#the groundwork for future gaslighting

[bitacrytic]

There will never be a more iconic line in any bl than...

"Then Stop Me!!!!"

[noxturnalnymph]

Devotion 🖤 III. Path to the Future (Ch 11)

CultLeader!Joel x OFC!Reader

Series Summary: When is it enough? When is it too much? When does Devotion become Obsession?

Visit the Series Masterlist for series warnings, cult info, timeline info, and HCs on ages. Reader has a nickname and some minor physical descriptions - is an OFC from Reader POV.

*This series is 18+ MDNI. I will not be listing individual chapter warnings as I don't want to spoil the plot of each chapter. Please see the series masterlist for entire series warnings to decide if this is for you.*

LAYOUT OF JOEL'S HOUSE PREVIOUS

III. Path to the Future

CH 11 (7.3k) Slowly opening your eyes, you see warm sunlight pouring in through the high windows in a familiar room, although a room you didn’t expect to see ever again. You blink a few times, already knowing you’re in the same clinic room you woke up in last fall. Your mind does a few somersaults, trying to recall where you’ve been and how you could be here again. It doesn’t take long for you to figure it out.

You sit up slightly and the first thing you see is Joel, sitting in his old chair at the foot of your bed, watching you. You see him break eye contact and look at your head, so you reach your hand towards your head but a clamping sensation on your wrist stops your hand’s upward movement. You throw the blanket off your arm and see that your right arm is handcuffed to the bedrail. The transition to being Joel’s prisoner is complete.

“Really?” you huff.

You look back at Joel and he gives you a shy smile, looking almost repentant. Almost.

You suppose if you’re being truly honest with yourself, you didn’t think he would actually let you go, even though you practically begged him to. He’d told you more than once that he wouldn’t let you get away and seeing as how he’d marched across the state to catch up to you after you left the farm, going back empty-handed probably wasn’t on his agenda. You knew this, but it didn’t make you any less annoyed to find yourself shackled to your hospital bed under his watchful eye. 

“Is this the part where you take a sledgehammer to my legs?” you ask, straight-faced.

The doctor walks in just then and gives you a surprised look, then smiles.

“Glad to see you woke up so quickly,” she says as she takes out a flashlight and checks your eyes. “Joel said you hit your head pretty hard.”

You grab her with your uncuffed hand, she jumps slightly.

“You have to help me,” you plead. She looks towards Joel and you squeeze her arm to draw her attention back to you. “Joel is the one who hit me on the head, you have to help me get out of here, you have to get Tess. Please get Tess.”

“Stop that, now,” Joel hums, then turns to the doc and whispers. “See, doc? She hit her head and she’s just been sayin’ all sorts ‘a crazy stuff. I’m just worried about her safety.”

Shit. While you were unconscious Joel apparently got in front of the situation and already laid the groundwork for his gaslighting, spinning a tale about the wound on your head and justifying the need to handcuff you to the bed. He thinks he can win this game? Maybe he thinks that because you haven’t even been playing it, you’ve been blacked out from a head wound he gave you. 

"You are such a fuckin-” you sneer at him.

“See what I mean? She’s been so mean, not like herself at all,” Joel continues in response.

“I’ll show you how mean I can get, Joel… Uncuff me from this bed.”

“We don’t want a repeat of last time, now do we?” Joel says to the doctor, then turns to you.

Oh, now you get it. You’d threatened these people with scissors all those months ago - when you woke up in an unknown place - and Joel is playing on that fear they apparently still have of you. He’s playing like you’ve lost your mind, like you’d be a danger to all of them if they don’t listen to him. Oh, he’s good. He’s downright diabolical.

“Joel,” you huff. “Don’t fuckin’ do that shit. I know exactly who is the threat here and it’s not me.” The doctor begins to slowly back out of the room, the growing tension making her visibly uncomfortable. You turn to her, pointing your finger at her face and screech, “You have to get Tess!” 

The doctor keeps moving slowly towards the door, not giving much merit to your shrill ramblings. You move your outstretched finger back and forth between Joel and the doctor, muttering curses under your breath and trying to figure out how the fuck to get out of this. You sound kind of crazy now, thanks to Joel for pushing your buttons. You wish this was easier, that he was dumb like those kids at the summer camp, but unfortunately you’re dealing with someone who knows all your tricks, who can see through your deceptions. Maybe he had a point when he said you two were alike. 

You’re going to have to play to the doctor, to get her to help you despite Joel’s planted lies. Convinced there’s few alternative options, you decide to try and fake a medical episode. You’ve had a knock on the head, it’s completely within the realm of possibility. You throw your body backwards on the bed and begin to convulse, shaking your limbs and rolling your eyes back in your head. You clench your hands and teeth, trying to mimic a seizure as best you can. 

It works. The doctor is back at your side immediately, calling for help down the hall, lifting your eyelids to shine a flashlight back in your eyes, yelling for Joel to hold your legs.

“That’s not real,” Joel calmly says.

The doc continues to shout orders at two nurses now in the room, one of them shoving something in your mouth to bite down on and the other holding your legs. The doctor is yelling at Joel, who continues to stand back in silence and refuses to help. You decide to up the ante and stop holding the full bladder that probably woke you up in the first place, letting yourself pee the bed while continuing to shudder and shake.

“Oh Fuck,” one of the nurses says.

“She’s faking it,” Joel says from behind them.

“That’s not fake piss,” the other nurse says.

“Go get Tess,” you hear the Doctor whisper to one of them.

---

You hear Tess’ voice in the hallway, and her steps pause just near the doorway of your room.

“What happened? Is she okay?” you hear her ask.

“She’s fuckin’ fine,” Joel mutters.

“The doc said-”

“She’s fakin’ it,” he hisses.

You can’t even stop the giggle that escapes your lips, as you lie there, having pretended to be unconscious after your incident.

“I thought you said you guys worked your shit out,” Tess says to Joel.

“Well he’s a fucking liar,” you answer, sitting up in bed and yanking your wrist up to clank the metal handcuffs on the metal bedrail.

She looks back at you and then back to Joel. You can’t see her face but he shrugs and looks away from whatever look she’s giving him.

“It’s a work in progress,” he growls.

She asks him for the handcuff key and when he gives it she comes over to the bed and unlocks your wrist from the restraint. She looks you over, touching what you now know is a bandage on your head from whatever Joel hit you with, and sees that besides being covered in your own piss you’re otherwise unharmed. 

“Can you give us a minute?” she says, facing you.

“I don’t think she should get up,” Joel answers.

“I was talking to you, Joel,” Tess says, turning to look at him. “I’m asking you to leave the room so we can have a conversation without you in here.”

A long pause goes by while her words work their way past his thick skull.

“Yeah, okay…” he trails off, looking dejected as he shuffles out of the room.

She turns back to you.

“You gave us all quite the scare there, ya know?”

“I’d had enough,” you shrug. “I couldn’t be near him anymore.”

“But you weren’t near him, I sent you pretty far away.”

“And yet, he still had a way of gettin’ under my skin… Also, and I know this is gonna sound crazy, but I had shit go missing and it just seemed like-'' Tess' face twists at your words and stops you mid-sentence. Realization washes over you. “Oh… so not crazy then.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, reaching out to touch your hand. “When I found out I made him stop.”

“I think you need a shorter leash on your dog, Tess.”

“What do you want me to do? Do you want to leave again? I’ll help you.” She asks earnestly.

“You think he’d let me?” You both exchange a look that says you both know the answer is no. “Then what am I supposed to do? What do you think I should do?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think, we can do whatever you want to do.”

“It matters to me what you think, Tess.”

“I- I know it seems like this is a deeply toxic relationship. But I think you’re both at war with each other, firing everything you’ve got over the walls you’ve both put up. I think - and you can tell me to fuck off - but I think that if you both put down your weapons and let each other past the armor, that you’d actually be really fucking good for each other.”

A long pause stretches between the two of you and then you scoff.

“Fuck off, Tess.”

“You don’t think so?” 

“You’re just saying what he wants you to, obviously,” you snide, even if you don’t really believe it.

“So none of your feelings for him were real?”

“How could they be? That wasn’t who he really is.”

“Sure it was. That was part of him. And this- this is also part of him.”

“Yeah, a fucking asshole,” you spit.

“So now you have the whole picture, right?” 

“Yeah, I do.”

“So you definitely don’t feel anything for him now.”

You open your mouth to immediately answer but your stupid fucking brain reminds you of the way you felt when he told you that he loved you and you choke on your words. Fuck. He said he loved you. He said that Bianca’s baby wasn’t his. He said you were all he wanted. You hated him. You hated the way his words made your flesh shiver, made your insides flip. You hate the effect he had on you, the way he’s making you doubt yourself now. 

You turn your head to hide the tears that have come to your eyes unbidden and spill down your cheek. Tess sees it, your whole reaction is so fucking obvious, but she’s gracious enough not to say anything. She squeezes the hand she’s been holding.

“Maybe just give it a little time. Then we can figure out what to do, okay?” she says.

---

After your little stunt the doctor insisted on observing you overnight and you didn’t have the heart to reveal your lie to her, so you stayed in the musty old hospital bed with Joel sleeping sitting-up in the chair that he moved in front of the doorway. The next afternoon Joel walks you from the clinic back to the house - his house - as if you don’t remember how to get there. Obviously he just doesn’t want to let you out of his sight. The first time he sent Tess to bring you there but he apparently doesn’t even trust her anymore. 

You see people watching you walk together, tending to their yards and pretending not to stare. It hasn’t been a week since you walked down the gravel drive of the farm but people have obviously heard about your little disappearing act. When you get to the porch you see a box filled with your clothes and trinkets you left behind at the farm sitting outside the door. When you step inside the house is eerily still, Joel’s footsteps coming in behind you loud in the unusual quiet. He comes up beside you, the box in his arms, and nods his head up the stairs.

“Where do you want your stuff?” he asks.

Your brows knit. What does that mean? “Which room is free?”

“You can have any room you want.”

You take a moment and then point to the door at the top of the stairs to the right.

“My room?” he asks.

“My room,” you answer.

You don’t actually expect him to give you his room, you were just fucking with him, but he walks up the stairs and brings the box into his room as you follow on his heels. He sets the box down on a chair and you watch in silence with a curious expression as he grabs his clothes out of the closet and lays them down on the bed. He goes to the dresser and grabs more clothes, placing them on top of the others and then gathering them in the blanket that was atop the bed like a fuzzy parcel. 

“There’s another blanket in the closet for ya,” he says as he heads out of the room.

You follow him to the doorway but don’t leave the room, watching him turn and bring his armful of shit into Tess’ room. That’s gonna be a shock for her when she gets home, you think to yourself. Shit, maybe fucking with Joel isn’t a good idea if it’s gonna screw over Tess, the only person who seems to be in your corner. He comes back out of the room and your eyes meet in the hallway. You jump back and slam the door closed, locking the handle. You’re not sure what his limits for being messed with are going to be and the bump on your head reminds you of his not-so-gentle nature. Probably for the best to keep away from him for a while.

---

A light knock on the door wakes you from your afternoon nap, the room now cast in a dim evening glow. You sit up in Joel’s bed and look towards the door - still shut and locked.

“Dinner’s ready,” he says through the wood, then you hear his footsteps retreat down the stairs.

You didn’t mean to stay asleep so long. How did you not wake up while dinner was being made? You unlock the door and head downstairs, the creaking stairs under your bare feet echoing off the walls. You turn into the dining room and see the long table empty, save for a plate of food set in front of each chair at the head and foot of the table. What the hell?

“Where is everyone?” you ask.

“Just us,” he says.

You eat dinner in silence, the silverware scraping the plates is the only sounds outside your own jaw chewing the food. He takes your plate when you’re done eating and washes the dishes alone in the kitchen. This is creeping you out, the quiet, the calm. What is he doing? Where is everyone? You think he must be waiting for you to let your guard down so he can pounce, so while his back is turned to the dining room you tiptoe out of the room and run up the stairs, diving in his room and locking the door behind you.

It occurs to you that he probably has a key for his own room so you grab the chair from the corner and place it in front of the door, wedging it under the handle. You used to see this in movies and never thought it would work but you remember Tess doing it the night he bit you, so you think maybe there’s some truth to it after all. You hear him walk past the door a while later and a closing door echoes from down the hall. 

