#like soft man to Brawny paper towel man

[viviennevivisection]

Session 18 Notes - “Welcome to Woodvale” - 9-14-22

-Vivellie purchased a pair of diamond earring worth 300 GP a piece (for revivify) 

-Only Ms. Moody and Cass have magic in Woodvale 

-Cass told us we don’t have to wear disguises — that we can just be ourselves

-Dandy is wearing a safari outfit (to teleport us to the Woodvale woods)

-Cass outfit - Princess Di — white turtleneck with a Woodvale high school crew neck, baggy jeans, and chunky sneakers (not her usual style) 

-The high school  team is: “The Woodvale Hell Divers” 

-Naomi outfit - “uniform” — combo Mormon/Catholic chic, long skirt, turtle neck, lots of layering, under layers are plaid, and wearing the shoes she wears to work (loafers)

-Ellie outfit - a pastel rainbow turtleneck, boyfriend jeans, pink combat/hiking boots, her usual gold hoops and the diamond studs

-Telepathic Bond - we have a piece of jewelry powered by residuum 

-The “”””””””””broken”””””””””””” gun belonged to Cass’ grandfather 

-Dandy uses tea to cast teleport 

-Teleporting felt like stepping on to a moving sidewalk — disorienting 

-We teleported into the middle of the road outside town — pine scent and other earthy smells overwhelm the senses, big PNW vibes

-Naomi feels anxious, a shiver up the spine 

-Vivellie feels anxious, can almost feel the pine needles against their cheeks and arms

-Cass is…distinctly “home” 

-SMITH PHARMACY 

-Cottage type homes 

-The junk yard! The dump! Of dump item fame!

-It’s all very cottage core 

-The Miller home has personality (very lived in, kind of cluttered, but also as well maintained as is possible) 

-Judd (Miller) is hugging Cass

-Watts is SO happy 

-Coffee is brewing

-Everyone who wanted one got a dad hug

-There are plants everywhere 

-Sam described it as like Ms. Honey’s cottage meets Belle’s dad’s workshop 

-There is a busted ass piano 

-Two bedrooms on either side of the kitchen

-“Judd is a DILF” - Sam 

-Big dude, bear energy, flannel beard, a tiefling, his horns curl and are a bit more noticeable than Cass’ — ultimately reminiscent of the Brawny paper towel man (lol) 

-Ezra has already been forgotten two (2) times

-We are all served a Bob Evans farmer’s choice breakfast 

-There is a union meeting tonight being lead by (straight) Ezra — the contract is up and there are suits in town to negotiate — meeting is taking place at the community center 

-“They’ve got an extra edge this year.” - I can’t remember if this was about the suits or about the union leaders… 

-“Riley has been really sweet.” - Judd

-Alice is “adorable” — an aging prom queen, a tiny little woman, Cass is amalgamation of the two (just coming home from working at The Factory)

-Alice is soft, definitely not a PTA mom in vibes, she waters the plants

-Judd is like a bull in a china shop 

-Alice is complaining about the suits

-Cass is arranging for (gay) Ezra to stay at the Miller Cottage when we leave town

-People are going to the morning shift at The Factory (news of Cass being back in town will spread quickly because the Woodvalians saw her taking with Judd outside) 

-Vivellie, Naomi and Ezra are all shocked to be in a loving family home 

-Judd and Alice were high school sweethearts 

-Cass was kicked out of the LARPing club in high school because she could do actual magic (laughing my FUCKING ass off)

-Charlie Smith is at City Hall (we swerved) 

-Naomi’s reflection winked at her and VE SAW IT? 

-We are going to Ms. Moody’s church 

-C: “Do I know anything about the town’s religion?” 

-DM: “Make a religion check! :) With disadvantage because you actively don’t care about it.” 

-Ellie is trying to do Corintima style prayers — thinking of Jennie Darling, Sterling and Danny, Judd and Alice, Vivnomi…but before she can get too deep it feels like she is doused with cold water 

-Naomi is vibe checking — there is an energy in this place. Woodvale does fall on a ley line, there is some sort of amplification going on

-Ellie said something like: “I don’t think Corintima likes me very much” and on QUEUE Ms. Moody walked in like : “I’m sure that’s not true, sugar!” 

-Slay slay slay 

-Ms. Moody has Dolly Parton vibes 

-She is a gnome that is 250-300 years old 

-VE showed Ms. Moody their fangs almost immediately lmao

-“Riley has been a terror since the engagement.” - Ms. Moody-Cass is asking about “Grandad’s old patrol station” — near the mines 

-Trying to find time to talk to MM about Woodvale Sickness, Woodvale Ellie is squeamish about it

-VE gave Ms. Moody a copy of Silk Chiffon Wonderland

-MM: ”I’m so happy to see Cass making friends!” 

-E: ”Yeah! I would die for her.”

-Lydia has brought us into the sodie store

-Sodie orders: Ellie (cherry soda), Cass (“The Helldive” -- something like a Dr. Pepper), and Naomi (a full on Mormon drink, the soda with the creamer and the syrups)

-Lydia is usually very put together, very politician’s wife -- but she seems frazzled right now

-Cass is trying to get Ezra a job at Smith Pharmacy lmao

-”It’s her and Ezra -- who would've thought?” - Lydia on Riley’s engagement

-C: “What else do we need but happiness?” Naomi and Ellie side eye

-Cass is getting us rock candies

-And lollipops!

-She gave us trail mix too

-The Wisteria Bluffs - a gorgeous view out over the ocean, a little misty over the water

-Naomi’s shadow is….not correct!

-Ellie scolded DN lol

-Asking Vytris about…the state of things

-The meeting bodes a little poorly for the town, but there is something we can do help (He showed VE the mines)

-”Are the Smiths in bed with the suits to profit off Woodvale Sickness?” -- a vision of Charlie signing a piece of paper for a shadowy figure -- Riley smiles, picks up the documents and gives them to the shadowy figure 

-Woodvale used to be independent -- Dodder tried to come in and buy the factory, Charlie negotiated the original contract

-Woodvale sickness has seemingly always been around but has gotten worse in the last 30 years (Ms. Moody would be able to provide more insight)

-”We’re scary mine people” → going to scope them out, but be back to taste Ms. Moody’s cobbler and to go to the contract meeting

-Sarah has a Trigger Agenda - just waiting for Certain Things to happen to Trigger Events

-Cass is texting T̶̿̀ͅh̶͙͊ē̷͈ ̸͕͚̊C̵̲̀r̵̹͕̒ȇ̵̪á̶̧͇̽t̸̥̏͜͝u̶̝͛ͅṙ̵̬̀e̵͉͂̚

-Cass had a…. HAS a (?) crush on (straight) Ezra

-There is something complicated between Cass and Riley … there is no lost love there

-Cass thinks she is a nasty girl

-We are at the mines! :) There are abandoned cabins here -- triggering for Naomi

-I let the skellies out of the bag and reassembled them and we are frolicking about -- they are…extraordinarily happy, extra active. Similar to how DN is acting. “There’s something in the air” → we’re close to the Wild Lands!

-The claw marks from Cass’ scary dream are…real!

-VE does not recognize the claw marks (low roll -- she was too busy dancing with the skellies) -- which may be for the better??? Sarah’s words, not mine!

-Naomi thinks the marks look animalistic in nature, and do not seem to be native to this environment 

-”The mine dried up and became too dangerous to dig deeper” -- now which is it? Did it dry up or become too dangerous?? The math isn’t quite mathing 

-Whatever the truth is, the mines are NOT to be fucked with

-Cass has DEVIL SIGHT? She may be seeing something shifting in the shadows?? 

-”Anybody home?” Cass into the open cave

-”Nobody’s home, dear. Lucky you, too! Gotta be careful poking the hornet’s nest like that. You know we have a common goal. Attend this meeting and you’ll find out.” - THE CREATURE?

-Cass is looking for signs on continued use around the mine

-#Confirmed Naomi has log cabin trauma

-There isn’t a TON of vandalism (as one would expect at a site like this)

-One of the windows to the Big Mine Elevator is missing the glass

-Cass went in immediately

-There is a key in the elevator ignition, the elevator itself is down in the mine (someone is down there?) 

-Cass took the elevator key, the key has the City Hall insignia on it (RIP to whoever is down there)

-It’s Wednesday

-Dr. Cunt casted sending on Ezra: “Have a nice vacation.” Ellie in the background: “TELL HER TO EAT IT!”

-Dr. C to N: “So, we’ve reached an understanding then…a pity.” (Tell her to eat it.) 

-VE went back to the sodie shop and Riley is there -- VE went to the bathroom (in the pharmacy) and casted detect magic

-Some of the medicines are magic, but not to a degree that seems abnormal 

-Riley is wearing a magical name necklace with enchantment magic

-Lydia’s internal ley system is somewhere between where Ezra and Cass’ are -- not nothing but it is weak

-Riley’s is nearly identical to Cass’ (now why would Sarah say this)

-Riley is absolutely furious that Cass is in town 

-Riley and Ellie had a Midwestern Mean showdown lmao 

-Ezra is going to the Smiths for dinner?? Is this one of those “We should have you for dinner moments???) 

-Riley has a matching key to the one Cass took from the elevator

-Cass tried to magically trip Riley as she walked away: “Careful, Riley, wouldn’t want to fall from grace.” 

-Riley gave a knowing smile

#dnd #campaign diary

[champagnesuperhoeva]

Rewatching the iconic bar scene from the beginning of Red Dead Redemption 2 and appreciating the Little Details™

puts on galaxy brain

This is a fantastic, more candid introduction to the major players of the story, even though this is hours into the game after a series of intense opening sequences. Up in the mountains we got to see all these outlaws strut their stuff in unforgiving conditions, with the very real threat of death coming at them from all sides; wolf packs, rival gangs, a freezing blizzard. It just takes your breath away.

This is the narrative equivalent of letting their hair down, both literally and figuratively: getting the audience to see these characters as living, breathing people. The dignified and collected Javier is shown being more silly here, toasting the barmaids in a cheer and slurring his words. Charles, a man both blunt and reserved, shows off his gentlemanly side with his hand on the small of the lady’s back. 

It’s a great scene because it shows so much in a short amount of time, informative while still being organic. Charming while still fitting the mood of the story. 

takes galaxy brain off

okay but charles' reaction when arthur first walks up, guy hasn't said a thing yet and this man’s lip is already curling

he knows this loud-mouthed jackass is going to just fuck things up

Then, plot twist of the century:

A r t h u r F u c k s I t U p

Ladies don’t look too surprised the Brawny Man isn’t as soft as his paper towels and go off to find Mr. Clean 

javier realizes no amount of singing is going to bring them back

charles doesn't realize anything because he explicitly didn't invite arthur for a reason

arthur has a brief moment of clarity that he’s going to be single for 5,000 years

galaxy brain holds me at knifepoint

t-the character animation here is truly a masterclass, y-you can read a thousand little emotions and nuances in nearly every s-second

okay but then there's even more gentlemanly!Charles right here; taking her hand, but not grabbing her, like he’s saying "hey uh I'm not affiliated with him"

and I love that he's drunk enough to nearly tip over when she walks away anyway

this big adorable man is so soft he makes baby rabbits look like florida gators

ANYWAYS GET FUCKED

life comes at you fast

the van der lindes are all a bunch of voyeurs

but let's be honest I'd probably stand and watch arthur mud wrestle too

charles is definitely enjoying the show (considering arthur ruined it in the first place)

okay but why does charles look like a small child who just tracked mud on the clean carpet

I honestly like to think that, because he's one of the newest members, especially compared to arthur and javier and bill, he's a little edgy on potentially getting reprimanded 

what’s the equivalent of time out for outlaws? listening to dutch ramble about evelyn miller for three hours without a snack break?

why is javier holding his arms like a squirrel 

I think he got hit in the head one too many times and genuinely doesn't know where he is

Arthur limps off to go scream at his reflection while Bill’s daddy issues erupt like a bad case of cystic acne

it’s rumored to this day javier still doesn’t know who the hell the van der linde gang is or how he got here

anyways this was my TEDTalk on how global warming is a very real issue and will kill us all, like comment and subscribe 

#red dead redemption #red dead redemption 2 #RDR #RDR2 #javier escuella #arthur morgan #charles smith #bill williamson #dutch van der linde #shitpost #meme #my post #TEDTalk #it's a shame I can't be paid to make shitposts #maybe in the year 3005 it'll be a viable career field #just kidding 3005 probably won't happen

[peppermintquartz]

For @meatshackash

Happy Valentine's, writing bae 😘 Enjoy le Murphstafa. 

*

Mustafa stretches, wincing when his left shoulder makes a popping sound. It's been far too many late nights grading papers and not enough exercise; his lower back is sore from all the sitting. At least he's treating himself right, booking a ninety-minute deep tissue massage. God knows he's earned it. The air-conditioning is on the cold side and it doesn't help that Mustafa is nearly naked, wearing only his boxer briefs. He jumps when the door opens.

"I'm your massage therapist today," says the brawny man who walks into the room perfunctorily. He has ginger hair and scruff, and a broad chest. Dude must work out. "Name's Murphy."

He sounds Australian and impatient, but Mustafa has heard good things about this center and refuses to be put off. Maybe the guy just sounds like that naturally. "Mustafa."

"Yeah, saw your name on my schedule. Please lie face down." Now the man does offer a quick smile, a mere quirk of his lips, and that makes him a lot more attractive than he appears at first.

Mustafa follows the instructions, tensing slightly when Murphy puts a few drops of lavender oil on him, but he's soon relaxing under the sure hands of the other man. Murphy's palms are very warm, and his fingers dig unerringly into the knots like he's got some form of x-ray vision. When Murphy presses into an extremely tense spot in the teacher's lower back with his knuckle, Mustafa can't help moaning with relief.

Murphy stops. Then he puts both his hands on the area to knead slowly, firmly; every push and roll of his hands elicits a soft moan from Mustafa, who is just a little embarrassed about the sounds Murphy is drawing out of him, but damn, it feels good.

