#and I think for Will we will see something similar

[ao3commentoftheday]

I know "I'm bad at summaries" and "I'm bad at tags" are not sentiments to voice in the summary/tags of a fic. But, genuinely, I don't consider myself good at either. (This is background.)

The actual question is, how do I learn these? Especially tagging. My fandom background is sparse, at least far as participation in broader fandom culture is concerned, so I wasn't part of fandom when current tagging practices on AO3 evolved. It's difficult for me to grasp, and I suspect I end up treating the tags more like CWs than search terms as a result.

Great for people who want to filter out particular unpleasant elements. Not so great for people who can't find my fic because I didn't think to tag something someone else might see as obvious. I have severe social anxiety so joining e.g. a Discord to ask for help isn't really a viable option. Tagging fic isn't worth panic attacks.

Tagging fic isn't worth panic attacks.

100% agreed!

When it comes to being "good at tagging" that definition is going to vary from person to person. It will also vary depending on what your goal is.

I'm a fairly minimal tagger myself. I'll tag the fandom and the major characters, the general vibe (e.g. humour, smut etc) and then anything else I might think of. I don't personally like to tag smut fics with all of the various sex acts in them, but I've done it before because I thought I was supposed to. Since it doesn't really feel like "me" though I've since stopped doing that. If folks want to avoid my fic as a result, that's totally fair. If folks who would like it can't find it 🤷‍♀️ maybe it'll be a rec someday.

All that is to say that tagging is not a thing it's possible to be perfect at, so just aim for accomplishing whatever your goal is.

I get what you're saying, though. I wrote a fake dating fic once without tagging it as fake dating because I didn't realize that fake dating was a trope. It was only when a couple of friends started referring to it that I realized and added that tag to my fic.

One way to learn about those kinds of tropes is to pay attention when you see them tagged on other people's fics. You can browse through tags that are similar to ones you already use and see what else people add to their fics and whether those would work for yours or not.

You can also visit Fanlore! It's another project by the OTW (the people who run AO3) and it's a great resource for learning about fandom. You can look up a common tag like Alternate Universe, and it will give you examples of different types of AU and link out to pages that will link out to pages that will... you get the idea. It's wikipedia but for fandom stuff.

As for summaries, there are a lot of ways to go about that too. I'll let folks add ideas in the notes. The way I do it is that I include the name(s) of the major character(s), and outline the inciting incident for the fic. Since I post as I write, I might or might not tease something that happens later on (because I might or might not know yet).

The way to get good at doing it is just to keep practicing. When I was in university, I took a Russian Lit course where we had to write a summary of each novel in 200 words or less, 10 sentences or less - and semicolons were cheating. I did that 13 times in 8 months, and by the end of that I was really good at writing summaries. Add in the fact that I started posting fic back on FF.net where there was a character limit on summaries and you can see why I keep them pretty short.

That's another thing that you can analyze in others' fics, though. Find a summary that you think is well-written for whatever type of summary you like and then look at that author's other fics to see if you can spot a pattern to how they do it. Once you find the pattern, it's a lot easier to replicate it and then it's just a matter of repeating it until it feels natural.

[jumalanpelko]

Since we have A LOT of new people here, I want to ask this again:

Here some that ive seen people shipping! (Ended up not including Mesi x Viima since even tho their ages are bit ambiguous I personally feel like they have more of older sibling/younger sibling relationship and prefer them as platonic)

(And because someone always asks Mesi is around 3 years and Kuutamo is similar in age, Mesi just looks older because of trauma)

Again, Jumalanpelko isnt shipping heavy story by any means but i think its fun to see peoples takes

[ikeukiss]

ONE MORE NIGHT

〔 𝒾 〕 You tell yourself it will be the last time you commisserate with the enemy every time you leave him. But, like magnets, you always come back to each other in spite of every instinct telling you to walk away.

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐬𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐧 𝓍 𝐟𝐞𝐦!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫, 2.1K ⋮ 18+ ⋮ smut, forbidden romance, friends(?) with benefits, ceo!sunghoon, ceo!reader, spanking, degradation, oral (m receiving), fingering, unprotected sex, creampie ᯤ 𝗅𝗂𝗌𝗍𝖾𝗇 𝗍𝗈: one more night — maroon 5

⌗ 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬 ── This is a reposted story from November as I do not write for the group I originally posted for anymore! It fits so well with Sunghoon so I thought why not re-post it? Enjoy!

Any excuse to run across Sunghoon reminds you why you’re such a good liar. Both in life and in business, it’s an excellent skill to have in order to hold a lot of things together. Sunghoon isn't one to conceal much of anything, though. Maybe that’s why you both can’t stand each other sixty percent of the time, your rigidness the perfect clash with his carefree nature. The guy holds a title you worked for forever while he seemed to earn it with the flick of his wrist. 

Your families didn’t share fuzzy feelings either. On paper, your parents and his appeared a perfect match, your hotel empire mirroring his chain of popular city restaurants. But it was anything but, unfortunately. The lack of similar business interests and practices, as well as their disproportionate dispositions, made it a pain to get together every time there was a dinner party or business convention with both of your companies on the ticket.

Like tonight, the expo for the new release of stocks for many companies is another standoff between your respective parties. You have to hold yourself back from sharing any words of encouragement or conversation that paint Sunghoon and his company in a good light without being rude. In truth, you could care less about the hotels right now, flitting your gaze to the ballroom doors to see the one person who drives you insane.

You refuse to admit the red dress you’re wearing shows off your neckline just for him. You didn’t put on an extra spritz of perfume that he likes to make his head spin. And you certainly don’t wish the executives you’re talking with right now would walk away so you could find the man himself.

Of course, he saunters in the room when he lingers on your mind, walking past the many gray suits with little care for his late entrance. His three-piece suit exaggerates the lines of his body in a way that irritates you and turns you on in the same breath. He shakes the hands of the stakeholders with a shit-eating grin and glides near you with a hand on the small of your back, determined to shake your resolve without saying a word.

It’s his nature to get under your skin with something as simple as the light graze of his fingertips. He loves to see you flustered until you’re begging and pleading, the actions completely against your normal character. You’ll never bow down to any man or woman in the world to get what you want, but for Sunghoon, he seems to be the only exception to the rule.

Of course, you’ll never admit that, playing it off as simple carnal desire and nothing more. You deny the heat pressing into your body the longer his hand lingers on the back of your dress, his thumb and forefinger playing with the zipper.

He says your name as he toys with your emotions further, the rest of the company around you going back to their casual conversations about trips abroad and business deals. “We need to discuss the merger. We can excuse ourselves for fifteen minutes, don’t you think?”

Sanctimonious prick.

He can barely hold himself together by the time you make it off the elevator together and walk toward the room. He strings you up against the hallway wall, his hand immediately hiking up your skirt and his lips clinging to your neck.

“You love this. You love messing with my head,” he grunts, taking your underwear in his fingers and dragging them down your legs. He could give a shit less if anyone were to leave their room to find the scene playing out in front of them. In his mind, three days has been torture. Any more and he would’ve exploded.

He has to make it known how much pain he has been in, and he has every intention of returning his torment with the same vigor.

“Hoon,” you whisper, the words about to leave your mouth as hollow as his preservation for your dignity. “Not here.”

“You don’t care,” he responds. The pad of his thumb easily finds your clit under your dress, rubbing circles into the center of your legs without stumbling on his words. “Everyone downstairs could see me fucking you and all that would matter to you is if you got off. And you know it.”

You moan into his mouth when he licks the roof of yours with his tongue. His fingers still dance in the pool at your center, your underwear clenched in his other hand pressed against the wall.

“Please fuck me, Sunghoon,” you beg, tugging on his pants as he continues with his thumb and forefinger bordering the walls of your cunt. The strain of his cock in the fabric is obvious, the outline of it making your mouth water.

He smirks, holding his bottom lip between his teeth. “Not before I feel that beautiful mouth on me, baby.”

By the time Sunghoon slides the keycard against the door mechanism and lets you both inside, you have him pressed to the other side of the door in record time. It takes only another second for the underside of your tongue to meet the tip of his cock. He barely had time to pull his pants down before you were taking him in your mouth, but he loves to see you like this, lust-drunk and impatient.

Just because you’re a good liar doesn’t mean you’re good at practicing delayed gratification.

Sure, you may not like him a good portion of the time. But now, with his hand violently wrapped in your hair, ruining the curls you spent an hour working on so he can fuck your face, you think you may die if you don’t feel him inside of you soon.

You gag around him when the tip of his cock hits the back of your throat. Tears pool in your eyes, but the sound of his moans and the way he slides between your lips is indescribable.

“Fuck, this mouth was made for me, you know that?” He groans, lovingly holding your cheek with the palm that isn’t wrapped in your hair. “My perfect little whore.”

You hum and continue letting him abuse your throat. His body trembles at the endorphins rushing through it, and he hasn’t even come yet.

Sunghoon pulls his cock out of your mouth abruptly, making you whine in confusion. He pulls you up by the hands, a knowing smile plastered across his face. Your knees burn from the friction against the carpet, but the force of his kiss makes you forget any feeling that isn’t pleasurable. The rest doesn’t seem to matter much at the moment; only him and his effects on your being take precedence in your mind.

“Y’know I love coming in your mouth, but I want your pussy more.” He takes you to the bed and motions for you to get on all fours once he discards your dress and high heels in a corner of the room.

He lands a hard smack against your ass, rubbing the skin as you whimper into the pillows underneath you. “You’re such a bad girl. Acting like you don’t want me, yet you’re hungry to have my cock filling you up every time you see me.” He takes his other hand to press his fingers inside of you. “My little brat, too proud to admit she loves being my little fucktoy, huh?”

You shake your head and stuff your face further into the pillow. You arch your back only for Sunghoon to spank you a second, third, and fourth time. He doesn’t take his fingers out of your heat even as he hits you, but each bout of contact with your ass and his palm is harder than the last.

“Don’t lie to me, baby. You know I hate it when you do that.” A fifth smack meets your ass, and you almost press your whole body flat onto the bed, the pain and pleasure too much to absorb at once.

“I love it, Sunghoon, I do. I love being yours,” you gasp, legs shaking. Your body stretches the coil inside of you tighter, unsure when will be the exact moment you fall apart.

Sunghoon doesn’t make you wonder for too long. “Prove it. Come on my fingers, baby. Let go.”

He presses a kiss to your reddened skin as you come undone. The orgasm rips through your energy without mercy. Your legs are limp and unable to hold you up any longer when you come back to reality.

That doesn’t mean the devilish man who’s caused you so much satisfaction is done.

“On your back, baby. It’ll make it easier.”

He hooks one leg across his waist, holding it tenderly as he slips inside of you. Groaning at the feeling of finally entering you, your walls still drenched from your previous arousal, he starts to move. He doesn’t push you further than necessary though, his pace languid but purposeful.

“You look so beautiful like this,” he moans, his sounds reverberating through the room. Your body is completely at his will, the aftershocks of your orgasm leaving you spent to an unfathomable degree. All that’s left for you to give are weak whimpers of ecstasy. “So fucked out because of me,” he continues, suddenly picking up the pace.

“Are you gonna make me come again, Hoon?” You ask, eyes half-lidded. Your body is on a slow crawl to a second release. But if Sunghoon has anything to say about it, he’ll make you orgasm before he does, like usual.

He may be full of himself, but he’s a giver.

He runs his thumb into your slick again, drawing swirls into your clit. You cry out at the feeling, him penetrating the deepest parts of you while touching the motherboard to your nerves so effortlessly. Why did he know how to get under your skin and also burn it alive?

With all of your strength, you lift your hips up to meet Sunghoon’s. He grunts as your skin meets his, his thrusts more powerful with your added effort.

