#I have liked too many tumblr posts and now both my phone and my computer Quit after I scroll for a while aksgajsgajg

[ghosts-and-blue-sweaters]

Uh… oh

[bbcphile]

In Memory of Kiah

cw/tw: death, medical assistance in dying

If you’re wondering why I kind of disappeared from the Mysterious Lotus Casebook tag and stopped posted WIP Wednesday things, here’s the explanation: One of my closest friends, who has been dying progressively and increasingly painfully over the last two years, told me about 3 weeks ago that they were going to pursue medical assistance in dying because it is legal where they live. It was originally scheduled for the end of July, then moved up to the end of June, and then on Monday, they moved it to Wednesday (yesterday), because their life was agony and they couldn’t wait any longer.

I’m lucky that I had enough advanced notice that I was able to say goodbye–both by sending them a message telling them in detail how much they’ve meant to me and thanking them for everything, and then in one last phone call the night before–so I’m glad they knew how much I loved them and that I could be there for them emotionally, even though I couldn’t physically be there for the end itself, because they live too far away. We met on Tumblr through the chronic illness community because we share the same genetic connective tissue disorder and many of its comorbidities, and I will always be so, so grateful to Tumblr for bringing us together.

I wanted to post about them here because it just felt wrong to keep going like nothing had happened, and because I wanted to do something to pay tribute to how good a person they were and how much I miss them. So, some words about Kiah: 

Kiah was one of the kindest, funniest, intellectually curious, loving, and fiercely protective people I have ever met. I loved that we could talk about anything, including the terror of living in a failing body or how to come to terms with being disabled when you were always an overcommitted overachiever who defined yourself on external metrics of success, analyze media together during watch parties, and laugh together about literally anything (including during our last conversation, where we were both bawling our eyes out, but also somehow laughing about how absurd it is that you can’t really cry hard and talk at the same time and how that seems like a real design flaw). We didn’t share any fandoms, but we still had fun sharing details about our blorbos and fandom activities: I loved hearing about their cosplay adventures, and they always wanted to keep up to date on the metas I was writing. Even once they went blind and couldn’t read my metas on tumblr anymore because it wouldn’t work with their screenreader, they had me send them Google doc versions so their computer could read my posts to them because they didn’t want to miss any of my analyses. And when they were too sick to listen to the full posts, they asked for summaries because they still wanted to keep up as much as they could. 

They were always so caring and compassionate: when they first called to tell me in January that they were going to do medical assistance in dying, and after I had told them I understood and supported them and we’d talked about how they felt about it, they asked me how I was. I had told them that while I was heartbroken, I would handle it, because I didn’t want to make them feel responsible for comforting me when they had their hands full with processing everything and feeling their own grief. They said that while they appreciated my not wanting to make it harder on them, they didn’t want me to feel like I had to be ok in front of them, because they wanted to comfort me and support me even in this if they could, since they didn’t have that much time left to be there for me and they wanted to make it count. (yeah, I’m sobbing right now.)

None of those descriptions could even begin to do justice to how much they meant to me, but I hope this anecdote will:

I couldn’t be with them at the end because I’m a country and an opposite coast away, but I hated the idea of not being able to say goodbye in person or hold their hand if they were scared during the injection. So I played piano and imagined they could hear it.

Most of you probably won’t know what that means or why it would be a big deal. Here’s why:

I used to be a musician. Music was my life and my most important means of self-expression, and was absolutely going to be my career. But in high school and college, an extensive series of very traumatic things happened that made me essentially have to give up performing. For the better part of the last 18 years, literally up until I sat down to play for Kiah, even just the idea of performing for someone or a neighbor overhearing me play was triggering enough that I would have a full-blown panic attack and dissociate so badly I would literally go from concert pianist level ability to mostly forgetting how to read music and having to count ledger lines. But my desire to do something so that maybe, just maybe, I could make Kiah’s final moments better apparently trumped my trauma, because I was able to do it. I had wanted to play some Rachmaninoff, Brahms, or Chopin, but apparently those are still too closely tied to Events and I started to have skill loss issues again (fucking dissociative amnesia), so I switched to a piece I had played long ago enough that it was reliably in my mind and fingers (and that I could sight-read if I forgot it partway through). 

And I played it.

I hope, somehow, they were able to hear it.

I also recorded it.

And I’m going to share it here.

It kind of feels like serving my heart up on a platter, but that feels kind of appropriate for this tribute to them. 

I think they’d be happy, knowing that I’m “doing it scared,” as Tumblr recommends, and that my attempt to give them the biggest gift of love and support I could think of, somehow, even if just temporarily, gave music back to me.

Also, I think they’d get a kick out of the fact that you can hear me giggle a little at one point in the recording when the sheet music falls on my hands, both because it’s a great middle finger to perfectionism, but also because laughing through the tears (and yeah, I was crying while playing this) is very much a chronic illness and disability thing, and feels like a good metaphor for much of the last few months.

So. All that to say:

Kiah, I love you. I miss you so much already.

Here’s Robert D. Vandall’s “Lakeside Retreat.”

[ofdirtandbones]

I have no idea who to ask and seeing as you seem to be similar to me in some aspects, i thought u would be the best choice

Do you have any recommendations on how to stop being on the internet so much and connect more with nature? I love nature I love being in it but I'm constantly stuck either to my phone or computer, never fully appreciating it. I have no idea what to do

Long post ahead ! Sorry lol Man I've deleted all social media except tumblr. I use it on my computer mostly and I've put a thirty minutes time limit, only usuable between 6pm and 11pm on my phone. That way I can still see art, pretty pictures, funny posts... But I don't spend much time on my phone. It took me SO LONG to get to this point. I had to build up so much anger towards social media, the way they are made to steal all your time and ruin your attention span, and how much of a negative impact they had in my life. I use to spend just so much time on instagram,,, The first thing I did was put a lock on it. It was sooo hard at first but eventually I started barely using it when it was unlocked for the day. I managed to start reading again. And I mean reading multiple hours a day. Sometimes the whole day when I felt really bad and couldn't leave the house. Traded my screen time for when I was like,,, in the bathroom or waiting for something etc,,, for duolingo ! Since I still had the urge to pick up my phone and duolingo takes so much energy haha Doing something that isn't really enjoyable (and is actually useful) everytime I picked up my phone eventually made it much less interesting. You will not miss out on anything ! I know how scary it is but I promise, you won't be disconnected from the world. It's really the contrary tbh. You won't be disconnected from your friends either ! Ask them to contact you through whatsapp or whatever. That was my main fear and it turned out fine, so so so so fine. There are still ways to get news, without being constantly bombarded by them. Healthy ways that your body can actually handle. For the connecting to nature more part, it's very easy in my city but I don't know what it's like in yours,,, If you can access nature easily and can walk for a while then I say go explore ! Take pictures of bugs, plants, mushrooms,,, Can you take a friend with you ? If nature isn't accessible for you, good news ! It's everywhere. You'll find plant growing through cracks on the sidewalk, birds everywhere, bugs wherever it's possible for them to live,,, You'll start noticing them quickly ! Can you identify them ? If you don't have books that can help you or field guides, there are ones in public libraries. Once you id something, read about it ! And the pure joy once you've identified something, read about it, and you see it again ! The feeling is incredibly similar to friendship ! It became familiar, it became a friend, you feel warm inside everytime you two meet. See what naturalist non profit associations are near you ! Do they offer free acitvities ? Can you join them, volunteer,,, Yesterday I participated to an activity at night where we went to a spot with a lot of bats, learned about them, and then listened to them with a batbox ! All for free. I do activities like that a few times a week and learn a lot ! Another tip is touch grass, literally. Put your fingers in the dirt, smell it eat it, go lay down under a tree, no phone allowed. Hear the wind go through it. You aren't very different from it. You're both nature, both alive, aware of your surroundings, breathing, eating, and a whole ecosystem just by yourself. Your tree can also becoma a friend. Keep plants inside if possible ! Take care of them, learn about them. If only you knew how many plants I've killed before understanding how to take care of them,,, Now I have over thirty plants,,, hard ones to keep too ! It's also extremely easy to keep pill bugs as pets and takes up very very little space. So rewarding to see them eat and multiply ! Read books about nature ! I know this can be hard,,, I don't mean just informative books ! Anything will help you feel closer to it. I love poetry for example ! Very short, impactful emotionally ! I hope my rambles will be able to help you in some way ksgfqgq I just woke up.

[iamamythologicalcreature]

Can I be real for a second?

I’ve gone back and forth in my head about whether or not to post about this very real side of me online or not. There’s nothing shameful about being disabled, but I don’t want to be known as my disability, either. I don’t want that to be my identity.

But I’m hoping to post some of my writing tomorrow for Six Sentence Sunday. Post something I’ve written, albeit just a small bit, online where anyone can see it. It will be the first time I’ve done so since the car accident three years ago. And the truth is, the terrible truth is, my writing is what hurts the most.

Stories have always been a part of my life. They have always been my motivation, why I slogged through everything else - my reason for existing. I wrote novels and hoped to publish, and I fell in love with the writing community and made it my home. I volunteered and organized events. I created an extremely successful and fulfilling teen writing club where I taught creative writing. I was in love with stories, and writing them. I have never not been in love with stories.

(Before I was a writer I was an artist. I’m not going to go into that part of my life in detail, but it was just as heavily affected.)

At the beginning of 2020 I was in a car accident. The driver at fault was pulling out of a bar parking lot in the middle of the day. Make of that what you will. The accident he caused left me with more than a few issues, but for this post I’m focusing on the vision impairment.

Because of COVID, I wasn’t able to seek any diagnosis or treatment until June. I didn’t even begin physical therapy until August. Due to a myriad of issues and unfortunate reasons, I couldn’t complete my treatment. That meant a year and a half of work and struggle went down the drain.

This continues to affect me in many ways. Sometimes it’s things that you might expect - I can’t read Tumblr, or books, most days. Some limitations are less obvious, like how I’m afraid to ask questions (e.g. “what kind of car did Fiona drive?”) because the resources to find the answers myself are out there. Why don’t I just google it? Or reference that amazing spreadsheet someone did? Why am I asking other people to do the work for me? Am I just lazy?

People don’t mean to judge (and I’m sure there are plenty who don’t). But my issues aren’t apparent, so they won’t know unless I take the time to explain it. Able-eyed people should be able to find these simple answers. Just look in the book.

So I don’t ask. Or I apologize a lot for asking. Because it’s just too hard to explain why I need such basic help. (And sadly, some people still don’t believe me and treat me as thought I’m making excuses.)

I lost most of my friends simply for being unable to chat online, particularly during lockdown. I kept three people in my life - the three people willing to break with their comfort zones and talk to me on the phone instead of via text or chat. Those people probably saved my life. I know everyone went through isolation issues in 2020. But I went through them unable to even use a computer or read a book.

Since I’m typing this, you can guess that I’ve recovered somewhat, or made some accommodations that help. Yes. I have. Both of those. But I still have more bad days than good. Typing too long, or playing a phone game, surfing Tumblr - anything done for too long can break my eyes and send me back into total isolation for days.

I was a really good writer. I would regularly write 10-20k every weekend, and I wrote well. I wrote great stuff. (Rough drafts are always rough drafts, but I felt good about what I wrote.) I would sink into a character and go for hours.

Here’s the part that’s relevant to me now: I can’t do that anymore. I can’t write for hours, I can’t take the time to slip into character. I’m doing really well if I can pound out a speedy 1k in 30 minutes and have it not break my eyes. (It usually breaks my eyes.)

If you’re a writer, though - or any kind of creative - you know that the need doesn’t just go away.

(I have tried to record notes on my phone, but I just cannot dictate writing fiction. Only my fingers know how to speak well, and in character. And no, I’m not going to learn braille. It would not be helpful.)

So I’m going to try to write. It’s going to suck, because the things I did to write well before are things I can’t do anymore. I will cry. And then I will wait a week or however long it takes for my eyes to chill the fuck out, and I’ll try again.

(I’ve also started treatment again, just this month. I have to start at square one again, which means it will get worse before it gets better. It will take time, and money - lots of both. Like years. But I can’t give up.)

Anyway. This is why I chose the Simon Snow fandom to try again, for the first time in forever. Because that’s the story, and those are the characters, and these are the people. I know it. So. Hi.

[notebooknonbinary]

Byler Week, Day 5: Secret Identities

This is outsider POV, i have invented a daughter and she's now My daughter (even though she's 15 in 2013 which means she'd be My Age). Also, based on This post I made a trillion, billion years ago—in November lol.

Emma is avoiding her homework. 

