#I dunno maybe it’s just me but it feels like that sort of community is a lot more rare nowadays

[thecanadiannextdoor]

I hope this is a safe place to admit I do really miss the good old days when September 1st was Hogwarts day and Artemis Fowl day was like the fandom equivalent of saying Happy Hanukkah

[dukeofankh]

Trying to find progressive masculine community is so exhausting.

I've flipped through local men's groups, trying to find places to explore masculinity in a chill, progressive setting. First of all, they mostly seem to be modelled after AA, and like, my gender isn't a debilitating addiction, it's part of my identity actually, but also, the invite and description of the event have maybe a short paragraph tops actually waving vaguely in the direction of what the purpose of the group is, and then ten to twenty paragraphs breaking down the rules. One spent longer talking about the hand signals he would use to direct conversation than he did describing what the conversation would be about. Another had a full paragraph explaining that if the group thought you were evading what they thought your "real" problem was, they'd probably "call you to take accountability". Like...I don't even know who these people are yet and they're already letting me know that they view it as their right, no, their duty, to bully me into seeing things their way. Like, this is in the invite.

...and this warning is there instead of any sort of breakdown of like, I dunno. Whether you should be a feminist to show up. Whether it was a safe space for queer men. What the hell they wanted to talk about. Joining a men's space is on some level inherently submitting yourself to the authority of the leaders of that group, and you don't usually get a particularly clear breakdown of what the values and goals of those leaders are, because on some level the answer is always going to be "whatever I want"

And like, unfortunately you do need to filter men to build a men's space. You do need to remove or chastise men who act in ways that are toxic or disruptive or misogynistic. If you don't things turn into an MRA chapter pretty quick. But the sort of emergency powers that leadership takes on as a result of that...just kind of naturally end up reproducing masculine heirarchies.

MensLib, the only online community of progressive dudes talking about masculinity that I'm aware of, is...on Reddit. So there is a moderator system. In theory, a moderator is there to...moderate. This is a space where people are going to be talking, and mods are there to make sure things don't get too toxic or off topic.

The issue is that, on some level, that is technically a leadership position. In a sub trying to rehabilitate masculinity. So you've got a bunch of folks who view themselves as the leaders of this bastion of goodness standing against the depredations of the misogynistic internet, guiding the hapless smooth-brain neophytes towards The True Way.

In practice, this looks like 95 percent of the posts submitted for the subreddit being rejected. That isn't hyperbole. On average, the sub has about one new post per day. Almost all posts directly relating a personal experience are deleted immediately, in favour of articles written about masculinity in traditional media publications, which are considered more trustworthy than the sus lived experiences of the guys in the sub. The post I wrote here about the effect of purity culture on male sexual shame that's sitting at about 15K notes was based on a 10K word post I wrote for Reddit that was deleted because "I didn't cite any sources to prove that there is a link between purity culture and male sexual shame, or that my experience was anything more than anecdotal". I get comments deleted on a regular basis, and after paragraphs of protesting in modmail that my comments are both fully in line with feminism and not against the rules, the mods have just finally told me that the rules don't actually drive their actions as a team. They delete anything they feel leads the conversation in a direction they personally feel is unproductive. The rule cited at the time of deletion is really just the broad category of why they decided to hit the button that says nobody is allowed to read what I wrote.

The issue is kind of twofold. First of all, progressive men do not trust other men. A good dude knows that he, individually, is a good person, but literally any other man external to him is on thin ice. Do you really want to tie your wagon to that guy? Do you trust him, really? How do you tell the difference between a guy criticizing an article because it's factually incorrect and criticising it because a woman wrote it? Probably best to play it safe and delete it. Weight of the odds, he's probably a misogynist, right? This is the internet.

And thats the other half of it. If you view yourself as part of the leadership of The Good Guys, and you're getting hatemail from incels and facists all day, you get to the point where most of the time people challenge your authority it's because they're a terrible person. It is very, very easy to get to the point where someone challenging you is seen as evidence that they are a bad person. And now someone is challenging you (and therefore bad), in an environment where you are in charge, and you have a "make your opponent disappear" button.

I know. A Reddit mod was rude to me and now I'm butthurt. It's petty and stupid. I'm just feeling like there's nowhere else to really go, and I'm pretty despondent that literally every space I've seen that even looks like it might be for progressive men has the same deeply hierarchical structure and constant status-oriented squabbling as patriarchal spaces.

[freedomfireflies]

okok so idk it’s nothing special really but i don’t think i’ve ever actually read something like that and i've been sort of searching for it for some time because i personally struggle with it and well, it’s annoying 👼 but anyway, my request is a one shot or even just a shorter blurb, whatever you feel okay with where H and the reader get into a fight for the first time really, they were always solving their problems by communication and always managed to not get into proper fights. but well it can’t last forever, right? so they get into actually heated fight and harry properly raises his voice at her and there the whole thing is, Y/N is sort of hypersensitive and whenever someone screams at her or even just scolds her, she cries and she can’t stop it nor control it, thinks it’s pathetic and is always ashamed or crying like a baby and not being able to scream back or remain calm. so she tears up and she’s telling him to ignore it and starts apologizing for acting like that and he sort of doesn’t know what to do because he’s really worked up and doesn’t think straight but he also feels extremely guilty. so maybe he like tries to go away and escape this but shortly comes back to comfort her or something like that? i dunno if it’s something you’d be up to writing, it’s totally fine if you don’t feel like it but yup, there goes my a bit of an angsty request!

“You are so fucking ridiculous. I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”

“Like what? Rightfully curious? Justly upset?”

“No…hysterical.”

You rear back, lashes fluttering as you stare at the aggravated British man across from you. “Wow. That’s what I am, huh? Hysterical?”

“Yes,” he says simply, unphased by the line he just crossed. “Yes, you’re being hysterical. And I can’t talk to a hysterical woman.”

You can feel the pressure against your chest as your throat begins to burn from the tears you know are coming. 

But you straighten your shoulders and feign indifference. “Maybe I wouldn’t be so hysterical if you would just talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he seethes for a second time. “We had lunch. That was it.”

“And I said that’s fine, but you didn’t have to lie about it—”

“I didn’t fucking lie, I—” His hands find his hair, fingers yanking at the roots as his teeth grit together. “For fuck’s sake. I don’t need to explain my choices to you—”

“Oh, yes you fucking do,” you argue, taking a step closer. “If you want to be in this relationship, you need to communicate with me—”

“I did fucking communicate. I told you I was going to lunch—”

“With Alex. You did not mention Samantha—”

“So fucking what? What does it matter if she was there?”

Your jaw just about drops. “It matters because she was a huge part of your past, and having lunch with her makes me think—”

“Makes you think what, huh?” he suddenly bellows as he moves closer to you as well. “What? That I was gonna fuck her right there on the table?”

There’s a fire in his eyes you’ve never seen before. A rage in his voice, in his stance, in his expression that you’re unfamiliar with.

This Harry…is not your Harry.

Your Harry would calmly explain the miscommunication and then ask if you wanted to bake some brownies together. 

This Harry looks like he wants to walk out of your life.

And into hers.

“You think I went there to cheat on you?” he continues, taking another step. And with each additional step, his volume rises. “Think I went there to beg her to take me back? To embarrass you? To throw all the progress you and I have made away?”

“Har…” you murmur, hands raising as if to tame him. 

Or perhaps to keep him away.

He doesn’t notice. Nor does he notice the subtle shake in your request as he continues stalking toward you. 

“Is that what you’re so fucking afraid of? You don’t trust me?” he just about shouts. “What? I need to be more communicative, but you don’t have to fucking trust me? What kind of fucking relationship is that—”

You don’t know how it happened. Don’t know when the tears that had been crawling up your throat slipped from your eyes and began pouring down your cheeks. You don’t know why you’ve suddenly been reduced to a puddle of quivering breaths and anxious glances but suddenly, that’s all you know.

Harry slows to a stop, focus flicking across your face as if assessing you. “What…what’s happening—”

You swallow a hiccup and quickly wave your hand through the air, as if to dismiss his comment. “Nothing. Nothing, sorry—fuck. Sorry, I’m fine, I’m—”

“Why are you…crying?” he asks, lowering his voice back to his normal register as takes one more step.

You roll your eyes, annoyed with yourself as you swipe your knuckles across your wet cheeks and huff, “I just…I cry when I’m…listen, I’m fine. I just…I know you didn’t go there to…cheat, I just—”

“Your hands are shaking,” he interrupts, rather matter-of-factly, his eyes downcast toward your arms.

You glance down as well. “Yeah, that…happens. Look, I didn’t mean to make you mad—”

“Why are your hands shaking?”

You swallow again. “’Cause…I don’t do well. With confrontation.”

He looks back up. “Oh.”

“Yeah. I don’t know. Childhood trauma, I guess. I just…I cry,” you admit, rather sheepishly as you once again try to dry the tears still dancing down your chin. “But I’m fine. Sorry. I wasn’t…I know I shouldn’t’ve—”

“Did I make you cry?” he asks now, eyebrows raised.

Again, you wave him away. “No. No, not…not you. I just…when people yell at me, I—”

“Was I yelling at you?” 

Your expression softens at the absolute confusion on his face. “I mean…I don’t think you meant to, but…you did get pretty loud.”

He leans back, almost as if you’d slapped him. “Firefly, I didn’t…I didn’t realize. I…I just…I don’t know…”

“I know,” you offer gently, attempting to reach for him but he’s quick to pull himself back, terrified to have you close. “Har. Don’t do that, it’s fine—”

“I yelled at you,” he mumbles, like he can’t believe it. “I don’t…we don’t yell.”

