#all will be in my contacts so that the call will come through properly and i will see it’s them and be able to answer

[nochepsicodelica]

NSFW

Toji calls you pup or puppy sometimes and you've always thought that maybe it had something to do with you being so playful and energetic at times, but those were always just your assumptions. Not a single one of those assumptions was confirmed by Toji, so you took it upon yourself to ask for the truth...

"Toji?" You call, looking up at him from where you sit on his lap.

"Hm?" He hums in response, looking away from the commercial on the TV and down at you.

"Why do you call me pup? Don't get me wrong, it's cute." You smile, feeling the warmth of the seemingly endearing name in your stomach. "But, I wanna know why."

"Mm... do you really wanna know?" You nod, bubbly giggles erupting from your chest in anticipation. You're so excited for this reveal. It's been a mystery for months. "Well, it's because you let out these high pitched, little whimpers, that sound like a puppy when I touch you, sometimes."

Glass shattered. Illusion crumbled.

Your face immediately heats up. "No... No! Really?!" You groan, shifting to lay back in his arms while covering your face in embarrassment.

"Don't be embarrassed, baby. It's cute. You're a sensitive little thing." His hand comes forward to rub your tummy over your shirt.

You huff, an audible hum of annoyance sounding out. "Well, I'm never gonna do it again. I'm just gonna stop. I'm done. Never again."

"You wanna test that out?" He asks, mischievous eyes watching your pouty expression. You nod, accepting the challenge. "Sit on my lap properly, like you were before." You shift back and sit up straight against his chest. He pulls your hands away from your lap. "Keep these here, and don't move them. Understand?" he asks, placing your hands on his thighs. You nod, again, and grip onto them.

His left hand snakes up your shirt, his fingertips teasing the skin of your stomach until goosebumps rise. It goes further up once the goosebumps have spread all over, sliding beneath the cup of your bra to rub your already pebbled nipple. So far you've only let out a couple sighs, so he adds in his other hand. It slips into the front of your shorts and beneath your panties, until his fingers make contact with your slicked up slit.

"Already so wet for me, mama. What happened?"

"It's always like this for you," you say, quietly, suppressing the urge to whimper as the pads of his middle and ring fingers rub your clit in such a tediously, slow manner. Your hands part from his thighs and attempt to grab onto his forearms, causing him to immediately pause the movement of the hand that plays with your nipples as well as the one in your pants.

"Hey." His tone is questioning of your actions, but there's the touch of a smirk on his face, like he knew you'd need more than gripping his thighs to keep you from folding so quickly.

"S-Sorry. I'm sorry."

He presses a chaste kiss to your temple. "Let's try that again."

Soon enough, those little breaths you released through your nose, became small, quiet whimpers, that you didn't think Toji would hear. He had to correct you so many times about the way you were sliding down his front. Eventually he decided to lift your bra entirely and just wrap his arm around your chest to hold you steady because of how much you were squirming.

"Toji, I'm gonna..." A louder whimper comes out, effectively bringing a victorious smirk onto Toji's face. He heard those quieter ones, but he didn't count them for your sake. You're his baby, after all.

He speeds up the movement of his fingers, his rough pads adding delicious friction to your sensitive clit. You tense in his hold when your orgasm hits, plenty of moans and those pet name earning whimpers, flooding out.

"There you go, puppy," he purrs, into your neck, slowing his strokes to not overstimulate you so fast. You grab onto the arm that's secured at your chest, your nails digging into his skin through the pleasure. He doesn't stop because you've already proven his point and he sees no reason to punish you anymore.

A few seconds pass and those whimpers return, accompanied by your thighs shutting around his hand. You curl up a little, holding on tight to his arm.

"Had enough?" He asks, stilling his hand between your legs.

"Mhm, no more," you mumble, sounding defeated after thinking back to the sounds you made and how this backfired entirely.

He pulls his hands out from your clothes and wraps his arms around you. "So pup and puppy are fair game?"

You sigh, and reluctantly nod.

[fingertipsmp3]

I have no proof or anything but I’m pretty sure this man, who called me twice and left two messages, is now rejecting my calls

[sttoru]

·.⌇ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒. zayne is quite the early bird and loves to appreciate the sight of your sleeping self next to him. he might even tease you a bit.

wc. 1.2k

note. first love and deepspace fic, kinda nervous. lmk what you think of my characterisation of zayne.

tags. zayne x female reader. fluff. just zayne being a secret softie for you. reader gets called ‘sweetheart, dear / pretty, beautiful’.

it’s early. way too early for your body to properly function. the birds haven’t chirped yet and neither has the sun shown itself—it’s early, but zayne is up. he couldn’t fall back asleep once he had awoken and thus decided to stay up.

“hah, sleepyhead,” zayne comments through a deep sigh. he’s laying on his side, facing you. his eyes are completely focused on your appearance; from your messy bed hair to the drop of drool forming at the corner of your mouth. it’s all rather endearing.

your boyfriend reaches a scarred hand towards you, though is quick to retract it after some hesitation. he does not want to interrupt your slumber. you need your rest; especially after your hard shift as a hunter the day before.

and because you finally decided to follow his advice as your primary care physician. sleep is important for your health.

zayne’s protective instincts are begging him to embrace you—to protect you against the cold. you just look so vulnerable next to him.

though, his heart doesn’t agree. there are risks to such an action; you waking up this early and not getting your recommended seven hours of sleep is one of them. he decides not to do anything. . . for now.

zayne checks his phone to kill some time. no missed calls nor texts. it’s unusual for the surgeon to not be bombarded with calls and such, though it’s a pleasant change of pace.

his eyes dart back to your face again. no matter how many times he tries to distract himself from you, his focus always finds its way back to you. it’s like he’s subconsciously checking to see if you’re up or not.

zayne wishes to witness your face as it lights up the moment you lock eyes. to see your adorable smile that makes his heart flutter. to hold you close, cuddle with you and kiss you.

“mph,” a sudden yawn from your mouth interrupts zayne’s train of thoughts. you stretch your arms and move to lay on your back, however your eyes stay closed. you look even more adorable like that—with your hair even messier.

your lover can’t help himself like this. a slender finger reaches out to your lips, gathering the small droplet of drool at the corner. zayne’s neutral expression remains, but his eyes subtly soften once he gets to touch your skin.

“what a messy girl,” zayne mumbles to himself. he nearly makes himself chuckle, however is quick enough to bite back that short laugh. he takes his chance and subtly traces the shape of your bottom lip.

there’s no going back now that he’s touched you. his attention is now fully on you and you only.

zayne is too busy tracing your facial features to notice that you’re starting to wake up. your eyes flutter open and - to your surprise - you find your lover’s face hovering above yours.

you feel the pad of his thumb on one of your cheeks, his index and middle finger holding the other. he gently squeezes your cheeks together so that your lips form a pout. it’s secretly his favorite thing to do—makes you look silly.

“zayne?” you whisper in a groggy voice.

zayne lightly jolts in place and takes his hand away. he clears his throat awkwardly; his gaze darting back and forth between the objects in your bedroom. he purposely avoids all eye contact while maintaining a stoic expression. as if he wasn’t just caught admiring you.

“oh, you’re awake,” your lover mutters. he attempts to change topics by looking at the digital clock on your nightstand, “it’s still too early. you should go back to sleep, dear.”

you still feel flustered whenever he refers to you as ‘dear’ or any other affectionate nickname. your relationship has come so far and it warms your heart. you grin and reach your hand out to place it on zayne’s jawline.

“mm, what were you doing when i was asleep?” you ask in a teasing tone. your fingers trace his jaw gently, trailing down his neck. it makes the dark-haired man gulp lightly. there’s not much left of his self control.

zayne allows you to lead his face back to yours. the tender touch he missed so much—your warm palm meeting his cold skin—it drives him insane. he sighs, though does not admit the truth, “nothing much. just checking my schedule for the day and such.”

that gains him a playful scoff from your side. you know that’s a lie just by the memory you have of his face hovering above yours from earlier. he was admiring you. you poke the tip of his nose, “riiiight, then why were you staring at me so lovingly? touching my lips so delicately?”

you giggle as you recall that faint softness in zayne’s eyes when you caught him admiring the view of you. his fingertips treated your skin with such care. maybe you should’ve pretended to be asleep and see how things would have played out.

“ah, you see,” zayne replies in a low tone, his hand moving once more to tap at the corners of your lips. you could’ve sworn that there’s a faint grin on his face as he continues, “it’s hard to ignore the sight of you when you’re drooling all over yourself in your sleep.”

that shuts you up. you immediately try to wipe away any leftover drool from your lips. your hands work quick, but you don’t find anything to wipe off, “l-liar. i’m not drooling, thank you very much.”

zayne shakes his head with a breathy chuckle and ruffles your hair. he leans in and his breath on the skin of your cheek sends shivers down your spine.

“because i got rid of it all before you woke up, sweetheart,” he mutters lowly and lets his lips graze against your cheek, “i was kind enough to help my messy little girlfriend out and save her from the embarrassment.”

you sputter an incomprehensible excuse, but fail at defending yourself from that. you know zayne is a pro at teasing when he’s in a good mood. you’re absolutely no match to him. you huff and eventually give in, “whatever.”

zayne knows he won that one. he only jokes around with you like that in hopes to seeing your adorable ‘angry’ face. that frown and pout on your face makes you look all the more pretty to him.

he sighs and spoons you—arms cradling you to his chest from behind once you turn your back to him. neither of you complain about your current position. there’s a yawn coming out of your mouth again;

“go back to sleep, i’ll be here.” zayne whispers to you and you nod.

before you close your eyes, you turn your head and stare at zayne. he gazes back down at you and that tender look in his eyes makes its appearance once more. that look which is reserved for you.

“promise me you’ll sleep too,” you mumble. your lover stays silent for a couple seconds, not knowing whether he can promise you that or not. though after seeing your little pout again, he can’t help but give in.

zayne leans in and places a reassuring kiss on your forehead, “i promise. i will.”

[heich0e]

iwaizumi got a lower back tattoo on his 21st birthday.

if you showed one hundred people in the street a photo of 30-year-old hajime, and then surveyed them as to whether or not they think he has a lower back tattoo, it's unlikely more than one of them would say yes—and even the one who did probably just misheard the question. it's as unbelievable a thought as any, and still somehow it's true.

he was 21, legally drunk for the first time in america, and hanamaki and matsukawa had finally come to california to visit him to mark the occasion. it was kind of a stupid trip, they realized afterwards, because issei and hiro were still only 20 and couldn't even go out to the bars near UC irvine that all of iwa's college friends were inviting him out to for the first time.

but he didn't mind.

he bought them beer and sugary canned cocktails from the convenience store near campus using the birthday money his nanay sent him, silently repenting in his mind as the store clerk in the polyester vest rang the expensive purchase through. then they all got drunk in iwa's tiny student apartment while they played video games, called oikawa, and eventually wandered out into the warm california night in search of food.

the details beyond that are fuzzy, but the lines inked into the little space at the bottom of hajime's spine are not—even after nine whole years.

most people have no idea about the tattoo—and hajime has gone to great lengths to keep it that way. he wears a compression t-shirt at the gym so there's no risk of it riding up and accidentally revealing it. he orders patches to conceal it on the rare occasion he goes to onsens. he never showers with the athletes at work, always either opting to shower at home, shower after the team, or use the staff facilities when available.

but in spite of all of that, he's not embarrassed of it.

he doesn't even really regret it.

it's just not anybody else's business.

the ink on his skin is a secret kept between him, matsukawa, hanamaki, the guy who tattooed him, and oikawa who was screaming on facetime in the background while it happened.

and now you, too.

your hand snakes up the back of hajime's sweatshirt as he stands at the stove preparing breakfast, cool fingertips tracing the curls of ink even without seeing them—having long mapped them to memory. hajime suppresses a shiver, not expecting the contact, as you crowd yourself closer to his back and lean your weight against him.

"i was trying not to wake you," he says quietly, the hand not holding the chopsticks he's flipping his omelette with reaching behind him in search of you.

"you didn't," you murmur into his back, catching his seeking hand in yours and twining your fingers together. "smelled food."

hajime laughs to himself, his eyes crinkling. he squeezes your fingers tightly as his heart thuds in his chest.

underneath his sweatshirt, your nails rake lightly against his skin.

"shouldn't i be making your breakfast?"

hajime transfers his omelette to the plate waiting beside the stove, flicking off the burner and then turning to face you. he wraps his arms around you and holds you properly now, your face burrowing into the collar of his hoodie the way you always do, his nose brushing your temple.

"wanted to let you sleep a bit longer," hajime grunts out, his cheeks burning a bit hot—still shy, sometimes, even after so much time has passed. "thought you might be tired after..."

you snort, your head popping up to look at him. "after you fucked me within an inch of my life into the wee hours of the morning?"

the fire burning under hajime's skin grows even hotter. he splutters a little, and struggles to meet your gaze.

"i'm not tired," you whisper, a mischievous smile tugging at your lips. the incorrigible one he fell in love with. "we were celebrating, after all."

hajime's eyes are burning a little bit, to complement the stinging in his cheeks. you lift your hand up to his face so you can feel the heat of his skin, and he rests his own hand—larger, more calloused than your own—to rest overtop of it. he looks at you, and sees happiness reflected back at him in your gaze. so fathomless he thinks he could drown in it.

hajime turns his face into your touch, and his eyes flutter closed as he noses against your palm.

he presses a kiss there. soft. adoring.

then another, just slightly higher, to the ring he put on your finger the night before.

he peeks at you again, that same heat in his cheeks, though not nearly as unbearable.

he's got another secret he doesn't regret now, one just as permanent as the ink in his skin, but this one won't stay hidden long. eventually he'll call his parents, and his nanay will probably get teary. then he'll tell his friends, who will put his mother's tears to shame. he'll leave the tattoo artist out of it this time, though—wherever that guy is now.

