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all the rights that come with marriage you should be able to have without marriage btw. you should be able to designate a person who can visit you in the hospital regardless of your relationship to that person.
People in the notes are saying "You can!" referring just to the hospital visitation part, and sure (depending). But people should have access to ALL of the benefits of marriage without needing to be married.
You should be able to add anyone you want on your health insurance plan.
You should be able to sponsor the visa of anyone you choose to move to your home country.
You should be able to name anyone you choose as the legal-from-birth legal coparent of any child you give birth to.
You should be able to apply for student aid on your own at any age.
And yes, yes, ideally healthcare and college should be free, international migration should be unrestricted, and the entire concept of legal parenthood should be rewritten from the ground up. But right now we're talking about marriage benefits.
doug ford defunded fire management and works to normalize ‘fire season’, and people have/will lose their homes and lives while he’s in his etobicoke mansion thinking up new ways to fuck up the province
i designed this piece to resemble a chest that is post-mastectomy top surgery, just like mine; raven's wings and torso represent pectoral muscles, and his legs and talons are double incision scars.
in tsimshian adaawx (true tellings, not folklore or myth) as well as some neighbouring nations, it's said that raven used to be white long ago. as is often the case for trans people, i made drastic changes to my presentation and body from what i was born/grew up with/pressured into; so i found meaning that raven once looked very different too. it's also an analogy for adaptation: the white half of raven represents the old ways, & the black, modern times - ntvs broadly have had to adapt our ways as colonization continues, & i think two-spirit people have a unique relationship with this; we try to find ourselves in our histories that are sometimes nearly totally erased, we move in & out of colonial genders & western LGBT identities as it suits us.
also, raven is very resourceful & transforms into other beings; likewise, we adapt & transform. hes also self-motivated - not even stealing the sun is off limits! we are also by necessity self-propelled, tenaciously chasing down treatment or making other transformations. even when we have to sneak under the noses of authority figures in our lives to do it.
this split between two also gets at my own experience - in english terms, i'm approximately nonbinary. i needed T & top surgery, but my transition was not to a man but a different "woman" gender. it's very painful for me that under colonial gender, i am flattened. i'm more comfortable than ever as this new kind of woman, but i had to accept that many will initially perceive me as a man, even if i'm rarely read as cis. it's like i'm inbetween two worlds - and my life is MILES better for not dealing with severe dysphoria now that i'm mostly done with my transition, don't get me wrong, but it hurts to not be seen for the wholeness of the role that i occupy.
some other details: the two faces on raven's hips with hands up symbolizes support from within & out, and how we are in dialogue with ourselves, our communities, & the universe. it's a call to action to support 2S natives, & an acknowledgement of those who uphold it.
the gold ovoid is the sun, which he stole. the sun shines on us all no matter who we are. he's also holding more light in his talons - medicine, which is transition, transformation, and community.
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Hey everyone, just wanted to shout out to let you know that the Federal Trade Commission is currently collecting comments regarding ideological bias in AI in order to try start the process of drafting regulations. Given the current administration, this seems like a pretty transparent attempt to try to force AI companies to adhere to their own ideological biases.
Now, I can't tell you that you should, for example, leave a comment about your concern for the way Grok has been promoting white nationalist beliefs, but public comments in the regulatory process are a key step and they shape what comes next. If the regulatory agency doesn't fully consider the comments and form a reasonable response to the ones it disagrees with, that can form the basis for overturning a regulation in court.
Anyways, here's the site where you can leave comments that will shape this regulation, the deadline is July 31st.
for real tho it feels exhausting that ive seen this whole "woman should be allowed to abstain from X beauty standard" -> "i perform X beauty standard, am i evil? do you think im evil? please forgive me i came up with a dozen excuses 🥺" since like 2015 (and i know its been going on longer than that) like girl thats not the poiiiiint
look me in the eyes. repeat after me. "i face societal pressure to perform this beauty standard. i should not face that pressure. i conform to this standard. i am rewarded for performing to this standard. i need to respect women who do not perform this standard. this is not about whether or not i am a sinner for wearing makeup."
If you're writing anything involving cons, scams, heists, or morally questionable characters who are very good at lying, here are some free resources I've been using for research. Saving you the "why is this in my search history" anxiety.
1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.
2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.
3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.
4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.
5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.
Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.
Reblog to save for later. Your WIP will thank you.
"Six weeks into the term, I assigned my rhetoric and writing students a 20-page article. It was the same length I had assigned for five years and the same length I had read without complaint as an undergraduate a decade ago. Not one student finished it.
When I asked why, a student answered honestly: It was too long, and she kept losing track of what the paper was about. This was not a remedial class: These were students who had cleared the admissions process and written essays good enough to get them here. Yet a routine academic reading assignment had defeated them.
Every generation of professors has complained that their students cannot read. The lament is usually overblown, but data have caught up to anecdote, and what I am seeing in my classroom is no longer a hunch. There is a measurable, generational collapse in sustained reading and writing, and the academy is responding to it with improvisation and exhaustion rather than the structural overhaul it requires.
In February 2024, Adam Kotsko, who teaches in the Shimer Great Books School at North Central College, wrote in Slate that students who once handled 30 pages of reading per class meeting now seem “intimidated by anything over 10 pages and seem to walk away from readings of as little as 20 pages with no real understanding.” Crucially, he added that this is “not a matter of laziness on the part of the students” but of underlying skills they were never given a chance to build.
