#The Slave Experience of the Holidays

[ausetkmt]

Click here to listen to a podcast of this highlight. The feed is located here if you would like to subscribe.

The Slave Experience of the Holidays

American slaves experienced the Christmas holidays in many different ways. Joy, hope, and celebration were naturally a part of the season for many. For other slaves, these holidays conjured up visions of freedom and even the opportunity to bring about that freedom. Still others saw it as yet another burden to be endured. This month, Documenting the American South considers the Christmas holidays as they were experienced by enslaved Americans.

The prosperity and relaxed discipline associated with Christmas often enabled slaves to interact in ways that they could not during the rest of the year. They customarily received material goods from their masters: perhaps the slave's yearly allotment of clothing, an edible delicacy, or a present above and beyond what he or she needed to survive and work on the plantation. For this reason, among others, slaves frequently married during the Christmas season. When Dice, a female slave in Nina Hill Robinson's Aunt Dice, came to her master "one Christmas eve, and asked his consent to her marriage with Caesar," her master allowed the ceremony, and a "great feast was spread" (pp. 24-25). Dice and Caesar were married in "the mistress's own parlor . . . before the white minister" (pp. 25-26). More than any other time of year, Christmas provided slaves with the latitude and prosperity that made a formal wedding possible.

On the plantation, the transfer of Christmas gifts from master to slave was often accompanied by a curious ritual. On Christmas day, "it was always customary in those days to catch peoples Christmas gifts and they would give you something." Slaves and children would lie in wait for those with the means to provide presents and capture them, crying 'Christmas gift' and refusing to release their prisoners until they received a gift in return (p. 22). This ironic annual inversion of power occasionally allowed slaves to acquire real power. Henry, a slave whose tragic life and death is recounted in Martha Griffith Browne's Autobiography of a Female Slave, saved "Christmas gifts in money" to buy his freedom (p. 311).

Some slaves saw Christmas as an opportunity to escape. They took advantage of relaxed work schedules and the holiday travels of slaveholders, who were too far away to stop them. While some slaveholders presumably treated the holiday as any other workday, numerous authors record a variety of holiday traditions, including the suspension of work for celebration and family visits. Because many slaves had spouses, children, and family who were owned by different masters and who lived on other properties, slaves often requested passes to travel and visit family during this time. Some slaves used the passes to explain their presence on the road and delay the discovery of their escape through their masters' expectation that they would soon return from their "family visit." Jermain Loguen plotted a Christmas escape, stockpiling supplies and waiting for travel passes, knowing the cover of the holidays was essential for success: "Lord speed the day!--freedom begins with the holidays!" (p. 262). These plans turned out to be wise, as Loguen and his companions are almost caught crossing a river into Ohio, but were left alone because the white men thought they were free men "who have been to Kentucky to spend the Holidays with their friends" (p. 303).

Harriet Tubman helped her brothers escape at Christmas. Their master intended to sell them after Christmas but was delayed by the holiday. The brothers were expected to spend the day with their elderly mother but met Tubman in secret. She helped them travel north, gaining a head start on the master who did not discover their disappearance until the end of the holidays. Likewise, William and Ellen Crafts escaped together at Christmastime. They took advantage of passes that were clearly meant for temporary use. Ellen "obtained a pass from her mistress, allowing her to be away for a few days. The cabinet-maker with whom I worked gave me a similar paper, but said that he needed my services very much, and wished me to return as soon as the time granted was up. I thanked him kindly; but somehow I have not been able to make it convenient to return yet; and, as the free air of good old England agrees so well with my wife and our dear little ones, as well as with myself, it is not at all likely we shall return at present to the 'peculiar institution' of chains and stripes" (pp. 303-304).

Christmas could represent not only physical freedom, but spiritual freedom, as well as the hope for better things to come. The main protagonist of Martha Griffin Browne's Autobiography of a Female Slave, Ann, found little positive value in the slaveholder's version of Christmas—equating it with "all sorts of culinary preparations" and extensive house cleaning rituals—but she saw the possibility for a better future in the story of the life of Christ: "This same Jesus, whom the civilized world now worship as their Lord, was once lowly, outcast, and despised; born of the most hated people of the world . . . laid in the manger of a stable at Bethlehem . . . this Jesus is worshipped now" (p. 203, 47-48). For Ann, Christmas symbolized the birth of the very hope she used to survive her captivity.

Not all enslaved African Americans viewed the holidays as a time of celebration and hope. Rather, Christmas served only to highlight their lack of freedom. As a young boy, Louis Hughes was bought in December and introduced to his new household on Christmas Eve "as a Christmas gift to the madam" (p. 13). When Peter Bruner tried to claim a Christmas gift from his master, "he took me and threw me in the tan vat and nearly drowned me. Every time I made an attempt to get out he would kick me back in again until I was almost dead" (p. 22).

Frederick Douglass described the period of respite that was granted to slaves every year between Christmas and New Year's Day as a psychological tool of the oppressor. In his 1845 Narrative, Douglass wrote that slaves celebrated the winter holidays by engaging in activities such as "playing ball, wrestling, running foot-races, fiddling, dancing, and drinking whiskey" (p. 75). He took particular umbrage at the latter practice, which was often encouraged by slave owners through various tactics. "One plan [was] to make bets on their slaves, as to who can drink the most whiskey without getting drunk; and in this way they succeed in getting whole multitudes to drink to excess" (p. 75). In My Bondage and My Freedom, Douglass concluded that "[a]ll the license allowed [during the holidays] appears to have no other object than to disgust the slaves with their temporary freedom, and to make them as glad to return to their work, as they were to leave it" (p. 255). While there is no doubt that many enjoyed these holidays, Douglass acutely discerned that they were granted not merely in a spirit of charity or conviviality, but also to appease those who yearned for freedom, ultimately serving the ulterior motives of slave owners.

[em-writes-stuff-sometimes]

darilaros (princess) │ Chapter 5: Forgotten

terms of endearment ‘verse: see my Masterlist for the correct series order!

Chapter 1 │Chapter 2 │Chapter 3 │Chapter 4 │Chapter 5 │Chapter 6 │Chapter 7 │Chapter 8 (COMPLETE!)

Synopsis: As the second daughter of King Viserys, you experience firsthand what it means to belong to the House of the Dragon. Your family gains new additions.

Hello! My sincere apologies for how long this took. I got massively sidetracked by researching how to bind a book, the interest in which hit at a completely inappropriate time in the writing-editing-crafting cycle, lol. I should definitely be focusing on finishing this thing before I start fixating on binding books. Anyway; this chapter is a little time-jumpy, given that I have to speed through a bunch of time. Also, note that I've fudged with the ages of Alicent's kids, so in Episode 3, know that she is now pregnant with Aemond, not Helaena like in the show. It's the only way to make him of-age in the Episode 8 scenes. Happy (and well-deserved) holidays to my boobear @ewanmitchellcrumbs, who I have graciously given a night off of slaving away for me, lol.

TRIGGERS: continued discussion of child grief, Viserys's shenanigans in impregnating an underaged Alicent (canon, this is NOT MY ADDITION).

When Alicent gets married to Papa, they have a big ceremony. So so many people come from all over the kingdom to see Papa take a new queen, and the days of the wedding—there are lots of days to them starting in marriage—are full of more noise and colour and movement than you could ever think was real.

Her dress is very pretty, and Papa looks very nice in his new coat, but neither of them look so happy as people who are going to be in marriage should be. Papa keeps playing with the ring on his finger that is from Mama, while Alicent just looks like she is afraid. You think it might be because of how loud everyone is being.

’Nyra isn’t happy, either. She keeps you on her lap the entire time with an angry look and doesn’t speak to Alicent very much at all, but at least she tries to be kind when she does. She ignores Papa, and because you are all sitting at the high table and everyone is watching you, he cannot tell her she is being rude and naughty.

Because you don’t want to look at Alicent’s unhappy face or ’Nyra’s angry one, you play with your sister’s necklace, letting the shiny metal take all your attention. It is Valyrian steel, which is what Papa’s and Uncle’s swords are made out of, so it is very special. Uncle gave it to her. When you let your fingers swirl over the ruby in the middle of the big pendant over and over, you pretend that it’s a part of him and that he’s here, after all.

After the big ceremony is done, life goes back to almost-normal. Now that Alicent is Papa’s queen, she is something called a stepmother, meaning that Brella and Septa and all the people who are made to look after you and ’Nyra have to talk to her about you both. She is like your mama. You wake up and break your fast with Alicent, and she cuts up your food instead of Mama, and she takes you outside to play and tells you about the names of the flowers. Then, when it is time to sleep again, she reads you a story. You think that she likes it very much because she always seems sad until she sees you, and then her face goes bright like the sun.

‘Nyra doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like it at all. When she learns that Alicent is acting like your mama, she goes very red like she’s going to scream, but she just goes very quiet instead and storms out of your rooms. For that whole day, ’Nyra takes you to the gardens and to see Syrax and to the library to learn some more High Valyrian, her new sworn shield Ser Criston behind her all the time. She never once lets you go see Alicent to do the things you normally do. When you finally get to be in the room with her at suppertime with Papa and ’Nyra, which Papa has said you all must do now so that everyone can get along, all she does is give you a small smile that doesn’t make her eyes go bright like usual and ask about your big day with your sister.

That is how things are for a while. Either you will go through your days with Alicent or with ’Nyra, and never both in one day because ’Nyra is still so angry at Alicent for being in marriage with Papa. You keep asking why, but your sister doesn’t tell you anything. She just goes quiet and frowns and mutters things you cannot hear. Meanwhile, Alicent will always stop, take a big breath that sounds shaky when she lets it out, and say, “I have no quarrel with Rhaenyra. She is as welcome to my rooms and in my company as you are, princess.”

You think that might be a lie.

One day, though, everything changes.

’Nyra decides to take you to the library so that you can look at more books in High Valyrian. Even the books written in the Common Tongue make no sense to you yet, and Brella told you this is because you are not old enough to learn reading properly. Still, your sister says that it is still good to try when you’re young, so she sits beside you and points out all the funny-looking symbols and tells you what they mean all together. You fall asleep in there instead of having a nap in your bed, but ’Nyra just puts a blanket over you and keeps reading. When you wake, you listen to her voice as she speaks the words from the pages aloud. You don’t understand all of it, but you think you’ve learned more and more since Mama died and she stopped being friends with Alicent. It means she has lots of time for you. Maybe that shouldn’t make you happy, but you cannot help it.

At supper, you see Lord Hightower, Alicent’s papa, beside her. That means that you have to be next to ’Nyra tonight, so you follow her to her side of the table and sit in the chair that the maid pulls out for you. The chair is higher than the others, made special so that you can reach the food that is put before you. Looking around, it is easy to tell that something is different from how happy Lord Hightower looks and how smiling Papa’s face is.

“My two daughters,” he says a bit too loudly, cheeks bright red. His cup is in front of him, and the gold shines red from the drink inside. Wine, you think. It is for men and women, not little girls, and it makes the people who drink it act strange like Papa is now. He waves his hand in a ‘hello’ as he lifts his cup to his mouth and takes a sip. “Ah!”

’Nyra starts eating her food without a word. Everyone has plates with different foods on it, but you have a bowl in front of your seat. Because you are small, the cooks always give you pottage for your supper so that you can eat it with a spoon and no one has to cut things up for you. You don’t always like it—there are lots of lumps and you can never tell what taste is going to be in your mouth with each bite—but it is warm and makes your tummy nice and full.

The room is full of the sounds of chewing and clack-clacking when the knives and forks hit the plates. You pick up your spoon and scoop up some food. There are dark bits, which means the cooks have put meat in it. You scrunch your nose.

Papa coughs between bites. He is still smiling a lot. “It seems like an age since I saw you last!”

“We had supper with you yesterday evening,” ’Nyra says.

“Ah, yes!” He takes another drink of his wine. Maybe he shouldn’t, because he is blinking very much like you do when you’re trying to stay awake. “Perhaps the waiting has made it seem longer.”

“Waiting?”

“I am sure you have noticed Otto’s presence by now.”

’Nyra doesn’t even look at the man. “My lord.” Her voice seems cold.

“Princess.” Lord Hightower bends his head, but he doesn’t sound very happy either.

Alicent puts her hand on Papa’s arm. ’Nyra watches so closely that you wonder if her eyes can make holes in other people’s skin. “I—we—have some news, Rhaenyra.”

“Oh?” She sounds bored.

“Well…”

When Alicent doesn’t say anything, ’Nyra makes a huffing noise. It is very rude.

“Well?” she asks, looking between Alicent and Papa. “What is it, then? Everyone’s acting rather strange.”

“Alicent is with child,” Papa says.

‘With child’ is what people say when a baby is growing in a lady’s belly. It’s what Mama told you before Baelon grew very large inside her.

’Nyra freezes, almost like she has forgotten how to move. No one says anything. Papa’s smile—the one that his words made so much bigger when he said them out loud—begins to fall, more and more with each moment that ’Nyra does nothing at all. Then, it goes away completely, and he’s no longer happy like he was.

It’s quiet again. Not the nice kind—the kind that means that someone is about to yell or be naughty.

“A baby?” you ask. Maybe you can stop the bad from happening if you help everyone remember that you’re still here.

Alicent looks at you, the fear leaving her face a little. She nods. “Yes, princess. You’re to have a brother or sis—”

“Half-brother.” ’Nyra’s lips move, but the rest of her stays still. She cannot stop staring between Papa and Alicent. “Or half-sister. Either way, they will not be your full blood.”

“You are correct, princess.” From the way Lord Hightower speaks and how silent Alicent and Papa are at ’Nyra’s words, you think she must have said something quite mean. He gives her a little smile, one that makes her hands squeeze really tight on her knife and fork. “Even so, these are glad tidings, indeed. Let us all pray for the queen to be delivered of a son.”

“I’m sure that would be of great benefit to the Hightowers, my lord. A son… to solidify your claim to my father’s throne.”

Lord Hightower stops smiling. Alicent gasps.

Papa makes a small noise. “Rhaenyra—”

All at once, she stands, the plate in front of her clattering loudly with how quick she rises. “Congratulations, Your Grace.” She doesn’t sound very happy for Alicent, even if the words are nice. “Forgive me—I feel suddenly unwell.”

“Daughter—”

’Nyra ignores Papa and storms out of the room, leaving her food only half-eaten. The rest of supper is very quiet, the loudest noise of all being the sound of your own breathing.

Isn’t a baby meant to be happy news? you wonder. You look around, but no one here is very happy—except for Lord Hightower. Though he isn’t smiling, he has his head held high like he has had every one of his wishes granted all at once.

“What do you think, princess?” Brella asks.

You stare down into the cradle at the baby. Your brother. Aegon. He is squirming, face bright red, squished and crying. He hasn’t stopped even once since you came into the room. He might have been crying since before you did, even. Aside from the bright hair on top of his head, you don’t think he looks very much like you.

“He’s nice,” is what you say, but you don’t know if you really mean it. It’s more for Alicent, who is watching you from over on the bed. She looks very tired. If you said something less kind, she may cry.

Alicent smiles. “Thank you, princess. Nurse—bring him to me, please.”

She doesn’t mean Brella. There is another woman here, Gwenys, who Lord Hightower and Septa Marlow assigned to help give Aegon milk and take care of him when Alicent cannot. Gwenys comes and picks up the baby, walking over to give him to Alicent. She rocks him in her arms which doesn’t stop him from crying, but she still keeps on bouncing him softly. He is very unhappy.

