#(and when his dismissive response to one of those emails was posted to tumblr was when he had his twitter fit)

[ooklet]

welcome to nightvale still fucking sucks btw

if you forgot about the apache tracker storyline or think it came from a position of well intentions, this is your reminder that when the creators were approached about it by real native ppl (not white ones magically turned into natives), one of them had a white boy temper tantrum on twitter, completely shut down the conversation, never apologized or addressed it again, and did nothing to dissuade other white ppl from wearing super inappropriate apache tracker “cosplay” to in person events in the form of headdresses lol

[foodbytesback]

The Rise and Fall of Bon Appetit

Sometimes life comes at you fast.  Sometimes, that means stories in the food industry break in such rapid succession that you have no time to blink in between.  Sometimes, it means someone found out about something racist you did a few years ago.  What happens when it’s both?  Ask the fine folks at Bon Appetit.

In recent years, Bon Appetit made a name for itself, rising from the ashes of dying print media, through its Youtube channel featuring a diverse cast of personalities.  But over the course of this past week, many of the publication’s executives have been found to foster a toxic workplace culture, rife with racism, sexism and homophobia.  

Before I get too deep (because this is going to be a long one), I feel the need to point out that while this story’s breaking happened to coincide with Black Lives Matter protests across the country and gained traction from people’s outrage towards inequality, the events that have unfolded should not be blamed on “cancel culture,” “political correctness run amok” or any other reactionary dismissal of critical thinking.  Adam Rapoport didn’t lose his job because Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter came to be because of the damage that many in positions of power like Rapoport have done in both mainstream media and society as a whole.

[Also, yes, there are going to be a lot of links to Instagram posts that have been screenshotted and uploaded to Twitter.  Clearly the real takeaway from this debacle is that I need to get an Instagram account.  Also also, thanks to Tumblr’s new rules about offsite links, you’ll have to go to my main site for the full receipts.]

Preamble

Shortly after the killing of George Floyd, Adam Rapoport, Editor-in-Chief at Bon Appetit, wrote an editorial highlighting some of the coverage they’ve given to black chefs.  Many criticized this as being superficial and performative, with others saying that BA has, on numerous occasions, shut down articles relating to black culture for not being “trendy” enough or otherwise was discriminatory towards black employees. (Also, the repeated use of “uprisings” instead of “protests” seems a little suspicious.)

An article from Eater criticized the role BA played in the appropriating and whitewashing of many cultures’ ingredients and cuisines (gochujang, Aleppo pepper, and sumac seem to be some of BA’s favorite ingredients) that had become prevalent in food media in recent years.

While it’s a fairly minor offense in comparison, it may also be worth bringing up the time Rapoport accidentally called Priya Krishna “Sohla,” the name of his other Indian employee.

Monday, June 8th

Food writer Tammie Teclemariam posted a screencap of an Instagram post made by Rapoport’s wife, which depicted the two of them donning Puerto Rican stereotypes as Halloween costumes, brownface and all.    

Many were quick to declare their outrage and demand that Rapoport either resign or be fired.  Meanwhile, Sohla El-Waylly, one of the leading stars of the Youtube channel, was one of the first BA employees to speak up, and disclosed that this kind of behavior was just the tip of the iceberg.  She said that BIPOC workers have been paid disproportionately for their work, including not being paid a per-video commission that the white stars of the Youtube channel receive. 

Molly Baz, one of the aforementioned white stars, announced that she would no longer make videos for BA until all of El-Waylly’s demands were met.  One by one, their white coworkers chimed in in agreement.  

Former staff photographer Alex Lau also wrote an extensive tweet thread about his experiences at BA, including how he had futilely tried to fix the system from within.

By the end of Monday, Adam Rapoport had resigned from his position as Editor-in-Chief.

Tuesday, June 9th  

Since Rapoport’s official resignation did little to fix many of the systemic problems in place at BA, many began to turn their attention to other senior members of the staff.

Some came for Andrew Knowlton, the Restaurant Editor, for behaviors such as gaslighting an employee for trying to bring up racist practices in the offices.

Others called out Matthew Duckor, a VP at Conde Nast and BA’s former “Head of Video” (Did a 3 year old come up with that job title?), for a series of old racist and homophobic tweets.  He tried to apologize by saying that he was young and didn’t know any better at the time, but many were quick to point out that he was, at the youngest, 20, aka for all intents and purposes An Adult when he wrote those tweets. 

Tammie Teclemariam returned to ask current and former BA employees to DM her information about Duckor that they didn’t want to go public with themselves, ranging from his hand in the aforementioned pay disparity to making inappropriate comments towards women.

Teclemariam also did even more social media muckraking and found that Drinks Editor Alex Delany had once decorated a cake to look like a Confederate flag, while others found things like a Vine where he says the f-slur and some questionable comments about women on this Tumblr.  He later deleted his Tumblr and Twitter, and issued a cookie-cutter apology on his Instagram.

She also vague-tweeted that Brad Leone, one of the most beloved stars of the Youtube channel, is “possibly not a great guy,” but later added, “don’t fret.” At that point, some began to accuse her of just trying to stir the pot.

Ultimately, Matt Hunziker, director and camera operator for Leone’s show, reported that the higher ups were ignoring the situation regarding the pay disparity, and that they were not “learning and growing.”

Wednesday, June 10th

By this point, journalists were able to do more thorough investigations and put together exposés that were more than a blurb about an accusation followed by a nut graph.

Business Insider published an article where they interviewed 14 current and former BIPOC employees of Bon Appetit.  In addition to information already discussed above, it also described events such as an incident where several BIPOC staffers were told they weren’t allowed the test kitchen. (Carla Lalli Music, the Food Director at the time, would later defend her stance in the affair on Twitter.)  Ryan Walker-Hartshorn, a black woman who served as Rapoport’s personal assistant, recalled that she would often spend her day doing menial tasks like polishing her boss’s golf clubs or trying to teach his wife how to use Google Calendar.  In another incident, Knolton called Rick Martinez a “one trick pony” for only developing Mexican recipes, which is what he was being forced to do so BA could tout “diversity” bonus points.  Martinez would also say that the magazine under Rapoport’s tenure “went from old and irrelevant and white-washed content to young and trendy white-washed content." (Martinez would also upload a more graphic description of the treatment he received  to his Instagram that same day.) Later that day, Business Insider would also report that Duckor had left the company.

Vice would liken Rapoport to Michael Scott from The Office, but noted that that kind of bumbling, endearingly insensitive bad boss archetype isn’t as charming in the real world where real employees are being affected.  Parallels were also drawn between the Youtube channel and The Office itself, stating that the “quirky workplace” facade put on in the videos helped hide the more sinister practices that lurked beneath the surface, and that the notion that they were “one big family” often pressured BIPOC into doing more than their fair share for the greater good.

Jezebel showed email transcripts where Rapoport argued the semantics of having his costume be called “brownface” when he wasn’t wearing makeup, and had to be explained to, like a child, that the term refers to the racist caricature and not the literal act of putting brown makeup on one’s face.  What a douche.

Bon Appetit published an official apology on their site, a whole two days after the controversy began.  Many believed that their empty promises of “learning from their mistakes” were a day late and a dollar short.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, former BA writer Alyse Whitney said that senior editor Andy Baraghani had, on several occasions, used his influence to undermine her efforts. Whether this had to do with racism, sexism, or just Andy being petty is up for debate, but still constitutes as unprofessional behavior to say the least.

Thursday, June 11th

As interest in the story seemed to wane for many in the industry, Claire Saffitz, arguably the face of the Youtube channel, released another statement on her Instagram.  She said that her relative silence was due to taking time to find the right words, and that the same-old promises to “learn and grow” that most had been giving felt empty and performative. Unlike many of her white coworkers, she directly apologized for being complicit in the toxic environment  and for not using her status to try to leverage even pay for her BIPOC coworkers.  

Another BA Youtube personality, Amiel Stanek, also released a statement in response to BA’s official press release, where he demanded Conde Nast to stop avoiding action by setting vague timelines for changes or making excuses for not giving BIPOC workers raises like “the money just isn’t there.”

Associate editor Christina Chaey also opened up about her experiences with being pushed into more and more videos to “diversify” them- all without compensation.  

Friday, June 12th

The biggest scandal of the day was that, as Teclemariam predicted, Brad Leone is possibly not a great guy.  A leaked screenshot of an Instagram DM showed him making callous, almost Trump-y comments regarding El-Waylly’s demand for better pay.  He also allegedly said that if Delany were to be fired (as of that day he had been sent on leave), he would quit.

Saturday, June 13th

The New York Times published an article suggesting that the issues prevalent in BA’s management may go all the way to the top of Conde Nast.  Highlights include Chief Executive Roger Lynch chastising the whistleblowers within the company for raising their concerns in such a public manner and an account of an incident where he gave his black assistant a guidebook on how to speak “proper” English.

The Sporkful released a special episode of their podcast containing interviews with several current and former BA BIPOC workers.  Nikita Richardson divulged that after she was laid off, a story she had already done all the leg work for was picked up and credited to Amanda Shapiro, a white staff writer who is now acting Editor-in-Chief in lieu of Rapoport.  Sohla El-Waylly confirmed that the self-congratulatory editorial Rapoport wrote in the wake of George Floyd’s death was the real beginning of the end, and that the racist photo was just the final straw.  She also described a company-wide Zoom meeting held after the photo began to be spread around where Rapoport issued a half-hearted apology, and began talking about how he would “fix the brand” before El-Waylly demanded he resigned.  Furthermore, she revealed that after her Instagram posts began circulating rapidly, Duckor had offered her a new contract with increased pay, but she is refusing to sign it until all BIPOC have received similar compensation.  She also said that she had a hand in the wishy-washy statement that BA had published on Wednesday, and said that it originally had taken much firmer stances on the issues but their PR office made them tone it down.  Also, she commented that Leone, for the most part, just seemed like she “genuinely think[s] [that he] just found out racism is real.”  Ultimately, she was glad that the story was getting as much coverage as it was, since it made her feel that her voice was finally being heard.

Sunday, June 14th

Baraghani released a statement on Instagram apologizing for his behavior, saying that trying to achieve his personal goals in BA’s toxic, competitive environment made him lose sight of solidarity with his fellow BIPOC.  

While that may seem like the end of the story for now, it’s important to note that, even with the resignation of two executives, nothing has truly been done to fix the systemic problems at hand.

[supportivespaceforsurvivors]

An explanation of recent events

Hi all. I am posting a timeline of the recent events that have ended up with me inviting some of the mods I trust from @advicetotraumasurvivors to this blog. It is incomplete; as of this posting (4pm CST, August 23, 2021), nobody has admitted any wrongdoing, but I know a lot of you aren't really sure what happened at all. I apologize in advance for the verb tense shift midway through. I unfortunately don't have the spoons to edit it.

Hayden does not plan to stay with the blog. Olive plans to stay at least for now. I will likely stay. I'm not sure about Henrie or Berry at the moment. Those are the only mods that currently have access to this blog. (Edit from Mod Henrie: I’ll be staying.)

The timeline will be under the cut as it is fairly long. All times are in Central Standard Time.

Around 5:30pm CST last night, April messaged the Discord telling us she was leaving the blog. She left both the Discord and the blog shortly thereafter. We got some anons asking about why she'd left and I directed those towards her @traumasurvivors blog because I didn't feel comfortable trying to speak for her, One of them felt my answers was dismissive. That anon ended up being a mod in the Discord who was triggered by my tone. We received more asks from them, one passive-aggressive and one outright guilt-trippy.

At 7:30pm CST Henrie made an announcement that everyone who participates in the blog is a volunteer. Several mods offered in the Discord to mediate since the mod who was upset didn't feel comfortable addressing the issue with me directly.

Around 9:00pm CST we started getting some positive messages to the blog. I started to think maybe the situation had blown over. I tried to answer one of the positive anons. Tumblr gave me an error code.

We discovered the upset mod had deleted all of our inbox messages.

At 9:30pm CST Berry noticed posts were disappearing from our blog. I had noticed some weren't showing up for me, but because Tumblr is a Hellsite I figured they were there and it was just a glitch. Even the pinned post got deleted.

I panicked and asked what if the Carrd got deleted. Unfortunately, whoever the mod was, saw that and changed the email and password to the Carrd.

At 9:36pm I started adding Henrie, Hayden, Berry, and Olive to this side blog. This ended up taking several hours because we were all disoriented and triggered pretty badly by then.

At 9:45 pm I noticed they deleted my mod tag. We kept trying to encourage them to stop. Henrie reblogged all the asks that were still there to their personal in case they got deleted.

At 9:55pm I left the server and asked Berry to invite me to the new one they said they'd make so the handful of us could discuss the situation while feeling a bit more safe. There's a gap of about 20 minutes in the timeline here but I'm not sure anything super important happened during it.

Olive rescues most of the info from the Carrd by 10:21pm. April offers to transcribe the pinned post that I managed to screenshot on my phone.

Hayden makes a post around this time saying we've moved URLs. The upset mod deletes it.

I ask April if she will write down the URLs of all of our followers on advicetotraumasurvivors and send asks to them one by one to let them know what's going on. An extremely inefficient method, but at this point I'm at a loss. Henrie starts sending the asks to our followers. April finishes transcribing the pinned post at about 10:30.

At this point I have taken my sleep med and am losing reading comprehension rapidly. I say I'm going to bed but end up not sleeping until something like 4am.

At 10:31 Olive discovers that the upset mod has password-protected the blog. Henrie copy pastes the only ask in the inbox. It came in after the others were deleted.

At 11pm Olive announces she has a download/export of the blog in progress to hopefully preserve some of the posts and information on it. I ask April to boost the new URL. Henrie asks Tumblr's customer service system about uploading the file to the new blog.

At 11:10 Berry notices the queue is being messed with. Several mods go back and forth with the saboteur mod changing how often the queue posts. I suggest that we reblog ask games to the new blog so people can get to know us better once this all dies down.

At 11:21 Hayden announces the blog title has been changed to DON'T TALK TO US. A few minutes later Olive says some extremely tasteless tags are being added to queued posts, including the r slur and the n word. We won't go to any more detail about any of the other things that were said because they were extremely triggering, but we are deeply sorry to any followers (and mods) that may have seen those tags.

11: 38pm: Henrie makes posts on both blogs saying it's not us typing these awful things and to block advicetotraumasurvivors.

11:40pm: We decide to delete all the posts on the blog and the whole queue. April starts mass deleting.

11:53pm: I screenshot all the asks in the drafts. We delete all the drafts. The upset mod continues to change the blog title to triggering and inflammatory things.

1am today (Monday): Henrie asks if it's okay to announce to the original server that we moved discords and blogs. I ask if we can avoid adding people to the new discord until we know who the mod is that's upset. We eventually agree to hold off on adding people into the new discord.

2:44am: April gets an anon apologizing for their poor/inflammatory actions on her traumasurvivors blog and posts a response separate from the ask. We wait, hoping that the anon will message April.

3am: We get a similar apology on the new blog. It gets screenshotted and sent the new Discord so everyone can see it. I delete the ask from the inbox with everyone's permission because it feels very guilt trippy to me.