He’s just there, on the other side of the wall, in Tess’ room. You wonder if he put something outside this room, maybe hung bells on the door, so he can hear if you try to escape. God, you think he’d probably put a leash on you if he had one. Shit, does he have one? You look over to the doorknob again, double-checking it’s still locked. You think you’re safe. At least for tonight. 

You’re suddenly regretting trying to fuck with him, maybe it’s best you just act pleasant, maybe he’ll treat you best if you go along with whatever the fuck this is. Maybe you’ll check with Tess tomorrow at breakfast and see about switching rooms. You don’t actually want his room, the room he most definitely has a key to. You’d rather share Tess’ room with her, and be safely locked away from him with someone. Just one night alone and then tomorrow you’ll fix it.

---

You’re awoken by a loud knocking, and it sounds like it’s coming from downstairs. You wait to see if anyone else is going to answer it but when there are repeated knocks you get out of bed and move the chair blocking the bedroom door. When you make it downstairs and throw the large front door open you see Tess standing on the porch.

“What, did you forget your key?” you laugh. 

This is a joke, because there is no key. The front door is never locked. You were told your first week here that everyone within this town could be trusted so no one bothered to lock their doors anymore. It gave you a warm fuzzy feeling inside and made you feel like after nearly a decade of fear, maybe you were somewhere that you could feel safe. Even after being harassed and kidnapped by Joel, you suppose that this is somewhere you still feel safe.

Tess gives you a strange look, but smiles.

“Is Joel around?” she asks.

“I dunno,” you shrug.

“Well when did you see him last?” she looks past you, around the house.

“At dinner, then he went into your room for the night. He wasn’t there when you woke up?” Your brows knit to match the confused expression on her face. “Oh, you didn’t come home last night?”

“What do you mean my room?”

“He didn’t tell you?” You blush a little and bite your cheek to keep from smirking. Don’t be an asshole, it’s not funny to fuck with your captor. “I took his room so he moved into your room. But it’s just temporary, I don’t want you to be put out, it was just a joke-”

“That- that’s not my room anymore though,” she says slowly and then repeats your words. “He didn’t tell you?”

Your smug expression melts away. “What?”

“I don’t live here anymore,” she says.

Just then you both hear a scuffle of boots behind her and look to see Joel walking up the steps, hair slicked back fresh from the baths. He looks between you and Tess, both of your faces marked with confusion. 

“Everythin’ okay?” he questions.

“Why does Tess think she doesn’t live here anymore?” you blurt out, acrimony lacing your words.

“Because she doesn’t?” He continues looking back and forth.

“Why would you kick her out? She had nothing to do with me leavin’, she didn’t know-”

“She didn’t move out as a punishment,” he clarifies. “Everyone found a new place to live, it’s just you and I here now.”

“Wh- What?” you stutter. Is that why you haven’t seen anyone else since you got back? You and Joel have been alone here and you barely even questioned it. A million questions race through your mind. You land on the simplest. “Why?”

“Why? Because you told me you thought we were meant to be together but you couldn’t watch me be with anyone else,” Joel says, moving past Tess and closer to you in the doorway as he speaks. “So there’s no one else now. It’s just me and you.”

Your cheeks heat. You don’t dare risk a glance at Tess to measure her reaction to Joel’s recounting of your humiliating confession. Joel moves to take your hand but you pull back, worried that you would melt into his touch and your armor would shatter, floating away like dust on the wind only to leave you naked and exposed right there at the front door for everyone to see.

Instead, Joel says he’ll be right back and moves past you and into the house. You see him head towards his office as you keep your gaze unfocused on the bustling square behind Tess. He comes back moments later and steps past you again, Tess turning to join him in bouncing down the stairs.

“Hey! Where are you going?” you call out to their retreating figures.

They stop and Joel turns around. “Got work to do,” he replies.

“You’re just gonna leave me here? Don’t you wanna chain me to the radiator or somethin’?” you shout loud enough that you’re sure some of the neighbors can hear.

“Do I need to?” he shouts back.

Tess elbows him, looking around and smiling an awkward grin. They both turn back towards the square and continue walking away, leaving you at the threshold.

Since you apparently have an empty house and nothing else to do, you heat up several pots of water, carrying them upstairs to take a bath in the tub. You've been wearing the same thing for nearly a week, so you discard your smelly clothes on the bathroom floor and sink into the hot water. You let yourself soak until the water grows tepid, thinking over Joel’s words as he left earlier. It’s just me and you. He’d sent everyone away, even Tess, because you told the idiot you were foolishly in love with him once. Now you’re in this house all alone with him. God, it sounds like a nightmare, you whisper to yourself, even as a thrilling feeling zips down your spine and makes your pussy clench.

Fuck, you hate him, why do you react like this? He’s a fucking maniac, a controlling narcissist who has hurt you to keep you from leaving him. Once out of the bath you plod around the house, naked and dripping, confirming what Joel told you this morning. Every bedroom, aside from the two claimed by you and Joel, is unoccupied. The beds are stripped bare, the dressers are empty of clothing, the shelves devoid of books, and any personal belongings that once adorned the walls or tops of nightstands have been cleared away.

You pass by the front door, checking the lock as you go, seeing it unlocked and thinking how crazy it is that he just left you here. He seems pretty confident you’re not going to set fire to all his flannel shirts, grab his gun from the locked case that he irresponsibly leaves the key on top of, and raid his pantry before you take off up the mountain. Then you realize that’d probably be a lot of wasted energy since you’re fairly certain you’d end up right back here within a week, Joel clearly unwilling to lose the game of cat and mouse you’re engaged in.

You utilize your time alone by snooping further, letting yourself into Joel’s unlocked office and walking around the sun-filled room. There’s so many windows in here but you don’t even care if anyone sees you snooping around in the nude. You run your fingers along the spines of the paperbacks on his bookcases, recalling afternoons spent with him in this room, alone. You’d practically sit on his lap, watching his mouth curl around the words while he read to you about doctors or dinosaurs, courtroom dramas or enchanted forests. The way you wanted him… could you ever feel that again? He seems to think so.

You sit down at his desk and start rummaging through all his drawers. He’s got pens and notebooks, patrol schedules and calendars, and several photographs of him with people you don’t recognize, taken on polaroid cameras in what looks like a Fedra QZ. You find several maps drawn out of the Valley, both the town and the larger community outside its crude walls. You move to put the maps back and a piece of cloth catches your eye.

You pull it out to find that it’s your pillowcase from the dairy farm. You’d come back from your bath one day this past spring and had noticed it missing. Inside the pillowcase are two books; the one he gifted you for Christmas and the one you’d lost at the farm. Tess confirmed your suspicions the other day but you’re still pissed off at this evidence that he couldn’t leave you alone, wouldn’t let you just move on. The last thing inside the pillowcase is a pair of your underwear and you stop to think, unable to remember any of those going missing at the farm.

Then it dawns on you when he’d taken these underwear. Unlike his other ill-gotten keepsakes these were something that you let him take off you. These were from the night you let him in completely, let him have every last piece of your mind and soul, let him devour you completely. The night you knew you loved him. Your body reacts again, a heat spreading across your chest and up your neck to your cheeks. You feel your core start to tingle and uninvited images of him between your legs plague your mind. That memory shouldn’t make you feel like this. He shouldn’t make you feel like this.

He’s a liar. He’s a manipulator. He’s a bad fuckin’ guy.

Joel comes home late in the afternoon just as you’re getting hungry, having only eaten some canned vegetables from the basement all day, with dinner in his hands. He sets the containers down at opposite ends of the table again as you take your seat, awaiting his reaction to the sight of you dressed in nothing but a t-shirt and the reclaimed underwear that he’d kept hidden away. You see his eyes dart down your legs as he moves towards his own chair, but he doesn't react. You notice the meal is packaged up the way that Kerri used to do it, when she would bring meals out to valley residents. 

“Still got Kerri making all your meals for you, your majesty?” you mock.

“Making food for everyone is Kerri’s job now, so yeah, I stopped and got us some,” he says calmly, not taking your bait for a fight. “I didn’t think you’d feel up to making dinner for us yourself just yet.”

The realization of his words hits you like a slap in the face. “You expect me to make your dinner?” you balk. Before he can respond you stand and throw your food across the room, watching the hot steaming meal splatter against the wall behind him. “I’m not gonna cook and clean and let you breed me like I’m your little wife.” You tip your chair over as an added flair in your little tantrum and turn to march up the stairs, shouting as you go. “I’m not playing fucking house with you, Joel.” 

Joel didn’t think it was going to be easy, you adjusting to being back home. He knew you were still upset with him - rightfully so - and that it’d take time for you to adjust, to find your rightful place here. He thinks maybe you never found your footing before and that’s part of why you used to be so meek and adrift. Now he sees a confidence in you that he never saw before. He knows what you’re capable of, he knows how meticulous and calculated you can be when you want something. 

So he’ll just wait. He’ll wait until you figure out what you want. If you don’t want to cook that’s fine, he knows you’re not very skilled in the kitchen anyways. He doesn’t care what you do, he just wants you to find something to make you happy, to make you want to be here in this life with him. There are so many jobs here you could do but you never seemed interested in the garden, or the household chores, or fishing, or apparently even milking cows. 

So what are you interested in? He'll leave you to sort it out on your own and when you’re ready you can let him know, and he'll give it to you. He’ll give you anything you ask for, you just haven’t realized it yet.

---

Every day after that follows a similar script. Joel leaves with Tess in the mornings and you spend the day lazing about, making messes, and snacking on anything you can find. Several days in you worry that Joel will get on your back about the dent you’re putting in the preserved food stored in the root cellar. You head across the square to Georgia’s house, who used to love boring you with stories about her six kids - all adopted here in the valley - and is now happy to feed yet another welcome face. You only have to endure her talking your ear off and you get a hot meal. It’s almost too easy. 

As you walk around the square in the afternoons, you greet the residents, coming out of their houses to give you hugs and handshakes, hand you flowers and treats to give to Joel. You’re not even sure you’re supposed to be out of the house so how are you supposed to pass on these gifts? Does he know you leave the house, does he have people watching you and reporting back to him?

You wonder sometimes why you haven’t just skipped town. Part of you is pretty sure that he’d come after you and drag you back again. You’re good at surviving but you’re not an escape artist and he easily followed your clumsy trail halfway across the state last time. But the rest of you, in a bewildering state of honesty, can admit that you don’t want to go. You felt wrapped up in grief before and thought you had no chance but to run away, but you were sad to leave the safety and comfort of the Valley.

The community here provides a good, comfortable life, the people here are friendly and kind, they protect what’s theirs and look out for each other. You have a warm, soft place to rest your head and are never short on things to fill your belly. There’s a wall between you and the outside world and people who patrol that wall to keep danger on the other side. You’re safe. Things are good here, and what’s more, you are seemingly under the protection of the Alpha dog.

God, how pathetic are you that the thought of Joel being feral and insane for you is giving you comfort right now? The way people look up to him, the way they talk about him like he’s divine… you used to think it was inspiring. Then you thought it was just fodder for Joel’s ego, so self-obsessed that he raised himself up on a pedestal like a golden idol. Now, you’re ashamed to find yourself getting a contact-high off the power, dizzy with the masculine energy that radiates off him, under the spell of the dominant strength that everyone else also responds to.

In the passing weeks Joel comes back every evening with food that you know is made by Kerri and you both eat it in near-silence. You’re not foolish enough to toss it around the room and go hungry again, but you still pepper in attempts to pick a fight with him at every opportunity. 

This isn’t as good as she used to make it. She must be losing her touch.

This is so salty. You’d better be careful, what with your blood pressure and all.

The rice is undercooked and the meat is overcooked. Ugh, this is barely edible.

You’re not even sure why you’re doing it, really, and you’ve definitely given it thought, since you’re left alone with nothing but your thoughts all day every day. Everytime you open your mouth and something rude comes out you wait with bated breath, wondering if that will be the thing that sets him off. Are you trying to piss him off? Are you trying to make him toss his meal at the wall? Are you trying to get him to throw you over the table again? 

