#IN ALL SERIOUSNESS. what an exceptional adaptation honestly

[crehador]

please watch migi to dali, normalest and most hinged show of fall 2023

[thelastofhyde]

the likeability paradox.

pairing. joel miller x fem!reader

synopsis. joel miller is not a man who strives to be liked, with a chip on his shoulder and a scowl on his face, until his world is flipped on its axis when the pretty young thing living under bill and frank's roof, with an irritatingly unwavering smile and the literal sun shinning out her ass, says those five damned words: i don't like you, joel.

warnings. no use of y/n, enemies to lovers, slow burn ( i have several oneshots planned for this couple ), unrequited love ( except you will never catch joel miller admitting he feels anything beyond grief, hunger and exhaustion ), pining, poor communication no communication, no seriously joel is down bad it's actually disgusting and highkey 🚩toxic🚩 but luckily red is your favourite colour, sunshine!reader, grumpy!joel aka canon joel, kinda perv!joel ( if you squint ), implied queer!tess, undefined age gap ( reader implied late-20s ), descriptions of canon-typical violence, smut ( oral- f receiving, fingering, degradation, panty stealing, hair pulling, dirty talk, dubcon due to intoxication, joel kinda gives her a wedgie at some point and honestly i don’t know what i was hoping to achieve with that, discussions of a lacklustre sex-life pre-apocalypse ). reader is a) hinted at being shorter than joel but it’s not central to the plot and b) described as lithe but the meaning intended is graceful, not thin!

word count. 12.9k

hyde’s input. half-way through, the regret of choosing to write this from joel's pov started to settle in but lmao i was too far in to not commit to the bit. don't come at me for the fact the timeline or events may not seem plausible with canon, i just wanna write this silly little depraved fic about joel in peace :( anyway, enjoy my first attempt at writing for tlou, forming a prayer circle rn in hopes that this doesn't flop because i will cry and you will hear about it

read on ao3. series masterlist. next chapter.

Distaste is not new in the life of Joel Miller.

In particular, one that is loaded, aimed and fired directly at him. He is not a likeable guy, often by choice and rarely by accident. The years of pain from a bleeding wound have now scarred over into nothing but an empty shell of the man that once was, from a world that no longer is, and he’s tried little to fill himself back up.

If anything, he’s made himself more empty.

Rid himself of feelings, that which saves him the weakness of appearing sympathetic. Discarded the need for luxuries, for which he’d scarcely cared for prior to his world ending. Lay to rest what was left of the optimist inside him, leaving behind the danger of hope for it to rot with the rest of the infected.

An apocalyptic world brings out all sides of man that one would never dare to engage with in normal civilisation. Joel learned swiftly that he was built to endure, quick to evolve and adapt to the new world order. The man who once worked his hardest to keep the peace among his neighbours, smiling that little bit wider on days he’d catch them scowling to themselves in hopes of brightening one part of their day for even a simple moment, would be at odds with the man who wears a heavy layer of enjoyment when met with the scowling glances and the hushed voices, all the watch out for that Miller guys passed between cowardly members of FEDRA and the keep away from Mr Miller's lawns spoken harshly from mother to child becoming music to his failing ears.

This plague of fear-driven dislike keeps him alone, how he likes to be, no one to lose and nothing to be taken. Somewhere along the years the idea of safety in numbers has morphed into an illusion, something people say and never truly mean, to distract themselves from a reality more bitter than a snowstorm: in times of survival, people become deadweight.

“So that’s all I am to ya, huh? Dead-fucking-weight?” His brother’s voice still echoes in that damned space he calls a home, weeks or months or years since the day he’d departed for something else, somewhere else, leaving Joel to do what Joel does best: endure.

Somehow, silence was easier than telling the man he’d taught to tie a shoelace, to shave his beard, to tune a guitar that he was the deadweight, doomed to drag all those who remained too close down into his pit of despair.

She was an exception, his Tess, buried 5-feet-under in her own swell of darkness, nothing but the tips of her fingers stretched out above her head to feel the sun upon her skin and keep her from going that last foot deeper. They’d made a home for themselves in one another, one where he keeps them fed, and she keeps them safe, and neither of them keeps the place clean.

She never asks for more, and he never offers it, both content to survive without the weight of affection smothering them. Contrary to the belief of any misfortunate soul who’s encountered the pair within the quarantine zone, she is the one who holds the leash, tugging Joel along close by her heel and keeping him from wandering off into the wild to surrender himself to a feral lifestyle.

Which lands him here, sat at a table playing happy family, each time he dares to snark out a few words being met with the sharp kick of Tess’ foot against his shin.

“... And then,” Frank struggles over a cough, so excited in his story-telling that he fails to separate taking a breath from taking a sip of his wine. With a roll of eyes and a disapproving grunt, Bill’s no more than two seconds away from clapping down on his back, urging the other man’s wind-pipes to unblock and welcome back airflow. “Otis dragged his muddied self over the whole house. We were finding paw-prints for days!”

Joel's unamused, too keen to think of what a nuisance that would be. As if incapable of feeling the buzzing energy of disinterest, the German Shepherd drops its head further up his lap, begging for a morsel of anything that sits atop the table.

“Which means I was cleaning paw-prints for days.” Bill, the only one at the table besides himself who wears the looks of a cynic, grumbles out before shovelling what remains on his plate into his mouth.

Frank is quick to shush him.

“I’m sorry, again, Bill,” he doesn’t mean to break eye-contact from the mutt at his thigh, but the voice calls to him like a siren calls to a ship in the night, like a flame dances and seduces a moth into its brightly burning touch of death, a spotlight in the dark which promises- or threatens- more light to come. “I’d no clue there was a storm coming till we were already a good few miles away, and there was nowhere to take cover to wait it out.”

There you sit, parallel to him.

The sun rests lower in the sky as time carries you all into the late noon, its rays a beacon of light bursting out just behind your head, painting you in the glow of the golden hour and staining a mockery of a halo above you. It hurts his eyes, this brightness that you so easily bask in, forcing him to squint and deepen the frown on his face.

You catch him with his sights on you, at some point, and the smile you meet his scowl with has him cursing at the sun, and the moon, and every star that sits between.

The threat of a great war looms in the air as you rush to rise up and help clear the table of the remnants left behind- none of which Joel can account for, mouth too keen and body too starved to skip out on enjoying the mundane luxury of a fresh, home-cooked meal. The battle ends swiftly as you surrender to Bill’s hardened stare, and Frank’s disapproving head-shakes, and Tess’ own plan of action to simply force you down back into the seat you’d been sat in- the one you always sit in.

“You, sit. No one should have to clean up the food they made.”

They get no fight out of him when they insist he’d done enough catching the so-called food.

Silence casts its shadow over the table, dampening the light and smothering you both in a mockery of greyed tones- truthfully, it is the disappearance of the sun behind a large cloud that causes such a thing.

Being alone, with you, is something Joel’s never mastered. The affliction of your presence is so much greater when there’s no one else to balance out your natural shine- the kind that has his head spinning and his cock aching-, no one but him.

Were he not a sick bastard, he’d try harder to not make you sad.

Something bumps his hands, ripping him out of his moral self-condemnation. The dog meets his gaze, eyes a widened mess of puppy-dog pleading that punctuates its existence with an impatient whine.

Just like your owner, he finds himself thinking and not saying- never saying-, yet to find your bark.

The ball’s a sticky mess of slobber and dirt, and Joel touches it all the same, throwing it up in the air once, then twice, before tossing it across the yard. He’s slumped back in his chair by the time he registers the dog’s departure, a ball of dark fluff bouncing its way across the garden, and all the man can think is fuck, he’ll be feeling the effect of that throw on his shoulder come the morning.

The pain is not enough to stop him from tossing the ball again, and once more, and then yet again, sending the dog in a never-ending loop of chase, grab, retrieve- a parallel to his life of wake, survive, sleep.

“He likes you,” you never leave things the way he wishes them to be, bursting his bubble with the vocal reminder of your presence.

As if on queue, prompted by your addressing of it, the dog drops its interest in Joel, and the ball, and the chasing, tail wagging uncontrollably by the time it reaches your side. Standing on its hind legs, it collapses the front of itself into your waiting lap, and Joel watches how you wrap your arms so easily around something that could cause you harm.

To envy a creature that licks its own shit off its ass is a new low for Joel.

“Thinkin’ he might like ya more, Sol.” The nickname rolls off his tongue with ease, the safer option than uttering your name, a vice and virtue he’s only permitted himself in idealistic fantasies that play out in his own troubled thoughts.

“Most people do,” whether you mean to make it seem like you’re degrading his very existence or not, he’s unsure, but it rouses a chuckle out of him.

He takes note of how you don’t protest the name he’s branded you with, not like how you’d fought tooth and nail against it every other visit he and Tess have made.

“You’ve got a whole load in common, you know? I think that’s got something to do with his fascination-”

“How the hell’s a man like me got somethin’ in common with a four-legged mutt?” There he goes again, making that smile slip down your cheeks with a simple use of his voice. It helps as much as it hurts, frown loosening up and eyes no longer strained beneath the bright shine of your visceral optimism.

“Well, you’re both... hairy,” he restrains himself from reacting, washing down a laugh with the help of the dregs of wine that lay collecting at the bottom of his glass. He’s let his appearance grow more rugged over the past few months and your noticing of this brings an unwanted warmth to his aching bones. “And have the most kickass women in your lives to stop you from dying.”

He’s interested to know what life would be like under your protection.

Discovering the answer brings the threat of pain, and loss, and an openness to vulnerability he can not afford himself, so he takes the safer option: “‘S easy stayin’ safe when you live in this fantasy land. Doubt your mutt’d last any longer than a day out in reality.”

With you as its protector.

He doesn’t say it and, still, it somehow hovers in the space between you both, a heavy, syrupy implication that slips down your throats and threatens to suffocate you. He watches you choke on it, coughing on his cruelty and feigning it to be a simple clearing of your throat. Your eyes glue themselves on the dog, delicate fingers smoothing over the well-groomed hairs down its back.

Survival has turned him into a man who knows when to seize an opportunity, and this is one he takes with both hands, basking in the simplicity of staring, watching, observing you without the crime of being caught.

But I could keep you safe.

He toys with the danger of uttering such a thing aloud. It’s not the first time he’s thought it. Truthfully, he’s unsure when it first nestled its way into his mind.

His memory, which ails him more than it aids him these past years, would have him believe it was way before the dog had even appeared, back when it was just Bill, Frank and you. A few whiskeys in and a campfire lit for you all to gather for warmth around- why you’d all chosen to sit out in the gardens on a winter’s night Joel remains unsure of to this day-, it was Frank who’d prompted the question. “Where were you all when... this started?” Tess went first, braver than most people he knows, sharing stories of a version of herself he’d never meet.

He never imagined her working in a bank.

Bill, with reluctance, took the next step, keeping his account factual and to the point. “Was shit-faced drunk and getting my stomach pumped.” He’d been quick to skim over the story of the young nurse who’d guided him to safety out the hospital, losing her own life in exchange for his survival. She was barely out of school. “I knew her dad, bit of an asshole, but boy, was he proud of his baby for graduating.” Frank couldn’t let him swim too deep in his thoughts, afraid a current of guilt would trap him and drown him in the depths of it, and so he raised his own voice and began his tale.

Joel had always been a good listener. Being a single parent to a teenage girl required him to be, or so... she would have had him believe, nights at the table set for two spent listening to the playground he-said-she-said gossip. Years later and he at last prefers things this way, a rare gem of safety found in the act of saying nothing and hearing everything- that his hearing will allow. All this to say, he’d tried his best to pay attention to Frank’s impassioned retelling of his heroic misadventures that had lead him to the unintentional arms of Bill.

But you weren’t smiling.

He watched you, you watched the dancing flames, face stoic and drained of that natural shine his eyes had only just started to be able to gaze upon without the threat of being blinded by such light.

The desire crept up on him like a tiger to it’s prey, hiding in the far off bushes until the opportunity to strike presented itself and the feeling lunged for Joel’s back, gripping him in its claws and piercing his ribcage with its gnashing teeth. With each bite, it plagued him with the delusions of a wandering mind, imagination left free to run laps around his head with visions of you from another life, another time, another set of people gathered round a dining table. He’d wanted to hear about the ones you’d lost, and comfort you with all the things he hated hearing (“You’ll keep ‘em alive, in spirit and memory!” “Those we remember never truly die!”). He’d needed to bend a knee and swear a vow to be the one to stand between you and death, to fight for your survival on your behalf. ‘Could keep you safe. There, then, the thought did cross his mind.

He’d washed it down with a swig of lukewarm, flat beer.

“-Could fix it, you know. I’m good with my hands.”

He almost chokes on his own breath.

I'm good with my hands, it swims in circles round his mind, replaying and echoing off the walls of his skull. And he knows- oh, how he knows- that he’ll be replaying it in those moments of solitude for the next few nights, weeks, months- however long it may take till he forgets the way such thought-provoking words sound on your lips.

“What?” The question leaves him harsher than he intends, drawing an enemy line between you both with the foul sound of it. In the corner of his eye, he swears he sees you flinch backwards, physically recoiling from the disdain-filled bullet he fires in your direction.

The mutt in your lap retreats, hackles rising as it turns to face Joel once more.

He sees it, in the dog’s brutal protectiveness over you, this similarity you claim exists.

“Your watch, it’s broken.”

“Hadn’t noticed,” he’s retreating into his own space now, mentally and physically, scraping the legs of his chair against the ground as his mind works to strengthen those walls that threaten to crumble so often in your presence. “Don’t need ya to fix it.”

You pull a face, brows furrowing and lips pouting. Confusion.

“Don’t you want to know the time?” You ask, as if time could ever be relevant in a rotten world where down is up, and up is down, and Joel Miller is not the overprotective father to the most delicate creature the god he’d stopped believing in had gifted him, just to force him to watch as life snatched her away.

“I don’t keep it for the time.”

You smile, and this one’s a killer, piercing straight through the cages of his ribs to carve itself into his withered heart.

The German Shepherd relaxes with the rebrightening of your aura, shaking out the tension from its body before sauntering its way back over to Joel, ball in mouth and tail wagging excitedly, as if it hadn’t just contemplated having its first taste of human flesh.

He’s throwing the toy in a matter of minutes, enjoying the repeated run and retrieve game, and the renewed silence that comes along with it. Nature sings its tune with rustling leaves, cawing crows, and pounding paws. It’s almost so easy to leave your offer, your words, his broken watch in the rearview mirror of this otherwise pleasant afterno-

“Ooh, so there’s a story to tell!” You’re blinding him with your excitement, lithe limbs leaning forward in your own chair in an attempt to reach closer, table between you be damned. “I’ve never heard any of the Joel Miller backstory, this should be-”

“I get that likin’ everyone is your thing, but would’ya give it a rest?”

Nature falls silent.

Skies grow dull.

You juggle sadness.

There’s a crash that comes from within the house, followed by the unmistakable sound of Tess’ sailor mouth, cursing whichever delicate dish she’s broken into smithereens with the help of her accident prone hands. The dog’s lain itself down upon the grass, ball between it’s paws as it begins to bite, and chew, and break it under the pressure of its canines.

Joel wonders what the mutt’s practicing for.

“Sure,” then, with the return of your voice, all sounds resume, harmony upon planet earth once more. Only, the gates have been shut in his face and Joel finds himself forced to watch as everything unfolds from the outside, an unwelcome visitor forced out into exile with the fungal freaks and the inhumane. “But you’re wrong. I don’t like everyone.”

“‘S that so.” His eyes roll. The hole he’s dug for himself sinks deeper, casting you higher up on the pedestal Joel will always be wiling to place you on.