"happy birthday, hajime," you whisper to him with a smile he can't help but return.

he might keep this secret between the two of you today, though. just for a little while longer.

it'll be his gift to himself.

[gilverrwrites]

Man, I need something with Jason's big hands, so big that one hand can cup your entire sex...

He will smack your clit, cup your sex, you'll grind on it and he will do something while cupping your lady bits.

I can live off of your body heat

Jason Todd/Reader, 2.4K

AN: I've actually had mutiple req for Jason and/or Dick slapping and pinching the readers clit which is like so specific, but I get it. Like I feel yall so much. I know Jay being a giant is fanon thing, but goddamn my 5'4 ass wants to be crushed by his hands so bad. CWs: Mentions of Jay's scars, swearing, size difference, Dom!Jay, teasing, Jay being really rough, nipple play, clit pinching, clit slapping. Petnames: Baby, babe, babygirl, good girl, Name-calling: Filthy girl, bitch, slut. Recommended listening: Body Heat - Kate Nash

There’s a scar on his chest. Actually, there are many scars on his chest. However, there’s one in particular that stands out; a long taut piece of skin that stretches from his left shoulder blade, right down to his sternum. Its pale sheen stands out against his tan skin and begs you to trail a finger along it.

Despite the temptation, you don’t.

Jason hasn’t slept this well in weeks so you daren't risk waking him yet. Instead, you watch the gentle rise and fall of his torso under the mellow light of the morning sun until the need to move is too great.

Your feet have barely touched the ground when a pair of sturdy arms close around you, enveloping you in the warmth of the very body you’d just been admiring and pulling you back into the bed. Or more, pulling you on top of his body, primarily by his choice, partially because there isn’t enough room for you both to lay without some overlap. Every time you mention buying a larger bed, Jason vetoes it; says he likes the close proximity. That feeling your body against his helps him to relax and you can’t really argue with that sentiment.

“Where’d you think you’re going?” He asks from the spot in the crook of your neck he loves to nuzzle into. He peppers the side of your neck with sleepy half-kisses.

It would be endearing, were his hands not already under the oversized Red Hood tee you’d stolen from him to sleep in.

“Oh, I don’t know.” You hum, hands wrapping around his wrists, purely for additional skin-on-skin contact. You couldn’t stop him from ghosting his calloused fingertips up your body if you wanted to. It’s strange, and arousing to think that he can, and has trapped both of your wrists in with just one hand.

“You don't know?” He’s rousing properly now, amused by your answer.

“Probably just to shower, make a coffee, maybe read a book until you wake up.”

“I’m awake now.” He reminds you, rolling his hips to emphasise his double entendre. The heat of his mourning wood grinds against your backside, and at the same time, one of his wandering hands finally settles on a target. He cups the underside of your breast, and you can’t help sucking in a breath as he pinches your nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Already so brutal, despite the slow, sensual way he’s been exploring until now.

You sigh in relief when he lets go, allowing just enough time for the blood to rush back before he clamps down again, this time in a twisting motion that has your hands shooting up into his hair. “Jay!”

He seems unaffected by your attack on his scalp, chuckling into the tender spot behind your ear, and causing a chill to run down your spine. “Yeah, baby?”

“You should be asleep.” You’d intended to deadpan for comedic effect, but it comes out in short, strained breaths that only serve to make you sound needy as hell.

It’s at this point you hear a snapping sound, followed by the light sting of your underwear’s elastic waist snapping against your skin, drawing your attention downwards just in time to feel Jason cupping your entire sex in just one of his hands. All the while he never stops the assault on your now raw tits.

“Do you want me to stop?” He questions. At the same time, he palms your folds through the fabric of your underwear, pressing the ball of it against your increasingly aching clit.

“Feels nice.” You sigh, letting your head fall back against his shoulder, allowing him further access to the sensitive skin of your neck which he eagerly accepts, honing in to suck and nibble, sloppily leaving marks in his wake. You don’t want to back down, but God, you do not want him to stop.

“Come on baby, I need a real answer. Do you want me to go back to sleep?” He eventually circles back, lips barely leaving your flesh as he speaks. Distracting you from the erotic sting of your nipples and the heat between your legs as his rugged fingers push all the right buttons. “Or do you want me to keep playing with your cute little pussy?”

“Fuck, Jay please- “ You’re ready to give in but as you speak he hooks two fingers under the crotch of your underwear, and the resulting, embarrassingly wet squelch that sounds out as he presses them between your folds has you hissing.

“Please what?” He goads, now upping the pressure. He’s doing it on purpose, cause he’s a fucking tease. “Please stop?”

“No! Please don’t stop touching my cunt!”

“Your cunt? You’re fucking filthy, girl. You know that?” He plants a quick, hard kiss on your cheek and, as if you weigh nothing, lifts you by your pussy, repositioning you for his own ease until your legs are stretched wide, his own wedged in between to keep you in place. The speed at which he moves is enough to give you whiplash. You barely have enough time to gasp at the retraction of his hands before they’re on you again, settling in new positions. With one hand he completely pulls aside your panties, exposing your hot, soaked folds to the tepid air. The other pulls your tee over your head before cupping the back of your head, forcing your gaze downwards. “Don’t move. I want you to watch everything I do to you. Can you do that for me, baby”

Shit. You think your heart might beat out of your chest. All this vehement energy so early in the morning. “Yes, Jay!”

Immediately contradicting yourself, you turn your head to admire his handsome profile. The determined squint of his eyes, the bed head, the morning stubble, you really lucked out with him you think as you lean closer to kiss his cheek. Before you can make contact Jay's grip tightens on the back of your head, sharply turning you back to watch as he dips two long fingers between your slit. Your clit practically twitches at the sight of them; long enough to span from top to entrance in excess.

You try your hardest to watch as he repeatedly strokes your lips in short, lazy motions but it’s a challenge not to close your eyes and get lost in the moment. It’s even harder not to throw your head back and scream when he suddenly sinks his fingers around your clit and starts pinching, it. Tightly rolling the sensitive bud between two curled fingers.

“Shit, Jay.” You pant through gritted teeth. “That hurts so good.”

Just like with your nipples, what feels even better is the rapid return of blood flow when he releases it. He repeats the process twice over, laughing every time you flinch or whine. Whispering in your ear about how you’re his “good girl”, how “you can take it” every time you dig your nails into his arm in an attempt to relieve the pain.

“Help me out here babe. Spread your pussy out for me.” He instructs, playfully gasping into your ear when you pull back your lips to reveal your now dark and swollen core. You’re too turned on to care about the sight of it. Happy to expose yourself, certain that the moment he starts kneading you with care, you’ll cum in seconds.

Jason must be thinking the same as he dips one finger into your entrance, just enough to coat it with your arousal before returning to your puffy clit to rub around it in circles. Even at twice the size, your clit is smaller than the tip of his finger.

“Ohh, I’m gonna cum soon.” Before you’ve even finished your sentence Jay retracts his hand, ripping a distraught weep from you in the process. You’ve been here a hundred times before, splayed out for him, gasping, and begging for his touch, but the red-hot shame at your flagrant desperation never eases. “What the fuck, dude!?”

“Dude?” Without warning, Jay comes back down. Hard. Your whole body shakes under the intensity of the vicious slap he delivers to your clit. “Who the fuck are you calling dude?”

He doesn’t give you enough time to answer before he smacks your open folds again. Flipping the switch in your body from heady to adrenaline-filled arousal.

“Say my name.” He barks as he dispenses a third slap.

“Jay!” You don’t have it in you to say his full name, but it seems to satisfy.

“Say it louder.” His words are punctuated by the lewd echo of sharp, stinging strikes. “I want the neighbours to hear what a dirty fucking slut you are. Want them to know who you belong to.”   

“Jason. You Jason!” You close your eyes and throw your head back, crying with everything you can muster, not caring how raunchy or pathetic you sound. Ignoring the pain of your own nails digging into your flesh. “Jason. I’m yours, Jason.”

“That's better.” He growls. Finally, his arm falls slack. With no friction from your dripping, wanting walls, Jason glides two fingers into your entrance and you tremble, your whole body tingling, ecstatic to finally feel him inside you. It’s just two fingers, two impressively strong, thick fingers that make you feel so full. “You’re so beautiful, you know that?”

Abashed by his sudden gentleness you open your eyes once more, positioning yourself to look at him as best you can. He’s one to talk. You’re always telling him he could be a model if he decided to quit being a part-time crime lord, part-time crime fighter.  

You’re unable to concentrate on him for long, however, as he starts pumping in and out of you in torturously slow thrusts. After all the excitement, it quietens your mind and eases your muscles. For the first time since he’d repositioned your bodies, you notice the pressure of his cock, pulsing against your lower back. The rigged hardness of it makes you feel fuzzy and content at his equal levels of arousal.

You stay like that for a few minutes, simply enjoying the calm as Jason gently massages your insides until it’s not enough. You need more, your body yearns, your core practically twitching for his touch on your clit again. An orgasm is approaching steadily, but you’ll get nowhere without it.

The heel of his hand is so close, so sturdy, you don’t even think about what you’re doing, you just start undulating your hips, rutting up against him in unstable motions. He doesn’t stop you; in fact he curls his fingers and brings his palm down closer, letting you use him to chase your orgasm.

“That's it, baby. Hump me like a bitch in heat.” He coos so softly in your ear that it would set your pulse racing if it wasn’t already running at a mile a minute. “Remember I'm the only who does this for you, the only one who can make you feel so full and cock drunk on just my hands.”

He's right, he's so fucking right.

“Keep that up, I might just cum too.”

“Fuck me.” You breathe, affected both by his words and the reminder of his throbbing dick squeezed between your bodies.

“Not until you cum on my fingers.” He’s only half joking. “Can you do that for me baby, cum all over my finger like a good little slut?”

Fuck yes, you can. You want to say, but all your energy is focused on riding his hand, fucking yourself on his brawny fingers, and gyrating against his palm like it's your job. His groans and rasps become a motivational mantra as you keep bucking your hips.

“You’re nearly there.” He comments, able to feel your walls tightening around his digits, convulsing uncontrollably as it hits you. It takes all your strength to ride it out; to keep going as you topple over the edge but fuck it’s worth it for the full extent of your release. “That it babygirl, cum for me baby, fucking soak me.”

Worth it for the explicit sound of your wet cum streaming against Jason’s hands, for the rush of ecstasy that bleeds through your body, and especially for the unexpected heat that spreads across your lower back in spaced-out intervals; Jason's own ejaculation seeping through his boxers and dispersing on your skin.         

Simultaneously, you both grow limp, breathing in time with each other until the rapid movements of your chests begin to ebb back to a steady pace.

“You were so good for me, I’m so proud of you.” Jason praises as he rolls your bodies onto their sides, never releasing you in the process, but allowing him a better ability to press a smattering of kisses to the side of your head, lingering along your jawline. You're grateful for his sweet words, but still too fucked-out to speak, but you coo when he lifts a hand to run his thumb along your neck, presumably checking out his earlier handy work. You arch to get a better look at him, and given the subtle, but smug smile on his face, you’re certain he’s left quite the mark.   

“Let me guess.” You find your voice. “It’s not just the neighbours who’ll know who I belong to?”

“Hmmmm.” He tilts his head and puckers his lips in mock consideration. “I think you should donate all your scarf.”

“Jay!” You punch his shoulder, and he has enough decency to play along, briefly leaning back as though you could even make a dent on his towering frame. “Is it really bad?”

“No. No no no.” He’s lying through his teeth, snickering as he leans in to crush your lips with his own. His skin is slick with sweat you realise when you reach up to gently grasp his other shoulder and guide him closer to you. His morning breath is frankly kind of gross, but yours probably is too. Nevertheless, it’s a price you’re willing to pay for his affection.

“What do you wanna do now?” He asks when he pulls back from your mouth, continuing to press kisses down your neck, along your collar, and slinking closer to your chest with each brush. He asks some variation of this same question everytime you fuck. Letting you direct how much you can take from him in one go or what kind of aftercare you need.

“I don’t know.” You hum, imitating your earlier indecision, as you stretch against the mattress. “Shower, coffee, and a book still sounds good to me.”

“Sounds very good. Mind if I join?” He’s not actually asking, that much is evident as he lifts you in his arms and cradles you against his chest as he stands. You’ll both be grateful to get your sticky, cum soaked underwear off. You’ll be even more grateful for the chance to lather and massage your boyfriend up in soapy bubbles, to really get your fingers on those pretty scars that call to you. Maybe you can convince him to take a nap later when you’re curled up on the couch, reading together.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way, Jay.”

[resplendent-ragamuffin]

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

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

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

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

On the JVP Mikveh BS

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

I have.

God help me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHAT IS THIS MIKVEH THING ANYWAY?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To quote others:

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

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

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

A mikveh is more important than a synagogue.

I’d say that’s pretty important.

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

So. What does JVP have to say about it?

THE JVP MIKVEH GUIDE

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

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

We start off with a note from the authors.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Mayyim Hayyim, “Immersion Ceremonies”)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Returning to our document:

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

At this point the rails are but a distant memory.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A lack of water does not make mikveh practice inaccessible.

