#its so weird to read a full post you agree with only for it to end in a rude subtweet to one of your old posts

[towards-toramunda]

Oop finding out people were upset about my random shit posting theories relating to Ashton and the luxon beacons is… interesting? Don’t get why you’re angry that I had a fan theory (that I said at the time was probably not true but is a cool concept to me) but go off I guess! Don’t know why you’re annoyed that I’m invested in this world and character and saw a possible connection and pointed it out but cool!

#its so weird to read a full post you agree with only for it to end in a rude subtweet to one of your old posts #like… sorry for being interested in this character and the world they exist in? #sorry for seeing connections and pointing them out #critical role #ashton greymoore #I know this kinda thing is common for tumblr its one of the reasons I deleted my old one a few years back #I just wish it didn’t make me feel so bad to see those kinds of posts like… dude

[spiderfreedom]

I honestly owe detrans people, and especially detrans women, so much, because reading about their experiences has taught me a lot about... well, everything? About myself and my own trauma re: femaleness, autism. About the factors that lead people to transition. About resilience and moving forward and making a life for yourself in a world where there's no space for you.

Some of my favorite writings from detrans people:

somenuancepls (Michelle Alava, active on substack) has multiple great posts, especially on resilience and growth for detrans people. I recommend "Actually I was just crazy the whole time" (on the mindset that leads medical transition to be viewed as a panacea), "We Shouldn't Have to Be Here" (on how detrans people are expected to act as martyrs) and "Let's Talk About How We Talk About Detransition" (on how to ethically and compassionately talk about transition and detransition without harming (de)/transitioners).

destroyyourbinder (no longer active) has so many amazing posts that I really can't list them all, but "Unriddling the Sphinx: Autism and the Magnetism of Gender Transition" was genuinely revelatory for me as a gender non-conforming autistic woman. (It also kinda sent me spiraling for a few days so if you are also an autistic gnc, read with caution)

funkypsyche has been writing a lot about 'woke' culture in a way I don't agree with, but "The Archetypal FTM Sensitive, Quirky, Artistic Weird Girls" (on the type of people attracted to transmasc identification and the ways society fails them - do you see also see yourself in this list?) is a good read. As a supplement, there is "The History of Tumblr: Gender and Woke Indoctrination, Video Essay", and if you can get through the parts about, well, 'woke indoctrination', it provides a perspective on tumblr and its relationship to mental illness and gender. You do not realize how much mental illness is normalized and glorified on tumblr until you see someone explaining it from the outside and you go "huh, I did not realize that happens and that I do that, too..."

Max Robinson wrote "Detransition: Beyond, Before, and After", the only academic text on detransition to my knowledge. An in depth view on factors influencing transition such as lesbophobia, and the relationship between gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia and how the latter is treated as frivolous and vain while the former is treated as profound and serious.

And there are a lot of tweets I've collected I can't really link here, there are many detransitioners on Twitter. I really do recommend reading a broad variety of detransitioned people, detrans women and men. Even read people who retrans like CrashChaosChats, who once wrote on detransition but then retransitioned after finding that she was unable to deal with dysphoria. If you actually care about dysphoric people, trans people, and detrans people, you need to read broadly to understand the full range of reasons people transition or detransition or retransition.

Feel free to reblog with your additions of writings by detrans people, or people you follow on Twitter or other social media if they don't have long-form content.

#mypost #detransition #detrans women #radical feminism #300 notes tag

[monstersandmaw]

Male dullahan x gn reader (sfw)

Disclaimer which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

OH boy, this is a personal one for me on a number of levels (which usually means it's gonna tank), but here's the first of my five new commissions - this one is for the incredibly supportive and sweet @doomfisthero.

It features one of the Supernatural Biker Gang I mentioned in this post, which a lot of you seemed to like, so I hope you're keen to meet the cheeky, goofball dullahan with a heart of gold! Not gonna lie, I went way over the agreed wordcount for this one because it's the world I've already started building, and it's got characters I've already been thinking of for a while.

Content: gender neutral reader who experiences severe anxiety around being pranked/practical joked, which occurs at one point in the story. There’s no malicious intent or bullying behind the prank, and it gets discussed afterwards. The reader is a writer, doing research for a story about bikers, and has no idea that there's something a little 'extra' about this gang. Their friend, Adi, is dating one of them already, and I hope to write their story soon too.

Wordcount: 9216

“God, this was such a stupid idea,” you muttered as you approached the only shop on that wide, empty side street. Its metal sign swung gently back and forth in a light, autumn breeze, displaying a full moon on a black background, with a cruiser-style motorbike silhouetted in front of it, and the white, artfully-distressed font underneath it read ‘Full Moon Motorcycles’.

A second later, your friend stepped out onto the pavement and you knew there was no turning back. Adrianne grinned at you, so you kicked your feet back into motion and closed the distance between you, offering her a small hug. Your leather messenger bag bumped against your hip with the movement, and you wondered if perhaps you should have left your notebook and stuff at home for this first time. It felt more like an interview than getting to know them, and you were worried the group of unfamiliar bikers might take offence that you essentially wanted to study them for your novel.

“Ready to meet the gang?” she laughed, sweeping her messy, dark blonde hair back out of her eyes. “God, you look terrified. Come on, they’re nice! Except maybe Pixie. Don’t mess with her, but she’s not here today. Or Demon, but even he’s ok when you get to know him, I swear.”

“Not helping, Adi,” you grumbled.

Ever since she’d started working for Dahlia Ink across town about six months ago, Adrianne had been hanging around with the group of bikers who all got their ink done there it seemed, and it had almost felt like serendipity in action when she’d told you about them over coffee last weekend. You didn’t tend to talk much about your writing, even with your friends, but you trusted Adi, and she’d always been supportive of your career as an author, so you’d shyly opened up to her about your latest idea for a story featuring a group of bikers. You did leave out the part where the bikers in your story were mostly vampires and werewolves, with a few other supernatural species thrown in as well. Fantasy had always been your comfort-genre, but people had snickered in the past and made you feel like it wasn’t a ‘serious’ genre that ‘serious’ writers pursued, so you’d omitted it this time while telling her about it.

“It’s the perfect excuse for you to come and finally meet Țepeș then!” she’d blurted excitedly into the foam of her cappuccino, her green-brown eyes going wide with excitement at the idea of including you in her group of new friends. They all had weird nicknames, and you had no idea if it was a ‘biker’ thing or just a ‘them’ thing, but you’d been burning up with curiosity about them ever since she’d first started dating the one called Țepeș. “I’ve been dying to find an excuse for you to come meet him. Plus you can ask him anything you want to know for your story, and — oh…”

Her face had fallen, and you’d frowned, heart dropping already. “What?”

“Eh, he’s… he’s not completely non-verbal, but Țepeș doesn’t exactly find talking easy. Maybe you could come to the shop and meet the rest of them instead though? I’m sure Pickle or Pumpkin would love to talk your ear off about their bikes…”

“I dunno, I don’t want to get in the way,” you’d said, trying not to let that tiny, kindling ember of hope in your chest wink out completely. “But if you wanted to ask them…?”

She’d run it past her boyfriend, and Țepeș had said he’d ask Hank. Hank, apparently, was the guy who ran the bike shop where they’d all met and first formed their group, and two nights later, you’d got a text in all caps from Adi saying ‘BASIC BIKER 101 FOR WRITERS IS ON!!!! When are you next free?!!!’

A week later, you and your messenger bag with notebook and pens had shown up outside Full Moon Motorcycles, with little clue what to expect, and a heart full of trepidation.

Adrianne giggled as she ushered you inside, and to your relief, you found there were only two other people inside instead of a shop full of strangers. An array of bikes for sale was lined up around the right hand side of the space, and against the back wall there was a wooden counter almost like a bar, where the vintage till and a few key chains were displayed, while the left side of the space appeared to be a more general spot for tinkering and hanging out. Even with the light flooding in through the two huge, picture windows on either side of the door, the lighting was soft, and the polished concrete floor created a mellow atmosphere. The scent of coffee and motor oil hung heavy in the air, and you found it oddly comforting as you soaked it all up.  

Behind the counter, a stocky man with greying, wavy hair that wasn’t quite long enough to tie back but was too long to look tidy smiled you and raised a meaty hand. His blue tartan shirt stretched precariously over a hearty paunch, and he exuded a jovial kind of warmth as his honey-brown eyes crinkled. “Hey there,” he said. “I’m Hank, though most people round here just call me Dad —”

“— he adopts literally everyone who walks through that door, so congrats on joining the family,” Adi laughed.

“Take your pick on names,” Hank chortled. “I understand you’re a writer…” He seemed interested and a little impressed, which was a bit of a confidence boost.

“Yeah,” you croaked and cleared your throat. “Yeah… uh… thank you for letting me hang out here for a bit. I don’t know anything about bikes… I’m just looking to learn a bit so it makes sense for my novel, you know? I’m not going to get in anyone’s way.”

“Oh, you’re fine,” he smiled, gesturing dismissively with his massive paw of a hand. “You just ask what you like and we’ll do our best to help you out. You must know Țepeș already if you’re Adi’s friend?”

You shook your head and Hank looked across the room to where the other person was lurking at the back of the space. You hadn’t noticed Adi leaving your side, but when you turned around, you found her standing with both hands pressed fondly against the chest of the tall, imposing biker dressed all in black and wearing his helmet too, which you thought was an odd choice. But what did you know about the habits of bikers? You were there to learn after all; learn and observe.

Adi waved you over, and you swallowed your nerves and cast Hank a farewell glance before approaching. When Adi stepped back, Țepeș pushed himself off the wall and held out his hand to you to shake. It, like the rest of him, was covered in leather or padded gear. There wasn’t a scrap of skin showing on him anywhere, and with your own face reflected in his black visor, it was impossible to get a read on him.

As if she’d read your mind, Adi smacked Țepeș in the chest with the back of her hand and said, “At least put your visor up, you big, intimidating doofus.”

He snorted a silent laugh and lifted the catch on his visor to reveal a sliver of pale skin and irises as black as the rest of his leather gear. Like Hank’s though, his eyes were kindly, and he closed them briefly as he inclined his head in a kind of apologetic bow. You shrugged, and he laughed breathily.

Hank chose that moment to come over, and you jumped as he clapped you on the shoulders. How a man built like a grizzly in autumn had moved so quietly was a mystery. “Come on, Țepeș, why don’t we give our new friend a demonstration of how a bike works? Since your Ducati is in, why don’t we use that?”

Țepeș gave a quick nod, and ducked away through the door that stood in the centre of the back wall, and a moment later, he pushed an absolute monster of a bike out into the empty space. He jutted his chin towards the front door, and Adi nipped over to open it for him, and when you frowned, she laughed. “That Streetfighter is so fucking loud,” she snorted. “You do not want him starting it up in here.”

“And nor do I!” Hank called, now mysteriously back behind the till though you hadn’t heard him leave. You made a mental note to weave something like that into your story for the supernatural biker characters, and then nodded, feeling sheepish, and followed the two of them out of the shop and onto the quiet side-street outside.

Until six months ago, Adi hadn’t known anything about bikes either, so she used your introductory tutorial as a kind of test for herself, interspersed with little glances up at Țepeș to check that she’d got it right. He either nodded or pointed to correct her, but he didn’t speak. She hadn’t been kidding about him being mostly non-verbal.

After Adi had shown you the basics of the bike’s anatomy, Țepeș patted the seat of the bike and gestured to her to get on it, but she laughed and shook her head. “No way, babe. I’m way too short.”

He put his fists comically on his hips and shook his head, then patted the seat again like he was trying to get a wilful cat up onto a chair.

She made a noise of protest, but did swing a leg over and then hoisted herself evenly into the seat, both legs dangling freely a good way off the ground.

“Happy now?” she shot at him and he nodded emphatically, bringing both hands to the sides of his helmet in a way that mimicked a person losing their mind over a cute kitten. “You’re lucky I love you, you overgrown dork,” she muttered. “Anyway,” she said, turning back to you. “Since this beast has made me get up here, I’m going to start his bike. Not so funny now that I could actually fuck it up, is it?” she grinned.

Țepeș remained perfectly still, and you got the impression it was a comical warning.

“I can’t flat-foot it,” she said to you, “So I’m gonna rest my left foot on the curb after I’ve flicked the kickstand up,” she said. “You can’t start most bikes with the kickstand still down.”

You noted that down, and let her get on with the rest of the sequence uninterrupted, which seemed a lot more complicated than you’d imagined.

Near the end of your tutorial on how to start a bike and the basics of clutch control, and the apparent struggle to find neutral, the sound of a number of approaching engines tore through the quiet afternoon. You looked back over your shoulder to see three sports bikes round the corner and make their way towards you.

The three riders couldn’t have been more different. The one you noticed first was riding a big, brash, bright orange bike that reminded you a bit of a sporty looking dirt bike, and he was wearing, of all things, a black and white cow onesie, with a cow helmet cover complete with fabric horns and ears.

“Fucking Pumpkin,” Adi laughed. “Honestly. I think you’ll love him.”

“Pumpkin?” you asked, wondering how on earth he’d got that name. Then again, Țepeș was a pretty unusual nickname. Perhaps he was a vampire under all that leather, shielding himself from the fury of the sun with his biker gear just so he could spend more time with his human lover during the day… You yanked your over-active imagination back into the present and out of your fantasy novel, and watched the trio of bikers approach down the quiet side street.

“Yeah, Pumpkin’s his name. It’s because he’s a —” Țepeș elbowed Adi in the ribs sharply enough that she had to grab the handlebars to stop herself toppling off his bike. Her eyes went wide and she instantly clicked her jaw shut.

As an author, you were used to watching and studying people, and noting your observations for later. Another writer you knew online had called it ‘cataloguing the everyday’, and it was an apt description. Adi had very nearly given away something huge about Pumpkin, and Țepeș had given her a silent but stern warning.

“Because he loves pranks, like on Halloween?” she finished a little too quickly. “He dresses up with silly helmet covers all the time and he likes to play jokes on people.”

Maybe he wasn’t your kind of person at all. The very idea of having a practical joke pulled on you was enough to make you feel sick and shaky all over. You'd always hated them, and they’d always left you feeling devastated and on-edge if they happened to you. The more you trusted the person, the worse it felt afterwards.

Țepeș’ huge hand landed carefully on your shoulder joint and you looked up to find him smiling reassuringly at you. At least, you thought he was smiling reassuringly. All you could see were his glinting black eyes that were creased at the corners, and the way the apples of his pale cheeks were slightly more squished than usual behind the padding in his helmet.

You tried out a smile of your own, and then realised that Adi was talking again.

