#but it’s still so hard to retain a grasp on the fullness of This Is Totally Only Your Body You Have The Ultimate Control Over It
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how hard(?) would you say it is to translate? Ive been kinda curious about that, like does anything get lost in translation/ just not make that much sense without knowing the og language? or anything like that? 🤔
Hm, maybe 7 or 8 on a scale of 10? Though it can easily go higher at times, haha. (Always when Sung Hyunjae is in a scene because his name is a misspelling and it pisses me off.* This is a joke. Only half, though.) Basic word-by-word dictionary lookup is simple, which is why machine translators can do it well enough. But then you have to string all of it together in a sentence where you:
figure out and find a way to convey any difference in connotation between this specific chosen word and other words that mean the same thing (think the connotations of "regal" VS "royal" in English), and
do the same as above, but on a sentence-wide level translating the nuance of a particular grammar/sentence structure (thousand and one sentence endings in Korean, I swear -_-), and
make sure distinct character voices are retained or translated from the original Korean (think Song Taewon's stiff formality VS Han Yoojin's more casual speech VS Sung Hyunjae's middle-aged rich guy-type speech), and
make sure this sentence flows with the overall paragraph/chapter.
All those priorities have to be juggled throughout the chapter and add up to make it a fairly hard task. It definitely gets easier with practice once you're more familiar with the language (especially the nuance/connotation stuff), though, and I did get lucky in that my native language shares some aspects with Korean so the grammar is easier to intuitively grasp. Of course, I'm still learning, so I do have times I need to call in more experienced speakers for help.
(I definitely wouldn't say I'm good with the language period. Recently I've tentatively picked up a new novel—people following my personal blog will know which one—and it turns out I'm familiar with the way Geunseo talks and familiar with the vocabulary typical to dungeon fantasy novels, but kind of. Majorly hopeless when it comes to other stuff. The phrasing is juuust off enough that I keep getting tripped up and taking thrice as long to understand what's being said.)
There's definitely stuff that wouldn't make sense in English—certain idioms, cultural stuff, and all that, but that's why I try to localize wherever possible and add footnotes with relevant info/links if not. And there is stuff that gets lost in translation—you can look at the chapter titles from 302–307 for an example of that, where the joke is much more immediately obvious in Korean but had to be translated differently as chapter title VS in-chapter text messages and lost the clear parallel. I also remember being grumpy back during the virtual reality dungeon arc because Yoohyun would use 네놈 (ne-nom but typically pronounced ni-nom, a derogatory way to say "you", LMAO) towards Sigma and there was no concise way to get that across in English except having him be aggressive and direct. Especially since he isn't the type to swear by word of god, so I couldn't have him addressing him with "asshole" or "jerk" to convey it.
TL;DR: Fairly hard to translate, but gets easier with time, and there is stuff that's lost or difficult to understand, but I do what I can to make it understandable in English!
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* Sung Hyunjae uses "ae" at the end, but that implies it's 성현재, which is wrong—the correct spelling is 성현제, which should be "Sung Hyunje". (If you wanted to go the full Revised Romanization route, it'd be Seong Hyeonje, but I've weathered my share of name changes and that's a step too far even for me.) I've been meaning to make a poll about changing it like with the Lauchitas spelling, but I keep forgetting.
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oh man, owning a body is way scarier than being in one while not owning it is
#wow it is so inconvenient to have a concept of autonomy that isn’t restricted#like it is better yes I get it but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an adjustment#I’m panicking less drastically with more time in between#but it’s still so hard to retain a grasp on the fullness of This Is Totally Only Your Body You Have The Ultimate Control Over It#because there’s just SO MUCH MORE that comes along WITH that and I have very little#processing power to sore as is#*spare#I don’t even know what a body is optimally supposed to be like how am I supposed to know how to make my way over to that?#and that’s all I have to say about that#shh katie#trauma recovery#and I just like. get to make every ultimate decision about it forever. like how close people can get or whether to do an activity or what#clothes I get to choose#and I get to say no to things and I get to defend myself if I want and I get to do fun scary new things in it if I want etc etc#and I love getting all these things! I love that it’s ‘I get’#but most of the time what I actually feel is ‘I HAVE’#I HAVE to decide each moment if I want someone to touch me I HAVE to decide if something feels good or not I HAVE to defend myself if I need#to be defended I HAVE to choose clothes with JUST me making my decisions I HAVE to change my body to be healthier I HAVE to etc etc#but then I feel ashamed and unworthy because I feel like I’m doing something wrong by acting or appearing ungrateful while#having such lucky amazing incredible way-more-than-I-could-have-imagined change in the past year#and so much to be grateful for beyond words#anyway there’s no lesson here it’s just a post it note saying where I’m at#I’ll move on from this to something else in a new stage as time passes#it’s chill#cult survivor#add to journal
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request; jj blurb idea! wearing his clothes for the first time/him seeing you in his clothes for the first time. maybe showering at the chateau but you didn’t bring anything so he gives you a tshirt! hehe literally kicking my feet under the table rn
pairing; jj x fem!reader
warnings; fluff, maybe suggestive
authors note; i was doing the same when you sent this anon in love with this idea ! (req a blurb from below w what’s left on the prompt list, or send in blurb, imagines, & fic ideas) a few more hours until season 3!
other ways to say i love you prompt list
The opportunity to wear JJ’s clothes tainted your thoughts undoubtedly.
Not only because it belonged to him but because everything about JJ’s wardrobe, is so JJ.
No problem with repping any and everything that belonged to your infamous boyfriend. Wether it be wearing his pair of boxers as shorts, a wife beater to slumber in, or a random tee shirt to go out in broad day light.
You just longed for his material to be around your figure.
Congenial and adequate, soft yet comfortable— all elements of his clothes that are alike with JJ.
They are his clothes, after all.
“JJ let go of me!”
Stood smack in the the middle of JJ’s room at the chateau. His window partially open, wind bristling from the night air, making its way through. Whilst the hard wood floors beneath the two of you tracked the imprints of your feet. Bed rolled around in, from you forcing JJ off of you then— merely to let you get up and off of the bed to shower, that you did. Since you came out though, wearing little clothing, (given that there wasn't much of your own items lying around at the Chateau) he hasn't let you be.
He encapsulates you with his sinewy arms, body swallowing you whole. Whilst you forcefully push your hands against his broad, shirtless chest— the skin mellow and thick. Indentations of your miniature hands marking his skin, like your were a rag doll; screaming for dear life.
All JJ could muster was a low, raspy chuckle.
“Say you won’t leave.”
JJ wanted to make love to you all day long.
Not sex.
But emotionally.
To emotionally make love, to have and hold. A day full of luster, every millisecond spent around or with you. To confide in and maybe even shrink you and put you in his pocket.
A keepsake.
“You know I can’t, I don’t have another change of clothes.”
Behind every ‘can’t’ JJ miraculously finds a way, opportunity at hand to see you clad in something of his.
“Lets find you something of mine?”
JJ flicks his tongue, peering down at you due to the fact that he knows he’s won and you aren’t moving a muscle. His hands maneuver themselves to the lower part of your ass, hands habitually grasp the masses with a squeeze of his hands.
“Are you gonna’ give me something to wear then or what?”
You hid your secret giddiness inside, not wanting to be the one to initiate this sentiment— things seemingly working themselves out anyway.
“Actually, baby … just fuckin’ walk around naked … s’even better.”
He acknowledges the glint in your eye, possibly even a twitch that says, ‘get me some damn clothes before I wring your neck.’
“Okay okay, whatcha’ thinkin’ a little Heywards t-shirt action … Bait Shop shirt … ?”
He let go of you distastefully, instantly salivating for the contact again. Walking over to the wooden drawers of his dresser, pulling out multiple options— signaling you to come over and pick.
“Surprise me.”
And you turn around, facing the emptiness of his room, that wasn’t his room, but nonetheless. Rummaging was heard as he hummed and mumbled minuscule things to himself.
“Turn around, pretty girl.”
An off-black brownish t-shirt is thrown into your hands. A decor in the upper left side that read ‘Sex Wax Est 2005’, font circular and embellished with stars on either end.
“Your turn-“
He was already turning around, the gentlemen that he prided on being. You grinned at the cotton beneath your digits, bringing it up to your nose— though it had been washed, his powerful musk still retained it. The silky sensation of yeasty beer and a freshly rolled blunt encompassed your senses.
“Need more time?”
“Just a second, J.”
If only he knew your fixation was obsessive beforehand.
“I’ll just be here … y’know ... missin' my girl."
Feet away, physical touch being his love language fully had a choke hold on him per usual.
After you were done with your inspection you pulled the thin material of your cropped cami past your shoulders, bra clasped tight to your back. Leaving you to remove those lacey pocketed shorts that adorned your body; his shirt lazily pulled past your head, drowning you in its bigger size, falling just to your mid thigh.
The sole way to sleep with JJ disclosed.
You felt more his than you ever had in the past; claiming his array of bib and tucker with exuberance.
His baby suffocating in him.
You cleared your throat gesturing for him to turn around, his mouth gaping open as he's awe struck; open long enough that you were impressed something didn't fly in it.
"Shit you look better than me!"
Ogle eyes whilst his mouth formed a tight-lipped smile, stomach churning and insides wavering at the woman he chose to take part in his life with him.
It may be a shirt to most, but with his person inside of it made it all the more nostalgic, heart growing tender.
"C'mere gotta get a better look at you."
Following suit you step forward to him, lips instantly connecting with your jaw with pure infatuation.
"S'perfect baby."
"Yeah? Think I can pass as the new JJ Maybank?" In the same position the two of you were in minutes ago, except grins are wider and souls aching all the more for eachother; and you mocked him.
"Pass me a beer and a J."
#jj maybank imagines#outer banks#jj maybank#jj maybank x reader#jj maybank x y/n#jj maybank x you#obx3#jj maybank angst#jj maybank fluff#jj maybank x oc#jj maybank x pogue!reader#jj maybank x sister reader#jj maybank x routledge!reader#jj maybank x kiara carrera#jj maybank x kook!reader#jj maybank imagine#jj maybank fic#jj maybank fanfiction#jj maybank blurb#jj maybank headcanons#jj maybank smut
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Mom's Naughty Daughter cont
CHAPTER TWO
In her darkened room, Lynn tossed and turned sleeplessly. The drapes were wide open, her window up. It was quite warm and what breeze came in helped same.
The moon was full and bright and she gazed at it. Her mind retained the image of her son's cock, so strong and hard inside his shorts. Bobby seemed to have a bigger cock than she would have suspected.
Lynn sighed and turned onto her back, spreading her legs wide, her arms over her head as she stretched out on top of the sheet. She was aware that her cunt was bubbling beneath her gown and that it was past midnight and she still had not dozed off.
The next day was Saturday. Unlike most people, Lynn hated the weekends. She could not drive into the groves and watch the men working.
With a sigh, she swung her legs over the bed and started down the hall, thinking a glass of milk might help her get to sleep. She felt a strange anxiety as she reached the head of the stairs. Something felt out of place and she paused, wondering. Turning around, she walked back, and realized what was wrong.
Carolyn wasn't in her room.
Suspicious now, remembering the look in her daughter's eyes, Lynn walked to her son's room. The door was cracked open and the light coming through. Almost afraid of what she would find, Lynn shoved the door open. Instantly her hand went to her throat as she swallowed a gasp.
Bobby was stretched out on his bed. He was fully naked, with Carolyn sitting next to him. Bobby's cock stood up in hardness and Carolyn was clinging to it with a tight fist, gurgling with heat.
"It's been so long since I had your cock in my hand, Bobby!" Lynn heard her daughter say. "You didn't have any hair like you do now."
Bobby wiggled his hips, shoving his hand underneath the short skirt of his sister's nightgown.
"You didn't have these titties, either, Carolyn," he said as he cupped one.
Lynn watched her son's hand moving under her daughter's gown. Carolyn's beautiful thighs showed, along with the curls of her cunt. Lynn leaned against the doorjamb, unable to take her eyes from her children. Her son's cock was big and she could see the juices beading at his piss hole as Carolyn began to run her fist up and down his cock shaft.
"Remember how we tried to fuck when we didn't know how?" Carolyn laughed. "You pressed your cock against my cunt and we thought that was real fucking. Remember?"
"Yeah," Bobby said, his voice low, his hand cupping and squeezing his sister's tit.
Their words sent flashes of boiling sensations through Lynn's body. She stared at her son's hard cock, watching unashamedly as her daughter stroked it.
"I bet we know how now." Lynn heard her daughter say. "I bet we both know how to fuck now, Bobby."
"You wanna try?" Bobby whispered.
"Have you ever fucked?" Carolyn asked.
"Yes," he admitted.
"Who?" Carolyn pressed.
"I'm not gonna tell!" he said.
