#look I could probably think of a better term than ‘physical labour’ but like. you know what I mean.

[aliosne]

Saw a post about working class butches in physical labour jobs and wanted to make my own, so: I love you butches who do childcare or early education. I love you butch nurses. I love you butch house cleaners and janitorial staff. I love you service industry butches. I love you butches who do sex work. I love you working class butches who do “feminine” jobs you are cool as hell

[canmom]

cog in what machine

So since the VR games industry is the agglomeration of technocapital that’s currently permitting me to ‘continue to exist’, I am wondering - where are these headsets actually made?

Honestly the chances of getting a conclusive answer beyond ‘probably Shenzhen or TSMC’ is pretty low, but surprisingly I did find an article that claims to have taken it apart and found out where various parts come from. Here’s a breakdown by the price of the parts:

And the final assembly is done (for the Quest Pro at least) at the Foxconn factory in Taiwan. [For some context, the Quest 2 is a standalone headset with mobile phone chips, and it became one of the best-selling headsets ever, while the more expensive Quest Pro proved unpopular, and will likely be completely obsoleted when the Quest 3 comes out.]

Of course, that’s just one layer down the tree. Where the raw materials come from is anyone’s guess - you’d have to do some serious journalism to track it all down. Just like in computer software we create abstractions and interfaces over the ‘lower level’ components, in economics, each company in the chain only wants to know where it can get the materials and labour it needs, and at what price.

This whole process is so opaque. By making software for this machine, I’m in a sense put into a relationship with people all over the world whose fates are also tied to this industry. Even within the company I work for there are people from multiple continents, and we can all fit in one virtual room. I have little to no idea what it’s like to work on the other side of the chain. Back in 2018, I read a translation (by Chuang) of a satirical Marxist pamphlet distributed among Foxconn workers, with a bunch of pictures. It’s not some lurid dystopia, we all play the same games, but it doesn’t look like a kind of work I could manage.

It is startling how big the divide is between ‘people who work in tech’ and ‘people who work in any other industry’ in terms of pay, work conditions, etc. I can work the crazy hours my adhd-addled brain comes online, as long as the work gets done; the work itself is varied and interesting and creative. These guys have to go to work at 7am and work all day on a monotonous assembly line task. And similarly, some other poor fucker has to go down a mine to get the rare earth minerals needed to make high performance capacitors and all that. The only difference between me and them is that I was born here and they were born there. We both ‘work in VR’, for similar reasons on the high level of abstraction: we need to eat, and we think we’ll have a better life if we work in this industry than some other. But the context of that choice and the capacity in which we work could hardly be different.

All of that is hidden. You see a white plastic shell, a logo, a cute little chime, a fantasy environment. But even if I knew the names and faces of everyone whose hands touched this thing before mine, what good would it do?

I don’t know what role tech workers have in changing all this. “Meta” (formerly Facebook) is the centre of this particular web, but if Meta were to go bust, someone else would pick up where they left off. Back in the day, when industries were less diluted across the world, a strike could be organised in person across a shop floor and shut down a whole industry. Imagine if this company - all ten people! - all decided to go on strike for some end (say, solidarity with a strike in China or something)... well, Meta would have less games for their platform but it would hurt us a lot more than it would hurt them. We’re all separated by physical distance, political borders, languages.

I think maybe it’s worth reciting the story of the current age of VR. This guy Palmer Luckley made a company to turn this extravagantly expensive sci-fi technology into consumer hardware like a games console. It’s not the first time someone tried (c.f. Virtual Boy) but this time the tech was just about good enough and there was a lot more money to throw at wacky ideas like that, so it proved to have legs, and other companies got in on the game, and now it’s a category of desirable technological object you can own, like a smartphone or gaming PC.

Anyway, the story goes, his company got bought by Facebook, who were fantasising about a vaguely-defined ‘metaverse’ which will be like Second Life but better, or maybe an omnipresent AR layer over reality, or who the fuck knows what else - but in practice mostly just ended up becoming a games console manufacturer so they could operate the kind of platform capitalism that e.g. Apple and Google do with smartphones. Luckley got fired; now the fascist cunt works in ‘defense’ and ‘border security’, manufacturing cameras and drones and shit to stop people entering the US. He made a VR headset that kills you as a bit. So funny. (He’s doing his best to make sure people actually do die on the border. But haha, it’s just like in my Sword Art Onlines!)

I don’t think ‘arm of the military-industrial complex’ the general character of the VR games industry as a whole. Or rather, it is to about the same extent as videogames in general. And I don’t think the technology we enjoy must come at the [social, environmental] price ‘we’ currently pay for it. Computer tech in a less distorted world would probably look very different, but I don’t think ‘making a rock do maths really fast’ inherently implies the rest of the structure that gave birth to it. I think the joy that I get from spending my days making art on the computer is something that most people should have the option to enjoy as well. But goddamn do I not see a way to get to that hypothetical better world from here :/

In the meantime, this is the survival strategy. I think the direct harm is about as little as can be gotten away with: most of these things are beyond my power to affect whether or not I work in VR games. But it does give me pause to think about it all. :|

[weasleylangs]

in the summer sun - f.w

Pairing: Fred x Fem!Reader but honestly it’s just a whole Weasley family slice of life fic. Summary: The war has ended and the Weasley’s appreciate their family now more than ever. Warnings: Mention of the war, mention of Fred having a near death experience, mention of PTSD, anxiety, nightmares and injuries, opening scene involves an anxiety attack, fuck is said twice by the way. Word Count: 3.1k

A/N: This fic is inspired by this ask I received from Kai @weasleyclaw for the ‘send me a made up title game’! The warnings sound scary, but I promise this is a super fluffy slice-of-life fic with Fred and the reader, just existing after the war! Fred lives, obviously but he still had an accident and in reality, he’d be going through a lot of shit and I didn’t want to ignore that!

I am in no way romanticising mental illness and trauma, I myself struggle with a variety of mental illness and trauma and representation is super important, babey!!!!!! Proper support is important!!!!!!

I still can’t decide if I love or hate this but.... [schedules while I’m asleep]

----------------------

Fred sat up quickly. Heavy and ragged breathing coursing through his lungs as he struggled to catch his breath. He couldn’t even remember what he was dreaming of now that he’s awake, only remembering flashes of green and a loud ‘bombarda maxima’ before being shocked awake by his anxiety and fear.

He’s been plagued by nightmares for three months, ever since he was fighting in that seventh floor corridor and the wall came crashing down on him. He knows it’s normal to be haunted by these memories, he almost died, for crying out loud, but he would really like to have one night where he sleeps through it without being jolted awake. 

He could feel the pressure in his chest get stronger as he struggled to breathe as he checked the clock on the bedside table. It reads 6:30am and when he looks out the window he realises the sun is already rising and the summer heat is making it into their bedroom. His girlfriend of five years sleeps in the bed next to him, snoring lightly having not been woken up by his oncoming anxiety attack.

Fred struggles to remember the grounding technique she taught him when he had his first attack. She’s his biggest supporter, always there when he needs her, but he wants to get better himself . He doesn't want to rely on her for the rest of his days no matter how often she reminds him it’s okay and that she wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.

He’s got his legs swung over the side of the bed, his body closing in on himself when he feels the bed move and arms wrap around his middle, “Breathe, Freddie, and tell me five things you can see,” she whispers gently in his ear.

His eyes darts around the room, searching as he tries his best to breathe, “The tree outside our window, the lamp, that chair,” he struggles to speak as his breathing is laboured, “your book on my bedside table, my slippers…”

“Good job, my love. Now, four things you can touch.”

His hands grab hers, “Your hands,” he says as he turns to face her, “the duvet, my shirt and…” His hand moves, from her hand to cupping her face, “your hair.” 

This continues, Fred rattling off three things he can hear, two things he can smell and one thing he can taste before he realises his breathing has slowed down, his hands have stopped shaking and while the pressure in his chest is still there, it’s been alleviated and he knows it’ll disappear in a few moments. 

Y/N whispers soft praise in Fred’s ear as she lays him back down in their bed. She’s so proud of the progress he has made in just a short few months. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

He shakes his head, while he barely remembers, he knows it’s the same nightmare as usual. Hogwarts, duelling, wall comes crashing down and Fred almost dies. It’s more of a flashback if anything, that he’s constantly reliving the worst day of his life.

“That’s okay, we can just lay here and rest before we go to your mum and dad’s… If you still feel up to going?” Y/N knows when nights like this happen, Fred usually wants to stay in bed and recoup his energy and try again the next day. 

“No, no, we have to go,” he says and it’s not because it’s an obligation, he truly does want to. After almost dying, after spending almost a year without knowing if Ron, Harry and Hermione were okay, after Bellatrix Lestrange threatened to kill both Ginny and his own mother and with Percy reconnecting with them all, he appreciates family time like he never did before. They all deserve to have happy, carefree and relaxing days and that’s what today is meant to be for them all.

“If you’re sure, my love,” she whispers, pressing a soft kiss to his neck. Fred probably won't fall back asleep, the sun has risen and while he won’t admit it, he’s too scared to try and sleep again. But he doesn’t mind, he’s perfectly content having Y/N fall back asleep in his arms and sometimes, rarely but sometimes, her soft snores lulls Fred into a light, undisturbed sleep.

-

It’s lunch time by the time Fred and Y/N apparate to The Burrow. Fred’s still recovering physically from his injuries - having your entire body crushed by rubble does that to you, so he happily side-along apparates with Y/N instead of solo floo’ing places. 

When they walk into the house, they’re met with a chorus of hello’s and Molly dragging Fred into a hug and kisses his cheeks repeatedly, and then continues to complain that he has no meat on his bones and that he needs to be eating more while shoving a muffin into his hand. 

George is snickering by the table because someone who isn’t himself is finally being on the receiving end of his mothers affection and he has Angelina Johnson awkwardly beside him. When Y/N raises her eyebrows at him, he mouths a ‘I’ll explain later’ before winking and walking Angelina over to her. 

“Hey, Angie,” she says, pulling the girl into a hug. While they were never close at school, considering Y/N wasn’t a Gryffindor, they still got along when the time arose, “didn’t know my little Georgie here got himself a bird.” 

George groans at the fact Y/N completely ignored him and Angelina blushes as she tries to hide her face behind her hair, but Y/N can see that she’s smiling and not at all bothered by the teasing, “Hey, I’m only teasing, come here!” she says as she pulls the embarrassed girl into a tight embrace. While Y/N drops the subject of Angelina and George finally getting their lives together and dating after years of pining, George knows Y/N is going to corner him later and get the answers out of him.

Hermione and Ginny quickly run down the stairs and grab Y/N, pulling her into a hug as well. Soon enough, the entire family is trying to squeeze inside the living room - including Bill and Fleur who always turn up for the Weasley get together and even Charlie has taken extended leave from his job in Romania to stay and spend the summer with everyone. 

Because of the overcrowding, Ron whistles loudly, grabbing everyone’s attention, “Who wants to play a game of quidditch and let mum have some peace and quiet?” Immediately Harry, the twins, Angelina and Charlie are out the door, already fighting about teams and position. Y/N briefly hears Harry whine ‘I want to be on Charlie’s team but he plays seeker’ as their voices fade. Ginny stays back, wanting to catch up with Y/N for a bit and promises to join everyone later.

Fred loves nothing more than spending time with his siblings. Growing up as a twin, he’s had someone constantly by his side, but he loves his huge family more than anything. George and he spend 5 minutes fighting over who gets to be beater until they just decide they’ll just be on different teams before they realise they don’t have enough siblings for a full team anyway, meaning the beaters are out of the equation.

This causes the twins to just start jokingly fighting over who plays chaser before Ron and Harry has to break it up so they can actually play. 

Fred adores flying. His hair has been growing out and the wind through it as he flies is one of the best feelings in the world, he thinks. It makes him forget all his worries, his only focus is snatching the quaffle out of George’s slimy grip and getting it past Charlie, who’s playing both keeper and seeker for the other team to make up for the lack of players.

“Oi, Ickle Ronnikins,” he calls out from his broom, wobbling slightly as he yells to get his brother’s attention, “mind paying attention to the match and not your girlfriend? George is getting every shot in, mate,” He’s teasing of course. They can see the girls through the window and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t sneaking glances at Y/N.

Meanwhile, the three girls sit at the kitchen table chatting amongst themselves and Bill and Fleur are outside in the garden when Percy and his girlfriend turn up. There’s tension in the air, there always is when Percy turns up. It’s not that no one wants him there, but given his history of being a ‘right prat’ (Fred’s words), everyone is cautious. 

But he goes right up to Molly, pulling her into an embrace and kissing her on the cheek and then turns to his dad and gives him a hug. 

“Hey Gin, Y/N, Hermione,” he gives them a curt nod as they say hello back before pulling the girl beside him closer, “this is Audrey, my girlfriend. Do you guys mind hanging with her while I go find the boys?"

The girls, of course, nod. “How long have you and Percy been together for?” Y/N asks as the girl sits and she hopes she isn’t coming off rude. She’s been with Fred for five years and never met Audrey and Hermione’s been in the Weasley’s lives for even longer, so it’s clearly a recent development. 

“Around this time last year… With everything going on and Percy not being on speaking terms with everyone, we haven’t really had the chance to meet…” she trails off and Y/N senses the awkward tension rising, so she grabs Audrey’s hand in a reassuring matter.

“Don’t stress about that. You’re here now and you’re family,” while Y/N isn’t officially a Weasley, her and Fred have spoken about their future together on numerous occasions so she doesn’t feel like she’s speaking out of turn offering ‘Weasley Family Status’ to Audrey, “I’m Y/N, Fred’s girlfriend.” 

“And I’m Hermione, Ron’s girlfriend,” Hermione adds and before Ginny even speaks, Y/N interrupts her, “You’re obviously a Weasley, Gin,” and the girls all start giggling.

“I’m Ginny, Harry’s girlfriend!” she exclaims proudly when all the girls finally calm down and it only sets them off again.

What the girls don’t notice is that Molly’s watching them, with a smile on her face. She’s always wanted daughters - she loves Ginny and she loves every single one of her sons, but she wishes she had been able to give her a sister. But watching the scene unfold in front of her, how these girls welcome Audrey so easily into their lives, Molly’s eyes well with tears as she realises she has the most wonderful daughter and future daughter-in-laws a woman could ask for. 

“How’s Fred doing?” Ginny asks. Of course, everyone’s suffered from the war, but everyone is constantly concerned about Fred. 

“Between seeing his psychologist and his physical therapy appointments, he’s doing really good,” she says, looking out the window and she laughs as she sees Fred holding Ron in a headlock, shouting something about how rusty he is at keeper, “there’s days it’s hard, and he has really bad nightmares sometimes, and there's days where they make him not want to leave the house but he had one this morning and was determined to get here today. I’m really proud of him.” 

Molly rubs Y/N on the shoulders, almost like a thank you for being there for Fred through it all as she places muffins in front of all the girls and takes her own seat. She takes a moment to scold Arthur for trying to repair the muggle radio playing he’s stolen from work before joining in on the girls’ conversation as they eat. 

The sweet moment is interrupted by a voice that is clearly Percy’s shouting and both Y/N and Audrey’s automatic assumption is that the worst has happened. Especially when Y/N hears the familiar voice of her boyfriend shouting incoherently. 

All the girls rush out the door, expecting to break up a fight but that isn’t what’s happening. Instead, Fred has Percy on the ground, rolling around in dirt and they’re both laughing . Molly has to excuse herself, tears welling in her eyes at the sight of Percy being accepted by his brother. 

“What’s going on here?” Audrey questions. It’s clear she’s still weary, worried that at a moment's notice, Percy’s siblings will turn on him and forget his apology. Fred looks up, winking at Y/N before looking at Audrey and flashes her a cheeky smirk, “Perce said I suck at quidditch.” 

Everyone rolls their eyes at this as Y/N grabs Fred’s hand and pulls him up. She lives with him, so one would think that the time spent apart at The Burrow is no big deal, but secretly Y/N has always been super clingy, wanting to always have Fred in her sights, and it's only worsened now they live together.

“Hi Freddie,” she giggles, tucking herself close to his side despite the summer heat blasting down on them, “I miss you.” she whispers.

Fred lets out a cackle of a laugh, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and leading her to the tree they always sit under as he tells Ginny to take his spot on their makeshift quidditch team. Secretly, he was hoping to get away from the game because he needs a break and maybe an attempted nap under the tree. 

He settles down first, stretching his legs out as he leans against the trunk and then he pulls Y/N down to sit between them and to rest her back against his chest. This has always been their favourite way to cuddle.

“What’s the go with George and Angie? I knew they were going on dates but...” Fred asks, and Y/N shrugs. “He just said he’d fill me in later so I’m still waiting. But she’s at family day, so it must be getting serious.” Fred hums behind her, resting his chin on top of his head as he watches his family on the makeshift field in front of them fight over quidditch rules. George is trying to teach Percy fake rules and Ginny’s smacking him over the head as he laughs at the confused expression on Percy’s face. 

To their right, Arthur’s got the radio working and he’s charmed it to blast 80s muggle music loudly for the entire family to hear. Bill’s dragged Fleur to dance around with him and Arthur’s trying to get Molly to join them. Charlie’s sitting with Audrey and Hermione, probably droning on about dragons as usual and the girls listen intently, gasping when appropriate. 

“What are you thinking about?” Y/N asks. Fred is never this quiet, usually speaking every single thought that comes to his mind without any sort of filter. It’s gotten him in trouble a fair few times, from both his mother and Y/N. 

“I’m just happy,” he says quietly, tucking his head into her neck, and Y/N doesn’t miss the crack in his voice, “I’m so happy I’m here with everyone.” She shuffles in her spot so she can sit and face Fred and he can’t meet her eyes because his own are welling with tears.

“Don’t hide, my love, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” she coos as she cups his cheeks in her hands. He leans into her touch and smiles as he sniffles. 

“I know, it’s just…” He trails off and Y/N knows what he’s going to say. He almost wasn’t here and that thought haunts the both of them more often than they’d like to admit. “I know, but that doesn’t matter, because you’re here , and I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am you are,” she whispers, pressing a kiss to his cheeks.

“I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you,” he says and Y/N’s heart swells. Marriage and lots of ginger babies has always been in their life plan, but hearing Fred say it, so, so vulnerably, almost brings her to tears. “Forever, Freddie, you promised,” she replies and he leans forward and presses a soft kiss on her lips. 

He’s always promised. He promised forever when they were 16 and they’d only been together for a year as they danced at the Yule Ball until 12am. At 17, when he admitted he wouldn’t be finish the school year. He promised once again at 18, before he flew out of Hogwarts with George. At 19, straight after George had his ear cursed off and he was sick with fear because the war was real and happening.

At 20, they were fighting in their school and he’d promised, ‘We're surviving this fucking thing and I’m marrying you as soon as I can.’ 

They pull apart and Y/N is smiling at him, adoration filled in her eyes as Fred feels around in his shorts, clearly trying to grab something. When he pulls it out, Y/N’s eyes catch the small, velvet black box and while she doesn’t want to get her hopes up, her heart is racing.

“I’ve been carrying this everyday, waiting for the perfect time,” he chuckles, shaking his head. You’d think Fred Weasley would have a huge and bizarre proposal, most likely with fireworks and dancing gnomes somehow, but in reality, this is perfect. He’s surrounded by his loved ones, there’s no war and he wants nothing more than to officially make Y/N a Weasley. 

“Is that now, Freddie?” she says and he nods, smiling. Y/N thinks he’s never looked happier in his life. He knows what her answer will be so he doesn’t feel the slightest bit nervous.

“I promised you, we're surviving the war and I’m fucking marrying you as soon as I can, so here I am,” he pops the box open and Y/N gasps. It’s nothing extravagant but she doesn’t mind. Small and classy, just like she’d always wanted and she doesn’t even realise she’s crying until Fred’s hand wipes her tears with his free hand, “Will you marry me?” 

She barely gives an answer, nodding her head violently as she wraps her arms around his neck and presses her lips to his. Their teeth clash and they both laugh at Fred not being prepared to be jumped before getting a verbal response. Y/N pulls away and puts out her left hand, “Of course I’ll marry you.” 

He slides the ring on her finger and it’s a perfect fit. They continue to sit in front of the tree, watching their family but Y/N constantly catches herself looking at the diamond ring sparkling in the sun and she’s decided she’s never been happier as well.

Everything is perfect, because it’s the calm after a very, very long storm and she’s never taking family for granted again.

[mallowstep]

In the Misty au you mentioned that Featherpaw and Storm become warriors at 9 moons old. If Featherpaw was with Tigerclan for 3 moons that means Leopard made them Warriors with out any real apprenticeship (hunting, training, etc). Does this feed in to how Feathertail reacts to being made a warrior? And does the fast tracked warriorship have any repercussions among the clan?

oh yeah, it causes problems.

first, leopardstar's reasoning for making them warriors is that the clan needs them to become warriors, because it sort of...it basically is a symbol of being one clan again.

riverclan has lost a lot lately, and a good percentage of their cats were like. directly and painfully hurt by tigerclan. not just the four: shadepelt, mosspelt, and dawnflower were all punished by tigerstar's reign.

featherpaw knows she's being made into another prop, and she doesn't care why or for what. honestly, she's barely lucid at this point, so how well she even understands what's going on is very, very questionable.

i'll circle back to her life as a warrior in a moment, but as far as training goes, it has a far bigger impact on stormheart.

he had....probably 3 moons of training. featherpaw and stormpaw had some training pre-tigerclan, although not even a moon's worth.

and while stormheart probably isn't up to par with the average warrior, he fights in the great battle, no one can deny he's earned it. but he doesn't feel like a riverclan warrior: he has forgotten how to swim (well, he thinks he has, but a lot of it is muscle memory), he didn't learn how to dive (something riverclan warriors traditionally have to learn), and he knows all thunderclan fighting techniques.

that gives him a lot of self-doubt. he doesn't really know what to do: he's not an apprentice, his (old) mentor isn't capable of mentoring him, and his sister, well, let's talk about feathertail.

feathertail thinks that leopardstar should have used the dying apprentice ceremony on her, and leopardstar...probably should have.

feathertail is having moments of clarity, interspersed with her forgetting a lot of information and being asleep and being semi-lucid. she parts with mistyfoot for the duration of the ceremony, which means she's in full "i am about to be attacked" mode. because this is how the pattern went:

mistyfoot was taken from her (or vice versa), she was placed in the centre of camp, someone says some fake reason for why she's doing this, and then she's attacked.

so when leopardstar steps down to complete the ceremony, feathertail runs. she's not entirely aware of what she's doing, she just knows that she's not safe, and safety (mistyfoot) is right there, and she takes it.

so feathertail is...not having it.

it's not until a month later that mudfur transitions her care from "better pray that she lives, because herbs alone aren't going to do it" to "okay, we can build you a long term care plan."

