#even if it took multiple tries to wrangle it so it Became A Story

[purpleqilinwrites]

land-years.

a/n: this is my piece for to the stars, beyond the depths zine! if you'd like to see more, please check out my fellow contributors' works here (link to download!).

genre: fantasy / general

info: -

warnings: -

synopsis: a siren finds a new home among the humans.

word count: 2.1k

"Sirens are real," the girl said, plainly as though stating the weather, without looking up from the illustrated book of stories that she was currently busy with. The nursemaid gave a hum of acknowledgement, waiting for the girl to continue speaking. However, the girl fell silent once again and flipped the page, laying on her belly otherwise unmoving.

It was something that the nursemaid found a smidge disconcerting about her charge that was apparent quite soon after birth, that the girl enjoyed being still and being quiet. The nursemaid had little contact with other women employed for the same purpose in other households, but she supposed it was no small mercy to spend her days watching over a placid child. The burden of her employment would have been too heavy for its exchange in coin, after all.

The nursemaid finished the last bit of folding for the day, gathering the girl's underclothes into her arms and then standing up to put them away in the wardrobe. "Will you tell me more?" came the girl's voice again. This time, she had raised her head from its stooped position, and the nursemaid beheld the girl's guileless eyes.

With all her housekeeping tasks for the day accomplished, the nursemaid seated herself beside the girl, and asked, eager, and with sparkling eyes, "What would you like to hear, dove?"

It became a ritual of sorts, both for the girl who drank stories like parched land in the first summer rain and for the nursemaid who told stories from times before her time and from places beyond her place. Storytelling was lighter work than doing starching clothes and scrubbing floors, and the nursemaid counted herself fortunate all over again.

The girl was lying on her back on the carpet in one such instance, as was her usual position, her eyes fixed on one particular stone of the many that made up the ceiling. Occasionally, the girl would stretch out her hand to tap on the nursemaid's knee, a signal that she had a question.

"Who is the All-Mother?" the girl asked, craning her neck to watch the nursemaid's face. Idly, the girl was pinching the hem of the nursemaid's dress, rubbing her fingers along the seams. There was a wandering thread that the girl had pried free from the hours her hands were occupied with the nursemaid's hemline.

The nursemaid put a hand to the girl's hair and stroked the stray curls back, smiling. "The All-Mother is the spirit who rules the sea. She is also the mother of all sirens. She appoints each siren their lot in life; either to birth and nurture, or to fight and protect."

There was a wrinkle in the bridge of the girl's nose as she considered the nursemaid's answer to her question. Opening her mouth once and then closing it again, the girl hummed, as if finally understanding.

"What if I want to do neither?" came the girl's voice, only a little louder than a whisper.

The nursemaid could not see any reason for the girl to lower her voice in her private bedchambers since there were only the two of them. The other servants had no business in this secluded part of the master's estate. Solitude was something the girl enjoyed very much, and her father was most obliging of her request to take residence in a small cottage apart from the main house.

There was a new hardness in the girl's eyes, still trained to one oddly shaped stone that hung directly above her, and the nursemaid wondered if she had made a mistake in telling the girl all these stories. Selfishly, the nursemaid mourned the loss of the placid infant she cradled first in her bosom that one summer's day many years ago. She had not reared a child save for the girl, and so she failed to anticipate what sorrow she would feel as the girl started to blossom into womanhood.

"The All-Mother is not a forgiving one. All her daughters who do not wish to follow her will are not her daughters any longer. Their names are removed from them. They will leave their sisters and their home, never to return," said the nursemaid, a tired ache in her chest returning even if she had thought all her years on land had blotted it out.

The nursemaid could not remember the last time she dreamed while she slept.

As the night advanced across the far horizon and dyed it with a dripping black, she lay down in her bed and wondered if she had imagined how liquid and roiling and alive the sky looked. The colour reminded her of the home that she left all those years ago. It was her conscious decision to leave, and yet she found her chest alight with a still-bleeding grief, as if the sea was taken from her.

The little window on the other side of her room taunted her with that little slice of the night sky. Scattered rolls of cloud were less black than the sky that they were painted on, shining like the crests of the waves of the sea under a smattering of stars. Yearning hit her once again, and it made her toss and turn relentlessly in her bed when she should have been asleep.

When it became apparent that rest would continue to evade her, the nursemaid rose from beneath the blankets and exited her bedroom. The cool stone floors under her bare feet strangely relaxed her as she made her way down several hallways and corridors and down a long flight of stairs that led to the kitchen.

She ducked into the little room where the master of the estate liked the spices to be kept and reached into the salt box. With a fistful of salt tucked safely into the sole pocket of her nightclothes, the nursemaid returned to her room, crunching some grains of salt between her teeth as she went.

It was the taste of salt on her tongue that finally lulled the nursemaid into sleep. And as she slept, she dreamed of seagrass and of sunburst.

In the trenches of slumber, a sense of clarity came upon the nursemaid. She was able to remember the self that she was before this. Perhaps it was the weight of her longing that blinded her mind's eye, making the self that she used to be as faint as a shadow in the little crease of the girl's eyelids.

Before this, she was a dweller beneath the waves, a proud daughter of the All-Mother.

It came to be that as the girl approached the end of her childhood days, she was made aware of the fact by her father announcing that she was soon to meet with an assortment of noble sons from all over the kingdom with the expectation that she would eventually be wed to one of them.

The nursemaid stood at the far corner of the master's study, watching a pleat form between the thin brows of the girl. With a practised ease, the girl willed her features into neutrality, and she simply nodded as a form of acknowledging her father's requirement.

"These are some fine young men. I'm certain you will find someone to your liking," the master said, and the nursemaid was certain those words felt like a quickly tightening chain around the girl's neck.

The girl did not ask about any of the boys she would be meeting, but the master began to give a brief description of the handful that he favoured above the rest. Intrusive were the eyes the master laid on the girl, but the nursemaid felt a swell of pride within her when the girl proved to be unreadable to her father. Instead, the master feigned a clearing of the throat as he finally looked away from the girl to thumb at a folded sheet of parchment in his hands.

Twin stacks of what must be correspondences between the master and the fathers of the boys in question were tall, standing impressively to the left of the master's inkwell. The girl kept her eyes on the brooch nestled at the base of the master's throat as he continued on the his harangue about this noble son and that.

At the mention of the name of the half-brother of the crown prince, the nursemaid and the girl shared a look of surprise when the master turned away momentarily. He straightened the stacks of letters with a strange urgency though they did not wobble. Whilst the master was neatening up something the nursemaid thought was already orderly, he missed the poignant shadow that passed over the girl's face, gone when the nursemaid blinked.

"I want to stay with you, Nurse," the girl said.

She lifted one of her hands as if to scratch at her nose, but having caught sight of herself in the mirror, she lowered it back to her lap. Knowing that the mistress would chastise her for ruining her painstakingly applied powder in the moments before meeting a prince in the flesh, the girl settled instead for pressing the points of her fingernails into the fat of her thigh.

The nursemaid watched the girl, pleased that she remained ever the placid infant across the span of years at the same time that she was displeased at how much the girl's obedience would cost her.

"You need not worry your pretty head, dove," the nursemaid said, keeping the strokes of the comb in the girl's hair consistent. "I would go with you anywhere, even if you wish to go to the sea."

There was that hardness again in the girl's eyes once again. It staggered the nursemaid when the girl was still drinking milk, but the nursemaid realised her mistake now that the girl had shed the softness of childhood: it suited her.

"The All-Mother is not my mother," the girl said, now wringing her wrists to keep her hands away from that itch on her nose. "The sea is not my home."

The little window in the nursemaid's room proved to be a distraction anew.

With her face angled to the wall where the window sat, the nursemaid was watching the night sky as if she were a guard on duty. The expanse of it that the little window revealed was liquid and alive again, appearing to bubble and boil in the slivers of inattention that speckled the nursemaid's focus.

It was yet another night where sleep remained confidently out of the nursemaid's grasp, so she kept her eyes open towards the sky as she pretended that it was the sea.

It was a day of darkening tree leaves when the girl was to bid her childhood home goodbye.

