#<- wasn't sure which one to use since both are correct/common :D

[rotten-rotten-girl]

Little comic I made for this event!!

The theme is classic love letters :D

[lenkusov]

fuck it, i wrote an Initial D oneshot fic

Minor spoilers for Third Stage warning, also some spoilers for Extra Stage I guess but that was kinda just fanservice anyway. I did use my (objectively correct) headcanon interpretation of Impact Blue and the Night Kids where Mako and Sayuki are a bi-lesbian situationship, while Takeshi and Shingo are absolutely bangin but also deep in the closet. Multiple POVs, no sex, lots of mutual pining and ish though.

The crowd in the trailhead pulloff thrummed with a dozen quiet conversations, occasionally punctuated by a line of RedSuns or a pair of outsiders screaming through the wide turn beyond the guardrail as they made use of the open practice time before the race. The auras of the cars seemed, to Mako at least, a lot more restrained than was usual - most trying to leave space in the oncoming lane for the spectators headed up the mountain.

Sure, they might be practicing, but she knew that as soon as 10pm drew near, the mountain would go still and silent as all the junior racers tried to find any parking spot left with a halfway-decent view. The galleries were packed tonight, fans sitting on every meter of retaining wall and hanging off every section of guardrail, some sitting on the roofs of their cars or even climbing onto the trail's bulletin board shelters to see over the crowds in the pulloffs. Many had given up on even FIDNING parking, hiking up the trails or riding one of the packed buses that grew farther apart as the hours grew later. She and Sayuki had seen Akagi Pass crowded before, but the upcoming battle of legends had drawn numbers that rivaled even professional rally events.

She was just glad that they showed up early, claiming a spot at the wide turn preceding the final hairpin section, the view from here was good and the lot wasn't as crowded as the pulloffs at any of the hairpins, or the lot at the top of the mountain filled with the usual groupies trying to grab the attention of the Rotary Brothers. Naturally, they weren't the ONLY team to have picked this spot either - at the other end of the pulloff, the familiar black outline of the R32 Skyline and the pair leaned against it was hard to miss, despite the way they reflexively stepped away from each other whenever someone looked their direction.

Impact Blue and the Night Kids had hung out a lot over the fall and winter, finding a lot of common ground that DIDN'T involve getting beaten by Akina's eight-six and going on a lot of "double dates" to ski lodges, hot springs, family restaurants, and other things of the sort. Shingo and Takeshi always seemed to be more interested in each other than either of the girls, which was fine by them, except for the awkwardness when Shingo and Sayuki worked behind her back to set her up with some glasses-wearing twink in an MR2 so his parents would stop asking so many tough questions.

Yeah, he was nice and all, but they never did more than hold each other's hands, and he even had the audacity to want her to quit street racing when her biggest dream in life had been to go pro! She'd scared the hell out of him with that run down Usui, even without Sayuki's navigation skills, and she hadn't seen or heard from him since. As much as she was still somewhat hurt about Iketani ghosting her last summer, she figured he would at least understand her dreams instead of trying to tie her down in the name of 'safety'. Miyahara had probably just snap-oversteered in the rain and gotten cold feet or something.

Mako sighed to herself, and leaned back against the Sileighty's fender. Sexuality and street racing were both equally complicated, she figured, but at least racing ONLY came with stigma from people she didn't care about anyway, and she could talk about the intricacies of it with someone besides Sayuki and the Night Kids. During the last winter, after they'd all gotten more comfortable with the other teams' presence and with the help of a couple rounds of hot amazake to shake off the chills, Shingo started getting a bit more handsy with Takeshi than was socially appropriate, which prompted Sayuki to do the same to her, and it turned into a game of gay chicken in the booth at the back of the ski lodge's restaurant.

After Takeshi finally managed to shake a little bit of sense into Shingo, they all adjourned to the upstairs porch of the lodge where there were fewer bystanders to send them dirty looks, talking until well after the sun set about each other's sexual preferences. Turns out, Nakazato and Shouji only maintained their rivalries to keep the more novice drivers from spreading too many rumors about them, neither of them really had more than a platonic attraction to girls but they both kept trying to find someone to be their 'beard' to deflect the heat. Mako and Sayuki's situation was different, they were both bisexual, leaning pretty hard towards some very specific men but they always ended up coming back to each other. After they'd met in high school, they moved in together, and while neither of them would ever say they were anything beyond 'friends' or 'teammates' it wasn't particularly well-hidden that their relationship went deeper.