“He’s such a goofball, but that’s got to be his craziest outfit yet! You should see his other helmet covers; they’re all bonkers. My favourite is the pink rabbit one.”

Țepeș nodded once in agreement and let go of your shoulder. You swayed a little at the loss, feeling untethered.

“The guy on the red Ducati is Demon, and the short one on the Ninja in the middle is Pickle.”

When the newcomers spotted the three of you standing around Țepeș’ bike, Pumpkin revved raucously, almost seeming to make his bike laugh with joy at the sight of you. Then he hauled it up into a massive wheelie, only dropping back down once he’d torn past you in a near-vertical pose. Your heart was in your mouth the whole time, but he looked relaxed and even amused behind that absurd costume as he landed it and swerved the bike around to make his way back towards you while the other two came over in a more sedate fashion. In fact, they were so sedate it reminded you of two sharks approaching, and your mouth went dry. Adi had said they were cool with you being there and asking questions, but just then, it didn’t really feel like it.

The one riding the lurid, neon green bike was so short that you wondered for a crazy second if maybe they were a child. The owner of the red bike revved his something wicked as he cruised to a stop, and you had to fight the urge to step back. It felt like being roared at full in the face by a lion, and it didn’t help at all that the guy had curling ram’s horns adorning his black helmet. Even though it was a nippy autumn day, he was wearing a white t-shirt that showed off a golden tan and a truly impressive physique, and his black jeans had a rip in the knee that added to his tough-guy appearance.

Standing beside his own bike, Țepeș folded his arms and jutted his chin in a warning. Demon revved his deafening bike once more though, and the back wheel skimmed from side to side on the tarmac as blue smoke churned up into the air.

Țepeș shook his head and a few seconds later, Demon stopped his mini burnout, and instead leaned forwards on the bike, resting one arm casually on the tank. His whole attention was fixed on you and you tried hard not to regret all of this. It was research. You were here for your story. It was fine. His visor was tinted like Țepeș’ was, but you could feel the intensity of his gaze through the plastic just as clearly as if there had been nothing blocking his eyes from yours.

“Just giving a welcome to your new friend, Țepeș,” the guy purred in a silky baritone that made you think of teeth in the dark.

As the brief puff of acrid smoke from his tyres cleared, the short rider flipped their visor up and regarded you with beady, golden eyes that had to be contacts, surely? Even the pupils were slitted like a cat’s. 

“Who’s this?” came a reedy, tenor voice from under the helmet. Definitely not a child after all, and their skin had a strange, greenish tinge to it that you initially took to be makeup until you realised it went all the way down their cheeks as well. Tattoos? Some kind of condition? You tried not to stare.

Before either you or Adi could respond to their question, the cow onesie rider screeched to a comical halt beside the other two, locking up the front wheel and making the rear of his bike kick up like a bronco, and Adi shook her head. “Pumpkin, honestly. What are you like?”

“I’m Legen-dairy!” he grinned, gesturing wide with both hands. “Oh, hey! New friend?!” he exclaimed, waving enthusiastically when he saw you standing awkwardly beside Țepeș’ bike. He had a lilting Irish accent and a playful intonation that warmed you to him immediately, despite knowing about his penchant for practical jokes.

“Don’t mind Pumpkin,” Adi smiled at you. “He’s… something else.”

“I’m highly a-moo-sing, is what I am,” the guy chuckled. His words sounded clearer than the others behind their helmets, and you wondered if it was something about the design that made it easier to hear him.

“Oh god, please stop with the cow puns,” Pickle groaned, casting him a withering look with those unusual eyes.

“But Pickle, I’m udderly fantastic!”

“Stop.”

“This is just plain bull-ying!” Pumpkin whined, and then he started to bop up and down on his bike as he sang, “My milkshake brings—”

“If you howl one more out of tune word, Demon will eat you for breakfast, and not in a fun way,” Pickle said, casting a glance at the biker with the horns on his helmet.

For answer, the biker in question cocked his head just a little to one side, and Pumpkin slumped in his seat, arms and legs dangling comically, head lolling forwards so that the soft horns on his helmet cover flopped. He let out a long, sad mooing noise sound that dissolved into giggles at the end, and Pickle punched him on the arm.

“Loser,” Pickle snorted with obvious fondness.

“Anyway, I want you to meet my friend,” Adi cut in, turning to you. “I’m sorry you had to meet Pumpkin when he’s in this mood, but —”

“Moo-d!” Pumpkin interrupted triumphantly and immediately burst out laughing. He almost tipped backwards off his big, orange bike. Even you managed to crack a shy smile at that one. It was infectious.

“I give up,” Pickle said, and hopped down off his green Kawasaki, disappearing into the shop without a backward glance just as Hank stepped out.

“How’s that lesson going?” he asked you.

“I’m not planning on riding solo any time soon,” you smiled, “But I’ve got enough of an idea of how things work to start writing, I think.”

Hank nodded and, glancing around at Pumpkin who was still bouncing up and down and making his suspension creak a little, said, “Ah, they’re all idiots, but they’re kind, and they’re my idiots.”

He introduced you by name, and told Pumpkin and Demon why you were there. Pumpkin seemed intrigued, tilting his head to one side and calming his crazy energy a little as he regarded you through the tinted visor, but Demon growled softly as he pushed himself upright again and folded his arms across his ripped chest, muttering something about letting their guard down again.

Țepeș moved away from his bike, petting the back of Adi’s blonde head in a fond, distracted gesture, and then signalled for Demon to follow him inside, which, to your surprise, the big guy did. He walked like a Greek god — like he owned the place and not Hank — but it was clear that he had respect for Țepeș.

Pumpkin took advantage of their absence and leaned a little way off his bike towards you. “So, you’re a writer? That’s pretty cool. And you’re writing a… a book? A story? About bikers?”

You nodded. “Yeah. It’s not the main focus, but it’s a big part of it.” If you hadn’t wanted to open up to Adi about it being a supernatural fantasy story, you sure as heck weren’t going to admit it to a bunch of intimidating, high-octane bikers. “It was Adi who suggested I come and learn a bit more about it all from you guys though…” you said, not wanting them to think you’d just inserted yourself into their group without invitation. Especially given Demon’s weird reaction.

“Awesome,” Pumpkin said, fist-bumping Adi then turning back to you. “You gonna ride with us? We’re all heading out in a bit so you should come too!”

“I… maybe?” you faltered. That had not been on the cards for the day, but the more you thought about it, the more your heart began to race.

“The KTM has a passenger seat,” Pumpkin said, gesturing behind him and patting his pillion seat. “You can be my backpack if you like! I promise I won’t wheelie. I’m not taking the onesie off though,” he added, mooing and shaking his head so that the fabric horns waggled comically.

His energy and enthusiasm really were infectious. He bounced up and down again like an excitable, cow-print puppy, and you bit your lip. The idea of holding onto him, of being perched on the back of his mad, orange bike, was oddly… enticing. Even with his embarrassing costume.

“Come on,” he said. “It’ll be fun! It’s only a short ride because Coco’s Honda’s playing up for some reason,” he added. “Is she here yet? I don’t see her little bumblebee…”

“Bumblebee?” you asked.

“Coco’s bike is a Honda Hornet,” Adi supplied. “She’s got these little antennae for her helmet too. It’s so cute. And no,” she added to Pumpkin. “You guys are the first.”

It didn’t take long for the rest of the day’s riders to arrive, and soon you watched a screaming pink bike roll up, with its rider wearing baby pink leathers and a pink helmet. Her name was Barbie, appropriately enough, and a few minutes later, a skinny guy in all black leathers with a black helmet bearing a decal like a maw full of teeth pulled up, alongside Coco on her black and yellow Honda Hornet that looked very much like the Transformer.

“I see why you call it Bumblebee,” you said to Adi, who was standing on the pavement with you, chatting and slipping you random bits of information about both the bikes and the bikers. The others had all gone inside, leaving you with Adi still casually sitting astride her boyfriend’s enormous, black Ducati Streetfighter outside in the sunshine, and honestly it was nice to catch your breath and let your heart rate settle again.

Pumpkin, apparently, was only a few years older than you, and he had moved to the city to get away from his family and their career expectations for him. His name was actually Callahan, or Cal, but literally everyone called him Pumpkin.

Pickle was non-binary and surprisingly a full decade older than you. They lived with their mother, who needed a bit of extra care these days, and had taken up riding only a year or so ago. Demon, Adi didn’t discuss at all, and she said little about Barbie other than that she kept herself to herself a lot and was pretty shy.

Coco came out to soak up some autumn sunshine a while later, and was one of the only bikers who actually took off her helmet. Beneath it, she had thick, wavy, chocolate brown hair and brown eyes that made you want to drown in them, and a smile so pretty it made your heart skip several beats. She gave off the kind of energy that made you feel safe and relaxed, and you let out a long, slow exhale, feeling the sun wash up over your skin.

That peace lasted until Demon stormed out of the shop, followed by Pumpkin, Țepeș, and Pickle.

“Everything ok?” Adi whispered to Țepeș when he came over and hugged her tightly from behind before passing her a spare helmet. He nodded and jerked his thumb towards his bike. “Yeah, I’m good to go. You coming?” she asked you, and you found yourself nodding before you’d even realised.

“Yes!” Pumpkin bayed in triumph and you startled, not having heard him return to his bike. “You’re mine! I claim you. You’re my backpack!”

“Like anyone else wants a human for baggage,” Demon muttered so quietly you weren’t sure you were supposed to have heard it. As he passed, he slammed his visor back down and you could have sworn that he’d had completely scarlet eyes. You wondered if you were losing your mind a little bit, or if the fantasy of your novel was beginning to bleed into the real world through your over-active imagination.  

Pumpkin practically vaulted back up onto his orange bike and he held out his hand to you. “Alright! My precious and beautiful backpack,” he said, “Hop on!”

Easier said than done, you thought, ignoring the compliment. You watched your reflection distort in his visor as he turned his head when you faltered anxiously.

“I’ll look after you, I promise. But I’m gonna rely on you to tell me if Pickle’s coming for my killswitch, ok?”

Recalling your brief lesson with Țepeș, you eyed the red switch on his right handlebar and said, “That?”

“Yeah, that. Protect it at all costs,” he giggled. “I mean, not all costs, obviously but… Actually, scratch that. It’s Ninja you wanna watch out for. He’s a sneaky, sneaky boy. He blends in so no one sees him coming…” A few of them laughed in a way that made you feel like there was more to it than just an inside joke, and your stomach churned.

A glance back at the skinny guy on the black bike behind you revealed Ninja tilting his hands outwards in a ‘who, me?’ kind of gesture. Hank came over and gave you a helmet, taking your messenger bag from you and promising to keep it safe behind the counter. You slid the helmet on and buckled it up, trying not to feel like an impostor.

Getting aboard wasn’t as hard as you’d thought it was going to be, with brief instruction from Adi and Pumpkin on how to put your feet on the pegs, though you did clunk your helmet against Pumpkin’s when you leaned too far forward, but he made things easier by telling you to hold him round the waist. He turned back over one shoulder and said, “It’s kinda forward, but I don’t mind. You’re cute and I don’t want you falling off.” He had such a lovely voice — warm and rich and reassuring — and you found yourself laughing softly.

“If you say so.”

Pumpkin talked a mile a minute and you really had to work to process everything he was saying as it tumbled out of him in a wild, happy torrent. “You are cute! You’re gonna have a blast today. I can’t believe I’m your first! Oh, and watch out for silly string too. I don’t think Pickle has any in their pocket today, but last time they got me good and it was all over my helmet and my orange baby,” he added petting the tank of his bike.

Your heart lurched at the idea of these pranks maybe escalating, and you tried to swallow down the nausea; you did not want to be sick in a motorcycle helmet. The cold sweat took a while to evaporate and you were sure Pumpkin would feel your heartbeat as you clung onto him before he’d even started the bike. The cow onesie did add a little levity though, and you tried not to feel too silly.

When Adi was safely aboard Țepeș’ bike, Țepeș revved his readiness a few times from the rear of the group, and Pumpkin nodded. “Forward!” he yelled, pointing like he was leading a cavalry charge as he nudged up his kickstand and prepared to draw away.

Adi had been right.

The ride was amazing.

Terrifying, exhilarating, wonderful, and, in the strangest way possible, it made you forget everything.

All you could focus on was the way Pumpkin moved with the bike like it was a part of him — almost like a rider and his horse — and on trying to move with him as he leaned into the corners. He was slim and fit beneath your grip, and he didn’t seem to be wearing any kind of padding under the onesie, but he was wearing biker boots instead of ordinary shoes. There was something alluring about the fact you’d not seen his face and he’d not taken his helmet off. Țepeș had a similar vibe, but it was Pumpkin and his wild, silly energy you found yourself drawn to. It was almost euphoric to be able to press the front of your body against this kind, funny stranger’s back and let him sweep you along the roads.

Of course, there were shenanigans at the first red light you came to.

Pickle came for Pumpkin’s killswitch immediately — almost like they were testing you — but you tapped Pumpkin on the shoulder when you saw Pickle stalking up the line of bikes. Ninja covered his killswitch and waggled a finger at Pickle, and when Pumpkin saw who was coming, he patted your thigh a few times. “Nice one,” he said with a grin evident in his voice. “Best early warning system and best backpack ever! You can ride with me every time!”

You glowed with pride, even though you knew it was probably only fun and games, and when Pickle failed to catch Pumpkin’s killswitch and the lights changed, you laughed with the rest of them as Pickle bolted back to their Ninja and hopped comically onto it at the very last second while Pumpkin sped away fast enough to make you yelp and grip him hard around the middle. You felt him laugh and held him tighter.

He petted your hands where they were laced securely in front of him, and even though you didn’t have comms in your helmet, you got the message: ‘I’ve got you’. You did feel safe with him despite his love of pranks, and you were literally trusting him with your life as you rode behind him.

When the ride came to an end about an hour later, and the group drew to a halt at Full Moon Motorcycles again, you were shaky with the aftereffects of adrenaline and from simply holding on, but beneath your helmet, you were grinning wildly. Secretly, you already couldn’t wait for the next ride and prayed he would ask you again.

Pickle pulled their bike up on your right, the green Ninja 400 idling gently, and when they killswitched Pumpkin’s bike at last, Pumpkin guffawed, but without missing a beat he extended his right leg and tapped the gear lever down to put Pickle’s bike into first, making the bike stall and lurch forwards.

“Gotcha!” he crowed, and then helped you off the back by letting you steady yourself on his shoulders. “And for the pièce de résistance,” he said, fishing in the pouch of his onesie, and he turned something cylindrical in your direction. “I was saving this for Pickle, but since it’s your first ride, you deserve a decent celebration!”

