Nesha Triumphs - The Writing

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Dimension 20 (Web Series), Misfits and Magic Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Sam Black | Samantha Butler/Evan Kelmp Characters: Sam Black | Samantha Butler, Evan Kelmp, Evan Kelmp’s Shadow, K Tanaka | Dream, Whitney Jammer, The Fruntwinkle, more to come maybe Summary:

Sam Britain is happy in love and living a dream… But a mysterious wizard enters her life and threatens to harm everything that she has.

[teh-nos]

this fic is so good i hope i write it

[tlbodine]

I think maybe it doesn’t get acknowledged enough that writing a novel is not the same thing as telling a story.

There are certain skills and techniques involved in effectively conveying a story in prose — things involving figurative language and word choice and pacing — and those are distinct from the skills of storytelling, with its plot and character and world building.

To be a good writer, you have to be a good storyteller. But to be a storyteller you don’t have to write books. Stories can be games and comics and podcasts and movies and tabletop sessions and interconnected snippets and glimpses of a world. And all forms of storytelling are valid and important and necessary.

But I worry sometimes that people who have stories to tell too often feel like they need to write books, because of the relatively low barrier to entry. People often write books when what they really want is to make movies or games or comics but they lack the skills or resources to create these ambitious projects.

And in the process, I think sometimes we just fail to discuss or acknowledge the craft of writing itself. Too often the idea of “quality prose” gets classified as a snobby gatekeeping thing, a literary thing, a thing of little importance, when it’s really just...a part of the craft of telling stories with written words, the same as knowing how to draw is part of the craft of making comics, or knowing how to code is part of the craft of making games.

[michaelbjorkwrites]

This is definitely worth remembering! Storytelling isn’t limited to novels. It can breathe life into any medium, whether it be video games, board games, podcasts (like the Adventure Zone), long-form improv comedy (like Middleditch & Schwartz), speeches, comic strips, art, etc.

You don’t need to write novels if you want to tell stories. Any medium will do, as long as you’re passionate about it.

[sergeifyodorov]

I don't read as much fic as I used to but one "tell" for non Canadians writing us, besides the etransfer, is the units you use to describe us measuring something. I hate to tell you this but The Chart is real and it's completely subconscious. Please abide

[demotu-writes]

ETA the chart (or at least a version of it):

ETA2: we do use inches/miles in poetic ways ("he was lost in thought/miles away" or "his lips were a bare inch away").

Also, the length of a dick is in inches for SURE.

[iguanodonwildman]

Hey! Just a reminder! AO3 does NOT have an app. This garbage was made by theives who steal fan artist’s work and sell it back to you.

“Oh, but it’s free!” There are ads. They are making money off of this. They are stealing from the creators you love and you are hurting those same creators if you use this app or any similar app.

Don’t use it. Report it at every opportunity.

[nosaviorsinthewild]

A Day Year in the Life of Professor Riggs

Humans were everywhere! This was the most humans gathered in one place that Riggs had ever seen. And they weren’t hunting. He had been a part of a Wolfen Mission Team, in which he was second to Commander’s Alpha. It was a position that he had not wanted, but had been given because he was such a good hunter. However, he had not been allowed the “freedom” of The Alpha.

He had come here with Alpha, because he had followed behind him on a mission that Alpha had abandoned. Riggs had only meant to confront, maybe kill him, if possible. But, upon tracking him to Savior, Riggs learned that his pack’s alpha-to-be (and lifelong best friend was with Packmaster and Packmaster was with Savior. He was unsure how to process it. But, he would go with them, until he could figure out what was happening now. As it turned out, he wound up never leaving. He and Packmaster were both AWOL from Commander’s Warrior Wolfpack.

Savior went by the name “Shani” to her “friends.” Riggs had heard of friends, but he didn’t know if he believed in it. Either someone was in your pack or not. And if they were not in your pack, they were either foes or food. “Put your eyes on this,” he said to Savior, handing her a sheet of paper that he had been practicing writing on.

“Do you mean proofread it?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Proofreading is when you get someone to read something that you wrote in order to make sure that you wrote it correctly.”

“Yes. I don’t know why else I would tell you to put your eyes on it.”

Savior took a deep breath and he could sense her heartbeat getting faster. “Do you know what a question is?” She asked.

“Yes. It is the way that you just spoke. It is when you ask for an answer to something that you don’t know. Or when you ask for an answer that you do know in order to learn if the one you asked also knows.”

“Yes, and…” She said through gritted teeth, “It is how you ask someone to do something for you.”

He squinted his eyes at this information and looked at the unread paper in her hands. Did she want him to ask her to read it? “You do not have to ask anything of anyone who you can best in a battle of strength,” he said. “That was one of the early lessons of the day.”

“You should ask someone to do something for you that they don’t have to do. Because they are doing it to be nice. You should be nice when you make the request.”

“Nice is a human concept.”

“What concept do you use, aside from the savagery of a battle of strength?” 

He sat for a moment, unable to think of an answer. So. She has information that you do not have, and she wants you to ask her to… “proofread” the paper. She was waiting impatiently.

“May you put your eyes on my paper to proofread it?” She exhaled, relieved that he wasn’t going to fight her on using common manners.

“I can do that.” She didn’t need to tell him proper wording all today. She read it and looked shocked. That worried him, but he tried not to show it. 

“Riggs… I think you may be a linguistic genius.”

“What is that?” he asked, keeping himself from snarling at her.

“Like… you are much more advanced than I would have expected. This is your first time writing actual sentences and spelling out words, but the mistakes are so minimal that it’s like you’re a natural.”

“It is not natural for Wolves to learn the practices of humans.”

“Riggs, you are better at writing on your day one than I was at 6 or 7 years old.”

“That makes perfect sense. Humans are inferior creatures. You learn slower than us. That is why Commander collected Wolves for commanding. Her human soldiers just could not match up.”

“If you’re so tough and so smart, why was she in command?” Savior asked. She didn’t ask it with any malice. He could sense that she was genuine, but she added to clarify, “You don’t seem like an easy Wolf to command.”

“You do not have to ask anything of anyone who you can best in a battle of strength,” he repeated, softer this time. “lesson of the day… Perhaps, I could fight her every day, for the rest of my sentence. But, fighting her meant that she had to fight me in the ways that she could best me. She didn’t fight hand to hand, man to man, or one on one. She executed members of my pack. She imprisoned me with their carcasses as punishment. She placed innocent younglings in front of suicide missions. She could do this, and I could not. She was stronger, because in her word was her strength. By her command, wolves would be put to death. I'm not easy to command.. I didn’t know that until I watched her punish others to convince me to obey.”

Savior sat down across from him and reached out, placing her hand over his. He tensed up and she withdrew her hand. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that. Nobody does.”

“Some of us require breaking in order to be able to mold,” he said.

“What is that? Another one of her lessons?” 

He nodded once. “Every day is a lesson,” he said, in such a way that she knew he was repeating it. 

“Every day is a lesson,” Savior agreed. “But not every lesson comes from a reliable source.” She set his paper down. “I will rewrite this for you, and you can copy it correctly. I’m gonna give you some early grammar books from the school and I honestly think you’ve got a knack for language arts, so it might not take you very long to be able to write for yourself. AND, even what you have here is miles ahead of every Wolf at this camp, except for maybe Bane. I want to ask something of you.”

He tilted his head, curiously. “Atlas won’t tell me much about the Kennel or about Commander… You were so open just now, I want to know… if you ever want to talk about what happened, if you would be willing to tell me?”

“Yes,” he said. 

.

Riggs looked at the tags of the shirts in the clothes bin. The ones with the “L” were the ones that felt the most comfortable. The other wolfenfolk seemed to collect clothes all the time, but he only gathered three pairs of cargo shorts and multiple t-shirts. Cargo shorts had many pockets. He would find things and put them inside and later give them to someone or show them to someone. Mostly, he would find trash that had been discarded or blown away. Sometimes, he would find things others lost. Writing utensils, coins, small pieces of tech. He put them in a box and wrote “Findings” on it. 

“Riggs, what is box?” Free asked.

He pointed to it, forgetting that they could only read certain things that they were used to seeing. New words were not in their reading wheelhouse. “Findings,” he said. They looked confused. “I find things all day long. I don’t know what has worth or to whom. These are my findings.”

Free suddenly seemed very excited. “It is lostandfound!” They cheered.

“Lostanfoun?” He repeated. 

They reached for his marker and wrote “lost & found”on it, right beneath “Findings.”

“Lost… and Found? That says “and?” he asked pointing at the symbol. 

Free shrugged and nodded, smiling. “There are still things I know that you don’t!” they cheered.

“There are many things you know that I don’t,” he said, solemnly.  Their smile faded. “I don’t ever doubt that I have things to learn from you, Free.”

“You always learned quicker.” They traced their finger along his word, “I see scribbles here. You see words.”

“Well, letters. It’s just one word. “Findings." I didn’t know that lostandfound was a thing,” He said. “That makes sense. Going around showing stuff to people was just making them uncomfortable.” 

“You still don’t wear a shoe!” They said, looking at his wolven feet.

“Unnatural!” He snarled in Wolfen. Free laughed. 

Atlas and Shani, nearby looked at the two of them. “Have you ever in your time with him heard him say something funny?” Shani asked.

“Not once… Well.. not on purpose.”

She nodded, “Actually, yeah. He is often accidentally funny…”

.

Riggs had started showing up to tactical meetings. He wasn’t giving any input. He was just there, observing. Shani would be signing everything everybody said, for Luna, Luna would be scribbling her own questions and thoughts and showing them to whoever applicable. Often, Shani and Luna would have different opinions. Sometimes, they would be big enough differences that wolves stepped in.

This happened only once, in front of Riggs. Before anybody in the room could react, he was in between Luna and whoever seemed to have a problem with her. “What is the problem?” He asked while signing. Every present wolf but Atlas cowered away. Luna began signing, Shani began speaking, Atlas simply watched with folded arms, until both he and Riggs obviously heard the same snarling from one of the other wolves. 

It happened far too fast for anybody else to react and Atlas reaction was simply to take hold of Shani in one hand and Luna in the other so that neither of them would rush over to where Riggs had. Both women stopped arguing to look at Riggs, in a rare state, not transformed, but his mouth far too wide for his humanoid form, biting the mouth of the other wolf, who was whimpering.

Atlas gently said, “I think he knows, Riggs.” Riggs released the wolf and the wolf went running from the tent. “Does anybody else have a problem with MY SECOND in Command speaking at a tactical meeting?” Every other wolf in the tent lowered their gaze. 

Riggs, like nothing had happened, returned to the women. “Continue,” he said and signed. 

.

Luna was too sleepy to visit the moon. It wasn’t a far walk, but it was too far to walk as tired as she was. She felt a little bad that she wouldn’t get to see Riggs tonight… But. Minutes later, he sniffed around outside of her tent and waved his hand inside for her attention. She noticed it and peeked out. “Are you hurt? Or harmed? Or…”

She reached out and stopped him from signing. “I am too tired.” She replied.

“Too tired to love the moon?”

“Too tired to visit. The walk will take all of my strength.”

He frowned for a moment, then brightened. “Climb onto my back.” She hesitated. “You don’t have to say anything. We can be silent. The moon would miss you!” She smiled and climbed onto his back. He held her up with zero effort. She had not known firsthand how strong the Wolves were. She had seen their strength, certainly, but he carried her on his back as though she were weightless and she felt that way the entire journey to their spot. She was asleep by the time he carried her back to her tent. People and Wolves had learned not to stare, but it was difficult not to look when Riggs was carrying his human woman on his back.

He set her down as gently as he knew how to in her bed, and attempted to get her out of her shoes without waking her. Humans didn’t like to sleep in shoes. He had learned that someplace. She woke up and he winced, apologetically. She gave him a weak smile, thanked him and reached for him. He leaned in, unsure of what she was reaching for and she stroked his hair. Almost reflexively, he pressed his nose to her face and licked her. Her eyes widened and he pulled away, embarrassed, but she gently pulled him back, by his hand. Within moments, she had a large white wolf encircling the bed. She readjusted to settle herself onto his fur and absentmindedly pet him as she fell to sleep. 

The rumors that she was grateful she would not have to hear tomorrow…

.

Free had a problem. Riggs refused to make it his. He had caused such stirs in the tactical meetings that Atlas, Bane, and now, even Free had told him at different times, “Get the fuck outta here, Riggs.” It became a bit of a joke amongst the Wolves, though none but those 3 dared to ever say such a thing to him, and Bane was actually quite fortunate that he seemed to mean something to Free. It had terrified the other Wolves that first time, when Bane said it. He had been “joking,” but it had been in response to Riggs making a suggestion that everyone else’s faces told him that they thought was stupid. 

