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rifting-zenith · 2 years ago

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Because We Are Family

Pairings: Svarog x gn!reader, reader is familial figure to Clara

Synopsis: Reader is a doctor who tends to the vagrant camp. Bonds are formed and family is found. Fluff.

Word Count: 1,905

You are studying in an apprenticeship under Natasha. You have always cared for the wellbeing of those around you from a young age, so it only felt natural to take up the helm of being a doctor. When you aren’t too busy at the clinic you use your free time to go help out the vagrants at the robot settlement. They are still human no matter their crimes. This is where you meet Clara.

Clara quickly becomes your shadow while you are there, often making small talk with you as you meet her with warm smiles. You often think to yourself, “She’s a lovely, lovely girl.” She reminds you a little of yourself when you were younger.

Everytime you visit Clara goes home that night to Svarog, full of excitement, and tells him of the day she spent with you. She sings your praises time and time again. It is evident you mean an awful lot to Clara. Svarog takes notice of this, how could he not? There is nothing he wouldn’t do for Clara. They are family after all. He adds the memories to his mental files being sure to back it up and back it up again for safe measure.

As you leave the robot settlement, you hum a nameless melody to yourself, not quite paying attention to where you’re going as you kick stones along the path. Suddenly you bump into something hard as rock and cold as ice, falling flat to the ground you spill your supplies. Your first thought should be of your lost supplies, but when you look you're met with an intense glowing ruby stare from a single eye. The gaze pins you to the ground. You can’t look away nor can you seem to formulate the words to apologize. “He’s beautiful” seems to be the only thought crossing your mind at that moment. Svarog bends down towering over your much shorter frame as he reaches around you to pick up the fallen supplies. If he were a man he would be close enough to feel warm breath on your skin, but this being is anything except human. The perfect specimen. Human technology perfected.

After a prolonged moment of silence you finally peel your eyes away.

“I am so sorry I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.” You are met with silence that brings a blush of embarrassment to your cheeks.

“You must be Svarog. I’ve heard so much about you from Clara” you say with an anxious laugh. Once everything had been picked up the robot pulled away to stare at you once more. His gaze is cold and calculating almost like it’s staring right through you. It makes you pull your cardigan tighter around your body as if to shield yourself.

"Yes, I am Svarog. I believe these are yours. You must be y/n. Clara speaks very highly of you.” Svarog said in a robotic, smoky voice that brought goose bumps to your skin.

The robot offers you a hand which you gladly take. As you brush the debris and fallen snow off your clothing he stands patiently holding your things.

You begin to reach out to take them from him. He interrupts. “I will walk you home and carry these for you.”

It was so matter of fact that it felt as if there was no room to argue so you just nod. Svarog leads the way as you follow closely behind. You would think for such a big being that he would be much faster. Maybe he was slowing himself down to walk in tune with you. The thought brings a smile to your face. You never thought that a robot would be so human. It’s truly no wonder Clara speaks so fondly of him. After walking for a while in silence Svarog falls back beside breaking the silence.

“Clara tells me what you have done for the vagrants. It is not often you see such an act of kindness from humans.” You smile and look up at the robot taking in his metallic shell with the midnight blue finish. He reminds you of the familiar night sky of the overworld that you have not seen in so long evoking a fond feeling.

“I wouldn’t say it’s an act of kindness, more like a civil duty as a doctor.” you remark. Met with more silence, you begin to feel uneasy as if maybe you had spoken wrong.

He speaks up, saying "You are being too modest. I have lived here for some time and seen the many horrors that humans have committed against each other in the name of survival.” His to the point way of speaking was more reassuring than you had expected. Svarog was more than you had expected.

“Yes, life down here has been hard since they closed it off ten years ago. I do not blame everyone for how they react though. Everyone is just trying to survive to the best of their abilities.” Svarog pauses for a moment, stopping in the road as if computing the response you had just given him.

“I see,” he says, nodding his head before beginning to walk again.

Time passes quickly as you and Svarog walk in tandem, talking of life underground and of sweet, young Clara. If there was anything you had in common with the robot it was how much you both adored her. Before you know it you are at your door.

“Well, we're here.” you say with a sad smile at your time together coming to an end.

“Here are your things.” Svarog says aloud as he hands you your supplies. As Svarog turns and begins to leave, you shout from your doorstep.

“Wait! Will I see you again?”

The being turns around when he speaks. “Yes. I am certain you will.” You watch as the robot disappears into the cool air of the night before entering your home.

When Svarog returns home he is met with a smiling Clara.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” He asks, staring down at her small frame. She puts her hands behind back and shifts from foot to foot staring at them.

“Yes I should, but I wanted to tell you about my day” she says meekly.

“You may tell me about your day, but then it is to bed with you. Eight hours of sleep a night is essential for human health and development.” The young girl beams from ear to ear. This time when Clara rambles on and on about her day in camp with you Svarog listens intently, being sure to ask many questions about you and her time spent with you.

You still return to the vagrant camp making your rounds doing what you can for the people there, but now instead of one shadow, you have two. Svarog’s large frame has a much more noticeable presence than Clara’s even if he is silent, which he never is. He is always sure to ask how your day is and what you're doing and why exactly it is you’re doing it. It makes you happy that the robot is taking such an interest in the world around him, taking such an interest in your world. You can’t help but notice that everyone seems to be on their best behavior with him around. It makes you giggle to yourself. You might as well be walking around with a giant guard dog. His reputation truly precedes him.

As the months go by your spare supplies dwindle down into almost nothing. One day at the vagrant camp you run completely out. With a sad sigh you tell those in need of your assistance that you will be back as soon as you can.

“What are you going to do, y/n?” Clara asks with eyebrows knitted together in worry.

“I’m going to Rivet Town to gather whatever I can.” You give Clara a reassuring smile.

"You can’t, it’s not safe!” Clara exclaims.

“You don’t need to worry about me. It’ll all be okay.” You assure the young girl, giving her a rub on the head. You turn around and begin to set off hitching your empty bag up on your shoulder. Walking away, you turn around and give one last wave to Clara who stands completely still watching you go with tears in her eyes. Once you are out of sight Clara takes off running looking for Svarog. Where is he when she desperately needs him?!

Clara eventually finds the being after searching high and low tinkering with his robots in some secluded room in the home they share together. She takes a moment to put her hands to her knees and catch her breath. Svarog is immediately alarmed, taking the girl's tear stained cheeks. With rasped breaths and through wobbly words she explains what has happened and where you went. Svarog tells her to stay put and he will take care of it. With no other words he sets off.

All is going well in Rivet Town. You’ve found almost all of the supplies you needed and are happy that you haven’t run into anyone or anything that delays you. That is, until you see a large fragmentum monster creep out of the shadows. Biting back a scream it stalks towards you. As quickly as you can, you take your things and run as quickly as you can in the opposite direction, running as fast as your legs can take you. Sadly you are out of shape and are beginning to lose steam.

As you begin to slow down, fear takes hold and you’re worried that these breathless moments may be your last. Stopping completely to catch your breath, you look over your shoulder to survey the scene. You see the creature coming closer and closer at an alarming rate. You let out the loudest scream your lungs can muster and close your eyes, bracing for impact. Except the impact never comes.

You hear the loud boom of a cannon over your head and look up. Much to your surprise, you see Svarog hovering over you in a protective stance, one arm extended towards the fragmentum beast that now fades away on the ground. Looking at your savior, your knight in shining armor, you become overwhelmed with emotion and begin to cry. Svarog bends down and picks up your small figure.

“There is no need to cry. You are safe now” the robot coos while using his cool metal fingers to wipe away your tears. With a sniffle you throw your arms around him in relief.

“I am so happy to see you. I thought I would never see you or Clara again” you lament.

“What you thought were your last thoughts… were of us?” he asks inquisitively.

“I suppose all the time we’ve spent together I've come to view you guys as something close to family. You guys are the closest thing I have besides Natasha.” you reply in a hushed tone.

“Do you think you can walk back with me?” he asks. You shake your head no because your legs might as well be jelly after all that running. In one fell swoop he picks you up into the bridal position.

“Where are you taking me?” you inquire.

“Home.”

“Your home or mine?”

“Ours.” With a smile you lean up and kiss the robot on his cheek and swear that if robots could smile, he would be.

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syrena-del-mar · 1 year ago

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The Birth Order Theory: The Only Child in Step By Step

First things first, I already touched upon this idea about the presentation of the Birth Order Theory in Step by Step a bit while I was live-blogging Episode 9, but I was pretty much enamored with the episode so I don't think I was able to coherently state my thoughts. Episode 9 of Step by Step (in my opinion) has been one of the best so far in the whole series. Which is saying something since I've been enjoying this series immensely since the first episode. Granted, I am more forgiving regarding filming mistakes or even most timeline confusion as long as there are captivating characters that drive the story.

I already thought that most of the characters were all, generally, well fleshed out— my reservation being on Jane— but episode 9 really knocked it out of the park for me. What really stood out to me was the juxtaposition with how Jeng and Pat were able to deal with the fall out of Jeng's confession. I actually came to appreciate and understand Pat a lot more on why he reacts as he does because of this episode.

So we're back to the Birth Order Theory, but this time we're applying it to Step by Step, I promise to attempt to keep it a shorter read than my La Pluie Birth Order post.

Only Child Syndrome and the Lack of Sibling Effect on Pat

If you want a more substantive post on what Birth Order Theory actually encapsulates, you can click on my La Pluie post, where I dive into it a bit more, before proceeding. Essentially, it's a theory that reasons that the personality that you develop is affected by the order in which you were born into your family. There's no hard evidence to base its' accuracy, simply anecdotal, but for characters and stories we don't need the scientific evidence to be accurate.

The Only Child Syndrome is typically seen as a negative effect on children with no siblings. Austrian psychotherapist, Alfred Adler, suggests that while only children are at an advantage due to being the sole focus of the parents (both financially and emotionally), the "sibling deprivation" that they experience has a detrimental effect on the only child's personality since they lack interactions with their peers at home. Depending on the child's upbringing and the tactics that parents utilize, only children can struggle with anxiety and lack social skills at a higher rate than their peers that have siblings. Since only children's parents have no other children, they are often over-protected during their upbringing which can lead to overachieving children that struggle when it comes to healthily dealing with stress. They often have face difficulty sharing with peers, while also preferring to maintain direct communication in order to avoid misunderstandings.

Maybe it's just me, but I think it took me too many episodes to fully register that Pat was an only child. Personally, I believe it's because we typically see Pat being surrounded by people, especially when he's facing emotional turmoil. As a result, I didn't register how small his nuclear family was. This episode really highlighted how alone Pat is when he's not with his friends. While Jeng has his brother to depend on and cry with (not to mention the unseen sister), Pat has no other outlet than himself on a day-to-day basis. Even though he surrounds himself with friends, he goes home to a dark and empty house which contrasts Jeng, who has the choice of going home to his brother.

From what we are shown, Pat's parents are mostly absent from Pat's life. Pat's mother lives abroad, has remade her life after the divorce, has her own family and has resettled. Pat's father seems to be dating different people and likely traveling around. They both only really seem to physically reappear into Pat's life around his birthday from what they have mentioned. Life does move on and sometimes you 're not able to care for yourself as much as you like, it's important to come to terms with that and be able to navigate life regardless, but it does add another layer as to why Pat has been unable to successfully deal with his emotions. He's an only child with divorced parents. Add to the fact that the parents are all around the globe and not easily accessible, it really seems like he's the one that's always being left behind and abandoned, or at least not anyone's main priority. I'm sure this notion was only reinforced when Put chose his career over their relationship. Pat, while not immediately visible, seems to struggle with abandonment and just being alone.

I agree with Pat's parents that people entering and exiting your life is the natural cadence of life and that it does not determine the love that people have for each other. Yet, Pat is only 24 years old. This newfound realization of how he's unable to prioritize himself, plus the added emotional charge of breaking up with his boyfriend again (and on top of that, your boss confessing), is a lot to be able to really process. They're all part of the growing pains that you experience in your twenties. For the most part, Pat is navigating the growing pains alone. He doesn't have a sibling to learn from or with, so it adds a layer of hardship to that. At the end of the day, while Jeng can go back home to his brother (arguably, even his parents... though that's a whole conversation), Pat goes back to a house, where it's just him and his stuffed tiger (that is now in time-out somewhere in a drawer.)

Pat and his struggle with Conflict Resolution and Balancing Stress

Pat struggles with fully being able to express himself, we saw this when we first met him at the office, he was being ridiculously overworked. Not to mention the office rules and societal rules placed on subordinate employees, it's difficult enough to say no, but this, theoretically, also stems from being the only child in the family, where he was probably subject to more "adult influences" since he only had his parents growing up. He is an over-achiever, which we see with him having gained his Masters abroad before coming back to Thailand to work (even if he did initially run away after being abandoned by Put) so he's having to adjust. His struggle to fully express yourself correct, when you already have an issue saying no and standing up for yourself, is not going to magically disappear without putting effort to improve, even if you age.

Now I'm not saying that those moments of emotional outbursts that Pat was showing was not immature or unprofessional, but I think it really puts into perspective as to why he's reacting as he did. He's relatively young, at 24, and he's rather new in the workforce, having just finished his academic career. Everyone starts out with a level of professionality, which Pat originally was. Except his professionality ended with him becoming a doormat. The burnout of being used, combined with the new expectations that Jeng came in with, Pat's stress escalated. Pat's emotional outbursts were a direct result of not having positive coping methods. He went out with his friends and got absolutely trashed each time he was stressed. It's a rather troublesome way to manage his anxiety and stress, because it does not resolve his anxiety or stress that he already has.

I'm also not diminishing any relationships that an only child may form with friends and other loved ones, I'm a firm believer of found families, but I do think that sibling relationships, typically, guarantee a relationship that is emotionally charged and characterized with an intimacy that are not as easily formed with non-direct blood relatives [disclaimer: this assumption does not apply to every only child and I'm solely using this theory for application here.] When you have siblings that have a long history and intimate knowledge of who you are as a being, there are ample opportunities to provide both emotional and instrumental support with on another. Conflicts naturally arise in sibling relationships and as a child, you tend to learn different conflict management and resolution strategies. While only children can have the opportunity to learn the same skills, I think it can be profoundly different in how they learn and implement those skills into adulthood.

Here, when Pat is facing any professional or personal difficulties, he often turned to Ae (and Beam by default). When he was dealing with solely professional issues at work, he got accustomed to turning to Jeng for solutions or comfort. He coped by being with people and socializing with them (this includes his excessive drinking in social circles), rarely did we see 100% on his own dealing and mulling over his feelings. This time around, Ae, while still being a great friend, is just in a different stage of her life. She's engaged and has a baby on the way, this doesn't minimize the friendship, but it does signify a shift in the relationship dynamics of their friendship are bound to occur that comes with time. Plus he doesn't even have Jeng to depend on, because Jeng is the issue this time around. Even Chot, though he's a great friend, he's still a work friend. The time and understanding that is needed to nurture a friendship where Pat can fully open up to him is just not there yet. Pat, in this moment of his life, lacks that person that he can turn to and who truly understands him.

Final Thoughts

Both Jeng and Pat really shone in episode 9 and I completely agree on how heartbreaking it was to see Jeng be heartbroken, but I think Pat gets written off a bit too easily for my taste. I've seen people discuss Step-by-Step and simply cast Pat aside due to his "immaturity", I mean even I'm guilty of an eye-roll or two with some of his decisions, but episode 9 really fleshed him out.

Rather than immature, due to the negative connotation it carries, I'm starting to see him as inexperienced. He's still learning and his reactions are a result of all his life experiences. It's easy to overlook the reasoning as to why he reacts the way he does, especially when you have Jeng crying his heart out, but his reaction is a culmination of Pat's life experiences. He's just getting out of a break-up, he had no clue Jeng was not straight, he has abandonment issues, insecurity issues, and then Jeng is his boss of the same office that is filled with workers that harassed him. It's a lot to think about and he has a lot to lose if he just accepted Jeng rashly.

There's a proverb in Spanish, "Todos los hombres estamos hechos del mismo barro, pero no del mismo molde." Essentially, even if we're made of the same clay, we do not come from the same mold. Pat reactions start to make more sense when you look at the life experiences that have shaped him, instead of just simply thinking, "I would never act like that." Episode 9 really hit that message home this week.

#step by step ep 9 #step by step meta #step by step the series #jengpat #patjeng #jeng kittiphong #pat x jeng #jeng x pat #ben bunyapol #man trisanu #thai bl #that bl meta #thai boy love #thai series #thai bl meta #thai drama #Birth Order Theory #steph overanalyzes #steph rambles

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five-rivers · 1 year ago

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Ziggurat

(For the Secret Saturdays)

AO3

Sunlight shone down on Zak’s face, casting a red glow through his eyelids. He breathed in deeply, relishing the scent of green and growing things. Soil and small plants tickled his bare feet as he curled his toes. Slowly, not wanting to disrupt the sense of peace that permeated him, Zak opened his eyes.

A step ahead of him, the ground dropped off into terraces. Well-tended and lush gardens rose out of each terrace, until the ground gave way to small, square and rectangular buildings covered in shiny glaze. The buildings in turn extended to a wall, tall and pale, decorated with carvings and paintings Zak could only just make out. Beyond that, because the terrace he stood on was very high up indeed, there was a river that curved, snakelike, and flashed in the sun, and fields carved with canals like immense vascular systems.

It was beautiful.

“Zak.”

He turned, and faced his host. He was tall, only a few inches shorter than Zak’s father, and his skin was a shade or two tanner than Zak’s. His long, wavy hair was tied back with a leather strap and his robes were long and pale, catching in the wind and showing off a slim fit body, very unlike…

Zak blinked as the comparison escaped him. Unlike who?

The man smiled gently. “Walk with me?”

“Sure,” said Zak with a shrug, before padding over to the man’s side. “Where to?”

“Hm,” said the man, apparently considering the question carefully. He tilted his head at the one structure on this tier. It was a tall building, with long, fluted, vertical windows, and the staircases that connected the different terraces lead right to it. “I don’t believe you’ve seen the temple, yet.”

Well, Zak certainly didn’t remember seeing the temple. “What is it a temple to?”

“The patron of this city,” said the man as he started to walk in that direction, “its protector and tutelary.”

Zak nodded as he walked alongside the man. Something moved in one of the shrubs, scales flashing bright, and he startled.

“Don’t worry,” said the man, stooping. “It’s just a snake.” He held out his hand and the snake crept out, crawling onto his fingers and wrapping around his wrist. Most of it was gray-green, but there was a bright red stripe all along its back. “A braid snake, to be precise. Or,” and the man smiled, “a wadi racer.”

“Wadi is named after a snake? Wow… I’ll have to let her know next time I see her.”

The man chuckled and ruffled Zak’s hair, which brought the snake a little too close to comfort. After the whole thing with the nagas, he’d become a bit wary of snakes. Which was silly, there were a lot of snake cryptids, but still…

“I don’t think that would be very diplomatic. In any case, I believe their names both stem from a term for a valley or channel that is dry except in the rainy season.”

“Oh,” said Zak. “I guess that makes sense. Are there a lot of snakes here? Just, uh, for reference.”

The man smiled as the small snake made itself at home on one of his shoulders. Their eyes were the same color.

“Yes, many. But no venomous ones at the moment.”

“Oh, that’s cool. Any cryptids?”

“A few, yes.” The man didn’t elaborate, and they continued to walk companionably through the garden.

But Zak couldn’t help but feel uneasy, as if he had forgotten something. Something big. Something important. Something that should not be thought of when he stood freely under the sun and walked in the gardens of a ziggurat.

A ziggurat.

He stopped. The man, too, stopped a few steps on, looking back at him curiously, a strand of white hair falling free of the tie. “Zak? Are you alright?”

“What,” Zak said, “is worshiped in the temple?”

“The tutelary of this city,” said the man, voice almost a whisper.

“Who is?” prompted Zak. “And… You. Who are you? Where am I?” He balled his fists and took another step back, suddenly aware of the snakes in the trees and underfoot. The sun falling on his shoulders and back no longer felt comforting, but harsh, punishing. “Where are my parents?”

The man looked… regretful. “I’d hoped to keep you here longer, this time,” he said. The snake around his shoulders was no longer the slender wadi racer, but something bigger, more threatening. His eyes flashed gold as he turned to face Zak fully. “But I think you know who I am.”

“Kur,” said Zak. He should have known. He should have recognized himself.

Kur inclined his head, as if he were a teacher acknowledging a point.

“What do you want?” demanded Zak, deciding to skip all the other questions, like ‘how do you still exist?’ for the moment.

“Ultimately, I want what you want,” said Kur, stroking the snake.

“I don’t want anything you want!” snapped Zak.

“Don’t you want to live, without pain and fear?” asked Kur. He looked away, into the middle distance. “We don’t have much time.” His eyes snapped back to Zak, burning gold. “You do not have to do this on your own. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself. If you call for it, help will come.”

“What are you talking about?”

The ground began to shake, the trees trembling. No sound accompanied the movement.

Kur looked… worried. “Remember this time. Please.”

Someone like Kur had no business looking like that. Zak opened his mouth to demand more answers, and–

He woke as he was roughly turned over, his body weight resting painfully on his bound hands. Something pulled the lids of his right eye back, and he tried to squirm away, but he was held still as large fingers pulled his right eye open.