(this is about when the three are born, for those following along at home.)

but feathertail is...even if she was physically capable of being a warrior (which...maybe if she didn't climb a mountain and throw herself off a cliff, she could have gotten to that point), she's not mentally capable of it.

she could do border patrols, but if they get into a border fight, she's going to let herself get attacked. and border fights are still pretty common at this point in time.

and she can't extend her claws! like she can't make herself do it. so that's hunting out.

so that's not happening. she raises the three, but that's labour intensive, and causes her so much pain, so she's not going to do that again.

so feathertail has the name of a warrior, but she's not...mistyfoot can't get her to sharpen her claws. feathertail's dew claw is growing into her paw pad, and mistyfoot can't get feathertail to do anything about it.

anyway, stormheart feels extremely isolated. he connects to shadepelt, because she was stonefur's previous apprentice, and they get along really well.

anyway, yeah, it definitely causes problems for them, but leopardstar doesn't see a better option.

she can wait for feathertail to recover, but that might not happen. and if she makes stormheart a warrior, and not feathertail, mistyfoot would be pissed, stormheart and stonefur would be pissed, and feathertail is just going to lose what's left of her self-estemm.

if she waits to make stormheart a warrior, there's a divide in the clan. she calls even more attention to stonefur (since she'd have to give him a new mentor), and she also continues to put featherpaw and stormpaw below their "peers".

what's a leader to do.

(not make featherpaw go through a public ceremony, that's what.)

anyway, i've been working on stuff From This Time, so i have like. so many excerpts. mistyfoot and feathertail arguing about her claws is one of my favourites, because it's just, like, feathertail feeling safe. which is good. but i'm actually go to go with this excerpt from when the three are apprentices, because it's about feathertail coming to terms with her life.

it's also reasonably fluffy.

Now that the kits are apprentices, she's moved back into her den.

Her life is — her life is what passes for normal. She eats prey, she swims, she sits with Mistyfoot, and she listens to her kits tell her about training.

They're apprentices, now, and she thinks that means they're responsible for her. Whether or not that's formal (Leopardstar can hold another ceremony for her when she's dead), they start bringing her prey in the evenings, and they groom her more than the other way around.

She remembers when they were newborns, before they were even named, how they squirmed when she groomed their fur flat. Now, they fight over her.

Quietly.

When they think she won't hear.

But this is — as close to normal as her life will be, she thinks.

Stormheart swims with her, but only sometimes. Sometimes he sits with Shadepelt, and Feathertail teases him. Stonefur goes on patrols sometimes, but not all the time, and when he's not on patrol, he talks to her.

Mistyfoot is the deputy, and she's stepped into her role. Feathertail is happy for her, but being deputy means going on patrol, and overseeing apprentice training, and other things Feathertail doesn't (won't? can't?) do.

When she's in camp, Feathertail still sticks to her side. She doesn't mind when they tease her about it, now, but she still stays there.

"Feathertail, do you want to go for a walk?" Dawnflower is looking at her pleadingly. She's been trying to get Feathertail to go on a walk, or at least to swim somewhere that's not around camp.

"Sure," Feathertail says.

Dawnflower purrs, walking on Feathertail's good side. She doesn't know if it's intentional, but she appreciates it.

This is normal, Feathertail decides. This is — good, maybe.

[afairytalestray]

The Dawn of the Age of Skimblegus

One of the most underrated ships in all of Cats.

Part 9 of my Cats pre-canon headcanon series (masterpost here), coming at you after delay caused by me taking forever to write this rather long instalment basically from scratch! But anyway it’s here now, and we’re back on character backstories, this time: Skimbleshanks, Asparagus, and a wee bit of Tumblebrutus being a mischievous sunshine smol. This one is maybe the longest one I’ve done yet; this was entirely unintentional and unplanned - it literally came to me as I was writing it. There is far too little Skimblegus content out there so I am creating the content I want to see! Just a content warning to start with: this one gets a bit dark - there’s a character death. Nothing too gruesome, but it is there. However, due to who I am as a person, it does have a happy ending. Without further ado, please enjoy!

Skimbleshanks, despite having god-tier dad skills, never actually has any biological kittens of his own. He’s something of an uncle figure to many of the Cats in the Junkyard (and the future adopted father of Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer - coming in a future post), and is perfectly happy with his lot. In his youth, he was very much a free spirit. He had itchy paws, and when he discovered the trains he became obsessed with travelling up and down the country on them. His time on the trains became a delight to the human rail workers and regular passengers, and he became quite well-known as the Railway Cat - the workers even set him up his own little office (like Tama!). At first, he split his time fairly evenly between the trains and the Junkyard - as much as he loved to travel, there was one thing he loved more: his best friend Asparagus (Jr.).

Skimbleshanks and Asparagus grew up together and were nigh inseparable from each other for most of their kittenhood. Skimble couldn’t tell you when exactly his feelings shifted from platonic to romantic, it was a very gradual thing. Asparagus can - the first time Skimble went away on the trains for more than a day, he realised he missed him more than a normal amount and it quickly clicked into place. It was normal for Skimble to set off in the morning and bounce back in the evening, but this time felt like forever. Never being a shy one, Asparagus resolves to tell Skimble when he returns. Even though he doubts Skimble feels the same way (Y’ALL), he hates keeping secrets from his best pal, and he’s confident their friendship is strong enough to survive it.

But when Skimble came back the next day, he just couldn’t do it. Skimble was high as a kite; he went on for an age about all the things he saw, how amazing the trip was, how amazing all the trips were, how the longer ones were so exciting, how he wants to go here, there, and everywhere etc…. And all Asparagus can think about is that they seem fundamentally incompatible. Asparagus has always been a homebody. He’s quiet, likes the comfort of his own den, always being close to his family, and has never had that adventurous streak that fuels Skimble’s every move. And the thought that even if Skimble did feel the same it wouldn’t work, that is far too painful to entertain. He would want to be close to Skimble, but knows he could never be happy constantly flitting from place to place. He also could never ask Skimble to give it up knowing how happy it makes him. So, Asparagus makes the call to swallow it all down for now, and then let it go. This choice, unfortunately and unintentionally, causes a bit of a gap to grow between them, as Asparagus struggles to act normal around him and needs a bit of space to get over the feelings.

At this point, Skimbleshanks is aware of his own feelings, but for the life of him can’t work out how to express them. He desperately wants to, and is constantly thinking of new ways to do it, but keeps binning them when they’re not totally perfect. It has to be perfect! He also notices that Asparagus has been acting weird around him, but can’t get him to talk about it. It worries him, but he doesn’t want to push the issue, and he has his trains to distract him after all. A week or so later, he sets off on a multi-day trip, resolving that if Asparagus is still off when he gets back, he’s going to trap them both in the old wardrobe so they can hash it out properly, Skimble can confess and then they’ll all live happily ever after. 

There was nothing that could’ve prepared him for what he came back to.

Asparagus was right back to normal, albeit with the small caveat that he had met someone. A queen, a pretty ragdoll queen who was calm, clever and cautious, a little shy and reserved. When Asparagus excitedly introduced them Skimble felt his heart break, but he plastered a smile on his face and let Asparagus tell him all about how they met and how crazy their instant connection was. Asparagus had never meant to meet someone else, but he thought the best way to get over Skimble was to try and make some new friends, so despite his dislike of interacting with the general public and talking to strangers, he trotted on over to one of Bustopher’s clubs where he met Caorann. They both had a lot in common and hit it off right away, both of them bonding over trying to hide in the same corner since neither of them were comfortable in a room full of unknowns. Genuinely, the only other Cat Asparagus had had such a fast and strong connection with was Skimble, and since he had resolved to let his feelings for him go, he thought it would be a good thing to see where this might lead. The two of them fell in love quickly.

Skimble wanted to be furious, he really did, but he couldn’t. Caorann was nervous around him but always very sweet. Although she never knew about Skimbleshanks’ old feelings for Asparagus, she knew he was very important to him, and always strived to make a good impression. He was miserable and wanted to hate her, and at first couldn’t see how the two were a good match. But he could never bring himself to even dislike her, because it became very obvious very quickly that the two were more than a good match. Skimble, bless him, had never really considered the long term ramifications of being in a relationship with Asparagus, and was abruptly slapped in the face by all the same things that had occurred to Asparagus before: that the two were very different, and that their lifestyles just weren’t all that compatible. Caorann was a good match for Asparagus: neither of them were particularly adventurous, their idea of a perfect day involved little more than basking in a quiet patch of sunlight, and they shared the same lack of concern for the bustle and goings on of life outside their little happy bubble and the same desire to be comfortably settled. Fundamentally, at that time, Caorann was the better choice. Despite that, Skimble can’t help but think he might have given it all up for a chance to be with Asparagus.

But that hurt too much to think about, so Skimble went back to his trains, unable and unwilling to break Asparagus out of a happy relationship with someone else, but it never quite brought him the same joy as before. But it was a whole lot better than constantly seeing the Cat he loved in love with someone else, so he spent more and more time away from the Junkyard. The hurt lessened, after a while. It never really went away, but he found he was able to genuinely be happy when Caorann became pregnant, and vowed through joyful tears to be the best uncle in the world for little kitten Tumblebrutus when he was born.

On the day it happened, Skimbleshanks had recently gotten back to the Junkyard when a loud screech and a wail shattered the calm of the evening. Running towards the sound, the source was a sight that still gives him nightmares to the present day: baby Tumble screaming and crying as he lay trapped under the motionless bodies of his parents. It came out later that the three of them had gone on a family walk together, and on their way back as they crossed the road to the Junkyard, a car suddenly skidded round the corner and hurtled towards them as fast as lightning. Without thinking, Caorann and Asparagus threw themselves in front of their son. It worked. Little Tumble was almost completely unharmed, but Caorann was killed instantly, and they thought Asparagus had been too. However, as they were moved off of the road, they noticed Asparagus was breathing. It was extremely weak and laboured, but he was breathing.

Skimble can barely remember the weeks that followed. He only has flashes of burying Caorann, mostly remembering how it was wrong that Asparagus wasn’t there. All he can really remember was that everything hurt and was awful, and that he did whatever he could to help Jennyanydots, who took sole charge of Asparagus’ care (she and Jellylorum were already fully trained healers then, but Asparagus is Jelly’s little brother, and it was very difficult for her). He also tried to help look after Tumblebrutus, who was too young to understand what was going on. It took Asparagus a fortnight to wake up properly, and several more weeks to be able to move about independently again. When he woke up, he was deeply altered. He was in terrible physical pain, but also became emotionally despondent when he learned about Caorann. Skimble stayed by his side the whole time, trying to coax him into talking, maybe even smiling, and very gradually they made progress. Asparagus mourned his partner deeply, and was only able to pull himself out of it when he realised that Tumble needed him. It took a long time, but eventually Asparagus came back to himself.

To most other Cats, at least. Skimble was probably the only one who saw that Asparagus still had moments of deep sadness. To the others it just looked like he had zoned out for a moment, but Skimble knew those were the times when he was thinking about Caorann. These moments got easier for Asparagus to deal with over time, and although at times he missed her, it became pleasant for him to talk about her with Tumble, and he could remember their time with happiness instead of sadness, and eventually even realised that he was ready to try being with someone else.

The problem with that though, was that the accident had greatly damaged his body. He has chronic pain; he can no longer really dance like he used to, and can’t move around very far - leaving the Junkyard is no longer really an option for him. To his surprise, his old feelings for Skimble started to resurface. Although, he shouldn’t really have been surprised. Skimble had hardly left his side at all since the accident happened (the trains are in CHAOS), he’d been there through all the setbacks and progress, his meticulous nature shining through in his diligent care. He was such a constant in his life to the extent that Tumblebrutus was genuinely shocked when he learned that Skimble actually wasn’t related to him in any way (he basically sees Skimble as a second dad). However, Asparagus is more decided than ever that they wouldn’t work as a couple, seeing as how now he couldn’t join Skimble’s journeys even if he did want to. Skimble, though, is the deepest romantic at heart. He never stopped loving Asparagus, but knew he was needed as a friend first and foremost, so that’s what he was. He always says to himself that if they were ever to be more, he would never want to replace Caorann, so it would only be when Asparagus asked. So naturally, nothing ever happens.

Until Tumble puts his paw down. As he gets older, he struggles to understand why his two dads aren’t together. He knows about his mother, of course, but believes with his whole heart (correctly) that she would want them to be happy. He begins to plot ways to get them together, but doesn’t make much progress with the two stubbornly resistant Cats until Mistoffelees helps him. 

When Misto arrives in the Junkyard he’s looked after by Skimble, who introduces him to Tumble. Misto is painfully shy and quiet, but with Asparagus as his dad Tumble is very used to quiet Cats, and Misto becomes a tentative friend. By the time Misto is mated, more confident and moving out from Skimble’s care, he wants to thank him for everything he’s done and how kind he’s been, and asks Tumble for help. Tumble immediately tells all about how grossly in love his dads are, but that they aren’t together for some reason despite his best efforts. The two of them decide that the dawn of the age of Skimblegus is nigh, and come up with a plan.

The next day the two of them separately lure Skimble and Asparagus to a secret location under the guise of “it’s a surprise”, which works despite its simplicity as Skimble is very fond of Misto and Asparagus is Tumble’s loving father. The secret location is revealed to be a nice picnic setup, and the boys each leave their respective parent figure with the cryptic message of “do yourself a favour and tell him.” Skimble and Asparagus decide to play along, but all mystery is very quickly dropped, as the picnic is very clearly romantic and intended to be a date. Things are a bit awkward at first, but the two soon fall into their usual easy rhythm. That is, until Asparagus jokes about this being Tumble’s idea of a date (“I mean, it’s not like it’s bad or anything, but like, yeah…” “Haha, yeah, as far as romantic gestures go it’s pretty good.” “It is kinda romantic, isn’t it?” “It is a bit, but like, that’s not a bad thing of course!” “Of course! I can think of far worse dates to be on!” “And Cats to be with!” “Is this… I mean, are we, you know, on a date right now?” and so on).

And then finally, finally, it all comes out. Skimble finally reveals that he’s been in love with Asparagus his whole life, but never got the chance to tell him before, then didn’t know if he could or should after everything; and Asparagus says that he loved him before and again now, but just doesn’t know that it would work. It all gets very sappy and mushy, but they ultimately decide to give it a go. And it works! The two of them have always gotten along like a house on fire, but now it’s more, and better! Tumble is ecstatic, and of course takes all the credit for himself (with the exception of the 20% he grants Misto). Skimble does go back to the trains, he’s missed them, but now he spends maybe only ⅓ of his time there, and the other ⅔ in the Junkyard with his beloved Asparagus. They’re both extremely happy with the balance, and always spend hours catching each other up when Skimble returns. Although Skimble is very much still an adventure-seeker, now that he’s a bit older and more mature he definitely enjoys a long nap curled up with his partner! They’re a happy, healthy couple who support each other, make each other laugh, and make the worst dad jokes you can possibly imagine.

[mintyfrosty]

Back To Square One

Hello all you wonderful people!!

Ya’ll want more merfolk Au stuff?? I gotchu fame. Small one-shot under the cut >:3333333

You know.

Most humans didn't find themselves to be half fish somewhere in your early 30s. Right happened to be an exception.

Despair following his every moment, frame tight and compact against the rocky edging on the cave's underwater cavern. Caramel eyes gawked blankly at the dozens of grains of sand that littered the ocean floor. Too many to count in a lifetime. In a way, an odd sense of loneliness captured his spirit, mainly for two reasons. The first being he was alone in a literal sense, his fri-- acquaintance named Reginald had swum off somewhere to get the two of them a meal for the evening. And the second, well, he didn't know of any miracle stories of humans turning into merfolk, let alone if there was a way to revert it. It didn't make sense; he just...fell in a batch of glowing, purple water, sunk to the bottom and suddenly he was equipt with a tigerfish tail.

And with it, everything he was familiar with.

His whole life was gone.

His friends.

His family.

His crew.

His ship.

His food.

His bed.

Gone.

Simple as that.

But just because it was gone, didn't mean it didn't stab a deep wound in Right's spirit.

"Right?"

A voice. High pitched. Familiar.

Sullenly, the taller of the two looked up from his arms that were crunched in a huddled position, nothing less than a glare coming under the brim of his hat. The other had a satchel strung over his shoulder down to his left hip (Er- top of his tail on the left side?), swimming over gently to the man's side. It was good, however, that the two knew each other for about a month before this 'incident'; made the whole process a little bit more bearable. Or, at least it would if the two weren't in a slightly discourse at the moment.

When Right was still human, his ship had swept up the merman in a net and said merman immediately lost it. Turns out, merfolk don't take kindly to figuring out your species is the reason that your ocean has been limiting its food supply or polluting your oceans with junk (even if Right wasn't guilty of either of those. He was a pirate, not a fisher). As a result, Reginald...lost trust in him, even though Right had assisted him for about a month whilst the merman recovered. Perhaps it was related to Reginald's 'clan' situation. He didn't know. Didn't seem to matter now.

At least, however, Reginald was being much gentler and pushing his feelings on the matter behind him to assist the transformed human. That was something Right could appreciate.

The purple painted merman took a seat to the left of Right, pulling the satchel in front of him and unclipping the button that held it together. The shark mercreature was sure to slightly uncurl himself out of his misery as his gaze fell to the contents the other brought out. A variety. Recently slaughtered fish. Some kind of cod. Prawns. Was that octopus? 

"I, erm, didn't know what you fancied, so I tried to find as much as I could." Explained Reginald, putting the batch of octopi to the side; seemed to be one of his favourites. Right, however, went slightly pale at the suggestion. Eating raw fish? Well, prawns were okay sometimes. But cod? Let alone octopi? That sounded like a slimy mess of distress. 

The other must've caught his disgust, as he began saying something along the lines of: "I...understand you're not used to this. But, unless I'm wrong, you-- er-- drylanders don't eat fish fresh, so, it could be better?"

To be fair, Reginald was as much in the dark as he was. And, luckily, he was somewhat correct; getting fresh fish was extremely rare on the surface. Or, at least, being freshly killed.

So, hesitantly, Right reached an arm forward, hands grasping roughly at the cod and inspecting it. Quite clear to see that Reginald had done all the hard labour of cleaning the thing of its insides before presenting himself. A small feeling of gratefulness developed in his soul. Thoughtful, it was. Very kind. 

The shark-merman did find, however, that it was much easier to bite into and chew things with his newly sharpened, second row of teeth. And, frankly, wasn't as bad as he was expecting. Yes, the texture was horrid and he had to push the thought back of eating the thing raw but...not terrible.

"'anks, Reg." Mumbled Right underneath his breath, eyes focused on the meal in his hands. Too focused to not see the bright light shine in Reginald's purple and black eyes, turning his head with a snap. Didn't last long, as the sound of crunching octopus flesh met his finned ears. Well, not after a soft 'you're welcome.'

And now it was quiet.

Both of them, Right knew, were confused. Of course, the taller of the two was much more distressed than he was bewildered, caught between a wave of different emotions. He didn't handle them well; that went for most emotions. Stupid feelings. Stupid attachment. Stupid; all of it.

"I...erm--" Reginald's voice hit his ears, eyes only turning to meet Reginald as his teeth sunk into his cod. The shorter cleared his throat. "I'm sorry-- I don't know of any known...solutions to this. But-- I'm sure I can find something in time. I-I can assure you, though, I'll try my best to be as fast as possible to get you back to normal."

... What?

"Yer gonna...find me a cure?" 'Cure' was probably a bad word to describe the term, but, both of them knew they were thinking about this situation as if it were a problem. Right turned his attention fully now, letting the cod rest in his hands that fell into his lap (lap?). The other had a crimson look on his face now, looking down at the ground, fumbling with his hands slightly.

"I...figured it would be...appropriate because, well, you helped me a great deal-- and that-- well-- how I--" Reginald brought a hand to his face, rubbing it with his webbed fingers, letting out a small groan of frustration. "--look. I'm sorry about being upset over the dry lander thing on the ship. Ugh-- the clan's been in such a slump. And we've messed up heist after heists because of those wooden whales. And I was frustrated and upset-- and I just--"

The purple and gold merman slumped his face into his hands. "I'm so sick of how miserable The Toppat Shells and the answer was right there, even though you were already so kind to me. I wasn't thinking; I was just mad and upset. And now that's led to--"

"Oi."

Reginald cut off his rambling, looking up from his hands to look at the small concerned yet stern expression of the other merman in the cavern. A hand came to his shoulder, grasping it gently. "If ye 'ink f' a second t'at...t'is--" Right gestured to his lower half. "--is yer fault, yer wrong. Yeah, maybe it was a result of some dumb s'it ye were upset wit', but t'ings were gonna turn out dis way because of the 'ole...raid on the s'ip t'ing."

