#It’s still July 4 where I live so

[pretentiouswreckingball]

falling behind

for @jegulus-microfic prompt: hands (wc: 780)

“I can’t do it,”

“Of course you can!”

“I don’t want to. Good luck dying,”

“No one is going to die Regulus, stop being dramatic,”

“Dramatic?” Regulus snaps at him, “we are on a hanging wooden bridge, 61 meters from the ground with no harness or safety measures whatsoever and you are calling me dramatic?”

James looks around at the wooden bridge, moving a little making the bridge move with him, then he shrugs.

“Seems pretty sturdy to me.”

From the way Regulus is glaring at him, James knows he wants to punch him in the face but it’s too busy holding onto the rail for dear life.

James huffs a laugh at the same time a voice calls from the other side of the bridge.

“Oi, are you coming or what?” Sirius calls, the others seems further away following the trail but Sirius seems to be waiting for them both.

James turns around and it only takes one look at Regulus' pale face to know he’s not letting that rail go anytime soon.

He turns around to Sirius.“We are going in a minute, why don’t you guys ahead? we'll catch up with you later,” he assures him.

Sirius seems a little hesitant, looking behind James, at his brother, but eventually he nods.

“Alright, see you guys in a bit, don’t take too long,”

“Wouldn’t dream of it!” James calls back watching Sirius disappearing between the trees.

He turns back to Regulus.“I have an idea,” he says.

Regulus scowls at him, sensing what’s coming. “It better be good,”

“It is, don’t think you’re going to like it though,”

“Oh?”

James doesn’t say anything, he only holds a hand in front of Regulus.

As soon as he understands the offer, he shakes his head furiously. “Absolutely not, I’m not six years old James, I don’t need you or anyone to hold my hand just because I can’t seem to cross a stupid bridge!”

James remains silent, waiting. His palm up, open, inviting. Waiting for Regulus whenever he’s ready.

It takes some time, not as much as James thought it would but enough that his hand is getting heavy. Regulus is still holding onto the rail with both hands but little by little, his grip loses and he lets his right hand move away from the rail and towards James' outreached hand.

When Regulus’ hand is finally on top of his, James intertwines their fingers together. He squeezes once before he takes a step forward, nudging Regulus to follow him.

He does, one hand still gripping the rail and the other gripping James’ so tightly it’s kind of cutting his circulation but James never let go.

When they are one third through the bridge Regulus’ grip gets even tighter and when James looks at him, he notices it’s because he’s looking down at the dangerous river running wildly below them.

“Hey,” James calls him and Regulus’ gaze snaps up. “Eyes on me, love,”

A faint blush covers Regulus’ cheeks but he doesn’t acknowledge that, instead he says, “Tell me something, anything, before I lose my mind over here.”

James seems to think it over but when he settles for something, he smiles sheepishly at Regulus. “Did I tell you the time a bunch of street dogs chased me for five blocks trying to get a hold on my burger?”

Regulus shakes his head, trying to fight back a smile.

James is gesturing wildly, recalling the events with so much enthusiasm Regulus keeps laughing whenever he tries to impersonate the dogs.

Regulus' eyes don’t leave James’ for a second.

And before they know, they are at the end of the bridge.

They come to a stop.

“We did it,” Regulus says, looking at the trail in front of them. James nods.

“Yeah, we did,”

Neither of them move. Neither of them let go of each other. Because moving away from the bridge means moving away from each other.

James is breaking his head trying to come up with an excuse to stretch their moment a little longer but he can’t seem to get a word out of his mouth.

Regulus can.

“Did I even tell you the time a squirrel stole my lunch?” he says softly, still looking at the path in front of them.

James’ chest feels warm at the confirmation that Regulus doesn’t want to let go either. He grins when he looks at him. “No, you haven’t,”

Regulus finally looks back, a smile tugging at his lips. “It’s surprisingly a long story,”

“I happen to have time,”

They walk away, chatting and laughing, unconsciously gravitating towards each other, like they can’t help themselves.

They are still holding hands.

[ruporas]

soft (and some bittersweet)

[citrineaura]

The Homewarming audio reveals and exposes a lot about the neighbors characters. [ANALYSIS]

1.) First things first; The neighbors can interact with the narrator. But considering puppet shows usually involve the puppets interacting with the narrator, (like Sesame Street for example) I don't know if that's a big deal or not.

2.) BARNABY: (Barnaby pipes up at the Narrator.) Hey, keep it down up there! Some of us are tryin’ to do some serious cerebratin’ down here!

^As above, so below reference again.

3.) JULIE: (Whispered.) Frank’s right… Homewarming is about making sure your house is nice, cozy, and toasty. Right before I go to sleep for a very long time, I make a big nest from my bed just like I used to do back home when I was small- A lot of pillows and blankets and leaves and sticks…

^Her background when she used to live in a cave.

4.) HOWDY: Advice?! …You know I don’t got any’a that for sale, Barn! Not unless it’s to buy, buy, buy-!

^Hmmm, consumerism is what he's advocating.

5.) HOWDY: Frank?! (Howdy Scoffs loudly)

^So far, Frank is wary of Wally, Sally is blatantly disrespectful to Eddie, and now we see Howdy possibly doesn't think of Frank as a close neighbor. What's with all the animosity?

6.) HOWDY: That’s right! Trinkets even! It’s about what you give to other folks! The bigger, the shinier, and the more expensive the better! It’s about the razzle and dazzle! Go on, Barn, tell ‘em!

^We see here that Howdy is materialistic- which is odd considering he only asks for a joke in exhange for his services but then we get...this side of him.

7.) Frank said Homewarming is just a home that's warm, Howdy said it was gifts for Home. Sally says Homewarming is about the ambience, decor, and experience. Poppy says it's for dishes.

^Frank is logical- too literal, Howdy is materialistic, Sally enjoys the spotlight, and Poppy is a foodie.

8.) Wally even tossed the slice of poppy-seed ham into the flames and listened for a sound of approval

^Although it's revealed Home preferred the company of Wally and Barnaby instead of all the gifts in the end, this one specific action Wally did seemed oddly...sacrifical. Like offering food to a higher being.

I still don't think Home is an antagonist, personally. My money is still on Playfellow Workshop.

9.) WALLY: (He sounds frustrated and confused.) …How can that be.

^Apparently, Barnaby couldn't hear it but Wally's voice gets distorted when overwhelmed, just like it did when he tried speaking to YOU or...the Question-Answerer.

10.) AND! Eddie was never mentioned, not once, in this audio- which makes me think this is in correlation to the Wishbook audio recording where "Santa Claus" fails to talk about Eddie, and only Eddie.

[threeacttragedy]

Entry 7: The One Where the Queen Asked, “Did That Go the Way You Thought It Was Gonna Go?”

I’m probably one of the few people in this fandom who find Antonia entertaining.

Goddammit – put down your fucking pitchforks!

I didn’t say I liked her – I simply said I found her entertaining.

If Antonia’s existence bothers the fuck out of you, you’ll likely enjoy my commentary here.

*And, right about here is when I’ll slip in my disclaimer: this is my opinion only; merely speculation based on information that is out there in the public realm.

Now, where was I?

Oh, yes, Antonia. I don’t find her entertaining because I think she’s a great dancer. Is she? You tell me. I mean, I have two left feet so just about anyone is better than me.

And, I have never seen a picture or video where she’s made me “like” her as a person. In fact, she comes off more like a villain, but not a brilliant villain (I might like her, then). She’s more like an Iago to, say, Deux Mois’ Jafar.

I just find her so fucking reckless, but in the most amusing way possible. If she were a movie, I’d give her 4/5 stars. The movie would be a low-budget comedy, of course.

In my opinion, she loves to troll the fandom and I’m convinced she must have notifications turned on for Nicola. The patterns started patterning early on during the World Tour (and probably before). The problem is, she’s just not great at trolling. Her attempts always fall flat, and she ends up making herself look like, well, a tryhard (hence why her movie only gets 4/5 stars).

I’m not sure what Antonia ever was to Luke but, at a minimum, I will (begrudgingly) say they dated. I know some people don’t want to hear that, but she was a player in this game for a reason. Rumor also suggests she, at the very least, squatted in Luke’s flat (and I don’t mean in THAT way).

That said, I believe she was officially taken out of the game at the end of July. However, that doesn’t mean she wasn’t still making noise from the sidelines.

One of the most humorous (in my opinion) “rah rahs” Antonia pulled was on September 28 when she posted some stories of herself at a theatre. I’m not sure if she could have been any more obvious when trying to show us her phone screen. The screen was lit up, her thumb pressed against it, and angled almost directly at the person taking the picture.  We get it, honey. You want us to see what’s on your screen. Not surprisingly, it appeared to be a blurry ass picture of Luke.

Big whoop, right? Well, actually it was because the Conscientiously Stupid took this as confirmation Luke and Antonia were together (again) and the Sincerely Ignorant swallowed their cyanide pills without water (again). And, the Fact Finders, while trying to resuscitate their dearly beloved Sincerely Ignorant friends foaming at their mouths, immediately called “bullshit” (again). The picture appeared to be old and, to be honest, it was too blurry to tell who was on the screen – although I will concede it could have been Luke. In fact, I tend to believe it was an old picture of Luke based on what happened next.

The problem with Antonia’s play style is that she doesn’t seem to catch on to the rules. She moves her pawn two spaces because she can, not because it advances her game. She has this nasty habit of ignoring, say, the opposing party’s pawn, which is in position to en passant her overly confident pawn.

Nicola had been living high on life throughout the month of September, which, in my opinion, is quite possibly the reason why Antonia seemed a bit unhinged by the end of the month (jealousy can make us do crazy shit). Among other things, Nicola had the Emmy’s (and the Wordle), the Gucci show, and, on October 1, she was presenting Simone with a Glamour Award. By this point, I believe Nicola had had enough of Antonia’s gameplay. The phone screen had struck a chord.

So, what does Nicola do?

She plays the game right back but not like she normally does with Scrabble boards, Dewy Skin Creams, and BTS wedding footage dropped at the perfect moment. This time, she does it with a power move that left her hands virtually spotless.

On October 3, Halley Brisker, Nicola’s frequent hairstylist, posted a set of four pictures to his Instagram grid, three of which showed Nicola casually posing for the camera and one showing Nicola in the process of having her hair done. It was the latter picture (#3/4 in the slide deck) that perked every Lukolas’ ears.

Low and behold sat a man, his face conveniently covered by a hairdresser’s arm, but his hands in full view. Hands that, at this point, we (embarrassingly) know too well. To date, no one has debunked the theory – more like, assertion – that the man in the picture is Luke.

Nicola liked this post by Halley, and even commented, “You legend [red heart emoji].” You’re welcome to read between the lines on that one.

I’ve always believed this Halley Brisker photo dump was Nicola’s very clever, albeit indirect, way of telling Antonia, “Checkmate, bitch.”

The point of this entry is not to convince you that Antonia is a red herring (she is), or that Luke is in the Halley Brisker photo dump (he is), or that Nicola plays the game better than most (she does). No, the point of this entry is to tell you Antonia’s game is over (because it is). Antonia lost.

So why does she remain on the roster?

Because, collectively, we as fans keep her there, sitting along the sidelines in her collapsable camp chair making noise with her cowbell. We pay attention to what she posts. We talk about what she posts. We argue over what she posts. We panic about what she posts. WE keep her in the game.

How about we don’t?

Why not start off this week with a positive change? And, not just for the USS Lukola, but for yourself as well.

If you’re following Antonia on social media (for sinister reasons) – stop. Meander over to Instagram, X, Tiktok, whatever, and unfollow her. Don’t look back. Stop checking her page. If you see or hear she has a new post, ignore it. Move on. The first day will be hard. But, the second day will be easier. You know where I’m going with this…

I mean, Luke can’t quietly unfollow her if we’re constantly looking in that direction, right?

P.S. If you need more convincing that Antonia’s shelf life has expired, I have a CliffsNotes response for that: https://www.tumblr.com/threeacttragedy/767137910999957504/great-blog-but-if-all-was-not-good-with-l-and-a?source=share.

P.P.S. Moving forward, I don’t give two boiled rabbits about what Antonia does. I will most certainly refer back to her in a historical sense (she does fill in bits and pieces of the Lukola timeline), but if she posts a crockpot tomorrow, don’t expect me to comment on what could be in it.

P.P.P.S. If you have any understanding of what the little chessboard I’ve dropped in to my picture means, I salute you.

[thefrogman]

Froggie's Mailbox Adventures

I have been wanting to tell this story for a while now. This all happened right before my birthday and then I got sick for 4 weeks and didn't have the energy to talk about it.

So let us take a trip into the recent past to hear a tale of woe and triumph with a bunch of extra woe interspersed throughout.

It all began on the 4th of July.

Some neighborhood rascals ruined my old mailbox with a baseball bat.

They also destroyed my brand new mailbox sensor that lets me know when there is mail so I don't have to make multiple trips to check.

(Ring replaced it for free, so that was nice.)

Originally, I was going to hire someone to replace the mailbox. But I was not having much luck finding someone who could do that specific task. (I've been having trouble finding help in general due to living in a supposedly "dangerous" area.)

So I decided to try and install the mailbox myself. And I had no idea how much of an adventure that was going to be...

My first step was tearing off the old one to see how it was mounted.

I got some paper and a sharpie and noted where the holes were. And, of course, they didn't line up with the new mailbox.

Which is a really nice mailbox. I mean, it is solid. Check this bad boy out and please don't notice the dirty clothes lying on the floor in the background.

