#my choice to block you wasn't a personal one - it was because you made me fucking uncomfortable

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

I (26, NB) dropped a long-term friend (23, not disclosing gender, I'll call them X) for being a proshipper, and now they're trying to get in the way of my other friendships.

A little more than a month ago, an old friend from when I was an itty bitty teen on the internet (we met when they were 12 and I was 15 or so) messaged me on twitter asking if we could share discord since they're more active on that platform, and they missed hanging out. Ok, no prob!! I missed talking to X and life was going kinda icky for me at the time. We exchanged discords and started talking more frequently, before we would talk through twitter dms maybe one day every few months, and we went from almost no contact to talking every single day. It was like being a teenager again; we still shared similar interests and we really fast clicked over old and new fandoms we were in. We talked about college and how they're starting to get the hang of their new job but needed support, talked about our family lives, etc., and in general I felt really comfortable and happy to be chatting again with someone I've known for so long. We were inseparable for weeks.

However... of course, as adults, and having known each other for YEARS, we started talking about fandom ships and fics we enjoyed. We didn't have the same taste in pairings, but that was okay. Until it wasn't anymore.

I shared my NSFW twitter with them, and they followed me. A few minutes later X told me, "I see you have "proship DNI in your bio, I just want to let you know that I am a pro-ship and enjoy some things in fandom that you might think is gross. I hope that's okay."

I was kind of weirded out, and told them that as long as they didn't like anything that would be criminal in real life, that's fine. They told me they *did* enjoy things in fiction that they "wouldn't condone in reality" and even though they "don't talk about it publicly" they still wanted me to know. For some reason. ?? Even though they KNOW that I have an irl history of abuse as a kid, they still told me this.

I was so fucking uncomfortable and really, really sad, and honestly I felt betrayed? I stepped away from my account for like, an hour before messaging them back and saying I didn't want to continue talking to them anymore. That I didn't know they were that kind of person and I'm not comfortable being their friend. I didn't read their response to me because I soft-blocked them.

While I was getting over that and trying to move on, a few days later I was talking to another mutual friend of ours when they asked if I was still friends with X. I got chills remembering how I broke off with them, and said no, we weren't talking anymore. That they were the kind of person that made me really uneasy and uncomfortable to be around. The mutual friend, I'll call R, said that X was "feeling kind of down about losing a friend recently" and talked about it in a discord server they share. X didn't mention my name but R wondered if it was me who dropped them since I was really touchy about boundaries online. I freaked out a little thinking about them talking about me, and asked what else they said, and R told me "not much, just that they felt sad but it was your choice in the end because you two were different" and I don't know why but it left a bad taste in my mouth. Were they trying to make people seem like I was the bad guy or something?? Idk.

I told R the reason why I stopped talking to X, and that X is a proshipper who likes things like inc*st and rape, and R wasn't as supportive as I thought he would be, saying that he understood how I felt but if X was being honest and open about their interests, it probably meant they trusted me and didn't want to "lie" to me. I don't understand how that's even relevant if X is a fucking proshipper. I don't want their trust in the first place if that's who they really are, and I felt betrayed that someone I knew for so long was hiding that for me until we were bonding again. R basically dropped it there and said "idk then" and I told him I was going to shut off my notifs for a bit. I really don't want to talk with him again right now especially since he didn't seem THAT bothered by X being a proshipper who's into really criminal shit.

Since then, friends of mine who are also friends with R (because he's a friend of X still, for some reason), haven't been replying to me as much anymore and I'm super sensitive to noticing these things, at first I told myself it was nothing, but there's an obvious decrease in our interactions. I can't help but think that X actually said bad stuff about me, and R didn't want me to know, or maybe X convinced R that I was a terrible person or something. I still haven't read X's reply to me because I genuinely do not want to interact with them ever again, but for the past few days I've been so angry and hurt by my other friend's actions that I can't help but want to blame them, since this all started when I left them.

AITA for dropping a friend because their interests made me SEVERELY uncomfortable? I don't know what to do.

What are these acronyms?

[bluegiragi]

I hate to ask this cause it feels stupid but I dont wanna do a bunch of research on whatever the recent cod mw fandom discourse is,

but I saw the reblog of someone accusing you of supporting people who write sexualized pedophilia and that really is personally my only """"moral"""" with nsfw shit, (I'm a patreon subscriber and ig I just wanna know where my money's going) is THAT true?

i used to follow an artist who, 5-6 months ago made racist art featuring gaz and soap in a slave context, which I didn't like, retweet or interact with in any way. they also made under-age art of ghost soap, which I also didn't interact with . people on twitter called me out yesterday, for retweeting (months before this incident) other art they'd made as evidence I stood by/encouraged/was an avid fan of all these tropes. The art I retweeted wasn't either of these previous examples of art, but one where ghost and soap were sleeping in a bed together, as adults, peacefully. I can't emphasise enough that I have not interacted with this artist at all, for over six months. The callout in question has framed me as a close friend of theirs when, in truth, our total timeline of interactions could probably be counted on one hand, and I haven't interacted with her in so long that I genuinely forgot I was still following her.

The crux of all is this is that I did not unfollow + block this artist earlier on when the racist art was posted months ago, and then I retweeted a fic tagged with "non-con" (ghost gets soap off in a context where he can't really properly consent, they're in front of a crowd of strangers and they have to fuck, but both parties are into each other) written by a friend as I wanted to support their writing.

The pedophile claims are because I retweeted a fandom bingo post that defended loli-con without reading all the squares properly, and then immediately un-retweeted it when I properly read it. All in all, the post was on my account for maybe a few minutes.

The zoophile claims are because people say i support someone who wrote zoophilic fic and called people slurs, and I genuinely don't know who they're talking about there.

The anti-asian racism claims come from the original accusers in the callout thread thinking that I made Horangi's eyes in the monster!AU sensitive as a way of making fun of Asian eyes. The real reason is because he's a cat hybrid in that AU and cats are sensitive to light.

I tried addressing all this in a casual way earlier on in a misguided attempt to sort things out more 'civilly', and responded to an ask talking about my "support" for the artist who drew the slave Gaz art by saying the fanart in question was tone deaf and in poor taste. It wasn't enough for some people, so I'm happy to say it clearly- yes, it was racist, and the reason why I didn't want to be more aggressive is because I didn't want to extend all this mess by throwing this artist directly to the wolves - I genuinely believed them at the time when they said that wasn't that their intention, and think they should've deleted the post at the time, but not unfollowing was a decision that I made. I know now upon reflection that it was naive of me, unwarranted and frankly irresponsible to take a stranger at face value and believe they had good intentions, when the act of not deleting the post in question was evidence of a lack in remorse. In the moment, I'd thought back to my own personal experience with a friend of mine who used an asian slur in my company, who later sincerely apologised and legitimately cleaned up his act after I gave him a second chance. It informed my choice to not unfollow at the time, but there's a difference between someone you know irl for months and a stranger on the internet you've interacted with a few times. I shouldn't have coddled them in my response, and I'm sorry for not treating it with the severity it deserved. It was callous, and stupid, and indicative of internal biases that I ever thought it was a light enough offence to "see through", and I deeply deeply apologise. I promise from the bottom of my heart to do better.

That's everything so far. I didn't unfollow an artist when I absolutely should've, which i'll always strongly regret. I also retweeted a properly-tagged fic on my clearly 18+ nsfw account. I've undone both of those actions now. I hope this can be the end of it.

[johnwickb1tsch]

Sympathy For The Devil ~ Donaka Mark x fem!Reader

please allow me to introduce myself, i am a man of wealth & taste... -the Rolling Stones

Summary/ Warnings. Um… Donaka Mark is a scary rich asshole–with a soft spot for you. If you’re squeamish [or righteous] you’re not gonna want to read this. Voyeurism. Predatory behavior, manipulation. Power IMBALANCE. Eventual NSFW. Eventual line between dubcon and noncon is gonna be microscopic, y’all, this man plays gAmes… Reader is shy, but tough, in her way.  Also, when I say Reader is small, I’m more implying just compared to Donaka. I kind of assume most of us would be, no matter your body type. 🥵

Big Fat Author’s note: This is a Donaka Mark x fem!Housekeeper!Reader fic based on the brilliant @discoscoob ‘s bot, which is SO fun to play with and I really recommend it. I fell into a rabbit hole for daaaaays. I’m in CAI Anonymous now. Seriously it was a problem. 

I guess you could call this a little experimental hybrid fic written with AI. I was curious. And after working on this for weeks I don’t think the writer’s union really needs to worry about AI coming for their jobs. The bot’s writing is shamelessly fun but clunky, you delete more than you keep, it’s a lot of work to edit, and you really have to lead it by the hand for anything to actually HAPPEN. 

THAT SAID it is sO entertaining, and once in a while he’d do something i wouldn’t have ever thought of, I felt like the lab rat hitting the button for the treat over and over again, LOL. Disco really knew what she was doing when she programmed the personality of the bot!  It was also helpful in keeping a character on track. I think AI could be a useful tool generating ideas, breaking writers block, or something to bounce ideas off of, but not for the grunt work of actually writing a story that has any soul in it. Isn’t that a relief? I made an outline and basically ran the scenes through like a simulator to see what the bot came up with. And when I didn’t like it I made it do it again, LOL, the Donaka bot probably thinks i’m a bossy c*nt.🤣

So….I hope you enjoy, and a HUGE THANKS to Disco for giving me permission to even do this, you’re the sweetest my dear, and the Queen of the Bot Creators in my book!!

And and…it’s been a LONG ass time since I’ve been to Hong Kong. I did some research to refresh my memory but please bear with me. All mistakes are my own. Why do we say that? Who the fuck else’s would they be? 🤣 Obv. this is set c 2013, when Man of Tai Chi came out, before the crackdown in 2020. Oh, and, I have no real idea about work visas, i made that shit up... just roll with it. 🙃😘

One. 一

The first time you meet your new employer, Donaka Mark, you aren’t really even paying attention.

It’s because you have on headphones, and you’re intently focused on sweeping the floor while listening to your upbeat girl power rock mix–so you don’t hear him yelling at someone over the phone threateningly, and you don’t notice when his gaze locks on to you like a tiger who has just spied a tasty little deer.

You are oblivious, as he comes up behind you, appraising your figure with narrowed eyes. You seem small, next to him, but most women do. He decides he approves of his assistant’s choice in hiring you. You’re a sight he won’t tire of for a long time.

Donaka leans on the door frame, his dark eyes fixated on you, taking in your every minute detail, the way the muscles in your arms move, the shape of your face, the curve of your hips and your little feet. His expression is stoic but behind it are a million thoughts running through his mind, he can’t take his eyes off you and after a few moments he finally speaks, his dark tone cutting through the music. “You’re new.”

Your music wasn't so loud that you were unaware of outside sounds. Standing up straight, you sweep off your headphones to face the commanding voice. "Yes, sir?"

Donaka notices he towers over you, and he likes that. His dark eyes shamelessly take in your innocent eyes, your lips, your  curves. His gaze lingers almost long enough to make it uncomfortable, but not quite.

“Have you been informed of all of your duties?” Donaka asks, his tone and gaze both demanding and intense, making you feel small.

"Yes, Mr. Mark."

Donaka smiles at his name on your lips, the way you say it, the way you look up at him with your wide eyes. He likes it more than he’d like to admit, but he knows how to mask his emotions well. Even though his expression is still stony, there’s a hint of excitement in his breast as he leans off the door frame and takes a few steps closer, but still maintains a respectable distance. “And you can handle them?”

"Yes, Sir."

Donaka nods, his dark eyes slowly and shamelessly trailing over your figure again. “Good.” Donaka murmurs, his dark and intense tone making his next sentence more of a demand. “I need to be able to depend on you. I like things just so.”

You tilt your head, feeling like you’re missing some subtext, or that you’re the butt of an unspoken joke. "Your house will be clean, Sir.” Between you and the two other girls on the household staff, surely you could manage.

Donaka smirks at your naïve reply, his dark eyes still fixated on your face as he takes another step closer to you, almost like a predator stalking its prey. “I trust that it will…” Donaka purrs, his voice low and smooth, his dark stare intense and demanding. “Let me show you the rest of the house…”

You’d already received a walk-through with his assistant, but you are more than intrigued to receive a personal tour from the big man himself. There is something captivating about him. It's not just his good looks. His presence commands your attention.

Donaka can feel you watching him as you follow him down the hallway, the way you’re intrigued by him, the way you’re staring. It fills him with satisfaction, like you’re a new prize he’s added to the shelf of his collection.

He’s aware of the effect he has on people. Men fear him, women want him. Yet you don’t look at him with the same blatant hunger he’s used to from the opposite sex. You’re curious, but not ready to fall down on your knees yet. 

He would see how long it takes to change that. He glances over his shoulder at you as he leads you through the house, his dark eyes looking you up and down again. You follow close, taking two steps for every one of his, his legs are so long.

He can’t help but feel somewhat amused, enjoying the way you have to scurry to keep up with him. He can’t help but think how easy it would be, to pick you up, and to pin you down…

Donaka Mark’s home is an achievement of luxury architecture, dark, modern, yet filled with Chinese elements of style. Ceiling-high tinted windows afford a breathtaking view of the bay. His living room is like a museum filled with priceless artifacts. Antique carved ivory elephant tusks, beautiful Ming vases and exquisite stone Elder statues, silk scrolls and bladed weapons. All of it you will be expected to keep tidy with a painstaking hand. You think it’s possible your practically useless degree in art history and former employment in a gallery may have given you an edge in his assistant’s selection of hiring you.