"No-No, I'm not saying that." The brunette let out a sigh, brushing a curl out of his face and slumping against the back wall, not moving from the comforting presence on his shoulder. "I-- erm-- just believe I owe you some payment for...everything you've done for me. How I reacted was uncalled for and...consider this an apology, maybe."

Owed him payment? That was an odd thing for an ex-pirate to hear.

He wasn't paid back for anything; that's just how things were on the surface. Steal. Work as a crew. Get the job done. Do it all over again. Right supposed, however, that it did sort of match his out of character performance of helping a dying fish on the beach and growing slightly attached over time. A lot of things were out of character. This whole damn situation was wrong.

A sigh left Right's throat, coming out as a string of bubbles as he brought his hands back into his lap, too leaning back.

"Can't 'ave that, 'orry. If t'ere's one t'ing 've learned being a 'aptain, ye never play princess. Ain't yer responsibility ta change me back, when it ain't even yer fault. Kinda my business, 'onestly. But, if yer committed, we'll...figure it out together, suppose."

Octopi falling to the ground in a stunned grasp, Reginald's eyes turned up and met the brown ones that belonged to Right, blinking several times to understand what he had said. The ex-pirate held back a smirk, feeling slightly satisfied on getting an upper hand. Of course, it didn't last long, since his expression turned into painted, crimson blush at the response from the other.

"S-Sorry, could, erm, I hug you?"

...Hug? Uhm-- It wasn't an odd request, of course. But Hugging

"Erm--" Right let the cod drop into his lap, brushing a hand behind his head to scratch his hair, even if it wasn't itchy. Might as well not bring another problem to this situation. "I mean-- sur--"

Right didn't need to say one word more, as Reginald was suddenly on his chest, wrapping his arms around the other's torso in a tight embrace, face buried into his shoulder. Taking a sharp inhale, the taller of the two felt his face heat up, despite being the cool waters of the seafloor. With much hesitation, Right wrapping his arms around the other, trying his best to not hit his fins or something along those lines (he didn't have a clue to how sensitive they were). Heh. It almost seemed like Reginald was just as choked up at the situation as he was, despite that not being true in the slightest. However, he seemed to be greatly upset by it, at least.

It only lasted a moment, the smaller individual pulling back, keeping his distance and looking slightly awkward. It was clear that Reginald seemed to express appreciation and gratitude through physical affection, even if it was platonic. Didn't exactly clash well with Right's nature of pushing people away when he was emotional. But...it was manageable. The ex-pirate let out a chuckle, scratching his head once more with a cough of bubbles. "'ow about...we start again? Like, bef' all t'is bullshit 'appened."

Before the pirate ship. Before things had gone pear-shaped. Before when the last time they saw each other was on the beach.

The merman before him took a moment of stunned silence before his lips formed into a smile, sticking his hand forward.

"Alright. Hi there. My name is Reginald Coperbottom; second in command of The Toppats Shells!"

A firm handshake was met with a wave of bubbles.

"'ello. 'm Right."

[talesofstyles]

In Sickness And In Health

After the birth of their twin babies, Harry and YN’s marriage suffers.

Warning: Contains discussion of Postnatal Depression (PND) / PPD, breastfeeding and smut. Please read only if you’re comfortable.

P.S. This is a spin-off of Mess Is Mine. You don’t have to read it first, but in case you want to give it a go, here’s the link for the I, II and III part!

Having a newborn is hard, let alone two.

When that phase where everything seems magical and everything is just right in the world and you can hardly take your eyes off your precious little babies is over, you’ll begin to realise how much your life has changed overnight. You’ll realise how exhausted you are and that sleep is merely just a myth. You don’t sleep for longer than two hours at a time, and you struggle to find the time to fulfil your most basic human needs like eating and showering, and your social life has gone out of the window without even a wave goodbye.

Of course the excitement will never be truly over. There will always be moments where you look at your babies and pause and think “how did I get so lucky?!”. Maybe when they’re both smiling at you unconsciously in their sleep. Or when you just bathe them so they’re fresh and clean and smells like heaven and you feel like your heart is about to burst looking at two little babies just in their nappies all sprawled on your bed. It may not sound like a big deal, but sleep is one of the most fundamental human needs and if they’re deprived of that, it can potentially lead to a bigger problem.

YN is tired. So is Harry, but she is not only exhausted physically but also mentally, which is so much harder to deal with. Having twins really takes a toll on her body, and her hormones are all over the place. Now so much worse than when she was pregnant. She had a rather flawless pregnancy with the twins, everything was perfect. She carried them up until 37 weeks and five days, which was considered full term with twins, and even though the labour was long, it was all good in the end.

It all started well. The babies were both healthy and strong so they went home along with YN on the third day. Settling in with two newborns during the first few days were chaotic but it was all such a dream. The babies were such good sleepers and both YN and Harry had to wake them up throughout the night so YN could feed them. Neither of them was a fussy eater and both latched on so well right from the beginning, too, which was the thing that YN most worried about when she was still pregnant so she was relieved to know that their breastfeeding journey seemed to be easy right from the start.

But then the babies turned two weeks old, and they hit a growth spurt, which caused them to be fussier than ever. Harry and YN could barely function with the lack of sleep and both of them were frustrated because they couldn’t split their attention with the big kids as well. Everything was crazy and it went south from there. 

The baby boy went back to his usual self after a couple of days, but the baby girl never did. Even now, four weeks later, she is still fussier than ever, and the worst thing is that she is refusing to eat most of the time which is really stressing YN out because she doesn’t know what to do. She never had any problems nursing Finn and Pippa back then. 

It’s 2:45 am, and here’s YN, sitting on a nursery glider that calls one of the corners in their master bedroom as it’s temporary home before they move it to the nursery later along with the babies. Baby girl has been crying for at least ten minutes now, and her crying is getting stronger each minute. YN tries to nurse her while desperately trying to keep her eyes open, but the baby just clenches her fists and keeps crying, pulling her face away from her chest and refusing to latch.

“Oh, come on,” YN sighs in frustration at the wailing baby in her arms. “Come on, please. I know you’re hungry, my love.”

All the crying eventually wakes Harry up, but thankfully not the other baby just yet. At just four weeks old, the twins are still sleeping with Harry and YN in their room because not only it’s safer for the babies for the first six months, they also know that it’ll be easier for them to deal with the babies throughout the night.

“Should I make her a bottle?” Harry offers, sitting up to rub the sleep away from his eyes for a second before he walks towards where YN is sat with their baby girl. “I can feed her. You go to sleep, love.”

“No!” YN whisper-shouts. “I can feed her. I have to.”

“Alright, alright. Just let me try a little bit,” says Harry, shushing her as YN shifts the baby girl into his arms. He begins swaying his hips in place right away to rock her, knowing how much she loves it. She’s just like Anya when she was a baby, loving the little sway and rock in the middle of the night to soothe her back to sleep. However, the little sway and rock doesn’t do the trick for her twin brother who prefers being bounced a little whenever he’s being fussy. “Hi sweet girl,” Harry coos at her. “What’s this all about, huh? What’s the matter? Best tell daddy, yeah? I’ll sort it out.”

The tiny little baby girl in his arms lets out a couple of tiny choked up noises before she calms down and stops crying, showing him her green eyes for a second before closing it again as she lets out the tiniest yawn. She goes back to sleep within minutes in her daddy’s arms, and as much as Harry is glad that he manages to put the baby back to sleep, he is worried about YN.

YN has been struggling to bond with their baby girl ever since she has started to get fussy about nursing, so he knows the fact that he has just calmed her down and put her back to sleep just like that makes her feel even worse. She sighs dejectedly, completely ignoring Harry’s weak “darlin’,” as she stands up and walks away to the bed.

“Darlin’,” Harry tries again as he gets himself into the bed and under the duvet. But she ignores him still, choosing to turn around so her back is on his face instead. 

Harry lets out a heavy sigh. Mumbling a short, sweet, “night, love,” as he turns off the nightlight on his bedside table. Expecting at least just a short “night” from her but all he hears is silence.

***

The sound of keys jingling in the door is no match to the chaos inside. Baby girl has been crying nearly all morning, leaving YN frustrated and exhausted beyond measure. Harry has just got home from doing the school run, and as he walks into their living room, he sees his wife with their baby girl in her arms. He can see how tired YN looks, truth be told he isn’t much better, but he knows that he needs to step in because both of them are frustrated.

“Come on, my love, please,” YN coos at the crying baby in her arms desperately, pushing her closer to her chest to try to get her to latch but she isn’t having any of it. She did nurse a little a few hours prior but YN knows it’s not enough and she needs more. “I know you’re hungry, darlin’, please, just a little bit.”

“Let me make a bottle for her, yeah?” says Harry softly, knowing well that YN isn’t going to take what he suggests happily but he knows they all need it. “I can feed her, you go take a shower or a little nap. Whichever sounds best to you, love.”

“No, Harry, I need to feed her,” YN insists, shaking her head. Her cheeks are getting wet from the tears of frustration mixed with exhaustion. “I have to. I have to be able to.”

Harry runs his fingers through his hair, a little harsher than he’d like, in frustration. Sighing heavily. “She’s hungry!” snaps Harry. “We need to feed our daughter!”

“I’m trying!” YN practically shrieks.

“But she doesn’t want to nurse!” Harry’s voice keeps increasing in volume, stopping to take a deep breath when he sees the look on YN’s face. Not once he has ever talked to her that way before. “Please, just let me try to make her a bottle. This isn’t the time for you to listen to your ego, she’s hungry!”

YN looks up at Harry in silence. He can’t tell what she’s feeling, but surely it mustn’t be good. She stands up slowly, kissing her baby girl’s forehead before shifting her into Harry’s arms and walks upstairs without saying another word. 

Harry warms up a bottle for her from the milk in the freezer and she hesitates a little before she drinks it all up. She’s already asleep in his arms even before he has the chance to burp her, clearly exhausted from all the crying. He takes her upstairs to their room to put her in the bassinet next to her twin brother who has been napping for a little while now and should wake up anytime soon. Doesn’t matter how hard YN and Harry try to make them sleep at the same time, they just won’t.

When Harry walks into their room, YN is sitting on her side of the bed. She’s looking through the window, her back is facing the door. He can see her back tenses a little at his presence. Any other day, any other circumstances, Harry would have just sat next to her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and pull her close to him to cheer her up. They’re both a massive cuddler so although not always, more often than not, a little hug fixes everything. This is also why they can’t really complain about the fact that the twins are probably the clingiest babies on earth. Apples truly don’t fall far from the trees. 

“M’sorry for raising my voice,” Harry says at last after he puts his baby girl in her bassinet, before sitting next to YN on the bed but still keeping a safe distance knowing that she is probably a little upset with him. “But I’m not sorry for feeding our daughter.”

Much to Harry’s surprise, YN doesn’t even respond. He gets it if she doesn’t want to talk to him, but she has stilled. Not much different than a statue. He thinks she’s at least going to pull her arm away from him or swats his when he tries to touch her but no, she’s not even blinking. Still looking far out through the window. Her body is right next to him, but she is going further away from Harry with each passing seconds. 

***

Next thing Harry knows, she has become distant.

To him, first and foremost. And what breaks his heart the most, to his baby girl too. He didn’t want to believe himself at first but as the days went by, it was getting harder to ignore. He knows that she tries her best to act normal around the other kids, but he also knows that there’s something missing in her and whatever it is, he just hopes they can find it again.

YN is nursing Flynn in their room while Harry feeds Mila downstairs in the living room. After what happened the other day when Harry snapped at her, YN hasn’t tried to nurse her baby girl again, leaving Harry to do the job. As he feeds their littlest, he also gives some snacks for Finn, Pippa and Anya who just got home from school.

“How was school?” Harry asks the three of his big kids as he plops down on the couch with his baby girl on his lap and a warm bottle of milk in his hand. “Did you lot ‘ave a good day?”

“Mhm,” Anya hums and Finn and Pippa just nod, too busy chewing on some microwavable pastries that Harry heated for them.

“Good,” says Harry as he pulls the bottle away from his baby girl’s mouth for a second, giving her a little break. “Got any homework?”

“Anya and I have to write down everyone’s wishes,” says Pippa before she reaches for a cup of apple juice on the coffee table in front of her and takes a sip.

“Wishes?” Harry turns to her, his eyebrows snap together. “What kind of wishes?”

“It can be anythin’!” Anya chimes in.

“So,” Pippa begins, taking a paper and a pencil from her backpack. “What’s your wish papa?”

‘To know what the fuck is wrong with my wife and for her to talk to me again’ Harry says to himself inside his head, but carefully spelt out ‘clean ocean’ for the girls instead.

“Finny,” Anya turns to her big brother. “What’s yours?”

“For mummy to be happy,” he says nonchalantly.

Harry’s heart breaks at Finn’s wish. Trying to sound just as nonchalant, he turns at the seven year old and asks him. “You don’t think mummy’s happy?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “She cries a lot lately.”

“Ooh,” says Anya, tapping the end of her pencil against her head. “That’s a good wish.”

Finn is right, YN does cry a lot lately. Even more than when she was still pregnant with the twins. Harry has asked her ‘what’s wrong?’ countless times but he’s met with silence every time. So he stopped asking.

“Papa, why does mummy cry a lot lately?” Pippa asks him. 

Harry knows that the kids think he has the answer, he always has. He wishes he has the answer for this one. He remembers when he was little, he could just ask anything to his mum or dad and they would always have the answers to everything and he intends to do the same for his children. They’ve got plenty of time later to find out how scary the world actually is and that sometimes, they have to be okay in the unknown. But not right now.

“Mummy’s just tired, my love,” Harry smiles at her. “Sometimes people cry when they’re tired. Just like you when you had too much fun at the park.”

“Mummy!” Pippa cheers in excitement when she sees YN coming down the stairs with Flynn in her arms. Harry’s head snaps right away towards her. “Mummy, what’s your wish?”

“Hi,” YN smiles weakly at her big kids. “My wish?”

“Mhm,” Anya hums. “What’s your wish, mummy?”

“It’s for their homework,” Harry adds, setting the empty bottle down on the coffee table before holding the drowsy baby girl upwards to burp her. “They have to write down everyone’s wishes.”

“Oh,” says YN as she plops down on the couch opposite Harry. That’s the most she has been talking to him. One word—he’s not even sure if ‘oh’ counts as a word but screw it—one syllable. A short, simple ‘oh’ yet it already makes his heart bursts. “I wish, um,” they’re all waiting patiently for YN to finish her sentence. “I wish I could sleep. For a long time.”

“How long, mummy?” Pippa asks her.

“Just long,” YN says absently. “Very long.”

***

“You want some?” Harry says, pouring YN a glass of wine before she can even answer. Not that she’s likely to answer.

Harry slides the glass across the kitchen island, where YN stands on the other end of the counter, staring into space blankly. Without saying a word she glances at him before taking the glass into her hand and begins to take a sip.

“Hey,” Harry says cautiously. “You alright?”

She takes a slug of wine instead of answering her husband. Still looking at one of the walls in their kitchen that is full of frames. A big family photo with all five of them, taken in Positano when they went there for holiday last summer just before YN finds out that she was pregnant with the twins. A few paintings of the kids. One medium-sized classic painting of a village. 

Harry lets out a sigh as they lapse into silence again. The tension is so thick it’s suffocating. He gets some plates out of the cupboard, ladle chicken stew out of the slow cooker and sprinkle it with coriander before putting them down on the table and reaches for cutlery in the drawer. 

“Come on, let’s eat,” says Harry as he brings his glass of wine to the table. 

YN shakes her head. “I’m not hungry.”

Harry lets out another sigh, heavier this time. The food in front of him looks much less appealing than before. “You need to eat, even just a little bit.”

“I’ll eat later when I’m hungry,” YN gulps her wine.

“Why don’t you want to eat together with me?” Harry asks her desperately. “You’re the one who always insists that couples who eats together stay together, so-”

“I’m not hungry,” YN repeats herself absently, cutting him off before she drains the rest of her wine into the sink and putting the glass into the dishwasher. “Just wanna sleep.”

***

The sound of a crying baby wakes Harry and YN up, and after realising it comes from their baby girl, Harry stands up hastily and walks towards the bassinet to pick her up and begins to rock her.

“Hi darlin’,” Harry coos at her. “What’s this about, huh? Something bothering you? You hungry?” 

The usual sway and rock doesn’t work so Harry is pretty convinced that she is hungry. Realising that YN is awake, Harry turns to her. “You wanna ‘ave a go? I think she’s hungry.”

“No, you have it all in hand,” YN says bitterly. “I’m just gonna make it worse.”

“YN, don’t be like that,” Harry says, annoyance clearly shown in his tone. “We’re a team. We’re supposed to be a team.”

“Like what?” YN challenges him, getting just annoyed at him as he is at her. “M’not being like anything!”

“You’re being so difficult!” Harry practically shrieks, making the crying even worse and they can hear a little whimper from the bassinet which means baby boy is going to wake up and cry any seconds now. “I don’t know what to do. We barely talk now and when we do it always ends with a fight. I hate fighting with you!”

He can see the tears making its way out of her eyes and down her cheeks and he feels guilty for snapping at her like that. Her hormones are out of whack and he should’ve been more patient with her. “YN, talk to me, please. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’ll sleep with Flynn in the spare room,” YN says as she picks her baby boy out of his little bassinet. 

“No!” Harry shakes his head frantically. “We’re sleeping here, in this room. I’ll take the couch. But we’re staying in this room.” 

YN doesn’t say more, and Harry quickly goes downstairs to warm up a bottle for baby girl before he reappears in their bedroom. He feeds her on the nursery glider, and burp her, before he stands back up to cuddle her back to sleep.

“So, that’s it then?” Harry says bitterly as he sways his hips in place to rock his baby daughter when he realises that YN is still awake. “You won’t hold your daughter?”

YN looks at him and there’s something in her expression that makes Harry feels like someone has just stabbed him in the chest. She looks so sad. Her face missing the warmth and colour that are usually there. “I do hold her,” she responds weakly. “But you said it yourself that I’m too selfish to take proper care of her.”

“I never said that!” Harry whisper-shouts, covering the ear of the baby in his arm as he does so he wouldn’t wake her up again. 

“Yes you did!” YN insists angrily. Fat, hot tears are coming back and rolling down her cheeks. “You said I was willing to starve my daughter just to listen to my ego.”

“Let’s talk outside,” says Harry as he puts baby girl down in her bassinet and roughly takes YN’s hand to follow him out of their bedroom.

“I have NEVER said that to you,” Harry’s loud voice booms in the kitchen, emphasizing ‘never’ as he stares deadly at her in the eyes. There’s a lump in the back of his throat but he ignores it, his annoyance at her for twisting his words gets the better of him. 

“But you did!” YN’s voice is just as loud, but cracks in the end, and the sound of it makes Harry feels as if Chuck Norris himself just kicked him in the balls.

“I didn’t!” He feigns innocence. “I just told you the other day just to let me feed her because she’s hungry. That’s all. And…”

YN feels like the room is spinning. It’s going so fast that she has to grip on the edge of the counter to keep herself from falling. She still sees Harry’s mouth moving but she can’t hear a word. So she walks away from the kitchen. Hastily. Towards the stairs and climbs upstairs, ignoring Harry crying out, “Where are you going? Come back! We’re not finished yet!” not because she intends to but because she can’t hear anything.

***

It can be extremely frustrating to live with someone who’s distant and sad all the time. Especially when there are newborns involved, adjusting to life with a newborn is hard enough. With YN slipping further away from him every day, Harry feels like all the responsibility is weighed upon his shoulders. And he is tired.

The babies are six weeks old, it means it has been four weeks since the last time he had a proper conversation with YN. There, in that couch, the one that he’s sitting on right now. He should be sleeping right now. Sleep when the baby sleeps, they said. But it’s 1:45am. He knows that at least one of the babies are going to wake up any seconds for their next meal. He doesn’t have to worry about baby boy, he still nurses like a champ, it’s their baby girl that he’s worried about. And the fact that her own mother seems to resent her.

Maybe it’s all just in his head. Of course YN loves their baby girl. It’s her own daughter. It’s their daughter. If she can love Anya like her own, surely she’ll love her own baby, no?

Harry feels like their marriage is slipping away, especially now that they’re sleeping separately although still in the same room. They barely talk, and when they do, it always ends with a screaming match. He doesn’t know whether or not the big kids know about the fact that their parents are now basically strangers living in the same house, he hopes they don’t, but they’re smart and it wouldn’t surprise him if they do.

He still doesn’t understand how it all got this bad. Every night before he sleeps, he always makes time to recall the things that happened, thinking probably he has missed something crucial that ruined his marriage, but nothing comes out of it. They were still good, very good before the birth of the twins. And even for the first two weeks afterwards, it was still like a dream. But then the babies start to get fussy, and they begin to not get enough sleep. Was that the thing that ruined his marriage? It couldn’t be, right? They were just tired. They still are. But people don’t get a divorce because they’re tired.

Then he recalled that one time when he was frustrated, they were all frustrated, really. And he said something about the fact that YN shouldn’t listen to her ego. Okay, he admits, he was a little harsh, but in his defence he was frustrated. And in his mind, he wasn’t in the wrong in that situation. He just wanted to feed his daughter as soon as possible because he knew that she was hungry. Was that wrong?

This is hard. All of this. The babies, his suffering marriage, his three older children who still require a lot of his attention because they’re at that stage where they treasure conversation and playtime with their parents the most. The sleep deprivation. He’s lucky enough to be able to take a six months paternity leave; if he weren’t he would probably just explode.

