#like yeah okay I was valid in feeling violated but also it wasn’t like it was on purpose and stupid kids do stupid kid shit | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cafe-7-dream · 4 months

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Little Lies

Note(s): Happy Holidays! Here’s my gift for y’all, hope it’s good since it hasn’t been beta-read. Hope y’all like it! I’m a bit nervous to post this, it’s my baby after all, but hey, what can I say? I’m delusional about Andy Park. ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´ω`ﾟ)ﾟ｡ Word count: 6k Warning(s): spying and recording? (it’s not nefarious) jail and prison sentence mentions, swearing, insecure/negative thoughts, talk of wanting to die, panic attacks, mention of throwing up

Jisung knew it was wrong, but what you don’t know can't kill you, am I right?

He knew spying was morally— and probably legally— wrong. Throw the metaphorical cherry of recording on top of the oh-yeah-this-is-definitely-wrong-sundae, and voila! A prison sentence!

Jisung didn’t want to go to jail, but he didn’t want to stop recording your sick skating tricks either.

If you are in a public space, you should expect your privacy to be violated! It’s common sense!

This is the defence Jisung just made up on the spot to spit out if you catch him red-handed with his borrowed camcorder in hand. Thankfully, he doesn’t end up having to use them since you are too focused on landing correctly and picking up speed on your board to notice him by the chain-link fence around the skate park.

The skate park is near the public basketball court where Jisung’s (self-proclaimed) best friend, Chenle, is currently too busy shooting hoops to notice that Jisung has wandered off. Lucky him, because Jisung could already imagine the teasing he would have to endure over filming a “pretty stranger”. He was only interested in the artistry thank you very much!

Okay, maybe that was a little lie.

But it doesn’t matter. You are just a passerby in Jisung’s life, only never forgotten by the footage he films secretly.

Or are you?

It’d seem fate was on Jisung’s side, or against him, because you were at the skatepark once again the next Saturday. And the Saturday after that, and the one after that—you get the picture.

Jisung would encourage Chenle and the rest of his basketball club friends, vice-captain Jeno and captain Mark, to play street ball at the public court just so he could have a valid excuse as to why he also showed up near the skatepark every Saturday like clockwork.

It became a comfortable routine at one point.

But all good things must come to an end, and Jisung wasn’t surprised that Donghyuck was the one to cause it.

“So that’s the person you fancy, ey?” Donghyuck—or Haechan that he keeps insisting on being called instead of his legal name— asked in his trademarked teasing tone.

Jisung jumped, caught red-handed with the camcorder pointed at you instead of the unofficial basketball match going on behind him.

“What? No!” Jisung tried to defend himself.

But this was Haechan, so naturally, it was in vain. Haechan was a bloodhound at sniffing out gossip and rumours. He had to be, he claims, because he’s the school’s radio show host and the newscaster in the broadcasting club which Jisung also was a part of. That’s where he got his borrowed camcorder from.

“Oh-ho?” Haechan annoyingly wiggled his eyebrows. “Then you wouldn’t mind me going over there, right?”

Jisung wished the ground would just swallow him up right then and there.

Haechan was a known flirt, so Jisung knew that Haechan had no shame in trying to sweet-talk a stranger.

That’d be embarrassing enough, but what if you actually fell for his charms?

That’d feel ten times worse, even though Jisung was already resigned to his fate as a passerby in your life.

Over these past few weeks, he had indeed started fancying you, little by little. He knew he only liked the idea of you and was terrified of getting to know you and getting his perfect concept of you in his head destroyed.

But Jisung was still a teenage boy with pride.

“No, of course not.”

And a liar.

“Sweet! Be right back!” Haechan took off before Jisung could falter and stop him.

Jisung cursed his fate—and his “friends”.

This was not how he planned nor expected this Saturday to go. Why did Haechan have to force himself to tag along when he never had before? He had claimed that nothing was interesting about three sweaty boys playing with balls so why did he change his mind now?

Jisung didn’t find them that interesting either, but he was grateful that they were too competitive and hyper-focused on the game to notice him wandering off.

Jisung’s body froze.

Had they noticed? Had they spotted him while his attention was diverted?? Is that why Haechan already knew that Jisung had been transfixed by you before???

Oh no, oh no.

Jisung couldn’t believe this.

When he turned around towards the court, he saw Chenle, Jeno and Mark all coming over, abandoning their game.

“So, Haechan’s picking them up for you?” Chenle asked between taking gulps of water from his water bottle.

“Or is he being a brat and picking them up for himself?” Jeno tagged on as he wiped the sweat from his brow with his shirt.

“No way, Haechan wouldn’t do that!” Mark defended. “Not to our baby Jisungie anyways.”

Jisung prayed to God for the strength to endure these assholes.

Tattletales, the lot of them.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Jisung lied through his teeth.

“Oh yeah, sure.” Chenle grinned provokingly. “You definitely haven’t been scoping them out every time we have gone here for the past month. It must’ve been someone else.”

“A ghost, maybe.”

A chill went down Jisung’s spine, but he couldn’t pinpoint why.

Was it because Mark thoughtlessly mentioned ghosts despite knowing damn well that Jisung was scared shitless of the supernatural?

Was it because he now knew that he’d been spied upon this last month without his knowledge?

Was it because Haechan was pointing at him while talking to you?

Wait, what?

Jisung turned his attention back to you two, and sure enough, you were now watching him because Haechan was stupidly pointing him out.

Incredible. Amazing. Show-stopping. Spectacular.

Jisung respected Haechan dearly for his extrovertedness— he’s the only extrovert in the friend group besides Jaemin when he’s high from caffeine— but he kinda wished Haechan could break an arm or something at this very moment so they could flee the scene and never come back.

Preferably right now.

Alas, Haechan waved them over and his other treacherous friends grabbed him by the shoulders so he couldn’t bolt and drag him over to you.

Jisung’s mind and heart raced but he couldn’t get his stupid legs to obey him to take him far away.

They just limply kept taking him closer and closer to his impending doom.

What a funny view this must’ve been for you.

A lanky boy being almost entirely dragged by the friends that he towers over and should by all means be assumed stronger than when he’s actually the weakest strength-wise in the friend group.

Jisung hates his life.

Jisung’s legs and heart finally freeze, but he’s already near you now.

You, who is talking to him?

“You want to learn how to skate?”

No.

“Yes.”

Oh my god, you idiot.

“Oh cool, do you have a board?”

No!

“Yes?”

Jisung seemed to be short-circuiting because he couldn’t seem to say what he thought in his head, it all came out opposite to what he wanted!

“He didn’t bring it today,” Jeno fortunately lied to save him.

”Yeah, he promised to play ball with us!” Mark unfortunately lied when it’s obvious just by looking at them that Jisung was the only one not sweaty.

“I noticed you skate really well, and since none of us know how to and can’t teach Jisungie, maybe you could help out?” Haechan dramatically clasped his hands together and flashed puppy eyes.

God, smite him now.

Jisung doesn’t care whether he goes to heaven or hell, he just wants to disappear.

“Of course!”

Scratch that, bring it back, what was that?

Did you agree? And you don’t even seem the least creeped out that strangers are boldly asking you for a favour!

“Great, thanks!” Haechan patted Jisung on the back in either support or mockery. “We’ll be right over there at the court so just scream if he breaks something!”

Jisung’s friends scampered off before he could get a word in. Not that he could, since he was standing tongue-tied before you.

“So, you got a board. Do you know how to ride it yet?” You ask.

“No,” Jisung dumbly answers. Great. Now you’ll definitely see through his lies.

“Ah, a kind of I-will-learn-how-to-later purchase? I get you, I was the same way.”

You’re either incredibly kind by not calling Jisung out on his lies, or incredibly stupid.

Jisung preferred to imagine it to be kindness over stupidity. Or maybe not, since it meant you only played along despite knowing that he’s a seemingly compulsive liar.

“Well, we’ll start with learning how to balance and then go from there, it’s the most important basic of skating.” You place your board by Jisung’s shoes. “Place your feet near the ends of the board, your toes between the screws.”

Oh god, it slipped Jisung’s mind that he’d have to get on the board. He forgot that he couldn’t do this; he couldn’t even ride a bike properly yet! The last time he tried, another bike rider got pissy with him because he couldn’t ride in a straight line and kept swaying this way and that!

“It’s okay, I gotcha,” you said as you held your hands out for stability.

Jisung automatically placed his shaky hands in yours and stepped one foot on the board by the screws as you instructed. You swiftly placed your foot by the wheels on the other end, securing it in place.

“Good, now the other one.”

Jisung must look so stupid right now, shaky without even having both feet above the ground.

He’s grateful that you are nicer and more patient than he could ever have imagined.

Jisung bit the bullet and jumped fully on the board. It creaked beneath his feet but didn’t go anywhere. Jisung noticed that he had your hands in a death grip and tried to relax his grasp without much success.

“Good! Now, bend your knees slightly.”

Jisung’s heart was about to burst out of his chest, but he did as you asked either way.

“Find the centre of gravity. Balance your weight until you find it.”

Jisung shuffled a bit until he thought he could let go of your hands and not immediately faceplant. He did, indeed, let go once he realized that his hands were starting to get sweaty.

“You are doing great! Okay, now lock your knees in place.”

Oh god, you’re not about to do what he thinks you’re about to do, right?

You placed your hands on his hips and pushed him. The wheels turned and the board went shakily forward.

Jisung immediately felt himself losing his balance and reached out for anything to steady him. Your shoulders end up being just that thing, and he gripped on tight.

“You’re doing amazing!”

Physically? He hasn’t broken a bone yet.

Mentally? In absolute shambles.

Hotel? Trivago.

Now’s not the time for jokes, Jisung is about to meet his maker!

The board continued to go forward despite Jisung’s prayers and he continued to hold onto you, his only saving grace from a hospital trip. It continued like that for what felt like a lifetime, but probably was only a few minutes in reality.

You helped him get off the board eventually, and Jisung had never been more grateful to stand on firm ground before.

“Good job! Same time next week?” You asked.

“Yeah,” Jisung breathlessly agreed before his mind processed the question.

“Great! Bring your board,” you cut in before Jisung’s mind caught up. “Oh, and a helmet and knee and elbow pads if you have them? I usually don’t use them unless I’m attempting a new trick that I know I’m going to fail several times before landing so I didn’t bring them today but I’ll bring them with me next week so you can borrow them if you don’t have any yet. You should invest in some though!”

Jisung is still coming down from the adrenaline of his near-death experience when you bid goodbye and ride off into the sunset. Literally. The sun had already set by now.

It was only on the bus on the way home that everything clicked into place and Jisung realised that he just agreed to put his life in danger again.

Risking his life only to spend time with a pretty passerby.

What has he gotten himself into?

What has he gotten himself into, indeed, Jisung wondered as he stood in a skate shop Friday evening after school, a mere day away from your promised meet-up.

His friends—all six of them this time— explored the shop and advised him on which board to buy despite knowing jack shit about skating, just like him.

“No, this one is prettier,” Haechan argued loudly.

“Pretty isn’t the point, function is,” Renjun argued back. “And even if it was, then that one would totally win.”

Poor Jisung’s eardrums; why Renjun kept taking the bait leading to arguments with Haechan, he’ll never understand.

Jisung had planned, before everything went ape-shit, to have a chill Friday night spent either sleeping early or gaming late, whichever caught his fancy. Instead, he’s blowing money just to spend time with someone he likes. Can he even say he likes you when he’s only spoken a few words to you? Jisung doesn’t know. He just wants to buy a board and get out of there.

“How about this one?” Jaemin asked as he pointed to a board on the wall filled with racks of them.

“Let’s just ask an employee, none of us knows what we’re looking for.” Mark, in his senior wisdom, replied.

And that’s precisely what they did, or rather, what Jeno ended up doing instead of Jisung as he was too intimidated to ask the clerk on his own.

At least he walked out of that store with the new purchase secured in hand.

Mission accomplished.

Now onto the next mission: not losing his one and only life. -

“I have a competition coming up.”

“Hmm?”

You and Jisung were currently taking a break, sitting on the ramp and eating snacks.

Jisung was finally comfortable enough to skate around without assistance, but he valued his life enough to not attempt to do any tricks. Or make a move on you.

He’s finally gotten over being tongue-tied and could honestly call you a friend now. A friend that he had a crush on. But he wouldn’t dare mention that to anyone but his six other friends who already knew of this.

“-u listening, Jisungie?”

No, he wasn’t, and now he was distracted by the nickname you picked up from Haechan. “Jisungie” was the only name you ever called him by, which made him wonder if you thought that was his real name.

“No?” Jisung shyly admitted.

“I swear, sometimes I wonder what goes on inside your head. Like that time you had beef with a tree.”

You laughed. God, how pathetic Jisung is to love to be laughed at, as long as you are happy.

“What? Don’t you know that trees are rude? Try talking to one and you’ll see.”

You laugh harder, and Jisung smiles wider.

“As I was saying: I have a competition coming up and wonder if you want to come and watch?”

“Of course!”

“Cool! It’s in two weeks on Saturday so I can’t see you next week because I have to practice.”

Jisung could feel his heart sink a little.

“Yeah, I gotcha. Don’t worry about it.”

“You could bring your camcorder if you don’t think it’ll be broken by a stray skateboard.”

Jisung’s heart picked up the pace. How did you know he had a camcorder?

“I’ve seen you before, filming me. I thought it was because you thought skating was cool at first, and then thought that you used the footage to study how to skate on your own when your friend approached me about teaching you how to. Either way, I’m cool with it so don’t worry if you chose to not bring it with you because you thought I would think it would be awkward or creepy or anything!”

Oh my god, you knew about him filming you! And you were cool with it! You were truly incredibly kind!

“Yeah, I could bring it and film you winning and then make a tape about it that you can watch later when you want to relieve the moment.”

Why did Jisung just offer that?

“Really? That’d honestly be so cool! Are you sure?” You excitedly asked.

Jisung thought he might kiss you if he had to look at your hopeful face any longer so he looked away.

“Of course, it’s nothing much. I could probably have it ready the week after the competition, in time for our next meet-up.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask, but is it really okay that I take over your Saturday every week?” You asked. “You don’t have anything better you would rather be doing, right?”

“No, I like being with you,” Jisung said a bit too honestly. Shit. Would you think he’s weird?

“Cool, me too! You’re really fun to hang around with. There’s never a dull conversation, that’s for sure!”

Jisung smiled while he bit down on his red apple. -

Jisung could feel his veins pumping with adrenaline from where he stood in the crowd.

The skate park was packed with bystanders who came to watch the competition, and skaters were already warming up in the free space.

“Let’s try to find a better spot on higher ground, so we won’t only be seeing the backs of people’s heads,” Jaemin suggested.

Jaemin and Haechan tagged along without asking for permission first once they heard of where Jisung would be spending his Saturday. Secretly, Jisung was grateful that they came with him; he hates having to push through crowds alone.

Jisung held onto Jaemin’s backpack as Haechan led the makeshift train of three through the swarm. Finally, they found a good spot not too far away from the main event, but still less crowded with people.

“Full battery?” Haechan asked Jaemin when he took out a camcorder borrowed from the broadcast club from his backpack.

“I made sure to charge it completely since we’ll film for a long time. I think you said the competition would take about 3 hours?” Jaemin asked as he handed over a spare camcorder to Jisung to hold onto while he tried to untangle cords for the audio setup.

“That’s what Y/N said, anyways,” Jisung confirmed.

“It’s the finals!” Haechan excitedly said, despite never showing an interest in skating before. “How did we miss that someone from our school made it to the finals? This is a good scoop for next week’s broadcast!”

Haechan was always on the lookout for new and exciting topics to cover during his radio show. That he’d be the first to rope Jaemin and Jisung into helping out with camera work and audio was unsurprising. They were all in the broadcast club after all. Jisung didn’t mind. He was here for you, not Haechan. But it was still nice to not come alone.

“Imagine if they win?” Jaemin asked. “We’d be the first to cover the scoop.”

Jaemin was currently on his third coffee of the day, which meant that he was 127% more likely to indulge in Haechan’s antics. Or create his own.

“We have to be professional and impartial during the broadcast.” Haechan dutifully stated, like a liar. “But we all know who our Jisungie is hoping to win.”

Jisung could feel his cheeks warm up.

He couldn’t deny it, so he settled for saying, “Get ready, it’s starting soon.”

The skaters had finished their warmups and stood on standby. The local newscasters who were invited by the event organisers to host the competition introduced themselves and the course. They also explained the semi-final rankings and the 2/5/3 competition format–two 45-second-long runs that can net the highest score of 100 with the 5 best single trick attempts also scored out of 100 counting toward producing 3 top scores (the best run score out of the two attempts where flow and consistency matters and the 2 highest scoring single tricks)– before calling up the first contestant.

The first skater made their way up the ramp.

Haechan made a few comments on his own, but since he only researched the contestants and skating terminology a day before the event, he didn’t have much to add. Especially since the first skater wasn’t from their school or you.

The skater balanced their board with the tail on the ledge of the ramp.

The background music started.

The skater dropped down, the board picking up speed from the momentum.

Jisung was relegated to ensuring quality sound and audio since they all knew that if he was the cameraman, the footage would come out shaky from his nerves despite being behind the camera and not competing himself. He was quite happy with this task, however, since it meant that he could put headphones on in an attempt to drown out the booming music and cheers from the crowd. Jaemin was the assigned cameraman and he made sure to get clean footage of the contestants’ runs. Haechan made witty comments now and then, or just general statements about what was going on.

When the contestant from their school got their turn, Haechan instantly became more invested. Jisung could feel his heart in his throat the entire time, but he didn’t know if it was because he wanted their fellow classmate to do well, or because you were the next skater.

Once their classmate finished their run, Haechan continued his spirited spiel by introducing you. He had seen footage of your skating before by “borrowing” Jisung’s camcorder, so he was familiar with your style and had much more to say than the rest of the contestants. Jisung could already feel the upcoming headache of trying to edit the audio down.

You got ready and started your run with a drop-in just like every other contestant.

The drop from the ledge made Jisung’s heart drop to his stomach. He was more nervous than ever, but also elated to see you enjoying the wind in your face.

With the momentum built from the fall from the ramp, you did a basic ollie when flying over a bump.

Jisung leaned forward, mesmerized, when you flew into the air and the board stayed on your feet. You stuck the landing, and Jisung let out a relieved sigh. He was too on edge to relax entirely yet though. You still had 40 seconds left on this run and then another attempt.

Next, you did an ollie to get up on a rail and then slid down it.

35 seconds to go and you made another drop-in at the ramp on the other end of the course to pick up speed once again.

You may have gained a second wind, but Jisung felt winded already only from observing you. He was in disbelief over how effortlessly you make these tricks look when he knows for a fact that they are hard from how many times the other contestants failed or didn’t stick the landing while attempting similar tricks.

Jisung was utterly, and hopelessly in love with this side of you, fully concentrated on your craft.

You finished off your last run with a 180 ollie up a bump to rail and went down the rail with a frontside boardslide.

The crowd cheered as you rode past them. Your and Jisung’s eyes met, and he automatically sent you a thumbs up. You smiled and raised your fist at him in lieu of thanks.

Now that you were done with your runs, Jisung could rest easy, right?

