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anika-ann · 4 years

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Errare Humanum Est: Bonus

God Is Not a Woman (but He’s Plotting Anyway)

Type: series, soulmate AU series (part 1, part 2) x Supernatural

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader Word count: 2910

Summary: Bucky’s trying to fit into the Tower and some might be trying to make it easy for him. And then he drops the bombshell on you and things get even crazier than before.

Warnings: swearing, brief talk on religion, fluff, crack-ish humour

A/N: Admittedly, this is some kind of a strange one-shot of which I’m not sure it exactly fits, but… enjoy?

Story masterlist

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Things weren’t all sunshine and rainbows only. Bucky’s return to the world was… tough. You only knew little of what had happened to him through the decades, but it was enough of a horror story even without the details.

Bucky’s relationship with the team of Avengers was complicated too. Steve was as ecstatic and heart-broken as when you had popped up alive and that was all that needed to be said. Clint was a rather easy-going guy with a reputation of not judging people by their worst mistakes and as a man who had once been mind-controlled by an alien (…what?), he was willing to accept Bucky with a strange kind of sympathy.

As it turned out, Bucky and Natasha had actually crossed their paths before briefly, but once again, that was all you learned, both hers and his moments in the past too dark to share. Bruce was keeping his distance, more of a shyness than fear or disgust if you could take a guess and Thor was off the planet, not meeting the other supersoldier just yet.

Tony… Tony wasn’t fond of Bucky. He found a footage of another Winter Soldier killing his parents and while it hadn’t been Bucky himself, Tony’s hatred needed an out and despite trying, he simply couldn’t manage treating Bucky exactly nice. He still let him live in the Tower though, so that definitely counted for something; for a lot, actually.

There were many people with trust issues when it came to Bucky and that included himself – he didn’t trust his mind still, even with the mysterious man helping him and he most definitely didn’t forgive himself for the lives he had taken. The ghosts of his past haunted him at night, in his dreams the most. But he was slowly healing.

Steve was helping a lot, sometimes trying too much maybe, which was why the former assassin sought Sam Wilson rather than his best friends at times. He came to you occasionally too; however, he seemed to feel as if you were off limits, because you were Steve’s gal. He was gradually losing that stupid attitude though and his teasing side came out to play, making you blush becoming his new hobby. Exactly what you needed with all the mess happening around, i.e. the aftermath of your resurrection.

It took Bucky about two months to mention the name.

It happened casually, just dropping the bombshell no one had seen coming. Bucky was actually showing Steve how to upgrade the newest version of some software you weren’t entirely sure what was for; both supersoldiers had to do their fair share of adjusting and while for Bucky it often was people, for Steve it was sometimes… technology despite him being able to pick up on things very quickly.

Steve thanked him and for the millionth time, you heard the ominous sentence: “It’s good to have you back, Buck. Whoever that guy was, I’ll always be grateful.”

“He told me to call him Chuck.”

The words were simple, really, nothing out of ordinary for untrained ears. Except it had you both you and Steve choke on your own spit.

A frown appeared on Bucky’s face, confusion with a hint of alarm before he rolled his eyes at your antics. “What? I know, it’s kinda dorky-“

Yeah, that was not it.

A chilling suspicion crept up your spine and while it was not necessarily ominous, it sure as hell felt like the ground was shaking under your feet, proving you that a sense of control over your life was nothing but a ridiculous illusion.

“Steve? How about we make a phone call?”

Five minutes later, you were video-chatting with the Winchester duo, explaining them your concerns. Bucky was with you and Steve but didn’t engage that much since he never really met either Sam or Dean, rather wary of them.

A photo of a dorky looking man indeed, with cute dark curls around his head and a full beard, appeared on the screen, replacing the video-feed.

“Did he look like this?” Sam asked, tension audible in his voice. It still had nothing to the disbelief in Bucky’s.

“Yeah, that’s him,” the supersoldier confirmed, narrowing his eyes, which didn’t quite disguised how incredulous he was. “How did you-?”

“Is it… him?” you interrupted them, strange tingling sensation in your fingertips, light nausea tickling your stomach.

Was there any coincidence in his world left? What the hell did all of this mean? Was Steve just a lucky guy, God’s favourite, or… or was there a larger scheme, one you weren’t able to see just yet?

It reminded you of the talk you had had with Sam Wilson what felt like ages ago, about people having two soulmates, you coming back from the death and about things that were beyond your understanding happening more and more often. This might actually prove your silly theory right. Not to mention the fact that the death of Tony’s parents was delivered by another Winter Soldier, conveniently at the same time Bucky had been having troubles with the mechanics of his metal arm, hence not being suitable for the task – what were the chances of that?

It seemed that every single thing happening had played an important role in something, ending up with your trio sitting right here and now and… that was not a very comfortable discovery.

“Oh yeah, that’s God,” Dean hummed casually and when the picture disappeared, revealing the brothers again, you saw him take a bite of a cheeseburger as if this was a talk about the fucking weather.

“God?” Bucky parroted dully and you bit your cheek, feeling guilty for not quite having explained to him why you wanted to talk to the Winchesters and what had been your suspicion; now proved right.

“Yeah,” Sam supplied helpfully, only to have Bucky repeat the word as if he was testing the taste of it on his tongue.

“A god.”

“The God, actually. Our Lord is one of kind,” Castiel appeared on the screen as well, offering a small wave that you reciprocated, too shocked to say hi.

“Except he has a sister, apparently,” Steve stated, checking with the hunters and they nodded in approval. “So you’re not denying it? You think… ugh, that The Chuck saved him.”

You made a face at his wording, but… yeah. The Chuck. The God named Chuck had saved both Bucky and you. It was official. But why? What the hell was your life anymore?

How cute and bold of you to call your life yours, you thought darkly.

“H’d weed’l,” Dean mumbled with his mouth full and shrugged. With effort, you translated it into ‘heard weirded’, which was… fair.

“You think God, capital G, saved me. Why the heck would he do that?” Bucky spitted out exasperatedly, clearly not happy about the revelation.

Eh. Revelation.

Steve tensed at your side at Bucky’s doubts, but said nothing.

“Why not?” Sam questioned, offering a small smile. Dean remained quiet, while Castiel tilted his head, seemingly curious.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you think you deserve to be saved?”

“Yeaaaah, let’s not go there,” you interjected when you noticed Bucky’s chest heaving and words in Russian spilling from his lips soundlessly. Steve sighed, but apparently assessed it was better to let Bucky deal with the facts alone first. “Thanks for confirming our suspicions.”

“Did I do something wrong?” Castiel asked, sounding adorably confused and guilty.

“No, Castiel. It is just a lot to take it.” Understatement of the fucking year. “Speaking of which – I have a question.”

“Shoot,” Dean encouraged you, but his eyes narrowed in suspicion as the corners of your lips twitched.

“When you told me about the, eh, lovely things that walk this world... you didn’t mention a scarecrow.”

“…huh?”

Their confusion seemed pretty real to you, but you had to admit you were probably being too vague. So you decided to ask a direct question.

“Alright, sorry. This might sound stupid, but… there was this series of books Jarvis found online? I wouldn’t think much of it, except the characters are named Sam and Dean, they do hunt monsters and if I’m being honest, they definitely do act like you. So I just thought… you know. Stranger things happened…“

During your ramble, the friendly faces of the brothers gradually twisted into a disgusted grimace and you had your answer, much to your astonishment.

“I swear, Sam, I’m going to murder Becky. I’m going to kill her and kill her dead,” Dean sputtered and Sam just closed his eyes, his lips a thin line. “I can’t believe you almost married-“

Wait, what? That sounded even more interesting that the books! Though kinda private. Then again, the books described Winchesters’ lives in awful detail as far as you knew. And ended when Dean literally went to hell, so…

“How much of that thing you read?” Sam asked tiredly, his expression screaming annoyance.

You shrugged. “Not much. Kinda changes the experience when you have a good reason to believe it’s all true. Clint’s hooked, though,” you admitted, hoping it wasn’t showing how much you were enjoying the teasing.

On one hand, this was hilarious. On the other, well…

“Did you sell your story to the writer?” you pried, simply out of curiosity. No judgement there; they had enough shit in their lives as it was, being short on money was not helping, so why not use what they got.

“No!” Sam blurted out too eagerly, then cleared his throat. “No. But you’re going to like this. Carver Edlund is a penname. I give you one guess on what his ‘real’ name is.”

You squinted at the screen, not following why Sam made the air quotes.

“No clue...?”

“Chuck Shirley,” Dean announced, grinning, somehow managing to balance smugness and annoyance on his face.

“Huh?”

“Wait—Chuck? Why do I think this isn’t a coincidence?” Steve stepped in, which caused your head to snap at him.

Surely, he wasn’t implying that-

“Oh yeah. It’s exactly what you think,” Dean assured you, finishing his burger while you and Steve remained silent, simply at loss of words. What…? “You know, when people say God works in mysterious ways, they have no friggin’ idea,” he added resolutely, wiping his mouth, balling his napkin and throwing it direction of what you assumed was a trashcan; judging by the disappointed frown on his face and the hands thrown up by Sam, he missed.

So. God was a writer.

God went by a penname, writing about Sam’s and Dean’s lives to make his living at some point.

It actually made sense; this whole thing, the grand scheme you were thinking about earlier, it sounded awfully like a plot of a freaking novel. No, scratch that, not a novel – an epos about Steve’s life, with features of a soap-opera. You did not enjoy being one of the characters, but apparently you had no choice.

There was literally nothing that would surprise you at this point. Seriously.

“Great. I don’t think I actually wanted to know that,” you stated, shaking off your thoughts. “Anyway. How is your week going so far?”

“Wonderfully. We ran into Rowena again,” Sam announced, obviously happy to change the topic. “Well, I called her. Dean lost his memory.”

Dean what?!

“Because of a spell!”

“Well, yeah. Doesn’t change the fact you called a lamp a light stick,” Sam mocked him, but you could see the relief in his features when he was able to do that. Because that meant Dean was okay. After all, you were talking to him and he appeared as always; with no manners, grinning, bickering with Sam and with all the knowledge of the hunting world he needed.

Your eyebrows rose anyway. A light stick?

“Dude! It’s a stick that produces light,” Dean exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air animatedly. “I was still a genius.”

That made you smile; hundred percent Dean. Yeah, he was just fine, fully recovered.

“I’m sure you were, Dean. You okay now?”

“Yeah. The Wicked Witch actually used some of that soulmate magic to heal-“ Sam started and stopped when he saw Steve’s face – something you had no courage to look at, because you had kinda… you had been vague when it came what exactly the witch had done – mainly because you had very little knowledge of it. “-never mind. I guess he can just cross out ‘amnesia’ from his bucket list.”

“Mm. Not pleasant. Been there. Done that,” you mused, your expression no doubt as bitter and wry as you felt.

“Well, so did I,” Bucky supplied darkly, his first words since the big discovery of who had been his salvation.

Duh. Salvation. You really should start thinking about your choice of words. This was not funny at all.

“Me as well,” Castiel joined the club.

“I don’t think I have…”

“Maybe you just forgot,” Dean nudged Sam, offering a lopsided grin.

“Jerk.”

“Bitch.”

“Why are you insulting each other…?” Castiel demanded, confused, and you laughed when Dean rolled his eyes, waving at you in goodbye, signalling to leave them be so they could explain the angel how humans worked sometimes.

You obediently ended the call, chuckling. They would have to visit one day – you missed them, despite calling them on a regular basis.

You eyed the two supersoldiers keeping you company in the common room, wondering what to do next.

“Alright. Now that we established we all deserve to be saved,” you stated, glaring at Steve, because you were aware of him questioning his survival of ice too – rarely, but still – and at Bucky, the man who had been frozen, unfrozen and mind-controlled, took lives against his will and had his own life taken away only to be rescued and question his worth.

“I think we know what we need now. Ice-cream!” you called out, raising your arms above your head theatrically, earning a chuckle from Steve.

“You scream?” Bucky looked at you, pretending to be confused.

“She does. Why would you scream, doll?”

You rolled your eyes fondly. They were lovely pieces of work when they teamed up to troll anyone. You were happy for it though, mostly for Bucky who was still struggling to adjust to his new life.

“Yeah, okay, I get it. We all scream, okay? What I’m saying is that we all scream for some ‘I scream,’ now give me my cookie crisp or I’ll show what moves Natasha taught me.”

You were not kidding. Natasha had learned you some basics of self-defence; Steve’s request, supported by you wholeheartedly. And by Tony. And Ryan. And everyone, to be honest.

“You should leave your moves for Steve to show only, sugar.”

“Ah, screw you, Barnes!” you spitted back, rising to your feet, and stuck your tongue at him.

“Such language! And again, I really think you should hide your tongue and do that only with St-“

You grabbed Steve’s hand and pulled him towards the kitchen as Bucky’s snicker sounded behind you. You never even opened the freezer, parking your backside on the counter, tugging Steve for a kiss instead. He laughed at first, but reciprocated the affection, slowly melting into it.

“Your friend’s such a little shit,” you hissed, but giggled into his shoulder. You felt… full. Happy. Right. You didn’t want to think about grand schemes anymore. You wanted to live and you had every opportunity. You were not going to waste it.

“I know,” Steve hummed, his chest shaking with hushed laughter, and he kissed the top of your head, while he wrapped his arm around your waist to pull you closer, stepping between your legs.

“You got that from him.”

“I think it was the other way around.”

You huffed and looked up again, finding Steve’s brilliant eyes twinkling with mischief. It was as adorable as stimulating; he always had this look in his eyes when he was up to no good and it often resulted in it being very good for you, usually tangled in the sheets. Or pressed against a wall. Or a table. Couch. Counter…

You wrapped your fingers around his nape and he obediently gave up to the pressure, bowing his head to meet you lips.