Hot palms now slide up Mustafa's spine, and down, and up again; more oil, now spread over his upper back and shoulder blades; Murphy digs into Mustafa and finds knots that the latter doesn't even know exist until they're gone. The room is redolent with the smell of lavender. He's completely relaxed, every joint in his body loose, and sighs languorously when Murphy massages each of his arms, even working his wrists and fingers. When their fingers interlace, Mustafa swears his pulse picks up just a touch, but Murphy only helps him stretch out his fingers before moving on to his legs.

The moment the therapist's fingers rub along his calves, Mustafa can't help groaning in pleasure. Murphy pauses again, before he puts more oil and adds more pressure to his motions. Mustafa wants to cry from how good it feels. He's a happy puddle of bliss right now, utterly lost to Murphy's deft moves that have eased the tension in the back of his shins. The therapist's hands now press into Mustafa's hamstrings, but when he presses into a spot just under Mustafa's butt, Mustafa squeaks.

"Too painful?" Murphy asks, rubbing along the back of strong thighs again, his thumbs digging into muscle and soothing aches Mustafa doesn’t even know he had until they are gone.

"No, that was just... unexpected," he explains hurriedly.

Murphy chuckles. "Alright. I'll do the other leg now and I'll then flip you over."

And he does, the pressure exactly right; Mustafa exhales and feels his whole body go slack. When he rolls over onto his back, he belatedly realizes that all that relaxation and stimulation has given him a minor stiffy. Whoops.

"I'm sorry," he blurts out, taking a towel from Murphy to cover his groin.

Murphy only grins and shrugs. "Happens often. Good to know you're enjoying this." Then, in a very quiet whisper, he adds, "And I swear I don't do this with any other client, but what do you say to a date this Saturday night? I promise I can make you feel really good. Only if you're keen, of course."

Embarrassed and also flattered, Mustafa smiles up at Murphy. "You have my number. Call me tomorrow evening and we'll set it up."

Murphy grins more broadly. "Alright. Now close your eyes and let me finish you off." After a pause, he adds, "That sounded way more suggestive than I intended."

Mustafa laughs. "You can say that again on Saturday, if you play your cards right."

"You're on." Murphy's warm palms rest lightly on Mustafa's shins and begin massaging the latter's ankles.

Mustafa can't wait to feel those hands all over him.

#for the writing bae #meatshackash #murphstafa #yes i wrote it #BUT I WON'T WRITE MORE #ha #you can write the rest yourself

[pessimisticlatte]

Glass Roses ~ Chapter 10

~ Marichat ~ Adrienette ~ Lukagami ~ Platonic Marigami ~ Chlobrina ~ Ladynoir ~ Alya x Nino ~ Rena Rouge x Carapace ~ Emilie x Nathalie ~ Tikki x Plagg ~ 

~IT’S REVEAL TIME! HELL YEAH!~ Chapter 11 will have a whole gang reveal! I’m so excited to start writing it!

~~~~~~~~~~

His towel hung over his damp hair, Adrien looked at a message on the screen of his spare phone. Water dripped off the tips of his dark, golden hair and onto the collar of his black shirt. He’d been in the middle of drying his hair and ignoring Plagg as the Kwami ate a roll of camembert bigger than he was as loudly and obnoxiously as he possibly could. Marinette had asked if he’d be alright revealing who he was beneath the mask to her tonight.

Weirdly, Adrien had thought she’d go longer than a day before asking but this was Marinette, the girl who interrogated Plagg after they beat Reflekdoll to get even the slightest hint as to who he was beneath the mask. He couldn’t be too surprised that her curiosity had gotten the better of her; he’d once seen her rifling through a bin for a note that Alya passed Nino and wouldn’t tell Mari what it said on it. Surprise, surprise, the note was about the party they were throwing Marinette for her birthday and both Alya and Nino knew better than to deposit that note where she could easily get to it, Adrien knew for a fact that Nino had taken the note home and shredded it so he must had dropped a dummy note into the bin that sent Marinette scrambling after it.

“What’s with the dumb look on your face?” Plagg took a break from his overtly sensual snacking to languidly roll his head back and look at Adrien with narrowly slitted eyes.

“What’s with the dumb look on your face?” After having listened to Plagg eat loudly for the last 40 minutes, Adrien’s quip came out harsher than he’d intended. Then again, Plagg had decided to follow him into the bathroom and eat his cheese so loudly that Adrien couldn’t hear his music, so maybe it was exactly as harsh as he intended.

“I asked first,” Plagg shoved a piece of cheese in his mouth and rolled his eyes.

“Marinette wants to see me,” Adrien held his phone in one had and rubbed the towel against his head with the other.

“You you, or Chat you?” Plagg spoke around a mouth full of camembert, some globs of the gooey cheese flying out of his disturbingly large mouth.

“Uh...both?” Adrien shrugged, sitting down on his lounge and depositing the phone on the coffee table before him. With both hands free, Adrien continued to dry his hair more roughly.

“Sooooo, she wants to see who’s under the mask, does she?” The look on Plagg’s face echoed the one on Nino’s from when they’d walked home. With a disgusted groan, Adrien looked away from the Kwami and stared at the dark screen of his phone, Plagg chucked almost maniacally behind him. “What’re you worried about?”

“What if I’m not what she expected?” Plagg floated over to Adrien and looked his guardian dead in the eye.

“That’s immediately what your mind goes to, Adrien?” Plagg crossed his fins and twisted in the air so he was looking at Adrien upside down.

“What if she was expecting someone else? What if she doesn’t actually like me?” Adrien pulled the towel off his head with a defeated sigh and looked at his bare feet on the wooden floor of his room.

“How dumb are you?” Adrien hadn’t heard Plagg sound more disdainful in his entire life. “Do you seriously think that Marinette ‘I would take a bullet for you, Adrien Agreste’ Dupain-Cheng would be angry at you being Chat Noir?”

“Uh...maybe,” Adrien’s voice cracked as the word ‘maybe’ left his lips.

“And she’s meant to be the clueless one,” Plagg huffed and slapped one of his fins against Adrien’s forehead until the teenager raised his head and batted him away. “She has been in love with you for a damn long time. God, Tikki complains about the pictures Marinette used to have of you stuck up all over her room.”

“Mari had pictures of me stuck up all over her room? I never saw them when I went over,” Adrien’s brow furrowed with confusion. If she liked him as Adrien, not just Chat, why didn’t she tell him?

“Because she hid them you, you moron,” Plagg started to whap Adrien’s face with his fins again. “Unlike you, Chat had time for her and went out of his way to see her. She would still love you, Adrien, if she knew you were Chat. I think it would mean a lot more to her if she found out that you were Chat Noir because it means that her crush, the great Adrien Agreste, has been saving her ass all this time.”

“I guess you’re right,” Plagg whapped Adrien’s face harder at that comment.

“I am always right, don’t forget it,” Adrien flicked Plagg away from him with his thumb and middle finger, the creature twisting through the air like a balloon with all its air being released. “You gonna go see her, or what?”

“Or what,” Adrien stood, carrying his towel over to the laundry hamper and dumping it in there. “Of course I’m going to see her, Plagg. Sh-should we get her some flowers?”

“Like I fucking know,” Plagg threw his fins in the air and floated back toward his plate of cheese indignantly. “I don’t know what human girls like! I barely know what Kwami girls like.”

“I think Tikki likes it when you leave her alone,” Adrien could feel Plagg’s eyes staring daggers into the back of his head. It drew a cocky smirk from the teen as he faced the angrily buzzing creature.

“Sugarcube loves it when I hang out with her,”

“I highly doubt that,” Plagg huffed and blew a raspberry at Adrien. “You’re an immortal being and I’m a 17 year old kid but, somehow, you’re the childish one. I can’t fathom how you’ve lived this long.”

“Being irresistable,” The pure conviction in Plagg’s voice had Adrien laughing so hard he started choking. He couldn’t be serious.

“Ok, Plagg,” Adrien wheezed once his laughing induced coughing fit died down. “Claws out.”

Plagg was sucked into the ring on Adrien’s hand and began to send the classic Chat Noir catsuit solidifying across Adrien’s body. The suit always made adjustments for whenever Adrien wore it; when he’d shot up, the suit had accommodated it, and when he’d started to stop being scrawny and start being brawny, the suit changed its fit to highlight the toned muscles of his abdomen, arms and legs. With a grin, Adrien pushed one of the windows out of his room open and launched himself into the cooling twilight air of Paris.

~~~~~~~

Marinette was pacing, chewing her nails. She’d sent the message to Chat ages ago and he hadn’t given her a reply. She knew that he’d been wanting to reveal who he was for ages but had something changed his mind? Did he already know what Tikki was going to tell them and thought it would be safer to dump her? So much doubt and worry clouded in Marinette’s mind, doubling the speed of her pacing and tripling the speed of her heart beat. A gentle rap on the curtain covered doors leading out to Mari’s balcony told her that her cat in shining armour had arrived.

Trying to steady her breath, Mari pushed the door open and looked at the black leather clad boy grinning adorably in front of her. Without a word but with a tiny bow, Chat produced a bouquet of assorted flowers and held them out to her with a sincere, cheeky smile.

“For you,” He said as Marinette took the paper wrapped bouquet in her hands and gazed at him with huge, wonder filled eyes. “May I come in, princesa?”

“Yes,” Mari’s voice was light, breathy, as she stepped out of his way with her stunning blue eyes glued to the flowers in her arms. “W-where did you get these?”

“A cat doesn’t like to give away his secrets,” Adrien winked at her and pressed a long, claw tipped finger to his smirking lips. The bravado was a facade to hide how nervous he was. Tikki said that Marinette liked him and Plagg said it too but what if she didn’t love him? He’d also grabbed the bouquet from a florist who was closing late, he’d given the poor man a lot of money for his trouble and said that the man was more than welcome to tell everyone that Chat Noir had bought flowers from his shop. The owner looked like he was on the verge of tears as Chat disappeared into the night. “But there is one secret I’d be happy to give away.”

Marinette placed the flowers gently on her desk and exhaled as calmly as she could. This was nerve wracking. What if he hated her once he found out that she was Ladybug? What if everything changed? Oh god, what if this was a bad idea? Her cheeks began to turn and tears pricked her eyes. Chat walked forward and pulled Mari into his arms as she pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes to stop herself from crying.

“Are you scared, corazon?” Chat’s voice was soft as his hand gently stroked her loosely ponytailed hair. Marinette gave a watery nod into his chest and pressed herself closer to him. “I’m scared too.”

“W-why are you scared?” Marinette pulled away slightly and looked into his green eyes with a wobbling bottom lip.

“I’m scared that you won’t like who I am underneath my mask,” He was completely sincere. He had no reason to lie to her and she was as scared as he was for this reveal. Chat pressed a gentle kiss to Mari’s forehead.

“If I can love you with the mask, why can’t I love you without it?” She blinked, her dark lashes feathering across her cheeks as she did, silvery tears shone between the thick fibres.

“Because fear is irrational,” He pressed her back against his chest, squeezing her tightly. If something did happen and they fell apart after this, he wanted to hold her properly. He needed to imprint how it felt to have her in his arms into his soul. “Are you ready?”

“C-can you keep holding me while you do it...so..so I can look at you when I let go and know that it’s still my Chaton?” Adrien melted into her as her wobbly voice released the muffled request. His heart pounded with overwhelming love for the girl in his arms, only she would need to be holding him to know that it’s him and only for her would be oblige.

“Of course,” Pressing one final kiss to Mari’s head as Chat Noir, he slid his hands down around her waist and whispered; “Plagg, claws in,” into her ear. She stiffened as the suit melted away and where she had once been touching leather, she was now touching either golden skin or expensive fabric. Mari wound her hands into the soft black cotton of his shirt as she felt her forehead make contact with the very warm skin of his neck. “Are you ready for me to let go?”

“Yes…,” Adrien released her and stepped back. Mari had squished her eyes closed, her hands still fisted into his shirt. He released a small laugh and put his hands over hers. The feel of his bare skin on hers felt so strange, she knew that whoever was standing before her now was still Chat but she didn’t know if she was ready.

“Open your eyes, Buggaboo,” At the sound of her cooed nickname, Marinette’s eyes shot open and she fell to her ass on the floor. A hand extended itself to her, long fingers with perfectly shaped nails, a silver ring with a faint engraving of a cats paw, a faded friendship bracelet knotted with green and orange and red and blue; looking up the arm her eyes met the curve of his bicep and the strong line of his jaw. Jumping her gaze to his face, blue eyes met green and a goofy smile broke across Adrien Agreste’s face.

“Ad-...Adrien?” Her words came out choked. Adrien was Chat Noir...and he’d called her Buggaboo? H-he knew that she was Ladybug?

“It’s me,” He decided to kneel down on the floor in front of her and take her hands in his own. “It’s me, Mari, I’m Chat Noir.”

“I don’t know...I don’t know how I didn’t guess it…,” Her voice was disbelieving and her eyes were still glued to his, wide and uncertain for the first time in a long time. “A..a-and you know that I..that I’m…”

“Ladybug,” Squeezing her hand, he supplied Marinette a reassuring smile. “I don’t know how I’ve been so lucky to have the most selfless girl in Paris to call my own.”

“How long?” Her voice wobbled but a small smile started to creep across her bitten lips.

“Since I put you to bed all those months ago, I had a little encounter with Tikki,” Hearing her name, the Ladybug Kwami came zooming out of her hiding place and was immediately pulled into an embrace by Plagg. “She told me not to force you to see who I was until you were ready.”

“She’s the one who convinced me to ask you to do it tonight,” Mari shot a grumpy look at her Kwami who was struggling out of Plagg’s grip with no avail. “It’s not like I wasn’t going to ask you anyway.”

“Well, I’m glad you did because today was so damn hard, Mari,” He released one of Marinette’s hands to run his fingers through his wavy hair.

“What do you mean?” She knew what he meant, judging by how calm he was and the shining look in his eyes, she knew exactly what he was talking about.