3:23 April gets more anons blaming her for the situation spiraling out of control, presumably from the upset mod.

12:22pm: April has more anons when we all wake up. All of us in the new server agree that we're tired and just want the situation resolved. No one comes forward.

Edit from mod Henrie: This is a timeline of all of the “major events”, but it doesn’t convey how frantic we all were. We were all feverishly working on deleting triggering tags/deleting posts/trying to find out who was doing this/etc. in between each of these times. It was chaotic and messy and incredibly exhausting for everyone involved.

[diningpageantry]

Don’t @ Me

Archive Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18215168/chapters/43092371

Chapter 1/10 of It’s A Handheld Disaster

Word Count: 3118

Fic Summary: Teenage life is hard enough, but with the added weight of their lives, both Simon and Baz thrive online in a fandom for the British crime show, Gastrell, about the genius Huxley and his "flatmate" Sam. Through Tumblr, they find each other, and sink into something more than just being mutuals.

Chapter Summary: A shitpost is taken a little too personally, and an argument breaks out. In true Baz fashion, he seeks to prove himself right in the most ridiculous way possible.

BAZ

Morning routines are the most menial shit in the realm of existence of arbitrary tasks.

Everyone seems to have them, yet nobody really has a set one. For example, my step-mum has a long, seemingly pointless hour of simply facial cleansers, serums, and hair products. When I’d asked her years ago why she does it all, she shook her head and said “You’ll never be an aging woman, Basilton.”

I couldn’t quite argue with that.

Regardless, it’s a part of life. The routines. Wake up, morning routine, morning activity, eat, afternoon activity, usually afternoon snack, evening activity, dinner, night-time activity, sleep.

A boring, underwhelming cycle of the day.

Although, I suppose it’s shittier for me, since the homeschooling doesn��t give me a chance to do much besides sit and read. Of course, I have my car and I can drive off to whatever. Hell, father even suggested I get a job to occupy myself, but I don’t quite see the point given how much money we have (and the risk factors with moving around so frequently).

So, here I am. Finishing my classes in a matter of months, then having an entire year of pointless bullshit.

Needless to say, my entire day’s routine isn’t the most thrilling. Wake up at 10 on a good day, check social media and emails, then just lay here until I can’t wait to piss. Piss. Go to eat breakfast and get greeted by screaming children and my poor step-mum trying to wrangle them in. Go upstairs, go back online, see whatever’s on my dash, reblog some shit, then try to do something vaguely productive. Check Archive, check email again. Nothing’s on the emails, ever. Text Dev and Niall, who get awfully pissed since they are in school. Get more food. Eat. Bring tea upstairs, despite the disdained look from our maid (who hates collecting my piles of mugs). Write for a couple hours. Take an afternoon nap, if I please. Wake up and sit there (again). Maybe lonely wank. Go back to the bathroom, stare at myself in the mirror for a good few minutes. Sit on the toilet for half an hour for no reason besides the fact that my phone seems more interesting while sitting there as compared to sitting in bed. Sit then on the bathroom floor doing the same thing. Go back to my bed, listen to music on my phone and work on my laptop. Write, maybe scroll. Get dinner brought to me as they tut that I should be more active. Eat. Go downstairs for an evening workout (they’re right, I shouldn’t confine myself to my bed). Come back, do exactly what I do for half the day until I pass out somewhere around 3 am. Repeat.

Dream life for an 17 year old. Social life of a god.

Somewhat.

It’s shit to say (and sort of embarrassing to share) that there’s sort of a social media presence around me. Not quite the Instagram model bullshit, but based around fan life.

Yes, it’s a laughing stock. That’s where my popularity lies--a mixed grab-bag of various ages gathering around various platforms to enthuse about certain topics. And I’m somehow lucky enough to have the slightest bit of popularity here.

As in, a large following. A large, somehow active following.

It isn’t exactly thrilling as one would like to think. Sure, it’s fun to see a scattered group of regulars pop up, and I have my mutuals, but it’s a sad existence to sit around and make various shitposts with nothing better to occupy my mind. Or, at least, that’s what Dev and Niall tell me.

All in all, I blame Fiona. She’s the one who got me into the show, saying she thought the character was a bit like me. After I saw it, I found the three connections she’d grasped at.

Gay, dark-haired, and violinist.

As if that’s a rarity.

Yet, surely enough, I did love it. The cinematography, the characters, the storyline. It was intriguing--captivating.

It doesn’t hurt that the online community was still on the smaller side when I first got there. The show was only a season in when I made my blog, and I’ve stuck through all this bullshit to get me here. One of the regulars. Reposted everywhere, uncredited usually. Big fics, large interactions. Shitposts with thousands upon thousands of notes. I’m recognizable; a suggested name.

Don’t get me wrong, the attention is spectacular. I love interacting with people beyond this depressing household, and they’re usually fairly nice (usually) (except those ravenous for an argument). It’s just awkward to share at times when people ask why your mobile’s got 99+ symbols next to the apps and you just shrug and say “I’m shit at checking it” to avoid the conversation because most people see it as childish.

It’s a shame, really. Especially since I feel emotionally attached to these goddamn fictional fuckers.

I suppose that’s what makes it all the more personal, then. Even the shitposts mean something to me.

Which is what makes this is a long, winded way of saying fuck whoever’s arguing with me about whether or not Huxley is a fucking Ravenclaw. (He is. Hands down.) How’d I get here, staring at my mobile in disbelief at a brief back and forth post turned fight? Because it feels like a reasonable question to wonder.

I got here because, as almost all mornings, I woke up, opened my phone, read my notifs, then sat here, thinking of something. Anything. Then, in a tired haze, typed out a single text post on tumblr.

huxley gastrell is a ravenclaw send tweet

Following so, I went about my typical morning. Of course. Then--then--I check my phone as I’m going downstairs and I see it. I see the “@bi-sammy mentioned you in a post!” notif, then read the God-forsaken reblog.

@gaystrell op do you take criticism on your posts?

I frowned at my phone, typing out a quick response before tucking it back into my pocket.

@bi-sammy no.

What I hadn’t anticipated, though, was the reply I’d open up to soon after I’d started poking at my morning meal.

@gaystrell well too bad bc ur WRONG and ur opinions are UGLY

#he’s clearly a slytherin this is slytherin oppression #don’t tell me he and bryonie aren’t from a slytherin family

Now I sit, staring and completely awestruck at such a post. Now, I won’t deny Bryonie Gastrell is definitely, in all possible ways, a Slytherin. Cunning and ambitious as fuck, as any political spy may be, but fuck anyone who tries to dismiss Huxley’s clear Ravenclaw leanings.

It takes me a moment to fully process, mouth robotically chewing my eggs as I contemplate my answer.

@bi-sammy there is absolutely no proof of huxley being a slytherin and more than enough support towards him being a ravenclaw. get your clueless negativity off my blog, you utter tit.

With that, I settle my phone face down onto my table and try to enjoy my lovely plate of scrambled eggs, barely ignoring the boiling of my blood.

SIMON

My phone lights up with the new notification, dragging my attention away from my laptop as the words slide down onto the screen. “@gaystrell mentioned you in a post!” I hate to admit that I get a little pattering in my heart, urging my hand out to grasp the mobile as I pause the Youtube video currently playing. As I read his words, I slowly blink out of my excitement.

Tit. He called me a bloody tit.

Of course this fucking wanker called me a tit.

He must think that since he’s this big bad blogger, he can call me a tit right out in the open. (Although, he is talking to me, so that’s a plus) (No! No no no, bad validation, Simon. Bad). What, with his thousands of followers and fans of his own, he thinks he can try to say shit out in the open?

Fuck it. He’s either getting a DM or a bloody fist fight from me. I’ll take a train to wherever the fuck he lives (which is somewhere in England, since that’s what his bio says) (and his aunt lives in London, since he’s posted about visiting her) (I really do wonder where he’s from and how close he might be--what if I run into him one day?) (No wait fuck I don’t want that anymore).

Clicking on his blog, the little person drop down gives me the option of a message. I barely think as I type it out, vision going spotty from the adrenaline of the twinging anger.

bi-sammy: i swear to god there was no point to the battle of hogwarts if you’re just going to go around and absolutely slander the slytherin name and dare say that huxley is not one of them and, rather, is a ravenclaw

At first, I grin at it, watching my lone message appear into the empty chat. It’s so freeing--so powerful to send it. I pride myself, in the moment, for this solid move of communication. Of course I’m fucking proud. I messaged the arse myself and gave him a space to fight.

Maybe Penny’s right, I should dial down the confrontation, but it’s just the internet. Nothing important happens through a stupid little argument over Huxley’s true Hogwarts house (although, I’m sure I know I’m right in my heart), but it is a bit of fun to fuck around with someone. It’s a distraction. And that’s why I’m here, afterall. To have a distraction.

Penny thinks it’s a bit silly, but she doesn’t really complain. All she’s ever said was  “I thought we left fandom stuff behind us when we were 14.” She said it over lunch, watching me scroll through my at-the-time new tumblr.

It’s funny, I thought I did leave it behind when I was younger. It seemed unneeded as life shifted. I’d just found a stable foster home, with someone who was going to keep me for a while. I found Penny a couple months before I deactivated my old account. I was happy; we were free. I didn’t need a venting place.

Shits been sort of hitting the fan recently, though. No uni plans, David’s been getting more controlling, and of course, Agatha dumping me. It all crashed on top of me a few months ago, and somehow, the only place that I could find healthy coping was online. So, I started fresh. Made a blog and settled in. It’s not big, but I’ve had a few posts get noticed. I have a good few hundred followers, and one nice anon who asks me how I am every few weeks. It’s not a lot, but it’s comforting.

I feel at home here, even with a little discourse.

Well, only when the discourse is answered. Which, in this situation, I don’t know if it will be, given it’s been over an hour now and Baz hasn’t answered.

If that’s even his name.

It’s what his bio says, at least.

baz. 17. cisguy (he/him). gay. don’t interact if you think huxley is remotely straight.

I’ve wondered for a while what Baz stands for. He refuses to answer it in asks; he always says it’s too personal. He’s sort of odd like that--never posts pictures of anything that could be linked back. Seems sort of creepy, but then again, a lot of people follow him. It’s reasonable to want space.

Maybe that’s why he’s not answering. He probably wants space of some sort, but it’d be at least decent to answer someone who tried to have a discussion (that’s at least what I’m calling that message I sent--a discussion starter).

I frown at my phone, keeping it on silent as I slide it into my front pocket and settle into my seat in maths. I’ll say it--I sulk in class, a little bitter that I don’t have his attention (despite the fact that he seems like he’s always active online, which seems odd). Eventually, I exhale and try to let it slip away. There went my one interaction with him. My few seconds of the weirdest fucking bliss online, gone.

Then, it happens. As the class is ending, I pull out my screen just enough to see and there it is. A clear notification telling me he’d answered. Oddly enough, it’s just him sending me a link to a Google Doc.

Weird.

I ignore it for the moment being, letting myself ride the wave of relaxation that I actually got a reply. It passes my mind until I’m sitting in the back of Agatha’s car, listening to Penny and Aggie in the front talking about whatever’s on their mind. The rides are sort of awkward as of recently. At least Agatha agreed to drive me home (it’s a good 45 minute walk, if not) after some convincing from Penny, but her and I don’t really chat. It’s just the two of them.

Given that time, I have a chance to pull out my mobile and thumb through what was sent.

gaystrell: https://docs.google.com/document/d/175qFASmqD7hey8lE0eoE-6VhhFYE9DP6bpnI32Aay98/edit?usp=sharing

I click on it, not expecting that much (or, really, not expecting anything at all). Yet, the second it pops up and loads, my jaw drops.

“Jesus fuck,” I say aloud, scrolling through it. Penny turns her head, frowning as I stay locked on my screen.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“No--no nothing,” I say, waving a hand. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s got to be something for that reaction,” she says, keeping turned in her seat as she eyes me up. “Just tell us, Si.”

“I mean it when I say it’s nothing.” My voice gets quieter as I shift, reading the title. “It’s just fandom stuff. It’s really nothing.”

I hear her disgruntled huff as she turns back, mumbling something about me reacting too dramatically to this. “It isn’t even real.” It’s said under her breath, yet it still rings clear in my ears.

It isn’t really fake, either.

Hell, this is six pages of real. “Why Huxley Gastrell is, Without a Doubt, a Ravenclaw”. Shared by Basilton Pitch (is that his actual name?!). Fucking hell, it’s detailed to no ends. You’d think, with this much writing, there’d be pages of pointless filler where he’d just type “im gay hi huxley is also a gay we’re all gay here aren’t we”, but no. It’s full, grammatically correct sentences detailing his points.

It’s a bit much to read in the car, so I settle my mobile face down onto the seat as I’m left reeling. That… was a bit more than I’d expected.

Shit, did he write that for me?

This isn’t real. This can’t be real.

BAZ

Whoever says that having a flair for the dramatics is pointless has clearly never met me, because I wouldn’t quite call this masterpiece of an essay “pointless”. In fact, I should send it to academics. Rename it “A Study In Multi-Dimensional Characters and their Associated Generalized Personality Traits”. I’ll be hailed as a genius, as I deserve to be.

I crack my knuckles, and see the little person pop up.

Surely enough, it’s @bi-sammy’s name that he has listed online, Simon. It’s curious, he has his last name listed as “Snow”. Although, the smallest part of me believes it’s a pseudonym. Given our interactions, I doubt he’s clever enough to think of a solid pseudonym. And, even at that, why pick Snow?

Either way, it’s surprisingly endearing. Simon Snow. Sounds sweet. Sounds innocent.

I watch his cursor turn on, then his icon goes grey after a few moments. My heart starts to trip, making my cheeks begin to flush. Is… he ignoring this?

No. He can’t be. I put in hard work and dedication into this work, and I deserve the respect I’d sent into it. Fucking hell, three fully developed points (his devotion to intellectual work, his effort to step out of public light for Sam’s sake, and his overall lack of ambition for moving forward). I clearly set it out, and ended it properly; I’d proven that Huxley is a Ravenclaw. Case and point, opinion made, the end.

And, here I sit, watching him have the audacity to open it up then close it back. That was my hard work put in there, and he closes it? Who in the name of all that is sacred thinks he’s that above other people to the point where he just ignores--

Oh. He’s back on. Nevermind.

He’s… probably a school student. It’s roughly the time that most classes end, I suppose.

I make a mental apology to him, despite having never ranted directly to him in the first place.

He stays active for a good bit; long enough to show he’s reading. I assume that he’d just close off and message me, but after minutes, I notice a little highlighted comment pop up on the last sentence.

Simon Snow i………. owe you every single possible apology

Each word makes me grin like I haven’t in a while. A wide, cheek-creasing grin. There’s something so sweet to that--so personal. It feels like a note passed to me in a classroom under the tables. Like a cute “Blink if you like me”, although I doubt he has quite an intention.

Nevertheless, it warms my chest, sending my head back as I smile. I’m not sure whether or not it’s the satisfaction of winning, or his words, but I laugh outwardly into the room. It stays with me, reverberating onto my skin and my throat.

