#also if anyone wants a more detailed image description i’m more than happy to do that i didnt describe how gem looks or what the chat’s

[tango-but-everywhere]

Omg hi :3 (also glad to see you back in the submission box!)

Gem’s stream, presumably from around October 25th/26th.

[ID: a minecraft screenshot with Gem’s stream overlay, taken on hermitcraft 9, within decked out - possibly the room to set your spawn in before running the dungeon. The viewer, Gem, is looking up at Tango who is crouching and has seemingly broken a hole in the ceiling to look down at her. He’s in the full dungeon master outfit, hood and all, and he’s wearing diamond armour. He’s holding a diamond pickaxe and a totem. Gem’s facecam in the upper right looks delighted to see him. End ID]

[uchihaharlot]

Hi, I hope you're doing well, I don't know if requests are open, but if they are. Can you write an angst about a reader who is pregnant with Shisui during the same period of his death?🥺

Nonny!!! ❤️ my heart is so so so broken for him and you. Also I’m sorry this took forever 😅 work is a drag; and I rarely have enough energy to do anything afterwards.

My grandmothers most famous line, and I’m not bullshitting you; was: to get over one man, you should get under another.

N/SFW; angsty—overtly depressing?; not proof read; and now I’m sad 😔 DESCRIPTIONS OF VERY VERY SAD SHIT; nonny, Shisui is crying in purgatory because of you—he wants to hold his baby!! And sorrynotsorry but I’m definitely blurring the timeline of the show for dramatics, sue me.

But that’s not the case for you, is it? Especially not when the only thing tethering Shisui to your plane of existence grows within the soft swell of your stomach. Too small to show, and to much to bear.

That night will for be engraved in your mind. The way your knees buckled; almost falling face down into the dirt had it not been for Itachi-san. Him too, crouched with you as you both ugly cry. It was hard for him to be that torn, let alone see you shredded. Barring teeth with snot; the most gutteral outcry of pain.

Of course it’s not easy for you, this whole thing will never be easy. You can’t sleep, can’t eat. Hell, half the time it feels like you’re just going through the motions. It’s hard to be grateful for new beginnings when recent endings are so fresh, the wound not even cauterized. It just seeps and oozes into the deepest crevices of your soul, a permanent branding. It’s hard to be grateful for new beginnings when recent endings are so fresh. The cascading tidal wave of emotions is exhausting, and it’s mostly due to your hormones. Grief, anger. Desperation, longing and joy.

Was it really this fair to feel a little bit happy when Shisui is somewhere, nowhere to be found? His corpse endlessly floating— no. Full stop. You don’t even want to go there, how many times have you pictured it? How morbid of you, you think; to wish to see him. Even in that state. That if it were the only way to see him again, you would.

And you get angry, on very bad days, shut the world out. How can live when it’s the end of the world? How can people, Uchiha or not, be so nonchalant. In fact, the only person who really shares your grief is Itachi. And he’s pitted as Shisui’s aggressor, his means to an end. But that’s not the case.

Slowly, you come around. Itachi is there, and both your griefs are endless. Sometimes you feel that his is more vast; and it probably is. Definitely is. So you tell him your secret, hoping it would bring joy. Though it nearly broke him all over again. There, in the midst of chaos and confusion and mayhem. Is still a little piece of Shisui.

But, this is the most inopportune time for happiness. You see, dear old Itachi-san has a secret; one he cannot tell you. The government coercion behind the curtain, his upcoming mission. The happiness he shares with you in this brief moment of reprieve from your darkest days is short lived. The feeling of his presence changes, making you uncomfortable with sharing this news.

Itachi’s final words to you are devoid of emotion and severely cold, ‘if you know what’s good for you, you won’t tell anyone else.’ It’s a threat and a silent plea all at once. You soon find out later about that, and it’ll all make sense.

Pregnancy feels so uneventful to you. After the massacre, you’re one less person to share your grief and it only grows more once the details are revealed. Your life; your baby. Your Shisui. It feels like everything around you won’t ever stand on solid ground. As a good mother you buck up and slowly integrate back into a mundane routine.

First milestones are less than exciting, but still hold weight. Those tiny black images, hung on your fridge. They bring momentary happiness each time you pass them. The first time it’s little heartbeat echoes off the walls in the medical room make your heart feel less empty, but you still cry over the sink eating your lunch like a rat.

Eating is more of a challenge, but eventually the cravings will make sustaining your growing body easier. The vitamins help too, but it’s still difficult to find your stomach from time to time.

I think the only day you aren’t a complete mess is when your water breaks while you’re waiting for a decaf tea. Two weeks early, figures. Nothing goes according to plan, you’ve become accustomed to expecting the unexpected. And this day, this is when the weight of Shisui’s loss is wayfared into the world, and placed in your arms.

Smol, tiny. Itty bitty little hands. Big and soft dark eyes, just as his were. In fact, as time passes by. There’s not a day you don’t think your baby is more Shisui than you. He’s all you’ll ever see in them, and some days you’ll feel a twinge of sadness. But mostly it’s pure unadulterated love.

[chattercap]

Kanau Postmortem!

​Hello everyone, it’s Chattercap!

Thank you to everyone who played Kanau! I’m really grateful that you gave it a chance 😭 since it is quite different from Karamu in terms of content and tone! Note that I’ll be spoiling Kanau in my thoughts/reflections below, so be careful if you haven’t played it! 

(Spoilers below!)

When I first conceived "Karamu," it was just going to be a short, one and done mystery for Otome Jam—a simple story centered around a couple interesting twists. However, when I was done with it, I found myself still interested in the story of Raku and Nelli, and I wasn't quite satisfied with where I left it. I kept thinking about why exactly they did the things they did, and what kinds of experiences would lead to such twisted adults.

The story in Kanau is actually one that I describe in Karamu, hinted at in vague descriptions. In Karamu, Nelli briefly reminisces about her childhood - finding solace in the fact that one day her father left and never returned. Raku also recounts an instance where Nelli showed kindness to a spider missing three legs. Nelli doesn't remember the incident, thinking that it happened in the last couple years, but in reality it happened QUITE a long time ago - 11 years, in fact.

Kanau is (for better or worse) Raku's "coming of age" story, haha! Both literally (as he undergoes his family's "ritual of adulthood") and metaphorically. Throughout the story, Raku struggles between his own identity and the "Kumode" identity. At the end, he finds a compromise, and this compromise is both a triumph and a tragedy - he makes his own decision, but it’s a decision that brings him right back into the arms of his abusers. I hope that after playing Kanau, it’s a bit easier to see how Raku and Nelli evolved into the adults they become in Karamu - and why they chose to do the things that they did.

The title, "Kanau," refers to the word 叶う in Japanese. It means "to come true/to be fulfilled" - as in "a wish or prayer coming true/being fulfilled." It's a reference to Raku and Nelli's parallel wishes/prayers - to be free from the abusive households that they're trapped in. Ultimately, Raku is unable to fulfill his own wish—to break free from his abuse. However, he still finds comfort in being able to fulfill Nelli's wish, the prayer that she thought that no one could hear (now...whether he went about that in the CORRECT way is, uh, up to interpretation). 

(For anyone that wants more details on the spidey lore - in the Karamu universe, there are no males other than Raku in the main line of the Kumode family! The females seduce human males and eat them after the deed is done. This is based both on jorogumo lore - where the spider demons seduce and then eat their human victims - as well as regular ol' spider lore! In some spider species, the female consumes the male after procreating. This is actually the origin of the name "black widow spider," although a lot of species of black widows don't actually practice sexual cannibalism.)

Regarding the topic of child abuse, I hope that I tackled it with sensitivity. I knew going into it that this was going to be a sensitive subject, moreso because the main overarching theme of the trilogy is trust and healing from trauma. Above all else I really wanted to avoid using child abuse for “shock value.” Hence why a lot of Nelli’s abuse takes place completely off screen, and you only see the effects it has on her. This is also why the few instances of abuse that do happen on screen are portrayed in silhouette (with the only really graphic image being an abuser’s comeuppance). 

There’s one more installment planned in this series! Hanasu (the third and final entry) will take place a few months after the events of Karamu (canonically, after the events of Ending D)! I think that Kanau is actually a decent standalone story, and, when viewed through this lens, the ending is happy; Raku and Nelli are free from their abusers, immersed in a world full of “color.” However, that ending is a sweet lie. It’s the ending that Raku wants to believe—that he “saved” this girl. But, of course, if you’ve played Karamu, you know that isn’t really true. After all, healthy people don’t do the things that Nelli does. Regardless of what Raku wants to believe, killing her father didn't "fix" Nelli. He freed her from the shackles of her abuser, but not the shackles of her abuse. The ghosts of her experiences haunt her into adulthood, tainting her view of her world, her relationships, and herself. And, of course, Raku is still under his family’s thumb, and he has lingering issues of his own. You can expect to see the resolution to these threads in Hanasu! (Will that resolution be sweet or bitter, I wonder?) 

I was originally planning to jump straight into Hanasu after developing Kanau, but after some consideration, I decided to let it cook a little more. I’d like to take my time with this project, both in terms of script and art—it is the last time I’ll be seeing these characters, after all, and I’d like to give them the resolution that they deserve. I’m currently tackling my biggest project (a fantasy/mystery story—with one love interest that’s pretty similar to Raku *wink wink nudge nudge*), and while I planned to develop the titles concurrently, I don’t want to divide my time and attention. I currently plan to finish the script for Hanasu this month, and I’ll start working on it in earnest later this summer. 

If you’re interested in seeing updates about Hanasu (and my other projects), I post most of my major announcements on here and Twitter. I also post frequently on my Patreon with sketches, writing snippets, sneak peeks, high resolution art, and weekly devlogs.​

Chattercap

[idoodlestuffsometimes]

I just looked at your Owl House AU and I didn’t know that you had described the pictures already, I’m visually impaired and I never got to read a comic before. And you let me do something I always wanted to do. I love how you describe it and I would like to make comics too, I was wondering how you script them to describe them like you did?

oh my gosh!!!! This makes me so happy, you have no idea! I'm so glad you were able to have that and that you enjoyed it! I often don't really know what I'm doing, but I've tried to make these in such a way that as many people as possible are able to read them. (this is also why I avoid anything too inappropriate and mark anything that might be so, because the Owl House is ultimately a show targeted at kids, and even though Tumblr is aimed at an older audience, I would like those here to be able to share it with younger friends and family if they want.)

I haven't been sure about my image descriptions though. I've been fumbling my way through them, clueless and sometimes a bit dispirited because I wasn't sure if they were actually useful to anybody or whether I was doing it all wrong. Tumblr also makes it tricky for me because, on PC, long ALT descriptions have a tendency to run right off the screen and I have no idea whether screen readers can see them, or how read-aloud tech works at all. I'm extremely glad that it worked for you.

It does concern me that you couldn't tell at first that there were descriptions attached though. Is it easier for you if I write them under a read more instead? Also, if you use a screen reader, how do paragraph breaks work for you, because some of my descriptions include them and some don't, due to the off-the-screen issue I mentioned before. Also, if anyone else would like to pitch in and let me know whether they read the descriptions, ALT or otherwise, when the images aren't loading or something, please do!

As for the scripting in the descriptions, I try to describe things in the order that you would look at them if you were looking at the composition (not just the order of panels, but also the order you would see the parts of the image and dialogue inside the panel, according to visual hierarchy.) I also tend to think more in terms of how I would describe what's happening if I were writing a fic, even though I'm describing an image, and so I try to write in a way that reads smoothly like I'm telling a story, while also balancing the inclusion of visual details that impact the mood and understanding of the viewer. I'm fortunate to have studied both creative writing and visual storytelling, so the two are a bit married in my head. Ultimately I'm trying to use the description to tell the story rather than to describe every minuscule detail (other than the ones that help tell the story and set the mood).

Anyway, I'm so glad you liked it! Please never hesitate to ask me for a description if you ever run into an image here on my blog that hasn't been described and that you would like to see. Feel free to mention it in the replies or shoot me an ask, and I will reply privately to let you know when it's updated.

[messyhandstattoo]

Let’s run through some basics!

Hey friends! Let’s run through some basics about my cool little gig.

Enquires:

A handy form has been set up for you to fill out, located on the Linktree!

It’ll run you through the basic questions that I’ll need to help answer your enquiry. The generally basic information you need includes placement on the body, sizing in cms, a description of the idea and reference images of the tattoo style! Super simple, if you’re unsure about placement and sizing, I’m always happy to help with recommendations.

Bookings:

Bookings are secured by a non-refundable deposit, which can be paid via contacting the shop over the phone or bank transfer. Please note the shop/myself need more than 48 hours notice, when rescheduling or cancelling an appointment, any less notice will result in the non-refundable deposit being forfeited. Deposits come off the total amount charged at the end of the appointment.

Touch up appointment requests:

The first touch up is free, fees will incur for any touch ups needed after the first free touch up appointment. A super simple form has been set up for you to fill out, also on the Linktree. Let me know what needs touching up, and your preferred days/times. We can go from there and get you sorted.

Consult tattoos:

Free in person consults are offered for anyone who’s not too sure about their ideas. They range from 15-30 mins long, and we have a chat about your ideas/questions regarding design, style, placement etc. A super simple form has been set up for you to fill out, on the Linktree. There’s a short little reel I made, linked below, that might help anyone who’s a little overwhelmed with where and what to start thinking about for a tattoo.

Cultural tattoos:

If you are looking to get a traditional cultural tattoo, please approach the appropriate practitioners of the relevant culture to do so. I do not have the cultural knowledge, connection or comfortability to do traditional cultural tattoos of culture I do not belong to. I am more than happy to help, by recommending and looking for artists of the relevant culture to do the piece for you. I’m more than happy to recommend local relevant artists, so please feel free to contact me through email!

Flash tattoos:

Ready made available flash designs are kept in a highlight on my instagram. Please note there are not changes to the design. In your enquiry; include a screenshot of the flash (specify which one, if it’s on a sheet of multiple). Please also include the placement on the body and sizing in cms in the form to determine a quote and length or appointment (unless already priced and size recommended on sheet). My flash are not repeatable, if something has become unavailable, I’m always more than happy to come up with another design similar, suited to your ideas of placement on the body and sizing in cms.

Designs:

If your references are directly screenshot from an artist, or I can recognise it has been pulled from an artist; I will ask you if you have obtained permission from the original artist to tattoo the design. 

If it is pulled from a local artist, I will tell you enquire with the said original artist. If you want the exact style/image of the artist, it is etiquette and worth waiting till they have availability for you. 

Designs will always be drawn up gathering inspiration from the references, so please point out any details you like. Keep in mind, I will not completely copy a design.