She’s got a mountain of an essay due on Monday, but writing has never come easy to her (not like Dad, amazing writer that he is, or her younger foster sister Alex, who is most definitely going to be a singer-songwriter). Both her foster dads are pretty cool about helping with stuff their children don’t understand. But Pops is the only one home with her right now, and he’s in his studio painting a commission. Even though she knows he wouldn’t care, she doesn’t want to bother him when he’s in the zone. She’ll ask Dad for help once he and her sisters are back from the store.

For now, she turns on the Xbox to play Mass Effect 2.

In the middle of recruiting Archangel, she gets a ping on her computer. Her friend Corgi has messaged her. It’s a row of question marks and a link to an article.

Identities of Award-Winning Artist-Author YA duo, Bloomfield and Blackmore, revealed in Tell-All Leak by reliable anonymous source. 

gengaratemycorgi Emmy, isn’t this your foster dads?

Shit.

“Pops!” Emma calls. 

There’s a distant clatter and splash, and then Will runs into the room. He’s got red paint splattered down the front of his shirt, making him look a little bit like he’s been stabbed. “What’s wrong Emmy? Are you okay?”

Normally she would tease him about the paint spill. Instead, she silently shows him the article and watches his face drop. He plops down beside her.

“Well, shit,” he says, reaching up to brush his hair from his face and inadvertently getting paint in it.

She's too worried about him to even giggle over it. “Are you and Dad gonna be okay?”

Will huffs a tired laugh. “We’ll be fine. The Lab’s NDA has expired. I’m honestly surprised we lasted this long under the radar.”

Emma can’t help but agree—her dads having so many different pseudonyms was bound to bite them in the butt someday.

“I’m gonna go call Mike, and then see about sorting this mess out.”

She’s not entirely certain if he’s referring to the mess of the leak, or the mess of paint all over him.

-

When everyone is back, she and her sisters sit in the living room—watching Mike and Will walk around, on the phone with their agents and the publicists of their book series’. Emmy feels a little bit useless, leaning her head on Rachel’s shoulder. Beside them, Alex has her earphones in and is journaling—conflict makes her anxious.

Eventually, her dads get off the phone and instead sit at the table on their laptops, typing out statements for the press and their social medias’. (And with all their names, there’s a lot of social medias to go through.)

Still feeling useless, and for lack of anything else to do, Emmy opens tumblr and scrolls to the new post made by her Dads’ official account.

-

BloomfieldAndBlackmore When we originally created ‘Elliot and the Other World’, we were required (legally) to publish under pen names. Thus, Bloomfield and Blackmore were born. We weren’t expecting Elliot and his friends to be as well loved as they’ve ended up being, though we are forever grateful for that. It’s thanks to fans like all of you that Elliot and the Other World is still going strong today!

Then, four years later, when we wanted to publish ‘Smalltown Boys’, we knew that our publisher would never allow us to publish a Gay romance under the same names as E&tOW, especially not back then. But Smalltown was too close to our hearts to set aside, so we created Lewis and Xavier Wakeham. (We flipped a coin on who got to be Xavier, and Mike is still the tiniest bit bitter that I won.). It was still a struggle to get it published, but we’re forever grateful that we were able to. 

Around that same time, we were beginning to foster. Our youngest at the time suffered from terrible nightmares (a plight we know well), so Mike and I would tell stories to help him back to sleep. Our oldest thought they were good enough stories to be published. We could have probably published those under Bloomfield and Blackmore, but that would have meant editing out that Prince Adam has two dads, and neither of our children would have ever forgiven us for that. So Oak and Rose joined the scene, publishing stories for kids like our foster children. It’s something that’s brought a lot of joy to our family.

Things began to get complicated after a colleague and friend, Ed Munson, wanted our input on a Dungeons and Dragons anthology he was creating. While he likely would have been fine with us using our pen names (as Elliot and the Other World is largely based on D&D), that would have required him to keep secrets about his own project. So out of respect for him, we used our own names.

We don’t know if that’s what led to this leak. The investigation into who tipped our names to the press is still on-going. To whoever it was, we’re not mad, we’re just disappointed.

To our fans, we send our love. -Will and Mike

-

She scrolls through the reblogs.

-

BananananaAmanda “Required legally???????? Sirs ????? Were you in some kind of witness protection??????

DNDNotebook Amanda don’t be stupid, they probably had some kind of job that would have fired them for writing DnD books--it was like the 80s and people thought DnD was demonic.

BloomfieldAndBlackmore Well, actually, you’re both a little bit correct (though Amanda is slightly more correct, please don’t call them stupid). - Mike

BananananaAmanda My favorite author used the correct pronoun for me and also defended my honor im in tears rn.Also though, my witness protection theory has weight what????? Were parts of E&tOW Real??? ?????

BloomfieldAndBlackmore ..¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-

AllBimy5elf ‘we’re not mad, we’re just disappointed.’ pffffft. Honestly iconic.

-

Lovepeace23 are we ignoring the fact that they’re gay ?? and yet they’re writing children’s books?? Keep that shit away from kids pervs

DNDNotebook hey asshat, the 80s called, they want their bigotry back

tydieandying i’m thinking about the fac that since they’re gay,  maybe my headcanon that Elliot is gay for Dave is true

Dendy7ever even if they -are- gay (which isn’t confirmed) doesn’t mean you have to push that agenda on to their characters. Dave is in love with Elliot’s twin sister Wendy. And Elliot is just growing slower than the rest of the Club because of his trauma. You’ll see when book ten comes out.

AllBimy5elf ‘isn’t confirmed’ after they talked about fostering?? They’re literally dads together?? Now who’s pushing sexuality onto people?

DNDNotebook lmao also the ‘in love’. bro goes out of his way to hold his bestie’s hand, but doesn’t like holding hands w Em when they kiss? Fishy.

-

BananananaAmanda ok but,,, since the main reasons Elliot & Other Worlds has never gotten a tv show is because the series was still on going, and the creators weren’t in the public eye…show?? Maybe???

AllBimy5elf ok yes I 1000000% want an Other Worlds show, but Smalltown Boys movie when???? I want to see my gay childhood friends to lovers happy ending On Screen

-

DNDNotebook said

Can we ask about your foster kids? You must really care about them if you wrote them childrens books. How are they doing in all this?

BloomfieldAndBlackmore Thank you for asking. Our two boys are grown now, but we’ve called them and they’re doing fine--no one has harassed them about it, if they’ve even made the connection. Our three foster daughters are doing as well as can be in the circumstances. Our middle daughter was the one who alerted us to the article (Hey Pumpkin, we love you!!). We’ll continue to try and keep them out of the public eye—they didn’t ask for any of this hubbub. -Will

LostimtheOtherWorld hey is your daughter @/DemigodEmmi98?

A jolt of anxiety has her shutting her laptop. She looks up to where her dads are still working and considers saying something. She gnaws at her nails.

“You okay, Em?” Rachel murmurs, shutting her phone and throwing an arm around Emmy’s shoulder. 

Emma leans into the hug. “I’m being stupid.”

“I doubt it, this whole this is fucking scary. Plus you’re like a baby. I’m eighteen and I’m terrified.”

Emmy scowls. “I’m fifteen, not a baby. And you won’t be eighteen ‘til March.”

Rachel laughs, which makes Emma feel a little less anxious.

She looks to Alex, who has moved on from journaling to just listening to music and staring out the window.

“I think Alex needs your worry more than I do, she’s barely ten.” She’s probably freaking out right now.

Rachel gives her one more squeeze. “You’re a good big sister, Em.” Rachel moves over to quietly talk with their sister. Leaving Emmy alone on the couch. 

She sighs and forces herself to open her computer back up, and scroll through her notifications. As she suspected, her followers have somehow made the connection of her talking about her author and artist foster dads, and somehow it’s escaped containment to Other Worlds fandom. She’s got a hundred and eighty-six asks and two hundred new followers.

Most of the messages are nice ones, asking if she’s okay, or ones congratulating her on her cool dads; but there are a few—maybe from the same person—that say that they’ll pray for her immortal soul for having two dads? What? It’s 2013, not the Middle Ages! 

She deletes those, and the ones asking for inside scoops on future books, then debates attempting to answer the ones left.

The thought makes her exhausted so instead she makes her own post.

-

DemigodEmmi98 regarding the influx of asks from anons and followers wondering if Mike and Will are the foster dads I’ve been talking about… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

tydieandying Emmy is that a yes??

gengaratemycorgi lmaooo

-

Unfortunately that seems to immediately feed the fire, as she gets three more asks in the span of a minute. She opens up the message box from earlier today. 

-

Emmy: haha Immediate Regret(:

Corgi: u gonna be ok?

Emmy: ye, just. tired of tumblr right now lol, gonna jump offline for the next couple days til this all dies down. i’ll message u on snap. 

-

“Sorry about all this, Pumpkin,” Mike murmurs, when she tells him what’s happened. Emmy burrows into his hug. He’s been good at hugs as long as she’s known him—he and Pops make her feel so safe. 

“‘S not your fault, Dad.” She pulls back to grin at him. “Plus, missing school on Monday means I don’t have to turn in that bullshit essay I haven’t done yet.”

Mike snorts, scrubs his knuckles over her hair. “You are your fathers’ daughter.”

“Well, we all got doxxed, so I figure it’s our prerogative, right?”

Mike grimaced. “Maybe we should call your aunts in for a bit.”

“El and everyone are already on their way,” Will reports, entering the room again. He stoops to press a kiss to each other his daughters heads, before pressing one to Mike’s mouth. Then they’re both silent for a long moment. But it’s not a bad, scary silent.

They do this sometimes, Mike and Will--this thing where it seems like they’re speaking to each other with their minds. It could simply be that thing In-Love parents seem to be able to do, where they just know each other's minds (something her birth parents weren’t capable of). But, considering what she knows about their fucked-up childhood in Hawkins, she wouldn’t be surprised if it were powers. She could ask them, and they’d likely tell her the truth.

But Emmy thinks they’ve had enough secrets revealed for today, so she keeps her mouth shut and continues leaning against her parents.

[ladypres13]

The former Yandere Sleuth is back! … kind of.

I no longer have access to my previous blog. The email it’s attached to is linked to my old phone number, which I clearly no longer have. I miss my blog so much, but sadly, I don’t think there’s a way to access it anymore. Yandere sleuth will remain untouched on tumblr as long as tumblr exists. This one will have no real theme; I’ll probably just post random memes that have no rhyme or reason.

To those who don’t remember me: hello! I ran a semi-successful yandere simulator blog on this platform between the years of 2017 and 2019. I eventually gave birth to my second son, baby sleuth (who is 4 now 😭) and my computer took a dump. The daily chaos that life has to offer eventually caught up to me. Still, I attempted to remain active in the community via Yandere simulator discord and Yandere Dev’s twitch stream. Eventually, that stopped too, because life.

Basically, I returned to elaborate on the entire situation with Yandere dev. Yes, that situation.

A few days ago, a friend, who I met in the Yandere simulator discord, texted me a link to Dev’s latest blog post (at the time) regarding this situation. I sent this to another friend, who I met through my previous blog, and the three of us are just disgusted to have ever had a part in this project or the fandom. As someone who was so active with this community for years and years, it felt as though it was a smack in the face. As a mom, as a victim to my cousin as a child, and as an adult 6 months younger than Yandere Dev, I knew immediately that I could no longer support this game or the developer.

While I find it commendable that Yandere dev is trying to make it right by acknowledging his mistakes and donating to RAINN, it doesn’t excuse what he did. It doesn’t make the situation any better, and it certainly doesn’t make everything okay again.

What Dev has done will follow him for the rest of his life. Even if he ditches his alias, abandons his project and starts fresh, the internet is very unforgiving and he will be found.

Enough of my personal feelings on the matter.

Here’s the thing. It doesn’t matter if we continue to support him or not. Yandere dev’s target on his back just got a lot bigger; it’s unavoidable at this point. There is no way that this game is going to have any kind of success as long as he is the developer. Two of the biggest gamers who have played his game, Bijuu Mike and Jay from the Kub Scoutz, have BOTH backed away. Several voice actors/actresses, volunteers and even the main music composer have also folded. Very few will donate to the crowd funding campaign as a result of this, and it will be a complete disaster.

My opinion? Yandere Simulator needs to be sold.

Yandere Dev has spent years working on this game. If he truly cares about Yandere simulator, he truly needs to consider selling it to another developer, a company, or another organization that will complete it. Otherwise, we can kiss Yandere Simulator goodbye. His name, his career, everything that he has worked for, is completely over. Many fans that have monetarily supported this game, like myself, will never go near it again.