"Would you tell on me?" Carolyn asked. "I mean, if I let you fuck me, would you tell anyone?"
Bobby shook his head, arching his hips up and making his sister's fist tight at the base of his cock.
"If you don't!" he promised. "I won't tell."
"I bet you've never been fucked this way!" Carolyn said spreading her knees about her brother's thighs. She grasped his balls in one hand, his cock in the other. She jacked on his cock a moment, her exposed pussy hovering above the swollen head of her brother's cock.
Lynn couldn't believe it, yet she was standing there watching. If either of them turned their eyes they would have seen her. Her cunt was boiling wetly, her clitoris straining out in throbbing hardness. The nipples of her rounded tits jutted at the front of her gown, the dark circles obvious.
"Oooo!" Carolyn murmured as she fit the head of her brother's swollen cock to her cunt. "Oh! Golly, Bobby! You feel hot as hell! You just be still and let me do this!"
Lynn saw the girl's pink cunt lips spread then stretch as the swollen head of Bobby's cock penetrated them. She saw the tip of Carolyn's clitoris smashing downward as her daughter slowly settled upon Bobby's cock. Carolyn sat there, her shoulders back, her firm tits thrusting forward against, her thin nightgown.
"Oh! Golly, Bobby! You feel so good inside my pussy!"
Bobby caressed his sister's thighs, his eyes huge as he stared at her cunt. "You're kinda tight, Carolyn," he groaned. "Are you sure you've had a cock in your cunt?"
"Yes," Carolyn mewled. "Everyone says my cunt is tight!"
"Everyone?"
"Well, only four guys," she said. "But I think you're gonna be the best!"
Lynn watched her daughter lean over Bobby's face then stretch out on top of him. Carolyn slipped her long, slim thighs along his, smashing her firm tits against her brother's chest. Her gown was at her waist, her curvy ass exposed. Lynn saw Bobby clutch his sister's ass in both his hands, straining his cock up into her cunt.
"Oh, hold my ass, Bobby!" Carolyn gurgled, fucking him. "Hang onto my ass because I'm gonna fuck your cock off!"
Lynn was drawn closer to them. She slipped into the room and stood at their feet watching her daughter's creamy ass bounce up and down. She could see her son's cock being devoured by the pink hairy lips of Carolyn's cunt, his balls looking full. She grasped one of her hot tits, digging into it harshly. Her eyes glazed with wanton hunger, her cunt pulsating almost painfully.
Carolyn's hot cunt seemed to be working up a froth at the base of Bobby's cock. Bobby only had to arch his cock up and let his sister fuck him. The sounds of their heavy breathing told Lynn of the excitement they felt.
"Ahhh, so fucking hard!" Carolyn mewled, smashing her cunt down onto her brother's cock. "Your cock is so fucking hard, Bobby! I can feel it throbbing! Oooo, I hope you have a real big, hot load of come juice in your balls!"
Lynn watched her son pulling at the tight cheeks of her daughter's ass. Carolyn's puckered asshole flashed at her and Lynn licked at her lips, squeezing hard on her tit. Her other hand slid down over her trembling stomach, going toward her fiery cunt.
"I'm coming already!" Carolyn suddenly cried.
"Me, too!" Bobby groaned, arching his cock deeper into his sister's grinding, clutching cunt.
"Oooo! I can feel you coming in my cunt!"
"I can feel your cunt, too, Carolyn!"
Lynn saw her sons balls tighten with the spasms of his cock. She saw her daughter's naked ass twist, the hair-lined lips of her cunt clenching. Quickly and silently, she slipped from the room, pulling the door closed again.
With her legs shaking, Lynn went downstairs. She tried to be angry, but couldn't. It had been beautiful, she thought. Never in her life had she dreamed that Carolyn and Bobby would do such a thing. But there they were, fucking right under her nose.
Deep in thought, her cunt still throbbing, Lynn left the house through the back door. She walked outside into the warm night wearing only her thin gown. She had had to exert a great deal of will power while in Bobby's room. She had wanted to reach out, to touch her son's balls, to stroke her daughter's creamy, naked ass. It had frightened her at first and if they had not stopped fucking when they had, Lynn knew she might have done it.
She sat in a cane lawn chair, thinking deeply. Soon, she became aware that Jake was outside his small house. Sitting in shadows, she could observe him without being seen. Already excited from watching her son and daughter fucking, she became further aroused as she watched Jake. The moonlight was quite bright and he was bare-chested, wearing only a pair of shorts.
Feeling like a voyeur again, Lynn slipped through the silent yard wanting to see his body as close as she could. She looked up at Bobby's window and saw the light was still on. Creeping around the small house, she saw Jake. He had come to the side of the house and it looked to Lynn as if he was playing with his balls. Again her hand went to her throat as she watched the man. She was well hidden behind a big, ancient oak tree, and he was directly in the moonlight.
She gasped softly when he pulled the front of his shorts to one side. Not only did his cock come free, but his balls tumbled out as well. Lynn's eyes turned glassy, steamy, as she saw Jake's long cock and hairy balls. She heard the soft moan of his self-induced pleasure, but it was only for the moment. He held his cock, arching his hips slightly and a long stream of piss gushed forth, hissing against the grass in the moonlight.
Lynn was fascinated. She had never watched a man pissing before. The strong stream seemed to go on forever, and the sound of it splashing on the ground increased her delight. Lynn felt her cunt tingling hotly, her nipples pressing against her gown. She began to tremble as she watched him, the urge to run to him and fill her hands with his hot piss very strong. As he finished pissing, she watched him shaking his cock. She watched Jake pull on his cock, then give it a few jerks. When he stuffed his cock and balls back into his shorts, she felt a distinct disappointment. Her eyes burned on his ass as he moved away, going back into his house.
She walked on shaking legs, entering her kitchen through the back door. Without turning on the light, she sat at the kitchen table for a long time, trying to sort out the things she had seen this night, trying to get her whirling emotions under control. The heat within her beautiful, perfectly proportioned body was consuming her, eating at her tits, nipples and cunt. Lynn had never felt so aroused in her life. Her cunt throbbed as if it were going to explode.
Lynn rested her head on her arms, tears of frustration seeping from her eyes. She had never felt so miserable in her whole life. The tormenting hungers inside her gnawed like some giant beast and she fought off the over-whelming desire to ram her fingers up her cunt and finger-fuck herself to exhaustion.
When she finally started up the stairs, her face was tear-streaked, her eyes red. Her face showed the intensity of her sexual torment. Her flesh felt feverish and she could feel the burning juices of her cunt smearing the inner smoothness of her thighs. Her clitoris throbbed without relief.
She heard the splashing in the hall bathroom and she froze. A lurching ache shot through her cunt and without thinking she pushed the bathroom door open and slipped inside. The tiny room was as dark as a deep tunnel.
"Carolyn?" came Bobby's sleepy voice.
"Mmm." Lynn answered, not daring to say anything.
She slipped toward her son, feeling for him in the darkness.
"That made me so sleepy, Carolyn," Bobby murmured. "But I had to piss."
Lynn felt her son's arm and her own body began to shake. Lynn pressed her tits and stomach against his back and moaned with mindless desire. She wrapped her arms about her son, sliding her hot palms downward. She touched the sparse hair at the base of her son's cock and she gasped with hunger.
Bobby's hands were at his side and Lynn's breath was hot on his shoulder as she took the base of his cock between finger and thumb. Her cunt was close to shattering as she ran her other hand down and felt her son's hot piss. She shook deliriously from head to toe. His piss was so hot, so wet, in her palm. Before he finished pissing, Lynn closed her fist about his prick and began to gently jack on it.
"That feels good, Carolyn," Bobby whispered, leaning his head back.
"Mmmmmmm," his mother responded, her voice disguised by the throatiness.
She squeezed his cock, cutting off the stream of piss. Lynn pressed her tits flat against his shoulders, rubbing her lower stomach back and forth, pressing her fiery cunt against him, trying to make her cunt convulse with orgasm. Bobby's cock hardened inside her jacking fist. Lynn ran her hand swiftly back and forth, lowering her other hand to squeeze his balls.
"Not so hard, Carolyn," he said. "You sure are jacking my cock fast. You want some more?"
Lynn moaned, licking at her son's shoulder. She bit it gently with her white teeth, pumping almost frantically on her son's cock in the darkness. She began to make soft, high pitched squeals of ecstasy, jerking faster and faster, squeezing and twisting at his young balls.
Lynn couldn't stand it any longer.
Her son thinking she was Carolyn created the most agonized desires ever within Lynn's body and mind. With sudden clarity, she realized that she could do anything with her son, anything at all, and he would never know it was his mother. He would always think it had been his sister.
With a soft, urgent cry, Lynn fell to her knees behind him. Keeping a powerful grip on his cock and balls, she shot her face forward and began to kiss and lick wetly and hotly at his young ass. Bobby gave a startled yelp, but stood in trembling pleasure. Driven almost out of her mind with lust, Lynn scraped her tongue up and down her son's ass.
Sobbing with joy, Lynn twisted her son around quickly, his hard cock slapping at her face as he turned. Feverishly, Lynn began to kiss the sides of his young cock, running the flat surface of her tongue hungrily up and down his prick shaft.
"Are you gonna suck my cock, Carolyn?" Bobby asked, his voice breaking with pleasure. "Are you going to put my cock in your mouth?"
"Mmmm," Lynn moaned in reply, shoving her face into her son's crotch.
Her long tongue was beneath his balls and she licked at them in a frenzy, her lips open wide. With his cock throbbing against her cheek, Lynn clutched his tight ass with both hands, pulling his crotch tight into her face. She whimpered then swallowed a scream as her cunt suddenly contracted, wet waves of heat boiling through her body as she came.
Crying out in passion, she shoved her face upward and gulped her son's cock into her mouth. She heard Bobby gasp. The feel and taste of his young cock between her wet lips, the hardness of it on her tongue, the swollen, dripping head pressing into her throat made her cunt burst with shattering orgasms time and again.
She held his ass tightly, her lips smashed upon the base of his cock. Lynn began to sob with ecstasy, digging her fingers into the cheeks of her son's ass. She sucked hard and fast on his cock, her throat ready to accept the load of his creamy juice. Her head bobbed and her cunt wouldn't stop coming. Each convulsion was stronger than the last and she went after his cock like a starving woman.
"I'm gonna..." Bobby gurgled, almost strangling on his words. His body was trembling violently and the more he trembled, the harder and faster his mother sucked. "Carolyn, you're gonna make me come!"
"Ooommmm," his mother moaned in ecstasy.
Lynn felt his cock swell inside her wet, hot mouth. It had been so long since she had given a blow-jab. She felt her son's body shake, then become stiff.
"I'm... ohhh!"
The eruption of his hot come juice squirted over her tongue. With the initial taste Lynn's cunt almost blew to pieces. She wailed around her son's cock then rammed her lips down against the base, drawing the honey-tasting come juice from his balls. She swallowed his come juice with wet, gulping, ecstatic sounds.
"In your mouth!" Bobby gurgled. "I'm coming off into your mouth, Carolyn! Oh, you're letting me come in your mouth! I like this, Carolyn! Coming in your mouth!"
Lynn heard her son. She was drinking down his thick, ever-so-sweet come juice, her cunt going through incredible orgasms. She was close to fainting with sheer bliss. It seemed as if her son came and came too.
She held her son's cock in her mouth when he finished coming, running her tongue over his piss hole and caressing the cheeks of his ass. Weakness came over her and she slumped toward the rim of the bath tub, her eyes glazed, her legs spreading wide, her arms loose at her sides.
"Carolyn?" Bobby asked. "Are you all right, Carolyn?"
"Mmmm," Lynn mewled.
"I'm gonna go back to bed, Carolyn," he said sleepily.
He glanced back at the opened door. There was hardly any light from the hallway but he saw one long thigh stretched out, a brush of cunt hair at the top.
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I adore all your art with cookie and was interested in Sapphicworld- but I’m curious (so plz don’t take this as a negative-) what exactly in your opinion sets it apart from other Queer PBTA hacks like Thirsty Sword Lesbians?
I’d just really like to hear your thoughts about it as a system and world especially given you are a indie developer yourself?
hi!! thank you!!
so, a few caveats before i start off — one, i actually haven't played many other pbta games (like for example i know Of thirsty sword lesbians + own a copy that i've poked around in but im not very familiar w it), so i honestly can't provide much in the way of comparing/contrasting it w other pbta stuff in the same vein, and my impressions of sapphicworld are pretty much just contained to the game as its own thing, not so much sapphicworld as a Type Of Game
and two, while i am a dev myself, i'm a huge novice! like, i'm proud of the stuff i put out and i love doing it, but i personally feel like my lack of experience is such that like, i don't think my opinions in this case are particularly informed by my own work as a dev or anything. all this to say im happy to answer this question, i think i just gotta tackle it from a different frame than what ur specifically asking!
