#eta: please debate this with me

[oldshrewsburyian]

Persuasion: The Paperwork Problem

I am obsessed with the fact that Captain Wentworth does Mrs. Smith’s paperwork for her, and not just because having a male romantic protagonist do paperwork as part of demonstrating his ultimate worthiness (and swoon-worthiness) proves that no one is doing it like Jane Austen. No, I am obsessed with it because Britain’s transatlantic economy is in flux in the early nineteenth century. And because this Persuasion reread has convinced me that Austen does everything in this novel on purpose to make me suffer.  Here is my theory: what Wentworth is doing is divesting from slavery. What? you may exclaim, gentle readers, and I am here to lay evidence for my tenuous little theory before you.

Point 1: Wentworth’s behavior here is explicitly contrasted with that of Mrs. Smith’s wastrel husband. These are alternate models of masculinity. And Mrs. Smith’s narrative for Anne very clearly links not only the late Mr. Smith’s moral corruption with his mismanagement of this property, but also Mr. Elliot’s lack of moral backbone with his failure to manage it for her. And this is property “in the West Indies,” which at the turn of the nineteenth century means basically one thing: sugar. And sugar, in turn, means slavery. But things are changing! From 1807, the transatlantic slave trade is illegal in Britain and its possessions. I’m not going to dwell here on the obvious ongoing horrors of slavery, but one of the relevant consequences here is that the plantation economy of the British West Indies basically tanks. ...Sort of, at least. There’s scholarly debate on the question of how much this happens, why it happens, and when it happens. Which brings me to:

Point 2: whichever combination of factors we accept for the decline of the plantation system -- Napoleonic Wars, beet farming in South America, British economic commitment (eventually, sort of) to the abolition of slavery -- it makes sense for Wentworth’s management of Mrs. Smith’s property to be part of this. Admittedly, Persuasion is a novel where, in contrast to Mansfield Park, the vast and sinister machinery of the British Empire is allowed to be mostly invisible, especially to the modern reader. But we are told that Mrs. Smith suffers partly because the property is “under a sort of sequestration,” in theory (or initially) to pay Mr. Smith’s debts, but now controlled by the courts because of some combination of greed, incompetence, indifference, and inertia. And Wentworth knows, he knows to his core, he knows from experience, exactly how cheaply the empire values the lives of its subjects. We, in turn, know that he knows this because of light dinner table conversation. Jane Austen, everyone.

Point 3: Jane Austen makes choices about what to emphasize in Wentworth’s naval career. There are a lot of glamorous actions that he could have been linked to. But there’s no name-dropping of the Nile or Trafalgar. No, most of what he’s been doing is chasing privateers and French ships, maintaining a balance of power favorable to the British interest, and making a lot of money while doing so. And routinely risking his life in ways that make Anne very distressed even in retrospect. The exception, the only named military endeavor to which Frederick Wentworth is linked, and which earned him a promotion, is “the action off San Domingo.” This stunning British victory was, of course, aimed at breaking French power in the Caribbean. And this is what we get told about. Among other things, this means that it’s entirely possible that Wentworth also saw action in the Haitian Revolution (again, the British involvement in this was cynical. But still.) Also relevant here, I would argue, is that we are told that the Crofts have never been in the West Indies (and Mrs. Musgrove, a perfectly nice woman but also one perfectly capable of blinding herself to unpleasantness, cannot accuse herself of having ever called Caribbean islands anything in the whole course of her life.) I am convinced that all of this, in this minor miracle of a novel, matters.

Point 4: economic logic. In 1815, there is no way for Mrs. Smith’s economic fortunes to recover and her property to start creating (rather than losing) income if she is trying to manage a sugar plantation. It’s just not going to happen. In a way, this is coming back to Point 1, but without the character-driven elements. If we take this seriously as plausible, I think we have to draw the conclusion that Wentworth has taken in hand arrangements to alter how that property is being used.

Point 5: Anne. The first thing we learn about Anne is that she is not only willing but eager to force irresponsible members of the landed gentry -- even her own family, especially her own family -- to give up luxuries which they think of as necessities. This is the context in which we are introduced to her. This is the first way we learn who Anne Elliot is. The first thing we are allowed to see Anne wanting is “indifference for everything except justice and equity.” In other words, this is a woman who refuses sugar in her tea. And however different she and Wentworth are in temperament, we are also told (from Anne’s perspective!) that there are “no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison.” So I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to take her morality as an indicator of his probable actions.

In short: I think Persuasion’s coda can be read as anti-slavery. Because of paperwork.

[idiopath-fic-smile]

ficlet: W.A.R!Enjolras's birthday party

roughly a bajillion years ago, i said i'd write donation fics for people who gave to abortion related causes. i flagged out about halfway through but i'm back, baby, and i'm determined to fill those requests.

this is for @sharki-leftishark, who was curious to see a birthday celebration in the W.A.R universe, either enjolras or grantaire. so today i bring to you enjolras's birthday, following the events of W.A.R. i never did figure out the month in which this story takes place, so please feel free to mentally set it whenever your own zodiac headcanons dictate.

ETA: and many thanks to @consultingreaders and @give-me-a-minute-to-think for the speedy and helpful beta!

Senior year

Maybe three-quarters of the way through opening the presents, Grantaire realizes that Enjolras is saving Grantaire’s gift for last. Enjolras tosses aside the paper from the hardbound journal that Marius got him, thanks Marius with real earnestness even though it’s the third variation of a notebook he’s received today, starts to reach for Grantaire’s sloppily wrapped bundle, sees the tag, and then his hands stutter instead toward a shiny package that turns out to be from Joly.

The package contains some sort of board game. Courfeyrac insists that the game is “Risk in space, it is so clearly Risk in space—we’ve been over this, people. Enjolras is not allowed within ten yards of a pretend army, remember? We voted?” and then Joly waves his cane at Courfeyrac, shouting, “People change! Also it’s a cooperative game, we’d be harnessing the laser eyes for the power of friendship and community!” and a lively debate ensues.

Grantaire follows some of it. He’s mostly trying not to think about how Enjolras, who believes in self-discipline and delayed gratification and all that shit, apparently considers Grantaire’s contribution to be the grand finale of this whole experience. Enjolras, who loves his friends so much. It’s heady to consider: the height of Enjolras’s expectations and the chance of maybe not meeting them, a quick swoosh up and then down. Not that Enjolras would ever be a dick about it or anything, but they’ve been dating, for-real dating, for months now, and if Enjolras doesn’t love the present, Grantaire will probably know.

After a lifetime, the presents-opening resumes. Feuilly has set up an appointment for Enjolras to interview a real-life union leader. Combeferre contributes a tidy set of books by someone named bell hooks. Courfeyrac’s offering is a gift certificate to the impossibly cool indie movie theater two towns over as well as a bubble gun blower, which immediately sparks off another round of debate.

(“Oh, so fictitious simulated pretend armies are verboten, but you get him a firearm?” Joly manages between laughs.

“One that shoots soap bubbles, you maniac!” Courfeyrac shoots back.

“At least it would be a clean kill,” muses Combeferre, and Eponine’s eye roll would be slightly more convincing if they hadn’t clearly slipped away during the division of the birthday cake to make out.)

And then, well. And then it’s Grantaire’s turn. To see his present opened, not to sneak off to swap spit with his boyfriend, which come to think of it sounds infinitely better, and not just because Enjolras’s dedication to self-improvement extends to learning how to kiss Grantaire to the point of incoherence in under five minutes.

Enjolras unwraps the paper carefully and shakes out the fabric. It’s a T-shirt, emblazoned with the words “ENJOLRAS 2024: ARE YOU BRAVE ENOUGH TO CHANGE THE WORLD?”

“For the campaign,” says Grantaire. “I did the math and that’s the first year you can run for president.”

“You need to be thirty-five,” says Enjolras. A smile is flickering at the corner of his mouth.

“I know,” Grantaire tells him. “I looked it up because I had to know the first year I could vote for you. I cracked open my Government textbook for you, so like. Feel honored.”

“We had Government last year,” Enjolras seems to feel compelled to point out. “When did you—”

Grantaire can feel his face burning. He’s not even sure why, really. “Last March,” he says.

“When you first started pretending to date,” Musichetta fills in with relish. Now that it’s public knowledge among their friends, she brings it up whenever she can.

“I thought you were maybe out of your mind,” says Grantaire, “but like. I don’t know. You’re clearly gonna be somebody. And, uh. You had my vote. And still do, obviously.”

Enjolras is turning a little red too. “You should probably see what the other candidates’ positions are before you make that call,” he mumbles.

Grantaire’s heart soars. He shakes his head. “No way, I’m a single-issue voter and my one issue is ‘how much is this guy like Enjolras?’”

Enjolras ducks his head. He lays the T-shirt down carefully, next to the pile of books and notebooks. He opens his arms. Enjolras, who, now that the dating is real, isn’t really about public displays of affection.

“This is so sweet I think I’m going to actually throw up,” says Eponine as Grantaire steps into the hug. He squeezes hard. Enjolras squeezes harder.

“I like you so much,” Enjolras murmurs into the side of his face. “Also, you’re the one who’s out of your mind, nobody just runs for president—”

“Sure,” says Grantaire, “You gotta be twenty-five to run for House of Reps, so 2014’s the first year you’d be eligible. Now, U.S. Senate, you need to be thirty, so you can run in 2018, when it just so happens a seat will be open—”

Enjolras kisses him on the mouth.

[geekthefreakout]

Thank you for your "we need to combat people's black and white views in media” post. It’s nice to see someone have a reasonable opinion about something. I feel like a lot of DC comic spaces have the most bizarre takes and honestly think it’s why the state of comics is so bad right now and writers are afraid to take chances or write things that are so generic.

Do you have any unpopular opinions about Babs or Jason? Or anything you would like to see in future comics? You said you enjoyed Jason as a character but what’s your ideal Jason and how do you think he should be written?

Wow, what a lovely ask, thank you Nonny!

First, cuz I know I'm gonna ramble on about the other things- yes, DC is a goddamn mess and at least 48% of the reason is that fans feel especially entitled these days, which makes writers either overly cautious or extremely defensive of anything they try. Fandom spaces can get very toxic very quickly cuz of the whole black-and-white morality thing and the aforementioned entitlement that makes people feel like they get to dictate the direction the art they consume takes. You don't get to do that, people! Stop it.

For Babs- idk if I have unpopular opinions. Like most people, I think she was wonderful and *important* as Oracle, and I wish they would do more than pay lip service to her disability. On the other side of that, I understand that DC Editorial is a mess and that if a writer ever DOES decide to follow through on that "chip in her spine won't work forever" thing, they will need to cut through a lot of red tape to get permission to do so, so I don't really get mad when writers have her as Batgirl still, or have her bounce between Batgirl and Oracle. If she ever does become a full time wheelchair user again, I hope it's done in a respectful way that supports her agency, rather than how TKJ did her. The Young Justice show had an interesting take on that which I didn't mind.

My unpopular Jason opinion is probably that I liked the All-Caste stuff from RHATO N52 and I think letting Jason have a niche as a Bat that deals with mystical stuff and with the nitty-gritty of the criminal underground is a good way to set him apart and give him his own stuff to do outside of Bat Events. Also Generation Outlaw was a cool concept and I enjoy the idea of Jason reluctantly inheriting Bruce's tendency towards "Debatably Accidental Child Acquisition."

That said, my ideal Jason functions as a foil to Batman. I don't want them to be enemies, but I do want them to push each other and challenge each other. I want Jason to poke holes in Bruce's crime fighting philosophy, but to also still have a good relationship with his family. I want Jason to struggle with his own philosophy, as he did in Zdarsky's "Cheer" story, because the way he does things IS riskier than how Bruce does things and sometimes the ends don't justify the means.

I think Jason (like Damian, but Jason is more mature) works wonderfully in stories about redemption and self-discovery as well. Task Force Z had appeal for me in that sense, because I also think that Two-Face (who Jason has history with in his first post-crisis story) ALSO works well in story lines like that.

In the future... Well, my opinion is that there are just too many Bat books and Bat Events. I want DC to let their other characters breathe. My ideal set up would be Batman as a solo series and Tec as a team book, like it was when Tynion wrote it. Then Urban Legends for miscellaneous Bat stories. Nightwing of course with his solo (and please, PLEASE, let that boy stay in Bludhaven and take care of business, stop dragging him back to Gotham every time a rogue sneezes, he has his own shit to worry about). The rest of the Batfam can pop up in Tec and Urban Legends and then be with their respective teams. Titans, YJ, Outlaws, Outsiders, etc. (ETA BoP to this potential team book list of course!)

And then pls no huge Bat Events for at least a year and a half. Let them BREATHE, for fuck's sake!!!!

So... Yeah! Thanks Nonny!

[ohhgingersnaps]

YOU AND ME SHAKING HANDS, NO ONE IN THE MOUNTAIN FAMILY IS NEUROTYPICAL!!!!! They are blended and patchwork and trying their best!!!!

you 🤝 me mountain family takes

They really are trying their best!! And I'm very sorry it's taken me so long to reply and also that the reply is so long!! i just have. a lot of feelings and my hand slipped and this got very long? please feel free to offer concurring/opposing thoughts about this if you feel so inclined, i'm rotating them in my head constantly

like, Demetrius works very much in the framework of Technical Definitions (see: the great tomato debate). he likes rules. he likes well-defined roles. (speculating a bit here but I also think he likes well-defined roles in social situations, because it makes it easier if he knows what behavior is expected of him?) and so when he marries Robin, he sees the family unit as very simple (himself, Robin, Sebastian) and immediately in his mind becomes A Step-Father, with all of the responsibilities that role entails. meanwhile, Sebastian still sees his family unit as himself + Robin, and Demetrius is just.... some guy who married his mom.

this leaves Demetrius in the position of thinking that he has a Moral Obligation as a parent to Guide My Child Down A Good Path and Offer Guidance (read: unsolicited opinions and clumsily-veiled admonitions that, although well-intentioned, toe the line of healthy boundaries and appropriateness; he does this with Maru, too, in the two-heart event). Sebastian understandably doesn't take super well to this, because Demetrius hasn't actually built a parent-child relationship with him, he's just presumed it, and Sebastian hates that, actually. Sebastian is his own person, and his independence is important to him; he doesn't need guidance, he needs support.

and like, Demetrius' idea of a "Good Path" is very rigid and doesn't leave much room for variation? e.g. Demetrius would cope very badly with being a freelancer, because his brain needs routine and structure. so he needles Seb about getting a "real career" even though freelancing is a real career and works really well with Sebastian's needs (freedom and flexible scheduling)-- because he would be miserable freelancing, he can't see how it's an ideal situation for someone else.

also like. while he does favor Maru, I fully maintain that the snowman vs. snowgoon thing is less about Maru and Sebastian specifically and more about "correct" vs "incorrect" behavior. "why would you make something upsetting/scary instead of something good and nice?" it's very black-and-white thinking. I feel like Maru has a more similar communication style to her dad (likes rules and frameworks, friendly and well-intentioned but sometimes overly blunt, and occasionally a bit open-mouth-insert-foot without meaning to be), and she's much better at staying within the parameters of Demetrius-Approved Behavior. this, stacked on top of Seb's social anxiety, absolutely leaves him feeling like he's Handled The Social Interaction Wrong whenever he interacts with her and contributes to his feeling that she dislikes him and that he doesn't fit in with his own family, even if his family doesn't actually feel that way. (eta: this also leads to him getting offended or hurt by comments that she simply does not think twice about, because he constantly overanalyzes social situations and she doesn't)

anyway this is all very disjointed but i have so many feelings and thank you for your good mountain family takes they give me life

[siriuslysatorusimping]

Bruh, what is wrong with Texas's electrical grid? I can't say much, I'm over here in Louisiana. I'm sorry you're dealing with that rn and I hope it all gets squared away real soon! Please tell us if there's any way we can cheer you up, distract you, help in any way!

We had some really, really bad storms last night that knocked out a HUGE amount of power lines.

I have now been without power for ✨24 hours✨ but they’ve literally been working all day to try to get it fixed and I feel bad for the guys who have been working this entire time!! But I just am lucky enough that my house seems to be in the last 10% or so that are getting fixed 🙃🙃

I have bought a flood lantern and am debating a small backup battery or hotel for the night 🙃 but idk if either are worth it…

THE BIGGEST ISSUE. THAT IS FRUSTRATING ME SO HEAVILY IS THAT I HAVE GOTTEN ZERO UPDATES ON ETA FOR THE FIX:

AFTER TWENTY FOUR FUCKING HOURS

Like JUST TELL ME IF ITS GONNA HAPPEN SOONISH BECAUSE I AM NOT WASTING MONEY ON A HOTEL TO FIND OUT THE POWER CAME BACK ON TEN MINUTES AFTER I LEFT

[parcequecestnotreprojeeeet]

Hi. It’s me Fanfic Anon #2. I see that there is a new prompt, and I will get to it, I promise. But I had started on something in honor of their anniversary last week, and after that trip to Rome (where I’m totally convinced they also saw it as an anniversary trip based on the way they were looking at each other - not that I’m complaining!) I wanted to make some changes and send it in first. Hope you all enjoy it.

Emmanuel’s phone buzzed in his hand, “ETA?” the message read.

He leaned forward in his seat to ask the driver, “Brigitte is looking for an ETA?”

“About 15 minutes, Mr. President,” the man replied, a soft smile on his face. He finds it sweet that the First Lady always wants to know how soon her husband will be getting home, especially after he’s been away for a few days. While it wasn’t his place to comment, or gossip, he knew that wasn’t the case for many of the men and women who have held their offices.

Emmanuel’s smiled widened as he thanked the man, typing out a quick, “15 minutes, chérie,” in reply.

“See you soon 😘”

He knows that she doesn’t take his absence over the past few days personally, knows she knows that it was a very important series of meetings given all the issues facing everyone in Europe right now, but he still knows she was disappointed. After all, her birthday this year was taken up with the second round of the presidential election and debate prep after two years of Covid limited birthdays, and while she never complained about that either, he knew that hurt her a little too. But this was different, this was their 15th wedding anniversary, and he had to be in Brussels. As much as it killed him.

He knows they celebrated a little before he left, sneaking out to a music exhibit unannounced so they could just be Brigitte and Emmanuel for a moment, snuck each other their anniversary cards before he left - he tucked hers into her purse of the day, she put it his the internal suit coat pocket - and he made sure to text her or call her every spare second he could get during the day. But he wasn’t there Thursday night. He wasn’t there to hold her in his arms, to shower her in kisses, to dance in the living room to their song, to make her feel his love.

That, however, was going to change this weekend. He had plans. Big plans. Plans which included tonight, tomorrow, and the first part of Sunday in interrupted bliss: tangled together in bed, serenading her at the piano, laying out on a blanket in the gardens watching the stars. He was going to take her to Rome. They were going to walk hand in hand through the streets and the ruins. He was going to take her out to dinner, holding her hand as he stared in her eyes over candle light. He was even going to show off a little, taking her to see the Pope.

As he saw the driver make the last turn into la Lanterne he fired off one last text message, reminding Alexis, “I am not to be disturbed this weekend unless the world is actually ending. Anything short of that and it can wait until I am on the plane on Sunday. And if anyone interrupts us for any reason, I am not afraid to unleash the wrath of what will be my very angry wife on them.”

As soon as the car came to a stop, he threw open the door and leapt out, forgetting to thank his driver, or close the door, his mind solely focused on finding his wife.

“Happy anniversary, mon cœur,” he heard before he saw her, standing in the middle of the living room wearing - time stood still as his brain tried to process it.

“Is that your wedding dress?” He asked in awe, mouth hanging open at the sight. He still dreams about her in that dress that day, that night.

With a pleased giggle and a faint blush, she replied, “I had the girls go and grab it from our closet at home and run it up here for me. I thought it would be a nice surprise.” He just nodded dumbly in response, seemingly in a trance. “Aren’t you going to come kiss me properly?” She teased, finally snapping him into attention.

“How rude of me,” he said as he rushed over to gather her to him, slipping one around around her wait, hand splayed against her lower back, the other brushing her hair back to cup her cheek as he pulled her waiting face into his.

He kissed her deeply, passionately, trying to convey just how much he loved her, treasured her, needed her in the movement of his lips against hers, the sound of the moans she pulled out of him, the firm pressure of his hand against her back. She too made sure he felt her passion, her hands squeezing his ass, her tongue dueling his, her body pressing ever more insistently into his.

Eventually he started to feel her hands migrate along his belt line, coming to a teasing stop around the buckle. She pulled back from him enough to meet his eyes with hers, “want to go somewhere more comfortable?”

“Lead the way,” he replied holding out his hand for hers to take as she drug him behind her to the bedroom.

Slowly, she started undressing him, taking her time not to rush to quickly through the steps, showing a care and a reverence through the motions: gently slipping his belt out the loops of his pants, deftly slipping the knot and his tie loose from his collar, taking care not to the cuff links in his shirt (a wedding anniversary gift from her a few years back she noticed, touched by the thoughtfulness), taking each button at a time as she unbuttoned his shirt. “So handsome,” she whispered when she finally slipped his shirt off his shoulders, running her hands up and down his toned arms and broad shoulders, fingers playing with the hair on his chest.

“You’re so beautiful,” she told him, looking up to meet his eyes. “So very, very beautiful inside and out. I love you. I love you beyond all reason. And just when I think I can’t love you anymore, you smile, or you play with one of our grandkids, or you just stand there looking so perfect you had to be a statute carved from marble and I can feel my heart shift, expand, explode. Happy anniversary. Thank you for choosing me, loving me. I am so beyond blessed. And I am grateful every single day for the gift that is you.”

“I love you so very, very much,” he replied as he slowly, carefully worked the zipper down on the back of her dress while he captured her lips again with his.

Hello dear fanfic Anon #2 ❤️ It's funny that you wrote about their wedding anniversary because I thought about it too hahaha "Knowing" Emmanuel, I have no doubts that he definitely found a way to compensate her for not being their on the actually day (I would take a trip to Rome too, Manu 😏). Them sneaking in anniversary cards to each other is just SO adorable hahaha 🥰

I cannot get tired of reading your stories and no words can express how grateful i am that you write them and keep sharing it with us! ❤️❤️

See you soon 😛

[shy-magpie]

RQG 168

live blog under the cut

"stellar" "no Rusty Quill Gaming" Ah a Benterval for them redoing the intros sleepy

Bryn just asked us to cut Alex some slack, so I guess all that last episode was probably just him trying to (eta: sentence cuts off here not sure what I thought he was trying)

Poor Cel, even Sigguf dropped off on them. Oh honey they aren't dead.

Sigguf fell asleep as he tried to wake up Draal (one of the cohort); so he considered the cohort as equally worth waking.

Will Save for Zolf, 19. The ship is fighting him when he does those mis-steering power plays; but he can still over rule it.

Oh curse? Oh just wants to have more details on the magic the ship is under.

