#And then as the story progresses and things become more and more intense

[leohtttbriar]

star trek fic recommendations

(small Note: i don't read a lot of fic and don't seek it out very often, so i am one hundred percent sure there is a lot more beautifully written star trek fics out there and if anyone has any recommendations for me i am very happy to take them!)

+ piercing music played with bloodied fingers - by 1nterlaced @firstroseofspring

T'Pring takes her fill.

This fic blew out the little we get of T'Pring in the show and created this fascinating person with history and perspective in both a convincing way and with this underlying theme of the value of "choice" in personhood--which not only springs off from canon but enriches it in such a way that I really think this should be published into the ongoing canon of this character. The language is considered and interesting and really engages with the conceit of Vulcan aliens. The craft of this whole fic is truly gorgeous and makes the ending, the climax of choice and interest and attention all established so beautifully in T'Pring as the story progresses, all the more intense in resolution and feeling.

Quote: "One week into her arrival, the sky is cloudy and starless and has been nothing else. Despite the heavy pollution on the planet, the sight is beautiful- emerald green with a constant blanket of thick white clouds. The storms in the area are incessant, roiling and loud. She’d taken a trip to the coast the day before and found that the seaside was much of the same- a ferry trip she'd planned to take to a small island was forced to re-accommodate to be taken by a safer mode of transport, and she’d watched the turbulent waters through the glass instead of feeling the water under her feet."

+ say it soft, and it's almost like praying - by @daemonologywrites

In space, she is simply Lieutenant Uhura. (Or: isn't it a little fucked up that Uhura's first name doesn't get canonized until 2009?)

An incredibly sensual and sensitive examination of Uhura's name and the intimate nature of names and language in general. Absolutely adored it as a framing for how Uhura perceives a varied universe and how she feels perceived by it in turn. The attention paid to details of sound and phrase is reflected by the language of the fic itself, which is beautifully and artfully written. Since it's canon that Uhura translates poetry in her free time (and speaks significantly about moonlight), this fic reads as exactly the sort voice needed to describe her relationship with words and with others.

Quote: "The issue being: that no matter how Uhura thows herself into the fires of dialect and idiom, there are yet those phonemes too fine to be heard by human ears, too harsh to be uttered by a human tongue. Her universal translator can analyze the sound waves and synthesize the appropriate components, but woman-to-woman, alien-to-alien, her heart skips a beat and that fine name worthy of study and finesse (she'd only heard it once in its entirety but the tune of it had lingered oh-so-long) becomes simply—'T'Pring.'"

+ Cut the Strings - by @lostyesterday

During an attempt to secure dilithium from a seemingly abandoned refinery, a terrifyingly powerful and perceptive artificial intelligence takes control of Seven’s body and holds B’Elanna hostage. B’Elanna must rely on her engineering skills and her wits to save both Seven and herself.

This fic was fascinating--it could really be one of the truly memorable Star Trek episodes. The questions coming from its story and characters and writing were all of a sci-fi short story quality and the conceit underlying the plot sticks with you. It's also a particularly good story for the character B'Elanna, capturing the things that arouse B'Elanna's sympathies and showing so movingly how she controls those sympathies and uses them to react and to think and to protect and to just be B'Elanna. The touch of real intimacy between the characters works so well at the end of the story, the way they both wanted to reach out to the other, in a way that finally overcame the tension between them, was really lovely.

Quote: “I had a body once, you know,” Lady Aria whispered. B’Elanna’s eyes flew open. The expression on Seven’s face had turned soft and wistful. “It was fully mechanical – not partially organic as this body is. But they destroyed it.”

+ Simulacra - by TheonlyDan

Philippa Georgiou will always fall into Michael’s arms. You kiss her. She angles her face just in time so your lips land on her cheek, not her mouth. So there’s your last kiss.

This fic portrays a tension between Michael and Georgiou so completely; Michael's yearning, her rationalizing, her acceptance, her non-acceptance--it's all laid out in sparse intimate moments, with evocative figurative language, arguing really well that there is both horror and comfort in being something significant to someone else.

Quote: "Georgiou is fixated on being everything to you, everything and a little extra. So there’s love."

+ patience - by @trillscienceofficer

“I thought eating azna would be enough to calm me down, but I was wrong.” Lenara didn’t hold Jadzia’s gaze for very long, like she was ashamed of something. “I’ve been missing home— I mean Trill, terribly lately.” Jadzia frowned. She’d had no idea. Jadzia and Lenara share a meal (and some feelings) at the replimat.

Everytime I think about this fic I ache. It shows precisely what it is that Lenara left for in "Rejoined," while still being a story about her staying. Lenara's distinct loneliness in this is almost difficult to read because in the moment in the fic there truly is no solution to it except (as Jadzia says in this) to grow comfortable with the discomfort. Jadzia and Lenara, in both dialogue and interpersonal interaction, are so real in this, acting and speaking as any person does about things so beyond their control. And the details in the world-building are both so interesting and lend their choices and their regrets so much depth. When Jadzia remarks that she hasn't ever been to a particular Trill festival, not in any of her lives except one (who remembers it differently), the weight of all the memories that Jadzia and Lenara carry is felt, which is so important I think to both the characters and any version of how their romance plays out.

Quote: “Depths,” she said, hiding her face behind her hands. “It’s really too late now, isn’t it? I can’t bring you the festival, not now and not ever.” She met Jadzia’s eyes, stricken, and Jadzia’s chest constricted painfully. Lenara continued: “The stupid part is, I never really cared for it before. I don’t like the smoke, or the spiced cider, or freezing outside while the fire runs out. And yet now it feels like I’ve lost this— big part of my life. It doesn’t make sense,” she finished forcefully.

+ words for the way you live - by Mirekat

The Dax symbiont, in the wilderness

There's something so special in the idea of exploring the perspective of the symbiont itself and this fic delves so beautifully into what that personhood would feel like; memory and sensation and what it means to be beloved parasite or to have a parasite, the ineffable relationship between symbiont and host. The language in this fic implies a person of deep feeling and attachment and (I might just be inferring this for my own interpretation--it's a very rich fic) makes the argument that part of the Trill conceit to gain vast experiences is sourced in the symbiont itself for the symbiont loves (in a complicated way) each body it is and mourns and continues, inevitably.

Quote: you will know symbiont. you will know parasite. you will know that you can think, and that because you can think you can choose, and that it is right for you to choose symbiont and not parasite, to choose bodies with words and long memories 

+ When Janeway met Tuvok - by mystery_ink

Janeway appears in front of three admirals after what she thought was a successful mission.

This take on Janeway is so inspired and so fascinating, I wanted to live with Lieutenant Janeway for several long years. The tension in the story unfolds so well and the realism inherent in the situation makes the characters feel so real. The indignation on both sides, the change that will happen to them both (only artfully hinted at), and the way it's not a large action that Janeway takes to concede something to Tuvok at the end but it's nonetheless significant: it's all compelling.

Quote: “Lieutenant,” Aates said gently. “We’d like to hear your side of the story.” - “What story?” Densa asked. “This is real life we’re talking about here.”

+ Speech - by raven (singlecrow)

Five languages she learned to speak, and one she already knew.

I found this fic in a crazed fit, desperate for Uhura content, by basically blocking every male character tag and relationship on ao3, and then some. It was very worth the effort. This is so creative and so interesting and so fun and so moving and exactly what I want to see explored more and more and more. The ideas of different languages described in this are delightful and watching a character encounter them and seek, determinedly, to understand them was even more so. I want whole books dedicated to the morphological constructions of the smell-language. Actually, all of them. I want a book for all of them.

Quote: The people of the Light worked with their hands. Their world was made of chromium and glass, wood and stone, smoothed with saltwater, and time. Nyota had told Spock about their intricate art, their solidity of tradition, and the elegiac sparseness of their poetry. She had talked with her hands over breakfast, about cultural continuity and fluidity, and how a world never recorded was never objective, described and experienced in flux.

[edettethegreat]

10/10 manga for pulling a “we’ll defeat you with the power of friendship!!” “That’s… incredibly ignorant of you. I’m significantly more powerful, whether or not you have friends won’t impact this fight”

[gothamcityneedsme]

whens time displacement coming back dude i love it

I'm glad you have enjoyed it!!!! TD is a story very close to my heart and I am so happy that people are still enjoying it.

I don't really have an ETA for the next chapter. It is extremely not well-formed yet. I have loads of notes and such about TD but the actual bones/structure of next chapter are...very very minimal.

I will get back to it though, TD is just not something I can work on all the time. I have to gear up for it and do a lot of sort of rereading and pre-research because I'm just not as into Homestuck as I was when I started it.

I do want to do a full Homestuck reread, which would help my process immensely, but that's a pretty big undertaking, so I haven't yet started that.

Depending on how things are going in my life, I might try to get work done in early 2024 so I could get another chapter out for Homestuck day, but I don't know. I wrote/edited/etc the 20k words of Chapters 22 and 24 to get them out this year, but Chapter 22 was a full draft that I had to rewrite and Chapter 24 had several thousand words of half-formed scenes before I went in to finish it and then edit.

TLDR I just don't have the same amount of pre-work done for Chapter 25 yet so it is much much less formed atm.

Sorry if this isn't the answer you wanted? I'm sort of vaguely rambling about my process here. Just know that TD is a story I want to continue writing and will continue writing, but it's just not viable for it to be 'priority #1' for me, so it's sort of a side project.

[charlesslut16]

Can you write a fic (I was thinking about max but you can do any driver really) where the reader and the driver are best friends to lovers in the early days of the drivers career. The reader supported the driver through it all and wants nothing more but for them to succeed. As the drivers career really starts to kick off, the reader falls pregnant. When the driver finds out, (thinking of max here) he thinks he's going to be a terrible father and gets nervous thinking how he may ruin a whole life, he suggests getting rid of the baby and the reader thinks it's cause of his career, tells him she respects the fact that he doesn't want the baby, but she's going to keep it. ANGSTY please

-losing you to trauma-

summary : max is to unsure to have children, to stay with you and raise your daughter...

PAIRING: max verstappen x fem!reader

WARNINGS : max leaving reader, angst

note : as i'm a girl of a single mother, whose father did almost the exact same thing, it hurts. But i hope that you still like it!

masterlist

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Max Verstappen's Formula One career was just beginning to take off. He was young, talented, and driven, with an intensity that made his presence felt on the track and off it.

His best friend, you, since childhood, had always been there, cheering him on from the sidelines, through every victory and defeat, every celebration and heartbreak.

You both shared a bond that was unbreakable, an understanding that didn't need words. You had seen Max's potential long before the rest of the world, had believed in him when he was just a boy with a dream and a passion for racing.

And after time, you two had become a couple. A happy one, both driven by the drill of driving and passion. But as Max's career soared, so did the distance between you both. Not in your hearts, but in the time you could spend together.

You understood; you had always known that Max was destined for greatness, and you were content to support him from the background. You never complained, never asked for more than what he could give.

Your relationship had evolved quietly. What started as innocent hand-holding during tough times in your racing careers became something deeper, more profound.

It wasn't long before you crossed the threshold from best friends to lovers, a natural progression that felt right for both of you. You didn't need to label it; you simply knew you belonged together.

But then, life threw the both of you a curveball. You found yourself staring at a positive pregnancy test, the weight of the world suddenly resting on your shoulders. You knew this would change everything, for both.

When told Max, his reaction was far from what you hoped for. Instead of joy, there was fear in his eyes. He looked at you, his face pale and his hands shaking, and said, "I can't do this. I don't know how to be a father. I'll ruin everything. Maybe we should... maybe we should consider not having the baby."

The words hit like a punch to the gut. You had expected hesitation, but not this. Not the suggestion to get rid of the life you had created together. Tears welled up in your eyes, but fought them back.

You needed to be strong, for yourself and for the baby.

"Is this about your career?" you asked, her voice trembling but steady. "Are you worried that having a baby will ruin everything for you?"

Max shook his head, but his eyes told a different story. "No, it's not that. I just... I don't want to mess up. I don't want to be a terrible father. I don't want to ruin a whole life because I don't know what I'm doing."

You reached out, taking his hand in yours. "Max, I respect that you're scared. I am too. But this isn't just about you. This is about us, and about this baby. I can't make this decision for you, but I need you to know that I'm going to keep it. I understand if you don't want to be involved, but I have to do this."

His face crumpled, and he pulled you into his arms, holding tightly. "I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice breaking. "I'm so sorry."

You clung to him for dear life, tears streaming down your face. "I love you, Max. And I believe in you, just like I've always believed in you. You can do this. We can do this."

But as much as you tried to reassure him, you could feel the chasm widening between. Max was consumed by his fear, by the thought of failing not just as a driver but as a father.

And though he loved you, his terror of the unknown, of the future, was driving a wedge between the both of you. He could never but your love above the insecurity and that broke you to pieces, that could not be set back together.

The months passed, and Max's career continued to flourish. He threw himself into his racing with a ferocity that left little room for anything else. You watched, heart breaking a little more each day, as the man you loved slipped further away from you.

When the baby was born, a beautiful, healthy girl, Max was there. He had not held her, at the side of you and the baby, his eyes filled with a mixture of awe and fear. But he still couldn't shake his anxiety, couldn't let go of the belief that he would fail them both.

You knew you had to be strong, not just for yourself, but for your daughter. You had always believed in Max, and would continue to do so. But knew that he had to find his own way, had to come to terms with his fears on his own.

And so, with a heavy heart, you let him go, hoping that one day he would find his way back to them. That he would realize that he could be the father their daughter needed, and the partner she had always believed he could be.

Until then, you would keep supporting him from the sidelines, cheering him on just as you always had. Because that's what you do for the ones you love, even when it breaks your heart.

Deep in your heart, you wanted him to come to your house and say that he was sorry and wanted to be in your lives, but as time passed, you realized that he would never come to terms with it.

His trauma being too deep for him to start a family, you accepted the fact, but you never forgave him for it. You love him with your whole heart, and you always will.

Maybe your ways will meet again, who knew?

[uyuforu]

Composite Observations II

It's been a while since I made some Composite posts! So I have decided to make some more. This one will be based on mine with my FS, I really like it not gonna lie haha. This post can also be taken as Davison or Progressed Composite observations! Also had some Sugar Sugar Rune pictures for this post and used to love this manga when I was young! Also funny thing but I realized Chocolat and Pierre (both main characters of the story) are the same sun signs as me and my FS ;-; One of the first manga I read and watched. I listened to the opening OST while writing this post lmao, i'm so nostalgic. This observation is only for romantic composite!!

All pictures are from Pinterest.

Other posts you could like:

જ⁀➴ Composite Observation I

જ⁀➴ Synastry & Composite with In-Laws I

જ⁀➴ Lunar Return Observations II

Book a private reading: menus ; Q&A ; rules ; instagram

✮⋆˙ Libra/ 7°/ 19° Rising means the couple will look good together. They look very much in love, and like the it-couple. They are very romantic towards each other too. Couple also look into each other since the start, it was romance since the every first moment. Couple could be very much into PDA.