BUT ANYWAY. i can still talk abt why im so excited abt sapphicworld in a way that has kind of outstripped other stuff in general, and for me it's about the world 100%. like i honestly spend close to no time thinking abt the fact that sw is even pbta to be honest. not that the mechanics + gameplay aren't important, bc they are thoughtfully crafted and well done and fun, and i'm saying that from the perspective of someone who playtested earlier versions that have now been reworked! it's just like, not what comes to mind first for me — what's exciting and fresh and irreplaceable abt the game in my mind is like. it is fully committed to immersing you in an extremely lush, strange, richly fleshed out world, one with a long history and folklore/mythology and a TON of really fun npcs who all have different subcultures and its own calendar with seasonal holidays and regional terrain with specific fleshed out dungeons/towns/etc to discover and even like, specific FOODS typical to each different region and and and and —
and maybe at first that seems kind of overwhelming, and tbh it is. when i first got into it and i was going thru the playtest document (which if im remembering right was like. ~300 pages shorter at the time than the current playtest doc) i DO remember anxiously thinking to myself "god this is a LOT and idk if i'll be able to retain enough of this to rp convincingly" etc etc. but like... it's just really compelling, and it does an incredible job of mixing humor and gravity and horniness in a perfect ratio that always comes across as intensely earnest and makes it equally easy to have a fun goofy time or a really emotional time, which i think is REALLY hard to do.
and while normally it's hard for me to get thru something that dense and long all i can really say is that i just straight up like it enough and was charmed by it enough to pick away at it until i grasped it and felt like i understood a bunch about the world, which also has a curve to it bc in structure and tone its very different from any of your... idk more Standard fantasy or sci fi worldbuilding, so it's not like u can immediately slot in ur expectations from other settings and just learn some new vocab words, it's a world that from my perspective also Functions differently than a lot of other fictional settings in a way that's a little hard to describe succinctly. (none of this is succinct to begin with but ykwim). it makes me want to gm my own campaign, really really bad, when usually i have always been absolutely Terrified of the idea of gming! idk man. it has a Flavor. it's full of Vapors. u get transported somewhere else reading it and playing it in a way i haven't experienced in a while and a lot of times after a playtest session i felt like my brain stayed behind in sapphicworld for a pretty long time.
i feel like i am sounding a little melodramatic and incoherent but like. genuinely sapphicworld is just a fictional world that i am really bone-deep charmed by and interested in and when i WAS reading thru the rulebook for those first days it did not take me long at all to find myself constantly thinking "i want to play in this world, i want to play in this world, i can't wait to play in this world," and i just think that's really special. and like — just as your curiosity abt comparing sw to tsl was not intended as a diss or a negative, what im abt to say is similarly neutral — im a person who sometimes finds it a little difficult to click with or feel excited abt a lot of the Queer Indie Stuff that i see get popular with other people, bc it just doesn't connect w my specific lesbian + trans experience; not that it feels inauthentic but that im like, oh, idk, i think these guys are just. not My Zone, ykwim. on the flip side so much of the humor and heart and transness and sex in sapphicworld is something that really resonates w me and just Clicks in a way that i have also found really special.
rounding myself off before i ramble for like five more paragraphs but just as one more morsel of something i like abt sapphicworld that is a little more concrete than me spinning around the room yelling "I JUST LIKE IT OKAY": one of the most fun parts of character creation is getting to mix and match your kind (sort of like ancestry/species, the form ur physical body takes) with a subculture. so u get things like a werewolf babe (cookie! babe being a subculture that focuses on being Like, Totally Hot), or a centaur knight, or a minotaur debaucher, or a vampire cowboy, or an organist (cthulu-y tentacle guy) scenester, or a skeleton wizard, etc etc etc etc — there are SO MANY to pick from that when i was trying to bait my friends into playing w me i couldn't find a convenient way to list them all so ppl could start thinking abt their characters. and every possible combination basically is interesting and amusing and fun and practically THROWS a great oc into your lap and i literally think i could amuse myself endlessly just Making Characters in sapphicworld and never actually playing w them.
[panting, disheveled] so tldr. i like it. uh. what sets sapphicworld apart from other ttrpgs to me is that i have fallen balls to the wall in love with the very soul of it to the point where i don't even really think about it in comparison to other games at all and it has just become an Experience to me and i suppose i cannot guarantee anyone else will fall into insane homosexual hysteria in the same way but here we are. HOPE THAT HELPS
(ALSO PSSST. idk if this is just perfect timing or if ur curiosity was specifically prompted by this but the @sapphicworldttrpg patreon DID just launch and if any of this has been intriguing u should check it out. okay mwah bye)
#anyway thank u bc ive been so busy these past few weeks/months ive had no time to rotate it in my brain#and im not caught up on the most current versions etc#so this was a nice opportunity to slow down and take a breath and geek out abt something i like a lot. :D#sapphicworld#ttrpgs#also hi eclipse i am a little embarrassed to have tagged u onto a post of me just like. Gushing-#-but i want ppl to be able to find the game account lol. [waves sheepishly] i like ur art. as u know.
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How about… “Hey…are you dead yet?”
Thank you for the prompt, @sunnyrosewritesstuff! I am loving these! This one was a hard one for some reason, but I liked the challenge, and I'm pleased with how it turned out!
This is for the March Madness fotfics event!
Also on AO3 under my "Tales on the Road to Erebor" collection
Bagginshield {T}
Title: Better on your lips
How long had they been walking? Carrock seemed like a pleasant but distant memory. The eagles had saved them, but they retained few packs after escaping the Goblins, fewer still after the eagles. Gandalf had disappeared shortly after they landed, babbling about scouting ahead to see if an old friend still resided in the area. He had yet to return. Their movements in the region were bracketed by the wargs that never left their trail, stopping them from being able to rest for more than a few hours at a time. They were aided only by the advantage of a head start. Now the company wandered between rocky moors, trying to scrap by on what they had and what they could catch. Unfortunately, what they had was almost nonexistent, and what they could catch would seem to be very little.
Before this adventure, Bilbo was not accustomed to the feeling of true hunger. Since he had learned to get by on what he was offered while traveling. While he was never truly full, he wasn't starving. That was until now. Three days ago, Thorin had tightened everyone's rations again. They got a small piece of hard tack or jerky per day. A few wonderful times, they had found enough to forage that he could have two pieces. The dwarves seem to be pressing on in rather the same fashion as they always did despite the restrictions. How they did, Bilbo didn't know. He could feel his stomach practically eating his spine. His clothes fell loosely around his frame, and he had punched a few new holes in his belt. He had never felt hunger like this before, but he had heard it described to him in stories by those who had lived through the fell winter that plagued Hobbiton before he was born.
“Hobbits aren't meant to go without food.” His mother once warned, “It messes with our minds and can drive us mad.” Mad. Yes, that’s what this felt like. Bilbo was lost in his train of thought. He didn't see the rest of the company stop. He was stopped mid-stride by a thick hand on his wrist.
“Master Baggins, I said we are stopping for a few hours. Or do you intend on continuing on without us?” The sound of Thorin’s voice was usually pleasant, but today it cut at the edges of his nerves.
“What would it matter if I did? We'll be dead within a week with this rate of not finding food.” Bilbo wrenched his wrist out of Thorin’s grasp and stalked back toward the center of the party.
“Oh, don't be like that, Bilbo! Landscape’s getting a little less rocky, and I’m sure we’ll find something soon enough!” Bofur’s chipper attitude was growing annoying and incredibly tiresome. Bilbo found the nearest tree and curled in on himself, not bothering to interact with others.
Predictably Thorin had ordered there to be no fire, so the company made themselves as comfortable as they could around a clump of trees. Soon Bombur started to hand out rations. Bilbo took his and held it in the palm of his hand, trying to will it to be bigger. As much as his quip from earlier had been made in annoyance, he really didn't know if he would be able to survive more of this. Lack of food, lack of sleep, and constant movement. He was likely to collapse at any moment. But what could he do or say? They were all hungry, they had an orc pack on their tail, and there was no time to stop and forage. He had just started to earn the respect of the company. Would complaining about how he needed more food than a typical dwarf despite being half the size put him right back in the position he was in before Carrock? He didn't want that. He liked the new softness that Thorin’s eyes held for him now.
No, regardless of the risk, he knew what he had to do. It was not as if he would achieve rest with his stomach like this. He needed to find food, ANY food. He could sneak off and be back before anyone knew he was gone, and if he did find something, perhaps they wouldn't be so cross that he snuck out in the first place.
______________
Across the camp, Thorin pulled Balin and Dwalin into a meeting.
“We all know the situation. We have less than a week before we’re out of rations completely. These lands seem unusually barren of anything to hunt.” Balin stated.
“Now that we’re out of the cliffside, we need to try and forage. It’s our only option!” Dwalin urged
“The last time we stopped to forage, the Orcs made significant ground!” Thorin reminded him. When they first left the eagles, they had traveled for a few days, then when the company thought they were a fair distance from danger, they had scattered temporarily to look for anything edible and had managed to scrounge up a few things. That night, however, they heard their first sign that the wargs were drawing nearer. It would seem evil truly never slept.
“We could use the downtime we have now?” Balin suggested.
“No. The rest of the company hasn't gotten the chance to rest in days. They won't last another night of no sleep. I’ll go and be back in a few hours. When I return, we move again.” Thorin was particularly conceded about Bilbo. He had been in good spirits coming down from Carrock, but as the rations tightened, his mood went sour. In the last three days, Bilbo hasn't smiled a single time. The hobbit’s shrinking frame was not something that had gone unnoticed. He remembered Bilbo telling stories to the rest of the company that hobbits proudly ate seven times a day. At the time, it seemed an incredible feat. Dwarves could certainly pack down a meal when it was offered, but they could withstand sustaining themselves on small amounts of food for long times. It was this fact that got them through the first few harsh winters in Ered Luin. Now though, after months of watching how Bilbo’s body had changed, he realized that hobbits must have incredibly fast metabolisms. He was quite literally watching Bilbo wither away, and it was increasingly painful to watch.
A few times, he had instructed Bombur to give his piece to Bilbo, with the instruction of letting him know they were able to forage more than usual and could spare the extra piece. The hunger of that day was made lighter by the quiet sounds of happiness Bilbo made when he ate. Every part of him wanted to keep Bilbo happy and smiling forever.
Thorin didn't wait. After the meeting ended, he immediately started heading further into the trees. One of the hardest things about this area was that the clumps of trees present were dense but scarce. Thorin didn't like having the wind at his back. It felt too venerable, so he stuck to the forested areas as much as possible. An hour into his search and he found nothing. Another 30 min, and finally, he came across a downed tree littered with mushrooms. Thorin wasn't an expert at knowing what was and wasn't edible, so he grabbed as many as he could and stuffed them in the bag he had brought. Bombur or Bilbo could tell him if they were edible later.
He started walking back towards camp, then stopped dead and quietly drew his sword as he heard the sound of the underbrush shaking. Either this was about to be a problem, or he was about to return to the company with something that would make Bilbo smile again. He listened for the sound of whatever it was to clear the underbrush, then lept out to attack. He dropped his sword mid-swing when he saw it was Bilbo. The hobbit had his shirt pulled up to make a pouch. The pouch was currently half-filled with mulberries. He looked like he had just been caught in a trap. His hazel eyes widened as he finished chewing the mouthful he had likely just eaten before Thorin appeared. His initial reaction was to be annoyed. Everyone in camp has strict orders to rest and not stray. Oh, but how could he be mad? Bilbo looked positively thrilled. His eyes had light in them, and he had a stain of mulberry juice just under his bottom lip. Bilbo’s presence did things to his mind even he didn't fully understand. He so badly wanted to remove the stain with his tongue. Thorin loved mulberries. They held a similar but sweeter taste to blackberries. Would they taste even better on Bilbo’s lips? Mahal above grant him willpower.
“Thorin! I-I promise that I had every intention of sharing! Th-they just looked so good and-” Thorin put his hand on Bilbo’s wrist to stop the flood of words.
“Peace, Master Baggins. I might have done the same. Mulberries don't last long once picked, anyway. We’ll have to eat all of these tonight, or they won't keep.” Thorin held out the bag he had brought so that Bilbo could deposit what he had collected.
“I didn’t think dwarves would know about mulberries. They don't grow in the mountains.”
“No, but they grew in the area between Ered Luin and The Shire. I traveled that road many times in search of work. They became some of my favorite things to look for on the journey.” Thorin closed the sack and gently placed it on the ground.
“Here, you should have some before we head back. I know you skip meals sometimes.” Bilbo took Thorin’s wrist and pulled it towards himself. He splayed his fingers over Thorin’s palm so that his hand oped more and dropped a hobbit-sized handful of berries. Bilbo’s hands were always so warm and so full of life. The casual contact felt nice; no, it felt right. He closed his hands over the berries gently so as not to crush them.
