#adding another tag to clarify that this post was written and posted after the finale

[moonunie]

I understand why they did what they did tbh

I see them so blatantly still dating and their parents knowing as a way of them saying Fine, you don't want to see us together then you won't but you can't control us and we'll do whatever we want and it's just gonna be another part of our lives you won't participate in and that sucks for You and you only. And for me that's still very in character.

This is them putting their love first. This is them believing in each other and ending another cycle of anger and guilt that they didn't have anything to do with in the first place. This is them saying that yeah, they couldn't change other people's perspectives, but to hell with it. They all can't change them either. And that's just how it is.

I saw a lot of people saying that it's not realistic because they suffered so much and fought for their relationship just for them to "go back to the closet/hiding" and that is literally not what happened lol the most important people in their lives know they're still together and they're all cool with it. They get to visit each other's places, go out together, go out with their friends, do whatever the hell they want and honestly good for them. What else could've they done? Fight their parents even more? Hold grudges for the rest of their lives? This is what they would do. This is what they did. And Pat and Pran are not their parents.

They are so good, that even if their parents don't like the idea of them being together (even if they don't say anything about it anymore, because they know it's happening anyway), they are still considerate. Pran gifts his damn father-in-law imported liquor. They keep going with their lives together, and if their parents ever want to be the bigger person for once, they'll gladly accept them to this part of their lives.

I said this earlier on another reblog, but sometimes that's what life is about. I don't want to keep arguing and fighting and having to remind myself I'm doing that. I don't want to hold grudges. I want to have a peaceful life with my partner, have a good time with our friends who love and support us unconditionally, and that's it. The ones that will be by our side, will. The ones that won't, sucks for them. I will keep doing me and there's nothing they can do about it.

I'm so happy for them. I'm so happy they get to have that, that they get to have each other and they never ever thought of parting ways because of outsiders. They deserve that so much, I wish them eternal happiness and hope that, someday, may Pat get to enter Pran's room back at his parents' house without having to sneak in. If only to spare his clumsy ass.

[bookofmirth]

I saw your recent response to an anon where you mentioned the drama that occurred the other day based around bookprofessor’s post. Obviously you don’t have to respond to this or publish it if you do not wish but I just wanted to bring up that while it is important to focus on the real life issues at hand, the OP was hypocritical in her post which is why people were getting upset. She was preaching against ableism while simultaneously flaunting her IQ and degree which is a form of ableism. She was speaking out against racism while ending her post using the racial slur “cracker” when talking about the possibly Caucasian Twitter elriels.

Obviously she had some important points but it was completely overshadowed by her participation in the hate speech and prejudice that she was speaking out against.

This does not in any way justify the nasty messages she received but on the same hand, I do not blame anyone that called her out for her hypocrisy. I hope you can understand why her post was so negatively received and how flawed it was. My hope is that one day everyone can just ignore the negativity, report those who are being racist/prejudiced in any way, and block those who are just being loud and who you don’t wish to see content from. But unfortunately I do not see that happening any time soon.

There are a few things I want to address in this because I think it's a good moment for the fandom to step back and reflect on how we treat one another, how we react to such issues, and how we behave moving forward.

First off, thanks for explaining your point of view without being antagonistic. I do think that everyone's emotional reactions to the post were valid. I do NOT think their responses, in terms of words and actions, were valid. Now before I move forward, I want to clarify that when I use the word "you", I am referring to anyone who may have had the response I am describing - not you personally, anon. Also please don’t freak out about how long this is, as a majority of it is a response to the fandom in general, not you in particular.

What was - and wasn’t - said in the original post

In this post, there were completely valid criticisms of the way that people in this fandom behave, and it wasn’t “generalizing” a certain group, it was literal, actual proof of things that had been said, by multiple people. I’m not going to get too into what Alyssa argued because her critiques of those tweets was flawless. The original post had very valid criticisms of what was happening on Twitter. Alyssa exposed the actually racist, homophobic, and imperialistic underpinnings of those tweets.

However, a lot of people are stuck on the bits before and after those critiques. @bookprofessor apologized for different aspects of her post in a few different asks. There were perhaps better ways that some of those things could have been phrased, some things that could have been left out. And she apologized. People can accept that apology or not but we can’t act like it didn’t happen. Like she didn’t reflect and learn to do better.

However, the people she was calling out have not done the same thing, and if anything, comments that focus more on Alyssa’s tone than why she wrote the post in the first place lets those people off the hook.

On cracker - Using the word "cracker" is not racist in the same way that using racial slurs against POC is. Is it prejudiced? Yes. But you cannot say that it is the same thing when that is demonstrably untrue, given centuries of oppressive history. No one has been oppressed for being white. Those are not the same. Reverse racism is not a thing because a white person punching down on POC is NOT AT ALL the same thing as a POC punching up at white people. The actions look the same, but the impact is so unequal it’s not even funny.

Racism is a systemic, institutionalized problem. It is not defined by individual actions, though those actions can either support or challenge racism. When someone calls a white person a cracker, there isn’t centuries of oppression giving power to and reinforcing that statement. That is not a “gotcha” moment.

Saying “I have x IQ” or “I have X degrees” is not ableist. I’m sorry to whoever told you it was ableist (again, not you specifically anon but people who had read the “aw shucks guys” vagueblogs about it), but it’s not. Those are facts. I have no idea what my IQ is, but I have five degrees from institutions of higher education. Me saying that is in no way ableist. 

Often, people mention those things to be elitist, yes. Sometimes, they can be used to say “hey I know more about this than you”. They can be used in a way that tries to make themselves feel superior. I suspect that this is the impression that a lot of people got of the post. However, there is a fine line between saying “hey that’s elitist” and professing anti intellectualism. Which is perhaps a side issue so I’ll let that go for now.

Another reason that people mention their degrees or qualifications is to establish their background knowledge and credibility. If I were to say “hey y’all I have two MA degrees” (which is true) I am not being ableist! It is a fact! It is factual! And I worked my ass off for those, I will be in student loan debt until I die for those, I have every right to mention them if I want to, and often I do so in order to establish my credibility, to explain the position I am coming from. And my prior knowledge of these topics is relevant when we are talking about literature since that’s what my degrees were on - literature and linguistics. That is why Alyssa mentioned her background, though she did pair it with comments about other people, for which she has apologized.

My final point about this is that I 1000% understand feeling insecure or less than because of educational attainment. I dropped out of high school. I had a complex about that for a long, long time. But I also know that if I took offense at someone else saying they had a PhD, then that offense is about me, not them. Someone else’s inferiority complex is not reason for people to pretend to be less than they are.

If those two comments are what overshadowed the bigger, more important issue for a lot of the readers of that post, then y’all allowed them to overshadow those more important issues. I am 99% sure that someone right now is reading this and thinking “but Leslie, it was the way that she said it!” Boy have I got some news for you!

How we react

This next section is not specific to this ask; instead, it is a discussion of how the fandom responded. If it were only one person who had said “but her tone” then I wouldn’t need to make this point. The fact that multiple people are exhibiting the behavior explained below is what makes this a cultural problem within the acotar fandom.

The main argument I saw on the post itself, and indeed any time I see people bring up how nasty Twitter can be, is that “it was a joke” and “that’s how stan Twitter works”.

No.

Those responses were quite useful for this post, though! So buckle up everyone, because I am going to talk about gaslighting, racism, respectability politics, and tone policing. While I understand that some people might have taken personal offense to what was said, there is a much bigger issue at stake that has nothing to do with individual feelings, and everything to do with ensuring that POC stay silenced and white supremacy is upheld. 

Back to the “but it’s a joke” thing. Thanks for gaslighting! Great example of that, person I’m not going to tag! Gaslighting is when you make someone question their experiences, when you try to make them think “wait, did I really feel that way? Is my feeling about that valid? Do I need to re-evaluate my response to this?? Am I blowing this out of proportion???” And saying “it’s just a joke” is a perfect way to do that. Did I say something accidentally sexist? It’s just a joke, nbd! Now you’re the problem, because you didn’t understand my joke and laugh!!! 

Saying “it’s a joke” or “oh they are old/young/ignorant, they will learn” is not a good response to... anything. It takes the responsibility off the people who are doing the harm, and putting it onto the people who were hurt. And in this case, anyone who read those tweets and found them harmful (which should be everyone?) is completely valid. You aren’t lesser for being angry or emotional or for seeing a problem where other people saw a joke. The people who see those things as acceptable jokes are the ones in the wrong.

This is a tactic that is used against women all the time. Any time a woman is sexually harassed at work or online, for example, and she gets upset about it, and someone chimes in with “oh they weren’t serious, can’t you take a joke?” So you can imagine what this is like for women of color.

It is a very, very common tactic for people of color to be silenced via tone policing and respectability politics. Tone policing and respectability politics are very closely related, especially in this context. The idea is that if Alyssa had just written that post in just the right way, it would have been more palatable to white people, and therefore okay to write. The idea that if she had tried to be “understanding” or “see it from their perspective” or understand that it’s “just a joke” are all ways to silence and de-legitimize any accurate, valid criticisms that were made of those tweets. It effectively re-routes the conversation away from the real issues, and to the person trying to bring them up. It’s essentially an ad hominem attack in disguise. 

We see respectability politics in media when people of color who act or dress or speak like white people are afforded more respect. Or any time that a person of color is pulled over and people say, “well if they had just done what the police officer asked...” There is a pervasive idea that if people just “act” properly, aka if you act white, then the police won’t feel antagonized and try to kill arrest you. If we are nice enough, meek enough, smile enough, etc. then we will be accepted.

When we tone police, we refuse to allow marginalized people the right to be angry. We say that "hey, we can only have this discussion if you leave emotion, which you rightfully feel, at the door, and we can only continue this discussion if you behave in a way that makes me feel comfortable." But guess what? It isn’t about you! These discussions are often highly uncomfortable. There is no nice way to tell someone they are being racist. And yet somehow, that is the ever-moving goalpost. It seems reasonable, right? “Just be civil, be nice, don’t insult each other!” And there is that. But those criteria change constantly, to the point where anyone (white) at any time can say “WHOA WHOA THIS IS MAKE ME UNCOMFORTABLE???” Then we find ourselves at zero, and suddenly the focus of attention has shifted away from the actual problem.

Before we go further, I want to say this: people have a right to be angry. They do not need to make their anger palatable or tasteful for the consumption of others (read: white people). 

We saw this last summer, and I’m not sure how the message didn’t get across. But people are rightfully angry about racism. They are angry about the murder of people of color by police, they are angry about lack of quality education, or clean water, of centuries of oppression that have led to this very moment when all of that ceases to matter because a white woman’s feelings got hurt one time. 

And that is what pisses me off so much. There is no way in this world that we could criticize tweets like those that everyone would agree with, and that everyone would “approve” of, that would be “nice” enough and yet still be impactful and make the authors of those tweets understand the gravity of what they have done. 

The least we can do is allow one another to express our anger, our outrage, because it’s highly likely that those people know exactly what the fuck they are doing, and they do not fucking care. By criticizing a woman of color for the way in which she chose to engage with this topic, we are avoiding the issue and letting the people in those tweets off the hook. 

There were many responses to that post that were positive, that agreed with Alyssa. There are a ton of people who disagree with those tweets, who find them disgusting, who understand exactly how and why they are problematic. That should be what we are talking about. Getting to the core of the argument, on that post or any about racism or other problematic behavior in fandom, requires getting past our own egos. It requires us to be able to step back, say “hm this thing is frustrating but there is a bigger picture here”. It’s not easy, and I recognize that. 

The fact that it is a common tactic though? To say “hey this hurt me personally and so I’m going to ignore any valid points you made?” That feeds directly into centuries of white supremacy because it, once again, silences POC and makes them try to play a losing game. And they will always lose, because no matter how hard they try to play the white game, the goalposts are constantly shifting. So you know what? Fuck the game, and fuck respectability politics, and fuck tone policing and “uwu be nice guys” because when it comes to things like racism and sexism, I don’t expect the people who deserve to be criticized to be nice. In fact, trying to be nice only serves to fuck POC over in the end.

Indeed, in response to that post, certain blogs have taken the opportunity to position themselves as “the nice ones” or “the ones who would never” or “uwu let’s be nice guys” while completely ignoring the fact that a woman of color was attacked for calling out racism. And yes - that was the point of her post. People getting hung up on mentions of her degree are (intentionally or not, it doesn’t matter) completely obfuscating the fact that that is not what her post was about, which was to call out disgusting behavior. idk how many words the post actually was, but essentially, people are focusing on 5% of it to the detriment of the 95% that was actually really important shit. These types of vagueblog posts about the issue fall into exactly what I am talking about - these are people who have decided to look at this issue, see how Alyssa (and anyone else who dares speak up) has approached it, and intentionally try to act like they are “better” because they can be “rational” and “kind”. Newsflash, if you don’t have something to be angry about, then being “nice” about racism isn’t that much of a flex. If it didn’t bother you, then congratulations. That doesn’t make you better than people it did bother. You just got lucky this time, and decided to use that to your advantage to look like the good guy.

I am not saying that all calls for peace are doing this. Obviously it’s what we all want. This is the worst I have seen this fandom in the 4+ years I’ve been here. But we cannot have that by ignoring the real problems and pretending that if we are all just nice to each other, then we will solve racism and sexism and all bullying in the fandom will stop. 

So combining all of this - the gaslighting, the tone policing, and what do you get? You get a fandom that refuses to actually engage critically with its own problems and take accountability for them. You get a fandom that decides that it’s easier to be distracted by this one mean comment over here than it is to engage in the fact that you know what, the culture in this fandom has actually turned incredibly disgusting and a lot of people are just okay with it. You’ve got a fandom that is using the tools of white supremacy to avoid the discussions that should actually be taking place. Maybe people don’t realize that that’s what they are doing. But if someone still thinks that after reading this post, then godspeed my friend, I hope you enjoy Twitter.

Okay so my last thing I want to say is that I didn’t come to all of this knowledge fresh from the womb. I do a lot of work, in my personal life and my professional life, to be better. So here is a list of books that I have found particularly helpful:

How to Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America also by Ibram X. Kendi

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo (side note, I was kinda meh about this one but the chapter “White Women’s Tears” is particularly helpful)

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment by Patricia Hill Collins

I’m not going to talk specifically about Alyssa’s post anymore, but if anyone wants to continue talking about these broader issues going on in the fandom, I am game. (I really should be grading papers though, so it might take a bit.)

[angryschnauzer]

Invite Us In

Summary: You're tired. You're grumpy. You're cramping. And when two of SHIELD's finest Vampires turn up at your door at sunrise, you kind of have to invite them in...

Warnings: NSFW, 18+, Oral Sex, Period Oral Sex, Periods, Werewolf, Vampires, Vampire Bucky, Vampire Steve, werewolf female reader, crack fic, squicks.

Pairing: Stucky x Female Reader

I do not operate a tag list but if you follow @angryschnauzerwrites​ and put that blog onto notifications, you will get an alert whenever i post something new. Oneshots will be posted on Tumblr and AO3, Multichapters will be AO3 exclusives. I do not have a masterlist due to the sheer number of fics i have written, but you can find them all on AO3 link HERE

Invite Us In

The insistent knocking on the door made you groan, you had only just gotten home and the last thing you needed was visitors after the night you’d had. Growling as you grasped the heavy iron lock, you pulled the latch and peered out through the gap in the door, groaning at the sight;

“What are you two doing here?”

Opening the door wider you leant against the doorpost, hooking one leg over the other at your ankles and crossing your arms. Steve and Bucky were standing on your doorstep, beaten and bloody, and grinning like idiots;

“Hey there Doll” Bucky drawled; “We could kinda use some help…”

“Yeah, we got caught up in an all night mission and can’t make it back to base before sunrise… can we crash here?”

Groaning you rolled your eyes at the two doofuses in front of you, it was typical of their behaviour, get caught up in a fight after a mission and only just make it back to base before the powerful rays of sun licked at their pale white asses… considering they had both been vampires for over 75 years, you would have thought they would be able to keep track of the sunrise by now… but it would seem not;

“Really? I have only just changed, i’ve had a hell of a night…”

“Babe… please…” Steve begged, the two of them shuffling a little closer towards you as the rays of light moved along the floor towards them as the morning sun rose; “Please… invite us in…”

Rolling your eyes again you sighed, as a magical being yourself you knew you couldn’t let two of the finest Supernatural fighters poof into piles of dust, so with great reluctance your shoulders sagged;

“Fine… please do come in…”

The two men trooped into your small apartment, coming to a halt when they saw how small your living quarters were; a single room studio apartment, small bathroom off to the side, and the couch pulled out into a bed.

“Cosy” Bucky muttered, toeing his boots off and unbuckling his jacket

Steve nodded, a smirk on his face to which you felt like slapping straight off.