The nursemaid was counting the trunks of the girl's personal effects as the footmen loaded them into the hired wagons, liveried with the crest of the house where the girl was being married off to. When everything was in order for the girl's departure, the master and the mistress both ushered her out from the solarium where she was poring over her much beloved illustrated book of stories.

In the same tearless manner that the master and the mistress received the girl into the world and as a member of their family, they sent her off to the house of the man who would be her husband. The nursemaid scooped the girl's still-gloved hand in her own, squeezing, and hoped the girl would understand that it was her way of shedding tears on behalf of her parents.

The road to the prince's house was long, and the girl quickly wearied of the journey, leaning her head on the plush carriage interior to grasp at any wisps of sleep that she could. Morning melted into afternoon, punctuated only by a short stop at a small town for a meal.

When the road curved to lead them away from the thickly forested hills, it was the salt on the breeze that alerted the nursemaid to their proximity to the sea. The girl, as if sensing the nursemaid's fever for the sea, opened her eyes.

The nursemaid reached over to grasp at the girl's still-gloved hand for the last time. "All-Mother keep you," the nursemaid said, both as a greeting and a farewell. She kept the girl's hand safely clutched between both of hers as she called the sea to come up past its natural boundary to meet the girl, who had decided her new home would be the one the nursemaid left.

[queenoftheworldisdead]

Could you maybe write something with dark dark Steve who has a huge size kink and crying kink and loves to humiliate?

School Days

Note: sorry it took so long. been kinda down. also hope i did OK with humiliation.

Summary: Co-worker makes you feel uncomfortable.

Warning: 18+Only, short reader, size kink, crying kink, humiliation kink, non consent, forced fingering and cock warming i think

Dark Coach Steve x Short Teacher Reader

📚

You had always had a love of teaching. Growing up your friends would always groan when it was your turn to pick what to play, because you always chose to play school.

You knew exactly what you wanted to do when you got to college. You wanted to shape young minds. It was fascinating watching them grow and learn right before your very eyes.

Shelby elementary hired you two years after you received all of your certificates. Replacing their beloved Mrs.Pepper Potts after she moved out of town with her husband.

You taught first graders. You preferred teaching the lower grades. The higher grades were a bit difficult. Competing for attention when most of the students where dealing with raging hormones proved an exhausting endeavor. Your short stature became a reoccurring issue too. During your student teacher days you realized the taller they got the more they seemed to not take you seriously.

At least working with the lower grades you were less likely to be confused as a student. You had lost track of how many times you were stopped in the hall by a colleague. With the lower grades you towered over your class and commanded respect with little effort.

📚

You felt exhausted. Your first parent teacher meeting was over. It was endearing and encouraging that so many parents had so many concerns about the development of their little ones. But their critiques on your credentials didn't fail to strike a nerve, an issue new teachers faced all the time. You smiled through it as you normally did. Letting them have their back handed remarks as you answered and waited out the clock.

When it was all over you needed a drink. You cleared up the mess they left for you, a preview of what to expect from their spawn.

When everything was in its place you tackled the blackboard. Taking out your stool you stood on tip toes erasing. You had the bright idea of outlining your curriculum on the board for all the parents to view. It was hard getting it all on the massive board, but with your step stool you got as high as you could go.

"Hey! Whoa you know that's dangerous." A voice rushed to your side as your stool tilted.

"Are you OK little one?" he asked helping you down.

God he's tall. You barely came eye to eye with his chest. You tensed in his arms and when he realized his mistake he released you.

"Oh sorry" he rubbed the back of his head slightly embarrassed. "I'm Steve Rogers." He reached out a hand for you to shake. You took it and introduced yourself. His firm grip swallowed your hand, when he squeezed you held in the hurt from the pressure.

Steve's presence was intimidating despite the smile he wore. When he released your hand, you took as step back, but he stepped forward.

He is just a close talker. Don't over analyze.

"Sorry again with your clothes I just assumed you were..." He motioned at your clothing.

Taking inspiration from Ms Frizz, your favorite animated teacher, you always wore colorful puffy skirts that depicted various things related to education or fairy tails. The look kept the attention of the youngsters, but it certainly didn't look childish.

"It's OK, but I am afraid you are a bit late for the meeting."

Spinning away you move to the other side of your desk to give yourself more space. "If you wouldn't mind filling in your information, encase of emergencies or special needs. I know you probably filled it out for the front office, but I like to have my own copy." You explained as you handed him a pen and the piece of construction paper with the other parents info.

He took it and filled it out. "I just erased the curriculum, but I can email you a copy."

"Did you also used to teach at Camdien?" Steve inquired, bending over your desk as he wrote. While you waited you packed up your belongings.

"Um yes I was a student teacher there. Did you have a child there too?"

"I coached there actually. Well was." He rose and approached you. Slipping your purse straps on your shoulder, you tried to remember if you seen his face before. You didn't recognize it. As striking as he was you doubted you would forget it.

But the athletic department lived in a world separate from the teachers. Their multiple championships brought in funding that went to their brand new athletic facility. The highly coveted building allowed them to live above the peasant class of the faculty. You had even heard a nonsensical rumor that they even had a Starbucks and onsite masseuse.

When he handed it back you reached out, but Steve pulled the paper just out of reach. Hovering it over your head like a bully playing keep away. You huff and frown after two attempts. You were not a child and would not be treated as such. Pursing your lips you made a move to leave. You would just go through the admin office to get the information.

"Aw don't pout, but I must say you do look adorable when you do." He smiled down at you as he blocked your retreat. His wholesome grin did not match the darkness in his eyes. There was a disconnect somewhere. You felt like a mouse before a lion. Were the other teachers like this? You were so eager to get started working you did little research in the school that so swiftly hired you. "Here you go."

Snatching the paper away you say, "thank you." It sounded slightly annoyed, but you did your best to choke down the edge.

Unhooking the lip of your bag you placed it with the others as his shadow clouded you. Ignoring it you side step him.

"Yeah I remember. I used to see you at Camdien." Steve recalled, blocking you once more. You stopped just short of bumping into him as you closed your bag. "Cute little thing, roaming the halls." Steve informed you, stepping closer once more, making you take a step back. The alarm bells blared in your head at that comment.

"Boy wasn't I relieved I wasn't crossing the line with all the thoughts I had." He chuckled as your back hit the chalkboard. You had to strain your neck to look him in the eye this close.

The principal was making his rounds soon. He wouldn't try anything right?

"Mr. Rogers-"

"Coach" he interrupted. He didn't touch you but that fact gave you very little relief. You felt your nails dig into your palm as you gripped the thin strap of your bag. Your arm the only barrier between you two. "Just call me Coach."

"Rogers!" Your saving grace, Principal Barnes, exclaimed from the door. Steve's body blocked you from James. "There you are. Nice to see your getting to know your colleagues."

"Yeah, just sharing stories from Camdien" Steve stepped aside to greet Principal James. His hand landed on the top of your head, messing your hair as he patted you playfully like a dog. You swallowed the discomfort as he moved to talk to James. You gathered the rest of your things as they focused their attention on each other.

"Oh yeah I forgot you both came from their."

You took that opportunity to make your exit. Walking fast mumbling a 'goodnight,' you bolted toward the door. They replied back, but you ignored it, allowing their chatter to fade the further down the hall you got.

📚

The first week of school was hectic. Lost students, late students, little accidents here and there, it ran the gambit. But nothing worried you more than P.E. period.

Steve was listed as your classes gym teacher and made the drop-off a chore. It surprised you how increasingly inappropriate he was becoming. Always stretching out your name flirtatiously in front of the children causing them to taunt you with 'OOO's, and pepper you with questions about the nonexistent relationship until you departed.

They stayed in line as you approached the double doors that led to the gymnasium. He was there, dressed in his sweat pants, gym shirt and the whistle dangled from his lips.

As you ushered them inside he caught site of you as he wrangled another group and smirked. It was unnerving especially when your students egged him on by making kissy noises loudly when they noticed him too. On one occasion he sent a note with one of your students asking you out. You ignored it.

You should've reported him you know, but what would they say 'Oh he was just being friendly' or any number of things to justify his behavior. You'd been in enough situations to know without evidence that met their standards nothing would happen.