It is always so tempting to save a few bucks and get the cheaper thing, but I am so glad I splurged on this. It looks nice. It functions well. It has magnets. And I don't think it can be baseball-batted without some instant karmic retribution from Newton's third law.

My next step was to get a new mounting plate. And even though I try not to go to Home Depot because it is run by a bunch of conservative religious bigots... I went to Home Depot.

I was a little nervous about leaving the house at the time because I was still struggling with my heart issue (which I think is mostly resolved now). I was trying to be very careful about how much I exerted myself. I really didn't want to have an episode while I was out and about.

After searching for a while I discovered they had a mounting plate and a pressure-treated mounting board. I could do wood or metal. And they were located on completely opposite ends of the store because of course they were.

I had both items in my hand and I did that thing where you just keep staring at something hoping a useful thought will pop into your brain. I had no clue which one was better for my needs. There is surprisingly little information regarding mailbox installation on the internet. YouTube really let me down on this one. I was just kinda winging it and solving problems as I went along.

I stared for for a little while longer and no useful thoughts happened.

I was tired of staring so I just said, "Fuck it" and made an executive decision.

Then I almost passed out in Home Depot.

I spent too much time walking around that gigantic monstrosity of a store and my heart started beating super fast and my legs felt like jello and I started getting quite dizzy.

I was in rough shape.

So... I had a little lie-down next to a wall of tape measures.

I just stared up at them thinking about all of the things I could measure.

I could measure a dog.

Or a horsie.

Or a horsie the size of a dog.

Then I thought, "Ooh, that one has lasers! I NEED IT."

My brain was not functioning at 100% in that moment.

After about 10 minutes of thinking about lasers and things I could measure with lasers, my body seemed to reboot and I was able to get up. Thankfully no one saw me and thought there was a dead body in the aisle or something. But that was still embarrassing all the same.

Once my heart slowed down I was able to pay and make it out to the car. I headed home and saw one of the most unusual sunsets of my life. The sun was dim and a shade of orange I have never seen in nature. It was like, cheeto orange. Not only that, it was a perfect circle with a super crisp outline. It didn't look real.

I tried to get a picture of it but when I looked at the picture later, the camera didn't capture anything like what I saw.

This is the best approximation I can manage. But it still doesn't do it justice.

I was hoping I could get home in time to grab my real camera and capture this strange setting sun, but it dipped below the horizon just as I pulled into my driveway.

I then started problem solving how to get the new mailbox in place with the items I purchased. And I was on a deadline because I have no clue what happens when the mailperson arrives and they don't have a mailbox to put the mail in. Do they just throw it on the ground? Do they get to keep the mail? Are they going to use all of my grocery coupons?

And for some reason, my post office does not keep a consistent delivery schedule. I've been trying to figure out a pattern for weeks and they just seem to come "whenever" and that is about as close as I can pin it down. Which is why I got the mailbox sensor.

Due to my near fainting episode in Home Depot, I was in no shape to be handy, so I was trying to think of a temporary solution to put the new mailbox on without properly mounting it. At first I was going to just wrap it in packing tape a bunch of times. But then I noticed I had a bunch of string. And I decided that was a more interesting solution... for reasons? My brain was still not doing well. But when I tried to tie the new mailbox to the post with the string it failed miserably. And I realized the packing tape wouldn't work either. The mailbox did not sit flat on the post and it wiggled. However, because I tried the dumb string method, I discovered this wiggle issue and it actually helped me figure out how to mount it.

I gave up for the night and decided to hope I could install the box in the morning before "whenever" happened. The next morning I started drawing dots on boards and comparing my old holes to my new holes and measuring clearances. (Measuring without lasers like a chump.) I needed to elevate the mailbox in order to mount it and that's when I thought to combine the board and the plate. I could screw the board into the old holes and then create new holes in the board for the plate to attach. And the plate lined up with the holes in the bottom of the new mailbox.

EASY!

It was a pretty big brain moment for me and I felt like I just solved quantum physics or something.

You're probably pretty confused because you are not as smart as I am.

Here is a diagram to help.

The board mounts to the post arm. The plate screws into the board. The mailbox screws into the plate.

Or just use string.

Also, how fortunate was it that I stared for all that time and got frustrated and just bought both things?

My next problem was that my drill wouldn't fit inside the mailbox and I couldn't screw the screws in place. So I drilled pilot holes in the board so I could manually screw in the screws with a ratcheting right angle screwdriver.

And the only reason I had one of those is because I use it as a fidget toy. (I like the clicky sounds.)

Another lucky happenstance!

I tried to prepare as much as I could in my garage before dragging all of my tools to the end of my lengthy driveway. I brought along my dad's old rolling walker so I'd have something to transport everything.

But also so I'd have something to sit on while I was installing the new box. Then I wouldn't have another heart episode and need another lie-down.

Seriously, how big is my brain?

I am like the smartest person alive.

So I got to the end of the driveway with all of my tools and my board and my plate and my templates and I realized something was missing.

The new mailbox.

I am like the dumbest person alive.

After a quick back-and-forth to retrieve the mailbox, I got started on my master mounting plan.

I screwed the board onto the post arm.

Then I screwed the plate into the board.

Then I lined up the new mailbox onto the plate.

But as I was doing this, I was kinda sticking out into the street a little bit. And usually that isn't a big deal. Cars can see me from very far away and they were just steering around me. But then two cars came from opposite directions at the same time and I was in a precarious position where I could not move. One car steered wide to avoid me, and for some reason, the other car decided not to slow down but to drive off the edge of the street.

And as they pulled this maneuver I heard a loud thump, followed by a loud pop, and then the sound of hissing getting farther and farther away.

Like a snake version of the Doppler effect.

They drove directly into this and popped their tire.

On the one hand, I felt a little responsible and guilty. On the other, it is not my responsibility to fix the street. And on a third hand, that was silly driving behavior and perhaps they will see this as a learning moment.

After processing what just happened I got back to the task at hand. To my delight and surprise, all of my planning and problem-solving was working. Everything fit together perfectly. The right angle ratcheting screwdriver was screwing in the screws. And after I tightened the final one...

I had successfully installed a new mailbox, on my own, without any jankiness or tape or string.

Like, I did this legit proper.

Tons of pure endorphins rushed into wherever endorphins go. (Again, I am very smart.) That feeling of accomplishment was pure ecstasy. I had no idea how to do this and in less than 24 hours I was basically an expert mailbox installer. I took some shots of my work on my phone so I could brag to Katrina, packed up all of my tools, and began to walk back to the house.

And... my heart started beating fast again.

And... I needed to have another little lie-down in the grass next to my driveway.

I stared up at the sky and was frustrated and proud simultaneously. A weird mixture of emotions. At the time I didn't know if my heart could be fixed. But thankfully I had my sense of accomplishment to temper my heart sadness.

And then I thought, "I should get a new address sign."

Epilogue time!

I got on Amazon and started looking up new signs. And I found one that was solar powered and lit up at night. So clearly I needed to have that one. My midnight food delivery people will never struggle to find my house again!

And it actually looked pretty neat.

(My address is not actually four 0s, but you are free to try sending me something.)

The sign was very easy to read... if you were super duper close.

But if you were farther away...

You couldn't actually distinguish the numbers. And it kinda looked weird next to the mailbox. And headlights made the numbers even harder to see. Which was the opposite of what I was going for.

So I opted to get a more traditional sign.

(Please send items to the realm of nothingness. I am in the void.)

But this bugged me because the sign was a different size than the old sign and the connection points didn't line up perfectly.

I HAD A CATAWAMPUS CHAIN!

WHICH IS THE MOST UNACCEPTABLE KIND OF WAMPUS!

It was at this point that Katrina started making fun of my perfectionism.

But this wasn't perfectionism for perfection's sake.

My Dad was having trouble fixing things around the house. And some other kids knocked over the previous, previous mailbox. And he found the strength to go to the store, get a new one, and install it all by himself. He was at the end of the driveway, attached to his portable oxygen canisters, and fixing one last thing for this house.

And I guess I just wanted to get it back to perfect. Because he never did any handyman task half-assed. He was a full-ass handyman. Always.

So... I fixed the sign.

Perfectly balanced.

Again, feel free to send me stuff to 0000 Road.

I'm sure it will get here... "whenever."

[so-i-did-this-thing]

FLORIDA TRANS PALS, IT IS TIME TO PLAN

Especially if you are on HRT!

HB1421 is a bill that severely affects access to gender affirming care, including for adults. It outlines goals to:

1) Prohibit changing gender markers on birth certificates

2) Require that gender affirming care only come from physicians (not nurse practioners) who take on liability insurance for 30 YEARS after they provide care to a patient

3) Require informed consent forms at every single appointment, including distributing literature to dissuade patients

4) Ban transition care completely for minors

5) Make it so providers who accept state funds cannot provide gender affirming services (this is the big one that stands to affect anyone who takes medicare/aid, is a university, etc.).

6) Make it so providers who accept state funds cannot reimburse for gender affirming services.

We are facing a return to the Harry Benjamin days, or worse, an effective ban unless you are fortunate/wealthy enough to find a willing provider.

If it passes, this bill would take effect July 1, 2023. That is not a lot of time.

I would not count on any Rx or refill request to be honored after this date if the prescribing and dispensing sources no longer are allowed to grant care or decide to drop care because of the penalties.

July 1, 2023. Unless we hear otherwise, that is your clock.

This sucks, but there is comfort in seeing a clear date to plan around and the worst case is no longer completely unknown. It begins July 1.

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

YOUR HOMEWORK, DUE ASAP:

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

1) Get any and all your HRT appointments in now, including picking up your meds and doing bloodwork promptly.

2) If you think you will be living in FL come July, start looking now for providers where physicians - not NPs - provide the care. Get an appointment on the books for July. Be prepared to go in person for everything after July 1, because I believe telemed will also be shit-canned. Here is a map of informed consent providers.

3) If you are an old like me, also dig up your HRT permission slip from your therapist. Fuck, make a packet of all your transition documents, including Rx history.

4) If you are on private insurance, start budgeting now to prepare to pay out of pocket.

5) Create a simple spreadsheet of all your HRT dates (pls forgive, my experience is with shots on a 2 week cycle, so this is pretty easy for me to do) and plan out how long your current supply will last. Then, forecast how long all your upcoming refills before July 1 will last. Update it every time you pick up and take your meds. Refer to it for decisions like moving or finding backup providers.

6) Subscribe to the bill to get notified of changes asap

7) Follow this site to keep tabs on other very scary bills happening in Florida, including a bathroom ban and a child custody bill that is effectively kidnapping

8) If you need to change your birth certificate, do it now, pay the rush fees and write RUSH on the envelope. The Department of Health has the most up-to-date forms. Processing time for rush I last saw was around 18 business days.

9) Now that your own oxygen mask is on, so they say, boost mutual aid and recruit allies to assist in any way possible.

-----

Do try to continue seeing your current provider as long as possible, as they likely will need your support. Talk to them frankly about their plans if the bill passes.

Now. I am just a little guy and not a legal expert, but the aggressive enactment date on this bill makes me feel like everyone should plan now instead of waiting to see if it passes.

Be safe, plan, and then get a little rest. Do not lose hope - this bill could still fail.

[t4t4t]

Hi !

I got bottom surgery on July 25th ! :3

I'm recovering really well ! I've been told I can walk around more but still can't bike/swim and strenuous things of that nature. I'm unsure when I can work again, or even what to do with my experience and wanting to be covid safe.... receptionist ? Idk. I'd work in a nursery but I doubt they'd hire me. I'd like to find something before my FFS on January 28th that would be sympathetic to my taking off some time for that, but I'm not sure how possible that is.

Collie and I will need rent help for October/food/gas/utilities/lube/pads/etc. We're broke rn after paying September rent/food/gas, after food stamps ran out... I got my stamps again by now but yeah, had to reapply for hers and she hasn't gotten it again yet... but yeah no money for transportation costs for appointments this week rn...

Collie withheld 300 that ended up as "hers" somehow in her mind for a week this past week because she kept on threatening to prefer being homeless and taking it, and like, the roommates were concerned we weren't going to pay rent because I wasn't saying anything because I didn't know what to say. She caved when it was expressed the roommates didn't have money to pay what was left.

I have no idea if we'll find a new place before her bottom surgery in November (she's been given the date of 11/13) but she's threatening still preferring homelessness to being here. She's saying she can't recover here because she doesn't feel safe because of an antagonistic roommate and I'm not sure how to respond to that.

We shouldn't be homeless... I'm not sure why she would prefer it. I'm not even sure she wants to be with me... we have to get rid of the broken van that gives her athsma attacks more than we need to leave because of a roommate that makes us both uncomfortable... I hope her mom helps with that soon but we haven't been given much explicit information how or when about that. We should try to sell the van but she threatens to pack up and leave almost every day...

We got rent in the nick of time last time (we had 622 before Sep 1 but yeah she did hold onto part of it for a week...), I think it's probably not impossible we get 6-900 again this month but I'm not sure I can expect donations enough for us to move like because of a deposit or smth...

It would be ideal if we could get help enough to feel comfortable enough to leave and that we find somewhere who's sympathetic to us not having a "proof of income" like where we are now is, and maybe they wouldn't have a deposit, but we'll see... OHP "Flex Fund" may respond for either of us but may not.

I also need 100 to pay for 6 months of the PO box we've had for the past 4 years of struggling to find housing and mostly being homeless.

Anything helps !

