#By the Cliff

[peaceinthestorm]

Ernst Samuel Geiger (1876-1965, Swiss) ~ Abend, n/d

[Source: dobiaschofsky.com]

[fandomlovingfreak]

By the Cliffs (Ch 4/?)

Paul Lahote x Female Reader

Wattpad I AO3

Rating: T+

Word Count: 1604

Summary: It was supposed to be a vacation.

A time to relax after Graduate School and unwind the pent-up tension I'd built up in the years of juggling school and work. Finally, I'd have the chance to breathe. Craving the serenity of mother nature's caress, I'd chosen Forks, a four-hour drive from the University, based on the stories I'd heard from Washington locals I'd known in school. With its endless trees and rainy weather, it seemed a perfect sleepy dream spot.

In retrospect, my belief that it was solely my decision to visit and not the Universe's mystic call pulling me there was mortal ignorance. But who besides a creature possessing the gift of predestination could have anticipated what awaited me by the cliffs?

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of the characters Created by S. Meyers. This work is not created for profit or financial compensation, and is a transformative fair use work in accordance with Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act.

Notes: There are some canon changes in this fic. I won't get into the nitty gritty details in the notes (I will repost this fic with more information): 1. Quil and Jacob do not imprint on children 2. Wolves change at 18 not 16, 3. Imprinting will be different and less like a phenomenon where they have no free will.

Warnings: Imprinting, swearing

Enjoy!

  "(y/n)!" I follow Paul's imprint into the house. The anger still lingers on her face when she turns toward me. Damn, despite looking like she could kill someone, she was still really pretty. Paul was one lucky bastard; he better grovel on his knees for this girl.

"Can I talk to you?"

(y/n) looks momentarily conflicted, her eyes landing on the floor as she mulls over giving me the time of day or not. It feels like minutes pass before her eyes meet mine, "Fine. I guess I sort of owe you for saving my life... Talk about what?"

I motion towards her, trying to give her as much space as possible in an attempt to make her feel comfortable around me, "About... everything. I can answer any questions or just talk... about the situation?"

A wave of emotions washes over her face. Embarrassment, annoyance, sadness-- and then nothing.

"Fine. But I don't want an audience. Having everyone watch me yell at... him was enough embarrassment for one day."

I nod, "We can take a walk! There's a cool path not too far from here."

(y/n) agrees, following me out the back door and to the right of the house. For a while, we just walk. It feels like the right move to let her calm down completely after what had to be one of the most overstimulating days of her life. I remember how confusing it was when I learned about our world. Of course, I was the wolf, not just someone thrust into the world of supposed myths and legends, but seeing what she saw and finding out some random guy now considered her his perfect match wasn't something you woke up expecting.

I break the silence once we've been walking for around ten minutes. The guys can probably still hear, but (y/n) doesn't need to know that, "Lay your questions on me. It's not every day strangers reveal the existence of shapeshifters to you." 

"A million, honestly. I'm not sure where to start."

Nodding, I say, "That's understandable."

"Are you all-- I mean, I only saw a few of you..." She scrunches her nose, "Do you all turn into wolves?"

"Yes. We call ourselves a pack. Brothers, even if it's not technically true. Well-- and Leah. Brothers and Leah."

"Who's Leah?" (y/n) asks interested.

"Leah is the only female shapeshifter in our history. She's-- well, she's Seth's sister. You haven't met our most obnoxious pack-member yet."

"So, shapeshifters-- they're usually only male? That doesn't seem fair." Her words register with her, and she looks away, embarrassed to be interested in any of this.

I shrug, "I personally think phasing is cool. Being a member of our group, we're pretty exclusive, you know. But, most, including Leah, don't feel the same way."

"Why?" Her brow furrows slightly.

I grasp for the words, trying to say exactly the right thing. "It makes life abnormal. You can't really live like a regular human when the shadow of your wolf lives within you. Weird things can cause you to phase-- heightened emotion, anger... It's hard to control yourself sometimes." I hesitate before continuing, "Paul's one of them that still struggles, and he's been phasing since he was eighteen."

"Lovely," sarcasm drips from her lips, "And that's the one I'm cosmically stuck to."

I chuckle. I really, really like (y/n). Paul better not mess this up. "It's intense. I'm aware. Maybe it's too much to deal with for one person."

"It's ridiculous, is what it is. I don't know how this happened to me." She crosses her arms over her chest.

"It's really not as bad as you think, I promise."

"Have you-- imprinted on someone?" She tilts her head in interest.

Embarrassment floods my body. Maybe I wasn't the person for this conversation after all, "No... but because I phased when Paul did, I heard his thoughts as he imprinted. So, I have an idea what it's like."