📚

In the teachers lounge Steve made his presence known. You stared at your custom coffee mug as it sat high on the edge of the third shelf. You had half a mind to take and break his, as it taunted you from the first. You were growing more and more tired of his antics. This wasn't the first time and you knew it wouldn't be the last.

Two arms planted themselves on either side of you as something rested on your head.

It was him you knew it. Who else would it be?

"Need some help little one?" He hummed.

"God damn it Steve get off me" you barked You elbowed him, but the mountain of a man didn't budge.

"No need to be nasty."

You felt him push you into the counter, crushing you against it as he reached for your cup on the high shelf.

"Here you go" he said placing it daintily in front of you.

Calm down don't blow your lid he is doing this to fuck with you.

"Shouldn't you be watching my class?" You asked as you waited for him to move out of your way.

"Student teacher got me covered. You remember what that's like? Give them the work while we teachers kick back and relax."

He backed away allowing you to get the coffee, but stayed glued to your side. You ignored him, pulling out your phone and flopped on the couch, waiting for gym time to end.

Steve of course sat next to you crowding you into the corner. He boldly placed a hand on your thigh, you brushed it off, cursing at him to 'go away'. If you got up he would only follow so you crossed your legs and leaned into the arm of the couch. Don't let him get to you.

Steve stretched out his arm on the back of the couch. Even sitting next to you he towered over you. His arm wrapped around your shoulder, pulling you in snugly. Your head resting against his tone chest. "God your so adorable."

"Steve!" you almost shriek at him as his other hand slyly crept under your skirt. "Jesus Christ what the hell is wrong with you."

You try to stand suddenly, but get jerked back down. Landing in the same awkward situation as before.

"Fuck you let me go" you hissed at him. He only chuckled as you tried to stop his hand from advancing up your skirt again. You became panicked the further he got.

Clamping your thighs tightly together as he wedged between your crossed legs. Your eyes shifted to the door before you, the couch sat across from the only entrance. If anyone came in they surely would be under the wrong assumptions.

His arm refused to budge as you attempted to pry him away. Steve was nothing but muscle, struggling was getting you no where, each shift pressed him hard against your sensitive area.

📚

"You know I've been nothing, but nice to you" Steve sounded disappointed.

"Stop please" you sounded panicked and desperate. Your nails dug into his arm as you tried to fight back an ache that taunted you as he teased.

"But you always give me attitude." He stated casually.

You slapped him. The sound loud in the empty room. Your eyes blurred with tears of frustration. Your hit did nothing, only leaving his cheek red, but from the smile on his face he liked it.

"And violent too. Hope you don't act that way around your class" he tsked while poking hard at the growing wet spot. You felt your spine curve and breath become heavier, your toes curled in your shoes as he increased his friction.

"Oh look at you. You like that don't you" he teased rubbing circles after noticing the tension in your legs relax. You cocked back to slap him again, but stopped when you felt his other hand at the back of your neck. It squeezed softly, but it was a warning nonetheless. You felt defeated. Not only was Steve bigger than you, he was stronger. Tears of frustration finally fell as you lowered your hand and let him do as he pleased.

"God your even cuter when you cry." He preened. "Tell you what. Since we don't have that much time....Kiss me and I will stop." You bristled as you felt him peel your panties to the side.

He didn't wait for your reply. Steve crashed his lips on to yours without warning. You flinched expecting pain, but it was soft. It was so tender that with anyone else they would given and close their eyes, accept it, but you couldn't.

"Stop..Steve.. Please" You panted over his lips, pushing at his chest as his fingers pushed into you. He didn't stop, the kiss only embolden him to go further. You whimpered and moaned as he took from you.

"Give me your panties" he asked pulling away from you, but his fingers still curled inside. "You promised you'd stop" you remind him, wiping away tears.

He wasn't going to relent, you could tell by the determination in his eyes. You felt exposed and embarrassed. Anyone could walk in at any moment and he knew it. He would probably get a slap on the wrist while you would need to find employment else where to escape the shame.

"I promise this time" he said lowly. "No tricks."

Swallowing your pride you lifted in your seat, he moved just enough to let the fabric pass. Rolling them down your knees quickly you hand them over. His hands slipped from you as you pass it. He held them up to the light and examined the wetness he created. Wiping away tears, you stood and bolted toward the door, but stopped when Steve whistled loudly.

"I think you forgot something."

You turned to find him pointing at your discarded mug.

"If you leave it, I leave this in it", he waved your shame in the air.

"Don't forget to wash it....don't want it to leave a stain" he ordered from the couch. You walked back on edge. Snatching the mug from the other side of the table. You rushed to the sink and rinsed your cup. More tears fell as you felt the wetness between your legs. The mirror mounted above the sink allowed you to examine yourself. Your mascara bled a bit and lipstick smeared, but nothing that couldn't be fixed with a dab of a napkin.

You swore to never step foot in the lounge ever again. If you needed to eat you would do it in your car or at your desk. This was supposed to be a magical time for you, but with Steve it had turned into a nightmare.

You sniffed as you blinked away the tears, forcing yourself to stop crying. Gym time was almost over and you needed to pull yourself together and collect your class.

"You know how often I wonder about you" Steve said rising from the couch, you watched him carefully from the mirror. You fumbled your mug, the water splashing back at you.

"Steve you promised" you said meekly, utterly defeated. He stared at you through the mirror, you felt his eyes watch your discomfort as you picked up the cup.

"What would the parents think if they knew their kids teacher walks around the class with no panties on" he tutted. You hung your head low and noticed your panties balled up in his hand as he rested it on the counter.

"I also wonder" He said pressing you into the sink. You felt his resolve through his sweat pants. "Do you fit?"

Fit?

Then it became clear. You felt his cock against your backside. You tried frantically to flea, but Steve caught you by the neck.

"I'm willing to bet you can't even fit half of me inside" he whispered in your ear as he bent you over the sink, crushing. "If I'm wrong I will let you go." Your eyes rounded as he hauled up your skirt. You whimpered as the cool air of the staff room tickled your exposed rear.

Steve was really going to fuck you in the staff room. These walls were paper thin and he knew it. Your head swirled in panic as you pleaded with him to stop. He only chuckled and shimmied down his sweat pants as you swatted back at him.

He angled and aligned himself as you sobbed. The tip slipped through your wet thighs, finding the target of its need.

You choked down a guttural moan as he breathed out 'good girl'. He watched your face as every inch stretched through your insides.

"Its is too much" you gasped out, trembling from the pressure, dancing on your tip toes as you adjusted around him.

"Its all inside" he praised the accomplishment. Forcing you to look at the mirror. "You fit me so good...see."

The mirror reflected your assault to your horror. "All cute holding me inside, taking everything I got" he said while stretching you.

Shooting pains radiated from your core as sharp breaths escaped you.

"Look at you" he taunted "coming apart just for me.... "

You heard the door to the room open and close quickly as you panted wildly. Steve didn't pull out, unabashed, letting whomever take in his pale ass as he continued to stuff you.

You didn't know who saw you, you only hoped his massive body hid you and your shame.

📚

[nerdybookworm25]

Rambling about Katara and Zutara

Ok so I’m going to kind of just put my two cents out there on this stuff. I joined the ATLA fandom this past summer and just started watching TLOK (my brother and I just finished Book 2 yesterday). This is a hot debate and I just want to ramble on about my opinions on this stuff. A lot of this will focus on Katara’s perspective because I can understand her better than Zuko or Aang due to personal experience. Im just... gonna... get into it now...

I’ll give you some background on me so you guys can understand where I’m coming from. I’m a 15 year old girl with abandonment issues caused by multiple deaths of close friends and family at a young age (my uncle when I was 4, a grandmother like figure when I was 7, my dad’s mum when I was 9 or 10, my great grandma when I was 11, a close friend of my dad’s when I was 13 and many others). I also am the Mum Friend (my friends literally call me “Mum”). I’m the caregiver of the group- the glue, the harmonizer, the therapist, the teacher, the good advice giver etc. (This stuff actually hot me in trouble as a kid and it kind of messed me up). My friends who have seen Avatar have compared me to Katara on multiple occasions and say I’ve got the temperament of a waterbender. You can kind of see where I’d relate, you know?

