#Reading Progress Indicator

[cssscriptcom]

CSS Only Circular Reading Progress Indicator

A pure CSS circular reading progress indicator that provides a visual representation of the user’s current reading progress. The circular progress bar automatically fills up, and the percentage of the page that has been scrolled is displayed in the middle of the indicator as your users scroll down the page. How to use it: 1. Create the HTML for the reading progress indicator. <div…

[corellianhounds]

To give you some perspective on how frustrating/satisfying it is to be writing this Mayday story and to be making progress on it the way I am, the Toro Lives AU outline and unposted scenes/progress was started in Dec of 2023 and has about 46k words, not counting the chapters posted (which are about 21k words in total). The rest is outline + notes + scenes and progress.

The roughly four movie outline for the Role Swap AU I started last August has ~34k words

There are more things I’ve written/written down for other projects here and there this whole time, but this adventure/romance fic has amassed 70k words IN THE LAST 5 WEEKS

Where is this writing juice when I try to figure out chapter 5 of the Toro story 😭 Or the last 5% of this first half of the role swap 😭

[clownakai]

(I crash through the roof and my parachute only opens once I've hit the ground) making self-indulgent young Shuuichi/Jodie yuri >>>>>>

[waifuoftomonori]

Random Daily Paragraph - 3/12

Let me preface this by saying I have not written more than a sentence today so far, and my attempt to stay offline until I wrote failed miserably. I’m still going to try before going to sleep, but that is where the situation currently stands. …Also, I kinda hate the five paragraphs I wrote yesterday, they came off much less sexy than I would have liked, and I feel like Tomonori would taunt Shinra for longer than I currently have him doing— I have a terrible habit of shying away from building tension sometimes— so I might end up backtracking again to the point I started from yesterday. It’s annoying as hell, but I only have myself to blame. Anyway, without further ado:

“Do I have to explain everything? The oni clan must be in a worse-off position without my help than I assumed.” Tomonori expelled a sigh, finger following the curve of Shinra’s cheek toward his mouth, where he pressed the ball in farther.

[typecoercion]

Detailed thread on repression of Uyghur population in Xinjiang. Interesting reading recommendations.

A brief list:

Rebecca Karl, Interlude: Xinjiang 2009

James Millward, Introduction: Does the 2009 Urumchi violence mark a turning point?

Dru Gladney, Representing Nationality in China: Refiguring Majority/Minority Identities

Xiaowei Zang, Uyghur Support for Economic Justice in Ürümchi

Rian Thum, The Uyghurs in Modern China

Copying over more text below for fear of link rot

(1)

There are some pretty bad takes here and I think once the empirical reality of what has happened to the Uyghurs becomes even more substantiated, there will be a lot of shame to go around. Some of the sources used to rebut forced internment or that what is happening to the Uyghurs is actually not that bad are, frankly, embarrassing (Carl Zha, really?). Understanding China is extremely difficult and one would be surprised how ill-informed one can end up being by doing what would for other subjects be considered sufficient. Because most people are not experts on China or the CCP or Xinjiang or the Uyghurs and because it is in fact a specialist subject, people are easily swayed by reading lists or articles covered with a thin veneer of expertise. Even the most politically sympathetic China scholar wouldn't even wipe their ass with this stuff.

One of the biggest problems for wading through the morass that is "wtf is going in Xinjiang" is that many in the West and in Uyghur expatriate communities do make sensational points that are easily called into question (e.g. mass organ theft, that there are no radical Islamist Uyghurs, that there are 2 million in internment camps being tortured 24/7, that there is a mass genocide similar to the holocaust, etc). These kinds of outrageous and conspiratorial claims are typical of expatriate communities that seek regime change in their homelands (occupied or not) or were otherwise persecuted (e.g. Falun Gong). They should be read as such, but you simply have to dig deeper than that. To compound the problem, there is an all-out information war between China and the West and politically cretinous people in the West use Xinjiang and the Uyghurs as propaganda tools for their own ends.

These more outlandish claims are unfortunate because they are easy to refute and make it easier to sow doubt about the more realistic and well-evidenced claims, such as: that there are hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in re-education camps at least; that these camps are forced; that vocational training is the least of what goes on there; that the relationship between Xinjiang (the Dzungharian basin primarily, but the Uyghur region increasingly since the 1980s [read Judd Kinzley]) and eastern China is fundamentally based on material extraction that should be characterized as colonial and exploitative (the reason for Xinjiang's incorporation into China is of course related to the more distant Qing conquests, but also to the discovery of massive resource wealth conducted by Soviet survey teams in the early 20th century); that Uyghurs have been predominantly left out of Xinjiang's economic gains; that many Han people are extremely racist toward Uyghurs inside and outside of Xinjiang; that Uyghurs have a point in resisting Han migration and settler colonialism to Xinjiang; that Uyghur cultural identity and language have been under assault for a long time; that there was a broader sense of collective identity in southern Xinjiang before 1921 based around the tazkirah tradition [read Rian Thum]; that some Uyghurs are, in fact, Islamic militants and have joined ISIS; that Uyghur expatriate groups are authentically Uyghur but also express the desires of Western political actors. That these claims are not considered common knowledge is unfortunate as they are very well-evidenced and supported by research done almost entirely by left wing scholars.

If you are genuinely interested in understanding this subject and also in having strong opinions about it, you have to do the bare minimum. You have to read at least a plurality of the work of James Millward, Mark Elliott, Dru Gladney, Pamela Kyle Crossley, Rian Thum, Gardner Bovingdon, Judd Kinzley, Darren Byler, Sean Roberts, Ildikó Bellér-Hann, David Brophy, Justin Jacobs, and Elise Anderson. I can give others.

If you want to read from someone who is basically a Maoist and also an eminent China historian, you can read Rebecca Karl here. I think you should also make a genuine effort to read what Uyghurs themselves have to say, while keeping in mind the desire of 99% of expatriates is to create an independent East Turkestan and that this narrative fits US global imperial ambitions and desire to constrain China. Read Uyghur poetry (see Joshua Freeman), past and present.

Zenz is a problematic researcher for reasons already said here, but you simply can't stop your research into this topic at his background (or assume that because the numbers he estimates are likely way too high, there's nothing going on at all).

Linking a list of articles and reddit posts from someone on r /Sino on this topic is just not enough. Likewise, and I'm sorry for saying this so crassly, but saying that most sources about Uyghur genocide are from Radio Free Asia basically shows you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about and are nothing more than a cheap propagandist and don't really care to put in the work to understand complex issues. Yes, RFA is propaganda and can pretty much be ignored, but actual scholars doing actual research do not take RFA seriously and resist using the term "genocide" and they've still come to similarly disturbing conclusions as to what has happened and is happening.

Tldr: you need to actually read if you want to be taken seriously on this topic.

(2)

Someone PMed me asking for more details on what to read and about scholars who are not white men. I've included my response for others to reference:

I'm assuming you are limited to Anglophone literature. There's some great stuff in Uyghur and Chinese obviously, and I know there's a lot in Japanese and Russian but I can't read those languages--people like David Brophy and James Millward draw on that literature though. There's Turkish literature as well, but I can't attest to any of it. I'm assuming it's mostly pan-Turkic nationalist in nature. I would suggest:

James Millward: *Eurasian Crossroads* for a good general overview (unfortunately it was published before the camp system, but there is a new edition coming out sometime soon). His article on the 2009 riots here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02634930903577128

Darren Byler: he just finished his dissertation and has not written a book yet, but read his articles on SupChina. He has lived in Xinjiang for years, speaks Uyghur, and is solidly left wing and anti-imperialist. His articles on surveillance capitalism are useful for understanding what's going on there. His website: https://livingotherwise.com/

Dru Gladney has a lot, but you have to read this: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2059528?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents This article basically spawned an entire field studying how the Han majority internally orientalizes China's ethnic minorities.

Judd Kinzley, read *Natural Resources and the New Frontier* to understand how material extraction is fundamental to Xinjiang's relationship to regional states in the 20th century.

Sean Roberts has a book coming out soon, but his article using biopolitics here you might find useful: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14672715.2018.1454111

Rian Thum's work is phenomenal and won one of the most prestigious academic book prizes for East Asian history, *The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History*. Basically shows that there was a broader Uyghur identity based around the tazkirah Sufi mystic historical tradition before Uyghur nationalism developed. You will see that Chinese nationalists will try to downplay or just outright lie about the development of any sense of coherent Uyghur identity. Much of the Uyghur history field has thus been centered around questions of identity development.

David Brophy and Justin Jacobs can be read together: *Xinjiang and the Modern Chinese State* and *Uyghur Nation* (the latter draws on Russian sources in an innovative way).

I agree it's a problem in the field that it's so dominated by white men. This is partly because Uyghur academics are so politically constrained and those who had the most intellectual intercourse with the West have since disappeared, like Rahile Dawut. I can give you a list of some of the foremost borderland scholars in China who publish in Chinese, if you want. I always found it odd that so few graduate students from China who come to the US to study Chinese history end up studying Xinjiang. There was a step toward rectifying this a few years ago when a young woman who had studied with Rahile Dawut was admitted to Harvard's PhD program, however she was arrested and imprisoned for 5 years before she could leave.

You could go to JSTOR, type in "Uyghur" or "Xinjiang" and click on articles written by people with non-Western names.

Xiaowei Zang is a name that comes up. Zang studies employment and economic disparity among Uyghurs and Han. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43590609

Zhe Wu, a scholar from China living in Taiwan (and who I think actually came out in support of the camps or policies in Xinjiang) has a chapter in *Maoism at the Grassroots* about the first decade of PRC rule in Xinjiang and how Han chauvinism and local nationalism were both harshly critiqued by the Party during that time. Today Han chauvinism is rampant and dominant--this jives with Uyghurs who look comparatively fondly on the 1950s and 1980s and the greater degree of autonomy afforded during those decades.

For Anglophone historical literature written by non-whites, you can read Kim Ho Dong's *Holy War in China: The Muslim Rebellion and State in Chinese Central Asia, 1864-1877* for a deeper historical context of unrest in Xinjiang related to control of the region from a state in China. You can read Kwangmin Kim's *Borderland Capitalism: Turkestan Produce, Qing Silver, and the Birth of an Eastern Market* for more on Qing colonial expansion into Xinjiang and the Qing state's relationship to local economic leaders and the integration of Xinjiang to global markets. The question of whether the Qing was acting "imperially" toward Xinjiang is a strong overtone in the field, and politically fraught because the Qing was clearly acted imperially upon by Western powers and Japan. The consensus of those who study Qing expansion in Central Asia is that Qing's imperial victimization was simultaneous to its own imperial expansion in Central Asia (you can guess which relation to imperialism the CCP and Chinese nationalists prefer to underline).