“I’m gonna come, baby,” Sunghoon warns, slamming harder into you as his release comes closer to fruition.

“Me too,” you respond, the words becoming lilts of air as he pounds into you mercilessly. This orgasm is different from the first one, your body in silent surrender as the pleasure overtakes you. The only physical response you have is your slackened jaw.

“Fucking shit,” Sunghoon curses, your cunt tightening around him beautifully from your release. It pushes him into his own, his seed filling you with mind-blowing warmth.

Some of it spills out of you when you separate, but he plunges it back in with his fingers slowly. He kisses your stomach as you buck up from the sensitivity. “Easy, baby. Don’t want any of it going to waste, do we?”

Like clockwork, your satiated thoughts from pleasure become ones of humor at his ridiculous ways of claiming you for his own.

Your legs are intertwined with Sunghoon’s on the bed, the fuzzy robe you stole from the bathroom covering your body and grazing his. Sunghoon is sitting up against the headboard, wearing nothing but his briefs. He says nothing but stares intently as he strokes your thigh, your focus on stuffing your face with ice-cream.

Sunghoon went downstairs shortly after he crawled off of you, even apologizing personally for you and giving an excuse of not feeling well enough to stay at the conference. Normally, you would be fine going back downstairs without a second thought. Tonight, however, seems to be different in a way you can’t pin down. Something inside of your heart has shifted, more than you thought possible.

It doesn’t help that he came back upstairs with your favorite desserts. He walked in with a bashful grin, candy and ice-cream littered across the metal tray. “Extra cherries for your sundae, right?”

Now, looking at him, the weight of all the lies you told yourself before seems unnecessary to carry any longer. Would it be so bad to admit he was annoying, but also endearing?

You turn from your vanilla ice cream to look at him for the first time in forever. His mouth opens for a spoonful of your dessert, his eyes lit with glee at the prospect of you sharing with him. And you do, your heart too swollen with affection to say no.

This may be uncharted territory, but maybe it’ll be easier if you’re honest. And the truth is simple: the bane of your existence may very well be your perfect match.

── .✦ 𝗧𝗔𝗚𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗧 (𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗟𝗬 𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘):

@lovetaroandtaemin @filmnings @innocygnet @jaylaxies @xylatox @xomakara @gyubookeries @tinycatharsis @prkhaven @hannieoftheyear @frenchkisstheabyss @lovenha7

© 𝗜𝗞𝗘𝗨𝗞𝗜𝗦𝗦; 𝖣𝗈 𝗇𝗈𝗍 𝖼𝗈𝗉𝗒, 𝗋𝖾𝗉𝗈𝗌𝗍, 𝗍𝗋𝖺𝗇𝗌𝗅𝖺𝗍𝖾, 𝗉𝗅𝖺𝗀𝗂𝖺𝗋𝗂𝗓𝖾, 𝗈𝗋 𝗆𝗈𝖽𝗂𝖿𝗒 𝗆𝗒 𝗐𝗈𝗋𝗄 𝗂𝗇 𝖺𝗇𝗒 𝗐𝖺𝗒 𝗈𝗇 𝖺𝗇𝗒 𝗉𝗅𝖺𝗍𝖿𝗈𝗋𝗆𝗌!

[womanofwords]

Hay, um, I don't know if you're taking story requests right now or if this is how it's supposed to be done, but I've had this one reader x batfam thing stuck in my head for a while and I figured I'd at least see if I could get your thoughts on it.

So y/n runs away after the yandere starts getting out of hand. Maybe it starts similar to Cold Hearts with y/n getting hurt. Eventually, y/n runs into Bane while trying to get out of Gotham. He hears her story and helps her get out using his private boat or something. The family sees her getting while searching for her in costume.

Bane takes y/n to some island compound and gives her a room to stay in while he decides what to do with her. Eventually, he takes her on as an apprentice, and they start to bond, three or so months in, she accidentally calls him dad and then again and again, and soon enough, she's unironically calling Bane things like papa and daddy and he's calling her his own little pet name( in my head I imagine it "little dumbbell " but you do whatever). They, of course, create a costume for her to where when she's helping Bane with his stuff, I imagine it being various shades of blue with a mask reminiscent of her papa's.

One day, the batfam finds the compound and crashes in demanding to know where y/n is. Bane is surprised to see them but takes the opportunity to introduce his new partner

"Well, Batman, I don't think she'd want to go home even if you could take her. But how we take the time for you to meet my new apprentice"

Y/n leaps onto the scene in costume, now a tower of muscle thanks to Daddy's exercise regiment. The fam doesn't recognize her thanks to the costume and new muscles.

"Where is y/n Whane??!!!" Batsie screams

"Dead," y/n replies, "killed herself, something about how even if her family cared enough to want her back, they'd never get to her."

The bats are horrified by this and leave after a large brawl ensues.

They find out the truth eventually and start trying to get her back to no evail.

I don't have much more than that, but I still feel it was worth presenting to you.

I honestly think you read my mind, because I've been having a similar idea for a while now. Bane would make a great parent, if the standard for 'great parent' was being slightly more attentive than Bruce Wayne and remembering things other than their name and maybe their school. Since none of the Batfam really look at Reader (that plus the bulking up), that would go some way to explaining why they don't recognise her when she shows up with a new identity.

Bonus point for the Batfam realising that after searching Gotham for a dead body matching your description and not finding one because you're not dead (and they couldn't describe you anyway), you never actually died and was in front of them the whole time, as Bane's 'daughter'.

"How did you not notice her leaving to go and meet me, Batman?" Bane taunted. "If she's really so unfortunate as to be your biological daughter."

"Alfred handled most things," Bruce admitted. "We just want Y/N to understand that she has nothing to fear from us."

"But I always do!" you insisted. "Your son stabbed me with a serrated katana and you told me to consider his feelings. Hell no. Not taking my chances."

"Y/N, get away from that monster!" Damian demanded. Typical Damian, expecting things to go his way.

"Leave my daddy alone!" you yelled. "You have your dad and I have mine! Now go away!"

"But Y/N, I'm your daddy," Bruce said. "I'm the daddy to both of you."

"No, you're not! Don't be disgusting! Daddies play with their kids and know things about them! You're not my daddy!"

"Good girl, Y/N," Bane said, hugging you proudly. Bruce's stomach turned. "Let's leave this flock of bats in their belfry. You need to meet your protein goals, don't you?"

"Uh-huh," you said, relaxing into Bane's touch as he led you away.

"My sister doesn't love me," Damian whimpered. "And she thinks I'm not her brother."

"I should kill Bane just for looking at Y/N," Jason growled.

"I'll help you get away with it," Dick said.

"We'll need a new tactic." Bruce's voice cut through the plotting. "Something to aid Y/N in realising that we love her."

"She used to always want to read my books. I'll gift some to her," Jason suggested.

"Y/N could totally use a girls' day," Stephanie said. "She can't be left alone with just Bane. She needs girls around her."

"We can discuss the details later," Bruce said. "Let's go home."

The bats retreated to their belfry, which was much colder than they would have liked.

[sideprince]

I agree that there are a lot of unanswered questions around Eileen Prince that feel like plotholes, but I don't agree that she would have necessarily had a sense of power or independence, or that most muggle women at the time wouldn't have felt something similar. Women in the late forties/fifties were more empowered than their mothers had been, and if it hadn't been for each generation of women feeling a sense of power and independence in their own right, they wouldn't have fought for the rights we have now. Whether they had these things compared to what we have now is a different question, but if we're talking about "an inner sense" then we're talking about subjective feelings that are inevitably relative to the world around them and what they have to compare themselves to, both as a social group and as individuals. People have always found reasons for and ways to make the best of what they have, and imagining women of the past as a downtrodden monolith with crushed souls is both ahistorical and a flattening of a very real and very different history.

This is also why I don't think it's a given that Eileen had a sense of power or independence just because she was a wizard trained at Hogwarts. What we're really talking about here is confidence, and her main point of reference to compare herself to socially would have been her peers, not muggle women. This is ultimately an internal, psychological experience that depends on a variety of factors and personality, not on magical ability or even objective power, and that often changes over a person's lifetime. We see this in characters in HP all the time. For example, Neville is a pureblood raised by a grandmother who's proud of her son's and his wife's sacrifice. He's is a student at Hogwarts, so clearly he's magical enough to have gotten in. He has social power in being a pureblood, attends Hogwarts so has power muggles don't, his parents are war heroes, yet he lacks confidence completely, is terribly self-conscious, he doesn't do well in classes, and he has no particular close friend at school. Compare him to, say, Crabbe or Goyle, who are also purebloods, whose parents fought on the losing side of the war and had to hide their DE identities in shame, who also merited a place at Hogwarts yet have poor grades, but who have each other and Malfoy as friends. They're comparable to Neville in their abilities and potential for social clout, and should be about as lacking in confidence - which they are, deep down, hence why they're bullies - but they also embrace their places at Hogwarts in a way Neville isn't able to until he's older. On paper they're actually very similar in their traits and how they're perceived by their house peers, but their sense of confidence makes them very different people. In contrast to all of these characters, look at Luna, who alienates people, is called "Loony" and has her possessions stolen repeatedly because people think it's funny to mess with her, yet she's perfectly content with herself and isn't bothered by others' opinion of her. She's just as good a wizard as Neville, but he takes years to gain confidence in his abilities (and his own wand), whereas Luna seems to have it from the outset.

Being a fully trained wizard doesn't guarantee that someone will have an inner sense of power and independence. People finish school at the bottom of their class all the time, and people finish Hogwarts with a wide range of N.E.W.T.s qualifying them each for a very different range of opportunities. For one thing, but as we see in HP (and real life, if we look at the people around us) self-confidence and self-assurance are as much internally generated and managed as they are dependent on what's reflected back to us from others. Whatever abilities Eileen left school with, she would have compared herself to her peers, not to muggles - to do so would have been like a college athlete comparing themselves to kids on a schoolyard instead of to the pro athletes they are now hoping to join the ranks of. The more immersed wizards are in the wizarding world, the less relevant the muggle world is to them both socially and practically. As for how Eileen would have felt about her own abilities compared to her peers, there isn't really any way to know, because the text doesn't give us anything to go on.

Severus Snape is repeatedly described as looking sallow and never smiles, but in revealing his backstory and difficult childhood, we tend to assume the latter informs the former. But we also see a school-age Eileen described this way, which begs the question, are there parts of their personalities that are inherited traits, or did Eileen perhaps also come from a difficult family background which she perpetuated in her choice of partner? Whether or not Eileen was powerful and knew it but lost access to her wand one way or another, or whether she was the opposite, or somewhere in between, she ended up with an abusive partner. This implies a loss of confidence somewhere along the way, and statistically most partner abuse victims entered their relationship vulnerable to being exploited and manipulated by an abuser, so that tells us something about her. I can't remember where this quote is from, maybe it's Lundy Bancroft or maybe it was just a tweet I saw once, but it basically goes, if you keep having shitty people in your life it's not because something's wrong with you and they've targeted you for it, it's because they're like that with everyone you're just the one who stuck around and let them keep being like that with you. Which is ultimately rooted in a person's sense of empowerment and independence.

Being a fully trained wizard doesn't negate the inherent humanity of all the ways people can see themselves and how their internal struggles can play out. It's sort of like when the muggle prime minister blurts out, “But for heaven’s sake - you’re wizards! You can do magic! Surely you can sort out - well - anything!" in HBP and Scrimgeour and Fudge exchange an incredulous look before Fudge replies, “The trouble is, the other side can do magic too, Prime Minister.” Eileen may have finished school a fully trained wizard, but so would every other student in her class have done. We don't know how many O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s she got (which are basically the wizarding equivalent of A levels, which determine what colleges will accept you and what professions are open to you). We don't know what kind of student she was or how she felt about her abilities. Just like the muggle women of her era, she would have had the potential to experience and embrace a sense of self-worth on a very wide spectrum of possibilities.