No, you don’t want to see that monstrous version of him show its fangs, but you’d still be entertained to get a rise out of him. He’s been like a neutered dog since he dragged you back here, letting you berate and disrespect him daily. You’d like to see him show some backbone, to have a reaction to what you’re doing. With each passing day there’s a nagging feeling at the back of your mind that tells you he doesn’t care, that he’s getting tired of your attitude, that he’s losing interest. No matter how many times you tell yourself you don’t care - the thoughts still make your mind swirl with disappointment.

Worse than that though, is the sour feeling in your stomach when you sit across from him every night and watch him eat Kerri’s food. You know it shouldn’t bother you and you know that you never even actually saw them together, but it doesn’t stop the image of their two bodies entwined from inserting itself into the forefront of your mind. Kerri cooking for your man, touching your man, fucking your man. 

No, not your man. Fuck. He’s not yours, he’s anyone’s who has open, willing legs and you don’t even want him anyways. You hate him.

And yet, you can’t stop the jealousy percolating in your gut as you sit across the table and watch him shovel her cooking into his face. Finally, on the eighteenth dinner you eat together, Joel has had enough. You’re still wearing a snarky smile from the comment you’ve just made about the gravy being lumpy when he slams his palm down on the table, rattling the plates. Finally. You bite your cheek to stop your smile from growing.

“Can you stop being such a b-” he stops before he calls you the name on the tip of his tongue.

He watches your face as you react to his outburst. Your eyes go wide, your teeth peek out from your ghoulish grin. He stops himself before he can hurl the insult at you. You’re trying to get to him - you have been for weeks - and he’s been up till now able to resist your provocation. He doesn’t want to fight with you, he’s trying to be a good man and show you only the best parts of him. He’s trying to earn your love back. But goddamnit, he’s had a fucking shit day and your constant complaining isn’t making it any better.

He looks back down at his dinner and resumes eating, ignoring your comment. The gravy isn’t lumpy so you’re full of shit, you’re just being miserable because that’s your new normal. You shit all over him from the moment he gets home with dinner every night and then march upstairs and lock yourself away in his old room. Does he deserve to be punished for every shitty thing he’s done to you? Of course he does, but he was hoping you’d be willing to forgive him too. He thought he saw it in your eyes at one point that night at the summer camp, when you were remembering how you loved him once.

Why didn’t you just shoot him when you had the chance? You had the rifle aimed at his heart, all you had to do was pull the trigger. But you didn’t. Maybe you thought death would be too much of a kindness, too easy of a way out. Maybe you knew he’d come back here and face one of the most difficult springs leading this place and that having to figure out a way to slog through it would be a punishment worse than death.

That’s probably an over exaggeration - Joel knows - but sometimes he thinks he’s not cut out for this shit, for leading a community with so many moving parts. He’s the one who collects everyone’s grievances and is relied upon to find the solution for every problem, big or small. Today he got a report from the Mansfield's dairy farm - the same place you temporarily called home - that the milk output would be down this year. Joel cursed at the note sent in Hank’s own hand. The community had grown by just over ten percent from this time last year and more milk was needed, not less. 

He had an afternoon meeting that gave him more bad news; one of his trusted advisors, Peter, had taken stock of his personal supplies after the long winter and found that he was running short on food to feed his large family. He and his wife had taken in 6 kids - between the ages of 7 and 17 - and he half-jokingly told Joel that they were eating him out of house and home. Peter confided that he wasn’t the only one around town who was feeling the pressure of needing this growing season to be bountiful while also acknowledging that the shorter spring was going to hinder the yields.

After the bloody night at the lakeside camp Joel got to thinking about the safety and security of the community. He’d been distracted from his priorities for far too long, and he began implementing new rules as soon as he got back. He ordered that everyone start taking inventory of their stocks and sending him reports, in addition to letting him know what their upcoming seasons looked to yield and what was needed to ensure success. He did away completely with the evening meetings, declaring it safer to have everyone back home before darkness fell. Instead, he spends all his days meeting with people at an office he set up at the town-square, or traveling all around the valley to meet with people at their homes.

Joel had the idea to set up a cafeteria-style system utilizing two old restaurants - which Kerri and Tess staffed - that works to feed residents in place of the meals everyone used to meet up for on certain evenings during the week. Most families prefer to keep their own food stocks and prepare their own meals but everyone donates to the community as a whole, and so there is the ability for anyone who doesn’t want to or doesn’t know how to cook, to get a hot meal any day of the week. The only payments accepted are - as it always is in the Valley - an exchange of goods or services.

These changes have been in effect for over two weeks but Joel is still plagued by worries for the safety of his flock, including you. He doesn’t want to have brought you back here just to put you in more danger. So it was the cherry on top of a bad day when, just as he was about to head to the cafeteria and grab food, Tess stopped by to let him know that they’d just done inventory at the armory and found less guns and ammo than they’d had at last count. 

Joel remembers the promise of help you’d made to the skinny travelers you’d come across like a knife piercing his stomach. He knows they aren’t the ones raiding his armory - thanks to you - but that there are others like them out there. People desperate and willing to go to extreme lengths for survival. People who have perhaps already found their way past the Valley’s defenses. 

So to say Joel is stressed today might be an understatement. Still, he doesn’t want to fight with you. He wants you to be his comfort, his shelter in the storm. He wants you to be his rock. But lately it seems as though all you want to be is the rocky coastline his ship wrecks itself against. 

He stays silent the rest of the meal, not wanting to sink to your depths and get involved in another fight that ends in food all over the floor, cursing, and slamming doors. He stands to take your plate and when he sees that you’ve scraped all the perfectly good gravy off the food you ate - leaving behind a congealed puddle in the middle of your dish - he feels a twitch behind his eyeball. He’s trying to be a good man. God, he wishes he were a good man.

“If you think you could do better, I’m sure I could find you an apron around here somewhere,” he says.

He sees your smug face turn to his, lips forming a snarl just as he turns away to walk into the kitchen, and hears the scrape of your chair on the floor as you stand up. There’s a long pause and he walks slowly through the archway, waiting to see what your comeback could be, hoping since he took your plate that he left you with nothing to throw.

You feel it, the incandescent heat filling up the empty spaces inside you, alight at the way that you finally coaxed a reaction out of him. His snarky remark, his attention, his ire, focused on you. You hate how much you love it, don’t want to face how fulfilling it is that weeks of a calculated, spiteful attitude is finally paying off. And then a thought grips your heart like ice-cold claws; you still love his attention because you still love him. Then, your fists clench and your stomach coils at his repeated insinuation that you could be his dutiful little housewife, and spend your time in this house cooking and cleaning for him. 

You push away the thoughts that you might hold any affection for him. You don’t love him, you hate him. He’s seen what you’re capable of, he knows who you are. You laid yourself bare to him and yet here you are, stuck in his house with no real purpose, the expectation that you’ll replace the duties of all the women he sent away. You’ll cook, you’ll clean, you’ll get on your knees. Except apparently you don’t have to cook, since Kerri’s still doing that for him. Jealousy burns you from head to toe at the thought of what else she could still be doing for him.

“You said it was just gonna be you and me,” you shout.

He turns and looks into your face, red and scowling, before looking around the room just for good measure. 

“I don’t see anyone else here, do you?” 

He wishes he could be a smart-ass about it but he’s genuinely confused. No one but him has even stepped foot in this house since you came back, he even makes Tess wait on the porch in the mornings. You raise your arm and point violently to the plates in his hands. He looks down. The dinner plates?

“Dinner?” he questions.

You nod your head, yes.

“But that’s just-”

You fold your arms across your chest, pouting further.

“So you don’t want another woman making me dinner?”

You shake your head, no.

“But you don’t want to make me dinner.” It’s not a question, you made the answer pretty clear already.

You answer anyways, shaking your head, no, again.

He opens his mouth to argue and then immediately shuts it. He looks down at the dinner plates, then back up at you. A moment passes as he easily realizes why your anger would be directed at Kerri. She’s not just another woman, she’s the other woman, for all intents and purposes. The one you caught him with when you thought - when he let you think - that he only had eyes for you. He did, he only wanted you, but he was also an asshole accustomed to getting what he wanted when he wanted it. 

He fucked up. He broke your trust - one of the most precious things you’d ever given him - and he acted like it didn’t matter to him. If this is what you want, no more meals from Kerri, he’ll do it. He’s already told himself he’ll give you anything you want. Whatever it takes to get you back.

“Okay,” he says.

🖤

NEXT

Thank you Bug and Beef for helping me with editing this beast. I love you!!

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[rocrown]

The Lumity kiss was so spectacular and significant for its representation. Like Amity's poster says, "This could be YOU" and it was perfect and beautifully animated.

But I really want to talk about something else. And that's the show's portrayal of abuse. If you're sensitive to this subject, please don't read the rest of this post.

The thing this episode does really well is display what an abusive relationship looks like and how an abuser acts towards their significant other and children. We see the culmination of a pattern of abusive behaviour from Odalia: isolating her victims; gaslighting; outright lying; unfair criticism; mocking and disregard of victims' feelings, opinions and needs; insults and feigning affection; overly controlling the personal lives of her partner and children, including who they're friends with and who they date; pretending to be on their side; guilt trips; coercion; threats of punishment; demands of loyalty to her; and when her family, her victims, stand up to her, she reacts with violence. Previous episodes lay the groundwork and this one delivers the thesis—Odalia's behaviour is ABUSE and you need to get help and you need to get away from them before they hurt you any worse because these things escalate and these people, these narcissists, will take and take and they will harm you when you stand up for yourself and shatter their delusional self-image.

That's such an important lesson, delivered over a series of episodes and hammered home in Clouds on the Horizon. Not only does it teach kids to recognize this pattern of behaviour in their parents and guardians, but if they learn about it early, they'll be more equipped to spot and deal with it in future relationships whether friends, colleagues or romantic partners. The value of that can't be overstated.

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

Coming Soon - Absence of Words

Great news! The new Sawdust of Words fic is finally ready! I’ll be posting it some time this week (likely Friday, but I might manage to swing it sooner if I have a day where I’m not too exhausted after work).

“Absence of Words” will pick up shortly after the ending of “Finding the Words” - with Aziraphale and Crowley having freshly established that yes, they love each other, that can definitely be a thing going forward.

However, Crowley’s difficulties communicating (as discussed in “Finding the Words” and demonstrated in “Three Little Words”) quickly land them in trouble, as the miscommunication rapidly goes from “kind of amusing” to “annnnngst.”

I mean, it’s me. Was it ever going to be not angst?

The full fic will be a little over 13k. Excerpt below (2 scenes, one of which I posted an early version of...dang...more than a year ago?!)! Feel free to leave a comment/ask/private message with your thoughts!

(Note: because some people prefer to know what kind of ending to prepare themselves for, I’ll give a brief description after the excerpt, as well as CWs for the fic as a whole).

--

They walked for more than half an hour, hands still twined together.

Aziraphale spoke the whole time, more animated with every step, and Crowley drank it all in. He paid no attention to where they were, how far they walked, how late it was getting. All that mattered was they were here, they were together, really together.

They’d done it. They’d done everything.

Stopped the Apocalypse.

Fooled their sides.

Won their freedom.

And then, in the garden…Crowley’s lips still tingled, recalling the brush of Aziraphale’s. He almost couldn’t believe it had happened, couldn’t believe he’d dared. His breath caught in his throat every time he remembered that he now lived in a world where he had kissed Aziraphale. A world where nothing would come between them ever again. Each time Aziraphale’s eyes drifted over to him, Crowley was certain he’d discorporate on the spot.

The angel waved his arms as he talked. He pulled Crowley’s hand along with each gesture – sudden jerks ahead of them, tugs across his chest, complicated circles as if trying to draw what he described. More than once he nearly pulled Crowley off balance; Aziraphale didn’t know his own strength.

It would have been easier to let go.

He probably should let go – his palm was warm where it had been pressed against Aziraphale’s for half an hour, his fingers stiff and itching, longing to move again. The chills running up his arm, almost more than he could bear, were the most exquisite torture he’d ever suffered. Every time their palms shifted, finding a new position against each other, it pierced him like an arrow, tore through his heart, leaving it fluttering and juddering and palpitating like nothing else ever had. Crowley really, really needed to let go.