With a loud bang and a flurry of coloured squares of paper, a confetti cannon went off in your face and you screeched in shock, tripping over your heels and landing hard on the pavement behind you. The pieces of paper fluttered down around you while panic and fear and everything you hated about being pranked exploded out of you. Your heartbeat went through the roof. You just glimpsed the horns of Demon’s helmet in the doorway to the shop, and your heart dropped when you saw he was laughing.

Pumpkin was laughing too, and pointing, and beside him Pickle clapped their gloved hands and crooned, “Oh man, he got you good!”

He had got you good, and you hated it.

You hated that it was just a silly, harmless prank, but you were reacting like he’d done something serious. You hated that you couldn’t just laugh it off the way they all did. You hated that you took it so seriously; that it felt like the worst kind of betrayal of that fragile trust you’d started to put in a stranger. And then, behind the visor of your helmet, the tears began to flow uncontrollably.

A huge figure appeared in your blurred vision and you looked up to find Țepeș kneeling down beside you. He blocked the others from your sight with his massive body, and he lifted his visor to show his black eyes full of concern.

You nodded, trying to pull yourself together and grateful beyond belief that the helmet was still covering your face, even though it felt like you were running out of oxygen in there. Pulling yourself together was like trying to hold a bag full of sand with fraying seams. You were seeping and spilling out all over the place and you couldn’t stop. You tried to tell yourself it was just a confetti cannon. You tried to tell yourself it was just a bit of fun.

You tried, and failed.

“I’m… I’m ok… I’m…” you gulped, aware of how choked your voice sounded.

Țepeș stood and held out a hand, pulling you to your feet and ushering you carefully inside. You didn’t miss the way he put himself between you and Demon, who was still snickering in the doorway, and you let him lead you into the shop and into the back room.

He snagged a box of tissues from under the shop’s counter in passing and guided you into a chair. He signalled for you to undo your helmet, which you did with shaking fingers. “I’m sorry,” you gulped as you drew it off over your head and set it on the floor. “I’m sorry I’m overreacting.”

Țepeș shook his head and squeezed your shoulder, offering you a tissue.

“It’s just a prank, I know that, but…”

Again, he squeezed your shoulder, and you took a deeper, steadier breath.

“I hate pranks. Even the harmless ones. I always overreact like this. I’m sorry. It’s not his fault, but… I thought… I thought maybe he… he wouldn’t…”

A knock on the door made you jump, and Țepeș made a ‘stay there’ gesture with his hand and ducked out of the room. A short, seemingly one-sided conversation passed outside while you fought to control yourself again, and then Pumpkin ducked inside.

“Hey,” he said, and your heart broke a little at the change in his energy. It was like he’d completely deflated. He was still wearing the cow onesie though, which brought a slightly hysterical chuckle to your lips before you could stop it. “I’m so sorry,” he said, dropping to one knee in front of your chair. “I… I didn’t think you’d react like that.”

“It’s not you,” you said, sniffling and turning away, cuffing at your eyes. “I just overreacted.”

“You didn’t overreact,” he said, and your brain screeched to a halt.

“What?”

“I shouldn’t have done it to you. I didn’t know if you were cool with it, and I just assumed that… that because everyone else likes my pranks… that you’d be ok with it too, and I shouldn’t have done that. I’m so sorry. I promise I’ll never ever pull anything like that on you again. Ever.” He crossed his thumb across his heart. “I swear on my True Name.”

The wording was odd, but the air seemed to crystallise around you for a second, and your breath caught. “Like a Fae,” you mumbled without thinking.

He tilted his helmeted head a little. “Yeah,” he said and his voice had an odd ring to it. “You… You know about… about the Fae?”

“I’m writing a book…” you croaked, not really thinking about what you were saying. “Supernatural theme… I’ve always written fantasy stuff… Look, I’m sorry. I’m over-sharing about stuff that isn’t even real. I’m good,” you said, and stood up abruptly, setting your borrowed helmet down on the chair and turning to look at him. He was on his feet again, but he was just standing there.

You walked out into the main shop but he called your name and you halted and turned back around. “Yeah?”

“Are… Are you gonna come back?”

You bit your lip. You probably had enough to write the book now — the biker part of it wasn’t even the main focus after all — but until the prank, you’d felt included and welcomed, and, as you thought about it, the prank had also been meant to welcome you into the fold. It wasn’t Pumpkin’s fault that you had reacted the way you did.

“You want me to?” you asked.

“Please,” he said. “Please, I’d love it. I’ve… I’ve never had anyone I’ve wanted to be my backpack before, and you rode like a natural today,” he added, taking a step towards you. “Please. I promise no one will do any pranks when you’re with us. No silly string, no confetti cannons.”

“I don’t mind it… With the others, I mean,” you said, the words grinding out of you like a boulder uphill. “I mean… So long as it’s not me.”

“Ok, we’ll dial it back,” he compromised. “I’ll even give you one of my little stretchy sticky hands if you like so you can team up on Pickle with me. We duel at the lights sometimes. Does that count as a prank?”

You shook your head, fighting back a resurgence of emotions, mostly good this time.

“Ok. I’m really sorry,” he said again.

“I believe you,” you said.

“Thank you,” Pumpkin replied, his whole body looking relieved. It was amazing how expressive someone could be, even without being able to see their face. “Let me give you my number and I’ll text you when we’re going out next. Or… Or maybe we could go out just the two of us?”

That seemed like way more pressure than you’d been expecting, but you nodded all the same when you realised you weren’t put off by it at all.

As you left the shop not long afterwards, having recovered enough to let the red fade from your eyes, Demon looked you up and down and then approached Pumpkin. You glanced back over your shoulder to see him looming down over Pumpkin, and you just caught him growling, “What happens when you need to take that helmet off eh, Dullahan? You think that cute accent is going to be enough to hide the fact you don’t have a fucking head under there?”

Your breath caught and you tripped, turning away before either of them could notice your reaction.

For a moment, when Demon had spat the word ‘Dullahan’ you’d thought he’d said ‘Callahan’ — Pumpkin’s real name — but the instant he’d said Pumpkin didn’t have a head, your mind made the connection.

Dullahan.

A Fae without a head, traditionally a headless horseman.

The way Pumpkin had moved with his bike, like it was a living creature, had reminded you of a horse and its rider, and you had to wonder if the nickname ‘Pumpkin’ had come from the cartoonish depictions of Dullahans on Halloween with a pumpkin for a head instead of their real one. They did have a head, you knew from research for your writing, but they tended to keep it hidden since that was where their power resided. They could only be harmed if you hurt their head, or if they were wearing it when you attacked them.

But that was all fantasy, right?

Then Demon’s red eyes flickered across your memory, and the weird emphasis he’d put on the word ‘human’ in his snide remarks, and the way you’d thought maybe Țepeș was a vampire because he kept his skin covered up, and the fact that Pickle’s skin was entirely green and they had gold eyes with cat’s pupils… it was all way too much of a coincidence. Right?

You walked home in a daze, not even saying goodbye to Adi who was talking quietly with Țepeș in the long, late afternoon shadows cast by the bike shop’s wall.

Over the next few rides with Pumpkin, you tried to figure out a way to broach the topic. If you just blurted it out, you had no idea how the others would react, so you dropped little hints to Pumpkin that you were writing a supernatural story and that you’d been researching the supernatural for a while, and how you’d always hoped there was more out there than met the eye. You even mentioned it a couple of times on group rides to see how the others reacted, and predictably, it was Demon who bristled, and Pumpkin who looked uncomfortable. Like he had a secret he wanted to tell you.

Each time you did it, he looked torn, like he was right on the cusp of telling you the truth.

It finally came to an ugly head one afternoon as the riding season drew to a close in late October and you all came back from a huge group ride that had included a few more riders whom you’d not met before, but who evidently knew the rest of the group.

As you went inside to return the helmet that Hank always lent you, you caught the sound of an argument and hung back in the small storage room behind the main shop to avoid it, heart in your throat and the helmet forgotten in one hand.

Pickle was standing in the main area of the shop with their helmet dangling from their hand this time, and you gasped when you saw sharply-tapered ears and a row of pointed teeth in their mouth, and green skin that went all the way down below their collar. Definitely not a tattoo. They looked sharp, their features inhuman; like one of the goblins in your novel. If you’d needed confirmation that they weren’t human, this had to be it.

Pickle was  arguing with Adi and Demon, and Pumpkin was there too, looking helplessly from one to the other of them.

Demon was shouting, and he didn’t have his helmet on either. Perhaps they’d thought you’d already left. The horns that adorned his helmet were… actually attached to his head, not his helmet. He had horns. They obviously grew from his hairline, his black hair waving around them like a river of oil that had a rainbow sheen on it, and his eyes were a luminous, blood-red with slit pupils too. He rounded on Pumpkin like a Wolf on a rabbit. “You think just because we let Țepeș’ little human blood-bag in, we can risk exposing us all to just anyone?” Demon snarled. “I thought you wanted to keep our kind a secret? Now you’re siding with him?”

“Hey!” Adi exclaimed, but Pickle’s lip curled and they turned to her.

“He has got a point, Adi, though the blood-bag comment was way out of line,” Pickle said. “We have to be careful, but —”

“This is different,” Pumpkin interjected. “Ok? I’ve never been in love before, and I love —”

“No. It’s not fucking ok! This is the one place we get to be who we are,” Demon countered, his deep voice cracking as he clearly fought off tears. He sounded afraid and upset in a way that went right to your heart. “This is the one place where we can be safe, Cal, and you’re jeopardising it for all of us. And if we start letting humans in, if our secret gets out —”

“I think it’s a little late for that,” Pickle said faintly, staring straight at you watching the argument unfold, stunned. They were arguing because of you. Because Pumpkin had taken a liking to you — in fact, he’d just said he loved you…

A pair of gold eyes and a pair of scarlet eyes stared at you, while Adi stood there hugging herself and looking hurt and unsure, and Pumpkin was standing stock still with his black helmet still on but you knew he was looking at you too. Was he going to defend you, or discard you and stick with his friends? They weren’t human. None of them was human. Demon’s eyes were blaring a violent red and he had horns growing out of his black hairline and curling back over his head, and there was a watercolour patch of red creeping over his golden tan as if he was losing control of his form. And Pickle was apparently some kind of goblin?

“You’re a Dullahan,” you said quietly, looking at Pumpkin. “A Fae.”

“You know?” Demon hissed, taking half a step towards you. “How the fuck do you know?” and then he shoved Pumpkin back with a hand at each shoulder. “You’ve taken your helmet off already? Did you disclose your head’s location while you were at it?”

Pumpkin shook his head vehemently but then he lifted his shiny, black helmet off in what looked like an act of defiance to Demon.

In the void where his head should have been there was a swirl of bluish-green smoke emanating from the stump of his neck, like the aurora in the night sky, and his skin was a dark, slate-blue colour. Your mind struggled to accept what you were seeing, but with the additional evidence of Pickle’s green skin and Demon’s horns, you knew it all had to be true.

Walking closer, as if moving through a dream, you ignored Demon’s constant, caged-animal growl, but you did jump when the door flew open and Țepeș burst in. He strode straight over to Adi and wrapped his arm protectively around her shoulders, tugging her close and putting himself between her and the others. He cocked his head in an impatiently curious manner and Adi answered his silent demand.

“Demon’s laying into Pumpkin about flirting with a human while hiding what he is,” Adrianne said, glaring flatly at Demon. “And he called me your blood-bag,” she added.

Țepeș’ fists curled, leather creaking, and he took a long, slow inhale, as though he was trying very hard not to lose control and launch himself at Demon.

Before anything else could happen, someone clapped their hands abruptly from the side of the shop where the till and the bikes were arrayed, and you all jumped.

Hank was standing there and his eyes were glowing golden. “This family is built on trust,” he said in a low, gravelly bass, and you saw that his canines were chunkier and longer than they usually were, and his hair seemed thicker and fuller, his beard a little bushier around the chops. “And if we welcome each other into it, we must be prepared to trust each other’s judgement.”

“We’re just a little research project!” Demon said, rounding on you. “Adi told you what we are, didn’t she, so you thought you’d come and study us like a science experiment?”

You were still staring at Pumpkin’s empty collar and wondering in an odd, detached kind of way where it would be considered polite for you to look now — did you look at the point where his eyes would be if he had a head, or did you look at his chest? Only a second or two later did Demon’s words filter through and you blinked. “What?”

“You’re writing a fucking book about us! How does that count as trustworthy?”

“I’m not — It’s not about you,” you shot back. “The book isn’t about you. The protagonist is dating a vampire who’s in a biker gang, but… Adi didn’t tell me anything at all about you. I didn’t know you weren’t human until… until I overheard you accusing Pumpkin a few weeks ago. You said something about not having a head under his helmet, and you called him a Dullahan.” You swallowed thickly and watched the shock filter through everyone’s expressions at your words. “At first I thought you were saying his name, but then I realised you said ‘Dullahan’, not ‘Callahan’, and because I’ve looked into supernatural stuff, I put two and two together. I’ve known for weeks,” you said, chest heaving as you fought to maintain some semblance of composure while you finished your defence. “I could have said something, or I could have just not come back, but I trusted you guys.” Tears finally blurred your vision. “You treated me like family. Why would I betray you?”

Pumpkin moved first.

He strode across he space, dropping his helmet on the floor with a loud crack that would have made anyone who needed a helmet to protect their head wince, but you figured his was purely for decoration and disguise anyway. He wrapped you up in his arms and pulled you close to his body. His arms almost lifted you off the ground and he cradled your head in one hand while his left arm curled around your waist and squeezed you so tight you gave a little wheeze.

His voice came from nowhere in particular, just like it did when he had the helmet on, and he said, “You are family. And I love you. If I have to leave this one to be with you, I will.”

Your heart stopped for a moment before you hugged him back, desperately. “Don’t. Not for me.”

He only hugged you harder.

From somewhere off to your left, Hank gave a low, rumbling growl and then muttered, “Kids. Honestly.” Then a little louder, he said, “Demon, go and cool off somewhere. Țepeș, for God’s sake, stand down, and Pickle, go and put the fucking kettle on. I need a cup of tea with half a bottle of whisky in it after all this drama.”

Pumpkin drew back at last, and you looked up at the haze of blue-green smoke that seemed to swirl upwards in a constant stream, like a recently extinguished candle. “How can you see me?” you asked. And then, with a little more alarm in your tone, you yelped, “Wait, how can you see where you’re driving?”

He laughed and leaned in close enough that the aurora-light swirled across your vision and caressed your face with a feather light breath, and you shivered. “Magic,” he whispered.