The Chronicle of Higher Education’s 2024 investigation found the same pattern across institutions as different as the Stevens Institute of Technology and Wellesley College, where the average SAT exceeds 1400. Nicholaus Gutierrez, an assistant professor at Wellesley, told The Chronicle that the baseline for what students consider a reasonable amount of work has dropped so noticeably that he has cut his readings accordingly; a 750-word essay now strikes many students as long. At Stevens, the science and technology studies associate professor Theresa MacPhail described following the mantra of “meet your students where they are” for so long that she has begun to feel “like a cruise director organizing games of shuffleboard.”
Worse, the national data tell the same story in colder language. On the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) writing assessment, which is the most recent comprehensive writing benchmark, only 24 percent of 12th graders reached the Proficient level, and just 3 percent reached Advanced; another 21 percent scored below Basic. The reading side of the ledger is worse, and getting worse fast: The 2024 NAEP results released in September 2025 show 12th-grade reading scores at the lowest level recorded since the assessment began in 1992. Thirty-two percent of 12th graders now score below NAEP Basic in reading, meaning that, in the assessment’s own language, they likely “cannot draw general conclusions based on concepts presented explicitly in a text.” And yet more than half of these same seniors reported being accepted to a four-year college. That last sentence is the whole problem in one line: We are admitting a cohort that cannot read at a college level and are pretending otherwise.
Why is this happening? One reason, of course, is smartphones.
I came into teaching as a skeptic of the anti-smartphone argument: I had a phone in my pocket throughout high school and college in the 2010s, and I read long books anyway. I now think I was wrong, because the neuroscience has caught up. In a 2017 paper, Adrian F. Ward and colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business showed that the mere presence of a participant’s smartphone — whether that be face down, powered off, untouched, or across the desk out of vision — measurably reduces available working memory and fluid intelligence on cognitive tests, with the largest effects on the most phone-dependent users. A 2022 study by Motoyasu Honma and colleagues at Japan’s Showa University used near-infrared spectroscopy to compare reading on a smartphone with reading the same passage on paper, and found that smartphone reading produced overactivity in the prefrontal cortex, suppressed sigh generation, and led to general lower comprehension scores; the authors argued that the sigh inhibition and prefrontal overload were causally linked to the comprehension decline.
So when a student tells me they “kept losing track” of a 20-page article, I have to acknowledge that they may be describing a measurable neurological condition. The neural pathways that support sustained attention are built by use, and they atrophy without it. Your body is a use-it-or-lose-it system, and the brain is no exception.
Another reason for the decline in student reading capability is increasing reliance on generative AI. In June 2025, Nataliya Kosmyna and colleagues at the MIT Media Lab released a preprint titled “Your Brain on ChatGPT.” They divided 54 participants into three groups writing SAT-style essays — one using ChatGPT, the second group using a search engine, the last group using nothing — and monitored brain activity with a 32-channel EEG. The ChatGPT group showed the lowest neural connectivity of the three, with up to 55 percent reduced connectivity compared with the brain-only group, and “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.” Eighty-three percent of LLM users could not quote a single line from essays they had written minutes earlier. When the LLM group was forced to write without AI in a follow-up session, their brain activity did not bounce back to baseline; the researchers coined the term “cognitive debt” for the lingering deficit.
This is the first neurophysiological evidence that early reliance on LLMs measurably alters the brain’s engagement with writing tasks, and it is consistent with what those of us in front of classrooms are watching happen in real time. When I assign analysis, I am not trying to extract a polished product; I am trying to put the student’s mind through resistance in order to make it stronger. Offloading the struggle to a chatbot does not “free students up for higher-order work.” It deprives them of building the strength to do any substantial cognitive work at all.
There is a final factor that is contributing to this decline in reading skills, and that is that the students arriving in my classroom today are the first cohort to have experienced Common Core-influenced reading instruction across the entirety of their K–12 schooling. Whatever the standards’ original intent, the on-the-ground implementation in many districts replaced sustained reading with the practice of pulling “evidence” from disconnected short passages, the same format used on the standardized tests that increasingly determine school funding. The education scholar Natalie Wexler, among others, has documented this pivot in detail: Students drilled on “finding the main idea” in two-paragraph excerpts never build the stamina or background knowledge that longform reading requires. The pandemic then added fuel to a fire that was already burning. NAEP scores for 13-year-olds dropped sharply in 2022 and have not recovered. A 2023 EdWeek survey found that 24 percent of secondary-school administrators described pandemic learning loss in English and language arts as “severe or very severe.”
In July 2025, the journalist Mary Harrington argued in The New York Times that “thinking is becoming a luxury good.” The ability to read deeply and reason at length is fragmenting along class lines as ultra-processed digital media replaces text in everyday life, much as ultra-processed food has replaced cooking. Her longer treatment of the subject in First Things makes the more provocative case that we are witnessing the end of print culture itself, and with it the end of the cognitive substrate on which modern liberal democracy was built.
I see this stratification in the classroom and on the page every week. My students from districts that protected sustained reading through small class sizes, strict phone policies, and faculty who refused to teach to the test all arrive with their attention relatively intact. My students from districts that surrendered to devices and standardized testing arrive cognitively winded. A democracy that requires a literate electorate is now training one fraction of that electorate out of literacy while marketing to the other a “deep work” lifestyle as a luxury good. The students who cannot read a 20-page article today are the voters who will not be able to read a bill, or the jurors who cannot follow a closing argument, tomorrow.
I do what I can in my own classroom to address the problems. I break 20-page articles into two halves and assign the first half with explicit analytical tasks. I require exploratory writing before formal drafts. I model (visibly, on the board) how to track an argument across pages or distinguish a source’s claim from my own analysis. I make structured peer review explicit, because the workshop format I used to take for granted now collapses into “this is good” and “maybe add more details” the moment I step back.