[starset21]

Sincerely, Yours

Standard disclaimer: I only own my original characters, I've done some research but there will likely be Navy/military inaccuracies, and I do not consent to the posting, translating, or publishing of my work to any 3rd party site, the only place it may be found is on tumblr and Wattpad under @.itswildflower Warnings: N/A Summary: Ria goes back home for an afternoon Looking for previous chapters? Sincerely, Yours Masterlist  

Chapter 4:

Ria arrived at her family’s San Diego home a little after 11 a.m. the next day. The door was opened before she could even get halfway up the driveway, her german shepherd dog was running for her, with Mari standing in the doorway. Ria grinned as she greeted her pup with lots of affection. Once he was settled she walked the rest of the way with him on her heels. “Sorry Ria, he just bolted as soon as he heard your truck door,” the thirteen-year-old told her. “It’s alright Mari, Atlas wouldn’t have gone any further than me,” she told the girl as she brought her in for a hug. “Ma, I’m home,” she called out, hanging her keys on the designated hook. Two sets of footsteps were heard coming down the stairs. Sarah Kazansky smiled as she walked into the main foyer, opening her arms for a hug. Ria obliged and wrapped her own arms around her mother and squeezed tightly. “My oldest baby is home, safe and sound,” she murmured, drawing back to look at her. Indira Kazanksy, coined Ria at a young age, the oldest Kazansky child at 29, knew how much those words meant to her family after her twin Everett or just Rhett for short was KIA. Her mother had tried so hard to convince Ria to pursue something with her engineering degree instead of aviation. Neither of the twins would listen. Their father had taken them to base one too many times when they were younger and they had both gotten bit by the aviation bug, though Rhett had gravitated towards weapons systems, much to their uncle Slider’s joy, Ria had a natural talent for piloting that both her father and Maverick did their best to nurture when she was young. She was then enveloped in a hug by 17-year-old Junior. The middle child. “Hey kiddo, how’s school?” she greeted, patting his back. “It’s good,” he told her, bending down to pat Atlas on the head. “Thanks for looking after him, Tj,” she told him. “We all know I’m his favorite, after you of course sis,” he teased. “Dad up in his office?” she asked. Her mother nodded and gave her a sad smile before heading into the kitchen while Tj and Mari went to go play some soccer in the backyard.

Atlas followed on her heels as she headed upstairs to her father’s office. She passed her room, and Mari’s before stopping at the door to the study and knocking. She heard the automated voice say come in. Tom Kazanksy was diagnosed with throat cancer 6 years ago. He had beaten it and gone into remission but it’s come back, and now it’s much more severe, leaving him in pain when he tried to speak. “Hey Dad, How’re you feeling?” she asked as she pushed the door open. Just fine, he signed. The entire Kazansky household had learned sign language as soon as it had gotten painful for Tom to speak much more than a few words the first time around with cancer so he wouldn’t have to rely on computers, phones, or notebooks to hold conversations with the family. Ria frowned. I don’t want to talk about it, he added as she took a seat in the comfortable leather chair across from him looking at the various photos on the walls like her and Rhett’s senior portraits, Junior and Mari’s school pictures, pictures of the whole family, their academy graduation, and even their wing-pinning ceremony when he pinned the wings on her chest as Slider pinned them on her twin. “Fine, what do you want to talk about?” she asked turning her attention to him fully. Atlas curled up at her feet and stared up at her with his adoring brown eyes. How’s training? “It’s fine, I got tone on Mav during the dogfighting exercises.” That’s my girl. Ria smiled but her father could see that something was weighing on her heavily. What is it? “It’s training for a suicide mission at this point Dad, and we don’t even have all the details yet. I don’t know if we’re ready for this,” she admitted. You’ll be ready when the time comes. Her dad coughed causing her to look back at him, he had stood up and walked around his desk so he was next to her, and Ria stood too causing Atlas to stand, wanting to get a few pats on the head from the older man. He coughed a few times more before clearing his throat. “I’m so proud of you Ria, you’ll get the job done and you’ll come home to us.” Water rimmed Ria’s eyes, though she didn’t allow them to fall. “You’re not supposed to be talking Dad.” Tom shook his head and opened his arms to her and she stepped into them, allowing his embrace to take her back in time to when she was little and the safest place in the world was in his arms and she then allowed a few tears to fall. He held his daughter tightly until she stopped crying then promptly signed at her to go get cleaned up and to go play some soccer with Mari, as she had been dying for some real competition. Ria offered him a wary smile and a nod before leaving his office, Atlas again at her heels.

Mari was giggling as TJ chased Ria, who had just stolen the ball from him, and ran towards her. “C’mon Mari, shoot!” She cheered as she passed the ball to the younger girl. She scored and Ria rushed over to her, picking her up and spinning her around, eliciting more giggles from the girl, Atlas barking happily as he followed them around. Meanwhile, Sarah is opening the door again. “Maverick,” Sarah greets, pulling him into a hug. Maverick glances out the back door to see Ice’s kids playing soccer and laughing, all with wide grins on their faces. That’s good, after the week they’ve had he was glad to see Ria relaxing with family. Sarah wrings her hands together. Maverick noticed and frowned. “It’s come back?” he asked. “No one knows but the family. There’s nothing else they can do. Speaking is painful,” Sarah tells him and Maverick softens. “Sarah, I’m so sorry,” he said. Sarah nods towards the staircase, “he’s upstairs.” Maverick made the trek up the stairs and he knocked as a courtesy before opening the door, hearing him coughing. “Admiral.” Ice turned to him, gesturing to the old chair that was against the wall. “How’s my wingman?” Mav asks as he takes a seat. Ice smiles before leaning over and typing. I want to talk about work. Maverick shakes his head. “Please don’t worry about me, what can I do for you?” he asks. Ice points at the screen again and Maverick chuckles. “All right,” he sighed. “Well, Rooster’s still angry with me about what I did. I thought eventually he would understand why. I hoped he’d forgive me.” Ice nodded and leaned forward typing, There’s still time. Maverick shook his head. “The mission is less than three weeks away. The kid’s not ready. None of them are.” Ice’s fingers hovered over the keyboard for a moment until he typed out, Then teach them. “They don’t want what I have to give.” Ice waved him off. “Ice, please, don’t ask me to send someone else to die. Please don’t… Don’t ask me to send them. Send me,” Maverick practically begged. It’s time to let go. Maverick’s jaw clenched and unclenched as he thought about how he was going to respond. “I don’t know how.” Ice pursued his lips. Maverick sighed. “I’m not a teacher, Ice. I’m a fighter pilot. A naval aviator. It’s not what I am. It’s who I am. How do I teach that?” he asked. “And even if I could teach it, it’s not what Bradley wants. It’s not what the Navy wants. That’s why they canned me the last time. The only reason I’m here is you. If I send them on this mission, they might never come home. And if I don’t send him, he’ll never forgive me. Either way, I could lose him, forever.” The ‘It’s time to let go’ on the computer blinked at him. Maverick sighed. “I know… I know.” Ice exhaled deeply before clearing his throat with a few coughs. “The Navy needs Maverick. The kid needs Maverick. That’s why I fought for you. That’s why you’re still here,” he said hoarsely. The two men embrace. “Thank you, Ice, for everything,” he said after a moment. “One last thing. Who’s the better pilot? You or me?” Ice asks, a soft smile on his face. “This is a nice moment. Let’s not ruin it,” Maverick replies with a chuckle. 

[fabdante]

idk if anyone's getting my asks bc tumblr is ✨️like that✨️ but anyway for the fanfic ask game-

7, 42, and 46

ok ok so hi! hi, very late to answer this because tumblr did not send these to me until today, several months later? but its ok because i have the ask now and i tracked down the meme in question! thank you for sending these in!!

a link to the fan fic ask game!

7. Any worldbuilding you’re particularly proud of?

In some ATLA stuff I've been working on, I've been enjoying adding some more West Asia to things. There's not a lot of West Asian/North African influence on the show, but it's there (particularly with the Sand Benders) and I think it's fun to explore and add some more nuance to! Particularly because in both shows the Sand Benders are not really...presented with any nuance.

So I've been having fun adding more West Asia to the Earth Kingdom, particularly foods and different little cultural things here and there to bring more of that influence in! Especially because I think large parts of the fandom don't realize like...that this stuff is already in the show, that West Asia is part of Asia, and perhaps we would like to be presented as a little more then 'those horrible evil irredeemable desert people who stole Appa'.

(I also answered this one back in May with a somewhat different answer if you want to check that out!)

42. Have you ever received a comment that particularly stood out to you for whatever reason?

I also answered this in May but I have a new answer.

Since this ask was sent I posted my fic An Inexact Science and all the comments there were very sweet and kind however I also got this one bot that kills me:

Like....what does this mean asdfghjk is this good or bad?

46. Do you prefer writing on your phone or on a computer (or something else)? Do you think where you write affects the way you write?

I'm really really bad at typing on my phone (like can barely make it through a word without one typo at least bad) so I use my computer most of the time. I have also been extremely won over by Scrivener as it fits in perfectly with my typical writing process that I've had since I first started writing on the computer in like...middle school.

With art and writing I tend to start many projects at once and jump rapidly between them. Either due to not wanting to write a certain part, feeling like writing a certain mood or ship or character, or feeling a sudden burst of inspiration for something. So Scrivener definitely enables me to write this way due to how it's set up for you to write different things in sections and flip between them easily. All of my one shots are in one document and I just file through them accordingly. If a one shot gets too big though, I make it's own document for ease of editing and flipping between parts! If I didn't write on my computer I definitely wouldn't do this, it'd be a lot more work I think.

However I do sometimes write on my phone, mostly exclusively if I'm away from my computer and have an idea I NEED to get down. Ironically, sometimes this is some of my most fun stuff, probably because it's the type of writing that I just need to get out and that stuff is always the coolest I think.

thank you again for sending this ask!! and I'm sorry it took me until now to get to it I have no idea why it never sent and then decided to now like...several months later! But it was a delight to find!! (and I hope you don't mind me tagging you @judging-seahorse I just want to make sure you see that I finally saw this asdfghjkl)

[ultimateinferno]

Hi! Sorry if this is rude but, I saw that you said you use an adblock on your phone. How do you do that?

Thanks!

Sure. First things first, my advice only applies to android, so if you're apple I can't help you much. If you want an adblock for Youtube specifically that is so thorough it can automatically skip sponsor-segments within individual videos: ReVanced is for you. (If you have questions subreddit is here)

Now what I use is Rethink. It's a DNS manager and VPN (I think). It can do a lot of things but in short, it will reveal what's going on under the hood of your phone's internet. Note, because it will be doing a lot of work playing door keeper for your internet, it may slow things down. If you want you can have it ignore certain apps and just let everything through. For example an app that doesn't have ads like Discord. You can turn it off momentarily if it's slowing things down too much or just give Discord permissions to just bypass it.

So. Let's take a look at the home page of Rethink. (below is a decently big wall of text, but i just want to be thorough. I'm willing to elaborate further if asked)

Only thing cropped out is a menu bar along the bottom and the button that turns the app functions on and off.

So top left under apps lets you manage specific Applications and what IPs/Domains they can call.

Top right is universal Rules for domains and IPs phone-wide.

Bottom left DNS lets you pick which DNS you want to use. These can do a lot of heavylifting with website management. It can block a lot of ads already (although it won't catch everything) and even block other websites such as porn should you wish. (I'll explain what a DNS is at the end of the post, but for now, pick one that describes what you want).

Bottom Middle lets you set up firewalls that can be really vigilant on what gets sent to your phone. If you want to fully quarantine the device you totally can.

Bottom right is logs. It lets you see every IP and Domain that communicates with your phone and what app is responsible for it.

So, how do you block ads? Depends. If you want to block ads for a specific app (which is easier) you can do either Logs or Apps. Let's start with Apps.

Here, it shows all apps on your phone, even one's built in and not downloaded by you. You can use the search function and various filters to find what you want. I'll use tumblr for example.

This is what it looks like when you click on the app. Here, it shows every internet domain/IP tumblr has ever contacted in the pass... whenever you used it since you either cleared your logs or downloaded the app and turned it on. Click on a domain and this little page is brought up

You are shown the exact domain and ip the call entails. You can select or deselect Trust or Block. Trust lets the call through no matter what. Block prevents it no matter what. As you can see, you can identify this is an ad domain because it says ad in it. If you don't know if it's an ad you can google look it up and google will tell you if its an ad. As you go through this you'll discover just how many ad services exist. Anyways, I blocked both the domain and the IP. And just scroll through the list given to you and pick and choose.

But what if you keep getting ads phone wide that the DNS nor the pre-existing block list doesn't catch?

Well there's the universal rules. Unfortunately for this app, I don't think there's a quick way to universally block a domain just from the nodes.

This is what it looks like. If you click the little plus button you can add more universal rules to your phone to block (or allow). You can do a specific IP or Domain, or you can wildcard it.

In most computer spaces the character * is the wildcard to be used. if your messing around with funky computer stuff, that is like the universal code for "give me anything and everything." So for these examples, my rules are "block all domains that end with .adsrvr.org or .adsbynimbus.com" These wildcards are important because these domains begin with different things.

