowed here.”

“I don’t mind taking care of it.”

You wave him off. “It’s okay, I’m doing laundry tomorrow anyway.”

“If you say so.” He unloops one of his backpack straps to bring it forward and take out your clothes.

You take them from him. “Yeah.” You go to open the door for him, and he steps out into the hallway.

You bring your hand up to wave goodbye to him, but before you can actually do the motion, he brings his hand up too. You half expect him to grab your hand again, like he did on the bus, or maybe even give you a hi-five, but instead, he swipes at your cheek with his thumb.

Again, it feels warm—comfortable. You almost feel yourself wanting to lean into the touch further, but his hand doesn’t linger on your skin for any longer than it needs to.

He flips his thumb back to you. “Crumb.”

You nervously laugh, rubbing the back of your neck with your already raised hand. “Right, thanks. Get home safe, Levi.”

“You too.”

“I’m sure I will.”

This time, when you watch his figure disappear around the corner of your apartment floor’s hallway, you don’t call after him.

You almost wish you do, only to see his face again before he has to go.

✰

The next day, you feel… confused as you go through the motions of your morning and afternoon. Hange comes over at around 4 to get ready with you, and you manage to fend off the nerves, but they come back again in the car.

For once, you’re grateful their driving is so horrendous. If anything, you’ll just let the feeling of crashing be more paramount than anything else.

Nothing even happened last night. Nothing insurmountable, at least. He went grocery shopping with you, drove you home, you invited him inside to make dinner and dessert with you, and he left.

But the feeling—this one, where you feel so comfortable—you don’t know what to do with it.

It doesn’t have you red in the face. It doesn’t fill your stomach with butterflies. It doesn’t force you to shy away from spending time with him.

If anything, it prompts you to do exactly that. It’s weird. It’s so glaringly different from the attraction you felt in the beginning, when you didn’t know his name and he was just another stranger you saw on the bus once a week.

Do you even have to figure this out? It could very well just be something completely normal, and you’ve been overthinking it this entire time.

Hange suddenly stops the car, which snaps you out of your thoughts. Though you’re grateful for the mental break, you have to grip even harder than you already were on the grip handle above your seat.

“What the fuck, man!?”

They only laugh before going to take their key out of the ignition. “Well, we’re here!”

You shudder before getting out of the car, careful not to forget anything, and the two of you join the others in the waiting area. You’re the last to arrive, courtesy of Hange’s poor driving skills, and you watch as they naturally drift towards Moblit.

Mike and Erwin, upon seeing you and Hange enter, go to the reservations desk to presumably tell them “table for Smith,” and that leaves you and Levi alone with each other. You raise the boxes of brownies you brought with you, and he nods in acknowledgement of it.

“Did Isabel and Furlan like them?” You ask, unsure of what else to talk about.

“They liked them too much,” he whines. “Begged me for the recipe and everything.”

“I don’t have one written down, but I can do that on a napkin while we wait for our food,” you offer.

“That’d be nice,” he says. You nod, and then your group of six are guided by a hostess.

The rest of the night is a whirlwind, spurred by Hange’s excitement to celebrate their boyfriend’s birthday with their other friends present. You hand Moblit his brownies, and like the saint he is, he thanks you before splitting it up between everyone at the table. You, Levi, and Erwin refuse them, but he insists that he’d rather share than have to take so many of them home.

You aren’t able to write out the recipe on a napkin as promised because the napkins are fabric, but after figuring out the measurements for a more… manageable batch, you text the information to Levi.

Levi does actually call over the waitress to bring over paper napkins for you, just like when you both came here on Valentine’s Day, and you thank him before starting to tear at the paper. You hand that one to Levi, and instead of rejecting it like you expect him to, he takes it and waits for you to make yours so he can follow along again.

When the food eventually comes to your table, all six of you can do is eat in silence to savor the expensive taste as well as you can. There’s no drinking tonight, probably because everyone drove here in smaller groups and it’d be too inconvenient to figure out how to get home, but it’s still lively and exciting.