She perks up at this confession, "What do you mean heard his thoughts?"

"That's the annoying part about being a shapeshifter. When we're wolves, we hear all of each other's thoughts. Like—" I cringe as the embarrassing memory reappears at the front of my mind, "Like you can't think about the girl you're seeing without the entire pack knowing every detail or if you're trying to keep a secret... we'll we can't, I guess is the gist."

"What did--" her eyes dart away, a frown pulling at the edges of her lips, "what was it like? When he-- imprinted."

I chuckle, "If I tell you, you have to promise not to tell Paul I told

you. He'll kill me, I swear."

(y/n) rolls her eyes, "I promise I won't."

Pretending to be worn down by her questions, I say, "Fine... It was like his world sort of stood still in the moment his eyes met yours. Imprinting does that, slowing down the universe's rotation as the center changes its focus. The focus changed to you. Everything that is Paul, now reaches to you only. Like you're the gravity that holds him to the ground. That's the... short version of his thoughts at that moment."

She blinks rapidly, "That's a lot."

A grin rises to my lips, "Yeah, I guess so. I've always thought it was sort of romantic."

(y/n) scoffs, "Of course you do. Try being on the receiving end, buddy."

"Hear me out! It's like... well, the most common—human interpretation would be a soulmate. But an imprint isn't strictly limited to the human idea of a soulmate. I guess it could be a platonic relationship. Really, whatever you needed from him, Paul would be it. But, all the imprints I know, I guess, are... romantic relationships now. It's a really intense sensation; I'm not surprised you reacted angrily towards him." I want to continue, to tell her how much she reflected Paul in that way. She scoffed at his inability to keep his cool, but twenty minutes later, she'd yelled just as ferociously at him. The stars align themselves in funny ways.

For a moment, (y/n) is quiet, her eyes glued to the tree line.

"It is a lot," she finally admits. Her face turns toward me, "But what if I don't want it?"

This question takes me aback. I know Emily had been-- cautious, even going as far as initially rejecting Sam's imprint. But that had mainly been because of Leah's feelings. (y/n) didn't have a third party to worry about, no obvious reason for rejecting Paul's imprint on her. Only her current annoyance with Paul and his temper. Or maybe there was more she hadn't revealed. I found her hard to read.

"We don't know exactly what would happen," I glance away, unease running up my spine, "But, in the short-term? It would cause Paul a lot of pain. Emotionally and physically..." My words trail off, seeing how I'd accidentally reset the fire in her eyes.

"How is that fair?" She stands, stepping toward the trees before turning back to face me, "My choice to leave will harm him? I just have to accept this or live knowing I'm a bad person? How are these my only choices?"

I don't touch her, but close some of the distance between us, "I'm not saying-- give in and immediately be with him or even be best friends. Make him work for it a bit. Work for your acceptance of the imprint, but allow him to be around you. It'll soothe the need to be nearby, but you'll have the choice in the direction the relationship progresses. You can be friends only if it's all you want in the end."

The anger on her face fades with every sentence, and I can tell she's seeing the humor in the situation, "Something tells me being friends isn't what Paul's looking for."

I chuckle, raising my shoulders apologetically. She was probably right; I guess it was an imprint thing, knowing the other's feelings without confirmation, "Maybe not. But, Paul thinks you're pretty." He'd kill me if he knew I'd revealed that thought to her.

(y/n)'s eyes widen, and I realize she was embarrassed to hear this. Interesting.

"Quit telling me stuff like that!"

"We're friends, and Paul's a jerk. Telling you all his secrets is my long-awaited revenge."

"We're friends?" Her voice comes out softly, a small smile rising on her lips.

"Duh, obviously," I playfully punch her arm, "You owe me after I saved your life and everything."

(y/n) rolls her eyes, "Wasn't it you who caused me to hit my head in the first place?"

"That is-- technically true, but I could've left you there unconscious, and I didn't. So you're welcome or whatever."

  My head whips towards the noise of sticks cracking under a person's weight. Paul stands there ten feet away. The first thing I notice is the t-shirt he wears. None of them seemed to wear a lot of clothing for whatever reason.

"Can we talk?" The words come out of his mouth with an edge of hesitancy. I mentally note that it's the second time he's said those exact words to me today. But, unlike the last time he'd said it, I don't feel angry or awkward. Sure, I wasn't exactly the guy's number-one fan, but I had a better grasp on what the hell was happening behind those dark eyes.

"Yes," I move without a thought towards him, stopping for a second to look back at my new friend. "Thanks for talking, Quil. I appreciate it."

