Tumblr Made Me Do It

Back in the day, or 2009 to be exact, I’d hit a wall when it came to writing. Truth be told I was going through a disaster of a breakup, after which I moved to Ottawa for school. I wanted to write. I love to write. Writing has literally saved me many times over. But everything that had happened sort of compounded and I was convinced I wasn’t good enough. 

Not only was I not good enough, I thought my writing was fucking terrible as a result of that. I needed a solution because I wanted to write but I felt like it was all garbage. 

That’s how I found roleplaying on Tumblr. Hilariously I started with a boring “private school” roleplay which was essentially a circle jerk for the admins. I quickly left but I was hooked and I ended up in The Mob RP. It changed my life. 

Not only was I writing again but I was enjoying it!!!!! Something in my life was finally going write – what was even better was I was making new friends. And those friends (that I still have today) helped me and allowed me to find my creative side again, to let my mind wander and come up with whatever I could that would make the story more interesting. 

Of course what started out as basically fun plots turned into every single person in this replay salivating over and adoring our plots. It became a series of “how can we make this more extreme” to “let’s push the limits”. And it wasn’t for the attention. I think if we’d been plotting for the attention it wouldn’t have been as compelling. Of course it helped that around the time Skyfall came out my Faceclaim just happened to be Daniel Craig. We had so many emotional moments and plots and I know I definetely cried over our writing more than a few times. But what’s more: that’s how I fell in love with dark romance. 

Only we didn’t call it dark romance back then. Back then all we knew was we enjoyed writing fucked up plots and it gave us a sort of satisfaction to torment our characters and twist the world however we wanted to. Jaz and I were the dynamic duo to the point that the admins got a little pissy that everyone followed our plots religiously and theirs were basically rewritten romantic comedies. Jaz and I continued roleplaying after that. We even started our own roleplays a couple times and I think that’s when I realized I seriously didn’t want to give up writing: creating a whole world was immediately addictive to me. I craved the dopamine of the exciting plots I got to write. 

There were a few other roleplays in between but a prior roleplay partner invited me to join a specific BDSM related roleplay. I’m not going to lie what happened next blew my mind: I met JC Kaine. JC Kaine who not only proved to be an insanely good roleplay partner but is someone I write with to this day- almost 15 years later. (And we do have collabs coming). 

We found a story between us so compelling that the couple we’ve affectionately termed Greyskies is all we ever really ever wrote. Their story spanned years across the BDSM roleplay and ended up being the seed for Vegas Breeds Chaos – a series we are working on that perfectly encapsulates the world we’ve built beyond what we ever imagined. 

It took me a few years to realize it but- all I ever wanted to write was dark mafia romance. It took me back to the Tumblr days with Jaz and Kalachy. Back to the excitement of a fresh plot. Of a couple compelling and dark enough to be entertaining and dramatic, but still hold the intrinsic value of dark romance: which is a love that comes above all else. The touch her and die aspect, the way they revolve around each other in a balance that pushes and pulls them together and apart, driving the story forwards. 

Honestly, I’m so glad I just gave in to embracing the old, exciting fresh feeling of writing a new story, or reviving old characters and world building that I love fine tuning to be immersive and real. I love the raw emotion that I get to experience and write and I owe a lot of that to those Tumblr roleplaying days. I think if I’d never actually gotten on Tumblr I wouldn’t be the writer or author that I am today. Maybe I would’ve never had the confidence to write, finish, and publish a book that I love. Maybe reading wouldn’t trigger a spark of inspiration every time I turned the page. Maybe daydreaming in Kaya-land all the time wouldn’t have the same effect: which is all the plots and crazy stories I can think of. Most of all I think my writing would conform a lot more to trends and what’s hot vs writing what I need to write. 

Writing is my distraction, my first true love, and all I’ve ever really wanted to do with my life. It’s nice to be able to actually dream big. Anyone who knows me knows that I’ve been saying for years one day I will get my Oscar. I want the success, the movies, the series. I want it all and I wouldn’t have ever been able to dream this big had I not had those Tumblr experiences. It actually makes me kind of sad because I miss those days. I miss the GIF reactions and the OOC chat hilarity. I miss the drama (sometimes). But I also miss being smug that our plots were always followed religiously. JC Kaine and I were a hugely trending plot to the point that the admins of a specific roleplay created events to force people to interact with their characters. This was after I was accused of brainwashing- because you know, if someone wants to plot and write with me over someone else CLEARLY I must be brain washing that person. The drama was part of the fun though, if I’m being quite honest. The funniest part (and maybe the smuggest) is that JC Kaine and I still write together to this day. 

I think back and what a hell of a ride it’s been: from writing pulling me out of low points, to making me cry, laugh and rage and all the in between. 

If I had to pick a favourite specific storyline I don’t know which one I’d even pick. Kalachy will forever be my first roleplay ship (and what a fucked up ship it was) but Greyskies is eternal. There were so many great moments and scenes (and great scene headings like ‘Amsterdamned’) that it would be impossible to pick just one, or any favourite. Hell, Kalachy inspired the couple that became Aria and Torrin in Violent Delights. I love that I was able to use Kalachy in a meaningful way to draw and tease out a different ending than the tragic one they had. (Kalachy ends in a double homicide lmao). I love that Greyskies will forever inspire me into new and exciting plots. 

Ships on Tumblr, for me, weren’t just a plot but a whole feeling. The way a story comes together is just sometimes so compelling to me that I want a thousand ways to retell it differently. When I write characters I love I have a hard time letting them go. 

So yes, Tumblr definitely made me dive into dark romance. 

If you’re curious about Kalachy I highly recommend you pick up a copy of Violent Delights because the duet definitely captures what I love most about Kalachy. 

••••••

SAVIOR 

https://mybook.to/kayadarke_savior

and of course book two:

https://mybook.to/kayadarke_exile

Ps. If you’re a Swiftie there are some HUGE Easter eggs that I hid in there explicitly for the Swifties. 

IYKYK 

🫶🏻

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