Towards the end of the night, you and Hange slip away to “the bathroom” to tell the waitress that it’s Moblit’s birthday and to pick Erwin’s credit card, and when you come back, you both have to act surprised when the whole restaurant starts singing Happy Birthday and when Erwin gets fucked by the expensive bill.

Levi seems to catch on that you’re responsible for Erwin losing the roulette, but he only rolls his eyes and doesn’t make a scene out of it.

When everything’s paid for and everyone’s back outside, just about ready to part ways for the night, Hange winces.

“What’s wrong?” You ask.

They nervously go to scratch behind their ears. “Do you think you could find another ride home? I totally forgot to tell you, but I’m going over to Moblit’s to, uh,” their gaze drifts off to their not-so-secret lover, “test some liquor!”

You should’ve expected as much, but it’s no trouble.

Get some, Hange!

You wave them off, and you look around at the group. “I’m sure least one of them have a seat to spare.”

They wrap you in a warm hug, nearly crushing you, and you return the gesture with just as much enthusiasm. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I love you so much!”

You try to wiggle out of their grip after a while, but they don’t really let up, instead rocking back-and-forth with you still in their arms.

Their grip on you finally loosens up when Levi comes up to you, and he practically has to pry them off of you before they let go. You thank him, and Hange’s off to go… test liquor with Moblit, the two of them headed for where Hange parked their car.

Erwin chimes in first. “Mike and I live in the opposite direction, so you can go with Levi.”

“Is that okay with you?” You ask him.

Instead of answering, Levi goes to stomp (lightly) on your toes, and you take that as a yes.

You and Levi give your goodbyes to the other two men, and you follow him to his car.

This sure does feel like a repeat of Valentine’s Day. It's parked in the exact same spot.

When you’re both in the car and about ready to leave, he hands you the receipt, telling you that Erwin forgot to take it before he left. You thank him for the paper, and you promptly start tearing and folding it.

The ride is completely silent, again, with only the sound of crinkling paper filling the vehicle, but it’s comfortable. Almost alarmingly so.

You drop the stars into the palm of Levi’s hand when he’s parked at the curb of your building, he reaches over to put them away in his glove box, and nothing is said other than a “get home safe” from the both of you.

When you get safely inside your apartment, you don’t even know what you’re supposed to do.

At least when you were constantly anxious and high-alert around Levi, you could at least find reason to denounce those feelings and get rid of them.

Maybe you should ask Erwin to give you extra work this week to distract yourself.

Who are you kidding, you definitely aren’t going to do that.

Still, when you go to sleep that night, you wish for more opportunities to skip on thinking about it entirely, and even more opportunities to just enjoy the feeling while it’s there.

✰

Both fortunately and unfortunately, your wish is granted to you.

Unlike last week, this week is fast. It rushes past you, works you as hard as it can, and spits you out without so much as a “thank you” for your efforts.

Erwin, bless his heart, apologizes profusely and comes by your office often to check up on you, but you barely spare him a glance whenever he passes through.

The only silver lining in any of this is that Friday comes just as quickly. That and the fact that the hustle and bustle doesn’t give you any time to overthink any of your feelings.

When you go to take your seat on bus 143 at 3:09 PM on Friday, you have to put your head down after you hand Levi his tea. You ask for another rain check, and Levi doesn’t make any fuss about it before taking out his phone to busy himself.

Unfortunately, because there’s a lot of traffic on this particular Friday, there’s plenty of starts and stops, all of which break you out of your resting state. The sounds of city bustle don’t help either. When the bus comes to a sudden halt for what feels like the hundredth time in the last ten minutes, you groan and lean your head back, looking up at the ceiling.

You chuckle halfheartedly. “Maybe I should just jump out the window and walk the rest of the way home.”