If you have any major changes to the design in mind leading up to an appointment booked with a deposit, please send them through at least a week before the appointment. Any small changes in mind must be sent at least 48 hours. Changes may affect the length of an appointment, or the quote that was initially given.

If unsure if the changes are large or small, please send them a week beforehand.

Full and finished designs will never be sent out before the appointment secured with a deposit, however conceptual drafts may be sent to make sure we are on the same page (especially for larger projects).

Placement - Job stoppers:

Please note, I do not tattoo hands, fingers, faces or neck tattoos unless you are heavily tattooed. These are highly visible placement for tattoos that may hinder career and general access to venues.

Fingers/hand tattoos are also prone to dropping out due to general use and hygiene in everyday life. Please research what this could look like, as they can be high maintenance, before continuing the decision.

[anonbeadraws]

Reference sheet for your commission references!

So, It can be stressful not knowing exactly what the artist wants from you as a commissioner, especially first timers, so I’ve whipped up a lil something!  (gotta say, this is what I want as an commissions artist, can’t speak for anyone else!)

REFERENCE GUIDE 💖

-  So first thing, I personally prefer having a PDF/word/page doc or a google doc for references, rather than loose images on an email. It’s much easier for me to find the information I need and not have to go from tab to tab!   If that’s something you can’t do, let me know when you email me and we can work something out! - In that Document, written description and visual references are key, both are preferable! I’m happy to charge a little extra to work from written description only but Visuals (sketches, previous commissions, photos) give me something to base off, so I don’t spend the whole time researching for your piece! Colours, patterns, face claims are all helpful!

 the following info is generally what I need (you’re welcome to copy paste this into your doc!) :

VISUALS

Age/Race/height/body type:

skin colour/ scars/ freckles/ skin conditions etc:

eye colour/shape:

hair colour/style/decorations:

Any additional details (prosthetics limbs/no limbs!/tattoos/piercings/wings):

CLOTHING

brief description of any clothing, their colours/pattern :

ITEMS:  (items such as weaponry, jewellery, bags, accessories and or animal companions!)

PERSONALITY

Brief personality description (are they suspicious, happy go lucky? What's the general vibe?):

Background information that could be important in the design (their ancestry, where they come from, any inspirations?:

any preferences on posing/expressions:

EXTRAS

If there is more than one character on your ref sheet, please separate your descriptions/images out by character for ease.    I’d also want to know the character’s relationship to each other; family, friends? enemies to lovers? are they physically affectionate to each other? How would they interact in this scene?

if your commission has a background/scene, visual and written references are brilliant along with the vibe you want for the scene and time of day! Below is a badly sketched Ref of what all this could look like!:

Keep in mind, the sketch is only a guide, if you have more than one page of visual refs, that’s cool! As long as you can get the info above (and anything you think i’ll need) into a single pdf/google doc format, you are good!   This is just very helpful for me too, since i struggle with too much info at once while i work.  Any questions are welcome, hope this helps! Going to link this to my commission sheet too! Thanks and i appreciate you all! 💖💖💖

[billiejeanenthusiast]

Boobiegate masterpost

We know what they did this summer - and oh boy, was a it a wild summer that - unfortunately for us - stretched into autumn and beyond any reason.

I will first go over everything as it happened and then - because when you look back at everything you realise some timelines overlap - I’ll try to clarify some stuff and put it into perspective.

NOTE: I’m writing the dates from a GMT time zone point of view (aka. UK time)

So let’s start from the beginning. 

Briana breaks up with Brody Jenner after dating him for some random attention seeking period. (June-September roughly)

Here’s an article talking about that irrelevant relationship. https://www.yourtango.com/2020334835/who-brody-jenner-girlfriend-briana-jungwirth-louis-tomlinson-baby-mama Now let’s fast forward a bit to September. 

September 23rd

So on September 23rd we’re flooded with articles about Brody and Bri breaking up and Bri getting back together with her “on-again off-again (boy)friend Nick” and the biggest surprise “BRI IS ENGAGED”

So the story is: 

Bri ended her relationship with Brody because “they were moving too fast” and he had “already met Freddie” 

She then gets back together with her on-again, off-again bf Nick Gordon 

She, her family, and Nick go on a “whirlwind” trip to Las Vegas (MIND YOU IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC) 

Bri and Nick get engaged during those Covid inviting few days in Vegas (September 21st- September 23rd) 

Articles drop about how they’re engaged and she’s broken up with Brody (Sept 23rd) 

Bri, family and Nick all share a huge amount of Vegas pictures of them in love, Bri’s ring, Bri and Nick being a couple (pictures obviously taken before Vegas to hopefully make someone believe that this in no way is a whirlwind engagement after just knowing each other a few weeks. Did they convince anyone? Well if you are convinced - I’m worried for you) 

Here’s the tmz article:https://www.tmz.com/2020/09/23/brody-jenner-split-briana-jungwirth-engaged/ Here’s some pics of them we were all subjected to while they were in Vegas. And Nick’s new public profile when it just got made. Was he trying to start an influencer career and say goodbye to being a firefighter? Was he trying to get a night job taking off that all firefighter gear for money? Magic mike was a big movie after all….Who knows.

September 28th

At first the engagement pictures on Nick’s IG were just him and Briana and he used the #/shesaidyes. After a few days and probably after they realised it would be a smart move to acknowledge her kid she claims to have too (👀) he deleted those and on September 28th posted new pictures with a new caption and new # of course. This time “theysaidyes”.

The pictures are below.

But, moving on.

As soon as the engagement news drops, we have Nick - our “good-guy firefighter” making a new and public IG account, flooding it with pictures where he professes his love for Bri and soaking up the d-list association fame.

So in the coming weeks we get a lot of Nick, Bri and their families on IG. They post a lot about being constantly together.

What was the most interesting they really pushed the “dad” image on Nick. He was constantly posting about Freddie and even in Bs or Tammi’s stories he was always seen interacting with F the most.

Then after it seemed like the new fiancees had settle into their soon-to-be married life and everything seemed rosy for them - we get hit with the whammy BOOBIEGATE.

Because hell hath no fury like a sugar daddy scorned.

October 15th

On the 15th of October celebtm a gossip site, posts the next picture and caption on IG:

Basically, they’re saying a guy - his name unknown yet - contacted them to tell them how Briana scammed him out of money she borrowed to get a boob job. Specifically 5k USD. He claims he filed the case in court and it’s dated January.

They ask if anyone else has similar receipts or anything about her and that they’re investigating and will be writing a story. And the comments have a lot to say about Bri.

October 19th

4 days later on October 19th celebtm posts another IG update about how they have the court filing and how their article is in progress.

October 21st

2 days after the last IG post celebtm finally posts their article - on the 21st of October

https://celebmagazine.com/louis-tomlinson-briana-jungwirth-sued-over-boob-job/

(It’s on the web still - if it ever gets deleted let me know I have screen recordings of it)

The article is accompanied by this (below) IG post:

Also on this day we get Briana and Nick deactivating their IG profiles. Nick still kept his personal private IG and the only person who stayed public is Tammi.

October 22nd

A day after the article dropped there’s another IG post with the following picture and caption. Apparently, Sugar Daddy shared his receipts - specifically AmEx - with celebtm.

October 26th

On October 26th celebtm posts the second part of the article. It’s messier, with a more confusing timeline than the first, but tries to “spill” more details on Sugar Daddies relationship with Briana and her life in general.

Also by now we know his name - Michael Strauss. An investor in Warwick club in LA.

https://celebmagazine.com/louis-tomlinson-baby-mama-briana-jungwirth-double-life/

(Again this is the link - if the article gets taken down and you want to see it - DM me)

October 27th

Then a day later we get another IG post - no new article - just more excerpts from what the Sugar Daddy told celebtm.

Then it’s quiet for a few days and when you think this can’t get even more trashy - low and behold the circus that is called October 29th.

October 29th

So after a few days of silence celebtm strikes again, but this time they bring in TV’s most loved judge - Judge Judy. Apparently the TV show was willing to take this litigation and air it as an episode.

As always, they post an IG post and a caption, and the article mentioned in the IG caption below is basically an article written for clicks about Louis and Harry because they saw the larrie part of the fandom was getting them clicks. I’ll leave the link to the article here for documentation purposes, but honestly there’s nothing in there worth giving them clicks for. Not a thing. The title of the article is “A Complete Guide to 1D Members Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles’ Rumoured Relationship”

Article: https://celebmagazine.com/louis-tomlinson-harry-styles-relationship/

November 6th

We see the sudden return from social media exile of Bri to IG. She’s back - with a post and the description ironically saying “I’m back”. I refuse to post it because does anyone really want to look at her face-tuned selfies? 

November 9th

Then after weeks of radio silence, the return of Bri to IG, we get what is apparently the - very underwhelming - like Bri’s boobs to Sugar Daddy who never got to see them - conclusion to this Sugar Daddy drama. This following article which is basically a letter from Michael to Briana telling her how he’s giving up on the lawsuit, taking this as a life lesson and how he hopes no one else falls for her scams. Article below:

https://celebmagazine.com/michael-straus-briana-jungwirth-open-letter-to-one-direction-louis-tomlinson-alleged-baby-mama/

(Again this is the link - if the article gets taken down and you want to see it - DM me)

And of course - the article is accompanied by an IG post by celebtm.

So, here we currently are. After watching that circus show no one wanted not paid for (well except the Sugar Daddy, and he didn’t even get to see the thing he paid for - so sad.) we’re in November and the Jungwirths and company are back to their carefree posting on IG. 

Current status:

The lawsuit seems to have been dropped. 

Everything seems to be in process of being swept under the rug.

Nick - the loving fiancee - is back to IG too. All of his happy, loving pictures with Bri still up (some deleted) - so we must assume their love survived Boobiegate.

As for overlapping timelines:

The timelines overlap mostly during the months March-October with it being said Bri dated Brody, but was also taking money from Boobie Daddy who was helping her during the pandemic, and was later also apparently starting a serious relationship with Nick.

What actually went on - I don’t know. And I’m honestly not interested to find out. This is being mentioned just so anyone coming across this post knows that yes - you didn’t read it wrong - the timelines do overlap with different people saying different things and Bri being tied to all three men at those times without any real clear timeline for the relationships.

So far this is all there is to this mess. If there’s more - I’ll do a part two or addition.

I’d like to end this with saying - these masterposts are 95% just me making them for myself because I forget stuff, and so much goes on in the fandom that if I want to keep up with it all, I need a nice timeline for things. I’m posting this for anyone wanting to make sense of this circus too or just to put it into a timeline. I did fact check all the dates, posts, IG pics, links and so on - but mistakes can happen - if there is one feel free to let me know.

[derangedhyena-delphinidae]

numerous issues with “The Aftermath of Seaworld”

When I get time to do so (aka when I’m done with the documentary), I’m likely going to make a video version of this going into the details. 

But for right now, I’ve made this. Both as a guideline for me and so everyone can begin to get an idea of the severity of issues involved.

Researching things is time-consuming and can be very difficult - believe me, I know. But I’m of the mind that if you’re making content with the intent of educating people, you have a responsibility to perform a certain level of due diligence. It IS okay to express uncertainty or doubt if you have it. It is NOT okay to confidently assert things that you do not know with certainty.

The video has an anticap slant, and I’m obviously not disagreeing on that front. But again: if you’re gonna go through the trouble of teaching people something. Bare minimum... please make sure it’s actually correct. *** 1) x ‘founded in 1964 and based out of Florida’ -  ???? Seaworld definitively began on the west coast, in San Diego, CA. And given that the first park opened in early 1964… things came together before that. Uh? 2) x ‘four people founded Seaworld [...]’ For one… it wasn’t originally conceived as a restaurant, it was originally conceived as an underwater bar/lounge. Two… calling the four guys involved in founding the place “frat brothers” is fucking ridiculous and completely overlooks a) how each was actually involved and b) the overall significance of their contributions to the field as individuals. Hint: like it or not, they were important and did a lot! 

3) x If one is going to bring up SWBGCF/rescues while talking about the literal founding of SW, it gives the impression that it’s been around for that duration. It hasn’t.  It’s actually a bit unclear when SW started an organized rescue program, but the Fund itself and all that it did came about much later. The rescue information and how it’s presented is actually INCREDIBLY complex, nuanced, and has a fascinating history (from a “bad company behaving badly” perspective). Oversimplifying this, to this degree and in this misinformative way, does the facts of the situation an INCREDIBLE disservice.  

4) x [assertive statement about what the name Shamu means]  ….Uh actually there’s several explanations for the name Shamu, and the most likely one IMO seems to be the “she-namu” one, not the “friend of Namu” one(? What is this even based on.) 4b) It’s not quite clear if she’s saying “Namu was the first ever orca to be displayed and perform shows” or or Namu was the first to be displayed and, like Shamu, performed shows. Either way, Moby Doll was the first to truly be displayed to the public, not Namu.

5) x ‘Namu died after one year in captivity and you’d think that this might deter Seaworld from doing the same thing again…’ Seaworld truly had nothing to do with Namu. And they leased/took possession of Shamu before Namu died. ‘Again’? What?

6) x “Now, PETA paints a pretty disturbing picture…” [while showing Okura’s artwork] This video segment is, and this is putting it nicely, a pile of poorly-researched BULLSHIT.  -Yes, PETA talks about Shamu’s capture, re: the harpooning of her mother. This Youtuber cannot apparently be arsed to look more than 1 Google search into this, as she proceeds to dismiss the information as potentially fabricated. There are two detailed accounts of Shamu’s capture that I’m aware of - in books - and though they have some slight conflicts, it’s absolutely NOT in doubt that the female who was very likely Shamu’s mother was 1) harpooned, 2) died from her injuries and 3) this had been done to make her easier to catch/locate because there was a fucking buoy attached to the harpoon. Which she dragged around for at least 24 hours prior dying.  So maybe don’t dismiss that as PETA hysteria, maybe TRY to determine the truth of the matter, which would inform one that it is both true and completely horrifying.  -In addition, Okura is an awesome individual who has worked very hard to create a variety of informative artwork for our cause. Okura is NOT associated with PETA and it’s borderline libel in my eyes to use their artwork in this dismissive manner when the primary sources of it can be easily identified online, with full explanations and everything. Do I take special offense to this because of the misuse of artwork? Absolutely. Artists get disrespected enough online. I’m tired of it. This kind of laziness IS NOT acceptable.

7) x ‘timeline is fuzzy about when Shamu died’ …………… it’s…. It’s really not … newspapers are pretty clear about it…..

