#also the baby part is almost exclusively all of them actually

[kweenzillagurl]

reading the Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas is really just a trilogy of emotions

baby (they’re all baby) and look at my baby gooooooo

2. Oh my god consensual wing touching actually they invented romance in case anyone was wondering what my standards are

3. JESUS FUCK NO FUCK STOP THAT NO

[star-sim]

"cheater!" ☆ enha hyungs

☆ non-idol! bf! enhypen hyungs x fem! reader ☆ summary: that one time you mentioned another guy's name, and he gets jealous (and he's dumb). ☆ genre: fluff, humor, dumb dumb boys, very minor angst/hurt/comfort in jay's part, cross between short scenarios and bullet points ☆ warning(s)? mentions of cheating obv, misunderstandings, ☆ not edited lolz also if ur @/archlstarvlle get off my dick again and stop plagiarizing me (and other authors bruh)

heeseung ☆

poor guy

you and him were going to a party later

and you were planning on putting ribbons in your hair

except you didn't have ribbons!

time to go to your nearest craft store: michael's.

"Baaaabe," you whined, prying Heeseung's grabby hands away from you. "I need to go."

Heeseung kept his arms wrapped around you, pressing his cheeks into your back. He threw his leg around yours, pulling you ever closer to him.

"Nooooo," he drawled, and you could feel his lips forming a little pout. You were just so warm and soft and comfortable. "Stay."

You chuckled at his childishness. You needed to go buy ribbons for later, since you ran out of them.

"Baby," you pecked his forehead, trying to shake yourself free of your clingy boyfriend. "I need to go to Michael's."

You felt Heeseung's body go frigid for a moment, before his arms loosened altogether around you, allowing you to escape his grip.

When you pulled away, while you continued to happily chirp about whatever was on your mind to your boyfriend, your words fell upon deaf ears.

Heeseung pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, chewing on it pensively.

heeseung was actually going insane

WHO IS MICHAEL??? AND WHY ARE YOU GOING TO HIM??

heeseung swears he's never heard you talk of someone named michael, let alone a friend named michael

how could you drop the name of some OTHER MAN so casually???

and the nail in the coffin was what you said next

"Michael's has some pretty cool things," you chatted, your back turned to your boyfriend as you fixed your lip gloss. "So, let me know if you need anything from there.

michael... cool... things....

if heeseung wasn't already fighting for his life, he was now fighting a million wars at once.

you told heeseung that he was cool and handsome and cute and all the words in the dictionary all the time.... and you made sure to let him know that your words were exclusive to him

so for you to say that SOME RANDOM DUDE NAMED MICHAEL WAS COOL?????

"I don't think you've ever been to Michael's, so I think—"

Heeseung abruptly stood up from the bed that he was lying in, in such a sudden and dramatic way that you snapped your head over to him, as he was quite loud with it.

There your tall boyfriend stood, completely still, with a deep frown on his face.

"Babe, are you okay—"

"I'm going with you," Heeseung announced, his voice filled with such a passion and vigor that it nearly shook. He looked so indignant and solemn, you almost felt worried. With finger air-quotes, he said with a subtle eye-roll, "I will go with you to this 'Michaels.' "

You blinked at him obliviously, before a smile grew on your face. You didn't know that Heeseung was so curious about the local craft store called Michael's, but you were not going to question it.

"Okay!"

heeseung was just WAITING

he let you take the wheel and while he sat in your passenger's seat he was rubbing his knuckles, WAITING TO THROW A FIST AT THIS MICHAEL GUY

would a black eye suffice? or maybe a broken nose....

he glanced over at you

you were just humming to yourself to the music (you let heeseung take the aux)

sure you looked so cute and innocent right now... BUT HOW??? HOW COULD YOU BE SO CASUAL ABT IT???

heeseung was expecting for you to pull up to a neighborhood, or an apartment complex, ready to feel his entire world crash down before his feet as some guy named michael emerged from the doorway

his heart plummeted at the thought of this 'michael' pulling you in for a hug, with you greeting him back brightly

no!!!! he couldn't let michael win!!!

you were his!!

.

.

.

except, you simply pulled up to a parking lot

to a massive store, with white walls and a giant brown sign

reading

michael's craft store

Heeseung flopped over in relief.

"Hee...!"

jay ☆

i think at this point in time you and jay aren't DATING dating, but definitely an exclusive pair that's BASICALLY dating

all your friends know about him and you report to them daily about him (theyre tired)

except

before you and jay became an actual pair

you used to call him a code name with your friends

the code name in question?

hamilton

named after your friend's hamilton beach flexcut cordless can opener, aka the first thing that you saw when you were coming up with a code name

Your heart was pounding in your chest.

Today, you and Jay decided to have a study session in the library. Although you knew that he'd be true to his word and would actually help you study, you hoped that the two of you could do something more.

Maybe he'd put his hand on your thigh, or maybe you'd have the opportunity to cut him off with a kiss. Just the thought made your stomach do flips.

As you waited at the library table, with your heart in your hands, your phone rang. It was your friends. Noticing the dirty looks for such an obnoxious ringtone, you stepped out the library to take the call.

meanwhile jay was pretty much shaking with each step he took to the campus library

an entire two hours with you? you, who needed his help really badly? you, who he wanted to kiss so badly? yes please!!!

boy was he excited

but as he rounded the corner to the library.............

he spotted you..... on the phone with someone.....

"Hamilton is so handsome!" he heard you squeal into your phone, and Jay's heart stopped. "I hope Hamilton comes soon, so that I can kiss him."

ham...il...ton

who is that....

jay knew that you and him weren't officially dating but he didn't expect you to do him dirty like that :(

as you continuted to giggle and coo about this hamilton guy, jay couldn't help but feel his heart ache

he really thought you were the one :(

except he was so caught up in his thoughts that jay tripped over his feet, making you whip your head around to him

Your expression was horrified, which only only confirmed his worst fears. Still, you stepped toward him, your face painted with embarrassment.

"Oh, hi Jay," you said bashfully, unable to meet his gaze.

Jay, even when he was hurt, didn't have it in him to be rude to you. He wanted to run away (and cry), but the way you gave him a small, sheepish grin made his heart flutter.

He planned to sit through this session, and excuse himself after 30 minutes. Keep the relationship civil, he thought.

on your end

you were mortified!!!

did jay just hear you talk about him to your friends?

although you had a code name for him, it wasn't like what you said was completely discreet

you dropped pretty obvious context clues that pointed to who hamilton was

things like "i love hamilton's heart-shaped birthmark on his neck, do you think he'll let me touch it?" and "i hope hamilton takes me out on a date after today's study session"

you were embarrassed

and it didn't help that jay was being quieter than usual... did he think you were weird?

but to jay, that embarrassment translated as the shame of being caught

the entire study session thus far, you didn't even meet his gaze, always looking away

Jay was hurt. Really hurt.

By the way you were acting, he was hoping for an apology, or some quick explanation, even if it was short and half-assed. At least you could've tried. But you said nothing.

Jay himself had questions that he wanted to be answered: how long has this been going on, if you were lying when you told him that you loved him, etc.

His lips moved faster than his mind could catch.

"So, who's Hamilton?" he blurted.

shit shit shit

he KNOWS RIGHT?

HE KNOWS THAT HE'S HAMILTON

RIGHT???????

you felt your neck and cheeks heating up

and by the way he looked solemn, you were sure he was mad at you

You froze, before all of your words spilled out of your mouth.

"Oh my god, Jay, I'm so sorry. You must be feeling so creeped out and disgusted with me and—"

from your body language to the panic in your expression

jay thought that his suspicions were confirmed

the moment that you began speaking he was ready to break down sobbing

but your next words made him stop

"— And I know that you think I'm weird for using a code name as stupid as 'Hamilton' for you, and I'm so sorry for that, but—"

wait a minute............

code name

hamilton

for him

.

.

.

"Wait, I'm Hamilton?!" Jay cut you off, his face pinching.

You let out a weird sound, an awkward expression spreading across your features.

"I-I mean, yeah..." you hid your face in your hands, "Ughhhh, I'm so sorry, that's so weir— Jay?!"

Jay was slumped over the table in relief, his face buried in his arms. He let out a loud groan, before lifting his head to look up at you. You couldn't help but notice the little glassy sheen in his eyes, almost like he was going to cry.

"Jay..."

He quickly wiped the little tears forming in his eyes away, sniffling before sitting up completely, averting his gaze from you.

"It's nothing," he murmured.

He was relieved. No, beyond relieved. He was ecstatic that this entire time you were talking about him. He couldn't believe that he would think of you in such a poor light.

He kept his eyes away from you, too shy and embarrassed to look you in the eye.

You poked him, and he didn't respond, so you poked him again.

"Jay."

"Hm?"

"Do you think I'm weird?"

He snapped his head over to you.

"What? No, of course not!"

You frowned. "Then why aren't you talking to me?"

Jay sucked in a sharp breath. "It's nothing."

He finally met your gaze, his lips helplessly cracking into a grin just as the sight of you perplexed expression.

He clutched your chin, tilting it so that you would look at him. He leaned in to give your lips a peck.

"I promise, it's nothing, Baby."

You leaned into him, giving him a peck, too.

"Okay," you nodded, biting back the giddy, lovesick grin that fought its way onto your face.

jake ☆

one day youre hanging out w your friends

and ygs go to a dog cafe

so cute!!

and theres this one dog that's just practically CALLING FOR YOU

he's just this little maltese named enzo and he's so cute

the two of you cuddling on the floor, giving him good head rubs and laughing as he licks you

you love enzo the maltese!

anyways so you take pictures ofc and post it to your private instagram

Jake narrowed his eyes at his phone.

He was deep.

Deep in the goddamn trenches.

He was excited to see the cute pictures you took of your day out with your friends. When you said that you were going to a dog cafe, Jake was so ready to use a picture of you and a pup (two of his favorite things) as his new phone wallpaper.

But that wasn't going to happen.

Because all of a sudden, his Wi-Fi decided to be poor all of a sudden.

Although he got the notification that you posted something new on Instagram, when he checked your account, none of you pictures loaded. All he could see was a black loading square, and the caption to the post.

at first jake was like

"its ok i can wait" even though he REALLLLYYY wanted to see your pictures

he couldn't see any of the pictures you posted, but he could still see the caption

and that's what caught his eye

you liked to have an individual explanation for each picture in the post, so your caption read as follows:

pic 1: me and enzo

pic 2: enzo kissing me

pic 3: holding enzo's hand

pic 4: enzo and me cuddling

and that's when jake stopped reading

Jake was going to start losing hair, because who was Enzo? And why was he kissing you? And cuddling with you?

He'd never heard of an Enzo. Poor guy, Jake kept refreshing your account in the hopes that your pictures would load, so that he could see this Enzo guy face-to-face. But that didn't happen.

It didn't help that your Instagram notes read, "enzo <3."

seriously

WHO IS ENZO

jake paced back and forth around his apartment, trying to scroll back in his memory for anyone named enzo

but alas

no one

all he knew was that whoever enzo was, he was about to get a broken jaw

a little frown formed on his face, as he rubbed his knuckles

were you going to leave him from this enzo person?

was enzo better than him?

how come jake never heard of an enzo before?

Jake's head perked up the moment his apartment door cracked open, revealing you. He rushed straight to you, expecting to hear you say, "I'm breaking up with you for another man named Enzo," completely taken aback when you simply threw your arms around him.

"Hi, Jakey!" you simply exclaimed, holding him tight.

Jake stood still, eyeing you for a moment.

Were you not going to break up with him on the spot?

The next thing he knew, Jake was pulled into his room, thrown on his bed, and cuddled up against you.

"I'm so tired," you breathe, snuggling your face against his chest. "I couldn't wait to get home to you."

Jake blinked.

"T-Tell me about your day," he gulped.

and you happily did so

animately, you told all about your day

what foods you tried, what you and your friends did, how much fun you had

you even told him about a cute little maltese that you couldn't remember the name of at the dog cafe...

and at last

no mention of enzo

"How's Enzo?"

Jake didn't know why he asked that, but when he did, you perked up.

"Oh!" you clapped your hands. "That's his name!"

"Wh-Who's name?"

You laughed. "The maltese at the dog cafe! His name was Enzo— He was just the cutest little thing!"

Enzo is a... dog?

Jake suddenly hoisted the two of you up, so that you were laying flat on your back. He plopped his face onto your chest, putting your hand in his hair.

"I don't like Enzo," Jake murmured against your chest. You chuckled, playing with his hair slowly.

"You didn't like the pictures of me and Enzo?"

"No," Jake shook his head, his hair cutely bouncing with each movement. "I don't like a dog trying to take my girl."

You laughed, calling your boyfriend silly, but completely oblivious to the fact that Jake was now making plans to go to that dog cafe to have a man-to-man talk with a dog.

sunghoon ☆

a man of a few words, gotta love it

this is very niche but you have a habit of making very obscure and dumb and completely nonsensical nicknames for people

like jake becomes jacobsongerald and jay becomes jameslynner the third

one day you and sunghoon are just having a lazy day

It's a quiet morning. Slivers of sunlight are peeking from the kitchen blinds, while birds chirp their hearts out outside.

