#this kind of turned into a minor vent lol i guess i just needed to get that out there | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rpbetter · 3 years

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I'm a novella roleplayer who writes long-term threads. Since this is very rare on tumblr, I've noticed that many muns are intimidated or put off by how much I write, how much information there is on my muse, and other things inherent to long-term roleplay. People have even told me outright, "I'm intimidated by you". But I do wonder if there's another component besides, well, just the amount of writing I do. Maybe there's a way to negate some of this by using certain techniques, wording, etc in my rules and overall presentation. Do you have any advice on how to reduce how intimidating I seem, even with the amount of writing I do? Any particular things I should avoid? And at what point should I just not worry about it, because it's out of my control?

Hello, Anon! Thank you very much for this question, I think it's a discussion many could benefit from. That should probably be head's up for everyone that this is going to get long, yes.

People have also told me, outright, that they're "intimidated," and I know that's something my writing partners have been told as well. It's also something that seems to be a common statement toward novella roleplayers in particular, and one's chance of having it said increases with factors such as being a long-term RPer, particularly good vocabulary, visible skill with writing, and indeed, having a muse you've dedicated obvious time to developing - made obvious in not only the amount of information available on your muse but also in your confidence about that muse.

I honestly do not think most people who say this any more realize that it's a little offensive than they know precisely what it is they are trying to tell you. Regardless, it makes it a bit hard to know what you're doing, if it's actually something wrong, is it something you can or should change, or is it just another case of being the minority in the RPC, therefore, having more muns out there that you're not suited to writing with? No one knows, because it's vague!

So, I’m additionally going to beg everyone out there to not say this. Please, if you find yourself categorizing another RPer as “intimidating,” do everyone a favor and consider what is making you feel this way, even if you never tell them this. Eventually, you will tell someone, and if you’ve thought on it already, you’ll be better able to express yourself in a way that is neither offensive nor vague. If you do tell someone they are “intimidating,” expand on it and be specific. Tell them whether it is the length, writing style, the mun OOC, it’ll be very helpful. You needn’t be shitty about it, just honest and polite.

Try: “I’m not confident enough to write with you, I don’t feel like I’m capable of writing that much, or that well, but I would love to keep following so I can read it!”

You’ve not been offensive at all, but have told them what your difficulty is. You’ve also kept this a you problem, not a them problem. When we tell people they are “intimidating,” that is a negative connotation that implies they are doing something wrong. We've made it a Them Problem. Maybe there is something they could work on, but your feelings over perceived limitations aren’t their problem. They can’t change the way you feel about yourself and your writing in contrast to theirs. By saying it this way, it’s still clear that you don’t think this will work out, you’ve told them why, and you’ve done it without projecting responsibility.

Alright, sorry, just in case anyone out there who says this and isn’t immediately turned off by the length of this reads it.

As I said, I've been told this as well, when it seemed like a mun that would be alright with me asking for specifics, I have. Unfortunately, they couldn't describe those specifics in any more detailed terms. I'm not saying this to shame anyone's capacity to describe their impressions or wishes, sometimes even the best writers aren't good at expressing themselves more personally. I'm just saying that a clearer description wasn't possible, and that I am taking this from what has been expressed by these people and others in limited ways, directly stated or vented about vaguely.

The length appears to be the predominating issue.

"It's just a lot," "I feel like I'd miss things in it," "intense," and "I like quicker back and forth" are some of the major points that have been made to or around me. They're the first and primary things that are mentioned, and they all deal with the length (though, the intensity thing also deals with the writing itself).

As you already know, as a novella RPer and how unpopular that is, the length is usually an issue, yes. Let me rephrase that - it is an issue that is a part of the vague descriptor of being "intimidating," I do not feel that lengthy RP itself is a problem! Just the problem that some muns are having with seeing you as a viable, approachable RP partner.

Looking at someone's writing is something I always highly advise doing while looking for new partners, but I believe that our writing as novella RPers can obscure it for some when they're not actively a writing partner yet, thus, not involved in it. I enjoy reading threads I am not a part of, and since everyone I write with is also novella, that means I'm essentially reading short stories every time I do - that's not typical. Most people just see Wall of Text in a novella thread they're not involved in.

It's kind of a seeing the individual trees in a forest situation, and might not have anything to do with the mun's potential interest or viability as a partner. I mean, I doubt you're looking to engage interest of short multi-para or one-line muns, since that isn't your preferred writing type and yours is not theirs. So, you're likely looking at the few and far between other novella and any lengthier multi-para muns. So, it's not going to be an issue of simply being novella, thus immensely overwhelming and not their thing. It's more likely to be that your novella is particularly lengthy, and again, they're not yet involved in it. They’re seeing a task, not the fun engagement of it yet.

I know that I've had several mid to lengthier multi-para muns approach me wanting to write, they're usually interested specifically in beginning to move toward doing novella. They also see the fruits of these great storylines, OOC friendships, and in-thread relationships on the dash, not the building that went into them. The expectation is different from the reality, and once they start receiving my replies, that can quickly turn overwhelming. They've now got something on their hands that has been too lengthy for other, established novella writers, and it's all at the beginning still with the muses.

This is when I tend to get that I'm intimidating from people who have begun to write with me, and I think it is telling of the Wall of Text problem with partners you've not gained yet, too. The problem of how they're viewing the writing is that they do not see things within it that are immediately, and easily, engaging to them specifically.

The people I referenced, they're having the same problem. Our muses do not know each other, there is no established connection of animosity or affection, no "dynamic" to fuel their replies. When looking at a lengthy novella reply and trying to judge interest in writing with the mun, they're naturally not going to see that either, since it doesn't exist yet.

And it might not exist at all.

I want to be clear to everyone that I am not saying one needs to write in a way that is not enjoyable to them, I'm just guessing at problems based on the majority of the RPC's interests and what I have been told over the years, a lot of years. Like, no one come at me about forcing anyone to write anything, or being acephobic or something fucking nuts, thanks!

People are really, really into the romantic ships. I do not care what the RPC says because it knows it's the right thing to say lol if it wasn't true, it wouldn't be a huge, and totally observable as true, problem that characters who are hard to ship with or do not ship are passed over. Regardless of beautiful writing, engaging muses, and incredible worldbuilding, they're passed over because they're not a ship partner in the waiting.

So, it's quite possible that if you do not have threads in which there are observable ships, muns are seeing the Wall of Text because there's nothing that grabs at their particular interests. I don't even just mean smut, either. I've found that far more muns than there used to be are willing to not write that, but they still want the ships.

You might be a RPer who does not do shipping at all, has a difficult to ship with muse, or who simply does not place this as a priority in your own interests. There is nothing wrong with either direction of this preference! It’s alright for people to have preferences, even if they can feel annoying to us because they’re leaving us out, or we genuinely just do not get the thrill. It’s totally okay for people to not be interested in shipping, or not place a particularly high value on it, and more muns than the RPC realizes feel this way. It’s as unpopular, and far more limiting, take on RP as being here openly only for them is. There’s nothing wrong with you as a writer or a person if you don’t write ships and smut, but it is the opposite of many people’s interests here. This would be something you can’t control, yeah. It’s still good to know as a part of the puzzle!

They see a lot of things they do not have any instant feelings about and/or what they perceive as interaction points. As, unfortunately, the predominant mode of writing here is reactive, and in brutal honesty, often self-interested. It's not rewarding to many muns in this RPC to build stories cooperatively together for the sake of those stories and love of the muses, they require putting their muse on display, having impassioned interactions through that muse's reactions.

So, you might be writing the most vivid scenes, the most beautiful character study, and letting your muse be a fleshed out, realistic person, but they're seeing "I can't react to this."

Which is, by the way, bullshit. Not just that it's bullshit as a way to try to write together, it's also bullshit in that you can react to anything. You can react to, literally, nothing. If you're muse has said not a word to mine for an entire reply, not physically interacted with them, they're just sitting there in a chair staring off into space (also not a great way to write, but I'm giving an extreme example) the whole time, I can react to that.

To be fair, my primary muse is really uh, busy, let's say lol it does make him both incredibly easy to interact with and very easy to generate natural reactions from. And that might also be a problem people are having...

Your muse is quiet.

They're the opposite of someone who is physically or verbally “busy.” They think more than they move or speak, they remain at emotional, verbal, and physical distances from others. The quiet, and still, type on the outside.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that, I love reading a muse's internal processes because I'm approaching this as a reader as much as I am a writer. It doesn't need to be something my muse can know or react to for me to enjoy it, I want to enjoy your muse, other people's muses are part of the joy of RP for me. And not just in what I might achieve having mine interact with them. There are muses mine very, very much did not work out with that I have continued to enjoy the stories of for years without writing with them!

But that's me. And I'm weird.

A lot of people are going to look at the sort of writing, particularly when not involved with it yet, and see...Words. Maybe they don't find them boring or any such thing, but they can't so easily envision themselves responding to it with the sort of vigor required to reply with length in kind. It's again the same dual issue going on that might just be making your writing difficult to approach.

It might be legitimately daunting, and might be more so if...

You're well-written.

One would think this would be a boon to written roleplay, but I haven't seen it be that in a long time. On tumblr, that has weirdly come to signify "elitism."

It's not just more legitimately intimidating for some out there because they feel they cannot write as well as you, might appear lacking or boring, end up dropped because of it. No, of course not! It's tumblr, where decent behavior as well as logic comes to die! It's because they've gotten the idea that you might be shitty to them because you posses more experience, skill, or innate talent with writing.

That's not helped when every time someone is told on any basis at all, in any manner at all, or one has any existent expectations for RPing that someone else might take issue with as though they're being forced to comply with them instead of not interacting, people freak out and call it elitism. Since most people who choose to be mutuals only and as such, are going to have to decline sometimes, are also those who are lengthier RPers...we're all categorized as Elitists.

People see what works for us as different kinds of RPers as something that is in opposition to them, and judgement of them. We can’t have scores of active partners when we write ten thousand word or more replies to everyone, it doesn’t work for us, and that doesn’t mean we think you’re an awful RPer for doing this differently than we do. We’re just exercising boundaries that are necessary for the way we enjoy it. Like how much length in return, literacy, and dedication we’re going to give and expect in return. It isn’t passing judgement, but when you want to write with a particular portrayal and they’re limited threads, mutuals only, novella and it shuts you out of the interaction, it’s easy to agree with the posts you’ve seen condemning differences of choice as elitist and hateful.

While you'd hope that people would exercise their own judgement, with the way that the RPC is so often on edge, you can't entirely blame people for being willing to believe they can identity a potential source of unpleasantness to avoid. As wild as it is, that includes people within the novella community. Your OOC is too well-spoken, your writing is too well-written? Might be an elitist. Even while they write much the same way as you do without realizing it!

I think when most people say someone here is "intimidating," it's not exactly what they mean, but for others, it's more literal than it is literary.

If you have any reason to believe this might be part of the issue, while I would never advise anyone to alter their writing to be something they personally feel is lesser than what they're capable of, you might want to consider a greater air of the casual in any OOC posts you make. Try to be as approachable there as you can - so long as that doesn't mean lying about it, of course! If we're genuinely not that gregarious or socially open, we shouldn't act like that's the case. That sets up one party with expectations that are neither true nor going to prove anything but frustrating to the other party.

I've had some success with that! And, even at my most casual, I'm not the most approachable of people lol I come off as rather intense, kind of aggressive, way too salty, curses flow from me like water during a monsoon, interspersed with...well, things like "interspersed." So, if I've seen success with that, it's possible that muns who are more genuinely gregarious, chill, and verbally polite people might see it as well!

It seems to be a case of allowing other muns the opportunity to see that you, yourself, are not frightening. You're just a person like they are, and a person who isn't going to be hateful to them if they are not perfect writers or perfectly on your level of writing. When that is apparent, approaching the writing itself is more openly done - yes, this mun has a grasp on description/dialogue/vocabulary/descriptive scenes that I do not, but they don't aggressively think they're the shit for it, so, it's safe for me to try to interact.

The Wall of Words that was once a poster for how badly they might be treated is now a collection of RP replies.

Write for the partners you want to attract.

Again, I do not want anyone to stop writing in the way they enjoy! However, what we put out is also what we attract to a large degree. It could be that your writing is an attractant for only a very small portion of the RPC, and it already is, by virtue of being both novella and the sort of novella it is.

That's very easy to do anyway, but even more so if we have few partners to write with. What we have on display is minimal, it might not have the range we're actually capable of, and therefore, might not be attracting that range of muns.

This is something I have experienced as well, though it was a little different a situation. Upon first writing RP on tumblr, I couldn't find anyone writing novella. I could barely find anyone doing short multi-para. Just as I'd find it inappropriate for someone approaching me to insist that I do one-line RP because it's what they do, I didn't find it appropriate to force novella on these muns. That's what I agreed to by interacting with them, after all! It isn't what I enjoy doing, however, it's harder for me to write short replies, so, I was consistently on the lookout for novella partners.

Those novella partners couldn't exactly see decades of my lengthy RPs, though, since they didn't take place on tumblr. They could only see the current threads, which were all quite short and rather limited in range of action, tone, muse interaction, and so on. Basically, just about whatever someone was willing to give me, and those things were pretty similar. I couldn't exactly blame potential partners for looking at this "resume" and thinking that I just thought I wanted to write novella, but was capable of neither that nor the sort of stories I wished to create.

Since I couldn't find partners to organically give me these different things, I wrote them sans partners. Much of this was in headcanon form, showing that I had spent quite a long time thinking about my canon character as more than was presented in canon only, as well as showing that I could string more than a paragraph together, but it seems like you've got the muse information down, so this might not be the best direction for you.

That might be the other thing I wrote to this end: one shots.

Especially as I do not do open starters as someone who requires some plotting, these served as a way of allowing various situations to be displayed in which other muns could better see what interacting with my muse was actually like. They could see that this truly is the way I'd prefer to write, this is a better display of my muse under various conditions and emotions, and this is how interacting with my muse as this or that type of person might go.

I don't know if you have a canon, OC, or multiples of both, but it also seemed to be helpful that I took canon events people might be familiar with and wrote snippets of them from my muse's perspective - yes, even if they were already in those events, it shows your unique portrayal. People like that for the same reason they like fanfic, a dozen people can write a canon event and give you a dozen different takes on it. It meant that they'd be more likely to read it at all, too, let's be honest.

If you have an OC, you can flesh out a fandom-specific verse they have by writing such a one shot revolving around a fandom event. I'd say not to directly insert your OC into a major canon event, but if you're going to anyway, be sure you are giving realistic changes that might occur with this character's presence in that event. Not going overboard and making them the thing that saves the day, not just having them there in the midst of some great cataclysm miraculously surviving to bear witness only. It's still my advice to place them within that world and have them aware of an event.

Something like...trying to think of a fandom and event the most people would be familiar with here...your OC is in the MCU or has a verse there, they're employed as a police officer with the NYPD - tell me what they did at work the day of the invasion in New York City in the 2012 Avengers. Did they see superheroes in the distance while they and their fellow officers were engaged in a situation they were in no way equipped to handle? And how did your OC feel about that?

That sort of thing.

If it's a canon, try to think of a situation that isn't represented among your current threads, but that is also going to be of interest potential partners. If you have few threads showing your muse in friendship with another, find something in their canon that does. No threads with much action, go for that. Show an aspect of your muse that was present when they were younger, but that is downplayed in them now. Show some things that will be new information from your unique portrayal, and do all of this while displaying your range as a writer - you can be more serious or more fun, can destroy someone with angst or make them hope a ship works out well.