But I want to be plain about the limits of what an individual instructor can do, and all of these solutions have costs. Scaffolding a 20-page article into halves compromises the integrity of the argument I am asking students to engage, just as modeling note-taking in a credit-bearing rhetoric course is using a college slot to teach a middle-school skill. None of the syllabi I teach are designed to deliver this type of cognitive rehabilitation, and pretending otherwise has produced credential inflation. We cannot keep conferring degrees on students who cannot do what the degree is supposed to certify.
I’m afraid I don’t have answers. I do, however, have some questions that may point us in the right direction. If higher education is going to respond to the reading crisis as a structural problem rather than a private burden carried by composition instructors and adjuncts, it has to stop avoiding the following questions: If a majority of incoming students cannot read at a level the curriculum requires, are we admitting students we cannot serve, or offering a curriculum we cannot provide?
Why are first-year writing and reading-intensive general-education courses still the most adjunctified, lowest-paid, highest-load corner of the university, at the precise moment when their work has become the most important work the institution does? What is the responsible institutional response for AI usage: Is it a syllabus statement, or a sequencing principle that requires students to demonstrate the cognitive work themselves before AI assistance is permitted?
Why are most college classrooms still phone-permissive by default? K–12 districts from Florida to California are now banning phones bell to bell; higher education has somehow lagged behind the public schools. Universities benefit from a pipeline they did not build and refuse to repair. What would it mean for a university system to invest seriously in the reading instruction happening in the high schools that feed it, rather than treating remediation as something to be quietly outsourced to first-year composition instructors?
The thing I am no longer willing to do is pretend this is a temporary adjustment period, or that “students will adapt.” They will not adapt on their own. The conditions that produced this collapse are still in place: the phones, the algorithmic feeds, the test-prep excerpts, staffing models that load the reading-intensive work onto the most precarious faculty, and now the chatbots that finish students’ sentences before they’ve even begun to think of them. If we want literate citizens, we will have to rebuild the conditions for literacy deliberately, against the grain of every incentive currently pointed the other way. I know the academy has the will to do that. It also has the obligation."
— Tyler Jagt, 1 June 2026, "My Students Can’t Read"
The generational collapse in literacy is measurable, persistent, and likely to get worse.
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sigh. just another day scrubbing the floor and mowing the lawn and dusting and doing the laundry for the rest of my pack. but the house has to be in especially perfect shape today because Alpha Jameson has an important meeting with another Alpha from across the river. If they come to an agreement, the Newport and Cincinnati packs might finally have peace for the first time in decades. No more fighting….But they say the Newport Alpha is the most ruthless wolf who’s ever lived. Can our hotheaded Alpha really find a compromise with a man like that? I have to hope for the best…with a deal between our packs, the months of new business negotiations will have everyone so busy, they won’t have time to push me around. Alpha Jameson might even be too distracted to think about me. The thought is almost too good to be true. I’ve been his scapegoat to treat like trash ever since he and my younger sister claimed each other as mates. There was a time when we were kids when it was me on his arm at dinners and parties. But then we grew up, and…..I never got my Wolf. I’m a freak, and everyone knows it. Of course he couldn’t stay with me. Not that I’d want to be with him now anyway. These days he can’t even say my name without spitting it. Sometimes I think it would be easier if I never get my Wolf, and I get banished to live among humans. But then I remember my childhood best friend. She was so pretty—brown eyes, with brunette hair she always wore in a bun. I was homeschooled with my pack, of course, and she went to the local high school. We met at the library….our shared sanctuary. She didn’t have any other friends, and neither did I. We hung out every chance we got. Until one day when we were 16…her brother told me she was gone. I found out that their mom gave her away to a boy band, and I haven’t seen her since. That’s when I realized the human world is just as ruthless as the wolfen. No, banishment wouldn’t be better. But I don’t know how much longer I’ll survive this place either. Most days, keeping my head down and doing what I’m told isn’t enough to keep me out of trouble.
But things could be worse. Yesterday I overheard my sister talking to Beta Devon about the deal Alpha Jameson is making with the Newport Alpha. Apparently, he’s requested a woman from our pack as his mate. With his reputation, I could almost feel bad for whoever Alpha Jameson chooses for him, even though the women in our pack treat me even worse than the men. I’m an embarrassment to them because I don’t have my Wolf.
Whatever. At least I know it won’t be me, because I’m not important enough to be married off……..
everyone saying that they can hear the MC’s voice so clearly. That’s because I didn’t write this. I channeled her voice through myself as a vessel. She’s out there somewhere.
funny you should mention it because I’m channeling the MC again right now and she met the Newport Alpha today. Her stomach was in her throat when she found out that he requested her, specifically. Whatever she’ll have to endure will almost be worth the look on Alpha Jameson’s face when he was forced to acknowledge that someone actually wants her—that someone outside of her pack even knows her name.
Still, the satisfaction was fleeting when it finally sank in that she’s leaving with the most ruthless Wolf this side of Louisville. Is she simply out of the pan and into the fire?
Not so much. In fact, the Newport Alpha is cold as ice. He hasn’t spoken a single word to her in the hour since they met and left Cincinnati on his sleek, burnt-sienna Ecosse ES1 Spirit.
Could he really have asked for her, specifically? What if he’d asked for someone else and they sent her instead, as a consolation prize? What if…
What if he asked for someone else, and they lied about who she was? Oh god. Would she have to pretend to be Payton or Sabrina to maintain peace and to keep her own head attached to its neck? She might be able to pull that off…for a week.
Does he even know what she is—what she isn’t. Did Alpha Jameson or her sister tell him she doesn’t even have her Wolf? Maybe the Alpha can sense that on his own…
They’ve stopped for gas, and he still hasn’t said a word. But he when he goes inside for an energy drink, he comes back out with sweet-tarts ropes—her favorite. It’s such a random candy too. How could he have possibly known that? A lucky guess?