Levi scoffs next to you. “We’re still in the city, you might as well stay here until Monday.”

“That’d be better than getting shaken awake every three seconds.”

“You were sleeping?"

“I wasn’t, but I can’t really rest with the traffic. My briefcase isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world either.” You sigh and prop your elbow on your lap, resting your head on your hand. “So, how was your week? We might as well talk if I can’t keep my eyes closed.”

He doesn’t say anything, so you naturally turn to look at him. He’s propping up his backpack straighter on his lap, and he slides his phone into the front pocket.

He turns to look at you when that’s done, and the two of you hold eye contact before he looks away and out the window in front of your seats.

“You can rest on my shoulder.”

You lazily shake your head. “No, it’s okay. That’s probably uncomfortable for you, and you seem tired enough from work.”

“You literally look like you’re about to fall forward,” he scolds. “And no talking, you need to rest.”

“Geez, you make it sound like I’m sick or something,” you joke.

“Picked it up from you,” he contests.

You follow his gaze out towards the window, and you hum. “But it’s okay, I can stay up.” As if on cue, you have to yawn, and you can see Levi shake his head out of the corner of your eye.

Before you can bark out something to dismiss any further scolding, you hear him turning towards you again. You wait, still staring out the window, but you watch as his left hand reaches over to push your head gently onto his right shoulder.

It feels awkward, honestly, and you kinda want to laugh.

You’d think the touch was romantic, but it hardly is when he struggles to reach over the backpack in his lap and your briefcase, and the bumps of the roads that knock you back-and-forth hardly do anything to help the atmosphere either.

But still, the act has you breaking out into a shy smile.

Had it been months ago, you probably would’ve passed out then-and-there from just his touch alone, but you don’t feel any red creeping up at all.

Just a quiet, comfortable glow in your chest, and a smile that acts as a silent thanks to him for lending you his shoulder for the rest of the ride.

He pulls his hand away from your head, and he reorients himself to look outside again, and he sits up straight against the back of the seat. You don’t dare move your head away, instead just slightly turning to look at his face, and you close your eyes once you see that he's comfortably settled back into his seat.

“So, how was your—”

“Just shut the fuck up,” he mumbles.

You sleepily hum. “You like silencing women?”

He groans. “Fuck off.”

You laugh and shake your head, position permitting. You close your eyes, and you hum to yourself as you try to find your sleep.

Yeah, you can figure out your feelings later.

You know you definitely shouldn’t be continuing to put off the emotionally daunting task, but you definitely don’t want to confront anything right now.

You still think it’s weird, that much hasn’t changed. And this is definitely not normal. That much is apparent, more so now than before when you were first starting to question things halfheartedly.

All you need to know is that here, with him, you’re comfortable.

For you, it’s enough to know that. Even if it isn’t, you’re okay with not knowing anything else, so you'll just spend the next... however many minutes left of your ride through the traffic, with him, trying to imprint the comfort that he gives you into yourself as well as you can.

✰

Next Chapter

#attack on titan #levi ackerman x reader #levi x reader #tao.levi #levi ackerman #levi aot #the romance of reimbursements #levi #fanfiction

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jackinalex · 2 years

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Kalina’s Summer 2022 Fanfiction Contest

Update: July 29, 2022. Surprise! I’m extending the deadline to enter and submit. I had some late interest in the contest and I want as many entries as possible. So if you wanted to enter before and didn’t get a chance to, you can now!

In an attempt to generate more fics for this fandom, I will be holding a contest! I’ve thought a lot about due dates and themes and such, and I think I’ve come up with a cohesive (though tentative!) plan. I just want us to all have more to read and I want to give you all some inspiration and drive to write! I do want to thank the lovely mods over at @alltimefanfiction because I was very inspired by them and their frequent fic contests. Check them out! Anyway, click the read more to read the rules and see how you can take part in the contest.

