warning(s): soft dom!hoseok, sub?reader, unprotected sex (wrap before you tap), consensual sex, cursing, masturbation (f), multiple orgasms, praise, light degrading, voyeurism(?), dirty talk, oral (m and f), handjob, spanking, choking, face riding, creampie
note(s):the orange words are text messages. i didn’t know how else to differentiate them from the rest of the story. i struggled a lot with writing this. anyways, enjoy reading!
An exploration gone wrong leads to a rather…strange phenomenon. You find yourself in a weird world where soulmates exist, and strangely, you discover you have your own, and it’s not who you thought it was.
“Remind me why we’re doing this again?” you hiss as you follow your best friend through a cramped hallway, littered with cobwebs and dust. You wave away the webs that threaten to cling to your clothing and hair, shivering a little at the ghostly sensation. “In a fucking haunted house, no less?”
Jimin, your best friend, wildly hushes you. “Shut up! You’re gonna wake the spirits!”
Scowling, you reach forward to smack your hand against the back of his head. He yelps in reply to your retaliation, pouting at you while rubbing the spot you hit. You just shake your head at him as the two of you venture further into the eerie house. This house has a bad reputation; many people have disappeared here. Some were killed, some went in and never came out. You always avoided this place since it creeps you out to no end, but somehow, Jimin convinced you to join him, to discover what secrets lay inside.
“It’s like mycelium and mushrooms. There’s a whole subterranean network of fibrous connections between things and as it proliferates and grows, that’s the life-sustaining part. It’s not necessarily what’s above ground and what people see most readily. It’s not the trees in the forest. It’s the underground network of subterranean life, communicating with other kinds of subterranean life, that’s vital for the whole ecosystem, and it lives on.”
Stryker ends “My Words” with a blessing: “If this is your path, as it is mine, let me offer whatever solace you may find in this monstrous benediction: May you discover the enlivening power of darkness within yourself. May it nourish your rage. May your rage inform your actions, and your actions transform you as you struggle to transform your world.”
I regift this to you and hope it will save you as it has saved me and offer my own kind of prayer for those of us who are still inhabiting a monstrous space or body. May those who taught you to fear yourself learn to fear you, may we be the mycelium, ever growing, never dying. May we recreate the world in our own image.
A friend and I were out with our kids when another family’s two-year-old came up. She began hugging my friend’s 18-month-old, following her around and smiling at her. My friend’s little girl looked like she wasn’t so sure she liked this, and at that moment the other little girl’s mom came up and got down on her little girl’s level to talk to her.
“Honey, can you listen to me for a moment? I’m glad you’ve found a new friend, but you need to make sure to look at her face to see if she likes it when you hug her. And if she doesn’t like it, you need to give her space. Okay?”
Two years old, and already her mother was teaching her about consent.
My daughter Sally likes to color on herself with markers. I tell her it’s her body, so it’s her choice. Sometimes she writes her name, sometimes she draws flowers or patterns. The other day I heard her talking to her brother, a marker in her hand.
“Bobby, do you mind if I color on your leg?”
Bobby smiled and moved himself closer to his sister. She began drawing a pattern on his leg with a marker while he watched, fascinated. Later, she began coloring on the sole of his foot. After each stoke, he pulled his foot back, laughing. I looked over to see what was causing the commotion, and Sally turned to me.
“He doesn’t mind if I do this,” she explained, “he is only moving his foot because it tickles. He thinks its funny.” And she was right. Already Bobby had extended his foot to her again, smiling as he did so.
What I find really fascinating about these two anecdotes is that they both deal with the consent of children not yet old enough to communicate verbally. In both stories, the older child must read the consent of the younger child through nonverbal cues. And even then, consent is not this ambiguous thing that is difficult to understand.
Teaching consent is ongoing, but it starts when children are very young. It involves both teaching children to pay attention to and respect others’ consent (or lack thereof) and teaching children that they should expect their own bodies and their own space to be respected—even by their parents and other relatives.
And if children of two or four can be expected to read the nonverbal cues and expressions of children not yet old enough to talk in order to assess whether there is consent, what excuse do full grown adults have?
I try to do this every day I go to nursery and gosh it makes me so happy to see it done elsewhere.
Yes, consent is nonsexual, too!
Not only that, but one of the reasons many child victims of sexual abuse don’t reach out is that they don’t have the understanding or words for what is happening to them, and why it isn’t okay. Teaching kids about consent helps them build better relationships and gives them the tools to seek help if they or a friend need our protection.
I wish this post featured the OP’s name more prominently; it’s by Libby Anne of love joy feminism, and she writes fantastic stuff. A survivor of Christian patriarchal fundamentalism, she writes about parenting from the perspective of someone working through her own traumatic experiences. I love reading her blog.
I met my nephew (codename Totoro) in person for the first time when he was eight months old. Before this, I’d known him only through video calling. A few hours after getting home from the airport, my sister (codename Mystery) was holding him on her hip. I asked her, “Can I hold him?”
She smiled and said, “Ask him.”
“What?”
“Hold out your hands to him and see if he leans toward you or away from you.” So I did, and he leaned away, and I dropped the subject. Five or ten minutes later, he was leaning towards me, overbalancing and almost falling out of Mystery’s arms, and she said, “He’s asking you to hold him now.” So I did, and it was magical, getting to introduce myself to my nephew and the firstborn of the Sybil family.
I am all about respecting children’s agencies and teaching good boundaries. I didn’t ask at the airport, when Totoro was surrounded by new stimuli and needed the reassurance of his mother. I didn’t ask when we first got back either; I gave him time to settle down, get used to his surroundings, and get used to me in person instead of a moving picture on a cell phone screen. I thought I wasrespecting his boundaries. But it had never occurred to me that an eight month old, who couldn’t speak or even understand most speech, might be able to establish his ownboundaries.
A year later they came to visit again, when he was 19 or 20 months old. The weather was what we Northwesterners call “a bit nippy” and what thin-blooded Midwesterners like my sister call “fucking freezing, are you kidding me?” As we were getting ready to leave the house, Totoro objected vehemently to the need for pants and a coat. Finally Mystery had me stand by and hand her things as she near-literally wrestled him into his clothes. He was screaming and kicking and saying, “No pants, no no, don’t wanna, no Mama.”