They share an impossibly familiar look for just a moment as he hands her the candy. Then he’s astride the motorcycle again.
She wishes she had something other than him to hold onto as they speed southbound on 471. Despite herself, her arms are wrapped around his waist, and she tucks her forehead against his broad back so the wind won’t sting her eyes.
His carhartt jacket smells faintly of clove cigarettes. His hair smells like apricot shampoo from the dollar general. The specificity of the scent catches her off guard as they cross the bridge into Newport. Why would she recognize the brand? More importantly: why would a wealthy Alpha buy his hair products from a dollar store?
And why is she even thinking about his shampoo to begin with? She needs to be preparing herself for her first night in her new life. It could be anything. She needs to be smart. She needs to be on guard.
And yet…she can’t stop thinking about his brown eyes. Something in them is so….impossibly…..familiar. It just doesn’t make any sense.
That's very kind, but again I'm not writing this. I'm having visions and ecstasies where I see through the eyes of the MC. In fact......I'm being overcome now......
We've been driving for a long time now, well past Newport's city limits. At some point, we got off the highway, and I counted streetlights blurring by until we started passing trees instead. We're out somewhere in the woods now. I tell myself that I'll get my bearings the next time we stop, but we just drive on and on.
We blow through an intersection in the middle of nowhere, and I try to catch the name of whatever county road we must be on, but it's too dark, and we're driving too fast. The Newport Alpha doesn't seem to care about stop signs or speed limits.
Why would he? We could crash into a tree going 100 miles per hour, and he'd be okay. Not me, though. Inhuman powers of strength and healing are reserved for those with a Wolf.
I bite my lip and wonder again if he knows about me. If he does, I guess that means he wouldn't care if we took a turn too fast and I fell off the back of this bike and died. If he doesn't....
I shake my head. There's no way Alpha Jameson and my sister could've kept this secret. If they did, and he doesn't take it well when he finds out....
My stomach twists when I think about what might happen to me. No. Alpha Jameson needs this to go well. No matter how much he hates me—no matter how much sick pleasure he'd get if I were torn to shreds in a bad business deal. The Newport Alpha wanted a mate from our pack. Not even Beta Devon would be stupid enough to try to cheat such a powerful Alpha with some Wolfless loser.
He could have asked for any of the unmated women in our pack. Sabrina and Chelsea would have thrown one of their legendary tantrums if Alpha Jameson tried to give one of them away, but I saw Payton preening in every reflective surface she passed this morning. She wanted to look good for the Newport Alpha, and she did look good. She was taller and prettier than me—blonder, with better clothes and makeup. They all were.
Why didn't he want any of them. What does he want with me?
I'm so lost in thought, I didn't even notice that we'd turned down a long driveway until we stop.
He cuts the engine, but I still feel like I'm vibrating. I'm not used to riding on motorcycles. I'm really not even used to leaving the house. My arms feel like jello, still wrapped awkwardly around his waist.
The Newport Alpha suddenly gets up—so fast that I don't even have time to let go. His body drags mine sideways, and I brace myself to land on the gravel driveway.
But I don't. He catches me by my arm and pulls me onto my feet.
"Thanks," I say, at the same time he says, "Sorry."
It's the first thing he's said to me since we met hours ago. I know I look surprised when our eyes meet. Those brown eyes...
We stare at each other for so long, it starts to hurt. I'm not used to anyone acknowledging me unless it's followed by an insult or a slap. I can't take the eye contact, so I look down at my old Sperry shoes—rejects that Sabrina threw away.
He lets go of my arm and says "sorry" again.
"It's okay...." I say. My voice is so quiet. I hate it, but I don't know how to be any louder. I'm barely ever allowed to talk.
The Newport Alpha doesn't seem to care. He says, "I know this probably isn't what you were expecting, but I thought you might be more comfortable with a little privacy tonight."
I look up and realize he's talking about the house, a little cabin surrounded by trees. He's right, it's not what I expected. When my sister told me that Alpha Jameson was giving me away to the most ruthless Wolf in the tri-state area, I didn't really picture woodland cottages. It's not even as big as the garage where Beta Devon keeps those stupid, expensive cars he loves so much.
I don't know what to say, so I whisper, "It's fine."
The Newport Alpha grins. I don't know why he'd care so much what I think of his house, but I'm glad I made him happy. Things will be easier for me if he's in a good mood.
He says, "Yeah? Are you sure? I just thought it might be kinda overwhelming for you to meet the entire pack tonight, you know?"
"Yeah," I say, because I have no idea what else to say. Nobody's ever considered my feelings like that before, let alone gone out of the way to accommodate them.
"Well, uh, want to go in? It's kinda cold out here, huh?"
He's looking me up and down, and I feel exposed in my plain blue jeans and hand-me-down Hollister v-neck sweater.
"Sure," I say.
I follow him up the front porch steps. He opens the door, and I wait for him to go first, but then I realize he's waiting for me to go first. So I do.
This time, it is what I'm expecting. The cabin is decorated like a little hunting lodge. I've never been in one, but I've seen them in movies and TV shows. The walls are wood panel, and they're covered in antlers and trophy fish.
"Bedroom's over there." He points to a door on my left, then to one on the right. "Bathroom's there."
I'm eyeing a rack with three rifles hanging beside the door, and he must notice, because he says, "They're not loaded."
When I don't say anything, he keeps talking. "I bought this place a few years ago, and I haven't really gotten to redecorating. Those came with the place. Besides, who needs a gun to kill a deer?"
He grins, and I notice for the first time how sharp some of his teeth are. It's nothing like ours in my pack.
"Hey, I'm just kidding," he says. I guess he can tell I'm a little freaked out. "I'm a fishing guy, anyway."