“Anything yet?” asked a voice with a strong southern American accent.

“No, sir,” said a deeper, closer voice. Zak cringed away.

“I’m beginning to wonder if we haven’t been taken for a ride with all of this.”

Zak… hurt. That was the best way to describe it. His skin felt tender and rubbed raw, his joints were sore, he had bruises on bruises, his wrists and ankles ached, his heart was fluttering, and his head was pounding. He was hungry and thirsty and too hot.

It was so different from what he’d been dreaming about that it was giving him whiplash.

He blinked furiously, and his eyes finally focused on… Well, the guy hadn’t exactly introduced himself to Zak. The opposite, really. He was big, and strong, and dressed like Van Rook. Actually, he was a lot like Van Rook in general, but even worse. Van Rook liked to pretend he didn’t, but he did actually have morals.

As far as he could tell, these guys didn’t.

The other man was bland, fat, and clearly in charge of both the first man and everyone else here. Zak hadn’t seen him in anything other than a white three-piece suit, and he rarely deigned to remove himself from his place in the shade.

There were other people around, too. Other mercenary types, like the first man, and a rather lovely woman who seemed to be the fat man’s daughter. Zak, frankly, hated her the most.

“We have video evidence, Father,” said the woman. “We have V.V. Argost’s personal notes. This boy has the power to control armies of monsters. All we have to do is control him.”

“But we’ve no evidence of our own, dearheart.”

“He’s just being stubborn.”

“I’m not,” said Zak, voice cracking. He’d been lying here in the sun for who knew how long, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. “I gave up the power. I destroyed it.” Or, he’d thought he had. That dream… but sometimes dreams were just dreams, and none of the Kur dreams or visions he’d had before had been anything like that. Before, they’d been violent, almost delirious things… But then, most of the time, they hadn’t come from Kur himself, either, had they? They’d come from Rani Naga and Tsul’Kalu.

The woman walked up to Zak and the stone platform he’d been tied to, so she could stare down her nose at him. “No one gives up that kind of power. Not even stupid little boys. Turn him.”

The mercenary flipped him back over, and a moment later, he felt something sharp sink into his upper bicep.

“If the mystic energies of this temple aren’t encouraging you, maybe entheogens will do the trick,” said the woman, grim satisfaction lacing her words. “This is my own special batch. I’ve used it before. Not on myself, of course, but I’ve gotten plenty of feedback.”

Zak felt his heart speed up, fear - and whatever had just been injected - coursing through his veins.

The thing was– The thing was, even if Zak was highly trained, even if he knew how to do things no one else could, even if he’d saved the world, and died, and had led an army of monsters, he was still a single thirteen-year-old human being. One who no longer had special powers of any kind. It just wasn’t that hard for someone sufficiently motivated to find him, keep him captive, and… and…

“The word you’re looking for is ‘torture,’ I believe,” said Kur, sitting down next to Zak on the… was this an altar? Seriously? “Yes.” Kur, who was just slightly transparent, looked around himself in distaste. “You are missing memories. Or, perhaps, simply choosing not to remember.”

An altar… Was he supposed to be some sort of sacrifice?

“The vast majority of historical human cultures never practiced human sacrifice at the scale their enemies claimed, if they practiced it at all. The Aztecs were outliers… and even then, the situation is more complicated than most modern humans will credit.”

“... thought you hated humans,” mumbled Zak, each word weak and breathy.

“That, too, is a more complicated situation than my enemies would have you believe.”

How did Kur know all this stuff, anyway? He’d been dead for… for… The exact number was escaping him.

“I know this stuff because you know this stuff,” said Kur. “I am you.”

A painful spasm ran through Zak’s body, and color bloomed in front of his eyes, scintillating patterns chasing across every surface. He curled as much as he could and squeezed his eyes shut. Kur was still there, crystal clear.

“You know what an entheogen is. You know that this isn’t the first time they’ve drugged you. Although, the last drugs were more meant to make you pliant, rather than… This.” Kur gestured at the dark behind Zak’s eyelids. The gesture set off a wave of color that coalesced into the blinding white of a snowfield–

Ellef Ringnes? Antarctica?

As if on cue, the Antarctica cryptid rose from the snow dunes, teeth bared. Zak rolled, and, briefly, fell, before crashing hard into the ground. The elbow and shoulder he’d landed on throbbed, and he moaned in pain.

“Get him back up,” said the woman. Her voice sounded like it was underwater.

“This is only going to get worse,” said Kur. “You need help.”

“Don’t want your help,” said Zak, words slurred.

The man - the mercenary - said something, but Zak couldn’t understand it. The next thing he knew, everything went away, and when it came back, he was panting like he’d just run a mile. It was loud. Everything was loud.

“Seizure,” said Kur. “Wouldn’t be surprised if you had another.” Kur put an insubstantial hand on Zak’s knee. He couldn’t feel it, not really. There was no weight behind it. But his skin itched anyway. “It doesn’t have to be me. It can’t be me. I can’t help you more than you can help yourself. Call your brothers. Your sister. Your other friends. You’ve made many.”

Zak didn’t trust himself with a response. It was all he could do to keep breathing.

“Do you want to die?” Kur paused. “I’m not asking that to be cruel. I am, genuinely, curious as to your answer. After all, this would not be the first time you have sought out a very final solution to what you see as the problem of me.”

“Go away, you’re a hallucination. You’re not real.”

“That is a matter of perspective. Does being a hallucination make me less real? Does it make what I am saying less true?”

Zak was going to answer, and his answer was going to shut Kur up, for real this time, but everything went away again.

He was awake and despite the bad angle, his nails tried to dig into the stone of the altar beneath him. Something, anything, to hold himself down, to make things real. His skin felt soft and prickly, but in a strangely pleasant and utterly terrifying way, and he wanted, needed, someone to hold him and remind him that he was real.

He was real.

He was really in the garden on the ziggurat again, this time curled up in a hollow between two great trees. Kur sat beside him, leaning up against one of the trees, and began to hum.

"What," said Zak, voice shaking, "what song is that?"

"It doesn't have a name," said Kur. "But my first mother used to sing it to me, when I was young."

"First mother?"

"I lived many lives before I lived yours, Zak. When you die, I will simply move to the nearest empty vessel." Kur sighed heavily. "As it has always been."

Zak raised his eyes to actually look at Kur. He didn't sound nearly as happy about it as Zak would have expected.

"Of course I'm not happy about it," said Kur. "Are you happy about it? I'm not done being you."

"Why?" croaked Zak, the word catching on his throat.

Kur was quiet for a long time, and Zak started to fear he wouldn't answer.

"You're loved," he said, finally. "Even when they learned you were me, they loved you. I have been many things in many lives, but loved… rarely."

Zak rubbed his eyes, even though it didn't help and he wasn't really rubbing his eyes, anyway. "I don't want to die," he said, finally. "I want to go home." He swallowed, the motion sending pain shooting through his overly dry throat. “But I don’t– There’s nothing I can do. I did give up my powers. They’re gone.” It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried to use his powers before now, just to make sure they were gone.

“They aren’t. There never were any powers. There was only you. Me. Us. The strength of our soul.”

“I don’t understand.”

Kur held out his hand. “Then let me show you.”

Zak stared at the hand. He’d spent so long being afraid of Kur, but… Kur hadn’t actually hurt him, not like these people and…

He was scared.

(He was thirteen and he had saved the world, but he’d thought it was over, now, and he’d only just started to work through everything that had happened.)

He took Kur’s hand.

In every religion, in every culture, there are warnings against trifling with gods. Cautionary tales against hubris, against pride, against trespass and theft. Stories of the gods’ cruelty, their capriciousness, their judgement. But as much as it is within human nature to give these warnings and heed them, it is also human nature to disregard them.

Kur was a god.

An old god. A god that slept. A god that wished to forget that it was a god.

But such a god is a god all the same, and even more vicious and unforgiving than one who had been awake.

The temple was full of serpents and mushkhushshu. The serpents had gotten there first, many of them already being there, but only the very largest of snakes could actually eat a human corpse, and they were very poor with knots, so the mushkhushshu, the lion-serpents with their huge jaws, sharp talons, and sun-shading wings, were much welcome. He relied on their support to ease himself off the altar and walk, haltingly, to the interior of the temple, where the humans had set up their camp.

His arm was, at least, fractured. Being tied for so long made his joints ache, and as he rotated his one wrist, he worried about blood clots and the after-effects of the drugs he’d been given. There wasn’t much he could do if there were any, but knowledge was always difficult to ignore.

Better to focus on the things he could affect.

Water. Food. Clothing. The people here had to have brought some for themselves. Perhaps something for his sunburned skin. A map, to tell him where he was, although he already had his suspicions. Communication–

His eyes caught on a mirror hung in a tent. A ‘tent’ that was significantly more like a pavilion. Two gold coins looked back at him. He raised a shaking hand to his face, and let the power fade until his eyes were black again.

They still looked different.

Would his family notice? Would they realize, would they understand? Would they still reach out to him, hold him close, when Zak’s thirteen years were a thin veneer stretched out over an experience that went back centuries, even disregarding the time his soul spent imprisoned in stone?

(If he disappeared, could he pretend forever that they always would?)

(But if he did that, what was the point of staying Zak?)

Maybe not communication. Yet.

His eyes went gold again as he gently directed the mushkhushshu. He had limited experience with humans of this era, but there were only so many ways for a camp like this to be set up, and he’d grown up around archeological digs, expeditions of biologists, and the like. It wasn’t difficult to find the food preparation area.

He sunk down into a camp chair with a sigh of relief and rummaged through the chest refrigerator looking for bottled water. His physical condition was… bad. It would take time to recover from this.

He…

(He wanted to go home.)

One of the mushkhushshu he hadn’t exerted direct control over nudged his leg and dropped something in his lap. A cell phone, still streaked with blood.

“Thank you,” he said. His parents had raised him with manners. This time, at least.

They wouldn’t like that he had killed all these people.

A dozen half-formed plans, more like impressions, crowded his mind. He could recover here, go to a nearby city, say he’d escaped, gotten away, say that he didn’t remember what had happened to him, say something else had caused their deaths, something that wasn’t him. He could even blame it on cryptids. They didn’t know he still had his powers. He’d lied to them before, for his benefit and theirs. He could do it again. He would do it again, if it meant they’d still love him.

Uncle Doyle had killed people. They still loved him.

(He had only killed the people here. The ones who hurt him.)

(Except that wasn’t true. He had killed far more than that.)

Zak turned on the phone… and groaned loudly. “Password protected.” He tossed it onto a table, then patted the mushkhushshu on the head. “Maybe you can find a radio or something, huh, buddy?”

#secret saturdays #the secret saturdays #fic #fanfic

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esther-dot · 1 year ago

Note

I'm the 2011/2013 Tumblr anon, and this is kind of embarrassing to admit but I'm also the original Dune anon, if that gives you any idea of my fandom background. (*/ω＼*) I've been in fandom since I was probably eleven or twelve, so fandom is basically home to me lol. I was always more of a sci-fi fan than a fantasy fan growing up, and so it wasn't until GOT I heard of the books; I'd never been a fan of the show, and I was impartial at best to the books. (At school, I knew classmates were reading them--- but for full context, I was a nerd disliked by other nerds for being too weird, so I wanted nothing to do with Tolkien/GRRM lol). I still have a bone to pick with GRRM (and this is partly what limits my participation) and in the case of my regular fandom, I'm very much used to isolation lol. (It's alt-right trolls who have a problem with me... sigh. Imagine a ship like Jonsa which redeems the books' thematic ideas and that's my situation).

I actually was familiar with the Sansa/Sandor ship long before I was interested in either media, because of the shipping circles I run in. Going from that lack of context to the context revealed in the actual books was very weird, because they seem like extremely disparate concepts. If you take Sansa/Sandor scenes and rearrange things, including the numbers in Sansa's age, it does feel like a powerfully violent BatB rendering with a dash of medieval pseudorealism; he's no prince and the romance is impossible, but perhaps he could be her knight or guardian in an unconsummated chaste romance or secret affair etc. It made me really rethink some of the ships I was interested in, and why, and where my tastes diverged from people I usually trusted. I am much less interested in ship archetypes by themselves than how those are enshrined in the narrative/themes at stake. It's also just interesting to me that Jonsa is an arguably truer, redeeming rendering of BatB, or a revisitation of that theme--- which GRRM is interested in, Sansa/Sandor fans are correct about that, but I think it's foreshadowing a future arc for her. Surely all the BatB exploration is being set up for something big?

So how did I find Jonsa.... well, it was a consequence of reading the books lol, though I imagine many people would say the show was illuminating (which is no condemnation that antis think it is). My interest in the books was primarily piqued through the show's ending--- I came to things rather late, but I'm thankful for that, considering that it seems like some of the best fandom discourse has taken place since then. I was mostly interested in it for the purposes of comparison of adaptation, which I find very interesting, and because I find predicting endgames in general very fun albeit painful. I watch a lot of things just to see what my instinctual feeling is because I like practising my narrative divination. I like engaging with storytelling! But I do have a mechanical fascination with it as well. I think this motivated my sending an ask about Dune to both you and transdimensional-void, mostly because the thing that often leads me in the right direction is getting a 'feeling' for the tone of something--- sometimes even beyond pure narrative reasoning. Lol

You'd ordinarily think the show would be offputting to a Jonsa theory (and this is a major spanner in the works, although I do kind of only semi-ironically believe they paired Jon with D/aenerys because E/milia Clarke is shorter than Kit H/arrington, where S/ophie is too tall, which they couldn't have predicted before being informed about a potential Jonsa resolution--- when in doubt, assume stupidity) but Jonsa is also deliciously ironic and tragic even if redeemed through an actual marriage (and we have so many weddings, over and over, that a symbolic redemption of Rhaegar/Lyanna's wound is basically being begged for--- Lyanna is realised in many ways in the story, through both Arya and Sansa... but it makes sense they'd redeem two sides to Lyanna, the wild wolfgirl and the girl married to a dragon. The wound inflicted through Rhaegar's absconding with Lyanna has to be redeemed, whether that is positively or shirking the possibility of a Lyanna/Rhaegar union altogether, so the door is open for tragic Jonsa in my eyes. These types of narrative questions are what I look out for when predicting narrative resolutions and is what led to me to seriously consider Jonsa). I was meditating on this recently because people were asking whether Cat and Ned would approve, and the marriage is only possible because they're dead. A Jon/Sansa arrangement is only possible because they have lost the people they loved most, and perhaps--- like I've seen suggested!--- it might even drive Arya away. As a writer, that, to me, is how you make Ned and Catelyn's deaths in the story echo in a bittersweet way. It's good storytelling. It goes beyond 'and we re-enact the lessons of parents' which is the normal way you'd realise parental remembrance and legacy. And something tells me GRRM isn't interested in predictability. Unless you've read Gothic literature.

So, beyond Jonsa I'm very interested in the reasoning underpinning the show's derivations, and in my case I'm much more interested in Jonsa in the books than the show (that wasn't really what did it), though in the case of the show, I'm interested in where you can potentially see reflections of a book dynamic. But so much of the adaptation is muddied that it's hard to parse, and I'm really not sure how much of GRRM's suggestions they truly had versus what they stuck to. If they knew they needed 'a Jon romance', in the same way as they needed Robb to break his wedding pact with the Freys, but supplemented Talisa, what was motivating their decisionmaking? D/aenerys was the selling star of the show and basically the face of it, and the face of the merchandise and the cultural conversation etc. (which is why they made her death punishing--- the storytelling is so spiteful, and normally I'm a villain apologist through and through, but this case was particularly egregious) and it would seem silly not to give her a romance, because how can you write important female characters without romance? Now, I'm a perennial romance apologist, but the thinking here, to me, seems rather suspicious. So, I think what's special about ASOIAF right now is we've got a theoretical ending through the show, but where does that translate to the books? And where does the fandom get it wrong, and where do they get it right? The historic ubiquity of Sansa/Sandor, and many other fandom trends (e.g. D/aenerys is the rightful ruler, or tragic heroine, and so on) is kind of like honey to me, because all of those theories were completely blown out of the water by the show, but critically--- critically--- there's still room for expansion in the book for other directions. I was put off by simplistic interpretations of the books that floated around and when I read them the fandom characterisation, crossplatform, was actually shocking to me.

Since you asked--- and I'm terribly sorry--- I have a lot of feelings about when TWOW may or may not come out, not just because of anticipation, but because GRRM's authorial struggle is hard to watch through the eyes of fandom. The condemnation of his procrastination, his apparent carelessness--- that he 'took the money and ran'--- the hopelessness--- it's very hard to watch, and what I wonder is how he feels as a writer. Releasing TWOW will lead him into the final endgame, and he'll have to say goodbye to his magnum opus. That is very hard, beyond the show sailing ahead, and beyond anything else. It also gets to me in a personal way (which no one else can help!) because I am a writer trying to finish a long work, and I'm literally at the equivalent point GRRM is, and--- although he's a celebrated published author, and I'm writing for the sole joy of it--- I think that there is probably something fundamentally similar there, which is that holy fuck it's hard. It doesn't matter how much you know what you need to do, doing it is hard, and writing itself is actually an extremely difficult task. And by writing that means formulating ideas, as well as actual finger to DOS machine.

Writing sometimes is kind of like trying to paint a person, except you've never seen a human being before.

But I think that if GRRM is really committed to his bittersweet romanticism, he can pull off a goodbye, lol. And as much as I quibble with his narrative ethos and sometimes he makes me tear my hair out, I want to see him complete his work, because I think every single author deserves that. And because I think that at a minimum, for something like ASOIAF, the legacy of its ending ought to be his final say. I can't speak to his actual psyche but I do fully believe if he can publish TWOW, he can do ADOS. My observation is that TWOW is structurally much more difficult than ADOS, and I think that's one of many reasons he's been dragging his heels, long before the show caught up. Once he gets to the victory lap of ADOS, he will probably have both a professionally and emotionally easier time in terms of having to finish it. TWOW merges the split threads of AFFC and ADWD, whereas ADOS will only have to follow through (touch wood) on the one book, where many perspectives and their storylines will have converged--- at some point, we may have Sansa, Jon, and Brienne all unified! Which resolves character goals as well as being more economic with POV distribution. This is the angle I find very interesting because I think the way he uses character chapters to establish context and meaning beyond pure character is actually genius and rarely done so well in genre fiction, and I'm completely envious of it. (This is also why Jon/Sansa makes so much sense).

This is a terribly long ask so please don't feel the need to respond line by line, lol. I think I got a little excited! Having a positive fandom interaction is so nice. It's really weird that fandom has become such a polarised place (I mean, we had ship wars, but people kept to themselves more), and you're lucky Jonsa is your first fandom--- well, outside of the anti-Jonsas--- because I think it's a lovely place.

This goes for any Jonsa reading it: thank you all for literally keeping me sane. 🥰🥰🥰🥰 If I may ask, Esther, I think you've said that you came to Jonsa through the show then the books--- what drew you to Tumblr fandom? I'm always interested in how people find fandom!

Dune, anon! I'll tag @transdimensional-void because your convo about it did make me finally watch Dune (although I still don't think I'll read the book, sorry!), but the film was gorgeous. I didn't realize the director was Villeneuve. He always has very interesting projects and arresting visuals. Arrival was such a surprising take on an alien movie and it has really stayed with me. I think he has exquisite pacing, too.

Well now I’m even more concerned about the attempted doxing! Horrifying. The internet can be a wonderful thing, but I swear, it brings out the absolute worst in people.

I totally get what you mean about S*nsan seemingly being a BatB thing, but I’ve suggested before that it’s more in line with one of the old monster movies or even King Kong which love to pair something terrifying with a beautiful woman or little girl. It doesn’t mean romance, it’s the juxtaposition of extremes, raw power being stopped by beauty, violence being calmed by gentleness. There’s that line at the end of King Kong, “It was beauty killed the beast.” IMO, the beast and beauty idea is certainly there for the Hound and Sansa, I just don't think it's Disney's Beauty and the Beast. It's a highly romanticized idea, but not a romance in the way we use the term now.

My parents are both huge readers, not really into novels. My dad liked The Hobbit and LOTR tho, and got really into doing dramatic readings of those at bedtime for us kids. I remember The Hobbit the best because he’d make up tunes for all the songs and sing them. They’re very nostalgic for me, that love extends to the LOTR movies, but made it impossible for me to sit through the Hobbit adaptation. Anyway, I read a few sci fi and fantasy books, but I never really got into it. My little sister on the other hand luuuuurrrvs fantasy and she was the one who got me to watch GoT (I’d heard of the books, hadn’t read them) together, but then we ended up living in different states and she decided that it should be our thing to avoid spoilers and only watch the show when we got together. So, we were always running behind from that point on, but we made it through s5 that way. Eventually we just didn’t have the time to do that, and she was so disgusted with s5 she was happy to drop it completely--never watched another episode. I was too invested to stop, so I watched s6-7 myself and was simply appalled by the characterization of Jon. It made me get online for GoT content for the first time. This was in 2018. I saw that Martin gave interviews saying the show’s ending would be his ending, so I a) sped read the books, b) started listening to some of his interviews, c) saw the term “Jonsa” for the first time in the comments of one.

