#but ultimately getting lots of words written which is nice

[thevioletcaptain]

someday soon i'm going to post several 10k+ deancas fics on ao3 all at once because i'm deranged and didn't want to start posting any of them until they were complete, but that also means that they'll probably all be done at the same time. or maybe i should stagger them over a week or something. we shall see. anyway, lotta words incoming.

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Finals

Propaganda Under Cut

Sakura Haruno

Her husband is gay and her author doesn't know how to write women. So many people say she's the worst but she. DESERVES. BETTER!!! Save her from this franchise.

My baby girl my bestie my best friend. She committed the crime of um being written by kishimoto who both doesn’t know how to write women and somehow writes men in the gayest way possible specifically naruto and sasuke. Like the thing is naruto and sasuke ARE gay and also she gets so much hate for the crime of kishimoto writing her one dimensionally in love with sasuke. I know her personally she is a butch lesbian to me just trust me she’s in love with Ino and has a lesbian thing going on with Karin okay just trust me. My everything. She needs to divorce the loveless lavender marriage she’s in 

What is there to say, even? The OG Threat to my 90s anime brain, the only woman I've ever hated with such a passion she made me turn away from the color pink. I used to write fics with my friend where she got left behind on purpose so our OCs could join the Naruto and Sasuke team instead. I loathed this bitch until I was 16 and realized the author simply couldnt write women and decided it was time to make peace with Sakura. It is not her fault she's vaguely written and obsessive over Sasuke. She deserves better. Sasuke and Naruto still should be together and Sakura shouldnt be with Sasuke but I no longer believe this because I hate Sakura, it is because I love her. She deserves a spouse who will actually put in the time to treat her like the hero she is.

Misa Amane

she gets treated in-canon the way fandoms treat female characters that Threaten an m/m ship. it's like, "oh why don't you go sit in the corner and be pretty, misa, while the Men have intelligent conversation and pretend they aren't ten seconds from fucking each other, doesn't that sound nice?" it's infuriating. and MAYBE it's better now but i remember her getting treated the same way in fanfiction too, like we all need to do just as badly by our female secondary characters as fucking tsugumi ohba, but with the added insult of making her be alternately oblivious of the relationship between light and L or actively trying to sabotage it—incompetently, of course, because god forbid misa be allowed dignity or moments of cleverness.

she's one of the first characters I think of when I consider old school fandom misogyny. The annoying bitch and clingy crazy gf allegations were AFTER HER ASS. She's also a lot more intelligent than people gave her credit for, but most seem inclined to take the Very Biased word of our unreliable, narcissistic narrator and his homoerotic arch nemesis and claim that just because she's bubbly and into romance that she's also a complete moron. Which is blatantly untrue. Everyone was afraid of Misa girlbossing too hard. Killing people and devoting yourself to the deranged twink of your dreams even though you know he'll never love you back??? Having a hardcore goth aesthetic and being so Hot even literal Death Gods are into you?? God forbid women do ANYTHING!

Not only is she the victim of yaoi culture, she is the victim of early 2000s misogyny by an author that wanted to introduce a girl character because he knew his male rivals were getting too homoerotic. She is a goth bimbo icon who portrays what I think is one of the few callouts for stan culture and what parasocial relationships can do to both the stan and the idol. The fact that she is a toxic fan of Kira and also hot, funny, sociable is tragic in its own way, which I think the author did try to touch on but was too misogynistic too really get through. Of course, she was reduced to villain status by the fandom and anime alike because she got in the way of the supposed romance in their psychological horror anime

[seungrem]

lee felix x m!reader

‘Work Husband’ ~*+

summary: Transitioning into a new department can be tough. Luckily, male!reader’s new boss pairs him and Felix together- the two almost immediately having great chemistry. Work-relationships almost always develop into something more, right?

( overview: office AU, soft-top!felix since u guys want it so bad, bottom!reader, smut obviously, protection and all of that, bj + anal, discreet/hidden but in office )

emoji theme:

🪐 ( office AU )

+❄️ ( +18, mdni )

🌱 ( short fic, oneshot - barely 1k words )

☁️ ( = y/n )

likes, comments, & reblogs appreciated ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

“Welcome. It’s a pleasure to have you join us here.. and I’m sorry about your former office.”

A large wooden desk with a few tan files sat inbetween ☁️ and his new boss. Shedding beams into the room, the sun’s golden rays illuminated the frosted glass surrounding the two. ☁️ shook his head lightly, him then smiling at the older woman.

“It’s no problem. As long as this department isn’t anything like the other, this’ll feel like a promotion.” ☁️ brushed his hand against his navy blue sweater and sighed. “Thank you for having me.”

“Like you said, this is kind of like a promotion. I expect great things from you.” The boss stood up as a soft knock erupted from outside of the office. A man with long-ish blonde hair walked in and smiled- first at the boss, and then to ☁️.

“This is who you’ll be assisting. Felix will give you written pieces and ask for revisions until he sees that it’s fit to be published. Unfortunately, we are short staffed by choice, so the work load will be a lot. Please keep up with the given tasks and their deadlines. Felix?”

☁️ turned his head back to the man.

“Hello, nice to meet you. My name is Lee Felix and I’ll be taking care of you. I look forward to working with you.”

☁️ simply smiled and spoke a shy “hello,” as he stood up. “I’m ☁️, it’s nice to meet you as well.” He then thanked the boss for her time and followed Felix out of the room.

“Behave, Felix!” The boss shouted as ☁️ stepped out of the room behind the man. He followed Felix down the left side of the large room, stopping at a set of cubicles that sat against a wall of windows. Started from the floor and touching the ceiling, the view displayed a bustling city. The cubicle was light gray and quite large, with a grey laptop located on the desk inside. Felix walked in and pulled out the large cushioned chair, and looked around awkwardly.

“So.. this is where you’ll be spending a majority of your day. Since it’s so spacious there’s only two cubicles located against the wall on this side of the room. My area is directly in front of yours.” He pointed over the cubicle wall. “If you ever need anything, please just walk over or.. just look over it. Sound good?” Felix explained, his voice soft yet sonorous.

☁️ nodded and smiled bashfully. Felix was remarkably good-looking, which was unusual for an office setting such as this one. The man was pretty much ☁️’s type, too, making him even more nervous than he already was.

“Yes. Thank you, Felix.”

Felix smiled and nodded to the man before leaning against the cubicle’s entrance. He dug his hands beside his white button-up and down into his black pant’s pockets, waiting for ☁️ to sit down before responding.

“Of course. I’ll let you get used to the office before I ask you to do work.”

☁️ acknowledged what he said by nodding and smiling.

After Felix left, ☁️ opened the new computer and typed in his passcode information. For some reason, the office wifi wouldn’t connect, though. After trying for another minute, he stood up and peered over the wall to see a sitting felix.

“Felix?” ☁️ asked, his nose just barely peaking over the wall. Felix smiled and stood up to look over the wall as well.

“What’s up, love?” He asked, placing a hand on the edge to support his weight. ☁️ was initially taken aback by the pet name, but ultimately didn’t mind.

“I can’t get onto the wifi for some reason. Is there a different one that you use?”

“Oh yeah, sorry about that. I guess our tech guy forgot to set that up for you. Jisung always forgets.”

☁️ watched a Felix closed his computer and then made his way back over to his cubicle. As a result, the man sat back down and perked his back up to fixed his posture. Felix strolled in after a few seconds and leaned into ☁️’s computer, his body softly brushing against the man’s shoulder. ☁️ couldn’t take his eyes off of Felix’s side profile as he typed into the computer.

“All right, you’re all set.” He cooed, brushing against ☁️ once again. As Felix was about to leave the cubicle, ☁️ shot up and grabbed his hand. Surprised, he stopped and turned around, still holding ☁️’s hand.

“Sorry if this is weird to ask, but..” ☁️ paused and tilted his head. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Oh, no.. not really my type if you know what I mean..”

“Oh okay.. then do you have a significant other- or something?” ☁️ asked.

“No,” Felix smiled and tightened his grip on ☁️’s hand. “but I think I kinda have a crush.”

☁️ knew exactly what he meant and mentally blushed. “Same here. Maybe we could go out sometime?”

“For sure. What’d you have in mind?”

“Would you wanna.. come to my place?”

Felix looked to the side, and then back to ☁️. “We don’t have to wait. Here, follow me.” He said, leading ☁️ into a storage room a few feet away from their work areas. Though the lights were extremely dim as the two hurried in, ☁️ could see the many drawers, bulletin boards, and spare furniture. Felix lightly closed the frosted door and somehow locked it from the inside, him then turning his attention to ☁️. He grabbed ☁️’s hands and held them in his own.

“Do you mind?” Felix asked as he raised one of the man’s hands to his mouth, kissing it. ☁️ shook his head and wrapped his arms around Felix’s neck, Felix reacting by guiding ☁️’s back into the wall behind him. ☁️ pushed Felix’s head forward, allowing the man’s lips to meet his own. Felix’s hands ran down ☁️’s torso, then settling on his hips as ☁️ began french kissing. Felix’s grip on the man’s waist tightened the deeper they kissed, with Felix’s bulge now rubbing against ☁️’s. A few seconds later, Felix pulled away from ☁️- strands of his blonde hair having fallen over his eyes.

“Come over here.” Felix instructed, using a hand to drag ☁️’s wrist over to a small table sitting against the wall. Felix gently pushed ☁️’s shoulder down as he leaned back on the table, leaving ☁️ to fall onto his knees. With a growing bulge right in front of his face, it was only natural for ☁️ to begin unbuttoning the man’s pants.

“Ah.. you’re excited, aren’t you?” Felix teased, a soft chuckle escaping his lips. He ran a finger through ☁️’s hair as the man exposed his dick print, ☁️ then pulling the pants down to Felix’s ankles. Felix began unbuttoning his white top as ☁️ stroked the man’s boner through his gray underwear.

“Can I take it out?” ☁️ asked, continuing to caress it. Felix finished unbuttoning his top, displaying sculpted abs much to ☁️’s liking.

“Go ahead.”

☁️ slowly pulled the man’s underwear down, not anticipating getting smacked by his length.

“Oh, sorry.” Felix laughed. ☁️ rolled his eyes and smiled, him then beginning to stroke Felix’s cock, the man softly whimpering as he did so. ☁️ grinned at the reaction, placing Felix’s dick inside of his mouth and slowly throating it. He leisurely bobbed his head up and down as Felix threw his head back, practically moaning out now.

After a few seconds of steady swallowing, Felix quickly grabbed ☁️’s head and yanked it back. His dick fell out of the man’s mouth dripping in saliva.

“Sorry, I didn’t want to finish yet.” Felix said, kneeling down to match ☁️’s eye level. “Can I get some of this too?” He whispered as he got closer to ☁️, him then reaching behind the man and squeezing his ass.

“Oh, do you have a condom?”

Felix reached behind him and magically pulled out a wrapped condom and a tiny bottle.

“Of course.”

☁️ furrowed his eyebrows and muttered an “alright.” as he followed Felix’s action of standing up. Felix’s skinny dick was still hard and poking out in front of him. Pulling his own pants and underwear off with quickness, ☁️ placed a hand on Felix’s chest.

“You can sit or lay on the table if you’d like, or you can-”

“You should let me do the work.” ☁️ murmured, softly pushing Felix back. Felix smiled and nodded, sliding back to sit on the table. He rolled the condom over his dick as ☁️ climbed on top of him, the man placing his knees beside each of Felix’s thighs. Waiting for him to pour the liquid onto his dick, ☁️ wrapped an arm around Felix’s neck- the man’s chest inches from Felix’s face.

“Alright, go ahead.” Felix muttered, placing his hands on ☁️’s waist and guiding the man down onto his cock. As his pink tip slipped in, ☁️ moaned out and tightened his grip around Felix’s neck.

☁️ now sat entirely on Felix’s dick, moaning softly as he took his time to undulate on it. The two huffed and whimpered as ☁️ began moving steadily on Felix’s dick, with ☁️’s chest still inches from the man’s mouth.

“That’s good.” Felix whispered, his eyebrows furrowed and his ajar lips producing silent moans. ☁️ felt Felix’s lips on his nipple a second later, him sucking and licking as the man bounced. ☁️ sped his undulating form up as Felix moved his hands down to ☁️‘s ass. Guiding him up and down even faster, ☁️ quickly became overstimulated. His knees buckled and he fell into Felix, who pulled away from the man’s nipple and placed his chin into ☁️’s neck.

“Can you keep going?” Felix hummed into ☁️’s ear, rubbing up and down his waist as he waited for an answer. After another few seconds, ☁️ pulled away from Felix and planted a kiss on his cheek.

“Yeah, you can keep going.”

Felix nodded, pulling ☁️ into him and wrapping both of his arms around ☁️’s waist. As Felix began thrusting softly into him, the man wrapped both arms around Felix’s neck. Felix grunted as his thrusts picked up in speed, filling the room with the sounds of clapping and ☁️’s whimpers. Both of their moans hummed in each other’s ears, pushing the two to the brink of finishing.

Felix continued shoving the man onto his dick despite feeling ☁️’s knees buckle for a second time. As ☁️ felt his leaking dick brush against Felix’s rough abs, he threw his head back and gasped. He ejaculated, painting Felix’s abs in a glistening white liquid. The man thrusting into him noticed, and became even more turned on, using all of his force to drill into ☁️.

“I-I’m cumming.” Felix gasped. After a few more seconds of harsh and sloppy thrusting, Felix forced ☁️ onto the entirety of his length, filling the boy up with his semen.

The two breathed heavily in front of each other before Felix fell back onto the table, pulling ☁️’s arm as he did so. ☁️ fell on top of him, his energy drained. The man pulled Felix’s dick out of him and slid the condom off, bringing it in front of him so that he could tie it and throw it aside.

“I would’ve lasted longer if you weren’t so cute.” Felix muttered, stroking ☁️’s arm as the two laid still.

“It’s okay, there’s always next time.”

“Yeah.. and I’ll be sure to take you out to dinner beforehand.”

☁️ chuckled at the comment, planting a kiss on Felix’s puckered lips. “I’d like that.”

“I would too, love.”

a/n: writing smut is saurrr boring but i hope u guys like this lil top felix moment. i still think he’s cuter as a bottom lolll :,)) alsoo lowkey im desperately waiting for someone to request an indie movie plot so i can write smth cute, request awayyy!

likes, comments, & reblogs appreciated ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

[flightfoot]

Adrien Angst Fics and Series that finished in 2023

So I love some good Adrien angst and hurt/comfort, and I figure a bunch of other people do as well! Hopefully these fics scratch that itch! They're all from the collection I set up earlier for the fics from 2023 that I recommend! I've got 31 fics in here. It's a popular genre that I like a lot, there are a lot of fics for it!

home is where the fight is by @rosie-b

Nadja Chamack’s voice greeted Adrien as he sat up straight, wiping his clammy hands on his pants and ignoring the black kwami floating by his shoulder. “—shocked to see our heroine fall in battle today, taking a direct hit from the akuma just as she detransformed. Parisians are torn between blaming Hawk Moth and Cat Walker for their roles in this tragedy, which ultimately revealed the civilian identity of Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng.” Adrien turned off the TV and lowered his head as his vision blurred. Written for Ladrien June Day 7: Injured

I adore this fic! Which shouldn’t be a a surprise, it’s no secret that I love Sentiadrien Enemies AU. Adrien’s so worried about Marinette getting hurt, and wishes that he could help keep her safer, could tell her what’s really going on or get rid of the ring or something, but he can’t. Still, he IS able to find clever ways around some of his father’s more problematic orders. Loopholes for the win!

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Guilty by Association by @rosie-b

Marinette respected Adrien’s strength and courage more and more every day. No matter how many times people threw nasty words or literal tomatoes at him; no matter how many companies refused to work with him anymore; no matter how clear it was becoming that he would never be forgiven for his father’s crimes, he chose to greet new people with a smile and hope that this time, someone would recognize the kind heart hidden behind his hated name. She wished she’d had the chance to meet him before she’d accidentally ruined his life. Written for the Ml Writers Guild September event ‘back to school’

I love how Marinette keeps reaching out to Adrien, trying to protect him, even if it doesn’t always work. To let him know that she’s in his corner at least. Hawk Moth had to be taken down, but the consequences for Adrien… she never wanted anyone to get hurt in the process. 

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oh, look now, there you go with hope again by @ladyofthenoodle

After the defeat of Hawkmoth and his accomplice, Chat Noir, Marinette is ready to return to her normal life, but she can’t escape Adrien Agreste, who was sentenced to a fate many consider worse than prison: public school. Specifically, her public school. Still, that doesn’t mean she has to interact with him, does it? Except, if she doesn’t… who will?

I love a good enemies au, and seeing the aftermath of an enemies au… that’s rare. She’s wary of Adrien, but with how he’s being bullied, and how he’s just taking it in the hopes of being accepted, she can’t help but reach out to him.

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Disintegrated Pancakes by @scribeofrhapsody

Adrien had started expecting the family breakfasts. He had NOT been expecting his father to collapse in the middle of one.

I’m shocked I haven’t seen more of this sort of thing, with Adrien finding out his father’s Monarch via seeing the Cataclysm wound. I love that Alya gets involved in this, being the person Adrien runs into after fleeing the room, and then Adrien getting to talk things out with Gabriel and Nathalie. Thankfully Gabriel is at least not completely incapable of being reasoned with here, or things could have gone worse than they did. It’s a nice little read, though with an ambiguous ending (at least at the time when I write this).

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with this ring by @thelibraryloser

She thought “you and me against the world” had sounded like lopsided odds before, when she hadn’t even dreamed “you against me” was a possibility. Or maybe she had dreamed it, but at least in those dreams he’d had cold blue eyes and a stark white mask. The villain she’d fought today had looked at her through her partner’s own bright green eyes. It wasn’t meant to be this way.

Short and sweet Sentiadrien enemies canon divergence fic here! I adored Marinette finding out why her kitty seemed to have “betrayed” her, and the righteous anger on his behalf once she figured out that it wasn’t of his own free will. Her comforting Adrien about it was just… really good. It’s a Hawkmoth Defeat fic too, so the immediate aftermath gets covered as well. Adrien needs a hug.

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Nothing Else Matters by LiquefiedStars

Marinette couldn’t figure out Chat Noir. He was supposed to be her partner, but instead ended up working for Hawk Moth. Still, her heart betrayed her and when a strong connection forms between them, Ladybug goes to Chat looking for answers, finding out more than she bargained for.

Sentiadrien enemies AU fic! He never wanted to fight against her, but Gabriel caught him before he could transform for the first time, and with his father using his Amoks against him, he had no choice. 

I like that there’s a solid explanation for why Fu let Adrien keep his Miraculous even though he’s been working against Ladybug, I don’t often see explanations for that that I’m satisfied with.