After their marriage, or whatever left of it, becomes like this, the presence of YN is barely something that fills three of his senses; sight, hearing and smell. He knows that she’s there, with him, living in the same house. They wake up around the same time, they go to sleep around the same time. But it’s just that, nothing more. He knows that she’s there because he sees her pacing around their bedroom holding their baby boy. And that half of the laundry bin in their room filled with her dirty clothes as well as his. Her brown fuzzy slippers at the end of the bed when she sleeps. The delicious smell of coffee that she always makes fresh every morning. The mixed smell of roses and berries that is so uniquely her when she’s sitting or standing close enough to him. The sound of her when she’s talking to the kids, or coos at the babies. Even the soft sob that he hears sometimes in the bathroom in the middle of the night when she thinks that he’s asleep.

Harry misses his wife.

There’s a little routine of them that Harry can’t forget every time he sits on that couch in their living room. It’s one of Harry’s favourites. Usually, after they tuck the kids in bed, they would sit on the couch downstairs before they have their dinner. YN, still in her work outfits, would sit beside him, taking the remote from his hand and resting her head against his chest. The TV is always on, but they rarely actually watch it. After two to three minutes YN usually mumbles, “I’m knackered,” and he’d say “take a little nap, then” before he kisses the top of her head and she’d doze off not long after. It’s never long. Twenty, thirty minutes max, but it’s one of Harry’s favourite moments with her throughout the week. That time at the end of the day when he gets to hold his wife, who somehow still smells so good and looks so beautiful that sometimes still makes his heart skips a beat, even after a whole day of work and a couple hours of herding their small children through their night routines. All of the things that are bothering his mind always seems to disappear somehow. It’s just him, and her, and everything just seems right in the world.

Sometimes, when the frustration takes over, Harry can’t help but wonder if he could just confront her. ‘What do you want, really? Do you want to get a divorce? Just say it.’ Because he’s tired of feeling helpless. He’s tired of feeling like he may have a little hope one second yet having it crushed the next. But when he sees her, he doesn’t have the heart to. 

She’s YN, his wife. He loves her and he can’t lose her. 

***

It’s Thursday, which means it’s James’s turn to pick the kids up from school and takes them to the park afterwards. And since Anya goes to the same school as Finn and Pippa, he always takes her with them too. He knows how much Harry loves his children, and honestly he just likes children in general so he doesn’t have any problems with his ex-wife’s step-daughter.

James and the kids are already at Kensington Garden, and they’re just waiting for Harry who’s coming with the twins. Harry thought it might be good for YN to have some quiet time alone at home for a little before the madness begins again. Besides, it’s good for the twins to get some fresh air. 

It’s not often you hear that someone’s ex-husband and current husband become friends, but somehow James and Harry do become friends. Surely it wasn’t easy at first, both of them had their pride at stake and neither of them was willing to let it go first, but they were both good men, they still are. And they knew that if they could put their ego aside, it would be better for everyone, so they did. 

“Daddy, that’s papa and the babies!” Pippa says excitedly as she points at Harry who’s pushing the double pram into the gated playground area. “Papaaaa!”

“Where?” James looks around before he finds Harry and babies. “Ah! Here!” He immediately waves his hand so Harry sees him. “Hi!”

“Hi,” Harry greets him as he walks towards them. “Alright, mate?”

“Great! You?” James says as he looks down at the prams and coos at the babies. “God, these two already look so much bigger than last week. Hi! Hello!” 

“M’good, thanks,” Harry smiles at him. “They grow like a weed.”

“You look rough mate,” James comments, chuckling lightly. They’ve clearly reached that level of friendship. And James is not wrong, Harry does look like he needs a wash and a good night’s sleep. “I can try to help more with the big kids if you’d like.”

“Thanks, mate,” Harry turns to him, waving at Finn who’s waving at him from the big pirate ship. “I appreciate it.”

“Hey, s’nothing,” James grins at him. “How’s YN? She alright?”

Harry lets out a heavy sigh. “Honestly? I’m not sure.”

“Hey, what’s wrong?” James turns to him, looking concerned. Harry isn’t the type to air his dirty laundry, but this is James. He is YN’s ex-husband. He has known her longer than he has, and they were married for years. If there’s any chance for James to help him, no matter how small, he’s taking it. “Is everything alright? You know that you can talk to me, right?”

“Was it this hard after you had Finn and Pippa?” Harry finally asks him.

“God,” James shakes his head. “Newborns are rough, mate. I remember being so exhausted all the time.”

“Did you and YN fight a lot?”

“We were both cranky from the lack of sleep,” James explains. “So yeah. Do you fight a lot now? By the way, you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to of course.”

“No, s’fine,” Harry says. “Yeah we do. She’s just so sad and distant all the time and I don’t know what to do.”

“That explains, then,” James tells him. “Finn told me that she’s been crying a lot lately.”

“I swear I’ve tried everything, mate,” Harry sighs in defeat.

“Having a baby is hard, let alone two at once,” James begins. “So maybe she’s still trying to figure it out? I know you must’ve tried your best to cheer her up and all you need to do right now is just to be patient. I’m sure she’ll be alright once she gets the hang of it.”

“S’like,” Harry’s voice cracks and he hates it. “S’like there’s a really huge wall between us. I’ve tried to knock it down, tear it apart, but it just keeps getting stronger.” 

“Look, mate,” James turns to him. “I know YN. She’s one of the kindest, most loving humans out there but I also know that she’s probably one of the most stubborn one too. You can’t tell her what to do. If she wants to open up to you, she will. Otherwise, she’ll just build that wall higher and stronger and if you insist to climb it there’s no way you’re getting out alive. Whatever it is that she’s feeling right now, or that she’s struggling with, you can’t make it go away. All that you need to do is just to be willing to wait this out with her.” 

“Thanks, James,” Harry says. “Really, I appreciate this. Thank you.”

“Anytime, mate,” James smiles at him. “Remember, she’s just lost. She’s not gone. Just hang in there, yeah?”

***

“D’you wanna take a bath wi’me?” Harry looks at YN who’s putting Flynn in his bassinet. The big kids are asleep and the twins have just gone back to sleep with full bellies so it’s not likely for them to wake up anytime soon. “Might be nice, yeah? Been a while.”

YN shakes her head. “M’tired.”

“Please? I’ve missed you,” desperation evident in his voice. “S’gonna be nice. I’m gonna run it for us, yeah? We’ll use that soap, the one that we’re saving for the pope,” he chuckles lightly, hoping that the little Friends reference will make her laugh even just a little. Scratch that, just a smile from her will make him the happiest man alive.

“No!” YN exclaims, a little louder and harsher than she intends it to. “I’m tired Harry, just let me sleep.”

***

It’s 3am, and YN is surprised when she goes to the bathroom and finds Harry sitting on the floor, crying his heart out. His back is against the bathtub, and she immediately sits down next to him on the floor. 

“H,” Harry shoots his head up to look at her as he hears his pet name rolls out of her lips. It has been weeks since the last time he hears that and God, does he miss it. H is one of the three pet names that YN has for him. The other two are darling and knobhead. She rotates those three pet names every day. To this day, Harry still has no idea where knobhead comes from and he’s not sure either about the rotation. What he knows is that every workday, at 7am, she’ll shake his shoulder gently, whispering softly in his ear: “Wake up, H.” Tomorrow it may be: “Knobhead, wake up.” He’ll never know for sure what he gets.

“H,” she repeats herself when she sees that Harry has stilled. “What’s the matter? I’ve never seen you cry like this before.”

For once, she’s met with silence. He doesn’t answer. 

“Is this…” she trails off. “Are you crying about us? Our marriage? Or whatever left of that?” She chokes wetly. 

Harry still doesn’t respond.

“Are you- are you crying because you want-” her breathing is getting harsher as if she’s choking. “You want to leave?”

“I wanted to,” Harry says weakly, admitting. Because he did. He had the thought. Divorce did cross his mind. It doesn’t matter for him whether he had been thinking about leaving for months or is it just five seconds of frustration before he snaps back to reality, he’s just as guilty.

“But I can’t,” he shakes his head. “You’re my wife. I’d chosen you. Can’t run away like a coward, s’my job to bring the smile back to your face.”

“You wanted to leave,” YN says at last, sitting motionless. 

Harry just stares blankly at the cabinet under the sink.

“Harry,” YN says his name so low that it sounds more like a whisper. “Leave.”

Harry shakes his head frantically and YN continues. “This marriage sounds more like work on your part. I don’t know what happened with me,” she wipes away the tears that roll down her cheeks. “I hate to see you like this.” 

“No,” says Harry firmly, still shaking his head.

“If it’s about the kids, don’t worry, you’ll-”

“It’s not about the kids!” Harry says quickly, cutting her off. “It’s about you. I can’t lose you.”

“Harry, I’ve changed,” YN whispers. “I don’t even recognise myself. You deserve better, just let me go.”

“No,” Harry shakes his head again. “I had chosen you, and you had chosen me. We’re gonna make this work, you and I.”

“But-”

Harry cuts her off with a kiss. A deep and passionate one, filled with desperate needs. Much to his surprise, she doesn’t pull away. It has been forever since the last time they kissed like that, and doesn’t matter their circumstances, neither of them wants it to end.

In one swift movement, he has her underneath him on their bathroom floor. His lips never leaving hers unless to take a breath, and even then it’s never long before he returns.

He leaves a trail of kisses down her neck, before pulling the tie on top of her nightdress to leave her chest bare before him. Within seconds he’s got her knees bent and her nightdress hitches up around her waist, his mouth feasting on her pulsing core. He has missed how she tastes.

She still doesn’t push him away when his tongue is buried deep inside her. He’s got both of his hands looped around her thighs before he thrusts one single digit into her. Slowly at first, but then he quickens the pace as it’s getting easier for his finger to pump into her. Not too fast yet not too slow; just a slow steady plunge deep into her heat.

She spreads her legs even more for him as his knee shoves between them. The better access makes him push his finger even deeper before he adds another. He puts pressure on her bundle of nerves with his thumb as his two thick digits make their way into her. It’s a stretch and she hisses as he buries them inside her to the knuckle. 

With a gasp of his name, she falls into bliss. Closing her eyes as he pulls his fingers out of her. He climbs up and kisses her deeply as he takes out his member.

His hard cock curves up towards his belly, ruddy and dizzyingly thick. It has been a while and she forgot how intimidating his size is. He’s fully hard, the blunt tip is angry red and it’s leaking already. It looks threatening, and fuck, even the vein underneath is intimidatingly thick. 

Too many moments later, he finally lets his cock dip down into her core, and she exhales the breath she’s been holding only to squeal when she feels him pressed against her folds. He really takes his time, coating his shaft with her slick before pushing into her again ever so slowly. 

She winces as he thrusts inside her, but it feels amazing. The twinge of pain is easy to ignore with the way Harry feels inside of her and it’s literally just the tip. He lets out a groan, holding steady to give her time to adjust, knowing how much she needs it. 

The second he’s fully in, she lets out a sigh, pulling him even closer to her body. He’s bare and hot inside her, the way he throbs is enough to force her eyes to close.  

There’s a slowness to his movement that seems to translate into a deeper intimacy. There’s no rush, only a desperate need. He takes his time, not wanting it to be over anytime soon.

He’s sliding so deep, right into that pleasure-patch with every drive. She cries out, squirming underneath him as his cock hit painful depths. Her fingers hold onto his arms and she whimpers, unsure if it’s from discomfort or need.

It hurts, no doubt, it’s been a while after all. But his pace is steady and slow, and she knows that he’s taking every moment of her anguish and need. She moans into his mouth, practically panting as he kisses her over and over again, never leaving her lips for too long, nipping and sucking her bottom lip. 

He feeds his cock into her again and again, coaxing her heat open with each stroke. The bump and drag of his member against her walls is nothing short of exquisite and dangerously intoxicating. 

Everything goes white as she reaches her high. There’s no other sound except for the whir of pounding blood in her ears. She’s pretty sure she’s stopped breathing. He kisses her again on the lips, then her forehead, before he reaches for something from the cabinet under the sink to clean her up. He carries her to their bed, kissing her once more before he climbs onto his side of the bed. Mumbling “night, love” as he turns off the light on his bedside table. 

She waits until he’s fully asleep before she wiggles out of his embrace. Scooting as far away from him as she can without falling out of the bed. And then she cries.

***

It’s frustrating to look in the mirror and not being able to recognise your own reflection. 

For the past four weeks, when YN sees her reflection in the mirror, all she sees is that unrecognised woman standing before her. She looks sad and tired. There are two giant bags under her eyes, and she looks so cold and colourless that she thinks that whoever it is in the reflection must be sick. 

She has never felt anything like this before. She is so anxious all the time. Although she is no stranger to anxiety, it has never got this bad. She is tired yet she’s struggling to sleep. She feels tense and irritable, and she has the urge to cry a lot more lately.

She feels terrible for not being able to bond with her baby girl the way she bonds with her baby boy. She tried, desperately, but when her baby girl refused to nurse it made her feel like she’s a failure. She is still feeling that way, especially every time she sees Harry feeding her with a bottle. She has this horrible sense of impending doom, like her babies are slowly starving and it was because she was a terrible mother.

“Harry, I think your wife has postnatal depression,” says the health visitor to Harry after she checks on YN and the babies. Physically, the three of them are doing amazing.

“I had a feeling,” Harry turns to her. “What should I do, then? What can I do to help her? Does she need some prescriptions?”

“Not yet,” she shakes her head gently. “I don’t think it’s very severe. But what you do matters significantly. Her moods and emotional vulnerability will likely get in the way of your communication for now, but keep assure her that you are there for her. Tell her that you know she feels terrible. Tell her she’ll get better and that she is doing the best she can. Tell her that she can still be a good mother even if she feels terrible. Most importantly, tell her that you love her. Your babies love her, all your children. She might not believe you when you tell her that she’s a good mother but tell her anyway. I can schedule a counselling for her but for now, make sure that you make time just for her. Five minutes a day for a start is enough. No babies, no paperwork, no TV, nothing but the two of you. Talk to her. She’ll probably ignore you at first but she’ll talk soon enough. Then you can gradually increase the amount of time you spend together just the two of you.”

“Thank you so much,” Harry looks at her, feeling hopeful.

“M’just doing my job,” she smiles at Harry. “Call if you have a question about it. Remember, just be patient.”

***

Little things matter. 

After Harry got the advice from the health visitor and James, he knows that what he does really matter to help his wife, and he is willing to do whatever it takes for him to get his wife back. Every Sunday morning, he makes a trip to the Farmer’s Market to get her some daisies because it’s her favourite flowers. They take five minutes each day just for each other after all five of the kids are asleep, and although the health visitor was right and YN didn’t even say a word at first, now they begin to talk again and even laugh together even just a little.

They also begin to do the school run together. Fortunately, it’s close enough for them to just walk. Most of the time they take the pushchairs for the babies so they can walk around in the park after they drop the kids at school, but sometimes they just put them in a sling and carry them. It’s also the perfect time for Harry and YN to talk because the babies are the happiest in the prams or in the slings and they always sleep through their morning walk.

Harry knows that it’s probably too soon to say, but Harry feels like YN is slowly but surely coming back to him. They eat together again, they talk, and although Harry isn’t back in bed just yet, he’s now able to kiss her goodnight, which already makes Harry the happiest.

It’s 2:30am, and the babies are up crying because they’re hungry. YN is feeding Flynn on the nursery glider and Harry is about to head downstairs to make a bottle for Mila when YN suddenly stops him. “Harry, wait-”

“Yeah?” He looks at her, thinking that she’ll probably just ask him to get her something from the kitchen.

“Can I try first?”

Harry can’t believe what he hears, grinning instantly. “You want to try to feed her?”

YN nods. “Can I?”

“Love, you don’t have to ask!” Harry says, walking back to the bassinet to take their baby girl out and put her in YN’s free arm so she can feed her as well. She brings the baby closer to her chest and neither of them can believe what they see. “Oh my God-”

“Harry!” YN exclaims excitedly. “She’s latching! Oh my God, she’s doing it!”

“I see it!” Harry looks at her proudly, before leaning down to kiss her head. “My best girl.”

“Harry,” YN sighs happily. Happy tears rolling down her cheeks and Harry quickly wipes it away. 

“Told ya,” Harry grins at her although his cheeks aren’t technically dry either. “It’s gonna be alright, I knew it.”

“I’m so happy right now,” YN tells him, making his grin wider. “But I know that I’m not back to my old self just yet. It’ll take some time.”

Harry leans down to kiss the top of her head now. “Darlin’, just knowing that you’re happy for now is enough for me. I know it’ll take some time, but it’s gonna get better, yeah? Trust me.”

“What if it takes years?”

Harry smiles at her. “I’ll wait it out with you.”

“You say that now, but-”

“In sickness and in health,” Harry quickly cuts her off. “For better or for worse.”

“Harry-”

“I love you. Completely besotted, absolutely enamoured, hopelessly in love wi’you. I don’t care if you don’t believe me right now, I’m telling you anyway because it’s true. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to remind you how much I love you if that’s what it takes.”

“H,” YN says before they lapse into silence. The pause seems forever but hearing her calling him with that pet name again after a while, he might bursts in happy tears right there right now. “I love you.”

Harry grins at her. Fat, hot tears rolling down his cheeks now and those are certainly happy tears. “Say it again.”

“I love you,” YN smiles at him.

“Again,” he begs. “Please.”

“I love you, H,” she repeats herself. “I take back what I said the other day. Don’t let me go.”

Harry leans down again, trying not to squeeze their babies, and this time to press his lips against hers. “Never.”

[astudyinfreewill]

if it’s too broke, don’t fix it

so let’s be clear about one thing.

i will be writing fix-it content for the way supernatural ended, because guess what, honk honk!! i’m a clown 🤡 and as it turns out when you spend your formative coming-out-of-the-closet years invested in TV’s longest queerbait, it’s not so easy to just stop caring. go figure.

but i will not be writing fix-it for 15x20, for a simple reason: to me, it’s unfixable.

look. i am more or less convinced by this point - by looking at the internal narrative, the meta analyses, the reactions of the various cast and crew, and behind-the-scenes evidence compiled by fans far more dedicated and detail-oriented than i - that some executive fuckery happened to the ending. nothing else makes sense, nothing else explains an episode that surreally bad, nothing else explains why the run time was so much shorter than usual and why the pacing felt so clunky and stilted, if not last-minute cuts. so, sure. i’m on board. the network got cold feet and decided to axe whatever destiel content the writers may have worked in (probably too little and too late, but that’s by the by). i can even believe they had a hand in the disappearance of eileen - a long-standing love interest, a deaf character, and of course, most importantly, a woman, from the final two episodes, because everything has to be about the brodependency, of course, of course.

however, even if you take into account the possible/very likely “no homo” revisions, you’re still left... with the rest of the episode. you’re still left with dean winchester - a character overwhelmingly read as bisexual, an abuse survivor, the poster child for PTSD both mundane and supernatural (no pun intended)... dying young on a random hunt. and this wasn’t the result of last-minute executive meddling: this was the plan from the start of season 15, and it’s why jensen struggled so much last year with accepting the finale (rather than any ~homophobic feelings~ about 15x18, which he only got the script for a couple months in advance and was reportedly completely fine with). and sure, there’s a chance executives may have had a hand in that too, but at the moment we have no evidence to believe so.

dean started the series as a traumatized kid who’s been turned into a weapon by a physically and emotionally absent father, an unforgiving and unloving man who raised him to believe his only purpose in life was to look after his younger sibling, whether that meant saving him or killing him. dean was parentified from at least as young as the age of 8, left to do the physical and emotional labour his father should have been doing for both him and sam. dean spent much of the series borderline suicidal, believing he had no intrinsic worth beyond what he could sacrifice to keep others safe. dean spent much of the series believing he would always die young and bloody, that sam was the only one of the two of them who would get to live a full life. 

and the show decided to end by confirming all of that, by killing dean off as soon as he’d finally found freedom from destiny. and not even in a blaze of glory for some higher purpose, no-- he was killed off on a random case in what i’m sure some writer felt was a delightful example of ~tragic irony~. well, guess what? i’m not laughing. you lead viewers on an emotional journey for 15 years, they’re going to want catharsis at the end. this? this was the opposite of catharsis. i don’t know if there is an opposite of catharsis, but the internet suggests defilement (probably a good enough translation of the greek miasma) and that feels about right.

and that kind of defilement doesn’t serve the story, either-- because dean spent the later seasons coming to accept that maybe he could have a happy ending, that maybe he did deserve to retire, to enjoy his life, to finally rest - and he definitely didn’t mean rest in peace. the narrative led us on this journey of seeing an abused, PTSD-crippled character start to want more for himself - only to rip all that out from under him in the name of misguided ~high stakes drama. probably because happy endings for everyone are boring and cliché’d and having a ~shocking conclusion is better than having a good conclusion (s/o GOT finale). growth? healing? coming to see yourself in a better light and demanding more for yourself? unrealistic.

well, miss me with that shit. as a bisexual person who took a long time to come to terms with my identity, as an eldest daughter, as someone who deeply believes in the narrative idea of humanity trying and trying and trying until they finally reach happiness - fucking miss me with that gratuitous tragedy shit. i want soft epilogues. i want endings tied with a ribbon. i think we - especially the queer community, especially women, especially people who’ve struggled with low self worth and mental health - deserve it by now.

so, you see, it’s not so much that i can��t write a fix-it for 15x20. in fact, it would be simple enough to do - tragedy is easy to spin into emotional content. which i promise is not a dig at people writing or enjoying that kind of content, because i’ve read some myself, and it has been excellent; more power to you all. all i’m saying is it would be easy enough to write dean getting to heaven and seeing jimmy novak castiel in that roadhouse, whether or not kansas is playing. it would be easy enough to write dean driving to cas and them meeting under a starry sky, ‘the night we met’ playing in the background as it was originally meant to in 15x20, and to imagine them having a tearful, bittersweet, at least we finally have each other reunion. 

the truth is that i won’t. i refuse to. even if i believe that the writers would have given us a destiel endgame if not for executive interference - and that still remains to be definitively seen - it’s not the endgame i would have wanted. it’s not the endgame we deserve after 15 fucking years.

queer characters shouldn’t have to die for the right to be happy. we deserve a soft epilogue - and i’ll write my own, damn it.