But, when Bane said, “Get the fuck outta here Riggs,” a big smile on his face, any Kennelwolf in the area froze and cowered, some trembled. It made Bane stop smiling and move closer to Free, who shifted slightly to stand between him and Riggs. That settled it. Riggs understood. That one was Free’s to handle. 

Riggs looked to Atlas who simply said, “He jests like humans.”Riggs took a deep breath. “But, the idea isn’t one we can go with.” Riggs folded his arms and now noticed the other wolves, timid and traumatized. He looked to Atlas once more and Atlas gave him a nod to dismiss him. As he left, he heard someone say to Bane, “You’re lucky that he didn’t strip the flesh from your throat with his claws. Commander, Humanity, Packmaster. That is his Chain of Command.”

“The Kennel is behind us!” Atlas snarled.

“You are still Packmaster. And he is still the Meatmaker.”

Riggs turned and looked to see who said it, but Atlas waved him out. He was furious, but also… sad. He had been with this camp for months now. He had learned human communication. Speaking correctly, writing, reading, signing for Luna.. And STILL…

“What was that?” He heard Savior ask. He turned to see her, now outside of the tactical tent. “Did it have something to do with what you told me about her killing others to punish you?” She reached into her satchel and offered him a treat. He knew why. These had sedatives in them. But, he also knew that Savior only used sedatives enough to calm the Wolf, not to incapacitate them. He accepted the freeze dried meat clump that she shaped like little cartoonish hearts and ate it.

“It’s worse. Much worse than that.”

“Do you want to tell me?” She asked. 

He shook his head. “I need Luna.” Savior peeked back into the tent and signed to Luna, much to Free’s chagrin. Luna came out right away. “Can I have an actual sedative?” Riggs asked. 

“I only have the gun on me. I can get Free to bring you something when we wrap up the meeting.” He nodded and allowed Luna to escort him to his tent. 

But, THIS time, this time, FREE had said the now infamous words. It was bad enough that they came between him and his thoughts of attack against Bane the Wolf, but now, they were treating him as the stupid one of the group, too? Maybe they had been told. Maybe they knew the lengths to which he… made meat. They didn’t respect him. Nobody here did, he thought. Savior and Luna came out of the tent together and he rushed over. “I am ready to go out on missions,” he said to Savior.

“Atlas does not think so,” she replied. “Why don’t you do something here, to help take up your time?”

“Like what? I keep learning skills that I never get to use and coming into rooms that I am never heard! I am NOT a simpleton! They do NOT need to speak to me like that!” He roared. Luna reflexively pulled Shani away from him and immediately noted the look of hurt on his face. “Do you think I’m gonna attack her?” he asked. She looked even more scared, now as she shook her head. 

Savior snapped her fingers and got his attention. “Hey. You’re having a chat with me. Don’t look at her.” Just as well, because he didn’t like what he saw. Why was she afraid? She had never been afraid of him! Even when she should have been! Things were spreading about him! He just KNEW it! “How about this? You… produce a report of the reasons that you belong in the tactical meetings and out in the field and I will let you present it as a lecture. We will each pick someone who heard the lecture to touch base with and we’ll have a meeting to see if we agree with you.”

“What is a lecture?” He asked, folding his arms. 

.

Thirty minutes into the hour long lecture and Riggs knew that not only had he not covered exactly what Savior had told him to, but he knew that every one of these humans, who for whatever reason had been given the idea that they could assess him, knew it too. In fact, he had been speaking this entire time about the ego and audacity of humankind and whether or not they deserved the privilege of “working with” wolves.

“You know… I’m sure that almost everybody on this campus has heard things about me. Show of hands. Who has heard something about me?” Everyone raised their hands and a maddened smile crossed his face, which frightened everyone into lowering their hands. He randomly pointed at someone. “What did you hear?” The human looked around the room nervously for some sign of support. Everybody just looked scared.

Riggs looked at his notebook and said, “Oh… You have the floor,” confusing the person’s fear for not knowing they were allowed to speak. But, another moment might make him angry so they went for it.

“I heard that you cut up dead wolves and skinned their furs from them.”

Riggs’ eyes glazed over as he stared out into his memories. “I wish it was that simple.” He pointed at someone else without looking at them and two confused people decided amongst themselves who he’d pointed at.

“Umm…” the one who they had decided it was said. “There’s not a living wolf who has killed more wolves than you?”

“I sure fuckin’ hope not. Can’t let a monster like that roam the world,” he chuckled, abruptly stopped and looked directly at someone in the front row. “Tell me your entry.”

Without hesitation, she said, “You should have been the Alpha, but they made someone much weaker and younger your superior to try to humble you for being too wild.”

“You’d better not let Packmaster hear you say that. It’s true, but he definitely is stronger than you.” He took a deep breath and asked, “Did anybody here know that I chose my body as a cub, and I have been working since I was little to create a body that I could be happy in?” A few of them looked confused. Some looked touched. Some looked interested. “Free and I, we were called different names back then, but we always practiced together. They were better than me at Wolfen forms. They could make themselves into so many variations of the Wolf. All I wanted to do was to be able to change myself into a boy wolf. And I did. I was really proud of myself. Even thought, and now, my best friend and I can mate for life!” 

He sat on his desk. “Didn’t happen. Just as well. The last time I saw them, it was the day that Packmaster was made. I didn’t see them again until I arrived here. They were different and I was different. They were now a friend of humans. I was now a fiend of humans. Humans created everything you ever heard about me. I was a wild Wolf. Does anybody here even know what that is now?”

Somebody raised their hand and he looked at them. “A wolf that was born and/or raised in the wild?” 

Riggs grunted, “Yes, but… even the wild is different. Humans began stripping it of everything that they could. Leaving a little to hunt and kill for food. Wolves began migrating into the wastelands… where the only food source was humans. Not even healthy ones. The wild had very little wildlife left to hunt and when humans became a food source, the elites began hunting us. They went into the wilderness, set up hunting grounds of disposables. Humans like yourselves, who don’t have value in elite society and they abandoned them to be hunted by my people. For a time, that was our main source of food. I don’t know what happened really. Commander said that she got a promotion and put a program in order. Instead of them deleting their deplorables, they set them as bait and then they ambushed us after we had fed.”

The audience was stunned. Riggs guessed Savior never got around to telling them all this. “I first saw Savior when I first saw Packmaster. They were throwaway humans on the day that Commander captured my pack. He was transformed. She was set free. And Free escaped. They came together, along with the Brilliant… Stargazer…” He had remembered that not everyone knew her by name. There were too many people here and if anyone ever turned on her, it would be disastrous. “They started this camp with nothing but a desire to keep HUMAN ENEMIES from being able to use humans that they don’t value as bait for majestic creatures that they want to break and mold into something atrocious…” 

He had a tear. “It took me years to perfect my male body. To see my reflection and be in awe of who I had made myself into! Humans, the humans that this rebellion is against made me into a wolf who has to choose between killing his own or watching them die at the hands of a petty human. A wolf whose most joyous memories sometimes feel imagined, because there were longer, darker, bloodier memories to wash them away on a daily basis for years in the Kennel. My pack, My kennel, My kind… Doesn’t trust me. Not for choices that I made, but for choices that humans made me make. Had I been able to die instead, I would have. Dying was not a luxury I was deemed worthy of. I was to be a tool.”

He pointed to the first speaker, “I skinned wolves alive, because that was the best way to have the most useful fur. They wailed the entire time. I tried to promise them that I would make it as quick as possible, hoping to get it down to an art to spare them as much pain. Once I had both removed, washed and submitted their skins for processing, I was allowed to put them out of their misery. The tools for skinning do not work for butchering, and they didn’t trust me enough to hand me butchering tools. I had to dismantle the bodies with my own two hands, for I’m not sure how long.” People were getting nauseated. “Eventually, I was given butchering tools and told that if I tried something, every remaining member of my original pack would be killed, and their meat wasted in the stadium, for all of the Kennel to see.” 

He pointed to the second speaker, “There is not a living wolf who has killed more wolves than me because the brand of solitary confinement that I was sentenced to for my unwillingness to obey was being the only one working in meat processing. It wasn’t always wolves, but a big portion of it was wolves. Remember the humans they used as bait? They’d collect survivors, strip them down, throw them into a freezer and bring them to me to thaw and dismember. The Kennel was the size of a prison. The trough was the size of a ravine. And I alone had to fill it with whatever bodies they gave me to make into meat. Animals, humans, and wolves, I slogged over to make enough meat to FEED the wolves who look at me now and…” His breathing hardened and he chuckled. 

“In the wild… I would have been the Alpha. Packmaster was the Alpha in the Kennel. Because he was strong and thoughtless. He followed orders without the threat of losing his pack, because he HAD no pack! The Kennel WAS his pack. He didn’t know shit about the Wolven. He didn’t know shit about the Wild! He knew what Commander taught him. He was a fucking lapdog. And he’s one now, for Savior. Make sure whenever you see them, you remember that part of the lecture. In conclusion: Savior wants me to prove that I deserve to be in that tent, deserve to be in the field. I think she should prove that she can stop me if I decide my rebellion matters more to me than being civil with her and this…” He glanced around, “Tent kennel.”

[taahko]

i think some of you dont like narratives or stories or characters i think you just like fanfiction tropes

[taahko]

protagonists can and will be sexist, racist, insensitive, cruel, stupid, etc, especially towards the beginning of a story. these are called character flaws and they are a surprise tool that will lead to narrative fulfillment later

[mapswithoutwyoming]

And sometimes "narrative fulfillment" doesn't mean "the character overcomes their flaws" or even "the antihero is punished for their flaws"! sometimes it means the narrative says "wow was that fucked up or what? anyway i'm rod sterling"

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

A Long Post About Skin Tones for FCs❣

Remember that time when I told y'all some of you need skin tone helps? I had time. Using some commonly used FCs, some actresses that I know of, some brown charts and things, for us to simply take a look at people and SEE COLOR. Because, whether or not we pretend to (and from the lightwashing we see in artwork and aesthetics, there's proof that many people have issues), there is color in the world, and in our skin tones.

Sometimes, it don't matter beyond having a wider scope of representation and sometimes, it is important to stories (colorism storylines need dark skinned characters involved) or to original concepts (whitewashing and lightwashing previously darker characters is a problem).

I am merely here for less of a discussion of those things and more of a guide that you can pull up to put that FC idea or that fan art project next to and realistically say, "This is it" or close to the goal.

Let me start out by saying that a lot of the FCs that I see people use for Black characters are often biracial face claims.

The fact of the matter is that we're living in a time where multiracial entertainers are able to get the most visibility and are cast in roles that maybe they aren't the ideal image for. Now, we also have far more blended families onscreen and in stories probably than ever before, so they have plenty of opportunities to be properly cast. And some are a quarter Black, which, to me, means that they should also be considered for characters that may appear white. If you are fine with casting multiracial girls for Black girls, get fine casting them in white characters, too. Cast Multiracial Actors in White Roles! They have representation everywhere. They'll pull through.

Never be afraid to steal imagine a fair skinned character who the writer does not explicitly say IS white as anything else. That's where a lot of the light skinned actresses you use for Black characters should go. Unless they said "white" or some equivalent, I read everyone as not white, generally as Black😌

We also have gingers.

Having red hair don't translate to "white," to me, and it doesn't have to, to you. See the word "ginger" and put a Black ginger FC there. I sure do.

Now. Let's get back to the guide.

If a Black person is reading a character who is described as having "dark brown skin," everybody needs to know that the standard of the tone of brown skin is in relation to Blackness.

We are not thinking "dark compared to a white person," like some of you seem to be. We are not thinking of the one or two Black people you've met in life. Think about brown skin in relation to what group that FC belongs in. There are dark skinned Asians, South Asians, Mestizo, etc. If the characters are those, find out what dark means there. What shade is dark brown, from the perspective of the group of people that character belongs to?

That will help for you not to get dunked on when you make aesthetic boards, assign FC's, whitewash artwork, etc. Just look at a guide! And know that dark brown skin is not ever going to be anything lighter than a standard brown crayon, and CERTAINLY not going to be somebody who can "pass" the paper bag test!

There's also options for lighter skinned FCs who are in monoracial characters. I've said before, yes, it does happen that two people who aren't necessarily light skinned can have a light skinned child. But, there are also lightskinned couples who have lightskinned kids, and other Black parents with unambiguously Black light skinned offspring.

Sometimes, maybe consider FCs who evolve to have similar backgrounds. Yes, we often see light skinned women and biracial women used interchangeably, but it could also be not done like that. You are allowed to use monoracial light skinned actresses for Black faceclaims. To drop a few...

