#Wrote this while dealing with a week long headache

[onestepbackwards]

Perhaps..an idea or request. There’s so little of this, but I genuinely want to see an Enemies to Lovers trope when it comes to the Subway Bosses. Like how would it go down??? Would we come onto the Battle Subway just to fight them every chance we can get, bragging rights to taunts, but it slowly turns to rather flirtatious teases in a way?? I feel like this would be more fitting for Emmet especially with that ego of his. :’] Ingo, on the other hand, mild at most. He might be annoyed at times, but he might find it slowly endearing and at one point, concerned? You can do SFW or NSFW with this. Up to you.

It would be so interesting 👀

Overall, both the Subway Bosses would still be rather respectful. Their customer service is some of the best in the region, as is their intolerance to truly hateful people.

But that doesn't mean they can't get snarky or let a thing slip here or there. Or engage in some playful taunts and ribbing here and there.

It's never too much or crossing a line, but it's usually after you say something first to egg them on.

Emmet would be one to have sharper retorts to your taunts. He may not speak as much or as loudly as his brother, but his words have an edge to them that only have you eager to win even more.

You'd even compare his tongue to that of a knife with how his own taunts can cut deep.

Make no mistake, he's as focused as ever.

Ingo is much more reserved, and holds back from falling for your egging and bait.

But its clear your words get to him. How the frown on his face twitches slightly as you taunt him.

Instead of upsetting him though, the corner of his mouth briefly twitches upward, and you get the distinct feeling you are about to get swept.

Of course, you learn from your mistakes, and go in next time, a new set of taunts ready, and your team ready to go.

Regardless of which twin you see first, if not both, they both give you a look of recognition.

Emmet even throws the first words.

"I am Emmet, and you have returned. Perhaps you learned something this time?"

His words would sting, if you didn't see the excited look on his face.

Of course, the result is the same as last time. But you vow to make him work for it the next time you challenge him!

With Ingo, he's still as polite as ever, giving you a similar greeting this time.

Though he does call out your previous attitude.

"Though perhaps, am I to expect the same taunts as last time? I hope you have some new material to work with."

Ingo almost gives you a chance at least, before utterly obliterating your team.

You leave their trains, defeated once again. Though before you go, you swear to them you'll be back, stronger than ever.

Emmet has a gleam in his eyes, hoping you keep your promise. Ingo tells you he can't wait to see it in action one day.

It continues that way for a while, you show up, one or the other throws some taunts, and you usually end up leaving in defeat.

That is, until you finally start getting close to winning. For once, you actually are making them have to work for the win.

The Battle Subway definitely was great training for you in the long run. Not just your encounters with each Subway Boss. The continuous battles to even get to them had you trying new strategies and coming up with things on the fly.

And finally, after weeks of trying, you do it.

You win.

You win.

Regardless who it's against, even if its against both, you are surprised by the look of pure glee that ends up on their faces.

Emmet's face practically lights up as he rushes over to you.

"Very impressive! Verrrry impressive indeed!" He says, and reaches over to shake your hand. His excitement catches you off guard. If anything, you were expecting... maybe a good job at best? Or a snide remark?

Ingo is very similar, even if he isn't as expressive when you beat him. He approaches you, his footsteps loud as he crosses the train car to you.

"BRAVO! SUPER BRAVO!!"

His voice has you nearly jumping, and you can practically feel the joy in his voice.

He doesn't even seem a lick upset, even after all the battles you have had, roasting one or the other.

Of course, despite the sudden praise, it hits you why they are so excited the next time they speak after handing you... a pass?

"Congratulations! You now qualify for the Super Trains!"

And in that moment, it hits you.

They had been going easy on you this whole time.

...

Though as you end up leaving the train in a daze...

A part of you felt warm that your bitter rivals were so excited to see you succeed and have a chance at doing this song and dance even more.

[mochinomnoms]

Please share the lewd interspecies romance.

Okay so mostly I have thoughts over the Octavinelle trio, especially the twins 🫣 but i wrote a lil something for most of them! also this was not meant to be so long idk what happened

[tags] - nsfw, AFAB-implied reader, but written gender-neutral, mentions of ruts/heats, breeding, etc

nsfw under read-more, minors DNI!

If you really compare humans to the nonhuman population of Twisted Wonderland, there's are some small physiological differences between species. Fae, surprisingly, don't differ from humans all too much. Land dwellers in general don't have anything too significant, though all of nonhuman species retain aspects of their animal counterparts.

Most of Savanaclaw goes through some sort of rut/heat during various times in the year, primarily early spring and summer. There's no logical reason for them to retain that aspect of their mating cycle anymore, not for a sentient species that have skills of logic and reasoning. Unfortunately, they didn't get to choose how their evolution worked, and so they have to deal with it in anyway they can.

They get a lot more irritable, they have throbbing headaches, their abdomen hurts, and the scent of their mate is a lot more enticing than normal. Jack probably has it the worst of them, as a wolf beastmen. Not only does he have to deal with a fever-inducing rut that will put him out of commission for a week, afterwards he has to deal with the a/b/o jokes from his classmates too, oh the horror. It is really a horror though when he's able to bend you over his bed, bite marks aligned your neck and back as his dick pounds into you till his knot swells and locks you in for at least an hour. Jack's incredibly embarrassed afterwards, though he manages to be incredibly sweet even after rearranging your guts. Wolf beastmen are one of the most affectionate partners to have with a reputation providing some of the best aftercare for their species. It's most likely to make up for their week-long copulation, stretching and tiring out their sweet little mates. Ooooh, but they'll so very sweet: cleaning up the sticky mess of fluids between your legs with their tongue, careful to not overstimulate you (unless you ask), tending to the mating mark they placed on the back of your neck with soft kisses and licks, and making sure to prop your lower half up to that your chances of taking their seed increases.

Lacking the annual rut/heat that other variants of beastmen have, lion and hyena beastmen are more similar is this regard, as they don't have the same issue of long copulations as wolf beastmen. Neither will initiate sex, rather they'll rely on their mates to do so. Ruggie, in particular, is rather reluctant initiating sex, as male hyenas are typically more submissive, so if you're shy you'll have to get over it. But once you do, Ruggie is ever so happy to service you if you're happy to give him praise. Run your hands through his hair and ears as he eats you out, he'll let out the cutest whimpers and groans as you do. Just, expect to be jellyboned by the time he's done with you, as a hyena he needs to make sure his mate won't snip back at him and you can't exactly do that if your fucked out. While he may not have the same stamina as Jack for week-long fuck session, he has a particularly short refractory period and can have several short sessions in a single night.

Leona also won't typically initiate sex on his own, it happens very sporadically, and he his the image of the lazy lion. While he never wants to do anything particularly extraneous, who is he to deny you needs? You'll have to do some preparing though, as while the barbs on his dick aren't as bad as they are in his animal variant, they will hurt if you're not wet and pliable enough. Be sure to sit on his face, don't worry you won't suffocate him and it's better you cum a few times first before taking him. Unless you want it to hurt? Once you've cum enough times, you can ride him to your heart's content. He only asks that you don't mention how he rubs his head into the crook of your neck, marking you so that if everyone couldn't tell by the sounds coming from his room, they'd know you're his from his scent. Lions are quite protective with their territory and pride after all.

Merfolk have the most extreme physiological differences between them and...any land dweller really. It comes with the territory of being suited for a completely different environment. They also behave a lot more similarly to their animal counterparts, which can be both delicious and exhausting for their humans.

Moray eels don't have a set time of the year they mate, but rather the water must be warm and plenty of food must be ready to provide to their mate. When the spring time weather above the sea starts transitioning from crisp to blazing, don't be too surprised when the twins start handfeeding you meals and snacks throughout the week, they want to make sure you're happy and full for them, getting you in the mood with a sweet, dizzying underwater dance to initiate until they get the okay from you. What's that 'okay' though? You know that yawning I mentioned before? You'll get your answer from them now, as they take your open mouth yawn as an invitation rather than a sign of tiredness. Floyd, in particular, is ready to drag you into the deep part of the pool before remembering that you need to breathe somehow. Not a problem. He'll keep your pretty head above water. You'll still have trouble breathing as his long tapered tongue worms his way in your mouth. No matter, you'll be gasping for breath as he bullies this cock into your hole, large enough that you can physically feel the bump on your stomach. Morays are awfully fond of wrapping themselves around their mates, seeing as Floyd will do his best to tangle his tail around your body and squeezing you as you squeeze down his dick. He loves the physical contact between you two, and is amused how your nails try to dig into his shoulders seeing as the mucus on his skin makes it near impossible to have a steady grasp. You're completely dependent on Floyd as you drool and cry out for relief from the overstimulation, which is oh so ever exciting.

Jade is equally as cruel when it comes to mating. Unlike the others, merfolk tend to mate with the intention to, well, mate. He prefers you to be soft and pliant for him, as well as wholly depending as you two fuck. So, he'll happily brew you a water-breathing potion so he can actually drag you into the deep, where he found a secluded, warm grotto that will allow him to keep you to himself for hours, but close enough to the surface that he can continuously grab you food to eat between sessions. Not that those sessions will be short either. Like his brother, Jade is content to wrap himself around your body as he cooed honeyed words into your ears about how you'll make a wet, warm, soft hole for breeding. It's not like he'll have to do much either, his dick is prehensile and he can wrap himself around you, swiping kisses and nuzzling into the crook of your very sensitive neck while his thick cock continuously pounds into you with a bruising pace. He's so mean!! He likes seeing you cry from overstimulation too, and Jade will continuously scoot down to clean you up with his tongue, only to claim that too much of his seed was gone and he needed to fill you up again for another few hours. He's truly quite incorrigible, especially when he bites into your neck and shoulders to make his claim on you. Don't worry, most morays' bites aren't venomous, and even if they are, you have him to care for you. You're going to be depending on him in the water anyway, so there's no need to worry about it too much.

Something that neither probably won't mention, probably because they won't realize it's something you should know, is that they can change their sex under the right conditions. If you're ever so inclined in the future to test the waters out, the twins might be so generous to let you eat them out instead.

Of the trio, Azul's the only one with an established mating season, two actually: one in the late spring and the other in the early fall. Respectively, one during finals and the other during orientation. He's already so incredibly stressed, and he has the need to breed too? Downright atrocious. It's wonderful that you're so kind that he can take refuge in you and use you like a new octopot, so tell him how pretty he is and how much you love him and only him, so that you have the privilege fucking his merform. The moment you're entering the water, he'll unconsciously display mating signals by flashing soft lilacs and blues, a beautiful display of his need for you. He's rather large, even bigger than the twins, in his merform, so you'll need preparation as well; have no fear, his tentacles are wrapping and kneading the squishiest parts of you. I mentioned before that he can taste the salt on your skin and pulse through your wrist via his suckers. He can taste the slick from your walls, too, without even having to use his mouth as the suckers massage you from the inside. If you'd like, he technically could give you a full flavor profile afterward, though he'll probably be a bit mortified to do so. The biggest difference is his dick, or lack thereof. Instead of a dick, Azul has a hectocotylus, which is a modified, slightly shorter arm of his with a thicker spade-shaped tip that he can practically rearrange your guts with, with little effort on his part really. Most octo-mer variants will keep their mate at a distance, eons of instinct hard to forget. Azul's variant, though, will keep you close, almost dancing with you in a sweet, sensual twirl as he places sweet kissing and bites on your neck, arms, and chest. Octopi are, in fact, venomous, however, so you will be feeling a bit of a lustful high, paralyzed, and a bit helpless to the whims of a needy octopus. He's quite good at aftercare though, making sure you get an antidote and handfeeding you calorie-rich snacks to energize you back up (again, he's aware that you won't eat him, but instinct dictates that he keeps you full with both food and cum to make you a happy mate).

*collapses into heap on floor* thoughts....full.....ahahaha breeding kink go burrrrr. i was not meant to write this much and then it escaped me. also i hate tagging

[heartpiratedrabbles]

Overly Cautious

Prompt: Katakuri comes back from a mission to learn you're pregnant despite never wanting to be a father.

Requested by anonymous

Katakuri X Fem Reader

Katakuri had been sent on a mission to retrieve something, leaving you alone, having you stand in as the Minister of Flour while he was away. Everything was going well; you had done this plenty of times in the past. But some of the workers had noticed you not eating as much, you’d wave them off without a concern. The concern really came when a cake was being made and just the smell of it made you want to vomit.

         You couldn’t hide it from anyone, you were in the middle of a meeting about the upcoming tea party and what pastries would be served. Everyone forced you to see a doctor, no one wanting to deal with the wrath of your husband if he got back to find you sick.

         And that’s how you ended up in the ward, a doctor running tests and looking you over. Much to your dismay numerous curious eyes also making sure you wouldn’t leave this forced appointment. “And when was the last time you were sexually active?” The question threw you off guard, nearly spitting out the tea that you had been allowed to drink.

You’re face burning red as you whip your head around to look at those who had forced you here. None of them dared to make eye-contact with you, some whistling while looking off in a random direction. They tried to protest when you kicked them out, but you refused to discuss such things in front of so many people. Once the door was finally closed the doctor, who was not too amused asked the question again. “It’s been a little a while, 7 or 8 weeks I think,” Thinking back to the last intimate night you had with Katakuri, he’d been so busy lately that it’d had been longer than normal.

The doctor wrote some notes down and continued with other questions before doing some blood tests. You sat back, expecting this to be a simple flu. That would give you a headache, you’d be forced to bedrest as to not spread it and not slow down progress. The doctor padded his way back into the room, flipping through the papers reading the results of everything he had tested for. “Well, it seems as though you’re pregnant.”

         You took the rest of the day off to think about things. Katakuri had adamantly told you he didn’t want children. He didn’t want to pass down his genes in fear of what could happen, you understood his concerns and agreed to not try. And while you were sexually active, contraceptions were used at every avenue, Birth Control, Condoms, Spermicide, even a Plan B if there was a thought of something going wrong.

         Katakuri would be getting back from his mission in a couple days, so it’s best to just wait until then. Can’t be announcing things like this. As much as you’d prefer to sweep this under the rug, Big Mom was someone who didn’t partake in abortions, wanting a large family and everything, it’d be counter-productive in her mind. So as much as you wanted too, you’d have to go to a different island, and that included having Katakuri with you to avoid Big Mom’s gaze.