Now that Alicent is holding Aegon, you know that she’ll forget you are there. Ever since Papa told you and ’Nyra that he was in Alicent’s belly, neither of them have had much time for you. It feels like all the people in the keep—from Papa and Alicent and Lord Hightower to the servants and maids and stableboys—have been more excited for the baby than they ever were for you. The only person who has remembered you is ’Nyra, and so you are with her on most days. It sometimes makes you sad, because it really was very fun to play pretend that Alicent was your mama for a while, but ’Nyra says that it wasn’t going to last, anyway.

“She is to have her own child to care for, now,” she told you in the days after learning about the new baby. “You were good practice—but you aren’t her blood, not really. Not like you and I. Her son will be born, and you’ll be given to a nurse or a septa to raise.” When you cried, she bent down and wiped away your tears. “It doesn’t make her a bad person,” she said quietly. “But this is the way of the world, sister. Men and women, kings and queens… they all want sons. Us daughters must stick together, yes?”

’Nyra was right. At first, Alicent tried to keep pretending to be like your mama. But then, the baby made her very ill, so she stopped asking you to come to break your fast so you wouldn’t have to see her being sick into the pail by her bed. Then, she spent so much time sleeping that she didn’t have the energy to come outside with you, or to dance with you, and soon, the only time you would see her was at suppertime. Even that wasn’t always. And now the baby is here, you don’t think she will be going back to the way it used to be.

Maybe that is why he feels like such a stranger to you. At least with baby Baelon, you got to feel him kicking in Mama’s tummy. Aegon wasn’t here for so long, and then all of a sudden, he was. He is. You don’t know him at all. He’s just a baby, come to take your papa and almost-mama away from you like all the rest.

Brella’s hand on your shoulder is what helps you walk towards the door, Alicent and Aegon staying in the room behind you. With your back turned, it’s easier to pretend that Alicent is very sad by you leaving.

The more moons pass, the more faded Mama’s face is in your memory. You try to hold onto the way her eyes would crinkle at the corners when she smiled, or how her hair would curl a bit like yours after her bath, or the way she’d smell like roses when she hugged you tight. It slips away, out of reach. Putting rose oil in your bath helps you, but only a little bit—and the longer that Mama is gone, the less you can remember of her.

Papa doesn’t like to talk about her. When you ask him, he just spins the ring on his finger around and says, “Another time, perhaps.” You know that ‘another time’ really means ‘never’.

There is no one else in the keep that really knew her like you and your family knew her, except ’Nyra. She tells you stories sometimes, but you don’t ask a lot because she usually likes to tell the ones that have you in them. When she finishes, she always smiles and asks, “Do you remember?” You never can, and it leaves you feeling like someone has scooped out all your insides.

So, Mama fades, and becomes part of that place in your mind where the things that are being forgotten go. Even though you try and try and try, there is nothing that can stop the forgetting. One day, you think she might be nothing more than a quiet sort of sadness, like looking out the window at the rain and wondering why it makes your chest hurt so much.

Seeing Alicent with Aegon is the only thing that reminds you of her. Even though Alicent’s hair is red where Mama’s was silver, and Aegon is loud and angry where you are quiet and shy, the way that she kisses his cheeks or hums little songs under her breath to him makes you think of how Mama would do the same for you. He doesn’t seem to be very happy when she does these things. If it were you in his place, you know you’d be better than him. You wish she’d realise that.

It seems like no time at all goes by when Alicent is with child again, meaning she’s going to have another baby. If it is anything like Aegon, you do not think you’ll like it very much. Sometimes, you feel very naughty for it, but you cannot help how he makes you feel. All he wants to do is make a fuss and take everyone’s attention, and he keeps crying and being naughty even as Alicent’s belly grows bigger and bigger with your new brother or sister.

When Helaena is born, Papa and Lord Hightower aren’t as pleased as they were with Aegon. You can tell because, while they are both in the room when you come to meet her, neither one is looking at her as she lays in the cradle. They had both been looking down at Aegon last time. You think it is because Helaena is a girl, like you and ’Nyra. You decide that you have to love her if they won’t.

She is a quiet baby, but so still that it makes Gwenys worry and worry, even though all she is doing is lying in her cradle and staring straight up. Maybe she knows how rude her big brother is, you think, and she wants to do and be all the things he isn’t.

You weren’t allowed to hold Aegon because he was so disagreeable, which means he would probably have screamed and cried if you did. He still screams and cries, which is why Alicent has to spend all her days with him even though she’s just had a second baby, so Helaena is by herself with Gwenys most hours.

Helaena isn’t like Aegon. This time, Gwenys has you sit in a chair with a pillow under your arm and brings the baby to you. “Mind her head,” she says, tugging your arm forward so that Helaena fits nicely in your arms. “There we go.”

She is a big baby, round and heavy and warm, but you don’t mind because she gazes up at you with large blue eyes that look like they might turn purple when she gets older. The hairs she has on her head—and there aren’t many, not like Aegon had—are silver, and you know that she will look very much like you when she has grown more. When you stroke a finger over the skin on her hand, her whole fist grabs onto it, strong even though she is so young. It’s like she knows who you are, even without any words being said.

You wonder if this is how ’Nyra felt when she met you—a burning that tingles all through your arms and legs, not in a way that hurts, no, but in a way that makes you want to squeeze tight and never let go.

Helaena doesn’t cry. She falls asleep while you’re holding her, her face turned into you so that you can feel her tiny breaths through your dress. It is special and warm and love-feeling like Alicent used to be, like Mama was when she was not-dead. The hurt goes far away, still there but not so much, not so heavy in your chest.

For a little while, the sadness—of forgetting Mama, of being forgotten by so many others—fades away, too.

When you are five summers old, you have to say goodbye to Brella.

All the while you are breaking your fast, she looks like she is about to start crying. Even though you wonder why, you don’t ask. When someone cries, it means that something bad has happened. So much bad has already happened, and you don’t know if you want to hear any more. You eat in quiet, scooping porridge into your mouth while the sound of sniffles fills the room. The taste of honey would make you feel happy, but not when Brella is so upset. Your food sinks to the bottom of your belly like one of the hot bricks you sometimes get under your blankets when it’s very cold at night, only there’s nothing nice about it. It’s hard and rough and makes you feel sick.

After you have finished every bite—you have to eat all of it, or you don’t get to play—Brella takes you by the hand and leads you to the chair. “There is… there is something I have to tell you,” she says, slow and shaky.

I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know. You wish that you were like ’Nyra, that you could say the words out loud—but you cannot. You don’t want to know, but you say nothing, and you wait for whatever bad thing is coming to show itself.

“I…” Brella swallows and looks down at your hands, still holding onto each other even though you are sitting and there is no need. “Tell me again how old you are, princess.”

“Five.” It’s a very small number, but you are still proud because you’re almost a big girl now.

Brella laughs, nodding. “That’s right. Five. My goodness. How time flies!”

You find that silly. Time doesn’t fly. It isn’t a thing-you-can-touch, and only things-you-can-touch can fly, like dragons or birds or insects. Still, you try not to show your thinking on your face as Brella squeezes your hand tighter.

“Being five summers old is a very important milestone when you’re a prince or princess,” she says. “Do you know why?”

“No,” you say. “Why?”

Here, she stops. “It… It means—gods, I don’t know if I can say it.”

“Well, then. It appears that I must,” comes a voice from the door.

You turn. Septa Marlow stands with her hands joined in front of her, her mouth pinched into a line so small it is like it has disappeared from her face. Her grey wimple makes her skin look just as colourless. She steps forward, and the sound of her shoes touching the ground seems as loud as thunder.

“You are of an age to begin your lessons, princess. Thus, it is time for your nurse”—she looks at Brella and her lip curls, though you cannot tell if she’s happy or angry—“to depart, and for me to take over your care.”

The sick feeling gets worse, and you wonder if you might bring up all your food from how bad the pains are in your belly. “But—but Brella will still stay, though? For Aegon and Helaena?”

Septa Marlow huffs. “There is no need, silly child. Their nurse has already been appointed, and Gwenys will suffice for any future children borne by the queen. Brella is to collect her things and return to the Vale.”

Brella has taught you some of the places on the map that shows Papa’s kingdom. You live in King’s Landing, which is in the Crownlands, and it is at the bottom of the map. The Vale is where Mother—Mother, not Mama, Mama is for babies and I am not a baby anymore, you have to keep telling yourself—came from, that it is a bit up and to the side from the Crownlands. It isn’t that far in the drawings, but Brella says that maps show a smaller picture of what is really a very, very long distance.

If Brella has to return to the Vale, it means she will be very, very far away.

You think you might be frozen, like ice. You cannot say anything. All that you can think, over and over, is no, no, no, please, not Brella, no, no, no. The fire-burn of tears warms behind your eyes, but you know that you cannot let Septa see you cry. She’ll think you are weak.

Brella sniffles. “I can write to you,” she says, pulling you closer to her. “And, when you’re old enough, you can write to me. How about that?”

You nod, but her words don’t make you feel better. Paper isn’t the same as a person, not really. Even if she puts letters on paper and sends them to you, it won’t be like one of her hugs or the way she laughs when you miss a dance step or fall over in the grass. It won’t smell like her or look like her. It won’t make you feel safe like she does.

She will turn not-real like Mother. Only, maybe it is worse—because you’ll know that, somewhere a long way away from you, she will be real, but that you cannot have her anymore.

“I don’t want you to go,” is what you say, but it comes out like a whisper, not strong like you wanted it to.

“I know, my darling,” Brella says, hugging you tight so that you can feel her heart beating through her skin and yours. “I know, and I’m so sorry—”

“If you could unhand my charge, nurse.” Septa’s eyebrow is raised. “Although—now that it occurs to me—‘nurse’ is no longer the appropriate moniker, is it?”

Brella glares at her. “There’s no need to be so—”

“Your time here is at an end.” Even though she looks like she’s trying not to show her feelings, Septa lifts her chin in the air like ’Nyra used to when she would win at cyvasse against Alicent. “Say your goodbyes.”

“What—here? Now?” Brella’s mouth is open like she’s very surprised. “I’d thought the princess would be coming to see me off at the harb—”

“That is not a good idea. She is too… attached.” Septa says it like it is a curse. “A public display of histrionics does not a respectable princess make, no matter her juvenility.” You have no idea what most of these words mean, but the way they make Brella sink in her seat cannot be a good thing.

She tucks your hair behind your ears as she looks down at you, her eyes wet. “Be good,” she says, very soft so that Septa cannot hear them well. “Make sure you write to me, yes?”

She brushes her thumbs over your cheeks—out, in, out, in—the way she does when she really means ‘I love you’.

“Please stay,” you whisper, trying not to let your lower lip wobble like it wants to so badly. “Please don’t go.”

Brella hugs you again, her whole body shaking. Your face is smushed up against her shoulder, the smell of her herness filling your nose with so much warm. You wonder if, by clinging on tight, you can stop her from leaving. She cannot leave. She is what you have left now that Mam—Mother is gone, now that Papa has Alicent and ’Nyra has Papa and Uncle has his war somewhere away from you. She cannot leave. She cannot.

It feels like she has been holding on for forever and also for no time at all when she lets go, stands up, and walks away without a word. The door shuts.

She didn’t even say goodbye.

Is it worse or better, watching her go away? you wonder through the cold that settles in your body, in your arms and legs, the sharpness of it so much that you feel like shivering even though the sun is shining hot outside. You never saw Mother die. She was here, and then she wasn’t. But you have to watch Brella leave, knowing there is nothing you can do to stop it all the while.

“Dry your tears, girl. ‘Tis about time your coddling came to an end.” Septa pulls you by the shoulder off the chair. Her hand doesn’t feel warm like Brella’s does. Her stare—fixed on you—travels up and down, her mouth crinkling at the corner like she is thinking about something. “Why she was allowed to linger past your name day, I will never understand.”

You cannot think of anything to say, so you keep quiet. It doesn’t seem to make Septa like you any more than she did before, which you don’t think was very much. The tears keep falling, though you try and try to make them disappear.

“Now,” she says, clapping her hands sharply. The loudness of the noise makes you jump. Teardrops shake onto your dress. “We have a long day ahead of us. The queen has requested an update on your progress, so you will be learning no less than three hymns before the end of the sennight. I should like to provide her with”—she looks you up and down again, and this time it seems like she is thinking something unkind about you—“some indication that you will shape up to be a lady of high standing.”

‘I’m a princess, not a lady,’ you want to say. You don’t.

Septa begins striding away, then stops and turns around to face you. “I expect you to follow when I walk, and to acknowledge me when I speak by saying ‘Yes, Septa Marlow’.” She almost spits the words at you. “Understood?”

“Yes, Septa Marlow.” It doesn’t sound as strong or as clear as when she said it. You wish you could sound less afraid. Still, she seems to find it good enough. She says nothing afterward, just waits for you to trail along after her.

“Hmph.” She clicks her tongue. Staring down at you again, she adds, “And stand up straight.”

You do as you’re told.

Septa Marlow is as frightfully mean as you always feared.

One thing you learn quickly is that everything you do and say is wrong. When you laugh, it is too unbecoming; when you smile, you show too much teeth; when you walk, you are too hunched over; when you eat, you are too gluttonous. You’re a simpleton when you ask to play with your dolls, so they sit at the foot of your bed slowly being covered by dust; you’re graceless when you try to dance, so you practice after you have been put to bed to try and get better before each morning; you’re impertinent when you say what you’re thinking instead of keeping it to yourself, so you learn to let your thoughts stay inside your head. There is little that she doesn’t pick on and tell you that you need to change.

“Use full words, please!” she says whenever you forget to speak in the proper way that she expects. She always raps her willow switch on the table in front of you after that. Lucky for you, she has not yet used it to hurt you. “It is ‘does not’, not ‘doesn’t’. There is no need to employ such low-class mannerisms as a lady of your standing!”

“Yes, Septa Marlow.” There is no point trying to tell her that she’s wrong.

It isn’t all bad, though. Having Septa Marlow take over means that you are now expected to learn all sorts of things, and a lot of it is very interesting. New words, new houses, new hymns, new dances—you start to learn how to sew, how to put letters together to read them, how to count numbers and add and take them away to make different numbers. Septa says that there are so many things a noblewoman like you needs to be able to do by the time she is ready to be married, so that she can run her husband’s household and take care of him and her future children. That is a long time from now, but practice makes perfect.

The only time you are not with Septa is when you are with your family, like today.

Because Aegon has lived past being a baby—and Septa says that babies die a lot from the weather or from being sick or from being fed too much or too little or sometimes for no reason at all—Papa has announced that everyone must go on a hunt to celebrate his name day. You have to sit in the wheelhouse with he and Alicent and ’Nyra and Aegon and three other nurses, but not Helaena. She’s only a baby still, so she must stay in the keep with Gwenys.

It is not a very fun ride. Being in a wheelhouse with them all means putting ’Nyra very close to Alicent, whose belly has grown big with a baby again. Lots of people have lots to say about how many babies Alicent has had since she married Papa, and most of it is not very nice towards your mother. She could only have two girls, and it took her a long time to have you after ’Nyra.

Papa thinks there is another boy in Alicent’s belly. You hope not. Aegon is loud and rude. You think it might be worse if there were two of him instead of just one.

“… whole of our family off to celebration and adventure in the kingswood,” Papa is saying. You swing your legs back and forth, though you must stop each time you roll over a big bump in the road. You stay quiet, because Septa says a lady does not talk unless she is asked a question.

A very big bump in the road makes Alicent’s smile fall.

“Should you be travelling in such condition?” ’Nyra asks. She sounds worried, even though she is no longer friends with Alicent.

“The maester said that being out in nature would do me well,” is what Alicent says back.