“I know, but you were…you were angry—”

“Are you defending me?” he interrupts, seemingly aghast. “Firefly, I fucking yelled at you. I scared you, I made you cry. That’s not something to defend—”

“I always cry,” you retort, smiling to lighten the mood but are instead met with a frown. “Harry, it’s fine. Look…I shouldn’t have gotten so upset about the lunch, I just…look people talk. Twitter talks, I thought…they seemed pretty sure it was a different kind of lunch, so…I assumed. And I’m sorry.”

He studies you for a moment, eyes flicking between yours before he sighs and takes a hesitant step forward.

He takes your face between his hands and swipes his thumbs through the tears. “Believe me, you have nothing…to worry about. Samantha was and still is the biggest bitch I’ve ever met. I was supposed to meet Alex. But he fucking set up the lunch with her because she asked him to.”

“Oh,” you whisper, now feeling a tad guilty. “Damn, yeah. She is a bitch.”

“Yeah. I mean, more power to her but…like a text would have sufficed, you know? I can just as easily tell her to fuck off over the phone.”

You smirk. “I do trust you. I promise I do. I shouldn’t have assumed, I just…I would hate losing you.”

“God, Firefly, you would never,” he breathes, dipping down to press his forehead to yours as his eyes flutter shut. “Never fucking lose me. It would kill me if you left. You are it for me, do you understand? You are it. I’m never fucking letting you go. I’d lock you in my basement before I let you go.”

You laugh and playfully swat at his chest. “Ha. Ha.”

He smiles and leans back to see you once more. “Please believe me. She means nothing to me. Hell, even Alex means nothing to me now. Just you. Only you. Always.”

You take hold of his wrists and squeeze, heart bursting with adoration for the beautiful man before you. “I believe you.”

“And I promise never…to raise my voice at you again.”

“Hey, listen…I don’t mind a good yelling match as long as I get a few hits in.”

“Oh, is that right?”

“That’s right.”

He grins and surges forward to kiss you.

Hard.

“Good. Now…let’s go make some brownies.”

Thank you so much for the request, I hope it could somewhat fulfill your expectations! It was so fun to write, I’m so grateful you sent it 😭💞

~ Other Harry Blurbs

~ Full Masterlist

[ask-the-royal-absol]

Felix: What?

Destino: You heard me. How long?

Felix: ...

Destino: ...

Felix: Since the evolution party. Four years ago.

Destino: You're shitting me.

Felix: It's true.

Destino: So, you fell for me when I was intoxicated. Glad to know my best friend can pick out my best traits.

Felix: It really ain’t like that. I fell for ya because ya can be funny, thoughtful when ya want ta be and ya pretty damn good-lookin’. I know who ya really are and I find that ta be what I look for in a partner. I’ve not asked yet because I know Mirage left ya in a bad place last time and I know ya didn’t want ta rush into a new relationship anytime soon. I only make a move when I see there’s interest and ya didn’t seem interested, so I haven’t gone for it.

Destino: …

Felix: I’ve gotta know if ya would consider it though.

Destino: Right now?

Felix: Yeah. If we’re layin’ everythin’ out in the open, I wanna know. I don’t wanna pursue something that ain’t gonna happen.

Destino: …

Felix: …

Felix: …

Destino: …

Felix: Thank you for tellin’ me. I’m glad ta actually hear how ya feel about it. And I promise ya not hide anythin’ from ya from now on.

Destino: You better not. I don’t want to have to demote you to friend status.

Felix: Serious, I will be. Don’t ya worry pal.

Destino: …

Felix: …

Destino: Ha, it’s funny really. You’re the ghost therapist here and I’m the one telling you to be honest and communicate. Perhaps you could learn a thing or two from me about how to communicate with another. I’m clearly excelling at it. Maybe if the whole Prime of the Underdark thing doesn’t work out, that’s what I could do next. Be a therapist.

Felix: Des, ya are the least qualified Pokémon ta do somethin’ like that.

Destino: Tauros-shit. It’d be easy. Listen to someone rant about their experiences and then say how awful they are and how they can change.

Felix: Hahaha, it’s far more complicated than that. Besides, ya barely talk ya anyone about how ya feel.

Destino: I talk about myself all the time.

Felix: Ya know what I mean. About how ya actually feel.

Destino: You think I’m just going to suddenly lay my whole life out in the open for these surface Pokémon? If those random Pokémon that keep following me around could just leave me be, I think I’d be enjoying myself a lot more up here. Why would I ever want to talk to them about private matters if they have nothing to offer?

Felix: I dunno about that.

Destino: One of them ate me. One trapped me in a bubble full of liquid and tried to drown me. One of them shaved off a good chunk of my fur and left me looking ridiculous. They clearly have so much to give.

Felix: Didn’t ya say an arbok told ya ta talk with me? That seems like good advice that he gave ya.

Destino: Considering how weird he was, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was some sort of hallucination caused by one of those Pokémon to get me to like them. The things Pokémon do to make me get on their side. I am an incredibly charming Pokémon so it’s not surprising they would use whatever methods they could to make me like them. The curse of being the most charismatic Pokémon alive.

Felix: Ya gotta admit that ya did provoke those other Pokémon though. That’s why they went through with what they did.

Destino: Are you condoning their actions?

Felix: No, but that’s why I said about pickin’ ya targets when wantin’ ta insult someone.

Destino: And it was good advice. However, have you considered that continuing to push until they react is hilarious?

Felix: There’s a part of me that wants ta hit ya when ya have the urge ta say somethin’ stupid.

Destino: You wouldn’t do that. You love me too much.

Felix: I’ve given ya fuel, haven’t I?

Destino: Perhaps.

Felix: Fuck.

Destino: Hahahaha.

…

Felix: Of course it does. Alright, night Des.

Destino: Night Felix.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*Seems like that beauty sleep may not be happening after all.*

[batwritings]

okay here me out! Hybrid au where reader is recruited into 141 and they’re all hybrids, like price is dragon, ghost a wraith, gaz a crow harpy, and last but not least soap is a werewolf. It’s pretty much common knowledge that wolves and vamps don’t mix, so when reader and soap first meet they despise each other, hate each other fr. Reader calls soap a dog, puppy, mongrel or mutt and soap calls reader a leech, bloodsucker and wtv. Now all this bickering leads to somewhere spicy, maybe all that hatred was actually sexual tension 🤷🏻‍♀️ heated and rough sexual tension to be exact. Alright thank u for listening in<3333

Sorry this one took so long friend! This is really similar to an AU that's out there for CoD and I wanted to be sure it was alright with that artist to write something with their concept. But without further ado, enjoy!~

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

It was common knowledge within the hybrid community the bad blood (no pun intended) between vampires and werewolves. So when Price made the decision to add you to the team, you and Soap were immediately in an understanding. While yes, in front of higher ups things were kept professional, everyone could practically feel the tension in the room when you were both in there.

Yet nobody could quite tell just what kind of tension it was. See, it was very clear that, due to being the species you were, there was something negative between you and the Scottish sergeant. However it was also blatantly obvious that the two of you did hold some sort of strange fondness for the other.

"Nice work today leech," Soap chuckled, passing you after a mission debriefing. You rolled your eyes so hard anyone who saw you would probably think they'd roll back into your head. You set your gun back in it's locker, slamming the door.

The mission hadn't exactly gone...poorly. The job got done at the end of the day, but there were quite a few screws that went loose. The fact that they were by your hands didn't help the matter by any means.

"You got something to say mutt?" You growled, crossing your arms defiantly. Your day hadn't exactly been the best and you knew Soap knew this. You weren't exactly in the mood for the lapdog's "cutesy little pet names" as Price affectionately called it. You swore that dragon was delusional.

Much to your irritation, Soap was quick to get in your personal space. He had his arms above yours, all but pinning you to the lockers behind you. "I dunno, mate, do you?" Now you knew good and well that "mutt" was Soap's least favorite little nickname you'd given him, so his actions weren't a surprise.

What was a surprise however, was the fact that you could smell the pheromones on him. Being this close to you was turning him on, making you quirk an eyebrow. "Maybe I do puppy," you smirked, reaching down and boldly palming his erection. "You first."

Soap inhaled sharply, growling lowly as you touched him. His clawed hands came forward, swiftly pinning your free hand to the metal of the locker. He juts his knee up, making it and his thigh rub up against your sex.

It's your turn to blush, hand moving more intentionally now to make him harder. You let out a soft whine when he starts to rock himself back and forth, stimulating you. Bodies are moving on their own now, pure instinct driving the interaction.

You're not sure when you ended up kissing him, or when the two of you stripped from the waist down. But here it was, Johnny "Soap" MacTavish, the werewolf that drove you absolutely insane, was helping hold you up as he fucked you against the lockers. You had your arms locked around his neck, nails scratching at the base of his ears as you praised him with soft moans of "good boy," over and over.

"So good," he groaned, claws digging slightly into the soft flesh of your ass as he fucked you roughly. A particularly sensitive spot gets brushed by the head of his cock and it has you letting out a keen of pleasure. Combined with the tugging of his knot against your hole, you knew you wouldn't be lasting long.

It was so rough, raw, and hot, the two of you nearly forgot where you were. Each of you was lost in a haze of pleasure, your noises quiet save for the slapping of skin and slight shuddering metal. You drew yourself closer the more you inched towards your climax to nip at his neck, barely nicking the skin to lap at his blood.

"Close dove, I'm close," Soap growls, his previous rhythm lost to the urges and instinct to breed you as his knot slipped inside you. The extra insertion and attempts to keep yourself from completion meant you could only nod dumbly as a sign you were fine with him coming inside you. With a howl that he muffled against your shoulder, he finished, the two of you locking together where you ended and he began. You weren't far behind, head smacking slightly into the metal as you came, drawing your own blood as you tried to keep yourself quiet.