“Hey, not all of us get paid the mega bucks you two do. Plus… i have to spend four days of a month off active duty… like now…”

“Oh… Its that time…” Steve started

“Yes, of the month. Like i said, i only just changed and i was up all night”

You went to boil water for some tea, your back to the two men when you felt the hairs on the back of your neck prick up, turning you let out a yelp when you found yourself boxed in by the two large vampires in your apartment;

“What are you…?” you started, only to be cut off by Bucky;

“We can smell you…”

Groaning you rolled your head;

“Oh man… i even vacuumed, is there dog hair too?”

The dark haired vamp blinked and looked confused;

“What are you talking about?”

“What are you talking about?” you countered

“Your period” Steve clarified. Your mouth fell into a large ‘oh’ before Steve continued; “What do you mean dog?”

“The full moon? Being off every 28 days? You guys haven’t figured it out?” They both shook their heads; “Oh boy… ok yeah i’m on my period… but that’s because i’m a fucking werewolf. Every month i get really fucking ratty because i have to turn into a giant dog for three nights, AND when i change as the sun rises i get the joy of having my period when all i want to do is curl into a ball because of cramps and eat chocolate which makes me really fucking sick because i’m half DOG…”

Both men were silent for a moment, before they moved closer, each resting a hand on your hip. Steve pressed his mouth to one ear;

“We can help with the period cramps…”

“And it’ll help us too…” Bucky added

“What? How?”

“Are we gonna have to spell it out for ya Doll? We’re hungry… and you’re bleeding…”

“Oh. OH”

You turned to Steve for clarification but his mouth caught yours, his tongue pushing and to your surprise you opened for him. Through the kiss you were vaguely aware of Bucky pulling your t-shirt down your shoulder and pressing his lips to your neck, sucking against your skin. Pulling away from Steve you went to warn Bucky against any funny business with his sharp teeth, but any protests were swallowed when his lips met yours. 

In a mass of limbs pulling at clothing you made your way across your tiny apartment, falling into a heap on your bed. Bucky pulled at your panties, and you tensed as he saw your core. Tugging gently at the string of your tampon he slid it out of you, tossing it into the small trash can at the side of your bed. He looked like utter sin, his chest bare, his pants partially unbuttoned as he knelt on the bed and lifted one of your legs, pressing kisses to your skin as he trailed his lips from your ankle to your knee and then further. When his lips touched yours you let out a sigh, your hands scrambling for something to grab onto, and finding Steve at your side. He leant down and kissed you, his sharp teeth rubbing against yours, before he pulled away;

“Does doggy want a treat?”

“Steve… what do you…?”

He unbuttoned his pants and tugged them down, his hard dick springing out and slapping against his stomach;

“A nice meaty treat”

Grinning you nodded at him, watching as he shuffled on his knees and you were able to take him into your mouth, moaning around his impressing length as Bucky’s long tongue pushed into your aching walls, tasting you. He groaned against your lips, sending sensations through your body which in turn made you hum around Steve. Relaxing your jaw you looked up and nodded, working your tongue over him as he started to fuck your mouth. 

You could feel your orgasm starting to grow in the pit of your stomach, Bucky giving out sweet torture between your legs. As his teeth gently scraped against your folds it was the final trigger, and as you started to come Steve reached he peak too, spurting ropes of cum down your throat which you happily swallowed.

Laying back on the bed you sighed, the flood of relief coursing through your body a welcome change from the tenseness that had consumed you for so many full moons in the past. With your eyes closed you were vaguely aware of the two men moving around, before you felt a cool metal hand against your chin;

“Open up Doll, you’ve been such a good girl you can have a second treat”

Opening your eyes you were greeted with the sight of Bucky’s thick and meaty dick just inches from your face, and taking hold of your chin with his metal hand he guided himself between your lips as Steve’s tongue found its way home between your thighs.

Whereas Bucky had a long tongue, Steve’s was wide, and as he opened his mouth he was seemingly able to cover your entire sex with his mouth, his thick tongue lapping at your entrance. The two men soon set to work, Bucky praising you for taking his dick so well, Steve eating you out like he hadn’t had a meal in months. As you came on Steve’s tongue he drank down everything you gave him, Bucky pulling out of your mouth as he fisted his wide girth;

“Open your mouth doll, i wanna see you hold it on your tongue”

Sticking your tongue out you watched as he pumped himself just a couple of times before he was coming in powerful spurts, shooting his cum into your mouth with trigger precision just like the sniper he was.

Laying back on the bed again you were in seventh heaven, the endorphins rushing through your body and the orgasms having gotten rid of your cramps, you could get used to this you thought to yourself. You watched through heavy lids as the two men licked at the others face and chin, catching the last drops of precious blood, and you felt your insides clench with arousal, a small moan escaping your throat.

“Ready for more Doll?”

Spreading your legs you ran your hands along your thighs;

“I’m not gonna say no…”

-

“WOOF” 

Bucky and Steve were woken by your loud bark, looking bleary eyed and crumpled from sleep.

“What the…?”

Another quieter bark as you sat on your haunches at the side of the bed had them remembering what you had told them, before you got up and picked up a note, walking back to the bed and dropped it in Steve’s lap.

“She left us a note…

‘Thank you for an amazing night. If you could kindly let me out when you leave, that would be great’

You growled quietly and the two vamps looks at you and smiled, before climbing out of bed and started to get dressed. 

-

On the sidewalk outside your building the three of you stood and breathed in the cool night air, before you looked up and saw the moon, the urge to run and howl soon overtaking any other thought. As you started to run along the pavement the two men called out in the silent night;

“Hey girl!”

You stopped and paused as Steve spoke;

“You need us to come over again in the morning?”

Trotting back to them you stood as then bent down and scratched your ears;

“Huh Doll, you want more?”

You licked Bucky’s face then Steve’s, the two vamps laughing;

“We’ll take that as a yes”

With a howl of joy you ran off into the night, excited for your midnight run, and even more excited for your morning fun.

[panharmonium]

more rambling re: that last post (+ the merlin/will fic survey overview)

because i generally refrain from reading fic while i’m actively writing for a fandom, the only real ao3 reading i have done for merlin is my survey of the merlin/will ship tag.  and the only reason i undertook that survey in the first place is because while i was doing an introductory cruise of the various merlin tags during my first exploration of the fandom (after i finally finished S5 and was able to start looking into fandom dynamics without fearing spoilers), i noticed that a LOT of the fic tagged with this ship was also tagged merlin/arthur, and despite the fact that i personally am more interested in gen stuff, i started to get both suspicious and annoyed about what i was seeing.  but i also wanted to have the data to back up my annoyed feelings, so i made a little spreadsheet for myself and then just filled it in whenever i had time to kill and wanted something to do. 

the data, when i eventually finished, backed up my annoyance pretty much as well as i expected, which was disappointing, but not surprising.

to clarify - i’m not annoyed by the fact that will and merlin don’t have a whole lot of material in their ship tag.  will only showed up directly in one episode; i don’t expect him to be a popular subject.  what i AM annoyed by is the fact that there are actually more merlin/arthur fics in the merlin/will tag than there are fics that actually focus on...merlin/will.  by, like - an extreme margin.

(the rest of this is just me griping about fandom trends.  popping it under a cut so folks can just move on with their days if this isn’t relevant to their interests.)

The Numbers

two quick notes before i get into the nitty-gritty:

1) i originally did this survey a few months ago, but i updated it this week with fics that have been added since then, so the numbers are current.  

2) some of the data below would probably vary slightly depending on who was conducting the survey, so there’s a bit of wiggle room in either direction.  the criteria i had to use [aka what counts as just a ship ‘mention’ vs actual content] would be subject to reader interpretation, obviously, but even with that, i do feel that most stories fell into pretty clear categories.)

so, without further ado -

total # of fics in the ship tag: 145

number of fics that are inappropriately tagged (meaning either will himself or merlin/will as a ship does not actually appear [which is kind of bizarre, but which i saw happen surprisingly frequently], OR where there is only a brief reference to will or past!merlin/will and that’s the extent of their inclusion: 50

number of fics that are duplicates of works already in the tag (ie podfic), or (in one case) a meta podcast about the show: 5

so, that brings down our total number of fics with some sort of actual merlin/will content to 90.

of these 90 works, only 17 of them are actually focused on merlin/will.  

everything else in will’s ship tag, including the 54 works from the previously discussed "incorrectly tagged” category, is either a) fic where will is dumped, broken up with, or otherwise passed over in favor of arthur (and very occasionally gwaine, at least once mordred, once percival, once arthur and gwaine in a threesome, and once CENRED, which i’m sure will would be especially thrilled about), or b) fic where will is only included as a previous/ex relationship (again, almost always in lieu of arthur).  

moreover - of the 17 actual merlin/will fics, 7 still end with will dying or the relationship ending for reasons other than him being passed over for arthur.  an additional 4 are <1000 word PWP snippets, generally written for old LJ summer pornathons, one of which still somehow manages to be...you guessed it - all about arthur. 

in terms of actual one-shots/full fics where merlin/will is the endgame/non-dead pairing, there are only 6 stories.  

i repeat: will gets six earnest stories, IN HIS OWN SHIP TAG.  

i repeat once again: will, in a non-dead, endgame form, gets 4% of his own ship tag.

The Content

the in-fic trends are frustrating, if you actually like this character.

the asshole.  will is an abusive boyfriend.  he is a jealous ex. he’s a shitty friend.  he’s a stalker.  he’s manipulative.  he’s emotionally abusive.  he’s physically abusive.  he dumps merlin for someone else.  he cheats.  in one fic he’s so mad at merlin that he outs merlin’s magic to arthur.  in multiple fics, i watched him literally go off the rails and try to murder somebody.

the fuckbuddy. they’re just messing around, guys!  no, of course it’s not serious!  they just do this for fun!  of course there’s nothing to get in the way of arthur’s inevitable arrival!  no sirree!

the unrequited.  will is actually in it deep for merlin, but merlin doesn’t feel the same.  this does not, however, prevent merlin from using will for sex, companionship, comfort, distraction, etc - until arthur shows up, when will either steps aside in deference to merlin’s all-consuming passion for arthur or is dropped like a hot potato.

“not even will.”  that sentence.  over and over again.  merlin had never felt like this before, not even with will.  nobody had ever understood merlin like this, not even will.   even in fic when they were like.  married.  or engaged.  fanon arthur pendragon must be truly mind-blowing, y’all.

dead long-term relationship.  will was merlin’s husband/fiancé/long-term partner.  now he is Dead.  merlin getting together with arthur is what allows merlin to Heal.  (these stories sometimes contain some variation of “not even will,” as discussed above.)

lastly, in a related phenomenon:

who are you and what have you done with arthur pendragon???   i suppose in a way it’s nice to know that will isn’t the only one who gets the OOC treatment, but it is still really...something, to read fic where will is twisted into an unpleasant, abusive, canon non-compliant version of himself, and then to see arthur, on the very same page, transformed into a gentle, solicitous, kind, caring, equally canon non-compliant angel.  fanon!arthur is more worried about merlin’s well-being than literally anyone i have ever seen.  he is so invested in merlin’s emotional health.  he is so concerned about merlin’s boundaries.  he says things to merlin that no version of arthur pendragon has ever - EVER - in any universe, thought about saying to anybody.  he wants to hear all about merlin’s problems, and he’s all about taking it slow and making sure merlin feels comfortable and loved and worthy and safe (from all that horrible stuff done by that horrible other guy; that must’ve been so hard, merlin; ‘it’s okay, i’ve got you now’) - the man is utterly unrecognizable.  and you know what?  it’s okay!  it is fine to make your characters as OOC as you want.  it is fine to make them better/nicer than they were in the canon.  sometimes we all want that, right?  it’s fanfic!  have a ball.  i will never tell anyone to stop writing what they like, and i will NEVER interact negatively with a fic i don’t care for.  EVER.  do not do this, people - click the back button and move on with your life.   but i reserve the right to be annoyed, in my own space, about a persistent trend of will and arthur’s canon functions being flat-out reversed, in service of merlin/arthur.  not in the sense that canon!will is particularly gentle or sweet, because that’s not the case - but in the sense that will, in canon, is the one who actually cares about merlin’s best interests, whereas arthur is, quite frankly, the ass. a lovable ass (sometimes).  but an ass nonetheless, and one whose relationship with merlin is, from start to finish, an unhealthy, oppressive mess.

The Point

the point of me typing this up is not to say that what people choose to write is bad or wrong.  this is fanfic!  you can write whatever you want.  you can make characters as OOC as you want.  you can create as many AUs as you want.  i don’t mind fic authors writing stuff i don’t personally care for; someone else probably loves those stories!  and i am never going to interact negatively with anything i don’t personally enjoy - i am going to let people continue to have fun in their own ways, and i am going to grumble about my frustrations in my own space, and then i’m going to direct my energy into writing stuff i would personally like to read.

the point is just that i needed a brief second to complain, on my own blog, about my most familiar bbc merlin nemesis (otherwise known as ‘single-ship ubiquity’).  and what i mean by this is that it is REALLY FRUSTRATING that other little relationships are not even granted the tiniest concession of owning their own ship tags, in a fandom that is already so SATURATED with merlin/arthur content.  like - even if i’m generous and use the number 17 for the number of actual merlin/will fics in the tag, that still means 88% of will’s ship tag is actually fic about merlin falling in love with people who aren’t will (*cougharthur*).  eighty-eight percent!  of his own ship tag!  

(to put it another way - the ship tag isn’t supposed to be where you go to watch your character get repeatedly dumped or left behind for someone else, okay?  it’s supposed to be literally the opposite of that.)

will’s ship tag is already tiny.  and almost all of it belongs to arthur.  moreover, a significant chunk of it uses will as a convenient villain (completely contradicting every canon aspect of his characterization), when in the actual story will dies to protect arthur (who he doesn’t even like) and then lies to save merlin (at the expense of his own reputation, and despite the fact that he personally thinks merlin returning to camelot is a bad idea).  his behavior in canon is selfless, and wholly committed to merlin’s welfare, and yet in his ship tag he gets treated like trash.  

the kid can’t catch a break.  and it’s such a pervasive thing that even though i personally am primarily interested in merlin and will as friends (i am pretty romance-averse in general when it comes to media, and i have never written anything that isn’t gen, for any fandom, ever, in my life), i am also so indignant on will’s behalf that i’ve basically become invested in the well-being of this ship as a matter of principle.  it’s not my main thing, and it’s not necessarily how i view the canon-verse, but i am SO IRRITATED about how virtually all of will’s shipfic has been taken over by merthur (and about how maligned will is in his own tag) that i have actively committed myself to supporting merlin and will together in as many AUs as possible.  

(this is basically like when i trained myself to love allison argent after teen wolf killed her off.  i did that out of spite, y’all.  it’s the principle of the thing.)

so, y’know.  all i am saying is that i think will deserves his share of happy endings, and i think it would be nice to see fics where he is not just a stepping stone on the road to merthur or an unrecognizable parody of himself.

more importantly - EVERY merlin ship deserves to have a tag that isn’t completely swallowed by the local fandom behemoth.  merlin/arthur already owns three quarters of the archive.  a gargantuan oil tanker like that can afford to let the little rarepair canoes float down their own streams in peace.