“Yeah,” you’ve risen out your chair, gifting him the view of how the fabric of your dress dances above your knee, a final twist of the knife in his heart that he lets you pierce his flesh with each time he surrenders himself to your existence. “I don’t like you, Joel.”

The hours come and go, but your words linger like a bad tattoo, shamefully engraved into his skin and banning him to a life of noticing the horrendous thing each time he passes by his own reflection.

We’re staying, for tonight. Tess had called the shots, and he’s been learning not to argue when she gives him one of her stern looks, biting down on the comments he’d wanted to make of the dangers of being out of the QZ for too long, which would likely earn him nothing but a shrug and the reminder that they both were off duty the following day

The nights are beginning to grow darker as winter grows nearer, leading Bill and Frank- mostly Frank- to excuse themselves to bed, bidding the two visitors with a final reminder to make themselves comfortable in whichever room they can find. If only Joel could remember which door leads to yours.

The two women in his life remain awakened, passing a bottle of wine between each other as you both converse back and forth, catching each other up on one another’s life, satiating that craving for mundane gossip.

Tess recounts the scandal of the poor boy who’d been caught sleeping with a FEDRA agent’s wife, you whisper that Frank and Bill had been fighting again recently. The memory of being ambushed by raiders- now dead raiders- comes to life once more with the help of Tess’ voice, while the promise to uncover what exactly Bill and Frank were hiding from you as of late is sealed in your words.

At some point, he lays himself to rest atop the couch, legs stretched out and arms crossed over his chest, ignoring the squeeze of the fabric over his forearms as the too-small flannel struggles to contain the muscles forged by the need to survive. At another point, he’s lulled to sleep by the lullaby of your mingling voices, a safety blanket draping itself over his tired body and enveloping him in the comforts of having that which he struggles to care so little for, so near him once more.

-N’t tell me you’re a virgin.

The words are muffled as the man slips back into consciousness, a frown coming to rest on his forehead as he battles against the demons urging him awake, the nightmarish memories of car crashes, and soldiers, and so much red chasing him away from the sleep he longs for so badly.

A protest rings true in his head and his ears.

Was gonna say. Knew you were young, but not that young.

It’s the sound of your laughter that awakens him fully, saving him from the tortures of his own mind.

“God, no! me and my ex, we... a few times. It was alright, I guess. I just, yeah, there’s not much to miss.”

He’s unwilling, unable to reopen his eyes, curling in on himself as he rolls over onto his side. A groan slips past his lips, one he’s hoping Tess and you will dismiss as nothing more than the sleep-filled rambles of a dreaming man.

Neither of you make any acknowledgement of him.

“Not much to miss?! Sweet Christ, you’re breaking my fuckin’ heart.” He’s learnt over time the common traits of a drunken Tess. Each word becoming an exclamation, curses becoming more frequent, and that irritating habit she’s picked up of imitating his own accent. There’s no need to bother opening his eyes, Joel’s already sure he’ll find his companion with flushed cheeks and glassy eyes. “I’d give up a hand for some head!”

You must do something, pull a face or shake your head, for the sound of Tess’ renewed shock fills the room. He wonders, as the sound bounces off the walls, how late into the night it’s grown.

Late enough that the cicadas singing outside the window are now accompanied by the hoots of an owl.

“You’ve got to be shittin’ me.”

“It bores me!”

“It bores you!?”

The couch beneath Joel creaks as he shifts once more, turning his back on you both as the ability to contain his laughter grows harder with each word you exchange and each gasp Tess gives. The last thing he needs is to be caught eavesdropping on your sex life like some dirty old pervert.

The crueler part of his mind replays your voice, I don’t like you, and the knife twists in his guts this time.

You like Tess. Love her, even. It’s been that way since the first time you’d met the duo, eyes giving one look over the woman before the smile on your face grew even wider, voice as sweet as honey sighing out Finally someone with a pair of boobs, I’m bored of the sight of my own. Joel’d gotten caught up in the thought of how he’d never tire of such a sight that he’d failed to acknowledge your greeting towards him, catching just the moment you drew your outstretched hand back to your side and offered him an understanding smile.

Maybe that was the moment you decided you didn’t like him.

“Must not have been doin’ ya right,” The bottle of southern comfort is working its wonders on the older woman, accent growing further and further from its true nature with each glass she nurses. Joel hears the faint sound of ice smacking against glass and knows it must be yours. You’ve always struggled with liquors, slipping as many ice cubes as you can manage into a glass in hopes that they’ll eventually melt and water the alcohol down. It’s oddly endearing that you think no one has noticed. Because he has, he always notices the little details that surround you. “This fella of yours.”

Joel has no right to despise the idea of you and some fella.

He does so, regardless.

“Well,” he imagines the shape of your meek smile and the way you shrug your shoulders. “We were each others firsts.”

“That’s no excuse! Trust I left mine cryin’ into her pillow the first time I went down.” Tess and he have a silent agreement to never speak of the nights Joel would take refuge on their beaten-up couch while Tess indulges herself between someone’s thighs in the bedroom. No discussing the sounds she pulls from her concubines, no addressing the wet patches left behind to stain their shared sheets, and definitely no speaking on how his hand winds up stained in his own cum.

You scoff and follow it up with a saccharine laced giggle, so sweet its bound to rot your teeth if you even attempt to hold it in. “What, are you offering your services?”

tThis he likes less than the image of you with some fella, the thought of having to lay upon a mattress on which Tess has raised you to heaven on while he once again remained locked out in the dark leaving his skin crawling with unwarranted rage.

“‘As sure as I am that you’re sweet all over, ‘fraid to tell you I like my women a little older than you.”

He knows he should do the same, should lust after those women his own age who shoot him carnal looks in the streets of the QZ. It should be skin his own age that he longs to taste, and eyes who’ve seen as much as his own he wants to stare into, and lips as cruel as the ones he owns that he fights off the urges to kiss. But he can’t, and he won’t.

And you’re the one to blame.

You, with the glow of a thousand suns. You, with the hands that tend to flowers instead of corpses. You, with the gentle nature he’d have to spend the rest of his days fighting off every other living thing just to protect.

His own self being the first he’d need fight.

Joel wonders what he’d missed in his hours- if it had even been so long- of rest, how the playground gossiping dissipated into reminiscing the pleasures of supple flesh and the sins of unfulfilling lovers. Sleep steals him away once more before he can find the answers.

The next time he awakens, he’s drowning in a plight of cruel memories, a cold and brutal ocean of faces, places, and traces of the ephemeral sentiment of happiness he’d possessed once upon a time, back when the price of letting one’s guard down was not so high.

He’s learnt, with time, that losing her comes in waves. Some small, meaningless little things, that ripple Joel’s surface and coast gently over his dirt ridden skin. Others, tsunamis. Big, angry, all imposing. They’re born in ground-shaking explosions of grief, building speed, and height, and weight the closer they grow to crashing over him.

Amidst the passing of time, he’s tried to keep himself busy in his awakened hours, to keep his mind occupied and avoid thinking about her too much. But the waves always come back, no matter how hard he tries to fight them or swim away from them. They catch him off guard, crashing over him when he least expects it. In the middle of a raid, lost in thought and standing ten inches deep in grime, blood, infected, and suddenly the weight of her absence will hit him like a ton of bricks.

The currents grow more violent whenever he closes his eyes.

This evening, it had been a minuscule wave, yet it’s damage still leaves him with sweat slicked skin. He reenters the land of the living choking on his own fear and shooting up-right, hardly registering his surroundings till his feet hit solid ground. The gentle, barely-there croon of a Sinatra record punctuates the room alongside the dim glow of a lightbulb which flickers with the threat of expiring and leaving naught but the moonlight to wash over the dark of the night. Across from him is Tess, nursing a half-emptied cup against her chest and wearing tired eyes. Snoring comes from below him, where Joel finds he’s a mere foot away from having stepped upon the sleeping dog, curled in on itself and laying soundly by his side.

You take up no space of this room.

Neither the dog nor the drunk pay him any mind as he pushes up onto his creaking knees, stretching out his limbs in a fight to undo the tension in his aching bod. Languid steps carry him out into the hall, where he freezes under the self-questioning of where he’s going.

There are three answer to this: where he should, where he could, and where he would.

He should find himself a bedroom, perhaps be ostentatious enough to rid himself of those stale clothes and let the warmth of running water wash away the sins he’d committed throughout the day. A good night’s sleep, atop a mattress where springs do not dig into his back and the sheets are clean as could be, it would do him good.

He could head towards the kitchen, quench that thirst that he’s awoken with, cottonmouth and a headache to go with it too. Perhaps he’ll find himself something to eat, indulge in the luxury of readily available food just this once, he’s sure Frank wouldn’t mind. Bill definitely would, but that’s not something he’ll need care about when he’s miles out and heading back to the QZ.

He would try find you, open whichever door it is that leads into the haven that must be your bedroom. He imagines its clean, and organised, and smells of some syrupy lavender that is bound to nauseate him as he smothers his face into your bedsheets, eyes shut, and mind relaxed, the threat of those violent waves no concern to him as he anchors himself with an arm around your warm skin. Skin he’s never felt, yet he stands firm in his belief it must be the most soothing thing to touch, as gentle and inviting as the heart it keeps safe within it.

I don’t like you, Joel.

Those words stop him from trying.

He tells himself it’s for the best.

With a mind of their own, his legs have made the choice for him and deliver him outside the opening to the kitchen. He swallows down a gulp of his own saliva at the prospect of a glass of water. The door’s already half-opened, and Joel nearly thanks Christ for it as the fear of waking anyone with the squeaking of the handle is eliminated. The darkness of the night encompasses the room, even with the moon’s shine reflecting off every surface it touches: the counters, the knife stand, the metal drawer handles, the refrigerator.

The refrigerator.

It’s open, a blue light shining out of it and illuminating anything it its proximity. A subtle beeping noise rings from it, and suddenly Joel’s back in his thirties, dead-beat yet well-intentioned brother stealing the food off his own plate as he beckons his pre-teen daughter back into the kitchen.

Keep leavin’ this open and it’s a job you’ll be gettin’ this summer, not a dog.

She never lived long enough to get either.

He catches something move beneath the artificial light. Cautious at first, it’s all the more startling to find the object of his ire and the embodiment of his desire stood leaning back against the countertop, a glass full of orange liquid pressed to a mouth that parts and welcomes in the sugary sweet delight.

“Why aren’t ya sleepin’?” The words rasp out his throat, catching and scratching on the parts of him that still yearn for something to wet his tongue with.

Beneath the light, you shrug. “Could ask you the same thing, Texas.”

He curses Tess for teaching you such a nickname.

He curses himself more for the way you saying it twists up his insides.

You’re teasing him, smile a little looser and eyes less focused than he’s used to seeing. Whether you’re tipsy or simply delirious with exhaustion, Joel remains unaware.

He grunts, daring to take a few steps further into the kitchen. The door behind him closes over and gives the illusion of the space becoming smaller, tighter, more compact.

“I asked first.” You laugh, at him. Full on chest-rumbling, hand over your belly, head thrown back- so abruptly it nearly crashes against the corner of the opened cabinet door. The corner of his mouth is curling upwards before he can catch himself. He hopes the refrigerator light shows less of him than it shows of you. Bare legs, and messed hair, and pointed nipples all on display for his undeserving eyes. “‘S so funny, huh?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he successfully fights off the urge to follow the drop of orange juice that spills down the side of your mouth, over your chin, down your neck, disappearing beneath the collar of your dress. Perhaps he is not as successful as he believes. “Just never heard the Joel Miller say something so childish. You’ve usually got your panties all in a bunch if someone so much as looks at you for too long.”

You make way as he inches closer, sliding yourself over to rest against the island counter. A fragrance of things he can’t quite pinpoint, but enjoys nonetheless, wafts in his face as he travels down the path to the sink. Uncouth and unbothered, Joel opens the tap and cups his hands beneath the stream of water.

“You know there’s a cupboard full of glasses right next to you, right?” You call out behind him as the man brings water to his dry lips, splashing and just about guiding his head beneath the stream. The thirst does not budge. He hums an acknowledgement of you, yet continues with his method.

By the time he switches the water off, you’ve made yourself busy, back facing him while you work at something atop the counter, a consistent chop-chop-chop filling the silence that settles between you both.

“iIm making soup,” you state, like there’s nothing quite more logical you could be doing at whatever-o’clock in the morning it is. “Make sure you take some with you when you leave. Tess said she’s been fighting off a cold the past few days, need you to keep her warm and fed for me.”

Would you do the same for him, if you knew he’d been the one to catch that damned cold in the first place? Four days of just about coughing up his lungs, and not a single soul- not even his Tess- had offered soup, nor warmth, nor sympathy. He’d not needed it, until now, when he hears you gifting it to someone else.

I don’t like you, Joel.

Of course you would do the same. Not because you care, nor because doing otherwise would way heavy on your conscious, but because you’re nice. Nice in a way he’ll never be, has never been. Patient, welcoming, comforting, warm. All words that spring to mind when one thinks of you. They violently oppose the closed-off, angry, dark cloud that had rolled in years ago and casted it’s shadow over Joel’s entire persona.

He straightens his back, weight shifting from one foot to another as he contemplates you from behind. The sway of your dress as you move has him in a trance, beckoning him closer before he can even realise he’s taken a step. His hands drip water onto the floor in a rhythm, the record player sings in the distance as a reminder of Tess and your sweet out-of-tune humming fills the empty kitchen with a brightness greater than the moon, but that’s not what Joel hears.

I don’t like you, Joel.

I don’t like you, Joel.

I don’t like you, Joel.

I don’t like you, Joel.

Over and over, you taunt him without even trying, nailing the words into his head and heart, impaling him with your sweet condemnation. You’re not the first to say it, to his face or otherwise, yet you’re the first to evoke such a reaction out of him, to leave a lasting impression hours after you’d declared such a thing.

And, suddenly, Joel’s angry. At you, at himself, at the sound of that damned knife in your hand slicing down onto the chopping board. The fog of his ire blurs his vision, rendering him to move blindly through the night.

Only when he finds himself looming over you from behind does his vision clear.

A hand meets the curve of your hip and you gasp, leaving Joel to wonder if it’s because the shock of his cold, damp touch or, simply, because it’s his touch. Without a thought spared, he firms his grip, fingers squeezing tight enough he feels your flesh bulge between each one, a bruising promise Joel gifts you.

You may leave your marks emotionally, but Joel’s will always be physical.

“Why,” he pulls in a breath, loading up the will to keep his voice a low rumble, a quiet disturbance in the night for no ears but your own to hear. “Don’t ya like me?”

If not for the pause in your practiced movements, knife stilling midway through slicing a carrot, he’d believe you’re unaffected by his proximity. “Why do you care?”

He scoffs, “I don’t.”

“Hmm,” this hum is far less delightful than the way you’d been following along to whatever melody Tess was playing in the living room. “Sure sounds like you do.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t,” he insists, and he swears he almost feels the way it only digs deeper the hole he’s created for himself.

Joel knows he cares. It’s been burning at his skin and itching on his mind since the moment you’d welcomed yourself to a little bit of unfiltered honesty, dropping the perfectly poised and eternally polite mask you’d worn since the moment he’d first met you, an attitude he loathes as much as he anticipates surrounding himself with it each time he’s tugged along for the trek to Bill and Frank’s.

What Joel doesn’t know is why he cares. There’s nothing to be desired about him, no traits to respect and certainly no looks to admire. He’s near crafted his entire being in a way that makes sure of this, the more undesirable his presence is, the less likely he is to be approached, be it by other people or fate itself.

Maybe there was a part of him that had wrongfully imagined you being the exception.