And as she worked, Mystery kept talking to him soothingly. “I can hear you saying no, and I understand that you don’t want to wear your clothes, but it’s my job to keep you safe and warm. I know you’re saying no, I can hear that, but it’s very cold outside and I have to keep you safe and warm.” Over and over, reassuring him that she understood what she wanted and that she had a good reason for ignoring his wishes.
And it hit me all over again, an aspect of respecting children’s agencies and boundaries that had never once occurred to me. Because sometimes it is necessary to override their wishes. Part of being a good guardian is keeping them safe even when they want to play in traffic or eat nothing but candy. But I’d never thought about it from Totoro’s point of view, how frightening and how helpless it would feel to scream “no” into an unhearing void. Mystery made sure he knew he was being heard, he wasn’t being ignored, he was important enough to have people react to his words.
It’s just, geez. Every time I watch Mystery interact with Totoro I learn something new about agency and boundaries and just plain humanness. It blows me away.
I do the same thing for C. Literally from birth, explaining to her what I’m doing and why I’m doing it, especially when she doesn’t like it. Always asking her if I can give her a kiss, or if she wants to give me one. We tell her grandparents, aunts, uncles - everyone she meets, to ask her whether she wants to be held or hugged or given a kiss first. It’s interesting to see the responses, because my parents accepted it without batting an eye, but my mother in law only theoretically accepted it. The first time C told her no, MIL wanted to give her a kiss regardless. “But I’m her grandmother, i can give her a kiss”. Not if C says no you can’t, and her word on the matter actually is final even though at the time she was like 9 months old or something.
And in the reverse, I’m also guarding my own boundaries a lot more, and a lot more vocally. Because it’s one thing to teach her about boundaries and consent, and another for her to actually see the people closest to her put that into practice.
Remember when they called us “Human Capital Stock?”
The for-profit adoption/fostering industry is so fucked. Evangelical Christians have played a hugerole in it, too; from the early 2000s to until around the mid-2010s, there was this huge push in the American Evangelical sphere to adopt babies and children from foreign countries as both a form of white Christian saviorism and to swell the numbers of the Evangelical movement.
There ended up being a lot of controversy surrounding the movement because it became very corrupt as there was lots of money involved. It turns out that many of the “orphans” these Evangelicals adopted weren’t actually orphans at all; they still had one or even both parents alive (and/or an extended family) and were just in an orphanage because their families couldn’t currently provide for them. Rather than provide money to these needy families so they could take their children home, these adoption agencies paid off officials (using money provided by the prospective adoptive parents, who tbf were usually in the dark about this) so they could bring the child to the United States and give them over to their new adoptive family.
There is so much corruption regarding inter-country adoption and there were so many scandals involving foreign children being abused by their American adoptive parents that many countries have actually cut off or severely limited adoptions to the United States. The number of foreign adoptions has dropped significantly since the early 2000s, not because of lack of interest but because other countries are rightfully wary of American for-profit adoption agencies.
And guess what? The exact same thing happened domestically prior to Roe v. Wade and the legalization of abortion and the invention of the birth control pill, along with second-wave feminism and the growing acceptance of single mothers and better working conditions for women (who can now work and support their children, even if it’s difficult). Google “the Baby Scoop Era.” Prior to these changes, single women would get pregnant and then basically be forced to give up their babies for adoption.
It’s pretty clear that Republicans want us to go back to that era, hence the fucking terrifying “domestic supply of infants” line. They want women to pump out babies who will then be adopted by Evangelical/conservative families and (hopefully) become Republican voters.
Well this language in the draft bodes very ill for ICWA and tribal sovereignty rights. ICWA, a law formed in response to the cultural genocidal policies of the US government where native children were taken from their families, is one of the most hotly contested in the courts right now. It’s as much of a judicial hot button as abortion rights and is seeing constant challenge with big oil legal teams and right wing think tanks like the Goldwater Institute bankrolling representation for these cases. Haaland v. Brackeen is set to be heard the the Supreme Court this term, challenging ICWA on the basis of racial discrimination and blatantly ignoring the shocking historical context and the legacy of abuse surrounding native children’s ‘adoptions’. Also conveniently pretending that ICWA based on racial identity instead of the legal definition of a sovereign citizen.
ICWA has come under intense scrutiny because of the shady and unsettling ethics of the for-profit, religiously motivated US adoption market. Because of Roe and International adoption restrictions for the already listed reasons, the US adoption market has—to put it in the worst terms—a supply problem when it comes to babies. Specifically, white-passing babies. Yeah, it’s gross. The adoption industry in the US is actively working to ensure the cultural perpetuity of the white, the wealthy, and the religious. For anyone not in that category, the idea of this goal shaping national law is deeply dystopian.
ICWA is also seen as the easiest path towards dissolving tribal sovereignty altogether, opening up native lands for oil and large business development. A businessman suing to develop on tribal land doesn’t exactly provide the same political cover as two white, well-off people crying on TV, claiming ICWA is tearing their family apart with racial discrimination, as these cases are often framed in the media.
It really cannot be overstated exactly how much lasting harm the Roberts court will cause in these upcoming rulings. The structural weakness of the senate as a legislative body, especially in the context of increasing polarization, ensures that any laws that might ameliorate the effects of these rulings will die on the floor. Executive orders have their uses but we’ve seen EOs with actual case precedent get struck down as unconstitutional by the courts during the pandemic, EOs that demonstrably fit within the authority of the executive branch! So what hope is there for any EO that might even just hint at overreach? This country is about to look drastically different, very quickly.
Hey, there are a lot of wonderful posts compiling online Arthurian texts, but I haven’t seen any that are specifically for people who only read MnE. I’ve been increasingly aware of the expectation in the field of medieval literature that the only people who would ever want to read Arthurian stories– especially chivalric romances– are academics. This is frustrating to me for two reasons: a) practically everything exists behind academic paywalls, and b) there’s a key assumption made that of COURSE anyone who wants to read medieval lit can read Old French. I was talking with a guy who used to manage the ArthurNet listserv, and he expressed surprise that me (an astrophysics major who wouldn’t go near an English class with a ten-foot pole) would read medieval lit for fun. Hey, academics– there aren’t tons of nerds out there who would read Arthuriana for fun, but Arthuriana isn’t accessible to them because of the structure of academia. It’s a feedback loop. Incredible work by academics keeps this wonderful genre alive, but it does not have to be limited to scholarly study. These are fun stories!