Wrong.

Jisung hadn’t felt this much anticipation and anxiety since he reluctantly showed recordings of his dancing to his friends– all of whom he knew would encourage and support him–after they had begged and nagged him to show his dancing for months.

Did you win? Would you be disappointed if you lost?

You were the best out there, and that’s not just Jisung’s bias talking; he had to listen to Haechan excitedly discussing your performance. By the smile on Jaemin’s face, Jisung knew he enjoyed it too despite not caring about skating in general. Jaemin just tagged along to witness “a love story for the ages in progress”.

After the last contestants’ runs, there was a break where the judges would count up all the contestants’ scores.

Jisung sat anxiously at the edge of his seat the entire break. He didn’t have the stomach to eat or drink anything Jaemin or Haechan tried to feed him, it felt like he’d just throw it back up.

Eventually, the judges announced that the official rankings were ready.

Jisung had his heart in his throat the entire time they listed off 10th to 5th place. Neither you nor the guys’ classmate had been announced yet.

Finally, in second place, a familiar name was announced.

Jisung cheered and so did Haechan and Jaemin.

They almost couldn’t believe it!

Their classmate made it to second place!

In all their joy and cheer, they almost missed the announcement of first place.

Jisung didn’t, of course. His attention had been on you this entire time.

He watched as your face lit up and you skated forward to be awarded the first-place medal.

Jisung could feel hot tears start to prick his eyes out of overwhelment. He cried out and accepted the hugs that his friends offered him. Jisung felt on top of the world despite not having accomplished anything of his own yet.

He stuck around, waiting for you once Haechan left to annoy Renjun, wherever he was, and Jaemin went home to start editing the footage and audio.

“Hey.”

Jisung swivelled around, revealing you standing behind him.

“Hey, you were amazing out there. Congratulations!”

“Thanks,” you say with a bright smile. “I could only do so well because I had my lucky charm with me.”

Jisung’s ears perked up. Why had he never heard of this before?

“Lucky charm?”

“Yeah. You”

Jisung inhaled sharply and choked on nothing. You patted his back while laughing at his coughing form. Jisung could feel the heat in his face so he tried to get his breathing back to normal before attempting to salvage the situation.

“You can’t say stuff like that! My heart can’t take it,” he ended up saying a bit too honestly.

“Okay, okay,” you reply, still with a toothy smile on your face. “Didn’t know you would react like that, my bad.”

You and Jisung stared at each other in comfortable silence, drinking in the moment.

Jisung broke the silence, by thoughtlessly offering, “Want to grab ice cream?”

He could feel his breathing starting to get erratic again. It didn’t make it to a full-blown panic attack before you put him out of his misery.

“Of course!”

This was the best day in a long time.

This was the worst day in a long time.

“She was totally flirting with you, dude!” Haechan cornered Jisung one day before school started in the broadcasting club room to force out what happened after he left Jisung back at the skate park last Saturday.

“It’d be so romantic to confess at the end of the tape.” Jaemin tacked on, ever the romantic.

“This isn’t a rom-com.” Jisung bit out a little too harshly, but his adrenaline was pumping just at the mere thought of doing what he had just been suggested.

Jisung’s a coward; he fears a lot of things. Some are relatively common fears like heights, bugs, and ghosts. And this? Rejection after confession? That definitely topped the list right now.

“C’mon, Jisungie!” Haechan goaded. “This is the best way to confess, you don’t even have to look at them because you’re looking at the camera lens.”

“Plus, you get to redo it if it comes out wrong,” Jaemin added. “It’s the best way!”

“Mind your own business.” Jisung dismissively said despite his racing and turning thoughts. “We’re on in five.”

”This isn’t over!” Haechan got the last word in before settling down at the newscaster's desk and reading through his cue cards in anticipation of going live for the school's morning news.

Jisung’s mind wandered during school like it usually does. He was thinking about you which wasn’t unusual. But this time he was seriously considering and planning out his confession, which was a subject he had tried to not even think about before unless he would revert back to his nervous state around you again. Jisung wrote and rewrote a cue card during class and desperately hid them from his friends’ prying eyes during recess and lunch. He wanted to do this entirely on his own, with no input or interference from anyone else. Jisung wanted his confession to come straight from the heart, regardless of whether it turned out clumsy or not.

Jisung sat down at his desk at home to fine-tune his cue card for the last time before hitting record, the first of many takes.

Jisung knew he was worrying you.

This— his overthinking and jumpy nature— was exactly why he never seriously considered whether he had a shot with you or not, he knew that the thoughts would fray on his already anxiety-prone nerves.

“Are we going to talk about it?” You ask after he jumped away when you touched shoulders while sitting down on the ramp.

“Talk aBoUt what?”

Oh my God.

A voice crack? Really? Jisung was way past puberty by now!

“This?” You gesture.

“You just gestured to all of me.”

“Exactly!” You empathised. “You’re being jumpy, you haven’t been jumpy with me since like the first few times we met. Did something happen?”

“No.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No!” Jisung made you jump back with how fast he turned around to reassure you. “You haven’t done anything, I swear!”

And that was the truth. He was just scared of what you were going to do once you saw the tape on the USB that lies hidden in his backpack.

Were you going to hate him? Think that he was creepy? Finally cut ties with him after realising you are so way out of his league?

Jisung took a deep breath to still his negativity-prone mind like his therapist advised him to do when he gets stuck in a cycle of negative and unhelpful thoughts.

“It’s just-“ he tries but reconsiders. “The tape. That I’m supposed to give you.”

Jisung doesn’t know how to formulate this well without giving himself away.

“Do you need more time?” You ask.

“No, it’s done.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah.”

God. He sucked at this. Why was he so awkward?

“Then, can I have it? I promise to watch it the full way through since you put effort into it. I haven’t seen it yet but I bet it’s good, but only because you made it.”

You’re such an angel, too sweet for him. No, that is an unhelpful thought. You were kind, and that’s a fact. Even if you don’t feel the same way, you would let him down gently, Jisung was sure of it.

Your sweet encouragement got Jisung to move his body to take out the USB and hand it over to you.

“Let me know what you think next week. I’ve got to go home. Mom’s calling.”

A brave coward, that’s what Jisung was.

He couldn’t even look you in the eyes as he sprinted away from the skatepark.

It was actually getting pretty late, you had endured Jisung’s weird behaviour for longer than he would’ve thought. But that’s what you do, surprise him again and again with being a better person than what he could dare imagine. He just hoped you wouldn’t break his bare heart. He had an inkling that you would, no matter how gently you turned him down. -

Next week Jisung ran late to your usual scheduled time. He was usually early and the first to get there but this time he wasn’t as eager. He was in for a bad time, he could feel it in his gut.

Nevertheless, he didn’t want to stand you up so he dragged himself out of the house and on the bus to the skate park.

You were sitting on the ramp, doodling on the tape of your skateboard like you were prone to do. Each time you met up, the tape sported a new addition. Somehow, this show of normalcy eased Jisung’s heart a little.

When you heard Jisung’s shoes scraping against the gravel, you looked up and smiled at him.

Maybe you haven’t seen the tape yet?

You jumped down from the ramp and placed your pen on the board and pushed it towards Jisung.

It stopped a few feet away from him.

Jisung bent down to pick it up when he noticed the new doodle in red.

WILL YOU GO OUT WITH ME?

YES NO

His lungs stopped functioning.

Were you serious? Have you actually seen the tape and thought Jisung was worth something? Have you seen something in him that you actually liked? Did you like-like him or did you just pity him? Were you going to laugh at him if he didn’t circle NO?

With shaky hands, Jisung circled YES.

He put the cap back on the pen and put it back on the board that he gently shoved back to you. He slowly raised himself back to his full height and eagerly drank in your reaction. It was hard to decipher your face, it’s like nothing gave way for whether you were going to kiss him next or burst out in laughter. Jisung doesn’t think he could take being laughed at right now.

You skate over to him, feet on the fresh graffiti and Jisung’s heart sinks to his stomach.

Ah, this was it then. You were going to tell him that it was all a joke and you didn’t like him back.

“Wassup, boyfriend?”

Jisung could feel tears start to prick his eyes.

He couldn’t do this.

Not now. Not here. Not with you.

“-Jisungie?”

Jisung couldn’t hear anything. He shut his eyes to try and limit the sensory overload.

He was spiralling and he knew it, but he couldn’t stop.

Suddenly he felt a soft warmth on his lips.

When he clocked back into reality, you were standing on your board, face inches from his.

“I said: do I have to kiss you to wake you up, Jisungie?”

“Yes.” Jisung breathlessly replied a beat too late.

You smiled at him and he could feel his cheeks warm up.

“Alrighty, you get another free for being cute.”

Jisung couldn’t start processing that you just called him cute to his face before the warmth was back on his lips.

This time, he was a little bit more prepared and kissed back.

When you pulled back, both sported toothy grins at each other.

“Be honest,” you whisper to not break the moment. “Do you actually like skating, or do you just like me?”

Jisung was a coward. And sometimes a liar.

“You.”

But sometimes he bravely told the truth.

#nct dream x reader #nct dream fluff #nct dream angst #park jisung x reader #jisung park x reader #jisung x reader #jisung park fluff #jisung park angst #jisung fluff #jisung angst #park jisung angst #park jisung fluff #my fics

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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 1 year

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And Eat It, Too: Chapter Ten: Drastic Solutions

In which Jon and Tim begin the slow process of making up, Gertrude's last resort shows itself, and Elias violates boundaries, morals, and Jon's ability to reason…

>>> NOW ON AO3!

Sad Martin warning.

Salesa cameo!

Note: This one gets intense - Elias is trying to overwhelm Jon, and that includes some serious gaslighting and violation of boundaries. It is, at best, dubious consent.

No, Jon. What Elias says in here is definitely not valid.

(Masterpost including playlist)

CHAPTER TEN

Jon has two dress shirts, one sweater, and one pair of work slacks left in his bag. It was very easy to pack for Beijing.

It’s also beginning to feel personal.

Not enough to take my freedom and my humanity and my very mind, no, he thinks darkly as he stalks out the door. They’ve also got to have the cardigans I’ve had since uni.

At least, without webs, there’s no reason not to eat the statements Elias left.

Jon reads them on the way, seated beside Elias, but a million miles away. He didn’t even get to be disappointed that the stag leather—apparently treated—took on none of the unpleasantness from last night.

He finishes a few minutes from the Institute, and rests his head back, content. Exhales slowly. Then a strange thought surfaces. “Who is Adelard Dekker?” he says out of nowhere.

Elias smiles. “He isn’t in the statements you’re reading.”

“No, but he… he’s in my head, for some reason.”

“You know who he is.”

“I don’t—” But suddenly, he does. “A friend of Gertrude’s.”

“Well done. Though I might say, a colleague. She didn’t have friends.”

Jon snorts. “Not our Gertrude.”

“Indeed. Some days, I think she was more Lonely than Beholding—but anyway. Dekker was someone she used to go hunting with, Jon. A vigilante, out to end the Fears’ cruel reign on humanity.”

Elias finds that more amusing than Jon thinks is warranted. “I think he knows something.”

“He is, I believe, dead.”

“So are most statement givers. I need to read more.”

“You will, Jon,” says Elias, soothing, as they pull into the lot behind the Institute. “You will.”

Tim is furious. “You’ve got some nerve,” he says, which could mean anything, and storms out of the archive.

Martin puts on a brave face. “I’ll bring you some tea, okay?”

“Thank you,” says Jon, who feels like he must have three heads, the way everybody’s looking at him, and hurries into his office.

He needs to concentrate.

He’s finding it hard.

He misses Michael.

You will need a guide.

Written in unfamiliar hand, on web-touched paper.

You will need a guide.

After Elias made clear he put Michael in the one place Jon could not look for it.

You will need a guide.

“I need a vacation,” Jon mutters.

“Uh, yeah, you do,” says Martin, delivering tea.

Jon thanks him.

Martin blinks at Jon’s left hand.

Heat rises in Jon’s face. He tries to be very still, to be very… not what he is. “What?”

“Nothing!” says Martin, smiles at him with force.

Jon slides his left hand under the desk.

Damn you, Hopworth, he thinks.

“Really, though… are you okay?”

Jon meets his eyes. “I don’t know, Martin. I don’t think I have a normal metric, anymore.”

Martin’s broad shoulders slump.

Jon suddenly feels like he kicked a kitten. “I…” He looks for a subject change. “You said… people… came to visit. While I was in the hospital.” He swallows. “I met one—huge fellow. Jared Hopworth.”

Martin shudders. “Yeah, he was… freaky. I’m sorry, Jon, just… wrong, all over. But he wasn’t the scariest.”

Jon feels sick, can feel his face pale. “I’m sorry, Martin. You shouldn’t have had to... Be in this.”

Martin looks stubborn, abruptly, and Jon wonders how much of that he usually hides. “It’s my choice, Jon.”

“Yes, of course, but—”

“Do you want to know who else came, or not?”

“Five guys, you said?” Jon allows the subject change.

“Well,” says Martin. “It might have been four. I, uh. Exaggerated a bit.”

Jon’s lips quirk. “I’m all ears. Or eyes, anyway.”

That pulls a weak smile from Martin, and Jon considers it a win.

“So there was… that guy, Jared,” says Martin, “who offered to give me an extra liver so I could go drinking with him like a champion, but I told him right off.”

Jon rubs his face. “He what.”

Margin continues. “There was that guy right before you woke up. I don’t know what was up with him, but he really spooked Georgie. Which… is a shame, because I kind of liked him. Really chill, you know?”

“That was Oliver Banks,” says Jon softly. “He belongs to the End.”

Martin sputters. “To…death? Oh, gods, was he there to kill you?”

“No.” Jon can’t look at him. “To tell me I had to make a choice.” He inhales. “And I did. So I woke up.”

He leaves the implications unsaid.

Martin swallows a few times, then decides to move on. “So some really rude guy came in, kind of short and scowling, thin white hair. Oh, and he had a cigar. In a hospital. Said his name was Arthur.”

“Nolan.” Jon feels a chill—ironic, given the topic. “Desolation. Martin, he could have set you on fire.”

“Well, he… well, he didn't,” rambles Martin. “He snarled that he had a message for you, and it was important, and he singed the bedsheet, so I grabbed the fire extinguisher and told him to leave,” says Martin, who probably was not aware that the fire extinguisher would have precisely zero effect on wielders of the Lightless Flame.

Jon feels very pale now. “Did these people get your name?”

“Well… yes… I mean, they asked, Jon! I didn't want to be rude,” Martin finishes, looking chided already.

Jon has no way to protect him. He feels perilously close to tears. Swallows. Swallows again. “All right. Was that all?”

“No.” And here, Martin looks actually pissed off. “There was an old man, and he threatened to throw me off a roller coaster,” he says, as though this were the height of wickedness.

Jon stares at him.

Martin actually huffs. “I mean, he was charming. All funny, and polite, and said he really wanted to see you when you woke up, no rush, no pressure, and then he told me about trying to bring the Vast into the world by what he called The Awful Deep, forcing people—sacrifices, Jon—into a diving bell, but the whole thing fell apart when a Hunter showed up, somehow, and broke it.” Martin is puffing.

Jon stares at him.

He can feel himself reacting, reaching. His entire body rising.

This is not a story he knows.

“A Vast ritual,” he breathes. “Did he say when? Did he say… anything else?” A statement, a tale he does not have—

Martin is looking at him oddly.

Jon tries to pull it back, tries to rein it in. He doesn’t want to scare him. “I… sorry, I…”

Martin looks resigned. “Well. It didn’t work, and that’s all. And then he asked me if I was scared of roller coasters.”

“You… aren’t, are you?”

“Neutral,” says Martin. “He was disappointed. Winked at me and left.”

Push past it, Sims, Jon tells himself, fighting, fighting the urge to compel Martin, to get the truth, to get every single detail Simon Fairchild (because that’s who it was) shared out of him, like scraping the last drops of jam out of a jar.

He can’t do that to Martin. He cannot.

Jon leans on his desk. “I think you should leave.”

“Jon,” says Martin, audibly hurt.

“Please, I… it’s not your fault, I… the Eye wants… wants the story. Please. Please go. I don’t… want to… want to…”

“Oh, Jon,” whispers Martin.

But he leaves.

Jon collapses on his desk, arms over his head. He can feel Martin go back to his desk, carrying that spinning, shining gem of a tale. Feel him have second thoughts, go to make some tea. Change his mind, and instead go upstairs to the library to find a bit of light, escapist reading.

Only when Martin is two floors away does the tether snap.

Breathing raggedly, Jon stays where he is, head down and covered, and vows into his desk. “I won’t do it,” he mutters. “You can’t make me do that to him. You won’t. I swear I’ll rip out my own… tongue before that happens.”

He had been going to say eyes.

He couldn’t. Was not able.

That is somehow worse than anything else that has happened yet today.

He wants to talk to Michael about this.

He can’t.

Jon throws himself into finding everything he can about Adelard Dekker.

He bursts into Elias’ office an hour later.

“Dekker got her explosives,” Jon announces, waving a letter.

“Good morning to you, too, Jon,” says Elias, pen in hand, as though they hadn’t shared breakfast. “Would you mind closing the door?”

Jon closes it, marches over, leans on the desk. “Explosives, Elias. That would damn well interrupt anything.”

“I am inclined to agree—if we had them,” says Elias. “Are you certain she didn’t use them already?”

Jon is not sure. He goes back to research.

Jon bursts into Elias’s office an hour after that. “I found a receipt!”

And then—late—he realizes Elias is not alone.

Another man sits across from him—a man in a heavy peacoat and captain’s hat. His beard and hair are white, but his face is so pale, it’s impossible to pinpoint his age.

Elias looks mildly annoyed this time. “For explosives?”

“For storage,” says Jon (who is this, does he know, can we speak freely, why does he know, why did it take me a moment to see him, why are his thoughts behind a fog—).

“How enterprising,” drones Elias.

The other man smiles.

An unpleasant smile. Cold.

He could know who this was, but it feels… like teasing a tiger. Jon decides (for once) to listen to his gut and ignores him. “I’ll just go check it out, shall I?”

“We will go after work,” snaps Elias.

He’s showing off for company, Jon thinks, and doubles down. “Absolutely not. I may need help from someone there, and doubtless the employees will have gone home by the time we leave here.”

Elias sighs. “Jon, this is not the time for willfulness. We will go together after working hours. Now don’t you have something else to do?”

Jon glances at the other man. Looks at Elias.

Leaves.

And hears through the door: “I almost believed that little act. You are invested, aren’t you? That must be him.”

What the actual hell?

“He can still hear you, Peter.”

Jon flushes and hurries away. Whatever this was about, Jon didn’t have the spare brain space to deal with it today.

It would take about an hour via bus to get to the storage unit in Hainault.

Jon calls Daisy.

Then he calls Basira.

Finally, he calls Melanie.

None of them are answering.

Waiting like this was maddening. Worse, it leaves his mind to wander.

Michael was in the Dark.

Was the Dark tied to a location, or was it like the Lonely—its own special place, regardless of where entered?

Maxwell Rayner was supposedly dead. That left Manuela Dominguez, Natalie Ennis, and Callum Brodie as potential contacts to provide an opening.

Which they one hundred percent would not do.