Eileen Prince

I'm relentlessly curious about how a witch from Slytherin, a house that values cunning and ambition on paper, and bloodlines/nobility in its culture, ended up living in a muggle slum.

Unfortunately for me, she's a barely mentioned character written by an author who consistently fails to portray female characters with depth or dimension. The women in Harry Potter are portrayed as either maternal or villains, or, in Ginny Weasley's case, as redeemed by their masculine traits (because Rowling's Thatcher era feminism dictates that equality for women = emulating patriarchal ideas of manhood). About as much as you can expect from an author who's as unable to acknowledge the personhood of trans women as she is to write women as actual people. This leaves a lot of room for interpreting or delving into what Eileen Prince's life may have looked like, and how that would have affected her son's development.

There are three direct mentions of Eileen in the text :

“The picture showed a skinny girl of around fifteen. She was not pretty; she looked simultaneously cross and sullen, with heavy brows and a long, pallid face. Underneath the photograph was the caption: Eileen Prince, Captain of the Hogwarts Gobstones Team.”

HBP Ch. 25

“I was going through the rest of the old Prophets and there was a tiny announcement about Eileen Prince marrying a man called Tobias Snape, and then later an announcement saying that she’d given birth to a" “ — murderer,” spat Harry.

HBP ch. 30

“Harry looked around: he was on platform nine and three-quarters, and Snape stood beside him, slightly hunched, next to a thin, sallow-faced, sour-looking woman who greatly resembled him.”

DH Ch. 33

(Shoutout to Harry James Potter, who didn't recognize Eileen's fifth year photo despite her resemblance to Snape, the teacher whose classroom he got his used Potions book from. Shoutout also to Harry James Potter who didn't connect the dots between the Prince's handwriting and Snape's, a teacher who regularly wrote instructions on the board. "I needed to make the plot work, ok?" - JK Rowling, probably.)

Other relevant excerpts:

“Snape staggered - his wand flew upwards, away from Harry - and suddenly Harry’s mind was teeming with memories that were not his: a hook-nosed man was shouting at a cowering woman, while a small dark-haired boy cried in a corner ”

OoTP Ch. 26

“Harry delved into his trunk and pulled out his copy of Advanced Potion-Making before getting into bed. There he turned its pages, searching, until he finally found, at the front of the book, the date that it had been published. It was nearly fifty years old.”

HBP Ch. 16

Supplemental material re: Gobstones from JK Rowling:

"...it remains a minority sport within the wizarding world, and does not enjoy a very ‘cool’ reputation, something its devotees tend to resent. Gobstones is most popular among very young wizards and witches, but they generally ‘grow out’ of the game, becoming more interested in Quidditch as they grow older.  ... Gobstones enjoys limited popularity at Hogwarts, ranking low among recreational activities, way behind Quidditch and even Wizarding Chess." [There's an additional sentence on the Harry Potter wiki's Gobstones page: "...it is also known as 'the thinking wizard's Quidditch.'"]

A few conclusions can be drawn from what little information we're given about Eileen:

She's described as "cross and sullen" around the age of 15, and as "sallow-faced, sour-looking" when she's older.

She's captain of the Gobstones club around her fifth year, so she likely marched to the beat of her own drum - given that Gobstones isn't particularly popular - and owns it proudly enough to take, or even seek out, a leadership role.

The sport is described as "the thinking wizard's Quidditch" which would imply Eileen was more interested in intellectual challenges and was clever (and can be paralleled with a young Severus' comment about "if you'd rather be brawny than brainy" to James Potter when they first meet on the Hogwarts Express).

Her marriage and the birth of her son are both announced in the paper, which might mean the family she came from was of some importance or note, or perhaps something else... but we'll get to that.

If we assume that Severus' secondhand copy of Advanced Potion Making was originally Eileen's (reasonable, though there is no textual evidence) then its publication date is likely around the time she was a sixth year, given that this particular text was specific to students beginning to prep for N.E.W.T. exams. Harry begins his sixth year in 1996 when the book is "nearly fifty years old," so we can assume Eileen was 16 years old sometime not long after 1946. Severus was born in 1960, which would mean Eileen was in her mid-late 20s at the time.

Her marriage was dysfunctional at best, abusive at worst. As per a Pottermore post that is still up on WizardingWorld.com: "...the desperately lonely and unhappy childhood [Severus] had with a harsh father who didn’t hold back when it came to the whip." Based on this, we can assume Tobias was abusive, and given Eileen's cowering as he shouted at her, she presumably feared him.

From these bits of information emerges the image of a woman who either had a surly personality, or at the very least was guarded, though perhaps just formal. There isn't really any difference in how her face is set when she's in an everyday setting like King's Cross, or when she's having her picture taken for the Gobstones Club. It's possible she was a stern, unsmiling person, but it's also possible - given that her wedding and child were announced in the paper - that she came from a family of some standing and was raised to conduct herself with hallmarks of British class, such as dignity and unaffectedness. After all, there are several wizarding families - such as the Potters - who are wealthy purebloods with social standing but are not part of the Sacred 28. Additionally, the Gobstones Club portrait would have been taken around the mid-1940s, when portraits were formal and their subjects did not often smile, and given that we see only a snippet of Eileen, we don't have enough information that she was unhappy or sour. It's also important to remember that we see her portrait and Snape's memory of her through Harry's perspective and, like his perception of Snape himself, this may convey Harry's biases.

We also know from the text that Snape had a house in a deserted part of Cokeworth, a fictional Midlands town that presumably had a collapsed milling industry, at the end of a street called Spinner's End. There's a great thread that goes into details about the kind of 2 up 2 down house it would have been, and we can assume that this is Snape's family home given that we know he and Lily grew up in Cokeworth. For all intents and purposes, the conclusion we can draw from this being the Snape family's home in the 60s is that they were working class and cripplingly poor. Most estates like this had been cleared by the 60s, and no longer exist today.

This begs the question: how did a witch from a possibly well-off family end up in an abusive marriage in an irrelevant slum?

Buckle up kids, we're leaving the world of textual references and veering into deep meta territory now. I won't label any of this as head canon because I'm not set on these interpretations, and am just drawing conclusions from the text, but some of it may be a bit loose even for meta.

If Eileen was 16 years old not long after 1946, then she would have finished school in the late 40s, possibly even 1950. While some people (including past me) posit the theory that Tobias may have been injured in WWII and his injuries debilitated him, forcing him to go on the dole and affecting his mental health, I'm increasingly skeptical of this theory. It would make more sense if Eileen had known him before he was drafted/enlisted and had committed to a relationship with him, which would then have changed when he came back from the war and was altered. If we assume Eileen's age based on the idea that it was her own copy of Advanced Potion Making Severus used, then she would still have been at school during WWII (which makes an interesting parallel with Severus' own experience of spending the bulk of the first wizarding war against Voldemort as a student at school).

I do think, however, that there's merit in the theory that Tobias suffered some kind of altering injury and that he wasn't necessarily abusive before Eileen committed herself to him. It makes little sense for a Slytherin graduate who was confident and self-posessed enough to be the face of an unpopular club to be drawn to a partner so abusive his shouts caused her to cower and who whipped his child freely. If, however, he was a charming, happy man when they met who suffered a life-altering injury, the trauma of which left him a shell of his former self, then someone like Eileen might stick around for the sake of the parts of his old self she can still see in him.

It's interesting that she didn't seem to use her magic to protect herself or her son, or even to dress her son in clothing that fit, but we know from the text that depression can cause a wizard's powers to wane:

“...it is also possible that her unrequited love and the attendant despair sapped her of her powers; that can happen”

HBP Ch. 13 (Dumbledore talking about Merope Gaunt)

The fact that the Snapes retained the house in Spinner's End seems to indicate that they continued to live there even when the local industry dried up and the slum was cleared as workers were moved to other parts of the country where they were needed (presumably what happened given *gestures at British history*). The most likely explanation for this would be that Tobias wasn't able to work, and perhaps did suffer an injury, only it was at work, and not during the war. This would mean the family lived on the dole (ie. welfare) and also that he would have spent a lot more time at home. It would also explain his anger and frustration that led to abusive behavior (which isn't to say that disabled people are abusive by any means, but it would have been emasculating for a man who considered himself the breadwinner in the 60s, and chronic pain coupled with limited abilities would give anyone a short fuse).

Moreover, this living situation seems to indicate that there is no additional support coming from anywhere. Where is Eileen's family? Why were they not helping? There's no indication in the text that there is any connection with them at all. We can infer from Snape's memories that, as a child, he learned what he knew about the magical world from his mother. This implies that she talked to him about it a fair amount, and his conviction that he and Lily were going to Hogwarts well before they got their letters also implies that Eileen expected him to go there and was set on her son having a magical education, despite how little she seemed to use her own powers.

Severus knows a lot about the wizarding world as a child, including that prisoners are sent to Azkaban and that it's guarded by Dementors, Hogwarts' house structure and what to expect when he and Lily get there, and about the Statute of Secrecy and the laws around it. When Lily asks him if it makes a difference being Muggleborn, Severus hesitates before replying no, presumably because he's aware of pureblood bias being a part of wizarding culture.

Perhaps that's the reason Eileen's family doesn't seem to be in the picture. My own theory is that Eileen hadn't planned to commit herself to Tobias long-term, and Severus was an accidental outcome of an innocent tryst in which a young Eileen, an educated witch from a well to do pureblood family, was having fun slumming it with a working class muggle and ended up pregnant. While we don't know the wizarding world's attitude around pregnancy and abortion, we do know it's a conservative and classist society that parallels muggle British culture fairly closely, and that the late 50s/early 60s were a time when an out of wedlock baby would have been considered a disgrace.

Add to that the anti-muggle bias of a pureblood family and it sounds like Eileen was disowned her for her mistake (and don't @ me, but even though I know that not all Slytherins are purebloods, it does seem to be a persistent cultural value of the house reaching back to Salazar Slytherin himself, so Eileen's being sorted into it can reasonably be taken as an indication of her blood status). Perhaps the marriage and birth announcements in the Daily Prophet were put in by Eileen herself, if she was a woman from a family where this was customary. It may have been her way of letting her family know of the events, or even of asserting herself and even deliberately defying them, announcing to the whole wizarding world that a Prince married and had a child with a muggle. It makes sense that the girl who wasn't just in the Gobstones club, but became captain, would also say to herself, why shouldn't I have my marriage announced in the paper like everyone else in the family?

It's worth noting that mid-late 20s is pretty young to have a baby in the wizarding world, where the life expectancy and child bearing years are much longer than they are for a muggle. According to the Harry Potter wiki:

"Wizard life expectancy in Britain reached an average 137¾ years in the mid-1990s, according to the Ministry of Divine Health ... Wizards in general have a much longer life expectancy than Muggles, usually living two or three times as long as their non magical counterparts, some living even longer than that depending on circumstances. In addition, seeing as James Potter's parents had him "late in life,” witches likely have significantly longer childbearing years than Muggle women."

Although we see several characters in Severus' generation getting married and having kids not long after leaving school, there's a mention in the text that a lot of people were doing this during Voldemort's reign, as the fear he inspired made people more eager to get a move on with life since they thought they might die any day (I think Mrs. Weasley says this but I can't find the quote, @ me if you do). It's clear this wasn't the norm in the wizarding world. Eileen was a Slytherin, a house that values cunning, ambition, and strong wizarding heritage. Something must have gone very wrong in Eileen's life for her to end up having a child so young and living in a muggle slum.