There's this newer article "Colonization with Chinese characteristics: politics of (in)security in Xinjiang and Tibet" by Dibyesh Anand, which had slipped past my radar: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02634937.2018.1534801?casa_token=8NNdlSLTID8AAAAA:2wabSjkhPnML4afnrHt-8NIB2jFqDE-Wod2urOGvuuhl3VJZfwv--g_jAb26QYfuUnwOiZotJfoLplA

You can also read Nabijan Tursun, who is affiliated with RFA and supports the creation of an independent Uyghur state. He was educated in the Soviet Union, taught at Xinjiang University, and left in I think the early 1990s. He is clearly the premier Uyghur historian of 20th century Xinjiang/Uyghurs writing in English (and Russian) today. Whether his affiliation with RFA disqualifies him or not, I'll leave up to you. He has a chapter with James Millward in *Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland*, in which I see Millward moderating Tursun's Uyghur nationalism while still drawing on his unparalleled knowledge of the literature.

You can also read Uyghur personal testimony from recent years. These are often embedded in the work of Western, Central Asian, and global human rights organizations which are problematic, but you should read it and get a better idea of the full volume and scope of testimony and see what your response to the evidence presented is. https://www.shahit.biz/

I recommend reading Uyghur poems and translated literature as well. There's a short fiction from Perhat Tursun (who has since disappeared into the camps) that will be translated and published next year. Some other names to google would be Abdurehim Ötkür, Turghun Almas, or Memtimin Hoshur. Almas's Uyghurlar is a famous book among Uyghurs. It makes a lot of specious and false historical claims in service of building a Uyghur national pride. Regardless, it's important for the nationalism it expresses and the state's terrified response to it, and not for the historical research behind it. A lot of Uyghur historical literature is less interested in doing history to the standards of the Western academy, and more interested in building a Uyghur national consciousness and pride. A more cynical view is that Uyghur scholars aren't allowed to do their own history anyway and are afforded no access to sources that would allow them to do it, nor the freedom to publish anything that resulted from that kind of research.

As you could expect, few Uyghurs speak English and few native English-speakers speak Uyghur--there's a lot of work to be done in translating Uyghur literature and probably not even a dozen people in the world capable of doing so. Poetry is easier to translate than a full novel so you see more of it, but also poetry is an influential category in Uyghur literary culture.

https://supchina.com/2020/02/05/disappearance-of-perhat-tursun-uyghur-worlds-greatest-author/

https://medium.com/fairbank-center/uyghur-poetry-in-translation-perhat-tursuns-elegy-902a58b7a0aa

[ana-bananya]

Some Resources for Sudan

On the ground efforts to support

‼️ indicates that a fundraiser has experienced a decrease in donations or has been without donations for some time. Last progress update done on Dec 8th 2024

Sudanese American physicians association

Sudanese American Medical Association

Doctors Without Borders (MSF)

Save the Children

Sudan Solidarity Collective

Sudan diaspora networks Sudan benefit fundraiser

Darfur Women Action Group

Fight Hunger in Sudan: The Khartoum Kitchen appeal

Nas Al Sudan

Twitter thread with actions that can be taken to support Sudan

Sadeia

Help Sudan- Sudan Relief Fund

Relief and Rehabilitation for Disabilities Support (HRRDS)

Sara's (Bsonblast) link tree for Sudan

One Million Sustainable Pads Campaign (€50,629/€200,000 - VERY low on funds) ‼️

Shelter and Supplies for Sudanese Women ($13,884/$15,000)

Period Care for Sudan ($870/$10,000)‼️

Sunduq Al Sudan - support grassroots organizations in Sudan

Save El Geneina initiative

Food Baskets in Sudan

Takaful

Action Against Hunger

Mutual Aim: All Safe Hands on Deck ($28,371/$220,000 - VERY low on funds)‼️

Feed Sudanese Refugees facing hunger in Uganda ($16,406/$25,000) ‼️

Relief for Al Jazirah Refugees ($7,455/$150,00 - VERY low on funds)‼️

Support South Sudanese Evacuation from Sudan ($12,690/$100,000 - VERY low on funds)‼️

Help dialysis patients in Sudan

Sudan Emergency Appeal

Medical and sanitary supplies to support women & children ($35/$3,000 CAD - VERY low on funds)

Sudan Children's Cancer Organization

Support for refugees in Cairo ($9,685/$25,000 - VERY low on funds)‼️

Famine Relief ($10,578/$15,000)‼️

Blankets and Supplies for Kordofan ($7,688/$16,000)‼️

Sudanese families that need your support

Majority of these campaigns have been shared by members of the Sudanese community who vouch for their legitimacy. Yousif's family is the only one I am currently unaware of, but please take the time to read his gfm and go over the evidence the organizer provided of their communication.

Help house a homeless disabled Sudani in London (£4,368/£4,500)‼️

Emergency Fund for Sudanese Family ($24,271 CAD/$25,000 CAD) ‼️

Help Sajida and her family evacuate from Sudan ($37,953 CAD/$50,000 CAD) ‼️

Help Eman and her family evacuate (CHF37,325/CHF50,000) ‼️

Help Randa's family evacuate Sudan (€29,994/€35,000) ‼️

Support Sakina's Family's Journey to Safety ($10,055/$10,000)

Help Aalaa evacuate and get treatment for her mother ($38,298/$50,000)‼️

Help Abeer's Family Evacuate ($4,210/$75,000 CAD - VERY low on funds)‼️

Save Omiama's eyesight (€5,412/€14,725) ‼️

Help Abudjana rebuild after war (£3,299/£5,000) ‼️

Help a family of 13 evacuate Sudan ($4,795/$20,000 - VERY low on funds) ‼️

Help Refugee’s escape Sudan Conflict ($15,448CAD/$31,000 CAD) ‼️

Safe Passage ممر آمن- Help a mom and her kids escape war ($6,405 CAD/$7,000 CAD) ‼️

Help Medical Students in Sudan (€1,993/€350,000 - VERY low on funds) ‼️

Help Mujtaba's Family Escape the war in Sudan ($6,696/$18,527 - VERY low on funds) ‼️

Help Yumna's Family Escape War in Sudan - $5,066/$5,000 raised

Help Mehad's Family Fly to Hope ($4,274/$5,000) ‼️

Help Sudanese Families escape from war (€23,827/€50,000 - VERY low on funds)

Help ThomaSerena recover from war (€2,430/€5,000 - VERY low on funds) ‼️

Help Asjad and her Family Escape War in Sudan ($31,076/$33,000)

Emergency aid for Ahmeds family to escape warzone in Sudan (£9,244 /£20,000 - VERY low on funds) ‼️

Help Rama's Family Flee Sudan’s War (£3,033/£10,000 - VERY low on funds) ‼️

Help Isra Continue her Education in Egypt ($3,669/$9,100 AUD - VERY low on funds) ‼️

Help Madarik and Tibyan continue their education ($11,844/$18,000 AUD)‼️

Support financial aid for Gezira medical students in Sudan (£1,352/£2,000) ‼️

Asala's family - evacuation and medical treatment ($5,313/$30,000 - VERY low on funds) ‼️

Help a Sudanese family flee war and afford medical funds (€3,341/€13,000 - VERY low on funds) ‼️

Help Salma's family evacuate (£3,760/£6,000) ‼️

Help Mohammad Esa reunite his family (£1,969/£3,700 - VERY low on funds) ‼️

Help two medical students evacuate Sudan with their family ($1,104/$45,000 - VERY low on funds) ‼️

Help Nour Rebuild Her Life and Career (£2,692/£7,000 - VERY low on funds) ‼️

Help a displaced family escape Sudan Genocide (£14,857/£30,000 - VERY low on funds) ‼️

Support Muhammad's Artistic Journey Amid Sudan's Turmoil ($3,494/$25,000 - VERY low on funds) ‼️

Support Alaa, her husband, and their children (£4,651/£5,000) ‼️

Help Yousif and his family evacuate ($235/$15,000 - VERY low on funds) ‼️*not officially vetted as far as I'm aware, but the organizer provided proof of her communications with Yousif you can find posted in the updates of the gfm. please go over the information for yourself

Hope for Mona & siblings to survive the Sudan war ($36,790/$45,000)‼️

Help An Artist Stuck in Sudanese War zone ($3,691/$15,000)‼️

Support Al Afya's Road to Recovery ($4,149/$60,000)‼️

Aid Marafi in Escaping War and Finding Hope ($155/$5,000)‼️

Evacuation from Khartoum to Cairo ($286/$15,500)‼️

Help Abdulrahman Reunite with his Family ($2,800/$5,000)‼️

Awab's Family ($2,380/$10,000)‼️

Zubeyda Adam and family (£1,929/£5,000)‼️

Help Hala evacuate and pursue her education (€9,245/33,000)‼️

Ahmed's family ($1,740/$5,000)‼️

Raghad's family ($19,244/$25,000 CAD)‼️

Help Roua and her children evacuate (€5,585/10,000)‼️

Habboba's family ($10,101/$11,000)

Accounts to follow

bsonblast (on twitter, insta, and tiktok)

Sudan.updates (insta)

Red_maat (insta)

tartola0123 (insta)

Sudan.updates (insta)

baobaboperation (insta)

Sdn.world (insta and twitter)

modathirzainalabdeen (insta and tiktok)

Londonforsudan (Twitter and insta. If you are in the London area, they also organize and post about protests you can attend)

If you feel uneducated about Sudan and are unsure where to start researching, @/red_maat' has put together a tool kit you can reference. The @/baobaboperation also has a brief starting guide.

Contact your government officials

Canada (scroll to find "CANADA email MP, Foreign Affairs and Development")

United States

UK

Sign and share the Hands Off Sudan petition to call on global leaders and agencies to hold the UAE accountable and protect Sudanese civilians

[autistichalsin]

In retrospect, four years later, I feel like the Isabel Fall incident was just the biggest ignored cautionary tale modern fandom spaces have ever had. Yes, it wasn't limited to fandom, it was also a professional author/booktok type argument, but it had a lot of crossover.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: a writer, whether fan or pro, publishes a work. If one were to judge a book by its cover, something we are all taught in Kindergarten shouldn't happen but has a way of occurring regardless, one might find that there was something that seemed deeply problematic about this work. Maybe the title or summary alluded to something Wrong happening, or maybe the tags indicated there was problematic kinks or relationships. And that meant the story was Bad. So, a group of people takes to the Twittersphere to inform everyone who will listen why the work, and therefore the author, are Bad. The author, receiving an avalanche of abuse and harassment, deactivates their account, and checks into a mental health facility for monitoring for suicidal ideation. They never return to their writing space, and the harassers get a slap on the wrist (if that- usually they get praise and high-fives all around) and start waiting for their next victim to transgress.

Sounds awful familiar, doesn't it?