I do ship Zutara. My brother turned to me during the Book 1: Water- Episode 9~ The Waterbending Scroll and asked, “What if Zuko becomes a good guy and ends up with Katara?” From then on I was on the Zutara hill and I’ll probably die there. It limited ships that I loved from childhood and I thought it would hav been really cool- it would have fit the themes of the show, it would have been a cool thing to see grow and blossom, etc. It had nothing to do with Katara and Zuko being attractive at all- not in the slightest. It also wasn’t me projecting onto Katara. I didn’t really care to notice any major similarities between us until Book Three: Fire- Episode 7~ The Runaway. It was this exchange that changed Katara from my favorite character to someone I could heavily relate to.

Toph: [Sarcasically.] Oh really, Mom? Or what are you gonna do? Send me to my room?

Katara: I wish I could!

Toph: well you can’t! Because you’re not my mom, and you’re not their mom! [Extends her arm at Aang and Sokka, who are sitting on a ledge.]

Katara: I never said I was!

Toph: No, but you act like it! You think it’s your job to boss everyone around, but it’s not! You’re just a regular kid like the rest of us! Stop acting like you can tell me what to do! I can do whatever I want!

I remember bursting out laughing when I heard this. My brother asked me what was up and I paused it and explained that that was a lecture I revived so regularly when I was younger. It really really ended up messing me up. It’s not like I tried to mother anyone- it just happened. I wasn’t controlling it. I didn’t notice I was doing it and I got in trouble. Now things are different and I’ve embraced the fact that I am the designated Mum Freind. Still working on getting over being told off about it in therapy though. Anyway, I think you now can understand where I’m coming from with this “analysis.” Now I’m going to get into it (for real this time lol).

I think I’m going to start with the caregiver stuff. Katara’s mother died when she was very young. It was a very traumatic death. We can infer that Katara blamed herself for this death because the Southern Raiders were looking for the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe- her. That’s a lot for an 8 year old to try to process. Here’s the kicker: I don’t think she ever fully processed it until after Book 3: Fire- Episode 16~ The Southern Raiders. She almost immediately helped her grandmother take up the roll as the woman of the house. She probably didn’t feel like she had anyone to talk to about what she was feeling however true or false that’s what she most likely perceived this to be. When Hakoda leaves for war with all of the men of the tribe, Kanna might be the matriarch and help raise Sokka and Katara but even Sokka admits that Katara became a pseudo-mother for him. Taking care of others doesn’t leave a lot of time to deal with your own issues. Sometimes it feels easier to help others face their demons than face your own.

We continue to see Katara become the glue of the Gaang as the series progresses. She keeps them together in the Si Wong desert after Aang leaves her, Sokka, Toph, and Momo. She’s always the one cooking, cleaning, and mending not because she wants to, but because she knows no one else will do it and it needs to be done. We see her try to coax Toph into helping out around camp when she firsts joins the Gaang. It doesn’t work and this conflict continues for most of Book 2 and the beginning of Book 3. All of this time, she’s making it a point to take care of everyone. When the adults show up after the Boiling Rock, she’s still the one making the dinner and probably does a lot of the other chores as well (except for tea making- this will come into play later).

There’s a running joke about Katara being “Momtara” within the ATLA fandom (more the Zutaraians in the fandom than anything else but it’s a pretty well known concept). We continue to see this when the Gaang is on Ember Island. She brings them all drink during training sessions, watches said training sessions in case someone gets hurt and they need her, wrangles Sokka to the best of her ability, and just generally looks out for everyone regardless of age gap. It’s her natural instinct to be motherly. She retains this quality even after she finds Yon Rha. (Getting closure on her mother’s death doesn’t mean losing what had become a major personality trait).

Let’s unpack that now, shall we? Kya dies and Katara thinks it’s her fault. She doesn’t really talk to anyone about it. A few years later, Hakoda leaves to fight in the war. The Southern Water Tribe recives no letters or news about what happened to their warriors at all. Katara felt like she lost another parent. She nearly says as much during Book 3: Fire- Episode 1~ The Awakening.

Hakoda: You’re taking about me too, aren’t you?

Katara: How could you leave us, Dad? [She attempts to wipe away the tears.] I mean, I know we had Gran-Gran, and she loved us, but we were just so lost without you.

Hakoda moves to comfort her as she turns away.

Hakoda: I’m so sorry, Katara.

Katara: [Embraces Hakoda.] I understand why you left. I really do, and I know that you had to go, so why do I still feel this way? I’m so sad and angry and hurt!

The thing that sets off this exchange is Aang running away for the third time since Katara has known him (the fourth time in Aang’s lifetime). The other times he ran were when confronted by the rude fisherman in Book 1: Water- Episode 12~ The Storm, then again during Book 2: Earth- Episode 11~ The Desert. Aang has a, for lack of a better word, chronic running away problem. I’m not mad at him for it. It makes him an interesting character and shows that he too has flaws (even if they aren’t always addressed but that’s an issue with Bryke). When Aang flys away after waking up during 3.1, Katara is distraught.

Katara: He left.

Hakoda: What?

Katara: Aang. He just took his glider and disappeared. He has this ridiculous notion that he has to save the world alone, that it’s all his responsibility.

Hakoda: Maybe that’s his way of being brave.

Katara: Its not brave, it’s selfish and stupid! We could be helping him and I know the world needs him, but doesn’t he know how much we need him, too? How can he just leave us behind?

Katara feels abandoned by Aang. This is completely understandable. She has every right to be angry at him and feel sad that he flew away. He comes back every time but I feel like if I were in her position, as much as I’d hope my friend would come back and I’d tell everyone that I knew he would, I’d still be afraid that there was an off chance that he doesn’t. This is a natural human reaction to this situation. People were seemingly constantly fading in and out of Katara’s life and that just wasn’t good for her mental health. It couldn’t have been. This also raises the question of if someone has a very serious fear of abandonment, would it be healthy to be in a romantic relationship with someone who consistently leaves? Personally I don’t think so. Be friends? Sure. Date? I don’t know. It doesn’t quite sit right with me.

Katara probably feels abandoned by Zuko too. During the Book 2 Finale: Crossroads of Destiny, Katara and Zuko bond in the crystal catacombs under Ba Sing Se. They relate over their shared fear of being abandoned by those they love (yes I think Zuko has abandonment issues too- among other issues/fears). When he turns his back on her, she doesn’t live him (obviously). She has cared about him enough up to that point to offer to use what is arguably her most powerful possession to heal his scar. She cares. Because she cares about him then, she is downright livid when he betrays her. (Of course the difference between Zuko and Aang with this is Zuko leaves once and comes back and he doesn’t leave again. Aang leaves and comes back over and over and over again).

Katara: I thought you had changed!

Zuko: I have changed!

Katara carries the weight of his betrayal on her mind until she and Zuko go on their life changing field trip to confront the man who killed Katara’s mother. This was her time to finally get closure. She had probably had these feelings bottled up for 6 years and didn’t act on them. When she finally had the chance, her best friend and brother tried to stop her. She lashed out.

Katara: We’re going to find the man who took my mother from me.

Sokka pauses and stands up, surprised.

Zuko: Sokka told me the story of what happened. I know who did it and I know how to find him.

Aang: Um ... and what exactly do you think this will accomplish?

Katara: [Shakes her head in dismay.] Ugh, I knew you wouldn’t understand. [Begins to walk away.]

Aang: Wait! Stop! I do understand. You’re feeling unbelievable pain and rage. How do you think I felt about the sandbenders when they stole Appa? How do you think I felt about the Fire Nation when I found out what happened to my people?

Zuko: She needs this, Aang. This is about getting closure and justice.

Aang: I don’t think so. I think this is about getting revenge.

Katara: [Angrily.] Fine, maybe it is! Maybe it’s what he deserves!

Aang: Katara, you sound like Jet.

Katara: Its not the same! Jet attacked the innocent. This man, he’s a monster.

Sokka: Katara, she was my mother, too, but I think Aang might be right.

Katara: Then you didn’t love her the way I did!

Sokka: [Hurt.] Katara!

