#if you want to know more about the nitty gritty that used to go into making movies with a ton of extras

[artfromsaturn]

Collection of Free Art Tutorials

I don't usually make text post on this blog, but a nice artist I know was asking for tutorials a while back and I forgot to send some to them while in school. So here's a post on it since it's easiest to grab and go this way. :)

This list focuses on the basics. I'm focusing on the foundations of art, so medium is generally irrelevant and you can use physical or digital with these. You'll have to google more specific tutorials on things like character design and such.

One of the biggest pieces of advice I can give to you is strangely, introduce things to yourself one at a time. In art class, we took whole topics week by week. For high school, we did a few exercises then spent a week drawing/painting and doing your piece(s). For basic art 1 & 2 in college, we did 1-2 exercises and then did 1-2 drawings, followed by HW (which we turned in next week) and sketchbook practice (which she'd check at midpoints). For basic art lessons with a tutor, we did practice then our own art. You can see the pattern here - the point is don't be distressed if you don't get everything at once, or the lesson in 2 weeks, or the lesson in 3 years - we practice and do a lot over time, and you'll pick up on things you need to improve naturally and through help with others. Take time to be proud of your art in mini steps too, even if it's not the best! You tried and attempting to climb an obstacle over and over again before finally leapfrogging it is still progress to it.

Overall tutorials:

DrawABox.com is a site that's dedicated to art exercises and practicing when you can. They talk about the basics of art as well as how practice is important. It can get tough at times and it's ok to stop and do a balance of say those practices and doodles if you choose to try and do all of it's stuff - but you don't have to either. It's just a nice basic education done by some art nerds who like going hard.

Ethering Brothers - these guys are famous for their 40billion tutorials. If you need help on a specific idea, search their gallery and you'll likely find something.

Thundercluck's Art Fundamentals - She did a good huge ass tutorials on how things work, and it's the least overwhelming of the 3 I got in this section, so I suggest it as one of the first to look at for digital stuff.

Art Instructions Blog - Another good & simpler website that goes great into fundamentals. They focus more on traditional art but if you're digital, you can replicate most of the techniques - art fundamentals and subjects cover all mediums. Very important

Drawsh - Particularly notes on Construction: construction is the basics of building an illusion of a 3D image on a page. Figuring out how to build shape gives depth to your work, and learning how to see in 3D lets you be able to draw an item then move it around in your head (sometimes, when you're good enough, don't be afraid to pull out a reference or use live subjects). Construction is how to figure out the foundation of your drawing, and good planning = better picture! This link starts at the back, hit newer post to go forward.

There's a lot on anatomy and other nitty gritty details for when you want to practice those as well.

Griz and Norm's Assorted tips - Long time artist talk about various tips and tricks they use in art and how to avoid certain pitfalls. It's eclectic but great to look through.

James Gurney's Blog - He's got a lot of thoughts, a lot of tips, and a lot of adventures he catalogues. It's the least organized out of these but fortunately he has plenty of tags and most post have something neat going on. He's fantastic!🥰

BEFORE ALL OTHER BASICS….

How to Make Your Art Look Nice: Mindset

There's a lot of artist with different perspectives on how to approach art and your mindset while doing it, but the general consensus is that it's a process and sometimes you have to remind yourself to enjoy art!

Line

How to draw straight lines without a ruler. …but for the love of all that's good do NOT feel bad about using one! This talks about how to hold your pencil and how to do some good freehand stuff, some good practice.

5 grips for holding a Pencil for Drawing - This goes for pencil, pen, tablet, etc.. Get comfortable and figure out what's right for you and your pictures. I'd like to note that paintbrush holding will overlap, but some will differ.

A few line drawing exercises that help with line confidence.

Types of line drawings & what they are.

Contour Line & exercises with Mrs. Cook - Contour lines are one of the first art exercises I do in all the drawing classes I've taken. The good news is that they're surprisingly fun & look neat, even the blind contours!

Good deep thoughts on lines and how to use them.

Line Weight Tutorial

Lineart Weight Tips!

How to show variation in your line art: part 1 & part 2.

Some teacher's Drawing 1 & 2 lessons put online.

Light, Shadow, & Value

An introduction to tonal values.

Why values are important. The main reasons are that they give depth to a piece, and values literally shape our world.

Tonal Values: Everything you need to know

How does light work & the basics on Light

Light & Shadow in Art - much more in depth of the above! Highly recommended if you have time to spare.

Understanding grayscale/monochrome art. Great for shading & planning.

A guide to Cross Hatching (and hatching in general) - As a side note, crosshatching is one of the early things taught as it marries Line + Value into a nice neat package and helps add form with just a pen.

Crosshatching for Comics

Learn more about coloring by working in grayscale

How to Make Your Art Look Nice - Contrast!

Using lighting to make your art look nice.

Some light & shadow classifications.

Edges - notes on how they work in shading.

Color

A side note - color theory doesn't differ much, but color MIXING will change between mediums. If you're doing traditional colored pencil, you're overlapping 2 or more pigments on top of each other. If you're doing traditional paint, you're mixing & creating a solution/emulsion (depends on the pigment and binding) of pigments with the particles reflecting light in different ways. In digital, overlapping colors & blending colors depend on how the program you use calculates it if you're not just putting 2 color side by side. This just means you have to adjust your mixing when you switch between them. :)

Slawek Fedorczuk's Light & Color Tips - also shows how to guide through a scene.

The Color Tutorial Part 1 & 2 by Sashas - A personal favorite.

Color Studies 1-6 by Sheri Doty Amazingly nice breakdown on how color works in simple terms.

Sarah Culture's Tips on Color

The value of underpainting

A few notes on reflective light.

Experimental color techniques with Alai Ganuza: first post, second, & third.

Color zones of the face charts

Composition

Good Tips on Composition

Here's an example of how you can search the Etherington Brothers' stuff and get like 10 tutorials and tips on one subject. Composition & Cover Design, Shadow Composition, Two Line Composition - plus more.

How to make your art look nice: Thumbnailing!

And don't be afraid to make silly thumbnails or sketches.

Composition Examples - charts like these are great when you can't think of something yourself. There's no shame in using them.

Flow and Rhythm

Formulas for landscape composition.

Perspective

Perspective Drawing Tutorial by Julie Duell

Linear & Atmospheric Perspective Guide

One Point Perspective City Tut by Swingerzetta

Niso Explains Perspective - these are great for drawing figures in perspective!

Putting characters into scenes and drawing backgrounds

Backgrounds that make your character stand out!

Using background detail to guide the eye.

Odds and Ends

I shit you not, probably 1/3rd of my color, value, & structure knowledge comes from pixel art since I've done so much of it and it is all about challenging yourself to do the most you can with limitations. Check out lospec's tutorial database for fun and see how it compares to art techniques you're doing - even if you never try a medium, it's always interesting to see how it works. :D

How to Make Your Art Look Nice: Reference Images & Style, Pushing Proportions, and developing style.

Foervraengd talks about how he expanded his comfort zone with concept art & landscape drawing.

Luna Art talks about what they're thinking when doing concept art.

Repeating visual motifs in character design looks cool.

Eric's Thoughts on Drawing Backgrounds and Props.

Show vs. Tell: Why Visual is Not Optional in comics.

The Lost Vocabulary of Visual Story Telling Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, & Day 4.

Traditional Animation's 2 Digital Library books, The Know-How of Cartooning by Ken Hultgren & Advanced Animation by Preston Blair are two books from the golden age of animation they have up on their site for free viewing!

Animation resources dot org has a lot of cool stuff. Here's Nat Falk's How to Make Animated Cartoons (part 1). Their pages on Instruction & Theory are a good start.

Books

Good news: the internet archive has a TON of resources. Make sure to check around and toggle filters, it's a bit weird with organization. For example, a book can be under art or drawing - techniques, depending on who catalogues it.

Andrew Loomis is someone artist tend to die-hard reccomend. His work is collected here & here on the internet archive (one is Andrew Loomis, the other is Loomis, Andrew - thanks). I own Figure Drawing for All It's Worth and I recommend checking all of his stuff out, especially if you're having trouble with bodies and hands.

The Animator's Survival Guide by Richard Williams is mandatory in animation classes for good reason - it's fantastic!

Perspective for Comic Book Artist by David Chelsea is great for any type of artist. So is Extreme Perspective & Perspective in Action.

Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics, & Making Comics. The first one is on the internet archive, the second two are likely avaliable at your library or at a bookstore as they're pretty popular.

Speaking of comics, Drawing Comics the Marvel Way has been a favorite of comic artist for years no matter what comic book companies and artist you like, it's a good introduction.

Anything by or endorsed by James Gurney, Color and Light: A Guide for the Realistic Painter is one of my favorites (this is his official page but you can get them elsewhere for cheaper too).

Art resource blogs with good tagging systems: @artist-refs , @help-me-draw , @helpfulharrie , @art-res , @drawingden , & @how-to-art

Lastly, I suggest if you find something you like online for free, SAVE IT! Whether it is through the Wayback Machine, screenshotting a whole webpage, reblogging/retweeting something, or putting it on pinterest, digital media is fickle and tends to go up in smoke when you least expect it. I have a partially organized Pinterest board that helped me find most of the stuff I wanted to keep. Figure out what works for you and save what you can.

[repulsiveliquidation]

Want, not Need. Pt. 2 || The Orgy

warnings : smut 18+, fingering, strap-on, cunnilingus, anal play, semi-public sex.

a/n : Mapi is not injured and hobbling about in this series, thank you very much. That is also my favorite picture of those two.

Part One

“Her?” Ingrid asks, “Where did you meet her?”

Mapi begins to go into vivid detail about your one-night stand with Mapi. She gets into the nitty gritty and boy does it pique Ingrid’s interest.

“We met at the bar, she was standing there with the most perfect ass I had ever seen at the time. Yours tops that list now.” Mapi says, giving Ingrid a little tap on her behind. She grins and smacks her girlfriend, listening to her explain her little night with you.

“She took the big one, Ingrid,” Mapi tells her proudly. Ingrid knew what Mapi was talking about. Mapi had a toy that she still struggled to take. It sat in the back of Mapi’s nightstand, a mountain Ingrid still hadn’t been able to conquer. She was thoroughly impressed though, and by the sound of it, Mapi was too.

“I mean, I barely fingered her open and she took it like a champ.”

“She is fascinating.”

Ingrid looks over at you, eyes already hooded like a predator that has eyes on prey.

“And she just left you? No goodbye?” Ingrid asks as she stands. Mapi stands too and tucks a lock of the Norwegian hair behind her ear.

“Just a note, and the most delicious breakfast I had in all my time in Madrid,” Mapi tells Ingrid as she begins to walk over to you. Mapi suddenly grabs her arm, pulls her back, and gives her a chaste kiss, grinning from ear to ear.

“Work your magic, huh princesa? She owes me a round of drinks.”

Ingrid saunters over, a friendly smile on her face.

“Hello, you must be who Jonatan was raving about, our newest sports writer! Please, call me Ingrid.”

“Yes, it’s certainly a pleasure to meet you, Ingrid. Y/N.”

The camera starts rolling and the interview goes smoothly. Mapi tries to focus back on training but can’t, spending more time staring at you and Ingrid than going through her drills for the day. She notices that Ingrid is flirting with you a little and you give her the same attention. Mapi stands at the water station after training just as Ingrid’s interview wraps up, watching your hand rub up and down Ingrid’s arm.  

Mapi bites the bullet and walks over, hand wrapped around Ingrid’s waist. She pulls Ingrid in for a kiss and Ingrid melts; you stand there awkwardly and scratch the back of your head.

“Mapi, it’s nice to meet you again,” you say, extending your hand out for her to shake.

“What brings you to Barcelona?” Mapi asks, shaking your hand but pulling you in for a hug.

“Work! I used to write for Madrid then I got a job in America for a while before transferring here.”

“Well, since we know each other and you seem to be getting along with my girlfriend so well, we’ll show you around!” Mapi insists, linking your arms together.

“Wait, I-I wouldn’t want to impose!” You say and step back, ready to help the crew pack up and go back to your hotel room.

“Nonsense,” Ingrid says, reaching out for your arm. “Give Mapi a minute to clean up and we can head for dinner!” Ingrid links her arms with yours and walks ahead of Mapi, the shorter woman smirking at all the possibilities dinner could bring.

Throughout dinner, Mapi and Ingrid take turns teasing you. Whether it was under the table of the family-owned restaurant or being extra careful of you by ordering for you and pulling your chair out.

Ingrid insists on paying for dinner, even when you try to go over to the counter and make the teenager behind the counter take your card.

“You’re new to our home, let us take care of you,” she whispered, pressing a soft kiss to your ear before pulling you out the door.

Mapi takes your hand and drags you down the street to a private bar. You grin and walk in with Ingrid in tow, the loud music bringing back memories of that night you had with Mapi.

“Time to cash in on that promise, princesa. The first round is on you,” Mapi teases and tilts your head up to look at her at the bar, index finger tapping your nose. You buy drinks as promised, bringing them to both the girls who found a private corner of the bar to sit at. You sit at the end, sipping innocently on your minty gin. Mapi stands, downing her rum and coke in one swig before standing behind you. She caresses her hands down your arms, lips close to your ear.

“May I?” she asks softly. You nod, eyes locked onto Ingrid’s that are a similar dark-hooded shade. Mapi’s lips begin to kiss along your neck and shoulder, hands moving to your waist as she presses her front tight to your back.

“Come on, you must show Ingrid how well you move those hips hm?” Mapi encourages, helping you off the seat.

You follow them to the packed dancefloor, Ingrid instantly pulling you to her as Mapi stands behind her and holds her waist. In a split-second decision, you decide to let go and enjoy yourself. You dance with Ingrid and Mapi, the heat of the dancefloor bringing a light blush to all your faces. Ingrid, in a surprising turn of events, turns and begins to grind back on you despite only one drink.

You hesitate to touch her, eyes shooting up at Mapi who looks a little confused as to why you are still holding back. She suddenly pulls you into her and kisses you hard. You melt into her like Ingrid did earlier, the feeling of her lips on yours brings you back to her apartment where you last felt her. You pull away a little breathless, her lips just millimeters from yours.

“Don’t keep her waiting, pretty girl.”

You nod softly and pull Ingrid close, the tall Norwegian goes back to grinding on you. She’s a little buzzed, hips moving back on you beautifully. You too grab her hips and dance along with her, looking up to see Ingrid and Mapi making out lovingly.

You begin to kiss down Ingrid’s bare shoulder, nipping at her flesh to leave deep teeth marks. Your hands don’t stop caressing her, the two of them now noisily kissing each other when Ingrid pulls away with a loud smack.

“Need you,” she says to Mapi before she turns to you shaking her head, “No, want you.”

This time you take charge and pull them towards the private bathrooms at the end of the room. Ingrid was all over you the moment the door locked, eagerly on her knees while Mapi grabbed your face to kiss you. Ingrid pulled your jeans down, happily settled between your legs as she began to lap hungrily at your pussy.

Mapi kept your moans to a minimum, kissing you hard with her hand wrapped around your neck lightly. One hand held Ingrid’s head close, the other tangled in Mapi’s messy hair. She began to kiss down your neck, the music in the club becoming louder which gave you a bit of confidence to moan freely. Ingrid held your legs steady, tongue flicking over your clit fast and hard. Mapi pulled your shirt up and began to suck on your breasts hard. You moaned loudly without a care in the world, the feeling of one of them was the best fuck of your life and now to have the two of them take care of you was a dream come true.

Ingrid sucked hard on your clit, two long fingers slipping into your pussy before you felt Mapi’s lips leave your chest. Before you could open your eyes, she spanked your ass.  

“Quédate quieto.”

You nod and listen, feeling her move around as your hips begin to almost ride Ingrid’s fingers. You feel her hands pull at your ass, tongue flat and warm against your second hole. You yelp and ride the sensations; Ingrid’s lips wrapped tight around your clit, her fingers pressed deep inside you, and Mapi’s tongue jabbing its way into your ass.

“Fuck…” you moan, hand reaching back to hold Mapi’s head closer as Ingrid’s fingers press harder against your sweet spot. You hunch over, pulling on Ingrid’s hair but she relents, sucking harder and harder on your clit.  

“Ingrid, fuck…I’m close!” you squeak, thighs quivering as she slips a third finger inside your pussy. Mapi takes a bite of your ass and stands, holding you close and looking down over your shoulder at Ingrid at your feet.

“Seems familiar doesn’t it, pretty girl? She looks so gorgeous on her knees where she belongs no?”

Your eyes roll into your head when you remember her voice having the same lilt it had now when she said the same thing to you.

“Y-Yes! Fuck please, yes!”

Ingrid gives you one last come-hither flick inside you and you crash, thighs trembling as your orgasm ripples through you.

Mapi catches you and lets you crumble to the floor. You grab Ingrid’s face and kiss her passionately, moaning into her mouth when the taste of you floods your senses.

“Please take me home,” you beg, turning to look at a smug Mapi. She looks put together, and not someone who just ate your ass and pushed you toward a knee-buckling orgasm.

“You girls clean up, I’ll bring the car to the front.”

You sit in the back of the car with Ingrid, her lips on yours the whole short drive home.

“You’re right Mapi,” Ingrid starts, fingertips dancing over your features. “She is pretty.”

Mapi grins and winks at you in the rear-view mirror, before Ingrid turns your head back to look at her.

“Eyes on me, elskling,” she demands, not sounding as menacing as she wants. You raise your eyebrow at her and Mapi starts to laugh, parking the car and getting out.

Ingrid huffs and marches into the building herself, Mapi stops you before you can walk in.

“She’s a brat sometimes,” Mapi starts, hands in her pocket looking as cool as a cucumber.

“I can see that.”  

“She’s been acting up lately, I think someone else being in charge should get her to behave.”

“You want me to”

“Just for a bit, while I watch of course,” she presses the button for the lift and you take a deep breath, there is a lingering hint of Ingrid’s perfume in the air. She must be upstairs already.

“Brat taming was not how I envisioned my evening going.”

“Surprised?”

“Tickled.”

 Walking into Mapi and Ingrid’s beautiful apartment, she takes your hand and gently guides you to the bedroom where Ingrid lays naked on the bed spread eagle with her fingers plunged deep into her pussy.

You and Mapi stand over her, arms crossed in unison. Ingrid merely smiles and plays with her chest, her right hand busy between her legs.

“You were taking too long down there so I figured I’d sort myself out,” she whimpers, a third finger sliding into her wet pussy before she dramatically turns onto her knees and fingers herself that way. She moans into the mattress but stops when she doesn’t hear anyone berating her for being a brat.

Instead, she hears clothes falling to the ground, lips smacking softly and moans begging for more. She pulls her sticky fingers out of her pussy and turns back around, jaw dropped in shock when she sees you on your knees already sucking on Mapi’s strap.