         But your plans changed quickly, despite clearly telling the Doctor to keep the news secret, the next day you arrived to the office with banners and some tastefully small cakes. Cards going around with small gifts as though it was common place to celebrate so early on. You tried to get them to calm down, but everyone was overjoyed that their leader finally had an heir on the way.

~~~

         Katakuri stared off into the distance, leaning against the wall as the ship got closer to their homeland. It had been a pointless mission, delivering a letter to a foreign country, demanding there be talks of a marriage. He hated being away from Komugi island for too long, from his normal job as the Minister of Flour. There he’d at least be able to relax a little bit more than normal, and when he was with you, he could let his guard down completely. Trusting you to cover for him or tell him if someone was coming. Being on a ship where he refused to lay down in fear of prying eyes had taken a toll on him, no matter how short the trip was.

         As the ship docked some of his administrators found him, happy as ever with large smiles. He wasn’t listening too much to their words of congratulations, assuming it was just words on finishing the mission, he just wanted to make it home so he could finally sleep on his back.

         As he was bidding farewell to those around him, one of them said something rather confusing, “Ah, tell Y/N that the mid-wife will be around to talk to her next week. I forgot to let her know earlier.” A mid-wife? For his Wife? Katakuri swallowed the lump in his throat, reasoning that it had to have been due to some unforeseen baby boom in the town.

         But as he passed through the halls of his home, he noticed servants scurrying about more than normal. All with excited faces, some with parcels in their hands. It wasn’t until he got to your room pushing the door open to see you sitting at your tea table, a hand rubbing your forehead, “If it’s another gift then send it back. How many times do I need to tell you all to keep this quiet.” Your tired voice brushing past him while you waved your hand, not even looking in the direction of the door.

         You heard the door close and let out a heavy sigh, looking to the already inconvenient pile of baby toys, clothes, and furniture that people of the island had pushed onto you. Nobody in this god forsaken town could keep quiet, which would make things so much harder, if Big Mom got word of this, you were more than certain you wouldn’t be able to pass off a random miscarriage without her knowing the truth.

         “What is all this?” You jumped a bit, hearing your husbands voice. You never even got word of his arrival to the island, much less that he had already come home.

         “We need to talk.” You voice was serious as you looked over at him, he was staring down at you unmoving. “Why not sit down?” He stayed still, crossing his arms for an explanation and you sighed again, this wasn’t normal for him, but you were already too tired to deal with it.

         Your sigh caused Katakuri to take another step further, “I get that you must be doing some fundraiser or gala. But you shouldn’t have these donations in here.” You spit out your drink, looking up at you’re normally smart husband.

         “Excuse me?” The silence as he stares at you hit you hard, “You think I’m doing a fundraiser? And you think all these stupid things are donations? Is that really what you think?!” Your annoyance peeking through clearly. First the news got, then the storm of gifts, and now even your husband seems to be getting on your nerves. “Katakuri I’m pregnant.” You shake your head, stating it out right was best in these types of situations, “So, might I suggest you sit down so we can talk abou-“

         “Your idea of a joke is awful Y/N,” He walks over to the neat stacks of gifts, all of which you were sending back when you got the chance, “I mean really? You think staging some baby items is enough to convince me? This prank is in bad taste.” His regal voice showed no sign of joking and it made you more frustrated than you already were.

         “This isn’t a joke,” You were getting another headache but the subtle glare he shot you made it clear he wasn’t going to listen, “You know what? You just got home, why don’t you rest? I’ll send these gifts back in the meantime.”

~~~

         The next day Katakuri came to his office looking a little more refreshed and prepared for the day. He sits down in the confines of the space and starts looking through the reports, “It seems you fell a little behind while I was away. Why?” His smooth tone showing you he was ignoring everything you said the day prior.

         You had expected something like this to happen so you put the paper with the test result in front of him. “You’re lovely administers made me go to the doctors after some sickness.” His eyes scanned the paper, reading every detail until you could tell he landed on the prognosis. “I’m about 2 months along.”

         Katakuri sucks in his breath, you can tell by the twist of his eyebrow that this isn’t going to be fun, deciding to sit on the couch while you wait for his response.

Honestly, you barely had time to process this all yourself, being pushed and pulled everywhere by workers. The only time you had time to think for yourself was late at night when people thought you’d be sleeping. The first night you had spent just staring into the darkness that was the room trying to figure out the situation. Truly, you could relate to what Katakuri was probably going through.

         You two never planned on being parents. You vehemently discussed avoiding parenthood the natural way, maybe adopting if you’re mother-in-law became pushy. The thing you wanted most right now was a glass of whiskey, but for clear reasons you couldn’t get one. Your body felt so tense since finding out, your muscles aching from the lack of relaxing.

You were hoping that your husband would be the one to make sense of it for you, but seeing how he’s reacted so far, he was in the same boat as you. It stung, your heart dropping slightly as you put on this front of neutrality. But it was the best you could do, if you didn’t maintain this semblance of control over yourself, you felt like you’d break down.

Finally, your husband spoke, although his words didn’t make you feel any better. If anything, it caused you to go further into the downward spiral that was your mind, “Well then whose is it?” His voice was dipped in venom but maintained a single tone, “If you wanted a kid so bad, we could have adopted.”

You bit your tongue, staring at the floor in front of you. He waited a couple second for a response but you couldn’t bring any words to come out before he continued, “You didn’t have to go behind my back like this.” His even tone made every muscle in your body tense more than they already were.

A knock at the door caught both of your attentions, yet your body was still tightly wound as you got up, opening the door to let whoever it was in. Someone with a bunch of papers and a wide smile looked back at you and you ushered them in while brushing your way out of the suffocating room.

Offering small smiles to those you passed as you hurried away from the situation. It was only after you had gotten to a small reading room and locked the door behind you that you slid down onto the floor. Your room was too far away and this was unused enough that no one would come looking here. A hand pressed against your stomach while the other tangled itself in your hair, gripping tightly to feel anything other than the heavy emotions that have flowed through you for days now.

You haven’t let anyone know of your own feelings on this matter, other than wanting to keep it on the down low, everyone assuming it was so you could Katakuri yourself, and yet somehow that one single voiced wish hadn’t come true. The entire island singing praise and you were the center of their attention.