Thank you everyone so much, y'all have saved our lives. <3

0/922

https://www.paypal.me/NoraEstherRose

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[etz-ashashiyot]

Chapter 4: Executed Jews

By Dara Horn, excerpted from People Love Dead Jews

ALA ZUSKIN PERELMAN AND I HAD BEEN IN TOUCH ONLINE before I finally met her in person, and I still cannot quite believe she exists. Years ago, I wrote a novel about Marc Chagall and the Yiddish-language artists whom he once knew in Russia, all of whom were eventually murdered by the Soviet regime. While researching the novel, I found myself sucked into the bizarre story of these people's exploitation and destruction: how the Soviet Union first welcomed these artists as exemplars of universal human ideals, then used them for its own purposes, and finally executed them. I named my main character after the executed Yiddish actor Benjamin Zuskin, a comic performer known for playing fools. After the book came out, I heard from Ala in an email written in halting English: "I am Benjamin Zuskin's daughter." That winter I was speaking at a literary conference in Israel, where Ala lived, and she and I arranged to meet. It was like meeting a character from a book.

My hosts had generously put me up with other writers in a beautiful stone house in Jerusalem. We were there during Hanukkah, the celebration of Jewish independence. On the first night of the holiday, I walked to Jerusalem's Old City and watched as people lit enormous Hanukkah torches at the Western Wall. I thought of my home in New Jersey, where in school growing up I sang fake English Hanukkah songs created by American music education companies at school Christmas concerts, with lyrics describing Hanukkah as being about "joy and peace and love." Joy and peace and love describe Hanukkah, a commemoration of an underdog military victory over a powerful empire, about as well as they describe the Fourth of July. I remembered challenging a chorus teacher about one such song, and being told that I was a poor sport for disliking joy and peace and love. (Imagine a "Christmas song" with lyrics celebrating Christmas, the holiday of freedom. Doesn't everyone like freedom? What pedant would reject such a song?) I sang those words in front of hundreds of people to satisfy my neighbors that my tradition was universal — meaning, just like theirs. The night before meeting Ala, I walked back to the house through the dense stone streets of the Old City's Jewish Quarter, where every home had a glass case by its door, displaying the holiday's oil lamps. It was strange to see those hundreds of glowing lights. They were like a shining announcement that this night of celebration was shared by all these strangers around me, that it was universal. The experience was so unfamiliar that I didn't know what to make of it.

The next morning, Ala knocked on the door of the stone house and sat down in its living room, with its view of the Old City. She was a small dark-haired woman whose perfect posture showed a firmness that belied her age. She looked at me and said in Hebrew, "I feel as if you knew my father, like you understood what he went through. How did you know?"

The answer to that question goes back several thousand years.

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

The teenage boys who participated in competitive athletics in the gymnasium in Jerusalem 2,200 years ago had their circumcisions reversed, because otherwise they wouldn't have been allowed to play. In the Hellenistic empire that had conquered Judea, sports were sacred, the entry point to being a person who mattered, the ultimate height of cool — and sports, of course, were always played in the nude. As one can imagine, ancient genital surgery of this nature was excruciating and potentially fatal. But the boys did not want to miss out.

I learned this fun fact in seventh grade, from a Hebrew school teacher who was instructing me and my pubescent classmates about the Hanukkah story — about how Hellenistic tyranny gained a foothold in ancient Judea with the help of Jews who wanted to fit in. This teacher seemed overly jazzed to talk about penises with a bunch of adolescents, and I suspected he'd made the whole thing up. At home, I decided to fact-check. I pulled a dusty old book off my parents' shelf, Volume One of Heinrich Graetz's opus History of the Jews.

In nineteenth-century academic prose, Graetz explained how the leaders of Judea demonstrated their loyalty to the occupying Hellenistic empire by building a gymnasium and recruiting teenage athletes — only to discover that "in uncovering their bodies they could immediately be recognized as Judeans. But were they to take part in the Olympian games, and expose themselves to the mockery of Greek scoffers? Even this difficulty they evaded by undergoing a painful operation, so as to disguise the fact that they were Judeans." Their Zeus-worshipping overlords were not fooled. Within a few years, the regime outlawed not only circumcision but all of Jewish religious practice, and put to death anyone who didn't comply.

Sometime after that, the Maccabees showed up. That's the part of the story we usually hear.

Those ancient Jewish teenagers were on my mind that Hanukkah when Ala came to tell me about her father's terrifying life, because I sensed that something profound united them — something that doesn't match what we're usually taught about what bigotry looks or feels like. It doesn't involve "intolerance" or "persecution," at least not at first. Instead, it looks like the Jews themselves are choosing to reject their own traditions. It is a form of weaponized shame.

Two distinct patterns of antisemitism can be identified by the Jewish holidays that celebrate triumphs over them: Purim and Hanukkah. In the Purim version of antisemitism, exemplified by the Persian genocidal decrees in the biblical Book of Esther, the goal is openly stated and unambiguous: Kill all the Jews. In the Hanukkah version of antisemitism, whose appearances range from the Spanish Inquisition to the Soviet regime, the goal is still to eliminate Jewish civilization. But in the Hanukkah version, this goal could theoretically be accomplished simply by destroying Jewish civilization, while leaving the warm, de-Jewed bodies of its former practitioners intact.

For this reason, the Hanukkah version of antisemitism often employs Jews as its agents. It requires not dead Jews but cool Jews: those willing to give up whatever specific aspect of Jewish civilization is currently uncool. Of course, Judaism has always been uncool, going back to its origins as the planet's only monotheism, featuring a bossy and unsexy invisible God. Uncoolness is pretty much Judaism's brand, which is why cool people find it so threatening — and why Jews who are willing to become cool are absolutely necessary to Hanukkah antisemitism's success. These "converted" Jews are used to demonstrate the good intentions of the regime — which of course isn't antisemitic but merely requires that its Jews publicly flush thousands of years of Jewish civilization down the toilet in exchange for the worthy prize of not being treated like dirt, or not being murdered. For a few years. Maybe.

I wish I could tell the story of Ala's father concisely, compellingly, the way everyone prefers to hear about dead Jews. I regret to say that Benjamin Zuskin wasn't minding his own business and then randomly stuffed into a gas chamber, that his thirteen-year-old daughter did not sit in a closet writing an uplifting diary about the inherent goodness of humanity, that he did not leave behind sad-but-beautiful aphorisms pondering the absence of God while conveniently letting his fellow humans off the hook. He didn't even get crucified for his beliefs. Instead, he and his fellow Soviet Jewish artists — extraordinarily intelligent, creative, talented, and empathetic adults — were played for fools, falling into a slow-motion psychological horror story brimming with suspense and twisted self-blame. They were lured into a long game of appeasing and accommodating, giving up one inch after another of who they were in order to win that grand prize of being allowed to live.

Spoiler alert: they lost.

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

I was in graduate school studying Yiddish literature, itself a rich vein of discussion about such impossible choices, when I became interested in Soviet Jewish artists like Ala's father. As I dug through library collections of early-twentieth-century Yiddish works, I came across a startling number of poetry books illustrated by Marc Chagall. I wondered if Chagall had known these Yiddish writers whose works he illustrated, and it turned out that he had. One of Chagall's first jobs as a young man was as an art teacher at a Jewish orphanage near Moscow, built for children orphaned by Russia's 1919-1920 civil war pogroms. This orphanage had a rather renowned faculty, populated by famous Yiddish writers who trained these traumatized children in the healing art of creativity.

It all sounded very lovely, until I noticed something else. That Chagall's art did not rely on a Jewish language — that it had, to use that insidious phrase, "universal appeal" — allowed him a chance to succeed as an artist in the West. The rest of the faculty, like Chagall, had also spent years in western Europe before the Russian revolution, but they chose to return to Russia because of the Soviet Union's policy of endorsing Yiddish as a "national Soviet language." In the 1920s and 30s, the USSR offered unprecedented material support to Yiddish culture, paying for Yiddish-language schools, theaters, publishing houses, and more, to the extent that there were Yiddish literary critics who were salaried by the Soviet government. This support led the major Yiddish novelist Dovid Bergelson to publish his landmark 1926 essay "Three Centers," about New York, Warsaw, and Moscow as centers of Yiddish-speaking culture, asking which city offered Yiddish writers the brightest prospects. His unequivocal answer was Moscow, a choice that brought him back to Russia the following year, where many other Jewish artists joined him.

But Soviet support for Jewish culture was part of a larger plan to brainwash and coerce national minorities into submitting to the Soviet regime — and for Jews, it came at a very specific price. From the beginning, the regime eliminated anything that celebrated Jewish "nationality" that didn't suit its needs. Jews were awesome, provided they weren't practicing Jewish religion, studying traditional Jewish texts, using Hebrew, or supporting Zionism. The Soviet Union thus pioneered a versatile gaslighting slogan, which it later spread through its client states in the developing world and which remains popular today: it was not antisemitic, merely anti-Zionist. (In the process of not being antisemitic and merely being anti-Zionist, the regime managed to persecute, imprison, torture, and murder thousands of Jews.) What's left of Jewish culture once you surgically remove religious practice, traditional texts, Hebrew, and Zionism? In the Soviet Empire, one answer was Yiddish, but Yiddish was also suspect for its supposedly backwards elements. Nearly 15 percent of its words came directly from biblical and rabbinic Hebrew, so Soviet Yiddish schools and publishers, under the guise of "simplifying" spelling, implemented a new and quite literally antisemitic spelling system that eliminated those words' Near Eastern roots. Another answer was "folklore" — music, visual art, theater, and other creative work reflecting Jewish life — but of course most of that cultural material was also deeply rooted in biblical and rabbinic sources, or reflected common religious practices like Jewish holidays and customs, so that was treacherous too.

No, what the regime required were Yiddish stories that showed how horrible traditional Jewish practice was, stories in which happy, enlightened Yiddish-speaking heroes rejected both religion and Zionism (which, aside from its modern political form, is also a fundamental feature of ancient Jewish texts and prayers traditionally recited at least three times daily). This de-Jewing process is clear from the repertoire of the government-sponsored Moscow State Yiddish Theater, which could only present or adapt Yiddish plays that denounced traditional Judaism as backward, bourgeois, corrupt, or even more explicitly — as in the many productions involving ghosts or graveyard scenes — as dead. As its actors would be, soon enough.

The Soviet Union's destruction of Jewish culture commenced, in a calculated move, with Jews positioned as the destroyers. It began with the Yevsektsiya, committees of Jewish Bolsheviks whose paid government jobs from 1918 through 1930 were to persecute, imprison, and occasionally murder Jews who participated in religious or Zionist institutions — categories that included everything from synagogues to sports clubs, all of which were shut down and their leaders either exiled or "purged." This went on, of course, until the regime purged the Yevsektsiya members themselves.

The pattern repeated in the 1940s. As sordid as the Yeveksiya chapter was, I found myself more intrigued by the undoing of the Jewish Antifascist Committee, a board of prominent Soviet Jewish artists and intellectuals established by Joseph Stalin in 1942 to drum up financial support from Jews overseas for the Soviet war effort. Two of the more prominent names on the JAC's roster of talent were Solomon Mikhoels, the director of the Moscow State Yiddish Theater, and Ala's father Benjamin Zuskin, the theater's leading actor. After promoting these people during the war, Stalin decided these loyal Soviet Jews were no longer useful, and charged them all with treason. He had decided that this committee he himself created was in fact a secret Zionist cabal, designed to bring down the Soviet state. Mikhoels was murdered first, in a 1948 hit staged to look like a traffic accident. Nearly all the others — Zuskin and twelve more Jewish luminaries, including the novelist Dovid Bergelson, who had proclaimed Moscow as the center of the Yiddish future — were executed by firing squad on August 1952.

Just as the regime accused these Jewish artists and intellectuals of being too "nationalist" (read: Jewish), today's long hindsight makes it strangely tempting to read this history and accuse them of not being "nationalist" enough — that is, of being so foolishly committed to the Soviet regime that they were unable to see the writing on the wall. Many works on this subject have said as much. In Stalin's Secret Pogrom, the indispensable English translation of transcripts from the JAC "trial," Russia scholar Joshua Rubenstein concludes his lengthy introduction with the following:

As for the defendants at the trial, it is not clear what they believed about the system they each served. Their lives darkly embodied the tragedy of Soviet Jewry. A combination of revolutionary commitment and naive idealism had tied them to a system they could not renounce. Whatever doubts or misgivings they had, they kept to themselves, and served the Kremlin with the required enthusiasm. They were not dissidents. They were Jewish martyrs. They were also Soviet patriots. Stalin repaid their loyalty by destroying them.

This is completely true, and also completely unfair. The tragedy — even the term seems unjust, with its implied blaming of the victim — was not that these Soviet Jews sold their souls to the devil, though many clearly did. The tragedy was that integrity was never an option in the first place.

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

Ala was almost thirteen years old when her father was arrested and until that moment she was immersed in the Soviet Yiddish artistic scene. Her mother was also an actor in the Moscow State Yiddish Theater; her family lived in the same building as the murdered theater director Solomon Mikhoels, and moved in the same circles as other Jewish actors and writers. After seeing her parents perform countless times, Ala had a front-row seat to the destruction of their world. She attended Mikhoel's state funeral, heard about the arrest of the brilliant Yiddish author Der Nister from an actor friend who witnessed it from her apartment across the hall, and was present when secret police ransacked her home in conjunction with her father's arrest. In her biography, The Travels of Benjamin Zuskin, she provides for her readers what she gave me that morning in Jerusalem: an emotional recounting, with the benefit of hindsight, of what it was really like to live through the Soviet Jewish nightmare.