I look back at the comment, then leave it untouched. If he won’t remove it, then I won’t either.

With a glance at our personal messages tab, I figure that’s that. Even field, no more argument. No more interaction. It’s a bit of a shame, given the effort I’d just extorted for his sake, that he hasn’t answered in our chat.

While I’m disappointed to close off the document, I smile at it one last time. Sometimes I have to move on from random people, especially when they come on a bit strong.

Except, I find, moments later that I’m wrong about one thing--the moving on. He didn’t just stop his interaction, but instead made a public post.

“@bi-sammy mentioned you in a post!”

This time, I really laugh. A full bellied, hand-covering-mouth laugh.

i guess i have to suck @gayhuxell’s cock now because i was wrong and the bloody arse was right. huxley is a ravenclaw.

#fuck me i guess

I take a minute, rereading over his words a few times before typing a simple answer with my reblog.

i’m available anytime behind a mcdonald’s parking lot

[jayankles]

Death Brings Truth (AU)

Pairing: Teacher!Dean x Student!Reader

Word Count: 2254

Warnings: character death, lies, language.

Summary: Dean is a professor at the local school in Lebanon, Kansas. Everything is going smoothly until one of students displays a whole side of herself that he has never seen before. Is she willing to divulge the information to her teacher? Can she cope with the responsibility that has been dumped on her?

Written for @spnangstbingo and @evansrogerskitten ‘s Ash’s Hottest Dean Challenge

Square Filled: Free Space

A/N – I picked Scruffy!Dean and I couldn’t have been more happy about the prompts that were given to me. I have been planning this fic for a while but never got around to it and it’s not like the Student/Teacher pairing that you are used to. Prompt: “Well, that’s fantastic. Would you like a stuffed bear?” and the gif below the cut

A/N 2 – Also I am so sorry this is late I don’t know what went wrong, this was supposed to post yesterday but tumblr is an ass and didn’t post it, sorry Ash!

Professor Winchester was sat at his desk behind his laptop, pen in hand going through his schedule and what he was going to teach today. It was the usual for the two of you. You would walk in with twenty minutes to spare so you could get ahead in the class, write a few notes and if the professor was in the mood to talk then you would ask him whether he had a good weekend or not.

The class filed in a few minutes before the bell and they had all settled into their seats and the professor began to teach about the lore of mythical creatures. Sometimes he spoke with such passion about it that you actually believed that the creatures he spoke about could be real.

Notes were taken but your eyes hovered from Professor Winchester to the board he was pointing at behind him. His arms waved around frantically, they always did that when he spoke to the class in front of him and the animated smile on his face told everyone that he was happy to be here, that he worked his ass off to make sure that every single one of his students were involved in the session and were up to date with the course.

Professor Winchester had finished the class, earlier than usual, telling everyone that they had an assignment to do. It would be a project with all the details emailed to each individual, also given the opportunity to work in a group or by themselves. He made it abundantly clear that they were due in a month and that it was essential to complete this project to pass this year.

You nodded as you wrote everything he said, highlighting and drawing an asterisk next to the ideas that you were thinking of writing up for the project.

The rest of the class had left, a few of the girls giggling as they got into a group and admired your professor. You understood the fascination, Professor Winchester was attractive of course, his eyes were the most gorgeous shade of green, his short sandy brown hair was always perfectly spiked up, he had let his stubble grow into a coarse beard and his arms had bulked out his dress shirt. He was a fine looking man, you couldn’t deny that, but none of it mattered, you had to think about your work and nothing else.

Writing up the final due date, you put in your bookmark and shut your notepad. Shoving your equipment in your rucksack, you zipped it up and flung it over your shoulder. Professor Winchester neatening up his papers before he slotted them into his briefcase.

‘See you next week, Miss Y/L/N. 20 minutes before class?’ Winchester asked with a teasing smirk on his face.

‘Sure thing, Professor Winchester.’ You nodded in return, adjusting the straps on your bag.

He scoffed, loosening his tie and pulling on his suit jacket and coat. He was done for the day. ‘Please, Miss Y/L/N, call me Dean. The rest of the class do, makes me feel like my father too.’

‘I’ll only call you Dean, if you call me Y/N.’ You held out your hand for him to shake. He nodded his head and recited your name back to you whilst you did the same.

Three weeks later

Dean had noticed that something was wrong as soon as the class as started. You hadn’t walked in twenty minutes earlier like you usually did, there was no email to say that you were elsewhere or couldn’t make today’s session, he was starting to worry to say the least. The front row was empty – the place where you had frequently occupied to see a little better – not a single thing clued him in as to where you were.

Forty five minutes into the class, the door had bashed against the wall and interrupted Dean when he was talking.

This was someone he had never seen before but was all too familiar to him.

It was you!

Dean’s arms were crossed over his chest as he waited for an explanation but you wasn’t concentrating on him, your eyes were on your phone, you didn’t even have your rucksack and your usual attire was completely out of the question. Anything Dean had previously knew about you was no more, it was as if someone had created a clone of you but switched on the evil twin lever. It was a complete 180 from what he was used to.

The tapping of his foot became evident and he flicked his wrist so he could check the time. ‘Miss Y/L/N!’

You finished off your text and popped a bubble with the gun you chewed on. ‘Aw, Dean. What happened to “Y/N”?

‘You are late by forty five minutes, do you have anything you have to say for yourself.’

‘I do in fact, Dean. I say well, that’s fantastic. Would you like a stuffed bear? It’s, honestly, a wonder that you can tell the time.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Would you like me to say it slower so that you can comprehend what I’m saying?’

‘I understand perfectly! Take a seat and we will discuss this matter after class.’ Rolling your eyes you waltzed to the back and kept your eyes on the phone, seeking a seat far away from everyone else in the class that was stunned that you spoke out of line to one of the best teachers in the whole school.

‘Assignments are due next week people!’ Dean had said when he finished up the class. ‘Class dismissed.’

You were already up and out of your seat, no hanging around today.

‘Miss Y/L/N, where do you think you’re going? We have to discuss your behaviour.’

‘You dismissed the class so I'm leaving. Buh bye.’

Dean was getting even more frustrated by the minute, he has never been so disrespected in his entire career. ‘No Y/N, you will stop and you will listen to me.’ He was seeing too much red to see you flinch. ‘I don't know what is going on but you need to snap out of it.’

You furiously wiped at the tears that hadn't fallen yet. ‘You're right, Dean. You don't know what's going on. So back the fuck off, and stay out of my business because you don't know shit.’ Your phone pinged again and you glanced at it. ‘I'm sorry, Professor Winchester, I have to go.’

Dean had completed his day but his mood was dampened, he tried to not let it get to him but it had affected him. He had to figure out what was wrong and see if he could fix the problem. He slid into his car and the rumble of his car had started to settle in his churning stomach.

The tunes in the impala played lowly, but Dean was in a world of his own so the ride back to the apartment he shared with his brother. Thankfully, though, the apartment was empty and Sam hadn’t come home.

Dean placed his briefcase on the table before he shucked off his coat and suit jacket, rolling his sleeves up again. After he had huffed and pinched the bridge of his nose, Dean tugged open the fridge, pulled out a beer and twisted off the cap.

While he sipped at his beer, he took out his laptop and sat on his bed, his legs stretched out with his ankles crossed over each other.

Dean hadn't even noticed the door had opened until Sam had tossed his keys into the bowl next to the door.

‘How long have you been on that thing?’ Sam asked as he closed the door behind him, going straight to the kitchen to reheat his leftovers from the night before. When Sam didn't hear a response, he walked over an shut the lid of the laptop, only then gaining Dean’s full attention.

‘What is wrong with you, Dean?’

‘One of the kids today. She’s - something’s just not right. She’s talking back and she was late, she’s one of those kids that is never late, always early.’

‘Was is Y/N Y/L/N by any chance?’ Sam inquired, loosening his own tie and retreated back to the microwave to retrieve his dinner.

The older Winchester’s eyebrows had furrowed, how could Sam had possibly known. ‘What the hell?!’

‘What?’

‘How the heck did you know that it was Y/N?’

Sam had spooned some of the leftover Chinese from last night, quickly chewing on it and gulping it down before he responded to Dean. ‘Because she didn’t show up this morning and when I tried to talk to her after your class she just brushed me off as if she didn’t hear me but I could tell she’d been crying when she was on the phone.’

‘There is something going on with her and we’ve gotta fix it.’

Dean had emailed you for an appointment saying that your attendance and punctuation was imperative. You had rolled your eyes after reading it, of course he would make you come in the next day to have a discussion. You were tempted to email back and say you were sick but you knew he wouldn't buy into it.

You would have to finish your jobs as quickly as you could so you could make it to the appointment. It would have to be in and out. There was no time to waste.

Driving as quickly as you could, you found a parking space with difficulty but it was there in the end.

Checking your watch, you saw that you were early, thankfully. You couldn't lose any more time.

Venturing through the hallways, you scurried into the classroom through the open door, seeing the professor with his arms crossed over as he leaned against the desk. As soon as you saw the stern look on his face, you put on the other persona, your face immediately changed from strong to weak as the door slammed behind you. You whimpered, your whole body wincing and ducking.

It wasn’t until you felt a hand on your shoulder - one that wasn’t Dean’s (you knew for sure that it wasn’t - when you felt the hand you had choked out, ‘please don’t kill me. Please.’

Sam had instantly retracted his hand from your shoulder and took a few steps back stunned that you could accuse him of being a murderer.

Dean had dropped the tough guy act, much like you did, he came rushing over but at the same time he was cautious of his motions.

He had calmly spoke first, gaining your attention and your trust. ‘I’m sorry we scared you. It’s only Sam. He’s not here to kill you, okay? We’re here to help you, to see what’s goin’ on with you.’

‘Please don't make me relive it. I ca- I can't do it.’ You were beginning to become breathless, one of your hands had come to rest on your chest and the other hand hadn't decided between your own chest and Dean's arm. Dean had decided for you though, grabbing the hesitating hand and wrapping your shaking fingers around his wrist so you could feel the thrumming of his pulse against your fingertips.

After an hour of Sam and Dean trying their best to calm you. You had no more tears to weep. All the evidence of your pain had run down your cheeks to create the wet tracks that you could no longer hide. You could no longer hide your secret, not from the professors that you could trust, not from the people that had shown their true colours of caring. The Winchester Professors were there to help you, you had to tell them.

Sam had guided you to a seat, so that the three of you were no longer on the floor where you had collapsed.

They had be patient and given you your space but it was time to open up to them about what had been troubling you.

‘When I was a kid, my father was a police officer that was shot in a line of duty. It was just me, my mom and my baby brother. We thought it was over, we thought we were safe but my mom got a call a few days ago.’ You wiped away at another tear that had fallen, gulping before you proceeded. ‘She was told that the people who killed my dad had escaped prison and were after her. She didn’t tell us that my dad was a crooked cop and had killed three people that didn’t deserve to die. The guy that had broke into our home was family to the people that my dad had killed. Right before he shot my mom he told me and my brother that she was in on it, that my mom was the one that organised the shooting. He said that he would let me and my brother live because we didn’t do anything but sometimes I wish he did. I’m scared that he’ll come back and take my brother away from me and I can’t lose him. He’s all I’ve got.’

Sam and Dean sat with their mouths hung open and their hearts in their throats after it climbed its way up. They had to do something, and whatever it was, it felt as if they were raised into the live of helping others and that was exactly what they were going to do with you and your younger brother.

@thorne93 @becaamm @you-know-whodoesthat-crazypeople @jotink78 @love-kittykat21 @jensen-jarpad @hymnofthevalkyrie @capsheadquaters @kurosaki224-new-blog @supernatural-jackles @cyrilconnelly @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @iwantthedean @goody2shoessmut @ruprecht0420 @mrswhozeewhatsis @feelmyroarrrr @redlipstickandplaid @mogaruke @anotherhuntersjournal @sometimes-iwrite-blog  @pureawesomeness001 @mizzezm @jpadjackles @jesspfly @urpeachess @skybinx-blog @aubzylynn @deansbaekaz2y5 @plaidstiel-wormstache @lilasiannerd @thewayward-winchesters-blog @valerieshubin @be-amaziing @winsmut @akshi8278 @purplediamon @graceforme86 @its-my-perky-nipples  @dalikah3 @nervousmemzie @angel-blazing  @mrsbatesmotel53 @lavieenlex @percussiongirl2017 @oneshoeshort @whit85-blog @muliermalefici @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @moonlover19 @emoryhemsworth @reallyverynodansi @milo-winchester-4ever @captainradicalpassion @captainemwinchester @ilsawasanacrobat @alicat-life @cojootromuelle @essie1876 @dancingalone21 @dslocum89 @atc74 @superwhomerlockinuum @spnbaby-67 @anitalasirenita @queencflair @weasleywinchester @ria132love @spn-fan-girl-173 @nightlyinsomnious @easelweasel @grace-for-sale @roxyspearing @cassieraider @winchesterdemon67 @jadalecki-jackles

[imaginemedreamingstuff]

This is my boyfriend Dan, by the way 2

A/N: some people really wanted me to post a part two, so I did. This is a tiny bit shorter than usual but i hope you still like it. 

Word Count: 1.1K

POV: Reader

MASTERLIST // PART ONE

“You two are perfect for each other.”

Dan and I’s gazes met as we both blushed.

“We are.” Dan whispered into my ear, making my heart skip a beat.

I felt an extreme rush of emotions inside of me. Suddenly the room seemed brighter and this day seemed perfect to me. Dan and I, us together, it all made sense.

“I have never met two people like you.” Kimberly, the organizer of this high school reunion, added. “You fit together like two puzzle pieces.”

She could be the leader of the Dan and Y/N shippers on tumblr, but she wasn’t wrong.

I don’t know why Dan and I never saw what was directly in front of our noses.

For the rest of the night I could barely keep my eyes off Dan and he could barely keep his hands off me.  There was a hand resting on my thigh or an arm slung around my waist the entire time.

My skin buzzed under his touch throughout the whole evening.

“It was so nice to see you again!” Stacy, the former cheerleader and Queen B, exclaimed as she hugged me goodbye on our way out.

I quickly hugged her back, she was one of the main people who used to tease me about not getting any guys in high school, but I wasn’t the type of person who holds a grudge against people forever.  

„It was lovely getting to know you, Daniel.“ Stacy chirped and hugged Dan, who was standing right next to me, as well. As soon as she let go off him she also pecked his cheek as a goodbye. Although she acted like it was a friendly and normal gesture it totally wasn’t.

‘Hands off my boyfriend!’ the voice inside of my head yelled but then the word boyfriend suddenly rang a bell or rather an alarm clock. Dan wasn’t my boyfriend.

Yet.

“Bye everyone” We waved one last time as Dan took my hand in his and walked me over to his car.

I opened the door to the passenger side while Dan sat down behind the steering wheel.

As soon as he started the engine the radio turned itself on. We were alone again for the first time since we realised that we had feelings for each other. There was a kind of tension in the air that I had never experienced before. Was I now nervous around my best friend?

“This was actually quite fun.” I admitted, laughing shyly.

“Yeah” he said and sounded totally uninterested.