You began panting, your throat swelling up making it hard to grasp at air, feeling your body start to shake. Even Katakuri wasn’t willing to listen. This has to be a lot for him, but I thought he loved me. Your body curling in on itself, the hand in your hair running down to grip at the back of your neck while your nails dug into your stomach. He even suggested I had cheated on him, found another man. The thought itself made you sick to your stomach, your heart beat drowning out any noise around you, and eyes squeezing shut as the world got darker around you. Am I just an object to everyone? You tried, and failed at opening your mouth, attempting to get any air to fill your compressed lungs. The beating of your heart the only reminder of that you were in fact alive.

~~~        

         Katakuri was walking down the hallways. Every time he passed someone who worked with you, he’d ask the same questions. All of them similar stories that made his heart twist with worry, and yet when he went looking for you, you were nowhere to be found. It had been hours since you disappeared from his office without a second glance, the thought of how you left was now hurting him, now that he’s had time to calm down and truly think about everything.

         Since no one could find you, he was the person that people were bringing presents too, all of which he ushered to be sent wherever you had put them, some people asking if he had seen you so they could ask more questions. He hadn’t even been back a full day and yet he was overwhelmed with so much. Stalking back to your bedroom, assuming that could be his one quiet place, maybe even find you again to try and have a conversation about everything.

         His heart jumped into his throat thinking about it, you had been trying to talk to him this entire time and each attempt was met with malice. You were so patient, letting him voice his hate and distrust. Watching you sit on the couch silently, neither confirming nor denying allegations said to you, though your knuckles turned white in your lap. But what else could he think? With every safeguard the two of you had put into place, how else could you had ended up with a child growing inside of you? Walking into your shared room he looked around, the pile of gifts in the corner seemingly doubled in size from previously in the day.         

Yet still, there wasn’t a sign of you anywhere. Katakuri paced a bit, looking for any sign that you had been here after leaving him earlier. But there wasn’t a single thing out of place or used compared to this morning. The realization that no one has seen you for most of the day hitting him with a cold sweat as he calls for security

[myseungsunglove]

When darkness comes, you’re always there | Ksm

Pairing: Seungmin x Reader

Warnings: angsty feelings with fluffy comfort

Word Count: 1.9k

Summary: It's been one of those days where your demons win every argument. Beat you down and remind you how worthless you are. There’s only one person who offers any solace when you get this lost and that's Kim Seungmin.

A/N: I had a really rough day on the day I wrote this. Like colossally shitty. I spent the better half of it crying alone in bed wishing I had something like this. So, as my own form of therapy, I wrote.

◠ ◡ ◠᭚ιαᵕ̈

Feedback Welcome

「© August 1, 2023 by myseungsungheart」

Some days you lose yourself and can’t remember how to get back to the light. The darkness consumes you, swallows you whole, and you’re certain you’ll be lost forever.

Today is one of those days. Seungmin has been home late every night this week, and today your brain decided it was the perfect time to wage war on you. It’s a full on assault and you find yourself defenseless and spiraling before you even know what hit you. Every horrible and self deprecating thought you’ve ever had seems to be joining the party. You’re sure you must be a nuisance to everyone around you. The boys, even Seungmin. You convince yourself that that’s why he has been coming home at three in the morning, so he doesn’t have to deal with you. Your polluted mind is certain this must be the truth and the reality that Seungmin is busy preparing numerous events for STAY can’t break through the dark lies that your brain is weaving so intricately.

You haven’t crawled out of the bed, drank water, or eaten a thing today. It’s nearing 10 pm at this point. The rational side of you knows the lack of food and water only compounds the problem and the intense feelings you’re experiencing, but rational you is not in charge today. You curl up into yourself, blankets wrapped tightly around your shoulders and up over your head, seeking solace in puppy m and sob. You’ve sobbed for hours without relenting at this point, and you wonder briefly just how much more liquid could come out of a person who is as dehydrated as you currently must be.

At some point you fall asleep, exhausted from the emotional turmoil of the day.

Something wakes you around 1, but you don’t really register it in your sleepy haze. You're hit with an enormous headache from the lack of any kind of nutrients for the better part of 24 hours and you realize that you’re still alone in bed. No Seungmin. The tears are flowing once more and you’re sure you’ve turned into a never ending water fountain at this point.

Your sobs are pathetic, racking your entire exhausted body. They aren’t loud, but they are mournful. You hadn’t fallen into a hole like this in a while. Seungmin kept you grounded in reality, but he’d been gone so much lately you had nothing to grab onto.

You feel the bed dip, the blanket lifting from your back as a body slides in behind you, arms sliding around your waist. Seungmin. He pulls you back firmly against his chest, his knees slotted in behind yours, his face burying in your neck.

“Shhh baby, I’m here,” he whispers. The pain and worry in his voice are evident. “How long have you been like this?” he asks, brushing your hair to the side and kissing you softly behind the ear. When you don’t respond, only sob harder, he squeezes you tight. “Did something happen?” he questions.

“No,” you choke out. “I’m just worthless is all,” you manage between sobs. “So annoying you don’t even want to come home,” you cry, curling more into yourself.

“What? Why would you ever think that?” Seungmin asks, genuine hurt in his voice.

You roll over then, and his hand moves to your chin, lifting your eyes to his.

“Baby, you know I’m direct. If I ever felt those things, the words would come out of my mouth. And they haven’t. Ever. Not once. Because they’re not true,” he pleads, his eyes darting back and forth between yours. “I know I’ve been working so late because of all the preparations for STAY, and I've managed to miss the signs that the most important person in my life is spiraling,” he says, clearly beating himself up. “I’m so sorry,” he chokes out, his lips pressing gently against yours as if he’s afraid he might break you with his touch.

The kiss sends a warmth through you that you haven’t felt all week, your arms moving to embrace him, snaking around his waist and onto his back to press him as close to you as possible. You want to melt into him because that feels like a safer place than your own toxic brain and body at the moment. He pulls away after several minutes of being glued to you, realizing how dry your lips are. He takes in your appearance, seeing the sheen of clammy sweat on your skin and pale color.

“Y/n, have you eaten or drank anything today?” he asks, his worry renewing as he looks into your eyes.

All you can manage is a broken sob and a small shake of your head as you hide from him and burrow into his chest.

“Shit, baby,” he curses, kissing your temple. He unwraps himself from you. When you whimper at the loss of his warmth he reassures you. “I’ll be right back, I promise,” he says, placing a chaste kiss on your lips and turning to leave the room.

He’s back quicker than you can fully register his absence, a water bottle filled with filtered water in hand. He puts out his hand, asking for yours, and you reluctantly take it and allow him to pull you into a sitting position. He sits beside you, handing you the bottle, his hand resting on your thigh, rubbing up and down soothingly.

“Drink,” he commands, leaving no room for discussion. You tentatively suck on the straw, the cool liquid hitting your throat and you groan a little at the relief it provides. Suddenly you realize the desert your body has become, and you're guzzling the water down. “Don’t make yourself sick,” he warns, noticing your reaction.

You slow down and pull away from the water bottle reluctantly, a small sigh emitting from you as you pull oxygen into your tired lungs.

“God I’m hungry,” you realize, your stomach now growling after the water intake. Your head is pounding from the abuse you’d put it through over the last 24 hours. You hated these spirals and what they did to you. You hated more that it made you feel like you had no control over anything.

“I’d imagine so. When’s the last time you ate jagiya?” Seungmin asks, no accusation in his voice, just concern.

“I honestly don’t remember,” you admit. “With you maybe,” you rack your brain. Yes, you had eaten breakfast with Seungmin yesterday morning. It had been at least 40 hours since you ate, you suddenly realized which immediately made the headache make sense.

“Goddamit,” Seungmin cursed, grabbing his phone from the night stand. “I can’t believe I let this happen. Fucking…” he trailed off as he typed furiously in his phone. You could see him beating himself up for the decisions you had made over the last two days.

“Seung, you didn’t let anything happen. I’m a grown woman. I should be able to take care of myself,” you said, your fingers on his chin pulling his gaze up to yours and momentarily away from his phone.

“I know that, but I needed to be here for you, and I wasn’t,” he growls, finishing whatever he was doing on his phone. “But that ends now. I just told Chan I needed a few days off. I need to be with you right now,” he says, his voice softening again.

“You don’t have to…” you stammered.

“I want to,” he says firmly, his hand reaching for yours and squeezing it. “Foods on its way too,” he adds, standing up, and pulling you along with him. “Let’s get you a shower before it gets here,” he encourages and you groan because you’re exhausted from the day’s emotions and also disgusting. “I’ll help,” he assures you, guiding you to the bathroom.

Seungmin is a perfect gentleman as he steps into the shower with you, taking care to wash your hair and body, no other agenda in mind tonight than to make sure you’re okay.

When he is finished and you’re rinsed and clean once more, he steps out of the shower, draping a towel around his hips, and grabbing yours. You take it from him and wrap it around you, tucking it under your arms. He leans in then and kisses you softly, his lips moving reverently against yours. His phone dings on the counter, signaling the arrival of your food.

“Ah, dinner. Finally,” he smiles down at his phone. “Get comfy and I’ll grab the food off the stoop,” he says as you walk out of the bathroom together. You throw on one of Seungmin’s t-shirts and a pair of his boxers and shuffle down the hall into the living room. Seungmin is setting out a shit ton of food when you pad in, looking up at you with a beaming smile on his face, and you momentarily wonder who delivers this late in the night.

“Babe, I’ll never eat all that,” you can’t help but laugh.

“I haven’t eaten since, hell, I can’t remember. I’m starving,” he chuckles.

You realize then just how busy he’s been if he hasn’t stuck to his pretty rigid schedule he keeps for himself and reality hits you as you allow yourself to understand it fully. The thoughts that consumed you earlier in the day and night are slowly losing their grip on you. You let out a sigh of relief.

“Go put on some clothes, Seung,” you say, bumping your hip against his and shooing him down the hall. “I’ll get us plates and chopsticks and something to drink,” you assure him, and he scurries down the hall, towel hanging from his hips and droplets of water still clinging to his broad back as his feet shuffle along the hardwood quickly. He’s gone no time at all, before he returns in a pair of black basketball shorts and a white t-shirt. Your tip toeing to get the plates and bowls down, and you feel him press against your back and reach up for them. He kisses your neck and moves to head back toward the living room.

“Let’s eat,” he says, smacking your ass gently and you playfully slap his hand away, your mood already much improved from Seungmin’s presence, the water, and the shower. It’s amazing how the simple act of taking care of your basic needs can shift your mentality. You grab a couple drinks from the fridge, chopsticks and a couple spoons from the drawer.

You both retreat into the living room, sitting on the floor by the table by the couch. Seungmin plates your food for you, knowing all the things you like and hands it to you before loading up his own. He smiles happily at you as he digs in.

“Now, I’m all yours for the next three days baby,” he smiles before taking a bite. “Let’s sort that pretty little head of yours out, and I promise I won’t miss something like this again,” he vows, chastising himself.

“Seung,” you start, but he shakes his head.

“Let me do this, okay y/n?” he practically pleads. He needs to take care of you. It’s like it’s coded into his dna or something.

“Of course, jagiya,” you smile, leaning across the table and kissing him quickly.

You're so thankful you have Kim Seungmin in your life. He’s grounded you back to reality many times before and you’ve done the same for him in his times of doubt. You weren’t sure how you got so damn lucky, but you’d thank whatever god you needed to over and over again to keep your Seungmin.

Tags: @krishastumblernow @ohish

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 15, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 16, 2024

Three years ago today, President Joe Biden signed into law the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, more popularly known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. That law called for approximately $1.2 trillion in spending, about $550 billion newly authorized spending on top of regular expenditures. As Biden noted today, it was “the largest investment in our nation’s infrastructure in a generation.” 

In the past three years, the Biden administration launched more than 66,000 projects across the country, repairing 196,000 miles of roads and 11,400 bridges, as well as replacing 367,000 lead pipes and modernizing ports and airports. Today the administration announced an additional $1.5 billion in funding for railroads along the Northeast Corridor, which carries five times more passengers a day than all the flights between Washington, D.C., and New York City. 

In his first term, Trump had promised a bill to address the country’s long-neglected infrastructure, but his inability to get that done made “infrastructure week” a joke. Biden got a major bill passed, but while the administration nicknamed the law the “Big Deal,” Biden got very little credit for it politically. Republicans who had voted against the measure took credit for the projects it funded, and voters seemed not to factor in the jobs and improvements it brought when they went to the polls last week. 

This lack of credit has implications beyond the Biden administration. As economist Mark Zandi told Joel Rose of NPR, “We need better infrastructure. We should continue to invest. But that's going to be hard to do politically because lawmakers are seeing what's happening here and they’re not getting credit for it.”

Meanwhile, President-elect Trump has been rapidly naming people he intends to nominate for his cabinet, and it is not going well. As Brian Tyler Cohen wrote on Bluesky: “The same people who’ve spent the last several years decrying ‘unqualified DEI hires’ are now shoehorning through Cabinet nominations who can’t even pass a basic background test.”

Cohen was not joking; Evan Perez, Zachary Cohen, Holmes Lybrand, and Kristen Holmes of CNN reported today that Trump’s transition team is skipping background checks by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, claiming that they are slow and intrusive.

But that lack of background checks has already mired Trump’s picks in controversy. 

Trump has said he would nominate Pete Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran and co-host on the weekend edition of Fox & Friends, to become the secretary of defense. Since that announcement, news has broken that a fellow service member who was the unit’s security guard and on an anti-terrorism team flagged Hegseth to their unit’s leadership because one of his tattoos is used by white supremacists. Extremist tattoos are prohibited by army regulations.

News broke today that a woman accused Hegseth of sexually assaulting her after a Republican conference in Monterey, California, in 2017. According to Michael Kranish, Josh Dawsey, Jonathan O’Connell, Dan Lamothe, and John Hudson of the Washington Post, the woman who made the allegation said the alleged victim had signed a nondisclosure agreement with Hegseth. 

Now the transition team fears more revelations. “There’s a lot of frustration around this,” a member of the transition team told the Washington Post reporters. “He hadn’t been properly vetted.”

Causing even more headaches today for the transition team was Trump’s appointment of former Florida representative Matt Gaetz to become the United States attorney general. Immediately after Trump said he would nominate Gaetz, the representative resigned his congressional seat, forestalling the release of a House Ethics Committee report concerning allegations of drug use and that Gaetz had taken a minor across state lines for sex.

It is reported that the victim, who was a seventeen-year-old high-schooler at the time, testified before the committee. 

After spending an evening with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said that publishing the report would be “terrible” and that he would “strongly request that the Ethics Committee not issue the report because that’s not the way we do things in the House.” 

This, despite the fact that, as historian Kevin Kruse noted, “[f]or years now, the right has been accusing Democrats of running a shadowy conspiracy to protect politicians who are sex predators.” And, in fact, the House Ethics Committee did release a report on Representative William Boner (D-TN) in 1987 for allegations of corruption after he had already resigned the office to become mayor of Nashville.  

And then there is Trump’s tapping of former Hawaii representative Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence (DNI). Gabbard’s ties to America’s adversaries, including Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, have raised serious questions about her loyalty. Making her the country’s DNI would almost certainly collapse ongoing U.S. participation in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance in which the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have shared intelligence since World War II. 

As former Illinois representative Joe Walsh wrote: “Donald Trump just picked someone to oversee our intelligence who, herself, couldn’t pass a security clearance check. She couldn’t get security clearance. She couldn’t get a job in our intelligence community. Because she’s too compromised by Russia. Yet Trump picked her to run the whole thing.”

Trump appears eager to demonstrate his control of Republicans in the Senate by ramming through appointments that will collapse the rule of law at home (Gaetz) and the international rules-based order globally (Hegseth and Gabbard). When Texas senator John Cornyn said he would like to see the Gaetz report, Trump loyalist Steve Bannon said: “You either get with the program, brother, or you're going to finish third in your primary.” A member of Trump’s transition team said that Trump wants to bend Republican senators to his will “until they snap in half.”