✮⋆˙ Taurus/ 2°/ 14°/ 26° Rising will also have that it-couple vibe since it's also a sign ruled by Venus. Couple look like they care about they appearance when they are together, but mostly like they care about each other. Couple could also be into PDA. Could also love to shop together and to eat outside.

✮⋆˙ Taurus Sun makes the couple trust each other a lot, and wanting something long term. Couple is very romantic and sensual with each other, like to flirt a lot. They can love to buy each other gifts, and could also love to spend time with each other.

✮⋆˙ 7H Sun makes the couple care the most about each other, they can become the most important person in each other's life very fast. They can also feel like they found the one for them. They could have always seen each other in a serious relationship.

✮⋆˙ North Node conjunct Rising could mean their meeting was destined and they are meant to be in each other's life.

✮⋆˙ 1H Ruler in 2H can mean people view you as a couple who has money, you could look good and always presentable. You could see yourself that way too, and you could also think you look like an it-couple.

✮⋆˙ Aries DSC can be a sign of marrying fast, or things going fast between you two when you get together.

✮⋆˙ Juno 1H could be a sign of love at first sight, or finding each other very attractive physically. It can also be falling in love very fast with each other.

✮⋆˙ Venus conjunct Pluto is a sign of a very passionate relationship. The couple could want to have some steamy times all the times and being physically close to each other could be a need at some point. Love is intense but slightly toxic at some point.

✮⋆˙ Venus 2H is a sign of long term love, this couple can grow long term and stronger with time in this house. This placement can suggest the couple can make money together and work together. They can love to know what the other one loves and their tastes. They wanna know everything of the other one. Love languages can be gifts giving, physical touches and quality time.

✮⋆˙ 2H Ruler in 2H means money will take a big place in this relationship! The couple could gain a lot of money after marriage or while being together. They could also love to buy each other gifts.

✮⋆˙ Pluto 2H means the way the couples look at possessions and money will change once they meet and even get together. It can also means their money status can change when being together. Perhaps they can gain more while being together.

✮⋆˙ Mars 3H makes the couple have real conversations and find each other's mind very stimulating. A lot of flirting too.

✮⋆˙ Venus conjunct Mars could mean the couple love to show their love in their most intimates moment, and it can also mean to be very compatible in the heated moments. Very passionate love.

✮⋆˙ Mars conjunct Pluto could make the relationship vert intense, and more physically. The physical attraction is over the roof.

✮⋆˙ Sagittarius Venus means the couple could love to teach the other one some new things, couple could love to learn new things together. Couple could be from two different cultures and love to learn from each other. Couples could be very spontaneous too.

✮⋆˙ Sagittarius Mars means they can be more curious when being together, and more open minded too. The couple could be more optimistic when being together too. Like to hear the other's point of view too.

✮⋆˙ Scorpio Juno makes their relationship very possessive and obsessive over each other. They can often stalk the other person online and think of them all the time. Very intense and passionate but also very obsessive and slightly toxic.

✮⋆˙ Neptune 3H is a sign of giving each other love letters, wiring beautiful love declarations and perhaps even being each other's muse.

✮⋆˙ 3H Ruler in 4H could mean the way they communicate could be very soft, and very nice, they don't usually scream at each other. They are very nice to each other. They could speak about family and children often. The idea of having a family could be often discussed.

✮⋆˙ Jupiter 4H makes the couple happy to be together, they will feel more happy and lucky once they move in together and create their family. Both feel like they will be able to bloom in this relationship. A huge sign of long term love.

✮⋆˙ 6H Ruler in 3H means one of the challenge of this relationships is to communicate, perhaps communication can be hard sometimes and it can create some problems. Their lesson is to communicate properly to make their relationship work.

✮⋆˙ 8H Ruler in 2H could mean this couple will own a lot of possession and gain a lot of money together. They could also be very private about their possession, not the type to show off.

✮⋆˙ 9H Ruler in 7H could mean this couple will often travel together, during their marriage and traveling, going on adventures are something they will always do and love to do together.

✮⋆˙ 10H Ruler in 7H means this couple's has high chance to get married. Since there is a 7H stellium, this could mean this couple could be meant to indeed get married. This couple could also work together.

✮⋆˙ 11H Ruler in 7H could mean this couple is best friend as the same time to be lovers.

✮⋆˙ North Node Libra makes the couple's purpose to understand how to have a healthy and balanced relationship. The ying and yang energies need to be balanced and perhaps both people need to tune into their own energy. This can also be a sign of being destined to be in a romantic relationship, none of them will be able to just stay friends (Libra is ruled by Venus).

✮⋆˙ North Node 12H isn't a sign of "meant to break up". Please stop associating the 12H as a bad house. It's indeed a house of endings, but not only, and those endings are good. NN Composite in the 12H to me means more of ending illusions about yourself. The relationship will have a true wake up call and perhaps more on the spiritual side, a deep spiritual awakening.

In my case, I indeed have NN Libra 12H, this can be interpreted as the relationship ending bad cycles in our life in order for us to step into our divine masculine and divine feminine energies. It's very spiritual like.

✮⋆˙ North Node conjunct Chiron is a sign of healing because if the relationship. The couple's destiny is to help each of them heal through their relationship.

And yeah it also has Chiron in that 12H too, I'll talk about it more later, but it's clear that the spiritual awakening.

✮⋆˙ Uranus 4H means the couple will probably change the idea they had of "home" when they meet or even get together.

When I met my FS, I felt so at home with him that he is what I consider home now. The idea I also had of home & family changed when I met him.

✮⋆˙ Jupiter conjunct Uranus is a sign of having an exciting life together, the relationship can also be very spiritual and this aspect can be a sign of a spiritual awakening indeed.

✮⋆˙ 4H Ruler in 4H is a sign of having a long term relationship. It can also be a sign of wanting to live together and have a family together.

✮⋆˙ 5H Ruler in 4H is a sign this couple will want children together, the ruler being Jupiter can create more chances to have some. This is also a sign of living together being fun.

✮⋆˙ 5H Ruler in 3H could mean this couple could laugh and joke a lot together. Talking is fun, they could have a lot of inside joke together. They could also like to sing together, and express their passion to each other. Serenading could be a thing. Talking about having children too.

✮⋆˙ Saturn 6H is a sign that the couple's routine can make it hard for them to build a relationship or to find time to spend together. Their work and busy schedule can create a true obstacle, yet this will be a challenge the couple will need to face and be careful with.

The challenge here will be to organize a good schedule that will enable the couple to still find time for them in this very busy life!

✮⋆˙ Sun conjunct Mercury means the couple is very intellectual and love to exchange ideas, having conversations is not something the couple lack, and if both partner have strong Mercury or Air signs in their own chart, this will be very pleasing for them.

✮⋆˙ Sun conjunct Moon means a divine union, more if it's in the 7H! It can also be a sign of soulmates or high level soulmates in some cases.

✮⋆˙ Leo MC could make this couple famous, or just well known. This couple is a show off couple, and they could be very expressive towards each other. The kind of couple to be huge on PDA.

✮⋆˙ Part of Fortune 10H is a sign of the couple having more chance to work and build something together. Fame as a couple is possible.

✮⋆˙ POF Leo is another fame sign for the couple! Shining and being seen for sure.

✮⋆˙ Taurus Mercury means the couple is very nice, romantic and soft when they interact with each other, and they may not be aggressive even if they argue. Can often use a sensual and charming voice when they talk to each other.

✮⋆˙ Mercury 7H means the couple can flirt a lot and be very romantic. They can think of dating each other right when they first talk, thinking they could totally be in a relationship together.

✮⋆˙ Taurus Moon means the couple thinks this relationship can be long term and they can often feel romantic feelings for each other. They will wanna make anything out of a date together.

✮⋆˙ Moon 7H will make the couple feel like the company of the other person is what they crave the most, they will want to spend only time together, and it's a sign of deep love and commitment.

✮⋆˙ 7H Ruler in 3H could mean this couple is very romantic to each other and may express it a lot to each other. They can make a lot of love declaration to each other.

✮⋆˙ Boda 7H is another big sign of marrying each other. The wedding will be veryyyyy romantic.

✮⋆˙ Taurus Boda makes the wedding of the couple very beautiful and romantic too, the aesthetic will be beautiful.

✮⋆˙ Boda conjunct Mercury is a sign a proposal will most likely happen in their relationship. The couple can also talk a lot about marriage together, and also the wedding they want.

✮⋆˙ 7H Stellium means the couple can't feel like they don't want to do anything without the other one. They feel like their life without each other is meaningless. It creates a very strong bond and they may want to be with each other until the end. They are two who make one. Even if both people are independent, they will not want to be away from each other.

✮⋆˙ Groom 7H could mean groom is very romantic, and he could be in love with briede. He could want to cuddle a lot and do romantic things for briede the most. Groom will probably talk a lot about marriage and wedding matters. Groom conjunct Mercury, another big sign a proposal is indeed a possibility, and Groom could feel like proposing very fast to Briede.

✮⋆˙ Briede 5H could mean briede is romantic too but could want to do more dates, she could be the one making the dates fun more than romantic. Briede will talk a lot about the relationship and children.

✮⋆˙ Groom Taurus will make groom probably have a lot of money, and groom can possibly also be good looking. Groom will care of his appearance and is a flirty person too. Groom could also want to pay in most of dates and will want to buy a lot of things for briede.

✮⋆˙ Briede Pisces means briede will be soft, emotional, has a big empathy, and perhaps too nice. She can also be quite shy, in her world, but very imaginative. Briede will be very romantic and perhaps will do a lot of love declarations for groom. Briede will want to take care of groom too. Briede may be more spiritual than groom.

✮⋆˙ 9H Ruler being Mercury could be a sign this couple speaks many different languages or just are a foreign couple who speaks two different languages.

✮⋆˙ Chiron Libra can mean the couple had some traumas related to love, relationships and will heal those in this relationship.

✮⋆˙ Chiron 12H means this relationship is very spiritual and indeed the two of them will heal the other's wounds. Yet, there can be time of self-sabotage in the relationship because of those wounds.

Thank you for reading!

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[thunderbump]

Home school Home birth

Note: this is the first story to be written based on an idea i was sent! If you anyone has anymore no guarantee I’ll do them but feel free to send me them!

Emma sat perched on her birthing ball, rocking slowly in a rhythmic motion as she tried to ease the relentless pressure in her back. The twins were getting heavier every day, pressing down on her pelvis with an intensity she hadn’t felt with her previous pregnancies. She was enormous now, her belly swollen and round, and every movement felt like an effort. But she tried not to let it show in front of the kids.

Lily and Ben sat at the kitchen table, books and papers spread out before them as they worked through their homeschool lessons. They were so used to this new routine now—Emma managing their schooling while keeping her mind focused on the impending arrival of the twins—that they barely noticed when she winced or shifted uncomfortably. It was just part of the day.

Still, she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep up the act. The twins felt like they were ready to burst out at any moment, and her body was exhausted. She exhaled slowly, adjusting her position on the ball, and glanced at the clock. James wouldn’t be home for several more hours, and she prayed she could make it until then.

“Mom?” Ben called, his small voice cutting through her thoughts. He had abandoned his reading book and was looking at her with those wide, curious eyes that always made her heart melt. “Can you help me find my red dinosaur? I lost it under the couch.”

Emma groaned inwardly. The last thing she wanted to do was crawl around on the floor right now, but Ben was already sliding off his chair, hopeful.

“Sweetheart,” she began, her voice tired, “I’m not sure I can get down there right now. Can you check for it yourself?”

Ben’s face fell. “But I can’t reach. Please, Mom?”

She sighed, rubbing her belly. “Alright, let me try.” Slowly, Emma rolled off the birthing ball, her body protesting every inch of the way. As soon as she stood, the weight of the twins bore down on her pelvis like a leaden mass. She huffed out a breath and waddled over to the couch, trying to ignore how tight her belly was feeling.

She crouched awkwardly, wincing as she knelt down to peer under the couch. A sharp pain radiated through her lower back, and she had to pause to catch her breath. The twins shifted inside her, as if reminding her of just how little space they had left. “Ben, I don’t see it,” she said, her voice strained as she struggled to reach under the couch.

Ben dropped to his knees next to her, his little hand pointing excitedly. “It’s right there, see? Just a little further back.”

Emma gritted her teeth, stretching her arm as far as she could manage. Her belly pressed uncomfortably against the edge of the couch, and she could feel sweat beading on her forehead from the effort. Finally, her fingers grazed the toy’s plastic edge, and she managed to pull it out, handing it over to Ben with a triumphant, if tired, smile.

“Got it!” she said, though her voice lacked the enthusiasm she was hoping for.

Ben’s face lit up, and he grabbed the toy, running off with a shout of “Thanks, Mom!” Emma sat back on her heels, trying to gather the energy to stand. Just as she was about to push herself up, another voice called out.

“Mom!” Lily piped up from the kitchen. “Can you help me with this math problem? I don’t understand it.”

Emma groaned softly, her hands pressing against the couch as she tried to haul herself up. Everything hurt, and the pressure in her pelvis was becoming impossible to ignore. She managed to rise, though her legs felt shaky beneath her.

“Coming, Lily,” she said, forcing herself to waddle over to the kitchen table. As soon as she sat down, she felt another tight cramp ripple through her belly. She took a deep breath, brushing it off as just another one of those Braxton Hicks contractions she’d been having for weeks. They’d come and go, teasing her, but never progressing into real labor. Still, something about today felt different.

Lily slid her workbook over, her finger pointing to a math problem. “I don’t get it. Can you explain it again?”

Emma leaned in to read the question, but as she did, another sharp tightening gripped her belly. This time, she couldn’t ignore it. She closed her eyes for a second, her hand instinctively moving to her stomach as she tried to breathe through the discomfort.

“Mom?” Lily’s voice cut through the fog of pain. “Are you okay?”

Emma opened her eyes, forcing a smile. “I’m fine, honey. Just a little… twinge. What’s the question again?”

Lily frowned but didn’t press. She pointed to the problem again, and Emma did her best to explain, though the words felt thick in her mouth. Another wave of pressure hit her lower back, and she shifted uncomfortably in the chair, trying to find a position that didn’t make her feel like she was being split in two.

“Mom, can we have a snack?” Ben called from across the room, his little dinosaur clutched in his hand.

Emma blinked, trying to focus. “Sure, buddy. Give me a second.”

She started to push herself up, but halfway to standing, she froze. A sudden, deep pop echoed inside her, like a water balloon bursting, followed by an unmistakable gush of warmth that soaked through her leggings and spilled onto the floor beneath her. Her water had broken.

For a moment, she just stood there, stunned, staring at the puddle on the floor. Her heart raced as she tried to process what was happening. No, no, no… it was too soon.

“Mom?” Lily’s voice was small, her eyes wide as she took in the sight. “What just happened?”

Emma blinked, snapping out of her daze. “My water just broke,” she said, her voice shaky. The reality of the situation hit her hard. The twins were coming. Now.

Ben ran over, his eyes bright with concern. “Mommy, are you alright?”

Emma took a shaky breath and forced a smile. “I’m okay, sweetheart. Just a little surprised, that’s all.” She grabbed the back of a chair, steadying herself as a contraction rolled through her, much stronger than the ones she’d felt earlier. “Okay, kids, listen to me,” she said, her voice firm despite the pain. “I need you to help me, alright?”