Detect Magic? Is this going to be like when Sasha got knocked out trying to appraise that thing or when Hamid got knocked out trying to get a look at the spell in Rome, or when... Yes apparently, Bryn tried to warn him. Stunned him, but confirmed its just Wild unschooled magic, not good or evil or necro or enchantment etc. Only stunned for a round.

The ship is now actively unsetting one control to get him away from another so it can keep them on its chosen course without directly ignoring his commands.

Cast remove curse on the ship, Ben doesn't seem to think it will work. The Borealis thickens around him. He has a nice clear connection to his god* but other than the Borealis pressing against him it didn't do anything. Which is good because for someone who is only theoretically a person/character I like the ship but Zolf losing his connection to Hope right now would break my heart.

The cargo is reorganizing itself in sight of the cage.

Cel is starting to feel the pressure to fall asleep increase. Lydia wants to channel vigor but can't find where it would help a Will Save. Oh Ben coming in with Pathfinder insight. Can be cast directly on Spirit for Will Save, rather than a body part persay.

They really are a good table: the way they are coming in with the extra reminders after Bryn said Alex was having trouble at the top of the ep but using clear "this isn't a 'you should know this already' this is a 'I have reason to have this knowledge handy' manners" goes very nicely with what I have commented on before about how Ben & Bryn esp are good at giving help with Pathfinder to Lydia & Helen without hitting gender baggage or geek rank stuff.

Cel now feels like they are being "dosing me with something" and casts the Channel Vigor on their spirit just in time for the will save.

Cel is still muttering to themselves.

They try slapping Hamid & Azu awake, no sign they even noticed. Switches Vigor to mind and does a Knowledge Arcana, +4 see what I mean about Ben's manner? Lydia put a question mark on the end of the sentence and he still used the "I have this info handy if it would help" tone not a "I am correcting you in front of people because I am better at Geeking than you" tone. Plus a little joke about shooting people at the end to diffuse any tension.

It doesn't fit intentional spells. Cel is debating going to Zolf but leaving the room would put them at risk and they are the only one left to watch over the sleepers.

Oh Cel! They are now checking that everyone is breathing, it didn't occur to me that would be a concern.

Alex is nicer than he gets credit for and accelerates past Cel anxiously watching over everyone before Lydia completely breaks my heart.

Cel feels a knock in the ship after about 90 minutes and it sets off the internal arguement. They decide to stick with the decision to stay.

"turn into a monster and hurt anyone" Cel backstory please, why was that in the list of possibilities?

The ship finishes organizing itself and a rag is now scrubbing at a stain.

Cel talks to the rag and calls it "little buddy" the rag stops when addressed and responds to Cel's questions. Cel is a delight.

Scrapping noise coming nearer, Cel is treating the rag as a separate entity rather than part of the ship.

A tankard of grog just offered itself to Cel. Cel just asked the tankard if the grog was sentient and it shrugged.

Huh are they separate beings Awakened by the storm? I assumed it was all the ship as one being.

The tankard is continuing to offer itself.

When Cel reaches out to pat the tankard they experience the stretching Zolf felt.

When Cel says they would prefer to continue this through the bars of the cage rather than leave its safety the tankard pulls away and sulks off to a corner.

Cel apologizes as the tankard leaves.

"how can I be alone and still messing this stuff up". The entire table speaks for me in how heart rending.

Something is coming back its bigger, its the tankard followed by a keg with a straw in it so Cel can drink through the bars. Cel takes a sip, it tastes like normal grog. Cel points out they need to stay sober now but offers to do this later, which perks up the tankard. Cel offers to polish its wood to return the favor and a can of polish offers itself. Cel asks the objects about themselves and apologizes if they just didn't notice they were sentient before now. Because Cel is the absolute best. Alex accelerates to avoid breaking Lydia.

Bryn asks after Zolf, and Alex starts to keep the camera on Cel but Lydia backs him by having Cel ask their ship friends to check on Zolf. We follow the Ship bits to Zolf.

"to anyone trying to keep a timeline, I'm sorry"

Zolf nearly lost his will save but used Liberties Blessing to boost himself. Then The Rag flops in.

Zolf asks if it is alright then asks if anyone can hear him and if they are being killed by a Rag. Cel tries to yell then passes a note for the ship to give to Zolf. I love Zolf.

The Aurora is thining.

Oh Zolf thinks the elementals may have fused with the ship.

Oh the ship is going back to normal. Cel says goodbye as Azu awakens.

"either the ship has gotten very big or you have very small"

Azu's voice sounds wrong... Because its coming from Meerk. Alex rules Helen should keep using Azu's voice. The players openly rebel and Alex concedes as long as they all do new voices or all keep normal voices. Fair be easier to keep track.

"I don't like being small" poor Azu

Azu's body is still asleep in Kiko's arms when Azu(Meerk) slaps it awake. Its Hamid, because they love us fans and want us to be happy. Keep in mind Hamid just got slapped by one of his cohort who is even smaller than usual.

I need this entire scene clipped. I want to type the whole thing.

Ew point Ben, if anyone is in Azu at least its Hamid and especially not Sigguf.

Oh Azu just asked to be picked up.

Reflex save, stats just got weird. Oh no, Hamid nearly squished Meerk because he isn't used to being big.

(sorry if there is a tone change I was interupted for a few hours)

Azu is quicker as Meerk and skitters to safety

Aw Hamid normally hugs everyone "as a tree trunk"

Azu reaches out to Aphrodite and its harder than usual; Hamid feels the necklace warm up and gives it to Azu

Who is in Hamid? Its Sigguf, who knows Meerk by name. Huh didn't know I was still worried about the cohort was being treated until the relief at the signs they are regard like anyone else. Bryn asks if his claws popped but Sigguf isn't panicked yet

Sigguf goes as full dragon as he can then passes out as he panics.

Zolf can hear the commotion. Specificly Hamid's voice in distress, there is a fic prompt.

Who is Wilde? No who is in Wilde's body? Hamid is taking charge reasonably well and tells him to look at his hands.

Cel made name tags for everyone

Wilde is still Wilde, and he is disappointed. Its gotta be the cuffs.

Can Hamid cast? Ok Detect Magic it works, so does comprehend languages which Cel tests by explaining about Rag and Tankard in Japanese. Hamid confirms he could understand but asks if that happened or was a children's story but they are interupted before they can follow that conversation line.

Wilde advises they separate people because a whole room full of people going through identity issues is a bad scene. Cel doesn't want to let people out of the box because it might be permanent if they leave.

"its not urgent" Cel ILU

"What kind of obstacles love can overcome"?! Alex, who is Kiko? Alex get back here! Who is Kiko and who is in Kiko? Alex?!

I can't believe they did a body swap episode in canon.

*hate to quibble directly against what Ben said but its Hope not himself. A Zolf who believed in himself that much would be very different. Although maybe he was just angling for recognition that Hope isn't an external Power/person.

[glowyjellyfish]

October Halloween Movie Fest Day 20:

I didn’t have a ton of time tonight, and I was gonna watch It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown since I watched the parody yesterday, only to discover that it’s only available streaming with apple’s dumb tv plus whatever service. I am not even allowed to rent it, which has been sustaining me throughout this multi-streaming service mess. So, fuck that, in a snap decision I switched to Young Frankenstein, which was fun! …and also significantly longer than I expected, so I didn’t have time for Simpsons. Whatever, I’ll watch two tomorrow and edit 20 into this post.

Young Frankenstein is fun, although it doesn’t quite click for me. It’s some distance down my list of favored “humorous Halloweeny movies”, but it’s still on it. I’m also pleased I have now watched another Classic Horror Monster movie—not the Classic Movie itself, of course, but the monster. I’ve had werewolves, vampires, and now Frankenstein's Monster. Should probably made a point of watching The Mummy to get another one in. I have also had a loooooot of ghosts and ghost-like entities, a few people who can see ghosts, some witches, a cult, an alien, and some serial killers. One of whom was also a ghost. Ghosts might be my favorite kind of Halloweeny Horror, you guys. I’ve been saving some of the most Halloweeny favorites for the last few days, mainly Hocus Pocus and I am betting Trick R Treat will be best saved, but I am debating how best to tackle the rest of my list. We’ll see how it goes, I might do a couple of Sleepy Hollows next.

ETA: Treehouse of Horror 20 (Dial M for Murder, or Push # to Return to the Main Menu/Don’t Have a Cow, Mankind/There’s No Business Like Moe Business):

I almost put this one above THOH 2 or 3, guys. It is very good. Each segment has a solid plot, all three are atmospheric in their own unique ways, the first and second are a teensy bit Actually Spooky. The segments have clear inspiration without being slavish parodies, staying just true enough to the characters to make their behavior unsettling (looking at you, murderous Bart). I adore the stage-musical presentation of the third segment, which I assume was inspired by Sweeney Todd but clearly developed on its own from there, and the stage setting let it be darker in a safe way, and also funnier. Excellent episode. Mid-series classic right there, the only weak point is maybe the intro, and that’s only because it goes on a little longer than I like. The list is now 1, 5, 4, 7, 6, 3, 2, 20, 9, 8, 17, 16, 15, 19, 13, 12, 14, 10, 18, 11.

[deanwinchesterswitch]

Run To You ~ Chapter Eleven

Chapter Summary: Lack of sleep, shared insecurities, and emotions in overdrive lead to words and actions that can’t be taken back. 

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Kasey Belmont (OFC)

Warnings: Language-Kasey’s potty mouth makes a vehement appearance(seriously!); Here, there be smut; Angst; Feeeellings; Verbal argument; A little fluff for fun

Rating: Mature 18+ NSFW

Word Count: 13,457

Betas: @princessmisery666 and @wayward-and-worn

Movie Reference/Quote: Gone With the Wind

Author’s Notes: This is an AU. While there are several SPN characters mentioned, basically no one has the same connections as they did in the show, and Dean and Sam are not related.

Series Master Post

Written for: @jay-and-dean -Jay’s 3K Celebration and @spnaubingo. Prompt used: Quote with 3 ~ “I have nothing to offer, 3 dollars and a bad bottle of whiskey, nothing more.”

SPNAUBingo Square Filled: Fugitive AU

SPNQUOTEBingo Square Filled: “You should be kissed—and often—and by someone who knows how.” - Gone with the Wind

**ETA - Updated title card and format 3/14/23**

“Hey, sweetheart, did you miss me?”—the words of endearment Dean had spoken swirl almost reverently around Kasey’s mind as they both pant for breath, and though he was talking to Baby, she wants to answer.

Yes. Yes, I did miss you.

Which is certifiably crazy. How can she miss something she never had? 

She says his name softly, pulling away, but he holds her hands against his chest. Eyes squeezed shut. “Don’t. Please don’t say that we shouldn’t or that it’s… a mistake.”

We shouldn’t? No. We most assuredly shouldn’t. But a mistake? 

Kasey can’t imagine one circumstance where she would ever consider that kiss a mistake. However, there’s too much at stake to start an entanglement they may not be able to pursue. She knows that kiss was mainly brought on by the surge of emotions from the last few days and seeing his beloved car again. 

Dean releases her hands when she flexes her fingers, and she gently slips her arms around his waist, laying her head on his chest. The strong beat of his heart resonates in her ear like a lullaby. If she weren’t so conflicted, she’d remain in his arms and let it quell the burgeoning turmoil inside her, but she needs time to think, weigh the pros and cons, sort through the emotions, and make a level-headed decision.

Spying their reflection in the polished metal of the car, her heart jolts. To an outsider, they would look like a couple entwined in a lovers’ embrace. Pulling away before he can tighten his hold, she whispers, “I’m glad you found her.” His wistful expression prompts her to cup his cheek, and he closes his eyes, leaning into her touch. Her bottom lip quivers with an unexpected rush of emotion, and she drops her hand, clearing her throat as she turns. “Make sure to lock up,” she blurts before walking away.

Once at the porch, she hesitates on the top tread, debating the direction of her next step. It would be so easy to let the remaining threads of logic and common sense drift away on the breeze, race back out there, and throw herself at him.

Lips pressed together to contain the sob rising in her throat, a forced footfall followed by another carries her toward the small lantern. Extinguishing the flame, she grabs the quilt and heads inside, not daring to look over her shoulder. 

Until that kiss, she’d been trying to tamp the feelings back down, re-bury them under the guise of helping someone in need. She could tell herself that what she was feeling was simply a thrilling titillation, something she’d feel seeing a handsome actor or a sexy model, nothing more. Now that she knows what he tastes like, what his lips feel like, it’s not so easy to deny.

She makes it to her bedroom, locking the door behind her before losing control. Dean’s lips had unleashed a hurricane of restrained emotions. Like a levee breaking, guilt, anger, fear, shame, loneliness, and heartbreak surge upward, and the tears rain down. Kasey slumps to the floor, back pressed against the footboard of her bed. Pulling them up close to her chest, she wraps her arms tightly around her legs and rests her forehead on her knees, rocking in place, trying to dispel the ache she already feels at not holding him. 

How did all this happen? One day, she’s blissfully enjoying a lazy afternoon of peaceful seclusion. Two days later, that carefully crafted isolation was shattered with the force of a crowbar smashing a car window. Dean’s touch made her realize how starved for human interaction she truly is, making her feel a desire only depicted in movies and cheesy romance novels.

The pressure of his lips lingers on hers, and her tongue slides over them, tasting the remnants of toasted oak and caramel from the bourbon they’d been drinking earlier. Heat surges through her veins, remembering how rough-skinned hands that nearly encompassed her head tenderly cradled her face while his beard deliciously chafed at her soft flesh. Her breath hitches, reliving the warmth of his skin beneath her fingers, the smooth silkiness of his hair. Goosebumps dance across her skin as she recalls the shiver of his body when her nails scraped across his neck, pulse rapid and strong beneath her thumb. The thud of his heart beating with hers echoes in her ears, sending her pulse racing. If she’d remained pressed against him for two more seconds, she would have been trapped in his embrace—protected, content, and, as insane as it sounded, loved.

Christ fuck! I am a sensible grown-ass woman, not some starry-eyed Disney princess. This, whatever this is, is not love!

The sting accompanying the hard slap of her palms against the solid floor is a welcome jolt back to reality. Angrily pushing herself up, Kasey begins pacing the room. Dean’s presence has shown how utterly foolish she’s been, unarguably naive, lying to herself that she could make it alone. That somehow, she would be perfectly happy living as a recluse. She had made the choice under duress, a spur-of-the-moment decision. The farm had been a safe haven, a place to escape the cruelties of the world and the mistakes of the past, but, as the saying goes, all actions have consequences. Hers had come barreling at her in the form of a tough-skinned, soft-hearted fugitive.

Kasey leans against her window frame, staring out at the night sky. She can’t see the barn’s door from this angle, but the warm glow of the light still shines over the yard. Her lips curl upward as she pictures him sweet-talking his car. His face had lit up like a 5-year-old given free rein in a toy store. Just as she wonders if he’s thought about climbing into his Baby and just taking off, the rev of the engine can be heard. Momentary panic rocks her back on her heels, fingers twisting into the curtains, but the thought disappears as quickly as it came. 

She wouldn’t have left the keys with him if she genuinely thought he would leave—disappear from her life as hastily as he’d materialized in it. Where would he go? The farm is one of the safest places for him to be at the moment, and she’s pretty sure he knows it too.

Besides, if his plea about that kiss is any indication, Dean is wrestling with similar questions regarding their predicament. Well, a predicament for her anyway. After all, sleeping with a client is generally frowned upon in the legal community—conflict of interest and that whole ethics thing. 

It feels like an eternity before the night falls silent again, and moments later, the view outside her window darkens as the light in the yard disappears. Several minutes pass before she hears him moving about in the room below her, and she lets the final bit of fear fade away. Tightening her grip on the curtain, she wills herself to stay put, to not run to him, the consequences be damned.

With a heavy eye roll, Kasey goes back to pacing. She needs to be rational here. She’s already walking a thin line by harboring him. Sex would throw a wrench the size of Thor’s ax into an already complicated situation. But, damn, she desperately wants to feel his solidness against her again, feel those hands caress her bare skin.

Kasey’s fingers trace a path down her neck and across her decolletage, drifting down her body. “Hoooo.” The sigh is long and drawn out as she closes her eyes, envisioning Dean’s hands and thick fingers ghosting over skin that he has yet to see or feel.

Stop it!

Throwing herself onto her bed, she rolls to her back and stares at the ceiling, fingers clenched in the sheets as she desperately tries to banish the images now racing through her mind. 

Affidavits. Burden of proof. Conviction. Depositions. Evidence…

An hour later, she has filtered through an extensive list of legal terms multiple times, trying to squelch the wayward thoughts of what she wants to do to Dean and have him do to her. However, sleep eludes her, and she still hasn’t come to a decision about whether to remain a legal advisor for him or give in to her desires. 

At one point, she’d heard the water pipes rattle, signaling that Dean was taking a shower, which had triggered another round of images that she’d had to quash without much success. Rolling to her side again, she punches her pillow and sits up in a huff.

Sam is going to be furious with her no matter what she decides. She can’t keep her feelings for Dean hidden from him. Sam and Charlie can handle the case without her, but she wants, no, needs to be a part of the process to help secure Dean’s freedom.

Adult enough to admit that she has selfish reasons for getting the charges against him reversed, she prays that Sam won’t follow through on his threat of pulling the plug if it all starts going sideways. She shoves the dread of making that phone call to the back of her mind. Right now, she needs to do something, anything to distract her over-stimulated brain. 

The sky is still dark, the predawn light a couple of hours away, but the rising humidity can already be felt. Kasey takes a leisurely shower, puts her hair up in a loose ponytail, then fishes out one of her mother’s old halter-style dresses from the closet. The less material against her skin during the day’s sticky heat, the better. Once dressed, she quietly makes her way down to the kitchen, starting the first of many rounds of coffee.

Dean tried to sleep. He honestly did, he may have dozed off for an hour or two, but it was fitful. Rubbing the backs of his hands over his eyes, he chuckles. The absurdity that he’s gotten less sleep in this big comfortable bed than he did sleeping on cold hard surfaces the last couple of weeks is not lost on him. Turning his head to the side, the small clock in his room reads a little after six in the morning.

He couldn’t get that kiss or the hug she’d given him afterward out of his mind. When she'd placed her hand on his cheek, a flood of unexplainable emotion surged through him, and he’d had to close his eyes to try and keep himself in check. The loss of her touch had left him feeling bereft, and he’d almost run after her—torn between the desire to see where another kiss might lead and knowing he’s not the type of man Kasey needs. He’s not an idiot, he knows there’s an attraction between them, but it’s clearly just sexual tension, lust, nothing more, so best to leave it alone. 

Each time they open up to one another and share a little more of themselves, there’s an immediate hesitancy, a guarded cautiousness, from her afterward. He gets it; he does. They’re strangers. He’s a convicted felon, a man most people would fear. She’s a woman that’s been pitted against men for the majority of her life and has been hurt to such a degree that she shut herself away. 

Concerned that he had screwed things up with that impromptu kiss, he’d contemplated going after her to make sure things were okay between them, but he also wanted to respect her feelings and apparent need for space. In the end, he’d decided to stay with Baby; she was a known entity. There was no need to fear rejection from her or worry that he would somehow ruin everything good about her, unlike with Kasey.

He’d honestly been surprised that Kasey had left the keys with him and briefly wondered if she had simply forgotten about them. He had a fleeting thought about taking off, not to run away—where would he go anyway? He feels safer here than he has anywhere else in a long time. He doesn’t want to leave the farm… or Kasey. He just wanted to hear the purr of Baby’s engine and feel the thrum of the open road beneath her tires.

As much as he had been jonesing to take the Impala for a drive, he settled for checking her over, ensuring that all her fluid levels were where they should be, that the tire pressure was good, and that there wasn’t any damage on her beautiful body. With everything meeting his satisfaction, he’d started her up, letting the sound and vibrations of the rumbling engine wash over him for a few precious moments while losing himself in memories of more carefree days. 

He’d stood at the bottom of the stairs for several minutes, hand on the railing and one foot resting on the bottom tread, when he came back in, contemplating, debating, churning scenarios over in his mind. Ultimately deciding it was best to let things be until the morning, he made his way to the bedroom. After spotting the streak of grease on his forehead in the dresser’s mirror, he decided to take a shower before crawling into bed. Even though he knew the likelihood of getting any sleep would probably prove futile.

Sitting up, he buries his head in his hands, clearing his mind, listening for any movement from the room above him, but no sound is forthcoming. Well, at least one of them is able to sleep.

The air in the room is thick, heavy with heat already—the fan Kasey had given him, not yielding much relief. He looks over at the plastic-covered window, wishing he could open it to let in some fresh air. Deciding that he will offer to finish painting the room for her, maybe do some other repairs around the place as a form of payment for helping him, he slips from the bed. 

Opting out of wearing a shirt, he pulls on the pajama bottoms he'd discarded on the end of the mattress. Now that the sun is up, it will get even hotter, and it’s not like she hadn’t seen him shirtless before when she’d stitched him up. Of which she’d done an excellent job.

The skin around the wound is a healthy pink and no longer leaking blood now that it’s properly sealed. Although still tender to the touch, a sharp twinge reminding him of the injury if he turns the wrong way, it is no longer a throbbing, angry red, and thankfully, not infected. He hadn’t had time to stitch the wound before almost getting caught at the clinic he’d broken into and had tried to at least keep it clean and minimize the bleeding.

He’s grateful that Kasey was able to take care of it and that he won’t have a gaping scar. Yeah, he definitely needs to do something to show her his appreciation for saving him. That is, if she doesn’t kick him out after last night.

Opening the bedroom door, his senses are engulfed by the combined scent of coffee, bacon, and something cinnamony sweet. Quickening his pace, he is entirely taken off guard by the sight that greets him as he enters the kitchen. Every inch of counter space is covered in a myriad of ingredients, pans, mixing bowls, baking dishes, and what appears to be a mound of dough. Kasey is nowhere in sight, though. The house is silent except for the whir of the ceiling fan above the table.

His eyes land on the coffee press sitting on the far counter, and he makes his way over to pour a cup of the divine nectar. After the first couple of reviving sips, he roams around the space, peering into bowls and lifting the lids of the pots on the stove, trying to discern what she’s making. From the looks of things, she’s been at it for quite a while, meaning she hadn’t slept much either.

Lifting a corner of a towel draped over a bowl, he immediately drops it back in place, startled by her growl. 

“Don’t touch anything.”

Lost in thought about whether they would have slept better if they were in the same bed, he hadn’t heard her come in. “Sorry.” He smiles and raises a hand in mock surrender while taking a step back from the counter, but she isn’t looking at him. Kasey makes her way over to the stove, setting the basket she collected eggs in on the counter next to it.

The dress she’s wearing reminds him of another era, and if he didn’t know better, this would be the second time he would have thought he’d been zapped into some Twilight Zone time warp. The bright turquoise and green print is a stark contrast to the worn, dust-covered boots she just kicked off.

“Hope you like Eggs Benedict,” she says, still not looking at him. “It’ll be ready in about fifteen. I had to go out and get some more eggs.” 