And so it's possible Eileen Prince found herself pregnant and alone, having been disowned by her family to save face in light of her disgrace, and dependent on the only person she was still close to, the father of her child. It's the kind of storyline that Rowling would write, and it would parallel fairly closely the story of Voldemort's mother, thus adding another to the long list of similarities between Voldemort and Snape.

Lorrie Kim makes an interesting point when she talks about how Snape has a strong reaction to other people having a love life or romantic experiences (the context being Rowling's intention of his love for Lily being romantic and unrequited), but doesn't react particularly strongly to mothers sacrificing themselves for their children, whereas Voldemort does. Her insight, and I think it's a reasonable one, is that Severus accepts the idea of mothers making sacrifices for their children, whether it's Lily giving her life for Harry or Narcissa risking all she did to ask for his help in protecting Draco, because his own mother protected him from his father as much as she could.

There's a lot of room for interpretation on what Eileen's relationship with her son looked like, and what it says about her own state. She may have prioritized not angering Tobias to protect Severus, who as a child might have perceived her actions as a form of rejection. At the same time, she seems to have prepared him thoroughly for life in the magical world, perhaps in the hope that he would find his place in it and escape home. Perhaps she missed it and told him so much about it so she could live through her own memories.

The only time we see her argue with Tobias, in Severus' memory, she's cowering as he shouts. We know from JK Rowling that Tobias used corporal punishment liberally, which implies Eileen didn't stop him despite her magical abilities. We also see in the text, however, that while at school Severus stood up for himself against bullies and fought back, and that he was an exceptionally clever and powerful wizard. As an adult he was brave enough to face Dumbledore when he betrayed Voldemort, and later fought against Voldemort right under his nose (or lack thereof). So it stands to reason that at some point Severus began to stand up against Tobias too.

How much of that was Eileen's influence, or the result of Severus seeing her acceptance of her fate and rejecting it for himself, is hard to say. As for what happened to Tobias and Eileen that their house was Severus' by the mid-90s and they were nowhere in sight, I don't think there's enough information in the text to infer.

[eddiazx]

stars aligned, lips met mine - eddie diaz x reader

Based on this request: Hey hey! Can we get an Eddie Diaz fic where reader shuts him up with a kiss? They love each other but aren't together yet, and maybe he's ranting about something and she kisses him mid sentence. (I absolutely adore flustered and stuttering Eddie 😆)

Eddie is usually a pretty calm and collected guy.

He's had to grow up quicker than most people by being a parent and an army medic at 19, so he's learned how to throw on a facade of acting controlled and poised despite feeling anything but.

That facade doesn't work on a select few people in his life, including you.

Eddie and you have been best friends for years. The two of you have a similar dry sense of humour, and despite spending hours and days together, Eddie constantly looks forward to seeing you again. Inside jokes, complaining about family, cooking comforting meals, and commenting on current movies always came easy with you. He never felt that he had to be a person that he was not. He felt comfortable exposing himself and being vulnerable with you, and that is not the norm for Eddie.

The problem is, in the past few weeks or so, Eddie's eyes have been constantly drifting towards your lips. He's been having thoughts of leaning in to press his lips to yours, wondering how they'd taste, or what sounds you'd make. It isn't thoughts that one should have about their platonic friend.

So naturally, Eddie brings it up to Frank, since he had started therapy again. Frank, with his kind eyes and stoicism, had asked a question that had made Eddie spiral.

Do you think that you have romantic feelings for her?

Eddie supposed that it is less that the question made him spiral, and more his answer. Because of course he does. He had just repressed it for the fear of what would happen to your friendship. And if he had any say in the matter, he would continue to repress that love until he was old and grey.

(Frank isn't happy with this plan. Well, tough.)

Eddie and you were currently the only ones sat in the Diaz's living room since Chris was playing video games at a friend's house. The two of you were watching a dance movie, one that you had chosen because you swore the main male character looked so much like Eddie, it was uncanny.

(Eddie doesn't see it.)

"Did you know that I did ballroom dancing?" Eddie blurts out, when thoughts of you and him dancing, pressed close together, starts invading his thoughts.

"Shut up! Really?" Your eyes shone in delight, twisting your body to face him, the movie long forgotten.

"Y-yeah. I loved it, until I didn't." Eddie stammers. "Did you know that some people superglue or hairspray their shoes on so they don't fall? I never did that, but I probably should've because one time me and this girl Vanessa were dancing and -"

Eddie is cut off by your lips on his. And this time he wasn't imagining or dreaming - it was real. And it was so much better than he could have thought.

You pull away, Eddie's eyes glazed over, a dopey smile on his face.

"Sorry. You just seemed really nervous." You say in a soft voice.

"Permission granted to do that whenever you'd like." Eddie chuckles.

You laugh too. The two of you stare at each other, the unspoken question of are we actually doing this? hovering in the air.

Simultaneously, as if the two of you had reached the same conclusion at the same time, both of you lean in, pressing your mouths together in the second kiss of many, many more.

The next time Eddie goes to therapy, Frank is very much not surprised by the turn of events.

[twilightofthesandwiches]

I mean I do see the logic in speculating, like, if Queen is obviously meant to be a parallel of Carol

And Tenna is kind of a parallel to Asgore…

Does that mean that King is also a parallel to someone from Susie’s life? What would that say about her parents? ... Something very bad, probably.

Especially since we do have some red flags about Susie’s home-life already. Like the fact she never told her parents about her sleepover at Kris’ despite Toriel specifically telling her to do so.

And just… generally acting and talking about her past in a way that makes it clear she never really had an emotional support system before Toriel and Kris. At the best case scenario, Susie's parental figures seem to be pretty negligent. So it’s not really a leap to speculate that King’s terribleness is also a reflection of their behavior.

But… it’s important to remember that… we don’t need to just speculate. There is a very important person in Susie’s life that is already clearly reflected in King’s behavior and personality. And that’s Susie herself.

Like, some of these parallels were kinda obvious from the get-go. The quotes, the hidden eyes, the embrace of violence and total disdain for friendship and pacifism… but I think the more we got to know Susie, the deeper the comparison goes.

King’s whole motivation and his anger at the Lightners is based on the fact he was, like the other Darkners of Card Castle, a toy whose Purpose was to be played with, but they all ended being abandoned and unwanted in an unused classroom. His feelings of rejection, grief and failure metamorphosing into a desire to lash out at the world and fully embrace a self-image of villainy.

And that’s… literally all of Susie’s Deal in Chapter One. She was the lonely kid that no one wanted to play with, she was in her own words…

She says this when she’s empathizing with Tenna’s situation, but both in the imagery of the broken toy and her coping mechanism (lashing out and being always on-guard rather than clinging and cloying) she’s a lot more similar to King.

It’s just a matter of both Susie herself being less open to empathy and retrospection back in Chapter 1 and King actively rejecting any attempt at a connection by being a Huge Fucking Bastard (unlike Tenna, who was very clearly trying to honestly explain his emotions). But in retrospect, the comparison is definitely there…

Like, the thing about "Quiet people piss me off" is not just the echo of the sentence, it's also a very similar context.

Susie realized that Kris saw her eating chalk and immediately assumed the worst of them. That they hate her, that everyone hates her and is just waiting for an excuse to kick her out. With Hometown School being where both Toriel and Noelle are, the only people who have ever been nice to Susie at this point in the story... Even if she's trying to play it up like she's Scary and Edgy, I think she's legitimately afraid of the possibility.

She's just projecting all of her abandonment trauma and paranoia and distrust, all of the past times she's been hurt, on Kris' silence. Quiet people piss her off... because they act as a mirror to the frustrations she's stewing in anyways.

And this is just the same with King. Due to his own trauma of being abandoned and cast aside, he assumes the worst of the Lightners, assumes the worst of Kris. That they will never care for Darkners, that they will never care for him. That they are no different than the Lightners who locked them away in the Classroom in the first place. That they are as gleeful about the idea of abandoning all of Card Castle once again as Susie thought they were about the idea of getting her expelled.

He took advantage of Ralsei's kindness because he couldn't believe the Lightners he's working with will ever care enough to give him a future, and he is projecting all of the neglect and abandonment he has experienced, the way he thinks all Lightners must feel about him, unto Kris' silence.

I think you can also draw a parallel with how King is actually uniquely rebellious for a Darkner (especially as a Not-Shadow-Boss), trying to to actively reject his Purpose for a new one, inspired by the Knight but actually created by himself.

In retrospect, having more Darkners to compare him to, that’s an act of Freedom that can’t be taken for granted. I think you can compare it to Susie’s constant assertions of her free will and her constant rebellion against the control of the Player, the Plot and the Prophecy itself.

You can maybe also say something about King’s strong ties with Jevil and the fact that Susie is the one who can equip the Devilknife and has unique interactions with the Jeviltail?

You can also kinda rope Lancer into the metaphor. As, like a representation of Susie’s inner child who just wants to goof-off and have friends. Susie watching Lancer try and defend her from King is both her seeing the value of her friendship and trust in in real time and also metaphorically her desire for fun and friendship piercing through the toxic coping mechanism she’s been trapped in until now.

Of course, that doesn’t mean King can't have any inspiration from Susie’s home life. Darkners aren’t just, like, a one-to-one representation of one specific person all the time. Sometimes there are multiple parallels with multiple people. Queen is like a goofy funhouse mirror of Carol, but she’s also a lot like Berdly

And Tenna isn’t just a mirror of Asgore, he also reflects Toriel’s own melancholy about her children growing up

(And if you wanna lean into the whole separation-anxiety-ridden child of divorce thing, probably Kris’ feelings as well. I… think Tenna might just be a whole slew of Divorce Angst from a bunch of different angles and the comparison to Asgore is just the most obvious because he’s the Multiverse’s Most Divorced Man.)

So yeah, it’s not unlikely that King’s treatment of Lancer might be also a reflection of Susie’s probably-shitty parental figure(s). It feels probable, but even if we never get any farther detail about Susie's home life... I still think it’s important to remember the clear King-Susie parallels, I feel a lot of people kinda overlook them...

[ilid]

I don’t usually like to speculate on NB character’s AGAB.

But i find an AMAB reading of Kris particularly compelling, because i think there’s something Kris’ situation says about the subdued self/gender expression that comes with being born into male gender stereotypes.

I’ve seen some people use Kris’ undecorated side of their room as “proof” that Kris is meant to be read as male rather than nonbinary, and the absolute tragedy of that take not being entirely wrong is really interesting.

Because yeah, “emptiness” is usually associated with masculinity.

But Kris isn’t really empty, but rather they’ve been subdued, not just by the player but also by themselves.

Kris wasn’t exactly expressive before we arrived, so much so that the only one that noticed how they’ve changed is Noelle, who’s had a very close relationship with Kris since their childhood.

Noelle’s also expressed strong feelings about Kris’ piano skills in that one blogpost, skills which have been consistently used as a symbol for Kris’ self expression. This implies that Noelle has truly SEEN Kris, the real Kris.

Another way this presents itself is in how Kris dresses, normally they only wear what is presumably Asriel’s old clothes. But in the darkworld…

Okay let’s go on a tangent:

Not all objects turn into Darkners in the Darkworld, usually only objects with emotions attached to them do, this is why most Darkners are objects used as forms of escapism: Computers, TVs, playing cards, toys, etc.

Objects with no emotions attached to them such as everyday tools turn into fantasy equivalents of themselves: Pencils turn into swords and Susie’s hairbrush turns into an axe (I usually see it like when you find a cool stick at the park and pretend it’s a sword).

Back to the topic at hand, i think clothes behave in a similar way: Susie’s clothes become cooler and ruder, Undyne’s uniform turns into armor like the one they had in Undertale and Toriel turns into a queen.

So what does it say about Kris that their clothes change so much compared to the lighworld?