She didn’t even notice Mapi grabbing it from the bedside drawer let alone giving you her spare one. You gag loudly and Ingrid takes notice of the silicone cock you’re sucking on; it’s the one she’s never been able to take.

“Good girl, princesa…” Mapi praises, running her fingers through your hair. She pulls a makeshift ponytail and fucks into your mouth, moaning loudly to put on a show for Ingrid. Ingrid shuffles over and pulls you away from Mapi, lips wrapped around Mapi’s cock. You both kneel in front of her, taking turns to suck her cock. She grins and goes with it, feeling the tension grow between you and Ingrid.

“On the bed, both of you,” Mapi says sternly, Ingrid scrambling onto the bed quickly. You follow her, stroking your cock which was much smaller than Mapi’s but was one that Ingrid took very easily.

Mapi pulled an office chair to the end of the bed, sitting back and relaxing. She lazily stroked her cock, before pointing at Ingrid.

“You will do as she says. Disobey her, you do not get my cock much less hers.”

Ingrid nods, looking at you and leaning in for a kiss. You kiss her back, slowly pushing her onto her back. Ingrid moves as you do, legs spread wide open like she did earlier. You kiss her messily, hands fondling her full breasts and supple skin.

“Mm, I’ve wanted to taste you since I saw you at Wolfsburg the first time.”

“You’ve waited that long, cariño?” Mapi asks in a bored tone, looking at her nails as she pulls a hangnail off.

“Sí, so long…” you whisper, sucking on Ingrid’s nipple. She whines and arches her back, hands pushing your hair out of your face as she squirms on the bed.

You kiss down her toned midfielder body, her abs prominent as she breathes heavier and heavier. You bite just over her hip, pressing her thighs wide open. You settle between her legs at the edge of the bed, tongue-mouthing eagerly at her sloppy folds.

“Fuck!” she moans, hands tangled in your hair as she tries to grind up into your mouth. You stop her and pin her down tighter, sucking harder at her clit as she begs for you to let her come.

“Already, Ingrid?” you tease, two fingers slipping into her easily.

“Yes…feels so good…” she begs, head thumping back on the mattress.

“Oh, I don’t own your orgasms, Ingrid. Mapi does, you should ask her,” you say amusedly, grinning at a smirking Mapi who leaned over with her elbows on her knees. You go back to fucking Ingrid, four fingers now deeply pressed into her open pussy as your lips suckle hard on her swollen clit.

“All you have to do is ask, mi amor,” Mapi teases, reaching over and tucking a loose strand of hair behind Ingrid’s ear. Her eyes fill with tears as the feeling of the stretch begins to course through her.

“Please, Mapi…” she whimpers, “I’ve been good.”

Mapi leans back into her menacing chair, hand on her chin like she’s thinking.

“Have you been good, Ingrid?” she asks, spinning around slowly. You’ve turned Ingrid onto her stomach, tongue lapping fast at her asshole as your fingers press up into her sweet spot. She grunts and begins to keen, lips begging Mapi to let her come.

“I don’t know, bebita. We’ve had a guest in our home and you’ve been a needy little slut the whole night. Should she come, princesa? Has our Norwegian whore been a good girl?”

“Hmm,” you begin, thumb circling over Ingrid’s clit as three fingers rub hard on her sweet spot. She’s trembling hard, fighting her impending orgasm the best she can.

“She did make me come in the club earlier, that was nice of her,” you say, kissing her belly button.

“She can come.”

Ingrid screams your name, back fully arching off the bed as the shocks course through her entire body. She pants hard and mutters a soft “Come here,” before capturing your lips in a tender kiss. You press your thigh between her legs and she cheekily grinds up into it, biting your lip.

Mapi stands and pulls you off her, wrenching open your jaw to spit into. It lands all over your mouth but in it before she leans in for a kiss. Ingrid reaches for the bottle of lube and spreads it all over Mapi’s cock, obediently awaiting more instructions.

Mapi gets on the bed behind Ingrid, kissing along her shoulder. You lean in and kiss her lips, caressing her thighs. The Norwegian can’t figure out who to focus on, her hands grabbing you to lace together.

Mapi pushes her forward, fingers rubbing tenderly over her folds. Ingrid becomes face to face with your cock, eagerly taking it in her mouth as Mapi slips her cock into Ingrid. She goes slow and adds more lube, knowing that Ingrid struggles to take this one.

To her surprise, Ingrid swallows it up with ease, moaning loudly around your cock as the thick silicone fills her aching pussy. Mapi thrusts slowly, getting her used to the stretch. Ingrid focuses on your cock, sucking on the much smaller appendage with practiced ease.

Mapi moans and reaches for you, leaning over Ingrid as her hips pound into her girlfriend. You cradle Ingrid’s head, leaning forward, and kiss Mapi. You hear Ingrid choke a couple of times, your hips gently nudging the toy down her throat. You pull away from Mapi and pull Ingrid off your cock, kissing her spit-soaked face.

“Fucking hell Ingrid, you’re such a whore for us huh? Love having two cocks fill your holes?”

“Not all my holes…” she says with a grin, a harsh smack on her ass resounding through the room.

“Basta, puta asquerosa,” Mapi looks up at you, hips never faltering even once. “Come here.”

You scoot over, grabbing the bottle of lube, knowing your next move before Mapi asks. She pulls out of Ingrid and helps her onto her side, two of your fingers slipping into her asshole. She whimpers, hips chasing the feeling eagerly.

“More, please,” she asks, knuckles white as she grips the sheets tight in pleasure.

You kiss along her side and ass, scissoring your fingers faster before pushing in a third. She grabs your wrist and guides your hand, your bicep cramping as you finger her asshole open enough to take your cock and Mapi’s at the same time.

“I can! Just hurry, please!” She squeals, hiking her leg up to her chest as Mapi adds more lube to her cock and yours. She slips in first, rubbing Ingrid’s thigh as you line yourself up with Ingrid’s ass.

You slip in and Ingrid moans long and loud, feeling overwhelmingly full and buzzed. You lean down and kiss her softly, the center-back smiling softly before nodding for you to move. Mapi starts slow, thrusting into her girlfriend before urging you to thrust on her upstroke. You alternate like a smooth machine, Ingrid babbling nonsense as raw pleasure surges through her petite body.

“Faster!” she screams, hips moving back on you and Mapi. You spank her ass and beckon your hips faster, kissing Mapi passionately as she also fucks into Ingrid faster.

The Norwegian comes with a scream of both your names, the sheer force of the orgasm pushing you both out of her as she quivers and squirms. You’re both beside her in an instant, straps abandoned somewhere in the room.

Ingrid smiles drunkenly, one hand cradling Mapi’s head behind her and the other petting your abs.

“I think I went to heaven,” she slurs before looking at you. “I wanted you too, you know. I saw you at the final against Lyon. Was too shy to say hi, but it was worth the wait.”  

[fanficimagery]

Miscommunication

You practically throw yourself at your best friend, only to be rejected.

Or were you?

Words: 4.1K Author’s Note: I, uh, I have nothing. I wrote this while having covid. It was the only thing my brain let me complete.

Walking down the side of the empty road, you hug your jacket a little tighter to your body and pray no wild animal leaps from the surrounding woods to attack you in such a vulnerable state. Normally you'd get a ride from your best friend, but you'd just made an absolute fool of yourself and the last thing you want is to see him right now. Or for the rest of the week for that matter.

Tripping and stumbling over gravel and twigs, you curse your lowered inhibitions and wonder how you're going to move on from this. As you're walking, you see lights appear on the road from behind you. They get bright and brighter, and your heart beats faster and faster.

Grimacing, you quickly wipe away your tears. "Please don't be-" An all too familiar blue Camaro slows to a stop next to you and you heave a sigh of relief before grimacing for a whole different reason. "Hargrove, out for a late-night drive?"

Leaning over his seats, Billy glances through the passenger window. "YN YLN? What the hell are you doing out here?"

"Oh, you know, just thought I'd go out for a stroll."

"In the middle of fuckin' nowhere?" He scoffs. He then reaches for the handle and opens the door. "Get in."

"It's fine. I can walk."

"Get in the goddamn car, YN."

You briefly weigh your options before deciding that you don't actually want to walk home in the dark. So, bending at the waist, you peer in through the opened door. "No funny business?"

"Believe it or not, princess, I know that no means no. And to not take advantage of a girl when she's clearly been crying." You wince and then quickly drop into his passenger seat, shutting the door right after. Billy throws his car into drive and takes off, raising the volume to the radio to keep the atmosphere of the car from becoming too uncomfortable. After a couple of minutes, he asks, "Want to talk about it?"

"Not really," you mumble.

"Can't be that bad."

You scoff and keep your gaze straight ahead. "It's.. more embarrassing than anything."

"Well now you gotta tell me."

You sniffle some more and gulp down the forming lump in your throat. "Why? We're not exactly friends." You wince as you hear the words leave your mouth and see Billy's hands clench around the steering wheel. "Sorry, that sounded more bitchy out loud than it did in my head."

"Had this been any other day, you'd be right." He shrugs and then, "So come on. For one night only you can spill all the nitty gritty secrets and I'll never bring it up again."

"Yeah. Right."

He slowly smirks. "Fine. I won't use it as blackmail. I'll probably tease you with it, but not when others can hear."

You turn your head to look at him, slowly smiling and then chuckling. You hide your face behind your hands, groaning. "I know I'm gonna fuckin' regret this, but I need to say it out loud and talk about just how stupid I was."

"Come on, princess, lay it on me."

You groan again. "I, uh, I might have threw myself at my best friend."

Billy's quiet for a moment too long and you peek at him through your fingers. "That.. doesn't sound so bad."

"He rejected me."

He scoffs then. "I still don't see how you're the stupid one here. If it were me, I'd have been all over that."

You wrinkle your nose at his brief leer. "Yeah, well, Eddie's not like that. He said I was drunk and that I'd regret it."

"Eddie?" Billy frowns. You can see him wracking his brain for a face to pin to the name. You can practically see the lightbulb go off over his head when his eyes widen and his head whips in your direction. "Eddie Munson?!"

"You don't have to say his name like that." You pout and Billy cackles.

"Holy shit. Holy shit, princess! You threw yourself at Eddie fuckin' Munson and that freak rejected you?!"

"Don't call him that," you whine. "He's my best friend and-"

Billy laughs some more. "Is he getting into his own stash or something? Why the hell would he-"

"Because I'm not his type! I made an ass out of myself and now I've ruined everything with my best friend, and I can't even look at him anymore and.." You trail off, crying. "I just- I just wanna go home and crawl into bed and not resurface for the foreseeable future. So, if you can stop laughing at me, that'd be awesome."

Billy continues to chuckle as he drives. "Look, I'm sure it's not as bad as you're making it out to be." You scoff and wipe the tears from your face. "You said that he said you were drunk, and he thought you'd regret it?" You frown, hesitantly nodding. "Well then there you go. I'm not a fan of the guy, but he obviously did the right thing not taking advantage of you in this state."

"But I'm not that drunk!"

"Aren't you?" He muses, smirking as he glances at you yet again. "If you were sober or even a bit buzzed, would you be spilling all this girly shit to me? Me who's attempted to take you out multiple times only to be shot down?" You pout at him and sink further into the seat. "That's what I thought. Now pull it together and tell me where you live."

As you glance out the window to take in your surroundings, you say, "Keep driving until you hit Lawrence Street. I'm like the third house down on the right." Billy hums his acknowledgment and then all too soon he's turning down your street. But as you squint your eyes in the darkness, your eyes widen and you throw yourself down onto the floorboard. "Don't stop! Keep driving!"

"What the hell are you doing? Get off the floor."

"No, no, no. That's Eddie's van in front of my house. I don't want to see him."

"What the hell do you want me to do then?"

You watch as Billy glances out his window, smirking at something. "Just.. drop me off around the corner or something. I'll jump fences if I have to until I get to my backyard." Billy goes quiet and you watch as he turns, and then makes another turn. Slowly, you climb back into your seat. "Uh, where are you going?"

"My place."

"Hargrove," you groan.

"I'm still being a decent person," he muses. "Dad took his wife on a little getaway, so it's just me and Maxine. You're good."

"You promise?"

Billy glances at you then, his expression softening just a fraction as he takes in just how small you look in his passenger seat. "Sure, Princess. I promise."

The drive to Billy's house is a few minutes longer and then he's pulling into his driveway. You get out of his car on shaky legs, hugging your jacket tight around you once again. Following him inside, you wince as he shouts for his stepsister, only to get no response in return.

"Guess she's gonna be out for the night."

"Mhmm." Billy surprises you with a change of clothes- a crop top of his that fits you almost like a normal shirt and a pair of sleep pants. He tries to offer sharing his bed, but you wrinkle your nose at him. "Nope. The floor is fine. I'm not sleeping in jizz central."

He laughs, but shrugs. He wasn't going to manhandle you into his bed if you didn't want to be there. Instead, he grabs up all the spare blankets and pillows he can find and lets you make a nest on his floor. He disappears for a brief moment before coming back with tylenol and a glass of water. You eagerly drink it all down, setting the glass on his bedside table and then crawling underneath one of the blankets.

As soon as the lights are out, your eyes start to take longer and longer to reopen.

"Hey Billy?" You sleepily mumble.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks. This was actually pretty decent of you."

He huffs. "Go to sleep, YN."

"M'kay."

The following afternoon you're sitting at Hargrove's breakfast table, elbows on the tabletop and head resting in your hands. Your stomach's rolling, your head is pounding, and the embarrassment still lingers.

You remember everything from watching Eddie be his rambunctious self at Steve's impromptu party, to having a couple drinks for liquid courage and being talked up by Robin, to finally just grabbing your best friend by the back of his neck and kissing him. For a moment he seemed to be into it, but then he pushed away and your heart plummeted.

Tears of embarrassment had stung your eyes as Eddie explained that you were drunk and didn't know what you wanted. But you did- you knew exactly who and what you wanted, but he merely flashed you a sad smile and refused to believe you. So when he told you to stay put while he went to grab his jacket so he could drive you home, you disappeared out Steve's backyard gate even as Robin tried to call you back.

The front door to the house opens and your head shoots up, eyes wide with panic. The door shuts and then the person who'd just entered comes into view.

Max freezes, staring at you before she looks you up and down. Her shock quickly turns into disgust. "Please tell me you didn't."

"I-I didn't!" You quickly stand, clutching at the waistband of the sleep pants to keep them in place. "I slept on the floor."

She scoffs. "Yeah. Right." Her eyes roll and your chest aches with hurt. "I know Billy, and you weren't exactly sober last night, YN."

"I was sober enough to know exactly what I was doing, Max."

"Were you?" Her eyebrow arches at you. "Is that why you threw yourself at Munson and then Billy? I guess the second time was the charm, huh."

Her words sting and immediately you feel your eyes prickle with tears of frustration. Her expression softens as she realizes what she's just said, but you shake your head at her when she opens her mouth again. "Fuck this."

Turning around, you march back to Billy's room and strip out of his sleep pants in order to pull your jeans back on. As you're debating whether or not you want to slip back into your own shirt, you see Max lean into the doorway to peer into the room.

Keeping Billy's crop top, you pull on your leather jacket. The bathroom door opens, Max scrambles to the other side of the door, and then..

"What's going on?"

You glance up at Billy standing there in a pair of basketball shorts and towel draped around his neck as water droplets dribble down his bare chest. Max rolls her eyes at him and you hardly bat an eye at him as you scoop up your shirt and shoes. "I, uh, I'm gonna go. Thanks for the ride and place to crash. You're not a total neanderthal like I thought you were, Hargrove."

He scoffs. "Why are you crying?"

"I-"

"I just remembered what an idiot I made of myself last night," you say, cutting off Max when she suddenly turns guilty looking. You meet her gaze and subtly shake your head before looking at Billy once more. "Thanks again. I'll, uh, I'll see you around."

You squeeze between the step-siblings, ignoring both their calls of your name as you flee their home. Outside, the tears come faster. With your shoes dangling from one hand and your shirt clutched in the other, you hurry in the direction of your home so you can hide away.

The weekend comes and goes, and you're grateful that your parents were off on a business trip so you could mope in peace. The doors remained locked, the curtains remained pulled tight, and you ignored every knock on the door or phone call that had your friends pleading on the answering machine to pick up.

But Monday comes around far too quickly for your liking and you find yourself dragging your feet into work at Family Video. Steve perks up from behind the front counter, but you merely let your gaze drag over him before heading straight to the staff room to clock in.

When you take your place behind the front counter, you immediately get to work sorting the returned tapes and sit on the floor where the small TV and VCR are hidden so you can mark down who didn't rewind their tapes.

"Well you're alive and well. That's nice to know."

"Mhm. Haven't kicked the bucket quite yet, Harrington, now get back to work."

"Fine. But we're talking about whatever the hell happened Friday night on break."

"Hmm. I would rather not."

"YN.."

"Steve." You sigh and look up over your shoulder at him. "Can you not do this? We're at work and I'd rather forget the most embarrassing night of my life. Thanks."

"Embarrassing because you threw yourself at Munson or embarrassing because you slept with Hargrove?"

Your eyes widen and then anger blazes across your features. "Fuck you." You get up from your place on the floor and march back towards the staff room.

"Shit. Shit, YN, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that." Steve chases after you. "Max feels really bad about that misunderstanding, by the way."

"If she felt bad about it then why did she tell all of you? Clearly nothing happened," you spit at him in anger, "but you've all made up your mind already, haven't you?"

Steve watches you grab your timecard from the wall, followed by a pen. "W-What are you doing?"

You scribble two words on the timecard before tossing the pen aside, strip out of your Family Video vest, and then walk over to Steve while slapping the card against his chest. "I quit."

Steve gapes as you walk out the staff door, marching through the store as you exit out the front entrance.

When you get home, you kick off your shoes on your way upstairs and crawl into bed. The moment you're under the covers and your head hits the pillows, the tears come. You cry over the fact that two of your friends, maybe more, think you slept with Billy Hargrove and cry because you're now out of a job.

You cry and cry, not knowing when you fell asleep.

You don't know how long you've been asleep when you feel your mattress dip and you peel open your eyes with a quiet groan. When your gaze focuses, you see Robin sheepishly sitting on the edge of your bed.

"Hey." She faintly smiles at you. "Steve called a code red." At the mention of his name, your bottom lip wobbles and your eyes fill with tears yet again. "Aw crap. Please don't cry. I don't do good with crying people."

It takes you a few moments to get yourself under a semblance of control. "Does everyone else *sniffle* think I'm a slut too?" You cry.

"No one thinks you're a slut, YN."

"Steve and Max do," you say over a hiccup. "They think I slept with Billy, but Robin.. I wouldn't. You know I've been in love with Eddie since I was sixteen."