Demon hadn’t gone anywhere, and was regarding you with a more level gaze. His eyes were still red though. “You knew?” he said. “All this time?”

“Yeah,” you croaked as you refocused your eyes from the magic of the Dullahan’s body to Demon’s very much corporeal body. “I mean, I suspected.”

He sighed, still staring you down. Pumpkin stepped a little in front of you, much as Țepeș had for Adi, but Demon shook his head. He worked his jaw for a second and then slowly held out his right hand. His skin was red instead of the golden tan it had been, and his nails were black and claw-like, but the gesture was one of reconciliation all the same. “Welcome to the family, I guess,” he muttered hoarsely.

You smiled faintly, and Pumpkin took your left hand in a show of solidarity, sliding his gloved fingers around yours while you briefly shook Demon’s hand. “I really didn’t know what you guys were when you said I could come and hang out with you, I swear.”

“I know,” Demon bit out. “I can taste a lie, and you’re telling the truth.”

With that, he stalked away and carefully slotted his helmet on over his horns. You realised that there were specially-tailored holes in the crown of it for the horns to fit through, but when it was on, some kind of glamour made it look like the horns were just attached to the surface of the helmet. Outside, he swung a leg over his Ducati and started it up, revving it and launching away amid a scream of tyres and over-worked engine.

“Give him time,” Pumpkin said as he looked down at you. In the swirl of the smoke at his neck you thought you could make out the features of a face for a moment, but you blinked and it vanished. “You’re family now though, so he won’t give you any more trouble.”

“He did just insult Adi pretty spectacularly,” you pointed out.

“And he’ll apologise to her,” Pumpkin said. Țepeș loomed threateningly beside Adi in silent agreement. “For now, you want to come for a ride with just me? Come back to my place maybe?”

You nodded. “Yeah.”

“Bet you have questions too…”

“You going to fact-check my novel for me?” you asked with a playful smile, and Pumpkin laughed. It felt right to hear his loud, giggly laughter filling the space again.

“You’d actually have to let me read it for that, love, and you said you didn’t like showing your work to anyone until it was done.”

“I could make an exception for you, I guess,” you admitted with a bashful smile.

With Pumpkin still holding your hand, you paused on your way out to check on Adi, who looked a little hurt but otherwise alright, and you promised to check in with her later. Țepeș handed Pumpkin his helmet, and you let yourself be led from the shop. Your helmet was still in your slightly numb fingers, never having put it down, so you slid it back on with shaky hands.

After climbing with familiar ease back up onto the pillion seat of Pumpkin’s orange KTM, you snaked your arms around his middle and squeezed.

“I’m sorry it all came out this way,” Pumpkin said before he started up his bike. “This was not how I planned to tell you. I had no idea how I was going to break it to you, but that… that wasn’t it. I know you hate surprises, and that was a big one.”

“Not all surprises are bad,” you admitted. “And this one turned out ok in the end. Come on. I want to find out how much I’ve got wrong about the Fae.”

Pumpkin guffawed, his laughter audible even after he’d started up his bike and pulled away.

Turns out, you’d quite a lot wrong about the Fae after all, but Pumpkin was only too happy to put you right over pizza and a movie on his sofa that evening.

I really hope you folks enjoyed this one. If you did, please consider reblogging to show your support as well as leaving a like and/or a comment.

Do you want to see the other members of the group? Remember you can find out more about them here in this early post if you're curious. Tepes already has a love interest, and Ninja the mimic is claimed too, but if you're curious, lemme know!

| Masterlist | Ko-fi (tip jar)

#supernatural biker group #dullahan #male dullahan #dullahan x reader #reader insert #exophilia #monster boyfriend #monster biker #fantasy biker #biker dullahan #demon #vampire #werewolf

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for taking part in testing a stranger a few years ago?

Sounds worse than it is but I just want to ask. Long story bear with me. Fake names, all of us were 19-21 when it happened.

I'm in a very close friend group where we all share multiple fandoms, went through all kinds of discourse hell and fandom drama together for years. We're closeknit and we only get closer with time. One of the pillars of this group is Pearl who I deeply admire. Pearl is popular because she has good meta analysis and she's a vocal progressive just like everyone else in the group. All of us are popular to some degree but she's the most eloquent among us.

A few years ago we were hosting a group chat session to discuss a new show, Pearl was the host and she posted the invite for anyone to join. A new account named Ruby who was following some members of our group for a while, joined the chat along with a some other unknown people and a few mutuals. The chat had about 20 people, don't remember the exact number. So it was Pearl, her friends including me, some mutuals, some new people- all from Sauce fandom.

We were really happy to see so many Sauce fans like the new show. We were having fun until Pearl brought up shipwar from Sauce fandom for the sake of a mutual who was out of the loop. It was a mayo/ketchup vs ketchup/mustard drama and we were fans of mayo/ketchup. We were all shitting on the delulu ketchup/mustard shippers when Ruby said she was one of them. Pearl immediately showed her shitty takes from mustard fans, screenshots of anon hate Pearl got and some other things I can't remember. She asked for Ruby's opinion on those.

I admit Pearl was a little bit condescending, but at that time I was too busy agreeing with her and laughing about mustard/ketchup shippers' idiocy. I was giving more examples to support Pearl in case Ruby decided to counter. Ruby on the other hand laughed and said she also thought those anons were obnoxious and said she was only a casual fan. Pearl said she was relieved because these days you can't trust mustard/ketchup shippers to be normal. We went back to the original topic.

That was over, but I kept an eye on Ruby and I remember she unfollowed Pearl after a few days. I brought it up later a couple times when new members of our group became mutuals with Ruby. And one of them was outright making fun of her for being a little simpleton but we grew up and had other things to talk about.

Then I saw Ruby left Sauce fandom for Fruits fandom where she became a little more popular for meta discussions. She's still friends with a couple people from my group who are casual fans of Fruits. She sometimes shows up on my dash for general fiction takes I agree with. All good. But yesterday I saw her talking to her friends about something friendship and virtue signalling related, she said it was weird how many times she's been "tested" by fellow fans including people who she knew for years, and she thought maybe it was because she came off as dumb and oblivious. She implied She never needed to test anyone.

Now I don't know about other times Ruby was tested but I remembered the story from above when I was one of the strangers testing her and I'm wondering if it was a bad thing to do? I can see why she thought it was maybe rude. But it is true that many shippers happen to have dumb takes and I'd rather not waste my time, rival shipper or not. It's not even a big deal.

So Was I the asshole?

PS thank you for reading the full story and sorry I will not say the real names of Sauce fandom or its ships, none of us go there anymore.

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

[bonefall]

Hi Bones!! Thank you for you hard work on this project and for sharing it with us!

I've seen your posts about weird representation of society (regarding the "natural order of things") in xenofiction, especially in lion king, so I wanted to ask:

could you recommend any xenofiction media that has all (or most of the) animal species sapient? Or is the only solution to make just one or two species sapient while the others (especially prey) are plain animals?

Really sorry if you've seen this ask from me before - my account had a weird laggy period when I couldn't send or receive messages and asks, so I don't know if you got the previous one! I just know that now it's fixed so I double all the asks sent haha

Honestly I'm not totally sure! If any 3rd person has some good recommendations for "every being is alive" xenofiction types, feel free to weigh in.

If you want to jump in with me though, I am following the webcomic Africa. It updates every Wednesday. Africa is about a mother Leopard on the verge of a great ecological disaster, the relationship between her children and the animals around her, and the strength of both instinct and choice as the characters face an uncertain future.

Since it's ongoing, I still don't know how it's going to end and can't judge it as a full work! But it's absolutely fascinating and I think the author is doing a fantastic job so far. Bonus points for the way it portrays humans, btw.

No more spoilers though, if you're interested, it's on Webtoons.

(I'm also planning to read Oren's Forge soon. Ask me about it again in a few months over on Bonebabbles and I'll give you my thoughts)

As an aside though, funny you mention it because like... ever since I was a kid I've had a story I want to tell with the premise. It's a scintilla I've kept close to me for well over a decade but haven't done anything official with. So this is actually a theme I've thought about a lot.

It's rare to see it done well though because like... its very premise butts heads with reality. The "natural order" that an animal follows is not something it moralizes. A tiger doesn't have the capacity to think about how fucked up it is to kill to stay alive, the deer doesn't know that if its population isn't controlled it will destroy the forest.

They're animals. They don't HAVE that agency. Your dog does not care about being sterilized. A snake doesn't differentiate between a pinky and an adult mouse except in terms of if it will fit in its mouth. But the minute you put human morality in there... they have the ability to reason, create and agree on the rules of a society, make choices about MORALITY.

If nothing is going to change about their world, you just end up putting human arguments about "natural order" in their mouths and, well... start telling a parable justifying this "natural order."

(Genuine) Does what I'm saying make sense? Animals DON'T rationalize or negotiate. HUMANS do.

So the minute you're approaching a world with that logic, like it or not, you are invoking those "arguments from nature." And you're putting them in a being that is not fully an animal or a human, but an anthropomorphic mix which CAN rationalize but WON'T make an effort to change their world.

(Which is why tbh the best examples i know of are works with a theme of "change.")

OH WAIT I also remember another that's interesting!! Leafy: Hen into the Wild actually has a fascinating take on it. It's not interested in "moralizing" or really being about an animal society. It's a very emotional sort of movie, and it's about joys in adversity, the freedom that choice gives you, how bad things are going to happen and you can never completely prevent them.

INTENSE movie emotionally, the ending will wreck you (especially in the English translation which leaves out a really important theme making it feel abrupt x_x) but it's really good. Check that one out.

OH and also You Are Umasou. That one has more pitfalls imo (it does try to moralize a bit) but it's super unique as a movie. And is about dinosaurs.

#Don't take my opinions as gospel tho #There's no ONE RIGHT WAY to tell a story or handle a theme #And every person can have a unique reading of any story #Some stories can even be interpreted super differently by going in with different readings #Media isn't a box you take the lid off of to loot for objectively correct objects #It's more like eating a meal #Examining ingredients/tropes and how they were used #Trying to identify what the author set out to do and if it accomplished it in its current form #And sometimes idk chicken noodle tastes like hot saltwater in one moment but then hits different 2 months later when surrounding-- #--circumstances (like being sick or cold) make it hit different #Point im getting at is that we could objectively say 'they used chicken and noodle' in this dish #But analysis and opinions and expressing them are an art of their own #Bone babble #Anyway prolly gonna be quiet the rest of the day so I can do clanmew prep lads #Media analysis #Xenofiction

[callmewrinkles3]

Glitch - DR3 x fem!OC

Summary: Emma’s never really found it easy to make friends before. But her next door neighbour’s grinning friend is easy to like. And flirt with. And text even when their schedules are so different. Maybe it’s a weird glitch, but she’s only young once. What could go wrong?

Words count: 3.2k

Warning: Fluff and more fluff, flirt all around, alcohol consumption and hangovers, swearing because we don’t know how to write without it, Blake being a sunshine.

A/N: Hi everyone! We can’t believe this is happening. It feels weird to leave our new little baby out in the world but we’re really happy and excited about doing it. We really hope you love our girl Emma as much as we love her. She’s feisty, fun, and hates Zak Beige as much as we do which is an Important Thing In The Future. We also hope you get to love the story as much as much we do. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoy writing it. Its gonna be a wild ride full of gossip, snuggles, media post and some angst. This is the fist of we have no idea how many chapters, but its gonna be more than two for sure lol Anyway, let us know what you think?? Enjoy and see you around soon!💜

—

Glitch - January 2018

At the start of it, Emma swore they were supposed to be just friends. That’s how everything started, friends. Daniel didn’t live anywhere near her so it was impossible for them to run into each other unless they made the effort to. But then she was arriving home at the same time as the new guy who’d moved in next door had, and they ended up becoming friends. So when Blake arrived at her front door inviting her to his apartment the next night for his birthday, she couldn’t say no. He wanted to warn her about the noise, be a good neighbor because they were actually home, and the invitation fell out of his mouth. And she said yes.

Sometimes she thought saying yes to that was her best and worst decision.

That Saturday night she didn’t think about it. Instead she got dressed up in a little black dress, put on makeup, grabbed up the nicer than she’d buy for herself bottle of wine she‘d picked up for the occasion and knocked on Blake’s door. They were friendly acquaintances, the Australian trusted her with a key to his apartment because he worked for Red Bull and travelled around the world on a regular basis. She knew his last name was Friend because of a post mixup, she knew it was his birthday, and she knew he sang in the shower. But for all Emma knew he could be the new form of Jack The Ripper inviting her out to kidnap her. But his friendliness made her believe he wasn’t.

As soon as he opened the door there were people around, a mix of his friends and work colleagues waving and introducing herself. She tried to remember names, smiling and shaking hands. Until she met Daniel.

The moment she looked at his curly hair she knew he was something else. He smelled good in the busy room, a beer in his hand and a broad smile on his face. Her brain was yelling that if she walked over to him she wasn’t walking away without something happening. So of course, she grabbed a beer from the bucket on the coffee table and took the empty spot next to him.

That was her first mistake of the night.

The second one was agreeing every single time he asked if she wanted another drink. The one time she considered saying no - happy to be tipsy but not drunk - his big brown puppy eyes made her say yes. That smile and those eyes were two of the three reasons she couldn’t help but flirt with him every chance she got. The third reason she flirted was his warm body was pressed beside her on the couch, their legs touching as they played Cards against humanity and laughed at everyone's awful answers.  

Her third mistake was going with him into the kitchen to get water for everyone, standing beside the window and looking out over the London skyline. She couldn’t help drop a comment about how he looked cute under the moonlight coming in, Dan grinning and then letting out the most perfect laugh as she rambled about how the stars and that night’s blood moon made his dimples look good. He found it hilarious.

She didn’t know that he thought it was adorable how her cheeks turned red every time he complimented her. She was smiling and he told her how cute it was that her nose wrinkled as she smiled, but she just felt her cheeks flush, heating up with embarrassment. But what made everything worse was the way Daniel brushed his thumb over her nose as he said it. It was an innocent touch, like a parent cleaning a child's face, but it went straight to her heart. She took a dangerous step forward wanting to do the same, but not trusting their height difference. Instead she pinched his cheek, dropping a stupid feeling “Shut up, Dimples.”

She wasn’t going to sleep with him. She wasn’t. Emma wanted to, but she couldn’t. They’d met three hours before and he was clearly close to Blake and she wasn’t going to ruin the one good friendship she’d made in her adulthood. Even if they were taking it any further, the spell between them was broken with a shout.

“Ems! Danny! What are you doing in there?” They came back in with the drinks, Emma raising an eyebrow at Blake.

