#LIKE COME ON. USE YOUR FUCKING BRAINS FOR ONCE. READ A BOOK. GO OUTSIDE. DO SOMETHING WITH YOUR FUCKING LIFE. GET A JOB. A HOBBY

[catgirlcrisis]

okay first of all "why do fic authors take the heat?" is such a stupid fucking thing to say. if you even remotely cared about being versed in actual literary discussion (not just your own online echo chambers) you would know that the inclusion and writing of sensitive, darker themes, topics, and subjects is something which remains polarizing, active, and controversial. from the child orgy in stephen king's IT, to the complex narrative of vladimir nabokov's lolita and its public reception, people are constantly challenging what it means to write darker themes, and what it means to write them in a healthy, respectful manner, whether works that fetishize such material are considered literary merit, discussions over censorship versus safety, such and so forth. like, Real People who write Real Books also get in discourse. audiences and writers alike have been around this block several times and this continues to be relevant discussion in every facet of the literary world. the only place in which fic authors are the only people who take all the heat is a world in which you don't read actual works and instead consume the equivalent of junk food work.

and nothing wrong with reading OR writing fanfiction, but y'know, when that's all you read? you need to diversify your palate. otherwise you get weird takes that signal to other people you either 1. only care about online discourse to the extreme, and/or 2. you dont go outside.

in regards to written child pornography:

it's worth recognizing a few things to add nuance to this discussion. under federal US law (which is important because that is where AO3 is based), the parameters for child pornography only include visual content; furthermore, the exclusion of written media is reinforced by Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002), which concluded:

"If speech is neither obscene nor child pornography, it is protected from attempts to categorically suppress child pornography even if it is related to it. Statutes that are overly broad in defining what speech is suppressed are unconstitutional."

however, it is also worth considering that under other country's legal statues, written material does constitute child pornography. for example, canada's federal parameters describe child porn like so:

163.1 (1) In this section, child pornography means

(a) a photographic, film, video or other visual representation, whether or not it was made by electronic or mechanical means,

(i) that shows a person who is or is depicted as being under the age of eighteen years and is engaged in or is depicted as engaged in explicit sexual activity, or

(ii) the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen years;

(b) any written material, visual representation or audio recording that advocates or counsels sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years that would be an offence under this Act;

(c) any written material whose dominant characteristic is the description, for a sexual purpose, of sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years that would be an offence under this Act; or

(d) any audio recording that has as its dominant characteristic the description, presentation or representation, for a sexual purpose, of sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years that would be an offence under this Act.

when most people talk about there being child pornography on AO3, they don't necessarily refer to fictional children (which is definitely weird, yes, and potentially dangerous material, but certainly not illegal under federal US statutes) but rather through the channel of real person fiction, which is something that has become quite popular in the "mainstream" view because of things like minecraft SMPs and what not (note: im not saying RPF was not popular before - but fanfiction is, and always will be, niche, and RPF is itself a niche within a niche). now, is this illegal? probably not under US federal statute. and is it child pornography? the real answer is rather complicated, but US federal law's definition of this is only relevant when discussing the potential of prosecution and legal standing of AO3 as an archive.

(sidebar, but there are several anecdotal cases of people having "revenge" fictions of them being written and uploaded to AO3, and no help from admin/staff. am i saying these are true? no, i'm saying they're anecdotes. but when they all start to pile up, it gets a little suspicious, doesn't it? the lack of AO3's response to its racist users, the lack of monitoring spam at all, the extremely slow response to finally adding a functional block/mute system, the strain of burdening unpaid volunteers - despite the thousands of dollars it gets in donations every year - to manage the site...)

don't put stupid fucking shit on my dash again, @jo962. i got this from you. next time, let's step aside and consider real nuanced views like proper adults, instead of shambling around like braindead zombies. this makes ipad kids look well-adjusted.

cutting child porn from ao3 is not going to be a ‘slippery slope’ to full blown ‘censorship’, you guys are just pedophiles

[desideriumwriter]

Metamorphosis | F.W. x Reader

Summary: Fred has been acting differently since he got hurt during the War. You're not sure how many more of his outbursts you can handle.

CW: established relationship, mentions of a head injury, TBIs, migraines, blood, being cut from broken glass, yelling, arguing, crying, not proofread

WC: 4.3k

A/N: now this one is a rollercoaster

based off this request! | f.w. masterlist | navi

Things had been difficult since May.

Voldemort was dead and the war was over. But everyone was dealing with the aftermath.

Things were quiet for a while, people were quiet. Distant but united at the same time. It took a few months for everyone to try and go back to normal.

Now it was November, and Fred was still dealing with the aftermath.

Of course, a head injury from being hit with a spell and a literal stone wall falling on him would have its long-term effects. You’d already read the list over who knows how many times.

Memory loss, light sensitivity, aggression, problems with multitasking, communication issues, irritability, mood swings, forgetfulness, etc. The list went on and on, you hated how long it was. 

You did research on it, listening to his doctors and picking up as many books you could find on head injuries or TBIs.

You even got your hands on some textbooks that muggle medical students used.

George and you took care of Fred after he came back to your shared space above the shop. He spent his first week after being discharged from the hospital at his mums, due to Mollys demands.

Things slowly went back to normal after a few months. Most things.

Shops reopened all along Diagon Alley, including the twins, people felt safe to go out and chat with each other again. 

Life went back to how it was before the war began.

The cold weather was getting harsher and so was Fred. 

You knew that the irritability and mood swings would come along with the injury. You just weren’t expecting it to be so constant.

Fred had his bad days and he had his better days. Today was one of those bad days.

You could tell he was really struggling remembering what was in stock and what needed to be made more of. You sat with him at the counter as he wrote down on a notepad what was needed. Taking notes was one of the things that helped him nowadays.

You saw him look up, the cogs attempting to turn in his head.

“Peruvian Darkness Powder.” You said softly, it was the next thing that needed to be restocked.

“Right. That. Thanks.” He muttered out, crouching over to write it down, his hand shaky and handwriting a bit wobbled.

Frustrated with his shaky hands, he threw the pen down, putting his head in his hands, rubbing his face.

“I just don’t get why it’s so hard. I feel like I can’t properly do anything.” He groaned, the annoyance clear in his voice.

“Fred, it's what the symptoms of a-”

“I know it’s a fucking brain injury. I’ve heard it enough goddamn times. You don’t need to spell it out for me.” Fred spat out, ripping his hand from yours and walking past you. That was the fourth time he snapped at you today.

After closing that night, you sat on the bench right outside the shop. Elbows resting on your knees with your head in your hands.

You were really trying here. Trying your best not to get mad at him, to yell and spit at him as he did you.

He was still your Fred that you loved. He was just a bit different now, and that was okay, he was still your Fred.

The door to the shop opened, the silly tune of the charmed bell playing as a tall figure stepped out. Fred stood to the side of you now, his frame blocked out the light shining on you from the street lamps. The only light now being from the inside of the shop, illuminating his and your face once you looked up.

You breathed in deep, closing your eyes for a second, trying to keep any tears from falling. The cold wind wasn’t helping.

“Hi.” He gave you a shamefaced smile.

George had definitely scolded him and told him to apologize once you went outside. It’s not the first time he’s made him do it in recent times.

“Hi.” You sighed.

“I’m- I didn’t mean to snap at you when you were trying to help me with what needed to be restocked, or when you offered to sort the mail.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, suddenly feeling small. The feeling had become constant for him now.

“And before both of those, when you snapped at me in your office. Then in front of one of the cashiers.”

“I did?” He said softly, genuinely shocked. You nodded, brows knit together.

“Oh, I didn’t even realize. I don’t even remember that. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so harsh.” Fred looked down, having the same expression as a kicked puppy.

“It’s okay, Fred. I know you don’t mean to.” You slowly nodded.

“I’m trying to not be so rude. I’m trying to be better, I promise.”

“I know, Fred. I know.” You sniffled.

The doctors said practicing patterns would help with cognitive ability. Patterning. So stocking the purple and orange mystery boxes in a pattern would be Fred’s practice.

He began to practice different patterns:

Purple. Orange. Purple. Orange. Repeat.

Then moved onto a bit more strange ones:

Purple. Purple. Orange. Orange. Purple. Orange. Repeat. 

He was struggling a bit more than usual today, you watched as he did, and it broke your heart.

You sighed as you put your notepad away, pausing writing down the grocery list for now and making your way over to Fred.

You reached out, putting the next correctly colored box on the shelf for him. He grumbled out a ‘thanks’.

“I can do the rest for you. Go give your brain a break.” You breathed out a laugh, trying to be lighthearted as you picked up the large box filled with the remaining mystery boxes to be put away.

“No, it’s fine. I’ve got it.”  Fred mumbled out, paying you barely any mind.

“Fred, I can tell your stressed enough just let me-“

“Will you piss off? I said I've got it!” Fred didn’t mean to yell, especially in the middle of a busy store, he was just frustrated. 

Your cheeks heated up in embarrassment and anger due to all the staring eyes of confused customers looking at the both of you.

“Fine, fucking do it yourself then.” You shoved the box into his hands. Walking off, pissed off as you threw off your hat onto the counter.

George murmured your name as you walked by, trying to put a hand on your shoulder, you shoved out his grasp.

You hid away in the back stockroom. George followed, entering a tiny bit after you.

You sat on a wooden box, leaned over with your head in your hands. 

“You know he doesn’t mean it. He got blasted pretty hard, it’s just one of the side effects.” George sighed, shoving his hands in his pockets.

You were so tired of those two words. Side effects. Yes, of course you knew what the side effects and symptoms were, that they wouldn’t be pretty or easy. But you were just so sick of hearing it.

You shrugged, lifting your head up.

“He's frustrated. With himself.” George sat down next to you, intertwining his hands into a ball. “He always feels bad after he gets angry.”

“I know, and I’m trying my best to help him out but it’s like he never fucking wants it. He refuses.”

“He’s never liked help, always wanting to be so damn independent and stubborn.” George let out a weak chuckle and shook his head. “It took him five minutes to accept the money Harry gave us. Even after that he tried to tell Harry he’d give it back if he changed his mind.”

“I remember, I was there.” You smiled a bit to yourself at the memory, Fred was so adamant about Harry keeping the money, or at least most of it.

“Chocolate?” He pulled a small bar off one of the shelves, you shook your head. “It’ll make you feel better.” You persuaded, you let out an amused sigh and took it.

“You stole that line from Lupin.” Unwrapping it and biting off a small chunk.

“Yeah, but it works doesn’t it?” You let out a defeated nod and smile in response, taking another bite.

“He’s not gonna be like this forever. You know that. He’s gotten a lot better since May. Just, his moodiness will stick around for a little bit.”

“I know. I’m just so worried about him. I can’t help it.”

George was at Angelinas for the night. It took him ten minutes to stop worrying and finally go, constantly reminding you if you needed his help with Fred, if Fred starts getting mean, to send him an owl and he’d come back immediately. You shooed him off and assured him Fred and you would be fine, that he should go have a worry-free night with Angelina.

It was going well, you watched a short movie and shared some snacks and cuddles on the couch. It was all going so nicely until you both decided to get changed and go to bed.

You slipped on a night shirt talking to Fred about the movie as he opened the top drawer on the wooden dresser. The one that creaked and occasionally jammed from time to time. 

Tonight was one of those times.

He pulled out a pair of pajama pants from the drawer, his eyebrows knitting together when he pushed the drawer and it barely moved. You looked over and frowned disappointedly.

“It’s stuck again.” You sighed, thinking out loud. 

“I know.” Fred muttered out under his breath, you didn’t catch it.

You watched as he repeatedly tried to push it, it wouldn’t budge.

“It’s just old, maybe tomorrow we could go window shopping for a new one?” You suggested sweetly as he didn’t respond, he just clenched his jaw as he continued trying to close it.

He used a terrifying amount of force as he slammed the drawer shut with one last push, causing the whole thing to ratter. The sudden movement and sound made you jump. You took a step back, Fred noticed. His expression faltered for a moment as his eyes scanned your body language.

“What, are you scared of me or something now?” He muttered, an attitude in his voice.

“No, I never said I was scared of you. You just…”

 “What? I’ve just what?” 

You were so sick of his attitude. You took in a deep breath before speaking.

“You’ve been acting up, you’ve been slamming doors, throwing things down when you’re frustrated, you yell more. At George and I especially. You’re unpredictable.” You let out quickly.

“Unpredictable? I have not been that bad. You’re dramatic.” Fred shot back, he was a bit hurt by your words, yet deep down he knew you were right. His actions had become surprising. But he was too damn stubborn and he was in the middle of a beginning argument, so he wouldn’t admit to it now.

“I’m not, you’re proving your point with how you’re being now. You’re being stubborn and defensive. You get angry and you yell at me. When I’m just trying to help! The doctors said-”

“I don’t give a shit what the fucking doctors told you! Or those stupid books you’ve been wasting your time on!” All this yelling hurt his head. But the words were spilling out his mouth like a waterfall of poison. 

“Have you considered your not being any help? If you really wanted to help you’d let me do shit myself instead of acting like I’m fucking stupid! You wouldn’t be walking on eggshells around me! You’d let me be instead of being a pounding in my head!” His chest heaved, his face slowly being filled with regret as he saw you. Taking a step back with the most painful stare at him, astonishment and hurt written all over your face.

He watched as you brought your arms up around you, holding yourself as if it was a way of shielding yourself from his words.

“Is that really what you think of me?” Your voice went soft. A small crack in your delivery of words as you rubbed your upper arm.

“No! Absolutely not! I just- I’m-” Here comes the sputtered out apologies, the regret filling him up immediately, you just shook your head.

“Forget it, I’m done with this conversation.” You barged out the room. That look never leaving your face, it will haunt him forever.

“Where are you going? I thought you were going to bed?” He called out as you went down the hallway.

“I’m sleeping on the couch tonight.” You shouted back, more of a loud mutter really. Fred said your name disappointedly, leaning against the bedroom door frame. You didn’t respond, you didn’t turn around, you made your way to the couch.

He didn’t run after and stop you. Knowing you’d give him the silent treatment and refuse to get in the same bed as him. For tonight only. Hopefully.

Though you tried to muffle and hide your sobs behind your hands, Fred could still hear it all the way from the bedroom. Those pained sharp breaths in that turned into wheezes, the little hiccups and whimpers of sadness you made when you breathed out were far too loud to be hidden.

You cried for two hours until you finally got a grip of yourself. Getting up and going down the hallway, not to get back in bed, but to see if Fred was.

You peeked your head in just enough to see his side of the bed, he was laying on his back peacefully, his eyes puffy. Had he been crying also?

He was relaxed now though, resting. At least he was getting some sleep. You quietly sneaked back to the living room. Lying back down on the couch and using a throw pillow for your head. 

You couldn’t get comfortable, couldn’t keep your eyes shut, couldn’t stop thinking, you couldn’t sleep. You missed him, you really just wanted to be next to him.

By the time the clock ticked to 2AM, you got up, tiptoeing back into the bedroom. Sneaking to your side of the bed, so carefully pulling back the sheets. You moved so carefully, so lightly, so gently as if everything was made of fine china. 