You likely would've used the peach or apricot crayons to try to get the drawing (before crayons started making sets), or tried, like I used to, to go over a tan with a lighter crayon, adding maybe a coat of yellow, or if the box was bigger, using the goldenrod. Idk what those translate to in digital art. So just do the lil' eyedrop on one of the girlies, basically.

Moving on to the space where I think a big portion of the famous actresses come in, and my apologies to the younger generation, a space where you're going to see many biracial actresses, and not so many monoracial ones ALTHOUGH THEY DO EXIST. I simply want to reiterate that there are Black actresses out there with two Black parents to play Black roles that cast Black biracial actresses.

🤎🤎🤎

At any rate, moving a medium light range of skin tones. These are the girlies that would pass or just make it with the Brown Paper Bag test.

They're still lighter brown shades than on the other side of the bag test, but not exactly in the same vein of light skinned as "white passing" and "ethnically ambiguous." Might be called a redbone by some, probably won't be called a yellow bone.

FYI: Nonblack onlookers, none of us wanna have to see y'all try to use them words. Don't hurt yourself.

Note: The women in that chart are all biracial or mixed heritage, because at the time, I couldn't think of nobody fully Black in that particular skin tone range.

🟤🟤🟤

We've reached the other side of a brown bag, but here's the thing, we do tan, so sometimes, you may see someone have lighter brown skin at certain times, like winter (or the quarantine, things of that nature), but the skin tone that we usually are is the skin tone that we generally identify with and the one I'd suggest in artwork/aesthetics.

Generally, the range of skin tones here we simply call "brown skinned," as vague and broad as it is. It encompasses those who aren't light skinned, per se, but wouldn't be considered dark skinned in the Black community, either. (Sometimes, I will see things tagged "melanin," or suggest in the tags that there is somebody with melanin in the post, and ISTG, I be thinking that perhaps y'all have some type of color distortion in your eyes, because the melanin be MIA. Missing in Action. On thee back of every milk carton in the 80s, Girl.

This is where most Black women fall into without being singled out by skintone. What do I mean by that? This is where we're a pretty medium brown color. Not necessarily widely perceived as light skinned, but while unambiguously Black, not considered dark skinned, either. (Sometimes people in this group are very confused about what their skin tone is, depending on who surrounds them).

When I was little, my family considered me light skinned. As an adult, I realize that was because my father's side of the family was the standard tone for our household, and they're all dark skinned. Sometimes, out in the wild, we see Europeans referring to somebody Thandie Newton's color as "dark skinned," meanwhile, we all have eyes and can see that is NOT true, but somehow to white people, it might seem so. I think because they are probably setting themselves as the standard when figuring out skin tone... which is ridiculous, obviously.

"Brown skinned," is generally what we say, despite the fact that everybody on this list is some shade of brown. Brown skinned in the Black community is simply "not light and not dark " which can range from anywhere from Robin Givens to Gabrielle Union. On one end, there's the tan crayon and on the other end the "brown" crayon.

Whenever I used to color family drawings, me and Mama were colored with the tan crayon and Daddy, and my two siblings were with the brown crayon. But in real life, they were darker than that and you didn't have more browns unless you got big boxes of crayons, 36 and above.

Finally, we get to what we consider dark skin. Brown crayon and darker shades of brown.

Does it make sense to picture in your mind Zoe Kravitz as having "dark skin" when the above ladies also exist in the world? Side-eyeing you, Divergent movie casting, amongst others.

These face card charts, that I put together, feature ambiguously Black/Biracial/Multiracial women and unambiguously Black women of shades ranging from practically white to fully dark.

BUT, if it is still hard for you to see color in faces, at least take cues from other color guides. If you type in "shades of brown" in your search engine, they will give you multiple lists. In case you get confused reading and imagining human skin.

I need everybody to know that I began this February 26, 2024, and today is now April 12, 2026. Slowly but surely SOME of these WIPS in the drafts will see the light of Tumblr.

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

Slashing Through Your Trauma Pt 3

Notes: I wound up transferring things from the one shot I did a few years ago into this chapter and will most likely work the rest of it into the story, too. Sorry for repeating, but here we are.

Hi, My Name is Kia

Kia had been in Crystal Lake since her attack and it was the only place that she had lived in for all of her adult life. She spent several years in a coma in a hospital in Crystal Lake, woke up, and lived with amnesia, as well as muscular atrophy and irreversible back injuries from her attack. 

She had scars across her back that reminded her of branches, which was a little funny to her, considering that the injuries had come from impact with a tree. She had one scar across her front, from a machete slash. Hearing about her injuries, with her amnesia, she did not know how one would survive such an attack… or why a high school teenager would be subjected to one. She didn’t know how or why she wound up in New Jersey at that time. Aside from what she knew from reports of what happened to her, and the pain of trying to recover her body while her mind was still not returned, there had been no explanations as to why a teenager who lived in Ohio suddenly was living in a hospital hours away, in another state.

Luckily for her, Crystal Lake had some state of the art resources, due to a long running series of unfortunate attacks… Jason attacks… They tried to have specialists on hand for such incidents, and while it had been many years since the previous one; Crystal Lake, much like Springwood, always wanted to remain prepared for a possible return. During her recovery and physical therapy, she lived in the hospital and was working with social workers on possibly getting some place to live whenever she was recovered enough to leave the building.

She got visits from her family. Fortunately, she remembered them, though she couldn’t remember anything surrounding the events that happened in 2003 yet. She was surprised to see Will show up with Lori. They had all been warned that she didn’t remember the events, so she didn’t know about him coming back, and there was not anything that her loved ones let her learn over the phone. She was even more surprised to see Charlie Linderman show up. “Now wait…“ she had said, with a chuckle, “How do we know each other?” The smile on her face was curious and a little bit taken aback. She knew of the kid. He was a nerd. They weren’t friends. He wanted to bone Lori and she found it annoying. That was all that she knew about him. 

Now, he was visiting the hospital, with her best friend and her family? And… he was different. He looked a little older. He appeared to be as nerdy as ever, but he also had more confidence than she recalled. Something about him was… attractive? He gave her a sad smile, squatted to be eye to eye with her, and her dark brown eyes met his, knowing that whatever was happening was something important, even if she was confused. She didn’t want to interrupt whatever this was. She was drawn to him the moment that he said, “You saved my life.”

Kia would’ve probably engaged more, but he reached out and touched her hand. She felt something shoot through her body - an electricity. It was like… waking up out of the coma, but she was already awake. She had flashes, images of him, bleeding out, dying, and then images of herself, face to face with… it was blank. She was face to face with someone… but when she turned around, Jason was there and she felt the impact of his blade in that moment and she screamed.

“Jesus, Linderman, what did you do?” Lori asked. The man fell backwards and scrambled to his feet, repeatedly apologizing in a quiet voice, as they tried to calm Kia down. 

She was frantically panicking about Jason. Jason was going to kill her friends. Oh no, Linderman. She was supposed to come back for him! Suddenly, she fucking remembered, and it had been because of Linderman, the last person that she had been with before her coma, touching her. That had been the only time she had seen him in person since she woke up, and she spent another couple of years trying to reconcile with her returned memories. It was just… a lot. 

But, social media had made big moves. It wasn’t like that when she was in high school. Now, there were many options and several functions. She received friend requests and follow requests from people from Springwood. Charlie Linderman had been one of them. She waited a long time to accept. She wasn’t sure how to feel about him or about speaking to him. Would it cause her to have another episode? Would it make her guilty, or sad?

She spent years recovering, and getting accustomed to living in Crystal Lake as a disabled young lady. It was actually nice. The place was actually beautiful and the people were polite enough. There were even support groups for survivors, though she unfortunately was way younger than the last remaining ones and the ones that were still around always watched her with bated breath, like she was a sign that he wasn’t gone, like they had dared to hope. She was a sign that he could still return. 

Kia didn’t get out much back then. The housing that disability afforded her made accommodations possible in her home, but the place was mostly covered in woods and the road in and out of town was a stretch of street that simply was not made for wheelchair travels. She mostly used social media as her window into the rest of the world. She found sites for other people who had become disabled, but more importantly, she found access to WAND.

To some of the others, she had been one of the ones who “brought him back.” But, she hoped to make her way to this more progressive seeming, therapist led group in town. It was specifically a slashers survivors group, when many of the ones online were of specific incidents or specific types of deaths (mass shootings, etc), and the one at the center in the woods, while closer to where she was stationed, usually made her feel ostracized. She couldn’t make it to a WAND meeting, as their schedule didn’t work for the bus route she would need to take to get there. Instead of attending, she made a video about her experience to send to them. It wound up being too big of a file to submit to their site, and she wasn’t sure how to edit back then. She simply posted it on her social media and tagged them to it.

The news about what happened to her and her friends had been more discreet than Kia had been, but whenever people saw it and began to share it, she had been the only one of them who had ever spoken about it publicly. “Hi, my name is Kia. There’s nothing exceptional about me really. I just got really lucky, I guess. Because in my senior year of high school, I survived a mass murderer. He changed my life forever, but he didn’t take my life away…” She never mentioned Crystal Lake, nor did she say the year it had taken place. She definitely didn’t mention Fred Krueger or Jason Voorhees, and she had been a minor at the time, so her name had not been in the national news.

But people from Springwood, Ohio recogized her from school, some were following her social media, and some simply couldn’t forget the kids who never came back around that time, but they definitely remembered the tales of the killing spree in their town, a few years before. People in Crystal Lake knew, because it had been years without incident, and then suddenly, there was a group of kids, bringing the stress of it back. There had been no reports of murder, but there had been a clean up team in the woods, and two people (herself and Linderman) had been carried from the woods to the hospital. It had been SO LONG, and now, there was another attack and a living reminder. 

Representatives began reaching out to her. Did she want to be a guest speaker? Did she want a book deal? It was… a lot. But, it was also a doorway to other opportunities that she did want. Before then, whenever she posted photos of herself or lyrics to songs she was working on, the likes she got were family, friends, and a few followers. After the video, she noticed that her follower count grew and her engagement increased. She began posting more and most of her posts went viral. She put the things that she wanted to be in her profile: Kia Waterson - Singer, songwriter, model, but the majority of her growing fan base wanted insight to the survivor. She had accidentally become the “Last Leading Lady of the Crystal Lake Killer,” and was intensely popular on social media for it. 

Instead of unpacking surviving the Crystal Lake Killer (or, according to the national news, the Crystal Lake Copycat Killer), Kia simply unpacked “Survivor’s Emotions.” Instead of specifically addressing “survivor’s guilt” or “survivor’s remorse,” Kia would makes posts about all the everyday human emotions that intruded from day to day. “What about Survivor’s Relief? Survivor’s Rage? And… Survivor’s Fatigue? I will be honest with y’all… I don’t ever feel guilty. I made it. I never feel remorse for what happened, because I didn’t do it. I feel relief that I lived. Even though he broke my fucking body and damaged my brain. I feel rage for the ones who were killed, on their behalf, because they can’t. We were fucking kids and he just got to chop us down and cut lives short. I saw friends die and I was in a coma and woke up unable to even lift my goddamn fingertips, y’all. But, more often than not, I just find myself exhausted. I get up everyday and I have to lug my body around with the upper body strength that I have. There’s no boost of it, and growing it takes a long time. Then, when I get it into the chair, clean, presentable, half of the places that I can even get to aren’t even set up for me to navigate. I wanna sing songs, but people want me to talk about how I almost died in the woods. I wanna live my life, but existing takes so much outta me!”

Her reputation blew up. Her social space became monetized. She connected with various brands. She learned how to be an “influencer,” and she was able to get herself an accessible home in town and find the appropriate people to create the economic ecosystem she needed to succeed online.

Her 10 year high school anniversary rolled around and she declined going. She hadn’t even graduated from Springwood, and whenever she worked towards her GED, she found that the survivors didn’t have to graduate. They would merely be given their diplomas. She didn’t want the handout, but knew it was at her parents’ house if she ever needed it. 

They didn’t want her to come back into town. They were worried it would be too overwhelming. Lori wanted her to at least visit, and thought the reunion could be a perfect time to do so. But, she wasn’t with it, and Lori respected that. “Let me know when they make a Real Housewives of Springwood and maybe I’ll come through,” Kia joked. But, she was serious. She had outgrown Springwood. She had outgrown the Kia that she used to be and know, when she was in Springwood. That kid who was cut down. The woman who rose from that was not interested in leaving the comfort of the home she made for herself on her brand. 

