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tinytonysnark · 4 years

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Ask Me Later

It’s Valentine’s Day.

Steve has a date with someone who isn’t Tony, on Valentine’s Day.

Tony is in Steve’s dorm room, on Valentine’s Day, helping him pick out an outfit for his date, who isn’t Tony.

God, his life sucks.

Natasha will no doubt laugh her ass off when he tells her once she’s finished gloating with her “I told you so’s,” and “I warned you this would happen,” but she’ll also let him eat all the ice cream she has so it won’t be too bad.

“What about this one?” Steve asks, pulling out a white cable knit sweater.

“God, no, definitely not the sweater. Move over, let me take a look at your closet,” Tony says, springing up from the bed to look at whatever Steve has in his tiny little closet.

“You know, this would be better if you’d tell me who your date is with,” Tony says, not turning to face Steve who’s sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Tony - I already to-”

“I know - I know, you’d rather not say. Just would make this whole process easier is all I’m saying,” Tony tells him, and doesn’t think about how his best friend not only doesn’t feel the same way about him but also isn’t even comfortable enough to want to tell him who he’s seeing.

He might need Natasha to buy extra ice-cream tonight.

He thinks that’s what hurts the most. That they’ve been friends for over a year now, and best friends for what feels like longer, and they’ve told each other everything. Well, almost everything. Tony being utterly and completely in love with his best friend notwithstanding.

But apparently Steve has not only been crushing on someone else and asked them out, but he’s also never, not once, mentioned any of it to Tony.

“I guess, something casual? Nothing too over the top or fancy, but like I’m making the effort, you know,” Steve tells him.

“So the vibe you’re going for on this first date, on Valentine’s Day, the day known for its capitalistic ideas of love and romance, is casual?” Tony turns, tossing one of Steve’s plaid blue and grey plaid shirts in the trash pile - items of clothing that may or may not disappear from his closet to end up goodwill, if he has anything to say about it. “Well, I'm sure that it’ll all go down great. Hey, out of curiosity, do you have wedding dates set? I hear Spring’s lovely.”

“Ha, you’re hilarious. Truly, I’m in stitches,” Steve deadpans and Tony throws - yet another plaid shirt- at his face, which he dodges easily.

“I mean, you know me though. It’s not like I’m the most casual guy around,” Steve shrugs. “I’m all about long-term planning.”

Oh. “Oh, so you really like them then,” Tony says, turning back to the closet. “Like, you want this for more than just a few dates?

“Well, yeah. Definitely,” Steve answers, with no hesitation and Tony feels like he just set himself up to be kicked in the lungs, repeatedly.

He takes a few steadying breaths, and when he thinks he can trust his voice says, “Well, your anniversary will always be easy to remember at least. V-Day. Oh, unless you forget, in which case, you’d be forgetting both dates, which, yikes.”

Steve laughs, his full bellied laugh and Tony doesn’t even need to turn and look to know he knows Steve has his head thrown back and there're crinckles in the corner of his eyes, the way there always are when he smiles.

“Here,” Tony says, turning to hand the clothes, and yup, he was right. There’s that smile and the eye crinkles. “White tee, these absolutely ridiculous skinny jeans and this jacket. Can’t really go wrong with a classic white tee. Especially not with your shoulders-” Tony says before he can stop himself.

Steve grins as pinks dusts on Tony’s cheeks. “Thanks Tony. Just give a minute while I change."

Steve heads to the bathroom and Tony flings himself onto the bed to scream into a pillow before, pulling his phone out oh his back pocket and rolling over to text Nat.

“Please, please tell me you’re stocked up on Half Baked?”

Nat responds less than 30 seconds later, “Oof, jumped right over Mint Choc Chip and PBC? It must be BAD BAD.”

“He’s got his whole future planned out with this perfect date and they’re gonna live happily ever after and I’ll have to bear witness to all of it -”

The bathroom door opens and Steve steps out and Tony turns his head briefly before going back to finishing his text to Nat but then his brain finally processes the image from his eyes and he snaps his head back, while also losing grip of his phone. Which falls onto his forehead.

Ouch.

“You look - Well, I mean I know I put it together so obviously you look great but -”

Steve smiles, all bashful and sheepish, the way he does and Tony thinks he's gonna combust. “Thanks for, you know, helping me look presentable. You know I'm not too good at this and Nat always says I dress like an old man but -”

“Yeah, don’t be alarmed if all your plaid shirts mysteriously go missing. And are somehow found in a dumpster. That happens to be on fire,” Tony tells him, standing from the bed.

“Okay, they’re not all that bad -”

“Not all of it is bad, but that pile over there,” Tony says pointing at the heap on the floor that seems to be nothing but a pile of plaid, “you’re never gonna see those ever again. We’re not even going to look at them too long.”

Steve laughs, “I don’t even get to say goodbye?”

“Marie says we should say Thank You, but I honestly don’t know if they deserve that.”

“We should always say please and thank you Tony, no matter what,” Steve says, and Tony can’t tell how serious he’s being.

“Oh hey, what time is your date?” Tony asks, tugging at Steve’s jacket to give his hands something to do. “Are they picking you up or are you? Or are you meeting them there? And where is there, by the way? And also, who are they?

Steve laughs, then scratches the back of his neck. “Well, uh, funny thing. I haven't actually asked them yet.”

“Uh, say that again? You just got ready for a date - which the other person is unaware is even happening in the first place?”

“Yeah. No need to repeat, seems like you got it the first time?

“Steve - who - WHAT - who does that?”

“I got too nervous to ask!” Steve says, cheeks going pink. “So I did this instead?”

“Okay. Okay, so what exactly is the plan here?” Tony asks, arms crossing. “You’re gonna - what? Show up and ask them, right then and there if they wanna go out immediately?”

“Well, the great thing is that I can just ask him right now, and if it doesn't work out, I'll just head back to my closet to change, no need to even leave the room, possibly for the foreseeable future, ever.

Tony tries not to go through the list of ‘he's’ that both Steve and him know and says, “So you’re gonna text him? Okay, great, do it.”

Steve’s stares at Tony with what can only be described as exasperation before pulling out his phone, which, okay, if anything - Tony’s the one who’s exasperated because who even does this-

His phone vibrates in his hand.

He thinks it might just be Natasha, probably wondering why he stopped replying mid text - but it’s from Steve.

Steve, who is standing right in front of Tony, giving him a hopeful look.

Steve, who sent him a text reading, "Hey, I’m wondering if you’re free for dinner tonight? I’ve got reservations at that fancy Italian place you’ve been wanting to go to for 6.30?"

Tony thinks his heart might be beating so loud, Steve can hear it. “Steve - are you- are you asking me-?

“To be my Valentine’s? Yeah,” he says, smile on his face. He juts his chin at Tony’s phone. “You gonna give me an answer?”

Tony tosses his phone onto the bed and drags Steve down into what is, objectively, one of the best kisses in Tony’s life. Steve’s arms circle around his waist and they’re both so close together, a piece of paper wouldn’t fit between them.

“Answer clear enough for you?” Tony asks when they pull apart, because hey, breathing is a thing.

Steve grins, “Don’t know, think I need a little more clarity,” before kissing him again and Tony’s brain promptly shuts down.

♡ ♡ ♡

They don’t make it to their reservation, but Natasha does attempt to break Steve’s door down to check on Tony since he wouldn’t answer her texts. She brought the ice-cream with her.

#stony #stevetony #marvel #tony stark #steve rogers #ficlet #I'M A DAY LATE!!#BUT WE'RE NOT SURPRISED #less that 1.5k #nisha writes

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jessilyria · 4 years

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ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY SEASON 2

Hello! This covers everything from trailers, promo pics, interviews, and articles. Pics and links will be included. The info is in vague chronological order (as much as it can be.)

Needless to say, this post contains SPOILERS and is LONG ^‿^

If you’d like a non-spoilery version with just the basic facts please check out my Umbrella Academy Timeline.

***********************************************************************

According to Steve Blackman, season 2 is about second chances and the endgame is still to stop the 2019 apocalypse (X).

The opening scene of season 2:

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The siblings arrive in the past at different times, but all in the same spot - an alleyway with some dumpsters which leads out onto a high-street.

Noticeable locations on the high-street include a beauty salon for black people, and an electronics shop which later on closes down and becomes a base for the group.

The order they arrive in is the order the promo pictures were released: Ben & Klaus, Allison, Luther, Diego, Vanya, Five.

It will likely take a while before the whole team is reunited, and possibly longer before the siblings begin to meet the new characters: “It was several episodes before we all started to interact with each other” (X).

Ben & Klaus land in February 1960 (X). As Klaus is sober, his powers continue to develop and he uses them to impresses some people. (X)

"Klaus effectively starts the hippie movement off early by founding a cult whose philosophy is based on the lyrics of pop songs that have yet to be written. “Don’t go chasing waterfalls. Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to,” he tells one awed follower." (X)

"Destiny's Children! Let us commune with music." *starts whistling*

But Klaus isn’t as happy as he seems in this new life of cult stardom. “He can’t deal with the praise; it’s just become strangulating.” (X)

There’s also tension between Klaus and Ben, but its unknown whether this is because of the cult, because Klaus is "trying to rekindle his relationship with Dave" (X), or because Klaus’ evolved powers mean Ben can now possess him (X). Either way, Ben’s “determined not to be invisible to the ones he loves, willing to go further than ever before to make his presence known.” (X)

As Klaus is wearing the same outfit as the promo pics (and has a long beard which he later loses), its likely the following scene takes place early on.

Klaus: Now what? Ben: Remember when I told you the engine was overheating? Klaus: Yeah, well, being smart doesn't make you interesting. Ben: Neither does your beard.

Ben: You think I’m just going to keep following you everywhere for another three years? Klaus: Yeah, you are my ghost-bitch, remember?

*************************

Klaus: My skin was on fire! Ben: Good! I’ve got to get to San Francisco, I have unfinished business.

Allison is second to appear in 1961 (X). "Confused and looking for help, Allison walks into a diner and is greeted by a “Whites Only” sign, then chased across town by a group of white men until she finds sanctuary in a beauty parlour for Black women that doubles as a meeting place for civil-rights activists." (X)

Its been confirmed that the below image is from ep 1. (X)

Have you experienced discrimination by your employer?

She meets a man named Raymond Chestnut who is a “born leader with the smarts, gravitas, and confidence to never have to prove it to anyone. He has the innate ability to disarm you with a look, and is a devoted husband.” (X)

Luther appears on April 10th 1962 and lands on a dumpster.

He ends up working for Jack Ruby (X), a mysterious man who owns a nightclub (and who fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald after Oswald was in custody for JFK's assassination). Luther’s job involves being a driver, bouncer, and underground fighter.

Its been confirmed that the following scene is from ep 1. (X)

Diego appears on Sep 17th 1963. One of the first things he sees is a televised address from President JFK.

He ends up in an insane asylum for stalking Lee Harvey Oswald and spouting “delusional claims” about JFK’s assassination (X). Its here he meets Lila Pitts, “a chameleon who can be as brilliant or as clinically insane as the situation requires”. She’s also "unpredictable, mischievous" and "sarcastic" with a "twisted sense of humour." (X)

Vanya appears on Oct 12th 1963 (X). “She arrives and gets hit by a car, driven by a woman (Sissy). She smashes her head on the cement... She remembers her name, but nothing else.” (X)

She gets a job on a ranch as a live-in-nanny for Sissy, a "fearless, no nonsense Texas Mom" who "married young for all the wrong reasons" and is "eager to rediscover what love has to offer." (X)

Because she has forgotten her past traumas, Vanya is “much more confident and more in touch with her emotional self” (X). She forms a unique bond with Sissy’s son, Harlan, who is non-verbal (X). Its been confirmed that the following photos are from ep 1. (X)

Vanya: I wish I remembered something.  Sissy: The doctor said it would take time. Don’t push yourself.

Vanya is also slowly discovering her powers on her own.

Five appears with Hazel on Nov 15th after witnessing the world going down in nuclear explosions.

Five: What was that? Hazel: The end of the world, November 25th 1963. Five: And where am I now? Hazel: Dallas, ten days earlier. Five: ...I need to find my family.

But of course its not going to be that easy, the Commission is still out there and “will hunt us down wherever and whenever we go.”

In the trailer we are introduced to the head of The Commission, a fish named Carmichael. He sends three Swedish assassins, Oscar, Axel, and Otto, to hunt down Five and the others.

At some point they acquire a milk-truck and one of them dresses as a milkman. On a location shoot, the Swedes were seen in their truck outside a house in an urban area. They check a map and one of them pumps a shotgun (X).

Whilst searching for his siblings Five encounters a man named Elliot, an "alien obsessive (who) witnesses The Umbrella Academy's separate arrivals." He agrees to help Five find the others. (X)

“3rd EVENT, April 10th 1962″ is above photos of Luther arriving, “September 17th 1963″ is above photos of Diego arriving, and the right column are photos of Vanya arriving still in her White Violin outfit.

Five manages to find Diego in the asylum and they have a conversation.