There's a sharp inhale of breath behind you, Robin's eyes widen before they dart in that direction and your heart lodges itself in your throat.

"You've been in love with me since we were sixteen?"

"I'm, uh, I'm gonna go," Robin blurts. She offers you a tight smile before quickly standing. "Have fun. Figure your shit out and be safe!"

As Robin flees your bedroom, you turn on your side and curl in on yourself. You can hear the jingle of the chain hanging from Eddie's belt loops and you turn your head so your face is hidden in the plushness of your pillow.

"Hey. Come on now. It's just me, sweetheart." Your mattress jostles and your breath hitches. "Will you please look at me?"

"I don't wanna."

"YN."

A whine gets stuck at the back of your throat and you slowly turn your head so you can see Eddie. He smiles big from where he's crouched on the side of your bed. "There you are."

"I wasn't drunk," you mumble.

"What?"

"I wasn't drunk," you say again. "Friday night," you then clarify. "I knew what I was doing when I kissed you and I'm really sorry I made you uncomfortable."

Eddie's smile falters. "What makes you think I was uncomfortable?"

"You rejected me, Eds! I'm pretty sure that-"

"Baby," he suddenly coos and your heart fuckin' aches at the term of endearment. He crosses his arms atop your bed, setting his chin atop them as he angles his head to get a better look at you. "I was nowhere near uncomfortable. I thought you were wasted and that you'd regret the kiss come morning," he clarifies for you. "I couldn't bear the thought of finally getting the girl of my dreams only to lose her when she realized what a mistake she'd made while under the influence."

His words hang in the air for a moment and it takes your brain a minute longer to process it all. Then when the silence is borderline awkward, you say, "I could never regret anything involving you. You're my best friend and I-"

"Have been in love with me since you were sixteen?" He lightly teases. Your heart beats faster and faster, and he smirks. "Will it make you feel any better if I admit I've been in love with you just as long?"

"W-What?"

"S'true. Ask Wayne," he says. "He's called me a dumbass for years for not telling you." You giggle and Eddie practically beams. "So what do you say to a redo? Because I haven't stopped thinking about Friday night and I-"

You lurch forward, holding your weight on one elbow as you press your lips against Eddie's. He chuckles against your mouth before getting with the program, cupping the side of your head with one hand and molding his lips against yours.

For a first kiss it's very chaste, but absolutely perfect. Though you've been in love with Eddie for years, there's absolutely no rush whatsoever and you want to savor every milestone with him.

Eddie pecks your lips once and then twice as he slowly pulls back, resting his forehead against yours while swiping his thumb along your cheekbone. "I've been wanting to do that for years."

"Mhm. Same." You lean in and kiss his lips one last time. "And I'm all for exploring each other and all that to catch up on lost time, but all this stupid crying has exhausted me. So either get in bed or go beat up Steve for me for making me have to look for another job."

Eddie chuckles as he stands, slipping out of his leather jacket and jean vest, then slipping off his sneakers. "Nah. Don't worry about it, sweetheart. Steve covered for you at work and got you a new time card. You still have a job at Family Video."

"Oh. Okay then."

As he climbs into bed, under your covers, you wait until he's mostly settled before moving his arm so you could cuddle up to him. With your head resting in the crook of his arm where his arm meets his shoulder, you lay your arm across his abdomen and hike your knee over his thigh. Eddie chuckles. "Comfortable?"

"Getting there." You move around a bit more and then once you're finally settled, you exhale a little too loudly. Eddie squeezes you tighter against him, one arm around your back while your other hand rests on your knee. "Is this real?" You ask. "Like you're not just doing this because you're afraid to hurt my feelings?"

"I am one hundred and ten percent here for this, sweetheart," Eddie says. "Now that I know I can have this and more? Pft. You're never getting rid of me." You laugh softly and feel his lips against your forehead. "Now get some rest. We can pick up the fun stuff later."

You fall asleep with a smile on your lips and Eddie brushing his fingers along the skin of your arm.

As it turns out, dating Eddie is a lot like just being friends with Eddie. The only difference now is that he's less careful with his touches and has no problem staking his claim out in public. You were never a fan of pda, but with Eddie? You like it. You like it a lot.

Especially if it grosses out Steve who you'd yet to fully forgive for his sleeping with Billy comment. Max you could forgive because she was used to seeing Billy sleeping with a new girl every weekend and she realized her mistake when she saw all the bedding on the floor where you had actually slept. But Steve? Steve heard the story and still had the audacity to throw it out there that you'd slept with his arch nemesis and that really hurt.

But it's already been a week so you figure you'll let up and put Harrington out of his misery within the next couple of days.

Walking out of the festival Hawkins had put on for the weekend, Eddie's arm is draped around your shoulders while you're laughing and trying to eat the rest of your cotton candy without him leaning down to bite it off the cone in your hands.

"Well isn't this a precious sight."

You've yet to run into anyone brave enough to speak out about you and Eddie, so the words catch you off guard with the tone they're used with. But when you see who had spoken, you relax with a soft exhale. "Hey Hargrove." You nod at him and his date for the evening- his date who's frowning as she glances between you and Billy. You roll your eyes, feeling a little catty. "Are you actually showing this one off to the public before adding another notch to the bedpost?"

The girl gasps, but Billy merely smirks at you. "Nice to know you're still a bitch even when you're getting laid on the regular." Eddie tenses at your side, but you merely laugh at the mean words. Your laughter makes Billy chuckle and you smile genuinely when you see the shift in his demeanor. He glances at Eddie, smirk dimming. "You ever make her cry again, Munson, and I'll knock your teeth in. Got it?"

Eddie isn't given a chance to respond as Billy takes his date's hand and practically drags her towards the festival. As you and Eddie turn to watch them walk off, he looks down at you and shakes his head. "Jesus Christ, sweetheart. One night with Hargrove and he's turned into a guard dog."

You grin sheepishly. "Look at this way. If I ever run into trouble, you got a real hardass in your corner to help you kick some ass."

"I thought that's what Steve was for?"

You snort. "Have you seen Steve's fight record? Steve's not the fighting type, babe."

"Eh. True." Eddie's arm ends up around your shoulders yet again and the two of you head off towards his van. "Where to now, sweetheart? My place or yours?"

"I don't care. As long as there's a shower and some comfortable clothes for me, I could go to either place. I'm in the mood for some cuddles."

"Mmm. I like the way you think." Eddie opens the passenger door for you, waiting until you've hopped in to press in closer and pull you down into a kiss. He hums against your mouth, tongue licking up the sugar from your lips. "I think we'll go back to mine. Your parents are home and they always ruin our fun."

Giggling, you agree and then pull the door closed as Eddie jogs around the front of his van.

As you watch him go, your heart swells with even more affection for the boy who'd stolen your heart long ago. And as he smiles at you through the windshield window, eyes crinkled at the corners, you have a feeling that this will be one person who will never intentionally make you cry.

And if he does, well you can always take Hargrove up on his offer to punch his teeth in.

But until that day, you're gonna spend your days catching up on lost time with the guy of your dreams.

[thefiery-phoenix]

yandere dg hcs if u havent yet?? ty❤️

YANDERE JAMES LEE (DG) HEADCANONS

He's an unpredictable ticking time bomb to say the least. It doesn't matter if he's James Lee or DG, they're STILL the same person. As soon as his eyes land on you, that's when your entire life belongs to him now. He's borderline possessive, obsessive, manipulative and not above gaslighting you emotionally to make you stay with him. There are 2 instances when you could have met him, as James Lee or as DG but it doesn't make the situation any better since they're both the same obsessive psychotic person when it comes to you

If you met him as James Lee, it would probably be when you'd be in school with him or something. You were the sort of person who'd never get involved in fights and always kept yourself under the radar. Your only concern was to just pass the freaking math test this week with a decent score. While you were returning home from school, you spotted James hitting a few people like they were nothing and you glared at him disapprovingly. He spotted you glaring at him and he was amused by your pouty glare. "Aww...don't worry princess, you don't need to worry about bad men anymore" he said in a slightly patronizing condescending tone with a smirk on his face. You just grumbled under your breath and walked away as his eyes never left your figure till you vanished from his sight. He couldn't help but softly chuckle to himself, you were quite intriguing

He'd spend time getting to know more about you which will also involve smacking people around to give him the information he needs regarding you. He won't even be discreet about following you or stalking you at this point, he just has this arrogant cocky grin on his face and thinks he's protecting you and comes up with a number of reasons on why you need him to be around you. He despises it when you pay attention to other people though, they're just mere pests in his eyes. Why would you waste your time with them? Why would you waste your time with those silly little annoying pests you call your friends? You're clearly a naive one if you think they don't have ulterior motives towards you, he's certain they have ulterior motives towards you

Or you could either meet him when he's DG. You could be an assistant of his or a dancer, catching his attention as DG would he slightly more difficult compared to him as James Lee because he's so used to people throwing themselves at him and he just doesn't even bother to react to them anymore. Miraculously if you do end up catching his attention at some point, within the next 10 minutes he'll have every single nitty gritty detail about you one way or another and reads about you like you're some kind of fascinating specimen in his free time

As time progresses by, he'll start growing more possessive and obsessive towards you. It'll get even worse if you're going out with him and in a relationship with him. He'll want to know about every single thing going on in your life and who you're with and what sort of pest he'll have to get rid of to ensure you're his. I wouldn't put it past him to not resorting to installing cameras in your house either because he really would do something like that. What? It's just to ensure your safety, that's all. You'll always have someone stalking you from behind the shadows and you'll never have your moment of privacy again. Say goodbye to your much cherished privacy since it'll go out the window and down the drain and he's the reason for it

He likes you for being yourself. He's met plenty of superficial people and people who's personality changes even faster than the colors of a chameleon but your presence is like a breath of fresh air compared to the usual people he interacts with. You could be plain and simple and he'd still love you. In his own twisted manic way. He's drawn to your humble down to earth nature. He loves it when he gifts you something and you start blushing and turn flustered, he's now made it his personal mission in life to see you get flustered more often since he finds you rather adorable and endearing when you do that. Your cheeks puff out slightly whenever you're feeling embarrassed about something so he'll teasingly caress your cheek with his hand to watch you squirm even more. Your reactions are too cute and entertaining for him. Sadistic MF

He loves to spoil you. Whatever you want, just say the word and you'll have it in the blink of an eye with a shiny packaging wrap around it just for you. However a while later his behavior will start getting much worse. He'll slowly start distancing you from your friends since he wants your attention to be only on him. There's a reason he's called one of the 10 geniuses you know. He'll do it in a calculating manner you won't know and realize he's isolating you from people before it's too late. He won't even deny it when you confront him about it, the way he sees it is he's just doing this for your own good. He's fought against gang members and yakuza leaders and whatnot, there's a reason he's one of the feared skilled fighters around. He doesn't want you going through the same thing as him so just be a good little spouse for him and accept his love for you. Will take you out on bike rides on his bike as well. He loves it when you hold him and rest your head on his shoulder. Night bike rides with him are quite romantic, he'll take you out to a place where the stars are visible and he'll hold you in his arms and you both will enjoy the peace and serenity of the night atmosphere, looking at the stars

Oh,you'll report him to the authorities? Darling, you're just making him laugh with your naivety at this point. He has the power and authority to buy the entire police department or whoever he wants. He's an IDOL admired by the people. When the faith in him is strong, no one can bring him down. It's not like someone would even believe you anyway and even if you do find the one sane enough person to believe you, DG will get rid of them quickly. Don't bother trying to escape from him either, he has all the resources and power to locate you and trace your location in mere seconds. You'll be dragged back to 'your home' and he'll just scold you like you're a child. And all escape routes for you will be destroyed, you'll lose your internet privilege for a month and the security system will be more improved and he'll change the locks too. Look, he might be a ruthless fighter but that doesn't mean he's a monster at heart. He genuinely does love you and care for you, he doesn't want to hurt you. He'd never get physical or raise his voice at you even when he's mad

Will control everything you do. Whatever do you need a job for? It's strenuous to work these days, he doesn't want you getting tired and gaining the attention of some random undeserving scumbag who doesn't have the right to look at you. He's more than enough to provide for the two of you. Let him just spoil you and take care of you

Don't even get me started on what he does to people who hurt you. Now it depends on the sort of person who's hurt you. If it's just some random jealous fangirl or fanboy, he'll use his popularity to his advantage and that person's account will get suspended and they'll have an fanbase hurling curses towards them. Fanbases can be quite scary at times. If it's some gang member or some jerk of a gang leader he will not go easy on them. He'll ensure they live, sure but live a painful torturous life. He'll either make them blind in one eye or both, or cut one of their fingers off or something for daring to hurt you. He'll finish the job quickly and he'll do it by himself. If it's Charles Choi trying to hunt you down for some reason....well, it's been long enough since that old man's been in a position of power and he'll bring him down. It's best if you don't ask where the blood is from

He likes holding you in his arms and having you on his lap. It doesn't matter what you say, you're sitting on his lap one way or another. He'll give you soft kisses on your lips every now and then and loves it when you do basic chores around the house even though you don't need to since there are people to take care of that for him. He likes seeing you in that cute little apron of yours, cooking something or doing laundry or whatever. He'll envelope you in a hug from the back and press soft kisses to your neck as his arms will be wrapped around your waist tightly so you won't be able to escape from his grasp

Overall, he's a good guy with a psychotic hidden personality inside. Just don't leave him and things will be all right

[antimony-medusa]

How To Set Up An Ao3 Exchange

One of the first things I say whenever anyone asks me about running exchanges is that if you have more than about 30 people in the exchange, do NOT try to match it by hand. That is so much work and takes so much time. Use Ao3's matching algorithm. And people say sure, and then they look at how Ao3 works and they go uhhhhhhhhhh I think we can make a google form work. Because google forms are reasonably intuitive to make work, and Ao3 exchanges are— not.

But the thing is, once you understand the underlying logic for Ao3 collections, they are not that bad, and seriously I can't overstate the benefit of having Ao3 do the matching for you. That's like the difference between 80 hours of curating data as it comes in and then matching it (what happened with hand-matching 325 people for holiday exchange), or 2 hours of double-checking the matching (what happened with matching 125 people for 48 hour exchange). You have to put in extra work to get an Ao3 exchange set up, but it super pays off in the end. So! Here is an intro to how Ao3 exchanges work on the back end. This explanation assumes you know how to sign up for an exchange because I've posted ones like that before, for example, here.

Let's get into it.

THE COLLECTION

The first thing you want to do is set up your exchange collection. If you go to your right-hand drop-down menu, you click on My Collections.

That brings you to every collection you have ever made, and you go to to the right and click "New collection".

That brings you into the back end of the collection. You want to go down and put in a name for the collection that will be the url (so no spaces), a display name, an email for the collection to email when something happens to the collection (this will be public, so use a fandom email), and a basic description.

There's places there to do custom icons and headers, but those are optional, but you can go in and make your exchange pretty later if you want!

We are still in the "setting up" stage of the exchange, so once we go to preferences, you want to select all the tick boxes and make it look like this.

Moderated means that you'll have to manually approve things to be added to the collection (not absolutely necessary but can keep out trolls, and it also means that you can manually check that gifts meet minimums before you let them in to the exchange), Closed means that no one can submit things to the collection yet (once you open your exchange you de-select this), Unrevealed means that any works in the collection will show up as "mystery works" and not be readable (so you keep it unrevealed until the posting date, so people can post early but not spoil the surprise), anonymous means that all authors will be anonymous (this depends on if you have an anonymous portion of your exchange, so it's optional), "show random works" just means that you get a selection of different works when people visit the collection at different times, "send a message to the collection email" is optional but is useful for moderation (like if you're checking people off a list when their gifts get delivered), and "type of challenge" you want to be set to "gift exchange".

and then on this page the only other things of concern are places where you can put in an FAQ, a description and some instructions, but those are all optional! I normally host the FAQ on tumblr, so I just say "go check the tumblr at [link]".

And then you hit the submit button.

Now we get into the nitty-gritty.

First up is some optional stuff— you can add in the times that you're going to do things! This is useful for communication, but not necessary. We're still setting everything up, so you do not want Sign-Ups to be open, that is only selected once you have everything ready to go.

Then scrolling down, you get to Requests and Offers.

This is where you specify the absolute minimum ships or characters that you want people to give you to sign up. 10 is the maximum Ao3 allows, so I always set it to 10 for both "allowed", which is the maximum the site will allow. And required is the low number. I usually set it to a minimum of three, to make sure someone doesn't sign up with "i will only write one ship" or something. This way, people will have to do a minimum of three separate requests and offers.

The "requests visible" is part of the back end thing, and it's up to you if you want to select it or not. If you keep it unselected, the only person who will be able to see requests is the mods, and eventually each person will see their assignment. If you select it, people will be able to browse everyone's requests and both maybe target offers so they can write for a specific person, and be able to find treats (extra bonus gifts) to write for people whose requests they like. Each side has its own benefits or negatives, it's up to you which ones you want to go with!

And here we get into more of the matching info! Let's look at Request Settings.

Now this is what the settings would look like for a multi-fandom exchange. The "details/description" box you want to make mandatory because that is where people will put their DNW and their prompts (and you absolutely want to make sure everyone has a DNW), and the url is an optional one which lets people link an off-site letter on google docs or dreamwidth.

Fandom allowing up to three fandoms means that people can do crossovers if they want (or tag a request something like 3rd life/hermitcraft), and if I wanted to say that people had to request 3 separate servers I would say "must be unique" but I'm okay if people sign up with three Dream SMP relationships in this idea hypothetical exchange, so I'm not selecting the unique button.

I'm ignoring the characters button cause that's extra complication, the only other thing I want to look at is the relationship button. A minimum of 1 ship per request (and there's a minimum of three requests), and let's say you can go up to 20, so people can request LOTS of different ships. I did select "must be unique" so someone can't sign up with the same ship three times. The "allow any" button is off, which means that I will have to select relationships that fit under the fandom that I selected one up, I can't request Shubble/Niki Nihachu (Origins), and put it with a fandom request for Hermitcraft. This has set it so that the absolutely minimum someone can sign up with is 3 relationships (3 requests * 1 relationship each), and the absolute maximum is 200 relationships (10 requests * 20 relationships each).

Requests will look much the same, except I am not putting down details/description or a URL, because I'm not letting people submit requests about what ship they "really" want to match on, they are going to be equally matchable to everyone they offered. Some exchanges will let you submit a requests DNW, but honestly that is so much extra work for the mods, I would not recommend it unless you think it's necessary to stop people from dropping their gifts later.

Okay, so now we take a brief digression into a tag set.

THE TAG SET

Okay so basically a tag set is an extra set of sliders that lets you fine-tune your exchange. If you do not use a tag set, when people sign up they will be able to use every canon tag on the archive, and only canon tags. Which is a LOT of tags, but when I ran an exchange without a tag set there were multiple times of hitting non-canon relationships or tags. But it's also a definite extra complication, tag sets are extra fiddly work and they are even less intituive. If you just want to go without a tag set, skip down to the matching segment. If you do want to avoid hitting people signing up with non-canon tags, keep reading.