[gyllenhaalstories]

I read your tags under the last post and you did that as a teen? Thats messed up

hi anon! i don't know what's the tone of your question, whether you think it's messed up i was doing it and now i'm protecting minors from repeating the same bad experiences and mistakes or whether me being talked/convinced into writing and consuming written erotica was messed up. i'll clarify some things and put them under the read more to avoid triggering anybody.

tw: underage sexual activities, grooming, manipulation.

i've mentioned it a few times, but long before i wrote fanfictions, i was roleplaying. by roleplaying, i mean creating characters or writing as characters, basically writing fanfiction but with someone or multiple writing partners at a time. i was 11 or 12 when i started on a french platform and interacted with god knows who. i was around 13-14 when i started roleplaying on facebook and on tumblr. it was not super uncommon for minors and teenagers to do this, especially on facebook. we were a bunch of lonely antisocial teenagers living high school drama both in real life and online. there was massive amounts of lies, manipulation, bullying and so on. but to many, including me, it was the only way to make "friends", some were genuine friendships others were absolutely terrible. i first wrote smut in a roleplay on facebook with someone who was finishing college (my education system is different from america, college means high school and university and even pre-university programs and i could only assume it was the same for her). we wrote our stuff, she was very rude about my typos and my limited vocabulary but i did not question too much out of it, i just thought she was smarter (again because i assumed she was the same age as me). eventually, we got into writing smut. i was aware of the "fading to black" technique, which is what you do when you skip from a scene that gets heated to what happens after the action and in my reply, i faded to black. she asked me to rewrite it, she wanted to do the sex scene because it was "important for character development", it wasn't, she just needed something to satisfy whatever the fuck she needed to satisfy. now i can look back and understand that, but back then i had no idea. so we wrote that scene. the entire time i felt extremely uncomfortable and i kept apologizing and delaying my reply until she completely disappeared on me and blocked my account, seemingly because i wasn't fun to write with anymore.

another facebook experience occured a year or two later. i was 15, i've had some rough encounters with other rpers who held a big place in my personal life too so i was very vulnerable. i came across this girl who never told me anything regarding her age and her personal life, while constantly asking me questions about mine. we wrote this couple, she constantly forced me into writing smut. i'd suggest new date ideas, new plot twists, new settings, anything just to avoid writing sex scenes for the 5th time in the same day. she told me "you'll like it, you'll get better at it when you practice, i'll tell you how it works, it's gonna make you feel good too". so i kept writing with her, i had no other friend at that time so i thought that if i did what she demanded me to do to, she'd stick around and like me. we wrote sex scene after sex scene, we added pregnancy plots, a forced pregnancy even, i was incredibly uncomfortable. i made a different account, i tried to escape her but i couldn't. she had around 5 or 6 accounts where she would go around and find young partners to write with. she had a friend who did the same. there was nowhere to go. i eventually ghosted the previous account we wrote on together and focused on my new character. she was gaining a bit of traction, i met someone there too. we became friends instantly. i was 16 when this new person and i decided to talk more "out of character". we got to know each other, we became best friends and we still are today. we were writing so many different plots and relationships, but they were always respectful of the boundaries we both set. when i turned 18, she finally brought up this previous person who manipulated me into writing smut. she said she had met her, years before me. she was, too, talked into writing sex when she was around my age. we both found out this other person was a 35 years-old woman, a creep, who hunted down our roleplay community to write smut with us, teens and kids. she made us believe it was okay, that she'd "teach us the way". she'd gaslight you and manipulate you into getting what she wanted. there were stories going around that were even crazier than mine. i was manipulated into writing sex with someone twice my age when i was still a teenager. for the longest time, i avoided writing smut, even in roleplays. it took me years to work the courage to write smut again, to develop sex headcanons for my characters in roleplays. i wrote smut with my best friend, whom i trust with my whole life, once or twice and she always insisted we stopped if i were uncomfortable until we just stopped altogether and focused on headcanons and other fluffy ideas rather than fully fleshed out written erotica.

i was reading smut, i was consuming porn, i was on tumblr this whole time and that was before the grand purge of adult material. it was different, in a way, because i was choosing to consume such things. but still. i was like 14 and seeing dicks and pussies out in the wild on tumblr. i had no interest in relationships, in dating, in sex even and i was seeing all of this. i was learning that if you wanted others to desire you, you had to be like the girls on porn videos, you had to do all kinds of crazy things and let (mostly) men take advantage of you because that's hot.

all of that just to say...

IT FUCKS YOU UP. it just fucks you up. it makes you think you're not normal, it makes you think you're weak, you're immature, you're just not cool enough. it makes you think you owe sexual favours to other people. it makes you think your sexual desires are just something people can play with so they can get what they want. i've come a long way. i've learned about my own sexuality a lot. i'm still very insecure in real life, but this blog has allowed me to explore my own desires and fantasies in a safe way, following my own boundaries. it might not seem like much to you. but it was a lot to me. i was hiding this from everybody, my only escape from real life was becoming as toxic as real life itself. the lines were blurred between online and reality. i became scared of people. i thought they were all like the other girls who were full on adults taking advantage of KIDS to write sex. they didn't care if it sucked, they got off from it.

being a blog that is 18+ is not just for aesthetic. it's not just to be cool and act like we're more mature. IT'S A SAFETY FOR BOTH US, AND YOU. we want to avoid that minors fall into traps and rabbit holes. we want to avoid minors from constructing their sexualities around what is clearly fake. FAN FICTION IS FICTION but it can impact your real life, especially when you're young and unexperienced.

i am a firm believer that 18/21 and other ages of consent are NOT magic numbers. you don't suddenly become "mature" at the second you turn 18. they are just minimum age requirements that can allow both you and us some sort of safety. you can be 15 and sexually experienced. you can be a 35 years-old virgin and more sexually experienced than your average person. but that doesn't mean you can't respect other people's boundaries and lurk on their blog while being a minor. you are exposing yourself to things you shouldn't be exposed to at your age.

PROTECT YOURSELF. PROTECT OTHERS. RESPECT EVERYBODY'S BOUNDARIES.

[bleufrost]

Crawl Home to Her || A Ben Hanscom Series

Chapter Two: The Call

masterlist

story summary

rating: m for graphic depictions of violence, gore, and adult themes

Nothing was making any sense anymore. After the incident in the bathroom, Ali was finding it difficult to know what she could believe. Obviously her eyes were playing tricks on her, but the fresh scars on her wrists that had not been there before told a different story and pleaded the validity of what she knew she had experienced. 

The sharp ringing of her cellphone cuts through the air and startles her for what feels like the fiftieth time in the past few days. Picking it up, she looks at the screen to feel yet another sense of dread that she can't quite place the cause of. An unsaved number lit up the screen, Maine written in smaller letters directly underneath. When was the last time she had thought of Maine? Why was it causing her hands to shake and leaving her wondering whether or not she should pick up? The phone nearly comes to a stop before she quickly presses the button that answers the call. She lifts it shakily to her ear and takes a deep breath.

"Hello?" On the other end there is a quick sigh of relief before a voice responds. "Hey Ali, it's Mike. Um, Mike Hanlon from Derry." 

Ali's knees seem to go numb beneath her and she quickly finds herself losing balance. She moves to sit on the bed and swallows down the panic stirring within her. "Oh wow, hi Mike. I...really wasn't expecting to hear from you." Michael let's out another breath and the rustling of his movements echoes into the phone. "Yeah, I've heard that quite a few times recently. Ali, something's happened and I promise to explain more later but I really just need you to come meet us the day after tomorrow." 

There's a look of confusion and concern etched on her face as she processes what Mike just told her. This has to have something to do with the weird things that she was seeing; there was no way that Mike calling was a coincidence when it coincided so perfectly with everything else. Just as part of her was hesitant to pick up the call to begin with, she was also hesitant to agree to meet with him again. She knew there was no way to deny him though, not when she had all but forgotten he existed until just moments ago. 

"Ali, are you still there?" Mike sounds a little nervous, maybe even desperate. There was something else that he said that was gnawing at her though. "Mike, when you say 'us,' who are you talking about?" 

****

Walking up to the restaurant, Jade of the Orient, was possibly the most nerve wracking thing Ali had done in years. Stopping in front of the entrance, she plays with the zipper of her jacket and does what she does best; allows her anxiety to overcome her. This may have all been a huge mistake. Mike had clarified a little more about who exactly she would be seeing here, but the details and memories were all extremely fuzzy. It was as if there was a mist layered over her childhood that no matter how hard she tried to see past, it was far too thick. 

These people had not seen her in years. She had put a lot of effort into becoming someone she could look at and love; most of which was in vain, but still, there was a stark difference between who she was and who she has become. Her black glasses still framed her face and her unruly hair still blew wildly in the wind, but that was nearly as far as the similarities ended. Would they hate her for becoming someone new? Was she even someone new; or was she still the same scared little girl that allowed the opinions and eyes of others obstruct her ability to see herself the way in which she truly was? This was without a doubt a mistake and the tug of fear instantly turns from a dull pull to a sharp stab that drives her away from the restaurant; away from them. Before she can move to turn back to her car and leave, a gentle voice carries through the wind and graces her ears; acting as a beam of light that breaks apart the mist. 

"You want a lollipop?" The voice halts every movement she was making and any that she was even considering. It takes her back to a time she swore that she had forgotten about long ago, yet standing here now she wonders how she could have ever allowed it to slip away. 

****

It felt like yesterday, sitting on the steps of school and waiting patiently for Beverly to make her way out the front doors. It was the last day of the school year and Ali had decided to forego her last class, opting instead to sit outside and draw her newest interest. A boy named Ben Hanscom had recently started attending school here and Beverly had introduced him to her friend not long after she ran into him in the hall. He was extremely adorable and honestly interesting to talk to; much smarter than most of the other kids that went here anyway. He was quiet and really liked to read, something she found comfort in when all the rest of the school appeared far too loud. 

Kids started filtering out around her, and it wasn’t long before shouts could be heard in the yard. Looking up, Ali saw Henry Bowers tormenting a group of kids that she had had a few interactions with in the past. They all shared a common habit of constantly being picked on by Bowers, Greta, and the awful group that followed the two leaders around. Greta was nowhere in sight, giving Ali a chance to breathe for once, until the commotion in front of her got a little more physical and Ali felt as though it was only right to help out the group of boys who had done the same for her on a few previous occasions. 

“You have some big balls beating up on people who are smaller than you, Bowers!” Ali stood tall against the boy and his friends, staring him down as much as her smaller stature could. Henry looked back at her for a moment with shock on his face, but that lasted for only the briefest of moments before it turned into a sneer. He threw glances at his gang and erupted into laughter. 

“Oh yeah you ugly fucking bitch? I bet you would love to see my balls. Too bad that easy friend of yours is the only one who can get any action. You’d know, right? I’m sure you try all the time but no one’s willing to sleep with a fucking four eyed piece of shit like you!” The sting of tears sparks within her at his words, but she refuses to let them spill; there were few things she was not willing to do in order to ensure that Bowers was not granted the satisfaction of successfully hurting someone else. 

Straightening the glasses on her face, Ali looks back at him with a twinkle in her eye that Bill, Richie, Eddie, and Stan had all come to learn meant she was about to say something that would end the argument. “I can’t do anything about needing to wear glasses, but you can do something about that ugly ass mullet on your head. Seems to me like we’re both ugly, but you’re the dumbass that’s choosing to look like that.” Bowers’ eyes come alight with anger and Richie hollers about a murder having taken place. Bill, knowing that she won’t back down just as much as Henry will refuse to, starts to make a commotion that gets the attention of the police officers standing off to the side. Henry quickly looks behind Ali and makes eye contact with the officers, he reaches down and pulls the sketchbook out of her hand, ripping a few pages and throwing it to the floor before turning and motioning for his gang to follow behind him. 

“Thanks for the help.” Stan nods to you and the rest of the boys offer up a smile as they turn and start running off, Richie still screaming about the look on Henry’s face. Ali also smiles, but that fades quickly when Beverly comes up behind her smelling slightly like garbage and leans down to pick up the book and torn drawings. 

“Everything alright?” Ali sighs and faces Bev, shrugging and brushing off a stray piece of trash from her shoulder. “Just about alright as it usually is.” The two girls make their way back to the stairs to grab the rest of Ali’s stuff, only to find the way blocked by the new kid, Ben. 

“Is there a password or something?” Beverly smiles and laughs as Ben fumbles with his stuff nervously. It was abundantly clear that the poor kid had already fallen victim to, not only the typical pains of being new at school, but also the all too common sting of being an easy target for bullying. 

When it is clear that Beverly is messing with him, he returns the laugh. Ali giggles as well, picking up her backpack once he has moved a bit, and reaching in to find something that she hoped would make everyone’s day a little sweeter. Passing one to Beverly and then unwrapping her own, she steps forward and smiles at Ben, holding out her hand. 

“You want a lollipop?” 

****

Turning around, the face that had eluded her for years finally became clear

Tags: (im tagging everyone who has interacted with the previous posts about this story, but if you don’t want to be tagged please just send me a message, I completely understand!)

@somebody-to-rock-you @spiritsent​​ @alexther11​​​ @floralpiper​​ @thesmittenkitkat​​ @goldenmoonbeam​​​ @daisysinadarkmedow​​ @auggusst​​ @isabellathedreamer​​ @makbubblefandom​​ @1988-fiend​​

message me if you want to be added to the list!

a/n: i appreciate every read, like, reblog, and comment so so much! feedback is always welcome and i hope you guys are enjoying this. the next chapter will HEAVILY involve ben, i promise!!

merry christmas loves!

[aj-eddy]

Crash Course in Dialogue Punctuation

A lot of people have trouble when it comes to punctuating dialogue, and that’s okay. It’s not an uncommon problem, and it is something that can be corrected.

 There are three types of dialogue: direct dialogue, indirect dialogue, and internal dialogue.

Direct dialogue is a person or character’s speech and is written between quotation marks. For instance, “You can have one cookie,” his mother said.

Indirect dialogue is a report or recount of someone speaking and is written into the description or blocking of a scene. For instance: His mother said he could have one cookie.

Internal dialogue is the equivalent of thought. It doesn’t need to be enclosed in quotation marks, but it can be written in different ways—some authors write thoughts in normal text font, others italicise it to set it apart from the narration.

 Direct dialogue is usually written with a dialogue tag, such as ‘said’, ‘whispered’, ‘muttered’, ‘shouted’, ‘stammered’, and all the other words that are synonymous.

 The first thing about punctuating dialogue is that dialogue always begins with a capitalised word, no matter whether the dialogue is before the dialogue tag or after it. The only exception to this is when interrupted dialogue resumes. (There are examples of all of these below.)

 It’s best to write dialogue in a paragraph of its own—you should start a new paragraph every time you change subject/focus (whether it’s a description of a character or setting, a new action, thought, or shifting focus from one character to another), place/setting, time, or a person’s dialogue. This helps distinguish shifts between characters, topics, and settings.

 When writing an uninterrupted single line of dialogue without a dialogue tag, the entire sentence including the punctuation (full stop, question mark, or exclamation point) at the end fit between the quotation marks. For example,

“Please don’t go.”

“What were you thinking?”

“No!”

If the dialogue is a single line of interrupted dialogue, the punctuation at the end of the sentence is replaced with an em dash (which is written by typing two hyphens/dashes without a space between the last word and the quotation marks—most writing programs will automatically correct it to a longer dash, however not all do). For example,

“Please don’t—"

 When writing a single line of dialogue with a dialogue tag following, you finish the dialogue with a comma inside the quotation mark and a full stop after the dialogue tag. The dialogue tag should be lower case unless it’s the person’s name (keep an eye out for this because if you’re writing on an iPad, iPhone or something else, it sometimes corrects it to a capital letter when it shouldn’t be).

“Please don’t go,” he begged.

“No,” Ryan replied.

If the dialogue is a question or a line that is amplified by an exclamation mark, they replace the comma with the question mark or exclamation mark, but make sure to keep the dialogue tag in lower case unless it’s a name.

“Do you have to go?” he asked.

“Shut up!” Alex bellowed.

When writing the dialogue tag first, the comma goes at the end of the dialogue tag, the dialogue is capitalised (because it’s a sentence in and of itself), and a full stop (or question mark or exclamation mark) at the end of the dialogue, but inside the quotation mark. For example,

He said, “I love you.”

These rules not only apply to dialogue in fiction, but also to quotes in essays. The only difference being, if you’re putting in a reference, you introduce the quote, insert the quote but leave out the punctuation at the end of the sentence (unless it’s a question mark), close the quotation marks and enter the reference and then put the period or punctuation mark on the outside of the reference. This clarifies that the reference belongs to that quote.

 When writing a single line of dialogue with a dialogue tag and action, the rules are similar to those above. The only difference is the dialogue tag is followed by a comma and an action if the tense shifts (if this is a bit confusing, I did write another post on shifting tenses here - that hopefully helps), or the action and tag are combined in one sentence.

“Are you coming or not?” he asked, pulling on his jacket.

“I’ll be right back,” he called over his shoulder as he ran towards the door.

If the dialogue tag goes before the dialogue, the action goes before the dialogue tag.

He reached out and gently brushed a stand of hair back behind her ear, whispering, “You’re safe now. I promise.”

She turned and screamed, “Run!”

 When the dialogue is split into two sentences, things get a little more complicated. If a line of dialogue is interrupted by a dialogue tag and then resumes the same sentence, you put a comma at the end of the first line (inside the quotation mark) and after the dialogue tag (and action if included) before resuming the dialogue in lower case. For example,

“We went to the carnival,” Mike said, “and I got to ride the Ferris wheel.”

“I wanted so badly to make you proud,” he said, fighting back tears, “but you never cared.”

When separating the line of dialogue into two sentences, you do the same as above, but replace the comma that comes after the dialogue tag (or action) with a full stop and capitalise the start of the dialogue that follows.

“He needed you,” she said. “But you were never there.”

“We’re too late,” she said, sitting back from his still body. “He’s gone.”

This, however, changes if the action comes first. In this case, the first part of the dialogue ends in a full stop, the sentence including the action is capitalised and ends in a comma after the dialogue tag.

“That could actually work.” He stood up and turned to face Noah, adding, “But I’m still mad at you.”

“Shut up!” He waited for the room to fall silent before continuing, “If we’re going to do this, then we have to do it right.”