“Doesn’t matter. Kiss me like you mean it,” you requested lowly and you knew, just knew, that he would never deny you, definitely not that.

“As you wish…”

You barely had time to truly sink into the kiss, a sweet and passionate dance of lips, teasing teeth and tongues when an exasperated voice of a man arriving to collect his ice-cream interrupted you.

“Guys! Come on! Not in the kitchen! We eat here!”

So would Steve, flashed through your mind, but you withdrew a fraction, Steve’s mouth having frozen on yours anyway.

“Shut your piehole and let me follow your own advice!” you called out.

“I hate you,” Bucky deadpanned and you sent him an air kiss, hopping off the counter to have another sweet treat instead. After all, it was ten in the morning and you were in the kitchen. You could talk Steve into taking a ‘nap’ later.

“And that’s exactly why they compare you to the grumpy cat memes,” you threw back at Bucky, basking in the mock-insulted face the poor supersoldier made. You had introduced him to the meme after Clint had mentioned it. It was glorious. And very fitting.

“Punk, get hold of your bratty gal!”

Steve just shook his head at the childish behaviour – both yours and Bucky’s – and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. A fraction of second later, he grinned.

“I was doing just that until you interrupted,” he pointed out while he was pulling out three spoons.

Your laughter and the slap of a high-five you exchanged with Steve was probably heard in the whole Tower.

You had no care in the world.

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S.R. masterlist

B.B.masterlist

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Just a silly fluffy thing maybe, but hey… I thought I could share... to fill the time till December meaning an Andy fic :)

Thank you for reading!

Also, the last instalment will be ‘What I’d Never Say and Do (If I Was in My Right Mind)’

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casualpunkkid · 3 years

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TUMBLR TAG GAME

Thanks to @catboykenobii for the tag

1. Why did you choose your username?

Back when I made this account, I wasn't really sure what I was gonna do with it or who I wanted to be percieved as, so I just let Tumblr choose a name for me, but I really like casualpunkkid

2. Any side blogs?

I used to have a side blog where I posted really lame content. I no longer have access to the page lmao. I think the url is bacteriahasbreastmilk

3. How long have you been on Tumblr?

Four years!! That's crazy!

4. Do you have a queue tag?

Nah, I couldn't care less :P

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

Originally, I made this blog because nobody else in my class had Tumblr and I thought it would be cool. This blog specifically was created because I wanted to be weird online, but to strangers instead of people who know me

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

It's that meme where the guy "And here's my review: Not gay enough." Except, it's the original and we get to see that he's talking about Interview with a Vampire.

7. Why did you choose your header?

It's a picture of Dan and Phile holding the communist flag while standing behind a very shocked looking man who's name on his Zoom screen is Weston. I don't know who Weston is, so if he's an important part of some fandom......

8. What's your post with the most notes?

My post with the most notes (original and not reblogged) is probably the one about Fall Out Boy fans saying Pete isn't black because he's 'whìtepassing' (which he isn't). It also goes into detail about my personal experience with racism as a mixed person. (I'm Native American and white European)

9. How many mutuals do you have?

Five and I love you all

10. How many followers do you have?

11. How many people do you follow?

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

I have made several, but none of them have ever gotten popular.

13. How often do you use Tumblr each day?

I usually check Tumblr in the morning before school, during lunch and at nighttime for a bit. It probably all adds up to about 2 hours.

14. Have you ever had a fight/argument with another blog?

Yes! Pretty much anytime I post anything that is a 'hot take' (remember that I'm an anarchist) I have someone in the replies trying to argue with me. If I think they're stupid, I block them. But sometimes I'll respond to them, if I think it's worth it.

15. How do you feel about 'you need to reblog this' posts?

There's a difference, for me at least, between awareness posts and chain mail. But sometimes even the activism posts go too far and mostly, they just make other people feel like shit.

16. Do you like tag games?

This is my first tag game. I don't usually make Tumblr posts this long, but I had fun! I am nervous about tagging other tho

(Please remember this is optional, you don't have to do this) I'd like to tag @honourablefool and @queer-lodgingss

#tumblr tag game

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inanawesomewave · 4 years

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FIRST THING I NOTICE IN A POTENTIAL PARTNER? THE AUDACITY.

Hi, me again, and today I’m here to talk to you about dismissive/avoidant attachment style. Get comfortable and steel yourself, because if you have this attachment style, I’m about to make you feel very seen, and this is only because I had to endure this recently when I was bored and idly doing online quizzes about my own brain because I might not be able to emote healthily, but I sure as heck can over-intellectualise the feelings I should be having whilst I’m distracting myself by doing online quizzes instead.

Attachment Theory was formulated and popularised in 1958 by psychoanalyst John Bowby, and supposes that the first attachments we make (with whoever our caregivers may be) will form the blueprint of the attachments we do or don’t form over the course of our adult lives. My therapist said to me that these attachments begin to be cemented into us when we are pre-verbal, and I thought - well that can’t be right, but sure enough before we can speak we are of course seeking attention and affection from our caregivers with smiling, crying, babbling, cooing, clinging, following etc, and how those behaviours have been responded to will tell us how we should or shouldn’t attempt to attach to others. It’s worth reading up on, if you’re interested in that kind of thing, and I recommend the Strange Situation Experiment in which attachment theory was explored in infants depending on how they responded to being with a parent, without a parent, with a stranger, and alone.

So when I was doing all these online quizzes, I learned a bunch about myself. Did you know I have lots of dark triad traits? That I might be a narcissist? That I am possibly a sociopath? I know, news to me too. I had to sit down. I also learned that if I were a tyrant I would be Col. Gaddafi, and that i have more masculine traits than feminine ones. I have an oral-aggressive personality type, and also: I have a dismissive/avoidant attachment style. And that’s what I want to talk about today, because if you’re reading this blog, you possibly either have it or you care about someone who does.

Dismissive/avoidant types typically grew up without a secure base of safety at home. We had to meet our own emotional needs because it was more reliable and less painful than repeated rejection from our caregiver, and we have disconnected from our own needs for closeness as a means to avoid the shame of feeling dependent on anyone but ourselves. I relate to this hugely, and now I know what my attachment style is, I can pinpoint exactly where I have gone wrong in my close relationships, and why I find it hard even now to really get close to anyone. So, what are some things a dismissive/avoidant person might do? I’ve made a list of mine, and I’ll talk you through some examples. I hope this will help you understand yourself, or the sociopath in your life who seems to be extremely stubborn when it comes to guarding their own love in a miserly way. No judgement: I am that miser.

I will undervalue the importance of anyone’s feelings but my own. I accept I have a complex emotional world, I just don’t find it very easy to access it, communicate it, or assume anyone else has it. Maybe this was because my mother was very cold and emotionally insincere, or maybe it’s because I was always told I was, but that’s the truth. Yes, it’s selfish, but it’s how I’ve always gone about things. Example: arguments in which I rant about my feelings being ignored or dismissed whilst, you guessed it, I refuse to address the emotions of the person who is currently being told how my emotions are being dismissed in quite a heavy-handed way. Not cool.

I have very little space in my emotional world, and I therefore expect perfection in that space. I live by a secret code of etiquettes and ethics that for some reason I have forgotten to tell anyone else about because I had thought for a long time that the way I thought was normal. I thought everyone had these standards that I have, but really they’ve been tricks and pitfalls that partners have fallen down. It’s never been intentional, I just think that things are done a proper way and a wrong way; acceptable or unacceptable. I didn’t realise this for a long time, but I am really good at enforcing what I believe is acceptable, in a wholly unacceptable way. This is why I nitpick and find faults in others, it’s a good way to keep someone at arm’s length.

I say I don’t want commitment whilst silently fully committing to someone without ever letting them know. I have refused to move in with a partner until I have had nowhere else to live and it was the only option left. I had a fiancee who proposed to me four times before he got a yes. I wanted to say yes the first time but I didn’t. Why? I didn’t want him to get too close. It felt like an invasion. Traditionally, when I enter a relationship, I’m the asshole who says, “look, it is what it is, yeah?”. I’ll talk about my disdain of marriage and cohabiting, and then I’ll casually move in and tell you it’s purely logistical. I will be with you for years, maybe a lifetime, and I’ll act completely like this all happened because of chance and circumstance. I will even believe this myself.

I don’t really want to share my feelings with you. I don’t know what they are, I don’t know how you’ll react, I don’t know how they’ll come out and I don’t know what you’ll do with them. It’s much easier and safer for me to keep it all in and then just blow up when you haven’t secretly guessed what they are. You had to guess because I couldn’t tell you, because I didn’t know. You think I’m disconnected from you? You should hear how disconnected I am from my own self.

I will dwell on the past instead of focussing on the future. The future hasn’t happened and I don’t know what it holds. The past is concrete; I have lived it and learned from it. Normally what I’ve learned (perhaps wrongly, because of our old friend confirmation bias) is that all my fears and suspicions are correct and nobody can be trusted. That’s solid, I can take that to the bank. I will very much live in the past where we were briefly unhappy instead of looking to a future where we could be endlessly in love because it feels unrealistic to me -- love feels unrealistic to me.

I’m much better at sexual closeness than emotional closeness. The sex will come first, then the feelings, perhaps. You wanna bone down? Nice. Me too. Do you have any fantasies you never explored before? I bet I know what they are, and I bet I’m into it because there’s a reason I sought you out. I could sense it. I want to never get out of bed, I want to do all of it all the time. For some reason it is much easier for me to feel extremely close and connected to you whilst we are having sex than it is moments later when you are lying next to me wanting to cuddle. I have a healthy relationship to sex, let me be clear -- I’ve always felt perfectly fulfilled in casual set-ups, even one-night-stands. Early on in relationships we’ll do it all. Our relationship will survive for a very long time if the sexual connection is good, even if the emotional one is a shit-show. This is a closeness I feel safe with. Find another time to tell me you love me. You probably don’t even mean it, is what I’m thinking. By this point I’ve fooled myself that you’re in some kind of sex-trance, that I’ve merely fucked you into a relationship you didn’t want to be in. So I’ll tell you that you’re free to leave. I’m told this is hurtful, because if you’ve developed feelings for me, I never saw that coming. I promise. In fact, when I’ve had my “first times” with people I know I might end up loving, I’ve had to be some level of drunk. Not blind drunk, but enough to ease my nerves. I can’t be sober in that environment, I need Dutch courage. And, once the sex disappears on any level, I’ll begin to pull away completely because after that, I begin to believe we are merely friends, and if we are merely friends, then what’s even the point?

I will sabotage a relationship when vulnerability is required of me. This one is quite standard and kind of explains itself. When I find I’m getting very close to someone, when talks need to be had, I make a lot of jokes and when the jokes run out or the person I’m having this intimacy with isn’t laughing, I’ll just dip out in any way I can, and it’s much easier for me to frame myself as the villain because then you’ll hate me and that’s a good job done -- if you hate me, you won’t want to get anywhere near me ever again. I’ll get drunk and say awful things, or I’ll stay out with my friends all night, or stop answering the phone. For this same reason, I don’t tend to love personal displays of affection because then I’m being vulnerable with you in front of everyone. Again, I don’t think any of this is warranted, and I’m not making excuses. I’m just explaining.