It took nothing to get me onboard because Jon and Sansa were my favorites, I really loved their scenes together, I hated everything after they separated in s7, and I read a lot of 19th century lit as a teenager, so cousin marriage didn't even strike me as weird in the historical context. I can't remember which meta it was I read first, one of Fedon's or blindestspot's prediction of a Jonsa reunion and marriage from 2013, but I got on tumblr and was totally sucked into the fandom.

“I do kind of only semi-ironically believe they paired Jon with D/aenerys because E/milia Clarke is shorter than Kit H/arrington, where S/ophie is too tall” — I’m screaming. D&D @ Kit: "Sorry buddy, if you didn’t want your character to fall in love with a mass murdering tyrant you should have kept growing." lmaooooo.

“Jonsa is also deliciously ironic and tragic even if redeemed through an actual marriage (and we have so many weddings, over and over, that a symbolic redemption of Rhaegar/Lyanna's wound is basically being begged for--- Lyanna is realised in many ways in the story, through both Arya and Sansa... but it makes sense they'd redeem two sides to Lyanna, the wild wolfgirl and the girl married to a dragon. The wound inflicted through Rhaegar's absconding with Lyanna has to be redeemed, whether that is positively or shirking the possibility of a Lyanna/Rhaegar union altogether, so the door is open for tragic Jonsa in my eyes.” --You put this so beautifully. I wish you'd get a side blog and post that in the Jonsa tag, I love it!

One of the major puzzles to me is how the fandom all know just how much the text talks to itself, it's notably self-referential, so the way they dismiss the idea of Rhaegar's son and a Stark girl romance...I have a really hard time believing they don't see the logic there, how it would bring things full circle. The way they treat S*nsan as "practically canon" while calling Jonsa a crack ship when we have that hanging over our heads is a little incomprehensible.

“I was meditating on this recently because people were asking whether Cat and Ned would approve, and the marriage is only possible because they're dead. A Jon/Sansa arrangement is only possible because they have lost the people they loved most, and perhaps--- like I've seen suggested!--- it might even drive Arya away.” --I agree with this too. I am very struck by how NedCat, some of the best people and one of the best relationships Martin offers, has this pain and tragedy written into their love. That's a big reason why I can't quite get on board with an easy resolution to Jonsa, because Martin is just drawn to conflict which is why his characters and story is so compelling, but also makes me think, there will be layers to Jonsa, some real pain there.

“And something tells me GRRM isn't interested in predictability. Unless you've read Gothic literature.” — I once posted a list of gothic lit tropes and he’s included all of them. But Gothic heavily influenced horror, and ASOIAF has horror elements, so that isn't totally surprising when you think about it. It still amuses me though!

It’s definitely a real struggle to see the sense behind D&D’s choices but when I was reading an interview looking for a specific quote, I did see that even in 2011 Martin was saying he knew the endgames, which is a) comforting for Sansa ending up safely in Winterfell purposes, b) reassuring for Dark Dany believers, c) hilarious when you think about how many people are still pissed about Arya and Bran’s fates. And Jon? Well, I’ve made my peace with a tragic ending (although I’ve mocked it a great deal too because I can't see how it works), but we all know they fucked him over the most in s7-8, so I could also see D&D trashing what his ending was meant to be in favor of catering to Targ fans. Apparently Emilia has recently reiterated her frustration that Jon “got away” with killing Dany, so like…imagine the rage if he’d killed Dany and then got a HEA in Winterfell.

My feeling is that Martin told them Jon would kill Dany and they chose to do "the romance" (which imo, they didn't like because the way they wrote and filmed it and permitted Kit to act it just...sabotaged it in every way imaginable) to make it more palatable to her fans who ate it up. They actually are comforted that Jon "loved" Dany and after s8 dropped pics/gifs of him cradling her dead body into our tag bragging that he loved her. Like, D&D made really crappy choices, but I think it was about manhandling their audience while hitting Martin's plot points they knew the Targ fans would hate, not a result of them throwing out the endgames.

“ The condemnation of his procrastination, his apparent carelessness--- that he 'took the money and ran' --I’m not a Martin defender, I have real reservations with some of his choices, but I have family his age and do try to think of him as a person. I find a lot of how people speak of him...well, I have no issue with people being frustrated we don't have TWOW considering how long ago he said he'd finish it (like, back in 2016) and how often since then he's indicated getting close to the end only for it to then sound like he's quite a ways away. As long as people don't harass him, I don't think it's an issue to talk about this in fandom spaces. However, they often sound ignorant of what it takes to write something like ASOIAF, with all the levels he's trying to work on. Also, his writing style sounds like a total nightmare? The idea of tearing things up to fix them seems hopeless to me, and he’s talked about doing this repeatedly—it would be so hard to finish a chapter or several and then realize, nope, gotta rework all of it.

“because I am a writer trying to finish a long work, and I'm literally at the equivalent point GRRM is, and--- although he's a celebrated published author, and I'm writing for the sole joy of it--- I think that there is probably something fundamentally similar there, which is that holy fuck it's hard.” --Oh ho ho! Well, you know that’s gonna make me have all sorts of questions, so if you want to tell me about your work (genre, tome or series, influences, themes etc) I am all ears, but I also know some writers have to keep all that to themselves until they’re done so I won’t pry. Although, because of our exchanges, I would be interested in how you use romance in your own writing.

“writing itself is actually an extremely difficult task” // “Writing sometimes is kind of like trying to paint a person, except you've never seen a human being before.” —dead! I think the issue is, many people don’t distinguish between types of writing? So someone doesn’t distinguish between the goal and what say, a modern romance is attempting to accomplish versus a Jane Austen novel. They might end the evaluation at "like or didn't" and not grasp what all goes into different types of novels, their individual successes or failures, and why some novelists can complete multiple novels in a year, another might spend a few years on one. I think about this a lot when I see people suggest Martin get some ghost writers, and like, this man isn’t churning out genre fiction (which I love, I was a snob as a teen and cured myself, but it is an entirely different kind of writing!), so it's just...a lot of fans totally misjudge the effort required and how easily replicated the work would be.

“I think that at a minimum, for something like ASOIAF, the legacy of its ending ought to be his final say” --I find it incredibly sad every year that goes by and the chance of him completing his series dwindles. People forget that what holds sway over a culture doesn’t always have staying power and a) I think his work is doomed to being forever misinterpreted unless he finishes and b) I don’t think he’ll have accomplished what he wanted to regarding elevating fantasy / getting it the respect he believes it deserves unless he gets to that ending. It's a shame.

I enjoyed reading all your thoughts on Jonsa, the ideas it touches on and how GoT/ASOIAF might differ. Thank you!

#long post #dot chat

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4kennels · 3 months ago

Text

Happy Tails Grooming

Brett and Mike my “new masters” jumped out of the cab of the pick up truck and come around to the back and open the wire gate of the large pet carrier, cage.

Mike pulls out a leash and attaches it to my collar. The pull me out and tell me to stay on my hind legs until they command otherwise.

As they tug me we walk across the parking lot toward the front entrance of a business called the “HAPPY TAILS GROOMING.” Brett and Michael chat and chuckle along the way as I follow silently behind looking straight ahead, ignoring the murmuring from the milling shoppers who notice our arrival, as best I can.

But come on... this is easily the highest level of humiliation I've ever experienced. I am dressed in a black leather dog collar, a pair of daisy-duke denim shorts, a t-shirt with DAWG printed in large letters. Thevt-shirt has been cropped off just below my pecs, i am wearing flip flops. I am being lead by a noisy silver chain leash.

Then a shout from my left takes the humiliation to another level,

"J. C. Webster? I can't believe my eyes!

J, C. is that you? What happened, dude, bad batch of weed?"

I don't want to look, but it's a reflex thing and I turn my head to the left, effectively confirming that it is indeed me...

Mike says “…yes, it's J.C. Webster almost naked in girl's jean shorts that are so small they don't even cover his bush, dog collar around his neck, and lady's flip flops complete his outfit; lovely!”

I'm also the only individual who isn't wearing a normal shirt or top of some kind. And normal masculine shorts.

Brett: “Yes, it's him... say hi, J.C.”

Oh God! I'll never be able to show my face in Atlanta again. The guy who shouted to me is Neil Bankers, my former next door neighbor at my pre-bankruptcy home. He's shorter than me so I always beat him at one-on-one basketball and afterward I wasn't a good-sport about it either, taunting and mocking him and so forth. So, oh yeah, he'll definitely be happy to spread the news in my old neighborhood about the new me.

He's with his buddy, Dwayne Jackson, who calls over, "Woof, woof, grrrr!" and people, that none of us know, laugh out loud and point me out to those who haven't spotted me yet. That's followed by other mocking catcalls, but my eyes are burning from the heat of my face and there's a hollow echoing in my ears, so I don't register much of what is yelled in my direction. When we finally walk into the dog grooming shop everyone laughs even louder... me wearing a dog collar going into a dog grooming shop...

ha, fucking, ha! Ya know, I can't ever remember seeing Mike enjoying himself this much... ever!

Inside Happy Tails Grooming there are a number of people talking among themselves waiting for their groomed dogs to be brought out to them. All talking stops when we walk in, silently everyone openly stares at me. My entire body is blushing and there's no place to hide. It's deafeningly silent now and I get the most intense urge to adjust my package, but don't dare. In the silence time crawls to a standstill and all I can hear is my heart beating and a noisy- nose-breather who turns out to be an old guy standing to my right.

This old fellow finally touches my shoulder, and asks, "What are you?"

Good question.

I ignore him as a huge bear of a man comes out from behind a door to my right, he's leading a beagle and a collie on leashes. Both dogs obviously have been recently washed and groomed. A booming voice from the man, "Here ya go, Robert. Snooky is beautiful again."

He hands the dog's leash to the rude old man who'd asked me what I was, then the Bear of a man booms out, "Here ya go girls, Icetea is ready to go home," and hands the leash of the beagle to two butch looking ladies who smile and give Barry a thumbs-up. "Please pay at the register ."

Then, to the remaining woman, "Pearl is ready too, I'll get her for you."

Turning to us, He speaks loud enough so everyone can hear, "Let me guess... which one of you needs a wash and a cut," and he laughs in a boisterous, but friendly way, as Brett's saying, "I'm Brett Knight, remember me; Junior's brother?" He takes hold of the leash attached to my collar, and now in a whisper all could hear,

"How could I forget you or your brother, buddy! You boys brought that long haired man to be groomed. Your doggie play is right up my alley. What is your pup’s name?”

Not having named me or called me anything but DAWG, Brett and Mike consider and exchanged options.

Finally Brett said “Fido.”

The big man continued, “This one will take about twenty minutes. Do you want to come back... or do you want to wait."

Brett says, "We'll be back," and they leave.

Barry grins and orders, "Down boy and I'll walk you into the washing station."

I'm so used to getting down when told to, I do it and the person waiting for Pearl gasps, as the big man, who's apparently Barry, is saying, "I'm kidding with you, boy! Get up."

I get up pretending I was kidding too, and follow him inside. Well, what the fuck... he does have me on a leash.

Inside the grooming space there's that unmistakable smell of dogs, and that unpleasant strong smell of the perfume in dog shampoos.

Barry says, "Strip, and I'll lift ya into that big tub at the end so you can soak."

There's a medium size dog in the tub next to the big one, he's looking at me with his ears pointing up.

Naturally I hesitate... I mean, "Get undressed, are you shitting me?" I'm smiling, like I get the joke, but he's sincere this time, and says,

"No, Fido... this time I'm not kidding. Unless bathed properly, I won't groom a dog, no matter from the human species or canine species! And, no offense, but you smell like a toilet."

That goddammed dirty rag Mikey used on me earlier! Still, I'm hesitating because this is so far from real life experiences that it boggles my mind.

He's nice about it when he says, "Make-up your mind, buddy... I've got a lot of grooming to do before eight o'clock tonight. I'm good with this kinky stuff, I'm down with and my boyfriend and I dabble in it ourselves. You'll either go along with Brett's wishes, or you won't... I don't force anything on anybody. You need to want me to do it, before I'll do it. Okay?"

What can I do? Brett and Mike have already gone, maybe Brett didn't know about this naked bath... what the fuck, I'm not going to give him an excuse to whip me again. Resigned once more to my fate, I pull off the flip flops and peel off my t-shirt, saying, "Yeah, let's do it."

Barry takes over and starts to unbutton the daisy dukes. I impulsively attempt to stop it, but he is in control, saying laughingly , "Don't worry, I've seen penises before, on you dogs and even a man or many and, frankly, penises aren't much different from breed to breed."

His eyes briefly get big when he checks me out. This unbelievably embarrassing situation has shrunken my dick to the size it was when Brett swatted it with the fly-swatter. He bites his lip, then real quietly murmurs, "Okay, we got ourselves a real little puppy/baby boy here."

As the color of my blush darkens and spreads to my chest, he puts a large hand at the back of my neck, then stoops down to gets his forearm under my knees and picks me up like I weight five pounds.

'Humiliating' simply doesn't cover it.

Without any noticeable strain, he holds me away from his body and then a boy comes in the backdoor... Barry stands there holding me, smiling at the boy. He's about twelve, a shocked expression on his cute face as it registers that a five foot-eight-inches-tall man with a tiny dick is naked in Barry's arms. There's no apparent fucking end to my humiliation... 'humiliation?" there has to be a stronger word than humiliation to describe this stuation. My whole body turns red.

Barry says, "Oh, hi, Roy. Just a sec, buddy..." as he's taking three steps to the big tub and then sits me in the doggie bath of luke warm water. Roy stares at me like he's just seen a space ship land from outer space, but I can't look back at him. The water I'm sitting in smells strongly of dogs and that peculiar cloying smelling dog shampoo I mentioned earlier. Now I'm surrounded by it as I sit on the bottom of a large dog's bathtub with my knees up and out of the water, water reaching up to my nipples. There are soap suds and other unidentifiable matter floating in the water making it too cloudy for me to see to the bottom. Many different kinds of dog hairs float on top of the water sticking to the suds and to me. The skanky water, the dog hairs, plus the small matter of a twelve year old boy gawking at me sitting naked in a doggie bath, combined to have me on the verge of puking, but I pull myself together. Gravel or something like gravel on the bottom of the tub is prickling at my buttocks, and it's totally gross!

Roy, still staring dumbfounded at me, says, in a monotone voice, "I'm collecting for the newspaper, Barry."

Ignoring Roy, he says to me, "Would ya stand-up for a second, buddy? I gotta grab that bungee cord down there somewhere."

I slowly stand up and Roy gets a second look at my shriveled dick. He looks up at me and I look away, then glance back to see him pointing at my penis, then pulling his hand back to cover his mouth, laughingbquietly. I'm surprised my fucking head doesn't burst into flames I'm so embarrassed.

Barry is clueless, he pulls a bungee cord up from the bottom, saying, "I'm busy now, Roy; can ya ask Steve at the register for the money, I'd appreciate it, honey."

Roy says, "Um, sure... why you washing a man in the big dog tub?"

Barry laughs, and says, "He just wanted to try it, honey... you run along now."

I glance over at him and when he sees me looking he points to my crotch, and then back at me holding his fingers an inch inch apart and I again avert my eyes gasping.

Roy giggles... I hate giggling! He leaves the shop walking out the door Molly and I came through a couple minutes ago. I can hear him saying to someone, Molly's grooming a tall naked man with a one inch teenie weenie." Tears of rage form in my eyes... how much humiliation can one guy take?

Barry is humming a soothing sound, unconcerned about the interruption, he quietly says, "Let's get you secure in here so you can enjoy your soak."

Pulling a thick bungee cord from the other side, under my knees, and then pulling on the cord raising my knees further out of the water, she attaches thebcord to this side. Elevating my knees like that would have dunked me backwards under water except Barry anticipated that and got his big hand behind my neck just in time. He then strings another bungee cord lower, just in front of my ankles, pulling my ankles back and I'm pretty much secured in place.

My face is still hot and red from my encounter with Roy, but logic tells me I'll never see him again in my life so I'm willing myself to put it out of mind. Barry's oblivious to my distress; he sweetly asks, "Can you hold onto the sides for a few minutes yourself, puppy? I'll be right with ya soon as I finish Lance. You just enjoy soaking in there for a while, okay?" He's being very nice about everything, but "COME ON!!" I'm naked in a fucking dog bath, for christsakes, and this place is as busy as Grand Central Station!

Lance is apparently the poodle in the smaller cage. Barry carries him to the grooming table and hooks a slip collar around the pouch's neck, then a bungee cord is stretched just under his belly in front of his hind legs. The dogs been washed and dried already, his white hair very clean looking and fluffy. Barry wastes no effort, everything is done efficiently, but not in a hurried manner.

He likes what he's doing, I guess. Music plays in the background although Barry himself is mostly silent except for calming sounds he makes as he handles the dog. He cups the poodle's snout to manipulates the head as he uses clippers to groom the dog in a typical poodle cut. First the bare clippers get the belly and back and parts of the leg etc. Then, a clippers over comb method is used to evenly cut the longer hair areas. It's a silly looking cut if ya ask me, but it's what the dog's master wants.

Brett left instructions for my grooming too, "Not shaved Barry, but down to the scalp. A buzz cut."

He'd said, "You got it, buddy!" So that's that; and, ya know what... after a while you can accept just about anything. It's like I told Mike..."Boys like Me, who get bullied all the time, begin to accept it and even think they somehow deserve the bullying. Nothing specific, just that they deserve to be dominated and humiliated." That's pretty much where I am now, I guess.

Brett just overwhelms my senses, one outrageous humiliation after another. It's never over and now there's Mike to contend with too, a tag-team match... and as a result, here I am getting groomed at Happy Tails Groomers.

Barry takes about ten minutes with Lance. While he's grooming him, me and the pointy eared dog in the bath next to mine, watch his every move. As I said,

Barry's a large man. He's almost a foot taller than i am and almost three times as wide as I am, with huge hands and thick wrists. Done with Lance, he pets him and is tender with him, cuddling with him like i wish i had someone do me. Lance, contented and happy, yips a couple of times and is then put back into a cage where he immediately lies down and goes to sleep.

Barry pets the pointy eared dog sitting in the bath next to mine and murmurs comforting sounds to him before finishing with, "I gotta do this big puppy first, hope ya don't mind, Butch ," as the dog focuses on Barry's every word, looking alert. Then, before he can begin washing me a bell sounds and he goes out front to see what's up. He's a loud talker out there and I can hear him talking to the owner of her next grooming appointment.

A minute later Barry's back leading another medium size dog, of unknown breed, into the cage next to Lance's. Lance immediately wakes up and the two dogs go about smelling each others asshole through the bars.

Barry plucks the sponge from the tub he washed a dog in earlier, squeezes doggie shampoo onto it, and drops it into my bathtub, saying to me, "Pinch your nose closed, puppy, I'm dunking you under." With unhurried, smooth movements, he places his meaty hand partially behind my neck leaving his thumb over the front of my shoulder, I got my nose pinched closed as he knocks my other hand away from the side of the tank and firmly pulls my torso down dunking my head, shoulders, and chest and stomach into the yucky water. I'm submerged from the top of my head to just above my dick with my thighs, knees, and most of my calves out of the water draped over the bungee cord. I'm holding my breath for all I'm worth with eyes tightly closed. Barry's using the dog-bathing sponge in his left hand to scrub my face and head, then behind my neck and shoulders. Long strokes under my arms and down my sides. He manipulates my body with the one hand shoulder grip and at one point my head comes up near the surface for a second and then is forced down again as the sponge forcefully scrubs my chest. I desperately need to breath and try sitting up using the bungee cords for leverage, but my stomach muscles are no match for Barry's hold on my shoulder. The dog hair and germ infected soapy/shampooie water feels almost greasy and I force myself not to think about it. Barry methodically wipes the sponge over my torso, then reaches under to get my back. A few more swipes over my head and she pulls me up. I come out of the water gasping for oxygen, sputtering and spitting out water that slipped past my lips, "How many dogs get washed in this water before he changes it, anyway?"

But, oh man, it's so wonderful to be able to breathe again. My whole body, covered in dog hairs, is tense as my heart pounds and my chest heaves, but at least there's oxygen available to breathe.

Barry continues to be unconcerned about any of my many distresses; apparently dogs get panicky too and he's used to it. Being sure of his skills he remains calm, quietly making soothing noises and then soothingly says, "You're fine, puppy... no worries. Oh, did Barry keep ya under too long? If I did I'm sorry. Arms out in front, please... and don't worry so much, I've got ya, you're safe."

He squeezes the back of my neck and continues with, "This is fun for me, doing you boy puppies, I mean... and especially one as cute as you. Never fear though, I'm not going to hurt you." He adjust his palm behind my head supporting me and that, plus the way he talks, has a very calming influence on me and there's something trustworthy about him too, so I loosen my death grip on the sides of the tub and hold my arms out in front of me as he requested. Barry uses the sponge to wash up and down both arms, then extra scrubbing on the palms of my hands which are dirty from walking on all fours. Leaning over me he reaches the bottle of doggie shampoo and squeezes another good amount on the sponge, all the time easily holding my head out of the water with his other hand. He says, "Relax, okay? What's your name, cutie?" Falling under his control I all of a sudden feel like a little boy, I squeak out, "J.C. Webster," sounding like a little kid. He goes, "Well, relax, J.C., or maybe i should call you FIDO. I've got control of everything, can't ya tell?" I mumble, "Yes, sir, ah... do you expect anyone else to come through? It's kinda embarrassing." He goes, "Probably not, but what's to be embarrassed about. Roy's seen naked males before, I'm pretty sure."