You debated if you should snuggle up to Fred, not wanting to wake him. What if he got annoyed again? You really didn’t want to deal with another conflict.

You carefully scooted over to him anyways, testing your luck. You slowly wrapped your arm around his torso, ever so lightly laying your head on his chest. He began to move and your body immediately tensed up.

His arm hooked around you, circling your waist, the other arm reaching over, his hand softly placed on the side of your head. Your body went limp in happiness. You could start crying again from all the joy you felt in this moment.

This is how you knew Fred hadn’t become a whole other person than the one you knew before the accident. His hands on you, holding onto you so sweetly, just like he used to. There were still those little remnants of his true self hanging around. He was still Fred. He was still your Fred.

You woke up to an empty bed. The sunlight shining down on Freds side of the mattress.

You changed into more presentable clothes, hearing the chatter from downstairs and knowing the shop was open. 

Going downstairs, Fred was nowhere to be seen while George was moving around helping customers and constantly casting spells to organize things.

Owning a joke shop was absolutely not a one man job.

“Where’s Fred?” You asked, looking around as you approached the counter. George was stacking cards. 

“In his office. Another migraine.” He tucked in his lips, seemingly annoyed.

“Oh. Well, I’m gonna go out, probably window shop. Do you need anything?”

“Could you get some cabbage? And a few more quills and ink? We’re running low.” He said, swiveling his way out from behind the counter.

You may have stayed out longer than you meant to.

Thinking you’d be back before five, you got home at nearly eight instead.

You did some looking around in local furniture shops, and you picked up what George asked for. You mostly just walked around the quieter streets, needing to get away from all the noise.

By the time you got back it was a bit dark outside and there was a closed sign on the shop door. You unlocked and locked it quickly, moving upstairs tiredly.

The living room light was turned off, the moonlight from outside being the only thing that made the room somewhat visible. Fred was sitting on the couch.

“Hey.” You spoke softly. 

“Hi.”

“Where’d George go?”

“He stopped by Angelina’s for dinner.” He said blankly. Everything felt so awkward.

“Oh. Have you eaten?” You asked as you set down the bags of supplies.

“Yeah, I had some leftovers.”

“Okay, well, what’re you doing in the dark? Get some light in here.” You giggled as you flipped up the light switch, overhead light brightening up the room.

Fred quickly scrunched his eyes closed with a pained expression, he put a hand up to shadow his face.

Fuck. Light sensitivity. He was already dealing with a migraine, that’s why he was in the dark, and you turning on the light made it much more intense.

“Shit. Sorry, sorry, sorry.” You blurted out as you hit the switch down, the room going darker again.

“Here, I’ll- I’ll get you a glass of water.” You sputtered out, running over to the kitchen sink and grabbing a glass, filling it up with cold water from the tap.

“No, you don’t have to.” Fred muttered out.

“Please, it’ll help. Just let me help.” You pleaded as you ran back over to the couch, sitting down and holding the glass towards him. He denied it again.

“Fred, just drink-“

“I told you! No!” He shouted, pushing your hand away.

The glass slipped out of your grasp. Hitting the floor and cracked into pieces, somewhere in the impact a small shard hit your lower leg. Nothing serious, it could be quickly closed up with a spell, but it was bleeding heavily already.

Fred realized what had happened once you felt the stung and winced, holding a hand over your small injury, crimson staining your hand and dripping onto your sock.

“Oh Merlin, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to.” He panicked as he straightened up, patting his sides for his wand, he had left it in his office. He saw yours on the coffee table.

“Here, let me fix-” He reached one hand towards your wand, the other laying on your shoulder.

“Don’t. It’s fine, I’ve got it.” You said as you reached across, grabbing your wand and leaned your shoulder away from his touch.

His stomach twisted, the guilt was eating him up. He fidgeted with his fingers, not knowing what to do with his hands now that you refused his touch and his help.

You said a quick spell, the cut swiftly closing, skin looking unharmed and the only evidence of what happened being the remnants of drying blood on your leg and hand.

“I’m gonna go wash off my hands.” You said so quietly, almost a whisper. Fred stayed silent as he watched you get up and walk away, he wanted to cry.

You returned to the living room with a packed suitcase, quickly walking past Fred on the couch and to the chimney. His eyes stayed glued on you the entire time. You didn’t look at him.

“You’re leaving?” Freds brows knit together in a sad way, he sat up straight from his spot on the couch.

“Yeah. Not for long. I’ll be back.” You spoke, back facing him as you put down your small suitcase.

“Where?”

“A friends place. For a few days.” You didn’t tell him who, he would most likely send letters apologizing.

George was the one who suggested it surprisingly. Once he came home as you were washing off the blood, he told you to go take a few days to yourself.

“No offense to you, you’ve been doing great. But I’ve lived with him for nearly twenty-six years. I know how to deal with him when he’s mad.” He held your shoulders.

“I know how to deal with him too, you know.” 

“Of course I do. But I know you’re worn out as well. You need to take some care of yourself. Focus on you for a few days.” You really didn’t want to agree with George on that, it felt rude to do it. There was really no good way of saying he was wearing you down.

“I’m sorry.” Fred spoke out.

“I know, Fred.” You let out a heavy breath. “I’m not mad at you. I think we should take a break from each other.” You tried not to let your voice wobble.

“You don’t mean a break up, right?” He stood up from the couch.

“No. Of course not.” You finally turned around, looking at his gloomy face. “We just need to spend some time apart, just for a day or so. Okay?” You kept your voice soft and nurturing, hoping it would hide the way your own words were breaking your heart.

"Can I just get a hug before you leave? Please?" Fred took a few steps closer, his steps cautious. You closed your eyes and nodded.

You didn’t want to look at him for too long, both of your faces were threatening to deteriorate into tears, and you couldn’t stand to see it.

He pulled you into him nicely, hands slowly and carefully wrapping around you like you would crack if he moved the wrong way.

“I’m sorry I’m like this. I love you.” He said softly, sounding like it was a plea for you to stay.

“I know.” You mumbled into his chest.

Fred’s injury didn’t bother you. The forgetfulness of struggles with certain things didn’t bother you, you didn’t care if he struggled to keep track with things. 

It was just his anger. His outbursts. His shouting. That’s what bothered you, it was nothing like him. Sure, he’s definitely gotten moody or stubborn or annoyed before like during Quidditch matches back at Hogwarts or when a much needed shipment arrived late at the shop.

But you’ve rarely seen him truly mad, yell like he does now, the only time you can remember him like that is when he had to be held back from helping George and Harry beat up Malfoy after a match in his seventh year.

“I still love him, of fucking course I do. But he’s changed so much. it’s like,” You stopped, clenching your jaw and trying your best trying to keep tears from returning. “It’s like sometimes I look at him, and he’s a ghost, he’s a completely different man I fell in love with all those years ago.”

“You’ve changed too.” Alicia commented, “You’re not as much of a hermit as you used to be.” She joked, poking you.

“Oh piss off.” You let out a breathy chuckle, face falling soon after. “I’m scared. What if he stays like this forever?” You whispered out, a small crack in your voice.

“He won’t. You told me already, there’s still that cheeky little Fred that you’ve always know still in him. He’s getting better day by day.” She tilted her head. “And fuck it. Even if he doesn’t, even if it takes a while, you gotta grow with him.” You looked at her, puzzled expression on your face.

“If you don’t grow with him, if you aren’t willing to go through that, then what in the hell are you doing?” She shrugged, laying back in her chair. “You’ve gone through these shitty times with him before, right? And you both made it through. What makes you worried you won’t be able to do it again?” 

Alicia was right. You’ve gone through rough patches with him and made it out just fine. Casual disagreements, arguments and fights, yet you always made up. Leaving those arguments in the past and loving each other in the present.

“You staying another night?” Alicia asked you, taking a sip from her glass.

“No, I think I’ll go back. I’ll send an owl and tell them before I go.”

Once the green flames subsided and you stepped out of the chimney, dusting off your clothes. Fred came running into the room, a bouquet of all the flowers in his hand.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Feeling alright today?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Are you?”

“Yeah.”

God, you hated the awkward tension in the air. It felt like this every time you had a conversation.

“That’s good. Uh, these are for you.” He stuck out the bouquet nervously, hand trembling. You put down your suitcase and stepped closer. A small noise of adoration left as you looked at the flowers, it was all your favorites.

“I may not be able to remember much. But I remembered these were always your favorite.” He let out an awkward laugh.

The last time you told him what flowers you liked was in year five. You took the bouquet from him with hesitant hands, surprised by the gift. Fred swallowed his anxiety before he began to speak again.

“I didn’t mean to be so rude. I just get so frustrated with myself, I don’t want to act like that anymore. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t take it out on you, you didn’t deserve it.” He moved to cup his hands around your face, bringing your teary eyes to meet his.

“I promise you I’m going to be better. I swear on everything. I will be better.” He gave you a sweet kiss on your forehead, then pulled you into a hug. 

You held on tightly to his torso, turning the flowers away to keep them from being crushed.

“I love you.” You said into his sweater, tears beginning to fall.

“I love you too. So much.”

tell me what you thought! <3

[artdnldsn]

gestalt therapy

college professor!art donaldson x fem reader

word count: 5.2k

warnings: 18+ MDNI, swearing, student!reader, age gap, porn w/ a little plot, head (f receiving), fingering, p in v, unprotected sex, slight degradation (question mark?), one mention of "daddy"

synopsis: you're done with your senior year at college, and all you want is a parting gift.

a/n: my first full fic here wow my first ever smut WOW the only thing that's not a first here is english because it's my second language so be patient pookies. college prof au has been haunting me for days so i needed to get it out. even though i have no fucking idea how colleges work in the us ;) hope you like it! happy reading

The first thing he notices about you is how ridiculously smart you are.

It's not even a stretch or him trying to justify the instant attraction he feels towards you. No, you're genuinely, undeniably brilliant, especially for your age. You've got this way with words, and concepts come to you so easily. You pick up on all his lead-ups to lecture topics, knowing exactly what the main conversation will be about a good five minutes before the rest of the class. You smile smugly, crossing your arms and leaning back, your eyes seeking his because you want him to know that you know.

And honestly, he'd be mad at you for being so smug if you weren't so damn smart.

The way you walk up to him after class to discuss your latest essay, your stance confident and voice sure, as you argue over why you deserved a 100 and not a 98. He's looking at your essay, then at you, then back at his computer screen, squinting just to appear like he's thinking it over, but he knows you're right; of course you are. Your essay is perfect. He was just being a dick about it, nitpicking because he couldn't admit you're basically flawless.

He's getting self-conscious about his teaching. There's nothing he can teach you—you come so prepared for every class that he wonders if you even have a life outside his classroom. Maybe your brain just works like that, but a small, selfish part of him hopes you spend hours prepping for his classes. The thought that you do it for him and not the subject is a nice one, but he shoves it away.

At least that way, it wouldn't be as pathetic for him to spend nights rewriting his lectures, perfecting his presentations to the point where he's sitting in his bed at 3 AM, pondering whether Times New Roman or Arial would make his point come across better.

He's always been a perfectionist, living by the book, striving not for greatness but for the reserved maximum of his natural capabilities. He never really pushed himself. But you—oh, fuck, you. Fuck you. You make him want to lose sleep just to prove to you or himself that he's certainly smarter than some college senior.

He calls you a lot of things in his head. A know-it-all, an "excuse me" because you're always "excuse me"-ing him like he doesn't have a name, a smartass, a bitch—he hates when he's in a mood like this last one because it signals it's time to sleep. You're a lot of things, but you're not stupid.

In fact, he starts wondering if you're a once-in-a-lifetime talent. Because he's rather young for a professor, he hasn't seen as many students as his colleagues, who always crack up anecdotes about past students, someone who graduated 15, 30 years ago, but the older professors still remember them. He wonders if he's going to remember you like that. He's pretty sure he will.

He's never even thought about you as a woman and not just his student. He's just respectful like that. Sure, you were hot, which only added to your confident allure. He's not blind—hell, he'd admit it if he had to—but he's never thought about you like that.

But apparently, you have about him.

You appear at his office doorstep minutes before he's about to clock out for the night. You're looking pristine as always, and with your silhouette illuminated by the office's dim lights, he wonders for a second if you're even human with your endless drive, brilliant mind, and hair that always looks like it's animated because it's impossible for real human hair to flow that perfectly.

"Good evening," he greets you, eyebrows creasing slightly in confusion. You've never visited, your final grades are in, and you're graduating in a week. He's already said his goodbyes to your class, and when he did, you shot him a little smile that he read as everything being good between you. What are you doing here then? "Can I help—"

“Are you impotent?” you cut him off, arms crossed, a challenging look in your eyes.

He actually chokes on air. “E-excuse me?” he mutters under his breath, his expression shocked, his voice strained. God, he’s ridiculed you for years in his head for addressing him like that, and here he is now.

You turn your back to him, lock the door, and make your way to his desk in confident steps. You sit on the edge of his desk, looking at him over your shoulder. "I asked if you're impotent," you shrug, arching your eyebrow.

“No,” he blurts out, his expression still one of pure horror as he doesn’t know where to keep his gaze, his eyes darting between the papers on his desk, and his computer screen, and his hands, anywhere but you. “God, no.”

“Why you never fucked me, then?” you ask, your tone still almost accusatory, but your voice soft. It’s almost like there is a hint of genuine regret in your words, and he doubts his sanity right now, wonders if he’s imagining things. He pinches his thigh under the desk, just to make sure.

“What do you mean, why?” he stutters, his cheeks flushed. “B-because.” Oh, God, it’s really bad. He’s really speechless, his mind unable to conjure up a full sentence. “Because you’re my student, and I respect you, and there are boundaries that shouldn’t be—“

“I’m not your student anymore. Not technically.” Your tone is matter-of-fact, one he’s too familiar with. One you’ve used to tell him about all the typos in his handouts, all the mistakes in his tests, all the times he’s fucked up grading someone’s papers. Only now you’re telling him… Fuck, he really can’t grasp what it is you’re telling him.

“I can’t argue with that, but I really don’t understand the point of this conversation. You’re completely out of—“

“Consider it gestalt therapy,” you shrug nonchalantly. He’s getting mad, really, with you cutting him off like that, like you’re getting back at him for years of having to listen to his lectures without having an opportunity to talk over him. It takes him a second to grasp what you’re implying. He clears his throat.

You sigh, letting your arms drop to your sides, sliding off the desk, walking up to him in these fucking deliberate strides, spinning him in his chair so he faces you, his hands lifted up in the air as if he is surrendering. He doesn’t know to what, exactly.

“Just really have to get this out of my system, Mr. Donaldson,” you sigh almost guilty, your gaze landing on his lap. He's hard, his cock straining the fabric of his trousers. Of course he is, what the fuck?

You cup him, eliciting a soft sigh from his lips, his eyes falling shut. You start stroking him through the fabric, confidently like everything you do. It makes his blood boil. You’re such a bitch. A know-it-all. A smart-ass. And so, so hot that he can’t bring himself not to kinda wish you’re intending to fuck his brains out.