I am prone to pining after a partner I have already discarded and have inexplicably begun to idealise. Okay, this is a very hard one to write but I’m going to just write it and I’m going to give an explanation from a personal experience I had that I regret and do feel remorseful about. I used to date someone I fell in love with. He was the first person I’d ever really felt immediately attracted to, someone I could identify very quickly that I was in love with, and that hadn’t happened to me before. I had been in two very long, very serious relationships before him, with people I never felt especially close to. They were a fine example of what they describe as “parasitic lifestyle” in the DSM-V criteria for ASPD: it’s not that I didn’t care about them, but the benefits outweighed the costs - they gave me a place to live when I had nowhere to go and gave me the basic affection I craved. But they both felt like some kind of arrangement after not very long, and whilst I did initially care, I stopped caring, but didn’t leave. I had nowhere else to go so I played the part. It’s worth mentioning too that the first person turned out to be horribly abusive. Then this new man crashed into my life and he was everything I didn’t know I wanted. Our connection was immediate and he had very real, very sincere love for me that he had no issues whatsoever communicating. He’d write me poetry and songs, he was happy to slip into a submissive role completely consensually as I took the dominant role. On paper and in life, it was perfect. We broke up a few times and the first time was because... I can’t explain it. I was head over heels in love with him so one morning when we woke up together after a night of cuddling and talking and laughing, I asked him to leave and not come back. I feel pained about this on reflection, because I remember the look on his face. He left. He got drunk. He drunk-called me. His brother reached out to me. His friends started looking at me with contempt because I had hurt someone they really cared about just months after he told them how happily in love with someone he was with someone he felt was perfect for him, and after I had been making it known that I felt the same. I just told him to leave, and he did, and for whatever dumb reason, he came back. And we were happy again, for a time. He ended up sleeping with someone else after about a year of me doing everything to push him as far away from me as possible on an entirely subconscious level, because I really thought at the time that we were vibing really well. I know the night he did it, and it was the night I told him to leave me the fuck alone and never speak to me again after an argument that we were both raging through (I’m not going to pretend he wasn’t also without his demons, it’s why we were attracted to each-other, after all), the argument was specifically to do with my tendency to push him away after all he’d done for me. And he was right, completely. He’d done a lot for me. And for some reason, I had a massive problem with that. I had become suspicious to the point of paranoia, accusing him of all sorts. I remember telling him how stifled and suffocated I felt, I wanted to know why he was moving so fast (and was he? Really? No, not at all). So, after a long weekend of yelling and crying and frustration and “is this the end?” talks, it reached a peak and I told him to just get the fuck out of my face and stop with all this pressure and bullshit. He went out. He got blind drunk. He fucked someone else. And that still somehow came as a surprise to me, after all, the sex was non-stop, so what could we possibly have had to really worry about? But he had a point when he said I was talking fucking nonsense with all this talk of being stifled. Because when I ended up moving in with him, he gave me my own room because he understood my need for solitude. We would spend most nights together but sometimes I’d need to slope off to my own space, he was seemingly fine about it. When he drove me places I would sit in the passenger seat sometimes on the phone, sometimes just listening to my music with my earphones in. He understood. He said he knew I was an anxious person. I’d sit there ignoring him and occasionally letting him know I was still there with a smile and he’d smile back. Sometimes when we went out walking to the shop or whatever, I felt I had to walk a little bit in front or behind. Not because I didn’t want to be close to him, but I was falling so hard for him that I needed to protect myself via isolation and any desperate grabs for independence I could find. We argued a lot. I started most of those arguments, and sometimes when he fought with me out of sheer frustration, I saw this as petulance and dismissed it completely. When he did cheat, I felt heartboken, but weirdly vindicated in walking away. This was the break I needed from loving and being loved. We broke up for good this time, and what followed was two years of me and him sneaking around behind future partners’ backs to continue sleeping together. And here’s the kicker -- when we were no longer in a relationship and merely having affairs together, I had no issues whatsoever telling him how much I loved him and how much I wanted to be a positive influence in his life, help him through his own neuroses, hold his hand through his own mental health struggles, care for him and protect him. So long as we had this casual relationship, I could finally reveal to him how I felt. I ended up in a terrible relationship after him and I was much happier staying in that terrible relationship with someone who also was very avoidant (though he was also fearful, so had bouts of clinginess and neediness whereas I was more likely to run away). In fact, the person I ended up settling with was also high-key abusive, but so long as I had my ex to run to, I didn’t mind. I had my cake and ate it too -- I had the fucked up security of settling down with someone completely inappropriate, and the escape route of sleeping with someone I was absolutely crazy about. And whenever he, the real love in my life, asked me if we could start again, I was able to play my trump card, the thing that got me out of the commitment: you cheated on me. It was almost too perfect, that I had this perfect excuse to never get close to him again and, in doing so, I could be as close to him as I liked. He took this opportunity too, and we just went on being in love for another two years. We’d go away together, talk about our future, name our kids, plan the wedding we were never going to have. I proposed to him when I was dating someone else. He said he couldn’t take that offer if I wasn’t going to be with him (which is... extremely reasonable). I saw this as another vindication: aha! You just rejected me! I NEVER have to commit EVER AGAIN! And what did I do when everything went to the shit? I idealised him. I pined. My God, I lived in my memories. I never stopped thinking about him. I wrote a fucking book about how much I loved him and had it published. My biggest writing credit to date, dedicated to this one person. This weird bout of romanticism I suddenly had for someone I had spent years pushing away and, someone who inexplicably took this pushing away for what it was. He’d even say things to me like, “why are you so frightened of loving someone?”, “why won’t you just let me love you?”, “what happened to you?”, “what can I do to support you?”. He understood the small things, like the time he wanted to take me away for the weekend and said to me: “I’m just going to leave you in charge of planning where we go to eat for all the meals” because he knew I needed to have that control and he was fine with it, and when I was endlessly boring the hell out of him thinking out aloud about why this restaurant would be good but this one would be bad and this one doesn’t have a menu available online and this one is okay but it’s too far from the hotel and all of that relentless, constant meaningless babble revolving around ultimate control, he just laughed and said: “I’m being patient with you because I understand you”. And he did. And I loved that. And sure enough, I hated that. Time to do something unpredictable, probably. And the wily fucker always saw it coming. The burden of reciprocated understanding, love and patience, right? What a bother.

*heavy sigh*

And I hinged on this lost love for a long time. It felt like pain, it felt like a void. I felt like, with him gone, I might never love again. In my head we’d had this windswept romance that never faltered. I seemed to forget all about the non-stop arguments, I began to understand his infidelity, I excused it, I loved it, I loved him unconditionally once it had all crashed and burned to the ground. So then why did I love him this much after it was all over? So I could continue this cycle of dismissiveness and avoidance. If I was in love with the past, I’d never need to love anyone ever again or let anyone love me. I could resign myself to a lost history and refuse to get close on the grounds of being hung up with my emotional baggage. I used the disaster of that relationship to sabotage future attempts at closeness. I used him as the benchmark to how lovers in future should treat me -- with what, a masochistic acceptance of my push-and-pull approach? It’s terrible, and I hate it. But that’s how that went down. I think a lot about the love I gave to him in spades right before it all went away, and whilst I know in my heart he knew that I really did love him, I will never stop regretting that I didn’t just make it easier on us both. *** I know deep down that my mistrust and disdain for personal relationships, romantic or otherwise, is borne of a fear that I don’t truly believe my own needs are worthwhile or even real. I find myself doing it with friendships, I get close to someone and in my head I start finding fault with them, and I have to stop and ask myself: has this person really done anything that bad, or am I looking for excuses to just not like them? And why am I doing that? Is it because yet again I pride my solitude over anything else in the world? Because my inner monologue is always going crazy with thoughts such as: you don’t actually need anybody, where has needing anybody ever got you before? You’ve got to protect yourself, nobody else will do it for you. Keep some of yourself to yourself, it’s unwise to share who you are with anyone. If you get too involved you will end up disappointed. And, whilst we’re on it, why is this person demanding all my time and energy? What’s wrong with them? What’s their game? I don’t love me, so why do they? What do they want from me? And I know it’s because I was over-controlled and under-loved as a child, teenager, into adulthood, by my mother. She didn’t like me having friends or partners, would chide me for spending time with anyone but her, and whenever I loved anyone else (such as my father), she would go to great lengths to try and blacken that person’s name to me with lies and accusations, try to give me reasons that this person was in fact perverse, hateful, not to be trusted. I carried that into my adulthood, I let it control everything about me. It made me extremely suspicious of any intimacy and closeness and, just like my relationship to empathy, there is a large part of me that will always believe the expression of interpersonal love is some kind of scam designed to catch idiots like me out, and I must always be on my guard. For years I had a folder on my phone full of incriminating screenshots of conversations I’d had with those close to me, people I actually loved, because I never knew when I would need to hit back against them. I needed to have evidence that anyone who loved me was as my mother told me they were -- perverse, hateful, not to be trusted. I deleted that folder when I began therapy, and when I resume therapy again very soon, I have a new goal: I need to learn how to love people and let them love me. No pretending this time, no mask. Teach me how to actually do it. Because I cannot keep hurting the people I love just for loving me, or worse, because I love them. There is no goodness or acceptability to lashing out at those who love you, it’s abusive. It’s completely wrong. There’s no excuse good enough. But now I know why I do it, and I can go fuck myself if I think I’m passing this onto my children. I would never push them away or treat them as my mother did, but they still cannot learn from my example.

So, there it is. My dismissive/avoidant attachment style, and how it looks, and what it’s done. I hope this helps anyone with this attachment style understand themselves, and anyone who loves anyone with this attachment style to understand them -- not so you can put up with it, but so that you can just leave if you need to. After all, if someone is pushing and pushing for you to go, then we should not be surprised when you go. It’s what we’re aiming for.

#actually aspd #antisocial personality disorder #actually antisocial #antisocial tag #aspd tag #cluster b #attachment #psychology #therapy #abuse #neglect #trauma

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dvp95 · 4 years

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quiet on widow’s peak (13)

pairing: dan howell/phil lester, pj liguori/sophie newton/chris kendall rating: teen & up tags: paranormal investigator, mystery, online friendship, slow burn, strangers to lovers, nonbinary character, trans character, background poly, phil does some buzzfeed unsolved shit and dan is a fan word count: 4.3k (this chapter), 42.9k (total) summary: Phil’s got a list of paranormal experiences a mile long that he likes to share with the world. Abandoned buildings, cemeteries, and ghost stories have always called his name, and a particular fan of his has a really, really good ghost story.

read this chapter on ao3 or here!

Phil is herded out of the house before he can shower, style his hair, or put in his contacts. As soon as his clothes are finished drying, his parents are pushing him and all of his bags out the door.

“We’ve got someone coming to see the house,” his mum had explained in that half-frantic voice he associates with company arriving. “You’ve got somewhere to be, haven’t you?”

He doesn’t have the gumption to explain that he’s still got hours before he has to be anywhere. Instead, Phil just hoists his bags higher on his shoulders and sets off for the bus stop. The wind isn’t bad today, thank goodness for small mercies, but it still isn’t pleasant to be outside in November. He pushes his floppy, unwashed hair off his forehead and reluctantly sends Dan a message.

It’s still pretty early and Dan might be in class by now, so he doesn’t expect an immediate response. He’s halfway through a Buzzfeed article and leaning against the shaky bus window by the time his phone buzzes.

im omw from class now just meet me at my place

An address follows, close enough to the coffee shop and the Wilkins place for Phil to feel comfortable finding it. He’s not sure how comfortable he is with being in such a small, private place with Dan before spending most of the night with them. He wonders if his brewing feelings and abject confusion surrounding them will be obvious.

Phil bites his lip and taps away from the article. He’s not sure where to start, but he thinks it’s about time that he started looking into gender stuff. He’s lived with PJ for almost two years and been friends with him for longer, but this isn’t something they tend to talk about. Technically, he hadn’t even been told, he’d just picked up on it from conversations around the old Brighton house. PJ isn’t in the closet, but he seems to have the same attitude about his gender identity that Phil has about his sexual identity - it isn’t anyone’s business unless they’re actively pursuing him.

This isn’t about PJ, though. Phil can’t pretend like these bewildered Google searches are in any way an attempt to understand his friend better. This is about Dan.

“Dan?”

The girl looks confused enough that Phil thinks he’s gotten the wrong flat for a horrified moment, but then her brow uncreases and she laughs.

“Oh, duh. Sorry, she doesn’t have many people coming to visit.” She waves Phil inside and eyes his bags. “Especially not many that look like they’re moving in. You planning on staying long, mate?”

“Just the night,” Phil says, more or less honestly. His brain is still stuck on the new pronoun. He knows that Dan is fine with any pronouns, and that includes feminine ones, it just feels strange to have someone use the opposite of what most people might assume. “Er, my parents are selling their place and needed my junk out of the way.”

She nods and gestures deeper into the flat. It doesn’t have as many doors as the Brighton house that Phil shares with a rugby team’s worth of people, but it’s still enough to overwhelm him a bit. Seemingly in response to whatever panicked expression finds its way to Phil’s face, the girl laughs. “Winnie’s room is at the end of the hall,” she says. “Her name’s on the door, you can’t miss it.”

“Her name being Winnie,” Phil says slowly.

“That’s what she wants us to call her,” the girl says. There’s an edge to her voice now, a sort of protectiveness that Phil doesn’t know how to respond to.

Phil gives her an uncertain sort of smile and heads down the hallway. The common areas are surprisingly tidy for a student flat, but he still doesn’t feel comfortable there. He finds himself in front of a dark wooden door with a Winnie the Pooh poster stuck to it. It’s not exactly a nameplate, but Phil understands why their flatmate said that.

He knocks lightly, not wanting to disturb the other people who live here and might still be asleep. It’s barely past noon, after all, and Phil remembers what it was like to be a student. Hell, he doesn’t really have a proper sleep schedule now.

“Come in!”

Dan’s room is darker than the rest of the flat, and Phil has to let his eyes adjust for a moment as the door closes behind him. There are blackout curtains over the single window and fairy lights draped over every possible surface, giving the whole place a soft vibe. Phil doesn’t see Dan at first, but then he realises that they’re on the floor with -

“Is that a weasel?” Phil asks without bothering to say hello, dropping his bags carefully. The last thing he wants to do is scare the creature that’s scampering all over Dan’s shoulders and arms.

“Excuse me,” Dan laughs. They hold out the animal for inspection, and Phil joins them on the floor. “This is Tofu, he’s a ferret.”

“Hello, Tofu,” says Phil. He reaches out to gently take the ferret’s paw between his thumb and finger, and he pretends like they’re shaking hands. Dan laughs again, bright and happy, and Phil decides that he really likes seeing Dan in their comfort zone. “It’s very nice to meet you! I’m Phil.”

Tofu makes a squeaking sort of noise and wiggles out of Dan’s hands to roll around on the carpet.

“He’s kind of an idiot,” Dan says fondly. “Pixel is the smart one in this family, but she’s sleeping.”

Phil’s eyes follow Dan’s vague gesture to a surprisingly large, multi-level enclosure. There’s another ferret curled up in there, and Phil assumes that’s Pixel. “Exactly how many weasels do you have?”

“Just the two,” says Dan. They’re smiling so wide that Phil can’t bring himself to look away. Their lips are a dark shade of red, or maybe burgundy, but it’s hard to tell in the low lighting. The dark lines around their eyes are even more shadowed with it, though, and it’s an entrancing sort of effect. “Originally it was just the one, but she got so lonely. I should have gotten an introverted animal, I guess, if I didn’t want multiple, but I didn’t mind. Pixel wanted a buddy, so. Pixel got a buddy.”

“I think even introverts need buddies sometimes,” says Phil.

He’s suddenly so self-conscious about being here in his current state. He’s wearing his trusty denim on denim, which he knows suits him fine, but he’s also got his clunky glasses and can’t remember if he put deodorant on or not. Dan, on the other hand, looks as stunning as always.