“Are you all right, my dear?” Aziraphale asked, glancing over.

“M’fine.” He gently squeezed the soft fingers locked through his, starting another wave of bliss that threatened to overwhelm him even before Aziraphale graced him with that smile…

Yeah. He wasn’t letting go any time soon.

--

Crowley’s hand was in his.

Aziraphale could hardly believe it had happened, hardly believe he’d dared. This seemed, somehow, the most momentous thing to have happened all weekend, though an outside observer would probably disagree. Well. That observer didn’t understand.

They’d started walking, the impulsiveness had come over him again and he – Aziraphale – the angel who dithered over every choice, every action – the angel who likely hadn’t taken the initiative on anything within living memory – he’d run his hand down Crowley’s arm and…

Well. Here they were.

They hadn’t spoken about it. Hadn’t really acknowledged it. But neither had let go.

Once he had his bearings, it shouldn’t have taken long to get back to his shop. But Aziraphale put it off as long as he could. They paused in front of dozens of shop windows, remarking on the pastries or clothing or sports equipment on display, but in truth Aziraphale was just looking at his own reflection, a fussy old angel, anxious and overeager, standing beside an exquisite demon radiating suave confidence. Quite the mismatched pair and yet, that’s what they were: a pair.

Perhaps even a couple.

Oh, dear, that seemed far too bold.

Aziraphale stumbled over whatever nonsense he’d been saying, and quickly turned away from the window. He glanced up to see if Crowley had noticed his distress, and oh, through those black lenses he could just catch a glimpse of golden slit-pupil eyes watching him directly, not just a glance from the corner of an eye. He’d been nodding along to everything Aziraphale said, that smirk hovering on his lips, threatening to turn into an actual smile. Crowley squeezed his hand, gently, as if to make sure it was still there, and it sent Aziraphale’s heart racing again.

Finally, after forty-five minutes, they ran out of detours and excuses and reached the last intersection: Soho to the left, Mayfair to the right.

His footsteps slowed as they approached. Aziraphale didn’t want to let go, not yet, didn’t want to relinquish the warmth, the feeling of the uneven heartbeat against his palm, the tiny shiver he felt whenever Crowley’s thumb brushed the back of his hand.

They paused at the corner, Aziraphale looking left, Crowley glaring straight ahead.

“Well.” Aziraphale cleared his throat. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.” He glanced down at their hands. Oh, dear. He didn’t seem to know how to let go.

“Nh,” Crowley said.

“Come now, dear fellow, you know this is the quickest way home for both of us. Twenty minutes. Fifteen, if you drive like you always do.”

“Nnnnnnh,” Crowley elaborated.

Aziraphale ordered his fingers to let go. Traitorous things, they only held on tighter.

“I could walk you back to the shop,” Crowley pointed out. “Or we could pick up the Bentley together, then drive over. Quicker that way. We can grab whatever you need…”

“What part of it’s a surprise are you having trouble with?” He meant it to be teasing, but Crowley’s lips went tight anyway. Aziraphale put a bit of extra cheer into his voice. “Look, as I understand, it’s proper etiquette for the individual with the car to pick up the other, when two people are…” He trailed off, considering in fascination all the words he could use to complete that sentence. “And…it wouldn’t hurt to have a moment to, I don’t know…”

He honestly didn’t know.

But the longer he stood in Crowley’s gaze, the more certain he was that he needed to step away. A thousand emotions were bubbling up inside him, and he needed space to process them, privately, before they burst out in the most unseemly—

“Aziraphale.” Crowley turned, and his fingers hovered by the angel’s face, as if not sure where to touch. “Do you…want to be alone right now?”

“That’s not…” He swallowed, finding he couldn’t look away from Crowley’s mouth. His lips. Did he want to kiss them again? Or be kissed? Both were terrifying. Both were tempting.

Crowley took his other hand, leaning closer.

“Yes. I do.”

Crowley went very still.

He thought his heart might burst; Aziraphale couldn’t tell one beat from the next. His hands started to tremble, and he stepped back, wiping them anxiously on his waistcoat, tugging it straight. “Don’t be – this isn’t about – it’s nothing like that.” He straightened his tie. “I just – perhaps I could use a few minutes, yes, and there’s nothing – nothing of note about that, I’m sure you could too, but all in all this is the simplest solution, that’s – that’s all there is to it.”

It could be very hard to read Crowley’s expression, but just now his lips twisted, his jaw went tight, and Aziraphale felt his heart begin to ache. The demon circled him, fingers jammed in his pockets, and started towards Mayfair as fast as his long legs would carry him.

“Wait! Crowley, don’t—”

“Fifteen minutes, Angel. Be ready.”

He watched the dark figure until it disappeared around a corner. And only then did Aziraphale realize he’d let go of Crowley’s hand

----

NOTES AND SPOILERS

CWs: Mentions of past abuse (physical and emotional, very brief/implied); emotional manipulation/gaslighting (from the POV of Aziraphale, still believing what he’d been told); anxiety (low-level but constant, and building across the fic); miscommunication, accidentally hitting another’s triggers. Very brief G-rated discussion of attraction. Swearing.

Ending: This will have a happy ending. Not all communication issues will be resolved in this story, but groundwork will be laid. Future stories will deal with developing healthy communication/trauma coping strategies.

[not-poignant]

That new FFS chapter killed me. I have never disliked Gwyn before but WOW I disliked Gwyn so much. I get it but still, it was jarring to see Gwyn's idea of Ef against the real Ef. It does make me curious about some things, like how Arden would react to Gwyn's idea of their relationship. As for Dr. Gary, how does he feel about Gwyn? Neutral in a professional way? Bitter? He recognizes Gwyn isn't healthy for Ef in a practical way, but I wonder if it ever gets a little personal for him

Dr Gary doesn’t like Gwyn being in Efnisien’s life at all. He strongly believes that Gwyn is a negative and detrimental influence on Efnisien’s life, and you can actually see Dr Gary trying to point this out in their first session together after Efnisien sees Arden for the first time. Efnisien misses Dr Gary’s point, but Dr Gary makes an effort to point out that the only reason Efnisien felt well enough to leave his house and buy a book (and meet someone) was because Gwyn cancelled.

While Dr Gary follows Efnisien’s lead re: whether Gwyn is in Efnisien’s life or not, he is really hanging out for the day when Efnisien realises that Gwyn is toxic and abusive towards him (which Gwyn is). Dr Gary is also waiting for Efnisien to realise that though he held the power as a predator in that household, Gwyn holds the power now, and uses it to lash out. Think of it this way: Efnisien is an extremely safe target for all of Gwyn’s rage towards his family and his experiences, and Gwyn exercises that rage on a regular basis towards Efnisien, with gaslighting, lack of empathy and compassion, now acephobia, active threats of violence (from someone who tried to beat Efnisien to death) and more.

I was kind of surprised at how many people thought Gwyn was ‘better’ in the last chapter because he literally showed the tiniest shred of care - but that care came at the cost of Efnisien being actively gaslighted, receiving acephobia, and having his privacy violated unapologetically. Gwyn behaves terribly to Efnisien, and none of it is justified now that we’re three years into the future. After all, if Gwyn genuinely believes he can’t trust Efnisien at all - then why is he visiting? He doesn’t get to have it both ways: He can’t believe his visits help Efnisien stay focused on his recovery, and then get to viciously undermine Efnisien’s attempts at recovery.

Gwyn does both freely, with zero consequence, and Dr Gary cannot wait for him to be gone. Dr Gary is aware that Gwyn is very much a victim, but he’s also aware that Gwyn was raised in that household, and has absorbed some abusive traits (which you can actually see throughout SOTS, it’s just they’re much easier to both forgive/tolerate when he’s a main character who you’re rooting for).

I’m not sure how personal it gets for Dr Gary. He tends to see a lot of situations as opportunities. For example, if Efnisien isn’t ready to push Gwyn away - he sees that as an opportunity to do more groundwork with Efnisien around subjects relating to self-respect or self-worth or boundary-setting. If Efnisien tries to push Gwyn away and it doesn’t work, Dr Gary will see that as an opportunity to talk about boundary-setting, or how it feels to not have your boundaries respected (which is important to talk to Efnisien about on a lot of levels).

He definitely doesn’t share Efnisien’s view that Gwyn is only a victim and can do no wrong ever and is basically like a saint for visiting every month for so long (though Efnisien is feeling this less as well). After all, Dr Gary met Gwyn very early on, in SOTS, and knows full well what Gwyn’s personality is like.

But yeah, no, Dr Gary has his like, feelings about what he’d prefer re: the health of his client, but I don’t think he’s sitting there feeling bitter about it or anything.

As to Arden... I think he’d very much be along the lines of ‘I can fight my own battles, man, leave us alone.’ But Efnisien has this habit of not sharing the names of people when he’s talking about them, especially if they’re very close to him. So Arden doesn’t know Gwyn as Gwyn, only ‘Efnisien’s cousin.’ And Gwyn doesn’t know Arden as Arden, only ‘my boyfriend.’

Which is a shame in a way, because Gwyn and Arden have known each other for years.

[traincat]

I’ve read Waid and Hickman’s FF runs and am currently reading Zdarsky’s 2 in One. I’m planning on eventually reading the Lee/Kirby run. Can I ask, what other runs would you recommend? Is Claremont’s good? Sorry for bothering.

I LOVE Waid and Hickman’s Fantastic Four runs, and Zdarsky’s Marvel Two-In-One was excellent to the point where one of my lingering disappointments is that Marvel brought the Fantastic Four back in a way that prematurely cut off Zdarksy’s 2n1. I know I said I wanted them back but wow did we all get monkey’s paw’d on that one. Zdarsky did really excellent stuff with both Ben and Johnny and the multiverse hopping was honestly fun and interesting. Lee/Kirby is also, in my opinion, just a really terrific run -- it lays the groundwork for not only the future of the Fantastic Four but a lot of big concepts for the Marvel Universe in general, and I think it holds up really well by modern day storytelling standards. Lee’s sense of humor works well with the retrofuturistic vibe and Kirby’s art is always wonderful. In particular I think it’s interesting to look back on The Galactus Trilogy (Fantastic Four #48-50) as the granddaddy of all event comics, for better or worse. 

Claremont -- okay, I love Claremont’s run, let me start off by saying that. Claremont’s run follows on what is in my opinion one of the worst periods of Fantastic Four canon, and I mean bad to the point where the literal canon at that point was that to get things back on track the Fantastic Four had to be put in a bubble universe. Claremont’s run kicks in one or two issues after their return to the main Marvel universe and it’s so fun. I think Fantastic Four is one of those series that kind of flourishes in adversity and Claremont’s run starts off with the Fantastic Four trying to regain their footing in a world that had assumed them dead, their Baxter Building gone, living in a warehouse property. Claremont, in my opinion, also has one of the best if not the best handle on characterization for a lot of key Fantastic Four figures, including Johnny, Reed, and Sue. His Ben is also very good, but I think Ben in particular tends to be an easier sell for a lot of comic book writers -- the outcast, the gruff man, the comic relief. He’s easier to identify with than Reed, the Smartest Man on Earth, or Johnny, defined by his youth and beauty and queercoded since the ‘60s, or Sue, by sheer factor of being a woman. So I think a lot of writers identify with Ben first and foremost and put the most love and care into his depiction, whereas the others are a little easier for them to leave by the wayside. Which isn’t a bad thing -- I love that one of the most beloved comic book characters is also one of Marvel’s few canonically Jewish characters, but there is a wealth of truly excellent Ben canon in comparison to the other three. Especially with Johnny, there’s no one else who has written for Fantastic Four who has put nearly as much thought and detail into Johnny’s relationship with his powers, both the positive and the negative, as Claremont has, even reworking the origin story from Lee and Kirby’s joyous scene of Johnny flaming on for the first time into a deeply traumatizing incident -- being sixteen and traumatized and bursting into uncontrollable flames. 