Not just that they also change a lot while inside the Darkworld:

In the cooking segment, while Susie and Ralsei just look like they’ve put on an apron and other accessories on top of their regular clothes, Kris looks completely different.

In the concert, Kris and Ralsei have completely different vibes compared to their usual outfits despite keeping their color schemes. But Kris seems to pull the outfit off with grace and relish in this fluidity, while Ralsei might be a little more out of his depth, seeing as Rock is not really his thing (or at least he thinks it’s not).

Also, Ralsei gave Kris’ room a wardrobe with all sorts of clothes for them to wear.

To me this communicates that Kris deep down fantasizes about being able to express themselves more.

There’s also some interesting parallels between Kris and Ralsei, they have similar issues but in opposite ways:

Ralsei is expressive and loud about who he is, but who he is not entirely his choice and he hasn’t truly found himself or what it means to be himself.

Kris deep down knows who they are, but they’ve been silenced both by the player and presumably themselves.

This is why Kris and Ralsei’s relationship greatly improves in Chapter 4, that is where they truly see each other. This is also why it’s really important that Ralsei compliments Kris’ piano skills at the end of the chapter.

I don’t think i did a particularly good job connecting these points to my whole AMAB interpretation of Kris, but i think if you kept what i said at the beginning in mind then you can see the picture.

Are there any conclusions?

DRAW LIGHTWORLD KRIS IN MORE DRESSES AND WACKY CLOTHES! IT MEANS THEY’RE FINALLY EXPRESSING THEMSELVES!

[ganondoodle]

as funny as this scene is ... toby and the team are very good at combining humor and serious things (or rather, the humor works so well bc it has a solid base? idk words) the longer i think about it the 'worse' it gets

even with them trash talking each other constantly its so obvious that they still care (they share so many phrases and themes you cant even tell who got what from whom.. though i suppose its more likely spamton got them from Tenna .... but also he would have had to be there for quite a while to have so many similarities) even if its complicated- and like, spamton kind of sounds so genuinely happy here?? and the fact he (if you have the dealmaker) comes out of your inventory on his own here when Tenna talks to himself about being at his lowest and wishing him back (more or less) is kinda heartbreaking to me????? for all i know (cut me some slack its been a long time) we dont know why spamton never came back or left in the first place (and there is the thought of ... would he have even been able to come back given that they are all tied to physical objects and to get Tenna to safety later -if you dont let him die- susie literally has to carry him away) and even if its some sense of resentment or pride or shame or something that made him stay away/avoid him, NOW that you got him here and he hears and sees this he actually makes a move????????

for all that spamton is weird and kinda fucked up for unkown(?) reasons, treated badly (even if for good reason(??) i dont remember everything of the first chapters) and everything im just so?? he could have just stayed in your inventory like hes done before but he doesnt

but you also cant really blame Tenna for reacting the way he does here (and yes i do think he knew it was spamton and the overblown reaction was mostly trying to think of soemthing to do bc HOW would you handle this?? and also i do think he could be petty about it but also maybe overreacting ... i know how it feels to overreact in weird ways ahaha- just .. i get it but, dude, why q-q)- you were hiding and he was talking to himself and then spamton just freakinge appears in front of him like that (when Tennas desperate attempt to avoid being thrown away fails, no matter how far he went, when everything is falling apart, when its kinda .. too late) after who knows how long of silence, knowing literally nothing about where he went or why (yet he still kept the pipis.......)---

and then how spamton says hes never gonna do that again, while understandably so and very funny in the moment, im just so .... the one time he actually does seem to try to reconnect (?) with someone he seems to have actually genuinely cared about he gets rejected like that (for also understandable reasons aaaaah) and swears to never try that again ......................................................

blaming each other for their downfall but still caring and then fumbling the one chance they get to meet again im so .............................................. fine about it.

(and not to derail but why .... why is it so easy to let Tenna disappear or die ..............?? even if you do all the nice things if you dont go to the hub after church (if thats possible, i dont ...actually know), or dont give him to mettaton, toriel throws him out and once it rains and hes outside its like the last chance to get him to safety (and most people would probably avoid going there before the church bc you are told to go home when its raining and most would then check everything else first and end up in the church at night.. skipping out on finding him outside in the rain and after that he is just gone??? (i think?)- ALSO if you dont recruit enough/are nice enough Susie says she still went back and searched for him in the dark world (i love her so much) but couldnt find him and the other NPCs refused to help out.................. the boarded up tv room in the hub??? arhj my heart man q-q .......... and when you actually break him the broken TV just stays in the room????????? at least spamton can just chill in your inventory nfjksbfshfkjnfksl)

((also also ...i found it weird you dont get to see susie help him in the dark world or the sealing of the fountain there, i know its at the end of the chapter and sth happens with Kris and the shelter but ... i think thats the only time we havent seen the actual sealing?? and then she tells you what happened if you interact with the TV instead ... i do love the highly missable dialog of her telling you she found and patched Tenna up with the help of the other NPCs if you got them all recruited though.... qwq))

(sorry these thoughts have been spiraling around sicne i woke up today and i literally could not concentrate on work at all bc i kept ... thinking about it .... either way these all all just current incoherent thoughts im throwing around........ i hope we get to see Tenna again later on, though i kind of doubt that)

[mythicalmyles]

Alien x Male! Reader

(Amab reader, dubcon kinda jic, belly bulging, inhuman character)

You stared at your calendar, it was the 20th of may, exactly ten years ago you had made a promise. At least you think you had, you had long since written it off as a dream. Despite how realistic it felt, you were a child with a very active imagination. Still you found yourself tugging a hoodie over your head, grateful it was at the very least a decent night for a walk.

You let out a sigh as you made your way to the door, slipping on your shoes before opening it. Despite the darkening sky the air was warm as it brushed against your skin, you took it in for a moment before closing the door behind you. You locked up before throwing your keys into your pocket.

It wasn’t a far walk to where it had began, not much had changed about your life since then. You had grown but you still lived in the same place. Not much had changed since you were young bar some buildings that had become more rundown and broken up, the area pretty much being left to itself.

You made your way through a small patch of trees, bushes had almost taken over the man made walkway. Not enough people coming by and creating a way through. You had gotten snagged on a couple of them and a few other plants on the way through, taking a deep breath when you finally poked out of the trees.

The hill looked a lot bigger than you had remembered, there were a lot more bushes and the grass went above your knees. All you could do was let out a groan before trudging forwards, at the very least you had to find out if it was a dream.

By the time you had reached the top of the hill you were out of breath, almost heaving when you came to a standstill. You looked around the cliff hill, a sea of trees just behind it. You bit your lip, nerves starting to wrack your body.

You sat against a large stone, looking into the night sky. You could see a lot of stars, a small smile tugging at your lips. They looked pretty, part of you hoped it was true. That they really would come back to you. You hadn’t made much friends as a child, even as an adult, maybe thats why you had clung onto the first friendly being you had crossed. Even if you had only been with them for a night.

You let out a scream when something leather like wrapped around your eyes, you could hear a giggle as you flailed. You shot around, eyes wide. It hadn’t been a dream. Pure black eyes gazed down at you, they were almost bug like. Almost like a spiders eye. It grinned down at you, your memories had certainly been distorted. You didn’t quite remember those, or how it felt to have four eyes baring down at you.

You blinked and collected yourself. “Zee?” It grinned down at you, sharp teeth showing off. “(Name).” It purred. You could barely think of what to say, gaping like a fish. “Y-you’re real?” He nodded, looking over you. “You got bigger." You choked before nodding back at him. “You too.” He was much larger than you were, he hadn’t been that much taller than you were when you had first met. Now he easily towered over you, it felt intimidating standing in front of someone who could throw you like a spear. He easily stood almost double your height, blocking out the moon behind him.

You ended up managing to get lost in conversation, getting more comfortable around it. It felt like connecting with an old friend, you supposed you were despite the short time of your meeting. His planet sounded amazing, he described vibrant trees and creatures that sounded like pure imagination.

“Why did you leave your planet? It sounds amazing. I don’t understand why you would ever leave that.” You finally asked, you had been afraid it may have been personal. Instead it let out a laugh. “My ship was in a battle, i had to use an escape pod and it sent me here. We have similar oxygen levels on our planet.” You nodded, you had wondered why it didn’t wear any sort of helmet.

“Do you have time?” You couldn’t help but sound hopeful, trying to hide your happiness when it chuckled and smiled. “I do.” “Come back to mine.” You nodded behind you. “It’s not that far.” Your parents were rarely ever home, leaving you to your own devices. You wouldn’t have to worry about hiding a giant alien. “Yeah, i’d like to see how your kind lives. You are interesting creatures.” You chuckled and started walking towards your house.

You had found it rather funny, it told you stories about its crew mates. They worked for a delivery service, sending packages across the galaxy. The walk felt a lot quicker this time with company.

You unlocked your door and shoved it open. “I don’t know what kinda houses you’re use to but we haven’t got much.” You let out a nervous chuckle, heading towards the stairs. You led it up to your room, awkwardly closing the door behind both of you.

You gestured to your desk chair and it sat down, you plopping down onto your bed across from it. “So this is where you live?” It questioned, antenna bobbing. “Yeah, pretty much my whole life.” You chuckled while waving your arms, gesturing to the room.

It leaned back, it’s elbow hitting off your keyboard. The sound of loud moaning suddenly filled the room as you felt your body drain of blood. You could barely understand your own babbling as you launched forwards intent on turning off the computer, instead it grabbed your arms before you could.

All you could do was look at it in confusion. “This is how you mate?” You flushed bright red, looking at anything but the screen. “Yes. Stop.” You whined out. “It’s natural. You watch it after all.” You could feel your jaw swing as your brain scrambled over words. “It’s pr-private!” You finally choked out, trying to move to turn off the computer only to have it thwart your efforts again.

You looked over to Zee, only to see it’s head pointed down. Horror filled you as you realised how hard you were, even more shame went flooding through your system. "Z-zee. Please.” It tilted its head, hand suddenly grabbing you and palming you through your jeans. You grabbed onto it’s wrist, confusion coating your face. You stared at it, trying to desperately hold down any moans.

“I can learn.” Was all it said as it turned to the computer with it’s free hand and restarted the video. He pulled you onto it’s lap, slipping it’s leg between your thighs. It started pushing down your pants, your head dropped back onto its shoulder as you stared holes into your ceiling.

You let out a yelp when it wrapped its hand around your cock, it started jacking you off slowly. It was currently thanking the gods it had two sets of eyes, easily keeping tabs on the video while its other eyes drank up your facial expressions. It hadn’t expected tonight to be the night it mated you, finding out it was in fact possible had been a happy coincidence. Its free hand ran up your stomach, playing with your nipple.

It felt overwhelming, the texture of its skin rubbing against you was thrilling. It’s skin tough enough to cause friction against you. You couldn’t help but melt back into it, breathing deep as pleasure began rolling through your body. You kept a loose grip on his wrists, given up on fighting yet trying to keep yourself grounded.

Suddenly it pulled away from you, grabbing your hips and pushing you to stand. It turned you around to face it, its grinning face taking up your vision. All you could do was comply, legs already shaking. Its thigh was pressing against your cock, almost driving you delirious with the friction.

Zee watched as one of the humans slid his fingers into the other, resulting in turning him into a moaning mess. It pushed your pants back down, this time its hands felt slimy. “Wha-huh?” You choked out in confusion. “We can produce a sort of oil like substance.” Was the only answer you got. You could feel one of its fingers pressing against your hole, you bit your lip and mentally prepared yourself.

A thick finger began pushing into you, you let out a raspy gasp. Body pushing away from the intrusion. Zee wrapped its other arm around you, pining you in place. It was so big, it left you worrying about what was between its legs. It went slow with its fingers, intently watching your face. The way your nose crinkled has its stomach jumping, you looked so cute trying to take its finger. Not that it really gave you much of a choice.