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Slowly Fading (from my misery) by @wehadabondingmoment

“You’re looking awfully deep in thought today, minou.” Ladybug’s gloved hand stroked over his hair and Chat Noir closed his eyes with an unstable breath. He got like this sometimes. Lately, it had been getting worse. Or: Gabriel likes using the rings to order his son around. After a while, it starts having effects on Chat Noir as well. (The more often Gabriel commands Adrien to act a certain way, the more it gets ingrained in his mentality. He suffers because of it.)

This is a gorgeous fic. Adrien’s been puppeted around, forced to obey orders for reasons he doesn’t understand, for so long, so often that a lot of times his own body doesn’t even feel like his. A lot of residual orders keep on bubbling up and stopping him from doing what he wants to do, and he just… doesn’t understand why. Considering how Adrien looked in Pretension when Gabriel forced him to go to his room so he could talk to Marinette alone, and how desperately Adrien tried to head back there but couldn’t make himself open the door, how terrified and confused he’d seemed, I think his feelings here, his mindset, is pretty close to canon.

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all of your flaws and all of my flaws (are laid out one-by-one) by @coffeebanana

Ladybug and Marinette have both been acting strangely since Monarch’s defeat, and Chat Noir would give anything to know why—to be able to help them. He just…didn’t expect his answers to come when Ladybug drags him to his father’s statue in the middle of the night along with a bag full of spray paint.

If you felt unsatisfied with Adrien being left in the dark about Monarch, with Ladybug lying about Gabriel being a hero, this is a great fic to read. Marinette’s breaking down keeping this secret, seeing people treat Gabriel as the hero she told people he was, until she finally snaps and has to do SOMETHING, has to tell SOMEONE the truth. 

Which Chat takes pretty well! He knows how persuasive his father could be, and he’s mostly just relieved at finally hearing someone say that Gabriel wasn’t a hero. It’s still a lot to cope with though.

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Falling (sick) with you by @chocoluckchipz

Nothing would be easier than taking a pair of earrings off an unconscious Ladybug. Doing so would bring his mother back and end their decade-long strife. He shouldn’t be hesitating when a chance of a life time presented itself to him. He should not be looking for excuses and reasonings as to why spending another twenty or so years fighting this woman rather than pleasing his father and giving his mother another chance at life was not such a bad idea after all.

Ah, I love a good enemies au! Even when they’re enemies, Chat is unwilling to hurt Ladybug. Though honestly, he makes himself out to be more of a villain than he actually is, it’s pretty obvious to everyone that he’s not trying as hard as he could to get her earrings. There’s very good reason for that.

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adrien agreste and the consequences of tweets making fun of yourself by Anonymous

Well, Adrien thinks, what’s the worst that could come from a few poorly thought-out tweets lightly ribbing his own civilian identity?

I love the focus here on how people just assume what Adrien’s thinking and feeling and act on his behalf, without actually waiting to see what HE wants, and Adrien’s growing frustration. How they create a version of him in their heads, but don’t care to check with reality to see whether he actually wants their “defense”. 

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what makes a human (am I?) by GraceM_TheStoriedLife

Adrien comes to Marinette’s out of nowhere. Usually Chat is her rock. Tonight, it’s her turn. (Or, in which Adrien discovers some secrets he’s not prepared for and Marinette is as Marinette-y as always.

So Adrien discovers he’s a sentimonster and immediately runs to Marinette for support. It’s as cute and angsty as you’d expect. She is, of course, very supportive of him. Also some discussion of Gabriel being abusive, since both she and Nino had been trying to get Adrien to see that. Especially with how, exactly, Adrien found out he’s a sentimonster. He can relate a little better to Felix’s experiences now than is healthy, I’ll just say.

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Vengeance Noire by @phiellydinyia

After a horrific argument with his father, Adrien escaped from the mansion with his heart in pieces. In hindsight, it made sense why an akuma was sent his way. He shouldn’t have let his emotions get the better of him. But he never expected Plagg to be even more upset than he was. He never expected his own kwami to be akumatized. To become the threat of a city he swore to protect. And what’s worse is the fact that Chat Noir can’t jump in to save this one. But Ladybug can. And that’s why he has to find her as quickly as possible, suit or no suit.

I love some good Adrien angst, especially with a delicious side order of Plagg and Adrien’s bond with each other. Even as Adrien’s barely functional, though, he’ll do everything in his power to save Plagg, even if Plagg wishes he wouldn’t go quite that far. 

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This Distance Between Us by @coffeebanana

After defeating Monarch, the search for the Peacock Miraculous brings Ladybug and Chat Noir to a hotel room in London. But it’s hard to enjoy the victory when Ladybug can’t figure out why Chat’s been so quiet, why he seems so sad. How’s she supposed to help if she has no idea what’s wrong?

This is a great Sentiadrien fic, with Chat freaking out about it and feeling like he’s not worthy of Ladybug’s affections, but not telling her what’s actually wrong because he thinks she won’t want him anymore if she knows. Of course, he’s wrong about that.

Also there’s a pretty intense confrontation with Felix, pissing Chat Noir off is a bad idea.

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Rocking the Cat-Eyes by @buggachat

“I like being a girl.” “That’s the alcohol talking,” Marinette snorted. “I’ve always been a li’l jealous,” Adrien admitted. “… Of what?” “That you get to be a girl,” Adrien murmured, “and I don’t.” — When Marinette and Adrien host Girls’ Night at their apartment, Adrien is easily welcomed to attend as “one of the girls”… but has a bit too much to drink. Some drunken confessions are spilt, some assumptions are made, and most of all… Adrien is confused.

This is a great Genderfluid!Adrien fic. Marinette actually figures out that Adrien’s not entirely cis before he does, and tries to let him know she’s supportive… but unfortunately Adrien comes to some incorrect conclusions…

Anyway it’s a lot of fun, and Adrien rocks a dress and makeup!

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Family by @unecoccinellenoire

“You know,” Nino grins, “if you need advice on being a big brother in a year or two I’m sure I could help.” The bottom of Adrien’s stomach dropped out. — Adrien struggles with the concept of his father and Nathalie having children.

So this is a world where Adrien and Marinette managed to defeat Gabriel, taking his Miraculous, with them giving him an ultimatum: they won’t out him as being Hawk Moth so long as he doesn’t cause any more trouble and does right by Adrien. Gabriel does, in fact, move on finally to Nathalie, giving Adrien a lot of mixed feelings to deal with. He still loves them both despite everything, but he’s also angry at them and he definitely does NOT want them to have children, both because he thinks they’d like any biological child they had more (he’s also harboring guilt from indirectly being the cause of his mom’s death), and because frankly, they screwed up too much with Adrien for him to want them to inflict that on another child.

And then there’s also Adrien dealing with the realization that he’s a Senti on top of that and wondering why he and Felix look the way they do, what Emilie’s reasons were.

It’s mostly just Adrien getting to talk things out, navigating this emotionally fraught situation he finds himself in now that the dust is settled.

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When Secrets Come Undone by SortaArtsy

Ladybug promised not to tell Adrien… but she never promised not to confide in Cat Noir. What happens when Ladybug unintentionally vents to the one person who wasn’t meant to know any of it? ****MAJOR SEASON 5 SPOILERS WARNING! **** May not be season 6 compliant when it comes out.

This is a “Adrien finds out what everyone’s been keeping from him post-S5″ fic, and I think it’s handled really well! He feels very hurt, betrayed, and disbelieving initially about being a Senti and his father being Monarch (…mostly being a Senti, it ain’t that hard to believe that Gabriel was a supervillain), and is angry at everyone who kept it secret from him, but he still handles it well, going and talking to the people involved, getting their reasoning and perspective. 

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Wanted: Catnap by SortaArtsy

Adrien Agreste has barely been sleeping, trying to be everything expected of him. What happens when he spreads himself too thin? Sick!Adrien/ Cat Noir

Adrien’s just pushing himself so hard, trying to do his regular duties, until his illness forces him to rest. I love how concerned everyone is over him - even GABRIEL eventually relents and wants him to rest. It’s just cute and nice and fluffy.

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a winter so warm by @rosekasa

winters were hard for even the best of vampires, but at least adrien had marinette to keep him warm with her cuddles. december was going to suck without her. so it was only to be expected to get extra cuddles in before she left, right? (well, not really, considering those heating supplements he was taking, but she didn’t need to know about that).

This one’s mostly just cute cuddly adorableness! It’s basically like all those “Marinette gets the Ladybug trait of needing to cuddle up to someone for warmth”, but with Adrien instead. And of course featuring Marinette being a very talented witch who just wants to help Adrien stay warm when she isn’t there XD.

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and I thought I heard you sing by @into-september

When Hawkmoth has been defeated and unmasked, Marinette is left with two problems and no solutions. First, that Adrien is further out of her reach than ever before, and no-one can tell her how to get to him. Second, that Cat Noir is far more troubled than she knew, and the only thing she can do is wait for him at the place they agreed to meet.

It’s your classic “Hawkmoth’s defeated and taken into custody but that means Adrien’s in for a rough time” sort of fic. Everyone’s worried about Adrien and wants to give him what comfort and support that they can, but he’s being hidden away from everyone (which I mean, honestly that’s a good move), so that’s not really possible. Plus, Ladybug’s noticed that Chat’s having a tough time in his civilian life, which worries her.

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Betrayal by @jennagrinsoverml

MAJOR EPHEMERAL SPOILERS!! Ladybug planned to use Viperion’s power of Second Chance to get Chat’s identity to Su-han without Chat knowing or agreeing. Of course, then the world went crazy, and she didn’t go through with it. But when an akuma exposes Ladybug’s plan to Chat, he doesn’t know that. He just knows that his Lady betrayed him. He deals with his feelings in the best, most mature way he can think of. He disappears.

So I, like a lot of others, wanted more follow-up on Ephemeral, and particularly on the betrayal of trust it was for Marinette to try to trick Chat Noir into giving up his identity to a third party without his knowledge or consent (I wrote my own take on that at the time, called Transcient, that I’m proud of). This fic did a good job of exploring that, with Adrien reacting in a manner that made sense to me (repressing his negative feelings about the situation as much as possible and trying to justify it to himself, but still feeling terrible despite his own best efforts), and how Marinette realized that she messed up, since Luka keeping it secret that he knows hers and Chat’s secret identities caused her to be upset as well. It did a great job of exploring those negative feelings and letting everyone talk things out, explain their viewpoints, and rebuild their relationships afterwards, which is something I really value.

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I’ll give myself a name (something stupid and pretentious) by @bbutterflies

Nino looked at the number and didn’t recognize it. Usually he wouldn’t answer, but he had nothing better to do – and could still really use a distraction – so he did. “Hello?”

“Hey, Nino.”

Nino stood up quickly, chest tightening. He knew that voice. He’d been waiting to hear it again for over two years. “Adrien?” he whispered.

“Yeah. It’s me."

-

When Monarch is defeated (and revealed to be Gabriel Agreste), Chat Noir immediately goes missing. Adrien disappears not long after. When Adrien finally shows up in Paris again, Nino would do anything to make sure he doesn't disappear again.

Ah this is lovely, Adrien’s been in a lot of emotional turmoil since Monarch’s defeat, convinced that everyone would hate him, SHOULD hate him, for not realizing that his father was the villain, and should hate him even more for disappearing like he does. But slowly Marinette and Nino get through to him, convince him that they just want him back. 

And also Adrien and Nino smooch. Multiple times. So that’s a bonus XD.

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Two Steps Back (One Step Forward) by @buggachat

Sure, Adrien hadn't been texting her as often as he used to. And sure, Nino noticed it too. But just because Adrien had struggled with depression in the past, didn't mean he was struggling now. Surely, he'd tell her if something was wrong. Right?

Marinette just missed him, and she had a tendency to catastrophize. Surely, he was fine.

But if he wasn't... well, she wasn't above hopping on a flight back to Paris to make sure.

—————

Marinette's at an internship in New York, and Adrien has a depression relapse.

Once again buggachat comes out swinging with a fic centered around Adrien being super depressed and his friends charging in to help him, despite him not wanting them to because he feels like a burden. It’s not easy and Marinette goes through a lot of emotional turmoil, especially since his apartment is in bad enough shape that it can’t be changed to something that a human should be living in without also going shopping, but gradually she helps drag Adrien out of the hole he’s gotten himself stuck in. The emotions are on point and just... if you want to read a hurt/comfort fic with Found Family helping one of their own who’s struggling and doesn’t think they deserve it, this is a great fic to read.

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If only I could break free by megetstoread

It started with Adrien being upset about going away, but led to a lot of revelations.  

Another Sentiadrien fic here! After telling Adrien that he’s being sent to London, Gabriel takes advantage of Adrien being distraught to akumatize him. Luckily Ladybug’s right there and deakumatizes him before he can even do anything, but it shakes both her and Chat, leading to her allowing him to tell her a lot more about his home life than usual, and for her and Adrien to investigate to see whether there might be more to Adrien’s inability to stand against his father than just psychological abuse.

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Dr. Walker & Kitty Hyde series by @pearl484-blog

Summary of the first fic, Rain Falls, Everybody Lies:

Chat Noir loves the rain. He loves the danger. He loves the excitement, and he especially loves how much Catwalker hates it. 

Jekyll and Hyde AU

Adrien AUGreste Entry 3: Rain

So like the summary says, and the title indicates, this series is inspired by the popular conception of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - not how the book actually goes, but how it’s portrayed in popular media, with Jekyll splitting himself in two, with a “good” side and a “bad” side. 

During Kuro Neko, instead of just changing his appearance through changing his mindset, Adrien took more extreme measures, sealing off his “undesirable�� characteristics, his anger and sadness and all his sharp edges, into the ring so he could assume a more placid, genial persona that’d be more accepted - Cat Walker. 

But Chat Noir’s still there, taking over whenever Adrien gets too testy, and desperately trying not to be pressed out of existence entirely. With embodying Adrien’s sealed anger and snappishness and rebelliousness, he’s not too kind to the other heroes - he already felt looked down upon and ignored before this, and seeing them accept Cat Walker while he’s fighting for his life doesn’t endear them to him either.

The series isn’t unfair to them - this isn’t a case where one party is entirely in the wrong and another’s entirely in the right. Marinette, Zoe, Nino, and all the others - they did wonder about what was going on with Chat, but he wasn’t in a position where he could see it, and he did have legitimate questions about how much Ladybug would budge on things, if he’d told her what he was going through. It’s a series that emphasizes characters hurting and lashing out in some terrible ways, but that hurt still being respected, and working things out, trying to get everything to a better place.

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The Parable of the Caller by @nemaliwrites

A week after Hawk Moth’s identity has been revealed, Adrien finds himself with nowhere to go, nothing he can do, and worst of all, strange gaps in his memory he can’t explain. In a stroke of luck, he stumbles upon a burner phone filled with voicemails from one of the Saviors of Paris: Chat Noir himself, who disappeared following Hawk Moth’s arrest.

But with each new voicemail Adrien listens to, he’s forced to confront the fact that there might be some kind of connection between himself and Chat Noir — and discovering it might leave him more broken than before.

I absolutely adore this fic, it’s a fantastic character study for Adrien! Basically in this universe, Ladybug and Chat Noir talked about who should be Guardian, with Chat eventually convincing her that he should be the one to take it on, primarily due to the whole “the Guardian gets amnesia about Miraculous-related matters” situation, and wanting to protect Ladybug from that. Then he finds out Gabriel is Hawk Moth, they take him down, and he relinquishes the Miracle Box and his guardianship to Su Han - all without having a Reveal with Ladybug, since well, he’s not in the greatest shape mentally at the time.

It’s a real treat to see Adrien’s thoughts and feelings about one of the Heroes of Paris leaving him all these voicemails, treating him like this close friend for reasons he doesn’t understand, and just seeing Chat Noir as this outside person. He’s got a very different viewpoint on Chat when looking from the outside than he would from the inside, with being able to see his heroic and good qualities far more easily when he doesn’t know that he is Chat.

Also Marinette’s struggling in the background of the fic with the loss of her partner and guilt over sending Adrien’s father to prison. It gets touched on at various points, and you can tell that she’s having her own story off to the side that we’re just not entirely privy to, what with this tale being told entirely from Adrien’s perspective.

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call it even by @anna-scribbles and @sha-nwa

After a year of dating, there is one thing Marinette knows for certain: it's her and Adrien against the world. Through it all, Adrien is kind, patient, and endlessly understanding—even as she tries her best to keep her secret superhero identity hidden from him along with the rest of the world.

Nothing could ruin it, not even the supervillains of Paris: Hawkmoth and Chat Noir.

(adrinette dating // ladynoir enemies au)

This is one of those fics where Adrien and Marinette are REALLY going through it emotionally, with them starting off with wildly different perceptions of each other when untransformed, and then reckoning with the person they love the most being someone they think of as a villain, with all the betrayal and doubt that involves. Especially with Adrien having been lied to extensively by his father, and not knowing who or what to believe.

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drowning (in plain sight) by @buggachat

Everybody had expected Monarch's defeat to be a moment of triumph. Nobody had expected Gabriel Agreste, unmasked and mind frayed from continual abuse of the miraculous, crying out to all who would listen and making Paris certain of one thing:

His son, Adrien Agreste, is one of his sentimonsters.

And now he's missing.

Nobody can find him— not even the superheroes, and not even his closest friends. But Marinette, Nino, and Alya aren't ones to give up so easily. They'll find him, no matter what it takes.

(But, geez, would it kill Chat Noir to lend a hand?)

I’m sure everyone saw this one coming. If there’s one thing buggachat’s good at, storywise, it’s capturing raw, tumultuous emotions, frantic breakdowns as the characters desperately try to navigate bad situations. This was a real treat to read, as I’m betting most people reading this will agree, given just how popular the fic has been. It also has a ton of fanart, both by buggachat and by random fans, if you go looking for it (there’s a drowning in plain sight tag which I’d advise perusing). 

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Eventually by @lucid-ao3

Adrien’s life has been dictated by rules, monitored, and controlled for years. He has learned to compartmentalize. It’s not that bad. It always gets better, eventually. Doesn’t it?

Recovery can be an unexpected obstacle when you didn’t realize you were being hurt in the first place.

OR: How Adrien lives and copes with the emotional abuse inflicted on him over the years, and how he ultimately could overcome it.

If you want a good “Adrien doesn’t realize how abusive his father is but slowly buckles more and more under his tyranny, until things come to a head, and he actually gets the HELP HE NEEDS” fic, this is a good one!

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Not a Monster at All by @book-sandwich

Adrien Agreste overhears a conversation he shouldn't, and a revelation sends him falling onto the terrace of the only person he can trust: his good friend (?) Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Takes place sometime after the first two episodes of season 5!