To that end– hey! Want to try medieval literature? Can’t read Old French/Middle English/Middle Dutch/Middle Welsh/etc? Here are as many free online MnE texts as I can find with my own limited Arthurian sections of knowledge. Please feel free to add on. Also after a certain point I got bored of looking, so there’s a lot missing, especially from the German section. Most Dutch translations are under copyright, and I was unable to find anything online in the Italian or Iberian traditions. Sadly my favourite texts, the Roman van WaleweinandL’Atre périlleux, are not available online in complete form, but if you have access to an academic library I cannot recommend them enough.
Unfortunately I couldn’t find any free online versions of of Hartmanns von Aue second Arthurian text Iwein, or the late Middle High German texts LanzeletandWigalois.
PS: if anyone is interested in some non-Arthurian Middle High German literature tips, feel free to ask, I’d gladly go on another googling spree!
I was forwarding these to a friend and figured it’d be worth sharing them all here too so enjoy some free books and essays and things in no particular order:
by popular demand! (i count six people commenting on my post as popular demand). remember to try to find these digitally at your local library, or maybe ORDER THEM FROM YOUR LOCAL INDIE? they’re coming on hard times my friends. i suggest indiebound if you dont wanna look up what your local indie book store is. let’s try not to give amazon anymore money, yeah?
so you’re living during an pandemic. do you want to read…
BOOKS ABOUT PAN/EPIDEMICS? yes you do, here’s my rec list for that
wanderers - chuck wendig. don’t follow this dude on twitter he’s so fucking annoying but he’s a good writer. this follows a group of people whose family members/friends have been struck by a fast-spreading sleepwalking disease that causes them to all move towards the same mysterious location. it’s a big book at around 800 pages but it’s good as hell
wilder girls - rory power. a young adult book that’s like annihilation meets lord of the flies, where a disease called the TOX has ravaged what could be the world, but all we know is the isolated maine island where an all girls boarding school once stood. wildly grotesque, creepy, and gay as fuck. had a good time with it!
the southern reach trilogy (annihilation, authority, acceptance) - jeff vandermeer. don’t watch the movie it fucking SUCKS. this maybe pushes the term pandemic/epidemic, but the series broadly follows a group of scientists trying to figure out why there’s a spot in the world called area x is transforming nature, and it is creeping forward, ready to swallow the earth whole.
a people’s history of the vampire uprising - raymond a. villareal. what it says in the title! told in an oral history format, through interview transcripts, newspaper articles, radio interviews, etc. has been compared to world war z but for vampires, but i’ve never read that so you know, do with that what you will.
SO YOU DON’T WANNA READ ABOUT DISEASES? FINE THEN.
SCIFI
the vanished birds - simon jimenez. this book made me WEEEEEP. whew. talk about the power of chosen families. it’s hard to summarize, but generally the book is about a boy, with a power that is connected through music. and it’s about a woman, who takes him in and raises him and loves him. and it’s about another woman, brilliant and callous and terrible, whose love for another woman saves her in the end.
the luminous dead - caitlin starling. creepy and fun! it follows a woman named gyre who is hired to explore a cave. of course, all is not what it seems, and the only person she has to help her is em, the woman in her ear guiding her through each level of the cave. it’s gay, it’s scary, it’s weird!
this is how you lose the time war - max gladstone and amal el-mohtar. a thrilling and beautiful novella that takes place during a strange scifi world where red and blue, two enemy combatants, fight and fall in love through letters.
bonds of brass - emily skrutskie. this is that finnpoe book people on twitter were freaking out about. it comes out in april, and it is escapist fun nonsense. i read it in two days and my roommate read it on our first quarantine day and thoroughly enjoyed it. it is about a hotshot pilot whose in love with a prince, and a scrappy slip of a girl who latches onto them both.
red rising series - pierce brown - now ive only read two, but i did enjoy them! it’s very epic scifi that has to do with how being from a different planet is dependent on your class system and those from mars are all fucked. and our intrepid hero is from mars and they decide to use him as a weapon to destroy the entire class system. it’s fun!
FANTASY
the starless sea - erin morgenstern. i have talked this up a lot on here. so quick summary, a book about books! a book about stories and libraries and a boy who falls into the lush, imaginative world of stories within stories, and who falls in love with a beautiful, broody storyteller.
silver in the wood - emily tesh. an extremely short novella about the wild man of the woods and the beautiful folkorist named silver who falls for him, and the creature of the woods who threatens to tear them apart.
lost boy: the true story of captain hook - christina henry. what if captain hook was peter pan’s first lost boy? that’s the premise of this wonderfully grotesque book, where peter pan is more like a god than a playful child, cruel and compelling at the same time.
gods of jade and shadow - silva moreno garcia. when a young woman accidentally wakes up the mayan god of death, she binds them together (also accidentally) and must accompany him to take back the throne from his twin brother
robbergirl - s.t. gibson - based off of…a fairytale i do not know, but it’s a super charming f/f novel about the princess of the robbers and a charming girl-witch she tries to rob, but then gets drawn into helping her find her missing brother
the girl who drank the moon - kelly barnhill. this book still makes me just feel so WARM when i think about it. it is such a lovely piece of fiction about magic and family and love. there is a witch in the woods, so everyone says, and once a year a baby is sacrificed to her so that the town does not fall into bad luck. but all is not what it seems, and we get to see one of the sacrificed babies grow up, and the real truth about the witch in the woods and the town behind the wall.
the devourers - indra das. gay werewolves in kolkata. a woman getting revenge on her rapist. earthy, gorgeous writing that makes you feel like you can smelleverything that’s happening. what’s not to love?