He stares at the sun-kissed skin of her back, imagining the arch and twist of her body, the softness of her flesh beneath his fingertips as he trails them down her spine. He huffs out a breath, expelling the images along with it. He’s caught between the need to say something and waiting for a cue from her. Her tone, while not mean, is definitely on the cool side. 

Son of a bitch! I knew I fucked it up.

“Uhm, can I help?” If she hears the desperation laced in his words, he doesn’t care. He’d do almost anything to get back to the comfortable camaraderie of last night… before the kiss. 

Throwing a glance over her left shoulder, she replies, “You could make more coffee.”

“Awesome.” He nods happily and rubs his hands together, pleased she didn’t shut him out. At least not entirely. Dean sets about emptying and cleaning the press as Kasey gently whisks the hollandaise, moving it to the back burner. By the time she’s done poaching the eggs, the new batch of coffee is ready, and Dean mentally high-fives himself for getting the timing right. 

Seeing Kasey’s mug sitting amongst the array of dishes on the island, he quickly rinses it out and makes her a fresh cup, carefully adding the same ratio of cream to coffee she’d taken yesterday. Humming the Eagles tune that’s been stuck in his head since that first day he woke up in her home, he places her cup and the press on the table, then rocks on his heels, waiting for her to join him.

Dean sips his coffee, silently watching as she removes a tray of Canadian Bacon and English muffins from one of the ovens and assembles all of the food on a large cloth-covered tray along with a single plate and set of silverware.

“Take a seat.” She glances up as she nears the table but quickly looks away, waving a hand over the tray she just set down. “There’s plenty, so eat up.” 

Not waiting for a response, she picks up her coffee cup, “thanks for this,” and turns on her heel, heading for the second stove. After a quick sip, she sets her cup on the island counter, cracks the oven door, and peeks inside. Slipping on an oven mitt, she reaches in, and Dean’s jaw nearly comes unhinged when she pulls out a pie heaping with apple filling. Placing it on a cooling rack, she then pulls out a cake pan. She heads back to the table, grabbing a small metal bowl and butter knife on the way. Sliding her hand out of the oven mitt, she leaves it beneath the hot pan of what he can now see is full of cinnamon rolls and sets the bowl of frosting next to it along with the knife.

Dean closes his eyes and inhales deeply. “Those smell amazing. Did you make them from scratch?”

“Yes,” is her quick, concise reply. It sounds muffled, and Dean opens his eyes to find that she’s already walked away, and he’s again left staring at her back as she enters the pantry. 

Seconds later, she returns with two small jars of what appear to be spices in hand. She lightly drops them on the island and reaches for the rolling pin. 

“Kasey.”

“Hmmm?”

“What are you doing?”

“Baking”

“I can see that,” he chuckles. “Uh, I know I’m a big guy and all,” hearing the self-assurance in his tone, she doesn’t dare to look in his direction for fear of being knocked on her ass by the blue-steel swagger that’s most likely plastered on his face, “but there’s a ton of food here. Are you going to sit down and eat with me?”

“I need to finish this.” The heel of her palm lands heavily on the dough round, denting one side. She quickly turns it and slams her palm into it again.

Dean takes a sip of coffee and hums with pleasure. Hoping to prevent the tense silence from encroaching on them again, he says, “I don’t know about you, but I barely slept last night.”

Kasey whirls around, bits of dough skittering to her feet, brandishing the rolling pin before pointing it at him. “DOES THIS KITCHEN LOOK LIKE IT’S BEING MANNED BY SOMEONE THAT IS WELL-RESTED?!”

Wide-eyed and slightly disconcerted, he mumbles into his coffee cup, “Okaaay. Just tryin’ to make conversation here.” He hesitates momentarily before pressing, “We need to talk.”

Ignoring his comment, she grips the rolling pin with both hands and forces it down into the semi-flattened dough, then flicks some flour over the surface before picking up and turning it. The small, thick disc hits the surface with a loud slap, followed by the thud of the wooden pin as she aggressively thins what he assumes is a second pie crust. Between each slap and thud, she huffs out a breath.

Dean takes a bite of the eggs benedict and grunts in approval. Pulling a cinnamon roll from the pan, he immediately drops the hot bun on his plate, shaking his singed fingers in the air. After slathering the roll in frosting, he sinks his teeth into the warm, fluffy dough and takes a large chunk out of the confection. The spicy-sweet concoction literally melts in his mouth, and he can’t hold back the moan of satisfaction. The thunk of the rolling pin is loud, echoing around the kitchen. Sneaking a glance at her, he frowns, watching her take out whatever emotions she’s working through on the innocent pastry.

When the dough is the size of a large pizza crust, he taunts, “If you were making another pie crust, it’s going to be tough as hell now.”

Kasey stops the forward roll of the pin and looks down, seemingly in shock at seeing the almost paper-thin sheet of dough. “Son of a bitch.” Grabbing a spatula, she scrapes the mess into a small pile near the corner of the countertop.

She still has yet to make any meaningful eye contact with him or say anything other than clipped comments. Worried and frustrated, he blurts out, “Are we going to talk about it, or are you going to continue trying to ignore me?”

“Dean.” She tucks her chin, placing her hands flat on the counter as she leans forward. “We’ve only known each other for a little over two days-“

“Almost three,” he interjects, glad she didn’t try and pretend she doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Paying no heed to the comment, she shoves off the counter and turns away. “I’m your legal advisor.”

Well, damn, got stiff-armed with that one. It’s all good; I get it. At least she’s still willing to help. She’s settin’ boundaries, and obviously, one of us needs to. Wish I was inside those boundaries, though. Deep inside. I mean, look at those legs, that ass, and those hands. Would love to have those hands… oh, for fuck’s sake.

I’ve already screwed this up enough. I need to keep this professional. Stow the personal crap. Bury it like always. Besides, someone like her deserves so much more than I have to offer, which is nothing but a broken heart and a screwed-up life. It doesn’t matter that it feels like we’re perfect for each other. She deserves someone better—better than me.

She opens a cupboard next to the stove and reaches for a dish on the top shelf. Pressing up on her toes, it looks like she’s about to grasp the base but only succeeds in pushing the glassware further back into the cabinet.

When it looks like she’s going to try climbing up on the counter, he shakes his head at her stubbornness. Reticently pushing away from the table, he makes his way over to her. “Here, let me.” Reaching over her head, he draws out the dish, setting it on the counter in front of her. A rush of dopamine sends his pulse skittering when she rocks back into him, making him realize that ‘stowing his personal crap’ will be much more challenging than he imagined.

Entering the house, Kasey nearly drops the basket of eggs she’s carrying upon seeing a bare-chested Dean standing in her kitchen. He’s about to peer into one of the dough-filled covered bowls, tongue peeking out between his lips like a kid getting ready to steal a cookie from the cookie jar. Except he’s not a kid. He’s an Adonis. DaVinci’s divine proportions incarnate. The backdrop of faded wallpaper on her kitchen walls appears even bleaker compared to his stunning vibrance. 

She takes a step forward, drawn to him like a tide in the moon’s pull. The rush of blood redistributing itself in her body makes her light-headed, and she presses a hand against the wall to steady herself. In a matter of seconds, she shifts her distress into disgruntlement, annoyed that he has such an immediate effect on her. Kicking off her boots, she growls, “Don’t touch anything.” 

How the hell is she supposed to remain professional and rational with him walking around practically naked? To protect her sanity, she decides to avoid looking at him and makes a beeline for the stove to finish preparing breakfast.

Dean tries to engage with her, offering to help. In contrast, she tries to remain unaffected by his presence, offering clipped responses while still trying to sound friendly as she finishes preparing breakfast. Once he’s settled at the table, she returns to her baking tasks, wanting to make one more pie before cleaning up the mess she created.

Baking has always been a soothing pastime, and after her little outburst when he mentioned his lack of sleep, she distinctly needs some soothing. Some of her favorite childhood memories revolve around helping her grandmother bake the multitude of sweet treats they supplied for the harvest festival held at the farm every year. 

While reliving memories of her past in an attempt to ignore her indecent thoughts of the man currently making obscene noises while eating her food, she loses focus on the tender dough in front of her. That is until the molasses laced gravel of his voice cuts into her thoughts, and she finds a thin sheet of dough worthy of a strudel layer beneath the wooden pin. Frustrated, she scrapes it all into the garbage.

He had asked her about the kiss without asking her about the kiss. She’s not ready to talk about it, though. 

Is it too early in the day for whiskey?

Yeah, it probably is, and she feels like she’ll need some whiskey before talking about it, and they do need to talk. A decision needs to be made about whether to push the feelings aside and get on with business or get on with business. 

Ugh. I am so not funny.

Deciding that it’s too early to deal with it, she reminds him that she’s part of his defense team and turns away. Looking for another excuse to continue avoiding him, she decides to pull out her grandmother’s favorite glass-topped cake stand to store the pie on.

Seriously. What the hell does he think he’s doing, walking around looking like that?

Kasey pushes up on her toes to try and reach the dish but only succeeds in pushing it further out of reach. Debating whether to get the step stool or climb onto the counter, she feels the air shift when he steps up behind her.

“Here, let me.” Dean effortlessly reaches above her head to grab the serving dish from the shelf. 

Her entire body feels like it’s been set ablaze. Muscles stretch and harden beneath the slide of his bare skin against hers. He places the dish on the counter, and Kasey sighs, flesh skimming over flesh as she flattens her feet back onto the floor. His sharp intake of breath pushes his chest closer to her.

The small scrap of objective reasoning she has left causes her to tense. When he doesn’t move away, she relaxes into him. The solid strength of him pressed against her is ecstasy and torture at the same time. 

She’s been starving, depriving herself, and the hunger for human touch is no longer bearable. A moment of tense silence stretches between them, and then Dean whispers, “May I?”

Kasey knows that his touch could break her, that she probably won’t be able to come back from it, but right now, at that moment, she doesn’t care. She’s tried to take a logical approach and argue her feelings away, but it’s no use. It’s more than just the feeling of a warm body or needing that quick high of pleasure. She can’t suppress the way every molecule in her body reacts to him any more than she can stop the sun rising and replies with a breathy, “Yes.”

A hand smooths over her abdomen, pulling her flush to his body. He lifts a stray lock of hair from her shoulder and presses it against his nose, “you smell like ginger and honey,” before tucking it behind her ear. A tilt of his head and his tongue traces the shell of her ear, warm breath skimming over her cheek. Deft fingers chart a path through the dip in her clavicle, “your skin’s so soft,” then glide down her arm to intertwine with hers. Lifting their clasped hands, he kisses the tips of her fingers, “delicate fingers,” her palm, “strong hands,” then her wrist, “you taste like crisp green apples,” soft lips lingering on her pulse. 

She closes her eyes and lets her head fall back against his shoulder. He’s trimmed his beard even closer, and the scruff scrapes deliciously against her skin as he lowers their hands, placing a kiss on her temple. She can feel the rapid bassline harmony of his heart, and her pulse picks up the melody, creating a rhythm that will forever be tattooed on her soul. 

Like a lit fuse, quick, fervid kisses down the side of her face and across her collarbone leave a trail of smoldering heat. Slapping her palm over the hand on her stomach, she slips her fingers between his, bringing it up to cup her breast, and murmurs, “Fuck, that feels-”

A burst of heat burns the words away and threatens to send her to her knees when sharp teeth graze the curve of her shoulder and deft fingers knead her flesh through the fabric. Never in her life has she been so turned on by a few kisses and a simple touch. 

Silken strands tickle her fingers as she snags a fistful of hair, tugging his head down. The pressure of his grip tightens, bordering on pain. Her body bows, forcing her breast further into his grasp and her ass against the hard line of him. Her whine meets his growl, captured between the crush of their lips.

She cranes her neck, fingers still clutching the handful of his hair, body squirming, trying to get a better angle and prolong the kiss. Cool fingers brush along her side, sending ripples of pleasure through her. When they slip beneath the material of her dress to pinch her other nipple, the sensation makes her jolt, a tiny squeak sounding in her throat.

Dean immediately releases her and steps away, leaving her gripping the counter to keep from falling. “I’m sorry.” His voice is low and gruff, filled with regret.

“You-” Struggling to catch her breath, she waves a hand behind her in an attempt to assure him it’s alright, “no-” Kasey brings her hand back to fan herself as she turns and leans her ass against the counter, smile fading as soon as she sees him.

He’s further away than expected, leaning on a fisted hand on the corner of the island, the other rubbing along the side of his thigh, a poker face etched on his features. She tries to catch his eye, but he looks over her shoulder. “I was out of line. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“Hmmm.” She nods, turning to pull a glass from the open shelf. Filling it with water, she faces Dean again, sizing him up over the rim as she slowly quenches her parched throat with the cooling liquid. “Do you want it to?” Her eyes never leave him as she places the empty glass on the counter behind her.

“It doesn’t matter what I want.”

Pursing her lips, she bobs her head. “Huh.” Kasey tugs at the straps of her dress, putting the material back in place. Dean’s eyes flick down, watching as she smooths the fabric over the front of her body, quickly looking away when she arches a brow. “Well, do you think I don’t want it?” She walks her fingers along the countertop and takes a couple of steps toward him. “Because, if that’s what you think, then maybe you’re not as good at this as I imagined you to be.” 

“Y-You imagined this?” His eyes snap to hers, brows shooting up, and the pink tip of his tantalizing tongue presses against the backs of his teeth.

“Uh, huh,” she murmurs, tilting her head and smiling, stopping about a foot from him, flattening her hand on the counter. “I imagined it all night. And this morning. Hell, I can’t NOT imagine it.”

Fingers tapping against his thigh, Dean’s eyes narrow; a few tension-filled moments pass, then he clears his throat. “Listen, Kase,” her mouth quirks at the shortening of her name. She likes the sound of it, though, and remains silent as he continues. “I know I asked you not to say that the kiss last night was a mistake, but maybe it was. I mean, I don’t think it was… but maybe… under the circumstances… it was. It’s like you said, you're part of my legal team. You’ve already put yourself at risk by letting me stay here and helping me. You’re an amazing woman. Smart… so smart… it’s fucking hot how intelligent you are. Funny… kind… beautiful… inside and out… seriously. Sexy… fuck… I mean, look at you.” He waves his hand, indicating her entire body. “Uh… sorry.” 

He drags a hand over his face. “I have nothing to offer you, well, unless you count three dollars and a bad bottle of whiskey that I found in Baby’s secret compartment, nothing more. Hell, I don’t even own her anymore. I just… I don’t want to endanger you or cause you more trouble.”  He opens his fist on the counter, tips of his fingers barely touching hers like he craves the connection but is afraid to make it. “I’m a convicted felon, for christ’s sake. You don’t want or need someone like me around. You deserve better. If I drag you any further into my life… my mess… you'll get hurt…” His shoulders slump, and he slides his hand away from hers.

Well, fuck. How did we get from a steamy make-out session to this? 

Dean takes a step back, his hand almost off the edge of the counter, but she reaches out and grasps his wrist, denting her fingers into his skin in hopes of keeping him from pulling away. “Don’t.” Dean stills, but his face remains blank. “‘Please don’t say we shouldn’t or that it’s a mistake.’” She can’t quite tell if the flicker in his eyes is pain, anger, or fear, maybe all of the above. “That’s what you said to me last night. Why did you say that if you were planning on running away? Because when you said that, it sounded like you enjoyed the kiss and wanted to take whatever is going on between us to the next level.” 

He remains silent, jaw rippling as he clenches it. He takes another step back, and she moves with him keeping her grip tight.

“No.” She digs her nails into his flesh, it has to hurt, but he doesn’t even flinch. “You are not leaving. I’m not letting you run. We agreed, remember? No more talk of running. Besides, it’s not up to you to decide what I want. It’s certainly not your responsibility to protect me.” Throwing her hand up, she exclaims. “The things you said to me a few moments ago, the way you touched me, what was that? You heard and felt the way I responded to you. What happened? I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone freeze up so fast.” Kasey stops, inhaling sharply.

Why am I pushing this? If he wants to leave, then it’s for the best. Let him leave. I didn’t ask for my life to be thrown into this maelstrom. Once he’s gone, I can get back to my normal, peaceful routine. 

Yeah, it might be for the best, but it hurts like hell thinking about it. Fueled by fear, she lets the anger begin to rise. “I call bullshit. You know something is happening. There’s chemistry between us, and you’re scared. You use witty sarcasm and flirty smiles to hide behind and keep everyone at arm’s length so that it’s easier to leave when things get too complicated for you. I’ve seen it before, and I see it in you."

Cocking her head to the side, she sneers, "You think I don’t have the same war going on in my head? You think I don’t know that it’s insane to have these desires that make me question my morality? That I’m not trying to figure out how to deal with your case and my feelings at the same time? It’s fucking overwhelming, but I’m not running.”

The muscles in his arm flex, and he shifts on his feet. Dean’s initial look of shock is quickly overshadowed by what she can only assume to be outrage. The cold intensity of his glare rocks her back a step, and for the first time, she’s afraid of him and what he could do to her, but the controlled composure in his tone takes her completely off guard.

“But you did.”

“What?” Releasing her hold, she crosses her arms over her chest, an instinctive urge to protect herself, taking control. 

“You ran. You shut yourself off in this time capsule hideaway with no cell, no television, no computer,” he advances on her, and she takes a couple of steps back, “cut off from the world. You ran because things got too complicated.”

“It- it’s not the same,” she stammers weakly, eyes going wide when the truth of what he’s saying settles in her mind.

Dean is the mirror. He’s the catalyst, the beginning, the end, and every damn thing in between.

“Oh, yes, it is! You-“ He slams his fist on the counter, making Kasey flinch. Apparently noticing her reaction, he sucks in a breath and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Never mind. I knew this would happen. That somehow, I would screw everything up.” Stepping away from her, he puts the island between them. “I would never physically hurt you, Kasey, but you will get hurt if I stay. I will cause you pain, and I’m not worth it.”

The acute anguish and sorrow swimming in his eyes are gut-wrenching. It pisses her off and breaks her heart in the same breath. What happened to him, beyond what she already knows, to make him feel so inconsequential? Adrenaline still running high, the anger retains its precedence. 

“I’m not a saint, Dean. You,” she points a finger in his direction, “don’t know shit about me, so don’t put me on some goddamn pedestal and then use it as an excuse to justify that somehow I’m better than you. If you genuinely think I am, then fuck you,” she scoffs, “because I’m not. Your life is worth so much more than you evidently believe. You deserve to have a good life, someone to take care of you, love you,” 

Well, he does deserve someone to love him. Honestly, why can’t it be me? Oh, for fuck’s sake, you idiot, because he's your client, well, sort of… It would be unprofessional… wrong.

“and… and you certainly deserve to be free.”

Dean remains silent but shakes his head and backs away when she moves toward him. 

Frustrated with everything that’s transpired, she shouts, “You know what?! Go! I won’t, can’t, force you to stay! If you believe you deserve to spend the rest of your life in a six-by-eight cell or living in the shadows, the door is right behind you. You still have the keys to the Impala. Take her and FUCKING go! I won’t tell anyone about you.”

She turns her back on him, leaning against the kitchen sink and staring out the window, hand clasping into a towel nearby. Tears burn a trail down her cheeks. All she wanted to do was help a man that had been wrongly accused, but she can’t force him to see his own worth. He doesn’t know her, not really. She shouldn’t expect him to have blind faith in her, trust that she can help overturn his conviction, and believe that she can genuinely care about him.

Three days. Three goddamn days and her heart feels like it’s been put through the harvester, reaped and threshed until all that remains is the raw kernel, stripped clean of any defenses. The only person who can sustain it is Dean.

What have I done?

The epiphany wracks her body with sobs. She doesn’t want to go back—can’t go back—to the life she had before he stumbled into it. She doesn’t care that it’s only been three days, the obstacles they’ll have to overcome, or what Sam or anyone else might say. Ready to turn and run after him, beg him to stay, she jumps when a heavy hand rests gently on her arm. Dean offers her a weak smile when she looks over her shoulder. Whimpering, she buries her face in his chest, arms wrapping tightly around him.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says, stroking her hair and kissing the top of her head, arm snug against her back, holding her close. “I’m sorry I scared you.” His voice wavers with the apology. “We’ll figure it out, okay?”

She sniffs and nods, clinging to him like ivy to a tree, unable to speak yet. He continues to run a gentle hand over her head, cheek resting against her temple. His heart's strong, steady beat is soothing and helps to quell the flurry of residual agitation. 

“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she whispers after the hiccups pass. 

“It’s alright.” He squeezes her tighter. “I had no right to get so angry.”

“No,” she pulls away, grimacing at the wet slide of her cheek against his chest. Reaching for the towel next to the sink, she wipes away the salty dampness her tears left on him, “it’s not. I had no right to talk to you like that. I don’t know you any better than you know me.”

Dean takes the towel from her. With one arm still loosely wrapped around her waist, he squats to her eye level and gently dries her face and neck. “Well, you’re wrong about that. You seem to know me pretty damn well for someone that just met me. Your grandpa was clearly right about that gift of yours.” 

Tossing the towel onto the counter, his hands frame her face. “You were wrong about something else, though.” He tilts his head to make sure she sees him. “I’m not afraid of the feelings. I’m genuinely afraid you’ll get hurt somehow. Worse than me making you cry, and I never want to do that again. It felt like Baby was sitting on my chest, listening to you break like that.”

He slides a thumb over her lips to silence her when she opens her mouth. “I’m afraid that the crazy, wonderful,” he pauses, “feelings I’ve been feeling will be ripped away if we start something. So, yeah, I understand why you feel like you’re getting mixed messages. ‘Cause I’m having a really hard time wrapping my head around what’s going on.” 

Kasey’s eyes widen. She honestly hadn’t expected him to fully admit his feelings, assuming, correctly, that his first instinct is to shut down, but listening to him openly express his fears and explain why he reacted the way he did, fills her with a sense of relief.

“I feel that, for whatever reason, I don’t understand right now, this—this farm, this house, this time—it’s where I’m supposed to be.” He taps a hand over his heart, and the other drops to cradle her neck. “That I belong here, with you. I have this sense of knowing you forever, yet it’s only been a little over seventy-two hours. And that freaks the hell out of me. What? Why are you grinning at me like that?“

She steps closer to him, wrapping her fingers around his forearm at her shoulder. “That’s exactly how I feel. You know… what you said about being afraid to start something and then having it torn away. But I don’t want to let this slip through my fingers and always wonder… What if? I told you before that I don’t believe in soulmates, fate… or any of that crap, but I don’t know what else to call this. I just know, with absolute certainty, that I’m afraid to lose you, and you're not even mine.”  

Kasey’s not certain if Dean’s eyes have glossed over or if the tears welling in hers are distorting the view, but either way, his soft smile sends hers spilling over her lashes. He pulls her against him, cradling her head against his chest and arm holding her firm. Her heart swells with the awareness that it makes her feel exactly how she imagined it would—protected, content, and loved.

Seconds later, she feels his tears dampen her head as he mumbles, “It’d be really awesome if I could shut off the damn waterworks for a while.”