You and the sergeant panted heavily as you came down from your respective highs. The brunette's tail was wagging ever so slightly behind him and you couldn't help but chuckle. There was a lightness in your chest that you couldn't place, but it was certainly nice to not feel at your teammate's throat for once.

"While the show was appreciated," came a voice that seemed to materialize from the shadows. Ghost appears to your right, body shifting out of his Wraith form as he leans against the locker room door frame. "Next time, maybe pick somewhere a little more secluded to work out your anger issues eh?" Both you and Soap couldn't help but flush in embarrassment.

"Sorry L.T."

[malrie]

for: @jasipereo, who told me i should what: in the burning maze, apparently they fly off together after jason dies and nothing happens at all. this is the nothing. wc: 1700

-

Piper had grown out her hair since Leo saw her last. He touched the ends of it, feeling the familiar softness between his fingers.

“Did you get taller?” she asked, voice strained from having cried so much. He didn’t see her expression; she was sitting in front of him on Festus, facing only the white sky. 

“I dunno,” he said, because he didn’t. Time was strange in that other place. To him, he’d been gone for only a moment. As if he hadn’t been lost at all.

She leaned backwards. Without having to ask, Leo let the internal heat from his body migrate to her. They were just below plane altitude, maybe four or five miles in the air. It was cold, but he wouldn’t let her be.

Had Piper not been there, Leo would have pried the casket open and crawled inside to lie beside him. He was sure of it. The instinct was nonsensical, even desperate, and still it pulled him like water down a drain. He wanted to see him again. He wanted to see him with his eyes closed, as though he were only asleep. And Jason had always been a peaceful sleeper. 

Back then, Piper’s iron grip on his forearm had anchored him. Maybe she felt the urge, too. Maybe they could have all fit inside. There, they could have dreamt as one, having found peace in a place where nothing could tear them apart. Together again.

“You did,” she replied. “Get taller, I mean. Just a little.”

*

Piper had a room in her grandpa’s ranch house that she hadn’t used since she was eleven. Leo inspected the off-white lace curtains, the stuffed animals on the bookshelves. She had a pink CD player and a Hello Kitty pillowcase. It was strange to be confronted with the idea that she had lived a life before him.

He helped her unpack what little she brought with her. Downstairs, Leo heard Coach’s booming timbre, comforting in its own way. He and Mellie would stay in the guest room with Chuck, leaving Leo to fend for himself in the den.

“What’re you gonna do now?” asked Piper, folding shirts and sorting them in a dresser.

Leo laid on her carpet, eyeing the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck on the ceiling. “Calypso wants to enroll in school. I tried telling her secondary education was a shithole, but she wanted to experience it herself. As for me, I’m never going back. S’one of the conditions I made for living at the Waystation.”

Piper paused in her folding. Then she started up again on a pile of sweaters. She lingered on a blue one that read: Edgarton Day and Boarding School. 

“I’m starting Tahlequah High next week,” she said. 

“I’ll be sure to make your grad party, beauty queen.”

He figured. Piper liked school enough; he knew she never missed an assignment at Wilderness. Meanwhile, Leo turned every packet he got into paper planes, letting them ride the Nevada gust out his dormitory window.

“If you’re not finishing school,” she continued, “what’ll you do? Help Hemithea and Josephine?”

“That’s sorta the plan.” Leo rubbed his eyes. The stars were too old to hold any glow. “I guess… I guess I just want something to keep busy. Maybe teach shop for the kids for however long. After that, I don’t know. Being in one place too long… I’m not real good at that.”

“So no camp?”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “No, no camp. You?”

“No,” Piper said, then laughed along with him.

He knew she didn��t mean she hated either camp, their friends, or their community—they only needed distance, measured and in moderation. Jason was everywhere, after all. His lifeblood was camp legacy. In a way, that was what had taken him from them. The gods had owed Jason ten times over and this was how he was repaid. There was nothing for Leo there, least of all loyalty. It seemed Piper felt the same, even if only mirroring an inch of his resentment. 

They ate dinner. Tristan still had some lost pallor, but his charisma was hard to chip at, especially when his daughter needed him. Toothless Chuck gummed around a piece of squash while the rest of them ate a meal cooked by a friend of the family. People had been in and out of the house all day; their fridge was stocked for the entire week. The McLeans had roots here. They were loved and welcomed. Leo and Piper had stayed inside her room like homebodies until the visitors had all left.

While Mellie put Chuck down for bed, Tristan and Coach cleared the table and washed the dishes. Piper told Leo that they’d probably go out on the porch and smoke some of her grandad’s tobacco pipes once they were done, a vice her dad failed to keep secret from her.

Snickering, they imagined Coach hacking a lung while ambling upstairs to her grandpa’s study. Her grandfather kept books on topics that ranged from Indigenous history to psychology to science fiction. Aside from the collection, there was a desk with a swivel chair and a large claw-footed single-seater sofa in the corner of the room, just by the window.

Leo grabbed a book off the shelf just for the fun of it and plopped down on the sofa. The words swam around on the pages. Even if he could read it, he doubted he could parse analytical biochemistry jargon.

“I used to come up here when Grandpa was doing his lesson plans,” said Piper. Tom McLean was a structural biology professor. “I’d beg for him to play with me, but he’d just say, ‘My love, you cannot have what you want the instant you desire it.’ I liked that. Not even then was it easy for people to say no to me. He was the only one.”

Looking out the window, Leo saw the shine of Festus’s wings in the darkness. The dragon was hunkered down in the yard, closest to sleep as automatons could get.

“I’ll leave in the morning,” Leo said. He rested his gaze on the horizon, which bled into the night. “Calypso’s waiting for me.”

“I know.” Piper came over to him, gently pulling the textbook away from his grasp. It forced him to look at her.

A beat passed. “I’m sorry, Piper. About Jason.”

She smiled wryly, placing Clinical Biochemistry: Techniques and Instrumentation onto the side table. She asked, “Why are you saying sorry to me?”

He wasn’t sure what she meant by that. She stood over him, the moonlight from outside overlaying her skin like a filter, the image of an aching spector. Her face was unreadable, but tonight her eyes were one color. It was borrowed, and it was the color of his own heart: Electric blue, as vibrant as the sky once a storm had cleared. Jason.

Still standing, she raised a hand, placing it over his arm in an innocuous touch. “You loved him, too,” she said. Leo’s hackles rose, but it was true and—now that Jason was dead—harmless. “Leo, we weren’t together anymore. I broke up with him. After you died, I couldn’t… I couldn’t work it out. Work us out. Because without you, it was like… Like the lights had gone out.”

His hand grabbed her wrist, wanting to rip it away, but he couldn’t. “Wait. I-I don’t want to hear this,” he said.

If only she had never brought it up. Mellie had told him earlier in the day, with Chuck on her hip and wearing a worried frown. Piper and Jason had split some months ago. They never explained further than what they had told everyone.

“I thought,” she kept going, “that if you had come back, maybe Jason and I could have—with you… But we never got a chance.”

“Piper,” he said firmly, getting up from the seat to grab her shoulders. “You have to stop.”

“It isn’t fair. Don’t you think it isn’t fair?” Jason’s eyes watched him shake.

“I’m leaving tomorrow, at dawn. I’m moving to Indiana. I’ll come for birthdays, special days. We’ll see each other at reunions. I’ll Iris you—every day if you want! It’ll be good. Like we always were. Like we were before everything. Don’t do this, Piper.”

“You can’t stay,” she whispered. “I know because it happened to me, too. It hurt to be with him because you weren’t there. And I know what you see when you look at me. What color are my eyes, Leo? Whose are they? He used to see yours.”

It had to happen, just once, even if never again for the rest of their lives. It wasn’t even their first kiss, which had happened a lifetime ago, on some forgettable rooftop in a place that never loved them. He shivered a little as her hands came up to his neck. There was salt in his mouth from her tears. Piper made small noises, gasping in increments when they could bear parting. They tumbled back to a bookshelf, hard edges jutting against Leo’s spine.

It was important that he was the one to speak first. Not because he didn’t trust her not to compel him, but to prove that he knew she wouldn’t. Not for this.

“I’ll leave in the morning,” repeated Leo, thumb rolling down her jaw. “That’s hours away.”

*

Leo got up before the sun did. Oklahoma mornings were crisp and new, almost impossibly so. The fog in the distance cleared around the McLean property, grass dewing with small beads of fresh water. Standing on the porch now, Leo knew this could be a good home, one filled with love.

Tristan McLean saw him come out of Piper’s room. He didn’t react much, only telling him to be safe on his journey back. He’d also shaken his hand like a real man and said, “She’s stronger than I’d ever hoped.”

“Stronger than me,” Leo replied, smiling.

Seeing him, Festus crooned in happy creaks, shaking out his stiffness. As Leo took off, he saw the curtains in Piper’s window move, almost nothing. Just in case, he brought up his hand to wave goodbye.

[jenanigans1207]

“What about angels?” Dean turns his gaze to Cas over the rim of his beer bottle.

“What about them?” Cas answers, his gaze unwavering as ever as it meets Dean’s steadily from his spot in the chair next to Dean.

“Do they have any, y’know?” Dean gestures vaguely in the air with the hand that isn’t holding his beer.

Cas sighs. “No, Dean, I don’t know.”

Dean suspects that isn’t actually true. Cas has been good at reading Dean like an open book and to filth equally and simultaneously practically since the moment they met and he has never had any qualms about stating Dean’s unspoken truths if he felt it was necessary, no matter how Dean felt about it. So he certainly would be able to follow the thought process Dean had followed to jump from their previous topic to this one. But sometimes Cas just liked to fuck with Dean, and other times he liked to force Dean to communicate clearly, despite them both being on the same page and knowing it.