[jjba-hell]

Rock Bottom

Day 2 and the Prompt we going for was- Insecurity. And lemme just say I went ham on this one. Sorry for anyone who read my unedited version a few hours ago, my tumblr cue time is weird af... 

This is a bit of a mash up between backstory and insecurity but definitely ANGSTY AF! Really now, good luck.

There are ALLOT of trigger warnings so much, I dare say it’s rated. Drug use, pregnancy, postnatal complications (and death), ABUSE (emotional, physical, verbal, familial), prostitution (mention)...I probably missed allot but this one is intense. 

Gonna tag @a-nonnie-mousse (’cause you a sweetie) and @lasquadraweek2020 for this one and also @risottoneroo​ (though if Mel’s not your cup of tea, I’m so sorry but we mutuals now so sowwy UwU) 

2,4 K words- good luck ʅ（◞‿◟）ʃ

Looking at the mirror one morning Melone couldn’t help but breath a heavy sigh. March 22nd held a painful memory to him- which was why he was due at the graveyard at 9 for a personal meeting. Risotto had been kind enough to allow it but not without warning.

“Don’t get caught.” Was all he said.

“Yeah, like I’d allow another fuck up.” He scoffed as he tied his hair back to get ready. As if he hadn’t heard enough of that in his life. Gazing back at himself mirror- tired and defeated he recalled a younger version of himself doing and thinking the same thing a few years ago- looking back at the mirror and feeling the same way he did at that moment. It had happened after another fight with his mother.

“Stefan.” His mother hissed as she angrily loomed over his shoulder. “What’s this?” She tossed the physics pop quiz on the table in front of him- feeling panic set in his spine, wanting to jump out of his chair and hurdle his way out of her grasp. He had thrown that piece of paper away- he could have sworn he did. Right now, of course, he was wishing he had burned it instead.

“Nothing, mama.”

“Nothing is it? Because it looks like a C- to me.”

He swallowed, hoping she was a too tired to fight him today. “Most of the class-“

“I don’t-“she grabbed hold of the hair on top of his head and shoved his head down onto the table. “-CARE ABOUT HOW MOST OF THE CLASS DID! That is going on your report card!”

He kept his head down, nose bleeding into the algebra homework he was working on below him. Picking up his head now would only make her hurt him more. “Mama, it was a mock test.”

“So, this is how little you know. Did you cheat your way through your grades your whole life?”

He didn’t say anything, knowing there was no point in arguing with her when she was like this. 

Melone grew up in a household most people would find bizarre but he never labelled it abuse. Not until his university sweetheart held his hand and asked him. “Why do you apologize for everything you do?”

It wasn’t hard to figure out once he sat down and considered it instead of shoving the question aside in favour of a taking a bit of ecstasy and a willing side piece- a bad habit he had picked up after he left the hellish hole he called home.

“You’re just as stupid as your father.”

“You’re just as spineless as your mother.”

Two phrases interchanged by two people who didn’t love each other in the slightest and him in the middle of it all- wondering why nothing he did was ever enough.

Melone shook off the memory as he splashed his face with the warm water from the tap, only to end up being caught up in his own reflection again, by the gaze of his heterochromatic eyes- the mask he wore on the lay job forgotten on his bedside table. He had had many of his one night stands tell him he was gorgeous with the one blue and one green eye but he had spent enough of his childhood being told by his father what a freak it made him. 

He gazed back at his own bed, surprisingly devoid of the previous night’s endeavour. So, he pulled the sheets off and remade the bed, thinking on how badly he wished he wasn’t sober- numbing away the grief he was feeling with a little white pill and the pleasure of being praised between the sheets. 

The weather forecast called for a cold chill and some scattered showers, how fitting for the proper black coat and suit he left the apartment in. He got into the car with Ghiacchio without another word beside a simple greeting, not wanting to anger the blue-haired man beside him- he didn’t quiet feel up to the banter, or perhaps arguments was a better word, he shared with Ghiacchio.

The scenery melded from cityscape to countryside- reminding him of the first time he went to this graveyard. At the time, tragedy has struck his life like lightning and was burning down everything he had dared to hope for- the person waiting for him at the church connected to the graveyard was all hope he had left to save Bianca.

The life of the mafia was never really one he was completely ignorant of- the contraband he used to take like sugar pills was just one of the ways he already had his foot in the door- although at the time he simply deemed himself as paying for a product from a lackey. When he cleaned up his act for Bianca he thought he’d never have to delve that dark again. The straight and narrow path didn’t last long though and soon he came to realize that he had been surrounded by crime his whole life, only waiting to be inevitably swallowed by it. 

Ghiacchio pulled up a few blocks short of the graveyard gates and Melone handed him a wad of cash as payment. “That’s generous.” Ghiacchio commented but Melone didn’t answer. He simply got up and thanked him again. He would walk the rest of the way- which wasn’t far.

Melone bought a handful of Marigolds from the flower vendor on his way and continued to move through the gates- meandering through as he racked his brain as to where they were buried. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t care, it just hurt too much to think about often enough to remember. When he eventually found the white marble mausoleum he stepped in and found the two plaques on the wall where he inserted the flowers into their designated holdings. Bianca Regio and Vita Regio. 

Six years ago, shortly after he graduated his first-year medical school, he had gotten some news from his girlfriend Bianca- she was pregnant with his baby. He supposed normal students would have seen their whole lives doomed but the joy he felt overwhelmed his worry surrounding finances to take care of the child. It was most definitely not his plan, but he didn’t care. He felt so hopeful for the kid’s sake- a prospect he looked back at and cringed at his own desperation to give something he never had. He and his girlfriend loved each other. Even thinking on that phrase made his heart ache. She loved him. He loved her. They were going to start a loving family together. He could give them what he never had. It only occurred to him later on how contradicting that was but at the time, ignorance was bliss.

It didn’t last long of course- six months after Bianca told him she went into premature labour and then shortly after got a blood clot in her portal vein. Vita was born 3 months too early and was already in intensive care within hours of her birth and Bianca was getting weaker by the minute. The panic and desperation set into Melone the second she was moved into the ICU with no prospect of getting better.  Despite severing ties with his parents Melone knew where his bread was buttered. A broke medical student couldn’t wish to pay the medical bills Bianca was tallying up in the hospital.  He didn’t even think twice to call his father and admit his defeat. 

What his father told him would have shocked anyone else in this world- to hear your father say. “The capo that runs this town is at the church in Venicio- confession ends in an hour.” It suddenly made sense how his father could always afford the expensive cars or the expensive furniture in their home despite being a lowly state attorney while his mother worked as his assistant.

Melone took a cab as close as close to the church as he dared- true to his father warning-and ran to the find the man who could help him.

“Signore, I beg you. My love and our child are in danger.” He had begged as he dropped to his knees in front of the man. “I sell myself to you, my future, my life. It’s all yours if you would just lend me for the medical bills now.” 

The capo ran a hand over Melone’s tear-streaked face, pinching his chin between his thumb and forefinger. Melone was made to gaze up at him. The stern, unreadable expression made him tense up in fear of accidentally disrespecting him. But the capo turned Melone’s head as if to observe him. “I’ll consider it.” He grumbled as he reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a thick wad of cash which Melone took in disbelief. “I expect you at Libechio’s tomorrow afternoon, sharp.”

And with that, he moved past Melone.

He didn’t regret it, he never would. It only hurt that at face value it was in vain. The money spoke louder than his begging ever would and as it turned out- whatever treatment they gave Bianca allowed her to be moved back into a regular hospital room. He spoke to Bianca the very morning he was due at Libeccio’s- feeling hopeful that she’d recover. Even the capo took pity on him, saying he’d have handed him to a pimp that day if it weren’t for the news of Bianca’s position. At the time, Melone had no idea what the capo had meant- not truly. He thought the capo had learned more about him- about Biacna’s pre-term labour and her sudden illness but he understands now that they are usually not that giving.

Instead, Melone got an alternative deal. Melone would finish his medical studies full term on the capo’s good graces to fulfill the need for a medic in the mafia before he would be officially initiated.  since he lost Lucy and their unborn child in the same night.

The expensive treatment Melone had paid for gave Melome a solid two days before he had to give a painful, final goodbye to both Bianca and his daughter. The baby’s heartbeat was lost two hours prior to Bianca’s death. He had begged, pleaded for her to hold on just a bit longer but with tear-rimmed he said his final goodbye, grasping onto her like she was his lifeline. He didn’t let go of her until they escorted him out of the room- by then her hand had lost all its warmth.

Outside of the hospital he came face to face with Bianca’s family- having to explain to her parents what had happened to her. Standing in front of them was probably the heaviest thing he had been forced to do. Suddenly all the insecurities his parents ever made him believe were proved right. He wasn’t enough to take care of Bianca. He wasn’t enough to take care of Vita. He wasn’t enough to take care of himself. He wasn’t smart enough to have come up with a plan without his father’s help. He wasn’t smart enough to understand that he’d never be able to live the life he so desperately craved. 

After that he had to go home and clear away all her books and research she had left on his desk, the plans he had for the nursery, the applications for a home loan and eventually even the ring he wanted to propose to her with was pawned- anything to try and rid himself of any reminder of his failure. To forget the pain of losing all he had hoped for in one night.

“Stefan.” A voice called beside him.

“Mrs Regio.” He turned to Bianca’s mother who held a bundle of flowers in her hand. “You look well.”

“As do you, Mrs Regio.” He didn’t say anything else, simply handing over the envelope of cash he owed her family. 

Bianca and Melone turned out to have more in common than they truly knew. Bianca ran away from home when she found out her parents were involved in organized crime and Melone ran away only to find out his family did the same. Because the money Melone borrowed from the capo went towards Bianca’s treatment- it was her parents who let her slip away from their care and they therefor had to take on the debt Melone had made. He refused to let Bianca’s parents think lowly of him so that brought him here, paying off a year’s worth of debt every year he met with Mrs Regio. 

He turned to look at Bianca’s plaque one more, praying that she could forgive him for failing her and continuing to fail her as he continued to live as he did. His sobriety was thrown out the window the day he came home from her funeral. He kept up his promise of finishing his degree on whatever he felt like using until he had to be initiated- then he had to sober up just enough to do his job in the mafia. 

BabyFace came to be and so did his most lecherous self- which made eventually stop seeing victims and mothers as people but as faceless bodies. But when he woke up after a high of a kill all he could ask was: 

Was that all he was worth? Was that what his soul was made of? An intense hunger for still wanting to find the perfect mother, be a perfect father and create the perfect baby? Now thriving on make others understand how it feels to be deconstructed until they’re nothing- just as he had for so many years? Was this trauma always going to taunt him? Was he always going to be reminded of his insecurity within himself?

At first the stand seemed useless until he tried using his stand on a mission to take out a bastard who was behind on rent money. It was then that he realized it was better for murder than it was at helping him achieve the dream that haunted him.

“It wasn’t your fault, Stefan. You did more than we could.” 

“Not enough.”

The two stepped out of the mausoleum, closing the door behind them. “You’re a good man, Stefan.” Was the last thing Bianca’s mother told him before turning and walking away. 

Melone shook his head as he started walking back to the entrance of the graveyard.

“I never was, Mrs Regio.”

The second he got back into the car with Ghiacchio, he popped a pill and asked to wait a few minutes so he could take a smoke break and call an old friend of his…

“Yeah I don’t care who, just make sure she’s not new.”

[despair-tummy]

Wrote some milky Byakuy.a Tog.ami

[[MORE]]

Being locked in Hope’s Peak Academy for so long it was only natural they started to grow closer, forming platonic and romantic relationships that overcame whatever motive the mastermind threw at them. Course, when you have healthy people together it’s only natural that physical relations happened as well.

And of course, being as young as they were, their fertility was at its prime and it wasn’t exactly like anyone was going to go ask Monokuma for birth control. So it was hardly surprising that one of them finally fell pregnant, what was rather ironic was it was Sakura, who had warned them time and time again for everyone to be careful whenever they decided to brag about a rendezvous with their romantic partner.

Though it wasn’t like anyone dared to point that out considering she was undoubtedly one of the strongest among them, and considering the father was the most feared biker gang leader in Japan, so everyone held their tongue about the irony.

Now, even with them refusing the motives Monokuma threw at them to try and tempt them to commit murder they still sought a way out of the school daily. Though some were better about the current circumstances than others.

It was hardly a surprise that it was Byakuya who was less than happy that Sakura ‘couldn’t pull her own weight’ as he had bluntly put it. Showing little regard to all the side effects that came along with pregnancy, insisting she was just as capable as before. Had it not been for Sakura insisting for Mondo to pay no mind to him, there might have finally been a murder.

Months passed and she was fortunate enough to deliver a healthy little girl, but even then Byakuya still expected her to be just as capable as the others when searching for an exit shortly after delivery. And of course, there were times when they weren’t searching for a way out he didn’t hold back his comments.

Now wasn’t any different, it was a regular breakfast at the dining hall for everyone. While labour and delivery had gone smoothly, Sakura was still going through the process of recovering and on top of that, both she and Mondo were tired from being first-time parents.

Breakfast was going as smoothly as it usually did, Byakuya’s distaste for everyone normally was kept quiet as long as no one bothered him they wouldn’t be subjected to any comments. But today he couldn’t hold his tongue, had he did that the unfortunate and embarrassing situation he would find himself in next probably would have been avoided.

“Must you do that here?” he said the second Sakura started to nurse once her daughter became in need of food.

“Is there a problem?” Sakura answered, lifting her gaze from the infant to him.

“It’s indecent.”

“It’s natural.”

“At least have the decency to cover up instead of exposing yourself,” he argued lightly, sipping his coffee.

“Considering we’re in the presence of a mechanical bear attempting to get us to murder each other, a serial killer with a fetish for murdering young men, Toko and Hifumi, I hardly see why nursing of all things is something that disgusts you.” Celestia pointed out.

“I hardly see why she can’t do that privately.” he huffed.

“If you got a problem with my girlfriend you got a problem with me,” Mondo warned through gritted teeth, about to get up from his seat until Sakura placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t,“ she warned. “I won’t let our daughter be exposed to senseless violence. If it bothers him that much he is free to leave.”

“Ah, finally someone suggests something sensible,” Byakuya said, getting up from his seat. “I lost my appetite anyway,” he spoke, abandoning his breakfast and leaving the dining hall.

The library seemed the ideal place, hardly anyone went there unless it was Kiyotaka grabbing some textbooks to study or Toko following him and filling up the library with her foul order. But this morning it seemed he had the library to himself with everyone still eating breakfast, he could just read and enjoy a hot drink to pass the time.

Byakuya swore under his breath, remembering he had left his coffee alongside his abandoned breakfast. Not wanting to go through the hassle of making another mug, he decided to return to the dining hall. After all, his original cup should still be a sufficient temperature for him to drink.

Byakuya felt their collective and judgmental stares as he returned, but as usual, he couldn’t care less. They were merely plebeians, beneath him in every way imaginable. He retrieved his cup of coffee and left, returning once again to the library, safely away from those clods.

He settled himself into his usual spot in the library, armed with a book and a cup of coffee he began to read.

It was when he was a fourth into the book he was reading and finished off the rest of his coffee, which was when the odd sensation overwhelmed him.

At first, it was mild, just a small tingly sensation in his chest. Nothing that seemed alarming at the moment, but then the sensation grew. Going to a tingly feeling to pressure, a lot of it. He doubled over in discomfort, both hands clutching his chest.

What was this!? Heart palpitations? No, it felt like it was in his pectorals as opposed to where his heart was. He cupped both of them and Byakuya’s vibrant blue eyes widen as he felt both spots begin to expand.

“Wha-what is this!?”

Byakuya was known for his put together yet cold demeanour, but if someone were to walk in on him now they would find all that was thrown out the window and in its place was a stuttering and panicking mess of a man.

By now Byakuya was cupping his pecs as they grew, as they rounded out the realization hit him... he was developing breasts. But how!? To his knowledge, he didn’t have a medical condition like gynecomastia, and even if he did it was impossible for such a condition to manifest instantly.

But it appeared all the intellect Byakuya possessed couldn’t come up with a feasible explanation as to why this was happening to him. He stifled a moan as his breasts grew, pushing up tightly against the fabric of his shirt. It wasn’t painful, but there was so much pressure. Byakuya bit into his lower lip to avoid crying out from the sensation. Unlike the dorms, the library wasn’t soundproof, and he refused to give anyone a reason to rush into the library and see him in such a state of distress.

He flinched as a button flew off from his white dress shirt, shortly followed by a second one. Revealing a copious amount of soft and pillowy cleavage that rivalled Aoi in terms of size.

It was then finally the growth had stopped, but even then his newly developed breasts felt sore and tender to the touch. Byakuya’s heart kept racing, his face a shade of vibrant red as he stared down at the two soft masses. How...how did this happen!? There was nothing medically wrong with him that came to mind that would inflict such a transformation on him...unless this was inflicted by someone else.

His eyes glanced at his empty cup of coffee. Of course! How could he be so foolish? He abandoned his drink and left it out in the open, anyone could have slipped him something!

“Those useless little-“ he paused, feeling something wet and warm.

He blinked, once again looking down at himself in disbelief. Seeing two damp spots right where his newly developed breasts were. Was he... lactating? His face flushed an even brighter shade of red before his hands curled into fists.

He immediately marched off, though with the amount of milk brewing in his chest and the lack of any proper support made this an uncomfortable task. Byakuya flinched as the milk sloshed in his chest at the slightest movement, every bounce just caused the milk to leak from his nipples.

“For the love of...,” he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest in hopes that keeping them still would ease some of the discomfort.

With his bust somewhat under control, Byakuya returned back to the dining hall.

“Alright, who did it!?” he demanded, glaring at those in the dining hall.

“What the hell happened to you?” Leon questioned the moment Byakuya lowered his arms, revealing his bust.

“Whoa, you could make a fortune with those things!” Yasuhiro laughed.

Byakuya gritted his teeth, glaring at those who didn’t leave the dining hall. His eyes laid upon Mondo, who sat there with a smug grin on his face.

“You!” Byakuya accused, pointing a finger at Mondo. “Explain yourself at once!”

“Well, what can I say?” he smirked. “You don’t fuck with my girls.”

“There’s...you...” Byakuya stuttered, trying to ignore the ache in his breasts. “There’s no way you alone would be smart enough to pull something like this off!”

“Kyoko might have mentioned something in the chem lab.” he shrugged.

“You...you...” never in Byakuya’s life did he ever think that mere commoners would be able to inflict such humiliation upon him. Of course, it had to be Kyoko to assist the biker buffoon, she was one of the few (if not the only) one besides himself to possess some intellect.

“Uhh... Byakuya?” Yasuhiro interrupted. “You’re leaking.”

He blinked and looked down at his bosom, sure enough, the milk-soaked spots on his shirt were growing. His face turned beet red and he immediately turned around and marched off. Byakuya’s breasts bounce from the brisk pace he walked, he flinched in discomfort. Once again he folded his arms against his chest for support and fled the dining hall and into the privacy of his dorm room.

By the time Byakuya returned to his dorm, his poor dress shirt was soaked from all the leakage.

“What a mess, disgraceful,” Byakuya muttered under his breath.

To be the head of the Togami empire and in such a state.... if this wasn’t temporary he would have to find the antidote, assuming Kyoko and Mondo didn’t expect him to get on his knees and beg. But Mondo was with Sakura and it would be out of character for her to let his suffering go on, she could be reasoned with if push comes to shove.

But for now that all could wait, in the meantime he needed to tidy up and try to look presentable during this predicament. Byakuya took off his blazer and hung it on a chair, next he unbutton his wet dress shirt. Hmp, once they got out of this school he would most certainly be sending the dry cleaner bill to those two plebeians! Forcing them into unimaginable debt for this little stunt seemed like the ideal form of payback until he could come up with something harsher.

He peeled the dress shirt off his leaking chest, he suppressed a shudder upon realizing just how sticky with milk he was. His nipples were red and puffy, leaking with an almost translucent white liquid.

Byakuya frowned, both his breasts were swollen, sore and sagging with copious amounts of breastmilk. He cupped them both again, hoping to better inspect his current predicament and find a way to undo it sooner rather than later. He could only imagine the vulgar comments that would come from Hifumi, Toko and Syo if they caught him like this. He shuddered at the thought, the two (or three of you count Toko’s murderous split personality, Syo) were already bothersome perverts, but if they saw him leaking breastmilk everywhere? He didn’t even want to think about it!

It was then he felt something lukewarm and wet on his hands. He looked down and saw his breast were leaking, not like little droplets. This was much more akin to a miniature steady stream.

Now, normally Byakuya prided himself on being among the most talented when it came to keen intellect and being put on the spot. It took a lot to leave him a panicking mess, and sudden breast development followed by messy leaking proved to be it.

He frantically tried to rack up his brain for ideas, trying to come up with something to avoid making a bigger mess. Milk leaked out from his swollen nipples and onto the floor, with every second he wasted panicking.

“The bathroom!” he cried aloud to himself, the drain in the shower would be perfect!

He rushed to the bathroom, remember to support his bust this time to avoid any painful bouncing. The second he stepped inside he shut the door and sighed in relief. Letting the milk leak freely from his bosom.