Instead, you’re stood barefoot in the latest of hours, knife working away the vegetables in front of you, dress sticking to skin beneath his damp hand, and you don’t like him.

Not one bit.

Joel grabs at your hips harder, his free hand curling round the shape of your left forearm. His feet shuffle forwards, until there comes a point where one would struggle to make out where you end and he begins. His chest pressed to your back, his muscular legs trapping your soft thighs, his forehead digging into the side of your head so intensely it threatens to shatter both your craniums and leave nothing but dust made by bones blown into smithereens.

He inhales, and finds you don’t smell of lavender.

“For the record,” he watches your movements over your shoulder, entranced with the back and forth sawing of the knife through unidentified vegetables. ‘S just like how I sliced that raider’s throat, he thinks, and instantly regrets it. No part of him should ever be compared to you. “I don’t like ya either.”

He’s lying through his teeth, hoping you don’t notice.

The knife never ceases its movement. Back and forth, back and forth. Chop, chop, chop. Blurs of greens, and oranges, and more greens cover the counter before you. It’s oddly soothing, this repeated and unbroken pattern, reminding Joel of times he’d found comfort in the mundaneness of cooking a meal after an emotionally exhausting day. Perhaps, this has the same affect on you, a momentary lifejacket to keep yourself afloat amongst the waves that haunt you awake.

The hand on your forearm travels, mind of its own, drawing up the shape of your shoulder with featherlight touches that contradict the way his nails dig deeper into the the skin you hide beneath the waistline of your dress.

“That’s not news,” you must think he’s blind to the hitch in your breath when his fingers slip over your pulse-point.

It’s his turn to respond with a hum.

“You only like yourself,” words more untrue have never been spoken before the man who’s every moment is spent drowning in his loses. His wandering touch halts. “A little selfish, if you ask me. but, that’s just what I think.”

This strikes a nerve. Fury commands his hand into a fist and fingers find themselves tangled in the tresses of your hair. The realisation of how surprisingly soft it feels barely finishes registering when he’s pulling on it, dragging your head along with, till it lays flat on his puffing chest and your eyes stare up at him. “D’ya know what I think?”

Even upside down, your beauty is striking.

“No, unlike you I don’t care what you think about-” Joel tugs on your hair once more.

“I think you’re a brat. A silly little girl who thinks she can smile and get away with murder.” You could. He’d forgive you as you soak your hands in the blood you draw from him. Knife in the heart, bullet through the brain, bat to the face, he’d slip away easily from this life if only to have you smile as he goes.

“You’re hurting me,” you whine, Joel growls.

Animalistic, beastly, a rabid animal sinking its claws into its defenceless prey. His gaze dances over your features, catching himself before he can sink deep into your captivating eyes, tracing the shape of your mouth, slipping down the peaks of your collarbones.

Your dress- red, a colour Joel Miller will no longer associate with bleeding wounds and stained weapons- sits tight on your chest, squeezing the swell of your chest beneath the fabric, and gives away all your secrets.

“You like it,” he speaks in awe, unable to pull his eyes off the two stiff buds that poke against the red fabric.

“No, I don’-” Dampness follows wherever his hand goes, fleeting as he makes the journey around your waist and up your side, crawling higher and higher to where he can feel your heart beating from within your chest. “Joel.”

He retightens his grip on your hair, aiding you with the way your curve your spine and force yourself deeper into his uncaring, ungentle, enamoured touch. Whoever Joel had been in a past life must have moved mountains or performed miracles to grant him the luck to be holding you this way, the fingers he’d gifted with nothing but the cocking of guns and the feel of his own pulsating lust now expertly tweaking at one of your stiff nipples, all thoughts of the fabric scratching at your sensitive skin dissipating into the abyss as he realises you’re enjoying the pain.

“Heard ya, earlier, in the living room,” at the time, he’d been mortified to be overhearing such intimate words between you and Tess. The blood that insists on rushing to his crotch now wants you to know, to hear the admission of guilt be spoken from his own mouth. “ Talkin’ bout your past.”

He doesn’t specify.

He doesn’t need to.

You give away your shock with parted lips, widened eyes, frozen eyelashes, pupils staring up at him like a wounded fawn he’s about to take his first bite out of and, hopefully, it won’t be the last one.

“Tess turned you down,” the hand on your chest switches sides, donning your other breast with some much needed attention. His hand must still carry residue of the water, for you gasp and shut your eyes in the shock of his touch, your own fingers shooting up to scratch at his wrist. Near convinced you mean to push him away, the pressure against his hand that pushes deeper into his unholy affection has him realising otherwise. “I wouldn’t.”

You say nothing. Joel pulls harder.

“Too bad I’m-” You cut yourself off as he presses himself closer to you, your poor hips bound to awaken with bruises from the counter he’s got you pressed against. With a distance so small he can hear your teeth grind, Joel watches you like a hawk. The twitch in your brow, the flutter of your eyelids, the bobbing of your throat as you silence what he imagines would be an otherworldly kind of moan, a whine he’d let kiss his ears and wind up poisoning himself with the torture of it replaying in his head each waking moment till he kicks the bucket, once and for all. The want to see you fall apart evolves into a need. “Too bad I’m not offering you the chance.”

Joel Miller is a hot blooded man, at his core, weak to emotions and vulnerable to the warmths of flesh. With notches on his bedpost and a tally of lives beneath his belt, he sees little wrong with taking what he needs.

“Who said anything about an offer?”

The descent to the floor is far from graceful, with bitten back groans of pain as clicking noises resound throughout the room while his joints bend and break in an effort to get him where he needs to be, where he’s needed to be for far longer than merely this exchange on kitchen grounds: on his knees for you.

A part of him would prefer it if you weren’t wielding a butchers knife.

The other part wishes you were facing him, eyes full of that repressed anger, hatred and discontent you likely harbour for him as you point the blade down at him and threaten to paint the floors with his blood. You’ve yet to do that, and so he takes it as his queue to progress.

Smoothing his hands up your legs, he admires the landscapes of your body from this angle, with legs that seem longer than any tree in the Amazonian jungle and curves with peaks that resemble the mountains of the Himalayas. Arriving at the top of your knees, the hem of your dress both welcomes and conceals his touch, inviting him into the wonderful world it hides beneath it yet denying him the privilege of feasting his eyes on your paradise, an island of safety amongst the open ocean of his mind.

Your breathing is measured, precise, too rhythmical to be natural, the subconscious action now turned into a practiced routine you mean to maintain nonchalance with. Perhaps you’re yet to realise that, while he may remain indifferent to those that surround him, Joel knows how to read people. And, right now, you’re a whole novel of lust, awaiting for someone to open up your pages and drink in every lyrical prose you promise to tell.

Joel finds purchase mid-way up your thighs, hands sliding around to the front of them to grip the buttery smooth skin and ground himself in the reality he kneels before.

You breathe in, you breathe out.

One knee buckles, ever so slightly, the weight of you collapsing into his welcoming hold. He revels in the feeling of supporting you, in every meaning of the word, thumbs not even waiting on a command from his consciousness to begin soothing your tingling skin with a gentle back and forth movement to match the knife in your hand.

Inhale, exhale.

Your legs straighten once more, a hand of his winds its way back out from under your skirt and shoots up to grab your free one, dragging it down his pits of desire.

“Hold,” he’s parched all over again, mouth drier than the Texan wastelands on a hot summer’s day. All he can do to survive is peel up that infuriatingly soft, red fabric of your dress, skin unveiling itself to his hunger struck eyes. With the skirt bunched up, he shoves it into your awaiting palms, pinning your hand against your own waist. “Don’t move.”

Where he expects protest, he receives more breathing.

Lace covers your skin, a delicate shade of a colour his eyes can’t quite distinguish in the dark of the night. One flicker of his sight to the very core of your body and he notices it, that tell-tale sign that you’re enjoying this little display of attention, despite what your measured breaths may have him believe. A wet patch, your wetness. The stickiest, sweetest of honeys that only a woman like you can possess, and a man like him should never bare himself witness to.

Curiosity gets the better of him- one day, Joel hopes, this will get him killed- and his touch is reaching for the lacy fabric, fingers digging themselves into the waistband of your panties and around the fabric that covers your right asscheek before curling his hand into a fist, tugging upwards.

In and out, shaky breathing comes from above.

The lace pulls tight on your delicate skin, no choice but to nestle itself in the slit of your cunt as two pretty soaked lips peak out from each side. A heady smell he can only begin to describe as stiflingly sweet, tongue-tingling tanginess hits his nose. He makes sure to take a deep breath, letting the blood rush straight to his head- the one that sits packed uncomfortably in his tightened trousers.

Delectable as sin, you keen back into his fist, back curving ever so slightly. There’s a tremor in the hold you have on the fabric of your dress. Joel basks in the visual affect he’s beginning to have on you, no need to doubt if the fabric of your underwear rubs at your likely aching clit. He wonders if the sting of the lace digging into your skin hurts. He thinks it must hurt.

His fist curls tighter, pulls higher.

“Ah,” at last, a ripple in your surface. Though you still wield a knife, the carrot you’d been failing to chop rolls off the counter and onto the floor, lost somewhere in Joel’s peripheral vision.

“Shut up,” he grunts, like it doesn’t make his balls throb to hear you whine. “People are tryin’ to sleep.”

You scoff, and for a moment you seem to have rediscovered your composure. “Tess is drunk as a sailor, and the old men could sleep through nuclear warfare.”

“‘S that an invitation to see how loud I can get ya,” he’s still caught in the way you mold against the lace, slickened skin carrying a reflection of the moonlight. This, he thinks, is what all them poets were writing about in their prose of love and beauty. “Or a challenge?”

“It’s an invitation to stop lecturing me on volume control,-” you catch yourself, he realises, right before you can gift him some nickname a sweet girl like you would never use. Asshole, dickhead, bastard, he’s heard them all and, still, he wants them on your tongue, in his mouth, condemning him for all the brutish, oafish ways he masks his obsession for you.

As coquettish as it may be, painting a picture worthy of a front-page on some Playboy magazine, the sight of lace becomes a nuisance he no longer holds the patience for. So he strips you of it, hand moving to pull the garment down, down, down the length of you, till it hits your ankles. He awaits no movement of your own, taking it upon himself to lift each of your feet individually out the leg-holes.

It’s merely impulse that has him shoving the soiled lace into his back pocket, though he’s sure he’ll make use of them on lonely nights.

“You’re drippin’,” his proclamation is ego-driven, pride swelling in his chest as he takes in the full sight of your bare heat. The view is a little obscured from behind you, but with the right amount of tilting of your hips at a certain angle and the widening of your legs, he’s bound to sit front row and centre for your private show. “‘S actually a little pathetic, sweetheart. Is it 'cause ya like it when men get mean wit’ ya?”

He can imagine the way you’d roll your eyes at his words, and it has him thinking about how you’d look with your eyes rolling back for different reasons, reasons he’s about to gift you.

But first, he curls one hand around your ankle and tugs the limb along as far as he wants it. Much better, he now faces no blockage in the path up to your slit, freely letting his wandering hands ascend to his newfound heaven. Perhaps he’ll revisit the life of gospel, if you promise to be the altar he prays before.

Cool fingers to warm skin, you swallow a gasp a little too late for Joel to not notice as he drags the tips of his middle finger up the length of your slit. Soft, puffy lips part for him, until he presses against that special button that’s bound to turn on your engines.

Rolling his finger over your clit a few times, he refamiliarises himself with the female anatomy, with your anatomy, memorising each soft bump and meaty lump he finds along the way.

It happens so suddenly, and unwillingly, the way his mind switches to thinking of Tess. He wonders what exactly it is she does to those poor things she sends home on shaky legs, where she even begins to touch them. Joel imagines she makes use of what she has and starts with her fingers.

So he does the same.

Working over your slippery wetness, he coats the tip of his middle finger with it, till he finds what he’s been searching for: the gateways to your heaven, your entrance. He breaches your walls with that single digit and somehow that’s enough to have you squeezing around him so tightly he wonders if blood still manages to flow to his digit.

Two, three, four pumps of his hand and he’s introducing his pointer finger too, pressing them both into you to witness the ways you mould around this wider stretch, the lips of your cunt a pair of cushions his knuckles collide against each time he fucks his fingers in.

“So now you shut up. ‘S the matter, huh?” He’s contradicting himself and he doesn’t even care, too busy focusing on curling his fingers inside you, delighting in the feel of that spongy tissue they press against. “Am I too borin’ for ya?”

“You’re the most infuriating man I’ve ever- Oh!”

A tongue meets skin.

The knife clatters onto the counter.

You lurch forward.

His hand pulls you back.

“Tess was right, ya know?” He can still taste you on his tongue, nothing more than a simple lick over your slit and your salty pleasure already seeps deep into his veins, staining his very being with the memory of his new favourite flavour. He pulls his fingers out, slipping them up to your clit. Three little taps to the pulsing bud- tap, tap, tap- and he’s slipping them into his mouth, tongue working overtime to clean up every last drop of you that coats him. “That boy of yours wasn’t doin’ ya right.”

The common sense that screams at him to not feel envy over some ex-lover, someone who was likely barely even an adult at the time and no longer appears to be around, is no match for the green eyed beast that commands him to tell you, without using words, that he can do better- touch you better, protect you better, fuck you better-, if you’d just let him.

‘Could keep ya satisfied.

That’s a new thought, one he’s never needed before yet never wanted more, a burning ache to be worthy of your trust, affection, lust. He’ll never forget the first time he thinks it, mouth salivating at the sight of you.

“Is this the part you say some cheesy line straight out a porno? What ya need is a man, a man like me!” The softness of your giggle is still sharp enough to cut through the tension. God, it’s never sounded sweet, and Joel finds himself freely smiling into the darkness, yet still too stubborn to laugh at the deep voice you attempt to imitate him with.

“Well, was you who said it,” his mouth finds it’s way back onto your soaked heat, taking his time to work his tongue up the length of it, his saliva mixing itself in a nasty cocktail with your wetness. He imagines the air is cold against your skin, and that you like it, memory of those hardened nipples hidden beneath the fabric of your dress. “But if ya insist.”

Diving in head first had always been his style, from his first lover to his last, and to now, knees aching on the kitchen floor. The tip of his tongue dances round your clit, tantalising you to grind your hips to the rhythm of his sinful touches.

Licking into you, he’s reminded how much he enjoys that swelling in the chest that only comes from bringing another pleasure.

He’d not been a perfect lover, far from it, but he’d liked to believe at one point he’d been trained by experience that only comes with age, years of touching wrong and kissing badly to learn the right ways to make those he shared a bed- or a counter, or a backseat, or a club bathroom- with see angelic white as they writhed and squirmed under his touch. You’re lucky to have him now, matured by past lovers and broadened by age, with all the knowledge he needs to open your eyes to how a man pleasures, kisses, loves.

He’s out of practice, sure, with recent years adding notches to his belt that were merely frantic, unexpected, barely undressed run-ins with strangers, in strange places, cock barely getting a moments affection before he’d be spilling his seed and tucking it, limp, back into the confines of his trousers and locking it away beneath a zip.

What a perfect excuse you are, for Joel to remaster the arts of lust.

It’s messy, wet dripping down his chin and staining itself into the stubble of his growing facial hair. It’s noisy, his mouth openly groaning depraved joy into your warmth as you sing him a song of sweet euphoria, slowly building towards that crescendo on the horizon. It’s animalistic, barely human as he revokes all earthly needs such as rest, and food, and socialising, his mind, and soul, and heart, and cock all screaming in unison to spend whatever remaining days he shall possess on his knees before you.

And all the while you writhe and wriggle, some times running away from him touch, other times rutting so far back into him that you threaten to suffocate him somewhere between your warm thighs, and sugar-sweet cunt, and the two well-rounded globes of your ass.