While you look through the fridge, Sunghoon sits at the kitchen table, notepad and pen in hand.

"Do we need eggs?" he asked.

You glanced down at the egg compartment. "No, but I think we're running out of butter soon."

Sunghoon nodded, jotting down 'butter' on the notepad.

Every week or so, you and Sunghoon liked to have a morning like this, where you went over your grocery list.

sunghoon loved mornings like this

seeing you in your cute pajamas, your raspy morning voice bouncing off the walls as you listed to him what the two of you needed to buy for the week

the way the sunlight bounced off of you just made you look so ethereal, in your early morning glory

"Sungerson, can you write down milk?"

Sunghoon's face contorted immediately.

pardon....

WHO???

sunghoon couldn't tell if he was appalled because you just called him the WRONG NAME or because 'sungerson' is actually such a ridiculous name

WHO IS SUNGERSON THAT'S SO STUPID OMG

wait a minute....

sunghoon's heard horror stories like this before

where if your significant other accidentally calls you by another name, it's a sign that they're seeing someone else

"Oh, and can you add canola oil to the list?" you asked, not really checking to see if he was writing it down due to your trust in him. But when you didn't hear any pen scribbles, you turned over your shoulder. "Sunghoon?"

see?

you called him sunghoon just then

and this entire morning you'd called him sunghoon

but then you call him a different name out of no where and act like nothing happened

you weren't seeing someone else... right?

like...... you wouldn't do that to him

the way you acted like nothing happened made sunghoon think that you probably didn't notice your slip-up

"Sungerson?"

You looked confused, your brows furrowing. "What?"

Sunghoon looked up to meet your gaze. "You called me Sungerson. Who is that?"

"Oh." You shrugged. "It's just one of those dumb nicknames that I make up for people."

"Okay."

that made sense

completely

he shouldn't have doubted you

"Sunghoon, what are you pouting about?"

okay, so maybe the thought of you with someone else made him upset

even if you weren't

and reassured him that you weren't

You huffed, shutting the fridge door before coming over to wear Sunghoon sat at the kitchen table. You grabbed his head, leaning down to give his forehead a kiss.

Sunghoon whined, taking your arm as you pulled away from him. He leaned back in his seat, patting his lap for you to sit. When you did, Sunghoon immediately pushed his face into the crook of your neck, whining again.

"What is it, you big baby?"

"You're mine, right?"

You blinked. It wasn't every day that Sunghoon was clingy like this.

You chuckled, flicking his forehead.

"Of course," you said.

"Okay," Sunghoon let his eyelids fall shut, taking a deep breath before sinking into your warmth. "That's good."

[frenchkisstheabyss]

୨୧ ʝαɯႦɾҽαƙҽɾ (σɳҽ) ୨୧

୨୧ Pairings: rich boy!seonghwa x chubby!fem!reader, rich boy!choi san x chubby!fem!reader, rich boy!hongjoong x chubby!fem!reader, mentions of yunho

୨୧ Genre: graduate school au/smut/angst/a lil fluffy

୨୧ Summary: It was never your intention to infiltrate one of the most exclusive social circles at your new university, seducing rich boys to get who and what you want. Wait, no, it was.

୨୧ Word Count: 1.7k-ish

୨୧ Warnings: reader's in her villain era, demon line are wealthy low key villains too, strong language, some dom demon line/sub reader dynamics, you sleep with everyone darling, oral sex (m & f receiving), swallowing, pet names (good girl), obsession, probably a praise kink (who am I kidding? it's for sure a theme), jealousy/light possessiveness, sugar baby origins, unprotected sex, a lil drop of rough sex, marking, fingering, mention of multiple orgasms, public spicy stuff, light choking, scratching, nibbling, dry humping, & that's it, babes.

୨୧ A/N: This baby has sorta just been chilling in the drafts cause I kinda get nervous to post sometimes but I'm gonna let her be free now. This one focuses on Hwa moreso but Joong and San will get their time too. Yunho's also a part of this, just not quite yet. So, yes, I hope you like it!

୨୧ Part Two is Here ୨୧

Observe a weekly study session held by three best friends. It takes place every Sunday, almost ritualistically so, at 3:00pm sharp in the apartment of ringleader Kim Hongjoong. Situated at the top floor of an old university office turned luxury apartment building, it has a vintage charm to it that somehow makes it feel more absurdly expensive than it already is. 

Observe that, despite their long held agreement that this is a “study” session, no one’s actually studying. Not Choi San lounging in the brown Italian leather chair, mindlessly chewing on one of the legs of his round rimmed glasses when he should be wearing them instead. 

Not Hongjoong painstakingly rearranging the shoes by the door. Seonghwa’s black Dior Oxfords can’t go near Hongjoong’s custom leather Prada sneakers. They are custom after all. 

Not Seonghwa who’s leaning by the window doodling on the crisp pages of his $200 copy of the Netter Atlas of Human Anatomy, an act that would be blasphemous to someone like him on any other day.

But no one’s doing anything they’d do on a normal day because this isn’t a normal day. They’re distracted, unable to peel their minds free from the events of last night and it’s all your fault. 

Staring down at the space between his legs, San can only think about the fact that you were there. You, the new girl with your pretty face and soft cheeks. Cheeks that were even softer as he gently cupped them, pressing the tip of his cock to the back of your throat.

The way that you whimpered, spit dripping from the corners of your mouth, is etched into his memory. If he could rewind time he’d do it over and over just to hear those same whimpers muffled by his cum filling your cheeks. You swallowed him so well, not spilling a drop.

“Such a good girl” he’d whispered, petting your hair as your head lay in his lap. Such a good, good girl. 

By the window, Seonghwa’s still sketching away. The level of intensity and focus on his face does wonders to make it appear as if the motion of his hand has even a shred of intent behind it. None of it means anything, just a half hearted attempt at busying a brain that keeps reminding him how he fucked you against the very window he leans upon. This exact spot actually. 

You, with your plush body and sweet voice had begged, as his lips met yours, “Please don’t stop.” It was pure bliss to have your nails digging into his forearms, the walls of your deliciously warm pussy clenching around him.

You were wet enough that your thighs were almost too slippery to grip when he parted them to sink in deeper. No girl has ever been that needy for him before, so desperate to be ruined by him. Fuck, he wants to ruin you. 

“I need a drink” Hongjoong huffs, rushing off to the kitchen. Drinking’s never been something he’s just done. He considers self medication through alcohol to be silly but what else is he meant to do? He needs something to overwhelm his palate and kill the nagging craving to taste you on his tongue.

You, with your bright eyes and innocent smile, had hopped your cute ass on the counter and let him drink from your pussy until he saw stars. How adorable you’d been, kicking your feet each time his tongue stimulated your sensitive clit, his fingers teasing your sweet spot. “One more for me” he cooed and you gave him exactly what he wanted. More.

It’s all any of them want now. More, more, more. They made a promise to each other that what happened last night could only ever happen again if you were all together. The four of you. Not three. Certainly not two. The boys would do with you what best friends do with all things, share, but sharing’s much easier said than done when you don’t truly want to. 

Seonghwa slams his book shut, snapping back to reality at a speed too dizzying for the others. “I need to go” Seonghwa announces, scrambling to shove his things into his bag. San sits up in the chair, popping his glasses back on.

“Go? Where are you going?”

“I, uh, I have to go look for something. I’ll see you guys later.”

Hongjoong steps back into the living room just in time to hear the door slam as Seonghwa exits. “Where’s he off to?” A question with only one logical answer that pisses San off the second it dawns on him.

“Where do you think?”

The scholarships aren’t nearly enough. They were enough to get you here but being able to stay? That’s a different story. And so you find yourself here on a Sunday evening, picking up hours at the university’s library to make some extra money.

It’s a grueling schedule. Weekdays waitressing at a five star restaurant, weekends at the library, and every waking hour outside of that spent with your face buried in your books. Well, almost every waking hour. Lately you’ve managed to find time for other things.

Wheeling a cart full of books down one of the aisles, you nearly run over some girl’s feet. “Hey, watch it!” she shouts, shooting you a look that says she wants to tear your head off. “I’m really sorry” you apologize, slinking to the side to let her squeeze past.

“These shoes cost more than your rent, you know that?” she spits before storming off in the other direction.

Everyone’s like that here, always throwing their money in your face. Mommy and daddy’s money anyway. You don’t have what they do, it’s like they can smell it on you, and they’ll never let you forget it. “These shoes cost more than your rent, you know that?” you mock, picking up a book to slip onto one of the shelves. “They’re fucking hideous anyway.” 

“Uh, hey, everything okay?” a voice asks from behind you. You jump, nearly tripping over one of the cart’s wheels. Seonghwa grabs you by the arm before you lose your footing. Your knight in shining armor. Well, a cardigan really but close enough, right?

“Oh my god, Seonghwa. You can’t sneak up on me like that. You’re gonna give me a heart attack.”

“It’s a library” he laughs, straightening out your shirt, “I thought we were supposed to be quiet.”

“Not that quiet! What are you doing here anyway?”

That came out a bit harsher than you intended. Thankfully Seonghwa finds it cute when you’re sassy. “Yunho told me you work here on weekends and I thought…I wanted to see you.” “See me?” you ask, the book now clutched in your arms like a stuffed animal.

Seonghwa moves between you and the cart, pinning you against one of the shelves. This position feels familiar, a flash of heat rushing over your body and settling between your legs. Seonghwa toys with the hem of your short skirt, his knuckles brushing your exposed thigh.

“Do you like it?”

“Hmm?”

“Working two jobs. Do you like it?”

“Honestly, I hate it.” You draw in a sharp breath when his fingertips touch the marks he left behind on you last night. Sneaking both hands beneath your skirt, he traces your hips, relishing in the fullness of them.

Your thighs part and he carefully eases his knee between them, the moist cotton of your panties all that separates your aching core from his slacks. Seonghwa leans in to nibble at your bottom lip, “Then quit.” “Hwa, you know I can’t, ah…” you squeak, the book tumbling to the ground as he slowly grinds you along his leg.

He kisses you tenderly, angling you forward to stimulate your clit in just the right way. Seonghwa can already feel you soaking through his pants. You get wet so easily for him and it eats away at his self control. “Quit” he repeats, “I can get you a job at one of my father’s offices. His secretaries there don’t really do anything. You can kind of just sit there and be pretty. I know you can do that.”

Letting go of your waist, he pulls back enough to watch how perfectly your tits sit as you ride his thigh. “Look at you, doing so well already.” 

The quiet one. That’s how Yunho described Seonghwa before you met him. He’s quiet but no more innocent than the others are. Never let that innocent exterior fool you, he has a switch and when it flips he’s someone you won’t even recognize.

That switch, you can see it flipping on and off. His eyes bright with admiration one second and darkening with lust the next. There’s something dangerous about him but you aren’t exactly harmless now, are you? 

“You’d do that for me?” you ask, taking his hand and pressing it to your cheek. You nuzzle into his palm, taking his thumb between your lips. “Of course I would. I’d…” he loses his train of thought as you start sucking his thumb, the rhythm of your hips picking up speed.

“Anything you want.”

You can feel his pulse quickening. See his face taking on a pink hue. Your breathing grows shallow, the tension building in your core making your body shudder. “So close” you whine, running his hand down to your neck, “I want you to make me cum.” 

Anything you want. Anything for you. Seonghwa holds you by the neck, his other hand slipping into your panties. “Cum for me then like a good girl. Like my good girl.”

There’s a chance someone could hear you. Between the splashing of his fingers in your juices and the moans that spill out from your lips onto his, there’s more than enough noise to draw a little attention. That’s what makes it hotter. What has his cock straining against his pants and your eyes glossing over as the tension finally snaps.

Ruin you, that’s what he wanted to do, and look at you now, coming undone so wonderfully. How can he be anything short of obsessed with you? 

“So gorgeous when you’re falling apart.”

“Only when I’m falling apart?” you ask, leaning forward to rest your head on his shoulder. Seonghwa wraps an arm around your waist, kissing you on the forehead.

“No,” he sighs, “And I think that might be the death of me.”