8) x [complete and utter oversimplification of the lifespan issue, which is not acceptable for anything published in 2020. It just isn’t. If you’re going to bring it up like this, either do the legwork and get into the weeds or stay out.] 8b) [same for reproductive ages. sigh]

9) x if we’re going to talk about when Cornell was involved with Seaworld it’s very important to specify when Cornell was involved with Seaworld and not make it seem like it’s present tense.

10) x “both were rescued by Seaworld” - uh? no. Zero orcas have been rescued by Seaworld. Literally none. The infected-jaw orca was Sandy, whose story is complex and certainly does not involve Seaworld until much later. And many of the orcas in that time period had bullet wounds, often only identified post-mortem because they didn’t seem to hurt the animals much. Also, unflinchingly blending 70s captivity ethics with modern ones is also complete nonsense? 

11) x [tilikum coming from sealand] inhales I am going to make an entire video centered on this fucking subject because it’s one of the single most profound arguments for Seaworld being garbage as assessed by US government agencies in the 90s yet everyone utterly fails to mention this. Why?!

12) x what on earth is this nonsense re: quoting a quote from Zimmerman’s article - which has already been removed from its original context, so the original context is not available - and then penalizing the quote for existing as if Zimmerman’s article were the context? That is offensively disingenuous. I honestly don’t know what the original context is, either - but it’s wildly inappropriate to act as if the Zimmerman article is.

13) x this is relatively minor but ‘Paul Sprong’? You literally have his name on the screen. And then mis-reading his age too? While asserting it from a static article published years ago? Effort? Where is it?

14) x ‘another trainer, Peter’ ….. Ken Peters…. 

15) [weirdly glossing over the widely-available list of orca-trainer injuries/aggressions, despite it being central to the point.] 16) x This pilot whale outrage certainly happened but it was pretty clearly Blackfish that started the cascade of woes for Seaworld. Who has ever asserted this?

17) if you’re gonna just rehash blackfish, tell people to go watch blackfish.

18) x I’ve already gone over the context issue with Seaworld calling out Howard’s statement in Blackfish here (point 23). Which is to say, IN CONTEXT in Blackfish it’s clear what Mr. Garrett is talking about but, divorced from that, it sounds incorrect. But this Youtuber AMPLIFIES the issue by doubling down on the assertion with “no record of a killer whale doing any harm to anyone in the wild.” The surfer event should always be mentioned. Yes, there’s absolutely room for doubt. But there’s also a clear demarcation between an accidental attack (eg mistaken identity, as was likely for the surfer) and intentional one (eg the incidents at marine parks.) Why do people kneecap themselves on this point 18b) please stop acting like Luna represents orcas in general.

19) x “Howard, for all of his research…” … while referring to David Duffus’ b-roll and statements. Uh. 20) x Apparently this Youtuber has single-handedly resolved the dorsal fin issue. You know, the thing that hasn’t been properly researched ever, that has been subject to a ton of debate, that isn’t 100% settled for a variety of reasons, and almost everyone talks about in terms of theories and likely possibilities.  21) x Alexis Martinez wasn’t “torn to shreds.” In a space where even moderate exaggerations are often penalized harshly by the opposition, this kind of blatant nonsense is not welcome. Plus, the reality’s bad enough… you don’t have to make anything up!

22) x *sighs. points at own webpage*

23) Talking about the shows stopping without acknowledging how that’s a bit of a farce is something else. In addition to apparently just flipping to buying what Seaworld’s selling re: its ‘improved image.’ 

*** Tl;dr video is so unrelentingly full of errors ranging from small to egregious it makes me seriously concerned for the veracity of the rest of this person’s content. The maker of the video provided a list of their sources in their video description, which I will have time to look through in detail later. The above is solely a response to the information they present IN THE VIDEO - which, is very important because let’s be real: a lot of people are not going to look at the list of sources. People don’t even do it when citing papers (no really, you’d be surprised, fml.) For anyone who wants to whinge that I haven’t linked or asserted any sources of my own for my claims… well, remember what I said about time-consuming and ‘I’m busy’? Yhea. Getting all of that together will be part of making a video. So if you want to shrug loudly at my list here… you can, that’s your prerogative, I’m happy to say I DGAF if that’s your takeaway. 

What I hope, is that if there’s anything I’ve made clear over the While of running this blog, it’s that I don’t fuck around when it comes to sources and information and do my best to provide what information exists, all of it, not just cherrypicked bits and bobs. Anyways. Here’s step 0 at least. Please don’t share that video. Pretty please.

[erensangel444]

wedding bells

eren jaeger x reader x mikasa ackerman 

modern!au

this shit.... is a dream come true! 

this fic is eren + mikasa x fem!reader, if you guys would want to see some gender neutral fics just let me know in my asks inbox! i’m open to any suggestions, if you want a fic that’s specifically tailored to you whether that be race-wise, gender-wise, any disabilities, etc,. just let me know!

likes/reblogs/comments are always appreciated:D

this fic has been proofread but if i missed something just let me know!

a/n: i saw someone(who is a wedding planner) describe an instance similar to this, on reddit, and i just had to write it.

i don’t care what anyone says, eremika is my otp. on the flip side, jean’s feelings for mikasa are so cute and it makes my heart do flips. 

warnings: language(most of my fics do contain language), smut; degrading, threesome, unprotected sex w/ creampie, voyeurism, cuckolding in a way?? but not really cause the reader fucks both of em so 🤨, oral(male and fem!receiving), permission needed to orgasm, slapping(slightest bit, not a huge portion of the smut)

word count: 5.3k

summary: wedding planning is a chaotic affair. some couples were very demanding, leaving no room for friendliness, the professionalism somewhat overbearing. with this couple though, there’s room to get friendly. 

your legs were propped up on your desk, the eraser end of a pencil in between your teeth. your eyes were trained on your computer screen, analyzing the june month of your calendar. a knock on your door interrupted your train of thought, your legs falling back to the floor at the sound. “mrs. y/l/n, it’s your 2 o’clock appointment,” your assistant’s voice sounding from behind the door.

“come in,” you replied, your voice accompanied by a soft lilt. your door swung open, your assistant standing beside a couple, a beautiful one at that. if you had lacked any sense of professionalism, drool might have dribbled out of the side of your mouth. 

“have a seat,” you gestured towards the chairs on the opposite side of your desk, “thank you marylin,” you smiled at your assistant, turning your attention back to the couple in front of you. 

now that they sat in front of you, you had a clearer look at their appearance. you noticed the way their hands were latched together, the image making you smile. “nice to meet you, i’m y/n, which you already knew i guess,” you laughed, the man and woman in front of you joining in.

already the room had an aura of comfort. they had told you their names, eren and mikasa, mikasa’s last name soon to be jaeger. eventually, the conversation had shifted into small talk as you nodded at the words falling from mikasa’s lips, a sign that you were listening intently. 

you had asked how they met, a common question you asked to most of the couples who became your clients, but with them, you were actually interested in their answer. “a pastry shop,” eren smiled, turning to mikasa. “the owner, levi, is actually attending our wedding as the matchmaker, he convinced me to make a move,” he finished. 

you couldn’t help but smile at the story, and smile at the couple in front of you. you could feel the happiness radiating off of them, their happiness rubbing off on you.

“do you guys have a theme that you’re thinking for the ceremony?”

the sun had slowly began it’s descent, the evening sun shining through the window behind you. discussion about the wedding had come to an end about an hour ago, the preliminary details sorted out. the professional conversation had died down, there was no reason for the appointment to continue, yet, a part of you didn’t want the couple to leave, and it didn’t seem like they were eager to go either. 

mikasa’s laughter sounded throughout the room as you recalled a bridezilla that you had dealt with a couple of years ago. eren smiled at the sound of mikasa’s laughter, turning towards you, the smile remaining. “so, i’m scheduling another appointment for january, we’ll discuss invitation cards, catering, and we can look at venues if you don’t already have an idea for where you want the wedding to take place,” you smiled softly. 

“thank you so much,” eren said, standing up and holding his hand out for you to shake. you stood from your chair also, shaking eren’s hand, walking towards the door. you held the door open for the couple, the subtle smile yet to leave your face.

“thank you again,” mikasa smiled at you. you felt your cheeks heat up at her appreciation. “of course, anytime, feel free to call if you need anything,” you said, waving at the couple as they walked down the hall. you were excited for this wedding, more so than any other one that you had planned. 

fuck, you need a cold shower. 

the meeting in january had happened a month ago. you had customized a design for the invitation based on mikasa and eren’s descriptions. they loved it, so the invitations were sent in the mail, the wedding set for the month of june. 

like the previous one, the appointment had run over, spending an hour talking to the couple, laughter sounding throughout the room. now, a month later, you were rushing to a bridal store, a to-go coffee cup in your hand as you walked quickly.

mikasa had invited you to dress shopping, a couple of her bridesmaids tailing along as well. you opened the door to the store, your breath quick from rushing as you looked around the for mikasa. you smiled once meeting mikasa’s eyes. she returned your smile with her own as she waved you over.

she had introduced you to all of her bridesmaids, the group of you talking about your shared excitement for mikasa’s wedding. you talked with the group, though you felt like you were intruding, seeing as you hadn’t known mikasa as long as these women. you were the wedding planner though, so it wasn’t odd that you were here, right?

all those thoughts flushed from your head when mikasa stepped out from the dressing room, the store assistant following behind her. she looked beautiful, the canvas white color of the dress acting as a parallel against her skin, a veil casted over her face. 

the women beside you cheered, yet you still stared in astonishment. realizing that you were the odd one out, your bottom lip caught between your teeth, you quickly joined in, clapping along with the women beside you. mikasa did a little twirl as a joke, and you whistled in response, the playful banter making you smile.

mikasa’s eyes shifted over to you as she smiled, “you look amazing,” you said softly, your words drifiting into a fluttery sigh. “thank you,” mikasa said, her voice almost a whisper. “um, would you want to come with me after this? i have some more shopping to do, and all my friends have somewhere to be,” your heart shouldn’t have pulsated the way it did at her offer. 

“of course,” you smiled, ushering her over to her friends who were eager to give their compliments to the soon-to-be-bride. 

how you had ended up inside a victoria’s secret dressing room with mikasa, her hands tugging at the bottom of her shirt, was beyond you. all you could do now was attempt to avert your eyes as she lifted the shirt over her eyes. 

she had gone to a couple shops before stopping in the lingerie store just for a ‘quick look’. a ‘quick look’ had somehow led to the pair of you venturing into the dressing room, mikasa’s hands full of bralettes covered in lace and different lingerie pieces. 

“what do you think of this one,” her voice broke the silence. well, now you had to look up at her. you lifted your head from the floor, stopping your jaw from falling slack, forcing your expression to be rigid. in the moments between your eyes falling to the floor and now, mikasa’s jeans had come off too. 

she now stood in a white lace bra, the dark areolas of her nipple visible through the fabric. a white lace thong accompanied the number on her upper half, sending you into an undeniable heat. your cheeks flushed as you licked your lips before responding, “i-it’s beautiful, i think eren will love it,”. you forced your eyes to remain on her face. “do you like it?” she asked, her voice having something hidden behind it.

“m-me?” you asked, though you already knew the answer. mikasa nodded, smiling at you. “i-i like it,” you stuttered through a sentence, your cheeks growing hotter, “i think it looks really good on you,” you whispered the last bit. mikasa grinned at that, her hands reaching for the clasp of the bra.

your eyes quickly fell back to the floor, mikasa grabbing another set that was sitting beside you on the bench in the dressing room. your eyes remained glued on the floor as you felt mikasa’s shoulder brush against yours. as quickly as you felt the brush of her skin against yours, it was gone, yet the feeling in your stomach had yet to subside. 

it was now may, a month before the wedding and mikasa had asked you over for coffee, in desperate need of someone to expel the worries she had about the wedding. you had obviously obliged, putting mikasa’s address into the map on your phone.

after the day at victoria’s secret, you had seen eren and mikasa a few more times, mainly to discuss the wedding. they had invited you over for dinner as a thanks, their hospitality was heartwarming.

you found yourself parking your car in front of their home once again, walking towards the front door. you rang the doorbell, slightly shifting from the ball of your foot to the heel in anticipation. to your surprise, eren opened the front door, and before you could stop yourself a slight gasp fell from your lips.

“what? expecting someone different?” he joked, smiling at you. you laughed softly before speaking, “i have a date with your fiancé,” you joked, holding up the two coffees in your hand. eren stepped out of the doorway, motioning for you to go inside. 

you had a general idea of the layout of their home from your previous visit, so you headed towards the kitchen, setting the coffee cups down on the table. “mikasa actually just had to leave,” eren said from behind you, “some emergency at work,” he sat down in a seat at the kitchen table. “oh,” you said, not knowing how to respond, standing awkwardly beside the table.

“i don’t mind if you stay though,” your eyebrows furrowed at his words, but the blush that rushed to your cheeks was easily distinguished, “until she comes back i mean,”. you nodded sheepishly, mentally hitting yourself for reading into eren’s words. you sat down, opposite from eren, pushing one of the coffees towards him. 

“thanks,” he smiled, taking a sip from the paper cup. you sat in silence for a moment, before eren asked you a question. “are you dating someone?” you gulped your coffee at that, coughing soon after from the rush of liquid. “s-sorry! that was abrupt,” he yelped. 

“n-no you’re okay,” you reassured him, setting your coffee cup on the table. “i’m not dating anyone, no,” you said, your left hand digging into your thigh. “that surprises me,” eren replied, his eyes boring into yours. ‘hmm?’ you hummed in question, attempting to retain a calm exterior, though it was hard to ignore the way your heart was beating. 

“i mean with being a wedding planner and everything, i feel like you see love all the time and you’d want your own shot at it,” eren started, “i would bet you have people lining up too,”. you blushed profusely at his words, ignoring any deeper meaning behind them. 

“i-i guess you’re right, i do see a lot of love, but that’s also why i’m not in a relationship. i get my full share of love, at work, you know? i’m always managing other people’s love lives, i don’t want to throw mine on top of that,” you rambled, letting out a deep breath at the end. eren nodded in understanding, smiling before talking. 

“so more of a friends with benefit thing? hit it and quit it?” he laughed, the feeling in your stomach and the heat in your cheeks growing at his words before you spoke. “i manage pretty okay by myself,” you laughed softly, attempting to ease your nerves. “k-know how to take care of myself,”. as soon as the words fell from your lips, you instantly regretted them. you didn’t want him to think you were insinuating something lewd with your words. 

eren just smirked at you, the sound of the front door opening startling you. mikasa made her way into the kitchen, smiling when she saw you. “eren leave my date alone,” she joked, leaning down to give him a kiss. what you thought would be a peck, was a passionate kiss. you caught glimpses of their tongues slipping into the other’s mouth before you had to look at the floor. 