His only saving grace is that he can’t see you.

Hearing your pretty whines, and hand-muffled moans, and heavy intakes of breath is enough to curse him for the rest of his waking days, condemned to wander the wastelands of earth knowing the noises you make on the brinks of pleasure, with a touch-starved man satiating his hunger for flesh and blood with the sugary sins of your soaked cunt.

Burrowing deeper into you, his consciousness rips through the fog of his lust to curse out his perversions as the tip of his hooked nose bumps against the puckered entrance of your ass. It does nothing to stop him tearing his tongue away from your clit, flattened as he drags it over the expanse of your cunt, and over your taint, and up the crack of your behind.

“N- Ah,” You can’t deny him while sounding so eager for more, the tip of his tongue now circling your back entrance, mimicking the treatment previously given to your little pearl. “No, don’t, not there.”

Next time, he thinks, we’ll try that next time.

Sights returned to his previous desires, he works to rip out every sigh, and every whine, and every dirty little song you’ll grace him with. The sound of whatever record Tess has put on in the other room becomes a safety blanket, dousing you both in the warm protection of not being overheard.

And, then, he does it, he makes the ultimate mistake.

His eyes flicker to the left and he finds himself faced with the stove that sits within Bill and Frank’s- and, by an extension he does not enjoy to remember, your- kitchen. There’s little that’s remarkable about the appliance, just your standard, everyday oven that he’s sure you’ve spent countless hours cooking up those comforting meals he’s come to anticipate each time Tess tells him they’re due a visit.

Except, the oven door is made of glass.

Glass which now paints the most pornographic masterpiece for no eyes but his own. You, with a hand gripping the island’s counter like your life depends on it, and the skirt of that goddamn dress he’s envied all evening for the way it got to rest against the warmth of your thighs now bunched up in your tight grip, and your head thrown back, curving your spine in a way that has him wondering about the other ways he’d be able to bend and break you beneath his touch.

And then there’s him, down on his knees like a devotee laying himself down to worship his goddess, face burrowed in the space between your legs, mouth devouring you from behind with the help of his hands, the same ones that had strangled a man less than a day before and reigned fire down on countless others for years, that now grip the meat of your thighs to pull you back onto him, fucking his tongue into your sopping heat.

The image will haunt him more than the face of any man he’s killed.

“D’ya touch yourself, Sol?” You don’t answer him, but that’s okay. In a sweet change of pace, Joel Miller’s perfectly fine with talking enough for the both of you. “Yeah, bet ya do. Late at night, right? Once you’re all alone in bed. Ya seem like the kind who can make herself scream.”

You back into him, smothering him under the weigh of your body. Becoming his holy grail, he drinks from you like it’s the key to eternal life, and what a way of living this would be, time disregarded as nothing but meaningless while your bodies melt together in the heat of passion.

Fucking his fingers back inside, he becomes frantic beneath the need to make you cry, fall completely apart with only his hands to hold you together. “Let me do the honours this time though.”

You don’t scream, can’t scream, hand over mouth muffling whatever profanities and theatrical proclamations he rips from within you with the stroke of his agile tongue, the only muscle of his that’s yet to develop aches and pains. He imagines that will no longer ring true once he awakens past sunrise.

He’s unsure how much longer he works his tongue over you, slipping and sliding through the liquid pleasure, but it ends with fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him away and tilting his head up.

You’ve never looked more holy, moon casting it’s shine around you, eyes glossed with unshed tears, lips parted and swollen from the pressure your own teeth had bitten down on them with. Your expression, he can’t quite read. Not sad, not happy, not mad.

Your eyes catch on something, abandoning his own for something closer to the floor, to which he follows and finds exactly what you’re staring at: the evidently dark patch that now stains the front of his jeans.

The discomfort of trekking back to the QZ will now be tenfolds worse in the stains of his own pleasure.

“Joel...” his name is nearly a beg, a prayer, an invitation. Hand still in his hair, you tug, pulling him upwards off the ground. Legs open wider and back arches deeper, a seductive sight that your body pleas for him with.

He swallows a groan, knees alleviated at last from the floor, and presses himself against you once more. Strong arms crush you in an embrace, pulling you back into him as his head slips to rest against your shoulder. He’s capricious with the way he lets himself litter a few wet kisses over your neck, breathing in the smell of you.

“That,” you grind back into him, a torturer who takes his aged body as her victim and toys with his barely recovered cock, the cum in his trousers sticking uncomfortably to his skin. He pulls tighter on your body, grounding himself in the weight of it against his own to find the sanity to finish his sentence. “Shouldn’t have happened.”

Joel hopes no one awakens as he slams the door on the way out of the kitchen.

People once spoke of how the only certainties in life were death and taxes but, nowadays, the words don’t ring as true and the guarantee of life with taxes has morphed into something else entirely; a reality where death and time go hand in hand. As sure as tomorrow will arrive, death will come too, eventually. Not today, however, and Joel Miller finds himself stood throwing a ball back and forth for a dog.

It chases and retrieves, trailing it’s happy self all the way back to him only to spit the ball down at his feet, siting and waiting to repeat the process once more. There’d been a time where this is all he’d wanted: white picket fence, dog in the yard, home-cooked meals filling a house with warmth.

That dream seems so far away now, even as he stands within it.

He cracks his back, huffing out a groan. “No, not again. My back’s fucked as it is, buddy,” with no one around to witness, Joel lets himself crouch down onto his knees- both popping obnoxiously as he does so- and rakes his hand over the German Shepherd’s head. It whines and makes an attempt to nudge the ball against him, protesting in the only way it can. A scratch to the ear does the trick to distract the animal, to which it tilts its head and forces itself deeper into his blunt nails. “Not so bad, are ya? Huh?” Never in a million years did Joel think he’d be talking to a dog when him and Tess had set out for their routinely visit to the Bill and Frank’s. Never would he have thought that would be the least shocking event to unfold on this trip.

He hears you before he sees you.

“You planning to make your knees familiar with every surface of this place, Texas?”

He tries to rise, he truly does, but the four-legged foe he’d been petting mere seconds ago betrays him the instant it catches sight of you, charging past him and knocking him over in the process, ass to floor and head to sky.

The world above is a storm of greys, clouds swallowing one another with a looming threat of danger on the horizon and not a lick of the sun’s warmth seems to make its way through.

So instead, it sends you.

Peering over him from above, hair a tangled mess, eyes a wreck of under-bags and sleepless tears, the collar of your jumper lowered just enough at this angle that he can see a tease of cleavage, you radiate a brightness like no other, more dangerous to his naked eyes than UV rays could ever be. He’s squinting again, frown etching itself on his forehead with the threat of becoming permanent soon. A few more years and his face will be nothing but frown lines and crows feet. At the very least, he considers, I’ve survived long enough to wrinkle.

The smile above him is worth a million laugh lines, a kindness laced within it that matches perfectly with the hand you hold out. When he does nothing but stare at it, you wriggle your fingers, enticing him to take a hold. He does most of the work, truthfully, but you play a part in pulling him back to his feet. Upright once more, he can’t help but bask in the way he’s able to physically look down on you.

“Thanks for tiring him out,” you’re the first to talk. You’re always the first to talk, and he curses you for it. “Won’t need to walk him as far tonight.”

A queasy feeling overtakes him at the thought of you walking the dog alone at night, nothing but the moon to light your way. He’ll need to remember to tire the dog out next time he visits. “No problem, thanks... for feeding Tess and I.”

“No worries!” You’re so kind, so good, smiling at him with a cheerful chirp in your voice. He can’t wrap his head around how you can bring yourself to treat him this way. “Oh, actually, that’s why I came out here, I was looking for Tess-” Of course you were, when would you ever be looking for him? “Hold on!”

You shoot off back inside so quickly that Otis just reaches the doorway by the time you return. With an idle pet to his head as you pass by, Joel once again sees, in the way such little affection can have the dog so elated, that resemblance between them you’d spoke of. In your hands, you carry an array of containers full of food- soup- each filled to the brim.

“I wanted to give you these, before you guys leave,” you’re explaining yourself, and Joel wonders if it’s nerves that bring you to need constant babbling to fill any gaps of silence. He can’t imagine how he could make you nervous and therefore that thought is quick to be discarded. “I know the journey up here and back can be long, consider them a token of my appreciation towards you both for-”

“Why don’t ya like me?” he cuts you off.

Pathetic, he knows, but he can not stop himself, a deer caught in the headlights of your brightly burning, too-good-to-be-true, too-pure-to-be-fake personality.

You show no signs of hearing him, smile unwavering as you continue to hold out the boxes to him. “There should be enough to last you a few days, if you watch your proportions.”

It’s too much for him to handle- the food, the smiles, the sweetly glistening eyes-, and Joel just has to know, needs an answer before the heat of his confusion consumes him entirely in its flames and leaves nothing but his smoking remains.

So he tries again, louder.

“Why don’t ya like me?”

“And I’d probably say you’re best to heat it up, especially for Tess,” you ignore him, again, lips stretching what can only be described as uncomfortably wider. “Winter is sure coming in faster than last year, isn’t it?”

He grabs at your arm, fingers curling round the swell of your bicep as he speaks through gritted teeth, "Answer me." Like a frightened dog backed into a corner, he bares his teeth and yells his bark.

"For someone who doesn't care,” you try his patience, knowingly or not, and his grip tightens. You don’t flinch, welcoming the sting of his blunt and bitten nails against your flesh. “You sure do talk about my opinion a lot."

"Answer the damn question, girl.”

“Or, what?” You’ve got him there, he’ll admit, holding no real plan as to how to punish your silence. “You gonna give me the same treatment as last night?”

Had he known you’d be so unabashed to mention the events on the kitchen floor so flippantly, as casually as one would speak about the weather, he’d never have dared to get on his knees. Truthfully, he’d not given things a second thought, disregarding the later for the now, living in the moment with caution thrown to the wind over what the morning would bring. Perhaps he’d hoped you’d been intoxicated enough to dismiss the memory as a nightmare, maybe he’d wished you’d keep away from him to free him of the volatile grip you have on his soul.

Instead, you stand tall, proud, eyes fiercely staring back at his own as you challenge him to retaliate, mock you with none of those saccharine smiles you hide harsh tones behind.

Joel says nothing.

“How about this, let’s make a deal, like the ones you and Bill make.” Inching closer, crowding in on his space and forcing him to take note of the smell of freshly cleaned clothes mixed in with your own fragrance. Clean, warm, inviting, scents he’d never given meaning to before now. “You get me something, I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

He grunts out a response, hands meeting his hips as he juts out one knee, the shifting of weight between feet a perfect distraction to the rising tension in his worn-out jeans. “What d’ya want? ‘Cause if it’s somethin’ like a gun, think again. I ain’t messing with none of Bill’s strange politics on you havin’-”

“A dress.”

“A dress?” The statement has him quirking his brow, burning questions swimming in the depths of his eyes as he stares back at you.

“Yes, and don’t look at me like that!” It’s hypocritical, he believes, for you to berate him for the looks he sends you when all you do is cast stones his way with your gaze yet shake him to his very core each time you smile. “I need a new one, my favourite one got ruined whilst making soup.”

Unaware he’d even began to lean closer, Joel’s quick to recoil, as if your words are bullets and his skin the target you hit on the bullseye every time.

“Joel!” his name resonates from somewhere in the house.

Neither of you dare to break eye contact. Again, his name is yelled. This time, he manages to identify Tess as the owner of the voice. Habits have him used to running to her whenever she calls, but habits have never been caught between the choice of Tess or you.

His feet remain glued to the ground.

Tess yells once more and, though you speak up, you don’t dare look away. “Think you might be needed inside, macho man. Your missus is calling.”

“She ain’t my-”

“You two just gonna stand and stare at each other all day, or will you help a woman out already?” Tess enters the scene somewhere behind you, a blur of her familiar shape standing out the front door.

Only when your head spins and he no longer finds himself lost in the black of your eyes does Joel take her in completely, hair clearly damp and complexion a little paled by her hungover body. In her arms, she struggles with the weight of a folded table. You approach first, he follows, his two hands aiding in carrying it out into the front yard as you retighten your grip on the boxes of soup in your arms.

“I should probably,” laying the containers down on the now unfolded table, you fidget with the sleeves in your hands, eyes downcast with something he can only read as guilt. He decides he much prefers the fire they hold when you berate him. “Go check on the food, before it burns.”

You’re in the door and out his sight before he can so much as ask you to stay.

Tess and him hit the road by noon. Earlier than predicted, later than he’d wished for. The bite of cold already marks the air, despite the sun breaking through the clouds and heating the world with its rays. He walks a little ahead, feigning ignorance to the repeated coughing coming from Tess and wracking his brain for answers.

Answers to why he’d never noticed how hoarse she’d been sounding till you pointed it out. Answers to what awaited them both upon returning to the QZ. Answers to when will be their next chance to visit the safe haven Bill’s created. Answers to why you don’t like him.

I don’t like you, Joel.

It motivates him to walk quicker, faster, racing to put as much distance between himself and that damn kitchen floor, miles upon miles not enough to rid him of the dull ache in his knees that goes hand in hand with the throb within his too-tight-jeans. If he were alone, he’d break out in a sprint. but Tess is here, he’s not alone, and home will simply have to wait on the passing of time to drag him back to it.

Till then, he needs to find a dress.

[pumpkinpaix]

Chapter Spotlight 8:

"'Censorship Made It Better': Anti-Fans and Purity Culture in English-Language Chen Qing Ling Fandom" by Abby Springman

Describe your topic/chapter in one sentence/one meme/140 characters.

Rejoice! MDZS has been cancelled!

What drew you to this topic?

When I got into CQL fandom and started lurking on its outskirts on Twitter, I started getting this weird sense of déjà vu. There was this bizarre similarity between the arguments I was seeing about the aspects of CQL/MDZS and their fandoms being "problematic" from a progressive, social justice point of view and the demands for censorship in American libraries that conservative groups were (and still are) making at an alarmingly increasing rate. In an attempt to make sense of this, I fell down what ended up being a really long rabbit hole, and, well, here we are.

Was there anything you were surprised to discover while researching?

I was surprised by the wide variety of fannish backgrounds found amongst members of English-language CQL fandom! I'm not used to seeing so many different "areas" of fandom intersect over a single piece of media like this. Some folks are primarily into the live action movies and TV shows side of things, some are mostly in bandom, some (like me) are traditionally a part of the anime, manga, and gaming contingent, etc. I think that's fascinating, honestly.

Did researching/writing your chapter change how you saw the text, the fandom, or the media? How so?

I didn't use the block button on Tumblr or Twitter for anyone in the fandom while I was working on my chapter. It definitely changed how I saw fandom on those platforms—literally. It really highlighted how much power social media algorithms have over what kind of content is presented to us front and center.

If there’s one thing you hope the fandom takes away from your article, what would it be?

I'll be thrilled if it makes people think about "problematic" content in less black-and-white terms. They don't have to necessarily agree with my conclusions! But if my words make even one person stop and think more about context before posting a reactionary comment, then that would be great.

If you were isekai-ed into MDZS/CQL, what sect affiliation would you choose and why?

The Lan. My existing skills are most likely to be applicable there (see: the library), it seems easy to find some peace and quiet when you need it, there are bunnies, and Hanguang-jun is there.

Chaotic one-sentence pitch to get your friends into MDZS/CQL?

My elevator pitch for CQL has historically been, "It's the adaptation of a book about a gay necromancer, except they can't actually show the gay romance or the zombies on screen."

What is one (1) book/media you would recommend to a MDZS/CQL fan? Tell us about it.

Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling. It's probably the most accessible collection of Chinese stories of the supernatural available in English. If MDZS/CQL was your first exposure to traditional Chinese cultural beliefs about ghosts, exorcisms, and the like, this is a great introduction to the less xianxia-specific aspects. If that isn't the case for you, I still highly recommend it on its own merits!

Character you keep getting in those "which MDZS/CQL character are you" quizzes?

Wen Ning

Anything to say to potential readers of the collection?

Thank you, and I'm sorry—no, that's a joke. More seriously, I really am thankful for anyone interested in the collection. It's the product of years of hard work by many people, and I'm sure there's an interesting chapter in there for everyone.

(FAQ) (all posts on Catching Chen Qing Ling)

[bubbletealife]

Shiratorizawa being overlooked so often makes me so damn mad like I’m in 5 Haikyu servers and whenever they do popularity polls Shiratorizawa literally loses first round ALL THE DAMN TIME

Like they worked so hard to get where they are, Top 8 consistently, and being fr if they had a diff coach who let them embrace their individual play styles, let them work as a damn team i genuinely think they could beat some other of the top teams.

No I’m not just glazing my favorite team. I’m being COMPLETELY honest.

Tendou, if Washijo just let him teach some other players to embrace that shit, or if they had an actual system instead of

“Taichi the omnivore and Tendou the Guess monster”

Like thats really effective and all, but what if they further enhanced it?

Don’t even get me started on the setters.

Shirabu is a very good player, but being fr he’s lowkey a hole in their defense. Unlike Hayato, he doesn’t have some extreme receiving skills to get him some ground over being short. Constantly throughout the Karasuno match, they’re scoring over his head.

Now I love Shirabu, I really do. But I love semi more (obviously).

Washijo is wasting SO MUCH TALENT with his damn “cannon” philosophy. Like bro, think abt it. If all of shiratorizawa used their talents to the fullest, wouldn’t it actually make them stronger?

I get sometimes that too much talent will overlap and sabotage each other, but focusing so many individual talents into one simple strength is kind of crazy. Like you literally invite some of the top players in your prefecture, then don’t even use them?

some people won’t understand how damn mad I was when Karasuno won. Like yay to Karasuno, I loved season 3, literally my favourite season ever, we got so much Noya screen time, BUT SERIOUSLY.

THAT MUCH PLOT ARMOR IS INSANE.

I get the writing and all, showing growth, but being fr.

THEYRE ONE OF THE TOP 8 INNTHE WHOLE COUNTRY.

WASHIJO WHEN I CATCH YOU YOU OLD MAN.

It’s giving Ego from blue lock, except at least Ego had a point. At least bro was being logical with his arbitrary decisions.

“Too many cooks spoil the broth” TYPE SHIT BRUH

BUT SHIRATORIZAWA IS LITERALLY SO DAMN ADAPTABLE. ISTG.

IM RAGING

all of them are so different from one another, and despite being the most incomplete team in miyagi, they STILL manage to work together, and have no real hard feelings.

They all worked so hard to get where they were, but then SUDDENLYBTHE PLOT ARMOUR COMES AND JUST DELETES THAT.

These guys literally do 100 serves just cause some old fossil said so. THATS INSANE.

Imagine having to endure so much extreme training, that honestly is so questionable, and still end up losing. You start to lose what the volleyball means to you just cause of some damn short ass man who couldn’t get over his old coach telling him he was a short fuck.

ID CRY TOO.

IF ANYONE CALLS SHIRATORIZAWA WIMPS FOR CRYING AFTER LOSING, ID LIKE TO SEE YOU TRY AND DO WHAT THEY DID.

THEY PUT BLOOD SWEAT AND TEARS INTO THIS, AND STILL ENDED UP LOSING TO SOME RAGTAG TEAM THAT JUST STARYED GAINING MOMENTUM.

All they wanted was to take Goshiki to nationals fam.

One last time.

All of them were so well written I’m actually tweaking out that they don’t have a bigger fan base.

Oh I understand I mischaracterize some of them, like listen fam I have barely anything to work with SHUT UP.

But honestly writing them is such an adventure, and I’m literally going on multiple angry rants for them.

Please, somebody, hear me yell out into the void, and respond to what I wish.

Shiratorizawa respect.

[memoria-99]

IkePri routes short comments and personal rankings

* All of these are my personal thoughts.

1st Gilbert

Traumatized villain with death wish. Not a fun route, relatively heavy plots, twisted romance, but a good "villain" route. Emma has real great mentality and very brave, loved how she handled the situation and the relationship. Also the best adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast" theme.

2nd Clavis (Tie)

Four-dimensional troublemaker. The first half was funny thanks to all sorts of weird events and the second half was interesting to see dealing stuff this guy was secretly doing. I liked the romance and chemistry between the two. Emma was very cool and proactive.

2nd Silvio (Tie)

Sharp tongued, materialistic brat. Endless bickering between the two was overall fun to read and though there were moments that I wanted to punch this guy, eventually grew to like him. Used to wonder why so many people love this brat but I get why. Loved how sassy Emma was too.

3rd Nokto

Sly playboy. I think I like these kind of foxy character. Has a sad past. I liked the route because the guy was very smart and Emma was quite cool. What I didn't like was that the romance seemed to be leaning toward too erotic after the two became official.

4th Yves

Star-crossed tsundere kitty. The guy himself was very cute, and the romance between the two was cute and heartwarming as well. But they are both grown ass adults in their 20s and yet their romance was like that of teens.... why.

5th Chevalier

Coldhearted genius. The second best adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast" theme. I liked the process of Emma taming him. But didn't quite like that the guy has the upperhand still. This was the only route that Emma didn't call her suitor only by given name till the very end, so...

6th Licht

Severely depressed one. I liked the heavy story and realistic romance. But, although he's kind he has almost no self-esteem, is a master of self-deprecation, and his past is seriously dark, making me feel depressed as well. I know he's loved by many, but just not my cup of tea.

7th Leon

Charismatic, good-natured brother type. Typical fairytale prince. Has a sad past, but speaking of past, there're handful who are worse than him here... The most ordinary route. I don't remember much honestly.

8th Keith

Double personality. One is very kind and the other is rather bratty. Whole premise itself was interesting but two are so different... and made the romance look like a weird love triangle.

9th Rio

Loyal doggo who always loves Emma. But the route was kinda disappointing, I think it's only meaningful in a way that his love met a happy ending for once.

10th Sariel

Felt more like a "common route" in other games where romance does not exist. I didn't see much meaningful interaction between the two. At least I liked that Emma did best in her role as Belle in this route, but that's all.

11th Jin

Seriously remember nothing about the route except that it was very boring.

12th Luke

A sleepy bear turned into a crazy bear.

PLUS

1. I love the ways "sinner" LIs are written in this game, including Gilbert and Licht, and how Emma deals with those. Instead of trying to just reassure it's okay don't let that bother you, she's like "I know what you did cannot be forgiven, nothing can change that, but I'll embrace even that part of you and lead you to step forward"

2. I love that in the two bastards' route Emma ended up 'winning' them. In Gilbert's it was mentioned that he's the one who was conquered, and Silvio's he thought that it looks like he's the one with the collar.

[bluemooniegif]

Sorry if you have already talked about this but do you think Dazai’s bandages are to cover sh scars or something like that or something else like a traumatic injury. I have always assumed it was sh but my friend pointed out that he has said repeatedly he doesn’t like pain. Idk but thoughts would be appreciated :)

I have definitely talked about this before, but I forgot where or when, so let's go for round two!

CW for Dazai-typical suicide & self harm mentions

The fact that Dazai's bandages are such an obvious part of his character design, yet are rarely discussed, is absolutely intentional. As far as I remember, they're never even mentioned in the anime (except for moments such as when Chuuya calls him a walking waste of bandages), so it makes a lot of sense for everyone to be curious about what lies underneath.

Most people's minds go directly to self-harm scars, because duh, Osamu Dazai is the poster boy for mental illness. But then we think, wait... he doesn't like pain? He bitches and moans about it so much, in fact, that it casts a lot of doubt over the idea, and we end up back at square one.

Could it be because of No Longer Human? So he doesn't accidentally touch someone and activate his ability? This is honestly one of my favourite headcanons ever, and very plausible, considering that we don't actually know all that much about how NLH works... like why is it that Dazai can't control when it activates, for example? Everyone else can activate and subdue theirs, so it's got to have something to do with the fact that NLH is an anti-ability.

ANYWAY. Despite all this, there is actually an explanation of what he's hiding under there! It exists within the first few pages of Dark Era, but wasn't included in the anime adaptation. It's such an offhanded, throwaway thing, I don't blame people for missing it (side note: I wanna take the opportunity to remind you that Dark Era is mostly written from Oda's perspective!)

So yes, this is solid proof that there are scars he's hiding under there, but the question then becomes how he got them. We get a few examples on the following page:

Now, this is so ridiculous it's funny, and teetering on the edge of impracticality. If you've read No Longer Human, you'll immediately recognise this as clowning- Dazai is purposefully acting this way to detract from the seriousness of the situation. While yes, he's talking about serious injuries, and even admits to trying to kill himself, he does it in such a way that you just want to laugh.

So can we take these claims seriously? Is Dazai telling the full truth? There's no way for us to know, at this stage. But here are our options:

He is telling the truth, nothing more or less

He's partially telling the truth: owning up to the injuries, but not exactly how he got them

He's lying about the injuries and how he got them

Honestly, I think we can write off the third option, because the way Oda talks about his scars in the beginning makes me think he's perhaps seen some of them before. This makes sense when we consider The Day I Picked Up Dazai, in particular.

There's also something to be said about the nature of Dazai's job; I think it'd be remis of me not to mention it when Oda does. How much is he actually expected to put himself in harm's way? How much unnecessary danger does he put himself in- how much of this is actually self-harm? We may never know, but it's interesting to think about!

[flagellant]

Some of the asks you're receiving are giving me worrying flashbacks to being the only kid in my class arguing that dropping the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was wrong. I hope someone has studied the 'the more unconscionable an empire's actions the harder its people are taught to defend them' effect because it is a doozy. I am also concerned with how many people are not thinking twice before sending messages saying, essentially, 'You're exaggerating the cruelty of the US's occupation of another sovereign nation!' to....a member of an occupied sovereign Indigenous nation. I hope they're not weighing on you too much or dampening your enthusiasm for this project. I am really enjoying your research sauga, thank you for sharing it with us!

Thank you for this ask. I can't honestly pretend that all of this very much has been weighing on me. It's frustrating on a lot of levels but more than that it just kinda sucks and hurts. Especially as someone who is literally Indigenous and doesn't have dark skin? It's a constant battle of trying to not need to prove I'm Native enough versus having to fight for the recognition that I am my culture and I'm not just fucking racefaking, versus the fear that trying to be more visibly Native would just make me look like a racist caricature even though the whole reason I feel that impulse is because to non-Indigenous people, they see Native Americans as a single monolithic caricature and culture. I can't be native because I don't look like the noble savage in their heads. Don't pay attention to history, there clearly has never been a situation where perhaps Natives on the whole got more and more lighter skinned as generations went on. And there's definitely never been any reason for the American government to have extreme incentive in making sure Natives got bred out of the gene pool.

And none of this is actually directly relevant to the pressure, but it's informing how I'm approaching the research, as someone who can empathize with cultural erasure at the hands of fucking taibo, and I think that no matter what, conspiracy or not, cover-up or not, I think that it is incredibly important that more people in the world are aware that leading into the Cold War, Japan was forcibly coerced into giving total power over a significant cultural touchstone/ingredient/way of life to a single foreigner who had a complete lack of respect for what shoyu is, even going so far as to say "I want to change Japan's taste preferences". I cannot imagine a more direct and blunt parallel to settler-colonialism mindset. I truly cannot.

So to be consistently challenged--despite having either corrected or adapted mistakes/misinformation, or on some occasions actually proving that what I am claiming is not a mistake and it was like this--is kind of pinging a bunch of radars. Even beyond the pressure to perform for the sheer volume of interest--I'm used to that, I've not been exactly an unknown figure on this hellsite--there's a pressure to be perfect. To be immediate. I need to give the people the true answers and the end of the story three days ago; I need to give updates; I need to consider whether or not I want to be interviewed by Tech Crunch; I need to do everything except be allowed to let the natural timeline of research actually be its natural timeline.

I can't continue a large portion of research without having received responses back from government bureaus, from research archives, from college professors, from genetic biologisists, from horticulturists, from historians, from translators I'm paying with the money being sent about this project, from the genealogists and archivists and librarians who are also part of it...the list goes on. I can't make official entities of bureaucracy answer me quicker. It just doesn't work like that in real life--but for some unfathomable reason, Tumblr isn't treating what I'm doing like real life. They're treating it like an ARG.

So I suppose all this is to say I'm seriously having to consider going mostly offline for this holiday season. And I'm almost definitely going to try and avoid this project as much as I can during winter break; it's not like I'll be making quick progress anyway, since half of the academic sources I've contacted are already out for winter.

I hope that all of you understand that, for the most part, it's not you all as a group which is so upsetting and frustrating and draining and worrisome. For the most part it is individual responses from individual people, with a background radiation of eyes and pressure and selfishness on top of it, the natural state of existence for being in the spotlight at any given time. And I hope at the same time all of you understand how incredibly grateful, and touched, and honored, and excited I am that so many others are ALSO excited about this project. That all of you are just as eager to get to the bottom of whatever this ends up being as I am. The fact that people are willing to pay attention, even if only for a little while, to someone whose country is being occupied by foreign invaders investigating and finding the truth about what was happening during a different occupation with the same invaders. I think what is being done here is important work. And I'm glad that all of you do as well.

Without your generosity I would not have been able to even remotely gather the strength to push this for the long haul. And I do mean that literally. I started this project with less than $50USD in my bank account and today this is the first time I've ever had more than about $750 to my name. It's not much in the long run but I'm just so used to having nothing to spare that having any feels like the height of luxury. I bought myself a chai frappe today because I was waiting for a meeting to start. And I didn't hardly feel guilty. I can't tell all of you how emotional that made me, but if you've ever had rough times, I'm sure I don't need to.

Thank you all. I'm really excited to see where we go from here.

[mono-blogs-art]

So, the first week of Tsukutabe season 2 is behind us!! 4 new episodes out, and I'm just so delighted to have them on screen again, both with the old charm and warmth, and a fresh feeling of novelty. Not just with the new characters - it really feels as if the whole series has gotten an upgrade. New locations, more fluid and fancy editing with the new opening sequence. Plus, Sayama got a haircut! I also really loved the throwback to the very first episode of Nomoto speaking to the wall in a dramatic fashion. It really gives the impression of "We're back!!"!

Speaking of Sayama, I love that she was kept around as a character, despite her not being in the original manga. It's nice to have her carry over from season 1 and be a buddy to Nomoto after she's already made such a big impact on her and been so supportive of her journey before. And also, she's just a fun character :D I am curious however how much she and Yako will both help Nomoto with her self-discovery - in the manga, Nomoto has no friends except for Kasuga and then Yako (& Sena), so all of her talking about her sexuality is with Yako, who is a lesbian herself, versus now all these talks about love and dating have been with Sayama, who is straight. I'm curious to see what they do with all of that.

The biggest new thing so far has been the introduction of new character Nagumo Sena, the middle neighbor! And I'm seriously so happy with what they've done with her in these 3 episodes she's been in now. She's exactly as quiet, awkward, and nervous as I imagined her to be, without it feeling over the top or cringey. She's just an anxious kid, but I feel that she's really gonna open up. Her 1on1 interactions with Kasuga are cute, and awkward too, the two of them are just both so alike and quiet that it made me chuckle a bit. Still, Kasuga immediately gives off the feeling of wanting to take care of her too, and it's gonna be really nice watching them become friends.