Jon rests his head in his hands. Was he really thinking about doing this?

Wasn’t it better? Shouldn’t he be relieved?

He was not relieved. He hoped Michael was unconscious, or its equivalent, and wasn’t suffering in there, too.

Jon knows he has no hope of going in and getting back out. The Dark and the Beholding were diametric opposites. He’d be devoured.

“Focus, Jon,” he tells himself, and returns to thinking about explosives.

Elias wants him to wait.

It would be smarter to wait.

He calls Daisy one more time, and this time, she picks up.

“Tim,” says Jon.

“No,” says Tim, already leaving. “Nope.”

“I need your help with the Unknowing,” says Jon, fully aware those are the magic words to manipulate him, hating that he has to use them, longing for the days when he could just ask.

Tom has stopped, half-turned.

“I think I found something,” Jon says. “Gertrude had a storage unit in Hainault under the name Jan Kelly. I think we need to go see what’s in it.”

Tim looks suspicious. “And you need me along, why? Just making sure I’m not getting up to anything nefarious?”

“Because every time I’ve gone anywhere recently, I’ve been accosted,” snaps Jon, unable to keep his tone from going sharp. “I’m afraid. It only happens when I’m alone, so I need someone strong with me, and you… you’re strong. I’m also bringing Daisy, and… you know how she is. I think if there are three of us, I think… I think we have a good chance at not being targeted.”

Tim stands there, unreadable. Anger doesn’t sit well on him; it darkens his look, tilts it from handsome to menacing.

Like a super villain, thinks Jon, and knows if he shares that little jewel, Tim would storm right the hell off.

“Fine,” says Tim, unexpectedly. “I’ll get my coat.”

No one, thinks Jon, would assume he and Tim knew each other.

They got into the bus at the same time. (It is empty. This seems like a bad thing.)

Then Tim sits behind him. Unlike Daisy, who crowds Jon in, staring at him like a wolf.

“Hi,” he says, finally. “Could you not do that?”

“I still don’t trust you,” she says.

“There’s a queue for that,” Jon quips.

No one laughs.

He hunches and slides down in his seat. “Got your lockpicks?”

“Of course. Got the rest, too.”

Tim leans in between the seats. “Armed and dangerous? That’s my kind of party.”

“If all goes well, a Stranger won’t be the only monster I kill today,” says Daisy, eyeing Jon.

Jon wonders when, in his life, he became the embodiment of truly bad ideas. “If all goes well, we’ll find Gertrude’s explosives.”

“Explosives?” Tim has not looked this interested in anything in months. “Do you know how to use those?”

Daisy smiles. It is not pleasant.

Tim, on the other hand, seems quite cheered. “I want to be the one to set them off.”

Jon starts to say Don’t be stupid, and stops. “Sure.”

Daisy laughs unpleasantly and finally gives Jon some room.

He’d asked about Basira, about Melanie, and been told to mind his business. Hopefully that was good?

They are all silent the rest of the way.

No one else boards the bus.

“I think we’re being followed,” Jon says softly as he leads the way to Gertrude’s unit.

They assume he knows where it is. He does—but the number wasn’t on the receipt.

“Be weird if we weren’t,” says Tim with false cheer. “Suspicious tails, ravenous worms, big, giant eyeballs—it’s all part of the fun.”

“I don’t see anything,” says Daisy.

“Well, we are,” Jon mutters. “The question is whether you can take them.”

Daisy snorts.

“So what’s following us, then?” says Tim, who has grown more like his old self by the minute. “Can you tell?”

“No,” says Jon. “And that… worries me.”

Daisy rolls her eyes. “Man up, Sims.”

“You and I should definitely spend more time together,” Tim tells her.

Maybe Tim just needed to get out of the proverbial house more.

He stops, at last, before a single blue, ribbed-metal door in a hallway full of them. “This one.”

Daisy gets into this as quickly as she did the front entrance, and they all go inside.

“What a mess,” says Tim with terrible cheer.

“Well, you know Gertrude,” Jon mutters. “Anything worth doing is worth completely confusing so no one following you can figure it out.”

“Get to it, already,” says Daisy.

He knows the explosives are in here, but can’t quite pinpoint where.

It suddenly horrifies him to realize that they could have gone off, and innocent people could have died.

“At least she’s consistent in her complete lack of moral center,” he mutters, feeling pale.

“Gods, would you look at this,” says Tim, who has found a stash of paintings and dolls, all with their eyes ripped out.

“Freaky,” says Daisy with appreciation.

“Just don’t… touch any books,” Jon reminds them all, because he wouldn’t put it past Gertrude to have left a few traps behind.

A few moments pass with the sound of tape being peeled, boxes being opened.

“So. China,” prompts Tim.

“What about it?”

“Did you… like it?”

Was Tim actually trying?

Jon stares for a moment, then shrugs. “It was fine, I suppose. I didn’t spend long there before we had to go to Chicago.”

“We? The monster-Michael. You went through those doors, again?”

“Better than thirteen hours in a plane,” Jon mutters.

“Was it, though?”

“Ugh!” Jon says, dropping the absolutely revulsive flap of hide he just pulled out of a box.

There’s not much left. It’s got burn-holes, weird oily stains, and letters in what might be black marker all over it.

“‘This is gorilla skin,’” Tim reads. “Um.”

“She made sure they couldn’t use it for the Unknowing,” says Jon softly. “She didn’t just destroy it. She defaced it, marking it with the name of what it was. I get the feeling that the way she did this meant even if they did use it, no one could look at it without understanding.”

“Wow,” says Tim. “Hardcore Archivist.”

“It’s not always a good thing,” bristles Jon.

“Oh, I don’t know,” says Tim. “Maybe if you were a bit more hardcore—”

“Then I could sacrifice my assistants like she did, or chop people up and throw them in pits like she did, or let the Web control people like she did just because it made her job easy?”

Jon realizes he may have been shouting.

They both stare at him.

Daisy shrugs and goes back to looking. “Whatever works.”

Tim says nothing.

Jon flushes and resumes looking, as well.

A moment passes.

“You’re not saying she did all that,” says Tim.

“She did. And worse.”

“Jon, she was five stone of old woman, soaking wet.”

“And in case Elias’s physique hasn’t made it clear, the longer you’re with the Dread Powers, the stronger you get,” mutters Jon. “Not that it seems to have helped me at all.”

“‘Elias’s physique,’” drawls Tim, turning the words utterly obscene.

“Oh, shut up. You know that’s not what I—”

“Oh,” says Daisy.

They all stare at what she found.

“Is that C4?” Tim is awed.

“Semtex,” says Jon, who has never heard the word before in his life. “General purpose, often used in commercial blasting and demolition. Origin was the Czech Republic, and today, it’s tagged with a distinct vapor signature so it can’t be smuggled places, but this batch was made before 1990, so Dekker was able to—”

“Sims,” Daisy warns.

“It’s emulsifiers all over again,” mutters Tim.

“It is not,” says Jon.

“This is good,” says Daisy. “Dunno if it loses strength over time, but there’s enough here that it shouldn’t matter.”

“It’s still good,” says Jon. “Minimum 20 year shelf life when properly stored between -10 Celsius and… sorry,” he mutters.

“You go, Gertrude,” says Tim, caressing the orange, plastic-wrapped shape.

“Don’t touch it,” says Jon.

“How are we getting this out of here without touching it?” says Tim.

“Empty the other boxes. Hide it,” says Daisy, who seems far too comfortable with the transport of illegal explosives.

“We’ll have to get a cab, or something. I’m not risking this on public transport,” says Jon.

“Are we still being followed?” Tim is suddenly grim. “Because if it comes down to it, and it’s our lives or this, I’m not letting them take this. I’ll fucking die first.”

Not for the first time, Jon desperately wishes the Eye provided glimpses of the future like the Web. “No, you won’t. I’m sure we’re being watched, but I can’t… I can’t quite see by what.” He swallows. “We’re going to have to take our chances. Though, if it’s the Stranger, and they still want this thing, maybe we could….”

They all stare at what’s left of the skin.

“I could use it as bait,” says Jon.

“Like hell,” says Tim.

“What? It makes sense! With these explosives, you’ll have what you need,” says Jon. “Get this safely to the Institute, and you can figure the rest out from there.”

“You know, boss,” says Tim. “I know I’m along as a spare, but I didn't really think I’d be here just to keep you from doing something impossibly stupid.”

“Tim!” Jon starts.

Tim gets right in his face. “Try it. I’ve got no problem cramming you in one of these boxes, if I have to.”

Jon makes one small, shocked sound of protest.

Daisy laughs.

Jon is meek as he tells them where to find the closest wheeled cart and does not argue any more.

They are unaccosted as they leave, as they use Tim’s phone to summon a rideshare (Jon curses as he remembers he forgot to replace his phone. Again).

Happily, the driver gets out to help with the boxes. He’s quite strong, and something about him nags at Jon’s mind, but he can’t see what it is. The man is huge; at least six foot seven. Olive skin, close-cropped hair. Possibly Samoan. He is apparently immune to the cold, wearing a tank top and unbuttoned shirt.

Jon’s focus slides off him. He almost forgets to try looking again.

“Really haven’t had a phone for days now?” says Tim, loading the last of the boxes and looking around.

“I’ve had a lot to keep me occupied, all right?” says Jon, peering hard, deeply disturbed that he cannot, for the life of him, know what is following them. They’re not far, whatever they are.

He even has a general idea of location—but that location, in his mind, is empty. He can’t see it at all.

He doesn’t see darkness. He sees nothing. There is a difference.

Jon discovers that Daisy and Tim have taken the back seat, and reluctantly scoots into the front. “Go, please.”

The driver goes.

“Magnus Institute, eh?” he says in a thick, vaguely Mediterranean accent, unbothered by their sketchiness. “That is a very weird place.” And he laughs.

Something about him makes Jon deeply nervous. “It… it has its perks,” he says, distracted, and finds his attention sliding away from the man again to check the mirrors instead.

They are being followed.

It’s a shock because he can see the car in the mirror. He can’t see the car with his mind.

He strains, reaching, trying to know what’s in the vehicle tailing them, but it does not work. The person driving it might as well be invisible.

There is nothing back there, says the Eye without words.

I SEE it right there! insists Jon.

Nothing at all, says the Eye, and if it were human, it would have used a wink emoji.

“Utterly useless,” Jon mutters.

“So why do you work there, then?” says the driver with good cheer. “There must be better places to make your living, yes?”

Tim has noticed the tail. He keeps whispering, pointing. Daisy shakes her head, oddly unfocused.

Slowly, Jon turns to the driver. “I didn’t say I worked there.”

The man grins. One of his teeth is gold.

And suddenly, Jon knows. “Mikaele Salesa,” he whispers.

“Huh.” Salesa eyes him sidelong. “Not bad, not bad. Not to worry, I am on your side,” he says congenially, and pats the steering wheel. “I have what you need today, Mister Archivist and friends.”

Jon grips the seat so hard he feels his fingers might pierce through it. “How did you know we were here? What do you have that you think we need? Why would you show up now? Do you know everyone thinks you’re dead?”

Salesa looks slightly dazed. “Told you would be. An object you will want to buy. Told I should come. Yes.” He shakes himself, sighs, then shrugs. “Well, she warned me. I thought I was prepared.” He glances at Jon. “You shouldn’t be able to do that, little Eye.”

Jon feels like his hair is rising on end. “I’m going to do it significantly more if you don’t answer my questions properly.”

Salesa opens his mouth, glances in the rear-view-mirror, and then, madly, spins around in the driver’s seat to yell. “No!” he says. “Bad dog. Put that away!”

Jon almost grabs for the wheel, panic driving him while nothing drives the car, but their path has not altered. The car takes a turn without Salesa controlling it, braking itself adequately and even using its blinker.

“What?” Jon says, then glances back.

Daisy has produced a gun. She looks oddly caught.

“The one behind us is with me,” says Salesa. “She’s making sure nothing else follows you home.” He turns back around, shaking his head.

His hands are rough, broad, strong-looking. Jon is afraid.

He peers back again, but the car trailing them is just far enough away that he can tell nothing more than that the driver is female-presenting with dark brown skin.

Daisy and Tim are muttering again, mutinous.

“I don’t understand,” says Jon.

Salesa waves his hand. “Well, that is why I am here. If we don’t do this, nobody knows anything ever again, eh?”

“You know about the Stranger’s ritual?”

“Since before you were born,” Salesa says with another big smile. “You are younger than you look.”

Jon hunches and decides he has had too much good luck today. The universe had to balance it all out. “If you know so much, why are you only coming to help now?”

“Because Annabelle says it is the right time for you,” says Salesa with great, rasping cheer.

Jon gasps. “Annabelle Cane? She’s Web! Don’t you know she’s Web?”

Utterly deadpan, Salesa says, “Nooo, I assumed the thread holding her head together was from some kind of knitting accident.”

Jon stares at him. He did not know this detail.

He pictures spiders crawling out of her cranium and begins to shake.

“There, there,” says Salesa. “Do not worry, little Eye. So she is Web, so what? What do you expect me to do about it? Expect anyone to do about it? Nothing, that’s what we can do, so no use letting it bother. You just feed them with fear, if you do.”

Jon swallows noisily.

Salesa gives him a pitying look, then flicks on the radio so Jon doesn’t have to reply.

A baritone sings to his heartbroken son that he’ll find peace once he returns to the family home in Provence. Trembling, Jon understands it, though it’s Italian, and hunches further in his seat as the Eye feeds him unwanted facts about Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi.

He considers leaping out of the car, trying to roll to freedom like someone in an ill-budgeted show. But, of course, that is foolish; he’d be directly in Annabelle’s path, for one, and can easily see her running him over, then placing Mister Spider on his chest like a white lily.

And he’d be leaving Tim and Daisy behind. So that was out.

“There we go,” says Salesa, easily finding the delivery entrance behind the antiquated building, and Jon recalls he’s been here before.

Bought and sold cursed items via the Magnus Institute, in fact.

He wonders if Elias knows him, or if Salesa was before his time, during James Wright’s.

“Now, we wait,” says Salesa expansively.

Jon spins, but Annabelle Cane does not drive in behind them. They are not boxed in, trapped, doomed. “Wait for what?” he asks, too late.

Looking absolutely smug as hell, Salesa nods toward the service entrance.

Rosie is walking out, pushing a large, wheeled cart, and looking mildly confused. She spots them and hurries over, cart banging along on the asphalt.

Of course, Elias sent her—before, in fact, they had reached the parking lot at all.

Jon keeps looking around as they load the cart. Where is Annabelle? It’s like waiting in a mousetrap that won’t trigger, he thinks, his heart in his throat.

Tim commandeers the cart once it’s loaded, only paling a little at every bump it rolls across. He keeps glancing with concern at Daisy.

Daisy is unfocused as she walks. It’s like she’s gone into sleep mode. She doesn’t seem aware of Salesa or Annabelle at all; dazed, she climbs the stairs and heads inside.

Tim finagles the loading platform; the explosives are inside without an issue.

Then Jon is standing on that loading dock, looking around, twitchy as a spooked colt. He startles at every sound, jumping so many times that Salesa finally sighs.

“Do you drink caffeine?” says Salesa, towering over Jon, but not looming at him, not crowding him, walking near but not alongside. He keeps his rough hands in his pockets; maybe he noticed Jon afraid of them.

“I, ah. Yes.”

“You might want to give it up? You’re making me jumpy,” Salesa lies outright, then grins at him.

“What do you have on you, that I can’t see you clearly?” Jon says. “And did you do something to Daisy?”

Salesa points at his bracelet—it’s blackened metal, links in the shape of Greek crosses. Looking at it makes Jon’s vision swim. “Toys. Very good ones—though you shouldn’t be able to see me at all,” says Salesa, “nor compel me to answer your questions—but!” He claps his hands. “Here we are! I like surprises. It’s okay, little Eye.”

“Don’t call me that. It’s… unpleasant,” says Jon.

That amuses Salesa. “Sure, sure. Archivist.”

“You could just say Jon,” he mutters.

“But we both know that would not be accurate,” Salesa rumbles, low.

Jon says nothing.

He glances around one more time, but Annabelle has not made an appearance.

He has to wonder why.

This would have been the perfect chance. Salesa could have forced something, driven them into a wall, anything. She could have followed them here, trapped them, sidled right on over and dropped Mister Spider in his lap.

Instead, she’d disappeared. Why?

Tim yanks Jon inside and slams the door. “It’s like you want to get kidnapped again.”

“No, I… no! Of course not!”

Tim steers him toward the elevator, and Jon balks. “No,” he says. “No enclosed spaces right now.”

“Fine,” says Tim with an eye roll, and redirects for the stairs.

The cart sits there in the lobby, weirdly innocent for such a drastic final solution. Rosie has already gone. Jon thinks she has no idea what she just helped to ferry inside.

Jon’s not sure he feels great about having plastic explosives sitting around in his archives, except that it might make Elias nervous, and that thought, in itself, is lovely.

Speak of the devil—

“Long time, no see!” Salesa bellows, smacking Elias on the back more times than necessary.

Jon balks. Tim gives up a bad job and goes on without him.

“I would have appreciated some warning, Mikaele,” Elias says, only half-stern. “We could have had visitors in the library. We could have had students.”

“Yes, yes, people you do not want me to influence—assuming I have not already done so! Ha!”

Elias sighs, then finally meets Jon’s gaze.

Happy thoughts of frightened Elias go right out the window. Oh, he is mad.

Good, thinks Jon, swallowing hard, and puts his sweating hands in his pockets. That’s what he gets for… being… all of that.

“Jon,” says Elias.

Very mad, amends Jon. “What?”

That little snip of attitude seemed to be the proverbial straw.

Elias’s eyes widen.

For one moment, just one, they blaze; then he tucks it away with a self-control Jon cannot begin to fathom and goes to inspect the cart. “Martin found blueprints,” he says, peering closely. “I think, with a little planning, this all might work.”

“You’re being awfully helpful, all of a sudden,” Jon challenges.

“Ah, do not look the gift horse in its mouth,” Salesa says. “He does not get his hands dirty, this one! Take it for what it is.”

“I would, if I knew what it was,” Jon mutters, all too aware of Elias staring at him. “And he does get them dirty. For your information.”

Salesa raises his eyebrows at Jon in a vaguely raunchy look that Jon cannot interpret.

Daisy has taken a seat on a bench, and has not moved. She’s looking at nothing.

Jon frowns. “Salesa, whatever you’re doing to her, it’s time to stop.”

“No, no, I like my throat where it is,” he says. “Once I go, she will be okay. But I can do another thing for you. Come here—come here, come here.” He’s backing away, into the closed library, into the shadows, beckoning.

He looks like some kind of giant, wicked elf.

Jon glances at Elias.

Elias is unreadable. Stone.

Jon follows Salesa.

Salesa stands in the darkness, framed between floor-to-ceiling shelves, holding something in his hand. “This is for you. Now—it costs a lot of money, and I know you do not have that much.”

“I don’t even know what you’re holding, or if I’d want it,” says Jon, tersely.

“A one-way trip.”

Jon waits.

Salesa sighs. “I do not know all the details, but I know this: you need to go to the Dark, yes? This will take you there.”