For this contest, I will be using a trope randomizer. Each contestant will be given a trope at random and must center their fic around that trope somehow. Other than that, you have total creative freedom. I think that it would be best if these fics only have one part, however, because it will be much easier for me to keep track of everyone’s stories. I am going to make a limit of twenty contestants (though I doubt I will have that many) just because it will take time for everyone to finish writing and for me to read all of the fics. If you’re interested, let me know off anon and I will add your name (or username, whatever you prefer) to the list of contestants. I will also give you your randomized trope. Of course, if you are not comfortable with the trope you are given, please do not hesitate to let me know. Additionally, if there is anything you are not comfortable with that you already know of, do let me know with the first message.

Rules:

1. Minimum of words. No maximum, but if it’s gonna be 20k or above, try to let me know beforehand lol.

2. You may write about any pairing (or poly relationship) you want. It can be atl band/atl band, atl band/atl crew, atl crew/atl crew, atl band/other band, atl band/oc, etc. You also don’t have to have a particular pairing if you don’t want to

3. Your story must be written after you receive your trope. Do not post something that was already prewritten (unless it was in very early stages and receives heavy revision).

4. You can post on whatever platform you prefer, but I am going to recommend AO3 as it is the easiest and most user-friendly.

5. Once again, only twenty people can enter.

6. If you happen to change your username or switch blogs during the contest, let me know so I don’t lose you.

Deadlines:

Please enter by Monday, August 8th so that I can get the ball rolling. Once school starts for me, I will progressively get busier and busier and I do not want to make you guys wait a long time for results.

Your entries should be posted by Saturday, October 8th. School will be in session for me by then, but I also don’t want you guys to feel rushed. If all entrants finish before that date, great, but do not worry about rushing to get finished. If you need an extension, just please let me know as soon as possible.

If you want to drop out, please let me know as soon as possible.

Prizes: TBD

Please send me asks/messages about what you guys might want! I have a few ideas in mind, but I wanna hear from you guys. I’ll try to get those figured out this week, so long as things go well lol. I think we’ll have three places with prizes for all.

I’m so excited about this and I know a lot of y’all are, too. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to send me a message or an ask. I hope to hear from y’all soon! I’ll be tagging this post and all others following about the contest as #ksfc.

Entrants:

1. razz @astrophysicist-not-princess

2. liv @atlfics

3. mell @melljunee

4. eve @ocalaghan

#kalina talks #ksfc #jalex #merrikat #zalex #riack #rilex #zian #jack barakat #alex gaskarth #bandom #rian dawson #zack merrick #zachary merrick #all time low #atl #fanfiction #fanfiction contest

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cinderflower · 10 months

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With a lot of people slowly testing out the tumblr waters again, especially artists, here's some old, new, and underutilized features the site offers that I've found super useful and always appreciate personally when looking through artist's blogs. (See under the cut for more)

Have your own custom page setup:

To have your own blog page setup first make sure to enable your page under blog settings > enable custom theme

This lets users view your page at {username}.tumblr.com instead of tumblr.com/{username}

On this view you can add tabs that link out to your specific tags, custom sub-pages, or even other sites (eg. I have tabs that link out to my art tag as well as my AO3 page)

You also get control over setting up your own theme, which does require you to configure your HTML but luckily there are tons of free themes others have made that are as simple as pasting in the code then using the configurations

My personal preferred way to find themes is to navigate to the theme-maker's page from a blog I already enjoy and follow, usually there's a source/credit hyperlinked somewhere on the page (for example, the one I'm using is linked in the bottom right)

This also lets users access your blog's archive (see the next point)

Use tags and also enable featured tags:

If you think of your blog, especially as an artist, as an archive/portfolio it helps if a user can easily find all of your old art and the best way to do this is to tag all of your art

A lot of people simply use "my art" but some use other tags more specific to their username, either one works as long as you consistently tag only your work with it