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

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

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

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

This is going to require some breaking down.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Queer mikveh is an earth and water honoring ritual.

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

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

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

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

It’s called appropriation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is 100% straight up appropriation.

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

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

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

Full stop.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Screenshot from Amazon)

Returning to our text:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Most mikvot currently exist in Orthodox synagogues[—]

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

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

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

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

Mikveh can be done in a natural body of water.

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

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

We’ve already explained above why this is nonsense.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our next section is a short one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next segment.

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

See previous points on intention.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The next suggestion of what to bring is

3. Warm clothes, towels, warm drinks

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

4. Your spirit of love, healing, and resistance

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

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

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

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

That word is antisemitism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We start off deceptively reasonably.

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

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

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

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

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

Method One:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They end this suggestion with the cute comment,

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

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

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

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

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

Method three:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The next section is “Prayers for Mikveh.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Guide, however, gives an alternate form:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Guide then repeats the link for Ritualwell.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hate this.

I hate this so much.

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

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

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

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

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

You may see why I find the Kohenet Institute problematic.

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

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

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

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

But this Guide is ostensibly for authentic Jewish religious practice.

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

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

Further Reading and Resources:

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

https://www.mikvah.org/directory

https://www.mayyimhayyim.org/

http://www.immersenyc.org/

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

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

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

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

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

[despacito-uwu16]

PRETTY PLEASE

(Pining! Kenji Sato x Reader)

⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺

"pretty please come on over and ruin my life" - Pretty Please by Dutch Melrose

⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺

Kenji woke up in his room with a pounding headache and a wave of nausea hitting him like a ton of bricks. Mina held the trashcan as Kenji threw up the contents from last night’s party. After he was done, Mina set down a sandwich, along with some water and painkillers. “Thanks, Mina”. He said as he took a bite of the sandwich. Before she left his bedroom, she closed the curtains, making the room dark again. Kenji put the sandwich back on the plate and lied back down on the bed. He closed his eyes again, and the events of last night came flooding back. The techno music blasting, the alcohol, the girl…

The girl… she was all alone at the after party so Kenji approached her. It went from small talk and flirting to long, deep conversations. The next thing he knew, they were dancing on the dance floor. He remembers her angelic laugh, her strong lavender perfume, the way she would look at him while he held her as they danced. They were perfect for each other.

“She was so pretty”…

“Fuck what was her name again”?

Kenji looked through his contacts, trying to see if there was a name or a phone number he wasn’t familiar with. But alas, nothing. As he sinks further down into the soft pillows, his hands fell onto his face. Of all the things he didn’t do, he didn’t think to ask for her phone number.

He couldn’t stop daydreaming about the girl. Everywhere he went, he thought he saw her. But he always ends up mistaking her for another random lady. 

His pining got to the point where it annoyed his baseball team. Every time Kenji would bring up the mystery girl, his teammates would groan, yelling at him to shut the fuck up.  Even his coach had enough of the mystery girl nonsense.

“If you don’t get your head out of the gutter, i’m trading you to the tigers. That’s a promise”. His coach threatened.

Even Mina noticed how distracted Kenji was. Every time Kenji came back from battle, he would show up with more bruises and injuries. 

“Kenji, what’s going on with you? You keep loosing your focus”. Mina asked. 

“I’m fine Mina, really I am”. Kenji puts an ice pack on his shoulder, the cold stinging his skin. 

“This is about the girl from your dreams, isn’t it”? Mina pressed on.

Kenji sighs. “She isn’t some girl I made up! She’s real Mina, and the thought of her is driving me crazy. What’s even worse is I never got her phone number”. 

“I’m sure you’ll see her again”. Mina reassures him. 

“In a city like Tokyo? I doubt it”. He pouts. 

Everyone around him is well aware of how down bad he is for the girl. The thought of her is ruining him, but he didn’t care. He wants to see her again. Scratch that, he NEEDS to see her again. 

But a few weeks go by, an the thought of the mystery girl eventually died down. His focus came back and Kenji can properly function again. 

He was filling up the water coolers for his team, minding his own business when all of a sudden, he heard a familiar laugh. He turned around and saw a (hair color) haired girl talking on the phone while filling up her water bottle at the same water station. 

“It’s you”. He muttered out loud.

The girl turned around and looked at him. Kenji panicked, he finally found the mystery girl that had been plaguing his mind for weeks, and now he couldn’t form a single sentence.

“Hey, can I call you back? Okay bye”. The girl hung up her phone and approached Kenji. 

“Well, if it isn’t Ken Sato”. She smirked

“I can’t believe it’s you”. Said Kenji.

“In the flesh. I’m glad you’re okay. I was worried when you blacked out”. She said.

Kenji looks at her in confusion. “I blacked out? But Ken Sato never passes out”. 

“Well, you did. It was during our dance. My guess is the soju finally caught up to you”. She chuckled. 

He finally remembered now. He had two soju bottles and the next thing he knew, he saw stars. Talk about embarrassment.

“Anyways, my brother and I took you home”. She added. 

“Damn… I’m sorry, I really wanted to see you again, but I never got your number”. He said.

“I slipped my phone number in your jacket, hoping you would find it. But then I waited and then realized you probably didn’t want to talk to me”. She looked down at the ground. 

Kenji’s mentally face palmed himself. He didn’t think to look through his clothes before laundering them.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see it! God I’m such an idiot”. He scratched his head. 

“It’s okay Ken. Here, give me your phone”. She gestured for it. 

He gave her his phone and she added her number on his notes app. 

“Text me and we can get dinner sometime”. She hands his phone back.

“I would like that”. He smiled at her. 

Suddenly, they hear the crowds cheering loudly from the stadium

“I guess that’s my cue to head back in. Can’t wait to see you play Ken”. She winks and turns to leave. 

He walked away, feeling incredibly lucky and lovestruck. But he snapped out of it when he realized…

“WAIT I DIDN’T GET YOUR”- 

But as he turned around, she was gone again. Lost in the crowd full of people.

“Name”…

“Well, at least I got your number”. Kenji thought

He looked down at his phone and saw the number she just put in, along with her name: 

“Y/N”

⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺

Likes, Comments and Reblogs are always appreciated!!

FYI: Requests are open so feel free to send me some ideas for future one shots!

[ozzgin]

Pyramid Head x Reader

Featuring Pyramid Head and a reader with amnesia lost in Silent Hill. This is Pyramid Head as originally intended for Silent Hill 2, so expect a lot of game-based immersion. Warning: NSFW, dubious/non-consent, violence, gore

[Horror Masterlist]

"Oh, for fuck's sake!"

You grunt and slap the wheel, hoping your defiant act of violence will somehow convince the car engine to start again. It remains quiet. You run a hand through your hair and sigh. The palm is mildly sticky with moisture and you realize you've been sweating a fair amount. No wonder, you're stuck in this shithole. You couldn't see a damn thing ahead with all this fog. The only discernible object was a rusty, run-down sign showing "Silent Hill". You've never heard the name before, but reading the letters and allowing the words to escape your lips has brought you an unexpected wave of panic. You quickly began hyperventilating and your arms involuntarily twitched and twisted, pulling the wheel of the car along with them and causing the car to swerve into a street barrier. And now it refuses to turn back on. Fantastic. 

You hesitantly grab the door handle. After a deep breath in, you open the door and step out. Given the car crashed sideways, you can no longer tell which way is back and which way is forward. You can only see the first few inches of the barrier in both directions, but everything else vanishes under the thick clouds of mist. You rub your temples, becoming increasingly upset with yourself.  What were you even doing, driving all the way to-

Wait. Where were you going in the first place? You recall leaving from...home? But where is that supposed to be? No, don't do this. Not now. You walk back to the car and open the glove compartment, angrily pulling out a thick stack of documents and spreading them out onto the chair. You scan over them, growing more impatient. You don't recognize anything. The names and words and addresses don't hold any meaning. You glance up to the rear-view mirror in an attempt to detect some trail of blood seeping from your scalp, as a concussion might explain your sudden memory loss, but your appearance is fresh. Almost as if you didn't just crash your car in a strange place in utter confusion. 

You check your phone. Even if you can't remember, there has to be someone in your contacts that will come to your aid. The screen glitches briefly when you unlock it and the menu is empty. No contacts, no messages, no apps. No matter, emergency will do. You type in the digits and lift the phone to your head, but quickly remove it when loud static assaults your eardrums. Why is nothing working properly? You're tempted to just slam the junk into the pavement, but find enough composure to stuff it back in the pocket for now. 

All that's left to do now is to find another human. You begin walking. The road has to lead somewhere, that's for certain. And soon enough the barrier is replaced with a different kind of fencing that you use as guidance. It seems to be a small bridge. Just a few steps further and you discover the first signs of modern, populated world: a bus stop. Behind the waiting bench is a brief map of the area and you trace the plaque with your fingers, mumbling the path to yourself. "Now let's see...This is Nathan Avenue...Rosewater Park ahead...Ah, the Silent Hill Fire Station should be very close."

You can't wait to be done with this mess. They'll call for a tow truck and get you out of here. You almost sprint to the next block, expectantly. In fact, you can already spot someone right outside the building. 

"Thank God! Listen, my car broke down before the bridge. My stupid phone is also...huh." 

Just as you mention it, the same static as previously erupts from the speaker. You're startled and fumble for your phone. You're about to apologize to the person in front of you, but upon lifting your gaze you instantly stop in your tracks. 

'Person' is a strong word for it. It resembles one, or maybe it was one long ago. What's crawling towards you, however, is not how you'd define it. The arms are melted into the torso, mimicking a straight jacket of skin. The bony, crooked legs are dragging themselves in an unnatural, unnerving way. The creature has no face, save for a gaping hole, a bizarre cavity deforming what should be a head. Your mouth grimaces with disgust, followed by fear. Terror. You have the choice of returning to your damaged car, or attempting to find actual help deeper into the town. You run ahead, praying that someone's out there. The dissonant sound of a siren can be heard, diffused into the persistent fog.  

By the time you reach the next building, you're gasping for air. You didn't expect to run this far. You went all the way around Toluca lake, avoiding the side streets. The center was swarming with those abominations. Each turn and each corner would eventually reveal its revolting murmur, that pathetic shuffle of disfigured limbs. Thankfully they're not fast, nor smart. A little distance and they lose their interest to pursue you. You fall against the brick wall of this small house and read the poster. "Silent Hill Historical Society". Doesn't look too promising, but it's surprisingly devoid of any monstrous being. At this point you'd be more grateful for emptiness. It's safer. 

You tiptoe your way in, wary of potential attackers. There's a faint buzz echoing from afar, but other than that no immediate danger. You examine the lobby and notice the paintings and old photos hanging from the decaying wallpaper. It smells slightly rotten. One of the art pieces catches your attention and you stop in front of it. "Misty Day, Remains of Judgement". 

The abstract character depicted on canvas reminds you of an executioner. The more you stare, the clearer you can feel some kind of guilt knotting inside your stomach. Your shoulders are heavy and you're overwhelmed by the same anxiety of a child about to be punished. Awaiting the belt. The calloused hand of an unforgiving father. Your throat is dry.

Your musings are interrupted by the static that - as you've since learned - warns you of approaching creatures. The rooms are cramped and the walls are narrow and you dislike the idea of calculating your escape within this claustrophobic maze, but it's preferable to being dead. You jog along slithering paths, unsure of where they lead. The threatening turbulence of your phone goes up and down, like a sine wave, with each turn into uncharted territory. In your frantic efforts to flee you don't see the large hole blocking your way, or at least not fast enough. By the time you figure out the outlines of this pitch black well, you're flooded with the light sensation of gravitational force, stretching and compressing your innards as you fall. Is this how you end?

It's not so easy. 

As soon as you open your eyes, a burning pain metastasizes through the head, digging deep into your brain. You grab onto your scalp and press your fingers over the skin, hoping for a small relief. In your debilitating migraine you don't hear the agitated flutter of limbs. They're minuscule, but so many. Thousands of sclerotized joints frothing around your limp form. You lift yourself off the rusted ground and yelp voiceless at the sight. Cockroaches. The pile of vermin lets out a deafening, high pitched screech with every movement. You drag your elbows in an attempt to get away, but the creepers almost ignore your existence. They seem to be running away from something, retreating in masses.

You don't have to wait long in order to witness their source of fear. Heavy footsteps, muffled by the grating friction of metal against metal. A corroded stench invades your lungs and you cough. Whatever is coming has instilled the utmost dread in your very bones. You want to get up and run, until your legs give up and your body collapses of exhaustion, but your limbs are petrified in panic. Your chest constricts and throbs, as if your heart is trashing to escape this prison condemned to unknown doom. 

Finally, the fiend comes into view. A tall, large man wearing a leather apron layered with grime and encrusted blood. His skin is scarred and discolored, and a bulky, dense pyramid structure rests on his broad shoulders, concealing his face. He seems to be dragging along a great knife of sorts, although on closer inspection it looks like a halved pair of oversized scissors. The edge is dulled and has splattered visceral leftovers mattifying its surface. You remember the painting you've seen upstairs. Is this what it is? Your Retribution? 

You lower yourself until your forehead touches the rusty floor. Like an animal awaiting to receive the final blow from its hunter, like a prisoner resigning to his fate under the guillotine. If only matters could be dealt with so simply! Your neck is clawed into a tight hold by the large gloved hand and you're crudely pulled back up so that you can properly face your Punisher. There's a vague grunt coming from underneath his bizarre helmet. 