That gets even more obvious as they lounge out a bit, uncrossing and stretching their long legs. Their leggings are tight and translucent enough that Phil might find them indecent if there weren’t a short, swishy skirt covering the important bits. When Dan stretches their arms out, too, their unbuttoned flannel falls further open and shows off the cropped band tee underneath.

Most of Dan’s body is covered, really. Only their hands and neck and navel are out, but that’s enough to make Phil’s brain short-circuit. Their hands are distractingly big, but still so gentle when they pick Tofu back up; their neck is long and ends in either a sharp clavicle or a soft, rounded jawline; their tummy is soft like the rest of them and there’s a simple barbell piercing through their belly button that Phil has to force himself to look away from.

“Have you talked to your friends about us going back?” Dan asks, seemingly oblivious to the way Phil is taking them in from head to toe.

“What?” Phil bleats, and then his brain catches up to the conversation before Dan can repeat themself. “Oh, yeah. I texted them about it, and they’re a bit worried, but they’re glad you’re coming along. They were pretty nervous about me doing this alone.”

“PJ said you tend to do stupid shit,” Dan says bluntly. Tofu is climbing up their arms and biting at their hair, but they don’t even react.

“When did PJ say that?”

Dan’s lips curve into a smile. “When he drove me home. We talked about you.”

Normally, a statement like that would make Phil anxious. He still feels it, a bit, that creeping sense of frustration and nervousness that he associates with mild anxiety, but it’s more dull than it would be if Dan wasn’t smiling at him so softly. Something about it makes Phil certain that he’d get an honest answer if he asked what they all said about him.

That certainty and budding trust are enough to keep his loud anxiety at bay, and Phil finds that he doesn’t feel the need to ask.

Instead, he looks around Dan’s room some more. Pixel is still napping soundly, and Phil doesn’t blame her - the room is so quiet and dim and full of pleasing scents from the candles on Dan’s nightstand, Phil can easily imagine curling up somewhere soft in here and nodding off.

The furniture itself is crappy in the way that most students have to deal with, but Dan seems to have an eye for design that Phil has never had. Sure, there’s no bed frame to hold Dan’s mattress, but their duvet matches the monochrome colour scheme of the posters and paintings on the walls, and their pillows look welcoming surrounded by a small collection of stuffed animals. Their desk is organized, but their closet is open and spilling clothes onto the floor a bit. Phil wonders if that’s something Dan had planned on fixing before he got here, or if Dan doesn’t mind having their dresses and jeans and boots on display.

There’s barely any colour at all, really, but it doesn’t feel depressing like Phil would have thought it might.

That’s not exactly true. There’s some colour.

Phil must be looking at the flag on the wall for too long, because Dan makes a humming sort of noise and breaks the comfortable quiet. “I know it’s a bit tacky,” they say, “and it doesn’t match, but… I dunno. I wasn’t able to be out until I got to uni, and I might have gone a bit nuts with it.”

“Yeah,” says Phil. His throat is a bit dry. “I can understand that.”

“It makes me feel safe,” says Dan. Phil turns to look at them again, but he regrets it as soon as he sees the genuine emotion in Dan’s wide eyes. He isn’t good with that. “Like. Knowing I can have it hung here, that I can be open with people without them being upset with me or something. I don’t think the flag itself makes me feel safe? But maybe that’s not true, either. Maybe embracing that part of myself helped me embrace the community as a whole. I haven’t done Pride yet or anything. Maybe next year. But - safety. Comfort. Y’know?”

“I do,” Phil says quietly. “I do know.”

Dan’s eyes go sharp. Phil hasn’t seen them do that before, and it’s unnerving how much it feels like his very soul is under scrutiny. He wants to squirm away from that feeling, doesn’t want any part of himself under a microscope, but he doesn’t want to run like he might normally.

There’s another moment of quiet, where Dan looks at Phil and Phil doesn’t look away, but of course Phil is the first to break.

“Which of those is your favourite?” he asks instead of saying the words he knows Dan is waiting for. He doesn’t want to run, but that doesn’t mean he needs to be more forthcoming. At Dan’s furrowed brow, Phil gestures to the bookshelf. Dan has a lot of books and movies and boxsets and textbooks, more than Phil can take in all at once. “The, uh, the anime. My favourite’s Fullmetal Alchemist. Er, Brotherhood, not the first one, but both are good.”

For a second, it doesn’t seem like Dan is going to allow him to change the subject so easily. But then Tofu bites at their ear and they’re both giggling, the intensity of the moment slinking off to make way for casual conversation.

Talking to Dan is easier than talking to some people that Phil has known for years. They put on a show that they’ve both seen and enjoy and they chat the whole time. Phil points out camera and editing choices that Dan hadn’t put much thought to before, and Dan rambles about theories they’d seen on Reddit for so long that Pixel has become Phil’s best friend by the end of it. Dan makes food at some point, their brief absence allowing Phil to look more carefully at the titles on their shelves. They have even more to talk about when Dan gets back, because Phil has a lot of opinions on some of the quote-unquote ‘classics’ that Dan reads and Dan has some opinions on Phil picking the cheese off his sandwich. Phil almost forgets that he’s here for a specific reason, that they aren’t just friends hanging out, until Dan brings out their Polaroid and starts asking questions about what to expect on the haunt.

Phil kind of wishes they could just stay here.

Before they left, PJ, Sophie, and Chris had all drawn several Sharpie sigils on a thin piece of scrap fabric and insisted that Phil tie it around his wrist or something. He takes it out of his pocket as he and Dan approach the house.

“Here,” he says, pulling them to a stop and rolling their sleeve up a bit. He ignores their big doe eyes and wraps it around their knobby wrist a couple of times. “Is that too tight?”

“No,” says Dan. They stay still while Phil ties it, and then they raise their hand to inspect it.

“It’s from the gang,” says Phil. “I know it seems like the sigils didn’t help last time, but - well, I dunno. Maybe they did help and it was going to be a lot worse without them. Or maybe they just rubbed off our skin too quickly. But, y’know, I know you don’t believe in this stuff, it just… it makes us feel better. I thought it would be a good placebo for you if nothing else.”

Dan touches the fabric and then smiles, looking for all the world like Phil has given them something precious.

“Thank you,” they say, their voice altogether too sincere for Phil to respond to without some major awkwardness. “What about you?”

“Oh, I’m already wearing my thing,” Phil lies. “C’mon, let’s get inside.”

The thing is, Phil figures Dan is the one who needs protecting from whatever is going on in the Wilkins place. They’re the one who got attacked last time, while Phil only dealt with flickering lights and the feeling of being watched. The last thing he needs is for Dan to insist on coming along again only to get themself hurt again.

He’s not sure if Dan believes him or not, but it doesn’t matter. Phil is already shouldering the back door open. He could climb through the window again with a boost from Dan, but he doesn’t think he has enough upper-body strength to pull Dan up after him.

The kitchen is as dark and dusty as ever, but that smothering, creeping feeling of eyes in the walls isn’t present. Phil stands still for a few seconds, waiting for it to wash over him again, but in the end he’s in the same place he figured he’d be from the beginning - listening to the creaking sounds of a house with absolutely nothing supernatural about it. He’s weirdly disappointed, but he imagines that Dan must be relieved.

He turns to Dan to see what they think, but their eyes are just as wide as they’d been the last time.

“Hey,” Phil says, quiet so as not to disturb the dust. “You feel something?”

“No,” Dan admits. They move closer to Phil, twisting their fingers into the cuff of his jacket and holding tight. It’s sort of sweet how they think he might leave them alone in this house, but it’s also somewhat of a nuisance to have a large person attached to him while he’s trying to move quietly.

“Then what’s wrong? Do you need to leave?”

Dan shakes their head. Their teeth dig into their dark bottom lip, and even though they reapplied their lip product before leaving the house, it still ends up on their teeth a little bit. Phil isn’t sure if he’s supposed to point it out or not. “I don’t need to leave or anything, it’s fine. I’m fine. Coming with you was the whole point. I just don’t… okay. Promise not to laugh at me?”

“I think I promise,” says Phil. He gives Dan a reassuring little smile. “But if you break into song and dance or something I reserve the right to change my mind.”

“Shut up,” Dan says, but they’re giggling. “No, I just… I just don’t like the dark, okay?”

It clearly takes something out of Dan to admit that. Phil shifts his hand so he can squeeze Dan’s. “Nobody really likes the dark,” Phil says. “I mean, it’s kind of my job, so I’m used to it, but I wouldn’t mind being somewhere brightly-lit and clean instead.”

“Thanks.” Dan’s cheeks look a bit darker, but that might just be the low lighting. “You can lead the way.”

Nothing happens.

There are spiders and dark corners and once or twice a loud noise from outside makes Dan jump and grab at his hand again, but Phil never feels like anything more is going to happen. The walls don’t have anything behind them except maybe rats, and even the attic simply makes Phil sneeze.

It’s frustrating. It’s almost worse than the night that he put his friends in danger, because at least then he knew that he could have a chance at a decent video. Now, there’s nothing to record.

Phil finds himself wishing for a flickering light or a quick shadow. He wants something, anything, to make him feel like he’s doing something productive with his life.

Instead, he just feels like he’s wading deeper into the confusion and shadows of his own future. He doesn’t know where he’s going to go if he can’t keep going back to the darkness of abandoned houses and old cemeteries. He went to uni, sure, but he hasn’t had a ‘real’ job in his life. Unless a month at the stationery store counts. He’s pretty sure it doesn’t. He wouldn’t even know where to begin with figuring out what he ought to be doing with his life if he isn’t chasing ghosts, but he’s not having fun with this anymore.

He’s twenty-six. It’s not old, he’s not old. He’s got plenty of time to figure his life out.

But if he’s spent the last decade wasting all his free time on something that isn’t enjoyable anymore, then he doesn’t know if he’s going to be able to forgive himself.

Dan is in his personal space again, pressing close to avoid the encroaching darkness, and they smell like… lavender. Phil remembers spice and mint from them, and he wonders if they’re wearing some kind of perfume today. It’s such a feminine scent that it’s hard for him to wrap his mind around the fact that he wants.

Further and further into the waters he goes. He doesn’t know what comes next for any of it, and it’s terrifying.

“We could stay all night again,” Phil is protesting, even as Dan frogmarches him down the back steps. “I know we didn’t find anything, but maybe it only works when you’re trying to sleep over? I could -”

“You’ll do nothing,” says Dan. “We are both going home, and I’m seeing you onto the bus so you don’t sneak back without me.”

Phil wants to object, but Dan tightens their grip on his arms like they know exactly what he’s going to say. Besides, it would probably be a lie. Phil is stressed and frustrated and in over his head, and if he could just get one clip or photo of this thing, then maybe everything will be okay. Maybe he can keep doing this after all.

He gently detangles himself from Dan and sighs, hoisting his backpack up. “Fucking… fine.”

“Fucking fine,” Dan repeats, their lips twitching.

“Maybe the sigils worked too well,” says Phil. He keeps his tone level so that Dan won’t be able to tell that he’s joking right away, but Dan shoves at his shoulder like they’re well aware of what he’s doing. “You know, I bet -”

“You’re annoying when you can’t do what you want, huh?” Dan interrupts. Their hands are shoved in their jacket pockets, but Phil wishes they weren’t. He wishes he could brush his hand against theirs as they walk and convince himself that it’s all an accident. “Bet that’s the baby brother in you.”

“No comment.”

The walk to the bus stop is quieter than the last time Dan walked him to it, but it's not uncomfortable. Phil can’t believe how much he cares about this person already. They’re friends, he’s pretty sure, and it’s impossible to deny how much this crush is starting to get to him. Still. It’s new, Dan is new, and Phil has to consider the possibility that the novelty is all he’s feeling.

It’s not. But he has to consider it, because Phil has to consider every possibility before he makes his mind up about anything.

“Hey,” Phil says, careful not to sound like he’s pushing.

“Hi,” says Dan. Phil isn’t looking at them, but he can hear a grin in their voice.

“I was just wondering,” says Phil. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me if it’s a sore spot or anything like that, but. Your flatmate said you were called Winnie. Obviously I know you go by Winnie online, but I didn’t know you did it, uh, outside of cyberspace.”

“Cyberspace,” Dan repeats like they can’t help themself. “Yeah, sometimes. I usually use it like a test.”

“A test?”

Dan hums. Phil wishes, again, that their hands weren’t trapped in the confines of their jacket. “For people I might get closer to. I ask my flatmates to call me something that’s clearly not masculine and see how they react and how often they slip up. Maybe it’s mean, I guess, since I don’t actually care one way or the other, but it’s a lot easier for me to open up to people who have already proven that they’re able to think of me outside of the Daniel box.”

“I can call you Winnie,” Phil offers. “If that’s what you want to be called. And I’m not a complete idiot, I’m sure I could remember to call you Dan when I’m bothering you at work.”

“Planning on bothering me at work some more?” Dan asks. They don’t wait for an answer. “No, I like Dan fine. They’re both fine. They just serve me different purposes, I guess, and I’m not bothered by either of them.”

“I don’t totally get it,” Phil admits. “But I’ll do whatever you want.”

“I know.”

Suddenly, Dan is tangling their long fingers with Phil's. It’s just for a second, long enough for the same sort of reassuring squeeze that Phil gave to them in the Wilkins place, but it makes Phil’s heart jump into his throat.

“You’re, like, overly considerate,” says Dan. They sound like they’re teasing - Phil hopes they’re teasing. He really, really doesn’t want to mess this up.

“I just think you should be able to, like, tell me if I do something wrong.”