Papa starts talking while he finishes giving Aegon a sip from his cup. You wonder if it’s wine. “Well, you will be with your own child sooner than late, and make me a proud grandsire.” He is smiling, perhaps at the thought of it.

‘No, I will not,’ the look on ’Nyra’s face seems to say. You cannot help but agree with her. Having babies seems like such a tiring thing to do.

“It’s not so bad.” Alicent has to speak louder to be heard over the rattling of the wheels and the hoofbeats of the horses. “The days are long, but Aegon came quickly and without fuss. Helaena, too.”

The nurse who is holding Aegon in her lap—Delia, you think her name is—waves a toy dragon in front of him. He smacks at it with his hands, frowning. You would never treat your toys like that.

“You should ride out with me today,” Papa says to ’Nyra. “Join in the chase, while you”—his eyes go to you—“sit about with your lady stepmother. Hm?”

“Okay, Papa,” you say quietly. Proper ladies do what their fathers tell them to.

’Nyra’s hand finds yours. “I’d rather not. The boars squeal like children when they’re being slaughtered.” From the way her fingers squeeze yours and her stare fixes on Aegon, you know she doesn’t mean you when she says that. “I find it discomfiting.”

“It’s a hunt, Rhaenyra.” Papa smiles. It is a careful sort of smile, not a happy one. Aegon’s yell distracts him for a moment, but he is quick to return to speaking to ’Nyra. “How would you like to participate?” he asks her.

“I’d be leaving my sister alone with the vultures of the realm,” ’Nyra says, “so I’m not sure why I must.”

Trying to understand what everyone means by what they say is very difficult—you aren’t sure if she’s saying that the ladies coming along are vultures, or if she’s trying to say Alicent is. You don’t even know what a vulture is, so you aren’t sure if it is a bad or good thing to be.

“Because you are my eldest daughter. The princess.” Papa looks like he is finding it harder and harder to stop himself from telling ’Nyra off. “And you have duties.”

“As I am ceaselessly reminded.” Your sister says it softly, but it is easy enough for you to hear from your place next to her.

Papa doesn’t, though. “I’m sorry?”

Instead of making up a lie or saying that she did not say anything at all, ’Nyra repeats herself louder. It is terribly rude, but you enjoy watching as you have always enjoyed watching her being brave against other people. “As I am ceaselessly reminded.”

“You wouldn’t need to be reminded if you ever attended to them.”

“No one’s here for me!”

Papa doesn’t seem to know what to say to that. Neither does Alicent. They both just fall silent along with the nurses. Even Aegon stops making all his annoying noises, instead sitting so still that he could be sleeping if his eyes were not open.

You make sure to hold onto your sister’s hand even tighter. If there is anyone in the whole world who does know what to say, it is you. If only you were brave enough.

‘I understand, ’Nyra,’ you want to say. ‘No one’s here for me, either. No one’s ever here for me.’

Read on AO3:

Taglist (😭 thank you!):

Now in the comments!

To be on the taglist:

Click here to apply for the general taglist! Click here to apply for the terms of endearment taglist!

[spacebarbarianweird]

Happy holidays! It's your Secret Santa recipient! Can I get Astarion/Tav gentle vampire paladin who broke her vows, a good dose of angst and comfort please. Thank you! ^^

So, I finally got to your request! It's not a Secret Santa, coz we've discussed everything with you in DM. Buuut - I like what we've made up! And it's my first fic about someone else's Tav who is neither generic nor Tiriel.

When The Light is Gone

Synopsis: You used to be many things. You used to be a Paladin of Lathander. You used to be Astarion's only love. You used to be mortal. You used to be free. Now, you are just a vampire spawn in the hands of an evil and cruel vampire lady - and no one hears your prayers anymore.

TW: Tav is put through the same things Astarion was put by Cazador (including tortures and SA). They aren't written in details, but those things are mentioned.

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Headcanons

You pray, but no one listens.

Your bones are broken, and your flesh is flayed. As far as you can see through the piercing pain, there is no skin left on your body. It's all ripped from you like rags.

The vampire regeneration brings it back in a second. No wounds, no bruises. The skin looks like day you died.

Frozen in time.

"I see you are back!" your master laughs, and her voice echoes through the dungeon.

No, please, not again.

The vampire lady approaches you with a terrible elegance. She moves through the place of torture as if it were a ballroom.

"My dear little spawn, why do you upset me so much? Am I not kind to you? Am I not forgiving?"

She chuckles studying your face. Your tears have long dried. The red eyes glow in anticipation.

"And you still dare to disobey me- you've run! Is this the gratitude for giving you immortality?"

You are silent. You are so exhausted you can't speak. The hunger is so overwhelming, you can't think about anything. You would eat a flea if it meant getting at least a drop of blood.

"Answer me, girl."

Your mouth moves against your will. A spawn is a mere puppet in the arms of its master.

"I am sorry, Meerah."

The vampire licks her lips. She is beautiful, your master. Black hair, pale skin. Once she was a human. But it was centuries ago. Was she tortured like that by her master? Or was she a vampire bride, a privileged slave? It doesn’t matter what she was. It matters what she is now.

Cruel.

Sadistic.

Perversive.

"What to do with you, my dear sweet paladin?" she touches your breasts and then goes lower with her cold fingers. "Regeneration is so sweet - I like seeing skin growing back and bones mending."

Meerah takes out a dagger, brushing its tip on your stomach.

"Pity, you didn't experience the pleasure of getting out of that grave. A vampire must find its own way to the surface once it wakes in a coffin. And that stupid vampire... What was his name? Astarion?"

You sniff. You have nightmares. Сonstantly. But sometimes you see worse things - you dream that Astarion saves you. That it's him making love to you, not Lum or someone else Meerah decided to reward. You hear his voice, sense his touch. Only to wake up in chains.

Or in someone else's bed.

"He dug you from your grave. With his hands. So desperate he was as if he hoped you would still be mortal when he found you. How you clung to him with your eyes glowing red! But he left. He ran!"

No, it wasn’t like that!

Your body didn't listen to you anymore. You stood up and approached your new master, your slave owner. Astarion was standing there near your grave surrounded by Meerah’s spawns.

She gave him a choice - he goes and never returns. Or you would be left to meet the sun.

Meerah can always make news spawns, but Astarion wouldn't find another Tav.

I will find the way! I will kill her the same way we killed Cazador!

And he disappeared. The spawns chased him like hounds chasIng prey.

He will save you. He will find you.

"Dear, dear. How long have you been here? Let me think. Twenty years! And he has never shown up!"

The dagger plunges into your stomach and even though your senses are dulled you cry in pain.

"You know the harsh truth. Vampires never get along. We love mortals to warm our beds because our bodies are so cold. We love drinking the blood of people we like. But two vampires... You can't give anything to each other. I know you still cry for him. Lum told me - you wake up in tears calling out for Astarion because you thought he'd finally come for you. But he left. He will never return"

She stabs you with the dagger.

And again.

And again.

It's a perfect torture because you can't die. You are already dead, she killed you twenty years ago condemning you to the existence of her personal toy.

"O Lord of Light, illuminating the path" you whisper, coughing blood. " Saving us from the darkness beckoning wrath"

But the Morninglord doesn't hear you.

He is the enemy of the undead.

And you are among them.

**

Meerah finally gets tired of torturing you. She unchains you and you fall to the dirty floor. The wounds immediately heal.

I want blood. I need to eat.

Meerah doesn't feed you often. She gives you enough to keep you sane and "good-looking". But it never satiates you.

"Stand up"

Your body obeys.

Lum stands from the shadows and you shiver - it was him who caught you and brought you back. He, the lover of the powerful vampire, wasn't afraid of the mere spawn.

"She is yours for the night. Do whatever you want."

Lum licks his lips studying your body. No, not him. Not again. His touches burn like acid and he is even more violent than Meerah. It's his release after submitting to his lady.

"I know you have a thing for women of gods. Spawn! Follow him to the bedroom and please him. Beg him for more, until he gets tired of you"

***

Dissociation is a gift.

It's not you.

It’s someone else performing in bed for this vile man. Someone else is getting fucked, someone else is used for pleasure. Your mind wanders away as your mouth moans and begs.

You try to think about Astarion. To remember him. How good it was with him. How gentle he always was.

But it's been twenty years and you realize you've forgotten his face.

***

You lie on the floor. Lum ordered you not to move. He doesn't possess the master's voice, he is a mere human, who was promised to be given eternal life. But the master's voice ordered you to obey him so you do.

Your body is numb because of the cold and humiliation. Maybe, you should find a way to step into the sun. To let the god of dawn take you. You tried once but were caught and were impaled for a year.

Astarion made it somehow for two centuries. Through tortures, through pain, through rapes, through hunger. You can do it, too.

But you aren't so sure anymore.

Intrusive thoughts invade your mind. "He left you, knowing perfectly well what would happen to you. He left you to be ripped, torn, used, ruined, destroyed. He isn't coming back. He's forgotten."

No, no! This isn't true!

"Your god has forsaken you. Remember how many things you did for Lathander? Deeds, prayers... Nothing matters. He forsook you the moment you were turned into a vampire."

You cry in silence. You've learned this skill too - to weep and grieve without a sound.

WAKE UP

The master's voice forces you to jump on your feet.

TO THE DUNGEON

You go. Your feet are bare and the only piece of clothes you wear is a pair of trousers and an old shirt. Too big for you but at least you aren't naked.

QUICK YOU STUPID BITCH!

You rush. Something is wrong. Someone has come to challenge your master and now all the spawns will have to fight for her.

When you arrive at the dungeon there is a fight. You see at least three spawns are dead and their bodies slowly turn to ashes.

Meerah is scared.

And so are you.

There are three intruders. And two of them are dhampirs.

Two young men, identical and tall, kill vampire spawns as if they are just rabid dogs. The worst vampire nightmare - someone who is immune to vampirism and feels the presence of vampires.

There is a third person among them, another hooded figure.

"I told you not to come!" Meerah yells. "I told you I would force her to see the sun!"

The hooded figure steps forward.

Astarion.

These twenty years didn't change him. He looks the same.

He recognizes you and there is grief in his perfect face.

KILL HIM

You try to disobey but you are less than a puppet.

You rush to him with your fangs and claws but in a moment you are paralyzed.

One of the dhampirs used "Hold Undead".

You are motionless. Weak. But you can't break the chains - and this is a blessing.

"You think you can kill me?! You, a masterless spawn and two half-deads?!"

Meerah is scared. For the first time in her undead life.

When the vampire dies, you feel the pain, and the invisible strings burn and fall into the darkness.

***

You wake up in a dark room. It was all a dream. You dream of your master's death. Of Astarion. Of freedom.

Of course, it's not true. It couldn't happen.

The hunger tortures you, forcing your guts to wrench.

You catch the scent of a living person. Blood, fresh blood. Living blood.

So desirable. So unreachable.

You sit up, staring into the dark, and see Lum, your rapist.

He is tied up. His bones are broken and his mouth is gagged. He muffles something but you can't understand anything.

And you feel emptiness in the part of your mind that has always been occupied by your master.

You hear steps. A familiar scent.

"Woke up, darling?"

You stare at Astarion in disbelief. Twenty years. Twenty years! And yet...

He is here.

You rush to him crying and cursing and he hugs you with his strong arms.

"Shh, it's ok. It's over. You are free. No one will ever hurt you. I will never leave you. We will always be together."

"Why? Why twenty years? Where have you been?" you sniff.

"Was looking for a way to kill that bitch and not lose you in the process. But I was always looking, I have never stopped. I give you my word"

The hunger becomes unbearable and you look at Lum. He is scared to death. He has never thought it was possible to outlive his master.

"Has she ever let you drink human blood?"

Rats. Stray dogs. Birds. Your only food. But she usually starved you, sometimes not feeding for years, locking you inside a cell.

"Drink his blood. Don't stop yourself. Drink till the last drop"

"But I-"

"She is dead. Eat."

And you rush to the body as a feral animal. Sinking your fangs into the warm flesh.

Blood.

Real human flood.

You rip Lum's throat trying to cause as much pain as possible. And you drink and drink

Till nothing is left.

Your mind becomes clear. You've never felt so good since you were turned. You even have something in your chest as if your undead heart could beat.

Astarion picks you up and carries you away from the dead body.

***

The surface feels nice. It's early night and it smells like freedom.

Dhampir brothers approach you and you sense the fear. The dhampirs. The death of the vampires.

"Well, I suppose here we part ways, Uncle"

"Call me uncle once again and I will test my ability to fight a dhampir!"

The twins laugh. "Our mother considers you her brother. It makes 

you our uncle. Who knows when you will need our help again."

"But beware" the other one adds. "You are responsible for Tav. If she can't control her hunger, she will become our prey. And so will you"

The twins bow simultaneously and disappear in the night. Astarion grabs your hand.

"Why do they call you uncle?"

"They are Dalyria's sons. Apparently, she still considers me her brother. I haven't decided if I like it or not. Come on, let's get out of here. There is a town nearby and the innkeepers accidentally invited me to the tavern some time ago."

You walk in silence. There is so much you want to tell him. There is so much you want to cry about. But you are quiet.

By the sunrise, you finally reach the inn. Astarion orders a bath and locks the wooden door.

"Do you want me to stay or to go?" he carefully asks.

You don't know what to do. You feel cold. You feel dirty. You feel dead even though you are satiated with blood.

Astarion sighs. "I will be in our room in case you need anything."

"No!" You finally manage to say. "Stay"

He nods. You try to undress but it feels like the fabric sticks to your skin. Astarion doesn't dare touch you.

Of course.

He remembers himself. How he snapped at you for touching him. How it took him years before he started feeling comfortable in his own skin.

But you are not like that. Similar experience. Different results.

"Touch me. Please. Makes me forget. I feel hollow. There was a place in my heart for Lathander but he forgot me. Then, it was my master's voice. Now there is nothing. Just nothing. Please, make me forget."

Astarion undresses you and gently places you in the hot water.

He washes you, rubbing your pale skin. He murmurs the words of love and care but you see pain in his eyes. He avoids touching your bite mark but you grab his hand and force him to touch it.

"What are we going to do now?" you ask.

"I don't know. I've spent some time in the Underdark with my... siblings. You are one of us now, you will be safe. Maybe we could search for a cure. Besides, you were a paladin. Maybe your god will pay for your service."

You let out a bitter laugh.

"He forgot me. He abandoned me. When he needed me I was always there. When I needed him, he was nowhere. And where was he when you were trying to rescue me?"

"So, no paladin anymore?"

"No, I will still be one. Think how many Keleths and Cazadors there are. How many... Tavs and Astarions are in their hands. I don't belong to the realm of light anymore. But it doesn't mean I can't live up to my... beliefs."

Astarion gently kisses your forehead and you feel like crying.

"You know, it took me so long before I finally found the strength in me to think about anything else but myself. And you are barely free and are already up to wearing your shining armor."

"It was twenty years, not two hundred."

"It doesn't matter. Enslavement, tortures. It's all the same. You suffered no less than me. But I am here," he kisses your cold lips. "I will be with you throughout your nightmares, fears, and disgust. The same way you were there for me. And then - we will kill other vampire lords!”