He carries you to the nearest wall and slams you against it. The great knife drops to the floor with a loud crash, and the other hand, now freed, begins to search your lower clothing. You can feel the seams of the garments tear and snap with no resistance. You want to vocalize a protest, but your throat is crushed under the forceful pressure of his clasp. At best, you can exhale in what sounds like a whispered wail. His apron is nonchalantly flipped to the side and your thigh lifted over his forearm, so that his hand can adjust itself securely under your bottom for support.

Abruptly, a prickling ache crosses your entire body as if you've just been split in two. Tears automatically begin forming in the corner of your eyes and spill down your cheeks and over the pyramid that's now pressing tightly against your quivering form. It's too big and you want to push away, but with each renewed plunge you grow weaker. The small tears and rips that blossom around your abused intimacy turn into bleeding wounds. You want to sleep. 

A creature of pure instinct, serving as a reminder of human perversions and immoral desires. Travesty, corruption, sin. And what about it? Before you know it, a small moan escapes your dried lips. You throw your arms around your captor's shoulders. The sharp edges of the helmet scratch your skin, waking you back into consciousness. Your lower muscles start to relax around the massive member and allow for a smoother glide in and out. The numbness is gradually replaced by pleasant sensations. The throbbing reverberates inside your abdomen and your other leg wraps around the creature's hips, asking for more contact. Once your compliance is confirmed, the hand pinning you by the neck wanders to other parts of your body in starved desperation. Your voice returns and more lewd whines roll out one after another. If only you had a mirror so you could look at yourself in this moment. What shameless expressions are you wearing on your face? You're clinging to your violator in feverish depravity. And in return, the creature responds to your cravings with increased intensity. He seems to resonate with your wishes and stiffens his hold on you with newfound obsession. His thrusts become almost feral, with a certain possessiveness to it. 

As you're about to reach your peaks, your mind once again travels to the painting. You wonder if you'd be hung and framed just like the prisoners behind their executioner. Pleasure mixed with guilt. 

What sin is eroding your entrails? 

[caputvulpinum]

Hello/good morning, new people. Thanks for stopping by. I got a couple hours of sleep and I'm probably going to spend all day today working more on the Blanche Appleton case.

Here's where the story currently stands:

-Blanche Appleton, at first, appears to be a hoax invented by Kikkoman, possibly to appear prestigious and influential during the postwar occupation of Japan. There is shockingly little (i.e. apparently none) evidence of her existence outside of sources citing back to Kikkoman.

-After further investigation, signs right now are pointing to Blanche Appleton being a real individual working in the Economic and Scientific Bureau of the General Headquarters at the time. However, there are still many questions I want to find answers to.

-In a picture on Kikkoman's website, a woman stated to be Blanche Appleton is standing next to a clan head, Toshihiro Shoda, who was involved in Shoda Shoyu, a current shoyu brewery. Kikkoman would be put on trial for price fixing and found guilty along with three other major breweries, and would be subject to trustbusting and apportioning of assets due to it.

-Shoda Shoyu inherited Kikkoman assets during the dispersal, profiting off of the trustbust. But if so, why would Kikkoman have let him into one of their main factories as an apparent honored guest alongside Appleton? What is his relationship to Appleton and this story as a whole?

-Right now I'm trying to get all my current information composited/compiled, along with where I've found it. After that, I've started investigating the history of zaibatsu and yakuza clan organizations in businesses. I want to see if I can't track connections from the antitrust actions taken against Kikkoman directly to organized crime, or if I can't find implications of pseudo/semilegal methods used to ensure Kikkoman didn't truly get busted.

I'm grateful to everyone for their interest, and I promise I will keep all of you updated as things come; your involvement has been important as well. I'm very grateful to have such a dedicated audience to call on for help. I would prefer not to contact any third party investigative youtuber-type deal; this is something I want to be my own. If you'd like to support me during this time, my pinned post has some information for paying me--I'm currently a college student and goin through a real rough patch trying to get food on my table, so some coins in the tip jar would be the best way to allow me to encourage myself to keep on this story.

Once I decide on a properly appropriate name for all of this, I'm going to start tagging all my posts/additions about this with that name, that way people can follow the tag to get more reliable notifications about new developments.

[sweetpascal]

𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 — 𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞

gif by: @pedropcl

pairing: perv!stepdad!joel x fem!reader

summary: your thoughts are now consumed by joel. you cannot function properly without him nearby.

warnings: MINORS DNI. BIG AGE GAP [18/52], dumbification, toxic attachments, joel is SO fucking manipulative, aftercare (very late), cuddle fingeriinnggg, slow making out, finger sucking, pussy pronouns, joel "just the tip" miller, bare pussy grinding, spit as lube cause he's a nasty man, joel is also a scary man

wc: 6.7k

notes: my depraved baddies, we're getting closer and closer to the enddddd. also, virginity is a social construct. i understand that someone can still "lose their virginity" from fingering, BUT THIS IS FICTION. IGNORE IT. AND ENJOY IT. PLEASE. 🥺🥺🥺

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There has never been a time in your life when you felt truly alone. You always had your close group of friends, with whom you spent time nearly every other day, having a great time. You also had social media to keep you busy during times of boredom. Regretting not making the most of those two makes you feel foolish. That's all you'll ever be; a foolish little girl. Joel was right. You're nothing without him. You need him. You need his guidance to navigate the harsh realities of the world. Losing your only two means of escape is forcing you to face revelations you're not ready for. You're not prepared for adulthood, not just yet. At this moment, you feel utterly alone.

Minutes pass as you shuffle on your feet behind Joel, gazing at the back of his head while he sits at the kitchen table. He was considerate enough to leave your door unlocked, granting you the liberty to wander around the house, yet ensuring the front and back doors remained closed and locked. "Can't trust you going out alone anymore," he had said to you earlier today. His reasoning was fair. You had acted recklessly, and now you're facing the consequences. You don't hold Joel responsible. You never did blame him for his decisions. If only you had heeded his advice from the beginning. Be a good girl.

"Uh, Daddy?" You softly call out to him, your voice meek and quiet like a little mouse. Joel barely turns his head, motioning with his finger for you to come closer. With shaky steps, you stand between his spread legs.

Joel's gaze lifts to meet yours, his hair disheveled from constantly running his fingers through it. A sense of satisfaction swells in his chest as he notices your nervousness around him. You struggle to maintain eye contact and can't help but flinch whenever his hand moves abruptly.

"You should be getting down on your knees when you address Daddy, babydoll. It's the only polite thing to do, don't you think?" He tuts at you softly, raising his brows expectantly. He just realized that he hasn't provided his girl with a list of rules to follow. Considering your innocent and unaware nature, he thinks that assigning such a significant task might be too overwhelming for you to handle all at once.

With wide eyes, you scramble to your knees in front of him, your hands placed on the ground between your knees. The positioning accidentally causes the straps of your dress to slide down your shoulders, just barely exposing your chest to Joel's predatory eyes.

"Attagirl," he murmurs, the backs of his knuckles lovingly stroking your jaw, his thumb just barely pressing into one of the finger shaped bruises. "Now, what did you want to ask me, sweetheart?"

The intensity of Joel's gaze makes the question die on your lips. His fingers continue to stroke your jaw gently, their warmth coaxing you into a state of calm. The anxieties that once troubled you are fading away, leaving only the desire to please him, to heed his words, to fulfill his wishes. Joel. Joel. Joel.

He can see your eyes go unfocused the more he keeps his hand connected to your bruised skin. A sick smirk plays on his lips. Seeing you immediately submit to him so easily excites him. To have you down on your knees before him, eyes wide and glassy, lips parted. There's a part of him that wonders why he loves this, this power he holds. Joel is a depraved man, one that feeds into that sick monster hidden beneath him. He never acted this way with your mom. He never even spanks her, let alone gets her to submit in such a way that makes him feel like a god.

The second your body started developing into the womanly figure you have now is what had caught his attention early on. Maybe it's because you looked so much like her in her teenage years, or because you're just so fucking innocent and pure. Either way, his attraction for your mom had long since faded away, and you were the next best thing he wanted to take and destroy.

"Sweetheart," he calls out, gently shaking your shoulder to recapture your attention. "Is there something you want to tell me?" His voice, coupled with the gesture, brings you back to the moment.

With a frantic blink, you refocus your eyes on Joel. He nods, signaling for you to speak, the slight twitch in his jaw betraying his growing impatience. As you shuffle on your knees, your backside presses into the heel of your feet. You attempt to conceal your grimace, yet the intense pain swiftly radiates. Tears gather in your eyes as the burning sensation and fuzziness become overpowering.

Sniffling softly, you say, "I-I was just w-wondering if... if you can, um, make my behind feel a little better?" The question was shy, and you didn't even want to look at him, for you think he's going to reject you.

Joel's grin broadens at the sight of the soft, dejected expression on your face, and as your shoulders slump and your head hangs low, you brace for his scolding for having asked him to do such a task. You deserve to feel the pain of last night's punishment. You don't deserve Joel's gentle hands massaging the sore spots, kissing and whispering sweet praises in your ears. You weren't a good girl, and you don't blame him for not treating you as such.

His voice was so sweet and cooing. "Yeah? You want Daddy to make the pain go away?" His thumb swipes across your bottom lip, your little pink tip just barely poking out to rub across the pad.

The saltiness of his skin has your mouth salivating. You suck his thumb further between your lip, jerking your head to a weak nod as you hum affirmatively. Joel hums as well, only deep in thought as he weighs his options. He could keep on with his heinous punishments, forcing you to plead for him to stop--it's such a dangerous game to play. Alternatively, he might be kind today and pamper you, lavishing you with affection that you feel you don't deserve, which could further endear him to your impressionable mind. As he looks into your eyes and sees the way you're gazing up at him, his thumb firmly tucked between those lips and your silky little tongue swirling around the tip, he chooses the latter.

"Get your butt upstairs and lie on your tummy while Daddy grabs a few things, okay, babydoll?"

The soft breeze of your ceiling fan emitted a chill throughout your body, albeit a pleasant one. Goosebumps erupted on your skin, almost soothing the heat radiating from your bruised backside. Lying on your stomach, you wait patiently, straining your ears for any sign of Joel, but silence is all that meets you. The anticipation of his arrival has you swallowing hard against your pillow. It's as if he's moving quietly and slowly on purpose, prolonging the moment to heighten your sense of anticipation.

This was how he played his sick games. He was the cat, and you were the mouse. He loves being the predator and you, his prey. And for some obscene reason, you love it too.

A small creak at the doorway made you tense for a moment, but you relaxed upon seeing Joel standing there, his large frame filling the doorway. In his hands were two things: a white cloth rag of some kind and a bottle of lotion. You shiver delightfully, knowing that in just a few minutes he was going to be taking care of you in the way you needed.

"Ain't you a peach," he grins and steps inside, using his foot to fully shut the door, officially trapping the both of you inside. Joel's grin widens when he sees just how marked your backside is, the welts swollen and skin broken, large bruises that are all types of hues of blue and purple. "Hmm... Now, that's what I like to see."

You don't respond, opting to stay silent as you curiously observe him from over your shoulder. He pats your hip with the back of his hand, wordlessly telling you to scoot over. Once you do so, Joel unbuttons his shirt, completely removing the offending clothing from his body and tossing it aside. His chest and stomach were now fully exposed.

In the light, with a clear mind, you finally have the chance to take in every inch of Joel. His skin was so tan, it almost blended between caramel and bronze. Dots of hair speckled his chest, a mix of dark brown and gray. Then, there's hair around his belly button before it trails down to disappear under the waistband of his jeans, the hair getting darker and thicker. His skin is a canvas of freckles and old scars, each one a silent story that tempts your curiosity. Questions about their origins linger on the tip of your tongue, yet they remain unasked, perhaps to be explored if alone time with him arises once more.

"Your head is in the clouds again, babydoll," Joel teases, his voice holding a light-heartedness to it, immediately easing your nerves. At the sound of your quiet giggle that you muffle in your pillow, he gets comfortable between your thighs, gently coaxing them to spread wider to accommodate his large size. "There we go," he whispers under his breath.

The hot rag in his hand is gently laid over your backside, the fabric big enough to cover both cheeks. The sudden feeling made you flinch and whine unpleasantly, one foot gently kicking to try to distract you from the pain. Joel hushes you softly, one of his hands sweetly rubbing up and down the back of your thighs.

"Just relax, babydoll," his voice was so soft and comforting. "Let Daddy take care of your pretty self." He applies light pressure to the hot rag, further soothing the sensitive, enflamed skin. Another whisper comes from above, a little less pained and a lot more relieved. "That feel good, baby?"

You let out a drowsy hum as you succumb to the sensation. There was a liquid heat pooling all around your lower half as the pain from your backside gradually melts into a dull ache. Joel glances down between your thighs, your pussy lips spreading open, labia and clit on display for him to see. There's a shine covering your untouched hole. The pearly slick, slowly, slowly, slowly sliding out of your hole and trailing down to cover your clit. There's a small flutter as your pussy clenches, just briefly. An ache in Joel's jaw and his mouth salivating reminds him that now is not the time to act on his impulse. As much as he wants to bury his face between those thighs, he knows he has to make sure that you're going to be working properly before he has his fun again.

When the rag gets cold, he removes it from your backside. The cold air bites into your skin, the sudden shock taking you by surprise. The sensation of pin pricks across your exposed skin causes you to squirm. Joel is aware that it's painful once more. Your soft whimpers of discomfort prompt a quiet chuckle from him.