“Mating rituals.” Dean supplies because it becomes clear that whether Cas knew what he meant or not, he wasn’t going to offer anything further to this conversation unless Dean started it.

“You’re asking about angel mating rituals?” Cas asks with enough surprise that Dean briefly thinks that maybe he really didn’t know.

“Well,” Dean shrugs and takes a long draw of his beer. “Yeah.”

Cas’s gaze turns curious as it pierces into Dean, and he looks like he would love to probe around in Dean’s head for some sort of explanation. “Angels don’t—“

“Wait!” Dean cuts him off before he gets a chance to answer. “I want to guess.” He swirls the remaining half of the beer around in his bottle while he thinks before snapping a finger and pointing it at Cas. “I bet you’re like peacocks! You fluff your feathers up all big and do some dorky dance.”

The look on Cas’s face is priceless— somewhere between shocked and incredulous and Dean wants to commit it to memory forever. “No, Dean.”

“Damn.” Dean mumbles, reclining in his seat. “What about a nest? Do you build nests for your mates? Not with like twigs and shit, obviously, but— I dunno, pillows or blankets or something?”

“I believe that’s called a pillow fort.” Cas supplies dryly.

“I’ll take that as a no, then.” Dean taps a finger along the edge of his beer bottle, the condensation cool against his fingertip. “Find a shiny rock and gift that to them? Or like, a pretty piece of glass or something?”

Cas’s expression has turned long-suffering. “Are you going to compare me to every feathered creature you know?”

“Yeah,” Dean doesn’t even try to hide his own self-satisfied amusement. “If you give me long enough.”

Dean tries to think of anything that he can actually picture Cas doing. Because yeah, Cas likes shiny rocks and pretty glass as much as anybody does just because they’re nice to look at, but he doesn’t seem overly affected by them. And yeah, when he naps, he’s been known to find the softest and coziest blanket to curl up with, but that’s just smart. Dean has never seen Cas’s wings, so that’s a fifty-fifty shot, he supposes, but he’s also never seen Cas dance and can’t even picture it in his head.

“Well, allow me to spare us a long— though very enlightening, I’m sure— conversation.” Cas’s glare is unimpressed but it slides right off Dean while barely even drawing his attention. “Angels don’t have mating rituals because angels don’t mate.”

That stops all of Dean’s thoughts short. He turns his gaze back to Cas, surprised to find that Cas has turned to stare absently at one of the bookshelves in the room.

“They don’t?” Dean asks after the silence stretches thin between them.

“No.” Cas answers. And though his response is firm, it’s not mean or cold. “Angels don’t know love, Dean. At least, not romantic love. The only sort of love an angel is meant to feel is the sort of holy love for our father and his creations. The idea of romance doesn’t exist in heaven or to angels at all. There’s no need for mating rituals when mating isn’t something that would ever occur to or appeal to an angel.”

Dean thinks about this for a long time, the rim of his beer bottle pressed against his lower lip but he doesn’t take a sip.

In general, Dean has no problem believing that angels don’t love. In general, angels are selfish dicks and he can’t imagine any of them caring about anything other than themselves. In general, angels would never put someone before themselves in a way that’s required for both platonic and romantic love. But in more specific terms—

Well there is one angel who wears a trench coat and a tie that matches his eyes. There’s an angel who fell from heaven for the love of humanity. There’s an angel who has bled for love, died for love, given up everything that love is supposed to mean to an angel and completely rewritten the definition. There is an angel that has spent the better part of a decade looking at Dean in a way that he doesn’t look at anyone else, making Dean’s toes curl in his boots with the intensity of it.

“But…” the gears are turning as Dean tries to refocus his gaze on Cas. Cas isn’t looking directly at him, but Dean knows that Cas is watching him in his periphery, gauging Dean’s reaction without looking like he’s putting a significant amount of weight into it. “That’s not true.”

“Dean, I am quite certain that I know more about angels than you do.” Cas remarks.

Dean doesn’t rise to the bite of the comment. “But you love.” He says instead.

“Of course, I love humanity and the Earth very much.” Cas answers reasonably.

“Yeah,” Dean says. “I know.” And then, “but I mean romantically.”

“Dean—“

“Don’t you?” Dean challenges.

Cas doesn’t answer the question directly. “I am not a very good angel.”

“You’re the only good one.” Dean replies quickly and easily, with every ounce of sincerity he has.

Because Cas is the only good Angel. Cas is the only one who gets it, who cares, who actually wants what’s best for the world.

Cas is also the only one who can make Dean’s stomach squirm the way it does whenever he’s at Dean’s side. He’s the only one who makes Dean feel safe, the only one Dean trusts. He’s the only one Dean would ever trust or picture a future with. He’s the only one who makes Dean’s fingertips tremble, his heart stumble, his throat dry.

Granted, he’s the only person who does any of that for Dean, Angel or not.

“You think too highly of me.” Cas says before sipping his own beer that he had been nursing for the majority of the conversation.

“You’re avoiding the question.” Dean hedges.

Because— yeah, okay, Dean isn’t stupid. He sees his own feelings reflected in Cas’s eyes when Cas looks at him. He understands what it means when Cas steps closer to him, or gives up an entire goddamn army for him. Dean can be slow on the uptake with emotional shit, but he’s not that slow. And it probably helps that he sees it so clearly because he feels it so clearly in his own heart.

He knows the yearning, the longing, the desire. He knows all the fantasies of the happy-ever-after, all the filthier fantasies that fill up the days in between. He knows what it’s like to want to cling to Cas, to desperately plead with him to never leave Dean’s side. He knows the agony of their separation as acutely as possible. He gets it.

And he also knows why this has never happened, why neither of them have ever crossed that line, even though they’ve never even dared to hint at its existence before. Because he knows that what they would have— that would be forever. It would be ruinous in the most beautiful way, burning down everything around them and blazing a path to eternity. And for so many goddamn years, forever and eternity were in danger. For so many years, a future of any goddamn length was in danger.

What would be the point of starting something meant to last forever when forever didn’t exist? It hurt like enough of a bitch every time Dean lost Cas and he didn’t know if that was the last time he’d ever see him. If he’d lost his forever then, too, instead of just his best friend— well, what the hell reason would he have had to keep fighting? It was self preservation in its barest form, the knowledge that they could only keep going if they kept apart. Because that would keep them fighting, keep them determined to reach the day where forever was finally secured and they could fall into each other without reservations.

And, well, Dean hadn’t killed Chuck, but he had taken the bastard off the board so forever was well and truly theirs if they wanted it.

And Dean wanted it.

He wanted it so bad he almost didn’t know how to have it.

Cas is staring back at Dean now, seeming to go through the same mental calculations that Dean is going through. Dean just hopes that Cas has any idea how to reach out and grab the one thing they both want.

Cas takes a breath, sets his beer down.

“Yes.” He answers simply. “I do.”

Dean swallows against a dry throat. “So?” He prompts. “What’s your big game plan? You get to make up any mating ritual you want.”

“You know,” Cas says offhandedly. “If I tell you my big ‘game plan’, as you call it, you will have to give me feedback on it. How else am I meant to know if it would work?”

Dean licks his bottom lip. “I’m being trusted to approve the first ever angel mating ritual?” He aims for lighthearted, even though he can feel his pulse in his fingertips. “Lay it on me.”

“Well,” Cas doesn’t sound as nervous as Dean feels, even though he knows that he doesn’t really have any reason to feel that way. “I was thinking that I would start with the classic spark— maybe have multiple, raining down.”

Dean chokes on half of a disbelieving laugh.

“Then I would spend about, oh, over a decade at his side, always coming when he called and leaving when he got sick of me. I would try very, very hard to navigate his boundaries and I would be unsuccessful.” Cas’s smile is wry. “I would betray him a time or two.”

“Keep him guessing.” Dean says, the smile clear in his voice.

“Exactly.” Cas is smiling more genuinely now. “I would probably die for him a few times, too. Maybe even accidentally start a family with him.”

Dean has set his own beer down now. “You gotta add in some, like, intense eye contact, or something.”

“And no personal space.” Cas agrees with a nod.

Dean laughs outright now, the nerves draining completely from his body. He had no idea the conversation would steer this way when he had asked what he assumed was an innocent enough question, but he’s glad that it did. Because if he’d had time to prepare for this conversation, time to anticipate it, he knows that he would’ve chickened out. Just like he has so many times in the past.

When his laughter dies down, Cas says “well?”

“What can I say, man?” Dean leans onto the armrest of his chair, putting himself closer to Cas. “It would work on me.”

“Oh, would it?” Cas asks as he, too, leans into the barely there space that’s separating them.

“Hell yeah.” Dean murmurs, reaching across to wrap a hand around Cas’s tie. “Would have me all weak-kneed and giggling.”

Cas starts to say something back but Dean honestly doesn’t give a shit what, so he tugs on the tie and draws Cas to him, pressing a far overdue kiss to his lips. Cas, as always, meets him in the middle, a hand gently encircling Dean’s wrist as he kisses him back with ten years of pent of adoration.

One kiss turns into two, turns into seven before they finally settle back into their respective seats.

“First angel mating ritual in history,” Dean says around a satisfied smile. “And you were successful.”

“Yes, I’ll be sure to tell the other angels in case any of them have a free decade to spend seducing one of the most frustratingly stubborn men on earth.” Cas replies in a way that is full of endearment instead of the frustration he mentioned.

Dean just laughs and kisses him again.