This way, you're showing people what all they might get, not just what you've been given to work with. That can go a long way toward negating feelings of "intimidation" if all they're seeing is you doing one thing extremely well, so well that they feel they cannot compete with it. So, yeah, write the things you feel you're not good at, too! It puts people at ease to see you're not perfect either.

As regards rules...

Oh, boy...lmao with no intent to inflame anyone's righteousness here, so long as your rules are conveying what you feel they should, they're fine. I'm not going to say that rules cannot be a turn off, that you shouldn't find a voice that is clear, polite, and when it needs to be, firm. It's simply that you do not come off as someone who needs to be told that, Anon. If you're worried about how your rules might sound, they're almost certainly fine.

However, rules are the way they are for a reason - if you feel like you're coming off as too strict, harsh, whatever, there might be a reason why that was your first inclination. If you remake them to be softer, are you going to run into the same problems that caused you to harden them before?

I know, you're trying to attract people and downplay a notion of being "intimidating," but it's important to realize that, short of either finding a way to please everyone who comes across them or telling everyone to do whatever they please, you have no opinions, expectations, or needs, you're going to put people off. I've seen people be incredibly offended by the nicest of rules simply because they were rules. They were still clearly stated boundaries that did not align with what was desired.

For example, if I were to have in my RP rules the following:

My rules are basically just have fun and don't be a dick! This is just a hobby, I'm not paying you.

That's going to turn some people off and anger them because that's, firstly, incredibly vague, secondly, the latter part has become seriously negative.

If I were to have in my RP rules this:

I have a lot of detailed rules because I want to only write with people who will be as dedicated to it as I am, I'd rather we know now than later that we're not a good match before anyone is disappointed or offended!

That's going to turn some people off and anger them because it is contrary to the way they view and partake in the hobby. To these people, it'll come off as ridiculous expectations that are aggressive despite the wording not being so.

The point is, because this is a hobby dependent upon interacting with other people, there is a lot that is out of your control.

I probably should have done a better segue to this, but hey - most of this is out of your control.

By its very nature of individuals interacting, what is "intimidating" means different things to everyone. What I find to be that, isn't going to be what you find to be so. You can't know what someone, let alone everyone who says this, means by it in order to make those changes.

Some of those changes are a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, like the rules.

Other changes are undesirable. You, obviously, cannot RP without partners, but it's no good making changes that will see the partners you won't work with being added, or that will ruin the things you enjoy about RP. If changing your writing style is going to do that, don't do it. If opening up new types of plots is going to do so, don't do it. Anything that is going to excessively give you stress or personal disappointment isn't a change you should make. That’s the sort of shit that was meant by it being “just a hobby” in the beginning - you’re not obliged to make yourself miserable like you are at a job sometimes, and you aren’t beholden to the standards of a professional author unless you wish to be.

It's wonderful that you're addressing this problem from the perspective of what you can do! The idea of changing much of anything is a negative one to many people. They have to be carefully approached to even consider that as a possibility, and once they do, it's more often than not that the reaction is volatile. We never think we're perfect until someone so much as loosely implies we might need work on something. So, your willingness and interest in what you can do to fix something nebulous is both incredible and a credit to how approachable you probably are in all actuality.

It bodes really well, is what I'm saying lol or...it would, if this were not the environment that it is. One in which people do react with volatility to anything that does not go exactly and immediately the way they desire. Including wanting to interact with a particular muse, then seeing that the mun doesn't write in their preferred style, length, or with their desired topics.

Many times, that's really what is meant by "intimidating." It isn't truly that they're afraid of you or your writing, but rather, that they're not getting exactly what they think they want, in the way they want, on the timeline they want. But they don't want to be offensive, they're walking on eggshells like most everyone is when telling someone, "I'm sorry, but I don't think we'll work out" is tantamount to personally attacking them.

So, giving what they feel is a compliment that still shuts down the possibility of someone trying to push for interaction anyway, that becomes the best approach. They're not giving you specifics because no, they may not even know those specifics, it might just be the feeling your writing gives them, but they're also not giving them when they have them because they don't want to be unfairly taken to task for the crime of being honest with you. After all, when we don't know someone OOC yet, we don't know that they're a reasonable person. Telling someone, "I like what you're doing, I love your muse, but the tone of your writing isn't something I can reply to, it's just too different," might have them defensively putting words in your mouth.

As I said, asking someone for details didn't get me very far. I've had to try to piece together what "intimidating" means to many different people over the years by what they tell me in conversations away from the mun they said was thus more than anything. So, don't expect that you'll get much either, but next time someone tells you this, if they seem like someone who won't take as you pressing for interaction and react badly, ask them to give you specifics. Tell them you'd like to know what makes you intimidating to them so that you can work on it, that it would really help you out to know. Make it about them helping you, not declining you.

Just going off of the only writing I have from you, which is definitely not sufficient (if you'd like, you can always submit a portion of your in character writing or tumblr message me some of it so that I might be able to be more effective) since it's both short and OOC, I'd say people might feel that you're not...relaxed? Not entirely the word I am looking for, I apologize! But something in that vein!

It doesn't come off like you're frighteningly or excessively official to me, but knowing tumblr, I can see it. Because you are quite well-spoken, and even in this casual format, you are displaying good grammar and principle. Fifteen years ago, I might have also felt something like “intimidated" by you!

Like everywhere, tumblr is full of educational snobbery. Which is insane, considering it's also full of crimes against writing that make me want to rip my hair out, but anyway...the mark of being authoritative is to display one's intellect the only way we truly can here - by suddenly out writing everyone. If we're already establishing ourselves as well-spoken muns, we've laid the foundation of being capable of utterly destroying someone publicly by shaming them on a core level.

Tumblr is also full of people who are not at a point of life experience, and the writing experience accrued within it, to use what they've learned in the higher education the majority have or are presently obtaining. It's easy for younger people to feel pre-offended by someone who writes with more skill and confidence than they do. They've bought into the notion of such validations of superiority, but they can't quite lay those down upon themselves yet, or see that they’re capable of this and it doesn’t make them an elitist, so, it’s absurd to assume everyone else is on the same pretext.

Please, everyone here under, like, 25, I'm not shaming you. I've obviously long internalized it as well! When I'm angry, I don't become less articulate, I become more so. That probably says something unpleasant about how well I understand this problem. So, don't be offended. It's a societal problem, we're all impacted by it. It just takes a little bit to realize these things is what I'm saying here. Not that you're dumb and malicious because you're young and learning.

With this in mind, it's very possible that some younger muns, or muns who have otherwise been given cause to feel they are lesser than you because of your proper writing, might be intimidated by it. Part of that is also that proper writing, and verbal speech, can come off as lacking warmth. It can be impersonal, give fewer clues as to someone's tone when that's already lacking in writing that isn't descriptive, as in an RP thread itself.

Again, I always have a bit of an issue recommending someone change something vital about themselves, and one's mode of writing is that. However, you might want to consider giving way to some indicators of not being official in your OOC behavior toward others. It's something that I did, something I will admit I still struggle with as well. I'm not naturally inclined to add things like a :) or a xD because I have some problems conveying those things either correctly or organically in person. If I'm not either, literally, acting or feeling something intensely, I'm the grand master of resting bitch face no matter what I'm feeling.

As a quick on-the-safe-side interruption: people, please, I am aware that some forms of neurodivergence can exhibit in struggles with understanding and conveying tone, as can be the side effect of some medications and physical conditions. It’s possible that you have this difficulty, Anon, it’s possible that some of the people you have approached do. Advising how to work on understanding and conveying tone with these difficulties in mind is a huge post of its own, however. (Though, if people might be interested in it, I can add it to the list, of course.) All we can do is try our best, work on it, and if we know we have this issue, politely warn partners in your rules so they know you’re not coming off less emotive and warm intentionally. You’re not thinking yourself in an ivory tower above them. I so do not want to be bitched at about how advising someone in ways to be more approachable in text is ableist, just don’t. I don’t know you, Anon, so I don’t know what difficulties you may or may not have, if you do have some complication that is impacting this in your own opinion, please, just send another ask and I can work with that information more specifically!

It's also...it grates on my nerves when people text speak, I'm not going to lie. So, forcing myself to do anything too close to it feels like someone has separated the halves of my brain. I do it because it can make people more comfortable, I don't sound like a damn robot like I easily can when trying to explain something with a lot of specifics, for example.

What was easier was letting go of the inhibition of writing conversationally. That is always something that is advised against intensely, it isn't proper writing. Don't write like you speak, and all that. It's often been my inclination to write conversationally, even if I struggled to let the hell go and actually do it, and when I allowed myself to do so, people responded to it much better. It's something I get compliments on as a part of what can make my storytelling immersive, humorous, relatable, and frightening. (Just so that the last bit there isn't confounding - in addition to the professional writing that sometimes pays for my internet, I write horror lol...now y'all know! I deal in "freak shit," I'm sure.)

People responded to me much better. I still get that my writing is intimidating, but it tends to be over length and wording more than being wholly unapproachable. Too like trying to respond to a novel that most people would only listen to if it was about a character they were deeply into and read by an actor they were also deeply into. There seems to be a more natural engagement with the material for more people this way.

I'm only using this as an example of something I found that worked to some degree in making me more approachable, meant to say that there might be something that you would enjoy, unique to yourself, that would make your writing more approachable for more muns. I'm in no way recommending that you, or anyone else, try to go with what I did! That isn't going to work out for everyone, of course. It isn't everyone's solution in those specifics, just the idea that following what people have expressed they especially enjoy about your writing could be a good path.

Other things to consider:

When you have obtained a new partner who says this not in declining further interaction, but within a conversation or one of those interaction memes, especially if you are writing them a starter at this time, experiment with what you can do in your writing that makes it more approachable. I say “experiment” because this is another point of individuality, it's naturally going to vary like everything else.

Like I said above a few times, most people approach RP in terms of reaction. And, again too, that's part of RP. I didn't say it earlier because I felt like that was obvious, but after considering...how tumblr is, I probably should say it. It is necessary to have things to react to in order to build the interaction between muses and their world. I believe in the “yes, and” method and having things to react to. My meaning by saying that people approach RP in terms of reactions was that people excessively do so. Their muses have trouble existing fully in their own right sometimes, they literally require multiple points of possible reaction.

So, give it to them while you’re figuring each other’s writing out.

When you're writing your starter or replies, give them what I call Actionable Points in unexpected places. For example, when your muse is doing as I said earlier, sitting in their chair, having Deep Thoughts they're not expecting any action within, give them something in the environment itself to interact with. Perhaps there is a pet, an insect, temperature change, or sound for their muse to notice.

He was still, as though the animating force of his very soul had flown. So entrapping were his thoughts that the ladybug making its way across the floor, technically before his eyes, escaped notice. No notice, even as it briefly took flight like a tiny, skipping stone across water, headed for where his attention would truly prefer to light as well.

Which would be, of course, the other muse in the room. They can't interact with the things in your muse's mind that you're revealing to the mun, but they can have their attention jump to the insect. They can also react to your muse’s facial expressions, most people make micro-expressions even while in thought, but this isn’t as active or available.

Just small, simple possibilities that make no difference to the immediate happenings in the thread. They can become things of great difference, that's half the fun of it! How something like a bug can alter the course of a thread's trajectory is really cool to see happen.

By doing this, feeding multiple Actionable Points into the reply, you're giving someone who feels intimidated by the thread's length and weight more points to feel active within it. If they can see themselves interactively within the text of the story, it's less intimidating I've found.

Eventually, people relax and start creating these points for themselves. They're now part of this story and its direction, so they organically see things within it. While their muse is in the room with the Chair Muse, they notice a ladybug on the floor themselves because they feel comfortable and confident enough to create that sort of realistic moment.

Most of my experiments of this nature have had that objective - make my writing partner feel more confident about their writing, muse, themselves. It either works out wonderfully, or...you can spoon-feed some people actions, ideas, and confidence forever without them ever taking up the spoon themselves (some people will totally miss the spoon every time, even). At the latter point, if they're still feeling unconfident about writing with you, "intimidated," it's never going to change. It might be better that this be addressed as something that simply isn't going to work out for either of you.

Because it can become tiresome to do this. Tiresome and disheartening, and you never want to set yourself up to feel like you've wasted your effort and energy. That's a great way to experience burnout and frustration.

Another thing to make yourself, and by nature of that, your writing, more approachable and available is to put out a decent variety of memes for people to send you and engaging in tagging games. Not only do these not need to be writing memes like starters, it's better that they are not! If someone is intimidated by you/your writing, they're not going to engage with a meme meant to begin a thread.

Reblog memes that are meant to be answered OOC like headcanon asks, writing asks, and asks about the mun. Do tag games with tests in them, bolding aesthetics or other information, and those that give details about the muse...or even yourself, there are Munday versions as well!

The point of doing this is to show people you want to interact with them, neither you nor your writing is scary and removed from the vox populi of the RPC. You're not someone with so much skill that you're above such common pursuits. You're just another RPer with the same things of interest as they do - enjoying yourself whether it's something silly like a quiz that tells you what coffee your muse would be or an in-depth headcanon. Just another mun who loves their muse and wants interactions with them.

This, too, is something I tried, and it might have been the most successful thing I did. It's even easier to do these days, as more muns don't just tag people outright, but rather, offer that anyone can take it, they just want to be tagged back so they can see the results. You don't have to wait for someone who neither knows you nor knows whether you'd be alright with being tagged to tag you in them anymore!

And as an aside, this is why I encourage that. I've seen some muns out there taking issue with it, thinking it lazy and less interactive for people to be forgoing tagging others in it. Yes, it is unfortunate that you might miss such a game from a mutual or friend, but you do realize you can go to their blog anytime? You can search their tag for these kinds of dash games, or scroll what you missed while you were away, and I recommend doing that anyway with close friends because tumblr's notifs are perpetually screwed.

It's not less inclusive, it's more so. I think it could even go a distance toward lessening the illusion that all friendships in the RPC are "cliques." Instead of the same five muns, none of whom are you, being tagged every time because they occur more quickly to the mun who interacts with them often, there is an open invitation for you to do it. It allows muns to be more visible to those they haven't established friendships with yet and allows others to put themselves out there as approachable and interested.

Alright, back on topic!

Send others these sorts of interactions when you see them. Unless someone has it in the tags or their rules that memes are only for established writing partners, send them an applicable meme.

Applicable, in this case, would be those OOC-answered memes. With most muns, it would be poor form to send in memes that are too personal. Such as sending someone you've never really spoken to, plotted with, etc. a particularly raunchy headcanon ask. I was going to give an example, but for the sake of keeping this SFW lol...we all know the sort of ask I speak of.

With some muns, this isn't an issue. Any excuse to talk about their muse is a good excuse, and they'd not have reblogged the meme if they did not intend for people to send it in. I know that I'm such a mun, and unless someone only ever sends me sexually explicit questions like this, I don't mind at all. It's just an aspect of my muse to detail in a HC.

Just exercise reasonable awareness - "read the room." If a mun seems to answer those questions from anyone, then it is alright to send them in. If they have established openness on these discussions, have nothing in their rules that would imply they'd be perturbed, etc. Conversely, if they've established such opposing behavior that you have to wonder why they posted this meme at all? Don't send anything from that one. They may be trying to establish greater comfort with these topics, but whether they realize it or not yet, they may not be ready for this to sent by anyone who isn't a very established writing partner/friend.