I felt my stomach drop. The voice inside of my head started to panic like crazy.

I turned my head to look at him but his eyes were glued to the road as if he were avoiding me.

For the rest of the ride I was too scared to say anything. The only sound in the car was made by  the radio that played song after song. First we had to listened to an upbeat party song then a song about heartbreak started playing followed by emotional ballade about old times.

No matter how emotional they all were, nothing compared to the way I felt deep inside, sitting next to Dan in silence with 1000 thoughts on my mind.

He didn’t say anything either, he just drove us home while trying not to look at me once. When we parked in front of our flat all he had said was ‘yeah’ and somehow that was enough for me to know how he felt about this, about us. At least that was what I thought.

The most absurd thing about this situation was that we had been sharing a flat for over a year now. Somehow the ‘platonic friends’ thing always worked but after tonight I wanted more.

We walked up the stairs next to each other in silence. Dan was biting on his bottom lip the entire time. As I unlocked our front door and we got out of our shoes everything felt so weird. Our flat wasn’t cosy and homey anymore, everything just felt cold.

It was around 3am and we were both tired. Deep down I knew that I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight though.

“Night” I quietly said as we both started walking towards our separate rooms.  

“Night” He croaked shortly before he closed the door behind him.

I was all alone now. I fell down onto my bed and let out a deep sigh.

‘What the heck happened today?!’ I asked myself as I smashed my head against my pillow. The fake and perfect boyfriend thing, turning into more than friends, being all touchy feely and then this drive home and Dan’s dismissive response.

It was a disaster, I knew that I should have never went to that goddamn high school reunion. I was totally miserable now. I lied awake in bed and just stared at the blank white ceiling

Why didn’t I just delete the email as soon as I got it?

“Y/N?” there was a knock on the door. “Are you still awake?”

My heart started beating faster again.

“Come in.”

Dan was wearing his pyjamas again, his brown curly hair was messy but I could tell that he hadn’t closed his eyes for even a minute.

I sat up straight in bed and waited for him to say something. It took a little while until he had built up all the courage to finally open his mouth.

“I’m sorry” he apologized as he intensively looked into the eyes again.

“Dan, it’s okay if you don’t feel that way. I get it.” I whispered and tried to hide the hurt in my voice.

He scratched the back of his neck before he continued.

“Y/N, that’s not what I meant. I’m sorry for what I said or didn’t say during our ride back, I was suddenly so nervous around you and didn’t know what to do. I was just scared of ruining this.” He pointed at me and then at him.

I unbelievingly eyed him. Today was a rollercoaster of emotions with a lot of ups and downs and we were currently racing towards our happy ending.

“So there is an ‘us’? I asked him full of hope.

“If you want to?” Dan wanted to know and all of a sudden he was completely shy and nervous again.

“An ‘us’ is all I want.” I admitted and as soon as those words left my lips we were both smiling like complete fools.

“Soo… do you want to come sleep in my bed tonight?”  

[blustersquall]

Only Make Believe // Chapter 12: The Weight of Words

Please be advised that tumblr no longer allows posts with links to outgoing sites to appear in tags. So, to try and get around this, you can read this fic on AO3 by clicking on the source link at the bottom of the post. Alternatively, you can find the master post on my blog, with links to all chapters on tumblr, AO3, and ffnet. [Though, ffnet is having some technical difficulties right now, and won’t let me upload the chapter, so it might be a day or so before it’s up on ffnet]

December 21st

--

Cullen reclined on to couch, mug of coffee in hand. His laptop was open in front of him on the coffee table, the light of the webcam shining a steady green. Though there was no one on the opposite camera visible, Cullen could hear two lowered voices off screen.

"It's your publisher," one said, female with a distinctive accent.

"Tell her I'm not here," the second voice, male and impatient. "Better yet, tell her I died."

"Varric!" the female voice growled. "You can't avoid her forever."

"Yes, I can," Varric retorted. Cullen smirked to himself hearing the exchange. "Just... tell her I'll call her back. Please, Cassandra?"

Cassandra sighed heavily off screen. "Fine," she snapped. "But next time, I'm just going to hand you the phone and not tell you who it is."

"Sounds great." Varric was sometimes frustratingly cheerful and glib. Given how short Cassandra's temper could be, Cullen wondered just how their relationship worked so well and how the two of them didn't drive each other crazy. As it was, they'd been together almost eighteen months and showed no signs of boring each other or of any cracks in their relationship. Cullen was glad of it. They worked well, and they cared about each other. Though they would both declare the contrary if confronted with it.

Varric's face appeared on screen and he sat back in his seat. "Sorry about that Curly."

"Avoiding your responsibilities again, Varric?" Cullen smirked.

"For as long as I can," Varric replied with a wry smile.

He was older than Cullen  but by how much Cullen wasn't certain, he had never asked - but age had not dulled the sharpness of Varric's mind or tongue. A was a writer by trade, on the best sellers list, and one of the few friends Cullen was still in contact with from Kirkwall, while he was stationed there Varric was almost always around during the week. He had been on friendly terms with a large number of Cullen's squad and for the first few years, Cullen's reception to Varric was icy, cool at best. Somehow, through events that involved drinking and Cullen had tried to blank from his memory, Varric became Cullen's closest friend for a long time.

It was through Varric he met Cassandra. The two of them were instrumental in the relief effort for Kirkwall following the explosion, and they both helped Cullen get back on his feet after his discharge and the events that followed. He was indebted to them. He considered them as close as his own family, despite the distance.

"You really need to get an assistant," remarked Cullen. "Or at least pay Cassandra to avoid your publisher for you."

"I pay her with love and sneak previews," Varric said, his grin increasing. "What more does she want?"

Rolling his eyes, Cullen laughed into his mug. He took a swallow of coffee, placed the mug on the table and leaned forward. "You're terrible."

"I know, I know," sighed Varric. "A burden I must bear." He looked momentarily remorseful, before a wicked smile lit up his face. "Anyway, enough about me. Tell me about this girl."

"There's nothing to tell," Cullen shrugged. "She's a client. A friend."

"Oh, come on Curly." Varric shook his head. "You're calling in a favour to get her a copy of her favourite book. She's got to be more than a client or a friend."

"Why?"

"Huh?"

"Why does she need to be more than a client or a friend? Can't I just do something nice for someone who I think deserves it?" asked Cullen, his voice becoming a little sharper and his defences rising. He was only just beginning to figure out how to put some distance between himself and Nevena so his tumultuous feelings towards her could calm down. He did not need Varric riling him or those feelings up by baiting him.

"I'm not judging, Curly," Varric lifted his hands in defence. "Sorry if I touched a nerve."

Cullen breathed through his nose, trying to relax. "It's fine."

"Is she there?"

"If she was, do you think we'd be having the conversation?"

"I guess not." Varric nodded. "Well, the book is on its way to you as we speak. I sent it off today, airmail. Should be delivered right to the cabin door tomorrow afternoon, sometime."

"Thank you, Varric," Cullen half smiled. "She'll really love it. I owe you."

Varric waved a dismissive hand. "Nah, we're square." He paused for a moment. Cullen watched him purse his lips and fiddle with a gold earring hanging off his right ear. "Not going to tell me anything about her, huh? This girl whose favourite book is the first one I wrote?"

"Why so curious?"

"Not a lot of my readers even remember 'The Viper's Nest'. It's kind of nostalgic to know someone out there still likes it," explained Varric with a slow, lingering smile. "She like the other ones?"

"Actually... I don't think so." Cullen frowned, thinking back to that early morning conversation where he found her reading at the kitchen table. "She didn't say she disliked them, I just think she liked 'The Viper's Nest' more."

"Oh," Varric's brow furrowed. "Did she say why?"

Cullen shrugged, "No."

"Maybe I should ask her."

"I haven't told her I know you. I didn't want her to get over excited, or something like that. I know how much you value your privacy."

"Oh please," scoffed Varric. "I'm an open book - no pun intended. And it would be nice to hear the opinion of a genuine fan of my early work."

"You hate being critiqued."

"I hate being critiqued by critics," Varric said. "If an actual fan were to give me their feedback in a decent way, not in one-hundred-and-forty-characters of abuse on twitter, then I'd be more than happy to listen." He snorted. "I might even take on some of what she says."

Cullen laughed, "Maybe when the oceans freeze over."

Varric moved on screen, turning his attention to another monitor Cullen knew he used to keep up pages of notes and research when he was writing. There was the sound of fingers on the keyboard and few mouse clicks.

"What's her name again?"

Lifting a brow, Cullen leaned back. "Why?"

"I want to check I spelled it right inside the book." Varric shot him a look. "Why do you think?"

"Sure, Varric." Cullen gave an exasperated bark of laughter but spelled out Nevena's name for him regardless. Varric went quiet for a minute or two. In that time, Cullen checked his emails and started to type a reply to his sister, who was berating him about not being available to come to her house for Christmas. The past few years, he had spent the day with his siblings and their families. Since their parents died, the four of them were closer than they ever were as children. Cullen felt a pang of guilt for the fact he would not be there. He had already apologized, but another would not go amiss, and he promised Mia he would come stay for a weekend in January to make it up to her.

"She's cute," Varric remarked. His comment caused Cullen to look up from his email. "Pretty."

Cullen squinted at the webcam and therefore, Varric, "You've googled her, haven't you? Are you stalking her on Facebook or something?"

"No, nothing like that." Again, Varric waved a dismissive hand. "Just wanted to know what she looked like. I didn't realise she was one of those Trevelyan's."

"Neither did I," Cullen groaned. He ran a hand across his face, rolling his thumb and forefinger along his brow. "I'd never heard of them until she told me."

"They're not exactly celebrities," Varric explained. A few clicks of a mouse and his attention returned fully to Cullen. "I met Nevan and Katrin at a charity event about a year ago. Weird people. Very, uh..." Cullen waited; it was rare for Varric to be at a loss for words. "Very intense."

"That's one way to put it," Cullen laughed heartily and ran his hands back through his hair. "Honestly, Varric these people... Her family are..." He leaned his head back, shaking it while staring at the ceiling. "It's astounding that she's related to them. She's nothing like them. And given some of things she endured... I'm amazed she's as kind as she is."

"Oh?"

"Right now, she's out in Edgehall with her older sister," Cullen sat up. "An older sister who has tormented her for years and who, in no uncertain terms, despises her. And she's with her because she wants to do right by her niece who, according to Nevena, 'is feeling unloved'."

"Sounds like she's a nice person."

"She's is. She's more than nice." After rubbing his chin and stubble, Cullen grabbed his coffee and drained the last few mouthfuls. "These people, Varric. You should meet them. I would love for you and Cassandra to meet them and see how horrific they are."

"All of them?" asked Varric.

"No, not all of them... The kids seem great, and one or two of the husbands are nice. I'm still on the bench about one sister. But the parents - fuck, the parents." With a sigh, Cullen placed his mug on the table. He was on a roll, letting go of all the comments he was keeping tightly contained. "Her mother is something out of a horror story, I swear. She threatened Nevana with a pole to straighten her posture at dinner, like she's five-year-old! Who does that to their adult daughter?"

"Someone with expectations," Varric snorted. "My parents had the same of me." That had a poor relationship with his parents was common knowledge to most of his close friends. It was a topic Varric often used to make off-handed comments or to deflect. Through their long friendship, Cullen had never heard Varric discuss his parents seriously. Perhaps he did in private, with Cassandra, but  for the most part Varric's past was something he kept very close to his chest.

"The two older sisters, as they were digging their claws in, no one told them to back off. In fact, it was like everyone else was pretending it wasn't happening."

"You didn't though, right?" asked Varric. "You jumped in Mister knight-in-shining armour?"

"Sadly not... I was just in shock. I didn’t know what to say, and when I thought of something I decided against it, in case it made matters worse." Cullen rubbed the back of his neck. "Honestly, she's a great girl. Given everything she's dealt with and things I suspect she's experienced... That she is a warm hearted and kind person is a testament to how strong and resilient she actually is." He sighed, flopping back onto the sofa. "She just doesn't believe it herself. She actually thinks she's a terrible person."

"Uh huh..." Varric's tone drawled out and there was a distinct smugness to his voice. Cullen arched a brow at the laptop screen. "Tell me again how she's just a friend and a client? Certainly sounds like that's the extent of your relationship and your feelings towards her."

"Shut it," retorted Cullen, rolling his eyes. "We're friends. Adding anything else to this... It would make things more complicated.”

"’More complicated’? Meaning... you've thought about acting on you--"

"Varric."

"Sorry, Curly," Varric smirked. "Just want to look out for you. You know if things get too shitty there you can take the tunnel under the Waking Sea, or a ferry, and come to Kirkwall for Christmas and New Year. You never did reply to the invite me and Cass sent out."

"I know," groaned Cullen sitting up. His back twinged, a small reminder of his tumble on the ice a few days previous. "I'm sorry. I was in a rush when I was arranging all of this." Cullen suddenly felt tired and weary. Everything was getting confused again.

Who was he kidding? Everything was always confused. His talk with Nevena the night before was just to protect himself, and her. He didn't want to get involved beyond their arrangement, he didn't know what doing that would mean, or what it might entail. He didn't want to get hurt. He didn't want to hurt her. He cared for her. He told himself putting a figurative wall up between them, setting barriers and boundaries was for the best. It would prevent things from going any further. It didn't matter. The night before all he could think about as he tried to fall asleep was the kiss in the kitchen and knowing that she slept in another room, with only a door between them. He wondered if Nevena had thought about the kiss as she tried to fall asleep, too. If she’d struggled to sleep as much as he had.

Cullen wasn't sure what was happening. He'd never experienced a sudden loss of sense when it came to love before. With women in the past, it was always gradual before his feelings began to stir. Dates upon dates, phone calls, and text conversations of getting to know one another. Cullen prided himself on rarely, if ever, giving into base instinct and desire. Falling hard and fast for someone was unknown and uncharted territory, and it didn't help that he wasn't sure if it was real or not.

"Varric," he groaned pushing his face into his hands. "Do you think I'm in over my head?"

"Possibly," Varric said. "But you should ride it out. You might be surprised with the outcome."

"Nice and vague," laughed Cullen. "Thanks."

"That's what I'm here for. Now," Varric clapped his hands together, "aside from my book, which is an amazing gift admittedly, what else have you bought your friend-client?"

"Nothing?" Cullen shrugged his shoulders, meeting Varric's eyes through the webcam. "I thought the book would be enough."

"No, Curly. No," Varric shook his head like a concerned uncle. "The book is a great gift, don't get me wrong. And I'm not just saying that as the author, but you can't give her something that personal in front of her family."

"Why not?"

"You just can't, okay. Don't fight me on this, trust me. I know what I’m taking about."

"Okay, okay." Cullen relented. "So, what, get her something else?"

"Not a thing. A few things." Varric hummed thoughtfully. "You don't want anything that's going to overshadow the book, but get her a few things that will go over well. Hollow gifts, y'know? Sweets she likes. Something for her apartment. If you're feeling daring and want to give the impression to her family everything is great between you, lingerie."