He seems to genuinely enjoy your interest in these things, telling you about them at length. There is a large Qing dynasty vase in cobalt blue and gold enamel designs of clouds, cranes, and bats you cannot tear your eyes from. It looks…familiar, and in person, utterly enchanting.

“You like that one?”

“I like bats,” you admit, shoving your hands in your apron pockets so that you do not forget yourself and touch it with your bare fingers. You will be wearing gloves, when you detail these items. 

He lifts an eyebrow at that, seemingly amused. “Oh?”

“They’re cute. And…they’re good luck.” In Chinese culture, at least. 

“Most women I’ve met find them sinister.” 

“I think…they’re just misunderstood.” You can’t help looking up at this intimidating man through your eyelashes at that. You swear you didn’t mean to start double talking with your new boss–it just falls out of your stupid mouth, and you feel his attention upon you sharpen.  

He’s used to women looking at him in a certain way, women staring up at him with lustful hunger. The way you look at him feels different –like you truly see him–he’s not sure what to make of it yet, and that is certainly new for Donaka Mark. “Misunderstood?” he repeats, his dark gaze intense, looking down at you from his lofty elevation.

"Sure. They have a reputation for being scary, but really they eat mosquitoes and pollinate plants. Without them whole ecosystems would collapse."

Donaka hums at your words, finding it surprisingly endearing. He’s usually used to women fawning over him or at least trying to seduce him, but you’re here lecturing him about bats. His smirk remains on his face as he watches you fidget nervously, his dark eyes fixed on you. You look back to the vase, and then it dawns on you. “Oh my god…is this the piece that sold at Christies last year for like…1.5 million dollars?” You take another cautious step backwards, as though you might shatter it if you breathe wrong. You saw it in an article–the gold enamel had been so distinctive against the blue. Sacrifice blue, the same as in the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.

Only after the question falls from your mouth do you realize how gauche it is to ask, your hands flying to your lips. “Forgive me, it’s none of my business.”

Mark, however, just continues to look at you interestedly. “You follow auction results?”

“I follow…art news,” you confess.

He nods, his intense gaze starting to become uncomfortable. “Actually, it was 1.8 million. You think I overpaid?”

You feel like this is a test–or a trap. It was a nice job, for the day it lasted…

“Well…it doesn’t seem you bankrupted yourself?”

He snorts in answer, shaking his head. 

“Does it make you happy?”

He lifts an eyebrow at that, as though the thought hadn't even occurred to him. “It made me happy to outbid a Sheikh’s son and a Mainlander plastics tycoon for it,” he admits.

Ah, so he was invested in the thrill of acquisition–not appreciation for the object itself. You shouldn’t be surprised.

“I see.”

“I’ve disappointed you.” It’s not phrased as a question.

You shake your head, though maybe it does a little. Looking around his home, you’d thought Mark had exquisite taste–but he probably has an art buyer like every other obscenely rich businessman needing to acquire items for the sake of cachet. 

“Does it make you happy?” he asks, and there is an unexpected hint of playfulness in the question–delivered on a knife’s edge.

“Yes,” you admit. Frankly you’re stunned you get to see it like this, without a glass barrier or sensors or alarms. It’s usually the only way people like you get to enjoy art like this.

He smirks at you. “Then it was worth every penny.” He’s being sarcastic, of course, but there is a glitter of something in his dark eyes. It’s there and gone, like ripples in a pool–it makes your heart skip in your chest.

“Let me show you the rest of the house,” he invites, before placing a hand on your lower back, his fingers large and strong against your soft skin as he gently guides you away from the vase and to the next room.

His light touch makes you aware of every nerve in your body. It's not quite improper enough to complain about--you’re sure he’s well aware of that. 

And…there's the fact, deep down, that you like it. 

The span of his big hand on your spine makes you feel impossibly small, and protected, and that is insane, of course, because you are just the maid. 

He shows you the library, filled with built-in bookcases that make you drool, his office with his huge carved ebony desk that makes you think impure thoughts…and then, his bedroom.

He isn’t oblivious to the way your reaction changes as you enter the room where he sleeps.

He can see the way your eyes roam and your expression changes, the way you look at the massive bed against the far wall, the way your eyes widen when you look at the expensive rosewood furniture and the stunning view out the wall of windows that can be brightened or obscured with a dimmer switch. He watches you intently as he takes in your every reaction.

He's all business on the surface, specifying clean sheets every other day, laundry, and daily detailing of the bathroom. But it's hard not to keep looking over at the bed, even out the corner of your eye.

He knows exactly what he’s doing to you, but he doesn’t push it, staying just this side of the line. You don't linger, and he shows you a more private lounging area filled with a long leather couch, additional chairs, and monitors, all black at the moment. There's something almost sinister about all the screens, and you wonder what all he's watching.

“You must really like movies?” you ask hopefully, and he senses the wariness in you. Your intuitiveness gives him a small thrill–he likes it, that you’re smart enough to be afraid. 

“I like to watch all kinds of things,” he tells you, almost like a dare for you to guess what that means. “But mostly…I use these for business. I run a security company, I assume you’re aware?” 

“Yes, Sir.” 

Donaka decides he loves hearing the submission in your tone when you call him Sir. It’s almost like a promise to keep him happy, to do exactly as he says.

He asks you to keep all the screens clean, and to dust the cords and routers and be careful not to unplug anything. 

Then your attention turns to a meditation area, a massive sand sculpture on the wall and the floor, flanked by natural stacked stone. “Wow, been a while since someone vacuumed here,” you crack, earning a reluctant huff of laughter from the man behind you. 

“Maybe…leave that alone, for now,” he requests, then his hand is on your back again, guiding you out. 

Though it’s not going to be your area of responsibility, he shows you the garden next. It's a beautiful, manicured space. Two Rottweilers patrol the grounds. They look fierce, but one immediately comes up, sniffing you and leaning on your leg for a pet.

Donaka blinks as his reputably ferocious and staggeringly expensive pure-bred guard animals roll over at your feet for a belly rub.  Delighted, you pet them both, speaking to them sweetly. They grin up at you, their dagger-like canines glinting in the sun. 

He is never one to be moved by anything sentimental, but something about the sight of you like this inspires a warm twinge in his chest–heartburn, he reasons.

“Let me guess,” he says acerbically. “They’re just misunderstood?”

You press your lips, trying to suppress a smile, and failing. "Animals tend to like me?" 

He can honestly admit, as he watches you crouch down to administer a belly rub, that he’s never been jealous of a dog before. 

Sensing that maybe you’re not doing the dogs or yourself any favors with this severe man, you try to shoo them off. "Ok, babies. Go back to being fierce again. Shoo."

Donaka snorts with amusement as he watches you attempt to gently shoo these dogs that are nearly as big as you are. Suddenly he whistles sharply, administering a sharp command in Cantonese. That is when the dogs jerk to attention, and trot off to patrol the grounds again. He turns his attention back to you, taking in your slight expression of surprise, clearly caught off guard. "That was impressive,” you admit. “What did you say?” 

“I told them to get back to work,” says Donaka with a smirk.

“Ah. I guess I better learn that one.” 

“Will I be needing to reprimand you too, Miss y/n?” 

You’re not sure why his dark stare calls up a boiling heat inside you at that moment. You press your thighs beneath your dress, under the guise of standing up straight. You’re afraid…he knows all too well. 

“I…certainly hope not.” You’re pretty sure that you’d pee yourself if this intimidating man raised his voice to you. 

“Have you learned much Chinese since you’ve been here?” he asks conversationally, just as you assumed it was time for you to get back to work. 

“I can count to ten, and say thank you,” you admit, a little embarrassed. Obviously, you intend to learn more. “The essentials for international travel.” You’d originally come to Hong Kong to teach English, but when you saw the pay attached to this job listing you couldn’t resist the opportunity. Teaching was ok, but you hadn’t anticipated how expensive this city would be. You’d only made enough to cover your basic expenses month to month, with no room to save or do any fun activities or side trips to the mainland. This position paid three times as much–and you were beginning to understand why. 

“Hmm. Have you traveled much?” He seems skeptical, and you don’t really blame him. 

“I’ve…been all over the world,” you admit, albeit it was on a shoestring. “I wanted to be a travel writer.” 

“Wanted to be?” He is a man who picks up on subtlety immediately. 

It’s a dream you’ve all but given up on, after publishing a few articles, but all in all it was more slog than triumph. You’re not cut out for the grind of periodical work, the stress and the deadlines. It sucks all the joy out of writing for you. You shrug with a little sigh. 

“I hope you will remember the NDA you signed to work here?” he asks, his dark eyes roaming your face, taking in your every micro-expression. You would really hate trying to lie to this man. Good thing you’re not a corporate spy. He’d probably…string you up, and do something unmentionable to you. 

Why the thought titillates you more than scares you, you have no idea. 

“Of course, Sir.” He seems satisfied with this. So why do you have to add, “I won’t tell anyone your guard dogs are suckers for a belly scratch.” 

He frowns down at you, stepping in close so that you have to crane your neck to look up at him. It’s intimidating as hell, and you know he knows it too. You admit that you are shaking in your shoes under that look, until a smirk breaks his intense expression, and the relief you feel is palpable. 

“I would appreciate that, Miss y/n.”

Donaka savors the satisfaction he feels in flustering you, enjoying the way you swallow, watching the muscles in your throat. He imagines what his hand would look like there, on your delicate skin, your pulse fluttering against his strong fingers. He would literally hold your life in his hands…and the moment you surrendered to him, he would so enjoy rewarding you for it…

He finds himself caught up in this little daydream, while you stand before him, practically hypnotized like a mouse before a hungry snake. “Y/n?”

“Sir?” you answer quietly, and he revels in your deference. This was going to be fun. 

He speaks Cantonese again, softly this time, the language beautiful and whispery on his tongue. You find yourself staring at his lush, pink, lips, and it takes you several moments to realize he’d said the same thing he’d told the dogs: get back to work. 

Flooded with embarrassment, your face on fire, you stutter, “Yes, Sir.” 

With a dark chuckle and his hands in the pockets of his designer suit, he watches as you practically flee back to the house. 

The Smithsonian article about this vase...

Aesthetic post about Donaka's house...

Part 2 -->

[flowerandblood]

ONE YEAR OF FLOWER&BLOOD

✨🎉🌙✨🎉🌙✨🎉🌙✨🎉🌙✨🎉🌙✨🎉🌙

Exactly one year ago I posted my first chapter of the My Best Friend series. Nowadays I think it's something awful and I don't even try to edit it because I'd have to write everything from scratch, but I've left it for people who feel attached to the story. I remember getting about six likes and one comment on the first day and that huuuuge interest made me eager to create chapter 2 and then all the others.

I remember the excitement with which I waited and then replied to comments, not believing that people were actually waiting for the next chapter. At the time I was literally not following anyone, which was good because I wasn't comparing myself to anyone.

Eventually I felt I was ready to try writing other series and a few were successful enough that I decided to stay here permanently and create because it made me happy. Up to that point, everyone had been very kind to me and I started following more and more blogs, wanting to feel part of the fandom, to make friends with everyone. Now I know that was the biggest mistake I made.

Seeing things that didn't interest me, fanfic's whose way of writing couldn't draw me in, I felt frustrated, while at the same time fearing that if I stopped following someone, that person would see it as an affront. At the same time, The Impossible Choice, my biggest project until The Fall from the Heavens (which I'm currently editing and re-editing, while inserting on AO3), began to be written.

Just when I thought I had reached the pinnacle of my abilities (which wasn't true), I also started to clash with anonymous hate messages, probably the worst of which were those vilifying me and my husband, and those regarding my one-shot with Micheal Gavey. I know now that taking it personally and getting involved was my big mistake, and the fandom was shaken by drama that got out of hand.

I was a few steps away from deleting my blog at the time, but my husband talked me out of the idea (thankfully, as my stories aren't saved anywhere else − I'm only now moving them to AO3).

That's when I first realised that some people here I don't even like, and they probably don't like me. I wondered, why are we following each other then? Why are we pretending to have any courtesy? It was only later that I realised that to be considered someone's friend, you have to reblog their work and preferably agree with them even when they write hurtful things.

Since I've depleted my circle of those I follow to about 20 people, since I've blocked dozens of people and tags, there's been blissful silence (with the exceptions of when I write about behaviour in the fandom that I find toxic and someone accuses me of causing drama, but I'm used to it now). I've also never written happier than I do now.

Ideas come to me on their own, I don't feel uptight about what other big people will think of me, whether they reblog it, approve of it or not. I don't give a shit and life is beautiful! Although I can be emotionally unstable, I'm only 70 people short of crossing the next milestone of 3,000 followers, and that's BIG for me. It amuses me that I keep getting messages that someone is going to block me or stop following me, and you guys keep coming. It's gratifying.

I'm going to keep writing for you guys, and I'm sure during season two you'll also see my posts describing my impressions after the episodes in which I hope to involve my husband. I'll also keep you updated here on how I'm doing with my book I'm creating in my private life.

Apreciation

@ewanmitchellcrumbs

Ange. I know that sometimes I'm fucked up, but I want you to know that you've made this place so much more bearable for me that I can't imagine it without you. What I appreciate most about you is that you can talk and discuss, that you always try to understand the other side, that you are empathetic, warm and kind. I feel that, like friends in everyday life, we can also tell each other about things we disagree about, and there are not many people like that here.