Five: Listen to me very closely, you gibbering moron. You are not going to do a goddamned thing. Diego: Why not? Five: Because we have to stop the apocalypse. Diego: But that doesn't happen for another 60 years. Five: Not that apocalypse, this is a... new one. It followed us.  Diego: *begins laughing*

At some point after this the Swedes storm the asylum.

“Who are those guys?!”

Diego and Lila seem to make their escape from the Swedes and the asylum pretty quickly however. Its been confirmed that the below pic is from ep 2. (X)

Based on Diego’s outfit and length of beard, the following two scenes take place around the same time. First, a heated car conversation which Five crashes.

Diego: You don’t know anything about me! Lila: I know everything. You are an open book written for very dumb children. Diego: I am n-not trying to b-be a hero, okay? Lila: Then why are you doing this?  Five: *appears in the backseat* Because he is an idiot. Lila: Who the hell are you? Five: Hi, I’m his loving brother. Diego: Who left me to rot in the nut-house. Five: To protect you from yourself.  Lila: Thats quite sweet. Diego: Okay. Both of you. Out.

And second, a dark encounter with a familiar figure...

Reginald Hargreeves & Pogo

The summary for episode 2 also mentions that “an incident at the bar leads Luther to Vanya,” and “Five finds an unsettling surprise in the film Hazel left behind,” which likely links to this image:

Its been confirmed that the following scene is from ep3 (X). Klaus is seen emerging from a river - now confirmed to be the River Ganges in India/Bangladesh which is considered sacred and purifying (X). Considering the series spans 10 days and is set in Dallas, this scene is very likely a flashback.

Note Ben in the background.

Klaus is also seen in similar attire in a wealthy looking house, which is potentially part of the commune where the cult operates.

Note Klaus no longer has his long beard.

And here’s Ben in what looks like a room in the same house. It's interesting to note that Ben (or the actor) is looking straight into the camera, implying its a first person point-of-view.

Apparently also in ep3 we have this delightful gem of Klaus being Klaus. (presumably theres a pool at the commune?).

Episode 3 also sees the Swedes chasing Vanya in a cornfield until she uses her powers to defend herself.

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Thanks to this, Five is able to track Vanya down (X). It's been confirmed that the following pic is from episode 3. (X)

And based on Vanya's clothes, Five then takes her to a cafe to explain a few things.

Vanya: Are you gonna tell me what the hell's going on? Five: When you were a baby you were bought by an eccentric billionaire. He raised you in an elite academy with six other siblings with extrodinary powers, but in the year 2019 in order to avoid the apocalypse we jumped into a vortex and ended up being scattered throughout the timeline in Dallas, Texas. Vanya: ... Five: Any questions? Vanya: ... what do you mean the apocalypse?

At some point ollowing on from this (but unknown which ep) Luther and Vanya have this conversation:

Vanya: What caused the apocalypse? Luther: ... You did... but not alone. I was part of it, we all- Vanya: How? Luther: You got angry. Lost control, you... blew up the moon. It slammed into Earth wiping out everything.

In ep3 we see both Allison and Raymond actively involved in the protests against the segregation by taking part in a sit-in (X).

Allison: I’d like to be served, please.  Waitress: *pointing to a Whites Only sign* Can’t you read, girl?  Allison: Seven languages.  Customer: Oh, you smart one, huh?  *The door opens and many other blank protesters enter.*  Allison: We’d like to be served, please.

However, it goes badly as "police brutally attack (the) peaceful protestors." (X).

The summary for ep3 says that “Allison reconnects with Klaus,” and in ep4 she is “searching frantically for Ray.” It seems, based on the following pics, that she finds Ray in jail and Klaus & Ben have a hand in getting him out.

Note the word "buearu" on the window and Ray in the background.

Based on Klaus' outfit, its sometime around this point he goes on a massive bender. We see him running with a bottle of whiskey, his gleeful cult following him, and dancing in a drinks aisle.

Note that Klaus is bleeding from his lip.

Following on from this, Klaus wakes up on Allisons floor, feeling worse for wear.

Ben: And how are we feeling this morning? Klaus: Ugh, peaches and cream, how are you? Ben: Curious. How many more rock bottoms are you going to have to hit before you start taking care of yourself?

In episode 4 “Vanya contends with a crisis at the farm.” Could this link to her developing romance as, despite Sissy still being with her husband (X), she and Vanya begin exploring a relationship?

The summary confirms that in ep4, “Five, Diego, and Lila crash a party at the Mexican consulate.” But the Swedes are still hot on their tail.

Note the third Swede in the background, chasing Five?

After surviving this, they return to their base. The following pic has been confirmed as happening in ep4 (X).

At some unknown point the Swedes (or two of them) also go after Allison, though it appears she fights back (and kills one of them?).

"They weren't here to sell vacuums!"

Also at some unknown point, Allison and Luther have a catch up. Based on Luthers partially healed face, this is after his conversation with Vanya in ep2.

Luther: We did it again… apparently.  Allison: Did what again?  Luther: Ended the world.

Also at some unknown point Vanya and Diego reconcile: “I don’t remember what I did, but I’m sorry, if that means anything,” Vanya tells Diego as he threateningly juggles a knife. “It does,” he responds, before accepting her as a confidant he can turn to for advice on how to handle his feelings for Lila. (X)

It appears that ep5 is when the whole family finally reunites. The episode summary explains how “summoned to an emergency meeting, the siblings hatch very different plans for how to spend their last 6 days on Earth.” (I have no idea what order the conversation goes in as each bit is a snippet from a different promo vid).

Five: Klaus, is Ben here? Klaus: No, unfortunately ghosts can’t time-travel. Ben: Are you kidding me?

Five: (I/We) really screwed the pooch on this one, the whole going back in time and getting stuck thing. But the real kick in the pants here is… we brought the end of the world back here with us. Klaus: Oh my god, again? My cult is gonna be so pissed. I told them we had until 2019. Five: We have until Monday.

Klaus: Is it Vanya? Allison: Klaus! Klaus: What? Its usually Vanya.

Vanya: None of us are supposed to be here, right? I mean, what if its us?

Luther: Diego's been stalking Lee Harvey Oswald. Diego: Hey, you're working for Jack Ruby! Klaus: Allison has been very involved in local politics. Allison: Okay, you started a cult! Ben: Thank you!

“We have to make it right again, before everyone and everything we know is dead.”

Following on from this, Klaus, Vanya and Allison have some bonding time in the beauty parlour.

Vanya: How do you guys deal with this? Allison: What? Vanya: I mean all of it. Time travel. Seeing the dead...?

Vanya: I’m gunna tell Sissy that I love her… I don’t want any secrets.  Klaus: Yeah? Allison: Yeah! Yeah, yeah, you’re right. Yes. Cos, y’know, if, if its all going to go tits up the least I could do is be honest with my husband. Klaus: Oh… does that mean I have to face my cult? I just hate group breakups, thats why I stopped dating twins.

“Klaus, Vanya, and Allison end a moping session by dancing together to Twistin’ the Night Away.” (X). Its been confirmed that the following pic is from ep 5. (X)

In episode 6, “Dave visits Klaus’ compound” and “the siblings meet their father for dinner” in a Tiki bar. Its been confirmed that the following pic is from ep 6 (X).

An interview with the cast has them talking about ‘the elevator scene’ and how hard it was to shoot because everyone kept cracking up. (X)

Five: All right, quick run down. Luther; super strength, Klaus can commune with the dead, Allison can rumour anyone to do anything-  Diego: Yeah except she never uses it.  Allison: I heard a rumour you punched yourself in the face.  *Diego punches himself in the face.*  Reginald: *looking at Vanya* And you?  Luther: Uh, maybe we don’t… take Vanya for a test drive.  Klaus: Oh yeah thats probably not a good idea…  Vanya: What, I think I can handle it.  *Despite everyones protests, Vanya explodes a fruit bowl.*

Based on Luther and Klaus’ outfits, the following scenes also take place sometime around the same time (ep6/7).

First, Luther pulls up to a house in an urban area, he gets out the car and has a conversation with a man (X). This is the same house where the three Swedes were seen in their milk-truck at night.

Note the gun and flask on the seat.

Next, Allison and Raymond deal with a body (of a Swede?) while Klaus & Ben don’t help. The summary of ep6 also mentions that Allison gives Ray a peek at her powers, which is maybe why he’s on board to deal with a body.

But what's the big flash that startles them? Well it may have something to do with all this craziness:

Note the chairs and people on the ceiling.

It’s hard to tell but since Ben is there, this could be Klaus being thrown backwards? The outfit certainly looks similar.

In an interview, the cast talk about how the room had to be painted completely white (then returned to normal), and how nice it was for the character of Ben to be able to share a moment with Vanya (X). This implies Vanya looses control and Ben is able to talk her down.

At some unknown point, it looks like the siblings all return to the academy.

Note that the background behind Klaus implies he’s sat in the same seat that he did as a child.

An interview asked the question "You all eat 'brain' at a family dinner..." (X) and in a different interview the cast talk about the brain acid trip (X). Could this be when that happens?

Either way, things likely don’t run smoothy. “Reginald still proves just as capable of preying on their deepest insecurities, while somehow leaving them attacking each other instead of him.” (X)

The summary for ep7 mentions someone named Carl issuing a warning to Vanya, and in ep8 it states that the FBI torture her, so its most likely the following images are from this time:

The tape recorder is turned off...

The figure from behind slaps a cloth over Vanya’s face as she takes on the appearance of The White Violin.

“A dimly lit room... Vanya is strapped to a chair. The floor is soaked with water. At the moment she is being tortured for information... After an electric shock the lights on the ceiling begin to flicker. “‘Is she doing that?’ asks a fearful FBI agent.” (X)

Also in ep7, “Five travels to 1982 to carry out his new mission”. Theres a possibility that Luther is also involved in this as a promo pic has snow surrounding the house, which I don’t think would happen in November in Dallas?

Five: I need a spotter. Luther: What is that? Like a wingman?

The summary for ep8 includes the fact that “Diego discovers what causes the apocalypse.”

“Everything in our new lives is connected to the plot to assassinate the president. That can’t be a coincidence.”

The fact we see the gun Five was going to use to assassinate JFK, implies this scene takes place on Nov 22nd, 3 days before the apocalypse. And we know from the summaries that in ep8 “Five concocts a risky plan to intercept another version of himself.”

Old Five, young Five (who’s still really old Five), and Luther.

However this may not go to plan as the summary for ep9 says, “the Fives plot against each other.”

And the summary for episode 10 is: “reeling from the events at the Dealey Plaza, the siblings head to the farm to help save Harlan.”

MOMENTS I CAN’T PLACE:

Someone flips over a table in what looks like it could be a distillery. Based on outfit and hair this could possibly be Lila, Klaus, or (less likely) Diego. Five is also there.

A similar (the same?) person flips over while avoiding gunfire. There are targets and what looks like training equipment, and the person shooting is standing under a large umbrella.

If the flipping person is Lila, then this may link to what the summaries reveal about her arc: In ep5 she confronts her mother, in ep6 the Handler is mentioned (albeit talking to Five), and in ep9 she learns the truth about her parents…

Five sneaks through a room with a camera and lights. On the blackboard the word “Pogo” is written, implying this could be Reggies house and this room is where he is teaching and studying young Pogo.

Diego walks into a control room. It looks like there might be 2-way glass. Could this link to ep8 when Diego discovers what cases the apocalypse?

Five is seen in a building with wooden panels on the walls.

Based on the background of this shot of Carmichael, the building could be part of The Commission.

“You...”

Five gets buried in rubble. Aidan looks chill about it though.

***********************************************************************

Well done for making it all the way!

I’ve tried to avoid speculation as much as possible and keep the language suggestive. I don’t know all the facts, I WILL have made errors, probably many! So please take all this with a suggestive grain of salt, I am just a hooman trying to use her squishy brain.

Please let me know if you spot any errors, think of anything else I can add, or if you want more info about any specific event ^‿^

#the umbrella academy #tua #tua s2 #klaus hargreeves #five hargreeves #ben hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #diego hargreeves #allison hargreeves #luther hargreeves #reginald hargreeves #pogo

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sadviper · 3 years

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Confessions of a Seducer: Woo Do Hwan Interview with Hong Kong Esquire, July 2018

The time is 9:21 PM. Like any other city, New York is vibrant and teeming with activity after dark. Lights glisten throughout Manhattan. This reporter, Patrick Soon, has an appointment to interview Woo Do Hwan at this time. It feels right to interview him late at night. This year, Woo Do Hwan is still only 25 years old. His drama, “The Great Seducer” is the reason for his recent rise in popularity. In it, he acts as a 2nd generation chaebol who deliberately gets close to an honors student named Eun Tae-hee with the intention to get revenge for his friend. However, he unconsciously becomes attracted to her without realizing it.

Seduction is the theme of this drama series. Woo Do Hwan is its living embodiment.

The night is dark. He arrives on set where the photoshoot is taking place, enveloped with a mysterious aura. The amazing seductive power that he exhibited in the drama is present here, demonstrated to all as he appears in the midst of “Quiet Nights”, a soft jazz melody that permeates the air.