“let’s go sit out back,” mikasa said to you as she pulled away from eren’s lips, panting.

it was now june, and you found yourself in the countryside of italy, lying on your bed, reading a book. the wedding was to take place in two days, the happy couple renting out a villa for the guests to stay at. your window was open to cool down your room, the slight breeze brushing across your legs, the noise of crickets softly easing the silence of the night. 

your peace was interrupted by a knock on your door. you huffed out a breath, swinging your legs off of the bed and onto the floor, making your way to the door. you looked through the peephole, sucking in a breath after looking through it. mikasa and eren stood outside your door, both in nightclothes. you felt anxious, worried that something was wrong, but opened your door nonetheless. 

“hey, are you guys alright?” you spoke softly, both eren and mikasa nodding. “can we come in?” eren said, you nodded in response, still confused but holding the door open for the couple. “we want t-” eren started before mikasa cut him off with her hand. at mikasa’s interruption, eren went to shut your window with an explanation of “it’s so cold in here,”.

“i’m sorry about that,” she sighed, “eren thinks we should’ve done this months ago, so now he’s being overly blunt, but i think there’s a polite way to go about it,” her voice was low, but still had the same softness along with it. “we wanna fuck you,” eren blurted out, your jaw dropping at his words. “eren!” mikasa punched his bicep, eren grinning sheepishly. 

“what? it’s true,” he rationalized. you were still reeling at his words and mikasa could tell. she made her way over to you, her hand rubbing at your shoulder as she spoke, “you’ve done so much to help us, and we’ve both wanted to from the start,” she looked at you intently, searching your expression. “jus’ wanna help you out,” eren joined in. 

“do you want that?” mikasa said, pulling her hand away in fear of making you uncomfortable. you nodded meekly, unable to hold eye contact with either of them. “look at me and say it,” mikasa’s voice was more stern now. you looked up at her, meeting her eyes that had seemingly grown darker.

“yes, want it,” you were panting, yet you hadn’t done anything to run out of breath. “good,” eren sighed from beside you, his lips quickly finding purchase along your neck as he left kisses along the expanse of skin, suckling at different spots. 

mikasa’s hand fell to your chin, lifting your face up before leaning in for a kiss. you fell stiff for a second, before melting into her lips. their lips were sending you into overdrive, mikasa’s hand falling to the back of your head to pull you in closer. 

she pulled away, a string of saliva connecting your lips together, her eyes glossed over with desire. “arms up” eren commanded plainly as he moved away from your neck. you obliged quickly, mikasa’s hands grabbing at the bottom of your shirt and pulling it over your head. 

“fuck,” mikasa sighed, her eyes boring holes into your breasts. you were getting ready for bed so you hadn’t had a bra on, your nipples stiffening at the brush of cold air. “so pretty, isn’t she kasa’” eren sighed, turning towards his soon-to-be-wife.

mikasa simply nodded, licking her lips before her hand gravitated towards your breast, groping softly at the skin. you threw your head back at the slight contact, trying to calm your heartbeat and the thoughts rushing through your head. too consumed with the situation, you hadn’t notice eren’s lips on your nipple until you felt his tongue lick at the hardened pebble.

you whimpered softly at the feeling, eren laughing against your skin, taking your moans as encouragement. eventually, eren’s mouth was wrapped around one nipple, mikasa’s wrapped around the other. your hands fell to their hair, your mind reeling at the pleasure.

you couldn’t help but look down at them, the sight increasing your pleasure. your eyes shifted between the two of them, eren’s eyes twinkling with mischief, mikasa’s laced with desire. 

“i think she deserves a treat, don’t you think so eren?” mikasa mumbled against your skin. eren simply nodded, his hands playing with the waistband of your sleep shorts. 

you found yourself now, lying against eren’s chest, eren’s back up against the headboard, your shorts discarded along with your panties. eren’s hands traced patterns on the sides of your hips as mikasa ran a finger through your slit. she lifted her finger up in the light, your arousal evident on the digit. 

“you’re excited, huh?” eren teased from behind you. you could feel his bulge pushing into your lower back, and you shifted to roll against it, eren letting out a soft sigh. one of eren’s hands drifted down towards your clit while mikasa placed kisses on your thigh, slowly inching towards your dripping center, but avoiding it to tease you further. 

“make her wait a little, babe’”, mikasa looked up at eren, a smirk on her face. “she’s been good,” eren said, his voice soft. his thumb now rubbed soft circles into your clit, your head falling onto his shoulder. “w-want more,” you whimpered, attempting to thrust into eren’s thumb. 

“see?” mikasa said from below you, staring right up at you, “give her a little and she starts begging like a whore,”. you whimpered at her words, desperate for some relief, desperate for an orgasm, desperate for something, anything. 

“you want it?” she asked, slowly inserting one of her finger’s into your dripping hole. “yes! p-please,” you begged, desperate for mikasa’s mouth and fingers. she just chuckled, letting out a plain “fine,” before her lips wrapped around your clit sucking on the bundle of nerves. 

“fuck!” you yelped, eren’s hand now groping at your breast as he littered kisses along your shoulder and neck. mikasa now had two fingers inside of you, their speed increasing as she placed kitten licks on your clit. you squirmed from the pleasure, the feeling overwhelming, your body telling you to get away, but you loved it. you wanted more, “more!” you whimpered.

mikasa’s mouth now met her fingers at your entrance, licking below your clit. eren’s hand drifted down towards the bundle of nerves, rubbing quick figure eights, your hips spasming at the feeling. “g-gonna cum!” you shouted, possibly a little too loud.

“yeah?” eren sighed, “gotta ask us first,”. you looked down a mikasa, her eyes the only thing you could see. “need permission to cum,” she mumbled into your pussy, the vibration sending shock waves through your body. it was hard to hold back, you needed to cum, but you couldn’t, not without permission. 

“p-please! i’ll be so good, just need to cum, need it bad, need it please!” you moaned loudly, your hips bucking into mikasa’s mouth and eren’s hand. “think she deserves it?” mikasa asked, looking up at eren. she moved away from your dripping center, her fingers still plunging in and out of you as she waited for eren’s response. 

“i think she’s been good,” eren answered, looking down at mikasa. he turned towards you, his lips tickling your ear, “you’ve been good right? good girls deserve to cum,” you moaned loudly at his words. you couldn’t hold back anymore, you needed it. “cum,” mikasa said plainly, her lips falling back to lick at your dripping hole. 

at her permission, your mind fell blank, your hips short-circuiting, your orgasm building until you fell over the edge. it resonated throughout your body, sending a hum throughout your system. you had never felt this fucking good. 

as you came down, mikasa slowly slid her fingers out. you were panting, your chest rising and falling rapidly as you met mikasa’s eyes, a smile on her face. she turned away from you, looking towards eren before speaking, “wanna taste her?”. you looked back to eren, still hazy from your orgasm to meet his enthusiastic nodding and the smirk on his face.

eren opened his mouth, mikasa slipping her fingers onto his tongue. he wrapped his lips around the digits, suckling. the image made your center throb, eren staring right at you as he licked your arousal off of mikasa’s fingers. 

“what? something wrong?” mikasa teased as she removed her fingers from eren’s lips, your mouth wide open at what you had just witnessed. “w-wanna watch, wanna see you both, together,” you said shyly. eren and mikasa just smiled at you before turning back to one another, and leaning in for a kiss.

their lips locked with a moan, the image before you reminding you of that day in their kitchen. only now, they were doing it because you wanted them to, because you wanted to watch. “fuck,” you sighed, crossing your legs in hope of friction, in hope of some relief.

the sensitivity from your orgasm had worn off, eren and mikasa kissing in front of you causing a spike in your libido. “want you both to suck my cock,” eren said breathlessly, pulling away from mikasa. you looked over at mikasa for reassurance, and she nodded with a soft smile. you looked back to eren, settling yourself next to mikasa, in between his legs. 

at some point he had gotten rid of his pants, the only thing separating you from his cock being his boxers. mikasa palmed at his erection through the fabric as you watched her movements before looking back up at eren timidly. his hand drifted down to your hair, rubbing at your head in appraisal.

you gave him a soft smile before reaching for the waistband of his boxers. with mikasa’s help, you pulled the cloth from off of his body, being met with his hard cock. the tip was an angry red and leaking precum, and you could’ve sworn it twitched slightly. how long had he been like this?

no matter, you were going to help him now, you were gonna take good care of him. you wanted to help him and mikasa, wanted them to take care of you. you licked a stripe up his cock, mikasa acting as a parallel on the other side. 

you heard a low groan from above you, taking it as encouragement as you wrapped your lips around the tip of his cock before lightly sucking. you licked at the underside of his cock, and in the corner of your eyes you could see mikasa licking at the base of his cock, her hand fondling with his balls. 

“fuck,” eren sighed from above you. you wanted to hear him moan more, so you took him deeper down your throat, mikasa licking at what you didn’t reach. eren let out more sighs and whimpers, throwing his head back at the feeling. you pulled off of his cock, spit covering his length as you switched spots with mikasa. 

she took his whole length down her throat, deepthroating him, a slight gag sounding throughout the room. you couldn’t help but whimper at the sight before you, wanting to do the same as mikasa, wanting to take him as good as her.

“wanna try?” she panted, pulling away from eren’s cock as she looked at you. you nodded, afraid to respond verbally, fearing that your words would do you an injustice. she wrapped one hand in your hair, pushing you towards his cock. before you could wrap your lips around his tip she spoke, “if you wanna pull off, tap eren’s thigh twice, okay?” she announced, looking at you for reassurance. you muttered out an ‘i will,’ wrapping your lips around eren’s cock.

“take him nice and slow,��� mikasa said from behind you, her hand still in your hair. you could hear eren’s fluttery sighs, the sounds increasing the arousal collecting at your dripping hole. “t-take your time, pretty,” eren groaned from above you. you looked up at him and as you met his eyes, eren let out a moan, throwing his head back. 

“if you look at me like that, i’m gonna blow,” he teased, the light laugh at the end of his sentence turning into a moan. “ready to take him all the way?” mikasa asked, and you nodded as best you could with your mouth full of his cock. 

mikasa slowly but surely pushed your head further down his cock, your throat filling with his length. you gagged slightly right before bottoming out, eren verbally reeling at the feeling. as you reached the base of his cock, you gagged once more, your eyes watering at the pressure. you could feel your jaw becoming sore, your nose taking in harsh breaths, but you reveled in the feeling. 

you wanted eren’s cock deep down your throat, wanted to be good for him. mikasa pulled you off his length, a line of saliva in between your lips and the tip of his cock. “did so good,” mikasa assured you, pulling you in for a kiss. you relished in the feel of her lips on yours. she pulled away from you, leaning up towards eren and kissing him. “so hot,” you sighed absentmindedly, eren and mikasa laughing into the kiss.

“yeah?” eren teased, “i think you’ve yet to give me a kiss,” intense eye contact being shared between you two. you leaned up next to mikasa, hovering your lips over eren’s before closing your eyes and kissing him. his kiss was different from mikasa’s but similar in the pleasure you felt from it. you pulled away with a blush flushing across your cheeks.

“c-can i watch first?” you asked, looking between both eren and mikasa before looking down at your hands. mikasa’s hand grabbed at your chin, lifting your head up to look at her. “wanna watch him fuck me first?” you nodded enthusiastically.

eventually you situated yourself against the headboard, eren and mikasa next to you. he had her in doggystyle, his hands grabbing at her backside before he positioned the tip of his cok at her entrance. eren pushed in, both of their faces contorting in pleasure. your hand drifted down to your clit, rubbing soft circles onto your clit as you witnessed the scene unfall in front of you.

as eren began to thrust faster inside of her, mikasa’s head fell into the pillow, her moans slightly muffled by the mattress. your pace on your clit increased as the pace of eren’s thrust increased. his hand barreled down onto her ass, the smack sounding throughout the room. mikasa let out a yelp at the feeling, your bottom lip now situated between your teeth in response to the couple before you. 

eren had grabbed at mikasa’s hair, pulling her back to rest against his chest. “cum on my cock,” he commanded, thrusting into her harshly. mikasa obliged with a moan that was close to a shout. eren let go of her hair, mikasa falling back into the pillow as eren’s thrusts slowed. 

eren pulled out of mikasa, giving her a light tap on the ass before rubbing at the small of her back. “did so good,” he muttered out softly, his eyes falling onto you. “want you to ride my cock,” he said plainly, smiling at you. “do you want a condom, o-or do we need to get one because i kno-” you rambled, “are you safe?” eren asked softly. you nodded, assuring him that you got tested a month ago and hadn’t hooked up with anyone else in between now and then. 

“are you on the pill,” you nodded once again, no verbal response this time. “well then i think it’s alright if i leave you with a big load, deep inside of you, huh? would you like that?” you nodded, unable to respond, your cheeks heating up. “ do you think that would be nice, mikasa?” eren asked his fiance, who now leaned up against the headboard.

“i think she wants it real bad, think you should give it to her,” she taunted, staring at you. “think you’re right,” eren said as he laid down on the bed, his head on the pillow. “want you on my face, kasa’, and you on my cock, angel,” you whimpered softly, situating your legs on the outside of eren’s thighs. you held the tip of his cock at your entrance, pushing it inside of you as you slowly slid down his length. 

“f-fuck,” you sighed as you bottomed out, eren’s cock brushing up against that spot against you. mikasa was rocking her hips against eren’s mouth, her fluttery moans sounding throughout the room. you began to slowly bounce on eren’s cock, your hands placed on his toned stomach for support. as his cock pushed in and out of you, reaching deep inside of you, mikasa pulled you in for a kiss, moaning into your lips. 

she pulled away with a smirk, her face contorting in pleasure soon after. “fuck! do you like it?” she moaned, flicking her hips against eren’s tongue more eagerly. “like him deep inside of you?” she continued, to which you nodded, unable to verbalize your pleasure, grinding against eren’s cock. 

it all happened in an instance, you felt a sting on your face, your eyes tearing up slightly from the pleasure and the unanticipated pain. “i expect an answer when i ask you something,” mikasa said, her voice airy but the seriousness behind her tone still evident. she had slapped you. god, you wanted more. “y-yes i’ll answer!” you moaned, bouncing on eren’s cock with earnest. 

“f-fuck gonna cum!” mikasa yelped, her hips stuttering. eren’s hand fell on her hips, rocking her against his tongue, licking at her pussy until she fell apart on his face. after reaching her peak she swung her leg over, resting on the bed beside you and eren’s figures. “f-fuck angel,” eren groaned, “ride my cock just like that,”. you bounced more eagerly now, desperate for orgasm. you were so close. 