“I wanted to kiss you so many times today,” He gave her a sheepish grin. “Every single time you laughed or smiled or breathed, I just wanted to scream that I loved you and I wanted to hold your hand.”

Marinette placed her hand on Adrien’s cheek and wove her fingers into the silken strands of his hair. He’d let it grow out recently, hoping that it would make an easier transition between Chat and Adrien when he finally revealed himself. Of course, the suit had made adjustments for how Adrien had wanted to look, deciding not to make his hair longer when he transformed like it usually did.

“You messaged me when you were at school but you hadn’t given me your phone number,” She stroked the pad of her thumb across his cheek, Adrien let out a long purr. 

“Backup phone,” Adrien pulled the backup phone out of his jeans pocket. He unlocked it and showed Mari the two contacts on it, one was the number Master Fu had used and the other was Marinette’s. 

“Buggababe?” The tears that had shone in her eyes were gone now, a radiant happiness pulsing off the two. Tikki stopped struggling against Plagg after he whispered to her to let them have this moment, before they had to break the news to them they had to let Adrien and Marinette be happy.

“Y’know how I call you Buggaboo?” He leant into Mari’s careful stroking of his cheek. “Well, since you’re my girlfriend now, you’re my Buggababe.”

“Who said anything about girlfriend, Adrien Agreste?” She scrunched up her nose as she teased him and pinched the skin of his cheek slightly.

“But you are my girlfriend,” The confused look on Adrien’s face was absolutely adorable. 

“Technically, I’m Chat Noir’s girlfriend,” She tipped her head and smirked at him, poking her tongue out slightly. “No one ever said anything about being Adrien Agreste’s girlfriend.”

“Why’re you being so mean to me, Mari?” Adrien dropped the spare phone and picked Marinette up, securing her in his lap. 

“Well, I am Chat Noir’s girlfriend and if Adrien Agreste wants the same treatment, he’s going to have to ask,” She sung into his neck, both her hands were free now as she snuggled into the warmth of the boy holding her. Tracing a fingertip over the ridges of his chest hidden beneath his plain black shirt, Marinette inhaled the smell of his shampoo and deodorant.

“If that’s the case,” Adrien pushed Marinette out of his lap, earning a giggling squeal from her. He stood and walked toward the balcony doors, his back to her. “I guess Adrien Agreste is going to have to go home.”

“Get back here,” Mari launched herself off the floor and wrapped her arms around his neck, locking her ankles around his slim waist. 

“But it would be horrible of me to stay here with Chat Noir’s girlfriend and not my own,” He wrapped his warm hands around her calves and walked them over to the bed. ‘Unless Chat Noir’s girlfriend would like to become mine?”

“Of course she’d like to become yours,” Mari breathed into his ear before he dropped back onto the bed, crushing her beneath his weight. This was a far cry from the interaction they’d had last night, which had been all soft touches and stolen kisses, he’d gone out of his way not to collapse onto her when he’d carried her over to the daybed. “Oh my god, Adrien, what do you eat?”

“Bricks,” Adrien arched his back, still holding Mari’s calves so she couldn’t wiggle out from underneath him.

“At least you’ve got a good amount of iron in your diet,” She tried to flip him off her but she wouldn’t let go, chuckling loudly. “Are you going to ask me out or what?”

“Or what!” Both of them whipped their heads to look at Plagg who was then dragged away by an angry Tikki as she slapped one of her fins over his mouth.

Marinette giggled, the sound a lullaby to Adrien’s ears and heart. “Would you like to be my girlfriend, Marinette Dupain-Cheng a.k.a Ladybug?”

“I’m going to have to ask Chat Noir if it’s alright with him first,” The soft pads of Mari’s fingers found the bare skin of Adrien’s waist, his shirt having ridden up from her legs being wrapped him. She started to tickle him, his body arching and rocking as he laughed and tried to make her stop. “Would it be alright with you, Chat, if I started dating Adrien Agreste?”

Adrien was choked with laughs, unable to pull away from Mari as she retaliated to his heavy weight dropped atop her. “Y-y….yes, I’d be...r-r-really happy for y-you two,” She stopped tickling him, Adrien rolled off her and laid beside her in the bed.

“Then you have your answer, Chaton,” Mari rolled onto her side and kissed Adrien’s cheek. Adrien suddenly glanced at the trapdoor leading down to Marinette’s parents apartment. Noticing the glance and realising that she’d never told Adrien that her parents were out, she quickly set his mind at ease. “Maman and Papa are out having dinner with Grandpapa and Grandmama, they finally repaired ties. Grandpapa wasn’t very happy when Papa married Maman so I hope all goes well because I’m not sure what would happen if it didn’t.”

“I’m glad that I get you all to myself,” Adrien brushed her fringe behind her ear and smiled softly up at her. Marinette kissed his lips with a sweet smile. “What did I do to deserve you?”

“Maybe the universe just loves you, Kitty Cat,” Mari rubbed her nose against his, her eyes closed as his memorised the sound of her happy hums.

“Maybe it does,” Her eyelashes brushed his as she blinked open. “Maybe you love me.”

“Maybe I do,” Marinette kissed him again. When she tried to pull away, Adrien slid his hand to the back of her neck and followed her, keeping their lips pressed together. She let out yet another happy hum as his long pianists fingers tangled into her soft, dark hair, the strands softer than anything he’d ever held.

“Marinette? Adrien?” The teenagers pulled away from each other as Tikki’s worried voice sliced through the almost silent room. 

“Oh, I forgot,” Marinette sat up, glancing between Tikki and Adrien. “Tikki had something that she needed to tell us and she wanted to do it when we were together.”

Adrien sat up and leaned against the wall to the side of Mari’s bed, pulling her into his lap between his opened legs.

“Adrien, you’re not wearing shoes,” His arms were securely wrapped around her waist, his chin resting on her shoulder. Mari pointed at his bare feet and bumped her head against his.

“I must’ve been so excited to see you that I forgot to put some on,” He bumped her back, his normal phone buzzed faintly in his pocket, drawing a quizzical look from Mari. “I’m not going to check it until I get home,” Adrien pressed a kiss to Mari’s neck. “I’m here with you and I intend to focus on you.”

“Alright, we need to focus,” Tikki floated in front of the two of them, Marinette lowered her hand and twined her fingers with Adrien’s over her stomach. “This might be some...terrible news.”

“Don’t freak the happy couple out, Sugarcube, just tell ‘em,” Plagg floated up on top of Tikki and balanced the back of his head on the crown of hers. Tikki protested.

“Okay, okay, Plagg, get off me,” Plagg did. “Thank you. I told Marinette earlier today that Duusuu came to see Plagg and I.”

“Duusuu?” Adrien raised his head and looked at Mari, who nodded. “Duusuu is the Peacock Kwami, right?”

“Yes, Duusuu is bonded with Mayura,” Tikki started to slide her fins together anxiously, looking to Plagg for support, which he didn’t provide. 

“Why would Mayura’s Kwami come and speak to you?” Mari shushed Adrien who just furrowed his brow and grimaced.

“Because Mayura doesn’t want to help Hawkmoth anymore, she wants to stop him,” Adrien opened his mouth to speak, he didn’t know that Mari had already asked all these questions but he closed his mouth after she gently smacked his hand. “Duusuu told us who Hawkmoth and Mayura are.”

“You didn’t say that earlier, Tikki,” The room was so silent they could have heard a pin drop.

“That’s why I wanted you two here together and with no secrets between you. This is going to be some...some potentially scary information,” Plagg floated over to Tikki and took one of her fins, trying to calm her down. 

“You can do it, Sugarcube,” Plagg squeezed Tikki’s fin.

“Who are they, Tikki?” Adrien asked as softly as he could, his heart hammering against Marinette’s back as she rubbed her thumb up and down his wrist.

Tikki glanced at Plagg, who gave her a nod, and exhaled shakily. “M-Mayura is Nathalie, Adrien,”

The force of Adrien’s head shooting upwards caused him to smack Marinette in the jaw, his eyes were wide and his pupils were dilated with confusion. Mari gently rubbed her jaw but didn’t say anything to him; this was a shock to her too but Nathalie was the woman who raised him, she was is mother in all aspects of the word other than by blood. 

“Nathalie is Mayura? A-am I the reason why she changed her mind?” Tikki nodded sombrely. “D-does that mean that someone working f-for my dad is Hawkmoth?”

Mari gently squeezed Adrien’s hand to reassure him that she was there, that she wasn’t going anywhere and that she understood that he was hurting. He sunk his head back into Marinette’s neck, a wetness pressing warmly against her skin.

“It’s worse than that, Adrien,” Plagg watched his guardian collapse into his girlfriend, this wasn’t going to be a nice talk but Plagg had insisted that Tikki give them time to associate tonight with loving each other instead of Adrien’s world falling apart around him.

“H-how could it be worse?” Adrien’s lips moved against Marinette’s skin, she moved a hand up into his hair and massaged his scalp. “It could only be worse if...if…,”

“Hawkmoth was your dad,” Marinette finished for him, looking at Tikki.

“Gabriel Agreste is Hawkmoth,” Adrien squeezed Mari tighter, tears sliding down the column of her neck and pooling in the dip of her collarbone. Tikki felt tears well in her eyes, at least he had Marinette.

“W...w-why is he doing this?” Adrien’s hiccup shook Mari’s body.

“He wants to bring your mother back, Adrien, that’s all Duusuu told me,” Tikki floated down to the surface of the bed, Plagg trailing behind her still holding her fin. “W-when you accepted Nathalie as your mother, she realised that she couldn’t keep helping him.”

Marinette hummed reassurances to Adrien as Tikki spoke, Plagg uncharacteristically quiet.

“Nathalie loves your mother, Adrien, she loves her more than your father does and she knows that Emilie wouldn’t want this,” Tikki placed her free fin on the top of Adrien’s bare foot, large tears dropping from her eyes. “She said that Emilie wouldn’t forgive your father for what he did to bring her back, or the way that he neglected you. Nathalie also said that she couldn’t see you torn apart by Emilie’s reappearance and subsequent reaction to what Gabriel did.”

A sob shook Adrien’s body as more tears slid down Marinette’s neck and into her shirt. She began to gently rock him; such a good night had turned so bad in a very short time.

“She’s doing it for you, man,” Plagg broke his silence. “I heard when you called her Mum and I saw how happy she was when you called her that. If I was the person who raised my childhood sweetheart’s kid after her hubby put her in the ground, I’d have a change of heart and want to save the world for the kid too.”

Marinette tipped her head slightly, Adrien had whispered a question to her. With a frown she asked him to say it again.

“Adrien wants to know of Nathalie knows that he’s Chat Noir,” Mari squeezed his wrist gently, he let go of his forearm and tangled his fingers into hers. She pressed a kiss to his temple.

“No, she doesn’t,” For the first time since Tikki had started telling them about her talk with Duusuu, her voice didn’t wobble. “She asked who you two were but I didn’t tell her, I said that it was too dangerous and that we’d get in contact with Nathalie when you were ready.”

“Thank you, Tikki,” Adrien’s voice was thin and reedy as he raised his head slightly and met Tikki’s gaze. His eyes were red and bloodshot, tears stained his lashes and traced silver tracks down his cheeks as well as Marinette’s neck. “Thank you for not telling her.”

“It’s alright, Adrien, just like you revealing yourself to Marinette, I wanted you to be ready to reveal yourself to Nathalie,” Adrien put his face back in Mari’s shoulder and shook his head, tears were tracking slowly down Marinette’s cheeks and dripping into Adrien’s golden hair. Small dark spots in the fine waves of his hair gave away how many silent tears she had shed while forcing herself to remain composed for him. Adrien hiccupped.

“Sh-she loved my Maman,” Adrien kept shaking his head, Marinette pressed one of her hands into his temple to stop him from cracking his skull against her jaw again. “And she..she wants to defy my father..f-for me?”

“Yes, Chaton,” Mari spoke softly into Adrien’s hair, his sobs quieted as she spoke to him in soothing tones. “You accepted her as your mother and mothers should always want to protect their children. Nathalie was the mother you thought you didn’t have, I can’t believe I saw that before you did,” She released a small, tear clogged laugh. “You have a family, Adrien, and it’s so much more than your asshole of a dad.”

“Did you just call my dad an asshole, Marinette Dupain-Cheng?” He raised his red, tear tracked face and looked up at Mari with a wobbling smile. She could tell that the smile was genuine, but that he was still hurting so he couldn’t make it as bright as he normally did. “Did you call world famed fashion designer and billionaire, Gabriel Agreste, an asshole?”

“Yes, I think I did,” Marinette feigned surprise and shot him a wide, dimpled smile. “It doesn’t matter how good his designs are if he can’t spend time with his own son. His own son, for fucks sake.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear,” Adrien pressed his nose into Marinette’s hair, her ponytail now completely gone and leaving her hair loose around her shoulders. She nudged up into his embrace with her shoulder, earning a kiss to her head from him.

“You have a family, Adrien,” She nudged him again as she whispered to him. Tikki and Plagg looked at each other, the Cat Kwami shrugging. Maybe this went better than planned, did Tikki even have a plan? She probably did, it was Tikki afterall, but her complete loss of composure had Plagg thinking that maybe she had no clue what she was doing. Marinette started to sway in Adrien’s arms. “You have Nathalie, you have Nino, and Alya, and Kagami. You have Plagg, and Tikki. You have my Maman and Papa, they love you a lot, you know. And you have me.”

Adrien smiled, the corners of his lips still twitching as his heart still cracked from finding out what his absent father had been doing in all the time he’d been absent.

“I have you,” He rested his temple against the crown of her head. “I’m so lucky to have you.”

“If I ever see your dad in person again, I don’t care if we’ve defeated him or not, I am going to kick him so hard in the balls he might develop a nut allergy,” Mari pulled out of his arms to turn and meet his eyes as she made her promise to him. Her eyes were hard, promising Adrien that she would not hold back even if she was fighting her fashion idol. He meant more to her than he could possibly fathom. Adrien laughed, a deep and rich laugh, before pulling Marinette into a deep kiss and pressing their foreheads together. She twisted in his arms and rested her back against his chest again, tapping her fingers along the goosebumped skin of his right arm.  “We’re going to have to tell Alya and Nino that I’m Ladybug. Oh my god, Alya is going to lose her mind when she finds out that I’m Ladybug.”