He opens his mouth to say something, maybe a weak protest to give you a final out, but you lean down, pressing your lips to his in a languid, deep kiss, a thorough exploratory one like every single one of your fucking essays has ever been.

You move to his lap, straddling him, the chair creaking under your combined weight. Only when his hands move to your hips does he understand you’re wearing a skirt. God, he hasn’t even noticed that. He lets his hands stay there, caressing your bare thighs as your skirt rides up, and you lean in for another kiss.

There's no raw hunger. If anything, he’s sure he’s incapable of it in this situation, his mind still trying to catch up, trying to relabel you as not forbidden. You’re grinding against his growing erection, tugging at his hair as you deepen the kiss, your curves so unexpectedly perfect against him.

He only realizes you’re working on his belt and zipper when he hears them. Instinctively, he moves his hands to your wrists to stop you, but you just shake them away like you’ve shrugged him off all these years. He gasps into your mouth as you wrap your hand around his freed cock, stroking the length expertly, thoroughly, meticulously, as your lips never leave his. He actually relaxes into the chair, his hands gripping your waist, tugging your top up to reveal more bare skin.

No bra. Of course you didn’t wear any. You’ve come prepared as always.

You chuckle quietly, your lips continuing to move in unison with his, finding a lazy rhythm that drives you both insane. He reads this chuckle as you being amused at him taking any initiative. It makes his blood boil.

He breaks the kiss, one hand squeezing your breast firmly as he leans down, capturing your left nipple between his lips, sucking gently before biting. His other hand lands on your ass with a loud smack, making you gasp. Finally, some reaction.

He starts bucking into your hand, seeking more friction, moving his mouth to your other breast, lavishing it with the same attention, leaving a bite mark on the side, making you wince but moan. That moan—fuck, that beautiful sound. Now he’s angrier at himself than you are at him for not having fucked you sooner.

He understands you were expecting to ride him, like he’s some sexless creature, a toy to use, a dick attached to a fantasy that has nothing to do with the man he is, and it makes him even madder. He’s always admired your insightfulness, your capability to get right to the gist of things through walls of useless shit, but he’s feeling his respect for you slipping as he understands just how wrong you must’ve been about him in your head.

He peels himself off your chest, lips glistening with saliva, smacking your ass again, harder this time, groping both cheeks as he lifts you off his lap to sit you on his desk over the papers he’s grading. He’ll just tell everyone he spilled a drink. No one will miss them.

His lips find yours again in a searing hot kiss. It’s messy, all tongue and teeth like he’s trying to hurt you, but he’s not. Of course not. It’s just that something dormant is being woken up in him. You whimper as he cups your mound through your panties, making him chuckle. Well, look who’s laughing now.

"You've seriously dreamt about this?" he whispers against your jaw, his long fingers sliding into your underwear, finding your slickness. Fuck, you're so wet for him, it almost makes him black out. "Wanted me to fuck you on this desk? Or the one in the classroom? Or in the library? Or right in the fucking hall, huh? Why not? Let everyone watch." His tone is almost taunting, his every word accompanied by a painfully slow and teasing circle of his thumb over your swollen clit.

"Yes, yes, yes," you mutter, eyes squeezed shut, forehead pressing against his shoulder, hips bucking helplessly into his hand, seeking friction. It’s not clear if you’re answering his questions or begging him to go faster. It doesn’t matter; his smirk is already in place, his eyes glistening with amusement as he looks down at you, breathing hard through his nose.

"Yes, what?" he chuckles, shrugging, his eyes scanning every reaction on your face. The way your head falls back, your lower lip caught between your teeth, your cheeks flushed. He tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear. "Yes, what?" he murmurs softly, his hand in your panties slowing down to the point of stopping.

A groan of disappointment escapes your lips as you snap your head back up, eyes darting open. He can see your pupils blown wide even in the dim light, the lamp on his desk illuminating you from behind like a renaissance painting. "Yes, fuck me," you say dryly, like it’s obvious, still seeing him as some pathetic, stupid nobody, but you’re slightly out of breath when you say it, so that’s a win in his book for now.

Just means he’s gotta try harder.

His arms wrap around your waist, holding you in place. He’s standing between your legs, keeping them spread wide for him. He pulls his hand out of your panties to bring it to your face, shoving two fingers into your pretty smartass mouth. Your eyebrows crease, eyes falling shut at the action, a hum leaving your lips, vibrating through his skin, but you still suck on them obediently, tasting yourself on his fingers and coating them in your saliva.

He slips one finger right inside you when it makes its way back down. He starts thrusting it into you at a steady rhythm, his lips finding your neck, nibbling on it, his teeth grazing your delicate skin, tongue sliding over the little marks his teeth leave there, as he curls his finger inside you, thrusting deeper, deeper, almost aggressively.

"God, I really thought you were smart," he mutters under his breath, hot against your skin as he adds another finger and starts stretching you, eliciting a soft moan from you. He leans down, sucking on your tits again, noticing how hard your nipples are now, almost painfully so, matching the way his dick is rock hard, still standing at full attention against his clothed abdomen. "Thought you were different. Hard-working. Proper." He sinks onto his knees in front of you, looking up at you with a glint in his eyes you can’t quite read. "Turns out you’re just a slut."

He tugs your panties down, his tongue finding your cunt, one of his hands moving to throw your leg over his shoulder, keeping it there tightly as the fingers of his other hand re-enter your cunt, starting to finger it at the same urgent pace, his tongue moving feverishly over your clit, making you moan quietly because, yes, there are still people in the building, you have to keep quiet, but a part of him, the one you’ve awoken, wishes the circumstances were different, that he could hear you scream for him.

He’s getting high off the taste of your juices, off the scent of your arousal filling his nostrils, his nose pressed into your pelvis as he fucks you with his fingers in a relentless rhythm, curling his fingers inside you, feeling your walls clench down onto him, searching for that sweet spot that’s going to make your toes curl.

“Tell me,” he rasps out, pulling away from your cunt just for enough time to say what he needs to say, peppering your inner thigh with kisses in the meantime. “Tell me exactly how long you’ve wanted this. And how you wanted me to fuck you. Leave no details out.”

You whimper when he delves back onto your clit, sucking on it, not caring to keep his teeth from grazing your sensitive skin here and there, but it’s a good feeling.

“S-since that lecture. Sophomore year,” you breathe out, you throat tight from holding back so many moans that are begging to be let out. Your mouth falls open in a silent ‘oh’ as he sucks your whole clit in, lapping at it with his tongue inside his wet hot mouth, your hand snapping instinctively onto his head, gripping his hair to pin yourself down to the reality. “You wore that slutty turtleneck, and of course I’ve thought you’re hot, but then you had one wrong date in your presentation, and I got so fucking mad at you. Thought you’re too careless to teach.”

He hums against your cunt, encouraging you to go on, or agreeing with your point, he can’t tell himself anymore. He’s completely gone at this point, drinking your juices like he’s drinking in your words. Amidst all this, he actually appreciates you not calling him stupid. You might’ve, but you didn’t.

“And you were always s-so passive, like I tried arguing with you, reading all that shit instead of going out just to get a rile out of you, and you never fucking bucked. I-I-I—“ you stutter, your mind going into overdrive for a second as he continues abusing your g-spot, his fingers moving at a frantic speed in and out, in and out. He smacks your thigh to get your attention back on the topic. “I just couldn’t fucking believe you. I was being a bitch, I was nagging you, just because. And you didn’t even care.”

He smiles into your cunt, a huff of air leaving his nose. At last, you admit it. He suddenly doesn’t feel bad at all for calling you a bitch in his head. He can feel your walls contracting around his fingers, your breathing irregular, you’re practically panting, your grip in his hair tightening as you guide him closer, rolling your hips against his tongue and fingers, seeking release. You’re close.

He pulls away, earning another cuss and another groan of disappointment off your lips. He smacks your thigh again, hard, the action leaving a red print of his big palm on your skin. “You didn’t answer,” he rasps out, delving back into you. Fucking students, he thinks to himself. Always so smart, thinking they know it all, and always forgetting to answer the second part of the question after they’re done answering the first.

Your mind is so hazy at this point, it takes you an effort to rewind the interaction in your head to understand what he means. “L-like this,” you whimper, your thighs trembling as he grips the one that’s not on his shoulder to stop it from shaking too much, keeping you in place. “I-I didn’t want you to be nice. You’re always so fucking nice, it’s not human, I knew it wasn’t true.”

He’s too set on making you cum to chuckle now, although it is pretty funny. He’s been doubting you’re human, too, but the way you gasp for air, trying desperately to hold back your moans as he feels you coming closer and closer to release, it tells him all that he needs to know. You’re just flesh and bones, not the perfect genius he’s painted you to be in his mind.

“Fuck!” you whimper, giving his hair one last tug before your hand springs up to cover your mouth, biting into your index finger to keep yourself quiet. It takes one slide of his fingers, one roll of his tongue, five seconds, and your muscles go taught as your hips buck off the desk, his pens in the glass standing on the edge of it clattering against each other, the keyboard of his computer flying up for a split second from impact of your ass slamming back down onto the desk. It’s like a mini-earthquake, that’s left your world erupt into white behind your closed eyelids.

He fingers you through it, lapping his tongue over your clit until you wince quietly from it hurting, and he pulls away reluctantly, standing up from the floor to stand in between your legs again. His neck and back hurt like hell from crouching down on the floor for so long, his muscles are not what they used to be, after all, and for a split second he considers actually giving up and letting you ride him, but it would be your win in his book, and he can’t allow that.

He spits on his hand before he leans down to kiss you, his tongue sliding back into your mouth, letting you taste yourself once again, as he brings his hand down to stroke himself, breathing softly out of his nose at the relief of some friction, finally. “You’re such a hypocrite,” he murmurs into your lips, softly, almost lovingly, the same fucking slightly condescending tone he’s always used in his classroom.

You open your mouth to ask what the fuck he means, but he pushes his tongue back into your mouth, all thoughts of a protest evaporating from your mind. You slide closer to the edge of the desk instinctively to accommodate him when he eventually pushes into you. You almost can’t wait.

He gropes your ass to position you like he wants you, his fingers digging into your plump skin maybe a little too hard. You don’t protest. He breathes heavily, like it’s physically paining him to hold back any second longer — it does,—and his brows are furrowed in concentration while he slides his tip over your clit, coating it with your slickness, the same way he frowns when he’s grading papers or goes over tomorrow’s lecture in his head.

He pushes inside in one determined thrust, piercing through you, a quiet grunt escaping his lips, a soft moan escaping yours. Before you have any time to adjust, he starts pounding his hips into yours, one of his arms hooked around your torso to keep you in place as his free hand flies to your chest, squeezing your right tit roughly, pinching your nipple, rolling it between his thumb and index finger, making it harden again.

“Careless?” he scoffs, an expression of pure disbelief on his face at the fact you’ve even dared to say that. He grunts again, his hand falling from your breast to your hip, gripping it firmly as he continues pounding into you, your breathing quickening again. He’s rather big, and it hurts a little from you still being sore from your orgasm, but you still moan softly under your nose, your wrists hurting from you leaning on the desk behind your back for so long.

“You call me careless for a typo in a presentation I made six years ago, and it’s not careless for you to come here, asking me if I’m impotent? Fuck you,” he grunts again, a grin pulling on his lips as he throws his head back, the rhythm of his hips never faltering. You’re squeezing his cock so tightly, there’s no way in hell you’re ever going to be asking him or yourself that question again.

He lets go of you, reaching behind your back to pull on your wrists, tugging them further to himself, which makes you fall back on the desk. “Fuck you,” he repeats, his words almost sounding like a moan now as he holds your wrists near your stomach, basically transfixing you. He moves one of his hands up to throw your leg over his shoulder again, another continuing holding your wrists down, as you both groan quietly at the change of the angle, the new one allowing for him to go so deep he’s touching parts of you you didn’t know existed.

“So, you wanted me to be a good teacher and a good dick all at the same time?” he muses, a smirk pulling on his lips again as he looks down onto your dishevelled form, your tits bouncing out of your tugged-down top, you skirt ridden up to your waist, your fucking face, so unbearably beautiful, flushed and your lips swollen from his kisses and from you biting on them so much. He can’t fucking get enough of how silent you are now after running your mouth at him for all these years. “Did you want me to be your boyfriend, too?” he chuckles, shaking his head, his expression faltering as he picks up the rhythm for a good minute, pounding into you so hard all the items on the desk are clattering, and you have to bite on your lips again not to scream from him practically tearing you apart, because you can’t cover your mouth anymore with your wrists held by him.

“Daddy never loved you, right?” He understands he’s probably taunting you too much, his words almost feeling cruel, but he’s too far gone at this point, he’s making a forceful effort to continue looking down at you to imprint the way you look right now into his memory to revisit later, even though his eyes are almost rolling back from just how good your cunt takes him. “That’s why you’ve been pining for my dick for fucking three years? Are you getting what you wanted?”

“Y-yes,” you whimper weakly. Yes to all that, actually, but he doesn’t need to know that. He feels too good, filling you up to the brim, you can almost feel him in your guts, he’s making your toes curl. And he’s finally not acting nice. Just like you wanted him to.

“Good,” he growls, letting go of you for a second before his hands find the undersides of your knees, bringing them close to your chest, changing the angle again as he starts hammering down into you, the room filled with the sound of your shared ragged breaths, the desk creaking under you and the sound of his pelvis slapping against yours. “Fu-uck, you’re taking me so good, none of your schoolwork was ever that good,” he’s lying through his teeth. Not about the sex — you’re taking it like a champ—but about your schoolwork. It was, indeed, that good.

He basically has no power left over what words leave his mouth, he’s completely drunk on you, the taste of your cunt and your mouth still lingering on his tongue. “Are you gonna come again?” he pants out, slowing down, feeling your walls clenching down on him, squeezing him tight.

“Y-yeah,” you mutter, fluttering your eyes open to look at him from under your eyelashes, but you can pretty much only make out his silhouette with how hazy your vision has become with just how good he’s fucking you. “I knew,” you repeat, your throat feeling tight again, your head falling back on the desk as you bring your now free hands to your mouth, covering it to muffle out the scream you know is there, brewing, destined to roll of your lips when he drives you to release again.

“You—“ he starts in disbelief, but he’s getting closer, too, there’s no point in arguing now. He just can’t fucking believe the nerve on you. What do you mean, you knew? Knew he could fuck you like you wanted to? Knew you would be walking out of here with a limp? Such a know-it-all, always thinking she’s two steps ahead everybody else.

He sighs shakily, a broken, needy sound as he brings his hand in between your legs, finding your clit again, his other hand still holding your knees pressed to your chest. He rubs at you in sync with the thrusts of his hips, his pace picking up, up, and up, until he finally lets out a low grunt, stilling, slipping out of you as he watches you bite on your hand, tears streaming down your cheeks as he feels your pussy convulsing under his fingers, another orgasm hitting you, and in a matter of seconds, after a few fast strokes, he comes, too, thick ropes of his seed landing all over your stomach and knees, and some of it lands on your chin.

For a few seconds, he just stands there, catching his breath, watching over you. He opens his desk drawer, pulls out a tissue pack, and wipes himself before doing the same for you. You're still lying there, face hidden in your hands, your outfit a mess. He's already caught you crying and knows you might feel awkward doing it in front of him, so he just makes sure you're clean for when you leave.