I'm thinking, "Getting washed and groomed in a dog grooming salon? I don't fucking think Roy's seen that a lot!"

And he says, "What's to be embarrassed about?" Is he out of he fucking mind?! Anyway, he doesn't appear to have a mean bone in his body, plus he has a calmness about him and he's nice, so I lay back against his hand and let my arms float among the dog hairs and, whatever else is floating there, and more or less just surrender myself totally to his care. "Good puppy" he purrs, "Let Barry take care of you. Okay, puppy?"

Now I'm in one of those trances, feeling like I'm in a dream, like I'm floating on air. I'm also getting kinda used to the strong odor of the dogs and their shampoo by now too so I let myself drift off into Barryworld, mumbling, "Sure, it's okay, thanks sir. This is nice." And, this mood he's put me in is nice... he has such a calm manner about him, it's no wonder dogs instinctively trust him. It's peaceful knowing he'll be kind to me too; so different from the way I feel when I'm under Brett's or Mike’s control. Using the sponge, freshly covered in doggie shampoo, he washes my groin area with me opening my legs wide giving his full access to my little pecker and long scrotum, she murmurs, "Good boy, let's get your hiney now, okay?" I go, "Okay, Barry," as he's reaching under me running that sponge back and forth in my crack, them he's rubbing the sponge all over both my bubble butts, then the back of my legs and up to my knees. A few more swipes over my asshole, Barry smiles, and in baby-talk, says, "Let's make sure Barry cleans your bumper real good." I smile back at him as I drift off into space.

He moves to the front of the tub to finish washing me so I again hold onto the sides keeping my head above the dirty water. He washes my calves and then my feet. "You have nice big feet and long toes!" he quietly says, as he's wiggling my big toe. I smile at that too; it's wonderful being under the control of someone who's nice, who's kind. Barry drops the sponge into the tub and takes large nail clippers off a side table. Holding my foot out of the water by cupping the heel in her palm, she cuts my toenails down to the quick. The nail clipper looks like a regular one only stronger with a spring to help cut through tough dog's nails. They cut through my toenails like cutting through nothing at all. Finished with the nail clipping of the first foot, he massages it, digging his thumbs into the arch until it almost hurts, but not quite. When the water presses against the top of my toes it feels funny. I've never had my toenails cut down this far before; the sensations of the water against new toe areas is strange. He finishes with my other foot and is now holding one of my wrist in his large hand cutting my fingernails the same way he did my toenails. After he cuts them, my fingernails are so short only the pink part remains, looking like they have pale pink nail polish on them.

Finished both hands, he unhooks the front bungee cord and casually picks me out of the water, his arms under my knees and his other meaty hand behind my neck; I like the way Barry's carrying me. It's like I weight nothing at all and I feel like putting my arms around his neck the way I did with my daddy when I was a toddler... but I don't.

Looking back at the tub and the dirty water, I see my finger nails floating on top of the water mingling with the dog hairs. Dog's toenails are probably dense enough to sink slowly to the bottom of the tub and could be the prickly things I sat on when first put into the doggie bathtub. "Pinch your nose again, puppy. We've going for a dip in the rinsing tank." It's a large deep plastic container that looks like a small above-ground pool. I pinch my nose with both hands, squeezing my eyes shut tight, like a three year old might do before being dunked in the pool by his mommy, "Wheeeee!" He dips me in, totally submerging me with water up to his muscular shoulders. Then up out of the water, then right back down into the water again. Pulling me out entirely now, me dripping with water, still some dog hairs clinging to me, but cleaner ones this time. Thinking this wasn't all that bad, I wipe the water out of my eyes and open them to see two girls and a guy come in the same back door Roy used. All of them are about twenty years old, maybe a year or two older. The girl points at me, and says, "Oh my God! What the hell, Uncle Barry? Ya taking in the homeless now?"

They all laugh nervously as Barry's setting me on the drying table. I'm on all fours because that's the way she set me down. My dick shrinks even more, to a bare nub, and my face is glowing red, the heat on my shoulders is uncomfortable... all from my blush. The three unexpected guests slowly walk around the tank to get a better look, as Barry says, "Oh, hi, Cheryl. Cover your eyes, honey, or you'll embarrass FIDO."

Barry's hooking me up the same way he did with the poodle; a slip collar around my neck, pulled tight. I'm comatose by now and anything anyone says sounds like a repeating echo. I look straight down at the table top without moving a muscle, hoping perhaps if I don't move no one will notice me. Barry's movements continue to be unhurried and efficient, and as he stretches a bungee cord under my belly down near my groin and another one over the back of my knees, he says,

"He not a homeless person, just one of you college kids goofing around with some friends... a dare of some kind. A kinky dare and you know me and kinky, don'cha, Cheryl. We go together like bread and butter."

I can't move forward or backward, completely immobilized and my brain is frozen, while my body's on fire. Each second feels like an hour!

Molly takes what looks like a Q-tip, but larger, and swabs inside each of my nostrils, I try to move my head but the collar just tightens on my neck, my head barely moves.

He goes, "It's okay, relax, FIDO," then to Cheryl, "What can I do for ya, honey?" Cheryl's beside her uncle now; to entertain her two friends she's straining her neck taking an exaggerated look under me at my almost non-existent dick. Without answering Barry, Cheryl directs a question at me instead, "Did you have an accident with your penis, or something? And your bag of nuts, what do ya call that? It's long." One of the boys says, "Scrotum, Cherly... it's the god-damnest scrotum I ever saw." The boy and the other girl come over to peer at it. The other boy says, "I knew a kid in high school who had an infantile penis like this, but not this small." Then to me, he asks,

"Whadda you do, lay across the toilet when ya gotta pee?" Barry's like, "Shhh, enough of that naughty talk! You'll hurt his feelings." In my head I'm counting to one thousand as fast as I can blocking out whatever these horrible college students are saying. Around one hundred I lose count and hear the first boy say,

"Uncle Barry, come on, we wouldn't embarrass anyone for the world, but that scrotum is destined for the carnival. You know, pay an extra dollar to see the world record holder for longest scrotum behind the curtain." Cheryl's persistent with her question, and she reaches over to poke my one inch dick, asking me again, "What happened?" I couldn't talk, I'm only capable of making whiny sounds as Barry says, "Okay, Cheryl your friends are embarrassing him now. Stop it! Look how red he is right down to his bumper. What can I do for you?"

As he's chastising Cheryl for embarrassing me, he inserts a thumb into my mouth and pinching either side of my jaw bone with her other hand forcing my mouth to open, then plugs it open with a rubber stopper and checks inside with a penlight. The three college students snicker and talk quietly behind their hands, then laugh in bursts. Barry clicks on a large electric tooth brush and brushes my gums and teeth with it, as Cheryl's going, "Ewwwww. Do you use that on the dogs?" Molly says, "Enough, Cheryl! Why are you here?" Cheryl giggles, then asks, "Can we borrow your Jeep for a few hours? We'll have it back by the time you close." Cheryl's right... the toothbrush is undoubtedly the same toothbrush she uses on the fucking dogs; why would she have one for humans? This, the college kids and the doggie toothbrush, is really too much and puke rushes up from my stomach. I gag stopping the puke at the back of my throat as

Barry recognizes the situation and forces my head back and up at an awkward angle, stopping the vomit from getting into my mouth. "Now you've upset him, Cheryl. Don't be such a bitch, okay." He said it in a sweet way though, not angry, as he continues the dental hygiene part of my grooming. As the big dog toothbrush twirls on my teeth at the back of my mouth, near my throat, I gag repeatedly but he has my head totally immobilized and, as usual, ignores my discomfort. "Okay Cheryl, you know where the keys are," then to the boy "Artie, would you hold his head in this position for me a second, I need to get a tool to scrap some tartar off his back molars. Artie laughs, but says, "Yeah, sure," and grabs my head twisting it further up, neither of us speaks as Barry scrapes my back teeth with something that feels like a chisel, then sprays water from a bottle into my mouth and a doggie mouthwash refreshes my breath.

Barry looks inside my mouth with the penlight again, as Artie says to no one invparticular, "This is without question the oddest goddamn thing I've ever seen," and everyone, including Barry, has a good chuckle over that. Just when I'm positive my ass is going to catch on fire with humiliation Barry tells Artie he can let go of my head, he gives one painful final push up and then releases me.

I've a pounding headache now and the vomit's right at the back of my throat. Barry says, "Hey, he's just a curious kid who wonders how a dog feels getting groomed. Go on all of you now, let me finish up with this big boy." Then it all caught up with me and I did throw up in my mouth... not a good thing. Little by little I swallow the puke at the back of my throat as Barry pets my head making some of those soothing sounds he'd made while grooming the poodle, as the three uninvited guests leave, giggling and laughing out loud, Barry says, "Sorry about that, J.C., but you don't need to be embarrassed. You can't help it if you have a one inch dick." As if that's accurate or is all there is to it! Good grief, he's awfully nice but out of touch. Come to think of it, I guess he'd need to be out of touch to dog groom a college student.

Molly, with me still secured to the drying table, goes through a series of massages and rubs that, along with her soothing voice, manages to calm me down. They're nobody here but me and Barry now and that's such a relief! Barry murmurs, "That's a good boy,"as he goes back to work, this time swabbing my right ear with one of those big q-tips, then the other ear. Throwing the swabs away, he gets a larger one, dips it in some cream and walks behind me to swab out my asshole. My body jerks, and he quietly says, "Almost done," as the swab twirls inside my hole,

Then further up until it's twirling on my prostate making my dick twitch and was really arousing me. I was breathing heavily

“With puppies we have to expess the dogs anal glands. Is puppy okay?

I was starting to drooling and approaching an orgasm when out comes the swab and into the trash it goes.

It's all so mind-blowingly bizarre, but it feels good and we're along so I fall back into a serene trance... so grateful I'll never see any of those college kids again. It's peaceful and I'm grateful for that. Ripping open a sterile pad, Molly pours something from a brown bottle on it, then reaches under me and pull back the foreskin of my little cock to wipe the head with the pad. I hop a half inch off the table and he gently pats my ass, making those calming sounds again.

Turning his finger over, he wipes inside my foreskin all the way around, the liquid feels cold. "That's a good puppy," he coos, as she tosses the sterile pad in the trash. Patting my head, he quietly says, "I'll get you dry and then you're ready to be groomed." Flicking a switch on what looks like the world's biggest hairdryer causes it to nosily blows a huge amount of warm air over me. It's like being in a wind tunnel. As my body dries, the doggie hairs stuck to me dry as well and are, one by one, blown off my skin and up against the back wall to drift down joining other dog hairs on the floor from earlier washings.

As I'm being dried, Barry washes Butch, who has patiently waited in that medium size tub next to the one I was in. Butch observed every move Barry made while washing me and when he picked me up and brought me to the rinsing station the dog moved to the other side of his tub and watched every move Barry made there too. Butch now gives all his attention to Barry as he's bathing him. The dog's infatuated with Barry apparently, and so am I. He washes him just like he did me except the dog is only about one sixth my size and he doesn't tense-up like I did, so it went much faster. Then Butch is dipped in the rinsing tub and hooked up next to me in a similar manner to the way I'm hooked up. As soon as the dog is set down he shakes his body spraying me with rinse water, but the wind tunnel soon dries that too. I'm quickly as dry as I've ever been in my life, but the warm air continues blowing on me as Barry's busy doing something else. He's carrying a large sheep dog from the end cage to the washing tub, basically doing everything the same way he'd handled me; the dog and I weigh about the same. Barry sits him in the same larger tub I'd recently been bathed in, then hooks him up with two bungee cords so he can't jump out; he's just as immobile as I'd been. Only the top of his back, his tail, and his head are out of the water as he stands docilely, with an expression of almost embarrassment on his face.

My turn again... the wind tunnel is turned off and a smaller version of it is turned on for Butch. Barry unhooks me, picks me up with one arm under my buttocks and the other across my chest and again without apparent effort, carries me to the same grooming table he'd groomed the poodle on. Same routine of a slip collar around my neck tightly, then one bungee cord stretched under my belly near my dick, and one across the back of my knees. I'm totally immobilized once again. Snapping on the same clippers he used on the poodle,Barry takes hold of my jaw and easily manipulates by head this way and that as he runs the doggie clippers over my head. First across the front above my forehead and the half inch long hairs from there fall past my eyes followed quickly by another bunch of short hairs sheared to the scalp by the clippers.

He bends my head way over to the side and shears the very short hairs from there down to the back of the head. Bending my head to the side and to the left he runs the clippers up one side of the back of my head, then again, and again as I feel the short clippings falling on the back of my neck and shoulder. He goes over all areas on this side of my head one more time, pressing the clipper tightly against my scalp. Running his fingers over half my shorn head he goes back over a number of spots with the clippers, just to be sure. The same procedure for the other side of my head and I'm as docile for him as the sheep dog or poodle had been. Satisfied, the clippers snap off and he brushes the clipped hairs off me using a big soft brush that smell strongly of... what else, dogs.

"Okay, puppy, you've just got a shadow of hair left on your head. I could lather it and take the shadow off with a straight razor but Brett wants it like this for now." He's unhooking me as he's talking, then picks me up the same way as before; I'm as docile for him as I've ever been in my life. He says, "It will upset the dogs if you're standing around while I wash and groom them so I'll put you in a cage until Brett comes for you, it won't be long," and he. opens the door to the cage he just took the big sheep dog from and I crawled inside, my dick peeking out from it's hiding place as I get more comfortable with being under Barry's control. My long scrotum hangs down as I look out through the bars of my cage watching Barry wash the sheep dog. He's calmly and quietly murmuring many of the same things to him that he'd murmured to me.

Lance is two cages down, he picked his head up momentarily when I went inside my cage, but then he went back to sleep. I actually feel like a dog, wish I was one and Barry was my owner.

Much longer than 'just a few minutes' passes as I watch Barry finish the sheep dog's bath by dipping him in the rinsing tank. After hooking him up in front of the drier, the front bell sounds. "That'll probably be your mast..., er, I mean, Brett. He's come for you FIDO, let me check. When Barry's in the reception area he's much different than back here with us dogs. Here he's quiet and calm, out front he's loud. I easily hear him say, "Of course he's ready, honey. He was ready twenty minutes ago... I've got him in a cage. That'll be twenty-five dollars, pay the cashier."

I'm thinking, "Twenty five dollars! I gotta pay for this?" I'm out of my trance now and feeling claustrophobic in this cage.

In the lobby, Barry's saying, "He's got a lot of razor nicks on him. I could shave him and groom him professionally for ya weekly, without razor nicks, but that'll cost forty-five dollars."

I can barely hear Brett ask, "Every week?" and Barry's like, "Yeah, I had a regular customer pass away so I got this time spot open, but it needs to be every week or it's not worth it to me." Brett asks Mike, "What do you think? We'll deduct the money from his paycheck of course. Barry could bath him, groom him and shave him every Monday." Mike’s like, "Awesome idea! And while he's at the groomers, we can go to a movie.”

Brett like, "Sure, Mike,"

then to Barry, "Book him in for Mondays at four-thirty."

He's saying, "He's a doll or I wouldn't accept him as a regular, but with him it's doable."

So, my fate's sealed for this treatment every week, more then this treatment, he'll be shaving my legs and balls, and whatever. The word 'mortified!' doesn't adequately describe my state of mind right now. But, what’s new.

Barry comes in and lifts me out of the cage and then without thinking he starts carrying me outside, and I scream, "My clothes!" As he's putting me down, he laughs and says, "Oh, I forgot. Most of my clients don't wear clothes. Hope you enjoyed your spa treatment. And guess what... you're gonna be a regular!

I'll see ya next week." He's expecting I'll be thrilled about that. Oh, what the hell, he's a nice person so I'm not taking it out on him, it's not his fault. I say, "Yeah, that's really something," and he looks at me funny, like I'm not appropriately enthused, so I add, "You did a wonderful job. Thank you!"

He looks pleased now and my eyes get a little teary because he's gentle and nice to me and nobody else has been either of those things lately. I turn my head away and start over for my clothes, but Barry takes hold of my arm, and says, "Could you let me check something before you get dressed, honey?" I go, "Ah..." and I look at the door leading to Brett, and ask, "Ya think it'll be okay with with Brett?" He waves at the door, and says, "It'll only take a minute or two, he can wait. Let me get you up there on the table a sec, okay?"

Before I can answer, he casually picks me up with a hand under each arm pit, saying, "I wanna see what kind of a razor situation we have here so that I'm ready for you next Monday." He holds me over the table in a way that makes me bend my knees and I just naturally get on all fours. He smacks my ass saying, "Can you get over a little, honey?" I crawl over thinking, "He don't know his own strength. Jesus! That smack on my ass was harder and stings more than a paddle hitting me!" He mumbles "I'll make it quick, sweetie," as he's putting the slip collar over my head again and adjusts the bungee cords, immobilizing me. Force of habit, probably.

It's amazing how incapacitated a few taut bungee cords can make you. Barry's behind me spreading my buttocks and feeling between my legs, "Just want to see how extensive the shaving areas are." His big hands wrap around the front of my thighs, up next to my dick, "Feeling for stubble," he says, and I go, "But I don't shave there". His hand travels down my thigh then back up. He says, "I can feel you haven't been shaving here, but there are fine, almost invisible hairs here that need to be shaved if one's to do the job properly; I'll get them for you, I'm a professional." Then he's spreads his fingers wide and feels along my back and shoulders and then down my sides until fingers on either side of me are traveling down my dick, then back up lifting it as a finger feels along the underside of it. He then goes back to spreading my butt cheeks, saying, "I'll shave around your heiny hole too for the same reason; fine hairs."

A shudder goes through me then as the realization of how little control of my life I have... he telling me what he's going to do, not asking if I want it done. Barry's a very nice person, but it's apparent he's aware of the master/slave relationship that Brett and Mike have me in and that's the reason he's so comfortable taking control of me; that reason, plus he's used to always being in control of his dogs. But, come on, this is abject humiliation of the worse kind, and with Barry I don't even get to enjoy the sexual action I get from the boys when they're abusing me. But, as always, I come back to this:

"What the fuck can I do about it?" The answer to that question, at this time is,

"Nothing!" except make the best of it and cooperate so it goes as easily as it's possible to go under the circumstances.

As I contemplate my humiliating situation, Barry's adjusting the bungee cords, then he gets both hands on my hips and turns me over onto my back. The slip collar tightens around my neck for a second, but he adjusts that, then spreads my legs wide so that each ankle is held in place somehow by the bungee cord arrangement. Next he spreads and tucks my arm under bungee cords and I'm spread eagle on the table feeling totally on display. As he lifts my cock, he says, "I'll be shaving you on your back like this for the most part, and finish the job with you on all fours. In order to insure you don't make sudden movements causing me to nick you with the razor, you'll be secured like this." Everything he says is in a matter of fact manner, knowing neither the dogs nor me will complain or contradict him. He's totally in charge of us. "You'll find it's a pleasant experience. I have had it done to myself by a friend a few years ago, so I speak from personal experience." With a couple of fingers he's feeling around my dick, then down my scrotum to lightly squeeze my balls, then his fingers are under my balls, and finally he pulls my scrotum up, and says, "I see Brett's stretching your scrotum for ya. If you want I can pierce this and insert a nice ring or stud. You think about it, okay. That'll cost eighty-five dollars, but is well worth it." I make a noncommittal grunt because I don't want to hurt his feelings; he's nice, but the last thing I want is a stud in my stretched scrotum. I'm going to be enough of a freak having a foot long scrotum as it is. That's how long it'll be by the time Brett's through with me. After rubbing all around my belly and chest, Barry starts unhooking the bungee cords, saying, "You don't have much noticeable body hair, just the fine ones everybody has, but I like you so I'll be giving you pretty much a full body shave. Once you see how it feels to be shaved you'll want to do it all your life." I say, "Not my head though, right?" Barry lifts me down, and says, "That's up to Brett, honey... not me. If ya ask him nicely, maybe he'll let you keep the fuzzy hair you got on your head now." I feel my scalp and can just detect a fine sandpaper feel... boy, it's short alright. As I get dressed he turns his attention to the sheep dog. I say, "Bye. Barry," as I'm leaving, and he goes,

"Bye, puppy. See ya, next Monday."

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fenimores-book-nook · 28 days ago

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A rainy day in a cozy coffee shop <3

11.02.24 ~ Saturday

Good morning (or whatever time it is when you are reading this) and welcome back to the Book Nook! It's been a while since I've written a blog post. After the trip I had to Arizona, the motivation I had was low. But we're back! Saturday mornings when I work make me feel more motivated and productive. I get to sleep in a bit longer since I work at 10 instead of 8 like my weekday shifts. And Saturday shifts are shorter too, so it's kinda like I get my fix of productivity and motivation in the morning and it lasts for most of the day. So, yay!