There, that would help avoid any more messes. Byakuya’s blue eyes watched intently as the fluid leaked from his nipples, down his soft breasts and down onto the floor and into the shower drain. How long would it take until he managed to drain a decent amount? He refused to have to stay and wait until the milk stopped dripping from his chest when he could be contributing to finding a way out of this cursed school.

What if he could coax some out faster? It seemed like a logical solution and a favourable one as opposed to waiting around. But what wasn’t favourable was how he would have to do so.

Byakuya brought his slender finger to his darken nipple, from there he brushed a thumb against it, coaxing out more milk. His lips formed a straight line throughout the whole ordeal, this just made him feel like a dairy cow as opposed to a man with status, power, intellect and wealth. But it got the job done, he couldn’t complain there.

But even he wasn’t satisfied with his current solution, it still meant this would be far too time-consuming for his standards. But what else could he do?

His teeth gently sunk into his lower lip, there was one more thing he could try... even if it would make him look even less like a dignified heir.

He firmly cupped his left breast, getting a good grip on it before hefting it up and guiding his nipple into his mouth and began to suckle. Right away he was met with a somewhat sweet taste of the milk.

It didn’t taste as disgusting as he thought it would be, but as he continued to nurse from his own breast a new problem arose. What to do with the mouthful of milk he was carrying? Spitting it out and letting it travel down the drain was one idea, but once again it was messy and the act of spitting was disgusting. But what else could he do?

What if he swallowed it? The idea seemed disgusting at first, but the taste wasn’t repulsive. Dare to say... Byakuya liked it. The very thought made him mentally cringe, but the delicious taste was outweighing the weirdness. So without much choice and the pros outweighing the cons, he gulped down his breastmilk.

The second the fluid travelled down his gullet and settled in his stomach he immediately wasted no time following that by a second swallow, a third, fourth and so on and so on.

It quickly became less of a chore to do and more of a pleasurable experience, as much as he hated to admit it. A final milky mouthful and he eventually detached, taking a moment to breathe.

There, that seemed to ease up the leakage... in his left breast at least. The right one was still a mess, giving him little choice but to tend to that one as well. Not that Byakuya could complain, truthfully even with the vast amount of liquid he drank, Byakuya felt like he could stomach some more.

After gently letting go of his left breast, he carefully lifted the other one up to his mouth, latching on he began to suckle again.

Just like before, his tastebuds were met with the creamy fluid that he guzzled down with ease.

Byakuya was beyond pleased with his decision to go into the safety of his dorm’s bathroom, there were no cameras and he could only imagine just how humorous the mastermind would have found this if they saw him of all people doing such a thing.

But each mouthful he swallowed helped erased the thought of even more potential embarrassment. It was when Byakuya was full he finally removed his mouth, taking a second to breathe before licking a smear of milk off his lips.

“That...wasn’t completely repulsive.” that was about as far as he would go when it came to verbally admitting that he enjoyed the taste even if mentally his mind was eagerly looking forward to the next time his chest needed draining. “Perhaps this will be easier to deal with then I thought.”

And maybe he could find whatever he was given in the chem lab when the first dose wore off or when he needed to eventually take the antidote.

[vaguewrites]

The Morning After

I wrote a sequel to my Watch Dogs fic because I’m a horrible monster who can’t be stopped. Lots of swearing, mentions of smut and Aiden/Defalt ahead.

An alarm jolts him awake, the shrill buzzing right in his ears. For a few seconds Defalt doesn’t know where he is. He’s tangled up in sheets that aren’t his, there’s none of his posters or monitors on the walls and where there should be his closet there’s a door that leads into a bathroom. He sits up and pain shoots up his back and he grunts, falling back against the bed. There’s warmth next to him. A figure that groans and rolls over to grab the buzzing thing, a phone, and shuts off the alarm before tossing it aside. It’s Pearce.

He’s naked next to Pearce, in Pearce’s bed, in that shitty motel Pearce likes to hang out in, in Pearce’s bed. Because they fucked. First in Defalt’s hideout and then here, in a proper bed with pillows for Defalt to shove his face into to hide his own stupid high pitched moans. No wonder Defalt can’t feel his own fucking ass.

“Morning,” Pearce says, rubbing at his eyes, and Defalt doesn’t know why he’s bothering to make small talk. Isn’t this where one of them has to get up and get the fuck out? And by one of them, he means himself since this isn’t his place. Where are his clothes anyway?

“Hey,” he replies, and his voice is hoarse and raspy. Probably because he’d sucked Pearce off before crying on his dick like one of those twinks from the bad pornos. “What time is it?”

“Eight.”

Defalt groans. “Jesus fucking Christ, Pearce, why the fuck did you set your alarm that early?”

Pearce chuckles. It’s almost weird hearing him laugh. He almost doesn’t seem like the kind who does. Defalt has to look at him to make sure it is actually him and not some weird body double. He’s stretched out on the bed, one arm tucked under his pillow, staring up at the ceiling fan. He’s a hell of a lot more muscular than Defalt expected, but it’s not the kind you build up in a gym, but the kind you get from a lot of physical labour. Such as running around Chicago, climbing buildings and fucking up other people’s shit. Pearce is sturdy, thick and he’s got a light dusting of hair on his chest and stomach. There are scars too, some look like they came from bullets, some are pale and silvery from age and others pink and raw, probably a few weeks old. Defalt’s hands itch to touch him, to wander over his bulky frame and feel along each scar and hard curve of muscle. But he doesn’t.

“I didn’t think I was going to be up all night,” Pearce says. He throws Defalt a look. Defalt would almost call it mischievous but that doesn’t feel like the right word for Pearce. “You feeling okay?”

Defalt snorts. “You’re not that fucking big Pearce.”

“Not what you said last night.”

Defalt swats at him and Pearce catches his wrist. He thinks he’s just going to drop it but then Pearce pulls his hand in and kisses his knuckles. Defalt stills as he watches him. Pearce’s lips are soft and plump and his stubble scrapes his skin but Defalt kinda likes it this way. “What’re you doing?” He asks when he finally gets his voice to work. It feels like he’s swallowed cotton.

Pearce raises a brow. “Knitting. What does it look like?”

“Don’t you want me gone?” Defalt says before he can stop himself.

“Do you want to leave?” Pearce challenges him, then drops his hand and Defalt suddenly feels cold. He doesn’t know what to say to that. Does he want to leave? Normally when he hooks up with guys it’s always a comfy no strings attached deal where they both know it’s just a quick fuck and nothing more. He normally doesn’t sleep over, or let them sleep over. One of them is always gone after it’s over. With Pearce though, it’s different. He doesn’t know how or why it just is. Defalt could very easily just get up now and throw on his clothes and fuck off but he doesn’t. He stays in the bed, curled next to Pearce and chances throwing his arm over the man’s chest. Pearce doesn’t hesitate to pull him in, his rough, calloused hands smoothing over Defalt’s back.

“No,” Defalt says, because he feels he should probably say something.

Aiden kisses the side of his forehead. “Then don’t.”

Defalt rests his head in the crook of Aiden’s neck. He’s so warm it’s almost unreal, like a human furnace. Aiden holds him, rubbing his back until Defalt’s eyes grow heavy and he drifts back into sleep.

The next time he wakes up there’s no harsh ringing in his ears, but there’s also no Aiden in the bed with him. He sits up, winces, then glances down at a messily scrawled note left beside him.

“Sorry, T-Bone had a job, lunch later?”

Fucking T-Bone, Defalt thinks, tossing the note aside and gets up for a shower. He feels better after washing, then notices the amount of bruises and bite marks Aiden left on him, the bitch. The biggest one is on his neck. A deep purple colour that’s not gonna fade for a while. Defalt presses it and hisses as it stings a little. His shirt and hoodie don’t cover it but, hell, Clara and T-Bone are going to figure out they’re fucking eventually so there’s no point hiding it. And since Defalt doesn’t exactly want to spend the rest of the day cooped up in Aiden’s shitty motel room he decides he may as well head to their bunker.

That’s where he finds Clara, hunched over her laptop and typing away. She only spares him a glance, her perfectly drawn on eyebrow raised at his disheveled appearance.

“You look like shit,” she says, “I was trying to get through to you last night but you weren’t answering.”

“Yeah,” Defalt tries to hide his limp as he moves to sit beside her on one of the spare chairs. “Had stuff to do. Working on the next album. I’m behind as it is.”

Which is kinda true. That was what he was doing before Aiden railed him against his desk.

“You know if you’re struggling with work stuff you can take a back seat. I don’t think anyone will mind. T-Bone definitely won’t say shit.”

“Ah, I’m not worried about whatever the fuck T-Bone says,” Defalt leans back in the chair, one leg thrown over the other despite the ache in his lower back. “Where’s he at anyway?”

“The Loop. He and Aiden are following a lead. Though I think there’s more to it. T-Bone didn’t seem all that thrilled with Aiden this morning but I don’t know why. Which is weird because he adores Aiden.”

She doesn’t get to say anything more as the door slides open and Aiden and T-Bone step through. T-Bone looks as though he’s biting his tongue, his brows are furrowed but when he meets Defalt’s eyes he quickly looks away. That’s not unusual. He doesn’t meet his eyes often, even now when they’re supposed to be over the past. Well, over it is a kinda loose term. They got drunk together, Defalt screamed at him about his brother and how T-Bone was a fucking murderer and then they ugly cried in each other’s arms while T-Bone said he was sorry over and over. It’s obviously not fixed everything right away but it’s something, a start at healing. They’re not fighting as often at least.

“Jay, I need you,” Aiden says, hands shoved in pockets and voice gruff. It’s a little surreal seeing him being his regular stand-offish asshole self again after this morning, but Defalt shakes it off. They’re meant to be more “professional” now anyway.

“Alright. Text you later Clara,” Defalt says as he stands and Clara offers him a half wave. T-Bone watches as they leave and Defalt gives him an odd look because he can practically feel the tension rolling from him in waves. What kind of bitch fit did he and Aiden have?

He doesn’t find out until they’re halfway to the Mad Mile.

“He says I’m going to drag you down with me,” Aiden says. He’s gripping the steering wheel hard enough his knuckles are white.

Defalt frowns. “Do you care?”

“Yeah.”

Defalt doesn’t know what to say to that. He squirms in his seat, watching the buildings speed past. Something ugly and cold is curling in his chest. “So… This is a break up? Could’ve just said so before we got in the car.”

“I’m better at talking when I’m focused on something else,” Aiden says, “But if you want to get out I’ll stop us somewhere.”

“So you do want to break up,” Defalt grits his jaw. He’s not sure why he cares so much. He rests his head on his hand and stares out the window and tries not to think about the heat behind his eyes that threaten to spill over.

“I want to know what you want. I asked you this morning if you wanted to leave and you said no. I’m giving you that option again. I’m not the easiest guy to get along with, I know, and I’m definitely not the easiest to date. But I like you a lot, have for a while, and I’d like to try and make it work. I just don’t want you to feel like you’re stuck with me.”

“Stuck with you?”

“He brought up our age difference as well. How you might not want to settle down at all and I’m forcing you into it. How I’ll expect too much of you too soon. I don’t want to do that, Jay.”

“Sounds like you’re letting him do all the talking for me,” Defalt says.

“That’s why I’m talking to you now. What do you want?”

Defalt shifts again. What the hell does he want? He’d spent years focusing on his music and computers because it was what he was good at. He didn’t plan to make a career out of it, it just happened. He thought he wanted to kill T-Bone, wanted to make him suffer like he had. Only it turned out T-Bone had been living his own personal hell for years. So, in the end vengeance wouldn’t do jack shit. When it comes to dating, he was never with anyone for too long. He had a lot of demons and his boyfriends never had a lot of patience for it. Usually he was the one dumped. When he got famous for his music he couldn’t make time to date so he just hooked up with random guys when he could. But now… Hell, he still doesn’t fucking know. He’s liked Pearce too, he just never assumed the guy was into other guys. Last night was a huge fucking surprise.

“You,” he blurts out, and he almost misses the twitch of Aiden’s lips, “I mean, I’m willing to give this a shot if you are. Dating I mean.”

Aiden glances at him, deep green eyes full of so much fondness and Defalt’s not used to getting a look like that from anyone.

“Yeah. I can give it a shot,” Aiden says. “So long as you promise not to punch T-Bone when we get back.”

Defalt scoffs and folds his arms over his chest. “How’d he find out anyway?”

“He asked where you were because Clara couldn’t get a hold of you. I said you were with me.”

“Ah.”

The rest of the drive is in silence until they pull up to a bar. Defalt doesn’t get why they’re here until he sees Aiden looking at him expectantly and then he remembers the note.

“Oh, you lied about a job just to get me out for a date, Pearce?” Defalt can’t help the twitch of his lips.

“Technically I didn’t lie. I never said what I needed you for,” Aiden replies.

“Smart ass.”

“Thanks.”

Yeah, Defalt never thought much about what he wanted from life, other than causing another man pain. It’s almost bizarre to think how empty he’s always been, and just either never noticed or got too used to it. It feels like he’s woken up from some bad dream, or snapped back into reality after being trapped in his own head for so long. He’d thought he'd been living before, but now he realises he was just going through the motions, functioning but not attached to anything. It’s a stark contrast to now, where he feels so at home with Aiden, Clara and, fuck, even T-Bone, and he thinks about stuff outside of work and hacking and death. He doesn’t feel like himself anymore but maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe he had to be broken before he could fix himself back together. Maybe, as sappy as it sounds, Aiden’s the missing piece he needed.

[scripttorture]

I'm currently writing a character around the age of 13, who has been in solitary confinement since the age of 9, they were locked away by someone they saw as an older sibling figure (and were previously abused, physically and emotionally, between the ages of 5/6-9) by this person. They were taken out for “missions” (which involved having to hurt/kill people) by other people they considered their friends. They had previously existing mental health issues and were notably viewed as sadistic- (1-?)

by the people around them. Prior to being in the company of their abuser they were abused by their parents / people at a hospital they were sent to. During their time in confinement they had almost no contact with anyone for the first year (other than a guard sliding meals into their room), and then later contact every three months with one of their other abusers, then eventually contact to some of the people who took them out for missions. Otherwise they have had no contact with people (2/?)around their age, and have not had contact with anyone around their age since they were three. They had no way to see the outside world, and in their cell they only had very dim light. Later on they are severely traumatized by two people who torture them to use their fantasy-esque hallucination powers against a large amount of people. They hate this ability very much and really wish not to have it. I’m really sorry if this question makes you uncomfy or if it’s too long or specific,, (¾)but are there any tips you can give me for this character and their reactions to what they have been through? I really want to portray them in a more varied light even though they have both been through a lot of horrible things and done a lot of horrible things (hurting people willingly n such),,, I’m sorry if it comes off as insensitive as rude.

-

It’s not rude or too long or specific. And it takes quite a bit to make me uncomfortable. You are fine Anon. :)

 But this scenario isn’t realistic. I’m going to talk about what you’ve got wrong here, but try not to beat yourself up about it. I’m here because it’s difficult to find this information and a lot of people make these mistakes.

 First off if you’re using torture to ‘force’ a character to be violent then you’re buying into two very common apologist tropes: the idea that torture makes survivors obedient and the idea that it makes survivors violent/dangerous. These are not true. And they are used to justify barring real survivors from treatment and support.

 You can read about commonly used apologist tropes here.

 You’re massively underestimating the damage caused by solitary confinement, especially to children this young.

 For reference the ‘safe’ period of solitary confinement for adults is thought to be a week.

 You may want to have a look at the masterpost on solitary confinement, here.

 I’m not sure a child of nine would survive four years in solitary confinement. Some adults don’t and all the evidence we have suggests solitary is much more dangerous for children then adults.

 If they did survive they’d be even less use on violent missions then an ordinary child. Their physical and mental development would be severely impaired. They’d probably be able to talk but- they’d appear visibly mentally ill and would probably not be able to blend in around other people in any way.

 They’d be likely to have obvious, severe panic attacks and meltdowns when taken outside. They might not be able to walk down a normal street. They could also have pretty bad eye sight due to the dim lighting in their cell.

 Depending on how some of their symptoms manifest they could easily have problems related to starvation and sleep deprivation as well. At this sort of age that means a permanent drop in intellectual and physical ability/potential. It means an individual who is weaker, less intelligent, more prone to illness and has a slower reaction time. They also tend to have a shorter overall life.

 Insomnia is a common symptom of trauma generally. Depression, which is another common symptom, can cause nausea and sometimes vomiting. Over a long period of time that can mean a character isn’t eating enough and over this age range that is especially dangerous.

 You can find the masterpost on sleep deprivation here. And the masterpost on starvation here.

 This is without factoring in the other abuse this character is suffering throughout their childhood.

 Solitary confinement makes all tested mental health problems worse (and oh boy we have tested a lot of them thanks to the American prison system).

 The kind of familial abuse you’re describing makes it likely that the character would already have several severe mental health conditions before being put in solitary confinement.

 Keep in mind that the data set for children is almost entirely older then the character you’re writing (majority 15-18, I am aware of one 12 year old in the data sets I’ve seen). The trend suggests the effect is worse the younger the child. So I may be underestimating the damage.

 Honestly? Factoring all of it in I’m not sure a child this young would survive six months. Solitary confinement is dangerous and it’s especially dangerous for children.

 These are common mistakes. I run this blog because I know it’s really easy for authors to make these mistakes. Especially with ‘clean’ tortures like solitary confinement.

 So let’s move on from what’s wrong to ways you can try and fix it.

 Get rid of any suggestion that torture or abuse ‘made’ this character dangerous or bad.

 If you want the character to comply with their abusers think about why they might choose to do that, rather then assuming they will be forced to by pain. Provide a clear reason for compliance.

 Take a look at this ask which talks about slavery and compliance to get an idea of why a character might choose to comply and how they might resist.

 I think you need to massively scale back the abuse this character suffers. I think you’d be better off removing the physical abuse, neglect/poor living conditions and reducing solitary confinement to a maximum of a month.

 If you want to you could split the incidences of solitary confinement up. So for instance the character might be confined for a week at a stretch, but this might happen every two or three months. In an adult I don’t think this would necessarily cause permanent damage (although it would cause pain and distress). However since solitary has a bigger effect on children I think this would probably have a lasting effect on a young child.

 That’s if you’re sure you want to use solitary confinement. I think you need to decide whether solitary confinement or these successful violent missions are more important to the story. I don’t think you can have both unless you’re prepared to age the character up by about a decade. (Even then I would consider it extremely unlikely: trauma survivors do not make good soldiers).

 I can not tell you what the most important aspect of this story is. That decision is yours.

 But I don’t think solitary confinement in a child this young is compatible with learning or success in anything but the most basic tasks (ie menial labour, breaking rocks, making bricks etc). The sheer scale of health problems, mental and physical, would get in the way.

 Having the character fail, or be unable to do something, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. From what you’ve said I get the impression that what this character actually does isn’t necessarily the focus so much as what they feel they’re to blame for. And what other people blame them for.

 So if the character is sent ‘on missions’ which they can’t successfully complete, that would be possible. And I think that it could feed in to this idea of the character carrying a lot of guilt and self-blame.

 That could also fit very well with realistic memory problems as a long term symptom of solitary. I have a masterpost on that here.

 Inaccurate memories are very common in torture survivors. Usually this means that the basic details are correct but a lot of the other details of the memory are wrong. So for instance if a survivor says they remember being beaten that probably happened. But they may be wrong about the timing of the attack, the lay out of the room, the clothes the attacker was wearing and a dozen other things.

 Your character could remember being sent on these missions with other people, being told to attack people and honestly trying to do it. But they might be wrong about who actually killed the target and how useful they actually were on the mission.

 I think they’d be especially likely to over-estimate how dangerous they are if the people around them keep telling them they’re dangerous, violent etc.

 It’s possible to write that sort of scenario without falling into tropes about torture giving torturers complete control over their victims. Or suggesting that abuse has made torture survivors dangerous.

 But honestly? That’s hard.

 I think the better options (especially if you’re just starting and not confident writing survivors) are to either remove all kinds of physical abuse/neglect, keeping the missions and emotional manipulation/abuse or to remove the missions and keep a very scaled down version of the physical abuse/neglect.

 The masterpost on solitary, starvation and sleep deprivation linked above and the sources in those posts should help you if you feel the abuse is the more important part of the story.

 Remember that children are more vulnerable to the effects of solitary confinement and starvation, both have a greater negative effect at younger ages. Remember that my estimates and lists of effects assume the character is an adult.

 Remember that while long term psychological symptoms are unpredictable (making it perfectly fine for authors to pick and choose the psychological symptoms they want to write) the physical effects of starvation and lack of sleep are not unpredictable. If you want to commit to writing this sort of torture then you are committing to the character suffering from those physical effects. At this age range that means lifelong effects ranging from a higher cancer risk to stunted growth and weaker bones.

 For the other option it’s a lot simpler: show how awful emotional abuse can be.

 You’re talking about a nine year old child. Someone who is almost entirely dependant on the adults around them.

 Without other input if those people tell this child they are dangerous, they are bad the child will probably believe it. If they tell the child the only ‘good’ and valuable thing they can do, to please the adults, is these dangerous missions, then the child will probably do their best to complete these missions.

 A child who is raised to believe that no one outside their familial circle could ever love them is unlikely to try and leave. In fact they’d probably bend over backwards to stay in the family and prove their worth. Even though the environment is toxic. Even though that love is conditional and comes with a high price.

 We value our social circles incredibly highly. It takes a lot to make us go against them or leave them. Physical abuse and neglect is one of the things that can drive us to leave.

 I feel like one of the problems here is a lack of confidence, or may be conviction on your part. I get the impression that you don’t feel entirely confident in your ability to show this character is suffering. So you’re compensating by piling more on to the character.

 In my experience that approach just doesn’t work. It’s understandable but you have better options.