Here *.adsbynimbus.com blocks both of these domains.

Of course, you don't need to do this from the outset. My experiences with finicky computer things is that you do as much as you can at the beginning, and then live it with for a certain period of time until it annoys you and you want to make changes, and then you do a little more to clean things up.

To start with, pick an adblock based DNS, and see where the rest of things will take you from there.

*DNS stands for Domain Name Server. It's basically the yellowpages for the internet. Instead of your computer keeping track of every possible Domain to IP combo on the internet, which is absurd, a DNS manages it for you and you only have to remember one IP address. So when you type in something like tumblr.com into your browser, your computer will ask the DNS "give me the IP address for tumblr.com please!" and then the DNS will say "tumblr.com is located here at [32 bit number]" and then your computer will go "Thankyou!" and go to that IP Address.

These DNS that your picking from will look at the domain your computer or phone is asking for and say "Wait a minute! These domains are all ads! I'm not giving this to you!" and send a 403 error to which the app using the ads will go "Oh damn" and move on with its life. This is imperfect because ads are fucking everywhere, but that's the short of it. This isn't getting into other shit like caching. I'm just using this post as an excuse to neglect homework.

[shimmering-stims-archive]

Not a request, just a question - how do you make stimboards? /gq

Long answer warning

I start with getting the static/regular image if possible you want a png (even if it has a background) since they’re higher quality than jpegs.

Then I open up a notepad on my computer or phone to keep all the links in until I put them into Linkslist.

Then I look for gifs, I usually start on Tumblr then move to google if I can’t find the right stuff then if I still can find the right stuff and won’t comprise I’ll try to find a video to make a gif from

When saving gifs be mindful of the scum of the earth know as webp. Webp was supposed to be a universal file format but not many sites support it this is made worse by google converting literally everything to webp. This can be avoided on Tumblr by doing this on computer: click open image in new tab, scroll to the end of the url, it will say gifv, take of the v and then press enter, it will now save as a gif.

In an ideal world all the gifs you like would be a 1:1 ratio (square shaped) but alas that almost never happens. This is problem because of the way Tumblr formats images. Take this example: the pictures of both ENAs are the same file but since one was paired with a wide but short image it was zoomed in so it matches.

There is no way (as far as I know) to crop images within Tumblr so you’ll have to do it outside of here. Me and everyone else seems to use ezgif. Ezgif can convert webps to gifs, crop gifs, add effects to them and many other useful things.

Anyway now that I have some gifs I like I make a draft post and see how it looks. Then I rinse and repeat the gif finding process until I’m happy with the board.

Finally I put all my links into Linkslist (I do this because I’m lazy and don’t want to put 8ish links into a post one by one) then I add a caption to my board, put the sources link and done!

Also I believe it’s technically possible to make one large file in photoshop then post it to Tumblr as one image. I say technically possible because the size of a gif file that holds 8 moving parts and isn’t compressed beyond recognition would be too much for Tumblr to handle and would most likely exceed the size limit.

Also also Tumblr can only do 3 image for width. So if you wanted let’s say a 4x3 board you would have to merge gifs in photoshop or photopea put a white divider between them while also being mindful of how the image size stretching I mentioned before works. So that’s why no one does anything besides 2x3 and 3x3 stimboards.

This might sound like a lot of work but when you get in the groove it’s really fun. Especially when it’s a request so you’re extra excited to get it out so they can enjoy it.

Anyway I hope this wasn’t too bland a read and was maybe a bit insightful. Have a great day thanks for taking interest in the blog!

[thejennydreadful]

The De-Cluttering

I think if there’s one thing that my life needs more than anything, it's a good ol’ de-cluttering. And not just my apartment, although yes that, too… I’m always doing my best with it, but things just have a way of piling up so fast.

The same goes for every other aspect of my life, including my online life. I first appeared online in 1995, but it was when I first got on social media 14 years later, in 2009, that my current situation really began to develop.

Now it’s another 14 years later and it’s become clear that it’s time to re-think things once, again.

Dave started me thinking about this by deleting his own Facebook and Twitter, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to delete my actual accounts. I’ve posted so much over the years, so if anything, they could be great sources of content for future projects, both personal and business. Not to mention that I have built up a certain following on these different platforms, and I wouldn’t want to lose those avenues of promotion.

What I have done, though, is deleted certain apps from my phone. It was something that only took a couple of seconds to actually do, but it’s a huge step for me, nonetheless.

I’m not deleting any content and/or profiles, at least not right now, but I am taking a step back. I have deleted the Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and TikTok apps from my phone.

I have an addiction to checking those apps over and over and over again. I know they’re designed to make you want to do that, but it works a little too well on me. So, I’m going to restrict myself to using those websites on an actual computer, only. You know, like the old days! :-p

That’s it. I think that’s a big enough step for now. I just want to try and focus more on the stuff that really matters… the stuff I’m creating (or at least want to create). These apps also prey on one thing that has dominated a lot of my life: loneliness.

I'm an oversharer because I've just found it to be an effective way to connect with others, even if it works to my detriment, at times. What can I say, my free-spirited, yet seeking nature has led me down many paths. :-p

All in all, I just feel that I will be better off, the more I can clean things in my life up. Frankly, I can use all the help I can get. :-p

[stevensavage]

AI and Chatbots: Better Someone To Hate Than A Machine

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve's Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

AI and Chatbots are in the news as people want to use them for everything - well at least until reality sets in.  Now I don’t oppose Chatbots/AI or automated help with a humanized interface.  I think there’s potential for it that will make our lives better.  They really are spicy autocomplete and there’s a role for that, even if we all remember how we hated Clippy.

The problem is that there’s too many cases people want to use so-called AI just replace humans.  I think it will go wrong in many ways because we want people to connect to, even if only to hate them.

If you’ve ever screamed “operator” into a phone after navigating some impossible number-punch menu you have a good idea of how Chatbots could be received.

When we need help or assistance, we want to talk to a person.  Maybe it’s for empathy.  Maybe it’s to have someone to scream at.  Either way we want a moral agent to talk to someone we know has an inner life, and principles, even if we disagree with them.

There’s something antisocial about chatbots just replacing humans.  It breaks society and it breaks our need for contact (or blame).

Have you ever observed some horrible computer or mechanical failure?  Have you imagined or participated in the lawsuits?  Imagine how that will go with Chatbots.

Technology gives us the ability to do things on a huge level - but also create horrible disasters.  Imagine what Chatbots can automate - financial aid, scientific research, emergency advice.  Now imagine that going wrong on a massive, tech-enabled scale.  Technology let us turn simple things into horrible crises.

If you have people along the way in the process?  They can provide checks.  They can make the ethical or practical call.  But when it’s all bots doing bot things with bots and talking to a person?  There’s that chance of ending up in the news for weeks, in government hearings for months, and lawsuits for years. 

(Hell, removing Chatbots removes some poor schmuck to take the blame, and a few people with more money and sense might find they really want that.)

Have you ever read a book or commissioned art and enjoyed working with the artist?  Chatbots and AI can make art without that connection.  Big deal.

Recently I read a person grouse about the cost of hiring an artist to do something - when they could just go to a program.  The thing is for many of us, an artistic connection over literature or art or whatever is also about connecting with a person.

When we know a person is behind something we know there’s something there.  We enjoy finding the meaning in the book, the little references, the empathic bond we form with them.  An artist listens to us, understands us, brings humanity to the work we request.  It makes things real.

I read a Terry Pratchett book because it’s Terry Pratchett.  I watch the Drawfee crew as it’s Jacob, Nathian, Julia, and Karina who I like.

Chatbot-generated content may be interesting or inspiring, but it’s just math that we drape our feelings around.  AI generated content is just a very effective Rorschach blot.  There’s no one to admire, learn from, or connect with behind it.

Humanity brings understanding, security, checks, and meaning.

So however the Chatbot/AI non-Revolution goes?  I think it will be both overdone and underwhelming.  It will include big lawsuits and sad headshakes.  But ultimately if there’s an attempt to Chatbot/AI everything, it’ll be boring and inhuman.

Well, boring and inhuman if we know there’s chatbots there.  It’s the hidden ones that worry me, but that’s for another post . . .

Steven Savage

www.StevenSavage.com

www.InformoTron.com

[azsazz]

After Hours

Modern!Azriel x Reader

Summary: Multiple Request(s) for this one: @moony-thoughts : "i LOVE your modern bat boys... maybe we could get a fic??" & "Oh my god would you ever write a modern au with those jobs? I can’t get Az in the suit and glasses out of my head"

In other words: You and Az work in the same office and you've been crushing on each other for quite some time. Late at the office one night, he decides to do something about it.

Warnings: SMUT! NSFW!

Word Count: 6,922

Notes: I wanted to do something very special for my 1,000th post on Tumblr...can't believe how far this blog has gone and it's thanks to each and every single one of you. The Modern!Az we've been yearning for 🥵 I think I need a vacation after writing this 😮‍💨💙

_________________________________________

Azriel had been staring at his computer for far too long.

But he wasn’t liking the numbers he was seeing and he was sure that his clients wouldn’t either, which is why he’d opted to stay at the office hours after he was supposed to go home.

He knew that he could fix it, make the most money for his client, as he didn’t get paid the big bucks for nothing.

He’d had many nights like this before, sitting at his large desk, both of his computer monitors opened with what seemed like hundreds of tabs, eyes burning and fingers cramping from the amount of time he’d spent typing.

Empty coffee cups nearly spilled out of the small trash can beside his desk, the Starbucks app perpetually open on his phone. He’d ordered from the coffee shop at least six times since he’d gotten in after an intense training session at the gym with his roommate this morning.

Nothing but black coffee for him. Well, there might be an empty frappuccino cup shoved under the mass of the others, the remnants of whipped cream on the lid poking out between the holders and lids, the man having a secret sweet tooth. 

But even the strong black coffee couldn’t help his fried brain now.

You sling your bag over your shoulder, preparing to leave for the night. You’d stayed later than you liked to prepare everything for an upcoming conference: itineraries, flights, hotels, the whole lot. You’re exhausted, back aching from your new bra and feet hurting from the heels you chose to wear on a whim that maybe your office crush might finally notice you.

You want nothing more than to go home and peel yourself out of your work clothing and pig out on the couch with a box of takeaway from your favorite restaurant with a shitty reality show playing in the background before you drag yourself to bed just to do it all over again Monday.

It’s not that bad, your job. You love it most days, especially those when you see Azriel.

He’s the most gorgeous man you’ve ever set your pretty eyes upon. With his midnight dark hair, hazel eyes that seemed to glow golden even under the unflattering fluorescent lighting, framed occasionally by his tortoise shell glasses.

He towers over most of your coworkers, and you’d might’ve gotten a glimpse of how large his cock was through his thin dress pants at an office party where you’d had one too many drinks to be considered appropriate.

You hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it ever since.

You’d had light conversation with him before, mostly about work, and you could hardly respond to him, found yourself blushing over nothing and stuttering through your words due to his intimidating beauty.

He was so out of your league.

Sighing, you dig your keys from your purse as you begin your trek to the elevators, pausing when you hear the music, soft and calming, coming from Azriel’s office. You thought you’d been the only one left for the night, well, you and the nice janitor who always seemed to find the time to stop you before you could slip out into the elevator.

Heels clicking softly on the tile as you approach, you peek around the corner into his office and your breath catches in your throat at the sight of him at his desk.

You never truly had interacted with Azriel besides the light talk at the coffee machine when he was desperate enough to drink the watered down drinks your office provided. He was a busy man with an important job and although you would have loved to get to know him, his silent and serious demeanor had you more nervous than you’d ever been before to talk to such an attractive man.

His office is large, spacious with the minimal amount of furniture inside. His desk is enormous, made of dark wood, double monitors set up on top for optimal working conditions. The papers he’s perusing are both strewn about the work surface but in an orderly way that you knew would make sense to his calculated mind.

You nearly found it funny, how large he looked sitting in his office chair, and you expected the flimsy plastic to give out at any moment as he leaned as far back as he could, stretching his spine with a breathy exhale, the bottom of his shirt lifting to show that defined set of muscles and dark hair disappearing into his pants.

He hasn’t noticed you yet but you can’t help but watch. You always seemed to find yourself observing him, even when you weren’t consciously thinking about doing so. It was like something inside of you gravitated towards him, and you’d admire him from afar as he walked to his meetings in his finely pressed trousers that wonderfully showcased his thick thighs and tight ass.

Azriel sighs softly, removing his glasses to pinch at the bridge of his nose. Not even the blue light tint on his spectacles could save his sight now, having poured over numbers and articles from morning till night. He looks different than he had when you’d seen him earlier, dark hair now tousled out of its style in a way that you know he’s been musing his hands through it frustratedly.