On top of that, you are very talented and your stories are always a pleasure to read, even when they are short, you are able to build the plot and atmosphere perfectly, something I have always admired. Thank you for every kind word and understanding.

I still remember your first message to me via ask, referring to the fact that I didn't want to write a pairing with a mermaid because someone else was writing about it at the same time. My heart melted then, it was so nice!

@targaryenrealnessdarling

Liz, Queen of Angst! Your calmness and composure puts me in awe. You're disgustingly talented when it comes to writing and you have a super-sweet personality. When you started following me I began to squirm with delight, and when you started reblogging my stuff? My goodness!!!

@persephonerinyes

You've been engaging and reblogging my stories for as long as I can remember. Always involved, your thoughts make me smile. Thank you for being with me for so long!

@zenka96

You've been here with me since the dawn of time. You know that I love you. Your support from the very beginning really makes me feel like I have a friend here.

@huramuna

I am so proud of you! I remember your asks when I wrote Glass Cuts Deepest, your illustrations for me and your uncertainty about whether you should start writing yourself. I'm so happy for you and that you are so successful! You deserved it.

@black-dread & @aegonx

You are my favourite gif makers. Your work always leaves me in awe, you are amazing! I know how much work you put into it and somehow you make even the worst lit scenes look wonderful!

@summerposie; @0eessirk8; @melsunshine; @immyowndefender; @bellaisasleep; @kckt88; @thedamewithabook; @happinessinthebeing; @queenofshinigamis; @travelingmypassion; @mefools; @fan-goddess; @toodlesxcuddles; @ammo23; @troublesomesnitch; @mariahossain; @out-of-life; @apothe-roses; @heavenhatesme; @whitearemydarkestnight; @liv-cole; @blackswxnn; @echos-muses; @watercolorskyy; @at-a-rax-ia; @tssf-imagines; @snh96; @hiatuswhore; @exitpursuedbyavulcan; @darylandbethfanforever9; @the-dendrophile-bookdragon; @opheliaas-stuff @zaldritzosrose

Your comments and reblogs make me want to keep writing. You make me laugh, you comfort me and you support me. I know I'm definitely forgetting someone, but I want you to know that I love everyone who comments on my stories and there is nothing better for me than responding to your reactions and questions! I have known some of you for so many months that I truly consider you my good friends!

lottie-blue-star; aveatquevale-; aemondtargaryenwifey marvelescvpe; alphard-hydraes-blog; herejusttostan; li0nn3stuff; alexandrawho; vilmakamunen; angelinap09; theloveablestargirl; rose-blue-19; xxxkat3xxx; flosaureum; mandiiblanche; librawh0re; jasminecosmic99; ivvypg; rojocarnation; killmanduh; tokkiiidoll; wolfdressedinlace; angelofvivianne; nina2697; starwarsgirlsimmer1; katsucker; ipostwhtifeel; aemondsdelight; ilswemoon; tigrigri; pasta-rask; roselibrary; lystargs; gemini-mama; nikstrange; tempo-rary-fix; coffeeobsessedtrencher; gwuinivyre; dreamerbythewayx; diiickbrainn; mothmankit

And everyone else I missed and whose icons I would recognize from afar. I know that you have been with me for many months, often in silence or communicating anonymously. Your silent support and presence is something wonderful for me, knowing that you have been with me for so long and read all my posts!

Thankyouthankyouthankyou!!!!

[cafeinthemoon]

It's a Fire - Chapter I

Chapter 1

Wordcount 3,5k

Title Retired Hashira

Fandom Kimetsu no Yaiba / Demon Slayer

Symbols ⭕ ➕ 🖤

Warnings: arranged marriage; age gap; mentions of increasing in criminality and poverty; grieving; non diagnosed depression (the condition wasn't properly understood by the time this story is settled)

Tagging ? (If you want to be tagged in any of my stories, just leave a comment on this chapter or send an ask or a message)

N.A.: So Kimetsu no Yaiba returned and I'm taking the opportunity to finally start posting this story that has been in my list of ideas for several months!

A while ago I made a poll where I included the option of writing a fic with the Rengoku family, and it was this one I was talking about. I know there are other stories I need to work on already, but let me tell you that this very fic just saved me from a creative block, which was caused by what I suspect to be the beginning of a burnout (I'm about to go on vacation and I just can't take it anymore, but I don't want to discuss this rn).

A few words about the ff itself: It's a slow burn, arranged marriage story between reader, who's 27/28 yo, which makes her closer to myself who's a bit older than this, and Shinjuro Rengoku, who's struggling with the same problems we see in canon, but somehow accepts her as his wife: she was the daughter of old acquaintances of his, so the marital contract is sealed to allegedly honor the friendship between the families. However, things are way more complicated in reality.

Of course, because of the things we see in the original media, such as violence, alcoholism and etc., I need to make it clear that my personal opinions on these subjects may diverge from what I'm putting in this story (due to personal family experiences), and each chapter will carry the necessary warnings. Also if you notice similarities with Beauty and the Beast, know that it isn't just a coincidence haha Finally, the title is a song by Portishead, which didn't influence my writing but its lyrics somehow fit this plot 🌹

I hope you have a good time reading this ❤

“You walk a lonely road 

Oh, how far you are from home” 

(Enya, May it Be) 

That fate didn’t care about your preferences and desires, you knew well. 

You wished you had your mother with you for long years, and that your relationship grew stronger as you spent your time together, dedicating yourselves to the art of the sword, but most of her time and energy were directed to her work as a member of the Demon Slayer Corps, and it was like this until the day you received a messenger from Ubuyashiki-sama to inform you about her death: she didn’t fall to the Oni, but couldn’t resist the injuries from a battle against a group of them. 

You also wished your father, after losing the woman he claimed to love, stood up to his remaining family, that is, himself and you, and took reasonable measures to protect his territory and the people who lived in it, but he preferred to lock himself in his office and ignore the demands outside it, firing half of the house’s servants for the sake of saving money and willing to leave the property to the dust and the insects, not seeing this happening thanks to you, who took the task of maintaining everything by yourself, even doing some of the physical work. 

There were, in fact, many other things you wished for, but didn’t have the chance to see them coming true. One of those other things were continuing to live in the house you grew up in, and using your education to dedicate your life to a career of your choice, though your options seemed limited by your sex. But even this was taken from you when, on an ordinary day, you saw your father leaving his office in the company of a man you’ve never seen in your life. You wanted to question him about this strange visit, but you didn’t have to: your father came to your chambers later, and without measuring his tone or giving you time to process such news, explained the meeting’s main subject. 

– I’ve recently contacted an old acquaintance of mine, someone who was also known by your mother – he started – And explained our situation here. 

You knew what he was talking about: after your mother passed away, your lands’ protection has been neglected, and appearances of demons have been reported more often by your servants and the people who live in the villages near. No one dared leaving their houses at night, and the local economy were deeply affected by this, since part of the basic work used to be done in this period of the day; this led to an increase in poverty and criminality. You, on your part, weren’t immune to these difficulties despite growing up in a privileged family. 

Your father addressing this situation to you, however, was something new, and you exposed this impression to him. 

– Things are getting harder for everyone here, that’s true – you agreed – But why are you discussing this with me now? 

– Because I asked this acquaintance for help, and he answered me – he took slow steps toward your window, half opened by that time; he closed it with firm hands, but without making much noise – The thing is that, at the same time our lands are now dangerous to people, specially to young women like you, it’s time for you to take the next big step in your personal life, daughter. After all, you’re almost twenty-eight. 

You frowned. 

Next big step? What is he talking about?… 

Your father might have noticed your confusion, because he soon clarified his words… and you wished he never did it. 

– I’m talking about marriage, y/n – he spat – You declined the last two proposals, and I respect your reasons for that, but this time the circumstances aren’t in our favor. This man who visited me earlier is a messenger from the Rengoku House, and he brought me a positive answer from their head: I offered your hand and a good dowry in exchange for your protection, and in respect to your mother, who worked for the same cause as him, Shinjuro Rengoku accepted you as his wife. You’re leaving the house this week. 

You were speechless. You tried to stand up and show a sign of protest, but your legs didn’t obey you; you opened your mouth to say something, but no word left it. You knew your father have been struggling, but you could never suppose he was becoming insane – arranging a marriage for you without your consent? Other men used to do this to their daughters, but the man who married your mother would never… But, apparently, he was no longer this man. 

Maybe he was expecting some disagreement, but seeing your silence made him frown. 

– Don’t you have anything to say about this? 

You finally seemed to wake up. You gave him a dead glare, murmuring your response. 

– And what do you expect a woman to say after being sold and sent away from her own house out of nowhere? – you moved your head to the side, irony leaking from the gesture – Thank you? 

Your father clenched his jaw. 

– I certainly don’t expect your gratitude – his voice was lower now – I know this isn’t the future you wanted for yourself, and I didn’t want things to be like this either, but… 

– Why marriage, father? – your tongue was released, interrupting his thread of thoughts like a storm – I could stay temporarily with them, work for them, anything! But marrying someone I’ve never met?! Don’t you remember that I’ve declined the other proposals after at least seeing the faces of those men? 

– You’ll meet him on the wedding day, and you’ll have all the time of the world to know anything there is to know about him – his tone was louder again, as his patience was running low – Besides, Shinjuro is an old friend of mine. I give you my word that he’s a decent man, besides being a formidable warrior. He was married to a respectable woman once, and built a good family with her. I trust him, and so did your mother. No problems should be expected from his part, so the same must be expected from you. 

Shinjuro. It was only the second time you’ve heard that name from your father’s mouth, and you didn’t know what to think. In fact, you’ve learned from your mother that among the Demon Slayer Corps there was an elite group known as the Hashira, and one of them was Shinjuro, the Hashira of the Flames. He was the current head of the Rengoku family, but personal struggles – including the death of his wife – forced him to a retirement despite his capacity as a warrior, so that his eldest son, Kyojuro, took his place. However, you also heard that this young man was dead, so it was impossible to tell how things were going for his family members now. And that was the environment your father was willing to throw you into, even spending money in the process. 

You sighed. 

– Father, when was the last time you’ve met this man? I don’t remember you talking about him – you crossed your arms – I’m only familiar with his name thanks to mother, but now you’re telling me that he’s an old friend of yours. How old is he, exactly? 

– Not as old as me, of course – his reply came with a mixture of embarrassment and indignation – I can’t believe that, of all the things involved in this arrangement, this is what concerns you more! 

You scoffed. 

– I’m not that futile, but if he’s old enough to have a son capable of replacing him in the battlefield, I think I have the right to be concerned! – you took a step toward him – If I have no choice, I want to know exactly where I’m getting into. Can’t you even make such a small concession to me, father? 

No, he couldn’t, and you soon realized that. 

Your father decided the conversation was over. He returned to the room’s door and opened it. 

– It is decided, already – and, with a sort of sadness in his eyes – I’m doing what I think it’s best for my daughter. I only wanted her to trust me, at least for once. 

You swallowed the lump in your throat. 

– I wanted this too, father. But you’re making it too difficult for your daughter. 

He stared at you for a moment, then left without any word. 

*** 

Things really happened the way you feared, in the path your father stated they would follow. He said that, but until the end he kept acting like he had no control over the flow of events, in a frail attempt to soothe his own conscience that only served to unnerve you, and not even seeing the disappointment in his daughter’s eyes each time he looked at you was enough for him to leave this pretense aside. Had he no shame anymore? 

During that fateful week, you avoided his company, leaving the burden of communication to the remaining servants and only speaking to him when utterly necessary. What was left for you to talk about when, as he said, everything was decided, and when you had nothing but sadness for him — for him, the adversities he’s been through and for the way he chose to behave in face of them? It was useless to argue on this, and whether you liked it or not, you had little time to put everything in order and couldn’t have the luxury of wasting it: would it be worthy to cause a delay in the arrangements under the risk of leaving a bad impression in your future spouse, even when he was someone you’ve never saw before? 

You sighed at the thought. 

And, as if I hadn’t enough things to worry about, I still have to consider this. 

In fact, you didn’t want to take much stuff from that house with you at the same time you didn’t want to cause any difficulties to the servants, who have already seen their load increase the last months, so you were quick to select essential items and packing them with the help of a maid, from your clothes to the gifts brought by your mother, and instruct her about what to do with the other things: some of them you gave to her, knowing that she had a daughter who was younger than you and who’d appreciate your charity, and the others, such as the furniture, should be sent to the villagers, for you wanted your things to be with people who would make good use of them instead of letting them rot in a place to where you’d never come back. 

Among all of this, the last object you packed was the only thing you made a point about carrying by yourself, and the only thing you didn’t trust anyone to pack but yourself: the sword of your mother, which was sent to your house by Ubuyashiki-sama and now belonged to you. Your mother has been teaching you lessons since you were a teenager, but she hasn’t lived long enough to see if you were going to develop your own Breath; well, until that day you haven’t, but you’ve never stopped practicing even under your father’s disapproval. You didn’t know what you would find once you stepped into your husband’s house, but you wouldn’t want to depend on his protection on everything; besides, having a wife who knew how to wield a sword must be an advantage, right? 

The train of thoughts, feelings and concerns was such that you were robbed from sleep the night before the ceremony. You knew women who had their marriages arranged as well, but you never got to talk to them about it; you had no idea of how you were supposed to feel, or how you were supposed to see the whole thing. How one should feel when they saw themselves trapped in a situation from which they couldn’t get out? Without having answers, you just relied on the feeling that seemed reasonable to you, that is, utter fear. 