He tucks himself back into his trousers, fastens his belt, and walks to the other side of his office. You hear him rustling around while you try to get your breath back and keep your emotions in check. His soft footsteps approach the desk again, and you feel him gently patting your knee. You open your eyes to see him holding out a cup of water—a peace offering or an apology. But you know he doesn't owe you either. He just gave you everything you've wanted for the last three years. And he even brought you fucking water. Because he's disgustingly nice like that.

You nod in gratitude, sit up, and take the plastic cup from his hand, downing it in one gulp. It actually brings some life back to you. You breathe out shakily, fix your top, and tuck your tits back in before sliding off the desk. Your shoes land softly on the floor, your legs still trembling, your knees feeling like they'll give out any moment. You tug your skirt down and sheepishly meet his gaze, unsure where to go from here.

He steps closer and brings his hands up to your face to fix your hair. His eyebrows furrow in concentration again as he smooths it down, making sure you don't look disheveled when you walk out of here.

He sighs, letting his arms drop to his sides, and keeps looking at your face as if making sure you're not just looking okay but are okay too. “I didn’t mean that. The ‘fuck you’. And the ‘slut’ comment. Well, I kinda did,” he shrugs, averting his gaze with a humorless chuckle, “but I didn’t.”

You punch the air out of his lungs as you pounce on him, wrapping your arms around him in a tight hug. It takes him a second to gather himself, but he hesitantly hugs you back, just letting his hands rest on your lower back as you nuzzle your nose into his chest.

You had to get it out of your system, but now that it's in, you feel like you’ll never get enough. He feels like a beacon, one he's always been for you. The guy you picked a rivalry with your first week of sophomore year just to push yourself harder, to strive for greatness. He wasn’t even aware there was a rivalry to begin with. He's an academic, though, they’re all fucked up in the head, he must understand a part of it, at least.

And he understands. Truly. He just hopes you won’t start crying again, because he doesn’t know how he'd handle that. He pulls away slightly to look you in the eyes, cupping your face in his hands, and plants a soft kiss on your forehead.

“You’re a smart girl,” he says, his voice low, the small, friendly smile on his lips sincere, the corners of his eyes crinkling slightly as he looks down at you. “You’ll figure it out. I don’t doubt it.”

He had this whole speech prepared for the class about how adult life is going to treat them, the challenges they'll face, how scary it’ll be, but also insanely rewarding. It was long, sentimental, with a few jokes thrown in. Some girls cried, but it was all bullshit. What’s real is this. Him understanding your fears without you having to voice them. Him telling you you’ve got this.

“And until you do, you always know where to find me,” he nods to the side, obviously meaning his office, a lopsided smirk making him look a good decade younger. His gaze finds yours again, and he pulls you into another tight hug, one he initiates this time.

In his mind, he’s already thinking how long it would be appropriate to wait before he can invite you for a coffee.

[kkcauseway]

Truths

Joel miller x younger f!reader

Summary I You babysitting Sarah is the norm. When you do so tonight it's so Joel can finally let his hair down and go drinking with Tommy- he's waited eleven months for it after all. You're already expecting a very drunk Joel to return home, and you're exactly right, but what you don't expect is the drunken confession that comes with it... Chapter warnings/content I age gap. Drunk Joel Miller, Joel being good at feelings for once because alcohol helps. Drunken confessions of love. Joel complimenting reader. So much flufffffffff gahhh! No outbreak, no use of y/n. A/N I Another of many cute drabbles that my brain decided to conjure up. I really hope you enjoy Joel being a sappy, in touch with his feelings guy when drunk.

Main materlist

You’ve baby sat for Joel since precious Sarah came into this world. As much as you know Joel would love to be a stay-at-home dad he can’t afford to be and so after taking two weeks off he looked for help and there you were. You’ve lived opposite Joel for years, he’s ten years your senior and has always helped your mom with the odd jobs that have needed doing round the house. This is your way to give back. More than happy to help him.

When he asked you last week if you minded watching her so he could have a couple beers with Tommy of course you said yes, who would you be to deny the man of that. You’ve been telling him for months that he deserves a night off. He’s the most selfless person on the planet he deserves to let his hair down and have a few hours off from parenting. His job is demanding and as much as Sarah is the best-behaved baby she’s still hard work.

He's waited a whole eleven months to go out, finally feeling ready enough to leave her on an evening and go let himself get jolly with his brother. You told him to get as drunk as he wanted, that you’d stay in the spare room, so Sarah had someone close at hand that was able if needed in the night. He was so appreciative of that.

With Joel and Sarah everything is so easy, you love helping out, getting to watch Sarah grow into the little girl she is becoming. Watching Joel be the best dad to her.

It’s around twelve that Joel makes it back, you had just stared to turn everything off and lock everything ready to go to bed when you hear the taxi outside.

“I’m backkk” he sings as he enters the house dropping his keys when he goes to lock the door from the inside.

You meet him at the door as he struggles to pick them up. “Here I’ll get them, go sit down” you laugh stroking a hand along his arm as he smiles up at you.

“Okay, thanks for always being so wonderful to me n’my f’mly.”

You can’t help but laugh at the way he slurs his words.

With the door locked and porch light now off you walk back to the lounge and find him slumped on the loveseat.

“Good night?” you question to his drunk sleepy frame.

“Such a good night, darlin’ thank you. I honestly can’t thank you enough for allowin’ me t’go. How’s my angel doin’ she get to sleep okay?”

“Out like a light, she had a bath then I read her a book and she’s had some warm milk. She fell asleep on my chest and didn’t even wake when I picked her up to put her to bed. Plus she hasn’t woke up since, I’ve been in to check on her twice she’s absolutely dead to the world, talking in her sleep and all, wonder where she gets that from” you jest.

He rolls his eyes with a scoff “one time, that was one fuckin’ time you heard me say some shit in my sleep when I was nappin’ and I ain’t never lived it down.”

“No, and you won’t ever, I mean your daughter can’t even talk properly yet and she’s fucking trying to string sentences together when she’s fast asleep, I say there’s no hope… she’s gonna be just like her daddy. Just like she is in every other damn way.”

“Well fuckin’ good luck t’her, why would anyone wana take after me.”

“Excuse me Joel Miller but we will have none of this negative talk thank you very much, I happen to think you’re amazing! And I can’t help but admire the way you are with Sarah. Honestly, I hope she does grow up to be just like you that will be so much fun!”

“You’re so beautiful, got such a way with words and know exactly how to make people feel better. You’re one in a million. Me and Sarah are more than just lucky to have you around. Thank you” he then bends to take off his boots.

You feel more than lucky to have them around too. You’re your happiest when you’re in their company. Spending time with them. Going on outings with them. If Tommy and Joel wana take Sarah out somewhere they always ask you to tag along especially now Tommy brings Maria. Maybe people think that Joel and you are in a relationship, that Sarah is yours. She definitely looks like she could be with her blonde hair and blue eyes that match your own. “Well I’m lucky to have you two too.” You reply with a big smile.

He chuckles as he struggles with his laces, and you watch the way his calloused fingers can’t get a grip on the knots, so you move to take them off for him as he looks up at you “you two too, that’s a tongue twister, you two too, you two too”

“You’re so stupid sometimes Joel Miller” you chuckle as you untie the laces.

“M’not” he pouts.

“You are, but I wouldn’t change you” you giggle having now taken off his boots and are moving them to their rightful place.

He laughs again as you make your way back to come and sit next to him. “ahhh, I like you darlin’” he sings letting his head fall back.

“Well I like you too, guess you ain’t too bad are yah” you giggle.

“No I-” he sighs sitting back up to look at you “I mean I really really like you; I want you to be mine.”

Did he really just say that?

“Wh- sorry what?”

“I want you t’be mine, forever”

“Joel you’re drunk” you chuckle.

“Yes, but I want you, I always want you every damn minute of every day. I can’t fuckin’ fault you baby you’re absolutely amazin’ at everythin’ you do, treat my daughter like she’s your own. Man I wana fuckin’ worship the ground you walk on for the rest of my life; I just can’t get over how amazin’ you are. And I’ve fallen in love with you.”

Fuck. Is this really happening?

“Joel” you stutter, “I don’t, I really don’t know what to say. I just, this is a lot” you move away from him slightly so you’re able to look him in the eye.

“I know you don’t believe me but s’true.” He mumbles as he leans toward you.

“Joel what are you doin?”

“Can I kiss you?”

“What?”

You’re surprised more so than anything that he’s actually asking permission. He’s pissed but still being a gentleman. That’s more than you’ve ever experienced before, but that’s how Joel has always been. Going above and beyond for the girls who mean so much to him in life. He respects women the way they should be respected.

“I wana kiss you so bad.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea Joel.”

“Please lemme kiss you, v’wanted to for so long. Just been too much of a pussy t’ever ask you.”

He leans forward more losing his balance, so you place your hands to his chest to push him back up “Woah, okay big guy listen, I’ll stay over tonight as planned just in case you or Sarah need me, but nothing’s happening, I’ll let it happen if you still feel the same way in the morning, okay? Now go to bed you need to start sleeping this off.”

As much as you want to believe what he’s saying you don’t know how much is the whiskey talking and the last thing you want is to embarrass yourself OR him.

He pouts but nods before standing from his seat and walking to the stairs staggering as he treks up. “I’ve already put you a glass of water on your bed side table, drink it please” you add.

He turns back to smile at you as you move to place his shoes by the front door. “Such a good girl” he utters as he staggers his way up.

It sends tingles through your whole body. ‘Such a good girl’ replays in your mind over and over as you find yourself eventually in bed falling asleep too.

—

When he wakes up, he wakes to the smell of coffee and that hasn’t happened in a long ass time. Plus he’s got a banging headache, but his heart is also going one hundred miles an hour.

That’s when it dawns on him- shit he told you the truth. He had a lot to drink, enough to make a fool of himself but not enough to forget and yeah, he did mean exactly what he said to you, and he will tell you that. He sits up in bed familiarising himself with his surroundings, the room still spinning slightly, he looks to his bedside table and finds the glass of water he downed last night refilled and some painkillers there waiting for him.

He smiles knowing that means you’ve snook your way into his room during the night to ensure he’s looked after. He quickly takes the tablets and downs the whole glass completely parched from last night’s shenanigans. His body shakes slightly but not from the effects of the alcohol, he’s nervous to face you.

After eventually dressing himself, he walks down the stairs watching you sat at the table feeding Sarah her porridge. Neither of them have noticed him and so he stands and watches for a minute before interrupting the bonding moment.

“Is that yummy?”

She shrieks in reply "yah!"

“Mmm yeah it looks sooo yummy, you’re such a pretty girl huh you want some more?”

“Mo!”

“Yeah, some more good girl you’re so smart!” You praise as you place another spoonful into her mouth. She’s always been quick at everything she’s already walking and she’s saying some words. She’s the smartest little girl and you’re so proud of her.

“She gets that from me.” He adds startling you. You jump in your seat.

“Jesus, you made me jump” you chuckle.

Sarah giggles at the sight of you jumping.

“Dada!” She calls.

“Hey babygirl, is that nice?”

She nods smacking her porridge covered chops together.

“How you feeling?” You quiz observing the way he squints at the light.

After pouring himself a coffee he comes to seat himself in the chair next to you. “Like absolute utter s. h. i. t”

“I bet, you were pretty out of it, said some crazy stuff last night.”

“I did?”

“You don’t remember?”

Of course he does but he likes this game “enlighten me.”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t want to embarrass you, you said some things, there was this one point where I actually kinda started to believe you, but I knew it was all the drink talking. I won’t embarrass you by bringing it back up.”

“Darlin.” It comes out almost like a stern warning, shutting up your rambling instantly.

“Yeah?” You reply softly.

“I know exactly what I said last night.”

“Oh, you do?” You drop Sarah’s spoon into the bowl as you stare at him.

“Yes, I do, and I meant everythin’ that I said. Absolutely every word.”

“Seriously?”

“M’deadly serious, I wouldn’t joke about somethin’ as important as this.”

You smile, “well that’s really good to know” and then you turn back to his daughter giving her another mouthful when she squeaks in annoyance of having to wait.

He sits on the seat next to you and admires your connection with his daughter. The way she reacts to you and just how natural you are with her. Your motherly instincts kick in instantly with Sarah and she’s not even blood. He’s been mesmerised by the way you handle Sarah since she’s been born, even back when Sarah’s mom was still around.

“Oh messy girl!” You coo when she puts her hand into her bowl and splashes it around.

“I got a plan” he grumbles as he places a hand to the small of your back sending goosebumps up and down your body.

“What’s that?” You quiz not taking your eyes off Sarah as you give her another mouthful.

“You and me Friday night, m’gonna take you out. I’ll get Tommy t’watch Sarah.”

You gasp at the feeling of him rubbing your back with so much care and in the fact that he’s going out of his way to take you out.

“We’ll go to that Italian you love. What do y’think?”

You turn to look at him with a smile. “I’d love that so much. Thank you, Joel.”

“My pleasure girl, just wana treat you the way you deserve and prove to you I want this and will always be in it one hundred percent as long as that’s what you want too.”

“It’s what I want.” You reply without hesitation, and he chuckles.

“Good.” He leans in placing a kiss at your temple and you close your eyes to savour the feeling of his lips on your skin for a few seconds before he pulls back away. When he does you both stare at Sarah who is looking back at you both with the biggest grin on her face. Showing off her few teeth.

You could get used to this being your life day in day out. You’ve already wished it were for months. And it seems it might actually happen now Joel has been truthful, you’ve hoped this would happen for a long time, have loved Joel for much longer than you care to admit, but it seems he’s felt the same and like you had just been too afraid to say something.

Bring on Friday night.

[stealingyourbones]

Bruce isn't the best parent, but a chunk of the issue is that he's an only child. Should he stop Jason and Dick from throwing Damian back and forth like a human ball? Is Tim threatening to bite Cass an issue? Are those death threats serious or not? The poor man is an only child trying to run herd on at least a half dozen feral siblings. He exists in a state of constant confusion.

I.

This isn’t to be mean, but that is simply not the case.

I keep getting bad parent bruce takes and it sucks because all of them aren’t even proper reasoning for his character.

I’m just using you as an example, but hear me out.

Bruce is an extremely smart person, Homie has watched movies and read books, he can learn from situations around him that things are sibling things. Sure, he was excluded as a kid, but that isn’t nearly the main issue why he isn’t the best parent.

homie has so much shit wrong with him, he’s emotionally just not there, he keeps himself stuck in a perpetual state of grief and mourning for his parents of a thing that happened when he was a child, he has been trained by assassins and has experienced loss and pain to an insane extent, he has such an insane extent of paranoia and trust issues that it affects his daily life, is definitely autistic, and has issues with social cues.

I’m trying to properly articulate just why that’s not the case but my brain isn’t working with me so I’m handing this over to my twin @bonebrokebuddy who is far more articulate than me.

———

Hi, it's Billy, Bones's twin writing because Bones had a hard time putting this into words and I'm more of a canon nitpick than her.