You let your eyes trail to those luscious pink lips, glistening in the fluorescent light of his office like he’d just run his tongue over them before you’d entered. Down across his loosened tie, hanging limply around his neck, the first few buttons of his collar undone and showing the perfectly tanned skin you’d only dreamt of seeing.

Your gaze drifts over his strong arms, barely contained within the expensive fabric of his shirt, to the cuffs of his sleeves, rolled into the crooks of his elbows and showing off his impressive forearms. Veins bulging and moving beneath his skin like typing on his computer had been a workout all of its own.

His long fingers, the ones you had thought of so many times while pleasuring yourself. You’d imagined how they would feel, twisting and turning inside of you, the way that his expensive silver ring would burn ice cold pressed against your heated core.

You swallow, throat dry.

You’re frozen, unsure if you should interrupt or head straight home for the toy you’d left sitting on your bedside table, thoughts of this Godly male before you imprinted on the backs of your eyelids from how much you think of him.

“Are you going to stand there all night?” he hums, finally setting loose those piercing hazel eyes from his work up to meet yours, a shadow of a smirk across his lips.

Fuck. He’d caught you staring at him.

The heat in your cheeks is nearly enough to make you melt.

“Sorry,” you stutter, gripping the straps of your purse tighter for something to do. “I was headed home for the night and I heard your music.”

“Do you like it?” he asks, eyes looking you up and down, taking in those heels, that skirt, that button down stretched across your breasts like they’re about to burst…

You’re frozen in your spot, lightning zipping up your spine as he drags his gaze down and back up again, leaning back in his seat and quirking an eyebrow, waiting for your response like he hadn’t just undressed you with his eyes.

“Yeah,” you breathe, clearing your throat to speak louder, “It’s nice.”

“You know what else is nice?” he asks, and the way that he does has you wanting to lean on the doorframe for support, legs wobbly in your heels from that shadow of a smirk gracing his lips.

You don’t dare ask, the heat crawling up your chest and neck. You want to hear the answer oh so badly but you don’t know how you’d be able to keep yourself from jumping him should his answer by you. Glancing towards his overstuffed trash can, you respond with, “Starbucks?”

His upturned lip turns into a wolfish grin and he pushes up from his chair. He trails a fingertip across the top of his monitor as he casually stalks around to the front of his desk. Not a trace of dust, just as he thought. He stuff his hands into his pockets and rests on the edge of the dark wood, sizing you up.

“Come here, (Y/N),” his voice is low, filled with mirth, like a predator watching his prey, eyes glued to you every shaky step closer you take.

Each stride forward is difficult, shoving yourself through the tension in the room as he waits. Your heart pounds in your chest, loud in your ears and you’re afraid if he speaks again you’ll miss it. Never in your wildest dreams did you think you’d be alone in Azriel’s office while he flirts with you.

You may as well be naked with the amount of nervousness you feel standing before him. You’re nearly the same height now, and he’d tower over you should he stand.

“Do you know how many times I’ve thought about being alone with you?” he murmurs, watching, waiting.

Fuck. You could fall to the floor with utter happiness right now. He’s thought about you? He’s thought about you! You bite your lip, trying to contain the splitting grin forcing its way onto your mouth. Azriel’s eyes flicker down to watch and the hazel turns molten.

“Do you know how many times I’ve thought about being alone with you?” you counter with a burst of confidence.

Your bag falls to the side as he slides from the desk, closing the gap between the two of you in one long stride. He presses himself completely against you, his tall, lithe figure overpowering you, causing you to yield a step.

He pulls you back into him, large hands settling on your waist as yours clamp around his neck. Every inch of your skin is on fire where he’s touching you. You stare up at him and he stares back at you, trying to read your expression, if you want this as badly as he does.

You absolutely do.

His breath fans across your face as he speaks, eyelashes fluttering. He smells of coffee and mint and the leather from his desk chair. His voice is so low, a rumble of a question that you nearly miss. “What do you do when you think of me?”

You blush, looking down. And if that isn’t answer enough for this gorgeous male holding you tightly–

The glide of his hand against your clothed skin nearly makes you moan as he moves slowly up, feeling his way up and up and up until he catches your chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting your head back ever so slightly so he can drink in the delicious rosiness of your cheeks.

And there’s that fucking smirk again. God, you’re so wet right now, if you lean in just slightly maybe you’d be able to feel his excitement too.

“Tell me,” he demands, though it’s a pant, a beg, like he needs to know just what it is that you do with that little toy on the table next to your bed. You can see the wildness in his gaze, the primal urge to know.

Inhaling a breath, you steady yourself, letting the anticipation and the tension wash over the both of you, and you speak.

“I touch myself to the thought of you, Azriel.”

“Fuck,” he groans and he can no longer contain himself, dipping down to catch your lips with his.

There isn’t anything delicate about it. You gasp into it, pulling him closer to you with the hands you have slipped around him, and he takes the opportunity to work his tongue inside, tasting you completely.

Azriel steps into you and yes. Exactly as you thought.

Your body is thrumming with a brilliant kind of heat that you’ve never experienced before, kissing him back just as hungrily as he’s kissing you. You bury your fingers into the long hair at the nape of his neck, tugging slightly, and it earns you a debauched sound that tastes as absolutely delightful as it sounds.

His hand traces around your front, blazing a trial as he goes, shoving it between the two of you. You falter for a moment but he’s using it to slide up under your shirt, needing to feel your soft flesh beneath his fingers.

You break the kiss with a gasp, positive that he’ll reach his other hand around and rip your shirt open should you give him the chance.

His roaming hand stills. Faces mere inches apart, his brows twitch together in confusion. His chest heaves perfectly in time with yours, still pressed tightly to each other.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea, Azriel,” you puff, trying to calm your breathing.

He tries to step away, clearly he’d gotten the wrong impression and God does he feel horrible now but you’re stepping back with him, stopping him by wrapping your arms around his waist instead. 

“Why not?” he whispers like he doesn’t want to know the answer.

“I just…” you trail off, his thumb stroking patterns on your skin that leaves you dizzy. “What do you want?”

“What do you want?” he counters softly, keeping your gaze locked with his own when you try to look away again. You don’t know why but you’re nervous. This is everything you’ve been dreaming of, but what if it’s too good to be true?

“I want you.”

He releases a breath you didn't know he’d been holding. His hand snakes from your shirt and both of his hands come up to cradle your face.

The coldness of his ring grounds you, looking up into those soft flaxen eyes.

“And I want you, (Y/N). Have since the first day you started.”

Your heart stops in your chest.

Two years. He’d wanted you for two years and hadn’t ever made a move?

You kiss him again because you can’t help yourself.

He pulls you backwards, walking slowly back toward the edge of his desk. When he sits down it’s much easier to glide your fingers across his chest to his buttons and Azriel shivers beneath your touch. 

Thankfully, the first few buttons are already undone for you.

Your hands are trembling with arousal and excitement as you try your best to undo his buttons while he kisses the brains out of you.

Sensing your growing frustration he chuckles against your lips, coming to your aid and finishing the job with deft fingers.

You don’t hesitate, shoving the silky fabric aside to press up against him fully, standing between his legs. 

His cock is rock hard where it’s trapped against his thigh and he groans when you brush up against it. You throw your head back as he latches onto your neck, kissing and biting every inch of free skin he sees, a blank canvas for him to work.

You moan, fingers gliding down the planes of his chest, every muscle pulled taut with excitement, suspense, and it makes you grind your hips against his.

“We can’t fuck on my desk,” he pants, kissing you between each word. He can’t get enough of you. “How about yours?”

“What about Brian?” you whine, though he’s not the only reason you wouldn’t want to fuck on your desk. It’s in the middle of the damn lobby for fucks sake.

Azriel pulls away and gone is the feral look of hunger from his face, replaced by slight amusement. “The janitor?” he questions and you nod. His grin is a slash across his lips and you smack his chest as he chuckles. “I’ll pay him off, or I can pay him to watch if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“Ew, you pervert,” you hiss, kissing him again because that smile is too handsome to resist. He laughs and your knees nearly give out at the rich sound. You try to take a step away from him but his arms are wrapped firmly around your waist and he pulls you closer instead.

“Well then I guess I’m taking you home.”

Home.

You and him. Him and you. At his house. Alone.

You can barely comprehend his words as he stands, turning off his monitors before snagging his keys off of the desk and picking up your purse from where you’d abandoned it on the ground, all while his other hand stays tucked in your own.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” You’re nervous, trailing after him with your hand clasped in his warm one. It's marred and pink and you find yourself wondering what happened but you tear your eyes away just as he looks over his shoulder at you with a raised brow.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I don’t have any extra clothes,” you blurt, cheeks tinting pink once more.

“You won’t be needing any.”

You shoot him a look and he laughs. The pureness of it sends your heart fluttering in your chest. You’d never heard him laugh so freely before, hell, you’d barely even seen him smile in the two years you’d worked with him. “You can borrow some of mine.”

“What about tomorrow? I have to come back to the office.” You protest, and you scold yourself for not shutting up. You want this.

“It’s Friday,” he responds bluntly.

“I know that, dumbass,” you groan at his smirk. God, that smirk. You swear your heart nearly beats out of your chest everytime you see it.

“Do you not want to come over to my place?” he asks as the doors to the elevator slide open. He punches the button and turns to you, caressing your face so gently you find yourself fighting not to lean into the soft touch. “Because I’m not forcing you. We can do whatever you’re comfortable with. We can order some dinner or watch a movie, I’ll even leave you be, you can go home if that’s what you want. I don’t want anything you don’t want.”

“You’re what I want, Azriel,” you assure, grabbing his collar for a steamy kiss, “I’m sorry, I’m just nervous.”

“Why?” he thumbs over your cheek caringly.

You shrug, “I don’t know, because I can’t believe this is happening? Because you’re so intimidatingly beautiful, how can I compare? Because–”

He silences you with a kiss that lasts ten floors, you can tell by how close the glowing number is to the lower levels when he pulls away.

“You have nothing to be nervous about, I can promise you that. If anything, I’m the one who’s nervous. I’m in the presence of a literal angel, after all.”

You roll your eyes but blush at his comment, “Am not.”

His smile makes you grin and he leans down to whisper, “You are everything that I’ve ever wanted, (Y/N), so I think you are my angel.”

You shiver, pulling back to look him in the eyes. You find nothing but raw truth in those hazel eyes, and you find yourself leaning in ever so slowly when the elevator doors slide open.

The cool breeze of the parking garage and Azriel’s lips on your neck send shivers up your spine. He ushers you off of the elevator with a hand on your lower back and it nearly spreads across the entire width, warm and reassuring.

“This is your car?” you question, eyes going wide at the sight of the sleek, expensive car before you. It must be brand spanking new because it looks like it has less miles on it than the pristine shoes he’s wearing.

“Yes, why?” The locks disable with hardly a sound and Azriel opens the door for you. 

Such a gentleman.

“I certainly do not get paid enough,” you mutter under your breath, tucking yourself into the passenger seat. He hands you your purse and shuts the door lightly. The leather is soft beneath your thighs and you inhale deeply as he walks around to the other side, letting the scent of the new car wash over you.

“Which one is yours?” he questions once he’s settled into the driver’s seat beside you.

You flush, cringing slightly. Your eyes betray you, flicking over to where your car is parked amongst the few others left in the lot. It’s not terrible but it’s certainly not comparable to his.

“It’s not bad,” he comments and you snort.

“I know it’s not. We’re clearly not in the same tax bracket.”

“I’ll take care of you,” he hums, glancing at you from the corner of his eye as he pushes the ignition button, the car roaring to life with an expensive purr, backing his words.

You’re glad that your cheeks are already red because you’re full on blushing now, hot with his intentions. You have to bite back the grin threatening to split your face in two.

Azriel eases off the clutch, pulling out of his reserved parking spot. You can’t help but watch as he shifts the car into another gear, his large hand smothering the shifter. You swallow harshly, the slight jolt of the car as he moves into a higher gear awakens your senses.

Once you’ve exited the parking garage and are out on the street does he really kick things into gear, gassing it down the road.

“Az,” you gasp, hand clamping to his forearm. In fear or excitement you’re unsure as you melt back into the seat from the speed.

There’s that fucking perfect laugh again, music to your ears. You were completely unaware of the dangerous streak the normally stoic man before you had.

And you quite like it.

He slows the sports car once you turn off onto a busier street, making your way towards his home. Azriel takes your hand into his, guiding yours to the shifter and covering it with his own warm one.

God, this man. So surprisingly unexpected from what you’d known of him. Everything you’re finding out about him only makes you slip further into your attraction for him.

You clench your legs together as the noises and the vibrations of the car are the only sounds between the two of you. It’s not awkward though, not in the slightest, and every shift of the gears with your hand pinned beneath his is so hot. His scarred hands are soft but firm, his thumb stroking your skin mindlessly as he drives, like this is a normal everyday thing for the both of you. 

