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#their blog is deleted and I only found and saved their work through old reblogs

anistarrose · 4 months

Text

Please, please, please remember to check the notes for an image description before reblogging! This isn't me accusing anyone of any moral failure, because building habits is hard and takes time, I totally get it. But that doesn't make it any less unfortunate when inaccessible posts are circulated, even though a described version could be found in literally three clicks. Just go "Notes" > "Reblogs" > "Comments only".

"But I want the person on my dash who reblogged the post to know I saw it from them, though!"

[Plain text: "But I want the person on my dash who reblogged the post to know I saw it from them, though!" End plain text.]

Okay, understandable — but that's easy, just like their post on your dash before reblogging from the description writer! They'll still see the like notification!

"But I scroll through tumblr on the customizable blogname.tumblr.com pages, instead of the dash or popout blog pages, and I don't have an option to check the notes that way!"

[Plain text: "But I scroll through tumblr on the customizable blogname dot tumblr dot com pages, instead of the dash or popout blog pages, and I don't have an option to scroll through the notes that way!" End plain text.]

I hear you! In fact, if you're a person who navigates blogs like that to re-circulate old posts and art, I actually think you're doing a great public service — but you still only need like two more clicks to be accessible.

When you find a post you want to reblog, save it as a draft. Don't type any tags or comments yet if you're planning to. Then go to your drafts page — either in another tab, or after accumulating more posts like this — and pop out the notes there to look for an ID. If there is one, reblog that post and delete the undescribed draft!

"I try, I really do, but I almost always forget!"

[Plain text: "I try, I really do, but I almost always forget!" End plain text.]

Like I said, I've been there. I can only recommend what eventually worked for me, but I can't suggest enough that you follow some described blogs (here is a tumblr post listing some, here is a google doc listing some). If you see IDs daily, it will hopefully become much more noticeable when they're absent.

Of course, if anyone else has another strategy that's helped, please add on!

There's a multitude of reasons why not everyone can write image descriptions for every post they share, or sometimes even any of them. But those of us who are out here writing IDs do so with that knowledge in mind — so help us help ID users have a more accessible and less aggravating online experience!

#image descriptions

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dynamic-swap-au-archive · 4 months

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Hey uh, this is the only social media I use and I did not realize my deleted tattoo post was making rounds again. Can someone please enlighten me to what it's being used for elsewhere ? I'm flabbergasted

@danielpowell

oh ! would this be the post you're talking about? [Link]

I'm honestly pretty surprised myself, I haven't tagged anything yet so I didn't think that anybody would have noticed that I was doing anything over here yet.

it's not being used for anything, as far as I know! I've just been working on making this blog an archive for the gorillaz dynamic swap/dynaswap au! it's just been me looking through old reblogs and what little was saved to archive dot org to find what's able to be found!

your blog was actually one of the ones I'd searched ! it took me a second to realize why I recognized your username, but your header is too cool to forget ^^

I've been preserving old fanart as well, especially fanart that was reblogged or directly submitted to the dynaswap blog. which is why I saved the tattoo sheets. I'd found both of them through reblogs of the original uploads, I hadn't even realized they were deleted at the time.

in the case of me uploading one of them myself, originally I hadn't been planning on making this blog, I was just interested in finding it personally (for myself, and for a few of my friends who'd been interested in the au when it was active). so when I went back to reblog what I'd seen before I couldn't find the other tattoo sheet again for whatever reason.

that said ! I was also planning on making a section for character references once I get around to finishing my guide for the au, and I thought those tattoo sheets would make a nice reference for artists if they're having trouble trying to figure out how they want to do the tattoos themselves. but that hasn't happened yet !

#my posts #danielpowel #hopefully I'm thinking of the right post #the bulk of this would still be applicable #it'd just be a little embarrassing to be wrong jklfdsaljk #I actually need to get back to working on the archive #I've just been a bit busy

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aenslem · 4 years

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ATTENTION: REPOSTER ON TWITTER/INSTAGRAM - glojo3798 / GlojoCuscuhing

Hey guys, I will take some of your time here by writing about this particular Star Trek gifs reposter that’s been brought to my attention, but first let me provide some links explaining what reposting is and why it is bad. See posts here and here. A lot of gif makers and other content creators have faced reposters since tumblr exists and I myself wrote a lot of posts about it, but those sum it up well.

Recently I was notified by @ansonmountdaily that there is a massive reposter who’s been going through tumblr stealing thousands of Star Trek gif sets over the course of at least three years, and reposting them on their Instagram and Twitter accounts glojo3798 and GlojoCuscuhing, 99.99% of the time without giving credit to the original gif makers on tumblr, which come from every Star Trek fandom (TOS, TNG, VOY, DS9, Discovery and Picard) See list by AnsonMountDaily at the bottom of the post for a sampling of gif makers that have been targeted. The purpose of this post is to let people know their work has been reposted offsite without credit. It is not meant to attack the reposter in any way.

This individual has reposted 7000+ gif sets for which they’ve received thousands of views and likes from their 4100+ Instagram and 1700+ Twitter followers. Reposts include gifs clearly watermarked with the gif makers’ names but conveniently re-cut by them to make the watermark on gifs harder to see. Glojo also has the habit of combining stolen gifs, creating a collage, changing the size and order of the gifs, putting additional text over the graphic, and sometimes even their own watermark on stolen edits (original), giving the impression they’re the creator of those works. To top it off, Glojo has turned other people’s gifs into “birthday gift” collages, tagging Star Trek actors’ Twitter/Instagram handles on the reposts, again making it seem as if the gifs were their creations.

Glojo knows where the gifs originate from because the captions on the reposts are often the same as on the tumblr posts, and on the rare occasion they do admit the gifs are not theirs, it’s done in a vague manner, in the style “credit to the owner” (“gif from tumblr”) which is not credit at all, it’s merely acknowledging the platform the gifs come from, when credit should be given to specific users.

Before AnsonMountDaily told me about the reposting I did not know about any of this and am pretty sure the gif makers on the list didn’t either. They have since been notified. Glojo was contacted via Instagram about giving credit more than once, only to block those users. I myself wrote to them (also commented) about it, but they were not even bothered to answer me, but still continued to repost my works after i wrote them.

I want to ask those who see Glojo’s reposts or already follow them on social media, to NOT like/follow reposters or give them views. Please encourage the content creator and not the thief. We know it can be difficult sometimes to recognize an account as a reposter, and that net etiquette about reposting and ”resharing” isn’t immediately clear to everyone browsing social media, which is why we’re alerting people about this particular case, and spreading the word to other graphics makers who have been affected.

If you respect content creators who provide you with fanart and gifs for your favorite fandom, if you appreciate the love and dedication and energy they put into their work, and don’t want them to lose interest in giffing (a skill that takes time to practice and learn, and a process that is longer and far more involved than non-gif makers tend to believe), do not encourage people like Glojo into stealing more because it is very upsetting. As a member of @startrekladies I had a hard time going back on posting there because a lot of Glojo’s stolen works originate from said blog or got reblogged by it. More than that, Glojo went through my old blog @spockemon and reposted 50+ edits and gifs, and even my Doctor Who gifs (original), and that’s just what I found from browsing their instagram a little, pretty sure if i scroll down to the end i could find more :/ which is very upsetting.

They reposted not only Star Trek gifs/edits, but also Doctor Who, Farscape, Stargate and Star Wars gifs.

We do hope that if they repost more they will give a credit to original creator, but as someone whose gifs and edits were reposted a lot and even re-edited and watermarked by glojo, i prefer them to not repost my works at all. Even if it is just a small screencap edit, I still put my time and effort into it and using it as a base for their work and even claiming as theirs is disrespectful. The worst is - Glojo is not the only one who does this, there are more accounts stealing works from creators and getting praise for it, never mentioning that it is not their work. That is why my recent gifs are all watermarked. I put in my about page that if someone reposts my works outside tumblr at least give me credit, linking back to my tumblr, that is not much to ask and all the time I ask for the credit I get rude answers and get blocked. or no answer at all :/ I hope you will have better luck with it.

Feel free to reblog this post to help us spread the word, thank you! If your gifs have been reposted and you wish for them to be deleted, we suggest you either contact Glojo on their social media and politely request a removal (please, DO NOT harass or attack them!), or report the reposts to Twitter/Instagram.

Thank you very much for reading!

The following are gif makers’ names and examples of their gif sets that have been reposted on Glojo’s Instagram and/or Twitter that we can recognize. Please note this is just a small sampling of gifs Glojo has taken from each gif maker, there are many more, just like there are numerous other gif makers not covered on the list! (if you want to be removed from the list, contact me)

@anneboleyns: Janeway’s hair (repost)

@ansonmountdaily: Pike, Spock and Number One (repost + another), Ensign Spock (repost), Pike’s thruster suit (repost)

@bamfness: Saving the galaxy (repost), We are Borg (repost + another), Seven (repost)

@burnhamandtilly: Burnham outfits (repost + another + another), Sarek outfits (repost)

@carlithiel: Disease (repost), Infinite Regress (repost), The Thaw (repost), Seven (repost)

@claudiablacks: Intendant Kira (repost), Jadzia outfits (repost + another)

@cowboyjimkirk: Spock beanie (repost + another), Talos IV (repost)

@cuddlybitch via @picardsource: Clancy and Picard (repost + another), Locutus (repost), 218 warbirds (repost), Picard’s wine (repost + another), Airiam (repost)

@danvers-carols: Pike (repost)

@discovernow: Jet Reno (repost), Spock on the bridge (repost)

@e-ripley: Pike’s winter uniform (repost), Pike and Spock (repost)

@gatissed: Are we safe here (repost + another)

@gayparmak: Odo and Quark (repost)

@gayspockk via @picardsource: Raffi’s fave holo (repost + another)

@geordilaforges (@jane-foster): Troi (repost), Crusher (repost)

@haybalemaze: Enslave them (repost + another), Seven drinking (repost + another)

@indianajcnes: Pike (repost), Pike in the chair (repost)

@intergalacticexplorer: Number One as Admiral (repost)

@jeor: Pike’s traits (repost)

@leisylaura: Kate Mulgrew (repost)

@likefreedominspring: Pike and Georgiou (repost)

@lovely-trek: TOS happy cast (repost + another), Kirk and Tribbles (repost)

@marcygoomen: Kate Mulgrew’s Birthday (repost)

@mindmeld: I do love you (repost)

@mistressvera: Heads up (repost), We have to stop them (repost + another)

@myrcella: Beverly (repost), Beverly and Jean-Luc (repost)

@onaperduamedee: Georgiou (repost), Burnham white undershirt (repost)

@philippageorgiou: You had it coming (repost + another), Pike on the bridge (repost), Beverly (repost)

@readysteadytrek: The Voyage Home (repost)

@ssaalexblake: Sarek and Amanda (repost)

@startreksource: Pike (repost)

@static-warp-bubble: The Pikes (repost), The Ensign or Cadet (repost)

@toboldlyblahblahblah: Tasha Yar (repost)

@whatelsecanwedonow: Hubris (repost), Romulan lives (repost), Shields up (repost)

@youmissedthewholeshow: Hit it (repost), Number One (repost)

and mine (@sopheirion): Pike and Spock (repost), Pike’s goodbye (repost), The Orville (repost) Rand and Uhura (repost), Original (repost), Kirk (repost) - and many other recent gifs of mine and not only from @startrekladies and @sci-fi-gifs.

#tumblr #trekedit #startrekedit #star trek #reposting #reposts #carlithiel #usercharl #usermercedes #usertai

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scroll-of-thought · 4 years

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hello well for starters I am a very very baby witch and I was hoping to get some guidance and some answers? One being, I don't really have the money to buy and get all those materials like herbs and stones, would that affect my practice? And where can I go for help when I have any specific questions? Do you have any other blogs you recommend? Thank you so much.

Hi Anon, and welcome to witchcraft! I’d be happy to give you some advice.

Firstly, you really don’t have to spend any money on things like herbs, or stones, or anything else for that matter, to do witchcraft. Some of those things may help in doing specific things, and in a lot of magic, physical ingredients really only serve as a symbolic representation of a concept. They help you, the witch, and the universe around you to fine tune the intent of your spell. Like rosemary represents protection symbolically, and thus you can add it to a spell to offer protection. Now if you’re making potions or doing herbology or something like that, it’s a different case, but most of the time it’s just there to give some physical to the metaphysical concepts you’re working with and the intent you have on manifesting those concepts with a spell.

You can do this really easily with pretty much anything, not just expensive herbs and stones. You can even make your own representations of concepts, ideas, and spells through things like sigils. Sigils are basically magickal symbols you design and draw that cast a spell for you. and all you need to make them is a pen and some paper, or you can even make them digitally with free paint software and apps. Here’s a tutorial I made on how to design sigils and how they work. So that’s a great cheap/free way to practice some magick.

And you’ll hear the word intent being used a lot in witchcraft, especially in modern witchcraft. For a lot of people, the driving power of magick is your intent in doing something and the will you put into wanting to make that thing happen. And that’ll start making more sense as you learn and grow.

So technically not having money can affect your practice, but it doesn’t have to hinder it. And there are lots of free resources out there that can help you on your path.

https://openlibrary.org/ is great. Not just for witchcraft, but just for reading in general.

People are often dumping google drives with books in them (though literally every list I had saved has been deleted, otherwise I’d share them) so keep an eye out for that while browsing tumblr.

And never underestimate what kinds of magick you can do with the free things you have around you. Paper bags can become sigils, petition spells, and paper poppets. Mundane things like bits of broken glass can be used in protection spells and even some of the nastiest curses. There’s an entire school of divination based around finding junk on the side of the road while hitchhiking and using those like you would rune stones or throwing bones. I once saw someone make a protection spell using plastic kitchen wrap and it worked very well. And string! String is super useful for anything from knot magick to binding spells and I’ve got a tutorial here for a spell I invented called a Momento Cord that’s super easy. There really aren’t any limits on doing things cheap or free if you’re creative.

For specific questions, you can always come to me, and I’ll help you or at least try to point you towards someone who can help. There’s also a few discord groups out there. If you’re over 18 @nightshadeandroses has one I’m part of that’s pretty solid and beginner friendly. You’ll see discord groups advertised in the witchblr and witchcraft tags once in a while.

And for recommendations, it really depends on what kind of blog, path, or person you’re looking for. I’ll share a few I enjoy and some people I like, in no particular order, and you can check them out.

@nightshadeandroses

@ladykalila

@themagickcat

@breelandwalker

@kendallscraft

@new-witch-old-soul

@upthewitchypunx

@will-o-the-witch

@maddiviner

@shintowitchling

@ancestralmedicinemagic

@alder-witch

@urbanspellcraft

And I’m sure there’s dozens more that I could recommend, but it’s getting late and I need to get dinner going. If you’ve got a blog you think Anon would like, if your baby witch / fledgling witch friendly, if we’re mutuals, etc, just sound off in the comments/reblogs so Anon can find you.

I hope you found that helpful Anon. If you have any follow up questions or want to ask about specific, feel free to ask. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, but now I got to start cookin’! Have a good day, Anon :D

#witchcraft #anon #asks #knot magic #sigils #tutorials #my content

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jovishark · 4 years

Note

What tags did you even look in to find antihomestar? I just found out about him like a day or two ago

i always like to go through the blogs that reblog my art and i stumbled upon reblogs from other people

i was old enough to read fanfiction by havoc-creations and interact with the authors during their other works and i promise im not just saying all of this because im sentimental and old, im saying that making fun of a ten year old fanfiction is kind of silly? like. we laugh at it still to this day because i think even the authors would agree that some of it is very 2010-esque and also not at all how theyd represent themselves now but. thats what fanworks Are

they represent who you were and your thought process at the time, and the way that things in your life effect your writing yknow? so comparing fanworks from literally ten years in the future directly waters down the impact that the old stuff used to have. opposites attract/oa 20x6 were very obviously a passion project from two friends who felt like writing together. there wasnt a ton of influence from people other than their niche fans. there were other homestar fanworks on like ffnet and da at the time but none of them were as Long or all-encompassing as oa, and none of them really explored the kind of fiction oa did. there was alternate universe travel, time travel, casino shenanigans, Murder, dinosaurs. i think strong bad definitely killed someone in self defense at least twice. dragons for sure.

(the plot, because we arent willing to reupload the fic, is that homestar and strong bad steal alternate universe traveling equipment from homeschool winner and end up humanized in the real world. there was a fanfiction before this called real world runner, where homestar does the same thing and meets a person named alex and also the brothers chaps, and has to get back to the website before it falls apart without him. that branches into oa because alex’s apartment is the home base for all of the characters that come through to look for hr/sb to help save the website a second time. they have to navigate real world events in atlanta georgia while also having to figure out how to get back to their reality, and figure out feelings for each other along the way which of course they do. long story short universe travel is an ever moving target and they meet opposite versions of themselves. i mean Way opposite. antihomestar kills people, including the king of town, and i think antimarzipan eats puppies. antistrong bad wears oven mitts instead of boxing gloves. you get the picture. strong bad is caught between antihomestars edgy pushiness and homestars puppy dog eyes. at some point they go to the middle ages. its a whole mess and basically in trying to put everything back together they make a million more mistakes, and homeschool winner cant fix all of them. its my favorite work of all time)

what im trying to say is that the work represented the authors interests at the time (star trek, dinosaurs, boys kissing and being tsundere about it, very dramatic improbable things, etc) and you could see that it was a Creative work by very creative people. so calling aspects of it uninspired or not creative is a very big slap in the face of something that was pretty shockingly original for its time. i know it sounds ridiculous in the context of 2020, but does it? i saw people yesterday assigning gay culture terms to the rats from animaniacs. everything is just as silly as it was in the entire scope of fanworks.

antihomestar, a character that did not exist before like 2009, was pervasive enough to make it into the real life, actual fan costumes videos from homestarrunner.com. someone cosplayed him and sent it into the brothers chaps, who included it in their photo slideshow with no comment. not to say that giving him black pants, a black star, and blades instead of a propeller isnt Very edgy on purpose, but maybe that was the point? hes Anti homestar. homestar runner, a character who does many things on accident and falls into things as they happen to him, might just wear a propeller hat without a second thought. to be an Anti version, antihomestar would have to do things in a calculated way, on purpose, to achieve results. which he does, as evidenced by him trying to steal universe travel equipment for very on-purpose power reasons. i dont know if their thoughts into him went that deep but id like to think they did. to take a character as vague and for-the-punchline as homestar runner and subvert him, to turn his traits inside out and think of what that person might do if given an opportunity? thats Very creative to me. but then again, i read this fanfiction like every day for years and years until it was deleted from the internet, so maybe these things are more obvious to me because i have the context?

my point is. giving an Unfounded critique based on a thing you have only seen once or twice is just as silly as saying ‘what if homestar runner wore black pants and licked knives for fun’. but one of those things is more enjoyable to look at.

(he also had black straight hair and piercings, because IT WAS 2010 ON LIVEJOURNAL. of course hes going to look like that. he wasnt just made for the aesthetic, he had plot reasons and character development and everything and i just want everyone to know that.)