 If dialogue is interrupted by an action or a thought with no dialogue tag, there are two ways of writing it.

If the action or thought interrupts the single line of dialogue, you end the first part of the sentence without punctuation and then put the action or thought between two em dashes. For example,

“We were meant to be a team”—at least she thought they were—“but you were only in this for yourself.”

If the dialogue can be split into two sentences, then the punctuation is similar to the earlier examples, except the commas are replaced with full stops. For example,

“I love you.” He paused, letting out a deep sigh. “I’ve always loved you.”

“Jack?” He sounded surprised. “What are you doing here?”

 If you write a line of dialogue that trails off, the rules are the same as your usual line of dialogue except you use and ellipsis (…) instead of a comma at the end of the dialogue. For example,

“I don’t remember…”

“If only…” he whispered.

“Maybe if I…” His voice trailed off as he began to tinker with the machine.

 If you write a line of dialogue that follows an action but has no dialogue tag, then you use regular sentence structures (with full stops). For example,

He patted her head. “Don’t ever change, kid.”

 The final rule is don’t overload your paragraphs. Try and stick to one or two segments of dialogue per paragraph—whether it’s a line of dialogue with an action or dialogue tag, or two parts of dialogue split by a dialogue tag, thought, action or description.

An example of what not to do—

“Alright.” His father rose from his chair, shoving the last bite of his toast into his mouth as he dumped the plate in the sink and grabbed his jacket and a traveller mug of coffee. “I need to head off to work. If you’re looking for Alex, he’s working an extra shift at the gas station,” he called over his shoulder as he headed towards the door. “I’ll see you when I get back tonight.”

If you were to fix this, you’d just need to break it up more.

“Alright.”

His father rose from his chair, shoving the last bite of his toast into his mouth as he dumped the plate in the sink and grabbed his jacket and a traveller mug of coffee.

“I need to head off to work. If you’re looking for Alex, he’s working an extra shift at the gas station,” he called over his shoulder as he headed towards the door. “I’ll see you when I get back tonight.”

 Hopefully this helps.

[aspec-stories-blog]

Submission guidelines (post)

**Note that our guidelines may change as we get a better feel for who follows our blog and what they want to write about**

Contents:

Before you click “Submit”

What can people submit?

Topics that we will NOT post to the blog

How do I submit something?

How can I have my submission posted anonymously?

A couple more notes on submissions: our weekly prompts, submitting your own writing prompts, submitting visual works, and community intros

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

Before you click “Submit”

Since it doesn’t show up when you submit something on mobile, here is what’s written on our “Submit something!” page:

“Please check out our “Submission guidelines” page before submitting something to us! Then, before you click “Submit,” please do the following: 1. Make sure to include any of the following content warnings that are relevant: body-hatred, eating disorder implication (anything beyond a mention), and gore. Write them in the first line (under the title, before the body of your submission) so that our mods are aware of the warnings before they start reading. 2. SAVE A COPY OF YOUR WORK!!! Tumblr has a nasty habit of eating submissions, and we don’t want it to accidentally delete the only copy of your writing before we can post it! Submitted content that is posted to our blog will be directly credited to the URL you submit from, unless otherwise specified. Thank you! We look forward to reading your work!”

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What can people submit?

One of our main goals here is to help inspire and share writing about and for aspec people, so we ask that authors stick to that demographic as much as possible. And since there’s not a ton of writing out there about aspec people and experiences, there’s so much for all of us to explore! Poems and song lyrics! Short stories and multi-part series! Character ideas and story concepts! Fanfiction and original ideas! Comics! Movie scripts! Whatever you want to create!! Want to write about an aromantic adventurer in a fantasy world? A budding queerplatonic relationship between college students? A demisexual scientist inventing time travel? Do it!!! We’re SO excited to read your works, and we’re sure there will be plenty of others here who are, too! Don’t want to write an entire story? That’s cool, too! You can submit writing prompts; book, fic, song, show, or movie recommendations; writing tips; aspec positivity and support—as long as it’s relevant to the blog and follows our policies, it’s fair game!

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Topics that we will NOT post to the blog

Content warning: there are mentions of many triggering topics in this section.

We definitely want to allow y’all lots of freedom for exploration in your submissions, but also—first and foremost—we want Aspec Stories to be a safe and supportive place for aspec people of all ages, identities, and experiences. To help promote that positive environment, we (the mods) have decided to make all of the following topics off-limits in submissions and on the blog in general:

Animal cruelty

Child abuse

Discrimination or hate towards any members of the LGBTQIA+ community

Explicit* childbirth

Explicit* corrective rape (or explicit rape of any kind)

Explicit* disordered eating

Explicit* experience of conversion therapy

Explicit* gun violence

Explicit* self-harm

Explicit* sexual activity (specifically NSFW content, e.g. no porn, smut, or lemons)

Explicit* sexual assault

Explicit* suicide

Explicit* use of hard drugs and/or illicit substances (with the exception of marijuana and alcohol, though we may choose not to allow them if we feel that your representation of their use is inappropriate for this blog. We will contact you directly if that is the case.)

Explicit* verbal or physical abuse

Extreme body horror (i.e. we define body horror as “altering a character’s body in grotesque or seemingly painful ways.” This does NOT include disabled bodies, burn victims, amputees, or people with scars. It is meant for situations that are out of the ordinary.  Please use your discretion—we’ll contact you directly if we feel that you have included body horror that is too disturbing to publish on this blog.)

Hardcore gore (i.e. gore may be included in submissions, but please use your discretion—we’ll contact you directly if we feel that you have included too much or that it is too disturbing to publish on this blog.)

Inappropriate treatment of minors in general (i.e. please use your discretion when writing about characters who are minors, including characters who are canonically minors who you have aged-up for the sake of your story. We’ll contact you directly if we think that your treatment of underage characters is problematic in any way.)

Incest

Hateful slurs

Pedophilia

Racial slurs, specifically

Unaddressed discrimination of any kind (i.e. while discrimination may be included as part of a character’s experience, it should not go unaddressed within the story. We will contact you directly if we feel that any discrimination represented in your submission is poorly addressed or otherwise inappropriate for this blog.)

Unnecessary violence (i.e. violence that seems unnecessarily cruel or seems as though it serves no purpose to the story being told)

We doubt that most of these topics are things y’all would want to write about, anyways, but we want to share this list to let you know that we’re watching out for you! If you think that anything else should be added to this list of off-limits topics, please message us or send us an ask!

If your submission includes any of the above topics, we will NOT post it to the blog. We’ll contact you at the URL that you submitted from to let you know that we’ve decided not to publish your work. Depending on the situation, if you are willing to edit out the off-limits content we may consider reviewing your submission again for posting.

If you feel that a submission that we have already posted on the blog violates our policy of off-limits topics, please send us a direct message and we’ll address it as soon as we possibly can.

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*To clarify on the starred topics: When we say “explicit” we mean “writing (or art) that shows said topic happening within the submission.” Topics such as abuse, self-harm, etc. may exist within your writing, but only indirectly or in mention. For example: we will not allow an explicitly shown or described (NSFW) sex scene, but if characters are talking about their relationships with sex without getting into NSFW detail that’s totally fine (we’ll just tag it as a content warning). Please contact us if you have any questions about this!

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How do I submit something?

If you have something you’d like to have posted on Aspec Stories, read through this list to find out how to best share it with us:

Is it a poem, short story, longer written work, visual art, character blurb, or something of that nature? Send it to us via our “Submit something!” page, please!

Is it a writing prompt, writing tip, some form of media recommendation, message of positivity, or something similar? Also send these to us via the “Submit something!” page!

Do you have a question or comment for us about the blog or one of our posts? Send it to us via the “Ask something!” page, or send us a direct message! We’ll be happy to hear from you!

Want to introduce yourself to the blog’s community? Visit the “A couple more notes on submissions” section of this page!

When in doubt, send it to us as a submission via our “Submit something!” page! Most of the things we post will be user-submitted, and sending us content via our “Submit something!” page is the best way for us to give you credit for your work.

Other than that, please make sure you’re following our policies for topics that we do and do not allow on the blog. Then just follow the final requests that we’ve included on the “Submit something!” page, and click the submit button! We’re excited to see what you send us!

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How can I have my submission posted anonymously?

Step one: please don’t submit writing to us via anonymous asks!! Please!! That could get very confusing for us mods, especially if your work is long and you send it to us as multiple anonymous asks. We might actually cry if that happens. Especially if tumblr eats part of your work. Or you send us 20 asks and we’re not sure what order they’re meant to go in. Please… please don’t make us cry.

Instead, just include this note in one of the first lines of your submission (under the title but before the body of your work): “post as anon”. Easy! When we see that note, we’ll copy and paste the contents of your submission into a brand new post, then tag it as “author: anon”. We (the mods) will still see the URL you submit from in our inbox, but when we post your submission to the blog it will be completely anonymous. And please don’t feel weird about us knowing your URL! We won’t share it with anyone and we won’t contact you unless we need to (like if your submission includes an off-limits topic). And honestly, we probably won’t remember it after 5 minutes. No worries—we promise!

If you’d like us to post your submission anonymously but use a pseudonym instead of “anon”, write the note like this: “post as anon, author: [pseudonym]” (for example: “post as anon, author: Doodleoo McGee”). We’ll do all the same things to post it anonymously, but just use the “author: [pseudonym]” tag in place of our default “author: anon” tag (which will make it easier for you to find later).

**Note that if you use a pseudonym that another person has already claimed, we’ll contact you to ask for a new one. If we don’t hear back from you in a few days, we’ll just add some numbers to the end of your original pseudonym and call it good.

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A couple more notes on submissions

There are a few things about specific types of submissions that we want to clarify!

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Our weekly prompts

Each week (on Aspec Saturday), we’ll post a new prompt that’s meant to help people come up with ideas for submissions. Your submissions don’t HAVE to be related to these prompts—they’re just for extra inspiration! But, to help keep things organized, we’ll be tagging all submissions that we think are in response to the weekly prompts with an extra tag: “weekly prompt # (Month Year)”. All other submissions (unrelated to the weekly writing prompts) will be tagged as “general submission”. Please visit the “Our tags” page for more info about our tagging system!

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Submitting your own writing prompts

You are more than welcome to submit writing prompts for us to share! Usually we’ll just post these as regular submissions with the tag “general submission”. If anyone submits something in response to your prompt, it will also be tagged as a “general submission” (otherwise it would get really tricky to keep track of everything).

If we think that your prompt would be a cool one to use as one of our weekly writing prompts, we’ll contact you and ask if we can save your prompt for an upcoming week. If you’d rather we just post it as a regular submission we will, but if you’re ok with us using the prompt, we’ll post it on one of our Aspec Saturdays! All credit for the writing prompt will go to you as you’ve specified!

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Submitting visual works

This blog will mostly be for sharing writing, but if you’re inspired to create some aspec art, please send it our way! Keep in mind that all the submission and community guidelines apply to visual art submissions just as they do to written ones.

Since we’re working to make this an accessible blog, all the images we post will include written image descriptions. We’re prepared to write these descriptions ourselves, but we would be very appreciative if you took the time to describe your own art! If you’ve never described an image before, it’s easy to get the hang of and very very helpful for people who are blind or visually impaired. And especially if you regularly post artwork online, this would be a good skill to learn!

Here are some resources to help you get started with writing image descriptions, from another accessible tumblr blog: [link]

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Community intros

We’re hoping to gather a community of aspec writers, readers, and artists together with this blog. If you’d like to introduce yourself to the other members of the community—at any time—just send us an ask with a little bit about yourself that you’d like us to share!

If it’s NOT an anon ask, we’ll tag it with “author: [your URL]” and “community intro!”

If it IS an anon ask, we’ll tag it with “author: anon” and “community intro!”

We look forward to meeting you!!

[tommyparkerr]

Something New | Peter Parker x Reader

This is it, guys! THIS IS THE FIC FOR MY 500 CELEBRATION GIVEAWAY! If you have no idea what that is or how it works but you want to enter, please see this post! And if you have no idea who I am and are just looking for some fanfic with no strings attached but still want to like/reblog without being entered, let me know! No harm done :) Either way, enjoy!

Prompt: “Is that me as your phone screen?”

Words: 1.2k

Warnings: Good old fashioned fluff

-Masterlist-

S O M E T H I N G  N E W :

“The popcorn’s gone!”

“What did you expect when you kept eating it nonstop? I think I got four pieces total in the whole bag!”

You scoffed. “Be quiet, Parker. You can’t prove anything.”

Peter rose an eyebrow and plucked your hand up, gesturing to the obviously messy palm covered in butter and salt. “That’s all the proof I need.”

You gasped dramatically and placed the buttery hand over your heart. Peter cringed at the sight of the grease transferring onto your shirt, even though it was old and used for pajamas only. “How dare you call me fat!”

You immediately got the reaction you wanted, Peter’s cheeks flushing a deep red and his lips barely parting as he stuttered to reject your proclamation. After a few minutes of watching him hopelessly search for words you decided to put him out of his misery.

“Pete, I’m just kidding,” you laughed, patting his cheek with your non-greasy hand. He scowled at you, pushing your hand away and looking embarrassed. “Oh, c’mon, it was funny!”

“Not cool,” he mumbled unhappily.

“Would it make you feel better if I made another bag of popcorn?”

“Why? So I can get another four pieces?”

You hummed and rested your chin on your hand as if contemplating something. After a few moments you said,  “It’ll be a sacrifice, but just because you’re my bestest friend in the whole wide world, I’ll let you have five whole pieces.”

The corners of Peter’s lips twitched upward. “Deal.”

You shook on it, a grin on both of your faces as you stood and went back to your kitchen to find another bag. When it was ready and you’d successfully burned your tongue from prematurely stuffing the kernels in your mouth, you plopped back on the floor next to Peter and handed him exactly five pieces. He only rolled his eyes as he pushed them in his mouth.

“So, are we gonna play the movie or what?”

Peter scrambled to find the remote, which ended up being under his leg. He pushed play and the sounds of clashing lightsabers and the heavy breathing of Darth Vader filled the room again, along with your enthusiastic crunching.

Peter sneaked a hand into the popcorn bowl a few more times but you didn’t bother to stop him; if you were being honest you were getting full, and with that came the lack of energy to protest. You used a napkin to wipe off your hands this time instead of your T-shirt, knowing it was painful for him to watch you stain a ‘perfectly good shirt’—even one that no one but you, your family, and Peter would ever see you wearing outside of the comfort of your own home.

Pretty soon you grabbed a blanket and wrapped yourself up in it, laying on the floor and placing your head in Peter’s lap. His hand habitually went to your hair, tugging comfortably at the strands as he ran his fingers through it. You drifted off soon after that, snuggling further into the warmth that was your best friend.

XxX

The shrill ringing of the bell pulled you out of your daydreaming, signaling that it was time to get to your next class. You sighed in relief. You had chemistry next period with Peter which meant you wouldn’t be completely bored out of your mind like you were for your last class. You shuddered. English.

Making your way through the crowded hall and loud people, you finally made it to Peter’s locker where Ned was already waiting.

“Hey, Y/N!” he greeted with a small wave.

“Hey, Ned!” you exclaimed, looking him up and down. “You’re feeling better, I take it?”

“Yeah, I think I just had the 24 hour stuff,” he answered with his nose turned up in distaste. “It sucked that I had to miss a movie night.”

You shrugged. “You didn’t miss much. Peter ate all the popcorn anyway.”

“Did not!”

You giggled at the sound of Peter’s affronted voice. “You have no proof!”

He opened his mouth to rebut your statement and glared at you when he realized he really didn’t have any proof. Ned looked unsure who to believe, but you didn’t dare clarify. Not after you’d gotten Peter to kind of, sort of (not really) admit it.

“Let’s just get to class,” Peter said instead, grabbing the necessities from his locker before shutting it with a bang. He didn’t miss the opportunity to flick you as he went to talk to Ned, who was already on his way to chemistry.

You were about to go and catch up with them when you saw Peter’s phone fall out of his book bag and onto the floor. You rushed to pick it up and prayed nothing was scratched or broken; you knew May couldn’t afford to repair it or get Peter a new one if it was, and his phone was a necessity. You breathed a sigh of relief when all the screen had on it was a little dust.

“Hey, Pete!” you called as you hurried to catch up with him. “You dropped this!” You pulled the sleeve of your shirt over your hand and went to wipe the dust off before you gave it back to Peter, but as you did his phone turned on and a picture of you filled the screen—a picture of you wrapped up in your favorite blanket, wearing your popcorn-stained tee, sleeping on Peter’s lap.

“Oh, thanks!” Peter replied as he turned. His eyes popped when he saw what you were looking at, and he ditched Ned’s side in a hurry in order to get to you. He scrambled for the phone and shoved it in his jeans pocket, his face burning a fiery shade of red.