Chuckling, she kisses his chest just above his heart as he places a kiss on the top of her head. As happy as she could be staying just as they are now, she irrefutably knows what she wants and isn’t going to waste another minute stressing over the repercussions. She turns out of his embrace and takes his hand, pulling him with her. After only a moment’s hesitation, Dean lets her lead him down the hall to his bedroom. 

Dean pushes the door closed behind them with his foot as she walks backward, drawing him along by the hands. Stopping when she reaches the end of the bed, she cradles his neck, fingers massaging at his nape. “I want you, Dean, but more than anything, I want you to take what you need. I’ll give you everything if you will just kiss me again.”

“Shit, Kasey, I-“

“Shh.” She pushes up on her toes, pulling him down toward her.

Resting his hands on her hips, he presses his forehead to hers, a glimmer in his eye. “Well, you should be kissed—and often—and by someone who knows how.”

“Oh, and I suppose, Mr. Butler, you think you’re the proper person?” she teases in her best southern drawl.

“Yes, I do.” Dean slides his hands up to encircle her ribcage and lifts her from the floor.

Maneuvering her legs beneath her to kneel on the edge of the bed, hands on his shoulders, Kasey stares at him in deference, willing to do almost anything to feel those supple lips roaming her flesh again.

Once she’s settled, his fingers lightly graze over her bare skin, thumbs slipping beneath the material of her dress to caress the underside of her breasts. The glimmer of humor in his eyes shifts, and she gasps, captured in their smoldering depths. 

Like a moth drawn to a flame, she tilts forward as Dean sets a hand at her hip, the other cradling the back of her head, thumb caressing her jaw. Kasey sighs against his mouth, eyes drifting closed when their lips finally meet. 

It starts sweet and gentle, soft-lip open-mouthed kisses, almost tentative, like each is expecting the other to pull away. They give in to the kiss when neither does, lips moving in sync like a well-choreographed dance they’ve been practicing for years. He claims her mouth, hungry and demanding, steals her breath only to replace it with his own, fueling the fire blooming deep in her center. Her lips part of their own volition, and the first slide of his tongue against hers is electric and delicious. He tastes like coffee and cinnamon, and she whines into his mouth, begging for more. 

Thick fingers tangle into her hair, loosening more strands. Reaching back, she frees her hair from the elastic band, letting the loose waves cascade down her back. Weaving a few tendrils through his fingers, he closes his hand and gently tugs, breaking the kiss. He doesn’t go far, scruff scratching over her skin as he trails kisses down her neck. “So beautiful,” he whispers, his breath hot and damp, making her body twist and shiver with pleasure.

Kasey’s fingers slip over the silky strands of his hair on the back of his head, holding him in place as he continues the assault on her neck, nipping and sucking marks into her skin. The muscles of his arm twitch beneath the fingers of her other hand as she traces a path along the dip in his forearm and over the ridge of his tricep, coming to rest at his shoulder. When he hits the sweet spot near the back of her neck, they flutter against him before seizing into his skin.

Continuing to play with his hair, she lightly scrapes her nails over his scalp, waiting for his reaction, and is rewarded with a low moan that vibrates over her skin. The sensation shoots straight through her to pool low and warm in her belly. 

Plump lips find hers again, teasing her with quick pecks at the corners of her mouth, a slow slide of his tongue over her top lip, the sharp nip and release of her bottom lip. By the time he presses his full mouth to hers again, she’s wound tight as a guitar string. Ready to snap at the slightest pluck. Ready to fall apart, needy and wet, and all he’s done is kiss her. It’s so not fair. He briefly pulls away, tilting his head in the other direction, rolling a taut nipple between his thumb and index finger with the motion. Blood rushing, heart pounding, she inhales what might be her last breath as his lips seal over hers again.

I’m going to die. I’m going to die from this kiss.

The thought plays on a loop in her head, and just as she’s about to relinquish her soul to whatever entity gifted him with those lips and the knowledge of how to use them, he breaks away. She greedily sucks in a breath along with his bottom lip, roughly grazing her teeth over the sensitive flesh as she slowly releases it. Dean hisses, digging his fingers into her. He looks slightly dazed, eyes stunningly dark, lips swollen and glossy with spit.

His beard is damp with sweat, the short hairs tickling her palm when she cups his jaw. She brushes a thumb over the lush, reddened skin of his mouth, and he grins a cheeky little smirk, tongue slipping between his parted lips to lick the pad before sucking the digit between his lips and gently biting down. 

Nope, not a kiss. His mouth. My death certificate will read, Cause of Death: ‘Dean Winchester’s mouth’.

“What a filthy mouth,” she teases. Dean wiggles his eyebrows at her, still holding her thumb captive between his lips. “No… sinful. You’re a wicked little incubus, aren’t you.” She licks at the corner of his mouth, scraping the nails of her free hand down the skin of his side. His body jerks violently, and he releases her thumb with a grunt. 

She nearly falls off the bed, hands slapping against his chest to steady herself. “Oh. Someone’s ticklish,” she laughs. Wriggling her fingers, she prepares to dig in, but Dean’s quicker. Grabbing her wrists, he pins her arms behind her back, forcing her closer to him, a smug smile and sparkling eyes meeting her startled expression.

“I don’t think s-” Dean chokes on the words when she nips at the base of his throat, then licks up the underside of his chin and across his jaw.

He smells divine, a scent that’s distinctly him rising over body wash and shampoo, and she inhales deeply, nudging her nose behind his earlobe. She kisses the salt off his skin from ear to chin, his pulse skipping when she lingers over the vein in his neck, giving it a quick bite. “You taste yummy,” she purrs, licking her lips as she straightens up. She kisses a corner of his mouth, “So,” a kiss to the other corner, “Winchester,” looking up through her eyelashes, their lips brushing against each other’s like butterfly wings as she whispers, “what else can you do with this mouth?” 

The deep growl rumbles from his chest to echo in hers, making her heart pound faster. Releasing her wrists, large hands encircle her upper arms, and he lifts her from the bed, holding her steady until her feet settle on the floor. She’s always been a sucker for someone big enough to manhandle her yet be gentle too. Her walls clench at the thought of whether he’s big all over. The bulge she felt against her ass earlier seemed pretty impressive, but she’s eager to have a look, feel the weight of him in her hand. Eyes flicking downward, she reaches out to palm him through the loose cotton pants, but Dean stops her once again.

He lightly grips her hand, kissing his way up her arm as he pulls it around the back of his neck. “I want to enjoy this for as long as possible. Besides, you wanted to know what I could do with my mouth, right?”

Kasey brings her other arm up, hands meeting behind his head, twirling a lock of hair through her fingers. “You know, I’ve wanted to tell you since that first day you walked into the kitchen, showered, shaved, hair falling in soft waves, that I thought your hair was the perfect tuggable length.” She snares a handful, “Do you like your hair pulled, Dean?” and yanks his head back. The fingers sliding over her arms dig into her triceps, a gruff croak slipping from his lips as his hips pitch forward. “Oooh, yes… you do,” Angling her hips, she rocks against him, the feeling of how hard he is, inciting a gasp from her.

“Aww, shit,” he hisses through clenched teeth. “I- I can’t wait-”

“Then don’t.”

A hand at the nape of her neck prevents her from stumbling back when his lips crash into hers. Crossing her arms behind his head, pulling him closer, her body arches to meet him. He breaks the kiss all too soon, and just like that, she’s left breathless again. Panting, she presses her forehead against his chest as he unties the knot holding her dress in place. She swirls her tongue over his nipple, alternating between soft kitten licks and sharp flicks of her tongue. The sounds she draws from him make her panties moist with slick. She drops her hands and works the material of his pants down over his ass.

The knot falls loose, and Dean holds her at arm’s length letting the dress slip from her body to pool on the floor. Tilting his head, his mouth falls open as if in awe, eyes raking over her from tip to toe and back again. “Damn, you're gorgeous,” he husks, teeth scraping over his lower lip.

Eyes locked with his, she palms over his hard length before loosely fisting around him. “So thick, just like the rest of you.” Wetting her lips, she slowly strokes him, slipping her thumb over the small V just below the head. Dean sputters and moans, and she kisses the tip of his chin. “Fuck, me.”

Dean tugs the garment down his thighs, and Kasey drops with a heavy bounce as he steps out of the material, pushing her back onto the bed. Keeping him in hand, she strokes the length of him. Pre-cum leaks enticingly from his slit, and the need to taste him, feel that weight of him on her tongue, is overpowering. Pinching her chin between thumb and forefinger, he tilts her head back when she leans forward to lick at him, preventing her from reaching her goal.

Brows pulled together, she flicks her eyes upward and pouts, “I want to show you what I can do with my mouth.” She constricts her grip and tugs. Dean thrusts into her fist, fingers denting into her cheeks, other hand grasping around her wrist to halt any further movement from her.

“I thought you wanted me to fuck you.”

“I want everything, your mouth, your fingers, those hands, that dick.”

He hisses through clenched teeth, looking down at the hand still holding him. “I knew these fingers, this hand,” his thumb strokes over her skin, “would feel good wrapped around me. I didn’t realize just how good it would feel.” He loosens the hold on her face but tightens the one on her wrist. “I need you to stop, or this will be over way too soon.”

She unfurls her fingers and pushes her bottom lip out a little further, whining, “But I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten breakfast yet.”

“Fuuuuucking, hell.” Dean looks like his dick isn’t the only thing about to explode. Releasing her hand, he leans into her, forcing her to lie back. “Are you trying to kill me?”

Kasey smiles as she watches him struggle to regain control, silently reveling in the knowledge that she can rile him up as much as he had done to her. The moment his demeanor shifts, she tries to move up the bed, steeling herself for his next move, but he quickly grips her knee holding her in place as he straightens. “Where do you think you’re going?” His long, lean body is now on full display in all its glory, and she nearly melts into the mattress. The air leaves her lungs in a whoosh, making her dizzy, and she grips the bedding to ground herself. There’s so much to take in that she’s unsure where to look, so she briefly closes her eyes.

No one has a right to look that good. If he were to be arrested for anything, this should have been it. It’s cruel and unusual punishment. Oh! I wonder what kind of punishment he would dish out?

When she finally peels her lids open, her eyes immediately land on his beefy thighs, and an image of her straddling one as large hands guide her over those taut muscles makes her chest heave. The air around her sizzles with heat, or maybe it’s her skin; it could be both. She swallows hard and brushes her tongue over her lips, futilely attempting to slake the thirst of her parched mouth.

“You okay, there?”

The deep bass of his voice is a shock to her already overloaded system, and her shoulders twitch. “Just kill me now.”

“Kase?”

She hadn’t meant to say it aloud. The concern laced in the word brings her frazzled brain into a semi-focused awareness. She manages a smile as she lifts her eyes to his face, all sense of intelligent thought once again fleeing when she’s greeted with a cheeky smile and a knowing gaze. “I, uh, I said, I- I’m fine.”

The arch of a single brow accompanied by the nod of his head ignites a spark of defiance. Dean’s eyes darken and shift, intently watching as she brings a hand up to tweak her nipple. Focused on the hungry glint in his eyes, she’s startled by the feel of her underwear being slipped from beneath her ass and over her ankles.

“Time to let me see.” With a wink and a wicked smile, she brings her knees up and lets her legs fall open. He brings the scrap of fabric to his nose and tugs on his shaft as he inhales deeply. “Who knew you’d be such a tease,” he smirks, tossing the white cotton to the floor.

Kasey gulps, feeling her cunt dripping onto the sheets. She hurriedly scoots up the bed, but Dean moves like a jungle cat, pinning her down before she can reach the pillows, mouth immediately latching onto a breast. She yelps in surprise, the slap of her hands against his shoulder blades echoing through the room. Her back instinctively arches, but she has nowhere to go, his weight hard and heavy on top of her.

“Shit, shit, shit. Give a girl some warning,” she huffs.

He smiles against her skin, tongue flicking across the hardened nub trapped between his teeth before releasing it. “Why? It’s more fun this way.” He turns his attention to the other breast, fingers drifting featherlight down her body, making her leg twitch when he brushes over the crease of her leg and hip. “Huh, seems like someone else might be ticklish,” he murmurs, chuckling softly, the sound vibrating through her body.

Whining his name, she squirms beneath him when he ghosts his fingers over the area again, then gasps as he shifts his body, giving himself room to run a finger through her folds. He sinks his finger in to the first knuckle while his thumb circles her clit. 

“You’re so wet,” he taunts, pushing in further before pulling out. “Is that all for me?” Kissing the valley between her breasts, he adds a second finger and starts a slow slide in and out… in and out...

Kasey’s brain short circuits.

Not a kiss. Not his mouth. Him. I’m going to die from all of him.

“Who- who the h- hell else would it be for, you ass.” she manages to splutter. “Just fuck me already.”

“Whoa, no need to get mean. But I do love the sound of nasty words coming from such a pretty mouth.” He sucks a mark into the top of her breast, his fingers picking up the pace as he continues to pump them into her slick heat. “You gonna talk dirty to me? Make me lick that filthy mouth clean?”

She can’t reach what she wants to grab, so she settles for grabbing a handful of hair and pulling his face up to hers. He looks fucking giddy, a shit-eating grin plastered on his lips. She narrows her eyes and snarls, “I’ll spew every fucking filthy word I know.  Hell, I’ll even swear in fucking Latin if it helps. All the fucking filth you can goddamn fucking STAND from this pretty mouth; talk so motherfucking dirty to you, you’ll need to shower twice to feel clean if you. will. just. fuck. me.” She’d laugh at the unmitigated shock that adorns his face, but the coil is wound so tight it’s almost painful. “Please,” she sweetly begs. 

His eyes hold an ardent enthusiasm, but his smile softens, and he kisses the tip of her nose. “That’s why I need you to come for me, honey. I don’t want to hurt you.”

She keens his name when he scissors his fingers and grinds onto his hand when he adds a third, making her walls convulse. “That’s it,” he whispers in her ear, “I can feel you getting closer.” 

“Shit… feels good.” Curling in on herself, she breathes, “p- please.”

He places a peck on her cheek, “I want you to come hard for me, okay?” presses a kiss to her temple, “I want to feel you dripping down my arm,” taps his thumb over her clit, riling her up, enticing her to the edge. “Can you do that?”

“Y- yes…” Slipping a hand around the back of his neck, she thrusts against his hand, “fuck… feels so good,” as the other grips the arm working her over, “right there… right there.” Each thrust of his hand buries those long thick fingers deep, deeper than she could ever get on her own. She writhes next to him, yearning for release but not wanting it to end.

“Good girl.” Dean nips sharply at her earlobe and curls his fingers, thumb pressing into her clit. 

Hips canting off the bed, back bowed, her body seizes, breath stalled, sound trapped in her throat, and walls clamped firmly around his fingers. 

“That’s my girl,” he coos. “Fuck, that’s tight.” He tries to wiggle his fingers, and she cries out.

It’s all too much—his fingers, his voice, the weight and heat of him, the wave of euphoria that rolls through her. She collapses back onto the bed, her nails digging into his flesh, walls spasming around the fingers still fucking her. “Christ… fuck…” She twists her hips and clenches her thighs together, trying to stop the overstimulation, chest heaving, and heart threatening to burst.

“Nuh, uh.” Dean wedges a leg between hers, keeping them separated, his hand slowing as he eases her down. “Deep breaths.” 

Kasey tries to do as he says, sucking in lungfuls of air, slowly exhaling in time with the rhythm of his fingers… in and out… in and out… she dissolves into the mattress, dazed and blissful.

“There you go.” He kisses her deeply, tongue slipping in as he frees his fingers completely.

Hips jerking, she whines, already missing the feeling of fullness he’d provided. Damn, he was right. He needed to prepare her. If she felt that full with just his fingers, that cock of his will split her open. She can’t wait. 

Dean bites her bottom lip, bringing her focus back to him. Leaning up on his elbow, he brings his hand up from between her legs, “Look at the mess you made.” Kasey looks down her body to find his entire hand glistening as he wiggles his fingers, her juices dripping from his wrist. “Such a good girl, doing exactly as you were told.”

She can’t lie; the praise makes her feel warm and fuzzy, tightening the coil again a notch or two. He swipes his wrist across her thigh, then scoots down to lick it from her skin. “Tastes so good.” He breathes over the wet trail his tongue left behind, laughing as the goosebumps rise on her flesh, making her whine. Flicking his tongue out, he laps at his palm before shoving a finger into his mouth and moans, then proceeds to suck each finger clean in turn, releasing his thumb with a loud pop when he’s finished.

Fuck him. Fuck him and his thick fingers. Fuck his sinful mouth and talented tongue. Fuck his dreamy eyes and sexy voice, broad shoulders, and ripped arms. Fuck his bowed legs and meaty thighs. Fuck him.

And she categorically does want to… fuck him, that is. Dean rolls over the top of her, resting his weight on his forearms on either side of her shoulders, their noses nearly touching. 

“Ever taste yourself?” 

The question sounds obscene, depraved, the rasp of whiskey and smoke-filled barrooms pervading the words. It makes her stomach flip and her toes curl. He could be the devil incarnate, and she’d willingly follow him to hell and back if he promised to talk to her like that every day. She shakes her head. She can smell her arousal on his breath, and it turns her on more than she ever thought it would, making her squirm beneath him, wanting nothing more than to taste the tang of her release. 

“Seriously?” Eyes dark and hungry, he smiles wide and bright. “Do you want to?” 

Nodding eagerly, she unconsciously licks her lips in anticipation.

Dean’s smile is wicked as he breathes, “Go ahead.” 

Tilting her chin up, she gives him a tentative peck on the lips, which reveals little in the way of taste. He patiently watches as she bites her lip, then licks along his top lip.

She scrunches her nose at first, and he chuckles, brushing back the strands of hair sticking to her cheek. “Try again.”

He parts his lips further, letting her sweep her tongue in to explore his mouth with the next kiss. Kasey moans, and he pulls away, kissing the tip of her nose, the corners of his eyes crinkling with his smile. “Exactly.” His cock lies heavy against her thigh, and he ruts into her, mouth capturing hers, letting her lick his mouth clean. She pants when they break apart, “I want to taste you now.”

Wincing, he groans, “Later. I want to fuck you hard. Like you’ll feel me for days hard. I almost blew my load watching you fall apart. I can’t hold back much longer, and I really, really want to feel that tight cunt squeeze around my dick as you come.”

“Well, well, look who’s got the filthy mouth now.” she giggles. “Unfortunately, I think we will have to wait for that.”

“Wait? Why?” He looks terror-stricken. “I can’t wait. I mean… if you need to… don’t want to… then, yeah, we can wait. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… assume… anything. I just thought… with everything you said… what we just did… “

She lets him ramble on a bit more before kissing him to shut him up. Dean blinks down at her, confusion written into every gorgeous angle of his face. Sliding a hand down his side, she traces the edge of the bandage. “I meant the rough sex, but-”

“Ah, phfft.” He cuts her off, rolling his eyes like she’s a crazy person. “I can barely feel it. It’ll be fine.” 

Pinning him with a stern glare, she huffs, “May I finish?”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“I have an idea that I think will make you just as happy.”

“Does it involve me feeling that sweet pussy around my dick?”

“Jesus.” It’s her turn to roll her eyes. “Yes.”

“Awesome, what’s the idea?”

“Get off me and lie on your back.” 

Dean’s eyes immediately light up, quickly catching on, and he rolls off her, situating himself in a semi-reclining position against the pillows. Kasey sits up on her haunches, then moves to straddle him, only to jerk back when he slaps his palms against the sheets and angrily shouts, “Son of a bitch.”

“What?” Not sure what’s happening, she quickly scans his body paying close attention to the bandage on his injured side. “You okay? What’s wrong?”

Scrubbing a hand down his face, he laments, “Uhm… condoms?”

She blinks rapidly, comprehension taking a moment to set in. “Oh! Well, I’m sure there are a couple around here somewhere, but they won’t be any good.” The forlorn-little-boy look on his face nearly sends her into a fit of laughter, and she bites her lip until she can swallow it back down. “I have an implant,” she tentatively states. Resting her hand, palm up, on his thigh, she taps the skin over the tiny bar. 

Dean tilts his head curiously, eyes narrowing a bit. He wraps his fingers around her arm, thumb resting about an inch from the device, and eyes her quizzically.

“You can touch it,” she nods.

Lightly running his thumb over the area, he grimaces. “That feels weird. Does it hurt?”

“No, I don’t even feel it anymore. I got it right before I moved.” Smiling, she carefully watches his face. “So, we’re covered on that front. We good?”

“I’m good,” he nods eagerly.

Dean continues to hold her arm, helping her to balance as she throws a leg over his thighs, settling her ass just above his knees. “What are you doing so far away?” He holds his other hand up, and she flattens her palm against his, forcing their intertwined fingers onto the pillow above his head, moaning in unison with him when her still wet folds slide over his shaft.

She leans in and gives him a short, sweet kiss, sliding her hips back as she bears down on him. Dean grunts and releases the hold on her arm to cup the side of her face. His gaze is intense, but his eyes are soft and apologetic as he brushes his thumb over the apple of her cheek, and for a second, she worries that he might ask her to stop. Instead, he kisses her, sensual and slow. The rush to get where they are is gone, and now he clearly wants to savor the moment. Fingers slipping into her hair, he lifts his chin and pulls her closer. Nose pressed alongside hers, he hesitates, sharing a breath, looking at her with something akin to wonder. Kasey softly wraps her fingers around his wrist and whispers his name. Eyelids fluttering closed, he tilts his head to slot his lips with hers. The emotions he imparts in the kiss are startling. It’s passionate yet tender, intoxicating and exhilarating, loving and sweet. She swears she could come again just from this kiss.

She swirls her hips, his cock slipping through her folds, and he growls into her mouth. The smile it elicits causes him to pull back, smirking at her. “I want you so bad it hurts. But feeling you raw, I think this might end quicker than either of us would like.” 

The sincerity in his tone warms her heart, and she responds in kind. Squeezing the hand she’s holding, she turns her head and kisses his palm. “We have all day. I’m sure we will have ample opportunity to find ways of enjoying each other.”

He visibly relaxes under her gaze. 

“So let me take care of you.” She rocks her hips, sliding him through her wet heat. After her second pass, he drops his hand to her waist and thrusts against her, and she immediately stills. Lightly smacking his chest, she growls, “You don’t move. I’m in charge now.”

“Yes, ma’am.” 

The smug smirk falls from his lips when her fingers grip his cock and squeeze. “I mean it. You, don’t move.”

“Got it.” She runs her thumb through his slit and strokes him a couple of times to make sure he’s fully covered in her slick. “N-No moving.” Lifting, she notches his tip at her entrance. “I’ll just…” She slowly eases down an inch or so. “lie h- here and take-”

Grunting, he slams his head back into the pillows, fingers denting into the top of her ass cheeks as she drops, impaling herself on his shaft. Falling forward, she presses her hand into his pec and tucks her chin, taking a moment to let the burn of the stretch dissipate. She knew he’d feel good, but damn, this… this is illusory. The stuff fantasies are made of. He’s broad and long, just like the rest of him, and he fills her so completely.

“Kasey?”