[sugudoe]

➥ ──── THE OTHERS ‼️ OUCH. . . ღ

shoko ieiri is a med student and long time friend of gojo and geto. she is the one that instigated satoru to create mib, thinking it was just a funny and stupid idea, and was surprised when he actually went along with it. although not a member, shoko is a very special someone to all the boys, there is a room only for her, but she still rather be in the college dorms. she is close to nanami, they study together in coffee shops, and sukuna, since she started to take care of his bruises after the fights. many mib’s fans are jealous of her and send a lot of hate, but shoko is not bothered by them, instead she had her instagram turned private and charges 10 dollars for anyone that wants exclusive pictures of the boys. the fire picture is gojo and shiu, and the bras are ino and nanami.

inumaki toge is yn’s younger brother. they love each other very much, but they barely interact on campus, still yn loves to walk past him and shuffle his hair, and toge likes to slap her neck softly. first time he did this, hakari almost beat him, now they are really good friends. toge is a programming student, but his passion is playing games, he helped his sister get her set up to play the sims because yn bough his, much more expensive and he is scared of asking where did the money come from. he started dating okkotsu yuta recently but rather not expose much, fearing it might make his sister sad that he is dating while she is single. if she ever finds out, he will mock her, so he has been softly launching yuta.

okkotsu yuta is a biomedicine student, he uses his instagram to post pictures he took with the old camera he thrifted some years ago, people really like his photos and vintage style. he has a calm vibe, but in reality yuta is nearly crawling the walls with his anxiety for anything, specially a new year beginning. luckily for him, yuta has friends that love him and a boyfriend that calms him down. he loves the beach, to make poems and to go on dates with toge, just the two of them and yuta gets happy right away.

yaga kumia, also nicknamed panda by everyone because of his obsession with the animal since a baby (he had a sweater he used everyday when he was five) is the son of jujutsu tech’s principal, yaga masamichi. he studies mass communication, and all his friends says that is because he is a gossiper and a talkative asshole. still — he is a fucking legend. gojo plans on having him becoming a mib’s member, but panda’s dad would interrupt it right away. the boy has no self control or filter, he does what he likes if he feel like it, he got into his group of friends because of maki, toge and yuta, who he has met a year prior and thought they were nice. most people want to be close to him because of his dad, so he is very hard to actually get approached to. still, he also wants to be a part of mib, just need to find the right time.

zen’in maki is the younger cousin of toji, she studies biomedicine with yuta, and wants to work making lotion and healing creams for burned victims, like herself. when she was younger, her house burned down, and maki saved her twin at the cost of scars on her whole body. at first she used to hide them with baggy clothes, but nowadays she doesn’t mind and if anyone stares, her girlfriend will bark at them. maki is very laid back, still, she is a very awkward person, making random comments and acting weird. she made her move on nobara by telling her facts of history and serial killers, also flexing her muscles nonchalant, and nobara matched her with what she knew of fashion. two weird babies sharing half a brain.

nobara kugisaki is the goat. anywhere she goes, all eyes go straight to her. being a fashion student was predestined for her, everyone could sense that a mile away. she has lived in japan her whole life, going to high school with yuji and megumi, and she will refuse to admit she was third wheeling every hangout. yuji is and always will be her test subject, he lets her dye his hair to match hers and do his nails and colorful eyeliners. she calls herself his sister, and sukuna rolls his eyes at that every time, but him and choso know for a fact she is their little sister as well. kugisaki is obsessed with her senior, kirara, and whenever they share classes or a conversation the girl melts, kira thinks she is adorable. nobara is a hard kpop girl, and obsessed with NCT and StrayKids. she saw maki once and thought “that’s mine” and she accomplished her mission in less than a week.

gojo megumi is the younger adopted brother of satoru, they might not look alike physically, but the longer in their presence the more they start to become the same person, and megumi pretends he hates that. he likes to hide himself whenever his brother is near, while itadori and nobara will call satoru’s attention to him. megumi studies business administration like his brother, because one day he is going to own half of gojo’s enterprise. his favorite hobbies are staying in bed with yuji (his not yet boyfriend), his dogs and any classical book. the arm cast photo is a drawing he made when itadori broke his arm, megumi is very talented with art. he had to priv his account because mib’s fans were sending him a lot of messages and it was annoying.

itadori yuji studies physical education, he is a basketball player and has been for many years now. the boy is the biggest fan of megan thee stallion, and yes he fought nobara for that spot. besides that he also adores miles morales, watch horror movies and to go out every weekend. he begged megumi for the matching cats icon, and it’s a lie that meg monitors his instagram, still, the boy doesn’t complain to have itadori’s passwords. he was very happy that nobara started to date maki and the friend group merged, because he wanted to be friends with panda and toge for a very long time. cutie. he is apparently the only friend yorozu has, but she can get really annoying when her talk subjects always go to his brothers and their friends.

orimoto yorozu is a sound engineer student, she met yuji because they share a few classes together and when she learned of his family, she glued to his side. yorozu mostly keeps to herself unless she wants something from someone (like when she tried to flirt with panda because they were the single ones of the group, and he rejected her after the first date), so she doesn’t mind when the group forgets to call her for some hangout or party, much rather staying at home on social media. she has been following some people from college on their instagram and twitter, and changing her style every two weeks. she is very cute looking, but there has always been something off about her. still, no one but nobara dares to admit it.

. ֺ﹢ a. note: this is me begging y’all to not pay attention to panda’s name, it’s kuma (bear in japanese) but written differently, eugh. like the others, this pictures are just for reference, except for nobara, that’s my canon kugisaki. starting to realize i did this whole thing for characters that aren’t that important… yet… AND yorozu is based on the bad looking bitch yorozu + rika, took two evil queenies and made a weirdo, gotta love it.

🏷️ 𝙩𝙖𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩: @ducky1232 @mfcherry @minzxec @d3jecteddoll @shuuji71 @emilyywhyy @makeshiftproject @poopooindamouf @ventila98 @faithums @lvingd3adg0rl @prettynai @r0ckst4rjk @lunavelha @catobsessedlady @luvvmae @sjndvi @punkhazardlaw @lemonnotade @luvmeadow @tired-jaz @csxmxx @serenadesvt

[sansaorgana]

— NEW MEMORIES

PAIRING — Erik Lehnsherr x fem!Mutant!Reader

SUMMARY — You're excited to celebrate holidays for the first time in a long time and you prepare the school for Christmas and Hanukkah but your husband's attitude differs, which leads to an argument. You accidentally reveal too soon that you're expecting, which ruins a surprise.

AUTHOR’S NOTE — As usual, Reader’s mutation is NOT specified. I checked online Hanukkah's date for 1973 and I hope it showed me right that it started December 19th, which means it would overlap with Christmas. I also tried not to specify if Reader would celebrate only Hanukkah with Erik or Christmas, too, so I hope it's not very exclusive, because I imagine that even if she is not a Christian or Jewish, she would still want to celebrate Hanukkah because of her husband. In this fic, Erik and Reader are both teachers at Xavier's School, probably after Days of Future Past happened but with less shitty ending for Erik 😂 I also wanted to write a part when the baby is born but I decided the time difference between the scenes would be too big so I'll just write another fic 😁

WARNINGS — mentions of parents' death (Reader's backstory is similar to Jean Grey's)

WORD COUNT — 2,220

ENGLISH IS MY SECOND LANGUAGE.

NEW MEMORIES

December has never been your favourite time of the year. Most of the time it was a reminder that you weren’t normal, that your life wasn’t usual and that whatever all these people in Christmas commercials had was out of your reach.

But in 1973, for the first time in your life, you were actually excited. And since Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters was open again, you had plenty of people to share your excitement with. Lots of students volunteered to help you with decorating the place for the upcoming Christmas and Hanukkah celebrations. That year was one of those when the two of them overlapped.

After all your classes on Friday, you worked on yet another room of the house with the help of a few students. When you finished it was almost ten pm so you told them goodnight and went straight to your bedroom. Erik was already there, reading a history book and making notes.

“What is it about?” you asked him with a smile as you began to take off your clothes. You were so tired that you decided to take a shower in the morning and now just change into pajamas.

“Napoleonic wars,” your husband answered without looking up. “I have a feeling he might have been one of us.”

“Aren’t we, like, a product of this century?” you asked and put a nightgown on. “Come on, it’s late, let’s go to sleep,” you stood behind him and placed your hands on his shoulders.

“I’ve only just begun,” he explained. “I need these notes for Monday.”

When you managed to convince Erik to join you at school and teach history, he was unsure about it but he promised to give it a try. Just like you promised you would leave with him to live in peace somewhere else if he wouldn’t like the life at Charles’ school. But one semester later he was already very engaged in his work. Students respected him although you could see that they were also a bit scared of him, which was understandable.

“You’ve just begun?” you laughed a little.

“I was playing chess with Charles earlier,” Erik answered with a nod and hummed after underlining a line in the book.

“Is this why you’re so tense?” you asked as you slightly squeezed his stiff shoulders. “Did you lose?”

“I’m not tense,” he tried to shake you off.

“Talk to me, Erik. It’s not gonna work if you refuse to talk to me,” you reminded him sternly and he sighed before putting the pencil down and closing the book. “We need to be open about what is bothering us, you promised me we’d make it work this time,” you added.

“Yes, I know. But I don’t want to hurt your feelings,” Erik turned his head around to look at your face. You took a step back and furrowed your brows.

“What do you mean, Erik?” you asked.

He hesitated before saying anything and a million of possible scenarios started to come up to your mind.

“You don’t like it here?” You inquired. “You want us to move out?”

“No, it’s not about that… But…” Erik swallowed thickly and took a deep breath in. “I don’t like what you’re currently doing. I’m sorry. I don’t want to take your happiness out of it.”

“What am I currently doing?” you couldn’t understand what he was saying.

“Christmas and Hanukkah preparations,” he explained and you blinked a few times as your brain needed to process that information.

“Wait, what?!” you raised your voice a little. You didn’t want to scold him for expressing his feelings but you just couldn’t understand his reaction. “We’re going to celebrate for the first time in such a long time, and what’s more important, we’re not gonna be alone in this. We have our friends and students here. For the first time December is a positive time of the year to me… to us,” you tried to explain your point of view nervously. Erik was only looking at you and blinking slowly, patiently waiting for you to finish. “But I don’t do it for myself. I mostly am doing it for you, Erik. I wanted you to be happy, too. I wanted you to enjoy something that had been taken away from you a long time ago.”

“It reminds me of Hanukkahs with my parents,” he finally spoke up and you pursed your lips for a moment before opening your mouth again.

“So you don’t want to ever celebrate again?” you asked to be sure.

“No, I don’t think so,” he shook his head.

“Why can’t you let yourself be happy, why are you torturing yourself further? I don’t get it, I’m sorry,” you tried not to be irritated but you felt utterly disappointed. You sat on the edge of your bed and hid your face in your hands.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to be a killjoy.”

“Too late,” you murmured, fighting your tears back.

“I know that most of the students will be celebrating. I think I’ll just leave for a week somewhere. I have already discussed it with Charles and he said there are a few things I can do for him at that time,” Erik’s voice sounded casual like he was discussing business for you.

“You want to leave us during Christmas time?” you moved the hands off of your face and looked up at him angrily.

“(Y/N), please, I don’t want to fight about it…” Erik sighed. “Why can’t you just understand that I don’t want to…” he clenched his jaw and looked away. “I don’t want to create new memories like this because it would remove the ones I already have… with my mother.”

“And you think she wouldn’t want you to celebrate holidays with your new family? You don’t think she’d want you to be happy?” you stood up and looked down at him. You felt like a bitch but his explanation made you even angrier.

“I don’t know what she’d want because she’s dead!” He stood up and raised his voice.

“So, I won’t be able to celebrate ever?! Because you don’t want to create new memories?” you put your hands on your hips.

“I’m not forbidding you to celebrate.”

“I don’t want to celebrate without you, don’t you understand?!” you yelled and rolled your eyes. “And when our child is born, you won’t celebrate Hanukkah with them either?” you asked and then you closed your mouth quickly. Your anger made you reveal a few things too early.

“What child?” you could see Erik’s face becoming pale within a second. “(Y/N)?”

“It was supposed to be a Christmas surprise… But since you won’t even be here, I guess I can tell you now,” you shrugged your arms. “I’m pregnant,” you announced and turned around to avoid looking at his face. You were scared of his reaction.

You didn’t know how long it took him to finally do something. Was it a very long minute or was it ten minutes of a heavy silence between you two…?

“(Y/N), I’m sorry,” he finally whispered. Apologizing wasn’t his strong trait. You sensed him standing behind you and putting his hand on your shoulder shyly. You didn’t push him away but you didn’t lean back towards him as usual either. “For how long do you know?”

“Two weeks. It’s the second month,” you answered, your eyes focused on the wall in front of you as you tried to fight the tears back. “Are you even happy?” you dared to ask and your lower lip trembled because asking it out loud made your heart break.

You were trying to give him a normal life, to give him family and happiness, joy around Christmas time and all that. But he seemed to prefer to dwell on his past. You didn’t expect him to forget about his mother or about the pain, of course not. Your past wasn’t exactly pleasant either. But you wanted to be happy despite that, you wanted to have a family, you wanted a new start in life, another chance.

“Of course I am,” Erik answered and gently turned your body around so you would face him. However, you tried to avoid his eyes. “But I’m terrified,” he confessed.

“And you think I am not?” you looked up eventually as a few tears rolled down your cheeks. “I’m a monster, Erik. You think I’m not scared of hurting them by accident?” you asked.

When you were about twelve years old, you caused your parents’ death after having an argument with them. Your powers were out of control and you were locked in a mental institution for underage girls by people who didn’t understand that you weren’t crazy nor really dangerous. That was where you met the person who made you realize who you were and who was the only person there who wouldn’t treat you like a monster; although that was the word you could easily call him with. His name was Sebastian Shaw – but he introduced himself as Doctor John Smith. He was experimenting on you for a few years and although it had been a traumatic experience, you learnt how to control your mutation thanks to him. That was also how you met Erik – he found you not so long after you turned eighteen years old and left the institution. You started to work as a waitress and he was hunting for the man who had used your pain and suffering to perform experiments on you to deepen his knowledge about the various mutations. You decided to join Erik because your life didn’t seem to have any purpose anyway.