Uh- have you ever. And I mean even once, met an only child.

I promise, if you read even a singular comic, you could tell this take is incredibly out of character.

Bruce isn’t a good parent. He’s also not a bad parent. He loves his kids. He literally could not stop them from pulling dumb shit if they tried and putting themselves into danger.

Bruce is the worlds greatest detective. He knows how to spot and detect emotions and trouble in his kids. He’s The Worlds Greatest Detective.

His issue with being a parent likely comes from having Alfred as a father figure. Imagine having a dad that you can fire at any time, you pay so they can stay with you, and can just leave at any moment if they don’t approve of the person they work for. That will severely fuck up a kid.

His issue isn’t that he’s an only child, it’s that it’s every Robin’s god given right to go against and defy Batman’s orders whenever possible because kids are viscous little buggers who don’t like being told “you can’t do that” even if it’s for their own health, they’ll do it anyway.

After you’ve taught your kids how to exist in deadly situations, they think they’re invincible when it’s because Bruce is doing all he fucking can to make sure his kids don’t get hurt. If they feel like they can make the world a better place, they’ll do it, regardless of the risk because they’re inherently self sacrificing and good people.

Bruce’s issue with parenting is due to his relationship with his kids. Again, it isn’t that he’s an only child, it’s that the kids he adopted are their own people and they are even more stubborn and bad at communication as him.

Even more so, it’s due to the dang narrative.

Conflict between Bruce and his kids that cause them to separate has been the backstory for plenty of solo batkid runs to endure Batman isn’t as involved or the main focus of the run.

Narrative tension is literally the cause of all the bad parent decisions for Bruce, because conflict drives narrative or miscommunications cause the story to lengthen and complicate itself

it’s not as easy as “Bruce is bad dad” because he’s Not. Bruce is good with kids! He has a pouch in his utility belt specifically with suckers for kids!

But Bruce isn't a great world star dad either. He definitely inherited his ability to communicate with people outside crisis situations largely from trainers around the world and his arms-length-distance-at-all-times distance relationship with the butler who raised him.

Despite him being good with kids, his kids have lives of their own with morals and opinions of their own that conflict and clash constantly. It’s not a simple case of “Bruce is a bad dad.”

It’s a case of “everyone has slightly different opinions and approaches to situations so occasionally conflict happens when they clash or interfere with each other” because it’s a comic that tells a story!

Anyways, my recommendation? Pick up a comic. And preferably? Read it. Or watch BTAS if it’s more accessible to you. either works. This opinion isn't your fault most likely, just the quality of the DC fan-content you've been consuming that are incredibly removed from the comics. If you want, DM me at @bonebrokebuddy and I can send you some good quality DC fics with in-character Bruce.

————

Bones here again,

That basically sums up the exact stuff I couldn’t properly describe. I was using you more as an example because I have dozens of bad parent bruce takes in my inbox and I am 90% sure that the cause of them is that they simply haven’t read anything about the character.

Read a comic, read some strictly DC fanfiction, watch some of the many many TV shows and animated movies, there are even motion comics free online to watch that have voice acting and everything!

Being an only child doesn’t make you a bad father.

[gffa]

I finished Rise of the Red Blade this morning and I think I genuinely liked it, to the point that I started mentally composing essays about the main character's journey and the parallels she had with other Star Wars characters and how so much of this book supported everything I've been saying about the dark side and what it does to people, as well as unreliable narrators, and even things where I thought they might be swerving into unfair critical territory on the part of the narrative wound up ultimately being almost delivered to me on a silver platter for how I was fucking right. But I don't think I would recommend it and would even anti-rec it to fellow Jedi fans who have had their nerves scraped raw, unless you are into sharp-edged female characters as much as I am. This book is for all the fans who want a hot mess of a female character who is allowed to be cruel and mean and wrong and all up in her head and unreliable and have moments of absolute yearning that made my heart ache for her and moments of awesome and that she gets to fail and be consumed by the dark and her story is worth telling. If I can love Anakin Skywalker through his descent into the dark, I can love Iskat Akaris through her descent into the same place. This is a book about what it's like to choose the dark side, to believe she's right and that she's free and that she'll get everything she wants--except it's all just kind of nothing in the end. She believes so strongly that the Jedi wronged her, that they never cared about her, that their beliefs were empty, but she says this deep in the dark side and everything we can see outside of her perspective shows that they were trying to help her, she just isn't allowed to go around embracing anger and violence. And it's a book about how mental illness makes it hard to see things clearly. As someone who has struggled with it for my entire life, who only really began to make progress once I accepted that my brain lies to me when it tells me that my friends and family find me to be a burden and would hate me if they knew the real me--ohhhh, do I see a lot of myself in Iskat Akaris. And it's a book about how it doesn't half-ass that descent. She gets to be genuinely cruel. She gets to be genuinely whole-hearted about her beliefs in the dark side have set her free and is good. She gets to be genuinely a giant ball of uncontrolled emotional thorns that she uses to hurt herself as much as other people. This is a book that's not afraid of making its main character unlikeable and, through that, making her beloved to me. If you're not into a book with sharp edges and hissing lies about the Jedi, then skip this one, just don't even read this review, because it's not going to change your mind. But if you're like me and love drama and love when a narrative doesn't actually spell things out for you, but provides all the context you need if you actually watch what the Jedi say and do, not what Iskat says they say and do, it delivers a story that I think supports my view of the Jedi pretty well. This is a story about choosing the dark and all the darkness that comes with that. It's not nice, it's not gentle. I mean, it's still a Star Wars book, but if you like awful women getting to actually be awful in ways that you can sympathize with, the ways that male characters so often get to be, then I genuinely enjoyed this book for that.

[pouroverpaloma]

Writing Interview Tag Game! Thanks @cinnamontails-ff !

When did you start writing?

I don’t actually remember! I was a desperately weird and introverted kid (surprise) and I read voraciously, all the time, so I also started writing really early. Stories, plays, poems, comics, whatever. I also kept a meticulous diary when I was in high school, and I’m so glad I did because it’s so fucking funny to read now. Teenage Paloma had a lot going on, to put it kindly

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

Have I watched Supernatural? No. Have I been an insatiable consumer of Destiel fanfiction for years? Absolutely. I gave a PowerPoint presentation to my book club once titled “All the best romance novels are Supernatural fanfiction,” and I stand by that thesis. I don’t care. Those babes were cooking.

Like, I’m sorry, the soulmate AU trope is never going to get better than Don’t Look Back by @goldenraeofsun. It’s just not. No one is ever going to write an academic romance as compelling as And This, Your Living Kiss by @asecretvice. If you haven’t poked around that part of Ao3 because you don’t watch the show, I beg you to get in there because treasures await ye

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

This isn’t going to make a ton of sense outside of my own brain, probably, but my goal is always to write prose that feels the way Ada Limón’s poems make me feel. She’s really frank without being unserious, and I love the way she creates imagery without telling you she’s doing it.

Also, this weekend, I read a Tessa Dare historical romance while I was on the beach, and I loved it! It was so fun, but not at the expense of the plot, and the supporting characters were so funny without getting in the way. A masterclass in froth.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

At home, I write in bed with my laptop on my lap and a can of seltzer within reach at all times. Sometimes I go to a cafe near my house, but I’m always worried someone will look over my shoulder and see what I’m writing and post me for cringe on TikTok or something. Which, now that I’m typing it out, is maybe a stupid thing to worry about

What's your most effective way to muster up a muse?

I have a couple recs!

1. Go for a biiiiiig walk. Listen to classical music, nothing with words. Don’t try to think too hard. It’ll come.

2. Read something you find genuinely terrible. You’ll get so mad that you’ll start thinking of ways you could have done it better. For me, this is usually the book Haunting Adeline, which for whatever reason activates every “um actually” in my body at once

3. Type up something deeply unserious that you have no intention of publishing. Chances are you’ll end up loving it in the rewrite and post it. This is how that Rolan fic of mine got made

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

Oh god, yeah, and oh god, yeah. I’ve learned a lot. Some of it’s actually been helpful in therapy, like how I keep writing about overcoming domestic violence trauma. Some of it has been discovering, in a very public way that I can’t undo, that I’m into choking. We do not have the dignity of choosing how enlightenment comes to us

What is your reason for writing?

It’s for fun. It’s all for fun. I am having such a fucking good time.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

I love when people talk back and forth with me! And I love love looooooove when people tell me how something made them feel. Or when someone points out a literary device I was proud of. If there’s a quote, too? I’m dead. I’ve died.

Writing is fun, but it’s solitary. It’s so motivating to have people who are willing to step into my little universe with me and talk about it. I’m extraordinarily lucky.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

I want people to see me as someone who shares their enthusiasm, ultimately. We’re all here for the same reason, and it’s That Fucking Wizard.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

My voice is really distinctive! My friends have always been able to pick out my writing, even in anonymized settings, and I think that’s neat

How do you feel about your own writing?

It’s been a long way getting here, but I view my writing as a thing I made, that I liked making, that I now have no ownership over. Once it’s out, it’s not mine anymore, it’s the reader’s. And that’s a good thing! Everyone brings their own rich experiences to everything they read. Interpretation is amazing, even for something as prima facie trivial as video game erotica. When people tell me how they related to or analyzed something I wrote, it’s like I get to read my own story again.

:) I’ll tag @lemonstealinglibrarian @lastlight-inn and @toads-treasures , if you want! No presh

[raccoonfallsharder]

i like to imagine that if one were to give Rocket a sudoku or crosswords puzzle, he can fill them all out at an unbelievable rate. like, you'd introduce him to the concept of sudoku, how each row and each column and each 3×3 grid should have nine distinct and non-repeating numerical digits–

but you haven't finished explaining the rules and Rocket's already filling out the empty boxes with his pencil like ticking off items on a laundry list. not a minute later, it's solved. he then gets confused at your jaw dropping while showing you the filled-out paper puzzle.

"what? you're- you just, fill out the thing with numbers, right? what's so surprising?"

i love this! im sorry i didn’t see this ask sooner but YES. thank you so much for this PERFECT mental image lol. i am actually working on a oneshot that’s not about this EXACTLY but is about rocket’s brain in relation to some of these things lol. the way he sees shit.

sudoku, i think, is easy for him. you explain the rules once and he just looks at the grid and he knows where everything goes. it’s like looking at a bomb or a gun. all the pieces have a home — it only takes one glance with soft eyes to see where each thing fits.

word searches, too. once he knows what a word is supposed to look like, he can take in a box of letters with that same glance and be like — oh, there’s fifteen words. sometimes he finds words that aren’t even intentionally included.

the trick with both these puzzles is that rocket does not get caught up in the sequence of things. he doesn’t go line-by-line or letter-by-letter. he has a more holistic way of understanding things — a big-picture kind of guy. looks at them and says “this is where the thing fits.”

now, crossword puzzles? those i’m less sure of. i think rocket would be the type to be annoyed by “bad clues.” his vocabulistics ain’t always standard, so to speak, and i bet he sometimes makes up words. plus, having to remember how they’re supposed to be spelled? that’s a problem. sometimes the clue will be like “more yellow than blue; a French liqueur” and instead of writing in “chartreuse” rocket is like “greeeeeeen” because why the fuck not, this game is stupid. he finishes in record time but when you look at it, most of the answers are like… only sorta-conceptually-correct? and usually with creative spellings? occasionally he’ll throw in a cluster of letters in kree?

“so i can see you answered this column with crow but you used a character i don’t recognize for the w and it’s overlapping with the g in lasagna. and uhm neither of those are technically right.”

“yeah in shi’ar that letter makes a sound like wuh or guh. little further back in the throat though.”

“uh huh. but this is, uhm, a US-english crossword.”

“so?”

“…good talk.”

now maybe when he’s a little older, and the Star Kids have grown up and have Star Kids of their own, and Old Man Rocket is sitting outside a cantina on Knowhere making origami versions of cosmo for them — maybe in between he pulls out the giant book of puzzles pete sent him for christmas last year. adjusts his reading glasses and strokes a claw over his grizzled whiskers. the kids come up and ask him what he’s working on today and he shows them and teaches them how to do each one.

“this one you can’t repeat any numbers.”

“that seems hard.”

“nah, it’ll be easy for you. you’re almost as much of a genius as me. now, this one you gotta find these words in this graph.”

“okay. i think i like this better. what about that one?”

“ah, i used to hate those ones but now they’re my favorite.”

“yeah?”

“yeah. for these ones, you just make shit up, and you bend all the rules till your answer works.”

[xbalayage]

The Princess and The Merchant AU

WC: 1,396

A/N: My brain and fingers wanted to add another part into the AU I created but done in Silvio's POV, the main story only takes place through Emma's eyes. This is at a turning point in the AU where she learns of him being a prince.

"You're..—a prince?"

My shoulders flinched, and that wasn't an easy thing to get me to do by any means. But out of anyone to overhear the conversation, why'd it have to be you? Why now? I wasn't ready for you to know. Hell, I never wanted you to know. I don't claim that part of myself. But in our fair time together, I've kept a lot from you. I was the exact thing you were tryna stay away from and I knew it too. But I was selfish. I turned, my eyes wide with surprise upon hearin' your voice and seein' that look on your face.

You wore your cloak again, the one you often wore to escape the seein' eyes of royalty that stalked your every movement to come and see me in town at my stall. I was just talkin' to one of Valerio's guards that often comes to check on me, even though I've told the rotten mutt I don't need the assistance; I knew I had a bad feelin' about tonight, you must've heard the guard mention my status because even under the glow of the lights and the full moon, your expression was unmistakable— it was the look of betrayal.

I could see your shoulders shake, your palms hugging your fingers in a tight hold - you were always an open book, even now.

"'Ey, listen, I—" but I didn't see THAT coming. Before I could even utter a word further of explanation, your hand rose and delivered a swift open hand smack across my cheek. It rang in my ears and stung at my face, turning it to the side completely. For a dainty, little princess kept inside a cage to read endless amounts of books, I couldn't deny your strength. But fuck, that hurt. Of course I'm going to scowl! I've never had someone disrespect me so blatantly before. "Why you—"

"How could you lie to me!"

Those words stopped me in my tracks. The night was young as the moon shone overhead but only fellow merchants and a few stragglers were paradin' around buying wares and closing shop; I felt all of their curious stares on us and all I could think of was your safety. I couldn't give two shits if their attention was on me, but if a royal guard patrolling catches wind that you're outside the palace, we'll both face hell. I moved quick to cover your mouth, dragging you with me into an alley out of sight as you fought me the entire way; you may be strong, but you're not as strong as me. And before I even got a chance at letting you go, I felt sharp teeth enter the bottom of my palm. "Fuck!" You quickly put distance between us that felt like miles apart.

"Get your filthy hands off me! I can't believe you! After.. after all the time we've spent together! I— I gave myself to you! You were my FIRST. I— I thought you were different, Silvio! But you've just been lying to me this whole time! Was any of this real?" You were shooting verbal shots left and right but instead of dodging their bullets, I took everything you said head on, allowing each of them to puncture at gunpoint, all directly aiming at my heart.