“cum on my cock, come on wanna see you cum all over me,” eren’s words were the final push, your walls clenching around eren’s cock as you came. “fuck!” eren all but yelled, his hands grabbing at your hips. “g-gonna, gonna” he moaned before he came, his hot load released deep inside of you. “s-so warm,” you sighed, falling further into that hazy space. 

eren lifted you off his cock slightly as you winced at the stretch. after pulling you off his cock, he laid you to the opposite side of him, pulling both you and mikasa into his figure. he left a kiss on your forehead before softly speaking,  “did so good for us,”. mikasa hummed in agreement before her soft voice sounded throughout the room, “so good,”.

the wedding had taken place and it was beautiful. the ceremony was stunning, and you found yourself crying at their vows, the love they shared so evident in the way the looked at one another. 

they drove off from the villa in a silver 1954 corvette, just married reading as the license plate. the wedding invitees waved them off, whistles sounding off into the distance. you had spent a couple more days in italy after the wedding, spending your time at a hotel, adventuring, and trying out restaurants.

before you were set to leave for home, your phone pinged with a message, the contact name reading ‘eren jaeger & mikasa jaeger’. reading the text left a smile on your face and a feeling of anticipation to thrum throughout your system.

‘the honeymoon is amazing!! we wanted to thank you again for all your help. we’ll be back in the states in a week. hopefully you’ll find time to fit us in your schedule, there’s so much to discuss. we need your expertise on a wide variety of matters, so many more weddings for us to plan and all that;)’

fin

HEY! thank you so much for reading :D this fic is legit a dream fantasy, new nightime scenario :/// in all seriousness, i loved writing this so it means a lot that you’re reading it.

love u love u love u love u

take care of yourself <3

[readyplayerhobi]

Jung Hoseok and the Magic to Happiness | 05

; Hufflepuff Teacher!Hoseok x Reader

; Genre: Fluff, angst, future smut

; Word Count: 3.5k

; Synopsis: An unexpected issue with your Ministry of Magic job leads to you taking the role of Transfiguration Professor at Hogwarts. It’s here that you meet your best friend’s younger brother for the first time in years, the Hufflepuff Head of House, Jung Hoseok. While you contend with seeing him once again, Hoseok tries to show you that he’s very much a man and no longer the gangly teenager you once knew.

; A/N: Not as much of an ‘interesting’ chapter as the last one, but hopefully you’ll enjoy it all the same! I know some of you have been hoping to see this character and what their thoughts are all about what’s going on. This chapter is more of one that’s just self-assessing!

Last Chapter ; Next Chapter

-

You don’t go to breakfast the next morning. Not because you’re trying to avoid Hoseok or anything, but because you didn’t fall asleep until the early hours of the morning and so slept through the morning meal. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had kept your mind occupied instead of letting you drift off.

Thankfully, no one questions your absence. It might be because most of the castle is likely sleeping in today or is packing for the Hogwarts Express. You don’t have to be present when the students begin their journey back to London and you feel that’s probably a good thing at the moment. 

The awkwardness between Hoseok and you would be excruciating for anyone to be around, particularly yourself. So you’d burrowed into your duvet when the usual alarm went off and only woke up properly around noon. 

You’re still in bed though, the covers pulled up to your chin and helping you to feel snug and warm against the constant coolness of your stone room. Which means that you’re staring up at the ceiling of your bedroom intently, brows furrowed as you think over the night before once more.

As if you haven’t already replayed every moment in excruciating detail, latching onto the most ridiculous things. For instance, you couldn’t stop thinking of what Hoseok’s lips looked like up close or the heady scent of him that no longer inspired only safety and friendship in you. How hot his hands had felt against you.

It was embarrassing how often that thought morphed into you imagining the same scenario but minus any clothes. Would his hands be warmer? Would they be as gentle as they’d been on your back last night? Would his hands feel soft on your bare skin or would you be able to feel the subtle callouses formed from years of caring for magical animals?

Groaning out loud, you roll onto your side and bury your face into your pillow. How are you meant to face him when all you can think about is the taste of him on your lips? 

A delicate chiming causes you to peek at your bedside cabinet, eyes narrowing as the noise repeats itself. You don’t even need to check to see who it is; you know already. So you reach out and blindly grasp for the magic mirror, eventually feeling your fingertips pressing against the smooth, reflective surface.

Now your grimace is more because you know that you’ve just smeared fingerprints all over. But you don’t get a chance to clean it because as soon as you look at the hand-sized surface, it activates with a gentle tinkling. The silver mirror shimmers slightly and you’re left looking at the image of Jisoo’s pretty face, smiling at you.

For a moment, you forget that you’ve not even bothered to get out of bed yet. You’ve not been able to shower, and the crustiness of your eyes tells you that your makeup wasn’t removed either. You’d obviously been in more of a fugue state than you’d realised when you’d gotten back to your quarters.

Normally it wouldn’t bother you as Jisoo has seen you in much worse states. But this had been caused by Hoseok, her brother. Her little brother. Her little brother who was incredibly attractive, a great kisser and had looked at you like you’d hung the stars when you’d pulled away from him.

As you think that, you immediately remember his annoyance at any topic relating to age and feel like hitting your forehead. Chaeyoung was right; he did like you. Merlin, how stupid were you to miss all those obvious signs he’d been giving? The poor guy had been practically shouting it from the rooftop for weeks now.

“I’m so stupid!” You curse, spitting out a few more severe swear words after that to the surprise of Jisoo. It’s not helped when you notice how similar they look, maturity making the familial genes even more prominent between the two. Just your luck.

“Hi...are you okay?” She asks, her brow furrowing in concern and you sigh deeply. Ignoring her question for a few seconds, you take the time to push yourself up the bed and fluff up the pillows, letting them act as a backrest for you to prop yourself up. A quick spell cleans your face and mouth, studiously ignoring the fact that it’s considered lazy to use magic for these kinds of tasks.

Still, you feel a little more refreshed and not like one of those zombies from muggle television shows.

Taking a deep breath, alongside a few swallows of water from the glass you always keep by your bed, you pick up the mirror once more and smile at Jisoo. It’s pretty obvious that she doesn’t buy it though and you didn’t expect her to. She’s known you too long to let you get away with pretending, so you drop it quickly.

“I’m...okay, I promise. I just...I’m a little confused about something.” You’re not entirely sure that you want to admit the fact that you might fancy her little brother just yet. Jisoo is very open-minded and she’d always thought Hoseok’s obvious feelings when he was younger had been cute. But the unrequited emotions of your teenage brother are very different from the mutual attraction between your adult brother and your adult best friend.

“Oh? Did something happen last night? Hoseok was acting a little strange as well when I talked to him earlier.” The urge to sink under the covers is very strong when you hear that, but you use pure will to remain in place.

Of course, they’d already talked. 

Scanning Jisoo’s face closely, you try to use your own best friend's sixth sense to see if she already knows that you’d kissed him last night. But she’s either a master of acting or she has no idea because there’s only genuine concern in her expression.

You feel the need to talk though and you want to do that with your best friend, even if she is Hoseok’s sister. The feelings you have are confused and you just want to try to sort through them all. 

“I kissed Hoseok last night.” The words rush out in a breath, almost mumbling with how quiet they are. Still, Jisoo hears them perfectly thanks to the spell on the mirror. From the way her eyes widen in shock, you know that Hoseok hasn’t revealed that little tidbit to her. Part of you wonder if that’s to protect your privacy, but you don’t get a chance to consider it further.

“Merlin...so that’s why you’re both being odd! What happened? It was the Winter Solstice Ball, right?” Relaxing back, you nod and make an affirmative noise while chewing on your lips.

“Yeah, it was. It was all going fine, the students were having a good time and all that but then Hoseok finally arrived and-” Pausing, you frown before groaning out and running a hand across your face. “You don’t want to hear this! This is your brother.”

“Ignore that. As long as you don’t give me...descriptive details then it’s fine. This is one time that I have no interest in hearing about how well he kisses or what he’s like in bed, so keep that to yourself. Otherwise, keep talking.” Mortification runs through you at Jisoo’s mischievous smile and she laughs in delight.

“We didn’t do that! I swear.” Muttering, you reach for your glass and take another swig in an attempt to give yourself time to get yourself under control. Partially because you’re embarrassed about Jisoo thinking you’d slept with her brother so quickly but also because you’re feeling a little warm at the thought of sex with him.

A thought that you’d likely come back to at a later time but isn’t something to consider right now.

“I didn’t think you had. Firstly, you’ve never been the kind of person to shag someone on the first date. Or before the first date, I guess, as you’ve not even had a date. Secondly, neither is Hoseok. Don’t ask how I know, I’m surprised he didn’t blurt this news out this morning.” One of your eyes narrows in contemplation at that and you realise that you don’t want to ask.

The idea of Hoseok sleeping with someone else causes an unpleasant sensation to bubble in your stomach. Something else you don’t feel like analysing at the moment.

“Okay...well...firstly, I hate the word ‘shag’ and you know it. Secondly, I’m really confused right now. I mean, objectively I’ve known Hoseok is hot. Like, I’m not stupid. I have eyes and he’s well...yeah. But I think I’d always managed to have some kind of barrier between us, you know? Like...he was your little brother and he was just my friend here. But then last night he came into the hall and Merlin. It was like something switched in my mind, and I finally realised that he’s not just attractive, but he’s...he’s my kind of attractive.” You realise halfway through talking that you’re just telling Jisoo your thought process as you go through it.

She doesn’t respond though, just gives a considerate look with her lips slightly pursed before taking a sip of her drink. You don’t know what she’s drinking as it’s a mug, the image on the front just a generic cat. The fact it’s not moving gives away that it’s a muggle creation.

“And then we just kept talking, all night. Even when we had duties, we kept meeting back up and it felt so natural and normal. It’s like I’ve known him for all my life or something, our conversation is so easy and I don’t feel uncomfortable around him. You ever have that with someone?”

“Once or twice. It’s a good sign though. I know you’ve become pretty good friends over the last few months so maybe that’s why it’s all clicking now. Relationships that start from a solid friendship usually end up being some of the best. Maybe that’s why it’s all feeling a little more natural than normal. You’ve found someone that makes you feel comfortable and safe.” You wonder how many times you’d told Jisoo that her brother inspired those feelings within you since being here at Hogwarts.

As that runs through your mind, you suddenly become distracted with an entirely different thought.

“Hang on, did you suspect that I might like him? You’ve always been very accepting of my friendship with him and if I remember right, you’ve been the one encouraging me to spend time with him. Is that why you’re not surprised at this?” Jisoo’s cheeks blush a pretty pink, so like her brother that you can’t help but smile.

“I may have suspected something. I am your best friend, after all. And his sister. When you’re close to both sides, you notice things.” Her voice is teasing and you wonder if other people have been suspecting this as well. 

Suddenly, all the times your fellow professors had arranged for events and Hoseok had happened to just be attending as well began running through your mind. Was everyone scheming?!

You’d never considered yourself a suspicious person before but you certainly were now. Seokjin and Chaeyoung, in particular, were going to be at the end of a very serious set of questions whenever you next saw them.

“In all seriousness, I didn’t think that you might like him. I just thought you were enjoying having a good friend at Hogwarts as Hoseok is someone you already know, so you at least had a link with him. You finding him nice to look at was expected; I’m not stupid, I know he’s pretty. He’s my brother and I’m gorgeous,” There’s a slight smirk to her smile, and you roll your eyes at her ego, fully recognising that she’s trying to cheer you up. “But you never really gave the inclination that you wanted anything romantic with him, so I didn’t suspect too much with you.”

Humming, your nose wrinkles as you look away from the mirror and contemplate her words. She’s not wrong, mainly because you hadn’t considered that with him until last night. Hoseok had been firmly in the friend box in your mind. It’s only now that you realise he’d been subtly creeping into the romantic box without you noticing.

“That’s because I didn’t realise I wanted that. I feel like I missed something really obvious, and everyone around me knew. I’m pretty sure Chaeyoung and Seokjin knew; there’s no way that they wouldn’t try to interfere. They’re those kinds of people, you know?” Jisoo giggles lightly, running her hand through long, silky black hair.

“Sounds like my kinda folk. Seriously though, don’t stress over it. All you’re going to do by over analysing things is get yourself tied up into knots. I know you and you’ll just talk yourself out of anything that could potentially happen. There’s nothing wrong with going for what you want if it’s going to be good for you. As his big sister, I can safely say that Hoseok will be very good for you and to you. He’s a good guy and I don’t want you to throw away a chance at happiness.” 

You groan yet again, pulling one of your spare pillows to stuff your face into. Even if you’re feeling completely confused about what to think or do, you’re glad that you get to talk it through with Jisoo. She always knows just what to say and how to help you come to decisions that felt right.

Shifting, you sit up straight and look at Jisoo’s image in the mirror, feeling even more thankful that she’s willing to talk about this particular subject. At that thought you frown, knowing that she’s close with her brother.

“Did you suspect anything with Hoseok? You said that you got to notice things from both sides…” Trailing off, your eyes narrow as you watch the way she bites her lip in an almost coy way. It wouldn’t surprise you as she knows her brother far better than she knows you.

“Yes, I did with him. He fancied you so much when he was a teenager and I thought he’d just...grown out of it, you know? Neither of you saw each other for ages so I just assumed his hormones had finally settled down. But then he practically jumped at the chance to help you apply for the job and...well, he’s being very obvious lately. I swear, every conversation has to include you in some way and he gets this look on his face.” Jisoo says, brow creasing as she thinks back.

“What look? Does he get a look? What kind of look?” The questions pepper her but she doesn’t look annoyed by them. Instead, she just smiles before laughing lightly, taking another sip from her mug before taking her time nibbling on a milk chocolate covered digestive biscuit. It makes you scowl, realising you’d given yourself away once more.

“Yes, he gets a look. I don’t know how to describe it to you but it’s like...he gets this smile and I swear his eyes get all shiny. He’d be appalled to know I’d noticed this as he’s never come out and said anything but I know what he looks like when he likes something. Hoseok talks about you the same way he talks about anything else he loves.” The last word makes your eyes widen and you’re thankful Jisoo doesn’t comment on it.

She’s noticed though, you know that she has. 

“Oh, okay. Well...I haven’t noticed.” What a stupid thing to say, but you don’t have anything else.

“Obviously.” Jisoo gives you a droll look, causing you to glare at her. It’s probably not as effective as you’d like given the two of you are hundreds of miles away and only visible through a reflective surface. Still, it makes her laugh at least.

Not the reaction you wanted but you’ll take it.

The conversation between you both falls into a lull, the silence of your room almost deafening. It lets you start to think once more and you don’t think that’s a good idea. Jisoo is right in that you tend to talk yourself out of things that might have a big impact on your life.