Despite the fact the Republicans will hold a majority in the Senate when Trump takes office, Trump’s picks are so deeply flawed and dangerous that Trump and his team knew they would not get confirmed. So they demanded that Republicans in the Senate give up their constitutional power of advising the president on high-level appointments and consenting to his picks: the “advice and consent” requirement of the Constitution. 

Trump demanded that the Senate recess in order for him to push through his choices as recess appointments. Even the right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial board came out against this scheme, calling it “anti-constitutional” and noting that it would “eliminate one of the basic checks on power that the Founders built into the American system of government.”

Now, in order to bring senators to heel, the Trump team is threatening to start its own super PAC to undermine the existing Senate Leadership Fund, whose leaders they insist are not loyal enough to Trump. A person close to Trump said that Senate Republican leaders “should reflect current leadership and the future, not the past.” “It doesn’t make sense,” one Republican operative told Politico’s Natalie Allison, Ally Mutnick, and Adam Wren. “Trump just had this massive win and now they are bringing in this Never Trumper.” 

But for all the spin, the political calculation for Republican senators is not as clear as the Trump team is trying to project. At 78, Trump is not exactly the face of the party’s future. Nor did he deliver a “massive win.” He won less than 50% of the popular vote with many voters apparently unaware of his policies, and while the Republicans did retake the Senate majority, they did so with very little help—financial or otherwise—from him. Republicans will have as bad a map in the 2026 midterm elections as the Democrats had in 2024, and Trump’s voters tend to be loyal to him and no one else, generally not turning out in midterms.

It is also possible that, aside from political calculations, enough Senate Republicans take seriously their oaths to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States” as well as the Senate’s role in the constitutional system of checks and balances that they will judge Trump’s antics with that in mind. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[blushspatula]

How did the "friendly chemistry"(?) between Shin, your OS and Zamasu even begin? Zamasu in your artwork most of the time now looks literally between “not my circus, not my monkeys” and “MY CIRCUS! MY MONKEYS!” and I love it!

We have to start from scratch: Who the hell is Reth? Reth is a human who accidentally entered the Dragon Ball universe as if it were a bad isekai. The thing is that as DB has been around for a long time, she doesn't remember many things, so she had to start almost from scratch. One of Reth's most special qualities is that she gets into extremely strange situations (sometimes without thinking much), but still, with sweat and tears she somehow magically adapts to the situation.

First of all, how did she meet Shin? Shee met him at one of Bulma's parties: Reth was with Gohan and Videl, talking about random things. Shin approached Gohan to say hello and well, both Gohan and Videl introduced Reth. To tell the truth, the first time they got along pretty well: Reth liked his polite and mysterious behavior, while Shin liked how kind and funny Reth was. Although they definitely became friends and started staying at each other's houses at the second party Bulma hosted.

Second, how did she meet Zamasu? Well, sit down and hold on to your chair, because this is going to be a ride.

It all started when Gowasu wanted to change his student's opinion of mortals and asked Shin for help (it's a separate AU where I put the "what if everything had some logic?" situation). Shin thought about asking Reth for help, in case she wanted to be the candidate.

Reth accepted the sudden arrival of Shin and Gowasu at her door, bewildered. Throughout the two weeks, Gowasu, having gotten to know the human, decided to explain the situation to her, hoping that she could help him in one way or another. Reth kindly refused, I mean bro, Zamasu is a jerk and all that and I already have enough problems as a young adult, I'm not going to deal with someone with a god complex. Just no, this can only make the situation worse.

Obviously Gowasu was very sad, but he accepted her rejection. Gowasu went around interviewing some humans, but something told him that he HAD to choose Reth. One night Gowasu appeared distressed at Reth's apartment door without warning and asked her again politely (and more desperately) if she would accept the proposal. Reth, who was half asleep, did not think much and accepted, closed the door and went to sleep. From this moment on her life turned 180º. In any case, she convinced herself that at least she would have a small (or long) vacation and thus she would not have to get up early to go to work. Partly it is like that, but she would have to use every neuron in her not to screw up and make this green fruit decide to start a genocide because of her.

Much to Reth's misfortune and Zamasu's distress, Reth would move to live in the temple with the two Kaioshins from Universe 10. Reth always tried to be kind and polite to Zamasu but the son of a bitch is a son of a bitch and only made Reth very frustrated. On a night when she couldn't sleep and greatly reconsidered her life chooses she remembered something: the gods love mortal food! Thank you Bulma for inviting immortals to your parties. And that's how she managed to form a friendship with Zamasu through food. "Full belly, happy heart."

One day Reth was able to convince Zamasu and Gowasu to bring Shin so they could get to know each other better and that's how such a crazy friendship was formed.

The dynamic between these three is that Shin is the chill one of the group, while Reth is the humor of the group and is the one who gets everyone into trouble without wanting to and Zamasu is a friend who is a little disappointed in you, but appreciates you anyway.

(I wrote all this with a bit of a headache, so I hope what I wrote made some sense.)

[jowrites]

When the Dahlia sings Her Song - 1. Bad day to worst day.

TW: Mentions of death, physical abuse, mental illness, depression, anxiety, parental death, verbal abuse, mute disorder, mentions of sex, some smut(in future), cursing

Strangers to Lovers. Lee Heeseung x F!OC(I like giving names).

Masterlist Here. Prev. Next. Jo's Masterlist Here.

This wasn’t anything new to Heeseung. 

Many times he had walked right into chaos at the company, he knew it too well. He would walk right into his very furious father(and boss) and sit there as his father spewed curses and threw papers everywhere. His anger wasn’t directed at him until it was because, “How come you weren’t watching your brother closely?” and blame him for the actions of someone else. Heeseung would apologize and his father would then apologize and tell him to handle him while he deals with the press. It was a never ending cycle and today was no different.

His brother, Beomgyu, seemed unphased as usual. Just sitting there and letting their father hit him and show his fury. Beomgyu usually left with a few bruises and today it looked like a busted lip. He looked over at his brother and shrugged at him as Heeseung sighed and bowed towards their father who was much calmer now. He took Beomgyu and they walked across to one of the meeting rooms where Beomgyu let out strong laughter.

“What was it this time?” Heeseung pulled out one of the first aid kits and began to lead Beomgyu to a chair.

“He doesn’t like my new girlfriend and said I’m supposed to be marrying Somi, said he already arranged it,” his brother shrugged. “Fucking asshole.”

“So you beat up a bouncer at a club?” Heeseung began to apply ointment on his brother's lip, who began to wince in pain.

“Hey, gently!” He cried out.

“Continue,” Heeseung, was not gentle.

“He laughed at me and it just escalated from there,” Beomgyu defended. “They’ll pay whatever money and it will go away in a week.”

“And you and Somi?” Heeseung asked.

“I don’t know, she’s pretty but kind of annoying. As long as she gets her shopping sprees and whatever I guess she’ll be fine,” Beomgyu shrugged and Heeseung looked at him with his eyebrows raised. “What? I can do it. You know, you all really doubt me around here when there's one thing I’m good at doing, it’s keeping a woman happy. Not like you have expertise in that department.”

“Done. Go home and just…stop being a little bitch, please I’m literally begging,” Heeseung sighed.

“You always have my back, brother! Oh! One more thing,” Beomgyu took a pen and some paper and wrote something down. “I need you to go to this address, ask for Gyuri.”

“What the hell is this?” Heeseung looked at the address written down. 

“I need you to break up with my girlfriend for me,” Beomgyu started walking out.

“Absolutely NOT!” Heeseung grabbed him by the collar and threw him back into a chair, folding his arms across his chest. “That is YOUR responsibility. I already do enough around here.”

“Look, I can’t be going around there anymore and I really don’t like breaking up over text. Bring her flowers or something and send her my best regards. It was nice while it lasted! Also, you might find it really cool,” He stood up, giving a formal salute and then leaving Heeseung alone. 

*****

The rest of the day Heeseung had this raging headache. He had meetings and more meetings, projects not getting on time and him having to be stern on the managers for not keeping their teams in check. This didn’t seem to be going right anywhere and it was just so…loud all the time. Wherever he went around the building there was just chaos and then more chaos. He was feeling extremely overstimulated and on top of it he felt hot liquid soak his suit and realized an employee walked right into him with her coffee.

“Oh my! Oh no! Oh my god! I’m so sorry!” She began scrambling to try and clean him up as he stood there pinching his bridge and held out a hand for her to stop.

“Enough! Get back to work!” He said sternly to everyone around who stopped to watch the scene. 

He turned on his heels making his way back to his office to change. His secretary was on the phone and he quickly hung up as he walked behind Heeseung, closing the door.

“You look like hell,” Jay said, hands in pockets.

“Today’s not my day,” he said, removing his jackets and quickly unbuttoning his shirt as Jay went to the closet and picked out a new suit for him.

“Yup, it definitely is not. Should I fire whoever…did this?” He pointed up and down Heeseungs body, eyeing him.

“No, just drop it. Anything left for the day?” he asked, looking at the time, 5:57 PM.

“Nope. You’re free,” Jay said. “Do you need a ride today?”

“No, no I have something I have to do for Beomgyu, you can go without me,” Heeseung waved him off, finishing buttoning the last of his shirt and collecting his phone and keys from his desk.

“Wait, what?” Jay stopped him. “Beomgyu? That asshole has made today hell! What the hell does he have left for you?”

“Something I need to look into. I’ll tell you later,” Heeseung waved him off and left.

“Drive safe, sweetheart!” Jay yelled out. "Whatever, I guess."

*******

Heeseung looked at the paper in his hand and back at the building in front of him. He stood outside his car just staring at this place, unfamiliar and curious, a place he didn’t even know existed until now. A flower shop? Is this where Beomgyu’s girlfriend worked? It was on the outskirts of town, an hour drive and not many shops around here but looked like a small music shop and a small restaurant. The rest of the buildings looked to be abandoned or they could be apartments, he wasn’t sure. It looked like no one was home. Suddenly, the lights to the shop turned on, and the sign switched to ‘open’. A flower shop that opens in the evening? He shook his head and then walked across the street, opening the door.

The only sound he heard was the sound of the bell as he walked in. His senses began to fill with odors of floral beings of all kinds, and then the smell of…cinnamon and spice? The further he walked in the stronger the smell became, sweet and vibrant, hitting his senses from all around. Then suddenly, he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around and came face to face with the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. Her hair was black, curled and put up in a long ponytail. Her eyes were a hazel of some sort, big and bright. Her lips were full and she wore a small smile, cheeks were just as pink as her cute nose. In that moment, his breath was knocked right out of him and he couldn’t stop staring.

Hello, welcome! Do you need anything?

She waved her hands in his face and he finally snapped out of whatever trance she had him in. Whatever strange spell he came under, he had no idea but wouldn’t mind it to happen again. He looked down at the small notepad in her hand and read it. She held up her finger and began to write something again.

Would you like to take a look around? 

“Uhm, I’m looking for someone,” he said. “C-can you understand m-me?”

She nodded and smiled writing again.

I understand just fine. Who are you looking for?

“Her name is Gyuri?” He said more as a question.

The girl frowned and began to write.

Why? Who are you to her?

“Oh, no no please don’t misunderstand. I just have to relay a message,” he said in defense.

The girl nodded before holding her hand, wait, and then disappearing behind the back with another girl in tow.

“Uhm hi, you called for me?” the girl, who he assumed was Gyuri, said.

“You’re Gyuri?” He raised an eyebrow at the very plain looking woman, the type he could never see Beomgyu with.

“And you’re Lee Heeseung,” she folded her arms over her chest. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Beomgyu sent me a message saying he’s sorry and it’s not going to work out,” Heeseung just decided to rip the bandaid off, fast and strong.

“He said that? Well, good to know. I broke up with him a week ago,” she chuckled. “Thanks for reminding me.”

“Wait-YOU, broke up with HIM?” Heeseung scoffed. “Fucking bastard.”

“Yeah, that guy is crazy like…we barely even went out or whatever but he’s crazy,” Gyuri said. “Sorry you came all the way out here, You want a cinnamon roll?”

“I’m going to kill him.”

[beardedmrbean]

As Oregon considers passing a $1,600 rebate for residents, state Democrats have come out against the measure, saying it could have dire consequences for other government services.

In November, Oregonians are set to vote on Measure 118. The proposal would see a $1,600 rebate sent to all Oregon residents via higher taxes on state businesses.

While Republicans were initially against the rebate, Democratic leaders have now joined in with concerns about how the rebate could affect the state in the long term.

Measure 118 specifically looks to increase the corporate minimum tax on sales above $25 million by 3 percent, sending the revenue from this directly to Oregonians via the $1,600 checks.

If approved, the state would bring in $7 billion more in tax revenue yearly, but some fiscal analysts have warned the state would lose money to spend in other areas, such as health care and public safety.

One analysis indicated that Oregon would lose $400 million in its 2025-27 budget cycle, prompting a group of Democratic lawmakers to come together to oppose the measure.

The group included House Speaker Julie Fahey, House Majority Leader Ben Bowman, Senate President Rob Wagner and Senate Majority Leader Kathleen Taylor.

"As a matter of public policy, we believe this is a bad deal for Oregonians," the lawmakers wrote in a statement this week. "We ask Oregonians to take a closer look at Measure 118, and we ask you to join us in voting no."

The Democrats also said the rebate had "concerning, potentially dire implications," especially with regard to government services, such as maintaining roads, health care and safety.

"In these tough times, we all want working families to get every break they can, but Measure 118 is not the answer," they said. "We have grave concerns it will slow job growth and cause cuts to critical services like road maintenance, firefighting, and addiction recovery."

Governor Tina Kotek has previously spoken out against the ballot measure.

"It may look good on paper, but its flawed approach would punch a huge hole in the state budget and put essential services for low-wage and working families at risk," Kotek told local publication Willamette Week.

Republicans also previously voiced their concerns, with Senate Minority Leader Daniel Bonham saying it was "another out-of-state and dangerous experiment that doesn't align with the needs of Oregonians," the Oregon Capital Chronicle reported.

Bonham said it would threaten the state's economic stability and end up causing job loss and inflation.

"This measure will result in severe cuts to essential public services, including education, public safety, and infrastructure," Bonham said. "We cannot afford to gamble with Oregon's future on unproven and risky policies."

Organizations have also joined the fight to lobby against the measure, with Oregon Business and Industry reportedly creating a $500,000 political action committee in opposition to the rebate.

"It's a scenario that sounds great on paper, but it could present more headaches than help for the state if passed," Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor at the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek. "Rebates to taxpayers—especially ones that are lower-income—always seem like a good deal, and quite a few are."

He added: "Parts of this rebate would be paid through higher taxes to corporations, which could not only cause some of them located in Oregon to consider raising prices, but even potentially relocating. Yes, a rebate sounds good, but if in the process it leads to more economic strife, it's not quite the positive it's billed as being."

__________________

[iceicewifey]

sorry for the long ass ramble but [throws my pre-sdc teregi lore at you]

Giselle has known Terence for what feels all her life. The two of them both grew up in the Los Angeles area and were in the same grade, so she’d always known of him. It wasn’t until they were around six or seven that they actually formally met, however, largely due to Giselle noticing a strange apparition that seemed to hover around him.

“I like your friend” was her first line, although she hadn’t given it much thought—partially due to the simplicity of her child brain. She didn’t know what a stand was, and wouldn’t have been able to sense that was what she was seeing, nor that her own was lying dormant. It didn’t seem like anyone else around could see it, and Terence would be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved that someone other than his older brother could finally see it.

It didn’t take long for the pair to become fast friends, spending as much time as possible together—Giselle’s home situation assisting in this. She’d often spend a worrying amount of time away from home, and it was nice to actually have someone to spend time with. While still unnamed and inexperienced with controlling the ability, Atum’s soul reading ability would pick up on innumerable conversations in any area that was even remotely crowded, leaving Terence with a near constant headache from the barrage of yes! yes! yes!’s and no! no! no!’s. While she didn’t fully pick up on it, Giselle could obviously sense something was up, urging her to show him some of the more secluded areas she knew of and frequented when needing to get away from her mother or her sisters for a while.

They stayed close over the years and into their teens, if anything getting closer. Terence had learned to control Atum’s soul reading and Giselle’s Nephthys had physically manifested at that point, often being playfully teased about how her stand was just a lousy compact mirror. She didn’t know exactly what happened in 1983, but she heard something about an altercation between Terence and his brother, but she didn’t press him on the specifics as to why he seemed so ‘off’. That was between the brothers and she was just a concerned third party.