LITERARY FICTION
home fire - kamila shamsie. a modern retelling of antigone that takes place in great britain during the height of islamophobic hate. i love retellings of greek shit but i dont actually know the source stuff very well, so if you’re like me you’ll probably love it! if you are very into the source material, you might like it less!
less - andrew sean greer. a middle-aged gay writer living post AIDS crisis has no idea how to get old, since all the older gay people he ever knew died. when his ex invites him to his wedding, he’s basically like, fuck THIS, and cashes in on all the invitations he has ever received to travel away long enough that he misses the wedding. i found this book just really beautiful and achy and stunning.
the house of broken angels - luis alberto urrea. this follows the dying patriarch of a mexican-american family who wants to celebrate one last birthday before he goes. really really loved this book.
melmoth - sarah perry. probably more gothic than literary but i dont read much gothic so it’s going in here. it follows a creature who roams the globe, haunting those who have been complicit in tragedies big and small. it chronicles four stories, the main one being in prague. unsettling and wonderful.
the water cure - sophie mackintosh. fragmented, non-linear, and horrifying, this chronicles the story of three sisters raised in isolation with their cruel father, and complicit mother. one day their father disappears, and men wash up on their shore, and these sisters find their presence both disturbing and thrilling. it’s a fucked up look at abuse in the hands of men and the women complicit in it.
naamah - sarah blake. the untold story of noah’s (of the biblical ark and the floods) wife. follow her journey in isolation, her strange relationship with an angel who may or may not be real, her struggle to keep a level head for her family, and her fragmented feelings about god. super weird but i loved it.
on earth we’re briefly gorgeous - ocean vuong. a poet’s debut novel, definitely semi autobiographical, but it tells the story of a boy we just know as little dog. it is told through letters to his mother, his mother who cannot read. it talks fraught familial relationships, budding sexuality, and that good old immigrant trauma
bunny - mona awad. this literally defies genre so i’m putting it here. it’s like if stephen king and donna tartt had a baby, and that baby smoked crack and wrote this. it follows a girl getting her mfa in creative writing, and how she falls into this group who calls themselves the bunnies. that’s like….all i can say lol it is fucking WILD
MEMOIR/NONFICTION
crux: a cross border memoir - jean guerrero. follows a journalist as she tries to figure out why her dad is the way he is, and how to find him. it took me a long time to read this but i found it extremely compelling.
the undocumented americans - karla cornejo villavicencio. out 3/24! this is about the undocumented immigrants nobody talks about. not the dreamers, not the model minorities, but the regular people. the construction workers, the delivery people, the hair stylists. it talks about the undocumented people who were on the front lines helping at 9/11, during hurricane sandy, in flint, michigan. definitely a book to read
in the dream house - carmen maria machado. heavy trigger warnings here bc it is about domestic emotional abuse. it chronicles machado’s relationship, and her first one with a girl, and the severe emotional abuse she experienced during her time with her. it’s written in experimentally and i loved all of it.
SHORT STORY
sabrina & corina - kali fajardo-anstine. stories that all center chicana indigenous women in colorado, written by a chicana indigenous woman herself. not a bad story in here
lot - bryan washington. somewhat interconnected stories that all take place in houston and center around afro-latino men dealing with poverty, gentrification, machismo, and sexuality.
HISTORICAL FICTION
the mercies - kiran millwood hargrave. a tale based on the true story of a town where every single able-bodied man died during a freak ocean storm while fishing, and the women learned to care for themselves. they sent a man to the town, a god-fearing man to save these women from the devil, which leads to a horrific time of witch trials and burnings, and one of the town girls and the man’s wife fall in love. just. really stunningly written
cantoras - carolina de robertis. i have shoved this into so many people’s hands at this point. READ IT. it centers five uruguayan women who call themselves cantoras (which was slang for queer woman). they come together to buy a beach house on an isolated island where they can be themselves, and the book follows their lives as they get older, always coming to that beach cottage as a touchpoint. IT’S SO GOOD.
ok that’s all i got for now. go forth and have fun!
so the supreme court just ruled that wrongful convictions can be upheld against evidence of innocence. If you’re imprisoned and sentenced to death but you didn’t do it and can prove it, it doesn’t matter. Legal counsel and evidence don’t matter. The justification is some states rights bs
like do y’all get the need to demand the complete abolition of prisons and police?? where is the veil of “public safety” when people say the criminal-legal system isn’t a function of safety, because i don’t see it. Why is there greater commitment to defending this system than building a real society of safety?
So, Microsoft is terrible. Yes yes, the oldest claim in the world.
But specifically… I just hate how Windows 10 tries to conflate and confuse web searches with things on one’s own computer. The start menu should never do anything related to web-searching, especially if it purports to try to give examples of things that are on my hard drive!
This will make old, computer-illiterate people more malware-vulnerable. You have to maintain a strong distinction between “things that are on this computer (and maybe even included in Windows)” (safe, one hopes, or you already got pwned by it, probably), and “things on the web” (scary, dangerous, not to be trusted at all).
Eroding that barrier in the UI is awful. It just FEELS like a violation every time I start typing into the start bar, and it tries to show me ANYTHING web-related. My computer is NOT just an internet-portal! It has tons of stuff on it, and when I’m interacting with the OS, I ONLY want to see things that are already on here!
If I wanted to see something online, I would go to my browser! All the online stuff should be segregated into the browser!
Specific programs can access the internet; that’s fine. But my OS’s functions and interface should JUST be about the things that are already on my computer.
i haven’t used this myself but i’ll be looking into it
Literally spent multiple hours lobotomizing my Windows reinstall when I upgraded recently, the amount of awful shit they had in nowadays makes me long for the age of win98, when software was merely bad, rather than actively harmful.
the exact setting in shutup10 for this issue is “Disable extension of Windows 10 search with Bing” it’s at the very bottom under misc.
There are 2 programs that will turn Windows 10 from an advertising riddled, bloated mess into a useful tool.
With one click, this will remove ALL THE BLOATWARE Windows comes with. Seriously, you need NONE OF THESE apps, and if you do, you can just uninstall all the ones you don’t need individually.
This program will give you almost complete control over Windows 10’s behavior. Disabling the web search in the start menu, op rightfully complained about, is just one of the many things this thing can do
For example, with a single setting you can turn off any ads from microsoft, system-wide
It is a powerful tool, but it can be a bit overwhelming. Luckily every single setting comes with an explanation about what it actually does, and most settings can be easily reversed.