As you can probably guess from the title, this is a Sentimonster Adrien, Monarch takedown fic. Adrien’s going through a tough time, and Marinette’s just trying to be there for him as his whole world’s collapsing around him. Unfrotunately, they still don’t know what the object is, or how likely Gabriel would be to control Adrien if he hinted that he knew the truth, which leaves Adrien in a precarious position - still not having done an identity reveal doesn’t help matters.

It’s a really solid fic for the genre, though since it started up before the later parts of season 5, there are a few things that don’t match up with the canon information we obtained later on. 

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Awaken by InkyIbis

The previously white butterfly, now oozing black and purple as a conduit of the butterfly miraculous powers, flutters softly within the silvered-gloved hand.

It sits there for a long time.

"Go, my akuma," The soft sigh pushes the butterfly, the akuma, out towards the despair of a love not returned. The same ache within his chest. On a level so great that he's willing to sacrifice the city to mend it.

It's okay if he's the villain for now. He'll force the miraculous of creation and destruction to be revealed, and once he gets his hands on them, none of this pain, none of his loss, will ever happen.

This is essentially a canon rewrite for Miraculous (specifically seasons 1 and 2, with a bunch of the events mixed around) that focuses primarily on Adrien, with his relationship with Nino being the main driving relationship of the fic. (Don’t worry, Marinette’s still treated fine, she’s just not the focus). This is the best “rewrite Miraculous with more of a focus on Adrien” type fic I’ve seen, with it reworking the plots of the episodes so that they’re different enough to be their own distinct thing - it’s not trying to just rewrite the canon episodes but from Adrien’s POV, there’s a lot of lore changes going on as well, and things occur in different orders.

Like lorewise, Chat’s given a more important role in cleaning up the mess the akumas leave, with his power helping to cleanse akuma victims and he and Ladybug needing to use their powers in tandem in order to cast Miraculous Ladybug. There’s also no Miracle Box holding the kwamis. Instead, Chat sometimes surpasses his limits and ends up summoning kwamis, which is dangerous to him, but very useful.

What really makes this fic great though, is its focus on Adrien’s emotions. You really get a feel for Adrien’s insecurities, especially when it comes to not feeling like he’s good enough for Nino, with not wanting to bother him when he absolutely should, with feeling like he’s not a good enough friend to him, and then there’s dealing with all of Gabriel’s usual abuse on top of that.

Speaking of Nino, this is an Adrino fic (though several characters get crushes on Adrien, Nino’s the one who matters most for this), though a slowburn one. Nino’s clearly head-over-heels for Adrien, but Adrien has like, no context for what a romantic crush feels like and is basically viewing Nino the way he viewed Marinette in canon prior to season 5. He clearly cares for him a lot, including romantically, he just... doesn’t get it.

Anyway, if you want an interesting canon rewrite fic from Adrien’s perspective with Adrino as the main pairing, this is a good story to pick up!

---

one does not love breathing by @wackus-bonkus-maximus

All of Paris watched as Hawkmoth murdered Chat Noir, taking the Black Cat Miraculous for himself. Ladybug swears revenge, but her enemy—and every miraculous in his possession—disappear without a trace.

Six years later, a new team of villains launches an attack for the last remaining Miraculous: Volpina, armed with new powers; Queen Bee, with questionable loyalty; Argos, the new holder of the Peacock Miraculous; and Cat Walker, who Ladybug hates the most.

Takes place after S4 - Strike Back.

This is a simply phenomenal fic. You get to explore a lot of different perspectives, like Felix, Kagami, Marinette, and Adrien’s, just to name a few, and see their different thought processes and plans and priorities, and how it can cause their plans to collide with each other, even when they all ultimately are aiming for a good outcome for everyone. The characters are pretty complex and can mess up at times, even when they’re doing things (or not doing things, looking at you Luka) with the best of intentions. It was a joy to read and a real nail-biter the whole time, I actually wrote a fic for it halfway through just to resolve some of the tension for myself, One Does Not Love Shadows.

It also features the version of Luka I’ve connected best with to date, as he feels like Luka, but also is a lot more fleshed out, and can make some major errors while simply trying to avoid missteps. It’s helped me get a better handle on a character who I’ve generally had a lot of problems with really understanding.

It is an M-rated fic, though I think Wackus is being overly cautious on that front. There’s no sexual content and I wouldn’t put the violence or gore above a T-rating, so I wouldn’t let the rating scare you off.

[ashs-cardboard-box]

Fatal Preferences

~ Teen!Joel Miller/Teen!Male!Reader

~ (Light?) Whump/Angst (Day 9)

~ Platonic/crushing

~ 2.5k words

CW/TW; Minor homophobia in a religious context, use of "queer" in a derogatory manner (Written by a gay man)

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Fall of 1996, a simple time to be alive. At least, for you and Joel, your childhood best friend. School was the only thing you guys had to worry about. That, and Joel’s younger brother, Tommy, invading your conversations like a nuisance. You both were too young for a part-time job, being fifteen.

Your parents were lenient with you, unlike Joel’s mother, but you still had rules. Only an hour allowed on your new N64, inside before the streetlights come on, wash your hands before and after dinner, do good in school..etc. Joel’s mother, despite never really meeting her, you heard she was different. Extremely so.

Joel had to attend church on Sundays, only allowed to wear the clothes his mom picked out for him, no swearing, strict ban on Playboy, comics, and video games, no guitar playing after five in the evening, take Tommy with him if he were to leave the house, no media that paints Jesus in a bad light… Despite the overbearing-ness, he seemed to love his mother a lot, who were you to judge? Especially since that meant he got to spend more time with you at your house. Over fall break, he spent more time with you than at his own house, even if he was forbidden from staying the night with you. Something about “corruption of a young man’s mind”? You didn’t get it.

You had to let ten-year-old Tommy play on your N64 again to keep him quiet, when the brothers came over to your house again for Joel to hang out, but the boy promised to shut up and let you and Joel leave your house alone, heading out to the woods surrounding your neighborhood. Joel and Tommy lived a few households down from you, which definitely contributed to the amount of times you two hung out. The sound of walking more than a few houses amidst the Arlington summer heat sounded less than appealing, even if it WAS for Joel.

You’d do a lot for him, and he you. It was painfully obvious the two of you liked one another; it was part of the reason why Joel and Tommy’s mother hated them coming to see you so often. You were sinful in her eyes. You didn’t understand it really.

You and Joel had never discussed what you two truly were, even with all the times you two hung out alone. He especially liked when his mother was distracted with Tommy and he got to spend more time with you. He enjoyed when you two could curl up in your bed and rewatch The Fox and The Hound for the umpteenth time through your dad’s ongoing collection of VHS tapes. Limbs intertwined together, unwilling to be untangled, with hearts beating as one.

But he wasn’t queer or anything. That was wrong, his mother said. Sure, he thought your eyes were pretty and his gut got all warm when he heard you speak, but that wasn’t gay. That was just liking how pretty your best friend is! How pretty, and nice, and warm, and funny, and good at Mario you were.

“Hey, check this out!” Joel calls over towards you as he bends down to pick up a stick partially hidden in the dirt, the soil getting up underneath his nails. The wood had grown into a pointed angle, as if it were the handle to a gun. Pointing it towards you with a mischievous giggle, his hands wrapped around the “handle”.

Feigning surprise, you put your hands up near your head as you stop in place, a grin splitting across your face. “Yeahh.. That’s right. Just keep your hands up, mister. I ain’t plannin’ on lettin’ you go any time soon.” He states affirmatively as he glances around the surroundings rapidly, searching for something else to use, but ultimately finding nothing.

“Just-” Joel begins again as he approaches you, pushing the pointed end of the stick against your sternum, earning a slight grimace of pain from you. “Put your hands behind your back.” He continues, looking right back into your eyes. It was a bit stupid, the entire thing, but that lovely smile told you everything you needed to know.

“Please don’t arrest me, sir! I gotta family back home!” You exclaim dramatically as you turn your back on Joel, lowering your hands from your head to clasp behind your back. Glancing over your shoulder, you watch as he tries to figure out where to put his new stick on his body, but not wanting a lecture from his mother on getting his clothes dirty, he just drops it at his feet.

“Not anymore, you don’t!” Joel declares. The comment didn’t make much sense, and that was the hilarious bit about it. Prolonged jokes; they were a true joy. Joel’s hands reach down and wrap around your own, but he pauses for a singular second. Shifting his grip on your hands to intertwine your fingers with his own. The dirt on his fingertips rubbing off against you, the grains gently scraping against your skin, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. You could feel your heart begin to race and your mouth go dry.

“Yeah? Why not?” You muse, gently prying your hands from his. Instead, turning around to face him again, grabbing ahold of his hands in yours. Joel’s thumb fidgets mindlessly with the skin between your forefinger and your thumb, creating a slight gap between your palms.

“I dunno.” He confesses with a lazy shrug. Snickering, you let go of him, playfully pushing against his chest. “You’re stupid.” You tease. “So are you!” Joel replies adamantly as he takes a step back. Only to follow up your shove with another against your chest.

“I am what?” You taunt, barely even budging from Joel’s lackluster push. You knew “stupid” was a bad word in his household. Along with other “swear words” like “hate” or “dumb”. Joel said his mother would make him bite into a bar of soap if he said them, so he tried to avoid those words and ACTUAL curse words.

“Shut up.” Joel huffs as he folds his arms over his chest like a petulant toddler, but you knew it was all an act and his words lacked any real bite. You’d been friends since preschool, of course you could read your best friend… boyfriend? ‘s body language!

With a small hum, you step closer towards him again, coaxing his arms from across his chest to drape over your shoulders. It was just like this. Alone time was rare on its own, but physical affection was just natural in your friendship, even if it made you question everything you’d ever felt before.

Joel, however, felt torn. He was sure his heart was spelling out your name every time it beat. His body and soul yearned for you. He used to freeze up with your touch, but now he couldn’t help but to miss it when he goes without. Yet, it was against his mother’s wishes. It was against God’s wishes. Her opinion was very important to him, and he couldn’t just disappoint her. He couldn’t choose between wanting to please you, or wanting to please her, even if that was an impossible task.

“You know she doesn’t want me hangin’ around you so much.. My mama.” He mumbles, right out of the blue. It makes you pause. Your hands stilling on his sides, fingers instinctively wanting to curl around Joel’s shirt and never let him go.

“I know. It’s why you gotta bring Tommy along everywhere.” You joke lightheartedly, but Joel doesn’t laugh. If anything, he looks pained. The earlier grin was nowhere to be seen. His eyes downturned to your boots caked in mud, only collecting more grime the longer you two are outside.

“She thinks you’re a queer…” He adds as he drops his arms back down to his sides. Part of him doesn’t want to, just wanting your touch to bring him through all of his troubles, but he’s smart enough to know it doesn’t work that way. “Heck, she thinks I’m a queer just ‘cause I wanna be a musician.”

“Well you ain’t.” You huff, clutching his shirt between your fists. Joel steps away from you and pushes your hands off of his shirt, only to smooth the fabric down, trying to prevent it from wrinkling. “Sorry.” You mutter. You’d forgotten all about his mom’s stupid rules. Your mother raised you better than to say you hated someone, but you did. You hated Joel and Tommy’s mom, even if you’d never said it out loud. You hated God. If it didn’t exist, Joel’s mom wouldn’t be all weird!

Joel doesn’t respond to your apology as his eyebrows furrow, a slow sigh leaving his lips. “Are you?” He prompts, nearly causing you to jolt out of your skin. It was such an abrupt conversation change, you wondered just how long this was bothering him for.

“Am I queer?” You question, earning a slow nod. You didn’t know what to say. You didn’t know. You’d thought about kissing boys before, yeah, and sometimes the male football players looked better than the female cheerleaders, but that was normal. Everyone thought like that. You knew Joel shared the same sentiment.

Months ago, you and him had a conversation, more akin to gossiping, about “who’s the hottest in school”. From the freshman, to sophomores, to juniors, maybe even a few seniors wormed their way into your lists. Being sophomores yourselves, you thought this was a normal thing every guy did at some point.

“I mean- I dunno.” You confess, automatically feeling anxiety boil bile in your throat, forcing it down with a swallow. “Never thought about it much, I guess. Like- I mean- I guess I’ve thought about you a few times, but haven’t you?” You add on as you stare into Joel’s downturned eyes, almost pleading that he understands where you’re coming from.

Joel remains silent, idly kicking at the dirt underneath his sneakers, squishing a clump or two beneath the toe of his shoe. “You said that Travis B. was hot. In your Chemistry class?” You remind, resting your hands on your hips.

“‘cause he looks like you…” He admits, wringing his hands together. He doesn’t want to hear what you think. This was sinful. He was broken for this. Boys couldn’t like boys. “You think I look like Travis B.??” You echo in slight offense, the comment going right over your head. To you, your classmate wasn’t the most attractive guy, there’s definitely better..like Joel.

“No, you don’t-” Joel pauses with a sigh. “I think you look…nice..” He rephrases as his eyebrows knit together with discontent. He didn’t want to be like this. He hated how he wanted your touch. He loved the way your skin felt against his own. The heat of your body absorbing him entirely each time the two of you cuddled in secret.

“B-But I can’t go against my mama like this. What would Tommy think of it?” He grits out, stumbling over his words slightly. “Your mama ‘n Tommy?” You repeat in confusion. You didn’t really understand. You thought you were having such a good day today and now a bombshell just had to come and ruin it? “Joel, what about you? I mean.. Do you really not wanna see me no more?”

Joel didn’t know what to say. The admission felt like acid on his tongue, but the truth was just begging to burst right out into the open. Awkwardly sliding his hands into the pockets of his pants, picking at the pocket lint inside. He can’t even look at you, and he’s not sure why. Maybe it’s the knowledge that he knows he’ll crumble, just like always. He couldn’t stomach the idea of hurting you.

“It ain’t that simple, Y/N. My mama expects better of me. I gotta set an example for Tommy. What would he think if he saw me lovin’ on you like that?” He clears his throat as his voice cracks, exposing the layers his dilemma runs through. His soul yearned to align with yours, but his mother’s expectations– his church’s expectations– they were holding him back.

“My mama will love you if yours don’t. You know she will. Y’all can just live with me and my folks and…not have to worry ‘bout all that!” You explain optimistically. Unable to resist, you step closer to Joel again, pulling him into a gentle hug, your hand stroking his back–resigning to down strokes only, keeping the shirt wrinkles in the forefront of your mind. You wanted to be selfish. You wanted Joel in your life because it was all you knew.

Joel falters for a moment, hesitantly wrapping his arms around your back as his chin finds its place on your shoulder. His eyes boring into a tree behind you, staring at an old carving in the bark you two made in elementary school.

“That’s…nice of you to say, but it’s different.” He mumbles as he grabs on just a little bit tighter at the possibility that you would part. You smell like a mixture of sweat, dirt, and your laundry soap, but he likes it. More than that, it’s addicting. Its distinctly you, and he craves to savor it.

“You ‘member ‘Jealous Jane’ back in middle school?” You prompt, to which Joel nods against you, shifting him just enough to nestle his face into your shoulder. “And when she got sent off to that camp ‘cause her daddy thought she was weird over her boyfriend?” You continue, earning another nod.

“She came back last year, I guess. She’s in my fourth hour now, but she’s changed. She broke up with her boyfriend and apologized to Molly for bitin’ her over him.” You explain. The memory of the start of the school year felt fresh in your head. “She’s all ‘bout God now. She’s different… and ‘m scared you’ll be like her too.”

“What’d you mean..?” Joel questions, voice slightly muffled by your shoulder. He doesn’t bother to correct himself, finding comfort in your embrace. “I’m scared you’ll get sent away and forget about me. I’m scared you’ll turn into some freakazoid and never talk to me again ‘cause your mama’s worried about us bein’ queer.”

“I’m not gonna just…forget you. That’d be stupid.” Joel scoffs as he leans back slightly, just enough to finally make eye contact again. “But ‘m not gonna disobey ma either..” He adds, leaning back into your warm hug. He needed this, more than anything. Even if his legs were falling asleep from standing still for too long.

Though, the two of you barely have enough time to register the crunching approaching you until the person is finally running away, narrowly missing Tommy’s stupid yellow shirt over the hill. Joel breaks away from you in a hurry, chasing after his younger brother back towards your neighborhood. You just hoped the little brat would keep his mouth shut after you let him play your Mario. You didn’t even want to imagine what would happen back at the Miller household.

With a huff, you slump down into the dirt, your eyes drawn to Joel’s “pistol” stick. You wondered if he would come back with you, or if Tommy just ruined the last chance you had with Joel. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I KNOW IM LATE IM SORRY </333 been so tired recently and fighting with Tumblr every post stg Return to masterlist

[linisiane]

The Self-Aware Player of Harry Du Bois

It's fascinating to me to think about how satire is used as the 'touch grass' or 'be fucking for real' genre. Oftentimes it's making fun of tropes/conventions by humorously contrasting them with reality, which is exactly what Disco Elysium is doing with the RPG!

It goes hand in hand with the idea of RPGs as escapist power fantasy. RPGs are often thought of as the ultimate self-insert fantasy by its detractors or worst players, ahem looking at all those DND horror stories about entitled mangsty murderhobos.

One of the most infamous criticisms of Disco Elysium is its lackluster combat.

ID A screenshot of a random forum discussion post by dungeon master Zed Duke of Banville. It reads: "Disco Elysium has neither combat nor exploration, and therefore is missing two of the three fundamental components (or sets of components) that define the RPG genre." End ID

The game has essentially bordered off your ability to make Harry into a power fantasy murderhobo because you just are physically unable to equip an longsword or cuisse to murder your average citizen on the street of Martinaise.

But even on a less mangsty level, it subverts a lot of the basic expectations of RPGs.

Like the encounter with the racist lorry driver! You never get the ability or quest to change his mind, you only choose how you react to him.

Where other RPGs might let you act as the white savior or the white knight of chivalric romance, no questions asked, you're changing the minds of everybody who's wrong so we can all get along, Disco Elysium really makes you confront your ability to whiteknight, makes you confront if whiteknighting is even helpful, and why you wanted to whiteknight in the first place.

It’s part of the fun/humor experience of Disco Elysium that you at first expect to solve the world’s problems with a couple quests and lines of ‘good’ dialogue and then get socked in the faced with the fact that yeah, you can’t do much, you’re one person, what did you expect, asshole? Cuno doesn't fucking care!

By subverting our RPG expectations, it forces us to become more aware that these expectations even exist and how they fall short of reality. Yet, despite this subversion, the world of Disco Elysium feels so much realer to us.