Terence didn’t seem to improve much in the following weeks and Giselle just chalked it up to his recent breakup… or at least she did until she agreed to meet him in the same secluded spot they’d frequented since she showed him as kids. It took her a minute to wrap her head around what Terence was telling her—he’d enrolled in a foreign exchange program and was going to be studying abroad in Japan.

The closest and only real friend she’d ever had. Moving to Japan. All the way across the Pacific ocean. She didn’t take the news well, and no matter how much she pretended she knew he could see right thru her. If Japan was his decision, she wouldn’t fight him.

Giselle was able to locate her biological father with the aid of her stand and a few letters stolen from her mother, eventually making the trip to Monaco after high school—her father covering the expenses. She had mixed feelings about it; one one hand she was elated at finally being able to meet her father after being left in the dark for so many years, not to mention having a parent that seemed to want her, that was actually happy she existed and didn’t treat her like she was unwanted or just an inconvenience. On the other hand she was nervous to be leaving the only life she’d ever known behind; her sisters… California… But worst of all she knew she wouldn’t be there when Terence got back.

Unbeknownst to Terence, he wouldn’t be back in Los Angeles for long as Daniel had landed himself in hot water and had struck a deal with a strangan from out of town after growing increasingly desperate financially—and he’d roped in his baby brother in a desperate bid to get back into contact with him, and they needed to leave for Cairo as soon as possible.

Giselle called. She called and she wrote but she could never seem to get ahold of him. His mother had informed her that her sons were on a reconciliation trip of some sort—which was of course the lie Daniel had told her.

Unbeknownst to Giselle, she’d be in the same position after encountering the same man, but with a much different outcome. Her run in with him filled her with a a strange mixture of emotions; awe… relief… and dread. The bizarre and terrifying sight of what could only be described as a tentacle flying towards her, accompanied by a sharp pain in her forehead before her memory cut out.

[yourreddancer]

Heather Cox Richardson  11.15.24

Heather Cox Richardson  11.15.24

Three years ago today, President Joe Biden signed into law the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, more popularly known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. That law called for approximately $1.2 trillion in spending, about $550 billion newly authorized spending on top of regular expenditures. As Biden noted today, it was “the largest investment in our nation’s infrastructure in a generation.” 

In the past three years, the Biden administration launched more than 66,000 projects across the country, repairing 196,000 miles of roads and 11,400 bridges, as well as replacing 367,000 lead pipes and modernizing ports and airports. Today the administration announced an additional $1.5 billion in funding for railroads along the Northeast Corridor, which carries five times more passengers a day than all the flights between Washington, D.C., and New York City. 

In his first term, Trump had promised a bill to address the country’s long-neglected infrastructure, but his inability to get that done made “infrastructure week” a joke. 

Biden got a major bill passed, but while the administration nicknamed the law the “Big Deal,” Biden got very little credit for it politically. Republicans who had voted against the measure took credit for the projects it funded, and voters seemed not to factor in the jobs and improvements it brought when they went to the polls last week. 

This lack of credit has implications beyond the Biden administration. As economist Mark Zandi told Joel Rose of NPR, “We need better infrastructure. We should continue to invest. But that's going to be hard to do politically because lawmakers are seeing what's happening here and they’re not getting credit for it.”

Meanwhile, President-elect Trump has been rapidly naming people he intends to nominate for his cabinet, and it is not going well. As Brian Tyler Cohen wrote on Bluesky: “The same people who’ve spent the last several years decrying ‘unqualified DEI hires’ are now shoehorning through Cabinet nominations who can’t even pass a basic background test.”

Cohen was not joking; Evan Perez, Zachary Cohen, Holmes Lybrand, and Kristen Holmes of CNN reported today that Trump’s transition team is skipping background checks by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, claiming that they are slow and intrusive.

But that lack of background checks has already mired Trump’s picks in controversy. 

Trump has said he would nominate Pete Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran and co-host on the weekend edition of Fox & Friends, to become the secretary of defense. Since that announcement, news has broken that a fellow service member who was the unit’s security guard and on an anti-terrorism team flagged Hegseth to their unit’s leadership because one of his tattoos is used by white supremacists. Extremist tattoos are prohibited by army regulations.

News broke today that a woman accused Hegseth of sexually assaulting her after a Republican conference in Monterey, California, in 2017. According to Michael Kranish, Josh Dawsey, Jonathan O’Connell, Dan Lamothe, and John Hudson of the Washington Post, the woman who made the allegation said the alleged victim had signed a nondisclosure agreement with Hegseth. 

Now the transition team fears more revelations. “There’s a lot of frustration around this,” a member of the transition team told the Washington Post reporters. “He hadn’t been properly vetted.”

Causing even more headaches today for the transition team was Trump’s appointment of former Florida representative Matt Gaetz to become the United States attorney general. Immediately after Trump said he would nominate Gaetz, the representative resigned his congressional seat, forestalling the release of a House Ethics Committee report concerning allegations of drug use and that Gaetz had taken a minor across state lines for sex.

It is reported that the victim, who was a seventeen-year-old high-schooler at the time, testified before the committee. 

After spending an evening with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said that publishing the report would be “terrible” and that he would “strongly request that the Ethics Committee not issue the report because that’s not the way we do things in the House.” 

This, despite the fact that, as historian Kevin Kruse noted, “[f]or years now, the right has been accusing Democrats of running a shadowy conspiracy to protect politicians who are sex predators.” And, in fact, the House Ethics Committee did release a report on Representative William Boner (D-TN) in 1987 for allegations of corruption after he had already resigned the office to become mayor of Nashville.  

And then there is Trump’s tapping of former Hawaii representative Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence (DNI). Gabbard’s ties to America’s adversaries, including Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, have raised serious questions about her loyalty. Making her the country’s DNI would almost certainly collapse ongoing U.S. participation in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance in which the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have shared intelligence since World War II. 

As former Illinois representative Joe Walsh wrote: “Donald Trump just picked someone to oversee our intelligence who, herself, couldn’t pass a security clearance check. She couldn’t get security clearance. She couldn’t get a job in our intelligence community. Because she’s too compromised by Russia. Yet Trump picked her to run the whole thing.”

Trump appears eager to demonstrate his control of Republicans in the Senate by ramming through appointments that will collapse the rule of law at home (Gaetz) and the international rules-based order globally (Hegseth and Gabbard). When Texas senator John Cornyn said he would like to see the Gaetz report, Trump loyalist Steve Bannon said: “You either get with the program, brother, or you're going to finish third in your primary.” A member of Trump’s transition team said that Trump wants to bend Republican senators to his will “until they snap in half.”

Despite the fact the Republicans will hold a majority in the Senate when Trump takes office, 0el appointments and consenting to his picks: the “advice and consent” requirement of the Constitution. 

Trump demanded that the Senate recess in order for him to push through his choices as recess appointments. Even the right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial board came out against this scheme, calling it “anti-constitutional” and noting that it would “eliminate one of the basic checks on power that the Founders built into the American system of government.”

Now, in order to bring senators to heel, the Trump team is threatening to start its own super PAC to undermine the existing Senate Leadership Fund, whose leaders they insist are not loyal enough to Trump. A person close to Trump said that Senate Republican leaders “should reflect current leadership and the future, not the past.” “It doesn’t make sense,” one Republican operative told Politico’s Natalie Allison, Ally Mutnick, and Adam Wren. “Trump just had this massive win and now they are bringing in this Never Trumper.” 

But for all the spin, the political calculation for Republican senators is not as clear as the Trump team is trying to project. At 78, Trump is not exactly the face of the party’s future. Nor did he deliver a “massive win.” He won less than 50% of the popular vote with many voters apparently unaware of his policies, and while the Republicans did retake the Senate majority, they did so with very little help—financial or otherwise—from him. Republicans will have as bad a map in the 2026 midterm elections as the Democrats had in 2024, and Trump’s voters tend to be loyal to him and no one else, generally not turning out in midterms.

It is also possible that, aside from political calculations, enough Senate Republicans take seriously their oaths to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States” as well as the Senate’s role in the constitutional system of checks and balances that they will judge Trump’s antics with that in mind. 

[misfitwashere]

November 15, 2024 

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

NOV 16

Three years ago today, President Joe Biden signed into law the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, more popularly known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. That law called for approximately $1.2 trillion in spending, about $550 billion newly authorized spending on top of regular expenditures. As Biden noted today, it was “the largest investment in our nation’s infrastructure in a generation.” 

In the past three years, the Biden administration launched more than 66,000 projects across the country, repairing 196,000 miles of roads and 11,400 bridges, as well as replacing 367,000 lead pipes and modernizing ports and airports. Today the administration announced an additional $1.5 billion in funding for railroads along the Northeast Corridor, which carries five times more passengers a day than all the flights between Washington, D.C., and New York City. 

In his first term, Trump had promised a bill to address the country’s long-neglected infrastructure, but his inability to get that done made “infrastructure week” a joke. Biden got a major bill passed, but while the administration nicknamed the law the “Big Deal,” Biden got very little credit for it politically. Republicans who had voted against the measure took credit for the projects it funded, and voters seemed not to factor in the jobs and improvements it brought when they went to the polls last week. 

This lack of credit has implications beyond the Biden administration. As economist Mark Zandi told Joel Rose of NPR, “We need better infrastructure. We should continue to invest. But that's going to be hard to do politically because lawmakers are seeing what's happening here and they’re not getting credit for it.”

Meanwhile, President-elect Trump has been rapidly naming people he intends to nominate for his cabinet, and it is not going well. As Brian Tyler Cohen wrote on Bluesky: “The same people who’ve spent the last several years decrying ‘unqualified DEI hires’ are now shoehorning through Cabinet nominations who can’t even pass a basic background test.”

Cohen was not joking; Evan Perez, Zachary Cohen, Holmes Lybrand, and Kristen Holmes of CNN reported today that Trump’s transition team is skipping background checks by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, claiming that they are slow and intrusive.

But that lack of background checks has already mired Trump’s picks in controversy. 

Trump has said he would nominate Pete Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran and co-host on the weekend edition of Fox & Friends, to become the secretary of defense. Since that announcement, news has broken that a fellow service member who was the unit’s security guard and on an anti-terrorism team flagged Hegseth to their unit’s leadership because one of his tattoos is used by white supremacists. Extremist tattoos are prohibited by army regulations.

News broke today that a woman accused Hegseth of sexually assaulting her after a Republican conference in Monterey, California, in 2017. According to Michael Kranish, Josh Dawsey, Jonathan O’Connell, Dan Lamothe, and John Hudson of the Washington Post, the woman who made the allegation said the alleged victim had signed a nondisclosure agreement with Hegseth. 

Now the transition team fears more revelations. “There’s a lot of frustration around this,” a member of the transition team told the Washington Postreporters. “He hadn’t been properly vetted.”

Causing even more headaches today for the transition team was Trump’s appointment of former Florida representative Matt Gaetz to become the United States attorney general. Immediately after Trump said he would nominate Gaetz, the representative resigned his congressional seat, forestalling the release of a House Ethics Committee report concerning allegations of drug use and that Gaetz had taken a minor across state lines for sex.

It is reported that the victim, who was a seventeen-year-old high-schooler at the time, testified before the committee. 

After spending an evening with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said that publishing the report would be “terrible” and that he would “strongly request that the Ethics Committee not issue the report because that’s not the way we do things in the House.” 

This, despite the fact that, as historian Kevin Kruse noted, “[f]or years now, the right has been accusing Democrats of running a shadowy conspiracy to protect politicians who are sex predators.” And, in fact, the House Ethics Committee did release a report on Representative William Boner (D-TN) in 1987 for allegations of corruption after he had already resigned the office to become mayor of Nashville.  

And then there is Trump’s tapping of former Hawaii representative Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence (DNI). Gabbard’s ties to America’s adversaries, including Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, have raised serious questions about her loyalty. Making her the country’s DNI would almost certainly collapse ongoing U.S. participation in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance in which the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have shared intelligence since World War II. 

As former Illinois representative Joe Walsh wrote: “Donald Trump just picked someone to oversee our intelligence who, herself, couldn’t pass a security clearance check. She couldn’t get security clearance. She couldn’t get a job in our intelligence community. Because she’s too compromised by Russia. Yet Trump picked her to run the whole thing.”

Trump appears eager to demonstrate his control of Republicans in the Senate by ramming through appointments that will collapse the rule of law at home (Gaetz) and the international rules-based order globally (Hegseth and Gabbard). When Texas senator John Cornyn said he would like to see the Gaetz report, Trump loyalist Steve Bannon said: “You either get with the program, brother, or you're going to finish third in your primary.” A member of Trump’s transition team said that Trump wants to bend Republican senators to his will “until they snap in half.”

Despite the fact the Republicans will hold a majority in the Senate when Trump takes office, Trump’s picks are so deeply flawed and dangerous that Trump and his team knew they would not get confirmed. So they demanded that Republicans in the Senate give up their constitutional power of advising the president on high-level appointments and consenting to his picks: the “advice and consent” requirement of the Constitution. 

Trump demanded that the Senate recess in order for him to push through his choices as recess appointments. Even the right-wing Wall Street Journaleditorial board came out against this scheme, calling it “anti-constitutional” and noting that it would “eliminate one of the basic checks on power that the Founders built into the American system of government.”

Now, in order to bring senators to heel, the Trump team is threatening to start its own super PAC to undermine the existing Senate Leadership Fund, whose leaders they insist are not loyal enough to Trump. A person close to Trump said that Senate Republican leaders “should reflect current leadership and the future, not the past.” “It doesn’t make sense,” one Republican operative told Politico’s Natalie Allison, Ally Mutnick, and Adam Wren. “Trump just had this massive win and now they are bringing in this Never Trumper.” 

But for all the spin, the political calculation for Republican senators is not as clear as the Trump team is trying to project. At 78, Trump is not exactly the face of the party’s future. Nor did he deliver a “massive win.” He won less than 50% of the popular vote with many voters apparently unaware of his policies, and while the Republicans did retake the Senate majority, they did so with very little help—financial or otherwise—from him. Republicans will have as bad a map in the 2026 midterm elections as the Democrats had in 2024, and Trump’s voters tend to be loyal to him and no one else, generally not turning out in midterms.

It is also possible that, aside from political calculations, enough Senate Republicans take seriously their oaths to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States” as well as the Senate’s role in the constitutional system of checks and balances that they will judge Trump’s antics with that in mind. 

—

[toomanyrobins2]

I'm A Beast

Summary: An orphan all her life, Y/N is simply too old to remain at The Bowery Home any longer. That is where an anonymous patron has swooped in to send her off to college and all he requires…a monthly letter of her academic progress.

Based off the book and musical “Daddy Long Legs”

Pairing: Bruce Wayne x Reader

last part // series masterlist // next part

2nd April 

Dear Batman, 

I am a BEAST. Please forget about that dreadful letter I sent you last week--I was feeling terribly lonely and miserable and sore-throaty the night I wrote. I didn't know it, but I was just sickening for tonsillitis and grippe, and lots of things mixed. I'm in the infirmary now, and have been here for six days; this is the first time they would let me sit up and have a pen and paper. The head nurse is very bossy. But I've been thinking about it all the time and I shan't get well until you forgive me. 

I have a bandage tied around my head in rabbit's ears. It’s thoroughly pitiful looking. Doesn't that arouse your sympathy? I am having sublingual gland swelling. And I've been studying physiology all the year without ever hearing of sublingual glands. How futile a thing is education! I can't write anymore; I get rather shaky when I sit up too long. Please forgive me for being impertinent and ungrateful.

Yours with love and many, many apologies, 

Y/N

THE INFIRMARY  

4th April 

Dearest Batman,