You want to be attracting good attention, demonstrating that you're not someone intimidating, not giving muns any reason to be disturbed by you. Even if they openly asked for it!

This brings us back to: no, really, a lot of things are out of your control.

How people view us isn't as up to us as we'd like, on or offline. Everyone has preconceived notions, biases, and developed preferences. And everyone has had experiences that lead them to react differently to all of these things where they do and do not exist.

Unfortunately, the RPC fosters a serious environment of paranoia, hostility, and the inherent defensiveness of both. Even when that is coming across more peaceably, it can lead to things like...the multiple muns I've known in the last two years alone that seem to almost panic and block potential partners for extremely negligible things they're perceiving as a red flag portending of inevitable bad behavior.

I really do mean irrational actions that are often contrary from one move to another. One potential partner is too exuberant in response to plotting, they are designated a red flag for being too inclined to pester OOC. Another is lacking exuberance and does not easily come up with plots, they are designated as being too passive a partner who will drop. One is too nice, they won't possibly be able to tell that mun of problems in the thread, another is too aggressive, they'll do nothing but stress the mun and fight with their friends. And on and on.

It's not an unreasonable situation, as we all continue to be reminded, the RPC is far more hostile than it should be for what it is. We all (that's not entirely true, but let us pretend it is) want to avoid problems and enjoy the hobby, but in the attempt to avoid those problems, we often see them where they are not.

So, you really cannot control whether someone designates you as being too much this, too little that, an inevitable problem. Your presentation is in the eye of the beholder, just as what "intimidating" is, is in the eye of the intimidated.

You can only try to identify the things that might be putting off the most people you want to write with, work on them when and where they will not ruin your time here, and hope for the best.

It's wonderful that you care, but it's also wonderful that you seem willing to accept that there are things you just have to let go of as already being out of your hands. That's honestly the best way to approach RP, period. The only things you are fully in control of are your own creativity and your behavior. That's it, in the end.

Present yourself with honesty as to who you are as a mun, be as approachable as you truly are, and know what you're looking for in writing partners.

Personally, from what little I have seen of you, Anon, there isn't anything that glaringly needs changing. You're not possessed of a shitty attitude or unrealistic expectations. You seem like a pretty reasonable mun to me who is struggling with something any of us who concentrate on the writing do; being vaguely told we're "intimidating," and seeking other partners who are interested in the same variety of RP we are.

That's my final point to touch on, and the one most likely to piss people off: there are different varieties of RP, and the people telling you this might be in the wrong corner for you.

That doesn't make them bad RPers or anything, variety is good, it's an open hobby! We're not all compatible, though, and so many problems arise from muns not accepting this reality, but rather, taking extreme offense over it.

No one I have ever established the sort of RP I enjoy most with has told me that I am "intimidating."

The people who have said this to me have been those who would not have worked out anyway. That's not said in some bizarre bitterness lol I have the best writing partners, I could not ask for anything more! It's just said in honesty of continuing to see them on my dash and/or interacting with friends. They blog and muse hop often, prefer the genres and fandoms I do not, and so on.

Changing to be less intimidating to those RPers would put me back where I started when joining the RPC here years ago, and while it's great that a lot of people enjoy RP the way they do, I don't. I worked rather hard to get away from it.

So, you do have to consider what you want. Do you want any partners, or do you want the right ones for you?

I'm genuinely glad that people are enjoying themselves, especially when they do not have hateful things to say about those who enjoy RP differently than themselves, but it'd be nice if some of the niches in the RPC were a bit wider! It shouldn't be this difficult to find people in a writing hobby who are invested in the writing, but it is. And it is something you should keep in mind when figuring out this whole "intimidating" thing.

So, my ultimate recommendation would be to assess whether there are things you can be doing to make you, as the mun, more approachable so that your writing is less “intimidating" to people within the RP corner you’re trying to attract, but consider whether the people who have said this to you might just be looking for different things and not as viable as partners as you might have liked. There are definitely more RPers on tumblr who do not enjoy RP in this way than there that do, and while the only thing you have control over is yourself, you don’t have control over how you and what you are putting out there is perceived.

I really do think that most of the “intimidation” problem comes from different varieties of RP and what muns have been led to believe about them. You check off a lot of boxes for the false perception of “elitism,” as a literate, long-term, novella RPer. People are going to see many things that you do in a threatening or off-putting light through no fault of your own because of that. Even other, lengthier writers can fall into that because they feel overwhelmed at the volume of content you have, for example. A thing that should be promising of how well-developed your muse is and how committed you are to your interest in them can come off as overwhelming to people who are less well established or interested in being around for the long game. I certainly don’t think it’s a good idea for you to remove that material or stop writing it! I cannot encourage people enough to do what you have!

Maybe, since you expressed concern of this specifically as well, you could consider how it is presented?

Do you have approachable formatting on those posts? Do they appear to be a lot of very plain text, or do you practice adding some graphics like a header and dividers, formatting that also breaks up the text like segmenting it into clear topics with bold, bigger text, and so on? Is it the opposite and potentially difficult to read, like using font that is smaller than the default small size available, or incredibly busy with colors? It’s a difficult balance, and one that will never be 100% appealing or accessible to 100% of the RPC, to make things visually appealing, easy to read, and informative while being engaging. It could be that you have information people would love to know, but the design of how you’re putting it out there is adding to them feeling overwhelmed.

Maybe, consider how it is placed on your blog, as well? Using specific tags for organization and having a detailed navigation might help. Instead of someone pulling up every one of your many HC posts in the HC tag you have, they could choose specific topics to view at their own pace with a little more control over it. Giving people some control in their experience can go a long way to giving them comfort in it!

So, let’s say you have a headcanon that addresses how your muse portrayal diverges from strict canon, and in that HC, it’s important to address their mental health and how it impacts their relationships with others. That’s a great HC, it’s going to be informative, but it has multiple topics within it. You’d want to tag it with the overall HC tag, a tag for your “player canon” topics, muse metal health discussions, and a general tag for your muse’s relationships/interactions with others.

When you do that, in your navigation, if someone clicked your tag-based link for all information pertaining to the muse’s mental health, they’ll just get that. They’ll see this headcanon post, they’ll see all relevant, tagged posts you’ve made or reblogged, but only that pertain to this topic. They won’t also get twenty extra posts that don’t discuss this, but do discuss your muse’s personal opinion on making bread at home and why sourdough is a labor of love. Unless, of course, your muse is partaking in that labor of love as an exercise that benefits their mental health, of course lmao

Delineating topics for people to engage with at their own pace, need, or interest can prevent them from scrolling through what could be hundreds of HC posts. We all desperately want people to read every one of our posts, especially if our portrayal is different from canon or popular fanon or we have an OC whose entire existence has to be learned this way, but we have to resist the temptation to make people read them all, and all at once. Because that is how it comes across when someone pulls up a ton of HCs - they may be super interested, but it’s a lot that they may put pressure on themselves to learn immediately, back to back to back. It begins to feel like a task quickly. Most people who are genuinely interested in your muse and writing are going to end up reading all of them eventually! If they don’t shut themselves down on doing so prematurely, and this could be a way of helping them avoid doing that.

Hell, if you’re really feeling it, you can even link to closely related posts and your navigation on those HC posts! Just mention at the top of the post that this is related to the one linked here, and to find more informative posts on any topic, please visit the navigation page here. You can even remind at the bottom of the post with just the links.

While like anything, it could make people feel you’re too organized and “serious” about RP, but you probably want other “too serious” RPers to interact with, so it might be a passive way of establishing partners that won’t work out. I think, for the right partners, an organized system they can interact with easily would be appealing, and again, a lot of people in the RPC do have problems that disrupt their ability to engage with a great deal of content at once. This might make them feel less overwhelmed and frustrated by themselves, or negative about themselves that they cannot but aspire to your level of content and organization.

Willing to bet that much of “intimidation” comes from negative feelings about oneself projected outward protectively and unconsciously, honestly. So, when you see ways to combat that, take it on. Make it clear that you’re not expecting anyone to be anything other than themselves, you appreciate your partners’ unique approaches and skills. The more of them you have, the more approachable you are proving yourself, too.

Since you are interested in long-term and have so much material on your muse, I have to assume this is a case of having gone on hiatus or had partners who have left. You could be appearing as less approachable because you’ve few interactions, and that’s a problem that will start correcting itself as you have more of them. If that’s the case, it may be adding serious frustration in the slow process of getting your foot back in the door, but I believe you can do it!

I hope people haven’t made you feel too anxious or bad about yourself by telling you you’re “intimidating,” Anon. Try not to internalize it or make into a more serious matter than it is! I really do think it has less to do with the RPer being told that than it does all these other factors, poor ability to express ourselves very much included. You’re interested in what you can do, willing to accept what you can’t do, overall approaching this from a chill and reasonable place, I think you’re going to find the people you need to with this attitude!

Keep at it, keep doing what you love, and my sincerest best of luck to you! Thank you for giving me the excuse to discuss this topic, it’s an important one that I hope made some difference to others out there as well. I apologize that took me a minute to get it out, and that it is still a bit more disjointed than I’d have liked.

#answered #anonymous #the intimidation problem #interactions #rp advice #tumblr rp advice #tumblr rp #long post #rpbetter

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dear-yandere · 3 years

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—ask collection!

a collection of mostly very old chats and sweet asks that i never got around to answering! thanks for the patience and love!!

beware, fairly long post... woops....

chat asks.

darling: Eu-jin is best boy. Change my mind.

vanya: i am physically incapable of fulfilling that request, how dare you do that to me... i’m biased since he’s my own oc, but i would die for my (very best) boy eu-jin... who can resist such a gentle yandere that loves you so whole-heartedly?

that reminds me! he’s actually based off of kuroyuki and gekkamaru from the otome nightshade, so if you want similar characters by any chance, do check them and the game out ♡

darling: I was watching the dub for Part 5 of JoJo's Bizarre adventure yesterday...Mista called himself Daddy and I like- sdfghjfgsdhnhnmj!! My heart can't take this--

vanya: WAIT HE DID???? i’m not even big on daddy kink and reading that made me go 😳 this is vital information to know... what episode was this??? for research purposes, of course. gotta perfect my yan! mista, after all~...

darling: for yandere songs, have you heard of the major to minor covers by chase holfelder :O? the way he delivers the lyrics in some songs (betty, all i want for christmas), added with the key changes to minor, is really fantastic, and gives a stalker-ish vibe imo! and he's a really good singer in general

vanya: i have!! a good chunk of them are actually on my personal yandere playlist, so i end up hearing them frequently when i’m writing!! i haven’t been keeping up with his uploads recently, so ‘betty’ is completely new to me and just, wow???????????? this man is an absolute god send for us “romantic” horror fans... ♡

this ask gave me such a lovely idea, though, darling: assigning yandere types/mbti based off each of chase’s minor key covers. i think i’ll do that just for you. ♡

darling @blossomiich: I reread some of your old character interaction asks and saw the one with Jotaro hugging his Darling after a panic attack and the elephant seal plush reminded me of the iconic C H O N K Y ringed seal plushie that was kinda trending and I can totally imagine Jotaro having one of those >w< that's so adorable!

vanya: i honestly don’t remember that interaction, but then again i don’t remember most things hmghng so i looked it up and

j...just imagine star plat hogging it and not letting joot cuddle with it 🥺 the duality of man...thank you for this cute image...

darling: Umm, sorry for asking this. I'm just curious because of your bio language in your header. Are you Chinese too, perhaps?

vanya: no worries!! i’m mixed guyanese (indian, chinese, & possibly black and/or portuguese), but my family only celebrates (or rather, acknowledges?) our indian descent, since the majority of our family is predominantly east indian.

my header is actually a quote from a danmei novel (and one of my all-time favorite fandoms), tiān guān cì fú (heaven’s official blessing)!

darling genki stan anon: Omg you're writing for free now, i didn't expect that one lol. It's a cute show innit? Not a nagi stan but I feel like nagisa has that kinda unsnapped personality that would make him peak delusional yandere material lolol like oikawa but less threatening and without his head being up his own ass 😂. Hope you're doing well!! -gsa

Gdjsjs im such a fool, i think my last ask said something about not thinking you'd write for free when i literally just pointed out kisumi on your sideblog LMAO my bad 😅 😂 also ill hold back on the gen chan requests because ive already asked so many in the past! Thank you though 🥺. Also feel free not to post this, it can just dip into my onesided chats with my lil flower 💐 so long as you receive them im fine 😌 -genki stan anon

vanya: nagisa isn’t my favorite (kisumi is), but gods if he wouldn’t make a great yandere. honestly, out of the iwatobi boys, nagi is probably the most unhinged. i wouldn’t peg him as delusional, at least not at first; i think he’s very lucid and knows exactly what he wants and how to manipulate people in order to get it!!! kisumi is fairly similar now that i think about it... i might... have a type...

please feel free to send in gen-chan requests whenever you want!!!! i’m kinda super asocial, so it’ll take me a while to answer, but i love getting asks from you since you’re so sweet and excitable!!! your little flower reads and cherishes them all!! 🥺

also darling genki stan anon: Sorry for spamming you with asks hdjkdks, u dont even need to reply im just kinda brain empty venting here whether you recieve them or not 😂 i just needed to confess that while yes i am #1 gen simp, and he is undoubtedly my fave oc of yours but that Ilya tentacle smut had me very much so highkey kinda 👀, had to re read the genki oral style drabble to bring my head back. He dont even need to worry about luca bc that man a thot. I think therin is a thot too but like lowkey, a classy thót -gsa

vanya: omg i’ve kept this one for forever mnmghngh i might’ve even answered at some other point, now that i think about it... but i just 🥺 gosh i hope i find my muse soon, because i really wanna write you a genki fic 🥺 hhhh

the ilya tentacle smut was so in character for that boy... i have no clue how to write monsters, much less tentacles, but i’d honestly do anything for him 🙏 kinky russian boy...

therin is definitely a classy thot, the kind that only bangs the finest concubines then turns around and slut shames you for banging the very same prostitutes gbfmngnfg rules don’t apply to him, in his kingdom...wish that were me tbh ✊😔

sweet asks.

darling one: i've read almost all of your dazai and chuuya fics and i love them so much!! your formatting is also super aesthetic just a question, i saw on your kofi that you also draw so i was wondering if you drew all the header arts?? bc they're all super pretty :) have a great day!

darling two: Just wanted to say love the writing and the way your format your posts is so aesthetically pleasing. One day I hope my posts looks half as good as yours because I legit can't get over how pretty and organized it looks.

vanya: omg thank you so much!!!! one of my bffs, yue, is to thank for the formatting and aesthetic choices, really! if you wanna see more of her aesthetic formats and posts, she actually runs a few blogs! you may know her as @milkscafe, formally @milkaaton! i adore her and her aes choices so much 🥺

as for the headers, i don’t draw 99.98% of them! i have drawn a couple, but they’re so few and far in between since i almost never finish my art wips haha... my older posts are lacking proper credits because i’m an absolute idiot, but i’m slowly working my way backwards to credit them all where possible! they’re all indeed super pretty!!!

have a great day yourself, my love!!

darling: THEY’RE NOT BAD CONTENT, I LOVE THEM ALL

vanya: this was in response to a now-deleted lil blurb but i kept it in my inbox because i wanted to say i love u very much and seeing this ask each time i open my inbox makes my heart skip a beat ♡

darling: Listen I love your writing, you inspired me to start it myself! I've always loved to write, and read of course but your style and concepts just stick with me. If you where to write something besides Yandere content/fandom content and started your own series? I would read the shit, out of it. I'm always nervous to interact with my favorite writers because you know, I'm afraid of the impression I'd leave but I just wanted to say this anyway! 💞💞💞🔫😳

vanya: wowowow fgfnmgnfmngfg that’s such a high compliment my brain just gmfnbgmnf go boom fogjfngnfg and thank you for the interaction, us writers truly appreciate it no matter how awkward or nervous you think you may be / come off!!!

darling one: As a writer, your post struck a nerve with me. I don’t send feedback to writers I like nearly as much as I should (and certainly not as much as I’d like in return as a writer). So, as such, I’m going to start doing that when I can, starting with you.