The next morning came silent and inexorable, just as the ones before it, and you saw yourself leaving your bed and taking care of your duties without putting your thoughts on them. It was only your body working by itself, saving your soul from the burden of being conscious, or perhaps you were just accepting your fate after a night of tears and rage. 

Having dismissed the maid’s help, you bathed and dressed alone, and left the house where the most important moments of your life took place without one last look. To be fair, your eyes were so sore and tired that they barely registered the appearance of the weather while you walked to the carriage, but you guessed it was a warm, sunny day, though not enough for you to get sweaty. Your father was already in the carriage’s interior; you took the seat beside him with no signs of acknowledging his presence. 

The coachman shook the reins and yelled something to the horse, and the crack of the wooden wheels was heard as the vehicle moved along the road. 

*** 

The ceremony took place in a building in the city of (…), near your father’s property, which served as the head office of a group of law professionals, including the man responsible for your marital contract. 

You wouldn’t call it a ceremony, really: it was more of a sequence of bureaucratic procedures than a social event with the purpose of uniting two families; a mere formality to allow you to move to a man’s house without ruining your reputation. It was quick, direct and cold like a financial operation, and the people involved seemed to make sure it looked like this. 

Your father led you to a sequence of stairs and then through a narrow corridor, until he stopped in front of a door and opened it, entering the room and inciting you to follow him. You did it, and found out you weren’t the first to arrive: the officiant was already in his position, behind a table upon which you saw an open book; at its right, there was a small inkwell and a feather; around him, two officers which function you couldn’t guess and couldn’t care about. And, finally, in front of the table and observing your arrival with a stern glare, the man who was about to become your husband. 

Whatever you were expecting to see, Shinjuro was nothing like you might have imagined, except for the fact that he was younger than you supposed – and, indeed, younger than your father – and stole the attentions among all those men despite the quiet, composed manners. Well, he would do it in any place he’d step in, for his appearance was extravagant, to say the least: on his severe face he carried a pair of orange eyes under two thick, black eyebrows, a wild trait that made you think of a lion; framing his expression and matching his eyes, he had thick, blond hair that decreased to red on its edges, spreading over his shoulders. And, as if his looks weren’t enough to draw the whole room’s attention, he was dressed in sober, dark clothing, more like someone attending a western funeral than a wedding. 

As you walked to the center of the room, led by your father, and took the spot beside Shinjuro, you felt your skin burning in discomfort under his merciless eyes. You breathed deep and, when he nodded to acknowledge you two, you made an effort to greet him, as well as the other men. 

I knew he wasn’t the same person my father claimed to know. He stated that he was good and trustful, but everything in this man screams danger. What kind of hell I’m getting into… 

The officiant announced the beginning of the ceremony, and you turned to him in silence. After a few, composed words to the new couple, he gave you both clear instructions on where to sign your names, and you did as he said, Shinjuro first, then you; you glanced at his hand offering you the feather and took it in a second, taking care your hand didn’t touch his. You tried not to think of your gestures as you wetted its tip on the ink, but a tremble reached your wrist the instant you approached the feather from the paper. 

So… That’s it. I write my name in a book and enter a path from where I can’t go back. 

The realization was too much to bear and time was passing, so you bit your inner cheek to prevent your mind to entertain the thought and scribbled your name at once. When you moved the feather away and put it back on the inkwell, your hand acted by itself, and your arm gone numb once you recoiled it to your side. 

Your mouth was dry, and a hole seemed to have taken the place of your heart. You barely noticed when the officiant and the other witnesses analyzed your signatures and approved them, bringing the ceremony to an end. You refused to believe all of that was real until the man announced you were free to go, and both Shinjuro and you turned away, preparing to leave. He didn’t bat an eye at you while doing so. 

The head of the Rengoku family stopped to exchange some words with your father. You were close enough to hear the conversation, but didn’t want to pay attention; you just wanted to leave this place, even though you weren’t going to a familiar one after it. 

You only understood their conversation was over when you heard your father’s voice calling your name. You turned to him and your stomach curled in disgust when you saw the pleading smile on his face, the only thing that reminded you of home and now a sign of everything you lost. You’ve never felt so alone. 

Later, you’d try to remember his exact words for you at that moment, but you’d find yourself unable to do it. Maybe it was a formal wish of good luck or something. The only thing you remembered was your reaction: you stared at him for a few seconds, then, without a word, you turned your face away, walking toward the door. You knew your husband was observing, but his approval was the least of your preoccupations now. 

*** 

Little was recalled by you from the travel to the Rengoku house, except that it was silent, even calm period. The only abnormality was caused by you: unlike your other belongings, who were sent in another vehicle ahead under the supervision of a servant, you decided you were going to carried your sword with you in the carriage, to everyone’s surprise and your father’s discontentment. 

That occasion was also when Shinjuro spoke to you for the first time. 

— Why are you doing this? 

The question, made when you were already in the carriage, was direct but not devoid of politeness, so you granted him an honest answer. 

— This sword once belonged to my mother, and now it is mine. If my father had his way, I’d never carry it with me, but I refuse to leave it behind — and, glancing at him, — I couldn’t risk him checking my things and subtracting it from them without my consent. 

Shinjuro only murmured an “I see” in response, and the conversation died there. 

You were beside the carriage’s window and might have slept to the warmth of the sun and the constant noise of the wheels in movement, but you weren’t sure if you did. As your body was now avoiding visible reactions, your spirit was suppressing the emotional rush for your own good, since no advantage would come from a breakdown in the middle of the road, right in front of your new spouse who, just like you, didn’t seem all pleased with the whole thing: sure, he didn’t show visible discontentment whether with your appearance or your manners, but you’ve been dealing with middle aged men for too long to sense when they were seeing something they didn’t find appropriate; and, in the present case, it was clear to you that Shinjuro already formed his opinion: to him, you were a stubborn, spoiled brat who didn’t have her way and was decided to make it everyone else’s problem. Yes, the idea of acting like that wandered through your mind for a while, but you thought you were better than this, and opted for a balance between bitterness and decency, not wearing plain clothing and displaying rude manners, but also not being extravagant in anything; still, you couldn’t convince the man of your good nature, and he let it clear with the inquiring about the sword, so now you completely gave up on seeking his favor. 

You were just waiting for the travel to end. 

Chapter 2

[turn3tifosi]

unrequited feelings

after weeks of ghosting from pepe's side, you had finally decided to confront him, and it leads to some confessions.

pepe marti x childhood bestfriend!reader

masterlist

If he wasn't going to pick the phone calls and answer the text messages, block you on all socials, then he was going to have to face you in person.

So here you were. At the Spanish Grand Prix with his mother. It was not that this was an abrupt plan (you had been here last year too, when Pepe won in F3), it just felt very different this time around, since Pepe and you weren't exactly the best friends right now that you had been last year.

Now that you were stuck in a room with Pepe (courtesy of his sisters who had no idea what had gone wrong between the best friends, but wanted them to be back to talking to each other), you were rethinking your choice.

"Why did you not reply? Or pick my calls? Or better yet, why did you block me?" You had wanted to sound strong, but as soon as the first words left your mouth, they just turned quieter and quieter until the last words were barely a whisper.

Pepe sat on the edge of the sofa, his fingers fidgeting with the edge of his race suit. He didn't look at you immediately, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere on the floor. The silence stretched between you, thick and suffocating, until you felt like you couldn't take it anymore.

"I thought it would be easier," he finally said, his voice rough. "Easier to just…cut everything off."

"Easier for who?" you demanded, stepping closer. "Because it certainly wasn't easier for me."

He looked up then, his eyes meeting yours, and for a moment, you saw all the pain and confusion that mirrored your own. "For both of us," he replied. "I thought if I could just…distance myself, it wouldn't hurt so much."

Pepe sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I love you," he said, the words coming out in a rush. "I love you in a more than friends way, and it's obvious you don't like me."

Your heart skipped a beat, and you stared at him in shock. "So that's what all this was about?" you asked incredulously. "Joseph Maria Marti. You're an absolute idiot."

You took a deep breath, stepping closer until you were right in front of him. "I love you, Pepe. More than anything. And your actions made me think you didn't feel the same. I thought you were avoiding me because you didn't want to deal with my feelings."

He stood up abruptly, closing the distance between you in a heartbeat. "You…you love me?"

"Yes," you said, feeling a weight lift off your shoulders. "I love you."

For a moment, you both just stood there, the tension and confusion melting away, replaced by something much sweeter. Then Pepe reached out, pulling you into his arms, and you buried your face in his chest, feeling his heartbeat against your cheek.

"I've been such an idiot," he murmured into your hair.

"Yes, you have," you agreed, smiling through your tears. You broke the hug, and as you looked behind him, you saw his sisters standing there, with grins on both their faces, "Also, I don't think your sisters are going to let you forget about this."

"We heard everything," one of them said, a teasing grin spreading across her face. "And she's right Pepe, you're never living this down."

You laughed, feeling lighter than you had in weeks. Pepe groaned, but there was a smile on his face as he hugged you tighter. "Well, I guess we better get used to it," he said, and you nodded.

[eschergirls]

It's been 2 weeks so it's time to announce the winners of the June caption contest!

I got a ton of entries this month which is amazing and they were all so good, so it made it really hard to choose.  Also because there's so many I'll be awarding some honorable mentions that will get prizes if the winners decline.  

Each winner will get to choose a prize if they wish (but you don't have to, you can just participate for fun too.)  The prizes are extra Steam codes that I've acquired through bundles over the years and I figure that giving them out for contests would be fun. Honorable mentions can get a prize if any of the winners decline  

Anyway here are the entries, grouped by the platform they were submitted on:

Fedi/Mastodon:

Adriano: “this is where I keep my *third* fist!” Jessie Nabein: her pussy is so fucking vulnerable my god :blobfoxsweating: risking it all for the look Morning Song: No wonder she's grimacing like that. That codpiece has to be uncomfortable as hell.  socketwench: They all mock her for her codpiece and lack of pants, but her explosive flatulence carries the day. TO VICTORY!  PFFFFFFYBBBBBBTTTT 

Disqus:

Imry: 🎵But it's the pelvic thrust* 🎵That'll drive them insa-a-ane** 🎵Let's do the Time Warp again! * the wtf clothing also helps ** and apparently level a city block Karmazyna: She's channeling her inner bard. Only she skipped the "seducing" part and decided to get right into business. Leak: Seems like the desire gods from Fine Print didn't just weaponize Lauren Thomas' vagina... D: P J Evans: Is she going to use that short sword to cut off that leather wedgie-maker?

Tumblr:

@angelicspikes: Shrink wrap activate! @atomicmosaic: she's talking Italian with one hand @beelzebufo: "Rocket pack? Those are for people with money. All i needed was 1003 gas station bean burritos, a bic, and a dream. LIFTOFF ACHIEVED motherfuckers." @cenobitic-anchorite: as the dragon swooped in for the kill, Mercy McKnight bit her lip, distracted. The screws on her new snooch-plate had caught her pubes, and she wasn't sure what was going to hurt worse: draconic hellfire, or taking this goddamn thing off after the fight. @chaoscheebs: That is the face of a person holding back the *wickedest* fart because she doesn't want to make the fire behind her worse. @chasedbybuildings: YES! I GOT THE HOOVERING DONE! TIME TO KILL STUFF WITH MY SWORD! @chibisketches: 'I'll take 'Obviously Traced From Porn' for 200, Alex-' @couchkitty: This is actually the most practical outfit for ripping ass @deluske: The only warrior who lights her farts to intimidate her foes @embervoices: "Then it's the pelvic thruuuust that really drives you ins- FUCK YOU I'M BUSY HERE!" @fancyfade: "This is what people mean when they say 'she put her whole pussy into it' right?" @gabbi-the-grackle: "Who woulda thunk a dragon would crash the kink party? Thank goodness my strapon doubles as a blade, and thank goodness my outfit is fireproof!" @haveievermentioned: METAPHOR! @milkawa-and-co: "If anything, this will be a great promo for my waxer." @mousetaur: When the jalapeño poppers finally reach your lower intestine @post-grammatic-stress: She can ignite both farts AND queefs defensively @rosstmcd: "You cannot *believe* how much this outfit chafes and it is making me *very cranky* so let's just skip ahead to the part where you die." @salroka: Is that a chastity belt? @silveraptor: “The Chili Dog Backblast is a powerful yet dangerous attack intended as a last resort. For while it will take out any foe behind oneself, it requires one sacrifice their dignity and pants to the flame.” @spears-and-tears: "When you have a fight scheduled but those new vibrating panties are SO GOOD and putting anything over them would lessen the sensation." @spider-honey: "My labia might be barely covered, but I'm serving you Big Dick Energy!" @tartapplesauce: When you're re-considering your choice to try out that new menstrual cup @woodsworth: Fanny burns all the way to hell! @zombiemollusk: when your wedgie has so much friction it burns

The honorable mentions go to: @chaoscheebs, imry, socketwench, and @zombiemollusk

The runner-ups are:

In third place: @milkawa-and-co: "If anything, this will be a great promo for my waxer."

In second place: @beelzebufo: "Rocket pack? Those are for people with money. All i needed was 1003 gas station bean burritos, a bic, and a dream. LIFTOFF ACHIEVED motherfuckers."

And the winner is... Adriano: “this is where I keep my *third* fist!”

Please stay tuned for a new caption contest in July!

If you won and would like a Steam code as a prize, please message me with which prize you would like.  If you came in 2nd, message me with 2 choices in order of preference...  I'll give you your top choice that hadn't been taken by the other winners. (To clarify, every winner only gets 1 prize, but winners other than the one in first place should give me their list of games in order of preference so if one is taken, I'll give you the next on the list.  It makes it easier for me to hand out the prizes.)