"I am not buying her underwear," Cullen growled, hoping the camera did not pick up the way his cheeks flared. "I don't even know what size she'd be."

Varric chuckled, rubbing his hands together in a gleeful way that put Cullen on edge. "Just, take my advice, get her some small things that are pretty basic. Nice smelling soap or something. Or just joke gifts."

"I'll do that." Cullen reached towards the lid of his laptop. "I'll go now."

"Great idea." Varric leaned back in his chair. "I should probably call my publisher back anyway..."

"Thanks for sending the book, Varric. I'll let you know how it goes over."

"You better." Varric shot him a look. "And, seriously Cullen." The tone of his voice gave Cullen pause as he was closing the laptop. "If you need to get out of there, my place is always open. The invite for New Year stands. And that extends to your friend-client-not-girlfriend."

Touched, Cullen smiled, "Thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

"Good." Varric waved briefly. "Let me know how the book goes down. Talk later, Curly."

"Bye, Varric."

Cullen shut his laptop and got to his feet. He quickly smoothed his hands through his hair and over his shirt, easing away wrinkles in the clothing. After a quick glance around, he found his set of keys to the cabin, his phone, wallet, and car keys. He piled them up on the table in the kitchen paused, staring hard at the door to the bedroom.

It wouldn't be considered snooping if he was looking for ideas for small gifts, would it? And really, as long as he didn't move anything, Nevena would never know he'd been in the bedroom. He chewed his lip and the inside of his cheek for several moments before breathing in deeply and striding towards the room. A brief look, to get a few ideas, he wouldn't touch anything.

As he turned the door handle he half expected Nevena to walk in the front door and catch him. Even though his intentions were innocent, his stomach was near his feet as he inched the door open and peered inside. He had only seen the bedroom once, when he and Nevena first arrived. It was the largest room in the cabin, aside from the main living area. The focus was the large double bed in the middle. Made of wood, it looked like some kind of sleigh from the way it was carved. The bedding was a soft duck-egg blue, complimented by walls of a similar colour. There were pictures of landscapes hung on the wall and a large double window that opened out onto the road and pathway leading up to the cabin itself.

Though Cullen did not know what to expect, he was surprised to find the room as tidy as it was. For some reason, he expected Nevena to keep things in an organised chaos - this was... neat. The bed was made, and the covers pulled back to let them air. Sitting in the middle of the bed were two cuddly toys, a dinosaur of some description and a bright cobalt blue manta ray. Cullen smirked looking at them, finding it endearing Nevena brought them all the way from home. Her pyjamas were folded on the mattress, glasses on a night stand, sitting beside her tablet.

Pyjamas would be too personal, and he was already getting a book shipped in, so another book was out of the question. He went to the dressing table where various items were laid out. A make-up bag, several different hair brushes. He wasn't getting many clues and went to the bathroom to get an idea what she liked to use on her skin.

The en suite bathroom was really a large shower room, all tiled walls with smart, warm stones, a silver shower head the size of a dinner plate was suspended from the ceiling. The floor sloped slightly in one corner so the water all ran down to the plug hole, there was a screen between the shower and the sink, but that was it. In the shower cubicle, Cullen examined the shower gel on the floor. Bright yellow, spicy smelling with an underlying sweetness. Not an offensive smell at all, and one Cullen had grown accustomed to, being around Nevena and was sure he would recognise if he needed to. He glanced at the label to see if it was named.

“Loveswept Sunset…” he read and laughed to himself. “Are you kidding me? Sounds like something Varric would name one of his books. Who comes up with this stuff…”

It wasn't much, but it was something to keep in mind. He left the bedroom, closing the door securely behind him. After picking up his bits from the table and taking his jacket off the coat hooks by the door, Cullen went quickly to his car and began the journey to Edgehall. He hoped he might luck out and some random items might jump out at him. He'd never been particularly imaginative when it came to gift giving, but whatever he bought now, he knew the book would make up for it.

[Quick note for those of a sensitive nature, there are some mentions of panic/anxiety attacks, some hints at physical sibling abuse, and minor mentions of injury, so please be warned. It’s not graphic, but be warned].

Nevena patted her satchel as she set it down on the ground beside her. Inside was Cullen's gift and while it was sturdy and heavy, she didn't want it to get scuffed or damaged in any way, so she was being particularly careful with it. Ineria sat opposite her, stirring sugars into her coffee while tutting at her phone, mumbling about one thing or another.

They'd been in Edgehall together for almost four hours, and despite the rift in their relationship and the confrontation only two nights before, things were cordial between them. Cordial but cool. It was about as good as their relationship ever got. Nevena had learned never to expect an apology from Ineria as children and now was no different. There was not even a whisper of an apology or admittance of guilt for her behaviour that evening. Nevena knew Ineria well enough to know she'd likely brush it under the carpet for now, and bring it up again when it suited her.

Edgehall was busy as the Christmas day approached and shopping days diminished. The market was still going strong but Ineria's needs took them into the small shopping centre situated in the middle of the town. Made up of two floors, most of the shops were a part of large chains. There were gaudy Christmas lights hanging over head, with tinsel, and sparkling glass snowflakes while over the Tannoy system Christmas songs were played on repeat. Nevena was sure she heard the same one play five times in an hour and would be glad when they left.

Despite her going into Edgehall the day before and buying more than enough food, Ineria was still grabbing things left and right. Every shop they walked past, Ineria peered in the window, hummed, went in, spoke to the frazzled sales assistants and if they could not accommodate her, she demanded to speak to a manager while Nevena cringed in the background, often mouthing ‘sorry’ to the employee durrently under duress. She wasn't sure how Ineria did it. It was like she was not in possession of shame. She lacked the empathy and patience required for the Christmas season and the stress those people working were under. If she was not able to obtain what she wanted, it was someone else's fault and she threatened to complain. Every shop they left, Ineria came out with a voucher or promise of good will.

Nevena was beginning to wonder how many of these people knew Ineria by reputation. A small community like Edgehall, and a problem customer like Ineria, news was bound to travel. Nevena kept her mouth shut, even if she wanted to step in on multiple occasions. She wanted to keep Ineria calm and receptive for when she approached the subject of Matilda, and getting in the way while she was laying into some poor temporary member of Christmas staff was not the way to do it.

When they stopped at one of the various chain coffee shops, Nevena was glad for the rest. She stretched her legs out and turned her glass of water around in her hands while waiting for Ineria to get whatever she was ordering. The night before Nevena had made a few bullet points, topics she wanted to mention to Ineria about Matilda and quickly went over them. Even as Ineria sat down, Nevena checked over her talking points on her phone, trying to memorize them so she could be more confident.

"Successful trip," Ineria remarked. She never looked directly at Nevena for too long, preferring to glance around and watch passersby. "We'll have these and go back to Haven. You can help me start prepping for Christmas Eve."

Nevena bit her tongue to stop from commenting. Never a request, always an order. "Sure," she said, clenching her jaw. She took a sip of water. "Ineria, I need to talk to you about something."

"If it's about the other night, don't worry about it," Ineria said, breezily, smiling. "I accept your apology without you having to make it. You always do like to make a scene."

"Uh..." Nevena squeezed her hands around her glass. "That wasn't..." A pause. It wasn't worth getting into. "It's about Matilda," she said slowly. "I want to talk about Matilda."

That got Ineria's attention. Her sharp gaze snapped to Nevena and she placed her coffee cup down in the saucer in such a deliberately slow way, Nevena was sure it was done in an attempt to frighten her somehow. Ineria dabbed her mouth with a paper napkin. "What about Matilda?" Her voice was tight and her tone sharp. Nevena's stomach grew heavy. She knew she was stepping on sensitive ground.

"Yesterday while we were baking, we were chatting about school." Nevena began, keeping her tone calm and as non-confrontational as possible. "She's said some things that are… well, they’re a bit troubling."

"What things?" Ineria asked primly. "If it's about the school play, I already know."

"You do?"

"Yes." Ineria sighed with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. "I went to the principle about it and got her the bigger part she deserved. My daughter is too good for chorus, just like I was. The girl who had the part initially began to cause Matilda trouble, and I went and dealt with it. It's fine now."

Nevena laughed nervously, remarking, "I don't think it is." Ineria's eyes narrowed as she continued, "Did you take into consideration that Matilda was happy with her chorus part? Or that she actually wanted to be involved backstage and only auditioned for a part because you showed an iota of interest in her because it was something you wanted?"

"Nonsense. She's immensely talented an-"

"Of course she is talented," Nevena said, cutting Ineria off. She saw her sister's nostrils flare in anger. "But she's talented in a different way than you. Matilda is not an actress. She doesn't relish being on the stage, like you did."

"Don't be stupid. She was wonderful."

"I don't doubt that she was." Nevena held her jaw tight. "But Matilda doesn't like being on stage or the centre of attention. Do you realise how clever she is? She's practically a math genius. She can do complicated equations in her head. She's been invited to do an advanced math class next semester. And she's twelve."

"So?"

Nevena blinked hard, several times. "So... why don't you embrace and support what she's clearly likes and has a passion for? She feels like you don't appreciate or like the things she enjoys and is passionate about."

"That's silly." Folding her arms, Ineria straightened her back. It was a gesture Nevena knew well. It was how Ineria signalled she was setting down for a long haul. This would not end well, but Nevena was already in too deep to back out of the conversation now. "I appreciate the things she's good at."

"Really?" Nevena snorted and copied Ineria's stance. "Did you know she got an award for math excellence at school? Or that the Mathlete team she's a part of came first in their age range?"

"I knew."

"And did you say anything?"

Ineria fidgeted in her seat. "No, but--"

"No," Nevena snapped. She realised then, noticing a flare in Ineria’s eye, that she was allowing her concern for Matilda and her annoyance at Ineria get the better of her. She took a long breath and felt her shoulders relax. "Because it's not something that interests you." She watched as Ineria smoothed an imaginary wrinkle out of her shirt. "She actually asked me something really heartbreaking yesterday."

"Oh?" Ineria rolled her eyes again. "And what was that?"

"She asked if I ever felt like our parents never wanted me. Or didn't like me." Nevena leaned forward. "She was referring to you. She doesn't think you like her, or even wanted her. And she's twelve-years-old, Ineria. Twelve! She's a child, and children shouldn't be thinking or wondering those kinds of things about their parents."

There was a shift in Ineria's expression, a softness - almost like remorse - that appeared and then disappeared in moments. Nevena saw her sister's face harden again. She set her jaw, her arms tightened a little across her chest and she lowered her shoulders. Though she would not look outwardly angry to anyone else, Nevena could see the rage building behind Ineria's eyes. She was outraged, insulted.

"I know you love her, Ineria," Nevena said, trying to subdue her. "I know you love all of your children but--"

"No," Ineria hissed. "You've said your piece."

"Ineria. I'm trying t-"

"How dare you lecture me about my own child!" Ineria glowered, her eyes blazing with barely controlled anger. "You have no idea how hard I work. How much I do. I don't know everything about my daughter, but I love her immensely. You come here for a few days and think you can lecture me! You don't have children, Nevena. What makes you think you're qualified to tell me, a parent, how I am doing?"

"I work with kids on a daily basis, Ineria," Nevena replied in a steady voice. "I see kids every single day whose parents don't appreciate or even acknowledge their achievements, and instead brush them aside because their achievements do not mesh with their parents'. It's what you're doing with Matilda now, and if you're not careful, the damage to your relationship will be irreparable."

"You have no idea what you're talking about," Ineria's fingers clenched on her clothes.

"You are living vicariously through your daughter. You were the star of every school production and you want Matilda to be just like you." The stillness in Nevena's voice was giving way to her frustration. Ineria wouldn't listen. She never listened. "But Matilda isn't like you. Matilda is her own person, and she is a brilliant, intelligent, generous, sensitive, bright person. But you refuse to see that in her, unless it's in doing what you expect of her."

"You have no idea what you're talking about," Ineria said again, more fiercely. Her hands flew to Nevena's, knuckles white as she gripped and dug her nails into top of Nevena's hands. Nevena flinched at the quick movement and at the way the table jerked. As children a gesture like that often meant Ineria slapping her around the face. She wouldn’t do it in public, but Nevena still felt a familiar, phantom sting in her cheek. She saw Ineria's lips curl into an unpleasant smirk and tried to pull her hands away. "You think you can lecture me on children and family? Please, that's laughable. What do you know about family, Nevena?"

"I--"

"Nothing. At least nothing of real note," Ineria released her, leaving crescent moon shaped divots in Nevena’s skin,  and began to gather up her things, collecting bags and checking that nothing was missing. Even as she did, her eyes did not leave Nevena's face for longer than a second. Nevena could feel a throb in her hands where Ineria had pushed her fingernails deep. "You don't have your own family. You weren't even wanted by this one," Ineria sneered. "You are a poor, unworthy replacement who has nothing to offer. You are worthless. You always have been worthless. You always will be worthless, and it’s high time you realised it." She didn't raise her voice - she didn't even change the cadence of her words. She simply spoke them, each syllable sharp and dripping with venom that seeped into Nevena's conscious. The space behind Nevena's eyes prickled sharply. She clenched her jaw to keep her chin from shaking but she could feel her eyes welling up. Ineria always knew where to attack, where she was most sensitive, and she could bring Nevena to nothing with so little. Ineria knew it too. But this...The look of triumph on her face made Nevena's skin crawl and go cold. Ineria got to her feet. "You should really look in the mirror before you go trying to fix other people. Especially when you’re the only one that needs fixing.

Nevena took a slow breath, "Matilda--"

"Is my daughter, and nothing to do with you," Ineria said coldly. She stood, and approached Nevena, bags in one hand. The other she placed on Nevena's shoulder and squeezed, hard. "Thank you for your insight," Ineria murmured to her. "However, just like you, it is unwanted."

A cold chill ran down Nevena's spine. She shivered as Ineria dug her fingers into her shoulder and released. She didn't move for at least thirty seconds. Her eyes were wide and painful when she finally blinked. Tears ran down her face and she quickly wiped them away. She would not make a spectacle of herself out in the open for everyone to see. If she was going to cry then she'd at least do it somewhere secluded.

She just needed to remember how to move.

Nevena's whole body felt like it was locked up. Her legs were almost solid and she struggled with remembering how get out of her chair. Breathing was hard too; her chest felt constricted and squeezed, every breath a hard gasp of sheer desperation. Her chest wouldn't expand enough to fill her lungs. She fought to stay calm, at least until she was away from everyone. If she could manage that, she could get through this and make her way back to Haven.

To Skyhold, and privacy.

To Cullen; the safety and comfort he provided would be the panacea to everything.

Her mind was spinning. Ineria was never nice to her, but what just passed between them was vicious. The malice and the anger was almost palpable. Ineria had never made her distain for Nevena secret, but it was like she was unleashing everything now. All the years of resentment and pain building up and being allowed to fester like an infected woundhad become a bubbling over cauldron of hate.

And that was it. Ineria hated her. Nevena realised that now. It wasn't simple sibling rivalry or differences. It was legitimate, unabashed hatred.