Fandom tags/OC tags/theme tags/etc also all help with this, if a user is interested in all your content for X fandom or of X original character, this lets them easily find all posts for that fandom or character

You'll also show up in the global tags this way, but only the first handful of tags count towards this, so make sure to prioritize putting label tags you want for global searches first

Featured tags take this to the next level and are a relatively new feature that not many people take advantage of customizing, but you can set your featured tags to whatever you want, and this allows a user to then go into your archive and sort on these specific tags so now they can easily scroll through the tag in your archive without having to manually go page by page

Have a large set of posts already but they don't have the right tags? Mass Post Editor is your best friend here - it opens the archive view for you and lets you click on all the posts you want to update and edit the tags in the archive view across all of them at the same time

Blaze and Customize visibility per-post

Blaze is a new-ish feature that lets any user on the platform "blaze" your post which will push it onto the dashboards of X number of random users - there is no algorithm to determine who gets to see this posts

Blaze was originally original-poster permitted only, meaning only the person who made the post could blaze it but they've since updated it so anyone can Blaze any post that doesn't have it disallowed - you can update the global blaze setting for all posts on your blog to allow or disallow it in your blog settings (by default this ENABLED)

Sometimes you just want to make a personal post that you don't want going outside of the scope of your blog, you can now set whether or not a post can be reblog for each post

Set this to "No one" if you don't want it reblogged, similarly, disable blaze on the post

On the flip side, if you want your post to be shared, make sure this is set to "Anyone (on Tumblr)"! Otherwise your posts will never get spread and never be seen, which is fine for personal use and personal posts, but if you actually want others to find and share your content, make sure this isn't set to "No one"

#cinder rambles #hopefully this will be helpful to any mutuals :*

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sewingbear · 1 year

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Quick List To Help Moving Around Tumblr

Highlight words in your post to made them look fancy. Wanna make things pop? Wanna change your mind on things? Well there you go! Just selected the text you wanna use and hit what you want. There’s a way to change color of text and fonts but I still have no clue how to do that one. Example:

Shift + Enter to continue the same line of text/paragraph. Hit Enter to start a new line. When you start a new line you get the options to add media of your choice. The last one in the list is a Read More. Read Mores in my option are very important. It’s to hide bulk. You add it to your post and then anything under the line will be hidden and will only reveal it’s self if you click the read more button. Yes you can go on and on and on but most people fucking hate long posts. Hit read more and put your bulk under it. Such as long photos. Also important for hiding sensitive or NSFW information that could fall between the cracks of tag blacklist extensions. Great for wanting to vent in the open but also wanting to hide it.

Use one or all of these extensions to make you’re life easier on tumblr. These are are all free btw (Also hot tip words with underlines are words that have a link attached to them)

-XKit Rewritten. It adds a lot of features on to tumblr that make it easier to be on here. Google Shop Link and their GitHub here. -Tumblr Savior. Blacklist and whitelist tags. Don’t want to see anything tagged as elon stinky musk? This one will do the trick. They also have setting to hide other stuff. Link to their website here -Shinigami Eyes. Google Shop Link It highlights users who have been mass reported as either Homophobic/Transphobic or someone who’s LGBT+ friendly. This one works on Tumblr, Twitter, Youtube, Twitch, etc. I use this to know if someone is sus or not. If their name is red(Anti LGBT+) there’s a reason behind whether they want to admit it or not. Never ever message someone saying that they are reblogging from a lot of people who are highlight as anti LGBT+. As someone who’s been told and also warn other people it causes more drama then you think it would. Use it this one for yourself but don’t use it to police others. -uBlock Origin. It’s an ad blocker that useful for any site. Google shop link

GET YOUR BLOG WEBSITE A THEME Here’s where I always get mine https://www.tumblr.com/roleplay-theme-recs

You can lock your likes and followers list so no one can see them. They’re in your settings to change them. I use it. I don’t like people seeing my likes because I don’t wanna people see how cringe I am.