It's as close as we can get, anyway. Her father Benjamin Zuskin's own thoughts on the topic are available only from state interrogations extracted under unknown tortures. (One typical interrogation document from his three and a half years in the notorious Lubyanka Prison announces that the day's interrogation lasted four hours, but the transcript is only half a page long — leaving to the imagination how the interrogator and interrogatee may have spent their time together. Suffice it to say that another JAC detainee didn't make it to trial alive.) His years in prison began when he was arrested in December of 1948 in a Moscow hospital room, where he was being treated for chronic insomnia brought on by the murder of his boss and career-long acting partner, Mikhoels; the secret police strapped him to a gurney and carted him to prison in his hospital gown while he was still sedated.

But in order to truly appreciate the loss here, one needs to know what was lost — to return to the world of the great Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem, the author of Benjamin Zuskin's first role on the Yiddish stage, in a play fittingly titled It's a Lie!

Benjamin Zuskin's path to the Yiddish theater and later to the Soviet firing squad began in a shtetl comparable to those immortalized in Sholem Aleichem's work. Zuskin, a child from a traditional family who was exposed to theater only through traveling Yiddish troupes and clowning relatives, experienced that world's destruction: his native Lithuanian shtetl, Ponievezh, was among the many Jewish towns forcibly evacuated during the First World War, catapulting him and hundreds of thousands of other Jewish refugees into modernity. He landed in Penza, a city with professional Russian theater and Yiddish amateur troupes. In 1920, the Moscow State Yiddish Theater opened, and by 1921, Zuskin was starring alongside Mikhoels, the theater's leading light.

In the one acting class I have ever attended, I learned only one thing: acting isn't about pretending to be someone you aren't, but rather about emotional communication. Zuskin, who not only starred in most productions but also taught in the theater's acting school, embodied the concept. His very first audition was a one-man sketch he created, consisting of nothing more than a bumbling old tailor threading a needle — without words, costumes, or props. It became so popular that he performed it to entranced crowds for years. This physical artistry animated his every role. As one critic wrote, "Even the slightest breeze and he is already air-bound."

Zuskin specialized in playing figures like the Fool in King Lear — as his daughter puts it in her book, characters who "are supposed to make you laugh, but they have an additional dimension, and they arouse poignant reflections about the cruelty of the world." Discussing his favorite roles, Zuskin once explained that "my heart is captivated particularly by the image of the person who is derided and humiliated, but who loves life, even though he encounters obstacles placed before him through no fault of his own."

The first half of Ala's book seems to recount only triumphs. The theater's repertoire in its early years was largely adopted from classic Yiddish writers like Sholem Aleichem, I. L. Peretz, and Mendele Moykher Seforim. The book's title is drawn from Zuskin's most famous role: Senderl, the Sancho Panza figure in Mendele's Don Quixote-inspired work, Travels of Benjamin the Third, about a pair of shtetl idiots who set out for the Land of Israel and wind up walking around the block. These productions were artistically inventive, brilliantly acted, and played to packed houses both at home and on tour. Travels of Benjamin the Third, in a 1928 review typical of the play's reception, was lauded by the New York Times as "one of the most originally conceived and beautifully executed evenings in the modern theater."

One of the theater's landmark productions, I. L. Peretz's surrealist masterpiece At Night in the Old Marketplace, was first performed in 1925. The play, set in a graveyard, is a kind of carnival for the graveyard's gathered ghosts. Those who come back from the dead are misfits like drunks and prostitutes, and also specific figures from shtetl life - yeshiva idlers, synagogue beadles, and the like. Leading them all is a badkhn, or wedding jester — divided in this production into two mirror-characters played by Mikhoels and Zuskin — whose repeated chorus among the living corpses is "The dead will rise!" "Within this play there was something hidden, something with an ungraspable depth," Ala writes, and then relates how after a performance in Vienna, one theatergoer came backstage to tell the director that "the play had shaken him as something that went beyond all imagination." The theatergoer was Sigmund Freud.

As Ala traces the theater's trajectory toward doom, it becomes obvious why this performance so affected Freud. The production was a zombie story about the horrifying possibility of something supposedly dead (here, Jewish civilization) coming back to life. The play was written a generation earlier as a Romantic work, but in the Moscow production, it became a means of denigrating traditional Jewish life without mourning it. That fantasy of a culture's death as something compelling and even desirable is not merely reminiscent of Freud's death drive, but also reveals the self-destructive bargain implicit in the entire Soviet-sponsored Jewish enterprise. In her book, Ala beautifully captures this tension as she explains the badkhn's role: "He sends a double message: he denies the very existence of the vanishing shadow world, and simultaneously he mocks it, as if it really does exist."

This double message was at the heart of Benjamin Zuskin's work as a comic Soviet Yiddish actor, a position that required him to mock the traditional Jewish life he came from while also pretending that his art could exist without it. "The chance to make fun of the shtetl which has become a thing of the past charmed me," he claimed early on, but later, according to his daughter, he began to privately express misgivings. The theater's decision to stage King Lear as a way of elevating itself disturbed him, suggesting as it did that the Yiddish repertoire was inferior. His own integrity came from his deep devotion to yiddishkayt, a sense of essential and enduring Jewishness, no matter how stripped-down that identity had become. "With the sharp sense of belonging to everything Jewish, he was tormented by the theater forsaking its expression of this belonging," his daughter writes. Even so, "no, he could not allow himself to oppose the Soviet regime even in his thoughts, the regime that gave him his own theater, but 'the heart and the wit do not meet.'"

In Ala's memory, her father differed from his director, partner, and occasional rival, Mikhoels, in his complete disinterest in politics. Mikhoels was a public figure as well as performer, and his leadership of the Jewish Antifascist Committee, while no more voluntary than any public act in a totalitarian state, was a role he played with gusto, traveling to America in 1943 and speaking to thousands of American Jews to raise money for the Red Army in their battle against the Nazis. Zuskin, on the other hand, was on the JAC roster, but seems to have continued playing the fool. According to both his daughter and his trial testimony, his role in the JAC was almost identical to his role on a Moscow municipal council, limited to playing chess in the back of the room during meetings.

In Jerusalem, Ala told me that her father was "a pure soul." "He had no interest in politics, only in his art," she said, describing his acting style as both classic and contemporary, praised by critics for its timeless qualities that are still evident today in his film work. But his talent was the most nuanced and sophisticated thing about him. Offstage, he was, as she put it in Hebrew, a "tam" — a biblical term sometimes translated as fool or simpleton, but which really means an innocent. (It is the first adjective used to describe the title character in the Book of Job.) It is true that in trial transcripts, Zuskin comes out looking better than many of his co-defendants by playing dumb instead of pointing fingers. But was this ignorance, or a wise acceptance of the futility of trying to save his skin? As King Lear's Fool put it, "They'll have me whipp'd for speaking true; thou'lt have me whipp'd for holding my peace." Reflecting on her father's role as a fool named Pinia in a popular film, Ala writes in her book, "When I imagine the moment when my father heard his death sentence, I see Pinia in close-up . . . his shoulders slumped, despair in his appearance. I hear the tone that cannot be imitated in his last line in the film — and perhaps also the last line in his life? — 'I don't understand anything.'"

Yet it is clear that Zuskin deeply understood how impossible his situation was. In one of the book's more disturbing moments, Ala describes him rehearsing for one of his landmark roles, that of the comic actor Hotsmakh in Sholem Aleichem's Wandering Stars, a work whose subject is the Yiddish theater. He had played the role before, but this production was going up in the wake of Mikhoel's murder. Zuskin was already among the hunted, and he knew it. As Ala writes:

One morning — already after the murder of Mikhoels — I saw my father pacing the room and memorizing the words of Hotsmakh's role. Suddenly, in a gesture revealing a hopeless anguish, Father actually threw himself at me, hugged me, pressed me to his heart, and together with me, continued to pace the room and to memorize the words of the role. That evening I saw the performance . . . "The doctors say that I need rest, air, and the sea . . . For what . . . without the theater?" [Hotsmakh asks], he winds the scarf around his neck — as though it were a noose. For my father, I think those words of Hotsmakh were like the motif of the role and — I think — of his own life.

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

Describing the charges levied against Zuskin and his peers is a degrading exercise, for doing so makes it seem as though these charges are worth considering. They are not. It is at this point that Hanukkah antisemitism transformed, as it inevitably does, into Purim antisemitism. Here Ala offers what hundreds of pages of state archives can't, describing the impending horror of the noose around one's neck.

Her father stopped sleeping, began receiving anonymous threats, and saw that he was being watched. No conversation was safe. When a visitor from Poland waited near his apartment building to give him news of his older daughter Tamara (who was then living in Warsaw), Zuskin instructed the man to walk behind him while speaking to him and then to switch directions, so as to avoid notice. When the man asked Zuskin what he wanted to tell his daughter, Zuskin "approached the guest so closely that there was no space between them, and whispered in Yiddish, 'Tell her that the ground is burning beneath my feet.'" It is true that no one can know what Zuskin or any of the other defendants really believed about the Soviet system they served. It is also true — and far more devastating — that their beliefs were utterly irrelevant.

Ala and her mother were exiled to Kazakhstan after her father's arrest, and learned of his execution only when they were allowed to return to Moscow in 1955. By then, he had already been dead for three years.

In Jerusalem that morning, Ala told me, in a sudden private moment of anger and candor, that the Soviet Union's treatment of the Jews was worse than Nazi Germany's. I tried to argue, but she shut me up. Obviously the Nazi atrocities against Jews were incomparable, a fact Ala later acknowledged in a calmer mood. But over four generations, the Soviet regime forced Jews to participate in and internalize their own humiliation - and in that way, Ala suggested, they destroyed far more souls. And they never, ever, paid for it.

"They never had a Nuremberg," Ala told me that day, with a quiet fury. "They never acknowledged the evil of what they did. The Nazis were open about what they were doing, but the Soviets pretended. They lured the Jews in, they baited them with support and recognition, they used them, they tricked them, and then they killed them. It was a trap. And no one knows about it, even now. People know about the Holocaust, but not this. Even here in Israel, people don't know. How did you know?"

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

That evening I went out to the Old City again, to watch the torches being lit at the Western Wall for the second night of Hanukkah. I walked once more through the Jewish Quarter, where the oil lamps, now each bearing one additional flame, were displayed outside every home, following the tradition to publicize the Hanukkah miracle — not merely the legendary long-lasting oil, but the miracle of military and spiritual victory over a coercive empire, the freedom to be uncool, the freedom not to pretend. Somewhere nearby, deep underground, lay the ruins of the gymnasium where de-circumcised Jewish boys once performed naked before approving crowds, stripped of their integrity and left with their private pain. I thought of Benjamin Zuskin performing as the dead wedding jester, proclaiming, "The dead will rise!" and then performing again in a "superior" play, as King Lear's Fool. I thought of the ground burning beneath his feet. I thought of his daughter, Ala, now an old woman, walking through Jerusalem.

I am not a sentimental person. As I returned to the stone house that night, along the streets lit by oil lamps, I was surprised to find myself crying.

[toastermuffles]

Hey guys welcome to my massive rant about q!Fit and how cc!Fit is incredibly talented and underrated. Since y'all kinda blew up my twitter post LOL.

There are SO many things I could touch on so it's probably gonna be scattered around a lot.

1) Fit had a great character set up from the beginning. From the very start many people knew Fits reputation as a 2b2t veteran, a place with a toxic environment and brutal people. He was no exception, he was closed off to relationships and was very cautious/closed off to many things. Not only that but his past made people distrust him in the beginning. I loved the suspense it brought with his character and the question of why he WAS actually here. Since the whole "vacation" thing was never very convincing. My favourite part was a lot of this was IMPLIED! He built on the character he portrayed in his YT videos and it worked so well, adding small comments about his character here and there (like when he said q!Fits hearing was bad BC of all the explosions he's experienced).

2) His RP skills were another level, not only was he in character almost the WHOLE time when he was live (even donos) when he first did lore he would tease elements of it by writing cryptic messages when others were live. SUCH a good idea when you have a smaller audience and want to create suspense. Not only that, he would have set dates and times for BIG lore stuff, this honestly made it so much easier to keep track of and engage in, not only alone but with friends too! His actual lore was very different from many others, it was cinematic and well planned, yet it still left room for sudden changes. The final result was a cohesive story line that the audience could interpret. I just loved how I could understand what was happening but also have questions/cliffhangers!

3) the fucking MUSIC. Throughout his lore and start of his streams I adored his choice of music, "Stranger in Paradise" being a personal favourite that was not only reoccurring in more than one language but fit SO WELL. I also think it was very clever how a lot of his music choices for his character didn't make sense until you understand the full story e.g. "Can't say goodbye to yesterday". All of this really added a new perspective on his character, almost through cc!Fits own eyes. Along with his music choice just being absolute bops OFC.

4) THE SYMBOLISM. My absolute favourite lore moment of his was at the end of the "Attachments" lore stream. Where the sun is setting over the mountain, slowly covering a patch of roses in darkness. ALL WHILE an instrumental Italian version of "Stanger in paradise" played. Roses of course being a symbol of not only his and Pac's relationship but love in general. His love for Ramon and his friends. The love he had to grow, just like a rose. While the darkness symbolizes his past catching up to him, more specifically his deadline. His time with his family and friends ending, his loves disappearing. Chefs kiss because it makes me cry everytime fr.