Aware that her tears were coming quicker, Nevena forced herself to her feet. She grabbed her satchel and swung it onto her shoulder, rubbing her eyes quickly on her sleeve. Someone behind her yelled and they whacked her bag.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Nevena choked out. Her throat was closing over, as if it wasn't hard enough to breathe already. She took a desperate gulp of air, tucked her head down and started walking.

Breathe. She told herself, trying to remember how to bring herself out of the panic and anxiety threatening to drown her. Drowning. She was drowning. How did that happen? Drowning in a sea of people and silently screaming. There were faces all around her, a cold floor underneath her. Glances of confusion, distain, disgust. Someone touching her. Hands. Too many hands. Too many voices. Too much was happening.

Her vision clouded at the corners, her clothes constricted around her, limiting her movement. They reduced the air she could get. They stuck to her like glue. She was uncomfortable, itchy. Every inch of her skin felt like it was crawling and there was something underneath, digging frantically to get out. Wherever she was, she forced herself to her feet and ran. Her lungs were burning with every forced breath as she weaved and ducked around people, and pillars, and decorations. She didn't know where she was going, what she doing - even where she was seemed like a distant memory, forgettable within the pain.

Every step was hard. The ground was hard, but it felt like she was trying to wade through mud. People were still staring. She heard them ask after her, saw their eyes see her face, tear stains and red cheeked. Several people reached out to grab her as she ran. Nevena recoiled and flinched from each hand, every finger. What if they caught her? What then? She could hardly breathe, let alone form words. She knew she needed to find somewhere isolated and safe. If she could do that she could bring herself down, bring herself out of the panic and everything would be fine. She would be fine. She could do this. She'd done it before.

Ducking down a hallway that seemed more deserted than the rest of the shopping centre, Nevena's vision darkened because of the lower light. There were no bright, white festive lights in the corridor and the merry tingling of music was quieter here. Everything was already dulled by the blood pumping in her ears, but the rest of her senses were in overdrive. Nevena ripped up the sleeves of her jumper and checked her skin. There was nothing moving, nothing trying to dig out, yet she scratched for good measure - just to make sure. The sensation of her fingernails raking over her skin was a pleasant, sharp sensation. It gave her clarity, just enough.

Finding a corner - a wall, somewhere that she felt safer and not quite so open - Nevena dug around in her bag for her phone. She fumbled with it, struggled with her security code several times and just managed not to throw it against the wall on her third failed attempt.

"Come on, Nevena," she gasped angrily at herself. "Think!" She slammed her head back against the wall. It hurt, pain ricocheting down her neck and over the top of her skull. The pain throbbed. Nevena entered her passcode successfully.

She wiped her eyes and nose on her sleeve as she scrolled through names with trembling fingers. Her eyes hurt when she rubbed them. Her eyes lashes were clumped together and she could taste salt on her lips when she licked them.

When she found the name she wanted she began to type. It was more difficult than she remembered, trying to spell a word correctly. She managed it after a several attempts. With the message sent, Nevena pulled her knees into her chest and buried her face into her legs.

"I'm alright," she told to herself in a low whisper. "I'm alright. I'm alright." She just needed to believe it.

I know this chapter takes quite a different turn to the one before, but still - I hope you enjoyed it. 

Ineria has issues. If that wasn’t obvious. They’ll be addressed. Also, just to let you know, uploads may slow down a bit. I have a lot of chapters already written, so they won’t slow down too much, but I don’t want to hit my buffer, because I’m having A LOT of trouble on the later chapters, which has put me behind schedule. I’m hoping I’ll get some inspiration soon, but for now, for my own sanity, uploads may be every three weeks, rather than every two.

I hope you understand. 

Thanks for reading. As always, your support means so much to me, and I love hearing your thoughts. So please don’t be shy. Reblog with your comments, tags, comment on the post or on AO3, or you can just send me a not on tumblr on anon if you prefer. Just let me know what you think.

See you guys in the next chapter. <3

[lady-divine-writes]

Klaine one-shot - “The Heart of the Matter” (Rated PG13)

After graduating high school and marrying the love of his life, Blaine discovers that he needs a heart transplant. But there's a reason he doesn't want his heart removed.

If he doesn't, he will die. But if he does, will that mean losing the man he loves more than life itself? (2965 words)

I had started writing the premise for this a while ago, but stopped when @sunshineoptimismandangels wrote her amazing fic "Soulmate Script", which I think eclipses this one by far. It's much more fleshed out, more adorable than angsty, and who doesn't like adorable Klaine? This is a bit more personal on my end, but I wasn't going to finish it. After reading sunshine's recently for about they 80th time, I was inspired to polish it off for her birthday. So here it is. Let me know what you think. And make sure you read hers because it's amazing <3

Warning for talk of hospitalization and heart surgery. 

Read on AO3.

Beeping monitors.

Cords and IVs.

The sharp smell of alcohol and industrial disinfectant.

The draft from an overhead vent where a steady stream of cold, conditioned air bleeds in nonstop.

Rough sheets beneath his fingertips that he can’t help straightening, can’t stop adjusting.

The urgency hidden beneath the tension-steeped calm, that even as they wait in this one, quiet room, in other areas of the hospital, nurses and doctors are scrambling. Prepping.

Fighting against the clock.

It reminds Kurt too much of the days when he stood by his father’s bedside, waiting for news about his condition.

How bad was his heart attack?

Would the damage be permanent?

Would he ever wake up?

That was a long time ago. Kurt’s father ended up being fine. Better than fine. After his heart attack, he became more health conscious. He ate better (mainly because Kurt harped on him, but as far as Kurt was concerned, it counted), exercised, and saw his doctor regularly. Kurt considered his father (and himself) lucky that they came out of that experience more or less unscathed.

So it seemed like a sick, existential joke on the part of the universe that lightning would strike his way twice.

The memories of that near-tragedy with his father crowd Kurt’s chest, make his heart ache, but his isn’t the heart he’s worried about.

Nor is it his dad’s.

“How do you feel?” Kurt asks, trying to hide the tremble in his voice by forcing a smile onto his face – a smile that, he’s afraid, is fooling no one at this point.

Blaine looks up from his bed, drugged-droopy eyelids struggling to stay open, and shakes his head.

“What?” Kurt asks, frowning at Blaine’s setup – the position of the IVs in his arm, the cuff around his bicep, his nasal cannula. They had rushed to the hospital within a minute of getting the call that a heart had become available. There was a flurry of activity when Blaine walked through the doors – undressing, re-dressing, cleaning, sticking, pricking, and poking – a lot of hurry up, hurry up, hurry up just so that they could sit in here and wait. It made Kurt want to scream. He can’t even imagine how Blaine feels. “Does something hurt? Do you feel uncomfortable? Do you want me to call the nurse?”

Blaine continues to shake his head – a gentle roll left and right on his pillow, very little strength but plenty of conviction. “I can’t, Kurt. I can’t do this.”

Kurt chuckles, too sad and anxious to be humorous. “Well, it’s a little too late to do anything about it now.”

“Kur---rt” – Blaine’s voice, a slush of vowels and consonants mushed together in an attempt to form words, gets caught in the lump of despair building at the base of his throat – “I don’t want to do this.”

“Why not?”

“Because, it might change everything.”

“Of course, it’s going to change everything.” Kurt keeps his tone light, dismissing this argument that they’ve had over and over, and has gone far beyond ridiculous. “With this new heart, you’ll live longer.”

“B-but … but what will happen to us? What if …?”

“What if nothing, alright!” Kurt snaps unintentionally. Numb from the preliminary round of anesthetics working their way through his body, Blaine barely flinches, but Kurt sees it in the flutter of his eyelids, and sighs. They’ve exhausted this conversation, and Kurt can’t take it anymore. He can’t lose Blaine. No matter what the risk, Blaine has to live. That’s not even a question. “You’re not making sense right now,” he says, putting a hand gently over his husband’s, hovering so as not to dislodge anything important. “I know you’re scared. I’m scared, too. But I would rather lose you as a husband than go on the rest of my life without you existing on this planet. And if it comes to that, then I will stalk you till the day you die, Blaine Anderson-Hummel.”

Blaine smiles, but he doesn’t have the strength to do that and keep his eyes open, so his eyelids throw in the towel and drift shut. “Then you’re a better man than I am.”

“Was there ever any doubt?” Kurt brushes a tear off his cheekbone, thankful that Blaine can’t see. So much for being strong for his husband.

“Hmm,” Blaine murmurs, finally succumbing to a drug induced sleep. “I guess not.”

***

Waiting to find out if Blaine would be okay, if he would make it through, and what that would mean for them if he did, is harder for Kurt than it was waiting for his father to wake up from a coma. As Kurt retreats to the private CTICU waiting room where he’ll stay until Blaine gets out of surgery, the façade that is his courage dissolves.

As awful as it sounds, Kurt has more to lose if Blaine doesn’t make it than he had if his father didn’t. His father means the world to him, but at the time of his heart attack, he and Kurt had had fifteen years together. Kurt has only known Blaine for half that time, and they only knew for certain that they were soulmates within the last three years.

They’d always had feelings for one another. Since the day they met, they felt it – that spark that everyone talks about. And it was mutual. They knew that somehow, even though neither one of them had their marks yet (they met when they were sixteen – marks don’t materialize on the body till eighteen), they had a closeness. A special connection.

If they weren’t soulmates, what could that connection possibly mean?

When Kurt got his mark first, on his chest above his heart, which very clearly read Blaine Anderson, Kurt knew that it had to be his Blaine. And he was relieved. Fate hadn’t been kind to him for most of his life. He had lost his mother, almost lost his father, had his own life threatened by a school bully. It would be cruel if he lost Blaine. But since Blaine didn’t have a mark (which should have been over his heart, too, since soulmate marks traditionally matched in placement), Blaine wasn’t as certain. There was always the possibility that there was another Blaine Anderson somewhere in the world, and that Kurt was meant for him. Kurt was adamant that that wasn’t the case, but Blaine was stubborn.

But Blaine turned out to be wrong.

And Kurt had underestimated the kindness of fate.

Not long after Kurt and Blaine graduated from high school and moved to New York, Blaine started suffering symptoms of a heart defect he’d inherited from his father – a defect that doctors had assured him his entire young life would more than likely turn out to be just a nuisance, fixable by a minor, relatively low-risk procedure when he got older, if need be. But Blaine’s heart had started to malfunction, two chambers shutting down almost simultaneously, and that’s when they found his soulmate mark – the name Kurt Hummel written directly across the front.

Kurt has loved Blaine forever. Being soulmates, he loved Blaine before they even met. He’d dreamt his entire life of him without ever knowing it, and not just his striking features, which he’d only glimpsed in part - his golden eyes, and his dark, curly hair - but his love of music, his passion, his grace, his elegance, his sincerity.

His drive and ambition.

His beautiful soul, and how much their souls belonged together. Because that’s what soulmates means – finding your other half. That one person on the planet whose existence makes you whole.

Preparing for the possibility of Blaine’s new heart had brought them together over the past few months in a way nothing else in their relationship had before. Exercising together, preparing meals together, going to classes at the hospital together, planning a new future together, took them to a higher level of intimacy and devotion, outlined in their wedding vows that they had chosen to recite traditionally because they applied in the simplest but most poignant terms – for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and health; until death do us part.

Except in their vows, they had said till death do we wait, till we’re reunited.

Kurt doesn’t believe in God. He doesn’t really believe in an afterlife. But he believes in Blaine, and he believes in those vows. He’s held on to them from the day he said them, made them into his own religion.

Their love is his faith.

If Blaine doesn’t make it, or if removing his heart means what Blaine fears it means – that his soulmate mark will go with it, severing the connection between him and Kurt irreparably - then they might as well just remove Kurt’s heart as well.

Because he won’t need it any longer.

***

Kurt doesn’t know how he fell asleep. Aside from the fact that he swore to himself he wouldn’t, he wasn’t even remotely tired after they wheeled Blaine to the OR. But to ensure there was no chance that he would nod off, he found the narrowest, most uncomfortable chair in the private waiting room, right beneath the brightest, most obnoxious white light, and set up camp. He immersed himself in mindless busy work, checking his text messages and his emails, then his Facebook feed, then his Twitter, and finally his Tumblr, keeping close friends and random followers alike updated regularly on Blaine’s progress.

He finished writing responses to the comments he received on his posts - mostly thank yous along with various emojis depending on the commenter. He closed out his apps, rubbed his brow, and shut his eyes for a second to block out the harsh light overhead.

A second later, a hand on his shoulder shook him awake.

He jerks up from his hunched over position, elbows resting on his knees, his head hanging from his neck like an overripe fruit on a too thin branch, and his phone on the floor, presumably where it landed when it fell from his hands.

“Hmm? Wha---Blaine?” Kurt mutters, assuming it must be Blaine waking him, wrapped up and ready to go home. He was just talking to Blaine five minutes ago. Who else would it be? He kicks his phone as he sits up, waking it from its slumber. The time on the screen reads 7:26.

But it was just past noon a minute ago.

“Mr. Hummel?” a voice says. It’s not Blaine, but it’s familiar.

Kurt blinks at the man standing over him, wearing teal blue operating scrubs and a weary expression.

“Mr. Hummel,” the man continues, even though Kurt has yet to acknowledge him. “We’ve just brought your husband out of surgery. He’s been taken to observation. You’ll be able to see him once he starts coming out of anesthesia.”

Kurt nods, taking the words in even though half his brain seems to believe that they should be heading home. Blaine gets a new heart, and then they go home. It’s as simple as that, right? Because if Kurt has to spend another minute in a hospital worrying about someone he loves, he might go insane.

But if Blaine’s body rejects this heart, there may not be a second time.

“So, he made it through all right?” Kurt needs clarity, wondering why, if everything’s okay, his doctor looks like there’s a problem. Shouldn’t he be smiling, relief pooling in his eyes with a thin stream of tears, like the doctors on Grey’s Anatomy when surgery is a success? Why does Blaine’s doctor seem so … dour?

“Yes, he did. We’re going to keep him under careful observation, but from the outset, things look promising.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Kurt asks, because the unreadable look in the doctor’s eyes makes Kurt think otherwise.

“Mr. Hummel, before I take you to see your husband, I need to have a word with you.”

***

“How do you feel?”

“I feel like an elephant sat on my chest and cracked my ribcage.”

Kurt chuckles. It’s been a day. One whole day of sitting by Blaine’s side and watching him sleep, watching him breathe. A day of holding his hand to make sure that his body is still warm. A day of waiting to hear his voice again, and, when they finally removed his breathing tube, reveling in every harsh, raw attempt at a whisper. A day of not sleeping comfortably so he could make sure Blaine kept breathing while he did. A day of not eating because he didn’t want to leave Blaine’s side. A day of hoping and praying and bartering with the universe. A day of trying to lend Blaine strength because Kurt knew he’d need it to get better.

A day that’s felt like a lifetime.

But Kurt will take it, and every day after. He loves Blaine. He loves Blaine’s sense of humor. He loves his over-the-top displays of affection. He loves his outlandish apologies. He loves his smiles, even the tired, slightly pained one he’s wearing right now.

And he loves that he has a beautiful reminder of Blaine pulsing on the skin of his chest with every beat of Blaine’s brand new heart in the form of his soulmate mark - Blaine Anderson.