“Yeah, one more sec.” She clenches around him, feeling every thick ridge and throbbing vein. 

“Kase, I need you to move.” Voice strained, he begs, “Please.”

Chuckling, she lifts her head to watch him as she slowly rises, then eases back onto him, setting a slow, steady pace. She releases his hand and kisses the tip of his chin as she brushes her knuckles over his cheek. “You’re beautiful.”

Dean scrunches his face at the word, and she smiles sweetly. “You are.” She tucks a section of hair back at his temple, “you’re smart.” Her index finger traces an eyebrow, “your eyes are kind, filled with emotion.” She trails the finger down his nose, tapping the end. “An adorable freckled nose.” Leaning forward, she rubs the tip of her nose against his, continuing to thrust shallow and slow. Her finger slides through the dip of his Cupid’s bow and drags over his bottom lip to his chin. She lets her tongue take over, placing her hand to rest on the bed above his shoulder. Keeping his gaze, she licks along his lower lip and whispers, “This deliciously sinful mouth.” The corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles, cock twitching inside her, fingers flexing into her flesh. “Such a gorgeous smile.”

Kasey sits back, and he slips in deeper, stretching her snug walls around him. The sense of fullness and the drag over her g-spot makes her tremble in anticipation. Despite his reservations, she has no doubt that he’ll make her come again. 

Dean regards her with rapt attention as she undulates over him, her body slowly twisting and curving, building momentum. “Do you know what I think the sexiest thing is about you?” Perfect white teeth rake over his bottom lip as he shakes his head. She snakes a finger down his chest before tapping two fingers over his heart. “This heart. It’s a good heart.” Her other hand slips between them. “Strong and steady.”

“Fuck… oh… shit…” Dean’s body jerks, and his cock swells when her fingers brush against his shaft as she circles her clit. “Kasey…”  His big hands squeeze the globes of her ass, then drop to grip around her ankles, forcing her knees forward and drawing her legs closer to his body.

Fingers curling into his chest, she pitches forward, her other hand landing on his shoulder as she grinds down onto him. Mouth pressed to his ear, she breathes, “Come for me.” And he does, spurting hot and deep inside her with a strangled shout. 

Dean’s hands encircle her waist, helping her move as she continues to bounce on him while he throbs inside her. Seconds later, she bites into the skin of his collarbone, clenching around him while he holds her flush against his pelvic bone, the wave of pleasure washing over her even stronger than before.  

He wraps her up in his arms when she collapses on top of him, chests heaving against each other and hearts pounding. His skin slips against hers, where the sweat has pooled between them as he flips them over. Brushing damp stray hairs off her forehead, he places quick, tender kisses over her face, then slides down between her legs, laying his head over her heart, using her breasts as a makeshift pillow.

“Damn, that was awesome.” His warm breath tickles her cooling skin.

“It was,” she chuckles, fingers drawing random patterns on his shoulder. “I can’t wait to do it again.” She hooks her heels over his thighs as his laughter shakes the mattress beneath them. 

He dips his head to kiss her skin before replying, “Give me a minute to catch my breath.”

She smiles, looking down at him; the weight of his body grounds her. Dean hums, breaths slowing as she cards her fingers through his hair. He slides his arms closer to her body, hands resting against her sides, not quite cupping her breasts, and relaxes further into her, pressing her deeper into the bedding. It’s hot and sticky, but she doesn’t care and has no intention of moving. She closes her eyes, letting the bliss-filled silence stretch between them. She’s on the edge of sleep when he murmurs against her.

“There was one more thing you were wrong about.”

“Sheesh. Is this going to become a thing now? Are you going to start keeping a list?” 

He chuckles as he lifts his head, resting his chin in the cleft below her breasts, and she peels her lids up just enough to see him. “Earlier when you said that… that I wasn’t yours. You were wrong. I’ve been yours from the moment I stepped onto your porch.”

Previous // Next

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@muchamusedaboutnothing

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 308: VIBE: CHECKED

Previously on BnHA: Lots and lots of Shindou idk what else to tell you.

Today on BnHA: Tired Nomad Deku rescues Shindou from Muscular, and us from Shindou. Muscular is all “OH BOY I SURE CAN’T WAIT TO FIGHT DEKU AGAIN AFTER HE TOTALLY KICKED MY ASS THE LAST TIME!! I’M SURE THIS TIME WILL GO DIFFERENTLY SEEING AS HE’S HAD ALMOST AN ENTIRE YEAR’S WORTH OF ADDITIONAL TRAINING, AND ALSO HAS SIX FOURQUIRKS NOW, IN ADDITION TO THE CONFIDENCE THAT COMES WITH HAVING EIGHT OTHER PEOPLE’S SOULS CHILLING OUT INSIDE HIM OFFERING MORAL SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGEMENT.” Deku is all, “[kicks Muscular’s ass effortlessly].” Muscular is all, “[gets his ass totally kicked].” I for one am very satisfied with this, and with respect to all, I would like to hereby declare this post a discourse-free zone. I’m just happy to see my son out here making good use of his FOURQUIRKS, and more importantly beating Muscular in less than seventeen pages so we can all go on with our lives lol.

damn Deku since when were you allowed to look this cool

from this perspective and with the smoke, cape, backpack, and mask more or less obscuring his actual profile, he looks less like a sixteen-year-old boy and more like a grownass man

OH SNAP

we got a glimpse of this in the cleaned-up scan of 307, but seeing both of his eyes looking so distinctively All Might-esque here is... whoa. I mean we know that his face still looks pretty normal underneath the mask and he doesn’t actually have the black sclera, but still, this is an awesome look. mini-Might

lol Muscular

you and me both. I mean no offense, but yeah

so Deku is just standing there silently

typical Deku. tight-lipped and expressionless. mum’s the word. quiet as a mouse. silent as a grave

okay no but seriously this is so weird and creepy though you guys. Deku please say something or else I’m just gonna mindlessly say whatever stupid things come into my head in an effort to make things less awkward

so Muscular is all “I should probably make a cool speech about revenge but Horikoshi couldn’t think of anything good so I’m just going to stand here clenching my fist real slowly”

“I’m not here to go on a monologue” he says, as he monologues about not monologuing

okay you guys I confess I have only read through/watched the Deku VS Muscular fight once because the arm-breaking is just way too uncomfortable for me to revisit. and so as a result, I have completely forgotten Whatever The Deal Is with Muscular’s eye lmao so let me go look it up real quick

okay so it’s a prosthetic, obviously, and he changes it out according to his mood. that part does sound familiar. I just can’t remember which eye is supposed to indicate which mood. don’t tell me I actually have to go back and reread this shit

lol I’m skimming through chapter 75 now and remembering/realizing that I hardly paid any attention to this the first time around because as soon as I found out the villains were after Kacchan my brain was like “TIME TO FOCUS ON THIS AND ONLY THIS NOW AND FOREVER” and yeah. ah memories

anyway so he started out with the flower-looking eye, and then later on he was all

which begs the question, how on earth could I have ever forgotten the most ridiculous panel I’ve ever read lmao

anyway, but so after all of that, I'm only just now realizing that this isn't one of his previous eye prosthetics in the current chapter; this is an ACTUAL FUCKING ROCK that he's just randomly shoved into his eye socket fkdsjlk

so basically (1) I did all of that painstaking research for nothing, five whole minutes of my life wasted THANKS A LOT, and (2) what, and I have never meant this more emphatically, THE FUCK

anyway so now he's leaping at the building that Deku is standing on top of. but he’s not aiming anywhere near Deku though, wtf

(ETA: HAHA YOU BROKE ALL YOUR MUSCLES YOU LOSER.)

...huh

lmao okay then. I hope those annoying citizens in the building next door are watching this go down and rethinking their life choices

dlkdkljk

just keep standing there pressed right up against the window, why don’t you. “WHAT’S GOING ON THIS SUPER CLOSE COLLAPSING BUILDING IS BLOCKING OUR VIEW.” well, folks, we’ve long since known there’s a critical shortage of hero and villain brain cells, but what we’re learning now is that civilian brain cells are also in short supply

OH THANK GOD DEKU IS FINALLY TALKING THAT WAS ACTUALLY UNSETTLING AS FUCK

SO HE’S STILL OUR GOOD, POLITE, WORRIED, CONSIDERATE DEKU UNDERNEATH THAT COOL AND MYSTERIOUS VENEER. for real, thank fuck, because I swear to god if he suddenly started acting like the Dekus in all of the vigilante AUs my interest in this series would have dropped something like 50% lol. just because he dropped out of school and ran away from home and is currently dressed like the physical manifestation of a Linkin Park playlist doesn’t mean he’s not still the WORLD’S BIGGEST DORK okay

I MEAN, THIS RIGHT HERE. THIS IS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT. HE’S APOLOGIZING FOR THE DELAY

PLEASE FIND THE ATTACHED SHINDOU YOU REQUESTED. BEST REGARDS!!!

OH MY GOD WHY IS HE SUCH A BADASS

something about making bold, confident statements while obscured in smoke?? idk but damn it fucking works

ffjkkl

more importantly, should you tell him you actually need your copy of Shindou in excel format and not pdf?? on the one hand you don’t want to sound ungrateful, but on the other hand what are you even supposed to do with this

this chapter so far consists of like 50% smoke, but on the other hand Deku VS Kacchan 2 had a lot of cinematic smoke too so who am I to complain

OMG IS IT HIS ARMS

IDK DID YOU?! TELL ME YOUR SECRETS. PLEASE, AT SOME POINT THIS FIGHT HAS GOT TO ACTUALLY ADVANCE THE PLOT

OHHHHHHH

IT’S EN’S QUIRK!! OH MY GOD OKAY THAT’S ACTUALLY AWESOME

I CAN HEAR THE SOUND OF DISCOURSE RUMBLING IN THE BACKGROUND BUT I DON’T CARE LOL. WON’T CATCH ME EVER SAYING NO TO ANOTHER SIXQUIRK. GO AHEAD, BRING THEM ON, I WANT TO SEE THEM ALL but take it easy though Deku. don’t want to give yourself lung cancer or anything

also it’s good to see that in a very real sense he’s not fighting alone. the Vestiges really did mean it when they said they could appear more easily now. this is on a whole other level

so is this whole next page still En talking, or someone else? because whoever it is sure is chatty

okay, several things

pretty sure it is En, because he keeps saying “I suppose.” for someone who never said two words until one page ago, this guy sure never shuts up. we can’t all follow Muscular’s lead I suppose. oh my god now I’m doing it too

really like the suggestion of Deku using the SIXQUIRKS like tools in an arsenal, because that’s what he’s good at! it’s almost like he’s been training for this his entire life. “you value quirks too much” LOOK HE JUST THINKS THEY’RE COOL OKAY IS THAT A CRIME

where the fuck did all this rope come from

not gonna ask what the fuck that thing is sticking out from the back of his utility belt. Horikoshi will surely explain this

is that a fucking jetpack. I’m sorry Deku were six fucking quirks not enough for you. you can fucking float??? but JUST TO BE SAFE, LET’S STRAP A PAIR OF ROCKETS TO OUR SHOULDERS IDK

-- or wait, is this all supposed to be like a visual representation of En’s metaphor?? OH MY GOD AM I JUST STUPID LOL, DON’T ANSWER THAT. NEVER MIND. NEW LIST!!

rope = blackwhip

jetpack = float

radio = danger sense

and so I’m guessing that this ridiculously phallic thing is supposed to be a flare or something?? and that = the new quirk, smokescreen. well that was a fucking ride lmao we now return you to our regularly scheduled chapter

so now Deku is floating to his heart’s content and thinking that he’ll just sneak up on Muscular and vibe check his ass or whatever

WOOOOOOOO DANGER SENSE YESSSS I LOVE THIS FOR HIM

okay guys, I'm gonna press pause here for a sec to make a serious note, because I am loving the shit out of this, but tbh I'm having trouble enjoying it as much as I want to because I keep getting anxious thinking about the discourse. I know that a lot of the fandom has very strong opinions on Deku's character development one way or the other, and I want to respect that. but I also really have no spoons to debate this topic at all beyond what I’ve already weighed in on. so if it’s all the same to everyone, I plan on staying out of this discussion, at least this week

anyway! that said, YEAH BOI GET HIS ASS

VIBE: CHECKED. CURB: STOMPED. HOTEL: TRIVAGO

-- OF COURSE HE’S STILL FUCKING FINE LOL HE CRASHES INTO BUILDINGS FOR FUN IDK WHAT I WAS EXPECTING

dammit Muscular. how many fucking quirks does it take to beat you?! the annoying thing is that even with all of his cool new powers, Deku is still something of a mismatch against him. anyway r.i.p. to all these poor buildings

OOOOOHHHHH

you guys have no idea how intrigued I am at the prospect of watching Deku try to play both good cop and bad cop here lmao

anyway so Muscular says he doesn’t know, go figure

“I’m not here to make small talk or anything” he says as he small talks about not small talking

OH MY GOD DEKU

are you really gonna talk no jutsu all of these villains from now on?? that last battle really did have a profound impact on you, huh! interesting

you guys he’s really doing it omg

Deku this guy tried to murder a five-year-old literally just for fun. I mean more power to you, but holy shit you’re really gonna try to defeat Muscular with anger management therapy huh

I MEAN

WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THAT RESPONSE COMING dlkjslkjk

FUCK’S SAKE DEKU, I KNOW YOU MEAN WELL BUT THEY CAN’T ALL HAVE TRAGIC PASTS KIDDO

but. I have to admit, I do still like that he tried. probably knew just as well as we did what the end result was going to be, but still. he made the effort in good faith and I respect that

uh oh

why do I get the feeling Muscular just got a whole lot deader

oh my god oh my god he’s doing the “powering up” stance ffff don’t fucking tell me you can still use your fucking arms here, Deku

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY WHAT’S THIS??

okay so basically he’s saying that whatever it was he sensed in Tomura, he doesn’t sense from Muscular. which, yeah, that sounds exactly right. good judge of character here lol

AHHHHAHAHA YESS

WHOOPS, GET FUCKED I GUESS

WOOOOHOOOOOOOO

lmao so apparently this is the belated result of Shindou’s attack from chapter 307?? I’ll be damned. good for you Shindou!! I always liked you buddy. please just take my word on that and don’t fact check that statement

okay lol the one tiny bit of discourse I will allow is that it’s bullshit that he just did that with his right arm. like, I’ll fully acknowledge that. that makes no fucking sense, and I demand an explanation from the Great Plot Hole Filler himself. he’s never let us down before when it comes to continuity so I’m trusting him not to suddenly start now

that said, we love to see a rematch against a boring guy settled quickly and decisively within the span of a single chapter. THANK YOU

I like that Deku implies that his power is being a smart nerd who battles villains using the power of ANALYTICS. he basically didn’t do anything except restrain Muscular and wait for Shindou’s attack to take effect while halfheartedly checking to see if he regretted any of that murder and stuff

(ETA: and almost forgot to mention, he made excellent use of all four of his active SIXQUIRKS. it’s like the chapter title said; this is basically him fighting all-out, and it’s a sight to see.)

also, as cool as the mask was, this just feels right. like, we had our fun, now let us see his face, yes good

anyway, I think this was a good start towards establishing What’s Up With Deku Right Now! so if it’s all the same to Horikoshi, I would next like to take some time to explore Why’s Up With Deku. that, and What’s Up With Everyone Else, Especially Kacchan. por favor

[stoppit-keepout]

that’s a wrap (3/3 early era S&D)

[continued from parts 1 and 2! did I have a plan? no ETA: now on AO3]

Four hours later Morgan came in the door and said, "Oh, hey Alex," with every appearance of being pleased to see them. They had their backpack slung over their shoulder and their hair was, as always, a state.

Something in Alex's viscera flattened out. It was like that time they'd ironed Rubber Boy's innards, but with less screaming and hissing of blood.

"Morgan," they said instead of demanding what was happening.

Alex had stayed on the couch as a compromise between teleporting to Sydney to pick a fight with the Bulk and teleporting to the police precinct, closest hospital, and several underground villain lairs to check for their host. During their hours sitting there, they had (first) transmuted it into a much comfier place to crash and (second) watched a lot of daytime television in an attempt to distract from how they (third) were thinking about Morgan.

It had been a long time since they'd thought about a person. They'd thought about heroes plenty, villains a bit, bloodlust and slaughter for sure, their parents unavoidably, but Morgan was just some person. They were objectively mere.

It was like in high school, when they'd wondered what Ezekiel from Foods Class's opinion of them had been.

They hadn't cared, of course, they had only thought about it.

"Is... everything okay?" Morgan asked.

They may have been staring. "Yes," they said. "I fixed your couch."

Morgan grinned tentatively. One of their teeth was slightly crooked. "Thanks, dude. I guess I dropped too many keys between the cushions, it's been getting lumpy."

They headed down the hall to their workroom, a hint of a limp in their step. Right, they just had a normal human healing factor. Facts about Morgan.

Alex followed them.

"So..." Morgan glanced at Alex, who hadn't blinked. "You came by the bank heist before?"

"What? How did you know?"

"There were a lot of posts on Twitter about it. A couple news segments, too--my own heist was like page 5 by the time I got out." Morgan's faint grin hadn't totally faded. "You're kind of a big deal."

No dimples. Another fact.

Maybe they should just activate a telepathy power for a few minutes, that'd speed things up. They'd know everything Morgan knew about themself, and then they'd have this whole thing solved and could stop fucking thinking.

"I'm invincible, infallible, and irredeemably evil," they smirked. "Of course I'm a big deal."

Morgan nodded slowly and pressed their lips together. "Was there something you needed from me though? Like, I showed you where the towels and stuff were, but if there was anything else, you could've just texted. You have my number, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, I've got it." They could lie. They should probably lie. "I just wanted to see what you wanted on your donair."

"Oh nice, you got donairs?"

"I did," they said. Oh fuck it. They snapped and a duplicate of the donair they'd eaten earlier appeared in Morgan's hand. "I already ate mine, though. And yours. This is a copy."

"Awesome, thanks!"

They took a huge bite while Alex debated making themself yet another wrap. Judging by the noises, Morgan did genuinely seem to think it was awesome. Well, it was nice to be appreciated.

"So good," they said through a mouthful of lettuce and lamb. "I’d do more banana peppers next time, but this is nearly perfect."

"Who says there's gonna be a next time?" Alex asked, but they were already adding 'likes spice' to the list, goddammit.

"Hey, I'm just glad there was a this time."

Alex watched Morgan finally ditch their backpack and start puttering around. The limp was becoming more pronounced the more distracted they got by the clockwork on their workbench. Alex settled into a casual levitation near the wall, crossing their legs.

"So do heroes always uh. Throw walls at people?" Morgan asked, eyes on casing they were meticulously clamping into place.

Alex scoffed. "They love it, the hypocrites," they answered, but Morgan was still talking.

"I mean, it definitely did make things easier for Gus, the money was right there when the vault wall was gone, but it also nearly killed a few of us?"

Fact about Morgan: they nearly got killed by the Bulk today.

"Ah," Alex said. Their usual reply of have you just tried being stronger, or the evergreen sucks to suck both didn't seem quite right. "At least they're easy to see coming?"

"Sure," Morgan said with a ghost of a laugh.

Well, that had been easy.

Morgan placed tiny gears in the casing, turned a couple, hummed, and replaced Tiny Gear 1 with the indistinguishable Tiny Gear 2. Frankly, it seemed like a lot of work.

Alex watched them until they reached a hand in their direction. "Could you pass me the torx screwdriver?"

"Why would I have any idea what a torx screwdriver is."

"The," -- Morgan made an inscrutable gesture -- "little star. Green handle."

All of the handles were so covered in dark grease that it wasn't immediately apparent which one was green, but Alex took a guess and Morgan grunted in thanks, so it must've been the right one.

"You should sit down," Alex said after an hour of hovering at their shoulder.

"Make me," Morgan said without looking up.

Alex's gut, which hadn't been acting in any particular way while they'd been hovering, twisted. "Maybe I will," they said on autopilot.

"Sure," Morgan said. "Maybe."

Alex didn't know what Fact About Morgan this was, but it was making them want to drop through the centre of the earth.

Again.

[studiobeebo]

THAT’S OK DUDE! Honestly I prefer people be off anon because then that way I know if the requester liked their thing or not since anons rarely follow up 😅 but like I said I’ll do anything that catches my eye and I love me some Teenage Gojō Being A Pest so I hope you enjoy!!

♡ Road Trips ♡

Satoru Gojō x Fem! Reader

as always if y’all enjoy this please remember that reblogs are greatly appreciated :D

“I am seriously starting to think that the only person you care about is your damn self.”

The shouted words were sharp enough to hurt his pride just a teeny bit, but the slamming of the passenger door actually made him wince as if you had just slapped him rather than just yelling in anger.

“Wow, nice job. And you thought this trip would be romantic.”

Gojō sneered and stuck his tongue out at his friend who was all-too-eager to mock him for his obvious dismissal of your annoyance, but how was he supposed to know you were actually upset with him? He had practically annoyed his way into being your boyfriend and his general personality was something you had become well acquainted with, and usually loved, but sometimes he was just too much to handle and this seemed to be one of those times, only he was noticing far later than he should have.

Gojō, Getō, Ieiri, and you had been planning this road trip for a good couple of months, but you were starting to regret it already. For the past hour or so, Gojō had been driving without the usage of his GPS or a map of any kind and you were sure at this point you were entirely lost. It was funny at first, it didn’t surprise you that his free spirit may want to go off the beaten path a bit, but as it got later into the evening your anxiety began to kick in as you saw fewer and fewer buildings. Still, even when you started nagging him that you were getting worried you wouldn’t make it to your hostel for the night or mentioning you didn’t want him to be driving without a map in the dark, he’d have some flippant excuse or shitty attempt at convincing you that he was fine. As much as you loved them, Getō and Ieirei weren’t much help since they had long since resigned themselves to the fact that Gojō did what he wanted, when he wanted, so after another half hour filled with bickering between you and Gojō, you practically demanded him to pull over at the nearest look out area, one that actually would have been quite nice if he hadn’t been so damn irritating. To your surprise, he actually listened for once, so here you were a short walk away from the car, standing at the edge of the viewpoint staring out over the vast ocean that had just a sliver of sunlight left to bask it in a dimming light.

You let out a sigh as you wrapped your arms around your waist, quickly taking notice of how the temperature had dropped considering how high up you were, plus the lack of sunlight didn’t help either. You heard the other car doors slam shut one after the other, figuring everyone else needed a breather or maybe the others just wanted to check out the view before the sun set, but for now you just wanted a few minutes alone to cool off. Those ‘few minutes’ were short lived though as after a short amount of time, you felt a familiar pair of slim hands attempting to snake their way around your waist, an attempt of which you were quick to shove away and turn your head with a small huff of defiance, but Gojō was just as quick to try again. A few more attempts later and you finally gave in with another irritated sigh, though you still refused to speak or even look at him as he hugged you closer and rested his head on your shoulder.

“Still mad at me?”

The pointed glare you turned to give him was almost enough to make him raise his hands up in a defensive motion, but he was afraid that if he let go of you, you wouldn’t give him another shot at wiggling himself out of the doghouse.