“Ems?”

“We’re Aussies, everything gets a nickname. Is it ok?” It might have been the alcohol speaking, but she’d never had someone decide to just give her a nickname. It felt more like her than Emma ever had.

“It’s good.”

She had to leave before whatever had happened between her and Daniel started again. He knew he was good looking, she knew there was flirting, but the best thing was to shut it down then and there. She said her goodbyes and hugged Blake, shrugging off his question about why she was leaving so early.

“I’m meeting friends for brunch tomorrow, if I’m having mimosas then I don’t want to drink more tonight. It was fun, invite me next time you’re home for more than a few days.”  

She waved goodbye and closed the door, putting earplugs into sleep because every time she closed her eyes she thought she could hear Daniel’s voice through the thin walls.

When she got up the next morning her head was clear, but she cursed herself for not asking for Daniel’s number. The chances of seeing him again considering Blake’s work schedule were basically non existent, and she chalked it up to a night of fun and flirting. Daniel, however, had different ideas.

A scrap of paper shoved under her front door had a phone number and messy handwriting that said “Text me anytime, Wrinkles”. Until last night there was nobody in the world who had a nickname for her, now she had two. Daniel was the only one who would call her Wrinkles, nobody else had overheard that conversation when she was fighting herself not to kiss him. It took her more than a couple of minutes to decide to actually text him.

Wrinkles?

It took a couple of hours for him to text her back, and in the meantime, she cleaned and did a couple of hours of work. But her phone buzzed with a text and Ems wouldn’t admit to anyone how quickly she picked it up to check.

Coz your nose wrinkles!

Sure thing, Dimples.

That’s how their friendship started and sustained through the weeks and months of not seeing each other, Daniel’s job taking him away from the UK for weeks at a time. He spent a lot of time in Europe judging by the random photos he’d send on the weeks that their time difference wasn’t too bad. They texted almost daily, her favorite a picture of a plate of meat sent at 4am. When she asked why the next morning it wasn’t until mid afternoon when she got back “I’m in Austin for work, Wrinkles”.

Other times it was a YouTube or Spotify link to a song he insisted she had to know, and she replied with early 2000s UK and Ireland boyband songs. If he hadn’t sent her anything by the time the early evening rolled around she’d text him a check in to tell him what time it was for her. That always got a response of the sky, a clock on the wall, or one of the intricate watches he wore so she knew roughly how far away their time ones were.

Their conversations were short and sweet and random, so she never asked what exactly he did with Blake. She knew they worked on the Formula one team and travelled, but that was it when it came to work. Even in his personal life she didn’t know a lot. His name was Daniel, he was a year older than her, he was from Perth and he loved music. She knew he was in the UK a few times before Christmas, but work was insane for both of them so they couldn’t get the coffee that they swore they would. She only saw Blake twice, and one of those times was when she opened his front door to drop his post in and he’d just arrived home.

Ems nearly groaned when she got a photo of Daniel in an airport, his boarding pass held up to his face showing he was on his way to Perth for Christmas. The timezone difference was a pain, eight hours meaning his day was half over as hers was beginning. But the snatched messages continued, videos of him on motorbikes or running down the beach that looked like it was out of a film. She’d have lied if she said the photo of him holding his baby nephew didn’t make her ‘aww’ out loud. She couldn’t help but grin every single time he sent her a selfie of himself, relaxed and tanned and happy. Even if he’d been clearly working out just before taking many of them.

In response she sent him photos of her far paler face curled up on the couch, or when she went into the hot desks she worked from when she needed away from her tiny flat. He sent her photos of Christmas trees out of place in the warm sun, and in return he got Oxford Street lights lit up. On her last day in Liverpool for the actual holiday she sent him a photo of her sad face and rain wet hair, hoping for a kind word.

Instead she got a gorgeous sunset over the beach, the kind of photo that she only thought existed in photoshop. But it wasn’t the photo that got her, it was the four words and two letters at the bottom. ‘Wish you were here xx’. As soon as she read it she’d typed out that she wished she was too, sending it before she could regret it.

As soon as she got back to London and away from family she opened a bottle of wine, pouring heavily until the bottle was nearly empty. Drinking too much wasn’t her usual coping mechanism – that was blasting Taylor Swift - but she needed to quiet the butterflies in her stomach at his text.

She couldn’t fall for a guy she barely knew. She couldn’t fall for a guy who was constantly travelling around the world. Ems wouldn’t let herself get into that mess, pining for someone who she’d never see. She knew better, she knew that she’d be fine on her own. They could be friends and that would be it. She and Blake had started becoming Good Friends, she and Daniel could do the same. Plus, a guy like him would always have some girl wanting to be on his arm. It was alright. It had to be alright.

She’d convinced herself that it really would be alright, but then what Blake called winter break was over and he was back with a Christmas present for her as a thanks for getting his post and keeping his spider plant alive. As he was turning away from her front door he stopped, and she suddenly knew what he was about to say

“There’s a group of us going out on Saturday, are you coming? It’s mostly everyone who was at my birthday, some of the guys from work.” She was all prepared to say no when he pulled out his final line. “Daniel’s coming too.”

She took a breath, biting her lip as if she was working out if she could make it. But as soon as he invited her she was going to say yes, even if it was just a chance Daniel would be there.

Saying yes to going out was the opposite of a mistake.

Once Ems arrived at the club she realized she had no idea how to handle a full night out around Daniel and his charm offensive. He wasn’t even wearing anything fancy – black skinny jeans, a white shirt, red plaid, and a pair of black vans - but with what she was learning were his ever present rings he looked too good. She thought she could keep herself together until he grinned, holding out his arms and pulling her into a hug.

“Emmy!” The new nickname didn’t make it easy for her to let go instead of wrapping her legs around his waist and holding him close.

“New nickname?” She asked, struggling to be heard over the music even with how close they were holding each other.

“I know Blake’s calling you Ems, but I figured you deserved a proper one from me.”  

He didn’t just look good, he smelled amazing and his hugs were the best she’d ever had. They felt like being home after a long trip, lighting her favorite candle and sitting down with a burger from the greasy spoon around the corner. It was warm and cozy and familiar despite the fact she’d never had one from him before. It felt so damn good that it nearly hurt to let him go.

Emmy was so focused on hiding the electricity she felt from his hand on her hip as they walked through the club that she didn’t realize they’d been brought to the VIP area. It wasn’t the kind of place she’d usually go, a pub with a couple of drinks was her usual thing instead of loud music. But she smiled and nodded, glad that the thumping beat was quieter in there as they got drinks. But then Daniel and his friend were talking about how this was the last heavy night until the summer break apart from wins, that full season boot camp was starting Monday.

She knew she looked utterly clueless but focused on her drink until the other Australian who’d been talking to Daniel caught her attention.

“Everything ok? I’m Michael, we didn’t talk much at Blake’s birthday.”

“Em. Yeah, fine, just not sure what you and Daniel were talking about.”

“Just his race preparedness, making sure he’s fit enough for the g forces and the laps in Melbourne. Can’t have an issue in his home race!”

“Race?”

The group went silent as they realized that Em had no idea about Daniel’s actual job, and it was quickly explained that he didn’t just work with Blake. He drove the car for the Formula one team.  

“You know you’ll have to tell me the full story?” She asked Daniel as he gave her the very broad strokes, and he grinned back at her.

“Not tonight, but soon Wrinkles. Pinkie promise?”

“Promise.”

They exchanged the promise with their pinkies locked and a wry smile before Dan pulled her up to go to the bar for a drink. Which turned into another. And another. And another. Which then turned into looking at each other and Daniel trying to pull her onto the dance floor.

“I’ll dance with you, but that’s all that’s happening Dimples.”

They moved together, their own little bubble away from everyone else dancing. Daniel was careful not to touch her until she let him, his hands going to her waist and barely moving from there. They went to the curve of her hips, but after that they stayed still as they swayed out of time to the song. She wanted to get him to move them further, grab her ass and make it clear she wasn’t going home with anyone else. But even while she was tipsy as hell she found the strength not to jump into his arms, not to reach her head up and push a kiss to his lips like she wanted to. Even though he was the funniest and most charming man she’d ever met, who made her smile even during the week she hated every year. But she kept it together as they left the dance floor for another drink before going back to their friends.

Blake was her excuse to leave, her chance to run out and not drag Daniel home with her. It was clear they both wanted it, but it was a Bad Idea. Instead they hugged goodbye, Blake getting in the taxi and insisting on paying the fare when they got in. She said goodbye to him with a hug before collapsing into her own bed, alone.

What she did do was send him a text in the morning. As soon as she had the ability to open her eyes back she grabbed her phone and turned the brightness down to the lowest it would go. Once she could semi focus her text thread with Daniel came up, and she dictated it as voice to text instead of trying to tap on the screen.

Damn you and your fancy drinks, Dimples.

He hadn’t let her pay for a single round of drinks, as much as she tried to. Instead he batted away her hand with cash and held out his card, telling her it was fine. She was positive he wouldn’t answer considering she and Blake had been the first two to leave, but ten minutes later her phone buzzed again. Ems ignored it, but the third buzz meant she didn’t and made herself concentrate on the texts with Dimples. The pain eased as she saw the three messages, telling her to open her front door. Then seriously. Open it now.

She wasn’t fully sure how she managed to make it to her door, pulling an oversized hoodie around her for warmth on the cold January morning. But when she looked out her peephole the hallway was empty.

It was stupid to imagine Daniel would be there. She felt ridiculous for thinking he’d be standing there, even though he told her to open her door. But because he told her to, she decided to follow his instructions and pulled it open to find a brown paper bag from her favorite bakery sitting there.

It was mid-November and he’d been in Brazil when they’d been sharing hangover remedies and she’d told him about the lemon drizzle cake and Chelsea buns from a bakery near her flat that always made her feel better when she’d drank too much. Too many baked goods and a caramel latte from the overpriced hipster place next door always helped make her feel human. She’d told him as a recommendation, somewhere to keep in mind the next time he was in London. Daniel had told her he would, but she had to promise to try his favorite bakery in Perth that somehow managed to make the cheesiest focaccia he’d eaten in his life.

That was more than two months ago, and they hadn’t mentioned anything about it since. The last thing she’d expected was to open the door and find a bag with still warm baked goods in it. Two pieces of lemon drizzle cake, two Chelsea buns, and three chocolate chip cookies that were warm and gooey as she ripped a bite from one. There was a perfectly made caramel latte in a takeout cup, and at the bottom of the bag was a box of painkillers. There was nearly everything she could have asked for right there, and she texted him a slightly embarrassing selfie of her grinning face and the cookie she’d taken a hunk out of already.

The only thing he hadn’t brought was something to stop her falling head over heels for him. But if Emmy was being true to herself, she knew it was already too late to stop it.

#call it what you want fic #ciwyw writing #daniel ricciardo #daniel ricciardo imagine #daniel ricciardo oneshot #daniel ricciardo fanfic #f1 #f1 oneshot #f1 fanfic #f1 imagine #formula one #formula one imagine #formula one fanfic #formula one oneshot #formula 1 #formula 1 imagine #formula 1 oneshot #formula 1 fanfic

[peach-and-bugs]

💚Bean Sprout - Lottie Matthews x fem!Reader💚

ch 1 - chapter 2 - ch 3

Fanfiction master list

disclaimer: don't repost my work. I only post on Tumblr and on Ao3. anything else is stolen and should be removed immediately

Summary: You've been happily married to Charlotte Matthews for some odd years now, but it feels like it's time to take a step in a new direction together... aka mama!Lottie

Warnings: suggestive conversation & implication, insecurity

Word Count: 1,346

A/N: Hello Loves, we're back with more Mama!Lottie! I kept this one on the shorter side compared to most chapters I write, but this one kinda ended pretty naturally and I didn't feel like forcing more into it. As always, feel free to leave questions or comments in my comments or ask box, and happy reading! 💚

Lottie Matthews Tag List: (open) @elliesjoints

Yellowjackets Tag List: @frasersgf @minimickzy

"Bean Sprout" Tag List: @mistysswampmud @emilynissangtr

General Tag List: @summergeezburr

-💚-

Of course, a much longer conversation was had, and after a few weeks of intense organization, you both moved on to talking with doctors about your options. You agreed together that you’d carry, seeing as you were younger. You’d argued that 34 wasn’t all that much younger compared to 38, but Lottie had only laughed, shaking her head. It had been some time now, and you'd had begun taking a wide variety of supplements as you started tracking your cycle to get the IVF going. 

On this evening, you were lying flat on your back on the couch, flipping through a binder of potential male donors that the clinic had given you to look through held over your head. Lottie moved into the living room from the kitchen, carrying two mugs of tea with her. She set one down on the coffee table in front of you before she tapped at your feet, silently asking you to scoot. You lifted your feet but didn’t look up from the binder. 

“This is so weird,” You grumbled. Lottie sat at the other end of the couch with her feet up on the coffee table as she moved your feet across her lap. 

“What’s weird, love,” she hummed, taking a sip of her still-steaming tea. She’d been brewing raspberry tea all week partly because of its boost for fertility but also just because she loved the flavor with honey. You sighed, turning through to another page of the binder, your eyes scanning over strange men’s faces and credentials for why you should pick them.

“Flipping through this book just to choose who we’ll use to make our baby,” you scrunched your nose at the wording with a scowl that made Lottie chuckle into her cup. “I wish you could just get me pregnant,” You mused under your breath as you flicked through the binder again, only to look away once more when you heard Lottie hum.

“I’d be lying if I didn’t think about that,” you perked up at the admission, dropping the binder to your stomach as you looked up at her with an arched brow. 

“Oh, have you now?” you mused with a wicked grin. Lottie realized her mistake and refused to look up from her cup, now taking another long sip in an attempt to shield her eyes. The binder was forgotten and slipped onto the coffee table as you moved from you’re lying position. You readjusted, sitting up on your knees beside your wife, the proximity being enough for her to feel your breath fanning over the skin of her neck. Still, she didn't look up, her eyes trained on the cup in her hands as she stirred it with the tiny metal spoon she’d brought with her. 

“Charlotte,” you murmured her full first name in that sing-song tone you so often use. She both loved and hated when you'd do that because, on the one hand, she adored the sound of her voice leaving your lips, but on the other, she knew what game you were playing. You grinned and took the cup out of her hands, moving to the coffee table beside your own because it had become quite offensive the amount of attention it was getting as opposed to you. You could hear Lottie swallow as you moved to straddle your thighs over her lap, arms looping ever naturally around her neck as you tilted your head with an innocent look. 