--

Tag list

@tugoslovenka @marcynomercy @wintersire @vixstarria @not-so-lost-after-all @ashiro20 @theearthsfinalconfession @herstxrgirl @starlight-ipomoea @micropoe10 @astarion-imagine-archive @veillsar @elora-the-slutty-songstress @fayeriess @lumienyx @tallymonster @caitlincat-95 @tragedybunny @valeprati @lynnlovesthestars @marina-and-the-memes @waking-electric @ayselluna @connorsui @asterordinary @darkarchangel96

[matan4il]

To the lovely American Nonnie, who told me that all antisemitism is bad, but leftist antisemitism is the worst because "they are being protected and celebrated. By media, pop culture, and academia. With no middle ground," I agree. The anti-Israel type of antisemitism is, without a doubt, the most socially accepted kind. It's the only kind that someone can spew, and get publicly applauded. The only kind where someone can celebrate the massacre of Jews, and either there are no consequences to that, or there finally are, and then that person and their supporters can pretend they're a martyr, being "persecuted" for being "critical of Israel," when in reality legit criticism of Israel is a very different thing to bias against the only Jewish state, and that person is just another Jew hater.

But I don't think it's just that.

I think it's also the fact that most antisemites are at least honest about hating Jews. The anti-Israel type of antisemitism tries to pretend it's not Jew hatred. So you'll get the hypocrisy of wishing Jews a Happy Hanukkah, a Zionist holiday, while attacking Zionism, and claiming it's incompatible with Judaism. Or you'll have people telling you how important it is to them to combat antisemitism, then they'll turn around and spit out leftist antisemitic conspiracy theories, that instead of saying Jews use the blood of non-Jewish kids to bake matzos, claim the Jewish state only sent a field hospital to Haiti after the earthquake, to harvest human organs. Or they'll proudly announce they're not antisemitic, and to "prove" it, they'll tokenize Jews, which is an antisemitic act in itself. And the worst is when they won't even listen to Jews who tell them that they're being antisemitic, or worse, they'll claim Zionism is antisemitic, which would make 90% of Jews, as well as the Bible itself, antisemitic. It's gaslighting Jews and non-Jews on what is Judaism and what is antisemitic. Other types of antisemites don't do that.

I also think this kind of antisemitism is particularly infuriating, because of the deep discrepancy between the values the left is supposed to stand for, and how they abandon those values when it comes to Jews. "Believe all women!" suddenly isn't applied when Israeli Jewish women are mass raped. "Violence is never the answer! Taking a human life is always wrong!" Then suddenly when Israeli Jews are massacred, and we get explanations on why violence is legit if people are occupied, even when it's translated into mass murder.

And lastly, there's the discrimination, because the left would never treat any other marginalized group the way it does Jews. "Don't speak over a minority group! Listen to their lived experiences!" Then a Jew tries to explain why anti-Zionism is antisemitic, and suddenly all the non-Jew leftists are bigger experts than us on Jewish history and and hatred of Jews, and we're not listened to when we talk about our persecution in the Middle East pre-modern Zionism (meaning the persecution and repeated massacres of Jews in the Middle East is being denied, in a way no one on the left would dare deny, for example, that the transatlantic slave trade happened), or how much anti-Zionism threatens non-Israeli Jews. "Educate yourself" is a common call, but no one feels the need to properly educate themselves on Jewish history, identity and native rights, or worse, they read propaganda from anti-Israel sources only, and think that's the same as educating themselves, as if when they're about to write about any other marginalized group, they would only take in the "education" of those that the group says hate it. "Ethnic cleansing is the worst!" the left says, while chanting slogans that, at the very least, call for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Jewish ancestral homeland, and no one gives a damn about us when we point this out. "None of us is free until all of us are free!" goes the intersectionalist call of the left, but Jews are excluded from that. No one cares about modern Zionism being our liberation movement, and we are sometimes physically removed from spaces that are supposed to be dedicated to marginalized groups, as was done to my friend at the Chicago Dyke March, when she wanted to hold a Jewish pride flag, under the claim that the Jewish pride flag makes Palestinians at the march feel unsafe... How safe did queer Jews feel in that moment, or when learning about that incident? But no one cares.

Sending lots of hugs from Jerusalem to you, in the US! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[3-2-whump]

Relapse: Crumbling Promises

<prev next>

Please heed the TW/CWs on this chapter. Also, thanks @generic-whumperz and @whumped-by-glitter for your input into the ending of this chapter, your feedback has been applied

TW/CW: dubcon (lots of dubcon), allusions to previous dubcon, prostitution, slave whump, degrading language, degraded whumpee (in that whumpee has to haggle their own value -idk what that’s called, but it’s pretty degrading), intimate whumper, possessive whumper, asphyxiation, emotional whump, unhealthy relationship dynamics, possessive relationship dynamics, whumper x whumpee (although pretty unbalanced)

The frenetic stimulation of his cock and the wild fragility in Khaled’s eyes continued to haunt the mob boss long after their reunion of the flesh in the parking lot a month ago. He thought about it from when he couldn’t sleep at night to the first waking moments of consciousness in the morning. He thought about it in the shower, at the gym, during meetings, and in the middle of intercourse at the brothels. It was just as Khaled had said; those girls (and occasional boys) in the whorehouses could only satisfy him for so long, and he believed he had finally run his course after his fourth threesome in a month. Now here he sat, in his desk chair, trying to compose an email he’d rather not send, with his mind far away from the zoom conference he was supposed to be a part of.

He looked over his shoulder at Khaled, who had broken away from his usual positon right behind his chair to water the potted fig tree by the window. Nothing in his composure betrayed his lapse in decorum on that fateful night, though he was moving a lot slower than usual, and his eye-bags seemed darker than his foundation could cover up. Tom studied him closely, noting Khaled had been like this for months now. Was he still sneaking out at night to see that damn cholo? He’d been meaning to do something about his slave’s newfound promiscuity, but something more important always came up, and ever since their near-death experiences, Thomas had been trying to turn over a new leaf and give Khaled a longer leash, metaphorically speaking. Although, if the boy kept dragging his feet, he might tie him onto a literal leash, too.

Some static-y goodbyes and well-wishings sounded from his monitor, signaling the end of the conference call. Tom cleared his throat and jumped in with his own farewells. “Yes, you too, happy holidays, buon natale –yeah, yeah, I’ll see you next year, Matteo. You too, Gio, happy new year! Okay, okay, bye!” He exited out of the call, minimized the screen, and swiveled his desk chair to face the young man by the windowsill. “Khaled, come here,” he called.

As soon as Khaled was within reaching distance, the boss grabbed him by the waist and slung him over his lap, trapping him between the hard edge of the desk at his back and his own body in the front.

“What are you doing?” Khaled neither squirmed or struggled in his grasp, instead opting to stare at him quizzically. “Let me off, I don’t want this-”

“Like you didn’t want it in the parking lot on the night of your birthday last month?” He grinned in triumph as his slave’s face blushed bright red from the tops of his ears down to the black band of his collar. “You do,” Tom whispered, voice low and sultry. “You want this, and you need this, Khaled.” He ran his hands from the young man’s waist up his sides, slightly untucking his shirt in the process. “I’ve seen you work yourself to the bone trying to be my executive assistant. Isn’t it exhausting, working so hard?” Khaled sat as still as a statue as his fingers raked over the front of his body. “Isn’t it tiresome, doing what free people do?” He snaked his hands down Khaled’s sides to dip under his shirt hem, feeling a familiar rush of heat below as he touched the warm skin underneath. “Don’t you just want to relax?”

The way Khaled’s body responded under his hands as he laid him over the desk was nothing like any of the whores the brothels could give him. Here, splayed back-first onto the hardwood, was his own personal fuck hole, who pleasured him exactly how he wanted. “But, this isn’t- I don’t want this,” his slave protested, lightly pushing back, “and this isn’t even what I’m being paid to do anyway-”

“Well, if it’s pay you’re after, I can pay you for this,” he snickered. “It’s called prostitution, Khaled, and if that’s how you want to earn your money, I certainly won’t get in your way.”

“But I don’t want this!”

“Not even for $100?”

Khaled’s mouth snapped shut. Thomas laughed.

“$500.” Thomas stopped laughing.

Khaled stuck his lower lip out and shot him the most pathetic pout he could give. “Am I, your own personal fuck slave, not even worth what you pay your high-class call girls?”

He scoffed incredulously. So, that’s how it’s gonna be? Alright then! “$200,” he countered, “you’re out of practice, and a little too assertive for my tastes lately.”

In an unprecedented turn of events, Khaled wrapped his legs around Thomas’ lower back and pulled him in closer by the front of his shirt. “$450,” he whispered, his soft, sweet lips mere inches from his own. “I’m not as out of practice as you may think, and I can be as meek as a lamb when I need to be.”

The mob boss did not expect this to turn him on as much as it did, and yet the ignition of arousal in his core and the hardening member in his slacks spoke for themselves. He emitted something akin to a purr or a growl. “$250,” he murmured sultrily, “take it or leave it, boy.”

“$300, and I’ll do that thing with your balls that you like.”

“You’ve got a deal!” He leaned in to kiss Khaled’s lips, pinning him further onto the desk as he unfastened the belt and pants around Khaled’s waist and peeled them off. He smiled into the kiss as Khaled yielded to him, opening his mouth so the older man could penetrate his mouth with his tongue and claim every inch inside him. He reluctantly broke off from the kiss to undo his own belt and pants. Once he had gotten himself out, he noted with satisfaction that Khaled’s knees were already hitched up to his shoulders, displaying that perfect set of three and that lovely little hole, all for Thomas J Costa. “And a merry fucking Christmas to me!” he murmured, completely satisfied. He opened the top drawer of his desk, where hiding among the paperclips and stapler refills was an innocuous little bottle of lubricant, with just enough fluid to get them through this session. “I never thought you’d be such a whore,” he teased. “Where is your self-respect?”

“Just hurry up, please,” Khaled whined, cheeks flaming red in –arousal? Shame? Not like Thomas could tell, or care.

“Oh no, whore, I’m gonna make you work for your $300 and ensure you earn every cent!”

He emptied what was left of the lube onto his hardened shaft and threw the bottle away. He gave himself a few quick pumps to spread the slippery substance from base to tip, then aligned himself between Khaled’s spread legs, pushing in without any sort of prelude or preparation. The boy groaned at the sudden intrusion. His nails bit into the wood of the desk as Thomas bottomed out inside of his tight little hole. “Oh my god, how do you still feel like you’re a virgin down there?” he grunted. He began to thrust his hips, slowly at first, then building up a nice rhythm as the lithe body underneath him slowly relaxed and opened for him. “There, that’s it,” he murmured as he leaned over Khaled. “You know how this works…” He nuzzled into the crook of Khaled’s neck, murmuring against the curve of the boy’s neck and shoulder. “Your body knows exactly what to do...” God, even the smell of Khaled’s skin was enough to stoke his arousal into a full inferno. The boss kissed hungrily against Khaled’s neck, breathing in the boy’s scent like it was air and he’d been holding his breath. The whimpers he got out of the boy as he began to use his teeth were some of the best noises he’d ever heard him make. Why on earth would he, Thomas Costa, want to give this up? Why did he ever think he could go one more day in his life without being inside this amazing little being? He sucked what he hoped would be a nice, dark hickey right over the strip of black ink across Khaled’s throat. A collar is not complete without its gemstones, right? he thought. He tongued the tattooed line thoughtfully. He licked at it as if he was trying to wipe it away with his tongue, even though he knew he couldn’t. Those permanent black bands were just another part of Khaled’s near-infinite sex appeal.

“You’re mine forever,” he whispered, lips brushing against that graceful neck with every word. “Doesn’t matter if you’re free one day, because you will always be mine.” And honestly, why would he ever have thought of freeing Khaled, when the boy made him feel this good?

“Please…” Khaled whined beneath him.

He pushed up from the crook of Khaled’s neck, placing the palms of his hands on the desk as he propped himself up. “Please what, my little slut?” he teased. “Please go faster?” Khaled screamed and moaned as Thomas picked up an enthusiastic pace inside of him. He pressed the boy between the hard desk and the weight of his heavier body as he pistoned in and out of his ass with only his own pleasure on his mind.

“What is it you want?” Khaled stared up at him, his dark brown eyes shimmering like pools of liquid ink. “Please what?” he panted huskily. “Please choke me?”

Dark brown eyes widened and his lips formed the beginnings of the word ‘no’ before Thomas wrapped both hands around Khaled’s slender neck. Instinctively, Khaled released his grip on the desk to futilely scratch and tug at his hands as he increased the pressure on his neck. Thomas released one of his hands just to slap him across the face. “Hands on the table,” he growled. A squeaky wheeze left Khaled’s lips as he still tried to pull the remaining hand away from his throat. Thomas slapped him again as he held the boy’s neck in a crushing grip. “Now!”

Khaled dropped his hands to his sides. His tears flowed over his reddening cheeks. His pulse quickened under Tom’s fingers as his trembling lips formed breathy words. “Please… please… no more… I’ve been… good... please…” he whispered hoarsely. His fingers clawed at the desk, carving long furrows into its surface as he struggled to dutifully keep his hands on it. “Mas…ter… please…” he begged.

I have your literal life in my hands, he thought, smiling down with a sadistic awe. No escorts of any economic bracket would ever let the man take it this far. Nothing could ever come close to this feeling of absolute power and control, and only his slave could make him feel this powerful. Only you, Khaled, only you, he repeated in his head as he fucked his way to climax. As Thomas emptied his balls inside Khaled’s hole, he knew he would never feel this way with anybody else. What was this feeling exactly?  he wondered, finally letting go of the boy’s bruised neck. He stayed sheathed inside of Khaled’s warm, tight hole, listening to nothing but Khaled’s desperate breaths for air over the sound of his own heavy breathing. It isn’t possessiveness, it isn’t just lust. He pulled his softening length out of the boy’s fluttering hole, watching his own seed seep out with fascination and pride. So, what was that feeling, where you know nobody else can make you feel this way, and you wouldn’t want anybody else to, anyway?

Khaled turned over, leaning over the desk by bracing himself on his hands as he coughed and sputtered. Once the hacking and coughing sounds had subsided, and Khaled was nothing more than a trembling body barely keeping itself propped up against the desk, Thomas gently turned him around to face him. “You good?” he asked.

Khaled nodded. He had crushed the boy’s throat, making it difficult for him to respond in any verbal capacity. His reddened eyes blinked up at him, shining anxiously under their tear-dampened eyelashes. “Alright, down you go,” he replied softly. He pushed Khaled down to his knees, putting him face-to-face with the cock that had just been inside him. “Clean me off, and don’t forget my balls,” he ordered, murmuring a quiet “you know what I like,” at the end. He brushed a hand through Khaled’s disheveled hair, thinking about what to call that feeling he held for his dear slave. He tipped his head back and groaned as Khaled’s skilled little tongue set to work.

If it isn’t possessiveness, and it isn’t lust, his thoughts began, before he lost himself in the sensation of Khaled’s mouth.

Is it…love?

“Why didn’t you love me?!” Khaled screamed in the parking lot that night.

Love. That was a sensitive subject for Thomas. What was love, even? Between his long-absent stepfather, his sperm donor of a biological father, his neglectful mother who pissed away her inheritance into casinos, and his hard-ass grandfather who demanded nothing but perfection as he pitted brother against brother, the man was painfully aware of the lack of love in his and his brother’s childhoods. The closest thing they had to a loving adult in their formative years was Val, the nanny, but she left them too, once they were old enough.

It was no wonder his honest attempts at dating had failed so spectacularly. It culminated in self-sabotaging his wedding with Lenore on the day of, making sure that she could never break his heart like everyone else by leaving him. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It was not.

The pleasurable oral sensations had stopped down there, and Khaled now stared up at him with half-lidded eyes. “Satisfied?” he croaked. His voice was wrecked. He looked angelic.

“Yes.” Always. Forever.