[bitletsanddrabbles]

Stolen Child: A Much Needed Screaming Fit

Okay, so, as I said earlier - I'm fine. The story's fine. I'm not angry at anyone about anything or shouting at or accusing anyone of anything or any of that sort of thing that I might come across as somehow because I'm shouting and only sort of semi-coherently. I'm just shouting because I need to shout.

Basically, I've been feeling increasingly just…tired and tense? The temperature spike this weekend did not help at all, since I am not a heat person and it narfs my sleep. And my brain finally phrased last month as "I didn't have a single day off in August because every time I wasn't at work I was some stripe of not-feeling-well", at which point the rest of my mind and body went "YES EXACTLY!" and doubled down on the exhaustion and anxiety. I also have another routine medical appointment next Tuesday and something going on with my hand that looks kinda like ringworm, but doesn't act like ringworm (and how would I have picked up ringworm there?), which I will need to make another appointment for. Which means I really need to have a good, old fashioned, overstimulated three-year-old level melt down about something I care about, but that is not ultimately important to the universe and then go…I dunno. Maybe eat some ice cream and take a nap. Definitely with the napping.

Since Stolen Child is kinda the Big Craft Community Craft Thing right now and ranting about it could, conceivably, generate some useful dialogue which always results in Happy Brain Chemicals (useful right now!), we're going with that one. So if you feel like reading through the flailing mental health fail rant and giving advice, observations, feedback, or just patting me on the head and saying "Don't forget to breathe, dear. Air is important", go right on ahead. If you don't, eh. Not your job. Feel free to keep scrolling.

And now! Here we go! Ready, set - MELT DOWN!

This right here? Is a great comment. It's a lovely comment. I love informative comments like this! There's only one problem with it:

I SERIOUSLY NEEDED THIS INFO BACK WHEN I WAS PLANNING THE ORIGINAL STORY!

See, back in 2017, when I was first plotting this whole thing, my plan was to have him wind up…not heir. I seriously think he'd be happier doing like Tom and Henry and living at Downton, but running a clock shop somewhere and letting Mary run the estate and George be the heir. Thing is, I didn't know that was possible just like that. I hadn't made any of my UK fan-friends at the time (heck, I don't think I had this account yet?). As I have mentioned a million times, I fail at research, although I have been slowly getting a bit better with help. So at the time I thought that an Earl's son became the heir, no questions asked, and no options unless they abdicated which was fully what I intended on having Thomas do after a bit of trying and getting a headache and having him and Mary both unintentionally-but-avoidably stomp all over each other's toes. Then I started rewatching (didn't make it through season one because I have officially hit the 'can't really watch things on my own' stage) and was immediately reminded that Matthew didn't have a choice but to be heir. Oh! Oops! Guess Thomas can't abdicate! Which is how we wound up with the current draft.

And this comment.

Now, I have no reason to disbelieve the statement that they don't need to recognize Thomas, but I can't think of why my UK friends wouldn't have pointed it out at some point, except that I did always call it the Thomas-as-Heir fic which could have lead to the concept that heir was my desired end game. Or perhaps it was one of those things that just didn't get questioned because subconsciously they thought it was my desired end game. Or maybe something else perfectly logical! I mean, there are reasons it could have happened, but my brain is not braining good right now, so. Point being, I didn't know and I'm still not sure and this firmly falls outside of my 'things I can comfortably research'. If it were modern, sure! But history?

Seriously, my researching lessons in school extended to 'go to the library and read a book' and stopped. There was nothing about how to gauge how trustworthy the book was, or if there was, I didn't learn it because I moved through three school districts (five if you count college and uni) and wasn't in the right district at the right time. Given how obvious it is that there are a lot of history books out there that straight up lie (and I don't just mean the school texts. I've tried to teach myself history in recent years and wound up straight up calling bull shit on several books), this leads to massive trust issues. I asked at my local library if they had a research librarian on staff and bless his heart, the fellow I was talking to didn't even know what that was. There's another library nearby that is bigger, but I keep forgetting that it's part of our library system now and honestly I don't even know how to drive there and don't like driving in that area anyway and I'm not even sure the busses will take me there in a reasonable manner given public transport in this area. I know I've heard of a couple other tricks over the years that I've carefully noted down in places I've forgotten about so that I could reference them later.

…yeah.

And if it is true (which I have every reason to believe it is), what then? I've already set up the entire story to have Thomas be recognized as heir! I mean, I could put it on hold and rewrite the ending. There are a couple of scenes that would be easy, but others would be straight up impossible. I'd also have to lose at least three scenes that I've been looking forward to sharing and that people would love, and I don't know what I'd replace them with, and I'd have to rewrite the dinner scene (*straight up cries at the thought*), and I am a slow writer, so I have no idea when it would be done! I kinda hate the idea of telling everyone "We're going to be a chapter a week!" and then three chapters later going "Haha, just kidding! Indefinite hiatus while I fix the entire plot!" Especially since right now reader comments are definitely my primary 'happy chemical' source and I need that! On the other hand, I really, really love the idea of this being a one shot and not having to figure out what happens next! But it might not get done for another ten years if I try that!

If I do stick with him as heir, it seems like people would know that not recognizing him was an option, so I'd still need to do some rewriting to explain why he winds up heir! And why would he? The only thing I can come up with given my current setting is Cora pitching an ever loving (dignified, restrained) fit over the idea of not acknowledging him and he and Robert just going "OKAY OKAY WE YIELD!" which will still take some rewriting, but a lot less (I think I can keep the rewrites ahead of the posting schedule for the most part maybe?), and will still leave me figuring out where we go from here, but might work as a decent compromise?

Either way, I have to figure out what I'm doing before I post next week's chapter! And all my brain wants to do is melt into a puddle of goo for a month! The idea of trying to research or plot or anything like that just makes me want to sit in the shower and cry! I WANT A MONTH'S VACATION FROM LIFE, DAMN IT ALL!

Edit: I now have an appointment to have my hand looked at this Wednesday.

[elderwisp]

◁ || ▷

Atlas: So your boss had you work through your break? Bee… 

Taryn: It’s fiiine, I ate my granola bar in between sorting books.

Atlas: You know that isn’t a healthy place to be at, right?

Taryn: Yeah, but it pays decently.

Atlas: Are you like the sole provider of your house…?

Taryn: Oh no! I’m not sure if Kai mentioned it, but our parents are in Selvadorada taking care of my grandma. She’s really sick and well, we made this arrangement. They take care of a majority of rent and Kai and I take care of utilities and the rest. 

Atlas: Ah, I see. I’m sorry to hear about your grandma.

Taryn: I appreciate it. She’s a kind woman, she used to make me champurrado on Christmas and it was the best.

Atlas: That’s really sweet. I’ve always wondered what that tastes like. Growing up, Toni was adamant on us not meeting our grandparents, so we never got to experience anything. Is it just fancy hot chocolate?

Taryn: I mean it has chocolate, but the consistency and flavor is a bit different.

Atlas: Huh… Want to make some later on tonight?

Taryn: Sure! I was actually wondering, you seemed a bit eager to skip out on that party.

Atlas: Do you still feel bad? Don’t! Besides Dan couldn’t even type out a proper response which tells me they’re having a great time… Without me.

Taryn: So you did want to go.

Atlas: No! No. 

Atlas: I didn’t want to see Frances. That’s the honest answer. 

Taryn: OH, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize things were bad.

Atlas: Nah, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to sour the evening. 

Taryn: Atlas, you don’t have to pretend around me. What’s on your mind?

Atlas: Frances and I… We have our differences. Sometimes it feels like the things that matter to me aren’t important to her and that’s fine, I guess.

Taryn: And this is in regards to?

 Atlas: Toni. She feels like I have something to prove. 

Taryn: But you do. 

Atlas: Taryn-

Taryn: And you know you shouldn’t. 

Atlas: But-

Taryn: So the question is, why? 

Atlas: I think it’s the satisfaction of beating an impossible challenge. God, I sound like I’m into being humiliated or something.

Taryn: He isn’t worth it but you already know that. My job also isn’t worth it, I’m aware but people often do things that we know aren’t good for us. As for Frances, she isn’t your enemy, but I think maybe the two of you need to find common ground in how you both communicate. 

Atlas: [ begins to attempt to speak before falling silent again ]

Taryn: What?

Atlas: Nothing, I’m just glad to be here with you. Thank you. [ bewp ] Your glasses keep slipping down your face.

Taryn: I know, I need to get them fixed- Wait, don’t change the subject. You have something to say. 

Atlas: I dunno what you’re talking about. 

Taryn: Atlas the bike-

Atlas: Wha- Fuck! 

Taryn: I- We should head back.

Atlas: Yeah, of course.

[try-set-me-on-fire]

whatever you write is probably going to take me straight out but i love the way your fics do that to me, so "laughing while kissing" for the soft prompts please and thank you 🤗

-@buckactuallys

Soundtrack to this one. Soft prompts! Finished ones!

“Chimney’s doing another round of s’mores, you want one?”

Buck half turns from his spot at the edge of the tide. It was hot enough earlier that the cool bite of the ocean around his ankles still feels good as they creep closer to midnight than evening. “Nah, I had like eight of them with the kids.”

Eddie does a little hop over the foamy surf to stand beside him, and then licks his marshmallowy fingers clean. “Suit yourself.”

Another wave comes in and Eddie does his little hop over it again, except they really are at the very edge of the water so there's not really much foam to avoid. Buck squints at him a little, but he's unable to help the fond smile yanking his mouth around.

"What… are you doing?"

"Huh? Oh…" Eddie looks down at his feet and lets out a sort of bashful laugh. "Uh, we came to the coast to visit Pepa when we were kids - like little kids, I don't know if I was even five yet - and, uh…" Eddie looks at him, also sort of squinting and smiling. "I had it in my head that if the very edge of a wave touched me I'd get eaten by an alligator."