“Is that me as your phone screen?” you asked despite having seen it yourself and knowing full well that it was.

“Um, yeah. It-it is,” Peter audibly stuttered, scratching the back of his neck. “But I wasn’t trying to, you know, be-be creepy or anything. I just—you looked really pretty and happy and-and I don’t know, I just wanted to take a picture. If you don’t want me to have it, I-I can delete it, if you-if you want.”

A small smile appeared on your face and your cheeks warmed. Your stomach was fluttering again, much like it had been as of recent whenever you were around Peter.

You shook your head and took hold of Peter’s shaking hand, squeezing it in yours. “I don’t mind,” you quietly admitted as you pushed a stray piece of hair behind your ear, your face quickly reaching the level of red that your best friend’s was at. “It’s kinda cute, actually.”

A matching smile painted itself onto Peter’s face. He didn’t have anything better to respond with so he simply stayed silent, letting your smiles do the talking as he walked you to class, fingers intertwined and hands lightly swinging back and forth.

You didn’t know what the butterflies or red faces or racing hearts or hand holding really meant yet, but you did know they all had to do with your best friend. And as long as Peter was beside you, you were willing to figure it out. Together.

Just like you always had.

XxX

Permanent Tags: @lemirabitur @my-meant-to-find-blog @jongindeepbreath @tomspideyweb @farfromjustordinary @tomsstarlight @delicately-written @catstielanddeanthedog @tom-holland-and-textposts @spiderman-n @wtfholland @hollandandi @starsholland @holland-haven @beautiful-holland @spideycentral-1 @laurfangirl424

Let me know if you’d like to be added! 💕

[memorylang]

The Driven New Year | #49 | January 2021

I’d been waiting to share this new story till I got the news. I felt so delighted that day that, on my walk home from the DMV (since I’d borrowed another’s sedan to take my road test), I went live on Facebook to share. I’d spent much of January mentally and physically training for that, which I prayed would be my final road test. I felt magnificently relieved as I thanked God and friends that I’d passed at last. In today’s blog story, I recount the road to my driver’s licensure and adventures preceding it! 

From New Year’s Day 

I’d last written to you from Reno, where I’d rung in the New Year among a small gathering of friends, old and new. That Week 44 (Jan. 1–7), I resumed writing my book memoir chapters, seeking to complete a selection before the month’s end. Because, prior, my father had brought from Vegas to Reno the treadmill that I had been using last summer, now during mornings I’d ascend the treadmill once more. 

I concluded the week by relearning with help from YouTube how to sew, by mending an old blue flannel that I’d damaged, by starting to watch Pixar’s “Soul” through Disney+ with my sister, her caring boyfriend and our friend and then by joining Dad on the road back to Vegas. 

Upon returning to Vegas, I reunited our other sister and met her boyfriend for the first time. He knew witty things about franchises that I enjoyed and was fun to talk to. That Week 45 (Jan. 8–15), I pushed through to finish writing the memoir chapter trilogy I’d resumed in Reno, continued in the Blue Lions story on my sister’s copy of “Fire Emblem: Three Houses,” trimmed more fronds from the palm trees and began a massive clean-up project of the bedroom that had become mine. 

Filipina Adventures

That Friday, Jan. 15, my sister and her boyfriend took off, but she’d said that she’d return before her birthday, Jan. 25. That day, Dad had also visited from Reno. So that evening, he and I visited my stepfamily’s house, to help. 

At my stepfamily’s, we wheeled an old fridge from the back porch to the front to be taken and replaced. We also picked a great deal of calamondin from Tita’s tree after dark, which reminded me of childhood memories picking produce in our backyard garden while living in Indiana. Tita and my stepsisters would ask if we were coming in, but Dad would still have me out there working with him. 

That evening, I also got to meet my baby step-nephew! He was just over a month old, so he was perhaps the youngest infant I’d met since my youngest brother (born in 2OOI). I enjoyed talking to his parents, who’d told me about their past month in transition. 

Saturday night, I had a check-in call with an old friend from high school with whom I’d grown close through our experiences as community service-loving Nevada honors undergraduates. She too is Filipina and liked how I’ve really started to embrace the culture since meeting my stepmom. My friend also answered some cultural questions for me, clarifying names like “calamansi” for the tiny citruses that Papa and I had picked from Tita’s fruit tree and the name “pandesal” for the tasty cream-filled “Filipino rolls” that Tita had bought me. I didn’t know that my friend was actually born in the Philippines, but we admitted that the topic hadn’t come up before. Turns out that my friend had even studied Latin in high school because hers had a specialty for classics. I love how checking in with ol’ friends reveals to me how much I’ve grown, too.

“New World, New You” Challenge

Thursday, Jan. 21, the morning after Inauguration, kicked off a new virtual adventure. One random YouTube moment, I’d noticed an ad that Tony Robbins would be hosting live online trainings. At that time, I was feeling a post-holiday motivation slump. So, I hopped into TR’s Facebook group and introduced myself, my challenges and my goals. I felt amazed by his international audience. 

For those five days, I’d committed to tuning in every morning at 11 a.m. for motivational talks in light of both the pandemic and new year. I felt surprised to find that in those course of those days, I’d go on Facebook Live my first time and many times more. Folks were right. I needed to break through hold-ups to embrace capabilities. I remembered the importance of habits. 

Among the topics of a talk, we discussed the importance of different kinds of inner perspectives, nicknamed, the “Warrior,” “Magician,” “Lover” and “Sovereign.” These reminded me of a technique I’d learned years ago in interpersonal group therapy, about imagining ourselves as multiple selves instead of one. I liked these, because in life sometimes we need to put on our “grrr” face but other times ought to have more fun, can experience full gratitude and can look at the bigger picture. In this sense, I remembered the phases of water analogy that I’d heard in Mongolia, fall 2OI9. 

Road Back to Driving

Amid the “New World, New You” Challenge, I’d also had my first driving lesson with a training school. Prior to that Sunday, I’d only driven once lately, with my sister, around the Vegas neighborhood. Prior to that, I hadn’t driven for nearly two years, since spring 2OI9, before I’d graduated college. 

Having failed my road test in Reno nearly half a dozen times between 2OI7 and 2OI8, I hadn’t felt the most confident in my abilities to pass. I’d gotten and renewed permits throughout my undergrad. I’d trained with friend after friend and with siblings, too. 

That said, many people had told me that Reno’s streets were narrower and its tests from the Reno-Galletti DMV were harder than those in Carson City and in Vegas. I’d also been practicing on trucks, so people had suggested that I try smaller vehicles. All my siblings had passed in Vegas, after all. 

With so many failures, I wondered if I felt residual challenges from knowing that Mom had failed her road test multiple times... and that a careless driver had killed my mother. I wonder whether my failures related to how I identify with Mom. That 2OI7 in China had made me feel in some moments as though I was retracing her steps. My faults resembled her faults. But I am not her. 

Furthermore, my concerns for the environment didn’t motivate me much to drive when I knew that doing so contributes more to carbon emissions. My overabundance of caution on the road seemed to compound in hesitancy at the wheel. Still, learning to drive is part of life. 

Ultimately, since my plan was to be in Mongolia from 2OI9 to 2O2I then in China from 2O2I to 2O24, getting a U.S. license hadn’t persisted as a key need—till the pandemic returned me to America. 

Another Approach

Back in Reno, spring 2OI9, after I’d failed my test for the fourth or fifth time, the lady behind the desk recommended me for driving school. I felt ashamed. None of my siblings had to go to driving school. I hadn’t heard of anybody who did. 

A year and a half later, at Thanksgiving with my stepfamily, my stepmom had mentioned that at least one of her daughters had attended driving school to get licensed. Later, my LA sister had mentioned that some of her friends did driving schools, too. So, I felt less worried about trying it.

And though I’d worried a bit about the cost, my youngest sister had pointed out that by going through the driving school, I wouldn’t need to drive nearly as many hours as she and our siblings had driven prior to their taking their road tests. So, I foot the bill, taking solace that I was at least contributing to the economy. 

As added plusses, if I figure this out how to get this license, then I wouldn’t have to renew my permit every year. My youngest brother also mentioned that in the coming years self-driving cars will be mainstream enough that I might not have to drive much, anyway. So this was a mere trial of adulthood, then. 

After having passed in December my written test to renew my permit, I readied for the road. On the Friday, Jan. 8, 2O2I, that I returned to Vegas from Reno, I followed up with a driving school that Tita had recommended. The school scheduled me for the month’s end. 

First Lesson

Sun., Jan. 24 came my first lesson. The instructor had arrived at my house’s driveway in a white sedan that had tags identifying it as a student vehicle. As soon as he got out and greeted me, he had me sit in the unfamiliar vehicle going through the motions that a tester would expect. If I’d any moment’s hesitation, the instructor clarified and, regarding safety, admonished. 

As I hit the road, the instructor commented on my mistakes and offered strategies to key details. He assured me that many of my issues would vanish as I get used to my vehicle. Unfortunately, I’d always been driving different cars, he explained. That’s why I don’t know things instinctively. But when I have my own car someday, he spoke with certainty, then I’d understand these well. 

I think of my driving instructor as a coach. He gives me very clear advice and answers all my questions. I love instructors who don't tire from my questions.

When I asked about the rules for how our hands must always be on the wheel, he described that I am driving a machine that is capable of killing. This is, in fact my view of cars, too. He'd later describe how if I'm rear-ended, then having only one hand on the wheel could cause me to swerve and potentially kill someone. I decide to withhold that my mother was killed by an inattentive driver.

Since I’d take my test in under two weeks, the instructor suggested that we practice more together. Although he usually has a couple days off per week, the COVID situation has had him working overtime. So he invited me to reach out if I wanted to practice. Realizing how much I gained from our first two hours, I agreed to take him up on his offer. He recommended that I practice more with my sister, too, so I committed to that as well. 

Life in Transition

The next night, Mon., Jan. 25, was my LA sister’s birthday, so she and her roommate had come to Vegas that weekend. Later that week, they would return to LA, so I got in one more practice with my sister. She offered more pointers and said that I’d improved. 

Jan. 25 was also the end of TR’s “New World, New You” Challenge and the Catholic Feast Day commemorating the conversion of St. Paul, my confirmation saint. To honor the confluence of events, I concluded writing in journal that I’d been keeping since picking it up January 2OI9 in Taiwan and began writing in a journal that I’d received from my sister as a Christmas 2OI9 gift when I’d visited Vegas from Peace Corps service in Mongolia. 

After my sister and her friend returned to LA, Thurs., Jan. 28, I finished listening to the “Kafka on the Shore” (Murakami, 2OO5) audiobook while cutting more palm fronds and archiving my belongings from boxes to bins in our garage. I marked each day with stretches, morning walks and journaling my gratitude and goals. I felt committed to making 2O2I my year. 

Second Lesson 

Lesson 2 rolled around on the First of February. Having finished the audiobook to which I'd been listening since late last year, I decided to resume watching “Daredevil” Season 3, a Netflix series that I’d intermittently followed over the past five years. As a reward for continuing my morning walks and to get pumped to take on the day’s driving, I saw an episode right before leaving the house. 

By my second driving lesson, I felt more confident with what I knew and didn’t know. But this time, an unfamiliar white sedan sat at the curb. I waved my hand, and the driver stepped out, indeed my coach. The other vehicle was in the shop but would be ready before my test. 

This time we went straight to mirror adjustment. Before we hit the road, I asked about how many wheel rotations this vehicle would need for me to make a full turn. Coach stepped out to confirm the count for me as I turned the wheel. Then we hit the road.

As I drove more smoothly this time, Coach recounted fascinating stories from his life. Some tales reminded me of “Daredevil” episodes. He too came from a Catholic family, and the experiences that brought him from Texas to LA to Vegas were remarkable. By our final lesson, I’d insisted that he ought to record these someday, in writing or audio. 

As for my driving, whenever I had particular issues, Coach had stories. His decades of students have exposed him to plenty. He mentioned one who had driven perfectly during her lessons but had to take her test 17 times before she passed, because of her nerves. But I felt empowered realizing that no matter how many times I try, I too will pass. 

On to the End

On a morning walk between my driving lessons, I recalled a takeaway that I’d felt while seeing in November with my sister “The Guru” episode from “The Last Airbender.” The protagonist, called the Avatar, struggles to control or 'bend' fire, after having failed before. The guru thus tells him, “You will never find balance if you deny this part of your life. You are the Avatar and, therefore, you are a firebender.” I connected this to how in the U.S., driving in many parts of the nation for people of many income levels is a necessary part of life. I am a 21st-century American and, therefore, I am a driver. 

By my second lesson’s end, Coach said that I could probably pass my test just barely. I decided that I’d rather do more than pass, and I want to ensure that I pass. So, I continued with my lessons, feeling reaffirmed to build habits that will help me feel at peace in the most scenarios. Two lessons remained. 

At Last

The morning of road test, February 4, 2O2I, I’d coincidentally, after having read the Book of Psalms daily for nearly five months, reached Psalm 150, the final. I’d prayed too that morning a whole rosary, feeling called to it. And, I prayed for peace, gazing at the palms that I’d cut for so long. 

Three hours later, I got out of the car as my examiner, with his face shield and mask still on, read from his clipboard his notes from my test. He gave the uncomfortably familiar litany of points that I hadn’t noticed on the drive. As he gave my feedback, Coach walked up to hear how I did. 

I worried that my clarifying questions to my examiner would sound as though protesting. I didn’t want to sound defensive, instead wanting to understand clearly. People in the past had mistaken my clarifying questions as defensiveness. Plus, Coach had told me stories about former students who’d failed after protesting and accidentally pointing out areas where they should have lost points. Coach advised me before not to overthink things. 

The tester was quite serious about the points that he was making. He added that I was ‘lucky’ that other drivers on the road paused for me that they did. I wondered whether to lump luck under divine intervention. My tester noted that I still need more practice. But, barring these, he’s passed me with “high marks.” 

I gasped. 

I looked at the tester and back at my coach. Coach grinning, clarified with the instructor that I passed and congratulated me. Coach had commented, partially teasing me, that I’d received the same advice during our lessons. 

Since Coach was wearing gloves, I accepted his handshake over our usual fistbump. I offered to write a great review on Yelp if he could text me the link. Then we said farewell. I accompanied my examiner back inside the DMV and started texting people my news. 

At last, I’d earned my license.

Triumphant Return

Coach was already gone, since he’d had another appointment to keep on the other side of town. Rather than take an Uber home, I decided to walk. Perhaps I might be walking less in the future. I enjoyed time to reflect. 

On my walk back, along the roads on which I’d driven, I bought groceries at a local Smith’s and through Pokémon GO caught a Suicune. I’d recall a quote that a high school counselor once told me, “You know how to spell ‘freedom?’ C-A-R.” Despite this, I still prefer public transportation. 

I prefer sharing Earth’s resources and having a chance to feel as part of a community. When I’d come alone to Taiwan back in December 2OI8, riding the metro gave me some semblance of community. In the COVID-19 pandemic, I cherish community more than ever. Walking connects me to places, too. 

To My Future

My siblings were proud of me. Oldest Brother and his girlfriend came over and played Taboo with our sister and me. Papa reached out to warn me not to drive till he got me on the insurance, but he seemed proud of me, too. Tita and my stepfamily over our group chat encouraged me to drive Dad’s ‘classic’ truck that’s been sitting here. 

I felt craving celebratory pancakes with my sister, but she didn’t feel like cooking. So, the next morning, she took me to IHOP instead. I tried this crème brûlée flavor and had leftovers enough to last me three days! 

With February upon us, many holidays come. (If only the Chiefs had won last night’s Super Bowl!) Well, my next blog stories will cover more official holidays. 

Having secured my license, finished experiencing “Kafka on the Shore,” wrapped up much of the yard work and taken care of bringing my belongings into bins, I’ve in my first month completed many of my 2O2I goals. Now, I get to dream bigger. The best is yet to come. 

You can read more from me here at DanielLang.me :)

[buckyscurvylover]

Half Past The Point Of Oblivion Part 1/5 (Sebastian Stan x OFC NSFW)

Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Sebastian Stan/Original Female Character(s), Chris Evans/Original Female Character (mentioned) Characters: Sebastian Stan, Tara Sullivan (OFC), Chris Evans (mentioned), Gretchen (OFC) Additional Tags: Friends to Lovers, Queerplatonic Relationships, Jealousy, Angst, Smut, Crying, good food, therapy sessions, Office Sex, Oral Sex, Chair Sex, Dirty Talk, Sebastian's Filthy Fucking Mouth, Light Dom/sub, Sub Sebastian, Like super light, barely even there, Begging To Come, Introspection, confused feelings, masturbation (mentioned), Voyeurism (sort of), Missed Opportunities, Fluffy Ending

Part 3 of The Deadliest Sin

Summary:

As soon as they were both through the doorway, he kicked the door shut behind them with the heel of his boot. His coat dropped by his feet and he pressed himself back into the smooth wood, his palms flat against the panel beside his thighs.