“Ok, ok- stupid question.” He hummed, tapping his fingers against your hips in thought.

He had never been very good at the whole ‘apologizing’ thing, but that was mostly because he never really felt the need to apologize. He was quite the nuisance to a long list of people, pretty much all of which he couldn’t give two fucks about whether they liked him or not, so why apologize for his antics if he didn’t care to be forgiven? With you, however, that was a different story. It made his stomach twist in an uncomfortable way whenever he saw you look at him with something other than a smile, let alone an angry scowl, and nothing got him to drop his pride quicker than that. Still, as much as he wanted to be able to make things better instantly, or just not make those sorts of mistakes in the first place, he was still learning how to navigate expressing his feelings in a way that didn’t come off as fake, because everything he felt for you was as genuine as possibly could be.

“I pulled up the map, we aren’t too far off, I swear it.~ I’ll even let you nap in my jacket until we get there, if ya want.” He spoke, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his phone to show you the route as if he knew you wouldn’t take his word for it.

You glanced at the phone screen that lit up your face now that the sun had set, and while it did fill you with some relief to see the hour and a half ETA, that didn’t change the fact that he had taken it upon himself to completely ignore your previous discomfort up until now and judging by his lack of apology he didn’t seem to think he needed to give one, but before you had the chance to open up your mouth to give him a piece of your mind, he beat you to the punch as he squeezed you closer.

“...And I’m sorry- seriously. I should’ve listened to what you were saying. AND it won’t happen again.” He spoke, lifting his head up a bit so he could look you in the eyes over the rim of his glasses.

You couldn’t tell if using those pretty puppy-dog eyes of his was part of his apology schtick or not, but after a moment of mentally debating yourself you let out a sigh as you relaxed into his touch.

“Did you practice that in the car?”

“I’m too perfect to need practice, babe.~” He responded with that characteristic smugness before pressing a kiss to your shoulder, then to the curve of your neck, peppering kisses upwards across your skin before finally meeting your lips.

After a moment he pulled away, slowly releasing his grip on you and giving you some room. He turned with a satisfied smile to head back to the car, but was halted by your foot catching the back of his heel causing him to damn near face plant into the ground as he stumbled before turning to give you a perfect ‘what gives?’ look that you would have photographed if you could.

“I do want that jacket though.” You stated matter-of-factly with one hand on your hip and the other held out expectantly. “Oh- and the keys, too.”

“Huh?” He questioned, ignoring the snickers that came from not too far behind where the two of you stood.

“I’d give her the keys before you end up single by the end of this trip.” Ieiri yelled as she and Getō shuffled into the back of the car in a fit of laughter at his expense.

He groaned and made a face before shrugging off his jacket and then digging the keys out from his pocket, handing both over to you with only a hint of hesitation.

Had it been anyone else, he would have been annoyed with the power shift, but seeing you practically skip back to the car was more than enough to make him crack a smile as he trailed after you, counting his lucky stars that at least this time his title of ‘boyfriend’ had been safely secured.

[attollogame]

After some considerable debate and realization that, as the chapters get longer and more complex, some feedback would be wise, I decided to open up submissions to be a beta reader for Attollo. I'm looking for a variety of people who are okay to play through a few times to find any coding errors, discrepancies, spelling issues, grammar issues, etc.

Please note that I truly hope to gain constructive feedback through this.

Beta readers will be contacted and selected by May 21st (thank you's will be sent to everyone who replies regardless). The process will go initial editor -> beta readers -> early release on patron -> release for everyone else, and beta readers should expect new content every 2 months or so (I'll contact beta's with an ETA closer to the finishing of the initial editing).

Thank you to everyone who expresses an interest in this <3 it does a lot for me, and will hopefully allow a cleaner, smoother running game to be released to all of you!

CHECK OUT THE SUBMISSION FORM HERE

[forthekags]

Number Nine

Kageyama Tobio X FemReader

Part 1

About: You were introduced to the Karasuno Boys’ Volleyball club during your second year. Yachi needed help after Kiyoko had taken her leave, so she asked you to join her. Although, it would have been smarter to look for a first year, but you were new and looked lonely. When you met the boys you were bit overwhelmed but they grew on you in no time. Kageyama was a little rough around the edges at first, he was awkward and couldn’t hold eye-contact. He was a blushing baboon for the first few days. He was sure to keep his distance but you only found it exciting and hilarious. Sure enough you two became friends from all your taunting and teasing. You’re about to enter your third year, and this was your make it or break it. You had to start thinking about your own future- and so did Kageyama. 

The First Drop

You looked at the clouds and watched as they glided through the sky. The weatherman said it was supposed to rain later this afternoon, so you tried looking for that one cloud that hinted towards that. You were so busy looking at them you nearly tripped over a step if it wasn’t for Kageyama grabbing onto you.

“Your head is literally stuck in the clouds, Y/N.” You rolled your eyes when he tilted your head to look at him. “You’re going to fall and hurt yourself.”

You grabbed onto his sleeve and proceeded to look up again, “I won’t fall because you’ll be there to prevent it, simple.” You were so confident when you said it, it made his cheeks turn a shade of pink.

“I should let you fall so you can learn your lesson,” he pushed his glasses up his nose. He had started using them every now and then because of his sucky eyesight, all those late nights watching videos finally catching up to him. You glanced to your side watching him- he was staring straight ahead with a small pout and the same shade of pink on his cheeks. He was pretty.

He didn’t tug away from your hold, he never does now. He let you watch the clouds and was your guide through the tricky streets and potholes. You were walking to your house so you can set up your notes and help Kageyama with some homework. It became a routine last year when you learned he failed another test even though Yachi was helping both of the dummies during her lunchtime. When he showed up at your desk during lunchtime, he was ushered away by some classmates. You sleep during your lunch, and you are not to be disturbed. He remembers how you threw a book to his head when he got fed up. How are you going to give him a whole rant about grades during practice and then not tutor him during lunch!

You eventually set up a study session after practice at your house since it was nearby. Shoyo and Yachi would join you on specific dates (mostly when there was a big test coming up). But Kageyama went every day, even when there was no homework. On those days, he’d watch you read or you’d watch volleyball videos together and geek out over the professionals, which led to talking about his future; how he wanted to become the best. You loved watching his eyes shine as if he could physically see it, right then and there at arms reach.

Your mom thought you two were dating in the beginning. You would start a rant about how that wasn’t the case and how he was too dumb for you and he would say how much of bossy pants you were right to your own mother! (Although, she agreed with him). “Could’ve fooled me,” was her last comment about the subject. She got tired of you two freaking out over any small chance of her bringing it. But she loved having him over, he complimented her cooking every time.

“There it is!” you said excitedly, you pointed at this gray cloud in the distance. You grabbed Tobio’s hand and tugged him towards the cloud that was coming your way. He let out some grunts and apologized to some people you passed by and accidentally shoved. You reached a river rail and he thought he had to hold you down by the way you wanted to keep chasing after it.

“Y/N! It’s coming towards us! No need to run after it!”

You were excited, no- that’s an understatement. Was there a word for what you are?

Beautiful, he thought but quickly cleared from his mind. That’s not really what he was trying to look for. He was never good with synonyms. But you were... good with synonyms that is,  well you are beautiful too- he was just thinking about the other stuff. Anyways! The cloud!

The cloud got closer and you could hear the rain. Tobio got his umbrella out and opened it up, ready for impact. When he tried to cover you with it, you let go of his hand looking at him before you shook your head. Suddenly the absence of your hand was louder than the drops, did he not notice you still holding it? You moved away and waited for the first drop to land on you and he watched you close your eyes and smile blissfully. He gulped when his heart skipped a beat. The rain was cold, he could feel how it lowered the temperature around you two, but you enjoyed it.

“Y/N,” he complained, “you’re going to get sick.”

You opened your eyes and caught his worried ones. All you could do was smile. Rain was blissful weather- it wasn’t a downer like everyone says it is, it’s therapeutic. It’s scary when it rumbles but there’s nothing like its soft drops. They refresh you and let you stop to just feel everything and nothing at once.

This was your limbo, he thought. Your perfect state of mind. He didn’t want to disturb you, so he just watched silently until you turned to him again with an idea dancing in your eyes.

“Dance with me, Tobio.”

“Wha- what! Hell no! I’m not going to join you in your sickness!” He staggered, “I don’t even know how to dance.”

“Please Tobio, one dance and we can go home and get changed so you won’t get sick.” Your eyes pleaded and he wavered instantly. He usually wins in debates, but when it was something you really wanted... how can he say no?

“Fine! But just one and we go okay?” He put his umbrella away and let the rain drench him as it had to you. You smiled at him and jumped with happiness.

“That’s exactly what I said!”

He put his hand on your waist and the other out for you to grab. You jumped into position and stepped closer to him making him go red and look away from you. You didn’t have to look at him, but you did and you enjoyed every second of it. There was no music, and it surprised you that he didn’t try to use that as an excuse, but you swayed with him. His hair was now wet and dripping drops onto your nose and it made you smile again.

Kageyama was smooth on his feet, which must be a perk from being an athlete, but you always saw him as only-on-the-court type of smooth and a clutz everywhere else. But he guided you swiftly, twirled you every now and then just to bring you right back to him. You laughed and he smiled whenever he did it. As it was coming to a halt, you rested your head on his chest and he hugged onto you. Can he just stay here? Holding onto you and you to him.

“Y/N…” he said softly breaking the trance. Of course not.

You stepped away and gave him a sad smile. “Alright, let’s go princess.” You grabbed your stuff from the floor and picked up the umbrella that he had. Kageyama didn’t move from his spot, instead, he took a deep breath and held it as you covered both of you under the umbrella. You were going to say something witty but the intensity in his eyes stopped you. “Kags?”

"Sorry… I just… uh- nevermind."

He grabbed the umbrella from your hand and set it up a bit higher. You offered a comforting smile instead of pressuring him to tell you, and he silently thanked you. As much as you loved to taunt him, you never wanted to tease him about his struggle to express himself. You'll go all day talking about his grades and clumsiness or when he messes up a serve during practice. But not this.

You and Kags walked back to the route of your house, your ETA increasing after your little detour. There was an annoying silence settling in, so you decided to compliment him.

"I didn't know you could dance, Tobio." You looked over and saw that pink shade go a little darker over his cheeks. He didn't reply so you pressed on, "Once you get a girlfriend, you have to treat her to a good dance."

You were gleaming and being supportive again. That comforting smile was stitched onto your face permanently it seems, but he didn't mind. What did bother him though was this talk about a girlfriend.

"That's ridiculous," he mumbled under his breath. You didn't catch it entirely, but it wasn't something you didn't expect from him.

You stared ahead and thought about the previous year. Kageyama had a small little fan club of admirers from a variety of students, according to Yachi, it had picked up even more during their second year. Some would give him notes during lovely holidays, hell- you'd eat his gifted chocolates with him during those days. Some of them really knew how to pick the right sweets… But you've never seen him gift one of them back. Sometimes, you wondered what would happen if you… if you would bring him sweets with a heart sketched onto a note. What would he do?

"Hey, Kags? Why don’t you date?” You didn’t mean to bring it up or maybe you did… But you didn’t want to know the answer. No matter what it was.

He shuffled a bit uncomfortable thinking it was another joke or something for you to tease him about. However, when he glanced down at you to tell you to mind your own business, he saw a rare blush. He can count on one hand the times he’s seen that blush, each memorable in their own way. His favorite was when he caught you staring while he took his shirt off in the gym and right when he was about to tease you, you denied such action and said you were daydreaming about some fantasy world.

So, he thought about it. Genuinely trying to come up with an answer. What does dating even look like? It must take up some time… He was never the best at time management, and if he’s already thinking about that it would feel like just another chore. That wouldn’t be fair to either of them.

“I don’t think it’s possible for me to date,” he explained, “with volleyball and practice and stuff, it’ll just be a waste...”

Oh, you thought. That is the most logical answer he could give. But you felt… you felt like that wasn’t fair. Was volleyball really going to take up all his time?

Yes, it is! He lives for the sport. It’s his everything, that’s the very same thing you love about him- admire- admire about him. So… would you be hurt if he had to cut you out, too? Are you going to just be waiting for him to leave you behind whenever his volleyball career gets more serious? You’re already taking up most of his time. Like now. The last thing you want to do is hold him back.

While you struggled with your thoughts, you were quiet and sulking outside. Kags noticed it right away.

“Are you okay?”

You snapped back to reality and gave a forced smile. “Yeah, of course.” He caught on pretty quick but instead of thinking you were bothered by it, he thought you were petty because of his answer.

“Were you planning on asking me out?” He raised his eyebrow and teased you.

You rolled your eyes and crossed your arms over your chest. That serious sad gleam in your eye was disappearing along with it.

“You wish, simpleton.”

You teased each other along the way, your anxieties dying down for the rest of the evening, and it was all normal for a bit. Until he left for the day, and as you watched him walk away you got that lonely feeling again.

[wanderinginksplot]

If you're still taking requests, can I request either Echo or Tech with hurtReader + fluff? 👀

(your writing is amazing and it melts my heart sndnfjdjdb)

Hi, friend! Thank you for the compliment - you're so sweet! I went a little lighter on the fluff than I meant to, but this is what I ended up with. Thanks for the request! Enjoy!

Tech + Injured Reader + (Minor) Fluff

*WARNING: Slight mention of gore. Nothing graphic, but a head's up.*

Watching the Havoc Marauder touch down was a ritual you followed every time the Bad Batch went anywhere without you on board. Tech liked to believe he was an excellent pilot, but you were of the opinion that flying took more than encyclopedic knowledge of a ship’s internal systems. It took instinct, a feel for the ship’s personality, and a good bit of luck to fly in a war zone.

Tech disagreed vehemently, but you had been assigned to them for a reason. Even if he had found your belief in luck - okay, slight obsession with luck - to be ridiculous, Tech admitted that you were an excellent pilot. It hadn’t been enough for you to accompany them on their mission, but it was something.

The real problem was that the members of the Bad Batch were insanely protective of anything or anyone they saw as ‘theirs’. Privately, you thought it was because they hadn’t had any personal belongings on Kamino. And they definitely hadn't had friends outside of their group. Unfortunately for you, you were also considered ‘theirs’ now and the Batch could be… restrictive when they felt you could be in danger. And since you were assigned to help them fight a literal war, you were always in danger and they were always protective. Especially Tech. You had been dating in secret for a few weeks now - too short a time for anything serious, but Tech let you take absolutely zero chances.

“Sir, we need to get you inside,” one of the troopers on deck told you, his light touch to your arm pulling your attention away from scanning the star-littered space above the hangar bay. The trooper's regulation armor looked oddly plain to you, even with the medic's symbol and the touches of gray that told you he was a member of the Wolfpack.

“I’m sorry, what was your name again?” you asked, partially to stall and partially because your luck senses were tingling.

“That isn’t important right-”

“Please?” you asked again. It was another quirk of luck. If a trooper touched you, you needed to know their name or they ended up dying. Statistically, you knew that probably wasn’t true, but who really wanted to mess around with fate if they didn’t have to?

The trooper blew out a sigh that crackled his annoyance through the speakers of his helmet. “Curl, sir. We really should be-”

“I’m sorry, Curl,” you apologized, interrupting the poor medic again. “I got separated from my team and I need to see that they’re back okay before I can leave. Does that make sense?”

“What team isn’t back yet?” Curl asked, seeming concerned. “I thought Commander Wolffe said that everyone had checked back in?”

“I’m with the Ba- with Clone Force 99,” you told him, changing your explanation to use the group’s official name at the last minute. Professionalism never hurt anyone.

“You’re with the Bad Batch?” Curl asked, sounding impressed despite himself. Without waiting for an answer, he gave a curt nod and lifted his wrist toward the speakers of his helmet. “Sergeant Sinker, Medic Curl.”

“Sinker here,” a voice answered immediately.

“Do we have an ETA on Clone Force Nine-Nine?”

“Hold.”

“Copy.” Curl glanced at you and you nodded to show that you were following the conversation.

“Curl, bridge says they’re inbound, expected to hit the hangar in about a minute.”

“Copy,” Curl said again. “Thanks, Sarge.”

“I’d stand clear,” Sergeant Sinker warned. “The good pilot isn’t on.”

“Are you the good pilot?” Curl asked you. You swore you could hear a smile in his voice.

You smiled back and nodded. “That would be me.”

“Understood, I’ve got the good pilot with me,” Curl replied over his comlink. “We’re gonna spectate, make sure they don’t scratch the paint job.”

“There’s no reason to worry,” Sinker said consolingly. “The GAR stopped springing for paint two months ago. There’ll be none left on that ship.”

Curl laughed aloud at that, shaking his head.

“Cut the chatter,” a harsh voice reprimanded. “This is an official channel. Save your jokes for the clubs on the Triple Zero, Sergeant.”

“Yes sir, Commander,” Sinker agreed chipperly.

The Solidarity’s deck shuddered as the hyperdrive activated, ready to take off as soon as the Havoc Marauder landed, and you stumbled with the movement. Curl caught you - his grip uncomfortable given the harsh plastoid planes of his armor - and shook his head.

“We really need to get you inside, sir,” Curl said again, sounding reluctant but concerned. “You have an appointment in the medbay with me, and I’ll be very offended if you’re late.”

You were about to point out that he would be late, too, when the Marauder zoomed up and around the Solidarity, clearly following a path to land.

“Wait, they’re right there,” you protested. “Give ‘em ten seconds to land and a bit longer for me to gloat, then I’ll gladly go to the medbay.” Curl hesitated and you pressed your advantage. “I’ll be a model patient, Curl. No arguments, no debates, no complaining.”

“I never believe anyone when they say that,” Curl said dryly, “but I guess you’ll survive without treatment for a little while longer.”

“Thanks, Curl!” your enthusiasm was a little… off… but you blamed it on the pain you were finally beginning to feel.

Tech was flying, you knew that beyond a doubt. Not only was he the only person allowed to fly, but the landing performed by the small cruiser was proof that the wickedly intelligent trooper was behind the controls.

As soon as they had landed, Wrecker burst out of the side door. “Ha! Told ya we would make it back in one piece.”

“More luck than skill, that,” Crosshair countered sourly, slouching from the door as well with Hunter behind him.

“As I said multiple times, everything was under control,” Tech disagreed. He caught sight of you and started in your direction, eyes taking in the way Curl’s gloved hand was still gripping your bicep.

“There, you saw ‘em,” Curl muttered to you. “We really need to go now.”

“I beg your pardon, but where exactly are you trying to go?” Tech asked sharply, glancing between the two of you.

“Medbay,” Curl replied, slipping into the vocal brevity of a career soldier. “Your pilot was injured, but wouldn’t accept treatment until you had touched down.”

“Luck, you know,” you told Tech, who was already scanning your form with his goggled gaze. You smirked at him and shrugged off Curl, who seemed ready to tow you to the medbay himself. “Also, statistical likelihood be karked! I stayed in the ‘safest possible place’ like you told me and I’m the only one who ended up injured! You should listen to me from now on.”

“What?!”

“Injured?”

"How? Where?"

The rest of the Bad Batch had surrounded you and Curl in a moment, all asking different variations of the same question. Hunter’s voice cut through them all. “Trooper, why is she not in the medbay?”

Curl held up his hands as if despairing of the entire situation. “Sorry, Sergeant. Your pilot refused to leave until we saw your ship land. It would be a big help to me if you would just issue an order to report to the medbay so I can start treating the injuries.”

For all that he liked to take a laid-back approach to non-combat leadership, Hunter took the safety of his team seriously and you knew he was about to do as Curl had suggested.

“It’s not even that bad an injury,” you argued before Hunter could speak. “I just got hit with some debris."

You tugged up the rough, canvas-like material of the uniform pants you wore while you weren’t actively flying and showed them your lower leg. You were busy looking at the faces of the Batch rather than the injury, but you knew something was wrong when Tech swore. Tech never swore.

With a frown, you glanced down at your leg. Your mind refused to make too much sense of things, but you saw smears of crimson and a pale flash of something before the dizziness returned worse than ever.

Fortunately, Curl caught you before you could actually fall and Wrecker scooped you up a moment later. He was already muttering soothing nonsense as he lifted you, and it was almost enough to keep you from noticing the pain. “All right, here we are. Everything is fine. Just don’t puke on me.”

“Medbay,” Hunter ordered severely. “Now .”

“Yes, sir,” you agreed, your voice more weak than you liked.

“Finally,” Curl muttered.

“Tech, go with them,” you heard Hunter say from a rapidly growing distance.

There was a sound of jogging steps, but when you tried to look for Tech’s familiar face, the Solidarity leapt into hyperspace and you felt like you might actually pass out.

“What will treatment consist of?” Tech asked. He was trying to mask his worry by being professional, but you could hear a hint of it in his voice.

“Some stitches, probably an antibiotic shot since the debris was metallic, and a check of the nerves in the area of injury,” Curl answered easily. The lack of concern from the medic was comforting in a strange sort of way.

The silence hung for a few moments, interrupted only by the sound of everyone’s footsteps. Eventually, Tech admitted, “I should have been able to calculate the risks more closely. This never should have happened.”

“Aw, how were you supposed to know?” Wrecker asked loudly.

“That’s right,” Curl agreed. “This is war. Unexpected variables are the norm and there are no safe spots. My only advice is to take all of your people with you. After all, your pilot accepted the assignment to be part of your team. Trying to keep people out of the action never works. Take the lesson, learn from it, and make adjustments in the future. You don’t need to do anything more than that.”

“He’s right,” you agreed, the sentiment muffled against Wrecker’s broad chestplate. “Let me do my job and trust that I’ll do everything I can to keep us all out of danger.”

You blindly stuck your hand out behind Wrecker’s back, searching until you connected with Tech’s familiar fingers. His grip was hesitant but steady, and you gave his hand a squeeze of reassurance.

“It’s probably true,” Curl said, apparently backing you up. “Pain is like a truth serum. And with that gash… it’s probably the truth. Even if you did lie about being a perfect patient.”

You chuckled at that, despite the discomfort from your injury, and relaxed a bit as you felt Tech press a kiss to the back of your hand.

---

A/N - This chapter could realistically be called 'Ink will do anything to avoid using the y/n designation'. For those who are unfamiliar, Curl is my OC medic for the Wolfpack and you can read more featuring him in Just for Kix on my masterlist. As always, I'm still taking requests! Thanks again, Anon, for this idea and I'm sorry again about skimping on the fluff! If you want me to rewrite or expand on it, please feel free to let me know.

[road-rhythm]

For me, shipping is Y/Z = explicit content so ppl know. My default for DNI notes is to respect boundaries because people have reasons to curate their own space, but what happens if I interact with someone's ao3 where they don't have that note and I didn't know beforehand until I read their blog, or if I just don't see the note until after interacting? Ao3 is easier because people tend to DLDR or have more boundaries, but idk how to account for other cases? That's just one question I have.