Isabel Fall's case, though, was even more extreme for many reasons. See, she made the terrible mistake of using a transphobic meme as the genesis to actually explore issues of gender identity.

More specifically, she used the phrase "I sexually identify as an attack helicopter" to examine how marginalized identities, when they become more accepted, become nothing more than a tool for the military-industrial complex to rebrand itself as a more personable and inclusive atrocity; a chance to pursue praise for bombing brown children while being progressive, because queer people, too, can help blow up brown children now! It also contained an examination of identity and how queerness is intrinsic to a person, etc.

But... well, if harassers ever bothered to read the things they critique, we wouldn't be here, would we? So instead, they called Isabel a transphobic monster for the title alone, even starting a misinformation campaign to claim she was, in fact, a cis male nazi using a fake identity to psyop the queer community.

A few days later, after days of horrific abuse and harassment, Isabel requested that Clarkesworld magazine pull the story. She checked in to a psych ward with suicidal thoughts. That wasn't all, though; the harassment was so bad that she was forced to out herself as trans to defend against the claims.

Only... we know this type of person, the fandom harassers, don't we? You know where this is going. Outing herself did nothing to stop the harassment. No one was willing to read the book, much less examine how her sexuality and gender might have influenced her when writing it.

So some time later, Isabel deleted her social media. She is still alive, but "Isabel Fall" is not- because the harassment was so bad that Isabel detransitioned/closeted herself, too traumatized to continue living her authentic life.

Supposed trans allies were so outraged at a fictional portrayal of transness, written by a trans woman, that they harassed a real life trans woman into detransitioning.

It's heartbreakingly familiar, isn't it? Many of us in fandom communities have been in Isabel's shoes, even if the outcome wasn't so extreme (or in some cases, when it truly was). Most especially, many of us, as marginalized writers speaking from our own experiences in some way, have found that others did not enjoy our framework for examining these things, and hurt us, members of those identities, in defense of "the community" as a nebulous undefined entity.

There's a quote that was posted in a news writeup about the whole saga that was published a year after the fact. The quote is:

The delineation between paranoid and reparative readings originated in 1995, with influential critic Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. A paranoid reading focuses on what’s wrong or problematic about a work of art. A reparative reading seeks out what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art, even if the work is flawed. Importantly, a reparative reading also tends to consider what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art for someone who isn’t the reader. This kind of nuance gets completely worn away on Twitter, home of paranoid readings. “[You might tweet], ‘Well, they didn’t discuss X, Y, or Z, so that’s bad!’ Or, ‘They didn’t’ — in this case — ‘discuss transness in a way that felt like what I feel about transness, therefore it is bad.’ That flattens everything into this very individual, very hostile way of reading,” Mandelo says. “Part of reparative reading is trying to think about how a story cannot do everything. Nothing can do everything. If you’re reading every text, fiction, or criticism looking for it to tick a bunch of boxes — like if it represents X, Y, and Z appropriately to my definitions of appropriate, and if it’s missing any of those things, it’s not good — you’re not really seeing the close focus that it has on something else.”

A paranoid reading describes perfectly what fandom culture has become in the modern times. It is why "proship", once simply a word for common sense "don't engage with what you don't like, and don't harass people who create it either" philosophies, has become the boogeyman of fandom, a bad and dangerous word. The days of reparative readings, where you would look for things you enjoyed, are all but dead. Fiction is rarely a chance to feel joy; it's an excuse to get angry, to vitriolically attack those different from oneself while surrounded with those who are the same as oneself. It's an excuse to form in-groups and out-groups that must necessarily be in a constant state of conflict, lest it come across like This side is accepting That side's faults. In other words, fandom has become the exact sort of space as the nonfandom spaces it used to seek to define itself against.

It's not about joy. It's not about resonance with plot or characters. It's about hate. It's about finding fault. If they can't find any in the story, they will, rest assured, create it by instigating fan wars- dividing fandom into factions and mercilessly attacking the other.

And that's if they even went so far as to read the work they're critiquing. The ones they don't bother to read, as you saw above, fare even worse. If an AO3 writer tagged an abuser/victim ship, it's bad, it's fetishism, even if the story is about how the victim escapes. If a trans writer uses the title "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" to find a framework to dissect rainbow-washing the military-industrial complex, it's unforgivable. It's a cesspool of kneejerk reactions, moralizing discomfort, treating good/evil as dichotomous categories that can never be escaped, and using that complex as an excuse to heap harassment on people who "deserve it." Because once you are Bad, there is no action against you that is too Bad for you to deserve.

Isabel Fall's story follows this so step-by-step that it's like a textbook case study on modern fandom behavior.

Isabel Fall wrote a short story with an inflammatory title, with a genesis in transphobic mockery, in the hopes of turning it into a genuine treatise on the intersection of gender and sexuality and the military-industrial complex. But because audiences are unprepared for the idea of inflammatory rhetoric as a tool to force discomfort to then force deeper introspection... they zeroed in on the discomfort. "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter"- the title phrase, not the work- made them uncomfortable. We no longer teach people how to handle discomfort; we live in a world of euphemism and glossing over, a world where people can't even type out the words "kill" and rape", instead substituting "unalive" and "grape." We don't deal with uncomfortable feelings anymore; we censor them, we transform them, we sanitize them. When you are unable to process discomfort, when you are never given self-soothing tools, your only possible conclusion is that anything Uncomfortable must be Bad, and the creator must either be censored too, or attacked into conformity so that you never again experience the horrors of being Uncomfortable.

So the masses took to Twitter, outraged. They were Uncomfortable, and that de facto meant that they had been Wronged. Because the content was related to trans identity issues, that became the accusation; it was transphobic, inherently. It couldn't be a critique of bigger and more fluid systems than gender identity alone; it was a slight against trans people. And no amount of explanations would change their minds now, because they had already been aggrieved and made to feel Uncomfortable.

Isabel Fall was now a Bad Person, and we all know what fandom spaces do to Bad People. Bad People, because they are Bad, will always be deserving of suicide bait and namecalling and threatening. Once a person is Bad, there is no way to ever become Good again. Not by refuting the accusations (because the accusations are now self-evident facts; "there is a callout thread against them" is its own tautological proof that wrongdoing has happened regardless of the veracity of the claims in the callout) and not by apologizing and changing, because if you apologize and admit you did the Bad thing, you are still Bad, and no matter what you do in future, you were once Bad and that needs to be brought up every time you are mentioned. If you are bad, you can NEVER be more than what you were at your worst (in their definition) moment. Your are now ontologically evil, and there is no action taken against you that can be immoral.

So Isabel was doomed, naturally. It didn't matter that she outed herself to explain that she personally had lived the experience of a trans woman and could speak with authority on the atrocity of rainbow-washing the military industrial complex as a proaganda tool to capture progressives. None of it mattered. She had written a work with an Uncomfortable phrase for a title, the readers were Uncomfortable, and someone had to pay for it.

And that's the key; pay for it. Punishment. Revenge. It's never about correcting behavior. Restorative justice is not in this group's vocabulary. You will, incidentally, never find one of these folks have a stance against the death penalty; if you did Bad as a verb, you are Bad as an intrinsic, inescapable adjective, and what can you do to incorrigible people but kill them to save the Normal people? This is the same principle, on a smaller scale, that underscores their fandom activities; if a Bad fan writes Bad fiction, they are a Bad person, and their fandom persona needs to die to save Normal fans the pain of feeling Uncomfortable.

And that's what happened to Isabel Fall. The person who wrote the short story is very much alive, but the pseudonym of Isabel Fall, the identity, the lived experiences coming together in concert with imagination to form a speculative work to critique deeply problematic sociopolitical structures? That is dead. Isabel Fall will never write again, even if by some miracle the person who once used the name does. Even if she ever decides to restart her transition, she will be permanently scarred by this experience, and will never again be able to share her experience with us as a way to grow our own empathy and challenge our understanding of the world. In spirit, but not body, fandom spaces murdered Isabel Fall.

And that's... fandom, anymore. That's just what is done, routinely and without question, to Bad people. Good people are Good, so they don't make mistakes, and they never go too far when dealing with Bad people. And Bad people, well, they should have thought before they did something Bad which made them Bad people.

Isabel Fall's harassment happened in early 2020, before quarantine started, but it was in so many ways a final chance for fandom to hit the breaks. A chance for fandom to think collectively about what it wanted to be, who it wanted to be for and how it wanted to do it. And fandom looked at this and said, "more, please." It continues to harass marginalized people, especially fans of color and queen fans, into suffering mental breakdowns. With gusto.

Any ideas of reparative reading is dead. Fandom runs solely on paranoid readings. And so too is restorative justice gone for fandom transgressions, real or imagined. It is now solely about punitive, vigilante justice. It's a concerted campaign to make sure oddballs conform or die (in spirit, but sometimes even physically given how often mentally ill individuals are pushed into committing suicide).

It's a deeply toxic environment and I'm sad to say that Isabel Fall's story was, in retrospect, a sort of event horizon for the fandom. The gravitational pull of these harassment campaigns is entirely too strong now and there is no escaping it. I'm sorry, I hate to say something so bleak, but thinking the last few days about the state of fandom (not just my current one but also others I watch from the outside), I just don't think we can ever go back to peaceful "for joy" engagement, not when so many people are determined to use it as an outlet for lateral aggression against other people.

[xiranjayzhao]

Heavenly Tyrant is out today! It's a weird feeling after so many years of losing hair over it. It didn't feel like I was capable of finishing the book until I wrote the last word. The publication process was not a happy one. I'm not doing any events for it, not even a launch. I'm typing this while lying in bed and thinking about what a terrible year it's been. We joked about 2020 being the worst year ever, yet every year since has been progressively worse. And the coming years do not show any indication of being better.

But a big theme in Heavenly Tyrant is that wherever there is oppression, there WILL be resistance. I have had as much heartwarming support from peers, friends, and readers as I've faced heinous shenanigans this year. When a very, very famous author I met this summer asked me "Are you a controversial person?" after I told him about the stuff I was going through, I answered "To many who hold power? Yes. To regular people? I don't think so."

I want to thank all of you who gave me the faith to say something like that. Most people I know are on the right side of history. If you aren't - I don't want to know you.

Anyway, the book. Heavenly Tyrant is SO different from Iron Widow that I'm pretty nervous about whether people would like it. I want to ask you all to adjust your expectations going in. You're not going to get another breakneck-paced story about a Girlboss Going Smash. The smashing was the easy part. Rebuilding what she broke into something better is much, much harder. The story is a lot slower by necessity, and the problems she faces are way more complicated to deal with. I also ask that you read until the end before making a judgement because, well, developments you don't like might not be endgame! And there's a book 3 coming! (This was always supposed to be a trilogy; it's just that my publisher was only willing to buy 2 books from me at first. They changed their minds after seeing the preorder numbers for IW.)

