#(this one is actually exactly 200)

[plusultraetc]

Fourteen Days of MHA | 4/14: The Ladies

Momo returns to the kitchen with the glass jar of matches from her room, only to find the candle already lit.

“Oh,” she says. The three wicks of the pink scented candle flicker merrily. “You found the lighter, then?”

“Nope!” Mina says from where she’s standing by the counter. Tooru is kneeling on it, passing down mugs for tea.

“Oh.” Momo says again, still staring at the candle. Then she looks around for Todoroki. He is not there. In fact, there’s no one in sight.

“Do you wanna know how we lit it?” Mina asks. From the way she’s smiling, Momo is pretty sure the answer is no.

But she’s the class VP. Since moving into the 1-A dorms, the realm of her responsibilities has expanded. She must, intrepidly, proceed.

“… How?”

“Well,” Mina says, reaching for a roll of paper towels.

“No.”

“No, Yaomomo, listen—”

“No.” The stove looms ominously behind her.

“It worked really well! We threw it in the sink right after!”

Momo slams the jar of matches onto the kitchen counter with a little more force than is probably necessary. Mina pouts. “These are the kitchen matches now. They’re staying here. Forever. Just don’t—no.”

[jrueships]

can you please walk us through the relationship between wemby and jabari the people need to know

i think the most notable thing about vic and Jabari's relationship is that they don't have one, when it would be so beneficial if they did. they're like two soldiers fighting for the opposite sides of a war, too loyal to the cause to stop and think about what could have been if they just lowered their respective weapons aimed by cold hands larger than their own. foils by fate, friends by freedom.

' remember, you will Always be Different. '

' remember, you will Always be Replaceable. '

'Replaceable'

Jabari's dad made it in the NBA, then didn't. He was a big that could shoot, but wasn't a post-up man. Back then, post-up was the desired style. Ironically, now, it's all about shooting. But his dad didn't live in the now, and his career in the US was short-lived, to keep it cordial. Jabari's older brother played basketball throughout his whole life, but stopped after college. Jabari's cousin, Kwame Brown, was drafted 1st overall in the lottery, and became a notorious bust for the Washington wizards.

Basketball is a business. Basketball is fleeting.

It doesn't matter that a big with sharpshooter skills is valued as something so 'prized' in today's nba, not back then, not when it would have mattered for Jabari's dad. Making it is one ballpark in its own, but Staying in it? Can perhaps be an even more painful ordeal when the hoops to accomplish it aren't circus hoops, but a plain hill some just don't have the strength, mentality, or the materials to help climb without distraction or pitfall.

Jabari's dad made sure Jabari had this threat forever ingrained in his mind. When he yells at Jabari for misplaced eye contact, for typing the wrong words in a public social media reply, for reacting in a way a camera might misinterpret, it's out of love. Jabari's dad was known for being a hassle to coach back then, maybe because he knew his potential and no one else did because it was too new to the mold. So he makes sure Jabari doesn't follow his same habits. Jabari is polite to authority, simply replies with a 'Yes Sir' or a 'No Ma'am', he holds eye contact, he wakes up hours before he needs to just to jump rope, just to uphold the standards that his family could not. He is Everything his father is and isn't, plus more. When his team wins, he's still talking about his missed freethrows even 8 hours later. Because someone else could have won the game And hit those free throws too . someone from a family that gained success and stayed in that success. Someone who wasn't Just Another Son of a basketball player trying to do what his father couldn't, someone who was Different .

Everyone knew wemby was different. When his literature class was asked to write an essay about your future dreams in life, he wrote a fictional romance about a couple where the woman got in a car accident and was comatosed as a result, but got better in the end. He didn't write about being a great basketball player one day, because his parents don't pressure him to hunker himself into the norm, even though his mother once was and now coaches. If Wemby one day realized this wasn't for him, they would encourage him to leave and follow whatever greater passions propelling him. He's so agile for his size because his dad was an Olympic talent in track and field. He is someone who has hobbies and talents that are considered common alone, but strange combined, because he loves what he has and what he does. He reads every night for one hour before bed not to appear as some pseudointellectual, but because he Genuinely loves it, and when he loves something, he excels at it. He does try to be different, but not out of ego. He just loves to be. He either accomplishes at 200% or zero. It may be 200% in an unexpected direction, but it's His direction and that's what matters. If he somehow does wind up a bust, a possibility he considers without fear but acceptance as potential fate, then he won't go down as yet another failed first pick. He'll fall as he flew, Victor Wembanyama.

' Different '

' Replaceable'

Jabari winces each time he's subbed out, even for a second, even on an injured ankle, he's silently Stubborn, his posture shrunken and his gaze at the ground yet his eyes, big, wobbling, staring up always at the speaker, he's silently scared.

Jabari doesn't Want to be different. He just wants to be what his family couldn't be when it came to fame: irreplaceable . His parents split when he was younger, he tries his hardest to appease them both as to not cause any more issues. The relationship relies on his shoulders more than ever, and he can't fumble it again. He has to be what his dad couldn't so his dad can stay, commenting on commonality or surprises. He wants to support his still working mother, especially after the split. He doesn't Want to be unique, he just wants Security.

Because this can crumble any moment now, it doesn't matter how high your pick was or how bright the future Could Have been or how the game would later shift to your style if you had just somehow Stayed. Why bet on low chances if you know you can't handle the risk. He shakes any college coaches' hands that showed up to his practices, personally thanks them for coming even though he's one of the best in the country so their presence should be a given to him, it's not. When he picks a college, he picks one that guaranteed their faith in him from day One, and didn't require any further prodding to finally say '.. Maybe we'll offer you a position' like Kentucky did, as big and famous as it is, it wasn't Secured . They saw him as a risk at one point, and that's everything he's been trying to avoid when it came to attention, negatively standing out.