He has a quality that is different from others

We never deviate from the topic of seduction for the purpose of the interview. In Korea, there was a strong reaction to the drama series after it aired. Typically in Korean dramas, the male lead is either entirely warm and loving, or the type of guy who is very strong but is still full of love and righteousness. The type of role that Woo Do Hwan plays in “The Great Seducer” is rare: he’s edgy, defiant, a little bit dangerous, wrapped in an aura that might very well kill you.

This series focuses on the classic kdrama subject matter of upper class angst. Within this structure, he sets new goalposts that redefine the image of a male lead actor--simultaneously cool and fragile, conflicted and gentle.

Following the broadcast of the drama, the positive feedback went far beyond Woo Do Hwan’s expectations. I paid him high compliments, telling him he was the breakout male lead character of the new generation, that this series placed him into the public consciousness of Hong Kong audiences. His expression clearly showed his astonishment.

WDH: “You said that I became an Adonis through this drama. I’m pretty embarrassed--I don’t really know how to respond. Maybe I should just accept your compliments and thank you.”

He humbly smiled and laughed after he said those words. It was like being with two different people; the feeling of someone fresh out of school versus a man with dark powers of attraction.

The drama is full of seduction, danger, and excitement, so I asked Woo Do Hwan if he ever encountered any kind of temptations in his own life. He took the question seriously, and fell deep in thought. Then he replied with a hint of embarrassment, “I have to give it some thought, if you want me to tell you what are the most difficult things to resist. That’s because at different points in your life, different things will tempt you. Lately, the greatest temptation for me is sleep. I was very tired during filming and kept wanting to just pass out. I have to sleep; so more than once, I would skip meals and go straight to bed. I want to perform well, so I try to grab every chance I can get to sleep. That way, I can stay focused and not wander off while filming.”

He likes women who are straight-shooters

In “The Great Seducer”, Woo Do Hwan plays a chaebol heir who at first treats love like a game. But once he starts dating Tae-hee, without realizing it, he becomes deeply attracted to her, only to discover after the fact that he has fallen in love. Not just love; through her, he rediscovers meaning in life.

WDH: “I feel that the character I play is very similar to who I am as a person. When I find my true love, I will give my all for the other’s sake, just like him. I can walk through fire and do anything for her. The most important thing is giving her happiness.”

There is an unspoken rule that women do not like men who are perfect, pure, goody-two-shoes. Woo Do Hwan’s role in the drama, with his aura of mystery and soul-slaying power to captivate, confirms that unspoken rule that men can’t just be normal if they want to appeal to women.

Woo Do Hwan couldn’t help but laugh when I shared my thoughts.

WDH: “Sometimes I wonder whether I’d be attracted to someone mysterious or to someone happy, upbeat, and straight-forward. Personally, if a woman can talk to me about anything and everything under the sun, then I will find her attractive. That’s because heart-to-heart communication is important to me. If she is too mysterious, then I won’t know what to do. She’d give me the feeling of being hard to get close to. So if I were to date, I would definitely choose someone who makes me feel relaxed and comfortable. Any important relationship should have no reservations, pressure, or secrets. There should be no need to hide anything. That’s what I believe.”

Noona romances

Woo Do Hwan’s focus and involvement with only one person is a testimony to how seriously he treats romantic relationships. I listed five qualities that could be used as a new definition for masculinity: Seriousness; the ability to mesmerize; manliness; mystery; and lastly, being easy-going or easy to get close to.

Many kdramas have been using noona romances for their thematic material. As the trend increased in popularity, it caused an upswell in discussions in Korea, opening up a new possibility of redefining masculinity.

WDH: “I also recently found out that noona romances are very popular in both dramas and movies. It’s an interesting phenomena. I don’t think love has anything to do with age. As I previously said, the most important things in any kind of relationship are honesty, communication, and trust. If each party thinks of the other as The One, then age shouldn’t be a factor.”

The father as the role model for your life

Woo Do Hwan’s career is only just starting to rise. He spoke frankly that he didn’t have time for romance at this stage of his life.

There is a movie called “The Divine Fury” that he is about to film. He was cast to play a completely different role from “The Great Seducer”, and will go head-to-head in direct confrontation against Park Seo-joon. In this movie, he plays a Machiavellian character who manipulates and betrays others without hesitation.

WDH: “I’m looking forward to acting this role. I’m so grateful to my family who helped and encouraged me after I entered this career field. My father is the person I admire the most, and my family are the most important people in my life. Since I was young, I already respected my father. Now that I’m an adult, I keep reminding myself to learn from him, and hope that I will become somebody like him.”

The interview is drawing to a close. I said, “You’re absolutely a rising star.” He immediately responded with a humble smile, “If you want to talk about what’s fashionable, let’s talk about local hotspots. If I don’t need to work, I’d ask my friend to join me at the Nanji Hangang Park (a resort area for picnicking and camping near the Han River?). I feel very relaxed in those kinds of places. After camping, then along the way, I’ll visit rooftop bars and cafes in the ___ area (in Cantonese, sounds like “Lee Tai Yuen”). I like to enjoy my coffee or handcrafted beer, and just relax and talk until nightfall. That’s the kind of life that I like.”

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Notes: Not my translation, I just bothered someone to give me the rough idea, and I cleaned up the aftermath, chortling over the endless amounts of “amazing seductive power” that Woo Do Hwan was overwhelming this Patrick Soon guy with. Apparently the interviewer was being excessively roundabout in his writing, so I just...made stuff up since I couldn’t verify accuracy, ahaha. I’m irked that this article isn’t on the HK Esquire website, so this is for internet posterity I guess?

Finally, I seriously hope WDH got paid beaucoup bucks for sitting on dumpster lids and bare doorsteps in NYC, my god. ;__;

#woo do hwan #Chinese translation #Chinese interview #Hong Kong Esquire #The Great Seducer #Tempted #The Divine Fury #touching NYC grunge with bare hands and expensive duds #brave man #it said Manhattan #it feels like Brooklyn #interview

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trifoliate-undergrowth · 3 years

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ok so, now that my opinions have had time to age a while, here’s a SHORT version of my Pacific Rim: Uprising review.

Was this movie a complete out of control raging dumpster fire with several past-date and poorly-constructed fireworks going off unpredictably and dangerously in random directions, an inferno of stale McDonalds, and a family of raccoons fleeing in terror? Oh yes. Can I recommend it to anyone? Absolutely not.

Did I enjoy it MUCH more than I expected to? Quite a bit, actually? Yes. Yes I did. (The first one-third of it much more than the second-third, and the second-third rather more than the last third.) BUT.

For all its (many, many) faults it did give us these images:

SRIRACHA MAN

WAIT! He isn’t done! WINDOW SURPRISE! He’s on the side of your building, with (re)theft in his mind! PARKOUR MAN WINDOW SURPRISE JAKE PENTECOST ok it doesn’t really scan like Actual Cannibal Shia LaBouef but. y’know

HILARIOUSLY-TIMED HILARIOUSLY-AUDIBLE B O N K

this expression

this WHOLE scene with the sprinjkles my man Jake is tired and mildly unhinged and hungry and he wants to eat his goddamn ice cream in PEACE this fughkcin Protagonist Hero Man of a dude is trying to tell him Important Plot Information and he is NOT having it. I love him. Wish they’d shown a bit more of the transition between this facet of his behavior and the more straight-laced version of him later on but, eh. Raging dumpster fire!! ANYWAYS THE GOOD STUFF

YEAH THIS SHOT OF DR. GOTTLIEB TOSSING BACK A CUP OF COLD TEA LIKE IT’S A SHOT. and the fact that you can TELL he was just about to drink it at The Optimal Temperature, but heard that Newton was onsite and left it there to get cold while he ran out to meet him and do this

....anyways,,,

oh yeah this shot, I just like to make fun of this shot c’mon y’all CMON Y’ALL this is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen (not you Charlie Day, it’s the composition of the whole thing, what happened) its all needlessly grimdark and indistinct and I GUESS you wanted the focus on Alice’s tank but its NOT the focus because NEWTON’S ENTIRE ASS is FRONT AND CENTER taking up the ENTIRE focus of this shot and OBSCURING the tank, which is the ONLY thing in the room (BESIDES NEWTON’S ASS) that ISN’T super grimdark and impossible to see?? WAS THIS ON PURPOSE? WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS WHEN STAGING THIS?? WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE I’M JUST IN AWE AT HOW UNHINGED THIS IS WHOSE IDEA WAS THIS WHO DID THIS

oh yeah angry science lady who doesn’t like handshakes and hasn’t got the time for social niceties when she’s too busy trying to save the world, I love her she’s fun, you go ma’am handshakes are gross

she and my other favorite science person (in this movie where Newton is Badwrong) also stood next to each other a whole Several times and it made my heart happy even as the plot of the movie was breaking down into a million unrelated pieces of radioactive garbage that was on fire

conclusion:

don’t watch it, but absolutely listen to me yell about it instead, I did this so you don’t have to, lets watch Pacific Rim (The Original) together instead, I’m not saying that movie is perfect either but boy does it hold itself together better than whatever several different unrelated apocalypses happened HERE

#personal (ok to rb)#pacific rim #pacific rim: uprising #spoilers #pru #gun cw #sorta #to be safe #its a blur?? but ye #i guess THE ASS SHOT is a better kind of unhinged than zooming in on some actress' super sexualized ass #at least that ddnt happen #but I would rather not have any of it!! i would rather not have any shots where the entire focus is someones ass!!!#why would you do this !!!#'yes this is my monster movie about Action Fights. now look at charlie day's posterior' I mean I dont MIND that but Im UNCOMFORTABLE #and i DONT understand why this is happening here now in this way #*bangs on the writers window* YOU GOOD??? YOU GOOOD??? IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU #I DONT UNDERSTAND BHAWAT IS HAPEPNGIN #i am dragged away by drone security #still screaming I WOULD JUST LIKE TO KNOW WHAT THE HELLLLLL YOU WERE THINIKINGGGG

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tattoed-and-toothless · 19 days

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This picture is so chaotic as a whole

But then you look closer:

/Record scratch/

"Hi. You might be wondering how I got here..."

Source: Instagram

#i cant stop looking at reino and pasta #like every time i look back at it #i start giggling again #its an absolute dumpster fire of an image #it sums up the end of the game well #it was so chaotic #this series is going to be so fun to watch #florida panthers #boston bruins #nhl playoffs 2024 #bruins vs panthers series #round 2 game 2 #nhl #hockey #nhl playoffs #record scratch #you might be wondering how i got here

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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 years

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College Covid app is a security dumpster-fire

In the early days of the pandemic, the term "contact tracing" vaulted into the public consciousness: that's the shoe-leather- and labor-intensive process whereby skilled heath experts establish a personal rapport with infected people to establish who they had contact with.

For both good reasons (the scale of the pandemic) and bad ones (tech's epistemological blindness, which insists that all social factors can be ignored in favor of quantifiable ones), there was interest in automating this process and "exposure notification" was born.

The difference is that exposure notification tells you whether your device was near another device whose owner is sick. It doesn't tell you about the circumstances - like, was it one of the people at that eyeball-licking party? Or someone in the next car in a traffic jam?

Exposure notification vaporizes qualitative elements of contact tracing, leaving behind just a quantitative residue of unknown value. There are two big problems with this: first, it might just not be very useful (that's what they learned in Iceland):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/12/evil-maid/#fjords

Second: people might be so distrustful of your data-handling processes that they actively subvert the app, meaning there are so many holes in your data that the data-set is useless. That's what happened in Norway.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/15/norway-pulls-its-coronavirus-contacts-tracing-app-after-privacy-watchdogs-warning/

The thing is, contact tracing is high-touch/low-tech because it is a social science intervention. Social scientists have always understood that if you only gather the data that's easy to reach, you'll come to bad conclusions skewed by defects in your collection.

A canonical text on this is Clifford Geertz's "Thick Description," where he describes an anthropologist trying to figure out why a subject just winked: is it flirting? Dust in the eye? Something else? The only way to know is to ask: you can't solve this with measurement.

To a first approximation, all the important stuff in our world has an irreducible, vital qualitative dimension. Take copyright exemptions: fair use rules are deliberately qualitative ("Is your use transformative in a way that comments on or criticizes the work it uses?").

These are questions that reflect policy priorities: in the words of the Supreme Court, fair use is the "escape valve" for the First Amendment, the thing that squares exclusive rights for authors with the public's right to free expression.

But the tech and entertainment industry have spent decades trying to jettison this in favor of a purely quantitative measure: it's not fair use if your image incorporates more than X pixels from another, or if your video or sound has more than Y seconds from another work.

This is idiotic. Solving automation challenges by declaring the non-automatable parts to be unimportant is how we get self-driving car assholes saying, "We just need to tell people that they're not allowed to act unpredictably in public."

(BTW, this is all said much better than I can in a superb Communications of the ACM article by Randy Connolly: "Why Computing Belongs Within the Social Sciences.")

https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2020/8/246368-why-computing-belongs-within-the-social-sciences/fulltext

All of this is a leadup to the story of @Q3w3e3, an anonymous student at Michigan's Albion College, a private uni that reopened after insisting that all students must install a proprietary exposure notification app before returning to campus to lick each other's eyeballs.