"W- why?" Buck gets out past a laugh. Eddie shoves him gently.

"I dunno, I was four. Made sense at the time. I think I maybe thought California was in Florida."

Buck laughs again, and when the next wave comes and they both hop over it he laughs harder, hands on his knees as Eddie chuckles beside him. He hasn’t bothered to straighten up when Eddie speaks again.

“Not in a bonfire mood?”

Buck looks out at the moon’s reflection cutting a path all the way to the distant islands that are just visible on this clear, bright night. “Just nice to be in a different ocean for a bit.”

Eddie hums, and kicks a little wet sand at him. “Now who thinks he’s in Florida? Same ocean, Buck, we’re two hours from home.”

“You know what I mean.” He waves a hand in a sweeping gesture. “It’s… vacation ocean.”

Eddie’s smiling in a way that seems to have trapped the words in his mouth, and Buck has to look back out at the waves or the full moon will give away the burning in his cheeks. “Yeah,” Eddie says eventually. “I know what you mean.”

Buck thinks he does. Eddie is the responsible one, of the two of them, level headed and no nonsense and calm, so it's been a little delightful to watch him throw himself into this camping trip with reckless abandon. He’d challenged the firefighters among them in a swimming race out to the floating platforms just offshore, begged alongside the kids to go walk down the beach to the little burger joint for ice cream, and charged around the woods with them after dinner, playing right along in their game of hunting for a spaceship full of aliens that might want to make friends, blinking their flashlights and throwing their laughter up into the sky in attempts to communicate.

Buck had spent the week before the trip feeling kind of sad about getting dumped, and feeling kind of guilty for not feeling more sad, and feeling a little… something, about how relieved Eddie had looked when he’d told him things with Marisol had also fizzled out. He’d liked Natalia, a lot. She was cool, and beautiful, and thought he was too, and she knew so little about him and his life that she felt like a safe place to exist without context for a while. It’s all a little dreamy, though, in hindsight, and Buck thinks he’d maybe tricked himself into finding a new method of running away from his own life disguised as grabbing on to a new one.

Vacation ocean. Maybe that’s what this is, too, another escape. Except Eddie is here, standing next to him and real as anything.

Buck feels like he’s got all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle floating around in his head, and has just started in on the edges when Eddie says “Hello, earth to Buck.”

“Oh, sorry, were you saying something?” Buck takes a step further into the water, back to the waves despite any good advice about ocean safety. Eddie’s watching out for him, he’ll be ok.

“No, not really.”

“Did you ever find them?” Buck is wet up to his mid calves now.

“Who?”

“The friendly aliens.”

Eddie’s face scrunches into a grin. “Uh huh. Turns out they like s’mores too. And look a lot like Maddie and Jee-Yun.”

Buck breathes out laughter, and Eddie steps closer to him. “I didn’t text Bobby this morning.”

“Well, he was like five feet away. Drew short straw, had to set up his tent next to you and your rhinoceros snores.”

Buck takes another step back, and Eddie takes another step forward. They’re wet to the knees, now. “I mean… I was less surprised today. When I woke up.”

Eddie’s expression almost looks neutral, Buck can only see the smile because he might know this man’s face better than his own. “Yeah?”

“Mmhm.”

Eddie nods. “That’s good. You’ve seemed a little… something.”

“Before now, or this weekend?”

Eddie tilts his head, in a move so like Buck himself it makes him smile. “Both. In different ways.”

Buck takes another half step back, water licking at his thighs. “I think things were a little dull before. I think things are a little bright now. Letting my eyes adjust.”

Eddie nods again, thoughtful, and just a hair nervous. “Hope you like the view.”

Buck grins with half his mouth, biting his cheek with the other. “Mmhm.”

They’re quiet for a moment, the gentle roar of waves around them, a distant happy shout drifting over from the campground. Eddie takes the half step to close the distance. “Buck,” he sighs. “I have bad news.”

“What?” He frowns, and his stomach flip flops just a little. He’d like to think he knows Eddie well enough that he hadn’t misread the situation, but he’s been known to be an idiot about these kinds of things before.

“Unfortunately…” Eddie tilts his head forward, very close to Buck’s own, and says “There were also evil aliens and I did get possessed by one,” before shoving him backwards into the sea.

Buck goes down laughing, and comes up spluttering. Eddie is giggling as he moves sideways in the surf to escape revenge, but he’s not trying all that hard and Buck’s lunge takes him off his feet. They roll around in the water, a lot colder now that it's not just their ankles submerged, and end up in a kind of breathless tangled together kneeling situation, rocked by the current as it comes and goes.

“You piece of shit,” Buck says, fully grinning, and Eddie roars with laughter. “We’re gonna get our tents soaking wet.”

“So we change in yours and you come to mine,” Eddie says, a little scared and a little brave.

Buck splashes him, and Eddie laughs, and then Buck kisses him, and Eddie laughs into that too, the sound a little disbelieving and a lot giddy. Buck pushes forward into it and Eddie falls back till he’s sitting and they’re both almost underwater, so Buck pulls him back up again and Eddie chases the kiss, and they’re both laughing into it now, puffs of air passed back and forth between them.

“This is-“ Buck speaks the words mostly into Eddie’s mouth, shaking a little from the giggling and the cold and the everything else. “I can come to your tent?”

“Yeah, Buck.”

“And this is- it’s vacation ocean?”

Eddie pulls back, just a tiny bit, and puts his hand on Buck’s face, fingers already a little pruny. “It’s the same ocean as always, Buck.”

“I can… come home, after?”

“You can come home forever,” Eddie says, and kisses him again. It’s not a very successful kiss, what with Buck nodding into it and Eddie smiling too much to work his mouth at all, but Buck is putting it in the top five kisses of his life anyway. “Come on, let's go get dry.” Eddie stands up out of the water, and then pulls Buck to shore.

[rayshippouuchiha]

Thank you! So here I am to infodump, full of gratitude, and you can post this if you want no problem it's just a bunch of scattered ideas so yeah. Feel free to chuck suggestions at me too! I really don't know what to do with these... building blocks just yet.

Akatani Mikumo is Midoriya Hisashi.

Toshinori gets sandwiches by the Midoriya couple and it turns into an OT3 but that's much later down the line.

Hisashi is a journalist, keeps getting into everybody's business and Knows™ more than he frankly should.

Hisashi is a Cryptid™. But of a different energy from his son who is all lightning-in-a-bottle jittery On The Verge Of Throwing Hands feral sort of cryptid, Hisashi is mostly of this... supernaturally unflappable blank-faced chill entity.

Who keeps spooking people bc No Footstep sounds.

And might possibly be partially mute or just ridiculously soft-spoken bc when he tries to speak at normal volumehis fire-breathing quirk goes ballistic.

Might or might not have bloodline relations to AFO. Origins ambiguous, Inko just literally plucked the (then) teen off a back alley like he was a stray cat.

Also might or might not have more than one quirk, see the probable AFO connection.

Izuku got his mumbling thing from Hisashi.

A cryptid man who seems normal enough except a little off-kilter, like two inches to the left of what's a “normal” man? Weirdo but nobody can pinpoint how or why. That's the sort of vibe I want with this Hisashi.

And some Wack™ backstory lore I came up w for Hisashi, I dunno what I'll do w it but:

Cw: mention of infant murder, bc I'm Me™ and I was thinking about Yotsumegami (it's my favorite game) and how my version of Hisashi would tie in with it.

Yanno how in Yotsumegami “unwanted children” (children with disabilities, the younger of a twin pair or every sibling except the eldest in triplets or higher, etc) would be killed (it's a real historical practice in Japan, mabiki, they called it) or something like that? Would be kinda fun if an offshoot of that variety existed in the BnHA world, even if it's not outright child murder kids would be abandoned, especially in the chaos of the Dawn of Quirks. People who were scared of quirked people would abandon their quirked child, quirkist folk abandoned their quirkless children, it's chaos.

It would be more prominent during the initial chaos, though I guess laws and stuff would've been passed later on to prevent it or at least cut down the numbers— and the practice fizzled out but there's still a few remote rural villages who accept “unwanted” children.

One such secret community could be like, giving the surname “Akatani” (red valley, for the red of spider lilies used in mabiki in times past) to the children that were discarded at their metaphorical door. Do they still practice mabiki? Debatable. But it's like a giant secret orphanage with questionable, cult-like mentalities.

Akatani Hisashi was one of those until he miraculously escaped and tried to survive in the outside world.

Or maybe he didn't have the Akatani surname at first bc nobody in the remote village had any surname but once he got out he might've created the surname as a way to hm, not quite honor but carry his origins into his new life.

(maybe Yoichi was almost mabiki'd too, like I said I'm still not entirely sure where I'm going with this)

So Izuku gets to grow up w two parents who care a great deal for him. Maybe they move away, resulting in Izuku not having to deal w Bakugou in his childhood. Maybe Izuku makes friends with some other future 1-A classmate.

The Commission keeps trying to track down this one rogue “vigilante reporter” whose name is unknown. And they keep failing because Hisashi (along with his son and excessive gaggle of... comrades? followers? does the Midoriya family accidentally create an organization of rabid info gatherers?) is a certified cryptid.

Izuku has his hands in so many pots. He's a lot more nosey than in canon probably?

Endeavor had better be prepared bc his entire way of life is about to go up in smoke

I don't know why but I just have this very strong feeling that Stain doesn't like Hisashi for one reason or another.

I... wouldn't be entirely opposed to the AU just chucking Bakugou out the window so that he's not in 1-A (or in UA at all, fuck that pomeranian) and instead is replaced by another loud blond...

Fucking Monoma, LMAO.

