#reblogging this here since itself useful

[peridots-pixiwolf]

[Start ID. A redraw of the official icons of the ten named slugcats from Rain World, arranged in two rows: Survivor, Monk, Hunter, Nightcat, and Gourmand in the first, Artificer, Rivulet, Spearmaster, Saint and Enot/Inv in the second. Each is drawn in roughly the same pose as in the original art and fitted with speculative interpretations of their biology, and the second image is a “dead” version of this. For example, all ten have slug-like rhinophores in place of ears, cuttlefish-like colorful eyes with strangely-shaped pupils, cephalopod-like beak "teeth", expressive barbels or oral tentacles at the corners of mouths, spiny radulas, and the frilly mantle fringes of sea slugs, though otherwise their faces are squishy, simple and mammalian-shaped.

Cream-colored Survivor and yellow Monk both share triangular, bicolored spots matching their eyes (which are tan and brown, and two shades of blue, respectively), small, bumpy fringes, and relatively neutral looks on their faces. Defensive-looking Hunter is mostly a dull orange-pink, though their blobby fringe is a more violent red and their back is purple and marred with lumps. Nightcat is navy blue and flecked with dots of yellow and teal, their rolled rhinophores are a lighter blue, and their shading fractures into stars in some places. Gourmand is almost uniformly tan, their wide, very ruffly white mantle fringe bordered by a spray of white spots, and their beak sticks out from either corner of their smile. Primarily red Artificer, snarling, has yellow markings of multiple sorts, a prominent yellow dewlap and their characteristic dark scar taking out a chunk of its face. Rivulet is a darker blue than usual, with long barbels, red gills and rings, countershading, and a cheerful expression, sticking out their radula. Spearmaster is purple with orange accents, eyes and spots, a large fringe and spines down their back. Saint’s green caryophyllidia are marked by small, yellow diamonds, and their long, thin radula extends far below them. Enot is decorated with mottled red stripes, blue patches, yellow stars, and an uneven and almost cartoonish imitation of blush, though generally the same deep blue as Nightcat, a passive or almost slightly smug look on their face and their rolled rhinophores out to either side.

In the second image, nine of the slugcats’ eyes are crossed out, indicating that these are death icons. They look fairly the same, with mostly expression differences. Survivor is caught in the beginning of a threat display, a karma flower sprouts from Monk’s side, Hunter is burdened with overgrowing, purple and blue rot, Nightcat’s rhinophores are pinned back, and Gourmand looks mildly disheartened. For the final row, Artificer bites its radula between small plumes of smoke, Rivulet drops their expression, Spearmaster looks very startled, Saint looks almost entirely the same besides half-open eyes and their markings greater in number, and Enot grins confusedly. End ID]

If you'll excuse the unusually lengthy ID: the arena meme introduced by @pansear-doodles at long last after a nearly year-long wip status (or, rather, finished a month ago today to honor my own first time playing it!)

Design notes and shout-outs under cut! :]

The following people are some of those who’ve inspired my designs most since I started this eight months ago (or just inspired me to get a little weirder with slugcat biology), among many others for sure, and I thank them for it–but this is simply to bring attention to artists I find cool, and in no way an obligation to interact or anything :]

> @saturncoyote , @carpsoup , @charseraph , @gallusgalluss , @bitsbug , @dopscratch , and @0hmanit (and a special mention to dddeerbo and hunterlonglegs, who’ve since deactivated)!

Survivor: Surprisingly the hardest to pin down the colors for, since nothing with its sibling's palette seemed to match up right (I did have to add in a little blue somewhere for Monk, the beginning of making it clear how much I’m simply going based off of vibes for the colors of scug innards). I consider them, Monk and Gourmand to be part of the same gene pool of slugcats, and even possibly the same colony even if the latter isn't really related, so took a bit of Gourmand's coloring and fit them in with their inspiration: Goniobranchus verrieri. They serve as a bit of an introduction to my ideas of scug traits (i find it really fun how many people have thought to add so many silly sluglike fixtures of biology completely independent of me, buuut here I’m mostly talking about species variation), and like in-game they’re pretty average! They, Monk and Hunter have a couple scars sourced from a piece of Joar's concept art that I'm failing to find, those across the bridge of the nose, under the eyes, and across the rhinophores, respectively, and my Survivor interpretation features many on the back of the neck, as a result of survived lizard bites.

Monk: Their coloring is primarily based off the fact that I associate them with blue fruits, honestly, a bit because I was compelled to establish a familiarity with Rivulet, and lastly inspired by the spots of Goniobranchus kuniei (and geminus, less important to me as one of my characters is a kuniei instead, but more fitting). Between the yellow + blue and the circular marking in the center of their face, they’re meant to bear a little resemblance to an iterator that shares similarities with the characterization I’ve given them, and similar coding of her sibling can be seen on Survivor’s markings around the eyes. As both a “default” slugcat and one whose campaign I haven’t played, though, I can’t say I have much more to point out about em.

Hunter: The whole rot thing made for a really fun time drawing them, and while the color change on their back is a result of this, it’s also an excuse to relate them to Babakina festiva, arguably my favorite sea slug (mostly for sentimental purposes). And to Spearmaster, a fellow messenger slugcat, and it serves as a gradient between Hunter’s pink and the “traditional” color of Rot seen in the DLLs. Aside from their affliction, they’d actually be the plainest in terms of design, as they don’t have any patterns or quirks of body type, just the red + purple and strange lumps + possible malnutrition. I can’t remember if NSH had created them in particular or just...caught + released or something, but it probably wouldn’t be strange for a lab-grown slugcat to be simple like that.

Gourmand: Like the two above, they’re rather plain in terms of coloring and adaptation, and like the two above, I find that fun. I decided it would be nice to avert the “all slugcats being of the same body type, and Gourmand’s out of place as the exception” thing by just...adding more fat to all of them, really. I did want to emphasize their sheer bulk even so, both fat and muscular (not like I couldn’t have still gone further with it, of course, but slugcat anatomy can be a little obfuscating sometimes, and they were intended to look rather plush considering personal size headcanons and therefore the lack of proper gravity), and the thick and flounced mantle looked like a good addition, as per their sea slug Glossodoris hikuerensis. Unlike Survivor and Monk, I didn’t attempt to hold their resemblance to any particular other character (which means a little less to balance out the “default gene pool” thing), so those are all the design notes I have for em.

Artificer: The second slugcat I’ve ever played, or finished the campaign of, my favorite for at least a long time, and the first thing I did was give them yellow accents, the shape of which have troubled me slightly (not quite like the spots or stripes of the others). They’re both a little more appealing and more explosive-looking to me, and considering how early on I played Arti, actually present in some of my older art. It does give them a little resemblance to Saint (completely intentional, two slugcats with strange relations to karma), as well as the fact that its radula is green for familiarity with one of its children (at some point it was going to have all-green markings, even!). I’m generous with their scars, partly because it was fun to overemphasize the one on their face and partly because it does seem like a reckless slugcat, on top of the dangers of its explosive abilities–I’ll probably just keep adding more forever. Mostly-red sea slugs aren’t too common, but Hexabranchus sanguineus works for sure. The ridged, yellow dewlap can expand for combustion purposes, or something along those lines. Arti’s where I began experimenting with a lot of the mildly-offkilter features seen in my interpretation of slugcats, as they’ve once again been a favorite from the start.

Rivulet: I've obviously given other slugcats spots, deeply enjoy the bubbly-soda markings of other peoples' slugcats, and thought seal riv would be cute. Despite not too closely resembling it, they've been government-assigned Hypselodoris bennetti, for color reasons and for a couple sentimental ones. Originally, the colors of every scug were meant to match up with the custom colors I gave them at the beginning of their campaigns, (though Arti, Gourm and Spearmy are the only three who actually apply here, since I've only played through half the slugcats: I gave arti the yellow as mentioned above, gourm brown eyes and spearmy light pink spears, furthered by the outskirts pearl accompanying me and that palette all the way to moon. Tolerance training for eternity in hell cause I already knew about the maroon pearl quest). I initially gave them the colors of the bi flag for fun... but with the limited palette of this image, I was left without pink for a while and decided to see how they'd look in red. I then realized how they now wonderfully matched Moon, and besides, red's a sort of camouflage in deep water! As a side-note, the difference between their eyes and those of others always bothered me a little for anatomical purposes, and the cephalopod eyes were probably influenced by this!

Spearmaster: Inspired as much as possible by @notyourfunnyman ’s wonderful spearmy: designed in a way that helps it fit in with scavengers, at least between the long sensory tentacles, big ruff, back spines and slightly thin/distended anatomy, a form of defensive mimicry. I always had annulate rhinophores in mind, for a little diversity sure, but mostly because the shape reminds me of radio antennae and communication towers (seems fitting for the comms array and being a messenger slugcat)! I started searching for a real-life slug to give them just by looking up their rhinophore shape...and was met immediately and coincidentally with annulate-topped nudibranchs that fit them more perfectly than I could've imagined: Flabellina and surrounding clades, I think Paraflabellina ischitana works very nicely. The orange was completely unplanned, but there wasn’t a place for light pink among the other slugcats’ palettes, and importantly it likens them to both Hunter and Seven Red Suns a little more.

Saint: I am very much a non-furred slugcat enjoyer, with respect to those who aren’t, so figuring out the only visibly furred slugcat was an interesting challenge. I’ve decided that they likely have other, milder adaptations for help in the cold, mainly just more efficient fat storage, and what looks vaguely like fur is instead a bunch of tubercles (called caryophillia, for the second reminder out of three). Their inspiration doesn’t have these, however, Miamira sinuata’s numerous yellow and blue spots (not to mention...whatever’s going on with that shape) and general effect of being the only really green nudibranch I could find were probably perfect for a strange green echo. Not pictured, but their beak-teeth are tiny and flat to make a surface for grinding soft food against with the lack of a functioning radula, which is tipped with a specialized spiny “grapple-hook” for better traction/grip (not to mention the numerous little teeth running down the whole thing).

(Best part of hiding this under a readmore means edits will be seen by all reblogs, I'm mostly sure, because I completely forgot to mention! The spots on their forehead are simple eyes. Their camera eyes appear closed in-game, I like to believe their complex eyesight is rather poor anyways or otherwise reason that they aren't seeing out of those, and while this was far from her REASON for attunement with the world, it does help compensate for mainly viewing it through a canvas of simple light and dark. This, and the fact that their swapped-out "fur" is not only to commit to a lack of hairs but contributes to sensory input!)

Nightcat/Enot: I guess you could say I found the “these two are technically the same person” compelling. (E.g. similar colors, both very strange and enigmatic, and Enot/Inv/Sofanthiel’s remark during the dating sim about getting removed from Arena Mode.) I doubt they’re the only two slugcats in their body, considering humans with DID tend to have more than a few (and I find it very funny that a slugcat bearing resemblance to Nightcat appears in Gourmand’s ending. They’re allowed in the colony and Enot isn’t </3), and I have to credit @faelingdraws ’s art for being what convinced me on it! Their design inspirations come down to trying to balance a few different ideas: making the patterns and palettes of both look oddly similar (special mention to the stars, since those are fun to draw), basing them off of Felimare sechurana and juliae respectively, using blocks of color with the same placement as in Enot’s official art, and specifically making Enot look...biologically reasonable and imperfect, whilst also clearly trying to imitate human displays of emotion (what with...the eyes and blush on that one piece of official art).

Lastly, here’s just a lineup with notes on body shape and size. Most of the nicknames (existing to give a little more space, that’s all) are obvious, and while I can’t remember why I shortened Nightcat to Nox, it is in honor of my friend by the same nickname :]

[syn4k]

to be, or not to be (romanticization of the inevitable)

[fizzingwizard]

dear internet stop throwing pictures of beautifully toasted bagels slathered in cream cheese at me i don't have a toaster i don't have room in my teeny kitchenette for a toaster a toaster is a luxury here in japan as are bagels as is cream cheese

bagel places here that ask me "do you want that heated up" make me want to cry tears of joy even though all they mean is they're gonna stick the bagel in the microwave for ten seconds so it's slightly warm-ish but not enough to crisp up or melt the cream cheese a little

[solar-nightengale]

@lizardthelizard You wanted my thoughts, you're getting them 😏 Three and a half weeks later but you're still getting them ehehehe 😌😌😌 (Idk what to make of them so have fun with that word wall of mayhem)

August 2.18 | Zelena 3.16

[kyra45]

If you were previously verified by gazavetters, please seek out a different verification account as currently they’ve deleted all their posts + the document they was using to list accounts they verified.

(If you were previously verified by gazavetters, please seek out a different verification account as currently they’ve deleted all their posts + the document they was using to list accounts they verified.)

I know some accounts follow me that verify fundraisers or know some of them, so please spread the word about the current situation since a lot of gfm blogs used them to get verified and now that’s all deleted.

—

5:40pm update

From what I can gather from a reblog on the original post, the blogs runner has become upset that some blogs are resorting to unnecessary tactics to raise funds while trying to raise money theirself. The account was ran by multiple accounts, but it seems the main one has decided to cut ties with verifying all gfms and will leave the blog to be though I’m unsure what will happen to their list.

The blogs runner was upset that it was taking so long for gfms to be verified, so they created the account in order to speed up the process and recently realized they didn’t agree with what some accounts have done to get attention from popular blogs. (Or something like that.)

All in all, if you was verified by them I would suggest unfortunately still seek verification from other blogs due to this one now shutting down it seems. But please don’t harass the original blog owner he is going through a lot as is. Any existing verification is still acceptable, but any posts around it are gone leaving just the document itself which is why I suggest getting another verification done so you’ll have an extra one on hand.

This does NOT mean accounts verified by them were scammers; Do not take this as a sign of that. It’s just an unfortunate situation being cleared up and measures taken to ensure this don’t happen again at some point.

From what I’ve seen, the document has been restored again.

Read the update here

[wordstome]

how c.ai works and why it's unethical

Okay, since the AI discourse is happening again, I want to make this very clear, because a few weeks ago I had to explain to a (well meaning) person in the community how AI works. I'm going to be addressing people who are maybe younger or aren't familiar with the latest type of "AI", not people who purposely devalue the work of creatives and/or are shills.

The name "Artificial Intelligence" is a bit misleading when it comes to things like AI chatbots. When you think of AI, you think of a robot, and you might think that by making a chatbot you're simply programming a robot to talk about something you want them to talk about, and it's similar to an rp partner. But with current technology, that's not how AI works. For a breakdown on how AI is programmed, CGP grey made a great video about this several years ago (he updated the title and thumbnail recently)

I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend you watch this because CGP Grey is good at explaining, but the tl;dr for this post is this: bots are made with a metric shit-ton of data. In C.AI's case, the data is writing. Stolen writing, usually scraped fanfiction.

How do we know chatbots are stealing from fanfiction writers? It knows what omegaverse is [SOURCE] (it's a Wired article, put it in incognito mode if it won't let you read it), and when a Reddit user asked a chatbot to write a story about "Steve", it automatically wrote about characters named "Bucky" and "Tony" [SOURCE].

I also said this in the tags of a previous reblog, but when you're talking to C.AI bots, it's also taking your writing and using it in its algorithm: which seems fine until you realize 1. They're using your work uncredited 2. It's not staying private, they're using your work to make their service better, a service they're trying to make money off of.

"But Bucca," you might say. "Human writers work like that too. We read books and other fanfictions and that's how we come up with material for roleplay or fanfiction."

Well, what's the difference between plagiarism and original writing? The answer is that plagiarism is taking what someone else has made and simply editing it or mixing it up to look original. You didn't do any thinking yourself. C.AI doesn't "think" because it's not a brain, it takes all the fanfiction it was taught on, mixes it up with whatever topic you've given it, and generates a response like in old-timey mysteries where somebody cuts a bunch of letters out of magazines and pastes them together to write a letter.

(And might I remind you, people can't monetize their fanfiction the way C.AI is trying to monetize itself. Authors are very lax about fanfiction nowadays: we've come a long way since the Anne Rice days of terror. But this issue is cropping back up again with BookTok complaining that they can't pay someone else for bound copies of fanfiction. Don't do that either.)

Bottom line, here are the problems with using things like C.AI:

It is using material it doesn't have permission to use and doesn't credit anybody. Not only is it ethically wrong, but AI is already beginning to contend with copyright issues.

C.AI sucks at its job anyway. It's not good at basic story structure like building tension, and can't even remember things you've told it. I've also seen many instances of bots saying triggering or disgusting things that deeply upset the user. You don't get that with properly trigger tagged fanworks.

Your work and your time put into the app can be taken away from you at any moment and used to make money for someone else. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people who use AI panic about accidentally deleting a bot that they spent hours conversing with. Your time and effort is so much more stable and well-preserved if you wrote a fanfiction or roleplayed with someone and saved the chatlogs. The company that owns and runs C.AI can not only use whatever you've written as they see fit, they can take your shit away on a whim, either on purpose or by accident due to the nature of the Internet.

DON'T USE C.AI, OR AT THE VERY BARE MINIMUM DO NOT DO THE AI'S WORK FOR IT BY STEALING OTHER PEOPLES' WORK TO PUT INTO IT. Writing fanfiction is a communal labor of love. We share it with each other for free for the love of the original work and ideas we share. Not only can AI not replicate this, but it shouldn't.

(also, this goes without saying, but this entire post also applies to ai art)

[mostly-marvel-musings]

How about “nope no nada, no using sex to get me to do things you want, it’s not going to work anymore” + using sex to get our favorite insomniac Mr. Stank to take a break from work and come to bed?

Old tricks

A/N: I was waiting for this prompt, can’t believe it was in my inbox the whole time and I missed it. Leave a comment, heart or reblog if you’ve enjoyed reading :)

Pairing: Tony Stark x Reader

Warning: 18+ sex themes, fluff

.

“How long has it been since he last took a nap, FRI?” You sighed, closing the book you were currently reading before stifling a yawn.

Thirty eight hours and counting, Mrs. Stark.

He was at it again. After promising that he would join you in bed early today, Tony Stark was still in the basement, nose deep in inventing yet another device that would potentially save the universe.

Rolling your eyes you threw the sheets off of your legs, rummaging through your closet to find the oldest trick in the book of ‘Getting your husband to obey’.

A set of lingerie was usually your go to but tonight, you decided on going down to his lab wearing nothing but a silky robe that you planned on discarding the moment he would lay eyes on you.

Overriding his protocol with FRIDAY’S help, you entered his lab and were met with an immediate blast of cold air; it fortunately worked in your favour, pebbling your nipples and making them evident against the flimsy piece of fabric.

Your husband stood hunched over his table that displayed varied diagrams and models with a blue glowing light that made his features appear exhausted. He probably was. Not that he would ever admit.

“Hello husband.”

You murmured, hugging the man from behind and wrapping your arms around his middle, feeling his tight muscles against your soft flesh, the contrast making you frown.

Tony sighed, melting against your touch immediately, as his hands stopped working to cover yours in a reassuring way.

“Are you planning on warming your side of the bed any time soon? Perhaps your wife would like some company too..”

Turning in your arms, he leaned in to kiss your lips in a wordless apology before stopping, his strained eyes grazing down your form, taking you in.

“What are you doing, Y/N?”

“What?” You feigned innocence, grabbing his hands and bringing them to the front of your robe, beginning to unfasten the ties.

Letting out a defeated grunt, Tony’s head planted itself against your shoulder, stopping your movements at once.

“Nope. No. Nada. No using sex to get me to do things you want, it’s not going to work anymore.” You grinned because his voice lacked conviction, and the fact that he hadn’t pushed you away meant you had already won.

“Isn’t it?”

You smirked, undoing the belt completely now to reveal what the robe barely covered. Opening an eye, Tony drank your glorious self in, not finding enough reason to resist. With your nipples turned into buds and the glistening between your thighs, he was powerless.

Tony Stark simply wasn’t built to resist your persuasion.

Taking the robe off completely, you stepped back and turned to head out of his lab, throwing the robe over the shoulder with a knowledge that it had probably landed on his head.

“You’re just gonna wander around the house naked now?” He called after you, cock stirring in his pants at the sight of your curves sashaying their way out, just for him as you shrugged in response.

“Maybe I’ll try another good old trick. Perhaps that toy you designed for our anniversary?”

There was a curse word uttered under his breath before Tony Stark shut off his lab for the night and made a beeline in your direction, refusing to let his wife pleasure herself with anything that wasn’t his cock or tongue.

Find Part 2 here!

[moonchild9350]

Firsts

Summary: Hyunjin reminisces on all of your 'firsts' together as a couple.

Pairing: nonidol!Hyunjin x fab!reader

Genre: established relationship au, fluff, smut-18+MDNI

Word Count: 3.4k

Warnings: time jumps, kissing, hand job, nipple play, clit play, unprotected sex (don’t), mention of birth control, creampie, Hyunjin is in love lol

Notes: just wanted to write another fic from Hyunjin's pov! this was supposed to be short but here we are lol

If you enjoyed please consider a comment, reblog, or like as it keeps me motivated ♡

Please do not copy, translate, modify, use, or repost this work elsewhere without my permission. ©moonchild9350 (2024)

Firsts are scary. At least that is what Hyunjin thought wholeheartedly, that is until he met you. You with your cheery demeanor, your kind heart and lust for life. He loves your beauty, your body, your everything, but he also loves who you are on the inside.

Over the last year you’ve both shared many firsts with each other, each time they occur giving him butterflies deep within as if it’s the first time you’ve met.

— —

Hyunjin was nervous for your first date, the jitters getting the best of him as he checked his hair in the mirror for the millionth time. His heart was pounding within his chest, so hard he thought it was going to burst.

He picked out flowers for you earlier in the day, unsure of what you’d like. Maybe the roses? But also what about the carnations? He spent so long staring at the two options that the clerk came by to make sure he was okay asking if he needed any help.

In the end he chose the roses, sticking to a safe choice. He carefully cared for them home, making sure not to crush the delicate petals, their floral scent traveling to his nose causing him to smile. He kept them in water until it was time to pick you up, the stems dripping all over the floor and ultimately his pants staining them.

Hyunjin felt embarrassed at the stain, convinced you would slam the door in his face, tsking that he was a mess. However, you did the exact opposite, your squeal of delight reaching his ears, which turned a bright red in response. You whisked the flowers from his hands, setting them in a vase of water before following him outside.

He took you to dinner, at a cute little restaurant in town that you had been gushing about. He found it easy to chat with you, the conversation flowing nonstop. He made sure to listen to all of your likes and dislikes, wanting to learn more about you which was easy to do since it was you.

You both enjoyed your meal, staying for the cheesecake and that extra glass of wine, your hearts wildly beating at the prospect of other dates to come.

But all good things must come to an end, the night wrapping up way too soon. Hyunjin walked you back to your apartment in the warm night air, the city slowing down as people hurried home. He’d hope to see you again as he wanted to shower you with affection and treat you the way you deserve.

Hyunjin looked forward to more firsts with you, the concept not as scary as it seemed before

Not long after your first date, he took you to movie , as you had a love for films just like him. It was an older film, repurposed for the modern theater, one you both enjoyed and discussed many times over a late night chat.

The theater in town was old, the building itself a time capsule of when it was built in the early beginnings of the sleepy town.

You both sat in the red chairs, looking at each other as you blushed and giggled, each of you a nervous wreck. Hyunjin didn’t know what to do, not wanting to make you feel uncomfortable, so he quickly looked away and focused on the screen, watching the ads that were playing.

Soon, the lights dimmed and the film began. He couldn’t stop looking at you from the corner of his eye, trying to catch a glimpse of you as you focused straight ahead. His heart was beating, his thigh bouncing up and down as he tried to pay attention to the film.

If he thought he was nervous then nothing could have prepared him for how nervous he would be watching you creep your hand to rest on the armrest separating you two.

Your hand rested there delicately, your perfectly manicured nails on display. His palms were clammy, as beads of sweat prickled at his forehead. He tried to subtly wipe his hands off on his pants, hoping you wouldn’t see.

Suddenly, you looked his way, his head turning to meet your eyes. You gave him a smile, butterflies fluttering in his chest at your beauty. He looked at your hand, now facing palm up and back to your eyes. You gave him another reassuring smile before wiggling your fingers teasingly.

Before he could overthink his actions, he quickly reached for your hand, his fingers brushing yours before resting his palm on top of yours. You giggled quietly before lacing your fingers with his, giving his hand a squeeze once settled.

Hyunjin was over the moon, a smile gracing his face as he turned to face the screen again. There was incessant pounding of his heart in his chest, as he held your hand in his, not believing that this was happening.

He found he couldn’t focus on the film, his thoughts on how your tiny hand fit in his perfectly, almost like two puzzle pieces finding their home together. He thought of how he could feel your pulse, the thump thump radiating off his skin. If he could feel your heart beat, could you feel his and how it ached for you?

His mind was a flurry of thoughts as he barely paid attention to the film, not even noticing it was over until the very end when you sweetly said his name, the sound sweet like honey to his ears.

He blushed, feeling embarrassed at his mishap.

“Ready then?” He asked you, squeezing your hand in his.

“Mmhmm I am,” you said, your eyes locked on him.

Hyunjin chatted with you about the film as you both walked down the sidewalk, your chatter warming his heart, creating a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. The street lamps set a yellow glow, illuminating the way as you passed others on their way to a destination only they know.

Stopping at a street corner, he takes a deep breath, his eyes gazing at you through his periphery. You stand there with your hands at your side, your gaze straight ahead.

Hyunjin desperately wants to touch you, feel your warm hand in his once more. He wants to feel how your fingers lightly brush against his as they bend and fold to rest upon his.

Would you pull your hand away if he reached out to grab ahold of it?

He thinks and thinks, his teeth biting his bottom lip as he ponders at what he should do. You’ve held hands in the theater, but it was dark inside and not as…as public. He’s not sure why he’s this nervous. It’s you, the love of his life, the sweet girl who bumped into him at the cafe down the street from your house. And of course you just met, but he feels as if he’s known you his whole life.

Taking a breath, he builds the courage to reach down and grab your hand, right as the signal to walk changes from red to white. He looks at you, his eyebrows raised as you stare up at him in shock, your cheeks flushing a beautiful shade of red.

“I’m…I’m sorry…”

Hyunjin was cut off by your hand squeezing his.

“Don’t be sorry, I like this Hyun,” you responded, your face spreading into a smile.