"Oh," I say. "Ha."
I don't know why I even tried to laugh. It sounds more pathetic than I even usually do. He's frowning at me, and I panic a little. What am I thinking??? This is my new Alpha. Laughing at his stupid jokes will be the least of my duties to him. Pack members who don't play along never last long. I need to get it together.
"Well," he says. "Why don't we call it a night?"
He looks me up and down again. "Is that all you have?"
He means the clothes I'm wearing. I can feel myself turning bright red. Everything happened so fast today, I didn't have time to pack even my few belongings.
"Yeah," I say. "It's...okay. I....always sleep in jeans."
He cocks his head and looks at me like he'll call my bluff. I bite my lip. There's something in his face. He looks somehow....sad. I have no idea what to do with that. But then he smiles.
"Okay then, " He kicks off his timberland boots and pads across the room in his socks. I watch him lie down on the old, 1980s velour couch. "Good night."
I don't move. What am I supposed to be doing right now? I wait for some command. It feels like an eternity passes before he sits up and says, "Sorry, do you need something?"
I shake my head. He stares at me for a moment and says, "Huh. Well...sweet dreams?"
I still have no idea what he wants from me. I have no idea what to say, and then he says, "Sorry. I have no idea what you want from me right now..."
It catches me so off guard, I actually laugh. A real laugh. Then he laughs. His laugh is loud and confident, and it makes his broad chest rise and fall under his tight, black t-shirt.
He laughs longer than I do, and then I say, "I don't know where I'm supposed to go...tonight?"
"Oh!" He says, smiling. "The bedroom's all yours! There are fresh sheets. It's a little cold, but it'll warm up in here soon. I just switched from wood to solar, and it's been a whole thing, you know?"
I don't know. I just say, "Okay, thanks," and then I wander awkwardly to the bedroom.
But I stop in the doorway. I don't know why, but I suddenly feel a little bold. I want to say something other than oh and yeah, but I have no idea what.
He's looking at me like he knows I'm trying to get the courage to talk.
So I just ask, "What's your name?"
"Oh!" He laughs again. "I can't believe I never said. It's Yale. Yale Northland. It's kind of a weird name, though, isn't it?"
I don't know what to say. Am I supposed to agree with him? Would that be rude?
He says, "So my friends just call me by my initials, Y.N."
"Okay, Y.N.," I say. Then I have nothing else to say, so I say, "Goodnight," and I shut the door behind me.
The bedroom looks just like the living room, with wood panel walls and random woodsy knickknacks. The bed is huge. It takes up most of the room, and it's covered in old, homemade quilts. I've never seen anything like them. They're so....cozy. I pull them back, and the sheets are red flannel with patterns of little black pine trees and bears printed on them.
I take off my jeans, because I actually don't want to sleep in them, and I climb into the gigantic bed. Thew Newport Alpha is nothing like what anyone said he'd be.
He seems so normal. I can't help feeling like there's something I'm missing. Like, tomorrow, I'll wake up and he'll be the cruel, ruthless Wolf my sister told me about.
My stomach twists, but not even the fear is enough to keep me awake after such a long day. I try to stay awake, but the cabin is so quiet, and the bed is so warm, I drift off to sleep...
#reading this feels like having knives thrown at you
Well get ready to start dodging, because for the first time in a year, I can feel the MC trying to speak through me...
I awake to a crash. Or was it a scream ... My own voice, screaming.
I'm breathing hard—panting, even—my whole body too hot in the Hollister sweater I went to bed in last night. I shouldn't be surprised; it's not the first time I've screamed myself awake, but it usually only follows the times I've cried myself to sleep. Last night wasn't one of those times. No, last night was ... I can't bring myself to even think the word safe. Instead, I say out loud to the dark room, "different."
My voice is timid as always, but at least I'm speaking. Maybe, in the life I've lived, anything that's different is safe.
But I can't afford to let my guard down. Not when I have no idea what awaits me today. Alpha Yale was kind to me last night, but I know it was all propriety. No matter his reputation—no matter how badly we all know Alpha Jameson needs this to work—Alpha Yale couldn't be a complete brute right away. No matter how worthless I may be to my pack, no matter how much they hate to claim me, I'm still one of them. If Alpha Jameson let an outsider treat me as badly as he does, it would make him look weak, like he can't protect his own. As an Alpha, Yale would understand that and play polite as part of the deal, if only 'til everyone forgets about me.
If I'm going to survive this—whatever this is—I have my own role to play: The perfect Alpha's mate, but that's already out the window. She wouldn't be Wolfless.
I shake the thoughts out of my head. Over-thinking in the dark all morning won't win Alpha Yale over. I switch on the novelty lamp at my beside; it's shaped like a wolf howling at the moon, which is full and round to cover the light bulb inside. A little on-the-nose... But Alpha Yale did say he plans to redecorate the place. The wood floor is cold on my bare feet. No points to solar power, I think.
Back home, we had heated floors. At least, the main house did, where everyone else lived. My room—the unfinished basement—was all moldy cement. How could I have any opinions about Alpha Yale's HVAC setup, coming from someplace like that?
There's a second door in my room, on the other wall just beside the door to the main house. I open it cautiously, expecting a closet, but I'm pleased to realize it goes directly to the bathroom. The lights are already on inside—so bright I blink and see spots for a second. I immediately notice a folded bundle of fabric, with a small note on top:
M.C.,
I pause. How did he know I prefer to go by my initials, the same as he does? There's no way Alpha Jameson or my sister would have been considerate enough to mention it. They never remembered themselves—or they pretended not to, anyway.
I hope you slept well. I'm out getting us breakfast. This is for you, in case you don't actually like living in those jeans. Back soon - Y.N.