You are an incredible writer. You were one of the first yandere writing blogs I found and you’re still one I check in on regularly to see what you have been working on. You can portray a sense of suspense and intrigue in a natural way that many other writers - published ones included - struggle with. You delve into the darkness without it feeling forced, and you have an amazing grasp on the psyches of the characters you write for (which is a quality I adore in writing and strive toward myself).

I’m not great at ending these things so I guess.. you keep doing you? Because the you is great and I appreciate it.

darling two: hey. i'm here to tell you that from the bottom of my heart i love you and your writings. i really admire your writing skills. you inspire me. one of your posts once saved me from a nervous breakdown. thank you for everything you do. you're a wonderful person. good luck!

darling three: I wanted to tell you that thank you for writing such wonderful beautiful writings and that you take time to edit and write I hope you are taking care of yourself 💖❤

darling four: Thanks. I was having a hard time and deleted all my apps, but as soon as i opened my phone my first instinct was to look at your blog and i got my motivation back. Thanks (:

darling five: Hi ! I just wanted to say I really enjoy the stories you write and how they are detailed so well ! Stay safe and I hope you have a good day/night ! ლ(╹◡╹ლ)

vanya: ahhhh, these are very old asks mostly dating back to my “tumblr writing community is dying” post, and i’ve kept them this entire time because i’m just so starstruck. i have no clue how to reply to compliments, so i’m not sure what else to say besides that these asks made me very happy and got me through a few insecure moments!!! i’ve actually been feeling a little down about my writing recently, mostly because of lack of motivation / inspiration, so revisiting these really warmed my heart, so thank you truly ♡ i’m certainly keeping the originals in my inbox until the end of time!!

darling @monstrously-obsessed: psst, this local cryptic mom thing send all of their love for you 💕

vanya: your local herbo says she loves you very much momster 🥺 mwah

also, to the anon worried about my safety:

thank you so much for pointing that out!!! it hadn’t even crossed my mind when i made those ocs, so i appreciate your concern! i was contemplating revamping those two as is, so this is a great place to start! thank you again!!

#asks collection #not a fic #vanya rambles #[ vanya LITERALLY rambles ]#[ life's hard when you're this asocial i swear fgmnfgnmfg ]#[ now to answer concept asks ]

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mcrmadness · 4 years

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I really shouldn’t do this. Just thinking about people who are no longer a part of my life either because they decided to stop talking to me or because I decided it was better to part ways. And it’s making me sad and I hate it. Mainly because I’m again starting to feel invisible and lonely and apparently I then tend to torture myself even more by making me go and do things that I then associate with these people.

But I also hate it how I feel like I don’t have a normal concept of human relation(ship)s at all. Sometimes I wonder if I have played just too much The Sims games in my life (I started when I was 9 so I have played these games for 20 years) because I feel like the way I see the relationships is exactly how it is in the sims games. Don’t interact in a while and soon you get a message “you are no longer friends with X”. That’s literally how I feel friendships in my head. I feel like whenever there’s a long pause, that will mean that the friendship will be automatically reset back to 0 by time. Whenever there’s something we both like and have in common, it’s immediate green plus marks on the friendship and a positive moodlet. When we disagree or don’t have something in common, it will give red minus marks. And maintaining relationships feels as difficult as it is in the sims games too - tell them the same thing twice and it will be minus points. Tell them a thing they don’t like and it’s minus points, if you’re too close to 50%, maybe it drops from friends to acquintances. If you tell a succesful joke, you’re friends again. And right now I’m feeling like I’m “losing” all my friends because there’s been too huge pause with everyone and I feel sad about anything I associate with them because I feel like a friendship is over even when no one has said anything like that. It’s all in my head and it’s like a delusion because the second someone talks to me again, I forget ever even having such feels. But when the next pause comes, I again start to prepare myself for the moment where I’m left alone and never talked to again. Maybe I just have had this kind of situations so often in my life that I’m already preparing myself for that moment so that it won’t be that big of a shock when it happens.

I know it’s not healthy and it’s not RIGHT towards my friends to constantly be like this but can I change? Is there anything I could do to change this? I don’t always even recognize when I’m doing this, only lately I have woken up to this and it makes me feel bad because, like that one post I made several weeks ago, I’m really concerned that am I one of those unstable friends that will drive everyone around them into exhaustion eventually. Are people getting out of my life only to protect themselves? I feel like I’m always just too much to everyone and that I’m left alone in the end because I’m the only one who cannot escape me. I have to live with my brains and listen to all the shit it comes up. I’d love to cancel myself too if I could, but I can’t.

When my depersonalization/derealization was at its worst, I acually felt like I was invisible. Some days I was legit wondering if I was even alive. I was wondering if I was a ghost or idk, in a coma but just had no clue. I felt like people did not see me anywhere, I still can remember being to a grocery store and almost being run over by someone with a shopping cart and so many people almost walked against me and I just remember that moment so well as I got really frustrated and I was almost certain that I must be invisible, how else would people almost run over me with a shopping cart and they did not even look at me, as if I was not even there! Some days I thought maybe my minor car crash in 2010 put me into coma (yeah, Life On Mars uk much???) because I haven’t felt like the time would have passed AT ALL since that. I still feel like I’d be 19 and I’m supposed to be 29. Like, HOW???

And now I’m starting to have that feel of being invisible again. I have a nice amount of followers on Tumblr and this is something that I don’t really want to address at all because I appreciate every single one there and I could not care less about the number itself. But I’m starting to feel like... how could I gain more followers who would be interested in my stuff too? Like, I feel like talking to walls here. I bet no one is reading this post either. I so often feel like venting and writing down my thoughts but then I feel like there’s no point in that because I could as well write in a diary, which I hate, because as many people are going to read these as there’s people who can read my diary. Aka none. Not even me. I don’t like reading my diary and usually I also do not come back to these posts I put in Tumblr. Sometimes I browse my posts and am like “wtf have I been writing???” but I guess that’s the main point too, just to get it out of my system and I don’t need them back, mainly because they never really leave, they just evolve into new stuff I will vent here sooner or later too.

I am an attention whore who is afraid of being the center of attention. Sure if I tagged my posts more I might get more people to find me but I’m also afraid of being found or that my personal posts get reblogged. I don’t really want these to be on anyone’s dash except when it’s my original post. My social anxiety is afraid of notes and my HSP is afraid of the reactions I might get because of notes. But whenever I do something that I wish would get notes, I get none. And every time that happens, my perfectionism feels violated and I feel like a failure and that I suck at everything ever. Sometimes I am even shocked by the fact I post something like this and then suddenly remember that I have no idea how many people out these even is seeing these on their dash. What do they think? Do they see these and be like “oh god again that pathetic creature is whining some shit *eyeroll*” or do they just skip because idc.

I have so many times in my life felt like I am less than everyone else. It’s because when I was 13, my best friend turned out to be a narcissist (if that is possible for a 13-years-old) and we stopped being friends and eventually I made everyone else mad at me too and was alone, lonely and hated by everyone for a couple of years and your teens is the worst time for that to happen. I still don’t know if I was the villain or those girls. So I start feeling like a failure and worse than everyone very easily. AT some point I tried to get attention with my art but I didn’t succeed and I always felt like a failure then. “I should be better at arts, maybe I’d then be seen and approved.” During my worst time I actually thought I was relating to Garfield’ Jon so much and I legit thought I exist in this world only so that everyone else can feel a little bit better about themselves because there’s always at least one person who is worse than them. I literally felt like the meaning of my life was to make others feel better just because of how much of a loser I am. That’s why I feel sad when I see people getting asks all the time. I’m not really jealous or angry, I’m just sad because it just makes me remember how useless I am and how boring my life is and how bring absolutely nothing to this world and how... just invisible I am. I bet all ask posts have been on people’s dashes but no one just find me interesting enough to send questions. But I can’t blame them, because would I send myself asks if I was someone else and saw me on their dash? No. (Well, soon I will if no one else does, let’s see how out of my mind I will look for other people then lol.) I’d probably just unfollow my user because of what a pain in the ass I really am after all.

So whatever, a long post and useless blabber and just letting out some steam. I’ll go to watch some TV now and try to get over this. I’m also feeling like I hate Tumblr, I don’t want to come here to be disappointed because no one wants to know anything about me but I also can’t keep myself away from here because I want to know if I’ve got any asks because that would be some interesting stuff to do for my brains. So it’s like I have my hopes high only to be crushed in a minute and I keep doing this cycle every 5 minutes because I can’t decide if I should be a pessimist or an optimist.

Gosh, am I being selfish or what? I hate being selfish and I hate selfish people. But why am I still constantly talking about myself? Hypocrite much??? I wish I could unfollow the “blog” in my brains.

#mcrmadness' deep thoughts #oh look it's just me hating myself aka absolutely nothing to see here #personal #long post #rsd #or is that even rsd???

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sylph-feather · 3 years

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Also scrolling through tumblr and just seeing your posts about your dm and stuff is like sitting at a table in the library, reading, and hearing someone two tables over talking loudly and it’s just the weirdest shit and you kind of don’t know whether to respond or what is even happening

it’s like this post but im the anon

anyways i will TRY to do my best to explain everything in a condensed form. Basically 2014~2015 i was super depressed bc I got a case of that tasty chronic illness, so I joined this community online called the p0kemon daily/ask community (I don’t want this to show up related to that)... aka just started running a blog where I drew some pokemon characters every day and took drawing prompts / interactions / etc about them. It was cute, I guess, but mostly it was a good way to draw everyo day (it improved my art SO much) and get myself out of bed.

ANYWAYS i ended up joining several discords, etc for some more socialization. And there are a LOT of weird people in the discords, and a lot of varying ages; a lot of the discords were mostly annoying because it would be a mix of like 20ish year olds (such as my dm) and 15ish year olds (me) and rhe 20ish year olds modelled less than appropriate adulr behavior. The main server I was in and interacted with was my DM’s.

Some examples lol: the one who’s now my dm told me her fetish awakening when she was like ~19 and I was ~15, and she wasn’t even the first to do that. Other things were just constantly joking about piss kinks (which is why i didnt interact with the biggest server of the community), having blogs centered around twincest and not many people finding that an issue, general inability to interact with children and keep porn in appropriate channels, etc. Some of it is more egregious and some of it is just annoying, but yeah, i have a LOT of weird stories from this time.

On top of that, there was just a lot of drama that you’d expect from a community of teenagers, anything from like lgbtphobia (such as the friend I used to watch movies/shows with all the time for years and was my closest friend for a while because of my isolation coming out and saying “actually my uber christian ass has decided that bible says gay ISNT okay”) to “minors should see porn ive been looking at porn since i was 12 ans turned out fine” (my dm) to just “this person is fucking annoying as hell.” Plus there’s some special art community flavor like “this person requests drawing prompts / scenarios that are like.. subtly kink.”

Anyways that’s a tangent in regards to my dm, but the main things you need to know is shes one of those people who claims to be centrist but is actually very right (except in regards to identity/lgbt+ politics), and that she was really bad at imodding her server— between the whole “inability to talk to children without being weird” as well as just generally being unwilling to punish people— as well as just like... a vaguely scummy person overall, just not enough to outright drop (because I was overly sympathetic). Cuz of this, I made my own server essentially to be a place I was comfy in. Years later she has said this was “hurtful” or whatever because I ended up with a lot of people that were in her server. Blah blah blah. There’s a reason they left, girl.

So it goes, etcetera. She was in my server for a bit and clearly bitter and still scummy. I didn’t interacr directly with her much even then, though she weirdly seemed to see me as a friend. More drama happened, eventually we go to ghosting each other for like 2 years straight.

Then she invites me to dnd out of fucking nowhere lol. I kind of figured she’d grown less tolerant and changed based on certain things, but nope. She’s the same.

Anyways, the campaign mostly suffers because she has run 5 campaigns in this setting and thus it’s literally CONSTANT lore dumping / exposition, for months. And in between that, rather than doing character rp or generally letting us guide the story, she just shoves pokemon battles in front of us. And it’s very mechanically pokemon, so the battles really are just as simple a spamming a move til it’s dead. We’ll play for 3 hours and the summation of the session will be “fought a boss” (because there’s a boss every session) and “got lore on another legendary.” Also there’s a lot of tonal issues... she kind of went for “goofy cult” as the enemies and suddenly a month later they’re like torturing people and shit, meanwhile there was a member of the party who was cursed to wear clown shoes all the time, so just, wack. It’s not just me who has an issue with this stuff, given that 2/5 people have left from boredom, and 4/5 people have vented about it in a private server that’s just “our group minus the dm” that nobody’s snitched on (which also says something).

Everything I vent about her is just the cherry on top, lol

i guess a tldr on my already condensed thing: my dm was one of the many weirdos with bad opinions and inability to talk to children I used to have as part of my friend group, and she’s not really changed all that much after she invited me to dnd for some godforsaken reason

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let-it-show · 4 years

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New Year, Same Love

Anna and crew come to see Elsa to celebrate the start of a new year and there is wine. And emotions. It is mostly a light-hearted piece but I can’t help myself it seems! A little bit of Kristanna, and some up-to-the-reader Elsanna, which seems to be my style lol.

They tried to warn her. They really, really did. 'Pace yourself' and 'remember this isn't what you're used to' had been said several times. Elsa didn't think there was anything to worry about. She healed faster as a spirit; she had more strength, endurance, all of that. Being something that wasn't quite human had really worked out for her in that regard. She didn't even get cold!

It was that manner of thinking that convinced her that she didn't need to take it so easy on the celebratory wine the Northuldra produced for the end of the year and the start of a new cycle. What could happen? She wasn't too much of a lightweight normally, unlike Anna who practically just needed to sniff a bottle to be on her ass.

Anna, who definitely should not have attempted to keep up with her sister.

Elsa hadn't made it to Arendelle to ring in the new year and as queen, Anna HAD to be there. Both of them had hated it and the way she heard it, Anna barely maintained her composure. The new year was a time for them to be together and to not be was pretty depressing and angering.

So when Anna showed up the day after the new year had begun, they hugged, vented, and Elsa dragged her to the roaring fire where some others were gathered. Everyone had waited for Anna to be there before getting into special food and drink. Although, it wasn't just Anna. As soon as Ryder saw Kristoff he had lit up and gone to greet his new best pal, and the two were almost immediately discussing Sven.

Elsa had one dainty ice glass of wine. So did Anna. So did Kristoff. Olaf was immediately directed to where all the children were.

Elsa had another equally dainty ice glass of wine. So did Anna. So did Kristoff.

Elsa was pouring her third and Anna was already giggling about...something. They'd been chatting, but she lost track. Anna had linked arms with both Kristoff and Elsa and her face was red and bright.

"Think you better slow down," Kristoff commented to her but there was a big smile on his face. "Think I better slow down, you've seen me after a little too much."