“Thank you. If you want to look for more, you can. We have a little time before we need to head back. You really shouldn't have come out here alone, however. I would ask that you not do it again for your own safety.”
“Hey… are you dead yet? No? You're welcome. If I managed to save your life, I can protect my own long enough to pick berries. Besides, It was either I try to find food, go mad, or don't wake up from my next nap.” He turned around and went back to tending the bush while he spoke. Thorin chewed on the words before they finally caught up to him.
“Wait, what do you mean ‘Don't wake up from your next nap’? I knew you were having a harder time than the rest of the company, but I didn't realize it was that dire! Why didn't you say anything!” A zing of panic bolted through him. How much had he missed? Was Bilbo so starved that he verged on death?
“Without food, hobbits wither. Eventually, if we can't find enough to eat after a long enough time, we just stop. It happened to a lot of hobbits once. The winter my mother was a small lass. Many hobbits died of starvation. Some lost their minds first; others just went to sleep and never woke up. I’ve never experienced hunger like this before, and it feels like my mother's stories, so I suppose it is possible. I didn't want to be an extra burden. We’re all suffering a lack of food, not just me. I had no right to complain,” Bilbo replied. Thorin took a step forward and spun Bilbo, so he was looking at him. He tried to keep the desperate and terrified tone out of his voice, resulting in him letting his anger loose instead.
“You are dying! What better time is there? Fair does not mean equal. What would I have - we have done if you perished! This company needs its burglar if we are to see this quest through. After everything we went through in the goblin tunnels, you would let yourself die over something as simple as being a burden! I would rather you be a burden than dead!” Thorin was no longer gripping Bilbo’s shoulders. He had moved in his own panic to cradle Bilbo’s head between his hands.
“I wasn't thinking straight; I’m sorry. But if we have to stop and forage every few days, then the wargs will catch up to us. I can't ask the company to put themselves in mortal danger for the sake of my stomach.”
“Then I will! I will guarantee your safety!” Thorin took a step toward Bilbo but halted at the look of fear in his eyes. For a moment, he thought he had truly overstepped. He had been nothing but dismissive of Bilbo up until this point. What right did he have to ask Bilbo to trust him with his life?
“Thorin, duck!” Bilbo yelled. He didn't have time to respond before Bilbo threw his weight into him, toppling them over. Thorin heard nothing in the undergrowth or area around them. He looked around to make sure Bilbo was ok and found him flat on his back next to him, clutching a large struggling snake in his hands. Thorin couldn't reach his sword from his position on his back, so he rolled on top of Bilbo, grabbed the snake, and crushed the bones around its neck with one hand rendering it dead. The snake fell limply at their side.
“That’s an adder, very venomous,” Bilbo said between a few big gulps of air.” When Bilbo had the wind back in his lungs, he started laughing obnoxiously. Thorin cocked an eyebrow.
“It’s the absurdity of it all. We come to the woods to look for food. Both find a few things, run into each other, then run into a snake. It will make a funny story one day.” with that explanation, Thorin found he could not resist laughing either. “It gets better. They’re venomous, not poisonous, which means we just caught ourselves meat for a stew.” Bilbo giggled again and grabbed a berry off the ground, one of the ones Thorin had been holding in his hand, and popped it into his mouth, making a happy little sound. There was a distinct glint in Bilbo’s eye that didn't let Thorin move from where he was, even though he was incredibly aware that he was positioned over the hobbit.
“Do I have something on my face?” Bilbo asked, bringing a hand up to his lips in a self-conscious move due to Thorin’s staring. Thorin’s eyes flickered to the stain of mulberry juice still on Bilbo’s lip. It was then that members of his company decided to burst through the underbrush.
“Over here, I found them!” Dwalin shouted. His shout died on his lips as he saw the position they were in. Thorin quickly got to his feet, pulling Bilbo with him.
“We caught dinner,” Thorin said, thrusting the snake into Dwalin's chest. Dwalin smirked. “Sorry to interrupt.”
“Make sure Bilo gets back to camp safely.” Thorin grouched. He had almost done it. One more moment, and he would have laid claim to Bilbo’s soft lips and all the promises they held within them. When he returned to the rest of the company, he found a quiet place to sit and eat his share of mulberries. The more he ate, the more he was certain. They would indeed taste so much better on Bilbo’s lips.
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helloo!! I'm entering for your 200 followers event. Congrats on that, by the way!
Could you do a Zhongli x reader with the number 43?
I hope I did this right 😭
Thank you !!
I can do that, certainly! And you did do it right :>
I've got a feeling this is going to be some angsty stuff, so sorry in advance -
Content: gender neutral reader x Zhongli (in a timeline where canon events haven't happen and he still retains his gnosis and archon status) (romantic), mentions of death (not of either main character), some unhealthy obsessive/messed up behaviour from Zhongli that stems from his grief. A little bit dark maybe, if you're unsure feel free to DM me and I'll give you a proper rundown (I just don't want to spoil it all right here)
Word count: ~690
They say that dragons hoard what is most precious to them, building up piles upon piles of treasures that they then protect with their lives.
Though not a full-blooded dragon, Zhongli still retains some of the instincts of his ancestry, no matter how long he spends compressed into his 'human' form.
The treasures he decides to collect, however, are anything but traditional.
Despite his status as the God of Mora, there is something that Rex Lapis himself values more than gold, more than all the shining gemstones hiding beneath the planet's outer crust.
History.
Zhongli has never been one to forget a face, nor to let a good story go to waste. He always takes special care to make sure rumours and tales reach the right people so that they can live onwards and travel to the far reaches of Teyvat, even if their protagonists couldn't.
As the years wear on, everything and everyone has its allotted time to go, Zhongli came to accept this many centuries ago now. Stories are forgotten, once-important traditions drift off into obsolescence, people pass on.
But in recent years, he's grown restless. So many of his loved ones are slipping from his grasp, like fine sand cascading out into the endless dark of the abyss, where he is unable to follow.
Even stone wears down eventually, and Zhongli is finding that as his hard outer shell thins, thinking of every loss pains him more, like touching an exposed nerve.
As always, he surrounds himself with those he cares for, those who make him happy, but lately, he can't seem to shake the looming truth that they'll all one day disappear like dust in the wind. Life is unpredictable, inconsistent, he begins to dread every day, knowing that it could be someone's last.
"Hah, if only all of us could be immortal and all-knowing." You'd said it as a joke, a throw away line directed towards Zhongli after he'd corrected you on something unimportant.
At the time, Zhongli had seemingly taken it in stride, reacting with a tight-lipped smile and a gentle chuckle. Little did you know, that was the beginning of something darker, much more… sinister than you'd ever know.
Zhongli considered himself happy with the way things were right now - modern day Liyue was gorgeous, its citizens in good spirit and health, and free from strife, though rumours of trouble brewing in their neighbouring country of Inazuma were often circulated. Something about their Archon clinging to the ideal of eternity.
Eternity. Zhongli tucked this knowledge away too, adding it to his quickly growing hoard of thoughts to muse on when he had a spare moment.
Why couldn't everything be the same? Not for an eternity, of course, but just… just for a little while. He's been working so hard for so long, Zhongli firmly believes he deserves a break.
He spends a lot of time thinking about you specifically. Of course, his other friends and companions occupy his thoughts too, but there's something particular about you and the nature of your relationship that he especially cherishes, despite the fact that when it's all in perspective, you're barely a blip on his millenia-spanning timeline.
Zhongli doesn't mean to hide himself away, he's simply… thinking. Thinking of ways to share his power, his burden, just for a little while, to ease the waters flow on the paths of sorrow that have worn their way deep into his heart. Surely that isn't selfish, right?
Given the opportunity, he'd share his backhanded gift of immortality with all of his loved ones, but you're at the top of his list, the crown jewel of his collection.
One day, he thinks to himself as he pores over a heavy old tome.
I know that you will be there.
He knows it in his heart, you'll be accompanying him to the ends of the earth if it's the last thing he does.
One day, I'll focus on the future, maybe.
Once he's sure you're safe and secure, he'll turn to the horizon and think about what comes next.
One day,
If you say no?
Oh baby, isn't life so fucking inconsistent?
He'll find a way.
Please don't repost, steal, copy or otherwise plagarise my writing! This includes posting translations to other sites (without credit + permission).
#asks#genshin x reader#genshin impact x reader#genshin imagines#genshin self insert#my writing#genshin headcanons#zhongli#zhongli x reader#morax#morax x reader#rex lapis#rex lapis x reader#genshin angst#200 follower event#songfic
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also taylor philip for 20
20. things you said that i wasn’t meant to hear
“I was one word out of power,” Tuk says miserably. “One whole word between me and fifteen points.”
“Didn’t keep us from winning.” Philip steps aside to let the disgruntled freshmen of Stanford C leave first. “Great game, guys.” It wasn’t, but brutal honesty won’t help Stanford retain half-decent players once he’s graduated.
“And a buzz just out of power is still a very good buzz.” Ben unfolds their schedule and runs a finger down the page. “Back to Room 211.”
Philip takes the lead, weaving through the teams crowding the hall in the search for their next game. “That was Kate’s room. Good for us.” No getting lost, no need to travel, more familiar moderators — he almost feels bad for the schools that never get the advantages of hosting.
“Weren’t the buzzers in there the handheld kind?” Tuk says. “I hate that they don’t have their own lights. Having to look at the console to know if I buzzed first always throws me off.”
“I don’t mind them,” Ben says, “though they do sometimes make me feel like I should answer in the form of a question.”
“Anything more ergonomic than the Judge is fine by me.” Philip gets the door. “Who are we playing?”
Room 211 is nearly empty. No Kate, no spectators. The only player there sits in the third chair down from the moderator’s desk, flipping through a notebook, pen in hand; their short black hair is so disheveled he’d call it bedhead if it weren’t past noon. From behind Philip, Ben says, half a question, “Berkeley A?”
The player looks up. “Yes. Stanford B?”
“That’s us,” Philip says. The Berkeley player — he can’t settle on a more specific noun than that — nods and scribbles something in their notebook.
“Oh, no,” Tuk whispers, and Philip finds himself spun around by a tug on his arm and pulled into an impromptu team huddle.
“Something wrong?”
“I talked to some of the other teams between rounds,” Tuk begins inauspiciously. “They said all Berkeley A’s matches have been blowouts and their top scorer makes Watson look like ENIAC.”
“That’s not that high a bar, it’s a completely different game —”
“This is all speculation until stats are posted,” Ben says, “but I have heard that Berkeley A has had some… lopsided wins. And the name Taylor has come up a lot.”
“And we don’t even have a full team!”
“You’re both that worried about one guy?” Philip frees his sleeve from Tuk’s grasp and stands a little straighter. “Look. We’ve studied hard, we’ve practiced, and we’ve played well today. If we lose this one, we lose knowing we brought our best. If we win, we’ll be proud that we beat a better team and did it short-handed, and —”
“Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,” someone mumbles behind him, “and say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’”
Philip turns. It could only have been the Berkeley player, who’s put down their pen. “Excuse me?”
“I gathered from your ‘band of brothers’ spiel that playing against us is your Battle of Agincourt, so I thought I’d help out. If I’d known sooner, I would have sent a crate of tennis balls.”
Philip doesn’t believe in talking trash at tournaments, because it’s unsportsmanlike and because this is quiz bowl, not the damn NHL. But is he supposed to stand here as if this asshole isn’t insulting him completely unprompted? “Wow. That kind of deep knowledge of Henry V probably got you some great buzzes at ACF Fall.”
“I haven’t played it since 2012,” the Berkeley player says, sounding bored. “How was it this year?”
Shit.
“It was great,” Tuk says, either not catching the dig at Philip or not caring. “So much easier than this tournament. But I guess they can’t all be like that.”
“Penn Bowl is more difficult than Fall, by design,” the Berkeley player says. “Are you a freshman?”
“Sophomore.”
“So you have time. You’ll improve.”
“Thanks.” Tuk sounds genuinely touched by that bland encouragement from a near-stranger.
“Uh, where’s the rest of your team?” Ben asks. “And Kate — the moderator? If you know?”
“My teammates are lodging a protest,” the Berkeley player says. “Which I doubt will be resolved. The moderator stepped out for a break.” So all their rudeness is reserved for Philip. Fantastic.
The door flies open, and a guy in glasses and a tall girl with a ponytail burst in, mid-argument. “— I just figured since you said you play softball, maybe —”
“Past tense,” says Ponytail. “I played softball. For one season.” She takes the first chair on Berkeley A’s side.
“Hello to you, too,” Bedhead mutters, and Philip doesn’t think anyone else hears it.
“Well, excuse me for being open-minded.” Glasses drops his backpack and throws himself down between his teammates. “I’m guessing you guys are from Stanford.”