I'm gonna say right off the bat that tag sets are the single most like "oh I am getting into the GUTS of the machine" part of running Ao3 exchanges, but if you can make them work they can super streamline both the sign-up (for your participants ) and the matching process (for you).

Oh boy, tag sets. Here we start getting into how exchanges start squeezing the interface to make it do what we want it to. I'm using a tag set, so first I clicked on the "tag set" url there and I made my tag set, and then I came back and selected its name from the drop-down menu on the collection. I leave all the tick boxes open, because selecting them will again restrict you to canon tags, and we specifically want to be open to noncanon tags both because of issues like "ijevin & tiny tim" not being a canon tag, and because the way MCYT tags are wrangled and made canon does not work for how the exchange machine reads information. We specifically want a collection of non-canon tags tuned for our needs. More on that later.

So, I started a new tag set, and I'm over there on that screen, looking at it. What does that screen look like?

Okay so, part of the appeal of a tag set is that your participants are able to specify the difference between "Rendog & InTheLittleWood" and "Rendog/InTheLittleWood". You don't have to worry about people getting undesired shipping, because people were specifying if they wanted shipping when they signed up. You can reduce a great deal of people getting matched badly by using relationship matching, because most of the time even if people want a Tommy-centric fic, there's a pretty big difference between people who want "Tommy & Technoblade" and "Tommy & Dream". By specifying who you want the gift to be about, you remove a big hurdle of matching right away. That's why most exchanges run on relationship matching.

However, if there are 37 people on a given server, that's something like 2,600 possible combinations of people if you include both romantic and platonic, and that's before you start getting into trios, and that's just way too many tags for the mods to enter manually. So what you do is run a nomination period, and for a week or two weeks you go to all your participants and you go "do you want to sign up for this exchange? Nominate the tags you want to use now! If it doesn't get nominated, it can't be used!" And then people head to the tag set to nominate.

So, on this page, you want "visible tag list" to be selected, because you want people to see what's already been nominated so they don't duplicate, and you want "currently taking nominations" to be selected because you will be taking those nominations instead of doing them all yourself.

So you have to set up limits on those nominations.

The point of taking nominations is to make matching easier, so people normally use the same fandom and relationship limits as they are going to use on the sign-up, to make sure there aren't dozens of tags in the tag set that nobody's using, just cluttering up the space. It also helps stop the issue where someone sees a tag in the tag set, goes "oh man I love that ship" and signs up, but its an extra tag that no one intended to offer, so they don't match to anyone. That's why sometimes people keep the amount of tags that can be nominated low, I've seen people limit this to 10 tags, or even 7, so that's up to you.

And you save, and now when you link your participants the tag set, they will have a "nominate" button.

They will hurry over to press that button, and then they will see a page that looks like this.

This is a thing where you absolutely want to give your participants detailed instructions, because what Ao3 will try to do is auto-fill people's nominations with canonical tags. WE DO NOT WANT CANONICAL TAGS. CANONICAL TAGS ARE THE ENEMY OF EXCHANGES. CANONICAL TAGS ARE THE ENEMY OF MCYT EXCHANGES IN PARTICULAR.

Remember back when we clicked the button that says tags have to be unique? The canonical tag for Philza & Technoblade doesn't have a server on it, and people might want to be requesting that relationship for SMPEarth, Dream SMP, Origins SMP, or arguably even QSMP. If you only have the canonical tag, people can only request a specific dynamic once, for one server. And that is a problem for every situation where people interacted on multiple servers, and with the network of overlaps that is Empires/SOS/3rd Life/Hermitcraft and DSMP/Origins/SMPEarth/QSMP, that's going to lead to unhappy participants. So you tell people to nominate the ship and also "disambiguate" it, and add the server in parentheses. And then all your participants will hit the button to submit, and you will go into the "review nominations" button, and you will let those tags into the tag set.

Now I just distributed the tag set to a couple friends, so let's look at what this looks like behind the scenes.

Brace yourself, it's gonna be wild, but I believe we can get through it.

Now here is a perfectly standard look at tag set nominations after a few people have gotten into the tag set. This is why they pay tag mods the big bucks.

As you can see, there are a few things to be gathered. The first things is a bunch of people used the canon tags (because that's what Ao3 tries to get them to do), someone else nominated an x-reader ship, we have one tag there twice (spelled differently), and the tags are Piped (they have both the person's tax name and the username). (You can let tags in that are Piped, but I find that it makes the tag set harder to read, and usually exchanges are character-focused unless you're writing video blogging rpf anyways, so I ask people to submit tags unpiped, using usernames.) And for the tags that were nominated in a way that I want (unpiped, and disambiguated so they're unique), Ao3 is trying to get me to use the canon tag. But I don't want the canon tag, I want a unique tag, with the server on it, with no pipes. So.

So were I moderating the tag set, after a few minutes it would look like this.

That's going through and disambiguating the tags (adding the server, which I could tell because of the fandom it was nominated under), removing the piping and using the usernames instead of tax names, and then re-ordering the names so they're alphabetical so people can find them on the list later, rejecting the x-reader tag, rejecting the duplicate and allowing the one that's spelled correctly through. Amazing. I have tags that I want to use (I did some other tags that were ready to go in other fandoms as well). I hit submit. Am I ready to go?

No, because tag sets are the most complicated part of exchanges.

I open up my tag set, and if I scroll down to "Unassociated characters and relationships" there are a bunch of tags that are are lost, Ao3 doesn't know where to put them. This is because we very carefully made unique tags that have not been wrangled anywhere, and Ao3 said "i don't know where these go" and shoved them all together in a garbage bin at the bottom of the page. So we have to manually go in to associate them to the right fandoms.

You hit the Edit button on the tag set, and scroll down to the bottom, to "tag associations", and start selecting where tags go.

Honestly this is a great time to be listening to a stream or a podcast or something, and then you have the tag set open in another tab so you know what all the unassociated tags are, and you just go down the list like a databasing machine. It is not hard, cause you disambiguated each tag with its own server, it's just time consuming. Note. This is why people go in and accept tags regularly during the nomination period, because if you do this all at the end you've got a BIG job ahead of you.

So, you turned on your VOD playlist and you associated all your tags, and all the tags are where they are supposed to go. You have a beautiful tag set.

But wait, you say, looking at this beautiful tag set. Some of those tags look at little different. What is the "Dream smp and only dream smp" that a couple of them have?

Well.

You see.

Ao3 designed tag sets to work a certain way, and nobody uses them that way. It turns out that "Quackity/Wilbur Soot (Dream SMP)" is a wrangled canon tag, and the system goes "ah, I know where this goes, this is a sub-tag of the major tag, and the top-level tag is Video Blogging RPF, so it goes under Video Blogging RPF, as all MCYT tags do. I am very smart. I have stuck this Dream SMP tag under Video Blogging RPF. I am a good machine". And then you go AUUUUUUUUGH, and then you turn up the podcast a little louder, and then you sit down and you delete the old tag and you write out a new tag that the system doesn't know what to do with, and it goes uhhhhhhh and sticks it in "unassociated tags" and then you go in again and you manually associate it into the right server.

It's not hard, it's just time consuming. Shouting at the tag set like STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO as it helpfully tries to stick dsmp tags in SMPearth and you wrestle it out of SMPEarth and into the right fandom bucket.

Deep breath moment. Honestly that's the most fiddly part of a fiddly process, so if you can get through this you're absolutely golden.

Anyways. You got clean disambiguated unique tags, and then you associated them in the right spot, and then you found the ones that got sorted to the wrong spot and you associated them yourself, and now you have a beautiful tag set ready to go. It's a thing of beauty. Shed a tear. Your participants can select from anything in this tag set, and you know they want to use these specific relationships, because they submitted them to you. What next?

THE MATCHING

Okay. You have your tag set set up and it's accepting nominations. Your participants are filling it out right now. You go back to your collection. it's time to tell it how to match.

This is the "minimum number to match" pane, and this is the minimum numbers to make a successful match. You want 1 for Fandom, and 1 for Relationship, and that's it. People will show up to the machine as a viable match as long as they have submitted a fandom and relationship that matches someone else's offered fandom and relationship.

This is a minimum viable exchange. You're ready to go. As soon as your tag set is done (or immediately if you're not using a tag set), you're ready to go back and open your exchange to sign-ups.

Congratulations!

FURTHER TWEAKING

HOWEVER. There is more that you can do. For example, do you want to allow people to request or opt into NSFW? There's an easy way to do that! First thing is you go back to your tag set, and you scroll down to the "ratings" section that you've been ignoring.

You select G and E, and that way, if people are opting into explicit that means they're okay with NSFW, and if they only select G, that means they only want a non-explicit piece.

Then on the collection you switch the requests and offers sections to include a place to specify a rating.

You want them to definitely specify at least one, and if you maximum allowed is 2, people can opt into both and say "i'm good with whatever"!

Then you scroll down to the matching section, and you tweak that to make sure that people will match on Fandom, Relationship, and at least one Rating.

Bingo. You now have a toggle to turn NSFW on and off.

But a lot of people like to match by TYPE of gift too, specifying if they want art or fic or playlist or web weave etc. How do you do that? Ah, at this point you are master of all you survey, and you can make tag sets do absolutely anything you want. You go back to the tag set and you scroll down to "characters".

Now we were matching on relationships, so the character box is unused. And it lets you put in your own tags. So what you do is you start to add in custom tags.

And then you go back to the Collection settings, and on the requests and the offers you go in to the "characters" section and you say "must select at least one, can select up to six".

And then, you guessed it— you go back to "minimum number to match" and you set that "characters" tab to 1 minimum, 6 maximum. Now people who specified that they wanted Art can be matchable to artists who Offered Art. You have unlimited power, the world is at your fingertips.

There's even more customization that you can do, too! There's "additional tags", which is entirely custom tags you add yourself, that can be anything from specifying if people want fluff or horror or hurt/comfort etc— with the recursive exchange we used it to specify the works people were recursing— I'm considering using it for holidays with the holiday exchange. You can let people opt in or out of major archive warnings by selecting "archive warnings" as a thing that's in the tag set and that you're matching for. Once you understand how the underpinnings of how the machine works, you can wrestle it into almost any shape you want.

So. Whew. That's how exchanges work, under the hood. When I say that this is significantly easier than hand matching the holiday exchange, I ask you to picture just how complicated hand matching gets. Go forth! Thrive! Set up exchanges if you want! The world is your oyster!

Feel free to message me if you have further questions.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for outing my sisters (SECOND) pregnancy and causing drama

I (20f) am aware that accidents happen, but she doesn't even know the man to her (22f) first (thusly no child support is involved in this equation). Discovery of this information is due to me being the one that does the bathroom trash. It was... not well hidden, to say the least.

Pure flavor and context, our relationship would be less rocky if she had any sense of responsibility at all. From 15 onwards constantly out of money yet up the ass of every hangout/party in town, constantly trying to make it anyone else's job to keep her entertained. Has very much dropped out of college for #1.

But, actual event wise... I get to the trash can, and I'm thinking... oh god, not again. And so soon? Because baby #1 is about 10 months (male if it matters) at sending. Mom has already bent over backwards to handle this without destroying *my* attempts at college, and there's not a doubt in my mind my sister would have gladly gone "Surprise! Not my problem now🎊! " if I'd given her the space to do so.

Phrasing it like that feels mean, but it's been 98% mom doing it all. Diapers, feedings, you name it. If it's not cute enough for social media my sister has not put her hands on it. In my moms fantasy world this was to give my sister the chance to go back to the local college.

Now at first I didn't actually plan to say much of anything. It just... seemed risky in a way I didn't want the backlash for. But a friend of mine and her girlfriend were moving, and their planned roommate bailed, and I do very much have a job an can pay rent. The nitty gritty is way more complicated than that but I'm trying to not bog this down.

I waffle for a couple of days as I process the whole thing but I commit to thinking later and acting now about moving and by what's month 1.75 I'm planning what posters of mine to take/leave. There's been a second confirming test popping up in the trash.

I have to tell my mom, finally, that in three weeks to a month I'm gone. Slightly unsurprisingly, I get asked "Well, why? Why now?"

I did kind of think through it in advance, but honestly every other small reason just... left me? I choked HARD and y'all know the blank "ohshit" moment where you've got Nothing.

It was a messy conversation and I'm skipping a lot, but thankfully dad and sis were out to not hear it. She didn't fully believe me until I walked out the door to the new appartment, and it didn't end there technically, but I just sorta grey rocked it with the sole give that I think mom is going to collapse over this because she's not twenty some anymore chasing *us*, and I think mom wasn't processing it either until I was out the door.

Final stage, I've packed and am seconds from leaving. Mom asks one final question of "What exactly would you suggest here, if it's real, then" in that tone where it's not about getting real answers, it's about shaming me. She is scathingly told to make my sister homeless about it if she doesn't abort, so that it'll maybe motivate her to at least get child support if not put a stop to the slope of shitting them out like litters.

Roommates are fine thus far, but I'm introverted and don't really leave my room unless I need something so the space for conflicts are minimal. So I'm a week into the new apartment (thusly she's 3 to 3.25 months pregnant) when I get a heated, ranting phone call. I sure hope you can figure out who's calling that's *mad*.

First of all apparently I'm a cunt for taking the joy of announcement away from my, as she tried and got "We know." Because that is so fucking important for a college drop out on kid #2 to have, apparently.

More interestingly I'm apparently a double cunt because mom had been toying with asking me for rent, as my sister doesn't work either and babies are expensive. This was not aired to me by mom herself, but even if I hadn't asked her myself afterwards I wouldn't have doubted that part.

And I'm apparently a mega triple cunt, because (as I turned around to interrogate mom about because. What?) mom had a crystalizing moment where it did very much click to her that my sister had no intentions of stepping up in anyway shape or form. Why she's jumped straight to "you abort or gtfo" like I suggested to be an asshole didn't get cleared up to me beyond "No, no. You're right. Responsibility must be taken."

A different friend has asked where the fucks my dad in this; spinless with no opinion because if he dares to dissent he'll implode. Moving on.

I think that while I might have jumped sharks everyone else is now on a plane of drama that I don't need to follow, and should in fact be kept the fuck out of. I also think I've also hit an anger stage of this whole situation so trust in my own narrative should be cautious.

I'm gonna, like, pause the emotional train here? And mention that I'm not asking about moving out. I'll be guilty about moving out specifically when my sister sucks my dick for forgiveness (note my 20f label). But this has dropped an emotional bomb in the family and my friend groups interconnected enough that they'd've heard about it even if I said nothing, and this is now hotly debated (and most of my friends are on mute on my phone lol), and by now it's no secret the ''make her homeless'' idea first came out of MY mouth, no matter how mortifying it is that it was taken seriously on impulse arguing about it is about seven steps behind where the debate needs to be.

Again, I'm at the point of anger feeling good. She gets irresponsibly knocked up once already, drops out of college and refuses to get a job, and then runs off and does it again after dumping all real work onto other people. I think she's lost the right to have happy fun time pregnancy, and I'm here to get a (late) opinion from people decidedly more objective than anyone I can speak to rn. It's not like the pregnancy won't be here in the time this takes to move through queue.

What are these acronyms?

[extrajigs]

The MODERN MIRAN SCRIPT. Basically the continuation of the old school Chimeric that I covered in this post. That has most of the nitty gritty and this is more so about the branch of the language. The BIG info dump below the cut!

Chimeric is the original, a purely written language used by chimera when talking is unavailable. Written in a circle heading inwards with two defined lines of dialogue. The subject/action 'real' substance and the tonal, emotional intent of the writer and sometimes reader. Chimeric is still used by the remaining population to talk within their ranks, but nearly every chimera is at least bilingual depending on where they ended up. Back in Mirum the written language of Chimeric stayed behind but has been pretty heavily modified to better suit the reading style of the people that remained. Mainly Histin who cut out pretty much all the fluff and added a bit more structure.

So! As opposed to the radial style of Chimeric, Miran has double decker sentences. With the top row being the remnants of the Subject quarter and the bottom row being the Action quarter. Linkage of subjects and actions take place between the two lines. Plus there is a new form of linkage, the priority/influence links which show which subject is acting upon who, and define action sequences. While Chimeric is written inwards radially, Miran is written top to bottom, starting going from left to right then right to left and alternating down the page. Also circular paper is swapped for rectangular, think a standard 8x10. Still, you are expected to enclose sentences within two parentheses, lil hold over from the circular days. But to the outside perspective the largest difference between the two is their tones, or well overtonage of one and lack of tone in the other. Chimeric is the 3 paragraph overly detailed text, Miran is the single word response. Lest to say they do not mesh super well.

ANOTHER fun hold over I want to add but am still thinking over characters for is that for rare fancy words (poetry/music/heart speak) Miran can slide in a THIRD ROW in between the first and second. There the spoken tone quarter manages to eek out a meager Miran existence through a few dozen sets of characters to convey certain emotions and the like. Songs in Miran very often have multiple sets of lyrics overlaid in this fashion, the largest can have 5+ tonal rows.

Oh that reminds me! Miran DOES have a spoken equivalent. Or rather, the original shared Histin/Diagrevies language has been stretched over to fit better with the written word. That in itself has split the spoken word in Mirum in two once more, with spoken Miran and Draconic being the two main talkings. Histin typically only speak and read Miran, whilst Diagrevies will speak both; with their preference being draconic. A Diagrevies will typically have a Histin under their employ to read and write for them since ya know, they cannot see.

All this taken into consideration though, Miran and Chimeric are still basically two ways of writing the same basal language. Not that modern speakers like to admit that. But small character additions and style changes aside, if you can read one you can get the gist of the other. Miran is by far the most spoken in modern times tho. Its a little more accessible for different species than Chimeric.

Want to get more into the modern Mirum dealings. The chimera may be absent but their influence is still very plain to see if you know where to look.

[apomaro-mellow]

Hot for Teacher(s) 8

Part 7 / AO3 Link

Eddie didn’t know how he’d gotten so lucky. Not only was he dating the most beautiful man, but he had a pretty cool kid too. Anytime a child asked if he had a favorite student, Eddie of course said no. But if he haaaad to pick. Well, Shawn answered his questions regularly, didn’t get into arguments with the other kids, and could be pretty damn funny. 

Let’s just say that Eddie would think twice about dating a different student’s parent. 

He had no such reservations here. Both Steve and Shawn were wonderful and Eddie loved getting to see them together on the weekends. He and Steve had basically agreed that weekdays would be dedicated to work for now so that Saturday and Sunday could go with no interruptions.