"Yea you try to graze!" Anna blurted without even trying to stop herself and Kristoff muttered while burying his face in one hand.

"I bench press the reindeer, that's what you are supposed to tell people, I bench press the reindeer!"

"You two," Elsa said, but laughed and shook her head. She felt much better with the added company. She liked Ryder, Honeymaren and everyone else, but having her family there couldn't be beat. She missed them all and tugged Anna closer.

"Ooohh you better watch out Elsa's stealing me, oooh..." Anna giggled, snorted, and giggled some more. She held up her empty glass. "More!"

"When isn't she stealing you?" Kristoff answered, and then reached for their particular group bottle. Elsa held out her hand. "Nope. Nope nope. Anna you need to stop for a moment." Elsa tilted her glass at her and spilled a third of it. "Oh..." She looked at it, her head spinning a little. Maybe she needed to pause. Everything was funny and kind of warm and good, so she wanted to embrace it. She set her glass down on the snowy ground and threw both her arms around Anna. With one hand empty now, what else was she supposed to do? The answer to all of her questions was always the same: Anna. Talk to Anna, hug Anna, think about Anna. In her drunken state, it didn't occur to her to question that, though she never did anyway.

How could she think? Anna giggled and leaned into her more. Her energy was just as drunk as the rest of her and it sent tingles up and down Elsa's spine with how erratic it was. The normal comfort was there underneath.

Kristoff unlinked his arm from Anna's and allowed himself more wine at least. His nose was red and eyes bright. Sven nosed him and he laughed, truly enjoying himself. It made Elsa happy. "Kristoff..." she said, but realized she had absolutely no idea where she was going with it so she just stopped and stared. She wanted to express that she felt his joy, too, but she wasn't quite sure how to say that.

He looked at her. "Huh? I can have more, right?"

Before Elsa could respond, Anna did. "Only if you pour me more honey! I will also finish Elsa's," she said, trying to reach for it.

"What? You will not," Elsa said and waved her hand to slide it gently out of Anna's reach. The glass absolutely flew into the fire and exploded with a harsh crackle. "Ah..."

"Is that a no? I'm really confused," Kristoff asked her with genuine concern in his eyes. Anna was tilting off the little bench they were on because she had completely dissolved into laughter. Only Elsa was keeping her sitting up.

Elsa stared at where her glass had been. "Um, yea have whatever you want," she said distractedly. Boy, she really had to focus. She hadn't lost control of her powers in a very long time, and just that little action, messing up moving her glass, had hit an anxious spot in her. It was so minor and it wasn't as if she had concentrated to begin with. But she'd have to be more careful.

Kristoff was pouring himself more as Ryder sloppily approached, grabbing Kristoff's shoulders so hard he nearly spilled what he was pouring. "Kristooooofff!" he managed.

"Ryder? Buddy, you uh..." Kristoff looked over his shoulder to where Ryder wobbled in place, grabbing one of Sven's antlers to right himself. "You alright?"

"Are YOU?" Ryder asked, and then, trying to mimic Kristoff's voice for Sven, he leaned closer to the reindeer, "Kristoff is doing just fine! I've had more to drink to him." His voice was slurring and Sven cast a worried look his way.

Anna was reduced to nothing but hiccups.

Elsa may have too, but she was still annoyed at herself. Her mind kept reassuring her the thing with the glass was small. No big deal. She wasn't going to drunkenly ice Anna or make a snowstorm, right? She could control herself, right?

She stared at fire, still.

And she must have been staring for a while because suddenly she felt a warm breath on her ear. It might have been calming had it not been followed by an especially loud hiccup. "Elsaaaaaaa," Anna whispered, and then smushed her nose against her cheek. "You're quiet Elsaaaa, are you okay?"

"Hmm-mmm?" Elsa felt like she suddenly pieced herself back together, whatever had been luring her out of her own head was gone. She was back in the moment listening to Kristoff and Ryder taking turns doing Sven's voice and Anna was draped against her. "Oh, yes. I'm okay."

"Liar." Anna hiccuped again after the word. "I'm not too drunk for...I know you."

"Mmm.." Had her arms not been occupied with Anna, she would have crossed them over her chest, something she hadn't done in a long time. "When I moved the glass, I didn't mean to fling it into the fire. I don't want to lose any control just because of a little wine. I-"

"You won't hurt me or anyone else," came Anna's sweet and incredibly unconcerned voice. Elsa turned her head so she could face Anna. Anna decided not to move a single inch and her nose was almost on Elsa's mouth.

Elsa raised her chin so she could look into her eyes. They were soft and happy, with absolute trust in them. That trust wrapped itself around her shoulders and gently covered them, making her feel more secure. "You..."

"I believe in you more than an-y-one," Anna reminded her and hiccuped yet again. "So don't worry, okay?"

Elsa laughed lightly. "Okay. Okay okay."

"If you do anything silly it'll probably be freezing your butt to the bench. And if that happens, I can rub it," Anna told her firmly, and then immediately the giggles were back.

"Hey, what's this about rubbing butts? Mine could use a scratch!" Ryder-as-Sven's voice sounded over the giggles.

"That is my fiancee, Sven!" Kristoff growled, before his eyes widened and he realized it was in fact, still Ryder and Sven was also still a reindeer. "Wait..."

"You know you two can...go away," Elsa said suddenly, then covered her mouth as she realized how that just sort of came out. "Sorry, I don't mean that! I..." Well, there was no making that one look good. She really didn't mind them! But she also didn't know why that popped out.

"Yea go away," Anna chimed in and waved them off for a second before her arms went back around Elsa. "Go fishing or something, go do guy things."

"Wow, harsh!" Ryder commented, his mouth hanging open as Kristoff stood up.

"Nah, she's right, let's go do something. Otherwise you'll get worse, and I'll end up like you," Kristoff said. Ryder snorted as though he were offended, but just shrugged. Kristoff turned to the sisters. "Can I have a kiss, Anna?"

"Hmm." Anna looked at him, grabbed Elsa's hand, and kissed the top of it. Elsa's skin tingled.

"Uh..." Kristoff ran his hand through his hair. "I guess that works. Here," he said, holding out his half drunk glass of wine.

Before Elsa even had a chance to say no, the little spitfire lunged forward, grabbed the glass and poured the entirety of the contents into her mouth. Her cheeks puffed up with her mouth full and she turned quickly to look at Elsa, her eyes wide as if to say 'oh no, I've made a mistake'.

Elsa groaned. "It's fine, it's fine. I'll hold your hair back later."

Anna swallowed and Kristoff sighed. "Oh, boy...I should not have done that. Love you honey..." He smiled meekly at Anna, and then Elsa.

"Just go," she told him, vaguely annoyed he gave her the rest of the wine, though overall she wasn't too concerned. And she shouldn't be mad, he got caught up in the moment just like the rest of them and she was drunk too. The only way to pry Anna off her side would be from a harsh gust of wind from Gale, so at least there was a guarantee she was safe.

"Love yooouuu..." Anna managed and waved at Kristoff before he turned to walk away with Ryder and Sven. Then she curled up against Elsa again. "I'm cold."

"You want to go closer to the fire?" Elsa asked, concerned.

"Nooo."

"Want to go inside my hut?"

"Nah..."

Elsa shrugged, not sure what else to suggest. Anna had on a fairly thick coat and cape. With the alcohol in her, she was surprised she was cold. Even Elsa was warm. "Okay. Well when you want a change, tell me."

Anna fell quiet for a couple of moments, her head on Elsa's shoulder. "I don't want a change," she said quietly. "Don't want..." Elsa's mind swirled a little, processing. It was still hard to focus.

"Don't want to move. I just want to stay here with you. I miss you so much," Anna told her.

Oh. Elsa's heart fell a little. "I miss you too, every single day." And every morning, every night.

"Can you freeze this moment?" Anna asked in a small voice.

Elsa laughed a little. "Now, why would you want that when you're already cold?"

"I..." Anna giggled again. "Oh yea." Then the giggling stopped. "But I'd stay cold always if I could have you back. Will you come back if its always cold?"

"Oh Anna, you know I don't need-"

"I know, it's not like you're a...something that actually lives in snow. But if you were I'd have it snow all the time. I'd live in an igloo. Please please, I don't want to let go," she said and her arms were tighter around Elsa.

"Anna...I don't want you to either." Elsa turned on the bench. "I really, really don't. But - but I have to help up here, at least for now. When I know everything is in balance, when I know they'll be alright, I'll come home, I'll come to you. I promise." Yea, it was a bit of a drunken promise, but she meant it. The Northuldra wouldn't need her forever. Ahtohallan could be welcoming, but without those she loved it was a large and empty expanse where she watched many memories she could do nothing about even if she learned a great many things. She didn't have to stop going, didn't have to stop learning.

But she could stop living there when the time was right. The other spirits might miss her but they could easily reach her.

Anna could reach her too but Elsa didn't want her to have to.

"I want to be with you," Anna said, sliding down against Elsa. Somehow her body still fit on that bench despite it not being too wide. "I love Kristoff and I love Olaf and I love our people but I love you the most." Her voice sounded thick.

"Anna, hey, hey." Elsa's own eyes were starting to tear up, and she wanted Anna to not go the sad drunk route, partially because she would take Elsa right along with her. The air around her had shifted from comforting to despair and she did not want that. "Anna, I'm here. I'm right here, okay? I'm with you right now. And someday, I will always be with you. It might be annoying. You'll be trying to sleep, and there's me causing a snowball fight in the bedroom because I'm having a dream."

By then Anna's head was in her lap, and she was silent before popping out a question. "Has that actually happened?"

Elsa didn't know for sure, but Yelena had mentioned a circle of slightly menacing snowmen surrounding her hut one night when she was having a nightmare, so it was a possibility. "Maybe. But do you really want to find out?"

"Yes!"

Elsa shook her head with a smile. "Of course. That was a silly question. I love you, Anna." She gazed down at her and stroked her face. Anna took her other hand in both of her own and held it to her chest.

"I love you more."

"Impossible," Elsa whispered down to her. She couldn't imagine anything that could compete with her love for Anna...

"Nuh-uh." Anna glared up at her. "You don't even know how much..."

The glare was met with the continued warm smile. "I can feel it, so yes, I do. I really do. I suppose neither of us can win this argument."

"Nope. So stop! And just let me be here, okay, right here. I don't wanna be anywhere else."

"I know." Elsa slouched a little so she could lean over her more. "I'm not moving. I'm not going anywhere." When it did start to get dark, she'd move to carry Anna to bed and that was about it. Meanwhile she still stroked Anna's cheek. Anna always was more of the clingy drunk type. Once or twice Elsa could remember Anna literally falling asleep outside her door, before Elsa had been comfortable enough to cuddle with her.

Never again would that happen.

Anna didn't say anything for a little while though she continued to watch Elsa. Everything felt at rest, and though Elsa still felt a little dizzy, she was alright. And they may have indeed stayed there until the sun went down, until...

"Elsa...about holding my hair back..." Anna hiccuped, and it did not sound good.

Well, she almost held her alcohol.

#Frozen 2 #fanfic #elsa #anna #kristoff #elsanna #kristanna

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organized-chaotic-disaster · 4 years

Text

(non-USA) political venting below, mostly related to my parents lol

wow this turned out to be a long one bc I had to provide some context alsfjksladfkljsadf

I hope this makes sense, tho I guess it doesn’t really matter bc. I’m literally just. Venting. bc, oh my god

Okay, so

Where I live, we had an election today. Not federally, but provincially. I’m not gonna say any specifics, if you want to you can look up stuff and figure out the specifics yourself, but I’m not mentioning them for my own privacy bc, with what I’m gonna say, if you have that context you know who I voted for, and |D in Canada things are different

So, before anything else, some context: here in Canada, we don’t have a strictly 2-party system like the USA. Instead, we have a 2+ party system, which means that there’s the 2 “main” parties, but then 1+ other parties that also get decent support, which means that elections are based on more than just 2 parties. We have 4 main parties here: the Liberals, Conservatives, NDP (New Democratic Party), and the Greens, tho there’s also the Bloc Québécois, which is a whole other can of worms and isn’t really relevant federally, or even provincially in my case since it’s only really relevant in Québec

SO, anyway, main point is: we have 4 main parties to choose from, tho the Greens, while they DO win seats, never get enough votes to be the main party. The NDP has never won enough votes to be the main party, but they’ve gotten close in the past (I believe they were pretty close in last year’s federal election, iirc) and have a legitimate chance of being the main political party someday. The Greens have no chance of that, for the time being, maybe sometime after my time alive lmao

But anyway, this means that there’s 2 possible outcomes of elections: a majority government, or a minority government

A majority government is when the leading party has over 50% of the seats, while a minority government means that the leading party, while they have the most seats out of all the other parties, have less than 50% of the seats. For example, Party A could be the leading party with 40% of the seats, Party B could have 30%, Party C could have 20%, and Party D could have 10%. Party A is still the party with the most seats, but they don’t have more than 50% of the seats, meaning that they don’t get the chance to control every decision with an iron fist. If they wanna make any changes, they NEED at least partial support from at least one party, or more than one party

I like minority governments because this keeps the leading party in check, essentially. They don’t get to control Every aspect of Everything that gets done. The other parties still have value in this system and, overall, it’s more fair. At least, that’s how it should be in theory. I’m not THAT educated on government and tbh I haven’t followed these things closely enough to determine if this IS the case, and beyond that, iirc I haven’t experienced a majority government since I’ve been old enough to vote, so I simply don’t have the experience to say with complete certainty that one is better than the other. But, I stand by my current opinion that, at least in theory, the minority government is better

Now, that took longer to explain than I thought it would. I’m really tired so tbh I might have said some stuff that I didn’t need to mention? But idk lmao, anyway

Regarding the election today, it’s looking like the province is getting a majority government in favor of the party I voted for. Which, I’m glad they’re winning!! But I’d prefer a minority government, but I guess this is a chance to see how a majority government plays out

Now, my parents... they’re traditionally quite conservative. This election they went all-out and voted for a very right-wing party that’s based on Christianity (essentially voting with their religion more strongly than anything else, bc they don’t like any of the major parties that much rn). And now the party I voted for, which is relatively left-wing, is (probably) getting a majority government

And my dad kept saying to me, “I wonder what you’ll think of the majority government,” or even “I wonder what you’ll think of the party you voted for after 4 years. You’ll get to see their true colours since they have the majority government now”

And, idk, like I said I’m exhausted, but, it just felt like. He was salty as hell that this party is winning. And he’s trying to make me feel bad for voting for them. Implying that I think they’re perfect in every way and could never do any wrong. It’s almost like he’s looking forward to my disappointment. It feels like he thinks I’m happy for the majority government and is trying to tell me that I shouldn’t be

But I kept saying, I like a minority government, regardless of who the winning party is. Because it’s fairer and more controlled

But he kept pushing it, in his own weird way of not REALLY pushing anything, but also very much pushing something. He kept saying “I wonder what you’ll think of them after 4 years”

Like, obviously I’m happy the party I voted for is winning, but, don’t tell me to feel bad about it bc you’re salty? I just????

But I’m also probably looking into it WAY too hard bc I’m genuinely exhausted (I’ve been up since like 3:30 this morning for work and it’s currently 11PM |D ) and have been kind of emotional overall today AND it seems that my body decided to have its period now even tho it shouldn’t be at that point in my cycle yet (gotta love that PCOS)

#personal #ask to tag #(bc politics talk)

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koszmar-zycie · 4 years

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All of the fun, random questions! Do it!