“They...uh...they kinda already know,” Adrien’s voice gradually got quieter as he trailed the admission off. 

“Oh, good,” Marinette smiled and wiggled into a comfortable position in his arms. “Wait WHAT?!”

She shot forward and out of his embrace, flinging herself off the bed. Plagg and Tikki had barely moved in time not to be hit by a Marinette cannonball.

“How do they fucking know, Adrien?” Mari’s eyes were wider than he’d ever seen them before and she was pulling at her dark hair, pacing. “How on Gods quickly dying once green earth do they know and how did Alya keep it to herself?”

“Mari, calm down,” Adrien crawled forward on the bed and grabbed Marinette’s wrists, halting her pacing. “Alya guessed that I was Chat and then let it slip that Nino was Carapace and then I accidentally let it slip that you were Ladybug. They only found out last night, so it hasn’t been anything major and I honestly have no clue how Alya kept it to herself.”

Marinette’s breathing evened out as she eased onto the bed in front of Adrien. “Oh-okay,” She took one of Adrien’s hands and slotted their fingers together. “I wanna tell them.”

“Did you see the message Nino sent you on the Yoyo last night?” 

“Uh, no,” Mari looked really confused as Adrien tapped his fingers against the back of her hand. “Why-...,” Marinette paused, her eyes sweeping back and forth as she processed something. “You skipped out on your patrol, didn’t you?” She grinned at him. “You skipped out on your patrol to come and see me and you needed Nino to cover for you but Alya was already there.”

“Alya wasn’t already there, I asked her to meet me too so I could convince one of them to cover for me,” Mari flicked his forehead. 

“Do we wanna get suited up and get the gang together?” She lifted his wrist, the one with his watch on it and tapped the face. Alya would be patrolling tonight, and Marinette would be patrolling tomorrow night, so it was likely that Alya was already out and not finished her second round yet. If Nino had joined her last night, then he’d probably joined her tonight. 

“If you think that’d be best?” Adrien squeezed Mari’s hand. 

“I want to ask you something first,” Adrien inclined his head to indicate to Marinette that he was listening. “I want to give the Snake and Dragon miraculouses to Luka and Kagami permanently.”

“Okay,” Adrien gave a half smile and shrugged.

“Okay?” 

“Yeah, I think it’d be cool to have some extra hands on deck,” He started rubbing the back of her hand again. “We should give Pollen back to Chloe.”

Marinette was silent for a moment, her mouth forming words that never created sound. “I agree,” Adrien raised his eyebrows. “She was great as Queen Bee.”

“I didn’t expect you to take that so well,” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed their joined fingers. “What changed?”

“I overheard a conversation between Chloe and Sabrina today, and it changed my view on Chloe,”

“She finally asked Sabrina out, didn’t she?” Marinette blinked slowly.

“Finally?” Adrien puffed out a laugh.

“That’s why she was stuck to me during the holidays, she wanted advice on how to ask Sabrina out,” It was Marinette’s turn to laugh.

“Did you have much advice to give?” She stifled her giggles with the back of her free hand.

“Unsurprisingly, no, I’ve never asked anyone out in my entire life,” Marinette’s eyes bulged open as her giggles died down.

“Am I your first girlfriend, Adrien Agreste?” She sounded so disbelieving.

“Yeah,” He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Am I your first boyfriend?”

Marinette’s face went bright red, she let go of Adrien’s hands and shoved him back on the bed so he couldn’t see how embarrassed she was.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Adrien propped himself up on his elbows to find Mari hiding her face in her hands. “Hey, don’t hide your face,” He sat up and pried her hands away from her crimson cheeks. “I love when you blush, it makes your freckles stand out so much more.” Her cheeks glowed an even darker red. “You’re so beautiful, Mari.” Adrien kissed her warm cheek.

“Oi, lovebirds, are we gonna get groovin’ or be mushy all night? I’ve got a nice wheel of cheese callin’ my name back at Casa de Agreste,” Adrien and Marinette pulled away from each other and looked at their Kwamis. 

“He’s right,” Adrien shrugged, pulling Mari off the bed. “You might want to put something other than pjs on if we’re going to unsuit for the gang.”

“You might want to put some shoes on,” Mari poked her tongue out at him as she walked to her dresser and pulled a pair of jeans out of it. Picking a soft grey, cotton shirt and a bra, Marinette dug the miraculous box out of her underwear drawer and put the Bee, Snake and Dragon miraculouses on top of the dresser. “Eyes to yourself while I change, Agreste.”

Her voice had taken the confident Ladybug tone that he adored so much, raising his hands in submission he grinned and turned around. Marinette slipped behind her changing screen and swapped her pyjamas out for her normal clothes.

“I’m going to have to go barefoot because I don’t have any shoes,” The sound of Marinette changing, the small thuds and rustling of clothes, had all the hair on his body standing ramrod straight. She laughed.

“Poor baby, you’re going to get cold feet,” Mari’s footfalls walking toward him had him turning around to face her. Marinette dumped the bundle of pyjama clothes on her bed and pulled a pair of sneakers out from a plastic bucket underneath. Adrien hadn’t seen her grab socks but she pulled the sneakers on over the top of some pale pink socks with lace fringing the top.

“Never when I’m with you,” He helped her to her feet. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” The two faced each other and took a deep breath in. “Tikki-,” “Plagg-,” “Spots on-,” “Claws out-,”

They transformed, looking at each other. Marinette’s suit was different now, though. It looked a bit like the suit Adrien had worn as Mister Bug, but there was padded armour around her shoulders, sides, breasts and the sides of her legs. Adrien’s Chat Noir suit hadn’t changed, of course it hadn’t because it was just the way he liked it. With a cheeky bow, Adrien extended his clawed had to Marinette.

“Mi’lady,” His pupils dilated as his dimpled grin made an appearance. Mari quickly turned and grabbed the miraculous boxes she’d put on top of her dresser, shoving them into the pockets that appeared when her suit had changed. There were no lumps or bumps where the boxes rested in her suit, the magic of it tucking them safely away. “Shall we get going?”