I turn over the note for some reason, and I realize it's been scrawled on the back of an old envelope, already torn open. The return address sounds like a satellite dish company. Absurdly, I imagine Alpha Yale tucked into one of those homemade quilts, surrounded by novelty lamps, watching black-and-white movies, or whatever channels you get by dish out here in the sticks. I catch myself smiling before I remember I'm just making things up. Most Ruthless Alpha this side of the Mississippi, I remind myself. He's probably not catching oldies re-runs.
Under the note is a pair of grey sweatpants—no brand, I notice, the old tag long since worn totally blank. They're clean, but they still smell like him—borax laundry soap, clove cigarettes, and ... Apricot shampoo, I think. 2-in-1. The kind with conditioner included. I shake my head again. Why do I know that, and why does it even matter?
I pull the pants on and look at my reflection in the mirror. My brown, curly hair is a hopeless tangle. I can taste my morning breath. I open a few cabinets, looking for toothpaste or a comb, careful to close them as quietly as possible, in case Alpha Yale wouldn't want me going through his things. The whole bathroom's completely empty, anyway. Unless there's a second bathroom—doubtful, from how little this place seemed last night—then he clearly never stays here. Even the toilet paper roll is almost used up.
Giving up, I use the elastic on my wrist to shape my hair into the semblance of a bun. My brown eyes are underscored by bags, deep and somewhat purple. I notice a stain on yesterday's sweater, so I take it off to reveal my thin, blue camisole with lace trim. It's cold enough in the bathroom that my arms immediately go to gooseflesh, but I warm up a little when I put on the sweatpants. They're too long—Alpha Yale is at least a foot taller than me—so I roll them three times at the waist, which looks a little frumpy, but so do I.
I take one more look at myself in the mirror. My eyes are wide. Suddenly, panic blooms in my chest. I don't want to go out there. I don't want to face Alpha Yale and this new life. But I can't go back, either. Not to Alpha Jameson. Not to my sister. There's no one there who would have me, protect me if this all went to hell. I won't go back. I'd sooner drown in the Ohio River than cross it again.
Swallowing my dread, I open the other door to the main house.
"She's awake!"
I blink against the sun pouring into the room from three skylights, which I hadn't noticed last night. There's a man I don't know, sitting on the old couch in front of the TV, tucked into one of those patchwork quilts, exactly as I'd stupidly imagined Alpha Yale.
"Finally joining us, in the land of the living?" His grin is goofy and genuine, and I notice he has sharp teeth like Alpha Yale's.
"Booo!" Another voice says with a laugh, as if the man on the couch has made some sort of corny joke, but I don't get it.
"M.C., Good morning," says yet a third person. The whole cabin is a single room, with the living room's old, shaggy carpet ending abruptly at the kitchen's linoleum floor. There's a second man, sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of what I assume is coffee, because I can smell the beans, pleasant and freshly ground. His smile was just as genuine, but smaller, shy. I couldn't see his teeth. He was regarding me from behind thick, red curls, cut into bangs that hung over his eyes. I would find the style irritating, but he must not mind.
"Just in time for breakfast!" Says the man who was boo-ing. He's standing at the stove, and even from behind, he looks almost ... startling, wearing a colorful, satin bath robe and a bleached buzzcut halved in two sides by a neon-pink skunk stripe. He adds another pancake to a pile so enormous, I worry they're expecting even more company.
This is my new pack, and one of them must be Beta, if Alpha Yale left them here, with me, without formal introductions.
"Come sit," says the first man. He's in a thick, wool sweater, the same sky blue as the silk wave cap on his head. He's still smiling, and I catch myself thinking he looks very handsome, in a cozy way. They all do, in their sweaters and robes at breakfast, like it's the morning after a slumber party.
I'm suddenly struck by some strange familiarity, as if I've seen all of them before. I try to picture their faces among visiting packs we've sometimes hosted in Cincinnati. I haven't been welcome at any guest events in years, but perhaps when we were children—when my parents were still alive and Alpha Jameson and I were still ... I can't bear to think about that—about the better days. I need to focus on today.
I didn't expect to meet my new pack this way—without Alpha Yale here. It seems somehow improper, like we're breaking some sort of rule. There were so many ... formalities back home. Everything even somewhat noteworthy was strangled by ceremony and pomp. Any day now, I half expect Alpha Devon to demand a full Pack initiation ritual for his next stupid car.
Compared to that, this is so casual, so relaxed that I feel my hackles up. The man on the couch seems to notice, because he looks a little startled, and he says, "Or don't! It's okay!"
Oh my god, I'm being rude. I'm being rude to the men who are almost definitely Alpha Yale's closest confidantes.
I wonder suddenly if this is some sort of test, to see how I fall into my place at my Alpha's side, even when he's not here—to see if I have the quality of a leader. The idea of me leading anyone—anything—is so stupid that I laugh—quietly, bitterly, to myself.
But the man on the couch catches it and misinterprets it. He smiles gently, clearly hoping I've come around. I take a deep breath and force my shoulders to relax. There are no practice rounds; this is my new life, in this very moment, and every first impression I make it critical. Perhaps to my very survival.
"Good morning, everyone," I say, and I'm surprised that it doesn't come out as meekly as I feared it would.
Now the man on the couch grins again. "Good morning! Sorry to crowd in on you like this, but we all got worried when y'all didn't show up last night. Y.N. said he'd be back with you at the house."
"We drove all up and down 471 this morning, looking for his stupid motorcycle," says the man with the coffee. "Assumed you crashed and exploded, 'til we finally remembered this place. I'm Brayden, by the way."
"Ah! Kristofer, with a K and and F," says the man at the stove.