5) q!Fit's sexuality (gay). There is something so poetic about a gay guy from an extremely homophobic wasteland learning to come to terms with his own sexuality and love in general. Him slowly building a loving relationship with Ramon, Growing feelings for Pac, Nervously coming out to his son and then finally indulging in the first relationship and FAMILY he had ever had. Finally learning to love and to be loved in return. Even if he is scared about his mission, or taking things too fast. Just learning to live a normal life.

6) Fitmc is criminally underrated and overlooked. I still remember when Fit got his first proper piece of fanart in the museum. It was like... JULY? or something. And I think that says enough. People had no idea he was even doing lore at some points. Averaging at about 1-2k viewers in the beginning, until hideduo came into the mix. A lot but still compared to others very low. I think because his viewers consisted of his YT audience it didn't translate well. But I'm so glad he was able to build a loving community on twitch <3

Anyways it's 3am for me, I probably have more to talk about but this is basically what I meant when I posted that tweet. Feel free to reblog and add your own favourite observations or moments. I wanna hear them! ❤️

[respectthepetty]

Upcoming Taiwanese BLs

We are over halfway through 2024, and as usual, I've only had two Taiwanese BLs (Unknown, Anti Reset), so even though I'm sitting on a stack of BLs to watch every single week from other countries, call me Smaug because I need MORE!

Honorary Korean BL: Uncovering the Curse of Taekwondo (2024)

Former friends (and possibly lovers) reunite at a funeral after going their separate ways for over a decade, but, honestly, I don't care about the plot because this comes from Hwang Da Seul who was behind Blueming, To My Star, and Where Your Eyes Linger, so I know it's going to be amazing. There is a movie and a series version, and the movie already premiered at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival in South Korea at the beginning of July. The runtime was 154 minutes, but the series is eight episodes around thirty minutes each and is currently seeking distribution.

First Note of Love (August 2024)

My most beloved, Charles Tu, from my favorite BL HIStory 4: Close to You is finally returning to me in the form of a washed-up singer who stepped away from the spotlight due to a tragic event only to be dragged back in by an up-and-coming composer who is also a longtime fan. It is a joint production with Thailand's Star Hunter Entertainment (the company behind Big Dragon, Love Senior, City of Stars, and Sunset x Vibes) and features a side couple of a Thai singer and a Taiwanese agent. It will involve singing, but I'm already too comfortable in my seat with my snacks to care.

Fragrance of the First Flower Season 2 (2024)

The lone GL holding down this list finished filming late last year and Gagaoolala has been releasing BTS images since filming began, so it'll likely land there once it is released. The series is a continuation of the 2021 first season, which people were not thrilled about because of the ending, so this season should solve some of the angst we were left with by exploring the two women actually coming together to navigate life as a couple.

The Only One (August 2024)

Directed by Liu Kuang Hui, who directed Your Name Engraved Herein, written by the same folks behind The Untamed, and based on Mu Su Li's novel A Certain Someone which is about two boys whose parents are dating and move in together, so the mains go from enemies-to-??? and the only reason for the question marks on a Taiwanese BL is because the word on these BL streets (and his MDL page) is one of the actors works heavily in China, so this might be the reason this one has been was in limbo even though filming finished earlier this year, but the socials are still posting it's coming this year.

See Your Love (Filming Complete)

This co-production with Japan is about a rich man who falls in love with his hearing-impaired caregiver. It finished filming at the end of May and will have those sweet sweet Taiwanese BL cameos from some Be Loved in House: I Do and Plus and Minus folks PLUS it will be the first cameos for the Kiseki: Dear to Me guys since the company that produced their show is the same one for this show.

Impression of Youth (Filming Complete)

Very little is known about the plot of this teacher-student romance, but it comes from the same folks who produced DNA Says Love You and one of the mains, Muji Hsu, was also the lead in 2020's Because of You. Filming finished at the end of May, and the company stated it would be out before the end of the year.

Islanders (late 2024/early 2025)

This is based on a novel, Islands, by Lolita Hu, features some well known Taiwanese actors, and for a bit was under the name Sea of Intimacy. It's being presented as an 'older BL' but the MDL summary is sparse of the BL-plot: Hung, a successful entrepreneur, has three intimate relationships: his wife, his mistress, and his girlfriend. The lives of these individuals in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s are intertwined because of romance, but their story extends beyond that. When Hung faces criticism on social media and loses everything, the way they react tells us how they see the world.

Wishing Upon the Shooting Star & The Young Gangster (2025)

These two deal with completely different plots but are together because of one reason: Ray Jiang. He is the director for these two and was the director for Unknown, My Tooth Your Love, and We Best Love. The companies behind them have stated the series are coming next year, but the guess is Ray's busy schedule is part of the hold up since he has a Netflix series in the works and apparently a film featuring Sam Lin (We Best Love) on the way. The Young Gangster is based on a novel and deals with a research assistant gathering information on the mafia (and we know how the mafia works in BLs), while Shooting Star deals with a man wishing that nobody notices him once he returns to his hometown after being fired. The wish backfires and nobody recognizes him, not even his dad or the boy he confessed to in high school! BL Mafia, Sideways Wishes, and Ray Ray are my favorite types of snacks!

Pray in Love (2025?)

A police officer falls in love with a man only to realize that man is the son of a prominent leader on the day of his arranged wedding in which he was hired as security for the event. The series already released a short film of the basic premise for fundraising efforts and festival rounds. Apparently, filming has started on the series, but there is no concrete confirmation from the production company.

Eternal Butler (2025)

Edited to add thanks to @cankersoregirl! This is a sequel to VBL's Anti Reset and began filming in early July. It focuses on Ever 4 who is sent to be a bodyguard for a young rich man only to encounter a rebellious man.

That Year, 162 Rainfalls (In Production?)

Is this a movie? Is it a series? Is it happening?! Who knows, but last year, it finally got funding and a director attached to it, but the real kicker is Lin Pei Yu is the screenwriter, and she is the writer behind all of my favorite Taiwanese BLs: We Best Love, HIStory 3: Trapped, My Tooth Your Love, Kiseki: Dear to Me, and so much more. Basically, the company struck gold getting her for this story about two archers and best friends. One gets confessed to but admits he actually is in love with his best friend, but before love can happen, the best friend has an accident and falls into a coma. It is based on a novel of the same name, and the plot is way more hefty than this, but I know Lin Pei Yu will make it work!

Four Seasons (Pre, Pre, PRE-Production?)

This is supposed to be four different stories focusing on different seasons, and is rumored to be VBL's next group of shows since the company has stated it wants to continue its formula from last year of releasing slightly connected shows. VBL/Vidol was behind Stay by My Side, VIP Only, You Are Mine, and Anti Reset. Winter is about a scrooge CEO and a florist who is hired to decorate for the CEO's Christmas event. Spring is about two boys meeting on a bus and falling in love over music. Summer is about a market owner and a chef falling in love over food. Autumn is about two former best friends seeing each other ten years after graduating and exploring their hometown together.

Connecting to You (Pre-Production?)

It seems to have gotten funding, but it's been quiet since which isn't surprising because when it comes to Taiwanese BLs, nothing is really heard until filming begins or even after it ends. I still have my hopes high because this is *THE* BL for me as it deals with a man who can see colored threads connecting people and one day runs into a policeman whose thread connects to him. The thread between them begins to change color, from silver-grey to yellow, representing friendship, and even to red, representing love. If I have to sell an organ or two to fund this myself, I. Will. Do. It. I NEED THIS!

And this wouldn't be a Petty Post if I didn't include this final one:

HIStory 15: Freed (GIVE IT TO ME!)

I don't care if this a long shot. I don't care if I seem crazy always asking for this. I. Deserve. It. HIStory 3: Trapped ended with our best mafia boy in prison, and it's time he got out! The HIStory franchise has not had a series since 2022's HIStory 5: Love in the Future, and although there have been rumors that a HERstory story might be next, I think bringing back a popular story would be just as good. I will ask for this every chance I can until I get it, and I plan on living a long life, so I got time!

[kairoot]

ateez’s little pirates !

꒰ pairing: ateez x poc!reader

꒰ synopsis: ateez’s kids and their bios | obviously these photos DO NOT belong to me, they were just placed for example and cause I thought they were so adorable 💔💔 this is all fiction.

꒰ ateez as dads masterlist

☆. hongjoong. — nelani & aidan

nelani 𑁍 — 2 yrs

full name: nelani ayana kim

korean name: kim nabi [ 김나비 ]

nickname(s): nabi, nana, lani, mini hong, etc.

birthdate: july 15

birth time: 3:05 pm

birthplace: houston, texas, usa

hometown: seoul, south korea

ethnicity: korean , [ your ethnicity ]

language(s): korean, english, [ your language ]

facts about nelani.

nelani is the first born obviously 😽

she’s a daddy’s girl 100% but still loves you

she was born in the middle of ateez’s tour actually..

but good thing it was a day they didn’t have a show

hongjoong had brought you along because he did not want you by yourself with a baby that would pop out at any moment

she’s a very lively girl

loves bubbles (don’t know where she got that from..)

joong made songs dedicated to her when she was born

she absolutely loves dancing

likes painting

aidan ♬ — 8 months

full name: aidan kim/kim aidan

korean name: kim hyeonjun [ 김현준 ]

nickname(s): ai, den-den (made by nelani)

birthdate: april 7

birth time: 6:37 pm

birthplace: seoul, south korea

hometown: seoul, south korea

ethnicity: korean, [ your ethnicity ]

language(s): korean, english, [your language ]

facts about aidan.

aidan is a very calm baby

nelani is way more hyper than him, even when she was a baby

your pregnancy and delivery with him was easier as well

he loves dancing

joong takes him to the studio sometimes

aidan actually loves music a lot

whenever he hears it or someone starts singing to him, he starts movingn

☆. seonghwa. — samara

samara ✿ — 9 months

full name: samara rose park

korean name: park saeyoung

nickname(s): mari, mars (2), etc.

birthdate: march 21

birth time: 9:26 pm

birthplace: [ your birthplace ]

hometown: seoul, south korea

ethnicity: korean, [ your ethnicity ]

language(s): korean, english, [ your language ]

facts about samara.

samara and her dad are literal best friends

you gave birth to her while visiting family

seonghwa named her

during your pregnancy, he would stress over names because he wanted the perfect one for her

you would literally wake up to him writing in a notepad at 2 am 😭

she’s his little helper in the kitchen

she loves eating

☆. yunho. — dylan

dylan ᯐ — 2 yrs

full name: dylan jeong

korean name: jeong yujin

nickname(s): dj, yuyu

birthdate: august 4

birth time: 10:06 am

birthplace: seoul, south korea

hometown: seoul, south korea

ethnicity: korean, [ your ethnicity ]

language(s): korean, english, [ your language ]

facts about dylan.

tbh dylan is a little more of a mama’s boy but he still loves his parents equally

yunho loves playing with him whether it’s outside, inside with his toys or reading to him before bed

dylan is a quiet kid usually

but once he’s used to someone, he’s really giggly and has a warm personality like his dad

(tbh i can see yunho having way more kids than this but..)

☆. yeosang. — elaina

elaina ღ — 6 months

full name: elaina avery kang

korean name: kang dayeon

nickname(s): el, lailai (wooyoung created this)

birthdate: june 8

birth time: 7:17 pm

birthplace: incheon, south korea

hometown: seoul, south korea

ethnicity: korean, [ your ethnicity ]

language(s): korean, english, [ your language ]

facts about elaina.

elaina’s a pretty quiet baby

she’s been very close to you since birth but she absolutely loves yeosang

he still gets a bit nervous because it’s his first time

but he still loves her so much

she falls asleep on yeosang all the time and loves cuddling

☆. san. — august ‘auggie’

auggie ₊˚ — 10 months

full name: august anthony choi

korean name: choi haneul

nickname(s): auggie, bubba, etc.

birthdate: august 10

birth time: 11:37 am

birthplace: incheon, south korea

hometown: seoul, south korea

ethnicity: korean, [ your ethnicity ]

language(s): korean, english, [ your language ]

facts about auggie.

his first name is august but everyone just calls him auggie (mostly did this because i couldn’t decide between august and auggie for a real first name)

absolutely loves his dad — you too of course

atinys adore auggie

san came up with auggie’s name because of his birth month and it’s meaning

auggie can be a sneaky baby

he’s on san’s hip all day, 24/7

☆. mingi. — jasmine

jasmine ₊˚ — 2 yrs

full name: jasmine mae song

korean name: song jina

nickname(s): jas, jj, princess

birthdate: may 27

birth time: 10:06 pm

birthplace: busan, south korea

hometown: seoul, south korea

ethnicity: korean, [ your ethnicity ]

language(s): korean, english, [ your language ]

facts about jasmine.

she’s a daddy’s girl 100%

she’s an exact replica of her dad; his personality, looks, etc.

jasmine isn’t really hyper but she isn’t calm either

lovessss cuddling with mingi

she likes nature

☆. wooyoung. — maria

maria ₊˚ — 10 months

full name: maria areum jung

korean name: jung areum

nickname(s): marie, mo, mookie-pookie (bruh idk i found it on Google)

birthdate: december 16

birth time: 8:06 am

birthplace: incheon, south korea

hometown: seoul, south korea

ethnicity: korean, [ your ethnicity ]

language(s): korean, english, [ your language ]

facts about maria.

silly girl just like her dad (no she’s just like woo down to the BONE)

she never likes to go to bed which is a struggle for you and woo

early bird

she’s very hyper

takes her awhile to get used to people she doesn’t know

☆. jongho. — jun

jun ✧ — 9 months

full name: choi seo-jun (최서준)

nickname(s): jun, juju, junie

birthdate: july 19

birth time: 6:08 am

birthplace: seoul, south korea

hometown: seoul, south korea

ethnicity: korean, [ your ethnicity ]

language(s): korean, english, [ your language ]

facts about jun.

jun and jongho are quite literally inseparable

he lovesss watching whatever his dad is watching, doing whatever he’s doing, etc.

he’s a good balance between hyper and calm

likes sports like jongho, even if he is too young to comprehend it

jongho named him

[purfectstormzz]

Think I need someone older | Sebastian Stan x reader (social media au)

Summary: in which guys her age don’t know how to treat her right but a certain Romanian actor knows exactly how to treat her.