“Yes, we shall,” Marinette took Adrien’s hand and they leapt out into the cool night air.

~~~~~~TAGLINE~~~~~~~ @katieykat513 @lady-charinette @aussie-lesbian @mochegato @starkerismyking @nifflerstorm @hnbutt @maniic-pixie-dream-girl

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous fanfic #miraculous fandom #chat noir #marichat #adrienette #lukagami #tikki x plagg #tikki #plagg #rena rouge #carapace #miraculous #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #nino lahiffe #alya cesaire #kagami tsuguri #luka couffaine #fanfic

[machihunnicutt]

BDG Outfit Rates Vol. 2

(Here we go again baebyyyyy)

I’m slowly phasing out any semblance of actual ratings.

“Someone Give the Polygon Office Skeleton an Employee of the Month Award”

A truly innovative look for day to day wear. very spooky/10

“I’m Not Your Friend and You Have No Say Over What I Do with my Body”

Before we go any further I must stress that my opinion absolutely doesn’t matter but I love this look and I love Brian’s fashion and personal grooming risks. It’s hard to see in this pic, but that shirt is in fact A PRINT WITH DRAGON FLIES ! I don’t know where he gets all these bomb patterned button ups but they’re lovely. so powerful i can’t rate it/10

“Merry Catmas, Zuko”

Maybe a fire hazard???? But also very good???? Yes, those are suspenders. Yes, I love it. Look at that good cooperative kitty cat. my love for zuko/10

“Boat Boi”

Cuffed jeans! Cuffed jeans! I know there is a lot to talk about with this photo but mostly cuffed jeans! I love sailing safety. I love this pose. I LOVE the glasses. smooth saling/10

“Had to do it to em”

Idk, it’s a good turtleneck. It matches his nails and watch(? maybe it’s just the lighting). good meme/10

“Pre-Scrundler Attack”

He’s really giving me Peter Parker vibes here that’s why I picked this look. Imagine Into the Spiderverse SpiderBDG who makes Polygon vids by day and fights crime by night (and also capitalizes on his “investigative journalistic” knowledge of Spidey to get Polygon the views it deserves with Spiderman content.) very invested in this concept/10

“Perfect”

It’s perfect/10

“Christmas Ham”

All the Unraveled looks are dapper as hell but this might be the most dapper. I feel like he should be lecturing me about poetry, not video games. most dapperist boi/10

“Some More Good Plaid”

Soft Hipster Lumberjack Boi. The jacket really elevates this look. Good showing of a red plaid (although not quite good enough to beat the signature Pat Gill red plaid) Brawny paper towel man vibes/10

“Look at the Dang Pants Creases”

bOw TiE ! The sweater vest is good. The belt is GREAT. The hair really demonstrates his commitment to this particular brand. too distracted by good singing to give a real rating/10

#brian david gilbert #bdg #polygon #unraveled #week in revue #polygon.com #polygon fashion #awi makes things

[writinggeisha]

According to Thomas Fuller, the devil lies brooding in the miser’s chest. Rod Stewart said that a person has to have a burning desire in the chest to succeed. And then there’s Erma Bombeck, who quipped, “What’s with you men? Would hair stop growing on your chest if you asked directions somewhere?”

An overweight man or out-of-shape bodybuilder might have pecs that move and look like flabby breasts. A female stevedore or competitive swimmer might develop a muscular torso that appears more masculine than feminine.

In several areas of this post I created separate headings for chests and breasts. However, you might prefer to apply words differently, sometimes for comedic effect.

When considering descriptors, pay attention to opinion adjectives and how they affect point of view.

Emotion Beats

Before reviewing the following beats, note that he crossed his arms across his chest can be shortened to he crossed his arms.

Many readers will associate a puffed-out chest with aggression or arrogance, but they might not see a clear association with delight or determination. Ensure suitable context for vague emotion beats.

Aggression Puffed-out chest

Aggrievement, distress Shoulders slumped inward over chest Chest, neck, and face flush and feel hot

Agitation, nervousness Clutching papers against chest

Amazement Holding a hand against chest

Anger Thrusting chest forward, fists propped on hips

Anticipation Holding a hand against chest

Anxiety Tightness in the chest

Arrogance Puffed-out chest

Confidence, scorn, smugness Puffed-out chest Light feeling in the chest

Conflict Tightness in the chest

Confusion Tightness in the chest

Contempt Puffed-out chest

Defeat, desperation, discouragement When emotion is intense: chest pains or numbness accompanied by thumping heart

Defensiveness Pressing chin against chest Holding both hands over chest, shoulders hunched inward

Delight, euphoria Puffed-out chest Heart drumming in chest

Depression Hollow sensation in chest

Desire Heart fluttering in chest

Determination Puffed-out chest

Disappointment Tightness in chest

Dread, fear, terror Chest pains Clutching chest with one or both hands Heavy sensation, tingling in chest Closed posture, arms and fists pulled into chest

Embarrassment Tightness in chest Drooping posture, chest pulled inward

Envy, jealousy Heartburn burbling up into chest

Excitement Chest-bumping with another person or persons

Frustration, irritation Tightness in chest

Gratitude Placing one hand over chest (heart)

Guilt, shame Tightness in chest Lowering chin to chest

Happiness Placing both hands over chest

Hatred Tightness in chest When emotion is intense: chest pains or numbness accompanied by thumping heart

Hopefulness Placing both hands over chest Humiliation Tightness and pain in chest

Insecurity Holding a familiar item of comfort against the chest (stuffed animal, lucky charm, photo of a loved one, etc.)

Overwhelm Sitting or sleeping in fetal position, with knees drawn close to chest

Pride Puffed-out chest

Regret Tightness in chest Massaging shoulder or chest

Resentment Tightness in chest

Sadness Tightness in chest Heavy sensation in chest Massaging shoulder or chest

Satisfaction Puffed-out chest

Sexual attraction Embracing someone, with full chest-to-chest contact

Shame Tightness in chest Shoulders hunched forward over chest

Shock, surprise Quickly clutching chest with one or both hands

Sympathy Crossing hands over chest and curling shoulders inward

Adjectives, Both Chests and Breasts

A to C Abnormal, adolescent, amazing, ample, armored, athletic, bare, beautiful, blood-caked, bloodied, bloodstained, boyish, brazen, bristly, bruised, bulging, bulky, bushy, childish, chubby, clean, cold, compact

D and E Damp, defined, deformed, delicate, developed, developing, diminutive, divine, effeminate, elongated, emaciated, empty, enchanting, enormous

F and G Fabulous, fat, feminine, fevered, flat, flawless, fleshy, fragile, frail, frosty, frozen, full, furry, gleaming, glossy, glowing, gorgeous, grimy, grizzled

H to M Hairless, hairy, hard, healthy, hideous, hirsute, hot, icy, ideal, immense, impressive, inflamed, insubstantial, iridescent, leathery, magnificent, marvelous, massive, meager, motionless

N to R Naked, narrow, outstanding, painful, perfect, phenomenal, prodigious, prominent, proud, puny, raw, repugnant, resilient, rock-hard

S Sexy, shaggy, shallow, shapely, shiny, shirtless, shrunken, slack, slender, slimy, slippery, smooth, sodden, sopping, sore, splendid, sticky, stunning, superb, sweaty

T to V Tempting, titanic, T-shirted, unattractive, underdeveloped, unimpressive, unprotected, unremarkable, unusual, veined, velvety, voluminous

W to Y Warm, well-defined, well-fleshed, well-proportioned, wet, wondrous, wrinkled, wrinkly, young, youthful

Adjectives Breasts Only

A to D Akimbo, alert, alluring, ample, barren, blubbery, bold, braless, budding, buoyant, busty, buxom, chaste, chesty, conspicuous, dainty, delectable, delicate, diminutive, dry

E to L Empty, enchanting, enlarged, exuberant, fake, firm, flabby, flaccid, free, generous, gigantic, girlish, heavy, high, huge, immature, jaunty, large, little, lopsided, lovely, lumpy, luscious, lush

M to R Maternal, mature, miniscule, modest, monstrous, nascent, numb, oversized, padded, pendulous, perky, pert, plump, pretty, ripe, rotund

S Saggy, sensitive, shriveled, small, smallish, soft, succulent, sweet, swollen

U to W Unbound, unencumbered, unfettered, upright, upstanding, useless, virginal, voluptuous, well-endowed, withered

Adjectives, Chests only

A to F Angular, athletic, bearish, beefy, bony, brawny, broad, buff, built, bullish, burly, cadaverous, carved, chiseled, clear, confident, congested, deep, expansive, frail

G to O Gangly, gaunt, handsome, hard, haughty, hench, Herculean, hollow, hulking, lean, male, mammoth, manly, masculine, matted, meaty, mighty, musclebound, muscular, obdurate, overdeveloped

P to R Powerful, puffed-out, rasping, raspy, resonant, ribbed, rickety, rigid, robust, rugged

S Scrawny, sculpted, serviceable, sinewy, skeletal, skinny, sleek, slick, solid, sonorous, strapping, streamlined, strong, stubbly, sturdy, sunken

T to W Taut, thick, thin, tight, tough, unyielding, valiant, vast, weak, well-muscled, wheezy, wide

Similes and Metaphors

Rather than copy any of the following, leverage them as ideas for your own phrasing.

Breasts like twin doorknobs

Breasts like twin watermelons

Breasts more wrinkled than last year’s apple crop

Breasts that bounce like water balloons

Chest as blocky as a chest of drawers

Chest flatter than a smushed bug

Chest hairier than a barber’s floor

Desire that burns like a wildfire in his chest

Fear cinched her chest tighter than any corset ever could

Grief—an anvil crushing his chest

Heart beating in her chest like a butterfly trapped in a net

Shock pierced his chest like a lightning bolt

Upper body like a bulldog’s chest

Colors

Torsos that spend hours bared in the sun will mirror the color and tone of a character’s neck and face.

If a character keeps the upper body covered most of the time, it will be lighter in color—humor fodder for Canadian or Icelandic protagonists, perhaps?

B to W Bronzed, coppery, creamy, crimson, dark, fair, freckled, lily-white, milky, orange, pale, pallid, patchy, pink, rosy, sallow, salt-and-pepper, snow-white, snowy, speckled, swarthy, tanned, tawny, white-haired

See also the Color/Tone section of 300+ Words to Describe Skin.

Scents

Exposure to many substances will cause a person’s chest to retain the aroma, often affecting first impressions.

If a woman, who has referred to herself as a “single virgin” in a matchmaking app, arrives with the smells of baby powder and spit-up emanating from her cleavage, her prospective date might suspect she isn’t telling the truth. A CEO whose chest smells like wet dog might trigger a sneezing fit and subsequent avoidance by a prospective investor.

A to D Almonds, antiseptic, baby oil, baby powder, bacon bits, a bakery, barfed-up booze, bat guano, the beach, body wash, burnt flesh, C4, camphor oil, cat food, chocolate milk, coffee grounds, cookie dough, depilatory, diaper cream, dirty socks, dog breath

E to R Egg salad, a forest glen, formaldehyde, goose grease, Grandma’s kitchen, gunpowder, halitosis, honey, kerosene, K-Y Jelly, lamp oil, lemon frosting, maple syrup, musty beard, old books, a one-night stand, orange peels, peppermint tea, pilfered doughnuts, pipe tobacco, rancid coconut oil, road kill, rotten cheese, salad dressing

S to W Sandalwood, sawdust, shampoo, a skunk, soap, a sour dishrag, sour milk, a spice rack, spit-up, stinky towels, strawberries, sunblock, sweat, talcum powder, tar, tent canvas, too much cologne, vanilla, wet dog

Shapes

Many shapes in this short list can refer to both chests and breasts.

A to W Asymmetrical, barrel-chested, bell-shaped, blocky, concave, conical, convex, domed, flat, misshapen, pear-shaped, pigeon-chested, pointed, pointy, round(ed), shapeless, teardrop, triangular, wedge-shaped, well-rounded

Verbs (1) Transitive

These verbs take direct objects. A character’s chest might burn with desire, fill with air, or strain against shackles.

A to S Ache (from, with), brush (against), burn with, engorge with, fill with, heave (against, into), peek out of, press against, resemble, rub (against), scrape against, slam (into), strain against, support

Verbs (2) Intransitive

The verbs in this section don’t require an object. A chest might balloon, congest, or expand. Period.

A to G Ache, appear, balloon, bead with, bleed, bounce, bulge, burn, clog (up), collapse, congest, constrict, dangle, deflate, distend, drip, expand, freeze, gleam, glisten, glitter, glow

H to T Hang, hurt, itch, jut, leak, perspire, prickle, protrude, rattle, relax, ripple, sag, shine, shrink, sink, spasm, strain, sweat, tickle, tighten

Verbs (3): Verbs that Take Chest/Breast or Chests/Breasts as an Object

Examples:

Serafina bandaged her chest with strips torn from her petticoat.

Brad thumped his chest. “Nobody tells me what to do.”

An arrow pierced the knight’s chest.

A to H Adorn with, bandage, bare, batter, beat (at, on), blanket with, claw at, clutch, compress, cover, crush, cut, decorate with, display, draw on, expand, expose, feel, flash, hold, hug

I to S Inflate, lacerate, massage, paint, palpate, pierce, poke, press (against), puff (out, up), punch, push, shake, shave, slash, slather with, slice, squeeze, stab, strike, swath (in, with)

T to W Thrust out, thump, touch, uncover, unveil, wax, wound

Nouns, Both Chests and Breasts

N to T Nipples, pecs, pectorals, thorax

Refer to the next two sections as well for suitable nouns.

Nouns, Chests Only

You might (usually in poetry or older works) find breast used as a replacement for chest, as in: He beat upon his breast.

Compared to the plethora of slang and vulgar terms coined by authors for breast(s), I discovered a dearth of similar words for chest. Prompt for an opinion editorial, perhaps?

B to T Breast, Chewbacca sweater, gorilla torso, lung carpet, man boobs, manpelt, manssier-stuffer, muscleini, rib cage, thorax, torso, trunk

Find more words by googling slang terms for chest.

Nouns, Breasts Only

If your character is an uncouth jerk, you might be able to get away with using some of the rude words of this section in dialogue. Otherwise, you’ll invite the ire of readers. As Shakespeare’s Falstaff said, “Discretion is the better part of valor.”

If you need more offensive words, google derogatory terms for breasts or offensive names for breasts.

B to F Bazookas, boobs, bosom, bra stuffers, breast-o-raunts, bust, buzzums, casabas, chesticles, chi-chis, cleavage, Daddy’s playground, double-Ds, flotation devices

G to X The girls, healthy lungs, hooters, jugs, knockers, mammary glands, mammas, mammilla, melons, milk tanks, mosquito bites, num-nums, ta-tas, teats, tits, twins, wardrobe malfunctions, XL lungs

Props

Props augment a story or twist it in new directions. Try some of these to add humor, pathos, or intrigue.

A to I Angina, beard that reaches to or covers the chest, broken rib, cancer, chest cold, COPD, cough, CPR, crumbs, emphysema, extra nipple, glitter, honey, huge nipples, inflammation

L to W Laceration, mastectomy, mastitis, measuring tape, missing nipple, muscle shirt, nipple piercing, pneumonia, scabs, scar, sequins, tattoos, wart

Clichés and Idioms

Chest … chest … chest … breast … breast … breast …

Excessive repetition? Maybe you’ve incorporated too many clichés and idioms. Try these replacements.

Bare one’s breast [verb]: admit/show vulnerability

Beat (on, upon) one’s chest/breast [verb]: bewail, lament, mourn, regret

Close to one’s chest [adj]: confidential, hush-hush, secret

Get off one’s chest [verb]: admit, confess, reveal

Make a clean breast of it [verb]: admit, confess, reveal

Strong enough to put hair on one’s chest [adj]: powerful, pungent

Take a spear in the chest [verb]: admit, concede, confess

Thump one’s chest [verb]: bluster, boast, brag, swagger

#tools #links #advice #word lists

[likeshipsonthesea]

Pls explain your charming toliet paper rant. I am very confused

Haha, sorry, that was auto-correct on my phone changing Charmin to charming. But anyway, I shall explain:

I had ADHD as a child (may possibly still but whatever) and I was horrible to bring into a store. My poor mother has dealt with me for a very long time, heaven help her. So I don’t know if I still have it or I’ve just learned to be this way in stores, but whenever I walk into a store I very quickly get entranced in whatever I see first.

Today’s shopping trip focus went from: a display of vases and jars as we entered the store, a stuffed lion on a rack immediately after, a beer called Fat Tire, a series of colorful cups meant for toddlers, paper plates with pretty colors, a unicorn toy meant for a dog I wanted to buy for my cats, and, immediately after that, we were in the toilet paper aisle.

While dwindling on the contrast of Brawny with all the brands depicting babies, we arrived at Charmin, where I was able to peruse the various types of softnesses they offered, and I noticed something.

The soft and ultra-soft brands both had pictures of the girl bears (lighter fur, adorned with pink bows) and the ultra-strong brand only had the boy bears (darker coats, no bows).

Now, I should let you know that this morning alone I went on two separate rants about the patriarchy and/or capitalism (one about pockets and another about monetizing the self-esteem of people (mainly women)) so this wasn’t exactly out of character for me.

So, without prompting, I started to rant about the ridiculousness of gendering toilet paper types and how the significance not only of women being and liking softness is being reiterated here, but the perpetuation of men only being able to like “strong” and “tough” things while excluding them from enjoying softer and more comfortable things for the sake of masculinity is ridiculous and damaging to the male psyche and likely contributes to the deterioration of mental health and issues surrounding men’s ability to connect with their own emotions.

…

It was fucking toilet paper.