Finally, I want to bring everyone's attention to the five songs the Bookish Songs Collective wrote specifically for Iron Widow! They're now available to stream whenever you get your music. It blows my mind that MY book would get such epic music?! I can't thank or praise them enough. Seriously, CHECK THE EP OUT.

[rmview]

accidentally sending a nude, SKZ.

featuring — stray kids members x gn!reader ( masterlist )

summary — what happens when the stray kids boys accidentally send you an inappropriate picture!

contents — crack, flirting, suggestive.

bang ⁺ chan

bang chan was known for being responsible and composed, but even the most reliable people had their moments. he had been working late, distractedly multitasking between responding to texts from the members, fans, and — most nerve-wracking of all — you.

you two had been flirting back and forth for weeks, and tonight was no different. your witty banter put him in a good mood, and before he knew it, he was sending a selfie from the gym, shirt drenched in sweat.

but in his rush, he didn’t notice that the picture he sent wasn’t the one he intended. instead of the gym selfie, it was an older picture—one of him just out of the shower, shirtless, with a towel slung dangerously low on his hips.

seconds later, he realized his mistake.

his heart stopped.

“oh my god,” he muttered, staring at his phone in horror as the “read” indicator popped up. his mind raced. should he delete the message? send a follow-up explanation? throw his phone into the nearest body of water?

before he could do anything, your reply came through.

...well, that’s not what i expected, but i’m not complaining.

his face turned a deep shade of red as he ran a hand through his hair, groaning in embarrassment.

“i am so sorry,” he quickly typed, his thumbs trembling as he sent the message. “that was not meant for you. i was trying to send a gym selfie. please ignore that. oh my god, i’m mortified.”

you replied almost immediately.

relax, chan. it’s not like i haven’t imagined you looking like that anyway. 😉

his jaw dropped. was this flirting? were you actually flirting back after he’d just humiliated himself?

“wait… really?” he replied, cautious yet intrigued.

really. but next time, make sure you send the right picture.

chan exhaled a laugh, shaking his head as he smiled at the screen. “noted,” he typed back, still mortified but secretly thrilled. maybe his mistake wasn’t such a disaster after all.

felix ⁺

felix was a bit of a perfectionist, especially when it came to interactions with you. he’d spent weeks carefully navigating the line between friendly and flirty, hoping to gauge your interest without coming on too strong.

so when he accidentally sent that picture, he nearly dropped his phone in panic.

he’d just finished a workout and taken a picture to check his progress — a mirror selfie of him shirtless, muscles taut, and a playful smirk on his face. he’d meant to send it to chan, but somehow, it ended up in your chat.

“no, no, no, no!” felix exclaimed, his freckles standing out against the sudden flush of his cheeks.

he stared at the screen in horror, the little “delivered” icon taunting him.

your reply came faster than he expected.

wow… nice progress, felix. 👀

he froze. were you teasing him? he wasn’t sure if he should laugh, apologize, or crawl under a rock. finally, he decided to address it head-on.

“i am so sorry!” he typed furiously. “that was not meant for you. please ignore it. i’m mortified.”

you replied with a laughing emoji.

it’s fine. honestly, i didn’t know you were this fit. guess i’ve been missing out.

felix’s heart skipped a beat. was that… interest?

“well… thanks, i guess?” he replied, still unsure how to handle the situation. “but seriously, i didn’t mean to send that. i’m usually more careful.”

well, i’m glad you weren’t this time.

felix smiled at your cheeky response despite himself. maybe his mistake wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

lee ⁺ know

lee know had always been careful about boundaries. he enjoyed teasing you and keeping things light, but he never pushed too far. that’s why, when he realized he’d sent the wrong picture, he felt a wave of panic unlike anything he’d experienced before.

the picture wasn’t obscene, but it was suggestive — a shirtless shot of him lounging in bed, his sweatpants hanging low, with a hint of his toned stomach on full display. he’d taken it to mess around with hyunjin but somehow sent it to you instead.

his phone buzzed immediately.

...well, this is a surprise.

lee know stared at your message, his ears turning red as he groaned, tossing his phone onto the couch. “i’m such an idiot,” he muttered, burying his face in his hands.

after a minute of debating whether to respond, he finally picked up his phone.

“that was not for you,” he typed, his usual confidence nowhere to be found. “sorry about that. just… forget you saw it.”

your reply came swiftly.

forget it? why would i? you look good, minho. 😏

his heart skipped a beat. “are you teasing me right now?” he replied, his confidence creeping back in.

maybe... or maybe i’m just being honest.

lee know smirked at the screen, his embarrassment fading. “well, if honesty is what we’re doing, then maybe i should admit that i don’t mind you seeing it.”

“good,” you replied. “because i didn’t mind seeing it either.”

for the first time that evening, lee know relaxed, realizing that his mistake might just have opened a door he hadn’t been brave enough to walk through himself.

hyun ⁺ jin

hyunjin had always been the type to wear his heart on his sleeve, and his interactions with you reflected that. he adored teasing you with his flirtatious comments and playful winks, but he never imagined crossing a line — until tonight.

he was sitting in his art room, surrounded by scattered sketches, when he decided to take a break. swept up in a moment of self-appreciation, he snapped a quick mirror selfie to show off his post-dance practice glow — shirtless, slightly tousled hair, and his sweatpants riding dangerously low. he sent it off to his group chat with the caption, “behold: the main character.”

or so he thought.

when he saw your name at the top of the chat instead, his heart plummeted.

“no, no, no…” he whispered, fumbling with his phone. his fingers hovered over the “unsend” button, but it was too late — your message popped up almost instantly.

well, that’s something i wasn’t expecting tonight. 👀

hyunjin’s face turned crimson, and he buried his head in his hands. his mind raced with what to say, every option feeling inadequate. finally, he mustered a response.

“its not what it looks like,” he typed, his embarrassment palpable even through the screen. “i meant to send it to the group chat. i’m so sorry, seriously.”

your reply came faster than he anticipated.

aw, don’t be embarrassed, hyunjin. you look… good. really good.

he froze, rereading your message. was this real? were you flirting back?

“wait… are you being serious right now?” he asked hesitantly.

completely serious. but if you’re this shy over a picture, i can’t imagine how you’d react if i saw you in person like this.

hyunjin let out a breathy laugh, his embarrassment melting into nervous excitement. “you’re not making this easier, you know,” he replied.

who said i’m trying to make it easier?

he leaned back, a smirk tugging at his lips at your teasing response. “you’re trouble, you know that?”

don’t pretend you don’t love it.

hyunjin shook his head, his heart pounding. what started as a mortifying mistake was quickly turning into the most exhilarating conversation he’d ever had with you.

i.n ⁺

jeongin prided himself on being composed despite his age, but tonight, all that confidence vanished in an instant. he’d been lounging on his bed after practice, casually snapping a picture to capture the golden glow of the setting sun through his window.

the photo was innocent enough, or so he thought — a relaxed pose, shirtless, with the blanket barely covering his hips. it was meant for seungmin, who’d jokingly challenged him to “prove” he was resting properly.

but in his sleepy haze, jeongin accidentally sent it to you instead.

he realized his mistake almost immediately when your name popped up with a notification. his stomach dropped, and panic set in.

your message arrived seconds later:

uh… is this the kind of ‘resting’ you meant to show me? 😳

jeongin groaned, burying his face in his pillow. “oh my god, i’m an idiot,” he muttered. he typed back as quickly as his trembling hands allowed.

“i am so sorry. that was not meant for you. please, just delete it and pretend this never happened.”

you replied almost immediately, and his heart raced as he opened your message.

delete it? why would i do that when it’s such a nice view?

his mouth fell open, a mixture of embarrassment and disbelief coursing through him. he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or crawl under his blanket and never come out.

“are you seriously teasing me right now?” he finally typed, his cheeks burning.

maybe... but can you blame me? you’re not exactly making it easy to ignore.

jeongin let out a nervous chuckle, shaking his head. “you’re impossible.”

i know.

jeongin sighed, a reluctant smile spreading across his face. while the initial shock of his mistake lingered, he couldn’t deny that your reaction made it worth the embarrassment.

han ⁺

han had always been impulsive, and that trait extended to his texting habits. he’d just finished a late-night studio session and decided to take a mirror selfie to show off his new haircut. the picture wasn’t inappropriate, but it was suggestive — he was shirtless, his hair slightly damp from a shower, with a cheeky grin on his face.

he meant to send it to chan, but in his half-asleep state, he sent it to you instead.

it wasn’t until your message came through that he realized his mistake.

right in front of my salad? 🤨

han’s eyes widened, and he sat up so fast he nearly knocked over his coffee mug. “oh no,” he muttered, his hands shaking as he typed back.

“omg, i’m so sorry! that was not meant for you! i was trying to send it to chan. please just forget you saw it.”

your reply came a moment later:

why? it was a nice picture. you should send me more.

han’s jaw dropped, his mind racing. was this really happening? were you actually flirting with him?

“wait, are you serious right now?” he replied cautiously.

very serious. you look good, han. don’t be so shy about it.

his face turned red, but a smile crept onto his lips. “i’m not shy!” he typed back defensively.

sure, you’re not...

han let out a laugh, shaking his head. “you’re dangerous, you know that?”

says the guy with his tiddies out for the world to see. wait, i wonder how much i can sell this for on ebay...

he flushed and sighed, leaning back in his chair. what started as a mortifying mistake was quickly becoming the most crack-filled interaction he’d ever had with you. maybe his impulsiveness wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

seung ⁺ min

seungmin was always known for his sharp wit and calm demeanor, rarely letting things rattle him. but tonight, that composure was nowhere to be found.

after a long day, he decided to respond to a group chat message with a selfie he’d taken earlier — a casual, post-workout shot that showed him in a tank top, his hair slightly messy, and his usual confident smirk. the picture wasn’t provocative, but it was undeniably attractive.

except he didn’t send it to the group chat. he sent it to you.

seungmin froze as he realized what he had done. his usual sharp mind went blank, replaced by a surge of panic. before he could even think of a way to delete it, your reply came through.

well, i wasn’t expecting this, but i’m not complaining. 😏

he stared at your message, his ears turning red as he tried to come up with a response. this wasn’t like him at all — how could he make such a mistake?

“uh, that wasn’t meant for you,” he finally typed, his thumbs trembling slightly. “i was trying to send it to the group chat. my bad.”

your reply came almost instantly.

no need to apologize, bbg. honestly, it’s nice to see this side of you. you look good, seungmin.

his jaw clenched as he reread your words. you were complimenting him?

“i didn’t mean for you to see it,” he replied quickly. “but… thanks, i guess?”

why so shy all of a sudden? i didn’t think you’d get flustered this easily.