Written by Bilal Dardai Sound design by Alexander Danner Directed by Jeffrey Nils Gardner
Extra Credit assignments Exploring/Digging You shouldn’t have touched me
How does every episode of Unwell make me well up at the characters trying their best, and gasp with admiration at the sound design, AND bop to the end theme?
One of my favourite pop culture useless pieces of information that I know is the fact that trends in horror movies can tell you about the general fears of the world at any given time in cinematic history.
Sorta!
1940s - You have people still alive that remember Jack the Ripper, you have the Axeman of New Orleans and two world wars. The classics are being made for shock escapism and dark stalkers are also popular (usually trusting people turning out to be the enemy).
1950s - post-nuclear bomb. Giant monsters, or unknown blobs are the trend.
1970s/1980s - modern era begins, and serial killers are becoming known and prominent. Slasher films are the trend. The Cold War also drives the fear of invasion, so a few alien films come out in this time.
1990s - a horror movie lull, and lull in wars and disturbances.
2000s - fear of invasions and biological warfare. Zombie movies become the trend.
Here you go! It’s just a random article, but it’s a fun starting point. It outlines the ideas better than what I did above. Fears, politics etc all play a role.
◯ maisie’s warnings … fem reader . established relationship . daddy kink . ass eating . oral sex ( f -> m ) . brat taming . pet name usage ( ex. mama, princess, baby, bubba ) . nahoya has a fat dick & loves your ass ( literally ) .
◯ word count … 7k
◯ maisie’s note to you … i’ll make the layout more prettier later ): mm :c nahoya’s aged up ofc . him n reader r like 23-24 . minors do not interact ! reblogs appreciated ! muah !
animal crossing new horizons is not a game you revel in lightly.
you don’t play it for stress relief. you’re aware that the game has been meticulously crafted to be a soothing, withal innovative experience made to relax its player, however, given the amount of DIYs, sea creatures, fossils, and insects you still have yet to collect, not including the fact that you also only have three of your dream islanders which, irregardless, leaves seven you have to augment nook miles for — animal crossing new horizons quickly becomes plain out stressful.
“oh my god,” you’re whining when your thumb jabs into the letter ‘ A, ‘ which causes your character to attempt to let the net she’s holding fall and swoop up a tarantula. only, you miss, which causes the spider to freeze in initial anger and terror then run after you.
quickly, you fight to run away by holding down the letter B and immediately heading in the direction of one of your islander’s homes for refuge. “c’mon, c’mon, c’mon.” adrenaline is coursing through your veins which has your thigh length, socked feet shooting up behind you as you lay on your tummy. you make it past your museum, nook shop, and finally, your favorite villager’s marshall’s home is in sight before — two things happen.
one, when you lift your finger off of B to press A and open the door to marshall’s cute, little cabin, that split second between your thumb switching buttons has the spider ramming head first into your character which has her fainting and the screen fading into a mocking black. and, two, the doorbell rings.
The Armageddon AU is an apocalyptic alternate timeline of Obey Me in which the exchange program was never created. This page is dedicated to all the juicy details of this AU that people (mostly me) cook up in our free time. Any and all contributions, whether it be headcanons, further lore development, speculation, art, or fanfiction, are wholeheartedly welcomed.
Be aware that this AU, by nature, is extremely dark and contains disturbing subject matter that may not be suitable to everyone. No punches are pulled here; this is an apocalypse.
~~~
To keep away from one intimidating essay, the main timeline is split up over a series of Lore Posts:
summary:Despite the bitter resentment of the crew, you found a home on Captain Barnes’ ship; on the ocean where you belonged, at the side of a captain you swore loyalty and heart to. But when course is plotted for a legendary island, the secret that has kept you alive for years is threatened to be revealed. pairing:pirate!bucky x pirate/siren!reader series word count: ~54k series warnings: taunts of sexual harassment, canon level violence, drowning, history of torture, smut (marked by chapter with a *), established mutual pining idiots, a romantic AF Captain Barnes a/n: chapters will be posted weekly on sunday mornings. I do not do tag lists, but you can turn on notifications for @wkemeup-fics for updates!
Warnings:language, smoking, mentions of violence (typical to series)
This takes place in the snug at the Garrison. All of the brothers are there as well as (Y/N), who is cozied up next to John. They’re playing cards and having an all around good time…until someone interrupts them.
“Organic” isn’t better for you or for the environment. It actually means nothing of any significance at best and is sometimes even the more wasteful, more hazardous option.
A shitload of “natural” food including a lot of imported produce is grown and harvested through slave labor in inhumane conditions.
Pizza, fried chicken, french fries, fast food, candy bars and chips ARE nutritious. They are loaded with good things. Just because they have an abundance of excess fats and might not be healthy as a staple doesn’t mean they are “nutritionless” or that their calories are “empty.” Those are hokey buzzwords pushed by the people in charge of how much you pay for the alternatives.
Eating healthier costs more. Much more. Looking down on people for their reliance on cheaper food is extremely classist and expecting everyone to be able to live off fresh veggies and cage-free meats is insultingly unrealistic in the modern world.
“Processed” literally only means the food went through some kind of automated process. This can be literally the exact same thing a human being would have done to the food for it to be labeled “unprocessed.” Being processed does not make something less healthy.
Chemicals with long, scary names are part of nature. An apple is full of compounds you probably can’t pronounce. A shorter ingredients label only means they didn’t bother listing all 300 things the product is actually made of and HAS to be made of.
Preservatives, artificial flavors and other additives are not the devil. Most are harmless and in general they are part of the reason you haven’t already starved to death or died of a food borne illness.
MSG is not bad for you at all.
The fact that something might be made of “scrap” meats like pig snouts or chicken necks only means one thing: that we didn’t waste perfectly normal, edible meat.
I DON’T KNOW HOW I FORGOT THIS IN MY FIRST VERSION OF THIS POST BUT GMO’S ARE NOT DANGEROUS TO EAT. GMO’S ARE SAVING LIVES. YOU’VE ALREADY EATEN GMO’S BEFORE YOU EVEN KNEW THE TERM. IT’S FINE. EAT THEM.