It's raining quite a bit here where I live, but I enjoy working on rainy days. :) This post is probably just going to be an update post, on my reading, my life, etc. So here we go. ;)

As you know, Halloween was only two days ago. We're allowed to dress up in the bookshop I work at so I had a total of four costumes for this spooky season! I decided to dress up the days leading up to Halloween too. First day of my work week: Tuesday, I dressed up like Dipper Pines from Gravity Falls. (Amazing show, go watch it.) Wednesday, I dressed up as my own version of Peter Parker/Spiderman. I think it was pretty great. ;) Then, on Halloween I dressed up as a witch! It was the costume I was most excited for, hehe. I took inspiration from Agatha All Along (the newest Marvel show and SO INCREDIBLY GOOD!), mainly from the characters Agatha and Teen. I loved it. THEN, Halloween night, my siblings and I had a little party that was a lot of fun and I dressed up with my sister as Frog and Toad from those children's books. I was Toad. :) We were adorable.

Now, the Christmas feels are starting to hit me. Yes, yes I am one of those people who listens to Christmas music early. I listened to it on my way to work this morning, it was amazing. :) But look, I don't skip over Thanksgiving, I'm just a big believer in Christmas music and decorations around turkey time as well. ;) So. To each their own.

I think of feeling festive as a win for me, honestly. The past two or so years Christmas has not felt like Christmas. (Thank you, depression.) But this year, it just hit me and my heart is all happy with the warm Christmas things. <3 Go progress! Go bettering your mental health!

READING UPDAAAAAATE!!!

Another cute illustration. ;) Yes, Christmas/Winter themed because I like it.

I'm still reading The Martian, but I haven't been reading it as much lately. I've been getting more and more in the mood for more comforting reads. Like...rereading The Fault in Our Stars for the fourth (I think) time. But also this one series my sister loves and calls her "trash read" because it's not the best writing but it's one of those book series where you can't stop reading. It's called The Zodiac Academy by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti. I'm only like two chapters in but I've been having the urge to continue reading it. So, it's gotta be good.

Another book I recently started is A Month of Sundays by Courtney Peppernell. It's a poetry book about getting through a dark time. I've read one of the author's other poetry books: Watering the Soul, and it was very good, I loved it. So I'm thinking this one is going to be good too. Deep and possibly will make me cry, but good.

As I wait for my chai to heat up...today's plans are: work, relax at home, then go see a comedian at 7:30 with my dad. Hopefully it'll be good! I am excited to just chill at home, though. Rainy days always get me in the mood for cozy clothes, candles, jazz in the background, and reeeeeeeaaaadinggggg. <3

Oooh, my chai is very good. At home, I wanted a cup of coffee so I made some with creamer, brought it in to work, and made our "Spiced Hayride" chai to add to my coffee. It's chai with salted caramel and apple. (Except I forgot to add salt, but it's still delicious.) So, go make yourself a chai or a coffee or whatever kind of drinkity or sweet treat you want; you deserve it. :)

Until the next one,

Thalia <3

#blog #books #rainy day #halloween #agatha all along #chai and coffee and warm beverages :)#christmas

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deepautumncolors · 3 months ago

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Book Review

I decided to get this book from the library after I finished a different one by the same author. It wasn't on the shelf where it was supposed to be, but I found it on a display when I was walking towards the front desk to ask a librarian for help finding it. So I grabbed it and checked it out!

Poppy Wright and Alex Nilsen didn't have much in common when they first met in college at the beginning of their freshman year. Poppy is vivacious and loves to travel, whereas Alex is reserved and still lives in the small town where he grew up. Despite their differences, they became best friends and started taking a vacation to someplace different every summer for the past decade. However, something happened on their trip to Croatia that caused them to stop speaking to each other. Two years later, Poppy decides to try reconnecting with Alex and they plan a trip to Palm Springs. Poppy is determined to fix their friendship during their vacation over the next week. The moral of the story is that you can travel all over the world and meet all kinds of people, but sometimes home is the person who has always been right in front of you.

The book is set up with dual timelines that alternate between the present and flashbacks to each trip they took, beginning with the first one eleven summers ago and leading up to the present summer. I didn't find the structure too confusing, but I wonder what it would be like to read it in chronological order by reading each past vacation chapter first and then reading all the present vacation chapters in a row instead of switching back and forth. The other tropes are friends to lovers, opposites attract, slow burn, one bed, and miscommunication. If they had just admitted how they felt about each other, it would have been much shorter. But maybe sometimes people don't do that in real life, either.

I kept wondering what happened in Croatia throughout the whole book, but we don't find out until almost the end. I was expecting something really dramatic, but it was predictable, anticlimactic, and glossed over in just a few pages. It would have been more interesting if they had been dating other people when it happened, but they were both single so I didn't think it was a strong enough reason to stop talking for two years. (SPOILER ALERT: They made out. Big deal.) I am not sure it was totally believable that Alex agreed to go to Palm Springs with Poppy via text message after not seeing or talking to her for two years - wouldn't you want to have a conversation about your relationship first? But I loved Poppy's sense of humor and the banter between her and Alex. And I liked Poppy's heartfelt speech to Alex at the end, but I didn't like that it was in a bar while other people were eavesdropping. Why couldn't they have gone someplace private to talk?

Overall, I enjoyed it a lot. It reminded me of Happy Place because they both had dual timelines and the same message that home can be a person you love as opposed to a place. You can read my review of that one here. After reading two of Emily Henry's books in a row, I am going to take a break from her and switch to a different author for a while. Also, I just joined GoodReads recently so let me know if you want to be friends on it!

#book review

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faotoni · 6 months ago

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Confessions of a Teenage Jester

Synopsis: Fizz wants to open up to Blitz about something important. Hi there. I like 21 Pilots and the new album has me in a chokehold. I AM working on Aftermath, it’s just taking a lot longer because my muses have a lot to say. This is just silly and pointless and i have about 100 things I SHOULD be doing but In the middle of all that I was like; “hey. I wanna write.” So I derailed my life to do this. Song Inspo: Backslide- 21 Pilots I have a BlitzFizz playlist I was using to entertain myself when I was working on preparing for my vendor spot at pride. Blame that. And me. And 21 Pilots. I own none of my free will. :P Ages: I head canon that Fizz is two years younger than Blitz. The end. I have no rhyme or reason for this I just think that way. They are both teenagers in this, maybe 2-3 years before the accident. Also YES this is the same Terri from Aftermath. Yay for tiny role OCs :D Happy Pride! :D see ya the 31st :D

“Hey! Hey wait up you two!” A voice echoed and bounced off the old, decrepit buildings that lined the streets that ran parallel to Cash Buckzo’s circus in Greed. The buildings were all abandoned, left to rot or become home to vulgar graffiti and even worse bugs and mold as the years went by.

The voice belonged to another circus performer, a tall Imp named Terri, who had one horn shorter than the other. He was a year older than Blitz and three years older than Fizz; he had been in the circus though around as long as the two of them have, his mom and dad falling on hard times, desperate to find success somewhere. Terri himself was ok; he was a tad loud and didn’t have the greatest “read the room” radar.

“Shh, be quiet, we aren’t even supposed to leave!” Blitzø hissed once Terri caught up to him and Fizz.

Fizz offered a little wave before wrapping his arms around himself, a look of disappointment on his face. He wanted this adventure to be just the two of them, Blitzø and himself, like it always was. The two were going down the road to the old carnival, to see if they couldn’t reactivate some of it and have a fun night riding some rides or just freaking each other out by hiding behind things, or finding old masks to scare each other with.

“Then what the fuck are you doing out?” Terri asked raising an eyebrow and Blitz��, who waved his hand at him and walked closer to Fizz.

“Come if you want, I’m sure you’d say something to my dad if you don’t…” Blitzø grumbled in response, quickening his pace and brushing against Fizz as he passed, causing Fizz to pause for a second and blush.

Lately, things have been… weird.

And they shared a room so it only made them weirder.

It wasn’t weird to Fizz when he found himself attracted to guys, he sort of always suspected that, it was weird when he started developing a crush on his best friend. They were almost always together, they relied on each other to make it through the day, through performances, Fizz always being there to comfort Blitzø from his dad’s abuse… it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that Fizz would fall for his best friend, it was just… weird. They were friends. They did friend things. Right?

Right?

Well… maybe that was a little bit of an understatement, they were more than friends some may say, and possibly why Cash didn’t like seeing the two together. They would sneak off at night to go swimming in unsuspecting demon’s yards, steal from local stores around the circus, sleep curled up together in the only tree in Greed, a thousand year old hard oak with no leaves left but the perfect bowed out perch to sit or lay in while watching everything from below.

That past part was what made Fizz suspicious of Blitzø. He wanted to think his best friend felt some sort of way about him too, because there were little moments like that, the compliments, the reassurance, the “intimate” goofing off, that lead Fizz to believe, to hope that Blitzø felt something, but he wasn’t sure. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if Blitzø knew.

“Dude. When have I ever done that?” Terri asked, leaning an arm of Fizz’s shoulder while they walked.

“Uh. Last week. When I gave you some of my dad’s booze and you fucking told him!” Blitzø complained, turning to face Terri. When he realized Terri was leaning on Fizz, Blitzø took Fizz by the wrist and pulled him to his side, prompting him to run by tugging at his wrist.

The two ran down the road laughing, with Terri running behind them trying to catch up.

Stuff like that.

The Carnival seemed darker than the street, even though the carnival had lamps and the street did not. The lights seemed to make everything darker, causing deep shadows over places that would otherwise wise be light. It was creepy, but also fun.

“Alright we’re do we start?” Blitzø asked turning to Fizz who turned to look at Terri who was looking up at a tall tower ride. “This was your idea, Fizz.”

“I know that, uh…” Fizz looked away and walked further into the park. One of the overhead lights caught his eye, the dim light shining on a round barrel looking ride. “That one.” fizz pointed to it, getting closer to it to inspect what it could possibly do. The pair of them and possibly Terri had never been to a carnival before, none of them could afford to go to Mammon’s “Loo Loo Land” but when that made the small park near the Circus go out of business, Fizz had the idea to at least go and check it out before Blitzø suggested they try to get the rides to work so they could at least try them out.

“Alright.” Came Blitzø’s reply, closer to Fizz than he thought he was. Blitzø was standing next to him, observing the electric panel that made the ride work. “I mean if I could read…” Blitzø started pressing buttons until the lights around the ride turned on and a loud horn blared, shaking the ground and causing the two Imps to jump back.

“Whoa! That one works!” Terri yelled from wherever he was, somewhere behind the two.

“Yeah hopefully.” Blitzø said; tongue out in concentration as he studied what button to press next.

“Big red button says start…” Fizz offered from over his shoulder, putting a shaking hand on it before smiling at him in reassurance.

“You’re a nerd.” Blitzø fired back making a face at him before turning back and pressing the button Fizz suggested. The barrel started to lift up, a couple of loud creaks from months of abandonment as it stretched up to its tallest position before the whole barrel started spinning, some obnoxiously loud dance music accompanying its ascent.

“Awesome!” Fizz said jumping up and down. Terri had joined them next to the ride.

“So how do we get on?” He asked. The three looked at each other.

“Well, I guess we would have to take turns, someone has to be out here to press all the buttons, so it actually works.” Fizz explained. He looked back at the panel and reached over to press the stop button. The ride slowly stopped spinning and returned back to its resting position. “I think Blitzø and I should try this ride out first, you can press the buttons for us.”

“Okay but I ain’t doin’ it every time. I want to try them too.” Terri said raising a brow at the pair. Blitzø smirked evilly, sharing the look with Fizz who took a second before realizing what he was thinking, causing Fizz to look down and blush, chuckling.

“You are NOT leaving me on one of these fucking things.” Terri growled, pushing Blitzø playfully. Blitzø and Fizz burst out laughing.

“Alright alright just promise us you won’t tell my dad shit.” Blitzø said, holding a hand out to Terri. He rolled his eyes but accepted the hand.

“Fine.” Terri agreed. Fizz regained his composure and walked Terri through the 3 buttons he needed to press for the ride to work before he and Blitzø entered the ride. They both looked at each other as they realized the ride didn’t have seatbelts, but it appeared that there was a ledge and the floor drooped out.

“Uh. Ha-ha…” Blitzø said walking in and standing against the wall. “Good luck to us I guess!” He giggled as Fizz closed the door, trying to figure out how the ride worked exactly before taking his place next to Blitzø, the two of them sharing a look.

“Alright Terri!” Blitzø yelled. The ride started playing its music and rising and the middle of the floor opened up. Fizz guessed that the spinning would keep the two of them in place and that they would both not be violently flung from the ride but he was nerv-

Blitzø took Fizz’s hand, linking their fingers together and squeezing tightly. Fizz blushed and the lights around them flashed before going out completely. The barrel started to spin and fizz felt his body press against the back of the wall. Blitzø let out a loud laugh before yelling; “Fizz! Try lifting your arm!” Fizz tried lifting the arm that wasn’t holding Blitzø’s hand, it wouldn’t move.

“What?” Fizz asked in disbelief, trying again and laughing. He tried to lift his head too but it wouldn’t budge.

The ride was over too soon.

“Woooo!”Blitzø yelled after the ride came to a stop. He started moving before the floor fully closed and tripped on his own feet, falling to the ground. Fizz moved forward, concerned before Blitzø let out another “woooo” before laughing and rolling over, looking up at Fizz.

Fizz smiled at him and held out a hand to help him back up. Blitzø took it and got up, their hands lingering together before fully letting go. Blitzø looked towards the door, which opened to Terri who was wearing a large grin.

“My turn!”

The night was exciting. Even with Terri there. The trio managed to get almost every ride to work, and spent a long time scaring the shit out of each other in a funhouse with broken mirrors and even more broken animatronics. Fizz just wished it was the two of them still. Before they had gone on this adventure, Fizz had tried to psyche himself up into telling Blitzø about how he felt, or at least about his feelings for guys. He thought he owed that to his best friend, being the first being he ever came out to. He was sure that Cash would give the two of them hell for it, Cash wasn’t the biggest fan of anyone “different”, though he wouldn’t outright attack Fizz for it, he would find a way to make it Blitzø’s fault. Fizz didn’t want that. He only wanted to tell Blitzø so that he might be able to help him hide, or maybe telling him might get rid of his crush, him finding out might just squash that. Fizz imagining Blitzø putting a hand on his shoulder and laughing at him saying something like; “that’s cool” would really kill the feeling.

Right?

Regardless it was moot now. Fizz couldn’t tell Blitzø the truth. Not with Terri there.

Unless…

“It’s getting late, huh, guys?” Terri asked, joining Fizz on the broken bench he was currently sitting on. Blitzø wasn’t too far away from them, standing on a fake plant and looking out over the rest of the park.

“It’s always been late!” Blitzø called from where he was.

“Yeah but don’t you think we should pack it up? They might start lookin’ for us.” Terri said. He wasn’t wrong, but, it was seldom that anyone checked around the sleeping quarters at night. No one really ever suspected Blitzø and Fizz sneaking off because they always knew around the time they should come back.

“Pussy. If you want to leave you can. Me and Fizz’is professionals.” Blitzø said jokingly, jumping off the plant and casually walking over to the bench. Terri looked at Fizz who was looking off into the distance; the dim lights of Mammon’s “Loo Loo Land” filled the grey sky.

“If you want to go ahead you can.” Fizz said. “It’s a nice night.” Fizz didn’t want to leave yet. He felt free and calm anywhere but the circus. Sure, he loved preforming but he didn’t love being abused, or being forced to diet, or being forced to practice for 13 plus hours a day, or being away from Blitzø… here, on the outside he could be free.

“Yeah I think I’m gonna head back.” Terri said standing up and brushing off his pants. “See you guys in the morning.”

Blitzø and Fizz both bid Terri farewell and watched him disappear into the darkness of the street. Blitzø joined Fizz on the bench and signed, scratching his head.

“Do we ever have to go back?” Blitzø asked almost miserably. It was a question that he asked almost every time they went on an adventure. Fizz felt bad for Blitzø. If anyone deserved to escape the circus, it was him. He got abused worse than Fizz was, once being sold to Royal snobs for 5$. Fizz couldn’t imagine having a family who you thought cared about you do that.

“We could stay here forever.” Fizz said reassuringly, even knowing they couldn’t do that. He took a deep breath before reaching over and touching the top of Blitzø’s hand. Blitzø looked over at their hand before turning his over and holding Fizz’s hand.

“We could run…” Blitzø suggested. Fizz liked the idea, imagining the two of them running away together, stealing enough stuff to buy a crappy apartment and being able to live together and do what they want, without the threat of being abused or starved for someone else’s gain.

“I wish…” Fizz mumbled. It wasn’t feasible. If Fizz agreed and stood up and tried to pull Blitzø up with him, he would stop and ask Fizz about Barbie, or his mom. Blitzo couldn’t truly leave. He couldn’t leave them. It left Fizz feeling lonely. He didn’t have the same hang ups. He didn’t have a family. It was just him.

And Blitzø…

“But we can’t.” Blitzo murmured, taking Fizz’s hand in both of his and playing with his fingers, causing Fizz to blush. He took a deep breath and looked away for a minute, figuring it was now or never. He should tell Blitzo the truth.

“Blitzø, I need to tell you something.” Fizz said nervously, pulling his hand away and inching further away from Blitzø.

“What’s up?” He asked, turning to look at Fizz who was looking at his knees.

“I’m gay.” Fizz started. He couldn’t make eye contact with Blitzø yet. “I’ve known since I was like 8 or so. I just don’t know, I didn’t know if I should tell anyone, but you’re my best friend, and…” Fizz stopped as he felt Blitzø’s arm wrap around his shoulders and squeezed them.

“I kinda figured.” Blitzø said laughing a bit. “Have you seen yourself? Haha, Barbie taught you to wear makeup because you asked!” He squeezed Fizz’s shoulders again and poked Fizz’s hand with his finger. “You’re wearing nail polish.”

“Those are just stereotypes! I like all that stuff!” Fizz defended himself weakly. Blitzø rested his head on Fizz’s shoulder.

“Uh huh. Yeah.” Blitzø said. Fizz sighed and put his head down on Blitzø’s. “I’m not surprised, is all I’m sayin’.”

“thanks, jerk.” Fizz grumbled, and pushed Blitzø away from him a little before smiling shyly.

Blitzø regained his composure from being pushed and slid back to his spot sitting next to Fizz, putting his arm around him again. “Thanks for telling me.” He said after a few seconds of silence. “I was just joking about all that, I didn’t really know… but it’s cool you know, I sure don’t…”

“It takes time I guess.” Fizz offered, not knowing too many other beings who had come out. He didn’t know if it was normal to know who he was so early. He figured it was more realistic for Blitzø to not know because of his dad, and his hang-ups on all that.

“Yeah, I don’t know…” Blitzø said almost sadly before shaking his head and standing up. “Now, it’s getting late, we should probably head back.”

“Yeah. Uh, don’t tell anyone else about…” Fizz started while standing before getting interrupted by Blitzø who hugged him.

“Of course I won’t. It’ll be our secret.” Blitzø said softly. “I know.”

-2 Years Later-

Dear Fizz;

Happy Birthday Circus-Pus!

hey, so, i wanted to talk to you about something important, but i didn’t know how to say it out loud, you know? the day we went to the pier, a few weeks ago when i told you i needed to tell you something, and i couldn’t? well, this is that, so...

remember when you came out to me? yeah well, it made me realize something... that i maybe felt the same way. i know now that i did, that i do. i really like you, Fizz...

Maybe we could try to work it out, maybe we could actually run away... escape all this and be happy somewhere we don’t have to hide from anyone. we could start up our own circus, both be the stars! or you know, anything.

Maybe we could try? Even if we don’t run away?

We can talk about it,

Blitzø

Confessions of a Teenage Jester - Electoni - Helluva Boss (Web Series) [Archive of Our Own]

its here too :) same with Fate.

see ya in 500 years. o/

#helluva boss #i guess blitzfizz #blitzo #fizzarolli #kinda angsty #kinda not #idk here #Jay Writes stuff #i wrote this while waiting for my hair cut apppointment today #i know the letter sucks but i wanted to add it in here as a sort of jump off point #like i have a follow up to this planned already xD

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tomtenadia · 2 years ago

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Sunday adventure

Hello!! Here I am again with a new cute Rowaelin. This one is set in the same AU as two of my DadRowan fics: Little Monkey and A trip to the Aquarium. For this fic I used a bit of the TOG folklore but also Celtic one. I do mention Tir Na Nog - in celtic mythology is the fairies otherworld. Also, the Fairy Glen actually exist (HERE) it’s one of my favourite places on Skye. It’s a magical place and Skye has a lot of connections to the fairies due to Dunvegan castle and the Fairy flag. The entrance of the glen is inspired by a place near where I live called Burn O’ Vat (the image should give you an idea of what I meant for the entrance).

I hope you will enjoy dadRowan with his family.

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Weekends in the Whitethorn-Galathynius household were a busy affair. Aelin was home and the three always tried to make the most of it. On most occasions, it was their five years old daughter dictating the actual plans. The previous night she had confessed to her parents she wanted to go in the woods hiking. Rowan and Aelin had started taking her out to some shorter walks in Oakwald and the girl had quickly fell in love with nature. Rowan who, in his younger years had worked as forest ranger, had been more than happy to indulge his little girl.