“The B-team,” Tuk says, straightening his STANFORD sweatshirt. “Oh, hey —”
“Looks like I’m fashionably late,” says Kate from the doorway. “Sorry to keep you all waiting.”
“Wasn’t that long a wait.” And she’s dressed sharply enough to qualify as fashionably late, as well as to make both teams look like slobs. How she has the time and energy for this as a 3L, Philip really can’t imagine. He and his teammates take their seats while she gets settled at the moderator’s desk.
“Round 7… Stanford B and Berkeley A?” Nods and yeses all around the table. “Full disclosure, I’m a Stanford student. And I read for these guys a few rounds ago. Berkeley A, are you waiting for anyone?”
“No,” Bedhead says. No surprise that their top scorer’s performance is inflated if they’re playing shorthanded too.
“Good. Let’s do buzzer checks.”
“I’ll start.” Philip buzzes in and watches the console. Green light. “Philip.” Kate knows every Stanford player by name, of course, but introductions benefit the other team as well. They should know who’s aiming the longbows at them.
Buzz. “Ben.”
Buzz. “Tuk. T-U-K, no C.”
“Alright. Berkeley A?”
Ponytail buzzes. “Rian, with an I. Like Rian Dawson.”
“Nobody knows who that is,” Glasses says. “At least say Rian Johnson.”
“No. Looper sucked.”
“Whatever.” Buzz. “Winston.”
“You must get all the 1984 tossups,” Tuk says.
“No way. I refuse to read that book. Even in high school —”
“Let’s cut down on the chatter, please,” Kate says, but Philip needs a moment more, because if that’s Berkeley A’s whole roster and there’s only one introduction left to make — “Player three?”
Buzz.
“Taylor.”
Shit.
(send me a ship and a prompt and i’ll write a mini fic)
#inbox#unproduciblesmackdown#billions#philip charyn#taylor mason#tuk lal#ben kim#winston billions#rian billions#kate sacker#sometimes i write#with all those character tags it should be no surprise this is over a thousand words. oops ¯\_(ツ)_/¯#taylip
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Cancelled Episode 20 "Black-white dragon"
"Yo mama so fat, she is 20 time zones wide!"
-yo mama jokes series
We're back in the Black Venom King's cave again, as usual with us getting into caves and forests and oceans and stuff.
Well at least with the Wandering Evenstar we only need to complete the ritual with the exact instructions he gives us before we can unseal him.
Aannnddd...just one large step and drawing a large random imaginary circle in the air...and done!
Whoohoo! We all watch in awe as the seal on the Black Venom King's chains break-and, subsequently, his chains start to break too under the weight of his power...his venom...
And then, suddenly, out of nowhere, he dashes forward towards Hydrogenium and, summoning venom-infused claws, forced his hand on Hydrogenium's neck the same way I forced my sword on Disparage's neck the last time we were in this cave.
I gather my sword and infuse it with shadow energy-heh, I've lost my Kineticore, but I still retain Erik's powers-and prepare to head into combat anytime.
This others already reacted and got their weapons ready, getting into combat mode already. Alas, this is one of those moments I'll never know who reacts faster...
"Where! Is! The! Anodyne!" He screams not very loudly, demanding to know where this so-called Anodyne is.
"Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa, calm down there, mister, ehehe, uh...why don't we talk this over nicely like civilised beings, huh?" and suddenly Hydrogenium is throwing her hands up in the air and cowering on fear and trying to talk her way out of this rather than engaging in full-on combat. Just how powerful is this guy, exactly?
Well, powerful enough to "shake the heaven and earth with one roar", and considering he's the Dragon Lord's greatest nemesis, the LORD OF ALL LORDS MIGHT I REMIND YOU, he's definitely not a force to be reckoned with.
"Well, for starters, what exactly is this... "Anodyne" you speak of?" Disparage makes the first move to set things straight with the Black Venom King.
"Didn't you read the sacred inscription? That's how you came to know of me, right? The "seed of great power"...the Anodyne?" he answers with such a...great tone that onlookers might even mistake it for common knowledge that we just happen not to have enough inteliigence to know.
"And why the hell would I have it?" Hydrogenium defends with a good point, flailing and waving her arms around to further prove her innocence.
"BECAUSE OF THAT HAND THERE! THAT DARK-SLEEP INFUSED-HAND THAT ONCE CARRIED THE ANODYNE IN IT!" he's still screaming, but this time with much more intensity and definitely much louder.
"What...Oxygenium, did you see the Anodyne when you retrieved this hand?" Hydrogenium glares playfully at the fox, who then wimpers and innocently mutters a few words in fox language, and scampers away to Erik's arms.
"So, no, it says, no, the Anodyne was nowhere to be found when it found the hand, it just happened to merge with my own hand when I touched it," Hydrogenium shrugs and says it so casually.
"And you trust what that fox says? I'll-" oh, now, the Black Venom's King really unleashing even a fraction of his true power. Now it's about to get interesting!
Oh, but, Disparage has already gotten hold of the Wandering Evenstar and is threatening to seal him back in again. "If you dare to harm anybody, we've unsealed you before, we can always seal you back in again!"
The Black Venom King immediately retreats and sheaths his claws back. "Alright, alright...no need to get physical, ok? It's hard work unsealing me, you sure you wanna seal me back in again?"
Well, now that's he no longer showing signs of aggression, we can finally begin the proper questioning.
"First, answer our questions. What the hell is an Anodyne?" Hydrogenium, once released from the grasp of the Black Venom King, wanted to clarify.
"An...Anodyne...is...uh..." The Black Venom King stuttered and stammered, clearly not wanting to tell the truth.
Disparage, upon seeing that, held in position the Wandering Evenstar again. "Do we really need to go through this all over again, hmm?"
"No no no no no no no no! I'll-I'll-I'll t-t-tell yo-you!" Looks like the Wandering Evenstar, or, basically, the thought of getting sealed back in again really scares him, huh.
"Ugh..." He cleared his throat and prepared to deliver the speech he knew the Dragon Lord would kill him for had he heard him tell mere mortals such.
"The Anodyne...is the core power source, basically a power booster source, of an Exuvia, it grants them divine power on top of their divine power, and to other gods or even mere mortals, this power is absolute infinite..." His lips curl up in a wide smile almost subconsciously; or maybe it was on purpose, just to show through actions just how powerful this "Anodyne" was.
"And what exactly is an..."Exuvia", now?" Snowball continued to question him, allowing him no time to recover from that slow grinning to himself.
"Well...an Exuvia is a...creator deity, the ones responsible for creating the universe and everything in it that exists and does not exist, mmm....they're like....the absolute highest power! In the entire universe! Hehe.." the Black Venom King makes a rather futile attempt to laugh it off, thinking we'd just forget like that.
"I don't quite trust this guy..." Nemean remarked with a skeptical tone.
"Speak for yourself, Moonshadow Elf!" He immediately retaliated with an impulsive tone now, a large contrast from his previous calm demeanour.
"AND YOU. WHAT'S WITH THAT SWORD?" Trying to shake off the idea of impulsitivity, he fixes attention on me instead-or, more specifically, the sword in my hand, the sword I am wielding, the sword that fish goblin king gave me.
"When trying to retrieve the Wandering Evenstar, we were ambushed by an army of fish goblins, and because we weren't exactly the most skilled in underwater combat, we attempted to negotiate with them, and they allowed us to leave with the Evenstar in exchange for taking the sword off their hands," I explained nonchalantly.
"AND YOU THOUGHT TO CONTINUE TO BRING IT BACK?" He questions my extrenely flawed logic with quite a good point I can't exactly refute.
"Well, we do exactly have the very god that could be unsealed with the ancient relic the wielder of this sword was protecting, I'd have thought you'd have found some way to neutralise any of its negative effects, besides, what if it comes back to haunt us? That fish goblin king couldn't just throw it away and needed the Wandering Evenstar to finally get it off his hands, what makes you think we can?" I, however, decide to counter his counterpoint with another counterpoint, and explain why my flawed logic isn't exactly flawed.
"Well? What do you know of that sword?" Erik continues after the break of questioning.
"That sword...is indeed powerful. But it continuously drains the user's life force until they are dead when they wield it...then it proceeds to stay dormant until it finds a new host..." He hesitates before revealing the truth behind the...ungodly, sword.
"Hmph. Well, forget it, let's keep it, we might need it, I'll hold on to it," I also then proceed to inform them of three important points in a single sentence. That's what I call efficiency, not those mumbo-jumbo that go on and on about a single point that could have been sharp and concised to a few words.
"Well, now that we've unsealed the great Black Venom King, all that's left is to find his roar..." Nemean points out. Sharp and concise and straight to the point.
"Correct, although I have a proposal..." Disparage mutters, not wanting people to hear him clearly so that they'd ask for a confirmation.
"What?" And sure enough, Snowball fell into the trap.
"I think...Black Venom King, would it be possible to..." he takes a deep breath to deliver his suicide mission plan and also to stop muttering, "seize the element of surprise and get back your roar when we're already attacking the Dragon Lord?"
This time, however, the Black Venom King isn't taken aback by surprise. "I think he holds my venomic roar in a seal-glass jar somewhere deep within his castle, if things have stayed the same...so we don't want him to know that we already plan to attack when we get the venomic roar, so we get it and attack at the same time...interesting, risky but interesting. What say you, Alex?"
"How do you know my name-" I ask before being rudely interrupted by His Royal Eminence.
"I know everything that I should, so are you in or not?" He smiles charismatically.
Disparage, Snowball and Nemean nod one by one, no words.
Erik, still cuddling the fox, utters a muffled "What? Oh, yeah, yeah, sure," and continued to play with it.
Hydrogenium goes with the flow just like me last time. "Sure, if you're up for it, why not?"
And now the decision is all up to me. Well, sure, this is the suicide squad of lizard killing, ride or die, right?
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not to switch up the tone but i kind of wish i had a reason to live lol Like outside of hurting 3 people by my nonexistence there’s nothing i care about and there’s nothing to live for. there’s nothing to look forward to. feels like i really only have two directions to choose in life and they both sound awful. there’s either get worse or work to get better and both those things have tried to kill me and well my brain just really wants me dead and whatever.
what is there to strive for? like i have no idea anymore.
first i thought i always wanted to be a parent, then reality hit me and i realized i’m not equipped and probably never will be equipped to be a parent so i had to ditch that dream.
i also thought i wanted to be a cosmetologist but i learned i cant stand interacting with people to that capacity. i wanted to stick it out and try to graduate and i had this dream of creating a niche environment where someone can come in to get their hair done and they don’t have to worry about being social they can just relax and enjoy the service and i also wanted to create a space that was accessible and friendly to disabled people including children who struggle with getting their hair cut or washed for whatever their reason may be, including sensory reasons because that’s something that i obviously can relate to. But that’s all too big for me too. I’m not mature enough or responsible enough for that either. and I’m just not cut out for being a hair stylist. I had no idea how hard it would be to interact with so many strangers. And to try to learn all these incredibly hard skills and techniques all at the same time? I just couldn’t do it. i couldn’t do it. I became so stressed and so burnt out dealing with my mental health and school all at the same time i stopped being able to learn. or think. i would forget what was happening while i was doing it. i would forget what i was saying mid sentence. i couldn’t focus. i couldn’t retain anything anyone taught me. On top of this my school’s environment was so toxic, and my friends were toxic all they wanted to do was gossip that’s all we ever did was talk shit about everyone else and i was so scared to get picked on i picked on everyone else behind their back because i was so insecure i turned into this toxic person full of hate and bitterness and insecurity and envy and it started to eat me alive from the inside out. and i became so paranoid everyone was talking about me. it was insane. And with all that going on there was the revolving door of staff. everyone kept quitting and getting fired left and right. It was so stressful to try to learn from a new person constantly it was like i couldn’t grasp onto everything. and the added stress of the administration turnover and how poorly everything was handled with our paperwork and our hours we all got so fucked over and treated like shit all the meanwhile by staff. they changed directors and the enrollment person three or four different times, each, within one year. plus the whole thing that happened how they handled the blood spill situation. and how they handled it when my best school friend got sexually harassed by a client that had been repeatedly sexually harassing students, how they fucking handled that situation after their fake sexual harassment awareness fucking seminar they made us sit through then my best friend got sexually harassed suddenly “you can come to us with anything, our main priority is to keep our students safe” turns out to be a big fat lie
i just can’t go back to that school. the more i think about it every day i just can’t find any good reason to go back. i don’t even like hair like i used to anymore. which fucking sucks. like i still like it obviously. but it does not feel like a passion anymore which i guess is fine. that’s okay. Like that’s life i guess. you get over stuff. Even sometimes you get over your dreams.
But it’s like well now what.
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16 & 18?