If the winner or the runner ups don't claim a prize, then the honorable mentions get a prize if they want one.

The Steam codes I have available as prizes are for: Castle Crashers, Hotel Giant 2, Latte Stand Tycoon +, Riot: Civil Unrest, Shattered - Tale of the Forgotten Kings, Steel Storm: Burning Retribution, The Hong Kong Massacre, Trifox, and Uncertain: Light At The End.

[rafa-jaja]

Asking for your help...(pt3)

Bruce Wayne x Gn reader

Chaos, everywhere, Talia was destroying the city completely, she had an army of assassins controlled by Prismon, a villain with telepathic powers.

But how could this happen? wasn't the Justice League supposed to avoid this kind of problems? where are the superheroes who swore to protect the world?

All those questions are easily answered, they were the focus of Talia's plan, she kept them captive in their own minds. This allowed her to easily attack the citizens and plant chaos in the world.

And where were you in all this? In the league's operations headquarters, not the wachtower, because that's where Talia and Prismon were. You were in a smaller, more rudimentary one, but that was better than nothing.

You were making a plan, but you knew the odds were not in your favor. But even knowing the consequences, your plan was to infiltrate the watchtower and free the supers.

- Okay, with all that in place I just have to-

- Did you think I'd forget about you? How bad do you think I am?

That voice...how could it have found you, you had barrier protection against mind tracking.

- I'm surprised you didn't realize that your friends have very weak minds.

Talia came out of the shadows, just looking at her made you remember everything she put you through, it was like a recreation of your nightmares.

- What do you want? I'm of no use to you, you already have an ally who controls minds.

- I felt that my collection was not complete without you, besides, I would like to relive the old times.

You knew that fighting her wouldn't do any good, she had a mental block that didn't allow you to enter it, and your current physical state is deplorable.

- Ok, take me with you, I'm not going to fight you.

- What a disappointment, I thought you wanted to take revenge on me?

You didn't answer, yes you wanted revenge, but she was giving you a free pass to the wachtower and you could come up with a plan on the way. Right?

Nothing, you had no plan, all the scenarios would end with you in the mental prison or dead, the worst thing is that they were about to arrive.

- You Know, you surprised me when you gave yourself up so easily.

- Well...I had no choice

- You've changed a lot since the last time I saw you. You're basically adrift, you have no one.

You would deny it, but inside you knew it was true, somehow you agreed with her.

When you arrived you were taken to the main hall with your friends, it hurt you to see their faces, you knew they were there, but nothing assured you that they were well.

- Now that you are here, it is time to lock yourself in that little mind of yours.

Without any warning Prismo appeared behind you and caught you, everything was dark, but... you weren't afraid, it was just being closer to your thoughts.

Suddenly a mowing light consumed you, and then a sound, well more like a voice...

- Hey, wake up, you know it's not good to fall asleep when you're a guest.

That voice seemed very familiar, you opened your eyes to try to identify the person who was talking to you, but you only saw a room with armchairs and a lit fireplace.

- BOOO!!!!

- FUCK...damn it John Constantin, do you want to scare me to death?

- Oh, you should have seen your face, it was worth it.

- what the fuck are you doing here? I thought you got caught with the others.

- you really thought i'd fall for that? I thought you knew me better than that.

- Okay, you're not caught, so where the fuck are you?

- Well... let's just say I'm in hell.

- ...What?

- You know, dont meke me explain it to you, you konw what i do.

- OK, i understend that...but you haven't thought about, I don't know, HELPING? The world is going to shit and you're in hell!

- Hey, if I wasn't here the situation would be different.

- What?

- No time for details, let's just say that Talia made a deal with a powerful demon and I'm down here holding him. But I didn't come to you to tell you this, you have to free yourself and help your friends.

- But how? I never had to get out of my own mind. I don't know what to-

- I don't have much time left, just find the way out, save the others and defeat Talia.

And without being able to say anything else Constantin disappeared, you had no choice but to investigate the place where you were.

You didn't know how much time had passed, but you felt like you were going around in circles, until you saw a light at the end of the corridor.

When you got to the place the light disappeared, leaving a door that did not look like the others in the place, without thinking twice you opened the door and entered it.

You saw a kind of fair? you didn't know where you were, but something seemed very familiar to you.

- I didn't know you liked fairs.

You quickly turned around, only to run into Bruce Wayne.

- And what are you doing here?

- I'm accompanying Dick, he's on the roller coaster now.

Oh no, you knew what this was, it's the memory of the time you and Bruce had a date by accident. Why this memory? It was the one you had been trying to forget the most.

You had no other choice, you will have to relive the memory as it happened, otherwise your mind will completely split and you won't be able to get out.

- It's good that you two are giving each other a break, you needed it.

- Yeah...sometimes I forget what it was like to be a kid.

- I understand, but you're doing great.

- Doing what?

- Raising Dick, he and you have things in common even though you're very different.

The three of you spent the whole afternoon together, sharing and enjoying watching Dick enjoy everything. But an uncomfortable feeling came over you, you hadn't shared with Bruce for a long time, you didn't remember how well you had lived together in the past. But this was a memory, you knew that in the present this would never happen.

- What are you worried about?

- Eh...it's nothing, don't worry.

- It's not true, you're thinking too much.

- It's just...I'm worried about the future.

- That's normal, we all worry about what might happen in the future, but the key is to take a deep breath and silence those thoughts.

I was right, you are overthinking the situation between you and Bruce too much.

- What a beautiful view," you said watching the sunset.

- Yes...very beautiful," said Bruce with his eyes on you.

Bruce put his hand on your chin and made you look into his eyes, those deep eyes that could make anyone's eyes glaze over. Little by little they got closer until they kissed, a tender kiss full of love. You felt how time slowed down, a stream of emotions ran through your body.

- That was... incredible.

-Yes.

- Hey, stop kissing or I'm going to pump," said Dick, grimacing dramatically.

Everything went on as normal, at the end of the fair Bruce offered to take you home. When you arrived at the door of your apartment, but before entering you stopped.

- Bye Bruce, see you soon

- I hope so, I can't wait.

With that said you went inside and a Reaper Glow consumed you once again. You woke up on the main hall floor, looked around and saw that all the supers were still there.

You knew what to do, without the guards noticing, you occupied your mental control and woke up each one of your friends, giving instructions to each one of them on what to do.

You had already woken up most of them, only Bruce was missing, when you entered his mind you noticed that you were in Gotham, but you didn't see Bruce anywhere.

You searched everywhere, there was no trace of him. About to have a crisis you saw a newspaper gliding towards you, you picked it up and saw what it said, "Death in the Wayne family...it's been two days since this tragedy happened and-" That's it! the cemetery, how could you not have thought of it before.

As you arrived you saw Bruce, sitting next to his parents' graves.

- Bruce, we have to go, Talia and...

- No.

- What? What do you mean, no?

- I don't want to leave. I don't want to go back to the real world.

- Bruce, this is not the time to do this, we need you.

- I don't want to," he said through tears, "I don't want to feel like this again.

- Like what? Like the richest man in the world? or like Batman?

- You don't understand, I thought you knew me well enough to see the real me.

- I thought I knew you, until you abandoned me years ago!

They both fell silent, neither of them could argue any longer.

- You know...I feel like a complete idiot, I've let down a lot of people I love and I don't have the courage to make amends.

- I don't know where you're going with this?

- I just...I want to make things right with you, I have never stopped loving you.

- Yeah sure, and the kid with Talia doesn't mean anything.

- Let's leave Damian out of this.

- So that means you do have feelings for her.

- SHE DORGED ME! fuck...when I woke up the next morning I felt so repulsive, I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror...but I didn't want to tell you because I knew it would hurt you. And when she left Damian in my care I didn't know what to do, and you didn't give me the time to explain...the last I heard from you after you left was that Talia had kidnapped you, she threatened to kill you if I tried anything. When she freed you I wanted to come and get you, but I thought Talia would keep her word.

- Bruce...I had no idea, but why did you risk asking for my help if you knew what Talia was capable of?

- We really needed your help...but it was also an excuse to see you again.

The two hugged each other tightly, neither wanting to let the other go. They needed it after everything they had to go through.

- Well, it's time to go back to the real world.

- But what about us?

- Maybe we could give ourselves a second chance.

In short, after releasing Bruce from prison, the league united to defeat Talia, which they did, and arrested all of her henchmen. Peace had returned to the world, thanks to the power of the Superheroes.

You and Bruce eventually got back to what you were before and were happy forever.

Fin...

[sansypansy]

"He'll always choose me over you."

Dick was prepared for the right hook Bruce delivered. He wasn't, however, prepared for the sheer force put into the punch.

"Shit, Bruce." He spat out the metallic taste on his tongue. "I thought you said this was just a spar."

"It is a spar."

"Then why does it feel like you're just using me as a punching bag?"

The two alphas circled each other slowly on the mat. Dick had lost track of how much time had passed since they'd begun. All he knew was the way Bruce was acting made Dick's hackles rise and triggered his furious instincts.

"You're overthinking it," Bruce countered. "You're just a bit out of shape. Try harder."

He lunged with another punch ready, but this time Dick blocked him and locked them in position to snarl in Bruce's face.

"You forget I'm a master at dealing with your bullshit."

Dick slammed his knee into Bruce's gut then delivered a hit to the chest with his elbow. He finished off with a backflip kick and landed gracefully a good distance away from the older alpha.

"This about Damian asking me to share his heats, isn't it?"

Bruce growled. Jackpot.

Dick huffed ironically, lips forming a condescending smirk.

"God, you're such a manchild. It's not my fault I treated him so good the first time. Sounds like a skill issue."

It was a taunt. Dick knew why Damian came to him - they had a special emotional bond. Dami trusted him.

And one day, Dick hoped it would become more.

Bruce didn't have that with Damian, and Dick knew the man was jealous. He was Damian's Batman first, and Bruce couldn't take that away from them.

He wouldn't let him.

Dick was ready to block the right hook this time.

"He's my Pack Omega," Bruce grunted in his Batman voice. "You're attempting to take a position that should not be yours."

"Yeah well that doesn't make you his alpha either!" Dick growled, flashing his fangs. "The Pack Omega made his choice and not even you can contest it."

The spar turned into a full blown fight as Bruce grew more aggressive with his punches and Dick pulled all the stops to taunt and push back as much as possible. This was personal, now.

"Even if you win, it still won't change anything," Dick spat. "Damian will always choose me, not you."

"If I win, you will stop playing mates with my omega."

"He's not yours! He's mine!"

"THAT'S ENOUGH!"

Both alphas froze mid-fight as their heads snapped toward the direction of the shout. Damian stood on the cave's railing, scent reeking of fury and indignation.

"Both of you should be ashamed of yourselves." He scoffed. "I am not a prize for you to act like immature children who do not want to share their toys! I am a person with my own feelings, you foolish alphas!"

"Dami, that's not--" Dick fumbled, but was promptly cut off.

"Save it, Grayson. I had expected better from you, especially when I chose you to help me through my heats. But it seems to me that my judgement was poorly placed."

Damian glared at the Pack Alpha with the same intensity.

"Neither of you are stepping foot in my nest this cycle."

Bruce and Dick exploded in protests, but Damian merely dismissed them with a growl.

"I have other alphas to give that privilege. I'm sure Drake or Todd wouldn't be too opposed. They've been sniffing after me for a while now."

He turned on his heels, tossing them a cold glance.

"I hope this will be an enlightening moment for you both."

With that, the Pack Omega strutted away, leaving behind two sulking and fuming alphas.

But the lesson wasn't learned, because they would blame each other for this terrible outcome for many days.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for calling a nineteen-year-old character a kid?

(For context, I (19FtM) am autistic and they refused to elaborate on anything and never asked anything clearly.)

I have an RP character with his own blog, and on that blog I wrote a post from his POV, where he called himself a kid and implored an institution in the fandom (SCP Foundation) to treat him like a person. I had just turned 19 at the time and still considered myself a kid and the adults in my life considered people my age (18-20) to be children who could vote. I know a bit about brain development and had been taught that mental maturation is a physical process. The character is immortal (born 1349) but, because his brain can't age, he's still got the physical brain structure of an eighteen-year-old guy. He's still mentally eighteen and will always be mentally eighteen.

For the next three hours, I was bombarded by anons telling me how creepy that was and that I shouldn't have done this. I didn't understand and defended my choice. I talked about brain development (they instantly turned this into "the character is brain-damaged" and when I said he wasn't but mentioned that I am, they started being pretty ableist about that.) I also mentioned that both the character and I don't do anything with minors and find even the thought to be disgusting (they were calling my use of the word kid to somehow be paedophilic,) and they said that sounded like something a paedo would say. To my knowledge, I did nothing other than call this character a kid and defended it by pointing out the ways 18 is an adolescent and that neither of us were doing anything harmful with it.

There were a few minor issues the anons never directly mentioned (he makes his own medication because he doesn't trust other people not to drug him and because his metabolism is significantly enhanced, they didn't like this. They didn't like him being a level 6 mutant but I think I should be allowed to write a level 6 mutant. Two of his children are white, but all of his children are adopted. He has a husband who is immortal and 19. He uses a name not from his culture, meaning not Aztec, because he survived the Aztec genocide and chose a new one to fly under the radar, which I guess is a fair point but they never addressed that directly.) But almost all asks were about the age thing. They got progressively angrier and started calling me a paedo for calling him a kid, and they told me to end my own life.