"Caleb," says the man on the couch.
"Brayden, Caleb, Kristofer," I repeat shyly, committing the names to memory. Titles would be the least of my political responsibilities here.
"With a 'K' and an 'F'!" Kristofer reminds me immediately.
"Thanks, I've got it," I say. I decide to join Caleb on the couch after all, if only to pretend for this pack that I can be comfortable among them—that I can be one of them. Caleb offers me some of his quilt, but I shake my head, no-thanks.
"So," I say, and all three of them look at my expectantly. I do my best not to shrink. "Who here is Beta?"
"Oh! Uh-" Says Caleb, and they all look at each other.
"We uh," Kristofer takes a bite of one of the pancakes, plain and right off the skillet. I watch him chew it with his mouth open, full of those same sharp teeth. "We haven't decided yet."
Caleb puts a hand over his face, as if embarrassed. "Awesome, Kristofer," he says under his palm.
Kristofer is immediately defensive, "Sorry, but, like, we haven't though! Right?"
"Why don't-" Brayden interrupts, loudly. Then he looks at me and says, softer, "we wait for Y.N. to get back, and he can make our introductions."
"Sure," shrugs Kristofer, finishing off his pancake.
I don't know what to say, but I don't need to, because—as if on cue—the door opens, and Alpha Yale is there, his broad shoulders nearly taking up the entire frame.
He looks furious.
"You guys have to be fucking kidding me!" He says. It's not quite a shout, but it's not exactly not a shout. I clamp my teeth together, forcing myself to look neutral.
"You can't be mad at us, dude." Brayden speaks first, sounding unphased by the Alpha's anger. "We spent all night expecting you in a body bag. Obviously we came looking for y'all."
"What?" Alpha Yale looks bewildered. "What do you mean?"
"You went off to some high-stakes meeting with uh," Brayden seemed uncertain for a moment, like he doesn't know exactly what he's about to say—what he should say. I recognize this, because it's how I so often speak—like I have to choose my words very carefully. "A rival Pack. And you never came back."
"Shit," Alpha Yale says. I don't know what to make of it, the way he completely deflates, like all the anger's gone out of him at once. I can't believe there won't be yelling, fighting, someone's broken bones at the end of it. But he just says, "Sorry. That sucks, I shouldn't have done that."
"True," says Caleb, not unkindly.
"I just ... Got in my head, on the way back, you know?"
"We get it, we get it," Says Kristofer, around another mouthful of pancake. "You wanted her all to yourself."
At this, Caleb makes an Alright, Enough face at Kristofer, who shrugs defensively.
Alpha Yale chooses to ignore the exchange, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. Finally, he looks at me, and I think—against all logic—that every part of him softens—his eyes, his shoulders, his whole posture.
"Are you getting along alright, M.C.? Sorry I left you. I got us pancakes, but I see I've been outdone." He looks somehow ... uncertain. I don't understand it—any of it. This gentle Alpha—betraying every bit of his reputation—this place, this pack.
"We've been good company," says Caleb, and I find myself smiling, despite myself.
"It's ... true," I agree, quietly. "They've been ... very nice."
Alpha Yale rolls his eyes. "They're always nice," he says. "But you still have to watch out."
"For what?" Kristofer says, mock-offended. I begin to suspect he's always on the defense.
"I never know," says Alpha Yale. "Which is what worries me." He puts down the plastic carry-out bags beside the door, where he kicks off his boots and shrugs his Carhartt jacket off, onto the coat tree.
I expect him to join Caleb and me on the couch. He is my Alpha. But he sits on the little loveseat across from us, his broad frame sinking into the old, too-soft floral cushions. He smiles again at me—shyly, I think beyond all reason—but then his eyes widen.
"Willow's not here, is she?"
Kristofer scoffs through yet another pancake. "We're not completely clueless."
Alpha Yale's shoulders relax, but for only a second before the kitchen door—which I've only just noticed—bangs open.
"You guys are clueless, and I am here," says a woman with brown eyes. With brunette hair in a messy bun. Grown so much since I saw her last, but still somehow just the same. I completely forget myself. I'm standing before I can even consider the consequences for speaking out of turn, for failing to answer my Alpha's question, failing to acknowledge him at all.
"Meredith?" I ask, my voice louder than I've ever heard it, so I cringe even as I take a step forward toward her.
She stops smiling, turns pale with shock, and she looks right past me, to Alpha Yale. She's so stricken that I turn to look at him too, and his face is an exact echo of hers. Caleb has a hand over his own face again.
"I'm sorry, I didn't realized she'd be here," says Meredith. Says my childhood friend—my only friend—lost for a decade since her mom gave her away to that boy band.
"Meredith," I say again, still looking at Alpha Yale, still trying to understand his shock and hers—trying to understand anything. "What's going on?"
I look back at her, and now Meredith is blushing, from her ears, all the way down her neck. "I'm not-" she starts, but she stops, apparently unsure what to say.
"You are!" I say, unable to contain myself, startling myself with my own voice. I'm shaking. I feel suddenly hysterical. I can hear that in my voice too—the panic, the loose ends. I know I'm fucking everything up—for myself, even for my pack—but I can't put myself back together. "Meredith! What is going ON?"
Meredith is still looking past me, at Alpha Yale, who is looking back at her desperately. They seem to be having some sort of conversation with their eyes. I can't stand it. I may not have my Wolf, but I feel myself transforming into some monstrous version of myself that I never knew exists—some desperate, angry, clawing thing that cannot stay quiet, no matter what catastrophe I bring down upon myself.
"Someone say SOMETHING!" I shout, and even Brayden looks shocked by my outburst.
Meredith's mouth is open, as if she'll speak, but nothing comes out. Kristofer takes another bite of a pancake.