Dan laughs. “You’re not getting it. That’s okay, you don’t have to get it. I will tell you if you do something wrong, I just have a really wide range of things I’m indifferent about before you get to the things that matter. Call me a boy or a girl or whatever, I don’t care. Try to imply that my favourite Pokémon is fucking Goldeen, on the other hand -”

They ramble all the way to the stop, and Phil finds himself feeling better despite the fruitless hours of wandering a dusty house.

“This is me,” Phil says as he sees headlights coming down the street towards them.

“Message me tomorrow,” Dan insists. For a moment, they’re both just standing there. Phil has no idea what he’s supposed to do in this situation. Surely a handshake would be weird, but would a hug be weirder? Should he just pat their shoulder, or is that absolutely the creepiest thing he could do? They had both waved, yesterday, so maybe that’s what he ought to do again. His eyes drift to Dan’s mouth. The product is still mostly there, but there are indents where their front teeth have been digging all night that show the natural colour of their lips.

That’s not an option, Phil reminds himself with a little shake. He’s about to keep overthinking it when Dan wraps their arms around him and says something that sounds like a goodnight. They smell good, and they feel good, and the only thing that gets Phil stepping back is the sound of a bus stopping next to them.

“Bye,” he says, quiet. Dan’s smile is almost enough to make him miss this bus and wait for the next one.

#words words words #quiet on widow's peak

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alaina-achilles · 4 years

Text

((practice challenge - all prompts included here:))

Dreams.

Dreams are a funny thing, right? As a kid, you have so many dreams, I’m gonna be this when I grow up, I’m gonna wear this when this happens…

But how many do those actually happen?

I always feel like I dream differently than other people. Well, not all dreams, but some particular ones. And when I have a dream that I feel so strongly about (usually they are things that I actually dreamed about during my sleep), I write it down, in my dreams notebook. And well, there were so many of them.

Okay, I’m getting distracted again. So, right now, I’m standing in the middle of my bedroom, screaming.

Because I have just graduated from college and I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing with. My. life!!

“Alaina?” Mila, my younger sister asks as she runs into my room and jumps onto my bed. “What happened? Who broke up?”

“The prince and Evie.” Another voice says and we both turn around to face our older sister.

“That’s old news, Lexi.” Mila drawls. “The Selection’s here already. Remind me again why aren’t you guys applying?”

Lexi rolls her eyes and pushes Mila to make space for herself on my bed.

“Well, back to the drama queen here. What happened?” Lexi asks, looking at me in confusion. Mila follows her gaze before they drop to the sheets of paper on my desk.

“What are those?” Mila asks in curiosity. She makes a move to take one of them, but I beat her to it by shoving them all into a messy pile.

“That.” I say as I shove them into a folder and slip it in between two books. “Is private.”

Well, they are actually job applications. I got a bit impulsive just now and flipped through my notebook of dreams, randomly selecting a few dreams, printed out the job application forms and filled them in.

“It’s not important.” I add as I see my sisters looking at me with narrowed eyes. “They were just weird random stuff that I did which I should’ve never done and I will throw them away tomorrow afternoon.”

“You can always be a teacher.” Lexi comments, knowing what I’m stressing about. “Mom likes her job a lot.”

“But I’m not Mom.” I point out as I flop onto the bed next to them. “I mean I love kids, but I just… I just can’t see myself being a teacher. Nor a lawyer like you.”

“I’m gonna be a psychologist. A therapist. A something related to psychology.” Mila replies happily. Sometimes I wish I was 13 as well. She turns around to face me. “And as a future psychologist, I think you should give writer another try. I mean you have published a book!!”

“But it’s not a best-seller. It’s only popular because it’s about a cliche bad boy story that many teenage girls like reading about.”

“That’s not true. I think there’s a lot of potential in your writing. You just need to have inspiration, write a good book and be famous.” Mila finishes with a smile.

“I think Mila’s got a point there. Just give it a go. One year. And if you aren’t writing a best-selling novel at the end of the year, just become a psychologist like Mila will be. You have the bachelor degree.” Lexi points out. I think about what my sisters said and decide they are right.

I’m gonna give writing another try.

----

“ALAINA LEXI MOM DAD COME NOW!” I hear Mila screaming from the bottom of the stairs. I put down my book in annoyance and go downstairs.

“What is it, honey?” Mom asks.

“THEY’RE GONNA ANNOUNCE THE SELECTION RESULTS!!!” Mila all but screams.

“Oooooh!” I cry. “I do wanna watch this! Dramaaa” I sing.

“I don’t know why you two are so excited for this! It’s not like any of us entered our name.” Lexi drawls, but sits down next to us on the couch while our parents sit down as well with an amused smile.

“I know many girls who did. I would like to see who’s gonna be on the tv screen for the next few months.” I explain, without looking away from the tv screen. The TV zooms to a closed up of the Prince who has a relaxed smile on his face that does not really reach his eyes. I don’t blame the guy though, it must be rough for him to jump from a supposedly stable relationship to well, 35 girls. Definitely glad I’m not the prince.

“Maybe it’ll be Delilah. She’s pretty and nice.” I comment.

“Or Faye. She’ll be quite the drama queen.” Lexi says.

“SHUSH!” Mila hisses. Lexi and I roll our eyes at each other and turn back to the screen.

“Miss Alaina Achilles of Atlin, Three.” The reporter announces.

Alain-

WAIT WHAT??

I vaguely hear my family screaming and questioning me, but I can’t hear anything except my heartbeat as I run into my room to check the folder that I meant to throw away a few afternoons ago but forgot.

It’s gone.

And then I scream.

Because, one of my dreams I made when I was six was to be in the Selection, to be a princess. And I thought it’d be fun to fill in the application a few days ago. BUT I NEVER MEANT TO SEND IT.

Then my eyes widen as I realize what must have happened.

“CAMILA DAISY ADRIANNA ACHILLES. I’M GOING TO STRANGLE YOU TO DEATH!” I yell as I run downstairs to kill my younger sister.

----

Four hours later. I’ve finally stopped screaming and attempting to murder my sister.

“How did you even do that, Mil? I thought you had to have your photo taken and everything?” Dad asks.

“Um… I kinda wrote a letter saying that Alaina isn’t feeling well and can’t make it to the applications and sent in a photo instead.” Mila explains in a small voice. “I swear I didn’t know they would allow that…”

“Wait…” I say suddenly. “If you sent out my application. SHIT MILA DID YOU SEND OUT ALL OF THOSE APPLICATIONS I FILLED OUT?”

“Language!” Mom cries but we all ignore her. It’s not like I ever swear anyways.

“Yeah… All six of them.” Mila admits in a quiet voice.

“AND THIS GETS EVEN BETTER!” I yell, throwing my arms into the air. “Do you know what those applications are? As an elf writing letters back to children for Santa Claus, and… and.. And… I don’t even want to rename the applications i filled out for. They were all crazy.” I mumble to myself. “Maybe the Selection is already the least craziest one.”

“See?” Mila says gleefully.

“Oh shut up, you little- I can’t even find any words to describe you. I’m not talking to you.” I yell in anger. With that I storm up the stairs into my room.

Oh no.

What has my little sister got me into?

----

By the time I am to leave Atlin, I am feeling slightly better about this whole thing. Thanks to Lexi and Dad. They convinced me that this will be a nice and unique experience and a change of scenery will probably give me more inspiration for my writing. And I finally get to be on a plane! I’ve never been on the plane before, not because we can’t afford it, but Mom has an extreme fear of flights. We usually went travelling in other means of transport.

My heart is pounding in my ears as I climb the stairs up to the plane. This is it. I’m going to be on a plane!

"Sorry if I'm bothering you, but I'm Sara Nguyen. I hope we can be plane buddies? And who knows maybe a permanent bud for the rest of the selection?" A voice says, interrupting my thoughts. I look up to see a girl smiling at me. She motions at my luggage. "Would you like a hand?"

My eyes widen as I realize she must be another selected. Wow, this is really happening, I’m really in the Selection. I quickly collect my thoughts and straighten my clothes to make sure it’s tidy. My parents have always taught us to be clean and tidy, especially in front of strangers.

“hi Sara! I’m Alaina Achilles! Sure I would love to!” I say to Sara with a bright smile. “and thanks for offering, but I think I got this!” I place the luggage to its place and sit down next to the empty spot next to Sara. I look at the two girls opposite to us, one is falling asleep and the other barely acknowledges us. Well, I guess not every Selected is nice. So I turn to Sara instead, she seems nice. “Have you ever been on a plane before?”

She tells me about the times she’s travelled and when she learns that this is my first time, she surprises me again by offering her hand for me to squeeze.

“I-“ l begin as I look at Sara’s hand hesitantly. “I mean thats very nice of you bu-“ the plane starts to move and my eyes start to widen and immediately reach forward to squeeze Sara’s hand. She is nice enough to pretend not to see my hesitation and just let me hold her hand while she talks me through the take off. I like this girl. I decide.

“Thanks. But you’re right, I’m glad I got on this plane! At least now I have a new friend?” I ask. I have never been alone without at least one of my sisters with me before and I know I will miss them very much.

"Just holler my name and I'll be there for anything. I've got tips for most things. If not I'll create one on the spot." Sara answers with a nod. I do a happy dance internally. "I think we are indeed friends. After all it would be rather awkward if two strangers held hands. Either way I'm glad we both get to be on the same flight." She proceeds to tell me about her favorite things about being on a plane and I look out the window and agree with her. The view is amazing! We chat more about the flying experience and being the writer I was, I tell her how lovely it’ll be to be able to write about this experience. My new friend immediately offers me her notebook, but I once again decline politely. I know once I start writing, I’ll ignore everything around me and I don’t want to do this to Sara and miss the opportunity to get to know her. So I just tell her that I’ll do it later and enjoy the moment now.

Sara asks me if I’ve ever written anything that she might’ve read. I hesitate as I thought of my published book. A few years ago, at 16, I wrote a cliche bad boy story named “the Bad Boy Ruined my Project” and published it online. Because it’s cliche and about bad boys, teenage girls immediately took a liking to it and two years later, I got a publishing offer. I was ecstatic and accepted it. Ever since then, my agent has been pushing me to write a new book. And that’s when it became complicated. I was 16 when I wrote that cliche book and at 18, I’ve matured and changed and honestly, my book wasn’t that well-written, it just suited the taste of what teenage girls wanted to read. I’ve tried telling this to my agent and she kept telling me that was bullshit and if I wanted to be a famous writer, I had to please my readers. This is one of the reasons why I decided to start thinking of pursuing another character. I want to write things that I want to write, not just things people want me to write about.

But at the end of the day, I am grateful for my book and its success. At least it got me noticed.

So I tell her about my published book and she tells me about her career. Sara is to take over her dad’s company. Sensing this isn’t her favorite topic to talk about, I change the topic and ask her about siblings.

We quickly get into a fun conversation about siblings and I can already tell we’re going to be the best of friends in the Selection. Hopefully.

And for a while, I feel like I’m home again as we laugh and joke about the Selection. About how dramatic it will be with 35 girls under the same roof, going after the prince. About how weird it will be to have a brother joining the selection! (Sara said her brother almost joined HAHA). We are enjoying our conversation so much that I don’t even notice we have landed.

"We're here," Sara breathes out as we both look out the window. I smile as I take in the surroundings around me. I’ve been here before during a long road trip, but the airport is totally new to me.

“It’s beautiful!” I exclaim. Then, I turn to face Sara and put out a pinky. “Okay before we get off, let’s make a pact. Let’s promise to let this selection ruin our budding friendship.”

"It honestly is. Last time I came here I was 13 years old." Sara replies with a shake of her head. She looks at me and smiles as she sticks her pinky out and links it with mine. "I promise that this selection will not ruin our friendship. You know you can call me by any nickname. I prefer them rather than Sara. My family call me bun."

And she manages to surprise me for the third time. Wow, a nickname. I can tell it’s not something she goes around letting people use.

I laugh and give her a hug. “Bun.” I say. “I love that. it’s so cute and so you!” We break away when one of the other girls clears her throat and tell us it’s time to go. I smile embarrassingly and roll my eyes at my new friend as we begin our journey to the palace. And because of Sara, I already feel a hundred times better about the selection. If all goes wrong, I know at least there will be one genuine friend who will go through all of this with me together.

"This is reserved for you. It's strange if someone else calls me that. So welcome to the Bun club." She says with a straight face but that didn't last long because she ends up giggling. She shakes her head as the other girls hurry us. "Well, let's see what is awaiting us." She smiles encouragingly at me.

I laugh at her words and nod. “Honored to be in the club.” I look at the other girls amusedly, as they check their makeup. “Let’s see!” I say as I pull my new friend along with me.

Sara nods as she links arms with me humming happily as we both get off the plane. "By any chance can I call you Al?" She pauses as she thinks about other nicknames. "Or Lai? Or Achi! Or do you already have a nickname you are comfortable with?”

I cock my head to the side and think about her question. I don’t really have a cute nickname or anything like hers.

“My sisters call me A.” I say with a giggle. “But Achi sounds so cool as well! Just call me either!” I add, like the sound of Achi.

"I'll call you, Achi then!" She replies with a grin. "It's my own personal nickname.”

“Achi.” I repeat quietly with a smile as I follow the guards escorting us.

Bun and Achi.

I like this combo.

----

Sara and I enter the palace together where we are immediately ushered into a huge room. People keep pushing me from stall to stall, asking me questions, but answering those questions themselves before I can even think of an answer. Luckily, they didn’t need to do too much to my hair and body as Mom always makes sure we are well um groomed. I only got my nails painted and fitted into a red dress. I’ve never seen myself as a red person, I’m usually more of baby pink, purple, white and dark colors. But I have to admit the red dress looks amazing.

I then proceeded to have an interview where I told them a bit about myself and then my makeover.