#shh #h*r #meta #im not sorry about this very long post and please read it to understand me as a person #Anonymous

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tenacityblitz · 4 years

Note

all the numbers u haven't done

roleplaying habits questions.

1. what’s a grammar rule you find yourself breaking or ignoring a lot?

Offhand I can’t really think of anything?? English is my first language so I don’t knowingly break any grammar rules anyway. Unless possible excessive use of commas counts bc I use commas a lot.

2. are there any languages besides english in which you think you could comfortably roleplay?

Unless Gibberish counts bc I learned that stupid crack language back when I was a kid but good lord I would not have the patience to actually type out a reply like that.

3. how often do you reach for a synonym dictionary when writing? how about mentally?

Sometimes but not too frequently. Depends on how flowery I’m trying to write something or if I’m thinking of a word but I don’t like the first descriptive word that came to mind for what I’m trying to express.

4. how often do you need to translate your own or the other’s writing with a dictionary or google when writing and reading replies?

Never tbh. Especially since I don’t RP in any other languages, all my RP partners have a good enough grasp on English that I can always tell what they were at least trying to say in their reply.

5. do you listen to music while your write?

I used to need music playing in the background to help me focus on doing drafts, but nowadays I need more silence than anything to help focus and produce what I think is a quality response to a longer thread. Short one or two liner things idc what’s in the background.

6. do you have ideal writing circumstances when you can do a lot of drafts or tackle really long ones very easily?

I can fluctuate with when I best write. Typically I write better at night when the house is quiet and any noise happening in the house is a noise I make, but I’ve had writing inspiration hit me at any time of the day before.

7. are you a morning, day, evening, or night writer?

Bold of you to assume I’m awake during morning hours that don’t include 5 AM bc I’m still awake haha. When I’m not swamped with commissions to do I typically write better during the day or at night when I’m the only person awake in the house and I don’t have any outside distractions from a person IRL.

8. how does tiredness affect your writing?

Not overly so sometimes, I know there’ve been times in the past where I powered through replies even though I wanted to go to bed just because I was riding the motivation train and I didn’t want to lose it and not get to those last replies for who knows how long. But on Discord at least I often have reply to Discord threads be one of the last things I do before I go to sleep so I go to bed knowing I don’t owe anyone a reply on there.

9. have you ever written a serious reply intoxicated?

Not a serious reply anyway. I’ve been on the dashboard before while intoxicated (ColossalCon East was a prime example haha) but I’ve never really RP’d while that intoxicated

10. how much do you proof-read as you are writing vs. proof-read at the end?

I’ll proof read as I go but also give it one last read before I actually hit publish.

11. when you are writing a reply, how much ahead in the thread do you plan?

Entirely depends on the thread. I could write it on the fly or I could have days to think about it from external factors keeping me from getting to the reply as soon as it comes back to me.

12. is there ever been a time when you’ve had to drop a roleplaying partner because you’ve found their writing style exhausting?

Yes actually, gather round for RP horror storytime haha. Flash back to 2013 while I was still in the Black Butler fandom. I stupidly decided to give writing Sebastian a try at the request of a Ciel I’d made friends with (probably through my old Alois or Lizzie blog). She was a nice enough girl, close enough to my age so she seemed plenty mature, and had been what I thought was a good enough writer to warrant trying my hand at a muse I wouldn’t have otherwise thought to try. Legit within days of me making the Sebastian blog she was getting super clingy in her IC posts making Ciel a whiny baby missing Sebastian, would try and guilt me in IC posts to get on and write with her, and I dealt with it for about two weeks before I deleted Sebastian’s blog without warning and deleted the girl off Skype. To this day it’s the only blog I think I’ve ever consciously deleted.

13. does writing roleplay things in public spaces make you uncomfortable?

Not really? I wouldn’t be crazy about a stranger reading over my shoulder while I was writing bc that’s just weird, but I’ve gone to Starbucks or one of the local malls before on my off days (back when I was still at my last job) and I’d do RP stuff there just to get out of the house.

14. how often do you need to change the icon in your reply while or after writing the reply?

Typically I don’t put in icons until I’m done writing the reply unless I go into the reply knowing exactly which one I want to use, or think of a good one while I’m writing it out.

15. do you first get in the “zone” when writing, or do you start writing and “enter” it that way?

Nowadays I just start writing and then get into the zone after I get the first reply done. Discord replies I can chug out any time of day without difficulty, but for whatever reason Tumblr I have to be in the right mindset for.

16. what is your biggest obstacle to writing every day, if time doesn’t count?

Back when I was at my last job, it would be getting a lot of writing muse while I was busy at work and unable to get on my own laptop or sneak onto Tumblr on an office computer and at least type out the bulk of a reply (yes I was employee of the month many times haha), and by the time I was able to get to my own computer or be safe enough to get on a work computer, that writing muse would be gone.

17. what’s your inbox count currently? what did you do to get it so high/low?

Right now I have 15 IC asks. I won’t lie, two of them are from last years Valentine’s Day bc I was away at Katsucon at the time of receiving them and by the time I got home I still just never got around to answering the asks, but I didn’t want to delete them either so I just kept them for posterity. Some are from this past Christmas that I was terrible and haven’t answered yet bc I’ve been so swamped with commissions, some are from other random meme’s I’ve reblogged and gotten an ask or two for and also just never got around to. I’m horrible at replying to asks most of the time and I know it but I always appreciate whenever people take the time to send me an IC one.

18. how many drafts is a paralysing amount?

I’d guess I’d say over 15 like para thread replies would make me be like -insert meme song- ‘how could this happen to meeeee’. I’m not quite at that point yet but I’ll get there eventually if I’m not careful lol.

19. if you are writing a wrong reply that’s not working out, do you save what you have to be continued at another date, or do you scrap it and rewrite?

Usually I would just draft what I have and go back to it. I can’t remember the last time I scrapepd an unfinished draft and completely rewrote it.

20. longest reply you’ve ever writen on mobile?

N/A because I don’t do replies on mobile. I’ll send asks on mobile but I never reply to actual IC things while on my phone unless it’s something stupid and cracky or one-liner-ish.

21. does the total amount of threads you have going on matter to you, or just how many you owe?

Doesn’t really matter. I can have one thread with one person, I could have five threads with one person. @shinvcho is an example of the latter lol

22. what’s your thought process when you format? any unspoken rules you follow?

I’ve kept to the same formatting for years and years tbh. I’m too lazy to do excessive formatting beyond italicizing and/or bolding specific words for emphasis and spacing out the start of a new paragraph. Anything more than that to me is just tedious and unnecessary; I don’t want to make it difficult for my partners to read.

23. how does your follower count affect your mood?

Anyone who says they don’t appreciate or enjoy even a small spike in followers is a liar, because we live in an age where validation is held in high regard and it feels good to get the validation of seeing more people enjoy what we do on our blogs enough to put us on their dashboards. But it also doesn’t really matter to me when I lose followers because I have a mutual checker so I can unfollow a mutual back if they did so first so I don’t feel uncomfy still following someone who no longer wanted me on their dash lol.

#ooc #THIS IS WHY I QUESTIONED HOW MUCH U ACTUALLY LOVE ME I HAD TO DO BASICALLY ALL OF THEM LOL #creturae

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kotsume · 5 years

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hi i’m back from the dead (tumblr gave me my blog back)

hi i said i’d post this tomorrow but i lied and couldn’t help myself.

first off, happy 2019!! it’s been nearly a year since i’ve seen y’all!!! how are you guys? i just wanted to say thank you to everyone who supported me and i am so thankful for you all.

i have a full explanation under the cut and i would really appreciate it if y’all read it!!

also, i think i’ll reblog this a couple times sorry ik it’s annoying

now, a lot of people i talked to/talked about me kept thinking i was terminated. to be clear, @kaijohs was not terminated, but suspended. they are 2 differnet things as there’s actually a spot in support for terminated blogs :)

i could log into tumblr and go on my dash, check out my activity and drafts, but could not like/reblog, add to drafts/queue, edit drafts, view my inbox. this only happened to @kaijohs, all my other sideblogs (like @fyeahvioletevergarden) functioned normally and i could still do everything i normally would on them.

for some idiotic reason, tumblr still let me create new sideblogs ????????????? it doesn’t really make sense because that’s the reason why i was suspended in the first place but okay tumblr you do you i guess.

okay so:

i had saved, unused urls. those urls consisted of my old ones and my future urls. i tend to change my url every couple of months or so. anyone who’s been following me from the very beginning can tell you that i had a url change about 6 times over the course of 2 years. so yeah, it is safe to say i’m an indecisive girl who can’t stick to one url (but i think i’ll stick with kaijohs bc i love it).

tumblr must have done some random search bc you can’t report it? i didn’t see an option for it, so feel free to correct me and show me if i am wrong. anyways, i ended up getting suspended over it even though i was keeping most, if not all, of them updated. there are many users on tumblr with hundreds of urls, selling them for money, and i got suspended bc i was unlucky. not much i could do about that.

i am NOT saying i didn’t deserve it bc it was my fault for breaking the rules, but i deleted the urls as soon as i read the email and was STILL suspended for 11 months (february 27 2018 - january 22 2019). verbatim, tumblr said “Let us know when that’s been done so we can restore your access.” i sent them at least 2 emails every week through support in the first few months, as well as replying to the original email they sent me. it didn’t really do much. one time they decided to responded to my email (not one of those automated “support request received” emails, but an actual follow-up email), they completely missed the mark.

imo 11 months was overkill.

i don’t know if they actually read the things people send in support, but i have a feeling they don’t (it’s probably just bots tbh) because no human with a job is dumb enough to respond like that if they read the original request.

–

i thought a lot about starting over from scratch and making a new blog because i honestly did not know if i would ever get @kaijohs back. i’m just so happy it’s back now ^^

–

so what exactly happened during my suspension? i…

- turned 18 !!! - became a stressed out university student (major: biomedical sciences) - made many gifs to post - lost my queue* - read lots of manga - watched a lot of anime - went to europe for 3 weeks >>> france, italy, and england - lost 1.5k+ followers on @kaijohs (rip nearly 34k) - found lots of people reposting/copying my gifs :) - cut off my long ass hair wooo - distanced myself from tumblr for the time being - found someone i want to spend the rest of my life with

*i had ~100 queued items and posts just disappeared in groups idk where they went nor do i have an explanation for what happened except that tumblr deletes posts in your queue when you’re suspended.

–

oh yeah here’s a funny story: i tried calling a (false) tumblr support number but it turned out to be a scammer, and when i asked the person on the other end of the line if this was a scam. the guy told me to press the windows key and R, which raised flags for me. then he yelled at me, telling me to do my research before i accuse him of scamming me because apparently i “didn’t know anything”. i didn’t need to do research when i had Common Sense *insert that rainbow spongebob meme* backing me up… why would i need to run a new program in order for him to unsuspend me on tumblr? then he hung up after lashing out on me.

–

i will be posting a lot of darling in the franxx gifs btw. sorry woops zero two is still the best girl ever

also, as much as i am happy to have my blog back, i’m a little concerned with how i’m going to manage school + my life + gifmaking. i really do miss it, but i get easily stressed and overwhelmed, but i hope i can work something out because i want to continue doing what i love!!

–

if you’ve made it this far and actually read all this shit, ilysm, you’re amazing, and have a wonderful day~

#please read if you can!!!#it's good to be back #tysm for your support!#new and correct version lmaooo #text #also im so out of loop w the anime world

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artificialqueens · 5 years

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Just the Game We’re In - Chapter 12 (Ortega

a/n: I have honestly no idea how to start this off, and I’m aware I’m not accepting a fucking Oscar, so I’ll try to keep this as short as possible. Back in the summer of 2016, there was a crossover fic challenge posted to this blog. I was in the process of finishing MasP and, as someone who fucking loved The Thick Of It and knew how well Bianca would fit as Malcolm Tucker, I posted chapter 1 of what started as a lighthearted, funny Politics AU, Just the Game We’re In. Fast forward nearly three fucking years, me graduating from uni and getting a job, countless long-ass fuckin update gaps and 179,065 words later, this is the final chapter, and I have no idea what the fuck I’m going to do with my life now!! I know I’m not the first person to ever finish a fic in this blog’s history, i ain’t special sis, but I really do want to say thank you thank you thank you to anyone who has ever given any chapter of this a note, reblogged it with something lovely, made fucking fanart or a moodboard (still in awe at that), has read any part of it, or has simply been a friend I’ve made through the writing process. It would be criminal not to specially mention @purecamp- she has without a doubt been Game’s biggest cheerleader throughout it all and legit I may not have even finished this if it wasn’t for her. She is a fantastic person and an amazing friend. I’ll sound like a wet wipe, but Game has legit changed my life. When I was little my dream was to be an author and I loved writing stories. I had never expected my writing to get much of a response when I joined AQ but I can safely say that this blog has been so so amazing and has really allowed me to live my childhood dream of writing a story that people actually wanted to read (this is the definition of cheesy). I’ll shut up now, but here she is everyone. As always lmk what u think over at artificialortega, I tried so hard to make it the most absolutely perfect ending. Chapter 12 of Game, the final chapter. It has been some fuckin wild ride. Xxxxxxxxx

(p.s. phi phi ur a babe im sorry i made u the opposition in this fic and i know u don’t have shitty opinions like game phi phi)

The street was silent. Time had seemed to freeze completely, and even the sound of the car speeding away seemed to be on mute. Perhaps it was just the overwhelming ringing in Willam’s ears that drowned everything else out, which sounded eerily akin to a flatline.

Willam could only blink and feel her heartbeat through her chest, cruelly taunting her and reminding her that Sharon, lying on the concrete, might not have had that privilege. Was she moving? Was she bleeding? Was she alive?

It felt as if Willam stood there frozen for minutes but it was probably only seconds, as all at once she felt herself walking forward, two slow steps and then breaking out into a sprint where she skidded to a halt beside Sharon’s body.

Fuck, no, not her body, Willam thought. Beside Sharon. Sharon, the living human being.

“Sharon,” Willam felt her voice come out as nothing more than a hoarse, panic-induced whisper. She looked at the woman in front of her. Willam was relieved to find that there weren’t any horrific, horror-movie style streams of blood pissing out of her. Suddenly she remembered the phrase she’d gleaned from many hours of her Mum watching Casualty, “internal bleeding”, and her heart grew cold. There were some huge scratches on her head which were already taking on the greenish hue of a bruise underneath, and the friction of her body on the tarmac had ripped open the light Summer jacket Sharon had been wearing and opened a deep gash on the arm which sat ugly and unmoving, a stagnant red against her pale skin.

Her leg was bent at a gruesomely impossible angle.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Willam hissed, shock pulsing through her like a thousand volts as she grabbed her phone from her jacket pocket and grew frustrated as it clung to the material and wouldn’t seem to budge. After some fierce tugs it finally emerged. Willam fumbled with her passcode two times then succeeded in opening her phone, and with shaky fingers she dialled 4 9s, deleted one, and hit the call button.

It rang once, then twice, then again. The ringing continued. Willam’s panic increased tenfold. How often do you need to phone 999 in your life, and when you finally do they don’t fucking pick up the phone?

Finally, the voice of the operator came down the line.

“999, which service do you require?”

“Ambulance, please,” Willam breathed out, the scared tone in her voice and the small, polite plea at the end making her feel as if she was about 5 years old.

“And the address please?”

Willam looked around, panic consuming her every movement and rendering her unable to see clearly. “We’re outside the Crown and Anchor in Chiswick, I don’t know the road name, um-”

“Can you see any road signs at all?”

Willam found her gaze focussing on a street sign a little further along the road. “Um. Belmont Road, I think? I’m sorry, I can’t-”

“Don’t worry, love, we’ve got it,” the voice replied soothingly, making Willam feel more like a child than ever. “And can you describe what’s happened at all?”

“My friend,” Willam began, then was suddenly cut off by a sob that unexpectedly welled up and burst in her throat, causing two tears to spring from her eyes. “She’s been hit by a car, it just came along from nowhere and it didn’t stop, she rolled right over it.”

“Your friend’s been hit by a car? Okay, my love. And you’re saying the car didn’t brake?”

“No,” Willam gasped, her breathing becoming more and more erratic as she sobbed. Fuck, where had all this crying come from?

“Was the car moving quickly?”

Willam frowned. It had been so long since she’d driven it was hard to give an estimate. “It seemed to be going pretty fast but I couldn’t say how much, sorry.”

There was a short pause. Willam looked at Sharon lying below her, then in panic around her as she realised she was still on the road. “I’m not being rude but is the ambulance coming?”

“Don’t worry, love, I know it can be hard when you’re waiting for someone to arrive. The ambulance has been dispatched, don’t panic. Keep talking to me. Is your friend conscious?”

Willam instantly turned to Sharon. “Sharon?” she shook her shoulder, lifted up an eyelid. “Sharon? Fuck, I don’t think so.”

“Don’t think so. Okay. Is she breathing?”

Willam knelt close to her chest and rested her hand on her heart. She felt the gentle rise and fall of her chest and wanted to cry with relief. “Yes.”

“Still breathing, okay. And you said the patient’s name was Sharon?”

“Yeah, Sharon Needles,” Willam stuttered, momentarily worried about the headlines then cursing herself for the priorities she automatically had.

“Is she bleeding?” the call carrier continued, seemingly not the least bit fazed by the famous invalid.

“She’s got a massive big cut on her arm, but nothing else major. Um…some scratches here and there? I don’t know what’ll need stitches or not…fuck, fuck,” Willam breathed, the seriousness and reality of the situation hitting her all over again. “We’re still on the road, should I move her?”

“No, don’t move her, love. There could be broken bones which might be made worse if you do.”

Willam sighed, taking Sharon’s hand absent-mindedly. The small gesture almost broke her heart and reminded her of how things used to be. Maybe everything would be different if she’d never accepted Sharon’s offer of drinks, this may never have happened. She sighed in exasperation as she suppressed another sob. “Is the ambulance nearby?”

“I’m sorry love, it’s on its way. I know the questions can be annoying but everything we get we pass on to the paramedics-”

“She’s my friend,” Willam said softly, bringing her other hand up to stroke Sharon’s cheek.

“I know, love, we’re doing all we can at this end. Can you describe your friend for me? Age, gender, nationailty?”

The questions seemed to go round in a circle. They were endless, and Willam could feel herself growing more and more irate as the minutes seemed to tick by. Finally, after what seemed like hours, an ambulance slowly drew to a halt on the opposite side of the road to Willam. She immediately hung up on the operator and sprinted to the paramedics who were on their way over to Sharon.

“Hello there!” one greeted her, as natural and cheerful as if she’d just asked him about the weather. “Right, so this is our patient over here. What’s her name?“

Everything passed on to the paramedics my ass, Willam cursed under her breath, then spoke. “It’s Sharon. She was hit by a car.”

“Hello, Sharon, love!” the other paramedic greeted her, lifting her eyelids and shining a small torch into them. “Can you hear us, Sharon?”

Willam wanted to hiss at them that they’d get more conversation out of Helen Keller but she remembered that she wasn’t in Dosac any more, she wasn’t at work, she was lying on a road with her friend crumpled in a heap and no matter how incompetent these people seemed, they were there to help her.