ID a screenshot of Disco Elysium dialogue YOU - "Don't call it a dump, you've made it nice and cosy here." NOVELTY DICEMAKER - "Yeah." She stares out of the window, not really hearing your words. "Or maybe it's the entire world that's cursed? It's such a precarious place. Nothing ever works out the way you wanted." "That's why people like role-playing games. You can be whoever you want to be. You can try again. Still, there's something inherently violent even about dice rolls." "It's like every time you cast a die, something disappears. Some alternative ending, or an entirely different world...." She picks up a pair of dice from the table and examines them under the light. End ID

Like, Neha is highlighting this little meta element of how you can stack your Harry in any RPG to pursue a certain ending or situation, but the actual outcome is still influenced by a dice roll out of your control.

A lot of the satirical humor in Disco Elysium comes from the absurdity that you can do everything right or everything wrong, and the dice can still fuck it up or save it for you—not just for things like high-fantasy attacks, but mundane things like remembering your name.

The dice are, at their core, about how RPGs aren't just for the control fantasy, of winning high-fantasy battles, but also can represent life as it is, mundane and uncontrollable.

Similarly, Harry is clearly written—complete with all the 'lore' that this would entail—to couch his RPG protagonist nature in the real.

If RPG characters are blank slates? Let's give ours amnesia! Need fast travel?! Kim teases the 41st Precinct for constantly running everywhere by calling it the Jamrock Shuffle. He needs to have deep and intimate conversations with everyone, even when they're strangers? Yeah, that's so weird we gave him the name 'Human Can-Opener,' and everybody remarks on his uncanny manipulation skills.

It's commenting on difference between controlling an RPG avatar and navigating in a human body.

As Kurvits said: “In reality we do not have control, or complete control, of our minds. Just like our body, it is something that we give-not even commands wishes to, and we hope it's gonna do it. We hope it's not gonna break down, we hope it's not gonna rebel against us.”

In one type of RPG fantasy, we don't even question our total control and even assume the joy is from the control.

But in Disco Elysium, we lack control and find joy in it anyway. That is the fun of the game making us, the players, 'self-aware' about its RPG elements, and it especially resonates with anybody not able-bodied, anybody neurodivergent.

[em-writes-stuff-sometimes]

My Work on Archive Of Our Own

Please ignore if me gushing about the reception of my fics is irritating. I understand there are some people who genuinely hate when fanfic writers do this, so I'm putting it under the cut so you don't have to see it!

(And fair warning; if this irritates you and you still decide to click 'keep reading' and you then decide that I am obviously up myself so I deserve a hate anon or several, I need to preemptively remind you that I gave you the choice not to engage. You will be blocked and I shall call you a silly little guy if you do this.)

I also would like to make this an invitation to anyone who wants to share their proudest stats, or a nice comment they got, or even just something they are really really happy about in having written their fic. (No need to click read more, just go for it and use this as your excuse to show some pride.) On any platform!

Gonna tag the following: @lya-dustin @ewanmitchellcrumbs @the-common-cowgirl @the-wonderland-madnesss @marthawrites

@vampire-exgirlfriend @exitpursuedbyavulcan @emilykaldwen @ripdragonbeans @aegonx

Feel free to turn this into a pass-on game, if you like! We should celebrate the things that make us happy, too. ❤️

I've not ever really posted about this because, IDK, I worry about being considered a conceited asshole. I figure, though, that this is my blog and my safe space and if I want to celebrate something I'm proud of then I should be able to do so. Nor am I implying that I believe this is any sort of metric of popularity or superiority, OR that I write for the sole purpose of validation through clicks and numbers. I have very little interest in engaging with any of that rhetoric. NO. It's just a convenient bonus, kinda like how I love my job and the fact I get paid is awesome but not my primary reason for doing it.

Okay, I think I've got the disclaimers out the way? (Can never be too sure with fandom.)

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who reads my stuff. Not only on here, but on Archive Of Our Own, which is more or less a place I consider the Ultimate Fanfiction Site (TM). It used to be fanfiction.net for me, but then their ads got annoying and their content ban gross, so AO3 it is! I've read fanfiction on AO3 since I was like 13, and I still find it crazy beyond belief that my work is not only on there, but that it gets any sort of traction at all.

As a little acknowledgement of something I'm proud of, I wanted to document my stats on my big series, terms of endearment, as of June 2024. It is by and large the biggest project I have ever done, and I've poured countless hours of researching, writing and editing into it.

darilaros (princess)

Words: 48,843 Comments: 254 Kudos: 801 Bookmarks: 111 Hits: 21,971

gevivys (beauty)

Words: 52,147  Comments: 578  Kudos: 2,965  Bookmarks: 490  Hits: 106,019

dōnus riñus (sweet girl)

Words: 58,775 Comments: 660 Kudos: 3,414 Bookmarks: 635 Hits: 141,339

ilībītsos (little slut)

Words: 62,725 Comments: 556 Kudos: 1,880 Bookmarks: 289 Hits: 99,939

ñuhus prūmȳs (my heart)

Words: 104,063 Comments: 1,188 Kudos: 2,274 Bookmarks: 368 Hits: 110,356

jorrāeliarzus (beloved) (ongoing)

Words: 38,451 Comments: 234 Kudos: 454 Bookmarks: 86 Hits: 16,208

That makes for a total of 365,004 words; 3,470 comments; 11,788 kudos; 1979 bookmarks; and 495,832 hits. Jesus Christ.

To everyone who kudos'ed, commented, bookmarked, subscribed or even just clicked on the link to the fic, thank you very much. This series has grown and grown, not just in my head but also in audience. It's given me so much encouragement and support in my writing, and a feeling like maybe I am decent at this? I don't know. I used to write when I was a kid, but I stopped during high school. Rediscovering the joy of it hasn't just been rewarding in terms of having fun with it, but also in discovering that there are people who genuinely want to read what I'm putting out. I've spent a lot of my life feeling powerless and silenced, so this really means so much to me.

I am going to keep on writing for as long as I possibly can, because I genuinely haven't found a hobby as long-lived and fulfilling as this.

Thank you. I'm so very lucky. I'm so grateful. I love you all!

[bethereforya]

Just an idea I had here and wanted it to exist:) New account and first anything I've written in a longggg time so be nice pls x

Pairing: College/Dealer!Ellie x Sorority/fem!reader

Warnings: Smut, swearing, oral sex (r!receiving), finger sucking (is that a warning?), mentions of weed, mentions of alcohol consumption.

Word Count: 1822

It wasn't a shock when she showed up, hell it's really one of the only times you saw Ellie Williams - Amongst the horny and intoxicated young adults dancing, making out, playing beer pong and of course, once Ellie arrived to 'work,' getting high. Turns out drunk college kids will pay good money for weed, who knew.

You were almost always at these sorority and fraternity parties that seemed to be happening every weekend alongside your sisters whether you were eager to be there or not, but no matter what mood you happened to be in when attending these parties you always chose to dress to impress, and by that you meant picking outfits that best complimented your features and assets.

Despite seeing each other just about every weekend you and Ellie didn't conversate much aside from the occasional 'excuse me' whilst navigating your way through drunks and potheads. You both definitely knew of each other though, your Instagram stalking upon first seeing her at one of these parties didn't get you very far however, a tiny circle that you could make out to contain Ellie's face followed by a "This Account Is Private" message was all you got. So you asked around. Not many people knew much about her, just that she was a student on campus who sells weed and had a close small circle of friends with two other students Jesse and Dina. Oh and also that she fucks around, but other than that she seemed to be a closed book, which you assumed was how she liked it.

Ellie knew a lot more about you however, a sorority girl with a public Instagram containing mostly pictures of you and your fellow sisters, selfies and pretty landscapes you had stumbled upon. It pretty much told Ellie all she needed to know, not to fuck with you. You were beautiful, popular and a party girl and she's lost a lot of her supply to the dreaded 'pretty girl discount' that she just couldn’t help but give out one too many times to girls like you before ultimately being ghosted. So despite her reputation of being a player and her absolute love of pussy she decided to focus on school and her dealings for the time being, a pussy hiatus if you will. This also meant that she was choosing to suppress any and all feelings that were associated with your smiling face, gorgeous body and sweet voice every single weekend, until tonight that is. You had taken the plunge and properly introduced yourself and struck up some light conversation which quickly turned to heavy flirting, more so on your part at first as you had noticed Ellie's hesitance but obvious interest, but within no time after you had started to draw more attention to your lips, strategically pulled your dress down just that smidge lower and took every opportunity you could to 'innocently' brush up against her the flirting was well and truly two-sided.

It only took an hour of your back and forth eye fucking between Ellie’s sales before you found yourself in your current situation, being harshly dropped on the bathroom counter, the cool marble coming as a cold shock to the back of your thighs. Ellie’s lips not once leaving yours as her hands wandered from your hips to the tops of your thighs, caressing your smooth skin.

“Did you lock the door?” You mumbled against her lips as you pulled off her denim over shirt and threw it to the floor.

“Yes,” came her quick response as her lips moved from yours and began making their way down your neck to the swell of your breasts.

“Are you sure?” You breathed out, your head rolling back.

You let out a sharp gasp as her hands yanked your legs so that your ass was on the edge of the counter. She made quick work of your dress, shoving the bottom half up to your hips, one hand going straight to your aching cunt and cupping it, the palm of her hand pushing oh so deliciously on your clit.

“I’m sure,” she responded lowly, eyes piercing into yours.

You nodded as she quirked her eyebrow, what you were agreeing to you didn’t care but you couldn’t help but gulp as you watched her slowly lower herself to her knees, only tearing her eyes from yours as she came face to face with her prize, your throbbing and leaking pussy that had been yearning for Ellie since she arrived at the loud, sweaty frat house.

Ellie's fingertips began softly exploring your thighs, her lips right behind them leaving a trail of purpling bruises as she sucked and nibbled, getting closer and closer to where you wanted her most but offering nothing more than her hot breath over your clothed pussy.

You couldn't help but whine as you watched her, bottom lip trapped between your teeth as your breathing picked up, and eyes got wider, silently pleading for any sort of stimulation.

"Look at you," she began with a smirk, meeting your eyes, "so confident out there, practically sitting in my lap and begging me to fuck you and now this? You're not going all shy on me now are you princess?”

You quickly shook your head to which she chuckled at and went back to work kissing and biting at your thighs causing your hips to involuntarily jut up, her mouth so close.

Ellie's smirk returned as she pulled away again, her hands coming to your hips to firmly steady them.

"Now don't be like that, if you're not shy then tell me what you want huh?"

She took one finger to slowly trace from your covered clit down to your hole, the flimsy piece of fabric almost mocking you as much as Ellie was.

"Want you to make me feel good," you breathed out, slightly embarrassed by the control she had over your body.

"Now be more specific," Ellie teased offering a light, barely there kiss to your clit through your panties.

"Fuck you," you whined, both annoyed and desperate.

"Well I'm trying to fuck you actually, so use your fucking words, and for the attitude you can use your manners now too."

Throwing any sort of strength you had out the window you gave her what she wanted. "Please Ellie, I want your mouth, please."

With a smug chuckle Ellie pulled the soaked panties off of one leg, leaving them to dangle over the opposite ankle, threatening to fall off before Ellie threw both of your legs over her shoulders.

"Was that so hard?" Came Ellie's infuriatingly delicious voice right before she took your throbbing heat to her lips and began to absolutely devour you.

Whatever teasing she had in her was long gone the second she tasted your sweet goodness, her grip on your thighs were strong, fingernails digging into your skin as she generously licked up your arousal, stopping only to take your puffy clit between her lips as she began to suck.

"Oh my fucking god, Ellie!" You squealed one hand grabbing the side of the counter to steady yourself and the other going to the back of Ellie's head to push her impossibly closer.

Ellie gave a light slap to the side of your thigh as she pulled back briefly to shush you. Despite the blaring music coming from downstairs, just one keen ear passing by would definitely hear what you were up to, not that she cared so much about what other people thought but she also wasn't sure how you would feel post pussy eating bliss to find out the whole party knew what had gone down between you and a certain drug dealing dyke.

You threw your head back, eyes squeezed shut as you poorly attempted to suppress your moans, grinding your pussy against Ellie's eager mouth, she lapped you up as if this were her first meal of the day, rotating between sucking your clit and practically making out with your cunt.

Your attempts at silencing yourself were for nothing. The second Ellie added her fingers to the mix, your head hit the mirror behind you, soaps and toothpastes fell to the floor, one of your heels slid off your foot as you tensed your legs around her shoulders and gripped her hair tighter.

"Fucking hell!" You gasped out between loud moans, your chest heaving with your tits ready to spill out as your breathing became erratic. A sight Ellie wanted posterised and taped to her bedroom wall.

Ellie took no time in finding your sweet spot, sucking your clit and hitting your spot at the perfect pace with her two fingers in a come hither motion.

Although she relished in the sound of your moans it took only a few moments for her to realise that there was no way you would be able to silence yourself, if anything you were just getting louder.

She quickly reached the hand that wasn't busy pleasing you up your body before glancing up to find your lips and stuffing two of her fingers straight in your mouth.

You sighed in contentment at this and gripped her arm tight as you felt yourself getting closer to your release, your moans now muffled around Ellie's fingers as your legs began to shake and your hips to stutter against her.

Tears of absolute bliss leaked from the corners of your eyes as you chased your high, your nails digging into Ellie's arm as you all but screamed around her fingers, she only stopped her assault on your pussy when you desperately began pulling away from the sensitivity.

Your eyes were closed once again as Ellie slowly stood up, coming between your thighs and despite your whines pulled her fingers from your mouth only to swap them with the ones that as of just a moment ago were bringing you to absolute euphoria.

You sucked your juices off sloppily as Ellie watched on meeting your eyes, her stare holding you in almost a trance like state with her thumb lightly resting on your bottom lip even after you released her fingers.

"See what happens when you use your words sweetheart?" Ellie taunted quietly.

"You're the worst," you breathed out as she removed her thumb

"Yet the best you've ever had," she retorted helping you off the counter and holding on to you as your thighs shook slightly while you slid your almost forgotten shoe back on.

"Might need a little more convincing then that," you attempted to tease back as you looked around for your panties, still completely fucked out but now capable of standing on your own.

"As long as you remember to bring your manners," Ellie winked pulling your dress down from your hips to an acceptable length before showing you your panties as she stuffed them into her jean pocket.

"You can get them when you come back for some more convincing."

[pebblume]

I never realized how liberating writing fanfiction would be. I hadn’t written creatively in years. It’s been so long that I kind of forgot what it felt like. The childlike rush of pouring your heart out onto a blank page, not caring about the results as long as you were having fun. I’ve tried writing fanfic a couple of times, for different fandoms across the years, but never finished anything I was really happy with, nothing that I felt comfortable sharing with the world. But something just clicked for me this past week. I realized how much fun it was to stretch out my writing muscles, to get inside the heads of my favorite characters. I realized that it didn’t have to be perfect to be worthy of being shared and loved by others. I realized that I had so many stories inside myself - more than I thought possible. 

But perhaps what I’m most in awe of is fanfic readers. The people who read my work and leave kudos and bookmarks and comments - one word comments, sweet comments, silly comments, paragraph-long comments. I love them all. I used to be afraid of leaving comments on AO3, afraid I wouldn’t have enough words, wouldn’t have the right words, to depict how I felt. But when I felt firsthand how much those comments meant to me I started leaving more and more of them, spreading a digital paper trail of love to all my favorite authors. More and more often I recognize the profile names and images in my comment section and think, Hey, I know you! Now I’m not just a guest on AO3, or a passive reader. I belong here. 

I won’t lie and say I don’t miss drawing a bit, my previous creative outlet. There are plenty of drawings inside me too, itching to be realized. I really just don’t have the time for two time extensive hobbies, not when I need to balance school and practicing and little things like sleeping and eating and relaxing. I miss it, but not as much as I thought I would. There’s a level of investment to sharing a story online that feels…special. When I post my art, I get engagement, and it feels nice, but ultimately, most people are only spending about ten seconds looking at the work I spent eight hours on, if that. When someone reads my fics, we’ve now spent time together. You’ve lived inside my head for a bit, made it your home. It’s about feeling seen, I think. Writing makes me feel understood in a way visual art sometimes doesn’t. It makes me feel vulnerable in the same way performing music does, but less exposed too. It’s interesting to me. 

The only downside, if you can call it that, is now that the writing bug has infected me, I’m finding it harder and harder to stop. I’ll have an idea and then suddenly five hours have flown by because I’m on a creative streak and I just want to write one more idea down, which turns into two, and so on and so forth. I dread stopping, because what if I forget something? What if I get into a writing block later? Suddenly I have people who want to read the things I write and I want to provide it, I really do, but I also have responsibilities. I say, as I write this, ignoring my audition tomorrow afternoon. 

I still have a bit of embarrassment attached to fandom works. When I tell acquaintances that I like to draw or write, I rarely tell them I mean fanart and fanfiction. As if loving something that deeply, that sincerely, is inherently shameful in this age of irony and soulless remakes. Especially when my interests usually consist of media marketed towards children, nevermind the fact that it has more emotional maturity than most ‘adult’ works. But I’m trying to get better about it. A lot of my closest friends know about my hobbies, and some I’ve even let see my work. It’s terrifying but also giddying, seeing them like an art post or comment on a fic. After all, to reap the rewards of being loved, one must submit themselves to the mortifying ordeal of being known, or something like that. 

I realized today that I’ve written over 30,000 words in the past two weeks about about two characters who don’t belong to me, but whom I’ve made my own.

And I’ve never felt happier

[eri-pl]

Silm reread 24A (the long-expected continuation): The Gift

Or: the Fall of Númenor

TW: well, it is Númenor. I will not give more details than the book does.

It is said among the Eldar (because where else :þ) that Men fear and worship the Darkness (which is a word the Eldar use as a synonym for "evil" which is a bit inconceivable but let's move on).

We get a recap od what we know of Men, also in the War of Wrath Morgoth was "ultimately defeated" ok I know you can't make your mind, (both Jirt and Pengolodh probably), I like this better than "he's going to fight Túrin and Fefe in a van".

Men in the East are in a bad situation, the Valar abandoned them for a time (until they send the Blue Wizards I guess) because they obeyed bad people. Generally the East is wild and bad and … :/

OK, so now we are told Manwë imprisoned Morgoth and the language strongly suggests "but he will eventually break out and do Ragnarok stuff". Huh. I did say something about not being able to make your mind, right?

Now there's the weird part about "the will of Morgoth" which sounds like a somewhat separate entity?… I get the general idea, it's hard to have him booted out and explain why there's still evil in the world. Still it all feels odd.

OK, quote (emphasis mine):

But Manwe put forth Morgoth and shut him beyond the World in the Void that is without; and he cannot himself return again into the World, present and visible, while the Lords of the West are still enthroned. Yet the seeds that he had planted still grew and sprouted, bearing evil fruit, if any would tend them. For his will remained and guided his servants[…]

Huh. Any thoughts?