Pairing: Sebastian Stan x fem!reader

Warnings: Age gap (reader is 25, Sebastian is 41). Mean comments about reader.

A/n: The photos are all photos that I found on Pinterest so credits to whoever took those photos :). The dates under the post are random dates that I chose😊

Masterlist

Instagram.com

Yourusername

Liked by TomHolland, CharlesLeclerc and 567000 others

Yourusername: Young, wild & free!

21 October 2021

Comments:

FlorencePugh: You dropped this m’lady 👑

Zendaya: Mother!

Username23: When is she going to finally find someone to be with. She’s 23 it’s about time.

> Y/nswife: Let her live her life, she’s happy without someone!

> Y/nsfan: Exactly and every guy she has dated treated her like shit so let her be happy dude!

TimotheeChalamet: Check your dm’s😚

> Y/nswife: Not this guy making his move🫡

Yourusername

Liked by TimotheeChalamet, Bobbyskeetz and 657000 others

Yourusername: Last weekend with the friends✨

4 March 2022

Comments:

Y/nswife: Is that who I think it is???

> y/nsfan: What in the soft launch is this😮

FlorencePugh: Best weekend ever😙

TimotheeChalamet: We should do this again!!

> y/nswife: y’all I think we lost her

> username224: it is about time, at her age most people are already married.

> y/nswife: Respectfully, shut the f*ck up 😊

Menshealth

Liked by Yourusername, SebastianStan and 547000 others

Menshealth: Sebastian Stan in our latest photoshoot.

6 June 2022

Comments:

Yourusername: Respectfully Smash🫣

*comment liked by @Sebastianstan

> y/nswife: Girl😳

>Sebastianstanswife: She’s so real for that🤭

Yourusername

Liked by TimotheeChalamet, Zendaya and 736000 others

Yourusername: Prada 2023🖤

27 June 2023

Comments:

Zendaya: Prettiest girl ever🥰

>yourusername: Stop it, you’re making me blush☺️

Y/nswife: Mother fr

TimotheeChalamet: I’m so lucky to have such a pretty best friend🫶🏼

> y/nfan2: Best friend is code for girlfriend🤭

SebastianStan

Liked by Yourusername, ChrisEvans and 647000 others

SebastianStan: Prada ‘23

23 June 2023

Comments:

SebastianStanswife: I have something inappropriate to say🥵

> Yourusername: Same tbh😫

> SebastianStanswife: you’re so real for this girly🤭

Y/nswife: Ngl I kinda ship y/n and Sebastian😨

> username23: He’s literally 17 years older then her.

Yourusername added to their story

25 July 2023

Celebritynews

Liked by Y/nswife, SebastianStanswife and 6570000 others

Celebritynews: Actor Sebastian Stan (41) and actress Y/n Y/l/n (25) seen together in New York last night. Is there a new couple?

2 September 2023

Comments:

Y/nswife: Mother and father!!

SebastianStanswife: I’m not even mad, they look so good together.

Username23: The age gap is a bit weird🤔

> username234: exactly, he could be her dad!

>y/nsfan: Dude they’re both legal adults it’s not like she’s underage or something.

> Username23: Still. It’s a bit weird he’s 41😳

Username347: She’s probably only after his money

> y/nswife22: Did you miss the part where they said that she’s an actress too. She literally makes as much money as he does🤷‍♀️

> username236: Still, there are enough guys on the planet that she could date that are around her age😬

Y/nsfan45: I’m actually really happy for her. Finally a guy that knows how to treat her right.

Yourusername

Liked by SebastianStan, Y/nswife and 765000 others

Yourusername: Older men just do it better. Happy 4 months my love🫶🏼

Tagged: @SebastianStan

27 October 2023

Comments:

SebastianStan: Happy 4 months love🫶🏼

Y/nswife: 4 months?🫢

TimotheeChalamet: I’m finally able to speak again without almost spoiling this secret🫣

> Y/nsfan: All the people that thought that Timothée and Y/n were a couple are clowning so hard rn🤡

Y/nswife33: I’m so happy for her!!

Username23: The age gap is still a bit weird!

SebastianStan

Liked by Yourusername, ChrisEvans and 765000 others

SebastianStan: What the kids call a hard launch these days. Happy 4 months love❤️

Tagged: @yourusername

27 October 2023

Comments:

Yourusername: Happy 4 months honey❤️

ChrisEvans: Congrats both of you😊

Y/nswife: Mother finally found a father for us!

Sebastianstanswife: I find them so cute together!!

[milla-frenchy]

Breathe

4k9 | Joel Miller x fem reader x Tommy Miller x raider Series summary: you’ve been kidnapped by raiders, Joel is their leader. Women who don’t “behave” are locked in a place you call “the shithouse”. You live in your own house, “freely”. You and your roommate, Vic, became girlfriends. Joel, Tommy and the guards have free use of the women in the camp, while respecting Joel's strict rules. Chapt summary: Joel wants to make things clear, if you ever decide to oppose him again. Him and Tommy use you for an "initiation" Warnings: 18+ mdni. Dead dove. Dark - noncon (captivity, threat) / dubcon Gangbang, dvp, oral (f/m), spitting, spanking, rough sex, degradation, praise kink, size kink, piv, rimming, anal, creampies, angst a/n: Heed the warnings. If any of this makes you uncomfortable, do not pursue reading. I don't condone any of this. Thank you @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog for beta-ing 💕🫶 The Prodigy - Breathe | playlist | ao3 | series masterlist

Main masterlist - Part 4

The next morning while you and Vic were still sleeping, Joel brushed your cheek to wake you up. He asked her to go to her bedroom then changed your bandage gently so as not to hurt you, asking if it was painful. He placed medicine and bandages on the dresser, and left saying he was letting you rest. You didn't see him or any guards for two days, until one of them came and told you to follow him. You tensed up when you approached the shithouse, but you didn’t ask why you were there. You knew it was pointless, the explanations would come in due time, probably from Joel, not from a guard. You approached one of the bedrooms and you heard grunts and moans. Your discomfort grew.

“Stay here,” he told you, after letting you into the room. The smell was terrible. Still made of cum and piss. You tried to look away as she tried to catch your gaze, silently begging for your help. You wanted to cry knowing there was nothing you could do for her. Nausea seized you. Three guards took turns between her thighs. Tears ran down her cheeks but there was nothing human in these men’s eyes or words. They were taking, taking, taking. Raping. Feeding on her fear as much as her body. The mattress was even dirtier than the first time Joel had brought you there, the day you had to choose your fate.

When all three had come inside her, they passed by you, staring at you from head to toe and you placed your hands in front of your chest as an illusory protection. Once gone, you moved closer to her after grabbing a dirty blanket from the corner of the room to cover her.

“I’m sorry, sweetie, I’m sorry.” She was crying and was ashamed, as if it was her fault. You hated them. The door opened and Joel entered.

“Having a good day, Julie?”, he asked.

You hated him now, and he saw it when your eyes met. He grabbed your elbow and led you out of the room.

“You’re gonna get her killed.” You were so shocked that you were shaking, barely managing to keep your composure. You hoped not to show him but your guts knew better than your mind. This man felt the slightest emotions that emanated from a person, and he used them. Whether to make them feel bad or good, depending on what he wanted. He was way too good at this, and it was probably why he was still alive, running raiders camp in the lost world. 

“Getting fucked ain’t gonna kill her.”

“Come on, Joel! She is poorly nourished, probably has lots of deficiencies and perhaps an infection. Not to mention a psychological damage. Have you really lost all humanity?”

You were trying not to cry. You imagined far too easily how you could have been in her place.

“You know I don’t. You're still there”, pointing with his chin at the house where you lived. “In your pretty bedroom. With your pretty girlfriend.”

The way he said it made you shiver. You showed him your bandaged hand, to make him think about you, rather than her.

“What’s your point? You think those guys, the one that railed her, wouldn’t have done worse?”

“What do you want me to say? That you're less of an asshole than them? Still an asshole to me.”

You wondered if you were going too far but you were too upset by what you had just witnessed. “Why did you show me this? Those guys? You’re gonna threaten to send me there again?”

“No. No I won’t. We both know it wouldn’t work.” You looked at each other, waiting for the other one to speak. He spoke first.

“You think you have leverage on me, that I love your pussy too much to throw you to these men. And maybe it’s true. But now I have leverage on you too. I know how much you care about her. So if you piss me off again she’s gonna be thrown here and fucked an entire day by these guys. To teach YOU a lesson. She doesn't need one, she knows her place.”

"You disgust me."

“Oh, baby. You hate me now, but you love my cock as much as I love your cunt. You may have forgotten it for now, but you’ll remember it when you’ll moan, bouncing on it. Go back to your house now, lesson’s over.”

You insulted him in every possible way in your head, while he looked at you with his arrogant smirk. Fully aware of what was on your mind. Your heart sank thinking about Vic, and you went straight to your room, hoping that sleep would make you forget everything else.

Footsteps woke you up in the middle of the night, just before a guard entered your room and asked you to follow him. It was unusual. When one of them wanted to fuck you at night, he would do it in your bedroom and then leave. As if they wanted to leave their scent in your bed. You were even more surprised when you saw that he wasn't taking you to the fuckhouse. Or the shithouse. For a moment you couldn’t help but be afraid that Joel would “teach you” another lesson there.

The guard led you to a house you had never been in and knocked on the door. You heard Joel shoot “come in”. The man closed the door behind you, and Joel told you to go upstairs. He was lying on a bed, in jeans and a t-shirt.

“Is it…?” you started to ask.

“My bedroom, yeah.”

You looked around. The furniture, the way the room was organized. Everything was clean and tidy. You looked at the window, illuminated by a nearby lamp. Pink, blue and purple paper butterflies were hanging there, moving with the breeze that brushed against them. Everything was minimalistic in his room, and this childish touch of color stood out from everything else. You turned to him with a confused expression and he took a moment before responding.

“A reminder of my daughter.” A veil formed over his eyes. Your heart sank when you heard this confession. With those words, you suddenly realized two things. He had experienced a loss that broke his heart, and you had a special place for him. A part of you had already known it, but now you couldn’t deny it anymore. And somehow, it complicated things for you. From the beginning, you wanted to hate him. But your heart wavered because of Joel's behavior. You knew you were suffering Stockholm syndrome, you knew that your instincts were doing what they could to help you survive, at almost any price. But it wasn't just that.

And now, you didn't know why or how, but this special place you had, was there. Even if he was capable of acting like an asshole, to fuck you with three other guys or to throw you out to all his men. Or to cut your fucking pinky. But he decided to tell you that and your heart was racing. His constant hot and cold behavior was driving you crazy.

“How’s your finger?”

“Great, for a cut off one.”

It made him smile. You, not so much.

He stood up and came up to you, and surprised you again when he asked if he could hold you. You considered saying no to him, but that wasn’t what you wanted. Even if you hated yourself for it. So you nodded and he took you in his arms, and for a few minutes your body relaxed, enjoying the security he was offering you. Your body was lost in his arms, and you loved that feeling, that strength all around you. And not directed against you, for once. He took your chin between his fingers and lifted it towards him. His brown eyes, which sometimes turned black. But not there. And he kissed you. He’d done it before, while he was fucking you, but never like this. His lips were soft and warm. His hands slid down your body, brushing against your breasts, and you shivered. He removed your top and slid his hand between your breasts, rubbing their curvature. Then your pants, getting on his knees to remove them from your feet. Your panties, while he was still kneeling in front of you. He looked at your pussy and brushed your folds with his thumb.

“Lie down on the bed,” he said.

“Can you…” you stopped, not daring to go further in your request.

“Can I what?”

“Take off your clothes? I’d like you to be naked, like me.”

“Ok, baby,” he replied.

“Can I do it?”

He nodded, and let you take off his t-shirt, pants and boxers. He was barefoot.

“Thank you”, you breathed out, before going to lie down. He knelt at the foot of the bed, sliding you over to him. He was calm. Different from the other times when he had fucked you alone. As if he was less harsh. As if he was human, at least a part of him. The emotions were so strange in that new world. And even more so when you were in captivity. Used.

When he placed his lips on your pussy, you forgot the rest. His tongue brushed against your folds up to your clit, before his lips gripped it, sucked on it, kissed it.

“Open up for me,” he said.

You folded your legs further, resting them against the bed. He spread your folds with his hands and spat on your clit then on your folds, before sliding his thumb on your delicate skin. “Joel…” you whispered. He didn’t respond, preferring to slide his tongue into your pussy, groaning between your thighs. Fucking you with it and collecting all your wetness. Digging as far as possible. His thumb twirling over your clit. Sometimes he would let his saliva flow onto your clit again. The feeling of it flowing over you, before he spread it with his thumb, electrified you.

“Good girl,” he said, just before he moved his tongue up to your clit and buried two of his fingers in your pussy. His other hand was on your stomach, caressing your skin. As if he wanted to feel your stomach moving up and down, following the pace of his fingers or tongue. You felt your orgasm building. He spat one last time, knowing the effect it had on you. You came on his fingers, your pussy clenching on them. You heard him moan, tongue resting on your clit. Feeling its jolts.