On weekends when they couldn’t meet, there was the magic of texting and sometimes even video calls. Eddie couldn’t get enough of Steve and the feeling was mutual. More than once, they had stayed up late, getting each other hot over the phone.

Steve hadn’t felt this desired in years, or this horny. He wanted Eddie so badly, but… Well, Steve had no problem sending Shawn out for a sleepover if he wanted some alone time with Eddie. It was just, well, there would definitely be a lingering smell. Steve had pressed his nose against Eddie’s neck enough times to know he loved the way he smelled. Even so, he wasn’t sure if he was ready to be completely surrounded by the scent of an alpha.

There was also the fact that eventually their scents would cling to each other and that would make the tongues of parents and faculty wag like crazy.

The good moments with Billy had been tainted beyond repair. And as silly as it sounded, he wanted his first time going all the way with Eddie to be special. He didn’t want to think of Billy at all, not for one moment.

“Steve, you’re a grown ass man”, Robin said. “Just do the do.”

“Whatever happened to romance?”, Steve asked while looking up nice restaurants.

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

Eddie was ready for the day to be over. Two and a half meltdowns, one kid pushed another, which of course, caused an argument, at least of them had been accused of cursing, and they didn’t even get to the social studies lesson he had planned. 

It boggled his mind how throughout the day he’d be told ‘Mr. Munson, I wanna go hooooome’ but when it came time to pack up they moved like molasses. Back when he was a student, he moved like the wind when dismissal came, but maybe that was just him. He walked the kids outside where they either met their parents, a bus, or an aftercare provider.

Eddie lit like a candle when he saw Steve walking up and nearly reached out to hug him, but quickly brought his arms back to his side and hoped no one noticed.

“Good day today?”, Steve asked both him and Shawn.

“Yeah, but not for Mr. Munson”, Shawn answered for both of them while hugging Steve’s leg. “He had to correct a lot of people.”

Steve smiled while patting his pup’s head, wishing he could reach out to comfort Eddie. “Talk later?”, he asked.

“Please”, Eddie sighed. 

With a nod, Steve left with Shawn, allowing Eddie to finish dismissal with the rest of his students. When Eddie finished, he immediately called Steve up while gathering his things to head home.

“Shawn gave me quite the run down”, Steve said the moment he picked up. “Is it normal for first graders to use profanity?”

“Only the ones whose parents use it in front of them. You can usually tell who do it often enough for it to rub off on their kids.” 

Eddie walked out of the school and switched from his phone to bluetooth so that he could keep talking while he drove. And during that drive, he gave Steve his side of the day, all the nitty-gritty details. By the end of it, he definitely felt like a weight had been lifted. Talking to Steve tended to have that effect.

“Alright, enough about my day. Tell me how your day with the Puberty Patrol went.”

Steve laughed. “They’d absolutely lose it if they heard you call them that. And today went by fine. But I’m getting the sneaking suspicion of some changing dynamics.”

“Oh…as in…?”

“Yeah”, Steve said. One of his students had presented that past weekend. “You can always tell because the more self conscious ones will blast their bodies with Axe body spray.”

“Ah, an alpha”, Eddie correctly surmised. “Wait, the kids are still using Axe? Would’ve thought they’d move on to like, I don’t know, whatever their favorite influencer is touting. Anyway, enough about the little ones, you free next Saturday?”

Steve checked his calendar before answering. “I am. You planning something?”

“Yeah. Get a babysitter for Shawn.”

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

Saturday night came and Steve dressed for the occasion. Eddie had invited him to a gig to see him play. It would be his first time doing so for a non-school function. Steve didn’t have a ton of clothes that would fit in with a club venue nowadays (a side effect of becoming a parent and a teacher) but he had a couple of pieces that would let him slide. 

He wore his darkest jeans, which were a navy blue and a leather jacket on top of that. He had a t-shirt from an old band under the jacket. Beneath everything was a black thong that Eddie was most definitely seeing tonight even if Steve had to reserve a spontaneous hotel room.

They agreed to meet at the venue, since Eddie had to arrive early for sound check and all that. When Steve got to the bar, he smiled, seeing the instruments already set up. 

“Baby!”, a voice shouted over the crowd and then Steve was pulled to Eddie. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

“You’re one to talk”, Steve said. Eddie’s outfit wasn’t too different from his usual casual wear. But today his hair was in a half up style and he had this eyeliner on that made Steve want to gaze at him all night. Good thing he’d be able to do just that.

There was time for Eddie to introduce him to the rest of the band. All great guys who had jobs Steve never would have imagined. Nurse in training, engineer, and a secretary. They all seemed like nice guys and Steve enjoyed talking with them while they waited for showtime. When it came, Eddie kissed both of Steve’s knuckles, then his lips.

“I’m gonna be looking for you out in the audience”, he promised.

“I’ll be here”, Steve promised back. 

Now, see, Steve never considered himself a fan of metal. He liked the hard guitar riffs and intense drum beats just fine. He simply never got into it enough to pick out any song or artist. And that probably wouldn’t change. But Eddie.

Eddie.

He looked downright electric playing on stage. Like sparks were coming from his fingers and setting all his nerves on fire. Forget the hotel room, Steve was ready to have him in one of these bathrooms. There was a twinge of shame, reminding him that he was too old for that, but the greater part of him didn’t care. Just wanted Eddie anyway that he could have him.

At the end of their performance, Steve got to Eddie the moment he was off stage, cutting off anyone who thought they might have a chance to meet his eye. Steve’s hands buried in his hair as he kissed him.

“That was incredible. Do your friends need you right now?”

“Uh, no, no they don’t”, Eddie replied, a little dazed from the kiss.

“Good. Because I need you now.”

Eddie had just enough time to shoot his friends a look that he tried to put all the meaning into as Steve dragged him off. They got outside and he got his head in the game, pressing Steve against one of the walls and sucking a mark onto his neck. 

“You that desperate for me?”, he growled into his ear.

“Yes”, Steve whined, having no need or even way to deny it when Eddie could already smell it on him in the fresh air of the night.

Eddie’s hands went to cup his ass and Steve felt a thrill go through him when the alpha dipped his thumbs into the waistband of his pants. When Eddie froze, Steve knew he’d been caught. Then Eddie dug his hands right inside, making Steve gasp and cling to him.

“Stevie, Stevie, baby, love”, Eddie chanted against his neck while kneading his ass and pressing their hips together.

“Take me home, alpha.”

Part 9 coming soon

Tag Team

@anne-bennett-cosplayer @aol19 @lololol-1234 @gregre369 @attic-cat-blog @hippieg1rl420 @spectrum-spectre

[bakuhatsufallinlove]

re: 405

This is gonna be long.

First, I'm bringing this post back around to remind people that kocchi is a pronoun of ambiguous plurality.

This means that an interpretation of "we" is just as correct as an interpretation of "I." Readers may interpret it differently, but on simply linguistic grounds, they are of equal validity.

You will often see this kind of ambiguous language used in Japanese, even with characters that are forthright. The reason is one part cultural expectation that the listener will read between the lines, and one part a willingness to accept two things as simultaneously true. This exists and is frequently found in English as well, there just isn't a direct parallel for kocchi itself.

What I want most out of writing this blog, aside from personal enjoyment, is for people to understand that there can be more to a story for you to engage with, think about, and be moved by, when you step outside the boundaries of your own language and culture.

I think that is a much more interesting space to be in than a gotcha-laden approach of trying to prove something wrong or bad.

But if we are going to talk accuracy, the fact is that the fan translation many people have been upholding as superior has just as many problems as the official one. It takes just as many creative liberties, they are simply different ones.

The fan translator centered an "I" reading and, rather than using either of the two pronouns provided by the text ("OFA" and あいつ, meaning "that guy"), added a narratively-charged word ("nerd") that did not exist in the original and which (as far as I can tell) Katsuki has never used when speaking to villains. As a translator myself, I really disagree with that second choice. The official clearly missed the callback, but noticed the theme of "everyone who has faced AFO until now" and went with "we." The rest was just style over substance which prioritized edgy language to capture the aggression of the line; this falls squarely in line with what Viz has consistently maintained as its in-house aesthetic. It's disappointing, but unsurprising to me.

Fandom oscillates pretty violently between vilifying the official English release and fawning over it. Whole fan theories are built upon nitty gritty bits of the official release's phrasing; people will get excited over how homoerotic a line sounds, and it's because of how the official translator worded it, rather than any innate implication in the original Japanese.

If you do not speak Japanese, your experience of MHA is fundamentally dependent on the work of translators. I respect that everybody has their personal tastes or hopes for how the series will go, but it is deeply demoralizing as a Japanese speaker and translator to see fans who don't speak any Japanese at all act as though their opinion has the same weight of authority as people who do.

You are entitled to your preferences, but please recognize that they are based in taste, not personal knowledge. Not all Japanese translators will even agree in their interpretations, but it weirds me out that some non-Japanese-speaking fans will use this fervor to spread misinformation far and wide that proclaims as inaccurate perfectly good official translations, simply because the choices don't suit their own tastes.

The lists of "times the fan translations were better" I've seen mostly contain instances where the fan translators took greater liberties than the official release did, and some fans just happened to like the liberties that were taken.

We all reasonably hated the "best friend" fan translation of chapter 359, but somehow that isn't a point forever against fan translations the same way mistakes in the official release are?

At this point, it makes me wonder what the point of writing about linguistic nuance is, if the interest is primarily not in learning but in being told what you want to hear.

I know posting this won't win me any favor with anybody, but it's how I feel. I'm bummed about 405's last line in the official. I do hope it gets revised. But the vibes around translation details are getting decidedly unfun.

One last thought: if you well and truly want to experience MHA unfiltered, learn Japanese. I mean this sincerely, I'm not trying to be a jerk. We live in an age where it is easier and more possible than ever to acquire a new language, talk to people around the world, and absorb yourself in culture and history.

If you want to remove middle-men and develop your own relationship with a work unfettered by the tastes, biases, or choices of others, learn the language. It won't be easy, but I can guarantee you won't regret broadening your horizons and discovering even more beautiful stories in the world.

[jackoshadows]

The level of utterly hypocritical discourse in the asoiaf fandom.

About Sansa:

Same person about Robb and Jon:

Same person about Dany:

I simply love how there are these multipage essays and economic treatises on how Robb, Jon, Dany Et al. fuck up and fumble and are just bad leaders who don't enforce wage regulations and clause three of the constitution in worker's rights or plan army discipline and Jon is apparently just an 'angry teenager' unfit for leadership etc.

But Sansa? QUEEN IN THE NORTH because she's the blood of Winterfell! ITS WHAT SHE DESERVES NARRATIVELY.

And Sansa, who is currently 13, should be queen because the narrative says so! When, according to the same person, 16 year olds Jon and Robb fuck up as they are too young to be good rulers as per the same narrative that tells them that Sansa will be Queen...

That's what the narrative is telling us - that characters can become the best rulers/leaders simply because of their blood and has nothing to do with experience and learning and wisdom and hey look at Dany, Robb and Jon fucking up when Sansa will magically, simply be the best - the NARRATIVE SAYS SO!

Meanwhile GRRM on ruling:

One thing that I am trying to get at in the books, the political aspect if you would, is to kind of show that this stuff is hard. I think that an awful lot of fantasy and even some great fantasy falls under the mistake of assuming that a good man would be a good king and all that is necessary is to be a decent human being and then when you are king everything will go swimmingly. Tolkien is great but we never get into the nitty gritty of Aragorn ruling. What is his tax policy? How does he feel about crop rotation? How does he handle land disputes between two nobles, both of whom think that they should have the village, so they burn it down to establish their claim. This is the hard part of ruling be it in the middle ages or now. It’s not enough to be a good man to be an effective ruler. It’s complicated and it’s hard and I wanted to show that with repeated examples in my books with my kings and hand of the kings - the prime minister if you would - trying to rule. And whether it be Ned Stark or Tyrion Lannister or Tywin Lannister or Daenerys Targaryen or Cersei Lannister trying to deal with the real challenges that affect anyone trying to rule the 7K or even a city like Meereen and it’s hard. You know, we can all read the books or read history and say oh, so and so was stupid and made a lot of mistakes and look at all these stupid mistakes they make. But these kind of mistakes are always much more apparent in hind sight than when you are actually faced with the decision about, oh my God, what would I do in this situation. How do I resolve this thing? Do I do the moral thing? But what about  the political consequences of the moral thing? Do I do the pragmatic, cynical thing and kind of screw the people who are screwed by it? I mean, it is HARD. And I want to get to all of that - GRRM

Apparently, when it comes to Sansa, GRRM will be saying:

" I mean, it (ruling) is EASY. The food conundrums that Jon and Dany are unable to solve in entire books will be easily tackled by Sansa who will just ask everyone to bring their grain to Winterfell! Easy peasy and one and done! I mean, Sansa is the BLOOD OF WINTERFELL! "

These chucklefucks don't know the first thing about narratives and themes. The result of GRRM not writing a book in 13 years is wading through shite like this.

[fanficimagery]

The Lost Girl

You just wanted to travel and forget all about the drama you left behind. You didn't expect to fall in with four boys who would become another family. Maybe more.

[Part One of Three]

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm- I'm alive? Surprise! I'm still in a bit of a pickle with where I want part two to go, but I figured if I post this now then I can't back out and delete it. I need your help, but I'll ask at the bottom so I won't spoil this.

Words: 7.9K

Santa Carla is the total opposite of Mystic Falls and you couldn't have loved it here more if you tried. You grew up with pageants and balls and trying to stay at the top of the popularity totem pole, but you secretly loathed every second of it. Not to mention your sister was a beacon for the supernatural, attracting vampires like no one's business, which eventually led to you getting caught in the crossfire and being turned at the ripe age of twenty.

Stefan Salvatore did his best to teach you how to feed and control your blood lust, but his techniques just weren't cutting it for you. So Damon took over, leading Bonnie, Matt, Elena, Jeremy, and Tyler deeming you untrustworthy. You don't know why they disliked your friendship with Damon so much, but their wariness of you only grew when you eventually befriended the Original Vampires that once sought to kill you, your family, and friends.

The last straw was when everyone started fighting over a cure for vampirism. They all thought there was enough of the cure to go around for all those who wanted it, but nope. There was only a single dose, and both Elena and Rebekah wanted it. So when you saw the lines being drawn, you packed a couple of bags and left to see the world.

The only person who knew of your travel plans were, surprisingly, Elijah and Klaus. Elijah was sad to see you go, especially since you were one of the only ones who he could trust, but Klaus was all for you seeing the world and experiencing life as you should have. You were more than content compelling your way through the trip, but the Mikaelson's were having none of that and gave you a card to use since they amassed a ridiculous amount of money over the years.

After deleting all social media, with the exception of a traveling Instagram account that was newly made, you bought a new phone and only gave your new number to Elijah and Klaus. You traveled abroad first, touring the most beautiful cities, museums, and seeing every landmark you could. You kept the Mikaelson brothers in the loop about everything that they sometimes surprised you by showing up for a week before flying back home.

For a year you saw all you could and then headed back to the States. You wanted nothing to do with Mystic Falls, Virginia, so you settled in California. Santa Carla was the most nitty gritty town you'd ever seen, and it was the last place anyone in your family would expect for you to stay in.

It was perfect.

With a new hotel having been built in Santa Carla, you compelled yourself one of the suites indefinitely. You didn't want to purchase a house in case you needed to up and leave, and having a housekeeper stop by weekly was perfect.

You stood out amongst the locals of Santa Carla, it seeming like everyone walking around either had some crazy hairstyle, hair color, or numerous piercings. And then there was you, skin untouched and the only piercings you had being those in your ears.

So after a week of settling in and compelling those who needed compelling, you finally decided to hit the infamous boardwalk.

The boardwalk, for some reason, feels like you've stepped into the past. Could be because of the music playing or the way everyone dressed, but you know you didn't actually slip into the past given the cell phones in people's hands or air pods in people's ears. The bells, whistles, and flashing lights make you giddy, taking you back to a time when you were excited as a child to be attending the annual fair Mystic Falls put on, but the attendees were the total opposites of those you'd find in Mystic Falls.

The employees in charge of the various game booths attempt to entice you to play, but you rather spend your cash at the crafts section of the boardwalk. There was no use in paying for a rigged game that made sure you lost ninety percent of the time when you could buy handmade crafts and help support someone's living.

After buying some handmade jewelry and a couple of shirts, you decide to eat. There's a Chinese place that smells marvelous as you stroll by, so you turn back around and enter the establishment. And then almost as soon as you're seated, a waitress comes by to take your drink order. You quickly skim the menu as she gets your drink, then order a bowl of Hot and Sour soup, a plate of Chicken LoMein, two egg rolls, and a pan of fried dumplings. The waitress seems impressed, and you merely laugh it off before sipping your Coke.

As you wait for your food, you grab a napkin and start ripping it apart piece by piece as you stare out the window you'd chosen to sit by. People pass by, uncaring for what's going on in the small restaurant, but then there are two boys that you just so happen to clash gazes with. Both fit with the eighties aesthetic- one with wildly tamed blonde hair that only a true rocker could pull off and the other with a dirty blonde, curly mullet. Both hairstyles are wildly out of place, even if they're trying to make a comeback now, but fortunately for the boys they can pull it off.

"Hey, chika, you want some company?" The blonde with the teased hair shouts so you can hear him through the window.

Holding back a wince at his loud volume, you shake your head. "Maybe next time!"

"Aw. Come on, babe. You're breaking my heart!" He pouts, even as his friend smirks behind his fist.

You shrug, grinning, but are saved from having to interact any further when the waitress appears with your food. As the food is set in front of you and you thank her, you glance at the boys one last time while giving them a wink before digging in.

You casually devour your food bit by bit, asking for a refill on your Coke only once. Then when you've had your fill, you ask for your leftovers to be boxed up. And as you walk outside, you hand said leftovers to a couple of teens digging through a trash can.

Walking around, you soak in the night time atmosphere. The sweat from the humans and the oil used to deep fry all sorts of food is rather distracting from the ocean scented air wafting in, but none of it is as distracting as the copper smell you pick up on one particular gust of wind. There doesn't seem to be any panic-induced mayhem on the boardwalk, so you figure someone must have cut themselves and is getting bandaged up.

A diner further down the boardwalk advertises milkshakes on its main window, and suddenly a strawberry milkshake sounds superb. So after making a quick trip inside to secure yourself a milkshake, you're back on the boardwalk once again.

No one has bothered you the entire time, but the moment you perch yourself on the railing to sip and people watch, one confident individual saunters towards you. It hardly takes you two seconds to realize this individual is in his teens obviously thinking you're a teen as well. But given you were twenty when you were turned and have spent a few years undead, you're so not interested in whatever this boy has to offer.

Before the individual can open his mouth, you hold a hand up to stall him and shake your head. "Stop right there. Not interested."