Albion paid some grifters to develop this app. Because of course they did. The app is called Aura, and it was created by a company called "Nucleus Careers."

If you're thinking that's a weird name for a public health development company, you're right. They're a recruiting firm, founded this year, "with no apparent history or experience in building or developing healthcare apps."

https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/19/coronavirus-albion-security-flaws-app/

Aura is predictably terrible. As @Q3w3e3 discovered when they audited it, the app stores all the students' location data in an Amazon storage bucket, and comes with the keys to access that data hard-coded into the app.

The app also allows attackers to trivially discover the test status of any registered user. Techcrunch discovered this bug and hypothesizes that they could get the health data for 15,000 people this way. Did someone say HIPAA?

Nucleus Careers refused to talk with Techcrunch's Zack Whittaker about this beyond a few glomarish nonstatements. But the school administration is standing behind the app, threatening to expel students who don't use it.

And this brings us back to the disutility of the denatured quantitative residue of the thick, qualitative process of contact tracing. Many of the students who have the most at risk from using the app are also at the highest risk of contracting the disease.

People struggling with addiction, queer kids who aren't out and have secret partners, people engaged in survival sex-work are all at higher risk of exposure, and they also have the biggest reason NOT to use the app, lest it leak their secrets.

These are the people who you absolutely WANT to include in public health efforts, but that can only happen through noncoercive, personal, high-trust, low-tech interventions.

In other words, Aura isn't just technologically inept, it's also epidemiologically inept. The cliche that "you treasure what you measure" could not be more applicable here.

Look, these students shouldn't even be on campus. Obviously. And even a good contact tracing system would probably mostly serve as a postmortem for analyzing the inevitable conflagration of infection incoming in 3...2...1

But Albion is still a fascinating case-study in the lethal incoherence of the contempt of both managerial and technology circles for "human factors."

At the very least, we should ensure that the lives they will squander through their hubris aren't totally wasted.

#pluralistic

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coasttocoastreads · 4 years

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Sorry we took an unannounced hiatus! We were both experiencing burnout, but we def want to put in the work to make this blog something we’re proud of. With that being said, here’s the next review!

Thank you to Edelweiss for providing me with an e-arc of this book, i’d been looking forward to this one for so long!

I’ll Be the One // Lyla Lee

★★★★ / ★★★★★

Summary in One Gif: (if you know what this is from ily)

Real Summary:

Skye, a talented singer and dancer, has been told all her life she can’t do what she loves because of the way she looks. So when a competition to find the next big K-Pop star rolls into town, Skye knows that’s her chance to prove herself. In this competition, she meets many new friends (including totally dreamy celebrity model Henry Cho) along with enemies that are determined to see her fail. Will Skye be able to become the world’s first plus-size K-Pop star without losing herself?

Pros:

Incidental LBGTQA+ characters!

Awesome, confident plus-sized character. Not once does she consider losing weight to make others happy.

Cons:

Very clearly written for non-east-asian audiences. There were some very off-putting explanations of culture (I’m east asian, idk if it would be weird for someone who’s not 😬)

Romance def felt a little rushed towards the end

Plot: 4/5

Very simplistic elimination competition plot, not much to say about it. I did appreciate the moments Skye spent with her family and friends, they def felt very realistic and grounding when compared to the high-energy dancing/singing contest scenes.

Pacing 5/5

Since the book centered around this competition that culminated in one person winning, the pacing was def extremely well done. There weren’t any parts that lagged and I had to read the book in one sitting because there wasn’t a part where I could put it down.

Characters 4/5

I definitely found the side characters more engaging than Skye who could be a little single-minded at times. However, I could relate to a lot of Skye’s experiences and that made the book so much better. Henry is precious and honestly goals

Overall Thoughts:

GOOD ASIAN REP? IN THIS ABSOLUTE DUMPSTER FIRE OF A YEAR? IT’S MORE LIKELY THAN YOU THINK. I absolutely loved this book so much and its accuracy of east asian girls going through body image issues physically hurt me. Yes, it could be a little cliché at times, but in a fun way. I’ll be sure to pick up the sequel whenever it’s released, I can’t wait!

I would recommend for:

K-Pop fans

People looking for a fun, quick read

Readers looking for good plus-size representation

Would I travel here?

Skye seems to be a delight to be around, so yes

#tiff's reviews #4 stars #i'll be the one #lyla lee #bookblr #booklr #bookstagram #ya lit #book review #books #yalit #reading

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harry-sussex · 4 years

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A Note... and A Big Thank You

Gather ‘round, my friends. This is going to be a long post, so please bear with me as I write all of this out. I’d appreciate it if you would read until the end, if you’re interested.

It’s been a few weeks now, and I’ve had time to settle my thoughts and almost come to terms with what’s happened with the British Royal Family over the past month or so. It was difficult for me in a very, very real way. I don’t know The Duke and Duchess of Sussex or their son, and they will never know me, but I care for them in a way I can’t really describe. I can only hope that you all know what the feeling is like, as lovers of royalty yourselves. It’s hard enough to explain to people in the real world. I’m glad I won’t have to explain to you that the feelings - of affection, of pride, and of disappointment - are very real, very tangible... even with respect to complete strangers who live thousands of miles away, working for a country in which you do not live, with privilege and a lifestyle you could only imagine... the feelings are very real.

On January 8th, I was at work. Typing away, doing my thing, more or less minding my own business. I saw the Instagram notification - SussexRoyal made a post - and when I saw the little thumbnail image next to the notification of their engagement photocall, I literally thought oh my God, Meghan is pregnant. I clicked that notification faster than I’ve clicked anything in my life.

As you all know, that’s not even close to what they were saying. Ultimate high to ultimate low in a second flat. I remember my stomach dropping. And I remember the panic. Or at least my sheer, unadulterated panic because let me tell you - I was panicking. In a very real, heart pounding, head spinning, caps lock, oh my God no this isn’t happening way. My Harry was leaving and taking with him some of the best parts of who he is - a wife and child we’ve only just gotten to know, with whom we’d already fallen so in love, after waiting so long for them to appear in his life - and I. was. panicking.

Once we had a few moments as a fandom to wrap our heads around the Sussexes’ proposal as outlined on SussexRoyal.com, to develop some semblance of understanding, the second bomb dropped - HM was unaware of their decision to go public. Charles and William weren’t in on it, either. The discussions were preliminary and were far from adequate enough for the public’s questioning and demanding gaze. Harry did what Harry has always been prone to doing... he didn’t like the way things had to be, so he made his own rules.

It didn’t look good for my Harry, who I’ve always loved, always defended, even when the worst parts of his personality overshadowed the best. And for the first time in all the years I’ve been following him, I had nothing to defend him with. Nothing. He was wrong in my eyes - plain as day, he was a stubborn, spoiled, petulant brat who didn’t get his way immediately, and retaliated. He had his reasons, sure, and they were (and are) legitimate. But I couldn’t find a single way to defend the way he went about making it happen. And let me tell you guys - that was not easy for me to wrap my head around. I’d always found room in my thoughts to understand Harry’s relatively infrequent grand lapses of judgment. This time, I had nothing. My Harry was wrong. Wrong.

Not only was he wrong, but he seemed so lost, so desperate to get out. It was absolutely heartbreaking imagining my Harry - my strong, cheery, dedicated Harry - feeling so desperate for the sake of the safety of his wife and child that he went to this extreme. Abandoning the only life he’d ever know for a chance at peace. The only reason for such a move was sheer desperation. As infuriating as it was... it was equivalently, if not more, heartbreaking. He sought peace in the only way he thought he could, blindly fearful of the same forces that took his mother, now coming for his wife and son, clawing his way out so he could finally rest... heartbreaking. I don’t know this about him, but just imagining it was enough for me to feel sick to my stomach. My poor Harry. My poor, stubborn Harry.

Within minutes, this place was at absolute war. A war that has been building for several years finally hit its breaking point. I saw people turn on each other, turn on the royals, change their points of view. I saw language I’ve never seen in all of my years here. The blame game, finger pointing, complete dissolution of real relationships, friendships breaking, two factions violently clashing with every new piece of information released... it was awful. It was like a train wreck, or a dumpster fire. I’ve seen a lot happen in this fandom over the past six years, but I’ve never seen anything like January 8th. Never. I couldn’t sit around and watch it happen but I couldn’t bring myself to leave. I had to be involved for the sake of this blog and for the sake of William, Kate, Harry, Meghan, the kids, and the rest of the British Royal Family, but I hated my involvement. It was an awful feeling. Combined with how awful I was feeling already about the idea of the split alone... I felt terrible for days. Weeks, even. Even now, just thinking about it, seeing photos of Harry and Meghan plastered all over every media source... even seeing William and Kate out and about, still doing their royal duties... I still feel absolutely awful about the whole thing. Lost, and sad, and lonely... just awful.

I was losing and gaining followers every minute. Some people I thought were friends vanished in the blink of an eye, because they didn’t like what I had to say. Some - violently so. My inbox and messages blew up - some agreeing with me, more screaming at me, and even more asking what the hell was going on. It’s been more than four weeks, and I still haven’t gotten through even a third of the messages. My head was spinning in the worst way, and I couldn’t shake it. I couldn’t believe it. All of these years of loving my Harry, waiting for him to find his partner, watching him find her, fall in love with her, propose to her, bring her into this unique world of his... traveling 3,500 miles to see the wedding in person, falling in love with Meghan for the simple reason that he loved her, crying for their pregnancy, and falling in love with the bump that became Bubba that became Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor... just for it to all get ripped out from under my feet not two years later. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t handle it. I was heartbroken and completely blindsided and lost and so, so immeasurably sad. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do.

People were coming at me in droves, mocking my longtime defense of the Cambridges and my omnipresent denial of the feud. Screaming about William, about how I’m awful for caring for him and his family after what he’s done to his only brother... screaming about the Royal Family and how I’m terrible for loving them despite what they did to Harry and Meghan... telling me to go focus on my “perfect” future King/Queen and leave the Sussexes out of my life, calling me the worst names for having the audacity to open my heart to more than Harry/Meghan/Archie... and worse. Much, much worse. My inbox was absolutely atrocious after this whole thing first happened. A lot of the messages have been since deleted, but just reading them once was more than enough for me.

I was so ashamed, knowing that this place that I often love so much has eroded to this. Violence, cruelty, arguing, slinging real insults, cursing the existence of some of my favorite people on the planet, cursing each other... it was so awful. So awful. There are no words to describe how it felt for me - a William girl, a Kate girl, a Harry girl, and a Meghan girl, through and through - to be a part of this fandom during these past few weeks. But mostly, it was absolutely, heartbreakingly awful. I’m strong enough to know that this stuff doesn’t matter, not really... but it does, in its own way. It does.

When the split was finalized with a quick, heartfelt, and ultimately quite succinct message from The Queen, I genuinely cried. Real tears, real heartbreak. That was it - the end of something many of us waited years and years for, gone after not even two. Never in my wildest dreams did I even entertain such an idea. The end of six years of following my Harry... done. Harry was one of the highlights of my day for so long and now... that’s it. It’s over. I was not ready for it, not even remotely prepared for even the idea of it (a split never once even crossed my mind as a possibility to begin with), and now... it’s over. And it hurts now, just as it did on January 8th and every day of every announcement since then. It hurts, in a very real way. It hurts. And Harry’s last speech sealed the deal. In ten minutes, he seemed to confirm the sheer desperation with which he acted. He reminded the world of his reasons for doing what he did - ultimately, to protect that which he holds most dear. He promised that he wasn’t bailing, but he couldn’t live this way anymore... I’ll admit, I bawled while I was reading it. I still haven’t listened to the audio; I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to. It broke me completely. Shattered me. My Harry, the light of my life, broke my heart that day and I honestly believe things will never be the same for me with him. I’m heartbroken. Truly, honestly, even after all of these weeks... utterly heartbroken.

I’ve been called extra, dramatic, pathetic... both here and in my real life. I can live with that; that doesn’t bother me. The feelings are real. The pride, the disappointment, the heartbreak, the panic, the fury, the excitement, the joy... even though we don’t know these royals, the feelings are real. I’ll go to my grave saying that. Most of you guys understand that, I know you do. Dramatic? Maybe. But the way I felt, and feel, about this situation is very, very, agonizingly real.

I’m not sure if it’s apparent, but I’ve taken a bit of a break around here since the last statement dropped. I’ve been online, sure - occasionally reblogging, chatting, liking, commenting, and whatnot - but I haven’t been nearly as active as I tend to be. There’s a big hole in this place that the Sussexes left behind when they split from the Royal Family and it’s taken some adjusting for me to grow accustomed to their absence on my dashboard. I love William and Kate with my whole heart, you guys know that, but there’s just something missing right now. A little bit of spark, a little bit of my Harry magic is missing, and his absence from my day-to-day blogging dims the allure of this place significantly for me.

I’m still not sure what’s going to happen with this blog. A blog called Harry-Sussex is hard to keep up if there’s no more Harry Sussex to follow, you know? I’m not sure how to cover Their Royal Highnesses the future King and Queen alongside Mr. and Mrs. Sussex, regular people. This blog has been and always will be about royalty... what do you do when half of the royals you cover and care about decide they don’t want to be royal anymore?