Whoever said ‘if you love them, let them go’ obviously didn’t understand the pain of watching those loved ones abandon you one by one. Yet here, at Thomas’ feet, was someone who made him feel like the luckiest, most powerful man alive, who outshone everyone else as he pleasured him like no one else could, and who –if he reneged on their deal– would never leave him.

I love you, Khaled, he said in his mind, even if he wasn’t ready to say it aloud.

Le Tag List: @kabie-whump @rainydaywhump @whumped-by-glitter @skittles-the-whumpee @generic-whumperz @bamber344 @there-will-always-be-blood @morning-star-whump @a-la-whump @watermelons-dont-grow-on-trees

@defire

[nayru-s-clay-tablet]

Comic Retrospective: Minish Mafia Christmas

What is it about?

Minish Mafia Christmas is a heartwarming holiday comic, in which Link has to pay recompense for the crime of involuntary manslaughter.

Taking place the night before the Hylian holiday of Eventide, he works for the Picori -- who deliver presents for Hylian children on that holiday.

So... do you remember that thing that I said in the first post in this series? About how character-focused stories should do something with the main characters, such as:

Exploring an aspect of their personalities

Looking at something new about them

Playing with their weird dynamic

Well... I kind of forgot that with this comic >_>

Where did the idea come from?

I honestly don't know. Picori basically being Christmas elves is an idea I totally stole from @vilyaluna. And the main goal was to just do a holiday special-esque comic. Which isn't a bad thing... except that it doesn't do any of the three things discussed above.

I was just too focused on the idea of a holiday comic. And the mafia Picori.

I also get distracted by making everything rhyme (which I do NOT regret).

Favorite things about it?

It's kind of sad that I worked really hard on this... but I don't actually have that much to say about it. But that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy rereading it or that I think it's a bad comic per se.

I love how the visuals turned out:

I also enjoyed the little visual details and jokes, which I honestly hadn't experimented with much before.

^ I might be the only one in the world who finds the hat having an expression funny, but the eeriness of it is exactly what I want out of a bunny on a hat.

Would I make it again?

......Um.

Only if I could change the story some.

The basic premise of Link slaving away for revenge-driven Picori is a good idea, but it definitely needed a little bit more from Ganondorf. He really doesn't do much except chill and drink hot toddies (though I guess that is rather Christmassy in its own way).

But is this story canon?

The biggest problem is the timeline. I absolutely could see the Picori coming back for vengeance. But this story takes place in the upcoming winter -- and I honestly just don't know how/why Link & Gan would be traveling alone together at that point.

So... in an alternate timeline, it could be canon?

Considering it is told through a framing device, I guess that makes sense.

[mikazuki1709]

Heavy sea | Ratiorine Fic

Fandom: Honkai Star Rail

Ship: Dr. Ratio/Aventurine, Ratiorine

Rating: G

Words: 3.365

Tags: Vacation, Summer Vacation, Summer, Established Relationship, Soft Dr. Ratio, Aventurine has issues, Aventurine needs a hug, Panic Attacks, Past Torture, Trauma, Hurt/Comfort, Ice Cream, Beaches, Holding Hands

Summary: Aventurine has never been on vacation in his life. Ratio firmly believes that this is an experience everybody should have had at least once. Their holiday happiness seems perfect until a violent thunderstorm stirs up more than just the sea around them.

Preview:

“So you really never got the chance to go on vacation?” Ratio asked with a frown.

Aventurine smiled at him in return. His childhood was all about survival, and slaves do not exactly possess the right to ask for holidays. “Well, maybe if you count in our trip to Penacony?”

The gaze Ratio gave him in return could not have been described as anything but deadpanned: “It was a business trip in the first place, and you almost got yourself killed. Unless you’re not a die-hard fan of extreme survival vacation trips - no, this definitely doesn’t count!”

The answer made Aventurine snort, but Ratio had a point. Overall, his time in Penacony had not been very relaxing…

“Fine.” Ratio sighed. “Then it is decided. Make sure you are free next month, we will go on vacation together.”

Well, that was a surprise. Aventurine liked the idea of spending some days abroad with Ratio - of course he did - but he would not have expected the man to be a fan of vacation in the first place, and that was what he also told him.

“You’re not wrong about this, gambler.” Ratio told him. “But I still think that it is an experience everybody should have made at least once in their lives. Also, you have only just recovered from the things that happened to you on Penacony, and as a medical doctor I cannot help but be worried about your health.”

So the doctor - his beloved doctor - was worried about him and wanted to spoil him? No way he was gonna let that opportunity slip. “I’ll apply for vacation right away!” he let him know with a wide grin.

And so it was settled.

[...]

Read the full fic on ao3

[tlonista]

Astarion fic recs, Batch 2

Thanks so much to everyone who had kind words for my Astarion fic rec list! My habit continues unabated so I wanted to throw out another little batch of mostly recent, mostly hurt/comfort-oriented Astarion-centric fanfic that I liked. As before there's references to Astarion's past abuse and assault so mind the AO3 tags.

Anyway happy holidays fellow pale elf fans, pls tip me off if you watched the latest Larian animated short and felt moved to write about shivering blanket-wrapped Astarion sitting on Karlach's lap.

Incomplete Multi-Chapter:

The Friends We Meet in the Dark by Copaline

Astarion is captured by monster hunters while spiraling over how to earn Tav's affections. Second in a series, but can be read standalone; one of two chapters posted. Big fan of its protective f!Tav, and there's some fun banter with the rest of the gang.

I Don't Know You Yet by thbreakofdawn

Nicely executed modern Bloodweave social media (text messages and Twitter) AU. Astarion is a sex worker and Gale is a grad student struggling with his relationship to his girlfriend Mystra, and they strike up a text-only friendship after a random connection. Very effective use of the multimedia format.

If the Cross on the Door Doesn't Scare You by Aylwyyn228

Sweet, angsty "Astarion starves in the Shadow-Cursed Lands because he's too scared to ask for blood" fic with the added turn of Gale guessing exactly what's happening, but being too toxic-blooded to actually help unless Astarion tells the others about his vampirism.

a half-blown rose by winter_writes

Astarion's "Tav didn't kill Cazador" dialogue in the Patch 5 Epilogue is one of the saddest things in the game, and I'm so excited to see writers running with it. In this fic Astarion was recaptured by Cazador post-game and then finally freed thanks to a fire... but he's terribly injured in the aftermath and ashamed to have his ex-lover see him. Only one chapter so far but I'm a big fan.

death by rock & roll by falco_c

This hasn't been updated in a while and Astarion hasn't actually appeared in it yet, but I'm throwing it in as a bonus because I really love its Almost Famous-y music industry AU vibe. Its translation of the tadpole ensemble into rock-and-roll burnouts, featuring in-world interviews, is absolutely delightful.

One-Shots:

Untitled by trulycertain (Tumblr-only)

It's spawn Astarion realizing he can turn into a bat and flying around and getting tired with Tav around, that's it, that's the fic. Completely adorable fluff. But "Is this what it’s meant to be like? Being a spawn? Not a starved slave?" kills me.

Family by sword_and_lance

Astarion goes to see his family after being turned, and Cazador cements his control over Astarion by offering him some scraps of comfort in the painful aftermath. It's short and restrained and chilling and so so sad.

Pointy Ears by SpaceBarbarianWeird

Yes another fluffy fic, what am I coming to. But who doesn't want to read about Astarion rediscovering trust by letting Tav touch his sensitive pointy ears with some brief digressions into elven social norms and gift-giving.

Complete Multi-Chapter:

Desperate Measures by Asidian

One of the fics that inspired "If the Cross" above, and one of my favorite "Astarion in the Shadow-Cursed Lands" pieces. Very good at balancing a sympathetic take on the character with him being, like canon Astarion, deceptive and a little bit abrasive when cornered. Plus bonus fun with Scratch.

this is a gift (it comes with a price) by ryttu3k

A post-game Ascended Astarion fic in which AA is literally soulless and knows it, and his sometimes-lover Duke Wyll Ravengard discovers over a series of nighttime visits that he secretly hates it. One of my favorite Ascension fics in part because, intentionally or not, it feels weirdly true to the experience of depressive anhedonia?

The Light of the Seven by Verelia

@reddenmore mentioned this one in the tags on my last fic rec list and I wholeheartedly agree; it's a real good Szarr Spawn Family character study delving into the backstory and personality of each of Cazador's "children," including Astarion.

[sofasoap]

Interlude two : Everyone deserves happiness.

Pairing: König x  f!Reader ( OC aka “Mini” MacTavish ) + Simon " Ghost " Riley

Summary: Bit of family moment. Family love all round. Takes place just after "Thank you for everything."

Warning: T to M theme, slight swearing. A/N : Character of Mini MacTavish is from @saltofmercury fic “ “The Favorite MacTavish” ” which she graciously let me borrow and write bit more expanded universe. Please go read her wonderful story to get bit of background, while you are there, go read her wonderful CoD fics too!

 “masterlist” for more prequel to this Mini MacTavish expanded verse.

“.. You are like a brother to me and Johnny. This will always be your home. I want us to stay as friend. I am so sorry.”

“ I will not hurt her. I love her very much. In fact, I am here today to ask for permission for marriage in the future.” Your head is still reeling from all the events that happened over the Easter weekend at your parent's family farm. A "pre-proposal" and breaking someone else's heart at same time.

"OH I am so happy you are settling down, I was losing hope on your brother to bring me a grandchild or a partner. He is not getting any younger!" Your Ma gushes as you two were doing dishes.

" Ah Ma, you know Johnny... I doubt he can settle down anytime soon with his flirtatious nature.. Just let him be." You know Johnny too well. The Casanova. While he is very respectable towards his interest, you doubt your brother will find his ONE anytime soon. He seems to be enjoying all the attention. " He is just like your Da when he was younger.. Chasing all the girls around their skirt.." Your Da? the calm and quiet and serious Da? You can't imaging. You burst out in a fit of giggle.

"How about you Simon? Anyone caught your eyes or interest?" Your Ma being a nosy body. Ghost hand paused in the air putting the dishes away, and you two look at each other. ' Ma, don't be so nosy. I'll make sure to find a nice lady for my big brother here." you bump his bicep with your head after finishing rinsing the last dishes, trying to end the subject. Ghost smiled down at you. The pain is still there, but you can see the slight change. " I think your cousin Alex's older sister is still single the last time I was talking to her Ma during Christmas gathering..." " MA PLEASE." Both you and Ghost rolled eyes. "Fucken Steaming Jesus, why is it still so cold outside." You heard Johnny complaining as the men coming through the back door. Your Da and Johnny was showing König around the farm. " Languages Johnny!" " Sorry Ma." You put on a kettle to get ready to brew some tea. You push Simon to the table to sit down with the boys. " Go. Thanks for helping." Walking over to your.. boyfriend?fiancé? (technically he hasn't propose to you yet) you gave him a kiss on the cheek after waving him to bend down a little. Still not use to PDA , he blushes and pick your hand up and give it a kiss. " Hello teddy bear, how was the tour?" "Good.."

" I am surprised he is pretty knowledgeable how the farm runs." Your Da mentioned.

" I.. I use to spend summer holidays at my Oma and Opa's farm up in the mountain... I use to... um, still do help them with works when I go back...." "OH good, extra pair of hand to help around so Da won't work me overtime like a slave everytime I come back." " Don't be so lazy Johnny." You smack your brother on the head as you serve up tea and scones. " Be nice to your brother." " Yae be nice to me Mini." "I’ll gie ye a skelpit lug!"

Ghost sits there, sipping on his tea and observe the family interaction. He feels like an outsider intruding this intimate moment. He longs to feel the love and bond that he never really get to experiences as a child. "Come on, Simon, help me out here. She's being nasty to me." " You asked for it." Taking another sip of tea, Ghost shows absolutely no sympathy towards Soap. " See? Even he agrees." you stick your tongue out.

" You should hear him in action. Wouldn't shut up over the com."

" Pahh. this crabbit is even worse. The bad jokes I had to endure." " ... I .. I think those jokes are funny.. " König pips up timidly.

" Three to one Johnny." You fold your arm across the chest and puffed. Ghost is going to miss all this when life goes back to normal.

" Got everything?" You look around your bedroom, checking for anything you forgot to pack. "I think... So." " Alright let's go." König picks up both of your luggages and heading towards the front door. Simon and Johnny already there at the front, your Ma was in deep talk with Simon while your Da and Johnny was checking something out on the phone beside them. You see Simon listening intensely to what your Ma had to say, as she has serious expression on her face and patting his hand makes you wonder what they were talking about. Finally she pulls him down for a hug which Simon returns with slight hesitance. The boys heading back to work immediately for next mission, you had to say goodbye to all three of them before you leaving on different flight, back to London while they flying over to the continent. You tearfully say your farewell to König, as is everytime for long distance relationship, saying goodbye was never easy. He promise to visit you again as soon as possible, with even prospect of visiting his family in Austria and show you around his grandparents' farm. König glancing side way, noticing Ghost and Soap is talking amongst themselves and not looking at your way, he bend over, pull his mask down and gave you a quick kiss, while wiping your tears away. " I will see you soon Liebling, I promise." He whispers. He hates seeing you cry. you nodded your head, he pull you in for one last tight hug before you went for final hugs with Ghost and Soap. You have no idea the next time all three of you see each other again was in dire circumstance. "...What did my Ma say to you?" " ... She said I am welcome anytime to your house..." " You know you are always welcome." " ... she said she sees me as another son that she didn't give birth to." " Simon, I respect you as a commander , a colleague and also as a brother from different mother right? Mini loves having you around as well. You ARE part of my family." " Thanks Johnny." " Besides, I need someone to help me to keep an eye on König." "... I think it might be the other way round. König probably get hassled by Mini than he does to her." "... That is true."

Farout I am making this chapter more into broken heart Ghost than König x reader fic lol ooops. I just want to round off his feeling for Mini, moving on from unrequited love onto family big brother love.

I am slowly easing Ghost into the MacTavish family household...trying very hard not to make it too forced. This boy deserves happiness and i WILL GIVE HIM HAPPINESS even in this König route ( and even though I hurt the poor boy with rejection...) I am imagining both König and Ghost are comfortable enough not to wear mask/face covering in private setting with their family.

[grey-gazania-fic]

In the spirit of this joyous holiday season, may I present to you the stupidest thing I've ever written: Fingon the Grumpy Zombie

To the tune of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"

Fingon the grumpy zombie Had a very broken head And if you ever smelled him You’d know for sure that he’s undead.

All of the other Noldor Used to scream and run away Only his boyfriend Maedhros Ever was convinced to stay.

Then one sunny solstice day Gothmog came to say “Fingon with your skull so broke How is it you managed to uncroak?”

“Morgoth is very curious He has experiments he’d like to do But don’t worry, grumpy zombie Your boyfriend is invited too!”

But then our grumpy zombie Was filled with terrifying rage And fear that Morgoth once more Would stuff Maedhros into a cage.

“You wicked slave of darkness We will not fall prey to your schemes!” And then our zombie Fingon Pounded him to smithereens.

Then how the Noldor loved him Despite his really yucky smell “Fingon the grumpy zombie, Now we really think you’re swell!”

[raineydays411]

Christmas in space

Guardians of the Galaxy x Reader

Summary: Just some back story on the readers life and her relationships with some of the Guardians

the reader was taken at around 12, found at 15 and stayed with the guardians through infinity war and endgame, and she was on of the ones who wasn't blipped.

You don't really remember what Christmas was like for you. Sure you remember the concept and the general feeling, but when you try and think about your own personal experiences it comes up blank.