He was now in the kitchen preparing their bags with all the provisions they needed. He would prepare lunch and a lot of snacks, together with coffee for the adults and healthy juices for Maya. Aelin would joke that they were not going for a week long expedition, but Rowan was always very serious when it came to outings in the woods.

“Dada, can I take Marvin?” His daughter walked to him while holding the giant stuffed penguin on one of his fins.

“No my love, he needs to stay at home.”

“Oh.” She added dejected. Rowan, who could not bear to see his daughter sad, kneeled in front of her and brushed her head “You can tell him all of your adventures when you come home.” A soft kiss on her silver hair “We can also try and spot the Little Folk.” Rowan had also started telling his daughter about all the legends from Terrasen and Aelin had bought her a few books that in turn they read to Maya.

The girl’s eyes lit up in joy and rushed back to her room to stash away the penguin.

Aelin appeared a moment later, all dressed up in the nice mountain wear he had took her to buy. She had no sensible clothing for Terrasen mountains so he made sure both his girls had all the correct equipment. He took the mountains very seriously.

“Where are you taking us today?”

He turned and folded his arms around her waist “nothing too complicated. There’s a lovely path through the forest that will lead to the Fairy glen and there’s a stunning waterfall waiting for us.”

“You know that Maya will try and chase the fairies, right?”

He kissed his wife “I want her to believe in the legends, grow up connected with nature.”

Aelin snuggled to his chest when a tiny hand patted them.

“Mama, dada I am ready.”

They both looked down and saw Maya with her bright green jacket, black trousers and walking boots. Rowan laughed when he spotted the mess she had made of the laces. She was still learning to tie her shoes.

He kneeled “let me fix the laces for you.”

At the same time, Aelin went to fix her hair and place a nice hat on her daughter’s head and then finished with a pair of sunglasses.

Once they were both done, Aelin took a picture of their daughter “you are our little explorer.”

Maya grinned lowering her sunglasses on her nose “Let’s go.”

The car journey had been the usual chaos and mayhem with Aelin and Maya singing out loud from a selection of songs ranging from cartoons soundtracks to rock music. Rowan just hummed along while he was busy driving.

It was a good hour later when they finally arrived and Maya was already agitated as she tried to remove the seat belts and climb off the car seat.

“Maya, we are almost there, wait for dad to park the car.”

“I want off.”

“Maya.” Rowan’s voice had enough hint of a command that the little girl calmed back down.

As soon as he parked, Aelin got off and freed their hyper daughter.

Aelin opened the trunk and got their backpacks while Rowan changed his trainers for hiking boots.

Rowan was the one with the big backpack, while Aelin had a smaller one with essentials for Maya and the wee girl had her own unicorn rucksack with her water bottle and a few toys she insisted on taking with her.

Rowan ready, he walked to his girls and took Maya’s hand “ready?”

His daughter jumped in excitement and Aelin grabbed the other hand.

The three of them left the car park and Rowan guided them through the marked path that disappeared in the forest. It was a lovely spring day and he was looking forward to a day with his family. He knew that part of Oakwald very well after his years as park ranger. The trail that were following that day was one of his favourites and he had been looking forward to share it with Aelin and Maya in a while but they had to wait for their girl to get more used to hiking. There was no actual ascent to climb, it was a very gentle stroll through the forest until they reached the glen.

“Dada, are there really fairies?”

He chuckled and smiled at his daughter “yes, but they love to stay hidden, so we leave them offering to thank them for looking after the forest.”

“But I want to meet them, like Mei in Totoro.”

“I admit that I’d like to meet a Totoro too and fall asleep on his belly.”

“The sìth in Oakwald are not as fluffy.”

Rowan was talking when Maya let go of his hand and ran quickly towards the trees “Deer, dad a deer.”

He walked to her “shhh… do not scare it away.”

Aelin took a nice picture and crouched at her daughter side. She loved seeing her daughter excited about new things. They lived in the outskirts and Maya was used at seeing squirrels in their garden but deers were a discovery.

“It’s so pretty, can I touch it?”

“No my love, we just observe. The fairies don’t want us to disturb the animals.”

“Ok, dad.” She said her goodbyes to the deer and grabbed her parents hands once more.

They walked happily while Rowan told them both about the legends of the place and both listened attentively at his voice spun wonderful tales of magic and wonders.

After a good twenty minutes they reached a clearing with a few boulders to mark the entrance to a new grassy path.

“That, “ he added pointing at the big rocks “is the official entrance to the Fairy Glen, but before we can go in we need to pay our respects to the guardians of the valley.”

Maya looked up at him with curiosity while Aelin admired her husband and she asked herself how it was possible to fall even more in love with him. His pagan, tree hugger nature was something that he kept hidden and only a few selected individuals knew of it. It was not something he shared easily as he had confessed her that on occasions he had been ridiculed for his beliefs. Aelin on the other hand had wanted to know more and she had been delighted when he had started to involve Maya too. She wanted her daughter to grow up a nature lover like her dad.

Rowan opened his backpack and extracted a couple of buttons and a few acorns and gently placed them on the boulder.

“Dada, what are you doing?”

“I am giving some offerings to the hidden ones. Buttons because they love to collect trinkets from humans and acorns because they love them.” He crouched down her level “we give them offering as a thank you for letting us through the forest.”

Aelin chuckled and removed the plastic pink bracelet she had around her wrist and placed it on the boulder near Rowan’s items “You never know… maybe they are into fashion.”

Rowan laughed and kissed his wife.

Maya removed her backpack and from it she fished out a green crayon. Rowan, lifted her in his arms so that she could placed her offering near the others “they can draw now.”

Aelin brushed her daughter’s head “they will be so happy.”

“Come on girls, let’s thank the hidden ones and continue.”

“Thank you fairy.”

“Bye bye fairy.” Added Maya walking quickly to her father.

The two boulders were side by side but in-between them there was an entrance. The path had smaller rocks and was covered in water “Walk on the rocks.”

When Maya struggled he took his daughter in his arms and passed the aperture then waited for Aelin to join him. At his side he heard a sharp intake of breath “Ro, this place is…”

He took Aelin’s hand and pulled Maya to him “welcome both to the Fairy Glen.”

The scene in front of them was otherworldly. Green land stretched in every direction, dotted with bumpy and oddly shaped hills, with the odd pond accompanying the landscape. On one side there was a rocky formation that looked like a castle. All around them the silence was only broken by the sound of water crashing in a pool from a stunning waterfall.

Aelin was speechless. The place was something she only had imagined in fantasy books. And it must have been truly stunning because Maya was silent too. Her daughter sat down at their feet and looked amazed at the landscape in front of them.

“Dada, do fairies really live here?”

Rowan nodded “See that rock formation?” He pointed at the ruins that looked like a castle “Legends says that’s the gate to Tír na nÓg.”

“Can we go and say hi? They can have my sandwich.”

Aelin laughed at her daughter’s need for adventure “I am not sure the fairies loves sandwiches.”

“But I want to see cinanoc.”

Rowan’s smiled at her daughter’s attempt to pronounce the ancient name for the fairies’ otherworld.

“We can climb and have a look.”

His daughter gave him the most stunning smile and started running freely shouting to all the fairies to come out and play.

“I think that she is scaring them,” joked Aelin, as her arm wound around her husband’s midriff “I love seeing her be so free.”

Aelin squeezed him “she loves nature just as much as you.”

He looked at his daughter with pride “come, let’s go and save the hidden ones from our daughter.”

Hand in hand they reached Maya who was now trying to climb the rock formation on her own. Rowan switched in fuss mode and joined her “easy, be careful, my love.”

“Dada I am a good climber.”

Aelin chuckled and accepted her husband’s hand to climb the first rockier part.

Maya, with the help of her dad, was the first one to reach the top of the ruined formation and started shouting in happiness declaring the glen beautiful and then counted all of the mounds “mum, dad, there are a lot of houses for fairies.”

Aelin took a lot of photos of the landscape but also of her daughter. She was working on a series of albums with Maya’s stages in life. She wanted to document her daughter’s life.

“Dada, waterfall?” Asked Maya, as soon as she was done with the castle.

Carefully, Rowan helped his family descend and once down Maya started running once again.

“If we are lucky she will be so exhausted that she will go to bed early.”

Rowan kissed his wife’s head “that’s wishful thinking. She has limitless energy like you.”

Aelin hummed in pleasure and with her hand in his she followed him through the stunning glen and along the path to the waterfall. Maya always in front of them, running from one side to the other all excited.

It took them a good half hour but eventually the waterfall appeared in front of them, tall and majestic, water cascading forcefully in the pristine pool below.

“Dada, water.”

Aelin looked at him and nodded “Yes, I have a set of spare clothes, just in case.”

It took them two seconds of distraction, that Maya was already at the bank of the pool, her hand reaching playfully for the water.

“Maya, darling, careful.”

“I am saying hi to the water fairies.”

Rowan laughed. He had read her stories of the water nymphs and their legends and now Maya wanted to say hi to them every time she was near water.

Aelin moved at his side and sat on the bank and removed her shoes, placing her feet in the fresh water “like this, Maya.”

The little girl followed her mother and clumsily tried to remove her boots.

Rowan kneeled and helped her free her tiny feet “Go, do like mum.”

“Hi nymphs, my feet are not smelly.” She admitted as she splashed happily and her parents laughed at her admission.

“Come on big man, join us.”

Rowan removed his hiking boots, rolled his trousers to his knees and stepped in the pool, the water barely brushing his calf.

“Me too.” Maya was about to climb in the water but Rowan grabbed her “Let mum remove your trousers, then you can splash too.”

Aelin removed the item of clothing from her excited girl and Rowan hugged her, her legs dangling freely and she laughed as he dipped her and then pulled her out quickly.

“Swim?”

“No my love, the water it’s too cold for swimming. We just play like this, okay?”

“Dada, fishes!” She squirmed in his arms and he let her down in the very shallow side of the pool, standing behind her for protection.

Aelin in the meantime was relaxing in the sun, watching father and daughter play.

“Mama, come in water with us?”

At her daughter request she stood and joined her family “Maya, let’s thank the water nymphs for letting us play in their water.”

“Thank you water fairy.”

By the time they finished their little adventure in the pool, Aelin had to change her daughter completely as she expected. Maya loved water and she and Rowan had soon discovered that it was impossible for them to keep her away.

While Aelin sorted out Maya, Rowan had started taking out their lunches. His girls would soon start screaming for food, and the bank of the pool was a perfect spot, it was secluded and stunning.

“Maya, now sit with your mum and let’s have lunch.”

“Food,” screamed the two girls and he. Laughed. He knew them very well.

He had prepared a nice spread of sandwiches and other healthy snacks and Aelin complained about the crazy amount of vegetables “Buzzard, we are out on an adventure, more chocolate and less veggies?”

He smirked and dunked a carrot in some hummus and passed it to Aelin who let her husband feed her “well, if you put it this way.”

“Our daughter is here,” he added at her sensual tone.

“As if the water nymphs had never seen us getting busy in a loch.”

Rowan laughed and kissed her lips “you are such a menace.”

“Maya kiss too.”

Rowan grabbed his daughter in a bear hug and landed on the ground with her in his arms, while he peppered her face with kisses. Aelin joined them a second later and Rowan enveloped her too.

Once the picnic was over, Rowan led his two women to his next destination. Maya had moved on his shoulders and Aelin was at his side, her hand always in his. She had tried to protest and swap backpacks, but Rowan was adamant that he could carry their daughter and the big rucksack at the same time.

As they got closer to the waterfall, the roar of the water grew in intensity.

“Pretty.” Added Maya once they were right in front of it.

Rowan grinned and kept walking until they reached a fenced path that took them right underneath.

The cave allowed them protection from the water, but the view was stunning.

Maya leaned forward to touch the water and Rowan allowed it and the girl screamed in excitement.

Aelin tucked at his side and looked up at father and daughter. Both of them with faces lit up but a beautiful smile. Rowan had sometimes the reputation of being a grump, but only she and Maya knew his true self. She treasured dearly the smiles he’d reserve to her and Maya. She looked at him and kissed his shoulder “love you.”

“Love you too mama.”

Rowan looked down in his wife blue eyes and mouthed an I love you.

They stood a few minutes, but as it got colder away from the sun, he prompted his girl to go the final part of the hike “Come on, there is one last surprise.”

Back on the path Maya started protesting to climb back down so Rowan let her free once more.

Not long after they arrived in a secluded clearing. Maya had sat on the grass and was staring at the scene in front of her.

In the middle of that patch of land stood tall ancient stones arranged in an almost perfect circle.

“Welcome to this ancient site dedicated to Mala.”

Maya looked up and smiled at her dad. She knew of the ancient gods and like her mother, she loved Mala the fire-bringer.

The little girl stood and went running and hugged one of the tall stones and her mother joined her a moment later.

Rowan laughed, took a picture of them both, knowing that it was going to become his new home screen and joined them.

“Legends say that she had a house in the woods and this area is quite famous among rangers for its higher numbers of stags, that as we know, it was the animal sacred to Mala,” he explained “when I was a ranger I used to patrol this area a lot. Stags are a sacred animal in Terrasen and it’s illegal to hunt them. Poachers would kill them just for their majestic antlers.”

“Bad.” Added Maya quietly.

Rowan brushed her silver hair “yes, my love.”

He took his two girl in the centre of the ring and sat down with them, Maya between his legs and Aelin tucked against his side, his arm around her waist.

The three of them stood as Rowan told them legends of the ancient gods or just folktales. He was in the middle of a tale about Mala, when a stag appeared from behind a tree.

Maya squirmed in his arms but he held her back, not wanting to scare the animal away.

The stag moved closer and Rowan extended his hand and the animal approached them allowing him to gently caress its head between the antlers. Maya and Aelin copied him and in surprise the stag licked their hand and Maya squealed in delight, then she reached for her backpack and took out a piece of her sandwich. She placed it on her hand and offered to the animal in front of her. The stag smelled it and then ate it quickly “She likes it.” Another few morsel, a last lick of hands, and then the stag walked away just as quietly as it had arrived. Maya looked at her parents in amazement.

“I think Mala likes us very much.”

They spent another good hour in the sacred site, then Rowan convinced them it was time to move and start to walk back towards the car.

By the time they arrived at the car park, Maya was asleep on his shoulders. He placed in her car seat and then turned to Aelin who was staring towards the waterfall. He embraced her from behind “She will never forget this, you know?”

Rowan kissed her head “I hope not,” another kiss “You are both my firehearts, and Mala today has shown me that she approves of both of you.”

Aelin turned in his arms and looked up in her husband beautiful green eyes.

“Yes, I am fool enough to pray to the goddess of fire to let me love a woman with fire in her veins.”

She stood on her tip toes and kissed him “I melted your icy heart.”

“That you did, my love.”

A soft kiss “come on, let’s take our little terror home, then I might take you up on the challenge you threw me at the loch.”

Aelin squeezed his arse playfully “hmm, you can tire me out all you want.”

Deep laughter left his lips.

As he walked around the car to the driver’s seat he cast a last look towards the woods and sent a silent blessing to the ancient gods and asked Mala to look after his family.

taglist

@rowaelinismyotp @swankii-art-teacher @whimsicallyreading @elentiyawhitethorn @aelin-bitch-queen @bruiseonthefaceofhumanity @mis-lil-red @thegreyj @sailorsassley @leiawritesstories @clairec79 @morganofthewildfire @sv0430 @heartless--aromantic @autumnbabylon @rowanaelinn @backtobl4ck @susumaus98 @gracie-rosee @mybloodrunsblue @tanvee1231 @avenrebekah @whoever-you-choose-to-love @theywillnotsingforme @universallytreepost @black-daisy-water @goddess-aelin @whispers-in-the-darkest-heart @lovely-dove-zee @athena127

#rowaelin fanfic #rowaelin fanfiction #aelin x rowan #rowan whitethorn #aelin galathynius #rowaelin kids #dadRowan #rowaelin #rowan x aelin

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i-write-hurt-not-comfort · 2 years ago

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You made me Like Kou as a addict. I have the song pink cocaine by scene queen in my playlist of Kou now

anon you've made my DAY. in the past i made a long post about this here explaining why i headcanon kou as a drug addict, evidence from the series itself, along with links to my fics where kou is an addict so i'm not going to repeat all that here. in this post however, i did say i could talk more about the specific drugs kou would do so thank you for giving me the perfect opportunity to do that! i could do this for all my favs btw. it's a talent and a curse.

putting it under the cut because it'll be long, and tw for discussions of drug use, comedown, addiction etc. you'll see i know a lot about this.

well the first drug i put kou on has always been cocaine. it's the stereotypical famous, rich person, celebrity party drug. in my laito addict fic, it was kou who first gave laito cocaine. i strongly believe kou could get through 2 bags of coke in a night if he wanted to. personally i've never done coke but i know it makes someone very euphoric and confident and i do feel like kou would absolutely love the feeling of that, especially in a party situation where he's potentially feeling uncomfortable/imposter syndrome.

however, cocaine is quite psychologically addictive. i explained before why i think he'd get addicted and in general, i like to headcanon kou as using uppers. so i'll talk about uppers first. to clarify: "uppers" are drugs which make someone feel very upbeat, energetic etc, whereas "downers" are drugs which make one feel relaxed, calm etc. alcohol is an example of both.

alcoholic kou? yeah, count me the fuck in too! drinking is a great socially acceptable drug to abuse! he could potentially hide drinking from his brothers a bit better until he loses control and doesn't realise how drunk he's getting on a daily basis. drinking is relatively easy to get into a routine of abuse with and again, partying leads to hangovers and that leads to day drinking!

now i've talked a lot about kou using cocaine and drinking in the past, so let's talk about some other drugs! i've written drugs in fanfics for over 5 years now and, well, i have a lil experience myself, ehehe. i am also in my third year of a degree in pharmacology. so, drugs really are my speciality knowledge.

the other main party drug that comes to mind when i think of clubbing and uppers is, of course, ecstasy, aka MDMA. ecstasy itself is a tablet you swallow but you can also get powder MDMA to snort. snorting MDMA tends to make the high come on faster, more intensely, but shorter lasting. in my prison fanfic, kou was an MDMA abuser before going to prison.

MDMA as a drug isn't physically addictive and it has less addictive potential than cocaine but that doesn't mean it's impossible. one of the things that might make kou attracted to MDMA is the fact it makes you feel very connected and affectionate to other people. MDMA is one of the drugs i have done a handful of times, it's my go-to club drug, i much prefer it to alcohol. i often find myself telling people how much i love them etc. it's kinda funny to imagine kou going home, pupils so wide you could land a plane on them, and telling all his brothers how much he loves them.

while 100% MDMA has a slight afterglow and the only negative effect the following day is jaw grinding and tiredness, most MDMA tends to be cut with other substances which can make the comedown unpleasant, and i guess that's where abuse potential comes in. that or kou would use other drugs to avert the comedown. but recreationally, i think kou would like MDMA.

hm, other uppers, i guess we're thinking of amphetamines next - speed, meth, mainly. meth tends to increase alertness, again causes euphoria. i've never used amphetamines of any kind but i know they have a higher addictive potential albeit not physically. it's a bit like coke but lasts longer supposedly. i'm ngl meth is one of the drugs i don't know AS much about. but like cocaine, if kou is chasing that high and feel-good feeling he's been missing his whole life, he's very at-risk once he discovers the meth high.

the other "upper" is nicotine mainly, but nicotine addict kou is a completely different story altogether. i talk about it more here.

so, downers. the first downer i’ll talk about is weed because it’s quick i guess. to be honest i can’t imagine kou using downers as much as uppers because of how he’s probably seeking a more euphoric high - i just think of him as a kid saying how he’s going to fly high in the sky. i have a headcanon where kou, yuma and azusa all smoke weed together, so, yeah.

next downer to come to mind is ketamine - i guess ketamine is more of a dissociative than a downer. i’ve found a lot of people don’t know what ketamine is; no, it’s not “horse tranquilizer” - it’s used in humans as an anaesthetic more than in veterinary practice, and it’s currently being trialled as a rapid-acting antidepressant!

that said, when ketamine is used recreationally (and it’s very common over here in the UK) it causes feelings of dissociation. i’ve done ket, i think it’s a bit overrated, it’s just a short-lived out-of-body experience. maybe kou would use it if he’s having sleep issues or is feeling really depressed. some people mix cocaine and ketamine (called “Calvin Klein” or CK) so maybe he’d try that.

aaaand now we come to opiates or, most probably, heroin. i wrote kou as a heroin addict in my prison fic and i’d say it’s the only downer i can see him using. opiates are just... chill. you feel warm, relaxed, calm. the world is beautiful, it sounds strange but i can imagine kou describing heroin as his blue sky if he got REALLY balls deep in addiction. he used it as stress relief, to feel normal or like himself. just to feel “happy” and escape from any bad feelings.

problem is, heroin is really addictive and i think he’d fall fast. i think his brothers would notice too, to be honest. he’d be hard to stage an intervention with too, because he’s stubborn. heroin is hard to stop and hard to want to recover from. i can imagine it becoming a major source of conflict in the mukami household if it were to happen. and because of the physical withdrawal, kou isn’t going to want to stop even when it stops being a high and starts just feeling like “normal”

last category of drugs is psychedelics. psychedelics aren’t really abusable drugs because of how your brain reaches a threshold with their effects and they’re not really party drugs either. i can’t picture kou using them regularly or liking them much.

to be honest, i would picture kou as having maybe one drug he's using regularly and then using other drugs on top. mixing drugs without thinking, large scale drug abuse i guess. he's got a lot of trauma and he's been wanting to feel good in himself since he was a kid. a very large proportion of drug users do not become addicted but kou? kou's walking a tightrope when it comes to this stuff.

thank you for reading this really stupidly long post. i can and will happily answer any questions about the DL characters and drugs - or drugs in general, if you have any questions about that! doesn't have to be DL related, i'm happy to educate! :)

#ask #anon #kou mukami #tw drugs #im sorry this is really long #you just gave me an excuse to talk about drugs and i had to take it

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janhavi-21 · 2 years ago

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5 Reasons Millennials Are Investing In Real Estate!