A lot of the AU is just ?????? for now and most of it is Hisashi backstory but hnnnnng I want to do something with these jigsaw pieces I just don't know what

Also I'll be sending in Hisashi's design in a non-anon ask but could you append it to this ask's answer instead? Thanks!

I adore everything about this!?!?!

Also I didn't get another ask, anon or not, so Tumblr might have eaten it

[weebsinstash]

Dunno if you watched SK8 the Infinity, but one important conflict is literally the protagonist Reki becoming extremly insecure and unmotivated in skating after seeing how his new friend Langa (a snowboarder) who has barely started skating is a prodigy and so much better at it than him, who has been skating since he was a child.

Langa is naturally talented at skating while Reki works hard and still cannot measure up to someone who just started, which makes him consider quit skating altogether and leads him to distance himself from Langa because of insecurity and jealousy.

Those type of scenarios just pull at the heartstrings, you know?? Like there is nothing worse than working hard and still feeling inferior to the people around you, which DOES make for juicy angsty scenarios :)(

No but literally those are the kinds of plots where you kinda immerse yourself in the grief and it can be empowering to see your underdog recover, but also GOD is that shit so depressing and hits close to home, for real the kind of plots I soak up and throw pity parties for myself for lol

You know I've been pretty open about it but like, every so often I get compliments on my writing that are very sweet, but ultimately I do have to acknowledge like 😅 I AM basically a self taught high school drop out. So especially when I personally start writing about these sorts of stories "lol what if Reader is a depressed fucking loser absolutely struggling through the mediocre machinations of life and has Strong Hot Person come save them" like. You know where that's coming from lmao 😂 extremely unsettle but I figure what I write is usually relatable enough that it's like why the fuck not be a little personal sometimes

God though I had initially considered that when I was talking about like the Spiderverse You vs YouTwo ideas, initially considered making YouTwo drastically superior to you, but the route I've decided on is, you're on equal footing and there are certain things you each do better than the other but, seeing them be better than you at anything is salt in your wounds since you're feeling replaced.

I also like obviously have mentioned it several times but like. Living with Damian Wayne specifically would be absolute awful for this scenario, especially if you make your yandere mean or whatever. Like you could be minding your own goddamn business doing your favorite hobby and have this snot nosed fucking 10 year old (this one, the nasty one, before he gets tamed down, potentially by you?) and he's just like "that's not how you're supposed to do it" and physically takes it out of your hands, does it for you, and explains to you what you were doing wrong the entire time

Like imagine platonic yandere Damian who can't communicate his feelings for shit and is still deep in his Little Hellion Phase so you think he's just constantly insulting you and trying to show how much better and smarter than you he is when in reality he's just like. Very Poorly being like, "oh, a chance to show my sibling how cool and smart I am, and then I can teach them and they'll like me :) and they like to learn new things so I should teach them as much as I know and they can feel smart too :)" and on your end you're thinking he's an egotistical MEAN little kid who's making you extremely insecure and feel worthless and stupid and maybe sometimes often he's, not always using the best language with you because he wasn't really raised with kindness. "Why would you think THAT'S how you do it?" With a tone like youre a fucking idiot, "I don't understand what you're not seeing, I've been doing this for years and I'm an actual child"

like genuinely it's all of those "someone else one upping you" ideas but WORSE because you can't leave this fucking house and he's TEN. Youve got a fucking TEN YEAR OLD physically and mentally one upping you CONSTANTLY with the mental abilities of like a fucking adult man. I feel like the entire family being trained in violence, you'd think they would understand having like a physical fight and have probably had many themselves, but the second YOU lose your temper and put a hand on any of THEM, SACRILEGE. Damian couldve been saying the cuntiest things to your face and the SECOND you swing on him, just absolutely lose your shit, suckerpunch that brat in his face, give him a literal black eye that he didn't block because he didn't expect his beloved sibling to hit him, Bruce is UP YOUR ASS about, "you know better than this! That's your brother!!" like straight up, I think messing with one of the Robins or members of his family is the fastest way to have yandere Bruce lose patience with you and do something less loving. Takes away privileges, grounds you, makes you do labor around the house or labor for him in the cave or Damian, forces you to apologize and also acknowledge "that my brother just wanted what was best for me 🙄"

He's the kind of overbearing calculating shit where he waits until everyone is at the family dinner table and he casually pauses in between spoonfuls of soup, "so I see sister has been sneaking out of the house. You didn't do a very good job of washing the cigarette smoke out of your jacket" ousting you in a double whammy combo for sneaking out without permission AND smoking, and of course you're responding something like "you little PRICK!!" and now Bruce is standing up, jabbing a finger towards the stairs as he demands you go to your room with the unspoken threat that's he's coming up there to speak to you about this after everyone eats

Like legit living in that house would be a nightmare because everyone is gifted and everyone's doing somersaulting backflips and it's like. Lmao my knees pop when I stand up :) you're all like insanely gifted in your fields and I'm like. Normal. Some would say a simple minded burnout, even. Like. Lmao. Imagine a scenario where you're still independent and doing your own thing bur Bruce is, you know yandere mode and keeping tabs on you, and he's constantly trying to like, nudge you towards better opportunities. You're in costume on a rooftop and suddenly he's asking you about your schooling. You're working a shitty day job and one day the in universe equivalent sends you am email "based on your qualifications, this employer is interested in your resume" and its a super well paying WayneTech job that you. Turn down because you'd either fail the drug test and don't think you're good enough lmao. Bruce just tearing his hair out as he decides "ok fine I'll make your life better by force" and just starts buying your apartment building and where you work or some shit so he can improve your quality of life from the outside

[blazingstar29]

new Maverick headcanon that after the layton mission Iceman and Slider stay out on deployment whilst Maverick teaches at Top Gun. Without Goose, without friends he gets lonely so he starts going to church. Not because he's religious, not because he wants to repent his sins (though the guilt still weighs heavy) but because he wants to feel apart of a community. And he's straight up honest about it. When the old ladies start asking him about bible verses he just says 'I don't know any', and surprisingly they respect that. Maybe they see the dog tags and dark circles but someone will bring him frozen meals and some of the families invite him for dinner. He holds their hands and says Amen and that's enough for some reason. He's never had to do so little to be accepted.

Maybe six months down the line Ice gets shore leave long enough to come through Miramar. He arrives in town late on a saturday, with no way to find Maverick, no cell or address, he heads down to the base early on Sunday morning to find someone who knows.

"He'll be in Church," the gateman says. Ice's eyes nearly pop out of his head. Hesitantly he begins the drive to the only church in town, wondering what sort of religious nut Maverick's become. By the time he gets there the sermon must be over, but the guard was right. Maverick's there, sitting quietly with his hands shoved in his leather jacket to fight off the chill.

His boots echo painfully across the building's walls. He slides into the pew and watches the look of surprise spread across Maverick's face.

"Ice," he whispers.

"Hey Maverick. What are you doing here?"

Maverick gives him a look. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you." He gives him a look, now your turn.

"I like it. It's nice to be apart of something."

He smiles gently. "Mav, your in the Navy. Your already apart of something."

"I know. I don't believe in it. Carol does, I know she believes that Goose is up there watching out for all of us. And I feel him when the sun hits the horizon and there's a glare on my canopy. I dunno. I they just accepted me. They were happy to have me. It doesn't feel like that in the Navy. They invite me round for dinner and stuff."

Ice watches him thoughtfully. "That's nice."

On their way out, a sign for donations catches Ice's eye and he digs for his wallet fumbling with the coin pocket. He wants a way to say thank you to these people for looking after his wingman when a plaque catches his eye.

Thank you for the generous donation of $700 from Lt. Pete Mitchell in memory of Lt. Nick Bradshaw.

He feeds a hand full of notes into the acrylic box.

[reimeichan]

I'm really starting to enjoy the stage of DID recovery I'm at. It's got a funkiness to it that I don't see others talk about all that much, where it's like... kinda hard to pinpoint what state my system is in at any point in time, but not distressingly so? And also not in a dissociative way like before. It's like, I'm able to feel all these bits of me flowing in and out of my consciousness and sense of identity and I lack any sort of solid definition of what this version of me wants to be or what my destination is. I'm just kinda going with the flow now instead of trying to steer us in any particular direction.

It's definitely a lot less stressful than it used to be and it feels like my brain has calmed down pretty significantly. It's less noisy in my head and I'm now realizing some of that was because there were parts of me who felt like they couldn't be heard before now don't feel the need to scream and bang on the walls to be noticed. And because we're less dissociated from each other, we can more immediately share thoughts and feelings instead of having to manually pass those things around to each other.

I've still got that ADHD buzz, but I'm now realizing the way I described it as being "50 trains of thoughts all at once" or "having 50 tabs open and all of them are playing different audio" no longer feels like it properly describes my experiences anymore. It's more like... I have a game running and that's the main thing I'm focusing on, but I also have a youtube video guide for something I'm trying to do in the game, while I'm also got notepad open to take notes, and another window open to crosscheck information. And maybe a couple random tabs open that are completely unrelated. Still got a lot of tabs and windows up, but they're more aligned to the same or similar purpose.

I do still have the different parts and alters and we still have new (as in unknown or undocumented) parts showing up pretty much daily, but they tend to get caught up to speed fairly quickly and even the ones who are very split off from the rest of the system don't feel as scary to handle (and feel less scared themselves) since we have such a strong support network and various other tools and resources at our disposal. I still feel like we're generally different and separate parts, but we also blend and fuse and influence each other in ways that feel a lot more fluid. Instead of having to purposefully communicate things with each other every time it's now a lot more instant and the hard barriers between each of us feel more and more arbitrary as the days go on. Kinda like looking at a map? Where you see the borders on the map, but at the end of the day you remove all of that and the landscape tells a different story and shows how all those "countries" are actually connected and one giant landmass. And those borders are still important to understand how they're there and why they exist, but it's not the whole story and can actually distract you from the bigger picture.