See, when you were taken from Earth, the aliens who took you wiped most of your memory. They wanted to make you into the perfect bride for their monarch and they couldn't do that with you fighting them the entire time. With your wiped mind, they managed to train into being the perfect citizen. They taught you languages from other planets, taught you how to use weapons to defend their royalty, how to be a diplomat.

They taught you their customs and their holidays. And for all intents and purposes it worked, you truly did forget your life on Earth.

Until you started having dreams.

Dreams of the life you had before you were kidnapped. Dreams of your parents and siblings. Dreams of girls nights with your friends. Of kisses with your partner.

And at first you thought nothing of it.

They were just dreams. You had a responsibility to your planet and your spouse. You couldn't waste time wondering about a life that only exists in dreams.

That was until the Guardians came.

They didn't come for you, no in fact they were surprised to see another terran so far in space, and a royal consort no less. Especially one so young. It was disturbing to them.

But they told them you were found on another planet by the royal guard, being sold as a slave. They saved you and as you had no other family, you became one of their own and fell in love. The same thing they told you.

It was Gamora who first pointed out the inconsistencies in the story.

There was no way you were being sold as a slave as you didn't meet the requirements. Also, this planet is known to think of Terrans as lower than them. So even if they saw a human in slavery, the royal guard shouldn't have intervened. Also this planet wasn't as technologically advanced as others, so even if they managed to get off world, they couldn't go far enough to find planets with a slave trade system advanced enough to have other species.

It all came to head on the night they were supposed to leave. Peter had overheard one of the council members frantically shouting at one of the scientists about the dreams you've been having.

See you had confided in what you thought was one of your closest friends on this planet about your dreams. It turns out that the mind wiping they did on you was experimental. They didn't know if it would wear off or if it would be permanent, so they had someone watching you at all times.

Lucky for you, it wore off after a few months.

And extra lucky for you, Peter just so happened to be snooping, and found a box containing the clothes and items you had on you when these aliens abducted you. Before he was spotted, Peter managed to sneak out and tell the news to his team. There was a slight argument on whether they should do something or not. Peter, Gamora, and Mantis all agreeing that they should save you and that you were basically a slave to your mind and Rocket didn't really want to start a whole war over one person. Drax and Groot were indifferent until Mantis said you were someone's daughter then Drax was all for saving you.

Saving you was a whole challenge within its self. You were heavily guarded, especially since you started regaining your memory. But again, luckily the guards just so happened to be in the middle of a shift change when Rocket and Groot snuck into your room. There they found you in the middle of a panic attack, as flashes of your past life started hitting you.

Your head burned as you were forced to remember moments of your life on earth.

Flashes of people you don't recognize but feel so familiar.

A woman who has the same eyes as you kissing you goodnight in a room that looks like a childs.

You running around the house chasing a child with the same hair as you

Being in a room with a tree covered in lights and surrounded by people as you open a box with a doll inside.

You barely even realize that you're being lead out of your room in a hurry by a little tree and a raccoon before being thrown over Drax's shoulder.

You were so frantic that Mantis had to put you to sleep because you were so distraught at the thought of your whole life being a lie. Everything you were groomed to be and the people you thought you could trust were fake.

Soon word got out that the Guardians were taking the princess, thus committing treason and that was punishable by death.

But by the time they truly realized you weren't in your room, it was too late. You were already on the Milano, and they were already long gone by then.

It took a few months for you to truly trust them.

At first only really warming up to those you deemed harmless (i.e Groot). Mantis was the second person you warmed up to as she helped you sleep, and sort through the jumble of memories in your head.

Then surprisingly it was Gamora you clung to the most, as one night she found you crying looking out into the stars and opened up to you about losing her family and how she also was groomed to become something she didn't want to be. And how she also went through a period of trying to figure out who she truly was. That conversation really did help you feel less like an imposter.

Eventually you came around. One day you just walked out of your room and sat with the team in the common area as if you've done it a million times, leaving everyone stunned.

They welcomed you with open arms though, and its more than you could have ever asked for.

But even with the guardians becoming you're new family, you still felt the loss of your old life. You had a good one. Friends, family, a partner. You were happy.

And it's not like you had the time to mourn them, they were ripped from your mind. And now that they're slowly coming back but its painful.

Aside from that, now your personality is coming in.

At first you were shy and quiet. You preferred to sit in your room until you were needed, just as the council groomed you to be. You didn't talk back nor did you speak unless you were spoken to. It bothered the Guardians at first. Especially Peter, as whenever he tried to speak to you about Earth you would regurgitate the bullshit the council had fed to you about being loyal to their planet and their regime.

Now don't get me wrong, Peter understood your position more than anybody on the ship. Being taken by aliens and all, but it frustrated him that the only other person from his home planet can't relate to him or his references (even though you really wouldn't have considering the age difference).

So, instead of getting mad he decided to share his stories. He told you about a bunch of 80's movies showed you his Zune full of songs that sounded familiar. He told you about the holidays and traditions that he could remember. It went over your head at first but as you slowly started gaining your memories back, all these things started to make sense. Soon you started going to Peter with a memory to see if he could explain it to you. And while he usually couldn't as your experience on Earth was different than yours, he was able to explain memories of Christmas to you. Well the general idea, because again you had a more modern experience on Earth than he did.

Like when you came to him with the image of a deer that was bullied because of his facial deformity, he was able to decipher that as being the story of Rodolph the red nosed reindeer.

When you came to him wondering why you remembered a large man in an elf costume ( you also didn't know what an elf was), he was slightly concerned that the mind wiping had some sort of side effect on your brain. ( He just doesn't know who Will Ferrell is).

The first year you spent with them they really didn't celebrate much with you. To be fair they didn't really have the means to have a big celebration. Although Rocket did come into your room late at night and threw a box containing your newly charged phone and the earphones you had on that night with a gruff,

"Here merry chripsmas or whatever"

And to this day it was the sweetest thing anyone has given you.

With your phone you were able to discover more about who you were. You saw that these people that you were dreaming of were real. You heard the voice of your mother for the first time in years. You didn't exactly know how to use it but you were so grateful for the little bit you discovered everyday.

With your phone came your rebellious teen stage. Which coincided with Groots so it really did get on everyone's nerves. Between Rocket and Peter lecturing Groot about leaving his leaves all over his room, they were lecturing you about ignoring them while they talked to you and pretending to speak a different language when you did respond to them.

And even with the constant fights and disagreements you were happy.

But then Thanos happened, and the war.

You watched as he took Gamora. You tried to help but got swatted away like nothing. You watch Peter run himself ragged trying to find where she is. You were on titan and watched as Peter lost control on Thanos because he killed Gamora. Then watched your family disintegrate and when you waited for your turn you realized that you weren't going with them. And that's when you broke.

You should have died, but you didn't. Instead you were stuck on the Milano with Nebula and Tony Stark slowly starving to death. It was ironic. The place you started to feel alive again was the same place you were going to die. You had accepted that fate despite Nebula and Tony trying to convince you otherwise.

The only thing that gave you the will to live was Nebula. She spoke to your door every day, you had locked yourself in your room waiting to die, and one day she just broke down.

She shouted at your door, angry at you for giving up. She called you weak, pathetic. She even tried to break down the door. But when none of what she was saying caused a reaction from you she sighed and sat with her back to your door.

Then she whispered, " Please, come out. Please I can't lose another sister."

And that's what got you to come out. You were weak, you only ate enough to barely keep you alive but you got out of bed. And that's when you were saved.

[isiaiowin]

Tagged by @cheeseplants

How many works do you have on ao3? 11

What's your total ao3 word count? It's 69.589 if you include the BOOB OMENS crack fic, my own works are 66.934

What fandoms do you write for? Only Good Omens

Top five fics by kudos:

Saucy Saucers:

After a few days inside the bedroom, Aziraphale gets peckish. Then finds out a certain demon has been perverting his porcelain.

As I place this crown upon thee...:

Crowley meets up with Aziraphale at the crowning of Napoleon Bonaparte. It inspires him to make a grand gesture of his own.

Marshmallow Cat:

Aziraphale finds a Miaowing box on the doorstep of the cottage.

Happy Holidays Furfur:

Furfur finds a strange box on his desk. Short fluffy holiday fic.

Leave me broken on the leather, bring me home on satin sheets:

Ferdinand Fur, a top-tier investment banker, had asked Dominatrix Shax Stork to set up a special scenario. Nervous yet excited at work, he awaited the moment she would kidnap him and break him apart in her dungeon. Trusting her completely; his Mistress, his oxygen, his life, to give him the relief he so desperately craved.

Shax had been initially surprised by this request but had quickly warmed to the idea and couldn’t wait to give him what he needed. She enjoyed playing with him immensely, loved indulging herself with his body, loved him; her slave, her heart. Wrapped in the mantle of decades of experience, she would take him over the edge, into a free fall of emotions, just so she could catch him safely at the bottom and put him back together with care.

Do you respond to comments? Yes always, they really make my day!

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Hmm my Stag and the Scale longfic that only needs the last half of the last chapter is currently angsty.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? It must be Infernal Tango Shax and Furfur dancing back to the party together melts my heart.

Do you get hate on fics? I was hit by bots, but that is fixed now.

Do you write smut? I do! Never thought I would but now I'm even working on a dopplebanginging fic and oof... I really enjoyed writing the BDSM AU with dominatrix Shax and Furfur, just pure love in an unconventional way.

Craziest crossover: can it be collab? It must be the crack fic we wrote for the modcast over at @goodomensafterdark

Have you ever had a fic stolen? I hope not, do not think so I'm a way to small writer.

Have you ever had a fic translated? No.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes, crack fics and birthday collabs and have some more (serious) fics planned for the future.

All time favorite ship? Shax/Furfur otherwise known as Shafur. I love writing them, they have my heart and soul. It's a rare pair so it doesn't get the 'clicks' but I don't care I'll keep writing the carmine empress together with her emerald stag.

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Hmm let me see, a songfic with Crowley needing to leave before he does something that would disturb his friendship with Aziraphale. Aziraphale makes it very hard for him not to kiss him right there and then.

What are your writing strengths? Love? Pure love? I can't make it not 'sweet' It has to be LOVE.

What are your writing weaknesses? As English is not my native language, I had to learn how to properly punctuate and write in UK English. I sometimes lack the vocabulary but it is fun to see the growth over the last few months.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language? Why not? If you add a translation in character so everyone can understand it.

First fandom you wrote in? Good Omens. Only started with a micro fic last November, then really started writing and posting since the beginning of March this year.

Favorite fic you've written? Leave me broken on the leather, bring me home on satin sheets. Written for the kink event in GOAD, this fic is very close to my heart. I wanted to show the Domme side of a BDSM relationship and Shax was perfect for it. Plus the dynamic between Furfur and Shax really worked for this idea (in my headcanon)

I tag: @aidaran-alha @yes-its-unholy @theonewiththeshippinggoogles @mightyshax

[texasobserver]

“The Long Road to a Juneteenth Museum” by James Rusell, from the January/February 2024 issue of Texas Observer Magazine:

(Museum renderings courtesy BIG)

When Fort Worth activist Opal Lee was invited in 2021 to stand alongside President Joe Biden as he signed the bill making Juneteenth a federal holiday, “I could’ve done a holy dance,” the 97-year-old told the Texas Observer recently. “But the kids said they didn’t want me twerking.”

Dancing—and twerking—aside, Lee is clearly used to ambitious projects. She’s often referred to as the grandmother of Juneteenth, mostly because of her 1,400-mile walk, Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., September 2016 to January 2017, seeking recognition for the day that has come to represent freedom for American Blacks. Although the Emancipation Proclamation took effect in 1863, slaves couldn’t be freed where the countryside was still under Confederate control. That ended in Texas on June 19, 1865, when Union troops arrived in Galveston and brought the news.

The latest project of Lee and her allies, to create a museum in Fort Worth honoring Juneteenth, is turning out to be equally ambitious. What began as a modest collection in a small house in the neighborhood where Lee grew up has become a key part of an effort to revitalize Fort Worth’s Historic Southside neighborhood. The most recent and much grander incarnation of the museum is due to open in 2025.

Along the way, the honors paid to Lee—a Nobel Peace Prize nomination, a painting of Lee for the National Portrait Gallery, and the Emmy Award-winning documentary Opal’s Walk for Freedom (2022)—have helped bring attention to that neighborhood, just as they did to the Juneteenth campaign. But tragedy and poverty have held hands there for a long time, and revitalization efforts sometimes find tough sledding.

Lee’s roots run deep into the soil of the Southside and into personal memories of another June 19. On that day in 1939, a mob of racists—about 500 people, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram—raided the house there that Lee, her parents, and two brothers, had recently moved into. The family promptly moved out.

A portrait of Opal Lee from the National Portrait Gallery (Courtesy of Talley Dunn Gallery)

The raid was traumatic. Lee told the Star-Telegram in 2003 that afterward her family was “homeless and then living in houses so ramshackle they were impossible to keep clean.” The experience led her to become first an advocate for affordable housing and later an activist regarding homelessness, hunger, and Juneteenth. 

Eighty years after the raid, another violent incident a few blocks away would inspire a new generation of Southside activists.

Lee, a retired elementary school teacher and counselor in the Fort Worth school district, also spearheaded the rebuilding of the Metroplex Food Bank (now the Community Food Bank), founded the urban Opal’s Farm, and served on numerous local boards, including the Tarrant Black Historical and Genealogical Society.

Through all that time, she worked to draw attention to Juneteenth. “She was always teaching about Juneteenth” in middle school, said Sedrick Huckaby, the Fort Worth artist who painted Lee for the National Portrait Gallery. “She was always teaching about our heritage and about taking pride in who you are.” Allies like the late Rev. Dr. Ron Myers, a Mississippi doctor and minister, lobbied legislatures across the country and in 1997 helped pass a congressional joint resolution recognizing the holiday. Lee worked on building local support.

In 2014, on the 150th anniversary of Juneteenth, she asked friends and family to donate to a celebration of that, in lieu of buying presents on her birthday. A story in Fort Worth Weekly called her “part grandma, part General Patton” in leading the effort. Two years later, she was putting on her walking shoes for her own personal march on Washington. “If a lady in tennis shoes walked to Washington, D.C, maybe people would pay attention,” she said in her deep, raspy voice, recalling her motivations for the trek. It took another four years after her walk, but the national holiday happened.

Juneteenth has been celebrated by Black Americans for more than 100 years, including in Fort Worth. Texas was the first to designate it a state holiday, in 1980. Since 2020, 26 states, propelled by the murders of Black citizens George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police, have followed Texas’ lead, according to the Pew Research Center. 

In Fort Worth, Lee and volunteer Don Williams had been working for years to gather artifacts related to local Black history and Juneteenth, including paintings by local Black artist Manet Harrison Fowler, scrapbooks chronicling local Juneteenth celebrations, and memorabilia from the locally filmed movie Miss Juneteenth. Lee inherited a house from her late husband Dale, a retired school district principal, and turned it into the first version of the Juneteenth museum. It housed the growing collection and hosted multiple Juneteenth events and, at one point, computer classes.

While the collection grew, the building, run by volunteers, was deteriorating. Like most public places, it closed in 2020 as COVID-19 spread. After the pandemic, it did not reopen, and the collection was moved out. Then early on the morning of January 11, 2023, it caught on fire. The remains were demolished to make way for the new museum. 

Around 2019, Lee, granddaughter Dione Sims, and former Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce executive Jarred Howard had started talking about the possibility of a new Juneteenth Museum. They began buying land around the site of the old house. Howard long had a vision to help his old stomping grounds and wanted to both commemorate the holiday and spur economic development. Well acquainted with developers and architects from his Chamber days, he solicited requests for proposals for a building that could meet those goals. First, local architect Paul Dennehy designed a five-story building with a gallery, event space, and residences. In early 2020 it was pitched to neighborhood association leaders. Too tall, they said, and out of step with the neighborhood. In 2021, local architects Bennett Partners produced a plan for a playful mixed-use campus, estimated to cost about $30 million to build. 