It paused for a moment, wriggling its fingers pressing against inside of you. You suddenly gasped and bucked your hips, biting down harshly on your lip. “That feel good?” It questioned before thrusting against that spot again, a depraved moan being ripped from your throat.

Your hands grasped onto his shoulders, face twisting in pleasure as it began fucking you with its fingers. You fell slack jawed as it targeted your prostate, heat soaring through your body. It almost felt like you were being cooked alive. All you could do was sit there and take it, grinding your cock against its thigh.

You hadn’t expected any of this to happen, you went from meeting an old friend to having them finger fuck you on your own desk chair. It slipped another finger into you, despite the pain you couldn’t help but moan louder. Zee bit its lip as it watched you closely, comiting everything to memory. "You're doing so well." It suddenly cooed, suddenly slamming it's fingers into you just to see the reaction.

You came with a loud cry of his name, eyes cocking as it kept fingering you through your orgasm. You fell onto him, body reeling as you came down from your high.

You rested your head on Zee’s shoulder, gasping for breath. Your hands gripped onto his uniform, body shaking with aftermath. It wrapped its arms around you, holding you close as you came down. “Je-jesus, Zee.” Was all you could rasp out.

It chuckled, pulling you close. It pressed your lips together, tongue quick to slide between your lips. Your hands framed its face, leaning into the kiss. You could feel it tugging your sweats further down, manoeuvring you so you were straddling both his legs. Nerves vibrated through you when he began unzipping his uniform. You couldn’t stop your jaw from dropping when it’s cock sprang free, it smirked as it watched you gawk over its cock. It knew it was certainly larger than any human one.

“You can take it. You gonna be a good boy for me?” You shuddered and nodded, you wanted to please it too. Even if you didn’t think you could get any pleasure from something that big or thick. You were willing to try.

It wiped the oil off on your sweats, you couldn’t be bothered to tell it off. It gripped your hips, helping you stand as it lined up its cock. It was the same purple as the rest of its body, although the head of its cock was a cherry red colour. You gulped down air when you felt him rub the head against your hole. “Be-be careful please.” You whimpered out, it chuckled in response.

You could barely even scream when it began pushing into you, it took itself a moment before its cock suddenly got a lot slippier. It bullied its way into you, causing you to let out a loud sob when it finally pushed through. Zee stilled for a moment, holding you as you trembled in its arms. It could see you already beginning to sweat, clearly overwhelmed.

It felt pride, it had to be the largest you had taken. It took care in sinking you down on its cock, when your sobs picked up it pressed its lips to yours. It swirled its tongue around your mouth, it had noticed your cock had softened and was quick to wrap a hand around it and start jacking you off.

Once you began moaning and squirming it began pulling you further onto its cock. It must have taken about ten minutes before it was buried balls deep. You could see it beginning to loose it, drool dripping down its chin.

You could barely breathe, hands on its stomach to keep yourself up. You panted as you stared at it. “It’s t-too big.” You whimpered out, completely overwhelmed. “So pretty, y’look so good.” It was almost like it couldn’t hear a word you said. Before you could get another word out suddenly its hips thrust up, ripping a scream from you. It felt unbelievable, its cock dragged against your prostate. You could feel each individual bump rubbing against your insides. You came hard when he thrusted into you again, back almost snapping when you threw your head back. You chanted Zee’s name like a mantra as you jizzed your brains out.

You fell boneless against it, whimpering as it fucked you at a brutal pace. Your drool dripped down onto its uniform, your cheek pressed into its chest. Its hands left bruises all over your hips and ass, grabbing everywhere it could.

Suddenly it stood up, leaning you on the desk. You fell back onto your elbows, ignoring the fact you were digging into your monitor. It grabbed your thighs, spreading them. You had no doubt bruises would cover your thighs as well, it fucked you on your desk. You could hear various objects falling off of your desk which you paid no mind too, brain thoroughly fucked out of your skull. “Aah, s’too much!” You whined out, sobbing in between words.

“So tight!” It cursed in a foreign tongue, it couldn’t get over how deliciously you wrapped around its cock. “Look, so full.” It groaned out, hand moving to press against your stomach next to its cock. Your eyes widened, you could see its cock in your stomach. All you could do was choke out moans, hands gripping at anything to try and ground yourself.

You came twice before it finally thrust deep into you, you felt something heavy suddenly push into you. “Wha-what’s happening.” You sobbed out, twitching as you felt it push more things into you. “You-you’re gonna be such a good mommy.” Was all it said, leaving you panicked. “I’m breeding you.” It whispered. “You’ll be the per-perfect mate for me.” It choked out, you could feel it begin to grind its hips. As if it was trying to push as deep into you as it could.

You lay there uselessly, feeling unbearably full. You felt the head of his cock begin to swell. Another rush of panic ran through you. “Just making sure everything stays.” It spoke, pulling you into its arms and sitting back on the chair.

The feeling of everything moving inside of you was enough to have you shrieking as you came again, a few drops dribbling from your cock. “Gonna take you home.” It cooed, fingers running through your hair. You agreed, barely holding onto consciousness. Zee pulled you close, wondering how he would explain you to his captain.

[ohcorny]

How was your experience at ALA?? Did you get many pre-existing fans visiting or was it mostly newbies? What books did you get? Tell us everything!!

other than being Punished by train gods i had a great time yesterday! i ended up only being about thirty minutes late to the signing but everybody was super nice to me about it and nobody had minded. i drew So Many little bat wicks in people's books. if you ever make a piece of work you might be expected to sign, make sure there is at least one character that is easy to draw quickly.

that said i do wish i'd taken my time a little more. it is my instinct not to make people wait longer than necessary for Anything, and i had no idea how long the line was, so i didn't get to talk for very long with anybody. next time (fingers crossed) i want to slow down and actually chat with people.

as for the sort of people that came, there was a good handful of folks who'd already read it and it was a Delight to hear from them. but it was mostly teachers and librarians who'd heard of it and were excited to get it for their kids, or offer it as a prize in a giveaway. the idea that something i made, and i signed, could be a Prize, even a prized possession to the winner, is such an incredible thought.

this is what i came home with!

the author of the incorruptibles came by to get a copy of hunger's bite and i'd remembered her mentioning she was there as an author too, so when i saw she was doing her own signing after mine was done i had to grab a copy!

i made eye contact with the booth book-waver for the girl who sang and was invited over so there was no reason Not to grab a signed copy. i haven't read a lot of memoirs so though it wasn't one i planned to pick up, i'm looking forward to reading it.

i grabbed meat eaters because it sounded like it was playing in the same spaces as hunger's bite vis a vis hunger-as-metaphor and i was familiar with meredith's work in certain iron circus anthologies. i've read the opening of it now and i'm excited to read more. meredith if you read this please forget whatever dumb way i phrased 'our books play in similar spaces and i think that's cool' when i was at the table, you were the first author i talked to and i was still so fried from my own signing.

i also finally got my hands on a paperback of my own book lmao. all my comps were the sexy hardcovers.

go-man was given to me by one of the guys running my publisher's booth. hamish did the blurb for hunger's bite and i was interested in finally reading one of his books, so they gave me the display copy because it was the last day anyway lol. i read it on the train home and it was fun + cute! i love go-man's design.

i waited in a long-ass line for gender queer and had a delightful time talking to the literary agent who happened to be next to me. the people at ALA are sooo friendly, we got to talking because she saw i had a big pile of books in my arms by that point and was like OKAY WHATCHA GET!! and we just gabbed about what we were excited about and what got me into comics and what got her into repping artists. it was nice!

and meeting maia kobabe was v cool but most of the interaction was us pointing out that we were dressed practically identically. i wish i got a picture, you'd think we were both cosplaying the same guy. it was very funny. i'm excited to read the most banned book in america.

overall i had an extremely nice time and it broke my heart to leave and see the "see you next year in chicago!" sign because that means it won't be easily accessible for me to go again right away because chicago is too far ; ; maybe by the time book 2 comes out it'll be closer again.

[biancasaidstfu]

Yeah I honestly agree with you Bianca and that the only reason we aren’t seeing Lukola interact at things right now is because I think they genuinely can’t help themselves that anyone in their vicinity be clocking their romantic vibes. Every single interviewer when they were near each other was like umm 👀👀. Luke literally leaving his own interview because the reporter told him turn around and he saw Nicola; dropped his jaw and went right over to then do some VERY intimate arm touch pull thing into a swaying hug! And she looked MAD giddy too and even went awww and fell immediately into his hug. THEY LITERALLY saw each other the night before lol. She also couldn’t stop touching him; saying this is coo! And they literally just went into their own little world.

And that not even counting Luke’s unhinged your dress matches your eyes when the reporter was asking HIM about his own fit lol. Nicola beaming constantly. The way that photographer clocked them and took photos of them being all up on each other at the table. I also think there MIGHT be a picture from inside the SAGS that shows Luke and Nicola sitting REALLY close to each other and looks like they’re holding hands under the table. So yeah 100% if they need to keep their relationship quiet/secret right now they’re too obvious when near one another.

Nicola too she couldn’t help welded when that stupid blind item intimating Luke Newton was valid and kept looking at himself in the mirror all night she HAD to speak up to refute it because it was so untrue. Similar to how Luke JUMPED on his insta stories to clarify that HE DID NOT cute Nicola out of his cake. They have each other’s backs always.

I hope we get an end to that soon and they can just be like Tomdaya private but not secret and there is allows interaction.

But yeah I’ve never believed ANY beefing allegations like ever. Even if people don’t wanna believe they’re together (I think they def are) they always talk about having real love for one another. Nicola literally said that exactly back in Brazil something similar to If they’re seeing it there’s real love there so fans NEVER have to worry about that. Luke’s one of my favorite people I would never agree to a six month promo if I didn’t like him lol.

And let’s not forget these two REFUSE to even say ANYTHING bad about one another that when people ask if either has any annoying tendencies they literally refute that because I think they know people will use that against one another. So I’m sure anyone believing their beefing narrative grinds their gears as they love each other and they feel the need to clarify in whatever subtly ways they can. Even if it’s just Like liking her post.

❤️❤️❤️

[corseque]

clair obscur spoilers, thinking about Alicia from a strange and unpopular angle

my pretty firm belief is that because Verso and Alicia could not figure out who were the actual favorite children were, it means Aline and Renoir were actually surprisingly good and successful at not showing favoritism to their children. I firmly believe that if Alicia was the one who had died, Aline would have reacted the same way. She will always be her princess.

I keep thinking about the small painting that Alicia painted that went on the wall, and there are several details about it that make even that a not-straightforward thing to me.

the painting is actually not that small. It's smaller than the others, but it's still a full canvas. It's just the others are much bigger. This actually seems to me like another sign of Alicia's lack of ambition, because even if it wasn't the best painting, why didn't she try to paint something like the size of Verso's painting? Why did Alicia START small?

Alicia never painted anything into Verso's canvas as a child - at least, not that we are told about. She didn't even play with them except occasionally enough that Monoco would recognize her. She really had no interest in painting for fun or for expression.

Alicia has so little interest in and practice at painting that Painted Verso had to teach Maelle how to do it........... and Alicia could have painted miracles if she wanted at any point, she just... didn't even know how

Like, I fully believe that Aline was stern and discouraging and overbearing in some way and perhaps the pressure and comparisons with Clea's perfectionism turned Alicia off from painting forever, like I do fully believe that. That's really unfortunate and it's unfair and that isn't good parenting. All of Alicia's terrible paintings should be on the wall.