By the time, I finish the interview, I am so tired that all I want to do is go back to my room and read or talk to my sisters.

Oh wait, I’m still mad at Mila.

Oops.

====

((THANKS @itssara-oc ANA FOR THE WONDERFUL RP ♡ i love the connection between our two girls:))

#practice challenge #challenge #alaina #selection oc

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hrmphfft · 4 years

Text

controversial opinion time I guess but

hey gang? hey, gang. gang, hey. blaming your fans for them not reblogging your content enough (and saying that they’re Directly Responsible For Tumblr Dying) is an extremely passive aggressive, mean thing to do, and also completely ignores so many other reasons as to why engagement has changed on this site and posts don't circulate like they used to.

for one thing, whenever I see these posts, I rarely see the ops acknowledge the HUGE HIT to tumblr's userbase following the 2018 policy change/implementation of tumblr's terrible content filtering algorithm. tumblr lost roughly 1/3 of its engagement (https://mashable.com/article/tumblr-lost-a-third-of-its-users-after-porn-ban/) and countless content creators with it. some of them migrated to twitter and other sites, some of them seem to have straight-up vanished into thin air, and countless others lost their biggest or main userbase with barely any time to shift gears to something else. that's a huge, website-shaking change! but so often in these 'reblogs vs. likes' posts I don't see anyone acknowledging that and it makes me really upset!

you can't talk about the ways tumblr has undoubtedly changed these last few years and NOT address the nsfw ban! it's completely unfair to your fanbases to shift the blame of the biggest displacement of users the site has ever experienced on...the users who had no say in the policy change and reacted accordingly when the site started softbanning everyone, and filtering all sorts of tags from the search function (including important sfw ones, lest we forget The Entire Furry Fandom on tumblr discovering that basic-ass tags like #furry and #anthro were being blocked when the ban rolled around), and making uploading anything vaguely beige-colored a dice roll. tumblr still hasn't recovered from that, and unfortunately probably never will, not without some hail mary of policy changes and overhauls.

I've seen some pretty ageist shit regarding content engagement as well that tries to paint younger users as just Not Getting how tumblr functions vs. other social media sites like instagram and twitter, and on top of that just showcasing a really uncomfortable disconnect/animosity towards new users whose only crime is being younger than op and also more experienced with other social media platforms, it also is just. it's really unkind? it's super rude? how can you call your followers too clueless to know how reblogging works and then expect them to support your content via reblogging and not feel like you're insulting them until they give you the result you want?

moreover, lots of young/new tumblr users get the gist of tumblr's controls and get it very quickly! technology literacy is becoming more and more a part of everyday life for everyone, and if you really think that a teenager can't understand that reblogging puts a thing on their follower's dashboards, one of the main functionalities of the site (and also very similar to twitter, one of tumblr's main competitors), I really don't know what to say. sometimes people just straight-up don't want to reblog stuff to their blogs, and that's okay.

there's also a tendency to ignore the ways that blogging on tumblr has changed as its userbase has became more well-versed in its functions and, frankly, a portion of the userbase has grown up on this site. when I first started blogging on here, I was 17, I didn't use tags, I commented unrelated (and frankly sometimes really regrettably rude) replies directly onto artist's posts, and I basically just reblogged whatever I vaguely liked, and a lot of things I didn't totally get but thought Looked Cool/Funny so I reblogged anyways.

and that's fine, that's pretty par for the course of being young on the internet and doing whatever you want and having a good time (barring the rudeness, being respectful to people is the ideal), but as time went on my interests changed, my time spent online changed (I went from highschool to college to a full-time job that limits my time on social media), and I began engaging with tumblr's content differently. I made sideblogs for interests and content themes I didn't want on my main blog, I started liking stuff and then going back through my likes to reblog posts later, and generally speaking my number of posts a day dropped and I stopped being able to catch up on my dashboard every single day. and I'm sure my experience isn't unique for some other people on here.

a lot of the tumblr users I've known for a while just don't have the same level of intensity in fandoms like we did years back, not because of any malice or selfish, content-hogging intent, but because our priorities have changed. I definitely miss a lot of things about years past on tumblr when fandoms were booming and new Big Name Creators were cropping up all the time, and to be fair that's still happening on parts of the site if you know where to look! it's just different now. time has passed. people have changed!

that isn't to be defeatist and say that we can't show up for content we enjoy and reblog it, but instead that people can feel differently about stuff they used to adore, and be more particular about one thing or another they reblog, and straight-up miss stuff that they would have really liked but just didn't catch up on for a myriad of reasons. and that's also okay. engagement on tumblr is really, really tied up in personal preferences, and sometimes it feels like it does that more than most other social media sites. this is kind of the wild west of internet presences and everyone operates differently on here as a result.

and probably the most touchy point of all: no one is obligated to give you validation on the internet. no one. not even if they've read all of your fanfics you've worked really fucking hard on for forever and a day, or your comics that you've spent months, years, a lifetime researching and creating, or your beautifully, painstakingly timed and masked fan videos. they can absolutely consume any of these, and more, and they're still not obligated to reblog your work or promote you. it's not fair, yes, and it's completely understandable and super relatable to want recognition for the work you've done and the ways you've brightened other people's lives, but online most of your fans are still total strangers to you, and trying to control the behavior of total strangers because you’re owed their acknowledgement isn’t a healthy mindset to have.

and you can say that any fan of yours stops being a fan after they drop you for you lashing out at them for not unquestioningly giving you space on their blogs like you're owed, but being upset at being accused of bad behavior for what amounts to not wanting to reblog something this time around and changing your opinions based off of that is also a very understandable thing to do.

and that isn't because of any sort of innate cruelty, or pointed attack towards you. it's just because there is always a disconnect between the creator and the creation, and some people will never bridge that gap and engage with you more, or build a parasocial relationship with you, or seek out ways to support you. and plenty of others will do the exact opposite! it's a total dice roll because you're dealing with a lot more people than you realize scrolling past your content, and every person is different, and some of them don't fully understand how reblogs help a creator, and some of them do but just don't want that content on their feed, and none of them are inherently bad people for that.

I'm not saying creators have to be perfectly kind and civil and praise their fans all the time, but when you engage with your followers like it's a battle where you have to keep devising new ways to get them to share your content, it just comes across as super disingenuous, and people cop to that very fast.

it also, frankly, can make longtime fans who reblog your work regularly feel like their interest doesn't matter, and wasn't good enough, and that then it really is their fault that other people (other STRANGERS ON THE INTERNET) don't engage with your content the way you wanted them to. you don't owe them perfection, but that doesn't mean it isn't still an unkind thing to do.

so like. what can we do about this?

asking users to reblog your work is totally fine and can help! calls to action work more than nothing at all. it's possible to be respectful when asking people to reblog your work without also guilt-tripping them with "likes < reblogs" banners and passive aggressive tags/comments. generally speaking guilt is a really shitty motivational tool, and tends to breed more resentment than actual outcomes people want. like this post for example! I wouldn't have sat down and typed this all out if I didn't resent the hell out of being told I'm, personally, the reason tumblr is demonstrably not an ideal website for building a fanbase anymore. if I had that much power over this website I would have given the whole thing to the xkit team years ago and reveled in a functional website instead.

changing the way you post content might help! every site has its ideal posting days, times, and reasons for why some are ideal for one site and not another. doing a little research (https://sproutsocial.com/insights/best-times-to-post-on-social-media/) will yield some potentially helpful tips and tricks that might result in a post reaching more people. utilizing tumblr's search function is also important, and understanding the limits of the tag function (ie. only the first 5 tags of a post are used for tag searches) can help change one's habits to something a little more effective. this is why I tend to leave my tag babbling until after the main fandom/category tags on my posts, so that tumblr's jankass search has a better shot, haha

broadening your online presence can definitely help! this is by far the most terrifying option since it involves branching out onto other social media platforms, some of which really don't lend themselves to whatever fandom/content one produces, so like the other two above it's only a suggestion.

I keep coming back to twitter and instagram, but that's mainly because they're the two other powerhouses of social media right now, though admittedly they only really cater towards visual media (and mainly imagery, not longer video pieces), and they have their own weird quirks to learn and jank to deal with. but given how precarious tumblr's status has become in some ways, trying to build a presence on multiple sites means that you reach more people across the internet, and also means that if tumblr does yet another website-shattering policy change, your eggs aren't all in one basket.

of course these options aren't foolproof, and won't work for everyone in some cases or not at all for others, but my main point in all this is this: tumblr has irrevocably changed, its userbase has changed, and we are limited in the ways we can directly influence it, but there are still options. I'm by far not a social media expert, but then again none of the posts I've seen so far were made by social media experts either, so I honestly don't feel too bad for throwing my hat into the ring while we're all thrashing about in confusion

y'all aren't wrong that things have changed, but I'm begging you to have some compassion and to try not to turn the relationship between creators and consumers of content into a battleground, especially when a lot of the influences on these changes are things entirely outside of any of our's direct control.

also because it makes y'all sound exactly like this:

#long post #site engagement #a big long pissy rant because I am so goddamned tired y'all #especially because I can't escape these Hot Takes because none of them are tagged consistently #and new ones keep cropping up all the time #it's like whack-a-mole #every post I block sprouts another a few months later #tone doesn't carry through the internet very well but rest assured when I see shit like this #paired with people's screenshots of their like/reblog ratios #and it turning into a 'u think those notes are small check this out' party I get #really goddamned fed up with it #this is of course not comprehensive and mainly just me whingeing @ the whingeing but sometimes u just gotta

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wittyy-name · 5 years

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Hey, Wittyy, do you have any tips on planning a dnd campaign? Especially as a first timer. Advice? Lifehacks? Warnings? (to clarify first timer, i know a lot about dnd and even read some worldbuilding guides but I'm not sure if they're working for me, maybe you have a little different, unique approach to planning process?)

This ended up being a very long post about me rambling about my experience world building my first campaign, so I’m just gonna slap it under a cut lol

Idk how much advice I can give?? I’m running my first long term campaign and kinda just flying by the seat of my pants at this point. World building is a PAIN and it can be hella frustrating, but it’s also kinda rewarding?? And I have experience with it from writing stories that definitely helped.

I built a world from scratch, which is a first for our dnd group. We’ve done a campaign in Skyrim, and we’re also doing a campaign in the Witcher universe. Mine is the first where the players can’t just google world info, which I like a lot.

My campaign started with an idea of having a party of bards. And I wanted them to have a REASON to stay together. Not just the typical dnd “we’re together bc why not”. I wanted them to KNOW each other but still have secrets to hide?? So it wasn’t just strangers?? So THAT was my starting point. And I asked myself, how do I make that happen? So I had the idea that they all have to start bard level 1. They were in a band for a year together, but then they broke up. They haven’t seen each other in five years. ALL of them have gone through hell and back ((bc what’s dnd without tragic backstories??)). They’re level 4 now, and they got to multiclass into whatever they wanted to. So they’re forced back together through circumstance, and they’re stuck in this party of people they used to know but are now so different.

My goal for my group was simple: I wanted a story where every player feels like the main character. I wanted them to have their own secrets and quests and things to figure out and pursue. I wanted each and every person to feel like they’re leading the group. Everyone to feel important. So I had several brainstorming talks with each of my players. I figured out what they wanted to play, and ideas they had, and then we expanded on them and build up their characters together (bc it’s easier when you have a dm to build with you). Another goal I had was to give everyone a personal rp challenge. Which is unique to the player. It’s mean to help them build up some of their weaknesses and gently guide them out of their comfort zones.

So now I have six players with crazy unique and complicated backstories. They all have secrets and weird quirks. They all have goals to pursue and things to keep from the others. And most of them have aspects of their backstories that THEY dont’ even know. Missing memories, secret bloodlines, unknown curses. This is really important to ME. Since these are secrets even from the players, they get to learn surprising new things about their characters as the campaign goes on. Even THEY don’t know everything about themselves, and that’s exciting to them. It means more work for me as a dm, but it’s worth it for them.

This was an important factor for me in planning my campaign because my group plays online. With online dnd, it’s harder to keep engaged. When you’re not in person and you can’t feed off the energy, it can be easy to lose focus. I noticed that from previous campaigns, and I tried to come up with ways to help it. What I came up with was this: the best way to keep online players engaged is to make them invested in their characters. Simple, yeah? By having complex characters that they put so much into, they love those characters, and thus love playing them. By giving them an rp challenge specifically suited to them, it forces them to pay attention, to constantly be in the mind of their character so they can consider how that character would act and react at any given time. By giving them individual goals to pursue, they’re constantly trying to figure shit out. By keeping aspects of their characters unknown, it gives them a feeling of excited anticipation. All these things help keep them engaged and locked into their character’s minds, which makes the whole experience a lot of fun.

As for the WORLD, I kinda just... figured out an aesthetic that I thought was cool and tried to run with it?? I don’t remember how I got to this idea, but I thought the feywild was cool, so I said “what if something cataclysmic happened and the material plane and feywild are now mixed together and people have adapted to living with a constant fey presence?? And then one night I was almost asleep when I thought of SKY SHIPS and FLOATING ISLANDS. So I said “what if a lot of the material plane races raised sky cities to get away from the fey threat on the surface??” And so I had my aesthetic for the world, I just needed specifics.

I thought “well, if there were old kingdoms before the Cataclysm, how would they have been affected when the planes merged??” So coming up with an old political climate, and how things have changed since. How the surface and the sky cities function now. Where do all the races fit into this map? Into this world? The feywild and Material Plane are only two of the three mirror planes, how does this affect the Shadowfell? Okay, the shadowfell is starting to leak through the thin veil and we have pockets of shadow portals that are becoming worse and worse as the centuries go by.