Shit, when had I become so soft? For once, I stayed silent; I couldn't find the words to express how I felt. I didn't sit around thinkin' about shit like love or how I made some woman feel. I was always on the move, venturing off from coast to coast, seeing the world and making a profit. A life as a merchant didn't anchor me to a designated spot for long; even if I chose this lifestyle, I didn't choose this life. Abandoning my status wasn't by choice, but by disownment. Fighting to keep it was a waste of time and being freed from royal chains was a breath of fresh air. I didn't have to worry about anythin' but myself.

Then one day, that was just another day for me, I met you: Emma.

Once I started to see tears weld in your eyes, I couldn't keep my gaze on ya any longer, I had to look away. The guilt was just eating away at my stomach and I started to feel sick. If I was being honest with myself, it was a deserved scolding and I was left with two options: push the best thing that's ever happened to me away for your sake, or come clean and try to fix this stupid misunderstanding. The answer was obvious.

"—Ha! It took ya this long to notice? 'Nd I thought you were smart. Guess ya proved even me wrong. It didn't mean a damn thing to me, ya were just another easy woman to lay with to bide my time before I leave again. What? Did'ya think you were special? That you tamed the untamable? This isn't your books, lady. Fairy tales ain't real. I lied about everythin'. Better get back to your palace and your mutt of fiancee, if you know what's good for ya." I kept a firm, yet convincing, smirk of a mask on my face as my words laced with thorns started encasing your heart whole.

I maintained eye contact when I spoke; I wanted my words to eat you alive, to make you never want to associate with a man like me again. And upon seeing the utter disbelief that danced in your irises, I could tell it worked but ya were searching with hope for something else. You were searching for the actual truth that I was keepin' under lock and key, away from the rays of your eyes. Sorry.. it has to be this way—

"No... you— you said," you stopped yourself from speaking as the tears started to leave the prison in the corners of your eyes. I'd seen you cry before, but fuck, not like this. I can't let my mask fall. Your chest rose heavy in breaths under the cloak you adorned as it matched your tears. "I never want to see you again. Fuck you, Silvio, I hate you!" And there it was, the sailor's tongue you've always known and kept hidden because it would've been improper for a woman of your stature and status to be speaking. You've only ever allowed your guard down with me yet, here I was, taking your heart like a rose from a bush and letting it fall to the ground, stepping on it beneath my shoes.

You ran. And I watched as you went, still with that smug smile etched into my lips. But it was the moment you were far away enough did that smile falter, fast. It had to be this way - the old fart would have my head if he knew about the relationship we shared. I may be disowned from the royal court, but he'd be quick to hang me from the gallows if he caught wind that I fancied you: Valerio's fiancee. I'll figure out a way to fix this, but I needed the time to think and pushing you away would create that space. I hope ya wouldn't hate me forever - but ya won't be marrying my brother. I'll give you your wish of a free life from the courts. I just couldn't find it in me to be honest with ya yet. I needed a plan, I needed to set it into motion.

I looked down at my hand and glanced over the bite mark you left; normally, I would've created a whole scene over somethin' like this. But you were different from any woman I've met through the many seas I've voyaged; I swore to make you mine. I clenched that fist in thought before digging into my pocket and pulling out the bracelet you made for me. I still carried it everywhere for luck. I tossed it into the air before quickly snatching it, bringing it up to my lips for a kiss as my eyes closed, focusing all my energy into you. I quickly returned it back into my pocket before headin' to a bar to cope with my actions tonight, to steel myself from tryna chase you down.

Give me some time.. Emma. I didn't forget our promise, and.. I'm sorry.

taglist; @nightghoul381, @yvelk, @celiciaa, @drachonia, @aquagirl1978, @here-for-gilbert , @alvieeru , @exhausted-courtroom-mom , @scummy-writes , @randonauticrap , @widowbunny , @jozhenji , @maries-gallery , @misty-moth , @violettduchess, @ikemenlibrary

[spockandawe]

Hello, your work is beautiful! Forgive me for I've fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole and I'm not sure if this is an appropriate question, but I was wondering how you gathered and typeset the text for all the danmei/baihe you do? On ao3 there's an epub & other download options, but on most danmei translations I've seen there isn't.

Sorry if this is a silly question or I worded it weirdly! I've been wanting to get into bookbinding for a long time but it seems like such an overwhelming hobby to get into haha

It's plenty appropriate!!! So there's a variety of different methods I've used depending on when I was making the book and how the translations had been shared online. It's kind of a nightmare in how there isn't a one size fits all solution. And after jjwxc did that whole thing about offering to pay (mainland citizens) for translations of novels, a lot of the options got more complicated, unfortunately. And locked google docs are a thing I understand, but I hate them so so so much, I'm in this hobby because The Ephemeral Nature Of Internet Posts And The Looming Fear Of Lost Media, and locked google docs are a nightmare.

(the practical parts of making books are also overwhelming, just because there are so many pieces that go into it and so many ways to do it. I recommend sealemon on youtube as a good place to absorb the basic elements of how a book is assembled, then das bookbinding once you feel like you've outgrown sealemon. or on tumblr there's renegadepublishing as a place to see a lot of other fanbinders post their work, and they also have a number of resources on the process!)

Once or twice, I've functionally retyped a novel. This sucks. I don't recommend it at ALL if you have better options. You almost always have better options.

The usual approach is that I've gone to a website, copied the text chapter by chapter (usually adding footnotes as I go, it's easier to do them four or five at a time than to wrangle like sixty when you have a huge document and 'footnote 1' x30 to place). This is tedious, but meditative. I don't mind putting in the work at all, I frequently harvest ao3 stories that are being turned into anthologies in a similar way.

Some sites are now password-protected. If you have the brain space, identifying groups you're interested in that have sites like this and doing the steps you need to get into their discord group or whatever and have access, that's a GREAT chore to cross off the list. Some groups make this very easy and you can do it on the fly, and some groups are a fucking NIGHTMARE, and it can be hard to tell which is which from the outside.

Some websites have copy protections as well. Some of them will let you copy and paste, but a paragraph or two in the middle will be jumbled up a bit, just a simple cipher. I think it may just be shifting the letters, not even swapping them at random. There may be a coding way to get around this, but I barely know the first thing about coding, so I copy and paste and retype these paragraphs by hand. Some sites bluntly refuse to let you copy and paste, or screenshot, and I resent these sites deeply because a huge part of the fun of reading these things is sharing choice bits with friends to try to bait them into the pit with you. Circle back to this with the same solution as I'm about to get into.

And then there are the locked google docs. At certain points, there have been workarounds, like loading the whole page and then disabling javascript, which lets you select and copy. But last time I tried that, the workaround no longer worked. There are other people who care about this kind of thing, it's a question that comes up on forums, but much like questions about how to break amazon's drm stranglehold on kindle books, old solutions frequently stop working, and I have no idea what the current best practices are.

BIG CAVEAT here, that.... I get it. Translation is hard fucking work, and it's really easy for other people to put in a fraction of the same effort to scrape a translation and repost it. Or worse, sell it. I think translators deserve MASSIVE credit for what they do, and I try to support them the same way I support authors whose books I work with. I don't want to divert any traffic or appreciation from them, but at the same time, I've got google docs, I know it takes about two seconds for me to delete any given document I've ever posted. I am here because I adored mxtx and was very afraid the translations of her books would disappear someday and would be unrecoverable, which is kind of sadlarious in retrospect.

But that worry still applies very much to a lot of other talented authors who haven't been licensed, and hell, it applies to the fan translators who were forced to take the hard work they did for free offline after licenses were secured by someone else! It's a niche community thing, but I witnessed a SCRAMBLE to preserve those documents before they disappeared from public view! I don't think the ExR mdzs translation was perfect, but nuking it from the internet is still a huge loss, and nuking the newer in-progress translations was fucking heartbreaking. It still upsets me to think about that too hard. And for translations tucked behind copy protections, yeah, it's harder for scrapers to steal and repost, but it also becomes so much more difficult for someone with archival intentions to preserve the silly things.

So..... there are sites where free epubs of books can be found for the downloading. I'm not advocating for or against piracy, I passionately do not want to take a moral stance on this, every person has to work it out for themselves. Don't ask me why I own gideon the ninth as a purchased hardcover, audiobook, and kindle book and as an illicit epub and mobi. Maybe I need five copies of one book, don't look at me. But standards for uploading on these sites are kind of lax, and once, I noticed that hey, waitaminnit, these don't look like published translated novels, these look like scraped fan translations. First, they were, second, when jjwxc did the thing, this became much, much more relevant to my workflow.

I'm not going into specifics on my blog, because really, I am very anxious not to divert attention or credit from translators. These ebooks are usually not formatted with much love or care. The footnotes are generally a formatting nightmare or missing completely. When a translator site jumbles the text via copying and pasting, a lot of these don't correct it, there's just a patch of gibberish. The places translators post are usually MUCH more pleasant ways to actually read the goods. But. In the event that the original translator suddenly yoinks their page, if there's that kind of emergency, I can still decode that cipher and reconstruct the original goods. It's not usually PRETTY to format these things, but it's still easier than retyping a whole novel, which I am stubborn enough to do, but I'm pretty sure that's how I killed my last laptop's keyboard.

I won't go into more detail than that on the public-facing part of my blog, but hopefully that's enough to go by! I can answer private questions as well off anon, but I do realize that I should have probably expected questions like this sooner, considering my hobbies XD I wanted to make it very clear why I'm doing this, and elaborate on the tricky line to walk between supporting the fans who do this hard labor for free and (understandably!) don't want their work stolen, and preserving these works so that they can't just disappear overnight. I am constantly aware (and lowkey anxious) that it would be easy for someone unfamiliar to take a glance at what I do and accuse me of being a dirty filthy pirate who's ready to destroy this community with my Thieving Ways, but I have a genuine passion for the archival aspects of this hobby, and it really is a driving force in what I do. Capturing and formatting these cnovel translations isn't easy, and if I wasn't passionate, I would have stopped ages ago. I do it because I think it's important, I think it would be genuinely tragic to lose these stories, or to lose variations on these stories when fan translations are taken down in favor of official ones, and I passionately want to see them preserved.

[afreakingdork]

Hello Beautiful! Before I begin, I have to say I love you so much T-T I’ve been lurking in your shadows since the first chapter of A Crush To Much. I thought it was a one shot at first but was giddy when I saw a part 2, then part 3, then I went fucking nuts when I realized it was instead a multi chapter story! I’ve been stuck on you like a remora ever since.

Ok now my questions, please bear with me for we’re going waaay back here to the beginning of WS.

Even though it’s not from his perspective, we can see when Donnie interest begins to change with us the reader. But when does he transition from this person is intriguing to they are attractive (mentally, physically or both) and I want to fuck their brains out?

(Also, low key like to know if the other ((NOT)) brothers have so’s?)

… I had another ask but I can’t remember atm… OH I REMEMBER! We see Donnie finding his inner BootyShaker9000 (tears of pride and happiness) but will he ever discover his (canon) love Jupiter Jim?

Awwww! I'm so soft! I think I've been called beautiful like once in my whole life so right off the bat you liquefied me! Gosh! You can't my first post! I'm so honored to have had you around all this time! Thank you for reaching out!!

Alright, let's see what I got for you!

So I have written what I like to call my Midnight Sun, which is a summary of the beginning of Weak Spot from Donnie's perspective (the name comes from Midnight Sun aka the Twilight book that does the same from Edward's perspective, so I gift you this:

So like the companion comic, Donnie doesn't 'see' other people anymore; they're just blobs. When reader sasses him about the sandwich it's the first time he 'glimpses' someone in years and that makes him curious. From there, the first meeting is him basically watching a hyperactive puppy vie for his attention the whole time which he pities. The thing is, reader isn't just that though. They're intuitive and, several times, he finds them reading his cues which he didn't think should have been obvious. It leaves him impressed and curious enough to test this anomaly again. Chapter 2 was a test in that he upped the stakes to see how reader would act outside their element (aka shop they're familiar with). The chip thing was not apart of the equation though. He only quizzes them over it because he saw them freaking out. Again, the conversation doesn't go as planned. This hasn't happened in years. Everyone has been so terribly predictable up until this point. When reader asks him if he likes eggs, that was the deciding moment for him. It was completely out of left field, but most of all, it was fucking earnest. Reader didn't want the conversation to end so they asked something wild, but, at the same time, it happened to be something they genuinely wanted to know. How could anyone want to know anything so banal and asinine about him? It was then he realized he was interested in more them as an more than anomaly. From there everything is an upward trend from that revelation~

This has been added to since; we know from chapter 49 that Donnie revealed he first realized he was down bad and had recorded a record of his feelings for reader back in chapter 8. I think that taking all that into account and the fact that Donnie was fighting for his life to finish the dinner in chapter 9 that it was safe to say he was just as attracted to reader as reader was to him by their first real date.

The other bros do not currently have SO's! Leo I'm saving for something special, Raph I just never came up with anything, and Mikey is aroace and too busy for a relationship.

So Jupiter Jim is something he was raised on and that sort of low budget scifi isn't something I think he can come to anymore. You get a special kind of nostalgia for things like that and our Donnie here never had a chance to be fun and silly. Weak Spot Donnie was unfortunately 'raised' with an impressed view on how terrible fake people are. He despises them and fake worlds by extension. He'd watch Jupiter Jim now and be appalled by how hokey it was. I'm just as sad about it, but we'll see how that goes going forward 👀W̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶g̶o̶o̶f̶y̶ ̶m̶e̶d̶i̶a̶

Thank you so much for these questions! It was a blast to share! Also thank you again for being so darling!!! Made my day!

[caterpillarinacave]

Hi! I'm the same Henry anon from yesterday, thank you for your answer!

If you actually want to elaborate more on your headcanons and you have time to do so, I'd love to read more! I was especially curious to know if there is a specific explanation for the headcanon about the way his sleeping habits changed? (And in the tags you mentioned angst?) And in general if you ever want to write an hour long rant I'll happily read it!

Anyway, if you've read until here, bye, and thanks for taking the time to read all of this!

Anon, I am SO sorry, this took so long to answer!!! I do try to be timely, apperances aside.

You know how you have to invite vampires inside for them to come into your house? Yeah, when it comes to talking I'm like one of those vampires. I, of course, would like to talk for hours and am ready to talk for hours,, however I will not start talking until someone invites me to. I like to wait until I have a specific request from someone, then I begin my speech.

Anyway, all that aside, someone has now asked me, so buckle up buttercups, because i am about to TALK

Just a warning, these headcannons get a little more angsty, and therefore a little more dark

Regarding your first question, dear anon, basically, disabilities are exhausting. Physically and emotionally, even if you've got it under control, most every disabled people are constantly tired. 

Everything is automatically more physically strenuous.

I, for example, slept really lightly for a really long time. In a lot of ways I still do, but once my more physical disabilities (even though I have them very well under control) showed up the actual want to sleep shoots way up. 

You can totally stay up all night working on something and be just fine, but once you lay down and your brain gets the little “yep, we get to sleep now” message, it JUMPS on it. You might've had iffy sleep schedules, but once the physical aspect is added to the mix, it’s really hard to convince your brain to get up when everything is so tired if you stir in the middle of the night. After a while your brain doesn't work anywhere near as hard to try and wake you up, and suddenly you're totally down to fall asleep on the carpet and sleep there for six and a half hours. 