Eventually, the discussion shifted towards the sexualities of OTHER street racers who they'd never seen with girlfriends, and how all the best drivers seemed like they were probably not straight. Those Emperor dudes all looked like something out of a barazoku magazine, they all drove matching cars, and despite positively reeking of testosterone, none of em ever seemed to have an interest in women unless it was to beat them at street racing - the group all agreed that those Lan-Evos were definitely just trying to draw attention away from the abnormal amount of 'bro hugs' they gave each other.

Takeshi brought up Purple Shadow, a team in a neighboring province who he'd heard rumors of for years. "God Arm" and "God Foot" had been out and public longer than anybody in their group had been alive, and from the amount of gory details on their relationship Mako heard the Night Kids ramble off, she was pretty sure those two's nicknames came from how absolutely shameless they were with their kinks. Their openness kept both of them from going pro, but they still maintained contacts with a lot of professional teams - the teams wanted their skills, but their sponsors wouldn't touch an openly-gay driver with a ten foot pole. Shingo explained that was why they always had to act like rivals in public, any gay rumors would keep both of them from ever getting a spot on a pro team once they graduated college.

It was then that Sayuki brought up the two they were going to be watching race today. Apparently, on their double-date with Iketani and Fujiwara, no matter how much Sayuki tried to get a response out of him - even going down the waterslide with his head in her cleavage - the most he ever gave her was a cute amount of blush and a look of public embarassment. Word on the street was that Takumi had blown his engine trying to beat one of those Emperor jerks on Akagi, nobody really knew why he was racing against the same team AGAIN or why he went to Akagi to do it, but the fact Ryousuke's challege to Fujiwara had been 15 red roses ("forgive me for challenging you") and he'd dressed for the race like he was going on a first date carried a few Implications™ with it. It didn't help either of them's cases that the kid always seemed to get flustered around the elder Takahashi, blushing harder than anything Sayuki had ever managed to achieve with him last summer. Mako hadn't exactly been paying attention to the others that day, but from what she remembered, she had to agree - that kid definitely had a crush on Ryousuke, almost as bad as her own, but it seemed like HIS crush was actually being reciprocated. On the porch that day, they had to agree - if their crushes ended up with each other instead of with them, that'd probably be even hotter than the alternative. And more likely to happen.

Sayuki's fingers snapped in front of her face, jerking her out of thoughts.

"Earth to Mako, get your head outta the clouds before the race starts! It's 9:55, and that guy with the radio said the Eight-Six just started up the hill!"

Before she could say anything back, the squeal of tires and the roar of an unfamiliar engine made the crowd fall silent. It didn't sound like the Eight-Six she remembered racing, not even close - it was smooth yet angry, revving as high as a motorcycle but at a deep, thrumming pitch that belied its larger displacement. Whatever engine that kid had in there, it definitely wasn't road legal, that's for sure.

Headlights appeared at the hairpin opposite their pulloff, and the familiar frog face of the Panda Trueno whipped around, going much faster uphill than a naturally-aspirated eight-six had any right to. It screamed through the wide turn, people scrambling to clear off the guardrail as the rear bumper missed their kneecaps by a few inches. The scream of the engine morphed into a roar as it accelerated off into the night, leaving everyone stunned - none of the races with the new engine had been widely publicized, only the last race against the SW20 had been planned far enough in advance for anyone to videotape it, and even the copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy bootlegs full of smearing and static were hard to get ahold of, so few had even SEEN the new engine in action. Everyone had still HEARD about it, though - heard of the eight-six FLYING down Iroha like it had wings, trading passes with the SW20 multiple times and winning by a nose at the last possible second. The footage that Takeshi had showed her at his and Shingo's dorm room was even more unbelievable than the rumors.

Even as the wailing and screeching of Akina's Ghost faded up the mountain, the crowd remained near-silent except for a few hushed whispers. Mako took advantage of the crowd's distraction to pull Sayuki down into a passionate, but brief, kiss behind the Sileighty's fender, watching the Night Kids' arms wrap around each other's shoulders from the corner of her eye.

________

From the overlook above, Ryousuke watched those familiar headlights flicker and dance through the trees, tinged lightly green by the spring foliage. He'd waited months for this night to come, counted off the days, coasted on the vivid memories of that passion-fueled night on Akina. He could still smell the burning rubber from their tires, the acrid oil-smoke of his FC blending with the sweet-and-sour exhaust of the eight-six, backed by the green humidity of a late summer's night. The smell of adrenaline sweat and overloaded deodorant wafted off Fujiwara as they stood, barely 3 feet apart on the road shoulder after the race, the kid looking up with those big doe eyes at him and a bright red flush in his cheeks as Ryousuke praised his driving skills, trying to convey to the cutely-oblivious teenager that the racing world's bigger than Akina and his skills are worthy of recognition.