Linderman sent her a message. Despite not being one of her friends, she knew that their history was something that linked them forever. “Hey. Are you coming to the reunion?” He’d asked. 

“No.” There was truly no need for her to go into detail, not with him. 

“We’ll miss you… Sorry if I’m being pushy. I’ll leave you alone.”  

She stared at the message for a while before going to find the very old request and finally accepting it. It was the only one that she let sit there. Others that she didn’t want to accept, she deleted. But, it had been even longer since she saw Linderman than it had been between the last time she’d seen him when she had her meltdown. She felt like opening the doorway was in order. 

“Thank you for accepting that.” he messaged. She replied with one of those emoticon things, but she put the smiling blushing one instead of the smiling one. Oh well. A smile is a smile… 

She had no clue how much that affected him back then, but they had a chance to meet again in another decade and when she went back to Ohio for the first time, for their 20 year reunion, she ended up going home with him that night. 

It was surprisingly accessible, with a ramp outside, and bars everywhere that she needed. The rooms were positioned with enough space for her to get through, and honestly, this would accommodate her perfectly. “Linderman… Do you have somebody here with mobility issues?” She asked, smiling. He let out a chuckle and gave her a look. “I meant besides me, obviously!” 

He focused extremely hard on removing her shoes, even though they were just slip ins. She could tell that he was trying to figure out how to answer her as he put them aside. “Besides you, no…” He set her shoes and his own in a designated place near the door and now she was worried. “It was important to me that my home was accessible…” That sounded better and very appreciated, but what was it that he was holding back? He took a deep breath and opened a closet near the front door to remove a smaller, collapsible wheelchair that would be easier for him to push her around in, instead of her big luxury one. 

They made eye contact when he set it up. He saw her worry and blurted out, “Whenever I look for things, I keep it at the forefront of my mind that they have to be spaces that you can fit comfortably in… in case you ever wanted to share any spaces with me…” He took a deep breath. “My vehicle, my home, I wanted those things available for you, because I remember you saying that it was hard to build comfort when you couldn’t fit yourself into a space and I didn’t know if you ever would come where I have space, but if you ever wanted to, I wanted you to be able to build comfort in my spaces… You think I’m fucking crazy.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. 

Her heart beat faster than she could remember it ever beating. “You purposefully got a wheelchair accessible vehicle and home, so that if I just so happened to come around you, I would be comfortable?” He nodded, not letting go of his nose, bracing himself to be ripped to shreds for being a pathetic weirdo. “I thought maybe you rented that vehicle for the night or something, because I was coming.”

“I got one 10 years ago, I just recently traded it in for the newer one.” He folded his arms and faced her again. But, her face changed his posture. She looked like she might cry. Her hands were trembling. He softened, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I swear, I’m not sick. I’m just… pathetic.” He forced a laugh. 

“No. You’re sweet.” She wiped her tears and he rushed to her, falling to his knees in front of her. She wrapped her arms around him and he pulled up the dead weight of her legs and wrapped them around himself to lift her up. “You’re stronger than I would have thought,” she whispered, squeezing him tight.

“I work out,” he said. He didn’t add that he worked out because he knew that having someone with mobility issues could mean helping to lift them at times. He also didn’t mention that he wanted to try to be able to lift her weight as his target goal. She didn’t have to know all of that. She knew enough to want him to hold her, and that was more than he had thought she would allow. 

When she made it back home after the weekend, she missed him immediately. He had given notice at his workplace and started planning to relocate to Crystal Lake before she even had the chance to tell him that she missed him. It took him three months to get himself squared away (he had researched and saved for years, just in case he ever could gather the gall to move near her), and though she often made jokes and comments about him leaving her, she knew that he probably would never. 

She allowed him to openly fawn over her and obsessively care about her in ways that he had only fantasized about for years… And that made him unshakably happy. He had been preparing himself to be able to love her and take care of her, if she ever let him. He had been preparing for years. He had been wanting to be close to her since he woke up in the hospital 20 years before. He had so many nightmares about losing her up until that point and now, he was with the woman of his dreams.

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

Slashing Through Your Trauma Pt 2

Notes: I started writing this a while back as a "fix it" fic for Scream 2 and Freddy VS Jason, and a chunk of it was sitting in my drafts. So, I said, its Friday the 13th, I don't have anything to do, and I wanna do this today. So, here's a small update on my Hallie & Kia centered universe.

We Are Not Dead

It was a nice getaway location, to be honest. One thing her research had taught her over the years was that sometimes, the legends of towns were simply that, and it seemed that this was the case with the Crystal Lake Killer. Throwing herself into looking up past murders in the town and piecing together how they seemed to have been able to occur, she concluded that obviously, someone had been an active serial killer or a duo/team in the 80’s, and either went on in their older years or passed down their legacy, or inspired a copycat. “It happens,” Mickey said.

“I uninvite your voice in my mind,” she said, in response to hearing him. After a soft scoff and gentle laughter, the voice left. All that remained was a curious librarian, whom Hallie offered merely a forced smile, and quickly turned away.

She had listened to reports on the way to Cunningham County. It mostly sounded like notions. One thing about it that took away her ability to believe were the accounts of some of the murders and some of the alleged reports of self defense. Some of the killings seemed unbelievable for somebody to be able to do unless they were exceedingly strong, yet people insisted it was some type of person who lived in the woods, possibly in a cabin, maybe feeding off of the plants and creatures… Physically, Hallie doubted if such a person would sustain enough strength to pull off some of this. It was more likely that someone went on hunting trips in these woods and used this Jason Voorhies legend as a scapegoat.

Besides, Jason Voorhies had been declared dead. Yes, someone found his mother's remains after her vengeful murder spree, but there was nothing to indicate that he was alive and committing murders in her honor. And, had he been alive, they likely would have been committing the murders together, before her demise…

A mother and her son, committing murder made her think of Mickey again and Mrs. Loomis. That made her think about the information in his personal things. Messages to the woman about someone he was interested in. “She thinks she's too good for me. Maybe she can see what I am. She'll become a therapist, if I let her. But, I don't intend to let her. I don't plan on letting her walk away from me, thinking that I'm some guy who wanted her in college and never got her. I'm gonna be the last person who touches her, when I snuff out her light.”

He had photos and videos of her. He had others that he told about her on the forums. She was Sidney’s best friend. Being close to her could get him closer to Sidney. If he could manage to gain her trust, he might have a door opened to Sidney. Sidney didn't trust a lot of people, but somehow, she trusted this one…

“Do you need help?” The librarian asked.

Hallie gave her a look, that was both irritated and confused, then noticed her hands were gripping the table tightly. She relaxed.

“I'm just looking up some information about the Crystal Lake Killer. Disturbing imagery. I suppose it made me tense up.”

“Are you another reporter, or.. God forbid, another podcaster?”

Hallie laughed, “No, no. Nothing so colorful. I'm a therapist. I'm doing this in my free time, just for studying.”

The librarian looked excited, “A therapist! Well, lady. This place sure could use one. Not sure where they find the ones they send to the survivor group, but they never stay. Those poor people have to lean on each other more than they can a doctor.”

“Oh. I'm not…” Hallie began to reiterate that this was a hobby and not work, but the librarian gave her a pull ticket from the community board. She accepted it and watched the woman go to the counter to help someone. “W.A.N.D. Survival Union” and according to her phone, their meeting would be soon.

She was certain that she had done enough research for the time being, so she thought it couldn't hurt to pass by and perhaps peek in.

“We Are Not Dead!” Were the first words she saw, in bright blue letters on a yellow banner. The Fairy Godmother from the old Cinderella cartoon was on it, doing her magic thing with her wand… oh. W.A.N.D. We Are Not Dead. Got it… but Miss Bippity Boppity Boo? I guess…

The first face she saw was a white male, dark hair and eyes, a beard, pointy nose, and a sweater vest. “Hello. Are you here for WAND?” He asked. He was holding an iPad and a stylus.

“I'm just looking around,” she said, committing his face to memory, then breaking eye contact. “I'm studying the Crystal Lake Killer for…”

“A podcast?”

“No! Why is that the first thing that people here think?”

“I'm sorry. It's the most common reason that people come to Crystal Lake, well, after going down to the old campsite to explore. For college then?”

“For studies. I'm a therapist. I have a doctorate. If I had a podcast, it would be professional psychiatric information.” She was looking at him again and noted that he looked sad.

“Are you studying the killer, or those of us who got away?”

“I don't look into survivors uninvited.” She took a deep breath. “I survived a murderer too.” His eyes darted to her chest and she covered her scar. “And I study killers who seemingly repeat their acts or are copied by others.”

The man nodded gently. “Well. Of course, you're welcome to stay. Meeting's starting late today. I texted all of the usuals. Not everybody is a Jason survivor, so, don't feel isolated. If there's anyone who knows how it is… just… living with it all, it's this Slasher Survivor Support group.”

“Can I ask you why your group has the Fairy Godmother on the banner?”

He laughed and held his side. “Well, when it began, from what I know, there was a nice little lady conducting the meetings and one of the member’s kids made it as a gift.”

“The librarian said that therapists come and go through here. Was the Godmother one?”

“She was before my time, but she passed away, and I believe it's been a revolving door since.”

Hallie nodded and after watching sweater vest set up for a few minutes, realized that Camp Crystal Lake was close enough for her to see. Maybe there were still traces of a crime scene there. “Well, maybe I can catch the next one. I should go.”

He frowned, “Okay. Sure! Next one will be on time.” His smile returned. She left without giving her name or getting his. She drove away without looking back.

.

“Mmmm… Look at those buns!” Kia said, as she rolled up to the refreshment table that he was bending over, still setting up. She watched him blush under her stare and bit her lip. “They look scrumptious.”

“You are so bad!” He said, unable to stop smiling. He grabbed one of the honeybuns from the table. “I know they're your favorite,” he said, presenting it to her.

“You should know these are my favorite,”she chimed and reached behind him to grab a handful of his mostly nonexistent buttcheek.

“I appreciate the flattery,” he told her and kissed her on the nose. “That's my favorite.”

She smiled and his heart stopped just looking at her. So beautiful. One of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. One of the hottest girls from school. Kia Waterson.

Once upon a time, he had a crush on her best friend. It wasn't that he found Kia unattractive, not by a longshot. He found her unattainable. A girl like that would never look twice at him on his best day, and she made sure that he knew it back then. She was a mean girl. Shallow and superficial in looks and company. The fact that they were friends, he'd always wondered about, before he got to know her. Kia was insecure. She didn't feel beautiful enough. Again, not because she wasn't, but because there weren't a lot of affirmations for beauty like hers in Springwood, Ohio. So, she harped on her looks, scrutinized others, and kept her nose up high just in case anybody might see through her and find that girl, desperate for attention and adoration.

She even once considered having work done on her nose! Finding that out angered him. He was grateful every time he looked at her that it never came to be. A lot of things never came to be. But, one thing that did, and he was even more grateful about - she came to be his. The unattainable Kia Waterson had fallen in love with a nerd in a sweater vest, Charlie Linderman.

“Oh! You'll never believe what happened earlier…” he started. She had a mouth full of honeybun, so she wasn't in any position to guess. “Another Black woman came in here!” Kia's eyes widened and she started trying to swallow to ask more, but he kept talking. “She wasn't a podcaster. She was a therapist. And a survivor. She had a scar on her chest and she was…” he stopped. “Sad. She was really sad. And maybe scared. She sat for a bit, then sped off in an RV.”

Finally finished, she asked, “Was she pretty?”

“She was an older woman.”

“A pretty older woman?”

“Well. Yes.”

“Ugh!”

He laughed, “She wasn't prettier than you! Why is this even a topic?”

“I don't know. You might try to swap me out for a pretty, older lady whose body..” Kia's smile slowly faded. “I'm just teasing. I know you wouldn't do that.” She said the words like a question, needing some reassurance. That insecure girl inside..

Charlie got on his knee beside her chair and said, “If I had to stay in this position for the rest of my life just to see your face, I would. I would never let you go, Kia. Or give you up.” She leaned forward in her chair to kiss him, honeybun on both their lips now.

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

Slashing Through Your Trauma Pt 1

Hallie McDaniel, Ph.D. 

It was complicated enough going back to college, after everything that happened the first time. Then, the fact that she had not yet tapped into her own healing, and there she had been, back in one of the most triggering environments that existed in her world, finishing her degree to learn how to heal others. But, Hallie managed. 

For a time, she didn’t feel comfortable going by her own name, but once she did get around to the healing portion of her personal evolution, Hallie McDaniel was ready to be secure in being Hallie McDaniel again. Then one day, she became Hallie McDaniel, PsyD. And after some time, she became Hallie McDaniel, Ph.D. 