“Well, aside from that,” Kurt says. “What I mean is … do you still love me?”

Blaine’s smile goes from pained to flawless in a blink. “Yes,” he says, squeezing Kurt’s hand as best he can. “Yes, I love you.”

“And what do you think that means?” Kurt asks with a knowing smile, as if whatever lesson Blaine is supposed to learn from all of this, Kurt knew all along.

In reality, he only learned recently, but he’s not about to tell his husband that.

“It means that me being desperately and hopelessly in love with you had nothing to do with any silly mark on my heart. Or anywhere else on my body. It has to do with you and me. Who we are together. I loved you long before that mark ever showed up, and nothing is going to change that.”

“Good.” Kurt sniffs to banish the tears threatening his eyes. “It’s nice to see that you’ve finally come to your senses.”

“And it only took about six hours in surgery for me to get there.”

“Better late than never.” Kurt leans over to kiss his husband on the forehead, wishing he could kiss him on the lips instead. But Kurt’s on the verge of tears as it is, and he hasn’t even gotten to the best part of the lesson. “Oh, and here. The doctor gave me this for you to keep.” Kurt turns to his chair and picks up an envelope sitting there, about the size of a small poster, that Blaine had somehow managed to overlook. Though, to be fair, with his gorgeous husband standing by his bedside, there wasn’t anywhere else that he wanted to look than in Kurt’s eyes.

“What is it?” Blaine takes the film Kurt hands him, trying to hold it steady. Kurt keeps hold of the upper edge, lending him a hand. “Ah.” Blaine nods once when he sees the image clearly. He’s seen it so many times, he should have known what it was when he saw the damned envelope. He looks at this x-ray of his heart, like the countless he’d taken before it, with his soulmate mark, his husband’s name, written across it in Kurt’s impeccable handwriting.

“We’ll have to frame it,” Blaine says with a sigh. “This way we can always remember what was, hmm?”

“Well, you’re partially right. We should frame it, right next to this one.” From the envelope, Kurt pulls out a second x-ray of Blaine’s heart. This one bears the mark as well, except the last few letters of Kurt’s name are obscured, the organ in this x-ray darker on one side. Damaged. Blaine compares it with the first, the heart in that one completely healthy, Kurt’s name clear as day. Kurt doesn’t explain it right away. He watches Blaine’s eyes bounce back and forth between the two images, his fuzzy brain struggling to make sense of both x-rays in relation to one another.

“Wait a minute,” he says, his head throbbing behind his eyes as he forces himself to think. “I don’t … I don’t understand.”

“It’s your heart, darling,” Kurt says with a self-satisfied little smile that would come off as superior if it weren’t keeping him from crying. “What is there to understand?”

“But the mark …”

“That’s your soulmate mark,” Kurt points out, starting with the damaged heart first, “on your old heart, and here, on your new heart.”

Blaine shakes his head. He’s trapped in a daze, wondering if he’s actually awake or if he’s still under anesthesia, dreaming that this is real. Because if it is real, it’s the most amazing, fantastical thing he’s ever heard in his life, second to finding out that the donor registry had found him a new heart.

And third to the day Kurt said, “I do.”

“The surgeon told me it appeared after they had the heart implanted,” Kurt explains when the blank look on Blaine’s face becomes blanker. “The second they began to suture and the heart became yours, it appeared.”

“But … how?”

“Because it was never about the heart, Blaine.” Kurt moves the x-rays to the chair and leans in, forehead to forehead, carding careful fingers through his husband’s hair as Blaine’s face begins to crumble, quiet sobs shaking his sore chest. “You said so yourself. You never loved me because my name was written on your heart. Your soulmate mark is a part of you because you love me. It was never going anywhere … and neither was I.”

[theconservativebrief]

Tumblr announced Monday that it would be banning many categories of adult content across its platform, including “photos, videos, or GIFs” displaying explicit material, as well as “illustrations that [depict] sex acts.”

The controversial change will take effect on December 17; existing posts flagged by Tumblr’s censors as violating the new policy will be automatically set to private, meaning that no one will be able to see them other than the blog’s creator.

Debate is raging about what Tumblr’s userbase will even look like at that point, given how much of the community involves erotica and the use of explicit imagery. Discussion of the ban consumed social media throughout Monday evening, and Tumblr users responded with a mixture of outrage, worry, and hilarious memes.

On the one hand, it’s easy to see why Tumblr, now in its 11th year as a social media platform known for “reblogs” and image-heavy content, made this move: it seems very likely that its hand was probably forced by Apple. In November, Apple banned Tumblr’s official app from the IOS store because of reported child pornography on the platform. This led to a sitewide crackdown on pornography that left many users complaining that their NSFW blogs had been unfairly purged in the sweep.

Yet despite last month’s initial purge, the app has still not been restored to the IOS store, in what seems to be a clear ‘fix this or else’ ultimatum from Apple that has almost certainly prompted the current crisis. As Motherboard wrote on Monday in its breakdown of the Tumblr situation, “Apple has repeatedly leveraged its unprecedented power over millions of smartphones to sanitize the apps that are available on iPhones.”

In an email response, a Tumblr spokesperson directed Vox back to the staff announcement, including the staff’s acknowledgment that “filtering this type of content versus say, a political protest with nudity or the statue of David, is not simple at scale. We’re relying on automated tools to identify adult content and humans to help train and keep our systems in check. We know there will be mistakes, but we’ve done our best to create and enforce a policy that acknowledges the breadth of expression we see in the community.”

But on the other hand, many users are outraged over what they see as an attempt to disrupt the entire culture of Tumblr and its community, where erotica and NSFW artwork and storytelling have thrived and flourished — and where marginalized communities who have built safe spaces may now be newly vulnerable.

“According to marginalized and vulnerable people, this change in policy will directly hurt them,” wrote geek icon and power user Wil Wheaton, in a reblog of an inappropriately flagged post which featured nothing more offensive than shirtless men kissing. “And that’s indefensible.”

What’s at issue is not only the question of whether Tumblr can survive its own purge — it’s the question of who Tumblr’s core users are, and what will motivate them to continue building their communities on a platform that seems to be devaluing them and their vital contributions to building Tumblr culture.

Though Tumblr was born alongside most other modern social networks, it’s long been associated with a certain countercultural deviance. Founder David Karp launched it in 2007 when he was just 20, and his much-vaunted hoodie-wearing ethos helped give the site a permanently youthful attitude — even an air of “millennial narcissism.”

Tumblr’s younger, digital-savvy denizens made Tumblr into a center of internet culture, churning out memes and cultivating subcultures from fandoms to study bloggers to digital art collectives. But despite all this, the site has long been plagued by an unfairly dismissive cultural reputation that reduces the entire vibrant platform to a vast repository of porn, and not much else.

The association of Tumblr with porn is part of a longstanding media narrative that has perpetually dismissed the site and its userbase for its relative youth, its progressive politics, its fandom leanings, and its predominantly queer and feminist userbase.

“Every time I make the mistake of opening Tumblr at work I end up seeing a stray boob,” Akila Hughes joked in Splinter News.

This reputation further reduces the community that gave us “Tumblr activism” — the disruptive but progressive political force that grew into a loud generation of real-world activists — down to that of a bunch of women who are only there for porn.

And even the porn itself gets mischaracterized. The fact is that the erotic and NSFW imagery on Tumblr includes everything from fanart to sex education, and is a vibrant and much-valued part of the community. And while data analysts have uncovered that, yes, there is a lot of porn on Tumblr, it’s coming from only a tiny fraction — about a tenth of one percent — of the site’s creators.

And the producers of this pornography are not active members of the Tumblr community. Most of the producers of pornography on Tumblr are pornbots, automated accounts set up to specifically generate NSFW content, much of it designed to lure users to third-party paid content sites.

Still, because pornbots don’t always stay in their lane, it’s easy for users reading random “normal” tags to be exposed to them. The site has tried multiple times to deal with porn in its midst. Users have even tried to help, organizing spontaneous organic pornbot-banning campaigns. But the site’s efforts haven’t been enough to keep it from running into trouble with third parties — most notably, Apple, which, in its ban of anything “overtly sexual,” is not attuned to the blurry lines between porn, erotica, and other types of racy content.

Tumblr has long sagged under the weight of doubt regarding its longterm sustainability. The site plateaued its growth in 2016 at just 23 million users, less than half that of Twitter at the time and a third that of Instagram, which has since ballooned exponentially.

Since the exit last year of its longtime chief David Karp, and the sale of the site to Verizon, rumblings that Tumblr is finally finished have abounded. Meanwhile, Tumblr users have been increasingly at odds with Tumblr’s corporate side, as the business tries to balance potential money-making opportunities with its unruly yet thriving corner of internet culture. Unfortunately, the short-term solution seems to be a pivot away from that grassroots culture towards more rigidly controlled content — which opens the door to a whole new set of problems.

One of the biggest questions on the minds of Tumblr users is whether Tumblr can effectively carry out this policy without nuking everything in its path. The consensus so far, based on both past experience with Tumblr as well as other algorithmic censorship attempts, as well as the abundant reports of posts that are already being inappropriately flagged under the new change: not a chance.

Welp, my Tumblr blog is marked NSFW, bc I curse like a sailor and occasionally I reblog fanart, fine art, and protest art that contains nudity. (Yes, including FEMALE-PRESENTING NIPPLES.) So I guess my Tumblr blog will be on the chopping block too.

So where we goin’ next, y’all?

— N. K. Jemisin (@nkjemisin) December 3, 2018

It’s important to note that Tumblr is attempting to explicitly draw a dividing line between its users’ creative content and the more hardcore stuff. Tumblr’s new policy defines “adult content” as “primarily includ[ing] photos, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples, and any content—including photos, videos, GIFs and illustrations—that depicts sex acts.” That doesn’t necessarily include many types of erotica, which may be sexual and evocative without explicitly depicting sex. And Tumblr is only banning “photos, videos, or GIFs,” not text-based erotica or artwork — except when that artwork portrays sexual acts.

The platform is also trying to differentiate between explicit porn and non-sexual nudity — a tricky bit of semantics that led the site to go with language banning “female-presenting nipples” while protecting “exposed female-presenting nipples in connection with breastfeeding,” among other things. The new policy also specifies that nudity for the purposes of sexual education and other contexts is okay. That should be comforting to the thriving community around sex work on Tumblr, as well as to those who are concerned about its increasingly important role as a de facto sex education site for millions of its users.

But all of these attempts to separate the wheat from the porny chaff raise the question of whether Tumblr will be able to accurately police along these dividing lines without committing overreach and becoming censorship-happy, thus silencing many vital blogs and users.

In the wake of the passage of FOSTA, the anti-sex trafficking bill that has raised internet-wide concerns about censorship, many Tumblr users have spoken out about their anxiety that Tumblr will become a platform of broad and ill-defined censorship which will silence some of the most important parts of Tumblr. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time; in 2013, Tumblr attempted to ban NSFW tags and wound up censoring queer content before backtracking.

And how does anyone, let alone Tumblr’s automatic censors, draw the line between illustrations that depict sex acts and illustrations that simply “feature” nudity?

These questions have alarmed many Tumblr users. Many fanartists and original artists create explicit art alongside non-explicit art as a matter of course; some, like the well-known artist Siij, whose NSFW blog was banned in the November purge, have already been targets of Tumblr censors.

In addition, some users have reported that entire tags are currently being scrubbed of content and hidden from Tumblr’s search; for example, searching for the NSFW tag no longer generates any content. And users who’ve already started receiving emails about their flagged content under the new policy are reporting that their content is being flagged incorrectly.

One Twitter thread compiling reports of incorrectly flagged Tumblr posts collected everything from benign art and fanart to cave photos, safe-for-work vintage photos of black women, and even a reblog of Tumblr’s own announcement:

On a superficial level, this is all hilarious — and, to many of us, hilariously familiar. (More on that in a moment.) But on a deeper level, the giant outcry over this decision reflects a larger anxiety from users — a fear that Tumblr is cracking down, not just on porn, but on the very essence of Tumblr culture: unruly, unsanctioned, and in many ways, united by the very spirit of deviance that Tumblr is trying to kill.

“The reality is that for a lot of the LGTBQ+ community, particularly younger members still discovering themselves and members in extremely homophobic environments where most media sites were banned (but Tumblr wasn’t even considered important enough to be), this was a bastion of information and self-expression,” wrote one Tumblr user in a widely reblogged post. “For a lot of artists too, this was a great place to come and post NSFW work and get traction that became Patreon pages that became honest jobs.”

What’s frequently lost in the reductive equating of Tumblr with porn is that, as on LiveJournal before it, much of the platform’s erotica is community oriented — and essential to the vibrancy of that community.

For instance, entire fanart traditions have sprung up around cheeky erotic illustrations and the frequently NSFW artists who produce them. Tumblr also birthed the phenomenon of popular fandom blogs featuring porn stars who look like various fictional characters, peddling erotic content specifically through the lens of shipping. Modern-day Tumblr artists have entirely revived the long-dormant tradition of professional-quality fanzines, many featuring subversive queer content and explicit content.

Then there are the many, many queer and genderqueer and marginalized users who found in Tumblr a positive, identity-affirming community space that simply doesn’t exist on most other social media platforms. As Tumblr users grappled with the news, many spoke out about the degree to which the banning of explicit content could impact untold numbers of individuals who lack the ability to safely explore their identities and their sexualities, on other websites or in real life.

“This is a mistake,” wrote Tumblr user caitercates in a widely-distributed response to the Tumblr staff post. “You say you’re all about “sex positivity” while banning all adult content of any kind? … You are actively deleting a majority of your account base. … your solution is to bleach your site until it’s unrecognizable.”

Not to mention the countless artists and writers who are about to lose their viewer/readership. I understand erotica will still be allowed – but what about the relationships that are fostered between artists and writers? There are so many of us who make fanart of our favorite fics, and a lot of the time that involves smut. This ISN’T A PROBLEM. This is creativity at work, and sex positivity, like you claim to support.

Change this.

EDIT your site. Make positive changes that we as the community have asked for – don’t blanket-ban the content that, tbh, most of us are here for at least in part.

It’s extremely significant that Tumblr users are fighting for Tumblr to walk back this change, because Tumblr has traditionally had a primarily harmonious relationship to its userbase, despite its users increasing distrust of its motives and interests. With the exception of Reddit, which is mainly community-run, Tumblr has given its users more freedom than any other platform in shaping and making the site into what it is.

This is partly due to the fact that Tumblr was never intended to be a grassroots haven for the misfits of the rest of the internet. But that characteristic is part of what has made Tumblr uniquely quirky and offbeat among social media spaces — and it may be the trait that saves it.

There’s a legitimate argument to be made — and one that I, as a longtime Tumblr user, would admittedly like to be true — that people who think banning porn on Tumblr will kill Tumblr really don’t know that much about Tumblr’s core users. Despite the mainstream media narrative, Tumblr has never, ever, been about porn.