He grabs the bottle of lotions and squirts a generous amount into the palm of his hand. "Just a second, babydoll," he tells you softly, coaxing you to lay flat on your tummy again. You wait for a few seconds, and then you feel it.

There's a gooey warmth that covers both of your cheeks. It makes your eyes flutter shut. Then, Joel's hands start to massage your tender flesh, gently rubbing and smoothing out the aches. The pressure was so good, and the weight of his hands on your ass allowed your brain to slowly turn into mush.

He continues massaging your cheeks, even going as far as to "accidentally" swipe his thumb against your puckered hole. The action caused you to jolt and gasp, the sound of his laughter making your cheeks warm. When the ache was now dulled into a pleasant numbness, you stretched out your limbs like a little kitty in the sunlight, a soft hum vibrating into the pillow. You look over your shoulder and watch as Joel wipes his hands clean with the damp rag he had used. Seeing his bare chest has you biting down on your bottom lip.

"Uh... Daddy?" There was hesitation in the way you spoke. The idea occurred to you the second Joel had removed his shirt. The sight of your stepdad in your bedroom, clad in just his jeans, touching you in such a way was exciting. Warmth pooled in your stomach, a certain liquid heat that was hard to ignore.

Joel gazes at you with expectation, his eyebrows lifted as he catches the hesitant expression on your face. It seems like you're eager to ask him something, yet you're apprehensive about his reaction. Before this ambiguous relationship began, you'd always rush over to him, words spilling out rapidly to pose questions without a second thought. He was charmed by it. Your eyes sparkled with innocent curiosity, hanging on his every word, which he thought was incredibly cute. However, given his recent behavior, you've become more cautious about your inquiries, wanting to ensure they're significant.

"Can... Can we kiss, like how we did last time?"

The surprise on his face made you giggle. He wasn't expecting you to ask for something like that, let alone think of the naughty stuff he's already done with you at the beginning of the week. Joel clears his throat and trails his eyes over your nude backside, zeroing in on your bare pussy, almost screaming for him to touch and lick up. When he looks back up at you from where you lay against the pillow, your bottom lip tucked underneath your top teeth and your messy hair, he finds himself nodding.

When he props himself up against your pillows, you immediately clamber onto his chest, one leg resting between his legs while your other is propped up and slung over his hip. With your head resting comfortably on his shoulder, Joel rests one arm behind your back, curling it to cup your jaw from behind. Your heart is facing as you get close to his face. Eyes half-lidded and lips parted, you're the one that makes the first move.

When your lips meet, it's like stars bursting behind your eyelids. So soft, so inviting. Joel's lips are as addictive as an expensive drug. You crave their touch every second, every minute, every day.

His tongue enters your mouth and you're quick to eagerly suck it between your lips. He groans huskily and pulls his tongue away before messily kissing you. The hand that rests on your hip slowly trails down and around the back of your thigh before the tips of his fingers rest along your labia. Then, he starts rubbing up and down, further spreading the wetness that leaks out of your empty pussy. He touches everywhere. Your swollen clit, puffy labia, bare pussy lips, and your fluttering hole are left untouched.

You're nibbling on his bottom lip, eagerly shoving your tongue sloppily into his tongue. Joel groans at the taste of your mixed saliva. To have you in his arms like this, naked and so very vulnerable, it was driving him fucking insane. Your hips are shifting and bucking towards his hand, but each time his fingers rub deeper, he pulls them away. When he also pulls his lips from yours, you chase them with a desperate whimper.

"Patience, babydoll," he mutters, glancing down at the pleasure-drunk expression on your face. "Let Daddy have some fun." Joel continues smearing your wetness all over. The messy sounds of your slick being rubbed with his long, thick fingers has you blushing fiercely with embarrassment--embarrassed at the fact that he's touching you like this, probably in the same way he's touched your mom in the past. It's so dirty and naughty.

Your hand gently pets at his scruffy jaw, lashes fluttering so prettily like a butterfly's wings. Lips parted, you slowly and gently kissed him again. This kiss, however, was a lot different than the others. There was a tenderness that Joel got lost in. It made his heart skip a beat, like actually skip a beat. You're so sure he can feel your heart racing as well. Languid kissing was now your favorite thing with him. The soft, wet smacking sounds of your lips connecting and disconnecting has you whimpering delicately.

Joel's fingers now focus on your fluttering pussy hole, slick dripping out non-stop, further adding to the stickiness on his finger pads. The hand holding your jaw from behind your head tightens to pull you away.

"I'm goin' to put a finger inside, okay, baby? Daddy's goin' to make that little pussy feel so good," he whispers needily against your wet lips. When you protest, he shushes you and kisses your lips repeatedly. "Be quiet while Daddy has his fun."

Very carefully, he pushes his middle finger inside your pussy, shushing you again when you let out a squeak and try to pull your hips away. Joel's fingers follow your movements, only deepening each time you try to move. He slowly fucks his fingers inside your pussy, the tight, wet heat making his dick thicken in his jeans. The sloppy sounds of your slick, coupled with your weak whimpers has him growling lowly. He retracts his finger and goes back to rubbing your pussy in up-and-down movements again, only this time he's paying more attention to your needy clit.

"Tha' feel good, honey?" He murmurs sweetly against your lips, kissing you once, twice, three times before glancing down at you. With a shaky nod, you tell him in that pretty voice yes, yes, feels s'good. "Mhm."

Your hips are barely grinding against his thick bulge as if they have a mind of their own. There's a neediness in the way you mouth at his neck, your tongue and teeth mapping every inch that you can reach. With your focus now on something else, Joel takes this opportunity to move his hand from your weeping cunt and bring it between your bodies to slyly unbutton and unzip his jeans. He slowly pulls them down, leaning his head back down to capture your lips in another syrupy slow kiss. His cock springs out of his jeans and rests above the waistband of his boxers.

You're not paying attention to what he's doing--so focused on his lips, his warm skin, his chest, his tongue, his scent, just Joel. Daddy. Daddy.

With your attention on his mouth, Joel blindly grips the base of his cock and brings the tip to your opening. He glides the engorged tip up and around your fluttering hole, tapping it lewdly and crudely against it as wet smacking sounds filling the air. Your eyes fly open, and your body seizes as you grab onto his burly forearm.

"Daddy, no! I'm not ready yet!" You practically cry out, eyes wide and frazzled as you frantically shake your head. You've seen the size of Joel. The man is packing. He's fucking massive. And you know you're not ready to take all of him. You can't imagine the pain of being split open by something so long and so thick.

Joel hushes you sweetly, removing his hand from his thick base to tenderly grab a hold of your hip again. "Jus' grind tha' pussy on Daddy for a little bit, baby. Ssshh... you can do tha' for me, right?" His hips start to slowly grind his dick between your pussy lips, your labia spreading open and your clit catching his frenulum. "You wanna be a good girl for me, right? You wanna be punished again, babydoll? Hm? That what you want?"

Feeble whimpers leave your swollen lips at the thought of Joel further punishing you, beating your backside black and blue again. Resting back onto his chest, you shyly wiggle your hips until the position is comfortable enough for you to grind your hips forward and back. Joel grins and cups the back of your thigh to lift it higher on his waist. The feeling of his cock, now covered in your wetness and gliding easily between your pussy lips, has you feeling so tingly and warm down there. It was a new sensation. Getting to feel the thick vein that stretches from the base all the way to his tip was surreal.

"It... It feels... good," you whisper against his scruffy jaw, lips parted next to his chin to let out heavy breaths as the warmth spreads. "I-I like it."

Joel's deep chuckle reached your ears. "Daddy knows best, babydoll," he tells you, his hips grinding a little harder, so his tip nudges the hood of your clit to fully expose the sensitive nerve. "Daddy knows what's good for you, honey." His hand tightens on your jaw, fingers squeezing your cheeks to part your lips. "You're jus' my little girl that don't know any better, ain't you? Hm? Are you my dumb babygirl?"

The kiss he gives you is filthy. Your hushed whines are muffled as his tongue fights against yours. The liquid heat burns bigger and stronger, spreading all throughout your lower half, down to the tips of your toes and back up again. Your cunt is fluttering wildly. You feel the same sensation as when Joel ate your pussy. He knows it's going to happen. He can tell in the way your whines get more high-pitched and your hips stutter against his wet cock.

When he pulls away, you chase after him again, one hand desperately grabbing the back of his neck to pull him back down. No, no, no, please, don't go, don't leave me. Eyes filled with tears, you weakly beg him, "Da-Daddy, p-please don't... d-don't stop."

As Joel pulls away, the panic clear as day in your eyes has his heart thudding faster. Oh, you poor girl. So desperate to keep him close by. It was an adorable sight, seeing your eyes filled with thick tears as you beg him, over and over again to please, don't leave me. But he hushes you softly, gripping your jaw tighter and pressing into the bruises. His free hand comes up to his lips where he spits a thick wad of saliva in his palm. His hand goes back down between your bodies to coat his cock in his spit, some of it dripping down his heavy balls.

"Can I put the tip inside your little pussy, baby?" Joel breathlessly asks against your swollen lips, pressing a tender kiss before repeating the question again. "Can Daddy put the tip inside? Hm?"

He grinds his cock up and down your pussy again, the added slickness of his spit creating this disgusting, sopping noise. You start protesting as he notches his thick tip at your wet entrance. Grabbing at his forearm once again, you try your best to keep him from pushing it inside.

Shaking your head frantically, you tell him again, weakly, "I-I'm not ready yet, Daddy!"

Joel shuts you up by biting down roughly on your bottom lip, breaking the skin and licking away the blood that dots the pink flesh. With your blood on his tongue, that only fuels the animalistic need within him to fucking split you open.

"It's just the tip, babydoll," he tells you again, his voice deep, gravelly, wrecked. "You can take it, honey. C'mon. You can... take it." Ignoring your crying protests, he slowly pushed his hips up to slide his tip inside your pussy for the first time. He groans heavily against your mouth, sucking your bloody bottom lip between his own and licking the redness away. "Fuuuuuck."

The burn was nearly excruciating. Having something so thick and wide inside your virgin pussy has your breath catching in your throat. To know that Joel wants to put every single inch of himself deep inside is terrifying. I'm not ready. I'm not ready. No, no, no.

"See? It ain't so bad, huh?" Joel's grin is sick and wide as he feels your hole fluttering wildly around his tip. He gently starts to push his hips in and out, slowly fucking his tip into your cunt. "She's jus' suckin' me right in, ain't she? Fuuuck, baby. She's jus' drivin' me fuckin' crazy." His accent was getting gradually thicker and almost incoherent. His heart is racing over a hundred beats per minute under your shaky palm.

You're trying to breathe in and out deeply to not focus on the uncomfortable pain. The stretch was slowly setting to a numbness. The tip of Joel's cock keeps pressing against a spot beneath your pubic bone, giving you the feeling of tingles but more intense. Joel's smile gets much wider when your body relaxes against his chest, your nose pressing into his neck beneath his ear to let out hushed moans that you're trying so hard to keep silent.

"There we go," he hums deeply. "She jus' needed time to get used to Daddy's dick, hm?" The way he's talking to you and referencing your pussy has you melting into a puddle. It's all so intense and overwhelming--you never want it to end. "Jus' you wait 'til Daddy gets so deep inside of her." He accentuated the word by nudging just an inch deeper inside your pussy, forcing a choked groan from your drooling lips.

Joel's hand is still curled around the base, just below his tip. He can feel the coil tightening in the pit of his stomach as his balls draw tighter. He's panting heavily against your forehead, the slick noises just adding to the liquid heat spreading along his large body. Fuck, he was going to cum just like this, his tip lodged inside his stepdaughter's tight, virgin cunt. A sick, old man he is--defiling his wife's daughter and enjoying the depravity. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

"Fuck," Joel growls, his nostrils flaring, jaw clenching, and teeth baring as he grips his base tightly and yanks his hips away. He slots his cock between your ass cheeks and strokes his hand up and down hastily, your bruised cheeks jiggling from his fist meeting the flesh repeatedly. The sight has his toes curling. The drowsy whimper you release in his ear and the fucking scent of your pussy that he can smell all the way up from where he lay has his cock throbbing. "Daddy's cummin', babydoll. Oh, f-fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuuuuuuck."

His cum shoots out from between your ass cheeks, thick ropes of white painting your bruises and cute little back dimples, even going so far to reach up your spine and almost landing in your hair. He just won't stop cumming. It's going and going. Joel's entire body is trembling as he jerks the tip, forcing out the last few dribbles of his cum onto your puckered hole.

You felt his spend splattering across your skin, and you wiggle impatiently in his hold, wishing you could've seen it with your own eyes if you weren't so tucked against his neck. Joel lets out a heavy, shaky breath. His beautifully hooked nose brushes against yours, coaxing you to lift your head.

He brings his cum-covered fingers to your lips, the tips rubbing lovingly across the bottom. Maintaining eye contact, you part them and let Joel slowly push his fingers into your mouth. The taste of his cum on your tongue was unlike anything you've ever tasted. It was a masculine, heavy taste, which perfectly accentuates who Joel Miller is. Your eyes flutter shut as you eagerly bring in a third finger, your lips stretched wide around his thick fingers.

"Attagirl," Joel huskily mumbles. "Jus' like that."

You and Joel have fallen into a steady routine. There's an unspoken agreement of where your place is. He can shoot you a specific look and you immediately know what he's trying to say. Joel's an easy man to read, at least to you. There have been many instances where you overheard him and your mom arguing about him being so closed off. But with you, he's so natural at showing you multiple sides of him. You don't mind, really.