Very few people could get to Ryousuke's heart the way Fujiwara Takumi did. Fujiwara was the only one alive right now, anyway. The thought of Kaori turned his emotions sour for a brief moment, but he pushed the dark thoughts away as quickly as they'd appeared. That Dream was long gone, he'd gotten over it, and it had made him a stronger person and a faster street racer. The fact that Fujiwara showed up out of nowhere one day and inertia drifted into his life, as oblivious to his skill as he was to the effect he had on Ryousuke, made the void in his heart ache in a way he hadn't felt in years. This time, he kept promising to himself, he would put his feelings and greed behind him. This time, his Dream would not become a nightmare.

The headlights disappeared out of view as they approached the final climb to the peak, and Ryousuke composed himself as he strolled back to the parking lot. The RedSuns were keeping the crowds at bay along with the handful of faces he'd recognized from Akina - they'd showed up well in advance, as usual, while Takumi seemed to love making him shiver in anticipation as he showed up at the last minute with dramatic timing. He approached his FC, starting it and checking the gauges, ensuring the temperamental 13B-T rotary was properly warmed up in advance of the race, stepping out as the eight-six pulled up beside him.

Takumi stepped out, dressed as understated as always in his t-shirt and jeans while shrugging out of his blue windbreaker, and stood there staring into his eyes. Ryousuke stared back, his cable-knit turtleneck keeping the chill off for now, but knowing he'd soon be sweating right through it once the race kicked off. The tension in the air was palpable as they exchanged eye contact, waiting for each other to make the first move.

Takumi scratched the back of his neck, the first hint of a blush forming under the streetlights as he broke the silence.

"Uhh, I guess this is it."

Ryousuke let out a brief chuckle. "It sure is, Fujiwara. How do you want to run this race? I seem to recall you asking me to take the lead, so I assume that means we're going to run cat-and-mouse. However, if you pass me on the first run, I'd still like a better look at your driving, so if you're okay with it, I'd like to make at least two runs. After all, if you decide to accept my offer, I would be your team leader and I'd love to see your style up close…" he said, ending with a small smile, never breaking eye contact.

Takumi's blush deepened. "S.. Sure, I'd like that too. To tell you the truth, I don't really care who wins or loses this race, I just wanna… make sure I'm good enough for you, I guess. And I… I wanted to race you again, it felt too much like cheating last time when we raced on Akina and it's been eating me up ever since, cause you've always been nicer to me than any of the other street racers and I feel really guilty about it for some reason… If that makes any sense."

"That's understandable to me, Takumi," he replied, "Your home course always puts you at the advantage in a race. Tell me, why did you want to race me on Akagi this time? If you wanted it to be fair, we could have raced at a different pass, like Usui or Myogi. On Akagi, one of us still has the upper hand, although with that Group A engine under the hood and how much your skills have improved since our last race, the playing field might not be as uneven as it would normally be for me. After all, Sudo Kyoichi is only other person I've raced on Akagi in years out of fairness."

Takumi seemed a bit thrown off. "Wait, how did you know I have a Group A engine? I mean, it does sound different, but nobody except Wataru and some of the guys at the gas station know about it?"

Ryousuke bit back a laugh, ignoring the fact the kid hadn't answered his question. "Takumi, I know a lot more about you than you think I do. An acquaintance of mine in Tokyo, Nakai, was the one who sold the engine to your father a few years ago. When I heard your new engine for the first time I knew exactly what you'd gotten your hands on, and I'm glad you're putting it to good use. They made 5,000 of those engines, but as far as I'm aware, there's only one other person who drives an eight-six with one, and he's racing on the circuit."

While Takumi tried to untangle his tongue and process what he'd just said, Ryousuke stepped forward and placed both hands on his shoulders. "With that engine under the hood of your eight-six, and with as much as you've improved since you raced my brother last summer, I think you've got the potential to do great things. You've already beaten me before, and I have no illusions about being able to beat you tonight. My goal with this race is to show you how much you've grown as a driver, Takumi, and… I also simply want to race with you again. Not to win or lose, but just to drive."

Ryousuke released his shoulders and stepped back to his FC, leaving Fujiwara stunned and blushing at his touch. The slam of his door shook Takumi out of his paralysis, and he hurried into the eight-six to turn around and pull behind the FC.