ETA: It turns out page jumps don't work in ask-reply posts, so the topic list below—which was supposed to be navigable—is just dead text. Nor do the footnotes work. I am disproportionately bitter about this but cannot fix it.

I'll level with you, anon: I was thrown for a loop that anybody would ask this blog, of all blogs, for advice. But the issues I understand your questions to be about are interesting to me, so while I'm not sure I'm the best resource on this, I will answer as well as I can.

Which brings me to the first thing I want to say: any time you're going to argue on the internet, it can't be with the motivation of changing the mind of the person you're arguing with. You probably won't. Therefore, the payoff needs to be something else. Often people get into debates in the hope of convincing onlookers rather than opponents; while that does have a better chance of success, my own motivation is usually more that I want to organize my thoughts about the topic.

With some of these questions, I get the feeling that you're looking for articulate responses to be able to give when you want to push back against people who are trying to dictate how you participate in fandom. If so, you should know that being articulate won't fix that. It won't protect you from hate, criticism, or general malcontent. It can give you clarity about your own positions and feelings that's very worth having, but it won't by itself defuse any emotional tensions or forestall people who are already upset with you. Articulateness can help a conflict management strategy, but it isn't one.

A cool side effect it does have, though, is helping you build a better friend group by making it easier for like-minded people to understand what it is you have in common—and what you don't. That won't remove all conflict from your online social life, but it can help bring it to manageable levels.

Before I respond, I'm going to go through your asks and paraphrase them. These are the questions I think you're asking; if I have misunderstood something, which is probable, please feel free to let me know.

1, C2: What ethical obligations does a DNI note impose?

2a: How do I not feel bad when I have a different opinion from other people I'm interacting with in fandom?

2b: How do I not feel bad when enforcing my boundaries?

3: Why do some people go after others who write content that happens not to be to their taste?

4-5: Why do some people go after others who interpret or interact with canon in a way they disagree with or that happens not to be to their taste, and what should I do about it?

6b: If I engage in discussions with people who see something very differently from me, how do I maintain my own boundaries without feeling bad if people get personal and invalidate lived experiences which I based my meta and fiction on? (verbatim) (elaboration/example of 2b)

6a: If I write something that is somehow different from my previous output and it turns out someone can't handle it, does that mean I have harmed them?

C1a: If I write something that is somehow different from most other output for that pairing/trope/etc. and it turns out someone can't handle it, does that mean I have harmed them?

C2: What responsibility, if any, do I have to followers or subscribers who are distressed by content that I have tagged but which they find somehow distasteful or objectionable?

Rather than taking these one by one, I'm going to talk about a few areas that I think intersect most of these questions somewhere. Fair warning, anon: this is long as hell and I'm pretty sure most of it isn't even what you were looking for. I hope that enough of it's useful enough to make it worth your while, and if it not, sorry. Whatever sort of reputation I have, I'm fairly sure it's not for giving people what they actually wanted.

DNI notes (block me yourself, bitch)

Why are people?

Expectations, surprises, and distress vs. harm

How do I not feel bad?

———————————————————

DNI notes (block me yourself, bitch)

[W]hat happens if I interact with someone's ao3 where they don't have that note

Not a thing,

and I didn't know beforehand until I read their blog,

not a thing,

or if I just don't see the note until after interacting?

and not a single, solitary, country-fried thing.

DNI notes are interesting to me, partly because I'm not sure where they came from. They seem to be a fairly recent phenomenon, but no one agrees on what platform primarily popularized them: one source says Instagram, another Twitter, another Tumblr. My perception is that DNIs are much more common among younger users, say under 25 or even under 21, but I don't have data to back that up. (If anyone does have any sort of reliable information about DNIs' emergence/use, please drop it on me somewhere!)

Anyway, here's my thought about DNIs as boundaries: they aren't.

Not to say I will disregard a DNI note if I see it. "W*ncesties DNI!" lets me know I'll probably be happier not interacting with whoever has that in their profile, so the note is already serving most of its practical purpose. For that matter, I'll avoid interacting with someone who has "Hellers DNI!" up top for the same reason: I'm not in the category named, but it's still a good clue I don't want to get involved and that there will be content I don't want to see. In that capacity, it's like hazard lights on a car. Another stripe of fan will see a pointedly offensive DNI and deliberately violate it, at which point the note gets to serve the rest of its practical purpose; viz., stirring shit for the bored and attention-starved. In that capacity, it's more like a mating signal. Those setting the bait and those taking it usually deserve each other. Either way, the DNI achieves a goal.

But it's not how you set a boundary. It might even impinge on others', inasmuch as it attempts to foist a kind of contract onto random strangers. Again, it's not the not interacting that I think most reasonable people will dig in their heels about when confronted with a DNI—it's the implication that they have been invested with the responsibility of curating someone else's internet experience for them merely by that DNI existing. It's trying to say that this line in your Twitter bio automatically creates a covenant between you and all who read it, and maybe even those who don't.*

Reasonable and effective boundaries don't work that way. It is fine to express preferences about what topics you dislike or prefer to avoid, and your Twitter or Tumblr profile is a fine place to do it. It's the "About You" section, after all. But if your emotional wellbeing depends on strangers on the internet clicking through to your profile to check if you have a note banning all shippers of, IDK, Dobby/Davros from interacting with you before liking some GIF you posted on a site that is designed to disseminate your post as widely as possible, you fucked up somewhere.

Interpersonal boundaries can be societal or individual. Societal boundaries are things like personal space (so, variable by culture), and you don't have to set them yourself, though you may unfortunately be required to enforce them. A fandom-relevant example would be an expectation of freedom from targeted harassment online, which is socially recognized and codified in the TOS of pretty much any site that allows users to interact with each other. You shouldn't have to tell anyone in advance not to send you unsolicited dick pics, blitz your DMs with slurs, or drop suicide bait in your asks.

Individual boundaries are ones you cannot reasonably expect others to know unless you tell them. A preference for all individuals who enjoy a given fictional pairing not to speak to you in any context falls here. Yes, even if the pairing is kinky. Yes, even if it squicks you. Yes, even if it medically triggers you.

A DNI note isn't a good faith effort to tell anyone this preference. Blog and microblog profiles aren't like TOS consent pages—and they're definitely not like the consent pages you click through to use AO3. Unlike a TOS pop-up, you have no technical means to force eyeballs connecting with your posts to pass over your profile first. Short of pasting your DNI note into every post you make, then, you have no reasonable expectation that the people viewing your content will ever see it.

Leaving the issue of the DNI note's visibility to one side for a moment, what about the "I" part? So long as you're being proactive about notifying people of your preferences, do you get to claim any extent of interaction as a boundary? Can you declare content you publish off-limits to a class even for consumption, and claim their reading it as a violation? If you've got a line on your blog or a tweet somewhere telling people, "Do not consume my fanworks if [X]" and you expect this to restrain all members of X from reading your fic over on AO3, it's plain why that is dumb; but what if you paste "Do not read if you ship Dobby/Davros" into the header of every chapter of every fic you have on AO3? Do people have an obligation to respect that boundary?

Honestly, no, sorry. You chose to post it on a public archive. If the thought of some freaks who are into twisted shit reading your lovingly crafted tales about your comfort characters makes your skin crawl, then frankly, that discomfort is something you're inflicting on yourself. (I would wager that inflicting it on yourself is even the point.)

Not all boundaries are reasonable or necessarily deserving of respect just because they're there. Replace "wincestie" or "heller" or "anti" or "bronly" with a religious or ethnic group, and this becomes instantly apparent. Asking, "are we obligated to follow a DNI if we know about it?" is pretty much just asking, "are we obligated to respect someone's preferences whenever we know them?" And the answer is always some combination of "depends on the preferences" and "depends on the situation."

There's a difference between being exposed to content and being exposed to people, and there's a difference between interaction and association. I can't think of any matter in fandom that would override your right not to associate with anyone you don't want to. No TOS can allow someone to be your friend. On the other hand, there's all kinds of crap that could override your preference not to have a group of people you think have icky ships interact with you via matter you've posted.

"I don't want to read Wincest/DeanCas/whatever the fuck": fine and reasonable boundary. "I don't want to hear a peep out of any member of a group of people I devote large amounts of time and energy to slagging off in public": not a fine and reasonable boundary.

(Whether members of the group in question should avoid interacting for their own sake is a separate question.)

It's not someone else's job to hide themselves from you. No matter how repulsive you find them, it's not their job to create the conditions that will allow you to pretend they don't exist. Especially if you're not actually going to.

Erring on the side of respect is a good rule of thumb: absent some more compelling interest, do as people ask. But 1) people may indeed have more compelling interests, and 2) if you're asking other people to assume responsibility for your experiences on the internet, there's already no respect there. You can't put that on another person, particularly not a fellow fan who doesn't know you and is no less likely to be dealing with their own shit than you are. You can't do it both in the sense that it cannot be accomplished and in the sense that you are kind of an asshole if you try.

Are DNIs all created equal? Obviously not, because "X/Y shippers DNI" != "Buddhists DNI," et cetera. So what about DNIs that are about real-life stuff rather than ship wars, like "racists and TERFs DNI"? Personally I find those a lot less eye-rolly than the fandom ones, but if this is the only or the most effective way you can find to send the message that you disagree with bigotry… ehhhhh? (When was the last time fandom had its biggest problems with anyone who'd admit to being either of those things, anyway?)

What about "minors DNI"? Not wanting to talk to children you don't know is indeed a reasonable boundary, for many reasons, but you can't rely on a note in your profile to establish it. Not discussing adult content with minors you're not responsible for is a societal boundary—because the designation "adult content" is a societal boundary—and it's codified on all the platforms we're discussing, including AO3, with requirements to tag in some way. Not wanting to discuss anything with minors at all is an individual boundary, and you will need to set it accordingly.

So I won't say that DNIs are Bad or never serve any function at all, but most are on the same wavelength as "unfollow/block me if [X]!!1!" Like, block me yourself, bitch. I'm happy to ignore all kinds of people, but I ain't curating your social media for you unless it comes with dental.

Why are people?

Why do people attack other people "who write certain content"? Why do people go around telling other people they're "wrong for interacting with media in [some] way"? Why are people constantly treating hobbyist fiction as "a moral thing" and cause for flame wars or outright harassment? Why are people like that—and in fandom, of all places, this thing that literally exists for fun?

I shouldn't waste time seriously trying to answer those kinds of questions, but it's a guilty pleasure. Dynamics in fandom fascinate the fuck out of me lately. I've got a shortlist of factors I've been considering as underlying causes for the kinds of conflict you're describing, most of which interact with or reinforce each other: tribalism, id-buttons, hypervigilant reactivity, conversion kink, and safe exploration.

The short version of all of this: emotional reasoning is a thing; news at eleven.

Tribalism: is a gimme. It might be kind of unsatisfying, but it explains at least half the dumb shit we do (we, homo sapiens and we, fans). What else can you say? Groups define themselves against outsiders as much as they do by common ground within. And we're all hungry for identity, so that's a lot of juice going in. Both sides of any given ship war will do this, SPN's most definitely included. I don't even think it has to be an evil thing: it does aid bonding; that's why we do it. But it's a strong force that tends toward conflict and self-righteousness, and on that level, it doesn't really matter how good your "side's" actual position is. Tribalism brings out the worst in us a lot more frequently than it does the best.

Which really sucks if you're a multishipper. If you're actively fannish about two or more ships (or characters) that fandom at large has decided are opposed to one another, you're going to see the worst of each side while being treated as suspect by both. I don't know your exact situation, anon, but it sounds like that's you.

I don't have a great solution for you. It sucks; it'll continue to suck; the way to make it suck way less is to curate your fandom experience aggressively, so if you're getting shat on coming and going by friends who can't tolerate ships they don't share with you, get better friends.

Same for cliques within a ship. In my experience those are usually organized around purity/fanpol stuff or "anti-anti"-dom: the subgroup defines itself by what it abhors, so crusading against those atrocities is the primary bonding activity. It sucks; it'll continue to suck; the way to make it suck way less is to curate your fandom experience aggressively, so if you're getting shat on coming and going by friends who enjoy one end of your creative output but can't tolerate the rest and think they're entitled to govern all of it, get better friends.

Id-buttons: really just my personal shorthand for that thing that happens when we experience strong emotion without clearly understanding what has triggered it. Being upset and not knowing why is an unpleasant state, but not a particularly dangerous one. Problems start when we misattribute the cause.

How well do any of us understand our own inner workings? In fandom we talk about idfic or (my fave) describe things as "iddy." Id-stuff is powerful, highly individual, and belongs to a realm reason can barely touch. Why do I love the psychic nosebleed trope? It's dumb as hell. It's dumb. Why do I love it? Fuck if I know. All I can tell you is that the sight of Sam Winchester trickling red out of his over-sized nostrils hits my eyeballs, travels a fast track down to the depths of my psyche, and mashes a button in there that I experience as extreme gratification. My prefrontal cortex knows psychic nosebleeds make no sense. My id thinks psychic nosebleeds are fucking marvelous.

A lot of fic, God bless us, goes whole-hog on whatever is iddy for the author; as such, idfic tends to be Marmite. One fan's kink is another fan's squick, and that goes as much for stuff that's not sexual in any obvious way—maybe goes double. The psychic nosebleeds that make my id do the Bulbasaur eyes make many others facepalm. H/C? It's love it or hate it, and even those who love it often require that very specific characters occupy very specific roles or they're gonna nope out. The id wants what it wants. Nudge an iddy dynamic two inches in the wrong direction and it becomes a live wire of squick and/or cringe.

Squicks I conceptualize as: this thing took aim at a button your id doesn't have; so it hit your regular, squishy brain matter instead, and since it wasn't designed to do that, the whole experience is like chomping down on psychic tinfoil. Ew, but you spit the tinfoil out and carry on.

Then there's stuff that hits our ids in ungood ways that go beyond squick or cringe. If there are green buttons waiting in everybody's id, there are other buttons that are very, very red. Like the green ones, we don't always know where they are. We may not even suspect they exist until they get hit, and—here's the kicker—even when they do, we still don't necessarily know what the fuck just happened. And it's hard to sort it out when you just got laid out flat by an emotional tsunami.

The stronger an emotional reaction, the stronger our need to explain it. Not just that, but the more important we assume the cause must be. So when people's red id-buttons get smashed, they need a framework to explain what just happened to them, and moral frameworks tend to feel satisfying because morality is important.

Another way we might misattribute the reason for our upset is if the real reason is somehow unpalatable. Why might it be unpalatable? Well, it could be bound up in issues that we're not ready to look at for one reason or another, including trauma. It might be something we think reflects poorly on us, like ingrained prejudice. Or it might be something we think is objectively dumb. The lengths we'll go to to justify a dumb antipathy are impressive. The justifications can be well reasoned, and insightful, and even accurate; but the really high-voltage emotions are still coming from a different place that happens to be dumb as a psychic nosebleed.

That combination is hard to get past, because admitting that some reasons for a preference or antipathy are basically dumb feels like you're invalidating others that might not be dumb at all. But that's all that is: a feeling.

Incidentally, the absolute last thing most fans will admit as a reason for any conviction is their ship.

Anyway. Here again, I do not have a great solution for you. Telling somebody they're confused about the real reasons for their own emotions is unlikely to go over well, and frankly, even though I believe it happens to all of us very frequently, I don't think it even should. Especially if you yourself are going to proceed to offer theories of your own as to what those real reasons are to fill the void. Emotional reactivity isn't something you can persuade someone out of; the best you can do is be watchful for it in yourself.

Hypervigilant reactivity: Not all disproportionate reactions are about id, though. A reliable source of heightened fear, anxiety, and, yes, anger is hypervigilance. A hair-trigger danger meter makes us susceptible to interpreting as threats things that are not; once we feel threatened by something, we are far more likely to erect justifications around the feeling than examine whether it's realistic. That's just human nature.

Many if not most antis are not trauma survivors, but as @soulless-puppy​​​ has pointed out elsewhere, if you want to recruit people to a cause, trauma-related hypersensitivity is very exploitable. Give or take a few outliers, it's not like anybody is sitting around twirling their moustaches and asking themselves, "How can I manipulate trauma survivors to spread my puritanical or pro-censorship message today?"; it happens stochastically. But thanks to social media, it does happen.

Conversion kink: Why are so many fans who demand moral purity in media (and/or fanworks) drawn to fandoms like It, or Hades, or Hannibal, or Supernatural, of all things? Why are some people marching into tags or fanworks that clearly indicate the ships or other features they contain only to object to the contents? Why aren't they just… watching and reading shit that has the messages and representation they ostensibly want entertainment to provide?

Outrage is addictive; anybody with a Twitter account knows that. But these folks aren't just hate-reading or hate-watching. Some of them have devoted literal years to ranting about a given ship, or lambasting fanworks they find offensive, or even campaigning for a show to change course to give them something they consider Good Representation and/or Healthy (usually in the form of canonizing a specific ship). That's a lot of time and energy, and while fiction does impact us—else why bother reading it—most arguments that problematic fiction is morally liable for widespread social ills are easily rebutted by things like the fact that sexual violence was not less common in 1823 than it is today. Triggers are very real, but it's pretty odd to vigorously oppose the existence of fanworks with content regarded as commonly triggering while enthusiastically consuming canon that makes the same content its bread and butter. Media and stories that tick a lot more of the boxes these fans say they want ticked are out there. So why can't they stop reading or watching the "bad" stuff, or at the very least shut the fuck up about it?

The first thing I suspect is: they don't find the "good" media that compelling. The unproblematic stuff doesn't speak to their id. But, see above re: dishonesty about our own preferences and emotions: they think unproblematic is what they should want, so they sure as shit can't admit the fucked up stuff turns their crank because it's fucked to hell.

And the second thing I suspect is that they get off on making other people change.

Metaphorically, of course. I'd class this as a non-sexual kink, where the gratification lies not in the object—canon, fanwork, or just somebody's position on the internet—being Good or being absent, but in causing the object to transform. So, a canon that's already Good isn't worth much to these people because they didn't make it be Good. And if they do harass a fan into taking down a Bad fic or artwork, that will be gratifying only for a moment; once the thing doesn't exist anymore, they will have to seek out something else that's Bad, because they get their dopamine hit from seeing the world change to conform to their vision.

Whether there's anything more to this than your basic widespread human need to mind everybody's business but your own, I've no idea. The best solution to this one is to tell those people to fuck off to the ends of the earth and then ignore them.

What all of these factors have in common is that the only thing you can control to improve your experience is yourself.

Expectations, surprises, and distress vs. harm

I understand your anxiety in 6a and C1 as: "What happens when someone comes into my work with expectations that are not met?" And I guess the question underneath—apologies; I’m running the risk of mistaking what I'm personally interested in for what you're trying to ask—is, "What is the compact between author and audience, and what does it mean to break it?"

Since you’ve chosen my blog to ask, you probably have some inkling of what my position is already. Perhaps you just need to hear somebody else say, "Fuck the haters, write what you want"; perhaps you need to practice saying it yourself. I dunno. In any case, "Fuck the haters, write what you want" is pretty much the upshot.

Let's back up a minute. I'm going to clear some of the relatively trivial examples off the board first, then get down to the messy, meaty core. Spoiler: there aren't any pat answers down there.

Your example in C1:

[I]f i have an audience that is used to certain content (for example fluffy Sam/Cas)… but then I write a fic that some people might not be able to handle the tags with because i changed what type of relationship it was (so like, unhealthy Sam/Cas) and they aren't used to me writing content differently, do I just tag it? What if someone can't handle something I wrote and isn't expecting to see that tag? Is that my responsibility?

First of all, whether you're at fault if someone follows you, sees a tag they don't expect—not even the fic; the actual tag—and is distressed… no. Hell, no. Even if the distress rises to the level of injury: no. If the tag itself is an obstacle for you, that really, truly sucks, but it is going to have to be your part to manage your needs there because no one can possibly do it for you. Tags are the system everybody else uses to curate their own experiences. So asking a tag not to be used is really asking for all content described by the tag not to be posted at all (because without the tag, no one can filter out the content).

Nobody has the right to ask for that in a shared space. You may, from time to time, encounter someone throwing a hissy fit to the tune of, "I shouldn't have to filter out incest/pedo/abuse/this thing that is neither incest nor pedo nor abuse but that I'm going to call all of those things because it squicks me personally!" Perhaps you will wonder—worry—if they have a point. Why should they have to filter out such terrible things?

Because it's none of their business what other people jack off to and they don't own the platform, that's why. If they want a space where they don't have to curate their own experiences, they can build it themselves or rustle up a few million and come back when they've bought Tumblr. Until then, they can fuck off.

(Unless you want to commit to a path of education that requires a shitload of self-restraint and bears fruit slowly if ever, though, don't bother explaining any of that to them. Don't fire back at them, which will confirm them in their sense of being aggrieved. Just block them and move on.)

But I'm assuming the meat of your question is whether you're at fault if someone is upset or indeed triggered if they expect one thing from a tag, but your content, though correctly labeled with said tag, delivers another. And my answer is, still, no. Hell no, fuck no, Christ no, sorry but no.

Your example uses a ship. A ship! Something as broad and open for interpretation as a whole-ass ship! It's shortsighted to expect a genre or even a trope to portray only one dynamic or strike one tone, but a friggin' ship? Hell will freeze before an entire fandom agrees on what the "default" dynamic for a given ship is in the first place, but let's suppose for a moment that it were possible and this condition did obtain. Suppose that one day, to a fan, everybody agreed that the default dynamic for Given/Ship is "unproblematic and fluffy" and achieved 100% concord on what qualifies.

Then the next day, somebody new reads or watches the canon for the first time and excitedly dashes off a darkfic.

No, seriously; if we say that "fandom norms" need to be respected as a baseline, what the hell are new fans supposed to do? Perform a lit review before posting so they can flag any departures from a fandom consensus that almost certainly doesn't exist? Run a poll to check what everybody else expects from Given/Ship before they tag their fic, accurately, with Given/Ship? What percentage reporting should we require on that poll, is 80% of all fans sufficient and are there membership lists somewhere to establish who is or is not a fan?

"Hang back in respectful silence and observe our traditions" is a reasonable instruction to, like, postulants in a monastery or congressional interns, but it's a bit much as an entry requirement for squeeing about a TV show.

You can't expect anyone else to know exactly what your expectations are in a fandom. More to the point, you can't expect anyone else to sign on. And if you're an author trying to gauge other people's preexisting expectations, you can't be sure of accuracy. Or uniformity.

Assuming that you've offered your example as an example merely, though, I don't want to get too hung up on the details of it. However obvious and universal a certain expectation may seem to us, it will never be shared by or obvious to everyone, and a failure to make peace with this is a major factor in most wank about specific fanworks. But the salient feature in the situation you're describing is that you are aware that your work will run against the grain of some readers' expectations. You know the mismatch is there. You have a reasonable expectation that they will be surprised, and experience tells you some of them aren't going to like it. So if you know some set of potential readers expect X, and you know this thing you wrote subverts or defies X in some way, do you have a duty to notify those readers in advance? Are you hurting them if you don't?

I want to take a minute or several to look at the notion of harm in fiction. (Look at, not dismiss.)