The boy's expression drops into shock before quickly morphing back into his too confident persona. "Aw, come on, girl. You look like you're in need of some fun."

"I am, but you need to be at least this tall-" you say while holding your free hand at least a foot above his head, "-for me to ride that ride."

There's a snort to your right, but you ignore it, even ignoring the presence that jumps onto the railing next to you before sliding their arm around your shoulder. "Sorry, kid. Maybe the next girl you hit on won't have a height requirement."

There's even more laughter and the boy rethinks his approach before scoffing and leaving. You grin, wrapping your lips around the straw of your milkshake and turning your head to your new companions. "Blondies one and two," you muse. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Just thought we'd play knight in shining armor," blondie one says. "I'm Paul. My friend is Marko."

"YN.."

Paul practically vibrates with energy. "So do I meet your height requirements?"

You laugh, uncaring when he steals your milkshake to sip from. "You may meet the height requirement, but I don't go for blondes. Sorry."

"Aw, chika, you wound me!" He feigns his hurt, holding a hand to his heart as you take your milkshake back. Marko can only laugh, shoving at his friend's shoulder when he leans a little too far his way. Once he corrects himself, he doesn't remove himself from your side. "So what's a pretty girl like you doing here all alone? Waiting for friends? Family?"

"Ugh, no." Your nose wrinkles. "Too much family drama for my tastes so I've been traveling the world for a little over a year now. Santa Carla seems like the least likely of places my family would think to look for me, so I'm staying as long as I can."

Marko seems interested as he leans around Paul to ask, "What's been your favorite place so far?"

"Tromsø, Norway," you reply.

"Why?"

"Because ever since I was a little girl, I've been obsessed with the aurora borealis. It's the best place to view it."

"Cool."

"Where are you staying?" Paul asks. "Maybe we can have a party one of these nights."

"Doubtful. I'm staying in a hotel suite and I have a feeling partying with you would lead to my place being trashed. No thanks."

Marko smirks. "Smart girl."

You grin and sip your milkshake as Marko comes around to lean against the railing on your other side. They ask some more about the places you've been, and you don't know what comes over you that you feel comfortable enough with these two to regale them with your tales of travel. In return, Marko and Paul tell you about themselves and their two other brothers. They tell you that they're all not originally from Santa Carla, but ended up finding each other throughout the years and made their own family unit in town.

Then just as you hop down to throw away your empty cup, the crowd seems to part as two individuals approach. Another blondie with a mullet and a brunette whose hair is almost as wild as Paul's. You can't tear your eyes from the brunette who is all too comfortable going shirtless with nothing but a weathered leather jacket hanging off his frame and some snug fitting jeans.

"Oh, I see how it is." Paul muses in your ear. "You like 'em dark haired."

You throw your elbow back, tearing your gaze away from the brunette in front of you to smirk over your shoulder at Paul when he grunts. Marko snickers at his brother's misfortune. "YN, this is David and Dwayne."

Both the new blondie and brunette nod at you, and you flash them back a faint smile. You're quick to toss your trash, then head back to your new friends. "Well, it was nice meeting you boys, but I should get going."

"Aw, come on, girlie. Hang for a bit more," Paul pleads, but you shake your head.

"Maybe next time."

"Will there actually be a next time or are you gently letting us down?" Marko wonders.

Your eyes roll. "We've only just met and you're already clingy?" You tut at him. Marko gapes and you wink at him. "Yes, there will be a next time. At least there will be if we cross paths again."

"We'll take that," Paul says. He slings an arm around Marko and smiles. "See you around, girlie."

The next afternoon, you decide to have some fun in the sun. You spend the early afternoon in your room, ordering room service and having a nice steak and fry lunch. While eating, you post a few pictures you snapped of the boardwalk nightlife, ferris wheel, and carousel all lit up. Then afterwards, you dress in a bikini before pulling on a pair of jeans shorts and a tank top. Only after slipping your feet into a pair of flip-flops do you pack a backpack with a beach towel, your phone, sunglasses, and some cash before taking your leave.

You're surprised to find that the beach isn't packed, so you pick a spot on the beach to lay out your towel and backpack. You spend a bit of time searching for sand dollars and shells, then go swimming in the ocean. Afterwards, you lay out on your towel with your sunglasses shielding your eyes. You doze on and off, and then just as the sun is setting you start to get up.

Shaking off your beach towel, you get rid of all the sand before folding it and shoving it into your backpack with your clothes. Then heading over to the beach showers, you rinse off all the sand and ocean water, and let yourself dry in the lingering sun rays before slipping your shorts back on.

In the middle of choosing what to eat, you hear catcalls and wolf whistles. You try to ignore it, hoping they're directed to someone else, but nope. They're directed at you. However, when you turn to glare and give the boys a piece of your mind, you find Paul and Marko beaming at you with their other brothers Dwayne and David just watching on.

Your glare vanishes and you roll your eyes as you slowly untense. "Do you guys have nothing better to do than check out girls on the boardwalk?"

"Nope." Paul hops off his bike and practically skips towards you. "What are you doing?"

"Heading to dinner. I spent most of the day on the beach so I'm starving."

"Ohhhh. What are we having?"

"I'm having pizza and wings. If you want to tag along, you buy your own."

"Done." He turns around and shouts, "Come on, boys. We're getting pizza!"

You shake your head and greet Marko when he approaches, smiling at the other two who have yet to speak up. Paul takes the lead and you walk side by side with Marko. The pizza place isn't far and you all head inside. You place your order first- a medium Hawaiian and a side order of boneless honey bbq wings. You accept your number tag after paying and then wait for your new friends to order as well. Then once they've got their own number tag, Paul leads the way to a large booth meant for a large group at the back.

Paul and Marko slide into opposite sides of the booth, and it only takes you a second to scoot in next to Marko before placing your bag at your feet. Paul gasps and you chuckle. "What? Marko seems less likely to continuously elbow me as I try to eat."

"That's cold, girl."

You wink at Paul and are surprised when Dwayne scoots in on your other side. David settles in next to Paul and his ice blue eyes practically pierce you. "So what's a girl like you doing out here all alone?"

"You mean Paul didn't tell you?"

"I'm asking you."

The coolness of his voice makes you arch an eyebrow at him, but Paul's snickering keeps you at ease. So in the end, you shrug. "My siblings and I weren't seeing eye to eye for a while. I had some money put away to take a trip out of the States, but my new found family wasn't having any of that and gave me access to their money. I've traveled for a year before coming back, staying in a place furthest from my hometown."

"Parents?"

"Dead." Paul's smile falters and you kick him under the table. "None of that. It's been a while. It's fine."

"How did it happen?" Marko asks.

You face him briefly before saying, "My sister had a fight with her boyfriend and asked our parents to pick her up from a party. They did, but on the way back home my dad somehow lost control of the car and drove off a bridge. A bystander found them, but by the time he dove under water, my dad made the bystander get my sister out first. My parents ended up drowning."

"Do you have plans on returning?"

"Eventually." Just then a waitress stops by to deliver your drinks. You grin as Paul immediately starts flirting, sipping your Coke as the waitress blushes and stutters before leaving. "These poor Santa Carla girls have no idea how to handle you, do they?"

"Not a clue."

As Marko and Paul laugh, you shake your head rather fondly. You don't know what it is about this group that makes you feel at ease with them, but you're glad to have some people to talk to while you're in town. Another group enters the establishment, a little unruly as they find themselves a table. One of them catches your gaze and you grimace when you notice him leering at you.

Feeling a little exposed, you reach for your bag under the table and pull free your tank top. You quickly pull it on and then free your phone while waiting for your food, not paying much attention to Dwayne who's shifting in his seat next to you. You do, however, notice when something is dropped on your shoulders and realize Dwayne has given up his jacket.

You freeze and quickly glance up at Dwayne, taking a moment to stare at all the bronze skin now on display, but his glare is directed at the table of troublemakers who are snickering among each other. "Uhh.."

"Just wear it."

"Okay."

Those are the first three words Dwayne has spoken to you and you absolutely do not shiver at the sound of his voice. Paul, Marko, and even David sense something else and you flip them off after slipping your arms through the sleeves of Dwayne's jacket. Then just as you go to sip on your drink, your phone starts ringing with a video call.

Big Bad Wolf, complete with a wolf emoji, is stamped across the top of your phone above a picture of a smirking Klaus. "Uhh, do you guys mind if I accept this?"

"Go ahead, girlie."

You accept the call, keeping it so that only you're on screen. "What do you want?"

"Is that any way to talk to me, love?" You roll your eyes, grinning, and Klaus chuckles. "What are you doing?"

"Uhh, I'm out to dinner with some new friends," you say.

"You've already made friends?"

"Mhm. Look." You turn so Marko is in frame. "This is Marko." Marko grins and nods. Then you flip the camera and catch Paul. "This is Paul and David is next to him, but David is glaring at me. I'm pretty sure he'd kill me if I put him on camera."

Klaus chuckles. "Fair enough."

"And then this.." You glance at Dwayne, but he merely arches an eyebrow at you. You grin and turn the camera on him. "This is Dwayne."

A split second later and then, "No."

"W-What?" You splutter. Paul and Marko choke on a laugh, and finally both David and Dwayne smirk. "What do you mean no?"

"Elijah!"

Your eyes widen. "Why are you calling 'lijah? Don't call 'lijah!"

Elijah appears next to Klaus and you groan. "Go on, sweetheart. Put your friend on."

"Marko? Or Paul?"

"Don't play dumb."

You grumble and put Dwayne on camera. "Absolutely not," Elijah says.

"You guys are embarrassing," you grumble. "He's literally only said three words to me."

"Mhm. And whose jacket are you wearing?" Klaus asks.

You pout. "I hate you." Just then you catch sight of two waitresses coming with your pizza. "Oh, look. Food's here! I'll talk to you gentlemen later."

"YN-"

"I'm fine, Klaus. I'm okay and I'm happy. I promise."

"Well okay then. Call me back when you get to your room."

"Will do, big bad wolf. Talk to you later."

You end the call just as a pizza is being placed in front of Paul and Marko, then yours is placed in front of you, and then another is placed in front of David and Dwayne. You're handed your boneless wings, and you happily wiggle in your seat. You're starving!

After you take your first bite of the sweet Hawaiian pizza, David asks, "So was that your boyfriend?"

"Ew. No." Your nose wrinkles and you quickly swallow your bite of food. "Klaus and Elijah are like my older brothers. They're the two who are funding my whole trip."

"They sound fancy with those posh accents of theirs," Paul muses.

"They are fancy," you admit. "They host balls and everything. I seriously hated wearing those dresses with a poofy skirt. They're so uncomfortable to sit in."

"No way!" Paul laughs.

"Mhm. Look."

As you eat some more of your food one-handed, you open the photos app on your phone and seek out the album from all the parties you attended. You hand your phone over to Paul, and Marko actually leans across the table to get a glimpse of the life you left behind.

As the two of them swipe picture after picture, laughing, you eat in peace. You even crack a grin when Dwayne picks off your tray of boneless wings, chuckling when he tells you it's payment for wearing his jacket. You end up having to tell the boys who is who every time they ask and deny any romantic relationship accusations when a picture of you dancing with Damon pops up. You admit he was a good friend up until his feelings for your sister clouded his judgment and you'd had enough of their drama.

Dinner proceeds uninterrupted, but it's when you get up to leave that the table of troublemakers from earlier causes an issue. With Dwayne's jacket returned to him, you follow the group as David leads the way out. You've just passed the table of leering individuals when a loud smack! resonates in the room and a brief stinging pain blossoms on your butt. You freeze, your new friends freeze, and then you're whirling around to glare at the culprit. You slowly look at the smug individual as his friends cackle like morons.

Anger flaring, your hand whips out and grasps the guy by the back of the neck. You slam his head down onto the table, causing him to grunt and his friends to fall quiet. You lean down so your mouth is next to his ear and grit out, "Touch me again and I'll rip your fucking throat out." You put pressure on his neck, causing the table to groan under the weight of the pressure. "With my teeth," you hiss. Pushing off the too quiet guy and facing your new friends once more, you shrug. "What?"

David, Dwayne, Marko, and Paul just stare at you before chuckling.

"You're scary, girl. I like it."

With a roll of your eyes, you step forward and push past Paul. "Come on. Show me what Santa Carla has to offer."

Over the course of a week, you hang out with who the locals have dubbed the Lost Boys. Paul and Marko treat you like a long lost best friend, Dwayne has taken to hovering over your shoulder, and David is pretty indifferent to your presence although he will stand up for you if need be. Your senses tell you there's something off about the boys, but you don't realize what it is until you scent the coppery fragrance of blood coming off of them one night they're late to meet you.

If they're vampires, they must be vampires who don't know who the Mikaelsons are because none of them recognized the family in your pictures. But you don't call them out, nor do you hint about yourself, at least not until you're walking on the beach one night and your senses are assaulted with the scent of a lot of blood and screams off in the distance.

Glancing around, you notice the boardwalk is empty and shutting down. The beach where you're at is empty as well, and as you speed towards the sound of terror, your suspicions are proven correct about the Lost Boys.

They're unlike any vampires you've seen, more brutal in their feeding than even the Big Bad Hybrid himself. Their vampire visages showcase a true monster, but for some reason it doesn't bother you as it probably should. They're sinking their fangs into necks, shoulders, torsos, and even skulls, laughing all the while their victims scream in horror.

In their feeding frenzy, they don't notice you standing just on the outskirts of the firelight. Limbs are ripped from bodies before being tossed into the fire, blood spraying carelessly across the sand. But the moment the frenzy dies down, you can't help but make an entrance.

Slowly clapping, you smirk as all four vampires freeze and turn towards you as you walk into the light. David snarls, his monstrous face still on display as Paul and Marko quickly change their features. Their expressions are a bit crestfallen as you continue to find amusement in this situation, so you walk towards Dwayne who has gone stoic. "I get the bloodlust, but do you guys have to be such messy eaters? Gross." You wrinkle your nose as you kick an arm into the raging fire.

"W-What?" Paul splutters.

Looking back at Dwayne, you reach over and run a finger through the blood staining his chest. Then popping that same finger into your mouth, you wrap your tongue around your finger and savor the fresh blood now coating your tongue. You feel the veins beneath your eyes slither to the surface and your fangs elongate in your mouth. Then meeting Dwayne's gaze, you flash him a fangy grin. "I prefer to compel, eat, and release, but you do you I guess."

"Holy shit. You- you're a vampire?!"

Meeting Marko's stunned expression, you wink.

"You have a lot of explaining to do," David says.

"Sure." You meet his now ice-blue gaze. "But only after you clean up after yourselves. This," you say while gesturing to their dismembered victims, "is sloppy."

You watch as David oversees the cleanup of their little section of the beach, burning the bodies and kicking sand over the spilled blood. Afterwards, they all take a dip in the ocean to cleanse themselves of their meal.

On the way to their bikes which are parked just a bit down the beach, Paul asks, "So how old are you?"

"Which age are you referring to? The age I was when I was turned or how many years I've been a vampire?"

"Both."

"I was turned at twenty," you say, "and I've been a vampire for less than five years."

"No shit? How were you introduced to this world?"

"That.. is a very long story. Why don't we get someplace where I can actually tell it?"

As their bikes get nearer, you hiss at Paul when he pushes you in Dwayne's direction. Almost as if it was expected of you to ride with Dwayne, he settles on the seat of his bike before offering you a hand so you can situate yourself behind him.

Hanging on loosely, you enjoy the ride and take amusement in the sudden turns and jumps they take to try and startle you. But instead of being shaken, you merely laugh and pinch Dwayne's side when you're jostled too much.

The drive to the cliffs that you know to be Hudson's Bluff, overlooking the disgruntled sea, is rather short. You have a moment to glance down a rickety, wooden staircase before the group is driving down them one by one. You're jostled even more as the bike is driven over various rocks and through a gaping hole in the fence that's meant to keep trespassers out. They drive into a cave where the bikes are then parked, and you climb off to follow Paul down a very humid path.

Swiping cobwebs, vines, and roots out of the way, you're then led into a cavernous room. There are shafts of moonlight lighting up the space, and then Paul and Marko fire up barrels all around the space. The place is trashed, but you quickly realize it's not a normal cave. There's a sofa, chairs, and a broken water fountain. There's what appears to be a long counter- or was it a desk?- and a tattered portrait hanging behind it.

"What is this place?" You ask as you glance around in wonder. They obviously made it their own- seashells and broken CDs hanging from every place available, as well as hundreds of melted candles over every surface. You even spot a mattress, pillows, and blankets hidden behind some type of gauzy material.

"This was the hottest resort back in the day," David drawls. "Too bad they built it on a fault line though. When the big one hit San Francisco in 1906, this place took a header down into the ground when it split open. It's been our home ever since."

"Nice." You plop down on a couch, sighing as you stare at each boy. "So what do you wanna know?"

"Everything." David takes a seat on a wheelchair, staring right at you. "Start from the beginning."

"Fair enough. I was born and raised in Mystic Falls, Virginia to parents who ran their own business. I didn't want for anything and ended up being a letdown when I wasn't into pageants as my mother hoped I would be."

"Did your parents even die by drowning?" Marko asks.

"Yes. That was true," you tell him. "After their death, my aunt Jenna took in me, Elena, and Jeremy. Both my siblings grieved differently, but when the new school year started, my sister did a complete turnaround when Stefan Salvatore entered the picture."

"Why do I get the feeling this Salvatore dude is a major player in your story?" Paul asks.

"Because he is. Unbeknownst to any of us, Stefan Salvatore was vampire number one. He was drawn to Mystic Falls all because of my sister Elena."

"Why your sister?" Dwayne asks, startling you. He rarely spoke up, but when he did, you couldn't help but be drawn to him.

"Do you guys know what a doppelganger is?" At their nods, you explain. "Elena was the latest human doppelganger. The previous doppelganger, Katherine, toyed with two brothers back in 1864. The Salvatore brothers, to be exact."

"Shit." Paul giggles. "Talk about a vampire novella."

"Anyway, Katherine toyed with Damon's feelings and made him fall in love with her. When she tried the same with Stefan, he resisted so she compelled him to love her. And then when it came to light that there were many vampires in town, every vampire was rounded up, vervained, and anyone who associated with them were killed. As it just so happens, the Salvatore brothers' father found out his sons were romantically linked with Katherine, so he shot them. Unfortunately for him, Katherine had been feeding the boys her blood, so when they were killed, they didn't stay dead for long.

"Fast forward to the present time and both Salvatores are now salivating for the newest doppelganger. Only this time, Stefan has fallen in love with Elena without any compulsion, and so has Damon. Katherine's apparently been keeping tabs on the brothers and she's not happy that Elena has the love of the brothers."

David makes a motion with his hand to hurry you along. "How did you turn?"

"Katherine has made it her mission to make Elena's life a living hell, so what better way than to kill one of her best friends and older sister?"