In 2022, a new plan, bigger in scope than Lee could have imagined two decades ago, was unveiled. The current proposal is for a 5-acre complex housing a National Juneteenth Museum, with a theater, restaurant, art galleries, and a “business incubator” space to spur Southside entrepreneurship, designed by the internationally renowned architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). The price tag is an estimated $70 million. So far, the nonprofit National Juneteenth Museum, formed in 2020, has raised about $30 million of that, mostly from major donors and foundations, Lee said.

Douglass Alligood, a partner at BIG and the chief architect of the currently planned museum, got an earful during his field work on the project, including from Lee’s friends and supporters. In multiple visits, he met with Lee as well as neighborhood leaders. The conclusion:  The museum had to represent the community and not be divorced from it.

“We were inspired by the neighborhood typology—the homes that feature historic gabled silhouettes and protruding porches, also known in context as a ‘shotgun’ house,” he said. “Neighborhood groups and community members found that, together, the BIG and KAI Enterprises [the local architecture firm] design teams demonstrate a deep understanding of the Juneteenth story and commitment to work with the local community to celebrate the holiday’s history and local culture of the Historic Southside.” 

Eleven rectangular glass-clad building segments, with peaks and valleys of varying heights, will create a star-shaped courtyard in the middle. “The ‘new star,’ the nova star represents a new chapter for the African-Americans looking ahead towards a more just future,” Alligood said.

Fine, locals said, but what people there really need is a grocery store.

It was a cold morning in early October, and Patrice Jones needed help unloading herbs. She was in the courtyard of Connex, a new three-story business and retail complex about two blocks from the planned site of the museum. Jones and a group of volunteers, mostly in their 20s and 30s, from Southside Community Gardens, are planting their 79th and 80th backyard vegetable gardens in the neighborhood, she said proudly. It’s pick-up day for those who’ve already established gardens.

The initiative is part of the larger By Any Means 104 effort, named for the 76104 zip code, and co-founded by Jones in 2020. The group’s focus on local issues includes addressing the lack of fresh food in the area instead of waiting for a grocery store. Jones, a feisty advocate and former claims adjuster, has run it full time since 2021. If the city can’t get them a grocery store, she said, they’ll teach residents to grow their own food.

The Juneteenth Museum is important, Jones said, between handing out herbs and greeting volunteers. But in her circles, she said, people also ask, “Can we get a health clinic? Can we get a pharmacy?” And of course, “Can we get a grocery store?”

According to a 2018 University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center report, the 76104 zip code has the lowest life expectancy rate in Texas and a high maternal mortality rate. It’s also a victim of what Jones calls “food apartheid,” a term she prefers to “food desert,” an indicator of an area with little access to fresh foods. Desert implies it’s natural; apartheid, she said, is an intentional act. She blames city government and its white-dominated culture.

But hunger is not a sufficient reason for a grocery chain to decide where to open a store, even if it could be part of a historical complex.

Grocery store owners “use different metrics,” including population density, said Stacy Marshall, president of Southeast Fort Worth, Inc., an economic development group. “We can’t yet make a compelling case.” The area needs more housing, he said. “Build density—rooftops—and grocery stores come.”

Marshall is a force in bringing new development to the southeast part of the city, a large historically and ethnically diverse area that includes the Historic Southside.

 Since he took the job a decade ago, “development has gone gangbusters,” he said. But development has also brought gentrification: “It’s so expensive to purchase dirt here and get a single-family home,” he said. One Dallas real estate firm put together a $70 million deal for a mixed-use development in the area, but it has stalled.

The Juneteenth museum site is within the Evans-Rosedale urban village, a city designation focused on bringing investment to the area. It’s seeing an uptick in interest from developers, but nowhere near what’s been promised by local officials.

“There have been attempts in the past. There’s the Evans Avenue Plaza, but most people don’t know about it,” said Bob Ray Sanders, communications director for the Fort Worth Black Chamber of Commerce. The plaza, also part of the Evans-Rosedale village, is meant to be a community gathering space and includes a new library. About a mile away is the Hazel Harvey Peace Center for Neighborhoods, which houses numerous city offices.

Many of the neighborhood’s nagging problems date to the mid-20th century, when integration meant, ironically, the loss of many black-owned businesses, while highway construction—as it did in many American cities—cut off Fort Worth’s Black community from downtown and wealthier neighborhoods. “By doing that, people on the Westside [turned] a blind eye to people on the Eastside,” Sanders said.

Housing construction seems to be picking up, mostly on an infill basis. But while developers are buying homes, Marshall said, they are mostly sitting on them and waiting until they can get higher prices.

Longtime assistant city manager Fernando Costa said development work in historic urban districts presents more challenges than creating new neighborhoods from pastureland. Beyond the physical complications of older infrastructure, historic preservation concerns and, often, environmental problems left over from earlier development, Costa said, such projects “require getting existing neighborhood involvement.”  

There’s also the issue of crime. According to the Fort Worth Police Department, nearly 560 crimes were reported in the 76104 zip code between mid-May and late November 2023. Assault, larceny, drug and alcohol violations, and vehicle break-ins made up more than three-quarters of the reports. That’s compared to 165 in the same time period in the mostly-white, wealthy 76109 zip code in West Fort Worth.

In the early morning of October 12, 2019, white police officer Aaron Dean, responding to a welfare check at the house, killed 28-year Black woman Atatiana Jefferson, who was playing video games with her nephew. Dean was later found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Jefferson’s murder lit a fire under a younger generation of activists who aren’t waiting for change, such as Jones, who also worked to get police accountability in response to the murder, and Angela Mack, whose doctoral thesis is about Jefferson and the neighborhood.

“I’m a good, ol’ fashioned Funkytown Black nerd,” said Mack, an instructor in the comparative race and ethnic studies department at Texas Christian University, where she received her doctorate in English rhetoric.

After Jefferson’s murder, Mack changed her thesis topic to address that tragedy. She saw that, between her mother and the national media, two different stories were being told.

“When we’re thinking about the Southside, we think about Fairmount and the Medical District in terms of revitalization. But when you cross the highway, you’re in an area with crime and poverty,” she said, drinking a latte at Black Coffee, one of the few coffee shops in the area. “When people [look] at the community, people are looking at what’s not here. It’s a deficit model of communication instead of seeing the good that’s here.                                                                

“I’m not anti-development,” she said, but economic development shouldn’t be the museum’s purpose.

“When you’re building something, it should not be [a question of] how many people we employ, but how does it help define the Southside? The development will come. I’m concerned about who controls the narrative,” she said. “The main focus should be how does this speak about our history and heritage.”

Jones also worries that history will be lost. She’s afraid that rising property values will push out poor people.

Sims has heard those concerns before. Property taxes go up with any new development, she said. And everyone’s going to complain, even if they want change.

When the museum opens in 2025, Lee just wants to make sure she’s there to see it.

“I’m looking forward to it,” she said. She’d be 99. “I hope I’m still here.”

[frostandflamesfanfic]

Of Sweets & Sweaters (Steve Harrington x Reader)

Of Sweets & Sweaters (Rated T)

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Reader (gender neutral)

Word Count: 2.1k+

Warnings: Brief language and suggestive comment made by Steve, nothing too crazy.

Summary: Stevemas Day 5- A few months after the Great Hawkins 'Quake, Robin decides to throw a little holiday celebration for the party and the older kids. However, Steve isn't too happy with the dress code. Is there anything you can do to convince him otherwise?

“Hey, babe?” Steve’s voice called out from your shared bedroom.You had to bite back the smile that threatened to stretch its way across your face at his tone of voice. It was fairly obvious what his whining could be about. What was so wrong about having a little fun in the process?

“Yes, honey?” you replied in the sweetest tone you could muster. 

“You love me, right?”

You couldn’t help it; a small snort escaped. “Of course I love you. Why would you ask that?”

“Because if you loved me,” your boyfriend’s voice grew louder as he approached the kitchen, “you wouldn’t be forcing me to wear this absolute and utter monstrosity.”

He stepped into the room wearing the brightest red sweater you had ever seen in your life. Covered in pom-poms and tinsel, Steve looked as though he had stepped right out of an offensive Christmas card. To top it all off, there was very exaggerated Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer stitched into the front of the sweater.

You gave a low whistle. “Damn, babe,” you mused. “And here I thought it looked good on the mannequin. This is so much better. I think red really is your color.”

“Oh, yeah?” Steve raised an eyebrow. “Well then, where’s yours? I wouldn’t want you to miss out on sharing this experience with me.” 

You smiled and held up your hands, which were currently covered in dough. There was a dusting of flour all over your clothes, making you look as though you had spent plenty of time in the fresh snow from the previous evening. For the last few hours, you had been slaving over a hot oven putting together the fixings for some of your friends’ favorite holiday desserts. 

Dustin loved brownies, especially when you folded pieces of Three Musketeers bars into the batter. Eleven had found herself becoming partial to your peanut butter blossoms, although it’s most likely because Mike introduced her to the best part: the Hershey’s kiss. There were cookies for Max and Lucas, who preferred to have their snacks on the go. Nancy always preferred the elegant classics, so you went with a chocolate silk pie, which you knew she would love to share with your queen of sweets: Robin. For Eddie, you made your spiked eggnog meltaways, which you knew for a fact Jonathan always stole a few bites of when no one else was looking. 

“My god, it looks like a bakery exploded in here,” Steve remarked, walking over to the counter to swipe some cream cheese frosting that you made for Argyle and Will’s pineapple-banana hummingbird cupcakes. 

“Hey!” you exclaimed, swatting his hand away after he stuck the dollop in his mouth. You tried your best to shoo him back from your workstation. “You have your own desserts coming. I’ve been baking for four days now. Wait your turn, mister.”

“Desserts, as in plural, hm?” Your boyfriend sidled up behind you and snaked his arms around your waist, face buried into the crook of your neck. 

“I may have made that chocolate bark you love so much,” you said with a hum, allowing yourself to melt into his hold for a moment. There was something so special and intimate about these moments with your boyfriend. Steve made you feel like you were the most important person in the world, not just to him, but everyone. You always hated attention, but the love and admiration you noticed in his eyes every time he tells you he loves you makes you overlook that distaste – if only just to see him happy. 

“Oh, yeah?” Steve smiled against your skin, his lips pressing against it in the form of many light kisses. You had to refrain from giggling. “What else?”

“And there might be some fresh gingerbread in the oven right now.”

There was a gentle nip to your ear, which was accompanied by wiggling fingers that danced along your sides. “Mmm, nothing else?”

You gasped and turned to swat at him again. “Steven Joseph Harrington!” you exclaimed. “You get your mind out of the gutter this instant! How dare you try to seduce me while I’m baking for the children.”

Steve groaned. “I can’t help it how hot you look in that apron, babe,” he whined. “Just want to eat you up.”

A hot flush burned at your neck as it spread up and across your cheeks. “Well, maybe later,” you stuttered out. “But for now, I have to get back to work on these treats if they’re going to be ready for us to take to Robin’s tonight.”

In preparation for the holiday season, yours and Steve’s shared best friend, Robin Buckley, had decided to throw a little impromptu party for your friends. After everything that had gone on in your small town over the years, she was determined to salvage one of the happiest (or, to quote the great Andy Williams, the most wonderful) times of the years. She had been planning the party for weeks, selecting only the “best” Christmas films of all time and records that would keep everyone feeling the Christmas spirit – even if it meant playing a few Black Sabbath songs for Eddie. Everyone was meant to bring something to eat and you had volunteered to bring the desserts. While you had nothing against the local bakery, there was nothing like the taste of a freshly made baked good that came from the heart rather than a plastic container. 

The only catch? The dress code was U.C.S.O.:

Ugly Christmas Sweaters Only, otherwise known as what Steve liked to refer to as his own personal hell.

Speaking of your boyfriend, he sighed and stepped away from torturing you momentarily to run his fingers through his dark brown hair. “Fine,” he relented. “Do you need any help, though?” 

With a sigh, you glanced around the warzone of a kitchen and placed your hands on your hips. Everything was pretty much done for the most part. There were a few things in the oven, but everything that needed to be prepped before the party was already set aside and cooling. “I mean, I think I’m just about done. Just have to clean up and get everything out of the oven.”

“If you want,” Steve offered, “I can finish and clean up so you can get ready.”

You felt your heart grow soft as you smiled at the man before you. “Really?” you asked. “You’d do that for me?”

Your boyfriend shrugged. “Of course! How could I say no to my baby like that? I would be, like, the world’s worst boyfriend then, wouldn’t I?”

You giggled and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Not the worst. But you would most certainly still be the cutest.”

“Well, shucks, babe,” Steve teased as he began to roll up his sleeves. “I’m flattered.”

With a wink, he pulled on his yellow rubber gloves and procured a sponge from beside the faucet. His outfit reminded you of the old days, back when your relationship was still new and the two of you were battling an alien dog that had eaten one of your babysitting charges’ cat. While you were glad those days were behind you, there was still a part of you that missed the adventure and worried if the quiet domesticity would be enough for Steve. 

It wasn’t that you were afraid it wasn’t what he wanted– the two of you had had a lengthy conversation about your futures, with both of you being in agreement of wanting to start a family together at some point. You were more worried about the fact Steve may become bored with the idea of a domestic you, where the most rebellious thing you did each day would be whether or not you cut the crusts off your sandwich. 

“Babe?” Steve’s voice cut through your thoughts, snapping you back to reality. When you glanced over to acknowledge him, you noticed the concern practically radiating off of his face. “Are you okay?”

“Hm? Oh, uh, yeah,” you tried to console him. “Just…got lost in thought is all.”

Unfortunately, that hardly did anything to lessen the stress your boyfriend exhibited. His frown only deepened as he set down the sponge and pulled the gloves off to cradle your face in his hands. There was an emotion you couldn’t quite place flickering in his expression. It was almost like a twinge of sadness mixed with…guilt? 

“Are you sure?” he asked, more urgently this time. “You looked like you were in, like, another world or somethin’.”

Oh. 

It made more sense now. Ever since the earthquake, Steve had been increasingly protective over you. He worried about your every move for months, especially since you had become seduced by the siren song of a ticking clock. The same song that took the lives of so many others. It almost took you away from him, too. The night you froze in his arms, shaking in fear with eyes rolled toward the back of your head. They didn’t know your favorite song, they didn’t know how to save you. In an act of blind desperation, Steve had hummed the only song he could think of, which was coincidentally the first song you danced to at the kid’s Snow Ball: Time After Time. 

You can still remember how soft and broken his voice sounded as he sang to you. 

“If you're lost, you can look, and you will find me,” he whispered between tears. “Time after time. If you fall, I will catch you, I'll be waiting. Time after time.” 

If you didn’t believe in the power of true love before then, you did the moment you broke free from the trace and came face-to-face with Steve’s teary hazel eyes. When he finally realized you had come back, he pulled you into a dizzying and searing kiss you can sometimes still feel if you think about it. It wasn’t just a declaration of love, or the feeling of relief, but a promise of a future he one day hoped to share with you. 

“Steve.” You reached up to grab his face with your own hands. “I’m fine, I promise. I was just thinking about things.”

“Are- are you sure?” His voice came out a bit crackly, as though he was on the verge of anxious tears. 