When I asked one of the people involved in the discourse (part of the RP community I had reached out to immediately before this all went down,) she was weird. She insisted I should know why calling him a kid was creepy and refused to elaborate. She claimed they had been far more direct about the other issues, but I had a maximum of one ask per issue and none of them even directly called it an issue. I made an apology post even though I still didn't understand what I'd done and she said it just made the issues worse.

At this point, I made a "screw an apology I'm not sorry for anything" post criticizing the hours of hatred and told them to block me, then disabled anon.

Clearly I'm missing something, but they refused to tell me what I was missing and they told me to end my life. Is it really so wrong for a fictional 18-year-old to call himself a kid? If so, can one of you please explain why?

What are these acronyms?

[gingergofastboatsmojito]

TOP 3 - My favest scenes of my least favest season

Ironically, this is not my favest episode BUT...

3 - The one above, and not the Sydcarmy part, where for a moment he was back! But precisely what comes after. THE DISCONNECTION that starts at 0:13, right after she accepts his invitation. He was gone. Just like that. And she just gave up. That instant alone made me re-watch this scene about 50 times in a week. Carmy is mesmerizing and scary. I love him. (Fuck you, Storer! But I forgive you).

Then he went back to his polka dots sauce, that we all know is code for Sydney. Cool, that was just interesting but IDGAF about that.

But then, what he did with that dish is what got me:

He didn't want it. Which symbolically means that he didn't choose Syd.

Of course, this didn't end there because this was Carmy we were talking about, right? So what I then noticed and LOVED was that he didn't choose the alternative EITHER:

And then, after days of despair, because I knew he hadn't chosen Syd, even though I understand why he did it and I also think he needs some ALONE time, meaning: No C, no S, and just a good team of therapists, psychiatrists and maybe even yoga instructors and personal trainers, I figured this out:

2 - Being stuck in Claire's mud and being stuck in the freezer, are the same thing and he not only wasn't stuck but also he got out of there willingly after NOT CHOOSING C once again and then went into Syd's territory, the BOH. Syd represents what he went back to when got out of the freezer, Syd is the kitchen and C is the freezer. So he actually did choose her. Not consciously, of course. What he did choose consciously was NO MORE C, after remembering her saying ILY. But the one who would be his was the woman on the other side of the door he had recently invited to a dinner party. All of this happened at a very subconscious level, clearly. Carmy was not in the best place to make any solid conscious decision as I have been saying since June 27. He was operating at a very basic level of not the best self-awareness. He was blocked. He hit a wall the entire season.

Either way, that scene stayed with me for days, once I cracked that code a few days ago after exchanging some ideas with someone here on Tumblr, can't recall whom. Loved it. It was somewhat of a relief.

1 - And now MY VERY FAVEST (the subs are a bit off tho)

Here's what I could decode from the lyrics, as I cried at a coffee shop while listening to the song in an infinite loop.

After watching it over and over for days and crying to the song every time, all I get from it is that they are apart yet soooo close. It's perfection in blue and here's why:

Syd contemplates her life away from him by the water, and how she might lose herself if she makes the “wrong” choice, and Carmy thinks about the one time in his life when he was truly happy in Copenhagen when he found himself for the first time. Each one going through their own personal journey, separately to eventually be reunited at some point along the way ❤️

I know they will. They have to.

Storer, you are fucking killing me!

Remember to follow my tag #Gingerpovs 💋

[carlyraejepsans]

i was thinking about that ask i received the other day and how uncharacteristically upset the topic had made me when i usually just think "mh. gross!" and move on, and after mulling it over a while i realized it wasn't about the topic at all, it was the ask itself that freaked me out. i've mentioned sporadically before (for obvious reasons lol) that i used to be involved in fandom discourse when i was younger and that!! fucked me up quite a lot. between exacerbating my ocd and straight up getting cyber stalked (i almost feel guilty using that word, like i don't deserve it but. yeah that is 100% what happened to me), the topic is something I have very complex and personal opinions on but that i hate talking about in public because it still sets off my fight or flight response.

i know some people in the fandom are like "let me know if i ever rb someone who wrote/drew gross stuff" and that's entirely their choice and i respect it. but for the record, i am not one of these people. please, for the love of god, i am asking this genuinely do NOT come into my DMs about this, I don't want to know. assume I'm either living in blissful ignorance or my blacklist already covers me quite nicely & i wanna keep it that way. i vastly prefer the discomfort of stumbling into something unprepared and deciding what to do about it on my own, to the utter pit of dread i get whenever i open a message that starts with "hey just so you know-". i have blocked multiple people in the past over it. i WILL block more. be warned.

[note. this doesn't apply to people who have either hurt or behaved inappropriately with other members of the fandom, or spread bigotry and discrimination like racists and transphobes. please do let me know in those cases]

does this make sense? idk I'm kinda feverish you guys figure it out. I'm going to sleep.

[donnerpartyofone]

Hello, Sqwincher Zero and I are here to tell you to take this heat wave seriously. I had never heard of Sqwincher Zero before I took this picture with the intention of making fun of its name, but I sure wished I had some later that night. I will not invite you to scrutinize the series of bad decisions that I made yesterday leading up to a serious and avoidable medical emergency, but suffice it to say that none of these decisions were extreme or unusual for a fun grownup weekend. If anything I dialed it back a little, consciously, and I believed I was drinking plenty of water. It wasn't enough. I was feeling fine until I suddenly wasn't. My awareness of being Severely Dehydrated came on very quickly and then the next few hours were a scary nightmare. I am OK this morning and reviewing certain life choices and also our state of emergency preparedness.

I'm an extremely fortunate person. I have access to clean water, good food, and an amazing person who I tricked into marrying me, so someone is there to help me when I can't help myself. I am also in reasonably good health--which perhaps helped lull me into a false sense of security, especially at an age when my health is inevitably, normally changing, but I just haven't been paying that much attention to it.

Last night when things suddenly became very dark, I was struck with the intense and undeniable awareness that I needed emergency intervention. Like I should have called 911. I knew it for a fact. I have never experienced such a thing before. I could not get past the mental block of admitting that I was having an unprecedented physical crisis. Telling my husband to call 911 just seemed too radical. But I thought about it for hours. I even had a whole fantasy like, OK if my husband called 911 what would they ask him? What would they tell him to do? Instead of acting on this I just gave him little instructions one at a time. Let's draw a cold bath, let's move the fan, let's get a bucket, let's get a couple bottles of water, refill them now please. I was thinking very clearly, I was thinking about my temperature, I was monitoring my water intake versus how often I got sick. The one respect in which I was being irrational (besides my series of careless decisions during the day) was that I could not admit that I needed a doctor.

It's really easy to say things like "Don't be a tough guy, take care of yourself," as if the problem is strictly attitudinal. But switching gears into (for lack of a better term) self-care can be extremely psychologically complex. Being macho or too proud is one thing. Being habitually, neurotically afraid to frighten or inconvenience other people, or ashamed of drawing attention to yourself, is another thing. Being self-destructive and passively suicidal is yet another thing, with deep and insidious roots that can affect more things about your behavior than you even know. And finally, acknowledging that you are experiencing the paradigm shift of a Real Emergency, which might require scary and expensive and unpredictable new activities to get you out of it, is a whole other thing entirely. This is going to sound like an exaggerated reference point but whenever a serial killer is caught and people start saying that the spouse "must have known", they're not factoring in how hard it is to accept that your whole reality is changing and everything is very serious now. Even if the evidence was glaring, it would be a lot to process. There's even a thing in the book Interview With the Vampire as I recall, where somebody says it has been no big deal for vampires to hide their existence through the ages because humans will do extreme mental gymnastics to convince themselves that everything is normal. This all is more or less what was happening with me while I was refusing to call 911. I mean I knew that I should, I just couldn't make the leap.

I should say that my poor husband had no idea how bad it was. To him it just seemed like I'd had a little too much fun, and he was being patient and attentive. None of this is on him, I didn't explain things until I was out of the woods. One thing I feel bad about, that I rarely think about even though it's majorly true, is that not taking care of yourself can frequently, inevitably become someone else's problem. It cannot always stay private and contained forever; if you are incapacitated somehow, you will become someone else's chore.

I want to repeat that I didn't do anything that a normal adult wouldn't do on a Friday night. None of my actions were that extreme in and of themselves; I didn't even have alcohol in my system anymore by the time this struck. But I was not factoring in the weather, or my age, or anything like that that would have been important. We don't have an air conditioner at the moment because we have been luxuriating in our new well-ventilated apartment and enjoying the fact that we can survive with just box fans. I radically underestimated the potential consequences of just toughing it out and going about my business. I need to think more carefully about such things, and mentally reorient myself on preparing for emergencies instead of just reacting "if anything comes up". And I should also supplement our first aid supplies with something that isn't just for cuts and colds. I'm lucky I had cold, clean water, but at some point I really needed electrolytes and vitamins, and there was just nothing to be done for it late at night. I have a lot more thinking to do on this general topic, but it's time for me to get up and drink more water. And maybe go buy some Sqwincher Zero.

[dfortrafalgar]

a quick message

hi, i wanted to bring something up real quick. i got a message in my inbox a few days ago that made me pretty uncomfortable, too uncomfortable to answer it in public, but i still wanted to say something after giving it some thought

regarding IMLY

i am pro choice. i always have been. and in no way shape or form did i want this fic to be some sort of pro-life symbol because that's not who i am. i am pro choice which means i believe that women have the right to decide what to do with their own bodies. if a woman wants to have her tubes tied, get an abortion, or get a hysterectomy, then that is HER decision. if a woman decides she wants to be child free, that is HER decision. and i am a huge advocate for that. being pro choice coincides with my feelings on adequate access to reproductive healthcare and education for women. these things go hand-in-hand to me.

i also wanted to bring up the subject of natural birth real quick. i do not think c-sections are "cheating." a c-section birth is just as much a birth as a "natural" (vaginal) one.

this fic is the ideal for ME, not the standard. i understand that most twins are born via c-section, and i understand that some women decide not to have children after undergoing miscarriages. these are all things that fall under the pro choice mindset. this fic came from a personal place for ME, and i just happened to share it on the internet

if i was put into the situation where my fertility treatment led me to having twins and the best course of action was a c-section, then i would chose the c-section, but that wouldn't be MY first choice. for some women, that IS their first choice. for some women, a vaginal birth is their ONLY choice. do you see what i'm getting at here?

also, im bisexual. i do not think that heterosexual marriages and families are the Societal Standard. lesbian women can have babies. gay men can have babies. trans men can have babies. no matter how one goes about having a child, it is POSSIBLE. if you have a uterus and the capacity to get pregnant, it is your body and your choice and your life to live.

im honestly a bit heartbroken. again, i'm not going to post this ask because it made me extremely uncomfortable, but i want to make all of this very, very clear, and i am very sorry if this fic left anyone with a sour taste. that wasn't my intention.

additionally, i am sorry about my silence as of late. i have been working frequent and long hours at my job and have switched back to drawing more frequently rather than writing, but i have been working on EVERY request that i have gotten since turning off my inbox asks. i haven't forgotten about any of them (i literally have them written down in multiple places to remind me). i've said it before, writing is not my full-time priority. it's a hobby, and the only reason it was more frequent throughout march, april, and may was because i was going through extreme art block. a part of me wishes i didn't open requests because i have a guilty conscious and operate like im running a drive-thru (which is also what i do for work tbh), but people have been super sweet and trusting me with your stories is an honor, and i PROMISE i have not forgotten about them

sorry about this long-winded post out of nowhere

take care, and i'll be back soon. i promise

[inafieldofdaisies]

WIP Wednesday | This one is different and no doubt would be long but there are important things to address

This midweek we're talking about as Joseph would say, the snakes in our garden(s), or one snake, depending on how willing you're to believe those two people have just met and are so similar, that everything they do is just a big coincidence and not actual blantant stealing of ideas.

I was first faced with the accounts on Novemeber 13th, two follows at once early in the morning, I didn't think much of it, happy I was getting FC5 mutuals in my notifications instead of bots. I followed them back and got on with my day until late that night I began to notice the first patterns of both accounts potentially being run by the same person when their posts began popping up on my dash. There were mistakes, ways of behaving when posting that stood out to me and would no doubt stand out to you as well as you examine all the things I've managed to gather (I won't exactly be pointing out some tells because as far as I can tell they're not aware of them and I refuse to teach them how to scam people better next time). Months back and ever since really I've been dealing with someone I will not be naming in this post, who was consistently targeting my ideas - from stealing paragraphs and inserting them in their fic to moving onto copying smaller things once I caught their sampling, which then escalated to them literally renaming their already established OC into Sabrina once they believed I wasn't paying attention to them anymore.

The same methods I noticed within those accounts, starting with @ladyofedensgate-xo posting a new FC5 OC reveal that evening with Alycia Debnam-Carey, a character by the name of Harper Montgomery (remember that name). After the whole rename thing and suddenly days later being followed by two new similar to each other accounts, one that was out of nowhere picking the exact face claim I have for the leading heroine of my WIP gave me a pause, made me look deeper into the profiles. Both had no prior activity before November, followed the same list of people, a huge chunk of my mutuals and people I would mention in my tag list for games and writing posts. There were multiple things popping out as behaviour, posting and formatting that inevitably led to me blocking both, suspecting the person that had previously stolen from me was making a return under new identity.