So I’ve literally done this twice before and so have several other people but here are sources on all of these, most of them fairly recent academic studies or otherwise the most up-to-date I could find:
“Processed” always gets me, it’s like yeah even that delicious homemade salsa you brought to the party is processed - the moment you took a knife to the tomatoes it underwent processing
I went down a bit of a rabbit hole tracking down some old Francie Shwartz interviews. I am fascinated by whatever toxic concoction of bad vibes was going on in Summer 1968 Beatledom, and while I’m very aware Francie is an unreliable source, I’m insatiably curious. It was hard to find this stuff so I’m posting some links here in case it helps people who want to read it, too. I feel like she consistently gets close to saying things but then kind of veers around saying anything substantive. There are also points in interviews where it reads like she is very informed by other people’s writings on the band and general received wisdom. This got very long, read more under the cut.
genre: fluff, somehow crack, angst (barely), high school au - senior year, social media au
summary: jeongin is struggling in history. y/n needs money for a concert. is paid tutoring the answer? apparently.
warnings: light swearing, academic struggles (felt that), some playful rivalry, history disses/jokes bcs jeongin copes with humor, y/n has some spending issues, will add more in eps if needed!
summary — you and jisung are new to the couple business. this is a mini guide on how to get about dating while being in college, trying to pass tests and finals, but also spending as much time with each other as possible.
rating — 18+.
genre — suggestive, fluff, mini series.
i. series will be updated every week, dates will be added soon
ii. this is my first time writing something like this, i hope you cuties enjoy, let me know if you want to be part of the taglist <3 pictures are not mine, credits to owners!!)
contents of the guide —
chapter i, step i. study dates, trying to study, but failing (obviously)
chapter ii, step ii. meeting the bois (who knew they’d be soft wholesome baby-men?)
chapter iii, step iii. late night drives (with a side of interruption of his roommates)
chapter iv, step iv. picnic outings (where jisung promptly forgets to get pizza, like how?)
chapter v, step v. facetime, but with the whole gang (just because they’re wouldn’t leave, and they’re cranky)
chapter vi, step vi. visiting his studio (so dingy? it needs some color)
☾⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ: evening star ; one *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆
⋆*･ﾟstorypreview. ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:
pairing(s): knight!chan x princess!reader, mage!minho x princess!reader featuring: prince!hyunjin and others. story summary: you were soon to be married to a well liked and nobel prince from one of the wealthiest kingdoms. however, when the engagement ball takes a turn for the worst, you’re to try and reclaim your kingdom with the help of your knight and best friend chan, as well as the mage who you have a secret history with.
⋆*･ﾟpart one⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ
wordcount:12.2k chapter warnings: mentions of war, fighting, swordplay, food, implied discrimination (re: human and those with magic) note that these warnings are specific to this chapter. if you read something you think should be tagged, please send me a message/ask. a/n: after almost two years of talking about it, she’s here, everyone. i present to you: evening star, a story i’ve had in my head since i was a wee child (14, really) and that i have finally developed and put into words to share. special thanks to an anon - magenon (aka @kpop–etc) for your love for mage!minho. may you see his character soon, and may this live up to ur expectations hehe — m.list | one | tbc…
The last few rays of morning sunlight clear the trees, illuminating the east-wall of the castle in its entirety. Birdsong fills the air as you ascend the stone stairs at the back of the castle, the familiar back door nearing you. The strap of your small bag falls from your shoulder into your hands, and as you push the door open, it slides into the hands of another.
“Your highness, you really should let me accompany you on your…” Chan lets out a polite cough. “… Morning walks.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to wake you. Guarding me all day seems enough of a job.” You hide behind a small smile, but share a knowing glance with Chan as he slings the bag you’d handed him over his shoulder. A soft metallic clinking is all that hints at the contents of the bag. “Besides, I’d rather learn how to throw knives by myself. Not that you’re a bad teacher, you’re just very…”
“Overbearing?”
“Strict.”
Chan shakes his head, locks of hair falling into his face, and follows you down the hall. You walk briskly, heading for your room. While it was no longer an unexpected occurrence, you were definitely going to be late for breakfast.
ෆ fic synopsis: kim mingyu’s trouble with luck makes you think you’re being played by him after failing to meet on every. single. date. what does it take for the two of you to finally meet in person? ෆ pairing: kmg x reader (gn) ෆ fic genre: humor, romance ෆ preview warnings: cursing, food ෆ preview wc: 1.6k (full fic is an estimated 7-15k) ෆ a/n: here is the preview to chapter one of another fic i’m excited to share with you all. this one is dedicated to the best boy and the awkward phase glow-ups. please lmk down below or in my asks/dms if you would like to be on the taglist - whatever you’re most comfortable with! i’m aiming to post the full fic in june or july :0)
DK is positive that if he sneezed, the puff of air that shoots out of his nose would be strong enough to knock over the guy he is currently helping hold steady.
But Kim Mingyu – tall, lanky, and irrationally stubborn, refuses to accept help from his obviously more capable roommate. He stands on his makeshift stepladder and attempts to shimmy out his giant hard-shell suitcase he somehow managed to store at the top of his closet the day he moved into the dorm. However, the only thing Mingyu seems to be taking out of his closet is the dust that collected on top of his belongings, and DK is trying his very best not to sneeze.
request: Hi!! a new fan of yours im gonna make request if thats fine for you, can you do prompts with wonu , numbers 22, 20 ,23, THANK YOU <3
prompts: 20: “this is stupid” 22: “i heard you crying.” 23: “let’s stay in bed.”
a/n: usually it’s always someone comforting the reader but i decided to do the opposite in this one! i hope that’s okay, if not you’re more than welcome to send in another request.
the apartment was dark when you entered. with a deep sigh you took off your uncomfortable work shoes, and finally stepped inside your apartment. considering the turned off lights, you thought that nobody was home. for a moment the heavy silence surrounding you felt like a blanket, wrapping you up in a warm embrace. with a deep breath, you started walking toward the bathroom. the bathtub was all that you needed right now.
the steam in the bathroom made the air thick, which made you feel like you were being lulled to sleep. your sore body could finally relax in the warm water. as your fingers aimlessly played with the bubbles surrounding you, you heard the door to the apartment open. to tired to say anything, you opted to greet wonwoo once you were ready to get out of the bath. besides, he would’ve seen your shoes by the entry, so he wouldn’t be freaked out by you suddenly appearing. however, the need to feel his arms around you after this tiring day was enough motivation to get you out of the tub.