Jabari wants to be known as the strong shoulder to the world. He WANTS to be known as That One Guy who can just carry everything, nameless but Good. He just wants to be Good. Please tell him he's good. Please tell him what he's doing is Good. That basing his entire personality around yet another soldier who ultimately fell in battle but fought nonetheless being nameless is Good. Please feel free to give him all your burdens to bear like he's just some mule, an animal, a Tool .. because that means he's Useful, at least. That means he's Good. And if he isn't good, then he's nothing. Because you can always just buy another one anyways. A better one.

'Different'

Although his parents try not to treat Wemby by simplifying his differences into a strictly labeled, simple FUTURE BASKETBALL PRODIGY box at birth, that doesn't mean that can always stop others from doing it. Wemby signed his first autograph at ten years old.

It didn't matter if he was a kid who was so much more than just his basketball future, basketball fans wanted one thing from him and one thing only: Success. People didn't care about his literary skills or his drawing hobbies. The eyes on his alien needed to be smaller 'so your shoe can sell better, trust us, it's still Your drawing.. your weird little .. not money-making hobby, do believe me, Vic, We know what We're doing. You just stick to whatever you do.'

His differences, in the end, are minimalized just to that. He's just Different. That's what everyone says who wouldn't really care to say anything at all if he never hooped as well as they wanted in the first place. The youtube videos of 40 year old men criticizing his 15 year old games didn't Really care if he was just a kid, they just cared in the 'imagine when he reaches peak physicality? imagine the points (money) he'd make for the nba.' His beautiful differences, artistic, soft, unique but oh-so wonderfully common and passionate.. are all dissolved into 'Different', the Base definition.

he's an alien. Someone you can just dump all your poverty franchise worries onto because don't worry, he's Different. Trust me, he'll save your team. 'He's Different. ..am i talking about how he'd effortlessly answer questions in class while also trying to hide the fact that he's playing on his phone by tucking his bony legs awkwardly in his chair and crouching his spine over that it looked almost scary? HELL NO? what does THAT have to do with BASKETBALL?? no, he's just freakishly long, but like. Gifted. Though. ... I don't know, man, he's just DIFFERENT, okay? you can trust me, i'm a sports podcaster, okay? everything i say is gold.'

A celebrity approaches him because he was different than most famous basketball athletes. He was Different. And yet, when he didn't recognize or notice her presence due to Different cultures ( due to Being Genuinely, Detailedly Different ), he was scorned and ushered out of public eye so another possible pr bomb couldn't injure his reputation as a Difference That They Really Would Rather Not Want.

that's what his reading falls into, his old friends, his family, his art, his personality. If it's beyond ball, if it's beyond Business. The world only cares if it's marketable. Sure, some reporters will ask a question outside of sport, but only because it'll be a Different.. funny little nugget of knowledge for fans to laugh at then soon disregard for what Really made him famous. But, Wemby is what he always wanted to be. He's Different. So What if it's not exactly the kind of Different he actually wants, he actually functions on? No one has the time to perform 200% anymore. Slap the label you wanted and call it quits, stop being so High-Maintenanced. That's not marketable.

You're just different. And to some people, that's all you'll ever be. No need to explore it any further. Who knows, your Consumers might find something they won't like. And we can't risk that happening to our greatest circus freak.

i mean. Generational basketball talent .

If there's a press conference going on that somehow includes the two, then Wemby just wants to be sure everyone can hear what he really wants to say, in his own words, not echoing anyone else's, and Jabari just wants to Be in the Room.

His brother stopped playing basketball because his family said he didn't try hard enough. Jabari Can't have that. His whole life revolves Around basketball, around sport. He doesn't WANT to be DIFFERENT if that isn't the soundest option, he just wants to be GREAT. Because GREAT is SUCCESS. Jabari Smith is not success. It's just a retry at it . His father shares the same name.

Wemby's life did not always revolve around basketball, to people, at one point. At one point, Wemby's life was just his life. Now, it seems like only his family think that, and they're from a whole other country. When he comments on videos critiquing his playstyle, he doesn't do so out of anger or questioning, he does so because he genuinely Wants to improve. He Does want to be great. But, he wants to be great in Everything that he finds interesting. He always did. When he likes an author, he reads All their books, not just their most notorious novel. He wants to be transported into other people's worlds so he can learn, so he can change, so he can be Different. Even if he somehow were to lose all of this fame, this Greatness, this job, this opportunity, he will never really lose. Because he's someone who's always taken opportunities to the fullest, so even if they pan out a little differently, that's Fine, really, because he's different. Not in the minimizing, dictionary definition then leave the meaning at that different, but in the butterfly effect. What he once was ten days ago is not exactly the same of what he is now, and it hurts, sometimes, when people fail to see that, or simply don't want to because textbook different is easier to digest than worldly different.

IN SHORT.. theyre foils. i can't Exactly walk u thru their relationship bcs .. there Isn't one.. & that's what's so Interesting about them. That's what makes their relationship, to me. Because if they WERE to be friends, if they somehow in some alternate world WERE to get paired up on the same team... they would be friends. I really think they would be. Not only because their signs are so compatible, or their differences are so stark, but because their similarities would triumph everything beautifully. Maybe. We don't know because they Weren't paired together, we can only speculate. But i think it would be big and beautiful, whatever they would have, it would be Something.

unfortunately, we don't live in an alternate world where they're teammates though ! Double unfortunately, Jabari and Wemby's biggest similarity is their loyalty to the game (a double-edged sword in both their lives from Jabari's silent unhealthy desire to be limited and Wemby's silent desperation not to be) Wemby, in Jabari's eyes, is Indeed a powerful...

Problem.

He's not really a person to him . In all fairness, no one really is when they're involved in the basketball world, not to Jabari, not from the way he's been taught. Everyone's supposed to be Replaceable, a faceless tool in the pocket of good business.