Hyunjin nodded his head and smiled back, his dimple popping up on his cheek. He shook his head in resolve and started walking with you by his side. He couldn’t believe something as simple as holding your hand could make him feel this way, as if he had just won the lottery and was the luckiest man alive. He’d make sure to remember this moment for the rest of his life that’s for sure

Your relationship progressed, both of you comfortably falling into each other’s routines, your two paths merging as if it was always meant to be.

You both opted for an at home date, agreeing to cook dinner together. Hyunjin never cooked before he met you, opting to fill his stomach with take out from the local restaurants. When you found out his diet was not the best, you flipped, shrieking how he needed proper nutrients and that you would take care of his meals.

That was the start of you cooking and bringing his meals to his home, making sure he ate properly each day. He blushed as you fussed over the containers, unloading them one by one from your bag. You explained when to eat what and what each item was, as you scurried across his kitchen.

Eventually, he suggested that you come over and show him how to cook basic meals, so that way you didn’t have to make extra portions.

This suggestion led to both of you elbow deep in dough, as you showed him how to make bread, your arms flexing as you carefully kneaded the dough. He watched in awe as you worked, little droplets of sweat dripping down the side of your face.

Hyunjin didn’t realize he was staring until you asked him a question as you used the back of your arm to wipe the sweat off your face.

“Hyun!” You said, giggling as he shook his head to break out of his reverie.

“What did you ask?” Hyunjin replied sheepishly, his hands reaching for anything in his reach.

You chuckled and bumped against his arm, “I asked if you had any questions so far?”

Hyunjin had many questions as he wasn’t paying attention to your instructions, but he didn’t want to dishearten you so he said no and continued to knead the dough that was in front of him.

You both worked in comfortable silence with soft music playing in the background. Hyunjin watched as you reached into the bag of flower, grasping a finger full. You were about to throw it on the counter so the dough wouldn’t stick, but at the last second you flicked your wrist towards him, the flour flying through the air and landing on his face.

Hyunjin let out a shriek, your cackles filling the kitchen as you doubled over clutching your stomach. Hyunjin chuckled, reached into the flour bag and grabbed a handful, launching it you.

An all out flour war began, both of you leaping and dodging each other, flour flying everywhere, the powder floating gently through the air. Your clothes were splattered with the white substance, as you pelted each other. Hyunjin’s deep laughter mixed your tinkling sound, the cacophony resonating throughout the little kitchen.

Hyunjin watched as you grabbed another hand full of flour, but just as you were about to launch it at him, you slipped on the powder littering the floor, your arms flailing forwards. You shrieked and drop towards the floor, your hands reaching out to grab onto anything you could.

He quickly reached out his hands and caught you, cradling you gently within his ams. You both were breathing heavy, your chests rapidly rising and falling, little puffs of air coming from your lips as you both stood there in silence.

Hyunjin helped you stand back up, his hands traveling down your arms. He gazed down at you, his eyes catching yours. You looked beautiful, your cheeks flushed with specks of flour, wisps of your hair falling into your face.

Hyunjin’s breath caught as his gaze drifted to your lips, his mind wandering how they would feel on his. It’s not the first time he’s thought this, the idea floating around his head late at night as he laid in bed, his hand drifting to his cock that seems to always be hard during the night hours as he thinks of you.

Your eyes widen, your pupils dilating as you waited in anticipation for his next move. Time seemed to stand still as Hyunjin took a breath and gently cupped your chin, gently tipping your head up.

Leaning down, he slowly closed the gap between you two until he could feel your breath on him. There was a pause as you both stood together, his hand on your chin, his forehead against yours. Closing the final distance, your lips collided. Your lips were soft on his as he pulled you closer, his hands sliding down your arms, your torso until they reached your waist.

Hyunjin could hear fireworks going off within his head and he smiled at the cliche thought, as he continued to move his lips against yours. He shivered as you wrapped your arms around his neck, clutching onto him as he continued to kiss you gently but passionately.

Just when he thought he’d run out of oxygen, you pulled away partially, a string of spit connecting your two lips, as you fought to catch your breath. Hyunjin rested his forehead against yours and let out a chuckle as you smiled, your fingers softly carding through his hair.

You both stood there gazing at each other, your lips pressing together again and again in breathy exchange. The night went on, the dough forgotten as you embraced each other, listening to the sound of your hearts beating and the sound of the soft notes of a piano flowing throughout the room.

“Let’s watch a movie baby,” you cooed, snuggling closer to him, your head nuzzling into his chest.

You both were in your bed, spending a lazy day together. Hyunjin loved being in your room, being surrounded by your scent, with the presence of your interests scattered throughout the room. He pulled you closer, chuckling as you squeaked at the sudden movement.

Your legs were wrapped around his, your hand on his belly as he lightly brushed his fingertips down your spine. Hyunjin has dreamed of a moment like this for weeks, wanting you within his arms, the promise of more lingering in the air.

And that’s exactly how the night went. He remembers lowering you on your back, your hair splayed out on the pillow, your big brown eyes staring up at him.

He pressed wet kisses all over your cheeks, your jaw, your neck, his cock swelling at the sound of your sweet moans as he worshipped your body. He found himself grinding into you, his cock meeting your core with each pass, strangled moans leaving his lips.

Hyunjin held his breath as you rid yourself of your shirt, tossing it away before settling back onto the pillow. He swallowed as you fondled your breasts, your fingers playing with your nipples looking at him with a hooded gaze.

“Touch me,” you breathed, your lips parted as you watched his every move.

He grasped your breasts, cupping the flesh as his fingers brushed and tugged against your nipples. He listened to your moans, his eyes widening as you arched into his touch, your hands reaching out to meet his. Hyunjin reveled in how they felt perfect within the palm of his hand, soft and plushy, his mind reeling at the feel of them.

He groaned as he wrapped his lips around your nipple, your back arching into him as he licked and sucked, his other hand massaging your other breast. He felt euphoric, waves of pleasure traveling through his body as he pleasured you.

Releasing your nipple with a pop, he hurriedly rid himself of his boxers, his cock slapping against his belly at the force and pre cum oozing from his tip. He took in your gaze, as you licked your lips at the sight of his member, your hands reaching out to encircle his length.

He whimpered as you slid your hand against his shaft, your palm coming up to circle the head over and over. His mouth was wide open as he shuddered in pleasure, his hips slightly thrusting up into your hand. You stroked him harder, faster, your eyes trained on him, a smirk forming on your face as you watched him fall apart above you.

“Can’t…stop love,” Hyunjin breathed, his hand reaching out to gently remove yours from his cock. “Need to be in you. Will you let me have you?” He asked with hope in your eyes.

He groaned out as you parted your legs more, displaying your wet pussy to him.

“Of course baby,” you cooed as you reached down to part your folds so your leaking entrance was on display.

Hyunjin grasped his cock, stroking it a few times before pressing it at your hole. He was about to push in when he stopped, hesitating to proceed.

You looked up at him curiously as you asked, “why’d you stop?”

Hyunjin cleared his throat, his eyes roaming up your body until they landed on your brown orbs.

“I um…I don’t have a condom,” he replied, his eyes cast downward at the implications of not being able to have you.

However, he perked up when you responded, a wide smile on your face.

“I’m on birth control, so we don’t need one if you don’t mind.”

He felt his heart flutter, his cock twitching at the thought of not only having you for the first time but also bare. He gripped his cock harder and brushed his tip through your folds, the head catching on your clit before trailing back down to your entrance.

He pushed within you, his eyes trained on your pussy as your warm walls engulfed him like a hug. He faltered slightly, letting out a breath as the pleasure was too overwhelming. You were so wet, the slide easy as he pushed further within you.

He groaned as you whimpered, spreading your legs wider so you could watch where you two were connected. Hyunjin began thrusting his hips into you, his breath stuttering as your pussy clenched around him, holding him in.

He wasn’t going to last long, the feeling of you, the smell of you, even the sound of you being too overwhelming. He quickly attached his lips to yours as he brought his hand to your clit, sloppily circling the bud to get you to your high.

He could feel you shivering beneath him, your hands clawing at his back as he pounded into you. His face was buried in your neck, your lips at his ear whispering the most dirty things, causing him to groan.

You continuously clenched around him, your arms wrapping around his middle, holding him tight, your legs wrapping around his thighs pulling him deeper within you.

You whined his name, whimpering “don’t stop” over and over.

You were driving him insane.

He was moments away from claiming you, his cock swelling at the thought of getting to fill you with his seed. His hips stuttered as his cock twitched within your walls, his mind a mess as he couldn’t think straight.

You lifted his head and brought his lips to yours in a passionate kiss, the action tipping him over the edge, reaching that euphoria he has only experienced within the confines of his room or in his dreams.

It was better than he could imagine, causing him to whimper as his cum filled you within. His eyes rolled to the back of his head as you gasped as you reached your high, the rhythmic contraction of your walls milking him dry.

Hyunjin swallowed your moans, his body caging yours as he lazily rocked into you, riding out both of your highs.

He let out a shaky breath before pulling back, taking in your sweaty body beneath his, the clear sheen coating every inch of your skin. He withdrew his cock, watching as his cum seeped from your pussy, your walls contracting at the emptiness and pushing out the white liquid.

“I love you,” you whispered as you gazed up at him, a soft smile gracing your face.

Hyunjin felt his heart swell at the confession, his love for you expanding by the second.

You loved him.

He mouthed the words before running a hand through his hair.

You loved him.

Looking down at you lovingly, he pushed your hair back from your face, his eyes taking in the afterglow. He licked his lips and kissed you before laying down next to you and pulling you close.

“I love you.” He repeated, meaning every word as it left his mouth.

— —

Yeah firsts are scary. Hyunjin has never liked them. However, he doesn’t mind sharing firsts with you, the love of his life.

He remembers that as you descend the steps, dressed in a beautiful little black dress, your hair carefully fixed and makeup done to perfection.

Here Hyunjin is celebrating yet another first with you, your first anniversary, and he could not be happier and more satisfied.

You are his first but also his last.

Tag list: @jehhskz @jeonginsleftcheek @simpforleeknaur @armystay89 @palindrome969 @slut4hee @ivydoesit23 @amarecerasus @kaysungshine @fun-fanfics @baby-stay92 @velvetmoonlght @possum-playground

[resplendent-ragamuffin]

I have encountered issues with JVP in the past in regards to not accommodating kashrut/shabbat observance (and wheelchairs), but previously hasn’t heard about the Mikvah thing. Do you have any sources I can refer to?

Oh boy. Oh boy oh boy oh boy. The noise I made when I saw this ask.

You are probably unaware but I have literally been working on a post on this topic since February. Bless you for asking me about it and giving me a reason to share it. Genuinely. I'm delighted.

Without further ado, now that I've finally finished:

On the JVP Mikveh BS

Some of you are no doubt aware of the Jewish Voice for Peace Mikveh Guide (on JVP’s website here, and here on the Wayback Machine in case that link breaks). You may have seen the post I reblogged about it, you may have seen the post about JVP in general on @is-the-thing-actually-Jewish, or you may have heard about it elsewhere. Or maybe you’ve somehow managed to avoid all knowledge of its existence. (God I wish that were me.) Even if you know about it, even if you’ve scanned through it, you probably haven’t taken the time to read it through properly.

I have.

God help me.

I was originally looking through it to help draft the @is-the-thing-actually-Jewish post back in February, but some terrible combination of horror, indignation, and probably masochism compelled me to do a close reading, so that I could write this analysis and share it with you, dear readers. For those of you who’ve never heard of a mikvah, for those of you who’ve immersed in one, for those of you who’ve studied it intensely—I give you this, the fruit of my suffering, so you too can understand why “Mikveh: A Purification Ritual for Personal and Collective Transformation,” written by Zohar Lev Cunningham and Rebekah Erev for Jewish Voice for Peace has got so many people up in arms.

Brace yourselves. It’s going to be a long journey.

First off, a disclaimer: When I say something is “required in Jewish law” or whatnot, I’m talking about in traditional practice / Torah-observant communities; what is often called “Orthodox.” There’s a wide range of Jewish practice, and what is required in frum (observant) Judaism may not be required in Reform Judaism, etc. Don’t at me.

Second note: I myself am Modern Orthodox, and come from that perspective. I’m also very much more on the rationalist side than the mysticism side of things. I did run this past people from other communities. Still, if I’ve missed or misrepresented something, it was my error and was not meant maliciously.

Third: I am not a rabbi. I am a nerd who likes explaining things and doing deep dives. Again, I may have made errors–please let me know if you spot any, and I’d be happy to discuss them.

Now then. Before we get into the text itself, let’s give some background.

WHAT IS THIS MIKVEH THING ANYWAY?

A mikveh (or mikvah, both they and I switch between spellings; plural mikva’ot) is a Jewish ritual bath, sometimes translated as an immersion pool. Some communities or organizations that run mikva’ot will have a single all-purpose all-purpose, some have separate human- and utensil-pools, and some have separate women’s and men’s pools. The majority of the water in a mikvah has to be “living waters,” i.e. naturally collected rather than from a tap or a bucket. Some natural bodies of water can also be used, such as the ocean and some rivers (ask your local rabbi). The construction is complicated and has extremely detailed requirements. Here’s an example of a modern mikvah:

(By Wikimedia Commons (ויקיגמדון) - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17373540)

Whoever is being dunked (the scientific term) has to be entirely immersed, and the water has to be in direct contact with all of them. That means no clothes, no makeup, no hair floating on the top of the water, no feet touching the floor, no clenched fists. You have to be completely clean as well, so no dirt is obstructing you from the water.

In essence, a person or thing is immersed in a mikvah to change their/its state from tameh (ritually “impure”) to tahor (ritually “pure”). I use quotes because “pure/impure” aren’t really good translations—they have value judgments that tameh/tahor don’t. There’s nothing wrong with being tameh, you aren’t lesser because you are tameh—it’s just a state one enters when one comes into contact with death and related concepts. (There are also different levels of both.) As a matter of fact, technically speaking even after going to a mikvah basically all people are tameh now—the tum’ah (“impurity,” sort of) that comes from contact with dead humans can only be removed by the Red Heifer offering (see Numbers 19), which we can’t do without the Temple. (Why I say “all” even if you’ve never been to a funeral is a much much longer tangent that I’ll spare you for now.) To quote one of my editors on this, mikvah is “about the natural oscillation between states of ritual purity and impurity. Men go to mikveh after having seminal emissions. Menstruating women go to mikveh on a monthly basis (emphasis added).” It’s just states of life.

In the days of the Temple, one had to be tahor to enter it (the Temple). Archaeologists have found a ton of ancient mikva’ot in Jerusalem that were presumably used by people visiting the Temple, which personally I think is extremely cool.

Nowadays, there are three main traditionally required uses for a mikvah. First, and most importantly, observant married women will go about once a month as part of their niddah (menstrual) cycle, part of practice known as Taharat HaMishpacha, or “Family ‘Purity,’” which at its root is a way to sanctify the relationship between spouses. Until she immerses, a wife and husband cannot resume relations. And not just sex—in some communities, they can’t sleep in the same bed or even have any physical contact at all.

The second use is for conversion—immersion is a central part of the conversion ceremony. One enters the water a gentile, and emerges a Jew.

The third usage is a bit different as it’s not for people. Tableware—plates, cups, etc.—made of certain materials have to be immersed before they can be used. This isn’t what the Guide is about, so I’m not going to go into that as much, but felt remiss if I didn’t mention it was a thing. If you want to know more, Chabad has an article on it here.

Aside from uses required by Jewish law, there is a strong tradition in some communities for men to go to the mikveh just before Yom Kippur, or sometimes every week before the Sabbath, to enter the holiday in as “pure” a state as possible these days. (The things they’re “purifying” from still made them tameh, it just matters less without the Temple.) There is also a strong custom to immerse before one’s wedding. Less traditional communities have also started using mikvah for other transitional moments, such as significant birthdays or remission from cancer. There has recently been an “open mikvah” movement, which “is committed to making mikveh accessible to Jews of all denominations, ages, genders, sexual orientations, and abilities (Rising Tide Network old website, “Why Open Mikvah”).”

To quote others:

No other religious establishment, structure or rite can affect the Jew in this way and, indeed, on such an essential level. —Rebbetzen Rivkah Slonim, Total Immersion, as quoted on Chabad.org

The mikveh is one of the most important parts of a Jewish community. —Kylie Ora Lobell, “What Is a Mikveh?” on Aish.com

How important? According to Rav Moshe Feinstein, one of the great American rabbis of the 20th century, one should build a mikveh before building a synagogue in a town that has neither, and even in a town where there is a mikveh but it’s an inconvenient distance away from the community (Igros Moshe: Choshen Mishpat Chelek 1 Siman 42).

A mikveh is more important than a synagogue.

I’d say that’s pretty important.

Tl;dr: A mikveh is the conduit through which a convert becomes a part of the Jewish people. It is traditionally used to sanctify the relationship between spouses. It was required for people to go to the Temple, back when we still had it. It is extremely central to Jewish practice.

So. What does JVP have to say about it?

THE JVP MIKVEH GUIDE

The document in question is titled “Mikveh: A Purification Ritual for Personal and Collective Transformation,” by Zohar Lev Cunningham and Rebekah Erev. I am largely going to quote directly from the text and then analyze and explain it.

Now let me be clear. I’m not trying to say the authors aren’t Jewish. I’m not saying they’re bad people, or that you should attack them. I am not intending any of this as an ad hominem attack. But given the contents of this document, I do think it is fair to call this appropriative, even if it is of their own culture—in the same way someone can have internalized racism, or twist feminism into being a TERF, I would argue that this is twisting Judaism into paganism. In fact, while I use “appropriation” throughout this document, an extremely useful term that’s been coined recently is “cultural expropriation”--essentially, appropriative actions done by rogue members of the community in question. One example of this would be the Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles, which is the source of a lot of the Madonna-style “pop Kabbalah.” It was founded by an Orthodox Jewish couple, but it and its followers are widely criticized by most Jewish communities. In much the same way, the Guide is expropriation. 

We start off with a note from the authors.

Hello, Welcome to the Simple Mikveh Guide. This work comes out of many years of reclaiming and re-visioning mikveh. The intention of this guide is to acknowledge and give some context to what mikveh is, provide resources related to mainstream understanding of mikveh and also provide alternative mikveh ideas. Blessings for enjoyment of this wonderful, simple Jewish ritual! Zohar Lev Cunningham & Rebekah Erev

This is fairly normal, though “alternative mikveh ideas” is a bit odd to say. I also find “blessings for enjoyment” to be odd phrasing, somewhat reminiscent of the Wiccan “Blessed Be,” but it could be a typo.

The first main section is titled “Intro to Mikveh,” and begins as follows:

Mikveh is an ancient Jewish ritual practice of water immersion, traditionally used for cleansing, purification, and transformation. It's been conventionally used for conversion to Judaism, for brides, and for niddah, the practice of cleansing after menstruation.

This is relatively accurate, and credit where credit is due avoids making niddah out to be patriarchal BS. I do object slightly to “purify” as a translation without further explanation, as I went into above, and “cleansing” for similar reasons—it implies “dirtiness,’ which isn’t really what tum’ah is about. Also, though this is pretty minor, a bride going to the mikveh before her wedding is actually a part of the laws of niddah. I’d also note that they entirely leave out that it was important for going to the Temple in ancient times, though given this is published by JVP I’m not terribly surprised.

For Jews, water signifies the transformative moment from slavery in Egypt, through the parted Red Sea, and into freedom.

On the one hand, I suppose it’s not unreasonable to connect the Red Sea and mikveh, though I think I’d be more likely to hear it the other way around (i.e. “going through the sea was like the people immersing in a mikveh and being ‘cleansed,’ so to speak”). Though they were, rather importantly, not actually immersed in the water. However I don’t think I’d say water as a whole signifies the Splitting of the Sea. In fact, water imagery is more often used to signify the Torah, see for instance Bava Kamma 82a.

There is also a mystical connection to mikveh as a metaphor for the womb of the divine.

A mikveh being like a womb is also not uncommon. It’s found in the Reishis Chochmah (Shia’ar HaAhavah 11,58) and the writing of Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (The Aryeh Kaplan Anthology, vol 2., p. 382; both as quoted in 50 Mikvahs That Shaped History, by Rabbi Ephraim Meth), see also “The Mikveh’s Significance in Traditional Conversion” by Rabbi Maurice Lamm on myjewishlearning. Filled with water, you float in it, you emerge a new being (at least for conversion); it’s not an absurd comparison to draw. I’m not sure I’ve found anything for the Womb of the Divine specifically, though. (Also, Divine should definitely be capitalized.)

Entering a mikveh is a transformative and healing experience and we have long wondered why it is not available to more people, including the significant trans and queer populations in Jewish communities.

So. I am NOT going to say there’s no problem with homophobia and/or transphobia in Jewish communities. It’s definitely a community issue, and many communities are grappling with it in various ways as we speak. And I’m certainly not going to say the authors didn’t have the experience of not having a mikveh available to them—I don’t know their lives, I’m not going to police their experiences.

However, while Orthodox mikvahs are often still restricted to married women (who by virtue of the community will generally be cis and married to men) and potentially adult men (given the resources and customs, as mentioned above), there are plenty of more liberal mikva’ot these days. Some even explicitly offer rituals for queer events! The list of reasons to go to the mikvah linked up above, for instance, includes:

(Mayyim Hayyim, “Immersion Ceremonies”)

Again, that’s not to say there aren’t issues of queerphobia in the Jewish community, but if you are queer and want to go to the mikvah, there are options out there. If you’re looking, I’ve included some links at the end.

When we make ritual, we are working with the divine forces of presence and intention. The magic of mikveh comes in making contact with water. Contact with water marks a threshold and functions as a portal to bring closer our ritual intention/the world to come.

This is…a weird way to put things. I would say this is the start of the red flags. “When we make ritual,” first of all, is, to quote @the-library-alcove (who helped edit this), “a turn of phrase that is not typically associated with any branch of Jewish practice; we have a lot--a LOT--of rituals, and while it's certainly not completely outside of the realm of Jewish vernacular, the tone here, especially in light of the later sections, starts veering towards the vernacular of neo-paganism.” One might say “make kiddush” (the blessing over wine on Shabbos and holidays) or “make motzi” (the blessing over bread), but not generally “make ritual.”

The next section is titled “Who Gets to Do Mikveh?” Their answer:

Everyone! Mikveh practice is available to all of us as a healing tool at any time.

The healing tool part isn’t the original purpose of mikveh, but there are some who have used it as a part of emotional recovery from something traumatic, by marking a new state of being free from whatever caused it, see for instance Mayyim Hayyim’s list linked above.

The “everyone” bit is a little more complicated. To explain why, we’re going to skip ahead a little. (Some of these quotes will also be analyzed in full later.)

We want to make mikveh practice available as a tool to all Jews and non-Jews who want to heal wounds caused by white supremacy and colonialism. [..] To us, a queer mikveh welcomes anyone, regardless of spiritual background or not. […] Queer mikveh is accessible physically and spiritually to any and all people who are curious about it. You don't have to be a practicing Jew to enter queer mikveh. You don't have to be Jewish. (pg. 2, emphasis added)

Now, I am told there are mikva’ot that allow non-Jews to immerse. I have yet to find them, so I don’t know what rituals they allow non-Jews to do. I also haven’t been able to find any resources on non-Jews being allowed to immerse. I have found quite a few that explicitly prohibit it. If there are any sources you know of, please send them to me! I’d love to see them! But so far everything I have come across has said that mikvah immersion is a closed practice that only Jews can participate in. (Technically, to quote the lovely @etz-ashashiot, any non-Jew can do mikvah…once. And they won’t be non-Jews when they emerge. There is also one very extreme edge-case, which is absolutely not mainstream knowledge or practice, and basically isn’t actually done. You can message me if you’re curious, but it’s really not relevant to this–and even in that case, it is preferable to use a natural mikvah rather than a man-made one.)

If there are any legitimate sources that allow non-Jews to do a mikvah ritual, I would assume said non-Jews would be required to be respectful about it. Unfortunately, this is how the paragraph we began with continues:

Who Gets to Do Mikveh? Everyone! Mikveh practice is available to all of us as a healing tool at any time. You don't need any credentials. Your own wisdom is all the power you need to be a Jewish ritual leader. (emphasis added)

This is where we really go off the rails. First of all, you need more than “wisdom” to lead a Jewish ritual. You need to actually know what you’re doing. You can’t just say “oh you know what I feel like the right thing to do for morning prayers is to pray to the sun, because God created the sun so the sun is worth worshiping, and this is a Jewish ritual I’m doing.” That’s just idolatry. Like straight up I stole that from a midrash (oral tradition) about how humanity went from speaking with God in the Garden of Eden to worshiping idols in the time of Noah (given here by Maimonides; note that it continues for a few paragraphs after the one this link sends you to).

Second of all, this is particularly bad given this guide is explicitly to Jews and non-Jews. As @daughter-of-stories put it when she was going over an earlier draft of this analysis, “they are saying that non-Jews can just declare themselves Jewish ritual leaders based on nothing but their own ‘wisdom.’”

I hope I don’t need to explain why that’s extremely bad and gross?

While we’re on the topic of non-Jews using a mikvah, let’s take a moment to address an accusation commonly mentioned alongside the mikvah guide: that JVP also encourages (or encouraged) self-conversion.

I have been unable to find a separate document where they explicitly said so, or an older version of this document that does. This leads me to believe that either a) the accusation came from a misreading of this document, or b) there was a previous document that contained it which has since been deleted but was not archived in the Wayback Machine. EITHER is possible.

Even in the case that there was no such document, however, I would point out that such a suggestion can be read–intentionally or not–as implicit in this document. This is a guide for mikvah use by both Jews and non-Jews, and includes an idea that non-Jews can perform Jewish rituals on their own without any guidance or even background knowledge, as quoted above. Why would a non-Jew, coming into Jewish practice with very little knowledge, go looking to perform a mikvah ritual?

I would wager that the most well-known purpose of immersing in a mikvah is for the purpose of conversion.

Nowhere in this guide is there any explicit statement that you can do a self-conversion, but it also doesn’t say anywhere that you can’t, or that doing so is an exception to “you don’t need any credentials” or “your own wisdom is all the power you need to be a Jewish ritual leader.” It may not be their intention, but the phrasing clearly leaves it as an option.