“i’m not flustered,” he replied, though your teasing and his red face told a different story.

sure you’re not. but for what it’s worth, you’ve definitely made my night.

seungmin let out a small, awkward laugh, his confidence slowly returning. “well, i’m glad my mistake could entertain you,” he replied.

it’s more… eye-opening, than entertaining. although my rose toy would disagree.

seungmin choked, rereading your words. maybe this wasn’t the disaster he thought it was.

chang ⁺ bin

changbin was naturally confident, his playful energy making him the life of any room. but even he wasn’t immune to moments of pure, unfiltered embarrassment — like the one he was having now.

it started innocently enough: he’d taken a mirror selfie at the gym to show off his progress, flexing his biceps with a grin that screamed, “look at me, i’m unstoppable.” it was meant for chan, who’d been teasing him about skipping arm day.

but in his haste, changbin accidentally sent the picture to you.

the moment he realized his mistake, his stomach dropped. “oh no,” he muttered, staring at the screen in horror.

your reply came faster than he could process.

wow, changbin… showing off for me now? 👀

he groaned, his confidence taking a nosedive. he quickly typed back, “that was not meant for you. i was trying to send it to chan. please ignore it!”

you didn’t ignore it. instead, you replied,

why would you send it to him? and why should i ignore it? you look amazing honestly, you’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about.

changbin blinked, your words catching him off guard. were you… complimenting him?

“wait… are you kidding me?” he replied cautiously.

of course not, i mean, if you’re gonna send me pictures like this, don’t blame me for appreciating them.

changbin let out a nervous laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “well, i wasn’t exactly trying to impress you, but… thanks, i guess?”

who said you didn’t impress me?

his heart skipped a beat at your tease, a grin slowly spreading across his face. “i guess if you’re not mad, i shouldn’t be so worried,” he typed, his confidence returning.

not mad at all. in fact, feel free to send more anytime.

changbin laughed out loud, shaking his head. “you’re trouble, you know that?”

and you love it.

“maybe i do,” he replied, surprising even himself with his boldness.

what started as an embarrassing mistake had suddenly become one of the most fun conversations he’d ever had with you.

notes: hoez in the house ( my smut fic is taking forever to finish :( )

[tarotsoul]

Ghost in the Wind — Series Masterlist

★ indicates smut / 𖤓 indicates fluff / ♡ indicates angst

SUMMARY: All your life, your presence had been nothing more than a faint kiss of a breeze—nothing impactful, nothing worth noticing. Nothing at all. Until you entered Prythian.

WARNINGS: This series includes heavy mentions of depression, anxiety, sexual assault, domestic abuse, thoughts of worthlessness. Also includes foul language and explicit scenes. Please read warnings before each chapter. Minors DNI!

PAIRING: Azriel x Reader

STATUS: Completed

Main Masterlist

— 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠

Part One ♡ — All your life, your presence had been nothing more than a faint kiss of a breeze—nothing impactful, nothing worth noticing. So why did it hurt so much when that remained the case after moving to Prythian? (3.8k)

Part Two ♡𖤓 — After gaining some clarity on your position in the court, Azriel takes you to see the city. But by the end of the day, he's left with more questions than he started with. (3.9k)

Part Three ♡𖤓— As feelings progress and truths unfold, you're left with a decision that could end your entire existence as you know it. The Mother has a path for every soul, perhaps this was where yours was supposed to end. (5.8k)

Part Four ♡★𖤓 — Struggling to get a grip on your newfound power, Azriel is the only one your magic allows close. And there’s no stopping either of you when you spend the night alone together. (6.7k)

Part Five ★𖤓 — Harnessing your power is growing easier by the day, and Madja finds out some interesting things about witches souls. (6.4k)

— 𝐵𝑜𝑛𝑢𝑠 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡

The Fated Union 𖤓 — Five weeks have passed and your death looms closer, so a decision is made and a union is forged — a union so sacred that the Mother blesses it herself. (Coming soon!)

TAG LIST IS NOW CLOSED!

[musicalnobody]

The Ghost You Fed - Ch. 1

bunny hybrid!reader X cane corso hybrid!simon "ghost" riley ⋆ Call of Duty ⋆MDNI⋆ 4.2k words ⋆ 18+, explicit in future chapters ⋆ tags to be added as story progresses ⋆

⋆ pinterest board ⋆ AO3 link ⋆ next ⋆

Summary: Being a service animal is all you've ever known, being spoiled as a treat for all you do for your owner. So what happens when you see something, or rather someone, you can't have? (Inspired by 'it will come back' by hozier)

Tags: pov second person, no use of y/n, eventual smut, kind of icky simon, stalking, past character death, reader is so spoiled, drug dealing, dog fighting, breaking and entering, semi-public masturbation

A/N: WOOOO NEW FIC TIME!!! To give a little heads up, I will be using italics to indicate sign language between the reader and her owner. There isn’t going to much of a description for the reader, but your hair is fairly long, and your ear and tail color are mentioned, you are also chubby bc come on, a little old lady with a hybrid? She’s gonna fatten you right up. In this universe hybrids have ears, tails, and some have claws and canine fangs. Heats and ruts also exist within this universe but without the whole omegaverse thing. The rest you’ll figure out along the way!

Being a service animal was easy enough. Tell her when someone was at the door, translate when you were out in public, comfort her when she was having a rough day, and in exchange you got pampered. It truly was an easy life.

Agnes had adopted you when you were just a kit, only five years old. She wasn’t fully deaf at the time, able to start teaching you sign language at a young age. She was the kindest woman you had ever met. Her hearing had fully deteriorated when you were 12 years old. Crying for hours at a time when she finally broke the news to you, never being much of a tough one.

She still tried her best to teach you all that she could, cooking and cleaning as well as hobbies like reading, writing, and crocheting fun little projects. You were quite spoiled, and you knew it, having you own room but preferring to sleep at the end of Agnes’ large bed, having a whole closet filled with frilly outfits, getting to be paraded about outside.

Your crème-colored fur doesn’t get dirty anymore, baths becoming a part of your routines. Agnes brushes your hair afterwards, having you sit in front of your vanity while she does. You always feel so special when she does this, especially when she gently grabs your droopy ears to brush out as well, leaving them all fluffy for you. When Agnes starts entering you in beauty pageants, you’re over the moon, pleased that your owner thinks so highly of you. You learn tricks, you show them how competent you are, how nice your coat is.

You display the awards proudly in your room.

Despite being out so often, Agnes didn’t have many friends. Just a couple childhood friends who would visit every now and then, her kids living on opposite sides of the country. They would have tea parties, none of them having hybrids of their own so you were left to bask in their attention. The scratches at your ears and tummy were what you lived for.

You were never bad, always following the rules and orders around the house, helping when needed. You were an easy bunny to take care of, Agnes couldn’t of asked for better. You had gotten your service animal papers the day you turned 13, and Agnes had given you a frilly vest that she had hand-sewed so everyone would know that’s exactly what you were. You wore the vest until the day the seams ripped, and it wouldn’t go over your arms anymore. That’s when she made you a new one.

It was a rainy day, one reserved for baking. Today, you had decided to surprise Agnes with Manchester tarts, some of her favorites. These bite sized deserts had a shortcrust pastry shell spread with raspberry jam, covered with a custard filling and topped with flakes of coconut and a Maraschino cherry. They made the whole house smell like warm raspberries and pastry, something you certainly weren’t complaining about.

You sat up in your room, brushing out your hair after deciding what to wear. Since you weren’t going outside, you decided on a frilly pink top with flowers decorating it, a short white layered skirt with white bloomers under it, and two pink lacy garters sitting atop your thighs. You wore dangly earrings with pink raspberries on the end, as well as a pearl necklace with a matching charm that went well with your pink collar sitting around your neck, proudly displaying your name. You quickly put some mascara on and some lip tint, popping your lips in the mirror. A chill went up your spine and you flicked your eyes to gaze behind you in the mirror, attributing it to the wind from your open window.

You walk downstairs, seeing Agnes knitting you a pink and white striped sweater on the recliner. Going up to her and tapping her on the shoulder, you tell her what you’re doing.

“Going to make us treats today” You signed as you smiled. You watched as Agnes returned the smile and nodded, indicating that she was going to continue knitting. You skipped off to the kitchen, since you were a bunny hybrid, you were only about 5 feet, and that was on the taller side. This meant that you often had to use the stool to grab different ingredients. You looked behind you again as another chill went up your spine, but this time there wasn’t a window open. You chalked it up to the heating not being high enough after not seeing anything.

Throwing the flour, diced butter, white fat and icing sugar together, you began the pastry. Mixing in the water, you then let it set for 30 minutes, idly watching the tv. When the timer finally went off, you leapt up, running to the kitchen. You opened the window behind you so the kitchen didn’t get too hot when you turned on the oven, setting a towel in front so that rain didn’t get on the floor.

After pre-heating the oven to 190°C and putting the baking beans in the tart, you twirled around and put the tart in the oven for another 20 minutes. After taking the baking beans out and letting it cook for another 7 minutes, you took it out and spread the jam along the bottom, sprinkling the coconut atop of it.

You made the custard, boiling the mixture and adding vanilla to taste before pouring it through a sieve. You stirred it for a few minutes, letting it cool, before pouring it into the tart. You sprinkled the top with the rest of the coconut before setting it out and letting it cool. These desserts were something that Agnes had spent plenty of time teaching you how to learn, so much so that you could do it by heart at this point. You set the timer for four agonizing hours and then pranced over to Agnes, kneeling beside her chair to receive the occasional pet as you began your own little crochet project.

⋆🐾⋆

Simon had known the streets long before he knew the regimen of the military. When his mother had passed and his brother fell into drugs, he left. Hybrids like him weren’t treated too kindly, as he wasn’t easily trainable, he wasn’t as obedient and desperate to please like some of the others. Simon found spots in alleys, abandoned buildings, and the occasional hybrid-friendly motel if he saved enough money. But that never lasted long.

When the military found him, he’d had a run in with some old “tamers” that were trying to capture him, he had fought back and paid the consequence, long lashes scattering his arms and back. Price had taken him right under his wing. Teaching him how to be a proper K-9 unit, watching him surpass that and being let on the field without a handler. Being able to be trusted with gun. Everything was going great for Simon. Until the death of his best friend.

Soap’s passing had left such a vengeance in his heart that he was forced to be honorably discharged, they feared what a man like him would be able to do if set off. They had tried to get him housing but nowhere would take his breed. The only option being those damned trainers and underground hybrid fighting rings. Simon quickly realized he could make a quick buck by entering these fights. Learning that he didn’t need a handler when he already knew how to fight. He had plenty of offers, but always snarled at them, telling them to fuck off, that he knew what he was doing.

So, there he was, a world-class soldier now turned into a common stray. Resorting to illegal fighting and other ventures to line his pockets. There was a fresh bruise blooming under his eye, the last fight ending just a couple hours ago. Simon would find a place to sleep for a few hours before moving again, not wanting to stay in one place for too long.