On a smaller scale, obviously we're gonna be putting our two mains through the ringer again. Nomoto is already going through it, giving her personal journey more and more thought as she delves deeper into lesbian culture (I guess?). Watching movies (and crying about it, she is so me), connecting with others on social media, and seriously thinking about her feelings for Kasuga and how far they go. Similarily, Kasuga is (probably? hopefully?) gonna have her own big story arc this season, some of which has already been teased for next week. I'm so excited for that to play out and see how they adapt it.

It's also nice to see the two of them in slightly new formations. With new characters joining the gang and with their relationship becoming tighter and tighter, now they speak in unison more often, spur each other on, talk honestly to each other... and stand shoulder to shoulder, a shot that we haven't seen much yet but that I just love!! (height difference...)

I'm so glad the show is back and better than ever. The girls are cooking. Literally. And also falling in love of course.

[feedthefandomfest]

I have a question because I want to comment but I feel nervous. It is very foolish but it is seriously something that prevents me from commenting-

So English is not my first language and I suffer from a disease known as 'fuck you all English leaves your brain when you tap on the comment box'. Like I'm fluent enough to write a fic but the comments break me and I can only do basic 'subject verb complement' and forget half my vocabulary because I'm so nervous, so it often ends up being broken English.

I back out of posting comments except 'i love this this is amazing thank you for writing I love it' because I'm too scared the author will take it badly ? Like, what if they find it annoying ? What if they believe I think they write bad English and I'm mocking them and they don't want me to ever read their works ever again ?

Anyways, my question is : Does it actually bother anyone to receive broken English comments? Do people find it annoying ?

I would never be annoyed by such a thing and I'm positive that's true of others as well. On the contrary, it kinda blows my mind whenever I stop to think about how members of fandom for whom English is not their first language are so often working in translation. Like the trickiest barrier I have to contend with when writing anything is sleep deprivation and your average writer's block 😅 so to imagine also rendering those words in a different language?? 🫠

To varying degrees, the tragic disease of "empty comment box = empty brain" can strike anyone, regardless of language. On the plus side, some of the tricks to break through the blankness are also broadly applicable, such as

drawing from a list of sentence starters like the ones offered here or here (the beginner bingo card also has similar tasks!!)

installing this handy script that generates a positive comment on demand, which you can modify or expand on as needed

using the floating comment box to track moments or quotes you want to compliment specifically, even with just a string of emojis 💕💕💕

I can recall a couple comments I've gotten where the person apologized or gave a sort of disclaimer that English wasn't their first language, and honestly it just made me even more appreciative of the comment? Because there are so many reasons that a reader doesn't comment, and a language barrier is the most understandable!! And yet here they are, making me smile with their words. I always want to reassure them in my reply that an apology/disclaimer isn't necessary, but I don't always know how. (And there's nothing wrong with acknowledging something you're self-conscious about, after all.)

The concept of "broken English" has also got me thinking, though... And since it turned into a bit of an essay I'll leave it under the cut. 💛

Because the term "broken English" has a lot to unpack, seeing as it's always unfairly positioned those who speak English as a second language imperfectly as lesser (broken = defective). And that strikes me as a bit ironic, considering the degree to which English is a Frankenstein's monster of a language—this conglomeration of every language it encounters and subsumes. In that sense, English itself is a broken language? Or rather the shards of numerous languages held together with duct tape and gum and a whiff of imperialism. Its usage is always in flux, always evolving as speakers adapt it to new circumstances, and those adaptations become dialects in and of themselves. There is no one English language.

I teach high schoolers, and I'm consistently struck by the growing chasm between the kinds of English I can speak and the kinds of English they can speak. And technically my job is to train them in how to use American Standard English and read literature written in American Standard English, but really I find that pretty limiting.

Take the tone of this response, for instance! The more I've leaned toward trying to articulate these complicated issues of language, the more formal my speech has become. Contrast that with the first paragraph, where I'm trying to get across this awkward earnest admiration for the extra effort required of some fans just to engage in fandom, and so I ended up using more casual phrasing and emojis in a way that (hopefully) conveys a certain warmth and self-deprecating humor and whatnot.

If I were to leave a comment on a fic that blew me away, left me in a state of awe or delight or anguish—just a puddle on the floor—I'd find American Standard English quite lacking. Downright restrictive. The unique jumbled babble of fandom-speak functions on breaking the standard rules in order to evoke an intensity of emotion that meets the demands of the moment.

Another thing about commenters who really commit to throwing the rules out the window in favor of vibes is that I get such a strong sense of personality beaming through. A distinct voice that's generated, an intense impression of there being an individual on the other side with a particular shape. And there's something delightful about that.

...I suppose this is all a very roundabout way of saying that if there's anywhere to just unleash, vocab and mechanics be damned, where it's more than okay to string together whatever words you can in service of how you're feeling, it's the AO3 comment box. 💛

[rfxiii]

suggestion/request: trevor with a level one autistic reader? gender neutral or maybe transmasc? 🥺👉👈

(I hope it’s alright I decided to go with a transmasc reader {if anything I wrote is inaccurate or doesn’t fit your personal experiences, I’d be more than happy to re-write the request to make it more personalized for you!} And I hope I got everything mostly right and that it makes sense! Tysm for the request)

TW: (vague mention of receiving comfort for dysphoria)

Word Count: 570

Trevor Philips w/ an autistic, transmasc reader

He enjoys it if you have any routines or schedules you have to keep. And he pretty well memorized them after being together for just a short amount of time. He has terrible abandonment issues, so knowing you’ll be basically doing the same thing everyday, and what you’re doing, puts him at ease. It helps him know you’re being safe and where he can always find you if he needs you.

If loud sounds overstimulate you, you’ll probably need to let him know before his constant shouting and noise making spur on an episode. He wouldn’t ever do anything to intentionally trigger you, but he does need express instructions on some things.

Don’t ever feel embarrassed to stim in public. Trevor hardly ever stops moving- bouncing on his heels, moving his hands, picking at his skin. So, the last person you’ll ever have to worry about stimming in front of is him. He probably won’t even notice you’re doing it.

Really, until you told him, Trevor may not even pick up on the fact that you’re autistic. He knows tons of different people, all with their own quirks and preferences, and he never really thinks on things like that too much to judge or question it. And once you tell him, it doesn’t really change anything except for him adapting some of his behaviors to help you out.

He’s super protective of you, like, viciously protective. Especially if you have any problems picking up social cues, he’s determined to make sure no one says anything rude to you, for any reason, that you don’t catch.

If you happen to be super blunt/up front he honestly appreciates it, even if it comes off as harsh or rude. He’s used to Michael’s dishonesty, and trusting people is something a bit difficult for him. But he can always rely on you to tell him like it is. Even if he doesn’t want to hear it, your honesty is what he knows he needs.

If you want to infodump about a special interest, he’s all ears. He’s super engaged- asking questions, genuinely wanting to know more. He talks a lot, and he likes to hear you talk a lot too.

He loves when you borrow his clothes. And if he owns anything with a texture that you dislike, he throws it out. If you don’t like the texture, you’re less likely to wear it, after all.

He’s very handsy. If you’ve had top surgery, he loves to touch your scars, provided that you’re alright with that. It’s not even anything sexual (most of the time). He occasionally just finds himself laying with his head on your chest and his fingers tracing against the marks on your chest. He personally enjoys them a lot.

When you go out together, he occasionally likes you to match suits with him or match your outfit with one of his dresses. He’s fairly possessive of you, and matching each other lets everyone know you two are together.

He’s not the best at comfort, at all. If you have any dysphoria, he won’t have the words to comfort you. But he’s more than willing to hold you for as long as you like.

Super respectful of whatever pronouns you use, and he expects everyone you meet to do the same..or else. Seriously, he would kill someone without hesitation for disrespecting you.

[lonelychicago]

april's fics masterlist! 💌

unbetaed, unedited, unhinged

This is a list of all most of my published buddie fics for the 9-1-1 fandom (will be updated as needed).

I hate accidents (except when we went from friends to this) | teen and up | 4.2k words

"What did you just say?' Buck swallows thickly and reaches for the marriage certificate, passing it to Eddie. "Don’t panic but I think we might have accidentally gotten married." He lets out a breath, bracing himself for the worst case scenario. 'Don't panic', he says, which is rich coming from Buck since he feels like all he'll be able to do for the foreseeable future is panic. Eddie doesn’t react, which is kinda great and definitely something Buck can work with, but he’s also honestly a little worried Eddie went catatonic. “Married?” Eddie repeats, in a hollow voice. from the tumblt prompt: "Don’t panic but I think we might have accidentally gotten married."

i'll heal eventually (but faster if you're next to me) | teen and up | 19.2k words

School Nurse Eddie and the idiotic Gym Teacher Buck that keeps getting injured.

we are a fresh page on the desk (filling in the blanks as we go) | teen and up | 29k words

Buck's a best seller author under a pen name, Eddie is an actor auditioning for the movie adaptation of his books, and somewhere along the way, they fall in love.

made my way to a life i would choose | explicit | 34.9k words

In which Eddie transfers from his station to the Dispatch Center to be the LAFD Liaison, change is hard, staying away from Dispatcher Evan Buckley is even harder and not falling in love with the man is god-damned impossible. Eddie makes his way to a life he would choose and to a family who will choose him back.

he never thinks of me (except when i'm on TV) | mature | 18.1k words

In which Eddie finds out years later that his unrequited feelings for his high school best friend were not actually unrequited, Buck is stupidly famous now and they pine. They get there in the end, they just need to get their timing right. Inspired by the prompt: “you’re famous and just got asked if you were ever in love this should be good– WAIT WHAT."

it can't be unlearned (i've known the warmth of you) | teen and up | 4k words

Buck gets attacked by hunters on his way to Eddie's, Eddie takes care of him and some revelations come to light in the morning.

spinning faster than the plane that took you | teen and up | 9.2k words

Buck flees to the other side of the world, they're both miserable and also pining idiots in love. Somehow it all works out in the end.

the way you move is like a full on rainstorm (and I'm a house of cards) | explicit | 2.7k words

Buck and Eddie play strip poker and things get a little out of control. It's for the best, though.

trust me to take you home | teen and up | 2.2k words

"Listen," Eddie clears his throat. "Thank you for doing this. I—" "Thank me after we get out of this alive." Buck leans forward, his face just a few inches away from Eddie's, he has a conspiratorial glint in his eyes and his cheeks are flushed— Eddie should get an award for how strong he's being right now, seriously. It takes everything in him not to close the gap between them and kiss Buck right then and there. He could do it, though, with the excuse of people watching. They need to keep the charade, right? When Pepa kept setting him up on awful, horrible dates, and Buck offered to pretend they were dating— well, how could Eddie ever refuse something like that? The chance to get a taste for what he's been aching and longing for since forever, even if it'll end up with his heart more broken than it already is. It seemed like a good idea at the time, alright? Eddie's never claimed to make smart, sound decisions. or: there's a wedding in texas, a meddling tía pepa and only one bed. somehow, it all works in the end.

called my bluff (and saw through all my tells) | explicit | 2.3k words

eddie knows exactly how long buck was dead for and buck doesn't really know what to do with that information— so he does the logical and sensible thing and fucks the guy.

believe in one thing (i won't go away) | mature | 24k words

"I think— I think we should go to therapy. Together." Eddie says one night and takes Buck completely by surprise. "Therapy? Together?" "Yeah, like, couple's therapy or something. Frank told me he can recommend someone for us." "Eddie…" Buck says slowly, as if he's trying to explain the hardest math problem in the universe to a five year old. "We're not, uh— We're not a couple." "No, I know." Eddie frowns and looks down, fidgeting with the beer in between his hands. "But we're partners." He says, this time a lot lower that Buck barely hears it. "Right?" or: the one where buck is figuring out stuff after waking up from a coma, eddie misses his best friend and they go to couple's therapy.

I woke up just in time, (now I wake up by your side) | teen and up | 2.9k words

"Fine, I'm his fiancé." Eddie rolls his eyes and ignores the stares of his teammates behind his back. "It's fairly recent, we haven't had the time to finish the paperwork. Are you really not gonna let me see my fiancé?" or: Buck is in a coma, the nurses are being difficult and Eddie pretends to be engaged to Buck so they would let him see his friend. prompt: what are the ethical implications of pretending to be engaged to a comatose man?

romance is not dead (if you keep it just yours) | teen and up | 2.8k words

Buck went on a mysterious date, he's being oddly secretive about it and his family is just too meddling to let it go. (Eddie is having the time of his life.)

i've spent my whole life trying to put it into words | teen and up | 4.1k words

5 times Eddie was in a car with Buck, trying not to tell the man he loves him +1 time he says it. prompt: you're in a car with a beautiful boy and you're trying not to tell him that you love him.

I'd marry you with paper rings | general audiences | 1.7k words

In which Buck has thoughts about Valentine's day, he makes paper rings and somehow ends up proposing to his best friend. It kinda works out for him in the end.

I'm so in love that I might stop breathing | teen and up | 5.5k words

In which Eddie's parents come to visit, Buck is an idiot and as always, a family dinner goes wrong. BTHB Prompt: Allergic Reaction

my hands are shaking from holding back from you | explicit | 7.5k words

5 times Eddie sees one of Buck's thirst traps/nudes. Inspired by the prompt: whoops I accidentally found a naked/sexy selfie of you on your phone and fuck how am i supposed to function around you now?

pining and anticipation (I don't want you like a best friend) | teen and up | 3.3k words

"So teach me. Show me the Buck 1.0 moves or whatever." He grins at him and moves his hand, brushes his knuckles against Buck's forearm— ghosting over his skin. Buck gets goosebumps and pulls away, nearly falling off his stool. When he straightens, wincing, Eddie is grinning at him, delight all over his face. "Who doesn't have game now, Buckley?" or: Buck inadvertently challenges Eddie to try to hit on him by laughing at the fact that the guy has no game. It ends up being the best thing ever.

the songs i wrote as your other (are the best i´ll ever sing) | explicit | 7.4k words

“Should we take this new romantic love song to mean there’s someone new in your life?” “No.” He flashes another smile, all teeth and confidence he doesn't really feel inside. But he feels the weight of the cameras on him and the weight of Eddie's gaze against the side of his face; he needs to keep the act up. “Trust me, you don’t need to be in love to write a love song. It’s ingrained.” He glances at Eddie. or; Buck and Eddie are in a rock band together and have this friends with benefits thing going on. They try to keep things casual... except Buck keeps writing love songs about Eddie.

this is my idea of fun (playing video games) | explicit | 5.1k words ( co-written with @cowboy-buddie )

Eddie’s just trying to enjoy a day off filled with video games, but when Buck comes home, well, he has a diffrent sort of game in mind.

it's what my rotting bones will sing when the rest of me is dead | teen and up | 12.4k words

the one where a call goes wrong and leaves everyone thinking eddie was dead, buck finds about the will through a letter and comes to some other revelations in the process. and in which eddie finds his way back home and finally gets to be happy with the love of his life. BTHB Prompt: Missing and Presumed Dead

situations, circumstances, miscommunications ( i just may like some explanations ) | teen and up | 4.3k words

from the prompt: We're best friends and have been dating for over a month now but you won't kiss me so should we just break up and just be friends? But turns out you didn't know we were dating

the night i nearly lost you (really thought i'd lost you) | teen and up | 2.9k words

"Buck! Buck, baby! Stay with me, okay?" Eddie. Eddie's voice washes over him like a warmth blanket, comforting and grounding even amongst all the pain and fogginess. "Buck! Buck!" The screams calling his name pierce through Buck’s skull like a freight train. The pain pulses behind his eye and echoes down his spine until it falls into the churning waters of Buck’s stomach. Nausea rolls through him and he groans, closing his eyes. or: The woman sleep driving her car into the station goes a little faster and hits Buck... Eddie doesn't handle it well. BTHB Prompt: Ambulance Ride

I'm the one on the phone as you whisper | teen and up | 1.2k words

Buck's date cancels but he has already made the restaurant reservation, so he decides to call Hen and ask if she'd like to take Karen there. He dials the wrong number. It all works in the end.

i don't want to keep secrets just to keep you | teen and up | 5.5k words

Buck insists on keeping their relationship a secret for longer than Eddie thought they would. It causes some problems... until he finds the reason why.