 First off, read what survivors say about their experiences and their lives. You can find quotes from survivors of solitary confinement in this sourcebook. You can find accounts of emotional manipulation and abuse by looking up accounts from people raised in cults.

 Secondly practice. Write different scenarios. Experiment and give yourself permission to fail, that’s part of how we learn.

 Remember that it isn’t what happens to the characters that effects readers. It is your words. It really is all in how you write.

 A good writer can make the loss of a sock emotional and a bad writer can make the loss of a limb seem dull.

 I hope that helps. :)

Availableon Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[vroenis]

Mood Dependence

The first tag I drop on the entry is of-course Kentucky Route Zero.

I forget whether I’ve talked about this before so here we are talking about it again some more. While I was playing KRZ and occasionally posting about it on social media, among others, two particular friends responded to me about it and we engaged, having some good discussions on and off. I suggested that playing the game might be highly mood dependent, but that for me engaging in most art is mood dependent, the only thing that varies is to what degree. If I was still more of a wanker, I might suggest that the more artsy-fartsy a product is, the more mood dependent it is but that’s not the case. I very much have to be in the right frame of mind to engage with Marvel or Bravest Warriors as much as Gaspar Noé, it really does depend on the individual and what mood they’re most frequently in or find themselves in at the time.

I find it affects more than the consumption of and engagement with art, tho. I don’t know if it’s a bipolar thing or a human thing and I say that a lot; it affects my ability to write, create, engage with people - enact actions in the world. The only thing I have to brute-force my way thru is of-course my employment which raises particularly interesting capitalistic questions of societal structure. I’m not entirely here to smash the establishment tho - there are times where discipline is useful; on a base level, discipline and the ability to overcome how we feel assists us with survival and sure it’s disgusting to apply that to the nth degree entirely in the ultimate capitalist sense, but again on a base level, being able to hold down a job in an of itself isn’t necessarily evil. Before we go Burning Down The Corporations, I need to make careful distinctions between my mental states and my physical states, as a first example. Minds and bodies are complex systems and understanding them is my responsibility.

Nevertheless I can never stray too far from my iconoclastic nature and Art-capital-A is one of my most primary motivators. There is definitely plenty wrong in the world at large we have created over generations and the societal structures therein regarding how we understand people and psychology and I’m fairly certain we will never address it to our ultimate destruction, that is fairly observable, mundane, and an immense tragedy for literally billions of people who will luck out in the birth lottery or have already done so. Art is the only thing that from a pragmatic perspective is both meaningless and unnecessary and so becomes the most essential and important thing for humanity. We must inject the most meaning and emotion into it possible. It becomes charged with the most powerful intangible things we have; our emotions. This is why bad art must be celebrated and documented. Anger, frustration, humour is just as valuable as everything we think is noble.

It’s also why the struggle to create is very real and perhaps one of the greatest challenges. It’s probably why I pushed myself to write today. Usually I’m cautious about pushing myself to produce, and I want to again be very careful with the language I use being so capitalist, even if only by stating it. It’s hazardous discussing everything in terms of product - I know I mentioned in a previous entry and Capitalism tries to convince you that everything you create is a product and it has no value unless someone is buying it, so a reminder to myself and to you that it’s not what’s happening here. I could frame it as exercise, and I’m now thinking (typing? lol) aloud in that an exercise is effectively an investment - a preparation for ability, capability for the future and again it all sounds quite capitalist, doesn’t it? Do we always do things only with the hope of some kind of profit? A return on investment? Do we evaluate everything only if and when there is a return, at the valuation point, like a board game about speculative stocks? If the board game never concludes because of an unforeseen interruption, do we not name a winner and so the game and the stocks - the product and our labour - never had any value?

Do I write this to answer these questions, or only to ask them, and which has value?

All the philosophy majors will have a lot of angles on what has value or whether there’s any point to value at all as a frame which is great. Value as a phenomena is a whole Thing - we can discuss whether or not I have any intent to create or suggest Value capital V (that’s getting annoying, I know, so that will be the last time) but that will be fairly pointless.

(I made that; you can steal it).

Over the last few entries, I’ve not directly talked about the one monumental current event that’s dominated the attention of world at large. If you note the dates on these entries and you’re visiting from the future, you may have to look up what was happening around now if I haven’t mentioned it explicitly anywhere as I likely won’t. There was one vague reference to it in the Kaossilator post which is as close as I care to get. There are so many other things happening in our lives (J and mine) that I’d say were interruptions, but they’re not really - they’re just life, but they’re the daily challenges that make creating difficult.

It means coming here and writing weekly or bi-weekly, as is my intention, is a challenge. It means turning on all my gear and working on music is a huge challenge. It means watching films and sometimes even YouTube is a challenge. A lot of it it energy dependent, heaps of it is naturally time dependent, but for me a significant portion is mood dependent and my understanding of that is it’s more dimensional than just not feeling like it.

Over dinner a while ago, our family were discussing films released in 2019 and which was my favourite and honestly I think I got around to seeing one. I think the next most recent film I saw in the last 12 months was Hereditary which I enjoyed most, so if I see a film within 24 months of its release these days, I’m doing well. Mostly this is due to time and opportunity, but it’s mostly due to mood; I just don’t want to watch most films, even ones I’m interested in seeing and want to watch. 

Our hosts also asked us what we thought of the place as they’d just recently moved in and were still in the process of moving things around and my perspective was and is that I like subtle - and often not so subtle suggestions of separations of space for application. When I read, I read in specific places. When I create music, I only do it in the studio, tho there are exceptions when I take one or two smaller pieces of gear out of the room as that’s a ton of fun for a refreshing change. When I play games, it’s on the consoles down at the television, the same goes for when I watch films or shows - we don’t have more than one room with TVs in them, and while J can and does watch shows on her iPad in bed, it’s not something I can do. For me, I want a dedicated space in which I focus on film to engage with it.

This applies to the times when I create and engage with art, too, and I’ve mentioned before that there are even times when I do and don’t listen to certain albums or pieces of music. In this post-KRZ life I’m in, (need to change the name of this journal to Art Worth Dying For: or Life Post-Kentucky Route Zero), I’m trying to write these longer posts every Friday night after work, but it’s turning out to be either Saturday during the day, Saturday evening or on the Sunday. During the week I try to add something shorter, but I do want to maintain some semblance of regular discipline because writing is good for me, in particular in lieu of ceasing other online activities. I’ve found that engagement in general is low on other platforms, and while it does occur rarely and at a moderate level, it isn’t regular enough for my liking. Like many, I’ve taken a somewhat passive role on Instagram where the Stories are utilised to post temporary activity and engagement is higher, and on Facebook I respond to posts in the Akai Force group where necessary but only when relevant which isn’t often.

I’d rather come here and write endlessly and be orderly, in short and long-format text, and as expressed in my Instagram stories; even post images in a more static format that invites slower digestion and contemplation with a view to better interpolation of text and context of that text in relation to the images.

It doesn’t matter that I don’t have an audience here, what matters is that I like the form and format and that it feels right for my expression. It allows me to inject value into it, so I guess it’s good product then; even if no-one is buying. Good ol’ capitalism. I don’t know if writing discipline will lead to music discipline, that’s certainly not one of the aspirations I maintain - if it’s a side-effect, it’s welcome. Nevertheless, there’s a charm in writing publicly and being able to come back, re-read my thoughts and reflect on what comes out when I plug directly into what’s going on and let some of the previous week spill out, delineated in text and a few images - these tiny snapshots of what life is like for me. I feel like it’s valuable, insightful even if just for me, for what my life is becoming, the Art that is shaping it along with the events I’m experiencing - am subject to. That’s ominous, as it should be. It should be for us all. We are subject to Art.

[captain-kingliamsqueen]

Unexpected Surprise - Part 1 (Liam x MC)

Pairing: Liam x MC

Summary: …As much as you want to plan your life, it has a way of surprising you with unexpected things that will make you happier than you originally planned!

Word Count: 2,003

Masterlist

 ASK IF YOU WANT TAGGED! SORRY IF I MISSED ANYONE!

I always notice every single spelling mistake or issue after I’ve posted…so apologies in advance! 

Tags aren’t working so I will be tagging in the comments.

Eight months had passed since Riley left Cordonia.

Eight months had passed since she last seen Liam

Eight months had passed since she last spoke to any of her friends from Cordonia.

The first few months after she returned, she went through a rough period, where she wouldn’t leave the apartment, she hardly spoke to anyone at all. She spent her time eating and sleeping, when she returned, she sold all of the dresses she had bought over the time she had spent there, adding her savings onto that, she managed to go the first couple of months without worry, after that money ran out, she had no choice but to find herself a job. Getting back out into the world was tough. She started a job at a local elementary school. What a lot of people didn’t know was that her job at the bar was meant to just get her by until she finished her teaching degree and got a job in a school. It was just a few weeks after her graduation that she had met Liam.

“Good morning Miss Brookes” one of her pupils beamed as she walked through the door Riley held open for the class to enter the classroom. For the last Six months Riley had been teaching a 1st grade class.

“Good morning Elizabeth, do you have your thinking hat on?”

“of course, Miss Brookes”

“good that’s what I like to hear!” Riley grinned as she closed the door then made her way to her desk. she chuckled as the children all yelled and played.

“Alright come on, everyone settle down…shh shhh…Alright thank you” she smiled as they all took their seats, bursting with energy. The past week, the class had been talking about languages, when one of them asked Riley if she spoke any other languages, their faces lit up when she told them she spoke French. When Riley took French at school, she would walk out of the building and not remember a thing that she had learned, but when she travelled to France with Liam and the rest of their friends, she fell in love with the country. She could remember every word Liam taught her. she remembered it like it was yesterday, when the two of them sat late into the evening in Riley's hotel balcony, they were both curled up on the bench. She had asked Liam to teach her some French and he was more than happy to oblige. Whenever he got the chance, he would teach her bits and pieces, by the time she left Cordonia, she was very well rehearsed in the language, she had studies books, everything she could get her hands on, she read front to back. The class had asked her, if she would teach them some of the language, which she happily agreed to. She had spent the last week putting together a lesson plan for the day, they would be tasting French food, learning the language, learning about the culture.

“Bonjour à toute la classe” she started

“does anyone know what that means?” she asked, then smiled at the first little boy that put his hand up.

“Oui, Jamie?”

“does it mean…good morning?”

“Bravo! Jamie, that’s right, its means good morning class”

“Miss Brookes…how do you say…good night?” Little Nathan called from his seat.

“I’ll tell you if you promise to put your hand up next time”

“I promise”

“okay…to say good night you say… Bonne Nuit! can you all repeat that? Bonne Nuit”

“Bonne Nuit!”

“Bravo!!”

As the day grew on, the children got more and more excited about the new skill they were learning. Once it reached their breaktime Riley had set out a spread of some of her favourite French foods.

Riley smiled from the head of the table as she watched each child pick at their plates, being very vocal about what they liked and didn’t like.

“Miss Brookes would you like some of my croissant?” one of the six-year olds asked

“that’s very kind of you, louis but I’m okay thank you.”

Riley sighed quietly as her hand rested on her stomach as she felt an ache. The same ache she had felt on and off for the past few months, she had assumed it was the usual cramps she would get when she was getting her period, which the last few months had been even more infrequent than usual. Riley had always had an odd cycle, so she didn’t think anything of it. as the day moved on, the cramping started to die down a little.

Over the next few weeks she had gotten bursts of aches in her lower back and her stomach. Nothing major, just uncomfortable aches.

It was late one evening she had not long got back from work, she had made herself some food, but ended up throwing most of it away after not being able to eat it. she had been in pain all day. at this point she was getting a little suspicious, maybe she was coming down with something? She decided that running back might be the best solution to her aches, maybe the warm water would help soothe her pain. After spending a good forty-five minutes in the warm back she climbed out headed for her bedroom. She pulled on some gym shorts and a vest before climbing into bed.

Riley was jolted awake when she felt a shooting pain in her abdomen. She sat up instantly her hand shooting to her stomach.

“oh my god…what the hell is that!!” she groaned “Shit that hurts!” she cried when the pain became too much. She had never had cramps like this…this was a whole new kind of pain. When she tried to get up from the bed, another pain shot through her, causing her to stumbled and fall. Tears cascaded down her cheeks as she frantically searched for her mobile that was sitting on the bedside table. As soon as she found it, her shaky hands dialled 911

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“I need an ambulance, I’m in excruciating pain, I don’t know what it is, it’s a shooting pain in my abdomen”

“okay, what’s your address?”

“I’m in apartment, 2, Payton crescent.”

“okay, and what’s your name?”

“It’s Riley…Riley Brookes”

“Okay miss Brookes, I’m going to get you help as quick as I can, an ambulance is on the way, can you get to the door”

“yes” she gasped as another pain shot through her. unable to stand, she crawled to the front door, turning the key so the paramedics would be able to get in.

“the doors unlocked” she informed the operator

“okay, just hold tight Miss Brookes, help is on the way.”

Just a few minutes later, the paramedics came through the door. Once the operator knew Riley was in safe hands they hung up.

“Miss Brookes, can you show me where it hurts?” one of the paramedics asked. Riley lifted her shirt, placing her hand on her lower stomach. “all around here”

“you gotta help me, it hurts so much” she cried

“it’s alright, we’re gonna get you to the hospital”

Once they got Riley into the ambulance, they headed off to the nearing hospital. They asked her various questions on the journey trying to figure out what was wrong. After the answers she gave them, they decided she should have an ultrasound when she arrived at the hospital to check her appendix. Once they got her situated in a cubical, once of the nurses came by to do her ultrasound.

“Miss Brookes how are you feeling?” the Young Woman asked as she pulled the machine over and sat down in the seat in front of it.

“Terrible”

“alright, well we’re going to try and help you feel better again, alright, I’m gonna put this gel on your stomach, brace yourself because it will be really cold” the nurse squeezed some of the gel onto Riley's stomach before placing the doppler on top then moving it around to have a look and see what was causing the pain. Riley’s eyebrows knitted together as she watched the woman look at the screen with bulging eyes.

*buBum…buBum…buBum*

“is everything okay?” Riley asked.

“Miss Brookes-”

“call me Riley”

“Riley…when was the last time you had unprotected sex?”

“oh gee…now you’re asking…probably around eight and a half months ago”

“Riley…do you hear that sound?”

Riley nodded confirmed she could indeed hear the noise.

“I’ll be back in a moment” the nurse quickly made her way out of the room, running back in just a few seconds later with a doctor on her tail. The two looked over the screen, whispering to each other.

“is something wrong?” Riley gasped as she felt another pain.

“Miss Brooks, have you been feeling nauseous, Fatigued? Hungry often?”

“not really, I mean, ive had these pains on and off for the past few months, but I always got them around the time I was due my period, so I assumed they were cramps”

The doctor, asked Riley to sit with her legs open, so that she could do a physical examination.

“Miss Brookes” the doctor smiled

“yeah?”

“Your Pregnant”

“I can’t be…I haven’t slept with anyone in like eight months”

“Miss Brookes…you have a full-term baby and she’s ready to come out, you are already seven centimetres…you’re in active labour”

“no this has got to be a mistake, I don’t have a bump, I haven’t had any other symptoms, ive still had my periods”

“I’m afraid it’s true miss Brookes, bleeding during pregnancy can be perfectly normal, actually a lot of women mistake spotting as their period but actually it’s the pregnancy, it’s very rare, but ive seen it happen before, if the babies sitting further into your back, like you, a woman can go a full nine months without a real bump.”

“But…” The tears fell down her face.

“I can’t be…”

“how much weight have you put on over the past eight to nine months?”

“a little bit” she blushed not wanting to admit she had infact put on a little bit of weight.

“okay…well Miss Brookes, we’re going to have to move you down to the Delivery ward, this baby is ready to come out”

“Tonight?!” Riley panicked

“most likely”

Once they got Riley moved to the delivery ward, they started to connect her to all types of machines. She sighed as she looked at her phone sitting beside the hospital bed.

“Riley, can we call anyone for you? Maybe the father? a friend or family member?”

“no, it’s okay…I think I should call him…” she sighed “I’m nervous” she frowned as she looked at the nurse.

“was it a boyfriend?”

“kind of…we were very much in love but…we weren’t in a relationship as such.”

“what do you mean?”

“long story short, he was in an arranged marriage that he very much didn’t want to be in, we were going to get married but, something happened and he had to get engaged to this other woman…we tried for months to figure out a way to be together, but eventually it came time for the wedding, I told him, I can’t be with you if your married to her, he was willing to give up everything for me , his family business, his home, but I couldn’t let him do it…I know this phone call will turn his life upside down… I know he would drop everything to be here…if he found out and I hadn’t called him, it would break his heart”

“well, I think you should make the call”

“I can’t not” she sighed as she lifted her phone

“could I have a moment?” she asked the nurse, the young woman nodded then headed outside. Riley scrolled to his number then let out a deep breath as she pressed call.

The phone rang just three times before his voice came through the phone.

“hello? Riley? Riley is that you?”

“Hi, Liam” she whispered

[yes-crisitunity]

Coronavirus and other things

Bart: Cheer up Homer Homer: Can't Bart: Okay! Marge: What if you pretended this couch were a bar? Then you could spend more nights at home with us, eh! Homer: I'm not going to dignify that with an answer. Lisa: Look on the bright side, Dad. Did you know that the Chinese use the same word for "crisis" as they do for "opportunity"? Homer: Yes! Crisitunity! 

The Simpsons, Season 6, Episode 11 - Fear of Flying 

Yesterday afternoon, the Prime Minister announced that we should never see our friends again and live in a constant hazy mix of anxiety and mania. 

Skip 24 hours forward in bizarro-hell world, and Boris' "thick neck and broad, Germanic forehead" was joined by everyone's least favourite A-Level Economics student, Rishi Sunak. (Also present was the ex-President of GlaxoSmithKline, and current Chief Scientific Officer, Sir Patrick Vallance). Rishi proceeded to spit some absolute fire from the AQA AS Economics textbook about "fixed costs" and, at one point, I even thought he was going to tell us the individual components of aggregate demand. 

He also said that this was "not a time for ideology". A sentence, which if ever uttered tends to precede utter bullshit, that even those unfamiliar with Slavoj Zizek would be able to call out as "pure ideology itself". Which brings us on to the support package of "£330 billion". As I know many others have explained (and in great detail), the package of measures were completely targeted at satiating capital, and did practically nothing for labour.

Now why would we expect anything different? Rishi, after all, used to work for Goldman Sachs, and then the incredibly creepily named "Children's Investment Fund Management". I'll call it CIFM for ease. Now CIFM is a British hedge fund, founded in 2003. Interestingly, it is owned by a holding company based in the notably tax compliant Cayman Islands. It's not really clear what CFIM actually do, apart from funnel dark money to arseholes, but I can tell you what they don't do, and that's invest in a better future for children. Rishi's ex-boss at CIFM, Sir (oh he's a knight, I wonder why) Chris Hohn, paid himself over £200 million in both 2017 and 2019 (he probably did it more but I only checked the first page of google results).

You might think, where is this going, are you just rambling, have you been driven crazy by the less than one day of isolation? The answers are: somewhere, yes and yes. 

But, that somewhere is climate change. 

So, Chris likes to think of himself as a bit of an "activist investor" - a term that makes me physically sick. In late 2019, during the extended Extinction Rebellion protests, Chris and CIFM donated £50,000 and £150,000, respectively, to XR. What’s a guy like this, absolute piece of shit, to the bone capitalist, giving £200,000 to a group which is, ostensibly, anti-establishment. Seems a bit odd, no? 

XR push the exact same line that our big special boy the chancellor did in today's briefing on the coronavirus, that being they proclaim climate change is an issue "Beyond Politics". How asinine. Ultimately, this all points to a much larger screed, which has been well pointed out by many others, that being the neoliberal consensus. 

But the bit I want to examine in this is the crisis aspect of it. In his seminal (both definitions of the word) text Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman remarks that “Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change.” His quote tends to chime with the theory of punctuated equilibrium, a way of understanding policy change which originated from evolutionary science. It portrays policy as, appearing to be, largely stable for long periods of time, only to be punctuated by a quick and dramatic change. 

It's fairly simple, some might even consider it "common sense". Basically, periods which exhibit stability in policy over time can be explained by stable interactions between legislators and special interest groups, and drastic change is as a result of a shift in the agenda.

Of course, as one of the most notable figures of neoliberalism, it is only logical that this would be Friedman’s view on the impact of crises on policy change. But, to my mind, crises are, in fact, neither the sole nor most important reason for policy change, rather they can be a contributing factor toward change in some instances. AKA it depends. 

Although policy change is a phenomenon in and of itself, it may be best understood through its relationship to periods of stability. This requires us to question just what we mean when we discuss change, or the lack thereof.

So, what am I getting at again?

None of this is a change in government policy, both with regard to the coronavirus, and climate change. The coronavirus has offered an opportunity for the Government to implement a wide ranging package of tax cuts and support to capital, whilst continuing to punish and alienate labour. So nothing’s fundamentally changed in their approach, its just been ramped up. 

Likewise, climate change. Groups like XR have, admirably, managed to expand the general discourse to include climate. Sadly, all they've done is make it another "political football" that just needs to be sorted out by some sensible people. They fundamentally do not identify any of the malefactors in our society who are responsible, and as such have no possible solution to the problem. It's all well and good saying "tell the truth" and "act now", but what does that actually mean? A quote which sticks out in my mind regarding XR comes from Chomsky: "power knows the truth already, and is busy concealing it".

So, how to tie this neatly in a bow?

Well I could just say this is an experimental and ground breaking new format of writing where I just do whatever I want and call it art, and you must respect it by the way, or I could put in the effort and properly conclude this.

ENDS

[diarrheaworldstarhiphop]

I’m five minutes in and already this seems like something beamed in from an alternate universe. Did this crowd just cheer “doctoral degrees” and then, specifically, “psychoanalysis”?