“No response. Okay, grab the gurney.”

What followed this may as well have been another language as the two paramedics spoke in terrifying terminology about IV drips, lacerations and bone fractures. The man brought out a huge metal trolley that Sharon was lifted up onto after some form of yellow styrofoam-looking cast was placed around her mangled leg and another one was placed around her head. As she was carried into the ambulance, Willam, who had been silent for some time save for answering the paramedic’s questions, spoke up.

“Can I, um. Can I come with you in the ambulance?”

‘Of course you can, darling,” the female paramedic smiled at her. Willam momentarily wondered why NHS staff seemed to speak solely in pet names. “What’s your name, love?”

“Willam.”

“Willam, okay. And you are Sharon’s…?”

Willam paused for a beat. “I’m her best friend.”

“Bestie, aw that’s nice. So you were out for some drinks when this happened then, yeah? Girls night out?”

“Something like that,” Willam sighed, climbing the steps up to the back of the ambulance then sitting in the small chair at the end of the vehicle and putting her seatbelt on. Sharon sat in the silver trolley opposite her already hooked up to various machines. Symbols and numbers flashed on a small screen, none of which Willam could tell was good or bad.

“Okay, seatbelt on,” the woman instructed her, sitting down in her own seat herself. “We’ll be at the hospital in no time. Once we’re there, we’ll-”

Willam barely heard her as her mind began to drift away, and all she could focus on were the sirens attached to the ambulance that seemed so far away. That all-too-familiar sound that she recognised from streets and junctions was her and Sharon, the pair of them racing through central London in an ambulance.

Soon enough they arrived at the hospital, and Sharon was being wheeled out of the ambulance, down a ramp and straight into the building. Willam followed awkwardly behind, past people in wheelchairs and others in beds hooked up to various beeping machines and parked, or perhaps abandoned, in corridors. The male paramedic turned to her suddenly as Sharon was wheeled behind a curtain.

“I’m sorry- she can’t have anyone with her at the moment.”

Willam frowned, helpless. “But-”

“She’s in good hands, I promise,” he smiled at her, his gentle eyes reminding her of a long-dead Grandpa she had loved dearly and making her want to cry all over again. His face turned conspiratorial as his eyes shifted around. “Look you shouldn’t really, but if you go to that desk over there you’ll get taken to a relative’s room. It’s not much but it’ll be a quiet room with a kettle and a sofa and a phone and it’ll be a hell of a lot better than sitting stressed in the waiting room.”

Willam gazed over at the desk in question, opposite which were hordes of people waiting to be seen- some looked fine, some had huge wads of kitchen roll wrapped around cuts, there were a couple of drunk men singing football chants and a child with a toy stuck to their foot. Definitely not ideal company.

“Thanks,” Willam summoned up a smile to return to the man.

“That’s alright. I know you must have had a stressful evening,” he said sincerely, frowning.

Willam nodded to him. “It’s appreciated, um…”

“Mattheiu,” the paramedic smiled, holding out a hand for her to shake. She took it gently, thanked him for perhaps the third time, and made her way to the desk where she answered a few questions in a daze and then got shown to a small room, just as Matthieu had described- small, windowless, with dim lights and a single sofa and a little tray with a kettle, teabags, coffee and a pot of milk. There was a landline phone too, and Willam wanted to laugh at it before she checked her phone and realised she had no signal.

She sat on the sofa and took one deep, shuddery breath. What would happen now? Should she have phoned the police too? Willam hadn’t known what to do, but at least Sharon was being taken care of now. She hoped to God she would be okay. Willam thought hard. What had the car looked like? Silver. Or was it black? Fuck, she couldn’t remember. Number plate? Willam was fucked if she knew. This was terrible. If the police did arrive she would be about as much use as a bottle of Becks at an AA meeting. Something inside Willam questioned whether the whole thing had been an accident. It was easily enough explained- or what if it had been planned? Anyone who ran someone over would have stopped and got out and checked to see if the person was okay, surely? Maybe it was someone who felt too guilty to stop, who was too terrified in case they got convicted- or maybe it was somebody who was satisfied they’d completed what they’d set out to do. What if they’d charged the wrong person for the death threats? What if they had still been at large the whole time?

Willam sighed. Her head was too full, and it was killing her not being able to talk the situation out with anybody. Suddenly, it struck her that people would need to know what had happened. Two people in particular, Willam thought- one in particular that probably hated her but who would come into the hospital to sit with her, and to be with her. After all, she still cared about Willam, she had said so herself. The second was worse, but she still needed to be here. Willam knew she would immediately come in, no matter how bad things had been between her and the woman currently lying on a hospital trolley. She needed to know before it got into the press, and Willam had horrific visions of one of them finding out from a BBC News 24 notification.

Her professional brain urged her to phone Bianca first, and Willam growled at it angrily as she picked up the landline, looked in her contacts, and dialled the number of the first woman in question. She could have been apprehensive or afraid, but not right now. Right now she was afraid of something much worse, and it wasn’t on the other end of the phone.

Courtney picked up after four rings. “Hello?”

“Hey. It’s me,” Willam began, her stomach sinking at having to do this over the phone.

“Willam…it’s two in the morning.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I didn’t know if you’d still be awake.”

Courtney’s voice wasn’t harsh or reprimanding as Willam had expected. It was as if she knew that something was up. Sure enough, the Australian accent came down the line again. “Willam, what’s happened?”

Willam felt her blood run cold. She didn’t want to have to bear the news. “Sharon’s in hospital.”

“Oh fuck.”

“She was run over by a car,” Willam said, completely unsure of where the conversation went from here.

“Oh Jesus. Is she okay? Fuck, sorry, what a stupid question,” Courtney’s voice was apologetic, and Willam could hear commotion on the other end of the line, and snuffling.

“Courtney, don’t be upset. It’s okay, it’ll be alright,” Willam found herself comforting the girl on the end of the phone, annoyed that there wasn’t much else she could do.

“Are you at the hospital now? Can I come in?” Willam could hear Courtney struggling with something down the line, perhaps a coat or a pair of shoes.

“Yeah, please. We’re at Charing Cross Hospital. Phone me when you’re outside- no, shit, I’ve got no reception. Just tell me how long you’ll be and I’ll go and wait at the main entrance for you.”

Courtney gave a small, helpless sigh. “Fuck, I don’t know, I don’t know how long I’ll have to wait for a taxi at this time of night.”

“Courtney, you live in London,” Willam said, unable to help herself as she snorted a small giggle.

“Fuck. Right,” Courtney matched her laughter, which quickly turned into a sob. “Fuck. Um, half an hour?”

“Okay. See you then,” Willam sighed, her heart hurting at Courtney’s panic. “Courtney, it’ll be okay. Don’t worry. She’s safe now.”

“Right,” Courtney replied with a sniff, which didn’t inspire any confidence in Willam. “See you then.”

With that, Courtney was gone. Willam deflated on the sofa, letting out what seemed to be all the air in her lungs.

That had been hard enough. Now for the phone call she really didn’t want to have to make.

***

Willam had decided to wait at the entrance a little earlier than she said she’d be, just in case Courtney was early too. Part of her was anxious about leaving the relatives room, in case somebody arrived with news about Sharon, but she’d said she would meet Courtney at the door. As she stood in the chilly night air, she watched as cars and taxis pulled up and people came and went, the hospital just as busy as it probably was during the daytime. Health didn’t sleep or take a rest, thought Willam, and she supposed anything could happen to anyone at any time. Life was scary, she pondered, and mortality was so fragile.

As she was wondering, she was suddenly distracted by a sudden, harsh pounding of footsteps on the pavement, and somebody sobbing. Willam looked up and saw Alaska running from a taxi and straight towards her. If it had been any other situation, Willam would have laughed- Alaska was wearing trainers on her feet paired with huge fluffy bedsocks, her outfit consisted of Winnie The Pooh pyjama bottoms and a huge, baggy hoodie, probably pulled on over her pyjama top. A huge parka topped off the look, and Alaska’s face was red and blotchy with puffy eyes which had tears streaming from them.

As Alaska finally reached Willam, she flung her arms around her in a hug and the girl’s body was racked with sobs. Willam sighed, muttering soft, calming words and rubbing Alaska’s back in circles. It had been a horrendous phone call even though it hadn’t lasted long- Alaska, just like Courtney, sensed something had been up, even to the extent that she’d known something had happened to Sharon. She had immediately broken down in tears, but Willam had hardly had time to say anything comforting to her before she was gone, presumably to phone a taxi.

“Is she okay?” Alaska squeaked out in between shudders and sobs. Willam gave her a squeeze.

“She’s in good hands. They’ve not given me an update but I think she’ll be okay. She was still breathing when I was with her so that’s a good sign.”

Alaska broke away from the hug slightly, horror on her face. “Oh my God, you were there? What happened?”

Willam sighed, not wanting to relive it all. “We had been for a drink and we were literally just saying goodbye. Sharon was crossing the road and we were mucking about, she was sort of walking across it really slowly. She stopped and paused in the middle of it and then the car just came at her.”

“She stopped in the road?” Alaska whispered. Willam could see her mind was going at around a thousand miles an hour.

“Alaska, it was 1am. The streets were dead.”

“But surely you could hear the car coming? Fuck, Willam, why didn’t you stop her or push her out of the way or something?” Alaska said, growing frustrated. Then, seeing Willam’s hackles immediately raising at the accusation, she stopped. “Sorry. Shit, I’m sorry, Willam, it wasn’t your fault, none of it was your fault. Fuck, it’s such a mess.”

Alaska began to cry again and Willam pulled her back into a hug. As she started to calm down, Willam took her hand and squeezed it.

“I’ve been put in a relative’s room- nobody’s updated me about Sharon yet but then I’ve only been here for 20 minutes. Why don’t we go inside and see if there’s been any progress?” she summoned a smile for her friend, not yet letting go of her hand. She led Alaska back into the hospital, past the initial shopping-centre facade of coffee shops and WH Smiths that lined the entrance hall and staved off the horrors of the fact that they were in an actual fucking hospital- a place where people bled and suffered and died, and Willam hated it.

She had only just managed to find her way back to the relative’s room and get a snuffling Alaska sat on the couch when a doctor who seemed entirely too young in an all-too-stereotypical white coat entered. Willam could have laughed at how much of a parody everything seemed, until the doctor spoke.

“Hello, ladies. I’m Dr Hall, I’ve been put in charge of Sharon for the time being,” he stuck out his hand, Willam following suit and shaking it while Alaska was unable to rise from the couch.

“I’m Willam, that’s Alaska. She’s Sharon’s girlfriend,” she responded as she shook. Semantics could get fucked for now- Alaska cared like a girlfriend, cried like a girlfriend and worried like a girlfriend so for the moment, that was who she was to Sharon.

“Good to meet you both. I’ve just been in triage with Sharon and I’ve done an initial assessment with the head nurse. It’s hard to say until we run some more thorough tests, but for the moment we believe Sharon has sustained a number of injuries and she’ll be in the ICU for her time here.”

There, the doctor paused as if to take in the reactions of the girls in front of him. Willam had been aware of a cry from Alaska, but she was motionless and felt completely sick. “Injuries like what?”

“Well, we’re certain she’s broken her leg. That’s straightforward enough and we’ll be able to fix that. She also has a laceration on her right arm that will need stitched up, but everything else seems to be internal. Her breathing is very laboured so we think there could be some sort of fracture to her ribs or alternatively a traumatic pneumothorax, what you and I would refer to as a punctured lung.”

Alaska gave a gasp as Willam took all of the information in. She knew Sharon was hurt, but she didn’t realise just how bad it was, as silly as it sounded.

“Apart from that, we’ll need to get her a CT scan to assess whether or not there’s any internal bleeding or any other fractures or breakages,” he continued, his face softening as his eyes settled on Alaska. “I’m very sorry, I know how hard this must be for you both.”

“Can we see her?” Alaska asked softly, her eyes filled with tears. Willam let a small breath go.

“Alaska, you heard him. Sharon will be waiting to go for scans just now, she’s not in a fit state for us,” Willam sat down next to her friend and pulled her close. Exhaustion seemed to overcome Alaska and her sobs fell quiet, choosing to look intently at the floor instead. Willam turned to address the doctor. “When can we see her, though?”

“It’s hard to say. Once she’s had her scans she might need to go into theatre and if so, she’ll be waiting for that. When she’s done, we’ll give her a room and you can go and see her. Until then you’re welcome to use this room as your base, and if you need me at all then please feel free to ask at reception for me,” Dr Hall smiled gently, nodding to the two women as he left the room and closed the door silently.

Once he was gone, silence filled the small room. Willam stood up slowly.

“Lask, I’m going to need to head back outside. I said I’d pick up Courtney. Are you going to be okay here?”

The other woman wordlessly nodded. Despite the uneasy feeling in her chest, Willam knew she had to go outside to see if Courtney was there.

As she walked back to the same spot where she’d met Alaska, thoughts swirled around her mind and poured over the top of each other like a whirlpool. A punctured lung, internal bleeding. All of it was so horrible. Willam couldn’t help but imagine the worst, and her stomach felt so tight and sick.

She didn’t have to walk all the way back outside, as she found Courtney as she turned into the small shopping area. She was leaving the little M&S food (capitalism at its worst, Willam thought, putting arguably the most expensive supermarket in a hospital so people have no other choice but to buy from them) with a small shopping bag and her face, similar to Alaska’s, was red and tear-stained. She was dressed in a sweatshirt, jeans and trainers but her hair was still curled neatly, indicative of her date just hours before.

She’d probably been having such a good night, Willam thought, and I’ve ruined it.

“Courtney,” Willam called her over, the other girl’s head turning at the mention of her name. Selfishly, Willam’s heart lifted at the brief light that shone in Courtney’s eyes when she saw her. As if everything that had happened between them had been forgotten, Courtney hurried forward and wrapped her arms around Willam in a hug. Willam could feel her breathing deeply as she sighed and her mind cruelly taunted her, the image of a rib piercing through Sharon’s lung springing to mind involuntarily even though she knew that wasn’t how a punctured lung worked. For a moment they both stood still in each other’s arms, the two women simply needing held, one anchoring the other.

Courtney pulled away first, like Willam knew she would. She fixed her red eyes on Willam’s and her face was full of concern. “How is she, Willam?”

“Doctor was just in, they’re doing a scan on her now but they think she’s got a punctured lung and maybe internal bleeding. She’s broken her leg and the road sliced her arm open too. She could have fractured or broken more bones but they don’t know yet,” Willam sighed, unable to break Courtney’s gaze. The other woman looked sick as she glanced down the corridor. Willam could see she was looking at all the different horrifying hospital signs, each as cryptic and foreboding as the last.

“Oh God, it’s horrible. Absolutely fucking horrible,” she said softly, shakily breathing in.

“She’ll be in the ICU once they’ve finished with her, but we don’t know how long that’ll be. Alaska’s here, and they’ve given us a room to wait in,” Willam explained, as she began to walk slowly forward, gently encouraging Courtney to follow.

Courtney walked a couple of steps silently, then gave a panicked laugh. “I’m an idiot. I just went and panic-bought a ton of hospital shit for Sharon. I doubt it’ll be much use to her.”

Willam looked down at the bag. “What did you get?”

Courtney gave a humourless bark of a laugh. “Grapes, Lucosade and Heat magazine.”

“The holy trinity of intensive care unit accessories,” Willam quipped equally humourlessly.

They walked the rest of the way in silence, Willam having to fight the urge to reach down and intertwine her fingers with Courtney’s as they walked down each corridor. She couldn’t believe she was having these horrible, selfish thoughts while Sharon was lying on a hospital trolley somewhere in the building but the whole experience had shocked and scared her, reminded her of how unforgiving and cruel fate could be, and that was enough to make anyone cling to the people they cared for.

The rest of the time in the relatives’ room passed in a blur. Courtney and Alaska were reunited and tears were shed as soon as they saw each other, Courtney clinging to Alaska and muttering how sorry she was over and over again whilst Alaska silently stood and let herself be held, tears alternating between streaming down her cheeks and dropping directly from her eyes onto Courtney’s hoodie. They sat and they waited. Willam made the three of them cups of tea, none of which were drank. They tried to talk about things, mundane things, anything that wasn’t Sharon. They sat still and isolated from each other, save for Courtney holding Alaska’s hand tightly, her knuckles white and curled around Alaska’s fingers.

It had been roughly an hour and twenty minutes when the doctor from before re-appeared in the room, and just before he spoke there was silence like Willam had never heard before, as if the whole world held its breath.

***

The beeping was monotonous and creepy and clinical, but to Willam it was the best sound she’d heard in her life because as long as the beeping continued, it meant Sharon was alive.

She didn’t look very Sharon-like, though, she supposed, as Willam watched in slight horror as her chest rose laboriously up and down. Tubes snaked in and out of various limbs and an oxygen mask was strapped to her swollen face, upon which had developed several green and blue bruises. She looked awful, but she was breathing.

The hours had both dragged and flown by. 03.40, Doctor Hall had explained that Sharon was in theatre as the CAT scan had uncovered internal bleeding near her liver. Their worst fear. Alaska had cried and Courtney had been shaken and Willam sat and stared at nothing, paralysed with fear. 04.15, another visit from the doctor after a tense and sickening half hour in the relatives’ room, which had begun to feel like a prison. The surgeons had stopped the bleeding and Sharon would be okay, although on top of the punctured lung she did have a broken collarbone, two fractured ribs and a fractured pelvis. Willam hadn’t known if she was supposed to be happy that Sharon wasn’t in immediate life-threatening danger or full of dread at all the horrible breaks and fractures she’d sustained. 04.50, another visit from Dr Hall, and just as tensions were running at their highest the three girls had finally been told they could see Sharon.

That had been the last update before they’d followed Dr Hall up to the intensive care unit and into a small, mercifully private room which housed a bed, two chairs, a bedside cabinet, a TV, and Sharon with all her tubes and machines. Willam hadn’t been able to stop staring at the woman on the bed since she’d seen her, and neither had the other two girls. Willam had given both of them the chairs and she’d chosen to stand near the door, which meant she could see both of their expressions. Courtney looked pale and blank-faced, Alaska looked mournful.

It was Alaska who spoke first in an entirely emotionless voice. “She doesn’t look like Sharon.”

There was a silence which Willam filled. “He did tell us that she’d look different. I know it’s freaky but all the stuff she’s hooked up to is all stuff that’s going to help her, Lask.”

Alaska nodded silently. She looked at one of Sharon’s hands, the one closest to the bed, which had an IV line attached to the back of it. Her mouth turned downwards. “I’m scared to even hold her hand in case something else goes wrong.”

Courtney rested a hand on Alaska’s arm. “Nothing’s going to go wrong. It’ll be fine.”

Alaska leaned forward, reached a hand out and awkwardly rested it over Sharon’s, lacing the tips of her fingers through Sharon’s own. Willam let out a breath she was unaware she’d been holding, akin to a sigh of relief.

“When will she wake up, do you think?” Alaska asked, her voice small.

Courtney sighed. “She’ll be resting for a while yet, I think. The pain meds will knock her out quite a bit.”