I’ve been here for almost six years and I don’t really want to leave just yet. I think there’s a lot left to see, a lot left to say. I always wanted to stick around as long as I could, until William’s investiture as Prince of Wales at the very least, but the Sussex split has made that idea much less appealing. Maybe it’d be easier to follow these people I love so much from afar, instead of so closely. Maybe I could return to the blissful ignorance of the days before I had this blog, when I got excited over outfits and babies and tiaras instead of getting frustrated over finances and security and engagements. I’m not sure. What I do know is that this isn’t as fun for me as it used to be, and truly, I never thought I’d say that. But in all honesty, this... this has been different. Way different than anything in my wildest dreams.

I’m not leaving - please don’t mistake that. I’m not leaving, not yet, but I just want you all to know that my heart truly isn’t in this right now, and I want you to understand why. The Sussexes took most of it with them, and whatever’s left has been completely shattered by the way this fandom, this place turned on itself and absolutely imploded... destruction, violence, and cruelty, shattering it from the inside out. This place is fractured, it is damaged, perhaps irreparably. And it is very, very real. It may be an online space, but behind each blog is a real person with real feelings towards these very real royals, and the words one says and actions in which one partakes can have very real consequences.

That being said... the consequences do not always have to be negative. There are some truly wonderful people involved in this fandom, without whom I’m not sure how I would have made it through. It was hard, it still is hard, navigating this new “blog normal.”

There are quite a few people that I have met or interacted with over the years, and particularly since the split, who have made navigating this new normal much easier. It was so hard, I was so upset that I cannot adequately vocalize the feeling... but there are some people who went out of their way to cheer me up, however inadvertently. Through a quick message, chatting, sheer knowledge, or just making me laugh... I really struggled with this place for a bit. I wasn’t sure if I was going to bow out or not. I wasn’t sure if I could handle the malice, the negativity from the fandom compounded with missing Harry and Meghan more than I could stand.

I’m not, at least not now, and I truly believe I owe that to these people. In the weeks between the first statement and the last, the worst parts of this place were on full display for the world - and me - to see. I almost let it get to me; I almost let it win. The best parts, though - nearly overcome by the sheer magnitude of what was happening - revealed themselves to me in a time when I really, really needed it. My feelings regarding the split were tangible. The help these wonderful people provided to me was equivalently real, equivalently tangible.

So, with that, I’d like to name and thank more than a few people publicly who really, really made this place a place worth staying in during and in the immediate aftermath of the Sussex split:

@acaffeinateduniverse - Someone I’ve never spoken to before the split. You saw my posts about how heartbroken I was and sent me the absolute sweetest message, understanding and empathizing and generally just being very, very sweet. For worrying, and for understanding the reality of these feelings. You are a surprise bright spot in a place that can so often be dark and the world is better because you are in it. I’m so sorry that you’re equivalently upset by this new arrangement, but we will make it through together. You’re an absolute angel, thank you for being you.

@avidroyalfan - We’ve been through a lot on this website together, haven’t we, Debby? Thank you for always bringing it back down to Earth and for always coming out swinging - especially when anons are involved. For always caring about what I have to say. Sometimes I feel like I’m screaming into the void, but never if you’re around. Seeing your name always brightens my day. Thank you.

@cambridgemadness - We have almost nothing in common from a royal-watching standpoint and yet you took time out of your day to message me in the peak of this mess. We don’t even follow each other but you saw what was going on and put aside our differences and dissimilar preferences to reach out a hand. This place needs more of that. The problem here isn’t dissenting opinions; it’s the malice often associated with finding out someone feels differently than you do. You never did that - not with me - and I really appreciate it more than I can put into words. Thank you, Vanessa, for reaching out to a complete stranger so kindly. Seriously. Thank you.

@catherineandmeghans - What can I possibly say, Rach? We’ve been through a lot together over the years and there’s nobody out there who handles the ins and outs of this hellhole better than you do. For always being a bright spot in anyone’s day and for always speaking with understanding, level-headedness, and a (figurative) smile. For knowing when to take a step back. You are an angel.

@claireofluxembourg - It’s a rare thing when someone is a fan and a critic of the same royal, given the development and preeminence of stan culture - especially in this fandom. For not letting your love of Henry cloud your judgment. For always being hilarious (hello, Henry’s bald spot) and for always, always owning your shit. For never being afraid to speak your mind. For reaching out and understanding (even when I’m being dramatic) and for everything. You know, friend. You know. I love you so much ♡

@crownprincesses - For a rational brain, the sweetest disposition, and equal-opportunity-representation of everyone’s favorite royals. For understanding what was happening and responding so calmly. For never letting it get to you. I could learn a thing or two about that from you, Chiara. Thank you for it.

@defend-mm - For your passion, dedication, and availability. For your involvement. For the regular positivity in my notifications that I regretfully have taken for granted in the past. For your openness and enthusiasm and eagerness to defend. For your engagement with the broader community. We should all enjoy passion and excitement the way you do.

@duchessofostergotlands - The Queen herself. For knowing everything and never balking at sharing your knowledge. For being the most rational and thorough person I know. For level-headed understanding and never, ever judging - even and especially when I deserve it. For your openness and willingness to talk. For never letting your preferences get in the way of what others are feeling. For your understanding and patience. For RuPawl. I could go on, but I think you know. Thank you, Jessica.

@gloriousglorianas - One of the most level-headed people I know. Cece, I don’t know where this place would be without your calm, forgiving, and rational insight, but I’m glad I’ll never have to know. You are a steadfast pillar of rationality mixed with a heavy dose of excitement and passion and I appreciate it so much. Thank you for reaching out as kindly as you have and thank you for sticking through the mess and coming out stronger on the other side. For your nuanced understanding of anything and everything.

@grandmotherofeurope - Thank you for understanding, for loving him and knowing the heartbreak that came with the split. You reached out - again, without knowing me from a hole in the wall - without judging and with understanding and compassion and I’m forever grateful for it. I’m truly so, so sorry that you’re so hurt by what’s happened. I sympathize, and I understand. You’ll get through it, I promise. Thank you for being so sweet.

@harryandmeghansussex - My best girl. Becky, I don’t know how we made it through, but we did. It’s going to be an adjustment but if anyone’s going to be alright, it’s you. Harry and Meghan would be thrilled to know they have someone like you out there in their corner. These days, they need it. For the positivity, all of the challenges, and never letting the negativity get through. For the updates and the pictures and always keeping me (and everyone else) in the loop. I wouldn’t have known anything about the Sussexes beyond what was posted on Instagram without you. Thank you for keeping on top of it when the rest of us can’t. For understanding and valuing my points of view without bailing on a friendship because we differ. Another valuable commodity, a true rarity around here. Thank you.

@hollylite - The very first person to reach out when I was in the middle of having a nervous breakdown. Thank you for your consistent reassurances, your sweet demeanor, and for your understanding. Our conversation reminds me of the very best this place has to offer; you are most certainly a part of that. Thank you.

@hrhatbat - Morgan... Morgan Morgan Morgan. I swear you’re like a Texas-living, design-savvy, stylist clone of myself. We have so much in common it literally scares me, but I love it. Thank you for keeping things bright and airy around here. It felt so dark for a few weeks, but you never let that get to you or through you, and you never let it get past you to everyone else. Thanks for never judging and always having something else to talk about.

@lizisaroyalist - You know how much I adore you, but it needs to be in writing. For always making me laugh and for always coming out swinging. For the best insults (”cold slice of ham”) and for never taking yourself (or anyone else) too seriously. For always being in my corner. For laughing at the ridiculous messages I get, especially now. I could go on for hours. There aren’t enough words, but I think you know. Thank you for being you, Liz. I love you so so so much ♡ It’s come to my attention that you’ve chosen to leave since I started writing this, which is okay. We’ll be here if you ever want to come back. I hope you see this. You deserve to know how wonderful you are and how thankful I am for your friendship.

@lorising - Lo. What can I say that hasn’t already been said about you? For the love, the positivity, and the understanding. For defending anyone and everyone - royal or not. For the laughter, and the incredibly unique and invaluable optimism and enthusiasm. For reaching out with a hug and for being so warm and inviting to anyone and everyone. For your “infinite support.” We could all learn a thing or two from you.

@meghanscatherines - For being so willing to start new communities within this larger community. For your positivity and optimism. For being as sweet as pie. For understanding, empathizing, and being so compassionate. You’re a sweetheart, Bia. Thank you.

@middletonmarkle - The sweetest girl. Mackinley, seeing you in my notifications and on my dashboard always puts a smile on my face. For bringing me back down to earth with the smallest, sweetest comment. It’s the little things. Also, for being on the “William is attractive as all hell” train. I respect that - you know I do.

@mrmrswales - Our resident genius. I have no idea how someone like me and someone like you get along so well, but I’m thankful that we do. For always being willing to share your information. For the sheer breadth of knowledge and expertise you bring to the table. For being willing to have a conversation, even when that conversation involves someone you categorically cannot stand. For your drive, ambition, your attitude, and for always playing the Devil’s advocate. I wouldn’t know half of the things I do without you. May we all love and appreciate and take pride in our favorites the way you do yours.

@princeh3nry - The other fandom OG Harry girl. For understanding what it’s like to love him and for understanding what it’s like to love the rest of them, too. For never letting the atmosphere cloud your judgment. For years of Harry content. For (inadvertently) dragging me into the mess that is following Prince Harry all those years ago. For a nuanced and established point of view. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one still in this thing for Harry. Thank you for making me feel a lot less alone - especially now.

@princessanneftw - A seriously underrated person around here who never gets involved in the drama (and who seriously makes me laugh with every post). Thank you so much for reaching out when I was about to lose my mind. I know I haven’t answered your message (I’m terrible at that, notoriously) but I do go back and read it over and over when I get overwhelmed with this situation, which, even now, weeks later, is still quite often. It was so sweet and I am so grateful that you took the time to write it. You are an angel. You always crack me up - seriously, all the time - and that’s such a valuable commodity in this community. Thank you for your kindness and for your sense of humor.

@princesscatherinemiddleton - Our resident positivity guru, Duchess of Cambridge extraordinaire, fashion Queen. Grace, every community - online or not - deserves a person like you. From making it your personal mission to spread positivity among the darkness, to your calculated and fervent dedication to The Duchess of Cambridge, to welcoming The Duchess of Sussex with open arms... I don’t know what to say. It takes a special kind of person to willingly do what you do around here. I hope you never leave - we could use someone like you. Thank you for doing what you do and for reaching out directly. For understanding the bigger picture. So much love to you, my friend.

@queensonjas - I feel like you always understand what I’m trying to say even if it makes zero sense. Thank you for making me feel like a little bit less of a lunatic. Thank you for always including anyone and everyone. This place can be so ostracizing - thank you for never letting that happen, especially during this mess. I appreciate it more than I can say.

@riffraffrouge - I intentionally left this one last to write because I didn’t know how to put it into words, but I’ll try. Melissa, if I am grateful for anything that came from this disaster of a place, it’s you and your friendship. I had no idea that anyone on Earth loved both the Yankees and the Duchess of Cambridge the way I do... let alone someone who lives less than an hour away. When I made this blog six years ago, I didn’t think I’d get anything in my real life out of it. Fortunately, I was wrong. Thank you for everything you are and everything you do. For your kindness and for reaching out to anyone and everyone who needs a friend. For your enthusiasm (in everything) and for your willingness to speak, engage, learn, and teach. For freaking out with me when we signed Gerrit Cole and Brett Gardner. For laughing at the future of the Houston Astros and the Boston Red Sox. For never, ever, ever judging, especially for my hysterics during the split. Generally, for being the sweetest person on the face of the planet. There are no words, but I think (hope) you know. I’m so thankful that you’re you. Let’s get brunch again soon. I love you so so so so so much ♡

@rosegirl1416 - Another person I’ve never spoken to until the split. Your comments have not gone unnoticed, dear. Thank you for your patience and understanding. For your positivity and for the light you bring to this community. I’ll never forget your reply to one of my posts, telling me to breathe and take my time with getting back to everyone when I was in the middle of an outright breakdown. I needed to hear it. I really appreciate your kindness and generosity and humanity. This place lacks that kind of substance a lot of the time, but you don’t.

@will-make-more-mistakes-tomorrow - Your presence has not gone unnoticed, my friend. I see you day in and day out and I appreciate you so much. Thank you for your involvement, your generosity, your interest. It is rare to feel so seen and heard but you make it effortless. We all need someone like you in our corner. Thank you.

--------------------

I’m not sure when my activity level will pick back up again. Writing this whole thing over the past week has been extremely therapeutic, so maybe it’ll be sooner rather than later. I know I have a ton of unanswered messages, both in my inbox and in my personal messages. I know I owe answers, especially to many of you tagged above, and I promise they will come. I’m still feeling so overwhelmed with this place and with the new status quo of following and loving the British Royal Family. I’m still furious at the situation and I’m still so, so, so damn sad.