“Absolutely one-hundred-percent sure,” you assured him. With a bit of additional height gained from being on your tiptoes, you pressed a kiss onto his lips. I’m here, it said. And I’m not going anywhere. 

“Now. I’m going to go get cleaned up and get this flour out of my hair so we can get ready to go. If we make them all wait for too long, Robin’s gunna put us on dishes duty.” 

Steve groaned. “But we already did so much…” 

“No, I did the baking. You just stood there and looked pretty.”

Your boyfriend playfully lifted a nearby dish towel and proceeded to swat at your butt with it. “Okay, that’s enough outta you, babe. Go get ready.” 

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

About an hour later, you arrived back downstairs feeling refreshed and excited for the holiday festivities that undoubtedly lay ahead of you for the rest of the night. You tugged are your sweater, hoping the material wouldn’t rise up too much over the course of wearing it. When you had washed the sweaters, you had made the mistake of drying yours a bit too long. You were pretty sure it had shrunk, but there was nothing else you could do about it. 

“Well, damn,” Steve let out a low whistle. “I think it’s official. My baby can make anything look good.”

Flattered, you blushed and gave your boyfriend a playful twirl. The sweater wasn’t that much different than his. Fashioned from a similar red colored yarn, your sweater boasted more snowflakes that pom-poms. A non-red-nosed reindeer outfitted the front, its grin appearing a little too eager for the holidays. Tinsel adorned the neck and wrists of the top, as well, ensuring that you’d definitely stand out alongside Steve. 

“Why thank you,” you teased. “But I still think you wear Melvald’s originals better than I do, babe.”

“Remind me to burn that store to the ground one day.” 

You rolled your eyes and slipped on your coat. “It’s not that bad, Steve!” 

“Says you!!” your boyfriend argued. “You literally look smoking hot, while I’m over here looking like a very festive tomato.”

“Ah, yes. But you’re my festive tomato.” You pressed a quick kiss to his cheek before you picked up a tower of cookie containers. Was this potentially too many desserts? Possibly. But what else are the holidays for if not enjoying sweet treats with the ones you love most? 

“Come on, tomato boy!” you called from over your shoulders. “Help me load in these desserts so we can go show the kids just who means business at Christmas trivia.”

==============

Author's Note: Anddd we're back. How's everyone enjoying Stevemas so far? We're almost halfway through at this point, and I have to admit, I'm starting to lose a bit of steam. I have about four unplanned fics left to write, so if anyone has any Christmas (or other holiday season) ideas, please feel free to send them my way!

If you enjoyed this story, make sure to leave a comment, tag a friend who might be interested, and give this post a cheeky reblog! These types of interactions really help me out as a writer. They tell me what you like to see and keep me motivated and writing! I mentioned this last time and I think it helped out a bit with the engagement, so if you want to stay in the loop of all things Stevemas or any of my other fics, don't be afraid to follow or ask to be included in my tag lists. I promise I'm a very friendly person who won't spam you too much with my fandom musings :)

Until next time, my little sparks <3

Taglist: @bakerstreethound

[pigeonwhumps]

In-BBU media

BBU Community Days: Day 10

@bbu-on-the-side

I have been looking forward to this prompt since Sara announced it! This is, predictably, the first of several posts today.

A pet lib magazine article featuring an interview with Anita, Theo and Lea. Transcript is below the cut.

Edit: Agh forgot the taglist. I think half of you at least have seen it already so apologies for this but anyway: @littlespacecastle @whumpymirages @flowersarefreetherapy @painful-pooch

CWs: BBU, pet whump, PTSD, amnesia, implications of BBU, rape, dehumanisation, torture, conditioned whumpees, ableism. Nothing graphic

Feature interview

The Life of a Pet

Hugo and Mia, two so-called pets, talk to us briefly about their lives, both while currently being looked after by Sandip, and while under contract with WRU. All names are pseudonyms for protection. This article contains descriptions of legal torture, rape, conditioning, and dehumanisation.

Hugo and Mia kneel in front of the sofa where Sandip sits, feet crossed under herself. We’ve both tried multiple times to get them to sit on the sofa with Sandip, but neither will. Sandip confided in me that she believes they were trained not to sit on furniture, “like some people train their animals”.

Hugo has been with Sandip for seven years, and with his previous owners for seven years before that. Mia, meanwhile, has been with Sandip for only five years, and eight with her previous owners, with a period of retraining in between. They have both been in the pet system for fifteen years, originally trained as a combined Domestic/Platonic bonded pair, although Mia was later retrained as a Romantic before ending up with Sandip. As you possibly know, there are multiple companies that deal with the business of buying, selling and training pets, but both Hugo and Mia were traded by WRU, the UK’s largest pet trading company, not to mention one of the country’s largest employers overall — that is, if you call pets employees and not what they really are: slaves.

The interview was clearly very distressing for our interviewees, and although we offered to stop at multiple points, all three declined. A brave trait when dealing with a subject of this nature, and even I, with little direct experience of the WRU's worst features, felt ill at times.

WRU wipes the memories of everyone they turn into pets, to prevent them from remembering their families or even realising they're people who can have a life outside of slavery. Hugo no longer remembers his family, or what his life was like before becoming a pet. This creates a system ripe for abuse, where victims can receive no recourse – there are numerous accusations of people being turned into pets against their will, something they’re unlikely to remember. The Drip, as the memory-wipe technology is colloquially known, would serve as a handy tool to wipe witnesses’ minds of the criminal’s activities, or for an abuser to get rid of their victim, to name but two horrific uses that are not, and never have been, well legislated against.

Mia’s memory has been wiped twice, and although some may see this as an indication that her story is untrustworthy, we at Liberation believe it demonstrates the sheer cruelty of WRU workers, to wipe her loved ones from her mind not once but twice. She has photos now, which she shows me proudly – her and her family, her friends, new and old, some she’s found more than once – photos that look like they could be from any normal holiday or day trip, if you ignore the shadows in the former pets’ eyes, or the collar around Hugo’s neck that he wears for the feeling of security it apparently provides.

Hugo doesn’t remember being recruited, although there are photos and articles describing his recruitment during the WRU’s first disability inclusion drive, proving that his involvement, at least, started out as voluntary. But it didn’t stay that way. It turned into fear, and brutal punishment, at the hands of people who didn’t seem to care about his well-being, beyond his usefulness. After his memory was wiped too, of course.

“The first thing I remember is having my barcode tattooed. It was scary. I wasn’t alone for long, but I was alone for that. The training was harsh, I remember that. The handlers had electrified black batons and shock collars to punish us with, among other tools. No scarring. And then once Mia came along, they punished both of us if one of us messed up, because we were bonded. So even though sometimes it didn’t seem important what happened to me, I didn’t want to get Mia hurt."

Mia nods in agreement. “I– I don’t remember my first training exactly, but I– but I remember the feeling of– of not wanting Hugo to get– to get hurt. He was all I– all I had.”

The WRU, if we were to ask, would not even be able to pretend that Mia’s acquisition was voluntary. Between Sandip, Mia, and Mia’s former partner Olu, they’ve put the pieces of her acquisition together — and it isn’t pretty.

“We– we think I was taken on the– on the way home from orchestra practice,” says Mia quietly. “My Romantic handler used to– used to boast about using– using me first. I think– I think he kidnapped me. And then– and then raped me, before my– my memory was wiped. Hugo says I– I defended him from– from a different handler, before we officially met, but I don’t– I don’t remember that.”

And therein lies the problem: Drip-induced amnesia. Although involuntary acquisitions and rape of non-Romantic pets are illegal, without the pet’s memory, who will be there as witness to prosecute? Even if the pet remembers, their legal status is such that they simply can't prosecute for themself.

“It’s not always too bad,” says Hugo. “Our first primary handler, he was fairer. Didn’t give us punishments if we behaved. But he was still scary. He still hurt Mia, just because she was a pet. Mistress tries to help, but we haven’t had control over our lives for fifteen years.”

We couldn’t contact the initial handler for comment, who seems to have disappeared since blowing the whistle on some of WRU’s worst practices (see previous edition for details), but fear’s rampant within those in the community trying to do their best for pets within the confines of such an unjust system. Sandip is one of them, and has already been arrested for her actions.

“Twice. We’ve been arrested twice. Hugo was almost sent to a retraining centre for fighting back after the police caught him unawares while trying to protect me, and nearly killed him through anaphylactic shock. They’ve hated us ever since, and last year I was arrested for suspected terrorism via pet lib offences. I was raped and assaulted by a WRU handler in police custody, and subjected to strip and intimate searches by cops.” Sandip takes a shaky breath and scratches Hugo’s scalp, which seems to calm them both. “They wanted to scare me into confessing to crimes. And poor Hugo was an easy target the first time.”

Pet-related miscarriages of justice are a situation many of us are familiar with after adespeaks’s viral speech on his YouTube channel last month spurred an ongoing deluge of accusations, although an analysis is too long for this interview — see page 7 for details. For now, we will continue with Hugo and Mia’s story. We pick up as they get sent to a new home, fully trained and ready to be an influencer couple’s pets.

“You know boxies are transported in crates, but you maybe don’t realise how rough the couriers are. My box was left upside down on my new owners’ doorstep. I was there for hours while they sorted out cameras, and I couldn’t hear anything obviously, or see anything, I didn’t know where Mia was at all. Anything could’ve happened to her.”

“It wasn’t too bad with our first owners, just a little exposed and humiliating, I suppose, not until the divorce. Mia doesn’t remember it. We were split up, and I ended up with Master. He didn’t want me, they only bought me to look good anyway, because I’m profoundly deaf and they’d get sympathy and virtue points, that’s what he said, and he wasn’t kind or safe at all. I should’ve been safe wearing a collar but I wasn’t. He just hurt and starved me until he got rid of me. He used whips and belts and left me outside to freeze. He made me into an ashtray, and used me as a punching bag, and forgot to feed me and give me water constantly. The scar on my cheek is from him, but earlier. Once, Mia had to wear a tightly-laced corset because she was coughing too much, and she passed out. That was earlier too.” He pauses, seemingly thinking hard. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to give so much detail, it’s supposed to be confidential. I was so scared. He could’ve killed me.”

“I was horrified by all the scars,” interjects Sundip. Hugo nods. It seems that despite the propaganda, becoming a pet doesn’t guarantee you a safe and loving home. Not even during transportation, where you’d expect them to want them to arrive wholly intact at least, are they treated with a modicum of decency.

Mia squeezes Hugo’s hand tightly, looking a little ill, her face pinched as if holding back a headache. “And– and I shouldn’t remember the– the second trip, back to the training centre, but I– but I do now. I– I don’t know why, the therapist says– says my remembering was triggered by trauma. I was– I was thrown around inside my box, and– and not upright, and people were– were screaming, and I– I was raped. Again. And I– I tried to escape, along with another– another pet, but they just– just caught and– and punished me and– and wiped my memory. I didn’t– didn’t remember him until– until recently, let alone know what– what happened to him. Or– or me. It still hurts my head to– to think about.”

It’s a harrowing story, and we have to pause there for Mia to compose herself. Sandip rubs her back soothingly.

“I was caring for Hugo by this point. He came to me by accident, but I wasn't leaving him. We were looking for Mia, Hugo missed her, and when she came up as refurbished on the WRU website we had to buy her. It’s been a tricky few years, I didn't do as well as I should have early on and we discovered an illegal hysterectomy was performed on Mia by WRU surgeons (see page 12 for a full exposé on this horrifyingly widespread practice), but it's been getting better. Mia and Hugo are doing so well.”

Mia and Hugo are a bonded pair, and it’s well-known that splitting up bonded pairs can cause lasting mental damage. Luckily, in their case it doesn’t seem to have been too bad, in large part due to the determination of the ex-pets and those who care for them. And a part of that lies too in Mia’s retraining, or ‘refurbishment’, as WRU calls it, eight years after her original sale.

I ask Mia if she can tell me any more about her training as a Romantic, and she nods, head in Hugo’s lap now.

"My– my handler raped me every day. Sometimes– sometimes multiple times a day, especially– especially early on. He also– also used sensory deprivation to make– to make me more affectionate. I’m not– I’m not sure what’s originally me and what’s– what’s training anymore. His sister raped– raped me too, when he took me home for– home for Christmas. For the– the situational trials as part of– of training. And then I– I wanted to have sex with– with Sandip so she’d– she’d want me. I wasn't– wasn't wanted if I wasn't useful. But it wasn't– wasn't true. It wasn't true. It wasn't true."

Mia repeats that to herself as Hugo pulls her into a tight hug, Sandip’s hand on her shoulder.

Both Mia and Hugo have been through hell together, and although they're getting through it with the help of Sandip and other friends, family and local organisations, gaining independence and discovering who they are, there are thousands out there still suffering, who need our help. These two show that although a recovery isn’t easy, it can be possible, with the right care.

And as for our trio here, any last words and hopes?

“I'd like to go a night without a nightmare,” says Hugo. “Just once.”

“Animals are treated better in law than human pets. And until that changes, any so-called improvements will be nothing but a smokescreen. But they give hope, and sometimes, hope is what’s needed most.”

“I– I never want to lose Hugo or Olu again. No– no part of them. Never again. No-one should– should have to lose someone they love like– like that. And you can– you can help, you don’t have to– have to participate in a system that hurts people, please. No matter your– your past, or who– who you are. You can– you can still help.”

[starsarefire824]

When Ya Hold Me Like You Do

Will watches the bare trees dance in the wind across the winter sun, filtered by a light covering of gray. He squints at it and then picks at the lint of his gloves as he sits on the slate wall of the ensconced tree they sit under. A little bit of nature contained by meticulously placed rock. It’s quiet in a way that only national holidays can be, when everything is shuttered up and people are warm in their dining rooms drinking wine and eating whatever feast their mothers and wives have slaved away at all day. Will tries to imagine being an adult hosting his own holiday dinner, tries to imagine Mike in the kitchen cooking or setting the table, and then he laughs. 

When he looks up there’s a cup being held out in front of him. 

‘Okay, so I was stupid for promising ice cream,” Mike says and grins down at him, handing him a paper cup. Mike raises his eyebrows and pushes it toward Will, coaxing him to take it. 

“Hot chocolate,” he says. 

Will smiles softly. “It’s too cold for ice cream.” 

“Yeah, yeah. You’re right.” He shrugs. “It’s just something that always made Troy feel better when he was sa—” Mike catches himself and bites his lip, sighing loudly, and his face pinching as if he’s in pain. “Sorry—” he says, an embarrassed smile overtaking his face. “I didn’t—” 

Will swallows the sip of his hot chocolate, the feel of it soothing his aching throat and warming his belly downright delightful. “You don’t have to be sorry,” he rasps and then clears his throat. 

Mike glances over at him, his cheeks and nose pink from the biting wind and maybe a little embarrassment. 

“He’s a pretty major part of your life, Mike. I don’t expect you to just like—will him away or something. From my experience—things never quite work like that.” 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mike asks, changing the subject. He’s hunched over his hot chocolate and peeking at him seriously. Resolutely.

Will takes another sip of his hot chocolate, crossing and uncrossing his legs. He nods, and forces himself to keep eye contact with Mike. It’s almost as excruciating at how he can still feel him on top of him, can still feel it inside of him. “I do,” he mutters quietly.  

Mike smiles out of one side of his mouth. “I’m listening,” he says softly. 

Will straightens his back and takes another sip of his hot chocolate before setting it down. He grips onto his knees tightly and huffs out a breath. It takes him a long moment before he starts talking. 

“I was twelve when I was taken,” he starts, keeping his eyes focused on the pretty purple and green pigeon that’s eating crumbs from the sidewalk.

-Demons of Change Chapter 29.