You’d taken a whole month to finally apply for the job here at Hogwarts and even then, you’d had to have Jisoo convince you that you should accept the offer when they made it. A good choice now, but you had a constant fear that big change might have negative effects on you.

The possibility of beginning something romantic with Hoseok was perhaps the biggest change you could do and it had the potential for so many repercussions if it went wrong. He was your work colleague, your friend and your best friend’s brother. It wasn’t like if you tried dating him then you could just never see him again.

Hoseok was likely to always be a part of your life in some way.

But he was such a good person and he could be something positive in your life, too. You found him to be charming and kind, funny and thoughtful, intelligent and attractive. There were a lot of reasons against trying a relationship with him, but there were so many more reasons for it.

“Would it not bother you? If anything happened then you’d be stuck between us, and he’s your brother so you’d have to take his side.” Your words are quiet, almost reluctant. Jisoo doesn’t respond immediately though, giving you the benefit of thinking seriously about your question before shaking her head.

“I would be stuck between you both if it ended badly. But I don’t either of you are the kinds of people to make me choose something like that. More importantly, I have high hopes that kind of scenario won’t even happen. I have a good feeling about this, for both of you. You both have to decide what’s right for you but...I don’t have any issue with it. If anything, it’d be great. My best friend and my brother getting together? If you married him then you’d be my sister-in-law and your kids would be my nieces and nephews!” There’s palpable excitement in her voice now, matched by the way she almost vibrates as her imagination runs wild.

You, on the other hand, feel your cheeks going warm with embarrassment as you try to follow where her mind is running. It feels a little overwhelming if you’re being honest, but you just push those thoughts away.

The last thing you needed was to start fantasising about marriage when you’d only kissed the man once.

“Jisoo!” You scold.

“What? I don’t get to live this life of romance so let me have my dreams. I’d rather you marry him than anyone else. Your babies would be so cute.” She wriggles in her seat, hands clapping and you’re reminded once more how similar the siblings are.

“Jisoo,” Whining, you pout at her before rubbing at your temple. “Don’t marry us off before we’ve even talked after last night.”

“Fine, fine, spoilsport. Anyway, it’s your decision. Yours and his. But just know that I think you’d both be good together. Don’t push him away because you’re scared, he’s a good guy. Not saying that just because he’s my brother, either. If you decide no, then don’t be afraid of that either. I know him, he’ll be a gentleman and will accept it.” You know she’s right and it makes you feel a little better as you take a deep breath.

Nodding slowly, you give her a weak smile before wincing when your stomach gurgles almost painfully. A glance at the clock shows that it’s been a very, very long time since you last ate and your stomach is not happy with that. 

“I’ll think it through, I promise. I won’t make any rash decisions. For now, I need to just analyse my feelings and thoughts regarding him before thinking about anything else. But I’ll admit that I’m not opposed to the idea. As much as I’d like to continue this conversation though, I need to go get something to eat or my stomach might eat itself. I’ll talk to you again later, okay?” It’s only a few minutes later before you’re ending the spell on the mirror, watching as it turns into a reflective surface once more.

Placing it onto your bedside table carefully, you let yourself fall back onto the mound of pillows and simply stare up at the ceiling. 

Of all the decisions you’ve made in your life, this one seemed to be the most daunting. Yet just the thought of his bright smile makes your lips quirk automatically, causing you to let out a breathy laugh.

Yes, he’d be good for you.

[buzzmcnab]

Hello! First off, I want to thank you so much for adding IDs to all of your posts. It's so great to see. Especially since you're the first person in the Leverage fandom I've seen add them to original posts. I would also like to ask if you'd consider not putting them under a read more. When IDs are hidden like that, it makes it more difficult for people who use IDs to access them since they have to click extra buttons and are usually taken to a new page. I'm happy to chat about it more if you ever want. Thanks again for the IDs and for taking the time to read this.

[ID: A series 3 of Tumblr messages from @SometimesTheDragonWins about image descriptions.

1: Hey, I got busy yesterday, but I didn't forget about this. There's actually a whole lot of info on image descriptions. And while there's no 'one right way' to do it, there are some common best practices. Basics: Any description is better than no description, IDs are better than alt text, read mores impede accessibility, and paragraph breaks are helpful. Honestly, we're all just helping each other out trying to make this work as best we can. If you want more detailed info, my image description tag has some good posts and if you go to @KeplerCryptids blog and search up their accessibility or image description tag, they have a LOT of good info. They are actually who I learned about it from.

2: There's also a discord dedicated to image descriptions (writing them, reviewing them, asking questions, etc.) if that was something you were interested in.

3: I'm also always happy to chat with anyone about descriptions and accessibility.

END ID]

thank you so much for sending me all this super helpful info (and for letting me post it)! these are really great resources for learning how to write image descriptions, and i had no idea about the inaccessibility of read mores

since leverage: redemption is coming out soon, i thought it would be good to spread this around so that the new content that's sure to come out of it is accessible for the whole fandom

blog links: @sometimesthedragonwins @keplercryptids

[girlactionfigure]

There's something I need to get off my chest.

I'm an Ultra-Orthodox, Chassidic, Hareidi Jew. I live in Jerusalem, in an area that is exclusively Ultra-Orthodox Hareidi for street after street, suburb after suburb, for miles and miles. In all of these neighborhoods where the roads are blocked off and no cars drive on Shabbos, each black-hat-wearing family has many many children and literally no TV’s. I personally only ever wear black and white clothes, my wife only dresses in Chassidic levels of tznius (modesty), and my boys and girls all attend mainstream Hareidi Chassidic schools where the main language is Yiddish. My kids don’t and never will have smartphones, nor have they ever been on the internet at all. Period. They don’t know what social media is and they’ve never seen a movie — not even Disney animation. 

Having lived exclusively immersed in this culture for the last 21 years, I think I'm sufficiently qualified and well-researched enough to state that the consistent depiction of Hareidim and Torah Judaism by mainstream media, from Netflix to the daily news, is somewhere between delusion, slander and the literal equivalent of racism. If you consider yourself less closed-minded than how you imagine we Hareidim to be, then permit me to share a few personal details about my family, and other families in our neighborhood, to see how well your mental narrative matches up to reality:

- Besides learning Torah each day, most of the men in our neighborhood work full or part-time.

- Many women in our area work. Some even manage their own business or company. These are not special or “liberated” women — it’s so normal here it’s not even a discussion point.

- My wife is a full-time mother by choice, who despite attending an Ivy League College,  finds it a profound and meaningful thing to dedicate her life to. If she didn’t, she’d go get a job. Mind you, she also attends Torah classes each week, works out with both a female fitness coach (who’s gay) and a frum Pilates instructor, writes and edits articles for a couple global websites and magazines, and personally mentors a number of women. None of this is seen as unusual. 

- Kids in our community go to Torah schools where they learn (surprise!) Torah. They are fluent in three languages from a young age and the boys even read and understand a fourth (Aramaic). All the kids learn grammar, math and science. Weekly after-school activities have included music (violin, drums, piano), Tae Kwon Do, swimming, art, woodworking and robotics. The girls' school teaches tools of emotional intelligence. The principal of the boys' school doesn't hesitate to refer to kids to OT if needed. I practice meditation with my children multiple times each week. None of our kids think the world is literally 6,000 years old. They devour books about science and think it’s cool. They know dinosaurs existed and don’t find that existentially threatening. They have a telescope with which they love to watch the stars. 

- The women in my family (like the men) only dress modestly according to Hareidi standards. The girls don't find this burdensome or oppressive. Period. They aren't taught that beauty is bad. They're certainly not taught to hate their bodies, God forbid. Each morning when they get dressed, they are as happily into their own fashion and looking pretty as any secular girl is. They just have a different sense of fashion than secular culture dictates. (Unfortunately for me,  it's no cheaper.)

- The local Hareidi rabbis we receive guidance from are deep, warm, sensitive, supportive and emotionally intelligent. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t go to them.

- My boys assume they will grow up to learn Torah, as much as they want to, and then when they’re ready, get a good job or learn a profession to support whatever lifestyle they choose. My girls assume they’ll be wives and mothers (which they can’t wait for) but they're also warmly encouraged to train in whatever other profession they desire. (My 9-year-old daughter, chatting with her friend in the living room, just commented, "I want to be a mother and a teacher and an artist." Her friend replied, "I'm going to be a ballet teacher.") All options are on the table, and their future seems bright.

- We love living in modern Israel, feel proud and blessed to be here, and frequently count and celebrate its blessings. Everyone in my area votes. Sometimes not even for Hareidi parties. I pay taxes. (And they’re expensive!)

- As a Hareidi person, I’m glad we have Hareidi representation in the government — though I don’t always love or approve of how the Hareidi politicians act, or what they choose to represent. For the record, I'm equally dubious about secular politicians, as well. 

- While I don't spend much time in Tel Aviv, I do have a few close Hareidi entrepreneur friends who have founded high-tech start-ups there, and are — Boruch Hashem! — doing very well.   

- We don’t hate all non-religious people. Our kids don’t throw stones at passing cars on Shabbos. I doubt they even know anyone who would do that or think that it’s ok. We frequently talk about the Torah value of caring for and being compassionate towards everyone. As a family, we proactively try to find ways to judge others favorably (even those people who throw stones at passing cars on Shabbos.)

- We invite all manner of religious and secular Jews to join our Shabbos meals each week and the kids are open, happy, and confident to welcome everyone. (No, we're not Chabad.) One of the many reasons for having such guests at our table is to teach the kids this lesson.

- While we would technically be classified as right-wing and we don’t at all buy the modern “Palestinian” narrative, we certainly don’t hate all Arabs, nor do we have any desire to expel them all from the land. We warmly welcome anyone seeking to dwell here with us in peace and we are pained and saddened to see the suffering and loss of lives of all innocent Arab families and children — as would any decent human being.

- Of the few local families I know whose kids no longer identify as religious, none at all chose to disown their kids. The very thought, in such lovingly family-dedicated communities, is hard to imagine. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm just saying it's not as common as it's made out. Rather, these families have tirelessly, profoundly, compassionately committed to maintaining any connection with their children, and to emphasize that, no matter what, family is the most important thing. Because it is.

- We aren't just living our life blindly, dogmatically following empty religious rules; rather, we are frequently engaged with, exploring and discussing Torah's richness, depth and meaning. Our kids honestly love learning Torah, praying and doing mitzvos. They’re visibly excited about Shabbos and festivals. This lifestyle is in no way oppressive or burdensome for them. If you suggested to them it was, they’d laugh and think you were crazy.  

- We Hareidim are normal people: we laugh, we cry, we buy too much Ikea furniture, and we struggle with all of life's daily ups and downs, just like the rest of you. Some of our communities are more healthy and balanced, some are less so; some of our people are warmer, nicer and more open, some are more closed, dogmatic and judgmental; some of our leaders are noble and upstanding, and some are quite frankly idiots…JUST LIKE ANY SECULAR NEIGHBORHOOD IN THE WORLD TOO. But having grown up living a secular lifestyle myself, and today being Hareidi-by-choice, I can testify that in these communities there is generally a greater and more tangible sense of well-being, warmth, tranquility, connection and meaning. We love and feel blessed to be living this life and wouldn’t want any other.

If this description of Hareidi life is hard to swallow, be careful not to push back with the often-used defenses like: "Well, you're just an exception to the rule...", "You're just American Hareidim", "You're baalei teshuvah", "Well, I know a bunch of Haredim that aren't like that at all"....because the truth is, while there might be many Hareidim who aren't like what I described above, it's still an accurate description of literally hundreds of thousands of Hareidim in Israel and the US — a decent portion of all Hareidim in the world. Which is my very point — how come you never see this significant Hareidi demographic represented in the media, television series, or the news? How come we mostly see the darkest and most problematic cliches instead? 

And finally, if all the facts I've listed above about our communities are hard for you to accept as true, then perhaps the image you have in your head about Hareidim is less based on facts and reality and more based on stereotypes, fear, hate, and discrimination — like any other form of prejudice in the world. 

Care to prove me wrong? Well, you're welcome to come argue it out with me and my family at our Shabbos table on Friday night. It would be a joy and honor to have you. 

Doniel Katz

[kindofwriter]

8 and wilde? honestly i just want to hear about how wilde is not a twink

Wilde is not a twink! Sure, I respect Alex's craft, but I also think ppl should make more of their hot characters fat. Anyway:

8. [Choose a character]. How do you image their appearance and outfits changing throughout the campaign?

I always imagine TTRPGs like animated shows, so this a 2d animated version of Wilde! Plus, I want him to be distinctly Not Real Oscar Wilde because I’m with Ben here: that’s kinda weird!

Obviously Alex gives a very detailed description upon his first appearance, but we didn’t know he was a spellcaster then, so didn’t know he was using glamour (either as a spell or as a use of prestidigitation). I imagine he used it to sharpen his features and, in traditional late-Victorian style, define his waist. He’s clearly trying to look pretty.

(Random aside, I really like glamour spells that make the user look more attractive in different ways to each individual who perceives them. And to Zolf Wilde always looks completely like himself; pre magic cuffs because Zolf despises him so much there is literally nothing he can do to make himself attractive in any way to Zolf, and afterwards because Zolf loves him - just him, not anything about him, not the way he appears - in such a deep and unique way that nothing makes him more attractive than being comfortable in Zolf’s presence. Aaaanyway...)

For Paris, a red suit, and a waistcoat with white embroidered vines and blue leaves. The jacket hangs from his shoulders. It would be garish, tacky, and touristy if he didn’t wear it so well.

Notably more tired-looking than the first time they met. This becomes apparent on several occasions: Zolf’s create water spell, while he’s unconscious during the gnome fight, running through the rain. It’s not like glamour gets turned off and he suddenly looks undead; more like he suddenly looks like a person.

He looks more put-together in Prague, back out of the field and in his office. A gorgeous suit in varying shades of green, with pale green embroidered daisies. But there’s a slight stiffness to his walk and tiredness drawn into his eyes that, if you look close enough, suggest he’s not doing as well as he’d suggest.

A real bureaucrat abroad look for Cairo: white linen suit with vibrant, colourful embroidered flowers down the lapels.

The only time anyone sees him without an illusion on is in Apophis’ Office, out of respect. He looks quite ill, maybe like he has a mild case of the flu: tired eyes, pale, slightly gaunt. It becomes immediately apparent that he’s now using prestidigitation to make himself look a little chubby, rather than cinch his waist.

By Damascus, of course, everything has just gone wrong. Even the suits are boring: pale greys with plain waistcoats and no accessories.

He could be from Other London, with the pale skin and the deep-set eyes. Even with illusions on he’s shaky and visibly tired. He’s clearly lost a lot of weight, an the buzzcut really isn’t helping.