“Tell me about it,” you mused, batting your eyelashes as she looked up at you as though she’d been caught in your headlights. You ran your fingertips over her forehead, brushing away loose hair that obstructed your view of her, your ever-beautiful wife who’d grown shy at her admission. You knew Lottie had a lot of thoughts when it came to this pregnancy, not all of them being the most innocent.

She rarely ever talked about it, but it had come up long before. Before you were married, even when she had been very drunk one night, her loose lips had let it slip that the thought of her partner carrying a baby, well, specifically your baby, together, was quite exciting, but not only because of the anticipation. She’d felt horrible the next morning, having realized what she’d said, which led you both down a long rabbit hole of conversation to normalize and help her feel better, that thinking that way about your partner was completely normal, and you found the idea quite flattering. 

You knew that given the current conversation buzzing around the house, some of those thoughts and feelings could potentially be found fronting in her mind, though she hadn’t said anything about it till now. And though you now questioned her in a way that made it clear you also found her thought arousing, she held her tongue, keeping her fantasy to herself, much to your disappointment, but you weren't going to push. 

“Well, if you aren't going to tell me, at least help me pick a baby daddy, won’t you?” that phrasing caught her attention now, and you felt her arms snake around your hips, tugging you into her ever so slightly as her eyes found yours with a scrunch in her brow. 

“We aren’t calling him that,” there was a hushed harshness to her insistence that you relished in, biting your lip as you laughed. Without another word, you leaned in and kissed her lips but retreated before any heat could be added. “What was that,” Lottie asked, finally smiling with a curious crook in her brow.

“I like it when you get jealous,” you murmured, pecking at her cheek as you leaned away to reach for the binder again. 

“I wasn’t jealous-” she began to argue as you readjusted yourself over her lap, now letting your legs stretch over the couch as you’re back rested against the arm of the couch. Lottie’s right arm curled around your side while her other hand found its place comfortably over your thigh as you presented her with the binder. 

“Anyways, how do we even choose a doner when we haven't picked an egg yet,” Lottie asked, changing the subject. You pressed your lips in a frown. Neither of you had considered that portion yet. 

“I mean, it doesn’t matter to me. The doctor said we could use either of our eggs,” you recalled. You looked up at your wife to notice a fleeting unsureness in her gaze. “Does that worry you?” you blinked up at her. She faltered as she began to speak, her hand aimlessly starting to rub at your back as she considered her words. 

“I do worry about using my eggs, yes,” she eventually managed. You wanted to urge her to elaborate till it dawned on you. 

“Lot, are you worried about passing your mental illness to the baby?” She didn’t have to answer to verify your suspicion. “Well, we can always use my eggs and find someone similar to you as our donor. That way, it feels more like an even mix, you know?” you brushed your thumb over the apple of her cheek. “Plus, that’ll shrink our pool of candidates and make picking a donor easier,” She seemed relieved by how seamlessly you could solve her worries, though she still had concerns. 

“But I worry it’ll feel more like you’re having a baby,” she murmured, her eyes fleeting from yours once more. You turned her chin with your hand, giving her a scowled look. 

“Lottie. Regardless of who’s carrying or who’s dna is being used, this is our baby. Yours and mine because we’re the ones going through this pregnancy together, and we’ll be the ones raising this child when it’s done, ok?” She sighed, and you could feel her relax under your touch, taking your hand in hers to kiss your fingertips, silently giving you her thanks for understanding. You smiled, letting go of a satisfied breath through your nose before turning back to the binder. 

“Now help me pick a sperm donor so we can get this show on the road,”

#◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡ kay's at it again♡ #yellowjackets #yellowjackets fanfic #yellowjackets x reader #lottie yellowjackets #lottie matthews #lottie matthews x reader #mama!lottie yj

[noahmullariii]

a much too whiny rant about fic icks

I die a little every time pup, cub or Prongslet comes up in a wolfstar raising Harry (together or separately) fic. especially cub - it makes literally no sense????? are you sure it's Remus John Lupin I'm reading about??? it's his evil doppelganger, I'm telling you. I'm not even sure I could stomach that word ironically.

Prongslet is fine in moderation, I guess, but only as an inside joke, only coming from Sirius and only when Harry's a smol bean. but when it's Prisoner of Azkaban compliant I wanna claw my eyes out.

it's even worse when those terms are used not just in dialogue but in Remus or Sirius' internal monologue as if pup and cub are Harry's freaking pronouns or something. my cub, my pup, cub did this, pup did that... just call him boy or kid or his name for god's sake. I once saw sprog pop up and was delighted cuz at least it's actually british slang.

and don't get me started on Hadrian(us) James Orion Potter-Black (which is just... why the fuck would James give his son the name of his best mate's horrible father AND the last name of his horrible family?? and why would Lily agree to that?) who's simultaneously Lord Potter, Black, Peverell and Slytherin (and, sure, I have a visceral reaction to aristocracy wank in general but even ignoring that - the last 3 literally make no sense since "Lord Black" is Sirius until his death; and both Peverell and Slytherin lines bled into other families ages ago. so being a Potter automatically means you're descended from Peverells as well as being a Gaunt - from Slytherin. and the last of those is Tom Riddle Jr. but that wouldn't make any Potters "Lord Peverell"s or any Gaunts/Riddle "Lord Slytherin"s. those last names are dead. smh).

but, uh, this tangent technically has nothing to do with my initial complaints, it's just that at some point I started thinking of this naming stuff in tandem with nonsensical nicknames as they began appearing in fics together. which is a double homicide, truly.

and look, I definitely understand the desire to make Harry's original name something else cuz it fits nicely with POC Potters headcanon and Dursleys being racist dicks about it, but... Hadrian? I mean, it's not really a big deal when the fic mentions it being his full name but both narration and characters still refer to him as Harry for short - that makes total sense. however when after the name reveal Hadrian replaces Harry completely, it feels super weird and uncanny, making it hard to identify Harry's character in the story altogether.

although I guess you should all knock me off my high horse for being the biggest hypocrite ever, cuz I myself have a headcanon for Harry's name, even if it's less elaborate than Hadrian. also less Roman? that's another thing I don't get - if you want to create a better connection between Harry and his roots, why choose a name of a Roman emperor for a desi kid? since he's usually explicitly desi in all the Hadrian fics. so it's not that I have a problem with renaming him, per se, I just don't understand the choice of Hadrian.

for example, I recently read a fic where he was Pakistani and his name was originally Hami, which is a very nice idea, actually, and makes total sense for such headcanon. mine is Hari btw (हरि in Sanskrit), since I headcanon Potters as Indian, but I didn't come up with that name myself - just saw it somewhere a couple years ago and fell in love. I think it's actually a pretty popular hc now? anyway, it's closer to Harry than any other name I've seen and has so many beautiful meanings that resonate with what I think James and Lily felt towards their son. so yeah, I'm one to talk, boo me.

now, I probably should shut up since this rant has been entirely too negative already, but while I'm on the topic of icky names/nicknames I should circle back to wolfstar cuz gods know I'll never be brave enough to talk about this particular pet peeve in its own post.

Siri, Remu and Remy make my blood boil. Siri could be kinda cute when it's a silly childhood nickname from Regulus, but if any marauder or Lily calls Sirius that - immediate death. Si and Re are a teensy bit better in moderation and if used ironically, but still stab me in the chest. a couple times for good measure. the only somewhat acceptable short form of any of their two names for me is Rem, albeit with a stretch and only because it's an actual version of the name Remus in Catalan and Russian. I know I'm being way too dramatic about this (just like with all of my previous points) but I just don't understand the need to shorten their names. at all. they're only 3 and 2 syllables long and so mystical on their own that any shortening just makes them simultaneously more nonsensical and less remarkable.

both characters literally have established quirky nicknames in canon that you can play with and even shorten to Pads and Moons if you want. Sirius is not a digital assistant and Remus is not the main character from Ratatouille. stop this madness.

plus James is right there. his name has a ridiculous amount of diminutives - Jamie, Jimmy, Jim, Jam, Jem, Jay and even Jimbo if you're into that. why strip Remus and Sirius' magical names of their charm if you can have fun with common names? but I digress.

at the end of the day, my pet peeves are mine only and I should live with them in fragile peace. this post is a personal rant first and foremost and if you disagree, I'm genuinely happy that you enjoy the things I can't. fandom is a playground and we can all find some fun in different corners. I'd also like to point out that I'm not trying to take a jab at fic writers who use any of the aforementioned terms, names or diminutives. I'm only one person, so if I stop reading your work because of my petty biases, it's only my loss and not your problem. hundreds of other fans will enjoy it instead. so keep doing what you love and writing those characters however you want, it's your right!

so yeah, writers and readers - don't take it personally and have your fun! don't listen to me being mean! I'm just making my fandom experience way too convoluted for my own good.

#this came out very mean #sorry #ah whatever #it's my blog #harry potter #remus lupin #sirius black #wolfstar #james potter #lily evans #jily #i guess? #harry's their kid after all #desi james potter #desi harry potter #padfoot #moony #marauders #marauders era #the marauders #fanfiction pet peeves

[rawliverandgoronspice]

TLOZ translations always seem to be a bit shitty. I still see people talk about the weird translation of the Demise monologue at the end of SkSw. I think someone said that Demise was more general with his statement, as in there will always be forces from the demon tribe fighting against the light or smth? Not specifically "us three will always fight". (I've read it a few times, but hard to remember, sorry.) (On the topic of SkSw, I kinda dislike how much it impacted theories within TLOZ, some theories are really cool, don't get me wrong. But now, even games that existed for years before suddenly are being pushed to fit with the lore presented in that game. Ganondorf being the best example: He no longer is his own character who did bad things because of his own will and actions, it's now "He did it all because an evil curse made him do it. He had no choice, he was born as a vessel for the demonic lord." The implications that "the curse of Demise" also would mainly go for the already vilified race of the Gerudo, and make their one male an evil warlord is already kinda... yeah... no. (Not to mention that there are other demon lords throughout the franchise that have nothing to do with Ganon.)

Ohh speaking of this I recently saw this post that did a good translation of that very moment, and pretty much confirms what you are mentioning anon; that it's basically a promise of that cycle coming back moreso than Demise himself coming back (especially since his actual and definitive death is a big deal in that game).

But yeah, I agree it has taken a huge space in the way the series is thought about. I pretty much completely missed that hard turn, as I couldn't play Skyward Sword when it released and wasn't super into Zelda afterward anymore (I had gotten too edgy.... 2011 was the year where I got obsessed with every horror videogame in existence basically except for Resident Evil for some reason I could never get into that series ANYWAY WAY off topic........), so coming back a few years later had me very ???? puzzled about how the theories had reconstructed themselves around Hylia and Demise and endless cycles (it's not that it wasn't a thing before, but I wouldn't say it was as much a Series Trademark as it is now).

But yeah. Ganondorf having his own motivations makes him immediately stronger as an antagonist, especially since his deal is quite complicated all things considered.

I am having a thought about how a lot of Zelda villains' motivation is a sort of rebellion against nature. I have scratched enough digital paper about Ganondorf's situation, but like... Minish Cap Vaati is also very much motivated by his refusal to remain small and whimsical and seize power instead of staying in his lane (and then he gets horny in Four Sword so, maybe let's not go there), Zant is.... Zant, Hilda in A Link Between World has been cosmically punished for trying to reject the Goddesses and create a world on its own terms --like SERIOUSLY this is HORRIFYING I feel like we don't talk enough about how utterly nightmarish of a reality that paints for Hyrule as a whole-- Girahim is devoted but fights for the side more or less destined to lose... It's interesting how Hyrule is hostile to change and anything that threatens the statut quo.

(then you have the occasional Majora and Yuga, whomst I dooon't think really fit the above category --to their full credit! and then you have Bellum, who is..... a blob...... And I don't remember enough from either the Oracles game or about Malladus to put them in either category, I need to replay those games)

Hyrule really has this frightening quality to it when you stare at it for too long: that your two only options are to either graciously submit to your assigned cosmic role, or fight it and become darkness incarnate in some way. A Link Between World showed, quite starkly, that trying to escape that binary choice is *not an option*.

#asks #thoughts #totk #ganondorf #demise #skyward sword #vaati #hilda #zant #girahim #a link between worlds #minish cap #thanks for the ask!! #sorry I'm getting through them now that I'm not dying as much from covid #I fell over because I had too much fever #fun + normal #but yeah weirdly enough I think this is what compels me about the series now more than anything else #what can one do in such a reality how do you self-define what is freedom what is agency #man a link between worlds is such a good game tho #see this is why I had higher standards for totk's worldbuilding

[a-court-of-moonlight-and-ire]

Alright, today yesterday I read chapters 17-21 and I sure have a lot of thoughts about Rhysand now. can you guess if theyre positive or negative? I'll give you a hint, its not the one that starts with a p

But before we get into that, can I just say, why the hell is everything happening so goddamn quickly YOURE ALL IMMORTAL. like, heres a rough timeline of acomaf so far: three months of Feyre being miserable in Spring post-UTM, then Rhysand takes her for one week, then Feyre's back in Spring for three weeks, then Rhysand takes her again for one week, then its less than three weeks of Feyre being back in Spring before Tamlin locks her in the manor and Rhysand and Mor take her back to the Night Court. Its been barely half a year! The reason Im bringing that up is first of all, it very much seems like Feyre is already beginning to warm up Rhysand at this point when that is absolutely not enough time for that after what he did to her. And second of all, theyre already demanding so much of her when everyone except for Rhys hasnt even spent 24 hours with her in total. And she just agrees to everything?? Right off the bat, basically the only way this makes any sense is if Rhysand is mind controlling her

Also, this is only semi-related, but i swear I remember Mor wearing a red dress to their first get-together at the HoW and Feyre not reacting to it at all ?? Also, Cassian siphons, they were specifically like a fire-y red what the hell. Now, was that just a mistake or did Rhysand use his mind powers to turn off the part of Feyre's brain that gets triggered at the sight of the color red so she wouldnt ruin his family reunion? You decide.

Alright, now lets talk about Feyre. Ive had some trouble properly analysing her the past few chapters because I was really focused on trying to figure out what exactly made her so unhappy at the spring court vs why she likes the night court so much when they seem very similar. It seemed like her motivation was flip-flopping all over the place, similar to chapters 1-3, but she already came across as far less traumatized somehow, so it felt weird that she would still have so much trouble really articulating what she wants, even to herself. But then I realized, its not that shes flip-flopping, her motivations are just contradictory; she wants to be an important political player who gets to Do Stuff but she doesnt want anyone to pay any attention to her, which is why having an empty title and no actual power staying in a city full of people who dont care if their high lord is just walkin around right beside them is so appealing

And its really frustrating because its another instance of her just getting what she wants right away instead of having to go through any character development. Shes bad at communicating and instead of even attempting to work on that, she just gets a mindreader for a soulmate, and she cant do smalltalk with nobles in order to earn their respect as Lady of Spring and instead of learning to adapt or putting her foot down and refusing to deal with the courtly bullshit at the cost of her political power, she just gets a leadership position that was quite literally made for her.