(Fantastic Four v3 #11) There’s also a lot of women in Claremont’s run! A valid criticism of Fantastic Four canon is that by its initial core team makeup it tends to be lacking in female characters compared to some other big Marvel staples, but Claremont brings in a ton, from Reed’s college friend and fellow genius Alyssa Moy (who has been done dirty by pretty much every other writer who’s ever touched her, including Waid and Hickman) to multiversal bounty hunter Bounty to the most platonic of Johnny’s gal pals Caledonia to Valeria Von Doom, a “time dancing” teenage incarnation of the baby Sue lost back in Byrne’s run, who sets up baby Val’s eventual return. Claremont is also king of Reed vs Doom setups -- if you haven’t read his Fantastic Four vs X-Men miniseries, I highly recommend it, and he brings a lot of the two sides of the same coin energy from that into his Fantastic Four run. 

The downside of Claremont’s run is that the plot is always there and always running and I could not explain half of it if you paid me. Things certainly happen! Like all the time! For seemingly no apparent reason! Stuff gets set up and then it’s not resolved and now we are in Latveria! I don’t think this is necessarily all that detrimental -- the run is still massively fun and the characterization is always fresh and interesting. It’s just that sometimes you have no idea what’s going on and you have to roll with it. And then sometimes you do know what’s going on but in the way where you know Claremont was just writing it because it’s his kink. Which is like, whatever. As authorial ids go, you can pretty consistently do worse than Claremont’s, I’ll give him that. So I do recommend on it the whole, as long as you’re not going into expecting the kind of plots either Hickman or Waid brought the book. Claremont’s is kind of like “stuff happens and it’s either weird or fun so just don’t pay too much attention to it.” 

Aside from Claremont, I feel like I generally like far more Fantastic Four runs than I dislike -- but also I don’t hate Millar’s run, which is honestly bad, so it’s possible I’m just very forgiving with the Fantastic Four. I really like Robinson’s run, which is the last run before the Great Fantastic Four Drought of 2015-2018. It’s short, self-contained, and devoted entirely to one story, so it’s pretty tightly written, with good characterization and some very shiny art by Leonard Kirk. Straczynski’s run is decent enough for the fact that it intersects with Civil War -- I think he does his best to get into the heads of the characters re: their actions in Civil War -- and it leads directly into Dwayne McDuffie’s run, another brief one where Black Panther and Storm take over for Reed and Sue. Very fun. Marvel Knights 4 is also a fairly recent run that’s got some strong moments in it, although I feel it’s a little inconsistent in its handling of the characters. It’s still fun, though. For an older, longer run, I like Simsonson’s -- the art is very dynamic, even if the storyline kind of gets too involved with itself. 

(FF #337)

I recommend Byrne’s run with the caveat that there’s plenty to dislike about it and plenty of reasons to avoid it, not the least of it being Byrne himself as a creator and a person. It’s heavily sexist in how it deals with Sue, it retcons a huge age gap into Sue and Reed’s relationship, and Byrne’s early departure sets up my all time least favorite Fantastic Four story. (Though that one is Roger Stern and later Tom DeFalco’s fault.) It is historic as Fantastic Four runs go, though, and there’s a lot in later runs that’s built over it or references it or borrows from it. So it’s a rec with a lot of caveats and I also understand why people might give it a skip -- I think it’s more important for an understanding of the greater body of Fantastic Four canon and the impact it had than for the actual run itself. I do think Byrne has some very interesting subtext with Johnny, although it never come to fruition, and while his Sue falls victim to a lot of sexism, I really like what he does with the character of Frankie Raye, who like poor Alyssa Moy I don’t think has ever gotten really good treatment ever since.

I have mixed feelings on both Millar and Fraction’s runs, not in the least because I think they end very similarly -- and that Millar did it better, which doesn’t say great things. Millar’s run is kind of like a trashy popcorn flick version of Fantastic Four; it’s not actually good, but I can’t say I don’t like the terrible eldritch monster in Scotland Christmas arc (Fantastic Four #564-565) and I’m sort of into future Sue. Fraction, on the other hand, takes a space road trip and makes it boring, which is the greatest Fantastic Four sin of all. He’s one of the rare writers who I think actually writes a bad Ben Grimm -- not the least because his run goes out of its way to try and label it Ben’s own fault that he was transformed into a monster. I do really like his FF (just the initials) though. 

The only Fantastic Four runs I can say I really truly dislike are Tom DeFalco’s and Dan Slott’s, which sort of unfortunate because DeFalco’s is both long influential (I have no idea why because it’s honestly terrible like in terms of storytelling) and because Slott’s is happening right now. DeFalco comes onto the book on Fantastic Four #356 and stays on until Fantastic Four #416, at which point Marvel hit a literal retcon button to get out of the mess he’d made. (This leads into Fantastic Four v2, which is largely skippable -- it’s basically a mid-90s retelling of a bunch of early Fantastic Four stories that leads back into the FF heading back to the main universe.) DeFalco’s responsible for the Skrull retcon in the JohnnyAlicia marriage and for dragging that out for over 50 issues, the entirety of which feel like he was writing without a plan or outline or literally anything, and I have never felt like a comic book was attempting to gaslight me through its own incompetence or refusal to commit to things it set up itself as badly as I do with DeFalco’s run. (I like other non-Fantastic Four Tom DeFalco runs. I just hate this one.) Dan Slott’s run is just 25 issues and counting of badly written emotionless unfunny pages blandly stapled together and I so badly want Marvel to kick him off the book for its own good.

[itsbenedict]

Two-Faced Jewel: Session 11

Horse On First

A half-elf conwoman (and the moth tasked with keeping her out of trouble) travel the Jewel in search of, uh, whatever a fashionable accessory is pointing them at. [Campaign log]

Last time, our heroes made contact with the Deathseekers, and opted to accompany them back to Barley to take care of some unfinished business. While the high-level adventurers take care of the dragon, the party goes to deliver a book and pick up some clothes from the tailor. No drama here, probably!

In the morning, the party is woken by a visitor to the inn. Looseleaf... acquires a new bit of background thanks to an excellent History roll.

The maid is here to retrieve the party, as the Deathseekers are about to set out. One thing that's somewhat surprising is that the deathseekers aren't riding giraffes, like normal people- they're riding these weird, hulked-out short-necked hornless giraffes that- and there must be some mistake here- are apparently called "whoreses"? It's weird. The best their Nature rolls can get is that they sort of resemble an exotic striped creature called a "zebra", maybe.

Lady Greatholder is there, with two of her maids- one of whom is an elf, who's staring at Oyobi in undisguised horror. To non-elven eyes, Oyobi might look normal, dressed sort of sporty, even- but to an elf's keen sense of propriety, she might as well be wearing an ahegao t-shirt and hammer pants.

Traveling conversation is light.

Looseleaf: "What are these things, anyways? They look like recolored zebras." Benedict I. (GM): You must've misheard something, because Doon says "What, you've never seen a whores before?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "...pardon me?" Looseleaf: "Is this- this is a pun, right? Like, I'm supposed to ask why you call them whores, and you'll answer, 'because we're riding them'? Is that the joke?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: Oh, god, this is an elaborate gaslighting prank. They are going to try to convince Saelhen to call this thing a whore, and then they will laugh, and she cannot even blame them, because that would be hilarious if she did it, probably. Benedict I. (GM): "Is there something wrong with the whoreses, ma'am?" the human girl asks. Looseleaf: "No, like, you're calling these animals whores, and despite the fact that I wasn't allowed to look at those magazines when I was younger, I'm relatively sure that the Common word 'whore' refers to a lady of ill repute of a brothel- I'm making this worse, aren't I." "I didn't learn the wrong word did I. Oh gods I totally learned the wrong word didn't I. The books that taught me Common were messing with me weren't they." Benedict I. (GM): Lady Greatholder and Doon absolutely lose their shit, as does Oyobi, who's been grinning ear to ear this whole time. Kevin speaks up. "Ah, no, it's- H-O-R-S-E. Hor-suh." "They're from up north." Saelhen du Fishercrown: Saelhen covers her faint smile (read: shit-eating grin). "How novel." Looseleaf: Looseleaf emits a quiet buzzing sound not unlike the sound previously emitted by John Human. This is moth for 'quiet screaming'.

The party doesn't really withhold any details about Arnie and the tower- they just make an appeal for Arnie to be treated with as much mercy as they can muster. Doon implies that he was in a similar place when Lady Greatholder found him, so she reluctantly agrees to stay the hand of JUSTICE.

On arriving in Barley, the Deathseekers go over their plan, in the broad strokes: they're going to post up in the tower, and lay a trap for the dragon using Arnie as bait. By Arnie's reckoning, it'll take a little over a week before the dragon's next visit, so the party has some time to kill in town.

Their first order of business is to visit Chitch, a local lizardfolk farmer who was kidnapped by Lumiere:

Chitch seems surprised that they didn't get kidnapped or tortured- and even more surprised when they claim to have information on his missing daughter's whereabouts.

They hand him CHOSS BOOK, the diary of the girl who was raised in Lumiere's tower as his apprentice. He starts reading it, and his tears of joyful disbelief turn to anger as he reads through the contents- which describe an evil torture wizard raising his daughter as his own, and using her as a test subject.

When he's about halfway through, he puts it down, grabs his pitchfork, and starts strapping on his armor- intent on heading for the tower to kill Lumiere. The party has to hastily explain the situation and exhort him to finish reading the diary, please- Lumiere is already dead, and Choss is safe in Wheat.

Chitch thanks them for the information, and presents them with a reward- apparently, before fleeing to Barley to settle down with his infant daughter, he was a lieutenant commander in the fleet of one Umidono Kaiden, an elven naval commander attempting to take control of the lawless Cutthroat Isles. He gives them his jeweled badge, which could sell for a decent chunk of cash or potentially be useful if they ever need to deal with Kaiden in the future. Orluthe is the one to pocket it, as the rest of the party hems and haws over accepting such a gift.

SNext, they head to visit Kensa Kanthalga to pick up Saelhen's torn kimono- and after a lot of paranoid second-guessing re: heading directly for the Kanthalga house via the grass, go through the Temple of Diamode in front of it first, to update Malath on the situation.

They find her continuing to train the town militia in spearwork, in preparation for what she assumes is an impending assault from Wheat.

They... do not mention Arnie, because mentioning the culprit is Arnie could potentially fan the flames with Wheat. Instead, they mention that the murder weapon was found there, as was evidence of a dragon. Malath seems skeptical that a dragon would stealthily kill with a tiny weapon, and somewhat perturbed that Deathseekers are in town, but agrees to notify the town that the Deathseekers are at the tower handling the dragon issue, so no one does anything dangerous like going over there.

(Incidentally, Vayen has vanished, and Looseleaf's bugged medical kit has indicated that he's gone over to the tower. Hm.)

So, they pass through the temple and visit Kensa in her home. Kensa answers the door, wearing...

...ah.

See, Kensa assumed that after they went to the torture tower and didn't come back for several days, that they were dead or torture-enslaved- and like, the dead or torture-enslaved don't need a stylish kimono, right?

So she is suitably mortified when Saelhen shows up at her door, not dead in the slightest.

Benedict I. (GM): Kensa's down pretty quick, wearing the pink dress from before (if somewhat more disheveled), holding a folded kimono. To her credit, it looks very well-repaired- you can't even tell it was damaged. "I- my apologies! Here you are, ma'am!" Saelhen du Fishercrown: Saelhen takes it. "While I have you here, would you like to hear a secret about this dress?" Kensa Kanthalga: "I- er, of course! Thank you!" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "When I was of an age comparable to yours..." She leans in conspiratorially. "I hated this thing. I fell down in it in front of a ballroom full of people and I very honestly wanted to take a scissor to it." Kensa Kanthalga: "N-no way...!" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "I keep it because it was a gift and because I sometimes need it. But if it gives you pleasure to wear it, then it is accomplishing far more with you than it ever did for me." Kensa Kanthalga: Her eyes widen. "R-really?!" Saelhen du Fishercrown:"I do still need it, to be clear. I, ah, don't mean to get your hopes up." Kensa Kanthalga: "...Oh." "No, of course..." You totally got her hopes up. Looseleaf: Not only did you get her hopes up, you even got Looseleaf's hopes up. Saelhen du Fishercrown: To be fair, "prove that elves can be assholes too" is right there on her character sheet.

And as far as payment- Saelhen just implied that Kensa would be allowed to cut out a swatch or two of the silk during repairs, which Kensa immediately jumped on without discussing further payment. Except...