“Do you think when she wakes up she’d be able to get me some?” Willam deadpanned, without being able to help it. She watched as Alaska turned to look at her, then bit her lip as she stifled a laugh. Courtney first looked to Alaska, then at Willam before she let out a small giggle. Willam smiled. It wasn’t much, an unfunny joke about drugs, but it had lifted some of the tension from the room.

Suddenly, her phone buzzed once, then twice, then three times. A call. She took her phone out of her pocket, and she could see the other girls looking at her forebodingly.

Caller ID- Bianca.

Willam had known that the phone call would come, she just hadn’t expected it to be so soon. She looked at the other two girls, stepped out of the room, and took it.

“Hi, Bianca.”

There was a beat of silence on the other end of the line, which never ever happened in a Bianca Del Rio phone call. When Bianca phoned you she had shit to say immediately and she never wasted time. Now, though, Willam felt the seconds tick by. Her voice finally came. “Willam. What’s happened to Sharon.”

Willam cast her eyes through the glass to the three women in the small room, and her heart sank.

“Willam.”

Willam took a breath. “We were out together. She was in a hit and run. She’s in intensive care.”

There was some form of sound from Bianca that sounded both angry and anguished. Willam held her breath. “I’m sorry, Bianca, I should have phoned you earlier. I should have phoned the police-”

“Willam, you listen to me,” Bianca’s voice came down the line, hoarse and harsh. “Do not dare apologise. You weren’t to know. You got her to the hospital, which was the most important thing.”

There was a silence. Willam turned and looked at the pale, beige paint of the corridor walls. “It’s reached the press, hasn’t it.”

“Obviously.”

She hissed and let the silence linger. “Jesus Christ, Bianca, this is all a fucking hellscape.”

“I know. I know. And I can’t hold it from the front pages, Willam, they’re all fucking animals and they need to be fed. The Guardian have got a testimonial from a trainee nurse that knows all her fucking injuries and has leaked them all,” Bianca sighed. Willam had never heard her sound so hopeless. She was silent again. “You’ve been my first port of call. I’m going to phone the detective looking after Sharon’s case, because I don’t believe for a minute that this was a coincidence. Then I’m coming in to see her.”

“Bianca, don’t…” Willam began. How do you comfort a woman like Bianca? “Don’t worry about the press. There’s still a couple of hours before shit goes to print, we can figure something out.”

“I’m not worried about the press. I’m worried about Sharon.”

Silence.

Bianca’s voice came again. “I’ll see you in a bit. Take care, Willam.”

She was gone.

Willam walked back into Sharon’s room. Alaska and Courtney immediately looked up at her.

“The press have got it,” she said blankly. Courtney shook her head.

“Well, we knew it would only be a matter of time,” Alaska said softly, her face frowning.

“Bianca’s coming in. She’ll probably have police with her,” Willam said, then sighed as realisation dawned on her. “Which means I’ll get questioned. Can’t wait for that.”

Courtney caught her eye. She looked genuinely concerned for Willam and despite everything, Willam’s heart skipped a beat. Courtney rose slowly. “Well, we’ll all need coffee if we’re going to be awake much longer. I’ll get us some.”

“I’ll come with you,” Willam suddenly decided, Courtney’s eyes giving nothing away as she nodded her permission. Alaska simply looked up at them and then back down at Sharon. It was an unspoken fact that she wasn’t going to leave her side anytime soon.

Willam followed Courtney out into the corridor and then into the lift where they were both silent. Willam looked at the floor, then spoke.

“At least she’s alright.”

Courtney nodded. “True. I think we just need her to come to and then we’ll all breathe a sigh of relief.”

There was another silence as they walked into the small Costa. Courtney ordered three espressos with milk from a barista with purple hair and huge winged eyeliner, and they sat at a table and waited. Willam looked at Courtney’s face- the worried frown lines on her forehead, her glassy, tired eyes, her lips which were sore and bitten. She missed her so much.

“So,” Willam began, deciding to break the silence. “How was your date?”

“My date- oh!” Courtney looked confused, then enlightened. She gave a laugh. “Yeah…it was nice. Andrew’s a lovely guy and he’s a good old-fashioned gentleman.”

Willam wanted to laugh. What had she expected, Courtney to fall back into her arms? “Oh. Well, at least that’s-”

“But I think we’re probably going to stay as friends,” Courtney finished, interrupting her. Willam couldn’t help but feel her heart lifting.

“That’s a shame,” Willam frowned. Courtney looked at her for a beat, then spluttered a laugh.

“You don’t give a shit, do you?” she asked softly as she laughed. Willam snorted.

“No, I guess I don’t,” she smiled affectionately. Fuck, she’d missed laughing with her, seeing her eyes crinkle up and the way she’d tip her head back and let her hair cascade down her shoulders. “So what was the problem, then?”

Courtney raised her eyebrows. “He wasn’t really vegan. He just eats quorn sometimes. I took him to a vegan restaurant and he looked so horrified at the lack of meat.”

The both of them laughed quietly. Courtney looked awkward, as if she was about to say something else. Willam felt her heartbeat through her chest. She knew that Courtney was holding back on something and so she was almost afraid to say anything in case she backed off.

“Besides,” Courtney mentioned, her gaze firmly fixed on the floor. “He could tell…that I wasn’t over somebody.”

“Oh,” Willam said. It was as if her body couldn’t keep up with everything. One minute she was worried sick about Sharon, the next she was almost going into cardiac arrest because Courtney had basically dropped a massive hint.

Courtney had raised her gaze and fixed it on Willam. “Somebody being you.”

“Right.”

Courtney laughed. “I thought I’d spell that out for you, because you’re a massive fucking moron.”

Willam coughed out a laugh. “I am.”

Courtney smiled a little, looked at Willam expectantly for a beat, then looked again to the floor. Willam panicked. She couldn’t risk losing Courtney again.

“Well…I’m not over you either,” she said quietly, watching as Courtney’s eyes snapped up to face her. Maybe Courtney had been missing her as much as she’d been missing Courtney.

Courtney gave a little smile. “I know.”

Willam obviously looked taken-aback because Courtney burst out laughing, which made Willam start laughing too. As the laughter died down, all that was left was the pair of them looking into each other’s eyes. Just as Willam was about to speak and just as it looked as if Courtney was about to too, the barista yelled Courtney’s order. Courtney jumped up and grabbed the little cardboard tray of three coffees with one hand, then turned to Willam, smiled and gave a little shrug. Just then, her phone vibrated again.

“Bianca’s upstairs with Sharon and Alaska. There’s someone from Scotland Yard with her,” Willam explained as she looked at her phone. Courtney nodded.

“That’s the fun over then,” she quipped, moving towards the exit. Willam’s silence prompted Courtney to look towards her, her expression concerned. “Willam. It’ll be fine.”

Willam mustered a small smile as she walked towards the lifts. She was so lost in thought and worry that she almost didn’t notice Courtney transfer the tray of drinks to her right hand and silently curl her left hand around Willam’s own.

***

It was six o’clock in the morning, and Willam was exhausted. She’d never been questioned by the police before, and she never wanted to be again. They were sympathetic but relentless, and with each question Willam felt more and more useless. How much had Sharon had to drink? What was the precise time that it had happened? Whereabouts in the road was she standing? How fast was the car going? What was its number plate? What was the make of car? What was the colour? What did the driver look like? What did the driver do after they hit Sharon? Which way did they continue driving? Every question was one that Willam felt she couldn’t properly answer. They asked her some questions about the previous death threats, and who she felt might have been behind them- did Sharon have any enemies, and suchlike. Apart from blaming most of the UK’s far right population, Willam had said she wasn’t sure.

She and Bianca had been taken to a station nearby to the hospital, and she emerged from the small questioning room tired and simply wanting to go to bed, but knowing that she would return to the hospital to stay with Alaska and Courtney. She wasn’t really in the mood to speak much to Bianca, and for once Bianca didn’t seem as if she wanted to chat much to her.

“How were they with you?” Bianca asked, rising from the chair she’d been sitting on in the police waiting room as she saw Willam emerge.

“Fine. Didn’t feel very helpful, though,” Willam said, sighing as she walked with Bianca. “I should have written the number plate down, or looked harder at the car, or tried to get a look at the driver.”

Bianca frowned deeply. “Willam, you can’t blame yourself.”

They walked out of the station and down the small, quiet road which was starting to become bathed with morning sunlight. Willam turned to look at Bianca. In all her time working with her, she’d never seen her look so troubled.

Seeing Willam’s concerned look, Bianca exhaled. “I couldn’t keep it from going to the papers. There’s articles online now, and it’ll be on the front pages. We stuck the TV on in Sharon’s room and it was all over News 24. I’m sorry, Willam, I couldn’t protect her.”

“It’s alright, Bianca,” Willam sighed, stopping as she got to the junction. A big black car was waiting at a stop sign, presumably Bianca’s. The spin doctor looked troubled as she gazed to the car.

“It’s getting dragged into politics already.”

Willam cursed under her breath. This was all they needed, Sharon’s accident getting turned into a points-scoring exercise by different parties. “What are people saying?”

“Some of it’s nice. Most of the party have rallied round without me even having to give them a line. Latrice has given a statement, as has Trinity. Shea has tweeted support, so’s Sasha, Peppermint and Maxine. Ironically Sharon getting run over by a car is the most uniting thing she’s done for the party. If I’d known I would have hired her a hitman ages ago,” Bianca laughed bitterly. Her face turned grave. “It’s Mrs fucking Blind Man’s Crumpet herself.”

“Fucking Phi Phi,” Willam hissed, surprising herself with how much venom was in her voice.

“She’s spoken with ITV and she’s given the whole wobbly top lip expressing condolences thing, but she’s trying to turn it into an attack on immigrants.”

“Fuck, did she stretch before she reached? What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Willam complained, deeply irritated.

Bianca frowned. “Because The Sun, the paper we all love to line our cat litter trays with, is alleging that the hit and run was a terrorist incident carried out by an Asian man.”

Willam tore her hands through her hair. “But that’s bullshit, surely? Nobody knows who did it, the police don’t even know who did it!”

“They have a source,” Bianca said. “Which means that either it’s a bullshit source, their usual currency, or that the suspect has leaked it themself.”

“God, Bianca, this is fucking madness.”

Bianca looked at the pavement awkwardly, then at Willam. “Look, I wasn’t going to mention it to you today given the massive amount of stress you’ve already been put through, but we need something on Phi Phi’s party to distract from this mess. If you have anything…well, we’d all appreciate it. Especially Number 10, if you get me.”

Willam momentarily wished she was lying sleeping on a hospital bed instead of Sharon.

“Okay,” she simply nodded once, her mind too full of words to say anything else. Bianca nodded back in goodbye and walked towards her car. Willam watched her climb in and drive off before beginning her own walk back to the hospital. On the way she saw people walking to work, some of whom gave her funny looks. She wondered if they all knew what had happened, until she realised she was still in her clothes from last night- green fur jacket, black lace crop top, tight black skirt without tights and platform trainers on her feet.

Before long she was back at the hospital and in the lift up to the ICU. As she found Sharon’s room, it was almost as if the past hour or so hadn’t happened as the girls were still in the same position- Sharon unmoving on the bed, Alaska staring at her and holding her hand, and Courtney with her phone in her hand texting furiously. Alaska and Courtney looked up as Willam entered the room.

“Hey,” Courtney said, her eyes slightly wide in anticipation. “How was it?”

“It was okay. They asked me a bunch of things I couldn’t answer and then a couple of things I could. I just felt like a fucking failure, like I was no help at all.”

“Stop it,” Courtney frowned, chastising her. “You’re not a failure at all. I bet you were really helpful. Here, come sit. You must be shattered.”

With that, Courtney rose from her chair and beckoned Willam to sit. Too exhausted to protest, Willam slid into it. She looked at Sharon, then Alaska.

“Anything?”

Alaska sighed deeply. “Nothing. She hasn’t even moved.”

Worry churned in Willam’s stomach. Courtney piped up. “The doctor was in though, and he said that sometimes it can help to talk to them even if they’re not responding.”

“Did you try it?”

Alaska chuckled. “We read her some of Heat magazine.”

“Oh, good, she’d have loved that,” Willam said dryly, causing Courtney to snort. Willam thought for a moment, then turned back to Alaska. “Well, when she wakes up, you’ll be sitting there. She’s not properly seen you for ages. Why don’t you talk to her? Explain your side of everything that’s happened.”

Willam looked to Courtney for approval, who shrugged. “Worth a try, Lask.”

Alaska took a deep breath, laughed a little self-consciously, then turned to Sharon.

“Hey babe,” she began, looking at Willam and Courtney in embarrassment, then back to Sharon. “God, this is just…literal torture seeing you like this. Somehow I just feel like all of this is my fault, maybe if I’d stayed with you then you wouldn’t have gone out with Willam and none of this would have happened. I’m an absolute dick, really, because I’ve been ignoring you and every single attempt you’ve made at trying to contact me and then Willam phoned me and told me about what happened and all I could think about was getting here and being with you. It was the worst fucking moment of my life, Sharon. I kept torturing myself and wondering what if she never wakes up, that the last contact I had with you was over some fucking stupid USB stick that I didn’t even want to give to you in the first place? And I couldn’t even tell you-”

Willam looked up as Alaska sniffed. Tears were running down her face and welling in her eyes, and Alaska used the hand that wasn’t holding Sharon’s to wipe at her nose.

“I couldn’t even tell you want I wanted to tell you- that I wanted to just put everything aside and make up with you, to stop our stupid fucking fight, to tell you that I never wanted to end things with you and that the whole thing was a horrible, stupid mistake,” Alaska sobbed, snuffling and taking a deep breath in. “And I couldn’t even tell you that I loved you- that I love you- and when I got that call I was so fucking terrified of never being able to say it to you again. Do you remember when we first said it to each other, Sharon? It was the night we went out for dinner at that Italian restaurant at like, eleven o’clock after I’d gone with you to Newsnight, and you walked me back home and we watched a film- The Other Woman- and you hated it, and you were making all these jokes about it and I was joining in and we laughed so much that when it died down and we just looked at each other I couldn’t help but say it. And you said it back right after? Why can’t we go back to the way things were? Fuck, I would have kept our relationship secret for a lifetime if it meant we could have just stayed together. In fact fuck, if it means so much Sharon, I won’t pursue the whole MP thing. You’re more important to me than my job, you’re more important to me than life. I love you more than anything or anyone I’ve ever loved in my life so please…”

Alaska took a big gulp of air. “…please, fuck, get better.”

Willam and Courtney stood in a horrible, cold silence as they watched Alaska cry quietly to herself. Suddenly, Willam gave a slight jump as Sharon’s free hand came up to her face and slowly lifted the oxygen mask to one side.

“You are becoming an MP, bitch,” she croaked hoarsely, causing Alaska’s gaze to shoot up to look at her girlfriend. “There’s no way you’re giving up on that just because I’m in a hospital bed.”

Willam choked a laugh as she looked at Alaska, her face at once shocked and relieved. She looked slightly as if she didn’t know what to do for a moment, then elected to burst out crying, bringing Sharon’s hand up to her face to kiss it over and over again. Sharon laughed- tiredly, weakly, but it was a laugh nonetheless.

“Jesus Christ, you took your time there,” Willam smiled, part of her wanting to cry in relief too.

“How long have I been out for?” Sharon asked, coughing as she sat up.

“Since about 1. It’s like, 6.15 now.”

“Shit,” she said, her voice weak.

“How are you feeling?” Courtney asked, visibly relieved too.

“Like someone’s kicked me half to death. Pain meds do shit all, I feel like shit but also incredibly high,” Sharon wheezed, then turned to Alaska. Her face softened and judging by Alaska’s reaction, she had squeezed her hand. “Hey, stranger.”

Alaska laughed through her tears. “Hey.”

Sharon smiled affectionately. “Is this all I had to do to get you back, then? Get run over?”

“Don’t,” Alaska half-laughed, half-cried, then kissed Sharon’s fingers. “Sharon, I’m so sorry. Oh my God, I was so fucking worried.”

“Yeah, I know. I heard it all. I could have said something halfway through, I just wanted you to keep saying more nice things about me,” Sharon joked, still her old self despite the tubes and drips and machines. Her expression grew dark as she turned to Courtney. “Oh, by the way. Never read me fucking any women’s magazine ever again. Hearing about Natalie Cassidy’s fucking colonoscopy was more painful than getting struck down.”

All four of the girls laughed, happy to be together with everyone conscious and cheerful all over again.

“Bianca’s been round. And people have said nice things. Trinity, Peppermint, Latrice, Max, Shea, Sasha,” Willam mentioned, thinking it would cheer Sharon up. Sharon smiled in a lazy, drugged-up-on-pain-meds way.

“God. All that in five hours? Did Bianca leave flowers?”

“No, of course not,” Alaska sighed. Then she laughed. “She stuck News 24 on.”

The girls all laughed again, this time quieter. Courtney took a deep breath and stretched. Sharon narrowed her swollen eyes at her.

“Are we boring you, Act?”

Courtney gave a smile. “Listen, I’ve been up a long time. It’s hard to squeeze a date, a trauma and a relief into one night. Slash…morning.”

“Oh yeah, how did that go?” Alaska asked pleasantly. She’d still not let go of Sharon’s hand, Willam noted with a smile.

“It was nice. We’re going to stay friends, though.”

Sharon looked at Willam meaningfully. Willam gave her a look that simply said, behave.

“Fair enough. I think me and Alaska are going to stay friends too,” Sharon smiled lazily, laughing as Alaska’s face grew bashful.

“Stop it. I’ve suffered enough,” she leaned her head over to nuzzle it into the crook of Sharon’s neck, one of the few parts of her that didn’t have wires or tubes coming in or out of it.

“I know, baby, I’m sorry.”

Alaska frowned and lifted her head off of Sharon’s shoulder momentarily. “This isn’t the broken collarbone, is it?”

Sharon laughed. “I broke a collarbone? Oh, well, fucked if I know. Everything hurts.”

Willam laughed. She stretched and yawned. Life and normal routine seemed so far away. “I think I should go home and sleep, now that I know you’re alright.”

“Me too,” Courtney said, giving a yawn that Willam could tell was fake. Why was that?

“You guys go ahead. I’m going to stay here for a while,” Alaska smiled at Sharon, the other woman returning her smile and shrugging.

“You can go home if you want, babe. I might have another snooze.”

“Well, I’ll snooze with you,” Alaska said matter-of-factly, shuffling her chair forward and resting her head on Sharon’s side. Sharon smiled and used her other hand to stroke Alaska’s hair.

Willam looked at Courtney, taking her cue to leave. She cast her gaze back to the couple. “I’ll be back when I’ve had a sleep and something to eat. Bianca might be back, just to warn you.” She wondered if she should mention the shit with Phi Phi. She decided not to.

“Oh, goody,” Sharon sighed, re-adjusting her oxygen mask so that it was over her face as a goodbye. Alaska waved sleepily to her friends and then Willam left the room, followed by Courtney. They walked down the corridor silently for a minute, neither one of them sure of what to say. Courtney’s words from earlier swirled around in Willam’s mind, and the fact that the two of them were alone together again, with so much possibility and opportunity of things that could be said, made Willam’s skin prickle in excitement and optimism.