Then he crawled over to you, a firm hand around his hard, thick cock. He nestled it at your entrance and pushed in without waiting. Eyes staring into yours, until you had to close yours, trying to get used to his size. He was spreading your folds with his cock, without forcing but without slowing down either. Until he bottomed out.

“I love to fuck you, you’re right”, he confessed in your ear. “Best pussy I’ve ever fucked, maybe. Takin’ my cock so fuckin’ good.” You whined against his neck.

“Told you, baby. You love my cock as much as I love your cunt.” You didn't want to think about it. You were there because they had captured you, because you were forced to let him, them, fuck you.  As if he knew what you were thinking, he added, "yeah, since the beginning, you're getting off on being fucked by raiders."

There he was again, that Joel you hated. Your whole body contracted as you tried to push him off of you but he tightened his grip, continuing to fuck you slowly, growling in your neck.

And you hated it but you couldn't deny the heat that rose in your core, his cock rubbing against your g spot, and his lower stomach against your clit. 

“Yeah, baby, just like that. You’re gonna come on my cock.”

“Yeah…I…fuck, Joel…”

“Come on, baby, I missed your cunt these last days. I missed stuffing you full of my cock.”

He wrapped his arms under your shoulders and pulled you close.

“Talk to me. Tell me what you feel.”

“I…I feel it coming. Growing in me. It’s so good, so warm. Why do you…Oh god…I’m gonna…Joel, Joel…”

“Why do I what?”

“Shit…why do you make me feel so good…”

He growled, and added “come on, baby, squeeze my dick. Come on it, then I’ll fill you up.”

You put your legs on his lower back, allowing him to fill you deeply, completely, as he was thrusting in just as slowly.

“Yeah, fuck, yeah…just like that baby.”

You dug your nails into his flesh as the wave hit you. He kept his body against yours, his cock buried deep inside you without moving, just to feel the jerks of your pussy on his cock. Until he came too, just by being clenched by your folds, and shot his cum deep inside you. He lay on top of you for a few minutes, then he withdrew. He told you the guard was going to take you to your house. You picked up your clothes, put them back on and left. On your way back home, you tried to stop your tears from falling. As if your heart expected that he would treat you differently, less harshly, after that moment. You didn’t know what was wrong with you. What you were thinking, how you could be so naive. He was just a raider.

The days passed. The multiple fucks too.  With time you learned to keep yourself busy. Learned to sew, knit. Tinkering, refinishing furniture. The men brought back various things from their raids. Women were not allowed to leave the camp of course, to avoid the risk of them escaping. At first, time passed agonizingly slowly and you were bored, but refused to participate in activities with other people. To meet other people, chat with them. As if that would mean you were giving in. And then you broke down and took some seeds available in the warehouse. You planted them in the vegetable garden. It was the first activity you got involved in.

Loads of books were available and you had discovered many authors. The days were passing faster now. Sometimes you couldn't help but wonder what you would do if you could leave this camp. If you could survive, and how. If you would come across worse than the men there.

One day you noticed a new soldier. Young, early 20s. And your heart sank thinking of those young people who had only known that violent world. What would their life be like, in another universe? He wouldn’t become a raider, who learnt that women were only a resource. You hated this world so much. Several times you felt his gaze on you. A look still pure, despite everything.

“You like her?” Joel asked him.

“Well…she’s pretty.”

“Yeah, she is. Wanna fuck her? You had the talk with Tommy, right?”

“Yeah, but…I don’t know, I’ve never done that.”

“What, you’re a virgin?”

“No. But…I’ve never fucked a woman who didn’t want it.”

“Yeah well, it’s not a problem here, kiddo.”

You knew they were talking about you even if you couldn’t hear them. Joel wasn’t exactly discreet.

When a guard came for you that night and brought you to the fuck house, you knew what was going to happen. Joel, Tommy, and the young guard were already there, waiting for you. 

“Hey sweetheart, always a pleasure to see you”, Tommy said, grabbing your ass and kissing you, as he always did. “This kid here has some things to learn about the camp. You’re gonna be a good girl and help him with that, ok?” As if you had the choice. You shrugged. 

“But well, once he tastes this pussy, the others will seem bland to him.”

“Don’t be rude, Tommy. We have other good pussies to fuck. Her roommate, for example.”

They both sneered. “Assholes”, you thought. Tommy laughed, seeing your face. “Ok, sweetheart, let him taste your mouth.”

You knelt in front of the guard, unbuttoning his pants and pulling them down along with his boxers. He smelled good. He was semi-hard, looking down at you. Embarrassed. As if you were in a position of strength against him. You wondered how long it would take before it would change.

You took his cock in your hand and let your saliva run down his tip. Spread it with your thumb, then jerked it gently.

“I wonder how long it’ll take him to paint her face,” Tommy chuckled.

“No, no no. Not too fast, kiddo. We like to fuck them when they’re full of cum. Stuff her at least long enough to cum inside.”

You saw him blush. At least women weren't the only victims of their degradation, and somehow that made you happy. You moved closer to him and licked his tip gently, tasting his precum. He jumped and you smiled, before taking him in your mouth, continuing to jerk him gently. His cock was an average size, and you didn't need to get used to its thickness between your lips. You moved down his shaft, keeping your fist clenched at the base of his cock. Picking up the pace slightly, you began to suck him at a steady pace. His precum flowed down your throat, and you heard him moan.

“How does that feel, kiddo?”, asked Joel.

“Good, fucking good”, he answered. “And you…really fuck her, all of them, when you want?”

“Yeah. Day, night. You can fuck them alone, or with other guards. As you wish. But you do it the way I say. You make them cum, you don't hit them. You can slap them a little, we all like it when our cock is buried in their pussy, but not more than that. You have the ones from the shithouse if you need to let off some steam.” You stiffened when you heard him speak like that.

“Fuck…ok, ok.”

Your saliva ran down his shaft and you licked it.

“Oh fuck…ma’am…” Tommy and Joel snickered, hearing him.

“He’s cute”, added Tommy. The guard didn't even hear him.

“Wait, or I’m gonna come, they said I couldn’t do that uh…in your mouth.”

“Come lie down on the bed, baby. He's gonna fuck you. How do you want it, man?”

“All fours? Is that ok?” he asked, looking at you.

He was sweet and cute, and despite the incongruous situation you wanted to counterbalance the attitude of the two brothers.

“Of course”, you answered. You settled onto your hands and knees, waiting for him to come behind you. He knelt down and hesitated.

“But uh…what if I can’t make her come?”

The brothers laughed. You couldn’t imagine how he must feel, having to fuck you in front of both of them, as if it was something normal, while they didn’t even hold back their laughs. He was still so pure.

“It’s ok, kiddo,” Joel replied. “You’re young, you gotta learn. We’ll make her come, don’t worry.”

“Are you two gonna...make love to her, after me?”

“Oh yeah…my brother and I, we’re gonna make love to her. Don’t worry ‘bout that.”

The guard moved closer to you, placing his hands on your hips before grabbing his cock and sliding down to your entrance.

“Oh, fuck”, he said, when your pussy clenched against his shaft.

“Yeah, she’s tight. We still don’t know how she manages to take both of our cocks at the same time, in that tight pussy”, said Tommy.

“Two? Are you both fucking her at the same time? In the same hole?”

“In the same hole, yeah. Or one in her cunt and the other in her ass. Depending on what we want.”

“Oh, man…” 

He started to fuck you. He was clearly not experienced, his movements were clumsy. But he wasn't abrupt, wasn’t hurting you. He spread your ass cheeks slightly, probably looking at your ring.

“Ever fucked an ass before?”

“Oh, fuck…I’m gonna…shit. Oh damn it was close. No, never.”

“You’re gonna love it. Even tighter than her pussy. Much tighter. The first few times you'll probably cum just from digging your tip into that hole.”

You heard him moan, and he came in your pussy, grunting, clinging to your hips.

“Ok kiddo, not so bad, but you gotta practice. Ever ate a pussy?”

“Yeah, well…a couple times.”

“You gotta learn to make them come that way. And when you’re really good at it, you'll make them cum by rubbing their clit while you’re fucking them. And then, just with your cock. Right, baby? She loves that.”

You blushed with this allusion to the night at his house, and the guard pulled out.

“Ok kiddo. Lesson number 2. You’re gonna watch us fuck her.”

“Come sit on my cock, baby. Hurry up, don't waste his cum, wanna fuck you through it”, Joel told you, spanking your ass. He sat against the headboard and you straddled him. His gaze was unfathomable, but it wasn't the same man who had fucked you missionary in his bedroom. He was good at compartmentalizing, much better than you. You grabbed his cock and impaled yourself on it gently. “Fuck”, you mumbled. He was thick, much thicker than the guard, and you needed to lower yourself onto it slowly.

“You missed my cock, baby?” he asked you with a smirk.

You dug your nails into the flesh of his shoulders, as you gradually sank onto his shaft.

He smiled and grabbed your shoulder, and added “I missed your cunt too. God, I love to fuck you when you’re full of cum.”

The guard’s cum helped you get used to his cock. Joel grabbed your ass with his hands and started bouncing you on his cock. You bit your lip. Tommy was sat in a chair by the bed, his dick in his hand, and said “you look so fuckin’ pretty bouncing on my brother’s cock, baby.”

He came closer, jerking off, and said “suck my dick, baby. Make it wet, we’re gonna need it.”

You wondered how he was going to fuck you, but whether it was in your pussy too or in your ass, you knew you had to make it easier for you. He slipped his cock into your mouth without waiting.

“Shit, yeah, you’re hot baby, suckin’ my brother’s cock.”

He had slowed down the pace to allow you to suck Tommy properly.

“Look at that Joel, the kiddo is already hard again.”

“Nice. You’re gonna have another lesson today. Sharing a cunt with another cock. I hope you’re not one of those who doesn’t want two cocks touching?”

“No…no I don’t mind.”

“Good.”

Tommy kept thrusting into your mouth, while Joel's hand on the back of your head accompanied your movements until he shifted it to stroke your clit with his thumb. His cock was rubbing your core, filling you perfectly, as his finger was swirling your clit. Every time they both fucked you, you always forgot at one point or another the situation you were in. Only focusing on your sensations, and theirs.

“Look at that, kiddo. She’s gonna come soon. She loves taking our cocks so much, like a good little whore. Right, baby?”

You nodded, your mouth around Tommy's shaft.

“Yeah she’s so good at this. Prettiest mouth and prettiest cunt. Taking us so well”, Tommy added.

Your pussy contracted more and more on Joel's shaft, as his thumb gave you what you needed, until you came all over his cock.

“There we go…you’re doing great, baby.”

Tommy pulled out of your mouth, holding your cheek with his hand while you came down from your orgasm. Joel pulled you towards him, leaning forward to offer you to Tommy, who was already kneeling behind you.

“Ok, baby. One more dick”, he said.

“Yeah, that's what you want, baby, right?”

You nodded, resting your head on his shoulder. You were used to both of them taking you by now. Used to the feeling of your pussy spreading on both of their cocks. Even if it still stretched painfully, as the second one thrust in. And somehow, taking them both, that abandonment, strangely made you forget your life in the camp.

You felt Tommy’s hand on your hip, and the head of his cock pressing against the dick already inside you. Using it to slide his member in.

“Oh fuck, men…that’s so hot,” said the guard who had moved closer to watch.

“Relax, baby…let me in. Yeah, just like that. Good girl.”

Tommy's praise had always helped you to relax, to turn you on. Today, like any other day. He usually did it in a lighter way than Joel, perhaps less degrading.

“Breathe, sweetheart.”

You did as he said, breathing slowly until his tip slid into your pussy, spreading you completely. You whined into Joel’s neck. 

“That’s a good girl”, he praised you.

“Look at you takin’ these cocks baby”, added Tommy as he continued to thrust in. “Yeah, just like that. One more dick in that cunt.”

They slid into you slowly, then gradually increased the pace. You heard them growl. Joel against your ear, Tommy on the back of your head.

“Gonna take my place after I fill her, man?” Tommy asked the guard.

“Yeah…fuck…Sure.”

“We’re stretching her good, damn…”

Tommy grunted and you felt his hot cum fill you, then some of it leaked out of your pussy.

“Thank you baby, another great fuck”, he said, kissing your shoulder.

You whimpered when he pulled out. Joel remained still and the guard knelt behind you again.

“Take it easy, don’t hurt her. Lean against my cock and slide gently.”

“Ok, sir”, he replied.

He rested his cock against Joel's, covered in Tommy's cum, and thrusted his tip in.

“Oh, fuck, she’s so tight.”

“Yeah, she is. That's good, uh? Come on kiddo, slide in. Slowly.”

The guard placed one hand on your shoulder and the other on your hip, holding on for leverage. And they started to fuck you. Sometimes sliding together, sometimes alternating rhythms.

“You’re ok, baby? You’re taking our cocks so good, fuck…”

“Yeah, yeah…I’m ok.”

“You’re such a slut, baby…Always ready for more” you heard Tommy say.

“I’m…I’m gonna cum”, the guard whined.

“Come on, kiddo, fill her up. Then I’ll fuck her like she needs to get fucked”, Joel said as he looked at you, grabbing your cheeks in his hands and keeping you facing him.

You heard the guard grunt then freeze, adding his cum to Tommy's.

“Ah fuuuuuck, that’s hot, baby. You never disappoint”, Joel said.