I still care for them, and I always will, but the allure and luster of following the royals has dulled significantly for me now that half the people I care about aren’t working for the family anymore. I’ve tried to get into other families, other royals, and I just can’t. It’s William, Kate, Harry, and Meghan for me, is and will always be. With half of them on the other side of the globe... what else am I supposed to do, you know? How do I keep this thing going? I’m not sure, but right now, the hole is just too big for me to actively work through it. Maybe the weight will lessen as the new norm becomes old news, but for now... the absence is just too big. It still hurts too much. I can’t bring myself to get excited over the future for them right now because it just hurts way too much. Ultimately, I’m happy for them, but I’m not happy about it. I’m not excited to see what the future holds because it isn’t what it used to be. I still adore them both, but right now, the excitement that many Sussex fans are feeling about the prospect of future projects is foreign to me. I hope that changes, but for now... I’m just not into it anymore. I’m just not. Not the way I used to be. It breaks my heart, but it’s the truth. It just doesn’t hold the same magic for me anymore.

What was the point of me writing this mammoth essay? A few reasons, I guess. I first wanted to acknowledge my comparatively lackluster activity since the final statement was released. I wanted to acknowledge that I know I owe many of you answers, and I wanted to promise that they are coming - because they are. I wanted to acknowledge specifically the people who reached out to me during the events and days leading up to the final statement when I made it loud and clear that I was not coping well. I wanted to be perfectly honest about what I’ve been feeling, about the heartbreak and disappointment and feeling lost and alone. I wanted to recognize my reasons for taking a step back and the reasons for my diminishing interest in covering the royals... despite the fact that I’d never thought that day would come.

Mostly, though, I wanted to acknowledge the completely toxic culture that is associated with this fandom. Many people have written pieces about how our little niche of the Internet is the worst one to be in, and on January 8th, for the first time, I really felt it. The way people treated each other was not right. Period. We’re all culprits, but most people make an effort. Some people do not, and it infiltrates the entire place. There are real people with real feelings - yes, even about these royals that we do not and never will know - behind these blogs. If you’re not thinking about how what you’re writing would come off if you were saying it out loud instead, then you’re not doing it right. We can differ without being cruel. We can have a conversation without slinging accusations. We can be civil in the face of differences. The mute, block, and blacklist functions are there for a reason. Use them. If you don’t like what someone has to say, then make sure it can’t come across your dashboard. If you’re going to react, do it fairly. Things are difficult enough in this world without having a space that’s supposed to be fun and interesting become a dark cloud over your day. If this isn’t fun for you anymore, then maybe think about why. And do whatever you can to change it. This is your space. You and you alone have to make sure that it stays positive, or else it won’t.

I’ve unfollowed 16 blogs since the split. 97 to 81. My blocked list is double that. I’m not thrilled about it, but this needs to be about me, just like your space has to be about you. I truly believe that’s the only way to keep this fun for everyone. This isn’t enormously fun for me anymore, but it doesn’t need to be that way for everyone. If you don’t like reading something, make sure you can’t read it. It’s really that simple.

Anyway... I’m sorry for the long post. I really am. If you’ve stuck around this long, then I seriously applaud you. Thank you for caring about what I have to say and the way I’ve been feeling. It really helped to get this all out in writing. I’m hoping I’ll be back to normal soon. I love you guys, you know that. I really do. And I love them still - aggravating as they may be. I’m hoping this feeling doesn’t last forever, because I’m not done here just yet. I’m not ready to throw in the towel on six years. But it might be a little bit before things go back to normal around here for me. Thank you for understanding, and thank you for caring about them, and about me. I love you guys endlessly ♡

59 notes · View notes

yuzuriha-sayori · 4 years

Note

Yo hook me up with a nice sensual one-shot with me (male) and hibana where she breaks her dom roll and subs plzzzxxx

Aaaaaafter weeeeeeks (a month maybe), it’s finally here!

NSFW Male!Reader x Sub!Hibana

He was getting tired, absolutely tired. That arrogant, stuck up little b-

“Hey gravel, get it together! I asked you to bring me a bottle of wine! Red preferably.”

The sound of her heel smacking against the male’s head and shoving it into the ground made the other men under her flinch. Only slightly, for if she noticed, they would be next. He was crouched, face down, onto the ground of Company 5’s office.

“Y-Yes Princess Hibana.” [Y/N] tried not to spat aggressively.

[Y/N] had only just recently been recruited to the company. Elated, he had happily run into the building on his first day. Hibana. Hibana. Hibana. That’s all he could chant in his head. He’d seen her before always capturing odd Infernals in his town and known as the fearsome flower princess. “This is my chance to get close to her! I will surely make her mine!”

The only thoughts in his head were of her cooking for him while only wearing a frilly white apron and greeting him at the door everyday with, “Welcome home, Goshujin-sama!”

What he was not expecting was this…monster. Nothing about her was cute and delicate. She was an ogre in human’s skin. A real nightmare. The only thing keeping him going was her enchanting beauty. And one day breaking her.

“If you can’t learn to listen…” [Y/N] was aggressively snapped out of his reminiscing with Princess Hibana kicking him rather harshly in the jaw, sending him off the ground and backwards, “I’ll make you listen with force. I want my wine, and I want it now! If you can’t do that…” Flames danced on the fan she always carried as she spread it out, her pink flower irises glowing “…I’ll burn you down to nothing but dust…”

Without answering his captain right away, [Y/N] stood up and gave a bow. “Yes, my lady. At once.” He then turned and left the room. Once he knew she could not see his face, a scowl graced his lips.

“That good for nothing…Every fucking day it’s ‘do this, do that’. Kicking me and setting me on fire. I’ll show her. I’ll show her who really deserves to be on their knees.”

He shouted many vulgar words into the air as he made his way towards the company kitchen, all while devising a plan to get her alone and away from most of the men. He didn’t want prying eyes, nor the option to share after what he had in store for her.

—

The well toned and busty captain stretched and discarded her clothing as she entered her private bath. “Sometimes I wonder why I allow so much gravel around here. I feel it clinging to my skin.” She shuddered as she sunk down into the warm bath water. She could smell the citrus thick in the air and immediately felt much relief wash over her. The orange slices floating on the surface of the water creating the atmosphere must have been the work of one of her Angels.

“I’m going to have to discipline these men more…” She sighed. All of them were so obedient that it made her want to squash them. One man however, she wanted to discipline even worse. Just the mere thought of the newcomer and his angry scowl he thought she didn’t see made her furious.

“That snobbish little brat doesn’t take me seriously!” She smacked the surface of the water in frustration.

He indeed didn’t take her seriously and Hibana new very well. He was terrible and hiding his detest for her actions even though he took them so well. She clenched her teeth at the mere thought of the new recruit. His sharp [E/C] eyes bore holes in her whenever she would grind his head into the ground. He wore the expression of a beast ready to pounce on his prey. But he never did. Hibana found herself getting more aggravated. ‘He just takes it.’ She thought to herself. For some reason, she was finding herself feeling a bit unsatisfied. Why did that bother her?

She could feel her eyebrow twitch at the thought. Why did it bother her? All her men take her beatings. The thought flashed of [Y/N] actually pouncing on her and she felt a rush of heat to her face. “NO WAY.” She screamed, flowery flames dancing against her skin.

There was no way that she would actually want him to do such a horrendous thing. As irritated as she felt, the image kept playing over her mind as she thought about his piercing gaze. So much so, she couldn’t focus on washing herself.

She felt the heat that had once been dancing up her neck and to her cheeks, rush all the way down in between her legs. She cursed at herself. It must be the fragrance in the air making her feel so wrong. It was messing with her head. That however did not stop her delicate tan fingers from slipping between her thighs and begin rubbing circles against her sensitive clit. Pink brows furrowed in agitation and pleasure as she began to pant in need. Her other hand went to cup one of her very large breasts, giving it a light squeeze.

“More…I need more…” She moaned breathlessly as she slipped a finger inside the expecting pink muscles of her throbbing cunt. A second finger slipped in right after and she began to pump her fingers in and out. It wasn’t enough. The ache inside her was in a place she could not reach and the only thought that popped in her head was that of [Y/N] buried deep inside her. Unknowingly, she had let his name slip from her soft lips for him to hear.

—

[Y/N] stood just right in the entryway to his captain’s private bathhouse. He’d been very quiet as he watched her start to play with herself. After all, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. He couldn’t stay for long however, for fear that one of her Angels would appear to catch him spying on his captain.

A half-poured wine glass rested between his fingers as he contemplated just walking right up, setting it down, and MAYBE enacting his plan right there. He was about to brush the thought away when he heard her moan for more, followed by her shakily breathe out his name. The sound made its way straight to his crotch. He could feel the fabric starting to feel strained and he used his free hand to palm at the growing erection.

A dark grin spread across his lips as he realized this was his chance. He strode over to the edge of her bath and leaned down, wine glass dropping down into her view as he crouched over her. “Your wine, Ojou-sama.”

He watched in pure enjoyment as Princess Hibana shot straight up in fear and whipped around to meet his gaze. He could see the humiliation and disgust in her widened blue eyes as realization hit her. “What in Sol’s name do you THINK you’re doing in my bathhouse?!”

“You called, yes? Is it not a recruit’s duty to present themselves when their captain calls?” He set the glass of wine down beside him and reached out to Hibana, taking her face into one hand and squeezing her cheeks as she brought her close to his face. “I hear you have a little problem. Would you like me to take care of it?”

There was a loud smacking sound as she slapped his hand away. “Do not touch me.”

“That isn’t the way to treat someone you were just begging for more to.” [Y/N] said as he grabbed her by her arm and yanked her out the bath, slamming her down into the cold tiles of her bathhouse floor and straddling himself over her. He took her wrists into his hands and successfully rendered her immobile.

‘Get off me before you do something else that you will very well regret,” Hibana spat. His face contorted into a scowl, the same piercing scowl that his captain was just touching herself at the thought of.

He could feel her tense up under him and his scowl turned into a grin. “If you weren’t such a difficult bitch, we could have been arranged something like this. No matter, I’ll show you what you’ve been missing.”

Using his free hand, [Y/N] unbuttoned his uniform pants and released his member for his angry captain to see. Her eyes widened at its girth and he felt quite proud at her reaction. Upon getting caught, she turned her head away in disgust. “Get that grotesque thing away from me, or for the love of Sol I’ll—”

She was cut off by [Y/N] moving up to present himself near her face and smacking her against her lips with his cock. “Or you’ll do what? You were just staring at my dick like you wanted it shoved down your throat. Here, why don’t I help you? Think of this as a thank you for all the times you shoved my face into the ground with your foot.” He grabbed her hair and yanked her head up. The sudden pain caused her to gasp, and he took it as his chance to shove his cock down her throat.

Hibana’s face went from surprised, to angry, to an expression he couldn’t quite understand as he started rocking his hips. He could see the tears form in the corner of her eyes but a look of hunger on her face.

She felt humiliated and disgusting as he proceeded to face fuck her. Despite that, she couldn’t make herself stop any of this. The more [Y/N]’s cock rammed down her throat, the warmer she felt between her legs. She wanted the same cock that stretched her mouth open to stretch the also aching one down below.

Pulling back, [Y/N] then rutted forward rather harshly. Hibana could feel his member twitch as he pushed himself back down her throat and she choked on the sudden action. The vibration around him was welcoming and he repeated the violent thrusting until he spilled inside of her mouth.

The thick white liquid gushed out of her mouth and out her nose as he filled her mouth to max capacity. Her eyes and lolled back as if she was satisfied in her mouth being used as his personal dumpster. Pulling out slowly, [Y/N] admired in his handiwork. Hibana coughed and spat out the remaining cum she could not swallow. “Th-That was horrible.” She gasped, coughing and breathing hungrily for air.

“That was horrible,” He admitted, “You wasted so much of my seed. I thought the mighty captain could take more than that.” [Y/N] sighed dejectedly and released her arms. Before Hibana could feel any relief of freedom or catch her breath, he was pushing her legs into her chest. “However, this hole looks like it wants to go for a try.”

Hibana tried to sit up and get away but [Y/N] was already lining the head of his still hardened cock up to her sopping lips. “Not there, please not th—” She was cut short as he thrust himself inside, burying himself all the way to his hips.

The captain let out a strained moan and arched her back. That was it. That was the feeling she had been craving before. She was so ashamed to admit it. Once she came down from her high, she realized he wasn’t moving. She shot him a confused look and [Y/N] smirked at his superior.

“What’s wrong? You don’t want me to move right? I get it, I’m done here.” He started to pull out, but Princess Hibana let out a soft whimper as he began to do so. “What’s that? I don’t understand if you don’t tell me. What are your orders, Taichou?”

She glared at him but could not muster the words. She refused to submit to this kind of treatment. “I’ve no words to say to you.”

“You know, you’re quite the snobbish bitch.” [Y/N] growled and he buried himself back into the pink haired woman, eliciting a high pitched mewl from her. “I’ll just have my way with you until you finally tell me how you really feel.”

[Y/N] then proceeded to aggressively fuck his captain. He released one of her legs to grab one of her large bouncing breasts, giving it a hard squeeze before pinching and rolling a pink bud within his fingers. The action caused her to arch her back and let out a strained moan as he continued to fuck and stretch open her dripping cunt.