This big arena debate world where people cheer academic qualifications like wrestling belts is obviously Peterson’s world. And it’s really off-putting. He sits in his chair looking expectant and deep in thought, occasionally letting slip a brief acknowledgment of the surreality of the situation. Zizek, on the other hand, looks bewildered. When his introduction is concluded, he simply shrugs and does a brief facepalm.

Peterson, by contrast, barely flinches. He’s obviously used to this… And that’s the weirdest thing of all.

I’m not really sure what I’m in for here as I sit down to watch this. I’ve heard interesting things about this debate from those who have already watched it — apparently it’s not a complete waste of time — and so I have been tempted to give it a go for myself…

But I’m already aware of the kind of discussion I’m hoping for — and unlikely to get — and this anticipation is probably going to inform my viewing for better or worse…

So, first things first, I feel like I should declare my biases.

I like Zizek (generally speaking). He’s the sort of cantankerous sniffling voice I’m happy to have in the public sphere. I have a soft spot for him, in a way, because, perhaps like many other people my age, he was the first contemporary “Public Intellectual” that I paid any attention to; the first living philosopher I remember hearing and reading about.

However, that’s not to say I know his work all that well. The only book of his I’ve read with any seriousness is his first: The Sublime Object of Ideology — which is still a good read — but the majority of the rest of his written work is unknown to me. (Those films of his are, at the very least, entertaining.) I have, however, read a lot of his earlier articles and writings on communism, but I’ll come back to those shortly.

My understanding of Peterson’s general project is even more limited. I haven’t read his book. All I’ve seen are a few lectures and some click-bait “Peterson destroys…” YouTube appearances. That being said, I’ve found very little to admire or relate to in what I have heard him say. (I’ve previously critiqued one of his UK television appearances here.) But he’s nonetheless on my radar as a cultural figure and I have found his discussions around masculinity to be interesting, if only because of what he leaves out.

I want to briefly talk about Peterson’s views on masculinity because they seem integral to his overall position and you can see much of the same logic that is applied to this topic leaking out into his other opinions. For instance, on at least one occasion, he’s compared the modern “femininsation” of men to the Nietzschean death of God. It’s an apt comparison in some respects — although I’d take it more positively than he seems to do. His argument seems to be that men have lost their purpose, their drive, their grounding, like peasants without God, or a state without its sense of nationhood — the latter being a particularly important similarity, I think, when considering his popularity amongst hypermasculine nationalists. Point being: men are lost without their own inflated (and gendered) senses of self. Peterson is here to give it back to you. It’s not a bad project in and of itself, but he’s pretty terrible at it. His success despite this perhaps says more about the depths of the crisis that we’re willing to accept him as a savior.

What Peterson decries as taking the place of traditional gendered duties and positions within society is what he regularly defines as “contemporary nihilism”. This nihilism is, of course, a huge freedom to many others who have felt traumatically constricted by societal expectations and in contemporary philosophy more generally we have seen the emergence of a new nihilism which explores the outsider epistemologies of occultism with as much rigour as scientific rationalism — you could say it was precisely this crossover that gave the world Reza Negarestani — and so Peterson’s nihilism is, in itself, a very limited concept.

Ray Brassier’s old nihilism, for instance, is a nihilism that grounds itself on the “meaninglessness” of rational truth, which is to say, nihilism is an attempt to decloak oneself of the stories and “realisms” which we allow to structure (but also inevitably limit) our realities. Truth and meaning are not the same thing and so a life of facts and rationality is far closer to nihilism than the popular conception of the term allows. By contrast, despite warning of its dangers when it applies to something he doesn’t believe in, Peterson seems to champion the adoption of ideologies in order to give your life meaning. It is in this sense that he’s often positioned by some as fascist (or at least fascist-adjacent).

Masculinity, for Peterson, appears to be just such an ideology in being held up as an Idea that gives gendered subjects purpose and a sense of duty. But what is odd about this is how much Peterson otherwise critiques ideology. Because, for Peterson, it seems ideologies are only ever collective. Individualism, in particular, is not an ideology…

… And that’s ridiculous. As Zizek writes himself:

[I]deology is not simply a ‘false consciousness’, an illusory representation of reality, it is rather this reality itself which is already to be conceived as ‘ideological’ — ‘ideological’ is a social reality whose very existence implies the non-knowledge of its participants as to its essence — that is, the social effectivity, the very reproduction of which implies that the individuals ‘do not know what they are doing’. ‘Ideological’ is not the false consciousness of a (social) being but this being itself in so far as it is supported by a false consciousness.

He defines ideology as Marx does (at least implicitly): “they do not know it, but they are doing it“. Such is Peterson’s argument — don’t pay attention to any of that stuff which supposedly defines (or fails to define) your existence, just get on with it; tidy your room. (His insistence on personal cleanliness is, I’ve always felt, near identical to an army induction into self-presentation, and if that isn’t the ultimate immersion in ideology then I don’t know what is.)

Today, despite Peterson’s attempts to rehabilitate it, we see that the particular ideology of patriarchal individualism has been in crisis and so the left embraces the ideological crisis of masculinity, understood as a by-product of a broader crisis of patriarchal capitalism, in order to encourage the emergence of a new consciousness; the emergence of something altogether different. This is not to try and destroy men as such — well, okay, that depends who you ask… — but rather the ideology of Masculinity. In response to this general vibe, Peterson’s blinkered response to this is to try and save patriarchal capitalism by focussing on the individual and selling them an anti-feminist magical voluntarism.

What Peterson doesn’t get is that the argument is not that this crisis of manhood is a result of capitalism’s “failure”, per se — which is presumably why Peterson wants to defend its honour — but rather that this crisis is a direct result of capitalism’s own internal development and indifference.

(It would also be interesting to see what other takes people have on this, actually: “the feminisation of men” — a marxist feminazi psyop or a by-product of free market automation reducing the need for big strong physical labourers? You’d think Peterson, for all his citing of anthropological evidence, would be more on board with the latter, but he’s not… Responses on a postcard!)

The relevance of modern masculinity, and its crisis, to this particular debate is that masculinity is, more often than not, framed as an ideology in being not just a gender but a gender identity. To be a Man, in the sense that Peterson describes, is — sociopolitically and, that is, ideologically speaking — not that different from being a Communist. It is a declaration that says something about your view of the world and how people should expect you to act within it; indeed, how you should expect yourself to act within it. In this way, his is an individualised ethics — and that is how many contemporary men’s groups, for better or for worse, present themselves on both the left and the right, in defining masculinity as an ethics first and foremost — whilst communism instead strives for a collective and communal viewpoint, a “collective subjectivity”, a collectivised ethics, far broader than Peterson’s consideration of (but of course not ignorant to) these kinds of identity markers.

I want to keep this in mind going forwards because I think Peterson’s framing of masculinity actually gives us a good entry point for talking about communism (and his particular framing of communism) and this may help us understand just how flawed and limiting his conceptions of both these things are.

As I mentioned in passing, over the last few years I’ve started to read more and more of Zizek’s earlier work — particularly his articles on communism and, specifically, “the Idea of Communism“. When writing my Master’s dissertation back in 2017, reading a lot about Maurice Blanchot and his Bataillean conception of “community”, the Idea of communism emerged as a central framework through which the questions Blanchot (and others) raised have been continued into the present, and Zizek — as a writer and an editor — at one time contributed a fair amount to this discourse.

I’ve written a lot about the “Idea of communism” before on this blog, albeit under various different guises — the Idea of communism as an event horizon; as a “community which gives itself as a goal”; as a sort of ethical praxis in and of itself, a sort of politico-philosophical First Principle, rather than a solidified (statist) political ideal — it’s under the surface of a lot of my patchwork stuff.

To be clear, what I mean by the “Idea” of communism here is perhaps something akin to the Platonic Idea. To quote Plato himself, writing about his own philosophy:

There is no treatise of mine about these things, nor ever will be. For it cannot be talked about like other subjects of learning, but out-of much communion about this matter, and from living together, suddenly, like a light kindled from a leaping fire, it gets into the soul, and from there on nourishes itself.

The Idea, in this sense, is a sort of ephemeral thing, an event in a process of becoming. It is fuel for discourse and politics but is not, in itself, either of these two things. It’s something else unique to philosophy.

To many this may sound like the beginning of some wishy-washy apolitical intro to communism, but the intention here is to emphasise — what Deleuze & Guattari, in What Is Philosophy?, call — “the Concept” of communism. (This is, arguably, also the intention of U/Acc, in giving philosophical priority to the Concept of Acceleration over its conditioned political vagaries which leave the concept in the corner to their detriment — i.e. the rejection of a state-accelerationism on the same terms as a state-communism, with both being as sensical as the other despite how the latter is so often understood.)

The Concept, in this sense, is a provocation, an invention. To pin it down, to attack it or defend it, is to condition it and use it — which is fine in most circumstances — but there is always something that comes first which we mustn’t lose sight of in the process putting concepts to use. We must be “critical” — just as Peterson describes his preferred mode of thought, which we’ll discuss in a minute — by which I mean that we must not lose sight of the process of engineering which produces the concept when we put it to use. That is the purpose of the Idea or the Concept: that which philosophy always hopes to produce: the simultaneous product of and originator of thinking. (I’m writing on this in relation to accelerationism for somewhere else at the moment so I won’t go into this too much further or else I’ll start plagiarising myself.)

The Idea of communism, then, becomes this original seed which existed before the horrors of state-communism and continues to exist after them. It is a communism produced communally, lidibinally; a kind of communist consciousness; an outsideness; a view to that which isn’t. It is, in this first instance, the Idea of the future, of the new, of what is to come, held in the minds of those affected by it at the expense of that which is. When Kodwo Eshun called himself a “concept-engineer”, this is no doubt what he was positioning himself in favour of, and against the “great inertia engine”, the “moronizer”, the “futureshock absorber.” That’s what the Communist Manifesto calls for too. It’s a provocation, a call to revolution, not just of politics and economics but, more fundamentally, of thought and thinking.

Masculinity — reconfigured as a concept — (and femininity too, for that matter) can be thought of in much the same way, as a becoming, which may signify certain horrors, past and present, but as a future may instead be something which gives itself as a goal. And there is every chance that that goal might be unrecognisable to our current sense of the cloistered Ideal.

Like it or not, the best word we have for this process, related to gender anyway, is queering.

Everything else is cage.

Anyway, I’m rambling…

What does any of this have to do with anything? Well, it has everything to do with Peterson’s opening statement.

The Idea of communism is seemingly an alien concept to him. The very Idea of philosophy seems alien to him, for that matter. He’s a man of blinkered systems and boundaries and “truths”, and to such an extent that “truth” ends up undermining his own arguments. His pursuit of an absolute logic — so common to many North American conservative pundits; “facts don’t care about your feelings” — only makes the holes in his reasoning more apparent. Encapsulated in a wall of logic that he has built around himself, he starts to undermine his own apparent superiority by being incapable of giving himself the room to breath and produce thought. He’s like a real life Vulcan, his ironic flaw being the bemusement which erupts from his consideration of the adaptability of those illogical and mentally vulnerable humans (read: leftists).

What makes this difficult for some to see, however, seems to be the effort Peterson puts into superficially privileging the opposite within his own work. Early on in his opening statement, for instance, he says:

It doesn’t seem to me that either Marx or Engels grappled with one fundamental — with this particular fundamental truth — which is that almost all ideas are wrong … It doesn’t matter if they’re your ideas or something else’s ideas — they’re probably wrong. And, even if they strike you with the course of brilliance, your job is to assume that, first of all, they’re probably wrong and then to assault them with everything you have in your arsenal and see if they can survive.

Such is philosophy — and, on that note, I’m reminded of a particular passage from Deleuze and Guattari’s What Is Philosophy? where they write that the Greeks distrusted the Idea, the Concept, “so much, and subjected it to such harsh treatment, that the concept was more like the ironical soliloquy bird that surveyed the battlefield of destroyed rival opinions (the drunken guests at the banquet).”

And yet, for Deleuze and Guattari, the Concept doesn’t seek truth. It might emerge from certain judgments and appraisals, from thought, but truth is not its end. If truth were the goal for Marx and Engels, it might be called the Truth Manifesto. But it’s not. It is called the Communist manifesto because communism is its goal — a politics of multiplicitous and unruly communality.

Here we see the first glimpse of Peterson’s own nihilism — again, despite his apparent rejection of that -ism and its affects on thought. We might ask ourselves: What is it to introduce your position with a statement as vacuous as “almost all ideas are wrong”? Deleuze and Guattari, again, do a far better job of articulating the stakes of this suggestion which, again, seem totally lost of Peterson:

A concept always has the truth that falls to it as a function of the conditions of its creation. […] Of course, new concepts must relate to our problems, to our history, and, above all, to our becomings. But what does it mean for a concept to be of our time, or of any time? Concepts are not eternal, but does this mean they are temporal? What is the philosophical form of the problems of a particular time? If one concept is “better” than an earlier one, it is because it makes us aware of new variations and unknown resonances, it carries out unforeseen cuttings-out, it bring forth an Event that surveys us. But did the earlier concept not do this already? If one can still be a Platonist, Cartesian, or Kantian today, it is because one is justified in thinking that their concepts can be reactivated in our problems and inspire those concepts that need to be created. What is the best way to follow the great philosophers? Is it to repeat what they said or to do what they did, that is, create concepts for problems that necessarily change?

From this we can say that the prevalence and continued existence of “Marxists” and Marxism is that the problems Marx (and Engels, of course) pointed to remain relevant today because we remain under the problematic system of capitalism. Many further concepts have been added to the arsenal but the original ground remains unresolved. Capitalism — as another -ism — endures for the same reasons. We have yet to settle the problem of capitalism as a response to the end of feudalism and instead treat the conceptual framework of capital as eternal rather than temporal, a being rather than a becoming.

Now, the Idea or Concept of communism can perhaps be summarised in similar terms. Communism is the name of a becoming-to-come, a postcapitalism. Peterson, instead, in wanting to rehabilitate what we already have, doesn’t get this. But still he continues to use the language of someone who does whilst nonetheless remaining trapped in his own circular argument.

For example, again in his opening statement, he calls Marx and Engels “typical” — as opposed to “critical” — thinkers because they accept things (that is, the problems of capitalism) as they are, as given and self-evident (to capitalism), and don’t think about their own thinking, which is to say that they also present their critiques to their readers as if they were self-evident. Peterson says no — these problems are inherent to nature, not capitalism. But in shifting the goal posts rather than engaging with the text directly he portrays himself as guilty of what he decries in them.

In doing this, Peterson sidesteps the entire point of the Marxist project, particularly as it is framed in the Manifesto: a project which attempts to systematise a deep understanding of capitalism (as in Marx’s Capital) and then critique the material reality of capitalism, provoking action against it (as in the Manifesto). If anything, Peterson might have come out of this better if he’d read anything but the manifesto. Instead, he misses the entire point, failing to get under the skin of Marxism because he fails to acknowledge its attempts to get under the skin of capitalist realism and reveal to us the ways in which that which is, that which we see and accept as the nature of reality, is instead a contingency. In this sense, “all ideas (capitalism tells you) are wrong” could be the brainlet summary of the Manifesto in itself, and in this sense, if it is an ideology, it is one which defines itself by what it escapes.

It is here that the circle of Peterson’s argument completes itself before its even really begun. What is it to critique critical thinking in this way? What is it to critique critique through naturalised tradition? Does this make Peterson a critical-critical thinker? Or is he instead just a critical-typical thinker? Either way, his is a position that eats itself. Peterson, however, seems good at supplying the gall to ignore your own inability to take your own medicine.

This is the entire problem with Peterson’s argument going forwards too, which might be summarised as: “Marx and Engels say that this is self-evident within capitalism and must be challenged — I say, actually it is self-evident within nature and nature is sacrosanct so back off.” Peterson’s form of “critique” is simply to take pre-existing critiques of our sociopolitical world and place them within a broader (supposedly) scientific context and, in the process, turn his own critical thinking back into (by his own definition) a typical thinking. He’s literally bending backwards over his own arguments.

Take, for instance, his analysis of the first “axiom” of the Communist Manifesto — his summary of Marxist historical materialism being that the very engine of history is economic class struggle. Peterson flippantly throws out the relevance of economics and says, sure, class struggle exists, hierarchies exist, but they exist in nature too so why are we so upset about them and put all the blame on economics?

In framing it this way, he seemingly misses the main point that our hierarchies are not “natural” — they are instantiated by capitalism as an economic system. To say that hierarchies have always existed ignores the sense in which economics defines class. It is to ignore the very nature of our hierarchies, in the present epoch, as economic — that is, how economics forms them — which we can interpret as not just being about how much your earn but also how much you are worth, connecting slavery to wage-slavery and encompassing the fallouts of both. Contrary to this, Peterson’s is the sort of argument that takes scientific observations of the natural kingdom and then uses them to reconstruct a sort of secular Divine Right of Kings. It is a gateway to a racist and eugenic thinking.

It is from this flawed analysis that Peterson goes on to make the point that went viral in the aftermath of the debate. He says:

it is finally the case that human hierarchies are not fundamentally predicated on power and I would say that biological / anthropological data on that is crystal clear. You don’t rise to a position of authority that’s reliable in a human society primarily by exploiting other people. It’s a very unstable means of obtaining power.

This clip has done the rounds online already, as it gets a very audible laugh from the crowd, and rightly so. It’s perhaps the most moronic comment anyone could make — but it is also a comment that can be split into a right half and a wrong half, further demonstrating Peterson’s circular reasoning.

People do rise to positions of authority through exploitation — that is true not just of capitalism but the feudalism that birthed it and it is also, arguably, true of the animal kingdom too (depending on how you define exploitation — the exploitation of behaviours, habits, circumstances?) — but it is also right to say that this is an unstable means of obtaining power. Rather than that instability meaning people don’t do it, it leads to the sort of resentment and protest that Peterson dismisses as unfounded. His entire logic system starts to fall into place. Reading the Communist Manifesto at aged 18 and presumably reading it with all the nuance of an 18 year old, Peterson has embarked on a career of self-fulfilling criticism based on the logical fallacies of a teenager.

From this point, it is very hard to take anything else he says seriously. What follows is a long, meandering and confused rant that ends with the basic point: “Actually, relatively speaking, the poor are richer now than they once were… As are the rich…” Thank you, Dr. Peterson. Truly insightful.

I’m left wanting to bail out at this point. I feel like I’ve wasted 40 minutes of my life but I try and stick it out for Zizek’s opening statement at least.

From the outset, it is far more interesting. Taking on the three topics of the debate’s title — Communism, Happiness, Capitalism — he considers the ways in which “Happiness” is not such a simple and virtuous goal for us to give ourselves, especially under a system like capitalism which does all it can to grab the steering wheel of our desires. (It’s an argument I’ve made myself before when writing about Mark Fisher’s Acid Communism — a communism that is “beyond the pleasure principle”.) Zizek says:

I agree that human life or freedom and dignity does not consist just in searching for happiness — no matter how much we spiritualise it — or in the effort to actualise our inner potentials. We have to find some meaningful cause beyond the mere struggle for pleasurable survival.

Zizek’s statement from here is actually quite brilliant, and subtle. He eschews any temptation to echo Peterson’s polemic book report and instead implicitly skewers everything wrong with Peterson’s own body of work and, indeed, the entire situation of their meeting under the cover of the debate’s own title. It’s very cunning.

For instance, he says a few minutes later:

Once traditional authority loses its substantial power it is not possible to return to it. All such returns are, today, a post-modern fake. Does Donald Trump stand for traditional values? No. His conservatism is a post-modern performance; a gigantic ego trip.

Whilst Zizek takes firm aim at Trump, Peterson lingers on the edge of his seat. You wonder how much he knows that he is also in Zizek’s sights. Whilst Peterson through criticisms at a 170-year-old target that just don’t stick, Zizek DESTROYS his opponent in a philosophical proxy war.

If Trump is, according to Zizek, the ultimate postmodernist president, Peterson appears, by proxy, to be the most successful postmodernist public intellectual — the attack-dog of YouTube conservatism, the spewer of the very postmodernism he declares his enemy through his snake-oil salesman act of Making Men Great Again as a neo-traditional ideology.

Zizek powers through point after point from here and everything starts to blur into one. It’s not easy to follow without the post-stream benefit of stopping and starting, but there is substance here — substance, I am nonetheless told by the better informed, that Zizek has already repeated again and again through his most recent books and public appearances. There is nothing new here, but it is in part worth listening to just to see Peterson’s face. He is out of his depth. And it shows.

Whereas Peterson’s history lesson is under-informed, Zizek’s history lesson, encapsulating the 20th / 21st century development of hegemonic ideologies, ends simply with a door through which Peterson blindly walks, being the capstone to Zizek’s own argument simply by being himself. Little else needs to be said. The undertone of Zizek’s argument seems to be: “You want postmodernism? You’ve just seen a masterclass… And wasn’t it shit!” It’s very entertaining.

But honestly, I’m burnt out. It’s hard to adjust to Zizek’s rapid-fire drive-by of our contemporary moment after Peterson’s lacklustre ahistorical ramble. Maybe I’ll come back and watch the follow-up back and forth at a later date… But I doubt I’ll want to blog about this any further.

UPDATE: This, from Quillette of all places, is spot on:

The debate about whether there’s a straight line from Marx to Stalin is an important one, especially given the revival of interest in socialism in the contemporary West. Everyone should want the key participants in that debate to be as well informed as possible. Marxists should want to sharpen their minds by having to confront the best versions of anti-Marxist arguments, while anti-Marxists should want a champion for their position who knows Marx’s writings inside and out. Unfortunately, as he’s shown on many occasions, Jordan Peterson doesn’t fit this bill.