I'm about to grab someone by the shoulders and start shaking them, when Caleb looks up from behind his hand and says, "Y.N.—Yale. I don't wanna air your whole life out, but you need to say something here."
Yale looks at him, opens his mouth, shuts it again, and takes a deep breath through his nose.
"She's not Meredith, M.C."
I'm about to argue, and he knows it, because I inhale, sharp and fast, ready to yell, to tell him he's wrong, he's lying.
But he reaches across the coffee table and puts a hand on my knee.
"I am—was," He says, awkwardly, painfully.
I cannot even begin to understand what he means.
"And that's Willow," he says. "Was Meredith. Was, uh, me?"
"I'm losing track of this explanation," offers Kristofer, uselessly.
I look back at Meredith—Willow?—who shrugs and smiles sheepishly, like she still has no idea what to say.
I feel faint. Everything is catching up to me at once. The days before Alpha Yale's arrival that I didn't eat—barely slept. The shock of all things unfamiliar. The years of grief—of sleepless nights crying for Meredith. My vision goes vignette, blackening at the edges.
Caleb must notice first, because I hear him say my name, feel his hands on my back and chest, to steady me. I try to answer, but the words are like syrup in my mouth. I feel like I drool them, but I don't know if I really do.
The last thing I hear before I collapse is Kristofer's voice.
"I don't know if this matters, but we're also not Werewolves," he says. "We're Vampires."
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Bootblacking is top level kink because it's one of the few I can think of where the nominal sub is treated as a thoughtful, knowledgeable technician from the outset.
Like, a flogging bottom might be praised for their ability to take pain and know their limits, or a rope bunny might be recognised as keeping themselves in good physical shape so they can hold complicated stress positions for longer than a novice, but even the most beginner of beginner bootblacks has learnt a little bit of materials science (Will this type of brush scratch this patent finish?), a little bit of basic chemistry (If these were last polished with a silicone wax, how do I remove that to start to bull them?), a little bit of leatherworking history (Is that natural fibre stitching on those surplused Warsaw Pact boots, will my polish rot it?) and spent time practising techniques on their own boots.
And it's one of the few kinks I can think of where the top is so immediately physically and emotionally vulnerable to the bottom in that way: I put my foot in the hands of a stranger bootblacking at a party, and I trust that they won't damage the boots I was gifted by my long-dead Master when I was 17, that they won't soak the stitching and start the rot of the boots I was wearing when I first fucked the love of my life, I trust that they'll carefully work around and treat the cuts and scuffs in the leather that I picked up wearing these same boots marshalling at a dozen prides and going toe-to-toe with strikebreakers and scabs on twenty years' worth of picket lines. The experienced bootblack can look at my soles and where my boots crease, and see that I have a weak hip, that I'm slightly bowlegged, that I don't drive and that I walk even in the weather where I'd rather not. And I trust that they'll see that worn-out, poor, slightly sad old man and still call me "sir".
the joke among my leather circle is "everyone subs for a bootblack," not necessarily that bootblacking = sub or dom, but rather, we could have the most stone-top, left-pocket-black-flagging, powder-coated-steel-paddle-gripping Sir Dom, and all a bootblack has to do is move their wesco boot with a palm and they obey.
"give me this foot." tugging laces loose with one practiced finger. hefting a heavy-soled engineer up to wrench pebbles loose from in between the lugs. "stay still." taking finger-fulls of huberd's and lathing it meticulously and lavishly over a pair of oil tans - watching my customer curiously eye the lubricated shine with a rising heat behind their cheeks. planting the full weight of their boot on my shoulder and commanding them, gently, to press their weight onto me.
there's something so deeply fulfilling in being a technician, someone who restores leather like a museum archivist, accentuating scratches and blemishes and returning life to those leather pieces so they can go on to keep fucking, kicking, running. i am as much a craftsman as i am a history keeper. my respect is given not just by the titles i refer to you with, but the care i have given to your boots, jackets, and harnesses, and the stories they tell.
There’s a bootblacker guy who comes to our local little queer markers markets, and he’s such an important part of the ecosystem. All these queer people participating in this alternate economy who are often passing the same $20 bill around, aren’t doing enough to care for our boots. So folks see a guy with his kit right there who can care for their boots for a good price in a place they already are, quite a few jump on it.
It’s great for him because he can talk to people and give them this little sample of the kink in a non-sexual setting, but here’s a flyer for the next event where we are doing it sexually and you can get to thinking about if it awakens anything in you to explore. He’s also a wheelchair user, so it’s a perfect way for a friend to help setup his purpose-built platform and cushions, and then all the fun interesting people who like leather in some capacity come talk him.
Often gets to have deep conversations with people, too, which is so needed in a time many of us feel isolated. He’s there reminding us community is built on mutual care. He cares for the boots and the person in a way that fulfills him. That person might bring him food or show their art. Maybe they form a friendship that helps them both get to other events. Good boots in the winter to bring burritos and aid to our homeless neighbors. Or that walk the floors of a local hardware store helping the people build their contraptions. In return he gets tips about a shipment of way more shoe polish than ordered coming in and the store being eager to move it.
He has an aura of care and reciprocity that is so clear to even people outside the kink, and he’s a great ambassador for getting into it. His presence does a lot to make people naïve of kink culture have favorable views. Gets them curious about the classes and books at the local radical love sex and gender shop when they see the ads or event calendar in the paper. A little love live competency porn to spruce up the place. And if anyone objects to his presence, we all know he’s staring and the complainer’s getting ejected as the true threat to the community.
I should sit down and make a button pin celebrating bootblackers. Endangered keystone species of perverts (affectionate) in the ecology of our civic and queer community ecosystems.
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