Paul gapes. "You're joking."

"Nope. The crazy bitch fed me her blood before snapping my neck, then smothered Caroline who happened to have Damon's blood in her system. When we woke up in transition and fed on human blood to complete the transition, half of our friends turned on us. We had to rely on Damon and Stefan to teach us to control our bloodlust, but things were never the same. And to top it all off, learning to become a vampire was the least of our worries."

"What's more important than knowing you've died and have to kill people to survive?"

"How about that one of the Original vampires- who is over a thousand years old, by the way- needs the blood of a human doppelganger to break the curse on him, so he decides it's his turn to make your family's life hell as well?"

"Oh shit. What curse?" Paul asks.

You slowly smirk. "Niklaus Mikaelson is not just one of the original vampires, but he's the one and only original hybrid. He's half vampire, half wolf, and one of the most lethal individuals that still walks this earth."

The boys fall silent, but then Marko speaks up.

"Hold on. The dude funding your trip around the world is the same person who made your life a living hell?"

"Yep," you muse. "We were at each other's throats for the longest time, then his sister killed my sister which turned her into a vampire as well, and there was just a shit load more drama with doppelgangers, witches, werewolves, and hybrids." You shrug. "Elijah was never truly terrible, so I spoke more with him first, but then Klaus really took the brother role to heart. The Mikaelsons have kind of adopted me, and my siblings and friends didn't take too kindly to that. So, to avoid all the drama, I left. And now here I am."

For the rest of the late night and early morning, you answer all questions you can. Paul and Marko are interested to see the differences between you and them, but David and Dwayne are more interested in learning about the Original vampires and their unique differences. Their biggest hangup, however, is that the sun has no effect on you like it does them. Sure you both will catch on fire, but it doesn't pull you to sleep the day away like it does them. You're a bit jealous that they can fly, but you're so much faster than any of them.

The moment David mentions the impending sunrise is your cue to go, so you bid farewell to your friends before winking at Paul and disappearing before they can even blink.

For the next couple of days, you keep yourself busy by running some errands for Klaus. You meet with vampires and piss off a couple of werewolf packs, but all in all the work gets done. You hadn't been able to keep in touch with the Lost Boys, so Paul and Marko whoop in cheer when they spot you.

"Well if it isn't Miss Mystic Falls," Paul muses. "Where the hell have you been, chika?"

"Sorry. Sorry!" You lean against the railing in between the group, grimacing. "I had a few things to do and since you're all allergic to modern technology, I couldn't text or call."

"Anything we need to know about?" David wonders.

Normally you'd say no, but Santa Carla is his territory and you don't want any bad blood with him. "Not really. I had a few things to pick up for Klaus and a few messages to deliver to some werewolf packs up North."

David frowns. "There are packs nearby?"

"The closest one is fifty miles out, but they're all pretty scared of Klaus and what he can do so they stay in line. If there's anything to worry about, it's any lone wolves who decide to take shelter in the woods around Hudson's Bluff and don't give a flying fuck about the Original Hybrid."

"Pft. We can take on a rogue werewolf if need be," Paul says.

"You say that now, but you won't be saying much when you get bitten by one. Remember, werewolf bites are lethal to us vampires." Paul's smugness dims. "Now who's good to eat around here? I didn't have time to grab some blood bags from the hospital."

"Stay away from the Surf Nazis," Dwayne says.

"Surf Nazis? What the hell kind of name is that?" Your nose wrinkles in distaste.

"A name that they've had since the eighties," Marko says. "It just stuck because they're still a bunch of racist and bigoted pricks."

"Fair enough. So, if I can't eat them, who can I eat?"

All four boys readily scan the crowd, excited at the prospect of picking your dinner.

"Do you have a preference? Male or female?" David asks.

"No junkies and I'm good with either male or female."

After mere seconds, David already has his pick. "On your three. Group of guys keep glancing this way. I'm pretty sure they're not checking Marko out."

You subtly glance at them and figure any one of them is good enough. "Alright. Since you guys are intimidating as fuck, you're gonna say goodbye and go do your own thing. Whoever approaches me first is dinner."

"Boo. You're no fun." Paul's the first hop off his bike, giving you a side hug. "We'll be watching from the roof."

"Of course you will." You roll your eyes, laughing.

Marko winks at you as he follows after Paul, David nods at you, but it's Dwayne who makes you arch an eyebrow at him as he glares at the group of guys before leaving. You chuckle at the oddness of it all before shaking it off and then pulling out your phone to kill some time.

It doesn't take long at all for someone to approach you and you easily fall into the role of the lone human girl way too easily. You chat for a bit and find out he's in fact in college, on break for a week and just looking for some fun. You tell him you're taking a gap year, just passing through Santa Carla and was hoping for some fun as well. His lecherous grin lets him know you have him on the hook.

"Wanna take a ride on the ferris wheel?" He asks.

"I'll do you one better. I say we visit an alley away from prying eyes without giving any ride operators an eye full."

"Oh, fuck yes."

Smirking in triumph, you hop off the railing and grab up the guy's hand. You briefly meet his friends' gaze before winking at them, leading their friend off to what they think is going to be a very good time. For you it will be, but for him? Not so much.

Once at an alley that doesn't have much traffic passing by either end, you lure the guy inside. In the middle of the alley, you turn so your back is against the wall and let him grab you by the hips. But as you cradle his face before he kisses you, you meet his gaze and say, "Don't scream. Don't fight. This will be painless."

The guy goes quiet, and you let your face change before his very eyes. He tenses, but he stays stock still without uttering a peep. Then reaching around to grasp the hair at the back of his head, you angle his head so you can sink your fangs into his neck. You drink and drink, satiating your thirst while listening for the first skip of his heart. When you've had enough, you clean his neck wound of any blood and then prick your tongue with a fang to smear your own blood on the bite wound. It heals after a minute, and you pull back to meet his gaze once more.

"When you get back to your friends, you're gonna be smug but also a little bit let down. Admit I'm the greatest kisser you've ever had, but before we could get to any of the good stuff, we were interrupted by a homeless couple."

"We were interrupted by a homeless couple," he parrots back.

"Good boy. Now to make things more believable..." You slowly smirk before pulling him close, capturing his lips with your own.

The guy is shaken out of his compulsion and his arms wrap low around your waist to pull you even closer to him. You kiss him roughly to make sure his lips appear swollen and even muss his hair up. But the moment you reach under his shirt and rake your nails across his back, causing him to groan, you hear someone drop down beside you.

One second, you're enjoying a kiss and the next your victim is shoved away from you. Dwayne practically puts himself between you and your meal as he snarls, "Get. Lost."

The other individuals drop down into the alley, and you meet three amused expressions. Paul and Marko are snickering quietly whereas David is smirking at his dark-haired brother.

"You alright there, Dwayne?"

Dwayne turns, expression unimpressed at David's question. Instead of answering him, he turns his stare on you. "What?" You feign innocence. "I had to sell it. His friends needed to believe I brought him in here for anything other than feeding."

"Whatever. Next time, just kill the guy."

As Dwayne stalks off, you smile at his back. The moment he disappears, you ask, "Was that- was that jealousy?"

"Yep." Paul skips to you, draping an arm around your shoulders. "Dwayne's always been possessive, but it's been a long time since he took real interest in someone."

"This is going to be fun," Marko muses.

You roll your eyes and sigh but can't help but agree.

Over the course of another few days, it's now very obvious that Dwayne's hovering wasn't just because you were a female. He most definitely knows you can take care of yourself, yet he's still there, but now he's openly snarling when someone looks at you a little too long. To placate him, you only ride with him and pull him into the V of your thighs when you're sitting on the railing. He starts tensing up the moment you all people watch for your next meal and other guys stare back, but the tension drops from his shoulders when you hop onto the railing, pull him into the V of your thighs, and hug him from behind.

Nothing intimate happens between you and Dwayne, but it becomes an unspoken rule among the small coven that you're off limits.

Everything seems to be going well until you meet the boys on the boardwalk one night and David looks livid.

Your smile instantly vanishes. "What's wrong?"

"The woods smell like fuckin' dog," he seethes.

Immediately your gaze snaps towards the sky and your heart sinks. "It's a full moon."

"We know. We're gonna try and kill this wolf for stepping into our territory and pissin' all over the place."

"What?" Your voice is lethally quiet as you meet David's gaze. "You have to be joking. One bite- hell, even one nip!- is a death sentence."

"We'll be fine. We just thought we'd let you know."

As they turn to mount their bikes, you swear. "Goddammit. Wait for me. You're not doing this alone."

You climb onto the back of Dwayne's bike, wrapping your arms around his waist as you glare at the others for their idiotic choices. They're quite solemn as they drive to the woods, and you keep your eyes peeled for the werewolf in question. As they come to a stop, you climb off and glance around the eerily quiet woods.

"So do you have any tips on tracking a werewolf?" Paul muses.

You gulp. "It's a full moon and this wolf most likely claimed these woods as theirs. It'll be hunting us."

The boys chuckle and start walking, combing the woods for any sight of the wolf. It isn't long until a twig snaps- a twig that neither you nor the boys have stepped on. You all freeze.

"Showtime?" Marko wonders.

You sigh. "Be prepared to run. Werewolves can match a vampire's speed on the nights of a full moon."

"We'll be alright."

Almost as soon as the words leave Marko's mouth, the werewolf rushes in. It takes down Paul by his knees, standing on his back and snarling. Before he can snap his jaws, you rush over and kick the werewolf to send it flying.

"What the fuck was that?!" Paul incredulously asks as he hurriedly climbs back to his feet.

"A werewolf," you deadpan. "Keep your guard up. It'll come back."

For a few minutes, it seems like the werewolf is toying with all of you. It keeps knocking down the boys, snarling before disappearing. You've kicked it off your friends three times by now, but the second you hear a howl in the distance, you and the boys freeze.

"There's a second one?" You ask. David shrugs and you bite your tongue to keep from giving him a verbal lashing. "It was stupid to do this on the night of a full moon. We need to leave right now, and I'll do my best to sniff out the werewolves tomorrow so we can handle them when they're in their human forms."

"How much harder can two werewolves be?"

"Pretty fuckin' hard, David. I know you're a badass and all, but we need to do this another night."

Before David can answer, Dwayne shouts. You whirl around, eyes widening at seeing a werewolf pinning him to the ground with its sharp teeth inches from his face. Without thinking, you fly at the wolf, tackling it off of him. You and the wolf scramble for the upper hand and you hiss when there's a pain in your shoulder.

Eventually, you manage to pin the wolf to the ground by its neck and shove your hand into its chest cavity to yank out its heart. With the wolf dead, you toss the heart aside. "Now will you listen to me? This was such a stupid fucking idea." The boys remain quiet, staring at her.

Actually, they're staring at your shoulder.

"What?"

Dwayne steps forward, carefully reaching for your arm and pulling you a step towards him. You frown, but then hiss when he moves the neckline of your shirt off your shoulder. "You're bit."

Your heart falls into your stomach and you quickly glance at the shoulder that you now realize is burning. Your eyes fill with tears. "O-Oh."

"Oh? Oh?!" Dwayne nearly shouts. "Werewolf bites are lethal, remember? How could you be so goddamn stupid?!"

Your bottom lip trembles. "I'm well aware of that, Dwayne. I was the one who told you to hunt the werewolf another night, remember?" You sigh and pull your hand free from his grasp. You take a moment to collect your thoughts before admitting, "There's a cure. Only a select few know and the cure is hard to get your hands on unless you're on friendly terms with those who have access to it. It's not my secret to divulge, so I was compelled to not say anything unless it was an emergency."

"What is it?" Dwayne asks. "We'll get it."

"You can't. But I can," you admit. "Let's just get to the cave. I have a phone call to make."

So, for part two, do we want the Mystic Falls gang to follow Klaus to Santa Carla or do we want the Santa Carla gang to visit Mystic Falls?

[tabithatwo]

it's yellowjackets / jennifer's body parallels time!

hi hello keep reading if you would like to hear about shauna/jennifer and jackie/needy, here's my totally noncomprehensive, very much off the cuff thoughts on this very complex and interesting dynamic!!

(i'm not getting into the basic parallels, i'm gonna assume you know the karyn kusama of it all, the heart necklace, the homoerotic female friendship, the death)

yellowjackets is so brilliant because it feeds you stereotypes and absolutely does not deliver on them. there could be an entire paper on each girl and how this is true for them specifically, but walk quickly with me because i want to get into the nitty gritty gory fun stuff! a brief oversimplified example: nat is referred to as a burnout, some would assume she's a loner based on that, but she cares about the team as a unit more than arguably anyone else. (this is common in real life too, our stereotypes often don't hold water in reality and yj reflects that beautifully!)

now to the jackie/shauna of it all. it would be oh so incredibly easy to look at jackie and think she's the jennifer of the duo. we are set up to see her as prettier, more popular, more demanding. but that illusion falls apart QUICKLY if you pay attention to the things that jackie actually says and does. she's not a mean girl. she's actually one of the kindest on the team. she doesn't pick on shauna, she clings. there are plenty of takes on this on tumblr so i won't exhaust it, my adhd loves to digress and meander but i'm forcing myself back onto the trodden path to this point: people look at the first few minutes of the pilot and they immediately decide that they know who these girls are. the audience typecasts jackie as a jennifer and shauna as a needy. the popular, bubbly girl and her shy, bookworm best friend.

a lot of people, especially casual viewers who don't study this show like its their job (god, wonder what that would be like lol) understandably stop here. but to me the BRILLIANCE of yj is that they don't actually make it HARD for you to undo your initial impressions. the material is there. it isn't hidden. it isn't some deeper self of each character that is unraveled throughout seasons. they push, push, push to see just how far they can carry our deeply held stereotypes/expectations. how forward and violent can shauna be, with viewers still clinging to a shy and sweet girl, who was really their own creation? how kind and honestly pathetic kicked-puppy can jackie be, with viewers still clinging to a mean girl, who was really their own creation? how far will we go to warp the characters intentions, so that we can keep them in the box we understand them in? they ask this of the viewer and of other characters, but AGAIN i digress.

so, while this might sit strangely with some, yes i think that jackie is very much aligned with needy if you peel back just one layer. but far above and beyond that, shauna is so very fucking jennifer.

the overall veneer is thinned immediately in yj. there isn't one girl in the stands and one on center stage. jackie and shauna are both on the team. they go to the same parties, they play the same sport, i would argue that shauna isn't even coded as "less pretty" (please note the word coded, because i'm not saying needy is literally less pretty than jennifer, i am simply saying that we have hair, makeup, clothing, glasses trends that we use to stereotype characters, are you with me?)

so now what? now these girls are both and neither. shauna thinks that she is the needy to jackie's jennifer. jackie wears the necklace and the introductory shots frame her as important. but we're already diverting from that set-up.

our absolute clearest common denominator here is one that i rarely see people mention funnily enough: JENNIFER IS A SUCCUBUS. she CONSUMES. she KILLS. she WANTS and she TAKES.

now before you get TOO EXCITED!!! i see some of you getting ready to say i'm a shauna shipman hater, put the pitchforks down!! shauna is one of my favorite characters of all time. i love her crazy ass so deeply that it's alarming. (i don't hate jennifer, either, for the record.) i love her largely for WHAT she is. i think sanitizing or sweetening her is a disservice. she's amazing and complex and wounded and capable of deep love. but she also, quite LITERALLY, consumes.

her character is sex and desire and violence and obsession and consumption. and it's AMAZING. she's POWERFUL. she's our main framing character (in this dynamic), rather than needy. the scripts are switched. jennifer dies and needy lives, and that's one story. that's clearer cut, simpler, made for a horror film. but here, jackie dies and shauna lives, and that story is deep and rich and goes on to include a whole lot more death and destruction and chaos.

shauna tells us herself that it excites her. she likes it. she is this girl. this woman. she reminisces and she recreates and she covets.

jennifer tries to consume needy, shauna literally consumes jackie.

there's more to this story, obviously. you could deep dive and mine for the intricacies of the set up and fall of stereotype and expectation, or collect all of the exact parallels. but i'll stick with a few, because this is a quick outburst of thought.

a huge one, who is taking whose boyfriend?

here's another personal favorite of mine, just for kicks

is it too complex to neatly tuck away? absolutely. they're different stories with different themes. shauna isn't simply a teenager possessed by a demon. it runs far deeper. as is the essence of this show.

but if you want to look at parallels, look at the one who has been holding the knife the whole time.

[irisintheafterglow]

has rockstar!gojo been done yet because i have some things to say

"whatcha drinking there?" a second weight sinks onto the couch and you eye the figure warily from the corner of your vision. you can't see his face well but you think it's a guy; he's got bright white hair, round-rimmed sunglasses, and a half-closed black button up.

"not sure; it was ordered for me. something sweet and dangerous, fruity enough that you can't taste the booze," you answer, crossing one leg over another and propping an elbow on the back of the couch. your body was buzzing with warmth in the stale air of the house, and you'd lost sight of your cousin who begged you to come to the party with her. it was a wealthy colleague's 20something-eth birthday and she wanted to pretend to be in a higher tax bracket for the night. though most of the other people at the party radiated predatory vibes, the other occupant of the couch didn't, keeping a respectful distance from you as you continued to try to make out his face.

"i know a little something about being sweet and dangerous," he drawls and you catch the corner of his mouth turn up in a smug grin. despite the cheesy line, he still keeps a polite space between you two. you scoff at the contrast between the flirty words and the chivalrous body language, taking another sip.

"oh, goodie, another perv ready to slip something into my drink and take me god knows where until i'm a tragedy on the local news," you deadpan and, to your surprise, he laughs. his laugh is boyish and light; it sounds like sunshine. your heart and mind are at odds with each other, one telling you that he might be a good one and the other cautioning against sweet-talking men at parties.

"have people actually tried that on you tonight?" when his laughter dies back, his voice drops its teasing lilt for something almost...concerned? you shrug, leaning your head in your hand. he mirrors your position and you unconsciously scoot a little closer to him. to hear him better, you reason.

"eh, you know how it is."

"say the word and i'll have them out of here before you can blink." it's your turn to laugh at his pretentious arrogance, but you lock eyes with him over the rims of his glasses. they're electrically bright and calculatingly lethal, like clear blue water during high tide.

"what, you gonna tell your security team to kick them out?" you joke, continuing to nurse the remaining alcohol in your hand. you don't expect him to hum and raise his eyebrows thoughtfully; something in your head whispers that he might not actually be kidding. he was an enigma compared to the others that approached you. he hadn't tried to touch you, get your number, or look down your shirt. odd, yes, and admittedly intriguing.

"i could do that, if you want me to. i don't like it when creeps bother pretty people." he flashes another sly grin and his hair falls to the side as he tilts his head. he was pretty cute, but you were still skeptical.

enough. get down to the nitty gritty. "what do you want?"