If you notice a pattern of someone likes your posts and a different blog reblogs right after. It’s always the same two users back to back. Then it’s most likely that the reblogging blog is a side blog and the liker is their main blog. You can not like things via your side blog; thus seeing a different user popping up. Side blogs are other blogs with different handles that are connected to your main account. They are often made for the purpose to get one certain thing on that one blog to keep your main neat. Such as fandom or art related posts. For example, this blog is a side blog that I use for posting art and now I’m slowly making it also into my vtuber side blog. My art doesn’t get buried under whatever shitposts I’m putting on my main. Some people get a whole new account to avoid the mismatch names on liking+rebloging. There are different pros and cons to side blogs and side accounts. Do whatever you feel like is best for you. Another things about side blogs is you can attach other people to them. As in admins or moderators. So more than one person can share a side blog.

I feel like that’s some basics that can got over most new people’s head. So there you go. I hoped the random advice helped someone.

#there's some features that I still have no clue how to use #like the reply system makes no sense to me #long post #tumblr

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viola-ophelia · 1 year

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I posted 2,337 times in 2022

108 posts created (5%)

2,229 posts reblogged (95%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name

@deathicus-sling

@general-george-washington

@filodox

@revolutionarytea

I tagged 2,326 of my posts in 2022

#anne-core - 231 posts

#historical fashion - 202 posts

#art history - 182 posts

#literature - 179 posts

#history - 178 posts

#turn - 159 posts

#turnsgiving2022 - 145 posts

#aesthetic - 129 posts

#writing - 89 posts

#fashion - 81 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#idk why some people can't get it into their heads that writing a redemption arc for a character doesn't mean that the author condones murder

My Top Posts in 2022:

i feel extremely seen in pepa madrigal from encanto...... like. i too am a temperamental girl with anxiety who’s not as sweet and gentle as most disney women bc i have this reputation within my family for being difficult and dramatic which i lowkey resent but don’t know if i can ever really change bc it is kinda true lol but hey at least i’m genuine and i’m doing my best... idk, i know she’s a random side character in a kid’s movie but damn

78 notes - Posted January 18, 2022

in defense of cutler beckett

it’s kind of a tradition of mine to periodically write “in defense of” essays for unpopular characters (see “in defense of celegorm” and “in defense of bunny corcoran” lol), and idk what it says about me that i frequently feel the urge to advocate in favor of characters that are deemed unlikable/ unredeemable/ unworthy of attention by their respective fandoms, but i’m rolling with it lol. anyway, today, i want to focus on lord cutler beckett from pirates of the caribbean, because the general consensus about him on tumblr these days is… pretty abysmal lol, but i think he deserves a closer look. beckett seems to be the vast majority of people’s least favorite character, and not in an ironic way like some of the characters in POTC are treated online, like oh haha yeah barbossa was kinda annoying for going all ghost zombie mode on everyone but also we love him, weird eclectic uncle vibes, woo!.... no, everyone just straight-up hates beckett. and look: i get it, i really do. beckett is a much “realer” villain than davy jones or barbossa or salazar or any of the other POTC baddies, and that makes him much easier to hate. he’s not a giant octopus or a cursed skeleton or a slimy ghost guy with mystical powers, he’s literally just some guy– and he’s an asshole of a guy, because he’s basically just a random capitalist who wants all our favorite characters swinging from the gallows because they’re getting in the way of his trading schemes. and, if you count the price of freedom as canon, he’s also a slave trader, which is pretty unambiguously terrible. but despite all that, i actually like beckett. in fact, he’s one of my favorite characters in POTC: although it’s important to note that when i say that, i’m in no way saying that i condone his actions or that i think he’s morally good. as i see it, it’s totally valid to enjoy villainous characters while also acknowledging that they’re evil/problematic/whatever and that their actions are not morally acceptable in the real world. but the realm of POTC– where people (including the “good guys,” might i add!) are murdering and backstabbing each other left and right, any and all historical accuracy has to be taken with several grains of salt, and occult magic and sea goddesses and evil fish-men casually exist– is pretty far from “the real world” if you ask me lol. but anyway, let’s get into it then, shall we! (adding a read-more bc this is LONG oop)