Fumihiro counted off their start, engines revved, tires squealed, and they flew off down the mountain in perfect lockstep. The sounds of their engines was harmonized, the hiss of the FC's blowoff valve and the pop of the eight-six's exhaust as they clutched in to change gears were like percussion in cadence. The FC carved a perfectly practiced line through every corner, the eight-six flowing along in its wake in a delicate vehicular ballet through every corner. They drifted in parallel through the hairpins, alternating lead positions and driving abreast on the straightaways without a care for who won or lost.

Their cars were extensions of their bodies, and their driving was an intimate dance. The passion for speed, for the roar of engines and the scream of tires, the adrenaline flowing without the stress that usually came with a battle like this, the White Comet of Akagi and the Ghost of Akina soared down from the mountain in pure automotive bliss.

The bottom of the mountain came too quickly for either of their likings as they crossed the finish line neck and neck, whipping their cars into opposing J-turns at the bottom intersection and burning a heart into the pavement in rubber. The trip back to the top was more subdued, neither of their cars being tuned for the hillclimb, but neither wanted to leave the other behind. They whipped their cars around in a heart once again, the eight-six pulling to the front, and didn't even wait for Fumihiro to count them off before they were headed back down again.

________

They lost count of how many runs they'd made, but by the time they threw on their flashers and crept into the pulloff at the bottom, it was well past midnight. Their engines were running on fumes, their tires were worn down to the belts, almost all the spectators had gone home, and they were sweat-drenched and exhausted as they stumbled out of their cars on wobbly legs. They leaned against their respective vehicles in the orange glow of the streetlamp overhead, the fiery passion in their eye contact not dulled in the slightest despite how worn out they both were.

They stood in silence for a while, no sound but the ticking as their engines cooled down and the slowing pants of their tired breathing, before Ryousuke broke out of his trance and reached into the door pocket for a smoke. Before the 3rd run, Ryousuke had slowed down at the top long enough to pull his sweater off, leaving only a thin undershirt clinging to his body with sweat, and Takumi couldn't help but stare as Ryousuke dragged slowly on his cigarette. His own T-shirt was soaked as well, the outline of his racing harness darkened into the fabric. They both looked haggard, but to each other's eyes, it was one of the most beautiful things they'd ever seen.

As Ryousuke blew out another smoke-filled breath, Takumi made his move, stumbling toward the older man and grabbing his waist with both hands as he buried his face into Ryousuke's neck, tears welling in his eyes. The forgotten cigarette dropped to the ground as Ryousuke returned the embrace, wrapping his hands around Takumi's shoulders and half-burying his face in the brunette's hair, one hand coming up to gently card his fingers through it. Neither of them spoke a word as the adrenaline wore off, sweat drying in the cool spring air.

Takumi loosened his grip, and Ryousuke allowed him to pull away. Takumi's hands stayed on Ryousuke's hips, Ryousuke's hands on his shoulders, looking into each other's eyes through the sweat-soaked bangs glued to their foreheads.

"Yes."

"Mmm? Yes to what, exactly?"

"Yes, I'll join your team. If there's any way I can be close to you like this again, I'll do whatever it takes."

Ryousuke cracked a smile. "Takumi, you gave me the best race of my life tonight, you know that, right? I haven't felt this good in years, I wouldn't give you up for the world."

Takumi's arms reached up under the other's shoulders as he stood on his toes, bringing Ryousuke's head down into a kiss. Ryousuke reciprocated, opening his mouth and flicking his tongue against Takumi's lips until they loosened, passion to rival their race flaring up between them, electricity arcing between tongues, bodies pulling tighter as Ryousuke stumbled back against the door of the FC. Takumi dragged one hand out of Ryousuke's hair, rubbing up and down his back, stopping to massage any knots felt in the sore muscles from their races, while Ryousuke pulled one of his hands free to grab Takumi's ass, pulling him up into their kiss. They were only dimly aware of the two cars that stopped in front of them, brakes squeaking and headlights shining through their closed eyelids.

They were rudely jerked out of their reverie by the honking of a car horn.

________

The Sileighty pulled out after the R32, headed downhill. Most of the spectators had long since left already, filing down the hiking trails or taking the opportunity between runs to pull out of their parking spots, but the Night Kids and Impact Blue had stayed until 12:30 in the morning. The races had been a sight to behold, the auras of the Comet and the Ghost blending together as if they were one and the same while they performed their intimate dances up and down the mountain. That last run had the steel belts of the tires kicking up a fantail of sparks, so they figured the pair had given up and called it a draw after fifteen minutes passed and neither of them came back up the hill.