“You’re not a monster,” he sighed and pulled you closer to wrap his arms around you. With one of his hands he held the back of your head and caressed your hair. “You were just a child and now you’re older, you can control your powers. You’re extraordinary,” he whispered the words of comfort and kissed your forehead. “I’m not scared about you hurting our baby, I would never. I trust you with my life,” he assured you and it was comforting to hear that.

“Creating new memories doesn’t wipe out the old ones,” you cried out and pressed your face deeper into his chest. “Believe me, I wish it worked this way. I wish I could forget. I begged Charles to make me forget but he refused to do it to me,” you confessed and Erik raised your chin to make you look at him again. He hadn’t known about that before.

“You haven’t told me that,” his face was full of pain and worry.

“It was when you were in jail. I begged Charles to remove all the pain, the memory of my parents, the memory of Shaw… Even you. I begged him to even remove you from my head. But he told me I wouldn’t be myself any longer. He was right and I hate that. I hate that what I am is made of pain and suffering,” you sniffled. “That’s why I want to make good memories so badly, do you understand? I want to celebrate with you like we never have before. I want to laugh and feel safe. Like I belong somewhere, surrounded with friends and students, with my husband by my side and my baby growing inside of me. Do you understand my point of view now, Erik?” you bit on your trembling lip.

“Yes, my liebling, I do,” he nodded and leaned in to kiss your forehead and then the tip of your nose, which made you giggle through the tears, until eventually he pecked your lips.

“But I don’t want to force you either,” you sighed. Now, when all your emotions were finally out and you calmed yourself down, you decided there was no point in pushing him into something that would make him feel uncomfortable. “If you don’t want to celebrate, it’s alright. We both have our right to deal with whatever that has happened to us in our own ways. I’ll still have fun with all the rest, don’t worry about me,” you assured him.

“No, you were right. About me choosing to torture myself instead of allowing myself to enjoy my life,” Erik caressed your cheek and you cracked a smile. “And I can’t miss my child’s first Hanukkah either.”

“I want them to have a happy childhood,” you told him. “Like we never had.”

“I know. I do, too,” Erik placed his hand on your belly and caressed it gently, like it was made of glass. “I will protect them from everything, I promise. No human will hurt our baby.”

You smiled at him and cupped his face before leaning in to give him a proper kiss this time.

But you didn’t tell him that what you feared more than humans hurting your child was actually the child turning out to be perfectly normal. You were afraid that a man so prejudiced towards humans as your husband wouldn’t love his child fully if they weren’t a mutant. You couldn’t tell him that, though. You didn’t want to fight with him anymore that night. Instead, you just kissed him. After all, you’d still have a few years before you’d find out if the baby was a mutant or not.

MASTERLIST

[lycandrophile]

hey i know your post about your mom was mostly just a personal vent, but i have to say, do you realize that also happens with trans girls and their fathers? literally happened to one of my friends. i’m not trying to downplay your experience or something but i found it strange that you seem to think this is something that only affects transmascs

i have one question for you: so fucking what?

i don’t doubt that trans girls have experienced similar things and yeah, that’s bad too, but what the fuck does that have to do with me and the specific things i’m facing as a result of being a trans man? i never said “look at this thing that happens to ONLY trans men and NO ONE ELSE,” i just said “hey, isn’t this thing that happens to a lot of trans men, including myself, fucked up?”

i would also like to point out that what you’re talking about is in fact a different (albeit similar) thing. the way cis people treat trans people can differ dramatically based on the cis person’s gender because their commitment to gender roles is, like, a major part of problem. the specific way a cis mother reacts to her trans son’s transition is often going to be very distinct, while a cis father will likely respond to his trans daughter in a different but equally distinct way.

what i’m talking about is a very specific kind of ownership and control and self-victimization and total lack of boundaries masquerading as love and care and maternal concern that cis women (i would argue white cis women in particular) project onto their transmasc kids when we do literally anything to our bodies. i’m talking about a phenomenon which is closely related to the way moms often pass eating disorders onto their daughters (or children they view as daughters) because they see a body that looks something like theirs and project all of their insecurities and ideals onto it. i’m talking about a form of parental transphobia and projection that’s specific to the dynamic of a cis mother and her child who was “supposed to” be her daughter.

if you’ve never felt that, you’re not even remotely qualified to tell me shit about how i should be talking about that experience, and if you couldn’t recognize that experience when you read my post, i’m guessing you probably haven’t experienced it because the replies to that post made it very clear to me that anyone who has experienced it firsthand immediately knew exactly what i meant.

like, yeah, cis dads also project onto their trans daughters, but are they likely to have a reaction like running away with actual tears streaming down their face? do you expect them to passive aggressively make comments about how sad their kid’s transition makes them, how it’s such a difficult emotional time, how it’s so tragic because their kid’s body was so beautiful before? do you think their go-to transphobic reaction will be weaponizing their emotions? i’m sure there are some dads out there who are like that, but i think we can agree they’re in the minority because that’s not how cis men are taught to react and parents like this tend to be pretty damn committed to following the gender roles they were taught.

and even if i’m wrong and our experiences are exactly the same, let me reiterate that i never said this was an experience exclusive to trans men. all i said is that it happens to us. that’s just a statement of objective fact.

this started in my life when i got my hair cut short for the first time almost a decade ago and it has not stopped since. i’ve watched my mom cry over me changing my name and respond to being asked if my happiness matters more to her than my name by saying “i care about both”, i’ve watched her melt down in a mall over me getting a suit for prom and give me the silent treatment for days after, i’ve heard her plead with me to stop t because it “looks unnatural” and she’s just so “concerned for my health”, i’ve watched her stare at me post-op and say “my poor baby” over and over like she’s looking at my corpse in a casket. i’ve watched her turn herself into the victim of every single aspect of my transition. i’ve had to live with this for 9 years and spent the early years of the pandemic literally locked in a house with it. this has been my entire adolescent and adult life, and the question of if i’ll have to cut her off someday (and maybe never see my cat or my little cousins who i love more than anything in the world ever again as a result) haunts me every single day.

who the fuck are you to tell me how to talk about that?

[sleepyfan-blog]

Zedkiel Settling In

Author’s Note: This is the next fic in the Raised on Terra AU! First. Previous. Next. A big thanks to @bleedingichorhearts for allowing me to borrow their OC, Zedkiel!

Tagged: @egrets-not-regrets @the-pure-angel @sharenadraculea @whorety-k @gallifreyianrosearkytiorsusan 

Warnings: none, please tell me if there’s anything that bothers you

Summary: Zedkiel takes his charges away from the nursery for a little outing. 

Zedkiel hummed softly to himself as he rearranged the baby slings carrying his tiny charges a little, so that they sat better. It had been a couple of weeks since he had taken his first caretaking shift with the little ones, and while he still reserved his judgment on certain caretakers, he could see that the others did seem to be trying their best to care for the infant primarchs. He still couldn't quite believe that he had been chosen to care for his primarch while he was so young and vulnerable. It was an honor that he wore with equal parts awe and pride. Zedkiel was also mindful to try and give the other three primarchs as much attention and care as he did give his own primarch, as all four of them deserved all of the proper care and attention he could give them, and not to favor his own primarch over the other three, as such favoritism would cause bitterness and resentment that would be nigh impossible to overcome, from what he had been taught in the week-long childcare course. 

He had decided to take them all out of the nursery room that they'd been confined to since they'd been removed from the incubation chambers four months ago. Zedkiel had also been forewarned about the potential time-travelling assassins and saboteurs who might try and take away any infant primarch they could get their hands on, which was why he had not taken his four adorable charges very far - just to one of the covered courtyards in the same wing of the Imperial Palace, to show them what plant life looked like, and to get a mimicry of what outside air felt and smelled like (clean air, not the heavily polluted, thin mess that was Terra's current atmosphere). His charges were growing well, according to the growth and weight charts that he had memorized. Zedkiel had been sure to pack enough formula for the four of them for when they got hungry in a basket, as well as a large, soft blanket to lay out for the little ones to play on, and a handful of their most favored toys.

The little generals were currently teething, and none of them were taking the soreness in their mouths very well. His own primarch often gnawed unhappily on his own fingers, whimpering at the pain. Twenty-A and Twenty-O for some reason alternated between showing their fingers in the other's mouths and sobbing their little hearts out while clinging to one another. Thirteen was very frowny and whimpered quietly, rubbing at his gums with his tiny fingers occasionally, and had taken to stealing any pacifier he could get his tiny hands on - whether it was his own or a brother's and sucking on it with the grumpiest little frown on his face. Zedkiel used cool teething toys and small amounts of infant-safe pain medicine when they got particularly restless, which helped to settle them back down again. 

The Raven Guard had also privately been thinking about giving them nicknames. It felt wrong to refer to his charges by their assigned numbers, for all that the teams of very talented and clever scientists and medical doctors were almost disturbingly comfortable with referring to them exclusively by their numbers, as were the rotation of custodes guards who protected the little ones from potential threats. He had asked once, if they primarchs had been given actual names, and informed that The Emperor had yet to name them, and as far as the Custodes were concerned, the primarchs would remain being referred to exclusively by their numbers until either His Majesty decided otherwise, or they earned a name, like the Custodes themselves earned names. Zedkiel... Wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that.

Zedkiel had been given a room in the Primarchs' Wing of the Palace, but he'd taken to sleeping in one of the extremely comfortable sofa chairs that were available in the Primarchs' nursery, especially as he was the one to answer their cries when his charges awoke at night, a monitoring device having been given to him for each of them. The trip was much shorter if he stayed in the room, and he wasn't the only Caretaker to have made this decision. The twins always slept better if they were in the same bassinet - and he had to argue with the Custodes Guard about it for days before they would agree to let him try it. He had been proven correct, as with the twins sleeping together in the same bassinet, they had both slept through the night for the first time. Thirteen, despite being a fairly quiet and serious little babe, very much enjoyed being gently rocked to sleep while being held close, one of his tiny ears pressed to Zedkiell's chest so that he could hear the Raven Guards' hearts beating. As for his own, lovely, mischievous little Primarch, the tiny raven king enjoyed hiding in his blankets and trying to pounce on one of his hands. A regular ambush predator, and one who would grow more powerful and dangerous at times. Nineteen also liked anything shiny and tried to grab for anything that caught his eyes and hide them in his bassinet. 

Which Zedkiel found endlessly adorable and entertaining. The custodes found the habit irritating, but as the little one was getting better at his stealth skills by swiping little golden decals off of them and hiding them successfully... None of them could really do much more than grumble, as these habits were signs that Nineteen was learning to use the skills that the Emperor had hoped to instill within his Primarch, as Nineteen was to be one of the stealth-expert Primarchs, and encouraging him to be sneaky and stealthy would help him develop his skills. 

The Raven Guard set each of the Primarchs down on the blanket he had laid out on the rich, dark brown earth of this internal courtyard. Before Zedkiel had brought them here, he had personally checked and double checked that each of the plants in this courtyard were entirely harmless if consumed or touched - both individually and together in combination. He had also the earth tested for any possible parasites or sicknesses that lingered in soil, which had come back clean. So little ones could safely explore this place, maybe accidentally eat a little dirt or plants and not potentially get sick, even for a handful of moments. Zedkiel was aware of the heightened  immune systems they had been blessed with, but he wasn't going to be the one to test out that aspect of his charges if at all possible. 

The twins decided to cuddle one another as their teal eyes peered cautiously at their new surroundings, neither of them yet moving from where he had set them down on the blanket, snuggled into each other. 

His own primarch rolled from being on his back to being on his belly, before going up onto his hands and knees, immediately starting to crawl for a large, leafy plant, dark eyes fixated on the bright red flower a good foot and a half above the ground. As soon as one of his hands touched the dirt he froze, pulling the hand that had touched the new sensation back and staring down at the dirt with inky black eyes. Nineteen poked at the dirt a couple of times with his fingers, as if trying to figure out what the substance was.

Thirteen crawled over to join Nineteen, letting out an unhappy squeak at the texture of the dirt, sitting down at the edge and pouting a little as he rubbed his tiny hands into the dirt for several seconds, next to his brother.

Twenty-A started to move towards the other two, pausing when Twenty-O whined. Twenty-A paused and nuzzled his brother for a moment before crawling his way over to Nineteen and thirteen, stopping a couple of inches behind the other two. A look of intense concentration appeared on Twenty-A's face as he reached out and-

Shoved Thirteen forwards into the dirt.

Thirteen, who had been balancing on both of his knees and one of his hands as he used his other hand to inspect the dirt wailed as he went face first into the dirt, tiny fists flailing at the indignity as dirt stuck to his face and chin. 

Twenty-A giggled happily and clapped his hands together as Twenty-O made his way over to Nineteen, a nearly identical look of concentration on his face as he pushed nineteen over into the dirt as well, his giggles slightly quieter.

Nineteen also flailed and began to cry.

Zedkiel stood, about to intervene and gently scold Twenty-A and Twenty-O for their mischief when His Majesty spoke, startling the Raven Guard "Leave them be. Brotherly squabbles like this are something that they will need to learn to navigate on their own."