Lily was already by her side, her small hand on Emma’s arm. “What do you need, Mom?”

“Lily, can you get me my phone from the counter?” Emma said, her breath coming in short bursts as another contraction tightened her belly. Lily ran off to grab it, while Emma turned to Ben. “Ben, can you get some towels from the bathroom and bring them here?”

Ben nodded and darted toward the hallway, leaving Emma standing in the kitchen, gripping the chair as another wave of pain overtook her. The contractions were coming fast now, and she knew she didn’t have much time. Her hands trembled as she tried to breathe through the pain, focusing on keeping calm for the kids.

Lily returned with the phone, and Emma quickly dialed James’s number, her fingers shaking as she pressed the buttons. The phone rang once, twice, and then James’s voice came through the line.

“Hey, babe! How’s it going?”

“James,” Emma gasped, “my water just broke. I think I’m in labor.”

There was a pause, followed by the sound of James’s chair scraping across the floor. “What? Now? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Emma said, her voice tight with pain. “The contractions are really strong. You need to come home. Now.”

“I’m leaving right now,” James said, his voice urgent. “I’ll call an ambulance, just in case. Hang in there, Em. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

Emma ended the call just as Ben ran back into the room, his arms full of towels. He looked at the puddle on the floor and back at his mom, his eyes wide with curiosity. “Is it time for the babies to come out?”

“Yes, Ben,” Emma said, her voice trembling as another contraction gripped her. “It’s time.”

She moved toward the couch, trying to lower herself onto the towels that Ben had spread out, but her legs were shaking so badly that she could barely stand. The pressure in her pelvis was unbearable, and she knew that the twins weren’t going to wait much longer.

Lily stood by her side, her hand clutching Emma’s arm.

Emma clutched the back of the couch, her body trembling as the contractions came one after another, with barely any time to rest in between. The pressure was overwhelming, and she knew they weren’t going to make it to the hospital.

Emma leaned heavily against the couch, each contraction washing over her like a tidal wave, relentless and intense. She could feel the pressure building, and with each wave, the reality of the situation sank in deeper. There was no way they would make it to the hospital in time.

“Mommy, what’s happening?” Ben’s small voice trembled with worry as he watched her.

“It’s okay, Ben. Just breathe with me, alright?” Emma gasped, trying to find some semblance of calm amidst the chaos. She could see Lily’s concerned face as she moved closer, her eyes wide with fear.

“What can we do to help?” Lily asked, her voice steadying as she took on a role of determination.

Emma swallowed hard. “Just stay close and listen to me.” She gripped the edge of the couch tightly, feeling another contraction hit her. “I need you both to be brave. This is going to happen here, but we can do this together.”

“Okay, Mommy,” Ben said, his little fists clenched as he tried to appear strong.

As another contraction surged through her, Emma let out a low groan, her body tensing. “Kids, I need you to find some more towels and a blanket. We’re going to need them.”

Lily nodded and darted to the bathroom, while Ben ran to grab a blanket from the living room. Emma breathed through the pain, her vision narrowing as she focused on the task ahead. She could feel the twins shifting inside her, and it was a strange mix of anticipation and fear.

“Here, Mommy!” Lily returned with a pile of towels, her small face flushed with effort.

“Thank you, sweetie. Just lay them down here on the floor,” Emma instructed, pointing to the space beside the couch.

Ben hurried back with the blanket, his face a mix of excitement and worry. “I got it, Mommy!” he said, laying it down with exaggerated care.

“Perfect. Now I need you both to stay right here and hold my hand, okay?” Emma said, her voice firm as she felt another wave of pressure build.

“Okay, Mommy,” they chorused, taking their places beside her.

Emma leaned back against the couch, panting as the next contraction hit her. She closed her eyes, focusing on her breathing. “You can do this, Emma,” she whispered to herself, though the doubt crept in.

“Mommy, are you alright?” Ben asked again, his small hand gripping hers tightly.

“I’m alright, honey. Just a little more pressure,” she replied, forcing a smile.

Suddenly, she felt an intense urge to push, one that she couldn't ignore. “Kids, I need you to stay close and help me. I need you to support me.”

“Okay!” Lily said, her voice filled with determination.

Emma's body began to tense up again, and she grunted, the sound escaping her lips involuntarily. “Ohh… oh God,” she moaned, feeling the pressure build inside her.

“Mommy!” Ben exclaimed, his eyes wide as he watched her. “Are you okay? You sound… different!”

“I’m okay, sweetheart. Just working hard,” Emma replied through gritted teeth, sweat beading on her forehead.

“Do you want me to get you some water?” Lily offered, her eyes darting around as if searching for anything to help.

“No, honey, I just need to breathe,” Emma said, her breath coming in quick, short gasps. With each contraction, she let out a low groan, feeling the unmistakable urge to push intensify. “Ohh, I can feel them coming, I can feel them!”

“Mommy, are you gonna be okay?” Ben asked, worry lacing his voice.

“I will be, baby, I promise,” Emma managed to say before another contraction hit, and she let out a loud groan, her body shaking with effort. “Ahhh… it’s happening!”

“Mommy!” Lily said, gripping Emma’s arm tighter. “You’re doing it! You can do it!”

Emma focused on her children, their encouragement giving her strength. She felt the incredible pressure building, followed by a rush of warmth as she welcomed the first twin into the world.

“It’s a baby!” she gasped, tears of relief and joy streaming down her cheeks as she caught sight of her newborn.

“Is it a girl?” Ben asked, peering closely, excitement mingling with awe.

“Yes! It’s a girl!” Emma exclaimed, cradling her daughter carefully in her arms as the baby let out a soft cry.

“Mommy, you did it!” Ben cheered, his innocent excitement mingling with concern.

“We helped, too!” Lily added, her face beaming with pride.

Emma smiled, tears of joy spilling down her face as she looked at her children, who had been her rock through this incredible moment. “Yes, you did! I couldn’t have done it without you.”

But she wasn’t done yet. As the reality set in, another wave of pressure came, and Emma prepared herself for the second twin. “Ohh… here we go again!” she groaned, feeling the contractions surge through her body once more.

“Come on, Mommy! You can do it!” Ben encouraged, his small fists clenching with anticipation.

“Keep going, Mommy!” Lily echoed, her eyes fixed on Emma, filled with admiration and worry.

With determination, Emma pushed again, feeling the familiar sensation of movement within her, and with a final, powerful effort, she welcomed the second baby into the world, this one a boy.

“It’s a boy!” she gasped, cradling both babies in her arms as they cried softly.

“Mommy, you really did it!” Ben exclaimed, jumping up and down in pure joy.

“We helped!” Lily added, her face aglow with excitement.

Emma looked down at her newborns, panting as she reveled in the moment. “Welcome to the world, little ones,” she whispered, holding her babies close as her children beamed with pride.

Just then, Emma heard the distant sound of sirens approaching. Relief washed over her, knowing that James was finally on his way. But in that moment, surrounded by her two eldest and the two new lives she had just brought into the world, she felt a warmth in her heart that she had never known before.

[yet-another-heathen]

On the topic of realistic conditioning/deconditioning,

If the trigger is something whumpee wouldn't hear often when they're with caretaker but whumpee still wants to break it because they might hear it elsewhere (like kneel being taken as a command)

Would whumpee ask caretaker to casually trigger them so they have the opportunity to challenge it in their own head and in a safe place? Would this be a good idea for recovery?

And of course being there with the praise everytime whumpee makes just a little bit of progress, or comfort when they don't.

Heads up, anon: your ask was an EXCEPTIONALLY good one, and I ended up writing another mini TED talk (~3-4 min read) in response. Thank you so much for sending it in!

...on Conditioned Whumpees - Part 3

[ Part 1 - Part 2 ]

That is a very, very good idea! You're spot on with all of it, particularly operating in a safe environment where whumpee is ultimately calling the shots. Having that comfort/support readily available will make a huge difference in how well whumpee can tackle the matter. And while the process isn't fun, approaching desensitization with this much intent is much, much more likely to result in success.

I can offer a few pointers that can add another few layers of realism, as well as some other things to think about while tailoring it to your story:

if whumpee is actively working through their conditioning in this way, memories of their trauma will become closer to the surface. As a result, all of their other PTSD symptoms will be elevated during the course of their practice sessions, as well as for at least a few weeks after.

flashbacks are a very common experience during times like this. engaging with triggers like this is going to cause their flashbacks to become more frequent and intense.

during such flashbacks, it is almost a given that whumpee's mind and body will enter a similar state to the one it was in during the time when the flashback was taking place. By that I mean that the fear they felt in that moment, where it was physically located in their body, will echo into their body in the present moment. Same goes for other all other emotions, and sometimes even phantom aches surrounding any injuries they received at the time...

while the emotions tend to be identical to the ones felt during the trauma, in my experience, the pain comes out distorted in a similar way to the way it does in dreams: less intense, and more "blurry" and imprecise in location. When we say that someone having a flashback is "reliving the moment", we mean that their body literally feels as though they're in the same immediate danger that it was in back then.

this is true even though they'll be aware to at least some degree that they're presently with caretaker and safe.

the flashbacks don't always happen immediately after the conditioning trigger is used. Often they flare up hours or days later, sometimes without warning, sometimes as a result of encountering a different flashback trigger. The whumpee's thresholds for what counts as a trigger will drop, which is part of what causes the flashbacks to happen more often. Something they could normally ignore is going to affect them much more while they're like this.

your whumpee is more likely to experience severe mood swings while in this heightened state. Especially feelings like irritability, frustration, anger, loneliness, and grief. This stuff ain't pretty, folks. Even your sweet cinnamon bun is most likely going to lash out at someone as a result.

PTSD episodes are also exhausting. your whumpee is going to feel mentally, physically, and emotionally drained. And, to add insult to injury, being tired amplifies the emotions listed above.

Now all of this said, your whumpee may or may not know that this is to be expected. If they've worked on processing their trauma before this, they'll have figured out that one often leads to the other. They'll go into the deconditioning practice knowing this is coming, and will approach it carefully, but with a fairly level head. Knowing that it'll suck, but they'll come out the other side okay.

If not, they're in for a rather nasty surprise.

For the latter, they will feel at first that the deconditioning practice is making everything worse. They're suddenly struggling the way they did when the trauma was fresher, and it can be tempting to stop and refuse to touch it again because the mental/emotional pain gets so intense.

If they do give up at this stage, it will make trying again far more daunting in the future.

But the trauma being stirred up is actually a sign that it's helping. It means that the whumpee is starting to process what happened to them, which is a fundamental step in being able to heal.

Note: All throughout the process, crying is a very good thing. It lets them physically get rid of a lot of the brain chemicals associated with these surges of emotion. Letting themselves cry over things they couldn't cry about back then can actually help them let go of those feelings in a similar way to if they'd been able to process them in the moment. [Which is the basis for much of EMDR, a specialized tool used in trauma therapy.]

Okay. So now we know what other effects can cascade from the actual deconditioning practice, now we have some things to consider.

First off, what time parameters are whumpee and caretaker working within while deconditioning? There are three basic options:

they sit down together and practice repeatedly using the trigger for [X amount of time; usually <45m at once] back to back. Once that time is up, caretaker will no longer use the trigger at all, the excercise will end, and they'll get up to do something else.

whumpee sets a specific window of time [X number of hours] within which caretaker will use the trigger word at random points. Once that time has elapsed, the exercise is over.

over the course of days, caretaker uses the trigger word at random points without giving warning. the excercise only stops after being ended by whumpee.

Now why is that important? Because of something called hypervigilance. It is another symptom of PTSD which, to put it into the simplest words, is whumpee waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's a heightened state of tension and wariness in which whumpee is expecting that something bad is going to happen, and is constantly searching for any sign to indicate when it's coming.

It is beyond exhausting.

Imagine knowing that someone is about to slap you as hard as they can, and you have to sit there with your eyes closed, waiting for it. The breath-holding, the flinchiness, the rigid tension in your body as you strain to listen for when they're coming.

Only now, stretch that moment out into hours. Days. Weeks. That is hypervigilance.

A hypervigilant whumpee is not going to be able to relax. Or rest. Or decompress. Or readily trust much of anything around them. They're MUCH more likely to flinch at sudden movements/sounds. They might start biting their nails or showing other signs of nervousness and distress.

These methods above have a gradually increasing chance of setting off whumpee's hypervigilance. If they know exactly when the next trigger is coming, as in example 1, then their 'waiting for it' tension will be low. But the more uncertain they become of exactly when it's going to happen, as in examples 2 & 3, the worse the hypervigilance is going to get.

The trade off is that the later examples are more effective in desensitizing them toward the trigger. The more their practice mimics encountering an unexpected trigger in day-to-day life, the easier it will be to fall back on that desensitization when the time comes.

Therefore, it would be a very good idea for a whumpee who's new to this to start with number 1, then gradually progress to 2 & 3 as time goes on. They should be the one to decide when the next step is made, and if/when they need to dial it back.

Other questions to ask yourself while plotting:

how mentally prepared is whumpee for worsening symptoms? what about caretaker? did either of them know it was coming?

how much of this heightened PTSD stress can your whumpee take before it becomes too much? how do they react when they do hit that tipping point?

if caretaker feels that whumpee is getting too distressed during practice even though they're not tapping out, would they call it off themself? Or would they ultimately leave that decision to whumpee?

based on the answer, how would whumpee feel about caretaker's decision? Relieved? Belittled? Betrayed?

does whumpee have any grounding tools they can use while practicing?

how does caretaker handle the mood swings and instability that come with whumpee's heightened PTSD? You should consider both their internal and external reactions on the matter.

how does whumpee prefer to decompress after a practice session? what things would help them calm down and recover?

how long do they need (hours or days) before the next attempt?

Even with all I've just written, there's far more to the resulting hightened state of PTSD than flashbacks and hypervigilance. PTSD symptoms that they're most likely to encounter in the background while doing deconditioning practice include:

Flinchiness, anxiety, panic attacks, nightmares, exhaustion, emotional mood swings, outbursts, crying spells, depression, executive dysfunction, dissociation, numbness, racing thoughts, freeze responses, tremors, inappetence, muscle tension, and heart palpitations.

Yes, usually many of them at once, even those that contradict. Your whumpee is going to have a LOT going on at once, and it is not going to be a fun time. I recommend looking up any of the above symptoms you don't recognize, and looking for whump inspiration in what you learn.

(Because everyone experiences PTSD episodes differently, there's a lot of wiggle room in which ones whumpee will encounter. Don't feel pressured to use all of them, find what you want to write and have fun with it!)

Thanks again for the incredible ask, anon. And again, I want to congratulate you on how spot-on your original ask was. You nailed it. I know this was a lot more than you asked for, but I hope this provides helpful context for your whump! My inbox will always be open if you think of anything more <3

[shybluebirdninja]

Abyss of Time

Summary: In a dystopian future where mutants are hunted, Logan, a 170-year-old warrior, meets Y/n, a 25-year-old human who helps mutants escape persecution. Drawn to her bravery, Logan becomes increasingly possessive as their bond deepens, especially when Y/n’s dedication to her cause puts her in danger. Tensions rise as Y/n grows close to another mutant in their group, testing Logan’s control and their relationship. The story comes into the complexities of love and survival in a world where danger lurks at every turn, and Logan’s possessiveness might be the only thing keeping Y/n alive.