In Japan I imagine he’d be happy to wear any clothes the innkeeper gave them in the baths and such, but tends to wear “adventurers” clothes, even to bed, in case they need to be prepared to go on the run. A lot of white button downs and flares in varying shades of brown.

I think, contrary to both canon and fanon, that Wilde would actually look a little better by Japan. He’s had Zolf, probably for at least a year, poking him to take care of himself, and when that failed doing it for him. Sure, Zolf would sometimes be out on missions, and sometimes get too annoyed with Wilde to actually help him, but I imagine an average of 2 1/2 meals a day, 5-6 hours sleep a night, and maybe a day of physical training per week would have Wilde looking a lot healthier than he did in Damascus. Plus, he’d have awkward-curtains-hair, which could be cute. There is the scar though; starting at his right temple, cutting round past his eye and right through his lip.

Even if he looks fairly healthy Zolf would know, as a medical professional and someone who cares about Wilde, that this is Not At All this man’s healthiest weight, and he just needs a proper break and some time to himself, but for an ex-meritocrat with no magic who nearly got stabbed to death a few months back? He’s doing alright!

This would go downhill a bit while everyone’s at Shoin’s, of course, but I think on the airship Wilde’s probably doing the best we’ve seen him since the start of the campaign. Totally rocking Hamid’s fur coat, actually enjoying people’s company, working on projects, having Awkward Feelings for Zolf. There’s no immediate danger, so he probably gets some sleep most nights, and eats with the rest of the crew. Ironically, Wilde’s corpse is the least he’s looked like a corpse in years...

(Y’all know my thoughts on the “dream” sequence, I pet ‘em in the script!)

The morning after the resurrection I think Wilde’s waistcoat would have a very familiar pattern on it. It’s all abstract shapes, but Zolf could almost swear it’s the view from up on the Ursan village...

And, of course, then there’s the white hair.

I don’t trust we’ll get an epilogue, but: post campaign Wilde is a happy, healthy boi! Soft, content, sturdily built. Loves his partner’s cooking and sleeping in in the mornings. Has gorgeous society clothes, but also has learned to appreciate the comfort of a simple shirt and pants while lounging at home. Just really, really happy.

Anyway, this is my fictional Oscar Wilde rant, thank you for the ask!

[elizabeethan]

Spaces Between Us Chapter 11: Strong

The hardships of real life separated them six years ago, and Emma has been struggling to put that fact behind her ever since. But then, only after she’s convinced herself that she’s moved on and that her new life is enough, Killian Jones comes back.

A Captain Swan Modern AU

A/N: Oh no my hand slipped and I posted early again

This chapter was hard to write, and it might be hard to read. Some heavy stuff happens so please take care of yourself and read the warnings! As always, if you need more information, please please message me. 

***This chapter includes a scene containing descriptions of domestic violence. Please message me for more details if you need to***

Thank you, as usual, to my beta and friend @the-darkdragonfly, and to @donteattheappleshook and @xhookswenchx for listening to my ramblings and helping me figure out the plot to this <3

Read the Rest

Read on Ao3

Read my Other Stuff

~~~~

If there’s one thing Killian was not expecting when he woke up this morning, it was this. In fact, this has been the furthest thought from his mind for months. When Emma assured him that Henry is not his son, he believed her and forced himself to drop it. 

 He would gladly raise her child as his own, if she would allow him to do so. He would help them to escape her abusive husband, getting them out of the state entirely if he could, and he would act as a father figure to her boy. 

 But when she walks towards him in the hospital that afternoon, her eyes bloodshot and her face red and swollen as she cries some more, he hears the last thing he’d ever expected to hear. 

 “They want to do DNA testing,” she tells him softly, her voice croaking and rough in the aftermath of her violent sobs. “A… a paternity test.” 

 “Emma…” he tries, but nothing else will come out. 

 “I’m sorry. The pulmonologist says there's no way this is from him being premature. It’s really bad, and he says it’s got to be genetic.”

“I know, love, but… I just thought…” 

 She's silent for a moment, and it’s as if she doesn’t even want to try and speak. Finally, she inhales deeply and forces out her explanation. 

“The weeks before you left, we were fighting all the time. And then we would have sex to numb how much it hurt, and the whole time, I mean… I was bad about taking my pill. And once you left I was still bad about it, but… if I got the date of conception wrong…” 

 He nods, though he’s having trouble understanding her as the world feels blurry still. Despite his confusion, though, he runs his hands up and down along the length of her arms. “He’s still so small, though.” 

 “He was five pounds, eight ounces when he was born. Which is tiny, but Dr. Whale said that a stressful pregnancy can impact birthweight. And… I mean, I spent my pregnancy with Walsh. I lost you.”

 Taking her hands in his, he squeezes and begs her to look into his eyes before he pulls her bottom lip from between her teeth and wipes away the tiny trace of blood left behind. “Love, are you sure about this?” 

 He watches as she begins to break again, the tears immediate and her breathing quickening until he pulls her in for a tight hug. “If this is true-- if you’re his dad-- that means I put him through this for no reason. What kind of a mother does that make me?”  

 Although he’s overcome with confusion and a difficulty accepting what seems more and more likely to be the truth, he’s also overcome with the need to comfort her. So he shushes her gently, kissing her head, and whispers, “you're the best mother in the world to him, my love. You did everything you could to protect him. If this is true, we can leave, and I'll be the best father I can to him. Together, we’ll make up for what he’s been through, I promise.” 

 “I don't want to do this to you,” she cries, and although she grips him tightly, he can feel her pulling away. “I don’t want to put you through this.” 

 “There’s nothing I want more than to be a family with you and Henry. Even if he isn’t my son, I'm going to get you out of Storybrooke and I'm going to treat him like he is.”

 She holds onto him for a while, letting her breathing even out and probably deciding whether he’s telling the truth, and he considers the weight of their situation. He never thought he would be a father. Once things ended with Emma, he thought it was over for him and that he would never move on and be happy enough to start a family with anyone else. Then, when he found her again and with a child of her own, he thought he would at least be happy enough raising someone else’s son if it meant being with her. When she so firmly and believably insisted that he did not father her son, he believed her and tried his best to move on. 

 Now that the possibility is dangled in front of him once more, he isn't sure he can survive the heartbreak of being proven wrong once again. 

 But when he thinks about the lad who has Killian’s mother’s eyes and Emma’s round cheeks and an attitude that couldn’t possibly be inherited from such a horrible man, his heart clenches in his chest and he can’t bear to not know. He can’t go through life without knowing whether this child is his. He wants him to be his so very badly. And even if he isn’t… he may as well be.

 “What do we need to do, love?” he finally asks, giving her assurance that he’s in this with her no matter what they find out. 

 She sniffles, looking up at him with glassy red eyes and asks, “are you sure?” and he nods with firm resolve and a soft smile. She returns it and explains, “they can do a paternity test right now. I can pay for rapid results and find out in a few hours.” 

 Brushing the hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear, he nods again and leans down to kiss her despite the fact that they're in public. They're hidden in a quiet hallway, but the possibility that anyone can walk in on them in each other’s arms is real. “I’ll pay.” 

 “Killian, no--”

 He cuts her off with another kiss, this one more heated, and then says, “I’ll pay. However the results come back, I want to be here for the lad. I’ve missed five years already, let me start making that up now.” 

 She sighs and kisses him now, holding him as close to her as she can as she cradles the back of his head in her hands. “Should we talk about what this means?” she asks softly, voice barely above a whisper in the quiet hall. 

 “All it means is that a part of me may have been with you all along. I can take comfort in that. It means I have a reason for being so fond of your son, other than him being your son. It means there’s hardly any reason for us to be apart ever again.” 

 “Aside from my potential murder,” she jests, although it feels heavier than any joke should. 

 “Hush,” he quiets. “I told you I'm not letting anything happen to you and I meant it. We’re going to get this sorted out now, alright?” She nods, her nose running along his cheek. “Now, are they going to stab me with a needle, or can they simply swab my cheek?” 

 With a snort, she asks, “what, you can handle a bunch of tattoos, but a bit of blood work is too much for you?”

 “Oy,” he argues, tickling her playfully until she giggles and buries her face in his neck. “I’ll do anything for that lad, I swear. Just… a cheek swab is a bit less uncomfortable.” 

 “I’m sure a cheek swab would’ve been less uncomfortable than 39 hours of labor, too.” 

 “Alright,” he concedes. “Come, now. Let’s find out the level of torture I’m about to endure.” 

 ~~~~

 It’s hours of sitting behind the desk, torturously staring at the clock and willing it to turn to 8 pm so she can leave. Tink doesn’t deserve this shift; it’s a complete waste of a day, and hardly anything exciting has happened. One would think that the emergency department at a hospital would be more busy, but Storybrooke is a small and sleepy town. The only thing that’s happened today is a little boy getting checked in for his asthma, and if nothing transpires with what was discovered after he was admitted, it’ll feel like a wasted shift. 

 As if his ears were burning, the elevator opens to reveal something very exciting indeed: the mayor. He hurries towards her, leaning over the desk with a sense of urgency that Tink suspects is purely for attention and votes. “I’m looking for Henry Oswald,” he insists. 

 She blinks at him and cocks her head, turning to her computer for show, although she already knows what’s about to happen. “Do you have ID?” she asks when she sees the kid’s chart, concealing her smirk. 

 The mayor grumbles something about her not knowing who he is and the slightly sadistic side of her cackles. The cackling gets louder when she takes his ID and shakes her head, giving him a falsely apologetic look. “I’m sorry, sir, I can only allow family into his room.” 

 His face is nearly unreadable, but she sees the way his eyes widen threateningly when he asks, “excuse me?” in a deceptively calm tone. 

 Not falling for his playacting, she repeats, “only family is allowed in the room at this time.” 

 “I’m his father,” he insists. 

 Tink shakes her head. “Not according to his chart, sir. The name on your ID does not match the name listed here.” 

 “Let me see that.” 

 “I can’t, sir, it’s a confidential medical record. Only his parents are allowed to see his information.” 

 He slams his hands against the desk and shouts, “I’m his father! What the hell is wrong with you?!” 

 Honestly, Tink should work on her tendencies to rile people up. But when she heard about the drama with the mayor’s son not actually being the mayor’s son, she was sort of hoping this would happen. She didn’t vote for him, anyway. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to lower your voice and take a step back.” 

 “I’m not lowering anything until you let me see the kid!” 

 “Sir, I’ll have to have you escorted out by security,” she insists, pressing the button under her desk discretely and watching the security guards rush into the waiting area. 

 The mayor shouts in anger as he’s hauled away, threatening to sue the hospital and insisting that Tink is infringing on his rights as a father. She smiles softly at the image she saw earlier, of a small boy sleeping away in his big bed and his father diligently guarding him from his firm, uncomfortable chair. 

 ~~~~

 Killian wanted to go for her after finding out the truth about Henry-- the fact that Walsh isn’t his father and Killian is-- but she was terrified of leaving him alone for even a second without the protection of the sheriff, so she insisted on going. He didn’t take that lying down and made her promise to stay in the hospital where it’s safe, so when he fell asleep in the hard folding chair, she kissed his forehead and snuck out of the room and down to his car. 

 It’s strange how easily she’s been able to accept the events of the day. It started with her having a mental breakdown over her husband’s maltreatment of both herself and her son, and has evolved into her feeling a sense of completion. Things are starting to feel right. Her life is falling into place. 

 Killian is Henry’s father. 

 She can continue to stress over the fact that she was too consumed by the pain of losing him to even consider the possibility later, but for now, she focuses on getting as many of Henry’s things as she can and stashing them in Killian’s squad car before she goes back to the hospital to be with her son. Killian can bring all of his stuff to his apartment later, so that she doesn’t waste any more time being away from him or being in this damn house. 

 She smiles as she grabs his favorite stuffed animal, Mr. Quackie, and pushes it into his small backpack before reaching for his nebulizer and placing that inside as well. She grabs Goodnight Moon and his favorite copy of Henry and Mudge, and just as she’s reaching for the rest of his clothes that she has laid out on his bed, she hears the front door slam. 

 In a panic, she shoves his clothes into the duffle bag as quickly as she can and zips it up, but she isn’t sure how she’ll be able to leave the house without him knowing. The squad car is parked outside, and while she was initially worried about taking it for fear of Killian getting into trouble, she’s glad she has it now. Maybe if he thinks the Sheriff is here, he won’t do anything. Maybe she can climb out the window without being seen, sneaking back in the front to grab the keys from the kitchen and making a break for it. She doesn’t need any of her own things, just the contents of the small backpack slung over her shoulder. 

 Just as she makes the rash decision to head out the window, hoping that the roof below the second story will be enough to ease her to the ground, she feels a hand on her shoulder yanking her back inside until she’s on her back and looking up. She’s never seen him look so angry-- she’s never seen anyone look so angry. He glares down at her through fury and rage and she fears what’s to come. 

 “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asks simply, seething through his teeth as she gulps and attempts to stand. He stops her by pressing the toe of his boot, still wet from the snow outside, to her forehead. “I said what the fuck is wrong with you?”

 “Um--” 

 “I just left the hospital. The school called, and when I got there, they said only Henry’s family can go into his room.” 

 She tries not to dwell on the fact that the school called him because she knows that they were required to do so. She also tries to ignore the fact that he waited almost eight hours before going to the hospital to look for Henry, able to put the thoughts of anger out of her mind and replace them with relief at him not being the father of her child. All she can do now is gulp and stare up at him in anticipation for what he might do to her. 

 He removes his boot and lets her stand, and just when he steps to the side and she’s tricked into thinking that he may let her leave, he throws her onto the small bed and screams, “his family?! How convenient is it that the hospital thinks someone else is Henry’s father?”

 “Walsh,” she tries, but he’s on her before she can go on, pressing his forearm to her throat to silence her with just enough force for it to hurt. 

 “And now you're here, in the sheriff’s car,” he hisses, spit spewing across her face as he berates her. “If you tell me he isn’t mine-- if you stuck me with this life for six miserable years for absolutely no reason-- I will fucking kill you right here.” 

 She lets out a sound that should indicate the damage he’s doing as he increases the pressure of his hold, and he lets go only long enough to replace his arm with two hands. He squeezes hard until she starts to see stars, clinging her hands to his wrists in an attempt to claw him away from her and open up her airways again. Instead of letting go, he lifts her by the neck and throws her back down against the bed with more force than she knew was possible. He screams some more, but her world is going dark and she can’t make out a word he says to her. 

 Her lips start to feel numb at the pressure he applies. Her eyes feel like they’re going to pop out of her skull. Her desperate movements at his hands weaken, and she truly believes that he means to kill her. He means to end her life as punishment for falsely saddling him with fatherhood. She has the realization that she’s about to pass out and probably die, and then sees her son’s face flashing before her eyes and is reminded of why she’s here. Not just why she’s in his room gathering his things, but why she’s here on this earth. What purpose she serves as a person. 

 She’s a mother. 

 No one can take that from her. 

 No one. 

 She lifts her hands from his, finding one last grain of strength, just enough to plunge her pointer fingers into his eyes and make him scream in painful anguish as he finally releases his hold on her. She takes the deepest breath she ever has and ever will again, and feels more sympathy for Henry than she ever has before because nothing has ever been scarier than wanting to inhale and being incapable of doing so. 

 Walsh cries out, swearing at her and calling her names before he throws her onto the floor, causing her to lose the wind in her lungs once more. But she’s committed to fighting back now, and she won’t let him win, so she kicks him hard between his legs so that he falls beside her and then moves to stand herself. 

 Grabbing the small backpack, the one that at least has his nebulizer in it, she feels Walsh's hands grabbing for her ankles as she starts to run. She makes it down the stairs and grabs the keys off of the counter, wishing she had just kept them with her, when he cuts her off. He raises the stakes, too, because he’s standing three feet from her with a gun she had no idea he owned and a wild, murderous glint in his eyes. 

 “Are you gonna shoot me?” she asks, her throat and neck burning as she speaks. 

 “I really, really want to.” 

 “What about your reelection?” she taunts.

 “Fuck you.” 

 She glances around the room as she stares down the barrel of his gun, and realizes she isn’t scared. It’s the icing on the cake, the fact that he’s had a gun in the house that her five-year-old lives in the entire time and never bothered to tell her. She’s furious. 

 So she picks up the crystal vase on the counter and he laughs, asking what she’s going to do with it when he’s standing there with a gun to her head, and she tosses it at him. It’s his grandmother’s, and he wouldn’t dare let a family heirloom shatter, so he drops the gun and catches the vase. She grabs his golf club as she runs by the bag he’d left by the entrance of the kitchen, holding it like a bat as he turns to face her again. 

 “You’re not his dad,” she confirms finally, her strength giving way to the cocky attitude that she’s been wanting to give him for months. Years. “The sheriff is. And I’ve been fucking him for months.”

 He growls in the back of his throat, grumbling something about her being a bitch, and rushes her foolishly. She swings the golf club with all of the force that she possesses and knocks him and the crystal vase to the ground, taking a deep grounding breath when he remains still, and then hurrying towards the door. 