Katara gets a lot of flack for this interaction. She says Sokka didn’t love their mother like she did and Sokka I’d understandably hurt. It doesn’t excuse what she said, but people do lash out when they are feeling a lot of emotions and they get defensive when they feel like they’re being ganged up on or attacked (I myself am guilty of this sort of thing). What Katara said was wrong but I have no doubt in my mind that she didn’t apologize to Sokka when he and the rest of the Gaang arrive on Ember Island later in the episode. She is seen walking over to him after she hugs Zuko.

Zuko and Katara go after Yon Rha anyway. For once in her life, Katara is feeling emotions and no one is trying to get her to stop or to push them aside. She doesn’t have to be constantly taking care of someone so she can focus on herself. Katara trusts Zuko more than I think she realizes. I mean she trusts him with a lot and he follows through on a lot of unspoken/subconscious agreements and promises.

Zuko is looking out for her. Zuko has her back. Zuko is allowing her to feel all of these emotions and work them out of her own accord. Zuko isn’t telling her to feel one way or another. Zuko isn’t going to judge her for whatever she decides to do when they find Yon Rha or what she does in order for them to get to that point. Zuko ensures she gets the closure she feels she needs.

When he sees her bloodbend, he’s surprised, but he isn’t appalled. When he thinks she’s going to run Yon Rha through with a giant shard of ice, he doesn’t try to stop her. He lets her be her. He sees a dark side of her in a way that no one else in the Gaang has seen. It’s strangely intimate. Clearly it has enough of an impact to make her forgive him. She knows he isn’t going to abandon betray her and her friend again.

Once they become friends, and even before that, Zuko starts to help out with small things here and there. We see him making tea for all of the kids at dinner. He tells jokes to make them laugh. He teaches Aang firebending. He goes with Sokka to the Boiling Rock to make sure he doesn’t get himself killed or in a prison cell for the rest of his life. With all of this, “Dadko” is born.

If you strip away Zuko’s anger, he just becomes the awkward-turtleduck-first-time-father that we all know and love. There’s more balance in the Gaang with him there to help and become an “authority” figure with Katara. They become the parents of the other members of the Gaang. It’s an interesting shift in their relationship- enemies to unsteady acquaintances to enemies to frenemies to friends. They’re close enough that they show small signs of physical intimacy and they tease each other.

Also if you look close enough when the Gaang walks into the “seedy Earth Kingdom tavern,” Zuko and Katara appear to be holding hands and are near each other from then until the finale episodes. They are clearly just great friends by the end of the show. I mean Zuko also takes a bolt of lightning to the chest for her...

Zuko doesn’t leave when his life gets difficult- not after he joins the Gaang. He made that mistake once and he won’t make it again. Aang was always part of the Gaang but continued to leave (again, I’m not mad at him for it but he never seems to realize the effect it has on the people around him- especially Katara). Zuko also doesn’t all but forget Katara and continue to run around the world. When Zuko fully decides to stick around, you best believe he is sticking around.

This works really well for Zutara. They’re both each other’s rock. They support each other and help each other in times of trouble. Do they argue? Yes. Is that a normal part of a healthy relationship- romantic or otherwise? Yes. Do they take care of and look out for each other while also not smothering or suffocating each other? Yes. I don’t know about you but this sounds stable and healthy to me. They balance each other out so well (I’m not going to get too into that because if you’re reading this you probably already know with the whole Tui and La, Yin and Yang, Oma and Shu thing).

Now, this is a big deal for me and it makes me furious, but Katara is forgotten by history. She has no statue. She is reduced to a housewife and healer- things our wonderful water feminist was afraid of becoming as an adult. I mean this girl

This girl

THIS GIRL

She becomes nothing but a housewife stuck in a healing hut who gets forgotten by the world and left behind by her family just... let’s all of that happen? Yeah that’s pretty unrealistic. I think about this frequently and with starting TLOK I have formed even more opinions and have a little thingy (I don’t know what to call it) for what happened to her.

Kya II is everything Teenage Katara wanted to do and be before settling down. Old Katara is everything Teenage Katara was so afraid of become reduced to/becoming.

It’s an interesting way to think about it and I thought I’d share. Now if Katara was Fire Lady, she wouldn’t end up like that. She’d have the power to change the world and continue to fight for what she believed in. She could have helped with the trail with Yakone. Katara has so much potential to not be forgotten or brushed aside and somehow it happened. It makes me so sad. The potential Zutara had to make sure Katara had a genuine legacy was right there at their finger tips and they didn’t use it. What a shame. What a shame.

With all of the things I’ve talked about, I just feel like Zutara would have been better for Katara than Kataang was. I think that’s more Bryke not developing the relationship well enough and instead choosing to be sloppy and selfish in the way they structured the relationship. Yeah this is my rambling on about the issue. Hope it was mildly entertaining! If you want me to write something about how Zuko would have benefited from Zutara, let me know!

[fruit-teeth]

Fem!merc OCs: a character list

LONG POST UP AHEAD

People were interested in my fem!merc OCS, sooooo here you go! Just some background: these characters will be in my fanfic Black Sky (which can be found here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18373481/chapters/43506845) but since they haven’t really been introduced there I’ll introduce them here. 

These characters work for a company called Sterling Enterprises, run by another OC of mine named Sterling. He hires these mercenaries, and in Black Sky, they wind up joining forces with Mann Co.

Anyway, here they are. I got a little carried away at points but I hope that’s not a problem! 

Molly (Fem!Scout)

Molly is a twenty-three-year-old woman from Brooklyn hired by Sterling Enterprises as a mercenary. She’s Scout’s female counterpart and she’s just as fast as him, as well as just as dangerous when provoked. However, she’s very friendly and sweet to the people she likes, and she’s outgoing and loves parties.

Despite this, she tends to get angry easily, and she’s had multiple arrests for picking fights with people, namely with other women. She survived a bad childhood with her mother’s cousin and after one particularly bad incident, she was bounced from various foster homes before eventually ending up back with her mother as a teenager. Much later, she and her mother were both hired by Sterling Enterprises as mercenaries, where they’ve been ever since.

Veronica (Fem!Sniper)

At 30 years old and possibly originating from somewhere in Ireland (although this has never been confirmed), Veronica is an incredibly skilled archer and won several scholarships during her youth as a result of her amazing ability. She uses guns too, but she’s always felt more comfortable holding a bow than a gun. Veronica’s life changed forever when she shot and killed her abusive husband, which led to her arrest, and when the court didn’t believe her story about self-defense it seemed like she was facing a great deal of prison time. So, Veronica was rather surprised when Sterling appeared and offered her a deal: if he bailed her out of prison, she would serve as a mercenary for his company. Having no other options at the time, she agreed and left prison to work with him, where she has remained ever since.

Veronica is very soft-spoken and gentle, but when provoked she can become an absolute nightmare. She’s a vicious fighter with a near perfect aim, although she knows when to be kind to good people and when to calm down. She doesn’t have many friends but she’s very loyal to the friends she does have.

Mimi (Fem!Demo)

Upon leaving her home in Italy and moving to the US during her childhood, Mimi took out her frustration by spending whatever money she had and using it to buy small explosives. She would then light the explosives in desolate areas like fields, just for the fun of watching them explode. When she became an adult and managed to hold a job as a factory worker, Mimi’s obsession with explosives spiraled out of control when she bought a crate of dynamite and lit it inside of a church at night, which she did in response to the church keeping her from adopting a child. Obviously, she was arrested but was only put through therapy after she was deemed ‘incompetent’ to stand trial. Shortly after this, Sterling discovered her at a shopping mall and offered her a job, which she accepted right away.

Mimi is very excitable but doesn’t always know how to interact with others positively. She loves making friends but prefers spending time around children or animals, which has tied into her desire to be a mother. She taught herself how to create explosives from various materials she found in either the junkyard or from any other bizarre place, and she’s also learned how to be very resourceful. Mimi doesn’t like authority figures and is very strong-willed, although she’s gotten more agreeable over the years.