Then Saelhen... gives Kensa some advice.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Now, in your shoes, considering that I might have been still alive, what I would have done was this: cut out squares, maybe handkerchief-sized, here and here. 'One or two,' as I specified." The places Saelhen indicated on the kimono are... not great places for there to be handkerchief-sized holes. They would render it pretty much unwearable. "I didn't ever specify where the swatches should be cut out, true. And so you could certainly chalk up the issue to youthful enthusiasm and indiscretion." "A lady like myself could never do something so crass as ask you to pay for a dress you'd taken time out of your busy schedule to repair, working to the bone over long hours. And I certainly wouldn't have had use for something I couldn't wear or repair myself." Kensa Kanthalga: "I- wh...?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "And so you would have had the swatches -- and, shortly, the entire dress with it." Benedict I. (GM): She is so confused. Is this lady trying to give her advice on how to grift her??? "That's- but that'd be...!" "I couldn't do that!" Looseleaf: oh my god is saelhen trying to recruit an apprentice is THAT what this is, Looseleaf thinks Saelhen du Fishercrown: "You could, dear."

Saelhen is trying to recruit an apprentice conwoman.

Saelhen retreats, at this point- they'll be staying for a week or so! There's time to lay groundwork!

Next time: some downtime in Barley, before the night of the dragon fight and the execution of Saelhen's master plan.

[bubbebruja]

On the Death of Sirius Black and Literary Gay Bashing in Harry Potter

In 2003, I was ten, straight, and positively obsessed with Hermione Granger.

If those last two things sound a little contradictory, it’s because they were. I do not mean I was “obsessed” in the sense that I wanted to dress up like her for Halloween, I mean “obsessed” in the sense that I literally blushed anytime my mom read her name aloud to my sister and I.

Queer. I was queer. I just didn’t know it yet.

Thus, I didn’t notice the Sirius/Remus romantic subtext as a child, drinking hot chocolate propped against my sister’s knees and listening enraptured as my mom read to us from the most recently released Harry Potter book. When Order of the Phoenix came out, I was far more interested in Angsty Harry™ and the evils of Delores Umbridge, and when Sirius died, I was not even all that upset. I didn’t really like him all that much, knew even at that age that he embodied too many of the stereotypically “masculine” traits I had already grown to hate with his pride and brooding and emotional immaturity. I didn’t much care, much less recognize that JK Rowling had done something rather unforgiveable.

But others did.

Seventeen years later, I get it.

By 2003, many older, wiser readers had long since clocked the queer subtext between Sirius and Remus. And, when I picked up the books earlier this year to re-read them for the first time since they were read to me as a child, I saw it too. (Notably, this was prior to JKR’s most recent round of blazing transphobia, after which I stopped reading.) And, okay, yes, I am the type of queer who reads queerness into many things. But y’all, I really didn’t have to try all that hard this time. If I were reading these books for the first time in the context of 2020, I would assume Remus and Sirius were canonically a couple, and JKR just wasn’t bashing us over the head with clear evidence of it. She doesn’t do that most of the time anyway. By Order of the Phoenix, in my opinion, the evidence (as movie Dumbledore says so awkwardly) is incontrovertible. The living together? The joint Christmas present? The “Sirius, sit down” scene early in the book? The confirmed HIV/AIDS metaphor, IN THE 90S?? THEY’RE FUCKING GAY TOGETHER.

And here’s the thing, (and I have no proof of this, so you’re just going to have to roll with it): I think it’s pretty clear that JKR became more conservative as time progressed. Money tends to do that to people, conveniently. What started as a series about the power young people hold to defeat evil and fight injustice eventually devolved into a flaccid epilogue where heterosexual nuclear families abounded and there were (still) no visibly queer characters in sight.

By the time the final book came out, I was a full-fledged teenager, and I, too, had abandoned fantasies of fighting evil and injustice for fantasies of settling down with “my perfect man” (L. O. L.) So, I get it. I get that priorities change for young people. But for adults, especially those recently drunk on the power of infinite amounts of money and fame? Nah. JKR knew what she was doing. JKR laid all the groundwork for a possible relationship between Remus and Sirius and then changed her mind. Or was told to change her mind. Or was forced to change her mind.

I have A Lot Of Feelings™ about Tonks and Remus’s relationship (most of which are about the way their canonical relationship plays into a lot of really awful tropes about disabled people which, no matter how you read him, Remus is). And I have a lot of feelings about Sirius Black as a character. I have a lot of feelings about Dumbledore, some related to his posthumous outing and some not. And, like most of us now, I have a lot of feelings about the entire franchise as a whole. But here’s what I know: It doesn’t actually matter, because JKR didn’t just change the explicit relationship dynamics between Sirius and Remus, she quite literally killed any chances of queer romance.

And she didn’t just kill Sirius. She killed Remus, too. And Tonks (who is a genderqueer butch and I will die on that hill). And Dumbledore. And the cute, squeaky house elf with a love for clothes and an obsession with Harry. And the young Gryffindor boy who followed Harry around, constantly asking for photos and autographs. And – you know what? Fuck it. – the person who lived INSIDE ANOTHER MAN’S BODY before returning to his bodily form, during which time he relied heavily on his male servant who cut off a literal body part to restore his master.

Am I reading too much queer subtext into each of these characters? Maybe. But, as this lovely article states, “close reading is queer culture, always has been.” And I can’t help but notice that the vast majority of the characters JKR didn’t kill off are, well, pretty fucking straight. (Drarry shippers, feel free to come at me. I’m sure there’s plenty of queer subtext there, too). They’re, for the most part, characters with a clear canonical history of heterosexual romance, as if only those with a possible future of a heterosexual, nuclear family are worthy of survival.

And I just don’t think this was an accident. I think it was the intentional plan of someone who started to feel like the world of inclusion she’d created was being read as far too inclusive.

To call this “literary gay bashing” is a pretty serious accusation with a pretty serious use of a very loaded term. But the thing is, I think we too often let people like JKR off the hook without recognizing what her words – both literary and non-literary – have done and can do. We too often dismiss it with statements like, “she’s entitled to her opinion”. Gay bashing is the intentional abuse or assault of someone perceived to be a member of the LGBTQIA2+ community, physically or verbally, that often results in lasting harm or death. And I use this term to describe JKR’s work particularly because it is sensationalizing, because it calls violence what it is: violence. Because, sure, she’s as entitled to her opinion as anyone else. But the second you create a world where anyone, especially children, are going to see themselves, going to feel safe, your “opinion” better do as little violence as possible.

When I saw the first Harry Potter movie, back in 2001, I refused to discuss it for months. I was furious. At the time, I couldn’t quite pinpoint why, but I now realize that I was heartbroken that Hermione Granger didn’t look like me. When JKR described a girl with wild, brown curly hair, I saw me. I saw my hair. And so, as children tend to do, I saw the rest of me, too. I saw tanned skin and dark brown eyes and full lips and high cheekbones (the ones people always told me made me look “Indian”, which I only partially am). I saw the quiet confidence that develops when you’re the brownest kid in your school, ready to strike but only when provoked. The pale, arrogant, racially unambiguous Hermione Granger I saw on the screen made me feel dirty, cast off, unworthy of representation. The self-hatred I felt when White Hermione Granger entered the film alongside White Harry Potter and White Ron Weasley and White Everyone Else was a kind of violence.

And when JKR killed off all of her queer-read characters, she took that violence to another level. Because they were there, we saw them, we did not imagine the romantic undertones between Remus and Sirius, or the way that a shape-shifting young woman with short, spiky hair reads an awful lot like a person uninterested in traditional gender. We saw ourselves in the most beloved franchise of all time. And then, she took away those possibilities, and she took away those characters.

And you know what? People die because they can’t see themselves in media. People die because that’s what they’ve watched everyone like them do on screen and in books. It’s not harmless, and it’s not victimless, and it’s violent.

There’s only one solution to literary gay bashing: To Bash Back. We can and do write ourselves into the stories, into the world, and refuse to settle for explanations that gaslight us into thinking we imagined things that were never there, or ask us to settle for tiny crumbs of useless representation.

I intended to finish my most recent story, “Come Healing”, with an ambiguous ending that left the possibility of Sirius’s death open to reader interpretation. But then, JKR kept going, and talking, and kept creating violence, and I got mad. And so, like so many queers before me, I rewrote the story and changed the ending, and created love and security and peace and life where the canonical author had created hopelessness and death. And in the world we live in right now, that is radical. It is bashing back.

It’s tiny, but it’s something. Every time we write a happy ending for a queer character, we create the possibilities of happy endings for queer people everywhere. And no one – no matter how hard she may try – can take that away.

[dear-mrs-otome]

I REACHED THE END AND JESUS GOD WHAT A TRIP

(Victor with the BDE)

In which I blather random thoughts and shit so SPOILERS:

- Victor what the FUCK. You’re my babe, I love you son, but jesus the gaslighting was awful and this was not your finest hour. You smothered MC and actively tried to keep her in the dark! Not cool man, not cool at all.

- That said, I do love the fact that Victor’s glaring flaws here are clearly just an extrapolation of his strengths gone too far. He’s protective and worries about her already to begin with, and the incident at the end of Chp 10 and his fear of losing her are just acting like amplifiers, jacking his terror and anxiety sky-high and making him less than rational. I appreciate that he did seem to realize by the end that he was overreacting, and as hard as it clearly was for him he worked on backing off. Does his fear have anything to do with the fact that I’ve read he was kidnapped himself as a kid? Maybe. Possibly. I’ll be interested to see if that is explored in the future.

- Also? Time + Space? Bad. Fucking. Ass.

- Gavin shone here, for once doing a 180 on his ‘I’m going to keep you innocent and protected’ schtick and being the one to try and bring her into the world of Evolvers properly. He was a more manageable degree of protective, and this was definitely one of his better appearances. I’ve heard from spoilers that his codename is Hermes and that makes a ton of sense - not only the flying thing, but that Hermes was able to cross between the boundaries and barriers that separate the realms so easily. Is that why he was able to move between the dimensions so confidently? WE SHALL SEE. Also those last couple of slides SHIT SON you can swoop in and save me anytime <3

- Lucien did not disappoint when he went FULL ARES, but he also didn’t disappoint in the ‘clearly conflicted’ department either. I am so in love with his loyalties being torn, and I cannot wait to see more of his shady ass try and dance a jig that pleases everyone as long as possible. Also those hints of his Evol just raise more questions than answers! And now I’m thinking of how at the very beginning of the game it was discussed that someone was teleporting people around the city, just like he did?? In addition to his barrier-making?? CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER

- Kiro baby, baby boy. His heart is so large, I’m so afraid of how well he’s going to survive whatever awful they’ve got in store for him. The fact that his Evol is bringing other people pain is clearly tearing him up inside, and I hope he can get some control over it. I’m looking forward to him being the ULTIMATE HACKER who doesn’t need a computer to interface with tech anymore, and can re-program people too?!? Helios is an apt code-name now, especially with his mutation, because he’s bright and warm like the sun but getting to close will only burn you.

- I am living for how they’ve set up, possibly, the groundwork for the boys to be on opposing factions? We have Gavin already a part of the STF, and Victor who was approached by Commander Leto - I’m assuming because he wants Victor to be apart of/cooperate with them. And now we have Lucien who’s firmly entrenched with Black Swan, and Kiro being drawn into their web. Those brief moments of Lucien vs. Victor made me practically vibrate, and I can’t wait to see them square off. PLEASE LET ME HAVE THIS ELEX PLEASE.

- Did anyone else notice that the guys powers seemed to go haywire only after hugging MC? I mean maybe I’m reaching there. maybe they’d all hug her on the regular anyways, but it definitely seemed like things hit more of a crisis point after that.

- Side side SIDE NOTE - I’m so incredibly gay for Hot Bad Girl here. *sweats in bi*

[vegankids]

Gaslighting is when you try and convince someone that their experience isn’t true.

When we try and force children to keep eating after they say they are full, or convince them they aren’t hurt when they are, or tell them that what they are crying about isn’t worth crying about, we are telling them that their experiences aren’t reality. When we gaslight our children, they begin to question their own judgment. They stop listening to their intuition. They lose their sense of security and self-confidence.

We can teach our children resilience, empathy, and compassion by modeling those behaviors with them.