Quil beams, "Anytime, (y/n)."

[ekingston]

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

I am on my knees begging you to reblog this post and to stop reblogging the original ones I sent out yesterday. This is the complete account with all the most recent info; the other one is just sending people down senselessly panicked avenues that no longer lead anywhere.

IN SHORT

Cliff Weitzman, CEO of Speechify and (aspiring?) voice actor, used AI to scrape thousands of popular, finished works off AO3 to list them on his own for-profit website and in his attached app. He did this without getting any kind of permission from the authors of said work or informing AO3. Obviously.

When fandom at large was made aware of his theft and started pushing back, Weitzman issued a non-apology on the original social media posts—using 

his dyslexia; 

his intent to implement a tip-system for the plagiarized authors; and 

a sudden willingness to take down the work of every author who saw my original social media posts and emailed him individually with a ‘valid’ claim,

as reasons we should allow him to continue monetizing fanwork for his own financial gain.

When we less-than-kindly refused, he took down his ‘apologies’ as well as his website (allegedly—it’s possible that our complaints to his web host, the deluge of emails he received or the unanticipated traffic brought it down, since there wasn’t any sort of official statement made about it), and when it came back up several hours later, all of the work formerly listed in the fan fiction category was no longer there. 

THE TAKEAWAYS

1. Cliff Weitzman (aka Ofek Weitzman) is a scumbag with no qualms about taking fanwork without permission, feeding it to AI and monetizing it for his own financial gain; 

2. Fandom can really get things done when it wants to, and 

3. Our fanworks appear to be hidden, but they’re NOT DELETED from Weitzman’s servers, and independently published, original works are still listed without the authors' permission. We need to hold this man responsible for his theft, keep an eye on both his current and future endeavors, and take action immediately when he crosses the line again. 

THE TIMELINE, THE DETAILS, THE SCREENSHOTS (behind the cut)

Sunday night, December 22nd 2024, I noticed an influx in visitors to my fic You & Me & Holiday Wine. When I searched the title online, hoping to find out where they came from, a new listing popped up (third one down, no less):

This listing is still up today, by the way, though now when you follow the link to word-stream, it just brings you to the main site. (Also, to be clear, this was not the cause for the influx of traffic to my fic; word-stream did not link back to the original work anywhere.)

I followed the link to word-stream, where to my horror Y&M&HW was listed in its entirety—though, beyond the first half of the first chapter, behind a paywall—along with a link promising to take me—through an app downloadable on the Apple Store—to an AI-narrated audiobook version. When I searched word-stream itself for my ao3 handle I found both of my multi-chapter fics were listed this way:

Because the tags on my fics (which included genres* and characters, but never the original IPs**) weren’t working, I put ‘Kara Danvers’ into the search bar and discovered that many more supercorp fics (Supergirl TV fandom, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor pairing) were listed.

I went looking online for any mention of word-stream and AI plagiarism (the covers—as well as the ridiculously inflated number of reviews and ratings—made it immediately obvious that AI fuckery was involved), but found almost nothing: only one single Reddit post had been made, and it received (at that time) only a handful of upvotes and no advice. 

I decided to make a tumblr post to bring the supercorp fandom up to speed about the theft. I draw as well as write for fandom and I’ve only ever had to deal with art theft—which has a clear set of steps to take depending on where said art was reposted—and I was at a loss regarding where to start in this situation.

After my post went up I remembered Project Copy Knight, which is worth commending for the work they’ve done to get fic stolen from AO3 taken down from monetized AI 'audiobook’ YouTube accounts. I reached out to @echoekhi, asking if they’d heard of this site and whether they could advise me on how to get our works taken down.

While waiting for a reply I looked into Copy Knight’s methods and decided to contact OTW’s legal department:

And then I went to bed.

By morning, tumblr friends @makicarn and @fazedlight as well as a very helpful tumblr anon had seen my post and done some very productive sleuthing:

@echoekhi had also gotten back to me, advising me, as expected, to contact the OTW. So I decided to sit tight until I got a response from them.

That response came only an hour or so later: 

Which was 100% understandable, but still disappointing—I doubted a handful of individual takedown requests would accomplish much, and I wasn’t eager to share my given name and personal information with Cliff Weitzman himself, which is unavoidable if you want to file a DMCA.

I decided to take it to Reddit, hoping it would gain traction in the wider fanfic community, considering so many fandoms were affected. My Reddit posts (with the updates at the bottom as they were emerging) can be found here and here.

A helpful Reddit user posted a guide on how users could go about filing a DMCA against word-stream here (to wobbly-at-best results)

A different helpful Reddit user signed up to access insight into word-streams pricing. Comment is here.