When he woke up to the rain, it was just another day for him, though he noted he would have to stop by a laundromat for his current clothes, thankful for the extra outfit in his backpack. It was early in the morning when he was hopping the roofs of the city. Most of the lights down because of the weather. It wasn’t until he stopped to catch his breath that he noticed the house across the street.

A small baby blue house sat in his line of sight, a lamp illuminating a room on the second story. Having been perched at the far end of the building across the street, he crept closer to the edge. That’s when he saw it, or rather, you.

You were brushing your hair with a brush that looked straight out of the Victorian era, like you were a princess. You were sitting in front of your vanity in an outfit that had Simon snarling. The garters that were sitting on your thighs were things he wanted to take off with his own teeth. He sat there, staring at you as you brushed out your, oh. Oh. You were a little bunny hybrid. He hadn’t noticed your tail tucked under you before, or your floppy little ears until you pulled them out to brush. If your window wasn’t open, Simon would’ve started to howl, but for fear of scaring your owner, let alone you, he didn’t.

He watched as you shivered, ducked as you turned to look out the window. His call sign proving its significance at this moment, his ability to disappear within a blink of an eye. He peeked his head back up, watching as you left your room and bounced down the stairs, truly getting a grasp of how small you were. He groaned, long and heavy. You were perfect. Your skirt was tantalizingly short, bloomers covering what he wanted to see most.

When he lost sight of you in the living room? Well, it was time to move. He snuck down, thankful for the bushes that surrounded your house, and peered in. He noticed your hands moving animatedly until it actually hit him. You were signing. Your owner was deaf. Simon quickly thanked whatever God was out there that he had less of a chance of being caught if he was howling, less chance of getting caught when sneaking around. He watched as you went into the kitchen, moved to the window next to him so he could see you better.

Simon was aware this made him nothing short of a creep, but he was addicted to you. He watched as you stood atop your stool, watched as your body realized someone was staring at you while he ducked down. The thrill was enough to get his breathing ragged, grateful that there weren’t windows open next to him. Popping back up to watch you throw together the dough, hiding when you opened the window next to him. Staring intently as you waited right next to your owner, wanting it to be him giving you all the desperate pets you wanted. The smell of your baking was starting to become more prominent as you put the pastry in the oven.

He could smell the raspberry jam being spread on the tart, matching your cute little earrings that he was getting a close eye of. He watched as you sprinkled the coconut on the tart before starting on the custard. The smell was fantastic, and Simon had a pretty good idea of what you were making by now. A Manchester tart. He hadn’t tasted one in years. His mother had used to make them when he was younger, holiday dinners and such. He was damn near ecstatic when he realized that’s what you were making, already looking for the weak points in your house.

⋆🐾⋆

Waiting for the tart to cool was agonizing. No matter how much crocheting you could do or how much music you could listen to, you were moping around the house bored. Agnes took pity on you, looking down at you as you tapped your foot against the ground,

“Impatient, love?”

“I just know they’re going to taste so good!” You signed back, emphasizing your words by making fireworks with your hands. Agnes simply chuckled before ruffling your hair.

“Good things come to those who wait” Her famous line being signed as you went to lay back down, continuing your little project as you waited for the timer to go off.

When the timer finally pinged, you jumped to your feet. Grabbing the pie slicer, you cut the tart into 10 equal pieces, dishing out you and Agnes a piece. Grabbing your signature mini fork and handing Agnes her piece, you dug in.

Your teeth sunk into the tart, a happy noise coming out of your mouth, it was delicious. The buttery crust melted on your tongue, the tart raspberries pulling it together, and the coconut adding a hint of extra flavor. “It’s so good” You signed to Agnes as you continued to eat. Agnes simply smiled at you before grabbing a slice of her own, making her own noise of happiness when she sunk her teeth in.

“I think you’ve learned how to make it better than me.” Agnes signed back at you, a look of proudness on her face. You smiled, big and wide, happy to please your owner so much. This was the best Manchester tart you’ve ever made, and you knew it. Putting the rest in Tupperware and putting it into the fridge, you shut the door gently.

“I’m going to go take a bath!” You signed to Agnes before bouncing upstairs, opening the door to the bathroom. Opening the window a tad, you started to strip your outfit off, making sure you had 2 fluffy towels to welcome you when you got out. You started filling the tub with hot water, just a bit hotter than comfortable so it wouldn’t get cold too fast. The large claw-foot tub held you easily as you stepped foot in the hot water. You sighed heavily and swung your other foot over, gently setting yourself down.

You began your routine by shampooing your hair and ears, the strawberry shortcake scent starting to permeate the room. You lathered your hair until it was soapy, scrubbing at your ears gently. You went to rinse your hair and felt the familiar chill down your spine despite the water being hot. You wanted to close the window, worrying that that was the problem, but you know the room will get too steamy if you do, so you decide to leave it open.

You then moved onto conditioning your hair, the matching scent adding to the smell in the air. Your hair and fur instantly felt silkier, the bubbles now surrounding you. You grabbed your scrubbing brush and put your vanilla scented soap on it before beginning to scrub yourself down. Using your hands on more sensitive areas, you traced over the area lightly, mewling softly.

Draining the water and closing the window, you pattered over to your room. Putting on a cute little matching set with a sheer pink nightdress on top, you pranced around the house feeling like a princess. You skipped down the stairs to see Agnes. Who simply smiled at your appearance, your hair still drying.

“You look beautiful my dear.” You smiled right back at her, all teeth and giggles. You pranced over to the cabinets, once again grabbing the stool to grab one of your pink bowls with white bunnies all over it. You set the bowl on the counter before grabbing the tub of neapolitan ice cream and scooping 3 large spoonsful into your bowl. Putting the tub back before grabbing a spoon and glancing at what Agnes was watching

It was one of her soap operas, a tale of a hybrid and her handler who lived out in the country, escaping from the crime they were used to. In this particular episode, the avian hybrid was being approached by a large feline hybrid from the opposing organized crime group, you tried to avoid the screen, the scene starting to cause you anxiety.

“More sweets?” Agnes signed as she smiled warmly at you, making sure you knew she wasn’t being judgmental. You nodded, offering her a bite before trotting back upstairs.

Sitting on your bed watching tv, you were kicking your feet in the air as you shoveled spoonful after spoonful of ice cream into your mouth, letting out little mewls and moans at the delicious taste. The movie was just starting, an old silent fairytale that you had seen over and over. Despite the film being old, there were still hybrids in it, having them be the two helping hands that assisted the soon to be princess in getting ready. The scene made you happy, not often getting good representation in the media, hence why this was a comfort film.

But your mind started to become occupied with other things, the movie not holding your attention very well. You tried to write in your diary, writing about how you had baked for the day, coming up with ideas on how to modify the Manchester tart. You wrote about how nice your bath was, how you needed to get more bubble bath solution. You wrote about all the mundane things that happened throughout your day, talking about how you were excited for the summer trip only a few months away, really trying to wind down.

That was until a too familiar chill slipped down your spine again, and you had enough. You stomped overed to your window, thankful that Agnes wasn’t able to hear your steps, and glared out into the open sky.

“Will you stop that!” You said loudly, looking at the moon as the rain that had been pouring down all day continued.

⋆🐾⋆

Simon crept around the house for another hour, successfully finding the back door unlocked and a way to access the upper roof so he could peek into your window. He would come back once the Manchester tarts were done cooling off. For now, he had stuff to do. At least, that’s what he told himself as he tore his body away from the window.

He was a simple man; he had to make money somehow. At least, that’s what he told himself as he gave the next sorry soul another dose of whatever high they were after. If the military could see him now, they’d be ashamed, but pushing drugs was an easy and quick fix. It wasn’t weird to wear hoods that hid his ears and masks that obscured his face, especially when he was dealing with heat suppressants, some of the most illegal drugs on the market.

When hybrids first started appearing in the general market, heat and rut suppressants were encouraged, often being prescribed when a hybrids cycle was especially rough or aggressive. But as more side effects got added and other alternatives were created, they slowly withdrew from popularity, now only being used as heavy birth control. There were also multiple brands that were illegal, brands that Simon was all too familiar with.

While he also pushed “normal” drugs such as coke or weed, there was a much higher demand for suppressants. The more he sat and thought about his profession, the more he thought about you. Wondering if you even had a heat anymore, or if they took your glands away from you when you were deemed unfit to be anything more than a pet, yet another solution they had come up with.

Simon had been offered the surgery when he first entered the military, but he flat out refused. He didn’t like his ruts, as they often fell under the aggressive category, but he would often have someone accompany him or at least keep him locked up. He had found someone that he consistently spent his ruts with, and that’s when the military’s offer came to taunt him, asking after the death of—

He shook himself out of his train of thought, busying it with you again. How your room had been covered in bows and frills, pink and cream, florals, a princess’s dream. How although not in a great part of the city, your house was still perfectly put together. So fitting for the two of you. The yellow and white kitchen looked like it came straight out of a 1950’s nostalgic catalogue, and suddenly he was imagining himself behind you as you baked sweet treats for them.

He was yet again getting too far ahead of himself, hell, he didn’t even know your name. Strays like him weren’t welcome in homes like that, he didn’t have the manners to stay within that little home. He would sink his teeth in to rip and tear at the seams. He would destroy anything he touched. And with him not being a proper working dog, well he just couldn’t let you into this life. That’s when he decided he would stay far, far away from you. Watching you only when it was safe to do so.

After three agonizing hours of wandering around the city collecting clients and thinking to himself, Simon realized that he could return to your neighborhood, return to his bunny. Ducking into his position in the overgrown bushes, he watched as you placed the first bite into your mouth, hearing the faint sound of your overjoyed squeal at the success of the pie. Your voice was a melody he was already getting accustomed to, wanting to be the reason why those sweet sounds came out of your mouth.

He watched as you finished your slice of the tart before signing something to Agnes and bounding up the stairs. It was his time to strike. Pushing open the window his was ducked under, Simon hastily climbed into the kitchen, his hulking body making too much noise for his comfort, once again grateful for Agnes’ lack of hearing.  He quickly swung open the fridge door to grab one of the Tupperware containers before dipping right back outside.

It wasn’t until he made his wander into the backyard that he realized what you must have signed to Agnes. A bath. You were bathing yourself. He couldn’t see much from the backyard, thanking the cramped alleyways of Manchester allowing him to climb the roof of the house behind yours. Giving him a perfect view into— Oh.

The bathroom window was slightly ajar, enough for the faint smell of strawberries to drift over to Simon’s nose and fuck was he already planning how many pups he was going to give you, wondering if they would be little kits or pups, wondering how you would look so round and— Christ you had a way of doing that to him. Making him space out and dream about realities that could never happen with a mutt like him. Not someone so dirty. Nor someone so depraved.