And most importantly, we stop gaslighting them. We stop telling them to buck up. We stop telling them that they are overreacting, being too sensitive, or crying for no reason. Our intent might not be to harm them, but the impact is what is important in these situations.

We can stop gaslighting our children by changing our perspective.

Instead of shutting down emotions, we reach out and try to understand what they are experiencing. We ask if they are OK instead of telling them they are OK. We empathize with them often.

We empathize by saying, “I understand how you’re feeling. I would feel that way, too, if I were in your shoes.” Validating someone’s experience is a powerful show of compassion and understanding. It might seem counterproductive to let a child sob on your shoulder about a seemingly inconsequential moment, but by allowing this freedom of expressing very human emotions, we are giving them the practice that they need to have a mentally healthy life. This article lays the groundwork for raising children that are incredibly resilient and emotionally healthy.

The choices we make now definitely impact our children, but could impact our grandchildren and beyond. When we stop gaslighting and start validating the experiences of the most vulnerable in our society, the result is a cycle of abuse broken, and happier, healthier future generations.

[sumrallmind]

Alright blew through the first two mspa adventures

First we have Jailbreak, or as I like to call it, “Moon logic pumpkin gaslight simulator” it’s an odd journey to be sure. I beleive this was back when the fandom was pretty small and it was much more manageable to have fans enter commands for people to do. As we venture into problem sleuth and especially homestuck, this will become much less viable. But, you can see how Huss has a pretty good grasp of old point and click adventure game logic and how to fuck it up in a fun way. This lays the groundwork for the future projects. Up until a long way into HS, Jailbreak doesn’t have an ending. It has a lot of unexplained moments that your are meant to shrug at an continue, accepting that its just weird. On the Subject of Weird, this is also where What Pumpkin becomes a running gag throughout the rest of the works. We also see some things like the pumpkin appearifier show up here.  Here’s quick shout out to the other things that appear later, mainly the pony, the stump with a gun, elves, and of course, gay porn.

Overall, this one is weird, but easy to follow and has some neat gags. Also some stuff didnt age well, but thats to expected for the time period it was written, and also for huss’s writing in general.

Bard Quest I think was the first real attempt at a choice your own adventure but it fizzes out pretty quick. The main takeaway is the codpiece. Overall its fine. it did give us this tho

  >Next for me is the Big One. No not that big one, the first Big One, Problem Sleuth. Fandom gets a little bit bigger here. Which. Good and bad, I suppose.

[socialattractionuk]

As curfews and lockdowns loom, cuffing season will be ‘curfing season’ for 2020

Do you actually want to be together, or are you just lonely? (Picture: Getty)

Every year the same tweets and Facebook posts start around this time: ‘Need a cuddle partner now the weather’s cold’ or ‘Who wants a partner for Winter Wonderland?’

Like the first leaves dropping in the autumn, these thirsty posts signal a season; cuffing season.

It’s the time of year where people are done flirting with Wayne Lineker at Ocean Beach Ibiza and spending every weekend in a beer garden and want the metaphorical cosy thermal PJs of a stable relationship.

Expect this year to see cuffing season to go into overdrive since – as we all know – things are up in the air more than they’ve ever been in our lifetimes.

We’re calling it ‘curfing season’, with reports of curfews and lockdowns prompting people to step up their cuffing game and ensure they don’t spend the festive season lonely as well as indoors.

According to figures from dating app Happn, 54% of singles are eager to find a new partner in the near future, so much so that two thirds said they’d change their lifestyle and download more apps to push things forward.

The difference between curfing season and standard old cuffing season is that you’ll probably smell a lot more desperation in the air – and those you’re talking to will likely want to fast-forward on the early stages and make things official much quicker.

Dating app comparison site Datingroo have seen a 91% surge in Google searches for ‘dating app reviews’, which they believe shows that people are keen to give themselves the best chance to find someone to share the lockdown blues with. 

Do you actually like each other or just hate being lonely? (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Alexander Patall, Dating Expert at Datingroo calls it catalyst dating, saying: ‘Since talks of a second wave, we’ve seen a huge surge in catalyst dating – as no one wants to do another quarantine solo!

‘Serial dating app users are on it all day, every day making sure they’re giving themselves the best chance to find a lockdown buddy to cling onto ahead of time.

‘It’s not human nature to spend extensive periods of time alone, and this only gets worse through uncertain times such as the current pandemic. Having a companion through isolation will provide comfort and more importantly a bit of fun!’

The only danger of this is that things will go so fast that you could end up locked down with someone new without really knowing (or truly liking) them.

Because we’ve heard so many stories come out of the first lockdown of couples who’d moved in after a short time or made things official with great results, it’s easy to assume this will be the same for everyone.

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However, without proper boundaries and communication, things might not be so rosy.

As yourself if you really want to be with this person and if this person wants to be with you before entering into anything serious. Are you both just looking for comfort and companionship in a difficult time, or is there a genuine connection that could grow?

Try, too, to have something of a ‘truth-telling amnesty’ early on. Perhaps there are major parts of their personality or lifestyle that don’t align with yours, so getting together and getting all baggage out in the open can ensure no skeletons are left in the closet.

There’s nothing like a global pandemic to make you reassess your priorities and decide that love is all you need.

Just make sure that it’s actual love you’re looking for, and not a replacement for that hoarded toilet roll in the corner to keep you company over winter.

Dating terms and trends, defined

Blue-stalling: When two people are dating and acting like a couple, but one person in the partnership states they're unready for any sort of label or commitment (despite acting in a different manner).

Breadcrumbing: Leaving ‘breadcrumbs’ of interest – random noncommittal messages and notifications that seem to lead on forever, but don’t actually end up taking you anywhere worthwhile Breadcrumbing is all about piquing someone’s interest without the payoff of a date or a relationship.

Caspering: Being a friendly ghost - meaning yes, you ghost, but you offer an explanation beforehand. Caspering is all about being a nice human being with common decency. A novel idea.

Catfish: Someone who uses a fake identity to lure dates online.

Clearing: Clearing season happens in January. It’s when we’re so miserable thanks to Christmas being over, the cold weather, and general seasonal dreariness, that we will hook up with anyone just so we don’t feel completely unattractive. You might bang an ex, or give that creepy guy who you don’t really fancy a chance, or put up with truly awful sex just so you can feel human touch. It’s a tough time. Stay strong.

Cloutlighting: Cloutlighting is the combo of gaslighting and chasing social media clout. Someone will bait the person they’re dating on camera with the intention of getting them upset or angry, or making them look stupid, then share the video for everyone to laugh at.

Cockfishing: Also known as catcocking. When someone sending dick pics uses photo editing software or other methods to change the look of their penis, usually making it look bigger than it really is.

Cuffing season: The chilly autumn and winter months when you are struck by a desire to be coupled up, or cuffed.

Firedooring: Being firedoored is when the access is entirely on one side, so you're always waiting for them to call or text and your efforts are shot down.

Fishing: When someone will send out messages to a bunch of people to see who’d be interested in hooking up, wait to see who responds, then take their pick of who they want to get with. It’s called fishing because the fisher loads up on bait, waits for one fish to bite, then ignores all the others.

Flashpanner: Someone who’s addicted to that warm, fuzzy, and exciting start bit of a relationship, but can’t handle the hard bits that might come after – such as having to make a firm commitment, or meeting their parents, or posting an Instagram photo with them captioned as ‘this one’.

Freckling: Freckling is when someone pops into your dating life when the weather’s nice… and then vanishes once it’s a little chillier.

Gatsbying: To post a video, picture or selfie to public social media purely for a love interest to see it.

Ghosting: Cutting off all communication without explanation.

Grande-ing: Being grateful, rather than resentful, for your exes, just like Ariana Grande.

Hatfishing: When someone who looks better when wearing a hat has pics on their dating profile that exclusively show them wearing hats.

Kittenfishing: Using images that are of you, but are flattering to a point that it might be deceptive. So using really old or heavily edited photos, for example. Kittenfishes can also wildly exaggerate their height, age, interests, or accomplishments.

Lovebombing: Showering someone with attention, gifts, gestures of affection, and promises for your future relationship, only to distract them from your not-so-great bits. In extreme cases this can form the basis for an abusive relationship.

Microcheating: Cheating without physically crossing the line. So stuff like emotional cheating, sexting, confiding in someone other than your partner, that sort of thing.

Mountaineering: Reaching for people who might be out of your league, or reaching for the absolute top of the mountain.

Obligaswiping: The act of endlessly swiping on dating apps and flirt-chatting away with no legitimate intention of meeting up, so you can tell yourself you're doing *something* to put yourself out there.

Orbiting: The act of watching someone's Instagram stories or liking their tweets or generally staying in their 'orbit' after a breakup.

Paperclipping: When someone sporadically pops up to remind you of their existence, to prevent you from ever fully moving on.

Preating: Pre-cheating - laying the groundwork and putting out feelers for cheating, by sending flirty messages or getting closer to a work crush.

Prowling: Going hot and cold when it comes to expressing romantic interest.

R-bombing: Not responding to your messages but reading them all, so you see the 'delivered' and 'read' signs and feel like throwing your phone across the room.

Scroogeing: Dumping someone right before Christmas so you don't have to buy them a present.

Shadowing: Posing with a hot friend in all your dating app photos, knowing people will assume you're the attractive one and will be too polite to ask.

Shaveducking: Feeling deeply confused over whether you're really attracted to a person or if they just have great facial hair.

Sneating:When you go on dates just for a free meal.

Stashing: The act of hiding someone you're dating from your friends, family, and social media.

Submarineing: When someone ghosts, then suddenly returns and acts like nothing happened.

V-lationshipping:When someone you used to date reappears just around Valentine's Day, usually out of loneliness and desperation.

You-turning: Falling head over heels for someone, only to suddenly change your mind and dip.

Zombieing: Ghosting then returning from the dead. Different from submarineing because at least a zombie will acknowledge their distance.

  Do you have a story to share?

Get in touch at MetroLifestyleTeam@metro.co.uk.

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[socialattractionuk]

What is wokefishing and how can you spot it?

Have you been wokefished? (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

If you’re someone who’s comfortable being described as ‘very online’, you’ll have heard of catfishing, kittenfishing, blackfishing, and maybe even hatfishing.

But what about wokefishing?

You might not know what wokefishing means, but if you’re currently single and actively dating, you’ve likely come across it.

In the same way that catfishing is masquerading as another person and kittenfishing is using old and edited photos to present yourself in a more flattering way, wokefishing, too, is a form of deception that’s doomed to cause disappointment.

Coined by Serena Smith for Vice, wokefishing describes when someone pretends to hold progressive – or ‘woke’ views to lure another person into dating them.

They seem lovely at first, but the problem arises when you learn that their ‘wokeness’ is only for appearances – beneath the surface, they really don’t care.

A wokefisher might proudly declare themselves a feminist, add #BlackLivesMatter to their Tinder bio, or say all the right things when you talk about, say, trans rights, improving accessibility for disabled people, or providing free healthcare. They’re all about saying the ‘right’ thing to make themselves seem like caring, unproblematic people.

But once you get to know them, they’re actually sexist, racist, or hold deeply problematic views.

Perhaps they claim they’re proudly feminist, but are quick to slut-shame women who they decide have committed a terrible crime by enjoying sex. Maybe they’ll post a black square on Instagram, but casually use racist slurs when they’re with their friends.

If their words don’t line up with their actions, ask questions (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

When you prod just a little below the surface, a wokefisher will reveal that they don’t actually share your views or relate to your values, they were just saying what they needed to get into your life.

It’s difficult to call them out, though, because often they believe they really are as woke as they proclaim. How can you call them sexist when they constantly praise their working mum? How dare you say they’re racist when they dated a Black woman once?

You can spot a wokefisher by keeping an eye and ear out for those times their words and actions don’t reflect their initial claims. Don’t dismiss those discrepancies – yes, someone’s opinions can change and grow, but if it’s starting to feel like they’ve hopped on a hashtag or label for woke points but don’t actually do anything beyond calling themselves anti-racist/feminist/pro trans rights, listen to your gut.

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What is wokefishing and how can you spot it?