Oh lawdy! To quote Ace Ventura: “Aaaaaalrighty, then!” - Apologies for the janky post, since I can’t space them without the site making the numbers all screwy.

Do you have any “yeah I’m good at it but I hate it” kind of skills? - hmmmm. To be honest, leading. If you buy into horoscopes, I’m a Dragon. And maybe it’s natural, maybe it’s theatre experience. But when I apply myself as a leader, I do AMAZING. The issue is that I generally like to be a support. Sometimes I like leading, but usually I’m not into the idea of being this focus or figurehead guiding the way as the leader. Whether projects or even fun, I tend to fall into a like... intermediate leadership role at best.

If you could make one type of food cease to exist, what would you banish? - To be honest, I can’t do that. Even foods I’m not fond of are foods, and I would be remised if I were to remove any.

You’re allowed to know everything about one highly specific thing/topic. What would you choose? - Deep sea thermal based biology. The deep sea is my 100% very favorite place on Earth. If I die and there’s an afterlife, I want endless ocean of all kinds. If I’m reincarnated, I want to be a Dragonfish or something. At any rate, I would do anything to have such a wealth of knowledge. Especially about something as fascinating to me as the ins and out of how the deep sea creatures that survive and thrive around the *extreme* heat and pressure of the vents.

What’s a fictional character who you want to be like? In what way do you want to be like them? - I would love to be like Nathan Ford from Leverage. I want to be able to live my life as freely and wildly as he (though maybe not as illegally lol), and also pursue what I feel is right for me. Live through and persevere through hardship as well as he, even if he struggled.

If you had to live in and not leave a city for the rest of your life, what city would you choose? - That would be a VERY hard call between Avalon on Catalina Island USA, or Sedona, Arizona. While Sedona overall has more of what I love, Avalon has the sea. And I’d probably die without my ocean.

Do you tend to say what you’re thinking? What would people think of you if you did the opposite? - Usually, yes. But in a careful way. It WILL happen periodically, because I’m also an emotional hunk of waste. But in general I do a decent enough job of being honest without being harsh about it. When I’m provoked or something really gets to me, then I can just vent without thinking.

Is there anything that you’ve done/experienced so much you hate it now? Easiest to come up with are like, food or music. - Hmmm. Not really. Halloween got SEVERELY killed for me, though. I still like it, but Haunt people are by and large the most obnoxious and hypocritical. Since I adore haunt, I HAVE to deal with them. Hatred for Christmas and other holidays while spouting about Halloween has drained my interest in Halloween. So yes an no, because that’s really OTHER people killing it for me. But I’m also sort of involved because of my love of the haunt business.

Were you afraid of anything “silly”/irrational as a child that you’ve since outgrown? - Deep water. As a kid I HATED the deep end of pools. Now I’m obsessed with deep water and the dark, unknown, crushing depths. Funny how things work out! I used to hate going near the slope in a pool if it was even a little dark (lighted pools were fine). Now, the only thing stopping me from just continuing to swim down if I go diving is my tank limits.

If you were to impart one moral lesson (think Aesop’s fables, Golden Rule, etc) on the world, what would it be? - Treat others as you wish to be treated. It’s SO easy to say, and yet nobody does it.

If you were a DND character or a game character (or something like that) what would your highest stat be? What would you want your highest stat to be? What about the lowest, to both of those? - HA. I think about this way too much. I’d be a sea elf druid. STR 10 INT 12 CHA 16 DEX 12 END 18 WIS 18 - If I were to apply myself logically as an analog of myself, I’d have good durability and understanding and social capability (again, in specific regards), but my outward strength and dex would be kinda average. I like to think that I’m decently intelligent, as I LOVE books, learning, and figuring things out. But I’m also far from genius. Hence my focus on Wisdom. I’m also surprisingly dexterous, but in certain circumstances more than others, so that’s also pretty average. I don’t think I’ve really have any “bad” stats, but I’d definitely mix average with a couple high ones.

Is there anything you judge others for when you probably shouldn’t? - Probably. I have a huge mistake of expecting others to be courteous and offer a common decency/open perspective on things.

Who are “your kind” of people? - Goths and hippies, my friend. If you want to know my style? Goth Druid. lol

If you had to come up with your last words right now… what would they be? - “Don’t regret not accomplishing what you set out to accomplish. Regret having not tried. I do not regret trying, even if I did not succeed.”

Do you have any “weirdly strong” opinions about things that don’t really matter? - This is VERY obscure (I have others, but it’s late and this came to mind first) But if you play Fate Grand Order.... SET YOUR GOD DAMNED SUPPORTS.

Your goal is to completely confuse the people around you in as short a time as possible– what do you say/do? - Honestly, just start quoting Lorne from Season 5 of Angel. Or act like a Malkavian. One of my VTM characters was a Malkavian who got in a fight with a parachute he had. Her name was Kitten.

What’s the most comfy place you’ve been in? - I don’t know, actually. Maybe the Luxe Hotel in LA during Anime Expo?

Did you have any “silly” beliefs as a kid? Where did they come from (parents, friends, out of nowhere, etc)? - Not that I know of. At least in terms of anything that’d have changed or something. I’m sure there’s Something, but I honestly can’t dig anything up in my memories.

If you were to add or remove one physical feature to yourself… what would it be? Can be from animals, can be from imagination… whatever. - Hahaha, I ALWAYS think about this one. Right now, I’d want maybe the electro-vision of sharks.

What could you happily give a two hour lecture on? - Ocean conservation, and what’s correct and what isn’t.

What would a mirror opposite version of yourself be like? It doesn’t necessarily have to be an evil version– any feature can be reflected! - Someone who’s mostly optimistic. More bright colors than dark, short hair. Focused on socializing and extroverted. More than happy in one place forever, without an interest in travel.

What’s an occasion you’ve done a double take? - Anime Expo a number of times. Seeing weird or unexpected, or legendary cosplays.

If you could only see one color (and its varying shades– dark/light) for the rest of your life… what would you choose? - Blue. Guess that was probably obvious. But it’s a cool color and associated with calming. Between dark midnight and navy blues to vibrant aquamarines pressing towards green (without actually going into it), I feel like there’s a happy spectrum of all kinds that would be enough to get through without going too crazy.

Do your friends all share certain qualities? Major or minor! - Despite my.... unique personality, and preference towards quiet etc (INFJ), I have a lot of radically different kinds of friends. I honestly don’t think I could put any one thing down. Other than that I choose my friends carefully on who I think I can trust and is a good persona at heart. To a sufficient degree anyway. That’s also a huge part of my downsides, too. By being sensitive (and having certain conditions), when a friend does something that hurts me, it REALLY hurts.

How do you motivate yourself to do things? - Oh man, that’s funny. It is entirely circumstantial. As an artist/writer/creative (I use artist in the broad sense, but I figured I’d add that to help specify) I can VERY easily just have motivation on a moments notice. So it’s often pretty random. But if not, I jut need to think of why. I Looooooove gardening. Weeds need pulling? I think about what’ll happen if the roses or tomatos or lemon tree don’t get their water because of weeds sucking it up. Need to write? I’ll never leave my creation for *any*one if I don’t at least crack down on notes, and make slow and steady progress if nothing else. It’s usually just a small thing I think of to act as a spark, but it’s usually very effective.

What’s one of your favorite jokes? Tell it to us! - Okay, so this isn’t a joke, but it’s seriously STILL making me laugh just thinking about it. I was going to reference an old comedian in a previous post (I didn’t end up doing it, but still). Anyway, I was really confused as to why I couldn’t find him in google. It turns out, instead of looking up “Groucho Marx”, I was googling “Marco Grouch”. LOL That’s probably not quite as funny to y’all, but for some reason it’s killing me. XD

Hooooooeeee! Well, that was long, but actually really fun! Thank you @scatteredstoryteller! That was like... an essay. lol But definitely fun. I love asks. XD

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poetic-beats · 4 years

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You'll be ok. If you feel your not, You can talk to me. Take care of yourself.

Thank you so much <3 I am just overwhelmed by everything right now. Like my partner having no job by January. My mental health. My physical health like this year so far I’ve been told I have CNS dysfunction and FGID. I am being tested for Celiac. Oh and they found cysts on my ovaries then they tested and said it wasn’t what it could’ve been and now because of issues I’ve had my female GP who handles my contraception which is due up in January wants me to have another uhh thing to check the cysts and have another blood test because turns out I could actually have it..and it could affect my chances to have children naturally - I know what it was like for my mum she has the same condition and so if i have it I’m scared even though things are different now they know more and have better options its still like D: It is like seriously though I’ve got two new things wrong with me although they havent yet like found the cause of the CNS dysfunction all the specialist could say is I hit some markers for Fibromyalgia but not enough but in her medical professional opinion I do have some form of CNS dysfunction but just not likely fibromyalgia my mum took me to see this specialist first purely because she has Fibro herself so she thought well lets start with an appointment with a rheumatologist who would like be able to check for fibro and a few other condtions. So I kinda need to like now see I think the next step is a neuropsychologist but like I’ve been so stressed and ill right now trying to fight for my mental health treatment/therapy so I’ve not been like exactly thinking about making appointments for the CNS stuff. But it is impacting me it makes me get involuntary like twitches/jerks it feels like a jolt like a little electric jolt i guess down my body but not painful as such but it just makes my body go like suddenly my arms jerked to the left or Ive thrown the food in my hand across the room because my arm/wrist/hand w/e has suddenly twitched or w/e but sometimes i get the like electric like w/e feeling its hard to explain it like across my whole body from my head to my toes and at that point it can lead to me just sort of on and off twitching a bit more like less aggressively but more often in a space of time i usually end up sleeping it off so idk really I pretty much just always pass out asleep when I get that kind of feeling. And like I wanna do stuff to like help ease his worries about money and the burden on him to support us financially and support me emotionally. But I’m not fit to work like not even a minor part time job really because I’d be so unreliable with the way my body is. I am also affected by sensory issues and other things so it’s just not I couldnt realistically right now engage in work for someone. So I am trying to do like online things but I don’t...I...just I am getting kinda overwhelmed by that too. Cos I dont know where to start what to do. Like I do but I dont you know? I mean...idk...Ive sold 3 pairs of sloth socks which was cool in the past like 2 weeks or is it 3 now since like i started like really seriously uploading to redbubble like before that I kept like uploading then removing my designs trying out different sites and so on I was trying to figure it out but I do now have it kinda figured out so that’s something. But now its like I’ve gotta get people to my freakin’ redbubble and its hard cos how an earth do i drive people to check out my store from the millions of others on the site. But also like I dont wanna like.. Idk I feel like and even though I have explained my situation on here I still kinda feel like I try to do it in a like not serious asking for help way in that i dont want it to come off as idk like I dont wanna be that person where its like i dont wanna be coming off as oh please help me feel sympathy towards me and feel sorry for me or pity me bs. I dont wanna be like appearing to be all I’m in desperate need pls help signal boost or buy to support me. Cos I’m not you know I have my parents to help we’ll be moving back in hopefully before xmas where I won’t have to pay rent. For me this is more about you know when my parents aren’t there I need to have an income for me and my partner hes disabled too...so full time jobs for the both of us is not likely especially if his EDS (edlher danlos syndrome) gets worse ya know? So I suppose my worries arent like of imminent threat of anything but more like in the future we’ll be fucked if i cant set down the foundations now for the potential for a long term income from various online strategies. But just even thinking about the future and that far ahead fucking terrifies me. Not only because of all this but because I never really thought about the future I didnt see one for myself as far as I was concerned I’d be dead or I’d be just...idk I couldnt even imagine a future or if I thought I’d make it I wouldnt really care you know because I didnt have like that light in me to want to live so it wasnt like I wanted to survive and thrive and i couldnt see a ‘happy ending’ for myself and now i can and I want to make that come true but of course its a bit hard to envisage a nice happy future with Kade when literally everything depends on having money to eat and have a roof over our heads etc and its just..UGH

I feel like trash too because I feel like my worth is valued by my output/labour and at the moment my output isn’t really bringing in cash right now so my output wouldnt exactly be deemed as ‘good’ idk its just weird its not like an I feel worthless thing like depression low self esteeem shit its more just a sort of social cultural consensus/belief that is ingrained that we are not really worth anything unless we’re contributing to society i.e working , paying taxes and buying things to reinvest in our economy etc etc..everything is about how much a human is worth in value of £ssss to big corporations and governments and rich people and idk its just like...they do have a point you know i cant just sit around and not do anything to contribute..because..then i feel like you know im not ‘sick enough’ to warrant that so im just in this limbo i guess completely self enforced by my mind which just makes it all the stupider but it is what it is. Venting this out has helped clear my mind some cos i mean at least its now out there in this void than just bouncing around my brain. Its why i write poetry too I guess idk why I just feel a release less tension SOMETIMES not all the time but sometimes it can help ease even if only slightly the chaos of my mind to just get it out there whether by chatting in person or writing it out like this just having it out there venting to someone or on a blog where people will read knowing like its not isolated within you still its relieving sometimes. So thanks for messaging me! I hope you are having a good day so far! Idk timezones or where u r so it could be early there for you maybe your day is just starting..who knows! Its 2:37pm where I am right now though so I need to work or try to...(yet again me feeling if i dont work constantly I be like failing at life) lol

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cami-chats · 5 years

Text

Not Rock ‘N Roll Good

A/N: A modern Sandor/Arya fic so I can dabble in their characterizations. I think it’s obvious but just in case: lots of language ahead!

Tags: AU- Modern Setting, Wrong Number, Getting Together, Time Skips, Blind Character, Blind Arya Stark, Identity Reveal, Minor Sexual Content

Sandor's phone chimed with a message, and he frowned. Anytime someone texted him, he was suspicious. He pulled it out and checked.

Unknown Number: Dude where the fuck are you?

Unknown Number: And you don't get to be mad at me for cursing at you because you're THIRTY MINUTES LATE

He didn't have plans with anyone, and certainly not with someone whose number wasn't in his phone, so he ignored it. It was a wrong number, they'd figure it out soon enough. Sandor turned back to the computer and looked over the schedule. Bronn was going on vacation-- or so he claimed, frankly Sandor thought he was a fucking liar-- and with Ygritte reducing her hours so she could make her internship, they were stretched thin.

Unknown Number: Are you going to show up?

Great, this person was being stood up, and Sandor was going to have to be the one to break the news.

Unknown Number: Ramsey?

He sighed, typing out a reply. To Unknown Number: Think the arse gave you the wrong number mate.

Unknown Number: Of fucking course he did

Unknown Number: What a gods cursed cunt

Unknown Number: I should have known better than to make a date with someone I met at a club

Unknown Number: Sorry dude but I'm pissed. I had to cancel with my study group for this dick

To Unknown Number: It's fine. Vent all you want maybe it'll distract me from this boring shit.

Unknown Number: WELL IN THAT CASE

Unknown Number: Jk

A little bubble showed up to signal they were typing again, and Sandor gave up pretending to look at the schedule. He already knew what was going to end up happening: he'd ask Gendry, Gendry would look at his schedule and have to say no, and Sandor would cover it himself.

Unknown Number: I know you don't know me, but it's not like I welcome random arse people to hit on me. He had to go out of his way and spend TIME convincing me to agree to this, and then he doesn't even show up.

Unknown Number: And I only agreed because it seemed like he'd hop into bed with me.

Unknown Number: I just wanted to get laid.

To Unknown Number: Have you tried sex toys? They're better than most people think.