[spaceorphanssecondbreakfastclub]

SO's Bookclub : On The Way To The Wedding

Title: On The Way To The Wedding Author: Julia Quinn Genre: Romance

Goodreads Summary :

Unlike most men of his acquaintance, Gregory Bridgerton believes in true love. And he is convinced that when he finds the woman of his dreams, he will know in an instant that she is the one. And that is exactly what happened. Except...

She wasn't the one. In fact, the ravishing Miss Hermione Watson is in love with another. But her best friend, the ever-practical Lady Lucinda Abernathy, wants to save Hermione from a disastrous alliance, so she offers to help Gregory win her over. But in the process, Lucy falls in love. With Gregory! 

Review :

Here we are, at the end of the line, and it's a little bittersweet if I'm being honest. This has been an interesting experiment for sure - and I enjoyed the run a lot more than I thought I would!

The thing about this one, even with the second ending, honestly felt like -- every other book in the series. I get and understand the nature of these books are supposed to be stand alone, with a shared background of connectivity. But I am sad that there wasn't something more to tie it all together.

So. Gregory. The first half-ish of this book dragged. A lot of it was about Gregory kind of being torn between two women, and even though Kate was there a lot to facilitate (it was so lovely to see Kate again!!) it wasn't that interesting?

After Gregory kind of gets over his crush on the main love interest, Lucy's, friend Hermione, and start paying attention to Lucy, the book picks up. And the last 100 pages are kind of a riot. There is wedding crashing, and Lucy being engaged to a gay man named Halsby who is absolutely hilarious and why was he not in the rest of the book, and black mail and attempted murder, and seriously -- if Julia Quinn had kept to these main ideas then I'd say this one would be a whole lot better. And honestly, I hope they do make the show until season 8, because this will be a riot when adapted.

Gregory is fine as the male protagonist. He's kind of bland and one note a lot, but at least he isn't as temperamental as his brothers. Meanwhile, Lucy is... kind of the same as every other female protagonist. I mean, Julia knows her structure and continues to stick to it. There are a bunch of elements that do feel a little recycled from the other books. And I don't know that anything necessarily feels fresh. But there wasn't anything in it that made me throw it across the room, either.

The family is there and it isn't. Kate being around is great - because she's a delight, and we really haven't seen her much. There are some really great moments with Violet and Hyacinth, too. Colin is back for a few scenes, but I was a little disappointed -- not only is there really not any mention of Penelope, Colin is so bland that I wonder why she even bothered other than she felt obligated to.

I do wish the book had wrapped up all the Bridgertons in a bigger, more thematic way, but you know what -- that's just not what these books are, and I guess the book giving the main characters a happy ending kind of suffices. (I am a little sad that the second epilogues for all of these -- except Viscount Who Loved Me -- have been a little disappointing.)

Overall, it was fine. The last portion of the book was bonkers and kind of fun. And I guess that is that.

Rating : 3 stars

[doggendoodle]

It's especially interested how bad the Minecraft movie feels when you compare it to other video game movies nowadays.

Like. For example, the Mario movie in concept was simple. Adapt the basic structure of what a Mario platformer is (person gets kidnapped and Mario saves them) with Mario's alternate backstory of being from Brooklyn as an excuse to make him an easier viewpoint character. And Super Mario is THE video game franchise so it's an easy money grab.

Except they didn't make an easy money grab. They made a kid's movie that respected the kids who play the games, they made references to the games and incorporated them into the movie in a way that enhanced the story, and they did this while still understanding the spirit of the franchise.

Mario and DK being rivals but still coming together to fight a greater evil. The Bros.' relationship being the emotional core of the movie. Bowser being portrayed perfectly as a goofy yet still threatening villain. They even incorporated Mario Kart into the story without it feeling tacked on. They took the world of Mario seriously and treated it with respect - they made a world that's goofy and charming but still lived-in, without making it edgy or "realistic" just to "appeal" to adults.

Most people apologising to Minecraft Story Mode are probably doing it as a joke, but like. They already understood this and worked through it. Even in the first game which features a grand adventure, the adventurers are people from the world of Minecraft, and the epic invasion was a horror unleashed by accident, like the Wither it's based on.

Later episodes and seasons play more into the inherent fantastical elements of Minecraft, with the Far Lands and the End as eldritch, alien places. They also reference the community aspects of Minecraft: power-hungry server admins, fan-created games like Spleef, fantastical redstone contraptions, even the Minecraft YouTuber murder mystery.

And even being a movie instead of an episodic game isn't an automatic death sentence - hell, if you really wanted to stick to the base game of Minecraft, you could showcase the joy of exploration that is a much more common and more core experience than big epic boss fights.

That moment in the trailer, where there's a log floating in the broken tree and the boy reaches out for it? The one at the start where they're looking around at the world and the camera lets us see the surroundings? Those are great moments, because that's how it feels to play Minecraft. I've seen and heard kids play the game, I know that's still how they experience it. If you're going to make it into an epic, make it into an epic journey and show off the world. The vistas we've seen do genuinely look gorgeous, like someone transplanted

Even the visual design plays into this. The weirdly realistic mobs Detective Pikachu/Sonic style do not work. Detective Pikachu still looks uncanny to me, but the world of Pokémon is meant to be similar to the human world, and Pokémon are meant to be animals. The world of Sonic is Earth, and the redone design for Sonic and the other animal characters is beautiful; it really does feel like Sonic exists in a world overlaid on ours, more fantastical but still in reach.

The Minecraft movie trying to have its blocky cake and eat it too just feels like a shoddy compromise. The wolf howling at the moon doesn't look epic or awe-inspiring, it looks bad - in fact it's not even on model. They deliberately made it look blockier, for some reason. The invading piglins have realistic armour, and clothes, but their bodies are desperately trying to fit the voxel shapes and it all feels at odds. And of course the pink sheep and llama look god awful.

Combined with the human characters being Regular Humans, it feels more like some random friend group making a home movie than a fucking big budget production - and honestly, it loses some of the fun and appeal of portal fantasy.

I will say, it does look like they will visit the Nether at some point.

[ID: screenshot from the trailer. The scene is dark and lit by lava waterfalls originating above the frame, but the scenery resembles a Bastion. There are several piglins staring at the young male main character, whose head is peeking into frame. End ID]

Given they're shooting for the "marauding piglin" angle it's probably too much to ask, but the scene cuts away at this point instead of transitioning into that standard shot where all the mobs roar at the main character, so part of me is hoping that maybe this scene won't be at the climax, and we'll get to actually experience the piglins as nuanced mobs.

[microcomets]

can i ask for your thoughts on the netflix atla adaption? 👉👈 value ur opinion on media

aw, thank you!!! i admit i'm only halfway through watching s1, so my opinions may change as i reach the end of the season, but i can outline some of my thoughts so far!

pros:

overall, with a few exceptions, i think the casting so far is really solid. the asian and indigenous representation within the show is something they clearly took very seriously, and it shows! especially for a netflix show, that's something really groundbreaking and important and refreshing to see; and obviously a huge improvement on past whitewashed adaptations. overall, i think most of the effects are good, despite some weird cinematography choices — there are a handful of moments where the CGI looks particularly egregious, but overall, the bending and choreo look COOL. the opening scene of the pilot had me by the throat, even as it made very clear what a different kind of adaptation this would be. overall, i tend not to be too fussy about an adaptation altering things from originals to make more sense in different formats (with caveats, as i'll mention in the cons lol), so i wasn't mad about the way they've fused some of the storylines to make it flow better in a 60-minute format. (although i do question bringing in s2 stories so early, such as the secret tunnel.) there have been some moments where they've either built out character relationships (like zuko and iroh) or brought in supplementary canon from korra and the comics, which i have also enjoyed as a huge fan of the original. there are a few additions that i've really loved and had fun with — zuko's dream journal, for one, lmao, and his and aang's street fight in omashu.

cons:

honestly, my biggest gripe so far has been the alterations to characterization and character motivation. the cast and crew were sort of smugly talking about removing misogyny from the original and "updating" it, which is ironic because i think the live action is actually more sexist in many ways.

my BIGGEST disappointment has been katara, with no shade to the actor. this is one of the characters who means the most to me from the original, and the character that has hands-down been the least recognizable in natla. her fire, her temper, her unruliness, and her bossiness — all to say, her human traits — have been completely sanitized, presumably to avoid drawing any kind of criticism that she's "annoying." her anger is quite literally what kickstarts the entire show: katara losing her temper with sokka cracks open the iceberg that releases aang. katara's anger is, in a lot of ways, an outlet not only for her sense of injustice in the world, but also an outlet for coping with 1) immense colonial trauma and 2) the burden of being parentified. this, in my view, is IMPORTANT for young girls and particularly young girls of color to see — that anger doesn't have to be something you shy away from, but that you can embrace as a weapon of resistance. this anger is missing entirely, except in small snatches, from natla katara. the moments that make katara a flawed, interesting character — such as her stealing the waterbending scroll and getting jealous of aang's natural prowess — have been scrubbed completely. it is nearly impossible, at this point, to imagine this version of katara bloodbending or taking vengeance for her mother in s3. i think the re-characterization is a big misstep, due more to poor writing than anything. even the agency of katara's bending is "unlocked" and coached by male characters like aang (ep 1) and jet (ep 3), when katara is supposed to be the one teaching aang!

the inversion of sokka and katara's relationship — that is to say, parentifying sokka and making katara more of a "little sister" figure — is also a huge misstep IMO, because it misses a lot of the characterization fundamental to katara's arcs in the original, and even her later conflicts with other characters like toph. in s3 in the original, sokka says when he pictures his mother, he can only picture katara's face — this is, again, a central aspect to their dynamic and to katara's character! my guess is that they removed katara's overmothering qualities to avoid accusations of being anti-feminist, but ironically, by not acknowledging that in-text the way the original does, it bakes misogyny unspokenly into the atla world rather than explicitly acknowledging and challenging it. to clarify again, i have NOT seen the end of the season yet — i am curious what they do with katara's confrontation with paku, which is one of the biggest grapplings with misogyny in the original text. but for me, removing katara's motherly qualities/parentification, and above all her unsavory traits, are not accomplishing anti-sexist work the way the writers think they're doing, but rather sanitizing the original's social commentary on gender altogether.

one of my biggest squicks thus far has been suki and sokka's relationship; i saw suki's characterization described by someone here as a farmer girl p*rn trope where a naive village waif looks to a man to show her the outside world, or w/e, and i hate that this is what they did to suki's character. they keep her warrior qualities, yes, but this is undercut for me by the cringe comphet romance tropes of making her a wide-eyed blushing virgin around sokka. the insta-romance in the original makes more sense to me, obviously because of the format, but because in the span of 20 minutes, suki has taught sokka what it is to respect and reevaluate his relationship with women and femininity. the writers bragged about removing this from the natla representation, so what we have now is that suki doesn't really teach sokka anything substantial about himself, other than some moves. rather, it's sokka teaching suki about what it is to be "worldly" and how to unlock carnal desires. tbh, i hate that! lol! but that's just my onion.

zuko has been one of the strongest and most well-acted characterizations by far, but i do have a gripe with how they shifted his primary motivation from regaining his honor to reclaiming the throne. zuko at his essence has never been a power-hungry character. his entire drive, as we are told exhaustively through both the show and memes of the original, is regaining his honor — which is also an important cultural trope for many japanese warrior characters (though others not me can speak far more in-depth to this). his search for lost honor is incredibly important, if not central, to his entire character arc, which is zuko discovering that his honor does not come by acknowledgement from his abusive family or even imperial power, but through his own integrity and ethical code. so to have him make several lines about rightfully regaining what's his, the throne, and to make that the primary point of contention between him and azula.....is a misunderstanding, again, of the crucial aspects of zuko's character.

my other nitpicks with the characters are smaller — i miss sokka's slapstick, which has been substituted with very dry humor (and i understand this makes more sense for live action). i am still on the fence about how i feel about making ozai and azula such central characters in s1; i understand why they felt this was necessary for live action, but having those two be shadow figures in the original s1 was a really cool narrative effect for not only establishing zuko initially as a villain within his own right, but for building narrative suspense as to the fire nation's motivations.

ultimately, there's just some secret x ingredient that's missing from the live action that the original nailed effortlessly — maybe it's the sense of fun and wonder? i haven't really had fun watching this adaptation; i'm more just spectating, like watching some pretty fireworks before i move on with my day. my opinion may change slightly, as i hear the show is stronger in the second half; i wouldn't even say it's a BAD adaptation, but overall i feel like it's just kinda....meh, and i still question why it needs to exist in the first place when there are some things that animation as a medium just does far better.

also i just want to point out that i find it extremely frustrating that this show leans very hard into showing the atrocities and Moral Evil of genocide in literally the first 20 minutes of episode 1 and that while netflix wants the virtue-signaling brownie points for that, they'll still continue to give giant paychecks and platforms to brazen zionists. because after this dies down, the stranger things promo cycle is going to start up.

[arcielee]

Interview With a Writer

Time for another installment of my series Interview With a Writer with the talented, the wonderful @inthedayswhenlandswerefew. Thank you as always for your time and allowing this self-indulgent series to continue!

Dividers by @saradika 💜

Name: inthedayswhenlandswerefew

Story: Comet Donati

Paring: modern Aemond Targaryen x female!reader

Warnings: 18+ mature themes. Sex, drugs, boy bands. Be mindful of chapter warnings.

What inspired the plot for Comet Donati?

I think it will surprise absolutely no one when I say that Comet was born out of my love for One Direction. While I’m at work (I’m a high school teacher), I’ll often put on a Spotify playlist for me and the students to listen to. I like to change it up…for a few days we’ll listen to 80s rock, and then Beyoncé Radio, and then classical music, it’s always something different. At the very end of last school year in June, I got in the mood to revisit my love of One Direction. As I was listening to and falling in love with those songs all over again—History, No Control, Heart Attack, etc.—the idea of the HOTD characters being a boy band occurred to me, first as something ludicrous but then as a weird but potentially viable fic plot.

My long-time readers know that the first specific scene I envision is always one of the last scenes of a story, and while I was listening to that One Direction playlist one afternoon I saw the very end of Comet Donati: a girl on a farm looking out a kitchen window and watching Aemond return to her after a very fraught, magical, horrible, amazing summer touring with the band together. The very first sentence I wrote in my Word Doc was the last sentence of Chapter 10.

And thus, Comet arrived on Earth! :)

So the scene that inspired the rest of Comet Donati…

It was Aemond on that damn Gold Star motorcycle, which is another astronomy reference!

Are you always aware of how your stories will end? Or have you ever balked and changed something?

I always know the ending from the very start, and I’ve never changed one. Because I start writing with the end so clearly in mind, changing it would undermine a lot of the foreshadowing, themes, and character arcs that were present throughout the story, and would honestly feel totally disorienting to me. With that said, there are occasions when unexpected details pop up (ex. in Comet, Aemond clicking so well with Stargirl’s parents wasn’t something that I foresaw or really thought about before writing Chapter 9), but generally I have it all set it stone before the first chapter is ever posted.