Judith (Fem!Spy)

Judith’s origins are virtually unknown, but all she’s ever divulged about her backstory is this: she started out as a special effect artist in Hollywood, and it was very clear that she had amazing talent in that area right from the beginning. However, that all changed when she used her skills to disguise herself as her boss in order to get into a high-end VIP club, which obviously led to her getting fired. After this incident, Judith moved on and took up a series of strange, shady jobs with many different companies. At some point during this period of her life, Judith gave birth to her daughter Molly but was unable to care for her at the time, so she gave Molly to her cousin to care for. Several years later, Judith nearly died from a failed mission but managed to survive, and it was in the hospital where she learned of Molly’s issues and decided to take her back.

Sterling learned of Judith through a colleague and was impressed with her skill, so he hired her as a spy, but Judith refused to go alone and asked if her daughter could work with her. Sterling agreed to this, as he needed extra help.

Judith is highly intelligent and well-trained in many areas, and she can even be manipulative in her ways of getting what she wants. While being dangerous, cold, and collected, she’s also very loyal to the right people in her life and she can be an excellent friend to have. She has a soft spot for her daughter, but obviously, she keeps this a secret as to not appear vulnerable.

Nell (fem!Soldier)

Nell was raised by a single father in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming, where she saw virtually no one besides her father daily. Her father, a war veteran, had gone deaf from his experiences on the battlefield and as a result, Nell had to constantly yell to get his attention. Now she’s used to speaking loudly and shouts most of the time, even in normal conversation. Nell’s father also trained her how to fight, and this led to her developing an intense infatuation with fighting and with battles in general, and over time she became a vicious killing machine.

After her father died unexpectedly, the house where the two had lived was about to be foreclosed on and when Nell refused to leave the house, the police had to come to remove her. Nell, however, refused to comply and ended up brutally killing a police officer after he pulled her hair.

Nell faced the death penalty for this offense, but before that was supposed to happen, she mysteriously disappeared, and no one went looking for her. This was because Sterling privately bailed out Nell and even bribed whoever he could to get her into his mercenary team, which Nell happily agreed to join. She doesn’t get action very often, but when she does, Nell is incredibly strong and deadly. Despite her strong and wild nature, Nell is a very loving friend to have and she’s rather childlike in her demeanor. She also has a bad habit of chewing on things which are not meant to be chewed on, like her sleeves or the straps of her helmet.

Scarlett (fem!Medic)

Once a nurse for a mental health ward in Wales, Scarlett had the credentials to be a full-fledged doctor herself but stayed a nurse anyway. She was well-respected at her job until one day, she walked in on a doctor abusing a female patient and lost it. Scarlett attacked the doctor, stabbing him repeatedly and then making the scene look like a suicide. The patient never turned Scarlett in, and charges were never pressed against her. However, Scarlett still quit the job out of guilt and moved to Sweden, where she met her soon to be wife Agnes. The two lived in Sweden for ten years before moving to the US, where they took up jobs as mercenaries for Sterling.

Scarlett has very strong opinions on what’s right and wrong, although her ideas on how society ‘should��� be in her eyes are a bit extreme to many. She wrote and attempted to publish a book about government conspiracy theories, but when no one would publish the book she painstakingly printed out several copies herself and gave them to her teammates, free of charge.

She can be very caring and gentle with her wife and her other teammates, but if angered she will fly into a violent, almost uncontrollable rage. This makes her the perfect doctor for the team, but also the perfect protector.

Agnes (fem!Heavy)

Agnes has not disclosed much about her origins in Sweden, but what is known is that she grew up on a farm with her family and spent most of her days handling cattle. This practice gave her incredible strength, which she still uses to her advantage today. She worked on a railroad during her teen years after dropping out of school, and when she turned 21 her parents began pressuring her to find a husband. Instead, she met Scarlett, and surprised her parents when they got married a year later.

Agnes doesn’t seem the fighting type, as despite her incredible strength she’s very kind and usually quite peaceful. However, she seems to become a different person when she or someone close to her is threatened, and her fighting skills are not something to be underestimated. Handling weapons is nothing new for her, as she has lots of experience working with machines and considers them easier to wrangle than a cow.

Ellen (fem!Engineer)

Under a normal circumstance, Sterling never would have noticed Ellen as she looked to be any other Louisiana factory worker, but she surprised everyone when she used her skills to build a robot that would sense when people got too close to machines in order to prevent accidents. Ellen tried to get the factory to put her device to use, but they rejected her ideas since they were considered ‘too costly’ to use. Instead, Sterling offered Ellen a job as a mercenary, and she accepted.

Ellen is rather nonviolent in nature and instead tries to work out situations diplomatically, but this doesn’t always work, and she ends up using weapons anyway. She didn’t like this at first, but when she discovered she could build any weapon she wanted she found a whole new love for her job. Sometimes she gets carried away, though, and creates weapons that are almost impossible to use since they’re so complex. Ellen is very motherly, especially to any teammates younger than her, and she loves team-building exercises and takes any excuse to socialize with her coworkers.

Amber (fem!Pyro)

All that’s known about Amber is that Ellen rescued her from an abusive situation, and Amber’s ability to work with fire combined with her resilient nature was enough to get her hired. Amber is nonverbally autistic, speaking mostly in sign although she resorts to writing notes as many of her teammates don’t know sign. She loves to set fires, and she has a fascination with watching things melt and burn.

Amber doesn’t always like to be touched, so she’s not very physically affectionate but she loves to give gifts to her teammates.

[hoursofreading]

i feel that everyone should read the article i posted before, so i’m posting it again.

Reflecting On One Very, Very Strange Year At Uber

As most of you know, I left Uber in December and joined Stripe in January. I've gotten a lot of questions over the past couple of months about why I left and what my time at Uber was like. It's a strange, fascinating, and slightly horrifying story that deserves to be told while it is still fresh in my mind, so here we go.

I joined Uber as a site reliability engineer (SRE) back in November 2015, and it was a great time to join as an engineer. They were still wrangling microservices out of their monolithic API, and things were just chaotic enough that there was exciting reliability work to be done. The SRE team was still pretty new when I joined, and I had the rare opportunity to choose whichever team was working on something that I wanted to be part of.

After the first couple of weeks of training, I chose to join the team that worked on my area of expertise, and this is where things started getting weird. On my first official day rotating on the team, my new manager sent me a string of messages over company chat. He was in an open relationship, he said, and his girlfriend was having an easy time finding new partners but he wasn't. He was trying to stay out of trouble at work, he said, but he couldn't help getting in trouble, because he was looking for women to have sex with. It was clear that he was trying to get me to have sex with him, and it was so clearly out of line that I immediately took screenshots of these chat messages and reported him to HR.

Uber was a pretty good-sized company at that time, and I had pretty standard expectations of how they would handle situations like this. I expected that I would report him to HR, they would handle the situation appropriately, and then life would go on - unfortunately, things played out quite a bit differently. When I reported the situation, I was told by both HR and upper management that even though this was clearly sexual harassment and he was propositioning me, it was this man's first offense, and that they wouldn't feel comfortable giving him anything other than a warning and a stern talking-to. Upper management told me that he "was a high performer" (i.e. had stellar performance reviews from his superiors) and they wouldn't feel comfortable punishing him for what was probably just an innocent mistake on his part.

I was then told that I had to make a choice: (i) I could either go and find another team and then never have to interact with this man again, or (ii) I could stay on the team, but I would have to understand that he would most likely give me a poor performance review when review time came around, and there was nothing they could do about that. I remarked that this didn't seem like much of a choice, and that I wanted to stay on the team because I had significant expertise in the exact project that the team was struggling to complete (it was genuinely in the company's best interest to have me on that team), but they told me the same thing again and again. One HR rep even explicitly told me that it wouldn't be retaliation if I received a negative review later because I had been "given an option". I tried to escalate the situation but got nowhere with either HR or with my own management chain (who continued to insist that they had given him a stern-talking to and didn't want to ruin his career over his "first offense").

So I left that team, and took quite a few weeks learning about other teams before landing anywhere (I desperately wanted to not have to interact with HR ever again). I ended up joining a brand-new SRE team that gave me a lot of autonomy, and I found ways to be happy and do amazing work. In fact, the work I did on this team turned into the production-readiness process which I wrote about in my bestselling (!!!) book Production-Ready Microservices.