.. except for This freakazoid. Apparently.

APPARENTLY, he's some supposed 'saint'. someone to be feared for being more. APPARENTLY, the reporters just LOVE yapping about him SO much, that Jabari HAS to take the time out of his training just to talk about some guy who doesn't even GO here, yet when they ask him about his opinion on future prospects. WELL, that's ALL wemby IS to Jabari, just another future prospect. Just another problem.

A problem he'll be sure to check off his list.

... okay, so Maybe he's a bit more than a problem.. maybe.. he's just a really persistent problem? yeah, that's it, nothing more. Jabari will work through this. He Always does. That's what he does well, Work.

Wemby wonders if that's all he ever does .

But he doesn't have long before Jabari's marching down the tunnel to beat himself up over all his mistakes other people would never make, and Wemby's being escorted to an interview that other people would never make solely to show how Much he just Stands Out as a soul... in basketball .

I hope they find each other in basketball, and out of it as well. I just feel like

Something would Happen

[fallloverfic]

So... on the subject of relative age in Delicious in Dungeon and Mithrun and fandom "jokes" I've seen folks complaining about. General manga and anime spoilers for character ages and names in the manga and anime below the read more:

On the one hand, I do get that people are (or at least were, I see it less these days) mad at the "Mithrun grandpa/old man" jokes/comments because "it's just cause he's disabled" and "relatively speaking, he's the same age as Chilchuck, and no one treats Chilchuck like he's an old man/something about how Chilchuck dislikes being treated differently, mentally, for his presumed age/state of mind".

Okay, yes. Relatively speaking, sure. There's a conversation to be had about the intersection of ableism and ageism and how we often baby (in a patronizing way) disabled people and the elderly, and how we prioritize youth and treat middle-aged people like their lives are over. (And maybe something about how he has silver hair, I don't know). On a more positive note, I love that, relatively speaking, possibly by Elvish standards, Mithrun is at/near middle-age (elvish age of maturity is 80 years, their average lifespan is 400 years), because that's a fascinating bit of world-building.

...On the other hand (please rest your pitchforks momentarily), Mithrun is literally 185 years old, he is the fifth oldest cast member for characters whose age we know as of the English release of the Delicious in Dungeon World Guide: The Adventurer's Bible (after the Elf Queen, who's 372, the elder Flokes, who are in their 200s, and Milsiril, who's four years older than Mithrun), and he is the oldest member of his group of the Canaries (he's literally 103 years older than his subordinate, Pattadol, and still 39 years older than Cithis, the next oldest Canary after Mithrun). And speaking of Chilchuck, who is, yes, a married father of multiple adult children... and also 29. Mithrun has lived over six times as long as Chilchuck has. (All ages come from Delicious in Dungeon World Guide: The Adventurer's Bible; Sissel + the other Golden Country residents don't have listed ages there, though they're at least 1000 years old, and the other elves don't show up). Mithrun was in recovery after the central watchtower dungeon for longer than at least five characters have been alive.

Age chart:

Elf Queen: 372

Tansu Floke: 210

Yarn Floke: 204

Milsiril: 189

Mithrun: 185

Cithis: 149

Otta: 137

Fleki: 130

Lycion: 126

Senshi: 112

Noor: 98

Totan: 95

Pattadol: 82

Gillin: 79

Brigan: 78

Holm: 76

Fionil: 62

Namari: 61

Daya, Invar: 58

Marcille: 50

Maizuru: 41

Chilchuk: 29

Laios, Toshiro, Hien: 26

Rin: 24

Falin, Benichidori: 23

Kabru, Mikbell: 22

Zon: 21

Kaka, Kiki: 20

Kuro, Doni: 18

Izutsumi, Inutade: 17

Leed: 14

Mithrun is older than Senshi, older than Marcille, older than Kabru's entire party, including Holm and Daya, and older than the oldest human we have an established age for, Maizuru (again, the first Adventurer's Bible doesn't list the Golden Country resident ages, and Mithrun is definitely younger than them, but also they're generally minor characters except for Yaad and Delgal). He's older than Senshi's former dwarf comrades were when they died. He's also apparently older than Flamela, the vice commander of the Canaries (she's 170, at least according to the fanwiki, which is possibly going off the Complete Adventurer's Bible).

He is of course younger than Obrin, his older brother, whose age we don't know, but we do know that Mithrun is the younger brother. He is also obviously much younger than the demon.

I also find it interesting that people are jumping to the big assumption that he's middle-aged (relatively) due to... I guess just chopping the average lifespan of elves in half and assuming that's what they think middle-aged is? We know the average lifespan of elves and when they come to maturity. We do not know what elves think of Mithrun's age or what their concept of being middle-aged is, if they have one. He could be considered young by elf standards. He could be considered old. We have no idea.

Thinking about the conversation in Volume 8, Chapter 51: Dumplings 2, it's just about total/average lifespan and how near the characters are to dying by average race age, not middle age.

Chilchuck on p.37: "What's the difference between our actual ages and how old we look?"

Laios: "Well, dwarfs do live two and a half times as long as tall-men."

Chilchuck: "If our actual ages affect our looks, then... ...I'm curious about remaining life. Will we age at the same rate we did before? Or will it match our bodies now?"

They never get an answer for this. We do get rough estimates for what one race's age means to another by comparing Laios' actual age (26) to what Senshi thinks dwarf!Laios is, age-wise (his 60s), and both ages put him near but not at assumed middle-age for the respective race (for tall-men it would be 30, for dwarfs, 100), but otherwise they don't come to many conclusions about anything. They just guess and try to change back before something worse happens. Marcille doesn't even say anything in this conversation about elf culture. She just panics because half-foots live shorter lives.