As if she could read Willam’s mind, Courtney gave a small sigh as they both walked into the open air. She turned to face Willam and looked her in the eyes. “I know it sounds stupid, but I could really murder a glass of wine.”

“Same.”

Courtney was still looking at her. “Well, I’ve got wine at my place, if you want to come.”

Willam didn’t hesitate. “Okay. Sounds good.”

They talked about trivial things on the walk to the tube, and on the tube itself. The elephant in the room (or train carriage) was enormous and almost suffocating, and the sound of the train against the electric charges almost mirrored the electricity that seemed to run through Willam’s veins - Courtney isn’t over me, and I’m not over her.

It was almost seven o’clock in the morning by the time they got to Courtney’s flat, but the sheer adrenaline that was pumping through her heart was keeping Willam awake. As Courtney opened her front door for Willam and slipped off her shoes, Willam looked around at the small hallway. It had been around four months since she’d last been here, but nothing had changed. It was somehow reassuring to Willam. She followed Courtney into the kitchen where the other girl had pulled out two bottles of wine- an unopened red with a somewhat dusty bottle, and a half-full white with that fresh-from-the-fridge wet glaze.

“I like either, so it’s your pick,” Courtney smiled easily, making Willam wonder whether or not she was feeling the same mix of apprehension and excitement.

“Well, white’s going to make us feel less guilty about the fact we’re drinking wine when we’re normally getting ready for work,” Willam shrugged, Courtney snorting a laugh and fetching two glasses from a cupboard below her breakfast bar. She picked up the glasses in one hand and the bottle in the other and made her way through to the living room, Willam following behind her. As they slumped down on the sofas and Courtney poured the wine out, Willam sighed.

“I’m so fucking relieved she’s okay.”

Courtney looked at her, an expression on her face that Willam couldn’t make out. “I just can’t believe it all actually happened. It’s like a horrendous nightmare,” she lifted up her glass. “To Sharon being alive.”

Willam smiled lazily and echoed the sentiment. “To Sharon being alive.”

There was silence for a moment as they both took a sip, Willam watching the early morning sun bathe the skyline out of Courtney’s French doors.

“Do you think…it was deliberate?” Courtney spoke quietly, Willam looking at her only to find Courtney was looking at the view as well.

“Fuck, I don’t know. The police think so. Could be, or it could be a jittery driver with a guilty conscience who didn’t want to stop.”

Courtney nodded, then narrowed her eyes. “Didn’t the doctor say she was lucky to be alive? Ten miles an hour more and she wouldn’t have made it. If it was a main road and the car wasn’t going that fast, it kind of sounds like someone was parked waiting for her. Do you not think?”

Willam rolled her eyes. “Or it was just someone that wasn’t driving very fast.”

“On a main road like that at 1am? Willam, come on.”

Willam couldn’t help but laugh. “What is this, CSI: Sydney?”

Courtney walloped Willam on the arm, then laughed with her. She sighed. “I’ve just been sitting waiting with Alaska for so long that I’ve had all of these thoughts running around my head, but of course I couldn’t share them with her. I’m glad you came back with me.”

Willam’s heart gave a jump. She wanted to say something in response, something flirty that didn’t come on too strong, but her mind couldn’t conjure anything up.

Courtney spoke again, and Willam noticed she had that same look on her face as before. “So how come you were,” she paused the tiniest amount. “…out with Sharon anyway?”

“She suggested it. Probably thought it’d cheer us both up,” Willam shrugged, taking another sip. She noticed Courtney still hadn’t taken that look off her face. What did she want from her?

Honesty?

“Court, you should probably know. And I probably should’ve told you sooner. Me and Sharon had this whole thing when we were at uni,” Willam felt herself just coming out with it and it was like jumping out of a moving vehicle. Courtney’s expression finally relaxed.

“Okay.”

Willam picked at a stray thread on a sofa cushion. “You don’t seem surprised.”

“Because I’m not,” Courtney said plainly, taking a small sip. She paused, then added, “You always had this weird tension between you when you started. Like you really weren’t keen on her and I couldn’t see why. She always seemed as if she was walking on eggshells slightly around you. It only really seemed to go away…gosh, I don’t know when. But I always wondered why you were like that with her.”

Willam looked out at the view again. “I tried to reset my own view of the whole situation. I told anyone who asked that I knew her from uni, and that wasn’t a lie, but just not the full truth either.”

There was a small silence. Courtney leant over to top up their glasses. As she was pouring, she spoke again. Willam noticed how level and nonchalant her voice was, as if she was making a particular effort not to sound too interested. “So what was it that went on between you?”

Willam exhaled. Even after she’d talked through it all with Sharon, she still didn’t know what they’d been. “A miscommunication. She thought we were just friends that fucked, which we were. I saw it as more than that. I was a young, naive little bitch and I just got too deep in my feelings. It’s fucked, though, because the whole thing just made me so scared of relationships. Like what if it ever happened again to me and I was into it but the other person wasn’t?”

Courtney nodded understandingly. Her eyes were soft. It was scary to Willam to be telling Courtney all of this, but she didn’t seem to be scared off by it.

“Wonder how that feels, to be really, really into someone only to find out that they weren’t on your wavelength about it at all.”

“It was-” Willam started, then stopped as realisation dawned on her. She looked at Courtney, who was trying to conceal a smile. Willam laughed apologetically. “Fuck.”

Courtney gave a soft laugh, reaching out and taking Willam’s free hand. She held it gently. The gesture almost broke Willam’s heart. All at once it hit her just how badly she’d fucked up with Courtney. Only now was she realising that she had put Courtney in the exact same position that she had been in with Sharon all those years ago. Looking at Courtney’s hand, she squeezed it tightly. “Courtney, I’m sorry. I mean it.”

Courtney gave a peaceful smile. “I know you are.”

Willam smiled back. A small weight on her heart noted that she’d not been forgiven, only acknowledged, but after the past fortnight or so, acknowledgement was better than nothing.

“What was Bianca saying anyway?” Courtney continued, sipping her wine again. Willam sighed deeply.

“Well, you know that Phi Phi’s trying to politicise everything already. Bianca wants something on her party to take the heat off Sharon.”

Courtney grimaced and shook her head. She still hadn’t let go of Willam’s hand. “Jesus Christ, it’s all so messy and gross and tasteless.”

“I know, Court, but it’s our career. It was bound to happen. Politician gets hit by car, it turns political. Politician does anything, it turns political,” Willam shrugged, taking a drink. The sun was higher in the sky now and it was illuminating Courtney’s hair so beautifully.

“What are we supposed to get for her? This situation’s already stressful enough as it is.”

Willam felt herself tense up. She allowed herself to confront what she’d been pushing to the back of her mind all this time. She still had those photos on her phone of Roxxxy and Detox from all those months ago at Alyssa’s ball, and Phi Phi had recently voted against an LGBT-inclusive curriculum in secondary schools. How would the media react if she’d unknowingly voted against a policy which showed disapproval towards her own two advisors?

“I have something,” Willam stated simply, causing Courtney to sigh in relaxation.

“Thank Christ. Just give it to Bianca now and she can get out of our hair and let Sharon recover. What is it, anyway? Oil dumping in the Pacific? Foxhunting?” she laughed gently, stopping as she saw Willam’s grave face.

“Roxxxy and Detox,” she said. Courtney’s face dropped, her wine glass tipping over a little and threatening to spill. “I got photos of them at Alyssa’s ball, together. It would make Phi Phi look like a massive idiot and would take her down more than a few pegs…” Willam let all the air out of her body and looked into her glass. “…but it also outs both of her advisors.”

Courtney looked sick. “Oh God. Willam, you can’t do that.”

“I know,” she shook her head and wondered if she could voice the other horrible thought in her head. Communication could be good right now, she supposed. “Although part of me thinks why not? Fuck them, you know? They were both absolute cunts to Alaska, they work for a fucking sycophant. And I just…ugh…I really want that Number 10 job, and Bianca heavily implied that any info on this could get me it.”

She looked hesitantly for Courtney’s reaction. It turned out there were a lot of them. First, she wrinkled her nose and scrunched up her face in a brief display of disgust. Then, her expression completely dropped as if she was considering something. Finally she put her glass down, reached out to take Willam’s hand in her own, and gazed at her kindly.

“Willam,” she began. “Why do you want this job so much?”

Willam gave a choked laugh. “I mean it’s…it’s my fucking dream, Courtney. It’s all I’ve ever wanted out of life, to get to Number 10, to actually say I work there. I’ll have finally made it…and not many people can say that.”

“Okay,” Courtney nodded. Willam could tell she was listening intently. “So…you get the job at Number 10, let’s say. And what then?”

Willam blinked. “What do you mean?”

“What then? What do you aim for, what do you aspire to be after that? If that’s your life’s dream and it’s already achieved? Bill, you’re not even 30 yet,” Courtney smiled gently, tucking a piece of Willam’s layers behind her ear. “If you complete your life’s goal and you’re not even at the halfway point…what happens then?”

Willam felt completely blank. “Well, I…”

Courtney continued. “I know you don’t want to be PM, because you’re happy in the background. I know you don’t have any designs on leadership for the same reason. So what else is there?”

Willam paused and thought, trying to summon up something. “Bianca’s going to have to retire at some point.”

Courtney barked a laugh. “And what, you take her job? You take the job that consumed Bianca’s life so much she ended up getting divorced and she now lives on her own with no family? You want that life?”

Willam felt as if she’d heard Courtney’s voice catch in her throat. She was looking at her almost pleadingly, hopefully, desperate for what she deigned the right answer. Her intensity unsettled Willam. Or perhaps it was the truth in all that Courtney was saying? She’d never once reconsidered her determination to get to Number 10, never once wavered in her decision-making, because if she changed her mind about the job she’d wanted for so long, what was left?

“What do you have at Dosac? You’ve got me, you’ve got Sharon, you’ve got Alaska and the other girls. You’ve got a considerable amount of influence, you’re a big fish in a small pond. Other departments know your name, you’ve got so many opportunities. And if you change now…all that will be gone.”

Willam looked out of the windows again. The sun was now directly at her eye level. She turned back to Courtney and frowned at her. “Why are you saying all this, Court?”

Courtney looked away as if Willam’s gaze had burnt her. “I’m not trying to stop you from going after what you want, Willam. That would make me a horrific friend and an even worse person. I’m just trying to get you to be sure that it really is what you want.”

Willam’s voice caught in her throat. She looked away from Courtney, drained her glass, then placed it gently on the coffee table in front of them both.

“I should probably go home-” Willam began, making to slide off the couch, but Courtney gripped tighter to her hand. Turning, Willam saw a need in Courtney’s eyes that she’d never once experienced before.

“Stay,” she said simply. It was so quiet but so strong, and the blood in Willam’s veins was freezing and icy but pumping so rapidly like an ice cold waterfall, and she could feel her heart plummeting with it.

“Why?” Willam asked, and as soon as it left her mouth she cursed herself for it, but a part of her wanted to hear Courtney say what was on her mind. Frowning and sighing a tiny, needy sigh, Courtney gently tugged at Willam’s hand.

“I just need to be…close to you just now. Because I’ve fucking missed you.”

Willam looked at her hand in Courtney’s, then met her eyes.

Now or never.

And in one fluid movement Willam was back on the sofa, both her hands fisted and tangled in Courtney’s blonde hair, melting and moaning into a kiss full of fire that Willam wanted never to end.

***

Willam woke up in the same bed she’d woken up in in December, with the same girl she’d woken up with in December. Except the circumstances weren’t quite the same. Instead of grey skies and pouring rain, the sun that poked through the blinds was golden and warm, lighting up the room. Courtney was still in the bed, her eyes shut with her dark lashes fanned out and framing them as she slept. Probably the biggest difference, though, was that both of them were completely naked.

Sex with Courtney was every bit as amazing as Willam had imagined it would be, and she was already sorry that she couldn’t remember every single second of the entire thing in detail. She could swear that nobody else, not even Sharon, could make her feel the way Courtney had made her feel last night. She had expected it to be good and for Courtney to know what she was doing, but what she didn’t expect was for Courtney to have a mouth like a phone sex chat line girl and she had actually almost laughed in awe of the stuff she was coming out with. She didn’t know if it was the intensity of the situation that fed into it- there were so many emotions that Willam had been put through last night (or this morning, she supposed) that she had almost cried once everything was over and Courtney was holding her in her arms, but she hadn’t. She’d been calm, and happy, like her life was finally at peace. Sharon was going to be alright, and Courtney had…what? Courtney had forgiven her? Courtney liked her again? Courtney wanted to be more than her friend? She didn’t know, but she got the feeling that whatever it was was positive.

Willam wondered whether or not to wake her up but Courtney quickly solved that problem as her arm reached out to grab Willam by the waist and pull her closer, Courtney nuzzling into her side sleepily.

“Hey,” she murmured through a yawn, kissing Willam’s skin and making her feel as if she was 19 years old with a melting, gooey heart all over again.

“G’morning,” Willam smiled, rubbing her eyes then remembering she hadn’t taken off any of her makeup from the night before. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Mm. Always sleep like a baby after sex, I think it’s some weird nympho-narcoleptic thing I need to see a doctor about.”

Willam’s heart hammered in her chest and instantly woke her up more. “So we’re just coming out and addressing that that happened immediately?”

Courtney hurriedly sat up in bed and looked her in the eye, exasperation on her face. She’d foregone pulling the duvet up to cover herself and her boobs were fully out. “Uh, we’re both stark bollock naked, dipshit. How much more addressing of the situation could there be?”

“Yeah I know, fuckhead!” Willam snapped, a laugh bubbling in her throat. “I just don’t…I don’t know what this means now? Like what are we?”

Courtney half-laughed, half-sighed then pulled a pillow over her face and yelled into it. “Fuck! I don’t know, Willam, okay?”

Willam was smiling, but she simultaneously felt as if she was hanging by a thread. She watched as Courtney pulled the pillow off her face then rolled over and pulled her close.

“Cards on the table, I really fucking like you. I’ve never stopped liking you. I care about you, and I want to see you do well, and I like us when we’re together. We just work, we fit. We squabble at times, but it’s never malicious. But this job…it’s a bitch, and I don’t want us ending up having to hide away or have our lives ruined by it like Sharon and Alaska. So I don’t…” Courtney sighed. Willam could see her pulse thudding rapidly under her skin by her wrist. “I don’t want to label us just now. I’m scared to. But can we just…can we at least be exclusive? Because I don’t want to share you with anyone else.”

Willam smiled and rolled her eyes. “As if I’d fucking want anyone else.”

Courtney nuzzled her head into Willam’s side, and Willam cast her eyes to the sun coming in through the blinds. She blinked quickly three times. “No, that sounds good. Exclusive but with no labels. I can do that. Does this mean I’m forgiven?”

“For what?” Courtney kissed Willam’s temple.

“For being a cunt to you.”

“You were a cunt to me?” Courtney pulled away, frowning. “Now that doesn’t sound like Willam Belli at all.”

Willam took that as a yes.

“No more games,” Courtney said quietly, gently stroking the palm of Willam’s hand with her finger.

“No more games,” Willam agreed.

It was 2 o’clock by the time they got back to the hospital to see Sharon, after they’d showered, dressed (Willam borrowing Courtney’s clothes again), had some breakfast and got the two tubes over. It was an unspoken plan- they hadn’t talked about whether they should stay at the flat, or go visit Sharon, or even go into work. There was only one place they really needed to be today. They’d talked and chatted and laughed just as they used to, but without any awkward tension and with extra added hand holding and light knuckle and cheek kisses. They’d wondered out loud whether it had been in poor taste to fuck within the 24 hours that they’d found out Sharon had been hit by a car, before deciding that it was probably what Sharon would have wanted and endorsed anyway.

When they arrived at Sharon’s ward, it was as if nothing had changed at all- Alaska seemingly hadn’t moved from her seat and was still sitting in it facing Sharon in her Winnie the Pooh pyjamas, while the other woman was still in bed but was propped up with pillows and had her oxygen mask on. She had a loving, dreamy look on her face and seemed to be listening to Alaska talk when Courtney and Willam arrived. Alaska turned around excitedly when they came in.

“Morning,” Willam smiled, moving to hug Alaska tightly and then Sharon markedly less so, in case Willam accidentally pulled a wire out. “Or afternoon, or whatever the fuck time it is.”

“Hey,” Sharon took her mask off and smiled gently.

“How are you feeling, Sharon?” Courtney asked as she took her turn to hug her.

“I’m holding up okay. I had a big sleep when you two left, woke up at like 9. Then me and Alaska had a massive chat which took about an hour and exhausted me, so I had a nap again. Woke up about an hour ago and Alaska had stuck on the news. It’s weird seeing myself on the news in a capacity which isn’t politics. I’m not in the mood for a lot of talking so Alaska’s just been telling me about her leadership campaign,” Sharon gestured to Alaska’s happy, excited face and smiled fondly. “Christ, she looks like she’s about to explode. I fucking love this girl so much.”

Willam made a vomiting sound as she pulled up a chair beside Alaska. “Gross. So your big chat. Did you both grow up and say sorry to each other?”

Willam saw Alaska squeeze Sharon’s hand. “Of course we fucking did. That was the first thing we said. Then we basically just cried and talked about how much we loved each other for the next 59 minutes.”

Courtney laughed, and Alaska gave a small giggle then shook her head as she looked at Sharon. “No, joking. Well, we did do that. But we also spoke about career stuff- what we wanted in the next five years, what we need to do to get there.”

“It’s doable for what we both want. We just need to support each other, make it two sided and communicate. I know that now,” Sharon piped up, smiling at Alaska as if it was for her benefit and not Courtney and Willam’s.

“Well, I’m glad you two have made up,” Courtney smiled softly, moving to perch on Willam’s knee in the absence of a chair. Willam pulled her close. She didn’t miss the look that passed between Alaska and Sharon.

“Um, on the topic of making up…” Alaska raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly at them both. “…what is this?”

“Courtney sitting on my lap?” Willam said sarcastically, resting her head on Courtney’s back.

“Yes…” Sharon said, waving a tubed-up hand to prompt more. “So…?”

“So…what?” Courtney asked, just as deadpan as Willam had been, and she loved her for it.

“Oh fuck, put a dying woman out of her misery!” Sharon coughed out in exasperation, earning her a furious look and a gentle smack from Alaska.

“DON’T joke about that!” she glared at her for all of two seconds, before she took her hand and turned back to Courtney and Willam. “But seriously guys, Sharon’s only got one properly working lung, can you just give us the information that we both already know but want to scream like babies at when it comes from you?”

Courtney turned and looked at Willam, suddenly embarrassed. Willam gave her a squeeze and spoke for her. “Well, we’re going to disappoint you, because we’re not girlfriends. We can’t all fall in love with our work friends and go balls-deep into a relationship. But no, we’re just…”

“We like each other, and we’re exclusive, and we’re going to take it a day at a time,” Courtney finished, Alaska giving a small, excited squeal. Sharon smiled and rolled her eyes.

“Bo-ring! I want to know if you’ve banged yet.”