I had the area where the Cataclysm happened, but what happened there? This was admittedly the hardest part, and I got a huge writers block here, but I figured it out. What society lived there. The magic they used. How shit went wrong and they merged the planes.

What gods exist in this world? Well, I picked a single pantheon in the dnd handbook and said “these are the gods” bc I didn’t want to incorporate ALL of them. But the idea of this pantheon was that there was no afterlife, which started play into ideas I had for the lost city that started the cataclysm. And it kinda all started to come together.

The whole time I was building the world and history, I kept my character’s backstories in mind. I wanted all of them to be important SOME HOW. All of their importance differs. But I wanted them all to be tied to big world big picture things SOMEHOW. So they could all feel chosen, in a way.

But the best part?? This is an open world campaign. There are things in the world that are happening, and they’ll happen with or without the party’s interference. But their interference can cause domino affects in world events. I didn’t want to set my party on ONE QUESTLINE. I wanted them to CHOOSE. So I slapped them down in a town, got them used to their characters, and now they’re out of the “starter zone” so to speak. They can choose where to go. What ideas to pursue. They all have driven backstories, so it’s interesting to see who kinda pushes theirs to the front of the agenda. And there is no Good and Evil. I wanted a whole world of gray area. So the party’s opinions of world events will probably change depending on who’s backstory they follow first. Who they meet first can shape how they think and what side they get on. Which is super exciting. The whole campaign is malleable and the party has free rein. In fact, they can choose to never interact with world events and just do small time fuckery quests. It’s all up to them. But shit will be happening and the world changing. And it’s exciting to see where they get to go.It’s a very character and roleplay driven campaign, which is what we all wanted. And seeing them so invested in characters is so nice. Seeing them love my world is great. And knowing what I have in store for them is exciting.

I know this isn’t so much TIPs as me just rambling about my experience, but maybe it’ll help??The best actual advice for building the world... come up with an aesthetic you want and the goal for your campaign. Those are your keystones. Now ask yourself why? How? Where? Who? You want a king to be insane? OKay, why? You want there to be a world that’s mostly water with ship travel? Okay, what’s the history? How have the people adapted to this world? How are cities constructed and what social constructs come about in a mostly ship/water based world?

I can give you some specific examples from my campaign about how I designed social constructs for different societies if you want, but I feel like I’ve rambled enough for one post lol. Good luck!

#wittyy replies #Anonymous

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delamd-blog · 5 years

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The Ultimate Guide to Adulting in the Philippines (My First Job Application)

Hello, this is the blog that no one asked for but I’m gonna write about it anyways lol So, months after graduating the board exam and applying for med schools, I was stuck at home with nothing to do. I couldn’t apply to the hospitals in my area because the training was for 6 months and if I got hired, I would have to sign a contract saying I would work for the hospital for 2 years. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Joke onli but I just couldn’t commit to such a long contract because I would be going to med school some time around August. So... what a great dilemma, right? After weeks of binge watching Netflix series and playing a bunch of games, I finally couldn’t take it anymore. I kid you not, I could feel my brain rotting away. I was so goddamn bored out of my mind that I decided to look for jobs.

Step 1: Writing a Resume and Realizing that You Have Nothing To Offer

I of course had to create a resume. It’s a good thing that when I was in college, the creator of jobs180.com had a talk in our college.He’s a really funny guy. So funny and convincing that he managed to convince me to sign up for his site lol Surprisingly thought it’s actually a good website because it create a professional looking resume and you get an online profile too. You can print your online resume into one page which contains your picture, description, educational attainment, licenses and certifications, seminars attended, skills, languages and character referrals. Literally all you need to do here is input your info and the site will arrange it into a professional looking resume so it removes so much hassle from your life. Plus, it functions like jobstreet wherein you get alerts for jobs that match your credentials. Just frequently check your email for alerts. I highly recommend this website. I wasn’t paid to say this btw but jobs180, if you’re reading this, hmu pls haha sponsor me daddies.

If you really wanna make your life difficult though, go ahead and make your own resume following the traditional standards set by your school or university and there are a lot of samples available in the internet which you could use as a guide.

Step 2: Realizing That Running Papers is Hard but the Government Requires It

So you’ve gone ahead and made a sick looking resume. You MUST think it’s time to look for a job and apply right? WRONG. Don’t do it yet, sis. Don’t be a pleb like me. Jobs will require you to have a bunch of things like NBI clearance, work permits, Philhealth, PAG-IBIG, SSS, TIN and credentials from your school like a diploma or transcript of records. So before you proceed with looking for a job and applying, I suggest you secure these documents first! Otherwise, after you get accepted at your job, you will be forced to cram all these requirements and you will be tired as fuck just like me! I was so dumb thinking I could get away with working and not having these things. I’m lucky that the company I applied for is very friendly to first timers and they were kind enough to give us a list of requirements for these things.

2.1 Get Yourself a Valid ID

Where to start? Well, sis, you need a valid government ID to get all these things done. How do you get that in the Philippines when the system requires you to have a government ID to claim another government ID?!!? Who the fuck designed this labyrinth of a life right? Fear not! I have a lifehack for you. Just go to your barangay and get a barangay clearance or go to your City Hall (even better if you go during the weekdays so there’s not a lot of people) and get a Cedula. These things don’t require a valid ID you just need to pay. These will serve as your valid IDs. But I really suggest that you get a Cedula because you will need this for other requirements. If you’re 18, you can get a driver’s license in LTO too. Plus, you can order a PSA birth certificate online and have it delivered to your house. Order more than one and immediately have it photocopied. You’re gonna need a lot of those. Always photocopy whatever IDs and important papers that you have. Keep 1 photocopy together with the original in a plastic envelope or plastic filing folder. It must be PLASTIC. Why? So that it’s waterproof. This is something that I learned the hard way. Again, sis, learn from my mistakes. Also, I suggest that you secure at least 2 valid IDs. Why? Because they need one valid ID to confirm the details of the other valid ID. I KNOW. STUPID RIGHT but yeah it needs to be done.

2.2 Next Valid ID: NBI Clearance

The good thing about this is it’s much easier to get this compared to back in the ol’ days. But you need to get this done before you get an actual job just in case you have the same name with a criminal in the Philippines. If you have the same name with a criminal, you will get a ‘HIT’ which will mean that your NBI clearance will get delayed. I was lucky that my name is so unique so I didn’t get a hit and I was able to process my NBI clearance in one day lol. To do this, just go to their website and register online. You have to set an appointment in their website. I suggest you do it in the morning so you can process other things in the afternoon that you might need. You must bring a valid ID as well as a birth certificate. You can pay them online through ebanking services but in my case my mom made me physically go to the bank. Remember to screenshot your reference number, their BDO account number and other details so you won’t get delayed at the bank. You don’t need to print your NBI registration form, but you need to screenshot your Reference number. Idk how it’s done in your NBI site but in my experience, I had to first have my bank deposit receipt authenticated then they gave me a queuing number. When my number got called, I did the biometrics then I presented my PRC ID and my birth certificate. They asked for my reference number so I showed the screenshot on my phone. Then I just waited near the releasing area to be called. Viola! I got my NBI clearance.

Important Tip: Don’t be a poo poo head. If you’re unsure of where to line up or what the next step is, ASK someone. Even the stranger next to you. I learned that Filipinos are actually polite and helpful if you’re going through the same shit. Kahit introvert ako, nagtanong tanong na ako sa mga katabi ko kasi naiinis ako mag-aksaya ng oras not knowing where to go. Plus, the quicker you get shit done, the sooner you can go home and rest, di ba? Motivation.

2.2. Philhealth, SSS, PAG-IBIG With Minimum Hassle? ask me how

Don’t be intimidated. These things can be done online! You just have to be very patient and fill out their online forms as soon as possible and as accurately as you can. I suggest you do Philhealth first coz (god forbid) what if you get sick and hospitalized from all the anxiety of job searching? Ya need Philhealth to cover for your sick ass. Don’t forget to print your MDR form just in case your employer asks for it. The website is kind of wonky. Once I logged out, I couldn’t log back in and recover my MDR so I had to manually fill it out haist. You can for this this through the bank too and then when you get the confirmation from Philhealth that they got your payment, bring the receipt to the nearest branch and get your ID! The whole process takes about 3 days. While it’s pending, apply for SSS and PAG-IBIG too. You have to do PAG-IBIG as soon as you can coz they process kind of slow. It takes approximately 3-4 days for you to get your PAG-IBIG number but at least you can text them to get an update about your application. When you apply for SSS online, they email you some forms. So print these forms ASAP and have them photocopied too. Once you have done this, congrats! You’re almost done!

Step 3: Looking For An Actual Job Without Experience and Realizing that All Jobs Need Experience

Wow, after going through all that trouble you now realize that there are no jobs out there for your field? All the salaries they offer are so low? Why the hell does everything require 2 years of experience?! And why are all the jobs so far away??? Sis, I feel you! I was so stressed out looking for a job online too! I really did not know where to start. So here’s what I did. I signed up for all the common job hunting websites coz my logic was, surely, these companies wouldn’t post ads in these websites if they weren’t actually actively looking. Right? Well, again.. I was WRONG. Some companies take so long to reply so you have to be very patient. Really, really patient. Don’t be sad if a company doesn’t reply immediately just think that maybe their HR is swamped or something. So for me, I signed up for Jobstreet, Glassdoor, Upwork, LinkedIn and Fastjobs. The good thing is that these things can be downloaded on your phone and you can turn on notifications for them so they will alert you for possible job opportunities. But for me, Indeed.com is where I found my job. This isn’t a sponsored post but hello websites, if you’re reading this, sponsor me daddies. Just narrow your search by entering your desired job and current location in the search bar and then apply to anything and everything. Dont be afraid of rejection! What’s the worst that can happen? NOTHING. And the best case scenario? That you get an interview or the employer replies! Every negative thing is just water off the duck’s back. Go lang ng go sis! Di lalapit sa you ang trabaho.

Step 4: Going to your first job application and Interview!

Let’s just assume that you got an interview or a call. (Keep your phone close by at all times and answer calls from unknown numbers politely because chances are, it’s one of the jobs you applied for calling) Dress for success if you’re gonna go for an interview. I dressed up in a corporate attire even if it wasn’t require coz I was trained by my Uni to do it that way eh. Besides, you will feel more formal and more serious if you’re dressed for the job talaga. For the interview, speak slowly and clearly. If you’re not confident, well, FAKE your confidence. SMILE and don’t be afraid to ask your employer questions. For the job i was applying for, we even had an online test which took HOURS. Lol. They were testing our english, active listening and typing skills. It’s a real good thing that I am a fast typer coz I scored the highest in their typing test. They require only 25wpm but I can type around 60 wahahahaha.

Tip: I suggest you go sit beside someone who you know is already done with the interview and ask him/her how it went. Then you can prepare your answers ahead of time. They usually ask the same set of questions coz who the hell has time to come up with personalized questions for every applicant. Sis, ako talaga introvert ako eh pero wala chinika ko pa rin yung mga katabi ko. hahaha ano namang masama sa pagtatanong? Eh pare-pareho naman kayo ng pinagdadaanan, right?

Step 5: Submitting All Their Requirements and Contract Signing

Well, you’did it, sis! You’ve gone and landed yourself a job! Time to get moolah! But wait, there’s more....hold your horses for one minute. Your employer is probably gonna require a few things still so be prepared.

Make sure that during this time, you are healthy and fit coz they’re probably gonna make you undergo a physical exam. For my job, the company shouldered my PE so haha I paid nothing. I had to get examined by a doctor wherein she did the routine things like a breast exam and reviewing my medical history with me. Also, I had to get an Xray, CBC, Urinalysis and Drug testing done so make sure that you drink lots of water before going to the hospital so you can pee easier. And for urinalysis don’t catch the first drops of urine, rather, catch the midstream so that the sample is cleaner and you won’t be positive for pus cells or bacteria. And don’t do the urinalysis if you have your menstruation because you will automatically be positive for RBCs and that’s a big no no. Wait for your menstruation to be over before you do this test.

Next, you’re probably gonna have to get a work permit coz in the city where your job is located. And how do you get this??? Well, just go to the city hall, pay for the work permit at the treasury department and then get your work permit at the work permit station (just ask the guard where this is located). Don’t forget to bring your cedula coz this is what they require to get a work permit.

After completing all this shit, you can submit your requirements to your employer and sign the contract! Just make sure to read it carefully. Viola! Job well done to all of us!

Now the hard part starts... training and actually going to work.

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jivingcryingboy · 5 years

Text

20/1

Got back from LA. Was surreal. Nothing really crazy happened, it was more seeing how a different type of people lived. As far as the music went, that was really cool.

I never really explained it properly. The label I’m with are planning to get ‘influencers’ to get on board with the company in terms of getting their name on the social media world. If an online personality tells their many followers to download their app...well it makes sense really. I got a phone call the other day saying they wanted to fly me down to LA in for a night in a mansion streamed live on their app. This night would be hosted by an influencer called Kristen Hancher who has 5.5 million followers. I think she got big on a music app called Musical.ly which is now called Tik Tok. I’m beginning to feel old. Basically you mime along to your favourite songs whilst videoing yourself with quirky visuals. She has a massive audience now and a little mention of the company, as I said, can be huge. If I recalled corechley, Beiber tweeted that song ‘Call Me Maybe’ and kickstarted her career.