BUT AT THE SAME TIME, it's also kind of telling to me that Alicia showed no interest in (or tragically lost interest in) painting and did not spend time at painting and seemingly didn't really have a passion for painting even in the innocence of childhood and she knew less about painting than even Painted Verso.... and yet she still felt bad that she didn't have 100 big paintings up on the wall. It's like the Reacher, she stays in place and wonders why she isn't getting anywhere.

Like I feel you, girl, because I'm that exact same way, but.... what did you expect to happen. I'm sorry, I think have a really strangely stern viewpoint on Maelle/Alicia because I am extremely VERY VERY similar to her in personality and character weaknesses, so I'm like... well yeah, that sucks. Sometimes you're discouraged before you even start. Sometimes your first baby attempt at something you don't care about isn't the best thing in the world. Get over it or you're going to die without having moved from the spot you are now, girl. Or at least, don't be surprised you're not moving. Lol

In a kind of related topic, it's so interesting to me that Alicia has such anxiety and low self-confidence, but she's in NOTHING BUT trousers in the year 1905 (extremely unusual) when even Clea wears a dress. And she fought with her mom about her passions. And she feels utterly confident in her father. Idk it seems like she wasn't actually that messed up until the fire happened, and that affected her confidence in everything. And I think Renoir's painting of the Reacher would have been very different if he painted Alicia before the fire.

Like what is the truth, is Alicia so cowed by her parents' expectations that she create great art that she can no longer try? Or is she an extremely unusual trouser-wearing trail-blazing writer who won't be cowed even by the head of the painter's council?

I would love to see more about their life before the fire because the unreliable narration here is so thick. I actually like... do not completely believe a single thing Alicia says about her family because it seems to be so self-defeating. It takes Verso being in the same room challenging almost every sentence she says about her family to make you realize just how biased her viewpoint is.

[kyoshithewriter]

Pomum. (Part One).

Summary: In which a young woman learns her family’s business is not as innocent as it seems and that the forbidden fruit is always the sweetest.

Warnings: There will be violence, age gap, mentions of drug use, smut and angst. (18+)

A/n: And here we go. The fic that I was hesitant to publish because I stopped feeling it a while back and started borrowing bits and pieces from it (if you see anything familiar please ignore, I tweaked it as best as I was able to looool). Hopefully, I don’t fall out of love with it again and discontinue writing it:/

Sofía is staring; she knows she is. She’s also aware of how creepy it is but she can’t help it. His eyes have drifted in her direction a few times and she had tried to avert her own swiftly. Though, she’s certain he caught her once or twice. It feels like there are heated stones on her face, just like the ones they use at that spa her mom loves to drag her off to for their ‘girl’s day out.’ While those stones are usually relaxing- calming; this heat makes her tingle from head to foot- flushed, flustered. Sofía does a quick sweep of the room to ensure that no one is looking in her direction before her eyes are fixed on him again. It’s automatic. He’s the kind of person that commands attention. From his towering height, to his well fitted designer suits and expensive watches; they help create a certain aura of not only someone who’s important but highly confident. He’s always the picture of calm and collected but never relaxed. In their line of work, it would be stupid to be. But she has never witnessed him raise his voice or react too emotionally to any situation, no matter how dire. Not like her father whose anger is explosive when things aren’t going his way, whose laugh echoes around the entire mansion when he finds something amusing. Sofía knew from the very first day her father had brought the man to their mansion two years ago and introduced him as his new ‘business partner,’ that she was in trouble. However, she did not anticipate this crush or whatever it is to persist for this long. It’s even more pathetic because she’s certain that man has not said more than ten words to her directly over the years.

“Sofía, did you hear what I said?”

Sofía startles slightly at the impatient edge in Donavon’s tone. She’s seated on one of the expansive crème couches in the living room watching her father (Donavon), Virgil and a few lackeys her dad calls his security having a hushed conversation in their large, colourful, Spanish- style kitchen. She had been lost in her thoughts about the older man again and missed whatever it was her father had said. Judging by the scowl on his face, he had been trying to get her attention for a while.

“Um…”

The man heaves a sigh.

“Adrian did not show up for work today. Virgil is heading back to his office so he’ll drop you off at school. I have to investi- I have something else to deal with.” The man switches his mouth at the last minute. Sofía wants to roll her eyes. Her father thinks she is so naive that she hasn’t figured out that he’s not just some ordinary owner of multiple car dealerships. It takes a few seconds for her brain to process what her father said, and when it does, her cheeks would’ve flamed a bright red if her skin wasn’t cocoa brown.

“Is Adrian okay?” She manages to squeak out. Adrian is her driver (she knows he’s also somewhat of a bodyguard), though they weren’t close, the man was nice enough and they share similar tastes in music so the car rides were always enjoyable. The question seems to immediately add a few extra wrinkles to her father’s angular face. He scratches uneasily at his full beard that’s streaked with a few silvery hairs.

“He’s not the type to not show up to work without communicating with me. But I’m sure he’s fine. Probably hungover or something, don't worry about it. You only have one class today, yes?”

Sofía offers a nod, though she wants to roll her eyes at the question. The man knows her timetable like the back of his hand.

“Good. I’ll send someone to pick you up immediately after. As soon as class is dismissed you come straight home, understood?”

Sofía’s spine automatically straightens at his commanding tone.

“Understood.” She echoes quietly.

“Good. Virgil, you let me know as soon as you hear anything.”

Sofía shoots a nervous glance at the tall, caramel skin man who just offers a subtle nod. His hair is in his signature slick back bun at the back of his head; his goatee neatly trimmed. The man fixes his dark brown eyes in her direction and her body hums. She stands, smoothing her hands along her midi bodycon nude dress that matches her long sleeve cropped, shrug sweater. She styled her long, thick, jet black 4a hair in a half up- half down look that’s complemented by curls from an overnight twist out.

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you’ve been dressing up to go to classes. Remember you’re only there to learn, you’ll start courting Romano soon.”

“Dad!” Sofía’s cheeks flush in anger.

“Sofía you list-”

“I’m already behind on schedule, finish this conversation later.” Virgil rudely interrupts her father. Usually, that disrespect wouldn’t be tolerated. Usually. But for some strange reason, the rules tend to be flexible when it comes to Virgil.

“Come.”

One word. One word said in her direction and Sofía’s legs feel like jelly. She takes a second to catch her breath fearing she’d crumble to the ground in a heap if she moved immediately. ‘Come’. She wants to. Preferably with him so deep-

“See you in three hours.” Her father reminds her sternly.

She barely looks in his direction as she gives a subtle nod before jogging to catch up with Virgil’s long strides.

**********

Buildings and cars blur together in a multitude of colors in her peripheral as the black Porsche goes well above the speed limit. Adrian was never allowed to speed with her in the vehicle, but with the man currently around the wheel she feels no fear. In fact, she’s too busy drooling to even care.

“You’re not subtle, you know?” The man speaks without taking his eyes off the road.

Sofía sputters. “What?”

“You need to stop before your father thinks there’s something going on between us.” He says gruffly, an annoyed tick to his jaw.

“What do you mean?” Sofía feigns ignorance.

“You stare at me. A lot. If I notice then other people will.”

“You think people are going to assume there’s something going on between us because I look at you?” She scoffs even as her cheeks burn and her heart gallops in her chest.

“It’s not just the fact that you look at me, it’s how you look at me.” He clenches his hands around the steering wheel.

“And how do I look at you?”

“Like a love sick puppy.” His tone is so conversational despite his embarrassing words.

Sofía wants the ground to open up and swallow her. Embarrassed doesn’t begin to describe how she feels.

“You’re crazy…”

“I understand that you can’t help attraction; but you’re young and my partner’s daughter. If he suspects there’s something going on because you can’t stop staring it’s going to cause a lot of trouble that I don’t want to deal with. Control yourself.” For the first time since they got in the car, Virgil turns his head in her direction to pin her with an annoyed look.

Ouch.

“Your head is clearly all the way up your ass. I stare a lot because I don’t trust you!” Not exactly a lie. Sofía was puzzled the night of her twenty-second birthday party when her dad first introduced the man. She is used to meeting her father’s “business partners” but the dynamic amongst all of them was still clear: her father was the boss. His word is law— he calls the shots. With Virgil, it’s not the same. There always seems to be some invisible power struggle going on between them. They might think it’s subtle but Sofía is usually really good at reading people: their emotions, their motives, their intentions. There’s a very thin line between the top of the hierarchy when it comes to her father and the man in the driver’s seat. Who is he? And why does her father secretly fear him? Mr. Hernandez is too proud a man to ever admit it or let it show; he’s good at hiding it but not from her. She sees the way he fidgets when Virgil is around, she notices the way he swallows a little too heavily in his presence. She sees it all.

He stiffens subtly in his seat; “And how have I been untrustworthy?”

“Who are you really? And how did you become my dad’s ‘partner’?”

The man doesn’t respond. Tension. His knuckles turn white with his grip on the wheel. The silence stretches between them for another minute before the car gently rolls to a stop. Sofía was so busy glaring at him that she didn’t notice they had entered campus.

“Be at this exact spot at 11:35 and not a minute later. Your father hasn’t said it yet, but he’ll want me to be the one to pick you up.”

Sofía gathers her bags and water bottle with a roll of her eyes before exiting the vehicle. She uses more force than necessary to slam the door shut behind her then moves across the manicured lawn of the university campus.

“Like a love sick puppy.” She repeats to herself mockingly. “Who the hell does he think he is?” She hisses under her breath. ‘But you do stare at him like he hung the moon,’ her brain unhelpfully supplies. The vehicle peels off behind her, skating across asphalt and scattering a few small pebbles. Sofía enters the lecture hall just behind her professor of organic chemistry who has already begun urging the class to get settled. Mr. Schmidt is a tall, pot-bellied, pale man with wispy brown hair and dull blue eyes. He lectures like the plain brown suits he wears to classes-mundane, boring. But there’s no doubt that his knowledge of the subject is extensive. He often comes without supplies; no books, no laptops or projectors, just knowledge off the top of his head. It’s so impressive that Sofía has recently grown to admire him, and despite his boring lectures, she looks forward to his classes the most. Sofía pushes thoughts of Adrian, her father and Virgil to the furthest corner of her mind and gives Mr. Schmidt her undivided attention.

*******

Sofía sits stiffly in the passenger seat with her body angled towards the door on her side of the luxury car. Virgil returned to pick her up in a black G-wagon instead of the Porsche he had a few hours ago. She’s being petty but she vowed to never look in his direction again since her stare offends him so much.

“Drop the attitude before he thinks I’ve done something to offend you.” Virgil mutters as they turn onto the quiet street that leads to her house.

“Well, for your information, you have.”

The man scoffs but the furrow between his eyebrows deepens.

“Because I told you that you’re not subtle in the way you stare at me?”

“Those weren’t your exact words but yes. And since you hate when I look at you so much I’ll just stop doing it.” She keeps her eyes on the window that she can barely see through. This vehicle is heavily tinted and he’s kept the windows up with the air conditioning whirring on the highest setting.

His chuckle in response lacks humor.

“How old are you again?”

“Stop acting like I’m a child. You know I’m 24… in a few days.” She tacks on the last part under her breath. She doesn’t want to remind him of how much younger than him she really is.

“Well you should stop acting like a child.” He retorts. “This behaviour-”

“I wouldn’t be doing this if you didn’t embarrass me!” She admits before biting into her plump lower lip.

“That wasn’t my intention. I’m just… honest. You do look at me like you want to fuck me, Sofía-”

“And what if I do? What if I do want to… you. Is that so bad?”

The man whips his head in her direction after her question. His almond shaped cocoa brown eyes meet her molten chocolate, doe ones.

“Yes. Yes it would be.”

“Right, because you’re not attracted to-”

“Because I’m ten years older than you. Because I’m your father’s friend. Do you understand how complicated that would make everything?”