He watched as you washed your hair, taking extra time with your ears, not being able to rip his eyes off you. He glanced away when you washed your body, still wanting to be respectful to you, but you made it difficult. The second he smelled that sweet vanilla body wash he came undone, writhing on the roof before tearing himself away from the picture of you, finally giving you privacy.

He walked back to the house that was across the street, perching on that roof as he ate the Manchester tart. He had to bite his tongue from letting out an overjoyed howl at the first bite, it instantly bringing him back to his childhood. He devoured it in only a couple bites, not having the patience to savor the treat. He would have to remind himself to take another slice tomorrow, before the two of you ate it all.

When he was finished with the tart, he glanced into your room, only to be shocked to see you sprawled out on your stomach in a sheer pink nightgown, kicking your feet back and forth as you ate your ice cream, one treat not enough for you. He growled quietly; you looked simply divine. Cream colored bikini cut underwear with rows of frills caressing your ass, a matching bralette holding in your pretty tits. The sheer nightgown did little to cover you, having little accents of cream-colored lace as well. It just barely covered your ass, leaving so little to the imagination that it had Simon fuming.

But then you were writing in that diary, and all Simon could think of was those pouty lips around him, how silky your hair would be around his calloused fingers, how soft your skin would be. And when you called out into the night? Trying to get his prying eyes off you? Well, he just couldn’t stop himself from cuming right into his hand, wishing he had cum into your pretty little mouth instead.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

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@hughjackmanadict

[cssscriptcom]

Easy Scroll Position Tracking - ScrollProgress.js

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[hittmeandtellmeyouremine]

rafe catching puddin grinding on his pillow? she said she discovered it by watching those movies by herself without rafe knowing

pairing: puddin!reader x older!rafe

warnings: mdni, lottie do not read, smut (sort of), dry humping, ddlg themes, use of 'daddy'.

word count: 1.2k+ words

a/n: what show was i talking about? 😏

rafe had been so busy with work, wrapped up in some 'goat island' deal that was stressing him out like no other. as much as you miss him, you also know he needs his space. he specifically told you that once this passed, his attention would be all yours again.

and boy did you want that.

to soothe the growing boredom that was festering as a result of his absence, you decide to scroll through netflix in search of something to occupy yourself. usually rafe did this but you finished the last show he put on for you and he was busy, so now you had to do it yourself.

you scroll through what's trending on the platform, finding a show about a bookstore owner who develops feelings for a girl he meets. you like books, you like love. seems easy enough.

the title card for the streaming platform plays and you focus your eyes onto the screen. in the back of your mind, all you could think of was rafe and his approval. wait until you showed him the show you found.

it was interesting enough. the main character was a little odd and very flawed but you liked it, somewhat. very different from everything else you watched, surely more mature. you desperately wished rafe was there to watch it with you.

your thoughts of him were put to a stop when you saw the girl start to kiss her boyfriend. not just a nice kiss either, no. it was how rafe had recently started kissing you. you sat up, moving towards the edge of the bed to get a better look.

they were doing what you wanted to with rafe.

you watch as her boyfriend settles himself between her thighs, moving against her with calculated movements. it wasn't the best angle, but you got the point. your eyes lit up as you watch the moment progress, yearning for that connection.

wait. that was it?

it was over before it really even started, she looks disappointed too. the narrator made a comment about her not finishing which you connected to what rafe made you feel, that one night.

her boyfriend was an asshole, making everything about himself and seeing himself out without giving her much time to protest the matter. you frown at the scene, thinking maybe you didn't like this show after all.

you glance towards the door, not hearing any sort of verbal indication of rafe's arrival. you sighed and turn your attention back to screen.

wait. what was she doing?

her eyes focus onto a green pillow, kind of cylinder shaped. you don't have much time to question it before she settles the pillow between her legs. she's moving against it like she was moving against her against her boyfriend. not only that but she looked happier.

your pupils dilate as you watch, the pleasured gasp leaving her lips making you crave that feeling. maybe you did like this show after all. rafe hadn't given you a taste of that feeling again, not since the night his hand was buried between your thighs. you missed it, to say the least.

surely if she could feel that way by herself, so could you. right?

you nibbled on your bottom lip, debating the matter. you did have a pillow similar to that one and it was longer too. plus, rafe was so busy. he wouldn't be coming back to you anytime soon. you turn around, eyes darting between the pillow and your open door.

the pillow was between your thighs a few seconds later, your body kneeling over it experimentally. the girl was laying on her back but this seems like a better fit, somehow.

your eyes glance back over to the doorway one last time, listening for rafe. there was no sign of him though. and sure, you could close the door but then you wouldn't hear if he was coming.

you slowly begin to drag your hips on the pillow, pressing it between your thighs and keeping it there with a somewhat firm grip. it was an odd sensation at first, you didn't get what the big deal was.

that was until the pillow notches a certain part of you that had you crying out, biting your lip as you caught yourself. it was a blissful feeling, making you angle the pillow to continue it.

the friction was something you didn't fully understand, but it felt like how rafe's fingers felt and that was all you needed to know.

small cries leave your lips as you continue to grind against the pillow, the show long forgotten by this point. you imagine it was rafe instead, touching you and making you feel good. the thought made you moan a bit louder, so lost in th-

"enjoying yourself, puddin'?"

you yelp, jumping and stopping your movements all at once.

rafe leans against your doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. there was a slight smirk on his face.

"whatcha watchin', baby?" he asks, stepping into your room and looking at the tv.

"i-"

you try to answer him, you really do, but how were you supposed to when he just caught you using your pillow like that.

"i can explain, daddy" you start.

"explain what, puddin'?" he cocks his head at you, eyes flickering to the pink pillow between your thighs.

"t-the girl on the show, she was doing it and it looked like it felt good and i-"

"did it? feel good?" he asks, standing at the edge of your bed now.

you hesitate on answering.

"puddin', i asked you a question" he says. "daddy's not mad at you, i just want to know"

"yeah, it felt nice" you say quietly, suddenly feeling guilty.

you pull the pillow from between your thighs, orgasm long forgotten by now. you sink into the bed, legs folded beneath you.

"why'd you stop?" he questions.

"i don't know, feel like i did something bad" you mumble.

"why's that, puddin'?"

"because you weren't doing it with me" you answer.

truth be told, rafe liked watching you squirm. he liked seeing you so curious , so desperate. it stirred something inside of him, knowing that you were still thinking about the other night.

"i taught you how to make yourself feel good though, did i not?"

you nod slowly.

"and you found a new way to do it on your own?" he adds.

you nod again.

"why is that such an issue?"

"i don't want to do it on my own" you whine. "i want to do it with you"

there it was, the reason you were all pouty and pissy. god, your loyalty was truly something else. so loyal to him that you felt guilty for getting yourself off.

such a good girl, his good girl.

"come here" he said, sitting on the edge of your bed beside you and pulling you onto his lap.

"you can make yourself feel good, without daddy. i don't mind" he reassures.

his hands move down to your thighs, squeezing lightly and digging his thumbs into the curve of them.

"i'd prefer if you asked me to help you out, but maybe you don't want that?" he tests.

"no, no. i do" you shake your head.

"i just want my girl to be happy," he coos. "but do me a favor and don't watch this stuff by yourself anymore, yeah?"

you nod obediently.

"i want to be the one who teaches you how to feel good, together—puddin' and daddy" he says, his thumbs brushing over your cheeks.

"okay, daddy"

"good girl"

-

[hexhomos]

Hello fellow Jayce defender.

First off, virtual kisses on both your cheeks for your Arcane analysis. They're refreshing to read, and insightful as well.

Something that's always bothered me about the way fans interact with Jayce is assuming that he's always the one making the mistakes in any of his relationships. It's almost funny in a way how they strip other characters of their autonomy and arcs just so they can point out how Jayce is failing his partners.

With Mel and Viktor especially, there's this narrative that Jayce simultaneously ignores both of their needs while also prioritising one over the other. Either he neglects Viktor to go and swoon over Mel, or he abandons his relationship with Mel to go play science with Viktor, or he neglects both to go do his own things while they suffer through their own plots.

And it's fascinating how incredibly mistaken these people are, and also how they reduce his character to only being important when he's in a relationship.

I'm here like, "hey, do you wanna discuss the reason for how Jayce seemingly knows how to navigate the ways of high class society very easily is probably because he's had to rely on sponsorships and donations for most of his youth to find his research because his house is too poor to be able afford it?"

Or "It's canonical that Jayce only ever had one friend in his youth before Viktor, and that was the daughter of his main sponsor, do you think it's interesting that this indicates he probably had difficulty making or maintaining friendships and that this is possibly a symptom of the Academy mainly housing elite and rich students so they couldn't relate to his struggles and he couldn't relate to theirs?"

But no, people just want to hate on him for not being the picture perfect boytoy in a relationship.

And I mean, it's not like it's just reduced to Jayce either. So many other characters have had similar treatments where they're reduced to either their most basic qualities or mischaracterised entirely. And I'm really not trying to be the fandom police or whatever - everyone interprets differently - I just find it frustrating is all.

Anyways, you're cool.

YES I never have time to talk about this bc people don't give a fuck but in Jayce's journals we even see him stewing with envy and petty rage at this star-rising student on the academy that he sees as the example of a perfect prodigy (in opposition to how much Jayce fucks things up...)

It also strongly suggests he's on a scholarship, which ties into his suicide attempt.

Jayce is keeping his experiments a secret from everyone to avoid the blowback and isolating himself further and further when they don't work. Jayce is flawed! He's proud of his dream pitch to the point of hilarity. Jayce doesn't like socializing, he does it out of obligation! Even when he's being raised to a councilor position in s1 he's PANICKING. He doesn't want the fucking job, he doesn't like the parties nor the people, his truest honest self is that moment in season 2 where he declares the lab was always his home, and so was Viktor.

But even then he subsumes his own wants spends most of s1 trying to attend to the needs of other people. He routinely asks Viktor if he's alright, if he wants to come up to do the presentation, if he's sure those experiments are safe, etc. He tries to make Heimerdinger proud despite his constant rejections of their projects, and only turns on him when he threatens viktor's wellbeing. The reason why he doesn't announce anything on progress day is that he Was listening to Heimers so-called wisdom and it only bit him in the ass. Jayce gets himself in trouble with the council by being too naive and assuming his new post will allow him to crackdown on Piltovan corruption aided by the Hexgates. Majority of the complaints wrt relationships I see people making of him are just wildly exaggerated. "He was neglecting viktor" bro he talks about viktor in nearly every scene he has with mel 😭 viktor is the one who isolates himself and randomly disappears at times bc he's a grown man with his own boundaries.