The Raven Guard visibly startled back, having not realized that the Emperor was there and scrambled to stand up at attention, saluting the other, keeping his voice low so as to not disturb the now squabbling infants "S-sire! I... I hadn't realized you were here. My apologies for ignoring you." He internally cursed himself. His awareness of his surroundings was usually much better. How had he not noticed the most powerful and influential single being in the Sol System? 

"At ease, Zadkiel. I just popped in to see how some of my generals were doing, and you were understandably focused on your charges as they started to squabble with one another." His Majesty ordered, waving his formality away with an elegant gesture of one of his hands. "I am well pleased by their growth, since you have taken over as their primary caretaking duties, although I will request that you not indulge the twins' clinginess so much. As they grow they will need to learn how to exist apart from one another. As my spy masters, they will be often apart from each other for decades at a time, if not centuries and will need to learn how to cope with each other's absence."

Zedkiel ducked his head, swallowing down any arguments he had against the Imperator's words, and nodded "Yes sire."

"Carry on." The Emperor ordered before leaving the covered courtyard.

The Raven Guard silently sighed after the other left. Part of him suspected that he had been indulging the twins' desire for closeness a bit much... But the censure from His Majesty still stung. His gaze fell upon his charges and a small smile played on his lips as he noted that they had stopped scrapping with one another and were touching several of the large, leafy plants that were very carefully tended to, each fascinated by the texture and perhaps the bright viridian color of the plant in question.

Thirteen gripped one of the leaves in his hands, dragging it to his mouth and ripped off a small piece, trying to chew on it with his one and a half teeth, bright blue eyes lighting up at the taste. "Bah! Baah." He burbled, tearing off several  more pieces of leaf and shoving them into his mouth.

Nineteen promptly shoved his own piece of a leaf into his mouth and chewed on it for a couple of seconds before spitting it out, an unhappy burble leaving him "Gah!"

Twenty-O took Nineteen's spat out leaf bit and began touching and ripping it into smaller pieces, occasionally taking the smaller leaf-shard up to his nose and smelling it. 

Twenty-A decided that one of the leaf shards that Thirteen was trying to chew was his now, and grabbed it out of Thirteen's mouth, or tried to.

In response to one of his brothers shoving his hand into his mouth, Thirteen deliberately bit down, letting out an angry little growling sound.

Twenty-A began to wail as he tried to get his fingers free, managing to do so with difficulty, sniffling and holding the "bitten" hand close to his chest, sniffling and hiccupping.

Zedkiel sighed, torn between trying to intervene in order to keep the peace between his charges, and the new order he had been given by the Emperor Himself to let the young ones sort out their little internal conflicts on their own. He wasn't sure if the infants were ready for that just yet. They were still so very young...

Before the Raven Guard could decide what it was that he wanted to do, two Custodes walked in and one of them ordered "You need to return the Primarchs to the nursery."

The Raven Guard was tempted to ask them why, but knew that he wouldn't get a proper answer if he asked anyways, so he put the infants back in their carrying slings - switching up where they were placed so that Twenty A was on the far left sling and twenty O was on the far right with thirteen and nineteen between them before he grabbed the blanket and baby toys. "As you command, Lord Custodes." He murmured with a silent sigh in his voice, heading back to the nursery.

[fleetways]

OKAY! It’s time for the Chimera Baby Lore Post!!

🌼 How did you come up with the OC's name?

In both a meta and non-meta sense, Chimera Baby’s name is probably the most notable part about them. The name Chimera Baby is a reference to m-flo and LiSA’s Tripod Baby, ft in the game Shadow the Hedgehog. For over 6 months that was her official non-official name, as I couldn’t decide on a name for her. I received over 15 name suggestions, but in July I ran a poll at which point she was dubbed Mira!

As it turns out, Mira happens to be the name of a binary star system. Two stars in a dance doomed to end in supernova—rather fitting for a chimera character, wouldn’t you say? I like to imagine Shadow was the one to name Mira something meaningful and space-themed like that, meanwhile Sonic named the other child something totally arbitrary (“His name is Mochi because he's white lol”)

On that note, I’ve also decided Sonic calls Mira “Chili” exclusively, because its silly and he would. So Mira, Chimera Baby, CB, and Chili are all names she goes by!

🌸 How old are they? (Or approximate age range)

I like to depict them anywhere from baby to teenager, but in their most recent incarnation I’d say they’re somewhere between 15-17

💖 Do they have any love interest(s)?

At the moment no. She’s generally too aloof and off putting for anyone to approach her with romantic intent, but maybe in the future….

🍓What is their favorite food?

Strawberries and Triangle Chao Fruit

⭐️ What do they do for a living?

💥 Do they have any hobbies?

Besides combat training, CB enjoys the occasional outdoor activity. Sometimes her friends goad her into a game of soccer (which she is an absolute beast at), but she generally prefers solo sports such as archery, rock climbing, or hiking. Sometimes her brother convinces her to fish with him, but she finds it pretty boring (but would never turn him down)

💃 What do they do best?

Mira excels at hand-to-hand combat. As the reigning champion of Chao Karate, Mira takes their martial arts training very seriously. They also possess exemplary control over chaos energy, and incorporates this into their technique. While they may not be as fast as their fathers, they make up for it with not just raw power, but an extremely disciplined technique.

Her skills also happen to make her an amazing breakdancer, but she’ll break your face if you ask her to demonstrate.

☀️ What is one of your OC's best memories?

A tie between making her baby brother laugh for the first time and the time she drew first blood for the first time in a fight with Shadow

🌧️ What is one of your OC's worst memories?

The aftermath of almost drowning as a child after she saved a chao friend.

✍️ Is their current design the first one?

For the most part—I did redesign their shoes because originally they were rocking some McDonalds drip.

💡What originally inspired the OC?

This post i made ^^

Basically its a mix of me poking fun at the phenomena of Sonadow fan-children all looking kinda similar, and this plush reminding me of actual chimerism in animals and wanting to create a character with that characteristic! Over the months my ironic love for her has grown into genuine fondness—so while she remains primarily as a parody, she’s also a character I’m having fun exploring concepts with <3 Much like both Shadow and Sonic the Hedgehog, you can take her as seriously or not seriously as you wish!

👾 What genre do they belong in?

PS1-era graphics Jet Set Radio game

🏳️‍🌈 What is your OC's gender identity and sexuality?

Non-binary and trans (you decide what direction). And she’s bisexual bc i love bisexuals <3

🍃How many sibling does your OC have?

One little brother Mochi—he is a perfect angel who is also her closest friend. She adores him, but you wouldn’t know from seeing them interact.

⚠️ What is the OC's relationship w/their parents like?

So I mentioned that Mira was reared in a chao garden, where her dads basically only visited once every couple days if not longer (Sonic and Shadow are not very attentive parents, go figure). However, this was honestly a perfectly fine arrangement as I headcanon mobian children don’t need the same level of parental contact as human children (Hell, Cream is kind of an outlier FOR having a present parental figure in her life).

That being said, I imagine Shadow spent more time with her when she was really young before stepping away, which made her really latch onto Shadow more than Sonic during that time. Especially seeing as Sonic is the most laissez-faire parent ever but simultaneously was the type to abandon her on a floating platform in midair with a trail of badniks so she can learn how to homing attack.

Much like her father before her, her latent Black Arms genes have caused her to develop a burning desire to destroy Shadow—a fact that Shadow seems strangely indifferent about. While this fact has pretty much wrecked their previous relationship, there are circumstances where Mira will put aside her goal and work with Shadow against a common enemy or towards a common objective (of course, this doesn’t stop her from trying to stab him in the back during these operations).

Her relationship with Sonic has remained mostly the same, with Sonic treating her much more like a friend or little sister than a daughter. They have lunch together at least once a month, and usually she’ll go to him for advice on any social interaction matter—conversations that have become much more frequent now that she’s begun to make friends.

💗 What do you like most about the OC?

I think I popped off with her design—chimerism is such an interesting concept and I loved balancing her two sets of genes without making it seem too busy. I also love her dynamic of trying to kill Shadow and how you would think her growing up in chao garden basically alone would have contributed to that, but that's not the case at all she’s just like that <3

‼️ Who is your OC's arch-nemesis or rival?

Shadow the Hedgehog is her self-proclaimed nemesis, but she makes a fair share of enemies and rivals wherever she goes due to her punch-first-ask-questions-later attitude. One notable rival is another OC of mine named Sauvik the Badger—another cold and brooding anti-hero much like her. Sauvik and Mochi are something of a team, but being a protective big sister she wants him to stay away from her brother. This generally leads to a fight that Mochi is inevitably forced to break up.

⏰ How long have you had the OC?

She was created in January of 2023!

—

That’s all! Feel free to ask any other questions and remember to vote for her here!

@sonic-oc-showdown

[soullessjack]

🔥 jack

oh my godddd I have so many unpopular opinions where do I even start….HOLY DISCLAIMER BATMAN!

anyways so in no particular order or tier system:

✯ i don’t think jack would wear anything feminine im sorry spn fandom. for lolz he has same-outfit-pattern-everyday autism and for serious it’s like. Really weird how fandoms tend to HC/portray non-binary amabs (and men/transmascs in general) almost exclusively as GNC or fem-presenting…like DGMW that is a real and valid form of self expression but it’s not the Only type of non-binary expression that exists. and honestly…**dare I say that most fandom/queer spaces just need to realize that queer masculinity exists and it doesn’t always have to be a matter of breaking gender norms??

** genuinely do whatever u want idc I can’t stop you i don’t want to stop you yada yada. paint his nails and put him in a skirt all u want but Please recognize patterns yall 😭

✯ more headcanon complaints (see disclaimer above ⇧) but I promise to switch it up soon. anyways every time somebody on this lil website says something along the lines of “Jack can’t handle/doesn’t like [insert violence, scary or adult-oriented thing], he prefers [soft or blatantly childlike things]” I shrivel inward like a dead spider. It’s annoying, it’s completely inaccurate to his canon personality and interests, it’s annoying ˣ2, and whether ppl wanna admit it or not—it stems from infantilization. not necessarily ableism, as infantilization is not exclusive to disabled people, but still just about the same thing.

honestly all I see of majority jack headcanons are ones that set him back to just being a child or otherwise being treated like one. for example, the one about him being able to shapeshift is pretty cool...until it just becomes about him deciding to age regress, yknow, to an age set he canonically chose not to go through, showed no desire to be in, and is more offended than anything to be considered as such. all of his interests have to be some shit like bluey or animal crossing, and he drinks apple juice from a sippy cup instead of beer. BARF.

I’ve lessened on my keyboard warring over babyjack in the past year but I have not lessened in being a hater. and I’ve said this before, but the baby-jack au already breached headcanon containment a long time ago when it’s not only so widespread that ppl take it for canon and it makes having any intelligent conversation about him nearly fucking Impossible, but it also lead to harassment and accusations of being a fucking predator, to anyone who dared find a whole grown man attractive. any potential jack ship, like jackharper? automatic grooming case to them. it’s like the fandom is just so dead set on this idea that jack really truly is a child in every aspect you can think of, and for what? if it’s just a headcanon, something you know is not part of the actual show, then don’t go Travis the Chimp levels of apeshit when you see him being treated like he is canonically 💀

unpopular opinion numero 3 which is slightly connected to 2:

✯ baby-jack and a handful of the domestic au’s are BORING (see disclaimer again ⇧), not just on a surface level to my suiting, but also because I feel like it just ..misses the point of the show?

the ragtag untraditional found family is now as nuclear and traditional as the Atomic Age. Dean and Cas are the most heteronormative “who wears the pants in the relationship” gay couple ever, Sam is demoted to the uncle that gets written out of his own family, Jack is just there to make his gay dads look cute and emphasize that they’re a gay family (while still being very heteronormative), and at least 5 of them could be found in a California gated community. everything that made any of them unique or defined their personalities is just scrubbed off, even for an AU.

so much of the later seasons focus on Sam and Dean realizing that they don’t have to make a hard splitting decision between the lives they want to live; that they can find a balance; be happy and have good things—namely families—without giving up hunting (and vice versa, that they can have hunting without giving up on family or happiness). everybody loves the gay hunters from S10(?12?) and what they represented for Dean, but I almost never see that be put into practice in the fandom.

THEY’RE ALREADY DOMESTIC!!! AND WITH THAT PERFECT BALANCE!!!! Season 13 quite literally gave Team Free Will a surrogate son to raise and established them as a family; highly untraditional, largely dysfunctional, overall not fitting of a family family, and yet they are a family still. Dean wears an apron and cooks and bakes for everyone; he built himself a man cave and established two separate family night events that they all ritually keep up; Sam has a morning jogging routine and visits his girlfriend every so often; Jack was taught how to drive, has normal chores like washing dishes, and gets groceries. And they didn’t just have that while fighting monsters—they had that while fighting a whole fucking archangel. Even if it did go down the gutter by the end, they still had it: domestic familial bliss and violent messy hunting without having to trade one for the other.

✯ I truly genuinely think Jack’s relationship with Dean is the best, most interesting and most misunderstood out of the three, and I also think that the problems with his relationship to Cas and Sam are hugely overlooked by the fandom—granted they are very small, especially if you’re comparing it to Dean, but they’re still there and I think we should bully Cas and Sam about it more. I shan’t elaborate because it’s 5AM and this was an impulsive add-on ❤️

✯ getting normal now…his plaid pattern jacket from the first half of Ouroboros is ugly as SHIT i have never liked it and don’t think I ever will. but I cannot deny it; he got that shit on.