16. Weirdest thing you've ever used as a bookmark? I've used clothing tags, like what has the price not the fabric one that's sewn in, and hung on to them for nearly a decade.
18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me the backstory of the moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end.
gonna go under a read more for this one, cause I’m about to get a wee bit long and a wee bit heavy (plus strong language, dealing with death, talking about abuse)
This is from the fanfic that I’ve been writing, Whatever it Takes, and context for this part, the POV character, Sandor, has just come back from assisting in his brother’s merciful death. His brother was awful to him throughout his life. Sansa is his wife.
“I will handle everything so that you won’t have to give him anymore of yourself. You’ve already given him the kindness of mercy. He doesn’t deserve anything else from you,” Sansa’s tone still retained a gentleness but there was a protective anger laced in it.
He wasn’t sure how she thought handling the arrangements would protect him.
“I got to kill him, even if I disguised it with the term mercy.” Sandor shook his head.
“I’m glad that you did. And I think that Prince Oberyn would be glad that you finished the deed. I could see how hard it was for you to sit and watch someone else have the opportunity to do what you’d trained and prepared for, for so long.”
“I wouldn’t have been able to do it.” The words left Sandor’s mouth before he could stop them. He dropped his head into his hands and pressed his eyes shut. Admitting that caused him physical pain, every joint screamed at him in that moment. “I’m still too weak from the injuries.”
He hated admitting it but this was the only person who he could admit it to. He could be honest with her and she’d never betray his confidence. He heard Sansa slip from her chair and felt her skirts pool against his boots as she knelt at his feet. Sansa grasped each of his hands with her own and gently pulled them from his face. Sandor opened his eyes to see her vivid blue eyes shining with warmth.
“You never have to compare yourself to him again. You never need to worry about whether you are strong enough to fight him. I know you are strong, no matter what you think.” Sansa squeezed his hands. She continued speaking passionately. “There is no one I trust more with my safety than you. There is no one who would fight harder than you.”
Sandor clenched his jaw and had to swallow down the immediate welling of emotions. Those blue eyes were right there and so full of faith in him. He almost could believe it himself. It almost was enough to ease the frustration he had with the weakness he still hadn’t shaken. Because he still tired easier than he used to, he couldn’t spar for as long, the weight of his broadsword took it’s toll faster. But those blue eyes stayed locked on his and believed in him.
How was it that she could have such belief in him? Was she still that naive that she couldn’t see the truth of how weak he’d become?
You never need to compare yourself to him again.
How long had he been training to be better than Gregor? How many times had he asked himself if today’s training was progress towards beating the Mountain? Because it didn’t matter if he was better than any of those other cunts, Gregor was the ultimate challenge. Gregor was the only thing that mattered. How often did he hear someone lump the Clegane brothers into the same category of monster? And when had he given up and stopped mentally arguing with them? Because he’d accepted that he needed to become a monster to defeat a monster.
So, the reason why I chose this passage, I had written the bits before and after this part first, they were the plot driven bits, and I sat down to fill this section in and put myself into the mindset of how I would be feeling when my abuser finally dies. So first and foremost, the POV character would be shaken with “he’s finally gone, I never have to be afraid of him hurting me, I no longer have to be on high alert for an attack” but it was also him coming to the realization that he had been on high alert for so long, always thinking about if he was strong enough to withstand the abuse, which for me was similar to if I was prepared for a sudden confrontation, was I smart enough to know the right thing to say to prevent my abuser from getting angry, was I smart enough to figure out how to escape.
This part was extremely cathartic to write and as I edited I allowed it to be even more of my own voice coming into it because I thought that was important for that feeling to coming through. This is a really conflicting feeling for victims of abuse, that happiness of the closure that an abuser is DEAD but also that pain in your heart that you don’t actually want to wish another human harm despite what they’ve done. The bit about never having to give anymore of yourself to him, you never need to spend any more of your energy on the person who hurt you, that’s something that was a big deal to me.
The passage also touches on how he feels about still being weak after an injury, and his identity is tied so much to his strength, as well as needing that strength to protect himself, which is also deeply personal to me because of my own health.
Oh! And there’s the added bit here that Sandor finally has someone who wants to support him through emotional turmoil, he has someone he can rely on. I felt this scene really shows how much Sansa understands what was needed in this moment emotionally and shows how well she understands protocol in these situations. She was able to really step up to the plate and take care of things while her partner worked through how he felt.
Anyways, I’ve gone really personal with this answer but I’ve always wanted to talk about this section so thank you for the opportunity.
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Hi three, congrats on 5k! Could I get $15 with Kita? Thanks!
A gamble….will it pay off?
$15 for the rice farmer and you won...kitsune!Kita!
tags: fem!Reader, pet play, hybrid au, "farm" au, kitsune!Kita, talk of cum collection, exhibition, vaginal sex, knotting, creampie, cum play
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The farm was booming.
The one and only place that had yet to get the ok to breed kitsunes. Which of course your company did respectfully. You all tended to the good boys and girls taken care of. Making sure they were all taken care of to the highest qualities of things.
The better the fur and kitsune kit produced. Well the better they sold.
So when your star stud was under preforming. It was up to you to find out what could help him out.
You'd been informed that hand stimulation wasn't working.
Visual stimulation wasn't working either. And a combination of the two just made Kita snappy and withdrawn. Not a common issue you'd had with any of the other kitsune studs. And he wasn't conveying to anyone what he needed.
Leaving you to believe there was only one thing the white and black fox man probably wanted.
"You can collect it out of me. It'll be safe. He knows to be a good boy."
That was all you'd told them. Some newbies confused. Other veterans under you knew what to do. And had seen it before.
So as a group of your coworkers stood around. It was easy for you to loose focus on them. And not on the flurry of white fur above you.
"F-Fuck- That's right. That's a good boy." Your moans bubbled up in your throat even as you tried to maintain your professionalism about it all. Hard to retain a grasp on that and your grasp on reality as the throbbing hot cock of Kita's kept pushing deeper and deeper.
Always a silent breeder. His grunts and soft moans like music to your ears as he snapped his hips into yours.
Cunt swallowing up his length much better than any of the disposable sleeves your company used. The real thing was reserved for best of the best. And that was Kita.
Panting into the crook of your neck. You couldn't help not wrapping your arms around him. Fur of his tail tickling you as he fucked you. Sending shivers up and down your spine with the way you felt his knot threatening to pop inside you.
"That's it- Mmm fuck- Be a good boy and knot me, give me all of it. All of your cum Kita." You coo as you feel the threat of his knot.
A grunt. His breath tickling your neck as it feels like his thrusts get harder. Almost like it's a challenge to hear your words. Eyes on the two of you as some of them shift and rub the front of their own pants. The sight of Kita's cock plunging into you leaving even the veteran employees hot under the collar.
Just as he'd done to countless other kitsune females. And all the disposal collection jackets. It was always your cunt that made him blow the biggest load.
Driving his knot inside you. A gasp leaving you just as a groan left him. Kita couldn't move his hips anymore. His knot swelling inside you to the point you could have sworn he'd grown since the last time.
The first spurt of his cum hotter than any of your human partners. Such as was a kitsune thing. Kita groaned and rutted his hips into you. Cum pouring into your insides. Your cunt milking his cock and all as his tip pressed against your cervix. How long he'd go was completely up to him.
When Kita finally pulled out of you. An accompanying pop to the sound of his knot leaving your full pussy. You had no idea the gush he'd release when he left you. Leaving you groaning as the good quiet boy came for the assistance of your mouth.
You licked up the mess. Cum no longer leaving his cock but still it seemed to pulsate and twitch against your lips. You leaned up and began cleaning him up as your coworkers came in.
More than just a few extra hands on you. You quietly sucked Kita's cock as they began dabbing and scooping up all the cum pouring out of you. Certainly enough to impregnant a few ready female kitsunes. You didn't think too much of that though with his cock in your mouth. Smiling around his length as you tasted the mixture of your juices and his cum.
Oh how you loved your job. The best farm there was. And it was this love and care that only produced the best kitsunes.
#three.5k#tw pet play#tw hybrids#hq#hq smut#hq x reader#hq kita#haikyuu#haikyuu x reader#haikyuu smut#kita shinsuke#kita shinsuke smut#kita shinsuke x reader#kita smut#kita x reader
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hey! could you write a fluff fic of lip gallagher x reader? maybe something where he’s protective? love your writing! - nina <3
always choosing you
lip gallagher x f. reader
summary: lip saves you while at a party.
word count: 1.6k
warnings: soft and protective lip all in one, swearing, alcohol, mentions of trauma, non-consensual touching (just the waist), mentions of violence, kissing, mentions of sex (1x)
join my taglist here !
“Babe, this tastes disgusting.” You scowled while referring to the red solo cup in your hand. At your distasteful words, Lip’s head had whipped over to your twisted face, studying your wry grimace then looking at the poorly made drink most likely whipped up by a Sophomore that had no idea how to mix alcohol.
“Here, take mine.” Without a second thought, he quickly swapped the drink in your hand with his own, Vodka Cranberry. The drink he voluntarily handed you was a translucent shade of dull red and it fizzed at the top. Taking a sip, your brow arched in a consensus of the pleasant-tasting beverage.
To a family like the Gallagher’s, it was portrayed as a psychedelic for Lip Gallagher to be seen as a caring individual rather than a belligerent boy without any anger control. (especially to someone like Fiona) His emotional trauma merely enabling him to hide his concealed emotions from others, but like any other person, it took tremendous work that you were willing to put in.
“Hey, you wanna go soon?” His eyes naturally drifted around the party as he questioned you with a gentle hand sitting comfortably at your waist, his thumb moving slowly over the material of your shirt. “Sure, lower-class man parties are always a bummer.” You mutually agreed, glimpsing as to how his eyes travel across the room to a familiar redhead.
“I’m gonna go tell Ian, you good here?” His thumb pointed in a backwards direction as he walked the same way, you nodded in approval before he was off with his shoes tapping in sync to the music as he proceeded to the Kitchen while you stood in the living room against a wall.
It wasn’t usual for Lip to willingly leave you alone, especially in social situations like this one with intoxicated teenagers at your every corner. He once claimed a wannabe Tristan Dugray from Gilmore Girls would sweep you off your feet and carry you off to the sunset but you declared that would be spurious.
You picked at your nails for the first few minutes, growing bored as you waited, your fingers following the curvature of the cup along with the slight indentations and lines as your patience grew thin. Most likely Ian was stuck in a conversation with long-haired Milkovich, and he wouldn’t wanna leave just yet, his usual stall techniques including whining to his eldest brother.
Your evident impatience had swallowed you whole, eventually abandoning the remains of the drink at a battered table so your arms could cross in front of your chest and your foot tapped insanely quick against the floor. Now that tapping would've bothered anyone as the music vibrated through the drywall and the neighbours were nearing annoyance with the deliberation of filing a noise complaint.
As you were just about to set off to the kitchen, slender fingers gripped at your belt loops hauling you closer to the point your rear had struck the male stranger's chest.
“Hey! What the fu—“
“What’re you doing here all alone?” You attempted to harshly to move away at the poor tone of male seduction but the firm grip on your denim loops was restricting you from such.
“You see, I'm not alone so if you’d—“ You gestured impatiently to his hand with a curt glint in your tone whilst looking back at him; but, he cut you off with a brisk ‘S’alright, baby. I’ll take care of you.’ And no intention of letting you go.
You huffed with a squirm as his disengaged hand grasped at your waist where the emptiness of Lip’s hand had formerly been. “I have a fucking boyfriend—“ You inevitably began to yell over the music at the boy you could recognize as Clint Eastwood from your English class with a drunken smirk plastered onto his features.
This time it wasn’t his slurred voice cutting you off once again, it was a familiar rage-ridden Gallagher. “Get your hands off my fucking girlfriend.” Lip’s baritone became hoarser by the word as his hands hastily gripped at the boy's collared shirt whilst you stumbled by Ian who had briskly caught your arm hoisting you upright.
“Sorry! Dude, I didn’t know she—“
“Really? I clearly fucking heard her say she had a boyfriend,” His scowling brows drew together tightly and his lips pursed at the boy's face trembling in justified fear; as the scene grew larger with frequent yells occurring from Lip, most attendees of the party queued in on the scene.
“I guess idiots like you don’t know how to take a fucking hint.” Lip would’ve severely beaten his face in till Clint was due a trip to the ER but your magnifying grip at the back of his torso was enough to subdue his nerves and release the male off to the side and make his way to the car while gripping your hand the silent way there as the music grew fainter.
The car ride was silent, Lip’s hands gripped the wheel hard enough for distinctive marks to melt into the leather of the disk-shaped circle. He was well indeed sober, the only drink he had consumed was the one he had given to you and mostly full when it came into your possession.