I did mention I get a bit off track sometimes, yes? And while the very nice man who helped me set up my bank account this morning generously pretended as if he couldn’t hear me repeat a well-loved rant about the size of pockets in women’s clothing being a method of the patriarchy/capitalism to make women vulnerable I recited to my long-suffering mother in the next seat, the man further down the paper products aisle from us just trying to buy paper towels did not afford me the same luxury.

So I got some weird looks in the grocery store and that was before my two minute long argument on why my mother should’ve let me get Spider-man cheese sticks.

Yeah. I don’t leave the house much. 

#personal #my poor mother seriously #this is why she shouldn't make me leave the house #one time in target #around halloween #i put on a mask and grabbed a fake bloodied axe #and followed behind her for like three aisles without her knowing #brandishing my weapon #many other patrons were amused #she was not

[idekman-ao3]

wheels take me (i can’t stay) - kastle fic

It’s quiet and still the day she sets off for Maine.

She heads off early, Ben’s car and his old tapes crackling out of the speakers. Shining Star comes on and she ejects the tape so fast she almost goes headlong into the back of another car on the freeway.

--

Karen goes on holiday. A familiar face makes an appearance.

also available on ao3. if you enjoyed, please share! <3 

It’s quiet and still the day she sets off for Maine.

She heads off early, Ben’s car and his old tapes crackling out of the speakers (Shining Star comes on and she ejects the tape so fast she almost goes headlong into the back of another car on the freeway) and when the air con busts halfway there she doesn’t mind, just winds down the window and drives with one hand on the wheel, the other glancing against the breeze. Her skin burns a touch as the sun falls across her face, her nose and the top of her cheekbones flushed pink. She can’t bring herself to mind.

She catches a few hours in a car park rather than sleep in a motel. It feel safer, somehow, to sleep in the locked interior of a car she inherited, wearing a sweater she stole from Foggy, finger’s curled around a dead man’s gun.

(She is ephemeral, lacking permanence, wrapping herself around stolen and borrowed things.)

Dawn wakes her, the car park turned milky and grey, and she watches the sunrise with a shitty two-dollar cup of coffee, skin turning warm as the sky blooms pink and orange and golden.

Maine is just as she remembered.

Ellison had insisted she take a holiday.

She’d woken up to an email telling her not to come in for two weeks and a receipt for a B&B up in New Hampshire. Consider it your Christmas bonus, Ellison had told her when she’d rung, confused and miserable. He’d tried to sound chirpy, at first, as if this was a normal thing, until his voice had lowered, until he’d told her you’re exhausted, Page. You need a break. She’d tried to come in the next day. Security hadn’t let her up.

She’d been ready to sulk, ready to sit in her apartment for two weeks sat hunched over her laptop, come back to Ellison with a dozen more threads to chase – and then her electricity had gone. Water, too. Building-wide problem, babe, her landlord had told her, somehow missing the cringe that ran through her as he ineffectually twiddled with her taps. Could take a few weeks to fix.

Her landlord was barely out of the door when she’d thrown some shit in a travel bag and left.

She sings along to the radio, loudly and off-key, as she thunders down the highway, both windows rolled right down. Every now and then she’ll have to slow with the traffic and feel other drivers side-eying her. She wonders what they see. Young girl in a ratty hoodie and shorts, tapping out a drum beat on her steering wheel, churning through radio channels to find something she likes. She must look like some college kid heading out on holiday.

Traffic is thick and she’s at a stand-still. Most of the cars around her have turned off the engine, so for a moment she lets her eyes flicker shut. Pretends just that – she’s off on some girls holiday, newly minted ID, head clear, chest light and free and –

Someone behind her leans on their horn. She puts her foot down.

The B&B is nice. Nicer than anything she could afford, in some tiny little town by the coast, not far from Portland. She can see the ocean from her room and for a moment her breath gets caught up in her chest. The glass is cool against her finger tips and when she throws open her window she can taste the salt in the air.

(If she shuts her eyes and listens to the seagulls screeching across the harbour she can almost pretend she’s back, by the seaside on holiday as a kid, sand gritted in her clothes beneath her fingernails and –)

She heads out for dinner that evening, puts on a sundress and pushes out into dusk, stops at the first place serving local seafood she can find.

She brought a book with her to read as she eats, a slim volume of poetry she’s been meaning to get into, but the waiter gets chatting with her. He’s young, maybe even younger than her, a European accent she can’t quite place, and when she manages to make him laugh the sound is clear and sweet. She lies, tells him she’s stopping by for a few days before she moving on to visit her parents upstate, tells him her name’s Alison, demurs when he asks for her phone number with the bill and scribbles a fake number onto the scrap of paper he slides over to her.

It’s a different lie to the one she told the lady at the B&B place as she’d been shown to her room, or the one she told the sweet couple she’d stopped to ask for directions, leaning out of her car with a gangly arm brushing the hot metal of her car door. But the lying feels good. Like sloughing off a layer of dead skin.

She has a glass of wine alone in her room – and then another one, and another, and she falls asleep listening to a late night talk show on the radio. She dreams of the sea, of drowning in it – so when she wakes just before dawn again, eyes sticky with sleep, skin sticky with sweat, exhausted and electrified all at once, she changes into her swimsuit and takes her towel, and goes for a swim.

The sea is still and she swims as far out as feels safe, tries not to think about the cavernous space below her, lets seaweed brush up against her shins. She stands on the shoreline for a little while and feels wet sand sink between her toes and for a second, a moment of salt on her skin and hair snaking water down her back, she’s ten again.

When she turns, the beach is already beginning to fill with people – it’s a Saturday and the sky is cloudless, and she gets the feeling there are a lot of tourists here, just like her, making a weekend of it – and she hurries back to her towel. A couple of kids are investigating the rock pools, early risers staking out their section of the beach, and she pulls on a dress – some stripy thing she’d never wear back in New York, feels her stomach rumble and scouts up and down the beach. There’s a little beach-side hut, some brawny guy carrying out tables, wiping them down as they open up. She wonders if she can harangue him into selling her something this early – she’s suddenly starving, and –

The guy turns.

She’s been hit with a sledgehammer, right in the chest. Breath sucks in with the force of it. Feels the shock reverberate through her rib cage, feels her hands come up to her stomach, fingers linking together.

She sits in the B&B room. Runs the soft pad of her thumb over her car keys, presses down hard enough on the sharp edge of metal that her skin turns white, then red when she pulls away.

She puts the car keys down on the dresser. She rubs sunscreen into her shoulders, where they’re starting to go pink, on the bridge of her nose. Goes to the window and stares down at the sea. Unpacks her suitcase for the second time in twenty-four hours, watches the tremor in her fingers and waits as the panic attack crackles through her and, eventually, passes.

He’s still there when she goes back. Of course he is. For a little while, she’d been able to convince herself that he was a mirage, that she’d been making him up in her head.

But of course she wasn’t.

She stops just a few steps away. She thinks he must know she’s there because his shoulders go a little tense and for a moment he pauses – but then he forges on, keeps scrubbing away at the table tops.

‘I don’t want any trouble, ma’am.’

His voice is gravelly but impossibly gentle and she thinks, screams in her head, why here? Why now?

He turns. She thinks her face must be white because he blanches a little when he sees her. He looks good. Better than she’d expected. She realises, abruptly, that she’s never seen him without a face littered in bruises and cuts. His skin is tan, there are dark circles under his eyes and he’s a little thinner than he used to be but he looks –

He looks good.

His gaze flitters – from the beach full of people, to the cloth in his hands, to her. Goes to step forward then seems to think better of it, an aborted lurch. Finally;

‘What are you doing here?’

Somehow, childishly, she thinks she should be asking him that.

‘My editor –’ she blurts out, first thing she thinks of and it’s stupid, so very stupid, because Frank’s already darting forward, her arm in his grip, drawing her close as he growls out;

‘Who else knows I’m here?’

Reasonably, she knows with how tight he’s holding her arm, it should hurt. Adrenaline floods her system and she blinks, stares up at him.

‘No – no one, Frank, I swear – my editor sent me here on a holiday –’ and she’s cut off again, Frank huffing out a bitter sound, coiled up and angry and jerking out of his chest. She watches his face as his jaw clenches, watches him make half a dozen plans to leave in the space of a breath, and she carries on, words tripping over themselves; ‘he thinks you’re dead, Frank, everyone does – I promise you, Frank, I didn’t – it’s just a coincidence –’ he’s trembling all over and he won’t look at her so she shifts, as far as she can, waits until he meets her eye. ‘Frank,’ she murmurs, and his name sounds entirely odd coming from her, rushed out in a breath, and she forces herself to steady, to meet his gaze and not look away as she tells him, ‘I swear.’

He’s trying to read the truth from her face. She’s not sure what he sees there but he lets her go, sees the marks of his fingers fading away from his skin and goes all drawn and small for a moment.

‘It’s okay,’ she says, on instinct. ‘Didn’t hurt.’ He’s still stood close, gaze drawn over her shoulder again, watching the beach behind her. He takes a step back, finally, allows some distance between them.

‘Why don’t I sit down,’ she tells him, slowly, every exhale a shake, every word hand-picked to avoid spooking him even as she fights to catch her breath, ‘and you can start from the beginning.’

Frank’s making coffee.

She’d expected him to sit down with her but instead he had pulls out a chair for her close to the little beach hut that he’s retreated into. He pulls out a coffee mug and she expects him not to speak as he switches on the espresso machine, waits for the milk to heat up – but he starts, voice crackling and slow;

‘I came here about a month after – after everything.’ She nods – realises he’s not looking at her, is staring down at coffee mug and stops. ‘New York was –’ he breaks off and here he does look at her, glances through the doorway and catches her watching him, goes back to adding powder to the drink he’s making. ‘It was getting hard, pretending to be dead in a place where my face was plastered across every paper in town.’

His shoulders are stiff and his jaw is clenched. Lie, she realises.

He doesn’t speak again until he emerges.

He looks very clean. Which sounds absurd – but he’s dressed in a white t-shirt, dark jeans, a little stubble growing across his jaw. Still with that military-grade buzz cut. But he’s – brighter, somehow.

‘I got on a bus as far as it would take me, hot wired a car and drove ‘til I ran outta gas. Ended up here. This place was hiring, and I just – stayed.’

The court case – the shootings – all of it – that was half a year ago. Frank’s been here for five months.

Five months.

She expects him to drink the coffee but, absurdly, he slides it across the table to her and sits down himself. There’s something inherently ridiculous about Frank Castle, hunkered down on a plastic beach chair in the middle of a summer’s day in Maine. She takes a sip of her coffee to swallow the bubble of hysteria that’s rising in her throat.

Surprise goes rigid across her features.

‘This is my coffee order,’ she tells him. Voice flat. He’d even remembered the cinnamon on top. Something in her jaw tics as Frank swipes a hand under his nose, glares out across the water. ‘Frank,’ she grinds out. ‘What –’

When he turns back to her, fury rolls off him in waves. When he speaks, his voice is low and dangerous and she wishes she’d never come got in her fucking car, wishes she’d never stepped foot out of New York.

‘What right have you got, huh? What’s with you? You think you’re so entitled to answers, huh – you and that fuckin’ lawyer –’

And of course. She should have known.

She doesn’t speak but he sees the way her face falls and cuts himself off, all the fight going out of him as she scrubs a hand over her eyes, lets the exhaustion rush through her.

‘What did he do?’ He doesn’t speak. He has a little burn on his thumb, she spots, almost-healed, keeps on running his fingers over it. ‘Come on Frank. I’m not an idiot.’

He lets a breath quake out of him.

‘He told me to leave.’

‘Matt?’

He glances up at her then, and she sees the question curled up in his features. Corrects herself;

‘Daredevil.’

‘You know?’

She nods, slowly.

‘He told me not long after it all – after everything that happened.’ She doesn’t mention how she’d screamed at him, how utterly stupid he’d made her feel, how she’d cried when she was alone back in her apartment, felt torn into tiny pieces.

(Doesn’t tell him how Frank had been right, in the diner; she had loved him, then. Not any more.)

‘How’d that work out?’

She’s aware her face is an open book, a raw nerve. Can feel the hurt tangled up in her features, catches it when Frank blinks and glances away. She almost wishes he’d keep looking. Vindictively, she wants to prove him wrong, show up everything he’d said in that fucking diner. I don’t want someone who hurts me. Look at what it did to me.

‘So you two aren’t –’

‘No,’ she snaps, wonders why he keeps pressing this. Her coffee cup rattles when she slams it down on the table. It’s her turn to look away, to study the people on the beach, the kids still at the rock pool, a young couple splashing sea water at each other, screeching with the cold of the water. When she looks back, he’s watching her, unabashed.

‘He told me to leave ‘cause of you.’

She knocks over the cup of coffee, grits out a swear word, watches as Frank jumps up, fetches a wad of kitchen roll and carefully, patiently mops it up. Sits down and continues, as if none of it had ever happened;

‘I had heard rumours – someone was planning a hit not far from your apartment block. I was there, scoping things out – but I guess Red heard the same things I did, ‘cause he turned up. Took one look at me and told me to get out. Must’a figured I was involved somehow. Told me that I was dangerous for you, that if I knew what was good for me I would stay away. Next day I was on the bus on my way here.’

He says it all smooth and quick, not stumbling over his words, not pausing.

(He’s ashamed, something tells her. He agrees with Matt.)

(Later, she dials a number she hasn’t for a very long time and leaves a voice mail. It’s short, and to the point, and she tells Matt she doesn’t want to see him again. Not lurking around my apartment, not in your shitty Daredevil get up – not at all. Stay the fuck away from me.)

‘You’re angry,’ he murmurs. Not a question. A statement.

‘No,’ she manages, eventually, quiet and soft. Not with you, she wants to say. With Matt. With Daredevil. With New York. With Fisk and Wesley and Schoonover and every single scumbag who tries to hurt me. She takes a long breath, feels it swoop in and out of her lungs. But not with you. Somehow, not with you. ‘No, I’m not angry. Not any more’ A little more sure this time, a little stronger. He nods, clearly not believing her. Her coffee cup rattles against the saucer.

‘Why’d you come here, Karen?’ He asks, finally, over the wash of the water and the screech of seagulls. 'Really?' She had thought it would be quiet here, but somehow it’s noisier than New York, where she had learned to drown out the wail of traffic and footfall. When she speaks, her voice sounds too loud.

‘Honestly. My editor sent me on holiday. That’s all.’

Frank’s staring at her, eyes hard. Something reflexive and frustrated lines his shoulders and she finds herself instinctively leaning back as he shifts forward.

(His hand is close to hers, covered in nicks and scars. Her touch drifts.)

‘What – you think he just happened to send you here?’ She blinks, a little affronted – the idea that Ellison might lie to her, manipulate her into sniff out a clue, use her to follow a hunch he’s too busy to –

‘Oh,’ she mutters, wretched. Of course. It’s what she would have done, after all, if it were a different thread she were chasing. She expects Frank to scoff, to laugh at her, bitter and cold – but when she meets his gaze he’s just watching.

‘Are you gonna tell him I’m here?’

‘No.’ It’s immediate, seems to take Frank aback. She had thought it would be obvious. ‘We’re long past that.’ And then, when he says nothing, she offers a quiet acquiescence; a little step back, a loosening of terms. ‘Aren’t we?’

An out. He doesn’t take it.

‘Yeah.’ When he laughs it’s gruff, and self-deprecating, and a little miserable, but the sound is somehow a relief.

He stands. She braces herself – for what, she’s not sure, but he just moves back into the little beach hut. She waits, watching him, unabashed now. He moves fluidly around the space and she wanders, abruptly, if he’s bored out here.

He rests a pot of ice cream by her arm. She blinks at him. He’s cracking open a tub of vanilla.