“I need you to tell me if you don’t want this,” he said, his voice gravelly, “because if I come over there now...” He trailed off, absently licking his lips as he slowly and deliberately dragged his gaze from her face, down to her feet and back up.

She licked her lips. “Lock the door,” she replied, swallowing the breathy rasp in her voice.

Following on from the sudden, whirlwind shift in their relationship, Sebastian and Tara try to navigate their way through the mess of feelings. Who will her heart choose, though - Sebastian or Chris?

Part of "The Deadliest Sin" series. Now with added co-writer, @sebastianfloofyhair!

Notes:

I know it's been FOREVER since I posted the last part, and I hope that people are still interested to see this continue.

Since I wrote "Half Past The Point Of No Return", I have begun collaborating with the creator of Tara, @sebastianfloofyhair on furthering this series and it has taken on a life of its own. Currently we have MASSES of fic written, I just need to get around to editing and posting it all, but I'm making a start on it with this part. It's completed and ready to go, I'm only separating it into chapters because it's over 21.5K words! I will get them posted every couple of days, though, I hope.

Disclaimer:

We don't know the actual, real Sebastian Stan (or Chris Evans). This is just a facsimile of him and both he and the story bear no relation to reality. Any similarities in the scenario to Real Life™ are just coincidence. We intend no harm or upset to Sebastian, or his family and friends. Everything is completely made up from the depraved depths of our brains and Tara belongs to SebastianFloofyHair.

Sebastian retreated into the room that was nominally his, pulling the door closed behind him. With an exhausted moan, he dropped face first over the bed and shut his eyes, pressing his face into the comforter with a heavy sigh. What the hell I am doing? he thought to himself, his mind running over the last few hours, and his stomach knotted unpleasantly. He sighed again before rolling onto his back. After their bath, they’d dressed and returned to the kitchen, shared a coffee and Tara had left for the cafe, saying she needed to finish some work. For a while, he’d tried to distract himself on his iPad, but the longer he’d sat in Tara’s living room alone, the stronger the ball of anxiety in his chest became. He’d worried about the situation, the argument that preceded it and the discussions that came afterwards.

He reached for his phone, still charging on the bedside table, and detached it from the cable. Sweeping aside the notifications, he unlocked the screen, and without even opening the contacts, held down the number four button on the dialler. If the world only knew; Nickelback might have drug dealers on speed dial, Sebastian had a therapist instead. He hit the speaker icon, setting the phone next to him and listened to the ring, waiting for the the call to connect. After five rings, halfway through the sixth, the phone was picked up, and simply hearing the familiar voice greeting him by name, a degree of the anxiety crawling in his guts eased away.

“Hello Sebastian. I wasn’t expecting a call from you today.”

Gretchen was well-spoken, a transplant from the south of England. Absent-minded about everything except for her patients and her cats - who lived like royalty - she carried an air of sixties hippy around her despite only being perhaps a decade older than Sebastian himself. She spoke in a low, soothing voice, even when she was passionate about a subject, and she was unerringly perceptive, at least when it came to his thought processes. Even now, just hearing her voice, Sebastian could picture her; wavy blonde hair cut into a short bob, curious hazel eyes and delicate features, with Heathcliff, her chocolate Ragdoll, in her lap, leaving long hairs over her bohemian skirt and batting a paw at the strings of her tunic top.

“I screwed up,” He sighed heavily. “Badly.”

“Well that is certainly no way to start off a Saturday morning.” Gretchen paused. “Go on.”

“I’m... I’m not even sure where to start.” he admitted. “I think I may just have ruined everything with Tara.” He swallowed. He was not going to start bawling again.

“First, I just want you to take a breath. And when you’re ready, tell me what happened, if you can,” she told him, and he dragged in a deep breath through his nose, held it for a few seconds, before blowing the air out through his pursed lips, and closed his eyes. His nerves felt like they were rattling.

“I...” The words caught in his throat and he coughed, cleared the ball of emotion threatening to burst free. He tried again. “I slept with her. We had sex,” he clarified. They’d slept together more times than he cared to count in the past, if he was being literal. He’d hoped that telling someone would help the unease curled inside his chest; if anything, it enhanced it, as he waited for the judgement he feared was coming.

“So you had sex with Tara... and it ended badly?” Gretchen, as always, spoke softly and dispassionately, though warmth lay beneath the clinical exterior.

“No... I mean, yes... I... we had sex... I... don’t know if it ended badly...” He huffed out a breath, frustrated, and ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what the hell to think right now.”

“Alright... just keep going with the breathing, Sebastian.” she reminded him. Sometimes, Sebastian felt sure that half of their sessions involved her telling him to control his air intake. “We can work through this... perhaps to understand some motivation? To find some perspective... I think that’s what you’re looking for, am I right?”

Sebastian nodded and rolled his eyes at himself as he remembered where he was. “Yeah. Perspective would be a good start, yes,” he agreed. He drew in another breath, trying to stretch the tightness from his chest. “I think I’m in love with her.” The admission surprised even him, and he let out a damp laugh of disbelief. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

She chuckled. “Perhaps not, but you obviously mean it.”

“Yeah...” he said quietly. “I really do.” His eyes burned and he scrunched up his face in an attempt to keep them dry. “I don’t even know where this came from. It feels like it just appeared out of nowhere, but at the same time, it’s like...” he paused gesturing absently as he pondered his next words. “It’s like this was how it was always meant to be. But I’m me. And I’m a fuckin’ disaster at this sort of thing and I’m just going to end up hurting her... If she even wants me, that is.”

There was rustling at the end of the phone, followed by a small meow, and Sebastian shook his head minutely, huffing a silent chuckle before Gretchen responded. “I obviously can’t speak to her feelings, but it seems that having sex with Tara has... in a way.. .clarified your feelings for her?”

His heart thudded painfully in his chest. “It... it wasn’t just that. I... She... Ugh!” he made a sound of annoyance.

Can’t really avoid it.

“She was with someone else last night,” he admitted, pinching the bridge of his nose. “He stayed over. They... well, you can imagine. I didn’t think it’d be a problem... it's not the first time either of us has brought someone back, you know? But this time it was...” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “It makes me so jealous and I’m... that’s not me. Not with Tara. I don’t know. Maybe it is me. Maybe I’m just kidding myself here. And I’m pretty sure that when it comes down to it, she’ll choose him, because she’s had a thing for him for the longest time and...” He bit his tongue. He was babbling and the anxiety was coiling up in his chest again.

“Sebastian, breathe for me,” she said. “Let’s go through one thing at a time, okay?”

He frowned, concentrated on the air filling his lungs. Finally, he exhaled shakily and spoke. “Okay...”

“Tara had someone over and you were jealous of him. Because she was paying attention to him, or was it just the sex do you think?” Gretchen asked and Sebastian frowned, the crease deepening between his eyes.

“I... both. At least a little. We weren’t exactly... thinking clearly last night. And Tara didn’t invite him. I did, which, was another screw up... it was meant to be the night we did the Christmas tree, like we do every year, and I forgot.” He stopped, before he began using that to further his emotional self-flagellation. “It’s like... we’re good friends but I always end up feelin’ like... I dunno. Not quite up to scratch next to him.”

“I see. I don’t suppose this is someone we’ve talked about before... in your professional life? And now he’s moving into a space in your personal life. What emotions does that stir up for you?” she asked.

“Aside from jealousy?” He snorted humorlessly.

Should’ve known you’d never sneak that past her.

“If it’d been anyone else, things would have just gone on like normal. He... yes, okay. Chris just seems to bring out... I don’t know. And this is why I’m afraid I’ve messed this all up. Because if it’d been anyone else I’d have just pushed everything aside and carried on like usual...” Sebastian rubbed his neck, the ache from sleeping awkwardly reappearing with the tension of the day. “I don’t even know right now.”

There was a short pause before Gretchen spoke again. “I have to ask if that’s something you’re certain about. Would it have bothered you, seeing her with someone, if it wasn’t Chris?”

“No,” he answered immediately, then he stopped, reconsidering. “Okay... that’s not actually true. That’s what I’ve been telling myself every time it happens, whenever she’s with someone, because that’s the right answer, because she’s my friend, because I want her to be happy. And if she’d ever wanted me, I always figured she’d have said so, you know?”

“I can’t say,” Gretchen responded. “You know her. You’ve known her for most of your adult life, you’ve told me. So do you think she would tell you if she had those feelings for you?”

“Well, I know now that she wouldn’t. She thought I wouldn’t find her attractive... That she wasn’t thin enough, pretty enough. I have a type, apparently, and it’s not her.” He couldn’t help the note of bitterness that snuck into his words, even though he immediately felt petty and childish. “It’s not even that I look for that. But with work, with the travelling, it’s almost impossible to find someone who’d get the pitfalls that come with the relationship, who can deal with that, if they’re not part of that world too. So, with the way society is about appearance, particularly in this field, it limits the options.” He paused. “It really hurt. To think she might think I was that shallow.”

“Perhaps she didn’t see it as shallow so much as a preference? It could be that, given your previous relationships, she based an opinion on whether or not they were similar in some way and came to the conclusion that they were unlike her.” Sebastian knew that Gretchen was being reasonable, but it still grated. Before he could respond though, she continued. “But regardless of that, it seems that the two of you talked?”

“Yeah we talked. A little. Actually, mostly I talked and she listened. M’pretty sure I scared her off by the time we’d finished. Humiliated myself by crying like a baby after we... well, afterwards...” He clenched his jaw, blinking back fresh tears that threatened.

“Alright, well... I think the first step in achieving perspective is understanding your motivation and you’ve done that. You felt motivated by jealousy. So you acted and now the consequence is that you feel you may have done harm to your relationship with Tara,” Gretchen summarised. “But what do you want from this? What is the outcome that you hoped for, or that you still hope for?”

“I want... I need her in my life. I think... I’m pretty sure I want to be with her.” He paused, thinking. “I want her to feel the way I do when she tells me that everything is going to be alright and just for a moment, I actually believe that. I want to be that for her,” He swiped at his eyes with the heels of his hands, sighing harshly when they came away damp. “I want to know that I’m not just sabotaging the one good relationship in my life by thinking with my dick, and I don’t. I don’t trust my own feelings right n-”

He stopped talking abruptly, his phone beeping. He glanced at the screen and laughed wryly. “Speak of the devil... That’s her... I should...”

“You should talk to her, yes. I have a client soon, but if you need to call, try me after three. And Sebastian? Remember to breathe.”

He huffed out a small laugh. “Okay. I’ll set a reminder on my phone. At least one breath a minute. Thank you, Gretchen...”

“Of course. Good luck,” she told him.

“Think I need it. Bye.” He ended the call and hit the green phone icon, hoping Tara hadn’t hung up already. “Hey...” His voice was tight, and his palms itched with the desire to wipe them against his thighs. “How’s it goin’?”

“Good. Great... well, slow. It’s slow.” Her voice sounded light. Happy. “How are you? Did you eat? I was gonna see if you wanted to come have lunch.”

“I... yeah, I could do lunch. I should probably change though. I’m pretty sure these pants have a hole in...” He swallowed, his throat aching. “Does coffee count as eating?”

“No!” She laughed. “It does not. So change your pants and come eat.”

“Yes, ma’am!” he answered, his lips twitching. Had she been in front of him, he’d have saluted, just to watch her face light up at his silliness. “Gimme twenty minutes and I’ll be there.”

“Okay babe. See ya in twenty.” She giggled, then the line clicked off.

Sebastian stared at the phone, at the contact picture for her that was still on the screen and smiled, before pushing himself up. He quickly found a pair of jeans and sweater more appropriate for the New England weather, pulled on his boots and left, locking up behind himself. By the time he’d managed to park his rental and made his way across the ice-slick street, he was a few minutes late. He pushed opened the front door of Sully’s and was hit by a rush of warm air and mouthwatering scents. His stomach rumbled.

Tara slid off her stool from behind the coffee counter, pulling off the black apron tied around her waist. She smiled to see him, her heart hammering in her chest. She’d been worried about how they’d left things. Even though they’d seemed fine at the time, she knew that sometimes Sebastian could get caught up in his head. Whether or not she was sure about what had happened, what was happening , she wanted him to be okay.

Needed him to be okay.

She walked around the corner of the counter and up to the hostess stand, waiting on him to walk further into the café. “You’re late,” she said when he was close enough. “Thought I might have to give away your lunch.”

He raised his eyebrows, his mouth forming a shocked O. “You wouldn’t!” he gasped, his gloved hand coming up to cover his heart, before breaking into a grin and giggling. “Sorry, about that, apparently there are other people out there who also want to park.” He reached up and pulled off his gloves, loosening the scarf bundled around his neck. “So...” he looked around. “Think you can squeeze me in somewhere?”

She grinned. “I think I know exactly where to put you. Come on,” she turned, walking further into the restaurant, past the tables and through the large archway at the back.

Sebastian followed behind, trying to resist the urge to let his eyes linger on her legs, thick black tights clinging to their curves over knee high boots. He forced his gaze higher, deliberately avoiding the curve of her ass visible beneath her tunic. If he stopped to think about that, he’d very possibly make a spectacle of himself. The loose gathers of rose gold cotton had slipped from her left shoulder, and he bit the inside of his cheek rather than step forward and open his lips over the exposed skin. Her throat had looked flawless a moment ago, but he knew precisely where the marks from earlier lay hidden under a careful application of concealer, and he ached to press his thumb to them, remind her of what she couldn’t hide. He shook his head. This was crazy. Right now, he didn’t even know if she would want him again.

As they wandered past the last of the tables, he frowned a little, wondering where exactly she was taking him. They reached the archway between the cafe and the bookstore, and he paused.

“Uh... babe? I thought you were feedin’ me, not readin’ to me,” he said, eyebrow quirked up.

Tara giggled and looked back over her shoulder, drifting her gaze up his face until her blue eyes met his. She reached back and took his hand in hers, giving him a coy smile. “Don’t you trust me?”

Sebastian’s heart flipped, his tongue sneaking out to wet his bottom lip. His eyes dropped to her mouth for a second, then returned to meet hers again. “Depends... is there food involved?” he joked, attempted to ward off the curl of pleasure in his belly at her expression.

Tara squeezed his hand and pulled him through the archway into the bookstore. Unlike the café, the bookstore was quiet and nearly deserted. Except for a lone cashier who looked up from his book and smiled when they walked in, the back of the store was empty. At the front by the windows, there were two women on one of the green velvet couches, both engrossed in whatever they were reading.

Tara pulled him through the shop, weaving around the shelves into the back corner where, essentially, they were isolated and alone. Here there were tables with comfortable wing-back chairs for shoppers to read and sip tea or coffee. One had been set up for lunch.

She grinned at him, nodding toward one of the chairs. “See. No trickery.” She shrugged, releasing his hand somewhat reluctantly. “I just wanted to keep you to myself.”

He darted his hand forward as her fingers slipped from his, catching them and squeezing them again. She looked at him, her lips opening in slight surprise before she smiled.

“Thank you... for calling. For inviting me.” His voice was soft, matching his eyes. Keeping his stare locked on hers, he raised her hand, brushed his lips over her knuckles like the kiss of butterfly wings, before loosening his hold.

Tara lowered her eyes, her cheeks flushing pink just as he let her go. “Of course,” she answered softly.

He pulled out the chair, slid into it and tucked his legs under the table, resting his elbows on the table and folding one hand over the other, almost as though in prayer. He tilted his head to the side, glancing between her and the other chair curiously.

She took the seat next to him instead of the one across, picking up the wrapped cutlery and pulling it loose. She draped the napkin over her lap. “I didn’t eat either,” she confessed, giving him a sheepish grin. “So, I’m kinda starving after...” She blushed again and laughed under her breath, shaking her head. “It was a busy morning.”

He coughed, halfway between a chuckle and a groan of embarrassment, his own cheeks colouring to match hers. “Uh, yeah...” he smiled crookedly, as he shrugged out of his coat. “Yeah, it was definitely... busy.” He looked up at her through his eyelashes. “But good,” he added, glancing away and occupying himself with the napkin for a moment. “So... What’re we eating, seeing as we both need sustenance after our busy start to the day?” “It was good,” she said, feeling anxious to reassure him, then leaned forward. She carefully avoided looking at him, picking up a jug of water to pour some into his glass. “So... I called in a favor and got us something special.”

About that time a server rounded the corner, a tray of food in hand. Each plate held a large buttery lobster roll and a tin bucket of sweet potato fries. Sebastian sat back, making space. His mouth watered furiously at the rich scent of seafood and garlic rising on the steam from the meals.