During the first run, Takeshi and Shingo had locked their arms together, holding hands in anticipation as the pair came flying around the curve, then reflexively pulled away in mock disgust as soon as the race passed by, but as spectators dwindled they got bolder, pulling into tighter and tighter embraces every run until they eventually gave up and slipped into the backseat of the R32. Mako and Sayuki got the hint, climbing into their own car for a session of heavy petting, sitting up whenever they heard tire squeal to look out the window and watch for a few seconds as their crushes flew past. Mako climbed over the front when she heard the engine turn over and saw the lights of the R32 flash on through the rear windshield, Sayuki following behind, and pulled out to follow them down the mountain. She was curious what those two would be doing at the bottom when they got their.

"5,000 yen says they're making out, I had my doubts about them before but seeing the way they handled those cars in sync tonight, they gotta be madly in love or something."

sigh "Sayuki, you really gotta stop reading so many of those yaoi doijins, just cause they're both high level racers doesn't mean they're gay for each other."

"Whatever, you're just saying that cause you still think you have a chance with Takahashi Fuckin Ryousuke of all people. Puh-lease, you aren't the only girl who can drive fast."

Around the bend at the bottom, two sets of hazard lights blinked out-of-sync as the FC and the eight-six came into view. Between them, the two drivers were locked into a VERY passionate-looking kiss, groping each other completely oblivious to the 4 sets of eyes on them as Takeshi slowed the R32 to a stop in front of Mako. Without saying a word, she reached into the ashtray and pulled out a wad of tollbooth money, counting out five ¥1000 bills and passing them over to Sayuki, who immediately reached through the neck of her T-shirt and shoved them into her sports bra.

The passenger window of the R32 rolled down, and through the rear windshield, Mako saw Shingo reach across to double-tap the horn (to Nakazato's chagrine).

"Hey, why don't you two lovebirds get a room? You're lucky I don't have a camera on me, otherwise I'd show this to all of Gunma!"

The pair immediately disengaged, Takumi looking like a deer in the Sileighty's headlights for a moment before immediately clenching his fists in anger as soon as he recognized the face hanging out the r32's window.

"Fuck off, Shouji, I know you two tap each other almost as much as you tap guardrails!"

[wandsandwheezes]

As a Kite | R.W

TW / mentions of ouid n getting h*gh , Smut, (Oral - female receiving, dirty talk, a lil dominance) other than that fluffy stuffs.

Fair warning this is basically pwp and I'm not ashamed because I am the biggest simp for my boy Ron 😍 I'll probably end up writing the 2nd part as I am a thirsty girl xoxox

Let me know if you want to be added to the taglist ❤️

@witch-and-a-half @weasleysflowr @hufflepuffgirly @theweasleysredhair

Dragging my feet up the stairs to the Gryffindor commons was like hell after a long morning in the dungeons for potions.

I had a free afternoon, one that was usually spent pestering Ron to indulge in a food adventure or a trip to the astronomy tower to get away from it all. There's nothing that I wouldn't do for my best friend. In the summer before my first year, Ron and I made a promise to always look out for each other, mainly because I was way too scared to roam Hogwarts on my own but also because He had already had the craziest first year he could've imagined. We have been inseparable since, There were never any secrets between us and to him I was an open book.

I knock on the door to the boy's dorm, hearing the giggles of the weasley boys coming from within, after a few moments a glazed eyed Ron opens the door, smile beaming at me from ear to ear. "How're we feeling this afternoon, Ronald?" I ask, the faint smell of we*d hitting my senses as I step into the room, "brilliant thanks, I'm glad you're here," he says, I take a seat on his bed, greeting the twins with a smile, "you boys wouldn't happen to be high at all, would you now?" I laugh, "As a kite, dear Y/N" George speaks, "and Georgie made some if his signature brownies, just for you" Fred adds, handing me a foil packet, which I gladly take.

Getting high with the boys was not too unusual, It's been a smell I'd familiarised myself with during my childhood spent at the Weasley home, at first it was Bill's doing, then the Twins, with Ron, Ginny and I following along soon after. I've been lucky to have a wizarding family like the Weasleys, with Molly taking pity on my mother and sister who were both muggles, offering to step in and handle the wizarding side of things with my father out of the picture - a gesture I could never repay.

Fred and George left Ron's dorm to head back to their own after hours of giggles, deciding to take a not so simple detour through the kitchens to satisfy their newfound hunger. This left Ron and I in the room alone, my fingers running through his soft hair as his head lay in my lap, "If you keep doing that, ill fall asleep..." He hums, causing me to laugh gently, pulling a little at the hairs at the back of his head. He watched my every move, dopey grin still all over his face.