Anyway this gig is in a mansion, and when I say mansion I mean it: Hollywood Hills, swimming pool, massive open plan rooms, you name it. They organise the people, they have the location, they’ve got the advertising...the music? It’s really funny, at every level I’ve played, the organisation and knowledge of the musical equipment/set up does not correlate to how big the event is; meaning even if the gig is in the living room or if it’s at a 500 people great music venue, it does not guarantee that there will be a better set up at the music venue. At this gaff there was no mixer or mic stand, and the mics were battered and there was very few people who knew what to do. Of course once it was discussed, the people there had the money to go out and get the mixer and everything else but I find it amazing, music is sometimes the afterthought. In a way though, it’s a business, and that’s what I’m beginning to see. The thought and care was put into the connections, the venue, the people, the social media. These factors are just as important as the music and maybe be even more important. So we set up in this crazy place and the gig is going to be pretty much a big house party, hosted by Kristen.

9pm comes and I do my set. It went ok, I was a bit nervous in places, I don’t think the people who were there knew exactly what was going on too much but it went ok. After that I’m in room full of influencers and their friends. Amongst these influencers were models and also a dog. Yes a dog, and this big husky has 1 million followers. Dyed pink ears, and a dyed pink tuft right bang on his head. There was a start up t shirt printing business who were doing t shirts right then and there and the guy who owned the dog had a t shirt made with ‘IM RICH, YOU’RE BROKE’ on the back. As the party moved on to bedroom, and I don’t mean that in a sexual way, the bedroom was as big as a luxury flat with open plan bathroom with open fireplace. 100 people in there easssssy. I got talking to the owner of the place. He told me he preheated his bath (water tap coming from the ceiling) for his foursome that night. I said what? as in say that again. He goes shhhhhh my girlfriends right behind me > meaning she wasn’t going to be involved. He showed me a stash of chewing viagra gum (?) and a liquid siphilia??? (no idea what the word is) which gives you a hard on for a very long time. On the huge balcony I was talking to a few people who were all smoking legal mary jane, think it was legalised back in late 2015 in California. And you could tell even by the smell how much nicer it is. I’m not a smoker myself but you could also tell how shit UK weed is even by the smell, mixed with whatever knows what.

Some of these convos were half a minute insta name swaps, they didn’t really feel like real convos. It felt like a status party, and to be fair, these were people’s livings, it was turn up at a party, build ya rep, be seen. I have to say everyone was very positive. That’s a very American trait that I admire, it’s all self belief, you can do it, believe in yourself. Over here there is that respect of people trying their best, but only when you’ve done it. During the journey, it’s not perceived as cool. Once you’ve got there, the destination and journey in hindsight is seen as cool. There’s a lot of cynicism here, a stay in your lane kind of outlook, we Brits are veeeery sarcastic. There’s a lot of positives in that; the ability to form great relationships through taking the piss which is necessary to every friendship, humour, modesty. But it does create boundaries for people attempting to go outside themselves. In America, I think it’s different. There’s an appreciation for someone’s dream no matter how hyperbolic, unrealistic, crazy, foreign, strange etc. I do like that. And you could say that there lacks an honesty that people need to hear sometimes which can big up your ego a bit too much, but it also gives you a chance to develop the absurd which can lead to great things. I saw this video once where someone said genius is a misunderstood idea. It isn’t a gift that a tiny percentage have, it is in fact a gift that most people have but which gets hindered by heard mentality, self doubt and a societal reaction which suppresses your intrigue and capacity to learn and experiment. This results in doing nothing, conforming to doing what how the majority live, not exploring your potential. Practice instead of natural ability.

I was wrestling it in my head a bit. Music wise all this status stuff, the schmoozing, would benefit my music. It really doesn’t come natural to me. I can play, do the gig, I can come off stage, talk about the reasons why I do it to people, but to promote myself, get people to listen/follow me, it doesn’t come natural to me. I am learning to do it a bit more, in the right moments but it’s something I have to fight with myself in order to do. Music aside, my career aside, I think if you delve in that way of doing things, way of living almost, you do lose a bit of your humanity. I really don’t mean this in a condescending way but it really seems to me by judging, evaluating or even living all of your life in the hands of strangers’ admiration seems to quite dissociative, if that’s the right word. I mean maybe people would say it’s narcissistic but to be honest I think it’s actually a lack of self knowledge which is the issue. I mean if these influencers’ followers just packed up and unfollowed them, I would like to think these people would have enough passions, desires, self sureness to sustain their worthiness in life. Don’t get me wrong, if all my friends decided never to see me again, I would be extremely sad, but I could draw on the things that I like and know about myself and continue to live my life; I have built up a healthy relationship with myself in the last few years without the need to of others to verify what I do. I have to say that’s the thing that is good about being single: you deal with your own shit. Any problems cannot be put on someone else, you have to sort out your own shit. I guess the downfall of being single is no one is there to call out your shit if you’re being a dick or fucking up in one area. I’m lucky i have friends who can call me out though. it’s about looking at the family and friends’ reactions to what you’re doing and taking literally a poll of what they say. To be fair, I don’t know if most of them at some point would have judged a music career to have been a good decision. I guess it must be a continuous balancing act between choosing your own vision, desires and stubbornness and deciding when to learn from other people’s opinions. Trying to make it as objective as possible.

At the same time, do I wanna be that guy by not doing something which may benefit my music? Something that I might naturally reject, like I said before, for 1 minute of shame? It’s a balancing act. Too much of that world can drive me crazy, lose touch with my human side. Too less of it, attempting a music career, may affect me down the line. I think it’s a balancing act, and one which I’m trying to work on figure out at each step.

This week 21 - 25

Monday, Tuesday - L, F

Wednesday, Thursday RSIM

Saturday - Sunday we’ll see what needs doing

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terriblevalveartandocs · 7 years

Text

About Valve OCs and the blog

This has been on my mind for a while.

This blog never got a satisfying end in my books, and I’m sure for other readers as well. Even though closure is a myth perpetuated by mainstream media, I will make this post to try to rectify past mistakes and general truancy of this blog. I have my own suspicions that most of my readers are dead (considering all of the porn bots are now starting to follow me), so I write this post in the darkness of the night into the void that is Tumblr. Read my cry if you care.

Firstly, this blog will never update again. There are multiple factors that have led to this blog’s extinction and I think they’re important to address

Motivation

This blog took up a large chunk of my life back when it was active. Don’t get me wrong, bad art still gets me to cringe and I find myself on occasion still pining over weird ocs and art styles on Deviantart. However, maintaining it as a blog with daily updates became a chore for me along with promising critiques of ocs and such. I’ve come to discover that I can’t do what I love as “””work”””. While bad art still remains a passion for me, I don’t see myself continuing this in blog format.

OCs have changed

The OC market has changed. Base art has definitely taken a downturn in the past few years and you’re more likely to see people hand-drawing their ocs or writing them out. Thanks with the culture of memeing about bootleg fandom ocs (This is my own original character blonic, donut steels) , it seems that people are more drawn towards creating their own worlds and characters rather than shoving their mary sue into their current fan favorite content. These are good changes in terms of originality for artists and writers in my opinion.

However, a lot of the formats for OCs have changed as well. There tends to be an emphasis on their sexuality and race in OC culture now. I don’t consider that a bad thing but I’d rather not poke that hornet’s nest of gender identity and race of fictional characters. What used to be the standard straight, bi, gay has expanded into other territories that I am unfamiliar with and now we have more ocs outside of the standard white chick but with Japanese last name because the creator really likes naruto. Again, this just seems to be the trend and I think my last few revival posts kinda show them.

Valve as a games publisher

LOL when’s half life 3???

Valve has definitely moved from being a game developer to a digital distributor. Steam definitely seems to be their focus outside of Hat/Weapon Skin collecting and online gambling (and also their weird consoles/controllers???). Not that I would continue this blog if they released more content (They published another update to the TF2 comic, can’t wait for that to get updated in a year).

Along with this slump of their own original content, this has led to a slump in original characters for their franchises. There are not as many fan ocs and art isn’t being produced for their franchises (except maybe with comic updates for TF2 and nostalgia for old games).

This blog was created at the optimal time imo with L4D2 still being fresh, TF2 still having an active userbase, and Portal 2 giving some great content in terms of creative material.

Also I’m not interested in reviewing Dota 2 art and I don’t think there are enough Counterstrike ocs.

Negativity

I don’t know if this blog was a source of positive or negative energy. On one hand, I was ridiculing people’s art without much hesitation and not acknowledging how much time and effort that might have been put in by the artist. But on the other hand, it provided laughs for people during its duration and gave me a creative outlet in terms of humor, arguments, and writing. I think I did my best to avoid any harassment for these artists by removing any watermarks that might lead any rude reader to them, but I’ll never know if they suffered any bullying. Obviously I’m not going to put this on my resume as work experience but I like to think that this blog help think critically about their content, regardless of what role you played on the blog be it me, a submitter, an observer, or the subject. Maybe if some supreme being questions why I started this blog in the afterlife, I can tell them I did it for the lolz.

In the end, I think I did more harm than any general good for the world and nobody will really understand that weird pain if I try to repent for it publicly. I don’t know of any key examples of this (or really remember because I haven’t done this shit in years), but I do apologize if I ruined anyone’s ambitions for writing/drawing.

I’m glad there is a stronger hugbox mentality for artists who aren’t very good and I embrace that style of encouragement. I guess my only concern is veering too far into that and just embracing everything as perfect and awesome and never improving. Criticism has its place in society.

Perhaps the real lesson is that who the hell gives a shit about what you post on the internet. Why should you give a stranger any control over how much your art is worth? However, this also gives the argument into determining if any of your art is worth anything based on your preconceived notions on your art’s merits since you are only a stranger to me. Why should you tell me that your art is valid and equal to anything else produced when it looks like you drew it with your tablet pen stuck up your ass?

Maybe we all just need to learn to stop giving invisible voices the power to ruin our emotional states and work on our self satisfaction.

Growing up????

I wrote most of this blog like a million years ago. It was a stronger part of my identity and a part of a community in a way of similar blogs in the same style. But I don’t really relate to the content as much I used to. Valve games are still near and dear to me, but they’re more nostalgic than my current flame and muse. I feel the same happened to other blogs in the same vein as mine. Perhaps also age and the changes of time led to our own focuses in our own lives than looking at the scribbles of some stranger on the internet. While it’s still one of my internet past times, it is not my main focus in life to critique bad art (unless it starts paying serious dosh). I just don’t relate to the words and passions anymore. In a way, this is my own cringe that artists produce when they’re young on Deviantart. It’s kind of funny in a weird way.

This blog will continue to remain up but I’ll probably move into another blog of some sort (I accidentally made this my primary blog and I can’t delete it). It sort of became my main lurking blog and I guess its time that I make a less weird not ghost blog (I’m probably confusing a lot of the people that I follow with my constant hearts and comments).

I guess I wanna say thanks for all of the people who followed this blog and its contents. I probably wouldn’t have continued for very long without followers so you’re all to blame for this negative impact I’ve made on the world (jkjk). I like to think we’re connected with our mutual spirit in improving how we create things and wanting to see improvement in others. I think this blog helped me see the dumbest of things and not be afraid to say it was dumb and I hope it did for you as well. I also hope it brought you laughs in the content that was displayed or the humor I attempted to convey. It did genuinely warm my heart whenever I got a heart, reply, reblog, or messages to keep up the work. It kind of makes me sad to think that I left rather abruptly, but better blogs have died quicker and quieter. Simple fact of life really. Thank god my ego keeps me in check to constantly remind people of my existence.

To any artists out there, bad art is a fact of life. You do not come out of the womb knowing how to do two point perspective and 3d shapes. You mess up doing 3d shapes each any every time until you get it and then move on to the next thing you’re not good at. There’s a common TIL leddit post about how Michaelangelo burnt all of his old works so nobody would know how bad he was when he was starting out. I don’t know how true that is, but that’s not a great mentality to have for your art. Seeing that bridge between your former self and current self is important for seeing self growth in your skills. Plus you won’t have those juicy likes and comments on instagram when you do the art redraw and show how far you come like how can you skimp on that you dingus.

All of the great content creators right now love showing off the shitty art they did as kids because it gives them a sense of progress in their work and their accomplishments and continues to drive them in their own works. (unless you’re rebecca sugar and drew ed edd and eddy shipping porn lol). Heck, some of them even take the stuff that was once cliche characters and expanded on them in their own Original Universe Donut Steel. And thanks to their own Original Universe Donut Steel, now tens of thousands of impressionable young artists can look at it and say “that’s awesome, but it would be way better if there was my own character...”.

OCs are weirdly one of the ultimate ways of fan expression where you enjoy the content so much you wish you were part of it. Even though it’s very disjointed and out of place, it’s usually done in a place of love for the franchise or the characters. So for those of you that are doing that still, keep at it I guess.

Fan art is sorta in the same way where you enjoy something so much that you want to replicate the style/themes/characters in your own or the content’s style. While not as extreme, it’s still in the same place of love and people generally like that more than original shit anyways so continue to make it so I can buy your posters at anime conventions without supporting the original creator lol.

If you want to harass me further for my sins against budding artists, I guess I’ll link my personal blog if anyone actually asks me. I also wrote this at 3 am so it is extremely unedited and awful but it’s the most “pure” for my usual diatribe. Consider it my first OC for the blog.

Good night, good life, and farewell.

#valve #terriblevalveartandocs #wow this dead blog finally got an obiturary #that's right grandma decided to haunt this blog and repeat this blog post to those who enter #came back from the dead to remind you i'm dead #but this is on my own terms death ahahahah #there go my dreams of being tumblr famous #i love all of my ...*looks at smuged handwriting* smefty hundred followers #NOW I CAN SLEEP #this was actually part of my repentance for church that my pastor assigned me #now i can get into heaven where i belong #also the real reason i stopped updating was because i was in prison for 3 years for cyberbullying #i hurt too many bronies feelings #thankfully i'm back and i ended up joining a brony prison gang #guess what my cutie mark is #why do i still think i'm funny

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