In the fandom spaces I happen to watch, it's become oddly common for people to talk about stories as perpetrating harm, storytelling as a brand of violence. The rhetoric has ramped up even more during the pandemic, as the end of Supernatural closed the conditions under which that fandom's TJLC-esque conspiracy theories operate, all the usual terms get extra-weaponized in the wank bubble that accompanies most series finales, various hashtags focused on this idea of narrative-inflicted harm get bandied about on Twitter, etc.

Mind you, even in fandom, these are still outliers; pull up any really large forum and find a post to the effect of either "an author harmed me with their correctly labeled fanfic" or "canon harmed me by failing to conform to my expectations," and the bulk of the responses you'll see will be asking if OP has lost their grip on reality. Outside of fandom, stuff like that just gets laughed out of the room. This is a niche problem. Of course, the niche matters to me, so the problem does, too; and "subculture" does not mean "hermetically sealed jar."

As far as SPN goes, this too shall pass, but it’s possible this "stories = attacks" framework is going to be with us for a while. @ameliacareful​​​ sees puritanical fan culture/teen culture as part of a broader societal pendulum swing between extremes of permissiveness and conservativism, and as such, part of an ebb and flow that's been present for all history and inevitable. She terms it "the New Victorianism"—and she points out that though OG Victorianism (predictably) became a cage and always had radically different implications for members of different social groups, many of its traits began as responses to real threats and abuses women faced. (Unevenly applied depending on women's socioeconomic status and ethnicity, but what ever isn't.)

The non-fandom example my brain keeps going back to is the US marriage equality movement in the ’00s. A big part of the push for marriage equality (which is intertwined with fights for a host of other civil rights issues such as employment, housing, and adoption rights) has been trying to convince straight society that LGBTQA+ people are Just Like Them.

Don't be afraid of queer people getting married/adopting children/teaching your children, Straights! Queer people, too, enjoy planned communities, financial stability, station wagons, pedestrian infrastructure, farmer's markets, fantasy football, keeping Obama 2012 bumper stickers on your car long after they begin to peel, and optimal neighborhood saturation with Panera Bread, Just Like You.

What? Leather daddies at Pride parades? Oh, no, we completely agree with you: not suitable for children. But please know, that's not all of us. "Queer" is not a synonym for "kinky" any more than it's a synonym for "deviant," and we hate that some people are out there giving society the wrong idea. In fact, we'd like to ban leather from Pride. It's not that we mind what consenting adults do in private, you understand, but there’s a time and a place. We want Pride to be for everyone. Here, Straights: have a rainbow lei and don't be afraid, because we are Just Like You.

No doubt my tone gives clues to my personal feelings about respectability politics, but here's the bitch of it: it weaponizes ideas that are in some wise true. Queer people aren't some fucking exotic species; and we did and do have to counter lurid misconceptions; and "queer" isn't a synonym for "kinky" and is sometimes treated like one; and there are prevalent and pernicious ideas that queerness is inherently obscene laced all through our culture that do untold material and psychic harm to queer people, and it's not even that much of a leap to think that maybe leather daddies at Pride help keep those ideas alive in some people's minds.

So I can understand a desire to purge "deviance" from the image American cultural consciousness holds of queerness. I can understand queer teens wanting to be able to hold hands with their crush and explore innocent young romance without feeling the weight of centuries of cultural baggage on their shoulders, or indeed to have a thoroughly normal adolescent sexual relationship that isn't construed as an act of rebellion in and of itself. I can understand not wanting your existence to have to be a rebellion. I can understand queer adults just not giving a damn about leather or kink and not wanting to hear about it and not particularly enjoying all the straight onlookers who, because they associate queer sexual orientations with kink, now believe they know something about total strangers' sex lives and who not infrequently feel at liberty to fucking talk about it with them as a result. I can understand wanting to be accepted, at any age. And so on, and so forth, because there are millions of queer people of all ages with varied lifestyles, interests, political leanings, and feelings about all this shit, and that's before you even leave America, never mind the West.

I can understand, which is why I try to be gentle about it when I tell anybody who wants to chuck free expression under the bus in favor of respectability politics to get fucked.

The point I went spelunking down that thousand-word digression for is that while I think the push to subject stories to moral tests is not born out of nothing, it's misguided, and ironically enough, ends up being actually immoral. Cultural pendulum swings happen. That they are inevitable doesn't make all of them a good idea.

In fandom's New Victorianism, stories are assessed not as engaging or boring, effective or flat, interesting or bland, beautiful or trite, but as good rep or harmful. Not even just harmful, but harm. When these fans call a story "traumatic," they're not using hyperbole to express that the story evinced strong feelings on account of being engagingly written; they mean it literally.

Their use is incorrect.

It would be overstepping to say that stories can't ever contribute to trauma, because it seems clear to me that microaggressions can and do contribute to trauma, and fictional representations can be microaggressions.† However, that legitimate use has (much like "grooming") been co-opted in onanistic motte-and-bailey arguments so long and so hard it's lost all meaning in common fandom discourse—and 90% of the time, it's not what these people are talking about in the first place.

Rather, they're using it as a synonym for "triggered."‡ As in: "Reading this story triggered me, and that is trauma."

Being triggered is not trauma; it is a trauma reaction.

Does it still suck? Oh, yeah. Is it reasonable to want to avoid it? Very.֍ But they are different things, and the distinction matters in a discussion about whether publishing/broadcasting particular stories constitutes harm.

Distress is not harm. Distress may accompany harm, but it may accompany a hell of a lot of things. Distress is not a signal that someone is hurting us. It signals something, and we should pay attention to it, but to assume it indicates someone with whom we are currently interacting or whose work we’re reading has just harmed us is a misinterpretation.

In the case of a trauma reaction to a story, the distress stems from past harm. The person who has perpetrated that harm is not present. The story is not perpetrating harm; the author is not perpetrating harm. Someone else perpetrated the harm, likely years before, and they're either not around to eat the consequences, are too powerful to have consequences visited upon them, or both.

But here's this fanfic author, just an AO3 comment or a Tumblr ask or a Twitter dogpile away.

Say an author posts a story, accurately (whether or not all readers agree if adequately) representing its content with rating, tags, summary, and/or other front matter. Someone with a history of trauma reads the front matter, takes it seriously, and still thinks that what's inside won't surpass whatever emotional limit they're prepared to deal with at the moment. So far, so much good faith from all parties.

The reader decides to read, but even though the front matter was accurate and their assessment of same was reasonable, nevertheless something in the story takes them past their limits. It could even be something like your C1 example: you post unhealthy!Sam/Castiel with tags and a rating and summary that are faithful to the dynamic the story explores; but a reader who's only ever seen fluffy, wholesome!Sam/Castiel, and who due to their perspective doesn't connect the dots on the very real clues your front matter provides, reads the story; and something in it intersects somehow with (say) a personal history of abuse such that the reader ends up with an experience far more intense than they foresaw.

Perhaps the fic even triggers a flashback to the abuse they experienced. Possibly the flashback has material consequences: the reader misses meals, or uses self-harm to try to counter their distress, or snaps at a client and gets written up at work. Suffering both the immediate distress and all its ripple effects, they accuse you of causing them, giving you an earful about how harmful your story was. After all, they were fine before they interacted with your story, and look at them now.

Yikes on a bike. Did you, the author of this unhealthy!Sam/Castiel fanfic, do this to this reader? Is your story harmful? Are you culpable?

No, you fucking well didn't; no, it fucking well isn't; no, you fucking well aren't.

You know who harmed this person? Whoever perpetrated their abuse and whatever social structures enabled their abuser. Apparently your story reminded them of their abuse, and that sucks, but it's not the same thing and if they're lashing out at you, they're forgetting the first rule of Fight Club: their mental illness is not their fault, but it is their responsibility.

In interactions like this, there is a culpable agent somewhere—but usually it's so far outside the immediate exchange that it can't even be complained to much less forced to make amends. Precious little justice will ever be forthcoming from most abusers or abusive systems. That is a very hard thing to live with.

Defenses of CNtW or darkfic tend to devolve into "Well, it's their own fault for not taking the tags/their own mental health seriously" pretty fast. Which, to be fair, is probably because often that's exactly what happened. But it's not rare for people to read the front matter, maybe even consult with a friend who's read it, carefully consider whether the story is for them, and still find painfully that it is not. They weren't stupid, and they weren't cavalier, and they weren't lacking for information. So what went wrong?

Nothing.

The author didn't do anything wrong. The reader didn't do anything wrong. The tagging/rating system was not deficient. The story was not some innately abominable superweapon that should never have seen the light of day. Everything worked here. The reader might revisit their criteria for selecting reading material—but they might decide they won't be changing anything because the risk is still worth it to them, and so long as they continue to take responsibility for themselves, there's nothing wrong with that, either. It is possible to have an interaction where people get hurt without anything actually being wrong, or anyone acting wrongly, within that interaction.

But accepting "I got hurt even though no one was at fault here, not even me" is really fucking hard. Most of us need to blame somebody: it's preferable to conceding a lack of control or the impossibility of justice from the parties who actually owe it. We need to believe that somebody in striking distance fucked up.

Conflating pain with wrong done by a proximate agent is the fallacy that allows, even requires, people to recast "I experienced distress when I read this story" as "this story harmed me." Doing that robs our experience of the story of much dimension, completely fucks our conceptual relationship to the author, and sends our collective conversations about storytelling straight to hell. Maybe this is all part of that New Victorianism pendulum swing and there's nothing anybody can do to shift its path; but if so I'll probably spend the whole of the cultural moment getting progressively more flamboyant manicures on both my middle fingers, because I hate the whole thing so much.

Having, I hope, gotten some clarity about questions of culpability and harm, I want to circle back to expectations and the author-reader contract.

On the most recent episode of the Conjoined podcast, @teiandcookies​ gave a particularly insightful response to a question she and @lovetincture​ received about "misleadingly" presented fics. The question is nominally about CNtW, but Tei illuminates how it's only incidentally about tagging at all. The following excerpt starts from 02:27. Bold text is my emphasis.

TEI: An anon sent us the following question:

…I've been burned in the past by fics [where] the author sets it up on purpose to look like one kind of fic and then puts in rape or major character death or extreme gore, when if the fic was what people thought, obviously they never would have clicked, and that feels mean-spirited to me. Just not warning is one thing, but when you're putting other tags you know are popular to lure readers to read something because they're going to think it's something else, then that's fundamentally dishonest….

…I think even a couple months ago… my initial reaction would have been, "Well, how often can that be happening?" More recently I have been doing a volunteer role with the OTW and… as a volunteer, I have now been seeing more of this kind of stuff…. Obviously this gets into questions of intent, and how can you tell what someone's artistic intent is; and there are many, many cases (probably the majority of the cases) where you really can't. However, there are some pretty clear-cut cases where you can say, "Yeah, this is just a fucking troll, and this person literally just wants people to be upset by this and that's what they're getting off on." So, I think that's the kind of thing that this person is asking about, and I have to agree with them that, yup, that absolutely happens.

But I think the word "trolls" is maybe more important in that sentence than any other, because I think this is… a conversation about trolling that is disguised as… a conversation about Choose Not to Warn. And it's easy to get those mixed up, maybe, because trolls use the tools that are available to them….

So you can't stop the misuse of your tools, right? Every platform has different tools, and every platform has people misusing those tools differently. And I think… you can go down some unfortunate paths if you convince yourself that you can stop trolling if only you find the correct set of tools. Right? If only you make people use the site correctly, then they'll use the site correctly. Because that's just never gonna happen.

So you can't stop it, [but] I think what you can do is decide whether the misuse of a tool is worth the correct use of the tool. So, for sure, Choose Not to Warn is one of the tools that trolls have on AO3 to convince people to click or, y'know, trick people into clicking on things that they wouldn't otherwise click on.

It's certainly not the only one. Another really obvious tool that trolls have if they want you to click on something that is not going to be anything even close to what it looks like it is, is, for instance, relationship tags. Because something that people may not know is that the only tags on AO3 that are enforceable—as in, if they're wrong, you can report them to Abuse and they will be changed or deleted—are fandom tags, language, rating, and warnings. So if those things are egregiously wrong, you can essentially force them to change it; but other things, like relationship tags (significantly) and any additional tags, if they're just flat-out wrong? That's not against the Terms of Service.

Here Tei gives "the top-kudosed Reylo fic" on AO3 as an example and points out that while this trolling could perhaps be circumvented by making relationship tags enforceable, it would be completely impractical "to have a team of volunteers litigate whether every single fic qualifies as being the relationship." She concludes:

I think the question isn't so much, "What do we do about trolls in general?": it's more, "Is this tool worth the price of admission?", and the price of admission is it being used wrong. In this case, paying the price of admission is just that sometimes you're gonna click on things you wish you hadn't. And this is where it's totally reasonable, I think, to disagree about what prices are worth it to pay.

I think for me, the fact that someone could use these tags in a way that is intentionally misleading is an acceptable price… and there aren't solutions that would easily eliminate that problem in a way that wouldn't have [their] own much larger costs, so to me, I kind of look at this right off and say, "Yeah, this is okay, this is worth it." Other people might feel differently. But I think it is important to make sure that we're talking about the prices of various things and not just laboring under the delusion that there's some kind of Platonic ideal of a set of features that are impossible to abuse, because I don't think that really exists.

From your acute anxiety about hurting people, anon, it's apparent that whatever your motivations as a writer, you're not trolling. I pulled this out because—well, partly because it's just a really good discussion that places probably half the tail-chasing around CNtW in its proper context. But also because I want to place the conversation about the author-reader contract and what stories "owe" us in its proper context, which is that benefits have costs.

What, presentation-wise, is the Reylo example actually doing? It's leveraging readers' expectations and AO3's front matter conventions to get people interested in one topic to enter the story and, once they're there, telling them something they might not want to hear. At the level of that particular fic, that process can fairly be labeled a mere bait and switch.

A lot of people will slap the "bait and switch" label on pretty much any story that subverts their expectations, though, and I think often an apter concept is Trojan horse. If the author knows the audience expects one thing, and leverages that expectation to say something different—even if the horse is constructed out of 100% ethically sourced clue-by-fours—then yes, it is a bit like they're sneaking a message past the reader's… well. Here, some might say, "past the reader's boundaries," and revile it as an act of disregard and violation.

Some might rather say, though, "past the reader's preconceptions," casting it more as a technique to force an audience to confront something overlooked or ignored. Including their own biases. If this is a trick, such subversion seems to say, it's a trick you're playing on yourself.

Not only do I prefer the second formulation because I value being surprised, but I have some beef with the first one. I think it's the reader falling down on their half of the author-reader contract. It looks a lot like disavowing, when convenient, the fact that cognitive and emotional manipulation (if you want to call it that) is exactly what we come to fiction for. It's one thing to complain that the massage you got sucked, but it's shitty if your whole one-star Google review is bitching that the process involved laying on of hands.

So what is the line between artistically justified subversion and mean-spirited baiting? Good faith, probably; but what's "good faith"? "Clear-cut" cases like the Reylo fic aren't usually what people fight about. I'm not even as convinced as Tei that the clear-cut ones are what her anon is thinking of, because when people are upset about a surprise, they tend to form immediate, vehement opinions about the motives and intent of the surprise's author. I know this for reasons.

Readers don't only end up surprised because authors are trying to surprise them; there are real disagreements about what's obvious, and I want to keep that in sight. But deliberate subversions force us to evaluate what the contract between author and reader actually is in a way that accidental surprises do not. What do authors owe audiences? What do audiences owe authors? What are we all showing up for?

When you get all the way down to the bottom, the question is, "Should art be safe?" And I come down, really hard, on the side of no—not because I think "challenging" should be the default instead of "comforting," or because I think challenge is more important than comfort, but because I think art's ability to comfort is inextricable from its willingness to challenge.

And because it can't be safe. Sometimes experiences aren't what we expect. Sometimes they're exactly what we expect, but they hit us in ways we don't. Sometimes they're exactly what we expect, and they hit us exactly how we were told they might, but advance knowledge is not the same thing as living. Sometimes there's no way to be warned for something.

Someone might point out that driving a car is never risk-free, either, but it's still a moral imperative to take every step to reduce the risk that we can. Behind the wheel, efficiency or entertainment or style have no business overriding safety. Or take architecture: you don't build a structure that has a one in a thousand chance of collapsing no matter how cool it would look or what emotions it might inspire. Why should authors be held to a different standard?

Stakes are why. If a writer fucks up, people lose interest or get offended; maybe justly, but they're still breathing. If a structural engineer fucks up, people die. This isn't some kind of side-issue or technicality; it's one of the major functions of storytelling.

Art is one of the safest experiences open to us—even when it's uncomfortable. That's why we do it. It's sandboxing.

I don't want to be dismissive of the impact stories can have, whether we're talking about their impact on our mood, the complex interplay between art and society, the mirrors they hold up to us individually or collectively, or any of the other ways they are important to us. If I didn't believe fiction mattered, I wouldn't spend so damn much time making it, never mind thinking about it.

But I do think here in our fandom bubble, we sometimes overstate its… not importance, but consequence. It does matter that the events in fiction are not real. Bizarre that we've arrived at a place where it needs saying, but apparently it does. A lot of voices in this echo chamber have gotten in the habit of giving fictional and real-world experiences equal weight. That's why it's so easy for people to conflate distress with injury, why it's so hard for them to distinguish trauma reactions from trauma.

Some of the greatest vitriol I've seen toward CNtW or the very idea of shock in literature has been from fellow fanfic writers. I don't think that's coincidence. Who else is more invested in elevating what we do? That South Park episode with San Franciscans smelling their own farts comes to mind. Look: surprises, even nasty surprises, can be totally fine in fanfiction because art has no duty to safety, only duties with which safety can be either compatible or incompatible. I'll cheerfully die on that hill. And when people get all, "Think a lot of yourself, do you?" over calling fanfiction art, my internal response is something along the lines of, "Bitch, I'm not the one out here making it out to be life or death."

If the first mistake of art is to assume that it's serious, the second is to assume the unserious isn't important, and the third is to run around being a fucking asshole about art you don’t like.

So where does that leave us, on a practical level? Those of us out here on the mean streets of fandom, just trying to make some porn?

A bit later that Conjoined discussion, @lovetincture​ quotes Margaret Atwood quoting Alice Munro: "Do what you want and live with the consequences."

That. Do that.

At 17:46, Tei points out that "[t]here's a difference between 'consequences' as in, 'I know that this thing might happen' and 'consequences' as in, 'this is in the right.'" It's a crucial distinction. Plenty of reactions are predictable, but not all of them are just. Some of them are predictable precisely because they're unjust. Directly protesting an unjust reaction is often a waste of energy, but just knowing for yourself which is which can take a lot of the weight off.

The possibility of encountering bad actors is the price of admission for both reading and posting fanwork. On the posting side, there are certain stories (and ways of presenting them) where you'll know it's going to generate backlash. There are others where you won't see it coming, but you can accept that the potential is always there. It's up to you first to decide whether the backlash would be just, and then whether this thing you want to say is worth weathering any backlash that’s unjust.

If you decide it isn't, the consequence you live with is leaving the thing unsaid.

Here's what you owe your readers, whatever you know about the expectations they're walking in with: respect. Compassion. The best story you can tell that day. Whether that feels like a warm hug or a backhanded slap depends on you, them, and the story.

Here's what you don't owe them: more of those things than you owe yourself.

How do I not feel bad?

There's kind of a lot of this question salted through your others. "How do I not feel bad while establishing and enforcing boundaries that will let me have the experiences I want in fandom?" "How do I not feel bad while writing and sharing the things I want to write and share?" "How do I not feel bad while exploring sensitive topics, and myself, and what it means to communicate through art?"

Anon, the answers are above my pay grade either way, but I think "How do I not feel bad?" is the wrong question.

In the process of becoming who you want to be, and writing what you want to write, and building the relationships you want to build, and discovering and integrating into the communities you want to be a part of, you will do things like distance yourself from people you once called friends, disagree with people you once agreed with, disagree with people you still agree with on other matters, lose respect for people you once respected, embrace new people of whom old acquaintances disapprove, and experiment with everything from liberal application of the block button to stone-cold skullfucking porn. Even if you act faultlessly at every turn, which you will not, you will sometimes feel bad doing it. You will feel bad when you break off a friendship, or someone breaks off a friendship with you. You will feel bad when a friend wants you to wade into an argument that you know will suck the time and creative energy right out of your day, forcing you to weigh up which sacrifice will leave you least dissatisfied. You will feel bad when someone flames your fanfic or harasses people you care about over shipping. You will feel bad if you censor yourself to try to avoid being targeted.

So a better question is probably, "How do I feel as comfortable in my own skin as I can?" And one of the most helpful things I've ever done toward that goal, personally, is work on accepting that sometimes I will feel bad.

That doesn't mean accepting any level of discomfort without question, any more than the fact that not everyone will like you is license to be a raging asshole. But I've generally found that in running, BDSM, and interpersonal relationships, there is a distinction between good pain and bad pain. I can't always correctly assess which I'm feeling. Nor is it a strictly black and white thing, any more than bodies or morality are. But I can generally figure out what really matters to me and thus when discomfort is worth it if I try, and I get better at it the older I get.

Compromises are part of life. People disagree about which ones are acceptable. There is none that will please everybody, so I recommend pleasing yourself and being forthright about your selection.

Or as @stripy-tights put it once, "Self-actualization is giving yourself permission to say, 'Fuck you, the horse you rode in on, and your extensive DNI list that includes people who wear pink on Wednesdays.'"

Good luck. You'll be fine.

——————————————————— ———————————————————

*Note that "[X group of fans] are disgusting" or whatever does not have the same problem. It's clearly designed to be dickish, but it doesn't seek to transfer responsibility to an unconsenting party; it's not posing as a covenant. Here in fandom, we are all a beautiful rainbow of infinite, slightly different ways to be assholes to each other.

†From a tagging/warning perspective, this is a case that's largely irrelevant, because tagging/warning debates are about the onus on authors to label their own work, and authors who are writing the kind of works that are bona fide microaggressions are not going to be aware of or admit to it. You wouldn't debate about whether Margaret Mitchell should have tagged "racism" for stereotypes like Mammy and Prissy, because Margaret Mitchell was never gonna see the problem.

‡Often they're using "triggered" as a synonym for "upset," but I'm not interested in judging whose use is or isn't in good faith and don't think an attempt to do so should be part of this argument.

֍Here is where often, in tagging debates, someone pipes up to say that the literature suggests trigger warnings may do more harm than good by encouraging survivors to "see trauma as central to their identity," and that what's needed to improve symptoms is in fact exposure therapy, to which fiction—being fictional—is ideally suited. I'm sure well informed people could debate this point, and if you're an educator considering how to present your syllabus, you might actually need to; but within fandom, this whole question is interesting but functionally moot. The only people who get to decide when or whether or how someone undertakes exposure therapy are they and their therapist. So please leave the efficacy of avoidance as a coping strategy the fuck out of tagging debates, or at an absolute minimum, let them who have never procrastinated on their taxes cast the first stone.