He is holding a small, glass sphere. In it swirls some kind of shadow, a viscous looking fog, impossibly deep for the size of the sphere.

Jon stares. Looks up at him. “Annabelle Cane… said to give this to me?”

He shrugs. “It will not break until you wish to break it. Ah! But I require payment.”

“I hardly have the kind of money you traffic in,” says Jon primly.

“One pound.”

Jon gives him a dry look.

“And.” Salesa holds up his finger. “Protection.”

Jon laughs. “Protection? Are you joking?”

“Annabelle says you will be able to do just this. Soon.”

This was getting worse by the moment. “Does Annabelle say anything else? What’s with you two, anyway? Why are you being her messenger?” He squints.

He sees no webs on Mikaele Salesa.

“Because I have been waiting for a long time,” Salesa says. “The world grows bigger, people are more everywhere, fear gets worse… it’s only a matter of time until one of them wins, and one of the rituals succeeds. And when that happens, you,” he pokes Jon’s chest, ignoring Jon’s little hey of protest, “will be one of the chosen people. I want you to protect me.”

Jon sighs and rubs his face. “I think she’s ripping you off.”

Salesa, uncharacteristically, says nothing.

“One,” says Jon. “I’m going to stop any rituals I can, until I die. So that cuts me off as your… whatever, doubly. And two, I can’t protect anyone. Not even myself. I can’t do anything.” He doesn’t mention Mustermann. It feels more and more like a one-off, given all that’s happened since. “I… I do need that. I do. But I won’t… trade you something I can’t promise in exchange for it.”

Salesa shrugs and tucks it into his jacket. “Suit yourself. Well, that’s all I do here. Have fun with your explosives.”

“That’s it? You’re done?”

“It is all I was asked to do.” He shrugs expansively. “Unless you all want to go out for dinner, maybe? Being officially dead, I… do not have much social life. Indian? My treat?”

Jon is saved from replying to this surreal invitation by Elias, who grips his shoulder too tightly. “No, I think not. Thank you, Mikaele.”

“Don’t make yourself… a stranger,” says Salesa, and belly-laughs his way right out the service door.

Elias has not released Jon’s shoulder.

Jon yanks away. “We were fine.”

“With help from a disreputable dealer and an agent of the Web. I’m so proud,” says Elias.

“One of us is determined to stop the Unknowing at any cost,” Jon snaps.

“Not. You.” In the shadows, Elias’s gray eyes are black, menacing. “You are not an acceptable cost.”

Jon throws up his arms. “If they win, I’m dead, anyway! Or haven’t you figured out that there is a target practically carved into my back?”

Before the final words are out of his mouth, Jon knows something is off.

He feels Elias thinking something, something huge, an iceberg of a thing that threatens to derail… Jon isn’t sure what, but it feels like everything, the foundation trembling, the world’s very soul shaken by this one unknown thing.

Then Elias sighs, pinches his nose, and the iceberg disappears. “Let’s get this taken care of and go home. Sarcasm aside, I am relieved you turned down his incredibly foolish offer.”

So that’s why Salesa suddenly went quiet, Jon thinks, wondering just what kind of death-look Elias was shooting over his head.

“It wouldn’t do me any good,” Jon snaps. “I may be… desperate. Approaching the Unknowing. But that doesn’t mean just… throwing my life away.”

Elias studies him again.

It is a deeply pensive look. Considering. A decision-making kind of look.

Jon is unnerved. “Let’s get the... The things stored.”

“Yes,” says Elias, not losing that look, and escorts him to the stair.

Everyone goes home.

Elias locks up.

Jon gets into the car, feeling a little like he’s walking into a dragon’s den, but he’s so tired.

Just so tired.

A hotel? Sure. But it would mean alone. Somebody or something would come after him.

At Elias’, there is only Elias to deal with, and maybe the Web.

Anywhere else, and he’s apparently dealing with walk-ins from the Web, the Stranger, the Vast, the Desolation, the Flesh, and fucking Death itself.

(But not the Spiral, because Elias locked Michael away.)

He puts his face in his hands.

“I am afraid I failed to grab more statements on our way out,” says Elias, who may or may not be sincere. “I do have a few saved at the house, for emergencies.”

“For… you?”

“No, Jon. For you.”

Jon groans. “You expected me to lose all other options for housing?”

“I knew the time would come that you’d come to me,” Elias says like spiked hot chocolate.

Jon rolls his eyes and looks out the window.

Elias sighs. “You do make it difficult, some days.”

“More than some, I think,” Jon mutters.

He can hear the smile in Elias’s voice. “Perhaps. But I… don’t mind that as much as you might think. I am going to tell you something, Jon. The people I have counted as friends are the ones who could hold their own against me. Rather consistently.”

“So not me, then.”

“On the contrary.” Elias signals, turns. They’re on his street. His tone has gone warm and rich. “While there are times I consider some… unorthodox methods for shutting you up—”

Jon snorts, thinking tongue mutilation, ropes, unconsciousness—

Elias sighs again. “No, Jon. None of that.”

“Stop looking.”

“I can’t. You are projecting very loudly.”

Jon hunches in his seat. He is still there, barely peeking over the window, goblined, when they arrive.

Somehow, Elias gets to his door before he’s even fully unbuckled. “Come on,” he says, almost gently, and offers his hand.

Jon eyes him. “What is this?”

“Congeniality,” says Elias with such exaggeration that it wrings a laugh from Jon.

“Fine, fine,” he says, but does not reach for Elias’ hand.

Elias takes his left hand, anyway. “You are so stubborn,” Elias says, almost to himself, and slides his thumb across the back of Jon’s knuckles.

Jon feels it. Stares at him, brow knit. Could Elias be…

He has to be reading this wrong.

He tugs.

Elias doesn’t let go.

“Give me my hand back,” says Jon.

“Get out of the car, and I will,” says Elias, transactional, which is a function Jon understands.

So he lets Elias help him out of the car.

Elias lifts him smoothly as if he weighs nothing, and pulls him close, too close for propriety, still looking at him like he did at the Institute.

Jon tries to back away.

Elias puts both hands on either side of him, on the car, caging him in. “I know you’re an intelligent man, Jon,” he says, low. “What do I have to do to get through to you? Do I need to cut you? Is that what it takes?”

“Wh… what?” says Jon, starting to panic.

Elias kisses him.

If Jon had bet money—any money—in a million years of time, he would not have predicted it.

It's a good kiss.

Elias is slow about it; not invasive (but it is), eyes closed, and does not pull away for a long moment, long enough that Jon feels… something, strange and surprising, a rising urge to reciprocate.

Jon doesn’t do it, but… he wants to.

Elias holds Jon’s shocked gaze. “You really didn’t know how I feel, did you?”

Jon feels like an hour passes before he knows what to say, on this cold winter’s night, under a city-dark sky, in Elias’ fancy driveway. “What?” is all he manages.

Elias laughs softly. “Come inside, Jon. You’re trembling.”

“It’s cold,” Jon snaps.

Elias puts his hand on the small of Jon’s back and steers him through the small gate, across the courtyard, through the massive front door.

That hand didn’t bother him before. Well, it did; but not like this. Not like this.

Jon isn’t sure why he goes. But pushing against Elias… it always takes more than he has, than anybody has, and he doesn’t know why.

Elias holds Jon’s eyes as he takes off his coat, unblinking as he disrobes the tiniest bit, steady.

Jon is backed against the wall, staring at him.

“Come, now, Jon,” Elias rumbles, low. “I may not be quite as hideous as your favorite monster, but surely I’m not that terrible.”

That’s two references, and Jon clings it as the only framework that makes sense. “You’re jealous. You’re doing this because you’re jealous. Of a concept.”

“In part,” Elias confesses without hesitation, toeing off his shoes and somehow making it utterly lascivious. “Let us just say that I had… discounted the possibility, regardless of my own desires, because you clearly were not interested.” Lower, eyes lidded. “But then it turns out you weren’t nearly as disinterested as you projected.”

Jon stares. That feels wrong, incorrect. Is it, though? “So you… proposition me because… a monster did it first?”

“Is that so shocking?” Elias looks almost wounded. “I respected your boundaries, Jon. Even now, if you want to say no, even if you wish for… some other accommodations, I will make it work. Michael, of course, did not do that. You are not shy about your disinterest in sex, but the Distortion did not care, and—to my surprise—elicited a response from you by pushing those boundaries, by forcing its way in.” He smiles. It is a terrible expression, secretive and sweet and very, very dark. “I found that I… wondered.”

“Wondered?” Jon blurts, thinking, that isn’t it, and that’s not why it was appealing, and I don’t KNOW what it was but it’s not that.

“If you simply needed to be shown what you wanted.”

And Elias actively pushes things into Jon’s head.

It doesn’t penetrate very well. Whatever Jon is becoming, he has some resistance; but there is a sense of sensation, of hot breath in secret places, of lips doing things he’s never imagined lips could do.

Jon gasps unevenly, his body responding like Elias hooked him into some kind of current.

It is so damn frustrating. Hard to think. Things he knows (like not trusting Elias at all, for one) fall away into the background like forgotten dreams, colorless and flat.

“I am not going to force you, Jon,” Elias says. “I won’t even swear to kill you at some random point in the future. This is an entirely separate offer.”

“Except you keep bringing it up,” says Jon, who wishes he’d stop feeling Elias’s imagined fingertips, wishes his circulation wouldn’t work quite so well just this second.

“Of course I do. I’m insulted. Offended.” Elias’s eyes lid. “I am jealous of a monster. I should have said something a long time ago. This is on me, Jon. I take full responsibility.”

Jon stares.

“Let me touch you,” Elias says. “I require nothing in return. This is not a trade; this is not a trick. There are no strings attached, of any sort—yes, you can look. No webs here, Jon.”

Jon does look.

There are no webs on Elias Bouchard.

“Why?” says Jon. “Just… because something else offered first?”

“Because this is something I want," Elias says. "You are my type, if you want complete honesty. I have respected your wishes for years, but now, though… I wonder if you even know what your wishes are.”

Is that a valid thing to say?

Jon was surprised after Michael, surprised by sexual desire; and now, here Elias was, making him feel so many things.

Was this the same? It wasn’t. Did that make it bad?

He didn’t know. Elias had pressed some button in him, flipped some switch, and he wasn’t thinking clearly. How was Jon supposed to respond to this?

(Isn’t this good? Isn’t this what he’s supposed to have? Human affection?)

(Elias, at least, wasn’t trapping people inside himself to slowly go mad from fear and doubt—)

He doesn’t notice Elias moving.

Suddenly, Elias is right there, catching his arms and holding his wrists overhead. “I’m sorry to have made this hard on you,” he whispers, and his gray eyes are like the sky, deep and eternal and frightening. “I have always loved a man with fight, Jon—someone who could stand toe-to-toe with me, who could pin me…” He brushes Jon’s lips with his. “Not just be pinned. I meant it all.”

“Except for the whole… except for… the… everything you just said,” gasps Jon.

“Very eloquent.” Elias kisses him again.

Elias has to be doing something to him. Jon has kissed people. Yes, he only had a relationship with Georgie, but he’s kissed loads of people (six). He tried in uni, tried to find the well of gravity everyone he knew seemed to revolve around, but it never worked.

This is working. Too well.

He wants to respond. His eyes flutter shut, lips parting, but he does not otherwise move.

“We are united in more than mere attraction, you know,” Elias murmurs, and his hips are pressing against Jon’s now, and that feels warm, and firm, and mesmerizing. “Our patron… can’t you feel how it feeds? How it wants what we are doing—our sensation, doubled, tripled, quadrupled back and forth, through your senses and mine, again and again until it grows, expands, reaches an echoing peak of worship and pleasure—can’t you feel it watching?”

And that should be the creepiest fucking thing that anyone has ever said.

But it’s not.

Jon makes a small sound as Elias presses harder.

He wants more.

He wants to press back, to grind. To… he’s not sure (should have watched some porn, he thinks vaguely, though it had always been uninteresting).

Jon turns his head to the side, and now Elias’ lips are on his throat, and oh, this is the very cliff’s edge of resistance.

Would it be so bad?

Doesn't he deserve, maybe, a little something in his life that doesn't feel awful? Some strings-free comfort, just for once?

Except... this isn't what he had with Michael.

Jon recognizes that. That was his own desire, natural, coming from somewhere deep inside himself.

This isn't that. It feels amazing, but it isn't his.

Elias is doing this to him. That adds an edge of true panic.

Jon’s breathing hard. All the blood has gone away from his brain, and that isn’t fair. “Please don’t,” he whispers. “I… it… this wouldn’t be my decision. Right now.”

“I would make you enjoy it,” says Elias against his pulse.

“I know," Jon gasps. "I said no."

Elias stills, hands on his waist, breath hot on his throat. "Why?"

"Because I’m not in my right mind,” snaps Jon. “If you meant a damned word you said, stop.”

Elias stops.

Jon feels utterly bereft as he steps away. It’s like punishment.

Good, he thinks, desperately hoping it will go down, desperately waiting for it to go away, but it is taking its time. Every pulse of his heart seems to feed it, need, need, want, want, and clarity of mind is completely out of his hands.

(He doesn’t want this. He knows. He wants Michael and this is not that. He might as well have been drugged.)

“I’m willing to wait,” says Elias. “Now that you finally get the point.”

Jon looks up. “How long have you been… trying… to tell me this?”

Elias looks almost pitying. “Since the Distortion let you go.”

“It really is just jealousy?” he whispers.

“No. That was simply when I realized I’d been wasting so much time, and depriving us both—especially given the way our patron would most definitely bless this… union.”

As if it’s all very logical, and Jon just needs to catch up.

He wonders if he can go sleep on the castellated roof. It’s cold enough to maybe help with his problem.

“I will wait for you,” says Elias. “Despite our conflicts, I am not a monster.”

“You’re a murderer,” says Jon.

“Did you feel that way when you slew Mustermann?”

Jon feels punched in the gut. “That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?”

“It’s not the same.”

“No?”

Jon is breathing hard. “He was going to kill me!”

“And Gertrude was going to kill me.”

Oh, no. Oh, no—

“And Leitner, in spite of your brief and fond familiarity, was going to feed you wrong information, hideously and fatally wrong, which would have destroyed your ability to fight the Stranger, to listen to our patron, to build your strength. His entire understanding was outdated by the late 1800s, Jon—but it was so appealing. It sounds so logical. If you’d listened in that tender, vulnerable moment, you would have believed him—and I have no doubt that by now, you would already be dead.”

This doesn’t feel completely true, but it feels truer than Jon likes.

It’s almost all true. Something is missing, but… Jon can’t see it.

(Human. Better.)

(Is it?)

I’m lucky I can think my own name after this, he thinks. “I… I think I’m done for tonight.”

“We haven’t eaten dinner. I’ll behave, if that’s your concern.”

Jon needs to not see him right now. “I don’t want to eat. I need… I…”

Elias looks him up and down, very slowly.

It isn’t a touch. It feels like one, though.

“Do whatever you need to do, Jon,” says Elias. “I will put a plate of leftovers in the refrigerator, in case you decide you are hungry later tonight. All right?”

Is this why he was feeding me? Jon thinks wildly, picturing katydids providing mates with sacks of nutrients including their sperm, picturing robins flirting by vomiting into each other’s mouths.

Elias laughs.

It sounds genuine; feels real. A startled sort of humor. “What on earth, Jon?” he says, shaking his head, and goes into the kitchen.

Jon tries to tell himself to be an adult, to be brave enough to go into the kitchen and just eat dinner like a person.

He flees to the guest room instead.

He does not slam the door.

(part eleven)

#tma #the magnus archives #fanfic #fic #tma fic #tma fanfic #jonathan sims #tma elias #tma salesa #mikaele salesa #elias bouchard #rated m #tw: gaslighting #tw: dubious consent #and eat it too

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moon-kissed-witch · 3 years

Note

Will you tell the Dr Phil story?

Due to the nature of this show, I'm sure you can assume that this involves a messy situation. In this case it involved mental illness. I'm going to do my best to avoid being graphic about it, which the show didn't because they care about shock value, but I see no reason for excessive descriptions of gore.

Okay so the episode was about an internet "celebrity." I knew her. Like she lived in the same area as me, and even though I never saw her in person I had her on both Facebook and Snapchat, we had friends, blah blah blah.

The reason she was on the show was because she was popular for showing and talking about her self harm. At first it was just positivity, like "Hey, this is my body, I don't have to hide it or be ashamed of it just because I have scars." And that was cool and positive. But it blew up and the attention that came with it enabled her problem and made it so, so much worse.

Not only did she start talking more and more graphically about her issues, but she began doing live streams with open, gaping wounds, drinking vodka straight from the bottle every ten minutes, talking about how many stitches she had at the moment, and just completely changing the narrative around the subject. She wasn't being praised for accepting herself, she was being praised for publicly destroying herself. The worse she got, the more fans she had telling her they loved her. It would make anyone worse, not just her. Positive social re-enforcement is a hell of a thing to fight when humans are by nature social creatures.

So, here's where I come in. Like I said, I sort of knew her. I talked to her a few times, but the few times I did talk to her were alarming to say the least. When I mentioned that I also had struggled with self harm, she immediately asked me to show her my scars. Which, as someone who spent a lot of time in inpatient wards, it can be validating to see other people who struggle with the same visible problem you do. (I had a roommate who I'm still friends with who asked to touch my scars and I let her, it never felt violating or uncomfortable, it never felt bad, we were just talking about what we'd been through)

The thing here is that the conversation sounded like a competition. Every time. She talked a lot about how many times she was in the hospital and what she did and how her mom was a nurse so she gave her stitches and mopped up her blood. I don't want to say it sounded like bragging exactly, but I will say that she definitely sounded like an addict, which she was, but not one that was looking to recover.

(She's doing much better now and I'm very proud of her. When people are addicted to anything, whether that's a behavioral addiction or a chemical one, it radically alters their behavior and I don't think it's fair to judge her character as a person based on this. But regardless, it wasn't healthy for anyone involved.)

Now, this wasn't mentioned on the show because it wasn't deemed relevant, but one time I was in the cardiac unit because of a suicide attempt and the first thing she did was tell me that what I did wouldn't actually kill me. Which, regardless of if it's true (in this case it wasn't. I won't list methods of suicide but the damage done was serious enough to land me sedated on a ventilator, in the operating room, and then the icu. It was a literal near death experience, bright light and out of body and all that bullshit. So yeah I'm still bitter about that comment but moving on), is never acceptable to say to someone who attempted suicide. Ever.

So at that point, I was furious and just done. Personally, that is. I decided I would no longer interact with someone who was going to seemingly minimize the pain I was in and the harm I was causing to myself. She was still online doing her thing.

Eventually there was an online petition to get her removed from social media, which didn't happen but it did get enough controversial attention to land her on the show. I ended up talking to the woman who started the petition about my experience with her personally, as well as my concern for her because of how clearly she was spiraling and how she was being cheered on for it. She thought it was significant enough to ask me if someone from the show could contact me and I said yes. I told them the whole thing but they only chose to relay part of it, which is fine. It wasn't about me, it was about her and her health.