When the server set the plate in front of her, Tara’s lips curved into a broad grin and she looked up at the petite brunette who’d brought the food. “Thanks Kara. I really appreciate you bringin’ this out here.”

“No problem, Miss Tara, I don’t mind at all.” She smiled over at Sebastian and slid his plate in front of him. “Can I get you both anything to drink, other than water?”

Tara lifted her brows, looking at Sebastian. “I’m good. What about you, babe?”

He smiled up at Kara. “Thank you, I’m fine. This looks incredible though!”

“Well, enjoy!” Kara grinned and headed off back to the café.

He looked at Tara. “Lemme guess, you twisted Charlie’s arm, right?” He grinned, grabbing a few fries and popping them into his mouth. His eyes fluttered shut as he chewed, moaning quietly. “Oh, that’s nice...” He picked up his knife, deftly cut the roll into manageable segments, and lifted the first one.

“Yep, she was thankfully in the area.” Tara smiled. “And had exactly what I needed to make this.”

“God bless Charlie, then,” he said happily.

His eyes rolled shut at the first bite, the sweet, ocean tang of the lobster exploding across his tongue, the rich, buttery dressing coating his mouth and the sharp crunch of the lettuce a perfect complement to the soft, perfectly toasted roll. He thought he might have whimpered a little, but the combination was so perfect, he simply took another bite. Only when he opened his eyes, sucking a drip of dressing thinned with the lobster juice from his thumb and reaching for the fries did he realise that Tara wasn’t eating. She was watching him. He paused, his hand hovering over the fries. “What?” he asked, puzzled. “Have I got it all over my face already?”

“No, not really, just...” Tara reached over, biting her lip as she thumbed a bit of dressing from the corner of his mouth. “I’m glad you’re enjoying it.”

He caught her wrist, his tongue swiping out to lick the mayo from her thumb and Tara couldn’t hold back the whimper that sounded in her throat. Sebastian’s pupils flared, arousal trickling low in his belly. Despite the raging shout from his stomach, it took all of his willpower not to part his lips around her thumb and suck it into his mouth. Jesus, he felt like a kid in a candy store around her right now, at every turn finding something else to tempt him. He mentally shook himself, his fingers tightening against her skin affectionately for a second, before letting her hand drop and busying himself with the fries.

“Enjoying is not a strong enough word to describe how good this is,” he replied, taking another bite. “Go on, try it!” he urged.

The flush on Tara’s cheeks had spread lower, colouring her throat and chest, and the steady pace of her breath shortened. She closed her eyes for a moment, her fingers closing around the knife after she’d willed herself to calm down. She wondered if he knew, if he was doing it on purpose, all the little things that were making her crazy...making it hard for her to even think straight.

She cut into the sandwich, pulling off a third of it before she set the knife aside. A piece of lobster slipped from the roll and she picked it up with her fingers, bringing it up to her lips. She placed the piece on her tongue and closed her mouth, sighing slowly at the decadence of it. Charlie, and her gourmet connections, were indeed a blessing from God. She smiled at Sebastian as she chewed, the lobster practically melting in her mouth. After she’d swallowed, she took a sip of water. “It is delicious.” She looked down at the piece of roll in her hand, studying it for a second. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I could eat this every day.”

He laughed quietly. “Yeah... I might join you.”

They finished eating in a comfortable silence on the whole, occasionally catching each other’s eyes and smiling shyly. Sebastian kept his eyes on his plate for the most part. Every time he'd glanced up, she was either licking dressing from her lips or sucking the garlicky salt from her fingers and heat had flashed into his belly, pooling and gathering as his already slim fitting jeans became incrementally more restrictive. By the time he’d taken the last bite, he knew that he wasn’t going to be able to stand up any time soon without everyone becoming aware of his current predicament. Instead, he lifted the napkin to wipe the last smears of butter from his lips before dropping it onto this empty plate and resting back in the chair.

“That was incredible. Remind me to thank Charlie next time I see her,” he said, rubbing his hand over his stomach.

Tara nodded, polishing off the last of her fries before she responded. “I will. She’s in town for the holidays, so...” She looked over at Sebastian and smiled, her heart warming at the contented look on his face. “Maybe she can hook us up with more lobster again before she leaves.” She wiped her hands on the napkin in her lap, smoothing it over her thighs. “Though, you really should be thanking me for the cooking. Those sandwiches didn’t make themselves you know.” She quirked an eyebrow as she glanced at him.

“Gee, and here I thought they came out of the sea like that,” he told her, biting back a smirk. His eyes scanned her face as he rolled his bottom lip between his teeth, the flesh still pinker than normal from that morning. Leaning across to her, he curled his nearest arm around her waist, the other hand catching the side of her neck and he tipped her head into him as he brushed a kiss across her cheek, barely catching the corner of her mouth.

“Thank you,” he murmured, his voice husky and his breath warm against her ear. It made her shiver, her eyes fluttering closed as she sucked in a breath, holding it as he spoke. “For everything. The food. Putting up with me. This morning...” he trailed off, his breath hitching and backed up a little. He shifted in his seat, his jeans uncomfortably tight.

Tara let out a shaky breath, opening her eyes to look at him. She fixed her gaze on his face, on the crystal blue-grey of his eyes, the curve of his lips, the dark stubble covering the sharp angles of his jaw. She squeezed her thighs tighter together, remembering that morning and the way his face had felt between her legs, how that stubble had burned her skin as his tongue had tortured her almost endlessly. She wanted to force herself to look away from him, but she couldn’t. “Sebastian...” She licked her lips, her eyes drifting to his mouth. Even just the thought of kissing him... Her voice slid into a breathless whisper. “What did you do to me?”

A shiver rushed along his spine. “Me?” he asked, incredulously, reaching out and settling his hand over hers, their fingers interlinked. He turned his head, surveying the room, and his voice dropped until it was barely audible. “I can’t even watch you eat now. What’d you do to me?” With another quick check around them, he pulled her hand towards him, settled it high on the crease of this thigh. His eyes locked with hers, Tara’s mouth falling open as he dragged her hand to settle against the tight stretch of his zipper over his erection. “Shit, babe, I can’t even...” He groaned quietly, throbbing under her hand as she kneaded the straining bulge with her palm, her fingers slipping lower to cup the heaviness of his balls where they were constrained in his jeans. His eyes closed, his expression almost pained and he pressed his hand over hers, stilling her movement.

“Fuck, Tara, please... There’re people here...” he warned, even as he twitched under her palm.

She kept her hand still but firm over the curve of his confined cock and leaned over, her lips lightly brushing his ear as she whispered. “I want you inside me. Now.” She whimpered, nuzzling the curve of his earlobe. “I don’t wanna wait.”

His eyes rolled back in his head, his breath rushing out of his lungs and his fingers spasming over her hand, as his lips parted on a silent moan. When his eyelids eventually lifted, heavy and lust filled, his eyes were almost black. “Get us out of here,” he gritted out. “Now. Before I bend you over this table and take you right this second, and fuck what the customers think.”

Tara pulled back to look at his face and slowly withdrew her hand. She let her eyes linger on his mouth and nodded. “We can go to my office upstairs.” She pushed back her chair and stood, pulling the napkin from her lap and dropping it onto the table. He pressed the heel of his hand against himself, attempting to make the line of his erection less obvious, and levered himself out of the chair. A quick glance down, though, and it was clear that anyone who looked at him would know.

“Just don’t get too far ahead of me,” he muttered quietly, his fingers closing around his jacket and folding it over his arm in an attempt to disguise his blatant arousal, “or your customers are gonna get an eyeful.”

Tara giggled, reaching her hand back for his. “Stay close, then.” She took his hand, twining her fingers through his, and led him back through the bookstore. The spiral staircase that led to the second level was just inside the archway on the café side.

Tara gave a nod to the cashier as they passed by, pressing her lips together to avoid chuckling with giddiness. Thankfully, they made it to the stairs with no interference. Sebastian’s fingers itched to reach out and trail over her thighs as he followed her up and he bit his cheek at the ache already developing in his groin. They made it to the top of the stairs and she tugged Sebastian down the short hallway to her office.

As soon as they were both through the doorway, he kicked the door shut behind them with the heel of his boot. His coat dropped by his feet and he pressed himself back into the smooth wood, his palms flat against the panel beside his thighs. Tara walked into the office, stopped in the middle in front of the trestle desk, her chest heaving as she struggled to contain her breath. He stared at her, his eyes hooded and the corner of his mouth caught between his teeth.

“I need you to tell me if you don’t want this,” he said, his voice gravelly, “because if I come over there now...” He trailed off, absently licking his lips as he slowly and deliberately dragged his gaze from her face, down to her feet and back up.

She kept her eyes on his his, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth. The look he was giving her made her stomach drop, her already-soaked cunt clench and ache. She licked her lips. “Lock the door,” she replied, swallowing the breathy rasp in her voice.

[hamilficsfordays]

New Beginning—Chapter Five: Colossal Load of Bullshit

Disclaimer: I don’t know Lin, nor do I know any of his friends or family.

Also posted on Ao3

Summary:  Lin is distraught after losing Alexa. Alexa is feeling the same way about Lin. Things appear to be out of their control. It’s time to fight back and Vanessa knows exactly how to do so.

Rating: T for language

Words: 2874

Askbox / Masterlist / Chapter Four / Chapter Six

Lin and Vanessa headed home that night, trying to get a few hours of much needed sleep and relieving his parents of their babysitting duties.

Lin desperately tried to keep his eyes closed to no avail. He’d watched the sunrise that morning from their bedroom window, feeling the exhaustion drape over his entire body despite no desire to give in.

With only a few minutes before Sebastian was due to wake up, he headed to Alexa’s room, where he grabbed the duffel bag she’d arrived with and attempted to fill it with clothing that his mother had bought her. Being in the room without her was emotionally taxing; it wasn’t long before he was choking back tears.

When the bag was mostly full he sat for a moment on the edge of her bed, breathing; trying to accept this new reality.

Suddenly he’d remembered something, an item in his office that he felt compelled to put inside as well.

His copy of Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton was covered in notes, both written on the pages and on post-it notes. After years of working on his production, it had tons of ideas and concepts stored inside. He grabbed another post it note, writing a quick note and attaching it to the inside of the front cover before he stored it at the bottom of the duffel bag.

-

Alexa was forced to stay in the hospital, given fluids to rehydrate her before her psych eval. The next morning, Claudia arrived again, greeting her with a small bag of clothing.

“You can’t be serious…” she started, seeing the bag. “You realize none of this was their fault, right?”

“Nothing is set in stone yet.” she insisted. “But for the time being, it looks better if we pull you out.”

“Right. I forgot it’s only about how it looks. How someone actually feels isn’t important to you people.” she rolled her eyes.

A nurse stepped into her room then, two cups in her hand.

“I have a Plan B pill for you.” she offered, handing the cup to the teen. “If you want it.”

She took it without question, swallowing the pill with the water the nurse handed her in the other cup.

“Once you’re back to a hundred percent, they’ll relocate you to the pediatric psych ward. In the meantime,” Claudia pulled a small bag out of her purse, a collection of pills inside. “Your zoloft.”

She took that pill as well. Claudia sat in the chair on the far side of the room, her bag of Alexa’s things at her side.

“I was hoping to talk to you more about what you can expect in the coming days—” Claudia tried.

“Jesus, that sounds terrible.” she admitted before grabbing a clean gown, a towel and a bottle of body wash from the bedside table. “I’m gonna take a shower.”

She walked into the bathroom, locking the door behind her and sinking to the tile floor, groaning in frustration.

Finally she stripped, stepping into the searing hot water.

Whether it was the temperature change or something else in her system, a sudden wave of nausea caused her to vomit, stepping out of the shower and running to the toilet just in time.

She managed to carefully re-adjust the water temperature before stepping back into the shower so as to avoid a repeat incident.

-

A few days passed.

As the sun rose over Manhattan later that week, news of the incident began to spread like wildfire.

“Just in for you this morning, we have reports that Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator and star of the broadway hit Hamilton, was in for quite a shock earlier this week when he was sent photos and videos via twitter of his sixteen year old daughter being raped, choked and urinated on while heavily intoxicated at a party last night by fellow male students. The victim was taken to Roosevelt hospital, treated for minor injuries and released just yesterday. Since then, the parents have reportedly had the teen removed from their home and put back in the care of the state. We’ll have more for you on this story as soon as more information is released.”

From the comfort of their living room, Lin and Vanessa suddenly felt very small.

The idea of losing their child after everything that had happened was embarrassing enough, but they had every intention of keeping that information private.

It was very clear that doing so would no longer be possible.

“Can you change the channel?” Lin asked, defeated. “I can’t listen to this.”

Vanessa grabbed the remote, jumping to another news network before realizing they were telling the same story.

“—an array of unlabeled prescription medication and traces of other drugs like cocaine, ecstasy and other opiates. These are some of the things they believe a sixteen year old girl was under the influence of when she was sexually assaulted last Thursday night. Several incriminating photos and videos of the act were posted to twitter last night by members of the Columbia Prep male lacrosse team—statewide champs for the last three years running. Not only did they post them to twitter Katie, they tagged the victim’s father, Lin-Manuel Miranda, the writer and star of Hamilton, in the hopes that he would see them. Now Miranda, after seeing these tweets, showed up to this party, called the police to break things up, and got an ambulance there to take his daughter to Roosevelt Hospital. She was treated there, given a psych eval and held by doctors until her release yesterday. What we do know so far is that no suspects have been taken into custody and that the foster child has since been removed from the Miranda household and reclaimed by the state.”

“Turn it off.” Lin shook his head in utter disbelief. “How can they even talk about this? It’s supposed to be confidential information.”

Vanessa turned it off, making a note on the laptop in front of her. “Only more collateral damage to add to this case.”

“V,” he reached out, taking her hand. “I’m glad you’re so passionate about taking her back, but you don’t actually expect to sue the entire state, do you?”

“Maybe I will.” She shrugged. “I have to do something. I haven’t seen you this upset in ages.” She squeezed in hand. “Even if I don’t sue, I can at least build a strong enough case to scare the shit out of them.”

“Oh, is that all?” he smiled.

“And at the very least, I got you to smile. That’s been pretty hard to do lately.”

-

Downtown at the orphanage, Alexa woke up in the same bed she’d had before. Staring up at the same dirty ceiling, listening to the same girls complain about bathroom space.

Only one thought seemed to frequent her mind as she headed into the shower stall that morning.

This is a colossal load of bullshit.

After another bland cereal and soy milk breakfast, she was brought in to a meeting both with Claudia and her superior Janine. Alexa had never met Janine, but seeing her for the first time revealed three truths at the exact time. She wasn’t a natural blonde, she was old enough to remember all of the eighties, like most white women her age with enough money, she’d clearly had some work done.

“How are you feeling, Alexa?” Janine carefully offered a hand to the teen as if she were afraid to break her.

“Fine…?” She sat in one of the two large chairs opposite the desk in Janine’s office, Claudia in the other.

“That’s great.” her smile was off-putting. “I was so glad to hear you made it out of the hospital safely. I hope your experience there was enjoyable.”

Alexa gave her a confused look. “You mean, after I was drugged and raped?”

“Well, I know the doctors took care of you.” she clarified.

“After that rape kit, which was easily the most invasive experience of my life…” she paused. “Well, that I can remember anyway, I was dying to get out of that hell hole.”

“I understand you were given a psychological evaluation?” She was immediately handed a file by Claudia, containing the results of her psychological evaluation.

“Oh yeah, that sucked too.” she added, much to the disappointment of Claudia.

Slightly frustrated with her responses, Janine lowered her voice to whisper to Claudia. “Have you been making sure she’s taking her medication?”

“I’m sitting right here, dude.” Alexa shot back.

“Zoloft once a day in the morning.” Claudia confirmed. “She’s been under my care since I got to the hospital.”

“If you have a problem with my attitude, maybe you shouldn’t have pulled me from the best foster home I’ve ever been to.” the teen pointed out. “Also, zoloft only works if you digest it. I’ve been getting sick all week. You’re leaving opportunity for an insane mental breakdown while I’m under your care.”

Janine turned back to Claudia. “I expect you to handle this.”

Claudia dug through her bag, searching briefly before pulling out a small pill bottle with Alexa’s name on it. She tossed it toward the younger girl who didn’t bother catch it.

“You know what? I refuse to take my meds until you put me back with the Mirandas.”

“We’ll have to put you in psychiatric care if you refuse your medication.” Janine pointed out.

“Just put me back where I was before and I’ll stop refusing! It’s not rocket science!”

“That household has been deemed temporarily unfit.”

“Okay so when does it become fit again?” she demanded. “This whole ‘punishing-so-that-it-looks-like-you’re-doing-your-job’ thing is getting old really fucking quickly.”