Pairing : Logan Howlett x Female human-reader

Warning : None

The city was a maze of shadows and ruins, a twisted labyrinth where only the desperate dared to tread. Once a symbol of progress and civilization, it had crumbled under the weight of fear and hatred. The streets, once bustling with life, were now desolate, haunted by the echoes of a war that had left no corner untouched.

Y/n darted through the narrow alleyways, her breath coming in sharp bursts as she led a small group of mutants through the darkness. Her heart pounded in her chest, not from fear, but from the adrenaline that had become as familiar to her as breathing. This was her life now—running, hiding, fighting to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. And she wouldn’t have it any other way.

The group of mutants following her was a mix of ages and abilities, each one marked by the telltale signs of their genetic differences. In this world, those differences were a death sentence. The government had declared war on mutants, branding them as a threat to humanity, and had unleashed the Sentinels—soulless machines programmed to hunt and kill without mercy.

Y/n had lost count of how many mutants she had helped over the years. She didn’t do it for recognition or reward. She did it because it was right, because someone had to stand against the madness that had consumed the world. And because, deep down, she believed that mutants had as much right to live as anyone else.

As they approached an abandoned warehouse, Y/n slowed her pace, signaling for the group to stop. The warehouse was one of the many safe houses scattered throughout the city, hidden in plain sight among the ruins. It wasn’t much—just four walls and a roof—but it offered temporary refuge from the relentless hunt.

Y/n pushed open the rusted door and stepped inside, her senses on high alert. The interior was dark, lit only by the faint glow of a few battery-operated lamps. She scanned the room, her eyes adjusting to the dim light, and froze when she saw a figure standing in the corner, half-hidden in the shadows.

Logan.

His presence filled the room, an unspoken threat to anyone who dared to cross him. Y/n had heard of him long before they met—stories of a man who had lived for over a century, who had fought in wars that were now the stuff of legend. But nothing could have prepared her for the reality of him. Logan was a force of nature, all raw power and barely contained rage, and yet, there was something about him that drew her in, something she couldn’t quite define.

“What are you doing here?” Y/n asked, her voice steady despite the tension thrumming in the air.

Logan stepped into the light, his eyes locking onto hers with an intensity that made her heart skip a beat. “Heard you were takin’ a risky route tonight. Thought you could use some backup.”

Y/n bristled at his tone, at the implication that she couldn’t handle herself. “I’ve been doing this long before you showed up. I don’t need your help.”

Logan’s gaze darkened, his jaw tightening. “Yeah, and you’ve been lucky so far. But luck runs out, kid.”

The endearment, meant to be a casual remark, stung more than Y/n cared to admit. She wasn’t a child, and she resented being treated like one. But she also knew better than to argue with Logan when he was in this mood. Instead, she turned to the group of mutants behind her, their eyes wide with fear and exhaustion.

“Wait here,” she instructed them before turning back to Logan. “We’ll rest here for a bit, then move on.”

Logan nodded, his expression softening just a fraction. “I’ll keep watch.”

Y/n didn’t bother to respond. She knew Logan well enough to understand that he would do what he wanted, regardless of what she said. As she moved to help the mutants settle in, she couldn’t shake the feeling that tonight was different, that something was lurking just out of sight, waiting to strike.

Time passed in tense silence, the only sounds the occasional rustle of movement or the distant hum of a Sentinel patrol. Y/n tried to rest, but her mind wouldn’t stop racing. She kept replaying Logan’s words in her head, the way he had looked at her, as if he was trying to protect her from something she couldn’t see.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a soft voice at her side. “Y/n?”

She turned to see one of the younger mutants, a boy no older than sixteen, standing next to her. His eyes were wide with worry, his hands trembling as he clutched a worn blanket around his shoulders.

“Are we safe here?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Y/n forced a smile, trying to reassure him even though she wasn’t entirely sure herself. “For now, yes. We’ll move again soon, just to be safe.”

The boy nodded, but the fear in his eyes didn’t fade. Y/n placed a hand on his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Stay close to me, okay? I won’t let anything happen to you.”

The boy nodded again, his grip on the blanket tightening. Y/n watched as he returned to the others, huddling close to an older mutant who put a protective arm around him. The sight tugged at her heart. These people had lost so much—family, friends, homes—and yet they still found the strength to keep going. It was a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, mutant or not.

Logan’s voice broke through her thoughts. “You’re good with them.”

Y/n glanced over at him, surprised by the softness in his tone. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, his gaze fixed on her.

“They trust you,” he continued, his expression unreadable. “That’s not an easy thing to earn these days.”

Y/n shrugged, uncomfortable with the praise. “They don’t have much of a choice. It’s either trust me or risk getting caught.”

Logan pushed off the wall and walked over to her, his presence as overwhelming as ever. “It’s more than that, and you know it.”

Y/n looked up at him, her heart skipping another beat at the intensity in his gaze. She had never been good at reading Logan, never quite sure what was going on behind those eyes. But right now, she could see something she hadn’t noticed before—something that made her pulse quicken.

Logan reached out, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture was so unexpected, so out of character, that Y/n froze, unsure of how to react.

“You’re brave, Y/n,” he said quietly, his voice rough with something she couldn’t name. “But bravery can get you killed if you’re not careful.”

Y/n swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. “I know the risks.”

Logan’s hand lingered for a moment before he dropped it to his side. “I’m not talkin’ about them. I’m talkin’ about you.”

Y/n’s breath hitched at the words, at the implication behind them. She had always known that Logan was protective, that he had a tendency to take on more than he should. But this felt different. This felt personal.

Before she could respond, a noise outside the warehouse caught their attention. Logan’s head snapped up, his senses immediately on high alert. Y/n tensed, her heart pounding in her chest as she strained to hear what had set him off.

The door to the warehouse creaked open, and Y/n’s breath caught in her throat as a figure stepped inside. For a split second, she feared it was a Sentinel, that their hiding place had been discovered. But then she recognized the newcomer and let out a sigh of relief.

It was Jake, a mutant they had picked up a few weeks ago. He was young, not much older than Y/n, with a cocky grin and a swagger that belied the horrors he had seen. Y/n had grown fond of him, his easy smile and unshakable optimism a rare comfort in a world gone mad.

“Jake,” Y/n breathed, her relief evident in her voice. “You scared the hell out of me.”

Jake grinned, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “Sorry, didn’t mean to. Thought I’d check on you guys, see if you needed any help.”

Logan’s expression darkened at the sight of Jake, his posture tensing. Y/n noticed the change immediately, a knot of unease forming in her stomach.

“We’re fine,” Logan said curtly, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Jake raised an eyebrow at Logan’s response but didn’t back down. “Just thought I’d offer. No harm in that, right?”

Y/n stepped between them, sensing the rising tension. “It’s okay, Jake. We’re just getting ready to move out. You can come with us if you want.”

Jake’s grin widened. “Sure thing. Lead the way, boss.”

Logan’s eyes flashed with something dark and dangerous, but he said nothing as Y/n led the group out of the warehouse. The streets were eerily quiet, the city shrouded in an unnatural silence that set Y/n’s nerves on edge. She kept a close watch on their surroundings, every sense on high alert as they made their way through the shadows.

Logan fell into step beside her, his presence a comforting weight at her side. But she could feel the tension radiating off him, the barely contained anger that simmered just beneath the surface.

As they walked, Y/n couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to happen, that the fragile peace they had managed to maintain was about to shatter. She glanced over at Logan, searching his face for some sign of what he was thinking, but his expression was unreadable.

“Logan,” she began, but he cut her off with a sharp look.

“Stay close,” he growled, his voice low and dangerous. “And keep an eye on him.”

Y/n followed his gaze and saw Jake a few paces ahead, his posture relaxed, seemingly unaware of the danger around them. She frowned, confused by Logan’s sudden hostility.

“Logan, what’s going on?” she asked, her voice tinged with concern.

Logan’s jaw tightened, his eyes narrowing as he watched Jake. “Just do as I say, Y/n.”

Y/n opened her mouth to argue, but something in Logan’s tone made her stop. She nodded, falling silent as they continued through the city, the tension between them thick enough to cut with a knife.

It wasn’t until they reached another safe house, this one a dilapidated apartment building on the outskirts of the city, that Y/n finally had a chance to confront Logan. The others had gone inside to rest, leaving them alone in the dimly lit hallway.

“What the hell is your problem?” Y/n demanded, her voice low but fierce. “Why are you acting like this?”

Logan’s eyes flicked to the door where the others had gone, then back to Y/n. “You need to be careful with him.”

“With Jake?” Y/n asked, incredulous. “Why? He’s been nothing but helpful.”

Logan’s expression darkened, his possessive nature rearing its head. “He’s getting too close to you.”

Y/n blinked, taken aback by the accusation. “Too close? Logan, he’s a friend. That’s it.”

Logan stepped closer, his towering presence making Y/n’s heart race. “He’s a distraction, Y/n. And distractions can get you killed.”

Y/ne’s anger flared at his words, at the way he was trying to control her. “You don’t get to decide who I’m friends with, Logan. You don’t get to dictate who I care about.”

Logan’s hand shot out, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her closer. His eyes were blazing with a mix of anger and something else—something that made Y/n’s breath catch in her throat.

“I’m trying to keep you safe,” he growled, his voice rough with emotion. “You have no idea what’s out there, what could happen if you let your guard down.”

Y/n wrenched her arm free, her eyes flashing with defiance. “I don’t need you to protect me, Logan. I’ve been doing just fine on my own.”

Logan’s expression softened for a brief moment, a flicker of something like regret passing through his eyes. “You’re brave, Y/n. But bravery can be a double-edged sword.”

Y/n stared at him, her heart pounding in her chest. She wanted to argue, to push him away, but she couldn’t ignore the truth in his words. She had seen too many people die because they had been too brave, too willing to take risks. And yet, she couldn’t let fear control her, couldn’t let Logan’s possessiveness dictate her life.

Before she could say anything else, the sound of footsteps echoed down the hallway, breaking the tense silence. Y/n turned to see Jake approaching, his easy grin in place, completely unaware of the storm brewing between her and Logan.

“Hey, everything okay?” Jake asked, his eyes flicking between the two of them.

Y/n forced a smile, trying to keep the tension from showing on her face. “Yeah, everything’s fine. Just talking strategy.”

Jake nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer. “Cool. Just wanted to check in before we head out again.”

Logan’s eyes narrowed, his posture tensing as Jake turned to leave. Y/n could feel the anger radiating off him, the jealousy that was so obvious it practically crackled in the air.

Once Jake was out of earshot, Y/n turned back to Logan, her voice low and firm. “You need to stop this, Logan. Jake is not a threat.”

Logan’s jaw clenched, his eyes hard. “He’s more of a threat than you realize.”

Y/n shook her head, frustration boiling over. “This isn’t about Jake. This is about you not being able to control everything around you.”

Logan didn’t respond, his silence only fueling Y/n’s anger. She took a deep breath, trying to calm the storm of emotions swirling inside her.

“I can take care of myself,” she said quietly, her voice trembling slightly. “You don’t have to do it for me.”

Logan’s eyes softened, a flicker of pain crossing his face. “I know you can, Y/n. But I can’t help it.”

Y/n stared at him, her heart aching at the vulnerability in his voice. She had never seen Logan like this, so raw and exposed. It was as if the walls he had built around himself were crumbling, leaving him defenseless against the emotions he had tried so hard to suppress.

Without thinking, Y/n reached out, her hand resting on his chest. She could feel the steady beat of his heart beneath her palm, the warmth of his skin seeping into her own.

“Logan,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “I don’t want to lose you.”

Logan’s hand covered hers, his touch gentle despite the storm raging inside him. “You won’t. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

Y/n’s breath caught in her throat at the intensity of his words, the promise that lay beneath them. She had always known that Logan was dangerous, that he was capable of doing terrible things in the name of survival. But this was different. This was about something deeper, something that scared her more than any Sentinel ever could. Before she could say anything else, Logan leaned down, his lips brushing against her forehead in a gesture that was both tender and possessive. Y/n’s heart fluttered at the contact, her emotions a tangled mess of fear and longing.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” Logan murmured, his voice rough with emotion. “Even if it means keeping you away from everyone else.”

Y/n closed her eyes, the weight of his words settling over her like a heavy blanket. She knew that Logan’s protectiveness came from a place of love, that he cared for her more deeply than he would ever admit. But she also knew that his possessiveness could be dangerous, that it could drive a wedge between them if she wasn’t careful.

When Logan finally pulled away, Y/n felt the loss of his warmth like a physical blow. She opened her eyes to find him watching her, his expression torn between desire and something darker.

“We should go,” Logan said, his voice strained. “The others are waiting.”

Y/n nodded, her heart heavy with the knowledge that their relationship had just crossed a line that couldn’t be uncrossed. As they made their way back to the group, she couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was about to change, that the fragile bond they had built was about to be tested in ways they couldn’t possibly imagine.

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

The journey to the next safe house was tense, the silence between Y/n and Logan growing heavier with each passing moment. Jake tried to make conversation a few times, but the mood was too dark, the unspoken tension too palpable for any lighthearted banter to cut through.

When they finally reached their destination, a rundown building that had once been a school, Y/n was relieved to see that the other mutants were already inside, safe and sound. But the relief was short-lived. The moment they stepped through the door, they were met with the sight of another mutant standing in the center of the room, his presence radiating a power that made the air hum with electricity.

Y/n recognized him instantly—Erik, a mutant with the ability to control metal. He was a legend among their kind, both revered and feared for his abilities and his ruthless determination to protect mutantkind at all costs.

“Erik,” Y/n greeted him, her voice wary. “What are you doing here?”

Erik’s gaze swept over the group, his expression unreadable. “I heard you were in need of assistance.”

Y/n ’s heart sank at the words, at the implications behind them. Erik’s help always came with a price, one that Y/n wasn’t sure she was willing to pay.

“We’re managing,” she said carefully, glancing at Logan for support.

Logan’s expression was unreadable, but Y/n could sense the tension in him, the way his muscles were coiled, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.

Erik’s gaze flicked to Logan, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You’ve made an interesting choice of allies, Y/n.”

Y/n ’s heart skipped a beat at the subtle jab, at the way Erik’s eyes seemed to gleam with something that sent a shiver down her spine.

“Logan’s been a great help,” Y/n said, her voice steady despite the fear gnawing at her insides.

Erik’s smile widened, but there was no warmth in it. “I’m sure he has. But his methods... they’re not always in line with what’s best for our kind.”

Logan’s jaw tightened, his eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. Y/n could feel the anger radiating off him, the barely contained rage that was so close to the surface.

“We’re doing what we can to survive,” Y/n interjected quickly, trying to diffuse the situation before it escalated. “That’s all that matters right now.”

Erik’s gaze shifted back to her, his smile fading into something more serious. “Survival is important, yes. But so is our future, Y/n . And sometimes, to secure that future, we have to make sacrifices.”