"Bloody hell, I think I'm in love." Ron admits, I roll my eyes, "I know Krum's in the castle, Ronald but you're going to need to win him over with more than that." He sits up, looking at me with all seriousness, before shaking his head, "Not Krum... You. I'm in love with you, Y/N." I freeze for a second, shock is not the word I was looking for, perhaps confusion? Sure Ron was an attractive young lad and he was funny, funnier than the twins (not that I'd tell them that), he was charming, kind, strong, caring and by godric he was perfect, but in love with me? He was everything I needed, he was patient with me, he listened to every worry, he was there on my good days and bad days, yet here i am staring at his lips, wanting nothing more than for him to just kiss me. That was it.

I think I love him too, how blind have I been to not have seen this sooner. "Ron, I-" I smile grabbing his hand that had found its way to my cheek, leaning into his touch. "I love you." I breathe out, looking deep into his eyes.

I found out a lot of things about Ron that night; Number one - Ron is absolutely adorable when he's high.

Number two - Ron is literal putty in my hands as soon as I'm playing with his hair

Number three - Ron was in love with me, and I with him.

And finally, Number four - Ron is not the gentle lover I thought he would be, and I am weak the second he's whispering about all the dirty things he wants to do to me. He is a Rough lover, rougher than I expected.

He liked to take control, pinning me against the sheets, placing kisses to every piece of skin he laid his eyes on. "I can't wait to hear you moan for me, darling" he places a kiss to my forehead before resting his own against it letting go of my wrists to pull me up, hand pressed against the small of my back, "tell me if it's too much, we go as far as you want." I run my hands through his soft hair, pulling him in for a kiss, I could smell the cinnamon, a scent I'd associated with him, his kisses were powerful and spoke a thousand words to me, I pull away from his lips for a moment, trailing kisses to his ear, whispering gently to him. "I want you Ron, I need this, make me feel good..."

That was all it took to send him to overdrive, I fell in love there and then with the way his eyes darkened as we fumbled to undress each other, frantic and needy kisses being pressed against each other's skin. He pushed me back against the bed, kneeling between my thighs, as he hooks his fingers into my underewear, pulling them down my legs, a hunger in his eyes, "fuck, you're already so wet," he hums, "what is it you want first baby, my fingers or my tongue? hm? I don't hear my girl begging for anything, I may have to leave her here, untouched and needy. That sounds like fun..." I roll my eyes, big mistake, his hand grabs my chin, forcing me to look at him, "I don't expect attitude from you so early on." he warns "Beg." he almost growls, fingers ghosting over my thighs, "Use your words and tell me what you want." This side of Ron I'd never seen before and it was unlike anything I'd expect from him, but I need him. "I need your tongue baby, please Ron, I need you." that was all he needed, kisses trailed down my body to between my legs, "Good girl," he smirks, blowing gently on my clit, causing a shiver to run through my body, his tongue already on me before i could register what was going on. His tongue was skilled, licking and sucking at my already wet pussy, It was pure heaven. He pulled my clit between his teeth, sucking on it, which in turn caused me to attach my hands to his soft, gorgeous hair, keeping his lips pressed firmly against me "Don't stop, Ron, It feels so good!" I moan out, my fingers in his hair only egging him on further.

"You have no idea what you do to me," he whispers, kissing his way up my body. The sounds of laughing boys echo through the hall, growing closer and closer to the door. "for fuck's sake," he groans, reaching over to grab his wand quickly locking the door with a spell, before anyone walks in on us "colloportus!" he looks down at me with a smile, pressing a kiss to my forehead as he helps me back into my clothes. "I hope I wasn't being too much, I don't want to scare you off." I laugh, reaching up to smooth down his hair, making it less obvious that my hands had previously been tangled in his gorgeous locks. "Bloody hell, as if you couldn't get any sexier... I don't think you were doing nearly enough" I tease, He smirks, picking me up off the bed and carrying me to the door, "good, because I've hardly even started with you, Princess"

"Ron, mate if you don't open this door ill kill you myself, I'm bloody exhausted." Dean groans from the other side of the door, banging on it a little harder than he had been before "Room of requirement after dinner?" I suggest, he nods, placing me down to my feet, pressing a kiss to my lips to say goodbye, "I don't want to open the door because I'm not finished kissing you yet." I roll my eyes, grabbing my wand to unlock the door again, before swinging it open.