“Yeah, we did,” Courtney shrugged, Willam completely shocked at her blasé display of honesty but also too tired to care much. Sharon let out a loud cheer, then immediately started coughing violently in a sobering display that reminded the girls why they were all together in the first place. Seeing Alaska’s concerned face, Sharon frowned.

“I’m fine, it’s okay,” she wheezed, waving a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry. Just coughing up pieces of old lung, they say the new one should grow back within 3-5 working days.”

Alaska snorted. Willam laughed and shook her head. “You’re so fucking unfunny it hurts.”

Sharon shrugged. “Blame the pain meds, I’ve been popping them like Smints.”

They chatted quietly after that, the four of them just enjoying each other’s’ company without having to talk about work or politics or anything like that. Often Alaska would talk for Sharon, the other woman wearing her oxygen mask and resting. Alaska had phoned Jinkx and texted the comms girls to fill them in on what had happened, after they all basically woke up, saw the headlines and immediately fired off about fifty texts to Alaska, Courtney and Willam (none of which Willam saw, her phone having long since died.). Sharon was annoyed that Jinkx wouldn’t honour her request to bring in her work laptop so she could work from her hospital bed, a request which all three advisors were glad she’d shut down. They were all going to pop in at some point in the evening to visit, Adore and Katya promising to bring what they’d termed as “huge, inconvenient, inflatable balloons”. Willam had told Sharon about the Phi Phi incident, Sharon rolling her eyes almost to the back of her head but refusing to allow herself to get worked up over it.

“That’s a point, actually,” she said, sitting up in bed and wincing slightly at some unseen pain. “Didn’t you say Bianca would be visiting me soon? She’s not been in.”

“Well, she still has to oversee all the other departments. Maybe something’s happened with them?” Courtney offered, Sharon shrugging and conceding.

Around ten minutes later, they had their answer. Bianca came in to Sharon’s room dressed in her usual work attire, ironically all in black. Her face was serious but she had a small, kind smile, and was holding a box of Guiylan pralines.

“Christ, Bianca, I’ve not died,” Sharon laughed by way of a greeting, as Bianca cracked a rare, genuine smile and handed her the chocolates.

“Shut it. Some of us still have to go to work. How are you?”

“Sore.”

“That’s crap, I’m sorry. And I’m sorry I didn’t swing by earlier. I’ve been at Number 10, I’ve been with the police, I’ve been into Dosac. This might be a bit of good news for you,” she said, addressing the room this time. “The police have apprehended a guy. Old woman who lives in the area had CCTV outside her flat. She came forward with footage of a car going well beyond the speed limit. Matches the time that the whole thing happened. They were able to get a number plate from it and traced it back to the fucker.”

Willam was in shock. She had no idea it would all happen so quickly. Looking at Bianca closely, she could see how puffy her eyes were and how her dark circles had been concealed with foundation, and how much her hands were shaking. It hit her how hard Bianca must have been working to help the police catch whoever had done this to Sharon.

“Thank you, Bianca,” she said, her voice coming out way more emotional than she’d meant it to. Bianca turned to her in surprise, as if she was taken aback slightly.

“Well, I mean, don’t thank me. The police did all the work. They’ll be in to question you, Sharon, but once you’re feeling a bit better. Maybe this evening, or tomorrow.”

“Oh, great. Reliving the moment a car hit me in all its horrifying detail, with the greatest hits of poison pen letters as a follow-up. All my fucky stars have come at once,” Sharon said. Her breathing was becoming laboured, so she put her oxygen mask back on.

“Just keep the damn thing on, you’ve had it off and on like a fucking lightswitch the entire time you’ve been awake,” Alaska chastised her, tucking the hospital blanket in around Sharon. “I’ll maybe see if there’s some way Jinkx can bring in your duvet.”

“You could always go get it for her,” Courtney suggested, Alaska laughing at the ridiculous suggestion.

“Yeah, good one Court, like I’m going to leave her side until she’s discharged.”

Bianca watched the whole exchange carefully, then opened her mouth. “So I take it…that you’re back together.”

Alaska looked at Sharon and nodded.

“You understand that I’m absolutely livid at the pair of you for ever beginning this in the first place and that if it had even got into the media you would have been out of a job?” Bianca said, pointing to Alaska. Alaska blinked and gave a small shrug.

“She would have been worth it,” she said, Willam noticing how Sharon squeezed Alaska’s hand. Bianca fake-gagged.

“Yes, well, in any case, I’m hearing you’ve got plans to stand in the by-election? Is that still happening?” Bianca asked. “Because if it is, then it would make my life a lot easier. There’s not nearly as many implications. In fact you could probably put you two into the public eye. Might be good for the party.”

Sharon wheezed a laugh and Alaska suppressed a smile. “God. Our relationship is literally politically correct. But yeah, I am standing. It’d be good to get some tips from you about that, actually.”

Bianca checked her phone as she spoke. “You don’t need tips. I’ll get you the support you need. Might as well start considering yourself an MP.”

Alaska smiled happily, bringing Sharon’s hand up to her face and kissing it in excitement.

“Although that does mean a position opening up at Dosac. Got anyone in mind, Sharon?”

Sharon sighed exasperatedly, ripping off her mask and gesturing to all her tubes and wires. “Funnily enough, no, I’ve been too busy being a human fucking colander!”

Willam smiled at Sharon knowingly. “I’ve got someone in mind. She’s young, and a bit fucking useless at the moment, but we could train her up. She’s got potential.”

“Well, that seems sorted,” Bianca shrugged. “Right, I’m going to have to make tracks. Flying visit. One of Trinity Taylor’s one night stands has gone to Closer magazine and we can’t risk that getting into the press. But take care, okay?”

Sharon waved a hand. “Thank you, Bianca.”

“No problem. See you later. Willam, can I borrow you for a second?”

Willam’s heart sank as she followed Bianca out of the room. She knew that Bianca was going to ask her if she had anything on Phi Phi. She knew that the photos were still in her phone, burning a hole in her pocket. She knew that Courtney didn’t want her to take the job at Number 10. She knew that her and Courtney weren’t at all official yet.

What she didn’t know was what she was going to do.

They stood at the side of the corridor beside the glass outside Sharon’s room, doctors and nurses hurrying past and completely oblivious to Willam about to make one of the biggest decisions of her life.

“So,” Bianca opened. “If you’ve got anything for me, now is the time to say, because the right-wing media are starting to lap up Phi Phi’s bullshit pretty fucking quickly. It would take a lot of the heat off Sharon if we could just…bury her.”

Willam felt pained. She had completely forgotten about the implications this would have for Sharon.

“So anything at all would be a saving grace,” Bianca finished, looking Willam in the eye and almost triggering a fight or flight response in her.

What would Courtney want her to do? What would Bianca want her to do?

What would Sharon want her to do?

“Um,” Willam swallowed. Her throat was completely dry. “You know, it’s been a rough 24 hours…I haven’t really managed to find anything.” Bianca looked visibly disappointed. “Sorry, Bianca.”

The other woman nodded understandingly. “That’s okay. It has been a rough time. Thank you for looking after her, Willam.”

Willam gave a small smile and without knowing what possessed her, she was speaking again. “Also, Bianca…take me out of the running for the Number 10 job.”

This was the first time Willam had ever seen Bianca look legitimately shocked in her life. Bianca always knew what was going on, she was always so plugged in and in the loop, there was so rarely anything that she didn’t know. So this information was clearly a bombshell. “I mean. I can, but I would also be asking why in the fuck would you want me to do that?”

Willam sighed. “I’m still young. There’ll be other chances to work there and besides, there’s other stuff I want to focus on right now. There’s more to life than politics, I guess.”

Bianca gave a harsh laugh. “Life is politics, Willam.”

“Your life, maybe.”

“Yeah, well,” Bianca exhaled. She had a faraway look in her eyes. “I suppose you��re right about that.”

Willam suddenly heard Courtney laugh through the glass and she involuntarily smiled. She looked back at Bianca, who was looking through the glass.

“Is this because of her?”

Willam looked back at the glass, then cocked her head. “Sort of. It’s for me first, and her second. People spend so much of their lives wishing for better, focusing so much on the future or on the past. Like…what’s wrong with what we have now? You know? Appreciate what you’ve got. Change is good. Except if it’s not. I don’t know, fuck, I’m so tired.”

Bianca nodded slowly, a tiny frown still present on her face. “You’re sure this is what you want?”

“Honestly, no,” Willam laughed. “But I’m sure I want things to stay as they are, for now. There’s going to be so much change in Dosac. It would be nice for me to stay a constant.”

Bianca gave a small sigh. “Well, I won’t say I’m not disappointed. But good for you, Willam.”

Willam shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I’ll see you, Bianca.”

“See you, Willam.”

As Bianca walked away, Willam thought it was the first time she’d ever seen her look genuinely gutted. It made her feel slightly proud of herself, though she had no idea why. Watching her until she was out of sight, Willam turned back and went back into Sharon’s room.

“Back,” she said. Sharon looked up at her, puzzled.

“What was that all about?” she frowned.

“Wanted to know if I had anything we could use on Phi Phi.”

“And did you?”

Willam looked at Courtney, who seemed frozen. She paused. “No. No, of course I didn’t. Been too busy making sure your dumb fucking roadkill ass is okay, haven’t I?”

As Sharon and Alaska laughed, Willam watched as Courtney’s face lit up. She crossed the room and wrapped her arms around Willam in a hug. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.

“Willam, I’ve been meaning to say. Thank you. For phoning the ambulance,” Sharon said, suddenly serious. Her voice was quiet and her face grave.

Willam reached out and touched her leg lightly. “That’s what best friends do.”

Sharon smiled in gratitude, then gave a yawn. “Sorry to be boring, but I think I need to sleep again.”

“Well, we’ll leave,” Courtney smiled, her voice gentle. “I kind of want to go for a walk round the park. It’s such a nice day. You fancy joining us, Lask?”

Willam barely had time to bask in the use of “us” before Alaska rolled her eyes.

“What part of I’m-not-leaving-Sharon’s-side do you not understand? Go,” she smirked, looking at Willam and Courtney hand in hand. “Be cute and gross.”

Willam smiled at Courtney sheepishly, and Courtney smiled back. She turned back to the other couple in the room. “We’ll be back around dinnertime. Want us to bring you anything?”

“Ugh, a Wasabi please. Lunch was mush, with mashed mush, on a bed of mush. It’s enough to turn me vegetarian,” Sharon shook her head before laying down on her pillow and closing her eyes. “Thanks for coming in. See you later, guys.”

“See you both,” Courtney smied, waving at Alaska as she opened the door and Willam following behind her. Once they were out the room, they had taken a few steps down the corridor before Courtney spoke again. “I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks,” Willam said as she pressed the button for the lift. She wondered if she should say any more, but thanks was enough, and she decided to leave it. “So. Park then home, then back to see Sharon?”

“Home,” Courtney gave a little smile as she looked at Willam. “Home sounds nice.”

And as the lift doors closed leaving them both sealed up together going down towards the bright Spring day outside, Willam had to agree.

***

Willam woke up in the same bed she’d woken up in in December, and in April, with the same girl she’d woken up with in December and April. Except the circumstances weren’t quite the same. Firstly, Courtney was out of bed before her, and Willam could hear her battering and clanging around in their kitchen together (their kitchen, Willam thought fondly to herself, it would never get old to say their like that). Second, Willam didn’t have any inner turmoil or panicked thoughts or insecurities running around her mind. She was peaceful and calm, and life was good. Sure, Sharon had a fucker of a TV debate coming up the next day, and Willam was afraid that her ribs might re-break at the sheer force with which she was going to shout at Phi Phi O’Hara, but apart from that everything was all just fine. She hadn’t felt this calm in forever. In fact, no, that was a lie. She’d woken up feeling this calm every single day for the past two months since the day she and Courtney walked out of that lift together. Sure, there were one or two blips- the day she’d asked Courtney to be her girlfriend she had woken up completely convinced she was having a heart attack- but that aside, she’d never felt this content.

“Bill!” came a voice from the kitchen. “Put it on!”

Willam sat up, groaned, and rubbed her eyes sleepily. “What channel?”

A frustrated sigh. “It’s Sunday fucking Politics, you know what channel!!”

Laughing, Willam fumbled for the remote on her bedside table, in danger of knocking over many half-empty cups of coffee, and switched the TV on. She hadn’t needed to find the channel as the TV immediately showed her what they were both looking for- Alaska Thunder, MP for West Central London, the first MP to take the seat from Phi Phi O’Hara’s party in 12 years, in her biggest TV interview so far.

“Court, it’s started!” Willam shouted through, hearing a thunder of footsteps in response. Soon enough her girlfriend, her beautiful, tiny, blonde koala girlfriend, emerged from the hallway in her huge flannel Snoopy pyjamas holding two cups of coffee.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” she was saying, reaching over and almost spilling half the coffee on the bright white bedsheets as she half-handed, half-threw it to Willam. “I said to you it bloody started at 5 past 10, and you took the piss out of me!”

“No I fucking didn’t!” Willam cried incredulously, laughing.

“Yes you so did! Meh Courtney, why would a programme start at five past ten that’s such an awkward time, meh meh meh why do you think it’s going to start then, is it because of the time delay? Is it because you’re Australian? Mehhh,” Courtney imitated Willam. Willam went to retort but was immediately shushed by her girlfriend.

“Shut up! I don’t want to miss any more.”

Raja Gemini was asking Alaska a question, and she had her don’t-fuck-with-me face on. “Alaska Thunder, what I’d most like to know is- why were you so strongly in favour of the incarceration of young offenders until last week, when your fiancé Sharon Needles came out in support of rehabilitation? Is this what we can expect from you as an MP, to simply agree with everything your fiancé says?”

“That bitch.”

“Shut up!”

Alaska’s face was calm and amused. “No not at all, Raja, see my change of heart was based on a consultation I had with the Minister for Justice Sasha Coulee-Velour, where she actually presented me with lots of facts and figures as to why rehabilitation produces better results and contributes to a reduction of repeat offenders in society. I then conducted a focus group who pretty much agreed with the Minister, so I have decided to back what is clearly the more well-researched opinion.”

“But isn’t it true that Sharon Needles has held no such focus groups and has point-blank refused to listen to any opposing opinion on the other side? How must that translate to the public?”

Alaska smirked and narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know, Raja. If you wanted to ask that question you should have invited her onto your show. You asked for me, you’ve got me, and now you’re asking me about my fiancé? Is this Hello magazine or Sunday Politics?”

Courtney threw her hands up in the air and cheered. “Finish her, Lask!”

Just then, Willam’s phone buzzed. It was a message from Sharon. Willam knew she had taken the morning off to go into the studio and watch Alaska do the interview and was probably hiding behind the cameramen as Alaska and Raja spoke.

S: i say, that’s my baby and i’m really proud

Willam snorted, holding her phone up to show Courtney who laughed in response.

“Fucking hell, who keeps introducing her to memes?” she sighed, pouting as she looked to the TV and saw the interview was coming to a close. “Oh fuck, we missed pretty much the whole thing!”

Willam pulled her into a hug. “Doesn’t matter. We saw the best bit. There’ll be more interviews where that came from. I think Alaska’s making quite the splash.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Courtney smiled, sipping her coffee then sliding off the bed. “What’s our plan for today? We’re meeting Katya and Trixie for lunch, then Adore’s joining for drinks. She said she might bring her girlfriend along!”

“Oh, Aja?” Willam asked, scrolling her phone lazily. “That’s good, she seems nice.”

“Well, I’m going to shower if you need in before me?” Courtney offered, unhooking her towel from the back of their bedroom door.

“Nah, no need. I always just piss in your charcoal water. You’d never taste the difference,” Willam deadpanned, smiling as she watched Courtney laugh and throw a makeup sponge at her from the door.

Courtney was so beautiful, even in her old pyjamas and with her hair hanging messily over her shoulders. Her smile did something to Willam, something she’d never felt before and never wanted to stop feeling ever again. What was the something? Suddenly, it was as if Willam had been struck by a lightning bolt. She knew, but she couldn’t possibly tell her. Not today and not now. It was far too soon, surely?

Then a little voice in her head whispered to her. No more games.

Willam’s voice stopped her just as she was about to leave the room.

“Hey, Courtney?”

#just the game we're in #ortega #australia #crossover #witney #shalaska #twmentionsofinjury #willam belli #courtney act #sharon needles #alaska thunderfuck #bianca del rio #rpdr fanfiction #jtgwi

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may-lin-b · 6 years

Text

A Bad Idea Written Last Night After Midnight - By this dumbass [SE Fanfic]

She sat in front of her screen, forcing her fingers to type as her eyes focused on the lines of codes in front of her, trying to finish polishing the codes for the upcoming release. After a long moment of not being able to find the line that was messing things up for her, she sighed tiredly and took a big sip of the BlueBuffalo (™) energy drink—she didn’t care for its taste, but it was the only thing keeping her awake for the last couple of days.

“Let’s check the main blog to see if there’s any new asks,” she said to herself, “It would be at least something productive to do for now.”

Almost unwillingly, she pried her fingers away from the keyboard and switched the tap, logging on to her main blog, sweetelite-staff.tumblr.com.

When the blue screen loaded, and before her eyes could notice the blue bubble with the 99+ above her ask icon, she saw it. The post.

“Hey, heads up everyone! Apparently someone inserted their oc into the game and now there’s this bug that adds them as a li. I didn’t receive the bug in any of my game plays but apparently others have. So if you see this bug called “Tadashi” stay away and hopefully staff will fix it soon!!”

A small laugh escaped her lips, feeling grateful that her followers were this hilarious, and clicked on the notes to see the “funny” comments.

“A bug that’s pretending to be a love interest!” She laughed, shaking her head as she replied to a few of them before clicking back to her main screen and finally noticed the asks.

I swear there were less than 30 in the morning? She thought, clicking on the letter icon and waiting for the screen to load.

She laughed at first, seeing that the latest three asks were about the bug joke, but her emotions quickly changed to confusion then anger when she saw that almost all of the asks were about it.

“Did I speak too soon about the followers?” She thought, clicking away from the page and returning to her dashboard to write a post about it, but her dash was covered in mentions and @s from her followers.

There were posts from almost all the active ones speaking about the bug and how he, Tadashi they called him, was the ninth love interest, and was bullying the players in her game.

“Tadashi...?” she muttered as she typed his name in the search box, followed by sweet elite, and her jaw dropped.

There were hundreds of posts about him, some having hundreds of likes and reblogs. And some of those posts were from her main account. His face looked taunting, judging, but almost familiar.

“That hair…” She thought, but quickly shook the thought. There is no way this is real, someone must be playing a prank on her. True, she had intended to add a tenth character, but no one knew of that but her staff, and their design wasn’t finished yet.

She took a second to breath, convincing herself that this is the effect of her lack of sleep. “I’m hallucinating…” She said in a low. “That must be it. Because otherwise…” As her voice faded, she extended her hands to the keyboard and typed her websites name, and clicked.

And there he was. His image on the main page.

She wasn't sure if it was anger or the lack of sleep, but she was not willing to see what this is. She had to delete him.

Opening the pages of the codes, she clicked control + F and typed his name, then enter. And she had to contain herself to stop the cry that was about to escape her lips.