Smells unbelievably scammy, right? In addition to those audacious prices—though in all fairness any amount of money would be audacious considering every work listed is accessible elsewhere for free—my dyscalculia is screaming silently at the sight of that completely unnecessary amount of intentionally obscured numbers.

Speaking of which! As soon as the post on r/AO3—and, as a result, my original tumblr post—began taking off properly, sometime around 1 pm, jumpscare! A notification that a tumblr account named @cliffweitzman had commented on my post, and I got a bit mad about the gist of his message :

Fortunately he caught plenty of flack in the comments from other users (truly you should check out the comment section, it is extremely gratifying and people are making tremendously good points), in response to which, of course, he first tried to both reiterate and renegotiate his point in a second, longer comment (which I didn’t screenshot in time so I’m sorry for the crappy notification email formatting):

which he then proceeded to also post to Reddit (this is another Reddit user’s screenshot, I didn’t see it at all, the notifications were moving too fast for me to follow by then)

... where he got a roughly equal amount of righteously furious replies. (Check downthread, they're still there, all the way at the bottom.)

After which Cliff went ahead & deleted his messages altogether. 

It’s not entirely clear whether his account was suspended by Reddit soon after or whether he deleted it himself, but considering his tumblr account is still intact, I assume it’s the former. He made a handful of sock puppet accounts to play around with for a while, both on Reddit and Tumblr, only one of which I have a screenshot of, but since they all say roughly the same thing, you’re not missing much:

And then word-stream started throwing a DNS error.

That lasted for a good number of hours, which was unfortunately right around the time that a lot of authors first heard about the situation and started asking me individually how to find out whether their work was stolen too. I do not have that information and I am unclear on the perimeters Weitzman set for his AI scraper, so this is all conjecture: it LOOKS like the fics that were lifted had three things in common:

They were completed works;

They had over several thousand kudos on AO3; and

They were written by authors who had actively posted or updated work over the past year.

If anyone knows more about these perimeters or has info that counters my observation, please let me know!

I finally thought to check/alert evil Twitter during this time, and found out that the news was doing the rounds there already. I made a quick thread summarizing everything that had happened just in case. You can find it here.

I went to Bluesky too, where fandom was doing all the heavy lifting for me already, so I just reskeeted, as you do, and carried on.

Sometime in the very early evening, word-stream went back up—but the fan fiction category was nowhere to be seen. Tentative joy and celebration!***

That’s when several users—the ones who had signed up for accounts to gain intel and had accessed their own fics that way—reported that their work could still be accessed through their history. Relevant Reddit post here.

Sooo—

We’re obviously not done. The fanwork that was stolen by Weitzman may be inaccessible through his website right now, but they aren’t actually gone. And the fact that Weitzman wasn’t willing to get rid of them altogether means he still has plans for them. 

This was my final edit on my Reddit post before turning off notifications, and it's pretty much where my head will be at for at least the foreseeable future:

Please feel free to add info in the comments, make your own posts, take whatever action you want to take to protect your work. I only beg you—seriously, I’m on my knees here—to not give up like I saw a handful of people express the urge to do. Keep sharing your creative work and remain vigilant and stay active to make sure we can continue to do so freely. Visit your favorite fics, and the ones you’ve kept in your ‘marked for later’ lists but never made time to read, and leave kudos, leave comments, support your fandom creatives, celebrate podficcers and support AO3. We created this place and it’s our responsibility to keep it alive and thriving for as long as we possibly can.

Also FUCK generative AI. It has NO place in fandom spaces.

THE 'SMALL' PRINT (some of it in all caps):

*Weitzman knew what he was doing and can NOT claim ignorance. One, it’s pretty basic kindergarten stuff that you don’t steal some other kid’s art project and present it as your own only to act surprised when they protest and then tell the victim that they should have told you sooner that they didn’t want their project stolen. And two, he was very careful never to list the IPs these fanworks were based on, so it’s clear he was at least familiar enough with the legalities to not get himself in hot water with corporate lawyers. Fucking over fans, though, he figured he could get away with that. 