‘If it seems too good to be true, it usually is,’ Dr Carmen Harra tells Health. ‘Being honest from the beginning helps avoid mistakes that were made in former relationships,. It will save you much time if you come to the conclusion that this person doesn’t hold the same values as you. Allow yourself to be led by your intuition.’

In those instances, it’s important to know when the time comes to cut your losses and ditch the relationship. It’s tempting to try to educate someone, but if a person chooses to misrepresent their views and doesn’t even try to see your way of thinking – or constantly plays devil’s advocate – they’re probably not someone you want to dedicate all your energy to.

As Maya Angelou said: ‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them.’

We’d like to add to the end of that: ‘and get the hell out of there’.

Dating terms and trends, defined

Blue-stalling: When two people are dating and acting like a couple, but one person in the partnership states they're unready for any sort of label or commitment (despite acting in a different manner).

Breadcrumbing: Leaving ‘breadcrumbs’ of interest – random noncommittal messages and notifications that seem to lead on forever, but don’t actually end up taking you anywhere worthwhile Breadcrumbing is all about piquing someone’s interest without the payoff of a date or a relationship.

Caspering: Being a friendly ghost - meaning yes, you ghost, but you offer an explanation beforehand. Caspering is all about being a nice human being with common decency. A novel idea.

Catfish: Someone who uses a fake identity to lure dates online.

Clearing: Clearing season happens in January. It’s when we’re so miserable thanks to Christmas being over, the cold weather, and general seasonal dreariness, that we will hook up with anyone just so we don’t feel completely unattractive. You might bang an ex, or give that creepy guy who you don’t really fancy a chance, or put up with truly awful sex just so you can feel human touch. It’s a tough time. Stay strong.

Cloutlighting: Cloutlighting is the combo of gaslighting and chasing social media clout. Someone will bait the person they’re dating on camera with the intention of getting them upset or angry, or making them look stupid, then share the video for everyone to laugh at.

Cockfishing: Also known as catcocking. When someone sending dick pics uses photo editing software or other methods to change the look of their penis, usually making it look bigger than it really is.

Cuffing season: The chilly autumn and winter months when you are struck by a desire to be coupled up, or cuffed.

Firedooring: Being firedoored is when the access is entirely on one side, so you're always waiting for them to call or text and your efforts are shot down.

Fishing: When someone will send out messages to a bunch of people to see who’d be interested in hooking up, wait to see who responds, then take their pick of who they want to get with. It’s called fishing because the fisher loads up on bait, waits for one fish to bite, then ignores all the others.

Flashpanner: Someone who’s addicted to that warm, fuzzy, and exciting start bit of a relationship, but can’t handle the hard bits that might come after – such as having to make a firm commitment, or meeting their parents, or posting an Instagram photo with them captioned as ‘this one’.

Freckling: Freckling is when someone pops into your dating life when the weather’s nice… and then vanishes once it’s a little chillier.

Gatsbying: To post a video, picture or selfie to public social media purely for a love interest to see it.

Ghosting: Cutting off all communication without explanation.

Grande-ing: Being grateful, rather than resentful, for your exes, just like Ariana Grande.

Hatfishing: When someone who looks better when wearing a hat has pics on their dating profile that exclusively show them wearing hats.

Kittenfishing: Using images that are of you, but are flattering to a point that it might be deceptive. So using really old or heavily edited photos, for example. Kittenfishes can also wildly exaggerate their height, age, interests, or accomplishments.

Lovebombing: Showering someone with attention, gifts, gestures of affection, and promises for your future relationship, only to distract them from your not-so-great bits. In extreme cases this can form the basis for an abusive relationship.

Microcheating: Cheating without physically crossing the line. So stuff like emotional cheating, sexting, confiding in someone other than your partner, that sort of thing.

Mountaineering: Reaching for people who might be out of your league, or reaching for the absolute top of the mountain.

Obligaswiping: The act of endlessly swiping on dating apps and flirt-chatting away with no legitimate intention of meeting up, so you can tell yourself you're doing *something* to put yourself out there.

Orbiting: The act of watching someone's Instagram stories or liking their tweets or generally staying in their 'orbit' after a breakup.

Paperclipping: When someone sporadically pops up to remind you of their existence, to prevent you from ever fully moving on.

Preating: Pre-cheating - laying the groundwork and putting out feelers for cheating, by sending flirty messages or getting closer to a work crush.

Prowling: Going hot and cold when it comes to expressing romantic interest.

R-bombing: Not responding to your messages but reading them all, so you see the 'delivered' and 'read' signs and feel like throwing your phone across the room.

Scroogeing: Dumping someone right before Christmas so you don't have to buy them a present.

Shadowing: Posing with a hot friend in all your dating app photos, knowing people will assume you're the attractive one and will be too polite to ask.

Shaveducking: Feeling deeply confused over whether you're really attracted to a person or if they just have great facial hair.

Sneating:When you go on dates just for a free meal.

Stashing: The act of hiding someone you're dating from your friends, family, and social media.

Submarineing: When someone ghosts, then suddenly returns and acts like nothing happened.

V-lationshipping:When someone you used to date reappears just around Valentine's Day, usually out of loneliness and desperation.

You-turning: Falling head over heels for someone, only to suddenly change your mind and dip.

Zombieing: Ghosting then returning from the dead. Different from submarineing because at least a zombie will acknowledge their distance.

  Do you have a story to share?

Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.

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Life in lockdown has made us more open to virtual dating and long distance relationships

Will you continue to date over video chat once lockdown ends? (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Long after lockdown is lifted, some after-effects of the coronavirus pandemic may linger.

Our experiences in the last few months will likely have an impact on how we date, as one example, from FOMU (that’s fear of meeting up) in the short term to cosy nights in cocktail bars no longer being the go-to date.

New research from the dating app Plenty of Fish looks at just how the pandemic will affect how we form romantic relationships, by surveying 850 users about how they’re feeling about dating right now.

Turns out it’s not all doom, gloom, and an overwhelming fear of physical contact – our experiences in lockdown may actually change our approach to dating for the better.

66% of those surveyed said they now value deeper conversations more than they did pre-pandemic, likely because lockdown has meant dating takes place through lengthy conversations over phone calls rather than rushing into the physical stuff.

The survey points to daters becoming more open to connecting in new ways.

Seven in ten (71%) of those surveyed said they’d be happy to go on a virtual date once lockdown is over, while 33% would now be open to a long distance relationship. Months apart has allowed many of us to realise we can form strong bonds from a distance.

This is a trend echoed by the team over at Badoo, who told us video dating have become so prevalent in lockdown that a virtual date ‘will become a natural step in the dating process before meeting face to face’.

Our experiences in lockdown have changed the way we approach dating and relationships (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Badoo’s UK Brand Marketing Director Natasha Briefel told Metro.co.uk: ‘t’s a great way to get to know somebody beyond messaging, and it also means you can make sure they are who they say they are!’

All those virtual dates and socially distanced strolls may have changed what we look for in a date, perhaps as we’re no longer able to overlook personality clashes by searching for a physical spark.

18% said being socially distanced from dating has made them open to romance with someone who’s not their usual type, while 35% said they now deem looks less important than before.

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The most popular qualities people look for in a date (on Plenty of Fish, at least. People on other dating apps might still be superficial) are humour, shared interests, and authenticity – all important if you’re planning to have lengthy conversations, over Zoom or otherwise.

Shannon Smith, Dating and Relationship expert for Plenty of Fish, says: ‘Lockdown and self-isolation has clearly had an impact on how we date, but it hasn’t stopped singles from looking for love.

‘There are so many ways to get to know someone, and once you spark that initial connection, why not try a virtual video date? It’s clear from our findings that no matter how you’re dating, the best way to find love is to be authentic and true to yourself.’

Dating terms and trends, defined

Blue-stalling: When two people are dating and acting like a couple, but one person in the partnership states they're unready for any sort of label or commitment (despite acting in a different manner).

Breadcrumbing: Leaving ‘breadcrumbs’ of interest – random noncommittal messages and notifications that seem to lead on forever, but don’t actually end up taking you anywhere worthwhile Breadcrumbing is all about piquing someone’s interest without the payoff of a date or a relationship.

Caspering: Being a friendly ghost - meaning yes, you ghost, but you offer an explanation beforehand. Caspering is all about being a nice human being with common decency. A novel idea.

Catfish: Someone who uses a fake identity to lure dates online.

Clearing: Clearing season happens in January. It’s when we’re so miserable thanks to Christmas being over, the cold weather, and general seasonal dreariness, that we will hook up with anyone just so we don’t feel completely unattractive. You might bang an ex, or give that creepy guy who you don’t really fancy a chance, or put up with truly awful sex just so you can feel human touch. It’s a tough time. Stay strong.

Cloutlighting: Cloutlighting is the combo of gaslighting and chasing social media clout. Someone will bait the person they’re dating on camera with the intention of getting them upset or angry, or making them look stupid, then share the video for everyone to laugh at.

Cockfishing: Also known as catcocking. When someone sending dick pics uses photo editing software or other methods to change the look of their penis, usually making it look bigger than it really is.

Cuffing season: The chilly autumn and winter months when you are struck by a desire to be coupled up, or cuffed.

Firedooring: Being firedoored is when the access is entirely on one side, so you're always waiting for them to call or text and your efforts are shot down.

Fishing: When someone will send out messages to a bunch of people to see who’d be interested in hooking up, wait to see who responds, then take their pick of who they want to get with. It’s called fishing because the fisher loads up on bait, waits for one fish to bite, then ignores all the others.

Flashpanner: Someone who’s addicted to that warm, fuzzy, and exciting start bit of a relationship, but can’t handle the hard bits that might come after – such as having to make a firm commitment, or meeting their parents, or posting an Instagram photo with them captioned as ‘this one’.

Freckling: Freckling is when someone pops into your dating life when the weather’s nice… and then vanishes once it’s a little chillier.

Gatsbying: To post a video, picture or selfie to public social media purely for a love interest to see it.

Ghosting: Cutting off all communication without explanation.

Grande-ing: Being grateful, rather than resentful, for your exes, just like Ariana Grande.

Hatfishing: When someone who looks better when wearing a hat has pics on their dating profile that exclusively show them wearing hats.

Kittenfishing: Using images that are of you, but are flattering to a point that it might be deceptive. So using really old or heavily edited photos, for example. Kittenfishes can also wildly exaggerate their height, age, interests, or accomplishments.

Lovebombing: Showering someone with attention, gifts, gestures of affection, and promises for your future relationship, only to distract them from your not-so-great bits. In extreme cases this can form the basis for an abusive relationship.

Microcheating: Cheating without physically crossing the line. So stuff like emotional cheating, sexting, confiding in someone other than your partner, that sort of thing.

Mountaineering: Reaching for people who might be out of your league, or reaching for the absolute top of the mountain.

Obligaswiping: The act of endlessly swiping on dating apps and flirt-chatting away with no legitimate intention of meeting up, so you can tell yourself you're doing *something* to put yourself out there.

Orbiting: The act of watching someone's Instagram stories or liking their tweets or generally staying in their 'orbit' after a breakup.

Paperclipping: When someone sporadically pops up to remind you of their existence, to prevent you from ever fully moving on.

Preating: Pre-cheating - laying the groundwork and putting out feelers for cheating, by sending flirty messages or getting closer to a work crush.

Prowling: Going hot and cold when it comes to expressing romantic interest.

R-bombing: Not responding to your messages but reading them all, so you see the 'delivered' and 'read' signs and feel like throwing your phone across the room.

Scroogeing: Dumping someone right before Christmas so you don't have to buy them a present.

Shadowing: Posing with a hot friend in all your dating app photos, knowing people will assume you're the attractive one and will be too polite to ask.

Shaveducking: Feeling deeply confused over whether you're really attracted to a person or if they just have great facial hair.

Sneating:When you go on dates just for a free meal.

Stashing: The act of hiding someone you're dating from your friends, family, and social media.

Submarineing: When someone ghosts, then suddenly returns and acts like nothing happened.

V-lationshipping:When someone you used to date reappears just around Valentine's Day, usually out of loneliness and desperation.

You-turning: Falling head over heels for someone, only to suddenly change your mind and dip.

Zombieing: Ghosting then returning from the dead. Different from submarineing because at least a zombie will acknowledge their distance.

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