Over the next few months, I began to meet more women engineers in the company. As I got to know them, and heard their stories, I was surprised that some of them had stories similar to my own. Some of the women even had stories about reporting the exact same manager I had reported, and had reported inappropriate interactions with him long before I had even joined the company. It became obvious that both HR and management had been lying about this being "his first offense", and it certainly wasn't his last. Within a few months, he was reported once again for inappropriate behavior, and those who reported him were told it was still his "first offense". The situation was escalated as far up the chain as it could be escalated, and still nothing was done.

Myself and a few of the women who had reported him in the past decided to all schedule meetings with HR to insist that something be done. In my meeting, the rep I spoke with told me that he had never been reported before, he had only ever committed one offense (in his chats with me), and that none of the other women who they met with had anything bad to say about him, so no further action could or would be taken. It was such a blatant lie that there was really nothing I could do. There was nothing any of us could do. We all gave up on Uber HR and our managers after that. Eventually he "left" the company. I don't know what he did that finally convinced them to fire him.

In the background, there was a game-of-thrones political war raging within the ranks of upper management in the infrastructure engineering organization. It seemed like every manager was fighting their peers and attempting to undermine their direct supervisor so that they could have their direct supervisor's job. No attempts were made by these managers to hide what they were doing: they boasted about it in meetings, told their direct reports about it, and the like. I remember countless meetings with my managers and skip-levels where I would sit there, not saying anything, and the manager would be boasting about finding favor with their skip-level and that I should expect them to have their manager's job within a quarter or two. I also remember a very disturbing team meeting in which one of the directors boasted to our team that he had withheld business-critical information from one of the executives so that he could curry favor with one of the other executives (and, he told us with a smile on his face, it worked!).

The ramifications of these political games were significant: projects were abandoned left and right, OKRs were changed multiple times each quarter, nobody knew what our organizational priorities would be one day to the next, and very little ever got done. We all lived under fear that our teams would be dissolved, there would be another re-org, and we'd have to start on yet another new project with an impossible deadline. It was an organization in complete, unrelenting chaos.

I was lucky enough during all of this to work with some of the most amazing engineers in the Bay Area. We kept our heads down and did good (sometimes great) work despite the chaos. We loved our work, we loved the engineering challenges, we loved making this crazy Uber machine work, and together we found ways to make it through the re-orgs and the changing OKRs and the abandoned projects and the impossible deadlines. We kept each other sane, kept the gigantic Uber ecosystem running, and told ourselves that it would eventually get better.

Things didn't get better, and engineers began transferring to the less chaotic engineering organizations. Once I had finished up my projects and saw that things weren't going to change, I also requested a transfer. I met all of the qualifications for transferring - I had managers who wanted me on their teams, and I had a perfect performance score - so I didn't see how anything could go wrong. And then my transfer was blocked.

According to my manager, his manager, and the director, my transfer was being blocked because I had undocumented performance problems. I pointed out that I had a perfect performance score, and that there had never been any complaints about my performance. I had completed all OKRs on schedule, never missed a deadline even in the insane organizational chaos, and that I had managers waiting for me to join their team. I asked what my performance problem was, and they didn't give me an answer. At first they said I wasn't being technical enough, so I pointed out that they were the ones who had given me my OKRs, and if they wanted to see different work from me then they should give me the kind of work they wanted to see - they then backed down and stopped saying that this was the problem. I kept pushing, until finally I was told that "performance problems aren't always something that has to do with work, but sometimes can be about things outside of work or your personal life." I couldn't decipher that, so I gave up and decided to stay until my next performance review.

Performance review season came around, and I received a great review with no complaints whatsoever about my performance. I waited a couple of months, and then attempted to transfer again. When I attempted to transfer, I was told that my performance review and score had been changed after the official reviews had been calibrated, and so I was no longer eligible for transfer. When I asked management why my review had been changed after the fact (and why hadn't they let me know that they'd changed it?), they said that I didn't show any signs of an upward career trajectory. I pointed out that I was publishing a book with O'Reilly, speaking at major tech conferences, and doing all of the things that you're supposed to do to have an "upward career trajectory", but they said it didn't matter and I needed to prove myself as an engineer. I was stuck where I was.

I asked them to change my performance review back. My manager said that the new negative review I was given had no real-world consequences, so I shouldn't worry about it. But I went home and cried that day, because even aside from impacts to my salary and bonuses, it did have real-world consequences - significant consequences that my management chain was very well aware of. I was enrolled in a Stanford CS graduate program, sponsored by Uber, and Uber only sponsored employees who had high performance scores. Under both of my official performance reviews and scores, I qualified for the program, but after this sneaky new negative score I was no longer eligible.

It turned out that keeping me on the team made my manager look good, and I overheard him boasting to the rest of the team that even though the rest of the teams were losing their women engineers left and right, he still had some on his team.

When I joined Uber, the organization I was part of was over 25% women. By the time I was trying to transfer to another eng organization, this number had dropped down to less than 6%. Women were transferring out of the organization, and those who couldn't transfer were quitting or preparing to quit. There were two major reasons for this: there was the organizational chaos, and there was also the sexism within the organization. When I asked our director at an org all-hands about what was being done about the dwindling numbers of women in the org compared to the rest of the company, his reply was, in a nutshell, that the women of Uber just needed to step up and be better engineers.

Things were beginning to get even more comically absurd with each passing day. Every time something ridiculous happened, every time a sexist email was sent, I'd sent a short report to HR just to keep a record going. Things came to a head with one particular email chain from the director of our engineering organization concerning leather jackets that had been ordered for all of the SREs. See, earlier in the year, the organization had promised leather jackets for everyone in organization, and had taken all of our sizes; we all tried them on and found our sizes, and placed our orders. One day, all of the women (there were, I believe, six of us left in the org) received an email saying that no leather jackets were being ordered for the women because there were not enough women in the organization to justify placing an order. I replied and said that I was sure Uber SRE could find room in their budget to buy leather jackets for the, what, six women if it could afford to buy them for over a hundred and twenty men. The director replied back, saying that if we women really wanted equality, then we should realize we were getting equality by not getting the leather jackets. He said that because there were so many men in the org, they had gotten a significant discount on the men's jackets but not on the women's jackets, and it wouldn't be equal or fair, he argued, to give the women leather jackets that cost a little more than the men's jackets. We were told that if we wanted leather jackets, we women needed to find jackets that were the same price as the bulk-order price of the men's jackets.

I forwarded this absurd chain of emails to HR, and they requested to meet with me shortly after. I don't know what I expected after all of my earlier encounters with them, but this one was more ridiculous than I could have ever imagined. The HR rep began the meeting by asking me if I had noticed that *I* was the common theme in all of the reports I had been making, and that if I had ever considered that I might be the problem. I pointed out that everything I had reported came with extensive documentation and I clearly wasn't the instigator (or even a main character) in the majority of them - she countered by saying that there was absolutely no record in HR of any of the incidents I was claiming I had reported (which, of course, was a lie, and I reminded her I had email and chat records to prove it was a lie). She then asked me if women engineers at Uber were friends and talked a lot, and then asked me how often we communicated, what we talked about, what email addresses we used to communicate, which chat rooms we frequented, etc. -  an absurd and insulting request that I refused to comply with. When I pointed out how few women were in SRE, she recounted with a story about how sometimes certain people of certain genders and ethnic backgrounds were better suited for some jobs than others, so I shouldn't be surprised by the gender ratios in engineering. Our meeting ended with her berating me about keeping email records of things, and told me it was unprofessional to report things via email to HR.

Less than a week after this absurd meeting, my manager scheduled a 1:1 with me, and told me we needed to have a difficult conversation. He told me I was on very thin ice for reporting his manager to HR. California is an at-will employment state, he said, which means we can fire you if you ever do this again. I told him that was illegal, and he replied that he had been a manager for a long time, he knew what was illegal, and threatening to fire me for reporting things to HR was not illegal. I reported his threat immediately after the meeting to both HR and to the CTO: they both admitted that this was illegal, but none of them did anything. (I was told much later that they didn't do anything because the manager who threatened me "was a high performer").

I had a new job offer in my hands less than a week later. On my last day at Uber, I calculated the percentage of women who were still in the org. Out of over 150 engineers in the SRE teams, only 3% were women.