Even if this were from a source that one otherwise loved, this would be upsetting and disappointing. The amount of exposure this document is getting may be at least in part because it comes from JVP, but the distress and dismay would be there regardless. If there is further vitriol, it’s only because JVP is often considered a legitimate source by outsiders, if no one else–in other words, by the very people least likely to have the background to know that this document isn’t trustworthy. It’s like the difference between your cousin telling you “the Aztecs were abducted by aliens” versus a mainstream news program like Fox reporting it. Both are frustrating and wrong, but one has significantly more potential harm than the other, and therefore is more likely to get widespread criticism (even if you complain about your cousin online).

On the other hand, as one of my editors pointed out in a moment of dark humor, they do say you don’t have to be Jewish to lead a Jewish ritual, so perhaps that mitigates this issue slightly by taking away a motivation to convert in the first place.

Returning to our document:

We do mikvahs in lakes, rivers, bathtubs, showers, outside in the rain, from teacups, and in our imaginations.

At this point the rails are but a distant memory.

In case you’ve forgotten what I said about this at the beginning of this post (and honestly I wouldn’t blame you, we’re on pg. 9 in my draft of this), there are extremely strict rules about what qualifies as a mikvah. Maimonides’s Mishnah Torah, just about the most comprehensive codex of Jewish law, has eleven chapters on the topic of the mikvah (though that includes immersion in it as well as construction of it). I’m not going to make you read through it, but let’s go through the list in this sentence:

Lakes and rivers: you might be able to use a river or lake as a mikvah, but you need to check with your local rabbinical authority, because not all of them qualify. In general, the waters must gather together naturally, from an underground spring or rainwater. In the latter case, the waters must be stationary rather than flowing. A river that dries up in a drought can’t be used, for instance. (The ocean counts as a spring, for this purpose.)

Bathtubs and showers: No. A man-made mikveh must be built into the ground or as an essential part of a building, unlike most bathtubs, and contain of a minimum of 200 gallons of rainwater, gathered and siphoned in a very particular way so as not to let it legally become “groundwater.” Also, it needs to be something you can immerse in, which a shower is not.

Outside in the rain: No? How would you even do that?? What??

Teacups: Even if you were Thumblina or K’tonton (Jewish Tom Thumb), and could actually immerse your entire body in a teacup, it wouldn’t be a kosher mikvah as a mivkah can’t be portable.

In your imagination: Obviously not, what the heck are you even talking about

We will (unfortunately) be coming back to the teacup thing, but for now suffice it to say most of these are extremely Not A Thing.

Mikveh has been continually practiced since ancient Judaism. It is an offering of unbroken Jewish lineage that we have claimed/reclaimed as our own.

I find the use of “claimed/reclaimed” fascinating here, given this guide is explicitly for non-Jews—who, whether or not they are permitted to use a mikvah, certainly shouldn’t be claiming it as their own—as well as Jews. I find it particularly interesting given the lack of clarity of how much of JVP’s membership is actually Jewish and JVP’s history of encouraging non-Jewish members to post “as Jews.” Kind of telling on yourselves a bit, there.

(Once again, I’m not commenting on the authors themselves, but the organization they represent here and the audience they are speaking to/for.)

We want to make mikveh practice available as a tool to all Jews and non-Jews who want to heal wounds caused by white supremacy and colonialism. We want to make mikveh practice available for healing our bodies, spirits, and the earth.

Setting aside the “Jews and non-Jews” thing, since I talked about that earlier and this is already extremely long, I do want to highlight the end of the paragraph. While there are some modern uses of the mikvah to (sort of) heal the spirit, I haven’t heard of anyone using a mikvah to heal the body—as a general rule Jews don’t tend to do faith healing, though of course some sects are the exception. Healing the earth, however, is absolutely not a use of a mikvah. Mikvah rituals, as we’ve now mentioned several times, are about tahara of a person or an object, and require immersion. You can’t immerse the earth in a mikvah. The earth contains mikva’ot. Healing the earth with a mikvah is a very strange worship (IYKYK).

We acknowledge that not all beings have consistent access to water, including Palestinians.

This is a tragedy, no question. I don't mean to minimize that. However, it is also unrelated to the matter at hand. The Guide also doesn’t give any recommendations on how we can help improve water access, so this lip service is all you get.

A lack of water does not make mikveh practice inaccessible.

Yes, in fact, it does. Without a kosher mikvah of one variety or another one cannot do anything that requires a mikvah. That’s why building a kosher one is so important. I haven’t gone looking for it, but while I’m sure there’s lots (and lots and lots and lots) of Rabbinic responsa out there of what to do in drought situations, you definitely do need water in all but the most extreme cases. If you do not have water, AYLR (Ask Your Local Rabbi)--don’t do whatever this is.

The spirit of water can be present with us if we choose to call for water, so even when water is not physically available to us we can engage in mikveh practice.

This is just straight up avodah zarah (“strange worship,” i.e. idolatry) as far as I can tell. The “spirit of the water”? What? We’re not Babylonians worshiping Tiamat. What source is there for this? Is there a source??

Like all material resources, the ways water is or is not available to us is shaped by our geographic and social locations. The ways we relate to water, what we decide is clean, treyf (dirty), drinkable, bathable, how much we use, how much we save, varies depending on our experiences. We invite you to decide what is clean and holy for your own body and spiritual practice.

This is going to require some breaking down.

To start with, let’s define “treyf.” To quote myjewishlearning, “Treyf (sometimes spelled treif or treyfe) is a Yiddish word used for something that is not kosher [lit. "fit"]. The word treyf is derived from the Hebrew word treifah, which appears several times in the Bible and means 'flesh torn by beasts.' The Torah prohibits eating flesh torn by beasts, and so the word treifah came to stand in for all forbidden foods.”

You may note the lack of the word “dirty” in this definition, or any other value judgments. Myjewishlearning continues, “over time, the words kosher and treyf have been used colloquially beyond the world of food to describe anything that Jews deem fit or unfit.” While this does have something of a value judgment, it’s still not “dirty.” I can’t say why the authors chose to translate the word this way, but…I don’t like it.

Now, when it comes to what is kosher or treyf, food and drink are most certainly not based on “our experiences.” There are entire books on the rules of kashrut; it generally takes years of study to understand all the minutiae. Even as someone who was raised in a kosher household, when I worked as a mashgicha (kosher certification inspector) I needed special training. What is considered kadosh (“sacred” or “holy,”  though again that’s not a perfect translation) or tahor is also determined by very strict rules. We don’t just decide things based on “vibes.” That’s not how anything in Jewish practice works.

Water, in fact, is always kosher to drink unless it has bugs or something else treyf in it. And mikvehs aren’t even always what I’d consider “drinkable;” I always wash utensils I’ve brought to the mikvah before I use them.

We come to our next heading: What is Queer Mikveh?

What is Queer Mikveh? To us, a queer mikveh welcomes anyone, regardless of spiritual background or not.

As I’ve said above, I have yet to find a single source (seriously if you have one please send it to me) that says non-Jews can go to a mikvah. As one of my editors for this put it, “to spin appropriation of Jewish closed practices as ‘queer’ is not only icky but deeply disrespectful to actual queer Jews.”

Also, and this is not remotely the point, but “regardless of spiritual background or not” is almost incoherently poor writing.

As Jews in diaspora we want to share and use our ritual practices for healing the land and waters we are visitors on for the liberation of all beings.

I have tried to be semi-professional about this analysis, but. “Jews in the diaspora,” you say. Tell me, JVP, where are we in the diaspora from? Hm? Where are we in diaspora from? Which land do we come from? Which land are we indigenous to, JVP? Do tell.

Returning to the point, I would repeat that mikvah has nothing to do with “healing the land and waters.” It’s ritual purification of whatever is immersed in it. You want to heal the land and waters? Go to your local environmental group, and/or whoever maintains your local land and waters. Pick up trash. Start recycling. Weed invasive species. Call your government and tell them to support green energy. You want liberation for all beings? Fight bigotry—including antisemitism. Judaism believes in action—go act. Appropriating rituals from a closed religion doesn’t liberate anyone.

We have come up with this working definition and welcome feedback!

Oh good, maybe I won’t be yelled at for posting this (she said dubiously).

Queer mikveh is a ritual of Jews in diaspora. We believe the way we work for freedom for all beings is by using the gifts of our ancestors for the greatest good. We bring our rituals as gifts.

I have nothing in particular new to say about this, except that I find the idea of “bringing our rituals as gifts” for anyone to use deeply uncomfortable, given Judaism is a closed religion that strongly discourages non-Jews from joining us, and that has had literal millennia of people appropriating from us.

It acknowledges that our path is to live on lands that are not historically our peoples [sic] and we honor the Indigenous ancestors of the land we live on, doing mikveh as an anti-colonialist ritual for collective and personal liberation.

Again I would love so much for JVP to tell us which lands would historically be our people’s. What land do Jews come from, JVP? What land is it we do have a historical connection to? What land do our Indigenous ancestors come from??

And why does it have to be our path to live on lands other than that one?

Secondly, to quote the lovely @daughter-of-stories again when she was editing this, “Mikveh as anti-colonialism, aside from not being what Mikveh is, kinda implies that you can cleanse the land of the sins of colonialism. So (a) that’s just a weird bastardization of baptism since, mikveh isn’t about cleansing from sin, and (b) so does that mean the colonialism is erased? Now we don’t have to actually deal with how it affects actual indigenous people?”

I’m sure that (b) isn’t their intent, but I will say that once again they don’t give any material suggestions for how to actually liberate any collectives or persons from colonialism in this document, including any links to other pages on their own website*, which surely would have been easy enough. It comes across as very performative.

*I disagree strongly with most of their methods, but at least they are suggesting something.

Queer mikveh is a physical or spiritual space that uses the technologies of water and the Jewish practice of mikveh to mark transitions. Transition to be interpreted by individuals and individual ritual.

I have no idea what the “technologies of water” are. Also usage of a mikvah to mark transitions beyond ritual states is a fairly new innovation, as mentioned above.

Queer mikveh in it's [sic] essence honors the story of the water. The historical stories of the water we immerse in, the stories of our own bodies as water and the future story we vision [sic].

This just sounds like a pagan spinoff of baptism to me, if I’m being honest. Which would be non-Jewish in several ways.

Queer mikveh is accessible physically and spiritually to any and all people who are curious about it. You don't have to be a practicing Jew to enter queer mikveh. You don't have to be Jewish.

First off, once again whether or not non-Jews can use mikvah seems at best extremely iffy. Secondly, accessibility in mikva’ot is, as one of my editors put it, “a continual discussion.” We have records of discussions regarding access for those with physical disabilities going back at least to the 15th century (Shut Mahari Bruna, 106; as quoted in 50 Mikvahs That Shaped History by Rabbi Ephraim Meth), and in the modern era there are mikva’ot that have lifts or other accessibility aids. That said, many mikva’ot, especially older ones, are still not accessible–and many mikva’ot don’t have the money to retrofit or renovate. Mikvah.org’s directory listings (linked at the end of this) notes whether various mikva’ot are accessible, if you are looking for one in your area.  If you want to help make mikva’ot more accessible to the disabled, consider donating to an existing mikvah to help them pay for renovations or otherwise (respectfully) getting involved in the community. If you want to help make mikva’ot more accessible for non-Orthodox Jews, try donating to an open mikvah (see link to a map of Rising Tide members at the end of this essay) or other non-Orthodox mikvah.

Queer mikveh is an earth and water honoring ritual.

Not even a little. We do have (or had) rituals that honor the earth or water, at least to an extent–the Simchat Beit HaSho’evah (explanations here and here) was a celebration surrounding water; most of our holidays are harvest festivals to some extent or another; there are a large number of agricultural mitzvahs (though most can only be done in Israel, which I suppose wouldn’t work for JVP). (Note: mitzvahs are commandments and/or good deeds.) Even those, though, aren’t about the water or earth on their own, per se, but rather about honoring them as God’s gift to us. This description of mikvah sounds more Pagan or Wiccan–which is fine, but isn’t Jewish.

Queer mikveh exists whenever a queer person or queers gather to do mikveh. Every person is their own spiritual authority and has the power to create their own ritual for individual or collective healing.

Absolutely, anyone can create their own rituals for anything they want. But it probably won’t be a mikvah ritual, and it probably won’t be Jewish.

Do you know what it’s called when you make up your own ritual and claim that it’s actually a completely valid part of an established closed practice of which you aren’t part? (Remember—this document is aimed just as much at non-Jews as at Jews.)

It’s called appropriation.

With the next section, “Some Ideas for Mikveh Preparation,” we begin page three.

(Yes, we’re only on page three of seven. I’m so sorry.)

The most important part of mikveh preparation is setting an intention.

This isn’t entirely wrong, as you do have to have in mind the intention of fulfilling a mitzvah when you perform one.

Because mikveh is a ritual most used to mark transitions, you can frame your intention in that way.

To quote myself above, “usage of a mikvah to mark transitions beyond ritual states is a fairly new innovation.” I’d hardly say it is mostly used for marking transitions.

You can do journaling or talk with friends to connect with the Jewish month, Jewish holiday, Shabbat, the moon phase, and elements of the season that would support your intention.

If this were a guide for only Jews, or there was some sort of note saying this section was only for Jews, I would have less of a problem. But given neither is true, they are encouraging non-Jews to use the Jewish calendar for what is, from the rest of the descriptions in the Guide, a magical earth healing ritual.

This is 100% straight up appropriation.

The Jewish calendar is Jewish. Marking the new moon and creating a calendar was the first commandment given to us as a people, upon the exodus from Egypt. Nearly all our holidays are (aside from the harvest component, which is based on the Israeli agricultural seasons and required harvest offerings) based on specific parts of Jewish history. Passover celebrates the Exodus and our becoming a nation. Sukkot celebrates the Clouds of Glory that protected us in the desert. Shavuot celebrates being given the Torah.

According to some opinions, non-Jews literally aren’t allowed to keep Shabbat.

If you are a non-Jew and you are basing the collective earth healing ritual you have created under your own spiritual authority around Jewish holidays and calling it “mikvah,” you are appropriating Judaism.

Full stop.

This isn’t even taking into account the generally Pagan/witchy feel of the paragraph, with “moon phases” and “elements of the season.” Again, if you want to be a Pagan be a Pagan, but don’t call it Jewish.

Things only go further downhill with their next suggestion for preparation before you go to the mikvah.

Divination: A lot can be said about divination practices and Judaism.

There certainly is a lot to be said. First and foremost, there’s the fact that divination is forbidden in Judaism.

(Screenshot of Leviticus 19:26 from sefaria.org)

One method of divination they suggest is Tarot, which is a European method of cartomancy that seems to have begun somewhere in the 19th century, though the cards start showing up around the 15th. While early occultists tried to tie it to various older forms of mysticism, including Kabbalah, this was, to put it lightly, complete nonsense. (Disclaimer: this information comes from wikipedia; I’ve already spent so much time researching the mikvah stuff that I do not have the energy or interest to do a deep dive into the origin of Tarot. It isn’t Jewish, the rest is honestly just details.)

I have nothing against Tarot. I think it’s neat! The cards are often lovely! I have a couple of decks myself, and I use them for fun and card games. But divination via tarot is not Jewish. If I do any spreads, I make it very clear to anyone I’m doing it with that it is for fun and/or as a self-reflection tool, not as magic. Because that is extremely not allowed in Judaism.

The authors suggest a few decks to use, one of which is by one of the authors themselves. Another is “The Kabbalah Deck,” which—holy appropriation, Batman!

In case anyone is unaware, Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) is an extremely closed Jewish practice, even within Judaism. Traditionally it shouldn’t be studied by anyone who hasn’t already studied every other Jewish text (of which there are, I remind you, a lot), because it’s so easy to misinterpret. I mentioned this above briefly when explaining cultural expropriation. Pop Kabbalah (what Madonna does, what you see when they talk about “Ancient Kabbalistic Texts” on shows like Supernatural, the nonsense occultists and New-Agers like to say is “ancient Kabbalistic” whatever, it’s a wide span of appropriative BS) is gross, combining Kabbalah with Tarot is extremely gross. I’m not 100% sure, as the link in the pdf doesn’t work, but I believe they are referring to this deck by Edward Hoffman. For those of you who don’t want to click through, the Amazon description includes this:

(Screenshot from Amazon)

Returning to our text:

Another practice that's been used in Judaism for centuries is bibliomancy. You can use a book you find meaningful (or the Torah) and ask a question. Then, close your eyes, open the book to a page and place your finger down. Interpret the word or sentence you pointed at to help guide you to answer your question.

Bibliomancy with a chumash (Pentateuch) or tanach (Bible) in Jewish magic is kind of a thing, but the tradition of Jewish magic as a whole is very complicated and could be its own entirely different post. This one is already long enough. This usage of bibliomancy is clearly just appropriative new-age BS, though, especially given you can use “[any] book you find meaningful.”

Also, if you aren’t Jewish, please don’t use the Torah for ritual purposes unless you are doing it under very specific circumstances under the laws for B’nei Noach (“Children of Noah,” also called Righteous Gentiles; non-Jews who follow the 7 Noachide Laws).

Sit with your general intention or if you aren't sure, pose a question to the divination tool you are using. "What should be my intention for this mikveh?" "What needs transforming in my life?" "How can I transform my relationship with my body?"

As I hope I’ve made clear, there are very specific times when one uses a mikvah, even with more modern Open Mikvah rituals. You always know what your intention is well before going—to make yourself tahor, or mark a specific event. I’m not here to police how someone prepares mentally before they immerse—meditation is fine, even encouraged. But magic? Like this? That’s not a thing. And given the fact that divination specifically is not only discouraged but forbidden, this section in particular upset a lot of Jews who read it.

Those of us already upset by everything we’ve already covered were not comforted by how the Guide continues.

How to Prepare Physically For Mikveh: Some people like to think about entering the mikveh in the way their body was when they were born. By this we mean naked, without jewelry, with clean fingernails and brushed hair. This framing can be meaningful for many people.

We went into this at the beginning of this essay (about 6500 words ago), but this is in fact how Jewish law mandates one is required to immerse. This is certainly the case in most communities, whether you are immersing due to an obligation (as a married woman or a bride about to be married) or due to custom (as men in post-Temple practice) or due to non-traditional immersion (as someone coming out); wherever on the spectrum of observance one falls (as far as I could find). A mikvah isn’t a bath, it’s not about physical cleanliness—you must first thoroughly clean yourself, clip your nails, and brush your teeth. Nail polish and makeup are removed. There can’t be any barriers between you and the water. Most mikva’ot these days, particularly women’s mikva’ot, have preparation rooms so you can prep on site. When you immerse, you have to submerge completely—your hair can’t be floating above the water, your mouth can’t be pursed tightly, your hands can’t be clenched so the water can’t get to your palms. If you do it wrong, it doesn’t count and you have to do it again. It’s not a “framing,” it’s a ritual practice governed by ritual law.

We suggest you do mikveh in the way you feel comfortable for you and your experience.

This isn’t how this works. If you have a particularly extreme case, you can talk to a rabbi to see if there are any workarounds—for example, if excessive embarrassment would distract you from the ritual, you may be able to wear clothes that are loose enough that the water still makes contact with every millimeter of skin. But you need to consult with someone who knows the minutiae of the laws and requirements so you know if any exceptions or workarounds apply to you. That’s what a rabbi is for. That’s why they need to go to rabbinical school and get ordination. They have to study. That’s why you need to find a rabbi whose knowledge and personality you trust. For someone calling themselves a religious authority in Judaism to say “you can do whatever, no biggie” with such a critical ritual is…I’m not sure what the word I want is.

The idea is to feel vulnerable but also to claim your body as a powerful site of change that has the power to move us close to our now unrecognizable futures.

The idea is to bathe in the living waters and enter a state of taharah. Though that could be an idea you have in mind while you are doing it, I suppose. I could see at least one writer I know of saying something like this to specifically menstrual married (presumably cis) women performing Taharat HaMishpacha (family taharah, see above).

For some people, doing mikveh in drag will feel most vulnerable, with all your make-up and best attire.

Absolutely not a thing. As I said last paragraph, the goal isn’t to feel vulnerable or powerful or anything. It may feel vulnerable or powerful, but that is entirely besides the actual purpose of the ritual. What you get out of it on a personal emotional level has nothing to do with the religious goal of the religious practice.

And if you are wondering how one would submerge oneself in water in full drag, don’t worry, we’ll get there soon.

For some, wearing a cloth around your body until just before you dip is meaningful.

This is just how it’s usually done. Generally one is provided with a bathrobe, and one removes it before entering. You don’t just wander around the building naked. Or the beach, if you’re using the ocean.

If you were born intersex and your genitalia was changed without your consent, thinking about your body as perfect, however you were born, can be loving.

I’m not intersex, so I’m not going to comment on the specifics here. If you are and that’s meaningful to you, more power to you.

We enter a new section, at the top of page 4.

Where To Do Mikveh: There is much midrash around what constitutes a mikveh.

“Midrash” is not the word they want here. The midrash is the non-legal side of the oral tradition, often taking the form of allegory or parable. This is as opposed to the mishna, which is the halachic (legal) side of the oral tradition. They were both written down around the same time, but most midrashim (plural) are in their own books, rather than incorporated in the mishna.

There is, however, a great deal of rabbinic discussion, in the form of mishna, gemara, teshuvot (responsa), legal codices, and various other genres of Jewish writing. More properly this could have just said “there is much discussion around what constitutes a mikveh.”

Most mikvot currently exist in Orthodox synagogues[—]

This is perhaps a minor quibble, but I don’t know that I’d say they’re generally in synagogues. They are frequently associated with a local congregation, but are often in a separate building.

[—]but there is a growing movement to create more diverse and inclusive spaces for mikveh. Mayyim Hayyim is a wonderful resource with a physical body of water mikveh space. Immerse NYC is a newer organization training people of all genders to be mikveh guides. They also work to find gender inclusive spaces for people to do mikveh in NYC.

This is true! Mayyim Hayyim is a wonderful organization I’ve never heard anything bad about, and ImmerseNYC also seems like an excellent organization. Both also only allow Jews (in which group I am including in-process converts) to immerse.

The mikveh guides thing I didn’t explain above, so I’ll take a moment to do so here. Because the rules of immersion are so strict, and because it’s hard to tell if you are completely immersed when you are underwater, most mikva’ot have a guide helping you. Depending on the circumstance and the mikvah, and depending on the patron’s comfort, who and how they do their jobs can differ somewhat. For a woman immersing after niddah, it will usually be another woman who will hold up the towel or bathrobe for you while you get in the water, and will only look from behind it once you are immersed to make sure you are completely submerged. If you are converting, customs vary. Some communities require men to witness the immersion regardless of the convert’s gender, which is very much an ongoing discussion in those communities. Even in those cases, to my knowledge they will only look once the convert is in the water, and there will likely still be a female attendant if the convert is a woman. While there are negative experiences people have had, it is very much an intra-community issue. We’re working on it.

Mikveh can be done in a natural body of water.

Again, this is true, though not all bodies of water work, so AYLR (Ask Your Local Rabbi).

Some people are also making swimming pools holy places of mikveh.

We’ve already explained above why this is nonsense.

In the Mishneh (the book that makes commentary on the torah [sic]) there are arguments as to what constitutes a mikveh and how much water from a spring or well or rainwater must be present.

The main issue in this section is their definition of the Mishneh. As I explained above, the Mishna (same thing, transliteration is not an exact science) is the major compilation of the Oral Torah, the oral tradition that was written down by Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi so it wouldn’t be lost in the face of exile and assimilation. It’s not so much a commentary on the (Written) Torah as an expansion of it to extrapolate the religious laws we follow. It’s certainly not “the book that makes commentary on the Torah.” We have literally hundreds of books of commentary. That’s probably underestimating. Jews have been around for a long time, and we have been analyzing and discussing the Torah for nearly as long. There are so many commentaries on the Torah.

The second issue is that while there are arguments in the Mishna and Gemara (the oral discussion on the Mishna that was written down even later), they do generally result in a final decision of some sort. Usually whichever side has the majority wins. Variations between communities are still very much a thing, and I can explain why in another post if people are interested, but there usually is a base agreement.

We are of the school that says you decide for yourself what works.

The phrasing they use here makes it sound as though that’s a legitimate opinion in the Mishnah. I cannot emphasize how much that is not the case. While I myself have not finished learning the entire Mishnah, I would be willing to wager a great deal that “whatever works for you” isn’t a stance on any legal matter there. That’s just not how it works. While some modern branches of Judaism may have that as a position, it is definitely not Mishnaic.

If you are concerned about Jewish law, the ocean is always a good choice. There are no conflicting arguments about the ocean as a mikveh. As the wise maggid Jhos Singer says in reference to the ocean, "It's [sic] becomes a mikveh when we call it a mikveh." Done.

(To clarify, I don’t know if that typo was carried over from the source of the original quote or not.)

This is true. However if you are concerned about Jewish law I would very much urge you to look to other sources than this one—be that your local rabbi or rebbetzen, the staff at your local mikvah, or a reliable website that actually goes into the proper requirements. If you want to use a mikveh according to Jewish law, please do not use this document as your guide.

We recognize immersion in water does not work for every body. Therefore, a guiding principle for where to do a mikveh is: do a mikveh in a place that is sacred to you. Your body is always holy and your body is made of mostly water. Later in this guide there is more information on mikveh with no immersion required.

I cannot emphasize how much I have never once heard this before. This, to me, reads like New Age nonsense. If you are unable to immerse in a mikvah, talk to your rabbi. Don’t do…whatever this is.

Our next section is a short one.

Who To Do it With: Do mikveh with people you feel comfortable with and supported by.

This is fine, though many mikva’ot (perhaps even most) will only allow one person to immerse at a time.

Do a solo mikveh and ask the earth body to be your witness.

With this, we return to the strange smattering of neo-Paganism. The “earth body” is not a thing. Yes, the Earth is called as a witness in the Bible at least once. It’s poetic. You also, unless you are converting, don’t actually need a witness anyway. A mikvah attendant or guide is there to help you—if you were somewhere without one, you could still immerse for niddah or various customary purposes.

Do mikveh with people who share some of your vision for collective healing.