Y/n’s stomach churned at the words, at the implications behind them. She knew that Erik was right in some ways, that their survival depended on making tough decisions. But she also knew that Logan wouldn’t take kindly to any suggestion that involved putting her or anyone else at risk.

“I’m not interested in making sacrifices,” Logan growled, his voice low and threatening. “Especially not when it comes to Y/n.”

Erik’s eyes gleamed with a cold amusement. “And there it is—the possessiveness of the Wolverine. It’s almost... predictable.”

Y/n’s heart pounded in her chest as she glanced between the two men, the tension in the room reaching a fever pitch. She knew that if something wasn’t done to diffuse the situation, things could get out of hand quickly.

“Erik, we appreciate your concern,” Y/n said, stepping forward and placing a hand on Logan’s arm, trying to calm him down. “But we’re handling things in our own way. Logan’s methods might be unorthodox, but they work. And right now, that’s all that matters.”

Y/n’s gaze lingered on her for a long moment, as if weighing her words. Finally, he nodded, though his expression remained guarded. “Very well, Y/n . But remember—sometimes the only way to truly survive is to let go of the things that hold us back.”

With that, Erik turned and walked out of the room, leaving Y/n and Logan alone in the thick silence that followed his departure. Y/n let out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding, her hand still resting on Logan’s arm.

“Are you okay?” she asked quietly, looking up at him.

Logan’s expression softened as he looked down at her, some of the anger fading from his eyes. “I’m fine, Y/n. But we need to be careful. Erik’s not someone to be trusted.”

Y/n nodded, though she couldn’t shake the feeling that Erik’s words had struck a chord with Logan. There was a darkness in his eyes, a shadow that hadn’t been there before, and it made her worry about what the future held for them.

As they rejoined the others, Y/n couldn’t help but feel that things were about to get a lot more complicated. The fragile peace they had managed to maintain was hanging by a thread, and she had a feeling that it wouldn’t take much to tear it apart.

And as she glanced at Logan, she knew that the possessiveness he felt for her, the fierce protectiveness that drove him, could either be their salvation—or their undoing.

[cantsayidont]

When attempting to critique the values of a long-running franchise like STAR TREK, it's important to draw a distinction between superficial issues and structural ones.

"Superficial" in this sense doesn't mean "minor" or "unimportant"; it simply means that an issue is not so intrinsic to the premise that the franchise would collapse (or would be radically different) were it changed or removed. For example, misogyny has been a pervasive problem across many generations of STAR TREK media, which have often been characterized by a particular type of leering-creep sexism that was distasteful at the time and has not improved with age. However, sexism and misogyny are not structural elements of the TREK premise; one can do a STAR TREK story where the female characters have agency and even pants without it becoming something fundamentally different from other TREK iterations (even TOS, although there are certainly specific TOS episodes that would collapse if you excised the sexism).

By contrast, the colonialism and imperialism are structural elements — STAR TREK is explicitly about colonizing "the final frontier" and about defending the borders, however defined, of an interstellar colonial power. Different iterations of STAR TREK may approach that premise in slightly different ways, emphasizing or deemphasizing certain specific aspects of it, but that is literally and specifically what the franchise is about. Moreover, because STAR TREK has always been heavily focused on Starfleet and has tended to shy away from depicting life outside of that regimented environment, there are definite limits to how far the series is able to depart from the basic narrative structure of TOS and TNG (a captain and crew on a Starfleet ship) without collapsing in on itself, as PICARD ended up demonstrating rather painfully.

This means that some of the things baked into the formula of STAR TREK are obviously in conflict with the franchise's self-image of progressive utopianism, but cannot really be removed or significantly altered, even if the writers were inclined to try (which they generally are not).

What I find intensely frustrating about most modern STAR TREK media, including TNG and its various successors, is not that it can't magically break its own formula, but that writer and fan attachment to the idea of TREK as the epitome of progressive science fiction has become a more and more intractable barrier to any kind of meaningful self-critique. It's a problem that's become increasingly acute with the recent batch of live-action shows, which routinely depict the Federation or Starfleet doing awful things (like the recent SNW storyline about Una being prosecuted for being a genetically engineered person in violation of Federation law) and then insist, often in the same breath, that it's a progressive utopia, best of all possible worlds.

This is one area where TOS (and to some extent the TOS cast movies) has a significant advantage over its successors. TOS professes to be a better world than ours, but it doesn't claim to be a perfect world (and indeed is very suspicious of any kind of purported utopia). The value TOS most consistently emphasizes is striving: working to be better, and making constructive choices. Although this can sometimes get very sticky and uncomfortable in its own right (for instance, Kirk often rails against what he sees as "stagnant" cultures), it doesn't presuppose the moral infallibility of the Federation, of Starfleet, or of the characters themselves. There's room for them to be wrong, so long as they're still willing to learn and grow.

The newer shows are less and less willing to allow for that, and, even more troublingly, sometimes take pains to undermine their predecessors' attempts along those lines. One appalling recent example is SNW's treatment of the Gorn, which presents the Gorn as intrinsically evil (and quite horrifying) in a way they're not in "Arena," the TOS episode where they were first introduced. The whole point of "Arena" is that while Kirk responds to the Gorn with outrage and anger, he eventually concedes that he may be wrong: There's a good chance that the Gorn are really the injured party, responding to what they reasonably see as an alien invasion, and while that may be an arguable point, sorting it out further should be the purview of diplomats rather than warships. By contrast, SNW presents the Gorn as so irredeemably awful as to make Kirk's (chronologically later) epiphany at best misguided: The SNW Gorn are brutal conquerors who lay eggs in their captives (a gruesome rape metaphor, and in presentation obviously inspired by ALIENS) when they aren't killing each other for sport, and even Gorn newborns are monsters to be feared. Not a lot of nuance there, and no space at all for the kind of detente found in TOS episodes like "The Devil in the Dark."

[rafemotherfuckingcameron]

YOU LITERALLY SAVED MY LIFE

Word Count: 1.3k

Pairing(s): Dark!JJ x Reader, Sarah x Reader, Rafe x Reader

Warnings: domestic abuse, physical abuse, strangling, gaslighting, alcohol, mentions of blood, toxic relationship, controlling behavior, trauma, rape, 18+

Summary: Y/n trusted JJ, who initially seemed to be the love of her life, but ultimately became the source of her deepest fears.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Part 1 - Broken Trust

It’s hard to believe you’ve become this person—the one whose boyfriend has abused her, both physically and mentally.

You used to see yourself as strong, independent. Yet here you are, trapped in a nightmare that feels impossible to escape. JJ’s actions have slowly eroded your confidence, your spirit, until you no longer recognize yourself in the mirror.

The bruises on your body are painful reminders of the suffering you endure daily, while the scars on your heart run even deeper.

Never in your wildest dreams did you think you’d be making excuses for his behavior, hiding the truth from your friends and family.

How did it come to this? Are you somehow to blame? Questions swirl in your mind, but one thing is clear: you can’t continue like this.

You need help—someone who will believe you, stand by your side, and help you find a way out of this darkness.

-

You weren’t always this way. There was a time when you loved JJ deeply, willing to do anything for him. You cherished the moments together, the laughter, and the shared dreams of a future. But then, little accidents began to happen—his temper flaring unexpectedly, small outbursts that left you shaken and confused.

At first, you brushed it off, chalking it up to stress or bad days. But as time went on, the incidents became more frequent, more intense.

You found yourself walking on eggshells, trying to avoid triggering his anger. His apologies were always followed by promises to change, and you wanted to believe him, desperately clinging to the hope that things would get better.

But deep down, you knew something had changed. The person you loved seemed like a stranger at times, and you couldn’t understand why.

You tried talking to Kiara and Sarah, pouring out your heart and sharing the pain you were going through, but they couldn't believe that JJ would ever do such things.

Kiara, your best friend since childhood, defended her best friend adamantly, unable to reconcile the JJ she knew with the one you described.

Sarah, who had been like a sister to you, also shut you down, insisting that she had known JJ for years and couldn't imagine him behaving that way.

Their disbelief cut deep, leaving you feeling isolated and alone with your suffering. Little did you know that someone would eventually step in and literally save your life. And this is your story.

—

The first time you noticed a bruise on your face was after the night the Pogues came over for a games night and drinks. It started as a fun evening, with laughter filling the house as everyone enjoyed themselves. However, as the night progressed, tensions simmered beneath the surface, and JJ's mood grew darker.

By the time the others had left, you were very drunk, and it was just you and JJ alone. He had a bad day, you vaguely remember. The details from that point are fuzzy.

You remember feeling a sudden push, a jolt that sent you tumbling down the patio stairs. The next morning, you woke up groggy and sore, finding JJ beside you. His voice was gentle but firm as he assured you that you must have fallen on your own, too intoxicated to recall.

You wanted to believe it was just an accident, a consequence of being too drunk. Yet, a nagging feeling persisted—that push, that sudden fall—it felt deliberate, calculated.

The next time it happened was the week after, on Kiara's 21st birthday. You were in the kitchen, preparing dinner for everyone, when JJ came in from fishing outside. His mood was already sour, and when he saw you preparing chicken schnitzel strips, his temper erupted.

"What the fuck is this?" he yelled, storming over to you and pushing your body out of the way. Confusion and fear gripped you as he inspected the food.

"These aren't strips, they're like mini steaks. Can you do anything right, or do I need to show you how to do it properly?" His voice thundered in the small kitchen, and in his frustration, he waved the knife at you. As he went to set the knife down, the blade sliced your arm.

Pain shot through you like fire as the knife cut deep into your arm, blood pulsing out in hot, crimson rivulets. The kitchen air thickened with the metallic tang of blood, mixing with the acrid scent of fear. Shock and disbelief froze you for a split second, but then a surge of defiance rose within you.

"You just cut me!" you screamed at JJ, your voice cracking with pain and fury. His eyes, dark with anger, bore into yours, his face contorted with disdain. But instead of remorse, his expression twisted into a mask of pure rage.

"You made me do that!" he roared, grabbing a glass cup from the counter and hurling it at you with terrifying force. The glass shattered against the wall, fragments spraying across the room like deadly shrapnel.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, you psycho?" you yelled back, your voice trembling with a mix of terror and defiance. The accusation seemed to unhinge him further, igniting a storm of violence that was about to consume everything.

With a primal roar, JJ stormed toward you, his steps thundering on the floor. He shoved you brutally against the fridge, the impact jarring your already injured arm. Before you could react, his hands closed around your throat like a vice, squeezing off your air supply.

Panic surged through you, a desperate, primal instinct to survive. You clawed at his hands, your vision blurring with tears and lack of oxygen. But JJ's grip was unrelenting, crushing, his face twisted with hatred and derision.

"You think you can compare me to my father?" he hissed, his voice dripping with venom. "You're lucky I even put up with you, you worthless piece of shit!"

His words were like shards of glass, cutting through your soul. Darkness closed in around the edges of your vision as you fought for breath, for life.

In that terrifying moment, with JJ's fingers digging into your throat, you realized the magnitude of the danger you were in. Every part of you screamed for escape, for survival, as you battled against the monster you once loved.

The ringing of your phone shattered the tense silence, snapping JJ out of his violent trance. You collapsed to the ground amidst the shards of broken glass, gasping for air, your throat raw from his merciless grip. Through the haze of pain and fear, you heard JJ answer your phone with forced calmness.

"Yeah, she's not feeling well. We'll just get pizza tonight," he said, his voice unnervingly composed. The casual dismissal of your suffering sent a chill down your spine.

Weak and trembling, you struggled to your feet as JJ roughly grabbed you and shoved you into the bedroom, slamming the door shut and locking it behind him.

Alone in the suffocating darkness of the room, you crumpled to the floor, tears mingling with the blood from your wounded arm. Fear gripped your heart as you realized you were trapped, helpless against the man you once trusted, who now seemed capable of anything.

That was the day, you knew you needed to get out!

[thiccschief]

Coach's Big Secret, Pt. 1

Part one of three.

This story idea popped into my head the other day, can't wait to write the second part! As always let me know what y'all think!

Contains rapid male weight gain, sexual themes, bloating. Slight inflation themes, but mostly weight gain.

After practice, the team slowly leaves the locker room as they get dressed and head home. Coach asked you to stay after and discuss some things with him, so you hit the showers to kill some time and then return to the locker room. Now the only one left, you begin to get dressed. As you squeeze into your pants, you pray that Coach will finally let you cut after this bulk he’s had you on.

Since the college rugby season started a month or so ago, Coach has had you on an intense bulking diet. Or at least, that’s what he calls it. To you it feels like more of a dirty bulk… Regardless, you went from about 220 pounds at the start to about 240 pounds on your 6’ frame. Your belly and love handles have become noticeable in your shirts, as well as your pecs which are starting to look a little more like tits, which the other guys on the team have been teasing you about relentlessly. Hopefully, you think, Coach is going to tell me I can start focusing on turning this into muscle.

As you manage to squeeze into your tee (which barely conceals your pudgy belly) Coach Johnson walks in the locker room. At 40, Coach Johnson is a handsome man who is 6 '2 " with a bit of a dad bod. He’s always been a likeable and easy to get along with coach, but can still make the boys on the team fall in line when he needs to.

“Hey champ! Great work out there today.” Coach says, as he walks up to you. “Thanks for waiting for me, I had to wrap some things up.”

“No problem, Coach!” you reply. You notice his eyes dart quickly to your belly and then back up. “What did you want to discuss with me? Am I doing okay on the team?”

“Of course! Sorry bud, I didn't want you to think that at all. I actually wanted to tell you I’m proud of your results! It looks like you’re following my diet guidelines well!” He makes a gesture toward your body.

“I’ve been trying, for sure” you reply. “I know you want what’s best for me and the team. I was wondering, though, how much do you want me to keep bulking before I can start the cut? I feel like I’m starting to get a little fat…”

Coach quickly interjects “Not at all, champ! It may seem unconventional, but you’re on the road to becoming a star athlete! You’ve gotta trust me on this one. You wouldn’t wanna let down me and the team, would you?”

“No sir…”

“Good. Now, back to what I was going to ask you. As a congratulations on your progress, I wanted to see if you would want to try that new buffet in town? They’re doing a special with unlimited barbeque! You can get your protein in, and then some. My treat!” Coach says this with his usual enthusiasm, and you feel like you can’t say no.

“Thanks Coach! Sounds great!”

“Good, let’s head out then! I’m starving.” Coach says this with his usual friendly smile, but you feel like he’s more enthusiastic about this than normal. Maybe he really is just hungry.

You follow Coach out to his pickup truck and climb in the passenger seat, and he starts driving. You chat with him about the team and the game coming up next weekend. Once the two of you arrive, you find a table then set out for the buffet. Coach was right… this grand opening special is no joke! There’s brisket, pork, chicken, you name it. And not to mention the sides. You’re a sucker for some good mac and cheese, and this looks like the good stuff…

After pursuing the buffet, you return to the table to find Coach already seated with a modest portion of brisket and veggies on his plate. In stark contrast to his, your plate is piled high with a barbecue sandwich, more meat, some veggies, a massive serving of mac and cheese, and some pecan pie to top it off.