I would not personally call Mithrun a grandpa and I don't particularly connect with jokes about it. By Elvish standards, and relatively speaking, he is perhaps not, arguably, old. ...But he's no spring chicken, either, despite how strong and fast he is. By the standards of most characters he is interacting with in the story, he is the oldest person in the room, by a substantial margin (heck, the age gap between Mithrun and Cithis is more years than Chilchuck has lived). That doesn't make him a grandpa, either. But I do find people getting mad about folks pointing out this literally 185-year-old being is you know... 185 years old... odd...? Especially when he's around all these by and large substantially younger people (younger people who are adults by and large!!!) for most of the story. Again, there's definitely a conversation to be had about the intersection of ageism and ableism, and how we treat people who are middle-aged as if they're elderly even when they're able-bodied, and about the way other characters in-universe treat him (though the one time I think his age is pointed out, it's about the stuff he knows, not to mock him for it; mostly people treat him badly due to his disabilities (e.g., Fleki with his aiming in chapter 55, Cithis in the Adventurer's Bible), not because of his age)... but it does feel very much like people are ignoring that he is honestly one of the oldest characters in the story, and not by dint of being the oldest youth, but because he's a character who has lived to be nearly 200 years old.

[actualbuckybames]

Big things on the docket today

[diseaseriddencube]

girls literally only want one thing and it's fucking disgusting

[life size replica of Courier's bike]

[sangfielle]

blinks wetly

[nostalgia-tblr]

lukewarm take but i blame all those "every oneshot shoved into a single work, showing up in every search forever more" compliations on people who talk about fics being "just a oneshot" and similar statements that imply anything less than novel-length is a silly, pointless piece of nonsense that does not deserve its own post with its own tags and its own summary.

[thedreadvampy]

everything around this housing shit basically boils down to: what I said would be fine 2+ years ago isn't necessarily what's fine now

[scottstiles]

[highraccoon]

i love that the state i live in has a program that allows both disabled people AND caregivers to fuck each other over. true equality

[random2908]

Ok, I would never defend Ryanair, but Bratislava is right next to Vienna. London Sandsted Airport (which is where Ryanair was flying out of last time I flew on them, which was admittedly nearly 20 years ago) is pretty much as far from downtown London as downtown Bratislava is from downtown Vienna. Bratislava Airport is only slightly farther from downtown Vienna than that.

No. 54 - Ryanair

You are watching a video on a popular video sharing service. It is a full episode of a popular and long-running show, generously uploaded for free. It is narrated by a calm man with a BBC accent of the sort which belongs exclusively in documentaries.

The narrator names a date between 1903 and the current year. It is accompanied by a location - an airport. An airplane is on approach. It has a certain number of people on board, and it flies for some airline. There are pilots, most likely two of them. They make some sort of mistake, and maybe there's an issue with the weather, or the ILS system is down, or the instruments are giving misleading information, or some other thing has gone tailcone over teakettle in an alarmingly short timespan and now their approach is tremendously unstable. They aren't on the glideslope. They're too fast or too slow. They really need to declare a missed approach, but for whatever reason they don't.

The plane lands, or 'lands' - finds itself on the ground, regardless - either on or short of the runway. It bounces, or flips over, or just pancakes into the ground. The fuselage cracks, or splits, or peels open, or horribly catches fire. There is an evacuation. It's all very stressful at minimum, and an unmitigated tragedy at worst.

You scroll down to the comments for some reason. "Average Ryanair landing," says one near the top.

Ryanair (not to be confused with Ryan Air, a real but unrelated airline) is Europe's largest air carrier. It has over 550 airplanes and serves over 200 destinations. It is difficult to imagine an airline with a worse reputation - their CEO is a literal troll, their customer service is legendarily poor, and their ultra-low-cost model is one in which you inevitably get what you pay for. They are memetically despised, and their rough landings are the stuff of legend.

And yet their livery is understated, with a certain head-held-high gravitas. It is difficult to describe the legitimate cognitive dissonance which arises from Ryanair's aerosartorial choices, an effect that seems to touch more people than just me. On another airline, I wouldn't find this livery particularly thought-provoking. Enough substance to write a post about, but not something which lurks in my mind and draws my attention. But on Ryanair, it's downright fascinating.

I've said what I've said, but I'm actually a big fan of Ryanair. Look, it's like getting a ticket on a bus or the metro. It's cheap and it gets you where you need to go and it's probably not going to be that long of a flight anyway so, I mean, whatever. I've flown some pretty long flights from before in-flight entertainment was standard, Ryanair is fine. I never even noticed the hard landings until I saw people talking about them, and to be perfectly honest I didn't notice them afterward either. Maybe I'm just not bothered by hard landings, the same way I'm not bothered by turbulence. Who really knows? My point is that I'm something of a Ryanair apologist. I live in the US, where you just don't get dirt cheap flights like that and getting anywhere outside of your home metropolitan area by train costs even more than flying. Ryanair could make me board the plane by climbing up it myself to save money on airstairs and I'd be fine with it for how damn cheap their fares are. I'm not a millionaire. I haven't got the money to go jetsetting around Europe on a real airline. So I mean this when I say it: thank goodness for Ryanair.

I mean, I'm not saying this because Ryanair is good, don't get me wrong. They are the Big Bill Hell's of airlines. They are the closest thing we have to John Mulaney's version of Delta. Ryanair is not just no-frills, it's hot-glued fabric scraps in the vague shape of a garment. They are legitimately comical in their commitment to service so Kafkaesquely bad that you almost wish you'd travelled by trebuchet instead! And all this for the low, low price of...well, I mean, like 20 quid. I think the most I've seen a Ryanair ticket go for is about 40 euro and that was from an airport they don't fly to terribly much.