**A note about the AI that Weitzman used to steal our work: it’s even greasier than it looks at first glance. It’s not just the method he used to lift works off AO3 and then regurgitate onto his own website and app. Looking beyond the untold horrors of his AI-generated cover ‘art’, in many cases these covers attempt to depict something from the fics in question that can’t be gleaned from their summaries alone. In addition, my fics (and I assume the others, as well) were listed with generated genres; tags that did not appear anywhere in or on my fic on AO3 and were sometimes scarily accurate and sometimes way off the mark. I remember You & Me & Holiday Wine had ‘found family’ (100% correct, but not tagged by me as such) and I believe The Shape of Soup was listed as, among others, ‘enemies to friends to lovers’ and ‘love triangle’ (both wildly inaccurate). Even worse, not all the fic listed (as authors on Reddit pointed out) came with their original summaries at all. Often the entire summary was AI-generated. All of these things make it very clear that it was an all-encompassing scrape—not only were our fics stolen, they were also fed word-for-word into the AI Weitzman used and then analyzed to suit Weitzman’s needs. This means our work was literally fed to this AI to basically do with whatever its other users want, including (one assumes) text generation. 

***Fan fiction appears to have been made (largely) inaccessible on word-stream at this time, but I’m hearing from several authors that their original, independently published work, which is listed at places like Kindle Unlimited, DOES still appear in word-stream’s search engine. This obviously hurts writers, especially independent ones, who depend on these works for income and, as a rule, don’t have a huge budget or a legal team with oceans of time to fight these battles for them. If you consider yourself an author in the broader sense, beyond merely existing online as a fandom author, beyond concerns that your own work is immediately at risk, DO NOT STOP MAKING NOISE ABOUT THIS.

Again, please, please PLEASE reblog this post instead of the one I sent originally. All the information is here, and it's driving me nuts to see the old ones are still passed around, sending people on wild goose chases.

Thank you all so much.

[beif0ngs]

THIS SPECIFIC SHOT OF JINX HOLDING ISHA TIGHTLY IN HER ARMS, AND SEVIKA INSTINCTIVELY USING HER ENTIRE BODY TO SHIELD THEM FROM THE EXPLOSION HAS A COMPLETE AND UTTER CHOKEHOLD ON MY HEART 🥺💔

I SWEAR IF ANYONE HURTS THEM I’M GONNA 🔪🔪🔪

[fluentisonus]

i met one of my aunt's archaeologist friends/colleagues earlier today & he was telling me about legends that not too far from here there's the ghosts of a roman legion that people see walking up the cliff towards the edge of the sea and then off the edge of the cliff and onwards, because the coastline has receded so much since roman times that the 'land' they're used to walking on goes on far past the point it falls into the sea today. and like. OUGH. I don't even strictly believe in that type of ghost but I'm Obsessed with this image of them still interacting with landscape that has crumbled into the sea & completely disappeared over the thousands of years since they were alive. ghost landscapes Real

[maureen2musings]

Old Viking cave dwelling and farm, Rutshellir Caves, Iceland

Job Savelsberg

[coolcarteam]

Ireland, waves crashing, Cliffs of Moher

[dailydccomics]

Robin by Cliff Chiang

[ferretshark]

Project 2025 Cliff Notes:

1. Complete ban on abortions, without exceptions (pg. 449-503)

2. End marriage equality (pg. 545-581)

3. Elimination of unions and worker protections (pg. 581)

4. Defund the FBI and Homeland Security (pg. 133)

5. Eliminate federal agencies like the FDA, EPA, NOAA, and more (pg. 363-417)

6. Mass deportation of immigrants and incarceration in "camps" (pg. 133)

7. End birthright citizenship (pg. 133)

8. Cut Social Security (pg. 691)

9. Cut Medicare (pg. 449)

10. Eliminate the Department of Education (pg. 319)

11. Teach Christian religious beliefs in public schools (pg. 319)

12. Use public, taxpayer money for private religious schools (pg. 319)

13. End the Affordable Care Act (pg. 449)

14. Ban contraceptives (pg. 449)

15. Additional tax breaks for corporations and the 1% (pg. 691)

16. End civil rights & DEI protections in government (pg. 545-581)

17. Ban African American and gender studies in all levels of education (pg. 319)

18. End climate protections: (pg. 417)

19. Increase Arctic drilling (pg. 363)

20. Deregulate big business and the oil industry (pg. 363)

Not to increase anxiety, but I found this buried on Reddit. From six months ago. very good thing to have in your pocket so you are prepared

[kirk-hammett-bl0g]

Eyeballs!

[peaceinthestorm]

Paul Gauguin ~ Le jouer de flageolet, 1889

[Source: collection.imamuseum.org]

[fandomlovingfreak]

By The Cliffs (Ch 3/?)

Paul Lahote x Female Reader

Prev. Chapter

Wattpad I AO3

Rating: T+

Word Count: 2529

Summary: It was supposed to be a vacation.