beckett gets a really bad rap in the POTC fandom not just because he’s a ‘problematic’ character, but because on the surface, he comes across as a very one-dimensional, and therefore boring, villain. there are certainly other not-so-morally-pure characters in POTC that don’t seem to get the same treatment beckett does… no one really seems to talk about how pintel and ragetti threatened to r*pe elizabeth in the curse of the black pearl, for example. but pintel and ragetti are goofy comedic relief fan faves, and they’re also on the “good side” (aka the side of the pirates), so they have some redeeming qualities. in contrast, beckett is unique in POTC– a franchise famous for morally complex characters– for his seeming complete lack of redemptive nuance. he’s easy to understand as a villain because he’s just one of those villains who’s bad just ‘cause he can be. and he sucks! he’s ruthless, he’s power-hungry and materialistic, he plots against the pirates simply because they’re an inconvenience to him, and he represents the unjust authority which jack sparrow and the “good guys” stand against. the law permits beckett to freely exploit people in the name of the east india company, but does not allow jack and his companions even a chance of survival if they’re caught: and he knows how unfair this is, and doesn’t care. but here’s the thing: at its core, POTC is a pirate story told by pirates. of course we’re going to root for jack, will, elizabeth, and the gang over characters like beckett and norrington… because the pirates are the ones in control of the narrative. if we want, we can choose to believe them when they show us how much beckett sucks (and to be fair, they’re largely right lol), but it’s sort of boring, i feel, to just readily absorb the story that’s made most prominently visible to us and not bother to examine other perspectives.

so let’s talk about beckett’s motives. maybe he really is power-hungry and exploitative because he just is, and that’s all there is to him… but again, that’s what the pirates think, but it’s worth considering other possibilities too. what is beckett’s backstory, then– what, if anything, prompted him to go on his pirate-killing spree? well, in the movies, he doesn’t have one. he kinda just shows up one day and crashes will and elizabeth’s wedding as an obnoxious power flex, and from that point on, he’s just, like, there and he hates the pirates REALLY bad and wants to kill them all through any means possible, seemingly just because he can. the price of freedom, though, does give beckett a backstory. i’m not going to summarize the entire thing here, but in it, he and jack once worked together for the east india co. before eventually having a big mutual betrayal where jack wasn’t a fan of the fact that beckett was transporting some slaves, so he freed them all, which fucked beckett’s career over so beckett branded him as a pirate and then went on to become the asshole we see in the movies. but to be honest, this doesn’t really compel me all that much. it’s certainly an important moment for jack, but it explains away beckett’s motives the same vague way the movies do, aka by going “well, he’s just evil because he is/always was.”