Same applies for Henry. 

It's exhausting to get around as a disabled person and he's just… tired.

The weeks following the battle of idris were NOT a fun time lol. Didn't seem awful from an outside POV, but physically speaking Henry was having an awful, awful time, and emotionally Charlotte was having the go of it. 

He’s in charge of all his mobility aids. Made a lot of them, with less input from the silent brothers then youd think he would need.I mean, shadowhunters are ridiculously unhelpful (seriously, how was he the first one to come up with a wheelchair. how.) Logistically speaking, he has multiple chairs, but a favorite. 

He has just got to eat more. He’s so awful at keeping track of time, forgets to eat constantly. and is pretty much 0% body fat. He usually gets away with it, but he’s got nothing to fall back on if he’s sick or injured, which was kind of a problem after the battle of idris. 

He used to be a decent piano player, but most of what he enjoyed playing relayed on a peddle, and while he probably could, it wasn't ever worth finding a way to make the pedal work for him, so he just kinda moved on. 

This one's more canon but he had absolutely no friends. Like, at all growing up. He was lucky if they ignored him instead of actively harassing him but like??? He doesn't really care??? He’s just like, “kay yeah, whatever”, then grows up and continues to not have any shadowhunter friends but it seems like warlocks think he’s really fucking cool, so is that a win? 

You know how there's the persistent theme of Charlotte feeling guilty for the events of TID? Henry’s kind of in the same boat. Any one as pedantic as me remembers the line at the end of CA;

Going off the book, he was the one who told Mortmain about the Pyxis,  he was the one technically protecting Jessamine when she died, left the woman he loved to suffer in silence because he can't figure the most obvious things, his list of failures miles long, his presence causing so much annoyance to everyone around him.  

How could he be so stupid, so blind? How many problems had he caused just by being who he was?

Who would be alive, who would have suffered so much less if he had just been a little smarter, a little quicker, a little less like himself?

He’s spent his whole life being told that he’s stupid, makes everything worse, everything is his fault, and he’s a burden on everyone around him, and there’s these things that might be his fault (no, nothing was his fault, Henry forgive yourself please-) you can not tell me they arent weighing on him a little bit. 

To pull from a discarded WIP of mine, “...in her head, Charlotte’s hands were stained red, and in his, Henry could bathe in the blood of the shadowhunters he’d killed.”

Genuinely hates staying in bed. It just drives him insane to sit in one room doing nothing. It’s bearable to go sit in your pajamas in the living room, but doing the same thing in a bedroom? 

Insufferable. Unmanageable. Impossible. Horrific. How could you possibly stay in such a boring place that long. What do you mean I could die. I’ll die in a different room thank you very much.

He’s really good at chess, but doesnt really get the big deal about winning the game. As in, he doesn't even remotely get why someone would get upset about losing, or why it’s if you want someone to like you you shouldn't beat them in five minutes. Charlotte eventually told him that some people just hate losing. “Great, got it” he said, then proceeded to just ask people if they wanted to win or not. This is not good for political relations. 

Cue the Clave conversations; 

“Do you play? I’d be honored to play a round with you, Mr. Fairchild.”

“I’d be delighted to. How would you like to play?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Would you like me to try and beat you, pretend to try and beat you but purposefully lose, or blatantly lose?”

“...”

“:)”

====

“Henry, darling, let’s go over this in a different way.”

“Literally what did I do???”

It’s canon that he had a lot of self esteem issues when he was younger, but it's one of the things I wish CC had looked more into. (I’ve got a fic about this exact thing, but don't know if i'll ever post it lol)

 There have been a few times when he’d had a particularly bad day and finds himself a little closer to the edge of a bridge than he should be, and shaking off how easy it would be to die right then. In a couple seconds, he could never bother anyone again. 

It's really an intrusive thought, but he just can't help but think how much better it might be for everyone if he wasn't here. The shadowhunters really genuinely don't like him, and canonically treat him horribly, and for him it seems like all he does for Charlotte, who he loved more than anything else in the world, is make her life harder.

 When he’s coming back from an assignment it would be so easy to drop everyone else off at the institute, take a horse out (Balios can find his way back), and just not come back. At least not breathing, that is. 

 He doesn’t act, of course. After all, the Institute is a busy place, and he often is needed for errands or assignments. It would be cruel to leave them to navigate with one less pair of hands. Will and Jessamine really are a handful, and Jem is… well, it wouldn't be fair to make a scene when the focus should be on them. Besides, if Charlotte is at all fond of him, his death would be more upsetting than his blunders. 

Right?

[1337wtfomgbbq]

❤️👻🎨🔮 for the fic writer asks! Mwah!

Thank you for that ask bestie🤗

❤️ What is your favorite line that you’ve written in a fic?

I think that still goes to Bjarne saying to Jan, "I'm not going to fuck you. I'm going to make love to you."

Although I also love Jan telling Bjarne: „All I know, is that there is this tension between us. That you keep looking at me like, like... Like I'm something special.“

Both in 'Just a few days in Tuscany'.

What can I say... that fic is my comfort fic🤭

���� What is your wildest headcanon?

I think the wildest of them all is my headcanon that Jan self sabotaged in 1998 so that Marco was able to take the yellow jersey from him on stage 15 of the Tour.

That he couldn't handle the pressure of being Tour champion and did what he could so that he wouldn't have to shoulder the weight anymore.

🎨 If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?

Ufff, that's a hard one...

I think I would be most excited for some fanart of Ullriis in the Tuscany setting just because I love that fic so so much.

🔮 Any advice for writers working through burnout or writer’s block?

Don't be so hard on yourself.

I know you wanna write and it's frustrating that your brain is sabotaging you. I found that actually allowing for 'no writing' and focusing on other stuff really helped me.

Reading that book you have been putting off, reding a comic or manga, rewatching an old favorite movie or show or watching something new, I found that really helps.

I once read a post that said something along the lines of that creativity needs to be fed. You can't keep busting out creative energy without feeding your brain something creative. Meaning... you have to consume creative content to be able to create.

Also... try to get outside and do something nice for yourself. I know it's harder said than done, especially if the root cause is burnout or depression, but it 1) doesn't help your creativity to stay cooped up inside, and 2) there is so much beauty outside that can really help your creativity and your overall mental health.

Overall, don't try and force your creativity by any means necessary... give yourself loads of grace and just wait. It will come back, I promise you that. (Again, especially if the root cause is burnout or depression, being hard on yourself will only make things worse. Be nice to yourself. get out of bed, take a shower and really pamper yourself, make yourself some really nice food, take a walk outside, go to a cafe and just have a drink alone, read something light (fanfic counts) or watch something you love or something new)

[pennzance]

Bit of a different post from me today. This is a long comment from Reddit about the recent gun violence in Texas (case not specified, too many to count and rising), and it has some good information in it along with some commentary I happen to agree with.

Reddit user Col_Irving_Lambert writes:

"Here it comes yet again: "No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Happens Regularly"

Are we not tired of this? I sure as fuck am.

Now that I have your attention probably after seeing this post for hopefully multiple times I’d like to get something off my chest and personal soapbox today. Buckle up,

"The first girl I walked up to was crouched down covering her head in the bushes, so I felt for a pulse, pulled her head to the side and she had no face."

We live now in a country in which our children are randomly put to death in public, so that our congressmen can pose with weapons of war, by Right Wing Terrorists. We live in a country where the amount of stickers in the back of our lifted trucks equates to how many rounds of AR ammunition are stockpiled in our closet.

We live now in a country where we ban books, where we ban drag shows, where we ban doctors from helping kids in crisis, where we ban women from making choices with their bodies. We ban people from voting because some don’t like how they might vote, we ban representatives from state legislators for how they have voted, we ban immigrants, we ban some stem cells, and we ban transgender athletes, we even ban water bottles on planes.

BUT WE DO NOT BAN ASSAULT RIFLES (or assault-like or lite rifles or especially Semi automatic ones as some ammosexuals like to point out) DO WE?

Our children are randomly put to DEATH in public. Our Teachers, our friends. Our Family. Some of them just want to go and enjoy an afternoon at a mall together. Never to return. To protect somebody's right to randomly put another innocent person to death, once a month, once a week, once a day, once AN HOUR.

Well since my last update, a 14-year-old was shot in the head. What did this child do? She was playing hide and seek.

When it becomes unmistakably obvious with each death, a little piece of us dies inside, and within 10 years, or 1 year, or 1 month. The pain of that is too large to process, so we simply pretend that it doesn’t hurt anymore. We simply pretend that it doesn't hurt to think of the horror and the terror of those children and those adults in their final moments. We simply stop dealing with it. Or fighting back against it. Or recognizing that the gore and brains on the sidewalks outside the malls of this country and our streets might as well be our own.

And it turns out the good guys with guns can’t stop it. And the responsible gun owners can’t stop it, and the politicians won’t stop it and insist that thoughts and prayers are working and if you disagree with them you are one of those who doesn’t believe in an almighty god who is absolutely in control of our lives?

That translates insanely as the solution to all of these nightmares. God and we want the thirteen thousand nine hundred people shot to death in this country already this year? Did God want them dead?

I say bullshit.

Now we have news conferences, and without emotion, it’s read off the number put to death this TIME, and the number transported to the hospital and how badly they feel. Do you realize they now treat the public execution of more people, as if it was…BAD WEATHER?

Gun massacres are not bad weather.

So we ban licenses to carry handguns in Texas, give the ability for open carry all over the United States, and Ban mental health care by cutting the budgets. Ban abortion because we are pro-life, and ban books because the children are too precious to be indoctrinated, and ban drag shows because we must protect kids from grooming and we must make sure those kids are happy and fit so SOMEBODY CAN GET A WEAPON OF WAR AND EVERY OTHER DAY PUT GROUPS OF OUR CHILDREN TO DEATH.

But at least those kids were not taught something as terrible as CRT.

80 percent believe in banning assault weapons. 80 PERCENT. 81 percent believe in raising the age to buy guns or at least keeping the age at 21. 81 percent believe in enforcing existing gun laws, and 87 percent want background checks for all gun purchases and these numbers are from 2 WEEKS AGO in a poll done by FOX NEWS.

And yet non of this can pass our elected officials? BULLSHIT.

It is time for a change. Spread how you feel far and wide. Copy this, put in your story (how many of us now have been personally affected or know someone at this point), and let your representatives and the whole goddamn Country know, the whole damn planet!

NO MORE!

So now to boost the signal on some actual honest to god things that could be done about this never-ending nightmare?

For starters, the next generation is tired of this shit and is planning a sit-in at the capital on June 6th. Here is a relevant link:

https://twitter.com/joncoopertweets/status/1655293349245452289

And also this goes without saying this group has some amazing ideas:

https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/

This website is dedicated to having the media stop reporting the perpetrator's names to prevent glorifying mass murderers

https://nonotoriety.com

The Gun Violence Archive is also a really useful source on shootings. Their statistics are highly accurate and they have an up-to-date list of all that occurred in the last 72 hours

https://gunviolencearchive.org

@Emilyinyourphone on Instagram shares scripts and other resources for calling your local representative, it even has a campaign right now for mothers to get their loved ones to call instead of flowers for Mother’s Day.

Copy this post or take their info but please. Take a minute and boost the signal.

Some stats to back up this rant because Credible Hulk always comes angry and with sources.

Guns deaths by state

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/gun-deaths-per-capita-by-state

and just because it’s becoming increasingly relevant by the day

Texas Mass Shootings Up 62.5 Percent Since Permitless Carry Bill

This WaPo article on the damage that an AR-15 does to a body is sobering but important reading.

THE BLAST EFFECT | This is how bullets from an AR-15 blow the body apart

And finally, Check out

https://www.everytown.org/

They’re pushing to end gun violence. The more people who make their voices heard the bigger difference we can make."

If you can, please re-blog and boost the signal. This shit is getting out of hand and has been for WAY too long. Zance out.

[rebeccadumaurier]

November 2022 Reading Review

i’m trying to be more reflective about what i read in a more organized manner, so this is my first monthly reading review. no star ratings because they don’t come anywhere close to getting across how i feel or think. listed (roughly) in the order i read them.

books read this month

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life, George Saunders

i read this for book club! not normally the sort of thing i’d seek out, but some useful thoughts on writing as a craft and reading as a skill. i like that instead of trying to be prescriptive about how to write, it focuses more on finding your own voice and getting a sense of what sort of literature you, as a reader and writer, enjoy.

2. Cain, José Saramago

my first saramago! i wasn’t sure whether i’d like him (i’ve known of him for years), but i did. i’ve been skeptical of christianity for a long time and the ideas in here aren’t that new, but given the environment/time saramago grew up in, i get why it was so controversial. i do love choosing to focus on cain’s story. would consider reading more of him in the future if the premise catches my eye - maybe Blindness

3. World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments, Aimee Nezhukumatathil

a fun, lighthearted book of brief memoir-ish essays about nature, only about 170 pages. it’d be fun to read this while going on a hike. it’s a book which makes you want to go outside.

4. Woman, Eating, Claire Kohda

cool premise (depressed malaysian-japanese-british vampire who tries to blend into human society and doesn’t drink human blood because colonialism, basically), but it read like a cliche of the self-loathing sad girl literary fiction genre, except she’s a vampire. prose is quite unmemorable, as is characterization. did not execute the premise in any interesting way, unfortunately

5. Design Is Storytelling, Ellen Lupton

a quick intro (<200 pages) to human-centered design principles, color theory, etc. basic stuff you’d pick up in your first design class or two. didn’t really learn anything new, but it’s accessible and i liked the cute illustrations! will check out more lupton books in the future, they look cool

6. The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson

excellent. it would drive me crazy if i let it. i’m too busy having locked tomb series brainrot right now to form other obsessions, but this might be another one once i’ve read the sequels. examination of empire, colonialism, lesbianism, and a wonderfully unhinged female protagonist. one of the endings of all time

7. We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice, Mariame Kaba

an introduction to prison abolition principles! very accessible read. i like that it takes an ultimately hopeful tone rather than doom and gloom about our society. i’m a fan of the “hope is a discipline” idea, as well as “abolition is not about your fucking feelings.”

8. Tender is the Flesh, Agustina Bazterrica

prose was mid, and characters are really more the author’s ideas of certain types of people rather than living breathing human beings. but the execution of the rather horrific premise was certainly done with detail and thought, and it gave me stuff to think about, so ultimately i gave it 4 stars. quite graphic, and not for the faint of heart. this and sayaka murata’s earthlings are both about horrifying acts of cannibalism but they are thematically nearly the polar opposite - would love to compare them (i liked earthlings better, though).

i’ve seen complaints about the ending, but i thought it was quite good—it fits into the theme that not only is no one in this book a good person, but this is a society where it’s not possible to be good, where people don’t even really know what goodness is.