 ~~~~

 She parks outside of the sheriff’s station, unsure of what to do next. She knows he can’t do anything to her here, and she doesn’t want to go to the hospital where Henry could see her. She also doesn’t want to let Killian see her like this, because he was right all along. 

 She always thought that a part of Walsh must've loved her, just a bit. She thought that he would never hurt her, because she’s his wife, and that’s just not how things are done. Killian was right, and she should have known better. 

 She remembers hearing a statistic in college, back when she wanted to be a social worker, about how battered women are in the most danger when they try to leave their abuser. She never for a second saw herself becoming a statistic. 

 ~~~~

 The sheriff’s car had been parked outside for twenty minutes before Deputy Ruby Lucas decided to take a peek and investigate why he wasn’t coming inside. When she finally does look, she sees something she would never have expected. 

 Of course, she figured out they were having an affair pretty easily. It’s not like they were being discreet about it, after all. But Ruby never suspected that the sheriff would lend his town-appointed vehicle to his mistress. 

 She likes the mayor’s wife well enough, even more so upon finding out how little she regards her husband. The man’s an absolute terror and she’s never liked him, and always struggled with how someone could possibly have found enough good in that man to marry him. Of course, finding out that Emma doesn’t actually like her husband very much was a bit of a pleasant surprise.

 She taps on the window on the drivers side and the woman inside jumps, staring up at Ruby with wide eyes filled with terror. “Are you alright?” Ruby asks her through the glass, and she watches as Emma grimaces as she turns her head to face forward again. Suddenly and with great clarity, Ruby’s astute deputy skills kick into gear as she notices a deeper-than-normal shadow on the woman’s neck and realizes what’s happening. “Where’s the sheriff?” she asks. 

 Emma says, “the hospital,” although her voice is rough and sounds strained. 

 Ruby wants to turn on her flashlight and take a better look at the woman before her, but thinks better of it so as to not spook her. She leans down so that she’s more on her level and says, “can you come inside with me? We can call him.” 

 She watches as the frightened woman reaches her hand up to her neck and cringes away from her own touch before undoing her seatbelt and exiting the car, her eyes wide and fearful as she looks around the empty parking lot. 

 Ruby has never seen someone look so terrified in all her years as deputy. 

~~~~

~~~~

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[art-of-e]

happy pride month! it took me a couple weeks to figure out what i wanted to draw for it, but it’s finally done! there are two versions of it, one with just me and one with a bunch of my queer ocs (of which there are many, but i wanted to show my queer relationships specifically)

(as always, click for better image quality) descriptions of all of the characters/relationships shown (as well as myself) are below the cut!

i spent 9 and a half hours on this, so if it isn’t too much to ask, please reblog this if you like it!! it helps people see my work more than liking it does!

top right corner: the man with the blue shirt is val (he/him, bi) and his partner is kelly (he/him, gay). fun fact: these two were the first same-sex couple i ever made! i had little knowledge of how mlm experiences differ from my own at the time, and i’m still doing my best to write them with as much respect as possible, but hopefully they’re good representation (and in case anyone is wondering, val is black and kelly is latino!) :)

top right corner: the man with the blue shirt is val (he/him, bi) and his partner is kelly (he/him, gay). fun fact: these two were the first same-sex couple i ever made! i had little knowledge of how mlm experiences differ from my own at the time, and i’m still doing my best to write them with as much respect as possible, but hopefully they’re good representation (and in case anyone is wondering, val is black and kelly is latino!) :)

bottom left corner: the girl with the grey hair is grace (she/her, bi), and her partner is penny (she/her, lesbian). these two are the main characters of the story i’m currently working on, and they’re the youngest of the queer characters included in this picture (these two are 15 while the rest of them are in their early 20s). i haven’t had them as characters for as long as all of these other characters (except for maybe speckles, who i’ll talk about in a bit), but writing them (and especially their relationship) has been so much fun, i love them dearly

bottom right corner: the person in the blue binder is speckles (she/they, non-binary, bi), the person with pink hair is roxie (she/they, genderflux, pan), and the woman between the two of them is clover (she/her, bi). these three are the first polycule i’ve ever written, and it stemmed from a love triangle where speckles and clover both had feelings for roxie, and eventually i just decided “hey they should all be together” and now they are, good for them!!

also! i felt like i should say this! any character of mine who is not specified to be cis or trans can be interpreted as either, and trans headcanons are very welcome, i’d even say encouraged :) so yeah there’s that

and finally, center: since this is me, i thought i might as well introduce myself if you don’t already know who i am (or even if you do). so hello! my name is crow (and i also go by e)! i’m bi and genderfluid, and i use they/them pronouns. i’m not gonna get super deep into my personal history right now, but i’ll give some important details. i’ve known i was attracted to more than one gender for about four years now, but figuring out i was genderfluid happened a lot more recently. in fact, this is the first pride i’ve ever gotten to spend knowing my name and identity, and it feels surreal in the best way possible. i’ve known since around this time (summer) last year that i was genderfluid, but i didn’t figure out what i wanted my name to be until november of last year, and knowing it and hearing people call me it is one of the most amazing feelings i’ve ever experienced. i want to thank anyone reading this who has been a part of this journey (you know who you are, hi, i love you very much), as well as anyone who has read this far, that means a lot to me. thank you and happy pride to anyone reading this <3.

[jackalgirl]

Telling vs. Showing

I had posted an excerpt from the Turkey City Lexicon a while back, about "Telling Not Showing", which is one of those things that writers are recommended not to do.

Violates the cardinal rule of good writing. The reader should be allowed to react, not be instructed in how to react. Carefully observed details render authorial value judgments unnecessary. For instance, instead of telling us "she had a bad childhood, an unhappy childhood," specific incidents--involving, say, a locked closet and two jars of honey--should be shown.

I was thinking about this the other night -- and I stress that it came to me by itself, please please don't anyone think I'm calling you out on this, because I am not -- and thought it might be fun* to provide an example. Stick around (under the cut) if you're interested.

* I lie. Aethel and Felix told me to write this, and woke me up early to do so. Fine. I'm done, you two, may I please go get some more coffee? Thank you.

Telling

Felix found Aethel in the galley, reading one of Max’s books. He made a face, wondering why she was reading it. When he’d first met her, it probably would have never occurred to him to ask her why — she’s weird and more than a little scary — but he had come to understand that she put all that weirdness and scariness to service in the way she cared for people, and he knew she cared for him, so he sat down and asked anyway. She looked, he thought, a little relieved to be interrupted, which did not really surprise him. She was very much willing to tell him about it, and in fact confirmed his suspicion that she found the text…how did she put it? Tedious. But she was reading it to better understand the way the people in the Order think, so she was determined to read it anyway. Good luck with that, he thought, and got himself something to eat out of the fridge.

versus Showing

Felix found Aethel in the galley, a book open before her on the common table and a line between her eyebrows. It must be one of Max’s books, he thought. He sat down and she looked up. Perhaps he was imagining it, but it appeared to him that she had a look of relief on her face. “Watcha readin’, Aethel?” He asked her. When he’d first met her, it probably would have never occurred to him to ask her a question like this — she’s weird and more than a little scary — but he had come to understand that she put all that weirdness and scariness to service in the way she cared for people, and he knew she cared for him, so in this particular moment, he hadn’t hesitated. “One of the vicar’s books on Scientism,” she said, confirming his guess. He made a face. “Ugh. Why? You’re always arguing with him about it.” And driving him nuts. Another point in her favor, actually. “It’s important to him,” she said. “And what’s more, it’s important to this colony. It would be foolish for me to dismiss it. I want to understand it better.” Felix gestured at the book. “Is that helping?” Aethel let out a sigh. “Alas, no. It is tedious.” “That’s why I like serial books,” Felix grinned. He tilted his head. “Why is it, ah, tedious, though?” “The author uses words like a collector,” she said. “But not like an artist.” Felix tilted his head and his expression must have told her he didn’t get it — I don’t get it — because she leaned back and looked thoughtful for a moment. “Do you remember the Sprat Fancy party in Byzantium?” She asked. Felix felt his face screw up again. “It was awful.” At first, Byzantium had impressed him. It was so clean! But eventually he realized it was as full of trash as the rest of the Colony — just higher-class trash, is all. Plus, the people there were always looking down on him — worse than the crew of the Groundbreaker, if that was possible. Or worse than the crew had been, before I helped Aethel fix the heat. Now they liked him well enough. But in Byzantium, nothing the crew had done had changed the Byzantines’ attitudes towards them. Their disdain is baked in, Aethel had said at the time. And speaking of baking, Aethel said, “do you remember the food?” “Ugh. Do I ever. The prettiest food you ever saw. Tasted like shit, though.” “What would those people have thought of a Boarst Pocket?” Aethel asked. “Ha!” Felix drummed the table with his hands in amusement. “They’d hold up their noses, for sure. Something that plain and simple?” “And yet, it is delicious?” “Yes,” Felix spoke with the conviction of a dedicated cultist. Aethel nodded. She tapped the pages in front of her. “This book is like the food in Byzantium. It is concerned about its appearance, and about all the different colors it can show you — it is very pretty. But it tastes like shit.” “So why are you eating it?” Felix asked, then remembered she’d answered him earlier. “Because you want to understand the system,” he said. She nodded. “I think of it as reconnaissance,” she said. “At some point, I’m going to have to deal with Order people who are higher ranked than Max. I need to understand what they think — or at least, what they’re telling people they think, which may not be the same.” “I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they all turned out to be a pack of hypocrites,” Felix said. “I’ll bet it’s all a show for power.” “Perhaps it’s not all a show for power,” Aethel suggested. But then she relented. “But yes, I tend to think that in the end, that’s the Order’s primary goal.” All that talk about Boarst Pockets made him want one, so he got up and got one out of the fridge. “Would you like one, boss?” He said, waggling the packet, knowing her answer in advance: “No thank you, Felix,” she said politely. He chuckled to himself. I don’t get how she can like spratwurst and not like boarst. Some things just defied understanding. I hope she has better luck with that book.

I liked writing this, because it gave me a little epiphany for another scene (the "Sprat Fancy" party) and an opportunity to put Sprat Fancy magazine into the actual fic, as opposed to it remaining as something of a joke.

[ Image description: cover of "Sprat Fancy", showing an adorable pink-splotched, white sprat from above, looking up at the camera with her gorgeous black eyes. Text reads: "Sprat Fancy Magazine - your guide to Halcyon's Fancy Sprats" and "Volume 22, Issue 8, 2 bits" with article leads: "Sacred Beasts: The Role of Sprats in the Faith", "Refuge: Keeping your precious sprat safe from marauders (and hungry neighbors)", "Ooo La La! Jolicoeur Haberdashery releases an all new line of fancy sprat fashion! Get a sneak peak of the latest on the Byzantine spratwalk!", "Place Your Bets: Your comprehensive guide to this season's All-Colony Fancy Spratstravanaza - who's in? Who's out? You may just be surprised by this year's contenders!" and a corner flag: "Ask Doctor Sprat". The cover image is captioned: "'Bakonu' by Captain Pearl Jenkins. With this large beauty take 'Best in Show' from Lord Reginald Kim III?" End ID. ]

Sometimes, having to write stuff out like this (especially between major scenes) is really daunting, because it generally doesn't come to me all at once like the major scenes do. I know, right from the get-go, that this is going to be a time-consuming process (I call it "sausage making"), and it's scary when I don't immediately see a clear way forward or understand how it will turn out. But I find that once I get going, the characters are happy to cooperate. And it's always worthwhile, because most of the time, I get some kind of revelation or epiphany (as above) that makes the story better, or maybe it's just neat and makes me giggle. But that's reason enough.

This is part of the pros of showing versus telling, in addition to giving the reader more to discover, understand, and react to on their own (rather than simply telling them how to react, which is what you want to avoid). The obvious con is that it takes so much longer. I would think that telling would be useful in contexts where you just don't have the column space, or are limited in the number of words you can provide. And I think it could also be useful -- used judiciously -- if you're deliberately trying to hide something from the reader.

But if you've been telling instead of showing because the amount of work you can see in front of you daunts you (or you just can't envision how it's going to go), I can only say: give it a try. You'll be surprised at what the characters are just waiting to tell you, if you only give them the chance.