Somewhat related to Feyre being bad at politicking, they keep bringing up the fact that Tamlin just wanted her to throw parties and wear pretty dresses and maybe pop out some sons at the spring court and its just so annoying. Of course, much has already been said about how ironic it is when you consider how she ends up in ACOSF so Im not gonna go into detail on that but I did want to mention it. Also, parties and other social gatherings were a pretty important way for (noble) women who were kept out of politics to still participate in them in the past, and even if we take out the misogyny that just suddenly materialized in this book, Feyre cant read, doesnt know this land and barely knows what its like being the daughter of a rich guy, much less an actual noblewoman, of course she cant do much but sit around and reassure people that everything is gonna be alright by virtue of her presence

Speaking of the weird misogyny, its so baffling to me the reason shes being objectified and dehumanized (no pun intended) is that shes a woman whos seen as only good for child-rearing, when it really should be her being objectified and being dehumanized by being put on a pedestal for being the Saviour Of Prythian. It seems so obvious like, Ive been rotating some ideas for an ACOMAF-rewrite AU type thing in my head since before I even started reading this book, and one of the first things I decided was that everyone was gonna call feyre The Cursebreaker and nothing else and she would feel really weird and bad about it. I literally dont think anything wouldve changed if her being objectified was a more personal issue rather than something resulting from systemic misogyny, other than the fact that Rhysand couldnt be a feminist in-universe if that was the case

Now, before I move on to the next thing I wanted to talk about, I wanna quickly explain what I mean by "the misogyny just materialized in the second book" because some people might say "oh, but the first book had misogyny as well" and it definitely did but not to the same extent. ACOTAR was kinda weird because it seems to be a pretty egalitarian world, Feyre doesnt think its weird that a woman is a mercenary and while considering that the Spring Court might have a High Lady instead of a High Lord, she doesnt say anything about how it would unusual to have a woman be a leader, but it has this coating of "period-typical misogyny" over it, seemingly just because its what you expect from these kinds of pseudo-medieval european-inspired fantasy settings

So you still get all women being expected to wear dresses and Feyre being an exception for not wanting to wear one and when Feyre daydreams about getting rid of her sisters, she daydreams about marrying them off rather than daydream about them getting jobs or something. But even with that, while Feyre is considered a bit strange for not wanting to wear a dress at the Spring Court, she still ultimately gets to just wear pants without it being a big deal. And then we get to ACOMAF and suddenly theres FGM thats completely normalized, domestic abuse, women being expected to do child rearing and "continue the bloodline" by default even though children were supposed to be super rare and fae should absolutely not structure their lives around them and Feyre being absolutely baffled at the idea of a political leader having a second-in-command thats a woman. And again, it very much seems like the only reason for that is that it makes Rhysand look better if hes recuing women in general from systemic inequality, rather than just rescuing a single woman from her personal problems

And with that, lets finally talk about my most detested, Rhysand Nolastname. He fucking sucks man. In a past post I made a point about comparing specifically ACOTAR!Tamlin with specifically ACOMAF!Rhys because it thought it made sense to compare Tamlin when hes written as a love interest to Rhys being written as a love interest, but honestly, theres so little difference between Tamlin being written as an antagonist in ACOMAF and Rhys being written as a love interest that it feels kinda pointless now. Like, Feyre is upset that Tamlin wont tell her anything about the politics happening, but is inexplicably fine with Rhysand not telling her what he wants from the summer court, she hates meeting with Tamlins associates and having meaningless smalltalk with them but likes meeting Rhysand's, she doesnt like Tamlin flaunting his wealth but is fine with all of Rhysand's expensive bullshit, literally the only difference between them is that Feyre likes one and and hates the other, again, for no real reason because they are the same. Well, the same in their treatment of Feyre, Rhysand is arguably a worse person who has done and is still doing a lot more harm on a larger scale but Im posting this in the anti-rhys tag so you already knew that

Anyway, thats it for now, this got kinda long but I hope you enjoyed it

#anti acotar #anti sjm #anti acomaf #anti rhysand #anti feysand #flames and darkness liveblog

[corona-journal]

1000 days of covid.... a reflection... what do you remember?

If I asked many of the memory of covid, it would be toilet paper shortages, the media call to treat nurses and doctors as heroes, lockdowns and social isolation. But there's more, though....

The picture above is of a near bare row of supermarket shelves, with only a few rolls of toilet paper.

My own memories, in general terms, would be:

The curious spread of this flu variant through China and its neighbouring countries. (Via media reports. Plus its rapid rise up the priority reading list for the broadcast reader/ reporter/ news team)

The slow response of most governments to the emerging cases (easy with hindsight)

The tourist ship Ruby Princess docking with (eventually a total of) 22 cases on board, docking in Sydney. No quarantine controls enforced effectively at that point in time. (And Covid had been a thing well reported)

The toilet paper shortages, followed by shortages of pasta, rice, disinfectant and other staple foods from shelves. Never seen so many bare shelves before, except in news reports where people cleaned out stores in the face of cyclones or snow storms.

The growing weirdness of still going to work when others were getting government pay to stay at home. Apart from the driver, there'd be 2 other people on the bus in.

Add in the loneliness and the ghost town feeling of walking through an empty city. Except for the essential food services, so kids could still get you your order of coffee and mcbreakfast.... odd contrast, you'd agree.

Oh, the anger and entitlement of the covid deniers and anti-maskers.

My father in law complained about mask wearing on a flight down from Queensland to visit us. While my wife, a nurse, is donning full personal protective equipment (PPE) to help with patients. He's not entitled, just an oblivious, selfish idiot.

A bit of resentment at those who got the payments to not work, while I was an essential worker, in the finance sector had to work through. Discussing insurance with customers. All of them wanting discounts for (multitude of self justified reasons). That was tiring...

On the 'others staying home' a lot of people were making bread, trying new hobbies, going back to old hobbies, riding bikes to get fit... that only seemed to last 2 months, then it was easier to watch digitally streamed shows...

Oh, the growing gap between those who could afford the digital upgrade to work and/or study from home. And those that couldn't... that gap is bigger, and will show up in a decade or so...

Travel? Yeah, we'd travel from the couch to the kitchen table, work, then we'd travel to the letterbox and then to the couch again. On weekends, some of us would travel to the shed, to mow the lawns as part of the outside world travel.

Then the acceptance, as we waited for the vaccine to be made. Too late for too many in China, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom....

The USA being the most vocal of the anti-maskers and covid deniers. Because of Trump and his idiot approach to the crisis and his vanity.

A few covid conspiracy people I have spoken to, and seen the marches. I don't have time for dealing with these kind of people. Got used to being able to distance myself pretty quickly.

Overall though, I've become a bit more self directed towards entertaining myself (books and going back to the scale hobby of modelling) and fed up with a big insurance company making lots of profit while increasing the consumers insurance bill by about 20% average per year...

And remote studying has become a lonely grind. I am succeeding in my course so far.

Overall, post vaccine roll-out, we've adapted.

It's gone from being "the Chinese flu" (a pejorative term) to the "spicy cough".

So far, I have remained covid free.

And I have science, medicine and society to thank for that.

23 December 2022.

1000 days of covid.

@bundibird @scrapironflotilla thanks for just engaging with this little effort (it will continue)

@tafkarfanfic @bouncinghedgehog your posts helped with hope and morale when things were tough.

I'd invite you to reblog and share your memories, no matter where in the world you are.

#journal #coronavirus #covid19 #current events #observations #history happening today #personal #1000 #day of covid #pandemic #diary #1000 days of covid

[cheylouwho]

i’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and i want to hear someone from SPHS’s thoughts.

i know you’ve noticed the “tiktok” fan base- the ones that only watch clips of the show and then say they’re fans. i read one of your posts talking about these types of fans and making blatantly incorrect headcanons. that’s something that bugs me, but another thing that bugs me is the fact i do not believe south park is tiktokable. i’ll use family guy as a comparison for my points.

first of all, compared to family guy, the humor is different, pretty much everything they explained in the cartoon wars two parter explains what i mean, m&t are not fans of interchangeable jokes and are able to give characters emotional progression throughout the episode. that’s one huge factor, i hope you get what i’m trying to imply with that. m&t are passionate about their story telling and it pays off in their episodes. i know not EVERY SINGLE joke follows this, but there are jokes made better by understanding the characters and the circumstance of the episode. the episodes work best in their entirety. (that was difficult to explain so i fear it can be misinterpreted easily)

the characters are another thing i want to mention. i watched the episode TSST with two friends awhile ago, one of which who had never seen an episode and didn’t understand cartmans character. she kept asking questions about him, or said how weird his hitler obsession was. the other friend hadn’t finished south park and said he hated cartmans character and it’s hes one of the bad pieces of the show. i believe even if you don’t like cartman as a personal preference thing, you should at least appreciate him as a character and his placement, it’s hard to understand him (despite us watching an episode that really dives into him, they still didn’t know much about him before). with family guy, one episode is enough to grasp the character, hell, even a single scene is i’d say, while m&t are very good at developing and fleshing out character personalities over time. it’s why they can pull off making sad episodes (like kenny dies and assburgers), heartwarming episodes (like tweek x craig and even bits of episodes like in raisins) all while still being a comedy show. they understand how to make the characters react in a way that can make you feel something while maintaining a good amount of jokes in the episode.

i dont know, theres more i could add but i’m just writing whatever comes to mind first so it might make no sense or it might be wrong. also, i’m by no means an old fan. i’ve rewatched the series quite a few times, watched commentaries, researched through wiki pages and am constantly trying to better my knowledge of the show, but i know i’m not quite there yet and could just be making a mistake GAHAH

No anon, I actually totally get this and agree 100%. SP as a show is not something that works well with out of context clips (and even then, the ones that do work are usually from very early in an episode before the plot fully gets established and stakes as drawn). Until pre s18 when they started soft continuity (and then s19-21s full continuity, after that is a whole other discussion entirely), the shows syndicated nature did make it easier to hop into any episode and watch it in its entirety and enjoy it without much prior knowledge of the show or it's characters. However, even then, you really needed to watch the *whole* episode to get the big picture of it's message.

And I get it, SP full length episodes are not as accessible as they once were. People these days don't know how or aren't willing to pirate things if they don't have the streaming service SP is hosted on, and beyond that, south park used to be free to watch on their website. Like, that's how I ended up catching up on the show when I finally decided to take it all in other than a handful of episodes and scenes I'd seen during my childhood back in 2013. It was all entirely available (save for Super Best Friends, 200 and 201, which I had to go track down on other websites) for free, with ads unless you used an ad blocker, right at your fingertips. And that's how M+T wanted SP to be consumed, because they explicitly noted that they didn't care about making money on streamed episodes, they cared about getting their show out there. (I will have to go find that interview, I know it's somewhere).

But still, regardless of that, you're right. SP is not something that you can consume short form as a brief tiktok video, and that's why I think we have newer fans with such big gaps in knowledge that seem like they would be easy to fill in. It's not that they're being willfully ignorant, they're just being fed a very piecemeal version of the show through social media, which is how we get people thinking Pip is a he//llpa//rk OC (augh!!! dont get me started) instead of realizing this dude was actually in the fucking show, or headcanons that are very easy to contradict with canon itself by watching like 3 episodes. That's not me knocking HCs btw, go wild and do whatever you want, but these people don't even know it's ooc, and that's a little troublesome. I've made some outlandish character decisions in the past but I at least KNEW they were not evidence based.

What that means for the fandom down the road I don't know, and its made a lot of discussion and analysis more shallow-- it's so hard outside of my SPHS friend group to find good breakdowns these days. I'm hoping maybe something will change, but who knows.

TLDR fuck tiktok and its watering down of media

#south park #analysis #fandom analysis #anon whoever you are can you message me???? i wanna follow you you sound cool

[multiversal-bridge]

So there's been a big discussion lately about the pacing in the works of Wildbow (creator of bespoke internet fiction), particularly in his latest work, Pale, which has become longer than the others in just a couple of years of writing. I have thoughts about this and I can't get them out of my head so I'll just post.

I think the framing of this discussion leaves something out? Because I genuinely think Pale is Wildbow's best paced work.

Sounds super weird to say that when it's so long, right?

But I think there's a difference between length and quality of pacing, and I think the key to understanding what Wildbow's doing is this:

Pale is paced like a television show.

To explain a bit more what I mean by this:

Movies and television shows are forms of storytelling that are both valid in different ways, and allow you to do different things. The advantage of a television show is that you get to add layers of nuance to character's psychology as well as explore a number of different characters over the full runtime of the show. (Bear in mind I'm trying to imply a TV show that everyone agrees is good throughout its run, like the Sopranos or something.) There's advantages to doing this sort of thing, at least if you do it well.

Wildbow is a big fan of TV and talks a lot about shows he watches. So it's not surprising that his pacing is like TV. You bring on a character for an episode, and you may not see them again in the next season, but their mini-arc informed the larger arc that was going on with the protagonists at that point in the story. A chapter is basically written like an episode. 2-3 arcs roughly corresponds to a season of the show, with certain arcs ending in a major change in the status quo.

And Wildbow has a very good sense of those larger arcs. I was talking with a friend recently about what a contrast Pale is with the later A Song of Ice and Fire books. Where Martin is creating an ever-expanding list of characters going off in ever expanding directions, in Pale Wildbow keeps his characters from straying too far by tying new ideas back to the main plot. We have an arc where we meet a bunch of new magical creatures, but it's also about gaining allies and figuring out which of them are being used as pawns by the conspirators behind the main mystery. And yeah, recently, we got in theory like 18 new characters, but in practice we've only really focused on like three of them, and they're ultimately extensions of the final villain(s) in a plot that seems to be chugging toward the last station.

And I like this better than the pacing in Ward, or Pact, or Twig, or the latter half of Worm! In all of those works, there were moments where I thought oh, come on, this is stretched out way more than it needs to be. In contrast, despite its length, I've never really felt that with Pale. And I was initially skeptical about some of the plot developments!

It's true that Wildbow's chapters have gotten longer, but it feels to me like that's more about embracing an episode structure with multiple scenes in it, whereas in other works I often felt a bit cut off by one-scene chapters. Wildbow may also be playing to his strengths, as Pale focuses much more on psychological dialogues instead if action scenes. And character psychology has always been at the heart of what makes Wildbow works good.