“Damn, son. It’s a good thing this place has big plates! You’ve got quite the appetite tonight.” Coach says with some hearty laughter. “Glad to see you’ve taken my diet to heart.”

You can feel your face growing red with embarrassment as you sit down and begin eating. “Yeah, I feel like I get a lot hungrier now… gotta get those calories in if I want to build some muscle I guess!” You reply with nervous laughter.

“That’s right! Well, let's eat!” Coach says and begins eating his own meal, occasionally glancing at your plate as if monitoring your progress.

You both make small talk about rugby as you eat… or at least Coach does. You’re doing a little less speaking as your mouth is near constantly full of food. As if coming out of a trance, you finally near the end of your meal, and attempt to stifle a burp as you realize how full you actually are. “Shit, coach… I think my eyes may have been a little bigger than my stomach tonight…” you laugh nervously as Coach grins at you.

“C’mon big guy! Can’t let that go to waste! Besides, you need the calories for building muscle, remember?”

“I… yeah… I’ll try…” You stammer as you pick the fork back up and force yourself to finish off your plate. Finally done, you lean back in the booth and put your hands on your full belly. “Damn, *burp* I’m stuffed… that was so much food…”

“And you took it like the champion you are!” Coach says, grinning still. “You know, I think you have what it takes…”

“Huh?” You’re almost too full to focus on what he’s talking about. “Have what it takes for what?”

“I’ve been working on a new way to provide nutrition for athletes trying to bulk up. I haven’t tried it out yet, but I think it would be a great addition to your regimen. You’re clearly committed to doing what it takes for the team. It’s the first of its kind so it’s a little difficult to explain… I think it would be easier to take you to my house and show you.” Coach is speaking in a low tone as if he doesn’t want to expose his new invention.

“I uh… ok Coach… I trust you.” Still nearly too full to function, Coach offers to help you out of the booth and you two make your way to his truck. As he climbs in the driver’s seat you catch a glimpse of what looks like a boner in his khakis, but it’s hard to tell in the dimly lit parking lot.

Coach lives on a large property on the outskirts of your small town. Once you two arrive, he pulls his truck to the back of the lot to what looks like a large garage/workshop building. He guides you inside the side door, and cuts on the lights.

“Here she is! It may not look like much, but this thing is going to transform the way we look at nutrition!” Coach, beaming with pride and excitement, gestures to what looks like a large steel tank labeled “Mass Plus” to the side of the large room. Next to the tank is what appears to be a long, black garden hose. The center of the room is cleared, and there are miscellaneous tools and equipment along the walls.

“Y’know Coach, I never thought of you as the mad scientist type…” you say, trying to process the scene.

Coach laughs and replies “Never judge a book by its cover, son! So the first part is simple. I’ve been working hard to develop a formula that instantly provides results and helps athletes bulk up. The second part is… well… shall we say, outside the box? You see, in order for this formula to be most effective, it has to be absorbed straight into your digestive system. Which means it has to enter the body through… atypical means.”

“Respectfully, Coach, are you saying it has to go up your ass!?” You reply, bewildered. This has to be a fucked up dream…

“Always direct to the point! Yes, it has to be taken like that. But think about it, is it really the craziest thing you’ve heard someone do for their physique? And besides, this is completely between you and I. What happens here won’t be shared with anyone. Now, you trust me, right? This will be great for your performance on the field. It’ll take your bulk to a whole new level!” Coach walks over to the hose reel and picks up what looks like a… buttplug… shaped nozzle at the end of the hose.

While completely shocked by everything happening so fast, there is a part of you that is, for some reason, curious to try this out… Besides, Coach is always looking out for you and has your best interests in mind! He hasn’t steered you wrong yet!

While holding the nozzle, Coach walks over and picks up a bottle of lube and begins applying it to the nozzle.

“Alright champ, go ahead and drop your pants for me, and come over here to the middle of the room. Don’t be shy, it’s not like I haven’t seen all of you in the locker room already.”

Your heart racing with apprehension and curiosity, you follow Coach’s instructions. He walks up behind you and you feel his gentle yet strong hand between your shoulder blades, signaling you to bend over. You close your eyes and brace for impact, then feel the cold, large nozzle slide into your ass. You can’t help but let out a small yelp as you feel it enter.

“Just breathe, big guy. You’re doing great.” Coach says in a low tone. “Almost there…”

You feel it finally stop moving as Coach instructs you to stand back up straight.

“Damn that thing is… huge…” you say, trying not to reveal how good it actually felt.

“We’re just getting started, champ! Alright, step two…” Coach says as he grabs a remote.

You hear a beep as Coach fiddles with the remote and suddenly you feel the nozzle expand in your ass as if it’s being inflated. You can’t help but let out a small moan as it touches your prostate then stops.

“This formula is incredibly potent, can’t risk any of it leaking…” Coach says with a mischievous glint in his eye. “Alright, time for the main event! I’ll go easy on you to start.”

You hear another beep, and hear what sounds like a pump in the large tank come to life. After a few seconds, you feel a warm liquid entering you from the nozzle.

“Oh shit… I can feel it…” you say softly, transfixed by the sensation.

“Good! We’ll keep it on low for now. Also- due to male anatomy, this will likely also cause some level of arousal. Don’t be embarrassed, just go with the flow, okay big guy?” Coach says gently, as he quickly glances at your now rock hard cock.

While this is embarrassing, there’s no way to hide it now… “Yes sir…” you reply, meekly.

“Oh, I almost forgot one more thing!” Coach says as he walks to one of the corners of the room, and returns with a full length mirror on wheels. “This way you can watch the magic happen!”

Looking in the mirror, you can already see some of the effects of the experimental solution. Your already tight shirt is beginning to ride up as your belly fills with the creamy liquid. But your pecs also look… bigger? You turn to the side and realize your thighs and ass are also ever so slightly thicker as well!

“Coach! I think this is making me… fatter? Is that supposed to happen?”

“Don’t worry about it, champ. It’s all part of the bulk, remember? Besides… I think we both know you like it.” Coach has that devious grin again, as he walks up and playfully pokes your jiggly belly.

“W-what… are you talking… about?” You stammer, completely flustered, the machine still pumping creamy mass gainer into you.

“Well… your teammates and I were talking about how it seems like whenever they tease you about how much of a fatboy you’re becoming… you always get hard. Don’t you?” Coach says, giving your dick a playful squeeze.

Mortified and bright red with embarrassment, you know there’s no way of denying this one…

“And… what if I were to tell you… I think it’s hot too? Seeing you turn into a lardass, that is.” Coach says in a low tone, giving your belly a hard smack and watching as it shakes in recoil. “Watching you put on weight over the past month… and seeing you struggle to keep up with the team at practice… I gotta say, bud, it really gets me going.” Coach pulls off his shirt and tosses it on the floor, revealing his hairy chest. “So, I’ll level with you. That tank right there? It’s not quite a normal mass gainer recipe. It’s mainly your standard heavy cream. With a few… additives… to make it work quicker.”

“I… it’s… what…” Everything is happening so fast, you can barely formulate a sentence. But it’s true, you do want this. And from Coach… it just makes it even more arousing.

“Shh… just enjoy it, big guy. Alright, I think that’s enough of the beginner setting. Let’s see you REALLY pack on some pounds!” Coach presses another button on the remote and you can feel the flow of cream intensify.

Part two is here.

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 68 - Babel by R. F. Kuang

Overview

I came to Babel with extremely little knowledge about the actual contents of the book but a deep sense of all the vibes swirling around its reception – that it was robbed of a Hugo nomination (if the author didn’t outright refuse it), that it’s probably the single buzziest and most Important sf/f release of 2022, that it was stridently political, and plenty more besides. I also went in having mostly enjoyed The Poppy War series and being absolutely enamoured by the elevator pitch of an alternate history Industrial Revolution where translation is literally magic. And, well-

It is wrong to say I hated this book, but only because keeping track of my complaints and starting organize this review in my head was entertaining enough to keep me invested in the reading experience.

The story is set in an alternate 1830s, where the rise of the British Empire relies upon the dominance of its translators, as it is the mixture of translation and silverworking, the inscription of match-pairs in different languages on bars of worked silver and the leveraging of the ambiguity and loss of meaning between them that fuels the world’s magic. The protagonist is pluckted from his childhood home in Canton after his family dies in a cholera outbreak and whisked away to the estate of Professor Lowell, an Oxford translator he quickly realized is his unacknowledged father. He’s made to choose an English name (Robin Swift) and raised and tutored as a future translator in service to the Empire.

The meat of the story is focused on Robin’s education in Oxford, his relationship with the rest of his cohort, and his growing radicalization and entanglement with the revolutionary Hermes Society. Things come to a head when in his fourth year the cohort is sent back to Canton to, well, help provoke the first Opium War, though none of them aware of that. The final act follows the fallout of that, by which I mean it lives up to the full title of “Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution”.

To be clear, this was technically a very accomplished book. The writing never dragged and the prose was, if not exactly lyrical, always clear and often evocative. Despite the breadth of space and time the story covers, I never had any complaints about the pacing – and honestly, the ending was, dramatically speaking, one of the more natural and well-executed ones I’ve read recently. It’s very well-constructed.

All that being said – allow me to apologize for how the rest of this is mostly just going to be a litany of complaints. But the book clearly believes itself to be an important and meaningful work of political art, which means I don’t feel particularly bad about holding it to high standards.

Narrative Voice

To start with, just, dear god the tone. This is a book with absolutely zero faith in its audience’s ability to reach their own conclusions, or even follow the symbolism and implication it lays down. Every important point is stated outright, repeated, and all but bolded and underlined. In this book set in 1830s England there are footnotes fact-checking the imperialists talking heads to, I guess, make sure we don’t accidentally become convinced by their apologia for the slave trade? Everything is just relentlessly didactic, in a way that ended up feeling rather insulting even when I agreed with the points Kuang was making.

More than that, and this is perhaps a more subjective complaint but – for an ostensible period piece, the narrative voice and perspective just felt intensely modern? This was theoretically an omniscient third person book, with the narrative voice being pretty distinct from any of the actual characters – with the result that the implicit narrator was instead the sort of person of spends six hours a day getting into arguments on twitter and for this effort calls themselves a progressive activist. The identities of all the characters – as delivered by the objective narration – were all very neat and legible from the perspective of someone at a 2022 HR department listing how diverse their team was, which was somewhere between a tragic lost opportunity to show how messy and historical racial/ethnic/national identities are and outright anachronistic, depending. (This was honestly one of the bigger disappointments, coming from Kuang’s earlier work. Say what you will of The Poppy War series, the narration is with Rin all the way down, and it trusts the reader enough not to blink.) More than that it was just distracting – the narration ended up feeling like an annoying obstacle between me and the story, and not in any fun postmodern way either.

Characters

Speaking of the cast – they simply do not sound or feel like they actually grew up in the 19th century. Now, some modernization of speech patterns and vocabulary and moral commensense is just the price of doing business with mass market period pieces, granted, but still – no 19th century Anglo-Indian revolutionary is going use the phrase ‘Narco-military state’ (if for no other reason than we’re something like a century early for ‘narco-state’ to be coined as a term at all). An even beyond feeling out of time most of the characters feel kind of thinly sketched?

Or no, it’s not that the characters are thinly sketched so much as their relationships are. We’re repeatedly, insistently told that these four students are fast friends and closer than family and would happily die for each other, but we’re very rarely actually shown it. This is partly just a causality of trying to skim over a four-year university education in the middle third of one book, I think, but still – the good times and happy moments are almost always sort of skimmed over, summarized in the course of a paragraph or two that usually talk in terms of memories and consequences more than the relationships themselves. The points of friction and the arguments, meanwhile, are usually played out entirely on the page, or at least described in much more detail. In the end you kind of have to just take it as read that any of these people actually love each other, given that at least two of them seem to be feuding at any given point for the entire time they know each other.

Letty deserves some special attention. She’s the only white member of Robin’s cohort at Babel and she honestly feels like less of acharacter and more a collection of tropes about white women in progressive spaces? Even more than the rest, it’s hard to believe the rest of the class views her as beloved ride-or-die found family when essentially every time she’s on screen it’s so she can do a microagression or a white fragility or something. Also, just – you know how relatively common it is to see just, blatantly misogynistic memes repackaged as anti-racist because it specifies ‘white women’? There’s a line in this that almost literally says ‘Letty wasn’t doing anything to disprove the stereotype of woman as uselessly emotional and hysteric’.

Also, she’s the one who ends up betraying the other three and trying to turn them in when they turn revolutionary. Which is probably inevitable given the book’s politics, but as it happened felt like less of the shocking betrayal that it was supposed to be and more just, checking off a box for a dramatic reverse. Of course she turned on them, none of them ever really seemed to even like each other.

As a Period Piece

So, the book is set in the 1830s, in the midst of the industrial revolution and its social fallout, and the leadup to the First Opium War (which is, through the magic of, well, magic ,but also mercantilist economics, make into a synecdoche for British global dominion more broadly). On the one hand, the setting is impeccably researched, recent and relevant historical events are referenced whenever they would come up, and the footnotes are full to bursting with quotes and explanations of texts or cultural ephemera that’s brought up in the narration.

On the other, the setting doesn’t feel authentic in the slightest, the portrayal of the British Empire is bizarrely inconsistent, and all that richly researched historical grounding ends up feeling less like a living world and more like a particularly well-down set for a Doctor Who episode.

The story is incredibly focused around Oxford as a city and a university. There’s a whole author’s note about the research and slight changes made into its geography and I absolutely believe its portrayal as a physical location and the laws about how women were treated and how the different colleges were organized and all that is exactly as accurate as Kuang wanted them to be. The issue is really the people. With the exception of a few cartoonish villains who barely get more than a couple pages apiece, no one feels, sounds like, or acts like they actually belong in the 19th century. The racism the protagonists struggle with all feels much more 21st century than Victorian, and the frame of mind everyone inhabits still comes across more as ‘unusually blatantly racist Englishman’ than 19th century scholars and polymaths.

This is especially blatant as far as religion goes. It’s occasionally mentioned, sure enough, but to the extent anyone actually believes in Christianity it’s of a very modern and disenchanted sort – this is a society that sends out missionaries as a conscious tool of colonial expansion, not because of anything as silly or absurd as actually wanting to spread their gospel. Also like, it’s Oxford, in the nineteenth century. For all the racism the protagonists have to deal with, they should be getting so much more shit from ‘well-meaning’ locals and students trying to save their (one Muslim, one atheist, one probably Christian but black and protective of Haitian Vodou on a cultural level which would be more than enough) souls.

Or, and this is more minor, it is a central conceit of the whole finale that if a few (like, two) determined revolutionaries can infiltrate Babel they’ll be able to take the entire place hostage with barely any trouble. This is because the students and professors there are, basically, whimpy bookworms who’ll faint at the sight of blood and have no stomach for the sort of violence their work actually supports and drives. Which – look, I really don’t want to defend the ruling class of Victorian Britain here, but I’m not sure physical cowardice is really one of their failings, as a group? I mean, there’s an entire system of institutionalized child abuse in the boarding schools they went to to get them used to taking and dealing out violence and abuse. Basically every upper-class sport is thinly disguised military drill or ritual combat (okay, or rowing). Half of them would graduate to immediately running off and invading places for the glory of the queen. I’m not sure two sleep-deprived nerds with knives would actually have been able to cow the crowd here, is what I’m saying. (This would stick out less if the text wasn’t so dripping with contempt for them on precisely these grounds.)