The black, metal gate slowly squeaks open ahead of them.

“So if my father weren’t to know-”

“Sofía.” His knuckles pale against the steering wheel.

“He wouldn’t-”

“Stop.”

She immediately bites down on her lower lip. He didn’t yell but he didn’t have to. The one word, cold and clipped from his mouth was enough.

“We won't speak about this again. Ever.”

Sofía swallows around the lump in her throat as she offers a subtle nod. The car pulls to a stop at their front door in the circular driveway. Sofía hops out the vehicle, gently closing the door behind her offering her father a tight-lipped smile as he greets them in the foyer.

“Everything okay?” Her father’s hazel eyes are so colored with concern.

“Uh, yea just a little sleepy.” The lie rolls off her tongue smoothly.

“Alright. Head upstairs, I need to talk to Virgil.” He presses a gentle kiss on her forehead.

Sofía’s blood runs cold at the look on her father’s face as he turns his attention to the man behind her.

“You’ve heard something.” Virgil states with a clench to his jaw.

“Yes. And it’s not good.” Her father replies solemnly.

“Is it about Adrian? Is he okay?” Sofía questions timidly.

“In my office, Virgil. We’ll talk later, Sofía.”

The duo make their way upstairs sharing hushed whispers. Sofía doesn’t need to hear their conversation to know what happened. Adrian is dead.

[ganymedesclock]

Got on a bit of a spin thinking about why it is that fantasy, and horror is my wheelhouse, and what I landed on was thinking about how it's kind of all metaphor.

Not in the sense of "the elves are actually about racism", but a little more basal.

This got kicked off by my boyfriend showing me a post about necromancers by @prokopetz and it set me off on, "yeah, it kind of all is that way" because bluntly spoken, a necromancer isn't real. Even in terms of rigidly factual history, the kind of people who have claimed to be necromancers or even what the word "necromancer" meant has a thousand different variations and those things bleed into pop culture because pop culture is just the newest form of us telling stories which we've been doing since we were even marginally recognizable as humans.

Every monster, every wizard, every kind of magic, ultimately comes from within our imagination. What makes a rude or disrespectful person? Is evil personal, or abstract? These things are autobiographical- not that you can read them easily from without, as it's all mulched and digested darn dense before someone starts playing around with their imagination and said play takes place firmly in the realm of conscious decision where they can choose to say anything they want.

But I can't separate, say, my fascination in medicine, from being a child and the adults that introduced me to the concept of care and needing and vulnerability. Doctor tools were presented as something very cool or at least wielded sympathetically by people who wanted to help me. That's shaped so much of how I view healers and depict them in fiction. When we are understandably scared of pain and decay, they are also mundane and ordinary parts of our lives that everyone must manage to some degree, and that some people make an entire calling out of managing.

So to bring this back to necromancers, there's this whole angle to me that a bad guy necromancer is similar to an evil doctor- a character that is first and foremost betraying what their field 'ought' to stand for and that's what makes them extra bad. This is different from a lot of common assumptions that the only reason a guy would be fooling with dead bodies would be bad ones. Like clowns, they are "traditionally villainous" so not everyone is going to view them as a betrayal, but when you think about it, "good clown" is the default state actually- they're entertainers! And similarly, the kind of people who handle the dead in our society can be quite heroic- I recall a youtube interview with a mortician stating that a big motivation for his job was that he was in a unique position to help people through what is inevitably a rough patch.

And this is just the emotional side of things, rather than, say, epidemiology and medical studies or even just the base sense of sanitation and propriety that means any living society has to handle its dead.

And all of this, while profound to me, is in fact optional! Necromancers aren't real. What that word means is going to be different to anyone- just like "vampire", or "dragon" or "hero", these things are little bits of pH tester paper we can stick in our subconscious to see what connections we've made in there.

And I think that's super freaking cool.

[jasper-book-stash]

Jasper Reviews: The Green Witch's Guide To Herbal Magick

Full Title: The Green Witch's Guide To Herbal Magick: A Handbook Of Green Hearthcraft And Plant-Based Spellcraft

Author: Annabel Margaret

Overall Jasper Rating: 9 out of 10

This book is what The House Witch by Arin Murphy-Hiscock WISHES it could be. But before I get into that, let's talk about this book and its author.

Annabel Margaret is a witch that I knew about because I actually watch her videos on YouTube. One channel, The Green Witch, is focused on the same things that this book is focused on: plant-based seasonal witchcraft. Her other channel, Annabel Margaret, is less active but more focused on traveling and moving places. She has an incredibly calm and soothing voice, even when she gets excited about things. This is a book by a person who really does practice what they're writing about.

My guess at a target demographic is that this book is for a beginner witch who already believes in magic and knows they want to use plants in and connect with nature through their magic, who also loves working in the kitchen to make things. Most of the things in here can be made relatively easily based on the instructions, though you may have difficulties doing most of them if you are in a situation where your practice cannot be open or obvious.

Books I've read that are similar to this include The House Witch and The Green Witch by Arin Murphy-Hiscock, Grovedaughter Witchery and Pestlework by Bree NicGarran, and A Verdant Introduction by Anna Zollinger. This was better than both Arin Murphy-Hiscock's book, more focused on different spell prep types than Pestlework (while also having less premade mixes for each spell), and more magical than A Verdant Introduction (which was more medicinal). Overall it's quite similar to Grovedaughter Witchery but different enough that I feel comfortable recommending both rather than saying to get one over the other. I'd say to use Grovedaughter Witchery as an introduction to witchcraft and use this book as an introduction to spellwork.

With all of this said, let's get into the neutral, the bad, and the good.

The Neutral

This category is just broad strokes of information that is neither good nor bad, but worth noting for how the author approaches magic and writing about magic.

There are a lot of uses of the phrase "negativity" in the text without defining what that is, exactly. It assumes you already know what negativity is in a magical sense and want to get rid of it.

The author puts an emphasis on love spells requiring consent, and, interestingly, says the same thing for prosperity spells.

The author defines "herb" within the text as any plant used magically after explaining other ways that the word is used.

There is a strong focus on natural materials and crafting things from scratch.

"Respect" is the primary reason listed for snuffing out a flame rather than blowing it out, which...is an overall neutral thing, it's how the author works her magic.

Cleansing itself as a form of spell work isn't something I often see acknowledged in published books (that's more of a Tumblr nuance/discourse thing in my experience), but the author very much takes this approach. I think it's neat. We'll discuss this more later.

Now, the author adds gender alignments to the plant profiles in her book after a truly based take on such a thing, but I had the random ass thought of Why are we adding this as a category if all masculine herbs are air or fire and all feminine ones are earth or water? and I never recovered.

The Bad

If you know me or have seen literally any of my posts, you know that I love to bitch and complain. This is where I do that.

Spelling magic with a K is cringe and I will bite people on this hill. There are also a handful of editing errors and quite a bit of wasted space on the pages. And the back cover is peeling for some reason? It was doing that before I even started reading it.

While the chapter on intuition was fine overall, there was no mention that intuition is trained and prone to things like stereotyping and bias. And if you want to breathe out thoughts related to impulse and anxiety when using your intuition actively, using that same intuition to find stomach-sinking feelings is contradictory.

There is an entire chapter on intent which is...literally just energy work when you actually read it? I felt like this chapter could have been shorter, less meandery, or cut entirely because of how much you get told how to focus intention into materials elsewhere.

There's also a strong emphasis in one section on belief being completely and utterly required, which...reh. I don't agree with it. The author then talks more about how skepticism is good, but I feel like this could have been cut or shortened.

One of my notes is just "bitch, you good?" with a page number so I went to find it. Turns out, it was about spell impacts. After a bunch of the standard "you need consent" stuff about love spells, the author then talks about how prosperity spells also influence others' behavior and how it will always take away from someone else. The author even says:

While there are a number of ways to cast spells for love that do no harm, there are few ways to cast prosperity spells that do not ultimately deprive someone else. It is for this reason that we must give consideration to our aims and desires along with the impacts of our work. Only with care and caution should you attempt any spell that has the capacity to affect others.

And then it keeps going after that to talk about how most magic doesn't have ethical dilemmas like these, but it was still wild to see "prosperity magic is worse than love magic, actually" as a take. This is the kind of new drama I love to see introduced, because Witchblr's standard Discourse Wheel of the Year gets repetitive and boring after a while.

The Good

There's something to be gained from every book, and bits and pieces that I enjoyed. This section is about those.

The aesthetics of this book are top-notch. It is so fucking pretty while still being readable. I made this note several times across my sticky notes, so clearly I was thinking about this a lot.

SAFETY, SAFETY, SAFETY. My little emergency management and response heart adores the emphasis overall on mundane safety. Between the safety warning in the sections on edible mixtures, the fire safety, the usage of Latin names to indicate specific plants, the precautions and contraindictions in every herb profile, knowing that it's not a medical text, essential oil safety and common sense, and separating magicals and medicinals and explaining the difference in dilutions and dosages and whatnot for each, this is what I would refer to as an incredibly safe book.

There is an ethics chapter that doesn't suck. There's an acknowledgement in the tools chapter that generalities aren't always true. Likewise, there's an acknowledgement that you might just not get along with some plants. These are good and healthy to include in a beginner book.

Among the author's various good takes, I want to quote the gender alignment section in the preamble leading up to the herbal compendium:

The term "gender," when applied to herbs in magickal workings, is not based upon our societal or scientific understanding of the word. Used as a classification, it is merely symbolic. It attempts to describe the attributes of the herb in a simple and clear term, but this sometimes fails when we attempt to apply the understanding of gender in the way it is often applied to people. I find it helpful to use terms such as alignment, disposition, or nature to better understand the role gender plays, as the term "gender" can be somewhat misleading in this circumstance. This is further complicated for those who speak gendered languages—the gender applied to the energy of herbs may not align with the gender attributed to the herb by the language.

Another very interesting take can be found regarding cleansing later in the book:

When working cleansing spells, I personally find it useful to use a combination of ingredients that contains both a cleansing herb and one of another intention—usually one that encourages or adds an energy, rather than one that removes energies. This serves to fill the void created by the purification, and I believe it to be particularly important for large-scale cleansings. You'll see this preference reflected throughout the recipes in the spells to come. You may also choose to return to the space after the cleansing has been performed and work positively charged spells to similarly fill the void.

Speaking of the spell compendium, let's talk about that, because that was one of my favorite parts of this book. There's common sense regarding spell disposal and the author is pro-banishing thanks to a haunting in the author's own life (which was documented on her YouTube channel while it was happening). I really appreciate the spell forms section (basically a prep guide for each form of spell used by the author) being so open to specifics being added later, it really helps that they're templates that can then be referred back to; I prefer this greatly to a specific spell and an essay's worth of substitutions. Even the spells in the spell compendium (which is broken down section-by-section, another thing I love) direct you to the base spell form earlier and provide examples of ingredients that the author enjoys using most.

Finally, while the bibliography is extensive (39 different books by nearly as many authors), the font is also very small so it only takes up two pages. The index, similarly, has small font so it doesn't add too much to the overall page count.

Overall, this is a straightforward, calm, and understanding approach to spell crafting and casting using plants. It's incredibly thorough for a beginning reader. It has an extremely patient tone, but I might be projecting based on watching the author's YouTube channel. This book is very specific about what it wants to be, and I believe it achieves that.

The Credits

The dividers I used in this post are made by me over on @jasper-graphics, even though this series of art deco ones apparently never saw the light of day.

The Green Witch's Guide To Herbal Magick: A Handbook Of Green Hearthcraft And Plant-Based Spellcraft was written by Annabel Margaret "The Green Witch" and published by Page Street Publishing Co. The cover and book illustrations are also by Annabel Margaret, while the book design was courtesy of Kylie Alexander.