A time to relax after Graduate School and unwind the pent-up tension I'd built up in the years of juggling school and work. Finally, I'd have the chance to breathe. Craving the serenity of mother nature's caress, I'd chosen Forks, a four-hour drive from the University, based on the stories I'd heard from Washington locals I'd known in school. With its endless trees and rainy weather, it seemed a perfect sleepy dream spot.

In retrospect, my belief that it was solely my decision to visit and not the Universe's mystic call pulling me there was mortal ignorance. But who besides a creature possessing the gift of predestination could have anticipated what awaited me by the cliffs?

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of Meyer's Characters. This work is not created for profit or financial compensation, and is a transformative fair use work in accordance with Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act.

Notes: Reader's POV are my FAVORITE to write. She's so funny! I hope you enjoy living in this story with me<3

Warnings: This fic is about Imprinting. Warning if that's not your cup of tea. There is some swearing (bc it's my love language) and angst.

Enjoy!

The belief that this could have all been a fantastical experience straight from a horror movie, a nightmare, is shattered when I blink my eyes open to find an unfamiliar ceiling instead of the forest's canopy.

Pain shoots through my skull as I sit up. No, this couldn't have been a dream; I must have hit my head, and hard, by the throbbing at the base of my skull.

Wobbly, I stand and move towards the closed door, silently praying it's unlocked. The knob turns easily, and I swing it open, expecting to find an axe murderer. Not... the delicious aroma of baked goods. 

Maybe my captor was like the witch from Hansel and Gretel and was planning on feeding me in preparation for their meal. I try to stifle a laugh. This wasn't funny! I was moved from where I'd fallen to someone's house. This was serious and scary.

Taking a tentative step toward the smell, I glance around the expanding room, looking for exit points for my escape.

"Oh, you're up." I whip my head in the direction of a woman's voice. She's sitting at a big kitchen table, a timer in front of her, "How are you feeling? Quil and Embry said you'd hit your head. I'm glad they had the sense to bring you back here."

I blink back at her, noticing the red scarring that ran down the right side of her face, marring the delicate flesh of her forehead, cheek, and chin.

"Here," the woman stands, moving around the table. She brushes past me, quickly grabbing a tray of pastries, "Eat something. I don't think your head injury is serious, but I'm sure you're hungry."

Hesitantly, I take something from the outreaching tray, "Thank you."

The woman gestures to the table, "Sit, I'm not a doctor, so my word might be complete bullshit. Better safe than sorry."

We sit silently for a few minutes before I say, "I'm (y/n)."

"It's nice to meet you, (y/n). I'm Emily; welcome to my house."

I smile, "Nice to meet you too. How-- how did I get here?" Emily seems nice, but lots of serial killers are charming. I needed the full story before I determined she was safe to be around.

Emily returns the smile, "Quil and Embry brought you after you hit your head." Something in her tone makes me wonder if she's telling the complete story. 

"I don't remember--" The memories come rushing back, "There were wolves! Two giant-- almost unnaturally, giant wolves. I fell because they were almost... stalking me. I don't know what made them run away."

Emily bites her lip, "Huh. I guess Embry and Quil must have scared them off. You're lucky they were around, I suppose."

Lucky was an understatement. There was something odd about the coincidence. "I suppose so..."

We sit in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes before I ask, "Who are Quil and Embry to you? I mean-- why did they bring me to your home?"

"You could say-- they're my husband's brothers." Weird answer, again.

"Oh. Are they around here? I want to thank them for saving me."

"They're around here somewhere. But they'll be in sometime soon. They're waiting for their other brothers to come home."

How many brother-in-laws did this woman have?

Arguing outside breaks the uncomfortable silence that comes over us. Three men's voices yell back and forth.

"Yes! She wasn't your problem! How stupid are you two?" One man's voice is mean, rough, and fiery angry. 

Yikes. He sounds... reasonable.

"You shouldn't go out there, (y/n)—" Emily's voice interrupts my horrified interest in the scene.

Disregarding her words, I walk towards the front door to see why the man was so upset with who I assume saved my life by the conversation. A group of men stand, opposing two others, no more than fifteen feet away from Emily's home. The tallest looks at the scene, annoyance written on his face as he watches the one-- the presumed yeller by his predatory stance, chest puffed, muscles straining-- become angrier with each second. To the right of Mr. Hothead, the other stands with an authority none of the others match.

"We weren't going to leave the girl in the middle of the woods, Paul. She was hurt, and it was our fault." 

Their fault?

"There's no need to wolf out, Paul." The tall man crosses his arms over his chest, his expression continuing to sour.

The angry man, Paul, I guess, begins to shake like he's been unfortunate enough to have stepped on a minuscule earthquake.