I dunno, I know I'm definitely in a transitional period of my healing and that's why things feel so vague and nebulous but I'm not complaining. If anything I'm pretty excited for what's to come.

[itwasthereaminuteago]

|| Engagement ||

Matt Murdock x gn reader

Tags/warnings: mild angst, mild smut, meta, sorry not sorry I had to!!! 😂

As always, I adore and appreciate any comments, reblogs, etc and I'm extremely thankful to you for reading my fics!

~

Matt's arms tighten around you as you lie snuggled up together in bed. He can pick up on your disconnected mood from your elevated heart rate and the way he hears your breathing change every time you think about saying something and then stop yourself.

"You know you can talk to me, if something's wrong." He says quietly.

You take a deep inhale, sighing it out as you nuzzle into his t-shirt at his shoulder. "I know," you reply, choosing to ignore the invitation to unload.

He pushes a little harder in response. "Sweetie, you've been off for a while now, you think I hadn't noticed?"

"Urgh. It's stupid."

He turns his head to kiss you on the top of your head, giving you another squeeze. "I'm sure it's not, and talking about might help? If you want."

You huff out another sigh. "I dunno, I've kind of talked it over with others but it doesn't seem to make any difference. I'm not sure it's something I can fix."

Concern washes over Matt's features. "Is– is it something I've done? Or not done?" He gently takes your face in his hands. "Sweetheart, you'd tell me if it was me wouldn't you? I'd want you to."

You smile, bringing your hand up to stroke through his soft, messy hair. "Of course I would, and no it's nothing you've done, so don't fret."

The worry melts from his brow. "Alright, but c'mon, try me. I'm sure we can do something about whatever it is that's got you down."

"Well… it's work related. I'm not getting anywhere near as much feedback on my stuff as I used to. You know how in the creative sector we kinda thrive on others sharing our work to bring it to the attention of others? I've been feeling for a while now that the sense of community that we had has just sort of disappeared. People don't seem to want to interact that much with what we make."

Matt groans. "Baby, is this about the lack of reblogs on Tumblr again? "

You can't help frowning. "It is." You admit.

He smiles and rolls over to cage you underneath him. "I could make you forget about it, for a while at least?"

"Matty!" You push him off with a frustrated sigh. "Are you honestly trying to distract me with sex? You know how important this is to me."

"I know, I'm sorry. I don't mean to trivialise the issue, I just thought I could take your mind off it, maybe make you feel better."

"So kind and selfless of you…" you smirk as he starts to kiss along the column of your neck.

"I try." He smiles. "Anyway, you were saying? And I'm gonna keep kissing you."

"Fine. Okay, so I know that I should create for myself and not for other people…"

"But it's nice to get some recognition, right?" You nod as Matt holds himself over you again continuing to make his way down your neck towards your collarbones.

"Right. I really do appreciate the likes, but if people are just 'liking' my work without sharing it, that means it just ends up dead in the water. No-one else really gets the chance to enjoy it."

"Any idea why they are not sharing?" Matt asks, lightly stroking your side.

"I dunno, maybe they're not familiar with how the site works, that it doesn't have an algorithm? Maybe they're embarrassed to let other people see what they're looking at? Especially if it's something a bit risqué."

Matt hums. "Yeah but didn't you tell me before that they could just create a sideblog that's not associated with their main account, and reblog things they like using that and no one would be any wiser?'

"Exactly! And anyway, it's not like everyone doesn't enjoy looking at and reading porn…"

Matt lifts his head up, a slight sly smile pulling up the corner of his mouth. "Mm true. So what else are you sad about?"

You sigh again. You can't seem to stop yourself.

"Well, people aren't commenting on works either. There's rarely any discussion, I mean even just a manic keyboard smash would be amazing for an artist to see in their notifications, but there's barely even that anymore. Commenting on a stranger's fan works is so much fun, it can really bring people together!"

"That's how a great community grows isn't it?" Matt asks you.

"Yep, and you end up making so many friends you would never have thought. I miss that aspect of it a lot."

Matt's swiftly moving down to lavish attention over your chest, and you momentarily lose your train of thought as his lips brush over your nipple. "And have you brought people's attention to this problem?"

"Of course! Many other creators have explained why reblogs and sharing are so important in eloquently written PSAs, but I guess that the target audience must not see them because they're perhaps only looking at the stories and fanart from tags and they maybe don't see the other dashboard posts. I dunno."

Matt starts to lick an achingly slow intimate path down your stomach and you feel heat spreading throughout your body, your heart rate now elevated for quite a different reason. Then suddenly, he stops.

"Have you thought about maybe incorporating the message into one of your creations? Maybe that might reach the intended audience better."

You close your eyes as you consider the idea. He shifts further down the bed and you allow him to spread your thighs apart and slot his shoulders inbetween.

"Mm, well… that's- actually that's a good idea. I mean, it can't hurt to try, can it? You're the devil on my shoulder Matty."

"Exactly. But leave it till tomorrow sweetheart. Right now this devil wants to make you feel good."

You bite down on your lip as he flashes you a smoldering look before ducking down to make good on his promise.

[terulakimban]

The “cultural Christianity” stuff is making the rounds again. And what I think a lot of people who object are missing about that designation is that you have to actually leave a culture to not be part of it anymore, and even then, it will still shape a lot of how you first react to things.

I’m American. I have spent, collectively, a grand total of four months (rounded up) outside the US. My parents were born here. My grandparents were born here. I am pretty definitively culturally American, for all that literally no one in my family identifies as “American” before they identify as “Jewish.”

I can say American culture sucks. There’s a lot about it (yes, I know there’s more than one. Yes, they can be quite different. Yes, there can be a great deal of tension between them. No, that doesn’t necessarily make that much difference from the outside. Yes, that is quite relevant to the extended metaphor I’m going for here) that does. What I can’t do is say I’m not actually a part of it. I’m a citizen. I’m surrounded by other Americans at pretty much all times. I’m not emigrating, I’m not making a point of immersing myself in specific local expat communities as a cultural immersion thing. I’m certainly not “from no country.” I definitely don’t have a more objective sense of American culture than someone who isn’t American and is living here reluctantly. I may have a more in-depth sense of it, but there’s no way they don’t have the basics down, because it is fucking everywhere, and they are constantly running into people who are trying to make them assimilate into it (further) in some sort of attempt to help them be normal. And they, unlike me, have a sense of what it looks like in comparison to something else.

Now. Let’s say I decide I hate America and everything it stands for and I don’t want to live here. But my family’s here, and I’ve got positive memories. I don’t have the money to go somewhere else. So rather than actually leave, I develop a deep fixation on another country. Maybe it’s based on a shallow understanding from stereotypes, maybe it’s a genuine respectful interest. But surrounding myself with a bunch of other Americans while we go on about... I dunno, how much we love England and tea does not erase how we’ve spent our whole lives being American, and it certainly doesn’t erase how we’re still living in America. Let’s say I take it a step further. Let’s say I actually emigrate somewhere. There’s two extremes. Either I fully immerse myself in my new country. I learn the language, I participate in the culture, I genuinely try to immerse myself. Or, I feel uncomfortable because things are weird and different and not quite what I’m used to, so I surround myself with a bunch of other American expats, and we spend all of our time talking about America. Maybe we talk about how much we hated it and how awesome we are for leaving it and how much it sucks and how everyone who’s there is terrible. Maybe we talk about the good things. But we’re still centering our existence around America.

But even in the first of those options, where I genuinely try to acculturate, there’s still going to be things that pop up for the rest of my life where those initial few decades of life in the US will shape my expectations. Maybe they’ll be small things “oh right, sales tax is listed on prices here.” Maybe they’ll be big things “excuse me, what just happened in parliament?” But I will always have that American lens with me. Even if I hate it. Even if I found it traumatizing. That’s not a moral judgement on me, it’s just how formative life experiences work. I can become not-American. I can’t become never-American. 

Cultural existence in a religious framework -any religious framework -works the same way, because religion both has and shapes culture. When I bitch about the omnipresence of cultural Christianity, I’m not calling anyone who is culturally Christian bad. I’m complaining about the pervasiveness of Christian hegemony. When I complain about culturally Christian atheists (which I only ever do in the context of specific behaviors by specific people), I’m not saying “these people are terrible and unredeemable,” I’m saying “there is a very clear pattern of people taking the step of saying they dislike Christianity but then trying to enforce Christian hegemony by claiming the parts they like are secular, thereby effectively coming across from an outside perspective as a continuation of the general attempt at forced Christianization.”

If you hated the Christian family you grew up with and everything about them and Christianity but like Christmas and want to celebrate it, that’s fine. Genuinely happy for you you’ve got something you enjoy! Have fun! Nog your eggs! Deck your halls! Call it Festivus and put up a pole instead of a tree! Do an anti-Christmas where you decorate with Halloween decorations in Santa costumes and celebrate with spooky stuff! But that doesn’t make it secular. It makes it you finding the one bright spot you had in darkness and hanging onto it. I sincerely respect that -it’s difficult to do. The thing is, I’m not in that darkness, and you trying to insist everyone have that light of yours comes across as yet another person shining the interrogation light of “why can’t you just be normal like me” in my face.

I don’t want Christmas. I want freedom from it. “Everyone can have Christmas” in response to “I don’t want Christmas” doesn’t come across as a friendly offer to share. It comes across as an aggressive attempt to force assimilation specifically on people who say they’re actively fighting it.