There were thousands and thousands of mentions of him, page, bio, dialogues, codes. THIS IS INSANE! She thought, not wanting to open her mouth because she was afraid to actually scream in anger and fear. WHO DID THIS TO MY CODE? AND WHO ADDED HIM TO MY STORY?

With shaky hands, she moved the cursor to the button next to his name count that said “REMOVE ALL” that would erase everything about him in her codes—i know that's not how it work but its too much to do and honestly boring fam, so stay with me, m’’kay?— and clicked it.

The counter went to zero, and she let out a loud exhale, and breathed deeply. It’s gone. She thought, her lips quivering as she laughed in relief. She clicked back to her dashboard and typed a quick letter, informing her followers that the evil bug had been erased with a small gif under it. She clicked post and refreshed her page, wanting to see when people commented on it. But her post wasn’t there.

Instead, a different post made by her main blog was there, it read:

Dear Sweet Elite fans.

The bug you have found it actually a teaser to our new and most favorite dateable character that will be joining the game with the full release.

His name is Tadashi, and we, the Sweet Elite Staff, stan him.

“No…. No, No, NO!” She cried, trying to click the post to delete it, but the website kicked her off and she watched it go to the login screen.

She hunched forward and typed in her login to her staff blog, but it said that it’s wrong. She attempted her main blog as well but it said that her email was not attached to any account and if she wanted to sign up with it.

Angry and confused, she typed in the login to her old blog and was able to access it. But she saw that the damage had already been done.

She saw many of her followers and friends reblogging her post with comments, both excited and confused by the sudden update, but none of them seemed to be alarmed—except for Maisa, cuz that girl is wild lamo.

Looking through the main posts notes, she saw her staff members agreeing with the post and making jokes about it, discussing things about the future of the characters and how they were all stans now.

This is insanity! She thought, placing her hands on her head and staring with wide eyes at the madness that had happened. “This is not my game! This is not my character! This is not me!”

She hurriedly clicked on the code tap and saw that she was still able to access it, but was informed that a second person is coding and had changed the code.

Would you like to see the changes? The page read on top, but she wasn’t able to click no, all that she could do was agree.

The new code loaded, it was the oe she had just deleted, with the bug back in it.

The page flickered, and the code was erased for a moment, with only zeros and ones on the screen.

01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00100000 01010011 01100101 01110010 01100101 01101110 01100001

Having dealt with binary, she quickly pulled up a decoder and translated it.

Hello Serena

The code disappeared again, and she saw the line blink on the empty screen.

If it hadn’t been for what she had been through, this would have made her panic, but she was far too angry and tired to emote.

She typed slowly, on the screen. Who are you and what have you done to my game and accounts?!

The screen went empty again and a second code appeared.

01001001 00100111 01101101 00100000 01010100 01100001 01100100 01100001 01110011 01101000 01101001 00101100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01100101 01101110 01110100 01101000 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100010 01100101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01100011 01101000 01100001 01110010 01100001 01100011 01110100 01100101 01110010 00101110

I'm Tadashi, your tenth and best character for Sweet Elite.

Translating it, her eyes went wide in disbelief, and she backed out of her screen.

“No, you're not!” She yelled at her monitor. “I only have ten!”

The screen flickered, and another code appeared on her screen.

01010100 01101000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01101000 01101111 01110111 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100101 01111000 01110000 01101100 01100001 01101001 01101110 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01100101 01111000 01101001 01110011 01110100 01100101 01101110 01100011 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100110 01100001 01101110 01100100 01101111 01101101 00111111 00100000

Then her tap changed, going to the decoder and pasting the code.

Then how do you explain my existence in the fandom?

With horror in her eyes, she looked around at her surrounding, trying to find an explanation to why this is happening.

“HOW THE HELL DID YOU HEAR THAT?! WHERE ARE YOU?”

Another code typed itself, the it went back to the decoder.

I’m right here. In your codes.

“NO! NO NO NO NO NO! YOU’RE HACKING MY COMPUTER AND MESSING WITH MY CODES!”

There was a pause for a moment, but the code typed itself again and translated itself.

You have this all wrong you loser, lol. I’m in YOUR code.

Then another line appeared.

Watch.

The screen blinked, switching to a different tap and showing a second coding screen. A few lines were written and the mouse moved, clicking on the word “Save.”

Then, the room around her disappeared, and she found herself sitting in an empty white space, with only here and the monitor in front of her.

Completely frozen from fear, she dropped down on the white floor, her eyes glued to the empty screen.

“Why are you doing this…” She asked, her voice empty.

Another code appeared, but she found herself able to read it without translation

01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01001001 00100000 01101000 01100001 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 00100111 01100101 01101101

“WHY! WHAT ARE YOU GAINING BY MAKING ME ENDURE ALL OF THIS?!”

Another code appeared, and her mind read it and understood its content.

01101000 01110100 01110100 01110000 00111010 00101111 00101111 01101011 01101001 01110100 01110100 01111001 01100011 01101000 01100001 01101110 00101101 01110011 01101001 01101110 01100111 01110011 00101101 01100101 01101110 01101011 01100001 00101110 01110100 01110101 01101101 01100010 01101100 01110010 00101110 01100011 01101111 01101101 00101111 01110000 01101111 01110011 01110100 00101111 00110001 00110111 00110000 00110001 00110111 00111000 00110011 00110110 00110101 00110111 00110100 00110101 00101111 01110000 01110010 01100101 01110011 01100101 01101110 01110100 01100101 01100100 00101101 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00101101 01100011 01101111 01101101 01101101 01100101 01101110 01110100 01100001 01110010 01111001 00101101 01101111 01110010 00101101 01100001 01110000 01101111 01101100 01101111 01100111 01111001

“...No.” she said, covering her mouth from shock. “This is too much…”

The screen went white, matching the walls of this white emptiness, leaving her alone in the midst of it. And after a moment, a code stretched across it.

01000111 01101111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110011 01101100 01100101 01100101 01110000 00101100 00100000 01010011 01100101 01110010 01100101 01101110 01100001 00101110

And then, she woke up.

#i am not sorry #and also hay for people who know that im writing a story project umm heads up #SE #Sweet Elite #SE Serena #se-serena #SE fanfic #writing #my dumbass had to #Also convert the last few binary yall

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dovesdanceatdusk · 6 years

Text

Long post reply ahead:

@dreamsfrozenincandyland-blo-blog, I had to give your response some thought because I could be riding the high of 14x08 like I did in season thirteen and I don’t want to do that. What I mean is, I enjoy the episode on first watch/premiere airing, only to be confused and disappointed if and when I rewatch.

I was upset Jack and Sam didn’t hug. I could chalk it up to Sam being less tactile than Dean, but then I remember all the times Sam hugged friends and family members in his inner circle the past three seasons and I’m left coming up short on that theory.

He watched Jack, his kid, die when Castiel and Dean walked out of the room. As painful as that was, I was happy Sam didn’t leave. I normally see symbolism when it’s not there, so forgive a young bird of doing so, but Sam sitting by Jack’s side and not leaving tells me Sam cared for Jack more than the scene let on. Sam didn’t leave, abandon, or write off Jack in season thirteen. He didn’t leave Jack when Jack was about to die. He stayed by his side, even if it killed him inside.

To me, Jared’s acting was pretty good, not subdued. [Reasons why, I saw how Sam tried to keep it together, how Sam held back tears when Jack and he talked right before Jack died. How Sam left Castiel and Dean after Jack died after Dean talked about making a pyre, abrupt, determined, and hurting. When Sam tried to chop down a tree to make a pyre, only to strike hard enough to break the ax.

I saw Sam’s sorrow when he told Dean he couldn’t even build a proper pyre for Jack. His determination to help Jack by agreeing to Lily’s deal--and the desperation to try when Dean didn’t think the deal was a good idea. His outburst when Lily retracted her end of the deal (”He’s our kid!”). Holding Jack and telling him to read the spell to activate the angel magic and save his life.]

I saw all of that--Sam’s grief, his helplessness, desperation, determination, relief, and elation. I mean, I could have ridden the live-blog high, too caught up in the feelings to register that maybe what I saw was more muted than I realize (hence why I dread rewatching sometimes). But that’s what I got from it. The subtleties in Jared’s acting, as well as the overtness, led me to believe Sam’s actions, feelings, and behavior last night felt real.

But then those thoughts led me back to your response again, and I thought some more. I thought of Dean’s reactions to Jack, including that hug, and yeah, I wanted that for Sam.

I could see Sam laugh with tears spilling out of his eyes, holding Jack tight after the spell was complete and Jack was saved. I could see Sam hitting the tree after he broke the ax, pounding the side of his fist on it and crying until he didn’t have the strength anymore; and after he would walk over to the Impala and sit by her tires lost and hurting because his boy died and he couldn’t do a flying fig about it. I could see Sam rest his head against the table’s surface in the library after the failed attempt to get Anubis to help Lily. He takes a deep breath, then we hear that shuddering exhale--I could see that too. I could see him shoving Dean a little after Dean tells him the deal is too sketchy to try--then again I couldn’t, not after watching the later seasons. Would that make me happier? Would those theoretical examples fill up the drying pool of want and Sam wishes from this old horse of a show? I don’t know. I would be more satisfied, yes.

Which brought me to my response to your first reply last night. In comparison to what I saw in previous episodes this season, 14x08 gave me more Sam feels and Sam and Jack feels. That was why I was satisfied. Not, “I’m over the moon, stop the online presses,” joy, but I’m glad I saw Sam’s grief instead of him burying it down deep into the abyss for others. How I saw it, what Sam did to bring Jack back was because of his grief, his frustration he couldn’t do anything for him before (I chalked ‘before’ up to Jack’s terminal illness). Sam made calls, got Lily Sunder to help because he was desperate to help Jack, to do something. Sam chopping a tree for Jack’s pyre, only to break the ax, was his desperation, his grief, his loss bleeding through. I remember reblogging a post last night pointing out the reason why Jack is alive was Sam, Lily, and Castiel. It was Sam who got the ball rolling. Sam reached out; he found Lily and came together with a plan. From there, Castiel, 100% on board, agreed to carry out a key piece to the plan: go to heaven, find Jack, and send Jack’s soul back to his body. Sam went to lengths to get Jack back, without having to make a crossroads deal.

There’s not a lot of Sam and Jack moments in season fourteen. When I do get them, somehow it gets nuked and destroyed in the next episode like it never happened (Looking at you, Bucket of Lemmings, and maybe the Singer-Dabb duo of questionable decisions). In comparison, season thirteen was the opposite. There were a lot of Sam and Jack moments, enough to warm my theoretical house. Only a handful of last season’s episodes had Sam and Jack more distant with each other.

That’s the problem I’m facing with season fourteen in regards to Sam and Jack’s relationship. For Sam and Jack positive people, all of those moments we saw in season thirteen, those moments that warmed our hearts--at least my heart if yours melted or burned the good burn--is barely even noticeable this season. There’s an imbalance. If the writing team played their cards right, the Dean and Jack bonding moments wouldn’t be so glaring if they included some Sam and Jack bonding moments. Anyone out there who believe the Dean and Jack bonding moments were okay is another sliver of pie that must be accounted for as well. So, perhaps a slower bonding progression, easing into the Dean and Jack bond instead of, “BAM, they’re thick as thieves. Dean is Jack’s other father and the rest is shredded grass.”

The progression would be more organic, but Dean and Jack’s relationship needed to happen quickly in order for the writers’ plans to come together. Dean needed to have a closer relationship with Jack in order for his actions and reactions in 14x07 and 14x08 to play out the way it did. That’s what I’m getting from it. I don’t like it, but that’s what I’m reading. Add in the fact you have a writing team that needs to not only work together but needs to work with the showrunner’s (showrunners’) vision. That’s a tough cucumber if you were a writer rallying Sam and Jack’s relationship.

I also read a discussion a few days ago pointing out side characters’ relationships with the brothers.

Analysis: missjackil(.)tumblr(.)com/post/180864904367/captainsteelandsunshine

The last comment of the thread gives a different perspective on the matter. I found it to be an interesting read, but your mileage may vary on the topic. I’m putting this here to widen the net a bit on this topic. Take away the parentheses before using the link.

I hope my response makes sense. You’re not wrong, and not alone on your thoughts on 14x08. On my dash, I saw some Sam and Jack positive viewers just as disappointed. My attitude toward the episode might change if I can get myself to rewatch. The downside is I don’t think what the show is doing is going to change. I could be wrong.

(What will sting is if the deleted scenes of the season were Sam and Jack moments. Boo.)

Note to anyone pointing out Jack and Castiel scenes: I’m only addressing Sam and Jack and Dean and Jack in this post.

#14x08 #thoughts #long reply #sam and jack #sam and grief #sam and loss #all grammar mistakes are mine #dean and jack (mentioned)#spn analysis #long post #spn s.14

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fleurdeneuf · 6 years

Text

How to X-Kit

I made a general How to Tumblr post a while ago, and while I did mention the importance of x-kit there, I did not go into much detail. I drafted this x-kit tutorial for a new to tumblr friend more recently, and it’s just been sitting in my documents ever since. I’ve decided to dust it off and clean it up for posting, in case it can help anyone else out there.

So, here are the x-kit extensions that I find most useful, grouped by “essential” or “nice to have.” Of course, everyone uses tumblr differently, so these are my personal preferences, and ymmv.

Essential:

One-click reply: Lets you reply to people who have replied to your posts (you can also reply if someone has reblogged or liked a post). A little arrow shows up when you hover over a note in your dash or on your activity page. Click on the arrow, and it’ll draft a reply post for you. You can select multiple notes by holding down Alt when clicking on arrows. The default reply posts look like this, which will tag you, but not @ you, so they are easy to miss. If you add the options to add the person’s avatar and @ them for good measure, they look like this.

Tweaks: 1) Wrap tags for easier reading (In the past, you had to scroll all the way across to see people’s tags, which was terrible. Tumblr has added those “see all” links now, which wraps tags, but only to a certain point, and then you have to click to see the rest. I hope that xkit will one day fix that so the wrapped tags are all in one block again, which is why I still have this extension and will never get rid of it.) 2) Add a separator line for Tag section on editor. (In an update a while back, tumblr made it impossible to see between the tags box and the text box of a post, and this redefines the boundaries.) 3) I am fond of the “move to top” button on the queue page. 4) & 5) Hide the explore button on trending posts and Hide the explore link at the top of the page and in the side bar (because we don’t need that garbage). 6) & 7) I like Always show the scroll to top arrow, and Make small text in reblogs the same size as small text in my own posts. 8) & 9) Hide the tumblr radar and Hide recommended blogs, because we don’t need that garbage either. 10) Show Mass post editor and blog settings buttons (another old thing that I don’t remember exactly what it does, because I no longer remember what tumblr looks like without it).

Blacklist: You probably know how this one works, but I do recommend a few of the options, like: Don’t block my own posts, Use improved checking, and definitely definitely Show tags on blocked posts (so you can see people’s tag rambles even if you don’t see the post itself). (Note: tumblr did just roll out that new blacklist of its own, but you can’t see people’s tags that way, which is why I still use x-kit’s blacklist.)

Go-to-dash: View a post on someone’s blog in dash mode so you can view without someone’s theme and access more options than are usually on someone’s blog. Click the eye symbol at the top of a post on someone’s blog (you have to be following the person for this to work).

Mute!: Lets you not see someone’s posts for as long as you like, without having to unfollow them. You can choose which type of post to not see: OPs, reblogs, text posts, photo posts, etc.

No Recommended: Get rid of recommended likes and blogs.

Open in tabs: Opens links and blogs in new tabs, rather than in the sidebar thing. Note: this does not always work, depending on the blog settings of the person you’re trying to visit, but it does work on most.

Outbox: Saves sent messages to an outbox! Only works on the computer you have this x-kit installed on, though. (At work, you’ll only see messages you sent at work; at home at home)

PostBlock: Block posts you don’t like. (I do this when pron or anti- stuff shows up in tags I track.)

Read more now: Lets you click on a read more and the post will expand in your dash, rather than making you go to the person’s blog to see it.

Reblog as text: Honestly, I don’t know if this is still a problem, but tumblr used to reblog long posts as if they were links (so all that you would see on your dash was a link, not the actual post), and it was hella annoying. If tumblr is still doing this stupid thing, then get this extension.

Reblog yourself: Lets you reblog a post from yourself.

Reply viewer: A little speech bubble button appears at the bottom of posts and if you click on it, you can view all of the replies to that post - good for looking at post history.

Retags: Shows you people’s tags in your notes so don’t need to check each person who reblogged from you to see what their tags were.

Tag replacer: Lets you replace or remove tags on your posts. For example, when I realized that tags with dashes in them do not work, I changed all of my tags that had dashes in them to tags with spaces between words instead. Also handy if your friends change their URLs or if you realize you have five different tags that say something like “I love CE” but you only want one.

Tag tracking+: At the very least, you should track your URL (with no dash, if your URL has a dash in it, because dashes don’t track) to see when people tag you in things. Any fandom things you’re into are also worth tracking, once you find their “official”/most popular tags. Boxes to check: Show a [new] indicator, Redirect the followed tags to tagged instead of search, and Show tags on sidebar (which adds a sidebar menu so you can see all of the tags you’re tracking).

Tag viewer: Similar to reply viewer, but shows you all of the tags of people who have reblogged a post. If it’s an old or popular post, lots of great things to be found!

Old sidebar: Gives you back a sidebar menu so you can find things easier.

Nice to have extensions below the cut:

Xinbox: Has some nice options in it, like “tag published asks with their usernames”, which is very helpful (so people will see your reply in their tag).

Activity+: Group notes by post, filter notes by type, show timestamps on notes (TIMESTAMPS ARE THE BEST).

Anti-Capitalism: Remove sponsored posts, Terminate...sidebar ads, Remove framed ads, Hide the asktime banner, Hide sidebar ads.

Blog tracker: Lists someone of your choice’s blog in your sidebar as if they were a tag you were tracking, so you never miss their posts. Helpful if you don’t scroll through your entire dash, but you want to make sure you never miss something that a friend posts, for example.

Drafts+: Another old thing that I don’t remember exactly what it does, because I no longer remember what tumblr looks like without it.

Enhanced Queue: Lets you shuffle queue posts to mix them up, and a few other things.

Header options: Makes the header look like what it used to before tumblr “improved” it.

Mass deleter: Unlike likes/delete drafts en masse.

Mass+: Another old thing that I don’t remember exactly what it does, because I no longer remember what tumblr looks like without it.

NotificationBlock: If a post of yours goes out of control and you don’t want to see the notes anymore, it’ll block them.

Notification+: Highlights notes from people you follow. (It also used to show number of notes when you hover over a notification, but the newest tumblr update broke that.)

Post crushes: I LOVE this. It lets me make these posts.

Scroll to bottom: Lets you get to the bottom of your likes or drafts, though crashes tumblr if you try to use it and you have too many posts (like me).

Search likes: This would be amazing if I ever remembered to use it!

Separator: Puts a horizontal line through your dash where you left off before, though it does not always work.

Timestamps: I LOVE TIMESTAMPS.