I don’t think it's possible to feel more guilty than I do now that I am on the mend. I have written the harshest words to the man who I owe everything. And now, on my bedside table, sit the most beautiful bouquet I have never set my eyes on! 

And not only did I receive flowers, but a note as well! You are not bald! The joy I feel may eclipse my guilt entirely!

Yesterday evening just towards dark, when I was sitting up in bed looking out at the rain and feeling awfully bored with life in a great institution, the nurse appeared with a long white box addressed to me, and filled with the most beautiful, colorful bouquet. And much nicer still, it contained a card with a message written in a funny little uphill backhand (but one which shows a great deal of character). Thank you a thousand times. Your flowers make the first real, true present I ever received in my life. If you want to know what a baby I am I lay down and cried because I was so happy.

Now that I am sure you read my letters, I'll make them much more interesting, so they'll be worth keeping in a safe with red tape around them--only please take out that dreadful one and burn it up. I'd hate to think that you ever read it over. Thank you for making a very sick, cross, miserable Freshman cheerful. Probably you have lots of loving family and friends, and you don't know what it feels like to be alone. But I do. To make up for my behavior, I have a secret I've been keeping from you. I hope you won’t take everything away from me, but I feel so awful I must find a way to make it right. 

Goodbye--I'll promise never to be horrid again because now I know you're a real person; also I'll promise never to bother you with any more questions. Do you still hate girls? 

Yours forever, 

Y/N

Bruce felt a weight lift from his chest as he read the letter. As soon as he saw the sign offs and her sending him love, it was a relief after a week of headaches. Y/N must have written the first letter before the flowers had reached her, because if there was one thing Bruce knew, she would have gushed…or at least he hoped she would. Instead of sending Alfred out to fetch them, he found himself at a flower shop. He had studied the language of flowers and had carefully crafted a message to her. Purple hyacinths for regret and blue for making peace. The lily of the valley was symbolic of his humility and hope that Y/N would return to happiness. Yellow roses showed his hope of friendship and the one flower he was nervous about: pink carnation. The message was never forget you and Bruce was worried it was too intimate a message. While Y/N may not know what he was saying or that he was even communicating, Bruce was reaching out in all of his stunted emotional intelligence.

8th hour, Monday

Dear Batman,

I hope you aren't the Trustee who sat on the toad? It went off—I was told—with quite a pop, so probably he was a fatter Trustee. 

Do you remember the little dugout places with gratings over them by the laundry windows in the Bowery Home? Every spring when the frog season opened, we used to form a collection of toads and keep them in those window holes; and occasionally they would spill over into the laundry, causing a very pleasurable commotion on wash days. We were severely punished for our activities in this direction, but in spite of all discouragement the toads would collect.

And one day—well, I won't bore you with particulars—but somehow, one of the fattest, biggest, juiciest toads got into one of those big leather arm chairs in the Trustees' room, and that afternoon at the Trustees' meeting—But I dare say you were there and recall the rest?

Looking back dispassionately after a period of time, I will say that punishment was merited, and—if I remember rightly—adequate. I don't know why I am in such a reminiscent mood except that spring and the reappearance of toads always awakens the old acquisitive instinct. The only thing that keeps me from starting a collection is the fact that no rule exists against it.

Bruce remembered that particular incident fondly. Thankfully, the trustee had not been he. It had been Thomas Elliot who had the misfortune of the toad. Knowing that Y/N had been part in that attack on the odious man had a massive smile growing on Bruce’s face. He returned to the letter, hoping to hear more about her day. 

After chapel, Thursday

What do you think is my favorite book? Just now, I mean; I change every three days. Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte was quite young when she wrote it, and had never been outside of Haworth churchyard. She had never known any men in her life; how could she imagine a man like Heathcliffe?

I couldn't do it, and I'm quite young and never outside the John Grier Asylum—I've had every chance in the world. Sometimes a dreadful fear comes over me that I'm not a genius. Will you be awfully disappointed, if I don't turn out to be a great author? In the spring when everything is so beautiful and green and budding, I feel like turning my back on lessons, and running away to play with the weather. There are such lots of adventures out in the fields! It's much more entertaining to live books than to write them.

“AHHHHHH!”

That was a shriek which brought Harriet and Babs and (for a disgusted moment) the Senior from across the hall. It was caused by a massivecentipede. Just as I had finished the last sentence and was thinking what to say next, it fell off the ceiling and landed at my side. I tipped two cups off the tea table in trying to get away. Barbs whacked it with the back of my hair brush—which I shall never be able to use again—and killed the front end, but the rear fifty feet ran under the bureau and escaped. This dormitory, owing to its age and ivy-covered walls, is full of centipedes. They are dreadful creatures. I'd rather find a tiger under the bed.

Friday, 9.30 p.m.

Such a lot of troubles! I didn't hear the rising bell this morning, then I broke my shoestring while I was hurrying to dress and dropped my collar button down my neck. I was late for breakfast and also for the first-hour recitation. I forgot to take any blotting paper and my fountain pen leaked. 

In trigonometry the Professor and I had a disagreement touching a little matter of logarithms. On looking it up, I find that she was right. We had mutton stew and pie-plant for lunch—hate 'em both; they taste like the asylum. The post brought me nothing but bills (though I must say that I never do get anything else; my family are not the kind that write). In English class this afternoon we had an unexpected written lesson. This was it:

I asked no other thing, No other was denied. I offered being for it; The mighty merchant smiled.

Brazil? He twirled a button Without a glance my way: “But, madam, is there nothing else That we can show today?”

That is a poem. I don't know who wrote it or what it means. It was simply printed out on the blackboard when we arrived and we were ordered to comment upon it. When I read the first verse I thought I had an idea—The Mighty Merchant was a divinity who distributes blessings in return for virtuous deeds—but when I got to the second verse and found him twirling a button, it seemed a blasphemous supposition, and I hastily changed my mind. The rest of the class was in the same predicament; and there we sat for three-quarters of an hour with blank paper and equally blank minds. Getting an education is an awfully wearing process!

But this didn't end the day. There's worse to come.

It rained so we couldn't play golf, but had to go to the gymnasium instead. The girl next to me banged my elbow with an club. I got home to find that the box with my new blue spring dress had come, and the skirt was so tight that I couldn't sit down. Friday is sweeping day, and the maid had mixed all the papers on my desk. We had “tombstone'' for dessert (milk and gelatin flavored with vanilla). We were kept in the chapel twenty minutes later than usual to listen to a speech about feminine women. And then—just as I was settling down with a sigh of well-earned relief to The Portrait of a Lady, a girl named Ackerly, a dough-faced, deadly, unintermittently stupid girl, who sits next to me in Latin because her name begins with A (I wish Mother Waller had named me Zabriski), came to ask if Monday's lesson commenced at paragraph 69 or 70, and stayed ONE HOUR. She has just gone.

Did you ever hear of such a discouraging series of events? It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh—I really think that requires spirit.

It's the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skilfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh—also if I win. Anyway, I am going to be a sport. You will never hear me complain again, Batsy dear, because Harriett wears silk stockings and centipedes drop off the wall.

Yours ever,

Y/N

P.s. Answer soon. How am I to know what to read if I don’t know your favorite book?

@inluvwithladybug

@pierres-new-spectacles

@kity-k4t

[lavenoon]

Hiya! I went to have a nap to get rid of a headache and ended up having a small dream of Hatchling AU but with a slight twist.

After the angst of one of the boys snapping at them, instead of just bowing out of missions/avoiding them, they swap time slots entirely. Now instead of working the Day, they work at Night and interact with Dusk.

They thought maybe this would work out better for them and it did!... For a bit. Dusk also snaps at them, scaring them in the same way in the little angst drabble you wrote.

Robin starts thinking that maybe being an agent isn't what they thought it be and starts second guessing themselves to the max. Robin, desperate for some form of 'good enough', asks to get swapped to Tech in the guise of 'will improve my performance if i could make these work/fit better'.

Robin is unaware of how well they've actually been doing because of Dawn and Dusk's reactions to them and the Heads (cant remember the word) decided that if this really good up-and-coming agent will work better with gear/tech made by themself then hell yeah.

Robin gets to work in the labs/on tech for as long as they want so long as they accept any mission the Heads deem as needing their immediate attention. Robin agrees and that's where they've been for a few weeks now.

They've managed to dodge Dusk and Dawn while heading to the labs and neither know where Robin went.

Dawn and Dusk both still want to apologize but their little thief/bird has vanished, leading them to thinking they may have quit or been fired.

The Heads send them a mission detailing they need to use a special device/trinket a lab tech made and have to go pick it up.

Not in the mood to be dealing with another person that probably doesn't like them/is afraid of them they barge right in.

The Tech tells them to hold for just a moment so they can grab the device. A moment that told them that the Tech was Robin.

Robin turns around, with their mask on, mid-explanation of the new device only to freeze at the realization of who they're debriefing to.

I woke up after that.

As I type this i have no idea how the living/home set up would work (maybe the tenant thing didn't happen in this version) since the dream never left the agent side of things.

I also have no idea if the other ever found out that they started getting visited/working with the person their counterpart was annoyed with.

I'm going to have another nap now because typing this out without glasses brought the headache back.

Hope you have a wonderful day/night dear, Take Care!

Oh I am totally normal about you dreaming of Hatchling AU totally totally

I went a little off the rails, so the rest goes under the cut - 1.7K words, and I won't apologize <3

So like this the neighbor thing really wouldn't work - only creating more isolation for Robin. They go home to an empty house, and they have nothing to soften the blow of everything happening at work.

So when Dawn snaps at them, they decide to take the hint and just switch shifts entirely. There they run into Dusk - and they're already more hesitant about everything.

That's a bit of a speedrun there - because Robin then obviously finds out there's another celestial animatronic star agent, one they haven't been aware of at all. And Dusk knows of the newbie Robin too - so it's not hard to connect them back to the agent Dawn used to work with. He's quiet, not as flashy as Dawn, and doesn't outright snap at them - so that's good?

Dusk has to wonder just how much Dawn exaggerated, because what he sees is a quiet agent who is obviously still having new job jitters. There's none of the crazy ideas or impulsive comments that Sun always complained about, and he wonders how much of that was exaggeration or maybe just an indication that they weren't suited for the undercover work.

They do look happy parkouring, and he doesn't begrudge them the glee of that - it's the first time in a long time that he doesn't look for the fastest way to a target, but rather the most thrilling one. And they keep up!

So for Dusk, this is an arrangement he can live with, even if he feels a bit like a babysitter for the rookie sometimes. Dawn meanwhile goes through much of the same, more agents refusing to work with him, and then he hears from his counterpart that Robin works with him now and has undergone a rather drastic personality change, and somehow... That doesn't feel right.

Dusk also doesn't stay happy for too long, because when there's a group of hostiles and Robin is just way too reckless? They can't take that seriously either, and suddenly he knows what Dawn was talking about.

That... Maybe isn't the most tactful thing to point out while he's making sure they aren't bleeding out from their freshly acquired stab wound.

Robin doesn't say anything after that.

They're dead silent, and don't look at him anymore.

He's obviously not surprised when they don't come back for a while - but when weeks turn into months and there's no sign of them again, he does kind of get antsy.

Because Sun and Moon continue to share notes, and Moon does feel bad about his almost panicked comment that, well... He wasn't actually angry, just frenzied by the newbie he decided he'd keep an eye on actually getting stabbed while he was there. Sun of course also isn't happy - somehow hearing that Moon threw Dawn's words back at Robin in that kind of situation also makes him think that he wasn't quite the friendliest person either. He didn't even give them the benefit of doubt - and their sudden personality shift does make him think.

They somewhat settle for the thought that Robin quit after getting stabbed - surely that just wasn't what they signed up for. And while it hurts to think that they'd never get to apologize, they feel like a short-lived rivalry is better than a short-lived rival.

So when Dawn is instructed to pick up a new spy device from the labs, he's certainly not expecting to see a familiar face. (It does explain the almost ridiculous design of the device, but he can't deny that it could work)

They don't expect to see him there either though. And, oops, they aren't really in the mood to be bubbly or quiet now (: He gets a glare, before they turn back again, continuing with their explanation of the device in a much sharper tone than before.

Dawn deflates, just a little. He did that - Dusk and him, both of them.

"You still work here," also isn't quite the best way to voice his surprise, as gentle as he does it. Because Robin has had enough. They snap around to him, barely contained fury evident in their expression.

"What, expected I was fired for being that much of a failure?"

Uh oh.

If there were anyone else in the room, they might have been surprised at the ruthless star agent pacifyingly raising his hands and stepping back from the tiny in comparison lab tech now glaring daggers at him. Hell, even Dawn is surprised that this is his course of action. But still, he's proud, and he needs to set the record straight.

"That's not what I said -"

"Yeah, but you said plenty. And Dusk made sure I remember, too."

They turn their back again, and Dawn... Dawn doesn't like this, at all. None of this. They sound sad and angry and almost crushed and he hates that. That's not how they're supposed to be.

So for the first time in ever, maybe, he swallows his pride.

"We were wrong. I was wrong. To say those things, and for how I said them. I'm sorry."

If he had a tongue, he'd bite it, but even so the excuses and justifications struggle to escape anyway. They have no place here, and even Dawn is aware of that.

Robin doesn't react past hunching their shoulders, but he can't see their expression.

"... Didn't know you know those words. So what, how's Dusk gonna surprise me?"

He clenches his fingers, then slowly unfurls them again. Easy, easy - do not snap at the newbie. That's what caused this mess in the first place.

"Dusk watched you get stabbed. He was concerned, and acted out of line, and I'm sure he'll apologize himself. I cannot and will not do that on his behalf."

"It's great that he watched, I didn't quite get to. Was a bit too dark."

"The lights -"

Robin throws him a withering look past their shoulder. He flinches back, and not just because of how their eyes shine with tears they're holding back.

"I was preventing the lights from being turned on. Dusk was busy, he didn't even see the guy aiming for the switch - and I didn't see the knife. We're even."

Wait. Wait a moment - gears start turning, and Dawn's eyes widen in realization. Dusk saw, and Robin didn't -

"He was using nightvision. The sudden light would have overloaded his optics, blinding him for at least a few seconds - if not damage them entirely."

Seconds of blindness or even total loss of vision - neither are good in a fight. And Dusk didn't even see? Didn't even pay attention?

It seems he trusted his little rival more than he was even aware of.

Robin continues to mumble, fiddling with the device in front of them, unaware of his little moment.

"I wasn't sure. I just know how afterimages work, and nightvision binoculars. I was thinking. Just not enough."

"You were thinking more than him. Or me, for that matter. We both got used to our routine, and that's on us, not you. We falsely took it out on you."

Because isn't that exactly what he did? Got angry at them for thinking outside the box he built around himself?

Robin turns back to him, sizing him up - as if they hadn't seen him before. Fresh eyes, maybe, or a new light now. Maybe they're a bit of a sucker, but they haven't forgiven either of them yet - they just want to, because they don't enjoy the grudges. They also, deep down, still crave that validation - the acknowledgment of the star agents. Having one of them admit to his own mistakes and apologize seems like a reasonable first step. Maybe there's hope for them yet.

But they're also curious, and now thinking of routines and being stuck in old ways helps a certain question they kept to themself resurface.

"... How'd you two get this job?"

Dawn wants to balk, shoot it down - where did that come from? It's irrelevant, and frankly -

And frankly, the hesitant look on Robin's face extinguishes all the fight in him. He's not Eclipse, he can mention some things without revealing his entire identity.

"We have family, at another location. Code name Horizon -"

Their eyes light up, and he wonders if they've worked with his blueprints before. They sure had all the opportunities at the lab.

"- and he got us the job. We were transferred, to keep the risk to a minimum, but we got in."

"That's lonely."

He doesn't want to think about that.

"And you, little thief? Got caught stealing?"

The deflection works - they smile, and puff out their chest just a little.

"Got scouted. Guess how. ... Not the stealing."

Dawn laughs softly, just for a moment, but the amusement rings in his tone, too.

"With you, I wouldn't be surprised if you simply walked in and declared yourself an agent."

It catches them off guard, and they snort - a hand flying up to cover their mouth immediately, but he heard. It gives him hope, too.

"... Almost. Caught someone on the roof during their smoke break, and apparently me dodging the alarms was cause enough to drag me right in and well, a job that condones climbing around on other people's property? I got excited."