You want those hands all over you.

“Do you like driving a manual in the city?” you ask once you’ve hit a bout of traffic. You’re not asking because you feel the need to break the silence, only because you’re curious.

He shrugs, giving you his undivided attention easily. “It’s a bitch sometimes, especially in traffic. People seem to think that every car is an automatic these days so they’ll get right up on my ass and get pissed at me when my car rolls an inch backwards.”

You hitch an eyebrow, picturing how he might react being tailgated by an asshole driver. Would he flip them off? Maybe slow down to a snail-like pace just to piss them off further, all while wearing that gorgeous smirk that’s burned into your memory. Or would he gas it, leaving the tailgater in his dust?

Is it getting hot in here?

“I’ll probably sell it,” he continues when you don’t respond. You question his admission immediately, watching as he bites back his smile. “Like it, do you?”

“I just don’t see why you’d sell this nice of a car,” you comment, averting your gaze out the window so that he can’t see your pink cheeks and you can’t see his grin. “Don’t think I can come up with a single idea as to why you’d do so.”

“I’d sell it that I can have a free hand to tease you with,” his silky voice sends shivers down your spine and you wonder if he’d notice you fully crossing your legs should you choose to move them from where they’re trembling from being pressed so tightly together for so long. 

Cruel, wicked man.

And fuck if he doesn’t love the way you blush with everything he says. 

The rest of the relatively short trip is filled with teasing touches and cheeky remarks that have you nearly bursting at the seams. You hope Azriel doesn’t mind the indents in the leather your nails had made when he trailed a delicate finger up your thigh at a stoplight.

He pulls into the driveway of a lavish home. Modern with dark woods and stone, expensive like all things that surrounded this man.

Azriel opens the door for you, helping you out of the car. You can’t help but drink in the sight of him, the light from the moon washing over him and he looks ethereal, like he was born to thrive in the darkness.

“As much as I love when you look at me like that,” his voice is gentle, like if he’s too loud he might shatter the moon, “I would like to show you inside. That is, if you still want to?”

You nod graciously, following him up the pathway to the heavy looking front door, “Of course.”

The inside is as luxurious as the out, straight edges and expensive fixtures. The couch is the only piece that looks somewhat different, large and plush and comfortable looking. Loved.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” he waves around, much more than ready to show you to the best part of the house, his room.

Azriel lets you linger where you’d like, asking all of the questions that pop into your head on the way, admiring his home. It suits him, you think, running your fingers across the thick slab of stone countertop as you pass.

When the door shuts behind you with a click, all of the feelings and passion and tension return full force.

Azriel turns from the door, prowling a step closer. You yield beneath his touch, his soft lips so achingly familiar already and you clutch to him, never wanting to let go.

He backs you towards the large bed that basks in the moonlight from the open window, letting your lips fall apart when your knees bump the back of the bed and you sit down. 

He wastes no time pulling the shirt over his head. He doesn’t have time to undo all of the buttons he’d had to at the office. You’d so teasingly helped him do so, your fingers brushing across his chest and leaving a tingling sensation in their wake. He swears he can still feel exactly where you’d touched him.

You kick off your shoes as you wait and he leans over you, eyes dark and pupils blown. You want nothing more than him inside of you right now.

He guides you backwards, slowly, encouraging you with kisses down the column of your neck and down into the collar of your shirt until you’re resting against his pillows, pliant and ready for him to do as he pleases.

Your legs fall apart for him and he settles against you. A flush of heat slides through your body and it’s not only because of his body pressed tightly into yours. The way he’s looking down at you like you’re the best thing he’s ever seen makes your heart race, and you find yourself soothing your fingers through his hair, urging him down to kiss you.

Every kiss takes your breath away. The slow, teasing exploring, the caress of his tongue against yours turns hotter as you hold the back of his head. 

You moan into his mouth as he grinds his hips softly, gauging your reaction. By the noise, he takes it as a good sign.

You’re ready for him, the hot ache between your legs is just begging for him. You buck up against him and he kisses you deeper, caressing your face and Azriel jerks his hips against yours more harshly this time, his cock heavy and dripping in his trousers.

You startle against his lips as you hear a door slam shut and a voice call out, “Az? You home?”

Azriel sighs against your lips, pressing his forehead into yours as he lets out a soft groan. His golden eyes are gleaming with lust and amusement as he answers your unspoken question, “It’s just my roommate. I figured he’d be out for the night, I’m sorry.”

In reality he’d been so distracted by your reciprocated feelings and immense beauty that he’d forgotten to text his roommate – Cassian, a friend from his college days – to disappear from the house for a while, most likely until late in the afternoon tomorrow.

“Let me just,” he starts, sliding his phone out of his pocket. The light from the screen illuminates his face and you’re awestruck once again at just how handsome he is. His perfectly straight nose, midnight painted hair hung low across his face as he texts, licking at his bruised lips.

It makes you ache.

He sends off the message and within moments you hear deep laughter from downstairs, barking out a bellowing “Wrap it before you tap it,” that causes Azriel to groan before the door opens and closes again with a slam and a car starts up in the drive.

You quirk an eyebrow, “You have a roommate?”

He shrugs, showing you his crooked grin. “He won’t leave.”

“Didn’t seem that difficult to get him to leave just now,” you muse, carding your fingers through his thick hair.

His golden eyes sparkle, “That’s because dear old Cassian would do anything to get me laid.”

Your nose scrunches up as you joke, “Been that long has it? Hopefully you’re not out of practice.”

Azriel’s smile turns positively wicked, dipping down to nip at your lips, “Would you like to find out, (Y/N)?” It’s paired with a jerk of his hips that sends your eyes rolling into the back of your head.

“Fuck yes,” you breathe, arching up into his muscular body. “Been wanting this for so long.”

“Me too baby,” he grunts, “All I think about is you in those tight little skirts,” he sucks a mark onto your neck, mouthing his way down the column of it, pulling away to stare down at your shirt with dark eyes. “These shirts you don’t button up all the way, God, you’re so fucking perfect.” He tears open the front of your shirt and you gasp with pleasure as the buttons go flying and you’re exposed before him, golden gaze raking up and down your body.

Azriel wastes no time, suckling on the delicate skin of your breasts, his hands sliding between you and the bed to unclasp your bra. He does so easily, watching you with a hungry gaze as he slowly removes the fabric from your body, drinking you all in.

His exhale is shuddering and you nearly sigh at the freedom. Trailing your hands lightly up his strong arms, you tug him gently. He goes easily, pressing his chest up against yours, both bare, and you gasp at the feeling of his muscle brushing across your nipples.

“You’re perfect,” he murmurs against your lips, “So fucking perfect, (Y/N). Do you realize that?”

You keen in response, squirming up into him. The way your body brushes across his has him in a frenzy, he wants you. To lick you, to taste you, to smell you, to be near you all of the time. His mind screams at him to never leave your side.

“Can I taste you?” It’s guttural, nearly a growl, desperate like his senses are completely overcome with you. His golden eyes glow in the moonlight, burning and alight with desire as he fingers at the waistband of your skirt.

Your eyes roll back, head falling into the fluffy pillow as you beg, “Please, Azriel.”

With a bruising kiss he works his way down your body, teeth and tongue and lips. It’s nearly overwhelming, the way he’s stimulating your senses with every caress, stroke, touch, all you can think is Azriel, Azriel, Azriel.

You can feel his every breath, shivering at the cool wisps against the wet skin around your navel he’d just been sucking on.

He’s torn between shoving his head up the bottom of your skirt because he’s eager to taste, or drag it off of you so he doesn’t have to worry about it later. He does the latter, helping you out of the piece of fabric and letting it fall from his grasp.

“Leave it,” he stops you from pulling down your panties with a gentle hand on your arm, “For now.”

He guides your hands up into his hair, a dark smirk on his face as he does so. “You’re going to want your hands up here, sweetheart.”

You press your lips together in a line, tugging on his hair, squinting your eyes at him like you’re unamused. His grin only widens, the gleaming ring of his iris’ around his dilated pupils looking like an eclipse.

Before you can respond he’s nuzzling his nose into your clothed cunt, drawing a gasp from deep within you.

Azriel ruts against the bed, barely containing his moan. You’ve soaked through the thin fabric, he can nearly taste you as he digs his tongue through the fabric, working his way through your folds.

“Mm, Az,” you plead, grinding against his face.

He’s never been so happy in his entire life. 

He teases you for as long as he can take, his cock throbbing, aching in his pants, before he’s snagging the waistband in his teeth, dragging the pretty fabric off of you.

You’re thrumming with need, begging him for anything, hands snaking down to touch yourself when he pulls away because you need some sort of relief. 

But of course, the ever watching male catches your wrist, tutting as he removes your hand, “Not yet.”

“Azriel,” you hiss, trying to twist your hand from his grip. He grabs your free hand, collecting both of your wrists in his grip, pinning them to the bed. 

You cunt clenches with need.

With his free hand he undoes his own pants and you go slack when his large, leaking cock springs out. 

Your mouth waters at the sight and you stifle your moan. It’s perfect, thick and long, pink at the tip and glistening, ready for you.

Oh how you’d love to wrap your lips around it one day.

He climbs back onto the bed, ducking down to swipe his tongue through your folds and you can’t hold back the noise that escapes at the feeling.

Azriel likes how you sound, all needy and whining for him, and he goes down for another lick because the taste of you exploding on his tongue is something he wants to taste everyday for the rest of his life.

“Azriel,” your tone has him freezing immediately, lifting his gaze to yours, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He thought you were enjoying this. Maybe you’d changed your mind?

“Save it for round two,” you whimper, and he nearly comes at the sound, the sight before him as you squirm, needy for his cock. “Please.”

“As you wish,” he whispers in your ear, licking at the shell of it. Your hand finds the back of his head and you turn to kiss him, hand snaking down to where his cock is rubbing against your dripping core.

It’s exactly like you thought, silky smooth and so large your hand can barely wrap around. He hums into your mouth as you tug it a few times, lining it up with your hole.

“Eager are we?” he smirks, though it sounds strained because all he wants to do is fuck into you.

“You’ve waited for this for two years–” he bucks and it elicits a filthy moan from you, “And you want to drag this out?”

“If it means keeping you in my bed I’ll do anything,” he pants.

“Show me what you’ve got and maybe I’ll stay,” you respond as innocently as you can but he’s pressing in all too slowly. 

You wiggle your hips, silently begging him for more as your breath catches in your throat from the sheer size of him. Azriel watches you worriedly, hoping that he’s not hurting you, but the incoherent sentences and hips wrapping around his waist tell him you’re enjoying this.

Raking your nails down his back, his hips settle against yours with a soft groan.

He kisses your red cheeks, murmuring, “Breathe, darling.”

You do, barely, Holy fuck, Azriel. You feel incredible.”

He preens, hiding his grin in the crook of your neck. Your hand slides up the length of his back, stopping at the nape of his neck so you can keep him there, kissing harshly at your throat.

Waves of pleasure wrack your body as he begins moving, clutching him tightly, tugging on his hair.

“You’re so fucking tight,” he growls, moving back form your neck to your lips, kissing you deeply.

His cheeks are flushed, hair definitely mused from where you’re pulling on it, his eyes soft but blazing with lust as he watches you become a mess beneath him. His pink lips curve into a smile at the sight.

You can hardly catch your breath as he pushes the air from your lungs with each thrust, filling you completely.

“So pretty,” he hums when you cry his name, “So fucking incredible.”

His voice is so deep you barely catch what he’s saying, reveling in the feel of his body against yours, his cock in your cunt as he picks up his pace a little, catching your mouth against his and pushing his tongue inside at the first opportunity.

You moan into his mouth, pliant in his arms. You’ll do anything he wants, if he asks. His hands are everywhere, his body is everywhere, his compliments wash over your body and all of it combined are working you closer to that familiar feeling.

Azriel fucks you, harder and faster until you’re moving backwards up the bed. He moves with you sometimes, a hand placed atop your head so he’s not rutting you right up into the headboard, other times he’s sitting up, grabbing you around the thighs, his cold ring branding your flesh everywhere he touches, pulling you down onto his cock.

You’re both slicked with each other’s sweat as he leans down so your hips, stomachs, chests are pressed together, his inky hair falling over his eyes.

He looks like fucking heaven. You can barely contain yourself, feeling the need to come seeping through your body, grinding up into him.

“Azriel, I’m going to–”

After a particularly hard thrust he snakes his hand between the two of you, finding your sensitive clit with ease. His calloused fingers know exactly what to do, and you can only picture him in the gym, perfecting this body, knowing his fingers hadn’t gotten tough from typing.

Each swirl of his fingers, thrust of his hips has you half moaning, half screaming as you grip him harder.