Although we often think of millennials as carefree and a generation that just wants to have fun, they are really evolving into a smarter generation while still maintaining their coolness. Isn't that remarkable? Whatever the case, there are several reasons why millennials are making real estate investments and advising Gen Z to do the same. We'll look at these reasons in more detail today to determine why millennials are entering the real estate market.

Real estate investing is becoming more and more popular among millennials as a solid, long-term investment that may produce passive income. Real estate offers a chance for monetary security, whether one chooses to rent out a house for extra income or wait for its value to rise over time. Many millennials have been inspired to make the risky decision to invest in real estate by this guarantee. So let's investigate it more.

FUTURE PLANS

The fact that millennials are already entering their 30s is rather unexpected. Everyone has a stronger desire to consider the future as time goes on. One needs a safety net to fall back on if they want to lead an interesting life. For millennials looking for this stability, real estate investing alternatives are ideal. The yearning for a stable future is what drives millennials to invest in real estate. Everyone eventually needs a stable life, let's face it. Investing in real estate is a great strategy for millennials to safeguard their financial future.

LESS TRUST ON THE MARKET

I am quite aware of how strange this sounds. But it is accurate. The stock market is not very popular among millennials. Millennials typically desire to feel at ease, something the stock market regrettably does not provide. I do agree that stock investment will enable you to earn larger profits in a shorter amount of time. The chance of losing money in stocks, however, is really great, if I may be honest. Additionally, the continual stress of market watching isn't all that enjoyable. In any case, millennials tend to concur that real estate investments are preferable when all of these factors are taken into account.

LOVE FOR TANGIBLE ASSET

My belief is that millennials are not the only generation who want to show off their belongings. The human propensity to flaunt one's possessions, whether they be expensive goods, books, automobiles, or real estate, is pervasive. Many millennials yearn for a sense of prestige, and real estate in particular provides that. As a result, purchasing physical assets like real estate functions as both an investment and a prestige symbol. In the end, having property may be a useful tool for people to highlight their accomplishments and move up the social scale.

EXTRA INCOME SOURCE:

Despite the fact that many millennials decide to own a home. They may or may not live in such homes. They view purchasing a house as a source of more income, which is the major explanation behind it. Now, how does that function in practise? The typical practise among millennials is to invest in a property and then transform the entire area into an exciting co-living centre. And after that, they utilise the money earned from it to settle any debts (loans, rent, etc.) or to buy anything they truly want.

Now the issue is: Exactly how will one go about doing it? The answer to this query is that they seek assistance from already-established real estate businesses in the market. 'Xtra Income Homes' is one of the greatest real estate firms. They have around 8 years of experience, and they provide the greatest services for all things real estate-related. I believe it is accurate to state that millennials are evolving daily, and thankfully so.

It is important to understand the idea of investing early in life:

From the generation that came before them, millennials have learnt a lot. They have learned from their errors to avoid repeating them. Millennials are aware of the importance of starting to invest early in life.

This theory's central tenet is that a person's CIBIL score is greater while they are young. And as a consequence, getting whatever loans you wish to apply for becomes quite simple. Additionally, obtaining your CIBIL score is not difficult. You only need to visit the CIBIL website, complete a form, and you'll be able to find out your CIBIL score.

There are several reasons millennials are investing in real estate. The world of real estate opportunities is being investigated by millennials, who are searching for attractive investment opportunities as well as stable financial footing. They are not only developing into seasoned investors themselves, but they are also encouraging Generation Z to start investing when they are young. It's a trend that's only starting to gather traction and will only continue to do so in the future!

#investment #property #financial markets and investing #property investing #investors #real estate #millennials

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bcbybats · 3 years ago

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⊰ ♛ ⊱ ・︶꒷꒦۵ ˚ ╯ ❛ Aluin, is that my skirt you’re wearing as a DRESS? ❜ Cue a giggle, but being nearly eight feet tall, what is a short skirt on her looks like a strapless dress on Aluin who doesn’t even hit six feet without heels.

❛ It’s not my fault you’re a big bitch... wanna turn into bats and FIGHT about it? ❜

❛ Yes~! ❜

#&'shit post / don't judge me #•;♛;•▐│ ╯ ❛ Amber ❜#•;♛;•▐│ ╯ ❛ Aluin ❜#my non-binary child wants to be Amber’s twin rn #•;♛;•▐│ ╯ ❛ THE BABY BATS: the triplets ❜#[ I am home it was a lot shorter then I was lead to believe ]#[ Alois is the only normal one

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bellafragolina · 3 years ago

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I always had a mild interest in learning how to partner / ballroom dance just for funsies, so may I get some headcanons for the twins and an SO taking classes together just for the joy of it?

(Bit of an odd request but the few times I have tried to partner dance with people I always got shoved into the role of the following dance partner because of weird gender role bs, so I would love them being okay with actually switching it up sometimes because I am so over people looking at me like I just lost my marbles when I ask if there is any chance I could actually learn how to lead a dance too... Not request related but Jesus Christ gender roles suck)

Ooh, I took a dancing class in college and loved it. We never did partnered dances, sadly, but I had a lot of fun! I have a video of me doing a hip hop dance that I will release if this post gets 100 notes lolol (/j . . . or am I? 👀)

🍓🍓🍓

Ingo:

Ingo was very interested in the class when you brought it up to him. He was always been a fan of classical music, so learning how to dance to his favorite pieces sounded like a dream. So he eagerly agreed, hovering your shoulder as you register the two of you for the class

Ingo did plenty of research beforehand, showing you the information he gathered about the dances you'd be learning. He liked to be prepared and have an idea of what you'd be doing before the class actually started. He practiced positions and the beginning stepped with you, so by the time you were in class, you already knew most of the introductory moves.

When you asked about leading him around, instead of vice versa, Ingo was a little surprised. He wanted to lead you around, but he enthusiastically agrees to you leading. He was curious, and found it quiet enjoyable to be able to follow your moves instead of worrying himself over leading

When you lead, he'd lean into you, resting his head against you, as the music flowed through him. His heart fluttered, and he'd smile, relaxed and very happy that you suggested this. Expect a sappy Ingo once you both return home for the day <3

Emmet:

Emmet was excited to see you had a pamphlet for a dance class. It sounded like a fun thing to do, a way for you both to bond. Also it meant he got to be pressed closed against you while showing off his "awesome" dancing skills, so that was a bonus

The day of the class came, and you both clumsily followed the instructions to learn the basic move set. Emmet pouted when you asked to lead, but conceded happily, as it gave him less to focus on, and he could instead pepper you in kisses as you led. It was very distracting, and the teacher was already getting annoyed with you two

You two were really good, though. Once you got down the basics, the other parts were just adding on flair. Emmet had the energy to do most any type of dance, so ballroom dancing wasn't too bad for him. You got to twirl him around and dip him while he exclaimed dramatic victorian phrases from the various shows you'd watch together. Very funny. Teacher not amused tho.

By the end of the class, Emmet was kind of sad. You two returned home after saying your goodbyes, and Emmet insisted you both dance a little in your living room, your Pokémon watching you with intrigue. Emmet rested his head on your shoulder as you led, and asked you if you wanted to take another class. How did tango sound?

🍓🍓🍓

Is it so wrong to want to waltz my lover around and romance them to death even though I am shorter and a woman? I believe not. I'll just jump when I have to twirl them.

Have a great day, love <3

~Renee

#ingo x reader #emmet x reader #submas x reader #pokemon imagines #pokemon x reader

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nerdzzone · 3 years ago

Text

The Sweetest Devotion

Summary: Pregnancy is hard work. The fatigue, the morning sickness and the strange new aches and pains are bad enough, but the nerves about how a new baby will change your family dynamic can be just as tough. Luckily, for Chris and Whitney, the excitement and love they have for their little baby on the way far outweighs any struggles that could pop up and they’re hopeful that Grayson will feel the same as they navigate their way through the first expansion of their little family.

Chris Evans x OFC

18+

Part of the Once Bitten/More Hearts series

Part Five

-----

Part Six

The week leading up to my family’s arrival was hectic to say the least.

Grayson was bouncing off the walls and needing constant entertainment as the excitement of our recent news and his grandparents impending arrival was almost too much for him to handle and while I tried my best to be patient with him, there were lots of preparations that needed our attention and it was all rather overwhelming. I tried to focus Gray’s energy into helping with those tasks - like cleaning and setting up the guest rooms and making sure we had enough food in the house for all the extra people - but when I sent him with Chris to the grocery store and they came home with more junk food than anything else, I realized my mistake. Chris was relegated to dealing with the childcare after that and I handled the rest of the work myself.

In the end - once the boys were occupied - I got everything organized in time and we spent the morning of the twenty-third anxiously looking out the window for my family. They’d refused our offer of a ride from the airport, insisting that they’d rent a car for the week and all come together, but Grayson and I were struggling with the anticipation. As soon as their car pulled into the driveway, it was a race between us to see who could get outside first with Dodger hot on our heels as he barked with excitement.

It seemed that my mother was just as eager as we were as she jumped out of the car almost as soon as it was parked.

“Grandma!” Grayson squealed, sprinting down the steps of the porch and throwing his arms around her legs. “You’re here!”

“I am!” She agreed, scooping him up into her arms. “I’ve missed you so much, Gray!”

He nuzzled right into her embrace and I felt tears fill my eyes at the sight. The time between our visits was much shorter this time than it had been during the lockdown of 2020, but it felt like so much had changed since we’d seen them at the start of July. I’d missed them more than I’d realized and knowing that I got to spend an entire week with them in the place that was now my home had my heart swelling and my emotions rising. I heard Chris come out the door behind me, but I didn’t wait for him to catch up as my dad got out of the car as well and I ran at him with almost as much enthusiasm as Grayson had charged at my mom.

“Hi, Monkey,” he chuckled, squeezing me tightly. “How are you doing?”

“I’m good,” I sniffed back my tears as I pulled away. “I’m so glad you guys are here.”

“Wait, Whit, are you crying already?” Jack teased as he appeared beside us. “You held it together better than this last time even though Dad was on his deathbed.”

“I wasn’t on my deathbed,” my dad rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Jack.”

“Grandpa,” Grayson giggled. “Don’t say shut up. It’s mean!”

“Thanks, Gray,” Jack smirked. “I can’t believe a four year old has better manners than you, Dad.”

“I can,” I chimed in. “I’ve raised my son to be very respectful and polite and Dad has always been rude.”

My words were teasing and my dad chuckled as he shook his head.

“I’ll be staying in a hotel if this is how you two are going to be all week,” he warned us. “I’m not gonna be the one you pick on.”

“I already told her to play nice,” Chris joked as he joined us. “She’s supposed to be graciously welcoming you to our home.”

“Which is what I’m doing,” I smiled before dramatically curtseying. “Welcome to our humble abode.”

“Yeah,” Jack scoffed in amusement. “It’s a very modest little mansion you have here.”

Andrea appeared from the other side of the SUV they’d rented, shaking her head at her husband with Theo on her hip.

“Don’t be jealous, Jack. It’s not a good look for you.”

I heard Jack protest as Chris and my dad chuckled, but I was too distracted by the baby in Andrea’s arms to pay much attention.

“Oh my goodness, look how big you are!” I smiled, hurrying over to them. Theo flashed me a big grin as he looked around at the group. “You’ve grown so much in the last few months.”

“He sure has,” Andrea agreed. “Do you remember Aunt Whitney, Theo? Can you say ‘hi’?”

His grin widened as he focused his attention on me.

“Hi!”

“Hi, Theo,” I smiled, feeling my heart melt at the sound of his little voice. “Can I have a cuddle?”

“Yeah, go see Whitney,” Andrea told Theo as she passed him to me. “Then I can get our bags out of the car.”

I happily took Theo, but was quick to reassure her.

“Don’t worry about your bags. Chris will grab them all later.”

“Or I can even grab them now,” he offered. “Is it unlocked?”

My dad nodded and moved to open the back of the car with my brother and Chris following as I cooed at my little nephew. As they piled all the bags up next to the car, Grayson’s eyes widened as he wiggled until my mom put him down.

“Did you bring your trampoline?”

“No, Grayson,” my mom chuckled. “The trampoline is way too big to take on a plane.”

“Has your mom still not gotten you one?” My dad asked, shooting me a smirk. “Christmas is coming soon, maybe Santa can bring you one.”

I glared at that suggestion.

“I don’t think it would fit in Santa’s sleigh.”

“Santa’s sleigh is magic, babe,” Chris grinned. “I think he could make it work.”

“Really?” Gray’s face lit up. “You think so?”

“I don’t think you really need one, Gray,” I protested as I put Theo down and watched him toddle over to the pile of luggage. “We already have a swimming pool.”

“Oh, wow,” Jack interrupted with a roll of his eyes. “There you go, bragging again. ‘Look at my giant house, we’ve got a swimming pool’.”

Jack put on a high pitched voice as he did a bad impression of me and I scoffed as my jaw dropped.

“You’re so rude,” I scolded, shoving his shoulder hard enough to knock him slightly off balance as he laughed at my annoyance. “I’m not bragging and I never said we have a big house.”

“Mama!” Grayson snapped, drawing my attention to where he stood with his hands on his hips. “No hitting. Don’t you remember? We have to be a good example!”

He gave me a knowing look as he was clearly trying to remind me of our conversation the week before without blowing the surprise. I smiled and nodded as Chris backed him up.

“Yeah, Win. We have to keep our hands to ourselves even when we’re upset with someone.”

“I know, I know, you’re right,” I relented. “Sorry, Grayson. Thanks for reminding me.”

“You’re welcome.”

He flashed me a grin before turning his attention to his cousin who was laughing and giggling as Dodger licked at his hands. He hurried over to introduce the pair and I turned to explain to the group.

“We had a little incident at school last week. Grayson punched a bully in the face so we’re working on using our words when we have disagreements.”

“Wow,” Jack smirked. “Good for him.”

Chris barked out a laugh as he nodded his head.

“That’s what I said! It sounded like the kid deserved it.”

I rolled my eyes and was glad when Andrea backed me up.

“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” she reminded them. “Hitting bullies just makes you a bully too.”

“Thank you, Andrea. It’s nice to have another rational adult around.”

“I’m perfectly rational,” Jack argued. “I just don’t think bullying should be tolerated. If some kid was bullying Theo, I’d punch them myself.”

“And then you’d go to prison,” our mother chimed in. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It would still be worth it…”

Jack’s murmured argument was accompanied by a shrug and had his wife, our mother and I all rolling our eyes.

“Shall we go inside?” I suggested, changing the subject. “We can give you a tour of our huge mansion.”

My words were dripping with sarcasm and Jack stuck his tongue out at me as everyone else agreed. We called the boys over from where they were playing with Dodger and I led everyone inside to get settled in as Chris helped them carry their bags.

Keeping our little secret was much harder with my family around.

I made sure to wear baggier shirts to hide my little bump, but it was on the tip of my tongue almost all of the time. Chris and I had been worried about Grayson, but it seemed to be me who kept coming close to spilling the beans as Grayson was so distracted by the excitement of having his cousin around that he hardly even seemed to remember that he was privy to our confidential information. It was a relief that we didn’t have to worry about him, but it was making it harder for me seeing how wonderful Grayson was being with Theo - how caring and helpful and encouraging, how he played with him so patiently, and how interested he was in teaching him new things - it all just proved what a good brother he was going to be and had me fighting back my emotions every time they caught my attention.

It didn’t help that the weather was awful for the first few days that they were with us. We hunkered down inside, catching up on how the last few months had been and resting up for the big Thanksgiving party the following day, but while it was amazing to have such good quality time with my family, the lack of distractions made it hard for me to keep our news under wraps. So, as much as I was enjoying every moment with my family, I was relieved when I woke up on the morning of Thanksgiving Day and knew we only had a few hours of secrecy left. The definite anxious, but excited energy between us as we were lying in bed that morning told me that Chris was probably feeling exactly the same way.

“I feel a bit giddy,” I admitted as we laid on our sides with our legs intertwined. “I can’t wait for everyone to know.”

“Me too,” Chris smiled. “I think this is the longest I’ve ever kept a secret from Ma.”

I giggled as I ran my fingers through his hair.

“You’re such a Mama’s boy.”

“Yeah,” Chris shrugged. “Is that a bad thing?”

“No, not at all,” I shook my head. “Because you passed that trait onto Grayson and I love that.”

Chris laughed at that, hard enough to make the bed shake slightly.

“He is not,” Chris argued. “He’s a daddy’s boy. He tells me everything.”

“He just humours you,” I teased. “I’m his favourite.”

Chris rolled his eyes, but didn’t fight me on it.

“Well, you’re quite a daddy’s girl,” he observed. “I noticed it when we were staying with your parents and I thought maybe it was just because he was sick, but I’ve noticed it the last couple days too.”

“We have a complicated relationship,” I admitted before shooting him a smirk. “That’s probably why I’m with a much older man now. I have daddy issues.”

Chris barked out another laugh.

“I’m not that old,” he insisted. “If you were with me because of your daddy issues, I’d probably have to be at least ten years older than I am.”

“Hmm, I dunno,” I teased, but before I could back up my words our bedroom door flung open as Grayson and Theo stormed into the room. I rolled away from Chris and greeted them with a smile. “Good morning, boys.”

“G’morning, Mama!”

Grayson scrambled onto the bed as he spoke while Theo came around to my side with his arms stretched up.

“Me too!” He whined, sounding a bit frantic at the prospect of being left behind as he struggled to get up. “Me too, Neenee!”

I smiled at the nickname he’d given me as he struggled to say my full name and lifted him onto the bed. He had a little stuffed bunny in his hand and I poked it’s fluffy belly.

“Who’s this?”

Theo grinned at me and held his little friend out towards me.

“Peter!”

Chris chuckled as he questioned the name, but I knew exactly where it came from as I remembered my brother’s favourite stuffed animal from when we were kids.

“Oh, is it Peter Cottontail?” Theo nodded as soon as the question was out of my mouth and I smiled before taking the little bunny and making him dance as I sang. “Here comes Peter Cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail, hippity hoppity Easter’s on its way!”

Theo happily mumbled the song along with me, but Grayson laughed as he shook his head.

“No, Mama! It’s not Easter, it’s Thanksgiving!”

“You’re right,” I agreed. “But there’s no bunnies at Thanksgiving, is there?”

“No,” Grayson shook his head. “Just turkey! And pumpkin pie!”

“Which you’re supposed to be helping me make!”

My mom’s voice drew our attention to the doorway and an amused smile slid onto my face as I shook my head at my family's apparent lack of respect for boundaries.

“Good morning, Mom.”

“Good morning, sweetheart. Are you planning on getting up any time soon?”

Her words were teasing, but I rolled my eyes as I was taken back to my teenage years when my mother would regularly have to drag me out of bed at noon.

“It’s only eight o’clock,” I pointed out. “It’s not like we’ve been sleeping all day.”

“I know, but I need your help,” she informed me with a sigh. “Grayson and Theo were going to help me make the pumpkin pie now to get it out of the way, but I can’t figure out how to turn your oven on.”

“It’s like any other oven.”

“No, it’s not like mine,” she insisted. “It’s confusing.”

As if on cue, my brother poked his head in the room with a smirk on his face.

“You shouldn’t buy such fancy, top of the line products if you don’t want to teach your guests how to use them.”

“Oh my god,” I groaned. “It’s not fancy and can you all please leave our bedroom? This is a huge invasion of privacy.”

“The door was open,” Jack shrugged. “Shouldn’t leave your door open if you don’t want people to come in.”

“It’s open because your son opened it.”

“And me!” Grayson chimed in, oblivious to my irritation.

“I sent them in here because I need your help,” my mother repeated. “But we’ll give you a few minutes to get ready. Boys, come on. We can wait in the kitchen.”

The boys scrambled off the bed and followed my mom out of the room. I draped my arm over my eyes and sighed as Chris chuckled.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, peeking at Chris. “My family clearly has no respect for our personal space.”

“It’s fine,” He assured me, leaning over to place a kiss on my lips. “They mean well.”

“Do they?”

I was skeptical, but Chris nodded.

“I’m sure they do,” he insisted, throwing back the blanket and swinging his legs off the bed. “I’ll go help them turn on the oven before they come back.”

I sighed again before sitting up as well.

“I’ll come with you. I won’t make you face them alone.”

“They’re not that bad,” Chris smiled. “It’s nice havin’ them around.”