User Menus+: another old thing that I don’t remember exactly what it does, because I no longer remember what tumblr looks like without it.

View on dash: View blogs in dash mode rather than going to the blogs and dealing with their theme.

#chiaroscuroverse #asthewheelwills #ciara jane #deathlyfandoms #thank you for looking this over and reassuring me that it might be useful to post #<3 #fleur has an OP tag #how to tumblr #how to xkit #xkit love #tumblr tips #i never know how to tag posts like this #so i'll leave it there

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btsgfx · 7 years

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[REPORT] GIF Reposter @nochuyou (@jeylovestoblog)

Account @nochuyou (formerly @afternoon-tae, @withlove-tae, and @jeylovestoblog) on Tumblr had reposted complete or compiled gif sets from many BTS content makers after editing them into black & white. The user denies reposting any gifs except for two gif sets (11/05/17). They had deactivated their old account to take on a new identity as “K” with @afternoon-tae (at the moment abandoned). It is unclear whether they will no longer repost.

Originally you can look at some of their reposted gifs through their BTS gif tag #jgifs and self-reblog tag #sr. A network that Jey used to be a member of is gracious enough to maintain their partial archive of her gifs here. If you see your work was reposted in the archive, report misattribution through this form to remove all reblogs of the post. If you see your work was reposted on their new accounts, contact @nochuyou or @afternoon-tae or report misattribution.

We discourage sending messages unless you are an affected gif maker. We do not condone violent or threatening messages. Instead you can show your support for our fandom’s content makers by reblogging this post or blocking their accounts to prevent accidentally spreading any potential reposts. Community pressure may stop this user and prevent others from reposting original content.

Below the cut is the evidence we gathered to reach our decision:

I, admin Tiffany N., was in contact with the user, Jey, since Monday, October 30th, when I responded publicly to this reposting report submitted to us by an anon. I talked to her for an hour and a half that day then on and off until Thursday. During that time she has repeatedly asserted that she did not edit anyone’s gifs.

On Thursday she confessed to editing nochuie’s, but only nochuie’s. On Sunday, when I revealed to her some of the evidence included here she claims she only reposted the 2 gif sets. I was aware at minimum there were 4 accused gif sets, which were posted by the original creators between October 15th and 16th, because an anon provided nochuie three sets of links to OP’s and Jey’s for comparison. The anon’s comparisons proved to be accurate for the 2 we were able to find.

I want to make clear that I gave many chances for Jey to confess over the week and that she had agreed multiple times over to the consequences I outlined (including this report post) if her promises continued to be false.

You can view her Thursday confession and agreement to btsgfx’ conditions and consequences here. I have marked where some conversation was omitted with yellow scissors. Below is a snippet:

11/07 Edit: You can also read my entire chat log with Jey here. For brief highlights click here instead. Below are the last messages we exchanged and her public apology she posted 30 minutes after. Angela (nochuie) also felt compelled to upload her chat log here.

11/10 Edit: We were notified that Jey has at the moment abandoned @afternoon-tae following our updated report (11/08) for @nochuyou, which her abandoned blog follows (among more defining tip-offs we will not reveal here). We were also able to identify another reposted gif set from perusing past networks Jey was believed to be a member of and from her mutuals’ archives. On @lgbtqbangtan-net, that Jey is currently a founding admin at, all her works under #cr: jeylovestoblog have been deleted.

Since Jey deleted the accused original gif sets (as she claims was asked of her even though most of the gif makers we contacted never saw the accused gifs), we thought that we could not get a copy to compare to the original gif makers’ works. I was notified though that Jey forgot to delete her self-reblogs of them in her #sr tag (now deactivated). We could not find posts for all the accused gif sets still.

In the below gifs we overlaid Jey’s gifs on top of jjks’ (1, 2) and nochuie’s original gif.

Above the gifs match exactly frame by frame with the same number of frames and pixel content/sizing. nochuie has noted that for this gif set she even manually deinterlaced the 60fps video file. The reposts are also cropped smaller than the original. The bottom one Jey sent to me and claimed it was the original one she posted and was accused of copying. It was not, but it was also a copy.

You may download the psds of the gifs above to inspect for yourself here.

To prove these gifs and downloadable psds are Jey’s gifs overlaid, we reblogged Jey’s original reposted sets from the first user who reblogged each set:

Original: jjks’ set - Jey’s reblog Jey’s Edited Repost: Our private reblog

Original: jjks’ 2nd set Jey’s Edited Repost: My private reblog

Original: nochuie’s Set - Jey’s reblog Jey’s Edited Repost: Our private reblog

With these links you can (1) directly compare the moving gifs from tumblr, (2) check the file names and sizes match the screenshot below by right-clicking and saving the image, (3) overlay the gifs yourself, and (4) verify the timestamps we include at the bottom of this post.

Note that once a file is uploaded to Tumblr, it maintains the same file name (ex. tumblr_oxwu2pvlUQ1rkxec2o1_400.gif for the first gif in Jey’s edited repost of jjks’ 2nd set not listed in screenshot below) for the image in reblogged posts. Below are the gifs we saved from Jey’s original posted sets in her #sr tag.

If there is further doubt or if you do not believe in how impossibly rare it is for a gifs’ frames, cropping, and pixel content/sizing to match up; Jey had the tendency to reblog the OP’s gif set and then upload the black & white edited copies as her own gifs a few hours after.

Below are timestamp screenshots of when Jey first reblogged OP’s set and the the first reblog (links can be found above through private reblogs) of her copies:

#jeylovestoblog #withlove-tae #afternoon-tae #nochuyou #report #reposting #Different from past reports given what’s happened #We got the okay for the public report from everyone whose names in this post on Sunday #And they're all aware this report will be posted today

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natty-anne · 3 years

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Random.

So I had to do a factory reset on my computer so I could update my anti virus program right?

Well I basically had to delete all my saved pages and website logins and all that jazz, right? Had to clear my cache, duh!

Anyway, so I did that, and I’ve been spending the past two days trying to redownload stuff and update outdated things.

One of these things is my Steam account. (One of them was my resume; spoiler to ya’ll wondering how I’ve been or what I am up to these days. lol)

From my bio info, to my profile pic and now apparently we can have these cool borders for our “avatar” pics and we can change our backgrounds and just a bunch of small little things that I find neat that you reader could probably care less about but whatever I’m gonna tell you about it anyways!

Anyway, I’m in the process of now updating that and I’m looking at my profile pic (or avatar) and dear lord it’s an old photo (and I miss my Ariel red mermaid hair!) It’s further proof of how lazy I am with updating myself to the social world/internets. I’ve found I’ve kinda removed myself a bit more this past year, been more private, more enjoying of life the less people know what I am up to. It’s definitely a happier life knowing certain people don’t know what I am up to these days, no matter how hard they creep, lol

ANYWAY back to my main reason for this random post, haha. I’m updating it, but since I had to purge my computer I have no recent photos of myself on it, but they’re on my new phone (oh I got a new phone btw, lol. Gave Zoey my old one to utilize and play games on it, she feels like a big kid these days now because of it haha) So I started scrolling through my snapchat folder, of all my memories and random selfie and filter playing lol, which brought me to a good photo, even if it’s from last year, and than I posted it here for ya’ll to enjoy. And because of me doing that, it got me caught up with random scrolling and updating on here.

Like scrolling back through my Archives (or trying to, I have ALOT of posts and memories lol) all the way back to my very first post to the interblag(what I use to call the interwebs back in the day haha) March 8, 2011

DAMN I THINK I’M AN INCONSPICUOUS OG HERE!?!?!

I mean not that I’m bragging or nothing, but to be honest a few years on here I haven’t even been active let alone logged in. I just had my Instagram attached and was straight up sharing photo posts from there with you all. In fact I plain near forgot about the existence of Tumblr all together at one point, up till these recent couple of years when I was dealing with personal things and being on personal how arrest at my parents house after moving back in with them, to which I would pop on here from time to time, scroll, reblog a post or two that caught my eye and then popped back off and moved on with my life lol.

That’s kinda how I am these days now anyways truth be told.

I’m a disassociated, uncaring, tired, always working to fill someone else’s pocket, helicopter mom that’s just trying to not only successfully survive 2020, but now make a new best of things with 2021 for me and my family.

Anyway what was I saying? Fuck my mind tends to wander with random and tons of things to possibly talk about and than I just look like I am rambling and you kinda lost interest in what I am saving which than defeats the purpose of this post! haha. (I’ve been smoking, sorry not sorry)

So yeah I’ve now updated this blog, and now I am going to take that photo I just shared with ya’ll, and update my avatar on my steam account. :D Again, yeah it’s a year old photo, but idgaf I’m feeling myself in it, so fuck em! I’m using it. n_n

Enjoy this anticlimactic sudden end to this random post that just wasted like a good minute of your life that you won’t get back. opps!

It’s like: “What the hell did I just read? Why did I read it? I could have kept scrolling, but I didn’t.” -facepalm-

Yep! That’s me for yah! :D You’re welcome! haha! Stay safe Tumblr, have a lovely evening, I’m gonna go now (and also enjoy this bomb ass macaroni and cheese meal my hubby just made us! :P) Stay awesome wonderful Followers and whoever comes across this post! ;)

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md3artjournal · 4 years

Link

7:19 PM 9/3/2020 It's come to my attention that although my reblog text under the cut is hidden from a post's Notes/Replies on Tumblr-desktop, it is all very visible on Tumblr-mobile/phone version. Ugh. So I could no longer simply reblog the referenced post, and hide all my comments under a cut. So here are all my angsting thoughts again, after doodling this drawing, but as a separate post, for my art journal blog.

10:42 PM 9/2/2020

I don’t even know what I'm doing anymore. Today, I sat down to draw and I must have wasted 15+minutes, indecisive about what to draw with. I wanted to just use one of my fountain pens, but

1) Yesterday's line bleeds proved that the Pilot Petit is just not good for my tiny doodles;

2) My only other fountain pen is my Platinum Preppy, but I should be saving that ink for writing in my habit tracker; that's what I bought it for; and it's not so easy to just buy more ink cartridges during this pandemic;

3) My fountain pens' inks are not waterproof? What if halfway through my drawing I decide I want to use half watercolors? Again?

So then my safest option was my Copic Gasenfude. Impervious to water, alcohol marker ink, everything. But my pen is so dry... I tested it beforehand, to convince myself it was still fine. But the test felt very different from the drawing. During drawing, I missed the smooth flow of my fountain pens sooooooooooo much. I should've just opened one of my new Gasenfude pens for this drawing. But I'm too chicken about using up supplies, in general. x_____x;;;;;;;;;

What's with my Copic Multiliners? Do they just bleed more on my cheap sketchbook paper? Because I remember my lines being fuzzy on the close-up scans too. Or am I just so out of practice drawing with them now, that all my lines end up stiffer than usual? Or maybe they're getting dry too? They are pretty old pens by now. ~.~;

*sigh* I miss my fountan pens, but I need waterproof ink for my linework. x_x;

I heard that Indian ink is waterproof after it dries, but all my bottles of Indian Ink dried up decades ago. Plus, all my dip pens are rusty and don't even work with my acrylic inks that I already have. I don't want to buy more supplies, then they turn out to not really work for me. I've done that too much already. ...Though I do have my eye on that Deleter trial dip pens set...and Indian ink sounds too good to be true... But I have so many supplies lying around, I really should just find a way to use them. Even if they turned out to not really work for how I naturally think/work, I already spent the money on them. I should *find* a way to make them work. I'm so simultaneously wasteful AND cheap with my art supplies! X~x!

That's also why I want to be able to switch over to cheap $1-store/Daiso watercolors, instead of using up Copic ink on full drawings. But if I never know when I'm going to need that mid-way medium switch, then I need waterproof/Copic-proof ink.

Well, no matter the case, it probably wouldn't help my terrible terrible drawing too much. I mean, today's doodle gave me problems making lines because the ink just would not flow out of my drying Gasenfude pen. But also, I had to realize that I've become out of practice with true brushpens. I've been using Copic Sketch and nylon nib "brushpens" all this time, thinking I've stayed in practice. But bristle brushpens are too different, and I forgot that. I've become horrible with brushpens, and the Gasenfude used to be my go-to. x_______x;;;;;

Anyway, nothing about drawing today has been good for my self-esteem. I made a horrible drawing, that wasn't even pretty, I started too high on the page and too close to yesteray's doodle, so Akira and Ryuji's heads ended up squashed on top, to fit into the page space. I was reminded how easily I lose skill even with mediums/tools that I used to be competent at. I proved yet again that I just can't make beautiful drawings---and maybe that's more of an issue of me not actually wanting to be good at drawing. I didn't want to admit it, but maybe that's something I have to do. Maybe I don't actually want to become good at drawing. I hate studying, I can't stand brushing up on human antomy, perspective, gesture motions, all those fundamentals, and every time I force myself to, I get so frustrated, I'm horrible to myself and everyone else around me in real life. That can't be worth scribbling a bunch of skeletons that end up ugly an reinforcing my low self-esteem anyway.

My sister commented once that even though being an artist was hard, at least I enjoyed drawing. At the time, I told her that I don't actually like drawing. I told her that I liked "having had drawn". Since then I did find that those statements weren't true. I have found drawing cathartic, even while I was drawing. I even felt horrible on days where I didn't get to draw. I liked drawing.

...I'm just REALLY REALLY REALLY bad at it, and I have no inclination to put in the hard word to make my drawing better. But I will spend all day, comparing myself to better fan-artists online, and lamenting how I can never make anything beautiful. x___x;;;;;;

So I go around telling people that "I'm actually more of a sculptor than an illustrator", as if distracting to a medium that most people are less familiar with, and that is easier for people like me to make beautiful things, would do anything to help my horrible lack of drawing skills.

I remember, all the times I've tried to learn a new videogame, and I'm inclined to believe tha tmaybe I jsut don't like learning new things. Even for games that eventually became my favorites, my comforts, my completely intuitive flow states, I was still compeltely frustrated and horrible to be around, while learning. I shouldn't be surprised then that I don't play videogames as much anymore, even though I'm desperately reluctant to let go of my gamer identity. But I recall the last party I was invited to, and I was wrangled into learning a new tabletop game. I was completely against it, all throughout, during, and at every moment. I was just waiting for it all to end. I don't think I like games, because learning to play, leaning sets of rules, and functioning within MORE systems, must be the last thing my brain wants to do during leisure time. I can even remember a few moments when I was obstinately inattentive or simply refusing to abide by office expectations and protocols---and I don't know why! Why was I just _so_ exasperate and unwilling to put effort into following simple rules? I'm beginning to I think that maybe as I get older, the less energy I have to learn things. Which is only a theory, because even when I was younger, I didn't like playing games because I didn't want to learn rules. Plus, I've always been "someone who loves to learn"...Just academic knowledge and inforational stuff, not games. Games and human interaction in general, have always been too much work for me to enjoy. So if there's any reason why I can't get myself to study illustration fundamentals, no matter how much I lament not being able to draw something beautiful (at least to warrant my making a living in artist alley!) then I have to wonder if my inexplicable disdain for learning new rules is the reason.

I don't even know what I'm writing about. I think I was originally just hoping that drawing with a new Gasenfude that wasn't drying, would help me draw lines more easily. x_x; Please ignore my venting.

#venting #please ignore my idiocy #quitting art #is this even chibi? I messed this up so bad x_x;

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cougardraven · 6 years

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Let the past die. Kill it if you have to.

Hello, Tumblr. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

This post will serve two purposes. First, a little history on why this is happening, where I’ve been, why I’m here. Second, a description of my attitude towards certain things regarding content spoilers.

Let’s call this the first post of what I will call “upkeep”, which means posts about the state of the blog. These will have no real content identification, they won’t be “about” any particular thing save the nature of the blog itself. They’ll likely be infrequent, much more than my actual posting will be.

So let’s get to it, then, shall we? (The following will be behind a cut, because it’s going to get long.)

I created this Tumblr in 2009. I didn’t use it very much for a while, but starting in late 2010 I used it more and more frequently, peaking in the summer of 2011. Then, I had to go away for a while. Personal issues of which some are aware kept me away from a computer entirely for about a month. Then, I picked back up in late fall, and from then on I used Tumblr heavily until about midway through 2015. From then until January of 2017, I posted rarely, and most of what I did post was reblogs of things I found interesting. At that point, a little over a year ago, I put the platform down. I didn’t feel like the platform was healthy for me in an ongoing way, so I walked away for most of a year. And what a year it was. People know this. America has been declining severely both in the eyes of the world at large, and in the eyes of the part of the populace that views the current executive administration to be a blight on democracy. Add to that a busier than ever work year, and several interpersonal issues for me to navigate, and even if I’d wanted to come back, I might not have had the time.

And so, enter the past few weeks. I’ve realized that my thoughts never went away. I’m always thinking about things, things to say and to write down, because my brain won’t ever really shut off. So I began thinking of a way to reactivate my Tumblr, so to speak, to give myself that platform. I could have used one of my old Blogger URLs, and if I stratify my content any, I still might, but for now, this was the best ease-of-use platform I had. So I spent a week, and did three things to start over from scratch. First, I unfollowed everyone I could, only refollowing people who I knew posted content of interest to me. Second, I blocked everyone, then immediately unblocked them, which had the side effect of forcing them to unfollow me, so I can rebuild from scratch. Finally, a few days ago, I deleted every single post I had made in nine years.

Why did I do that? It’s simple, really. The way this blog looked until a few days ago was...I don’t want to say troubling, but if I hadn’t planned on purging everything before, reading through it all certainly strengthened that resolve. I acted poorly in the past. I have had good things to say, to be sure, but I have also not reacted well to things. Namely my ongoing struggle with mental illness. I aired far more of that than really I think I should have, and it painted a picture looking back that I was actually displeased with. Adding to that memories of a time when I counted people as friends who I later grew apart from, to be charitable, it made sense to just wipe the slate clean and start over.

So, to that end: hello, Tumblr. My name is irrelevant, but you can call me Cougar Draven. I’m 30, almost 31, and I’m planning on using this space to air my thoughts about...really, whatever is on my mind at the given moment. I read a lot of comics, so it might be that. I listen to a lot of music, so it might be that. I immerse myself in politics and philosophy, so that’s on the table as well. Really, there’s no specific “thing” I’m focusing on, but I will touch on a great variety of topics as I consider them.

I probably won’t reblog much, because I prefer to just like posts. If someone posts a lot of interesting content, I may make a post suggesting that any followers I might have go check out that blog. Who knows. I may use this space to talk about my Youtube and Twitch activity, though that seems somewhat unlikely unless I start streaming heavily. So welcome to my blog. I hope you enjoy it here.

Now, on to the second thing. It is the nature of this blog to be full of discussion about new-ish media. I see movies fairly frequently with a couple of my friends, I watch certain television programs, I read comics. As such, there will be times that things I want to say involve spoilers. So, very briefly, I will mark spoilers for content in tags initially. That, however, will stop on the first day of the calendar month which is two months after the release of said content, for movies, and the next week, for television shows and comic books, due to their weekly release schedule. I don’t see the need to keep marking spoilers any longer than that.

So, again, hello and welcome. I hope you find this to your liking.

#upkeep

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