✯ most unpopular opinion of all, I wanna do insane shit to his cervix 🙌

[phoenixtakaramono]

OPERATION BABYLON - PART VI

aka the butchlander sugar baby AU.

We have the first reader interactive poll for this threadfic! I recommend reading the update to the end (with a detailed breakdown of each choice) before making your decision.

Tumblr Navigation (note I have not shared the prologue here with its premise setup; I’ve only started sharing this twitter threadfic on tumblr starting from the 2nd 🔞 scene): I | II | III | IV | V | VI

Update Schedule: weekly/ biweekly

(You can read the rest of the threadfic update here!)

Keep in mind, all of my AU Butchlander threadfics on Twitter are the unpolished first draft versions of what’ll eventually be polished up into long fics on AO3 under the Shock and Awe series. So you may regard this threadfic as an experimental first prototype and exclusive preview whose contents may or may not be changed in the future final draft version. We’re just loosely playing around with ideas and concepts for now!

If you don’t have a Twitter account, screenshots are provided below the line break so you can read this update on Tumblr as well:

A more-in-depth breakdown of the choices:

A) Tell the truth. To avoid suspicion, Billy lays low and comes up with an excuse that he's booked for the whole day plays hard to get. It'll lead to Homelander running into "William out on a date" with another Supe—and a jealous Homelander running interference lol and sabotaging it, potentially leading to a "private tour" at The Seven meeting room and some 🔞 inappropriate office s*x ;) the setting depends if I decide to have it as a Vought HQ gala event or a Capes for Christ baptism

The payoff: a lead into the investigation The con: Billy's relationship with one of his long-time regulars is irreversibly damaged (it'll come bite him in the arse much later in the threadfic)

B) Homelander wants to be his sugar daddy. So Billy wants to test that and see if he can get our caped crusader to unknowingly fund his little CIA operation by exaggerating his rent and monthly overhead costs to tug at the hero's supposed generous philanthropist heartstrings. It'll lead to the sugar baby/daddy relationship being developed more aka a lil à la Pretty Woman-styled "shopping spree" with Homelander raining gifts on Billy's head say bye bye to Billy's CIA-assigned base, potentially leading to a 🔞 scene for "William to show him his gratitude"

The payoff: a bigger base and money for a more in-depth investigation The con: Homelander will lowkey stalk monitor him, so it'll be harder to keep his covert activities a secret from him or sneak out

C) The cute "Waiting for you :)" type of option. Billy doubles down on the act and reforms himself into Homelander's dream lover. It's tooth-rotting romantic fluff and flirty back-and-forth banter between them, but keep in mind what'll happen when Homelander inevitably realizes the "William who's literally almost perfect in every way and is too good to be true" isn't actually real much much much later as a direct consequence of this early choice.

The payoff: a happy Homelander (speedrun gaining his trust and affection by taking our bbg on dates <3) The con: the future fallout (and reconciliation) will be much more dramatic

Choose your poison! You can also vote on Twitter (link to the poll). I will add the final results together, and we’ll see which story route comes out on top.

A/N: A bit of Billy’s POV as we begin to pull back the curtains. How deep does this rabbithole of deception go? Far. Very far. Did y'all see the twist with Popclaw? Didn't expect that, did ya?

I am, by the way, open to ⚠️🔞 reader suggestions~. I make no promises that I’ll write it, but this threadfic is meant as a shameless excuse to write 🔞 butchlander spice, haha, and provide y’all some content during our butchlander drought. I have one reader suggestion thus far, and it involves candle wax. 🕯️

[waytooinvested]

Forgotten, Not Forgiven - Chapter 20

This and previous chapters are also on AO3

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

Two weeks had passed since the disastrous dream session, and it felt like everything had subtly shifted from where it had been before that night.

Kara still seemed entirely unphased by her experience – was thriving, if anything. Now she had successfully negotiated better contract terms at Catco and come to a compromise with Andrea about the sort of stories she would be writing she seemed happier at work, and had even managed to wangle a corporate discount membership at the climbing centre so she could go regularly. More troublingly she had also almost immediately thrown herself into some project that she was being unusually cagey about, but Kara had assured her it was nothing to worry about, and she was acting normally enough as long as the conversation stayed on other subjects. Lena was trying her best to trust her and not dwell on the mystery, no matter how tempting it might be to do a little digging.

Beyond that there were still the regular Project Atlantis meetings as always, but although none of them said it outright, they were all aware that progress had stalled. Now they knew exactly what it was keeping Kara from her Supergirl memories, they also knew that they couldn’t just break it down, and so far the best idea they had come up with to armour Kara against the trauma of it was… therapy.

It was a long way from being the silver bullet they needed.

However, after the latest uninspired and frustrating Atlantis meeting, something else had changed. Lena had offered Alex a lift home, as she often did since they lived in the same direction, and Alex had accepted. They had been sitting in the back seat watching the city go by outside the windows, same as always, and then Alex had come out with it.

‘So. I have this idea.’

‘For Project Atlantis?’

‘No, no, not that. It’s just something I hoped you might be up for trying with me...’

Alex shuffled a bit in her seat, and for a moment she looked so much like Kara when she had been about to suggest rock climbing that Lena narrowed her eyes, suspicious.

‘I swear to god Alex, if you’re about to ask me to go skydiving-’

Alex snorted.

‘HAH, no. I do kind of wish I’d thought of that just to see your face when I suggested it, but no. I was actually going to ask if, maybe, you wanted to come with me to a gay bar some time.’

Lena’s eyebrows shot up.

This was new.

She and Alex had spent time together outside Project Atlantis meetings, sure, but it had always been a continuation of them, or at least started out with some kind of pretext of a work thing before they had settled into just hanging out. This was the first time either of them had suggested something purely social, let alone a gay bar.

‘Really? How come? It’s not our usual sort of meet up place.’

‘Exactly. I’ve never actually been to one before, and I don’t know, you might you go all the time, but I thought maybe it would be similar for you, and we could try it out together.’

Alex was… not wrong. Lena had been to a few exclusive VIP only queer events over the years, but an ordinary gay bar in her home city? Never. There had always been the risk that she might be recognised and end up all over the tabloids of course, but it wasn’t just that. She’d never had anyone to go with. Not until now.

‘Wouldn’t you rather go with Kelly?’

‘I mean, yeah, I’d really like us to go together eventually, but… well, when I got together with Maggie so much of the dynamic was her as the worldly wise one, and me as the newly hatched little baby lesbian who had never been with a woman or had any of these experiences. And even though Kelly never makes me feel that way, I kind of want this to be something I do for the first time just as myself, not as part of a couple. So I thought it could be a good friend thing. With you.’

A friend thing.

Alex wanted to discover her community with a friend, and she was asking Lena. Not Kara. Not Nia. Not any of the other friends she had uncomplicated histories with and who would gladly have tagged along with her.

She wanted Lena.

‘I would love to go to a gay bar with you Alex.’

Alex beamed, and the change in the set of her shoulders made Lena realise that she had been nervous about asking. This really mattered to her.

‘Awesome! So I have been looking into options and narrowed it down to three. There’s ‘Velvet’ which is the big one in the city centre that seems like a nice place, but it’s pretty high profile so I thought you might not be comfortable with the visibility – I don’t want you to end up as a story in some gossip magazine because of me.’

Lena nodded, appreciating the consideration. She was not afraid to be out, but she would rather control the narrative around any public announcement, and do it in her own time. Ideally when her life was less complicated than it was right now.

‘Then there’s ‘Liquor Lips’, which is the most private seeming, buuut also looks kind of skeevy. It’s not quite a strip joint, but they have some ‘exotic dance’ nights and a generally more X rated feel, and uh.. I’m not sure the whole thing is quite the vibe I’m looking for.’

‘Agreed, that is not the kind of night I was imagining.’

‘No, so this last one is my favourite – it’s called ‘Violet’s’. It’s a bit more open than Liquor Lips but also kind of far out of town, which I thought might be a good thing for you, and it has more of a community feel. It’s on the smaller side, but it looks friendly, and they have a pretty decent cocktail menu.’

Cocktails and community. Lena could work with that.

‘Violet’s it is.’

They had agreed a date and time, and that was that. They were officially the sort of friends who did things together outside of a work context. It felt a bit strange, but not bad strange. New, and unexpected, and… nice.

Violet’s turned out to be an unassuming building with a small sign hanging above the door and a rainbow sticker on one window. From the outside it didn’t look like much, and certainly wouldn’t raise many eyebrows if anyone saw Lena Luthor going in, at least not unless you knew what the place was.

Inside was a different story entirely.

Beyond the entryway it opened up into a surprisingly spacious room, decked out with purple fluorescents over the bar and string lights criss crossing the dark blue ceiling to give the impression of a starry night, though it was almost lost behind the yards and yards of rainbow bunting that had been strung overhead, and the flags of just about every queer identity one could hope to name hanging from the walls. The whole impression was utterly chaotic and much too busy to be considered entirely good taste, but Alex was right, it felt friendly.

Alex herself was hovering in the doorway, staring round from the flags, to the bunting, to the people gathered around tables. Drinking, laughing, playing darts, holding hands, kissing.

When several more seconds passed and she still didn’t move, Lena gave her a little elbow nudge.

‘You doing okay there Danvers?’

‘Huh?’

Lena raised an eyebrow at her.

‘Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I’m good, sorry. I just realised, I don’t think I’ve ever been in a room with this many other gay people before. It’s kind of blowing my mind.’

She knew what Alex meant. It was different for her of course – she had been in plenty of rooms with at least this many other queer people, but not like this. Those had all been highly curated events with carefully chosen guest lists of the rich and powerful, all of whom knew exactly who Lena was. It had meant that no matter how much she might enjoy herself, she always had to be aware of the impression she was giving, just in case any of it came back to bite her later.

But here there was none of that. This was just a bar that she happened to have walked into with a friend. They didn’t have to be The Lena Luthor and Director Alex Danvers here, and the one or two people who had glanced up when they came in had gone back to their own conversations, clearly seeing nothing noteworthy in their arrival. Right now Lena was just one more woman who loved women in a crowd of others just like her. It made her feel unremarkable. Mundane even.

She was going to like it here.

Once they had their drinks they settled at a table that was slightly out of the thick of things, but not so far back that they felt hidden away. For a little while they sipped in silence, just soaking it all in and allowing themselves to fully experience what it was like to be in the majority. Alex particularly still seemed very slightly in shock, though she was clearly trying not to stare too obviously at anyone in particular.

After a few minutes she let out a long breath and swore softly.

‘I didn’t realise. I fell in love with a woman and I came out to my family and I thought that was it, I never realised how much more there was. I’m not just a woman who happens to love other women. I am a lesbian, and that means I get to be part of something bigger than my own relationships. I feel like I missed out on so much by not working it out sooner.’

‘It’s not too late. Everyone starts the journey at their own pace, and you have plenty of time for yours. Maybe when things have settled back down and Kara... well, maybe one day we could all go to a pride parade together.’

‘Yeah… I’d like that. How come we never talked about this stuff before? It feels like kind of a waste.’

Lena shrugged.

‘We weren’t those sorts of friends. We were both more focused on Kara…’

They still were of course. Kara was their centre and the purpose for their coming together in the first place, but now Lena and Alex had formed a bond that was separate to their relationship with her. And maybe, whatever happened between Lena and Kara once Kara had her Supergirl memories back, even if they found they couldn’t work through the lies and hurt on both sides and decided not to stay friends, maybe this friendship with Alex would be something she would be able to keep this time.

‘I guess so. It’s weird though, I’ve known you for years and I don’t even know anything about what all this is like for you. I mean… have you dated women before? When did you figure out that you were bi?’

‘Boarding school. I was 15, and I realised I had the biggest crush on Andrea Rojas.’

‘Andrea- wait, that Andrea Rojas? Kara’s boss? Kara’s boss that she hates?’

‘The same. She’s more fun if she’s not your boss.’

Though it could be fun when Andrea got bossy too, in the right context.

‘Wow okay. So you two were a couple?’

Lena tilted her hand back and forth in a measuring gesture.

‘I wouldn’t say we were a couple, exactly. We were best friends, and there was definitely… tension. Then one night we snuck down to the common room in the middle of the night – no one else around, just us in the dark with a bottle of scotch Andrea had managed to smuggle in. We drank a bit of it, but just a few sips each, we hadn’t really acquired a taste for it yet, and then we talked – or more accurately, we flirted, though not in a very intentional way. Andrea was playing with the bottle, just for something to do with her hands at first, but watching it turning round and round, I think we both had the idea at the same time. She picked it up very deliberately and put it down between us, then kept eye contact while she set it spinning. We both stared at it so intensely, it was like our entire future depended on whether it stopped pointing at me or not.’

‘And did it?’

Lena laughed.

‘Not even close. But I kissed her anyway.’

‘Wow. That’s a bold move, I can’t imagine having that much confidence at 15.’