what was really going on with beckett to force him through such a transformation had to have been much more than jack fucking up his job one time. the price of freedom tells us that he was a sickly kid not expected to live past childhood and that he was lowkey abused by his family, so i think a desire to prove his own worth was definitely part of it. but i don’t think beckett became evil (or doomed, for that matter) when he branded jack as a pirate. there’s a point in the book (if i’m remembering correctly) where young beckett gets captured by pirates and his dad refuses to pay the bail to have him released. it doesn’t explain how he eventually managed to escape, but i can only imagine that the experience left him with some internal damage… a fear of losing control, most likely, and of being out of his element. that’s kind of a lot for a teenager to take in… not only that his family doesn’t want him and he’s gonna have to fend for himself for the rest of his life, but that the world is cruel and unforgiving to vulnerable people, and the only way for him to survive is to seize all of the power and control he can and never let it go… because, if he doesn’t become the biggest fish, then a bigger fish is going to come along and that’ll be the end of him. beckett never manages to get rid of this fear of instability and vulnerability, which– especially after jack’s betrayal– manifests itself in a hatred of and desire to dominate (perhaps an attempt to conquer or mask a secret, intense fear of?) pirates and the occult. and of course, this eventually becomes his downfall, as he freezes the second he makes a mistake in at world’s end and is so unable to move beyond the loss of the upper hand that he literally just dies. beckett’s death is exactly what he deserves, but it’s also a remarkably devastating moment granted to a character who, up until this point, we’ve been guided to unreservedly hate and root against. in the grand scheme, it represents the fall of the old order, but for beckett himself, it’s his worst nightmare coming true– it’s the loss of control he’s been fighting this whole time and not realized was sneaking up on him till it was literally staring him in the face… and that’s tragic, and we’re meant to think so! we see his fatal flaw laid bare in a way that we would normally only expect the narrative to do so for its heroes, and it’s an incredible and shocking moment, being forced to briefly see things from the other side.

it’s hard for me to hate beckett as i watch him dying, and honestly it’s hard for me to hate him in general, because tbh i do resonate with him in some ways. obviously, his actions as a character are awful (and in particular, there’s no avoiding or diminishing the unequivocal evilness of the slave trading thing), and that’s what makes him a villain. but at the root of it all, i kinda just see a guy who’s sought to prove himself for so long that now he’s at the helm of this incredibly powerful and dangerous position that he cannot lose because he’s nothing without what he’s worked for, but even as he’s surrounded himself with people he can use as tools he has no one he can truly trust, so he projects this cold and calculating persona at all times because he has to, because it’s how he maintains control and he has to maintain control because without control he knows he’s already lost, but as tightly wound as he must be, he somehow manages not to break his composure even at the very end and goes down with his fucking ship in a moment that’s weirdly heroic… like. you don’t have to like beckett, but i do think he deserves respect. in a fandom full of wacky, fun, exciting characters, i know it’s not exactly intuitive to focus on the one decidedly un-supernatural, un-thrilling character… but in a story told by, about (and arguably for) pirates, beckett maybe rebels the most of all, by refusing, right down to his last moments, to succumb to a narrative that was never for him in the first place. and i think there’s something to be said about a character who-- villainous or not-- sticks by his principles till the end even as the very world around him bends to different rules, who doesn’t run from the law when it no longer benefits him but who acknowledges that he’s lost and owns it.

83 notes - Posted March 21, 2022

i made a quiz that’ll tell you which of jane austen’s seven heroines you are - enjoy!

255 notes - Posted September 8, 2022

things i wish i could tell every young person on the internet (alternate title: an open letter to myself at 18)

- identity labels are an option, not a requirement, and they aren’t the only thing that define you.

- you’re also always allowed to change your mind about them, and you should never feel anything but proud of yourself for doing so.

- it’ll only do you harm to view your trauma(s) and mental illness(es) like immutable personality traits. you deserve to accept that things will get better.

- if you’re cishet, that’s okay! you don’t “have” to be queer to prove you’re not a bad or boring person.

- fiction does not equal reality, and fandom is a hobby, not a venue for activism. “problematic” fanfiction has literally no effect on society, so don’t ever feel bad about enjoying what makes you happy!

- try, above all else, to be kind to yourself. you deserve it.

319 notes - Posted May 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

i’m not just a “villain apologist.” oh no no... when i say i like a villainous character, i not only mean that i fully support all of their evil actions and believe them to be totally justified and tremendously sexy, but also that i partake in the same evil actions irl and thoroughly enjoy it. “but you can’t like that character, they murdered someone!” yes, and? i murder at least one person a week for fun, what’s your point

369 notes - Posted April 8, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#this is so funny #year in review #can i just say i fully agree with my longest tag LOL #also damn i forgot i ever posted about encanto that one time?#i love my top post too it's extremely valid lol

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