Then me and some mutuals got to talking, turns out, this isn't the first time those 'two' people had infiltrated a fandom and began introducing OCs that would resemble other people's or went as far as to copy things from others. Last time they went by @little-wolf-seed and @ladyofedens-blog, claiming they were two sisters and they were being stolen from, only for both to delete their accounts shortly before the new ones debuted. History does repeat, one of the accounts (same @ladyofedensgate-xo) was deactivated by the next day, November 14, only for a new one to emerge immediately, a carbon copy of its predecessor: @angelofdarkness-things. I got a follow from them again, immediately sending them to blocked, while still keeping an eye out for what was happening.

My attention was grabbed by a Pinterest link AngelOfDarkness had in her pinned post, leading to boards upon boards of OCs (I'm taking large numbers) ready to be deployed, potential back-ups if they get caugh and have to start a new. All boards were created at the same time, with two Pinterest profiles only following each other: breannamarie1220 and alexisdawn10206 (Again they'd go as far as to make posts about just now becoming friends and AOD offering to write for Red Queen and how we should all take that offer, cementing the claim they're different people. Now, I ask: have you ever seen two different people, strangers have pretty much the exact same accounts when it comes to appearance?)

I begin looking at each board, frowning at awful casting choices and race swaps of canon characters, only to be faced with multiple names of my own characters being split and shuffled around and multiple of my faceclaims (those they could figure out) appearing as their to-be-debuted OCs. A list, that would be followed by screenshots (and just in case, either of the them decides to suddenly start changing faceclaims after this post or deleting: everything has been documented, so don't expect a swift exit like last time, or people easily forgetting you).

Sabrina Donovan | by faceclaim: originally they had Alycia casted as a Maya McCoy (last name sounds familiar? Maybe because they literally separated another mutual's Deputy's name in two to give to their characters), only for it to be moved to a Valerie Montgomery (Montgomery again. HM) in the early morning hours today.

Mercedes Sibley | by faceclaim (or what they deemed close enough to her actual fc) given to a Jazmine Stone, a lookalike model by the handle emblu was picked to drive confusion, imo.

Oliver McKenzie | BY NAME and FACECLAIM: now here it gets hilariously bad - they actually mashed Oliver with John's last name prior to joining the project (Duncan) -> Oliver Duncan (Oliver McKenzie debuted as a character in my AU of John Seed as John Duncan). Dylan Riley has been given the face of Boyd Holbrook (Ollie's fc).

Leslie Parish | by faceclaim to an Adam Lancaster.

Oakley Moore | on October 26th I announced her full name Oakley Elizabeth Moore and how her nickname is Lizzie -> Lizzie Palmer in a board. At one point they shared an edit of an Oakley lookalike , for once not tagging an OC (which is unusual for them), so I won't be shocked if she gets casted next as the 'newest OC they can't wait to introduce'.

Smaller characters that are reoccuring in my wips: Both of John's closest Chosen: Mathias Bennett (last name for two characters for each Pinterest account, one is misspelled, which they often do to claim it's not the same name) and Brother Wyatt (first name) -> Wyatt Reed; Both of John's named clients, one is Owen Montgomery (both of his names picked like apples, Montgomery again. HM.) -> Harper/Valerie Montgomery and Owen Palmer. The character that drives the AU and John is in charge of defending: Nathaniel Mooney (even listed as character on my AO3) -> into Nathaniel Graham.

I've noticed MULTIPLE MUTUAL'S OCs NAMES also being ripped off on some scale (so my advice would be to check out the boards yourself), @socially-awkward-skeleton had her Chosen OC Caleb Winters pretty much stolen: exact faceclaim -> Kaleb Rhodes (is he a Kardashian? Now, that would be an interesting headcanon.)

Honestly, at this point, a better question would be which OCs they didn't get to... and the weird creepy behavior continued with saving headcanons into boards (Mer's white dog, Oliver's K9, Sabrina's entire aesthetic, her tattoo - exactly two butterflies, which are everywhere you look - in bios, names, board titles). Having Sabrina's nickname her father had for her and would literally call her in every single one of her memories (Monkey) -> Monkey in their bio only to edit out both the butterflies and Monkey just a couple of hours ago (did you realize you're a carbon copy of your alt Pinterest or? "A strawberry shall fix it! Fool 'em.", she told herself.)

Then the situation only got worse and up the creep-o-meter.

I was notified of something concerning by @adelaidedrubman , who earlier had also been followed both on her main and side blog she uses for reblogs: After getting a strange ghost notification on an blog she doesn't even use and has no activity on, let alone that many followers, she can only see 4 of the 7 people following her. Unblocking the previously mentioned shady accounts, she gets this:

Somehow, both had discovered an account out of use and followed it. An account belonging to the person they had previously followed and been blocked by.

I truly personally believe they still watch my blog and what I post (which btw, whatever your name is: if only you put that much effort into writing your own fics and coming up with characters, headcanons and names instead of stalking multiple mutuals in hunt for ideas...).

Once I finally decided to update my pinned post on my blog with new gifs (which take hours to edit sometimes) of Sabrina, they suddenly pinned a snapshot of one of the exact same gifs to their Valerie Montgomery board. Hours later they reblog the other gif they could find and CHANGE THEIR LAYOUT TO MATCH SABRINA'S SIDEBLOG-> Alycia in the icon and butterfly in the header (my header has been up since April 25, I made it specifically for her blog). Both icon and banner are now changed, one could only ask why even select the previous ones to begin with, if not to fuck with a person you've been targetting.

Now we move onto how they describe their OCs as headcanons, who one of them loves to tag with "Do Not Steal" (Who's stealing here, honey boo? None of us that you've set your sights on have given you any type of permission since you make it a big deal to have it). Little examples in the screenshots below, they have snippets for other characters too, so chances are someone would recogize their blorbo being put in a wig and renamed.

As I'm writing this post, Alycia is still a faceclaim to Valerie (tomorrow she might be moved to a third faceclaim with how they've been behaving), they constantly change things around (despite claiming they have this clear idea of their OCs) and act like they're being stolen from by tagging everything with "no stealing", deleting posts that could make them look suspicious (including the ones I've pointed out of the gifs featuring Alycia and matching my own edits of the scene), taking claim of simple headcanons like Jacob owning a cabin and horses being ridden in Montana, while also mass-following mutuals from multiple fandoms like FC5, COD, Mortal Combat, RDR2, the list goes on and on. They're looking for a place to take root, the next person to leech from. If you're tagged in this, they follow you (and they have been picking OCs names from people they've followed before) and your content, ideas, characters identity might be next on their list of OCs they gather as pokemons. Beware and if they do deactivate after this... well, it won't be as easy to disappear this time around.

To the two Swipers that can't stop swiping: Don't mistake the kindness of the fandom(s) and its people for encouragement to be shady and turn people's happy places into hell. True intentions shine through with time, you can sense when someone deeply loves their characters and when they only push them out like they're on a conveyor belt to gain exposure and false validation for someone else's creativity. This is something you both can't fake, no matter how many times you reemerge as a new person.

In Jacksfilms' wise words, "Stop Stealing."

@corvosattano @florbelles @cassietrn @voidika @theelderhazelnut @onehornedbeast @direwombat @jillvalentinesday @henbased @madparadoxum @josephslittledeputy @trench-rot @g0dspeeed @redreart @purplehairsecretlair @laindtt @mrdekarios @nightbloodbix @simplegenius042 @aceghosts @stacispratt @clicheantagonist @wrathfulrook @strafethesesinners @strangefable @unholymilf @josephseedismyfather @shellibisshe @macs-babies

[bigasswritingmagnet]

Zeetha, Daughter of Klaus Ch 1/3

Fandom: Girl Genius Summary: Twenty years ago, Queen Zantabraxus gave birth to twins. Twenty years ago, Klaus had a choice to make. Twenty years ago, Klaus brought one of his children with him when he fled back to Europa.

In one universe, he took his son.

In this one, he took his daughter.

A very brief look at what happens when you have to play a part that wasn't written for you, trapped in a narrative that belongs to someone else.

AO3 Link Ch 2 Ch 3

Klaus Wulfenbach could not have made a more dramatic entrance if he’d planned it. The only reason Agatha felt he hadn’t was because she couldn’t think why he would waste it on such an unimportant audience.

The Baron strode into the room with his hands behind his back, his face a mask that managed to be both emotionless and displeased at the same time. Four massive war clanks, gleaming in the overhead lights, formed a protective square around the Baron and his entourage, led by a fearsome Jägermonster. Walking just behind Klaus on his right was a four-armed man scribbling industriously into a notebook. On his left, a girl about Agatha’s age, dressed in a charcoal grey suit and an embroidered waistcoat.

Being Agatha's height and only slightly broader in the shoulders, she should have been dwarfed by the Baron, but she exuded a proud, boisterous air that refused to be ignored; emphasized by her large brown eyes and wide mouth, both bright with barely-concealed amusement. Agatha was sure that she would have made as striking a presence as the Baron...if it wasn't for the hair. 

Dull, coarse, mousey brown, worn short in an unflattering bob, it was all the more eye-catching for how out of place it was on a person otherwise so sleek. Surely, Agatha thought, she had to know. Color and texture, one could only do so much, but haircuts were on purpose.

Suddenly the girl met Agatha’s eyes and grinned, revealing very sharp canines. Agatha, realizing she'd been caught staring, gave her a tight smile and looked instead at Beetle, who was fluttering around Klaus like a nervous butterfly, insisting that they could have this conversation elsewhere, there was no need to bother the professors.

“Damn it all, Klaus, this is my university!”

“In my town. In my empire. These are the ones I asked for?” he continued, nodding to the doctors before Beetle could say more. The Tyrant, red in the face, gritted his teeth.

“Dr Silas Merlot, my second in command and Dr Hugo Glassvitch, my chief of research.” Absentmindedly he waved a hand at Agatha. “And my lab assistant Miss Cl—”

Beetle whipped around to look at Agatha, his expression one of frantic horror that Agatha thought was far too dramatic.

“Miss Clay! Where is your locket?”

“I was robbed on my way here,” Agatha said, twisting her fingers together. “There was some sort of electrical anomaly, and I was trying to get away from it when I was…”

Beetle was barely listening.

“In my city? I’ll have the watch commander’s head for this!” He grabbed her arm and began to hustle her towards the door. “You must go home, my dear, you are clearly shaken--”

“Actually I feel much bett—”

“Nononono, I’ll not hear it, you must—”

A heavy hand landed on Agatha’s shoulder.

“Wait. This event—you saw it?” The Baron leaned over her, practically blocking out the light, fixing her with an intense, piercing gaze that made Agatha feel like a specimen under a microscope.

“Yes, sir. I was right there.”

“Stay. I have questions—but they must wait for later.”

“I can do it.” This was the mystery girl, stepping in closer to Agatha—who was starting to feel penned in. “I’ll take her home. It may be easier to interview her in a more comfortable setting. Besides—you don’t need me here for this.”

“That’s really not nec—” Agatha began.

“I would prefer you be here for this,” the Baron snapped, turning his focus from Agatha to his associate, who did not seem at all bothered by the laser glare.

“But you don’t need me,” the girl insisted. “And have you considered, Father, that you may not want her here for this?”

Father? This was—this was the Baron’s daughter? Agatha had heard the rumors about Zeetha Wulfenbach, everyone had, although the rumors couldn’t agree on much besides the fact that the Baron had announced her out of nowhere only a few months ago.

Then the rest of the girl’s statement hit her, and Agatha’s face went red. She must have heard about Agatha’s... problem from someone in the university—and very few people would have been kind about it. They probably told her she broke everything she touched, and Zeetha wanted her out of the way where she couldn’t do any damage.

“ I said I’m fine !” Agatha snapped. Everyone stared, and Agatha cleared her throat as her cheeks went red. “ Thank you . I appreciate everyone’s concern, but I’m. Fine.”

“There,” the Baron said. “The matter is finished. We can attend to business.”

He turned away, wandering towards the machine in the center of the room. Zeetha caught Agatha’s eye and, to Agatha’s amazement, winked at her. With a small, approving smile touching her lips, Zeetha followed her father.

She didn’t have any more time to think about it, because the Baron said:

“The real reason I wanted to meet here today, Beetle, is because I am here about the hive engine.”

“ What?” Agatha yelped. No one noticed her. Instead, the Baron advanced slowly on Beetle, who backed away.

“Hive engine, what—what are you talking about?” Beetle stammered.

“The hive engine. The on the field team stumbled across two weeks ago. The one you had moved into the university for study. The one you have been testing. The one that, based on changes in laboratory schedules and chemical requisitions, is in this room.”

The Baron was very good at looming, and he did so now, staring down at Beetle with contempt.

“ That hive engine.”

“Preposterous!” Beetle blustered, drawing himself up. “Where could I possibly be hiding a hive engine?”

Zeetha had begun to meander towards the storage closet. Agatha noticed—as Zeetha had—that the rivets were straining, the wood of the door bulging as it gradually weakened against internal pressure.

“You’re certainly hiding something in here,” Zeetha said, casually.

“No, wait—!” Agatha cried.

“I don’t think I will,” Zeetha said, almost playfully, and turned the handle.

“ Nooooo!”

A wave of paperwork, lab equipment, and anything else Agatha had found that wasn’t nailed down or too heavy to carry, erupted from the storage closet. Agatha cringed, squeezing her eyes shut at the cacophony of her work being undone. When it stopped and she dared open her eyes, Zeetha was standing untouched beside the pile, having neatly stepped to the side upon opening the door.

She was holding a goldfish bowl in one hand, its occupant swimming in frantic circles as the water sloshed back and forth but did not spill a drop.