Tumblr was built around community, around fandom, around viral absurdist meme blogs and street fashion bloggers. What other social media platform annually sends amateur bloggers to Fashion Week? It was grown from arty hipster landscape photos whose wistful aesthetics were deposited straight onto the collected works of the Chainsmokers. Tumblr has given us feminist art galleries and digital art collectives pushing online art movements like vaporwave, seapunk, and glitch art while showing off, bar none, the best GIF artistry on the planet.

Tumblr’s deliberately hyperbolic language fueled everything from “all the feels” to the rise of One Direction. It’s been called the progenitor of Neo-Dadaism, the wellspring of a vast amount of absurdist millennial humor that’s pushed out of its niche Tumblr basement to hit the mainstream corridors of the internet. Mic shamelessly built its brand by exploiting Tumblr’s politics while Buzzfeed shamelessly built its brand by piggy-backing off Tumblr’s content. It’s the place where angry feminist clapbacks and “your fave is problematic” exist alongside hungover owls and “Mmm Whatcha Say?” — that is, it’s as marvelous, and marvelously frustrating, and deeply surprising, as the internet itself.

It’s tempting to argue that while core Tumblr users will grumble about the site-wide crackdown on porn, they’ll recognize that while they can get the porn from other sites, it will be impossible to replace everything else that makes Tumblr what it is.

That said, the very quirky nonconformity of Tumblr’s users may, in fact, push them to leave. Some users see the site’s push to ban adult content as echoing the downward spiral of LiveJournal, the once-popular early blogging platform which was highly admired for its open-source ethos, its laidback moderation style, and its positive sense of community.

In an infamous pair of 2007 incidents that became known as “Strikethrough” and “Boldthrough,” LiveJournal famously destroyed the trust of its userbase overnight when its own attempt to ban certain types of explicit content resulted in a ban on fanart and other innocent and creative types of content.

The relationship between the site and a userbase that had, until then, been ride-or-die, never fully recovered. In the wake of LiveJournal’s steady overtaking by Russia, many of those users migrated to Tumblr, where they joined the much-larger stream of millennial and Gen Y and Z users who have relied on the site’s user-friendliness and openness to many types of erotica as they built their communities.

A side effect of the ban involved a renewed appreciation for the Archive of Our Own, (AO3), a nonprofit, censorship-free website run by fans which is explicitly set up to archive fanworks in the event of major content crackdowns like this one. Among the other more serious responses to the ban has been a litany of fandom history and advice posts being shared for the benefit of younger Tumblr users and others for whom the overnight implosion of their digital home was a new experience. Especially prominent have been recommendations for alternative sites to Tumblr.

Many users, desperate to recapture the deep sense of community that once existed on LiveJournal, have been advocating for a retreat to a new social platform called Pillowfort, a site which very overtly attempts to combine the best characteristics of LiveJournal and Tumblr with a more laidback old-school approach to fandom and content moderation. That platform, which is currently in beta, is currently down for planned security upgrades. On its Tumblr in response to the news about the Tumblr ban, Pillowfort stated that it plans to “allow NSFW content with very few restrictions.”

Still others looked to Dreamwidth, a blogging platform built on LiveJournal’s open-source code that was originally built in 2008 in response to LiveJournal’s demise. Its owners, too, were ready to welcome the Tumblr diaspora with open arms, just as it welcomed the LJ diaspora a decade ago. Other sites like MeWe also responded to the news by welcoming potential Tumblr refugees.

For many Tumblr users and onlookers, however, the simplest solution seems to be a return to the spirit that built Tumblr culture: when all else fails, make memes.

It was inevitable, for example, that there’d be at least one reference to DashCon, the notorious 2014 Tumblr fan convention that turned into a viral disaster, typified by this famous forlorn image of the “DashCon ball pit:”

At the top of the list of agenda items was the phrase “female presenting nipples,” which received the lion’s share of hilarity from Tumblr users.

free the female presenting nipples. robbieross/Tumblr

Of course, all of this won’t really help answer the larger question of what’s next for Tumblr. But ironically, in response to the news, Tumblr’s userbase has reminded us all exactly what a valuable and irreplaceable role Tumblr has played in the evolution of modern internet culture.

All of the wry humor, the trenchant memes, the progressive social commentary mixed with genuine care for Tumblr’s marginalized communities that Tumblr users have deployed in response to the adult content ban — all of that is a unique combination that’s grown out of Tumblr culture. When it’s gone, there’s no guarantee it will return on another website in the same form. And it definitely won’t be accompanied by the same fabulous GIFs and fanart.

Still, there’s no guarantee that Tumblr’s profit-driven side will prioritize keeping that culture sustainable, even if it does somehow manage to ban adult content and retain its core membership. If that’s the case, then it’s a loss not just for Tumblr users, but for the entire internet. Like Vine before it, another irreplaceable cornerstone of our online world that should have been better appreciated all along, Tumblr might be fated to be loved best only after it’s gone.

Original Source -> Why Tumblr’s adult content ban is about so much more than porn

via The Conservative Brief

[mikemortgage]

He’s no chicken: Michael McCain bets some $700M on his company’s future, but he’s one of few

The Canadian business establishment doesn’t part with its cash easily.

Ask Mark Carney, the former Bank of Canada governor, who chided executives in 2012 for guarding a hoard of “dead money,” a barb that became shorthand for the post-crisis disconnect between surging corporate profits and sluggish business investment. The issue remains; Statistics Canada reported Nov. 30 that after-tax corporate profits increased four per cent in the third quarter to a record $325 billion, while business investment declined for the first time since 2016.

So word that a McCain was dropping almost $700 million to build a new chicken plant should have been big news. But it wasn’t, really. Maybe a decade or so of watching Silicon Valley spend billions of dollars on firms of which we have never heard has dulled our senses? A massive bet on something as prosaic as food, in a place as normal as London, Ont., just doesn’t make the heart go pitter-patter in the smartphone age.

Maple Leaf Foods to build new $660 million London plant, shutter 3 others in Ontario

Maple Leaf Foods goes all-natural in entire line of processed meats

Cricket muffins, anyone? Food giant Maple Leaf bets on insects as alternative to meat

Another explanation: we haven’t been reading our Gretzky.

This week featured a lot of puck watching, as politicians and unionists vowed to fight the decision of General Motors Co. to shut its plant in Oshawa. The decision was predictable, since North American consumers want light trucks and electric cars and Oshawa builds neither.

If we were focused on where the puck was going, we would have had our eyes on Maple Leaf Foods Inc., led by chief executive Michael McCain, which is setting up to take advantage of dramatic changes in the global food market. A recent report by Citibank concluded that demand for nutrition will increase by about 70 per cent over the next three decades, and that “business as usual” will result in ecological and human-health calamities.

Unlike automaking, Canada has a natural advantage in sustainable food production because we have lots of water to irrigate crops that are flourishing thanks to longer growing seasons. But without more investment, that advantage will be squandered. Maple Leaf is setting an example of what it will take to become a world leader in a brutally competitive business dominated by American and European companies.

“We are stewards of this business, both as managers and shareholders,” McCain, the scion of the billionaire family of frozen-french-fry makers from Florenceville, N.B., who has led Maple Leaf since 1999, told me during a telephone interview on Nov. 28.

“The supply chain we have today in our poultry business, which is endemic across the entire supply chain in Canada, I think, is sub-scale and inefficient,” he continued. “It’s 50 to 60 years old, or more in some cases, and does not deploy the latest technologies. We know that while it’s a profitable category for us today, it’s not long-term secure.”

They will like the sound of those words in Ottawa.

Stephen Poloz, the central bank governor since 2013, misjudged the strength of Canadian businesses early in his tenure, forcing occasional tweaks to his economic recovery story as business investment and exports remained surprisingly weak. It wasn’t until earlier this year that the Bank of Canada expressed confidence that businesses were taking over from households as the primary drivers of growth.

Anecdotal evidence like the Maple Leaf announcement will dull the sting of StatCan’s latest survey of the economy. The report suggests the animal spirits that the central bank spied were sent scurrying this summer, as negotiations over an updated North American trade agreement dragged on, and transportation bottlenecks caused oil prices to plummet. Economic growth slowed to an annual rate of two per cent in the third quarter from almost three per cent in the previous quarter, as the plunge in business investment sapped momentum generated from record levels of unemployment.  

Over at the Finance Department, Bill Morneau, the minister, has spent much of the current fiscal year trying to convince people that he hadn’t made a terrible mistake by ignoring U.S. corporate tax cuts in his February budget. The International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and virtually every Canadian business lobby said too little was being done to correct a litany of competitiveness issues. Morneau finally responded earlier this month with a budget update that promises to forgo some $14 billion in revenue by reducing taxes on new capital purchases, pledges an impressive deregulation push, and allocates about $1 billion for measures aimed at greasing trade with Asia, Europe and Latin America.

McCain is a member the Agri-Food Table, one of six expert committees that the Trudeau government assembled in 2017 to provide advice on how Canada could lead in each of their respective fields. The boss of Maple Leaf, the country’s fourth-biggest food processor by revenue last year, reckons Morneau’s refusal to be rushed might have resulted in some good policy.

The “overarching theme” of the food committee’s advice, “was the need in Canada to invest in productivity, scale and competitiveness,” McCain said.

“The food industry around the world is a scale game. It’s brutally competitive,” he added. “I’m pleased to say that in the fall economic update, I think the Government of Canada, Mr. Morneau, did actually respond very effectively to those issues under tremendous pressure for some kind of tax response to what took place in the United States.”

Aggressively partisan Conservatives back in Carleton County, N.B. might dismiss McCain’s praise of Morneau’s update: the McCains are said to be Liberals, and the finance minister is married to Michael’s cousin. (Disclosure: Michael McCain and I grew up on the same patch of Western New Brunswick; he on a hill overlooking Florenceville and the Saint John River, me on a swampy farm on the outskirts of a neighbouring village.) To counter that sort of talk, the head of Maple Leaf need only point to his company’s share price, which has doubled since he took over almost 20 years ago. He knows something about business.

The specifications for Maple Leaf’s planned London facility are the result of a world tour of state-of-the-art meat plants. It will churn out more chicken with relatively fewer people. It also will be outfitted to treat chickens humanely, minimize food-safety risks and significantly reduce the current environmental impact of processing live animals. The latter set of considerations are at least as important to Maple Leaf’s future as slimming the cost of production.

“I’ve been in the food business all my life,” McCain said. “When I hear activists around the world saying that the food industry is one of the most unproductive production systems on the planet and needs to be re-engineered, that’s hurtful,” he added. “I want to be part of the solution of climate change, not part of the problem. That’s why we’re committed to it.”

•Email: kcarmichael@postmedia.com | Twitter: CarmichaelKevin

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[mikemortgage]

Tax breaks for oilpatch ‘band aid’ solutions unlikely to spur investment

CALGARY – Oil and gas executives dismissed a series of new tax breaks as “band aid solutions” that won’t help spur new investments in the beleaguered sector until new pipelines are built.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley announced a series of tax breaks Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, aimed at spurring investment in the oil and gas industry.

Those breaks include immediate deductibility of expenses for new plant and equipment and clean-energy technology from Ottawa, new exemptions from the carbon tax for drilling companies, and a proposal to buy rail cars to move oil to U.S. refineries from the Alberta Government.

While executives said they wouldn’t turn down offers for assistance, the measures do little in the short term while Canadian oil prices are subject to record-setting discounts relative to the U.S. crude oil benchmark due to a lack of export pipelines.

One of the measures, contained in Morneau’s fall economic update, was a 100 per cent deduction in the first year for new manufacturing, processing machinery and equipment, an incentive similar to what’s available in the U.S.

“The changes in the deduction rates for the equipment does very little for and E&P company in Western Canada,” Advantage Oil and Gas Ltd. president and CEO Andy Mah said. “Most of the companies are non-taxable at this point because our revenues have diminished so significantly.”

Aggressive response, significant cost: Businesses like Liberal measures, but yearn for U.S.-style tax cuts

Alberta could avoid losing $2.9 billion in revenues by forcing oil producers to cut output: report

“A lot of the E&P companies already have a pretty sizeable deductibility from prior investments that haven’t paid out,” Mah said.

The biggest problem facing the Canadian oil and gas industry is the regulatory delays for building projects like pipelines and LNG projects, Mah said.

Canadian Energy Research Institute vice-president, research Dinara Millington thinks the measure could benefit producers embarking on new projects as it “will impact their bottom line and project economics, too.”

But few producers are embarking on new projects right now.

The new deduction allowances are “a step forward,” Cenovus Energy Inc. spokesperson Sonja Franklin said in an email, adding that “the allowance for energy producers is less attractive than that for similarly trade-exposed industries, and it still leaves us at a competitive disadvantage to U.S. energy producers.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“Also, due to the oil pricing crisis facing the Canadian oilpatch, producers won’t likely be able to take advantage of this tax measure any time soon because companies are not planning an significant capital spending in the near future,” Franklin said in an email.

Cenovus has previously said it won’t embark on new growth projects until new export pipelines are closer to being completed.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made Calgary his first stop after the fiscal update announcement in Ottawa, but was greeted by a pro-pipeline rally outside the Calgary Chamber of Commerce event, in the heart of the city’s downtown, chanting, “build that pipe.”

Trudeau told business executives at a Calgary Chamber of Commerce event that he was “very, very aware how crucial” the stalled Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is to Canada.

“There is no question that folks in Alberta, folks here in Calgary, are living through extremely difficult times. This is very much a crisis,” Trudeau said.

Ottawa purchased the Trans Mountain pipeline system for $4.5 billion from Houston-based Kinder Morgan Inc. earlier this year but work halted on the expansion project in August when a Federal Court of Appeals judge ruled the federal government had not properly consulted with affected Frist Nations along the route.

The federal government has since announced more consultations and a renewed regulatory process for the pipeline.

Earlier Thursday, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley called on Ottawa to buy locomotives and railway cars to deal with the “real and present danger” that US$40 to US$50 per barrel oil price discounts pose to the Canadian economy.

“Since work stopped on the Trans Mountain pipeline in August, it’s cost the Canadian economy more than $6 billion,” Notley said at a forecast breakfast hosted by the Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors on Thursday. “The only long-term solution to this is building new pipelines and getting more value from our resources.”

Bloomberg News reported Ottawa would likely reject Alberta’s request to purchase locomotives and railway cars to move oil out Alberta, where a glut of crude has built up in storage tanks given pipeline constraints and a slower-than-expected ramp up in oil-by-rail exports.

Alberta signalled its willingness to buy the railway cars even if Ottawa wouldn’t on Thursday.

“If Ottawa won’t come to the table, then we’ll get it done ourselves,” Notley said.

Advantage’s Mah said the proposal to buy new train cars to ship oil out of storage  were a “band aid for all the issues that we didn’t address earlier.”

Notley also announced that drilling companies would be exempted from its carbon taxes for a number of the fuels they use to drill wells in the province.

But the deepening crisis in the oilpatch is expected to continue next year, according to COADC, which is estimating less than 1 per cent increase in wells being drilled in 2019, compared to the current year, amid a deep downturn.

“Our members are on life support,” CAODC president Mark Scholz said in a release.

Financial Post with files from Bloomberg

• Email: gmorgan@nationalpost.com | Twitter: geoffreymorgan

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