But then their expression falls again, and their shoulders slump. They aren't doing that anymore, or any of the other things that excited them about this job. They're just hoping to not mess this up, too - it's all they have left here.

Dawn notices, too, and does correctly reach the assumption that they grieve the fun they used to have. And as much as it stings, he also knows a single conversation won't fix that.

That's okay. He'll come back - and he's sure Dusk will, too, as soon as he tells him about this development. For now, he points towards the spy device still lying on the table.

"Tell me how it works. I'll take it seriously."

Because that's what he can offer. He can be professional, and he can treat them as an equal - he didn't before, but he'll be sure to do so now.

Robin smiles, if a little hesitant.

"Take it with some fun, too. You could use it."

... Yeah, maybe he could.

[mimzy-writing-online]

Writing Toph Beifong, Advice from a Blind Writer

I’m Mimzy, an actual visually impaired writer and blogger who talks a lot about writing blind characters accurately and sensitively. A while back someone sent me an anon asking how to write Toph more accurately and sensitively.

Anonymous asked: Hi there! Your blog has been super-helpful already - I thought I knew a bit about writing with blind characters, but it turns out there was a lot to learn - but this is more specific. I'm writing a The Last Airbender fanfiction, and one of the characters is Toph. I think the fandom has done a fairly good job of respecting her blindness, but what are some things you'd like to see when people write her? I want to represent the character as best as possible; thanks in advance!

It’s taken a while for me to answer because I have a lot of thoughts about it as both a blind writer and someone who has read a lot of atla fanfiction. So here we go:

Before we get started, I want to mention some things: 

One: I have an entire series for writing blind characters that continues to grow with time and the most up-to-date version can be found pinned as the top post on my blog. There will be a time-stamp for when the post was last edited and a long series of links to all relevant posts on the subject.

Here’s a quick link to that post, but again, all you have to do is click my blog url and you’ll find it immediately.

Two: I’ve noticed something amazing about the atla fandom and I would like to thank you for it. I’ve noticed a lot of bloggers have taken to writing image descriptions for both the fanart and memes you post in the fandom, whether it’s OP including the description or another blogger adding it themselves. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a fandom so consistently doing this and that’s incredible. Realizing how many different blogs were picking up this habit has warmed my heart.

I’d like to see writers use her other senses. There’s soooo so much more to her O&M (Orientation and Mobility) than earth sense. 

Beyond sight and earth bending, there’s hearing, touch, smell, taste, sense of direction, hot vs cold, sense of pain, sense of where your body parts are in relation to the rest of you, sense of internal well-being, etc. Before Toph had mastery of her earth bending, she had to have mastery of those too.

Toph also must have very strong opinions about certain smells, sounds, tastes, and textures. Toph is opinionated about everything, and when so much of your understanding of the world depends on senses that most people are ignoring in favor of some other sense you don’t have, it gets frustrating. I’m sure that tree looks pretty but the smell is terrible. Who cares if this fabric looks pretty, it’s scratchy, do. not. like. at. all.

But also in positive ways too. Oh, that flower arrangement looks bland and monochromatic? Who cares, it smells sweet and honey-like. Weird dark cavern with high ceiling and no light? The harmonics are awesome.

Every character probably has a certain sight or image they’re particularly fond of: Katara watching snow fall, or Aang enjoying how small the world looks from up on Appa, or Zuko enjoying the sunrise every morning during meditation. In that line, Toph must have some things personal to her that she enjoys.

I imagine she likes the taste of foods familiar to her childhood, the smell of whatever flowers grew around her home, and the texture of certain kinds of dirt Example: loose dirt probably isn’t the best for seeing, but I think she would enjoy how it feels to run her fingers through it or maybe enjoy the way it softens her perception of the world the same way sighted people like to see colorful, bright lights reflecting off puddles in the middle of rain.

If you struggle with this, that’s okay. I recommend taking some time to think about it for yourself, to find what tastes and smells and textures and sounds you enjoy the most, what makes you feel safe and at home, what brings you comfort, and relate that back to Toph.

In a Modern AU, I want to see Toph have a cane. Even in a Modern AU with bending included in the world building, I think Toph would benefit from having a cane.

The cane has a lot more function than bumping into things. A big part is that it signals to others that you are very obviously blind. Which is a big deal because sighted people are really, really bad at spotting the blind person.

(psst, please stop saying ‘the blank look in her eyes’ because I swear to god it’s been killing me inside for years.)

Also, even in an AU with bending, I think Toph would like the advantage of tapping her cane to create a stronger, more distinct vibration than a small shifting of her weight on her feet. It would have more control.

You could give Toph a guide animal, buuuuuuut, um, Toph is not a guide dog person. Like, there are some people who definitely prefer a guide dog, and some people who definitely prefer a cane, and some who definitely prefer no mobility device at all. Toph does not have the vibes of someone who wants to be both responsible and reliant on an animal when she’s so insistent that she can take care of herself on her own. Toph likes animals, but not that much.

Although, yeah, only 10% of the blind community use mobility devices, so cane and guide dog users are the minority of the blind community, but I stand by the vibe that Toph would love the independence of a cane. Also, it’s almost never ever done. Modern AUs never seem to touch much on Toph’s O&M skills with canes or guide dogs.

I wrote a whole post on everything you need to know about canes, what orientation and mobility is, how you learn O&M, what kind of canes exist, how to use them, how to describe the sensory input a cane gives you, and everything I know about guide dogs from past research.

Honestly, you could give Toph (or any blind character) a cane in any AU, because I fully stand by the theory that canes are a piece of technology that has been invented, lost, and reinvented again and again.

I wrote “I found a piece of lost blindness history” a few months ago after a visit to see my grandparents. My grandmother told me how her blind aunt found a way to write letters by hand to send to my grandmother when she was a child. I speculated on how the long cane has probably been invented and then lost and then reinvented over and over again in history, as well as giving a little history on the growing popularity of guide dogs in the 20th century following World War 1.

About the “blank look in her eyes,” I have a theory to the exact cause and nature of Toph’s blindness.

I know it’s common to think that the milky green color of her eyes is why she’s blind, though I’m not sure how many realize that milky green color is caused by severe cataracts. At least, cataracts is what I assume to be the reason for the color of her eyes. However, people with cataracts still have some remaining sense of light and shadow perception.

Only 9% of the blind community is completely blind, seeing absolutely nothing. The rest have some remaining vision, even if that’s only light and shadow perception or the perception of vague movement.

The percentage of people born completely blind is even smaller.

Toph says that she’s never been able to see, which would lead me to guess that the initial cause of her blindness was a defect with the visual processing part of her brain. I also theorize that the cataracts developed slowly over her very formative years and that she likely wasn’t born with them. For that reason, I think it would have taken a few weeks or months for her parents to realize there was something wrong with her eyes.

Here is a post about the developmental years of blind children and how their life would differ from both sighted children and from someone who went blind as an adult.

What is it like to see nothing?

It’s a concept that sighted people struggle with and I completely understand. I myself didn’t understand the concept of “nothing” until someone explained it as this:

“Imagine trying to see out the back of your head.”

Which, genuinely, imagine that. Try that. Because here’s what I found. There’s no part of my body that can help perceive that. I don’t have eyes there, nor do I have a part of my brain that can process that. Because of this, there is no sense of light or dark, no shape or shadow or movement or depth that I can perceive. There is nothing.

And honestly, it gives me a headache trying to think too much about it.

Toph doesn’t see black, doesn’t have a mental image of it. When people talk about light and dark, Toph has nothing to base the concept on. The closest relation she has to that is silence versus sound, or her earth sense when she’s in the air on Appa versus when she’s on solid ground. But it’s not the same.

I would like to examine the way the show tried to describe Toph’s earth sense, that black void with ripples of white stretching from her feet and outwards. Television is a visual medium so of course their explanation of Toph’s earth sense would be visual, but that’s not what it’s actually like in her head. More accurately, it’s like touching the back of your head to something and feeling what’s solid behind it and what has more give. A wall versus a pillow for example. Slamming your hand on a flimsy table and feeling it rattle under your palm. And for someone so adept at using that sense, she feels not just the table surface under her palm, but the individual rattles down the four legs, how uneven those rattles are because the legs are carved decoratively instead of solid planks, and how the foot of each leg bumps against the ground, and how the floor vibrates in response to the impact, which she feels in both her feet and hand. 

About Toph’s Relationship with Her Parents

It’s not something I see touched on much. There’s been a lot of focus on Zuko and Azula’s relationship with their parents and the abuse, as well as exploration of Sokka and Katara’s trauma with losing their mother, and Sokka looking up to his warrior father while Katara struggles with her abandonment issues.

Please don’t take this as a critique, because there are a few valid reasons for this and I would like to give you some insight on how to explore Toph’s relationship with her parents.

For starters, the show had a lot more reason to focus on Zuko and Azula’s parents, with Fire Lord Ozai being the primary villain and Zuko’s greatest abuser, and Azula’s dependent worship of her father in response to Ursa’s neglect and favoritism of Zuko, which was likely Ursa’s response to Ozai’s favoritism of Azula. Their parents are huge driving motivators for why Zuko and Azula make the decisions and mistakes they do, why they are at one point in the show the villains themselves. (And why I think Azula should get a redemption arc and some healing.)

Katara’s trauma of losing her mother and blaming herself is a huge factor in both her response to the war, her relationship with her bending, and her motherly nature with her friends. The show has to explore that. Just as it has to explore Sokka’s problems with toxic masculinity in response to being the man of his village, and his desire to be a great warrior and leader like the father he idolizes. 

The show needs to explore that to make the plot move forward, and it benefits from these being two sibling sets with different responses to their upbringing and different sibling dynamics, setting them up as foils for each other.

The show also wouldn’t benefit by giving Lao and Poppy Beifong more screen time. Their established character were two nobles who kept as far out of the war as possible and prospered monetarily for it. Poppy was polite and demure and Lao liked to lead the conversation. Unless the gAang decided to return to Toph’s home, those characters had no reason to pop up anywhere in the show. And if they did, they would be a hinder to Toph and her part in the plot as both Aang’s earth bending teacher and as the greatest earth bender in the world, tossing Fire Nation soldiers eight ways to Sunday. 

So truly, I understand that there’s not a whole lot of canon material (comparatively) to go off of when developing this, but I will offer some insight on what is there in canon.

Toph’s relationship with her parents is explored in that it maps out why Toph doesn’t want to be mothered by Katara, why she wants to prove how independent she is, but there’s very little on screen interaction between Toph and her parents.

Toph deeply loves her parents. I think that plays into why she doesn’t want Katara mothering her, because she has a wonderful mother at home who she loves and wants to better understand her, but she had no friends growing up and no older sister, which are the roles she needs and wants Katara to fill. If Toph wanted a mother figure, she would have latched onto Katara. Look at how Zuko never sought out another mother figure but did find a father figure in Iroh as he began to heal from his childhood trauma and separate his self image from his father’s acceptance.

Toph is in a complicated situation, she loves her parents but the way they’re raising her is hurting her in the long run. But Toph can see that their actions are because of their immense love for her. She can see how they would do anything for her. While she never had any examples of how other noble children were treated by their parents, who might have been distant or disinterested or always away for their social and work lives, she was remarkably loved by her parents. Her father put careful thought into her tutors and checked in on her progress. Her mother feared for Toph’s emotional state when she was kidnapped (even if she was incorrect about how Toph would respond), showing genuine empathy for her daughter.

I think their over protective nature became the love language Toph best understood them by, and part of her reasoning for not revealing how capable she was, was because she wanted to keep experiencing that love and care for as long as she could. But it’s not a love language she would put up with from anyone else.

I would like to point out Toph’s genuine excitement to see her mom again in the season finale of Book Two, how badly Toph wants her mom to understand and accept her for who she is.

My thoughts on what Toph can’t do: read, swim, see in the sand, fight things mid-air.

For how incredibly powerful the show makes Toph with her earth bending and the O&M she taught herself through it, they do touch on some of her weaknesses when they come up and find a useful way to showcase them.

The Serpent’s Pass was an excellent example of Toph’s vulnerability in water. From her fear of not being able to see on Katara’s ice bridge to not being able to swim and needing Suki to save her, Toph’s weaknesses putting her in danger added to the excitement and “sitting on the edge of your seat” feeling while watching the episode without turning her into someone who was helpless. She was just in a position where her normal defenses were useless.

Just like the earth benders in the metal prison in the ocean, or Katara having little water in the middle of a desert where her friends needed that water to survive more than she needed it to fight, making her vulnerable later in the show when the insect-wasp things attacked. Just like fire benders being weaker at night, or powerless during a solar eclipse, or a sighted person being lost in the dark. Those were just situations in which the tools you were accustomed to relying on could no longer help you or were taken away.

The show was clever in that it didn’t make her inability to read a direct threat to her safety, but rather as a clever plot device for her to be alone when the sand banders attacked and have to choose between fighting them to save Appa, or holding back an entire fricking building by the tiniest spire on its very top from falling into a void leading to the spirit world. It also showed her weakness to not being able to see or fight as well in sand. Which the show later made an effort to show how she’d improved on that problem in Book Three when she was surrounded by nothing but sand at Ember Island.

Like improving her ability to see in the sand, I would like to see a character teach Toph to swim, or at least float, so that she never feels helpless again. If she took the initiative to improve her sand bending so much, I’m sure she would have learn to swim eventually.

And on the note of reading, I’ve seen some speculation on how Toph could learn to read, whether it’s through using ink that has some percentage of earth mixed in, or developing the sensitivity to feel out the different weight, consistency, and texture of ink on paper. 

I would like to bring your attention to Louis Braille, the blind Frenchman who invented Braille while studying at  the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles, the world’s very first school for the blind in Paris France (established 1785). Previously Louis was learning to read through a method in which each letter was pressed into the paper to leave an imprint that someone could feel out with just their fingers.

Louis Braille concluded that raised lettering was impractical because-

1.       It is difficult to read, the letters had to be printed in huge font to be fully felt out and printed on thick paper.

2.       Thick paper means higher quality, more expensive. Larger font means more paper is needed for a single text.

3.       This made it inaccessible due to expense and the sheer volume of a text.

4.       If today’s Braille books are hard to access and giant compared to traditional books, I can’t imagine how inaccessible those raised letter books really were.

The subject of Braille, the start and controversial near downfall to  Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles were discussed in a post about writing a blind character during the Victorian Era.

I’ve heard others complain in the past about fantasy universes in which a sighted person invents a solution to allow the blind to read, when the most effective and longest lived method was invented by a blindman over two hundred years ago and is the standard taught in schools today.

And while I couldn’t easily explain it or how it works because I can neither read Braille nor speak Chinese, I can tell you that Chinese Braille exists and works only slightly differently from the Braille western languages use. So, again, modern AUs especially would benefit from enabling Toph to read Braille and use a computer and phone with screen reader.

But just as easily you could choose not to have her learn to read but rather have sighted people read things aloud to her. Whether it’s in a professional setting as an adult having an assistant who reads and writes for her, or as a cute, fluffy little moment between Toph and another character. Both are just as genuine to the blindness experience.

Blind Jokes

If you ever get around to reading my post about blind jokes, I’d like you to remember that it’s primarily written for people writing original characters and that Toph canonically makes blind jokes, so to take away from that would not be true to her character.

Does Toph’s Earth Sense Negate her Blindness?

It’s a question I’ve seen raised before and discussed by both abled, disabled, and blind people. There are multiple perspectives on it, but my own take on it is that Toph’s earth bending does not negate her blindness, but rather functions very much like the process of learning to use a cane.