"hmm?" his sharp eyebrows furrow in confusion.

"what do you want, if you're gonna call me pretty? you want my number, or my socials, or to take me home or something?" you stare at him expectantly and his eyes narrow ever so slightly like he was offended. maybe he wasn't used to people outwardly asking him if he was going to toy with them.

"truthfully, all i really want is to try your drink, and possibly get your name."

"oh," is all you're able to manage after any more biting words disappear from your vocabulary at his honesty. it was off-putting how nice he was, but you decide to humor him and hold out your glass. there's barely any liquid left in it, but he downs it in a blink.

"oh, shit. that's really good."

"right? i wish i got the order because i wanna be able to get that wherever."

"if you do get the order, send it my way too because that is delicious." from what you could tell, it was mostly vodka, with a little bit of strawberry or cherry punch on ice. there was another flavor you couldn't place, something fresh and earthy. maybe mint?

"i'll ask my cousin, then. hopefully she isn't too shit-faced to relay what she told the bartender." he laughs again, that breathy chuckle that made your heart skip a few beats. "how do you know the birthday girl?"

"friend of a friend of a friend."

"i see. this place not really your scene?"

"it is, sometimes. depends on the people present."

"what's your usual scene, then?"

"concerts, mostly." he runs a slender hand through his hair and you fight the urge to stare at its elegance. his voice was smooth and melodic and you leaned closer to him until it was the only thing you focused on. you're close enough to see his fingernails, painted alternating shades of red, blue, and purple. he looks at you like you're the best thing at the party and the rest of the noise fades into the background. "i like when music connects people. it's the closest thing we have to invisible strings tying everyone together, you know?" so he's the poetic type.

"mhmm. do you play any instruments?"

"i sing, sometimes. my band plays in this area."

before you can ask his name or give him yours, a tall man with his hair pulled back and a woman with a short bob steals the stranger away. he glances back at you apologetically, murmuring something about it being a pleasure to meet you. at the end of the conversation, you were left with an empty glass and an unshakable feeling of disappointment.

the subtle ache in your chest whenever you thought of him lasted several more days than you would have liked it to. you texted your friends about it numerous times for cathartic reasons but nothing worked. you wanted to figure out the mystery behind his identity and it was driving you out of your mind. the unrelenting feeling of restlessness was replaced by dread when your cousin dragged you to a concert in some underground venue, insisting standing as close to the stage as possible. you agreed on the condition that she order you another glass of the drink you had during the party.

despite the loud screams echoing through the chamber and the bodies knocking against your arms, the music wasn't terrible, especially when you had a few more drinks. as the night progressed, you found yourself constantly drawn to the lead singer. intuition said you'd met him before, even though it was impossible considering that he was one of the most popular musical artists on the planet. music officials called his innate talent and musicianship the most powerful of the time, earning him the nickname of "honored one." he had a reputation for being a rulebreaker, constantly voicing very blunt opinions regarding the older, more conservative artists of his genre. he was also rumored to be a player, always hopping around from lover to lover and never staying with one too long. it drove the fan accounts on twitter absolutely mad.

even if he was a heartbreaker, he was a professional nonetheless. he certainly knew how to put on a show, sweat dripping from his spotlight-shining hair and licking his lips enticingly while he sang sweet nothings to the audience of swooning fans. his crowd work was admirable and you found your face heating up when he crouched down in front of you between songs. his voice was raspy and overtly flirtatious, but it still bothered you that you'd heard it before the show and couldn't pinpoint where.

"hey there, pretty. you likin' the show?"

"mhmm, the 'drenched in sweat' look is really doing it for me."

"well, i used the last of my water to uh, baptize those ladies over there," he remarks, gesturing with the mic to a group of teenage girls that were shrieking at the top of their lungs. "mind if i get a sip of what you're having?"

"as long as you don't turn it into a super soaker."

inches away from you, you realize his eyes are a vibrant shade of blue and they crinkle at the corners from your joke. he laughs, boyishly happy and contagiously bubbly. you'd seen those eyes and heard that laugh weeks ago, on the night your cousin brought you to that party. in that moment, the realization collides with your body like a semitruck and your legs nearly give out. everything makes sense instantly: his voice, his hair, the way he called you "pretty."

you'd been flirting with gojo satoru.

and he was right in front of you, asking for your drink again in front of hundreds of people.

after a tense moment of stunned hesitation, you carefully hand him your glass and watch his face wash over in realization when he takes a sip. despite the screams from the crowd at the intimate interaction, all you could hear is his voice.

"oh, shit." he stares at you so intensely your heart does a backflip before slamming into your eardrums. the way he's looking at you tells you all that you need to know, all that you wanted to know ever since the night of the party. "that's...that's really good." he observes you for half a moment longer before he remembers what the hell he was doing. he stands to continue the show, but he flashes a knowing grin like he was telling you a secret.

"welcome to my usual scene, pretty."

your cousin is shocked, to say the least, when a security guard finds you after the show and requests your presence backstage.

how did this turn into 1.6k words i meant for this to be a drabble lol but anyways hope you enjoyed it

if you enjoy my writing and would like to support me, you can buy me a coffee on my ko-fi! you can also check out my full masterlist here :)

[that-ari-blogger]

An Interesting Character

Usually, when character is brought up in discussion, it is in reference to the people. If you think of the characters of The Owl House for example, you probably think of Luz, Eda, Bellos, Hunter, and Principal Bump.

But, by pure mechanics, a character is just a force at work in a story. One with personality, and agency, sure, but it's just a force.

This means that, if you squint a little, the Boiling Isles itself is a character, and the Wild Magic is an extension of that. It certainly gets treated like a character by the story, especially in Adventures In Elements.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Before I start, let me give one attempt to argue with the pedants. By definition, a character is a person. So, hear me out, the Boiling Isles is literally the body of a titan, who actively talks to Luz later on in the series. That is my justification.

So... why is wild magic a thing?

I'm not asking for an in-universe answer, because that is multifaceted and not really the point. I'm asking why the writers decided to include this idea, and what effect it has on the story?

The phrase "magic is..." is used four times in this episode. Once by Eda, and thrice in quick succession by Luz. And it is worth taking a look at these statements.

"I know my lessons seem weird, but this is what wild magic is all about! Making a connection with nature. The earliest witches understood that. Human witches need to understand it, too. You wanna learn a second spell? ... Then you have to learn from the island."

There is a lot going on with Eda's guidance. First up is the small detail about the tense. The earliest witches knew that magic is about nature, implying now it is different. But mainly, this is an explanation of the nitty gritty of The Owl House's magic system. It's about two things, nature and connection. And I want to delve into that a little bit.

There is something fascinating about Bellos and his roots in witch-hunting. Because that was specifically defined by an opposition to things, rather than any actual views of its own.

Malleus Maleficarum, the book that kicked off the witch-hunts is a fascinating read, as long as you understand what it is that you are reading and don't use it as a set of instructions. Internet Archive has a translated version by Prof. Christopher S. Mackay, complete with commentary from latter authors that I highly recommend.

This single book caused a ton of harm to people, and you can examine it from almost any angle you like. The original was written by a terrible person with terrible intentions, and I also recommend Overly Sarcastic Productions' video on Werewolves for more information on that section of history.

What I want to focus on is the vernacular. References "devils" about 400 times and namedrops "witches" with similar regularity. The word "demon" comes up over 1000 times, and the word "pagan" comes up about 40 times. Specifically in reference to "pagan nations" which is about as racist as it sounds, as well as a ton of using the word as a catch all insult ("x type of person is worse than a pagan", etc. etc.). I don't want to get into the theology and history of this word, because it's a complicated minefield. But in this context, specifically around Europe in this time period, it means just about all regional faiths and mythologies. Celtic, Norse, Germanic, and several others.

Fun fact about me, I am Welsh, which means is that I have a connection to Welsh mythology, and so my analysis of wild magic is through that lens. If you have an understanding of other similar cultures, let me know, I'm fascinated to learn how that affects the reading of the Owl House.

Now, Modern Druidism is a living religion that I am not well versed in and want to treat with the respect befitting any living faith. So, I am sticking to what I know about the history and mythology and trying to make the differentiation between those two and Modern Druidism clear.

So, Druids in Celtic mythology are religious leaders, and peacekeepers. But what is possibly the most famous thing about them is their connection to nature. And here is where the analysis of The Owl House comes into play. Because the Owl House takes great care to associate magic with the natural, and Bellos with the unnatural.

"It means magic is a gift from the island. It means magic is everywhere. Magic is everywhere!"

Bellos creates artificial magic through his artificial staff and the destruction of the Palismen to fuel his life. Hunter wields an artificial staff, and in Adventures In Elements, Amity trains with an artificial training wand, which is linked to Bellos through the coven system.

But you would think that Luz's runes would also count as artificial. So what gives?

This episode shows them as part of nature more than the more refined spell circles. Luz's magic is that connection to the island in its purest, rawest form, and as I have said before, Luz's greatest strength is her ability to connect.

The dynamic between Wild Magic and Coven Magic isn't a dynamic between the artificial and the natural, it's a dynamic between empathy and utilitarianism. Wild Magic borrows, or is gifted, Coven magic takes and uses for its own ends. They are similar concepts, but it's in the minutia that the meaning comes out.

Final Thoughts

There is one final thing that Wild Magic reminds me of, and its off on a limb a bit. I currently live in Australia, and while Aboriginal spirituality is varied and complex and not my story to tell, I have been gifted this piece of advice that I would like to share: Humans don't own the land, we are a part of it, just as the trees and the beasts and the storms and the fires. Humans are mere custodians, our duty is to watch over and protect, and to connect.

I thought that was relevant.

I am away next week, but I'll be back in the new year with some analysis of The First Day, so stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[gallusrostromegalus]

So now that we're getting into the nitty-gritty about the zanpakuto, I'm immensely curious about what you're gonna do with Kaname's zanpakuto. Cuz if I remember canon right, he "inherited" (graverobbed?) the sword from his deceased friend, who we are told is the impetus for his whole crusade and made it his own to honor her. I'm interested to see your thoughts :))

You are remembering canon correctly! Suzumushi is NOT Kaname Tousen's Sword! It's the Sword of his friend/unrequited love interest Kakyo NoSurnameInCanon, who was fridged murdered, and when the central 46 refused to prosecute her killer because of his Noble status, that's when Kaname's crusade began, carrying Suzumushi.

...yeah.

In AEIWAM, it's similar, but instead of a friend/unrequited love interest-

Kaname is twelve when he dies suddenly, and reincarnates in the Soul society as a Tween. He is unceremoniously dumped on a country back road in West 51 with only the clothes he died in and no memory of his previous life besides his given name. Kakyo is also about twelve when she dies, and is dumped about four feet away from Kaname five seconds later, and sprains her ankle on the fall. She remembers her past life ("It Sucked"), and reassures Kaname that the guy that left her here said there was a 50-50 chance she'd lose her entire memory. That must be what happened to him. Kakyo can't walk on her injured ankle, but she can see where she's going. Kaname is a strong lad with great balance, and offers to carry her on his back if she can navigate him towards a village. It takes several freezing cold nights, scavenging for food and a terrifying encounter with a rabid dog before they finally reach the village.

Since neither actually knows their birthday, but were both 'reborn' on November 13th, and because they look extremely different, they decide that they are now brother and sister. And ever since then, Kakyo and Kaname regarded each other as twins.

They actually stumble into a library at the edge of a fairly large river trading port, run by Tomoko Tousen, a retired Gotei-13 Archivist, and her husband Yasuke, a retired shinigami, who gained a surname when they married. They never had children of their own, and it's nice having the young things about, so they adopt the 'twins', and they become Kakyo Tousen and Kaname Tousen. Fortunate, as it rapidly becomes apparent the twins have spiritual powers of their own.

Kaname is the gentler and shyer twin, and closer to his godmother, who figures out how to enchant a pair of glasses so they can 'read' text he looks at and speaks it to him, and he takes to books and archiving and data science like a duck to water.

Kakyo is a litter rougher and more gung-ho twin and takes after her adopted godfather, and dreams of leaving home and becoming a Shinigami herself... but their godparents are elderly, and can't run the library on their own, and she doesn't want to leave Kaname completely on his own.

Still, when she wakes up one morning from fitful dreams to discover she's holding a sword of her own, the whole family rejoices. Suzumushi is a not very powerful Zanpaktou, and strangely eager to avoid conflict for a weapon, and is content to stay in the river town, practicing Katas with Yasuke and occasionally lightly Harassing her weilder's brother- but before the year is out, Kaname has gotten used to sometimes having what feels like a clockwork cicada climb up his back or sit on his head, chiming and chittering while he works.

One day though, Kaname is talking with Yasuke, about how neither of them remembers their previous lives. Yasuke confides that while he doesn't remember who he was or where he lived, there are some memories that not even death can erase, like how his body remembered exactly what to do the first time he picked up a sword.

Kaname has nightmares after that, of picking up Suzumushi and knowing exactly how to wield her.

Time passes, Their godparents pass. And Kakyo stays with Kaname. Neither one really wants the other to be alone.

Then one day, A komuso monk comes to the library, body covered in robes and face hidden by his Tengai. ... A Really Big Monk. His name is Komamora Sajin, and from the way he acts around Kaname, Kakyo can tell he's taken care of people who are frail and missing senses before. Kaname is very fond of him- they have similar natures, and the actually-nine-foot-tall Sajin is very good at getting things off of high shelves and convincing difficult patrons to behave themselves. Eventually, he asks to stay on a more permanent basis, and Kakyo begs him to do so- she needs to become a Shinigami, but she can't abandon Kaname. They agree, and when she tells Kaname "Stay here, and stay gentle." it her telling her how much she loves him, and wants him to be happy.

...So you can imagine how devastating her death was for him.

Doubly so when he arrives in Seireitei to handle her funeral arrangements and touches Suzumushi's hilt for the first time- the rage, the grief of the sword spirit courses through him, baying for vengeance- and worse still, so does his body's memory of how to weild a sword.

He and Kakyo were about as close as humans can get, and Suzumushi knew him for as long as the spirit had known Kakyo- if there's someone who'd be willing to avenge her master's death, it's her beloved 'twin' brother.

...but this implies a lot of WIERD stuff about Kaname and his relationship with Suzumushi.

Sometimes Zanpaktou can be passed from one person to another, incarnating a bit differently each time (like how Senbonsakura is the Kuchiki Family Sword), but other Zanpaktou will die if thier wielder does. Suzumushi is not a particularly powerful zanpaktou- Tousen and Suzumushi are regularly ranked last in the "most powerful captains" fan-polls and rightly so I think. Rightly so, because I think Kaname's power is significantly nerfed by carrying a sword that is not his. Even if he and Suzumushi are particularly close, that's different than his own, and I don't think Suzumushi ever intended to be a heritable sword. Actually using her probably takes a ton more energy for Kaname that it ever did for Kakyo. Futhermore, Kaname might also be spending a ton of energy keeping Suzumushi alive past her time.

Suzumushi only has one potentially-lethal maneuver and that's an alternate form of her shikai. The regular forms are "Spell of take a nap and stop rioting" and "Spell of no for real you're losing your sensory privileges until you calm down". Both are way more crowd control abilities rather than Deuling ones, which fits with both his and Kakyo's characterization of wanting Soul Society to be a better place- Suzumushi is a sword that's practically built to get in the middle of a major battle and get everyone to STOP. And I gotta wonder- were these the original abilities of Suzumushi, or something she crafted for Kaname? Especially his Bankai- That's a weird Banaki for a sighted person like Kakyo to have. Or is it the original, drawn from Kakyo's experiences living with Kaname? Either way, he's either using tools not intended for him, or Suzumushi is heavily deviating from what she was meant to do, as a weapon.

My point is, as good as Kaname was- and he was good, he made Captain (and not just because they were... out of officers after the Turn Back The Pendulum Incident), but he did apparently hold his own in battle against everyone but fucking Kenpachi.

In AEIWAM, he does this by focusing on his technical skill as a swordsman- what he lacks in power or Zanpaktou abilities that are actually useful in Duels, he makes up for in learning really advanced, high-level Kido* and getting damn good at actually using his sword as a sword. In the fic, Kenpachi is a huge admirer and actually kind of Jealous of Kaname's technique- he declares that of all the captains, Kaname is the strongest, because he's the one punching highest above his weight class, while eveyone else (including him) is coasting by on their enormous power reserves or more duel-adept Zanpaktou, yet Kaname can go toe-to-toe with all

"It's like watching a little bitty Bat beat up a Tiger!" He says.

So, if Suzumushi is not Kaname's Zanpaktou, what is?

For that, I think we need to look at what happened to him after his hollowfication.

After dinner. this takes up a lot of brainpower.

[xxlovelynovaxx]

Replatforming this without the "physically ableds don't talk or even tag" banner bullshit because if businesses don't do the bare minimum to make themselves accessible to neurodivergent people they also deserve to fail.

I had a friend who couldn't enter the mall through a certain store because the sensory overwhelm of the perfume department made them sick. Not because of allergies or sensitivities or anything, literally just the sensory issues from their autism, meant they literally couldn't shop at that store or even walk through it

Prime example of how if you think something is only about physical disability no it isn't and also stop speaking over neurodivergent people and contributing to our erasure. Especially for mid to high support needs people. Like, you literally forget we exist because you think neurodivergence can't possibly ever be as disabling or cause as much lack of access as physical disabilities.

Like sure, if the only people you count as neurodivergent are "high-functioning" autistic and ADHD people then yeah you maybe won't find anybody that has the same experiences with access issues and similar as physically disabled people.

And before "but I'M neurodivergent and feel this way" congrats on the complete lack of self-awareness that other people experience neurodivergence differently from you! Congrats on the fact that your support needs for specifically neurodivergence are lower than other neurodivergent people!

Congrats on the privilege that allows your voice to be prioritized over those of us who have higher support needs on specifically* how neurodivergence affects people and what topics we're "allowed" to talk about in relation to physical disability, including dismissing how conditions you THINK can only ever be purely psychiatric CAN BE PHYSICALLY DISABLING.

Like if you're saying "no, x form of neurodivergence can never be physically disabling, you're either lying or have a comorbid condition", stfu forever. I'm not kidding. Responding "you're wrong and I know more than you about your condition", is ableism if you have the same condition (does the word "spectrum" mean anything to you?) and double ableism if you don't.

*Not talking about privilege in any other case, and don't forget that privilege is not the same as oppression.

Gonna have to write a fucking post about all the nitty gritty often gross details of how my neurodivergence is physically disabling even aside from my actual physical disabilities (I'm not abled no matter how badly you want to think I am, I am physically disabled in multiple ways fuckers). I'm tired of this shit. Like yeah, great post up until the end. You fumbled one yard from touchdown and the ableists recovered the ball. Go fuck yourself OOP