Eonwë personally taught the leaders of the Edain. What did he teach them? I don't know. We are not told. But it suggests that Eonwë may have better social skills with Men than I have assumed.

It was Ossë who raised the island of Númenor (at least he does something nice and non-violent ;) ) + the Valar upgraded it and only then did the Númenoreans sail. It is almost as the history of Arda in miniature. Just make it better (Morgoth is not there, Men live longer etc), what could possibly go wrong with this?

[Yes, I read the situation as "the Valar are trying to jump higher than their heads here".]

The Númenoreans don't get sick. I forgot that part. Well, they don't until they get under the Shadow. They are taller than normal people and their eyes shine like stars. TLDR: they're like offbrand Elves and Tolkien likes shining eyes.

And they don't have many children. Why? It makes sense for Elves, but why the Númenoreans, even early?

No temples, only the open mountain. OK. and we get the mention of the graves of kings at the mountain's base even now. Does it mean that even the first kings had big decorative graves?

It was the Valar who chose Elros to be the king. I wonder why, but "he could be an Elf but preferred to be a Man" seems like a --- yes, this is a good reason.

We get a recap of the peredhil. Again.

The Númenoreans learned Quenya during the alliance with Elves, so again: they speak Vanyarin Quenya, or maybe non-Exilic Noldorin Quenya. So either they do read "ty" as "ch" or they read the "th" as "s". I don't remember which one it was. Anyway later they spoke a lot with the Elves so they probably settled with some kind of pronounciation based on whom they spoke with the most.

Nobody later reached the sailing awesomeness of the Númenoreans. The book is written in, what, late TA? Early FA? Makes sense that they sail less.

We get an explanation of why the ban. It makes sense, but also I get that it seems very arbitrary (especially with Númenor existing).

Also, a quote:

For in those days Valinor still remained in the world visible, and there Ilúvatar permitted the Valar to maintain upon Earth an abiding place, a memorial of that which might have been if Morgoth had not cast his shadow on the world.

OK, maybe it's just me adding to my little box of arguments, but this sounds to me as "Ilúvatar permitted them because they asked intensly but it wasn't a great idea". Also, a memorial. Of what might have been. This does not sound good. This sounds like the vibe of the Elven Rings.

Also, again we have mixed messages about whether Valinor was moved to the orbit or into the unseen world (made purely spiritual somehow)?

Sigh. the Númenoreans civilize the people of ME because they need it. *sigh* at least they're goodwilled about it.

Aaaaand, who could guess, with time they grow more and more focused on the bright thing that is nearby (Valinor). Just like it was with the Silmarils and almost everyone who saw them.

Also, they don't like that they die, and they murmur. And they are upset that the Elves don't die, even the ones who disobeyed the Valar and it's so unfair, the Noldor went to ME and did all kinds of bs and still they don't die and we never even get— I mean, and we die. How unfair.

Seriously, almost everyone in this book is so predictably stupid and the worst part is that knowing that all does not make us less stupid. anywa, let's continue with the reread:

"Aren't we the greatest?" Huh. :/

Manwë is sad. Relateable. I want to hug him, and it's not even from a fic. My guy [affectionate], my poor birb.

He sends emissaries to the king. Oh, he's learning from his mistakes around Feanor! <3 You'll eventually learn how to deal with the Children. <3

The Earendil argument (and as was discussed, no tuor arguement, at least not quoted in the book). And a recap of how Men and Elves work. <3 some vague Athrabeth-ish tones. <3

Thirteenth king and we're already deep in trouble. :(

OK, now we get the big graves. And colonialism. The good guys visit Gil-galad and figth Sauron together. The bad guys colonize the South.

We get a recap of Sauron. Who wants to be an overking and worshipped by Men and hates the Númenor for pretty much everything including "their ancestors fought against Melkor and me in the War". And he is afraid of them.

More kings. Some of you remember their names… 23rd king hates the Faithful the most… huh, he is not the one to burn them so I would argue with the narration here. The Elves from Tol Eressea still visit, but in secret. This has a lot of fic potential. (Also, don't tell me that nobody ever at any point of Númenorean history tried to sneak into an Elven ship and go to Aman with them. not at this point, probably. But earlier you could have someone who both doesn't like the Ban, and has contact with the Elves)

Then the Elves stop visiting, because the Valar get angry. i'm not sure why now, what exactly was the tipping point.

A recap of Andúnie, the, ugh, situation of Inzilbêth, we get a good older brother and bad younger brother— wait, maybe the Men have this scheme inverted in general? I'll need to investigate this.

Tar-Palantir. Whose remorse is too late because the Valar are already angry— excuse me, Pengolodh, my guy, what? I'd get it if you told me that the problem is that the whole nation has already been gone so far and the king could not convince them, but I really don't like what you said about the Valar here. But yes, ok, it;s probably because the nation is still full of bs. Pengolodh. Please, be so kind and spare us your opinions. Especially on questions like forgiveness. go handle your exilic trauma somewhere else. I can't find a quote for this, sadly.

So, Tar-Palantir gets a healthy dose of the typical Silm "sad about my brother" especailly that he (the brother) dies early. Aaand we get Pharazôn. Yay… :/ People love him, because he's a great general and gives out riches.

The 25th king. As I have already speculated in one post, the number 5 is not a good number.

Sauron provokes him to war. When the Númenorean fleet arrives, everyone is so scared that they run away and the army marches through an empty land, which gives me echoes of Earendil, but this makes no sense, I think tolkien just likes the image of someone (or an army) walking through a deserted land/city. I agree, it has a lot of atmosphere. they march for seven days, with trumpets, and in red and in gold.

So Sauron does his thing, but Ar-Pharazôn is not a fool—well, not this kind of fool—and doesn't trust him. which plays very well into Sauron's ringed hand.

Sauron sees the capital of Númenor and again we have someone reacting to a beuiful city with envy and hatered. (First: Melkor to Valinor in general; second: Maeglin to Gondolin; third: here.)

He tells the king a lot of secrets, and "he knew many of the things not yet revealed to Men". Like… what things? I wonder. Many of the Elf-Friends get confused and scared and switch sides. I wish I knew why exactly. It is before the violence started.

Something something Darkness and Sauron's peak bs.

Amandil and Pharazôn have been friends in their youth (yes, Pharazon liked him too!) → Fic. Potential. So much fic potential. Amandil gets higher on my "I like him because he has a lot of things to be sad about" list. So, Amandil—

We've had many, many instances of characters cursing things/characters/themselves/whatever. Now we get the only instance in the Silm of an Incarnate blessing something. (Amandil blesses the seeds of the White Tree.) which is very interesting.

OK, warning: it gets dark from here.

Sauron. The language. I know the style of description of the thing is not Sauron's fault… I suppose the style is, again, illustrative of his general vibe (which is a very smart writing btw), so, ugh. Seriously, Professor, you never give the dimensions, so we all know why you gave the dimensions here, and … yes I do get your stylistic choices, they make me want to punch him which i assume is exactly what you were aiming at.

I'm sorry, I should probably elaborate more.

So, to elaborate more: the temple which sauron built is described in a language that is vaguely reminescent of the Temple of Salomon (ie giving the exact measurements, and yes, this is very noticeable because tolkien is always very poetic, about sizes too) and the juxtaposition makes me feel offended, and this helps, because this is how we should feel at this point in the book. So, this is brilliant.

They didn't burn only the Faithful, I would assume also some criminals and maybe random people. Also, there were some anti-king conspirations, the book almost says that.

People die more, everything is awful, and of course the people of Númenor are "it's fine" (as you do). In addition to Sauron's main temple of Melkor, people have private temples. Where they burn people stolen from ME.

madness and sickness availed them; and yet so they were afraid to die and go out into the dark, the realm of the lord that they had taken; and they cursed themselves in their agony.

I really wish we had an idea how this came to the chronicler. anyway, an Elf repeating things he hard from some escaped Númenoreans about what their friends/lords/whomever were thinking. And still it sounds very much like what they would be thinking.

No, wait, there could be a better source. Imagine a noble and depraved lady (or nobleman) who left Númenor for the colonies, thinking it'd be just for a short time, and in the meantime— the whole thing happenned. Great fic potential for survivor's guilt leading to remorse and later this person as an old woman telling this stuff to an Elvish chronicler, or maybe not even so old, maybe telling the story in the times of the Last Alliance and fighting against Sauron to do at least that, and I'm not a fan of the "redemption equals death" trope, so living into old age, but without a leg or something. Maybe ending up in rivendell. that would be fitting. The guilt of it all. And yet you chose to live and to do what you can.

Anyway back to the story. Amandil. Nobody even speculates about what happenned to him. (Well, I do, but)

The Faithful prepare to sail and the seven Seeing Stones (all but one of them) given by the Eldar— by whom? I hope it was Nerdanel. Or someone wlse who actually had the right to give them away. Yes, I will assume it was Nerdanel.

Lightning strikes kill people on random hills… I would prefer to assume it's either Sauron or gossip. especially that just a bit later we learn that Sauron is immune to those lightnings. So yes, i think some elements of the "wrath of the Valar" is just Sauron trying to make people even more desperate.

I can't imagine Manwë killing people just like that, even in this context. Especially with how later he doesn't do anything to Pharazôn's army until given a very explicit leave to do so.

Logically, it is sauron killing those people.

The armada… they sail for 39 days (where did I find that information?) which I'm sure means something, but what. 40-1? 3*13? Both?

40 is a number of transformation, so 39 would be a failed or false transformation maybe?

Also, black and gold coloring. Beautiful but in the Silm, vaguely evil-coded.

Just as they break the ban(? but I think it is this moment) they get a strong wind. I guess it's Manwë saying "ok, if we have to, let's make it quick".

They pass Eressea, I think mostly ignoring it? Pharazôn sees Taniquetil and gets one good idea (to cancel his idiotic thing), but nope, he's too proud. Seriously. That's… "my guy" is not enough of a wording.

The Eldar have escaped from Tition… this makes me smile a little, because assuming the ex-exiles did move back to tirion, they do deserve a little fright. For Alqualonde. I know I know. But. It's not like any harm happenned to them. they were just terrified. Of an army of Men. Which is encamped around their island.

So yea. The world is round now. And again it sounds like Aman is moved to the unseen world. Huh. Mixed canon.

Oh, here is the 39. 39 days from the fleet leaving Númenor to the destruction. Including also a volcano and earthquake.

And speaking of numbers, 9 ships of Elendil, Isildur and Anárion.

Also, all the sea shorelines are changed.

So, back to Sauron. Idiot. He is terrified by what happenned, because he expected Pharazôn and everyone to die, but not something like this. So, he is sitting on his black (of course) throne and laughing. What had I said about Sauron being somewhere high up and laughing? So he laughs three times and just as he does the third time his throne falls down into the watery abbyss. "Not noticing a divine tsunami" level: pro. I am not surprised. I mean, I read the book before, so of course I am nor surprised, but anyway, that is nor surprising.

Loses his beauty. Just. The amount of mercy. "I convinced Men to sacrifice other Men to Morgoth, and put the Valar into a trolley dilemma and all I got was this ugly face so that I maybe finally learn" — he needs a t-shirt with this. I need to draw him in a frigging t-shirt.

I want to punch him in the face again.

Yes, i know, i know. It's not my fault he gets more infuriating descriptions.

Oh and the peak of Meneltarma is maybe an island, and people want to find it and have visions of Númenor's past glory… *sigh* Call me old and grumpy but focusing on that doesn't seem like— ok oh. they don't have anything better to focus. This is also true. Huh. I just realized that this makes the whole "focusing on unreachable shadows" things so much more tragic. anyway…

Oh, they do not find it. Good for them. I am sorry, I know it's sad, but it is good for them.

The Dúnedain seeking this island is peak amdir. (This is neither a compliment nor a accusation, or maybe both).

But explaining this would need a long tangent of "amdir" meaning etymologically "looking up" and of the gneral idea of looking in the wrong place. I know I shouldn't be quoting motivational posters when talking Tolkien, because they are much less profound but generally "Stop Looking for Happiness in the Same Place You Lost It"

So anyway, The Land of the star is lost, and the Straight Road is no more and Tolkien is sad and pretty much everyone is sad and we are growing up.

Still, there is a shortcut for Elves who want to use it.

Huh. this reread felt more profound than the others. Not so many facts I've been missing, but the vibe. I think I understood some vibes I didn't understand before. But this may be just the autumn.

[wexhappyxfew]

SHANNON!! You know how much I love the Silver Bullets girls, so I freaked when I saw you posted this!! You also know I love angst (who doesn't, right?). So, could I possibly get Bucky x Kennedy with the prompt, "Hands off!" OR "You'll back off if you know what's good for you."

I couldn't choose which one I liked more lol!! Protective Bucky is my absolute FAV! I know it is going to be amazing!! Thank youuuu!💕🫶

MADS!!!!! HELLO MY FRIEND!!!! so lovely to see you both in the inbox and sending in this duo and prompt! :D i saw it and was immediately like - mads you are a GEM - because protective bucky IS the absolute best!!!! THANK YOU FOR THE SILVER BULLETS LOVE!!! they're my girls and are a joy to write so truly thank you :) your love and support has meant so so much!! i DO know you are an angst lover too hehe, so i decided to take a look at the earlier days of kennedy x bucky knowing one another (with extended cameos from judy and paulina - paulina who i wanted to work with more since i have written a lot of her yet), and dealing with...a rather precarious moment in which bucky is VERY MUCH being protective over the SB girls (with hints of kennedy x bucky of course because that's what makes the world go 'round). i went with the second prompt because i just couldn't help myself with that prompt - it's just too good!!! so please enjoy!!! <333333

far less losses

(a/n): you remember when judy mentioned that john egan has an 'awful soft spot for the Silver Bullets crew'? well....here we are, with bucky showing off that soft spot (which also equates to his soft spot for a certain kennedy farley) all on display. SO -- please enjoy kennedy, judy and paulina, with a bit of bucky being well....bucky haha! please enjoy and thank you again! <3

"I think it's cute!" Judy exclaimed with a smile from beside Kennedy in the mirror in the bunk room the Silver Bullets girls were camped out in, "Truly, Kenny, just even taking those few extra minutes to pull a few pieces of hair away from your beautiful face always makes you feel better."

Judy was right - and she usually was.

After a rather depleting mission that morning, Kennedy had been feeling like laying down and staring at the ceiling for the rest of the evening was her ultimate goal, but Judy Rybinski had found her and convinced her to pull on her Class-A's and take an hour or two to destress in the local pub.

Kennedy shifted herself side to side in the mirror, her thick ginger hair that was usually pulled back from her face in a poor-looking ponytail or hastily put-together braids, appreciating the extra minute Judy had taken in telling her to leave her hair down and clip up some stray pieces behind the lower part of the crown of her head.

"This looks nice." Kennedy said, her voice sounding strange at the sight of seeing herself actually looking quite pretty. Usually covered in grease, dirt and other substances that she didn't even want to know of, seeing her face so bright and clean, her brown eyes light and alive, made her smile a bit.

"You look so pretty, Kenny," Judy said from beside her in the mirror, glancing up at her with the most genuine look on her face, "seriously, you could walk in any pub in England and they'd think that it's Rita Hayworth." Kennedy couldn't help but grin at Judy's words as she took in all angles she could.

"Oh, c'mon, Judy," Kennedy said, glancing down at the ball gunner, "you could do much of the same and they'd think it's Ingrid Bergman."

"That's mighty kind of you Kenny," Judy said with a chuckle, her face glowing, "Ingrid is quite the star, isn't she? Top compliments from Kenny Farley herself."

"What can I say? I'm a miracle worker at the best of times." Kennedy said and Judy laughed again, before looking up to Kennedy softly.

"Let's go get some drinks." Judy said, "Forget about whatever the hell today was, right?"

The walk across base with the sun nearly set was quite peaceful, especially in the summer months - it almost felt like home in some weird way.

Growing up with both older and younger siblings - all brothers - she'd spent enough of her summer days outside from dawn to dusk, drinking her mother's fresh-made lemonade, peeling oranges and eating cheese sandwiches, catching frogs, playing in the streets, making a fair attempt at a ball game where she was usually one of the only girls (having brothers made you automatically a part of the line-up, even if you struck out 90% of the time, she got better though).

She'd come inside, sweating, covered in dirt and grass, with her freckles on full display and her mother would tell her to go and get herself cleaned up for dinner. And everything would smell like fresh lavender soap and soft linen, and dinner would be roasted chicken, carrots, potatoes, asparagus, all the fixings, more lemonade, cookies for desert. Her mother would have to make multiple batches just to feed all her hungry kids.

And her dad would come back from work and be cracking jokes, telling them stories from work, what he had done that day. Something about summer, at home, in Boston.

My how the times had changed from then to now.

The local town pub was a place she'd been a few times, but each time it was much of the same when she got in. It was in fact like entering a whole different world that was separated from both summer and Thorpe Abbotts.

Everything smelled like beer and smoke, there was also music playing, people dancing and without a doubt, every corner you turned, you were shaking hands with someone, introducing yourself and saying your hellos. A home away from home. And it was quite the eclectic mix - USAAF and RAF pilots and crew members all together, local town people, Land Girls. Enough of a comfort though so you could enjoy your drink and meet a new face or two.

"Pretty crowded." Judy said from beside her as they stepped inside and took their ganders around, "Never seen so many people shoved in one place."

"One too many bad missions seems to send everybody here, I won't lie, Judy." Kennedy said, reaching up to tuck some hair back over her shoulder, and letting her eyes glance around again.

"Look who decided to show up." Judy and Kennedy looked up to see Paulina, resident radio op, coming towards them, her long, dark hair elegantly curled, her red lipstick making an appearance again that reminded Kennedy starkly of their training days where Paulina was always going on about the importance of always carrying a tube of lipstick where she went. She always said that you'd never know who'd you see - Christ, Cary Grant could show up and you'll be thanking yourself for that damn tube of lipstick!

"Thought you were staying in?" Kennedy shrugged.

"Judy dragged me out. Promised to pay for a drink."

"Hey!" Judy said looking to Kennedy and teasingly shoving at her shoulder, "I didn't say a thing about paying! I told ya that you needed to get out. Destress. Ya know?" Paulina snickered and glanced to Kennedy who smirked.

"And…I didn't drag you out. I was just convincing enough to get you outta that bunk room." Judy said, "It's a good trait to have, isn't it, Pauli?"

"That's right," Paulina said, stepping forward to wrap an arm around Judy's shoulders, "let's get you two some drinks, alright? And….just so you know, Lieutenant Bradshaw offered to open a tab, so….go crazy, I don't know….I guess she could see plenty of the looks on our faces."

"She's a sweetheart." Judy said with a smile.