Jayce's entire life is defined by the transactional nature of his existence, his work, the patronage receives - all depending on how much he can play the showpony role without fucking it up. It's not a comfortable position. Jayce is stressing out the whole damn show because if one person isn't pissed at him, someone else will be, and it always comes down to revokable money, investments, social standing. if he really was as uncaring and well-off as some claim he wouldn't give a shit. He could just coast along life, but that's not what he's doing ever. He only 'frees' himself in season 2 by abandoning his life's dream and the rotten reality that existed around it. Which is kind of bleak, but at least its over.

[inloveinsickness]

❝ HUSH ❞ — sakusa kiyoomi

cw. f!reader, fluff, olympics au, athletic trainer!reader, timeskip characters, established relationship, secret marriage, language (omi swears like once), not beta read (sorry!) word count. ~ 1.6k

“japan’s outside hitter sakusa kiyoomi and newly revealed wife, athletic trainer y/n l/n, steals the spotlight in the city of love!”

@tetzoro's summer olympics collab

your eyes glance in his direction, letting it linger on his figure as the team settles down into their corner. he’s a little tense, understandably so– it’s his first time at the olympics, and with the pressure of the finals sitting on his shoulders, the nerves are showing, though carefully hidden behind his standard resting face that you can see through so well. the lights hanging along the ceilings of the south paris arena cast a tasteful warm glow along the contours of his face. despite the subconscious clenched jaw and slightly downturned lips that make you want to kiss the frown off so badly, there’s a shine in his eyes like no other.

the last few days have been pretty rough, of stiff beds, subpar food and sleeping without kiyoomi. you know he feels the same if the progressively increasing frequency of late night calls and texts are any indication. with the boys sharing rooms in twos amongst themselves and the rest of the team’s staff being housed in a separate wing of the building, falling asleep in his arms was a faraway thought since you arrived at the olympic village.

loml ♡ : miya snores so fuckin’ loudly i can’t handle this me : well it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve dealt with it baby loml ♡ : i still think we should’ve fought harder for us sharing a room

he drifts off into slumber easily after washing up and getting his fill of talking to you (never enough), the mental and physical fatigue of matches and practices in between taking a toll on his body, but for you, being wrapped in his warm embrace was the perfect recipe and vital to a good night's sleep. it’s safe to say that you haven’t been sleeping well for the past week.

it didn’t help that being sworn to secrecy about your relationship also meant that any interactions you had with him outside being the team’s athletic trainer was like treading on eggshells. it feels like you’re in high school again, sitting next to him in the dining hall during meal times with your clasped hands hidden under the table from watchful eyes, his thumb rubbing soft circles against the back of your hand or squeezing ever so often, as if to affirm his presence and silently reassure that i’m here.

it seems to be a trend lately for athletes to be active on their social media platforms, be it their team’s or just a personal account, recounting stories or even taking avid viewers through “a day in the life of an olympic athlete” — without looking too far, even miya jumped on the bandwagon, often seeing suna running around filming short clips of their shenanigans in free pockets of time during the day. you and kiyoomi talked about it before the season began, keeping any non-professional interactions to a minimum. there’s eyes everywhere and it’s better to be safe than sorry.

both of you are very private people, it was only natural that you preferred to keep your personal life and matters to yourselves behind closed doors. this ended up being a double-edged sword, because everyone wants to be all up in your business, especially kiyoomi who finds himself in the spotlight more often, being apart of the “young handsome eligible bachelors” of the MSBY 4 and now one of the most sought-after new additions to japan’s national team.

you on the other hand, were better known by twitter as “the pretty trainer” from the shweiden adlers and now the national team, standing next to another fan-favourite, iwaizumi hajime. thankfully your role is kept more so behind the scenes, checking on the players during games and making sure they remain in tip-top shape on and off the court.

being the quiet and brooding one amongst outgoing chatterboxes meant that the media would try to dig any information out of kiyoomi, but prying interviewers and prodding questions towards him and his love life were smoothly deflected and brushed aside, the boys even coming to his defense if anyone got too pushy with it, which you were beyond thankful for. not that they needed to most of the time, he’s known to be curt with his responses and quick to bring the topic back to the game, and no one likes a snappy sakusa anyway, many have learned this the hard way.

just months prior to the both of you getting called in to begin training for the olympics and before schedules start to pick up, you had a small private wedding in your hometown with just close friends and family, the ceremony kept under lock and key and tucked away from the public eye. it made it all the more intimate, more like a quiet gathering to celebrate your union than a grand spectacle, which suited you perfectly. the honeymoon hasn’t happened yet with the timing of everything, you’re saving it for post-season when you both can finally take a break and relax for a little while.

you won’t deny that there are some days where you wished that things were different, and that you could openly express your love for each other without scrutiny and attention being on you, but alas, that is to be expected as someone exposed to the public eye.

the olympics is your first public appearance as married individuals, not that anyone particularly cares about your status, their eyes instead zeroing in on kiyoomi and the chain around his neck carrying a shiny new silver band. it's safe to say that judging by the scowl on his face and the chatter buzzing around the front rows of stands as the team settles into their side of the court, his “mystery wife" is the new talk of the town.

when he comes over to you during timeout, his eyes meet yours bashfully as you hand him a bottle, fingers brushing against yours in an unspoken apology. you just smile and lightly pat his back as he turns to join the team huddle. there’s nothing to be sorry for, silly.

these little moments mean everything to you, even though it looks like nothing in the grand scheme of things. just being there with him and coming together with a shared passion even if it's in different fields of the broader spectrum of sport, fills you with a sense of happiness and content. watching him in his element and being able to support him on the sidelines through it all, you'd never trade that for the world.

and as you’re sitting at the edge of your seat with your bum hanging on for dear life, you lean forward with your hands pressed together, the top of your index fingers resting against the tip of your nose like a pseudo prayer. match point.

it feels like you’re watching the longest rally of your life and like a bad habit, your knee begins bouncing up and down in your nervousness and anticipation. iwaizumi too, is so engrossed in the play at hand that he doesn’t notice, or maybe he just doesn’t care enough in this moment to stop you with his usual slap to your thigh and a chiding comment, “stop it, even my grandma back in sendai can feel the tremours from your goddamn knees.”

with bated breath, you watch kageyama tosses one beautiful arc of a set to kiyoomi as he leaps into the air and makes contact with the ball.

with a powerful spike, he is a force to be reckoned with, sending the ball home as the opponents dive to save it, their arms hands and fingers stretching out in a last ditch attempt to connect and rescue the point, but to no avail. the ball lands with a harsh thud and as he stands tall above their groveling, the whistle blows and the crowds roar.

your arms instinctively raise in a cheer, and in the next moment they’re closed over your mouth, tears pricking your eyes as you stumble over your feet and scramble to get up. as the team rushes towards him with shouts of celebration, his eyes immediately dart in your direction, softening as he sees you dashing over. with knowing smirks and crescent moons for eyes, the boys follow his line of sight and give him firm slaps on the back, parting the hoard for you and giving just enough room for him to uncharacteristically swoop you up in his arms and crash his lips into yours, all caution thrown to the wind.

all the noise halts and time stands still, everything fades away and nothing else in the world matters in the moment, not the people, not the cameras, just the overwhelming rush of joy and pride, and love, oh love, swelling from the depths of your chest and your heart bursting at its seams.

your senses flood with everything kiyoomi, from the way the sweaty strands of his hair at the back of his neck feel on your fingertips, his cheeks dampening from your tears, the nudge of his nose against yours, and the press of his smile on your locked lips. he breathes out and you breathe him in, letting all of his being rest in the room in your heart saved specially for him, seeping into every corner of your soul.

when you inevitably pull apart for air, the current predicament doesn't exactly click in your mind just yet until he grabs your hand and pulls you into his side, shielding you from the onslaught of reporters and press looking to get a fresh scoop on the hottest piece of news. with blown out eyes, you look at him in a daze and disbelief, did that really just happen?

the smug smirk on his face says it all.

the matching silver bands on your finger and hanging around his neck, it was always there. for the longest time it was your little secret, and now a declaration of love and devotion — not even a shiny new gold medal could compare.

© yogurtkags. please do not repost, plagiarise, or translate my work.

[neeeooon]

two-way mirror ;

blue lock itoshi rin x fem!reader, series

genre/cw

-> 16+ smau/writing hybrid (chs w writing indicated w a 🥁), shut me up spin-off (recommended to read it first but you don’t have to), rock band au, college au, aged up characters, strangers to business partners(?) to lovers, slow burn, real people are used in the photos, shipping, dark humor + kys jokes, violence/hate comments, mentions of drinking (ab)use, mentions of sex, smu’s y/n is called ichika to avoid confusion, credits to 🦊 anon! more will be added as the story progresses…

description

-> you transferred last minute to blue lock university in hopes of making their arts program… with a two day deadline. desperate and out of ideas, you stumble into a bar the night before your assignment is due and find yourself drawn to the band performing: bastard city. a struggling artist with a knack for photography, you take THE photo of itoshi rin mid performance that has his popularity skyrocketing, and find yourself in a whirlwind of fame, deals, and perhaps even a sprinkle of romance…

playlist

-> two-way mirror, loathe -> head in a ceiling fan, title fight -> hysteria, muse -> black hole sun, soundgarden -> about a girl, nirvana -> karma police, radiohead -> all i think about now, pixies -> pretty girls make graves, the smiths -> it almost worked, tv girl -> when the sun hits, slowdive -> when you sleep, my bloody valentine -> sober to death, car seat headrest -> covet, basement -> forget her, jeff buckley -> me and the birds, duster -> undressed, sombr

status

-> ongoing! updates every 1-7 days unless stated otherwise

-> extras! polls | asks

profiles (1) profiles (2)

0 | y/n’s big break

1 | why are you hot?! ( 🥁 )

2 | new fans newer employees

3 | brother dearest

4 |

taglist

-> @90s-belladonna @angelin4ssss @stal1n33 @ravenbc @s4turnx1 @heartsforfeitan @pumpkinpiegobbler @xoxojisu @vinzcoke @tenjikusstuff4 @n0tbelle @lylisimps @silverwings920 @saekisserfr @kuromixheartzzz @angelhqlo1111 @viaelax @rainychi2 @kai-zawa @wxwoobe @kaz-0e @ichcocat @saeglazer @ieathairs @kuronarnze @kyaanii @ilovealligators11 @cyberasterrr @akis-crazy-world @opheliuzz @jellychee @dontmindtheevie @ranzess @tired-child00 @introspectiveintroverthere @soph1sticatedly @kyeeeeeeeweeeeeeewi @cutonmyhrt @scoosh4you @ilovewonyo @mivqko @levihanmyotp @mihyas-dieehefrau @sapph1r3x @sst-4rl1ghttt @evilenchantresss @berrytyunnie @xynazylei @nor3ne @hanselate

© neeeooon, 2025