As evening falls, Joel is at the stove preparing dinner for both of you. Although it's not your preferred meal, his word is final--what he says, goes. You've learned not to refuse what he's offered so far. Standing near him, you observe his actions with keen interest. Joel often glances back to ensure you're there. You trail behind him, following his every step without question, much like a lost puppy would. Even when he steps into the bathroom, you find yourself waiting right outside the door for him to emerge. It was a weird feeling; a fear you never knew you had within you when it came to your stepdad. You feel as though if he leaves for just a split second, he's never going to come back. And you'll be here lost, alone.

"Dinner time, sweetheart," Joel declares, snapping you out of your daydream. As you dash to the table, he halts you with a hand on your arm. "Whoa, slow down there, speed racer." Chagrined by his gentle chiding, you offer a subdued apology.

As Joel takes a seat at the table, you attempt to follow suit, but he loudly tuts and extends a hand to halt you. Grasping your plate, he sets it down beside his feet. His expression leaves no space for objections. Similar to the previous day, you are left without utensils to eat with. Wordlessly, you get down onto your knees and wait for him to tell you when it's okay to start eating. Joel starts eating his meal pathetically slowly. He's doing it on purpose--you know he's doing it on purpose. He loves making you squirm. He loves to draw it out longer than it's supposed to--just an added perk to his game.

When your stomach starts grumbling loudly, you look up at him with wide, pleading eyes. Joel barely casts you a glance. He keeps eating his meal, even going as far as to hum loudly as the savoring flavors explode on his tongue. When he has just a few bites left, knowing that your food is now cold, he looks down and gives you a single nod.

Immediately, you bow your head to your plate and begin to hastily mop up your meal. It's untidy and careless, yet it doesn't bother you. You're uncertain when Joel might surprise you again, preventing or restricting your eating. As you take each bite, you watch for a sign from him to cease. Looking up, you notice his focus is solely on his own meal, methodically chewing. Sensing your gaze, he commands without glancing your way, "Eat your damn food before I take it away." With a strained whimper, you comply.

Silence stretches through the air as you both eat. You refrain from mentioning to Joel that your stomach is cramping from eating too quickly, not wanting to seem ungrateful for the meal he prepared with care. When he looks at you, he notices the gradual slowing of your jaw as you struggle to swallow. It's becoming apparent to him that feeding you just once a day is taking its toll.

Suddenly, a series of knocks sounded at the door—five urgent, frantic raps. Panic gripped you, shoulders tightening and jaw clenching as you exchanged a fearful glance with Joel. His brows knitted together, and he quickly wiped his hands and mouth with the napkin.

He points down at you, "You stay right here, and don't make a peep. Understood?"

He doesn't wait for an answer before forcefully pushing back his chair, the legs scraping loudly against the wooden floor. You wince and watch anxiously as he stomps over to the door and peers through the peephole.

Joel's jaw clenches upon recognizing the visitor. Muttering, "Son of a bitch," he pulls the door open, one hand gripping the doorknob while the other rests atop the doorframe. There on the porch stands your lanky guy friend, the one you visited the lake with. "Can I help you?" he asks, his tone sharp and unwelcoming.

Your friend shifts nervously, taken aback by Joel answering the door. He softly clears his throat, attempting to peer over Joel's shoulder, but Joel moves nearer to the doorway, narrowing the gap on his side.

"I was wondering if your stepdaughter is home?" he stammers, avoiding eye contact with Joel. "She hasn't been answering her phone, and our friends are really worried," he adds, while Joel feels a sense of satisfaction from the fear he perceives in the boy's demeanor.

"She's grounded," Joel says, his tone getting colder when the boy tries, yet again, to look over his shoulder. "Now, I suggest you turn your ass around and get the fuck off my porch."

Your friend's eyes widen, and he takes a staggered step back at Joel's violently dark tone. "The fuck is your problem, man?!"

From within the house, the volume of your friend's voice escalates, almost to a shout at Joel. You observe Joel's hand clench around the doorknob, and it's surprising that it remains intact under his grasp.

He can't understand what overtakes him; perhaps it's knowing you're mere feet away, or maybe it's because the kid has witnessed things about you he disapproves of. However, the only thing Joel is aware of is the white-hot rage engulfing him. You watch as he storms out and slams the door with such force that the vibration is felt on the ground where you kneel.

Outside, Joel's hands clench the collar of the boy's shirt, likely tearing the fabric with his sheer strength. He thrusts him against the porch post, almost splintering the wood and the boy's skull with the impact. Joel leans in, his shoulders rising and falling, emitting a low growl from his throat. The boy's whimpers are muffled as Joel's knuckles press into his windpipe.

"Listen to me, and you listen good," Joel leans in close, his voice low and dangerous. "If you so much as talk to her again, look at her, touch her, or even think about her, I'll have you wishin' you were never born." Your friend's toes are barely skimming the ground as Joel has him literally lifted up against the wooden post. His hands are frantically grabbing Joel's forearms, feet weakly kicking. The man doesn't budge--he only presses harder. "If you come back to my house to bother my girl one more time, I will fuckin' kill you." He gravely whispers the last threat and releases his hands, watching as your friend pathetically falls to the ground onto his hands and knees, coughing and gasping for air as he grabs his throat. "Now, go on. Get."

Joel remains on the porch, his fists clenched at his sides, shoulders rising and falling with each heavy breath. His gaze is fixed on your friend as he dashes away and fumbles into his meager Honda Civic. Even after the vehicle disappears down the road, Joel is motionless. The fury within him, burning in his chest and gut, has not subsided; it has only grown stronger.

Within the house, silence prevails. A single loud thump disrupts the quiet, followed by stillness. You pause for a moment, the sound of your own heartbeat the only noise. The urge to call out to Joel is strong, but the words are stuck in your throat. Anxiety creeps back into your chest, gnawing at your heart and corroding your veins. Did Joel leave? Where is he? Where did he go? Please, come back. Daddy, don't leave. Where are you? Please, please, come back. Don't leave me here alone. They're going to get me. Please. Oh, God. He's gone. He's never coming back.

White noise fills the cracks in Joel's mind. He sits on the porch swing hunched over, both elbows resting on his knees as he twiddles with his gold wedding band. His knee bounces up and down in quick succession. Someone had gotten too close to his home--to his special girl. The lanky fucking kid. Joel's hands clench into tight fists, just begging to slam them into your friend's face over and over until he's a mangled, unrecognizable pile of flesh and broken bones.

He's uncertain of the time he's spent out here; it might have been minutes or perhaps an hour. Time mattered little to him. His thoughts were consumed by you, his little girl. In his eyes, no one could match what he has provided for you, and he believes you would agree. Joel is confident in his knowledge, convinced that you belong to him. He sees himself as your destined protector, even if his hands were metaphorically elongated like a beast with monstrous nails ready to strike.

You belonged to Joel Miller, whether you knew it or not.

As the streetlights flicker on, he realizes it's time to head back inside. The neighborhood is winding down for the evening. A sudden memory jolts Joel; he had left you alone in the house. Leaping from his seat, he flings the door open, then slams it shut, securing both the bottom and top locks. Turning towards the kitchen, he freezes upon spotting you—a mere few feet away, curled up in a fetal position on the floor, whimpering and trembling.

"Babydoll," Joel tuts and carefully walks around you to bend down, tenderly pushing your hair from your face and catching sight of your tear-filled eyes. "Did I tell you to move? Hm?"

The sound of his voice was like a lifeline to your heart—his words were the breath you needed, and you felt as if you were at death's door. In a rush, you stood and threw your arms around his shoulders, almost toppling both of you to the ground. Tears streamed down your face, and sobs of distress were just barely restrained the moment his body pressed against yours.

Crying out to him, "Y-You left me! You l-left me a-alone! I thought... I thought you weren't coming back! The bad people were gonna t-take me away from you!" Trying to bury yourself deeper in his neck, you silently begged for Joel to take you somewhere, far away from here.

It was naive to believe you could manage alone. At your current age, it's only a matter of time before your mom discusses the prospect of moving out. Yet now, the mere idea of being apart from Joel triggers a wave of panic. How can you explain to your mom that without him, you feel incomplete? She might find it appalling. It wasn't difficult to keep your relationship with Joel a secret, but the threat of being pushed out of the house makes you wonder if it's worth it.

"I-I don't think I can do this anymore, Joel," you wept, sniffling and breathing heavily in his shoulder, fingers desperately grabbing at the fabric of his t-shirt to keep him close when he shifts an inch or two away. "I can't... I can't be away from you. I can't th-think, I can't function, I can't breathe w-without you, Daddy!"

There it was, the answer he's been waiting for. Hook, line, sinker. Joel has damaged you so severely to where you need to be around him or else you'll go crazy. This is what he was waiting for, fucking aching for. So young, so innocent, so pure. Now tainted by his predatory hands, bruised and marked by his false promises and sick fantasies. This is a dream come true. His wedding band almost burns through your skin as you feel the cold metal on your bare shoulder.

"Oh, my sweet babydoll," he coos in your ear, that honeyed tone of his easing your worries.

If only you understood his thoughts about you, his desires from you. Convincing your mind that this relationship is normal, making you believe that this is true love—you poor, poor girl.

Joel continues, his voice gradually turning dark as his hands tighten around your shoulders, nails digging crescents into your delicate skin, "This is just the beginning."

taglist:

@yesjazzywazzylove-blog ; @blueberrypancakesworld ; @heyhihello-4771 ; @codenamekitten ; @chamepagnessimo ; @idioticcatss ; @takochansugoi ; @zjasminelouvre3 ; @natalieispunk ; @koshkaj-blog ; @giowritess ; @beardropascal ; @pascaltesfaye ; @callmeafra ; @nexy00 ; @josephquinnswhore ; @baronessvonglitter ; @peelieblue ; @paanchusblog ; @b3bybunny ; @sugadolly ; @ktluvsmen ; @elliesr1fle ; @taeslarityy ; @yourgirljasmin444 ; @laloestoyvivo ; @aquanatalie ; @vickie5446 ; @cowboybootjoel ; @olicity-boo ; @ashleyfilm ; @withakindheartx ; @puduvallee ; @psychoenergy ; @chuutzuyu ; @cockykookiee

[hajimeseyo]

“Tell me something about yourself that not many people know.”

“What's this?” he asks, voice laced with amusement.

“Just answer me, ‘tsuya.” you grumble, head lolling over the side of the bed you're currently spread out on, peering at his upside down figure. “I'm bored.”

Mitsuya hums thoughtfully, pen tapping against the table absentmindedly. Both your homeworks lay abandoned on his table, you having already given up a long time ago and pestering him to do the same, despite his best efforts to stay focused and finish them.

“I have a dragon tattoo on the side of my head.” he says casually.

“WHAT?????” you leap up from your spread-eagle position to gape at him properly. His lips curl into an impish grin at your reaction, the sight sending butterflies flying through your stomach. You swat them away in favour of focusing on the more pressing matter at hand. 

“Yeah.” His hand comes up to tap at the right side of his head. “Right here.”

You scramble off the bed, nearly tripping over yourself as you rush to his side. “Whaaat the fuck. You're the last person I'd expect to ever have a tattoo.” you say as you pull up your chair next to him, plopping down on it.

He huffs in amusement. “I am in a gang, y'know.” 

“I know, but you're like, more well behaved compared to them.” You pause, peering at his face suspiciously. “...right?”

A mischievous smile is all you get in response.

Rolling your eyes, you turn your attention back to the side of his head, peering closely at the short lilac hair, trying to catch a glimpse of the tattoo. You can't see anything, though, due to all the hair fully covering it.

“Can I…?” you raise your hand hesitantly. He nods, grabbing your wrist and bringing it to where the tattoo supposedly lies, the warm touch sending sparks flying through your skin.

Carefully, your fingers gently part his hair to reveal the scalp below. The slight shiver as your fingers make contact with his head doesn't go unnoticed by you, although none of you say a word.

And there, under the lilac strands, you catch glimpses of furling strands of black ink, coiling and curling into something resembling—

“A dragon?” you murmur.

Mitsuya hums. “Mhm. I designed it myself. Cool, huh?” You can hear the pride in his voice.

You snort, not wanting to give him the satisfaction. “I suppose.” Following the strands of ink, you trace down the side of his scalp, mesmerized by the intricate design. Despite your seemingly unimpressed response, you found the tattoo really beautiful, the art style unique and artistic, the way it curves along the side of Mitsuya's head so naturally you wouldn't be surprised if he said he was born with it. Lost in your concentration, you don't notice Mitsuya's slowly reddening cheeks, closing his eyes as his head subconsciously leans into your gentle touch.

The two of you stay like that for a while, in comfortable silence, him enjoying your ministrations, you too absorbed in admiring every detail of the tattoo to notice. 

Until you trace the final curl of the dragon's tail, the trail ending making you snap out of whatever trance you were in, face immediately flushing a deep red as you realized you probably spent way more time touching him than you should've. Your hand instantly jolts back from his head as if it touched hot iron. At the loss of your touch, Mitsuya's eyes slowly fluttered open, gazing lazily at you, the sight once again sending some weird, hot feeling shooting through you. Damn this man and his stupidly pretty face.

You clear your throat, trying to act natural. “Why have a tattoo when you can't even see it under all that hair, though?” 

That question catches him off guard, and he barks out a laugh. “There's a funny story behind it, actually.”