When the car paused in the Gallagher driveway, wordlessly, Ian had left the car to give the both of you a moment, cautiously entering the chaotic household where most of his siblings had been asleep; Fiona being the only one awake where she had been watching a movie with V as Debbie laid on her lap. Yet, Lip hadn’t even moved his hands from the ignition; he had barely even blinked or twitched.
“Lip,” Your voice whispered, filling in the empty void of the vehicle. He silently looked over with his head slumped against the head seat, “What’s wrong?” Another whisper, your fingers rested comfortably on his knee.
“I just—“ He sighed, “—I don’t like the way he was touching you. Nobody should touch you like that.” He paused thoughtfully amid his heated sentence, clearly hesitant. Though, you remained silent as you were taciturnly aware that he was nowhere near finished.
“What if he wasn’t a creep and it was some guy that could offer you so much better than I could. I don’t want you to get hurt, but I also don’t want to hurt you.” His cerulean optics drifted over to his knee where you had been drawing circles over the denim, his anxious eyes remaining focused before you spoke up and his attention had diverted back to you.
“So don’t.” You offered a faint smile, “You’re not your parents, Lip. Take it one day at a time, if you don’t want to hurt me then you’re not going to.” You shook your head as you spoke.
“You could’ve knocked that guy into oblivion but you didn’t, and I know why you didn’t. I’m not gonna push you; Just take it day by day with me, okay?” He lethargically nodded in response, drinking in your words slowly as they enveloped his brain in a tight squeeze. Your monologue clinging to his mind as he would require those words later on.
Silently, you drifted your eyes back to the house, your eyes retaining on the Gallagher residence as he spoke. “Stay the night?”
You returned your head back to him and grinned in response, pecking his lips a few times before hopping out of the car as he followed. Trudging towards the wrought gate as he gripped at your hand, gently leading you through his house but pausing once to wave at Fiona which she reciprocated with a gleeful nod and a wave.
You had thought you entered his shared room rather quietly, changing into a shrunken pair of basketball shorts and a navy blue sweater both of which had belonged to your boyfriend. As you climbed the bunk, an adolescent boy had begun speaking with sleep lacing his words, “You better not be having sex, I'm trying to sleep.” Carl finished with a snore as he shuffled.
You both hastily muffled your laughs whilst cautiously climbing into the top bunk where his sheets laid messily due to him not making his bed the morning prior. You took very little time situating yourselves, the tip of your chin laying on his shoulder, and you were laid on your stomach. Meanwhile, his arm curled around your back and his stomach had faced the texturized ceiling.
You both laid there silently for a few minutes, maybe even a half-hour. Most likely Ian had passed out on the couch, and Carl’s snores had filled the room so it was a guarantee that it was safe to speak without any eavesdropping.
“I’ll always choose you.”
For a moment you thought he was asleep as well by how still he remained, till his face had carefully turned millimeters from yours. “I don’t care if it’s an Italian mafia man or some belligerent idiot from English class. I’ll always choose you, Philip Gallagher.” You muttered into his shoulder, a tinge of minor embarrassment creeping stealthily up your neck at the sappy confession.
“I’ll always choose you, too.” He whispered back, he wasn’t much for words but he could always muster up a considerable fraction of what you meant to him. Kissing the tip of your nose, he whispered again whilst placing his chin on your forehead. “Now go to sleep, or you’ll be bitchy in the morning.”
taglist: @miiamour @bugswrld @zzzfour @black-rose-29 @sprucewoodlover @bloodyrockwork @myalupinblack
#lip gallagher fic#lip gallagher fanfiction#lip gallagher x reader#lip gallagher#shameless fandom#shameless x reader#shameless headcanons#shameless fluff#shameless fic#shameless smut#shameless fanfiction#shameless#lip gallagher fluff
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Would you say Marcelle understands the depth of the pain she's caused her child? No doubt she comprehends that her child IS in pain, and that a substantial portion of that pain can be traced back to her, but does she grasp the sheer *amount* of physical, emotional, and mental agony the Commander must be feeling? Does she realize how fortunate she is that the Commander has even retained enough of their sanity and functionality to actually still be useful to her plans?
Idk you'll have to ask her yourself 🤷♀️ You'll get the chance to ask Marcelle a few things next chapter-- or nothing at all if you prefer.
Snippet from Chapter 4 below.
"Do you know how they treated me when you weren't looking? Do you know the things they whispered about me when you weren't there to hear? Do you have any idea how they treated me?"
Normal: you just wanted to be normal. But you weren't, no-- you were the outcast, the red-blood in a room full of blues. You were not desired. You were not welcome.
You bite your cheeks so hard that you bleed. "Do you have any idea how you've treated me?"
Your eyes are watering, though you know not if it is from rage or sadness. You can still feel the part of yourself that is nothing but a child within you, desperate even now just to have approval: to just be loved. They are broken and bruised, covered in just as many scars as you are. Scars that were inflicted by her.
You hate that some part of you will forever be waiting for her to love you.
Of course, this is only one branch. You can choose to say and ask a lot of different things-- can choose to be as amicable or violent as you want, though neither is guaranteed to garner sympathy nor success. Some Commanders might have this residual longing for love despite hating Marcelle-- others might have nothing but hate in their hearts.
All this to say-- you have a lot of options. 👀
#marcelle#chapter four#chapter four spoilers#y'all who play sarcastic and stoic characters who are waiting to break... got you#y'all who play genuine commanders who want to go violent? i got you#y'all who play aggressive commanders who want to be vulnerable despite knowing better? I GOT YOU#answered
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Favorite Way to End the Day
Summary: It was a hard and frustrating day at work. You come home beyond annoyed and try to take your mind off it, and Arthur, being the dutiful husband, helps you forget.
Warnings: Cursing, smut, the usual stuff I post
Word Count: 2,232
A/N: This was an idea presented by the ever miss lovely @verai-marcel earlier in the summer! I took the opportunity especially to write this due to experiencing a toxic environment at work. I'm sure there are others who have or are experiencing something similar. This is for all my overtired, overworked Arthur stans!
“Ugh,”
The slam of the front door resonated into the open living room before you, vibrating through the worn floorboards. Picture frames on the adjacent walls trembled harshly. In any other manner on any other day, you would have been more careful.
Not today.
The sound of your husband’s footsteps echoed from across the room, his burly frame peeking out from the kitchen. His gaze settled on you as a smile appeared. “Welcome home, beautiful.”
His sweet compliments usually lightened your dull, fatigued mood at the end of a weary day of work. However, you couldn’t even muster up a half-hearted smile, your lips pulled in the same frown retained for the past half hour.
Arthur’s smile melted from his face, replaced with a frown of concern. “Hey, you okay?”
“No,” you huff, kicking your shoes off to the side and padding forward, haphazardly tossing your purse toward the closest end of the couch – where it promptly bounced off and fell open-ended to the ground, spilling its contents. You grumble to yourself, not even bothering to focus your attention on the clean-up.
You pass by Arthur, immediately turning into the kitchen. You’d hoped the chicken you pulled from the freezer last night was at least thawed, unless the universe decided to curse you with yet another thing going wrong today, such as breaking your fridge.
Seems as if some outside force spared you of either still-frozen or halfway rotten chicken. Though you were far from entertaining the idea of cooking, it at least gave you some peace of mind for now.
You hardly noticed Arthur’s presence until he was looming over you, peering around your shoulder to have a full look of your face. “What happened, sweetheart?” he asked.
You sighed heavily. “My boss reamed my ass today,” you grumbled, eyebrows falling heavy. “Over something that wasn’t my fault.”
His frown sitting out of the corner of your eye deepened. “What the hell for? Did ya tell her?”
“’Course I did,” you say, hesitating when you realized it was snippier than you meant. “Still didn’t matter to her. Threatened to write me up, report me to the higher-ups. Guess I’m too incompetent at my job.”
“Now you know that ain’t true,” Arthur responded softly, reaching to tuck away a few loose strands of hair behind your ear.
Your eyes fixated on the chicken breasts laid before you, realizing you hadn’t even grabbed any spices or oils. Hell, the damn oven hadn’t even been turned on to heat up. “I know, Arthur,” you mumble, stepping away to remedy the situation. “She just drives me nuts sometimes,” This truly unsettled you so deeply it tore your mind away from something as simple as a chicken dinner. You grit your teeth and move around the kitchen, aimlessly gathering supplies.
It wasn’t until Arthur’s hand rested on your arm did you stop. You blinked and looked up at him. “What?”
With his free hand he reached over, plucking out a bottle of vanilla extract from your busied grasp. “Don’t think we’d need this.”
“Oh, Jesus,” you groan, slamming down the rest of your collection with unnecessary force. “Can’t even season a chicken properly –”
“Hey,”
Arthur’s hands settled on your hips, drawing you out of your self-deprecating rant. He pulls you with such ease, turning your body to face him directly. Your mouth opens in protest, yet fails to escape your throat as your eyes peer into his. A gentle yet serious expression met you, pools of aquatic blue and peridot observed your face, as if staring into your very soul.
Whatever you intended to say dissolved immediately.
“Breathe,” he instructs quietly.
You do so.
“Good,” he nods in approval, his features softening immediately with satisfaction. “We don’t gotta eat chicken, we can order out.”
“But I’d like the distraction,” you argue with a pout. Your current preoccupation helped turn your mind away, but that lingering feeling of frustration still bubbled in the pit of your stomach.
Arthur’s lips pulled into a half-smile. Leaning forward, he pressed his mouth to yours in a tender kiss which you immediately responded to. He tugged you closer to him, hands moving from your hips to your lower back. Your arms encircled his neck, further falling into this momentary diversion and grateful for it.
After a long moment he pulled back, reaching to gently grasp your chin. The smile remained on his face, half-lidded and quiet. “Does that help?”
You nod to him, finally matching his smile. “A little.”
“A little?” he repeated, feigning a look of surprise. “Guess I gotta keep at it then.”
Before you could speak, his mouth attached to the side of your neck, peppering kisses along your jugular. Rough stubble scratched and tickled, pulling a giggle from you. Though he soon slowed, his lips becoming more languid.
The sudden shift caught you off-guard, though it sparked another emotion deep within. His teeth grazed against the sensitive flesh of your throat. “A-Arthur?” you stutter.
He hummed to you, kissing a lazy trail back to your lips. He broke through your barrier, briefly exploring your mouth with his tongue. Parting himself from you, just mere inches apart, he whispers, “I know a better way to distract you.”
That voice, that tone. The deep, husky reverb he’d only use on certain occasions. Such splendor traveled down your spine and settled in your belly. All prior heavy thoughts vanished, replaced by a growing carnal desire.
You said nothing, pulling him back hungrily. Lips crashed together in heated passion, tongue and teeth and panting breaths. Arthur’s hands found your hips again, lifting you with ease. Within seconds your ass was on the flat surface of what you assumed was the kitchen table. Your wandering thoughts were soon disintegrated when you felt the need of his still clothed erection press in between your legs.
Without hesitation you reached down, palming him through his jeans, earning a low groan. He pulled back from you and smiled, hooking his fingers beneath the waistband of your pants and panties. You lifted your hips to aid him, and your bottom half was bare in one fell swoop.
His eyes wandered to your core. His arms looped through your legs and he bent down, savoring the sight of your aching sex up close. “Wet already?” He commented with a slick grin.
You couldn’t even muster a response before he plunged his tongue into your folds. It was clear he was not waiting, and you weren’t particularly opposed to it. He dragged the flat of his tongue against your clit, sending tingles through your body. His name graced your lips in a sweet moan, your fingers curling into his soft, sandy locks.
He continued his oral magic, drawing more pleasure from you as seconds ticked by. Despite his urgency just moments prior, he eased and took his time. Your hips ground into his mouth in vain for more, but he chuckled and smoothed his palm across your inner thigh as if telling you to calm down.
Taking a deep breath, you nodded to yourself and allowed him to take you to your peak. Embers stoked into a blazing flame sooner than you anticipated, building at nearly blinding speed. Biting your lower lip, you moaned through your teeth, attempting to stave it off for now and just enjoy it.
Arthur’s eyes met yours, giving you just a simple look that you understood. Good girl, was all you needed to completely ease into him. One hand released you to favor slipping inside two fingers, exploring and curling in a well-versed dance.
“Oh, God,” you mewled, your hips shuddering, fighting to keep still. You weren’t far off from completely releasing now, not even attempting to hold back.
It seemed your husband could sense this as well, only increasing his pace, beckoning you toward your peak. A few sweet seconds passed, and you sung out his name as the wave of your orgasm washed over you. He lapped up the evidence, slowing his tongue to lazy strokes, drawing out the last of it before your legs began twitch. You whined from the overstimulation, and then he released you to stand up.
There was a sly look in his eyes. A lopsided grin emphasized by the glittering wetness of your slick coating his lips and chin. Your already racing heart skipped a beat.
“Look at you, sweetheart,” he rumbled, reaching to caress your cheek. “You ready for me?”