Much less minor are our heroic revolutionaries themselves. And okay, this is more a matter of taste than anything but like – the Hermes Society is an illegal conspiracy of renegade current and former Babel scholars dedicated to using their knowledge of magic and access to university resources to oppose and undermine the British Empire in general and the work of the school in particular. Think Metternich’s worse nightmare, but in Oxford instead of Paris and focused on colonial liberation (continental Europe barely exists for the purposes of the book, Britain is Empire.) So! A secret society of professional revolutionaries in the heydey of just that, with a name that just has to be Hermetic symbolism, who concern themselves with both high politics and metaphysics.

They are just so very, very boring. This is the age of the Conspiracy of the Equals, the Carbonari, the Seasons! The literal Illumanti are still within living memory! Where’s the pageantry, the ritual, the grandiosity? The elaborate initiation rituals and oaths of undying loyalty? They’re so pragmatic, so humble, so (and I know I keep coming back to this) modern. It’s just such an utter wasted opportunity. Even beyond the level of aesthetics, these are revolutionaries with remarkably little positive ideology – the oppose colonialism and racism for reasons they take as self-evident and so don’t feel the need to theorize about it (and talk about them with the vocabulary of a modern activist, because of course they do), but they’re pretty much consciously agnostic as to what world should look like instead. They vaguely end up supporting a sort of petty-bourgeois socialism (in the Marxist sense), but the alliance with Luddites is essentially political convenience – they really don’t seem to have any vision of the future at all, either in England or the various places they claim as homelands.

On Empire and Industrialization

The story is set during the early nineteenth century, so of course the Industrial Revolution is a pretty core part of the background. The Silver Industrial Revolution, technically, since the Babellers translation magic is in this world a key and load-bearing part of it. Despite the addition of miracle-working enhancers and supports to its fundamental technology, the industrial revolution plays out pretty identically to history – right down to the same cities becoming hubs of industry, despite steam engines using enchanted silver instead of coal and thus, presumably, the entire economic and logistical system that brought this particular cities to prominence being totally unrecognizable. This is not a book that’s in any way actually about tracing how something would change history – which isn’t a complaint, to be clear, that’s a perfectly valid creative choice.

It does, however, make it rather galling that the single actually significant difference to history is that the introduction of magic turns the industrial revolution into a Legend of Zelda boss with a giant glowing weak point you can hit to destroy the whole enterprise.

On a narrative level, I get it – it simplifies things and allows for a far happier and more dramatic ending if destroying Babel is not just a symbolic act but also literally sends London Bridge falling down and scuttles the entire royal navy and every mill and factory in Britain. It’s just that I think that by doing so it trades away any chance for actually making interesting commentary on anti-colonial and -capitalist resistance. A world where a single act of spectacular terrorism really can destroy a modern empire is frankly so detached from our world that it ceases to be able to really materially comment upon it.

Like, the principle reason to not take the Luddites as your role models is not that they were morally vicious but that they were doomed – capitalism’s ability to repair damage to infrastructure and fixed goods is legitimately very impressive! Trying to force an entire ruling class not to adopt a technology that makes whoever commits to it tremendous amounts of money (thus, power) is a herculean task even when you have a state apparatus and standing army – adding an ‘off’ button to the lot of it just trades all sense of relevance for a satisfyingly cathartic ending.

(This is leaving untouched how the book just takes it as a given that the industrial revolution was a strictly immiserating force that did nothing but redistribute money from artisans to capitalists. Which certainly tracks as something people at the time would have thought but given how resolutely modern all the other politics in the work are rings really weirdly.)

All of which is only my second biggest issue with how the book presents its successful resistance movement. It all pales in comparison to making the Empire a squeamish paper tiger.

Like, the book hates colonialism in general and the British Empire in particular, the narrative and footnotes are filled with little asides about various atrocities and injustices and just ways it was racist or complicit in some particular atrocity. But more than that it is contemptuous of it, it views the empire as (as the cliche goes) a perpetually rotting edifice that just needs one good kick; that it persists only through the myth of its own invincibility, and has no stomach for violent resistance from within. Which is absolutely absurd, and the book does seem to know it on occasion when it off-handedly mentions e.g. the Peterloo Massacre – but a character whose supposed to be the grizzled cynical pragmatic revolutionary still spouts off about how slave rebellions succeed because their masters aren’t willing to massacre their own property. Which is just so spectacularly wrong on every axis its actually almost offensive.

More importantly, the entire final act of the story relies upon the fact that the British Empire would allow a handful of foreign students seize control of a vital piece of infrastructure for weeks on end and do nothing but try to wait them out as the national physically falls apart around them. Like, c’mon, there would be siege artillery set up and taking shots by the end of week two. As with the Oxford students, the Victorian elite had all manner of flaws – take your pick, really – but squeamishness wasn’t really one of them.

On Magic

So the magical system underlying the whole story is – you know how Machinaries of Empire makes imperial ideology and metaphysics literally magical, giving expert technicians the ability to create superweapons and destroy worlds provided that the Hexarchate’s subjects observe the imperial calendar of rites and celebrate its triumphs/participate in rituals glorying in the torture of its ‘heretics’? It’s not exactly a subtle metaphor, but it works.

Babel does something similar, except the foundational atrocity fueling the engine of empire on a metaphysical level is, like, cultural appropriation. As an organizing metaphor, I find this less compelling.

Leaving that aside, the story makes translation literally capable of miracle-working – which of necessity requires making ‘languages’ distinct natural categories with observable metaphysical boundaries. It then sets the story in the 19th century – the era of newborn nation states and education systems and national literatures, where the concept of the national-linguistic community was the obsession of the entire European intelligentsia. Now this is not a book concerned with how the presence of magic would actually have changed history, in the slightest, but like – given how fascinated it is by translation and linguistics you’d think the whole ‘a language is a dialect with a navy’ cliché would at least get a light mention (but then the book doesn’t really treat language as any more inherent or natural than it does any other modern identity category, I suppose.)

As an Allegory

Okay, so having now spent an embarrassing number of words establishing to my own satisfaction that the book really doesn’t work at all as a period piece, let us consider; what if it wasn’t trying to be?

A great many things about the book just fit much better if you take it as a commentary on the modern university with Victorian window-dressing. Certainly the driving resentment of Oxford as an institution that sustains itself and grows rich off the exploitation of international students it considers second-class seems far more apt applied to contemporary elite western schools than 19th century ones. Likewise the racism the heroes face all seems like the kind you’d expect in a modern English town rather than a Victorian one. I’m not well-versed enough on the economics of the city to know for sure, but I would wager that the gleeful characterization of Oxford as a city that literally starts falling to ruin without the university to support it was also less accurate in the 1830s than it is today.

Read like this, everything coheres much better – but the most striking thing becomes the incredible vanity of the book. This is a morality tale where the natural revolutionary vanguard with the power to bring global hegemony to its knees through nothing but witholding their labour are..students at elite western universities (not, I must say, a class I’d consider in dire need of having their egos boosted). The emotions underlying everything make much more sense, but the plot itself becomes positively myopic.

Beyond that – if this is a story about international students at elite universities, it does a terrible job of actually portraying them. Or, properly, it only shows a certain type; just about every foreign-born student or professor we meet is some level of revolutionary, deeply opposed in principle to the empire they work within. No one is actually convinced by the carrot of a life as an exploited but exceedingly comfortable and well-compensated technician in the imperial core, and there’s not really acknowledgement at all of just how much of the apparatus of international institutions and governments in the global south – including positions with quite a bit of real power – end up being staffed by exactly that demographic who just sincerely agree with the various ideological projects employing them. Kuang makes it far too easy on herself by making just about every person of colour in the books one of the good guys, and totally undersells how convincing hegemonic ideology can be, basically.

The Necessity of Violence

This is a pet peeve and it’s a very minor thing that I really wouldn’t bring it up if that wasn’t literally part of the title. But it is, so – it’s a plot point that’s given a decent amount of attention that Griffin (Robin’s secret older brother, grizzled professional revolutionary, his introduction to anti-colonialism) is blamed for murdering one of his classmates who had the bad luck to be studying while he was sneaking in to steal some silver – a student that was quite well-loved by the faculty and her very successful classmates, who have never forgiven him. Later on, it’s revealed that this is an utter rewriting of history, and she’d been a double agent pretending to let herself be recruited into the Hermes Society who’d been luring Griffin into an ambush when he killed her and escaped.

This is – well, the most predictable not-even-a-twist imaginable, for one, but also – just rank cowardice. You titled the book ‘the necessity of violence’, the least you can do is actually own it and show that violent resistance means people (with faces, and names, not just abstractions only ever talked about in general terms) who are essentially personally innocent are going to end up collateral damage, and people are going to hold grudges about it. Have some courage in your convictions!

Translation

Okay, all of that said, this isn’t a book that’s wholly bad, or anything. In particular, you can really tell how much of a passion Kuang has for the art and science of translation. The depth of knowledge and eagerness to share just about overflows from the page whenever the book finds an excuse to talk about it at length, and it’s really very endearing. The philosophizing about translation was also as a rule much more interesting and nuanced then whenever the book tried to opine about high politics or revolutionary tactics.

Anyways, I really can’t recommend the book in any real way, but it did stick in my head for long enough that I’ve now written 4,000 words about it. So at the very least it’s the interesting sort of bad book, y’know?

[kiesbrainjuice]

— JUST CONFESS ! suna rintaro

➥ syn : when you’re in love with the same person for several years maybe you need to confess one day?

➥ wc : 2.2k

➥ tw : oneshot, confession, fluff

Suna Rintarou had been harboring deep feelings for you for as long as he could remember. From the moment he first saw you in class, with your radiant smile and kind eyes, he knew his heart had been irreversibly captured. As the years passed, his affection only grew stronger, becoming an integral part of his daily life.

Every morning, Suna would wake up with thoughts of you flooding his mind. He'd spend extra time getting ready, hoping to catch your attention at school. The walk to class was filled with anticipation, his heart racing at the prospect of seeing you. When you'd greet him with a friendly wave or a casual "Good morning," he'd feel a warmth spread through his chest, savoring the brief interaction.

During lessons, Suna found himself constantly distracted by your presence. He'd steal glances at you, admiring the way you tucked your hair behind your ear when concentrating, or how your eyes lit up when you understood a difficult concept. He'd imagine scenarios where he'd finally gather the courage to confess his feelings, daydreaming about holding your hand or taking you on a date.

Lunchtime was both a blessing and a curse for Suna. He cherished the moments when you'd join him and his friends, relishing the sound of your laughter and the way you'd animatedly share stories. But it also pained him to see how easily you interacted with others, fearing that someone else might capture your heart before he had the chance to reveal his own feelings.

After school, Suna would often linger, hoping for an opportunity to walk home with you. On the days when fate aligned and you'd accompany him, he'd treasure every second, committing to memory the cadence of your voice and the way the setting sun cast a golden glow on your features. These moments were bittersweet, filled with both joy and the ache of unspoken emotions.

At home, thoughts of you permeated every aspect of Suna's life. He'd find himself smiling at inside jokes you'd shared, or texting you under the pretense of asking about homework, just to have an excuse to talk to you. He'd lie awake at night, imagining a future where he'd finally have the courage to tell you how he felt, wondering if you might reciprocate his feelings.

Suna's friends had long since noticed his infatuation. They'd tease him good-naturedly, encouraging him to make a move. But fear of rejection and the potential loss of your friendship always held him back. He convinced himself that being close to you as a friend was better than risking losing you entirely.

As time went on, Suna's love for you only deepened. He found himself falling for the little things – the way you'd scrunch your nose when you laughed, your unwavering kindness to others, and your determination when faced with challenges. He admired your strengths and wanted to support you through your weaknesses. In his eyes, you were perfect, flaws and all.

The intensity of his feelings sometimes overwhelmed Suna. There were days when the longing was almost unbearable, when he'd have to excuse himself from your presence just to catch his breath and compose himself. Other times, just being near you filled him with a sense of contentment and belonging he'd never experienced before.

Suna tried to show his affection in subtle ways. He'd always volunteer to be your partner for group projects, offer to help you study for difficult exams, and remember small details about your likes and dislikes. He hoped that somehow, through these gestures, you might begin to see him as more than just a friend.

As the school year progressed, Suna's feelings continued to grow. He found himself imagining a future with you – attending university together, building a life side by side. These daydreams both comforted and tormented him, representing everything he yearned for but was too afraid to reach for.

Then came the day that shook Suna's world. As he rounded the corner in the school hallway, he saw you engaged in animated conversation with a male classmate. The two of you were standing close, heads bent together over a notebook, talking and laughing. The sight sent a jolt of pain through Suna's heart.

Jealousy and fear coursed through him as he watched the interaction. His mind raced with possibilities – was this just a friendly chat, or was there something more? Had he waited too long, only to lose you to someone else? The thought of you being with another person made his chest tighten painfully.

Unable to bear watching any longer, Suna turned and quickly walked away, his emotions in turmoil. Suna burst into the classroom, his usual composure completely shattered. Atsumu and Osamu looked up from their lunch, startled by their friend's sudden entrance.

"Oi, Sunarin, what's got your boxers in a twist?" Atsumu called out, mouth full of rice.

Suna paced back and forth, running his hands through his hair. "I just saw Y/N talking to Tanaka from Class 3. They were laughing and standing so close, heads together over some stupid notebook. It looked... it looked..."

"Like they were plotting world domination?" Osamu offered dryly.

"No! Like they were... intimate," Suna finished, glaring at Osamu.

Atsumu perked up. "Oho? Sounds like someone's jealous~"

"I'm not jealous!" Suna snapped, then immediately deflated. "Okay, maybe I am. A little."

The twins exchanged a glance, Osamu rolling his eyes at his brother's grin.

"You know, Sunarin," Atsumu began, leaning forward, "there's an easy solution to this. Just confess already!"

Osamu snorted. "Right, because you're such an expert on confessions, Mr. 'I-once-confessed-to-a-vending-machine-thinking-it-was-Kita-senpai.'"

Atsumu's face turned bright red. "That was one time! And it was dark!"

Suna looked between the bickering twins, feeling more lost than ever. "Guys, focus! What am I supposed to do about Y/N?"

Osamu turned his attention back to Suna. "Well, first things first. Did ya actually hear what they were talkin' about?"

"No," Suna admitted reluctantly. "I couldn't bear to get any closer."

"So for all you know, they could've been discussin' the matin' habits of sea slugs," Osamu pointed out.

Atsumu made a face. "Gross, 'Samu. Why would anyone talk about that?"

"It was an example, ya nitwit," Osamu retorted, flicking a grain of rice at his twin.

Suna groaned, slumping into a nearby chair. "This isn't helping, guys."