9. Deathless, Catherynne M. Valente (favorite of the month)

i fear what this book would have done to my underdeveloped teenage brain, when i was equally as obsessed with unhealthy relationships in media but much worse at critically evaluating them. gorgeous prose, innovative experimentation, truly a marvel of genre blending between mythological retelling and historical fiction. i can’t remember the last time i was this desperate for an m/f couple to be endgame.

but seriously, they are SO dysfunctional and awful—an interesting examination of power dynamics and codependency and role reversals in relationships. reminds me of that quote from Gone Girl that’s like “why do you want to be together? yes, we loved each other and all we did was control each other and cause each other pain” and amy’s reply: “that’s marriage.”

thoughts

wow, that’s a lot of nonfiction this month (4/9)! i don’t normally read much nonfiction, but i’m happy to branch out. if only i had this much will to read design/tech books LOL

however i would like to read more litfic + fantasy next…mostly just because reading deathless reminded me how much i love that stuff.

also god woman, eating and tender is the flesh this month made me miss horror novels with really good prose (not that woman, eating is really a horror novel. i wish it was). god once again telling me to read more shirley jackson + oyeyemi

goals for next month

my only goal is to finish reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. it’s 1K pages and i’m currently on page 100, so…if i can just finish that one book, i will be happy. i’ve been trying to pace myself at 2 chapters/day, but i suck at consistency.

[tropes-and-tales]

First Base

Day 13:  Dry Humping (Benny “Borracho” Magalon x F!Reader)

(For the 2022 Kinktober event offered by @the-purity-pen​​.  The original post and calendar/list can be found here.  Literally a month late because I had other things I needed to do.)

CW:  Pining; (talk of sex; making out; dry humping) 18+ only.

Word Count:  2984

AN:  Never beta-read; barely edited.

The guys sometimes open up their exclusive circle for their parties, so sometimes other people in the sheriff’s department show up.  Former partners, lab techs, they are especially friendly with.

Z started inviting you way back when Big Nick started the parties, so you’ve been there from the start.  You and Z came up through the academy together, served as deputies for a spell out of the Lomita station.  Then you split off onto your separate careers, but you stayed friends.

Benny has the broad strokes of you.  To hear Z tell it, you struggle with organization, with the step-by-step, by-the-book way of detective work.  Which is why you thrive in Cold Case—you sit at a desk piled high with old cases, and you can read through the evidence and notes to find missing pieces.  You have a rabbity brain, hopping from one thing to another with little guidance to the outsider, but your own internal logic makes you a fucking ace at solving the old shit.

Not sexy work, but noble stuff that’s often thankless.  Benny likes that about you.  He likes a lot of things about you, actually:  how secure you are in your own skin, how you can go toe-to-toe with Big Nick when he’s being an abrasive asshole.  How you seem to balance your work perfectly—not jaded by the horrors you see, but not undone by them either.  

It’s no secret that he likes you.  Once, early on, he got plastered and asked Z about you.  What your status was, was sort of guys you went for.

Now Z teases him sometimes when your name comes up.  It’s just that you have a long-term boyfriend, some industry guy who works on the business side of the movies.  Z mentioned him once, said he was no good and just stringing you along for long years when he should have married you, but you’re loyal to a fault.

-----

When Z throws a party for his birthday, you invariably turn up.  You hand off a wrapped gift to the birthday boy, give him a hug, call him an asshole in an affectionate tone.  

Then you wander over to the kitchen and mix yourself a drink before wandering into a deeper part of the house.

Benny clocks you the moment you arrive.  

He snags another beer first, then turns to Henderson.  Talks about the Lakers prospects, and he doesn’t talk to you until later.

-----

He’s the one who finds you.  

Z has a partially finished basement, half-assed and pulled together from weekend home improvement projects.  Benny goes to the basement to use the bathroom there—a narrow powder room with uneven drywall joins—and he finds you perched on the couch in the corner, watching TV alone.

“Magalon!” you call out when you catch sight of him descending the steps.

You always smile so broadly at him that he can’t help but smile back, and he’s a man who hates smiling so wide.  It makes his eyes squint shut, makes two dimples appear on his cheeks.  Hardly the picture of the stoic, tough detective he works so hard to portray.

“You hiding down here?” he asks.

“Nope, just wanted to sit and relax.”  A beat.  “You hiding?”

He jerks his chin in the direction of the bathroom, and you nod at him.

“Well, if you want to hide out a bit after you’re done, I can spare you some of this couch real estate.”

“I don’t want to intrude.”

You grin at him again.  “Not at all.  You sit with me, I’ll tell you some embarrassing stories about Z to blackmail him with, okay?”

He chuckles, shakes his head.  Goes to the bathroom and catches his own smile in the mirror as he washes his hands.  You grinning at him, asking him to sit with you in the quiet of the basement for a bit.

What a dumb thing to get excited about, yet he does.

-----

He goes upstairs to get you both drinks, then he comes back and joins you on the couch.  The two of you watch the channel it’s already on, some show about ghost hunters that is funnier than it is scary.

You ask how he’s doing, how work is going.  He asks the same of you, and you shrug and tell him that you’re working an unsolved from 1983.

The two of you fall into a long stretch of silence, which is comfortable enough.  You’re an easy person to just sit with, and you seem comfortable enough with him.  He likes that about you too.  Big Nick is one of those chatty assholes who can’t let a moment of silence lie, so Benny isn’t exactly used to parties where he can just sit and let the quiet surround him, he can relax a little, let his guard slip just a fraction—

“So I guess people don’t just make out anymore, huh?” you ask, breaking the silence.  “They just skip straight to hooking up now?”

He’s got his beer halfway to his mouth, but he pauses.  His brain spins uselessly like a wheel in mud, struggling to get unstuck.

“Huh?” he asks.

“Like on dates.”  You turn your head and look at him.  “There’s no, like…step progression.  Don’t people do the bases anymore?  First base is making out, second base is groping over the clothes…people just get straight to full-on fucking, I guess.”

He clears his throat and tries to play it cool.  “Isn’t second base hand stuff?”

“No, that’s third base.”

He shakes his head with a chuckle.  “Third base is oral.”

“No, I…”  You trail off, furrow your brow in thought.  “I thought oral was part of a home run.”

“Maybe you learned it different.  Maybe it’s one of those regional differences across the U.S.”

You laugh, elbow him lightly.  “Yeah, that’s how you can tell who grew up where.  This person calls it soda, this person calls it pop, this person considers giving head third base.”

He chuckles again, but Christ, this is worse than every other time he’s interacted with you, those few handfuls of moments where you chatted and joked around.  This is worse—this is you talking about dating, saying the phrases full-on fucking and giving head, which of course takes his mind right there, imagining what it would be like to full-on fuck you, to stretch you out on his bed and see what sounds you might make, how you might taste, how it would feel to…

Your laughter trails off, and you shrug a little sheepishly.

“I didn’t know how bleak the dating scene was,” you tell him.

He’s surprised but he hides it.  “What happened to the Hollywood guy?”

Another shrug.  “Didn’t work out.”

“So now you’re dating…”

Another light laugh, only tinged in the faintest bitterness.  “Yeah, and I didn’t realize that there’s no making out, there’s no art of seduction or anticipation anymore.  It’s just….oh, let me buy you a drink and then we can fuck.  Oh, you don’t fuck on the first date?  How about a blow job then?”

It doesn’t make him hard, of course, but there’s definite interest in that quarter.  You swear rarely, and he’s never heard you talk so frankly about sex, yet here you are, and Benny’s dick twitches at the thought of you doing all of those things, the thought of your clever mouth open in front of him, his dick sliding along your tongue…

There’s also definite jealousy.  Protectiveness.  Irritation, at Z.  Why the fuck didn’t Zapata tell him you were single?  He even picked up lunch for the asshole the past few days because the man was underwater on his paperwork.

“And you want to just make out on the first date?” he asks.  He takes a sip of his beer, glances at you as he does.

“Ideally.  I mean…as a guy, do you really want to get right to sex?”

He snorts.  “As a guy, yes.”

“Don’t be a stereotype, Magalon,” you reply with a grin.  “C’mon.”

“What?  If I had to choose between making out and fucking, of course I’m going to choose fucking.  No contest.”

You turn and face him on the couch, your expression earnest.  “But isn’t that half the fun of a new relationship?  The potential?  Having a make out session, then going home and having that butterflies-in-the-stomach anticipation?  Doesn’t it make the second date that much better?”

“Counterpoint, though.  You can fuck on the first date and then…get this, fuck on the second date too.”

You scoff at him, roll your eyes and turn away.  “The art of seduction has been lost, I guess.  I’ve been out of the game so long, no one told me.”

You fix your gaze on the T.V., but Benny can see the frown on your face.  He has a million questions about the Hollywood guy, about the disappointing dates you’ve been on.  He wonders who broke up with who and has to assume—given Z’s praising of your loyalty—that you were the one to get dumped.  

He also hates to see you frowning like this.  He knows you aren’t mad at him, but you’re lost in some unhappy thoughts, it seems, and Benny wants to pull you out of them, cheer you up—

“I get it,” he murmurs quietly after a long few moments of no talking.  “Making out on the first date is like…extended foreplay.”

It has its intended affect.  You turn and shoot him that grin that makes him feel like a million dollars.  “Yes!  Exactly!  You get it, Magalon.”

The thread dies off, and the two of you turn back to the T.V., and your frown is gone.  You finish out one ghost hunting show, start a second, and Benny’s mind is roiling with a million thoughts.  You’re finally fucking single, and you’re over your breakup enough to be dating, and he’s single, and he’s been waiting for this moment, never thought it would come—

“So, you wanna make out now?” he asks, and if you’re shocked, you hide it well.  You give him that cocked head, that smile…then you reply, “absolutely.”

-----

Benny’s ashamed to admit that he might be part of your problem with the L.A. dating pool:  he hasn’t just made out with a person for a very long time.  Maybe even since high school.  He’s not pushy, he doesn’t think, but he was honest with you:  of course he’d prefer to progress straight to the bedroom as soon as he can.  

This…this is something else.  

There’s the first kiss, how you turn shy for the briefest of moments, how he bridges the gap between you, and how the first kiss is sweet—chaste, closed mouths.  Testing the waters.  You recently single and disappointed by your future prospects, him a little stunned he has this moment with you after low-key crushing on you for years.

Then there’s how it progresses.  The shy moment that fades as you get more comfortable with him.  Your hands lightly rest on his shoulders to start, but as you each warm up to each other, they drift to cup the back of his head, to cup the side of his face.  He behaves with his own hands, keeps it gentlemanly:  one on your waist, one moving between your back, your face.

The rest of the world falls away.  The murmur of the T.V. and the low roar of the party upstairs, the slightly musty smell of the basement…it all falls away as Benny warms up to the feeling of making out with you.

It’s an awkward position at first:  the two of you sitting on the couch, twisted towards each other, but as the awkwardness melts away, Benny guides you into his lap and you straddle him eagerly, without an ounce of seeming reserve.  He catches your smile, soft, slightly stunned, before you lower your head to kiss him again.

He tries to keep it gentlemanly.  He really does.  It’s just…there’s only so many places he can settle his hands without being forward, and it’s easy to lose his head in this moment.  The feel of your lips against his, your tongue licking against his mouth, the sweet little groans you make, the pleased sighs.  

And that’s just your fucking mouth.  Your own hands stick to the tame places, but fuck if it doesn’t set his nerves alit with sensation when you tangle your fingers in his hair and tug against him gently, or when you knead at the tightly bunched muscles at the base of his neck, or when you grip his bicep as you turn to catch your breath.

Which is all nothing compared to the perfect weight of you in his lap, a few tantalizing inches away from where he’s grown hard, but so fucking close, if he could just put his hands on your hips and draw you a little bit closer….

He doesn’t.  He doesn’t do that.  You’ve set him up for a home run, no pun intended.  You’ve lobbed an absolute softball over the plate at him, complained about every other asshole in Los Angeles and given him the exact template to winning the way to your heart.  Benny may want you, but he wants you for more than this moment, so he plays it exactly as you want it.

“This okay?” he asks, his voice low.  You broke away again to catch your breath, and he gazes up at you as you do.  Takes in your pupils, so wide they make your eyes glitter black in the low light of the basement.  Takes in your swollen lips, rubbed clean of the lip balm you had been wearing, a little chapped now.

“This okay for you?” you counter.

He smooths his hands over your arms and down your back, settles them on your waist.  “Feel like I’m in high school, making out when my parents aren’t home.”

You smile at him, reach out and lightly pinch his cheek.  “I bet you were adorable in high school, Magalon.”

He scoffs.  “I was not adorable.  I was tough.”

“No, you were probably so cute.  You probably grew out your goatee and got that neck tattoo to try and prove how not-cute you are, but you failed and—”

He cuts you off, cuts off your teasing by pushing you off of him, swiveling you onto the couch and stretching out over you, and you make a squeal of surprise before he seals his mouth over yours and cuts it off.

And for the briefest of seconds, he worries that he’s overplayed his hand, that he’s misread your teasing as more than it is, but you wrap your arm around his neck and hold him to you, and he realizes that you may be struggling to keep it at first base too.

It's so close to falling apart.  Making out with you like this is torture, and Benny finds himself settled in the cradle of your spread thighs, finds how easy it is to grind against you, and it must do something for you too because you figure out his gentle rhythm and press back against him.

Your breathing quickens.  Your sweet little moans draw out, get louder, and it is like being back in high school because Benny feels like he’s on a hair trigger, that he could come just like this as if he were a horny teenager again.  You must feel the same—he has far more experience now than he did in high school, and he knows you must be getting close too, judging by the desperate way you kiss him, the way you grind back against him and how you wrap one leg around his own, holding him there—

What a fucking rush.  It makes Benny feel amazing, makes him puff his chest out in pride as he throttles the kissing down and as he stops grinding against you.  Every instinct tells him to keep going—keep grinding against you just so, dragging and pushing the clothed bulge of his cock against you, the friction enough to push you over the edge, but you hadn’t wanted that…

Benny stills, and he presses a gentle kiss to your swollen lips before he pulls away and sits up.  

And he’s rewarded by the most blatant look of disappointment and longing on your face before you sit up too.

“You didn’t have to stop,” you mutter, and you sound a bit petulant but you’re smiling too, so he reaches out and kisses you lightly again.

“Isn’t this half the fun, though?” he teases, turning your words back against you.  “Won’t it make the second date that much better?”

You laugh.  “Does this count as a first date?”

“I got you a drink earlier,” he points out reasonably.  “Even if I didn’t technically pay for it.”

Another laugh, and you stand up, straighten out your shirt.  You reach out and pat him on the cheek, and you bend your head to kiss him—soft but lingering, and he fights the urge to tug you back down to him.

“Still a better first date then I’ve had in a while,” you grin down at him.  “Give me a call if you want to set up a second one, okay?”

You weren’t wrong earlier—he’s got that fluttery feeling in his stomach, like he’s on a rollercoaster and hitting the hills and dips hard.  He hasn’t had that in a while.  It’s the feeling of anticipation after all.  He watches as you walk over to the stairs and start to make your way back to the party, but then he calls out, “I don’t have your number.”

You don’t turn around; you only call over your shoulder.  “We both work for the sheriff’s department, Magalon.  You can look me up.”  A beat.  “Or ask Z for my number.  He’s been in my ear about you for months, you know.”