"She always knows," Kennedy said quietly as they moved towards the bar, "she's good like that. Reminds me of Birdie."

"She always reminds me of Birdie." Paulina said with a sad smile, "Maybe it's a sign from Birdie up above. Letting us get ourselves Annie Bradshaw as our pilot. You know?"

"I take any sorta stuff like that as a sign," Judy said as they approached the bar and called for three beers, "there's no one like Birdie, but there sure as hell isn't a soul like Annie Bradshaw."

"You ever think about what might've happened if Birdie hadn't gotten hit?" Paulina asked as the tender brought their beers and gave them a smile - Paulina took a long, hard sip before sighing, "Just….things would be so different, but we woulda never met Annie. I don't fucking know, it's weird to think about sometimes."

Kennedy and Judy exchanged quiet glances, but it wasn't like Paulina was lying. Sometimes it was weird to ponder a thing like that - if Birdie had never died and they had never met Annie. And then in moments like this, Kennedy always though that life worked to do things in ways that were always meant to be and clearly what had happened was meant to be, despite the circumstances.

And Annie Bradshaw was always meant to be Silver Bullets' command pilot in place of Birdie Faulkner.

That was one thing for sure.

"Good evening." All three of their heads turned to find one of the RAF pilots they'd seen hanging around in the weeks previous coming towards them, his eyes catching Kennedy's in a way that made her slowly shift her gaze away and sip at her drink again. She sighed. Paulina rolled her eyes.

"Evening." Paulina said slowly, lifting her mug of beer towards him before sipping it and growing quiet. Judy glanced at Kennedy, who gave her a quiet look.

Many of the men that were outside the 100th were usually nice and cordial to them. There'd been some off-handed, unneeded comments before about women in aviation, but they'd heard enough of it to ignore any sort of comment like that. They'd heard it all. For months. Some for years. Ignorance was bliss.

"You three wouldn't happen to be part of the lady crew in the 100th would you?" he asked them, sipping his beer slowly and meeting all their gazes, "I've just had quite the conversation with your Annie Bradshaw if you are. Sweet girl."

"It's Lieutenant." Kennedy offered his way, meeting his gaze again, "She's our pilot."

"Ah," the RAF - Kennedy thought he was a pilot it seemed - pilot said, with a nod, "very sweet girl." Paulina shifted beside Kennedy and sighed.

"Command pilot." Paulina muttered under her breath.

"Anything else?" Judy asked, almost sweetly, but slightly like she were undercutting his words in a way where she wanted to try and disperse the interaction as quickly as possible, "We've had a long day." The RAF pilot glanced at her and smiled, before glancing at Kennedy and Paulina.

"Long day? What ever was the matter?" he asked them and then chuckled slightly and sipped his beer again, "Right - you fly during the day, am I correct?"

"Here we fucking go," Paulina said, pushing back from the bar table, looking ready to start swinging, but Kennedy held her arm and looked to the RAF pilot again, "I swear to God, Kenny."

"We do." Kennedy said, "Why? Is there a problem with that?" The RAF pilot chuckled.

"No, no, not at all. Just curious." Kennedy leaned forward and raised a brow.

"Curious. Curious, curious, curious - what are we curious about it. We've been doing it ever since we came across the fucking pond-"

"What we're trying to say," Judy said interrupting her and giving both Kennedy and Paulina a look, "that's just what we do. We do days, you do nights. Either way, we're pounding the Germans day and night and you should be really thankful for that. You do what you all do, and we do what we do. And it works."

"You'd have far less losses." he offered, in a way that sounded condescending - it made Kennedy's skin crawl.

Far less losses.

Birdie.

Birdie invaded her mind like she always did.

"Listen, we just finished a really crappy mission," Kennedy said, leaning forward and gently wrapping an arm over Judy's shoulders and pulling her closer back from the RAF pilot, "we can pick up this conversation another time."

"Apologies, apologies," the RAF pilot said, holding up his hands in a pitiful, mock-defense, "I'm only commenting on such happenings. Nothing more."

"Commenting-" Kennedy started, but another voice entered her ears.

"Evening."

"Major." the RAF pilot said, suddenly straightening up, sticking out his hand to shake, and his eyes turning glossy, that earlier determination and confidence dwindling.

Kennedy slowly looked back over her shoulder and watched as Major Egan, the smell of beer and cologne wafting off of him, came to a stop beside the three of them there, looking towards the RAF pilot with a face that was the closest to stone-cold that there could be. And Major Egan was not the best at schooling his emotions and concealing what he was actually feeling, but he was doing a pretty damn good job right now.

"What are we talking about?" Major Egan asked, his voice deeper than Kennedy had heard it before, as he crossed his arms and straightened his back, looking directly at the RAF pilot, "Go on, don't mind me."

"Uh, well-"

"Just about our missions," Judy butted in sweetly, looking up at Major Egan, "sir, we were just discussing our….rather interesting differences. But that we bomb the Germans all the same."

"Really?" Major Egan said, almost sarcastically, his smile wide on his cheeks, his voice a crack higher, his tone one that he always had when he was trying to hide his annoyance, "Thank you for that Rybinski, really valuable information." Major Egan looked at the RAF pilot. "You should've just come and talked right with me. These ladies have had a long day. Up at 0300 and still making it out here. They don't wanna have to discuss anything with missions and all. You should know." The group fell quiet as the RAF pilot rather loudly and quite nervously slurped at his beer.

"I just knew they were apart of the lady crew. With Annie Bradshaw-"

"Lieutenant Bradshaw-" Major Egan offered.

"-and I just figured I'd have a chat with them. Never did do much talking about missions with a lady crew before."

"Oh and it's bound to be your last-" Major Egan commented.

"Sir-" Kennedy said looking to him and giving him a look as he met her gaze. Something in his eye told her that he was going to stop until this RAF pilot walked away and she was almost too tired to care if he did say something more or not.

"What's all this about a lady crew, too?" Major Egan said, "They're another one of our crews in the 100th. Did all the same training we did, same shit." Major Egan chuckled. "You wouldn't know that because you were here, what? Drinking warm beer and complaining about the sun-shining, huh? Upset it wasn't nighttime-"

"Major." Paulina said looking up at him, "Just ignore him, we were going to go find Lieutenant Bradshaw anyway."

"Nah, nah," Major Egan said, stepping forward, closer to the RAF pilot this time - the height difference was palpable, with the RAF pilot looking upwards and Major Egan looking downwards, like some sort of quiet conversation being exchanging between the two, "gotta name?"

"Uh, Langley, sir-"

"Langley." Major Egan said, with a funny tone to his voice that was clearly making fun of the way the RAF pilot had said it, "Where the hell you from, Langley?"

"Birmingham. Sir."

"Oh, you're gonna start calling me sir, now, huh?" Major Egan said glancing back at the group of the three of them and grinning that sarcastic, shit-eating grin and pointing over his shoulder, "He called me sir, what a fucking character." Major Egan turned back to the RAF pilot and let his face grow cold.

"The crew is Silver Bullets and they're apart of the 100th just like myself," Major Egan said, "and they've had a long day. All of us have, got it? So, you'll back off if you know what's good for you. And leave these ladies alone and run along to you and your British friends, alright? Get yourself some warm beer, too."

"It's not really super warm-"

"You drink warm fucking beer." Major Egan said with a look, hands on his hips this time, "Go on."

Slowly Kennedy glanced back at the RAF pilot and watched as his brain seemed to rewire, licking his lips quickly as he did so, before retreating like a dog with its tail between its legs. The three of them watched as Major Egan watched the RAF pilot turn to leave, ducking out of the pub with the beer in his hand. Major Egan turned to them, a grin on his face, clearly satisfied with the words that had left his lips and then met her gaze.

"What a guy," Major Egan said, as Kennedy held his gaze, her cheeks heating slightly as she looked back to her beer sat, the glass practically melting on the beer and sighed, "these RAF pilots got a set to be saying stuff like that to you all."

"He said he talked to Lieutenant Bradshaw, sir," Judy said looking up to Major Egan who leaned up the bar beside her, "called her a sweet girl and all. He couldn't even seem to fathom the idea of Annie flying planes." Judy chuckled and looked to Major Egan again. "He probably would've fainted on the spot to hear that we actually are pretty efficient as an all-female bombing crew." Major Egan chuckled at her words and raised a hand for a beer.

"Got that right, Rybinski." Major Egan said with a smile Judy's way before looking to Kennedy and Paulina, "Everyone doing okay after today?"

One thing Kennedy always appreciated with their leaders was that they recognized the toll missions like that took on people - whether if they showed it on their faces or not, their eyes always spoke in ways they couldn't. And he could see that, that much was true.

"I have a cold beer in my hand, sir," Paulina said with a smile, "that's enough to be thankful for after today I must admit." Major Egan let the corner of his lip poke upwards and glanced at Kennedy.

"Farley." Major Egan said, his voice a drip softer than it had been when he'd first come over, "You're quiet."

"And when Kenny Farley's quiet," Judy said with a small smile, "you know the mission today was beating us more than helping us, sir." Major Egan looked to Judy with a saddened smile on his face before looking back at Kennedy.

"Just thinking about something that pilot said, sir," Kennedy said, looking to Paulina and Judy before looking back to him again, lacing and unlacing her fingers over and over again in a nervous way, "reminded me of Birdie." The group of four grew quiet at her words.

"Just when he was going on, sir, about flying night missions," Kennedy said with a nod, "something like we'd have far less losses than if we flew at night. And it just….I don't know, shit like that bothers me. Because he clearly knew about our crew sir, which meant he oughta have heard about Birdie." Major Egan's eyes shifted to hers again, before he glanced back over his shoulder towards the doorway, shuddering his shoulders and letting out a disgruntled groan. He reached forward to take a long sip of his beer and then stood up from the bar and looked to them.

"Come find me if another one of these smucks has another fucking comment," Major Egan said, reaching up to run a hand through his dark curls on his head, before offering a smile, "no one makes comments about the Silver Bullets crew without me hearing about it, alright?" Then he turned and Kennedy couldn't help but step forward and wrap her hand around his upper arm and look up at him.

"Don't do anything stupid, sir," Kennedy said, looking up at him knowingly, "you can have your thoughts about Silver Bullets and our crew, but other people don't like the looks of a woman in the service, nor a whole bombing crew. Don't go getting yourself into more trouble than is needed, sir, alright?"

"Farley," Major Egan said, reaching up to rest a hand on her shoulder, "I've already made enough comments towards them, about them, for them to build a bridge to the States and back. Defending you all ain't much trouble." Kennedy stared at him and fell quiet. "Look, I just got a few choice words for him. That's all."

"Those choice words better involve, don't say that sorta shit like that again and then a firm goodbye and no more, sir," Kennedy said looking at him, "you don't need that face sporting anymore black eyes."

"You think I got a pretty face, Farley?" Major Egan said, looking sideways at her with that award-winning grin again, pearly whites shiny and bright, his eyes squinty, his gaze on her. Kennedy stared at him, the tops of her cheeks turning red as she suddenly felt herself stand quite still, "Go back and enjoy a drink with Stagliano and Rybinski without someone like him hanging over you. Don't worry about me." Kennedy watched him and then slowly nodded.

"Thanks for that back there by the way, sir," she said, quicker than she wanted, her eyes holding his, "it was a long day, with the mission and all. We just wanted a night out without thinking about it, sir, ya know?" Major Egan smiled and bumped her shoulder.

"Think of it as free entertainment." Major Egan said with a grin, before nodding towards the door, "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to head out for a bit. Enjoy your beer." He quirked out a grin. "You should wear your hair like that more often." And with that, he was stepping away, running his hand through his own hair and stepping outside the pub again. Kennedy watched him go, her cheeks flaming red - the fact he had noticed her hair was enough for her to swallow it down and forget about it. She turned and slid back to the bar, in between Paulina and Judy.

"What'd he say?" Paulina asked, bumping her shoulder, "Looked pretty damn happy about telling that guy off."

"I think he's probably gonna take a punch to the face, but he's going to go send the message home it seems." Kennedy said quietly as Judy giggled, "What?"

"The look on his face when he saw you weren't the happiest camper, oh Kennedy, it was real sweet." Judy said as Kennedy sipped her beer and ignored the swirl in her stomach and crimson on her cheeks, "He's just sweet on us, you know that. They all are. They'd defend us tooth and nail any day."

"See," Paulina said, leaning towards Kennedy and dropping her voice so only Kennedy and Judy could here, "could've put on that tube of red lipstick even just for him."

"Pauli!" Kennedy admonished and Judy giggled.

"You ain't ever gonna forget it, Kenny, never!"

[cerridwen007]

Bitter Jealousy.

Pairing: Javier Peña x f!reader.

Word count: 3.6k (18+) 

Summary: Your friendship with Javi gets rocky as he finds out about your secret boyfriend, hidden because your afraid of his disapproval of him. After getting into a fight at work about you lying to your boyfriend that Javier is your brother instead of your best friend. You decide to own up and tell him, making him have an extreme reaction which makes you upset and Javi set on revenge.

Notes/warnings: SMUT, established friendship, friends to lovers, swearing, possessive Javi, jealous Javi, soft Javi,  toxic/abusive relationship, cheating, alcohol consumption, dirty talk, fingering (female receiving), cum eating, unprotected p in v, bad spanish, sweet ending, no use of y/n.

A/N: Second smut written and posted onto tumblr so far so feedback would be much appreciated. I’m working on a few fics at the moment (Matt Murdock x f!reader) so hopefully you can expect them sometime next week. I’m hoping to be able to stick to a 1-2 a week fic posting if I can. Hope you enjoy it!

************

“So did you wanna talk about it?”

“No, not really.” you responded coldly. You appreciated Javier asking, especially because talking about feelings wasn't his thing but you were so frustrated that you couldn’t do more than frown.

The two of you were sitting on the curb late afternoon, in a dimly lit backstreet of Bogotá. Your head in your hands as you tried your best to suppress the tears welling in your eyes that would come out again sooner or later. You wanted to forget this night ever happened.

The two of you were colleagues that met about two years ago when you first joined the DEA as a secretary. After bad impressions and having small rivalry for a few months the two of you soon grew close ultimately realising how similar you were to each other. You had even grown so close that you became best friends. 

You lived next door to each other in the apartments assigned by the DEA and would often spend your nights together, watching your favourite shows, drinking your liquor supplies dry before going to a bar to get more, sitting in comfortable silence as you sat together on the couch to exhausted emotionally and physically from your days at work to talk. As much as neither of you would admit it, you both loved spending basically all of your free time together in whatever way. 

That is until your dating life finally got out of its dry spell. You had bumped into this cute guy in the streets of Bogotá on a busy Sunday morning, near the markets and instantly clicked. You tried to keep your new boyfriend a secret from Javi as long as you could, only spending time with him at his place rather than yours in fear of Javi catching the two of you.

At first you didn't really have a valid reason for why you hid your new partner from Javier, eventually thinking that he would instantly come across as overprotective as soon as he found out. Your suspicions were confirmed when your boyfriend pleaded for the two of you to hang out at your apartment tonight rather than his, and you bumped into Javier leaving his apartment on your way in. Javi immediately stopped in his tracks, mouth agape when he saw you two walking together closely to your door. 

“And who is this, cariño?” Javi said coldly.

You gulped. “Uh…this is José… my boyfriend.”

Javier stared at José  with a hard gaze looking at him up and down, fists tightening into balls.

“You must be Javier, right? She has told me alot about you.” José chuckles, bursting the tension and raising his hand towards Javi’s for a handshake.

“Told you a lot about me, huh?” Javier responded, disregarding the outward hand. His jaw tightening, eyes aflame with jealousy.

Even José began to notice the tension that Javier was directing at him and dropped his hand. To which you glared back at Javier, trying to get him to stop intimidating your new boyfriend.

“Be nice, Javi.” you growled. 

“No it's fine, I get it, he's just being overprotective of you I understand. I'm an older brother too, I feel the need to make sure my little sis is not dating no jerks.” he says smiling.

Javier’s eyes squint, glaring into yours, brows furrowed tightly together, veins popping out his neck. He goes to protest.

“I’m not her-.”

“Um we actually should be going now, I need to start getting dinner ready so we won't eat too late and… my brother has an early start for work tomorrow so he’ll want to go out and get home early so he can get enough rest for tomorrow.”

Javi goes to speak.

“See you at work tomorrow, Javi.” you call out, quickly ushering your boyfriend into your apartment. Shutting the door on a furious Javier standing outside your door.

“Oh I'll see you tomorrow muñeca!” he mumbles angrily to himself, turning away to go and drown his fury in booze and whores.

**************

You were anxious. Anxious since you shut the door in Javi’s face last night, anxious trying to fall asleep, anxious on your way to work this morning. You were so goddamn anxious of how Javi was going to react to you when you saw him this morning, afraid that he was planning or might have already done something irrational that you both were going to regret.

Your heart felt like it was going to fall out of your chest when you finally saw him walk in the door, afraid he was going to make a big scene in front of everyone in the building. 

So it was quite a surprise when he walked calmly past you, not looking your way as he headed to his office. You thought hopefully you were off the hook and that Javi had just decided to forget about it and not shove his nose in your business anymore, but oh were you wrong. Hours flew by without you noticing too much, too absorbed into your paperwork that you had to finish asap. So when Javier knocked on your desk to get your attention, you got quite a fright. 

“Javier, what's up?”

“I need to talk to you, in the archive room. Now!” Javi responded bitterly.

You gulped but decided you shouldn't piss him off anymore and followed him into the remote room. He shut the door harshly as soon as you entered. Turning towards you with a cold-hearted stare.

“What the fuck was that about last night?” Javi catechized.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Nothing? You tried to sneak your apparent boyfriend past me, lord knows how long you've been hiding him from me, lying to him and saying I was your goddamn brother?!”

“I just didn't want him to get jealous, okay! I know sometimes men can be fucken insecure about their girlfriends having guy friends so I lied. And I tried to sneak him past you because I knew you would be critically judgmental and scare him off with your intimidation tactics.”

“Hermosa, if you're worried that he's going to be jealous about you having guy friends, he's already a fucken prick that you shouldnt waste your precious time on.”

“Easy for you to say, you’ve never held a relationship long enough for there to be any jealousy about another guy!”

“Wow…thanks muñeca…thanks alot for that.” he huffs and walks out before you can say another word.

“Fuck.” you sigh. You wait a couple moments thinking about what to do now before you walk out the room and go to your desk. Luckily it's hometime so you pack up your stuff and head home. Finally you arrive home to find your boyfriend settled in on the couch.

“Hey babe, how was your day?” José asks you.

“Yeah kinda shitty…. Look, there is something I need to tell you.”

José goes dead silent, a serious look falling across his face.