After the show her online presence diminished significantly, which is probably for the better, but she said that the show only brought on bullying and was bad for her health. I have mixed feelings on my involvement. I don't like that she was bullied and publicly humiliated, and that I indirectly contributed to that. It also gave me insight as to how the people on this show are treated, because I could tell by her reactions that none of this was what she'd anticipated. But if it did help her recover in any way, then that's positive. I'm not close enough to her to know, but I do feel bad about how horribly she was bullied following her appearance.

Edit: PLEASE do not look for this if you are triggered my images of scars or self harm. Half the videos that are suggested aren't even the episode, but videos of people's own, potentially very triggering, scars and sometimes cuts. Addictive behaviors are often extremely competitive in the mind of addicts, even recovered ones. Part of that can be due to personality but part of it is that we live in a society where if you're not the sickest, people are under the impression that you don't need help. This is not true. Please keep yourself safe.

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slutabed · 2 years

Text

woooooo boy okay

i was supposed to be unpacking ~body image trauma~ with my therapist today, and of course that led me to talking about my first relationship and all the sex baggage i have with that, which of course led to me talking about my second (weird, ridiculous) relationship and somehow it came up about me ~trying to take it slow~ with bf2 and telling him that and him coercing me into sex anyway, and she was like o.O girl.

and i was like i mean i know what it sounds like but it wasn’t THAT

and she just looked at me like 🥺 honey... and she was like i’m not gonna say it if you don’t want to say it

and i just. like. it happened in 2017 but i didn’t start thinking about it as that until a couple months after i had already broken up with him, so it sounds like. fake? to call it that?

but when i told her it happened more than once, and when i described it and told her all about how it felt and the way i was like zoning out the whole time it was happening she was like...listen you don’t have to call it any words you are not comfortable with or ready to call it. but the fact of the matter now matter how you looked at it is that your boundaries and your body were violated. and whatever word you choose to call it, that’s not nothing.

and yeah god it’s so refreshing to go to therapy. and have someone listen to me when i hedge around these things and hear what i’m not saying. because i’ve brought this up to my friends so many times and have always said it flippantly, or played it off as like a “crazy exbf2 who was so clingy and crazy and barely knew what consent was,” when like the reality is that...yeah idk i guess technically i was sexually assaulted by the guy i was dating, more than once, and i am allowed to say that even though it’s not “as bad” as what my friends have gone through.

and she never made me call it anything or use any words but like, when she mentioned things like assault and date rape it was just. idk. horrible but also nice to be so validated by it. i told her i always feel like i’m exaggerating everything and making it sound worse and she was like “i’ve literally never known you to exaggerate anything, ever, and also this was bad. what you went through was objectively bad and you’re allowed to feel that.” so yeah. anyway

#tw: sa #trauma dumping on tumblr as per usual i suppose #mich vents #i also now have to write a letter to my exbf about this and like. i love getting to vent inletters i'll never send #can't wait to tell her about the short story he wrote about me that exists on medium #that'll be fun #when i have to unpack why the fuck i dated this crazy motherfucker in the first place

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hollyhomburg · 3 years

Note

I'm fairly confused about this entire situation, honestly. I saw the original girl comment about whether or not she was entirely sure to feel comfortable on a page meant to do that exact thing. In my opinion (which is fairly confused atm), you were both in the wrong. Of course, you don't have to answer anything about your gender or whether or not you have certain body parts, I can definitely understand that! But the extra meanness was a bit uncalled for. They just didn't want to feel unsafe :/

Also, everyone deals with pain differently. Whether or not if it's something that seems a bit pushy or not. I feel for both sides of this weird miscommunication, I really do. I guess that's just my inner-understanding lol. So yeah, I feel for you! I know what it feels like to go through things that annoy you and cause disruption amongst your inner self, but my heart also goes out to the girl that was painted as a transphobe when all she wanted to do was feel was safe.

P.S, this was absolutely not coming from a place of anger! It is your choice whether to insult me or realize that people have different opinions; I will understand if either one is chosen! I wish you well, and if the girl is also reading this, I wish you well too and I really do hope that you get closure and understanding because I've also gone through something similar to what you have. It's so painful, but stay strong and you'll be able to say that you came out of it alive :)

----------------------

First off, I want you to know that the anger in the response is not directed at you the asker of this question. but at the person from last night. second, I’m probably not going to respond to any more asks on this topic, because I'm tired.

okay so let me put it this way for you. you would not under any circumstances pull down Anyone's pants to check their genitals in public. right? or demand that they pull down their pants for you and expose themselves in a public way just so that you can make sure they don’t have a penis.

The fact of the matter is that someone else's genitals are none of yours nor anyone else's business. And asking about this is not only violating and transphobic but also inappropriate. (I shouldn’t have to clarify that this is transphobic at this point. before you want to argue that- do your research, google is free).

what you seem to misunderstand is that transphobia is an act of aggression. to be transphobic is to cause trauma, to trigger, to be violent. this person asking me about my genitals was an act of violence. and I responded like it was one- with meanness that was called for because I felt hurt. because what they said was hurtful.

as someone who has never felt safe in my entire life, both because of abuse, rape, and my identity- that doesn't give me a right to threaten someone elces safety because my safety demands it. each and all traumas are valid, and just because they wanted to feel safe on my page doesn't give them a right to take away my safety. especially because this is my page and my safe space that I have created with hours of uncompensated work. So no- they don't have a right to take away my safety and security for their own.

asking on anon is also a little sus, they didn’t reach out through dm- which is how all things of a personal nature should be. they knew there was a possibility I would take it wrong and didn’t want to be blocked from my page. they feel entitled to my work and entitled to my body in the same way. i wont apologize for trying to preserve this page, and I won’t apologize for acting for matching their level of meanness.

when you have trauma there are so many things that are triggering for other people that aren’t triggering for you. The real world doesn't come with specific trigger warnings and you have to eventually come to that conclusion with trauma, you will be triggered for no reason at one point, and its a sad fact but it will happen.

for example- one of my triggers is piano music. to this day I can’t watch my favorite idol play piano because it is too much of a trigger to me.

But I would NEVER insinuate that min yoongi needed to stop playing piano music just because at one point in my life my stalker would blast piano music outside my bedroom window at 3 am to keep me from sleeping for weeks at a time. or because I was constantly sleep deprived growing up because he wouldn’t let me sleep- my triggers and my reality are irrelevant to min yoongi enjoying the thing he enjoys, just like that person’s trauma is irrelevant to my own. It would be mean and uncalled for me to demand he stops doing something he loves just because it's a trigger for me. People will exist outside of your trauma and that's okay.

(tw; rape) I’ve been rapped by three men in my life. One was a frat boy in college who I woke up to telling me my hole was bleeding and wanted me to leave because I was getting it all over his sheets. another was a old man, it happened when I was so little that I barely remember it and honestly, all I remember is how much it hurt and how dirty his hands were, he had a lot of dirt under his nails and I remember thinking ‘i don't think that should go inside me’ as a fucking 5-year-old

And the third, was three years ago when an American gi rapped me in hongdae, South Korea, I met him at a bar called mikes cabin. I wasn’t a perfect victim, i’d just had a fight with my soulmate and I went out looking for trouble and I found it. but after I changed my mind he didn’t care, he shoved his dick in my ass without my consent. I bled all over his sheets too. choked on the blood coming out my nose after he slapped me. i remember he shoved his phone in my face to take pictures. somewhere out there there are pictures of me getting raped and I don’t even know where they are or how many people have seen them.

I don't even know his name only that he had a rose tattoo over his heart. my deadnames middle name is rose. My mom calls me ‘rosebud’ or ‘rosie’ more than my dead name. is it a trigger for me? yes. it is. of course, it is. how could it not be?

I’ve been raped. i know what they’ve gone through, I know where their pain comes from but my pain is valid too. my genitals could be a trigger to that anon, but defining them in a binary of woman and man is a trigger for me. I am a person and they are a person and both of our triggers are equally valid. but this is my place. this is my expression.

so why did I act meanly? first off. they violated me by asking me invasive questions and demanded a response. and then secondly; when I asked them not to and told them no- they invalidated my consent and my trauma. then thirdly- they misgendered me- fully committing to being a transphobe. that's why I was mean- because they were mean first.

this is the only time I’ll explain why I was justified. I hope they get closure too- but their closure isn’t going to come from violence against me or any other trans person. one day that person is probably going to meet a trans woman, and I hope they know better than to call them a boy just because they have a penis. trans people aren’t your punching bags for your trauma.

trauma doesn't give you the excuse to be a transphobe, no matter what happened to you. you have to learn to treat others with dignity and respect no matter their gender identity or how they trigger you. Because people can’t control what parts of themselves are triggering to you.

This is the last I’ll talk about this. I'm gonna delete all the other asks asking me about this. I’m not going to talk about it anymore. if you can’t understand why what they did was bad, get off my page. I don’t want you here.

#i put it under a readmore because it's long and triggering #Anonymous

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featherymalignancy · 3 years

Note

Hey just out of pure curiosity, I was wondering why you don’t like the kudos function on AO3? You don’t have to explain or anything if you don’t want I’ve just been trying to understand and I’m not sure I do. Thanks!

Okay first of all, you’re not alone because I’m not convinced I understand it myself...

😂😂

Still, but I will do my best to explain, but first a disclaimer:

🚨 a) I know this 100% an emotional stance that lacks critical rationality, but this is my Hill and I’ll die if I want to. 🚨

🚨 b)This is my opinion based on how kudos make me feel, not an indictment of readers who give them. 🚨

Okay here goes:

For me, This WHOLE thing comes down to intention v. impact: a person’s motivation for action v. how that action is received by others. I am not here to argue with or denigrate the intent behind kudos, rather to explain their negative impact on me.

As a fic writer of many years, I want be clear in saying that I do not think readers “owe” authors anything in exchange for getting to read their work. Fanfic is a gift that is freely given, and like all gifts, it should be given without the expectation of reciprocation.

I understand that there are many reasons a person may not be comfortable commenting on a fic: perhaps they are shy or intimidated by the author/fandom or are not comfortable communicating in language the fic is written in.

Those are all valid reasons to not comment on a fic, and in point of fact, you don’t NEED a reason not to comment on a fic, as I mentioned before. I post my writing free of charge so that people can enjoy my work free of cost. That includes leaving a comment, etc.

HOWEVER

I have dedicated a LOT to my writing over the years. To date, I have published over 1.3 million words of fic. Assuming the average manuscript has 250 words a page, my fic anthology would be approximately 5,326 pages—over six times longer than Kingdom of Ash.

I dont say this to brag or suggest that I’m better than other writers or deserve more. I’m just saying that when I spent months working on chapter that may be as long as 15k-20k words and that has been researched, edited, and generally agonized over and the reaction I get is

👍🏼

It’s leaves me feeling hollow and frankly demotivated. I just poured my soul into something, and this is what kudos feel like as a response.

And I understand that many people would argue that kudos are a good compromise for those who want to show appreciation but aren’t comfortable to actually commenting, etc.

That is perfectly valid, except that isn’t how they make me feel, so regardless of the intent, the impact on me personally is negative, which is why I’ve asked that people no longer leave kudos on my work.

I also heard people argue, “isn’t a kudos better than nothing?”

For me, no it isn’t. The reality is that if you read my fic and don’t interact with it, I will never know and am thus unimpacted. If you read my fic and your only reaction is it a kudos, I will—for better or worse—always be left with this impression.

So yeah, long winded as always, but there you have it. In all honestly, I also don’t think I have every forgiven Ao3 for the breach which lead to millions of fics being added to a unauthorized fic reader app, including my own.

I know it wasn’t their “intent” that someone would exploit their platform’s structure in that ways but again, it didn’t soften the impact of that violation.

Any before somone calls me a hypocrite for still having an Ao3, let me assure you im well aware of my hypocrisy. As soon as I find the courage to part with all the beautiful comments people have posts there, I will hopefully find the courage to put my money where my mouth is and delete my works from Ao3

#feathery answers #no kudos please #intent v impact

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potatopossums · 3 years

Text

Insecurity and Boundaries: A Necessary Coexistence

Content Warning:

This post includes discussions / mentions of:

bodily insecurities, explicitly including dysmorphia, dysphoria, and implicitly including but not limited to eating disorders, weight

childhood trauma including shame, humiliation, fear

coping mechanisms, both healthy and unhealthy, including anxious avoidance, projection, masking, reflection

mentioned references to all of the above through lenses of morality, cis white feminism and sexualized body positivity

adhd

—

Author's Note:

Written through the lens of adhd, anxiety, depression, queerness, transness, nonbinaryness, aromanticism, alterous attraction, and as always, questioning.

—

Ngl I've had the opportunity to date/"be with" (in whatever capacity) several quite attractive ppl, and the last couple have been great examples of something that actually kind of triggers me / turns me off.

I didn't really know what to make of it then, and I felt bad about it then too because I thought I was just being judgy. Not saying some of that isn't potentially still there, but i think i understand better now.

It honestly kind of scares me when I have the opportunity to have close relationships with people with bodily dysphoria/dysmorphia or strong insecurities. My brain has a really bad habit of being reflective when I'm feeling vulnerable. I just match people. It's a way of masking while relating to people. It's a defense mechanism. But it feels quite real in the moment and i often don't realize it's happening until it has already happened.

But as a nonbinary person who gets misgendered a lot at work, I've spent a lot of time now very acutely aware of my own body (as if i wasn't already). I don't tend to hate my body in a vacuum. I actually enjoy my body. I like how it looks in certain clothes; I like how I can trick the eye and make it look another way with other clothes, and then surprise, it's a different body underneath! I like how my body feels when i masturbate, i like how my body feels in the warm sun, i like how my body feels when i self-soothe. Even when I'm in pain, in some of those moment, i like that my body exists because I know something is happening inside me, something systematic and programmed, something beyond me that does it's evolutionary purpose, no matter how flawed. I've always had a curiosity about bodies in general (gender and sex completely aside). So when i say i love my body, i mean that.

Does it mean i don't struggle with dysphoria? Of course i struggle. And it makes me feel like shit.

Sure, I've got that Cis White Feminist Self-Loathing Intervention Voice in my head that says "all bodies are beautiful" (and she really means all women are beautiful but I'll co-opt her lines to fit my agenda). That voice is problematic because like. I like being beautiful, but why do I want to be beautiful, and what happens when I'm not beautiful? How do I guage whether I'm beautiful at any given moment? Isn't that largely subjective even with an overarching cultural & social standard? When I feel "ugly" — my cowlicks sticking up, teeth unbrushed, i feel too short, i feel i look too childish, I'm afraid my boobs are showing in a way i don't want to be seen, etc. — who's to say that someone else doesn't find some of those things attractive? So attractiveness is a poor method of confidence, despite how influential it still is on my brain and personality. That influence is fear based.

All that in mind, when I hear other people struggling with their bodies, especially in a Trans/Non-Binary/Dysphoric way, it really scares me. I mean, any bodily struggles scare me because I have my own insecurities to deal with. And when I'm in that state of really wanting to keep a connection because abandonment trauma + adhd, my vulnerable brain says that in order to impress someone, I must reflect relatably. So that has me digging back into my bodily insecurities. And I explore them as if I should be feeling them.

Let me unpack that. I'm avoidant with my anxieties. I don't talk about them, and I don't think about them much if I can help it, because when I think about them, that result can be largely painful, dramatic, and too emotionally volatile for me to handle. I always want to look put together, I want to feel secure enough to not need to ask for help, because those few times it went badly when I asked for help still stick with me (regardless of how long ago those moments were, and regardless of how many good times I've had where received actual help since). I remember the embarrassment and humiliation, the shame, the fear, the guilt. I remember wanting to make myself smaller, and how crushing that felt to do. I remember how little I understood of these wild and complex emotions, and all I knew was that I felt violated and disgusting. And I turned that inward. Because I had no external support.

So me saying that I explore my anxieties "as if I should be feeling them" is multi-pronged. It's Cis White Feminist Body Positivity, it's all those family members who modeled and normalized self-hatred for me from a young age, it's bodily dysphoria/dysmorphia at being misgendered, it's me trying to convince myself that my body truly is okay and that my negative inner voice doesn't know what it's talking about due to it's poor influences, and it's me ultimately not being able to reconcile all that on my own (or fast enough, thanks adhd) and resorting to anxious avoidance of my insecurities as if that solves them.

And then, when I hear someone I might kind of want to be intimate with start to talk about their insecurities, my brain panics. It says, "If you go in there, you will lose it. You will fall into the same hole they're in. You will have to suffer just as much for them, and for yourself. You will lose all your energy and you will start to hate yourself. They will treat your body the way they treat their body. You will be made to hate yourself."

And even though I know plenty of people with dysphoria/dysmorphia and other bodily struggles absolutely won't do those sorts of things, I also know that projection is a thing. And considering how poor I am at boundaries and how I tend to adopt unhealthy relationship dynamics due to my avoidance, I know that it would just start a bad cycle for me. Even with all the empathy and understanding in the world, I simply cannot root myself in a situation that would cause me to loathe myself.

And again, in case this wasn't clear: this is absolutely not a statement about people with bodily confidence issues as a whole. I am not trying to villainize or demonize or moralize their experiences. That is markedly the opposite of what I intend here.

But it took a long time for me to get to this point in my self-awareness. And i wanted to share it because i want other people to be able to reach an understanding of themselves too, whatever that understanding might entail. Yeah, it's a little cliche, but our projections and fears about others can have a lot to do with our fears about ourselves. It's important to be self-aware, even if that doesn't immediately solve the problem(s).

I tend to really like confident people because of this. That attraction has it's own roots in confidence issues, and its own potential flaws. And until I can change my own avoidant anxiety, I'm going to find new ways to project my avoidance and shame onto others, regardless of whether they are confident or unconfident, dysphoric or not.

But, just because I'm projecting doesn't mean that I'm unworthy of boundaries. Even if my behaviors are unhealthy, even if I do need to work to change those things (and even though I actively want to change those things), it is still healthy for me to know my limits. It's healthy to know what triggers me. It's good for me to realize these things and step back, even if the relationship I'm leaving/not starting is arguably "good." (And that assumption is a whole other topic for another post.)

So, along with whatever other epiphanies you might have received from this read, here's my major takeaway that I want to leave you with:

Your boundaries are okay. Even if they're based in anxiety, even if they're based in unhealthy coping mechanisms, even if you want to change your unhealthy behaviors/mindset. Your boundaries do not need to pass any social justice or morality tests in order to be valid. Your boundaries do not have to "make you grow." Your boundaries are not bad, even if you feel like they keep you from being the best version of yourself.

The only way you can actually grow is if you respect yourself enough to respect and enforce your boundaries. The only way you can feel comfortable and happy and healthy is if you respect your boundaries.

So please do that for yourself. Please respect your boundaries. I know it's very hard, especially for people-pleasers. I know it's hard for you avoidant types. I know it's hard for those of us who mask and reflect.

But please, just a little bit at a time, respect yourself. Even if that means disappointing or hurting others with a "no."

And please, please, please surround yourself with people who respect your boundaries and stand up for you. Of all the work I've tried to do alone, nothing compares to the effectiveness and growth I've experienced when I've been around radically affirming people — people who fought for my right to say no; people who defended my boundaries no matter what they entailed; people who stood up for my pronouns at work; people who validated my life experiences, labels, queerness, and questioning. It can be difficult to find people like that in real life, but please stay in the company of people who do that for you. Even if they're online. Stay near people who model self-respect for you. They will help you practice how to treat yourself.