She traveled for lectures, wrote books, did scientific research, and every now and then, when she wasn’t obsessing over high-profile criminal cases, helped with lower-profile ones. “This is a horror movie in the making!” She heard Mickey’s voice say one night and she looked around the apartment and began her triple checks of all of the potential entries and hiding spaces if anyone was already inside. It was just her. 

Keep reading

[luna-azzurra]

FACIAL MICRO EXPRESSIONS FOR WRITERS <3

[unshackledmonologues]

A few years back, I had started writing a collection of short stories, but I never finished any of them, and a lot of them I didn't even start, only had the concepts. This was one that I had started and left in my docs for ages, and for some reason, recently was hit by something to finish it.

Trigger Warnings for chattel slavery, child death, murder, and such. Shit I don't love to read myself, but for whatever fuckin' reason, wound up being bit by a big to write about. I've been writing again a little bit lately, and I haven't returned to passion, but I did still wanna share this today, because I did complete something.

The Nurse

Something had been taking the children. That was what I heard them say. Children all across the state. They was all worried 'bout 'em. Said that legacies was being stolen. That alone wouldn't have frightened the family. They wasn't no easily frightened folks. In fact, they were known around town as the Fearless Fairbrooks. 

My eldest came running from the big house, "Mama, we gotta get goin,'" she told me. Now… she wasn't the type to try to flee to freedom, and she surely knew that I wouldn't risk it. "Master Jimmy's taking us up to his brother's to help with the baby that's comin'."

I frowned. 

It was pretty late to be getting on the road and I guessed that the baby was suspected to come early if we had to do so. But, with them saying something had been taking the children, I figured that mighta had something to do with why I was coming along… but my eldest, Prissy.. she was going because Master Jimmy took her everywhere. She got to live in the big house and go on all his trips. He'd given her a little bed next to his and there wasn't a room that he slept in that she wasn't allowed to go into.

That's why, I suspected, her young belly had begun to show a little bump. We didn't dare talk about it, but she never gave me the idea that she was harmed in the process. That was the most comfort I could get about it. Surely couldn't make him stop..

I gathered my things and she collected her sisters.

"Why is you waking them?" 

"We all gotta go, Mama. Master Jimmy said ain't no telling when we gon' make it back to this here house."

"He said to take the children with us?"

She smiled and said, playfully as she gathered her baby sister to her bosom, "I asked him real nicely since I knew I had to come. Reminded him that you the one that help bring all the babies at this here house to the world, that I could use some practice with babies, so that way Patience could come too, and then I just asked extra, extra nice if Penny could come, so she wouldn't be by herself while we was away." She looked very proud of herself.

"You don't ask the slavers for no favors, Prissy. Believe you-me, just because you his favorite don't mean that you mean nothing to him." 

She shrank as she collected Penny, "Yes, Mama." I know what things that man make her do. I knew what she meant by asking him nicely too. The things he'll say in his bedchamber don't matter in the world. I been here a long time, now. I seen his daddy, uncles, and brothers do things to people, things to girls that thought they was special when they got chose too. Not one of them was around when I delivered them babies. Master Jimmy ain't gonna be there when my Prissy gives birth to hers. That baby will be raised out back and put to work as soon as feet touch the floor. 

Prissy think they'll be able to stay in the house with her. Last time that happened, Mistress of the house got tired of the crying and put them both outside. 

Whenever her son came back home, first thing he saw was his favorite and her baby, frozen to death. Told his mother her antics were dramatic, and ordered a couple of the boys to "come get rid of this."

Prissy thinks Jimmy's mama will be different with her. Because Jimmy is the baby and his mama never once denied him nothing he loved. That's just it, though Prissy. The masters don't love us. We property. We they stuff to them. Jimmy think you his faithful pet, or maybe a fun toy. And that baby just gonna be a worker they didn't have to purchase. I don't say none of it to my Prissy. She look small enough from what I had already said. 

Only credit I'll give Jimmy is he helped her into the wagon. Penny had to climb and she and Prissy helped pull me up. Jimmy never really acknowledged me.

I helped raise him and he took my daughter and put her away in the house for himself to fool with whenever he wanted. I knew when he stopped being cordial what had happened. She'd been in the house a few weeks. She was being a chamber maid for the Mistress when she took ill. The Mistress got better, but they didn't send Prissy back. Next I saw her, it was getting into a wagon with Master Jimmy. She looked so excited, while he remained stoic. 

But I saw whenever he helped her into the wagon…that wasn't usually how they handled us. That was how a man handle a woman that he lays with. She wasn't much older than me when I first started to bleed and soon after, they "married" me to Big Sam. Big Sam had given the Fairbrooks a lot of slaves over the years. He was sent away with the eldest son, Johnny Fairbrooks,  when he married and took up residency on a different plantation. Penny was from a night Johnny was in town and drunker than I'd ever seen him. I'd been told to just keep him in his room after a very shameless display in front of guests who weren't family, and apparently that night he "noticed I was all woman under all of that…" Patience didn't come from me.

Her mama was a favorite of one of the Fairbrooks boys. Like I said, on her own, with me and the helpers when tryna bring her on into the world. I knew her mama wouldn't make it. It was clear. That was far more blood than should have been. Wasn't the first time. Won't be the last. But God forbid such a thing ever happened to a white woman. We traveled for days because God forbid something take that baby…

But something was taking the children.

The first time I saw Johnny Fairbrooks, after our arrival, he looked all but too prepared not to be present for the baby's birth. He was frazzled, his clothing disheveled, and the smell of liquor pouring from him as though he'd been drowned in it. He looked at the baby in my arms, then at Penny. She cowered behind me. She always had a reaction to him, like she knew something was wrong, even though she didn't know what. She wasn't as light as some of his others, but her facial structure was essentially his. I think that's what always gave him pause when he saw her and her seeing him remember something that she could not name gave her pause. "Didn't know he was bringing spare mouths to feed," he said grumpily, still staring at the corner of Penny's face that peeked from behind me.

"We won't be no trouble, Master Johnny. Master Jimmy let Prissy bring her along as a reward for good service." 

His eyes went to my face and he smirked. "Yeah. Jimmy usually gets pretty good service from Miss Prissy. Don't get too bold about parading that one around. She's getting to be where somebody's gonna get the urge for her services soon." 

Penny was only 7, but slavers were terrible, so I knew he was right. Fortunately, we were interrupted by Prissy's laughter. She and Jimmy entered and both straightened up. Though their faces went in opposite directions when they did. Hers faced the floor. The last time she'd accidentally looked Master Johnny in the eyes, he'd slapped her face so hard she fell to the ground. Jimmy collected her and angrily checked her face for damages as he chastised her about minding her place. His gaze softened when she began crying and he reminded his brother that she was typically solely with him. She sometimes forgot how to act around others. Johnny said, "Then you should be thanking me for reminding her. I'll bet she'll never forget again." And she certainly did not.

Jimmy and Johnny hugged, "Jesus, Man! You have to get sorted out. You're about to be a father!" Jimmy cried out. They both looked at Penny and Jimmy added, "For real this time. A time it matters." Not noticing how hurt Prissy seemed to hear these words, Jimmy turned to her and said, "Take Pepper to the lady and put the spares out back, then retire to my chambers and make it accommodating for my purposes." 

She bowed her head and looked at me, "This way, Mama."

The lady of the house was nervous when we got there. Prissy knocked and she was alarmed as she inquired as to who was there. "It's the service sent from the Fairbrooks home with Master Jimmy.." 

The door opened and the woman looked down the hallways. "Can you feel it? It's here. It's definitely here. Where is Johnny?"

With her head still lowered, Prissy answered, "Master Johnny is preparing with his brother." The woman grabbed Prissy's wrist and looked at Penny, "What is SHE doin’ here?"

Prissy opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off by Mrs. Fairbrooks addition, "Well, it might be good for her to be here. Maybe it'll take her instead.." 

Prissy's forehead wrinkled. She didn't know what I'd heard (that something was taking the children). Confused, but trying to be clear, she replied, "Master Jimmy told me to take the kids to the quarters outside.."

"No. Leave them here. In fact, gather more. Give me… at least 7 of them. And send my husband to me." Prissy nodded once and hurried away. The Missus frowned. "Jimmy's poured one into that one, I see. The way the men in this family frivolously and undeservingly spill their seed SICKENS me." She snarled this in Penny's direction and I wrapped my arm around her shaling shoulder. "And what's that one, then? Surely they're not still breeding you!"

"This is Patience," I said. I didn't need to add that she was Johnny's granddaughter. 

“Yes, yes”. Jonathan the Second. Johnny's son from his first marriage lived with his grandparents on the plantation. They say it was to give him the practice of working at the biggest property, but I think it was because he was a horrid boy who saw his stepmother as more of a conquest his father made than a parent.

She held out her hands, "Let me see her." She accepted the baby and stared at her. "Why, if it weren't for this hair, she could be Fairbrooks." She is, I didn't say. It was only factual, but Patience was as much a "Fairbrooks" as Penny was. "Not like that one. She looks like Johnny, alright, but everything's all wrong. She's too dark. Too nappy. Too you, to be a Fairbrooks.." She looked at Patience again. "If that wretched thing decides to take mine from me, we could take this one. She could bring hope back to those poor mothers in mourning." She glared towards me, "You've raised enough Fairbrooks for a lifetime." She glared at Penny again.

The women knew we didn't have choices in these things, but one thing that no Fairbrooks wife would ever dare do is blame her husband for anything. The doctor and coroner said that Johnny's first wife fell ill, but Big Sam said she fell over the edge of the stairwell, after Johnny tossed her over for ordering him around. I was excited to see Big Sam again, but I knew it'd likely be from afar, maybe once or twice in passing before we head back home. 

"And with that thing on the loose, there simply is no telling what could happen.." The Missus said, which threw me off. I don't know that I remember what she said before then, but it seemed to be, to me, that she wanted to talk to somebody… about whatever she was worried about.

So, as her midwife, I offered what comfort I could, "Missus, is there something that you wanna talk about that might maybe make you feel better?" 

Her face brightened. She opened her mouth right as Prissy returned with a group of children.

"Something's been stealing our kids," she said. All of the children, and Prissy, gasped. But, the woman continued, "It's been mostly babies, you see. Or, at least started out that way. You know Cousin Barnaby. His firstborn son was taken, right from the cradle. They went searching. They couldn't find him, nor the wet nurse; so they figured she took him. Whenever they did find her, she didn't have him. They brought her baby to the interrogation, said they'd rip it apart if she didn't tell them what she did with his son!" Her faced the window and her voice went soft, "They were sure she'd hidden him. Thought that she bonded with him during her nursing. At the end of it all, they found him. One of the house gals had taken him for a walk around the property to get him sleeping. He'd been fussy and she didn't want him to wake the lady of the house. A bunch of unfortunate circumstances, truly. She went to the quarters for his wet nurse, but she had already been taken to the barn for questioning. 

And why wasn't she in the quarters when they checked for her? Because she had heard her own baby cry and went to comfort him. She decided to feed him just a little milk, she said, which.. was supposed to be for Little Barnaby. Even if they hadn't already did what they did to her baby, they would have punished her some other way, really. Barnaby gave her the remains and told her to remember to do what she was supposed to do. The house gal was punished for not letting someone know, but she'd live. But the wet nurse? She was said to have died of a broken heart. She clutched her baby's remains to herself, cried herself to sleep, and never woke up."

The children were horrified to hear this story. Even Patience became fussy. 

The Missus looked right at me, as though none of them, even my baby girl in her arms, were even there. "The next night, it came for Little Barnaby. The house gal was watching him, when she said he started crying. And she wasn't going to have a repeat of what went on before, so she immediately told someone and while she was doing so, he abruptly became silent. They investigated, checking to see if he had gone to sleep suddenly, but he wasn't breathing. She and the overseer had been right there. He was crying one moment and the next, he was dead.

For many nights, this happened to others. Their babies would cry themselves to sleep then never wake up. It was people they knew. Well respected people. Law abiding citizens and friends. One thing they had in common, they'd all been there that night, searching for Baby Barnaby. They had all been there to witness or silently participate. The slaves began to say that there must be a curse on them, for what they did to the wet nurse. None of the grieving parents were buying that and they didn't appreciate the nerve of their slaves suggesting it. They were all grieving, you see. So. They made more choices. They took away all of the babies on their land… well… I couldn't tell you what they did with them. I wasn't there. But ever since then, that thing that was taking the babies has gotten worse. It's taking firstborn sons now. As though to let them all know how deliberate it's evil purposes are. The one who is meant to inherit the greatest portion. The beloved. They've been calling it The Passover, like in the Bible. When Pharoah denied the slaves freedom, and God smote their children. Some people think it's the slaves. Rising up." She frowned at the baby in her hands and quickly extended her towards Prissy. "Take this." She looked at the children, who she had now very deeply upset and jerked her head towards a counter. “Over there, with them. Hopefully, if it comes, it comes for them. If not, we know that truly, your kind has made some deal with the Devil, and I’d sooner take all of us away than live without my son.”