Hibana’s thighs were slick with her own juices and each thrust of the male’s hips forced more out of her to spill onto the floor below them. Her cries only fueled his need to keep ramming into her, hitting her cervix harshly with each thrust. “See how well your taking me? Almost as if you wanted this.” [Y/N] said quite smugly.

“N-No I…didn’t!” Hibana managed to get out between each of his thrusts. As much as she tried to deny it verbally, that didn’t stop her heat from telling the obvious truth. It couldn’t stop the coiling feeling begin to rise in her stomach. And it clearly didn’t stop [Y/N] from noticing.

“Are you sure? Your tight little pussy is telling me otherwise.” He said. “Go ahead and come for me, Princess. You don’t have to deny it anymore.” [Y/N]’s thrusts became harsher as his only thought was to make sure he left Hibana an absolute mess.

She tried so very hard to hold it in, but when he reached down to rub circles along her swollen clit, her orgasm broke free and washed through her with so much violent force that she began to shake. [Y/N] kept thrusting in and out of her trembling hole until his own climax hit him and thick ropes coated the insides of her pink walls. He pulled out quickly, stroking himself to milk out the rest of his balls onto her chest and stomach.

Princess Hibana, still shaking and gasping for breath, had no energy to respond. Her head was fuzzy as she came down from her orgasm. [Y/N] stood up and tucked himself away, straightening out his uniform and grabbed the glass of wine intended for his captain.

Gingerly taking a sip of the wine, he admired how messy he left her on the floor, covered with his cum. “That was fun, call me next time you’re thinking about fucking me and I’ll gladly oblige.” He then turned and walked out the bathhouse, his captain still high on the life being fucked out of her. A bath was definitely due now.

#reader #princess hibana #fire force #domming #smut #ask #fanfic #x reader

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darks-ink · 4 years

Text

Absurdism Chapter 1

Rating: Teen/K+ (a lil swearing, because teenagers, man) Warnings: - Genre: Family, Hurt/Comfort Additional Tags: Sibling Bonding, Family Bonding, Alternate Universe - Halfa Jazz AU, Jazz makes friends

Chapter 1: Mirror Image [AO3] [FFN] First Chapter | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

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Jazz rolled her shoulders, shifting her backpack to lie more comfortably on her back. It resettled easily, and she kept up the pace as she walked back home. Sure, she could have asked Danny to drive her, but… well, she liked walking! The fresh air was good for a growing youth like her.

That, and Danny’s driving was either far too careful, or not nearly careful enough. And, quite frankly, she wasn’t very big on either of those.

So. She walked. It wasn’t like the school was that far from home anyway.

If she trusted her new powers a little more, she might consider flying to school instead. It would probably be faster, which would leave her with more time for studying. But, then, there was also the possibility of people seeing her, causing a ruckus. So, maybe not.

Whatever. For the moment it didn’t matter anyway. She could barely fly in her ghost form, and not at all in her human form. Well, not on command, at least. Only the occasional bout of accidental floating, although luckily that didn’t happen a lot. Not nearly as much as the partial invisibility or intangibility, at least.

If only there was some sort of guidance for this! She had gone through all books she could find, her parents’ entire ghost library, but she hadn’t been able to find even the slightest hint of this happening before. A human with ghost powers, a ghost/human hybrid… nothing. Absolutely completely nothing!

Hell, she had even tried the internet. Even if the online sources tended to be sketchier, there had to be something, right?

But, no. She hadn’t been able to find anything.

So she was forced to figure out herself. Alone.

Sure, she could tell her parents. But… But what if they didn’t believe her? What if they thought she was a ghost playing pretend?

Jazz knew her parents cared about her, about their family, but… she also knew how little they thought of ghosts.

As long as it wasn’t killing her, and it didn’t seem to be, did she really have to tell them? She was smart, wasn’t she? One of the cleverest in the school, despite being only 14. She was sure she could figure this out herself, somehow.

Besides, if she didn’t know much about ghosts, she was certain that her parents didn’t, either. They sure acted like they knew a lot, but Jazz was fairly sure it was based on nothing. For all their bluster, her parents hadn’t even seen a ghost.

And she? Well, she most definitely had. Even if the few animal-like ghosts hadn’t been anything too spectacular, she doubted her parents’ claims about them not being able to feel pain. The screeches of the Ectopi when she punched them sure sounded genuine.

Not to mention the two humanoid ghosts Jazz had encountered so far. Even if both seemed a little more inclined to pick fights that humans, that didn’t mean they were malevolent. They just… They just worked a little strangely! They wanted to do good things, but their methods were a little strange. That was okay!

Like the Lunch Lady, she just wanted people to eat well! And even if she had lashed out at Jazz, and at the human lunch ladies, she had calmed down well enough. Had listened to Jazz when she explained the intricacies of a healthy diet, and when Jazz promised that she would talk the school into a more varied menu, the ghost had agreed to hold off and watch.

So Jazz went and talked the school into a more varied menu. Which, really, someone should’ve done earlier. Even if she agreed with Sam about vegan options, you can’t just force that on people. Not everyone can live on a vegan diet, after all!

It took a bit of work, but thankfully Jazz had already found herself the teacher’s pet, so she managed to convince them. The menu was changed, the Lunch Lady calmed down, and then she went back to the Ghost Zone.

Which was, of course, the moment Jazz had realized that the Portal was always open. It would, constantly and without ever stopping, let through any ghost who wished to enter Amity Park.

And Jazz seemed to be the only person who cared. Her parents didn’t care, or didn’t realize how many ghosts might wish to pass through (or liked the challenge, maybe?), and her brother was still somewhat skeptical on the topic of ghosts being real.

The rest of the town? No one knew about the Portal. Not about what it could truly do, what power it held. What kind of danger they were in.

She couldn’t let that slide. She was the one who had turned the Portal on, after all. She was responsible.

So she had to stop any dangerous ghosts that came through. Ghosts like the animals that roamed the streets, now, and ghosts like the Lunch Lady.

And ghosts like Dora, who had come into the lab as a giant roaring dragon, but who had thankfully shrunk down once she had removed the necklace.

Dora, who had promised she would stay in the Zone, as long as Jazz gave her the necklace back.

Jazz’ core hummed in her chest, suddenly, and she paused. Cold energy gathered in her lungs, then puffed out as a visible cloud of ectoplasmically-tainted air on her next breath.

It was her ghost sense, she knew. But where? How?

Looking around, she couldn’t see anything that stood out. She didn’t have much experience with ghosts, she had to admit, but still.

Every ghost she had encountered, the humanoid and the animals, no matter their intelligence, they all shared a single behavioral trait. They all sought out civilization. The human ones, like Lunch Lady and Dora, had both come to Amity Park with a goal in mind. And the lesser ones, they all sought to terrorize people, all targeted the human population of Amity.

So why was this one hidden somewhere were she couldn’t see it?

Realization clicked, and she looked up.

Yes, there it was. So high up in the air that she could barely see it, a small blurry dot of black and white. Its glow hidden against the bright backdrop of the sky.

She eyed it pensively. It didn’t seem out for trouble, true, but that didn’t mean anything. Lunch Lady hadn’t either, but she still would’ve caused quite a bit of chaos if she’d been left to her own devices.

Even if this one just hung there in the sky… Jazz had taken responsibility for all ghosts in the city, and that would include this one.

Although she would admit, in the privacy of her own mind, that part of that reluctance might come from how high up the ghost was. So sue her! She didn’t even trust her flight to carry her from home to school, let alone go that high up! If it failed, if she was forced back to human form, she would surely die! She was just fourteen! She didn’t want to die, especially in a way so grizzly.

So she heaved out a sigh. As much as she didn’t want to, she had to go check it out.

Taking her eyes off of the distant ghost, she looked around. Ah, there! An empty alley off of this already quiet street. Perfect!

She ducked out of sight, half-crouched behind a dumpster to make sure no one saw her. Then she tapped into the ball of cold energy in her chest, which thrilled in response. It was still foreign to her, unusual and strange and--

But she had practiced with it, regardless. If these powers would be part of her life, now, she had to be in control of them. And if she hadn’t quite nailed that yet, at least she held enough control to shift to ghost form without too much hassle.

Blue-white energy crackled to life around her. Darts of light and electricity, spreading into a single ring around her waist. Then, splitting into two separate rings, flew past her body. Lit up the alley she was in.

Replaced her ordinary clothes with a dark purple jumpsuit, so much like her parents’ it was a little embarrassing. Her hands, and most of her arms, were now covered with long white gloves, and her neat shoes were replaced by sturdy white boots. An equally white belt around her waist, a hefty bag attached to one side, balanced by a Fenton Thermos on the other side.

The upward ring caught her hair, carrying it upwards into a ponytail. Dyed it purple, vibrant and unearthly, as its ends started flickering like fire.

As the rings faded, Jazz blinked her even sharper eyes as she refocused. Her senses had already gotten enhanced by the Accident, but they grew even better when she shifted into her ghost form.

Glass crunched under her boot, and she glanced downward, automatically. A ghost met her eyes, warm gold staring back at her, its glow brightening in shock.

Then she laughed, the startle wearing off, and her mirror image did the same. Oh, how embarrassing. At least no one saw that.

She focused her enhanced vision on the ghost, worried that it had left, but no. It remained in place, hovering high above Amity Park. Even now, she could barely make them out. Humanoid, she thought, and dressed primarily in black. The ends of their limbs were white, including what she assumed was their head. How match-y.

Still, she had stalled as much as she could. Now the only thing left was… to go up there. And, hopefully, talk.

Grasping onto her confidence, she pushed off. Like a jump, except gravity wouldn’t—couldn’t—drag her down. Just a continuous path upwards.

Her flight was a little shaky at first, but she managed to smooth it out a little. She was still climbing slowly, but that was better than rushing and losing control. She just had to get up to the ghost, but at least they didn’t seem to have noticed her. Didn’t seem to be trying to get away.

At this point, she was willing to take whatever she would get, really.

Now that she was finally getting closer, she could make him out properly. Because he certainly seemed to be a boy. A teenager at most, barely any older than her brother. The black she’d seen was just his outfit. He wore a jumpsuit in all black, of similar make to her parents’. And here she was, thinking they were the only ones who would wear such stuff.

Although, she supposed she was, as well. Maybe he’d gone and died wearing one of those for protection, too. Even if she wasn’t sure she counted, herself. She hadn’t died, after all. Just become… half-ghost? A human/ghost hybrid? Something along those lines.

Much like her own jumpsuit, the ghost wore white gloves, white boots, and a white belt. Unlike her, however, he wasn’t carrying a Thermos. Not that she had expected him to, of course! But it was kind of funny to see a ghost wearing something so similar to her!

Before she knew it she was approaching him, and he still hadn’t noticed her. His back was turned to him, his snow-white hair heavily windblown and messy.

His build was lean, and he looked a little twiggy, but there was no denying the muscle definition underneath his jumpsuit. She hadn’t seem any such muscle on the Lunch Lady or Dora, but then, neither of them wore such tight clothing.

If this ghost was human, Jazz was sure he could carry a mean punch. She might not know enough about ghosts to know if that carried over, but she didn’t feel like risking it. Even beyond his lean muscle, he might possess all kinds of ghostly powers.

Finally she drew even with the ghost, hovering right behind him. He still hadn’t noticed her. Hm, well. She was hoping to just talk, right?

She cleared her throat, then said, “Hey, what’s up?”

The ghost visibly started, flipping over his own feet in an attempt to turn to face her. He hung upside down, blinking wide green eyes at her.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” she assured him, raising her hands placatingly.

He blinked once more, then slowly started to rotate upright again. “It’s… okay,” he said, slowly, almost hesitantly. “I just wasn’t… expecting anyone to be here.”

Now that he was finally angled properly, she could make out his face. He was definitely a teenager, losing the softness of his youth. If she had to guess, he would’ve been sixteen, like her older brother Danny.

But that wasn’t the only thing about his appearance that reminded her of Danny.

There was… something about his face. About his facial features, the shapes and the angles and the proportions. It was almost eerie, really, how much this ghost looked like her brother. If she just imagined his hair black and his eyes blue, he might as well be Danny.

He was squinting at her, too. Eyes shifting like he was studying her.

She didn’t know how long they hung there in silence. Looking at each other in silence.

But she did know that it was the other ghost who broke it. He spoke up, haltingly, voice questioning.

“Jazz?”

And that just confirmed it for her, really. Because she hadn’t told anyone her name. The Lunch Lady and Dora both only knew her as Specter, her (improvised) alias for her ghost form. She hadn’t wanted to tell them her real name, and even if Specter was a bit of a stupid name, well. She couldn’t go back now.

So she was Specter to all ghosts, and ‘ghost girl’ or ‘ghost gal’ to the few humans that knew of her existence.

In front of her, the ghost of her brother frowned, his white brows drawn together.

“Danny?” she finally responded, thrown off. “How are you-- What’s going on?!”

#danny phantom #jazz phantom #dp fanfic #phanfic #dp fanfiction #jazz fenton #dark writes #absurdism

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theramseyloft · 5 years

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hey there, found your blog through a friend. ive been scanning your blog and patreon, and i felt like reaching out because, well... you're basically living my dream life, haha. i would love to do work like you do, rehabbing birds and training them, especially as companions/aids for disabled folks. pretty amazing! do you mind if i ask how you got started? is it an expensive venture? do you own farmland or live in a suburban area? im gonna send this before i take up too much of your time, haha. :)

I have raised ALL kinds of animals, but it was rats that lead me to pigeons.