When I released my first questionnaire I added a question about Ryanair specifically because of its reputation and my own feelings about the airline. Multiple people did agree with me - well, it's definitely not comfortable at all, you won't enjoy yourself, but it's so obscenely cheap that this isn't really objectionable. You are getting exactly what you pay for. And, well, if you do want some semblance of the full-service experience you can pay an extra fee. Or a lot of extra fees. That's how they get you. The ULCC model relies on stripping out everything possible and then charging you extra for it. That does mean that if you need things like printed boarding passes or the ability to pay by credit card that come standard with literally any other airline you could end up paying a decent amount for your miserable cramped flight, but if you truly want the bare minimum they will charge you appropriately, and that is so important to me, because I have too little money to insist on being comfortable.

I do feel...particularly sorry for one respondent.

It isn't bad press they are legitimately a nightmare. A attendant once lied to me and told me that type of plane just didn't have toilets (it did. There was a working toilet on board) then proceeded to lecture me about 'not planning ahead and going in the airport'

This is kind of hilarious in a sad way and I'm very sorry that this happened to you. Ryanair is infamous for its bad customer service but it's rare you'll hear about cabin crew behaving this poorly at any airline. While this particular incident was a one-off, you probably will have a pretty miserable time if you need to call the airline about literally anything.

One person just answered 'bitches'.

Well, that answers the question "what is Ryanair", but why is Ryanair?

The world is full of low-cost carriers. Wizz Air, EasyJet, airasia, Allegiant, Jetstar, FlySafair, Volaris, T'Way, Azul, Nok Air, Frontier, Lion Air, jetBlue, and SpiceJet are just some of the dozens which fill the skies. They are often colourful, frequently grumbled about, and essential.

Low-cost carriers, and especially ULCCs, are a relatively recent phenomenon. They only sprung into being after aviation stopped being by necessity a luxury product. It's generally agreed that PSA (Pacific Southwest Airlines), an intrastate carrier from California colloquially known as the Poor Sailor's Airline, was the first low-cost carrier. While the large interstate carriers of the time had a sort of detached gravitas to both their services and their prices, and were often prevented from lowering said prices anyway due to federal taxes that didn't apply to intrastate carriers like PSA, a ticket on "The World's Friendliest Airline" was cheap and the service was casual and personable. The low-cost model is built on being an option for a normal person. If you don't have the money to fly TWA, you can fly on an airline which is made for normal people and charges you accordingly.

The model didn't really catch on immediately, though. I couldn't exactly say why - it might have to do with the lack of demand for air travel that wasn't either commuter flights or long-haul. There was some activity in the market, with Loftleiðir (a precursor to Icelandair) offering cheap-as-dirt transatlantic flights in the 60s and Laker Airways having a three-year tenure in the late 70s serving a similar market from a Western European base. Even today the long-haul low-cost market they served is notoriously difficult to make anything work in.

What is generally thought to be the next major player in low-cost airlines, Southwest, emerged in 1971. David Neeleman further refined the model, first with innovations in cost-cutting at Morris Air and later by raising the bar for customer experience at jetBlue. David Neeleman, though, was active right at the turn of the millennium. Low-cost carriers only really began to emerge in real numbers in the 80s and 90s, with examples that are long-gone, like the infamous ValuJet, existing alongside ones US residents have probably seen at their local airport, like Spirit.

Spirit is different from jetBlue and Southwest. Spirit Airlines is not just a low-cost carrier but an ultra low-cost carrier. As the name suggests, the difference is one of scale. A low-cost carrier provides less comprehensive and less ritzy service than a full-service airline, but they do so in the tradition of PSA, trying to provide a comfortable experience that makes people want to choose their airline. The ULCC model, on the other hand, guts out literally every possible feature and then dangles it in front of you on a string, telling you to pay extra if you want it. These airlines do not provide a good experience. There will be no baggage allowances, no extra legroom, and no priority boarding. The base fare, however, is almost absurdly low relative to even low-cost carriers, and as air travel becomes a fact of life more and more the humble ULCC becomes a necessary part of the ecosystem as the only way many people can afford to travel.

Ryanair is technically 38 years old, but it's only been a low-cost carrier since 1990. This pivot is the brainchild of then-CFO, now CEO (and ouster of the eponymous Ryan) Michael O'Leary, one of the wealthiest and most unpleasant men in Ireland.

image: Associated Press Yes, this is actually a real image of the CEO of Ryanair. I imagine this may clear up a thing or two.

Why is Ryanair? Because Michael O'Leary, is the simple answer. Michael O'Leary is - and there is genuinely no better way to describe the man - a troll. If you take David Neeleman's image during his tenure at jetBlue, a sweet everyman trying to improve the experience by sitting in on flights and giving up his salary to employee medical funds, Michael O'Leary is the literal exact opposite of him on every point. A self-described "gobshite" and "obnoxious little bollocks" who has admitted to "not liking" aeroplanes, Michael O'Leary is a cruel, selfish, belligerent, publicity-seeking freakazoid on a mission to piss off everyone in Europe which has so far been largely successful.

I don't want anything I say about the man to come off as positive. Michael O'Leary is a wealthy ghoul (and, yes, he was born wealthy, no rags in his tale) who publicly berates, mistreats, and underpays his staff. He has expressed prejudice against racial and religious minorities, fat and disabled passengers, women, and just about anyone who expects to be treated with some measure of dignity. He has committed legitimate crimes, like impersonating journalists. He denies climate change and has accumulated his massive wealth by abusing the pilots and cabin crew who keep Ryanair adequate. In 2010 Ryanair was named one of the least ethical companies in the world. The fact that he is so absurd as to be hilarious isn't an endorsement or a defense of him.

That said, here is a short, curated list of Michael O'Leary's, and Ryanair's broadly (as their public image is really an extension of his and vice versa) most Ryanair shenanigans:

O'Leary installed a taxicab license plate on his luxury car and driving it in the bus lane to avoid traffic.

Advertisements have taken open and somewhat sneering shots at other major European airlines, like Lufthansa ('bye by Late-hansa'), British Airways ('expensive BAstards'), and the now-defunct Sabena (using a reference to the famous Manneken Pis statue). These have not been simple comparisons but outright name-calling.