Seamus, Harry and Dean burst into the room, swinging their bags onto their beds, "If it was just Y/N in here I don't see why you had to lock the door," Dean whines, Harry scanning over Ron's face, to his hand which is still gently holding onto mine, "I think we may have been interrupting something here, guys" he speaks, crossing his arms looking between the two of us, cueing me to slip out of the room before there are any more questions "Shove off, Harry" Ron jokes, his eyes following my movements to the door, I poke my head back into the room, "Oi, make sure you save me one of George's brownies for after dinner, don't scoff them all!" I smile at the boys innocently, "I will do, Ba-Y/N" Ron quickly corrects himself, nobody catching onto his slip up, "Don't have too much fun without me!" I laugh, Ron responding quickly "I wouldn't dream of it."

[96thdayofrage]

Conservatives and liberals alike have feasted on King's hunger for a world beyond race, a world where color will be neither the final sign of human identity nor the basis for enjoying advantage or suffering liability. To be sure, King's life and work pointed to such a day when his dream might be fulfilled. But he was too sophisticated a racial realist, even as he dreamed in edifying technicolor in our nation's capital, to surrender a sobering skepticism about how soon that day might arrive. His religious faith worked against such naiveté since it held that evil can be conquered only by acknowledging its existence. King never trusted the world to harness the means to make itself into the utopia of which even his brilliant dream was a faint premonition. The problem with many of King's conservative interpreters is not simply that they have not been honest about how they have consciously or unintentionally hindered the realization of King's dream, but more brutally, that in the face of such hindrances, they have demanded that we act as if the dream has become real and has altered the racial landscape. As an ideal, the color-blind motif spurs us to develop a nation where race will make no difference. As a presumed achievement, color-blindness reinforces the very racial misery it is meant to replace. Unfortunately, conservatives have not often possessed King's discerning faith or his ability to distinguish ideals from the historical conditions that make their realization possible. Most important, many conservatives lack the sense of poetic license that filled King's rhetoric. Instead they flatten his spiritual vision beneath the dead weight of uninspired literalism.

For example, William Bradford Reynolds, who served as assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Department of Justice under Reagan for eight years, attacked affirmative action as a cruel departure from King's uplifting vision of color-blindness. Reynolds contended that "the initial affirmative action message of racial unification — so eloquently delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his famous 'I Have a Dream' speech — was effectively drowned out by the all too persistent drumbeat of racial polarization that accompanied the affirmative action preferences of the 1970s into the 1980s." Reynolds continued, writing that what had "started as a journey to reach the idea of color blindness" had been sidetracked by infighting among competing racial or ethnic groups. While excesses and mistakes of the sort that Reynolds outlined surely occur, they do not express the fundamental aims of affirmative action: the correction of past and present discrimination and the granting of equal opportunity to historically excluded minorities. Minorities who possessed merit in the past were unjustly treated. Merit, then, wasn't the crucial criterion that determined their participation or exclusion; race or gender was decisive. To pretend otherwise, and to discount race or gender now in combating patterns of racial or gender exclusion, violates common sense and impedes the sort of justice for which King fought. King argued that it "is impossible to create a formula for the future which does not take into account that our society has been doing something special against the Negro for hundreds of years." King went on to question how the Negro "could be absorbed into the mainstream of American life if we do not do something special forhim now, in order to balance the equation and equip him now to compete on a just and equal basis."

In this light, it makes sense to conceive of merit as a dependent good. It functions according to its immediate environment of comparison. What is meritorious in one context — say, an ability to play violin in a high school symphony or to recite Shakespeare in a theater company — is irrelevant in the next — for instance, a soccer match, where neither skill is particularly useful. Besides, even in the same sort of environment, say a university setting, the same skills may be unequally prized at different schools. For instance, one university may need to fill a first-chair violin slot, where another is overrun with them. At another school, soccer is the sport of choice, offering scholarships to skilled players, while other schools don't field soccer teams. The problem with having used race so long as the sole criterion for participation in schools or jobs is that race wiped out any consideration of merit. Not to take that historical feature into account is not only to deny history, but to corrupt the potential for achieving justice. In fact, race became a kind of merit itself; put another way, if race functioned as a demerit, corrective justice dictates that for a time it serve as a merit. It was King who wrote that "the nation must not only radically readjust its attitude toward the Negro in the compelling present, but must incorporate in its planning some compensatory consideration for the handicaps he has inherited from the past."