I’ve had fish, herps, and inverts most of my life, so the way rats, mice, and Gerbils were able to bond with me felt really special.

Rats being the most intelligent and cooperatively social

When I had to stop raising small mammals, I wanted a pet that would similarly enjoy handling. Like, be happy/excited to see me when I got home, more than just wanting out.

Warm blooded, but non mammalian left birds.

Psitticines are wild animals that have needs WAY beyond our capability to meet, so they are all firmly on the no list.

I enjoyed Zebra finches, but my husband and I are sound sensitive, and he finds their song physically painful.

We can’t have chickens where we live...

Ringneck Doves ticked all the boxes for what I needed in a companion bird:

Docile/tractable Small/easy to house Easy to feed Physically incapable of biting or making painfully high pitched noises.

Turns out I was wrong about that last one! That’s pigeons. XD

We learned this with our first ringneck: An ANCIENT rescue and his wife named Nigel.

What a story those birds had!

My dear hubby was dubious about letting me raise another species, but after some shared research, was ok with me fostering some unwanted ones and finding them a new home.

I found them on Craig’s list, with cage and all.

When we went to pick them up, their owners explained that they had been unwanted, but traditional wedding gifts they felt they couldn’t refuse.

Ten years later, their owners had long ago gotten tired of caring for them, and just wanted them gone.

Their parents had purchased the pair when they retired from a magic show, and had had them as long as the couple could remember.

Having since sold white ringneck doves to magicians, I’ve learned that a trained dove retires between five and ten years of age, depending on temperament.

The parents were reported to have owned them for 15-20 years.

And the owners we picked them up from had had them for ten.

Making this pair of white Ringneck doves at LEAST 30 years old.

After this history, the wife brought them for us to take.

They were in a filthy black finch cage that had been left on their owner’s back porch long enough for a colony of fire ants to bring their own dirt and build a camp-nest in the bottom.

The birds were actively being swarmed and stung.

It took me a full thirty minutes to pull all of them off the two ancient doves...

It was touch and go for a bit, but they pulled through, and we found a home for the hen.

The cock, Nigel, had a twisted beak and the WORST coo!

High pitched and severely nasal, it could bore into your brain through ear plugs. >v<

He LOVED us, though, and liked to sing us the song of his people! At random. On Mike’s shoulder, directly into his ear. All hours of the night. During the day, up where we couldn’t reach him. Even through trying to shoo him off his favorite perch...

He had SO much personality, and even though his song caused both of us severe physical pain and prevented us from sleeping, we could not help growing to dearly love him back.

Mere weeks after my Dear Hubby decided he wanted Nigel to spend the rest of his life with us, his time ran out.

He passed very suddenly, in our arms.

We mourned him. Lamented having so little time.

And we considered where to go from there.

We decided to find a breeder, so we could get little peeps and have the maximum amount of time with what felt like the perfect pet for us.

I had no idea they could be parent raised and still be tame, so I raised that first pair like I had my Zebra finches in College.

We took them home just feathered enough to keep warm and fed them formula.

Gordon and Sasami were those babies.

And they were such a delight, we wanted nothing more than to share with the world how wonderful hand raised dove could be.

So I got the Dear hubby’s permission to seek out more breeding pair.

Between what I could buy and what I could raise, we ended up with 8, and then eventually 16 pair.

There was not much knowledge about keeping them as house pets, or their behavior, beyond what it took to get them to reproduce.

It was common at the time, and still is, to treat Ringneck Doves like small pigeons: Keeping them in large decorative flocks in an out door pen.

It was only through raising the young of my 16 pairs and letting them grow out free flying in the middle room of my home that I learned that these long since domesticated birds could be tamed through socialization from a young age, like a puppy.

But more importantly; just how vehemently anti-social they are!

One or two Ringneck Doves can be perfectly happy in an enclosure, but there should NEVER be more than two in any space where they can make physical contact!!!

They are VICIOUSLY territorial!

Every pair NEEDS to be an an individual enclosure, with ABSOLUTELY no way to make physical contact with any other bird, including and especially their own weanlings!

The second even their own peeps are fully self feeding, the parents start to mercilessly attack them, hell bent of driving out what they now see as an intruder invading their space and stealing their food and food from their future babies at any cost, up to and including killing them!

The actual Bird of Peace is the Rock Dove: the wild ancestor of the domestic Pigeon.

Two years after I started breeding doves, I started showing them. You can really only show doves in their own section of pigeon shows, and after seeing all the beautiful variation in pigeons, I was smitten.

I brought home my first pigeon egg from my second show: a Portuguese tumbler hen laid it in her show cage, and I was shocked to find that breeders usually just threw those away.

Pugsly was hatched by a pair of doves, and he was amazing.

Friendly, outgoing to the point of being obnoxious, adorably, delightfully funny.

SO much more personable than the doves!

At another show, I picked up some Classic Old Frills.

Them some Old German Owls a year later.

Then some Old dutch Capuchine.

The more breeds I worked with, the more fascinated I became with the differences in the temperaments of different breeds, and the more I found I enjoyed working with the pigeons.

I knew we had used pigeons for lots of interesting studies.

Like this one about the development of heart disease!

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/07/060729133950.htm

This one, using training tosses of urban homing pigeons wearing special back packs to monitor lead pollution

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160719144733.htm

But these using their natural pattern recognition as a diagnostic tool for human diseases:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/pigeons-can-spot-breast-cancer-medical-images-180957323/?utm_source=facebook.com&no-ist

https://www.audubon.org/news/how-common-street-bird-could-coach-doctors-against-bad-diagnosis

Led me to finding this article.

https://www.audubon.org/news/the-origins-our-misguided-hatred-pigeons

And it hit me like a ton of bricks:

Pigeons are not native to North America.

European settlers and immigrants brought them.

They had already been domesticated for thousands of years by then.

There is no such thing as a Wild pigeon in North America.

They are the avian equivalent of the street dog problem in Mexico:

Generations of domesticated animals entirely dependent on human hand outs or left overs for survival, with no shelters to take them in or sterilization programs to prevent more unwanted individuals from being born into a hostile environment that can’t support their numbers.

As long as I have bred any species of animal, I have been active in rescue, rehabilitation, fostering, and finding homes for unwanted individuals of that species.

For me, the two just go hand in hand.

I started volunteering for the local wildlife rehab as soon as I started breeding, initially using my domestic doves (that will raise absolutely anything) to foster orphaned Mourning and Eursadian Collared Doves: hoping to prevent them from bonding to me so that they could be soft released.

When it became known that I raised pigeons, I started getting calls for them too.

Ankhou was the first that needed really hands on care.

He arrived with a baby Mourning dove.

He and it were both recent orphans.

The wild native dove baby is well muscled, and the appropriate size for its age.

Ankhou, at 4 weeks old, should have looked like Pippin:

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You can pretty accurately compare the difference between rehabbing a Mourning Dove and a Pigeon with the difference between rehabbing a grey fox kit and a stray puppy.

Like a grey fox, the Mourning dove is a native wild animal. It is absolutely vital to keep direct human interaction to the absolute minimum because developing a dependence on and friendliness towards humans will get them killed.

Either immediately and out right by hunters, or more slowly through malnutrition.

Puppies are not expected to survive in the wild, and absolutely NO rescuer would raise a puppy they found behind a garbage can or in a dumpster to weaning and nurse it to health only to dump it right back in the ally.

So I absolutely REFUSE to abandon a rescued pigeon by dumping it right back on the street it barely escaped from with its life and it honestly sickens me how many pigeon rescues advocate doing exactly that to any pigeon that doesn’t look purebred or fancy enough.

Feral Pigeons not being wild animals, and being an INTENSELY social and touch oriented species, it would not only not have been beneficial, but out right cruel not to interact with tiny, emaciated Ankhou.

Ankhou was going to take a VERY long time to catch up on enough of his development to safely find a home, so we ended up adopting instead of fostering him.

I spent a lot of time holding and talking to him, and he bonded so closely to me that the became sensitive to my anxiety attacks and started alerting for them.

He also started responding appropriately to requests, as if he actually understood them.

He had pretty severe separation anxiety, and if I stepped into the quarantine room to deal with a bird that might be ill, he would panic the moment his line of sight was interrupted.

If, however, I took the time to tell him “Ankhou, I need to go into quarantine. I will be back. Wait here.”, he would sit down in front of the door and wait quietly until I came back out with sterile hands.

This got me curious, and I started researching pigeon social and cognitive development.

As it turns out, they have a shockingly human society.

A pigeon flock is a large, extended family of birds.

Young birds don’t split off when they wean. They join the flock, forming a close knit friend group among the other weanlings from whom they will select mates as adults and with whom they will learn to find food, water, and nest materials and what to do with those.

Very like human children moving out of their parents’ house and forming bonds among their peers.

Pigeon society is an efficient democratic meritocracy.

Communication on the wing is INCREDIBLY efficient

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150609213053.htm

They vote on nearly EVERYHTING

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100416214045.htm

And if a leader proves to be ineffective, or a navigator inaccurate, the flock can and will vote to demote them.

https://www.audubon.org/news/in-homing-pigeon-flocks-bad-bosses-quickly-get-demoted

Pigeons are absolutely CRAZY-Smart!

Pigeons are capable of high level cognition. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas…/2009/…/090212141143.htm

To the extent that they understand the concepts of space and time! https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas…/2017/…/171204144805.htm

They are self-aware enough to distinguish themselves from other pigeons, able to recognize themselves in photos, video, and mirrors AND differentiate between the three. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas…/2008/…/080613145535.htm

Their brains are wired SHOCKINGLY similarly to ours: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas…/2013/…/130717095336.htm

They categorize things and learn the equivalent of words the same way human toddlers do!

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas…/2014/…/140402095107.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas…/2015/…/150204184447.htm

They can even learn to read written language well enough to differentiate between a real word and an acronym with the same number of letters.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas…/2016/…/160919111535.htm

They are pattern mapping social learners. Exactly like we are!

Building on this list of scientific studies, I started to experiment with teaching each successive generation of the resident pigeons to understand the basics of verbal communication by the same mechanic as one would a toddler.

And in just the last two years with Ankhou, I have learned that they can literally learn to understand both spoken AND written human language, and literally all it takes is talking to a pigeon as if it is a nonverbal human toddler who does not know that word yet to be able to teach them to understand object words, action words, emotion words, names, and locations.

Pigeons are pets you can literally communicate to in your native language.

It is absolutely amazing!

Ankhou was not trained to alert for my anxiety attacks.

He literally did that AND started alerting me for blood sugar spikes entirely on his own.

Not even a pigeon hatched in a human house hold. A feral.

No special genetics. No training what so ever.

Just a pigeon being a pigeon: bonding with what he considered a flock mate, and getting worried when he noticed something was wrong.

Which made me wonder: What would happen if specific traits conducive to bonding with humans and being sensitive to their emotional state were selected for in a population?

What if those birds were given at least basic communication training? On top of the matching we already do by temperament.

I’m actually working on documenting our finances and plan to discuss them in more detail at the end of the month.

Just taking in rescues to foster is an expensive process.

You need to have quarantine space that keeps new birds as completely separated from your residents as possible.

You need a vet who is either experienced with or willing to learn to treat pigeons. Each new bird will need, at absolute least, a fecal test for parasites.

You need to have dip on hand for external parasites, and the funds to buy what ever wormer, anti fungal, antibiotic, or anintimicrobial is required to treat what ever the fecal exam turns up.

Which could legitimately be all of the above, as I have had one individual come in with two species of lice, two species of intestinal worms, coccidiosis, AND salmonella, all at the same time. I have had several others come in with Trich or thrush in place of or in addition to the coccidia or salmonella.

Most will come in malnourished or injured on top of being sick and/or parasitized.

You REALLY have to plan for the worst with rescues.

Because taking in animals you cannot house or feed or for whom you are unable to provide the necessary medical care is NOT rescuing them.

It is subjecting them to the exact neglect that rescuers intend to save them from.

It is REALLY easy for big hearted people to find themselves overwhelmed and exhausted trying to save every one, and that is something every one who wants to rescue needs to keep in mind for the sake of their health as much as the quality of their care.

I live in a trailer park in Ga, on a little plot of land just big enough to say I have a front and back yard.

The modest inheritance my parents left me and my sister when they passed funded the loft being built, and my husband’s job pays for what ever daily maintenance and veterinary care that bird and harness sales and my Patreon can’t cover.

It was designed around comfort and disease prevention for them and pain management for me. It really makes my day to know that people have enough interest in my work to ask detailed questions!

It’s a bit of a bear for an autistic woman with ADHD to get to a bunch of them all at once, but I still REALLY want to hear them and am THRILLED to get to answer!

It’s easier for me to answer in detail if I can focus on one question at a time, though.

There is absolutely no limit to the number I am willing to answer, so don’t be afraid to flood my inbox with a ton of individual questions. ^v^

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