I pulled on a sweater over my pyjamas as Chris threw some sweatpants over the underwear he liked to sleep in.

“You’re a saint.”

Chris laughed, but simply shrugged as he headed to the door, pausing briefly as he extended his hand and waited for me to take it before leading me out to see my family.

The morning was chaotic, but in the most wonderful way. Once everyone had breakfast and coffee, we set to work organizing things for the afternoon. I was grateful that Grayson and Theo were getting along so well and kept each other entertained and out of the way as my mom, Andrea and I set to work preparing all the food while Chris, Jack and my dad were working on the table situation and finding enough chairs for all of the seventeen people that would be in our dining room that evening. Before the pandemic, Chris often had all his friends over so we luckily did have enough space and chairs for everyone, but since we didn’t have much need for them most of the time they were stored away in the garage. Unfortunately, there was also a dart board and an old foosball table tucked away in there which made the whole process take almost three times as long as it should have, but - with a little nagging from me - everything was in place by the time the rest of our guests arrived.

We’d assured Chris’ family that they didn’t have to bring anything, but when Lisa insisted she had to contribute something I relented and suggested a bottle of wine. However, I was surprised when we greeted them to see Scott and Steve carrying in what appeared to be a crate of wine each.

“I said a bottle,” I protested. “This is too much!”

“Oh, sweetheart, don’t be silly,” Lisa argued as she pulled me in for a hug. “There’s almost twenty people here, one bottle would barely be enough for one sip each.”

“So, you decided everyone needs their own bottle?” I teased as she laughed. “We did stock up as well, we didn’t expect you all to share one.”

“Well, it was the least we could do.”

“Where do you want it all?” Scott asked. “In the kitchen? Can we pour anyone a drink?”

Realizing I hadn’t thought of a reason for my sobriety, I tried to deter him.

“Already, Scott?” I laughed. “It’s only one o’clock!”

“And it’s a holiday,” he shrugged. “We can start drinking whenever we want.”

Several people voiced their agreement and gave Scott their drink requests, but I simply shook my head and assured him I wanted to wait until closer to dinner. He respected that answer and headed off to the kitchen with Chris, Jack and Steve while the rest of Chris’ family went with me to get settled in the living room. I made a few introductions between the people in our families who hadn’t met yet before sitting on the couch between Andrea and Carly.

Seeing our families together was a refreshing sight. I loved my family and I loved Chris’ family and it filled my heart to see them all in one room, getting along like we were all one big family. Our mothers spent the first few hours giggling together and planning our wedding for us, the men - Jack, Scott, Steve, my dad and Carly’s husband, Tom - had started a very serious sounding ranking of various beers, the women - Andrea, Carly and Shanna - were bonding over their work as teachers and the kids were playing Mario Kart on the TV in the corner with the older ones being very patient with Grayson and Theo. There was plenty of mingling between all the little groups that had naturally sectioned off and Chris and I floated between everyone, revelling in how well everyone was getting along.

Time flew by as everyone was happily bonding and as dinner drew nearer, I gestured for Chris to help me clear the plates from the appetizers we’d put out and made him follow me to the kitchen for a quick chat.

“It’s going so well,” I smiled at him as he quickly stacked the plates in the dishwasher. “Everyone’s getting along.”

“Of course they are,” Chris chuckled. “I knew they would.”

“I did too, but it’s a relief to have the confirmation,” I admitted. “Imagine if they all hated each other? I’d be devastated.”

Chris shook his head in amusement as he closed the dishwasher before walking over to me and sliding his arms around my waist.

“I never even entertained that thought because I knew it wouldn’t happen.”

“Well, I wish I’d shared your confidence instead of worrying for nothing.” I buried my head into his chest and enjoyed our little moment of quiet for a minute or two before I pulled back to look up at him. “Should we tell them now?”

“Now?” Chris looked surprised. “I thought you wanted to wait until after dinner?”

“I did,” I nodded. “But I don’t really have a reason not to drink so it might be easier to just do it now.”

“You don’t have to give a reason,” Chris pointed out. “Even if you weren’t pregnant and just didn’t feel like it, that would be okay.”

“Yeah,” I shrugged with a smile. “But they all know me well enough to know that would be a little suspicious.”

Chris chuckled as he shook his head at me again.

“I didn’t know you had such a bad reputation.”

“I really do,” I giggled before giving him my best puppy dog eyes. “But I think we should just tell everyone now before they figure it out.”

From the look on Chris’ face he was well aware that I was only partially being honest about my motivations and that I was also partially just very eager to break the news to everyone, but I was relieved when he nodded in agreement.

“I don’t mind telling them now,” he assured me. “I can go play a round of Mario Kart with the kids and give Gray the signal.”

I smiled as nervous butterflies fluttered in my stomach.

“Do you think he’ll be able to pull it off?”

“I hope so,” Chris smirked. “But, I mean, he did come up with the whole plan almost entirely by himself so he should know what he’s doing.”

I laughed as I thought back to the afternoon we’d spent discussing the plan with Grayson. He was enthusiastic and full of all kinds of wild ideas for how we could share our news until we finally settled on one of his more reasonable suggestions. It still had quite a theatrical element to it and I was hopeful that Grayson had inherited some of his dad’s skill to help him flourish in his role.

“It’ll be cute,” I smiled, stretching up to place a kiss on his lips. “However it ends up.”

“He’s gonna nail it,” Chris assured me. “How long do you think it’ll take them to figure it out?”

“Well, Scott has been plying everyone with drinks for the last couple of hours,” I pointed out. “So, probably longer than it should.”

Chris chuckled as he moved away from me.

“That’s probably true. Well, are you ready to find out?”

I nodded, trying not to grin too widely as I took his hand and we headed back into the living room. As promised, Chris headed straight over to where the kids were playing video games and demanded that they let him have a turn as I sat back down next to our mothers. They asked how the turkey was coming along and offered to help once I started working on the vegetables or any other last minute things that needed assembling, but while I tried my best to engage, my focus was on Chris and Grayson the entire time. I watched as they had one race in the game and smiled when it was done as I saw Grayson take a deep breath and stand up.

“No, thanks, I don’t want a turn,” he announced to all of his cousins, a little too loudly to be natural. “I’m thirsty!”

He marched over to the little table we’d given them for their drinks and picked up his glass. He tossed back his juice, pretending to be drinking quickly out of thirst as he rather sloppily spilled it all down the front of his shirt.

“Oh, no!” He frowned, turning to face us with an exaggerated look of worry on his face. “I got my shirt dirty!”

I sipped my own drink, trying to hide the grin on my face as Chris stood up.

“That’s okay,” he chuckled. “We can get you a new one. C’mon, let’s go upstairs.”

Grayson nodded and followed Chris out of the living room. To my surprise, no one in the room seemed to notice how staged and over the top his performance had been.

“He must take after you, Whitney,” Jack teased. “She needed a sippy cup practically until she was fifteen.”

“That is not true,” I scoffed, shooting him a playful glare. “You’re not invited the next time we have a party. You’re so mean to me.”

He shrugged and blew me a kiss, but other than that observation, no one in the room commented and I was relieved. We all settled back into our conversations, but I kept one eye on the door as I eagerly awaited Grayson’s entrance. It didn’t take long for him to reappear, stopping in the doorway with a grin on his face and his hands on his hips to draw even more attention to the shirt he was wearing. The shirt that clearly said: Big Brother.

But no one noticed.

He was standing there - looking incredibly proud - but due to the number of people in the room and the many engrossing conversations that were happening, no one paid much attention when Chris and Grayson walked back in.

But Grayson wasn’t fazed.

He simply marched over to the table in the middle of all the adults and casually took a few chips from the bowl on the table as if he knew that someone would eventually look at him. When they didn’t, Chris and I watched in amusement as his crunching slowly got louder and louder as he was clearly trying to draw attention to himself until finally Carly noticed what he was doing.

“Wow, Grayson, you’re really enjoying those chips,” she teased before her eyes widened in surprise. “Wait, what does your shirt say?”

The shock in her voice drew the attention of almost every other adult in the room as Grayson grinned, backed up a few steps and held out his shirt for everyone to see.

“It says ‘big brother’!”

His announcement had everyone’s eyes drifting over to me with their curiosity written all over their faces as Chris moved to stand behind Grayson.

“Surprise,” I smiled. “I’m pregnant!”

The room then immediately erupted into an absolutely chaotic scene of love.

Both of our mothers dove in and wrapped me in a hug from both sides as I laughed in the middle. Carly and Shanna dashed across the room to practically tackle Chris and Jack ran over to sweep Grayson - who was giggling with joy - into his arms. Everyone else was shouting their congratulations and I felt like my heart couldn’t be any more full than it was at that moment.

Once everyone calmed down, the questions started.

“How far along are you?” Andrea asked. “When are you due?”

“I’m almost four and a half months,” I grinned. “I’m due around the end of April.”

“And how have you been feeling?”

That question came from my mother and Chris jumped in to answer before I could.

“She’s been super sick,” he informed everyone. “She’s better now, but man, it was brutal. I was worried.”

“I was fine,” I rolled my eyes. “I had some bad morning sickness, but it was nothing unusual.”

Chris opened his mouth to argue, but I shot him a look and was grateful when Carly chimed in.

“It’s amazing how sick it can make you. I was really sick with Stella, but my doctor assured me that it was all normal.”

“Exactly,” I smiled. “And it all stopped almost as soon as my first trimester was over.”

“That’s good to hear,” Lisa nodded. “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl yet?”

“I have an ultrasound at the beginning of January so we’ll find out then.”

“I want a brother!”

Everyone smiled at Grayson’s interjection, but Jack reassured him.

“Your mom is my sister,” he reminded him. “So, having a sister isn’t always bad.”

“I bet Ethan and Miles would agree with that,” Carly smiled. “But having a brother is pretty good too.”

“We’ll just be happy as long as it’s happy and healthy,” Chris shrugged, shooting me a smile. “Show ‘em your bump.”

I laughed as he’d done the same thing when his friends found out too, but it was sweet how excited he was so I stood up and pulled my shirt up enough for it to show. There was a chorus of ‘aww’s’ at the sight before Scott lifted his drink.

“Cheers!” He grinned. “To Whitney, Chris, Grayson and their growing family.”

Everyone raised their glasses to join in the toast before standing and moving to hug the three of us. It wasn’t until my dad pulled me into his arms that I saw the emotion on his face.

“Oh my gosh, Dad, are you crying?”

He squeezed me tightly and cleared his throat.

“I’m just happy for you, Monkey,” he choked out. “I’m so proud of you.”

“Proud that I’m not as much of a mess as the last time I told you that I was pregnant?”

My words were teasing, but as my dad leaned back his face was very serious.

“Proud of the life you’ve built for yourself,” he clarified. “Proud that you’re such an amazing mother and a wonderful person.”

“Dad,” I murmured, trying to fight back tears of my own that his words brought to my eyes. “Thank you. That means a lot.”

He smiled and pulled me in for another hug before letting me slip away back to Chris.

As soon as I got close enough, Chris pulled me against his side and pressed a kiss to the top of my head as his hand rubbed gently against my bump. Grayson scurried over to throw his arms around our legs and I felt tears of joy fill my eyes as I was filled with gratitude for how much love we had around us. It was an amazing feeling to have so much support for our growing family especially coming from those we loved most. I never doubted that they would all be happy about our news, but the sheer joy that they had for us really proved to me just how far we’d come and I was so thrilled that they were all just as excited for the next part of our journey as we were.

Tags: @maggotzombie @moonlacebeam @mizzzpink @flowery-mess @flowerjewels @njrronaldo7 @hockeychick10 @partypoison00 @theladybiers @sidepieces @patzammit @sparkledfirecracker @mytbel0st @mjey12 @denisemarieangelina @elrw24 @findthebeautyinbreakdowns @trottae17 @annvail @gracet93

#chris evans #chris evans fanfiction #chris evans fan fiction #chris evans fic #chris evans fanfic #once bitten/more hearts #the sweetest devotion

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norahastuff · 4 years ago

Note

penny for your thoughts on salmondean codependency ?

Sure. Fair warning it’s long (was longer but I stopped myself.)

I think it’s complicated in a show that’s had so many different showrunners because they’ve all handled Sam and Dean’s relationship very differently. In Kripke’s era (s1-5) there was a romanticization of the bond. Sure there was a lot of in-depth exploration of how they wound up at the place they were at, spoiler alert: it was all because of John and his obsessive crusade to find the demon that killed his wife. That’s all he cared about and as a result, Sam and Dean had to be everything to each other. But Kripke had no intention of dismantling that at any point because he was (and always had been) writing a tragedy. Gamble continued that too. There was no room for anyone else in their lives and it would always just be the two of them against the world. So Cas had to go. Bobby had to go.

(Actually, it's funny because Gamble didn't intend this at the time, her plan was to kill Cas off, but by Edlund creating the masterpiece that is The Man Who Would Be King, he not only saved Cas from being seen as a villain, but he also deepened Dean and Cas' relationship in such a profound way and inextricably linked the two of them emotionally. And since Cas was eventually brought back, that laid the foundation for a lot of what their relationship would become.)

Up until this point, there hadn’t really been any significant dismantling of perhaps the more unhealthy parts of Sam and Dean’s relationship. Enter Carver. He stripped things down and started to explore what drove these characters. What they wanted and why they couldn’t have it. It starts with Dean being mad at Sam for not looking for him in purgatory, which sets up the whole speech in the s8 finale of Sam’s guilt about letting Dean down, but the thing is, Dean was never honest with Sam about his year away either. He never told Sam he could have gotten out much sooner if he hadn’t stayed to find Cas. I mean Dean had assumed Sam was up there alone doing God knows what to try to bring him back, and yet still he stayed in Purgatory because things were clear there. He needed Cas. Anyway, I just find that interesting, but Cas isn’t a victim of Sam and Dean’s relationship in s8.

Who gets the honour of being cast aside? That would be Benny and Amelia, two characters they introduced in s8 specifically to highlight that Sam and Dean’s relationship doesn’t allow for anyone else to be a significant part of their life. I mean that’s nothing new, we’ve watched that happen many times before. Lisa even said as much to Dean. The thing is this time? It’s framed as a truly sad thing. That moment at the end of 8x10 when Dean has just ended things with Benny and Sam leaves Amelia, and they’re sitting alone drinking beer and watching tv is such a hollow empty moment. This is not what they want. But it’s the way things have to be.

I’m actually fascinated by Sam and Dean’s conversation in the church in the s8 finale. Not so much Dean’s assertion that there is no one else he would put before Sam, but more so what provokes it, which is Sam saying “who are you going to turn to instead of me. Another angel? Another vampire?” See the thing is Dean saying he would always put Sam first is not news. We know this and it’s not really an unhealthy statement in itself either. A lot of people would put their sibling above anything else, not less a sibling who you raised and is the most important person to you. But in this context? After what Sam said? It just highlights how unhealthy they are if Sam believes that Dean having other people in his life means he doesn’t love him enough. That he’s a disappointment to him. That’s so profoundly fucked up.

(Note, Dean tells Sam that he killed Benny for him but he doesn’t say anything about Cas. I think like I said before, this is because Cas and Dean’s relationship has largely existed out of the Sam and Dean stuff up to this point - Sam and Cas don’t even really have much of a relationship yet besides both of their connections to Dean.)

And then from here, things start getting steadily worse. But we also keep being shown how bad they are. Dean lying to Sam, taking away his free will by letting Gadreel possess him. Dean sending Cas away, Kevin dying. It’s all awful. The whole “there ain’t no me if there ain’t no you line” from 9x01 isn’t really said by Dean, it’s Gadreel, but that is how Dean feels. He does think that’s all he’s good for. And over the season we’re shown how much of himself and what he truly wants he’s had to give up because of his ingrained “Save Sammy” and “Sammy comes first” mentality. It’s always been this way for him. In 9x07 we see that he had found a happy home, a good father figure, and his first love, a first love might I add that he had to leave behind with no real explanation because Sam needed him, and Sam comes first.

I mean just one episode earlier we had him rushing out the door elated about seeing Cas and spending time with him, only for their time together to come to sad and melancholic end when Dean once again leaves Cas behind without any real explanation, because despite what he wants Sammy comes first. What he wants doesn’t matter.

See I think after the Gadreel stuff comes out is where the narrative starts to get a little wonky for me. You can clearly see that this was intended to be a shorter story that they ended up stretching out to a much longer one because of renewals. There’s also the fact that this is a formula show so they can’t necessarily be separated for longer than an episode or two. S10 is a rough one to get through at times, I think the themes still mostly hold up but it’s a rough one to get through.

S10 highlights all the connections that Dean has, Cas, Charlie, Crowley even, but Sam doesn’t really have those bonds in the same way. For Sam it’s just Dean, so he goes down a reckless destructive “do anything to save Dean!” path and so many innocents pay the price, and ultimately with the release of The Darkness, the whole world.

They skirted right up to the edge of exploring just how toxic and dangerous their relationship had become in the season 10 finale.

DEAN: I let Rudy die. How was that not evil? I know what I am, Sam. But who were you when you drove that man to sell his soul... Or when you bullied Charlie into getting herself killed? And to what end? A..a good end? A just end? To remove the Mark no matter what the consequences? Sam, how is that not evil? I have this thing on my arm, and you're willing to let the Darkness into the world.

I can’t say evil is the right word, they were never evil, but they were wilfully blind to everything and everyone else when it came to saving each other. S10 tested my love for the show because after watching it, because there was certainly a feeling that the two of them had become the villains of this story. And don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have a problem with that, it’s just after 2 seasons of this I can’t say I had a lot of faith that this was going to be properly addressed or if we were going to keep going in circles around it. Keep being shown, it’s bad and then nothing much being done to fix it. Your mileage may vary on how it was handled, but I think s11 did a relatively ok job considering it wasn’t the end of the story, and the show needed to keep going.

See from Dean’s side a lot of the codependency rests on 1. His father’s orders to always save Sammy 2. His low self-esteem where he sees himself as nothing but a blunt instrument. 3. His guilt at not being able to perfectly fulfil every familial role in Sam’s life 4. His belief that no one could choose to love him but family has to love you. 5. The unhealthy example of what it should look like to love someone that he got from John. You give up everything but them.

For Sam (and honestly it’s not as clear for me as Dean’s side is so feel free to correct me/disagree on this) 1. Everytime he’s tried to leave and create his own life it’s never ended well. 2. His guilt over wanting freedom and a normal life when he was younger (I’m referring specifically to Stanford era here) 3. His guilt over everything Dean has given up for him. 4. John. 5. Jess.

Ultimately it all comes down to isolation. They both had to be everything to each other, and the deeper they got into this fight, the more people that they lost, the tighter they clung to this notion of family and brothers. I think s11 (and 11x23 in particular) was an important turning point, both for Sam and Dean’s relationship, as well as for them as individuals. Because they weren’t alone there anymore. Cas was there. Sam let Dean walk to his death. Of course, it would devastate him, but he knew it was what had to be done. And he didn’t walk out of that bar and go back to the bunker alone. He had Cas, he had someone who cared about him and wanted to help him and talk to him. Sure Dean asked Cas to take care of Sam for him (you know after Cas offered to walk to his death with him) but Sam let him. He let him be there for him. We didn’t get to see much before the BMOL showed up and blasted Cas away, but still, we saw enough.

I think that’s a significant difference to note why their relationship was different in the Dabb era. It wasn’t just them anymore. Cas was an important member of their family and given a level of importance he’d never been given before and couldn’t have been when the story they were telling was of the dangers of their codependency. Mary was back. Eventually, Jack would become a part of their unit too. Just the two of them wasn’t enough for them anymore. This is made abundantly clear with all of Dean’s desperate attempts to get Cas to stay in s12, followed by his inability to keep going when they lose Cas and Mary in s13. Similarly, Sam really struggles when they lose Jack and fail to get Mary back later in the season.

Another big moment is Dean letting Sam go alone to lead the hunters against the BMOL in 12x22 while he stays back to try and reach Mary. Like he tells Mary, he’s had to be a brother, a father and a mother to Sam and he never stopped seeing him as his kid, but in that moment he makes a choice. He lets Sam take charge and he shows that he trusts him and believes in him. He knows he can handle it.

Sometimes it’s not even a character growth thing. Sometimes having other people there stops you from making destructive choices even though that’s still your first instinct. I’m thinking specifically of 13x21 after Sam was killed. Dean would have run headlong into that nest of vampires and got himself torn apart, but Cas was there to stop him. He was able to make him see reason.

Basically, I think that for a long time, they thought the only relationship they could have was each other, which then became a self-fulfilling prophecy because their desperate attempts to keep each other around led to them losing the people around them. They eventually started to learn that that wasn’t true, they could have more, they were allowed to want more, and that it wasn’t an either-or situation. Dean didn’t have to choose between Sam and Cas. They didn’t have to choose between each other or Jack. The same goes for Mary. Different relationships can coexist without threatening each other, and not say that their relationship in s12-15 was all smooth sailing, but it was certainly so very different from everything that came before.

(There’s maybe a point to be made about how they didn’t have anyone or anything in the finale and how that relates to the story we got, but honestly I have no idea what the intention was with any of the choices made in that episode so I’ll leave it at that for now.)

#asks #winchester brothers #my spn thoughts #long post for ts #Anonymous #spn meta

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