I take a step back, bewildered by the scene before me, as it takes an even more... shocking turn.

In an instant, the place where the man was standing is filled with a monstrous gray wolf similar to the ones I'd seen in the woods. Within seconds, two others have exploded, too, leaving behind wolf beasts in their place as well.

"What the fuck?" I yell out on impulse.

All eyes, including the three wolves, turn to me. Surprise is written on-- the human's faces as they take in my presence for the first time. One wolf dashes off towards the back of the house before I can further respond.

I don't wait for the explanation, turning back towards the door, "Quick, Emily! There's a wolf— it's headed towards the back door—" 

My head snaps towards the sound of footfalls on wooden steps. A man walks through-- the stern one who, a minute ago, had exploded into a wolf. 

The wolfman's eyes lock with mine briefly before landing on Emily, "Paul."

"Paul?" she asks, confusion evident on the unmarred side of her face.

He glances back at me, his expression conflicted, "It's not my place…"

Some sort of understanding comes over Emily's face, "Paul… really?"

The man nods before stepping closer to where I stand.

Panic spreads through my body, "Wait, no--" I put my hand out in a lame attempt at defending myself from the supernatural, "Don't come any closer."

My hostess hesitantly approaches me, "It's okay, (y/n). No one's going to hurt you, I promise."

"You— why aren't you scared? Something freaky is happening here! He's a—" I point an accusatory finger at the man, "A wolf! Same with the people who saved me! And probably the others, too."

She smiles, "I know. They're not going to harm you. You trust me, no?"

"The one— the one yelling? What the hell is happening!"

The man interjects before I can spiral further, "Paul has trouble controlling his anger. We have an agreement between the pack to never bring outsiders into our circle for their protection. He wasn't angry with you, per se. Sit. I'll explain as much of the situation as I can." He motions towards the empty table.

My mind feels eerily empty as I absorb everything he's just said. Still wary of him, I sit in the chair farthest away, "Okay..."

He smiles. I'm not reassured at all by the smile. "First of all, I'm Sam Uley. Emily's husband."

My gaze shoots over to Emily, suddenly feeling silly. No wonder she wasn't afraid; she was completely aware of the oddities happening around here, being married to one of the oddities himself.

"I know what you just saw was-- alarming. But I promise it's not as scary as it seems."

I very much doubt that.

"You just saw what we are. Shapeshifters, wolf shapeshifters, more specifically. I'm the Alpha; the dark brown wolf is Jacob, our Beta, and the—" he chuckles, looking like he knows something I don't, "hot-headed one is Paul, our third in command."

Emily's smile at me as Sam talks about Paul… is weird, to say the least.

"Shapeshifters?" I ignore the uncomfortable look the couple shares.

"It's a-- hereditary trait triggered by the presence of vampires."

"Vampires?" I choke out. Maybe I died, and I'm in hell. Or I hit my head so hard I've lost all connection to reality.

Emily shoots a glare at her husband, "Don't focus too hard on that right now. You're entirely safe with the pack around."

"Sorry," Sam looks sheepishly between his wife and me, "Disregard that for now."

Another bombshell that apparently no one would be addressing.

"I want to say you're ridiculous, and that's a great story, but— I guess unless I've got serious brain damage from my fall and am hallucinating hard, you're not lying… what do I have to do with any of this? You didn't need to tell me anything if it wasn't important."

"It's-- well, it's not entirely my place to explain this next part."

"Then who will?" I'm so over this dude's crypticness. 

Sam looks at Emily once again. I'm getting really tired of their shared, knowing looks.

"Paul."

"Paul?" I laugh, "Mr. Hothead's going to explain? No thanks. There has to be someone else, someone more reasonable, that can explain it."

Sam glances at Emily, biting his lip like he's unsure he should be saying this next part. Lucky for him, another voice butts into the conversation.

"Can we talk?" 

My head whips around, spooked by the intrusive voice. The man, Paul, is standing in the doorway. He's got a shirt on now, his expression hard for me to read.

I look back at Sam and Emily, unsure I want to be alone with him. Emily nods towards me encouragingly.

Awkwardly, I stand up from my seat, "oh—Kay." The word comes out in two clumsy syllables.

Paul moves away from the door frame, allowing me to walk past him outside.

The uncomfortable vibe between us seems to be one-sided, me being the one who apparently wants the space between our bodies, and he, unknowingly or not, stepping closer with every step forward. I have the sneaking suspicion that he'd take my hand if he could. 

We stand silently for a moment away from the house before he speaks, "I didn't ask your name."

"You didn't get the chance," I look away, "But it's (y/n)."