She had a tool, a teacher, and she learned to use that tool. Instead of a cane, it was seismic perception and her teacher were blind badger-moles. She spent years learning to earth bend as they do and then continued to take it to new heights as she explored fighting with it on her terms against sighted fighters.

Come to think about it, I would love to see Toph teach another visually impaired or blind earth bender who to see and bend as she does.

Is Toph Good Blindness Representation?

This question was posed to me in the comments of my master post, and my answer was something like this: “Toph is good representation, but she can't be the only type of representation we get. She's the best we had 15 years ago, but there are a million ways to nuance the blindness experiences. Toph's experience being born blind, having very over protective parents, being a small girl in a patriarical and wealth influenced society, having no friends growing up. Those are all great aspects of blindness to show, but there is so much more to explore. As for her blindness and whether or not that's negated, that's also nuanced. She has limits, she's not all-powerful, but she is the best earth bender hands down. More or less, I love Toph, she's a great character, give me like a million more blind characters who are completely different from her.”

I want to see accurate and well-written blind characters become much more common in modern media, and that’s why I started this blog. So if you decide you want to write your own blind character from scratch, feel free to come back and look at some of my other stuff.

End Notes:

I want to thank the anon who sent the original question because it never occurred to me how much the atla fandom would benefit from a post like this. 

You should follow my blog. Along with advice about writing blind characters, I write general writing advice and answer questions about writing, college, plot development, character analysis, and living with blindness. I curate writing advice from fellow writeblrs, write my own image descriptions for writing memes, post about mental health and working/living with ADHD, disabilities outside of blindness, and LGBTQA+ topics. 

[dollslayer]

Fight or Flight

Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: Steve comes clean, in the aftermath and shock you turn to the one person who you know you can trust.

W/C: 2,369

Warnings: Implied cheating, angst, swearing

A/N: Hello! I wrote this for @sweetlyscared 's 1k celebration (congrats, it's well deserved!), prompt is in bold. I'm still pretty new to writing and this is my first true Angst fic so any and all reblogs/comments are super appreciated! Please check out my other stuff if you liked this fic!! Cheers!

PART TWO I Masterlist

____

The feeling of everything crashing around you was slow. Like your world was moving in slow motion as you processed the words. Everything else he was saying became distorted, going to waste as he tried desperately to explain himself to you. All you could hear clearly was your own breathing while you tried to will yourself to do something, anything.

Fight or flight is a funny thing, you were always so feisty and eager to fight back, A Bulldog, Steve had affectionately called you. But when he told you he was in love with someone else, that he has been in love with someone else for months, your body couldn’t find anything in it but to walk away.

Your breathing picked up and your eyes searched the ground, refusing to meet his. You felt your legs raise you up to stand and start walking away, unsure of your destination. When you pivoted to leave the room your eyes met his briefly, staring emotionlessly as his desperately searched for anything at all in yours.

“Where are you going? Doll, please, can we talk about this? I’m, I’m so sorry I-”

Whatever else he was saying wasn’t heard over the noise of opening the door and shutting it behind you. You didn’t know where you were going or what you were feeling other than the obvious. You were in a state of shock, it’s one thing to hear awful news and another to understand that it’s true but you were fastly approaching that truth head-on.

You paused for a moment in the hall and heard no movement come after you. You almost let yourself be surprised but he’d admitted he gave up on you a long time ago, so it only makes sense he wouldn’t fight your exit. You kept walking and tried to hold the floodgates of your heart closed for a bit longer.

Flashes of what was said come back to you slowly as reality sets in. “I can’t put this off any longer. I want you to know that I will always love you, but there’s someone else.”

Your head hurt like it would as if you were already crying, the blood pumping in your ears and pressure building in your temples that would no doubt evoke a long-standing headache. Your face felt hot as you stepped into the elevator, maybe you’d go for a walk in an attempt to fend off your tears. Or maybe you’d walk to a safer place to have an emotional breakdown. Whichever is easier.

Brisk gusts of air greet you as you exit the building, making you realize you left your jacket on the arm of the couch. You took a second to evaluate yourself and noticed you’d also walked out in your house slippers and a thin pair of leggings. Trying to evade the cold you tucked yourself in the doorway of a bodega down the street and dialed Bucky.

Two rings and he picked up.

“Hello?”

“Did you know?”

The silence on the line only reminds you of the blood pumping in your ears. The silence tells you everything you needed to know.

“Liste-”

You hang up.

You’re breathing even harder now. Who else knew? For how long? How long was I the joke? You need to find somewhere else to be soon or all these strangers are going to get an eyeful of a grown woman sobbing. You dial the last number you’d expect to at a time like this.

“What’s happening, shortstack?”

You can hear Tony’s grin through the phone and his easy greeting gives you momentary comfort.

“Can I come over? Something happened.”

“I’ll let Jarvis know to let you in” Tony’s tone is understanding, not needing you to explain further, just letting you know you can come to him.

____

Tony’s only seven blocks from yours and Steve’s shared apartment, a fact you’re grateful for when you feel your feet aching every time they hit the pavement. The conversation replays in your head, you try to word what happened in your head and your anger starts overtaking the heartbreak. It’s almost a welcome reprieve from the settling heartbreak but you’re not sure if you’d rather be numb to it completely.

When the elevator doors open Tony’s waiting for you with two tumblers of scotch in hand. You shake your head and move past him to the couch. He joins you on the opposite armchair and sets both his elbows down on his spread knees, resting his face in his hands.

“Would you like to talk about it or not talk about it?” He asks with a sigh.

You don’t make eye contact with him so you don’t cry, choosing to focus on the Iron Man coffee table book you’d gotten as a gag gift for Tony all those Christmases ago. It almost distracts you enough to laugh, the fact that he just has it out. But you need to tell someone what happened and get it all out before you can let yourself feel it all.

“Steveisinlovewithsomeoneelse,” You rushed it all out in one breath afraid if you didn’t get it out fast enough that you’d break. “He has been for months. He said he doesn’t know when it all changed but when he was with her things just clicked,” you paused to collect yourself, “But don’t worry, I’ll always hold a special place in his heart and he hopes this won’t affect the future of the team or our friendship.”

“Oh, and he’s really sorry.” you added.

You laughed bitterly and shook your head in disbelief. His delivery had been so cold but so sincere, very to the point but pained in its delivery. “I just, whatever we had, it’s just gone. Things are just different now, with her, this kills me though, please believe me. You’re still really special to me.” Bullshit. Special enough to act as a placeholder until someone better comes, special enough to cast aside.

You’re broken momentarily from your spiral into anger by the sound of a glass hitting a coaster a little too hard. Looking up, you find Tony quietly seething. He and Steve aren’t close by any means so you figured that he wouldn’t have known, it’s why you called him over anyone else.

He moves slowly to your side on the couch and pulls you into his side. You can smell his aftershave and what you think might be burned grease from one of the many things he’s been tinkering with in the lab, it smells like him, like comfort.

“That fucking asshole. Unbelievable, I don’t even…” He leaves the thought unfinished.

His hands move up and down your arms in a soothing motion and you finally let yourself have it. You don’t even realize you’re crying until you feel the tears wet his shirt when you bury your face in. You sniffle up tears and snot when your face heats up.

There’s no way to know how long Tony lets you sob into him, no doubt ruining his vintage Depeche Mode shirt. Somewhere in the back of your mind you make a mental note to buy him a new one later. But for now you’ll just allow yourself to cry and you can deal with the world in the morning.

____

Tony lets you fall asleep on his chest, feeling somewhere between furious and heartbroken by proxy. He thinks about letting you sleep and giving Steve a piece of his mind but figures that’s not what you need right now. Your phone sits on the table and he touches the screen to check the time. No notifications on your homescreen except for a missed call from Bucky and an old photo of Steve making a funny face as your background.

Had Steve not even tried to call you? Had he not even tried to go after you? Why was Bucky of all people the only one to be trying to get a hold of you? Prick.

Selfishly Tony is glad that he has a good reason to be rude to Steve now, he has to admit. You two had always been close but when you and Steve started dating he saw less and less of you. He couldn’t fault you for it though, you were so in love with Steve and you knew that the relationship between the two of them was strained so you kept your distance a bit.

He thought of all the sacrifices you’d made for Steve. You gave up your childhood home in the Bronx that your parents had willed to you to move in with him because he wanted you to be closer to the tower. You gave up a promotion and transfer to DC when you were still just an agent, granted you were an avenger now but it doesn’t matter, he’d made a very big deal out of you turning it down. You gave up the friendship the two of you had.

It was incredible, really. How much you had done for him only for him to turn around and love someone else behind your back. Brave enough to fight aliens and terrorists but too cowardly to break up with you and leave you with some dignity. Did anyone else know about this?

Tony had to stop himself from getting too angry, afraid he’d wake you up. So instead he went back to plotting up schematics for the half-finished suit mod he’d been in the middle of when you called.

____

It’s been a week and you still haven’t properly talked to Steve. After two days on Tony’s couch you need to look at things from a logical stance. Where am I going to stay? It’s not like you had your parent’s place anymore and you didn’t want to sign a new lease on an apartment. You could always move into the tower but that meant a higher chance of running into Steve.

You were thinking about all of this out loud to Tony when he offered you the guest bedroom in his penthouse. You were shocked, he’s always been a generous man but after you drifted apart from him you were surprised he even let you stay these past few days. Maybe now was a good time to rebuild your friendship with him and have some space from work.

What’s work going to be like? You agree and go on a temporary leave from the team, just a month to collect yourself. If you really wanted to you could go back but the thought of seeing everyone that knew about Steve’s affair was humiliating and enraging in one go.

It turns out Sam had been playing therapist to Steve in all of this, Nat figured it out through some sleuthing, and Wanda had inadvertently heard his thoughts about her. And none of them thought to tell you? To save you from the anguish but to let it fester? Steve wasn’t the only one that betrayed you. They all had.

What will I say to him? Should I say anything to him? Turns out the answer was ‘nothing’. You texted him to let him know you were moving out and you’d be by to get your things as a courtesy. You walked into an empty apartment and you were almost relieved.

He’d chosen to not be here but he’d left you a letter on the kitchen counter next to a framed photo of the two of you on vacation last year. You scoff but don’t touch the letter. Every ounce of restraint you have is being used as you leave it untouched. But you don’t need to know what excuses or apologies he has on deck, nothing he could say would exonerate him of his wrong-doings. You had no intentions of speaking to him but secretly you hoped he suffered as he stewed in his guilt and inner-turmoil. He deserves to.

When you pack you leave every gift he ever gave you, taking only what you’d brought with you in the first place. You take one look at the unmade bed and almost go to make it out of habit but then you think of the two of them there together. All the long missions you went on without him, all the times you stayed late at work or went out with your friends. How many times had he been here with her while you were there?

You end up only leaving with two suitcases and a backpack full of things. Tony waits for you in the lobby, understanding you wanted your space when you went to get your things in case Steve was there.

The elevator doors open to him taking a selfie with a couple of fans and shaking hands. He’s all too happy to be recognized but when he sees you his eyes soften. Not out of pity, but fondness, like he’s proud of you for getting out.

He sends you a questioning look with a silent question. Are you okay?

You smile at him and for the first time in days it’s a genuine, non-placating, happy-to-see-you smile. It’s okay, I’ll be okay.

He takes one of your suitcases from you and helps you load them into the back of the car before opening the door for you. The drive back to Tony’s is silent but comfortable. The trust you have in each other is strong and unspoken. Something you’ve always been grateful for between the two of you.

He doesn’t ask you about Steve or what happened, always letting you come to him first, which you appreciate. And when you talk he just listens. No bullshit unsolicited advice about moving on or how everything happens for a reason or getting back out there, just listens.

You know the road ahead is long and it will be difficult, but you have someone in your corner and the knowledge that what happened isn’t your fault and that you’re a badass and fuck Steve Rogers and fuck anyone else that did you wrong in all of this. Maybe you’ll forgive them someday but for now you’re gonna focus on you and work on building yourself back up. You’re ready for the ups and downs, you’re ready to fight.

[tomurasurinal]

YKWIM?

   You wake up to your alarm blaring. You look over your shoulder to see if Katsuki is there and as usual his side of the bed is empty. Another morning of empty promises. His sweet words of,” I’ll be there when you wake up, sweetheart. Don’t worry, I can make it up to you.” It holds little meaning at this point. You honestly can’t remember the last time you’ve ever seen him, it must have been weeks. Grabbing your phone you have two missed calls and one text, both from Katsuki. You roll out of bed opening his texts to see what excuse he had this time.

Katsuki <3: I’m sorry I couldn’t make it. Can I come over after patrol today? Call me when you wake up.

   You toss your phone on the bed, you’ll call him later. A headache is already forming from the stress. Of course, you knew what to expect when you started dating. He laid out the rules right away and you agreed with no hesitation. You could deal with not making the relationship public or never going on dates outside your apartments. No one needs to know right? As long as you’re happy it’s nobody's business. As he rose in ranks it got harder and harder to keep up with Bakugou’s little rules. You wanted to be shown off. You wanted all the tabloids to lay off why he wasn't seeing anyone. The rumored flings they wrote about him hurt too much almost as much as them saying he was going to be alone forever due to his explosive temperament. Once he hit number two in the pro hero ranks the bakusquad wasted no time rushing to his apartment for an impromptu hang out to celebrate his success with him. Of course not even they knew of your secret relationship with Katsuki. He nearly busted a vein in his neck from yelling at them to keep it to themselves and that if this got out he would not hesitate to blow each one of them to pieces. It almost felt like he was ashamed of being seen with you, even among your mutual friends. Was it that bad to admit he was seeing you...or was it still about keeping the relationship under wraps?

   After that encounter, you felt like a burden or that being seen with you will hurt him in reaching his goals as the number one pro hero. This gut feeling that circumstances would be better for him if you just disappeared that way he has no one to worry about. Maybe you’re overthinking everything but this nagging feeling of loneliness is replacing that spark you’ve had over these years. The relationship doesn’t feel worth it for either of you at this point. You’re falling out and it terrifies you. Would he even try to stay? No, you don’t even want to think of what that answer would be. You wouldn't be able to handle it right now. You can feel the tears threatening to spill at the corner of your eyes. The sore feeling in your throat as you choke back your feelings once again. God, who even are you anymore you feel pathetic staying in this relationship. Things need to change, no more excuses. 

   Your call ended with plans for him to come over after his evening patrol. You rehearsed what to say over and over all day. Fully ready to end things if there was no compromising. Now that he’s here you’re having the worst time bringing everything up. Is there any nice way to explain to your boyfriend that you feel like you bring nothing but trouble to his life and that you’re better off alone? Not really. While on the verge of spilling the metaphorical verbal diarrhea Katsuki grabs your hand gently, pulling you into his lap. This is the most affectionate he’s been in months. Wait. No, like ever. You’re about to open your mouth to speak but he’s too quick.

“You know how the hero awards are next week? I’ve been avoiding asking you because I know I’ve had those dumb rules for so long. But, would you like to be my date? Please say yes. I want to take things public with you. I want the whole world to know about us. I have a good feeling about this year. You’re my good luck charm.” He looks so happy and a little shy, not used to being so vulnerable in general let alone with you. Who is this man and what has he done with your usual emotionally constipated boyfriend? 

“Of course Kat. I’d love to.” As if you’d have any other answer. He cups your face and gives you the sweetest kiss. It warms your heart immediately. The tender moment is interrupted by his phone going off. From the ringtone alone you can tell it’s work. He looks at you apologetically taking the call. They need him for backup as soon as possible. 

“I’ll be back. I promise. Let’s have breakfast and a dress fitting tomorrow, okay?” he lays a kiss on your forehead, and with that, he’s gone off your balcony in a flash. His explosions fading in the night. You can’t stop replaying his request. You as his date to an event has been your biggest dream since UA. Things are changing and you can feel it. You’re alone again in your apartment, but this time it doesn’t feel as empty. The spark in your heart is back. He’s trying to make things work, number one pro hero or not and you’re excited to see where things go. Maybe you do care too much.