Your milage may vary. I might just be weirdly into psychological dialogue scenes. And I freely confess that there may be a difference in experiencing the story chapter by chapter over the last two years, as I have, and maybe it might not read as well binged all at once. But I've seen writing that's badly paced before (including in other long-form web fiction), and this doesn't trip that trigger for me.

Obviously no one should feel obligated to read Pale. But may be more helpful to think of Pale as a good thing that's continued in its same good vein for a long time than something that's suffering from the sin of excess. At the very least, there are reasons why those of us who are reading it are having such a fun time.

#pale #wildbow #otherverse #pale web serial #parahumans #mb posts

[ex-textura]

Your post about your OCs quest names got me thinking...

If they were companions what would be their likes and dislikes, how would a player gain their approval? 💜

Okay I know I've been holding onto this for So Long but I've been Thinking™️ and that's not my forté.

Wall of text incoming because I've been writing this on my phone and. Formatting is a lot of work..

× Auric's approval would be difficult for a chaotic aligned character to get I think. He'd approve of kindness, following the rules, defending the weak. He'd love saving Mirkon and Arabella. He'd disapprove of taking the idol for Mol though. He'd probably also approve of you drinking Jaheira's truth wine. If you could recruit his sister, he'd approve of every kind action toward her, but he'd disapprove of flirting with her. Also letting Astarion bite you. He never could trust him. Also talking to him about music or poetry would get huge approval boosts. He's a big romantic.

× Naught's approval is a bit more all over the place and probably harder to get in general just because they don't really feel very strongly about anything until later in the game. But being kind to animals is a big approval, while doing the opposite is gonna make him hate you. Especially with birds. They'd approve of being outwardly flirtatious and forward with your intentions. They'd definitely approve of licking the damn spider. And throwing dung at the goblin outside the camp. Also, even though they can't read and aren't really inclined to, taking any opportunity to show off your smarts, teach him something new would be like a full +10. They like nerds. If you can be snarky with Nine-Fingers Keen, too, he'd approve of that.

× Ciaran approves of being nice. Helping the helpless. Saving people. All the big heroics. Play music with Alfira. Motivate the tiefling kids. Tell him you trust him.Do Not Do Not do the murder tribunal. Don't let Shadowheart kill Nightsong. Don't let Astarion ascend. Under no circumstances side with the goblins or he'll just leave. Generally everything Astarion dislikes in act 1 will be a Ciaran approval. He'd also approve of petting every single animal in the entire game. All of them. They're so soft please pet the babies.

× Jinx. Likes. Chaos. Steal the idol, why not. Throw some dung around. Play music with Alfira. Tease Mattis with the ring trick. Drink the truth wine and play truth or dare. Let the weird ox do its thing. Send him up on stage at the circus. Mess with Akabi and cheat at the wheel game. Pet the animals. Lick the spider. Get sent to jail. Break out of jail. Let Volo pick your brain. Any opportunity to say something weird or off-putting will probably get an approval, if only cause he'd think it's funny. But also talking about magic, poking at magic, anything that involves appreciating the gift that is magic - for good or ill. Jinx is also kind so not necessarily self-sacrificing acts of kindness but helping people, doing the right thing, general Good Boy approvals. Disapprovals are less common but outright cruelty is generally where he draws the line.

× Amaris approves of knowledge, and follows the tenets of their goddess. Read the book of dead gods, the necromancy of thay (sure it's evil but think of the knowledge contained within!), anything you can get your hands on. Open the chest at the Selûne shrine in the owlbear cave. Protect Isobel. Let Astarion feed on you (vampires may be undead but they are still children of Selûne's light and deserve protection if they seek it, and do no harm. And Astarion is trying okay? Kinda. It's enough.) Ask questions always, exhaust that dialogue tree! Agree to save the tieflings and the gnomes over and over again. And Barcus. Do Not let Shadowheart kill the Nightsong. Do not convince the nurses and Malus to kill themselves, do that with your own hands. Don't try to convince them to use the tadpoles. Don't speak ill of the gods. Except Shar. Speaking against Shar will always net big approvals. And again, the usual "Karlach/Wyll/Gale approves" from helping people apply to them as well. Let them talk about Selûne, and home, and their best friend Morridah. Take them to Sorcerous Sundries. Be a little kinky.

#im sorry i took so long to answer this! #there are so many good opportunities for approval/disapproval in this game I've definitely missed some #but hopefully this gives the gist of it #all these boys are fundamentally good because im too soft #bg3 #my ocs #oc: auric #ciaran finch #oc: jinx #oc: amaris #oc: naught #asks

[the-bjd-community-confess]

TW: Sexualization of (fictional) minors discussion/CSA mentions

Mod: Batch post 2 to help people avoid the topic if needed.

1. Idc, people who don’t dress and photograph YOSDs like children are creepy af. If you’re dressing your YOSD in lingerie that’s weird as hell and gross.

~Anonymous

2. "child sex sells" what the fuck is wrong with you? shut the fuck up. touch grass. see light. no the hell it does not. can you be fucking normal for five goddamn minutes? god just delete tumblr and get the fuck away from this and all other hobbies you are the worst sort of human being and i hope you get the help you desperately need because you are seeing child abuse in everything and that, i promise you, is a freakass problem to have. why are you like this???

~Anonymous

3. did NOT want to read the vomitous take of "ch*ld s*x sells" on the doll blog today!!!

~Anonymous

4. fandoms full of """child abuse"""

hi mod it's me again, i'm sorry in advance but this fucking topic makes me actually furious and as long as the most sheltered infants on earth continue to submit brain-dead takes on this subject, i'm going to keep showing up in your dms. CW for discussion of actual abuse, hard subjects in general, etc.

(i would put the read more here) [Mod: I hope you don't mind this format instead Anon, this confession deserves its own post but I want to shield readers from the topic if possible with the batchposting 💜]

ok but that's just it, as a fucking csa survivor, most of the "fandoms full of CSA" literally! have none of that! whatsoever! in any capacity! you shitty godforsaken little heathens call sfw romance between two fictional teenagers in a tv show incest-coded, you call grown ass-adults in animated works "child-coded" and justify that as the same as goddamn ABUSE OF REAL LIFE HUMAN BEINGS, and you doxx creators and send them death threats and clog up report lines for real life actual human victims about your fictional bullshit. you are the worst and i want you and anyone who reads this and feels offended by this description to know that you are helping no one and annoying everyone.

do you know what real victims are victimized by? not fiction. not any fiction. not inanimate objects! literally write a story about fictional children being victimized for the plot, and it will not hurt me. if it hurts you, fair! stop reading it. go outside. your Personal Discomfort is not you being abused. learn the fucking difference perhaps! it will not make me... do you have any idea how hard it is to talk about this without getting so extremely goddamn personal? do you have any idea how much it sucks to have to have this discussion over and over and over? do you realize that roughly 10 years ago everyone with a braincell agreed on this point and it's only the last decade that people have been so radicalized to think that wrongthink is real? no, of course not, because most of the people who believe that fiction and reality are 1:1 in how one affects the other have no practical experience with any of the subjects upon which they have the audacity to speak.

listen. i am not going to go into my upbringing. i am not going to tell you what it was like to be raised in a household like mine where actual abuse was genuinely normalized. all i will say is that i was raised in a culture where this sort of abuse was normal and certain types of relationships between adults and minors were considered... sanctioned by the powers that be. are you picking up what i'm laying down? do not talk to me about your good intentions. the fucking argument that fictional content, drawings and toys and all that other inconsequential shit, that it's tantamount to a crime? buddy. bestie! amigo! compadre! that's the same logic that was used to make sure my upbringing was as sheltered and controlled as possible so that the "corrupting influences" of the outside world didn't give us the "wrong ideas". like i truly don't know how you did it but you've reinvented the toxic mindset i grew up hearing! and you are completely blind to it. boggles my fucking brain.

i just want to shake the people who say this shit with a straight face. "wow so violent op maybe you're the toxic one" yeah boy i'm toxic i've been in therapy for most of my life and will continue to be until i am dead. the fucking DRAWING CARTOON PORN IS INDOCTRINATING MINORS WRITING StORIES WHERE BAD THINGS HAPPEN IS THE SAME AS HARMING A REAL HUMAN crowd are just the same religious wrongthink crowd with a more recent birth-year and a rainbow hat. "anyone can say anything online i don't believe you" cool i don't give a shit. how do you want me to prove it, doxxing myself? you wanna see the fucking recordings anon? think before you speak. first time for everything.

i like this hobby. i enjoy my dumb little dolls and their stupid little faces, i enjoy the peace in changing their style and redoing their faceups, i enjoy being able to represent a diversity of appearances, identities, to make everyone queer and slutty because i'm making up for the lost time in my life where that was not on the table for me. i do Not fucking relish seeing the braindead anti arguments creeping into this hobby and shitting up another thing that myself and other survivors would like to enjoy in peace and quiet.

so let me tell you, from the bottom of my heart, even though no one who needs to hear it will bother to listen to the words of a survivor because it goes against your superiority complex against those nasty fiction enjoyers:

shut the fuck up.

sincerely, god, everyone, and especially survivors of CSA and other abuse against minors.

~Anonymous

#BJD #ABJD #BJD Confessions #Community Confessions

[shandycandy278]

are you proship or antiship?

I prefer not to use those terms, actually!

There’s SO much drama with both terms, and I know that if I were to just say that I’m either of them I will have my ask box full of questions I won’t want to answer

(And the only questions in my ask box that I haven’t answered are REALLY sweet wholesome things that I look back on when I’m sad. I don’t want to ruin that with seeing hate anons.)

I do have opinions about this though, so I am going to put it under a cut. If you decide to read, I’d like to start off saying that I am NOT MAD AT THE ASKER. nor anyone else, really. I’m simply sharing my opinion on the matter and if you have a different opinion about this sort of thing, that is absolutely OKAY.

My opinion is not the only opinion out there, nor the only one that has a right to exist or anything stupid like that.

Please do NOT take this answer as me saying that people should believe my opinion and ONLY my opinion. These are literally just my thoughts on the matter, nothing more.

With that over with, click below if you would like to know my thoughts on the matter.

I WILL start with that I am a firm believer that fiction does not affect reality unless you let it. Just because someone writes incest, dark kink, yandere kidnapping and abuse- and anything else of the like does NOT mean that they support people who do that or think that it should happen in reality.

Fiction literally means “not real”, AKA, nothing to do with anything about reality. Fanfiction is literally “not based on reality” works for shows that they like. The only way “fiction” can become “reality” is if YOU decide you physically want to make that happen and do it yourself. Not because someone wrote or drew it. Because YOU decided to bring it into reality and do it yourself. (And I highly doubt any of you would do that.)

I’ve written about suicides. I’ve written about a suicide where one lover kills the other before killing himself. I’ve written about a man killing his son’s lover to bring back his dead wife. I’ve written about anime protagonists being in abusive relationships and running away to safety with a new lover. I’ve written incest. I’ve written about rape. I have an unfinished WIP about one of my OCs being stuck in a death loop with her lover and no hope for escape, and some loops it’s her lover that kills her and vice versa.

Do I support any of these in real life? NO.

I write to figure out what might have happened. I write for the what if. I write to explore possibilities. I don’t write within a moral compass because I wouldn’t discover/learn/think of anything new or interesting if I did.

Another thing that I am a firm believer in is moderating/taking charge of your experience on the internet. Don’t agree with someone? Block them. Don’t like the ship they draw? Mute them. Don’t like their taste of situations between people that makes things “problematic”? Please for the love of whatever higher being you believe in, if there is one, DO NOT COMMENT ON THEIR POST SAYING THAT YHE AUTHOR/ARTIST SUCKS AND DESERVES TO DIE. THAT’S JUST RUDE??? AND ITS CYBERBULLYING???

Please, anyone who does this and ends up reading this, were you not in the same internet safety classes that I was in??? You know where they talked about online predators and keeping yourself safe and how the internet is only good if you use it as such??? 😭 What happened to all the videos depicting kids falling into a depression over this kind of thing and considering committing suicide because of it that kinda scarred you for life in that good way??? We need people to watch those again or something, the drama that happens on the internet today is NOT okay.

Finally, there’s nothing wrong with shipping whatever you want to ship in my opinion. Although I kinda grew up doing it weird. My parents and aunts and uncles and even GRANDPARENTS have stories about how I played with my toys.

When I was a little girl playing with my littlest pet shops and Barbie’s and Polly pockets I had girls with guys and guys with guys and girls with girls and I’d switch up their gender ON THE REGULAR for whatever I wanted at the time. I’d do reincarnation forbidden love stories and the mean girl learns to be good stories and everything in between.

Heck I didn’t have enough of them to play with so I had whoever “gave birth” to the child flipping die so that the character who had held the child became the child and she was just “an exact image of her mother you look more and more like her each day”. When I talk about playing with dolls in any asks about my writing I’m literally referring to the fact that I did this sort of thing all the way up until I graduated high school.

It might be weird, but… it’s just my norm. I’ve always been like this. And I know not many understand it, and I don’t expect them to either.

(But I will say that if you caught me playing with my toys in the middle of a story where the one who gave birth died and became the child/daughter and screamed in my ear “EXCUSE YOU THATS NOT OKAY TO DO THEYRE THE SAME PERSON EW WHAT ARE YOU DOING THATS SO GROSS” I would gather up all my toys and leave and go somewhere else and keep playing. It was my escape from reality. If you get mean about it you don’t get to play with my toys and that’s that.)

At the end of the day, I’m a Multishipping writer. I ship everything under the sun and moon and stars. I ship many forms of it, healthy or not. If you don’t like that, feel free to block me. Go ahead and moderate your experience, PLEASE.

I would rather you block something that disturbs you and have you protect your own mental health than go into the comments and ruin someone else’s mental health.

I suppose most people would call me a pro-shipper, because I AM “let other people do as they wish and ship what they want”. We are human beings, we have agency, we are free to do whatever we want. But I don’t identify myself as such because I do NOT want to have to do battle with people who throw a fit because “not everyone has the same opinions and views as them”. I do not have the mental capacity or health to be a part of that war.

Please for the love of everything you care about leave me out of it. If you try to drag me into this stupid thing or send hate my way for this I WILL block you. It would be to moderate my own experience AND to protect my mental health. I won’t hesitate.

And if you think asking on anon would stop that- no. It won’t. There are ways to track down your account if you have one and just hit the anon button. I am not afraid to use it.

#ask sc #proshipping #antishipping #drama #i am being serious #i am also not mad at this asker #anon if you see this know that I seriously am not mad at you #I’m mad at the cyber bullies