“That’s right (Y/N), good girl,” he praises and your eyes roll back in your head. You whine, needing to feel his lips against yours as you come and Azriel complies with a tender kiss that pushes you over the edge.

You’d never been fucks this good in your entire life.

Moaning his name loudly he works you through your orgasm, hips stuttering against yours as the wetness, your cunt convulsing, tightening around his cock sends him into a mind-numbing orgasmm of his own.

His forehead presses into yours and you moan his name over and over again because he won’t stop flicking over your sensitive clit. It feels amazing and you want to sob with pleasure, hips bucking up in a sharp movement that has his gasping against your neck.

You turn to him when he stills, kissing him like he’s the last thing you’ll ever taste.

Everything in your head is muddled, your focus only on everything Azriel.

He hums softly in your mouth and it makes your lip and tongue tingle. His body is hot where it’s pressed against yours but you don’t care, would rather be hot with him pressed against you than cold and alone.

Azriel holds you gently, slowly decreasing the pace of your movements until his lips are soft and light, almost tired. You sigh, curling a piece of his hair around your finger as he strokes your cheek with his thumb.

“That was…” he trails off because there are no words to describe just how amazing that was.

“Yeah,” you breathe in agreement, kissing him once more because you can’t help yourself, “Yeah, it was.”

His hold on you doesn’t ease once and your heart swells with happiness.

You don’t know how long you lie like that, tucked into his side, and you’re the first to break the silence.

“Az?” You trace your finger down his chest.

He looks down at you, kissing your forehead softly, “Yes?”

You peek up at him through your lashes and the sight of him stirs something hot in your gut.

“Can we order some food?”

The corners of his swollen lips twitch and he looks beyond perfect, molten caramel eyes crinkling at the corners as he lets out a deep chuckle.

“Yeah, let’s get some food, get some energy back for round two.”

[ynscrazylife]

Hey?? I Recently found you and I most say that I adore your page, I saw that you write for Lena do you think that your write a request for her?. My idea is that Reader and Lena are in a relationship, but Lena has feeling for Kara so Reader decided to leave her, you decided if they go back together or not.

I Wasn’t Enough | l.l angst fic

Summary: Y/N and Lena are in love. However, when Y/N recognizes that Lena has feelings for Kara, their relationship gets put in jeopardy.

Authors Note: Thank you for requesting! I never understand the want for angst

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PSA: Do NOT copy, steal, translate, plagiarize, republish, etc any of my works on Tumblr or any other platform. Also, do NOT claim any of my works as your own. All of these works are either requests I’ve gotten that people have wanted me to write or original ideas I’ve had for works. If you happen to take inspiration from anything I’ve written and want to write something inspired by that, please a) ask me first and b) IF I say yes, credit me as inspo in your post by tagging me and link whatever work of mine that inspired you. Thanks.

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Y/N hadn’t been able to contain her excitement when she was approved to work on an article on L-Corp and the woman behind it, Lena Luthor. She had found the woman’s story fascinating and wanted to shine some light on the shift from Luthor Corp to L-Corp, and this was her time to do so. 

The moment she set foot in Lena’s office, though, she knew she was screwed. 

She had seen the woman in pictures and watched her press conferences on T.V, but seeing the magnicant lady in person was a surreal experience, mostly because of how gorgeous she was. Y/N found herself instantly distracted, unable to keep from feeling dazed as she saw the brunette so graciously finish up typing whatever she was typing on her computer, stand up, and offer her the biggest, most charming smile Y/N had ever seen. 

“Hello! My friend, Kara Danvers, told me you were coming. I’m Lena Luthor, nice to meet you,” Lena’s voice which almost made Y/N swoon pulled her from her thoughts and she blinked, suddenly remembering what she was here for. 

(She couldn’t help but be in awe, though, because of how down to earth Lena was. She still introduced herself like a normal human even though of course, Y/N knew who she was!) 

“I’m, uh, Y/N Y/L/N! It’s nice to meet you, too, Ms Luthor - I, uh, apologize, I’m not usually this nervous,” she forced herself to say, lightly chuckling off the awkwardness. Crap, what was she doing?!

She shook Lena’s hand (and nearly fainted right then and there). “Oh, don’t apologize! No need to be nervous, darling - oh and you can just call me Lena,” Lena said, smiling and waving off Y/N’s concerns as she sat back at her desk.

Y/N had no clue what was going on. Lena seemed to have put a spell on her because the moment she said that, Y/N felt better about the interview, having been reassured, but then a whole new worry racked her body: Lena Luthor had just called her “darling”!!! The up and down of emotions was making her stomach do somersaults. 

The reporter took a couple deep breaths and cleared her throat so she wouldn’t vomit from being overwhelmed before sitting down in the chair across from Lena, beginning the interview. 

The rest was history and, seeing as they were both good friends of Kara’s, it wasn't long before she spilled the beans on her secret identity as Supergirl and the couple became unofficial members of the unofficial group, the Superfriends.

They were having their weekly game night, Lena sitting in an armchair with Y/N on her lap, Kara, James, and Alex on the couch, Winn on the floor, and J’onn in another armchair. Laugher and skies filled the room, accompanied with the faint smell of wine and the lipstick stains on the discarded glasses. 

“Damn, Luthor, you’re sneaky,” Kara grumbled as she fished in her pile of Monopoly money to get the correct amount she needed to pay Lena for landing on her property. 

Lena chuckled as Y/N took the fake money from Kara and handed it to her. “All apart of business, baby,” she commented. 

Everyone laughed it off, but Y/N tensed up. Was Lena flirting with Kara? She looked over her shoulder at her girlfriend and Lena furrowed her eyebrows before a look of realization washed over her face. She quickly shook her head, indicating that the nickname was harmless, and kissed Y/N’s cheek.

Y/N brushed it aside. It was just a meaningless comment. She slumped her tense shoulders, forcing her mind not to wander to the many “What If’s” that could possibly happen. What if it wasn't just a comment? What if-?

“Your turn, Y/N!” 

Y/N blinked, taking a second to realize what Alex said, and jumped up to grab the dice (she would have fallen off Lena’s lap had the brunette not wrapped her arms around her, and Y/N relaxed at her touch. 

She rolled it around in her hands before dropping it and moving her piece to her own property which she had landed on. As the game continued on, everything was normal. However, it was impossible for Y/N to miss the small talk Lena would occasionally make with Kara and how her comments were just on the line between cautious and flirtatious. She also noticed every time Lena would practically be giving the blonde heart eyes, but just tried to ignore it, telling herself that she’d talk to Lena later and everything would turn out fine. 

. . .  . . .  . . .   

“Lena, can I talk to you?” Y/N asked as they sat down for breakfast, both drinking coffee on the late Saturday morning. 

Lena glanced up from the newspaper she was reading and hummed an enthusiastic nod before taking a sip from her mug. 

Y/N nodded, eyes falling onto the table as she thought for a moment to sort out her thoughts. Taking a couple steady breaths, she asked, “Please don't take this the wrong way . . . Are you attracted to Kara?” 

Lena blinked, staring at her for a second before realizing she was serious. The CEO shook her head, forcing out a chuckle. “What? No. What makes you think that?” She said. 

Y/N couldn’t decide whether or not to be relived. She sighed. “Just some things you were saying and looks you were giving her last night,” she muttered. 

Lena scoffed, biting her lip before shaking her head more decidedly. “Do you really not trust me?” She spat out in a hiss, making Y/N recoil from the sudden harshness.

“What?” Was the only thing Y/N could say as she was dumbfounded.

Lena nodded slowly. “Why did I actually think that you’d be any different from everyone else in my life? You don’t trust me! You think I like Kara!” She said, on the verge of anger overtaking her. She pushed her chair back and stood up.

Y/N shook her head, needing a minute to process what was happening. “I didn’t mean it like that-” she began to say.

“Uh-huh,” Lena retorted mockingly. “I wasn’t planning on going into L-Corp today but I need to cool off.”

Before Y/N had even gotten out of the kitchen to follow her, she was met with the slam of the door bouncing off her walls. She stood, stunned.

What the hell had happened?

She spent the rest of the day in distress, replaying the argument over and over again in her head and each time it got worse. Each time in her mind Lena glared a little harder, was even more ruthless in her tone, or the door slamming was louder. Lena also let her phone calls go to voicemail, leaving Y/N in her thoughts. Was Lena right? Did she not trust her girlfriend? Or did she catch something that Lena didn’t even know about herself?

Did Lena like Kara?

She couldn’t decide.

When the keys were finally jingling in the door, Y/N jumped up from their bed and ran out to meet her girlfriend, her cheeks stained with tear streaks.

Lena didn’t look to happy, either. Her eyes were a little red and puffy and she was frowning.

“I did a lot of thinking today . . . And I talked to Kara,” Lena said, cutting immediately to the point. Her words, combined with her low and defeated tone, gave Y/N a sinking feeling in her stomach. “I’ve suppressed these feelings for a while, I realized, but . . . You were right. I like Kara. And . . . She likes me, too.”

Y/N felt like she was just hit with a truck. “What are you saying?” She asked, voice cracking from emotion as she sniffed and could feel big tears bubbling. “Are you planning to leave me for her?”

Lena didn’t look at her. She kept her gaze on the floor and opened her mouth to say something, which gave Y/N the slightest amount of hope, before it was ripped away from her when Lena stifled a sigh and shut her mouth.

There were a couple moments of silence that just pounded against Y/N’s head. “I should have know that I wasn’t enough for the CEO of L-Corp. That you’d want Supergirl,” she finally settled on saying. It was just filled with disappointment, sadness, and anger, lacking in bitterness or pity, as she realized that the fear she had ignored that Lena would fall for Kara was now painfully coming to life.

“I guess I’ll go pack my things,” Y/N continued, feeling lost and without any hope at all when Lena didn’t say anything, didn’t even try and tell her she was wrong. She sniffed and stomped her foot when her girlfriend was just content for her to walk away. “It’s good I didn’t sell my apartment yet. We’re done.”

With a glare, she turned around and angrily threw all her belongings into suitcases while Lena stood in the same exact spot, looking at the floor.

[the-art-of-animated-gifs]

Interview with my friend A.L. Crego

I have not met A.L. Crego.  I have not spoken with him on the phone, in fact I do not even know what he looks like.  But I can confidently call him my friend.  Three years ago when I started this blog he immediately disagreed with me in the comments about things I was writing and I loved it.  As a person putting ideas out there, you treasure things like that....because you know someone cares.  We have had many back and forth discussions over the years....if we had lived in Paris in 1911 we would be having arguments at La Rotonde (not to compare either of us to Picasso).

A.L. Crego is a motion artist who does a wide variety of things.  He has now become a very visible and active figure in the NFT Movement.  He recently completed a large and very successful project in which he animated the work of a number of well know street artists on the building themselves, something he has done for years.  His Tumblr page is a good place to start to see his work, which is largely surrealist in nature -- another Spanish artist following in the footsteps of other great Spanish surrealist artists.

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How long have you been creating gif art?

In a conscious and intentional way since 2014. Previously I haven't pay too much attention on one hand for its common use that was mostly ads and funny little videos, and on the other hand because it was a 'standard' format we accepted as something part of the web so I never stopped to analyze its potential. The key point for me was about 2010-2011 when the concept of 'Cinemagraph' was brought to life just giving it a name. It's format is .gif but its characteristics are different so I saw there the midpoint between photography and video, which gave born another format of art.

Art mutates when a new format appears. I was using and studying this format since then but it wasn't until 2014 that I decided to publish some of them.

What is your background?

In general terms, bachelor, 2 years of stone sculpting and two attempts of photography and audiovisual mediums. I say attempts because I gave up both of them as I was feeling that I was looking for something else more than studying all the previous history, style and isms, which is nice to understand where everything comes from and to be aware what are the key points on the history to use as reference, as a map. But in some way I felt limited as I was using digital tools since I had my first computer with 14 years, and I was being taught things I learnt by then. Even more in this times we are living where we are 21 century people, been taught by teachers from the 20 with 19 century methods.

A constant line that feeds my background is literature and music overall and later Street Art, next to more temporal interests as everything related with mythology, alchemy, history, psychology, neurology, biology, human condition in general... I don't have studies buy I'm a studying guy!

I always like to highlight that all these years that internet got strong and social networks appeared, I decided voluntary to be out of them. First reason was to keep my privacy safe in a growing world where it seemed that some "curtain" felt and everybody accepted that intimacy was now 'ex-timacy' and correct to show their private life, (this shocked me). Another reason was about the psychological effect that social networks were having on people I had around and everywhere in general. I started to notice patterns and "waves" about series, aesthetics, styles, and I was seeing clearly that if I go there, I will become permeable to all this "Amniotic Culture" I was trying to avoid.