—

#tw body insecurity #tw dysphoria #tw dysmorphia #tw eating disorder #adhd #masking #reflecting as a coping mechanism #trauma #relationships #alterous attraction #questioning aromantic #nonbinary #agender #queer

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rpbetter · 3 years

Note

a vent (feel free to ignore if it's too much!): so recently i've noticed psd makers getting anon asks on whether they're ok with people who write certain topics (mostly rpf, incest, rape, underage, the usual "problematic" topics) using their recourses. now, i don't roleplay any of these subjects on tumblr, so even if a content creator said not to use their stuff, it's not even something i need to worry about - but, and maybe this is me overthinking it, what if i, someday, write a noncon fanfic on ao3? i'm still not using their resources on the subject or writing it on tumblr, but i'd probably feel weird about it, like i'm crossing some boundary. what if a psd maker whose content i've already purchased suddenly goes "actually don't use my psds if you rp abusive relationships", which is probably the closest to what people consider "taboo themes" of the things that i roleplay. it just feels like a fine line between personal boundaries and a shitty situation for a customer - not wanting to cross boundaries but already having PAID for something previously, when no such rules existed. it's making me want to 1. block everyone i see saying this, because even though i don't personally roleplay the topics above, i don't feel SAFE around people who tell others what kind of fiction they are allowed to enjoy and 2. just quit using people's resources and spend years learning to make my own psds so i won't have to worry about this shit. it's just stressing me out, as someone who has been harrassed and bullied online for speaking against censorship. i've had literal sock accounts made just to spew targetted harrassment at me on twitter. i've been accused of being a pedo and supporting incest and this is??? literally for saying "i don't think real people should be harrassed for fictional shit", i've not even shipped underage or incest ships. both make me uncomfortable. but fuck, antis make me 1000000x more uncomfortable than people who ship these kinda ships. i digress, this got rambley, i just. do you have any advice on what to do with the potential psd situation, or am i really just overthinking it? (always worried i accidentally send stuff like this off anon. help)

I need you to know that I actually had to rush-scroll back up and just double check that you did submit on anon lol! I always get worried I'll miss the one person who accidentally didn't use anon, if it makes you feel any better! When someone does submit with their URL attached, I message them first to be sure they are okay with them having it posted that way/it wasn't an accident ;) That's what I would want someone to do!

Alright, so, anyhow...

I've also noticed that becoming a more common thing and it's been on my (maybe huge) list of things to look into for a bit because I really do try to make sure I'm not just noticing things in my areas of the RPC/failing to notice things that do not impact me. Since I do all my edits and graphics, it falls into the first category for me. So, thank you for moving that up the list and informing me that it really is more prevalent and not my imagination!

My take on seeing it was a combination of business logic and anxiety, not going to lie.

On the first: charging to do a psd that is just that, just a psd file being used as a template/to act as an easier version of a photoshop "action" in a way, that's 100% legal and fine. Absolutely no muddy waters there. However, charging to do things like icons, edits, etc. that include images of celebrities and stills from movies (or gifs) is quite muddy. Legally, it's not legal. It's a thing we're allowed to do and use (on most platforms) because we're not making money off of it, we're not claiming to hold rights to the images, and so on - it's ignored but illegal. Charging money for it, however, even when phrased as "for my time" (which, absolutely valid feeling), is a more serious form of illegal and potentially attention-getting. This all gets more iffy though when we add donation instead of direct commission/purchase when working with these copyrighted materials. You can ask people to donate and suggest a donation based on your time spent, and that is always what I advise people to do.

Okay, so, that preface is necessary because the thing about stipulating use-rights is that they're iffy, too, there are variables present.

Often, these same people are charging for things like icon packs as well, meaning that even if they're only charging you for a template-style psd file sans imagery they don't own, they've kind of shot themselves in the foot. Not to mention, it's exceedingly damn hypocritical to pitch a fit about someone violating your rights when you're literally using other people's copyrighted materials lmao And that does tend to occur to me, yeah, it's a consequence of attorney friends and running businesses.

The other issues with this are that usage rights have to be stated at the time of purchase and morality clause-style shit, as pertains to products, is not legally binding.

When you purchase something like a psd file, that purchase acts as a sort of contract.

Think of like...buying a photoshop brush set - the person selling it puts very simple rules as to its use, such as: non-commercial use only, brush pack cannot be resold or distributed for free, separate brushes from the pack cannot be resold or distributed for free individually. Meaning that you own the brushes you bought, but you are not legally allowed to make real-life money from anything you use them in, and you cannot send the whole pack or files individually to friends for free or charge other people for them. By buying these, you have agreed to these stipulations of use and ownership.

If the person sells psd's and you agree to what they've stated about the use (you can't use them to do commissions you make IRL money from, you can't give them away to friends, etc.), that's binding even somewhere as casual as RP Land. The exchange of real currency makes it that serious.

However, there are limits to stipulations of use! One of those things is when you agreed - this person cannot, even one literal second, later change their terms of use and retroactively hold you to them. If they were okay with you not crediting them anywhere or using them in works you will gift others or charge others something like game currency for at the time you purchased, then that's it. Tough shit for them, not you, when they decide a month later that they want credit given where the work appears, that they do not want finished products gifted, or don't want you to make even in-game currency from them.

And that absolutely would apply to the morality wank, yes.

Except that this very morality wank comes with its own issues. Reality is not tumblr. In reality, at least in most instances and countries, you can't throw in a fucking morality clause regarding the buyer, use of item, or finished product.

Think of this in this way: Chik-Fil-A starts denying chicken and waffle fries to anyone suspected of being queer. They're legally allowed to run their business (as a private business, everything does have variables) with some things that are morally objectionable that they feel morally aligns with their religious beliefs. They're not allowed to deny queer workers a job or queer customers service, however, in accordance with overarching laws.

While "being gross" online in fiction is not like, making anyone a protected status person lol this is just an extreme example to drive home the point. Legally, when it comes to items/products be they digital or physical, your rights and responsibilities as the seller don't include your moral policing.

What your right is, is to make people uncomfortable to a degree, yeah. You absolutely can do that. You can state some nasty shit about prospective buyers you don't want. For example, they should (I mean, they should just grow up and get some real concerns, but) be stating that they would not like to see their psd's used by people on this following DNI list of idiocy, and they will block those users if possible to prevent interaction and purchase. That's really it, that's what they can do and the least immature way to proceed.

On the second: none of this logic would make me feel comfortable about interacting with them and their psd's in the future once they had outed themselves as morally objectionable and dangerous to me with this nonsense. And I would still feel anxious about using things I had previously bought because once harassed...it doesn't really go away, does it? It would just give me some ease about the latter with things I'd already made. Like, I could keep using the icons I'd made with those psd's with a little bit more comfort knowing that they honestly have not a leg to stand on outside of their harassment.

I might have the tendency to respond to harassment without much upset, but that doesn't mean I want to be harassed. Especially when I am not doing anything that draws that kind of attention. Not that harassment is warranted over anything, but when I make a PSA or answer an ask that I know is likely to get their attention and piss them off? That's an acceptable risk I am knowingly taking. When I'm just going about my life as a RPer, it isn't.

So, I don't feel like you're overthinking it or being too concerned! In no way did you sign up for getting unwanted attention, and because it has happened before, of course, you're trying to insulate yourself from having it happen again. That's totally reasonable!

Now, what you could do about it...

It's another of those situations in which we're only truly capable of controlling ourselves. Everyone else is kind of a NPC.

You don't have to do anything I'm suggesting, but these are things I would do!

I would block the shit out of anyone saying these things/trying to make them stipulations, yes.

By that, I mean that I would also visit blogs they appear to interact with and they'd be blocked as well. We can all reblog something like resources or a shit post from a user we do not agree with without realizing it, but when it's frequent reblogs, direct support, and friendly vibes going on, it's safer to assume that they are aware their friend sucks. More importantly, that they do not think their friend sucks and support their views.

Even if that is not the case, do you want someone else's repeated inattention to expose you to bad actors? Nope! So, don't run the risk of paying and otherwise interacting with the one resource blog in the group that doesn't express these views/"requirements," but does involve themselves with those who do.

Try to find people selling these resources, that are not connected to the problem ones, who do not have those views. Once a trend starts, it is very hard to stop until it has run its course naturally, so, this might be difficult and take some extreme effort. You might want to consider asking like-minded friends who use psd's where they got them so you can check those users out for yourself.

If they're all the same, problem, people...

Look for users well outside of your corner of the RPC(s) who are not asking to be paid. I know it sounds wild, but there really are RPers out there who just enjoy making things for others! I can think of at least one right off on my dash. They might not be advertising for doing psd's or psd packs, but either they might be willing to do so (especially if they do not appear policing-positive) if you explain what is going on, or they could at least fill some requests for you for fully made icons and such. Hell, people who love doing this work usually know others who do as well, and anti-policing people quite reasonably stick together. They could have suggestions for someone not vile selling psd's.

Depending on what it is you want your psd's to do, I promise you that it wouldn't take you very long to learn it. I know...I know lol that's both really easy for me say when I've been doing it for over twenty years and am about to piss some people off. The latter because the most common settings on popular psd's are extremely simple shit, a lot of that is the kind of thing you're expressly told not to do in design work. Like ramping up extreme contrast, pixelating the fuck out of an image, and turning up the primary colors only. Once you get to playing with photoshop or an equivalent, you will totally see what I mean. You can accidentally make an icon look identical to something that is on trend in the RPC. If that was what you were going for? You've hit the mark, and it's just repetition and tweaking it here and there!

Once you start playing with it, too, it's actually pretty intuitive when it comes to the basic things like resizing, adjusting colors and contrast, and doing easy effects like blurs and sharpening. Frankly, playing with it is better than half the tutorials you'll find because they get unnecessarily complicated when all you want to do is crop your muse's face, overlay some color, and add a damn dotted border. Listen, like I said, I have a lot of experience...and I find many tutorials frustrating and overwhelming!

It is not just you, you're not dumb or anything. People get very comfortable with something and when they try to explain it to others, they use terms and methods that are more advanced or specific to them than they realize. That's all!

If you have friends who make their own things, ask them some very basic questions about what you want to do. They know you, so, they'll know better how to explain to you, specifically. Just keep it simple until you've had some time to experiment! Ask things like, "I want to take this image, resize it to be an icon, and add an orange tint to the image while sharpening only my muse's features...how would I do that? Easy mode?"

And! You don't even have to pay for photoshop or pirate it anymore! Photopea is as an exact copy as possible entirely located in your browser for free. It's all overwhelming at first, a real case of too many options and ways to do the same thing, but the only way it gets less overwhelming is just diving into it. Dive in, get a little frustrated, have some successes, make some awesome discoveries, it gets a bit addicting in short order. Then, the tutorials and tips are so much easier to figure out and expand on, too.

If you'd like, you can always send me a pm here and ask me. I'm happy to try to explain how to do things, zero judgment or impatience. Just an additional option if you both decide to try learning and would feel comfortable doing that. Zero judgment as well on not wanting to do either of those things!

Okay, this one is much harder than learning PS basics because it's honestly a bit terrifying...the way these people are, they're going to take issue with you no matter what you do, and in the end, if they notice you and feel like bothering you, they will. There's literally nothing you can do about it. All you can do is try to buffer yourself, stay away from them, and be aware that you are not the problem.

Like with the AO3 thing or writing what could be viewed as toxic relationships. You can never write or be interested in a single, solitary thing that they're on about (and accusing you of doing in real life when the burning Eye of Moron turns your direction), but to them, you supporting the right of other people to do so is just as bad as doing it yourself. To them, the toxic relationships not only would be problematic, they'd be problematic enough. Being uncomfortable with their policing and feeling unsafe because of it is, to them, a red flag of how problematic you are. Writing anything they've deemed objectionable (or reading or viewing it, for that matter) anywhere, doesn't have to be on this platform or RP-adjacent, doesn't have to actually utilize any of their materials, is enough.

They're absolutely including you in who shouldn't use their shit. That's part of the "logic" and methodology of policing. Everyone is problematic, so, everyone can be labeled a pedo and harassed without too many people getting up in arms about it. No one is safe, so, everyone better behave. You don't actually have to be engaging with or enjoying things like underage, non/dubcon, rape, abusive relationships, etc.

It's gross, it's bullying, it's actually a problem...and there isn't much you can do.

All that is truly up to you is making an effort to avoid them, though, this is very often unfair and likely to get more unfair as resource blogs of all sorts deal in it more. At least, in this case, you do have some small bit of actionable power - by not ever buying from them. They wouldn't be charging if they did not either need or want the money, not giving it to them is a bigger hit than things like simply unfollowing/blocking, reblogging PSA's, and so on is!

Nope, it isn't like you're denying them some extreme amount of money by yourself, but every three, five, ten dollars is felt pretty hard when you desperately need money and/or are saving for something.

I know, I mean, I personally do know, that it's impossible to "get over" bullying, Anon. I'm in no way telling you to just get over it and move on, find some great well of not caring somewhere! What I'm saying is that there is power in not giving them power. The power to make you anxious, uncomfortable, unsafe, when you have every right to be here doing your thing and are not hurting anyone. And it might seem to be a deeply contrary sort of logic, but realizing and accepting that there are people out there who irrationally dislike you for literally no reason, that you cannot infallibly escape or avoid, despite doing nothing wrong is a bit empowering. Because it puts into perspective the things you can control, and when we know what is in our control, it's easier to just enjoy our time here without constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. If it drops, we can go put it back in the closet where it belongs.

It starts to put a positive spin on the whole, damned if I do, damned if I don't feeling, if that makes sense? I'm probably way too tired to try to be explaining this lol I'm sorry!

Anyway, again, I'm not implying you can or should do any, let alone all, of those suggestions! I just really hope that something will help you feel even a little bit more at ease. It's an unfair situation, it isn't right, and you have every reason to be uncomfortable and stressed. If I could make it happen, you better believe that every policing asshole out there would be writing heartfelt apology letters and sending donations to everyone they've upset lol but...since I can't make that happen, all I can do is say what I, personally, do, would do, or have done.

#answered #anonymous #purity police #resources #rp advice

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shadow13dickpistons · 3 years

Note

Uhhh do SHADOW for the ask meme

Oooh, what a fun idea!

Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)

I had two asks with Ss in them, but no prompts! So, okay, there’s the obvious ones, (Aldarion spending so much time in Middle-Earth because he’s giving the D to Gil-galad, Sting as originally being a dagger for Idril), now I’m really scratching my head....OH! Here’s a controversial take and something I was thinking about today: Fingon and Maedhros not being married, because of the cousin taboo.

Alright, alright, alright, so: Fingon’s rescued Maedhros, the rift is healed, yay everything. Fingolfin pulls Fingon aside and is like, “Son, you know I need you to marry. Preferably a woman.” Argon is dead; Turgon will have no other children beyond Idril; Fingolfin has the preternatural knowing that he will not survive against Morgoth - their people are going to look to Fingon. And what will he then do, marry his own cousin?? How can he do this, the Noldor need him.

Yeahhhh, it’s angsty. All about how Fingon does what dad wants, marries a Sindar of Cirdan’s people, has Gil; but still goes to Maedhros at the drop of a hat (oh, they fuckin’). But yeah, the metas on why Russingon doesn’t violate the cousin taboo are valid, but imo, it’s impossible for Fingon and Maedhros to have any kind of happy ending, and I am firmly in the Gil-galad-as-Fingon’s-son camp. (This got longer than anyone expected.)

H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., tv shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)

I’m not sure I entirely understand this question, what kind of fandoms do I gravitate to? Cause “source text” to me is, like......what sources do you site in your fan participation. If the former, idk, anything that strikes my fancy. The latter, specifically for Tolkien (because that’s all I care about anymore), I’m one of those tiresome people who prefers the books to the films, so first and foremost the actual text. For easy retrieval, I tend to use Tolkien Gateway, but about the only thing I strongly disagree on with that is their take on Gil-galad, so there you have it. The One Wiki to Rule Them All is good, not quite AS good for book stuff, but great for film and game stuff. (But then again they have the “correct” take on Gil-galad, so.)

A - Your current OTP(s)/OT3(s)/OTX(s)

-rubs hands in glee-

Okay, okay, okay. So.......this is just Tolkien. Cause that’s all I care about now. But, in no particular order (caps are “I will lose my mind over this ship,” non-caps are just “I like/write for it.”):

Aredhel/Eol

Beren/Luthien

TUOR/IDRIL

I....oof, look, it’s not that I LIKE Turin/Nienor it’s that.....I’m so compelled....like a fuckin’ train wreck, yo.....too fascinating....

ELROND/CELEBRIAN

ARAGORN/ARWEN

Gimli/Legolas

BILBO/THORIN

Frodo/Sam/Rose (also acceptable: Frodo/Sam, Sam/Rose. My only OT3 ever, really.)

Faramir/Eowyn

Eomer/Lothiriel

Boromir/Theodred (also acceptable: aro/ace Boromir)

Dwalin/Ori

Celebrimbor/Fem!Narvi (this could quickly veer into I will lose my mind territory)

Is it weird I’m kinda into Elrond and Gilraen comforting each other and being a lowkey couple?

I can’t believe I almost forgot Sauron/Melkor, the OG power couple

I think that’s.....more than plenty.

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t (again: be nice)

God I want to like Caranthir/Haleth. Well, I DO like Caranthir/Haleth. I just......I just really believe Haleth likes the ladies.....Fully here for Caranthir realizing he’s pining from afar, though. Like God, this should really be my type, but I just.....

I’m not as into Russingon as so much of the fandom is, but I don’t dislike it. But I’m really not part of the Feanorian hype train, don’t fully get it.

O - Choose a song at random, which ship or character does it remind you of

God, I don’t have all my music on my laptop and I don’t really use Spotify, I’m not sure I CAN do something random.....Let me see.....RANDOM PANDORA???

Niiiiice, “Rebel, Rebel.” Damn, you know, I feel like I just had a thought about this the other day.....Let me think here.....Yeah, sorry, I got nothing. If you want me to redo this one, by all means.

W - 5 favorite ships and 5 kinks you like best for said ships

Oh man, oh man, oh man. Uhhhhhhhh. God, it would really help if I were kinkier.

Bilbo/Thorin and I don’t know how to explain this one, but like.......power bottom Bilbo??? Like, sure, it looks like Thorin’s in charge, but whose hand is he eating out of, does that make sense?

NO, SAME ONE AGAIN, SEX ON THE THRONE DURING THORIN’S GOLD SICKNESS, THAT HAS TO COUNT AS A PUBLIC SEX KINK. Not, like, IN public, like at night, but they could get caught.

.........................same one again, banging on the gold, Bilbo only wearing the mithril. I’m not sorry.

If I say Gimli/Legolas can I just say “all” for kinks? I mean.....................leather, for a start.

You know what, I’m going to throw a curve and say “Ar-Pharazon and Sauron, bondage. But the whole time, Sauron is plotting in the downfall of Numenor and dreaming of sex with Melkor.”

“What about Aragorn/Arwen?” He’s a virgin until the wedding night, give him a SECOND.