It was a threat. A vow. If whatever it was that was taking the children came for her baby boy, she would surely put all of them to death. In her mind, just one of hers was worth more than all of ours. In her mind, God would never inflict pain on somebody like her. In her mind, it was the Devil and it was because of us, and not the evils she had just confessed about, with our kind and their children.

Master Jimmy and his brother Johnny came into the room, some time later. The Missus made a big display of being so tortured in our presence, “But, I need them here, you see? To create protection against the demon that comes.” 

Jimmy raised an eyebrow at her, looked at Johnny, who seemed to begrudgingly agree to this, and the younger one threw his hands up into the air and also surrendered. “I don’t know if that’s wishful thinking or actual strategy, so you can keep them in here if that’s what you feel like you need to do.” He took Prissy by the wrist gently and for the first time since the Missus tales about the children, she looked a little bit relieved. “Did you finish preparing my room?” he asked, gently.

“I was told stay here, Master Jimmy. I’m awful sorry.”

“You did right. My beloved sister in law needs what she needs.” But, then he turned to his brother and said, “Prissy has some work to do. I can send her back afterwards.”

“Take that one too,” Johnny said, pointing a thumb at Penny.”

“No, no! She HAS to stay wherever the baby is!” The missus fussed. “Maybe it knows blood! She’s the oldest one. Maybe it will accept her as payment for what was done. Maybe that’s what’s truly deserved.” She glared at Penny. Penny started crying into my dress and I just rubbed her, but I knew there wasn’t much comfort to be had. They was talkin in a way that she’d definitely heard enough slavers talking to know what it meant. She was one of the ones that the men would “spill their seed” to make. We never had to tell it to her. They was tellin her right then with their nasty words. 

He flared his nostrils and looked right at me. “You’re here to work. Put them aside and tend to my wife.” I bowed gently, then pulled Penny free from my dress.

She wiped her face, scared of whatever was to come, but I had a distraction. I stooped to be face to face with her and let her now, “Now, Penny. We here for some rather important work Ma Pepper’s gotta do. You take Pay Pay and watch her for now. Be a big girl.” She cleared her tears and nodded to accept the niece being raised as her sister.

In the background, I heard Master Johnny grumbling and the Missus sayin how if it didn’t take the baby, they could maybe take that one. “Your son’s a terror, but at least he created one without a trace of it in her. I inspected her myself. Looks like a Fairbrooks.”

“It ain’t,” was all he said back. By that time, I’d made my way to her bedside. I hoped that baby would come that night and be fine and it’d be over and done with. 

Jimmy never sent Prissy back. Most likely decided that she belonged where she belonged to him. The children slept in a pile in the corner. The baby didn’t come that night. But, something did.

Johnny had passed out in a chair at the bedside, armed with a shotgun and a bottle of whiskey. The missus slept deep, snoring loudly in a way that you just know you couldn’t mention without facing a terrible punishment. The kids got some rest too, though they ain’t look like there was much comfort in it. Patience started stirring and I rushed to get her outta Penny’s little sleeping arms, before she woke up crying and set some awful things in motion. I was able to give her a bottle and a burping, got her changed and tried to put her back to sleep, but she did something that I hadn’t ever seen her do. She looked at something. I couldn’t tell what.

Just to be sure it wasn’t just the awful stories sparking some crazy thoughts, I looked towards where she was looking. Something had her attention, but I couldn’t see nothing there. She looked like she was ready to play, and as she started kicking around and cooing, I felt something tug at her, as though to take her right out my hands! “She ain’t yours!’ I whispered, and… it paused. Then, it let go. And. I think it musta started moving away, because Patience was watching something, still. She watched it all the way over to the Missus’s bed… and then she woke up SCREAMING. 

Patience started crying, too. I kicked at Penny’s feet and handed her the baby as she groggily awoke. 

As I rushed to the Missus to check on her, I noted that she was wet. By the light of the lantern, I could see it was dark. I’ve done it enough times to know the smell. There was blood. I sprang into action. Master Jimmy made it to the room before Master Johnny even stirred. “Pepper! What happened?” he asked. First time he addressed me in I don’t know how long.

“I think it’s here. The thing that’s been taking the children!” I said, terrified. It couldn’t take this Fairbrooks baby. The Missus had all but said if it did, the rest of us was dead for sho.

“Johnny!” Jimmy shouted, shaking his brother, “Get up! You drunk!” He slapped him and tried to get that bottle out his hand, but it was like he was stuck to it. Then, Jimmy voice changed. It got low. “Johnny?” he leaned close, checking his eyes, checking his breathing.. Master Johnny was dead. Shotgun and bottle clenched closed in his stiffened hands. “PRISSY!” Jimmy called and she rushed to him. “You okay? Is the baby okay?” He asked, leaning towards her belly and putting his ear to it. 

“I think so…” She said. “What’s wrong.”

“She’s here and she got to Johnny! She’s taking the baby right outta Emmylou’s body!” 

“I could use some help!” I called and Prissy rushed to help me, forgetting about Master Jimmy for a moment. We watched in horror as the Missus’ hole went from spreading, the way that they did when you would have a baby to just being ripped open. The scream she let out was ghastly. The baby slid out, not making a sound. I went to check on it. Wasn’t no help for the Missus, by then. She was breathing hard for a little bit, with Jimmy holding onto her hand, and then she seemed to see something that made her frantic, but she ain’t see it for too long. She died with that frantic look on hr whole face. 

“Is he okay?” Jimmy asked, as I did everything I could for that baby, but it was clearly not okay. I don’t think it even took one breath. I looked at him. We made eye contact for the first time since he took Prissy from me and he cried, shaking his head, “We have to leave,” He said. 

“What about Master Johnny and the Missus?” Prissy asked.

He grabbed her by the arm and said through his teeth, “They are dead, and so is their baby! We have to leave before she elects to come after us!” He pulled her arm and I gathered the children. “Mama, leave them!” Prissy fussed. They belong to the house!” She had never spoken like that to me. And the children were crying, at that. “Just Penny and Patience! The rest of ‘em safe!” 

I looked at the children and I realized that they all seemed not as afraid as before. They had started looking at something, and it was like with the baby. I tried again to see what it was, but I got distracted when Prissy let out a scream, like the Missus had and fell to the floor. “Prissy!” I called and rushed to her, holding Patience in my arms with a terrified Penny clinging to my dress. Jimmy’s eyes went wide and he looked at my daughter, fall to her knees, holding herself. He made one last eye contact with me, and he ran off. She was in pain and I dropped to her. “Please. Please… whatever is in her, won’t inherit what they have. If you do what they say you do… this is my daughter and the one inside of her is like us. Please…” 

And finally, I saw it. I saw her. She tilted her head at me. She had a wound on her face and she reached out to touch me, in the same place that wound was. I saw it all. A mob of men, accusing her. She was crying and shaking her head and apologizing. She was promising to go looking for Baby Barnaby herself, if they let her. He probably was with one of the other slaves, she’d said. She’d EVEN asked if they had spoken with the very house gal that had taken him for a walk. “Sometimes she helps!” She had said. 

But, Johnny, ever the brute, ever the drunk had finished with his whiskey and broke the bottle. He slashed her face open and I felt it, like he’d done it to my own face. “Do you think you can get away with taking my cousin’s baby?”

“I wouldn’t! I would never!” She cried. “Babies are the most important thing. I know that! Especially a firstborn son! Only something really bad could take that away!” she cried. “Please, Mister Johnny. I have a son of my own. I would never hurt Master Barnaby and especially not his son.”

“You have a son of your own?” Johnny asked, as though she had just said something appalling. “You think that YOUR son and a Fairbrooks is even?” She shook her head, “No.”

“You think that Barnaby loses his son and you keep your little thing?” He asked, raising his voice.

She shook her head, crying, pleading. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t sayin that. I didn’t do nothing. That’s alls I was saying, Mister Johnny. I’m sho the baby’s fine. Just ask the house gals…” 

He slapped her in the face, on top of the bottle gash and called to one of the others, “Gimme her baby.” At this point, she became frantic and tried to reach for him, but Johnny kicked her in the belly and she collapsed, crying and repeating, “Please.” 

Johnny. It was Johnny who did it. And, unlike in the story his wife told, I ain’t see no deal that he tried to make to exchange for her baby boy. No, not at all. He just held him up in front of her and took that same broken bottle…

“Please!” I heard myself saying as she let my face go. I was crying, with Patience and Penny cradled to me. Prissy was breathing hard and checking herself. She ain’t seem to be in no more pain, but she seemed to see her now too. 

“It’s a boy,” the nurse whispered, strumming her fingers across the belly. “They don’t see your boy as no equal to theirs. He saw you fall and he left. I can take that boy and take care of him. I take care of all of them. The Fairbrooks ain’t gon’ take care of yo baby, not even his own. The Fairbrooks men don’t need no babies. They don’t deserve no sons. They don’t deserve to keep they name.”

“We don’t have they name,” Penny said. “We only Fairbrooks by force.” (Later I asked Penny about what she saw and she told me she saw a nice lady. She ain’t see the gash faced, grief stricken woman. Just a nice lady. That must’ve been what the kids seen when they saw her). Prissy simply cried.

We heard the door. Jimmy had burst back into the house with his shotgun. “Did she take him?” He asked and rushed to Prissy.

“You left me,” she whispered. He shook his head. “She grabbed me. She was gon’ take him outta me like she did Mrs. Fairbrooks and you left me!”

He looked around the room. He obviously couldn’t see her. “I panicked, Prissy. You saw what she can do. What she did in that room. What I told you she’d been doing to this town ever since her baby died. When I saw she had you, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know IF I could do anything…”

The nurse stood up, glaring at him, then looked over at me and Prissy. “I can take him too. I was able to get to that Johnny. He was so drunk that he was easy to cross the veil for. Like babies, who ain’t been alive long enough not to glimpse in. He real scared out of his mind right now. He’ll be easy. I can bring him with me. Let God sort out where he go next…”

“They’ll kill us,” I said. “Without Master Jimmy here. With Master Johnny, dying in his sleep. Mistress Emmylou, looking like a animal pulled that stillborn outta her. They will kill me, my children, them children upstairs. I mean… just look at how they did you… What Master Johnny did to your baby, over losing just one of them. I don’t have no kinda love for Master Jimmy. I helped raise him and he took my baby and put a baby in her. But, if you take him, you will have killed us all,” I sobbed and dared to look up at her from Prissy. 

She looked complete. She was holding her baby and there was a group of little white boys, some holding babies around her. One was holding even the baby I had seen come outta the Missus that night. “You don’t deserve that,” she said, then gave him one last look and walked away, vanishing. 

“Pepper?” Master Jimmy said. 

I looked at him, “Yes, Sir?”

“Is… is she still here?”

“No sir, she’s letting us go, and letting you go, only on the fact that we deserve to live. I know y’all don’t think much of us. We just “stuff” to y’all. But to us, we people. These are my daughters. This is YOUR niece. Big Sam is my husband.” I cried. “We people. We always been people. You not supposed to do the things y’all do to us, to people! She needed Master Johnny to know. She needed all of them who just watched and who helped, and who celebrated, and who just didn’t care. Bout her. Bout her baby! She needed you to know. But, what would you even do with that, Master Jimmy? You wasn’t there. But, you know what they did to her and all you was worried about was what she was gon’ do to you.” 

He sighed, set his shotgun down and helped Prissy up. She recoiled. I seen it. But, he raised his hands as to not further upset her and cleared his throat. “I… will handle all the matters here, but we can’t stay here tonight. Go to Big Sam. Let him know that he’ll be coming home with us… with you. And, I will send someone to the sheriff, from the inn. We’ll go home after I’ve spoken to them. I don’t know what I’ll say…”

“It don’t matter. You a white man with money. You could say it happened natural and they ain’t gon’ do nothing about it if YOU say that’s what you saw,” I said. He nodded.

“Then, that’s what I saw.”

“Can the children go back to their mamas now?” Prissy asked. He nodded. She gave a little mouth noise to Penny and Penny rushed to go let the children know they could return to their quarters. 

I handed Patience to Prissy. “I’m gon’ walk the children to their quarters… and get your daddy.” She nodded her head, seemingly numb, though tears was still falling out her eyes. 