Can you give us some insight on your interpretation of Aemond and Aegon?

Aegon and Aemond both have a lot of trauma (clearly), but they have adapted to survive it in completely different ways. Aemond is a brooding, perfectionist, desperately insecure person who lashes out like a wounded animal when he feels wronged. Aegon is the opposite. He directs his anxiety and self-loathing inwards harming only himself, and rarely shares it with anyone else (Stargirl of course is a massive exception).

While Aemond wants to be taken seriously, Aegon dives headfirst into his lackadaisical nature and exacerbates it, largely out of spite for Viserys and to a lesser extent Alicent and Otto. He is lazy, bombastic, rootless, chaotic, an unrepentant addict…and, in perhaps his greatest act of rebellion, someone who is genuinely affectionate and nonjudgmental. Aemond is fangs and claws and storms and wreckage; Aegon has this warm, contagious glow that distracts from his profound inner darkness.

Aemond is someone who always felt uncool, unloved, and unremarkable. At home he was mostly ignored by Viserys (despite Aemond’s attempts to bond with him). Alicent, while well-intentioned, was often distracted by her own marital unhappiness, and furthermore was emotionally closer to Helaena and Daeron than Aemond. At school, he didn’t make friends or get girls in the same effortless way that Aegon or Daeron did.

Like Aegon said in Chapter 3: “I had friends. He had grudges.” But when Aemond masterminded Comet and became an international popstar, he finally got the camaraderie and recognition he always craved, and for the first time in his life felt worthy of love. Losing all of that after the accident at the Budokan was psychologically devastating for him.

When he meets Stargirl, Aemond wants her in a way that is immediate, overpowering, and completely unlike anything he’s ever experienced before…but his fear of losing her—and his lifelong, intense phobia of rejection—sabotages their relationship over and over again.

Was there anything in specific that inspired Stargirl?

Stargirl is, and I say this with nothing but love, the most Hot Mess Express reader insert that I’ve written so far. She is very smart and intuitive, a natural therapist, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t routinely make questionable decisions while touring with the band.

She’s able to help others but struggles when it comes to protecting herself. I think that’s extremely relatable. I also love psychology as a discipline. I’m definitely not a professional; I’ve taken college-level psychology courses and taught it as a high school class, but I would never consider myself to be an expert. However, my interest in psychology (and in redeeming Sigmund Freud!) certainly bled into this fic.

As far as Stargirl’s backstory… I think that unfortunately, most women have had experiences when we were made to feel ashamed, unworthy, unlovable, immoral, etc. because of something related to our sexuality. It’s incredibly frustrating to see this repeat generation after generation. Stargirl has put a lot of time and effort into reprogramming herself from her fundamentalist Christian upbringing/community, and shedding that heartbreak and cynicism as much as possible. I think she’s an inspirational character, and a manifestation of my hope for our society’s future.

How does Stargirl complement Aemond? How does this compare to her relationship with Aegon?

Therapists have to be natural optimists, I believe. They have to be able to look at someone who is struggling and see the best in them, to envision a better path forward. When Stargirl meets Aemond in Rome, she genuinely—from the very first moment—cannot fathom thinking that he is unattractive or pitiful. She thinks he is fascinating, intelligent, talented, charming, and of course fine af (and we all agree!).

Her very first act is to put him at ease by addressing his scar/blindness immediately and in a way that is lighthearted and teasing without being cruel. Aemond is used to people either ignoring the accident entirely (awkward) or outright pitying him (even worse). Stargirl does neither.

Aemond is a source of strength for Stargirl; he is protective of her in a way that can override his own paranoia and resentment (ex. when he notices that she is crying on the jet in Chapter 5 or when he banishes Shelby in Chapter 8).

They share an organic chemistry and respect for each other that—over and over again—they have to fight their way back to. Both Stargirl and Aemond want to make the world a better place, albeit in entirely different ways, and I definitely see them turning into a bit of a power couple in that respect.

Stargirl’s relationship with Aegon is easier (as his demons present differently than Aemond’s), but also isn’t something that could ever become a stable, marriage-like partnership. Stargirl doesn’t desire Aegon in that way, nor is he equipped to be in a committed relationship with anybody (not even Selena Gomez!).

Yet fundamentally—no matter how many years or miles are between them—Aegon and Stargirl feel safe with each other. Aegon knows that Stargirl can see that he’s wounded and yet loves him unconditionally anyway. Stargirl knows that Aegon would never think less of her because of her sexuality or any other choices she might make in life. I think of them as platonic soulmates, which is a little bit inaccurate because they aren’t literally platonic. But they love each other in a way that is entirely separate from if/when/how they have sex and without ownership or expectations.

In the past, you created OCs that might prickle underneath our skin but we ended up loving them. Except for fucking Shelby. What inspired her?

I’ve had a few experiences recently that got me thinking about influencer culture and social media obsession. I think we all know people who put a ton of effort into crafting an online narrative that is radically different from their real life. Shelby is someone who rode the early influencer wave to stardom and now is kind of stuck. She doesn’t know how to create authentic experiences because she’s trained herself to manufacture them for years; similarly, she doesn’t know how to nurture genuine relationships. But Shelby also doesn’t know what comes next in her life. Aemond’s accident gives her a valuable rebranding opportunity: she can shift from “early-twenties hottie” to “self-sacrificing caretaker,” eventually evolving into wife and mommy blogging content. She clings to that so fiercely because she honestly, horrifyingly does not know who she is without a label her millions of subscribers/followers agree upon. And Shelby is willing to do some pretty deplorable things to try to keep Aemond away from Stargirl.

I think my own understanding of Shelby is actually a lot more compassionate than Comet readers might suspect. I don’t feel that she has any desire to harm Aemond, and on the contrary does care for him in the way that she knows how to. She’s definitely wrong for him, and she unintentionally massacres his mental health on a daily basis. But she really, truly thinks that she’s helping him by hiding his “humiliating” disability. She is so engrained in the shallow, deceptive, trope-conforming influencer lifestyle that whoever she was before has been entirely forgotten.

Were there any other characters in your story that you enjoyed writing?

Obviously, I adore the dynamics of the whole band. It was a nice change to write Team Black characters as good guys for the first time: Luke admiring and supporting Aemond in that worshipful sort of way, Rhaena being gentle and intuitive but also increasingly brave, Baela figuring out how to harness her natural assertiveness into advocating for her own ambitions.

Cregan’s dysfunctional childhood hits home for me in a lot of ways, and I absolutely loved him coming into his own as a good father both literally and as a father figure for Comet (especially with Aemond as he prepares for his own fatherhood journey!). Poor Criston definitely needs Cregan’s help parenting this boy band of feral raccoons. Criston is TIRED! Let the man rest!

Finally, I would like to shock everyone by announcing that Jace was one of my favorite parts of writing this fic. He’s a tool, but he also has lines that he won’t cross; way down deep somewhere, he has a fundamental and irrevocable love for Comet. Jace will taunt someone until they hit him, but he rarely hits back. Jace will poke fun at Aemond, but he is also sincerely disturbed by Shelby making Aemond so miserable. Jace body shames Aegon constantly, and yet he’s the one outside the hotel room in Chapter 8 frantically asking if Aegon is okay. Additionally, Jace is really into Stargirl in a way that is completely shameless, sometimes creepy, but also randomly insightful.

There are a lot of little moments of him being concerned about Aemond/Aegon/Stargirl throughout the fic if you look for them. Like, he breaks the awkward silence for Stargirl at the Vegas buffet. Jace is only 90% evil 🥰

I’ve also never gotten to write Jace like this before and I might never get to again, but I really enjoyed it.

As a writer, I think it is safe to say we constantly daydream. How do you know what stories need to be told?

I’ll use Comet as an example. So when I first started kicking around the HOTD boy band idea while listening to One Direction songs, I fully intended to save the potential fic for when Season 2 airs next summer. There was an essence of a story, a general vibe…touring, comets, drinks, smoke…yet it wasn’t urgent or tangible. But as soon as that last scene hit me out of nowhere—Aemond returning to the farm as a better man, riding his motorcycle with displaced snow billowing out behind him—Comet Donati as a story became vivid and real and all-consuming.

As soon as I see a scene like that, I know I have to write the story, and I usually begin immediately planning out chapters that same day. Ideas and vibes flit in and out of my mind all the time, but scenes demand to be written.

Would you ever want to revisit a story for an epilogue?

I won’t say I’ll never write an epilogue, because I suppose inspiration could strike unexpectedly. However, for me, where a story ends is truly the ending. I might have vague ideas about what happens next for certain characters, but I don’t usually see scenes or hear dialogue beyond the last chapter, so trying to write an epilogue would feel forced to me. If anything, I’m usually already in the mental headspace of a new story by the time I’m finishing up the current one! With that said, it’s super heartwarming when readers ask about epilogues, because I know that means they’ve grown to love these characters and aren’t ready to say goodbye yet.

If a reader has a question about what comes next for a character, they’re always welcome to send it my way, and I’ll answer to the best of my ability. 🥰

What is next for the wonderful Miss Maggie?

So, as usual, too many things to possibly keep up with! I have a few original novel projects floating around. But… most relevant to Tumblr… I also have two (yes, TWO!!!) new House Of The Dragon fic ideas that I’m really excited about.

Just last week, one of these ideas turned into a must-write-immediately type of story when I saw the final scene while driving home from work and listening to Fall Out Boy’s second album, From Under The Cork Tree. I’ve had that album on repeat ever since!

It’s always daunting to start a new series; the time commitment is stressful, and there’s a fear of rejection as well. I remember being absolutely terrified to post the first chapter of Comet Donati because I felt like it was so different in tone from NICIY, and I worried that my readers wouldn’t connect with it. But Comet ended up working out in the long run, so I’m trying to use that lesson to talk myself out of any self-doubt.

This new series is going to be very different from Comet in both setting and tone. It’s going to be long, around 15 chapters.

And for more details, you’ll have to check back on Sunday, September 10th! :)

[horizon-verizon]

is there #dragoncourse now? i always thought 2-legged dragons were more "realistic" than 4-legged ones, just like grrm does. he started out as a sci-fi writer and loves blending it in with his fantasy (see: valyrian dragonlords doing blood experiments; i'm also sure that that "oily black stone" is an alien artifact). he loves imagining how magic, and magical creatures, can be realistic and i think it's cool af. and honestly i agree that 4-legged dragons with wings on their backs look stupid.

There are a lot of "ASoIaF dragons are not real dragons" people out there, and really, as I said in the post I suspect you are responding to, I think it's really stupid.

Why exactly is this a big deal to people except that they want to feel comfortable with creatures such as these they have seen all their lives stay so when they feel they are themselves gone?

So that it doesn't feel like they've "wasted' their lives or something loving/obsessing over these fantastical creatures? We're fantasy readers--since when has it been the MO to subscribe to such strict rules?!

Or is it they still that to "protect" the genre, to protect it from people who think of fantasy as this "lower" intellectual property bc it is highly "unrealistic" (read Ursula K. LeGuin's 1974 essay on why Americans hate fantasy) that they have to be anal about such insignificant properties? But they don't know that by doing so, they have fallen back into the same spot as those who claim fantasy is just escapism or un-valuable bc it is "impractical"--they insisting on this weird seriousness by focusing on the more superficial "rules" or appearances of some conventions in fantasy, they relegate fantasy to this static character of superficiality, unimaginativeness, and "childishness/womanishness" that they want fantasy to be less regarded as. Bec without element of repurpose and "recombination", fantasy becomes relevant and joyful.

By "imagination," then, I personally mean the free play of the mind, both intellectual and sensory. By "play" I mean recreation, re-creation, the recombination of what is known into what is new.

Perhaps it's bc they want to protect, as I have said in that other post, the dragons of their childhoods they way they do other stuff that partially lead to so many damn remakes? In that case, 🙄. Not everything is about the past and nostalgia, people. the past is fodder for new things.

The crazy part is that it's just legs, it's not like Twilight that completely did a reverse on vampires in multiple ways!

Fantasy of any genre--urban, high, "grim-dark", sci-fi, historical--has always "broken" or "strayed" or, truly, repurposed some "traditional" elements of the creatures. think of vampires...even before Twilight, have vampires always been the Bram Stoker kind in popular media? Have we not seen more vampires take on a more pseudo-sciency character, with injections of "viruses" and such? Zombie-like vamps? Hello?! There wasn't even the rule about having to eject one's bodily fluids in the vampiric creation process in the orig Bran Stoker story, not it's damn near everywhere!

It's not even about "realism" for me or how we should or should not strive for the most "realistic" dragon. It's about the flexibility of fantasy writing and the history of the super-genre itself. As long as one maintains the rules they set up for their own lore ANd they stuck to the some basic-basics, I really never cared abt whether they conformed to supposedly, popular description for a cryptid or mythological creature. If it flies, uses the elements (earth, air, water, fire), and has scales, it's a fucking dragon. Some non-EU dragons have NO legs!

I could even let go of wings, bc many non-European dragons don't have wings, esp in Africa. Because, almost near around the world (as all of the current popular cryptids and creatures like werewolves, vamps, dragons, succubi, etc), we have adapted fantasy fiction's villains and monsters from. And this insistence on dragons having 4 legs stems much from the EU-description of a dragon, that as GRRM said in his blog post, itself comes from the long-ago bifurcation of medieval people calling that and that a wyvern vs "dragon". It was arbitrary then, it is so, now. Calm the fuck down. More energy is better spent criticizing the HotD and GoT writers for fucking up so many human characters or, idk, defending enby and PoC/black actors!

If we hadn't been more flexible with how we created lore...would there even be sci-fi and fantasy fiction?! DRAGONS DO NOT EXIST IN "REAL" LIFE and fantasy has not always been about keeping as close to reality as possible but the creation of alternative worlds to explore ideologies and human behaviors/relationships to their worlds--to explore, isolate and work around the "chosen" heart and patterns in human behavior.

To create these worlds, fantasy writers choose fantasy to see/portray how humans may understand what a human/society is not in spite of but because of the environments they grow in! and fantasy affords them much more room for high drama that non fantasy cannot "reasonably" have!

As for myself, I prefer dragons having 2 legs when you want to impress that these are creatures who may or may not have higher cognitive functions but can't necessarily talk to humans or feel emotions like humans can or in the same exact range of reactions, etc. When you want to make them more like nonhuman animals. Whereas, ironically, 4 legged dragons, I associate with more "wise", super-repositories of the knowledge of the earth. It's, again, not abt "realism", it's abt character and role in the story and how we are to understand the symbolism of such magnificent creatures and how they are going to work/be repurposed. Making sure your chosen rules remain consistent and plausible.

Popular dragons are air/fire creatures (water for Asian cultures), but have developed from the humans' observations of lizards', snakes, and other reptiles' proximity and making homes in the ground. They are chthonic, which means associated with the underworld or world of the dead (esp in ancient Greece) and often associated with death in EU cultures more than say China or Japan. Of which dragons are much more associated with bringing life as well as death (the Yangtze river flooding often), but are benevolent rather than malignant anyway. From the chthonic associations, Christianity solidified dragons' symbolism to be "evil" and mainly destructive for popular media to then reuse for its own generations of projects where capitalist execs prefers the the past popular thing to assure the money flow stays consistently in their favor. A "secure" mode of income, lovley.

Am I to expect dragons to look & represent the same associations the same forever and ever and ever in fantasy fiction?! And not only that, but to make them more in line with a European Christian oversimplification of evil vs good?! To hell with that (wordplay intended). Because a few people whine about these dragons not having the number of legs they deem to be sufficient and "real"?!

Anyway, I hope this all made sense?