As I’ve said before in this essay, collective healing is not the point of a mikvah. If you are Jewish and want to pray for healing, there are plenty of legitimate places for this–the Shemonah Esrei has a prayer for healing and a prayer where you can insert any personal prayers you want; there’s a communal prayer for healing after the Torah reading. You can give charity or recite a psalm or do a mitzvah with the person in mind. You can also just do a personal private prayer with any words you like, a la Hannah, or if you want pre-written words find an appropriate techinah (not the sesame stuff). If you want to work towards collective liberation, volunteer. Learn the laws of interpersonal mitzvot, like lashon hara (literally “evil speech,” mostly gossip or libel). Connect fighting oppression to loving your neighbor or the Passover seder. We have tons of places for this–mikvah isn’t one of them.

Next segment.

What To Bring to A Mikveh: 1. Intentions for the ritual for yourself and/or the collective.

See previous points on intention.

2. Items for the altar from your cultural background[…] (emphasis mine)

If I wasn’t appalled by the “immersing in makeup” or the “do divination first,” this would be the place that got me. This is wrong on so many levels.

One is not allowed to have an altar outside of The Temple in Jerusalem, the one we currently do not have. It’s an extremely big deal. One is not allowed to make sacrifices outside of the Temple. Period. This is emphasized again and again in the Torah and other texts. Even when we had a Temple, there were no altars in a mikvah.

And you certainly couldn’t offer anything in the Temple while naked, as one is required to be when immersing in the mikvah.

Even when we did bring offerings to altars (the Bronze Altar or the Gold Altar, both of which were in the Temple and which only qualified priests in a state of tahara could perform offerings on), the offerings were very specifically mandated, as per the Torah and those other texts. Even when non-Jews gave offerings (as did happen) they were required to comply. You couldn’t just bring any item from your cultural background. This is paganism, plain and simple.

Now, again, let me be clear: if you’re pagan, I have no problem with you. My problem is when one tries to take a sacred practice from a closed religion and try to co-opt it as one’s own. It’s a problem when someone who isn’t Native American decides to smudge their room with white sage, and it’s a problem when someone who isn’t Jewish tries to turn a mikvah into a pagan cleansing rite. And even if the person doing it is Jewish--I have an issue when it’s Messianics who were born Jewish, and I have an issue when it’s pagans who were born the same. Either way, whether you intend to or not, you are participating in appropriation or expropriation.

Which makes the line that follows this point so deeply ironic I can’t decide if I’m furious or heartbroken.

After suggesting that the reader (who may or may not be Jewish) bring items for an altar to a mikvah, the Guide asks:

[…] (please do not bring appropriated items from cultures that are not yours).

Which is simply just... beyond parody. To quote one of my editors, “This is quickly approaching the level of being a new definition for the Yiddish word 'Chutzpah,' which is traditionally defined as 'absurdist audacity' in line with 'Chutzpah is a man who brutally murders both of his parents and then pleads with the judge for leniency because he is now an orphan bereft of parental guidance.' If not for the involved nature of explaining the full context, I would submit this as a potential new illustrative example.”

The next suggestion of what to bring is

3. Warm clothes, towels, warm drinks

All these are reasonable enough, though most mikva’ot provide towels. Some also provide snacks, for while you are preparing. They may also not allow you to bring in outside food.

4. Your spirit of love, healing, and resistance

This, again, has nothing to do with mikvah. The only spirit of resistance in a mikvah is the fact that we continue to do it despite millennia of attempts to stop us. Additionally, to me at least “a spirit of love” feels very culturally-Christian.

Our next section is titled “How to Make Mikveh a Non-Zionist Ritual.”

Right off the bat, I have an issue with this concept. Putting aside for a moment whatever one may think of Zionism as a philosophy, my main problem here is that mikvah has nothing at all to do with Zionism. In Orthodoxy, at least, Jews who are against Zionism on religious grounds perform the mitzvah the same way passionately Zionist Jews do, with the same meanings and intentions behind it. It is performed the same way in Israel and out, and has been more or less the same for the last several thousand years. It is about ritual purification and sanctification of the mundane, no more and no less.

There is a word for saying anything and everything Jewish is actually about the modern Israel/Palestine conflict, simply because it’s Jewish.

That word is antisemitism.

How to Make Mikveh a Non-Zionist Ritual: Reject all colonial projects by learning about, naming & honoring, and materially supporting the communities indigenous to the land where you hold your mikveh. Name and thank the Indigenous people of the land you are going to do your mikveh on.

If you removed the “non-Zionist” description, this would be mostly unobjectionable. We should absolutely help indigenous communities. The framing of “reject all colonial projects” does seem to suggest that there is something colonial about the usual practice of going to the mikvah, though. I would argue that the mikvah is, in fact, anti-colonial if anything—it is the practice of a consistently oppressed minority ethno-religion which has kept it in practice despite the best efforts of multiple empires. Additionally, while Zionism means many different things to those who believe in it, at its root most Zionists (myself included) define it as “the belief that Jews have a right to self-determination in our indigenous homeland.” Our indigenous homeland being, of course, the land of Israel. (This is different from the State of Israel, which is the modern country on that land.) If you are a Jew in Israel, one of the indigenous peoples of the land your mikvah is on is your own. That’s not to say there aren’t others—but to claim Jews aren’t indigenous to the region is to be either misinformed or disingenuous.

Take the time to vision [sic] our world to come in which Palestine and all people are free.

I really, really dislike how they use the concept of The World To Come here. The Jewish idea of The World To Come (AKA the Messianic Age) is one where the Messiah has come, the Temple has been rebuilt, and the Davidic dynastic monarchy has been re-established in the land of Israel. Arguably that’s the most Zionist vision imaginable. This isn’t to say that all people, Palestinians included, won’t be free—true peace and harmony are also generally accepted features of the Messianic Age. But using the phrase in making something “non-Zionist” is, at the very least, in extremely poor taste. (As a side note, even religious non-Zionists believe in this–that’s actually why most of them are against the State of Israel, as they believe we can’t have sovereignty until the Messiah comes. They do generally believe we will eventually have sovereignty, just that now isn’t the time for it.)

Hold and explore this vision intimately as you prepare to immerse. What is one action you can take to bring this future world closer? Trust that your vision is collaborating with countless others doing this work.

Having a “vision” of a world where all are free isn’t doing any of the work to accomplish it. A “vision” can’t collaborate. At least not in Judaism. This sounds like one is trying to manifest the change through force of will, which is something directly out of the New Age faith movement, where it is known as “Creative Visualization.” Even when we do have a concept of bringing about something positive through an unrelated action–like saying psalms for someone who is sick–the idea is that you are doing a mitzvah on their behalf, to add to their merits counted in their favor. It’s not a form of magic or invocation of some mystical energy.

(Once again: I have nothing against pagans. But paganism is incompatible with Judaism. You can’t be both, any more than you can be Jewish and Christian.)

Use mikveh practice to ground into your contribution to the abundant work for liberation being done. We are many.

If you will once more pardon a brief switch to a casual tone:

Nothing says liberation like *checks notes* appropriating a minority cultural practice.

The next section of their document is titled “Ideas for Mikveh Ritual,” and this is where the Neo-Pagan and New Age influences of the authors truly shift from the background to the foreground.  

We start off deceptively reasonably.

Mikveh ritual is potentially very simple. Generally people consider a mikveh to be a full immersion in water, where you are floating in the water, not touching the bottom, with no part of the body above the surface (including the hair).

Technically, most people consider a mikveh to be a ritual bath (noun) in which one performs various Jewish ritual immersions. But if we set this aside as a typo, this is…fairly true. What they are describing is how one is supposed to perform the mitzvah of mikveh immersion. However, in much the same way I wouldn’t say “generally people consider baseball to be a game where you hit a ball with a bat and run around a diamond,” I wouldn’t say it’s a case of “generally people consider” so much as “this is what it is.”

This works for some people. It doesn't work for everyone and it doesn't work for all bodies. Because of this, mikveh ritual can be expanded outside of these traditional confines in exciting, creative ways.

Once again, if you are incapable of performing mikvah immersion in the proper manner, please go speak with a rabbi. Please do not follow this guide.

Before we continue, I would just like to assure you that. whatever “exciting, creative ways” you might be imagining the authors have come up with, this is so much worse.

Method One:

Sound Mikveh: One way that's felt very meaningful for many is a "sound mikveh." This can be a group of people toning, harmonizing, or chanting in a circle. One person at a time can be in the center of the circle and feel the vibrations of healing sound wash over their body. Another method of sound mikveh is to use a shofar or other instrument of your lineage to made [sic] sounds that reach a body of water and also wash over you.

This makes me so uncomfortable I barely have the words to describe it, and I know that I am not alone in this. This is not a mikvah. If someone wants to do some sort of sound-based healing ritual, by all means go ahead, but do not call it a mikvah. This is not Jewish. I don’t know what this is, aside from deeply offensive.

And leave that poor shofar out of this. That ram did not give his horn for this nonsense.

(I could go on about the actual sacred purpose of a shofar and all the rules and reasons behind it that expand upon this, but this is already over 9000 words.)

Method Two is, if anything, worse. This is the one, if you’ve seen social media posts about this topic, you have most likely seen people going nuts about.

Tea Cup Mikveh: Fill a special teacup. If you want, add flower essence, a small stone, or other special elements. Sing the teacup a sweet song, dance around it, cry in some tears, tell the cup a tender and hopeful story, hold the teacup above the body of your animal friend for extra blessing, balance it on your head to call in your highest self. Use the holy contents of this teacup to make contact with water.

This is absolutely 100% straight-up neo-pagan/New Age mysticism. Nothing about this is based on Jewish practice of any kind. Again, I’m at a loss for words of how to explain just how antithetical this is. If you want to be a witch, go ahead and be a witch. But do not call it Jewish. Leave Judaism out of this.

They end this suggestion with the cute comment,

Mikveh to go. We’ve always been people on the move.

Let me explain why this “fun” little comment fills me with rage. 

As you may recall, this document was published by Jewish Voice for Peace. Among their various other acts of promoting and justifying antisemitism, JVP has repeatedly engaged in historical revisionism regarding Jews and Jewish history. In this context, they have repeatedly ignored the numerous expulsions of Jews from various countries, and blaming sinister Zionist plots to explain any movement of expelled Jews to Israel (“In the early 1950s, starting two years after the Nakba, the Israeli government facilitated a mass immigration of Mizrahim,” from “Our Approach to Zionism” on the JVP website; see @is-the-thing-actually-jewish’s post on JVP and the posts linked from there).

So a document published by JVP framing Jewish movement as some form of free spirited 1970s-esque Bohemian lifestyle or the result of us being busy movers-and-shakers is a direct slap in the face to the persecution we’ve faced as a people and society.  No, we aren’t “on the move” because we’re hippies wandering where the wind takes us . We’re always on the move because we keep getting kicked out and/or hate-crimed until we leave.

But there is no Jew-hatred in Ba Sing Se.

Method three:

Fermentation Mikveh: Some food goes through natural changes by being immersed in water. If we eat that food, we can symbolically go through a change similar to the one the food went through.

Again, this has no basis anywhere in halacha. We do have concepts of “you are what you eat,” specifically with reference to what animals and birds are kosher, but there isn’t any food that makes you tahor if you eat it. In the Temple days there were, in fact, foods you couldn’t eat unless you were tahor.

Jews may like pickles, but that doesn’t mean we think they purify you.

Also, the change from fermentation is, if anything, the opposite of the change we would want. Leavening (rising in dough or batter, due to the fermentation of yeast) is compared in rabbinic writings to arrogance and ego, as opposed to the humility of matza, the “poor man’s bread” (see here, for example). Is the suggestion here to become more egotistical?

As we wrap up this section, I’d like to go back to their stated reason for using these “alternative” methods (“It doesn't work for everyone and it doesn't work for all bodies”), and ask: if these really were the only options for immersion, would these really fill that same spiritual need/niche? These obviously aren’t aimed at me, but from my perspective it seems almost condescending, almost worse. “You can’t do the real thing, so we’ll make up something to make you feel better.” If any of them had an actual basis in Jewish practice, that would be one thing, but this just feels…fake, to me. Even within more liberal / less traditional streams of Judaism, there is a connection to halacha: 

“We each (if we are knowledgeable about the tradition, if we confront it seriously and take its claims and its wisdom seriously) have the ability, the freedom, indeed the responsibility to come to a [potentially differing] personal understanding of what God wants us to do… [Halacha] is a record of how our people, in widely differing times, places and societal circumstances, experienced God's presence in their lives, and responded. Each aspect of halacha is a possible gateway to experience of the holy, the spiritual. Each aspect worked for some Jews, once upon a time, somewhere in our history. Each, therefore, has the potential to open up holiness for people in our time as well, and for me personally. However, each does not have equal claim on us, on me…Portions of the halacha whose main purpose seems to be to distance us from our surroundings no longer seem functional. Yet some parts of the halachic tradition seem perfect correctives to the imbalances of life in modernity…In those parts of tradition, we are sometimes blessed to experience a sense of God's closeness. In my personal life, I emphasize those areas. And other areas of halacha, I de-emphasize, or sometimes abandon. Reform Judaism affirms my right, our right, to make those kinds of choices.” – Rabbi Ramie Arian

“[Traditional Reconstructionist Jews] believe that moral and spiritual faculties are actualized best when the individual makes conscious choices…The individual’s choices, however, can and should not be made alone. Our ethical values and ritual propensities are shaped by the culture and community in which we live. Living a Jewish life, according to the Reconstructionist understanding, means belonging to the Jewish people as a whole and to a particular community of Jews, through which our views of life are shaped. Thus, while Reconstructionist communities are neither authoritarian nor coercive, they aspire to influence the individual’s ethical and ritual choices–through study of Jewish sources, through the sharing of values and experiences, and through the impact of the climate of communal opinion on the individual. …While we may share certain values and life situations, no two sets of circumstances are identical. We hope that the Reconstructionist process works to help people find the right answers for themselves, but we can only assist in helping individuals to ask the right questions so that their choices are made in an informed way within a Jewish context. To be true to ourselves we must understand the differences in perception between us and those who have gone before, while retaining a reverence for the traditions they fashioned. If we can juxtapose those things, we ensure that the past will have [in the phrase of Reconstructionism’s founder, Mordecai Kaplan,] a vote, but not a veto.” – Rabbi Jacob J. Straub (Note: the Reconstructionist movement was founded in the late 1920s, and has gone through a very large shift in the past decade or so. I use “Traditional” here to refer to the original version of the movement as opposed to those who have shifted. Both are still called Reconstructionist, so it’s a bit confusing. This is on the advice of one of my editors, who is themself Traditional Reconstructionist.)

You may note, neither of these talk about inventing things from whole cloth. To paraphrase one of my editors, “You don’t completely abandon [halacha], because if you did how would you have a cohesive community? Even in a ‘do what’s meaningful’ framework, you’re taking from the buffet, not bringing something to a potluck. Even if you don’t see halacha as binding, there are limits.”

(Again, disclaimer that the above knowledge of non-Orthodox movements comes from my editors, and any errors are mine.)

The next section is “Prayers for Mikveh.”

As a note, I’m going to censor the names of God when I quote actual blessings, as per traditional/Halachic practice. I’ll be putting brackets to indicate my alterations.

I’m not going to go much into detail here, because frankly my Hebrew isn’t good enough, and the six different people I asked for help gave me at least six different answers, but I will touch on it a bit.

First, the Guide gives a link to an article on Traditional Mikveh Blessings from Ritualwell (here is a link on the Wayback Machine, since the original requires you to make an account). Ritualwell is a Reconstructionist Jewish website, and accepts reviewed submissions. Here is their about page. The blessings on this page, as far as I know, are in fact exactly what it says on the tin. I’m not sure the first one, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al ha-t’vilah, is said for non-obligatory immersions (i.e. not for niddah or conversion), as it is literally a blessing on the commandment. The second blessing at that link is Shehecheyanu, which the Guide also suggests as a good prayer. This is the traditional form of the blessing, given at Ritualwell:

Baruch Atah Ado[-]nai Elo[k]eynu Melech Ha-Olam shehekheyanu v’kiyimanu v’higiyanu lazman hazeh.

Blessed are You, [LORD] our God, Monarch of the universe, Who has kept us alive and sustained us, and brought us to this season.

(As a quick note, you may notice this is not quite how they translate it on Ritualwell–I have no idea why they say “kept me alive,” as it’s definitely “us” in the Hebrew. There’s a long tradition, in fact, of praying for the community rather than ourselves as an individual, but that’s not the point of this post.)

The Guide, however, gives an alternate form:

B’rucha At y[-]a Elo[k]eynu Ruakh haolam shehekheyatnu v’kiyimatnu v’higiyatnu lazman hazeh. You are Blessed, Our God, Spirit of the World, who has kept us in life and sustained us, enabling us to reach this season.

Under the assumption that most of you don’t know Hebrew, I’m going to break this down further. The main difference between these two is grammatical gender–the traditional blessing uses masculine forms, which is common when referring to God. However, while there are often masculine descriptions of God, it is worth noting that Hashem is very specifically not a “man”--God is genderless and beyond our comprehension, and masculine is also used in Hebrew for neutral or unspecified gender. A whole discussion of gender and language is also beyond the scope of this post, but for now let’s leave it at: changing the gender for God in prayer is pretty common among less traditional Jews, and that’s fine. Some of the changes they make (or don’t make) here are interesting, though. The two letter name of God they switch to is–despite ending in a hey (the “h” letter)–not feminine grammatically feminine. I’m told, however, that some progressive circles consider it neutral because it “sounds feminine.” “Elo-keynu” is also grammatically masculine, but a) that’s used for neuter in Hebrew and b) it’s also technically plural, so maybe they didn’t feel the need to change it. Though if that’s the case I would also have thought that Ado-nai (the tetragrammaton) would be fine, as it’s also technically male in the same way. I’m also not sure why they didn’t just change ”Melech HaOlam” to “Malkah HaOlam,” which would be the feminine form of the original words, but perhaps they were avoiding language of monarchy. It’s apparently a not uncommon thing to change.

One of the responses I got said the vowels in the verbs were slightly off, but I can’t say much above that, for the reasons given at the beginning of this section.

Also, and this is comparatively minor, the capitalization in the transliteration is bizarre. They capitalize “At” (you) and “Elo[k]eynu” (our God), but not “y[-]a…” which is the actual name of God in the blessing and should definitely be capitalized if you are capitalizing.

The Guide next gives a second blessing that can be used:

B’rucha at shekhinah eloteinu ruach ha-olam asher kid-shanu bi-tevilah b’mayyim hayyim. Blessed are You, Shekhinah, Source of Life, Who blesses us by embracing us in living waters. -Adapted by Dori Midnight 

The main thing I want to note about this is that…that’s not an accurate translation. It completely skips the word “eloteinu.” “Ruach ha-olam” means “spirit/breath of the universe/world,” not “Source of Life,” which would be “M’kor Ha-Olam,” as mentioned above. “Kid-shanu,” as she transliterates it, means “has sanctified us,” or “has made us holy,” not “blesses us”--both the tense and the word are wrong. “Bi-tevilah” doesn’t mean “embracing us,” either, it means “with immersing.” In full, the translation should be:

“Blessed are You, Shekhinah, our God, Spirit of the World, Who has sanctified us with immersion in living waters.”

The Shekhinah is an aspect/name of God(dess), though not a Name to the same level as the ones that can’t be taken in vain. It refers to the hidden Presence of God(dess) in our world, and is the feminine aspect of God(dess), inasmuch as God(dess) has gendered aspects–remember, our God(dess) is One. It’s not an unreasonable Name to use if you are trying to make a prayer specifically feminine.

(Though do be careful if you see it used in a blessing in the wild, because Messianics use it to mean the holy ghost.)

“Eloteinu” is, grammatically, the feminine form of Elokeinu (according to the fluent speakers I asked, though again I got several responses).

It is, again, odd that they don’t capitalize transliterated names of God, though here there is more of an argument that it’s a stylistic choice, Hebrew not having capital letters.

The Guide then repeats the link for Ritualwell.

Finally, we come to the last section, “Resources and Our Sources:”

First, they credit the Kohenet Institute and two of its founders. I do not want to go on a deepdive into the Kohenet Institute also, as this is already long enough, but I suppose I should say a bit.

The Kohenet Institute was a “clergy ordination program, a sisterhood / siblinghood, and an organization working to change the face of Judaism. For 18 years, Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institutes founders, graduates and students reclaimed and innovated embodied, earth-based feminist Judaism, drawing from ways that women and other marginalized people led Jewish ritual across time and space” (Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute Homepage). It closed in 2023.

I have difficulty explaining my feelings about the Kohenet Institute. On the one hand, the people who founded it and were involved in it, I’m sure, were very invested in Judaism and very passionate in their belief. As with the authors of the Guide, I do not mean to attack them–I’m sure they’re lovely people.

On the other, I have trouble finding a basis for any of their practices, and most of what practices I do find trouble me–again, with the caveat that I am very much not into mysticism, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Of the three founders, only one (Rabbi Jill Hammer) seems to have much in the way of scholarly background. Rabbi Hammer, who was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary (a perfectly respectable school), has at least one article where she quotes the New Testament and a Roman satirist making fun of a Jewish begger who interpret dreams for money as proof “that Jewish prophetesses existed in Roman times,” which to me at least seems like saying that the Roma have a tradition of seeresses based on racist caricatures of what they had to do to survive, if you’ll pardon the comparison. In the same article, she says that Sarah and Abigail, who are listed in the Talmud as prophetesses “are not actually prophetesses as I conceptualize them here,” (pg 106) but that “abolitionist Ernestine Rose, anarchist Emma Goldman, and feminist Betty Friedan stand in the prophetic tradition.” Given God says explicitly in the text, “Regarding all that Sarah tells you, listen to her voice” (Genesis 21:12), I have no idea where she gets this.

The second founder, Taya Mâ Shere, describes the Institute on her website as “spiritual leadership training for women & genderqueer folk embracing the Goddess in a Jewish context,” which to me is blatantly what I and some of my editors have taken to calling Jews For Lilith. Now, it is possible this is a typo. However assuming it is not, and it would be a weird typo to have, this rather clearly reads as “the Goddess” being something one is adding a Jewish context to–which is exactly what I mean when I say this guide is taking Paganism and sprinkling a little Judaism on it. If it had said “embracing Goddess in a Jewish context,” I’d have no problem (aside from weird phrasing)--but “the Goddess” is very much a “divine feminine neo-pagan” kind of thing. We don’t say “the God” in Judaism, or at least I’ve never heard anyone do so. We just say God (or Goddess), because there’s only the one. In fact, according to this article, she returned to Judaism from neo-Paganism, and “began to combine the Goddess-centered practices she had co-created in Philadelphia with what she was learning from teachers in the Jewish Renewal movement, applying her use of the term Goddess to Judaism’s deity.” The “Goddess-centered practices” and commune in Philadelphia are described earlier in the article as “influenced by Wiccan and Native American traditions, in ways that Shere now considers appropriative (“After Kohenet, Who Will Lead the Priestesses?” by Noah Phillips).” I’m not sure how it suddenly isn’t appropriative now, but taking the Pagan practices you were doing and now doing those exact same rituals “but Jewish” is, in fact, still Pagan.

Shere also sells “Divining Pleasure: An Oracle for SephErotic Liberation,” created by her and Bekah Starr, which is a “divination card deck and an Omer counter inviting you more deeply into your body, your pleasure and your devotion to collective liberation.”

I hate this.

I hate this so much.

For those who don’t know, the Omer is the period between the second day of Passover and the holiday of Shavuot, 50 days later. It’s named for the Omer offering that was given on Passover, and which started the count of seven weeks (and a day, the day being Shavuot). The Omer, or at least part of it, is also traditionally a period of mourning, much like the Three Weeks between the fasts of the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av–we don’t have weddings, we don’t listen to live music, we don’t cut our hair. It commemorates (primarily) the deaths of 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva in a plague (possibly a metaphor for persecution or the defeat of the Bar Kochba revolt). It is often used as a time for introspection and self-improvement, using seven of the Kabbalistic Sephirot as guides (each day of the week is given a Sephira, as is each week, so each day of the 49 is x of y, see here). It’s not, as Shere’s class “Sex and the Sephirot: A Pleasure Journey Through the Omer” puts it, a time to “engage…toward experiencing greater erotic presence, deepening our commitment to nourishing eros, and embracing ritual practices of…pleasure.”

The final of the founders, Shoshana Jedwab, seems to be primarily a musician. In her bio on her website, scholarship and teaching are almost afterthoughts. I can find nothing about her background or classes. She’s also, from what I’ve found, the creator of the “sound mikvah.”

So all in all, while I’m sure they’re lovely people, I find it difficult to believe that they are basing their Institute on actual practices, particularly given they apparently include worship of Ashera as an “authentic” Jewish practice, see the above Phillips article and this tumblr post.

The institute also lists classes they offered, which “were open to those across faith practices - no background in Judaism necessary.” If you scroll down the page, you will see one of these courses was titled “Sefer Yetzirah: Meditation, Magic, & the Cosmic Architecture.” Sefer Yetzirah, for those of you unaware, “is an ancient and foundational work of Jewish mysticism.”

You may recall my saying something some 5700 (yikes) words ago about Jewish mysticism (i.e. Kabbalah) being a closed practice.

You may see why I find the Kohenet Institute problematic.

I will grant, however, that I have not listened to their podcasts nor read their books, so it is possible they do have a basis for what they teach. From articles I’ve read, and what I’ve found on their websites, I am unconvinced.

Returning to our original document, the Guide next gives several links from Ritualwell, which I’ve already discussed above. After those, they give links to two actual mikvah organizations: Mayyim Hayyim and Immerse NYC. Both are reputable organizations, and are Open Mikvahs. Neither (at least based on their websites) seem to recommend any of the nonsense in this Guide. In fact, Mayyim Hayyim explicitly does not allow non-Jews to immerse (unless it’s to convert). ImmerseNYC has advice to create a ritual in an actually Jewish way. I would say the link to these two groups are, perhaps, the only worthwhile information in this Guide.

They then list a few “mikveh related projects,” two of which are by the writers. The first, Queer Mikveh Project, is by one of the authors, Rebekah Erev. The link they give is old and no longer works, but on Erev’s website there is information about the project. Much of the language is similar to that in this guide. The page also mentions a “mikvah” ritual done to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline, in which “the mikveh…[was] completely optional.” And, of course, there was an altar. The second project, the “Gay Bathhouse” by (I believe) the other author and Shelby Handler, is explicitly an art installation.