One time they advertised sales to 'sunny' vacation destinations, like Norway.

Generally, their advertisements push so many boundaries that they were once found to have committed seven violations of advertising law in just two years, and I'm shocked they didn't begin an ad campaign centring around this dubious achievement.

They frequently misbrand airports way outside of major cities as being in that major city, with the most insane example being "Bratislava Vienna" - yes, Bratislava, the one in Slovakia.

Pilots are forced to pay for simulator checks while cabin crew are forced to pay for uniforms and training. Employees are even forbidden from charging their phones from office sockets, apparently.

Sometimes passengers are forced to carry their own luggage to the planes! Not carryons, luggage.

O'Leary, in a bold move, outright denied that the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull had created a massive cloud of volcanic ash hazardous to airplanes (it very obviously had).

He also said he would like for there to be a recession, since it would let Ryanair keep costs low. He said this in 2008.

One time he said travel agents ("fuckers") should be shot .

O'Leary claimed that Ryanair would begin offering business class, featuring "beds and blowjobs". I'm personally not sure I would want a Ryanair blowjob. That sounds really horrible.

Also, bold coming from an airline with no seatback pockets. Apparently they tried to get planes delivered with no window shades (though they weren't able to because of regulation) and they've floated the idea of standing seats (I don't believe this will ever happen but it definitely is truly dystopian).

Ryanair keeps trying to buy Aer Lingus. They keep failing, and they keep trying. Obviously, everyone in Ireland has a vested interest in making sure this does not happen.

Fundamentally, Ryanair doesn't care. They can and will essentially throw tantrums to get airports to charge them lower operating fees and if they can't get an airport to do this they just won't operate there. It's like negotiating with a seven-year-old. Except that seven-year-old is Europe's largest airline.

They wanted to buy the C919. This isn't, like, a bad thing, it's just really strange for a hardcore Boeing loyalist airline and I can't imagine how it would save them money.

image: Robot8A This is the interior of a Ryanair plane. Note the safety cards attached to the seatbacks due to the lack of pockets, plus additional adverts on the seatbacks and overhead bins like this is a sports match in a massive stadium. It's also just quite ugly.

Fundamentally, Ryanair is just perpetually doing Ryanair things. Why is Ryanair? Because Ryanair is one giant publicity stunt. A couple of people answered my question by referencing the CEO saying he'd like to charge people to use the toilet, and that's sort of true in the sense that he's said he'd like to do this, but he's always been pretty clear that it's a publicity stunt:

Short of committing murder, negative publicity sells more seats than positive publicity.

Like, it's a bit. He's doing a bit. He's 100% in on the joke. For every one of the more particularly insane claims, like charging to use the toilets, he's outright denied it. Even some claims that are pretty borderline are ones he's contradicted at other points. He's a legitimate bigot who's created one of the most nightmarish work environments out there and just wants to suck money out of people by any means necessary, and he's indefensible, but that's not really what people talk about when they talk about Ryanair. They talk about charging for toilets.

Charging for toilets continues to be the number one story that resurfaces in the press and it’s the gift that keeps on giving. We’ve never done it, but it keeps coming up on social networks every three or four months, the media picks up on it and then someone writes a story on it.

Which I think is misplaced effort when he's also, for instance, a climate change denier who forces disabled passengers to pay for wheelchairs. And I don't believe for a second his climate change denial is based on legitimate convictions - he just doesn't want to have to spend more money. He would absolutely knowingly feed the world into an incinerator if it lowered costs.

Anyway, here is a picture of him having his face violently introduced to a pie.

image: Olivier Hoslet

All of this said, there's no such thing as an ethical airline - he's just playing it up to the extreme for essentially business clickbait.

I feel like the best example of Ryanair's general...Ryanairness is their Twitter account, which I have a sneaking suspicion Michael O'Leary runs himself to save money. It's mostly composed of firing back at complaining customers, Formula 1 opinions, and jabs at everyone from Boris Johnson to the British Museum. (Heartbreaking: the worst person you know just made a great point.) Their description, 'we sell seats, not windows', references the frequent complaints about seat 11A, which does not have a window. (To be fair, their website does warn you about this.) Their weird window situation actually generated my all-time favourite Ryanair tweet.

Here are some other winners.

No, seriously, I think Michael O'Leary might be writing these. I also really don't know how to feel about the fact that it appears someone at the airline - potentially O'Leary himself - has made an edit of a yassified Ryanair plane.

But at the end of the day, it's Ryanair. O'Leary himself has described aeroplanes as "a bus with wings on". As one individual tweeted,

THANK YOU to [Ryanair], for letting me see Europe for Feck All

and that's why I do think I genuinely have primarily positive feelings about Ryanair as a product rather than a company - you truly do see Europe for Feck All. (O'Leary has claimed both that he would introduce $10 transatlantic tickets to the US, and that he would make tickets literally free and make all profits from ancillary fees - while neither has yet happened, it takes one hell of an airline to claim that it's on the table.)

Ryanair isn't affordable, it's dime store. It's an airline you bought from Wish.com. It's the free pen you stole from a cup of identical pens at the bank which stops working within days. You're not just in steerage, you're on a tramp steamer. You get exactly the misery you pay for, and you go from one place to a different place, not dying in the process.

And it's worth noting that Ryanair has at least one positive feature - safety.

When I ran my first questionnaire I asked respondents what type of airline they thought was most dangerous. Other than what's shown there was also an option for mainline full service carriers; unsurprisingly, nobody chose this. There were 50 respondents but 5 declined to answer this particular question, so the sample size isn't really significant enough to draw any conclusions from, but it's what I have. (I kind of wish I could stop to re-run this with my current follower count, but this post is actually a request. No, not for my wonderful beloved followers - for my dentist. Not joking. Thank you for making my teeth not have holes in them.)