The twins sobered up, seeing their friend's genuine distress.

"Look, Sunarin," Atsumu began, trying to sound serious, "you've been crushin' on Y/N forever. Don't ya think it's time to do somethin' about it?"

Osamu nodded in agreement. "Yeah, for once, this idiot's right. You should confess."

"But what if Y/N doesn't feel the same way?" Suna asked, vulnerability clear in his voice.

"Then at least you'll know," Osamu said gently.

"And you can move on to someone better!" Atsumu chimed in cheerfully, earning a smack from his brother.

"Don't listen to him," Osamu sighed. "Look, Suna, you're a catch. Any idiot can see that. Well, except this idiot," he added, jerking a thumb at Atsumu.

"Hey!" Atsumu protested, then paused. "Wait, was that a compliment or an insult?"

Ignoring his brother, Osamu continued, "The point is, you've got a real shot with Y/N. But you'll never know if you don't take the risk."

Suna looked between his friends, feeling a mix of hope and trepidation. "You really think I should confess?"

"Absolutely!" Atsumu exclaimed. "Go for it! Sweep Y/N off their feet!"

"Maybe don't literally sweep them off their feet," Osamu cautioned. "Remember what happened when you tried that with Kita-senpai?"

Atsumu's face fell. "I said we'd never speak of that again."

Despite his nerves, Suna found himself chuckling at his friends' antics. Their contradictory advice and playful bickering were oddly comforting, reminding him that no matter what happened, he'd have their support.

"Alright," Suna said, taking a deep breath. "I'll do it. After school, I'm going to find Y/N and confess."

The twins beamed at him, momentarily united in their excitement for their friend.

"That's the spirit, Sunarin!" Atsumu cheered.

"Just be yourself," Osamu advised. "And maybe don't mention the whole jealousy thing right off the bat."

As the final class of the day drew to a close, Suna's heart raced in his chest. His palms were sweaty as he clutched the small, folded piece of paper he'd hastily scribbled on earlier. When the bell rang, he quickly gathered his things and made his way to your desk, trying his best to appear casual.

"H-hey, Y/N," he stammered, internally cursing his nervousness. "This is for you." He thrust the paper towards you, avoiding eye contact.

You looked at him curiously, accepting the note. "Thanks, Rin. What's this about?"

Suna's cheeks flushed at the nickname. "Just... just read it, okay?" And with that, he hurried out of the classroom, leaving you slightly puzzled.

As you unfolded the paper and read its contents, Suna was already making his way to the designated meeting spot near the gym. He paced back and forth, running his hands through his hair and muttering to himself, trying to calm his nerves.

Time seemed to crawl by as he waited. Each passing minute felt like an eternity, and doubts began to creep into his mind. What if you didn't come? What if you'd figured out what he wanted to say and were avoiding him?

Just as he was considering giving up and going home, he heard footsteps approaching. He turned to see you walking towards him, a mix of concern and curiosity on your face.

"Hey Rin," you said with a smile. "What's up? Your note seemed pretty urgent."

Suna opened his mouth, but no words came out. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Y/N, I... uh... I wanted to talk to you about... um..."

You noticed his nervousness and your expression softened. "Rin, are you okay? You seem really stressed. Take a deep breath, it's just me."

Suna nodded, following your advice and taking a few deep breaths. "Sorry, I'm just... this is hard for me."

"It's alright," you reassured him. "There's no rush. Just take your time."

Suna nodded gratefully. "Okay, so... the thing is... I've been wanting to tell you something for a while now. It's about... about how I feel..."

He trailed off again, looking down at his feet. You gently placed a hand on his arm. "Hey, it's okay. Whatever it is, you can tell me. We're friends, right?"

Suna looked up at you, finding comfort in your kind eyes. "Yeah, we are. But that's... that's kind of the problem. Because I... I don't want to be just friends anymore."

Your eyes widened slightly, but you remained silent, letting him continue.

"What I'm trying to say is... I like you, Y/N. As more than a friend. I have for a long time now. And today, when I saw you talking to Tanaka, I just..."

"Wait," you interrupted, a small smirk forming on your face. "Is that what this is about? You saw me talking to Tanaka?"

Suna's face flushed red. "Well, yeah. You two looked pretty close and I thought..."

You couldn't help but laugh, which made Suna look even more flustered. "Oh, Rin. Tanaka and I were just discussing the history project. Nothing more."

"Oh," Suna said, looking embarrassed. "I guess I jumped to conclusions."

You grinned teasingly. "So, the cool and composed Suna Rintarou gets jealous, huh? That's pretty cute."

"Shut up," he mumbled, but there was no real annoyance in his voice.

Your expression softened again. "But Rin, about what you said... about liking me..."

Suna tensed up, preparing himself for rejection. But instead, you stepped closer to him.

"I like you too," you said softly. "I have for a while now. I just never thought you'd feel the same way."

Suna's eyes widened in disbelief. "You... you do?"

You nodded, a warm smile on your face. "Yeah, I do. You're amazing, Rin. Smart, funny, caring... How could I not fall for you?"

A rare, genuine smile spread across Suna's face. "I can't believe this. I was so nervous about telling you, and all this time..."

"All this time we were both too scared to say anything," you finished for him. "But I'm glad you finally did."

Suna reached out hesitantly, taking your hand in his. "So... does this mean you'd want to go out with me sometime?"

You intertwined your fingers with his, your heart fluttering at the contact. "I'd love to, Rin. I'd really love to."

As you both stood there, hands clasped and hearts full of newfound joy, Suna couldn't help but think that all the nervousness and fear had been worth it for this moment. And as for your teasing about his jealousy? Well, he figured he could live with that if it meant he got to be with you.

Ⓒ kiesbrainjuice all rights reserved. please to not plagiarize, repost, or translate !

tag : @haechansbbg

[4theitgirls]

tips for starting your fitness journey

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find workouts you actually enjoy

you don’t have to do exercises you don’t like! don’t be afraid to try different things. if you don’t like weight training, try pilates. if you don’t like pilates, try other types of body weight exercises. if you don’t like that, try yoga. go for walks if you enjoy doing that. exercising doesn’t have to feel like a chore. there are so many different types of exercise out there, try different things until you find what you like.

don’t go overboard right away

know your limits. if you haven’t been active in the past, it isn’t realistic to expect to be able to work out 7 days a week for an hour each day. i can tell you firsthand, you don’t want to push your body further than it can go. that’s how you injure yourself. start off slow!

losing weight isn’t everything

try to have non-physical goals. if you focus too much on changing how your body looks, it can become unhealthy very quickly. losing weight is a major goal for a lot of us, but it shouldn’t be the only thing you’re doing this for, so try your best not to focus on that part too much.

don’t depend on the scale

if losing weight is a big goal for you, know that the scale doesn’t tell the full story. if you’re working out, chances are, you’re gaining muscle. since muscle weighs more than fat, you may not see a major difference in your weight on the scale, but it’s not because you’re not progressing. if you want to measure your progress, try progress photos and measurements.

create a realistic schedule

going along with not going overboard, create a realistic schedule. know what you will actually be able to do and the amount of time per day you will be able to dedicate to exercise, and schedule it in. consistency over intensity!

have positive inspiration

it’s always easier to do something new when you have inspirations to look up to. however, be mindful of who you look up to. make sure you’re looking to healthy role models that will positively impact your mindset and journey.

[yan-lorkai]

A/n: I got this request that was inspired by this one, but tumblr ate. It was a request for Azul, Deuce, Epel and Ruggie.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Warnings: yandere content, they're all possessive and bad, gn!reader

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Azul is completely enraptured by your intense passion for writing, but he can’t help but feel that your devotion to it leaves too little space for him. He often worries about the toll your overthinking takes on you, watching you get consumed by your own thoughts like a moth drawn to a flame. To keep you from slipping too deep, Azul offers "helpful" ways to take control of your schedule, subtly limiting your writing time and encouraging you to rest with him instead.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Whenever you’re struggling with your work, he positions himself as the only one who can truly understand and support you, cultivating a sense of reliance on his guidance, of course he undertands your jokes, your characters and plot but others may not. In his mind, it’s only fair to keep you close — he wants to be the only one who truly understands the depths of your soul. Possessive, he knows, but he doesn't care at all. You're his, his, his.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Deuce is fiercely protective, though he barely understands the complexity of your thoughts and your connection to your work, he tries. He tries hard to understand you and your book. Yet he sees your writing as both a blessing and a curse — your devotion is beautiful to him, but the way it pulls you away from reality and from him stirs a quiet frustration inside him.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ He worries that the darkness within your thoughts will swallow you whole, so he steps in, claiming he’ll make sure you “don’t get lost in your head.” Deuce becomes increasingly insistent on spending time with you, sometimes pulling you away from writing entirely under the guise of needing a break, all while making himself indispensable, bringingy you some snacks and drinks, and wanting to cuddle with you. He’s convinced that if he just stays close enough, he can guide you out of the labyrinth of your mind. Nothing good will come out of a messy mind.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Epel admires your dedication to your craft, as he is also quite dedicated to his carving apple, but he is also deeply concerned, feeling that your introspective tendencies are almost self-destructive. He finds himself drawn to your depth, yet he hates how much you’re willing to sacrifice for your work, how lost you get inside your head, how you talk about your characters nonstop. Desperate to be your anchor to the real world, Epel begins to insist on pulling you away from writing, coaxing you with tales of adventure and distraction about the things he did in his childhood, dragging you to a skincare routine if he has to. And Vil is more than delighted to treat you too.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ He swears he’s doing it for your own good, refusing to let you disappear into the void of your thoughts. Epel wants to be your escape, the person who gives you a reason to stay grounded, convinced he’s the only one who can keep you from falling too deep. And if he can't be that, then he can always erase your progress.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Ruggie respects your talent, but he finds your intensity both impressive and worrying. Watching you pour everything into your writing makes him uneasy — what if your dedication takes you somewhere he can’t follow? What if you publish it and become so famous and so rich that you'll forget about him? Determined to be essential to you, Ruggie starts to orchestrate small distractions, urging you to take breaks with him, sharing stories to spark your inspiration but also to keep you connected to him.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ He becomes almost possessive over your free time, encouraging you to rely on him for breaks and meals, ensuring you’ll always be drawn back to him. Ruggie knows how to work his way into your life, subtly positioning himself as the balance to your darker musings, determined to keep your feet on the ground. And if you refuse or are too fussy to abandon your work half finished, he'll use his unique magic to make you follow him.

[majestichyuk]

Kutabare (くたばれ)

Pairing :- Jeno lee x Fem!reader

Summary :- Just jeno in his simp era.

Genre :- college student!Jeno, college student!reader, kinda cute, flirting, never back down never what- 

Wc :- 876 words babe

WARNING :- cringy overload but that's just me 💀lmao. Nut groping because why not lol, A lil lick moment but nothing drastic CALM DOWN. 

NOTES :- No smut (unless you ask ofc 😀). This is my second story cause I couldn’t help myself honestly. Had to refrain from going overboard because ion got much of a big following and need to know what my ppl want, so I can deliver what they need ✊. I’m open to critique because I can improve by it and praise is always appreciated. LIKE, FOLLOW & REBLOG. 

⌛ ⌛⌛

“Why are you following me Lee?” you asked for the 20th time today but he still continued to be on your ass ever since you transferred to this school 2 weeks ago because of personal reasons.  

“Because I simply can?” stating like it’s so obvious and as if you’re supposed to magically be aware of his odd innuendos. Ignoring him you continued to search for your next class.

Jeno of course had the same class as you and started playing with the little charms you have attached to your bag. You tried to fan his hand away but he quickly moved to your right and roughly pulled you to his side, his left arm resting on your shoulder.

“You need to lighten up more, putting up this persona isn’t gonna make me any less attracted to you,” He tightened his grip on you, whispered into your ears, and sultrily licked the side of your neck.

“It makes me want you even mor-” Before he could utter the next word you quickly pushed him off.

“EW WHAT THE FUCK JENO?!” you wiped the side of your neck, looking at him in disgust. You fixed your bag strap and pasted away to your class but Jeno swiftly leaped forward and grabbed your arm.

“Oh come on, don’t act like you didn’t like it,” He placed his other hand on your next arm and positioned you in front of him. 

You suddenly felt a ting in your lower stomach. You’ve always had a thing for Jeno but never wanted to act out those intrusive, unruly thoughts. You’d have to repeatedly remind yourself why you transferred in the first place, 1. To get a better education at a school with more open opportunities, 2. Start over and actually focus on the work and not make the same mistake you did at your previous school because failing is a feeling you’ve become to not like and you weren’t about the let Lee fucking Jeno distract you and get in the way of that. You’ve studied too hard to get accepted here, and he’s not going to make this whole progress a fluke. 

Jeno began to walk backward, leading you to a nearby janitors closet. “I just want to get to know you better, y/n,” He sang your name as he placed his hand on the back of your waist while stopping in front the door of the closet.

You roll your eyes and pull him by the ears. “I’ll allow you to get the know me better when I’m ready Lee Jeno,”.

He smiles seductively at you as he hunches over the more you pull on his ear groaning lightly. 

“Eh!?,” he let out a cute noise, tilting his head and looking at you as if you killed his dog the more he processed your words.

“But I know you enough,” he cupped your cheek whilst he removed your hand from his ear, leaving you stunned. He leans in closer to you, tightly wrapping his arms snugly around your waist. You could feel his minty breath brushing the tip of your nose, his bulging bicep digging into your skin in the skin-tight shirt he decided to wear, and his stone-hard chest pressed firmly against yours, feeling his rapid heartbeat, it almost made you blush. He smirked as he inched closer, but somehow, you felt something and got a little bold, so you held his gaze intensely. 

“You excited little boy?” you cheekily smiled as you groped him through his jeans. Jeno let out a strained moan as he looked you in the eye pleadingly. 

“Well you excite me by just being here. Simply can’t seem to help myself,” Jeno turned the knob of the closet door and pulled you inside.

The fourth-period bell began to ring indicating that class had finished and the next lesson was to begin. You halted your steps and backed out of the closet, leaving Jeno stunned.

“You’re gonna leave me here, bricked up in broad daylight?” Jeno braced on the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest cocking his brow at you, waiting on your reply. 

“Well, yeah” you chuckled lightly at seeing his discomfort. 

“I’ve got to get to my classes, and I’ve already missed one,” You brushed down your shirt. “AND you’re not gonna make me miss the rest,” you held onto your bag straps as you slowly took small steps backward.

“It’s not like we don’t have some classes together,” Jeno retorted.

“Keyword some and now you know why I sit away from you,” You place your arm in front of you when you realize Jeno walking closer to you, stopping him in his tracks.

“Take this as your first lesson in getting to know me better, I like the color blue,” you passed him and quickly left to get to your scheduled class. Jeno called out your name, and you turned your head in his direction.

“I can buy you a blue teddy bear, you know?!, THIS BIG” Jeno shouted, opening his long arms to dramatically show you the size of the imaginary bear, gaining some odd looks from the other students in the hallways. 

“Bye Jeno.” You playfully rolled your eyes and couldn’t help but smile and his cute gesture and went into your classroom.