The final link is to this website (thanks to the tumblr anon who found it), which is the only source we’ve been able to find on Shekinah Ministries (aside from a LOT of Messianic BS from unrelated organizations of the same name). So good news–this isn’t a Messianic. Bad news, it also seems to have a shaky basis in actual Jewish practice at best. It is run by artist Reena Katz, aka Radiodress, whose MKV ritual is, like “Gay Bathhouse,” a performance project. As you can see from the pictures on Radiodress’s website (cw for non-sexual nudity and mention of bodily fluids), it is done in a clearly portable tub in a gallery. As part of the process, participants are invited to “add any material from their body,” including “spit, urine, ejaculate, menstrual blood,” “any medication, any hormones they might be taking,” and supplies Radiodress offers including something called “Malakh Shmundie,” “a healing tincture that translates to “angel pussy” made by performance artist Nomy Lamm” (quotes from “An Artist’s Ritual Bath for Trans and Queer Communities” by Caoimhe Morgan-Feir). The bath is also filled by hand, which is very much not in line with halacha. Which, if you’re doing performance art, is fine.

But this Guide is ostensibly for authentic Jewish religious practice.

And with that (aside from the acknowledgements, which I don’t feel the need to analyze), we are done. At last.

Thank you for reading this monster of a post. If you have made it this far, you and I are now Family. Grab a snack on your way out, you deserve it.

Further Reading and Resources:

https://www.mayyimhayyim.org/risingtide/members/

https://www.mikvah.org/directory

https://www.mayyimhayyim.org/

http://www.immersenyc.org/

https://aish.com/what-is-a-mikveh/

https://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/1541/jewish/The-Mikvah.htm

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1230791/jewish/Immersion-of-Vessels-Tevilat-Keilim.htm

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/why-immerse-in-the-mikveh/

Meth, Rabbi Ephraim. 50 Mikvahs That Shaped History. Feldheim Publishers, 2023.

[empty-movement]

Chiho Saito’s 1999 Revolutionary Girl Utena Original Illustration Collection

IT’S HERE. IT’S DONE. IT’S FINISHED. NOW…IT’S YOURS. Happy Holidays, my friends.

Vanna here! I have posted some already about this project, and the responses I got, public and otherwise, have been absolutely incredible. Y’all have been reblogging and hyping this before it even finished…I haven’t felt so encouraged about an Utena project since the musicals! (Yes, streams soon, I promise.) You can read the other post to get more details, and catch my post here with more details about the process if you’re interested. The long and short of it?

This is the first artbook I ever scanned. I did it in 2001. In Photoshop, using multiple scans per page that took hours to process. But it was 2001. A half megabyte file that was 1250px wide was considered extremely hardcore and impressive. That’s just always been the business I’m in when it comes to Utena art, you know? 

It’s now the latest artbook I’ve scanned, and so much of the process, and effort involved, is unchanged. What has changed, is the result. Welcome to your new desktop background. Your new phone background. Your new poster print. 

What I’ve done here is attempt to create definitive digitized images of Chiho Saito’s work as offered by this book--I have removed the print moiré of the original scans, and used my literal decades of experience to try and tease out as much information from them as possible. Without being physically in front of the original artwork (which is a thing I’ve had the great fortune to get to do) this is The Most Chiho Saito you are ever going to get. I’ve tried my best to make sure there is a way to get it that works for everyone:

Do you just wanna scope 'em out? Look at some disaster gays? Grab your favorite one or two? This is the path for you! Check out the ‘compressed’ (not very) 10k ‘web friendly’ (not really) copy at the Bibliothèque, the media archiving wing of the Something Eternal forums at Empty Movement*. All the following links are also available from here. Do you want these copies? All of them? Don't just grab them individually, friend. This batch is 375MB and can be downloaded as a zip of the individual files here on our Google Drive.

Do you like digital archiving? Are you looking for a copy that preserves the archival quality of the effort but sits nice and comfy in a single file? This is for you. A minimally compressed 10k, 513MB version worked into a PDF is now up, shiny and chrome, on the Internet Archive. Do you like the idea of the minimal compression, but want the individual files in a zip? Yep I did that too, here's the drive link.

Are you looking to print these in a larger size? This is probably the only reason on Earth you’d ever want them, and yet a bunch of you are going to go straight for these. Here are the zero-compression JPG full size copies, most of them are 15k across, like simply a ridiculous size. Pick your fave and download it from our Google Drive! 

I am genuinely really proud of this work.** I was able to tease out so much new detail from these…her incredible layering techniques, the faintest brush of her highlights, and the full range of her delicate hand at whites and blacks… details commonly lost in digitization. I sincerely hope you find something here that you’re looking for, as an artist looking for inspiration, as a weeb looking for a desktop, as an archiver excited to see incredible 90s manga artwork saved forever in the digital realm. I feel like I have already said so much about them, and could keep going, but you know what? This work speaks for itself. Enjoy, use, explore, and definitely tell us what you think!

We love y’all. ~ Vanna & Yasha

* AHEM ASTERISK AHEM

You might be wondering what any of that is. Something Eternal? Biblewhatawhat??? EmptyMovement.com? You might even have done a double take at the word ‘forum.’ And you should!!!

I have a confession. This artbook was my ‘side project’ as I worked on this, *the main project.* For a couple years I’ve been banging around with a new domain, and originally I had other plans for it, but Elon Musk ruined my Twitter and Discord is well along on its way to enshittification, and well….we joke on the Discord a lot about ‘reject modernity, embrace forums’ and you know what? We’re right. So Yasha and I are putting our money where our mouths are once again, and doing something insane. We are launching, in 2023, a website forum. Obviously, this is not the official ‘launch’ per se, but I cannot announce the artbook without directing you to the forum, since it sits on the attached very cool gallery system. Oops! Told on myself. Another post more focused on the forum will be forthcoming, but if you are just that motivated to get in right away, you absolutely can! (This will help stagger new arrivals anyway, which is good for us!) If you would rather wait for the ‘official’ launch, by all means that’s coming, including a lengthy screed about how and why we’re doing this. In either case, remember: this is a couple weebs trying to make internet magic happen, we are not website developers by trade. Give us grace as we iron things out and grow into this cool new website thingie…hopefully along with some of you! :D

If you do join up, naturally, there is a thread about this project!

** If you like this kind of content, consider helping us pay for it! We do have a Patreon! If you’re wanting to use these in some public-facing distributive way, all we ask is for credit back to Empty Movement (ohtori.nu or emptymovement.com, either will work.) 

I would like to say ‘don’t just slap these files on RedBubble to get easy money’ but I know that saying this won’t effectively prevent it. Y’all that do that suck, but you’re not worth letting it rain on the rest of this parade. :)

[hiveswap]

Summary of The Cat of The Year poll atrocities of 2023/2024

I'm sure that most people on this side of tumblr have seen the Jellie vs. Nefarious Anglerfish poll going around with like 60k votes at this point, and I'd really like clear up some of what happened since I was around for the whole thing.

Url blocked out for op's privacy. They have already left but don't look for it if you haven't seen it/don't harrass them if you already have.

1. The previous round (preparation)

I discovered the poll in its previous round, needless to say she beat Jort's ass severely. This was around the 3rd of january, meaning that this round finished before jellie's passing with only about 7k votes. Op did add their own piece of propaganda from their main:

...which was FINE. (except for stuff we'll see later) Of course running a poll while biased isn't ideal but I for one didn't even know they were the op until much later. I also added my own piece in a separate thread, and they didn't interact with it at all. There was no drama.

2. The Finale

Jellie unfortunately passed away right before the starting of this poll, which was the catalyst for what happened next. Op did exactly as last time and added a slightly more mean spirited encouragement to vote for the other contestant. This is the point where I believe that i fucked up personally.

I added this thinkpiece accusing op of associating all mcyters with Dream (who we all hate for the record) despite them not alluding to him at all. This is because tumblr has a history of disimissing all mcyters as... everything that dream was been accused of. Op did allude to not caring for mcyt. but they didn't say what i accused them of. This is important to point out because this reblog of mine is still being spread. Jellie was in the lead at the time, but not by the time i woke up next morning.

I won't be including anyone else's additions because I don't want to put blame on any specific person. Just felt like clearing up mine.

3. The Fuckening

Some time later op made this post to their personal blog:

which is insanely shitty because, as other people have pointed out, the "lame ass youtube cat" didn't die to inconvinience op or ruin their fun, and people would have probably voted for her anyway because jelly is universally beloved in the mcyt community. This isn't anti democratic. This post was added to the poll with a caption saying op should not be running this poll, and it took off. Op later went on to say that this was a joke:

This apology was not taken well by people, (including me) because "you were not meant to see it" isn't an apology and they still very much made fun of someone's pet dying. Safe to say this did not make the drama stop and only added fuel to the flame. I believe this was the point where the conversation of mcyt fans being unjustly sent hate to was reignited.

We should discuss that! it's a real thing that happens often and is equal to childish bullying. However, in this case, OP was the only one getting sent hate to my knowledge. The notes were mostly saturated by mcyt fans, and even now i can only find one or two hateful stance towards us under the whole 20k notes post.

4. Conclusions

Op posted a second apology to the catoftheyear blog to try and calm people down (i believe this is comprehensive and a lot better than the previous one) The blog was deactivated shortly after, so i only have my phone screenshots of it that i also added to the poll itself at some point:

(Edit) Here's proof that op did not write the justification they got criticised for, from the notes of the original poll:

This apology didn't get seen, or get accepted by enough people, so op made this statement on their personal:

Needless to say I am deeply dissapointed (and guilty) that it's come to this. Yes, op said tasteless things that made us all angry, but telling a human being to commit suicide is worse than being insensitive about a stranger's pet dying. Even after I posted about the blog being decatived i had someone come into my notes to wish that "they never find happiness" i mean wtf. This isn't like shipping where we can do whatever without the content creator's input. this is fucking harrowing and i can't imagine how i'd feel if this was done in my/my pet's name especially after losing them as recently as a week ago.

I hope no one from hermitcraft who is on here (let alone scar holy shit) learns about this like they did with previous lighthearted tournaments. If you truly respect the creators you claim to be a fan of as people, you do not tell people to kill themselves over them. And finally, let Jellie fucking rest, guys. she had a long, good life. I hope op can come back and also avoids behaving like this if they ever wish to do so. I'm angrier at mcytblr, though.

[little-diable]

Unspoken nicknames and lost loves – Dean Winchester (smut)

I crave Dean Winchester as if he's a drug. How insane. Please like and reblog if you enjoyed reading this, your comments keep us writers motivated! Enjoy my loves. xxx

Summary: The reader walked out on Dean and his lifestyle years ago, and yet she has never managed to let go of her love for him. Perhaps a nest of vampires in her town is exactly what needed to happen to bring them back together. Honestly, just pwp.

Warnings: 18+, smut, piv, mentions some heartbreak and talks about leaving, fluff tho

Pairing: Dean Winchester x fem!reader (3k words)

Darkness wrapped itself around (y/n), it crawled up her tired body like a snake slithering through Eden, knowing that chaos would unfold soon enough. The stone bench she was sitting on did little to shield her body from the cold night, leaving her trembling as she waited for his arrival. And yet she didn’t even know if he would show, if he had listened to the panicked voice message she had left hours ago.

Her eyes wandered over the rows of endless graves, trying to decipher the unfamiliar names to keep herself distracted. A part of her wondered why she was so sure that he’d show, after years of silence on her end – years of his calls she had ignored, of sober and drunk messages she had deleted. And yet a small part knew that he’d always come when she called, keeping the promise he had made years ago.

Dean Winchester had always been her enigma, the one she found herself clinging to for years, tied to him from her teenage years on, all until the day where she had packed her bag to leave the brothers and their lifestyle behind. A day that had flipped her life completely, luring her away from the places she had called her home for years on end, ripping it all out of her hands because her anxious overthinking mind had gotten the best of her.

And yet she didn’t regret running, at least not from the unstable lifestyle she had never managed to adjust to. But no matter how many years had passed since that day, she couldn’t shake her longing for the man she had once wanted to marry, the man she had hurt more than words could express, the man she expected to find her in moments of desperation.

“A cemetery, how fitting.” Dean Winchester’s raspy voice rang in her ears, forcing (y/n)’s glassy eyes towards his frame. He towered over her, letting his green eyes dance over her features while hers did the same, taking in every inch of the handsome face she’d never forget, no matter what may happen to her.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d come, but I thought this spot was far away enough for you to at least consider meeting me.” Dean sat down next to her on the bench, letting one arm rest behind her back. It wasn’t the first time she was seeing him again after leaving him, they had run into one another every now and then, and yet it was the first time they were all alone, without Sam or any of her friends near.

“You know I’ll always come whenever you need me, (y/n).” The use of her name cut deeper than she thought it would, instantly missing the nickname he had once used, a familiar sound she craved like a starving woman in need of food. She had to avert her gaze for a moment, no longer able to get lost in the eyes she’d always find, no matter how big a crowd may be, lured towards Dean Winchester like two magnets made to fit.

“So, vampires, huh?” She was glad for the change of topic, all too aware of the doubts that began to grow louder, leaving her to wonder if this had been a mistake.

“You know I don’t want anything to do with this, but I knew I had to call you. I’m sure you picked up on the series of missing people around here, the second I saw them killing that woman, I knew you could help.” Her mouth felt dry, struggling to speak about the things she had sworn she‘d keep away from. But no matter where she was, no matter what she was doing, it seemed as if there was no way out of this mess she had once lived through.

“I will call Sam, we will take care of this.“ Dean‘s hand found her knee, softly squeezing it before he dropped it once again, instantly making her miss the soft touch. (Y/n) couldn’t stop herself from smiling at him, allowing her a handful of seconds to properly look at the man her heart was still aching for.

“You can stay at mine for the few days you two will be around, if you want.“ The offer had rolled off her tongue before (y/n) could even have tried to stop it. For a moment, Dean kept quiet, not speaking up while she silently cursed herself for making this even harder for her. But before (y/n) could try to pull the offer back, Dean let go of a soft hum.

“That would be nice, thank you.” A soft smile was shot her way before he rose to his feet, letting his hands disappear in the pockets of his trousers. Both allowed one another to have one last look, giving the moment an almost melancholic touch before Dean parted his lips once again. “Sam will call you once we’re on the way. Be careful, (y/n).”

And all she could do was watch Dean Winchester leave her side once again, taking another piece of her heart with him.

……

“Thank you for letting us stay, (y/n). I’m sure this isn’t easy for you.” Sam had his hand placed on her shoulder, holding her close while Dean was taking a quick shower. She had missed having Sam around, the one she had kept in touch with over the past years, desperate for updates on the man she still longed for.

“I’m happy to see you, both of you.” She didn’t manage to speak another word, didn’t want to dwell on the feeling of regret and anxiety simmering inside of her. All she could do was turn from Sam, focusing on the bottles of beer she had bought, very well knowing that some things won’t ever change when it comes to the Winchester brothers.

“Shower’s free.” Dean’s raspy voice lured Sam from her side, forcing (y/n)’s eyes to Dean who leaned against the door frame with wet hair and clothes that hugged his frame a tad bit too well. With heat clinging to her, (y/n) tried to busy herself with preparing some snack, anything she could do to keep her eyes from wandering back to Dean.

“It’s a nice place you’ve got here.” He plopped down in one of the chairs, shooting her a grateful smile as she reached a beer out for him to take. (Y/n) was grateful that he hadn’t commented on the pictures she had hung up around her place, old memories of her and the two brothers, of shared friends and long lost loved ones. She was grateful that he didn’t tease her about any of them, well aware of the way she had struggled without them close, even though she had been the one who had decided to run.

“It’s enough for now.” His hum rumbled through him, echoing through the kitchen like a cry she struggled to keep bottled in. “So, no boyfriend or roommate you share this place with?”

“Oh come on, Dean.” (Y/n) scoffed at his words while shaking her head. She knew that he couldn’t be this oblivious, unaware of the heartache she had caused them both and still hadn’t managed to overcome. Even back then, when she had left him, (y/n) had known that no other man would ever come after him, after the one she had loved more than life itself, the brightness to her darkest days, the air she needed to breathe. She was choking without him, dying a slow death she was to blame for.

“What? Don’t tell me you haven’t been with anyone, it’s been years, (y/n).” Dean’s words cut deep, dripping with spite. She couldn’t stop her body from turning towards him, from staring at him with glassy eyes that were filled with unshed tears. She wasn’t stupid, was well aware that Dean had been with many women, spending nights or even weeks with them, at least until another hunt called him and Sam away. And yet she didn’t manage to swallow her jealousy, the biting sensation that left a bitter taste on her tongue.

“I haven’t, and I doubt I ever will.” With her back turned towards him, (y/n) kept her eyes focused on the kitchen island she was leaning against, palms pressed flat against the cold material. She had to blink away her tears, unable to stop a few from rolling down her warm cheeks. The sound of his chair screeching rang in her ears, followed by the sounds of his feet softly meeting the ground, telling her that Dean was moving closer.

“Look at me, (y/n).” His hands found her waist, turning her front back towards him. His green eyes were filled with pain, a sensation so strong, it forced a sob right out of (y/n). Wordlessly he wiped her falling tears away while a soft smile played on the lips she had last kissed years ago. “Talk to me, what’s going on in that pretty head of yours?”

“It’s so pathtic, god, fuck.” Her eyes fluttered close, she didn’t endure looking at him any longer, needing a few moments to deeply inhale some new air. Dean kept his hand placed on her cheek, holding onto her while silence wrapped itself around the two ex-lovers who clung to one another as if it was their final moment together.

“I know it’s my fault. I walked away, I couldn’t cope with this life. But I left my heart with you, I knew that I won’t ever get to love another person the same way I love you. And for a while I thought I could live with that, away from you and that unstable life. But now,” a shaky breath left her as her eyes flickered back to his. “Now I am no longer so sure about that.”

Dean pulled her into his chest, letting his chin rest on her head while another sob clawed through (y/n). With every passing moment, it felt as if Dean was tightening his grip on her, scared that she’d run before he found the strength to reply.

“You know, I was angry at you for leaving, probably for years. But the older I get, the more I understand it. It wasn’t fair of us to drag you into this, to force you to move around and live without any perspectives while we were both so young. You deserve better and I’ve accepted that. But I also always knew that you were it for me, no other person will ever manage to make me feel that love we shared.” His words felt like another punch to her gut, forcing her through these memories she had tried to drown with the love she had once felt – unsuccessfully.

“I don’t want to let go of you, Dean. I know I have to, but I don’t know how much longer I can live with this pain.” With his hand finding the back of her neck, he pulled her tear-stained face away from his broad chest. She was high on his scent, the comfortable scent she had craved to smell for years. His thumb rang along her lower lip, feeling the bite marks her teeth had left behind while trying to stop herself from speaking up.

He didn’t have to ask for permission as he dipped his head down to kiss her, to press his lips against hers like he had once done numerous times each day. Instantly, she felt hurled back in time, letting herself fall back into a familiar routine as her arms found their way around his neck and his tongue met hers.

Only as the sound of Sam nearing managed to reach them did they pull away from one another. Breathlessly, they looked at one another for a handful of seconds before she turned back towards the snacks and Dean moved towards the chair he had been sitting on.

“So, how’s life around here, (y/n)? Is it as quiet as you wanted it to be?”

……

“Dean?” She mumbled his name as she woke to the feeling of someone slinging their arms around her frame to pull her against a broad chest. (Y/n) could instantly tell that it was Dean, wrapping her in his comfortable embrace as she shuffled around, needing to look up at him.

“I can’t stop thinking about what you said to me earlier.” His confession filled her bedroom, weighing heavy on both their souls. Slowly, she moved her hand up his shirt, letting it rest on his chest while her fingers traced his exposed collar bones.

“I meant it, every part of it.” The heavy exhale that followed her words interrupted their silence, drawing their eyes back to one another. It felt like a deja-vu, happening just like hours ago where he had finally kissed her again after all these years. Their lips melted together, hearts and souls intertwined while he pulled (y/n) on top of him.

“Do you want this? I need you to be sure, sweetheart.” Her heart skipped a beat at the use of his old nickname for her, leaving her dazed while a soft “Yes” managed to leave her slightly swollen lips. Without letting go of her, Dean flipped them around, hovering over her while he got rid of his shirt. He took his time, teasing her for a few moments before he exposed his upper body to her wandering eyes.

Dean allowed her to trace his marks, to explore the skin she had once been all too familiar with, needing a few seconds to adjust once again. But he grew impatient all too quickly, letting his hands disappear beneath her shirt to pull it from her frame. Within seconds his mouth found her chest, kissing their way to her naked breasts.

(Y/n)’s quiet moans were like fuel to the fire, begging him to suck on her hardening nubs while she bucked her hips, feeling his hardening cock press against her covered heat. Nothing could happen now to pull them away from one another, to stop them from what was about to unfold, they were too far gone, set on moulding a perfect mess they never wanted to get rid of again.

“It’s been too long, I need you, need to feel you inside of me, Dean.” She was proud of herself for even finding her words while he kept rubbing himself against her, leaving her bundle of nerves pulsing. His eyes flickered up to hers, filled with a teasing anticipation that shook right through her like lightning striking her body. All while she laid still, with her hands resting next to her as if she was scared to touch him, to mess something up.

“You’re still such a needy girl for me, aren’t you, sweetheart?” With her breath hitched in her chest it felt as if she was drowning, drowning in everything Dean Winchester emanated. He rose back to a sitting position, chasing the distance between them to pull her panties down her legs before he stepped out of his boxers. (Y/n)’s greedy eyes wandered up and down his naked body, thanking whoever was listening for giving her a second chance.

“I want you bare, let me feel you.” She trusted him, knew that Dean would never risk harming her in any way, and yet she didn’t dare look at him while speaking the words that drew a gritty moan from Dean. He found his way back to her, hovering over (y/n) while he dipped his head down to kiss her. The kiss seemed to wake her from her state, letting her hands find their way up his neck to his hair, tugging on the soft roots to wordlessly beg him for more.

Dean brushed the tip of his cock through her slit, spreading her arousal on her skin before he finally sank into her. A loud moan left the both of them in unison, a sound he tried to swallow with another kiss pressed to her parted lips. He gave them a few seconds before he started to fuck her with slow thrusts, enjoying every second of their all too intimate reunion.

It felt like a dream, a surreal experience she was only dreaming about but would never experience in real life. Having Dean oh so close, being buried beneath him while he fucked her with calculated thrusts that made black dots appear in her vision – a dreamy state she never wanted to escape from.

“Look at me, pretty girl. Let me see how good I’m making you feel.” Dean’s teasing words dripped with confidence, leaving her buzzing in heat as her eyes snapped towards his. They held eye contact while his thrusts grew faster, knowing that they couldn’t drag this out even if they wanted to. Too many years had passed, years they had been forced to spend without the other near, years they were now trying to make up for.

“I love you, Dean.” She wouldn’t have managed to stop the words from leaving her even if she had tried to. Words that left him chuckling in delight before he repeated them, making her heart flutter in her chest. A blissful state that only grew more prominent as she sneaked her hand between her bodies to rub her pulsing bundle.

“I want you to cum with me, don’t let go yet, sweetheart.” (Y/n) could only let go of a choked sound while she clawed her fingernails into his shoulders, trying to stop herself from letting go. They kept looking at one another until Dean finally nodded his head, allowing her to let go as his ferocious thrusts pushed them over the edge.

Both moaned in unison as they came together, breathless sounds they couldn’t care about. The blinding sensation felt as if they were burning alive, robbing them of their breath while they were certain that it had never felt this good before.

“I’m sorry for leaving, Dean.” (Y/n) mumbled the words into the darkness of her room. She clung to him as he slowly pulled out of her, only to plop down on the mattress right next to (y/n).

“I’m sorry for just letting you go. I will never be this blind again, sweetheart.”

[navybrat817]

Bucky needs to pay attention to me. 😤

I feel you, nonnie. 😂

Running on Empty

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Summary: You had a long day and need Bucky to give you some attention.

Word Count: Almost 1.3k

Warnings: Explicit sexual content, oral sex (f. receiving), established relationship, dirty talk, humor, sassy reader, inner monologue, slight feels (it's me, lovelies), Bucky Barnes (he's a warning, okay?).

A/N: Work left me in a mood, so apologies for this. 😂❤️ Not beta read and written on my phone, so any and all mistakes are my own. Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!

You huffed as you took a seat on the couch and wondered why you bothered getting out of bed today. Contrary to popular belief, Mondays weren’t always the worst. Naturally, the universe decided it would be fun to give you problem after problem today at work in retaliation for having a positive attitude. How you managed to get anything done outside of putting out so many fires, you had no idea.

And Bucky?

Your beefy, gorgeous specimen of a boyfriend had time to sit, relax, and reread his copy of The Hobbit for the umpteenth time. Manspreading in his chair like he didn’t have a care in the world. Not that you wanted him to have a bad day, too. God knows he deserved rest and relaxation.

But why was he reading instead of fucking the obvious frustration out of you?

“You’re staring at me,” he said, turning a page without looking up from his book. “Which I would say it’s creepy, but we both know you like looking at me.”

True.

You bit your lip as you unashamedly checked him out, wishing he’d lift his gaze so you could see the blue of his eyes. It was an impressive feat that his prosthetic arm matched his right arm in terms of the muscular form and structure, the fabric of his shirt stretching to accommodate his torso. It didn’t matter if he decided to hold you down with his flesh or metal hand, he loved to remind you of his strength as he pounded your desperate pussy, stretching your walls and driving into you so deep that you swore you saw the gates of heaven.

Maybe that was why you thought Bucky looked like Jesus when he was in Wakanda.

“Yeah, I am staring,” you replied, tapping a finger on your thigh when he hummed. “Because I’m trying to figure out why you’re reading instead of eating my pussy.”

Bucky waited a beat before he picked up the bookmark beside him, carefully slotting it between the pages before he shut it and gave you his full attention. “You mind repeating that?” He asked, his voice gruff as he tucked some of his hair behind his ear. He wore it down today, but kept a hair tie around his right wrist.

Perfect for him to pull it back when he went down on you.

He smirked and scratched his scruffy chin when you narrowed your eyes. You craved the burn it left behind when he rubbed his face against your most sensitive area. He knew that.