20% of respondents indicated that low-cost or ultra-low-cost airlines probably had the worst safety records and practices. It's completely understandable why someone would think this, but without going into the actual statistics of plane crashes this simply isn't true, and in fact they're the safest category on here. While it obviously depends on the specific airline, low-cost carriers as a category are no less safe than mainline carriers. This is despite the fact that they tend to fly shorter flights and thus they operate more takeoffs and landings, which are the points in a flight where the majority of crashes occur.

How does that make sense? Well, part of it is that the airline industry has gotten very close to eliminating accidental crashes via innovations in technology and an incredible safety culture built on years of hard lessons. The world has paid in blood for crew resource management and GPWS, but it has paid, and now the sorts of crashes that would have been unremarkable just 20 years ago are completely unthinkable. Actually, in the 2010s it's quite possible more people were killed by planes brought down deliberately than accidents. But beyond that, the costs low-cost airlines count tend to be ones that aren't safety-critical. They tend to operate shiny new fleets (better fuel efficiency, purchased in bulk) with large maintenance teams (shorter turnaround and less planes grounded for long periods of time) at less congested airports (lower operating fees) and indeed when I think about famous accidents that involve massive cutting of corners it's nearly always full-service airlines, save for egregious examples of low-cost industry pariahs out of business within a few years. Focusing on eliminating operating costs by making the passenger experience cramped and miserable allows for pouring all your budget into running a smooth and well-oiled operation.

The axiom "if you think safety is expensive, try a crash" is often attributed to EasyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou. And it's true. Beyond the cost of writing off a plane, of financial compensation to survivors and families, of having to update your operation to make sure it never happens again...as O'Leary himself said, all press is good press...short of murder. A heinous, clearly negligent crash, on the other hand, can kill an airline as easily as it can kill people. It has done in the past and that threat will never stop being there. Airlines go out of business all the time for any number of mundane financial reasons. In many cases margins simply do not allow for something like a crash. Crashes have even ended the lives of deeply historic, beloved, well-established nationalized flag carriers, so this particular sword of Damocles could cut Ryanair's control cables just as easily. And they've managed to avoid this fate, with zero passenger fatalities and only one written-off airplane - the 2008 crash of flight 4102, caused by a birdstrike during landing.

And I'll be honest, "miserable and safe but a tenth the price of a train ticket from Boston to New York" (I am unfortunately serious) is a pretty appealing package to my non-millionaire self.

...so why do their planes look like this? I'm dead serious, it vexes me. I don't know what to make of this. Hey, did you remember I'm an airline livery review blog? Look, I can't help myself. Low-cost carriers as a topic, and how they're viewed, is probably the most interesting facet of the aviation industry to me. I feel like if I had infinite time and resources I might genuinely sit down, hit the databases and archives, run a few studies, and write a book about it - it's fascinating, and low-cost carriers are something that only economists and businesspeople seem to want to talk about. I think it's about time someone approached them through a lens of history and social psychology. There's not really academic value to what I do here, on Runway Runway, my tumblr blog where I call Lufthansa planes ugly, but if something doesn't exist I will create it even if my sample size is 50.

So how about how they're literally viewed - like, what their planes look like? Well, here are some low cost carriers I've reviewed. Notice something? They're bright and eye-catching. They don't take themselves too seriously. They're fun. The original low-cost carrier literally painted big smiles on their bright pink and orange planes.

Okay, yes, they don't all look like this. WestJet and IndiGo, for example, are fairly normal-looking. And there are full-service carriers like TAP Air Portugal (and condor. Absolutely condor.) that I would say have a pretty low-costy look to them. There is nothing wrong with that. Low-cost liveries are frequently colourful and exciting, with much more thought put into distinctiveness and charm instead of a passionless appeal to dignity. The fact of the matter is that a lot of my most highly esteemed liveries, including all the ones pictured above, are low-cost airlines. GOL, for example, is a snappy, eye-catchy design in bright colours that's clearly not meant to look expensive. The same goes for Breeze Airways. There's even more examples out there I've yet to touch on, like EasyJet; ValuJet; Scoot; Spirit Airlines; Frontier Airlines; PLAY (and the late WOW air); Volotea; airasia, so on - to be dignified or clean is not the goal here. Even the names of low-cost carriers frequently are very hastily stapled together and generic, like EasyJet or Super Air Jet or Wings Air; JetSmart; SkyUp; Smartwings; FastJet; Sky Airline (just one!); MYAirlines; the classic ValuJet; flyadeal; and the legendary jet2.com, making no attempt at all to seem as if they have a legacy to fall back on. And there's even more out-there specimens, like Mango or even Nok Air. Many of them have specific themes, like Batik Air, Tigerair, or Buzz, which isn't something you see on full-service carriers, which brand themselves on national identity and the promise of luxury and good service - which is boring. Low-cost airlines have to do something to make people remember they exist. At least, this is true of the successful ones.

This is the form taken by the low-cost product, which operates with few laurels to rest on and a mission of getting people to remember their website at any cost. Much like a can of Arizona iced "tea" guaranteed to cost ninety-nine cents, literally cheaper than a bottle of water, the package it comes in makes no attempt to look classy. And I am a heavy tea drinker who considers myself fairly discerning, whose favourite type of tea is gyokuro yamashiro (which is absurdly expensive), but you literally can't beat Arizona! It's potable and it's ninety-nine cents and it sort of resembles tea if you don't think too much about it and Massachusetts summers are surprisingly hot and the can is pretty and colourful. A Wizz Air plane is a can of Arizona iced tea. It is ninety-nine cents and potable.