‘It’s good – they make it locally, on some farm about twenty miles west.’ When she doesn’t speak, he continues, ‘What? You don’t like fudge?’

‘No, I –’ she breaks off, perplexed. ‘Fudge is… Fine, Frank.’

He nods, seemingly pleased, although his placid expression reveals little.

‘This used to be Maria’s favourite place for – holidays, you know,’ Frank starts up, after a few moment’s silence. ‘The kids loved it too. Didn’t have much time to come up – it’s expensive round here, and I didn’t have much leave, but we’d drive up for a weekend here and there.’ He stares out at the beach. ‘Frank Junior chipped his front tooth on the rock pools over there,’ he tells her, jabbing his spoon out towards the far-side of the beach. ‘Blood everywhere, Maria was freaking out – he had to have stitches on his front lip.’ He shakes his head, exponentially fond, and when he glances back down to his ice cream, blinking his way back into the presence, something in the pit of Karen’s chest breaks.

‘Will you stay here?’ She asks, clearing her throat to mask the roughness of her voice. Frank shrugs, shoulders tight.

‘If your editor’s tracked me down, someone guy who's bigger and badder will have too.’ He sniffs, squints out across the bay. ‘Might as well keep moving.’

She watches him, and watches and watches and watches, and then tells him, absurdly, entirely out of the blue;

‘Come back to New York with me.’

He watches her back. Scoffs.

‘Right –’

‘I mean it. Come back.’

A beat. She feels it physically, like a punch to the chest. Frank won’t stop staring at her, eyebrows pulled together, a permanent scowl etched across him.

‘Why?’

She clenches her jaw.

Because I miss you. Because I haven’t slept properly since I saw those burned bodies being pulled off that boat and thought you were one of them. Because I shot James Wesley seven times in the chest and I’ve done awful things before that and I think you’re the only person who would understand.

‘Because I want you to.’

It’s the opposite of the acquiescence. It’s back against the wall, take it or leave it. All in.

His jaw flutters and his eyes look soft and his entire face curls inwards, vulnerable and entirely new. Karen can feel her heartbeat, in the tips of her fingers, in the lines of her neck, in the thrumming of her pulse points. He meets her eye.

‘Okay.’  

#kastle #karen page #frank castle #kastle fic #daredevil #punisher #karenfrank #this turned out to be such a saga #it was initially gonna be longer #i think frank and karen were gonna go to vermont #idfk #it went in a real different direction to what i was originally planning too #anyway I TOLD Y'ALL I WOULD UPLOAD FIC #coffee shop au #sort of #jesus fuckin christ its almost 3 am i have so much shit to do tomorrow i WAS GONNA GET UP EARLY #rip me #also shout out to evilbunnyking i love ur fics ty for encouraging me via increasingly enthusiastic comments on that last post #evilbunnyking

[babybird]

that's so cute, i'm happy for you! can i ask what your favorite things about your significant others are??

thank u!!!!

hannah

has been my best friend for years

is so fucking hot

i can be as fucking weird as i want around her and she will support me and be just as fucking weird 

tits!!!

doug

looks like like Brawny man from the paper towels

i cant describe doug but i just love him hes so big but so fucking soft

watches buzzfeed unsolved with me and lets me drink all his beer

#this is such uncreative reasoning but i pROMISE they are much better then how i am describing them #Anonymous

[learningrendezvous]

Labor and Work Issues

DON'T GIVE UP YOUR VOICE! STORIES OF ARGENTINE RESISTANCE

Directed by Mark Dworkin, Melissa Young

Looks at the inspirational resistance of Argentinians to the government of Mauricio Macri, whose election preceded Trump's but whose style and policies are eerily similar.

DON'T GIVE UP YOUR VOICE! is at first glance about Argentina, but it is also about the USA. Argentina elected its Trump, Mauricio Macri, a year before we elected ours. The two are quite similar in the tone of their campaigns and the policies they are promoting once in office. But Argentines are resilient, and they have fought right wing governments before.

DON'T GIVE UP YOUR VOICE! looks at the widespread and creative resistance to Macri's policies--in organized labor, at worker co-ops and street protests, in theater and music. The film offers instructive parallels with the situation in the US, while illustrating the power of collective action.

DVD / 2018 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 41 minutes

INVISIBLE HANDS

Director: Shraysi Tandon

'Invisible Hands' is the first feature documentary to expose child labor and trafficking within the supply chains of the world's biggest companies. It is a harrowing account of children as young as 6 years old making the products we use every day. 'Invisible Hands' marks the directorial debut of journalist Shraysi Tandon and is produced by Oscar winning filmmaker Charles Ferguson.

Participants include Kailash Satyarthi, Nicholas Kristof, Ben Skinner, Siddharth Kara and Mark Barenberg.

DVD / 2018 / 75 minutes

RETHINKING CUBAN CIVIL SOCIETY: SOMETHING DEEPER THAN THE TRUTH

By Maria Isabel Alfonso

A young man in a baseball cap with "MIAMI" emblazoned on the front sits on a curb, looking at his phone. Beside him, an older man looks over his shoulder at the screen. Other Cubans sit on the curb or on the steps behind it, staring at their phones and tablets. In Cuba, a scene like this would have once been unthinkable. But since 2015, the government has loosened the rules on Internet access, allowing citizens to go online with their devices (for a fee) at designated WiFi hotspots.

The spread of online access-and people taking advantage of it for activities like blogging about politics and culture-is one of the signs of a renewed interest in bolstering Cuban civil society. But Cuba faces unique challenges in bolstering citizen engagement.

Near the start of RETHINKING CUBAN CIVIL SOCIETY, the film offers a definition of its central theme. "Civil society: The aggregate of non-governmental organizations and individuals that manifest the will and interests of citizens." Then, on the screen, the word "non-governmental" is crossed out. It is a striking visual illustration of Cuba's unique situation-one in which the public sector dominates much of society, playing an ambiguous role in civil society institutions.

Since the mid-1990s, Cuba has seen a rise in independent media, and a resurgence of movements fighting against racism, for economic justice and LGBTQI rights, and for greater democracy and citizen participation. In RETHINKING CUBAN CIVIL SOCIETY, Cuban academics, journalists and bloggers, and writers and musicians grapple with what it means to encourage healthy public participation and dissent in the context of Cuba: a country under embargo in which foreign-funded dissidents seek to overthrow the government, and at the same time a country in which the Communist Party has placed itself above the State.

In city parks and apartments, on stairwells, in classrooms, and in magazine offices, the people featured in RETHINKING CUBAN CIVIL SOCIETY grapple with these questions. Can more competitive elections and greater democracy exist in a one-party State? How can LGBTQI activists successfully influence government policy? How can access to the benefits of economic reforms allowing private business be extended to marginalized populations? Can the government help encourage a healthy, independent media eco-system? And how much of the stifling of civil society can be blamed on the embargo and how much is simply home-grown?

Thoughtful and engaging, the film is conveniently divided into chapters on class and activism, media, Internet and the blogosphere, political opposition, and Cuban civil society across international borders.

DVD (Spanish, With English Subtitles, Color) / 2018 / 37 minutes

COMPANY TOWN

Directors: Natalie Kottke-Masocco, Erica Sardarian

Crossett, Arkansas is home to about 5,500 people, one Georgia-Pacific paper and chemical plant owned by billionaire brothers Charles Koch and David Koch, and a startling rate of cancer and illness. This groundbreaking investigative documentary follows local pastor David Bouie as he fights to save his community. It offers a rare look inside a small town ruled by a single company, where the government's environmental protections have been subverted and ignored, leaving its citizens to take on entrenched powers in a fight for justice.

Crossett's residents are up against one of the nation's largest industrial company: Koch Industries. Pastor Bouie worked at the Koch's Georgia-Pacific plant for ten years, and on the street where he lives, 11 out 15 households lost someone to cancer. He seeks answers and actions to help protect the lives of his neighbors, many of whom have worked their entire lives at the plant, making products like Angel Soft, Brawny Paper Towels, Quilted Northern and Dixie paper cups. He galvanizes the town, revealing untold stories of health and medical crises.

Crossett is just one of hundreds of towns across America polluted by big business and failed by local, state and federal environmental protections. Company Town ultimately asks, what do you do when the company you work for and live next to is making you sick? It is the story of a modern-day David vs. Goliath.

DVD / 2017 / 90 minutes

WE THE WORKERS

By Wen Hai, Zeng Jinyan

Shot over a six-year period (2009-2015) in the industrial heartland of south China, a major hub in the global supply chain, WE THE WORKERS follows labor activists as they find common ground with workers, helping them negotiate with local officials and factory owners over wages and working conditions. Threats, attacks, detention and boredom become part of their daily lives as they struggle to strengthen worker solidarity in the face of threats and pressures from the police and their employers. In the process, we see in their words and actions the emergence of a nascent working class consciousness and labor movement in China.

DVD (English, Mandarin, Color, With English Subtitles) / 2017 / 174 minutes

BITTER MONEY

By Wang Bing

BITTER MONEY documents China's rapid economic and social transformation by following the rural workers who leave their Yunnan hometown to move to the city of Huzhou, one of the busiest cities of eastern China (with the highest number of part-time workers), to labor in its textile factories. But what they find are few opportunities and poor living conditions that push people, even couples, into violent and oppressive relations. The camera follows Xiao Min, Ling Ling, and Lao Yeh closely, capturing the emotions of their daily hard work and disappointments upon receiving their wages. The film deals directly with the effects of 21st-century capitalism, as filmmaker Wang Bing acts as witness to the lives of people forced to adapt to a new economic landscape.

DVD (Mandarin, Color, With English Subtitles) / 2016 / 152 minutes

GREAT UNSUNG WOMEN OF COMPUTING: THE COMPUTERS, THE CODERS AND THE FUTURE MAKERS

By Kathy Kleiman, Jon Palfreman and Kate McMahon

In the United States, women are vastly underrepresented in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) fields, holding under 25% of STEM jobs and a disproportionately low share of STEM undergraduate degrees. Great Unsung Women of Computing is a series of three remarkable documentary films that show how women revolutionized the computing and Internet technology we use today, inspiring female students to believe that programming careers lie within their grasp.

The Computers features the extraordinary story of the ENIAC Programmers, six young women who programmed the world's first modern, programmable computer, ENIAC, as part of a secret WWII project. They programmed ENIAC without programming language (for none existed), and harnessed its power to perform advanced military calculations at lighting speeds. However, when the ENIAC was unveiled in 1946, the Programmers were never introduced and they became invisible. This stunning documentary features rare footage and never-before-seen interviews with the ENIAC Programmers. 70 years later, this is their story.

The Coders tells the story of two extraordinary women, Sarah Allen and Pavni Diwanji whose technologies revolutionized the Internet: Sarah co-invented Flash, the first multimedia platform supporting video, graphics, games and animation for the internet, while Pavni invented the Java servlet to allow web applications to respond quickly to requests from users everywhere.

In The Future Makers, Andrea Colaco, a young MIT PhD, shares her dream of a world in which we interact with our smart devices using natural hand gestures, not static keyboards or touchpads. She invented 3D "gestural recognition technology" and co-founded 3dim to develop and market it. In 2013, 3dim won MIT's $100K Entrepreneurship Prize and launched Andrea towards her dream of innovation and changing the world.

DVD (Color) / 2016 / 48 minutes

LOVE & SOLIDARITY: JAMES LAWSON & NONVIOLENCE IN THE SEARCH FOR WORKERS' RIGHTS

Directed by Michael Honey

An exploration of nonviolence and organizing through the life and teachings of Rev. James Lawson.

LOVE & SOLIDARITY is an exploration of nonviolence and organizing through the life and teachings of Rev. James Lawson. Lawson provided crucial strategic guidance while working with Martin Luther King, Jr., in southern freedom struggles and the Memphis sanitation strike of 1968. Moving to Los Angeles in 1974, Lawson continued his nonviolence organizing in multi-racial community and worker coalitions that have helped to remake the LA labor movement.

Through interviews and historical documents, acclaimed labor and civil rights historian Michael Honey and award-winning filmmaker Errol Webber put Lawson's discourse on nonviolent direct action on the front burner of today's struggles against economic inequality, racism and violence, and for human rights, peace, and economic justice.

DVD / 2016 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adults) / 38 minutes

MAID FOR EACH, A

By Maher Abi Samra

Domestic work is a real market in Lebanon, segmented according to the national and ethnic origins of the workers and in which the Lebanese employer is master and the worker the property. Zein owns a domestic worker agency in Beirut. He arranges for Asian and African women to work in Lebanese households and assists his clients in choosing "mail-order" housemaids that will best suit their needs. Advertisement, justice, police are on his side. He decides to open his agency for us.

DVD (Color) / 2016 / 67 minutes

ENEMY WITHIN, THE

Directed by Owen Gower

The story of Britain's longest strike, the 1984-85 miners' strike, when Margaret Thatcher declared war on the unions, as told by those who lived through it.

THE ENEMY WITHIN provides unique insight into one of the most dramatic events in British history: the 1984-85 Miners' Strike. No experts. No politicians. Thirty years on, this is the raw first-hand experience of those who lived through Britain's longest strike. Follow the highs and lows of that life-changing year.

In 1984, a Conservative government under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher declared war on Britain's unions, taking on the strongest in the country, the National Union of Mineworkers. Following a secret plan, the government began announcing the closure of coal mines, threatening not just an industry but whole communities and a way of life.

Against all the forces the government could throw at them, 160,000 coal miners took up the fight. THE ENEMY WITHIN tells the story of a group of miners and supporters who were on the frontline of that strike for an entire year. These were people that Margaret Thatcher labelled "the enemy within".

Using interviews and a wealth of rare and never before seen archival footage, THE ENEMY WITHIN draws together personal experiences - whether they're tragic, funny or terrifying - to take the audience on an emotionally powerful journey through the dramatic events of that year.

DVD / 2014 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adult) / 112 minutes

HAND THAT FEEDS, THE

Directed by Rachel Lears, Robin Blotnick

Shy sandwich-maker Mahoma Lopez unites his undocumented immigrant coworkers to fight abusive conditions at a popular New York restaurant chain.

At a popular bakery cafe, residents of New York's Upper East Side get bagels and coffee served with a smile 24 hours a day. But behind the scenes, undocumented immigrant workers face sub-legal wages, dangerous machinery, and abusive managers who will fire them for calling in sick. Mild-mannered sandwich maker Mahoma Lopez has never been interested in politics, but in January 2012, he convinces a small group of his co-workers to fight back.

Risking deportation and the loss of their livelihood, the workers team up with a diverse crew of innovative young organizers and take the unusual step of forming their own independent union, launching themselves on a journey that will test the limits of their resolve. In one roller-coaster year, they must overcome a shocking betrayal and a two-month lockout. Lawyers will battle in back rooms, Occupy Wall Street protesters will take over the restaurant, and a picket line will divide the neighborhood. If they can win a contract, it will set a historic precedent for low-wage workers across the country. But whatever happens, Mahoma and his coworkers will never be exploited again.

DVD / 2014 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 84 minutes

LAST SEASON, THE

Director: Sara Dosa

Every September over 200 seasonal workers, most of them Cambodian, Lao, Hmong, Mien and Thai, set up a temporary camp near the tiny town of Chemult, Oregon. They remain until the first snowfall, searching the lush woods of Klamath County for the rare matsutake, a fungus highly prized in Japan. This sensitive, probing documentary examines the bond between two of these hunters in one unusually hard season.