“You want me to spell it out for you, Bucko? Fine,” you said, leaning back on the cushions as you spread your legs and planted your feet on the couch. Your hands formed a perfect V by your mound, which might as well have been a neon fucking sign since you ditched your under minutes ago, as he tried to hold back a groan. “See this? I have a perfectly good pussy right here and it isn’t going to eat or fuck itself.”

Bucky ran his tongue along his bottom lip before he inhaled. The beautiful bastard was actually sniffing out your arousal. You almost wished you could go back in time and let the scientists know that the serum they created helped super soldiers use their heightened senses to get their dicks wet.

Not that you were complaining since Bucky eyed you like he wanted to devour you whole.

“I’m sorry, baby. Didn’t realize eating or fucking your pussy was on my ‘To Do’ list today,” he said, purposely running a large hand over his crotch.

Fucking tease with his fucking massive hand and cock.

You pouted when he didn’t make a move to get up. “I am your ‘To Do’ list. I’m your girlfriend and I want you to do me because I had a long day,” you huffed, dipping your hand between your spread legs before you batted your eyes at him. “You haven’t fucked me in ages. It isn’t fair.”

Your beautiful man snarled at that, making you shiver as you teased yourself. You didn’t dip a finger in, but you did spread your growing wetness around as he watched. “I fucked you last night,” he reminded you.

“It feels like ages,” you corrected yourself. Thanks to him, you experienced what all-consuming desire felt like and you didn’t like going long without him having you. He couldn’t fault you for that, even if he did thoroughly wear you out the night before. “I’m so empty, Bucky, and I have this tight, wet hole for you to fill up. It’s all yours if you want it.”

His nostrils flared as he finally pushed himself up, his fingers flexing as you kept rubbing yourself with a sweet smile. “It’s my pussy,” he rasped, palming himself again as he stood in front of you. “And since she’s so needy that I can’t even finish a chapter of my book, stop touching her and let me get to work.”

Like you don't have a needy cock, big boy.

The growl in his voice brought a moan out of you, but you didn’t stop touching yourself. “Unless you mark it,” you began, looking him dead in the eye as you brought a glistening finger to your lips and traced along them like a gloss. “It isn’t yours.”

You managed not to smirk triumphantly when he took the hair tie from his wrist and pulled his luscious hair back. “She knows she’s mine. Bratty pussy just wants some attention,” he said as he dropped to his knees and leaned in to nose at your slit. “But I don't mind leaving my mark again.”

“Did you just call my pussy a brat?” You questioned, the last word coming out as a strangled moan when Bucky darted his tongue out, his fingers digging into your thighs to keep you still.

“No, I called my pussy a brat. Good thing I know how to tame her,” he said, winking up at you when you looked down. The playful look in his eyes made your heart swell. He was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at him. “Kisses are a good way to start before I pump her full.”

“A very good start,” you smiled, clenching in anticipation.

“And she loves my kisses,” he replied before dragging his mouth along your folds. The sensation that shot through you almost had your thighs clamping around his head, but it wasn’t possible with the hold he had on you. “I gotta say though. She's a messy little thing. Gets my mouth so wet.”

“Bucky,” you whimpered, tugging some of his hair free as he gently wrapped his mouth around your clit.

He hummed and lightly sucked on it before he pulled away, making you whine in protest when the sparks of pleasure fizzled out. “Speaking of kisses, I almost forgot.”

You gave him a small smile when he leaned up to tenderly kiss your mouth, letting him swallow down your moan as you opened up for him. It ended far too soon for your liking, making you loop a finger around his dog tags to pull him back to your lips. “Love you, Bucky,” you whispered.

On the days you practically ran on empty, you appreciated having someone like him by your side.

“Love you, too, baby,” he whispered back, his gaze soft as he slid back down your body. “Now hold on and let me make you and my pussy forget all about that long day.”

You knew he’d ask later if you were okay, but for now you’d let him shut your brain off and make you feel boneless.

And maybe you'd offer to warm his cock later as a thank you while he caught up on reading.

We all deserve that, right? Love and thanks for reading! ❤️

Masterlist ⚓ Bucky Barnes Masterlist ⚓ Ko-Fi

[wintrwinchestr]

obedience | part 2

summary: a week ago, you and joel had experimented with a new kink, and it’s been on your mind ever since. you had been too shy to ask to try it out again, but joel always knows exactly what you need.

warnings: 18+, smut, daddy kink, pet play (egregious use of “puppy”, joel teaches you dog commands and refers to your hand as your paw, among other things), d/s and ddlg relationship dynamics, praise kink, degradation/dumbification kink, cockwarming, edging, unprotected piv sex, creampie, pet names (baby, babygirl, sweetheart, etc), talk of reader wearing a collar, joel giving reader a bath/washing her hair, hella aftercare, reader has hair and can be carried by joel, implied age gap but reader is an adult, let me know if i missed anything!!

word count: 5.7k

a/n: literally nobody look at me please. this the most self indulgent self insert shit i’ve ever written in my life and if you get it you get it idk what else to say!!! anyway thank you for being patient with me and reading what i write, my big girl job takes it out of me sometimes but that’s what i write this type of shit to deal with <3 nice comments and reblogs appreciated if you enjoyed or if this awakened something in you :)

(read part 1 here if you missed it)

dividers by @saradika

“You want Daddy to train you, babygirl, you wanna be his pretty lil’ pet?”

It had been a week now since Joel had punished you, denied you for acting out over the phone, for disobeying him and sending him lewd photos of yourself when he had explicitly told you to stop. But you hadn’t listened, he wasn’t having it, and when he had returned home from work late that night, he had called you by a new name. Puppy, he had spat at you several times as he made you chase a ruined orgasm on his steel-toed work boot. 

The pet name hadn’t left your mind since then, repeating itself over and over, along with his question of if you wanted to be trained, if you wanted to be his pet. The more you thought about it, the more you found yourself becoming desperate for it. Each day in the office was a struggle to stay focused on even the simplest of tasks, your thoughts overrun with fantasies of Joel getting you on all fours for him, giving you commands and praising you for following them, tugging you towards him by a finger hooked into a collar to tell you what a pretty puppy, what a good girl you’re being for him.

You’d left work every evening for the past several days with a damp spot in the seat of your panties, feeling ashamed by how depraved and inappropriate almost every one of your waking thoughts had become. When you would greet Joel at the door all needy and wanting, he would tease you with a “What’s gotten into you, lately, hm?”, but never push for more than you were willing to reveal to him, though he thought he might have had an idea. He would take you to the bedroom and have his way with you the way you liked, the way you had usually craved, before he had turned your world upside down by deciding on a whim to try somethin’ new that fateful night. 

Joel would be more than willing to try it again, to follow through with that question he’d asked you, but he decided he was content with waiting for you to come to him, for you to decide when you were ready for him to make you his good puppy once more.

–

The weekend begins just like any other. Joel’s internal clock wakes him up no later than seven in the morning, the sun just barely streaming in through the blinds in your shared bedroom. He tries to keep his creaks and groans to a minimum as he rolls out of bed, placing a gentle kiss to your forehead before quietly padding his way into the kitchen to get a sizable pot of coffee brewing. He lets you sleep for another couple of hours, knowing full and well at this point in your relationship that he has the wrath of your grumpy morning attitude to face if he doesn’t. He does think it’s cute, though, how your face twists up into a pout but your eyes stay scrunched closed if he wakes you up at a time you deem too early.

When Joel does decide it’s a sensible time for the two of you to get a proper start on your generous two days off from the slog of your weekday jobs, he cracks the bedroom door open gently, making his way over to your still-sleeping form. He softly brushes some of your knotted hair out of your face as he places your mug of coffee on the nightstand beside your head, prepared just the way you like it. Whatever happened to good ol’ fashioned cream and sugar? Or just plain black, for that matter? Can’t believe you like it with all this cinnamon vanilla whatever you have me dump in it, he had teased, not long after you had first started sleeping over at his place. Can’t believe you drink it without anything in it. It needs at least a lil’ somethin’ sweet in it, you had bantered back to him, to which he was quick to reply with Got my somethin’ sweet right here, don’t I? before pulling you into his lap and kissing you hard until both of your cups ran cold.

You smile at the memory in your half-sleepy state, slowly blinking your eyes open to see Joel’s warm and familiar smile. “Mornin’, sweet girl,” he says, his grin only growing wider when you greet him back with the cute little squeal that comes out when you stretch your arms over your head instead of an actually intelligible word. “Got some emails and borin’ stuff to catch up on this mornin’, why don’t you just stay comfy and sip on your coffee while you wake up for a bit, hm? Probably be done in time to get lunch together somewhere, how’s that sound?”

“Okay, Daddy,” you reply softly, real words this time, as you push yourself up to sitting while Joel props your pillows up behind you for your back to rest against. You don’t put up much of a fight against the yawn that stretches your jaw, rubbing your blurry eyes as it does.

“Alright, gimme a kiss, sleepy girl. Enjoy your creamer with a splash o’ coffee,'' Joel taunts through a chuckle. He presses his lips to yours, and his coarse beard tickles the skin around your mouth, making you giggle. The smile hasn’t completely faded from your face by the time he slips out of the bedroom to head into his office, shutting the door gently behind him.

Extending a hand down to your nightstand, you hook your fingers through the mug’s handle and slowly bring it up to your face, careful not to spill any. He’d chosen your favorite Daddy’s Girl mug, the phrase written in bold pink text curved over a little illustration of two blue daisies. You always thought your coffee tasted a little better from this mug, somehow. Taking your first sugary sweet sip, you think the sentiment is as true this morning as it’s always been.

–

A little while later, when you feel somewhat more awake thanks to plenty of caffeine and sugar working its way through your body, you finally force yourself into comfortable clothes different from the ones you slept in. With your hair sufficiently tamed, face washed, and teeth brushed, you decide now’s as good of a time as any to try and act on the plan you’d been concocting over the past couple of days, waiting for a moment just like this to pounce on.

You still felt too shy to bring it up to Joel, to tell him how badly you’ve been wanting him to treat you like his little pet, and go even further with it this time. You know he’d never judge you for it, and he had seemed to like the experiment just as much as you did. But something about your little fantasy still felt taboo and shameful, and you just couldn’t bring yourself to use your big girl words and ask for it.

Though, you had finally realized, maybe you didn’t have to ask for it. Maybe you could quietly tip toe into his office one lazy Saturday morning and sit at his feet, nuzzle into his thigh until he brings a hand down from his keyboard to scratch behind your ear, asking you What’re you up to down there, babygirl?

And that’s exactly where you’ve found yourself now, answering his question with a dreamy whimper, leaning into his touch as the feeling of his fingers on your skin makes you smile so blissfully, wiggling on your knees.

“What’s got you feelin’ so snuggly this mornin’, hm? Just need some lovin’ from your Daddy?” he asks in his still-rough morning voice, gazing down at you affectionately.

“Mmhmm,” you hum, wrapping your arms around his calf and rubbing your cheek against the soft leg of his sweatpants.

“Alright, lil’ thing. Just got a couple more emails to take care of and then I’m all yours, promise.” He removes his hand from your scalp to start typing again, and you pout in protest. 

Joel shoots a stern look down to you. “Poutin’ don’t typically get us what we want, now does it? Be patient, sweetheart, just a few more minutes.”

You release another upset noise, louder this time, and then he’s pushing his rolling chair back, your grasp around his leg coming apart as he does.

“Came in here actin’ so good and sweet, where’d this bratty girl come from, hm? If there’s somethin’ you want, gotta use your big girl words and ask for it, you know that,” he scolds, his expression becoming more serious.

You hadn’t meant to elicit this reaction from him at all, and it causes your eyes to well up as you stare at the carpet, avoiding his gaze. Opting to answer him with just a shrug, you fidget with your fingers in your lap to distract yourself from the sting behind your eyes. You do attempt to open your mouth and make your desires known to him, but think better of it, and any big girl words you did have swirling around in your brain are replaced by yet another half-hearted little whine.

A whine that sounds… a little familiar to him. 

“Oh, I see…” Joel muses, a little less authority in his voice as he assumes a more relaxed position in his desk chair. “I think I know what’s goin’ on here.”

You look up to meet his eyes, tilting your head in confusion. The action prompts his lips to tug into a knowing smile, and he leans forward in his seat, making a beckoning motion with his hand. “C’mere, baby. Between my legs.”

You obey immediately, crawling towards him to close the small distance between you, settling in a kneeling position between his spread thighs. “Good girl,” he praises, and the words make you beam as he cups your chin, the moisture that had been blooming along your water lines now forgotten.

“Think I know why my sweet girl ain’t usin’ her words with me this mornin’...” Joel says, scratching at the soft skin under your chin with his fingertips. You can’t help but lean into his touch, lashes fluttering, and it’s enough to confirm his suspicions.

“Reckon it’s because puppies don’t know to, hm? They just whimper and whine for attention from their Daddies cause they don’t know how to talk, ain’t that right?”

You let out a pathetic little noise when he finally says the word, the one that’s been dampening every pair of panties you own for the past week, but that you’d been too scared to ask to hear again. But you were right after all, you didn’t have to ask for it, because Joel always knows just what you need, somehow.

He uses his grip on your chin to nod your head up and down for you, and continues talking down to you in that gravelly tone of voice that makes you feel like you’re about to melt straight through the floor. “Yeah… ‘F you wanna be Daddy’s lil’ puppy this mornin’, tha’s alright with him. Figured you oughta be missin’ it by now, seein’ as how you liked it so much the first time around…”

You’re barely processing what he’s saying, your lips slack and eyes unblinking as your cunt releases little pulses of slick into your panties. Something about Joel seeing through you so clearly, calling you out on your newly discovered kink and using it to pull you hard and fast into this familiar saccharine headspace, has your whole body burning hot with arousal. 

“And if I know one thing about puppies, it’s that they need some trainin’, don’t they? ‘Specially impatient ones like the pretty thing I’ve got sittin’ at my feet. Don’t you agree? Don’t speak, just nod, babygirl.”

It’s unusual for him to request a nonverbal response, as opposed to a Yes, Daddy, but you’re grateful for the change as you allow yourself to fall deeper into your role. You give him what he asks for, a couple of eager nods in quick succession, even though you aren’t quite sure where he’s going with this yet.

“Asked you twice to be good and patient for Daddy, and all I got was poutin’ and whinin’ instead, didn’t I? Think my lil’ pet oughta learn her first command today: Wait. Because good puppies know how to wait for their treats, don’t they, sweet girl? Again, just nod for me.”

And you do, slower and with a little more guilt in your expression this time. But despite him making you admit to your disobedience, you’re not sure you’ve ever been more fucking soaked than you are right now. You’re throbbing, aching, shifting on your knees in an effort to get even the smallest bit of relief. You think you might be releasing little whimpers, but you can’t be sure, already feeling so floaty and far away from just his words alone.

Joel spots your desperate movements, a satisfied smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He shifts in his chair, adjusting for his own arousal, and gets an idea.

“On second thought… Got another command I might like to teach you first. Somethin’ a lil easier for that dumb puppy brain of yours to understand, hm?” He tilts his head at you, lips curved into a mocking pout.

Your eyes flutter and roll to the back of your head involuntarily, his degradation prompting the instinctual response from you. Another syrupy slow nod lets him know you’re ready to learn, to obey to the best of your ability.

“Alright, sweet thing. When I say paw, want you to put your hand right on my knee here, ‘kay?” Joel explains, patting his muscled leg for clarity. “Paw, baby, gimme paw,” he coos at you, his tone not dissimilar to the one he uses to speak to actual dogs. 

Forcing your brain to work through the dense cloud of submission that shrouds it, you lift your hand and place it on his knee, just like he had demonstrated. His enthusiastic reaction to your obedience startles you at first, but you break into a beaming grin when you see the proud expression he wears.

“Good girl, tha’s a good girl,” he praises, scratching at the top of your head and ruffling your hair. Using his touch as a distraction, Joel places your paw over his hardening bulge with his unoccupied hand, the thick shape of him prominent through his thin sweatpants. He tightens his hand on top of yours, prompting your fingers to squeeze him. He guides your hand into massaging him for a second or two more, long enough for your melted puddle of a brain to connect with the nerve endings in your fingers. Your breath hitches when you realize what it is you’re feeling, your blissed-out expression morphing into a more desperate, wide-eyed one as you focus your attention to the movement of your hands.

“Yeah, feel that, sweet girl? Feel what you do to Daddy by bein’ so good for him?” He prompts, and your thighs squeeze together as you grope him. You can’t help but draw your bottom lip between your teeth, biting down on it to stifle the needy whimper that threatens to escape.

“You wanna sit on it, pup? Hm? Wanna keep Daddy’s cock nice ‘n warm while he finishes up his work?”

Your aching cunt squeezes around nothing at the premise, and you nod so hard it makes you dizzy. You move to push yourself off the floor and stand up, but a firm hand on your shoulder stops you.

“Ah ah, gotta use your words this time. Speak, baby,” Joel commands, and it takes you a second of searching to find the ability to do so again.

“Y-yes, Daddy, wanna s-sit on it…” you answer softly, and you’ve never heard your own voice sound so wanton. It comes out in a pitch that you almost don’t recognize as your own, featherlight and dreamy and desperate all at once. The need in your voice alone is enough to satisfy him.

“Good girl, just learnin’ all kinds o’ tricks today, aren’t we? Trainin’ you so well… C’mon up here, babygirl,” he permits, and uses his big hands and sturdy forearms to assist you in your awkward and eager climb into his lap. “Take it out, baby, get your treat.”

You whine as you situate yourself atop his thighs, tossing your head back with a dramatic flair, overwhelmed and frustrated by all he’s been asking of you. You just wanted him to turn your brain off, to praise you, to not have to think while he plays with you however he wants, and instead all he’s been doing is asking you to listen, sit, speak, obey. But of course, you should know better by now, that Joel likes making you work for it, to wait for it.

“Hey,” he scolds, grabbing your face and pulling your head forward from where it had flopped between your shoulder blades. “You were doin’ so well, bein’ such a good, obedient girl. Don’t start actin’ up on me now. Could always change my mind, not let you have your treat after all. You want that?”

 “No, Daddy…” you admit, your words distorted through the way your cheeks are squished together. He’s not using much force, just enough to keep your focus on him. 

“‘S what I thought… Go on then, pup,” Joel commands, and you make quick but clumsy work of freeing his already leaking cock from the loose confines of his sweatpants and briefs. He lets go of your face in favor of placing both of his hands on your hips, lifting you up while you pull your loose shorts and panties to the side, maneuvering his length to just barely prod at your wet little entrance. You flit your eyes from where the two of you meet back up to meet his gaze, hesitating while you look to confirm your permission one last time.

“Sit, puppy,” he says through a smirk, and you release a sharp whimper as you sink down onto his cock. 

On instinct, you bury your face in the warm expanse of skin between Joel’s neck and shoulder, rolling your hips back in preparation for a satisfying buck forward. His grip on your skin turns iron, holding you in place and preventing you from chasing after your pleasure.

He cuts off your pout with a strict, “I say you could move?”

“Mmph– No, Daddy,” you mumble into his firm muscle.

He huffs a mocking breath through his nose. “Really are jus’ a dumb lil’ thing for me, ain’t you? You already forget what you’re ‘sposed to be learnin’?” “‘M sorry, Daddy–” the embarrassment from his demeaning words makes you squirm, and his grip on you becomes bruising.

“Don’t need you to be sorry. Jus’ need you to listen. You’re gonna wait like a good girl ‘til I say you can start grindin’ that messy lil’ puppy cunt on me. We clear?” he orders, his deep baritone traveling straight from your ear to your needy core, the dark thatch of hair at the base of his cock already damp as a result.

You hug yourself closer to him, little fingers clawing at his t-shirt in an attempt to ground yourself, and nod meekly.

“Speak,” he spits again.

“Y-yes, Daddy, clear…”, you whine, managing to lift your head up just enough for your voice to come out a little more coherently.

“If I let go so I can finish up my work, you gonna behave and hold still for me?” 

You don’t seem to have a choice, but you agree, anyway. “Mhm, yes, Daddy.”

“Good girl. Now wait,” Joel instructs.

You aren’t sure how much time passes, the incessant clicks and clacks of Joel’s keyboard and mouse becoming more and more irritating with each passing second. Those sharp mechanical sounds, the vibration of his chest against yours whenever he clears his throat, the feeling of his pulsing cock as it splits you in two, it’s all so fucking much. You can’t help but release little whimpers and whines, pathetic pleases and Daddys that he either shushes or chooses to ignore. Any slight movement you make in an attempt to relieve some of the ache, he just responds to with a coo of wait, pup, and the tone of his commands as you twitching, clenching around him, soaking his cock more and more. It has to have been at least fifteen or twenty minutes by now, and at this point you’re sure he must be clicking around his desktop aimlessly just to drag out your training a bit longer.

Eventually, the noises stop, and Joel breathes a sigh as he replaces his large hands on your hips, their touch much more gentle this time. You lift your head from his shoulder to face him, wide and watery doe eyes frantically searching his face for a sign that the wait is over, that you’ve finally earned your treat. 

He grants you a soft smile, lifting a hand and using it to just barely grasp your chin, tilting your head side to side as he admires you.

“Got such a sweet girl in my lap, don’t I? Knew she could be good, just needed a lil trainin’ hm?”

You nod, already feeling so overwhelmed that your mind has started to drift elsewhere, to the relief you’ll hopefully be feeling in just a few minutes, after he’s finished toying with you.

He releases your chin, ghosting his hand downwards along the column of your throat, stopping when his thumb and fingers are resting on the tops of your collarbones. He doesn’t apply any pressure, just admires the placement of his hand for a moment, then hums.

“Neck would look so pretty with a collar wrapped around it, don’t you think, pup? With a lil’ heart-shaped tag danglin’ from it, engraved with my name so everyone knows that you belong to me? That you’re my puppy, hm?”

Fuck.

The sentiment alone, the domination and ownership of it all, has you crying out your most pathetic noise so far this morning, eyebrows peaked with need as you bite down on your lip so hard you think you might’ve drawn blood. Joel predicts your reaction, clamping down on your hip with his other hand to stop you from moving before he’s decided you’re allowed to.

Again, you nod, willing to agree to anything and everything he wants from you if it means you’re getting closer to getting what you want from him, what you need.

“Say it, baby,” Joel demands of you, his voice calm but commanding.

You tilt your head at him, humming a confused little noise, but he doesn’t elaborate. “Say it, c’mon,” he repeats. Your foggy brain is on a second or two delay, but it catches up eventually, and you realize what he wants to hear.

“I’m y-your… ‘m your puppy,” you say, softly, your voice tinted with embarrassment. 

“Wha’s that, sweetheart? Didn’t quite hear you. One more time for Daddy.”

You swallow hard, inhaling a shuddering breath before repeating the phrase a little louder, with a little less control. “I’m your p-puppy, Daddy. I’m your puppy, ‘m Daddy’s–”

“Yeah, y’ are, fuck.”

He moves his hand from the base of your neck back to your hip, and uses his strong grip to hold you still while he begins a series of sharp but rewarding thrusts in and out of your swollen cunt, each one seeming to hit deeper and deeper inside you. Falling against him once more, you wrap your arms around his shoulders and bury your face into him while you let him fuck into you like a doll. His movements are quick and desperate as he growls an incoherent string of filthy praises in your ear, his words accompanied by the sloppy wet sounds of skin on skin.

“Perfect girl, Christ, tight lil’ puppy pussy feels so fuckin’ good, always feels so fuckin’ good. Such a good girl, such a good goddamn girl for Daddy.”

The harsh bounce of your body in his lap jostles every last one of your thoughts from your brain, and he relishes in the animalistic cries and yelps you mumble into the flesh of your upper arm, now damp with your drool. He must feel the moisture as it pools underneath your face and wets the thin fabric of his t-shirt, because then he’s laughing at you, spewing more obscene words at you as he spears you up and down on his cock.

“Shit, are you fuckin’ droolin’ on me, sweetheart? Got this messy cunt and that pretty mouth both soakin’ me, Christ. This cock make you that dumb, hm? You Daddy’s dumb puppy?”

You are, you both fucking know you are, so you agree and repeat it back to him to the best of your fucked-out ability because you know it’s what he wants to hear. You’d be lying to yourself if you said you didn’t want to hear it too, the self-degradation lighting your whole body on fire as some of that heat forms itself into a tight ball in your tummy. 

Joel’s hips begin to stutter, his hold on you starting to falter, complete sentences turning into sharply whispered expletives as he nears his orgasm. He can feel you squeezing around him, notices the telltale sign of your muscles tightening and your breathing coming out in short bursts, and uses that four letter word against you one last time.

“Not yet, babygirl, don’t you fuckin’ come for me, not ‘til I say. Wait,” he spits through gritted teeth.

You were so ready, just teetering on the edge of your orgasm, all you needed was a few more jackhammering thrusts and you’d be careening down the steep cliff of it. It takes everything in you to hold it in, to not let go. But you’ve been so good for him, and Joel doesn’t have it in him to torture you much longer, and he permits you to finish just a few minutes later.

“Alright, come, puppy, come for Daddy,” he orders, and you spasm in his lap with a debauched cry, that ball of heat in your tummy dispersing through your bloodstream, igniting every one of your nerves and sending sparks flying behind your eyelids. He reaches his high at the same time, spilling his release inside of you the way you both like.

It takes a few moments for the both of you to come back into yourselves, heaving chests eventually matching each other in a more relaxed rhythm. Joel softly scratches at the back of your head while you place delicate kisses mindlessly along his neck and up behind his ear.

“You were so good, sweetheart. Always take everything I give you so well,” Joel quietly praises next to your ear. He touches his lips to the side of your head, then your temple, then gently maneuvers your face so that he can press a final kiss to your forehead. Your eyelids flutter open in response, and your lips tug into a sleepy grin as you focus on his face. “There she is, my beautiful girl.” He sweeps a few tangled locks of hair away from your face, and even though you know you must look like a mess, you let him admire you anyway.

“Still up to go out for some lunch? After we get ourselves cleaned up ‘n all,” Joel asks, shifting his gaze down to where his spend leaks from you, staining both of your clothes a darker color and dripping onto the fabric of his desk chair.

You pause, chewing on the inside of your cheek for a bit before shaking your head.