Another conservative writer, Richard Bernstein, eloquently suggests that King and the civil rights movement would be opposed to contemporary multiculturalism and affirmative action, its social complement. Bernstein contends that the "obsession with the themes of cultural domination and expression justifies one of the most important departures from the principal and essential goal of the civil rights movement: equality of opportunity." He argues that multiculturalism, by contrast, "insists on equality of results." He maintains that King's "dream of a day when my four little children will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" crystallizes in "one sentence the essential ideal of liberalism." Multiculturalism, however, reaches a directly opposite conclusion: "'Judge me by the color of my skin for therein lies my identity and my place in the world.'" And repentant conservative Michael Lind writes that King "publicly opposed racial preferences." But King's words contradict Bernstein and Lind. King said that whenever the "issue of compensatory or preferential treatment for Negroes is raised," many of our friends "recoil in horror." As King stated, the "Negro should be granted equality, they agree; but he should ask nothing more." King goes on to write that the "relevant question" is not what blacks want, but how "can we make freedom real and substantial for our colored citizens? What just course will ensure the greatest speed and completeness? And how do we combat opposition and overcome obstacles arising from the defaults of the past?" King advocated a strong multicultural approach that Bernstein claims he would have rejected. Further, King seems to have sided squarely with at least some version of multicultural emphasis on substantive, not just procedural, justice. As he wrote, the "Negro today is not struggling for some abstract, vague rights, but for concrete and prompt improvement in his way of life." King rejected the simplistic and ill-advised distinction between equality of opportunity and equality of results. "The struggle for rights is, at bottom, a struggle for opportunities," King wrote. But he warned that "with equal opportunity must come the practical, realistic aid which will equip [the Negro] to seize it."

Even black conservatives have attempted to wedge between King and affirmative action in the name of color-blindness. Shelby Steele wins the symbolic sweepstakes hands down. His book, Content of Our Character, lifts King's phrase as both the title and the basis of his argument for color-blindness and for his vigorous attack on affirmative action. And Boston University economist Glenn Loury quotes King's content of character phrase too, pointing out that today King's dream is "cited mainly by conservatives." Loury writes that the "deep irony here is that, while in the liberal mind a vigorous defense of the color-blind ideal is regarded as an attack on blacks, it is becoming increasingly clear that weaning ourselves from dependence on affirmative action is the only way to secure lasting civic equality for the descendants of slaves."

Perhaps the most controversial, and bitterly contested, appropriation of King's vital legacy by a black conservative is that of California businessman, and University of California regent, Ward Connerly. Connerly has gained national attention for his successful efforts to end affirmative action in California with the infamous Proposition 209. More recently, besides his antiaffirmative action forays into Washington State and Florida, Connerly officially opened his National Campaign Against Affirmative Action on the King holiday in 1997. He defended this symbolic gesture of identification with King's legacy by declaring that his actions were consistent with the martyr's goals, though to King's traditional admirers it smelled more like treachery. Connerly insisted that his group did "no disrespect to [King] by acknowledging what he wanted this nation to become, and we're going to fight to get the nation back on the journey that Dr. King laid out." Connerly contends that preferential treatment of minorities in college admissions and in the workplace undermines King's dream of a color-blind society and repudiates everything he stood for. Proposition 209 is certainly Connerly's crowning achievement to date, a piece of legislation that Connerly views as the natural extension of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In fact, as printed on the ballot, Proposition 209 pilfered language directly from the 1964 bill, holding that "the state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting."

Never mind that when those words were written, racial presumptions and practices were radically different. One major presumption was that the 1964 bill was marshaled to combat the forces of white supremacy that pervaded Southern government and civil society in de jure segregation, and in Northern states where de facto segregation reigned. Hence, the practice of whites' excluding blacks was outlawed. Blacks received newly granted citizenship rights that were framed in the universal terms that allowed them to be applied to blacks in the first place. In short, blacks should have already been included, and would have been, except for the racial distortion of the Constitution's original intent of freedom for "all men." The irony is that in order to protect the legal and civil rights of black citizens — after all, no such protection was needed, or granted, for white citizens, save in the Constitution and Bill of Rights — such protection had to be cast in language that suggested universal application. But everyone associated with the struggle for black rights understood three facts about such universality. One, universality was not a given, since it had to be fought for. Two, it was not self-evident, since it had to be argued for. And three, universality was not inalienable, since it had to be reaffirmed time and again. In other words, there were at least a few competing versions of the universal floating around. The trick was to incorporate one version of universalism, black rights, into the legal arc of another version of universalism, white privilege, while preserving the necessary illusion of neutrality on which such rights theoretically depended. Hence a philosophical principle — what the philosopher Hegel might call a "concrete universal" — was transformed into a political strategy, allowing both whites and blacks to preserve their specific stake in a universal value: democracy. To miss this process — that is, to mistake politics for philosophical principles, or, in turn, to disregard their symbiotic relationship in shaping American democracy — is to distort fatally the improvisational, ramshackle, halt-and-leap fashion by which American politics achieves its conflicting goals.