You smiled at him, turning your face to gently bite his thumb. “Always ready, babe.”
He chuckled lowly, pulling his thumb to run the pad across the outline of your lips. He took his hand away to favor his jeans, unbuckling and unzipping to pull himself out. You could never get tired of the sight of him, standing at full mast and leaking for you.
Stepping closer, Arthur placed his hands on your hips and aligned himself, sliding his thick shaft against your still soaked center. A soft moan escaped his lips before he finally pushed in, burying himself to the root.
Your body immediately and gratefully accepted him, and you sat up to wrap your arms around his neck. Leaning to his ear, you whispered, “Fuck me, Mr. Morgan.”
As if a tether had broken, Arthur’s hips snapped back and into you without hesitation. Thus began a carnal rutting, he groaned deeply and rested his chin on your shoulder. “God damn,” he grunted. “Do you drive me wild.”
Any answer you had fell dead just before your slightly parted lips. Incoherent whimpers and wanton moans surrounded you both as Arthur took you relentlessly. Warm, calloused palms roved across your lower back, pushing up your shirt to favor your bra. The constricting support loosened suddenly with quick work of his deft fingers. You pulled back briefly to disrobe, leaving you completely bare to him.
His lustful gaze quickly swept over your torso, nearly hypnotized in the sight of your naked flesh. “So damn gorgeous,” he growled without hesitation to his prior pace. Hands finding their way to your chest, he pinched your nipples between his fingers. “Could ravage ya all day, Mrs. Morgan.”
Even from the day you were married, upon hearing his claim on you, stirred far within the corners of your mind. It only stoked the embers of your core into a curling fire. Cords of muscle tensed around his tree trunk of a frame. “Arthur– fuck!”
He’d become well aware of this, from the moment he noted the gleam of unabashed excitement in your eyes from the moments of exchanged vows, to the hours of body worship bestowed upon you the night following. It was his favorite way to tease you, to pull you into a guaranteed release. “That’s right,” he chuckled deeply, voice disjointed by his piledriving. “My girl, always my good girl. Ain’t no one in this world makes my girl feel worthless.”
Mustering up a coherent response was damn near impossible, but his words sunk in. Your voice heightened an octave, nails hooking into the skin of his back. A soft hiss slid off his tongue while simultaneously spurred to buck his hips even stronger into you.
You swore out loud, your body melting within his arms. Your back arched, head tilted to sing your pleasure to the heavens. His name flung from your mouth more times than you cared to count.
And then…
Oh fuck–
He’d somehow snaked his fingers to your center again, fiddling and teasing the sensitive bundle of nerves. You hardly could comprehend the second build of your release, barreling much faster than a bullet train. With a few quick strokes the coil wound deep sprung, manifesting as a scream.
Arthur’s lips were quick to find yours, swallowing the outlet of your pleasure. He dragged his fingertips in conjunction with his thrusts, wringing your orgasm to the last drip, persistent stimulation until you wriggled in his iron clasp. He relented once satisfied.
“Almost done, sweetheart,” he grunted in between heated kisses, moving his hand to grip the edge of the table, providing more leverage for himself. Without another word, he drove himself even faster and harder. It wasn’t much longer until he pressed deep, a guttural growl resonating within his torso as he released his spend within you.
The stillness encircled the two of you, heart hammering within your ears almost deafening as it settled. Arthur’s frame, shaken slightly from his heavy breathing, straightened up but not before fluttering his lips against yours for another kiss, more so a graze. He pulled out of you, carefully to not leave a mess.
While tucking himself back into his jeans, he grabbed a napkin from behind you to help clean you up. Despite your sensitivity, he was gentle with you, and helped you back to your feet. Your legs trembled like jelly and your hand rested on his shoulder for balance.
“Definitely don’t think I’ll be cooking that chicken now,” you fake sighed in annoyance.
Arthur chuckled in response, encircling your waist with his arm. “Takeout it is then,” he brushed his lips along the crown of your head. “Did I at least make you forget about today?”
“Today feels like eons ago now,” you say, smiling at him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he mumbles, breaking away from you to grab a Chinese takeout menu from the fridge. “You feelin’ Lo Mein or General Tso’s?”
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I have a theodicy-adjacent question if that's alright. How can I offer prayers of thanksgiving without implying that God "likes me better" than They like other people? For example, I often want to thank God for keeping my loved ones safe through this pandemic, but it feels weird when so many have lost dear ones. I've learned a lot about how to wrestle with God through your ministry, but how to bring your positive feelings to God without toeing the line of a prosperity gospel-esque mindset?
Anon, I feel you! Some point a few years ago I had a similar unsettling realization. I knew that gratitude is important not only for our relationship with God, but for our psychological wellbeing — yet I felt so guilty for thanking God for things i knew others didn’t have. Did attributing the good things in my life to God imply that God wasn’t with those who lacked those good things?
I brought that guilt and discomfort to God (and still do, whenever it arises anew). asked Them to help me sit with it, accept it, and then transform it into something more fruitful.
guilt transformed to motivation. discomfort transformed to commitment. what i was left with was an understanding that i did not need to stop my prayers of thanksgiving, but to expand them.
i take time to really feel and express my gratitude for the abundance i experience. and then i ask God to help my gratitude move me to a desire for others to experience that abundance too. I ask for guidance in how i can help make that abundance happen in the the lives of those around me and far from me.
___
i also make time for lament. many of us are taught how to ask God for things and how to thank God for things, but grief and lament are not taught. however, thanksgiving and lament are not opposites, but work together. they enrich one another. we need to take time for both.
a book that helped me embrace lament was Barbara Brown Taylor’s Learning to Walk in the Dark. You can read quotes and whole passages from it in my tag over here.
one of my favorite songs/psalms to sing/pray in lament is this one. The psalmist empowers us to question God, to ask why and how and when? and then the psalmist leads us to praise God anyway — to praise in spite of and with our doubts and our questions.
when we look at all the pain in the world — in our own lives, the lives of loved ones, the lives of those we don’t even know, and in the struggling pulse of all Creation — we feel all sorts of things. Distress, despair, anger, grief. But some of us are afraid to bring those feelings to God. We’d rather avoid the feelings in general, repress them, not sit inside them for a while. (And certainly, we should not wallow in the bad all the time.) Bt when we dare to assign intentional time to sit in those feelings, God sits in them with us.
And there is a strange thanksgiving in there, too — that we aren’t alone in the lament. We come to see that it is true that God does not will suffering upon any one of us — that the fact that sometimes i experience blessing while you struggle, or you find success while i go without, is not because God is choosing which happy few to bless that day. God really does will abundant life for all, and grieves when sin (individual, systemic, the rot that eats at this world) blocks that abundance for anyone.
___
in continuing to make time to feel and express gratitude, and then to make time to lament and to both desire and participate in abundance for others, thanksgiving does not elevate me above others as “better” or “more blessed” than they are. instead, gratitude reminds me of how interconnected we are with one another. In the Body we all share, “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it” (1 Cor 12:26).
___
When abundance wins out in spite of sin, we rejoice! When it is we who enjoy that abundance, our gratitude should not lead to smugness or self-congratulations, but to humility. it should shape us, move us to bring similar abundance to others.
A book that has really helped me understand that concept is Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass (which you can read online for free).
Christian texts have told me that the appropriate response to all God’s gifts is gratitude, but it’s Kimmerer’s book that helped me digest and embody just what that means. We acknowledge abundance, and we use that gratitude to connect us to the giver, and to others to whom that giver would also share Their gift.
Here’s one passage from her chapter “The Gift of Strawberries,” starting on page 33 of the webpage linked above:
Even now, after more than fifty Strawberry Moons, finding a patch of wild strawberries still touches me with a sensation of surprise, a feeling of unworthiness and gratitude for the generosity and kindness that comes with an unexpected gift all wrapped in red and green. “Really? For me? Oh, you shouldn’t have.” After fifty years they still raise the question of how to respond to their generosity. Sometimes it feels like a silly question with a very simple answer: eat them.
But I know that someone else has wondered these same things. In our Creation stories the origin of strawberries is important. Skywoman’s beautiful daughter, whom she carried in her womb from Skyworld, grew on the good green earth, loving and loved by all the other beings. But tragedy befell her when she died giving birth to her twins, Flint and Sapling. Heartbroken, Skywoman buried her beloved daughter in the earth. Her final gifts, our most revered plants, grew from her body. The strawberry arose from her heart.
In Potawatomi, the strawberry is ode min, the heart berry. We recognize them as the leaders of the berries, the first to bear fruit.
Strawberries first shaped my view of a world full of gifts simply scattered at your feet. A gift comes to you through no action of your own, free, having moved toward you without your beckoning. It is not a reward; you cannot earn it, or call it to you, or even deserve it. And yet it appears. Your only role is to be open-eyed and present. Gifts exist in a realm of humility and mystery—as with random acts of kindness, we do not know their source.
...Gifts from the earth or from each other establish a particular relationship, an obligation of sorts to give, to receive, and to reciprocate. The field gave to us, we gave to my dad, and we tried to give back to the strawberries. When the berry season was done, the plants would send out slender red runners to make new plants.
Because I was fascinated by the way they would travel over the ground looking for good places to take root, I would weed out little patches of bare ground where the runners touched down. Sure enough, tiny little roots would emerge from the runner and by the end of the season there were even more plants, ready to bloom under the next Strawberry Moon. No person taught us this—the strawberries showed us. Because they had given us a gift, an ongoing relationship opened between us.
...It’s funny how the nature of an object—let’s say a strawberry or a pair of socks—is so changed by the way it has come into your hands, as a gift or as a commodity. The pair of wool socks that I buy at the store, red and gray striped, are warm and cozy. I might feel grateful for the sheep that made the wool and the worker who ran the knitting machine. I hope so. But I have no inherentobligation to those socks as a commodity, as private property. There is no bond beyond the politely exchanged “thank yous” with the clerk. I have paid for them and our reciprocity ended the minute I handed her the money. The exchange ends once parity has been established, an equal exchange. They become my property. I don’t write a thank-you note to JCPenney.
But what if those very same socks, red and gray striped, were knitted by my grandmother and given to me as a gift? That changes everything. A gift creates ongoing relationship. I will write a thank-you note. I will take good care of them and if I am a very gracious grandchild I’ll wear them when she visits even if I don’t like them. When it’s her birthday, I will surely make her a gift in return. As the scholar and writer Lewis Hyde notes, “It is the cardinal
difference between gift and commodity exchange that a gift
establishes a feeling-bond between two people.”
That is the fundamental nature of gifts: they move, and their value increases with their passage. The fields made a gift of berries to us and we made a gift of them to our father. The more something is shared, the greater its value becomes. This is hard to grasp for societies steeped in notions of private property, where others are, by definition, excluded from sharing. Practices such as posting land against trespass, for example, are expected and accepted in a property economy but are unacceptable in an economy where land is seen as a gift to all.
Lewis Hyde wonderfully illustrates this dissonance in his exploration of the “Indian giver.” This expression, used negatively today as a pejorative for someone who gives something and then wants to have it back, actually derives from a fascinating cross- cultural misinterpretation between an indigenous culture operating in a gift economy and a colonial culture predicated on the concept of private property. When gifts were given to the settlers by the Native inhabitants, the recipients understood that they were valuable and were intended to be retained. Giving them away would have been an affront. But the indigenous people understood the value of the gift to be based in reciprocity and would be affronted if the gifts did not circulate back to them.
Many of our ancient teachings counsel that whatever we have been given is supposed to be given away again. From the viewpoint of a private property economy, the “gift” is deemed to be “free” because we obtain it free of charge, at no cost. But in the gift economy, gifts are not free. The essence of the gift is that it creates a set of relationships. The currency of a gift economy is, at its root, reciprocity. In Western thinking, private land is understood to be a “bundle of rights,” whereas in a gift economy property has a “bundle of responsibilities” attached.
...
In material fact, Strawberries belong only to themselves. The exchange relationships we choose determine whether we share them as a common gift or sell them as a private commodity. A great deal rests on that choice.
For the greater part of human history, and in places in the world today, common resources were the rule. But some invented a different story, a social construct in which everything is a commodity to be bought and sold. The market economy story has spread like wildfire, with uneven results for human well-being and devastation for the natural world. But it is just a story we have told ourselves and we are free to tell another, to reclaim the old one.
One of these stories sustains the living systems on which we depend. One of these stories opens the way to living in gratitude and amazement at the richness and generosity of the world. One of these stories asks us to bestow our own gifts in kind, to celebrate our kinship with the world. We can choose. If all the world is a commodity, how poor we grow. When all the world is a gift in motion, how wealthy we become.
#gratitude#prayer tag#prayers of thanksgiving#prayers of lament#thanksgiving#lament#pandemic mention#braiding sweetgrass
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