“...Javier isn't my brother, he's actually just my friend, my best friend or was my best friend. We hang out often but don't worry there never was anything sexual or romantic between us, I'm not exactly the type he goes for, and I'm sorry I lied, I just didn't want you to get jealous and tell me to stop talking to him.” you explain.

Josés jaw tightens, his nostrils flaring. “Javier isn't your brother!” he says furiously. “You're a fucken lying bitch! Ain’t no way I’m having a girlfriend who fucks her “guy friends” behind my back.”

“No, I'm sorry and nothing like that would ever happen in a million years, please believe me.”

“I ain’t ever going to trust another damn word that comes out of your filthy mouth, puta mentirosa!” he slaps you hard across your face leaving a stinging red mark that will be visible for days. Before storming out your apartment, slamming the door behind him. 

You stand there shocked before falling to your knees and crying, head in your hands. Your door suddenly flings open revealing Javi. 

“I  just saw José storming off what- Mi amada, baby what’s wrong, what happened.” he kneels down beside you, hand on your back and you raise your head to look at him with your watery eyes. He immediately sees the burning red handprint across your face. His eyes instantly colder, filled with vengeful thoughts. He stands up, fists curling at his sides.

“That cabrón… I’m going to fucken kill him!” 

“No, please Javi don’t, it was my fault.” you say while standing up.

“I don’t care, he fucken hurt you so I’m going to hurt him back.”

“Javi please, let me talk to him, okay I can sort this out myself.”

He huffs. “Do you even know where he’s gone?”

“No , but I'll find him.”

“Okay but I'm driving you, alright?” 

You decide not to protest and nod. You both walk out of your apartment and go to walk down to Javi's car before you hear the sound of Javier opening his door. You look at him curiously. He looks at you smirking.

“Just going to pack a bag of essentials.”

**************

After driving around the streets of Bogota for a few hours you finally spot Jose’s car parked below a small apartment complex. 

“Well that's his car, so he’ll be somewhere in there.” you say.

Javi goes to open his car door.

“Please Javi let me do it okay, I just want to speak to him nice and calm and sort things out between the two of us.

“Fine but I'm coming in there as soon as I hear yelling or if I feel you need to back up.”

“Sure Javi.” you sigh leaving his car and enter the building. You walk up to the second floor deciding to start there and make your way down. You go to knock at the first door but a noise coming from a few doors down makes you stop. It's moaning, it sounds like a man and a woman.

You gulp trying to not let that dreadful thought enter your mind. But when you hear a woman calling out José’s name and a very familiar voice moaning back, you just turn around and leave. You walk down the stairs and out to the curb to see Javi standing against his car looking concerned. 

“Mi, amor, that was fast. Are you okay, what happened?” Javier asks.

“I uh… heard a woman moaning out José’s name in one of the apartments, and then I heard his voice moaning too, so… I just left.”

He takes a deep breath. “So you're sure it was him then?”

“Yeah.. I'm sure… and even if it wasn't him, he's done with me. Called me a lying bitch for saying you were my brother, wouldn't even hear me out or try to understand…..You were right Javi…. I should’ve fucken listened to you.. I..I.. I'm sorry.” 

Tears fill your eyes and threaten to spill. Javi grabs you and pulls you into a tight embrace. 

“Hey, hey it's not your fault cariño. It's not not your fault at all." He pulls you tighter and he leaves soft kisses in your hair, the two of you clutching each other desperately, slightly swaying in the warm night. The tears begin to fall down your cheeks and broken soft cries fall from your mouth.

“Hey it's alright baby, I've got you, I'm here, I'm always here.” You sigh into Javi's chest, your salty tears leaving a damp patch on his shirt, but he doesn't care. He has half a mind to go upstairs himself and give your shitty ex-boyfriend  a good beating but he doesn't, knowing that right now you need him. After a while as much as you don't want to, you pull away, needing to sit down. Your sadness now turning to anger and frustration.

“Fuck, I need a drink.” you say sitting down on the curb.

Javier smirks and goes to get something out of his car. He brings out the bag of “essentials” he packed earlier and sits down beside you. He pulls out a nice bottle of whiskey and two glasses and hands one to you.

“So that’s what was in the bag. I was worried it was some ropes and shit that you were going to torture him with.” you laugh half sarcastically.

“Nah, I figured at least one of us would need a drink depending on the outcome of tonight.”

Your eyebrows crease together trying to figure out what he ment but you brush it aside. He opens the bottle and pours the two of you a drink. He sets the bottle down as you take a swig of your drink before pulling out a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lighting one. 

He leans back a little looking at the night sky as he takes a long drag out of his cigarette before sipping his drink. You can’t help but stare at his tan neck and Adam's apple bobbing as he drinks. He takes another drag from his cigarette, his veiny hands make your middle grow warm thinking about what they could do to you.

Whether it's your emotional vulnerability or your suppressed romantic feelings for Javi you don’t know. You just squeeze your thighs together and try to block out all the dirty thoughts flooding your brain now.

“So did you wanna talk about it?”

“No, not really.” you responded coldly. You appreciated Javier asking, especially because talking about feeling wasn't his thing but you were still so frustrated that you couldn’t do more than frown.

“Hey, he was a jackass anyway. I'm sure, no I know , a beautiful, kind girl like you will find another boyfriend soon enough.”

You snort. “Yeah sure, it's just that I really liked him, and I honestly thought he really cared about me and we had something special. But he turned out to be a fucken prick like you said.”

Javi sighs, putting his cigarette out. “I know, I know you did, but sometimes you have to go through heartbreak to realise what you really want and what's best for you, ya know.”

You swallow hard and make eye contact with him. His dark chocolate brown eyes melting you from the inside out. You realise that for what Javier's talking about, he’s it. He's the one you want and need, the one who has always been there for you, the one who has your back no matter what, the one who truly cares about you. 

You go for it and kiss him hard on the lips, full of passion and lust and more. He kisses you back just as hard, his hands cupping the side of your face. His tongue shoots into your mouth, dying to taste every bit of you he can. You moan into his mouth, the need for him to touch you, to be inside you grows, you pussy throbs at the thought of it. 

He breaks the kiss and breathlessly asks you. “My place?” You nod, biting your lip. He helps you up off the curb, forgetting about the whiskey and cups as you both jump in his car. He turns the car on and starts driving as fast as he dares to his apartment.

He puts one of his hands on your thigh as he drives, rubbing it back and forth closer and closer to your wet centre. He smirks as your breath hitches in your throat, his hand rubbing your clothed clit. Still managing to focus on the road, he slips his hands into your panties and his hands run over your pooling desire. 

“Fuck cariño, so fucken soaked, from just kissing me huh. I bet José never made you this wet.”

You moan as he begins circling your clit with his two middle fingers, grinding up into his touch.

“You're pretty needy for my touch huh, hermosa.” he chuckles, eyes still fixated on the road, trying to get home as fast as possible.

You whimper agreeing.

“Well I've got to focus on driving so you'll just have to use my hand to pleasure yourself for now.” He smirks as you immediately push two of his fingers into your dripping hole, needing something to fill that aching emptiness. 

“Fuck!” you moan loudly. Javi’s cock begins to throb below his jeans, a deep growl escaping from his lips.

You grind feverishly on his fingers and palm. “That’s it baby, make yourself cum on my fingers before we get home, I know you can.”

You moan, accepting his challenge, grinding harder and against his thick fingers. He pushes a third one in for good measure. Causing your head to fall back, your eyes closing from the pleasure. He begins pushing his own fingers into you harder and harder. You slip a hand of your own down your underwear and rub your clit.

“Fuck I”m so close Javi, so fucken close!”

“That ‘s it sweetheart, we are almost there… cum for me amor.”

A string of moans leave your parted lips as the sensation peaks. 

“Atta girl!”

Javi helps ride you through your high, pushing his dripping fingers in and out of your sensitive cunt. He pulls away, when it becomes too much, you squirming under his touch. He raises his soaked fingers to his mouth, groaning deeply as your sweet taste touches his tongue. 

“Fuck muñeca, you taste delicious…so fucken sweet!” Javi moans, softly grinding upwards into his jeans to help relieve the growing pressure. You blush, slightly embarrassed as if he wasn't fingering you seconds ago.

He parks the car and you both kiss deeply for a moment before you rush outside up to his apartment. Grinning, he runs after you. He chases you up stairs and grabs you pushing you against his door, his hands boxing your head in, a dark, lustful looking in his eyes.

“Naughty girl you are, teasing me like that.”

You giggle, leaning up to kiss him with a big grin. He smiles down back at you and kisses you back, struggling to open his door behind you. He finally opens it, pushing you inside lips still stuck on one another as he pulls his jacket off, throwing it onto his floor somewhere. You push him against the now closed door, and begin kissing and biting down his jaw and neck onto the exposed chest his shirt leaves showing. His hands settle on your lower back and ass as you do. 

You unbutton his shirt fast, your pussy throbbing, his visible bulge staring at you through his tight jeans. He picks you up as soon as you finish the last button and walks you over to the bed. He gently puts you down, kissing down your neck to your breasts as he does so.

He stands back and shakes his open shirt off him, pulling off his shoes before unbuttoning his belt. You pull your shirt off your head, throw your shoes somewhere and undo your bra while watching him, his broad shoulders and tan chest just begging to have your hands run over them. 

He groans watching you slip off your pants and panties, opening your legs wide to make room for him. He pulls off his pants and you watch his hard cock spring free. You suspected Javier was well endowed by the sounds the girls made that he took to bed with him frequently but didn't expect him to be quite that big. He moves forward to stand between your legs and leans down to kiss you.

“You ready, mi amor.” Javi asks.

You nod staring into his beautiful dark eyes. “Yes I'm ready Javi… Give me all of you, please!” you beg.

He smirks stroking his cock, slipping it through your moistened folds before sticking his tip into your tight cunt. He slowly rocks into you inch by inch, feeling you squeeze around his length.

“God you're so fucken tight, baby.” he moans, pushing the last of his length into your aching pussy. 

You moan feeling his huge cock stretch you, just enough to blur the lines of pain and pleasure. He pulls halfway out and slowly thrusts back again, still letting you adjust to the size of him. Your hands grip his broad shoulders. Breathy moans fill the otherwise quiet room.

It feels different for the both of you to just having normal sex it feels more special like you are exchanging your energy and love into one another. Your thighs rest around your waist as he leans down and kisses your breasts lovingly, his thrusts growing deeper and faster as he does. 

“Shit Javi, you feel so good… I'm getting close.” you moan out exasperated. He then sticks his hand between you and starts rubbing circles onto your sensitive clit urging the on come of your high. Whimpers fall out of your mouth, you dig your fingernails into Javi’s back hard, feeling your orgasm ready to erupt.

He rocks into you harder and faster, lifting your legs onto his shoulders to get as deep as he can go. He helps you through your leg shaking orgasm, his following soon after. He groans in your neck as his high comes. 

He carefully slips out before suddenly lowering himself down to your dripping middle and licks a few times up your overstimulating pussy, tasting the sweet and salty essence of your mixed climax, pulling away when your thighs begin to squeeze around his face, pushing his head away as it becomes too much for your cloyed cunt.

He then rises back up to your face and kisses your soft red lips feverishly. The taste of both of your pleasures are exchanged from his tongue to yours. He sighs breathlessly, letting you take all of his comforting weight on your front. You both smile as Javier fingers stroke your bare thigh and your hands scratch his scalp, his soft dampened locks between your fingers; he exhales happily content. 

You lie together comfortably, listening to each other's slowing heartbeats. As Javi drifts off to sleep you hear him whisper a quiet “I love you.” You smile, heart fluttering and whisper it back before you drift off into sleep yourself, your heart full as Javi cuddles into you, now content that you have found who you really want and who is best for you. 

***********

Translations (according to google):

Mi amor - my love

Cariño - sweetheart

Muñeca - doll

Hermosa - gorgeous

Mi amada - my beloved

Puta mentirosa - lying bitch

Cabrón - asshole/bastard

************

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

I tried so hard not to be parasocial about it but this letter thing is fucking me up, man. I've written a few overly flattering letters to evil government officials before myself. but how did someone convince all these reasonable-seeming people (strangers that I do not know) to publicly sign this centrist-ass letter? I understand they probably got Taika Waititi and Jack Black with the everyone can share, peace and love on the planet earth wording, but Jordan Peele? what. how did that happen. it makes no sense to me.

Ok I'm gonna front load my position on the Israel-Palestine conflict before I answer this ask so that no one can accuse me of shit I didn't say. If you want to see what I have to say on the letter itself, scroll to the big font. I'm as anti-zionist as they come I don't think that governments should even exist at all, I consider Israel to be an illegitimate state the same way I consider the country I live in (USA) to be an illegitimate state. I think that if we're going to have countries at all, which we shouldn't, that country should be Palestine and individual Jewish people certainly should be welcome to move there for whatever reason they want, including religious, but that the people who already lived there shouldn't be displaced because of it. And if they wanted me to support Israel on the basis of Jewish people needing somewhere to go after the Holocaust, they should have put Israel in Europe in 1945 instead of in the Arabian Peninsula in 1918. I tend to think the hard core zionists who aren't Jewish are trying to deport diaspora Jewish people somewhere based on the way I have heard other goyim speak about Israel. I am sympathetic to Jewish people who believe this has nuance but ultimately I cannot condone the displacement of Palestinians. That position might lose me followers but really I don't care.

Now that I have gotten that out of the way

(This first paragraph is for everyone who's out of the loop and has only seen the Tumblr posts about this issue, Anon does seem to know what I'm about to say) I do also think this whole thing with the letter is being blown out of proportion a little bit? That's not to say it's a good letter, it does contain language which blames Hamas for the conflict which is the western propaganda line so that countries like the United States and Britain don't have to admit that they caused and are funding this whole operation because they hate brown people. However celebrities are rubes who fall for government propaganda all the fucking time. What the letter itself actually calls for is Biden to facilitate the release of Israeli hostages. I consider this letter to be the vaguely Zionist equivalent of that time all those celebrities got on zoom and sang imagine because COVID was happening. I certainly doubt that the man who produced Get Out and Us supports the genocide and I also question whether the man who directed Reservation Dogs does either. Most likely they were asked "will you sign a letter calling for the release of Israeli hostages?" And they said "well releasing hostages sounds nice."

(this paragraph is for anon) Despite the fact that I think "these 70 celebrities condone Palestinian genocide" is incredibly reductive I would encourage you to see these people as human beings, and more specifically idiot millionaires who are out of touch. I believe that Taika Waititi understands the Maori struggle and generally tries to be a nice liberal but ultimately he is a man who grew up in the 80s with a lot of money who has an interest in keeping that money. His gaff transphobia tweets (which I didn't think were that bad considering he made it in 2013 and wasn't even talking about trans women, but they were still transphobic) and his pearl clutching during the BLM riots made this abundantly clear (both of these incidents are Taika Twitter originals that people have sent me trying to get me to hate him and I saw both of them and was like "that's what I thought you'd say old man"), and the fact that he married Rita "blackfish" Ora. I'm way less plugged in to what Jordan Peele is doing because I've never had an anon send me his call out post but I'm going to assume that the same thing is true of him: he understands the struggle of black people in the United States, despite this moment of basedness I probably politically disagree with him on many many counts. As for Jack Black he donates to autism speaks so he's coming for me and the Palestinians. Although that said so does Gaga and I'm still very much a fan of her.

I've basically had to come to terms with the fact that no celeb that I like the work of agrees with me about politics because all of them are rich and I am a communist. That's not going to stop me from liking their work, it's not going to stop me from bothering some of them at cons when I get the chance. Because again they're just guys. And most guys are idiots. I am an idiot about a lot of things. We don't expect Taika Waititi or Jordan Peele to know about every conflict in the world we expect them to make entertaining and perhaps insightful movies. I am not here because I think Taika agrees with me on all things. I am here because I want to watch a rom com about gay men who murder people, one of whom is just like me for real.

Anyway do your research

[sataara]

Fanfic Recs! pt. 1

Hello hello! For yall that don't know me, I'm Billy or Sataara, either is fine, and I read a lot of submas fics so I decided to make a list of some recommendations that I have! A few things about me is that I can't deal with unhappy endings, heavy angst and/or any pairings where both brothers are with someone else (also no bl/nkship), so if you're looking for any of these types of fics, I'm sorry but you won't find it here :/

That aside, I'll make more than one post since this was getting kind of long, this first one are just multi-chapter fics! Most of these are either reunion fics or Ingo living after getting back from Hisui, with some exceptions! Gonna leave the actual description under the link with small personal notes on my opinion about them!

edit: added a few more!

Combūrere by Anonymous

Emmet doesn’t appreciate hearing his brother is dead. But if it takes everyone treating him like glass to let him fistfight a god, so be it. He’s an over-pressured steam boiler, waiting to explode. He’s already set up all the pieces, lined all his matchsticks one by one. The only thing left to do is set himself ablaze. In which Emmet becomes a vengeful spirit, reunites with Ingo, travels to an alternate universe, and fights a god. Just. Not in that order.

Words: 140,000 Chapters: 28/28

This fic got me hooked from start to finish, I was up until 5am at one point because I just couldn't put it down. Reunion with a lot of bumps in the road that only make the story more interesting and flashbacks that only add context making the fic more robust.

Last Train Home by StellarCoachman

Ingo arrived in Hisui far too early, settling in and making a life for himself there. Akari, his daughter, grows up alongside him and Lady Sneasler in the Highlands, developing a strong bond with Pokemon that serves her well when she decides to join the Galaxy Team Survey Corp. There, she meets an odd boy named Rei and takes part in the events that shape the history of the region itself. An unexpected encounter leaves her lost in an unfamiliar world. Meanwhile, Emmet has long since grown to accept his brother's presumed death, but still struggles on occasion. When he gets proof that his brother may actually be alive, he rushes off to see for himself, but he's not prepared for what he finds instead.

Words: 90,307 Chapters: 12/12

One of the many fics I'll share from this author, love their works very much and I really enjoy their different takes on their reunion! As a warning, though, this one can be very sad and it made me cry a few times too </3

Legends, ponderances, and then some. by An_Ephemeral_Walk

Of all the lands, all the regions, all the timelines, it was Unova that was chosen. It was Unova that was the first to lose someone to a mythical being outside the domain of Truth and Ideals. It was Unova that fell victim to the being already tormenting both the Sinnoh of now, and the Hisui of then. While it wouldn't be Truth or Ideals that would ultimately lead Giratina to regretting going along with Volo, it would learn the taste of regret and defeat all the same in many flavors. Stealing the partner of a fiery ghost is a lesson not learned yet, but it will be. Oh, it will be.

Words: 85,049 Chapters: 10/10

This one is a very interesting and enjoyable read, a lot of introspection, different hcs for how the characters met, just, really nice all around.