He goes on to tell you the story of how he got the tattoo, from meeting this boy called Draken, to playing games at the brothel, to deciding to become a delinquent and accidentally matching tattoos with Draken. Your jaw dropped more and more as the story progressed, mostly from how unexpected and wild the entire thing was.

“Damn.” you laugh when he finishes. “And here I thought you were this good, well-behaved child who got roped into the gang business by their friends. I mean, abandoning your sisters to graffiti a wall?” you shake your head in mock disapproval. “What a bad child you are.” 

His lips stretch into a sly grin, something dangerous glinting in his eyes. “Oh? Really, [name], you should've known by now.”

He leans forward until his lips are right by your ear, voice coming out in a teasing whisper.

“I can get quite naughty sometimes.” 

...

You're quite certain your face is in flames. 

You sit there, short-circuiting, as Mitsuya leans back into his chair, a self-satisfied smirk on his face. Fumbling, you glance around desperately from something that will save you, and your eyes land on the abandoned exercise books on the table, the whole reason you were at Mitsuya's house in the first place. 

“Oh! Would you look at that! Our homework! That we still have to finish!” You pull your chair back to the other side of the table hurriedly and bury your face in the books, your homework suddenly being the most interesting thing in the world. You hear him chuckle, but he doesn't say anything, picking up his pen and continuing with his work. Your heart finally stops racing, and you think that you're safe until—

“[name]?”

“Hm?”

“I enjoyed that very much. Feel free to do it again if you want~”

“...”

This boy is going to be the death of you.

(part 2 here!)

[iguessthisisanewobsession]

this is a sequel to this.

The hoodlums and nightlings: @skulld3mort-1fan, @satanicrutialspecialist, @terzatheunderscorerima, @autumnwulf, @jaggedheart11, @froartuck,

Danny is panicking.

Not to say that he isn’t usually in this state of mind, but it has became very clear that he had fucked up as he looked down at the two unconscious vigilantes in his living room.

He had just moved to Gotham for a scholarship.

He can’t go to jail!

Glancing around Danny threw the creep stick behind the sofa.

‘Think Danny think! Fuck who to call? Should I even call?? I can’t lose my scholarship, I’ll have to move back to amity!

“Uuhhh-“

Dragging two unconscious men into his bedroom was not how is Thursday morning would go.

But here he is!

He gently plopped the two on their sides and closed the door.

“Fuck.. fuck.. ah fuck.”

Grabbing his phone, he scrolled through his contacts and pressed call.

“Pick up pick up come on don’t be the first time you sleep in-“

“Yo man what’s up?”

“Hey- Tim! This Danny from film class!”

“Kinda figured man, caller ID and all. Why are you awake anyways you said we would continue our call tomorrow?”

“Yeah.. about that uh this going to sound a bit odd but I’m a transfer so I don’t really know much about Gotham rules and stuff so there might be a code for this or something but-“

“Danny, you’re rambling. Just spit it out and-“

“IMAYHAVETWOOFTHEVIGNETTESONMYBEDPLEASEHELP!”

.

.

“Come again?”

Danny took in another deep breath,

“I was getting a glass of water, and someone broke into my apartment, so I knocked them out. Turns out it was a vigilante. And he was not alone. So now I have two vigilantes in my bed. Please help.”

There was another pause and Danny heard what he thought was a snort through the speaker before Tim cleared his throat.