“No? Tha’s alright, sweet girl, don’t blame you one bit. You’ll still let Daddy get you cleaned up though, won’t you sweetheart? How’s about I run you a bath with some o’ that new flowery bubble bath you just got, hm?”

You light up at the premise, nodding eagerly, and Joel flashes his handsome smile at you in return. “Alright, hang onto me, baby,” he says, and you wrap your arms tightly around his shoulders as he scoops you up and carries you to the bedroom, his softening cock still nestled inside you. The two of you detach when he sets you down on the small, handmade wooden bench adjacent to the tub, and leaves only for a moment to retrieve your favorite pink blanket from the living room. He wraps it around your shoulders when he returns, and starts the bath for you. He makes sure to squeeze a generous amount of the bubble bath into the roaring stream of water, ensuring that the bath is sufficiently fragrant and relaxing.

When the tub is full, with mounds of white soap bubbles threatening to spill over the smooth porcelain walls, he helps you strip out of your clothes, tugging your bottoms down your legs as you remove your own top over your head. Joel offers you one of his hands to steady yourself with as you step into the bath and lower yourself into the steaming water. It feels perfect, because just like he knows exactly how you take your coffee, how you want to be fucked without you having to ask, he also knows the almost-too-hot temperature of bathwater you prefer. 

He allows you to wash your own body, while he uses the cup you keep by the tub to douse your hair with water, using his rough fingertips to massage your favorite coconut shampoo into your scalp. You’re almost done scrubbing yourself by the time he’s raking conditioner through your damp ringlets, and then he’s rinsing you clean, the humid air in the room now smelling like a dozen different flowers and fruits, all of them mixing together to smell definitively like you. It’s his favorite scent in the whole world.

You don’t exchange many words during your bath, mostly enjoying the intimacy of the activity in silence. The action alone is enough to let you know how deeply the two of you care for each other, how much you trust and love each other.

When the water eventually runs cool, Joel helps you out of the slippery tub, and wraps you in one of your plush bath towels, a lighter shade of pink than your blanket, but just as soft.

“I’ll let you finish up in here, and I’ll see about orderin’ us some delivery, hm? I’ll get you whatever you want, and we can throw on a movie to watch while we eat, how’s that sound?”

“Sounds good, Daddy,” you reply, the bath leaving you feeling refreshed and more like yourself, able to find your voice again.

You settle on ordering your favorite fast food, and it arrives shortly before you tiptoe your way into the living room, your wet hair now pulled up into a clip while the rest of you is dry and comfortable, wrapped in a soft lounge set and your cozy blanket.

“There she is, the Poky Lil’ Puppy,” Joel teases, removing your containers of chicken tenders and fries from the plastic bag they arrived in, setting them on the coffee table in front of the couch.

You giggle at his quip, settling down on the cushion next to him. “I’m not… poky, or whatever,” you reply, in a tone of voice that isn’t sure if you’re supposed to feel complimented or offended.

He looks at you in minor disbelief for a second, then moves his head and brows in a gesture that suggests something like touché. “It’s the name of a kids’ book. Written a lil’ before your time, I guess.”

“Oh… I’ll take it, then.” You settle against Joel’s warm, sturdy form as you munch on a fry, watching the TV screen as he flips through the most promising of the half dozen streaming services he’s subscribed to. “You know…” you start, but let the rest of your sentence drift away, not sure if you want to continue.

“Yeah, babygirl?” he replies, and it encourages you to finish your thought.

“I really liked, um… what we did today. Earlier,” you continue, doing your best to push through your shyness in an effort to get better at communicating your desires with him.

Joel pauses his browsing, putting the TV remote on the table so he can meet your eyes. “In my office, you mean?”

You can’t help but smile cheekily at the memory. “Yeah… I really like being called… that, I think. And if you don’t think it’s too weird–”

“Course I don’t, sweetheart. Would never judge you for likin’ what you like. If it makes you happy, makes you feel good, if it ain’t hurtin’ anyone, then there’s nothin’ wrong with it, baby.” Joel’s turned his upper body to face you now, to make sure you understand the sincerity of his words.

You smile, and his reassurance gives you the confidence to continue. “I really like that… collar idea,” you admit softly. “Maybe we can try that next time.”

He tucks his tongue into the pocket of his cheek, his face forming into a satisfied expression. “Thought you might. Keep bein’ Daddy’s good girl, he just might get you one. Maybe a matchin’ leash, too, somethin’ to tug on when I need you to listen.”

Your eyelids perform their involuntary flutter, a quiet whimper escaping your lungs at the thought. 

“Alright, settle down now, baby,” Joel says through a chuckle, shaking his head before kissing the top of your head affectionately. “Got all the time in the world to try whatever we want. Just focus on eatin’ your lunch for now, sweetheart.”

You snuggle up close to him after he starts the movie you both decided on, happily eating your salty and savory meal as you watch. For the rest of the afternoon, you feel warm and satisfied for a few different reasons, the most important one due to how grateful you are to have Joel.

He takes care of you, understands you, and loves you like nobody else ever could. And it’s mornings like these that make you especially aware of that fact. You’ll be his good girl for as long as he wants you to be–forever, hopefully–and he’ll always give you exactly what you need in exchange for it. 

Even if that something might be a collar with his name on it, fit for his perfect little puppy.

tag list (no pressure if this one isn't your thing!!) @beefrobeefcal @iamasaddie @rebel-held @dilfgestivo @zliteraturehoe @joeldjarin @kamcrazy123 @hellowoolf @rexamongthestars @stevie75 @luxurychristmaspudding @noisynightmarepoetry @mewantpeepaw (if your name is crossed out it won't let me tag you!!)

[requiemforthepoets]

this time, i’ll love you much better

PAIRINGS: fernando alonso x ex-wife!reader

SUMMARY: your daughter had been insistent on you letting her attend a summer camp miles away from home, she was relentless, until you had gave up and let her go.

REMINDERS: this is purely fiction, the way how the character is portrayed in my story does not reflect to the person that is portraying my character in real life. always separate fiction from reality, and do not repost or copy my work in any way.

WARNINGS: no use of y/n, divorce, singe dad nando (for the meantime), piercing of ears, cutting hair, typos, not proofread, switching places, named characters (except yours), camp pranks, twin civil war, and cursing.

WORD COUNT: 8.9k

AUTHOR’S NOTE: hi! i had already posted this fic before, but i decided to rewrite it bc i didn’t like how i wrote it before😅 it will be turned to series (again), and indecided to chop off other stuff and expound the story more. this was inspired by the movie ‘parent trap’ (1998), which is a favorite and comfort movie of mine. also, pls don’t pierce your own ear, this was just for the sake of the story, pls have your ears pierced by a professional!

to those who had read this fic before, i hope thay you’ll like this new version. comments and reblogs are highly appreciated. enjoy reading!

ONE - CAMP WALDEN

𖤓 𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 | 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒚𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 | 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒕𝒘𝒐 ☽

The warm evening breeze filtered through the lush gardens, the soft, ambience music mingling with the chatter of guests dressed in gowns and suits as elegant as the event itself. You moved gracefully, a familiar figure gliding through the crowd, your hand wrapped loosely around the delicate crystal glass filled with champagne.

Tonight was no different than most—a charity gala held in one of the grand halls that you frequented as often as you flew to Paris for fashion week. Your gown, a soft blush with intricate beading that glimmered under the lights, seemed to cast a spell on those around you, but you barely even noticed. Your mind drifted as you nodded politely at the familiar faces, murmuring polite greetings. Even here, surrounded by prestige and opulence, your thoughts inevitably lingered somewhere else, somewhere that was far away from this world.

There was a gentle tug on the fabric of your dress, and you looked down to see Jullianna standing there, her eyes bright as she held a small, sleepy smile.

“Mama,” she whispered, reaching her arms up. She was the spitting image of you in those early years, with her curious eyes and calm demeanor that could enchant anyone.

“Are you tired, my love?” You knelt down, gently pulling her into your arms, and brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

She nodded, her small hands curling into the fabric at your shoulder. “Can we go home soon?”

“Just a little longer, darling.” You whispered, smiling as you kissed the top of her head as you stood, now hold her close.

You felt a wave of guilt at keeping her here so late, but knowing these kinds of events, it is a part of your life, it is a life you led—a life you had built carefully, elegantly, for her.

The evening passed in a blur, and as you settled into the back of the car with Jullianna asleep in your arms, your mind wandered, as if often did, to Fernando. Your divorce had been for the best, you had convinced yourself of that a long time ago. His world had always been one of constant movement—racing, travel, and late nights. For you, a life of slower elegance, deeply rooted in tradition and legacy, had never meshed well with the constant, fast-paced nature of his life. It had always been difficult to explain to friends or even to yourself in those early years, but you knew it was true, that there were some things that are simply not meant to be.

Twelve years had passed since the day you made the decision, standing in that quiet empty house, feeling like half of you had walked out the door with him and Sofia. You had returned to France almost immediately, not even wanting to stay in the place you once called home with him, and eventually, your heart led you further east—to Singapore, where you thought the new environment might help you leave behind the memories that clung to you like shadows.

That night, as you tucked Jullianna into bed, you sat by her side, brushing a gentle hand through her hair, and whispering the same words you did every night in her sleep, her lips curved into a faint smile, and left you feeling a bittersweet pang.

“Je t’aime, ma belle.” You kissed her forehead softly.

As you left her room, the silence of the night settled around you. Sitting alone in your home office, your gaze fell on a photograph tucked into the corner of your shelf—a rare family picture that was taken on the twins’ first birthday. Fernando was holding Jullianna, while you held Sofia. It was before the late-night arguments that began over small things and grew louder, sharper, until one day they no longer seemed fixable.

A knock on your door had pulled you from your thoughts. It was your housekeeper, Madeline, carrying your tea in your hand.

“Madame, here’s the nightly tea that you had requested earlier.” She said, her voice soft as she set the tea down.

“Thank you so much, Madeline.” You replied and smiled warmly at her.

The moment Madeline had left your office, closing your door softly, you took a deep breath and closed your eyes. A thousand unsaid words had echoed in your head and missed memories washed over you like a tidal wave. Despite everything, there was still that part of you that would always wonder about the family you had left behind, that would forever miss the sound of Fernando’s laugh, how Sofia had wrapped her little arms around your neck as a baby, and the way you once felt—whole.

“Oh, Fernando…if only things had been different.” A single tear streaming down your face as you whispered into the night, as if speaking to the wind itself.

The words hung in the air, unanswered, as the ache in your heart settled back like a familiar companion, and as the city lights glimmered through your window, you realized that maybe, sometimes memories were meant to be kept as they were—frozen in time, a bittersweet reminder of a love that once was.

It was a warm summer afternoon, the sun streamed gently through the windows of your home office, casting a soft, golden glow over the polished mahogany furniture. Outside, the manicured gardens were in full bloom, but your focus was entirely on Jullianna, who was seated on the white velvet couch, her face alight with excitement. She had been pleading her case for the better part of an hour, her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling.

“Please, Mama,” she said, voice laced with hope as she clasped her hands. “It’s just for the summer! Camp Walden is supposed to be amazing! They have horseback riding, fencing, tennis, archery, and all kinds of activities.”

You tilted your head, smiling slightly as you watched her. Jullianna’s enthusiasm was really contagious, yet the thought of sending her somewhere far away, even for just a few weeks, filled you with a strange kind of emptiness. Jullianna was your heart, your world, the one who grounded you in all these years since the divorce. Letting her go, even briefly, felt like tearing away a part of yourself.

“I don’t know, darling,” you murmured, brushing a hand over the silk of your blouse as you gathered your thoughts. “You’ve never been away from home before, and this camp is so far away. What if you need something? What if…” your voice trailed off, concern evident in every word.

“Mama, I’ll be fine, I swear!” Jullianna leaned forward, her small hands resting gently on yours as she assured you, voice steady and wise beyond her years. “You’ve always said that being independent is important, and I think I’m ready. Besides, it’ll also be a great opportunity for me to learn new things and make new friends. I promise I’ll write to you everyday!”

“You know, my love,” you said softly, “it’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just that it is hard for me to imagine you being so far away, without me there to make sure you’re safe.”

“That’s why Tante said she’d check in on me. She lives so close—just an hour away! She said she’d visit every week to make sure I’m doing okay.” She said as she squeezed your hands.

That part did soothe you, if only a little. Your sister, always the adventurous one, had been quick to support the idea, insisting that it would be good for Jullianna to experience a little bit of independence. But still, the decision weighed heavily. You had spent every moment of Jullianna’s life by her side, and you had always been protective, especially after all the things that had happened with Fernando. The mere thought of her being away from you, even in a structured, prestigious environment, felt like an unfamiliar stretch.

“Alright. Just promise me one thing, Jullianna,” you finally said, soothing her hair back from her face as you looked at her with tender seriousness. “Promise me that if anything feels wrong or if you ever feel scared, you’ll tell someone right away. You’ll let Tante know, or write to me, and we’ll bring you back home.”

“I promised, Mama. I’ll tell you everything, and I’ll call Tante if I need anything.” A small smile spread across her face, and then she added softly, “thank you for letting me go.”

“Always remember, my darling,” you said, leaning down to kiss her forehead, “that there is no place I wouldn’t go to bring you back if you needed me.”

You sighed, and you pulled her for an embrace. The weight of your decision finally settling over you. As you pulled back, her eyes glistened with a mixture of excitement and understanding.

“I know, Mama. I’ll miss you so much, too.” She smiled.

You began gathering the essentials for her time at Camp Walden, and there were moments you found yourself staring at her empty bed or the corner where her favorite books were stacked, a sense of bittersweet filling up your heart. The house already felt quieter, emptier in a way you had not expected, and she hadn’t even left yet. But, you knew that letting her go, allowing her to experience this bit of independence, was necessary, even if it made your heart ache.

A few weeks later, the day arrived. You watched as the car pulled up in front of the sprawling, tree-lined grounds of Camp Walden. Other girls were already waving and chattering with excitement, and you felt a pang of wistfulness as you saw them heading off to the cabins. You stood with Jullianna, adjusting her hat, dusting off an imaginary dirt on her clothes, and brushing stray hair from her face.

“Be good, be safe, and remember everything we talked about.” You said, voice a little unsteady.

Jullianna wrapped her arms around you, her embrace warm and firm. “I’ll see you soon, Mama. Thank you for letting me come.”

You nodded, holding her tightly for a moment before letting her go. As she joined the other campers, you stayed rooted to the spot, watching her until she disappeared into the crowd. There was a strange sense of emptiness as you climbed back into the car, already missing the sound of her laughter beside you.

For now, you leaned back and sighed as you closed your eyes. The image of Jullianna’s smiling face etched into your heart, as the car began its journey back to the airport where your private jet was waiting for you to fly you back to Singapore.

It all started with a tennis match on a warm afternoon, the kind of day where the sun blazed high and relentless, and the sounds of campers filled the air around the sprawling grounds. Jullianna had signed up for the camp’s tennis tournament on a whim, hoping to try her hand at something new and shake off the lingering homesickness that came in waves when she least expected it. Her new found friends had cheered Jullianna on as she walked onto the court, her ponytail swinging and her competitive spirit freshly ignited.

Across the net, Sofia stood waiting, expression cool and confident. She had her own group of friends watching from the sidelines, whispering excitedly and glancing between the two girls with eager anticipation. From the moment the match began, it was clear as daylight that it wasn’t going to be an ordinary game. Every swing, rally, sharp glance, and return was met with a fierce determination, each of them fighting to outdo the other, and neither of them are willing to back down.

The twins’ heated match had caught other campers' attention from their respective activities and gathered around the court, sensing the tension in the air, and whispering amongst themselves. It wasn’t everyday that they witnessed a match this heated, not even during the annual camp tournaments.

“Is that all you’ve got?” Sofia taunted as she shot Jullianna a glance from across the net, smirking. It was enough of a challenge to spark something in Jullianna.

Jullianna’s eyes narrowed, gripping her tennis racket tighter as she retorted. “Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

She fired a powerful serve that sent the ball rocketing across the net, forcing Sofia to scramble. But Sofia, with her practiced ease, returned it with just as much force, refusing to let Jullianna gain the upper hand.

The game went on like this, each point hard-fought and full of grit, until finally, with a final stroke, Sofia won the match. She tossed her racket aside, beaming at her friends, who cheered wildly from the sidelines. Meanwhile, Jullianna, panting and flushed with exertion, felt the bitter sting of defeat, and glared at Sofia, unable to believe that she had lost, but her pride would not let her stay silent.

“You got lucky.” Jullianna muttered, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Oh please!” Sofia said smoothly, her tone dripping with sarcasm as her smirk widened. “If that’s what you need to tell yourself.”

Before Jullianna could fire back, her stance ready to pounce on Sofia if needed just to wipe off that annoying smirk of her, Stella, the camp assistant, with wide eyes and a gentle disposition, stepped forward, looking flustered. Stella glanced back and forth between the two girls, a confused expression evident on her face.

“Uh…Jullianna…Sofia…” she stammered, clearly unnerved by how alike they looked. “Girls, let’s calm down. It was just a match, let’s shake hands and put this friendly rivalry to rest, okay?”

Neither Jullianna nor Sofia seemed to hear Stella. Each of them was far too wrapped up in her annoyance and indignation, unwilling to back down. It was really uncanny—looking at a pair of mirrors that refused to acknowledge their reflection. But when Stella opened her mouth again to address it, both girls had already disappeared, leaving the camp assistant standing alone, bewildered.

What followed over the next few days was nothing short of a civil war. Each girl, armed with a fierce competitive spirit, began to pull pranks on each other, each more elaborate than the last, and Sofia, being a seasoned camper, had the advantage of knowing the camp’s hidden corners and tricks, but Jullianna proved to be a quick learner, catching up faster than anyone had anticipated.

One morning, Jullianna woke to find her cabin floor littered with marble and lego pieces, strategically placed so she’d slip the moment her feet touched the ground. She had managed to avoid the worst of it, but not without a near-fall that sent her stumbling and feet aching over the lego pieces. When she arrived at breakfast, she spotted Sofia across the mess hall, smirking and laughing with her friends, Jullianna narrowed her eyes, a silent vow forming in her head.

Oh it’s on, Sofia Alonso.

The next day, it was Jullianna’s turn to get back at Sofia. She placed a bucket of water, that was mixed with two big boxes of sugar that she and her friends were able to snatch from the camp’s kitchen, balanced precariously on the ledge. As soon as Sofia opened her cabin door and stepped through, it tipped, dousing her from head to toe, smelling and sticky because of the sugar that was mixed with the water. The sound of Jullianna and her friends’ laughter echoed from somewhere nearby, and she greeted her teeth.

The pranks continued to escalate further—each one more creative and outrageous than the last. Sofia had retaliated by sneaking a couple of live frogs into Jullianna’s cabin, knowing how she hated frogs to the core, and hiding them in her bed just before lights out. The next morning, Jullianna’s scream echoed across the campgrounds, sending other campers into fits of laughter.

This caused the other campers to watch the spectacle unfold, some even placing bets on who would win their latest round of pranks. It became the talk of the camp, and soon, even the counselors started to take notice of it, their amusement gradually giving way to concern.

However, the tipping point came on a humid afternoon when Sofia’s latest prank went awry. She had meticulously planned to replace Jullianna’s shampoo with a mixture of sticky maple syrup and glue, convinced it would finally give her the upper hand once again. But, in a twist of fate, the camp director herself, Marva, just happened to use Jullianna’s shower stall that day. The furious yelp that echoed through the cabin when the sticky concoction met her hair was one no one would forget anytime soon.

Marva stormed into the mess hall that evening, her hair ruined and still a very sticky mess despite doing her best effort to wash it out thoroughly, but the stickiness was making it impossible.

“Jullianna Young! Sofia Alonso!” She barked, voice cutting through the chatter of the other campers like a whip.

Jullianna and Sofia, who had been sitting at opposite ends of the hall, both stiffened, exchanging a glance across the room. They knew very well that they were in big trouble, but neither was prepared for the scolding that followed.

“I have had enough of this nonsense!” Marva snapped, glaring at them both. “You two have disrupted this camp long enough with your childish rivalry. I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you, but whatever it is, it stops now.” Both girls just remained silent, each of them secretly fuming at the other.

Marva took a deep breath, clearly struggling to keep her composure. “Since neither of you seem capable of behaving properly, you’ll be spending the rest of your time here together in the isolation cabin. No pranks, no game, and no tennis matches. Just the two of you, side by side.”

A collective gasp rippled through the mess hall as the campers exchanged shocked glances. The isolation cabin was notorious—it is a small, rustic cabin far from the main grounds, used for serious disciplinary issues. Jullianna opened her mouth to plead her case, but Marva held up a hand, silencing her immediately.

“Not another word.” Marva sent Jullianna a pointed look. “Gather all of your things, both of you. You’ll be escorted there tonight.”

As the mess hall fell silent, the girls shot one last, seething glance at each other before trudging out of the mess hall, each silently blaming the other. Neither of them had any idea what awaited them in that cabin, but they were both determined to make sure the other regretted every prank, every stolen moment of peace.

The isolation cabin loomed under the silver light of the moon, its walls pressing down with a silence that seemed heavier than the woods surrounding it, and the faint smell of old pine mingling with the summer air drifted through the cracked window. Jullianna stepped inside, her gaze sweeping over the modest setup—- single room with two narrow beds on opposite walls, a small wooden table on each side, and the dim bulb hanging from the ceiling, casting faint shadows that only added to the sense of confinement. It is not really the kind of space where two strong-willed girls could coexist peacefully for the entire summer.

Sofia brushed past her with a sigh, already so over with what had happened during the day, and just ready to get some sleep. She set her bag on the bed near the door, her expression tense and unreadable.

“Guess you’re taking that side then.” Jullianna muttered, sliding her own bag onto the bed nearest the window, needing the slight reprieve the view might offer.

Sofia merely shrugged, glancing around the cabin before sinking down onto her bed. She did not respond, but the look she shot Jullianna spoke volumes, one of those silent, frustrated exchanges that siblings seem to master effortlessly.

The silence between them stretched, thick and awkward, broken only by the distant sounds of the camp settling in for the night. Jullianna retrieved her pen and paper, intending to start the letter she had been meaning to send to you. She hoped it would soothe the relentlessness that gnawed at her, the unsettling feeling that maybe, she had made a big mistake of coming to Camp Walden.

Jullianna began writing in a neat hand, taking care to choose her words carefully. She even hesitated, chewing on the pen cap as she considered what else she could say to you.

Dear Mama,

I’m doing well at camp, and I’m learning a lot. The counselors are nice, the activities are…fun. I had met a really terrible girl, and she’s very very rude, and got us into big trouble, and maybe you were right after all, maybe I shouldn’t have come to Camp Walden, maybe I’m not ready yet to be on my own…

The moment Jullianna saw what she had ended up writing, had been crossed out, and just sighed. Then, without any warning, the lights flicked off, plunging the cabin into darkness. Jullianna blinked, her eyes adjusting to the faint glow filtering through the windows, and realized that Sofia had casually flipped the switch from her side of the room, clearly telling her intent to sleep.

“Hey! What the hell?” Jullianna snapped, narrowing her eyes in the darkness. “I wasn’t finished.”

“It’s late,” Sofia replied evenly, her voice carrying a hint of smugness. “Some of us actually want to sleep, you pompous ass.”

“Well, I want to finish my letter.” Jullianna replied, ignoring the name calling that had been done by Sofia. “It’s not like I’m even bothering you.” She huffed, reaching for the switch by her bed and flicking it back on.

The light filled the room one more, and she caught a glimpse of Sofia’s exasperated expression before Sofia silently turned it off again. Jullianna gritted her teeth, annoyance already bubbling up as she stretched over to turn it back on, refusing to back down. Suddenly, the twins had fallen into a wordless rhythm—Sofia switching the light off, Jullianna switching it back on, they were going at it back and forth, in an escalating battle of wills. With each flip of the light switch, their resolve only seemed to deepen, neither of them are willing to be the one to concede. It was like the tennis match all over again.

“You know what? Fine!” Sofia muttered, letting out an exasperated sigh, and rolling her eyes as she settled back on her pillow, turning away from Jullianna. “Have your freaking light. Clearly, writing a letter is more important than getting any sleep.”

Jullianna’s jaw tightened, resisting the urge to retort. She knew that Sofia was only trying to get under her skin, but still, she could not ignore the sting of frustration. This was supposed to be her space, her chance to find some peace, and here was Sofia, already encroaching on it. After a pause, Jullianna went back to her letter, scribbling with more intensity than before, as if each stroke of the pen could somehow vent her irritation.

The camp is fine, though I do wish there were a little more…personal space, and that Sofia Alonso was the biggest and awful creature that had ever walked this planet!

She glanced pointedly at Sofia’s turned back. But as the silence settled back over them, Jullianna felt the weight of their situation press down, a heavy reminder of the consequences they now had to endure. She thought back to the pranks, tennis match, and the bubbling resentment she had not quite been able to shake. Now, all of it had come back to haunt her, and there was nothing either of them could do to change any of it. Marva’s words echoed in her mind—you’ll be spending the rest of your time here together in the isolation cabin.

Looking over at Sofia, wondering if she was feeling the same sting of regret. It was one thing to engage in their rivalry out on the campgrounds, where they had their own space, but here, the walls closed in, and the tension between them felt inescapable.

“You know, if this keeps up, they’ll end up calling our parents.” Sofia murmured, her voice laced with a hint of worry.

Jullianna paused, her pen hovering over the paper as he stomach somersaulted at the thought. The last thing she wanted was for you to receive a call from Marva, detailing how your daughter had been banished to the isolation cabin, as Marva listed the things she had done like it was war crimes. She couldn’t bear at the thought of you regretting the decision to let her come home, disappointing the only person she looked up to more than anyone else in the world. To more than anyone else in the world.

“Yeah, well,” Jullianna replied, her bravado faltering, “I don’t think either of us wants that.”

Sofia glanced over her shoulder, gaze softer, almost resigned. “So maybe we should just…stay out of each other’s way.”

Jullianna nodded in agreement, feeling a reluctant agreement settled between them, though the air was still thick with tension. They did not say another that night. She decided to write a new letter and had finished it in silence, leaving out the parts about the pranks and rivalry, keeping the tone cheerful and optimistic for your sake.