“We’ll send you back when and if we see fit.” the blonde pointed out, flipping through the results of her psych eval. “If,” she repeated.

“Don’t I have a say in this? I WANT to go back!”

“Yes well, I brought you in to offer my well wishes after you released from the hospital. If you don’t mind, your case manager and I need to speak privately.”

“So I don’t have a say at all.” Alexa stood up, storming out. “Whatever.”

The door slammed shut behind her.

“If I could speak candidly,” Claudia started receiving a stern look from her superior.

“It’s just, I see no reason to remove her permanently. In fact, I was hoping to send her back before school starts. Lin and Vanessa had enrolled her at this outstanding private school on the Upper West Side—”

“We have plenty of reason to keep her permanently. More youth in our system means more money from the state.” Janine shot back. “Does that not make sense?”

“Well… we’re not a for profit prison—” Claudia tried.

“Can I be frank, Claudia?” she interrupted the older woman. “I know I’ve only been in charge here for a few months, but I’d like to think I have a good instinct about these things. Right now my instincts are telling me that you might not be the best case manager for this job.”

“Wha—I’ve been working here for thirty years.”

“It looks like your case seems to be missing a few—” she pulled a few pages out, sliding them into the paper shredder underneath her desk. “important documents. If the state were to find out that you weren’t staying consistent with a case like this, you could lose your license. Wouldn’t that be a shame?”

Claudia finally seceded, trapped at the mercy of her superior. “What do you want?”

“The important thing here isn’t putting Alexa back in that home, it’s avoiding a lawsuit. That woman—Vanessa—she’s a lawyer. I need you to make sure she doesn’t file a lawsuit. If she does, we’ll have to look into this case file and with so many inconsistencies… your job might be on the line.” She handed the file back to Claudia, a smug smile on her face. “I hope we understand each other.”

-

Outside in the large room with the other teens, a fight broke out nearby. One of them tossed an open bottle of water at the other, most of the water landing on Alexa, though the two fighting didn’t seem to notice.

Her shirt was soaked, prompting her to angrily return to her bed and dig through her bag to find another one.

Frustrated, she dumped the entire bag out on her bed. There, on the top of the pile, was a large book she hadn’t seen before . There were post it notes sticking out of the pages; the book certainly wasn’t new.

She turned it over, seeing the cover of a biography of Alexander Hamilton.

Why would he give me this? she thought, opening the hardcover to find the first post it note inside.

Meant to give you this opening night. Read it.

I see his passion and drive in you.

Don’t ever lose that.

Love you,

Lin

Alexa could feel her emotions rushing to the surface faster than she could handle, tears building up in her eyes as she read the note over again.

She remembered that night, receiving a text from Lin about the show, about how he was grateful for her.

Most importantly, how he loved her.

She was so scared of the word that she didn’t bother to respond. Now it seemed, she may not ever have a chance to.

Maybe she did love him, but what did it matter if she couldn’t say it?

A tear fell, landing on the first page of the book which she quickly wiped away.

She promised herself that, should she ever see Lin again, holding back feelings would not be an option.

-

Uptown, Claudia paid the Mirandas a visit that evening, informing them of the decision that had been made.

“I don’t understand.” Vanessa was sat beside her husband with Claudia across the dining room table, obviously uncomfortable being the bearer of bad news. “You said this would be temporary.”

“They came to the conclusion that this was an unstable in environment for Alexa and that they wouldn’t be sending her back. I’m sorry, this wasn’t my choice. They went over my head.”

“We’re going to sue.” she insisted. “Not only because you removed her for unjustified reasons, but being dishonest about bringing her back—”

“Por favor no hagas eso! You can’t sue!”

“We absolutely can!” Vanessa shot back. “I’ve built a bulletproof case against your organization. If you think you’re getting away with this—”

“I wanted to send her back!” Claudia finally admitted. “My superior, Janine, went over my head on this. She wants to keep Alexa.”

There was a pause. Lin, who was unmoved until this point glanced up, shocked to hear what had just been said.

“Let me guess… more kids means more funding.” his wife concluded.

“Sí, she shredded documents from my file for Alexa. If you file a lawsuit, they’ll have to have access to the file and with too much information missing—”

“You lose your license.” Vanessa finished. “Shit.”

Just as the realization hit, Lin slowly sunk down in his chair. “We’re never going to see her again, are we?”

Tobillo, who had been otherwise silent under the table, stood up to lick Lin’s hand as if she understood why he was upset. It was more comforting than he expected it to be.

Vanessa was distraught seeing Lin so upset, it was the worst shape she’d ever seen him in. For a moment she was silent, working out details in her mind to come up with a solution that would put an end to this once and for all.

“I think I know how to fix this.” she finally said. “We can’t sue, but we can pressure them into getting what we want.”

“How?” Claudia pressed, Lin curious as well.

“You wouldn’t happen to have all of the statements you took from that night, would you?”

“She shredded half of them.” Claudia reminded her. “They’re gone.”

“They’re shredded, not burnt. They can be salvaged. If we can get a hold of them and piece them back together, we make copies and we bring it to the press anonymously. That should put enough public pressure on them to back off.”

“That’s impossible.” the older woman insisted. “Even if you could piece the pages back together, how would you get a hold of them in the first place?”

“Use your imagination, Claudia. You’ve worked there for years. Bribe the cleaning staff to let you take the garbage when they’re pulling it out of Janine’s office. As long as you can get a hold of anything in that shredder, we can get what we need to move forward and no one needs to lose the license.”

Another pause. Vanessa, beaming with confidence in her plan, saw a glimmer of hope flash across Claudia’s face.

“They clean every night at nine.” she recalled.

Glancing at her phone, Vanessa noticed it was just after eight. “You better get going then. Let us know when you find it.”

She made a quick exit, headed straight for her place of work downtown.

“Lin,” she put a hand on his shoulder. “I need your help with this too.”

“Whatever you need me to do.” he insisted.

“What you do best. I need you to write something.”

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

Life is tough on Twitter when you share a name with someone in Trump's administration

The Twitter accounts belonging to members of Trump's administration receive a lot of attention, and rightfully so — Trump has proven time and again Twitter is his preferred medium for communicating just about everything.

But what about the unfortunate souls who just happen to share the same names as members of the Trump team? Innocent Twitter users who are just trying to enjoy the social media platform in peace?

SEE ALSO: Nobody is joining Twitter, so let's just blame Trump

We spoke to a number of people with a famous (or infamous) namesake, and discovered they each react to their unintentional fame differently. 

John Kelly

First up we have John Kelly, who is Trump's new chief of staff following Priebus' recent resignation — but also a Washington Post columnist. 

The other John Kelly started his Twitter account in 2008, and was "delighted" to be the first John Kelly on Twitter, he said. (Chief of Staff John Kelly is actually not on Twitter if you can believe it.) 

Looks like my life just got more complicated.... https://t.co/T60kgV0Et8

— JohnKelly (@JohnKelly) July 28, 2017

"There are a lot of John Kellys in the world," Kelly revealed. "We're sometimes confused with one another on Twitter." 

Besides Washington Post John Kelly and Chief of Staff John Kelly, there is also an Irish novelist named John Kelly and a data scientist named John Kelly. 

"I'm a journalist so I try to keep my views to myself," Kelly added. "But just because of the jobs we do, White House John Kelly and Washington Post John Kelly are very different." 

This stark difference between the two John Kellys doesn't keep our Kelly from having a bit of fun when he's hit with a case of mistaken identity. However, he can also find himself at the receiving end of a fair amount of online ire.

"Many of [the people tweeting at me] are quite worked up, either overwhelmed with extreme love for the other John Kelly or overwhelmed with extreme hatred," Kelly said. "Settle down, people. You’re not going to fix the world in 140 characters."

Amen to that.

Kelly had to clarify his identity in July with a series of tweets: 

1/ Some thoughts on the promotion (?) of John Kelly to White House chief of staff: It's always nice to see John Kellys doing well...

— JohnKelly (@JohnKelly) July 28, 2017

2/ I am not THAT John Kelly. My Twitter avatar should be a hint that I am not THAT John Kelly.

— JohnKelly (@JohnKelly) July 28, 2017

3/ I apologize that I have no way of passing your congratulations/tirades on to the OTHER John Kelly...

— JohnKelly (@JohnKelly) July 28, 2017

4/ The other John Kelly may be a great American/lousy American, but if you've tagged me, you're a careless American...

— JohnKelly (@JohnKelly) July 28, 2017

5/ I don't know if people complain to the OTHER John Kelly when I write about squirrels but I hope so...

— JohnKelly (@JohnKelly) July 28, 2017

6/ I am thinking of changing my Twitter avatar to a photo of me standing in front of the White House...

— JohnKelly (@JohnKelly) July 28, 2017

7/ Or maybe a photo of me sitting in the Iron Throne from "Game of Thrones." Or in a Nehru jacket stroking a hairless cat...

— JohnKelly (@JohnKelly) July 28, 2017

8/ What I will never do is give up my bitchin' Twitter handle. I was here first. Also: Democracy dies in darkness. @johnkelly out.

— JohnKelly (@JohnKelly) July 28, 2017

Unfortunately, his clarification did not do much to quell the tweets and mentions he received, and he had this to say after Scaramucci's sudden ousting: 

Two points if I may: 1. @Scaramucci is apparently gone. 2. I am still not White House chief of staff. But thank you for the shout outs.

— JohnKelly (@JohnKelly) July 31, 2017

"What this whole mistaken Twitter thing has taught me is that people need to slow down. They shouldn’t be so quick to judge – and they definitely shouldn’t be so quick to tag," Kelly said. 

"Do they really think the White House Chief of Staff would have a Twitter photo of a guy sitting at a vintage Ludwig drum set?"

Stephen Miller 

Next, we have @redsteeze — aka Stephen Miller. He's not Trump's senior advisor Stephen Miller, though he is a contributor at Fox News.  

Me accepting all the new mistaken identity follows rn pic.twitter.com/DJ3Asoelb4

— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) August 2, 2017

While tweets like the one above make it seem like Fox News Stephen Miller somewhat relishes sharing a name with the infamous White House staffer, he did have some choice words for his namesake after writer Bret Easton Ellis said he wanted to write a novel about the other Miller.

I mean you did write about serial killers https://t.co/Sr6OBcDzll

— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) August 3, 2017

Fox's Stephen Miller also had this to say when Ann Coulter suggested White House Stephen Miller be cloned and appointed to every cabinet position:

Please don't https://t.co/oSFCL9V1gk

— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) August 3, 2017

It's safe to assume that this Stephen Miller has no plans to become a part of Trump's White House any time soon:

Trump can't afford me https://t.co/kp52BKMGrz

— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) August 2, 2017

Steve Bannon

Sigh. Poor Steve Bannon. No, not that Steve Bannon, we're talking about @SteveBannon, the Scotsman who just wants to spend time with his wife and kids ...

Happy Birthday @livy_bannon xx pic.twitter.com/TQvbtivxwC

— Steve Bannon (@SteveBannon) July 7, 2017

... but has to deal with this kind of thing: 

Charming. Now go direct your lovely comments to the other Steve Bannon

— Steve Bannon (@SteveBannon) July 28, 2017

I've been added to the White House Twitter group.....pmsl pic.twitter.com/18HiteAxgO

— Steve Bannon (@SteveBannon) January 23, 2017

Not hanging by any thread my friend. Enjoying the 1st week of the summer holidays with my wife and family. Thanks for your concern though x

— Steve Bannon (@SteveBannon) July 28, 2017

Have I missed something? pic.twitter.com/ELjGK3z0E4

— Steve Bannon (@SteveBannon) February 9, 2017

Ugh.

White House Steve Bannon is one of the most controversial members of Trump's team so, naturally, innocent Steve Bannon often receives some of the nastiest Twitter vitriol. The hate became so intense, in fact, that he decided to try capitalizing on his misfortune by using the attention to crowdfund a new set of golf clubs for his daughter. 

Wrong Steve Bannon https://t.co/mWaU07rKIM

— Steve Bannon (@SteveBannon) August 26, 2016

"In the last 24 hours I have been receiving abusive tweets in a case of mistaken identity," the crowdfunding description, which was written in August of last year, read. "Donald Trump has appointed a man called Steve Bannon to help run his presidential campaign. My Twitter tag is @stevebannon and this is where the abuse is being directed."

Steve Bannon went on to explain that he's just a working class Scot living in England with his wife and three girls. His middle daughter Olivia is a strong golfer, but she needs a new set of clubs to advance her career. 

"Please make a donation towards Olivia's clubs if you have posted abuse on my twitter feed," the crowdfunding campaign said. "One day you might see her on tour."

pic.twitter.com/RhXxMPTNTS

— Steve Bannon (@SteveBannon) May 3, 2017

We hope we do see her on tour someday, Steve. We really hope we do. 

Mike Pence 

Everyone knows Vice President Mike Pence, @mike_pence, but there's also @mikepence — a progressive, atheist software developer living in Sarasota, Florida. 

I'm Mike Pence. No, not that one. https://t.co/JFtzxn197W

— Mike Pence (@mikepence) December 12, 2016

In many ways, software developer Mike Pence is the very antithesis of the vice president. 

"Having been raised a Jehovah's Witness, [I have] a healthy aversion to Orwellian thought-control cults of any political or religious origin," Pence said in a Washington Post column. 

"Sometimes you don’t value a thing until you have lost it," Pence continued. "And when people suddenly associate your name with someone you personally find to be a monster."

Pence has been an outspoken critic of his namesake and of the administration to which he belongs:

Please, Cheeto Hitler, do not march us into World War 3. :(

— Mike Pence (@mikepence) July 6, 2017

Only in bizarro Trump world must the question be asked: How many people have been injured from bags of drugs thrown over the border wall?

— Mike Pence (@mikepence) July 14, 2017

Congrats to Anthony Scaramucci on losing his family, his dignity, and his job, all in one week! #MAGA #winning

— Mike Pence (@mikepence) July 31, 2017

His Twitter bio even reads "Software developer, grandpa and nature lover. Not a Christo-fascist politician."

Though Pence could do without the barrage of ugly notifications directed at him by mistake, he said he also views his situation as an opportunity, due to the large audience he has amassed. 

"There will come a day to explain all of this to my now year-and-a-half-old grandson," he said in the column. "How could I say anything to him except that I proudly put my fist in the air and proclaimed that I am not that Mike Pence, but I am the other Mike Pence, the one who values freedom and civil rights for all?"

Thanks for all of the kindness many have shown to me this year. May we fight together in the new year to save our country from @mike_pence.

— Mike Pence (@mikepence) January 1, 2017

Eric Trump

Finally, we have Eric Trump, one of the president's creepy sons, and also an entirely different person who is a teacher from Surrey in the UK. 

"I joined Twitter in February of 2015," UK Trump said. "At the time Donald Trump was known in the UK for his golf courses and reality TV appearances but no one had heard of his son Eric."

That blissful ignorance did not last long, and once Trump launched his presidential campaign, UK Eric Trump began receiving some unwanted attention.

"Despite my Twitter bio clearly stating that I am not Donald's son, I regularly get people following me thinking that they are following the son of the POTUS," Trump said. "Sometimes I block them straight away and sometimes, out of curiosity, I wait to see how many of my tweets (mainly about Fulham football club and pictures of loaves of bread I have baked) it takes before they realize that they have got the wrong guy."

You'd think these tweets would do the trick:

Posting this beauty in the hope that some of my followers question whether they are indeed following the son of the POTUS #RealMenBakeBread pic.twitter.com/s1CO5G1gBf

— Eric Trump (@erictrump99) June 11, 2017

Please can I reiterate: I AM NOT THIS ERIC TRUMP. Surely my avatar and bio makes this clear? https://t.co/cJMxJ9xetM

— Eric Trump (@erictrump99) June 7, 2017

You gotta roll with it... pic.twitter.com/TBpaeJo5jv

— Eric Trump (@erictrump99) June 24, 2017

Twitter's redesign is not a problem when your profile icon is a cake #newtwitterupdate

— Eric Trump (@erictrump99) June 16, 2017

His strategy has apparently not worked. 

"Trump has never been a great surname for me (in the UK 'trump' is a synonym for 'fart', especially in northern parts of the country) but the rise of Donald has taken things to a new level," he said.

"In Las Vegas it was suggested I should be checking into Dad's place further along the strip so I indicated that I was there to check out the opposition. I hope no one spat in our food on that trip."

To make things even worse for poor UK Eric Trump, he can't partake in the fun of Googling his own name, because all that comes up are pictures of White House Eric Trump posing with the latest wild animal he has shot.

"Maybe if your research uncovers more Eric Trumps we could form some kind of self help group?" Trump suggested.

Take solace in the fact you're in good company, Eric Trump. Godspeed, Twitter users.

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