‘Well, you have to remember we were raised in families who expected to get what they wanted, and we had been dancing around it for months by that point. I think on some level we both knew it was just a matter of time. Anyway, that night kind of opened the floodgates, and we had a lot more secret make out sessions, and then eventually more than that… but it always felt more like a friends with benefits set up than an actual committed relationship. After a while she started dating someone else and so we stopped our trysts, and then I did too. We would still get together sometimes after we left school, if we were both in the same city and neither of us happened to be dating anyone else at the time, but it was always casual.’

‘And... do you still? Now she’s in National City?’

‘No. We had a… falling out. We’re back on reasonable terms now, but it’s not like it used to be. I couldn’t trust her the same way after that.’

There was a silence following this statement, filled with their shared knowledge of Lena’s more recent ‘falling out’ with someone she had romantic feelings for, and the unspoken implications about trust brought up by the parallels of the two situations.

But Kara and Andrea could hardly be more different, and Lena had never felt about Andrea the way she did for Kara…

Did that make their future prospects better, or worse?

She wasn’t sure, and she couldn’t stand the heaviness that now seemed to be pressing down on their evening of queer discovery, so she shook it off, and tried to get the conversation back on track.

‘How about you? What was your gay awakening like?’

‘ Oh, well, the big thing was meeting Maggie, obviously. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot since, and realising there were so many things that I missed at the time that make so much more sense now. Like how weird and complicated my feelings got about sleeping over with my best friend Vicky in high school. Or the girl in my freshman college dorm who was obsessed with Norwegian fantasy movies, and I was the only one who would watch them with her. I didn’t understand a word of what was going on, but she would always grab my hand and hold on tight whenever this one guy came on screen, and that was enough to make me keep going back. Then there was the barista I used to try to coincide my coffee shop visits with, even though she made terrible coffee. But she had blue hair and all these amazing tattoos, and she would give me this look and call me Beautiful like it was my name, and she used to slip me free muffins when her manager wasn’t looking.’

‘...And you didn’t read that as her flirting with you?’

‘Well no, not at the time. Why?’

‘No, nothing, I think I’m just seeing where Kara gets it from. It might not be quite an office full of flowers, but that girl did everything but write her number on your cup to tell you she was interested.’

‘Oh. Uh… she actually did write her number on my cup one time.’

‘WHAT?’

‘It wasn’t like that! It was just in case-’

Alex broke off, thinking back over the interaction, and shook her head.

‘Yeah, no, okay it was exactly like that. Self-denial is a hell of a drug.’

It probably wasn't nice to laugh at someone's process of coming to terms with their sexuality, but in this case Lena couldn't help it.

‘God, if we had had this conversation a year ago I would have known I needed to hire a sky writer to get through to Kara. Or just grabbed her by the lapels and stuck my tongue down her throat.’

Alex groaned and swatted her arm.

‘Lena!’

‘Oh you know what I mean. Anyway, it’s probably for the best. If you had picked up on Cute Blue Haired Barista’s flirting you might not be with Kelly now.’

The aggrieved look softened instantly into a dopey smile, like just the mention of Kelly's name was enough to make Alex happy. She looked the way Lena felt when she thought about Kara, and it made her simultaneously happy for her friend and intensely jealous of Alex’s uncomplicated romantic relationship.

‘Yeah, Kelly is pretty great. I guess it was worth waiting for my big realisation if it meant I got to end up where I am with her. I do wish I could talk more to her about what’s happening at the moment though. You know, with Project Atlantis… I mean, she knows in a general sense, but not how personal it is. I hate feeling like I’m keeping something from her.’

‘Kelly doesn’t know about Kara?’

‘No. Things between us were still pretty new when everything happened, and now… I can’t exactly ask Kara’s permission to loop her in, can I?’

‘No, but… for what it’s worth, I think you should tell her anyway. Kelly is your person, and you need to be able to share something this huge with your person. Your sister has essentially had a serious accident that’s left her with amnesia and missing half the context of your life together. That is a lot to deal with on your own on top of trying to keep everything from falling apart in Supergirl’s absence, and you need someone to talk to about it all. Kelly deserves to know what all this means to you, and I really think Kara will understand.’

Alex went quiet for a moment, prodding at a chunk of lime floating in her Caipiroska with a rainbow striped straw, and then asked ‘who do you talk to about it?’

‘What?’

‘Kara’s your person, right? And you can’t tell her how you’re feeling about any of this. I’ve never really thought about that before. I mean, she’s my person too obviously, but in a different way. And like you said, I have Kelly... But you don’t. And it must be hard for you.’

Lena looked away. Somehow she hadn’t been prepared for her comment to get turned around on her, but it was true. She had spent so much of her recent past keeping herself a step removed from everyone around her, safe and solitary, and yet now when she actually wanted to be brave and do the work to open up, she couldn’t let herself.

Honestly, it was shit.

But Lena was in a her first gay bar with an excessively pink drink in front of her and a Tegan and Sara song blasting in the background, and she had no intention of getting maudlin about her unrequitable love right now, so she fell back on an easier answer.

‘Oh, I have my own ways of relieving the stress.’

‘Such as?’

She shrugged.

‘I break things. Wine glasses, mostly. Plates. An electron microscope once, after the Q-wave trial failed. It’s cathartic.’

Alex stared at her, clearly not having been quite ready for this response. Then she snorted.

‘Has anyone ever told you that being a billionaire makes you kind of an insufferable brat? You seriously smashed a piece of equipment that costs at minimum tens of thousands of dollars because “it was cathartic”?’

‘Hey, I fixed it afterwards! I might be obnoxiously rich but I’m not stupid.’

‘You… you fixed it afterwards.’

‘What? I did! I actually added in some upgrades while I was at it, so it was a net positive really-’

Alex shook her head, looking half wondering, half exasperated.

‘Fucking hell Lena. You are by far my weirdest friend. And most of my friends are aliens. One of my friends is a blue guy from another century who is also part computer. But you still win. NONE of that is how normal people deal with their feelings.’

‘Maybe that’s just because normal people don’t have access to electron microscopes, or sufficient knowledge about their inner workings to rebuild them after they get smashed.’

‘Yeah, no that is definitely not it weirdo.’

For the most part Lena didn't appreciate being called out for being odd. It reminded her too much of a childhood spent trying so desperately to fit in with what was expected of her only to fall short again and again, the black sheep in every situation. But somehow, in this context, it didn't feel like a bad thing. She pulled the straw from her drink to point it at Alex, accidentally-on-purpose flicking a drip of pink grapefruit and gin mix in her direction as she did so.

‘Psh, jealous. Keep talking like that and I won’t invite you to come and smash things with me next time we need to vent.’

Alex let the drink splashing go without comment, straightening up from her semi-slouched pose with a suddenly hopeful look.

‘Wait no, invite me! I want to smash things!’

‘Huh, what happened to “that’s not normal”?’

‘Well, not highly delicate and expensive scientific equipment things, but I could absolutely be down for bashing the hell out of a junk yard car or something. I was always kind of jealous that Kara could work out her feelings by pounding an old car into a crushed blob with her bare fists, but I bet it would still be pretty satisfying with a sledge hammer.’

‘You wait until you try a laser.’

Alex’s eyes went wide.

‘You have lasers? Can I play with them??’

‘Sure. As long as you listen to my safety instructions before you touch anything – I don’t want you burning a hole all the way through the side of my building.’

‘Awesome. I take back everything I said, your way of dealing with emotion is totally normal and healthy and not at all bratty-rich-kid.’

‘I should think so.’

Alex hesitated, then added in a more serious tone ‘however, if you ever decide you want to try a different kind of catharsis… you can always talk to me, you know.’

‘Thanks Alex. You can talk to me too.’

‘Oh I was planning on it. But uh… Just do me a favour and don’t tell me any more about how you want to kiss my sister, okay?’

Well, saying that was basically handing Lena the advantage on a silver platter. An evil grin twitched at the corners of her mouth, and she leaned confidingly closer across the table.

‘Oh, I don’t just want to kiss your sister. I am an adult woman with adult needs, and I want to-’

‘Aaargh oh my god shutupshutupshutup you absolute GREMLIN!’

Lena licked her lips, schooling her expression into something downright lascivious as she doubled down on her baiting.

‘Have you seen her biceps? And her abs are just- mmmm.’

‘Lena Luthor I am so serious right now, if you don’t stop that this second I will tip this drink over your head and ass-plant you right off your stool. That is so gross.’

It was tempting to keep torturing her, but Lena was laughing too hard by this point to think of anything else to say. Besides, it honestly felt pretty weird for her to talk about Kara like that to anyone, let alone her own sister.

Worth it though, given how much it had made Alex squirm.

‘Okay, okay, I’m done. Consider that payback for all the cotton candy jibes.’

‘Urgh. Paid back in full and then some. And you owe me about five more drinks to help block out the memories of what you just said.’

Alex knocked the rest of her drink back, and whether her shudder was for the sudden rush of alcohol or the mental images Lena had managed to evoke was anyone’s guess.

‘Aw, poor little delicate flower. Alright, my round. They actually do a shot here called ‘Supergirl’, shall I get you one of those?’

‘ABSOLUTELY NOT.’

There were several other temptingly named shots that would have served to send Alex into further paroxysms of horror (a Slippery Nipple, a Screaming Orgasm, a Quick Fuck, and of course the classic Sex on the Beach would all have done it after the conversation they had just had), but in the end she had mercy and bought her a perfectly respectable New York Sour shot and another passion fruit Caipiroska; and when she returned to the table she allowed the conversation to move on to less contentious subjects.

She had that one in her back pocket now though, just in case she needed future retaliation material. It would not be difficult to wax lyrical about Kara’s strong shoulders and tantalising shy lip-bite if she needed to.

[milburnandnyman]

SEX EDUCATION S4 *SPOILERS AHEAD*

Because I just binged the whole thing and I indeed cannot get past not commenting on it.

Spoilers begin from here on…

Let me just say that… I am disappointed with this season. And kinda in general (the entire Cavendish part felt so forced, I really missed seeing more of the old characters and the old setting and I wish other endings were happier, too), but obviously as a Jeankob shipper, that Jean storyline left me with a knot in my stomach.

I know things definitely didn’t seem promising from whatever glimpse we could get beforehand, but this was just so loose and forced and empty I could cry.

I immediately assumed they maybe could not get Mikael Persbrandt to do S4, because this storyline just makes absolutely no sense to me otherwise. If this was intended all along as is, then it is complete bullshit.

They literally built up this couple from S1 onward and made them struggle so much, while simultaneously letting us know how much they love one another, I was 100% convinced that in the very end they would get their happy ending no matter what. Love just had to win for once. And what actually happened seemed as if they just picked up all there ever was and dismissed it completely, tearing it apart.

This only makes sense to me if they had to “fix it” last minute and write Jakob out, because Mikael would not be there to do it. Because explain to me three seasons of chemistry and growth, explain to me all the S3 moments (especially the S3!), everyone indicating that Jean and Jakob love one another, the therapist, Maureen’s “Jakob adores you”, Ruby’s “you’re a good loking couple”, then the treehouse (I cannot believe they had the nerve to shit on that this season, calling it “creepy”), I thought the “you didn’t finish the treehouse” bit was there almost as a guarantee that he will indeed finish it in the future along with his promise to Otis “I’m not going anywhere”. The way Ola named the baby Joy, the Jean Jakob Joy - are you kidding me? The way Jean was so sure about Jakob being the father from the VERY beginning - “but he’s had a vasectomy”, “it seemed fated”, agreeing to the dna test without a single question, being surprised when reading the actual result, probably being able to CALCULATE as a smart woman and also, I think she literally kept the baby, because it was meant to be her and Jakob’s, because she loved the man, I’m sure she wouldn’t keep it if she doubted it was his, oh and also… I assume she definitely used protection with all her one night stands as a sex therapist, but I always assumed she stopped using it with Jakob, because they were an exclusive couple and she trusted the vasectomy. It seems literally impossible to me that she would not doubt it even once.

So, I was certain there would be some games around this paternity plot, maybe make us believe Jakob is not the father, but then something would happen and it would be revealed as a mistake or something. Then Jean and Jakob would both have “done wrong” in some way, she cheated in the past and then he left her over the dna test - they’d finally be kinda “equal” in hurting one another. And maybe realize that despite it all, they still love one another deeply and they have to leave the past behind and make it work.

And I cannot believe that instead of that we just got a very loose storyline about the baby daddy, no real explanation, just some brief crap “95% sure” and that ending of “a part of me always knew it wasn’t his, but” - I am sorry, but the Jean I knew from previous seasons would never even go to Jakob if she had even a glimpse of a doubt. She struggled telling him in the first place. So, making Dan the baby daddy in the end just felt so forced and disappointing, while mentioning Jakob only briefly + the way Jean was already unhappy for the majority of her screen time, it was sad to watch. I enjoyed some parts with Jean and her sister and getting to know more about their past etc., but all in all, her story this season was just depressing and this to me is anything but a happy ending. It’s not “finishing strong and hard”. It’s “I’m gonna pretend there’s no S4”.