“Prissy…” I heard Jimmy whimper, pleading and the moment I turned to leave, I know she fell onto him crying. The thing was that them kinda people could only change so much. He wasn’t finna have us all put down and run the risk of The Nurse coming back for him. I don’t think that she would have. I was really just hopin. And he was a nicer man than his father and brothers, even his nephew, but he did change a little. 

I got to help my Prissy bring her firstborn son into the world shortly after, in the big house. We had our own quarters inside, for the family. I got to watch my children and grandchildren grow up. I helped bring more babies here and nurse their mothers. Whenever a baby didn’t make it, I would always take me a trip up to Johnny’s old house. The Nurse would always be there, to take the baby with her. Whatever they do to us on this side, I just knew that she was gon’ take care of them on that side. 

“She stopped takin ‘em,” Jimmy said, one day.

“I’m sorry, Sir?” I asked. 

“The Nurse. After… After Johnny, nobody else seemed to have lost another child. The reason that Johnny sent for us that night was because all the others, starting with Barnaby, and through the whole group had been visited by her. She saved him for last… and he knew that she would take him too. There were men there who didn’t have sons. She didn’t take their daughters, but she took them. He didn’t know if Emmylou was having a boy or not, but he was real sure of it. And he’d said that for him, he didn’t know if she would be satisfied with his firstborn. He said that he had been seeing her and that he knew she was coming for his family, but mostly for him, and he told me that if she did come for him, and he wasn’t enough for her to feel avenged, that she would come for the rest of us. For the whole family.” He took a deep breath, “But, she left Prissy be, and she let her keep Price… And it’s the anniversary of it all, and she hasn’t done anything else. She stopped takin’ em.”

“I think that they went with her,” I told him. This definitely surprised him and I laughed a little bit at the shock on his face. “That night… Patience saw something. She saw her. Patience was happy to see her. Patience would have went to her, had I not stopped her. I think that she was just a caring nurse who was expected to nurse a baby and then hand him over to very bad people. They took her baby and she took theirs, but never in the way that they took hers. She ain’t hurt ‘em, and I don’t think she did it just to hurt the families for what they did. I think that she really just felt that she would be better for them than the kinda people that would do something like that to people.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “I hope that’s true, Pepper. I don’t know if I can say that I believe it for Emmylou and her baby.”

“The baby never even breathed. I think she just collected him before that. And Missus Emmylou was… well. She and Master Johnny was a good match.” He chuckled. He knew what I meant. “Jimmy…” he looked at me, and didn’t correct me about a title. “When my mama was around, she called me a different name. The name y’all call me was something that they started calling me, sayin I was as black as pepper, whenever your daddy started purchasing it. I never cared for the name.”

“What… what name do you care for?” he asked.

“My mama called me Pristine.”

“You and Prissy have the same name?”

“By the time she was born, I had all but lost the name. So, I named her that, to try to hold on to it. We all called her Prissy to tell the difference. Even though y’all called me Pepper, everybody didn’t call me that.”

“Alright, Pristine.” 

Big Sam, Prissy and Price were coming back from gathering up some things in town. We were at Johnny’s house, a year after what happened. Jonathan had settled into the place, but did say that he felt as though there were ghosts in the place. He said it jokingly, but he looked quite nervous when he said it. Still. Like I said, I lived to see my descendants. I lived to see freedom, and far as I know, she didn’t take no more Fairbrooks babies outta their homes. 

When I got sick, I wanted to go to the old house. It had long since been burned down, but Prissy remembered where it had been. There was a park there. The Jonathan Fairbrooks Park. They usually just called it “Fairbrooks.” Prissy brought me to Fairbrooks. Penny, Patience, and Price with us. Big Sam had left us a while before. He had went into war and didn’t make it back. I heard Penny gasp, as I sat on a bench, watching some children play. I turned and saw the Nurse sitting next to me.

“Hey, Pristine,” she said.

“Hey, Girl,” I said, chuckling.

Penny and Prissy looked at each other while Patience stared at the Nurse. “I know you,” she said. “I can’t place where from, but…” She smiled, “You have a really nice face.” 

Price looked at the three of them, “Is this a joke, because I don’t find it funny,” he said. 

“He can’t see me. I won’t look the same to him,” she said, fighting back a glare. 

“What does that mean?” Patience wondered. I saw Penny put a hand on her leg and simply shake her head.

“This is a peaceful park. A good place to come full circle,” I said.

“It’s not full circle. I’ll come meet them, too, if they want,” she said. She held her hand out and touched my face, much like she did whenever she showed me what they had did to her, but this time, I didn’t see a gruesome past. I saw a brilliant future. 

Price was Prissy’s only child, but she touched the lives of other children, being an educator. They would always put, “Born into slavery” on her bios, but also, she was a lot of firsts and started the Fairbrooks Foundation, which was a passion project where she located every former slave who had endured the Fairbrooks, and their descendants, to “restart” the Family Tree that had not began by choice, but now was continued by it. It branched out to include other families and freed people. 

Penny married quickly after the war, and bore several children with her dark skinned husband, who she prayed all of her children would look like. She felt that none of them looked like her, therefore, none of them looked like her father and for that, she was grateful. And for that, she was able to love them openly and fully, never having to be free as a “Fairbrooks.” She was a Jenkins, and a housewife. She and her husband relocated after a run in with some of the people who did not like the results of the war and her line went on, still going on right now, up North. She didn’t do something glorious with a career like her sister, but she did something that made her happy all her life. She loved her family and was loved in return.

Patience spent time as a child and teenager in her father’s home. By that time, Jimmy had pretty much got really open about his family’s children in captivity, and turned to abolition, while Jonathan did not agree to, and took Patience, who technically was “his property,” back with him when Jimmy decided he would let us be free and stay on the property until all of them were free, after the war. You might have thought that Patience recognized The Nurse from when she was a baby, and while I think she probably would have, the reason she really recognized her was because she was protected by her all of the time she was enslaved in her father’s house, out of my reach and outta Prissy and Penny’s reach. She lived as good of a life she could in that situation, and whenever the slaves were freed, in her teenage years, she stayed only long enough to try to make her way back to us. By the time we went to the park, she was attending college at an HBCU. She wasn’t interested in getting married, even though it was very commonplace to do so. Nobody knew this much, but I saw it whenever the Nurse touched me… Patience did not really have much of it. She was the one who had burned down her father’s house. She had come across the story I told, earlier. I did my best to get it all recorded. I didn’t know a lot of folk who could read or write at the time, but I tell you what… I truly thought that maybe I would wind up dead, like the white Fairbrooks and that everybody would think we was cursed along with them. I wanted folk to know. I had it recorded every which way I could. Writings done by friends, mostly. I tried to describe it for some folk to make drawings. I collected newspapers surrounding the events. I kept it in a box with ribbons tied around it and Patience, looking for something good went into it and found quite the nightmare. Maybe she was so mad at how her father had never been touched by it. Maybe she simply needed to do something to the house itself. But she burned it down and her father moved back in with Jimmy, but she never went to see him again.

She did activism, and unfortunately, it would kill her, way before I would have wanted to, but the Nurse kept her promise. It was nowhere near Fairbrooks Park, but there she was, cradling her as she breathed her last. People still call upon Patience Fairbrooks’ name whenever they are tapping into certain acts of boldness. I would have loved for her to live longer than die a martyr, but she is a legend. She is an ancestor that they look to for strength. 

Price had inherited money from his father when he passed away and following in his mother’s footsteps, became interested in the family history. He had been really close with Patience, as they mostly grew up together and he had kept in touch with her the most whenever she was traveling, on her missions. He took it the hardest when she was killed and revisited her things afterwards.

And I saw him, as the Nurse touched my face. I saw him, too, reading my old story, and I knew that even though she would never reach out to a Fairbrooks man, he would know about the night that his Mamie Pristine had begged for him to be spared. That his mother had known that maybe things would not be great for him, but she wanted him to live and because of the women in his life, he had been allowed to. He had learned to read. He had become free before the age his mother was whenever she had given life to him. His family, at least the women, had an ancestor who came for vengeance, and did not collect it by his wounds. He had been loved. And in that moment, as he was looking through the records, she did appear to him, and he looked at her, as a nice lady. Her wrath was gone. He now had an ancestor who would eventually come to meet him too, if he wanted. 

And I leaned against her and shut my eyes for the last time.

[mokeonn]

I think at some point in time we need to sit down and start explaining to artist who want to make a career out of art that there are FAR more options than just "living off of commissions" and "posting my art online and praying I get paid for it".

[mokeonn]

There's also far more options than joining a specific, difficult to get into industry.

[mokeonn]

I don't know where this idea that the only way to make a living off of your art online is to simply do commission work, become a social media star, or join an industry comes from. I've fallen into this pitfall before as well, but I don't understand how it came to be.

I broke out of this mindset, though after I started helping a working artist. She had been an artist for over 40 years and started at a young age, and her main source of income? Doing local craft and garden shows. She had owned a gallery, done gallery work, done charity work, and now mainly works in using upcycled materials to create all sorts of products.

I used to think that my only options as an artist were to become popular enough that people would commission me or just give me money via patreon, but that's not the case. You can sell at craft fairs and conventions, you can provide a specific service, you can create assets and asset packs people can pay for, and you can create all sorts of physical or digital products to sell... and that's just the tip of the iceberg!

If you are constantly turning art into a numbers game to see how you can make enough money by posting the right™ stuff online at the right time, you're only going to make yourself miserable.

The best way to make a living off your art has NOTHING to do with popularity, getting lots of engagement online, or besting an algorithm, it's all networking. It's all about finding the right people who want what you make. If all you focus on is your follower count and post engagement, you're just going to end up hating art.

"Having fun doesn't pay the bills", who told you that? Why did you believe them?

[mokeonn]

I'm seeing people reblog the original post without the addition and I think yall should reblog this version instead

Also I made a mistake, the artist I work for has been working for over 50 years, not 40.

[cripplecharacters]

what are the top 5 things you'd like to see a disabled character do in a story?

Hey! This is a very vast question and a lot of it would depend on the character's actual disability - I have completely different wishlists for what I'd like to see intellectually disabled characters do versus what I'd like to see characters with facial differences do. Different stereotypes and tropes affect different groups of disabled people differently - to work with this fact, the below list will try to account for as large amount of disabled character as I can reasonably think of, but it won't have as much detail as you might want. If you have a specific kind of character in mind, feel free to send another ask.

Not in specific order:

Disabled characters being in love. Disabled x disabled, disabled x abled, disabled x very different kind of disabled, all these variants but including more than 2 characters (since I've yet to see a polyamorous disabled character), all of this.

And I mean in actual relationships, not the pitiful and devoid of actual chemistry thing that we usually get (think "really sad disabled man only becomes happy after an abled woman takes pity on him, but they never kiss or god forbid have sex because that's gross and the disableds surely don't do that anyway").

I want to see an interabled couple going through IVF because they want to have kids, a wife with hemiplegia getting to grow old and wrinkly with her autistic husband, a lesbian with Treacher Collins syndrome moving in with her chronically ill girlfriend after a month of knowing each other, DeafBlind men getting hands on each other in the bathroom of a shitty nightclub, a trans woman with autism asking out a trans man with Down syndrome via her AAC tablet, a neurotypical guy with an obvious crush on his classmate with cerebral palsy.

I want to actually see disabled people being shown as desirable partners, good parents and grandparents, potential crushes, going through some new feelings and going on both good and bad dates, from all walks of life, of all sexualities and genders. Just like abled people.

Disabled characters participating in their community. Especially severely and/or visibly disabled characters. This is obviously a concept as vague as it could possibly be, but a big problem with a lot of disabled characters is that they don't... do anything. Not in the sense that they aren't "active enough", but that they aren't really... characters. They're often reduced to a family member who's at home and maybe the abled character takes care of them sometimes, but that's seemingly all that happens; they have no interests, hobbies, agency, preferences, or an internal thought process. All they do is wait for an abled savior to do something to them, not even with them.

I want to see more disabled characters who have jobs (whether it's a "regular" job, a supported employment workplace, a creative job that maybe they can only do a few hours a week, or self-care as a full-time job kind of thing), participating in hobbies that are accessible and/or modified to their ability level, emailing or sending pigeon letters to their friends, trying out new stuff that they're interested in, having actual complex relationships with their caregivers. Anything to actually make them feel like characters that exist in their setting, not just cardboard cutouts that the author had no ideas for.