Unknown Number: Oooo personal experience talking?

To Unknown Number: Yes. People are disappointing.

Unknown Number: Well, you're not wrong.

To Unknown Number: When was the last time you were actually satisfied with someone else in bed?

Unknown Number: Not sure it's EVER happened. Mostly I get pity fucks.

To Unknown Number: Sounds shitty. Sorry man.

Unknown Number: Woman actually. Not that I care, but I thought it was weird that you might think I'm a guy.

To Unknown Number: Well I'd offer to have sex with you but I'm busy

Unknown Number: Lol

Unknown Number: I'm willing to wait for you to be free ;)

To Unknown Number: Might be waiting a while.

Unknown Number: No offense, but does it look like I'm in a big hurry? I've got a shit ton of time to spend waiting.

Unknown Number: But I can't wait rn cause my hero in a car has come to pick me up. Talk to you later future-babe.

Sandor shook his head, mouth curving up into a smile as he set his phone to the side. Chances were that they wouldn't talk again, but it picked up his mood enough that when he got home, he made himself food instead of eating canned stew cold because he was too lazy to put it in a bowl and then the microwave.

Sandor carried his phone with him while he worked in case there was an emergency or someone needed to call in sick-- he really fucking hoped that no one did that today because it was busier than most Monday's. Everyone that wasn't an employee had notifications muted while he was working at the gym, so it wasn't until he was taking a lunch break that he saw the _ unread texts he'd accumulated since getting up this morning.

Unknown Number: I'm beginning to think that someone put a sign on my back that says 'please bug me straight boys'

Unknown Number: Seriously this is getting ridiculous ffs

Unknown Number: Aha! Mystery solved, my sister Sansa has been at work here. Well, her and her girlfriend Margaery.

Unknown Number: My name's Arya btw. It seemed weird that you knew my sister and her girlfriend's name but not mine.

Unknown Number: All these mediocre bastards are reminding me of our future plans together, and all I have to say is that I'm glad we have this (joking) agreement. Cause not once in our ten minutes of conversation did you objectify me. A high bar, I know.

Unknown Number: You should tell me your name when you see these so that when I ride my dildo tonight I can think of you ;)

Unknown Number: Gods I hope that wasn't inappropriate.

Unknown Number: Sorry if it was, I was just trying to make a joke.

Unknown Number: You know, the more I think about it, the more it seems to have been in poor taste.

Sandor added her as a contact under 'Arya, the horny one' so that he'd remember.

From Sandor: Name's Sandor. If you haven't changed your nightly plans, that is He paused, then added a winky face before he sent it, just to be sure she'd know he was joking.

From Arya, the horny one: Oh thank the gods. I have like two friends, I didn't want to lose you

From Sandor: Am I friend #2 or would I be added as #3?

From Arya, the horny one: Don't be so nosy.

From Arya, the horny one: I'm sure you'll figure it out someday.

Sandor snorted and put his phone back in his pocket.

Incoming Call From Arya. Sandor checked the screen, then frowned. They'd never called each other before, and it was late. What was she doing calling him at this hour? "What."

"Saaaaandor you answered! See Sansa I told you he would, suck my dick."

Inexplicably, he was amused. "Are you drunk?"

"Only a little. If I drink too much I can't walk straight and I bump into all kinds of shit. Nearly got ran over once."

"You did get run over!" a different woman's voice said, coming through the phone's speaker.

"You got run over?" Sandor asked, even more amused than before. Drunk people annoyed the hell out of him and he didn't have the patience for it, but right now was different. Maybe that was because he was finally hearing her voice, and while she was definitely a woman, it wasn't high-pitched enough that it felt like his ears were bleeding.

"It was a tap," she argued. "I didn't even need stitches. I've given myself worse trying to do fucking needlepoint."

"You do needlepoint?" He found that hard to believe.

"Fuck no, that's why I was able to convince my mother to let me stop. It wasn't worth the cost of bandaids."

"Sounds safe."

"You've got a sexy voice. Did I tell you that? I feel like I forgot to tell you that. I was busy proving a point to Sansa and got distracted."

Sandor snorted. "If you think my voice sounds sexy, you really do need to get laid."

"Is that an offer?"

"Fuck no. You could do better."

"Pretty sure we got talking because I haven't been able to do better. And what do you mean 'fuck no'? I'm a bloody catch, you twat!"

"How would I know? I haven't seen you."

"Well there's an easy solution to that. You free this Sunday? And I ask only to make sure you didn't make plans with your friends, I know you have the day off work."

"My friends are all working," he said drily. "I never have plans."

"Great, then you won't mind meeting up for coffee. Say, ten in the morning?"

"You want to meet me?"

"I don't know what- shut it Margaery I can walk and talk at the same time, bugger off. Pretty sure I've made it clear I want to fuck you, coffee is nothing."

"I ain't pretty, Arya. I don't know what kind of Prince Charming you've been imagining."

She snorted. "Yeah that's not gonna be a problem. I'm attracted to your voice and your personality, trust me, that'll be enough."

"I'm a miserable old shit." That much, he was sure of.

"All the more reason to get both of us laid. Happiness is one good round of sex away, do you really want to turn it down? Sunday, ten o'clock, the Godswood. I'll be the one with brown hair, a cane, and silly yellow sunglasses. If you're gonna be more than five minutes late, text me or I'm leaving. See you- seven hells Sansa! I was almost done mind your own fucking business. Bye Sandor see you then!" she called out hurriedly, like the phone was being taken from her.

"Er- bye." He hung up, then stared at his phone, bewildered. Guess he had a date. He didn't want to see what Arya's face would look like if her expression was just going to twist in disgust from his scar. He wasn't telling anyone about this. Bronn couldn't keep his fucking mouth shut, and Gendry would be all hopeful and give him that stupid puppy look and tell him that maybe he would fall in love and be happy. What a cunt.

He thought about dressing up.

He decided that was stupid.

He ended up in jeans and a worn, long sleeve shirt with his hair pulled back-- no point in trying to hide the burn scar. What was he doing? This was stupid. He wasn't so far removed from reality to believe that she'd run screaming, but it was going to change things. Arya didn't believe him when he said he was an ugly fucker, but now he was going to get to see her reaction up close and personal. Fuck everything. He still grabbed his keys and left the flat, heading towards the coffee shop she'd told him she would be at.

Fuck it all, he didn't even like coffee. Maybe they'd have something without that bitter shit in it.

Sandor grumbled to himself the entire trip there, but he showed up and that was rather telling. The shop wasn't packed, but it was comfortably full. They'd be able to have a conversation without the employees overhearing every word they said. It would also make it harder for him to find her, but what the hell. With a face like his, no one would be surprised that he was here for a blind date, and they sure as hell wouldn't be surprised if he got stood up. Not that he thought Arya would do that.

Brown hair, yellow sunglasses. She'd also mentioned a cane, but chances were he wouldn't be able to see it walking around like this. He passed three different hipster couples, and five single hipsters. Fucking hells he felt like he was going to lose his mind. Brown hair, yellow sunglasses. Brown hair, yellow- aha. Shit she hadn't been kidding when she described her sunglasses as 'silly'. They were large and garish and in the shape of stars. She had her dark hair pulled back in a half-bun, and the cane she mentioned was resting between herself and the wall. There was no drink in front of her, and her elbow was propped up on the table, resting her chin in her hand as she stared into space. She was pretty. Too damn pretty for the likes of him, but he couldn't turn around now.

"Arya?"

She turned her head. It didn't seem like she was looking at him, more like she was looking a foot from where his chest was. "Sandor?"

He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Yeah that's me."

"Great," she said, grinning. "Have you gotten a drink yet? I hope not, because I'm buying." She reached for the cane and stood, and that was around the time Sandor realized it was a familiar white style. She reached out her hand, and he moved automatically, standing next to her and guiding her hand to the crook of his elbow. They started to walk. "So, did you need a drink or are you just enjoying me hanging off your arm?"

"Both."

She snorted out a laugh.

"Few steps to the line," he warned as they slowed down.

"Know what you're getting?"

"No."

"You don't drink coffee, do you?"

"Not... usually," he hedged, and she laughed, but not cruelly-- which had been Berric's reaction when he learned that Sandor didn't drink coffee.

"Yeah most of it tastes like shit. I get the turtle macchiato because it's so sweet I can't taste anything else. Do you like sweet drinks?"

He made a face and said nothing. Then he remembered that she couldn't see him and said, "Not really." He liked sugary sweet, but dessert sweet tasted like liquid cavity and he hated it.

"And you don't like coffee." She hummed, thinking it over. "I think they have tea if you'd prefer that."

He grunted and scanned the menu. They had lemonade, he'd probably try that. The line moved forward, and he urged her to take a few steps, which she easily did.

"I'm not what you expected, am I?" she asked, a bitter note in her voice.

"No. You're a hell of a lot prettier."

She sighed. "You are sending mixed signals, Sandor."

"I am?" he repeated, confused. He'd thought it was pretty clear that he was happy to be here.

She gave a tense shrug. "You're not talking much."

"I'm talking more'n I usually do."

"If you don't want this to be a date, you can say so. We'll just be two friends meeting up, there's no harm in that."

"I don't talk much," he said. When that didn't comfort her, he added, "I wouldn't worry about it."

"If you say so," she said, which was noncommittal, but her mood picked up again.

A minute later, he told her, "It's our turn."

"Hey Arya," the man behind the register said.

"Hey Sam."

"Getting your usual?" Sam asked.

"I have a usual?"

"Large hot turtle macchiato, right?"

She groaned. "I've become predictable. This is like a nightmare."

"I wouldn't say totally predictable. Who's this with you, hm?" he asked, glancing at Sandor. His eyes darted to the scar, but he didn't look overly bothered by it. That was a nice change.

Arya snorted even as she leaned into Sandor's side. "Like you wouldn't tell Jon everything I say."

"I might not."

"Man," Sandor said, "I hardly know you and even I can tell that's a lie."

He gave a sheepish smile. "Well, he is my best friend. Anything for you today, Arya's mysterious friend?"

"Lemonade."

"What size?"

"Make it a large," Arya supplied so that he didn't have to worry about it.

Sam nodded, writing the order on a cup and setting it to the side. "Anything else?"

"Not for me." She angled her head towards Sandor. "Did you want a pastry or something."

"I'm good." Pause. "Thanks."

"Okay." She reached into her pocket and pulled out her wallet. It was a simple billfold, and Sandor noticed there was braille on the front of the card. Then he averted his eyes because what the fuck was he doing looking at her bloody credit card? She handed it over, and Sam swiped it, delivering it back to her waiting hand. When the receipt printed, he pulled it off and threw it away like he'd done it a hundred times before.

"Alright, you know where the hand-off bar is, Edd'll be the one down there today."

"Thanks Sam."

A few people stared at the pair of them, but for the most part no one cared. Sandor had dealt with far worse, so he ignored them without a second thought. Arya had probably dealt with worse too, even if she couldn't see the people currently staring.

Somehow one date turned into two, turned into eight. Sandor actually left the gym for lunch now, meeting Arya at the nearby deli every few days so they could eat together. The joking about sleeping together seemed less like joking and more like a legitimate question when Arya said it now.

Sandor shrugged uncomfortably, and Arya could feel it because she was holding onto his arm at the moment as they walked down the street. "We haven't known each other long."

"Oh please," she said, and Sandor got the sense that she was rolling her eyes. It was hard to tell through the dark lens of her sunglasses, but her tone made it rather clear that that's what she was doing. "We've been texting for four months, and seeing each other in person for another month. I think that's plenty of time. You weren't half as shy over text."

"It wasn't a possibility back then," he grumbled, and Arya sighed.

"If you don't want to, we don't have to. If you don't find me physically attractive- well, first of all fuck you, but that's fine too. I don't mind waiting as long as I know that's what I'm doing. But if we're not fucking because you think I'm not interested or some shit, you need to let it go."

"Of bloody course I know you're interested. You've made it pretty damn clear."

"So what is it? Are you not interested?"

"Course I am."

"Then what's the hold up?"

Sandor grumbled an answer under his breath, knowing full well that she couldn't understand him.

"What?"

He sighed and said it again, clear enough for her to hear this time. "It's been a while."

"Aww are you nervous?" she cooed. When he didn't joke back, she dropped the teasing expression and tone. "Wait, seriously? Sandor, there's nothing to be nervous about. I have complete faith in your ability to fuck me blind." She paused. "Get it? Blind?"

Begrudgingly, Sandor found himself chuckling.

"Listen, I remember telling you that my sex life has been pretty lackluster. Even if it's not good, I've definitely had worse. And besides, those were one-off's. If the first time sucks, so what? The second time'll be better. All of this to say that I don't think you'll be bad, but whatever, I doubt you'd listen to me if that's all I said."

"Yeah."

They slowed down for a crosswalk, conversation pausing in the presence of other people that would clearly be able to hear them. The light changed, and they started across, waiting a little longer to continue the conversation so they could get some distance.

"How do we plan that? I work all the fucking time and you have a roommate."

"You say that like we don't have time, right now, on our way to your flat."

"Right now?"

"Why not?" she asked, having to step away for a moment to avoid a shop's sign.

"It's the middle of the day."

Arya snorted, retaking her place by his side. "And you care? If you think you're going to be shit and shoot off early, then there's no reason why we should carve out three hours of an evening to do it."

He glanced down at her and found himself wanting. That wasn't anything new. She was not only bloody attractive, but willing. "Fine."

"Is that a yes?"

"Yes."

She grinned, holding herself just that much higher as they walked.

It took several more minutes before they reached Sandor's flat, and he cleared his throat before uncomfortably offering, "Did you want to come in?"

She squeezed his arm in comfort. "I'd fucking love to."

They walked to the staircase, and he gave it a look, counting the steps hurriedly. "Ten steps, then a landing a meter long, then seven steps."

"Thanks."

Normally Sandor took the steps two at a time, but with Arya on his arm he took them the usual one at a time, feeling like he was moving at a snail's pace. Soon enough though, they were at his doorstep and he was unlocking the door. Despite all his arguing and this being the first time Arya had been to his place, he'd cleaned it up a long time ago and kept it that way. He didn't leave shoes and random bits of rubbish out anymore, making sure they weren't in the way for her to trip over. "Entryway's a few feet wide. You can leave your shoes on the right."

Arya tentatively poked her cane in that direction, the tip of it going over his shoes then the empty space of floor. She kept her cane in place as she slipped her shoes off and nudged them into place, using her toes and cane to make sure they were out of the way. "Show me around." She kept the cane in her hand, Sandor on one side and her cane in the other to watch that side.

He walked the perimeter of the living room and kitchen, making sure to detour inside so she knew where the tables were.

"And your room?"

He cleared his throat and they started walking again, down the short hallway and into his bedroom. There was no art anywhere in his flat, and for once he didn't have to hear someone bitching about the blank walls. His blanket was a faded black, something random hookup's always gave him a disappointed look for. Fuck them, it was comfortable and in good condition; he wasn't going to replace it just because the colour was a little off. He walked her forward until the edge of the bed was touching their legs. "This is the bed."

She unlaced her hand from his arm and held it in front of her, slowly lowering it down until she made contact with the top of the bed. With the cane, she reached to her left until she found the edge of the bed, then went to the right until she found the other side. She started around one side, hand trailing over the duvet as she walked to the head of the bed.

"There's a nightstand a couple paces in front of you."