This fact of being far (but study them closely) helped me a lot about researching and developing my own ideas and style, for the mere fact that I was using all this time and attention Social Networks require, on drinking from another sources. The B-side of this is that I was 'out of the radar' of mass people as this social networks are designed to live inside them. My idea of internet and spreading ideas is not in this way.

Where do you live and work?

In the north west of Spain, Galicia. Now due to Covid I travel less but before it, I was working and traveling many places as I only need a camera and a computer. This allows me move to work anywhere.

Do you think that animated gifs are a new art form?

I think so, despite the fact that the format existed since 1987. But as every new format of art it takes its time to be considered as art. The first photographs were not considered art until many years later. Same happened with film, same with CGI. Is nice to have in mind that gif format is the last strictly digital format of the three main ones on the web: picture, video and gif. Photography has about 200 years of history, video about 130, CGI about 60. Finally gif has 33, and used as art itself no more than 10-15. In the same way anybody takes a picture of anything does not convert it into art, is the same with gifs. One thing is the format, another is the 'art'. Everybody can take a picture, record a video or do a gif. The difference is on the how, the why, and from my point of view overall, the what.

Do you think that there is a difference between pure .gif files and the .mp4 files that people post on Instagram?

The first, big and obvious difference is the format. Is not the same a painting as a picture of a painting. Here happens the same. For example, if you treat a gif with Cinemagraph technique, you are converting in picture some parts of the image, so they still remain and with the texture and totally stillness of a picture. If you convert this gif into a mp4 this still parts, despite not having motion, will convert into a video texture (noise, subtle motion in pixels, etc) so the main characteristic, among the perfect loop, is lost. Another point is that you must play a video, a gif is always running. Waterfalls are always running and this characteristic is something that is inside our human nature, we react nice to "bucle" motions as waterfalls, fire, etc. We find pleasure on this. Of course if it's a video the perfect loop is lost and the visual mantra disappear. And another key point here is the soundtrack. In a video you can use sound to enhance or give another meaning to the piece that you can't with gifs. For me this is another characteristic that give meaning to gif. For me gif is silence, the sound is generated by the motion, the melody are the details and the beat the perfect loop. You can "hear" almost every gif.

The difference between a gif and a video is the same that between a waterfall and a hose (if this works).

What do you think are the characteristics of good gif art?

For me first and overall the perfect loop. Not using it is not using the only format that has this characteristics. Of course there can be gif art that is not perfect loop, but from my point of view and in my work is a must. It's a new way not only of creating but also of thinking. Imagine an still scene is easy, imagine an A-B point action is easy. For me the challenge is about thinking an idea that is perfect looped where all the elements interact and eventually come back to its initial point. Succeed doing this is where the perfect loop appears and you are not able to find where is the start point of the action. Like a visual mantra, that it's repetition leads you inside the piece. Gif art is nice to use the power of the hypnotic movements. Another point to have in mind for me is the flow of it, the frame rate I mean. Depending on the idea and the kind of animation this should vary; is not the same fps to achieve something with flow than if you want to achieve a more 'retro' old style. Another thing is about dithering and color palette. This second one is essential to understand as it affects the final file. When we work with photo and video we are using millions of colors but when rendered as gifs all the gradients, lights and even colors will change if there is a previous understood of this point.

As summary: If motion doesn't add, change of enhance the meaning of the piece, is expendable.

I'd would like to add that I'm not really supporter of this kind of gifs generated automatically that just move a still image itself. I understand that this 'technique' is used as a tool for certain motion (I use it) but not to move a whole image. I feel the same as if somebody hold a painting in front of me and moves it randomly. If the work was born still, it must remain still. A good example of 'inner motion', this means that the motion is implicit on the image despite not being in motion, are the photographs of Cartier Bresson for example. Giving motion to this pictures for example, will kill it because it will break the concept of 'perfect instant' .

'Instant' differs etymologically from 'moment' in the motion. So, still image (painting, photo, sculpture, etc) is an instant, videos are stories with a-b point, and gifs are moments, the mid point.

How would you describe your gif art?

I usually condense it as "Visual Mantras", as the technique and the aesthetic vary depending on the idea , but in all of them the perfect loop and the intention of hypnotizing is always present.

In another terms about aesthetics and themes I think ‘Industrial Nature’ can fit nice. I use a lot of industrial elements but I like to mix their mechanics with the biological natural ones.

How long have you been creating and selling NFTs?

I am selling NFTs since mid 2019, but it wasn't until October 2020 that I focused more on it and dug into the ecosystem to find new paths to focus my work.

Do you think that NFTs are a positive for gif artists?

For me, and the main reason I jumped into cryptoart and NFT, is that now I can certify my digital work as original. Even more to gif works as they were always understood as something banal and minor for the context of its born. Gif art was born prostituted, used mostly for ads and to claim our attention on the internet, next to the highest glamour of painting and traditional art, and 3d, photography and video these last decades. Even worst if we realize that gif format was the only visual format born by and for the internet.

NFTs are totally positive for gif artists because despite being a digital/online native format it never had its own ecosystem to live in. I feel that I was creating creatures for an ecosystem I was waiting to drop them there. Now with the blockchain, NFTs and cryptoart, I found the place where they can live, being watched by everybody and have the certify that is my work. Until some months ago my work was "free" on the web and I had no control over it at all. This was a huge problem I was suffering since my first month into gif art as people use it indiscriminately with no credit at all. It's ok, and I always defend that my work is to be seen, to be shared, but I was looking for the way to be able to have this link with my work without losing the option of being available for everybody. NFT totally changes this.

What do you think will happen in the future as NFTs get even more popular?

In general terms I think it will happen the same as when print got more popular. People will use it more, a lot of crazy and useless things will appear, tons more of different uses and useful purposes, (not only on art). This opens a new door a lot of people was waiting so the future is unpredictable but we can feel where things are going. NFT arrived to stay and the concept of decentralization is something that was always present on the internet since first days but born inside a centralized system. NFTs are being a way for people to understand the 'peer to peer' philosophy and this makes people think in different codes, so we can expect a lot of new horizons, in art, music, design...

What do you think of the environmental impact of NFTs?

This question can goes really deep but in general terms I think that is something that is being oversized due to the hype and the boiling point we are, and it's understandable because is not false that it has an environmental impact, as everything does. But on the other hand I have two main areas in mind. The first and the obvious from my point of view is that when something is new and developing is less efficient, in the way that it requires more effort to achieve the result. But at the same time, the more this technology is used the more is developed and all this issues are part of it. The first car was not electric.

The second point that usually reverberates in my mind and that it seems that 'hard critics' omit is that they are not having in mind that this NFTs we mint, give us a profit that can be used offline to do another things that can be useful to solve this problem, for example, investing part of this money on living on our own in a minimal and clean way (not working for huge multinational that their environmental impact is tons times more than NFTs and then being part of an ONG to feel clean) and on using part of this money on looking and researching new ways to mint and to keep this digital ecosystem more efficient and clean. Every development needs time.

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If you have found this content valuable considering getting me a cup of coffee

[asleepinawell]

How has poi changed your life? Genuinely curious, I love this show

I got this ask in May '20 and am only now answering it. :')

part of the problem with answering it is that half of the answer would be to the question of 'how has fandom changed your life' where poi is the fandom I've been the most active in and where fandom made the most difference. and that's a long story

my first draft of this was over 2k words long, and went back much further in time explaining how i had and hadn’t fit into queer spaces and fandom throughout my life. I edited it way back but it’s still long-ish, so you can read it below the break

many years ago, when I got my first full time job in my chosen industry my senior year of college I was so busy that I couldn't function. massive unhealthy amounts of overtime and a toxic work environment. (don't work at tech start-ups, kids!!!) my social life vanished. strikethrough on livejournal happened right then too and fandom, which i’d only been a silent participant in at that point, kind of went quiet for a while and by the time it started regrouping I was so busy that I didn't know about it. several awful years later I quit my job, spent several months in my room in my parents' house trying to recover from massive burn out (see my comment about tech start-ups), and then got a job on the opposite coast and left behind my whole circle of friends some of whom made up my entire connection to the queer community at that time.

making friends after college is very hard when you're an introvert and just generally don't like socializing that much. making queer friends can be even harder since there's fewer places to meet them and there's often an underlying question of dating/sex that hovers around awkwardly when sometimes what you want is just an absolutely no romo/no sex friendship. so while I did make a few queer friends eventually, I didn't have that same sort of community I did before I'd moved and I missed it

(I would be remiss in not saying that the queer friends i made in this time are all amazing and wonderful and some are still my close friends and very important to me. The thing I’m highlighting here was the lack of feeling like I was part of a larger queer community).

fast forward a bit. I get sick. like really really sick. I'm in and out of the ER, I'm missing tons of work, I'm mostly bed-ridden. I think after the last few years people can more easily appreciate how intensely lonely and surreal being stuck at home by yourself non stop can be when you're not used to it. sometime right before that I'd joined tumblr for the sole purpose of looking at cat pictures on my phone during boring meetings. I wasn't really aware that this was where fandom had migrated to (it was in fact possible to use tumblr without intersecting with fandom). but stuck home alone with time to kill I started looking for art and gifs of the tv and games I was consuming and stumbled into fandom tumblr and specifically queer femslash fandom.

I kind of poked around the territory and eventually fell into the carmilla fandom which became the first fandom I actually created content for. a few of my fics had a decent audience and while I was never part of the central core of the fandom I made some good friends there. some of y'all probably followed me back then. I eventually drifted away from carmilla for a lot of reasons I won't get into and stumbled right into poi. this would have been between seasons 4 and 5, late 2015-early 2016.

my health problems get more exciting and I end up in the hospital. I have vague memories of watching poi on my laptop in my hospital bed (vague because I was on a lot of morphine). I actually posted some fic while I was in the hospital (would have been the end of my carmilla run still).

and I get out of the hospital (early 2016) and am somewhat better but it's pretty clear that I'm going to have chronic health issues probably for the rest of my life. my social life, such as it was, was mostly dead, a lot of stuff I used to do for fun was much harder to manage. I'm still spending a ton of time at home (not even counting covid) and I have bad days where I feel terrible and can't do much. but I'll come back to that

I think most of us remember 2016. the year tv show runners fully embraced the bury your gays trope (and sometimes the fridging trope at the same time as a bonus!) and, by autostraddle's tally, 30 queer female characters in tv shows died. and then on top of that we had the actual real world tragedy of the pulse nightclub shootings. it was a massively depressing time all around for queer people

s5 of poi aired that year. I know people have different opinions on s5 of poi, and that's valid. I hated it. and I really intensely hated how it treated root and shaw. there aren't enough words to express how fucking angry I was after s5. or rather, there are 319,678 words.

I wrote a fic many of you may have read called sliding towards chaos that rewrote the entirety of poi from mid-s3 onwards. it got pretty popular lol. I put so much into writing it, too. it was basically a second full time job for me and a great way to take my mind off the fact I was still having health problems and all the crazy shit going on in the world (we had a presidential election in the US in 2016 :)))) it did not go well!)

i'm very proud of writing stc, and even if I think it isn't my strongest writing (which is good! improving over time is good!), it was what really connected me to a lot of other people in the fandom. I felt part of the fandom community in a way I hadn't with carmilla and it was an intensely queer community built around shared interests

one of the problems with finding queer friend groups out in the 'real world' is you're often gathering to meet based on the uniting factor of being queer, and your interests may vary greatly. fandom is amazing because it lets you find queer people who you share all these interests with and who you can bond with over them and collaborate with and that's just so so important. does fandom have a ton of issues and toxicity and bigotry? yes, absolutely. but it also has so much good to offer

through stc and later fics I became close friends with some really really cool people in the fandom (including my favorite writer and my favorite artist). these are people I'm still very close friends with. some of them I've hung out with offline and the ones I haven't are mostly because they live too far away. after years of not having my own queer circle of friends I have found one again and one I can usually participate in even with my health problems and that is such an important thing to me

on a creative front, the fic writing and the gif making I've done have both taught me an enormous amount and been a very positive part of my life. working collaboratively on comics has been one of the coolest things I've done. there is just so much good that came out of me seeing one shoot gif on tumblr dot com years ago and being like hmm looks gay I'm in

and in terms of the actual content of the show, I think a lot of the reason I was drawn to it (other than my lingering crush on fred from angel) was that root and shaw felt so uniquely and wonderfully queer in a way few f/f ships I'd seen had before. shaw being bi and reading as aro to me (I've talked about that here) and root being a chaotic computer nerd just felt so relatable to me and their relationship with each other made sense to me in a way that few others had. and the specific draw that they had for some fans probably has a lot to do with why I found friends in this fandom who I really clicked with

so yeah. I don't know how to sum this up. fandom can be a great way to find your people and engage your creativity and I think that's very sexy