“Oh.”

“Hive engines are slightly bigger than that,” the Baron said, icily.

“ I know that ,” Zeetha snapped, her cheeks going slightly pink. “I thought it might have been something guarding the mechanism to open that false wall back there.”

Wordlessly, Klaus crossed the room towards the back wall and pulled a large lever. He kept his eyes on Zeetha, who turned a brighter pink as the far wall trembled and mechanisms hummed. A section of the wall slid neatly into the floor to reveal--

To reveal the most horrible thing Agatha had ever seen in her life. A massive orb of metal and glass, full of black liquid that swirled, rose, fell, tendrils sliding over the glass as if looking for a way out. And there were...things. Shapeless things moving in the dark, and Agatha could see glimpses of teeth or eyes or terrible, terrible faces.

“One rule, Beetle. I made one rule: report all unusual discoveries, and immediately turn over any devices of the Other. You agreed to this rule.”

“I had no choice!” Beetle shouted. “You had me over a barrel! It was you or let the city starve!”

“So that was it? You kept it in the middle of the city—in the middle of the university ,” Zeetha spat, “and put your people at risk of the worst fate imaginable, so you could get one over on the Baron? I should—”

Her right hand flew to her left hip and closed around empty air. Zeetha growled in frustration and lunged forward, only for the Baron to grab her by the collar and pull her back.

“And yet,” Klaus said, as if there had been no interruption, “you signed the agreement. Which means—”

“It meant nothing then, and it means nothing now! I don’t need you or your empire now! So you can just get out!”

“Just like that?” Klaus asked, dryly.

Overhead there was a crack, a splintering of wood, groaning of timbers, and a metal gun the size of a large tractor leveled itself at the Baron.

“DO NOT MOVE,” boomed Professor Tock.

“Just like that,” Beetle confirmed, smugly, and cackled.

There was a pause as the Wulfenbachs considered their situation.

“Are you stupid?” Zeetha asked, finally. Beetle let out a squawk of outrage.

“How dare you!”

“Zeetha, do not antagonize the man with the large gun pointing at us,” Klaus said, wearily.

“Listen to your father, girl ,” Beetle sneered.

“He doesn’t have a large gun," Zeetha argued. "His clank has a big gun.”

“Which is still pointed directly at you,” Beetle said, “so if I were you I would hold my tongue!”

“If you were me, you’d know better than to think this would be a successful method of stopping us. See, that’s the problem with Sparks like you—you only think about the size of the gun and how much firepower you can give it. You never think about the downside!”

“...what downside?” Beetle asked, taking a slow, nervous step back.

“Things that are big…”

The air blurred. Agatha blinked, and Zeetha was standing directly behind Beetle, one arm around his throat, her free hand holding a knife beside his face.

“...are slow.”

It took several seconds for Tok’s head to turn all the way to see where she’d gone; even longer for the gun to ponderously swing towards Zeetha and Beetle. It paused halfway as Tok’s mechanism finished calculating the risk to its creator, and swung back towards the Baron.

Zeetha nodded to Agatha. “You might want to put that somewhere out of the way.”

Agatha looked down and realized she was holding the goldfish bowl. She looked back up at Zeetha in amazement. She’d never known anyone who could move that fast who wasn’t a construct.

“Now,” Zeetha said, smugly, and panic hit Agatha’s heart like a misfired lightning bolt.

“Don’t!” she cried, putting the fishbowl on the table so she could reach out imploringly. “Don’t kill him, please! We...we need him.”

“You need him?” Zeetha exclaimed. “You need a man who was one minor accident away from wasping your city? And what about that gun? You’re right within shrapnel range—if it shoots now, you could be hurt, maybe even killed! People keep telling me that the Tyrant keeps them safe, but I’m not seeing a whole lot of safety in this room right now.”

Agatha didn’t know what to say to that. She was saved from having to answer by Beetle himself piping up.

“Don’t worry, Miss Clay. She can’t kill me.” Beetle was pale and sweating, but he was also sneering. “The moment she does, Tok will open fire, and the Baron will have to be buried in a matchbox—Hgk!”

He choked as Zeetha’s grip tightened, her forearm pressing down against his windpipe.

“That’s true,” Zeetha said. “We’re in a proper standoff. Neither of us can make a move. But here’s the thing—I’m still going to win, because I’ve got something you never even considered for yourself.”

“And what is that?” Beetle asked, his nerves once more beginning to show.

Zeetha grinned, a wolf-sharp grin of victory. She leaned in and spoke in a stage whisper.

“ Backup.”

The side of Tock’s head exploded. The clank rocked sideways, its gun swinging up and out, flailing as it tried to keep itself from falling. A squad of airships, guns drawn and aimed at the oversized clank, drifted into view. Zeetha’s lip curled and Beetle cried out in dismay as another salvo struck Tok. This time the great clank stumbled back, losing its grip on the roof of the building, which slammed back into place with a crash that cracked the plaster on the walls.

A few seconds later, an even bigger impact shook the ground under their feet.

“We arrived here in a massive airship surrounded by lots of other airships, all of which are equipped to shoot very large targets—what did you think was going to happen? Were you going to hope no one would notice?”

“Guar--!” Beetle began to scream and again was cut off as Zeetha tightened her grip.

“Oh no you don’t. You’re done and you know it. The only reason you’re alive right now is my father thinks you’re more useful to us that way. But you would be equally useful as a head in a jar. Which would you prefer?”

Very slowly, without a word, Beetle raised his hands in surrender. Zeetha smirked and released him. Twirling the knife neatly over her fingers, she sauntered back to the others.

“I told you not to bring weapons,” Klaus said.

“You told me not to bring my sword ,” Zeetha said, unrepentant. “You didn’t say anything about knives.”

Agatha couldn’t take her eyes off of Beetle. He looked so small, standing alone in the middle of the room. He stared at the floor, his hands repeatedly smoothing over his jacket and waistcoat.

“Useful,” he mumbled. “Oh yes. I know what use you would have for me, Klaus.”

The Baron looked sharply at Beetle.

“What was that?”

“Useful,” Beetle murmured again. His signet ring snagged on one of the beetle broaches on his jacket and it popped off into his hand. Beetle stared at it, blankly. “You want me to be useful.”

Zeetha shifted her weight, uneasily.

“Tarsus,” Klaus said, carefully. “Whatever it is you believe I intend—”

Beetle suddenly looked up. His eyes were wild and his lips were bared in a horrible grimace; his grip was white-knuckled on the broach.

“I will show you useful. ”

And flung out his hand.

Wings snapped open and the beetle shot towards them, zigzagging wildly but with unerring aim.

Agatha was frozen in place. The Jägermonster began to run towards them, but everything had slowed to a crawl—everything but the beetle.

And Zeetha.

Who grabbed the fishbowl off the table, caught the goldfish, removed her hand from the water, swung the bowl like a butterfly net and neatly scooped the bomb out of the air.

Electricity crackled through the water, the beetle flashing brightly once before fizzling. It bobbed to the surface , a thin stream of smoke escaping from its carapace.

Setting the fishbowl back down, Zeetha grabbed the beetle by one mechanical leg and drew it out of the water before dropping the fish back inside.

“You should probably change the water,” Zeetha told Agatha, smiling smugly. “No idea what’s in these.”

Beetle slowly sank to his knees. Agatha felt tears rise to her eyes at the look on his face—that of a man who has been utterly broken.

“Oh, don’t be such a baby ,” Zeetha scoffed. “You’re going to be fine. Here. You can even have your little toy back.”

As if she were flipping a coin, Zeetha lazily tossed the tiny clank at Beetle’s feet.

It exploded.

Agatha felt heat on her face, and then she was landing on the ground, hard. Strong arms pinned her in place, practically crushing her to the body curled protectively around her. The noise rattled Agatha’s eardrums; she could feel it vibrating in her bones.

Then it was gone, leaving an audial aftershock of hissing smoke and tinkling glass. Carefully, Zeetha unfolded from around Agatha, releasing her from her unexpectedly vice-like grip, sitting back and staring at the destruction before her.

“But...” she said. “No, but--! But I neutralized it!”

“You neutralized the machinery that allowed the bomb to move ,” the Baron said, coldly. “You did not neutralize the elements that made the bomb explode.”

“ What? That’s ridiculous! You can’t half-neutralize something!”

Agatha stared in horror at the blackened remains of Doctor Tarsus Beetle, charred beyond all recognition.

“No,” Agatha whispered. Beside her, Zeetha flinched. “No! Dr Beetle!”

“His head,” the Baron said, sharply. “How is—”

Dr Glassvitch shook his head, his expression grief-stricken.

“ Damn it all.”

“You killed him,” Agatha whispered.

“Not on purpose!” Zeetha exclaimed, embarrassed.

“Perhaps next time,” the Baron said, “you will engage in confrontations with a little more care, and a little less showboating.”

Zeetha’s eyes narrow.

“Oh yes , Herr Baron,” she said, getting up off the floor. “How foolish of me. Next time someone throws a bomb at me, I’ll be sure to stand there and let it hit me.”

“Dun vorry, Mizz Zeetha,” the Jäger said, jovially, holding up some unidentifiable organ. “Hy dun tink he vould haff been verr useful anyvay—Hy izn’t findink a whole lot of brains in diz mess.”

“Herr Baron, may we leave now?” At last, the Baron’s secretary spoke, his voice tinged equally with exasperation and irritation. “My feet are sticking to the floor.”

Agatha erupted to her feet.

“How dare you!” she screamed, breathless with anger—though not so breathless she could not find her voice. Everyone—even the Baron—drew back in alarm. And that felt good, it felt. . .it felt right. They should be cowering before her! They should be filled with dread for invoking her wrath! How dare they come into her place like this!

“Is this some kind of a joke to everyone? Doctor Beetle is dead! The greatest ruler this city has ever seen was killed, and you’re complaining about your shoes? Do you have any idea what you’ve done? The people of this city will never stand for this! They will rise up and they will —”

Agony, lightning and knives and fire, burst in Agatha’s head with such ferocity she felt it halfway down her spine. She collapsed to her knees, clutching her head as tears of pain and frustration poured down her cheeks.

Worse than the pain was the loss—that ferocious sense of surety and strength melted away in the rising swell of humiliation. She did not need to open her eyes to know the look the others would now be giving her. Whatever Dr Glassvitch said was muffled and unintelligible.

The Baron’s murmured “Pathetic ” was loud and clear.

But both Agatha and the Baron missed the expressions that flitted over Zeetha and the Jägermonster’s faces—her, a flinch, hurt that wanted to be anger but wasn’t; him, bitter disappointment not quite managing to snuff out desperate hope.

“She just watched her mentor explode ,” Zeetha said. “I think this is a pretty understandable reaction.”

“Hmm. She was right. The people may cause a problem if this is not handled delicately.”

“That’s not what I—”

“It may not be such an issue, Herr Baron,” Merlot said, helpfully. “Very few people actually saw Dr Beetle on a reg—”

“ Silence.” Klaus’ voice was as cold as death and nailed everyone in the room in place. “Do not imagine me ignorant of your complicity, doctor. You both knew about the hive engine; you both helped Beetle hide it. The only reason you two are not in a transport headed for Castle Heterodyne this moment is that I am aware neither of you were in a position to resist the orders of the Tyrant if you did want to.

“As Doctor Beetle’s second in command, I leave the running of the town in your hands, Dr Merlot. Dr Glassvitch will be responsible for the university.”

Glassvitch went pale.

“I—but, but I’m not qualified—”

The Baron loomed.

“I recommend you acquire qualification with speed , because t he moment either of you give me cause to so much as suspect your involvement was willing, there will be... consequences.”

“I...But…”

The Baron turned away, waving a hand.

“I want all of the existing notes on the hive engine collated and sent to me by the end of the day. Boris will tell your assistant where to bring them.”

But Merlot’s eyes had locked onto Agatha, who had already braced herself for the inevitable.

“I have no need for an assistant as useless as this one. Miss Clay, you are dismissed.”

“Yes, doctor,” Agatha murmured, eyes downcast. “When I come to class tomorrow, I’ll get my things.”

She felt it. There was no sound, she could not see him react, but she felt Glassvitch’s guilt like heat from a fire. She turned her head. Her eyes met his. He did not need to say it.

“No,” she whispered.

“Agatha—”

“ No, you can’t—”

“ Please understand,” Glassvitch begged. “I am not Beetle; I do not have the kind of sway he did. I will not have the time or the power to protect you here—”

“So you’re just, just going to throw me out?”

Zeetha grabbed her father’s arm.

“ Do something!” she hissed. He raised an eyebrow at her. “Stop him!”

“It is his university.”

“Only because you gave it to him! This is only happening to her because of us! ”

“Us? Or you?”

Zeetha went rigid and released her father as if he had burned her.

“You were my friend ,” Agatha said, tears once more streaming down her cheeks.

“I am ,” Glassvitch said. His expression was agonized. Agatha did not care. “I promise, when things have settled, I will come visit you—”

She jerked away when he tried to put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t bother,” she spat. With all the dignity she had, she turned on her heel and left the room with her head held high.

Glassvitch shut his eyes and rubbed his face.

“Herr Baron, please allow me to send someone with her to walk her home. I fear she may have another attack—”

Zeetha shoved him aside and stormed towards the door, following Agatha.

“Zeetha!” Klaus said, sharply.

“ I’ll get her home safe,” Zeetha snapped over her shoulder. Under her breath, she added, “I owe her that much, at least.”