Omg, that was so fun, I hope it wasn’t boring. Keep ‘em coming, guys!

#ask meme #fandom asks #shadow13 #shadow131 #russingon #bagginshield #thilbo #gigolas #Anonymous

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lilquill · 4 years

Note

Are you doing okay what with all the VV stuff that happened? It seemed like you and Mina were close

Hey hey, thanks for the worries anon! Mina of mvcreates/Violet Vineyard and I were properly talking as friends for only a few months quite a long time ago. Emotionally I’m completely fine, but I do have stuff to say and I do want to help document things if any of it is useful in any way. A lot of it will be dry because it’s just documenting, but some of it will be “juicier” I guess, and I’d like to corroborate some of the things my friends are saying. I’ll put this under the cut for people who don’t want to scroll through all this and/or have no idea what I’m talking about and want to keep it that way!

You guys can check @nuwuhorizons‘s blog to see what exactly is going on and I believe they’re also reblogging some things others who were members are saying. The case of people dogpiling a 19-year-old trans person and making fun of their name is on the blog (post here, wayback machined here).

I can corroborate a bunch of what @rrrawrf-writes (post here, wayback machined here) and @gingerly-writing (post here, wayback machined here) have said. I backread through the interaction that Ginger talks about in her post (of course not the DMs, but the interaction itself).

I know some people may be confused about why Ginger only has that one screenshot of what she said and may not see that as full evidence, but Violet Vineyard had a super strict “don’t screenshot and post anything” with lots of scary looking legal stuff attached to it policy and, well, Ginger can’t be sharing stuff without anyone’s permission if it’s just the message she herself sent, but they’d have grounds to take god knows what action with what backing against her if she posted something else. But, well, for what it’s worth, as someone who read through that conversation a little after it happened, it was certainly a case of dogpiling and left a bad taste in my mouth, and it strikes me as really odd that the mods would try to shut someone down like that.

I haven’t really been doing stuff in writeblr lately as you can probably tell from my blog, but yeah, Mina herself and a lot of people in that particular friend group of hers, as Lisa mentions, have just disappeared off Tumblr. I can also attest to the dogpiling tendencies and this Mina Is Always Right tendency, and the fervor with which people would defend her.

I was honestly never close enough to Mina to be in that friend group. She and I were only really talking to each other for a few months over a year ago. I don’t think I was “writeblr-y” enough to fit in with them. I was also not super active in that server. I didn’t post much about my wips because I in general don’t think I really post a lot about them. Therefore I didn’t get like, massive benefits off of the whole “network” thing, but I’d reblog some stuff when I saw it. I was probably most known for posting pictures of my plants, lol. And I would occasionally hop in to talk briefly about kpop with like, one person? (They went by Kay and their url was like, lvcrezia? lvcrezias? Something like that.) In fact, probably the last thing I ever said in that server was a super quick conversation about Red Velvet’s “Monster” music video around the time it dropped.

In fact, for the sake of being super transparent/establishing credibility, and for documenting purposes, I’ll list all the non-plant-pictures and non-kpop conversations I can remember actually participating in. Some of these will lead off into bigger topics, and I’ll specify those. But first, a word.

TO ANY OF THE FORMER MODS WHO MIGHT COME AFTER ME FOR SAYING THINGS ABOUT THE SERVER, SINCE THIS HAS APPARENTLY HAPPENED TO OTHERS: The server is deleted, and so is the text of the whole “contract” (yes, really) that people had to agree to in order to join VV. I remember that the agreement made sure we didn’t post screenshots publicly, but other than that I genuinely do not remember the text and I have no way of referencing it to keep in line with it since the server is deleted. I do not remember if documenting things like this is against anything I have agreed to, I have no record of the agreement, and I have not been notified of any place to access a record of the agreement before the server was deleted. If my post is some sort of violation, you cannot hold me accountable for rules that I am unable to follow, and I would greatly appreciate not being targeted with empty threats shrouded in scary legal language. If you have any point of contention with what I have said, feel free to take it up either publicly or privately. Please do @ me if it’s specific to me; I’m not really the vagueposting kind. If any of you want me to delete this post, you will need to provide actual proof of the agreement that I made by joining Violet Vineyard, and you will also need to prove that the rules were not edited after I agreed to them. If any of them were follow-up rules not from the beginning of the server, it’s possible that I did not see them and therefore you need to provide proof that I agreed to those, too. In addition, since image editing is what set off this avalanche in the first place hence we’re all aware that there’s software that allows us to edit images and pass them off as an original thing, you’ll need to provide proof that any screenshots/images are undoctored. Furthermore, since the rules have been deleted with the server, as the method I used to agree to follow them, you must prove that my agreement is still valid, since it seems to me it’s been nullified since it’s, well, gone either through deletion or kicking me out alongside everyone else. Tl;dr you don’t scare me lol.

Anyways, back to a list of the non-kpop, non-plant-pics, non-my-wips-promo conversations I can actually remember:

On January 5, 2020, the server had a conversation about Roshani Chokshi’s book The Gilded Wolves. I can give the date because during/in the aftermath of the conversation, which I talked about the book in, Mina DMed me quickly. (This was also the last time Mina ever directly contacted me.) I’ll talk about this later.

In February 2020 I believe I quickly mentioned getting concert tickets.

Either early this year or late last year I think I posted some stuff about landscape photography, with some photos of the beach.

I believe I posted a couple fashion pics at some point?

Back in May 2019 I got some kinda weird asks about Violet Vineyard and I think people were talking about that, and I assume I participated since I was the one who received the asks. At that time VV was like a super new server and didn’t really have much as far as the issues we’ve been talking about go, so I defended it. (I’ll be talking about this later.)

Probably in June/July 2019 people in the server had a discussion about Black Muslim characters and representation, initiated by me for one of my WIPs.

I think we talked about South Asian sweets at some point???

I believe in April/May 2019, there was some stuff in that server reagarding “drama” with Castor who at that time went by the url pilipalea that I honestly don’t remember much of. Castor was never in VV, but I believe they were in a server with Mina at some other point. There was something about grammar and proofreading?? (I’ll be referencing this soon as well.)

I helped someone with their computer science homework at some point.

I asked for r&b music recs at some point either late 2019 or earlier 2020.

I’ve also talked about ethnic clothes I think.

We’ve talked about Hindu nationalism and how awful it is.

I think we’ve talked about tone policing and how woc are often portrayed as “aggressive.”

We’ve talked about health/fitness and exercise.

I recommended Jade City and some other books I’m a fan of in there.

Probably talked about Bollywood movies at some point.

The fact that I can remember probably most of my conversations that lasted more than like, one message in there is, I think, a pretty good testament to a) me having at least a kind of decent memory and b) I wasn’t participating in the server so regularly that the conversations kind of blend together. I know this is all kind of long and dry for anyone who’s here for drama purposes lol, but I did want to establish that I’ve been in that server for quite a while and that I wasn’t monitoring it heavily; in fact, I had it muted very soon after joining it.

I wasn’t super close to anyone that I’d met through VV. People who are friends that I still regularly contact who were in VV with me, I had met through other servers and other interactions on Tumblr. I’ll disclose right now that I have been longtime friends with Ginger, Lisa, and Eff (@time-to-write-and-suffer), who have all come out against VV, and that we are in our own servers with people from writeblr. Ginger and Lisa were both in VV, Eff has never been.

Okay, back to maybe “juicier” stuff.

Mina had always positioned herself almost as this “tumblr mom” type. She’d reference her age a lot, which would contrast a lot with how a significant portion of the members were much younger and, I think, set up the dynamic of people looking up a lot to her and always coming to her defense. After all, we’re talking a bunch of passionate kids who’d found a writeblr network. And the server definitely seemed “legit”; I myself was pretty impressed with just how tightly organized everything was, and like I mentioned, there was fancy legal language to ~protect their rights~ and whatnot. Mina herself seemed so accomplished with so many talents: she’d post her writing and artwork, I believe she’d made a couple pieces of music, she’d work out and keep in shape, she had a seemingly wonderful loving relationship with her husband, she was active in research fields professionally and as an outbreak responder, and she, of course, had a significant online presence as a “big writeblr.” I remember when she’d started blowing up, so soon after her blog had been created, because of her prolific content and friendly persona. People, especially younger ones who had no other writeblr support group, looked up to her and trusted her. And the nature of the server was to shower everyone in praise, so Mina found herself on the receiving end of quite a bit of it. Mina would also actively boost and review other writers’ content, genuinely engaging with it and providing feedback, support, and valuable resources.

Mina also had a tight-knit group of adult friends. Some of them I believe carried over from pre-VV times (incuding CJ of typewriter-jade if I’m remembering correctly, who made fun of the trans person’s name in the reblog chain in the link to nuwuhorizons’s blog), while some were made afterwards. They would act super friendly and familiar with each other, which I think contributed to a lot of people falling into this little “friendship” super fast. They were also authority figures and role models, and tended to agree with each other, so everyone just went along with that.

These factors, I think, heavily influenced the dogpiling tendencies. People were eager to defend their community, where they’d found so much love and support for their work. Minors would go along with adults in conversations. When someone said something, others would enthusiastically support them. And people were just so into each other that I really couldn’t keep up, which is probably why I didn’t participate too much. People became just super fast friends and the server was so large and so seemingly “professional” and structured in how it was made. I think people just kind of assumed everyone in there was great and their friend who could be trusted deeply, when in reality that’s just impossible if there are like, 100+ members. Meaning if something minorly negative happened (like on that literal eleven-year-old’s blog), everyone would come in to say something to demonstrate their emphatic loyalty, even when it became excessive for something as small as an ask game done wrong.

This happened with the Gilded Wolves discussion as well. Someone stepped in to say that the way Gilded Wolves coded its antagonists as this shady secret society of people was antisemitic, and everyone joined in to rip the book apart without having even read it. I joined in the conversation to state that I didn’t see it that way, since that shady antagonist group was very much coded as white Christians (their names are all French Christian names) and were colonizers (meaning making them this shadowy group of powerful and evil people was accurate) and one of the protagonists, who is Jewish, is opposing them and antisemitism is portrayed as horrible, and that the book had had (if I’m remembering correctly) Jewish sensitivity readers and multiple Jewish book reviewers really enjoyed and recommended it. Then Mina stepped in to say that multiple Jewish journals she followed rated the book highly and recommended it meaning the accusation of antisemitism clashed heavily with what a lot of other people thought, and that since me and the other person who was saying the book was antisemitic were the only ones who had read it or were familiar with it in any capacity, it wasn’t fair for everyone to be judging it like that. It was like she’d flipped a switch: people were suddenly much more “reasonable” and “fair” and willing to give the book a chance, just because she’d stepped in. (As a quick note, I don’t remember exactly whether Mina stepped in first or if I stated my opinion first. I also want to mention that Mina DMed me to state that the person who accused the book of antisemitism had expressed some Zionist sentiments in the past and to say that maybe their take on the book could have come from Islamophobia with them maybe assuming obviously ethnic name of the author was a Muslim name. The Zioinist stuff is something I can’t actually speak on since again, I have no access to the server anymore and I don’t remember that person’s url. This was the last time Mina DMed me or I her.)

I wrote all that out because I think it illustrates a few things. Firstly, a good example of the tendencies of people going with the flow of things even when it led to dogpiling/drastic conclusions. When I say they were really trashing that book, I mean it! Secondly, it demonstrates the willingness of everyone to go along with what Mina said. Third, it shows that Mina was capable of stepping in to prevent dogpiling (and, seemingly, she would, at least if her beliefs aligned with the opposite of whatever incited the dogpiling) and that people would listen to her and actually change their minds.

Whether or not Mina supported something was pretty important. Of course, it was her server, so she was definitely allowed to run it how she saw fit, but she would very swiftly pass judgement on things and everyone would just comply. One time, I think there were more than one different threads of conversation happening in the general channel of the server. Jess suggested making a second general channel to allow for other conversations, as is common in a lot of servers, including ones I’m in and moderate/own/have some power in. I don’t remember if I supported that suggestion or if I only backread that conversation, but I know at least one other person agreed. Mina said that as an older person (she’d very frequently bring up her age) she thought people could just wait for their turn in a conversation and didn’t even consider trying it out. Other mods, I believe, backed her up and said no to the second general conversation channel. I remember being a little confused as to why nobody even considered trying a member’s suggestion to make the server more easy to participate it and help provide additional structure/support how big it was, and why it was shut down because people could just wait for their turn, when clearly the general channel was getting overloaded before our eyes. But Mina didn’t see the need, so therefore nobody else wanted to do anything about it, and nobody ever mentioned it again, I think. I know this is a super minor instance lol, but I do think it illustrates something about the behavior in the server and how it was run. It’s not like other channels weren’t added based on need; one was created for the 2018 elections, one was created for talking about race in June during the height of BLM protests having news coverage, I’m pretty sure one was created for talking about the coronavirus. So, the mods were watching conversations and responding as they saw fit, they just wouldn’t field this request, for some reason. Obviously conversations getting muddled in a general channel isn’t as significant as major political events, antiblack racism, or a pandemic, but these channels were made to improve the server experience and likely to prevent these topics from completely overloading other channels, so, well.

Okay, the Castor/pilipalea stuff and dogpiling. I’ll say this stuff now because Castor has opened up about it (here [wayback machined] and here [archived in a google doc]), so I see that as permission for others to comment on it. If I’m remembering correctly and looking back at the right things, there was something about Mina giving advice on a grammatical error to one of her mutuals, or something asking if her mutuals wanted grammatical advice? Castor vagueblogged, presumably about that, and talked about classism in expecting good grammar from people, which is a valid issue, but seemed misapplied to this instance of someone consenting to receive advice on grammar/syntax/mechanics, if that’s what the vagueblogging was about. I reached out to Mina to let her know that I thought someone was vagueblogging about her, and she told me about past conflicts with Castor. I also reached out to Castor over DMs to ask what the vagueblogging was about, because you genuinely never know; classist prescriptivism is harmful and bad, and so many people on Tumblr are in so many different circles that similar topics may come up coincidentally. Castor wasn’t clear with me either about what the post was targeting and skirted around naming names.

At this point, looking back, it still seems to be that it was about Mina, especially considering that Castor had previous history with her and others in her circle. Mina was irritated by the vagueblogging (who likes being vagueblogged about?) and also informed me, all the way back in April 2019, about this past server drama that Castor mentioned. It seems to me that it stemmed from a misunderstanding: Mina and I believe other mods noticed another person using Castor’s PSDs without credit. Mina checked with Castor about whether people should be crediting them for PSDs and Castor said that, yes, they wanted credit; you can see this interaction in the screenshot Castor linked on their post.

This is where the accounts of what happened diverge: Mina expressed to me that she and the other mods weren’t very harsh since they’d seen that Castor’s friend had credited Castor in the past, so they just wanted to remind Castor’s friend to give credit, without knowing that Castor’s friend had permission to use the PSDs without crediting. I was told that Mina and the team of mods were professional in their handling of this; Castor has stated in their post that the group was extremely harsh. Since I don’t have any screenshots or exact records of what they said before I was in contact with Mina, I can’t comment, so I’ll withhold judgement on that. According to Mina, she and the other mods had not been very vocal about this crediting/PSD stuff, and very few people knew about it, so it did seem like Castor had attacked Mina out of nowhere.

What I can say is that the VV members were certainly quick to respond to the grammar vagueblog, and that if I’m remembering correctly, readily jumped to Mina’s defense. I distinctly remember that one VV member specifically asked whether it was about Mina in a reblog. This happened pretty early on in VV’s existence and I believe was the first major “drama” that VV got embroiled in. Looking back, I do think it was fair to be critical of Castor’s post. But this was also the first look at the tendencies people had of getting embroiled in the fervor of any perceived slight against a member (in particular Mina).

I noticed this again when I received anons that were sort of bitter about VV’s existence in May 2019, way before VV had gained the reputation that it has now. People were very quick to respond with hostility and slightly amplify the anger expressed by other members, and little by little things got really out of hand. I can totally understand being upset and irritated, since the asks were kind of unwarranted and the sender did apologize if I remember correctly. But there was a huge outpouring of vicious language from a lot of the members, and this was, I think, the first instance of proper dogpiling in VV, especially since it was an easy antagonist; the sender was out of line, and they were totally anonymous.

These were the only two instances of going to bat for VV that I ever participated in. For the other things, I either only backread or missed them completely. While they don’t really paint VV in a super bad light, not like the dogpiling of an eleven-year-old that Jess mentions in her post, it did give me a pretty good idea of how VV handled controversies.

I’ve mentioned some of my theories of why this dogpiling/toxicity happened. I’d also like to add that Mina would often send concise, decisively-worded statements about things. I think this may have come across as final-word judgments to a lot of people, so they would take that as the last say on a certain matter and escalate in severity of their response from there. And like, you should trust your friends and take what they say in good faith. But you still need to be thinking critically and considering your response, especially when you haven’t known someone for very long. And this, I think, was a big source of toxicity in the server. There were just so many people responding to the same issues and aligning their beliefs, and they’d build off each other and create an environment where these kinds of responses were okay. Plus, VV was always portrayed as a tight-knit family when not everyone knew each other and not everyone was active (as is totally normal for a massive server), so this also contributed to people wanting to defend each other all the time. And I don’t think the mod team did an adequate job of shutting it down, despite the veneer of a structured, sort of more “professional” space.

Okay, now onto the art stuff.

Disclaimer, I don’t draw digital or physical art. I was always aware that Mina was certainly at least using references for her work. In some cases I could even pinpoint which pictures were used, like one where the faceclaim was Ranveer Singh. I also received fanart of one of my characters that, of course, looked very similar to the faceclaim. It certainly was clear some tracing had happened in that picture because of the level of detail in the chikankari embroidery, but like…..it’s free fanart, chikankari isn’t copyrighted, and that embroidery is super difficult to draw anyways. What I was not aware of was Mina apparently tracing images and using them to advertise for commissions, which is something I do not condone. I also know my photography and photo editing tools, so I was aware that there was some filtering/editing going on. I’m not sure if Mina traced and didn’t disclose it for commissioned art.

Okay, now the server shutting down stuff!

I was completely unaware of the dogpiling/transphobia stuff happening in the server because I had it on mute. I only found out about all this two days ago. I received the message where everyone was @’ed about VV’s “migration” off Tumblr and that the server would be shut down. I can confirm that the concern was about mirror sites and that the server did discuss these mirror sites as a big intellectual property issue. I didn’t know people wanted the server shutting down to be kept so secret, and I honestly cannot think of a reason why; I feel like if those mirror site concerns were serious, people would be trying to spread the word on writeblr? So I think that people are right to be a little suspicious of the exact reason for the server’s closing.

I think I should mention also that people were pretty much always friendly with me on VV. I met a bunch of cool people, and Mina was always kind and supportive with me. @radley-writes has echoed similar sentiments here (wayback machined here) and here (wayback machined here) while being critical of the environment in VV.

I know this post is like, wildly long and probably quite dry and rambly at points, but I hope it does provide some specific examples to back up some of the criticisms of VV and document it a bit better.

Thank you for reading! I’ll make sure to edit this to add stuff if I remember things/see the need.

I also want to state that my post is more a critique of the environment than anything. I’m not trying to attack anyone at all, I’m just giving an account of stuff that has happened, my level of involvement, and my own thoughts on all this.