The guard pulled out, and so did Joel, as he told you to stand on all fours while he knelt behind you.

“Yeah, I finally got this pretty pussy all to myself. I'm gonna fuck you rough baby. I know you want it. Hope I'll feel something. We really ruined you, uh?”

He slid into your pussy without waiting, hands clinging to your shoulders. Fucking you hard, without respite. Then he spat on your ass, rubbing your ring with his thumb, his other hand on your waist.

“Gonna fuck that ass. Pussy’s too ruined.”

“Wait, Joel!”

“Calm down, ain’t gonna hurt you.”

He pulled away, licking your ring and spitting on it as he jerked off. Then he positioned his cock covered by your wetness and the other men cum at your entrance.

“See, kiddo…that ass” - he thrust his tip in - “is so good” - pulled back - “that I can never stay too long” - he thrust in totally - “without fucking it. Oh fuck!!”

You laid your head on the pillow, moaning and fisting the pillow, as his hands were buried in the flesh of your hips, fucking your ass hard and deep. You heard him growl more and more.

“Look at that kiddo, she’s taking it so good”, Tommy praised you.

Joel thrust in a few more times, hands frozen on your hips, then he stopped, flooding your ass with his cum. He stayed there while he caught his breath, then withdrew.

“Kiddo, go pick up her girlfriend in 30 minutes.”

Then he looked at you and added “we have to keep teaching him how to fuck”, smirking.

You went back home.

When Vic finally came home that night, you were waiting for her to go to bed. But the guard didn't leave, and told you to follow him, from the front door.

“Jesus Christ…how many times does he need to fuck today?” you mumbled, looking at her.

He didn’t accompany you to the fuckhouse, but to Joel's house, once again. You went upstairs and heard the shower running. You sat on Joel’s bed waiting for him to finish. When he came out a few minutes later, in boxers and a towel around his neck, his hair was still wet and drops of water were beading on his curls. He was magnificent, from head to toe. You looked at his body as he walked towards you. Several scars covered his torso.

“You’re staring, baby”, he said with a smile.

“Yeah, well…not only men can do that.”

He smiled even more when he heard you. He brushed past you without touching you, and went to bed. “You’re gonna sleep with me tonight.”

“What…I…didn’t bring any sleeping clothes.”

“You won’t need them.”

Part 6

*************

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[chaosgremlinmunson]

Soul-Searching

For @steddie-week July 4: body swap

Steve wakes up slowly, he's so comfortable and is surrounded by luxurious silk sheets, a million pillows, and a cool dark room. He blinks for a moment thinking maybe he's still asleep, maybe this is still a dream. His overworked mind thinking of the height of luxury instead of his flat above the coffee-shop he manages working odd hours and barely sleeping. He's making it, but just barely, were it not for Claudia and Dustin Henderson and the casseroles sent weekly he's sure he'd be malnourished. I mean, food or bills? Well, he can get a few tiny staples, but the bills need paid or it's sleeping in his tiny car, the Beemer having been sold out from under him at 19 when he finally told his father he wasn't going to work for him, he was queer, and he was going to find his own way if they couldn't accept him. The fight that ensued insured he'd never be considered a Harrington again, oh he could keep his last name, but make no mistake, that was the day Richard and Diane Harrington's son died. So here he was hallucinating a life he could only dream of, he raised a hand to wipe at his eyes and noticed the ink littering his skin. Black nail polish, and as he sat up long dark curls cascading over his shoulders and face. He rose immediately searching through the dark for a light switch and then spinning to find a mirror only to see the front man of Corroded Coffin staring back at him. He gaped at his reflection turning this way and that, his eyes roving over the body before him before landing on the bare hips in the mirror. To his left the phone rang, and he launched himself over the bed to retrieve it.

“Hello?” He said quietly.

“Hey, yeah, hi.” His voice said back, what the fuck, his voice? How? “So, uh, it seems like I'm either hallucinating, or, and hear me out, I body swapped with whoever you are. I'm um, standing in your…. apartment I guess you'd call it, and uh, honestly I have no idea what to do here man. But, I have a sold out concert in two days and I kinda need my body back to go perform. No offense, I'm sure you're really nice and talented and all, but I, just..” the voice trailed off, he could hear the nerves in his own voice.

“Yeah, uh, not hallucinating. And I'd prefer to give you your body back too. It's a nice body and all, but I am so not equipped to be a metal singer man, I can barely listen to it without getting migraines. Tell you what, are you in Indy? I haven't left your…home? Yet or anything, actually I haven't even found where you have your clothes at, and I'd prefer to have some semblance of clothes on. But maybe you could come to where you live and we can talk?”

“Yeah, yep, that uh, that sounds good. You fell asleep in jeans and tee so I'll just come by in this, and oh your keys were in your pocket. Cool, what kinda car do I look for?”

“It's a small white car just outside the coffee shop downstairs. If anyone tries to stop you just say you have a family emergency and will call them later.”

“Sounds good, uh if they try to stop me what name do I answer to if called?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Steve, my name is Steve. “

“Sounds good Stevie, I'll be there as soon as I can.”

Steve hung up the phone when the dial tone started and looked around, he noticed a door painted black with a red dragon and decided to open it, he was greeted by an immense collection of black clothes and pulled out the first things he saw, on the table next to it there was a dish with some scrunchies and hair ties, he chose a silk one to tie up the curls after finger combing them carefully. Once he was done with that he made his way downstairs wandering until he found the front door, a small bench sat next to it with boots and other shoes lined up carefully and he sat, waiting.

Before he knew it a knock came to the front door and he opened it to see his own face looking at him wide eyed.

“This is real then.” He watched his mouth say, he nodded and swallowed.

“Hi, Eddie. I want so badly to say it's nice to meet you, but uh, every time I've thought about meeting you it was more running into you, or maybe going to a concert with my ear protection but having the backstage passes to meet the band, flirting and then…well. Anyway, ahem, why don't uh you show me where your coffee is and we can brainstorm how to change us back?”

Eddie led him into the kitchen and he sat on a bar stool while he flitted around making them some coffee. They started talking, it lasted for hours and finally Eddie looked at him for a moment, and then took a deep breath.

“Okay, I want to try something, and if it doesn't work please don't punch me.” He began, and leaned over to pull Steve into a kiss who immediately saw stars behind his eyelids and melted into the embrace. Either this kiss was world shattering, or the cosmos conspired to find Steve a boyfriend. Eventually they pulled apart both panting and slowly opened their eyes. Steve found himself looking at the rockstar now and giggled.

“It worked.” He whispered. “You're you again, and I'm me.”

“That it did sweetheart. I know this seems fast, but do you want to maybe go on a date with me? I don't think I'm going to forget you anytime soon.”

“I'll go on all the dates with you Eddie Munson.” And Steve pulled him back into a sweet passionate kiss.

They would spend the next weeks and months getting to know each other, but they felt as though they'd known each other in every life, for eons. Fate brought them together and they fell hopelessly, emphatically in love.

[kyri45]

Hoi there!

You are so talented and creative. I love your art so much, the style is adorable ^^

I do have a few questions, as one creator to another. I don't post at the moment, but I do love making art, especially for my fanfic/original projects.

Can you tell me how you do it? Like how can you stay motivated and be able to post almost every day?

Any tips maybe on how to deal with artblocks and burnouts?

How do you pratice certain art styles and be able to do them accurately?

1. It’s because I really really REALLY like what I’m drawing right now. (gay monkies). Plus I have- an endgame lets say. I have a clear ending for my comics and reaching that point is what keeps me going, but I also ONLY draw what I want to draw, not EVERYTHING that needs to be shown for the endgame. This actually helped me go throught my ISAT AU comic.

It’s like- narrating a roadtrip. The ending is your destination, you can’t wait to arrive there, but first you know there’s a long road ahead. But you don’t actually need to describe/draw every single town / city / landscape to go there. Not every single kilometer of a roadtrip is a mouth-dropping view.

That’s why you can just-skip it. Stay 4 chapter at one diner if you like the set, focus a chapter on the protagonists looking at the stars, start a scene somewhere completely different, completely skip 30% of the road. As long as you can imply with details what was in between, you don’t need to show/write it in details if you feel it would be hard to make interesting, or just not your thing.

Also if you start to grow an audience and people ask you to draw/write certain things that you don’t feel like to, or just feel like they are extras, don’t do it.

Not because you can’t, but the MOMENT something that you create starts to feel like you are doing it for the audience, then you are not actually doing something yours, and from then on it’s gonna be harder and harder to do things. Like, I have hundreds of fanarts that I did on my IG that were mostly directed to my audience, and not something that I just did because of fun.

All of this is also- answering to your second question - for not burning out. All of this is for keeping your passion up. I’m not talking about mental or physical energy. You could be dead tired (like I am many times) but still be fueled do draw for hours. Because you’re drawing only exactly what you want.

It took me 4 years to understand. I used to do this in high school. Draw something just for the hell of it. It was harder back then, because drawing was hard. I arrived to a point where drawing is much easier (also cause I draw almost everyday for 6/8 hours.) and after I was healed from my broken arm this july, it became my drug. I understood I can’t live without drawing what’s in my head, and that (unless it’s specifically for work) I don’t wanna draw something that’s not only what I want.

I want you to arrive to the point that your drawings / fanfictions are so much exactly what you envisioned /wanted that you fangirl about them. That you read/watch them and squeak in delight. Because even if no one likes them, you must be crazy about them.

(I’ll make a post about this in the future, because it literally changed how I draw after years and it brought back my passion for art after 10 years, but rn it’s a little late and I wanna draw my LMK au so I’ll stop now)

3. I keep some reference to look at every now and then. I also draw a L O T. ( a ton shit of things that I draw are not posted anywhere bc of work)

[uraichievents]

UraIchi Week 2024

Monday, July 1st, 2024 - Sunday, July 7th, 2024

AO3 Collection

Full Prompts List Submitted This Year

(Click images to enlarge. Alt text under the cut.)

What is UraIchi Week?

It’s a week-long fanworks event to promote the Urahara Kisuke x Kurosaki Ichigo ship. There’s no sign-up, it’s just for fun, and everybody can participate. Completed works and wips are both acceptable, and any type of fanwork (fanfic, fanart, gifsets, etc.) is welcome. NSFW and/or potentially trigger-y content is allowed, although please remember to tag your works properly.

The ship itself can be written romantically or platonically, as lovers or friends or even enemies, so long as it stars these two characters together in some way. Poly ships are also fine so long as Ichigo and Kisuke are still the focus of the fanwork. And crossovers and fusions are also allowed even if it isn’t one of the given prompts for the event. Basically, anything goes, and the only criteria is that it has to be UraIchi-centric.

Posting:

UraIchi Week is hosted here on Tumblr and on AO3. For posts on Tumblr, remember to ping @uraichievents and tag #UraIchi Week 2024. For AO3, you can add your work(s) to the collection linked up above. You are also welcome to join the UraIchi Discord server if you haven’t already and come and talk about what you’re working on!

Themes:

July 1st, Day 1: i've met you before / i'll meet you again / this is the first time we've met.. right?

Time Travel / Dimension Travel

Identity Porn / Hidden Identities

“I've suffered from traumatic dreams of my past lives since I was a child, and I'm just now realizing that coming up to a beautiful stranger who looks like someone I've seen die a thousand times in a thousand different ways at a bar and asking if we've met before sounds a lot like a come-on haha no wait come back that doesn't mean I'm not desperately attracted to you please kiss me again” AU

July 2nd, Day 2: It's fact that killable problems are not real problems.

Murder Husbands

Ichigo is Deadpool / unbreakable / any other accidentally immortal being who is really kind of annoyed about it (because it’s boring, and he’s still young enough to be within his lifespan, but it sure takes the fun out of fighting).

All the times Ichigo died, he ACTUALLY died, he just came back. Every time he comes back, he comes back Wronger.

July 3rd, Day 3: Things I Should've Told You / Things I Don't Tell Anyone Else

The skeletons in your closet are about to overflow. Would you like me to tidy it up?

Ichigo is experimenting with self-expression, a hobby, etc., making up for lost time as a regular teenager. Urahara is always the first one (sometimes only one) to see or hear about a new idea.

“The person I trust most is you.”

July 4th, Day 4: Sword and Shield

I am yours to command, use me as you please.

Shiba!Ichigo and Second Division!Kisuke

Summoner/Mage AU: Paired summons who are good apart but unmatched together.

July 5th, Day 5: That One is Mine

Hollow Instincts / Feral Protective

Possessive!Kisuke: He stepped aside for Sui-Feng because Yoruichi was always master first and friend second and love interest never, and because Yoruichi wanted her in a way she's never wanted him. But Ichigo is different, and everyone soon realizes that when Kisuke truly wants something, he always gets it in the end.

“Death can’t have you. You’re mine.”

July 6th, Day 6: Monsters come in all shapes and sizes. Some are born, some are made, and some decide being a monster's pretty fucking cool.

Visored!Urahara Kisuke AU / Vasto Lorde!Kurosaki Ichigo AU

“Ichigo forges a friendship with his Hollow in the Shattered Shaft” AU

vs. Gotei 13 AU: Ichigo time travels back from a future where he was chained to the throne as the next Soul King by the Shinigami.

July 7th, Day 7: Creator’s Choice!

As always, the above prompts are all optional, and you’re free to come with your own ideas. You can also find an excel sheet with all the prompts submitted this year linked up above, so feel free to look through that if you want, and you can also make a copy for yourself.

And that’s it! We’re looking forward to what everyone comes up with!