once you had dried yourself off and put on newly washed clothes, which you had put out for yourself before getting in the bath, you walked out the bathroom. the apartment was still dark, you hadn’t turned the lights off before, but wonwoo was always very careful of doing so as soon as he got home. confused, you walked to the kitchen but you didn’t find him there. so you walked up to the bedroom door, but stopped before you opened it. from the other side of the door you could hear soft cries. you looked over to the front door, where wonwoo’s outerwear was placed erratically instead of his usual neat manner. with a worried look you turned your attention back to the sobbing from behind the door, which had now turned to sniffles. you knocked on the door softly, warning him that you would be coming in, before you opened it. “honey?”, you asked carefully, “are you alright? i heard you crying.” he turned to face you. it was difficult to see in the dark room. there wasn’t much sunlight left in the sky, and the blinds were partially closed, but you could still tell his eyes were red. “… you’re home?”, he couldn’t look you in the eyes, “i’m sorry… this is stupid…” with quick steps, you walked up to the bed and sat down beside him. carefully, you reached up to his head and ran your fingers through his hair. “what happened, wonwoo?”, you asked. “it’s just a bit too much right now.”, he took a deep breath, “i’m sorry, i didn’t know you were home…” “you have nothing to apologize for.”, you assured him, “now, come here.” you pulled him into your arms and laid down on the bed, his head was on your chest as your arms gently stroked his back. with a quiet voice you whispered to him that he could fall asleep if he needed to. “i need to go shower before falling asleep.”, he sighed and was about to get up. “wait.”, you stopped him, “let’s stay in bed for a while, just until you’ve calmed down. there’s no need to rush.” wonwoo hummed in response and took another deep breath. one of your hands reached up to his head to stroke his hair, to which he responded with a loving sigh. “thank you.”, he whispered. “just rest for a bit baby.”, you kissed the top of his head, “you deserve it.”
warnings: romantic fluff you might start wishing for a partner if you don’t have one already
note: i might post a bit slowly and only drabbles for a while, i gotta get used to uni and working time BUT i have smth somewhat big planned for my next milestone soooo stay tuned ehehehehe pretending that my blog isn’t dead LMAO
❥A/N:hehe here’s my entry for @neo-shitty’s little timestamp event! i’m hella tired, so it’s not proofread. so if anyone who finds any typos and errors could let me know… that’d be great. don’t think i have the energy to go through it myself. anyway! i hope you all enjoy this little piece
you let out a small sigh as you walked through the automatic sliding glass doors of your university cafeteria, immediately hit with the cold breeze from the multiple air conditioners mixed with the whiff of ocean scented air freshener.
walking past stall after stall to make it to where your boyfriend usually sat, your stomach grumbled a little at the smell of pancakes and syrup—and then sausages and baked beans—and then finally… porridge and fried rice from the stall labelled “southeast asian cuisine”.
a few tables away, your eyes finally caught a glimpse of a familiar figure dressed in all black sitting at the table right by a large glass window. the rays of sunshine pouring through barely missed his slouched over body as he rested his head on the table, his face hiding behind his crossed arms and the visor of his cap.
chuckling, you picked up the pace a little, quickly making your way over to stand right behind his chair. smiling, you ran a gentle hand along upper section of his hoodie-clad spine, making him flinch slightly from the sudden sensation as he quickly lifted his head.
‘morning, sunshine~’
‘morning…’ he drawled with a little groan as he sat up, face scrunched into a pout with his eyes barely open. he let out a small yawn, stretching one arm while rubbing his eye with the other.
genre:angst, friends to lovers, idiots to lovers, mutual pining
word count: 20.8k (ha ha buckle in)
warnings: divorce, implied sexual activities (but no smut), profanity
a/n:it’s here!! first, i want to say thank you all for your interest in this fic; it was truly unexpected, but your support motivated me to finish this after months of sitting on it with no clue as to which direction i wanted this to go. this started roughly three months ago when i started watching thirty nine (which i finished last night btw; go watch it if you’re into sad stuff), and also listening to loote’s song of the same name! smth abt tomorrow tonight + thirty nine angst made me want to write this sadness so…yeah. i truly did not anticipate this being my longest fic to date at 20k words, but here she is :’) thank you to @gyukultand@twogyuu for beta reading this bc i was too tired to re-read it myself LOL @_@ i hope you all enjoy it, and as always, please be sure to leave your feedback via reblogs/replies/asks!! <3 enjoy !!
Your voice filled the empty night air, crude words accompanied by the chilling winter wind. He was facing away from you, his back hunched over as he sat on the carousel in the children’s park outside your apartment. Even under the poorly-lit street lamps, you recognized the back of his head: the way his hair—cut close to his nape—faded into his skin, and how his white, cotton button-down shirt hugged his wide back as he rested his elbows on his knees. He was rubbing his palms together, his breath visible in the night as he tried to warm himself.
Dipshit, you thought to yourself. It was below freezing and he was out here without a jacket.
He turned around to greet you with a smile, though it wasn’t the same cocky grin he usually gave you when you called him unpleasant names. This one was different. It was… sad. Given the way his hair was tousled, you could guess he had probably gone drinking with his coworkers before he came to see you.
i love that post thats like “never trust how you feel about your life after 9pm” that shit changed my life. every time i feel bad i look at the clock and i’m like Aha It’s 10:26 PM You Cannot Fucking Fool Me
wow this post bload up. i think it’s a good time for me to clarify some things since i really did just write this post at 10:26 pm on a whim
There’s about ten thousand people tagging this with “but what if i feel bad in the mornings” or “welp i feel like shit in the afternoon” and I think you’re willfully misinterpreting this post for many reasons.
First off, this post is about knowing when to let yourself rest. Anxieties are stronger at the time when you meditate on your day and the events of your world slow down. (A lot of people have different sleep schedules, too, so “9 PM” can mean whenever your day is over and before you go to sleep.)