"I'm Paul."

"I'm well aware," I glance up at his face, regretting it. How can he look at me like that? What have I done to deserve the reverence he wore on his face?

I can't handle it. I need to put more space between us.

"Can we walk and talk?" I hope the movement will help prevent my anxiety from bubbling up again.

Paul nods, again taking a step that made it seem like we were magnets that couldn't keep apart. What was up with this guy?

After a few minutes of walking silently, I ask, "Mind telling me why I'm being pressured to talk to you after I listened to you scream at those two for saving my life?" I don't care that the words are harsh. He had said it, after all.

Paul physically cringes, "That— I wouldn't have said it if I'd known."

"Why are you all saying weird, cryptic things like that to me? Known what exactly?" I move further away, and his next step brings us back together again.

Paul kicks a rock, his barefoot evidently fine as it smacks into the decent-sized stone. He huffs once, conflicted by his thoughts.

"I don't know how to explain it without coming off insane."

My laugh sounds a bit more like a-- scoff, "I just watched a bunch of people hulk out, literally. I think I can handle whatever you're going to say."

This gets a smile out of him, "I guess you're right."

After a moment, I wave my hand, "Go on then."

Paul stops walking, and I follow suit. His gaze doesn't waver as he asks me, "Sam explained about the wolf thing, right?"

"That you're a— a shapeshifter wolf? I guess. He didn't go into any great detail, but yes."

"He didn't tell you why we— I stopped fighting, though?"

I shake my head no. I hadn't seen the fight end, too freaked out to pay attention to what the beasts did after I'd rushed back into the house.

"What happened-- caused me to stop, is somewhat indescribable to humans. It's— it's specifically a wolf thing. Or at least I've never met another creature who has experienced it."

"And it is?" I prompt, hating the beating around the bush.

Paul smiles, "It's called imprinting."

I frown, "Imprint— like a duck? What does this have to do with me?"

He momentarily looks startled by my words before regaining his composure, "Not— Never mind. I imprinted on you."

I blink once, twice, three times at him before bursting out into laughter, "What are you talking about? No, you didn't!"

I didn't really understand any of this, but the whole scenario was hilarious. Maybe I really did have a head injury.

Hurt crosses his face before morphing into a glower, "Why are you laughing? I'm not joking."

Shaking my head, I walk away, "I don't even want to know what you're talking about. Nope. Go imprint on someone else." I make air quotes as I say the word imprint.

Paul's growl sends a chill up my spine, "That's not how it works."

I turn quickly, my patience for this insanity ending, "Then how does it work? Because I frankly don't want this!"

Paul looks like I've slapped him, "What do you mean?"

"I don't want to live in this nightmare any longer! I just wanted to hike on my vacation, and now suddenly, I'm the werewolf's girlfriend? Can any of you hear how insane this is, or is it just me?"

"Listen—" his hand wraps around my wrist firmly, probably an attempt at grounding me in his words, "I'm being dead serious. Imprinting is never wrong. It's— it's the universe placing two people who belong together, together."

I blink back at him before I feel the simmer of annoyance beneath my skin, "Are you saying I don't have a choice?" I spit the words back at him, shaking his hand off me.

The anger melts off his face as he stares blankly at me. It returns in seconds, "What do you mean a choice?"

"A choice!" I take a step closer to him. "The ability to walk away right now if I wanted!"

"Why would you walk away?" The way he says it, like it would be stupid for me to even consider this, changes the simmer in my chest to a raging boil.

"Have you ever considered that I'm not from here? I don't live here! Hell, I don't want to move here, especially just so your weird wolfy side believes I'm its predetermined soulmate! News flash, buddy, I don't know you!"

I think he's gotten the memo as I successfully make it all the way back to the house's yard until I hear him behind me again, "(y/n), stop."

"No!" I yell back, ignoring the group of men sitting on the porch, watching.

He growls, "You're really pissing me off—"

I reel around, the anger consuming me completely, "You wanna see pissed off, meathead? You ain't seen nothing yet."

Crickets.

One of the men— werewolves' voice speaks, "Shit. She's just like him."

A chuckle rains over the group, causing Paul's nostrils to flare in anger.

Thank you! Comments and Reblogs are GOLD for writers on Tumblr! If you enjoyed this story, please consider both or either!<3 I appreciate you!

[huariqueje]

Cliff Edge - Ann Burnham , 2023.

British, b. 1956 -

Linocut , 76 x 54 cm 29.92 x 21.26 in. Ed. 4

[whereifindsanity]

instagram.com

@damiensdoodles

Waves against the cliffs of Inis Meain, Ireland.