Disabled characters who are a part of real-world disability (and adjacent) culture. Obviously also a vast topic. Most disabled characters, regardless of setting, are completely separated from concepts that were made by disabled people for disabled people; usually the connection to disability is their actual medical condition and a sterile mobility aid. This is not incorrect or bad to represent since that describes a lot of people, but I'd like to simply see more variety.

I want to see disabled characters who do parasports, who are excited about tactile art, went to blind/Deaf/SPED schools, call themselves #a babe with a mobility aid, decorate their AAC device, learn about disabled history, experience Feelings when hearing that Neanderthals cared about their disabled children, go to disability-centric events or support groups to meet people similar to them.

Do all disabled people do these? Absolutely not, but I'd like for even 1% of fictional characters to represent those who do.

Yeah I just want more disabled characters doing sports. As in real-life sports that real-life disabled people do, apologies to all the fantasy swordfighting that's out there.

There are so many sports out there we can do, some are adapted, some have a sitting or wheelchair version, while others were made specifically for us. Team sports are such a good opportunity to have your character have a community of people like them, have interesting dynamics, yet the only anything I can think of that's about it is REAL by Takehiko Inoue (wheelchair basketball) and the art by @/gayaest / @/sproutwiki (sitting volleyball). Also some Paralympics documentaries that I can count on a single hand - there's like three of them.

I want to see characters who are starting out and really suck at their sport, ones who are decent, ones with ridiculous sports-anime-level over the top abilities. I want to see all kinds of sports done by all kinds of disabled characters; blind kids learning goalball with their blind parents, quadriplegic guys working their ass off to qualify for national murderball championships, folks using sticker-covered bright-pink ramps in their boccia games, people with POTS playing along with their abled partner on their wheelchair rugby league team, standing fencers becoming disabled and adapting to wheelchair fencing that they love just as much. More disabled people having fun, knowing other disabled people, having interests!

Also, parasports are just cool as fuck and interesting to both watch and read about.

Disabled characters getting to make bad decisions. Disability representation is often extremely black-and-white in terms of morality: the character is either an angel who always does the right thing and talks about being grateful a lot, or the character is comically evil, wanting revenge because of their disability, hating their disability, constantly in grief and anger since not a single mildly ok thing happened to them since they became disabled. Neither of these feel like real people.

Disabled characters should be able to say hurtful things, get mad, lie, and whatever else, without being demonized to hell for it the same way abled characters are. They should be allowed to consciously make a decision that they shouldn't take (also known as "dignity of risk" in context of disability). They should get the same consequences for mistakes as everyone else and need to have the opportunities to actually make them.

In a much shorter way: more complex disabled characters.

These are things that I'd enjoy seeing for disabled characters. But the main thing would probably be that I want more of them. The scope of disabled characters in media is so painfully narrow because there's so few of them + they're usually capped at one per series. More writing featuring multiple disabled people please.

Here is a list of wishes from other mods who wanted me to throw them here:

Disabled characters who act like the author did more than a 10 min google search about their disabilities. [So authors doing actual research.]

More disabled characters of color. A lot of time disabled characters are white because it's only acceptable for them to be one kind of marginalized. In real life that's not how it works. People of color are disabled too!

Characters with comorbidities, characters with physical and mental health and developmental symptoms. Disability doesn't just come with one cut and dry disorder all the time - you can even be diagnosed with some things and undiagnosed with others.

[A character can have 5 comorbidities, or 5 completely unrelated disabilities - both happen. Or, most frequently, a bit of both.]

Characters existing in all parts of their diagnostic journey. [So characters who are yet to be diagnosed, currently investigating their symptoms, ones recently diagnosed, and ones who had their diagnosis for their whole lives - and as mentioned previously, you can be on one stage with disability A, and on another with disability B.]

Characters whose whole life isn't just tragedy/struggle! See this a lot when a story with disabled character is just about how life is hard for them as disabled person. Would love disabled characters being leads in other genres and just existing as people. Not to say disability isn't a struggle, but there is more to life and person than disability.

mod Sasza

[blackwoolncrown]

Reading list for Afro-Herbalism:

A Healing Grove: African Tree Remedies and Rituals for the Body and Spirit by Stephanie Rose Bird

Affrilachia: Poems by Frank X Walker

African American Medicine in Washington, D.C.: Healing the Capital During the Civil War Era by Heather Butts

African American Midwifery in the South: Dialogues of Birth, Race, and Memory by Gertrude Jacinta Fraser

African American Slave Medicine: Herbal and Non-Herbal Treatments by Herbert Covey

African Ethnobotany in the Americas edited by Robert Voeks and John Rashford

Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect by Lorenzo Dow Turner

Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples by Jack Forbes

African Medicine: A Complete Guide to Yoruba Healing Science and African Herbal Remedies by Dr. Tariq M. Sawandi, PhD

Afro-Vegan: Farm-Fresh, African, Caribbean, and Southern Flavors Remixed by Bryant Terry

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston

Big Mama’s Back in the Kitchen by Charlene Johnson

Big Mama’s Old Black Pot by Ethel Dixon

Black Belief: Folk Beliefs of Blacks in America and West Africa by Henry H. Mitchell

Black Diamonds, Vol. 1 No. 1 and Vol. 1 Nos. 2–3 edited by Edward J. Cabbell

Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors by Carolyn Finney

Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C. by Ashanté M. Reese

Black Indian Slave Narratives edited by Patrick Minges

Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition by Yvonne P. Chireau

Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry edited by Camille T. Dungy

Blacks in Appalachia edited by William Turner and Edward J. Cabbell

Caribbean Vegan: Meat-Free, Egg-Free, Dairy-Free Authentic Island Cuisine for Every Occasion by Taymer Mason

Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America by Sylviane Diouf

Faith, Health, and Healing in African American Life by Emilie Townes and Stephanie Y. Mitchem

Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land by Leah Penniman

Folk Wisdom and Mother Wit: John Lee – An African American Herbal Healer by John Lee and Arvilla Payne-Jackson

Four Seasons of Mojo: An Herbal Guide to Natural Living by Stephanie Rose Bird

Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement by Monica White

Fruits of the Harvest: Recipes to Celebrate Kwanzaa and Other Holidays by Eric Copage

George Washington Carver by Tonya Bolden

George Washington Carver: In His Own Words edited by Gary Kremer

God, Dr. Buzzard, and the Bolito Man: A Saltwater Geechee Talks About Life on Sapelo Island, Georgia by Cornelia Bailey

Gone Home: Race and Roots through Appalachia by Karida Brown

Ethno-Botany of the Black Americans by William Ed Grime

Gullah Cuisine: By Land and by Sea by Charlotte Jenkins and William Baldwin

Gullah Culture in America by Emory Shaw Campbell and Wilbur Cross

Gullah/Geechee: Africa’s Seeds in the Winds of the Diaspora-St. Helena’s Serenity by Queen Quet Marquetta Goodwine

High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America by Jessica Harris and Maya Angelou

Homecoming: The Story of African-American Farmers by Charlene Gilbert

Hoodoo Medicine: Gullah Herbal Remedies by Faith Mitchell

Jambalaya: The Natural Woman’s Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals by Luisah Teish

Just Medicine: A Cure for Racial Inequality in American Health Care by Dayna Bowen Matthew

Leaves of Green: A Handbook of Herbal Remedies by Maude E. Scott

Like a Weaving: References and Resources on Black Appalachians by Edward J. Cabbell

Listen to Me Good: The Story of an Alabama Midwife by Margaret Charles Smith and Linda Janet Holmes

Making Gullah: A History of Sapelo Islanders, Race, and the American Imagination by Melissa Cooper

Mandy’s Favorite Louisiana Recipes by Natalie V. Scott

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet Washington

Mojo Workin’: The Old African American Hoodoo System by Katrina Hazzard-Donald

Motherwit: An Alabama Midwife’s Story by Onnie Lee Logan as told to Katherine Clark

My Bag Was Always Packed: The Life and Times of a Virginia Midwife by Claudine Curry Smith and Mildred Hopkins Baker Roberson

My Face Is Black Is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations by Mary Frances Berry

My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem

On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker by A'Lelia Bundles

Papa Jim’s Herbal Magic Workbook by Papa Jim

Places for the Spirit: Traditional African American Gardens by Vaughn Sills (Photographer), Hilton Als (Foreword), Lowry Pei (Introduction)

Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome by Dr. Joy DeGruy

Rooted in the Earth: Reclaiming the African American Environmental Heritage by Diane Glave

Rufus Estes’ Good Things to Eat: The First Cookbook by an African-American Chef by Rufus Estes

Secret Doctors: Ethnomedicine of African Americans by Wonda Fontenot

Sex, Sickness, and Slavery: Illness in the Antebellum South by Marli Weiner with Mayzie Hough

Slavery’s Exiles: The Story of the American Maroons by Sylviane Diouf

Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time by Adrian Miller

Spirituality and the Black Helping Tradition in Social Work by Elmer P. Martin Jr. and Joanne Mitchell Martin

Sticks, Stones, Roots & Bones: Hoodoo, Mojo & Conjuring with Herbs by Stephanie Rose Bird

The African-American Heritage Cookbook: Traditional Recipes and Fond Remembrances from Alabama’s Renowned Tuskegee Institute by Carolyn Quick Tillery

The Black Family Reunion Cookbook (Recipes and Food Memories from the National Council of Negro Women) edited by Libby Clark

The Conjure Woman and Other Conjure Tales by Charles Chesnutt

The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature by J. Drew Lanham

The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks by Toni Tipton-Martin

The President’s Kitchen Cabinet: The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, from the Washingtons to the Obamas by Adrian Miller

The Taste of Country Cooking: The 30th Anniversary Edition of a Great Classic Southern Cookbook by Edna Lewis

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: An Insiders’ Account of the Shocking Medical Experiment Conducted by Government Doctors Against African American Men by Fred D. Gray

Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape by Lauret E. Savoy

Vegan Soul Kitchen: Fresh, Healthy, and Creative African-American Cuisine by Bryant Terry

Vibration Cooking: Or, The Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl by Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor

Voodoo and Hoodoo: The Craft as Revealed by Traditional Practitioners by Jim Haskins

When Roots Die: Endangered Traditions on the Sea Islands by Patricia Jones-Jackson

Working Conjure: A Guide to Hoodoo Folk Magic by Hoodoo Sen Moise

Working the Roots: Over 400 Years of Traditional African American Healing by Michelle Lee

Wurkn Dem Rootz: Ancestral Hoodoo by Medicine Man

Zora Neale Hurston: Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings: Mules and Men, Tell My Horse, Dust Tracks on a Road, Selected Articles by Zora Neale Hurston

The Ways of Herbalism in the African World with Olatokunboh Obasi MSc, RH (webinar via The American Herbalists Guild)

[bizarrelittlemew]

Are you frustrated you can't leave second kudos on AO3? or third kudos? or whatever-who's-counting kudos?

Well, have I got the html for you!

Plop any of these in a comment (by copy&pasting the code) to make an author's day and show your appreciation!

Second kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/tHMjbb6/second-kudos.png" alt="second kudos">

Third kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/52bggQH/third-kudos.png" alt="third kudos">

nth kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/6y7qGtC/nth-kudos.png" alt="nth kudos">

yet another kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/wKtcj0s/yet-another-kudos.png" alt="yet another kudos">

It will look something like this (and will be transparent with white outline on dark backgrounds):

Feel free to spread and use these as much as you like! (and if you have ideas for other variations, let me know ✌️)

[bizarrelittlemew]

So happy to see people enjoying these and spreading the love 💖

UPDATE with some suggestions from the replies!

From requests: cookie kudos — you've already left kudos here — should be sleeping kudos

HTML codes under the cut.

ALL the kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/KsndWzq/all-the-kudos.png" alt="all the kudos">

Chapter kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/9ZSmqrp/Chapter-kudos.png" alt="Chapter kudos">

Elevenses kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/6P4JTsP/elevenses-kudos.png" alt="elevenses kudos">

Heaps of kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/GvRw2HS/heaps-of-kudos.png" alt="heaps of kudos">

Kisses your forehead kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/6nph6nM/kisses-your-forehead.png" alt="kisses your forehead kudos">

Reading in public kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/f1HDR2K/reading-in-public.png" alt="reading in public kudos">

Re-read kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/jWYQ8bt/re-read-kudos.png" alt="re-read kudos">

Should be working kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/26WJHKg/should-be-working.png" alt="should be working kudos">

Read the whole fic in one go kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/jMHrgSk/the-whole-fic.png" alt="read the whole fic in one go kudos">

Ungodly hour kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/84300T6/ungodly-hour.png" alt="ungodly hour kudos">

What about elevenses kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/WW3cQJ2/what-about-elevenses.png" alt="what about elevenses kudos">