I don’t ignore these anxieties, I do take them in but just remind myself that I am resting now. It’s a mindfulness technique. I look at the clock to ground myself about where and when I am and what physical state I’m in as it relates to my mental state. It’s a reminder to myself that I feel these emotions and they do not control my actions. I do not need to do anything about them. Right now, I am at rest. You can’t fool me into taking action on things when I am at rest. I see a lot of funny tags on this saying “mental business hours are from 9 AM to 8:59 PM” and I LOVE that.
Secondly,this advice is geared towards the idea that your mental state is for the most part dependent on your physical state. In this specific case, I felt bad because the day was ending and my mind and body were tired. I was ready for bed. My body needed sleep and my mind deprived of it started acting up. But your body doesn’t need only sleep. Your mental state can depend on whether or not you’ve eaten something substantial, drank water, taken your medicine, gone to the bathroom, exercised, showered or bathed, brushed your teeth, breathed fresh air… and to go on: had an orgasm, changed into clean clothes recently, been properly cool or warm, or given someone a hug. These things are not linked to a time of day, these are round-the-clock concerns. If you feel bad and haven’t done many of these things recently, I really recommend you take your negative feelings with a grain of salt and see how you feel after you’ve improved your physical state.
Thirdly,this post is also predicated on the idea that you should worry about things when you can control them. For me, 9 PM is when everything shuts down. My energy is pretty sapped, as is my friends’ energy, stores are mostly closed, nobody answers phones, most of my immediate world is done for the night. I can’t start anything at 9 PM. Right now, I’m worried about getting a job. I feel bad at all times of day that I don’t have a job yet. But I can’t be worried about applying for jobs at 10:26 PM, I’m tired and no hiring managers are going to see my applications before 9 AM tomorrow. I can’t improve my life while lying in bed, and I need to lie in bed, so I’m going to improve my life when my day starts. I deserve rest, I need sleep, and I observe but neatly package and set aside the worry to be dealt with at 9 AM tomorrow.
It seems like platitudinous boomer-level “must be nice to be neurotypical” COMPLETE BULLSHIT to a lot of you, I know. But here’s my secret: you don’t need to believe it. You just need to tell yourself that’s how it is.With practice — and I say practice because this kind of thinking took me years (and growing out of being a teenager) to cultivate — it stops being platitudinous.
Andif you’re sitting here thinking I’m lying or that I’m not REALLY mentally ill, I’d like to remind you that A) you know nothing about me and my life B) assuming I don’t know what I’m talking about is both silly and incredibly cruel and C) that’s your own self-sabotage talking. “Oh, she feels better by doing this. Well, she must not be As Bad As Me. Therefore this will not work on me.” That is the Devil speaking, the one who tells you not to brush your teeth at night and to text your ex. That is the demon in your head that likes watching you hurt. You don’t want to hurt. Even if you do want to hurt, I promise, you do not want to hurt.
It’s true that this will not work for many, many people. Not everyone’s brains work the same. We are all unique people with unique situations and for me to even pretend otherwise would be preposterous. And I’m not going to pretend that every worry you have is unfounded and can be solved with a nap and a sandwich. That’s not what this post is about. You’re allowed to feel bad. It’s an emotion. It happens. But it’s healthy for you to ask yourself why you’re feeling a negative emotion, if it is possible to fix why you are feeling that way, what you can do to fix it, and whether or not right now is the time to fix it.
When it’s 10:26 PM and I’m angry at myself about losing an online chess game and being unemployed, I look at the clock and say… this negative emotion is real but the reasoning behind it is not something I can fix right now. I can’t fix my life right now. I need to go to bed, and my brain can’t Fucking Fool Me.
I’m giving you this advice because I want you to SEE if it helps. Even if you try it and this mindset is not what is right for you… I’m proud of you and impressed of you for trying it, because trying to get better is the first step to getting better.
(And thanks to people who reminded me that Drew Monson is the one responsible for the original post about not trusting how you feel about your life after 9 PM. Thank you Drew for helping me out of some late-night pits.)
So I was going through all the screen caps of a Sign of Three to find the scene where John is visualised by Sherlock inside his mind palace because my first reaction when I saw him there wasn’t ‘Oh hello John’, it was ’Well hello John that’s a rather bright cardigan for you, since when did you wear cerise...’
And then last night I realised if anyone was going to tell us the truth about John’s sexuality, it’s going to be Sherlock.
Well maybe.. but in the course of looking for this screen cap I found these ones instead and took a moment to stare in awe at the last club scene one of the stag night as I realised in fact it’s with John himself we see into his own mind regarding his feelings for Sherlock.
And now let me give you this.
This is the bisexual pride flag. And John in the last scene in the club is literally standing in front of this flag. Right you’re going to argue that the lighting is the wrong way round, but this scene is being rather subversive and also playing a very clever trick in how it becomes lit, in regards to John’s thought processes…
Because each of those colours represents what bisexuality means.
The deep pink or rose stripe at the top of the flag represents the possibility of same gender attraction; the royal blue stripe at the bottom of the flag represents the possibility of different gender attraction and the stripes overlap in the central fifth of the flag to form a deep shade of lavender or purple, which represents the possibility of attraction anywhere along the entire gender spectrum. source
So once again let me break it down…
Prominent blue. Streak of purple and a hint of pink.
This is John at the moment he decides to knock that sneaky one down. This is John Three Continents Watson the ladies man…but the pink is creeping in here, the same sex attraction…
And now that pink lighting has become more prominent and John is sneaking that extra shot into Sherlock’s beaker WHILE looking at Sherlock. Pink equals same sex attraction remember.
But look how the lighting is hitting Sherlock…
He is now shaded in the purple and pink light and the blue is stronger on the other side of the screen. We’re looking at Sherlock through John’s eyes here, remember and John does not consider himself to be gay.
But evidently John is attracted to Sherlock and he is also attracted to Mary. But that is why there’s the purple stripe in the flag. It means this person is neither gay or straight because their sexuality is between those two states. And that’s how John Watson swings both ways.
What I find really fascinating about these two anecdotes is that they both deal with the consent of children not yet old enough to communicate verbally. In both stories, the older child must read the consent of the younger child through nonverbal cues. And even then, consent is not this ambiguous thing that is difficult to understand.