Elderly Roger Higgins is a Vietnam vet who returned from the war traumatized and alienated. "We couldn't get a job, so we made our own jobs. I would get out there in the woods and just work." Kouy Loch is a Cambodian immigrant whose experience as a starving slave laborer under the Khmer Rouge taught him the foraging skills that now afford him a living. The men cemented their relationship years before over the shared pain of their Southeast Asian experience, becoming almost like father and son as they traipsed through the trees together. But Roger is too sick to do much hunting this year, and Kouy must walk the forest on his own.

The Last Season contrasts the past with the present, the camaraderie of the mushroom hunters' camp with Higgins's remote home in the woods and the hope of a yearly treasure hunt with the vagaries of climate and falling prices. The result is a poetic film about friendship, nature and life.

DVD / 2014 / 78 minutes

MINERS SHOT DOWN

By Rehad Desai

In August 2012, mineworkers in one of South Africa's biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days into the strike, the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress it, killing 34 and injuring many more. The police insisted that they shot in selfdefense. MINERS SHOT DOWN tells a different story, one that unfolds in real time over seven days, like a ticking time bomb.

The film weaves together the central point of view of three strike leaders, Mambush, Tholakele and Mzoxolo, with compelling police footage, TV archive and interviews with lawyers representing the miners in the ensuing commission of inquiry into the massacre. What emerges is a tragedy that arises out of the deep fault lines in South Africa's nascent democracy, of enduring poverty and a twenty year old, unfulfilled promise of a better life for all.

A campaigning film, beautifully shot, sensitively told, with a haunting soundtrack, MINERS SHOT DOWN reveals how far the African National Congress has strayed from its progressive liberationist roots.

DVD (Color) / 2014 / 86 minutes

STORM MAKERS, THE

Director: Guillaume Suon

Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians work abroad, and over a third have been sold as slaves. Most are young women, held prisoner and forced to work in horrific conditions, sometimes as prostitutes. Featuring brutally candid testimony, The Storm Makers is a chilling expose of Cambodia's human trafficking underworld and an eye-opening look at the complex cycle of poverty, despair and greed that fuels this modern slave trade.

At the age of 16, Aya was sold to work as a maid in Malaysia. She was exploited, beaten and eventually ran away, only to be captured and raped. When she returns to Cambodia with an infant son, just as poor as when she left, her mother greets her not with joy, but with anger that her daughter has come back with yet another mouth to feed instead of money. "I should have died over there," says Aya in a singsong, childlike voice that masks the horrors she endured.

Pou Houy, 52, is a successful trafficker who runs a recruitment agency in Phnom Penh and claims to have sold more than 500 girls. Shockingly outspoken and expressing no remorse, he sees himself as a smart businessman and good Christian.

Pou Houy's enterprise relies on local recruiters who bring him candidates from their rural communities. One of these is Ming Dy, who sold her own daughter and continues to supply Houy with new recruits from her village. In one wrenching scene, Ming Dy's husband cannot bring himself to speak to his daughter when she calls from a new job abroad, where she earns a dollar a day. "I told my wife not to sell young people from the village," he says. "Buddha condemns those who sell people like animals."

As Amnesty International, the United Nations, other NGOs, and governments argue over the best way to protect vulnerable migrants, The Storm Makers shows the real consequences for individuals, their families and communities.

DVD (Khmer with English Subtitles) / 2014 / 66 minutes

COAL MINER'S DAY, THE

By Gael Mocaer

"That's the fire emergency system. If there's a fire, it bursts and the water falls down," one of the mineworkers explains. He is talking about a few bags of water, all the size of a fist, somewhat haphazardly hung from the low ceiling of the mineshaft. "Like a huge waterfall."

Every day hundreds of men risk life and limb going down into the Buzhanska mine in the Ukraine to mine coal with rusty old tools from the Soviet era. It is heavy, unhealthy, hazardous work, which thanks to the relatively high pay - two to four times what people earn in the city - is nevertheless tempting to many young men. Once a year, they are honored during the Day of the Mineworker - another relic from the Soviet era, when the most deserving workers receive a rose from the director of the mine in a kitschy ceremony.

For the rest of the year the workers are ignored, pestered or intimidated by their bosses, and no one is concerned with their safety. THE COAL MINER'S DAY documents their work underground, their comradeship and dissatisfaction in and around the mine over the course of a year. Gradually overcoming the skepticism of the mineworkers, the filmmaker captures a series of oppressive, revealing moments.

DVD (Color) / 2013 / 80 minutes

MAESTRA

By Catherine Murphy

In 1961, over 250,000 Cubans joined their country's National Literacy Campaign and taught 707,000 other Cubans to read and write. Almost half of these volunteer teachers were under 18. More than half were women.

Narrated by Alice Walker, Maestra (Spanish for teacher) explores the experiences of nine women who, as young girls, helped eradicate Cuban illiteracy within one year. Interweaving recent interviews, archival footage, and Campaign photos, this lively documentary includes one of the first Cubans of her generation to call herself a feminist and one of the first openly proud members of Cuba's LGBT community. With wit and spirit, all recall negotiating for autonomy and independence in a culture still bound by patriarchal structures.

Eight years in the making, Maestra highlights the will and courage that made the monumental endeavor possible and the pivotal role of women's and youth empowerment in building a new society.

DVD (Spanish, Color, With English subtitles) / 2013 / 33 minutes

TRICKED

Director: Jane Wells & John-Keith Wasson

Modern-day slavery is alive and well in the United States, as thousands of victims are trafficked across the country to satisfy America's $3-billion-a-year sex trafficking industry. Meet the pimps, the johns, the police, the parents and the victims of the thriving sex trade in Tricked, a comprehensive and daring documentary that uncovers one of America's darkest secrets.

DVD / 2013 / 75 minutes

DETROPIA

Directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady

A vivid portrait of Detroit, America's first major post-industrial city, as it struggles to deal with the consequences of a broken economic system.

Detroit's story has encapsulated the iconic narrative of America over the last century...the Great Migration of African Americans escaping Jim Crow; the rise of manufacturing and the middle class; the love affair with automobiles; the flowering of the American dream; and now the collapse of the economy and the fading American mythos.

With its vivid, painterly palette and haunting score, DETROPIA sculpts a dreamlike collage of a grand city teetering on the brink of dissolution. These soulful pragmatists and stalwart philosophers strive to make ends meet and make sense of it all, refusing to abandon hope or resistance. Their grit and pluck embody the spirit of the Motor City as it struggles to survive postindustrial America and begins to envision a radically different future.

DVD / 2012 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 86 minutes

HOUSEMAIDS

By Gabriel Mascaro

Housemaids are an integral part of the household in Brazil, and participate in the day-to-day life of the family. The employment of housemaids is almost obligatory among the middle and upper classes of the country. The vast majority of these housemaids are black women, who face high levels of inequality based on their gender, race and social class. Their role in the household raises important questions about public and private space, endurance and choice, and labor and family life.

For HOUSEMAIDS, director Gabriel Mascaro asked seven adolescents to film their family's housemaids for one week, and hand the footage over to him. Their images uncover the complex relationship that exists between housemaids and their employers, a relationship that confuses intimacy and power in the workplace and provides us with an insight into the echoes of a colonial past that linger in contemporary Brazil.

HOUSEMAIDS exposes and explores a hidden daily reality of Brazilian life.

DVD (Color) / 2012 / 76 minutes

MEN AT LUNCH

Directorr: Sean O Cualain

New York City, 1932. The country is in the throes of the Great Depression, the previous decade's boom of Italian, Irish, and Jewish immigrants has led to unprecedented urban expansion, and in the midst of an unseasonably warm autumn, steelworkers risk life and limb building skyscrapers high above the streets of Manhattan.

In Men at Lunch, director Sean O Cualain tells the story of "Lunch atop a Skyscraper", the iconic photograph taken during the construction of the GE Building that depicts eleven workmen taking their lunch break while casually perched along a steel girder - boots dangling 850 feet above the sidewalk of 41st Street .This documentary takes the audience into the archival halls of Rockefeller Center and the Corbis collection to reveal never-before-seen artifacts from the news outlets of the Great Depression.

Part homage, part historical investigation, Men at Lunch is the revealing tale of an American icon, an unprecedented race to the sky and the immigrant workers that built New York. For 80 years, the identity of the eleven men - and the photographer that immortalized them - remained a mystery: their stories, lost in time, subsumed by the fame of the image itself.

DVD / 2012 / 67 minutes

SHIFT CHANGE

Directed by Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin

Investigates employee-owned businesses that provide secure, dignified jobs in democratic workplaces even in today's economic crisis.

Shift Change: Putting Democracy to Work tells the little known stories of employee-owned businesses that compete successfully in today's economy while providing secure, dignified jobs in democratic workplaces.

With the long decline in US manufacturing and today's economic crisis, millions have been thrown out of work, and many are losing their homes. The usual economic solutions are not working, so some citizens and public officials are ready to think outside of the box, to reinvent our failing economy in order to restore long term community stability and a more egalitarian way of life.

There is growing interest in firms that are owned and managed by their workers. Such firms tend to be more profitable and innovative, and more committed to the communities where they are based. Yet the public has little knowledge of their success, and the promise they offer for a better life.

Amongst the organizations featured in SHIFT CHANGE are:

Mondragon Cooperative Corporation - Begun in the 1950s, the Mondragon co-ops have transformed a depressed area of Spain into one of the most productive in Europe with a high standard of living and an egalitarian way of life. They are owned and managed by their workers. Seeing the achievements of the MCC helps to overcome the idea-widespread in North America-that worker run cooperatives can only exist on the economic fringe.

The Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland, OH - This is an ambitious urban redevelopment model, directly inspired by Mondragon, where local institutions and public officials are supporting green cooperatives of previously marginalized, predominantly African American workers, who provide commercial laundry services, install solar energy systems, and grow vegetables in vast urban greenhouses.

Arizmendi Association of Cooperatives, San Francisco, California - Started 30 years ago, there are now six of these independent worker owned and managed cooperative bakeries that work together to provide the financial and legal services they need, and to incubate new coop bakeries.

Equal Exchange, Boston MA: Founded in 1986, Equal Exchange is one of the largest roasters of fair trade coffee in the world.

DVD / 2012 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 69 minutes

TIMBER GANG (AKA LAST LUMBERJACKS) (MU BANG)

Directed by YU Guangyi

Yu Guangyi's stunning debut explores a grueling winter amongst loggers in Northeast China as they employ traditional practices through one last, fateful expedition. A lasting testament to disappearing traditions, Last Lumberjacks "is a fascinating glimpse at a rare way of life that few will ever witness" (Ain't It Cool News)

For generations, the lumberjacks of Heilongjiang, China have made their living harvesting timber amidst a barren, wintry landscape. These woodcutters confront the elements, living in makeshift cabins surrounded by snow and ice. hand tools, sleds and horses are the only technology they employ to drag massive trees down the perilous slopes of Black Bear Valley. At constant risk of injury and death, they attempt to appease the mountain gods with ancient rituals and sacrifices. Despite their heroic efforts to subsist, the deforestation caused by their decades-long customs my lead to their ultimate demise.

DVD (Color, Northeastern Chinese dialect with English Subtitles) / 2012 / 90 minutes

APACHE 8

By Sande Zeig

Between 1974 and 2005, a crew of women from the White Mountain Apache Tribe fought raging fires in Arizona and other states. Featuring extensive interviews, childhood photos, and on-location and news footage, this insightful and honest documentary profiles the Apache 8 group through four women, who share their experiences. Interweaving the scenes of raging fires, intense training sessions, and disrupted home life are personal stories of sacrifice, tragedy, pride, and accomplishment. While the women may have initially set out to try and earn a living in their economically ravaged community, they quickly discover an inner strength and resilience that speaks to their traditions and beliefs as Native women.

DVD (English, Apache, Color) / 2011 / 57 minutes

SCARLET ROAD

By Catherine Scott

Impassioned about freedom of sexual expression, Australian sex worker Rachel Wotton has become highly specialized in working with clients with disabilities. Rachel's philosophy - that human tough and sexual intimacy can be some of the most therapeutic aspects to our existence - has made a dramatic impact on the lives of her clients, from improved mental health to actually regaining body movement. SCARLET ROAD follows Rachel as she strives to increase awareness and access to sexual expression for disabled people through her foundation, "Touching Base," which works to gain rights for sex workers and end the social stigma and discriminatory practices that surround their occupation. In addition, she obtains an MS in Sexual Health, all to further her mission to end the stigma placed on two marginalized groups.

DVD (Color) / 2011 / 70 minutes

DISH: WOMEN, WAITRESSING AND THE ART OF SERVICE

By Maya Gallus

Why do women bring your food at local diners, while in high-end establishments waiters are almost always men? DISH, by Maya Gallus, whose acclaimed GIRL INSIDE (2007) won Canada's Gemini Award for documentary directing, answers this question in a delicious, well-crafted deconstruction of waitressing and our collective fascination with an enduring popular icon. Digging beyond the obvious, Gallus, who waited tables in her teens, explores diverse dynamics between food servers and customers, as well as cultural biases and attitudes they convey. Her feminist analysis climbs the socio-economic ladder - from the bustling world of lower-end eateries, where women prevail as wait staff, to the more genteel male-dominated sphere of haute cuisine. Astute, amusing observations from women on the job in Ontario's truck stop diners, Montreal's topless"sexy restos," a Parisian super-luxe restaurant, and Tokyo's fantasy "maid cafes", as well as male customers' telling comments, disclose how gender, social standing, earning opportunities, and working conditions intersect in the food service industry.

DVD (English, French, Japanese, Color) / 2010 / 70 minutes

LIFE 8: HASSAN AND THE GRADUATES

As Egyptian industry is undermined by Chinese imports, Hassan, a university graduate, takes up the government's offer of free land to farm

When Hassan's wife first saw the plot of land that was to be their new home, she said, "I can only see the sky connected to the desert," and refused to get out of their car. But Hassan had decided to come and live here. After realising that growing Chinese imports were fast undermining Egypt's industry, the government began offering land to any graduate willing to farm it. Hassan took the offer, and he was not the only one. Across the Middle East, two out of every three people are now under the age of 25, and the bustling cafes of Egypt's capital Cairo teem with young people who can't find work in the metropolis. Have Hassan and 40,000 other graduates been true pioneers, when the knowledge economy worldwide isn't providing enough jobs?

DVD / 2010 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 26 minutes

http://www.learningemall.com/News/Labor_Work_1903.html

[good-and-safe]

I really like Papa Hollis in Hold Me Tight. He's so good and so pure. Dad of all the years.

i’m so glad! papa hollis is such a joy for me to write, tbh. i think i’ve only told oak this but in my head, he’s like a mixture between the brawny paper towel man and the hiker training class in pokemon and anyway he is so jolly and soft and Good and loving and i love him

#answered #anon #hold me tight verse #i would die for papa hollis #Anonymous