When I look back at the time I spent at Uber, I'm overcome with thankfulness that I had the opportunity to work with some of the best engineers around. I'm proud of the work I did, I'm proud of the impact that I was able to make on the entire organization, and I'm proud that the work I did and wrote a book about has been adopted by other tech companies all over the world. And when I think about the things I've recounted in the paragraphs above, I feel a lot of sadness, but I can't help but laugh at how ridiculous everything was. Such a strange experience. Such a strange year.

[justalittlebluetiefling]

Chapter 17: Sometimes I Can’t See Myself

Rating: T Fandom: The 100 Pairing: Bellamy x Clarke Chapter: 17/? Word Count: 1615 Words

Chapter Summary: The one where Clarke has an art show and everyone shows up.

Also on AO3

As he followed his sister through the doors into the art center, it occurred to Bellamy that he had no idea how she got him to do a lot of the things she got him to do. Octavia ran ahead of him where Harper and Miller were waiting to rope them into a double hug. He would never admit it, but it was even a little heartwarming to see Monty and Jasper run in to hug her from each side. His group of friends had expanded in the past year in ways he wouldn’t have expected. They turned to find him where he was watching them and Monty beckoned him over with a grin. He rolled his eyes, but felt a reluctant smile of his own slide onto his face as he crossed the room.

He trailed behind the group with Miller so he wouldn’t have to make conversation, which allowed him to watch the group in front of him. The third time Harper giggled and pulled on Jasper’s stupid goggles, Bellamy elbowed Miller. He had to elbow him multiple times before he finally just ripped the beanie off of his friend’s head.

“What?!” Miller punched him in the arm and grabbed his hat back.

“Dude, are you seeing this?” Bellamy whispered back.

“Are you talking about Harper’s weird-ass crush on Jasper?”

“Is this a thing?”

“Not exactly. I think Jasper’s usually too busy staring at… uh…. I think Jasper is into someone else.”

“How the hell did I miss this?”

“Well, you’ve been busy.” Miller shrugged and raised a brow. “What with the revolving door between our apartment and your Tinder girls, and then the rest of the time you’re either sticking your face in a history book, arguing with Princess, or hanging out with your sister.” Bellamy opened his mouth to speak, but Miller held up a hand and ploughed on. “No big deal, bro. Seriously. You just don’t have a lot of time for the little people anymore. I mean, we live with you and we haven’t seen you much this year.”

Bellamy frowned. It was probably the longest speech he’d ever heard Miller make. Any other time, it would have called for a celebration, but now he just felt awful. “Did she tell you?”

“Didn’t have to.” A sly grin popped up on his face. “Remember when she first started hanging out with us freshman year and she had that huge thing for Dax?”

“Oh man, and she kept ‘subtly’ asking him to tell her stories that he’d told us all a thousand times. Like that douchey story about the time he went hunting?”

“God, that one was the worst.”

“And we had to pull her to the side and tell her what an asshole he was.” Bellamy laughed. “Because he was sleeping with that girl from his Anthro class.”

“And then she kicked him in the balls.”

They both winced, saw each other wince, and laughed loudly. It caught the attention of the group in front, and Harper glanced between Jasper, who was eyeing Octavia out of the corner of his eye, and Bellamy and Miller. She smiled wistfully and slid back to join them.

“What are my two favorite guys laughing about?” she asked as she linked her arms in theirs.

“The time you made sure Dax wouldn’t be able to have any kids,” Bellamy said with a fond grin.

She blushed and nudged them both with her elbows. “I seem to remember him with a black eye the next time I saw him.” Miller and Bellamy exchanged an innocent look. “And he hasn’t shown up at our parties this year.”

“I had nothing to do with that,” Bellamy said quickly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Miller feigned panic. “Bellamy, who is this crazy woman? Get her away from me!”

He had missed this. Miller had been right. Between all three of them with their jobs, school, and dates, it was rare for the three of them to be in the same place unless they all planned on it. He made a mental note to plan on it.

And then they rounded the corner. The three of them stopped dead in their tracks and said, “Holy shit,” in perfect synchronicity. Clarke was standing in front of a wall with about ten paintings, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. He was used to seeing her in her dresses, leggings, and boots with her hair tied into a braid over her shoulder, but he was not used to seeing her so openly displaying emotion. Nervous. She’s nervous.

***

Crowds had never been her thing. Clarke didn’t dislike them, exactly. She was actually pretty great at public speaking, but they still made her a little uncomfortable. It was hard to not continuously scan the crowd for people she knew. She clasped her hands tightly in front of her as another group stopped in front of her paintings and tried to smile widely.

It was an immense relief when Octavia, Monty, and Jasper appeared in front of her suddenly and she hopped over to them with what she knew was a nervous smile, but she couldn’t hold it in. Octavia took her hands and turned back to grin at Harper, Miller, and Bellamy. “Clarke, I know I say it all the time, but you’re crazy talented!”

Harper tore herself away from her roommates and wrapped the two girls in a quick hug. “I can’t believe you’ve never shown me your stuff before,” she squeaked, playfully smacking Clarke on the arm.

“Seriously, Princess,” Miller said with a small smile. “These are great.”

Clarke laughed and felt her cheeks heating up. She seriously wished that nickname hadn’t caught on. “I guess if I want to get more feedback from you, I’ll just ask on Facebook.”

He stuck his tongue out on her and moved past them to study her paintings. Monty and Jasper patted her on the shoulders as they moved to join him. She had wrangled them into taking the class with her, so they had seen the paintings already, but she appreciated the fact that they had shown up anyway. Octavia and Harper followed, leaving her face to face with Bellamy.

Bellamy wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at her paintings, a little wrinkle forming between his brow and his hand covering his mouth. It quickly became uncomfortable, as though she were standing there exposed and he was just studying her stuff impassively. Clarke swallowed, cleared her throat, and took a step back. If he’s not going to say anything, why did he come?

After another moment, she finally just turned around to look at her work. She had no other direction to face. The professor had chosen a couple of her landscapes, but most of what he had chosen were the abstracts she had decided to play around with. It wasn’t a style she was used to, but she had worked in some underlying nature themes to most of them, so they still felt like her work.

“Nice paintings, Princess.”

Bellamy’s breath ghosted against her ear and she jumped. It took quite a bit of effort to try to look casual as she turned back around. And he was smirking. Again. She was suddenly offended. “Get a new facial expression, Blake.”

“What?”

“Seriously, if you’ve got some criticism, constructive or not, just spit it out.”

“I meant what I said.” He looked… hurt, for lack of a better word. But that was slowly being replaced with anger. “If I thought they were shit, you know I’d say it. Who are you to me that I would feel the need to cushion the blow?”

“Um….”

“You know what? I don’t know anything about art. So my opinion doesn’t matter anyway, does it?”

“Bellamy –“

“Just don’t, Princess.” He brushed past her and she could see him paste a fake grin on his face before he caught the attention of the rest of them. Octavia smiled and waved before they had to leave. Clarke wished they could stay; wished she could have a redo of her response to Bellamy; wished he hadn’t been such an ass; that she hadn’t been an ass. But she knew that the groups were encouraged to move on quickly, and that she would see them after at the reception.

Sure enough, after about another half hour passed, she found them congregated in the main hall waiting for her. Minus one. It felt weird to be looking for Bellamy, and it felt weirder to be disappointed that she couldn’t find him. After another half hour passed, she got the courage up to ask Miller where his roommate was. Quietly.

“Left. Got called into work.” He must have seen something on her face, because he suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Um… what’s up?”

“Oh, nothing.” She grinned and hoped it didn’t look creepy or fake. “I just didn’t get much of a chance to talk to him.”

“Pre-quiet-hours movie night on Monday, right?”

“Yeah. I suppose so.”

Clarke left him alone then. Even though she was pretty sure Miller liked her as a person, she didn’t like to stretch his limits for face-to-face interactions. She briefly considered texting Bellamy, but Octavia was so excited about ice cream that they had to leave immediately.

Through the night, she tried to formulate the perfect text message in her head, but nothing worked. They weren’t exactly at a point where they texted each other, anyway. Sometimes they’d send each other stupid pictures they found online, but there wasn’t ever any depth to the messages.

The worst thing was that even chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream couldn’t make her feel better.