Elevated Railways by FluentInFangirl12

I'm a sucker for wingfics and I'm surprised that in all my submas fics, I haven't written one yet. This was inspired by @manchasma's wing au on tumble dot com and this specific post by @fang-tasmal (https://fang-tasmal.tumblr.com/post/682901862855426048/wing-au-time-i-like-the-traditional-wings-on-back) but im changing the lore and stuff a bit.

Words: 71,987 Chapters: 28/28

Wingfic! This one has a lot of uncle Ingo content, it's a really fun read and nice exploration of the setting with the "but what if wings?" trope added to that <3 Also, another author that has a bunch of fics I enjoy!

Ingo in Wonderland by PerpetuallySleepy

Falling for the second time, Ingo finds himself in a strange land… a strange wonderland. Well, it appears that there’s quite an adventure ahead of him. A weird and wacky one! All aboard!

Words: 71,058 Chapters: 30/30

This one I actually avoided for sometime thinking it wouldn't be something I enjoyed, but oh, I'm so glad I gave it a chance! What a fascinating and fun story! Its heart wrenching and different, I loved it all the way through!

Give Not In To Sorrow by Hare_Brained_Scheme

Something strange is going on in Hisui. There are reports of a man in white roaming the wildlands while leading a pack of Pokemon . Some say they're a mix of Pokemon, some claim they're a pack of zoroarks. Some swear that the man is none other than the amnesiac warden of the Pearl Clan. One thing is certain. Those who meet the man in white all report the same thing: He is looking for his brother. And he will not rest until he finds him.

Words: 70,551 Chapters: 12/12

This one I can not recommend enough, beautifully crafted story, completely gut wrenching, I've read it twice not counting the times I reread my favorite parts and cried a lot, mind the tags but do read it if you haven't already.

We Are Derailing by william_pkmn

Lucas is sent on a mission to investigate a sacred site to the Diamond clan. As added backup, he takes Ingo with and inadvertently unlocks his memories, deepening the mystery they have to solve together.

Words: 49,451 Chapters: 10/10

Another really interesting one! Following Ingo and Lucas as they look for clues about Ingo's past, the promise that things will work out by the end, the road to get there, it's worth the read!

A Rather Dramatic Displacement by NanixErka

Arceus grants the wish of the two heroes displaced in time However, perhaps they should have consulted Dialga with the time portion of this 10 years isn't too far off for humans, right? the scowling 5 year old didn't think so.

Words: 44,258 Chapters: 12/12

Really fun fic with Ingo and Akari being de aged and sent to the wrong time! Tons of shenanigans and also cute moments with dad Ingo <3

Autistic Elopement (if it sucks, hit the bricks) by Alienea, Juan_Pujol_Garcia

Stuck in the past? Textures suck? Tastes bad? Horribly understimulated? Just walk out! Hit the bricks! Leave through a portal with a kid you met a few months ago! What could go wrong?

Words: 42,008 Chapters: 6/6

Loooooove this one! Ingo relearning and slowly remembering his present time, while Emmet has to deal with everything that comes with Ingo being back but with no memories.

to the rift that tore us apart (and brought us together again) by Gibberish_Sorcerer

A distortion appears at a certain Unovan subway station, taking away Ingo to a different land. Emmet sees everything firsthand. (Emmet goes through a rift to Hisui, keeps his memories, and just sorta hangs out with Ingo. Also the entire plot of PLA happens with the twins going along for the ride.)

Words: 31,911 Chapters: 15/15

This one is really good! Such an interesting idea to explore with Emmet also in Hisui and now everyone has to deal with the fact that there's two of them kjdbsjakbvkjb

I Came Back For You by Elithesia_Autem_Danguarde

Upon experiencing a mysterious connection to another time and space, Warden Ingo regains his memories and makes the choice to return home to Unova where he belongs. However, he has to deal with not only his own emotions about being in Hisui for over a year, but how his absence impacted those that loved him. Settling back home isn't easy, but there are always people who stand behind him, particularly his precious little brother who missed him so dearly.

Words: 30,295 Chapters: 5/5

The care and love in this fic is so heartwarming but also a bit sad at times, I really enjoyed the concept and how the different conflicts were worked through!

A Change in Conductors by CuzReasons

Warden Ingo wakes up in a place he doesn't recognize. Subway Boss Ingo wakes up in a place he's only read about. Neither are where they should be.

Words: 23,654 Chapters: 9/9

This author is currently my favorite and I love their concepts and how they work through their stories and ideas, I recommend looking through their entire pokemon tag if you're looking for reunions and sibling antics! But talking about this fic in specific, the concept uses a common trope but the way it's used is fresh and so intriguing! I kept reading each chapter as soon as I got the notification, I cried happy tears reading it.

I am not there, I do not sleep. by digitalpen

How does it feel to be a dead man walking? The Pearl Clan found the body of a man in the icelands. His lips were blue and he had no pulse. When no one else in Hisui could identify him, his body was given to a blessed pokemon in lieu of a funeral. And yet, his spirit is seen walking about days later. Ingo haunts the highlands as a ghost. He has no home, no family, no memories, no life. What comes next?

Words: 20,249 Chapters: 5/5

This one messed me up and made me happy all over again, mind the tags and don't forget the promised happy ending!

The Warden, The Girl, & The Fox by Elithesia_Autem_Danguarde

While freely roaming Hisui, Akari stumbles upon a mysterious man in the Alabaster Icelands with a familiar face. As the two begin to form a friendship, Akari begins to realize there might be much more to this new man's presence than what it initially seems, as well as being the key to unlocking the lost memories of her friend, Warden Ingo.

Words: 68,621 Chapters: 15/15

Another one by Elithesia! I do love this one and their reunion is bittersweet at first but so comforting as it goes! The focus on this one is way more on Akari, but the brothers are the main point of the story!

Let It Simmer by EVTrainingUniversity

Having returned to the future, Ingo finds himself stumped on just who he was before Hisui as his memories still haven't returned. As such, until he can find his way back to his home station he must spend some time in the modern-day Sinnoh. Left sitting around for the most part while the investigators do their work, he decides to put a gift given to him by his friends in the past to good use by making a food recipe blog of traditional Hisuian dishes. It's by complete happenstance that Emmet stumbles upon his blog, having taken on cooking as a hobby during Ingo's absence.

Words: 6,538 Chapters: 4/4

This one is very special to me, food as a love language, as a healing tool, as a bonding experience, it's everything to me

Fear Not the Descent by ImpossibleJedi4

Some coping mechanisms formed in wake of a tragedy are healthy, some are unhealthy, and some are a mixture of the two. Emmet finds peace when he travels far below the surface of the earth, but then, at long last, someone finds him in return.

Words: 2,316 Chapters: 2/2

Very short one but it's so touching... Please do mind the tags if any of those concepts might make you uncomfortable, better safe than sorry

[gabessquishytum]

I think not enough people have come to talk to you about chubby Hob. So I am here to push the chubby!Hob agenda!!

Human au maybe, where Hob has a long and storied past. He was homeless for a bit, he was food insecure for longer. And now that he's settled and secure in a decent flat with a good job (maybe this is an au where he's the chef at the New Inn?) He has to keep his pantry full. And he always cleans his plate. No leftovers in this house. He was intense about it for a while and it was maybe hoarding and binging, but he's got it mostly under control now. He just likes to know he won't go hungry. The side effect of this is he's put on some weight. He's got a belly, his thighs and arms are thick. He's honestly pretty happy with it, since it's more proof he isn't starving anymore.

Enter Dream. Dream is depressed and introverted at the best of times. But he's just gotten out of an abusive workplace that had him so anxious he wasn't eating and hes... kind of forgotten food can be enjoyable. Death takes him to the New Inn to get him out more, to coax him into trying something new. Dream orders the safest sounding thing on the menu. Something simple. And when it comes out it smells amazing, and when Dream picks off the tiniest bite to try it, it's incredible. He's ruined for this dish from anywhere else. Death watches him eat an entire plate of food for the first time in months and insists the chef come out so they can thank him personally.

And Hob and Dream lock eyes and sparks fly. Dream comes back and orders the same dish every day for lunch for 2 weeks until one day Hob sends out the usual and an extra side. The waiter hands him a napkin from Hob to go with the side that has "trust me" written on it in sharpie. And that's how Dream starts trying more things on the menu. Until one day Dream asks the waiter what dish he's been given to try today and the waiter says it isn't on the menu. They'll go ask Hob about it. Hob comes out and says it's an exclusive that Dream will only see again if he let's Hob take him on a date and cook him dinner personally.

🍰🐲

I see the words Chubby Hob, I light up like a christmas tree.

I love the idea of Hob being the new inn's chef, that feels so perfect! I bet he would find a lot of comfort in having this kitchen which is just as well stocked as his own kitchen upstairs, full of ingredients, and he can cook all day and make himself snacks and little meals during the quiet spots in the day, and also snacks for all the staff members. It soothes the part of his brain that is still cold and scared. And he doesn't mind that he'll always have a bit of a thing about food, because he's safe now. He can eat nice things and buy new jeans when he needs a size up. It's all good.

And when he sees Dream, he implicitly wants to make everything ok for him. And make food for him. Hot pies, lasagna, fish and chips. He just wants Dream to feel warm and safe, like Hob does now! It's not like he can fix everything, but maybe he can give Dream a little bit of hope?

Ultimately it doesn't take much to convince Dream to shyly head up the stairs to Hob’s flat, and sit at the kitchen table in the warm lamplight while Hob cooks dinner for them both. Hob even baked biscuits for Dream to nibble while he waits. Maybe while he's exploring the flat Dream finds a few pictures of a hollow cheeked, painfully thin looking Hob, and everything starts to make sense.

They have a little cuddle on the sofa after dinner, and Dream gets to curl up against Hob’s warm soft belly. He feels very safe there, with Hob’s arms wrapped around him. He likes the way Hob is padded and squishy with no hard edges, and Dream can just sink into him. Neither of them are really thinking about sex but much later, Dream will definitely fantasise about grabbing that soft belly, maybe rutting against it, maybe biting it.....

And maybe he'll get a little healthy meat on his bones too. Dream definitely wouldn't be mad about it if the results of all Hob’s good food start to show on his body. In fact, he might be a bit proud.

[dingochef]

Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x OFC (Reader)Word Count: 1.8k

Warnings: Swearing

Written for @sailor-aviator writing challenge. Scrooge was my prompt.

Masterlist

Have a cup of cheer!

You don't hate Christmas exactly, more a high dislike layered over forced tolerance. No appreciation for the holiday. When you think of Christmas, your memory isn't filled with cinnamon scented Hallmark moments like baking cookies or decorating fresh pine trees.

Christmas was the ultimate swap holiday between your not amicably divorced parents. An only child shuffled from coast to coast, neither parent really wanting to invest wholesale for an occasional holiday. Half assed fake trees and takeout Chinese for Christmas dinner was more the norm than big family feasts. Eventually your parents gave up the motions of holiday celebrations and would bring you on a vacation they wanted to go on as a way to supposedly celebrate. You went skiing, a lot.

Which is how you find yourself waiting in line at your favorite coffee shop, grinding your teeth as everyone in front of you orders the most elaborate Christmas flavored mega-multi- gingerbread-peppermint-mocha-latte with almond milk and real whipped cream and all you want is an iced coffee, black. You live in San Diego for Christ's sake, it's 78 degrees outside.

You snort to yourself, you like your coffee black, like your soul. You feel like black cloud on a sunny day, a Scrooge at a Christmas pageant,a turd in the punch bowl as you wait in this excruciatingly slow line as Mariah Carey warbles in the background and you're surrounded by tinsel and fake pine garland.

You have five days left till Christmas, five days till your life goes back to normal and there is no more Santa, no more cinnamon scented gag-inducing pine cones hanging out in the entry of your local grocery store, and blissfully, no more Christmas music.

"Five more days," you breathe in and out, a calming mantra in this melee of forced cheer and commercialism.

"Five more days," breathe in, breathe out.

Finally, you're next in line, so close to getting your caffeine fix and getting out of here.

Finally, you order and wave off the barista's efforts for you to try a holiday themed drink and muffin and scone and bagel bites. Is everything peppermint flavored?

"I'm good, just a large black iced coffee. Thank you," you say through a forced smile. She shrugs and gets your order ready. You tip well and turn to quickly exit.

A blond man in a Navy, you think, uniform is behind you and instantly reads your resting bitch face. He smiles a dazzling grin, so beautiful that if you weren't trying to remember breathing exercises from yoga to keep from losing your shit, it might make you a little weak in the knees at any other time of year. And then he opens his mouth, a Southern lilt wrapped around his words,

"Cheer up, Doll. Christmas is almost here. Have you been a good girl this year for Santa to bring you a nice present?"

This is it, this is the moment you do something that will either get you arrested and on the news or a become a regrettable viral video on the Internet with the title, "ChriSTtmAs FreeK-OUT SouNd on!"

You really don't find it in yourself to care about the results of what's about to happen, this poor unsuspecting schmuck is about to have all your shiny, gift wrapped emotional baggage labeled "Christmas!" unloaded on him while he's probably waiting to get a mega-multi- gingerbread-peppermint-mocha-latte with almond milk and real whipped cream.

"Don't call me doll, dick. And I really don't give a flying fuck about Santa or whatever shitty pick up line you're trying to use. This whole fucking time of year is bullshit and I don't need you telling me to cheer up. I haven't been happy at Christmas for the last 32 years, doubt it's going to change now. So leave me alone and you can enjoy your Christmas sugar bomb and spread your fake cheer somewhere else!"

The rage flows through you making you tremble as you hold back tears.

The man in front of you has lost the smile and is reaching out his hands in what you realize is a feeble attempt to comfort you. Pure concern blankets his face, making your rage fizzle, like a match thrown in water.

"I'm sorry. I was just trying to get you to smile…" he pauses as he retreats hands and runs one through his hair,

"I'm really sorry I caused you pain. Sorry this isn't a good time of year for you."

His sincerity deflates you entirely and the tears you're holding back flood out and flow down your cheeks.

"It's fine, it's fine," you mumble as you frantically search for the exit. Now you're noticing that the entire coffee shop is silent and watching you. You flee out the door, cringing as you hear the jingle bells on the door ring. You walk just far enough to get out of the view of anyone in the coffee shop.

Apparently, this weird moment in time is when you decide to unpack your shitty childhood. Slumping down against the brick wall behind you, you sit down and take a long sip of your iced coffee, your hands shaking as you wipe away the tears.

"You look like you could use something stronger," a now familiar voice says softly.

Looking up you see your unwitting emotional punching bag holding out his hand,

"I know a place close by if you want to take me up on the offer."

"Why are you being nice to me? I called you a dick in front of 50 people," you say, sniffing to keep the snot at bay.

"Call it the Christmas spirit. You seem like you could use someone to talk to and I do feel like a dick for making you cry in a coffee shop. I'm Jake, by the way."

You ponder his offer for a second,

"This isn't one of those self aggrandizing things you're going to brag about on social media later, is it?"

He laughs, a deep and true laugh.

"Nope, I was trying to talk to you to get your number because I think you're beautiful. Plus, who drinks iced coffee black? You're obviously a complex character or a serial killer. Call me curious."

You laugh a small sniffling laugh and take his hand, and say as he helps you up,

"Well, Jake by the way, I'm Y/n, but you can call me Scrooge, I guess, because I feel like I've ruined Christmas."

"Don't give yourself that much credit. There's still five days to make it better. How about that drink? Scroogey?"

"Sure, let's go. But if you try to make me drink a peppermint martini I will lose it….again."

"I wouldn't dream of it. It's the Hard Deck, just down the block. I don't think that's the type of drink that Penny would be any good at it."

Jake leads the way towards the bar. You've seen it as you live in the area, but didn't really think it was your scene.

As you sit in a cozy booth and talk with Jake, you enjoy the atmosphere, simple and unpretentious and blissfully lacking Christmas music you realize it is exactly the kind of place you like to hang out at. You and Jake talk so long about your lives that you eventually order food. One drink turns into several.

You learn he is a fighter pilot for the Navy and is stationed out of North Island, he grew up in Texas, and he absolutely loves Christmas. He learns that you are in marketing, grew up in Connecticut, and why Christmas sucks for you.

When you finally notice the time you realize you've been talking to Jake for three hours.

"Oh crap, I've got to get going. I've got an early morning," you chuckle to yourself thinking about your sunrise yoga class and how you used some of the techniques trying to stay calm in the coffee shop.

Jake stands up with you and waves you off as you try to pull some cash from your wallet for the tab.

"My treat, call it a Christmas gift,' he says, absolutely pushing his luck. For some reason it comes across as charming and makes you laugh.

"Would it be okay if I got your number? I'd like to see you again, Y/N."

You hold yourself together to not let out a girlish giggle of glee,

"I'd like to see you again too, Jake," you readily agree, trying to sound breezy. You quickly exchange phones and send a text to each other. Jake walks you out of the Hard Deck and gives you a chaste peck on the cheek as he hugs you goodbye.

You're getting ready for bed, a giant smile plastered on your face when your phone dings, a new message popping up.

Jake Seresin: 🎄 Merry Christmas, I'm thankful for the gift of meeting you today. I must have a good boy this year for Santa to bring us together. Owe the old man one.

You: Merry Christmas, Jake. 🎅

"Merry Christmas, y/n," Jake hums into your ear curling himself around your back.

One Year and Five Days Later

"Merry? This early? What time is it?" you croak back.

"5 am, my nieces and nephews are going to wake up shortly. "

"Thought I'd let you see what's in Santa's package," he says, trying not to laugh, as he lightly thrusts at you.

"Jacob Thomas Seresin, you got me, the ultimate Scrooge, to come to Texas for Christmas with you, bake cookies, cut down a tree, sing carols, and I'm even wearing Christmas pajamas with fucking elves on them that match your whole family, but I have to, have to draw the line at Christmas themed dirty talk."

You feel Jake's smile on your temple as you talk.

"I think you enjoy it, maybe even love Christmas a little now," Jake teases.

You roll over,

"I love you and you love Christmas, so therefore by transitive properties I should love Christmas."

He laughs,

"I'm glad this Christmas has been your best one yet."

"You're confident, maybe a little cocky, that this is my best Christmas ever," you tease.

"I mean, the bar was so low that I think I've knocked out of the park."

"You have, Jake. Thank you for doing all this for me, I might even be starting to like Christmas," you hold up your fingers, "A little bit."

Jake grins and kisses you as the door bursts open,

"Uncle Jake! Uncle Jake! Santa came last night," his five year old niece, Sophia, screams, knocking the last vestiges of sleep off your brain with her volume. You and Jake sit up as she bolts out the door to wake up the rest of the house.

Jake is looking at you, his heart warm, and it gets even warmer when he thinks of a small velvet box sitting under the tree with your name on it.

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