I also want to say that I am completely open to hearing what any of you have to say. Feel free to critique/discuss anything I’ve said in this post with me. If you want to vent about your experiences in/with Violet Vineyard, my inbox and DMs are totally open. If you want to keep things confidential, I won’t break your trust or reveal your identity (unless you start idk, spouting racist stuff at me or something). If you want to anonymously tell people about an experience, feel free to shoot me an anon.

I hope you’re all having a wonderful day! I’m sending you lots of love. Take care! <3

#writeblr drama #mvcreates #violetvineyard #violet vineyard #man i haven't been involved in writeblr drama for so long #feels wild to be back!#answered #ask #anon #anonymous #sakshi speaks

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wonderland-irwin · 4 years

Text

Neighbour!Ashton

Word Count: 1862

Warnings: None

Summary: Bella gets locked out of her house when a cheeky friend from her past pops up to her assistance.

A/N: This may become a bigger story, I’m not sure what will happen. Let’s see how much people like this one! Neighbour!Ashton is not the title, its the current concept lol until I find a title. Enjoy! Let me know if you want me to continue this story line! If you wanna be tagged in other parts, let me know! (Also I tried to remove unnecessary commas! I edited the best I could)

~*~*~

Unable to get my feet under me, I slipped on the towel I’d placed on the bathroom floor instead of the bathmat and as I fell to the floor, I grabbed the towel rack for aid, and it crashed loudly beside me. Muttering curses under my breath I stood, snatching the nearest towel and wrapping it around myself.

I fumbled with the lock in the door knob, then once I finally got it open, I hurled myself into the hall. Why was I never able to do anything? All I’d wanted was a shower to wipe the thin layer of sweat I could feel over my entire body off, but I’d barely stepped in and the dogs had begun to bark and howl at something.

I crashed down the stairs, spooking Olive, our grey tabby, and I raced into the front living room. Our shih-tzu’s - a breed of small dog that should be rather chil, however ours were far from - Peekley and Mushroom were standing on the back of the couch in the bay window, heads thrown back barking as loud as they could.

“Hey!” I hollered, pulling my towel tighter around myself, “shut up!” Usually when they did this there was a person walking past with a dog or the poor paperboy. The dogs refused to stop, and I collapsed on the couch, leaning over them to pull the curtain back. Their barking was slightly valid when I saw the white mail van pull away from our house.

“Stop,” I hissed at the dogs as the van drove around the crescent. They were usually good with their barking and stopping, but sometimes they got excessive. It was ridiculous.

I pat to the front door, pulling it open, stepping into the hot summer’s day, then pulling the door shut to keep the air conditioning in. There was barely a cloud in the sky and those home during the day were doing garden work. I grinned when I saw the box on the bottom step. A few days ago I had made a large order of novels I had wanted to read on my summer break, and it seemed to have arrived. I expected it to arrive at the house’s mailbox down the road, but it was so big that they had to deliver it right to our doorstep.

Adjusting the towel around me again, I bent to pick the package up when I heard the front door click shut. I shot up, sprinting up the steps and trying to push the door open. It rattled and I cursed. Our front door had an automatic lock that could only open with a key. My dad worked for a lock company and was testing it on our door, and long story short the thing was useless.

“C’mon,” I begged, rattling the door. It refused to budge and my key was hanging on the hook by the front closet. The dogs started barking from the window, and I shouted for them to stop, the horror that it was mid-afternoon and I was stuck outside in my front garden in nothing but a towel was occupying my mind. I realized I may have left the back door unlocked, and I leapt from the porch, adjusted my towel yet again and darted down the cobblestone pathway, across the hot driveway and up the side of my house to the gate. I reached over to find the hook on the gate, then my stomach turned hollow as my fingers brushed a hard padlock fastened to the hook.

I cursed, balling my hands into fists and I stormed back to the front door. As soon as my dad got home from work I would demand he remove that lock and burn whatever prototypes his company had created. What an awful design.

My parents weren’t going to be home until that evening, and my sister was out with her friends at the amusement park. I was going to be stuck out there forever.

“Bella?”

I whirled around, grabbing the top of my towel and clutching it to my chest in protection. I stared at the person. It was Ashton. I hadn’t seen Ashton or spoken to Ashton in years. He lived across the street, and we’d grown up as best friends. We got to high school and interests changed, our lives got busier, and we started to drift apart. I missed him sometimes. Sometimes someone would remind me of him, or I’d see him when he was home from college in the dark hours of the night lit by the street lights riding his yellow trick bike in aimless circles. Sometimes I saw his posts on Instagram, or I’d simply just think about him. And I missed him.

But mostly I tried to push that missing feeling away. Tried to pretend it didn’t exist.

“Hi,” I said quietly, staring at him. He was the same as the last time we spoke, which was at our high school graduation and our mothers demanded a picture of the two of us together. He still wore dark jeans and ripped band tees. He still wore black converse. Still had those pretty hazel eyes I knew every girl gushed over. He was a little older, had a couple of tattoos, but he was still recognizable as my old Ashton.

“You okay?”

Mm, he still also had that cheeky grin.

His eyes roamed up and down me, and I felt briefly violated before realizing he wasn’t looking at me in a way that meant he wanted to rip my towel off. He was being his usual cheeky self, and was probably very concerned why I was out in the street in my towel.

“It’s a whole thing,” I told him, “but my dad’s stupid lock locked me out of the house.”

“Ah,” he nodded. I nodded in return because I felt awkward, and a silence fell between us.

“Why don’t you come over to my place until your parents get home,” he offered.

I raised my eyebrow, “are you sure?”

“Of course. You’re family.”

“Thanks.”

I adjusted my towel again, and took the steps slowly. Ashton scooped up my large box of books and quirked his eyebrow at me as he tucked it behind a planter on my porch.

“Books?”

I smiled, “of course!” He chuckled as we made our way across the street to his house.

“The water droplets on your shoulders sparkling in the sun are very pretty, Bella,” he said as we walked up his front porch and he opened the door for me to step through.

“Oh,” I said as he pulled the door shut, feeling off guard, “um, thank you.”

He flashed another smile before calling out to his mum, “Bella’s over!”

Ms. Irwin appeared from the kitchen with wide eyes, “Bella?”

I wondered when the last time was that Ashton and I stepped through the Irwin’s front door like this.

“Hi Ms. Irwin,” I waved, my face flushing.

She beamed, “hi, Sweetheart. How are you?”

“I’m fine,” I nodded, “you?”

She just nodded and said, “you two be good,” before disappearing again.

Ashton rolled his eyes with a grin before putting a hand on my back between my shoulder blades and guided me towards the stairs. As we climbed, I looked at the photographs that lined the wall of Ashton and his little sister and brother. There were photos that had been hanging there for as long as I could remember, but some, like school photos, now showed them as older kids, Ashton as an adult.

There was one photo that made my heart stutter. It was Ashton and I when we were about six. We were at the zoo, sitting on a bench laughing, my head on his shoulder, his head against mine. We each held a melting popsicle, the red and pink syrup all over our hands, around our mouths and on our chins. I don’t think a photo has been taken of me where I’ve looked that happy since.

“I love this photo.” I pointed it out.

“Yeah,” Ashton who had been at the top of the stairs, hopped down the last few to join me, “that was a fun

day.”

We looked at it for a moment, then continued to Ashton’s room. I laughed when I entered.

“What?” He asked, rummaging around his closet.

“Ashton, it looks the same!” I wandered around the room. The room itself was painted a dark blue. Ashton’s bed was unmade, clothes were in piles on the floor. He had a desk, where his laptop sat, and in one corner his drum kit, the other a black bean bag chair. Knick knacks and odd belongings sat on shelves and in odd spaces on the floor.

“Like yours doesn’t?” He grinned, passing me one of his t-shirts.

“Okay,” I laughed, “it might be.” My room was still purple and green. The doll house my dad had made me that I made Ashton play with me numerous times still sat on its shelf. I still had fragments of LEGO upon my shelves. My books cluttered every corner. Posters from movies and musicians covered my walls.

He chuckled, moving to his drawer and rummaging around. I pulled on his shirt, a Guns N Roses shirt with minimal holes, and pulled it down as far as it could go. Ashton passed me a pair of boxers, and sat at his desk as I pulled them on and ditched my towel on his floor.

I felt better now I wore clothes and stepped over to him. Folding my arms across my chest, I leant over his shoulder to see what he was doing. A message appeared on the screen once he’d logged in, and he clicked it.

_dirtycliffo: log in!

I grinned, “Ashton, is that Michael?” I hadn’t talked to our old friends in a long time.

“Yes,” he frowned, typing back.

weeniebeanie: no

I suddenly exploded with laughter, clutching at my stomach. Then I leant over his shoulder so I could see his face.

“You still have your screen names from eighth grade?”

“Yes,” Ashton grumbled. He was avoiding looking at me, but I could see in his eyes he was smiling.

weeniebeanie: i hate that game

_dirtycliffo: c’mon. Luke n cal also suck

bread: heyy

“You still act like you're in grade eight too,” I laughed, resting my chin on Ashton’s shoulder as he logged into the game.

“Here,” he said, passing me a headset that was on his deck, “listen in.”

I twisted the headphones so we could both hear and Ashton could use the mic.

“Good, you’re here,” came Michael’s static filled voice.

“Yeah,” Ashton sighed, “but it’s not just me here.”

“Oh?” Calum’s voice came. It occurred to me that even though I wasn’t as close to them as I was Ashton, I kind of missed them too.

“Yeah. Bella-Wella is here too,” he replied, calling me my grade school name.

“Stop,” I laughed, nudging him, and he grinned.

“So it’s just like old times? Hey, Bella.”

“Hey,” I called back, and the boys started their game, talking about weapons and strategies. And I listened along. Just like old times.

#ashtonirwin #ashton irwin blurb #neighbour!ashton #5sos blurb #one shot #5sos one shot #ashton irwin one shot #bestfriend!ashton

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devintrinidad · 4 years

Text

Oh I’m doing great! Working hard and stuff. Hope you’re doing awesome too! Thanks for asking! =)

Oh wow so that’s the broader definition. Uhm, when you put it like that… 1146 can scarily fit it if he really wanted to. The guy does have a great need to be loved deep down and when he gets deep for someone. It’s deep.

Basophil: His want is as the nature of cytokines. Powerful and needed. But as a cytokines storm emerges from the heavens to reign down hell upon those who used to look to them for sanctuary. He too has become a weapon against the heart. Deadly and chaotic in it’s absolute assurance.

3803: I don’t know what you mean at all! D= But I think you’re talking about White Blood Cell and trying to validate my feelings so thanks… (I think).

I think 3803 would totally forgive 1146 for anything so long as it was related to his work. After all 3803 is just as dedicated to the job as 1146 is. It might get overlooked but she is sooo dedicated to being a good red blood cell and helping the body even 1146 is incredibly impressed and is inspired by her. If 1146 ever had to abandon her or kill her for the sake of the body she would not only accept it but welcome it. She doesn’t want to die. But even more then that she doesn’t want to be a burden to the body. She loves her job so much it’d kill her if she was ever in the position to get in the way of the body’s wellbeing or even in the way pf other more competent cells. Even if 1146 kept his suspicion that the Normal Cell she was hanging out with possibly being Cancer a secret. She would most likely still blame herself for not distancing herself better from Cancer because she had her own suspicions and did nothing about them until it was too late. She would figure 1146 had to keep it a secret or something for his work.

But if he did something hurtful that had nothing to do with his duty - Yeah that would definitely hurt her.

It’s something like,

3803: I understand you have a duty and I will never get angry at you for doing anything you can to save the body. I have nothing but immense respect and gratitude to you and the immune system for putting your lives on the line for us all the time.

1146: Thank you Red Blood Cell. I can’t tell you how much I really appre-

3803: But what does invading my privacy and breaking your promise to me have to do with your job?

1146: I needed to know in order to help you both better and-

3803: Do you really expect me to believe that!

1146: !

3803: How does knowing anything that Cancer did to me ‘help’ either of us? If that was the case Macrophage would have asked for the full story a long time ago… or Commander T or Dendritic Cell or anyone who’s job is about knowing things and stuff. It’s not important for your job to know about my privacy. If it was why did you promise not to learn about it only to ask NC right after?

1146:….

3803: You lied to me. I bet you knew you wouldn’t keep your promise. But instead of being respectful or honest. You went behind my back. You practically manipulated me. What else have you done that I don’t know? I told you I needed time. It was hard to talk about it. Maybe I needed to talk to someone else. I did promise I would be ready someday but not right now. I only asked for time. You said you understood and respected that. But You only pretended to care about how I felt!

1146: I do care! That’s why I needed to know. It’s my job to care and protect you and you wouldn’t… no I didn’t want to bother you. I thought if you didn’t know. It would help things better.

3803: What you think for the best for me, someone who experienced lies, deception and a violation of my space, Is to lie, deceive and ignore my space?

1146: That’s not fair or the same Red Blood Cell…

3803: …I just… I just never thought you’d care so little for my feelings…(gets teary eyed). I almost can’t believe it. White Blood Cell. Did I ever really know you? Am I really as stupid as I sometimes thought I was growing up?

1146: No! I-

3803: Because I even when I saw something wrong with Normal Cell before I knew he was Cancer. I didn’t do anything. I was so stupid I can’t believe I was manipulated so bad even when I saw all the signs something was wrong. I almost died. Everything was a lie or maybe it wasn’t I don’t know anymore. Now you. I thought I knew you. I thought you would never do that… I thought you valued me as a friend. But you don’t. Friends don’t deceive. They don’t lie. They’re not always right and we all make mistakes. But you knew exactly what you were doing. You lied to my face when you told me I could trust you. W-What else don’t I know about you. I feel so vulnerable. I feel so useless. I feel so stupid. Is NC better then I think he is now because of what I’ve seen and what others have said? Are you better or… White Blood Cell what are we to each other. =(

1146: = 0

3803: Because right now I don’t think we’re exactly friends. I- none of this makes sense to me. You don’t make sense to me. My personal life is not your duty… and I’m really sorry but I don’t think right now I can have you in it. *angry then devastated sobs*

Ouch. I think 1146 has never had consequences in his friendships before. He’s always been able to not suffer anything beyond a punch (he’s just so darn charming) and win the day anyway. 3803 values trust thanks to how much she’s had to rely on her trust in others and has always tried to repay said trust. In Abnormalities she’s suffered a lot thanks to deception and lies and her own inaction. I think she’d be very sensitive and need to know her friends can be honest and respect her personal boundaries more then ever. Especially since manipulative clingy NC is back and she’s not sure how much she can trust his growth/sincerity even if she’s gotten better at accepting he’s around now. To have 1146, whom she thinks is one of the most trustworthy cells she could ever meet, go out of his way to lie to her and act like he hasn’t (only to be cornered into admitting, maybe NC told her). That wouldn’t be good on her burns.

It’d be nice if the other immune cells like 4989 and Eosinophil let her know she’s in the right to feel upset. I think Eosinophil would especially be a good bridge between 1146 and 3803. She knows 1146 and knows his pov as well as his great traits and faults. I think she’d relate to 3803 because they’re both a little similar and I think she’s better at dealing/understanding the emotional situation from 3803 better (Eosinophil does seems like the type of immune cell the average non immune cell would get along with well so she might have more practice and understanding of feelings in general). Which would be helpful to 3803 because there’d be a part of her that would feel like she did the wrong thing and be surprised her other immune cell friends are still her friends. She’d think they’d abandon her for rejecting 1146. But they’d assure her she’s still a friend they care about and know she has a right to get angry.

I don’t think any of 1146’s friends would give him the cold shoulder. But I don’t think any of them would validate what he did either. Like Yeah buddy you could have handled this a little better and it wasn’t really that necessary to do this or that as a white blood cell. You better fix this soon because you don’t meet a nice red blood cell like that every circulation. Also do you really want to be the cell that lost your woman to NC of all cells. Now that’d be sick. Hmm maybe 4989 should try to date her instead. Hey don’t give me that look. They’d be a better pair then her and NC. =/

Then you get moments where 3803 still worries about 1146 going into battle. But she steels herself to not follow after him. She doesn’t offer him a handkerchief. She doesn’t wave back to him when she sees him. If he pops up to save her she quietly thanks him and even suggests he get his wounds looked after before carrying on her way. If they get stuck together for a few minutes - it’s a very awkward silence. 3803 deep down wants so badly to be his friend again. But she’s sticking to her guns. She can’t have friends who lie and deceive her for personal gain even if their intentions are good. Even NC is trying to be very honest with her (which is weird because he doesn’t hide his… weird and horrible thoughts. But she guesses that’s better then his dishonesty). Until 1146 earns her trust and asks for forgiveness: he won’t get it. 1146 meanwhile is both stubbornly thinking he did the right thing yet feeling like he’s the worst lifeform in the body for hurting her. He still follows her around to make sure she’s okay and he’s racking his brain to figure out how to fix things between them and how does he see her.

Oh gosh your descriptions make me think he’d pop up in her room at night just to make sure her house is okay. Maybe sit on her bed and pat her head if she’s having a nightmare (imagine the cases where he’d sleep next to her like a cat and leave before she got up. Uhm yeah 1146 could do a lot without 3803 ever finding out. I guess she attracts a type X/).

You know I think even NC would get annoyed by how strained their relationship is and oddly enough have good pointers for the both of them in his own sharp and blunt way. Lol. XD But this could also be him oddly enough telling 1146 they both really are similar and more monstrous then appearances would suggest. But it also means if NC can make the effort to make it up to 3803 then 1146 certainly can as well.

~~~

So I read all of your entire analysis (as always, great job and I love your feedback so much!) and I am ashamed to say that something so trivial stood out to me:

That I should ship 4989 with 3803 in Abnormalities. Hahaha! NC/3803 and 1146/3803 are always continuously hinted at within Abnormalities and now you want 4989 to throw his hat into the ring? Are you insane, given how unstable, yandere like 1146 and NC are, they would definitely try to get rid of 4989.

However, I do believe that in the Abnormalities verse, if I were to write him like I always do 4989 would definitely be a better partner here. But who knows? Perhaps after all that 3803 has gone through and will go through (heheh), she won’t need a partner. Perhaps that’s the end goal here of Abnormalities... to cut out the cancerous and toxic relationships, let new friendships and loves grow, and then... let go...

BUT THAT’S JUST A THEORY. A FILM THEORY!

But, in all seriousness, after reading your comments, I would be feeling guilty if I were to ship either of those two (or both) within the Abnormalities verse. I mean, it would be an interesting development and would help showcase how far gone all parties have fallen, but still... If this was real life and if I’m writing NIA how we’ve been picturing it, I would definitely take 3803 into protective custody, even if 1146′s actions are motivated by good intentions and he isn’t as “bad” as NC.

Ah, well.

Thanks for the submission and I hope that you have a wonderful day! I especially love your snippets and conversation here. Real nice dialogue, kudos for Basophil, hahah.

#cells at work #hataraku saibou #caw #caw anon #anon ask #devin trinidad author #devintrinidad #devin trinidad #devintrinidad author #caw cancer cell #caw cancer #ae3803 #3803 #ae-3803 #u1146 #1146 #u-1146 #submission

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