When Jullianna finally set the letter aside and turned off her bedside light, she could feel Sofia’s presence only a few feet away, a constant reminder of the thin line they both now walked. They had no choice but to endure this together, their own choice binding them to this small cabin in the middle of the woods.

As Jullianna lay awake, staring at the ceiling, Jullianna realized just how long the summer ahead truly felt.

The late afternoon sun spilled through the cabin window, casting a soft golden glow that painted the room in a warm light. Jullianna sat cross-legged on her bed, journal opened in her lap as she carefully sorted through the small collection of photos she had brought with her from home. The journal was more than just a pastime, it was her link to everything familiar, a little piece of home could flip through whenever she missed you or the world that was beyond camp.

One by one, she arranged the photos—old photos of you and her, her friends from school, and places she loved most. There was one photograph, however, that she always kept tucked at the back, out of sight but never truly out of mind. It was an old photo of her father, Fernando, one taken long before things had changed so drastically for the worst. The picture had been ripped down in the middle, jagged separating him from the rest of the family photo, leaving only his half behind.

Jullianna stared at it for a moment, her fingertips tracing the worn edges, a strange mixture of warmth and sadness filling her chest. She missed him, even if she could hardly remember him. She missed what might have been. As she was placing the photograph ik the journal, she felt a presence near her, and she glanced up to find Sofia watching her curiously. Sofia’s expression was unreadable, but her gaze was sharp, focused on the photo in Jullianna’s hand.

“What’s that?” Sofia asked, a hint of something suspicious in her voice.

“Just…” Jullianna hesitated, holding the journal protectively against her chest. “Some photos from home.” She replied, hoping that her reply would appease Sofia’s curiosity.

“Let me see.” Sofia insisted, taking a step closer.

Before Jullianna could even form a response, Sofia had already leaned over and snatched the photo from her hands, holding it up to the light. Her eyes scanned the picture, and Jullianna could see the flicker of confusion cross her face, followed by something deeper—something darker.

“Why the hell do you have a picture of my father?” Sofia’s voice was low, tense, laced with a disbelief that quickly turned into anger.

Her hands clenched around the edges of the photo as if holding onto it hurt, but she could not let go. Jullianna’s mouth fell open, her mind reeling.

“Your father?” She repeated, feeling a sudden wave of confusion crash over her. “That’s my father.”

“No, this is my dad! Why the hell do you have this picture?” Her tone grew louder, angrier, each word brimming with accusation, as if Jullianna had stolen something from her. “You had no right to—”

“Sofia,” Jullianna’s voice cut through, steady yet trembling, she’s not really used to confrontations like this. “I’m telling you the truth, he’s my father too.” Her words hung heavy in the air, and she could see the rage in Sofia’s face waver, replaced by a flash of doubt.

For a moment, neither of them spoke, both twins were processing the words that had just been exchanged. Then, as if some unspoken understanding passed between them, Sofia reached into her own things, rifling through until she found what she was looking for. She pulled out a photograph of her own, one that looked hauntingly familiar. It was an image of you, torn the same way in the middle, only this time, the tear separated you from the man beside.

“This…this is my other picture.” She whispered as she held up the photo, hand shaking and voice barely above breath.

Jullianna took in the image, her heart pounding as she realized what it meant. The jagged tear in each of their photos matched perfectly, like two pieces of a puzzle meant to be joined. The world seemed to tilt around her, air getting heavy with the enormity of the truth sinking in.

All those years, all the questions she had never had any answers to—they were standing right in front of her, and her mirror image was the one holding them.

“You’re…” Jullianna’s voice broke, her throat tight as the words struggled to find their way out. “We’re…twins.”

Sofia’s face was a mixture of shock and disbelief. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but no words came. They both stood there, frozen, each searching for the other’s face for answers, for some kind of proof that this was not just a strange dream.

Jullianna sank down on the edge of her bed, staring at the two photographs, Fernando in one, and you in the other, torn apart but now brought together by the both of them. The silence between the twins was thick, heavy with the weight of everything they had missed, everything they hadn’t known until now.

“I don’t understand,” Sofia finally said, voice softer, almost vulnerable. “Why didn’t they tell us anything? Why were we…separated?”

“I don’t know. I never even knew you existed, it was just always me and Mama…” she trailed off, voice trembling, the realization settling painfully in her heart.

Sofia sat down across from her, a flicker of hurt crossing her face. “For me, it’s always been just me and Papa. I thought that was it.”

Both fell silent again, each lost in their own thoughts, the reality of their shared past unraveling slowly before them. Jullianna could see the same ache reflected in Sofia’s eyes, a sense of loss neither of them had expected to find. They had grown up worlds apart, yet they had been carrying the same missing piece all along, unaware that it belonged to each other.

Sofia reached out hesitantly, her hand hovering over the two torn photos, as if by placing them together, she could somehow bridge the gap between their two lives.

“Maybe,” she whispered, her voice choked with emotion, “maybe it’s not too late for us, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” she said softly, voice steady and certain. “Maybe it isn’t.”

Later that evening, when the cabin was already dark and quiet, with only the sounds of occasional rustle of leaves outside and soft breaths of the twins can be heard as they lay in their separate beds, each lost in their own thoughts. Jullianna had just started drifting off to sleep when she heard a small whisper.

Hey, psst!” Sofia called, her voice low, but insistent.

Jullianna rolled over, groaning softly. “What do you want, Sofia? I’m trying to sleep.”

“I have an idea, a very brilliant one.” She leaned up on her elbow, a spark of excitement lighting up her face, even in the dim light.

She opened one eye, squinting at her sister. “Can this please wait until the morning? When I’m fully rested and can absorb information properly?”

“No! Come on, it’ll just take a second.” Sofia pleaded.

“Fine!” Jullianna finally gave in. “If this brilliant idea of yours is anything like your last brilliant idea that landed us in this cabin, consider me not interested.” She added, voice laced with a hint of sarcasm.

“Damn, now we know which twin has a stick up in their ass all the time.” Sofia snickered.

Jullianna gasped, looking really appalled. “I do not have a stick up in my ass, thank you very much!”

“Whatever,” Sofia rolled her eyes, “but come on! I swear this one’s different. Just hear me out.”

Jullianna sighed, sitting up as well, rubbing her eyes and reluctantly giving her attention to her sister. “Alright, I’m listening. What’s this brilliant idea of yours?”

Sofia leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “We should switch places.”

“Switch places?” Jullianna blinked, staring at her sister like she had suddenly grown two heads. “You mean you want me to go live with Papa, and you’ll go live with Mama?”

She nodded eagerly, her eyes gleaming with excitement at the idea. “Exactly! Think about it, Jullianna! I’ve been dying to meet her my whole life, and don’t you want to know what it’s like to live with Papa? Even just for a little while?”

“Are you insane in the head?” Jullianna looked at Sofia as if she were out of her mind. “How on earth would we pull something off like that? The second I step off the plane, Mama will know I’m not me. We may look alike, but there are a thousand little things she’d notice right away.”

But Sofia was not ready to give up that easily. She shifted closer, her face determined. “Not if I practice. I can learn your habits, your mannerisms, everything. I’ve watched you all summer, and I already know how you talk and walk. I can definitely pull this off, I know I can.”

“And what about me?” Jullianna let out a huff of disbelief, crossing her arms over her chest. “How am I supposed to fool Papa? What if he asks me about something I don’t know or realizes I’m not you?”

Sofia’s face softened, and for a moment, she looked almost vulnerable. “Well, I don’t think he would. He’s always away and busy. He wouldn’t even notice.”

“You really think you can fool Mama? You think you know her that well?” Jullianna’s expression shifted, a hint of curiosity into her voice.

“I know her well enough to know that she loves you so much. I’ve heard stories from Papa about how she’s so elegant, so graceful, and I’ve imagined what it would be like to meet her a million times.” Sofia said earnestly. “I promise I’ll do everything I can to make it work.”

Jullianna felt a pang in her chest at the thought of Sofia’s longing, the years they had missed out on with each other, and with their parents. She tried to shake off the bittersweet feeling, but it lingered, tugging at her heart.

“Sofia…” she started, her voice soft. “This is really crazy, and dangerous. A little bit ridiculous as well if I'm being honest.”

Sofia gave her a small, hopeful smile. “So, you up for it?”

Jullianna bit her lip, torn between Sofia’s skepticism and the growing sense of curiosity. She had always wondered about Fernando, about what kind of person he was, what it would be like to spend time with their father—and as much as she hated to admit it, there was a part of her that wanted to see it for herself.

Finally, she let out a sigh, throwing her hands up in resignation. “Fine. Fine, I’ll do it. But if this all backfires, I’m fully blaming you.”

Sofia’s face lit up, and without any warning, she launched herself across the small space, wrapping her arms around Jullianna in a tight hug.

“Thank you, thank you!” She squealed. “You have no idea how much this means to me.”

Jullianna, unaccustomed to the sudden skinship, hugged her back, though she couldn’t help but roll her eyes as she whispered, “you better not mess this up.”

“Oh, don’t worry your pompous ass about it.” Sofia pulled back, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“Will you stop calling me that?” Jullianna glared at her.

“Naur.” Sofia teased. “But, it was nice doing business with you, partner!”

“I should’ve drafted an agreement before I had agreed to this plan.” Jullianna murmured.

“Too late, no backsies!” Sofia stuck her tongue out at Jullianna.

She just shook her head, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Let’s just hope this brilliant idea of yours doesn’t end in total disaster.”

The isolation cabin was not exactly the punishment that Marva, the camp director, had intended for it to be, at least not to the twins. Sure, they were banned from most camp activities and had been relegated to kitchen duties—a consequence they were constantly reminded of as they scrubbed pots and peeled endless potatoes, but it was during these hours of exile that they found an unexpected advantage. They basically had the entire summer to prepare for their switch, and with no one or any camp activities to interrupt, they were free to study each other’s lives without interference.

Every morning, after finishing up in the kitchen, they would take their usual spot at the “isolation cabin table,” a small stable in the farthest corner of the mess hall. The staff had set it aside specifically for them, as if to let everyone know that they were troublemakers. But to the twins, it felt like it was their own private headquarters, a place where they could whisper and plan without anyone overhearing.

One afternoon, with the other campers busy with archery and canoeing, Sofia and Julianna were seated at their table, surrounded by a scattered pile of photographs, notepaper, and a few hastily drawn diagrams.

“Alright,” Sofia said, leaning over one of the photos, her eyes focused. “This is Papa’s sister. Tía Lorena, and she’s a doctor. She really loves giving expensive gifts, so she pretty much spoils us rotten.” She pointed to a woman in the photograph, a glamorous brunette with a gorgeous smile.

Jullianna raised an eyebrow. “How expensive?”

“Well, considering she’s very successful, gifts like Chanel, Bvlgari, Dior, and YSL to name a few.” Sofia explained. “Though I’m thankful for the gifts, I'm never really the type of girl to bask myself in luxury items, though I know very well that once she meets you as Jullianna, you’ll really get along well. Since you’re so…posh.”

She looked at Sofia, sending her a playful offended look. “I’m not posh. But got it, an expensive aunt who gives posh gifts. Noted.”

They exchanged stories, going back and forth, each trying to explain the intricacies of their own families. Sofia’s face softened as she looked over at Jullianna, sensing the curiosity in her eyes every time she spoke of their father.

“Look,” Sofia said, reaching over and handing her a photo of Fernando, smiling and holding up a trophy on the podium. “This is Papa at his happiest, when he’s racing. That’s what he lives for, and I think he’d rather be on the track than anywhere else.”

Jullianna gently took the photo from Sofia, studying it closely. She noticed the proud look in Fernando’s eyes, the way he seemed to radiate energy and excitement.

“He looks…different than I expected. He looks…younger.” Jullianna said, looking at the photo with a longing smile.

“Yeah,” Sofia replied softly, her gaze turning a bit wistful. “That’s the side of him I wish you could have seen sooner. I think you’d like him very much, and he’s also very funny. Cracking a bunch of dad jokes.”

Jullianna gave her a small nod, tucking the photo away carefully in her notebook. It was her turn, and she held up a photo of you, looking radiant at a charity gala, draped in a timeless gown, surrounded by a sea of admiring eyes.

“This is Mama at one of her events. She’s, well, she’s always the center of attention, but not in a loud way. She doesn’t have to try, people just…gravitate to her.” Jullianna explained, and pulled out a photo again. It was one of your poster ads for Dior, where you had been asked to be their brand ambassador.

Sofia stared at the photo, her face filled with wonder, and whispered. “She looks like a queen.”

“She kind of is,” Jullianna replied with a laugh. “She can be strict, though. Like, if my room isn’t perfect, I always hear about it.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “Papa’s the opposite. He barely notices if there’s a mess, as long as it’s not his stuff.”

“Also, before I forget,” Jullianna pulled out a photo of your sister. “This is Tante Clarisse, older sister. She’s a really cool aunt, very adventurous, and I know that when she meets you as you, you’ll get along really well.”

“Would you look at that, our parents have the exact opposite of their siblings.” Both of the twins laughed at Sofia’s remarks. “But tell me more about Mama, what is the first thing she does every morning?”

“Hmm, the first thing Mama does every morning is make tea. Always black tea, no milk, just a bit of honey. She stands by the window, looking out at the garden while she drinks it.” Jullianna smiled.

“Got it,” Sofia nodded, mentally filing each detail away. “What is she like? I mean, what’s she like when it’s just you two?”

“Well, she’s calm. Gentle, but not in a weak way. She’s strong, you’d see it in the way she handles everything, like she’s always a step ahead of everyone else.” Jullianna’s face softened, voice becoming wistful. “It’s like everything is just…right. She’s amazing, really.”

“She sounds wonderful.” Sofia murmured, almost to herself.

“But anyway, your turn!” Jullianna quickly cleared her throat, wanting to break the quiet weight between them. “What’s Papa like? I mean, really like, not just what you tell people.”

“Oh, Papa…he’s complicated.” Sofia leaned back in her chair, a smile tugging at her lips. “Always has a million things going on in his head, but he’s also weirdly sentimental. Like, he keeps these little trinkets, souvenirs from places he’s raced.”

“He doesn’t say much, but he’s always present. When he’s around, you know he’s paying attention, like you’re the only person in the world.” She added.

Jullianna tilted her head, trying to picture the man she had only known in glimpses, piecing together this new layer of Sofia was giving her. You never really liked to talk about Fernando, and Jullianna just gave up on asking you about him, the picture was already enough for her to know that she has a father.

“That sounds…really nice.” She said softly, almost as if she were testing the words.

Sofia grinned, a little twinkle of pride in her eyes. “Yeah, he’s…he’s special. But don’t tell him I said that, or he’ll never let me hear the end of it.”

The two of them shared a quiet laugh, finding comfort in the strange, shared bond they were piecing together over their parents.

As they continued trading details, Sofia would occasionally quiz Jullianna. “So, what does Papa do on Sunday mornings when it’s his off-season?”

“You both spend time at Abuelo and Abuela’s home, and go to his private race track for a few sessions.” Jullianna replied confidently.

“Close enough,” Sofia said, satisfied.

“Alright, your turn. What’s Mama’s favorite flower?” Jullianna asked.

Sofia paused, trying to recall the details they had gone over. “Orchids. White ones.”

Jullianna nodded, impressed. “Perfect. She always loved white orchids, didn’t she? She even has one in her home office and bedroom.”

It was strange, Jullianna thought, to feel this kind of connection to someone she had never known, to see these glimpses of her family through Sofia’s stories. She could see Sofia had felt the same, a mix of wonder and longing that neither of them could fully explain.

Sofia suddenly leaned over the table, meeting Jullianna’s eyes. “You know, if this works, if we really pull this off, we’re going to know more about each other’s families than they know about us.”

“Good. That means we’re doing it right.” Jullianna smiled, her eyes glinting with the spark of shared adventure.

During a late evening, as the moon illuminated inside of the isolation cabin’s window, Sofia glanced over at Jullianna with a look of steely determination.

“You know, if we’re going to pull this off, we have to go all in.” She said, her gaze flickering to Jullianna’s long, wavy hair.

“No way! You want me to cut it?” Jullianna reached up, fingers grazing her dark, carefully maintained locks. “I don’t think I can do that. Mama…she loves my hair.”

“I get it, but my hair’s short,” Sofia sighed, her face softening for a moment. “And you can’t exactly show up with long hair when it’s supposed to be, well, me. You’re the one who said she’s notice things, right? The tiniest details?”

Sofia pointed to her own short-cropped style, which was edgy and practical, shaped by years of living with Fernando’s ‘come as you are’ approach. Jullianna bit her lip, staring at herself in the mirror—it was true, you would instantly pick up on something as obvious as a haircut. But the thought of losing her hair, her one piece of comfort in an otherwise chaotic world, made her heart twist.

Sofia saw the hesitation softened her voice, trying to convince her. “Look, I know it’s hard. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was necessary. Besides, hair grows back, just think of it as…as a part of the adventure.”

“Easy for you to say! You’re used to it.” Jullianna sighed, crossing her arms defensively.

“True. But that’s why I’m asking. If we’re really going to do this, it has to be perfect. Foolproof.” She paused, then added, “and…you’re going to have to get your ears pierced too.”

Jullianna’s head snapped up, her eyes wide with shock. “Wait, what?! Pierced ears?! No. Absolutely not! There is a reason why I never had my ears pierced, despite how Mama told me that I should.”

“Well, Papa definitely won’t let me go back without my ear pierced.” Sofia chuckled, shaking her head. “If you show up with unpierced ears, he’ll notice immediately that it is not his daughter.”

Jullianna groaned, staring back at the mirror. It was more than a little daunting, the idea of changing herself so much for a plan that she was not even sure would work. She had always hated needles so much, that is why despite how much you convince her to have her ears pierced so that she can no longer use magnetic earrings, a simple no would always be her answer. Until you had just stopped convincing him.

But as she glanced over at Sofia, who wore an expression of quiet, almost desperate determination, something softened within her. They were already at 85% of their plan, it’s too late to back out now. This was not just an adventure for Sofia, it was her once in a lifetime chance to meet you—the mother she had never really known.

“Fine, okay.” Jullianna finally said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Let’s do it.”

Sofia’s face lit up with relief and excitement. She jumped up, giving Jullianna an impulsive hug. “Thank you! This is going to be amazing, I promise!”

Jullianna couldn’t help but smile. The feeling of Sofia’s arms around her, the warmth of this new sisterly bond, somehow made the whole ordeal seem worth it. Worth conquering over her fear of needles.

A few hours later, Julluanna sat stiffly on a wooden chair, with Sofia standing beside her with a pair of scissors that he had managed to borrow from the camp’s art shed. Jullianna closed her eyes, as strands of her long hair tumbled down on the cabin floor.

As the pile of hair grew, Jullianna tried to focus on the bigger picture, on why she was doing this. She kept imagining your reaction when you see her, or rather, when you see Sofia, standing in her place, with every detail exactly right. She imagined what it would be like to stand in her father’s world, if only for a little while.

“Alright,” she said, after what felt like an eternity, Sofia finally stepped back, setting the scissors aside. “Look!”

Jullianna opened her eyes slowly, gazing at her reflection in the cabin mirror. With the shorter, choppy hairstyle, she barely recognized herself, and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Sofia, she saw it—the uncanny, almost eerie resemblance between them.

“We look…we look so much alike, oh my god.” Jullianna murmured, reaching up to touch her newly short hair.

Sofia grinned, a look of triumph spreading across her face. “Told you, we could pull this off.”

“Alright, you win. I’m all in.” Jullianna couldn’t help but laugh, shaking her head.

“Now, for the earrings,” Sofia said, holding up the studs with a small, apologetic smile. “You’re doing great, I promise. This is the last and final step.”

Jullianna clenched her jaw but nodded. “Just make it quick, okay?”

Sofia gave her a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder, then carefully pierced her ears with a sharp needle, one at a time. It was quick, a short sting, that felt like a bite of an ant, and then it was over. Jullianna touches her new earrings, feeling their cool surface against her skin.

“There. Now we’re ready!” Sofia grinned, stepping back and looking over.

They both stood together in front of the mirror, side by side, transformed into mirror images of each other, the plan they had once imagined as impossible now felt inevitable.

It was already the last day of camp. The final morning was thick with an anxious energy, as if the summer had conspired with the twins’ hearts to make this moment feel both thrilling and terrifying. They had come a long way from that heated tennis match, and now, every glance, every movement was carefully practiced to be someone else. It was very strange and surreal, to think that they were about to walk into the lives they had only ever imagined, guided only by each other’s stories, photos, and memories.

Sofia glanced at the small suitcase she had packed with Jullianna’s things. Her fingers trembled slightly as she zipped it up, feeling the weight of what they were about to do settle heavily in her stomach. She had dreamt about meeting you so many times, but now that the moment was within reach, the reality was daunting. She was about to step into a world so different from her own. What if I slipped up? What if you noticed right away?

“Hey, you’re going to do great. Just remember what we practiced. You’ve got this.” Jullianna said softly, offering a reassuring smile.

Sofia looked at her, a flicker of doubt in her eyes. “What if she realized it’s not you the second I walk through the door? You told me that she notices everything.”

“You’ll be okay,” Jullianna replied, trying to project confidence. “And if anything feels off, just call me, okay? I’ll be there. It’s just a summer, long enough to get some answers, but not so long that anyone gets hurt.”

At that moment, Stella’s voice called out through the megaphone, her tone brisk, business-like. “Jullianna Young! Your car’s here, we’re ready when you are!”

“That’s you!” Jullianna said as they shared a quick, almost panicked look. Her voice became urgent as she pressed her passport and plane ticket into Sofia’s hands, along with her small backpack. “Here. You’re going to need these. Remember, look through all the photos in my journal, it’s where I keep everything, all my photos of who’s who, little habits, and notes. It should be able to help you.”

Sofia nodded as she took a deep breath. “Don’t forget to find out why they split up. I don’t remember much, but I think…I think it’s important.”

“I’ll do my best.” Jullianna’s expression softened. “And Sofia, make sure you keep up with my French homework, alright? Mama won’t let you hear the end of it if you slip, and give her a big hug for me.” She forced a small laugh, trying to mask her own nerves.

“Ms. Young! The car is waiting, come on.” Stella’s voice interrupted again, a touch more insistent this time.”

“Good luck, Jullianna,” she whispered as she hugged Jullianna tightly, one last time. “Thank you for giving me this chance. Please hug Papa for me, as well.”

“Good luck to you too,” Jullianna hugged her back with the same intensity, feeling a surge of emotions she hadn’t expected. “And I will. Remember, it’s just summer. But make the most of it, okay?”

Sofia nodded, blinking back the sudden sting of tears, and with one last look at Jullianna, she walked towards the car and went inside. Jullianna stood there, left with a mixture of excitement, fear, and a strange sense of loss as the car drove away.

Jullianna was about to meet her father in a couple of hours, for the first time as herself but not quite herself, to step into a world she knew through faded photos and stories whispered late at night.

[sweet-as-an-angel]

König x Petite Reader Headcanons

Warnings: Non-Explicit Implications of Sexual Content, Petite Reader, Size Kink, Jealous König, Insecure König, Implied 141 x Reader, Petnames, No Pronouns used for Reader except ‘You’.

A/N: Forgot that I'd already written this once before, so here we are with more König x Petite Reader Headcanons ! Just see this as some extra content for our beloved König and his smol s/o <3

When it comes to you, this man is F E R A L

Genuinely cannot believe how perfect you are.

Constantly jokes about how he could fit you in the palm of his hand.

And once, to shut him up, you proved him right by sitting on his open hand when he wasn’t expecting it and gave him a smug look.

“There,” you said, folding your arms over your chest. “You can fit me in your palm.”

König tried not to think of how close he was to your special parts, how warm you felt on him.

He had to disappear to the bathroom for a few minutes afterwards, and when he returned, his face was flushed and he could barely look you in the eye.

He’s never been the same after that. Any trace of a size kink he had before has been amplified to such an extent that he’s taken to hiding your clothes so you’ll have to wear his.

And he just can’t keep his hands off you whenever you do.

“My my, Engel,” he says, one hand sliding around your waist and pulling you closer to him, the other drawing the hem of his shirt further and further up your thighs.

“What could you be hiding under here ?”

Calls you his Mini Maus.

“Because you’re just so tiny and precious !” he gushes.

And since you’re so small compared to him, he treats you as if you’re fragile, like an endangered species of flower.

Concerning intimacy at the beginning of your relationship, König was concerned that he was too big for you.

But, when you put his mind at ease (and challenge him) – “I bet I can take you, Köni~” – you’re in for it.

König’s fighting spirit won’t let you off easy.

When he’s feeling more dominant, he bunches your wrists into one of his hands while he sits on top of you, his other hand slipping beneath your (his) shirt and slithering round the band of your underwear.

“Pretty little thing,” he says, a dangerous smile at his lips. “All weak and defenseless.” He leans down, his eyes dark and wild. “Just for me.”

If you try to struggle (consensually), he’ll smack you through your underwear. And not gently, either.

“Don’t test me, Mini,” he says, his grip about your wrists tightening. “You don’t know what I’m like when I’m angry.”

He loooooves fitting his hands around your waist.

Especially when he finds that his hands wrap around your middle and his fingers touch.

Size kink: upgraded.

He gets lowkey jealous if you ask someone else to reach something for you.

Will sulk about it.

“I just don’t see why you had to ask Ghost to get it for you,” he’ll say, frowning as he lies in bed.

You sigh, putting your book down.

“König, you weren’t even here !” you say. “And I was starving !”

König knows he’s being unreasonable, but he can’t help but feel like he can be easily replaced.

Especially when he knows the rest of the 141 would gladly drop everything to be with you.

He’s not stupid, he’s seen the way they look at you.

A few minutes alone together and a kind word – “You’re so perfect, Köni~ My big, big boy,” – will set him straight.

Loves showing you off to his friends. His acquaintances aren’t safe, either.

He’ll stand you before him and show you off to his associates like: ”Look, this is my partner ! Aren’t they beautiful ?!”

So help him god if anyone tries to show you up or disagree.

You’ll never see them again.

And neither will anyone else.

König loves you more than life itself, and regardless of his insecurities or your unwavering ability to have anyone you could ever want, he’s glad you chose him <3

Reblog for more content like this! It helps creators like myself tremendously and it is greatly appreciated :-)

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