“Ok, don’t panic, I know a guy. He’ll come over and take them out of your hands. Just need an address.”

~~~~~~~~

There was a tap at his fire escape half an hour later.

Danny unlatched the window to let in Batman and Red Robin.

“Birdy retrieval system; you bag em’ we drag em’. How may we help you?”

Danny scuffed his slippers against his rug with a weary chuckle,

“I am so sorry I-“

Batman gently rested his palm on Danny’s shoulder,

“The two of them were supposed to do surveillance in the area and had the wrong complex. You did nothing wrong; this entire situation is on their fault, and they will be properly dealt with for their actions.”

Before swiftly walking into Danny’s bedroom and slinging Red hood onto his back.

Red Robin for his part was holding back laughter as he shouldered the larger nightwing like nothing.

“Yeah man, it’s not everyday someone gets the jump on one of us let alone two.”

And before he could even begin to comprehend how weird his life was, the four left Danny to his own.

With a shake of his head, Danny grabbed to creep stick and leaned it against his radiator before locking his window once more and headed to bed.

“It’s too early for this..”

~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile in the Batcave:

Tim: YOU GOT TAKEN OUT BY A TWINK!!

[tteokdoroki]

⋆ 𝜗𝜚 ˚⟡. — KATSUKU BAKUGOU. homemade love.

about. katsuki takes the pain of his middle-born daughter to heart, and does anything he can to fix it.

warnings. minors, blank and ageless blogs do not interact! sfw, fluff, characters aged up, bakugou is a girl dad of three, reader is referred to as ‘ma’, their daughter is quirkless like deku lol, he makes her pasta, pro hero!bakugou, fem!reader, … a draft from a long time ago!! enjoy please <3

katsuki who cooks and makes his middle daughter her favourite pasta recipe whenever she’s down.

she comes home from middle school with scraped palms and knees, teary eyed and with the weight of the world on her shoulders.

“they don’t like me ‘cause ‘m quirkless.” she says as soon as she’s through the door — the authentic bakugou twang thick in her shaky voice. her face is pressed into your torso when you make eye contact with katsuki, who’s emerged from the kitchen down the hall and to your left.

you see it all flash before his eyes — his childhood, his high school career and the day he died. the way he treated the number one, uncle izuku, for so many years. it’s all reflected in the familiar red of his middle child’s eyes and it kills him.

“c’mere squirt,” katsuki calls to her, drying off his hands with the red riot tea towel slung lazily over his shoulder. he’d been washing dishes before she got home. “we’re makin’ dinner together.”

“but i—“

“i wasn’t askin’, i was tellin’.” the older blonde nudges his head towards the kitchen, reaching a hand out for his daughter which she tenderly takes. when she sniffles, bakugou tucks her into his side as if to protect her from the horrors of the world. you let them go without interrupting, knowing the importance of this moment for the two.

it’s not easy, being a bakugou when you’ve got dynamight’s reputation to live up to. he’s fearsome and fiery, confident and calculated. your husband and the father of your three beautiful daughters is one of the main reasons why japan is safe today. the burden and weight of his reputation that your children carry is unimaginable — only made worse by the fact that your middle is quirkless.

and yet, dynamight’s love for her doesn’t falter. since the moment he first held his baby girl she’s been his entire world, his moon along with his sun and now his stars. he’s adored her before she even became a twinkle in his eye — no amount of power or special ability would change that for him.

she’s katsuki’s girl, not just dynamight’s daughter. he’d tear the world apart to find anyone who ever hurt her.

“hold the knife properly. you cut your finger off ‘n yer ma will have my head.” his gruff voice, holding no malice, makes your sweet girl snort with laughter — a change from her earlier wobbly bottom lip and teary eyes. “we’re tryna mince garlic for the sauce, not yer little hands, squirt.”

she sticks her tongue out at him, bright blonde curls bouncing when she narrowly misses a playful swat from her father. “i’m trying,” your middle child wails with faux upset — her nose scrunches all too similarly to how yours and it sends an arrow of love straight through katsuki’s chest. for a moment, the kitchen falls to silence and the elder of the two turns his attention to the pasta dough in his large floured hands — focusing on shaping them into little bow ties just how his daughter likes, on occasion adding them to a boiling pot of water.

“i’m trying,” she says again, but quieter. “but daddy, everythin’s so hard.”

and like pot simmering away on the stove, her emotions start to boil over — tiny hiccups forming a sad symphony with the sounds of a working kitchen.

bakugou instantly springs into dad mode, dropping everything that he had been doing to take your daughter’s hand in his. despite how messy it may be. “hey now gorgeous, don’t cry…tell me what’s wrong, yeah?”

“i-i don’t want to disappoint you by not havin’ a quirk n not bein’ a hero…” she manages to get out through her blubbering — digging the heal of her palm into wet eyes. “i jus’ wanna make you proud!”

katsuki’s face softens, everything except for love for his daughter melting away. “‘nd i am proud. fiercely fuckin’ so…ah, shit, don’t tell yer ma i cursed, kay?” he stumbles over his words, he’s never been the best at comforting people but when bakugou’s child needs him, he’ll be damned if he leaves her in any pain. “from the moment y’first came into this shitty — i mean — crappy world, i’ve been proud of you. you’ve always pushed yourself beyond anythin’ i could achieve, you’re kind to people when they don’t deserve it, you smile whenever things get tough…”

taking a moment from his passionate rant, katsuki slows his breathing and composed himself — squeezing his little girl close. “yer the best thing that’s ever happened t’me ‘n yer ma. my proudest moment… i love ya so much. you’d never disappoint me.”

“really, daddy?” your baby sniffles, rubbing at her snotty nose.

bakugou nods with a gentle smile, cupping her face between his two floury hands before kissing her forehead z “really.” he affirms. “now get yer choppin’ skills together, this pasta sauce ain’t gonna make itself.”

the two blonde’s return to cooking, a comfortable silence settling in your family kitchen, also full of love. that night, your family of five sit together munching on homemade pasta bow ties in a sauce that your middle daughter had worked so hard to make. she grins brightly between her sisters, staring at her father with her shining red eyes thankfully.

in that moment, she knows that she is loved no matter what the status of her quirk is.

you link your fingers with bakugou’s under the table. “you did good, dad.” you whisper to him, stabbing through your pasta with your fork. “

“so did you, ma.” he whispers back gruffly, thumb running over your wedding band as he eats his pasta too.

꒰ end. — all rights reserved © tteokdoroki 2024. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.

[loose-angel]

Kitty, Kitty | Neteyam

Pairing: neteyam x human!reader Notes: hes basically a cat :3C w/c: 646 w/n: im on a major writers block so i hope you guys enjoy this one T v T

“Y/N! Wake up!” Spider bangs against your door. You hear a loud shush, followed by the screeching of your old metal door. 

“Y/N, the Sully kids are here and they want to see you,” Norm says quietly as he rubs your little back. You slowly open your eyes, nodding tiredly. You follow the older man out of bed, rubbing your eyes as the two of you walk down the hallway into the main area of the lab. 

Spider is already fooling around with Lo’ak and Kiri, but there’s another na’vi present. 

All of the ‘kids’ are a bunch of years older than you but they insist on hanging out with you so you don’t feel lonely. Plus it’s boring just hanging out with the adults in the lab. 

“Hello Y/N.” Kiri greets, swooping you into her arms. You giggle lightly, wrapping your arms around her neck. You hang with Kiri the most. She has a calming aura and is the only one who can properly speak English for you. 

“Who’s that?” You ask, pointing over her shoulder. She turns around, “Oh, that’s my older brother, Neteyam.” The na’vi sounds out for you slowly. You nod, eyeing the boy curiously. He’s a lot taller than his other siblings, a little quiet and shy looking, but friendly looking nonetheless. 

“Do you want to say hi? It’s his first time here so he's a little shy.” You nod again. You wiggle out of Kiri’s arms and she lets you down. You pitter-patter towards the tall boy. If you thought Kiri and Lo’ak were tall, he must be like a titan. You stop a few feet away from him, just staring. He looks down and meets your gaze, tilting his head in curiosity as well. He crouches down so he’s somewhat your height. Kiri had warned him to be gentle with you, you were a little smaller and fragile compared to Spider, who was rough-housing with Lo’ak every second possible. So he keeps his hands to himself. Neteyam wasn’t very enthusiastic about coming to the lab, it was never interesting to him, but Jake had insisted that he goes with his siblings today. 

“Hello,” he sounds out, his accent heavy. 

“Hi,” Your hands are already running over parts of his arm, fingers connecting the little white dots that scatter his body. “Neteyam.” You spoke slowly, looking up at him for some confirmation that you said it right. 

He nods, a small smile crawling up over his lips. His knowledge in English words is limited, so your conversation doesn’t go beyond this point. The large na’vi boy eventually sits on the ground, letting you climb onto his lap. 

“You’re really nice,” You smiled, “How old are you?” Neteyam stays silent for a while, just looking at you. 

“I’m eleven.” 

“Hi eleven!” You joked, but the na’vi boy merely looked at you. “Oh, you don’t know jokes?” He remained quiet. You remembered Kiri’s words and decided to not try and pry words out of the eldest Sully. 

“Well I’m eight years old turning nine,” your hands touch his ears curiously, the organ twitched at contact. “You’re like a cat!” You exclaimed, he still did not know what you were talking about. 

After a while, Kiri approaches you and Neteyam, ears bombarded with you talking Neteyam’s ears off about something called ‘cats’. You remained in Neteyam’s lap, your small fingers fiddling with the na’vi’s braids and ears. Unbeknownst to him, he had started nuzzling into your touch.

“Tsmukan, we have to go now.” Neteyam nodded and nudged you off his lap. 

The Sully siblings take their leave, leaving you and Spider to play.

“That kitty girl. . . what is her name?” Neteyam asks his sister, trailing behind Lo’ak who was already speeding through the trees. 

“Kitty? That’s Y/N.”

Neteyam nodded, trying to figure out this fluttery feeling in his stomach.

[wileys-russo]

Alessia Russo

“You can’t leave me like this!”

alessia russo

"you're not seeing less tonight?" your room mate asked in surprise as you appeared in your living room in your pyjamas. "no she has a big game tomorrow, part of our agreement is that she gets a good nights sleep beforehand. otherwise we stay up talking for hours and i get the blame if she plays bad!" you chuckled collapsing onto the sofa.

the two of you bickered about what to get for dinner for awhile until you eventually settled on chinese, your roommate stepping out to call and order as you browsed through your shared netflix to watch list.

"rom com?" you called out, the girl giving you a thumbs up as she continued to order, ending the call and joining you again on the sofa. the two of you agreeing on a movie you patiently awaited your food to arrive, commentating through the film to one another as usual.

but no sooner had you paid and thanked the delivery driver did your phone ring, your girlfriends contact popping up as you shoved a spring roll into your mouth and clicked accept.

"hi baby!" you greeted once you'd swallowed your mouthful, nodding as your roommate dished you up a plate adding in a little bit of everything. "lessi whats wrong?" you asked, her lack of returned greeting causing you some concern.

"can you come over please?" the girl requested as your eyebrows furrowed. "why whats happened?" you stepped out of the room as your roommate gave you a questioning look and you dismissed it with a wave.

"theres an intruder." "what!" "yeah, can you just come over please?" "of course love i'll call the police on my way. are you safe??"

"police? i don't need the police." alessia spoke as you paused, frown deepnding even further. "lessi im a little confused here." you entered your room and shrugged on a puffer over the top of your hoodie.

"a spider babe, theres a huge fucking black spider and i need you to come kill it please." alessia clarified as you sighed in relief that there was no real danger. "just hit it with a shoe less you've got about a hundred pairs." you chuckled, pausing with one arm in and one arm out of your puffers.

"no! please baby its massive like im talking enormous and its in the bedroom so i won't be able to sleep!" alessia whined much to your amusement, the taller girl often boasting how much stronger and faster she was than you and making fun of your notable height difference.

"thought you were just so big and strong and athletic babe? euro winner can't kill a little itty bitty spider?" you cooed mockingly, shoving your other arm in your jacket. "shut up! just get here and help me please." with that the call beeped that she'd ended it.

"just put mine in the fridge, i'll be back in an hour tops." you sighed to your roommate quickly catching her up on the call as she let out a laugh, wrapping up your plate for you as you called out goodbye and grabbed your car keys.

ignoring the three calls from your girlfriend you drove over to her flat which was about twenty minutes from your own, pulling up in the driveway to find her stood on the front steps with her arms wrapped around herself.

"alessia its freezing are you stupid?" you huffed at her lack of clothing as she rolled her eyes. "all my jackets and hoodies are in the bedroom." the blonde frowned as she let the two of you into her place, taking your puffer for you.

"right. where is it then?" you sighed tiredly, stomach rumbling as your girlfriend handed you a shoe and a can of bug spray, pushing you toward her bedroom. "thanks babe." you grumbled flicking her a glare over your shoulder.

carefully pushing open her door you stuck your head in and looked around, stepping properly inside with a frown as you looked around but came up empty handed.

"it's gone." you shrugged returning to where your girlfriend sat waiting on the sofa. "you killed it?" the striker perked up with a grin, balling your hoodie in her fists and tugging you down on top of her. "i love you i love you i love you i love-" she started to kiss all over your face making you blush.

"no baby, it's gone as in i can't see it anywhere." you clarified as she stopped, pushing you to sit up with legs straddling her hips. "what! well go look for it then." the blonde ordered pointing back to her room with a huff.

"no! alessia its probably gone back outside again, i am not turning your entire room upside down to look for a spider. i love you very much but i've got dinner waiting for me and i'm starving." you leaned down to kiss her sweetly before standing up off of her.

"you can't leave me like this!" your girlfriend hurried after you, snatching your keys off the hook and holding them out of your reach. "less!" you groaned, smacking her chest and stretching for them but it was a fruitless task given she easily stood head and shoulders taller.

"you can't leave me alone what if its just waiting for you to leave before it appears again?" alessia challenged with a raised eyebrow. "its a spider alessia i don't think its got a personal vendetta against you." you chuckled, keys still held out of your reach.

"what if it comes back though? i'm not sleeping in there with it in hiding!" alessia decided firmly as you sighed and dropped your arm. "then sleep on the sofa baby, please gimme my keys im hungry!" you groaned, poking her stomach with a hufff.

"good. you can stay here tonight and i'll cook you something now while you go look for that little eight legged intruder." alessia dropped your keys on top of her book shelf well out of your reach. "what? no!" you protested, trying to reach for the keys.

"yes. or you leave the spider to its business and we sleep on the lounge together." you let out a yell as your girlfriend suddenly grabbed you, hauling you over her shoulder and wandering to the kitchen.

"you know this display of athleticism really doesn't do anything to erase the fact you're scared of a tiny weeny spider and forced me to come over and kill it." you smacked her behind before she sat you down on the counter.

"well you didn't even do that, some girlfriend you are." alessia sighed with a shake of her head as she moved to look through her refrigerator to cook you something as you scoffed at her comment.

"where you going? you can't leave love." alessia chuckled with a smug smile as you narrowed your eyes.

"i'm gonna go and catch that spider and then i'm gonna throw it on you while you sleep."

[daycourtofficial]

Freaky Friday

Summary: based on this request - you and Azriel swap bodies, chaos ensues.

Warnings: allusions to sex.

Author’s note: this is just a silly goofy time for my silly goofy geese. Is this my best work? No. But it’s fun and goofy and who cares

You wake with a groan, your muscles feeling incredibly stiff and heavy. You drag yourself to the bathroom, eyes half closed with sleep.

Everything feels wrong. Your body feels so, so heavy as you open the door to the bathroom. You run some water, splashing it on your face as some fae lights come on.

You sigh, the water making you feel a little more alert. You shut the water off, bracing your hands on the sink, thinking about the mission from yesterday.

It wasn’t this bad - you really didn’t have to do all that much. You and Azriel spoke to a witch for cauldron’s sake - it was more of a test of your mental sparring than anything.

You brace yourself against the sink, remembering the nasty cut on your face. Right now you can’t even feel it, but you should still check on it, make sure it’s healing properly.

You look into the mirror, prepared to see a nasty gash across your face.

Instead you’re met with hazel eyes, tan skin, and onyx hair that are not your own.

And you scream. A deep, bellowing scream.

A moment later the door is shoved open, someone’s body making direct contact with it.

Rhys comes running in, having grabbed a knife on his way in, prepared for any threat that lingers. His violet eyes scan the room, searching for anything that can make his brother scream like that.

You turn to face Rhys, the weight of Azriel’s wings bringing you down. You’re able to look him eye to eye, the height of difference between you and Azriel making Rhys seem much smaller than he used to.

“Az?” Rhys ask, “what’s wrong?”

“I’m not Azriel.”

Moments later you find yourself in Rhysand’s office, not sure what to do with yourself as you try to sit on the couch, the large wings behind you making it hard to sit comfortably.

You accidentally sit on the end of a wing, yelping at the sensation and get up, delicately holding the wing so you can sit.

“Tell me everything that happened on your mission,” Rhys said, and you did. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary and everything went fine.

The two of you looked at each other, and Rhys decides to call Azriel and Cassian into his office to see if he can figure out what happened.

-

Cassian pats you on the head as he walks past you, much like he always does. You were much shorter than everyone else, not as short as Amren, but still quite small comparatively.

Then again, Cassian hardly ever met anyone he could look in the eye and not have to crane his neck to make eye contact.

It was your thing - he patted your head, you swatted his hand away, but that was it.

Until this morning, when you whirled around and landed a punch right on his jaw, taking the moment of deflection to grab his arm and flip him onto the ground.

He held his jaw in his hand, your name on his tongue. “What the hell was that for?”

You looked down at him, but Rhys’s voice breaks through both of your minds.

Come to my office please.

-

Cassian laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

Then he looked at the two of you, and laughed some more. You two sat next to each other on the couch in Rhys’s office, but so unsure of how to hold yourselves. His brother looked unable to hold up his own wings, and you looked so lost and alone, likely due to the loss of the shadows.

Feyre had joined the impromptu meeting in Rhys’s office, where no one could figure out why this had happened. And Cassian was certainly not helping things.

“Look I’m just saying if I swapped bodies with someone I’d fuck myself.”

“Cassian,” Feyre hissed, nodding her head to the door.

“Okay, okay,” he says, walking towards it. “I’ll go.”

Cassian leaves the room, but his laugh can still be heard down the hallway.

“Are the two of you going to be okay?” Rhys asks, looking over the both of you. You shrug, knowing there’s not really anything else you can do, meanwhile Azriel nods.

The two of you were taken away from your duties for the time being, which was probably for the best seeing as how you have no idea how anyone manages to hold their wings off of the ground and walk at the same time.

You were going bonkers in Azriel’s body.The shadows had no idea you weren’t their master, so they kept telling you everything. You had no control over them, so a good portion of them kept wandering over to Azriel stuck in your body. Their presence seemed to soothe him, and you wonder just how alone he feels without them.

You could hardly walk without dropping the massive wings behind you on the floor, so you mostly opted to stayed seated or lying down for the rest of the afternoon, staying in the library trying to figure out how you woke up in Azriel’s body.

You walk past Nesta on your way to dinner, the hulking mass you’re carrying around needing much more food than you were used to. You had the house give you an ungodsly amount of food during the afternoon, from snacks to fruits to nuts. You go to walk by, unaccustomed to the new body and slam into her, apologizing profusely.

She looks you up and down smirking, and you realize that everyone likely found this situation much funnier than you did.

Azriel came up to dinner not long after you did, and Cassian began making fun of you two again. Nyx turned to his mom, clearly confused about his Uncle Cassian’s jokes, when she explains to Nyx that the two of you had swapped bodies.

Nyx clapped his hands, the little princeling quite pleased with this turn of events.

“My wish came true!”

Everyone stops what they’re doing, utensils clattering on plates.

“Er what wish, sweetheart?” Feyre asks, her full attention on her son.

“I wanted them to switch bodies!”

Cassian bursts out laughing, throwing his head back as Nesta swats him on the chest.

Rhys is trying not to laugh at the predicament his son has created as he asks, “and why is that, Nyx?”

Nyx looks at you as Azriel and says, “she told me she wanted wings like Uncle Az’s so when we went to the fountain I wished she could do it!”

Cassian looks at Mor, asking, “so wishes actually come true from that fountain?”

After dinner you find yourself standing next to Cassian, looking him in the eye. You never realized that Azriel was a few inches shorter than Cassian. Cassian looked at you, watching as you move around, unable to stand still and he knows it’s you and not his brother.

“What are you doing, sweetheart?”

Nothing brought Cassian more joy than calling the shadowsinger ‘sweetheart’.

“It’s odd being this tall. I can look you in the eye just standing straight.”

The shadows dart around you two, constantly whispering to you. You would be able to understand them if it weren’t for just how many of them were trying to talk to you.

You swat at them, but even more come back to you, some hitting you in the face.

Cassian laughs, clearly amused at this entire situation. Feyre had taken Nyx back to the fountain to make another wish right after dinner, a wish that everyone go back to their original bodies, but the rest of you were left to wait.

You head into Azriel’s room, leaving Cassian and his teasing remarks behind. You leave Azriel’s bedroom door open just a crack so he can slip in moments later, still in your body.

You run your hands through your hair - his hair, the length reminds you. You look at yourself, not used to this arrangement.

“So uh, this should wear off at some point, right?”

“Right.”

“This is erm weird.”

“Yes, yes it is.” Azriel says, leaning back on his bed. The air in the room shifts, and a sickly sweet smell overtakes the room.

You gasp, hitting Azriel’s - your - leg, “Az, we are stuck in each other’s bodies and you’re getting horny.”

He moves up to you, sitting in your lap. “I can’t help it - it’s your body. You’re so needy.”

His legs straddle your lap, and as he sits down he lets out a quiet moan. You lean closer to him, smelling him, “oh gods, you reek of sex!”

A light blush coats his - your - cheeks, and he responds, “well if I’m stuck in your body, might as well enjoy the company.”

You roll your eyes at him and he starts grinding on your lap, “okay, I-I get it now why you like this so much.”

You laugh at him, as you begin to feel your own arousal in a way that is new.

The two of you spend the night tangled in Azriel’s sheets, exploring this jewel reality you’ve found yourselves in.

-

You woke up in your own body, thank the mother, and the two of you go to Rhys’s office to find Rhys, Feyre and Cassian already in there.

They all peer at you, the unspoken question in their gazes.

You beam at them, “I am myself again.”

Azriel huffs, “I’m glad I can actually reach things again.”

You pout, hitting him on the arm, “hey, it could have been worse. You could have been stuck in some ugly person’s body.”

“Yeah, like Cassian.”

You two chuckle as Cassian’s face gets an irritated look on it.

You and Azriel leave the room, and Feyre turns to Cassian.

“Do you think they had sex last night?”

Rhys turns to Feyre, “there is no way they didn’t. They’ve been sneaking around for months.”

Feyre gasps, “no they have not!”

The two bicker back and forth over whether or not the two of you have been hooking up, and Cassian is uncharacteristically quiet.

“Did you hear anything, Cass?”

Cassian is brought back to the present, telling them he hadn’t heard anything. Truthfully, he knew you two were sneaking around, but he kept it to himself, worried the teasing might mess things up for you two.

You and Az skip off down the hall, both of you going into your room to explore all the things you found out about each other, and Cassian laughs lightly to himself, thinking about all the ways he’ll tease the two of you.

But that’s for another day. Another day when he feels like his brother’s insecurities won’t eat him alive. Another day when his brother will feel like he deserves you.

Another day.