She slowed, edging forward until she could bump it with her knee. Arya took her cane off the bed and set it on the opposite side of the nightstand, then climbed onto the mattress. She laid down, wriggling to get comfy on the pillows.

Her legs were spread and Sandor had to swallow past his dry throat. She held out a hand, saying his name, and he went like there was a rope around his waist, pulling him forward automatically. He kissed her like it was all he wanted to do, and she wrapped her legs around him to keep him there.

"You're glowing," Gendry teased at work the next day.

"Fuck off," Sandor grumbled. There was no denying that he was in a good mood, but glowing? That was a load of tripe.

"So when do we get to meet her?"

"As soon as she wants to meet you." Sandor looked directly at him as he delivered the next statement. "Which is never going to happen."

"Aw come on, mate. Anyone that's willing to date you has a thick enough skin to meet your friends."

"We're not friends; you're my employee."

"We're the closest things to friends that you have. You're grumpy as all seven hells, and you spend all your time here, making sure everything's working smoothly. Where are you going to find quote unquote 'real friends'?"

"I managed to find a girlfriend."

"Yeah and I'm still not convinced that wasn't an accident. Who is this magical girlfriend of yours anyways?"

Sandor rolled his eyes. "She's not magical. Stop whinging and get back to work."

"Yeah, yeah. You'd think getting laid would make you nicer."

But of course Arya chose that afternoon to spontaneously visit him at work. Which is to say that she didn't text or call, but Sandor was walking from the class rooms towards the rock wall to make sure everything was running smoothly, and he heard her talking to Gendry.

"What are you doing here?" Gendry asked her. Sandor couldn't see them yet, but sound bounced easily through the tile floor and clean walls.

"Gendry? What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Uh, I work here, and I know you hate exercise."

"You work at a gym?" she repeated doubtfully. "You're a twig, not a body builder."

"I'm not as small as I was the last time you saw me."

"Mhm," she said, clearly not convinced.

"Come on Arya, that was back in high school! You've grown a lot since then too. And you still haven't told me what you're doing here. Not hoping to catch up with me, I take it?"

She snorted. "No, but maybe we should schedule that in some time. I'm here to see my boyfriend. Who's definitely not a twig."

Sandor finally rounded the corner and saw Arya and Gendry. Arya, looking the way she always did: stunning. And Gendry had his flirting face on which made Sandor want to pick him up by the scruff of his neck as if to say 'seriously?'. Gendry had people hitting on him every week, but he was going to pick an old high school friend out of everyone in the world. "Arya?"

She turned towards him with a smile. "Sandor!"

"Sandor?" Gendry repeated, looking between the two of them. It was clear when he got it, because he straightened and took a step back. "I can't believe you're his secret girlfriend."

"I'm not secret you prat," Arya said, "I'm just private." She shooed him with her hand, still angled in Sandor's direction. "Now go away."

Gendry rolled his eyes. "Yes milady."

"I may not be able to see but I can still kick your arse."

He beat a hasty exit.

"You and Gendry?" Sandor repeated, raising an eyebrow as he walked towards her.

"It was a long time ago."

"I can't believe he convinced you to date him."

"Eh," Arya said with a shrug. "We were best friends and I needed someone to bring to my mother's parties." She flashed him a smile, and he could tell that she was mostly joking. The message was clear though: she had cared for him, but it wasn't like that anymore and it wouldn't become that way again. He reached her side and tapped her free hand with his own in offering. She took it, sliding her fingers up his arm to curve around his elbow and not caring that he was damp with sweat. "Speaking of parties, my brother's birthday is coming up and every year my gift to him is a surprise. Showing up with a big, grizzly boyfriend is sure to surprise everyone."

"And they won't think I'm manipulating you or some shit?"

"I can be very persuasive."

"Really?"

"I can also be very accurate when hitting people with my staff," she said, which confirmed Sandor's suspicion that she had very little in the way of regular persuasion techniques. "A little reminder and they'll leave us alone. For a while, at least."

"Is your family always going to be so fucking nosy?" The thought was annoying, but his example of a family was a father that drank and gambled too much and a brother that abused him.

"Yeah probably. They just worry that I'm going to get hurt. Eventually, they'll figure out that you're the second best thing to happen to me and they'll chill out."

"Second best? What's the first?"

"Electric guitar. You're good Sandor, but you're no rock 'n roll."

#got #fanfic #sandor clegane #arya stark #my writing

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spaceorphan18 · 5 years

Text

Finding Kurt Hummel: Homecoming

Masterpost

6x02: Homecoming

I really need to knock the rest of these out -- hopefully soon I will! But man, there’s a lot more in season 6 than you might realize. A lot of these episodes are pretty packed.

At the beginning of the episode, we get a lot more Blaine-meta-ish things, and the one thing I’d like to pull from it is that Blaine’s getting therapy. Yup, that’s right, both these boys are getting their heads checked by a professional - and that’s a good thing! Look, I don’t think Kurt and Blaine are going to live a 100% perfect and happy life- no couple can accomplish that, but the fact that they’re both trying to better themselves is a huge thing, and recognizing that is a step forward in becoming adults (I mean, not even adults make the best choices to better their mental health). So yeah, they might not patch up things perfectly, but I think there’s a lot of subtext (cause Glee’s always been subtext) that shows they’re both in better places by the time season 6 starts.

The New Monday Night Dinner

So, because Will is a character again (ug) we start having Monday night dinners at his place (ug, ug). Okay, it’s not really that - but he’s supposedly having all the show choir directors over for a friendly chat? How convenient that they’re all former students. And why is Sam there? You know what - I’m not gonna think too hard about this.

The main thing is that Rachel and Kurt are already having issues being co-directors because it’s Rachel and Kurt.

And then Blaine arrives and Kurt feels super awkward about it. I mean how do you act when you’ve dumped the person you love the most in the world and now have to be in a semi-casual social situation with them with your former teacher, former roommate whom your ex once made out with and who will some day carry your child, and former dude whom you both had a crush on. This show is weird guys.

Anyway, Kurt’s actually happy to see Blaine - even if Blaine is totally ignoring Kurt’s there. And then Will turns the conversation to ‘everyone be nice to each other’, which lasts about five seconds when they try to give Blaine some advice about a girl being in the Warblers and Blaine is unsure about it. It’s awkward. But hanging out with your ex whom you aren’t actually speaking to at this moment is always gonna be awkward.

Getting the Gang Back Together

Um, what even is this outfit trying to say, Kurt? Are you the colorful walking dead?

Anyway - Rachel and Kurt start their tenure as semi-teachers by organizing sheet music. And let’s just say it -- they both have the most absurd way of doing it. Just -- no, genre than artist, that’s it you weirdos. But of course, Kurt would do it by emotion.

You know what - say what you will about Kurt and Blaine’s communication -- Rachel and Kurt have by far less communication going on. They’ve worked for two hours at ‘organization’ before they realized they were doing two different things. Oh Hummelberry.

Anyway, we get another argument from them - cause that’s what they do best. And Kurt basically says what should have been said hours ago - that this is pointless without members. However, if he’s doing his work study here (don’t ask me to define what exactly his work study is - I don’t get it either), shouldn’t he be proactive, too, in getting kids to sign up? And what’s with the defeatist attitude Kurt? Kid’s still got issues relating to his break-up.

(It’s also times like these that I do wish we had gotten a final career related story for Kurt, but alas, all the things we never had).

Anyway, Kurt storms out as he usually does when having a fight and made his point.

So - after a scene of Rachel following a disembodied voice to the men’s locker room -- we get Kurt meeting her in the auditorium and, sigh, apologizing for hurting her feelings. Again. Cause he’s never done that before.

I think I’m tired of Hummelberry, guys.

Anyway - weirdly, he apologizes for the things he said in the previous scene about her life. Which, um, is weird - cause he didn’t actually take any personal shots at her -- which means they edited out some extra dialogue. Man, I wish they had left that in - but can’t be too mean to Rachel.

Anyway - Rachel says, yeah, they have to be proactive in getting people to join us - so she’s pulled in some favors. Idk why Kurt is so -- who did you bring in Rachel?!? He could have easily figured it out.

Well everyone is all the former cast members who are still living and aren’t really part of the main cast anymore. It’s Homecoming - so it seems fitting. Though, I have to say. Everyone looks like they’ve aged about ten years -- which isn’t a bad thing, it just means this little coda of a season would have felt better placed much further in the future.

Anyway - Kurt’s surprised and happy to see all his old friends. I have to say though - I miss that Blaine isn’t there. I know he can’t because plot and the fact they’re trying to reset back to season 2 but still.

Anyway - who cares if any of this makes sense, we have the gang back together again.

Go they gather everyone in the choir room and explain that they need help getting the kids to join. And Kurt’s super frigidity. Huh. I think there’s some room to explore Kurt as someone who is an anxious kid with minor OCD tendencies. Cause that feels very apparent here.

It’s funny that they rattle on about how much they need their friends to band together and save glee club because the school needs it -- when really, both Rachel and Kurt need it. I mean, that is kind of the point of this season, but... it’s just interesting to think about. I mean, it’ll come full circle when Kurt talks about choosing another path to take at the end of the season. They both hit rock bottom and now they’re looking for something to fill the space that will help them get back on the right track. And their cause is saving the glee club.

Hm. It’s just interesting that this season of Glee is kind of one last stop in Lima before going out in to the world to really be the person you’re supposed to be. I’m sorry the story wasn’t developed a tad more (except in the case of Rachel) but that’s what it is. It’s almost fitting, then that I’m wrapping these up with the same kind of mentality. It’s nice to have that one last thought and move on. Anyway -- I’m getting meta on myself, lol...

So - their brilliant plan is to sing in the school - cause that’s always worked in the past, lol. And they do an 80s classic - because it’s Glee and the last season and Ryan Murphy has to get in all those hits that he didn’t use yet.

But I think what stands out to me about this performance is that it’s less about the lyrics (which I don’t think make much sense anyway) and more about the visual style. They’re recreating the music video, yes, but also adding the same elements of style used in the video -- the whole running from the police (Sue) thing, and it’s really pretty cool.

You can’t get a really good luck at Kurt’s 80s outfit - but here it is, and this goober is just having a lot of fun dancing on the tables and singing in his high register. It’s nice that they’ve now fully incorporated Chris’s voice into the group numbers -- especially when he’s not going to be singing much on his own.

Gay Legacy

So, I guess later that day, Kurt goes to try to recruit the gay football player. Cause, damn, if Ryan Murphy still is clinging on to his closested football player issues. I really don’t know why Kurt’s wasting his time -- Spencer obviously doesn’t want to be a part of the team, nor have we seen any indication that he actually has some kind of performing arts talents. But I suppose this scene is supposed to be a commentary on the current state of the LGBT community.

Actually, that’s exactly what it’s about and it’s kinda fascinating. The thing about this conversation is to show just how far things have come from 2009. Society has become more accepting of the LGBT community (obviously, it’s got a long ways to go - but from when Glee started, a lot of progress has been made). And we’re now here talking about different types of LGBT people. Kurt can’t and isn’t the catch all for gay anymore - that definition has widen (even if it’s always been that wide and diverse, we can now, as a society, have that conversation). And now even gay kids can have various inspiration to pull on - it doesn’t have to be musicals, it can be Modern Family. And that even though Kurt and Spencer share a preference for men, doesn’t make them any more similar than any other two guys.

So, yeah, it’s interesting that this scene (and the following one that Kurt’s not in) has less to do with the story and recruitment, as it is Glee’s usual way of knocking down the fourth wall and saying - yeah, okay so we’re not relevant like we used to be, but we did have an impact.

Meanwhile, in actual story time - we get to remember that Kurt was once on the football team -- and learn that Spencer is an asshole, and I’m still not sure why Kurt’s trying so hard to recruit him.

Recruitment

Kurt next pops up when Brittany is giving him advice on how to win Blaine back -- which involves burning all his clothes (yes, nude Kurt) but getting normal clothes (um, he’s been dressing ‘normally’ for a while now), and then being honest with him (yes do that!) about being a Barbara Bush impersonator (wtf Brittany?). Kurt’s equally confused as the rest of us and moves on with his life as he should.

However - I have to wonder - did they know at this point that Brittany was gonna try to get them back together? I have no idea. None of Brittany’s actions make sense most of the time, so I shouldn’t think too much about it.

Meanwhile - the main issue is that they’ve all failed to recruit members - mostly because none of them really know what they hell they’re doing. But then Roderick’s magical voice floats through the vents (sure) and they’re all mystified and run to go find him.

They find Roderick in the library - and why do they all look terrifying in this scene? Come join the cult - Roderick, lol. Anyway - they get a new member.

And I’ll take a second and talk about the season 6 newbies - who are actually pretty interesting. They aren’t cut from the same cloth of the originals as the season 4 newbies, their story lines all converge with existing characters, and we’re not forced to sit through any awkward love triangles. They served a function and it worked, too bad this didn’t happen way back in season 4 - the show might have lasted longer.

And then we get a long speech about what it is to be in glee. Cause apparently we needed that reminder. Kurt doesn’t say anything but nod in the background as other people give speeches. Ah yes, we’re back in season 1 again aren’t we.

Roderick auditions for Glee -- cause tradition - and Kurt... doesn’t really do anything. But he’s there looking pretty so...

First Meeting

So, ha, okay. Roderick is their only recruit and he shows up and Kurt has this nice speech about how you can’t go back again, but maybe you can make something new and better out of the ashes of the old thing. And I think that’s kind of cool -- because it’s not just about glee or his career, but about his relationship with Blaine. Like I said earlier, even though they’re all home again, the point is to go in a, god help me, new direction -- one that’s better than before, and as we’re coming to the ending of the show, I kind of like that there’s a sentiment that says - yeah you can and are allowed to start over and do things again. Second chances are a thing.

However, they’re stopped quickly because Blaine comes in, screaming about how Jane was poached by Rachel and will now be in New Directions instead of the Warblers. Blaine, who is clearly still angry (and very confused about his emotions) at Kurt blames Kurt for making it all happen -- which is ridiculous, but c’mon Kurt, Blaine’s allowed to have some residual issues. Kurt even tries to say that it’s fine because the Warblers have a lot of people and New Directions don’t - but Blaine’s pushing back. Which is actually a good thing, tbh, even if he is a little off the handle here. Blaine’s no longer going to be a doormat - and that works much better for the balance of he and Kurt in the long run.

Kurt and Blaine are on their way to being on equal footing again, but here there’s still a lot of pain that hasn’t been healed yet. Subtext!!

Homecoming

Alright, so official glee club has started! And they get two more members as the weird cheerleader twins join. And it’s all happiness and joy as this new/final chapter has officially begun.

And then we get the final number - Home - where Kurt gets to sing in his lovely lower register. :D And the Homecoming celebration officially starts. It’s a little weird to see the kids doing something so high school normal, lol, but hey it’s a fun time to celebrate.

So, um, Kurt, Sam, and Artie go spy on Spencer because -- tradition? I mean, that’s one of the themes of episode. Let’s go with tradition.

Anyway, being back is actually kinda bittersweet for Kurt because being back home means that there are still a lot of unresolved issues from the past to deal with.

Blaine and Karofsky are there - and Blaine is intentionally not looking at Kurt, as Kurt looks like he’s been stabbed in the heart watching from afar. The song plays on - Home is when I’m with you. Well, Rachel and Mercedes and McKinley is home, but there’s a bit ‘home’ that’s missing in Kurt’s heart. We’re gonna get there - but we do have a little ways to go. ;)

#finding kh #kurt hummel

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