I will however forever be grateful to the creator for giving us this couple, I have rooted for them from the very beginning and it is crushing to know that this is it, I am deeply sad about this ending and I think I’m going to need some happy fanfics to make it better or some past season rewatches. Because I cannot accept this. It feels like we’ve been left with absolutely nothing, robbed of it all.

So, to conclude: in my head, SexEd ends with S3 and Jeankob’s story wraps up with Jakob attending the therapy and deciding to trust again, being there for Jean at birth, Jean surviving the birth, there’s no fucking DNA test, just both of them reuniting afterwards, talking it through and forgiving one another and they make. it. work. Because they deserve it. And they live out their love, while raising their daughter.

So, with all due respect… today is a very bittersweet day. And I wish it were different.

[penguinkyun]

chapter 150 review

*laughs* oh this chapter. this is the day ive been waiting for since 123 dropped last year. folks its finally over. but before that lets review: augh aqua looks so tiny in the first panel....standing with bloodsoaked pants. man. he can't ever escape that hallway huh. him and goro being stuck in that same hallway from over ten years ago, still drenched in blood is so....auhg. i am so happy we're finally getting back into aquas head after *checks notes* 31 chapters of no longer being in his head! and i really love the conversation between the two of them too! it establishes a lot of what i've been thinking of how aqua views his reincarnation vs how ruby views it i.e. she is continuing her life as sarina unbroken but aqua....is a wholly different person! a year is enough time to change a person let alone almost twenty years! and how goro refers to himself as a faint wound is also quite interesting because as we've seen in c.65 and c.95, goro is used almost exclusively as aqua's vehicle of self hatred, constantly telling him he has no right to be happy or that he deserves to live unless ai's murderer is dead (put a pin in that point). goro is wound that aqua has not allowed to heal and it festers until he does. AND FINALLY. WE ARE FREE. we've never really seen aqua's viewpoint of the whole Incest Debacle apart from the very very uncomfortable faces he makes when ruby is chasing after him and that's because the very instant we get back into aqua's head he instantly shuts down any notion of it ever happening. it really is just ruby seeing the illusion of goro amamiya in him and aqua is no longer that person. anyways speaking of c.95, goro giving up here is very....eh. sure seeing sarina happy must've triggered some rethinking because she was also a major part of his guilt but. its always been centred around ai! ai's murder is the reason goro can't let go, because he was never able to fulfill his promise to protect her. avenging ai is always the driving force of whenever we see phantoms of goro in aquas head! honestly this is part of like. the story largely removing ai as a driving force in the twins lives - from decentering her involvement in their reincarnation to excising her from goro and aqua's central motivation for vengeance. but as i say that, goro has always been a vehicle for aqua's self hatred when it comes to his revenge. he is exclusively shown as a restraint on aqua gaining any sort of happiness and all his self hatred given form. but the phantom that is actually his desire for revenge, pure and unfiltered is:

and we haven't seen aqua confront him yet have we? *laughs nervously* also goro acting like an elder brother to aqua and teasing him about his crush on kana is hilarious lmfao. and handing him the knife. ha. anyways kana is so funny here. girl does not acknowledge akane as her rival in any major sense. akane is crying somehwere in the background (for legal reasons this is a joke). anyways kana slowly working up the courage to finally confess to aqua is so beautiful because she has incredibly low self esteem and to see her hope in this? after reminiscing on all her moments with aqua is really sweet. honestly a lot of aqkn romantic moments feel overdramatic on kana's end but this was. just really sweet really. it reminds of the moment in sweet today where she just glances aqua's way before the camera comes on. actually this chapter itself gives me a lot of the early onk vibes in how its written which is quite different from the tone of the movie arc which swung between comedy and almost horror. i will say i like that both aqkn think of their more normal moments in between all the dramatic ones. and god that panel of kana. shes so beautiful. i am so scared. because there is no way aqua will accept, since she is still an idol, kamiki is somewhere in the background and. well baby aqua hasn't shown up yet has he?

either way the knife is in aqua's hands now. its his choice if he wants to turn it on himself or throw it away.

break next week!

[annoyinglandmagazine]

Sons of Feanor+Nicknames

Ok so on the one hand I feel like there’s a lot of possibility for the relationships between the sons of Feanor being really complicated and fractured. But on the other, what if they aren’t? What if despite how messed up the Finweans are this one most messed up part of the family just genuinely loves each other.

They have a lot of nicknames for each other and a lot are sarcastic. Obviously there’s Nelyo, Kano, Tyelko etc. that only family really gets away with using but it doesn’t stop there. I firmly believe that terms like sweetheart, darling, dearest, little one and baby brother are absolutely present in most of their vocabulary. Everyone kind of expects that it’s mainly Kano because he uses them the most in public to embarrass his siblings and is the most commonly associated with being a little soft. But everyone is wrong.

Maedhros actually uses them more than everyone else combined he’s just a lot more private about it. And when Maedhros does it it’s never teasing or sarcastic like it is often for his brothers. He uses them all the time on all his siblings and none of them ever protest about it despite being very much full grown adults who command armies. He drops them into strategy meetings when they’re having a disagreement just to let his siblings know he’s not too angry at them. Tyelko does as well it’s just almost always sarcastic with him and they absolutely do get annoyed when he does it.

Caranthir is one of the younger ones so he uses them less but still drops in a lot of unnecessary ‘brothers’ into conversations. And he does sometimes tease Curvo with ‘little one’. He also secretly enjoys being referred to by them by Maglor and Maedhros a lot. It makes him feel safe. They all do it to the Ambarussa. Every time they see them, constantly. They are and always will be literal babies to everyone else and they are super protective of them. They’ve kind of gotten used to it by now.

Elrond and Elros absolutely pick up on this. Elrond and Gil Galad refer to each other almost exclusively by pet names throughout the second age. Gil Galad thinks this is flirting and finds it very entertaining. Elrond literally just talks to people like that.

[rabbiaharon]

I’m not very familiar with Torah so forgive me if this is a dumb question, but in the law it says not to punish a child for the sins of his father and yet during the exodus G-d killed the first born Egyptian children for the sins of their fathers against the Jewish people. even though the law came after the exodus isn’t that a moral inconsistency on G-d’s part? I’ve asked this question many times online and haven’t received an answer, and I’m not jewish so I don’t have anyone to ask irl

I apologize for how long this took, I didn’t mean to deny you your answer, but I’ve had a tenuous relationship at best with Tumblr these days due to rising antisemitism, and I did take a nearly 6 year hiatus. It’s not a dumb question at all, but a question fundamental to jewish theology, and one with ample examples across all of mikrah and mishnah. In fact, the Talmud asks almost this exact question in Tractate Berachos (7a), comparing two verses: the first one “he visits the sins of the fathers on their children, on the third generation, and on the fourth” (פּוקד עון אַבות על הבנים על שלשים ועל רבעים - Shemos 34:7), and the second one “children shall not die by the sins of their fathers, by one’s own sin they will die” (בנים לא ימותו על אבות - Devarim 24:16).

The Talmud observes that these two pesukim appear to contradict each other, and then resolves the contradiction: The former posuk, which states that a person will be punished for the sin of their ancestors up to the 4th generation is if they retain and continue the ways of their forefathers, in other words, doing the same set of sins. The novelty being that they are only held responsible until the 4th generation, rather than forever as long as they maintain the same evils. What’s cool about this, from a comparative theology perspective, is that a proper reading of this posuk entirely eliminates the Xtian idea of Original Sin, being that even if we were following in the ways of Adam and Chava in their decision to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, we are more than 4 generations away from that sin, so we can certainly not be held responsible for it.

The second posuk, which explains that a person is only responsible for their own sin, refers to a situation where the child has not followed the wicked ways of their fathers.

There is an additional aspect to this comparison as well, which is that the first posuk refers to punishment meted out by Hashem, such as in the situation of the Egyptians, whereas the second posuk refers to the punishment meted out by the Rabbinical Courts below.

To address the situation you brought up in your initial question, why were the firstborn killed for the sin of their fathers? They weren’t, per say. Not exclusively. They played a role in their fathers’ sins. They took part in throwing jewish babies into the river. They were the priests of Egyptian idolatry and the greatest opponents towards letting the jews serve G-d, particularly because our method of service often involved the sacrifice of the things they worshipped. In fact, they didn’t “change their minds” about letting the jews go until they saw the jews tying sheep to their bedposts for the Pesach sacrifice, and when they [the first born] asked, the jews said “G-d is going to kill the firstborn and then we’ll be leaving anyway”. In other words, their change of heart wasn’t out of a desire to actually repent, but entirely born out of self-interest.

In addition, one without context can assume, based on this circumstance, that G-d metes out indiscriminate collective punishment, since every single one of the firstborn of Egypt were killed, except Pharaoh himself, and that the entirety of Egypt suffered as a result of all of this. This is also inaccurate, as G-d ensured that all the citizen Mitzrim had an opportunity to take part in the sin, by causing Pharaoh to withhold the straw they needed to make mortar and bricks. Two centuries earlier, in exchange for selling them food during the years of famine, Yosef acquired all the physical land in Egypt on behalf of Pharaoh… In other words, all of Egypt was living on royal land, and when Pharaoh stopped giving the jews pre-cut straw, the assumption was that they would go into the fields of Egyptiants - fields that belonged to the government - and cut the straw needed to complete their requisite service to the king. Instead, civilians who were previously uninvolved would savagely beat jews that came to collect the straw, which gave them a role in the sin which eventually destroyed Egypt. Thus, even if you apply the same rules to the heavenly court and the earthly court, no moral inconsistency is present.

This ties in to the big issue that all the goyim on this website who harbor the mental illness formerly known as judenhass have made their rallying cry to attack innocent jews from all over the world - Gaza. As a teacher, I have very deep sympathy for children in Gaza, as a general rule, who did not sign up to be used as human shields for a terrorist organization. Their parents? As a teacher, even if they were innocent of direct involvement with Hamas, but have not tried to leave Gaza and emigrate to another, safer country, I hate them with a consummate hatred. Why? Because they have endangered their own children, and as a teacher, I cannot abide that. From a torah perspective? Every child who wants to terrorize Jews because it makes their parents proud, wants to kill jews to buy their parents’ favor, and doesn’t once question whether killing innocent people is the correct course of action, will almost undoubtedly share their parents’ fate, as they have a deep desire to share in their sin.

Still, regardless of their “status”, our main focus should be on our own actions. We should strive to discern the innocent from the guilty. Even if we cannot always make that distinction we still have to act for the sake of Heaven. We must strive to work on our own behavior, so that when Rosh Hashanah comes, Hashem will see our efforts and give us his help, as revealed good, as we pass into a new year, may it be a year of redemption.

[henrysglock]

Something that’s been eating at me for a while as an anime fan AND a Stranger Things fan post-ST4:

Edward Creel and NINA vs Edward Elric and Nina Tucker…vs the semi-sentient demodogs.

I'll start with a quick preface for anyone who doesn't know about the shitshow that was the Tucker family. Shou Tucker was a state-funded alchemist researching chimeras with the goal of creating one that could understand and speak to humans. If he failed to produce results, he would be stripped of his state-alchemist title and his funding would be discontinued. He had a daughter, Nina, and their dog Alexander. Ed and his younger brother Al (he's in the suit of armor. he's a disembodied soul attached to the armor. there's more lore but that's all you need to know atm) were very close with Nina, treating her like a baby sister.

It's all verrrry cute:

That is...Until.

Shou Tucker combines Nina with her dog to create a "chimera" that can speak...because he is incapable of doing so without using a human as the other component. His experiments with nothing but animals had failed, and the experimental chimera he created that gained him his title had been made out of his wife. He meshed his child with a dog for personal gain.

The names alone are enough to make me raise an eyebrow, especially given how widely know the sequence is as a horrific tragedy. The Duffers know about this sequence. Trust me, they do. It would actually be weirder if they didn't know this sequence, given its fame.

Anyway, as we see from the NINA sequence, the way Henward kills the children is identical to the other ST4 victims:

And he tells El they're a part of him, in his mind, just like he said about other victims he'd killed:

But when we get into Henward's actual mind-lair:

The children, unlike the other victims of ST4, are nowhere to be seen.

So...Where the hell are the children?

This is where the Ed-Nina-Edward-NINA ties starts making me retch and sob.

We see from D'art that the demodogs seem to have a personality of their own while also being connected to the hive mind.

We know that at least one of the Henwards is enmeshed with the Shadow Monster to be the Mindflayer, and that the Shadow "enters" democreatures to revive/activate them. We also see in Russia a cut-open demodog whose position and bindings are almost identical to Will's exorcism. The Mindflayer, even before the 001/Vecna reveal, is exclusively referred to as "he". D'art is also exclusively referred to as "he". If the pronoun use pattern holds true, and each creature that has "he" attached to it is linked to the mind/essence of a human being, then I ask again:

Where are the children?

This also links back with Brenner, because of course it does. Shou Tucker is very Brenner. A touch creepy, seems generally well meaning until you actually know what he's about, willing to exploit children for scientific prowess/funding. Shou Tucker is very much a mediocre, ordinary alchemist seeking greatness through others, making a good child into a dog-like abomination. It makes me think about why Early Scorched Vecna looks the way he does (the weird CGI on Jamie's face that makes him look so Brenner) and Nick's comments about Brenner being part demogorgon.