This isn't Arizona, this is a box of Darjeeling from Harrods. Ryanair outfits their fleet in handsome navy blue and gold. Their logo, an outline of a woman with harp-like wings taking flight, is simple yet elegant, and that feels so very wrong. I actually asked in my questionnaire what the colours of the Ryanair livery were, because I had seen people expressing casually that they weren't sure they could recognize so much as a Ryanair logo, and the results aren't worth showing in a chart because they're basically as good as random. I do want to specifically appreciate the person who answered "I don't remember but it must be whatever the cheapest colour of airplane paint is", though.

But they truth is that they have such a rich palette, and I do mean that in the sense of 'wealthy'. A deep royal blue paired with a saturated gold used as a sparing trim, these are the colours of an overstuffed plush armchair, not a budget airline. Aside from the name on the winglets and the giant billboard wordmark there is nothing, and I mean nothing, that is typical for a low-cost airline. This is not garish advertising, this is stately.

The layout itself is what I call "Deltalike". Delta certainly did not invent this style of livery but they are the carrier I associate most with it, likely due to the fact that I live right by one of their hubs. The Deltalike is a white plane with a painted tail unconnected to the main fuselage body, painted winglets, painted engines, and a painted underbelly large enough still be visible when viewed directly from the side. While a 'true' Deltalike uses a consistent palette for the engines, tail, and underbelly, there is significant variation. The detached tail is, in my opinion, the harbinger of the Deltalike, and I call liveries with an incomplete presentation of Deltalike features Deltalites.

This scheme is not as common as the Lufthansa Line variants but it is still very common, with its popularity probably peaking in the 2010s. Some examples of the true Deltalike include Air Canada, Icelandair, Azul, the old GOL livery, and jetBlue. Some colour-varied Deltalikes are the old Flair livery, the SAS red engine livery, and British Airways. An example Deltalite is the old Croatia Airlines scheme, which has a painted tail and belly and engines that are sort of painted. Sure, the engines are just grey and a bit of the tail extends onto the body, but it's got the colour concentrated in the right place and it has the painted belly, it's a Deltalite. A lot of liveries have painted engines and detached tails but no painted bellies, and I do consider these to be on the far end of the Deltalike spectrum, but they aren't what I mean when I refer to a Deltalike. They're what brown dwarves are to actual stars - related but not really the same.

Ryanair is a true Deltalike, but I would even call it an elevated Deltalike. The gold trim, like the cord adorning the hems a of a thick brocade smoking jacket, has an effortlessly shallow curve as it trims the rich blue underbelly, larger than that of a typical Deltalike and with a very deliberate shape to it which at the rearmost point covers half the fuselage by height but fades away to a sort of goatee at the front. This is not a plane which sat in a puddle of blue but an intentional jacket impeccably positioned, visible not just from the side but from the front. The engines, instead of being plain or just one colour with a website printed on, large and garish, are the same white and blue with yellow trim, the last traces of the setting sun melting into a glassy deep blue ocean below a stark white sky with which it inexplicably coexists. Sure, the detached tail still looks bad, it always does, but you can ignore it at most angles.

From below the dark blue creates that distinct cetacean effect, a certain brightness-inverted countershading effect, similar to what you see on airlines like KLM and other blue-side-up liveries. The underside doesn't have a huge, legible logo, visible even from the ground on final approach. One of the defining features of the low-cost livery, in my mind, is a large, prominent website. It's tacky and a little pointless (I mean, surely they can Google your airline's name if your wordmark is large enough) but it is downright ubiquitous. Even full-service carriers frequently heavily feature their website, but it's nowhere on a Ryanair plane. That's so, so incredibly weird.

Just...think about it. Their entire identity is outrage marketing. They are the xQc of airlines - bigoted, constantly in the news, and obnoxious. And nobody remembers what their livery looks like because it doesn't look obnoxious. This is like if MrBeast's thumbnails were lovingly curated aesthetically pleasing shots of scenery that could pass for screenshots from an actual film. It's not tacky and cheap and it's not generic and cheap, it's elegant and cheap. And of all airlines to look like this...Ryanair? Seriously? Ryanair?

image: Associated Press

The CEO.

The airplanes.

Do you see what I mean? Do you see why I find this deeply strange? This is not a clickbait plane. This plane is downright unclickable. It has never been clicked. I bet if I covered the name up and showed it to people (again, I wish I'd had the time to do this) I could fool people into thinking this is like United. Hell, I've learned from my other survey that the average person clearly knows less about liveries than I, the Joker of liveries, do, and can't identify basically any from memory. I could probably fool at least one or two people into thinking this is Singapore Airlines. I may try this on a few co-workers and then get back to you.

How did we get here? I have no clue. While Ryanair did start out as a charter carrier rather than a low-cost airline, and they always had blue and yellow as their colours, their very early liveries were just white planes with wordmarks.

This livery seems to have appeared very early in the history of low-cost Ryanair. Unfortunately, I can't date it precisely - the only thing I can say is that the earliest photograph I could find in this livery was from 1994. Based on the fact that their planes were photographed in different liveries right up to then, including this very brief TAM-like BAC 1-11 livery, I think 1994 is most likely the point they committed to it.

Oh, Adam Rowden, what a different world you lived in.

Even for 1994 this is a pretty conservative livery. Sure, this was before the real boom of bright and venomous flying billboards, but it's still strange. And Ryanair is no stranger to literal flying billboards in the form of logojets for such companies as Vodafone and Hertz, often sort of hideous ones, though I imagine these days nobody would ever want to associate with them like that.

And they never changed it, except that they did - to the modern, softer curve. This I can pinpoint with much more accuracy. It was changed in mid-2003 as new aircraft were delivered, while the older livery was phased out together with the secondhand airframes which wore it. I do not understand this at all. If any airline were to just make the decision to go full circus tent and be as garish as possible it should be Ryanair, right? Ryanair is a brand incapable of cowardly behavior. But they look far more sober than even the average modern flag carrier livery. I guess they don't think they need an eye-catching livery, but I just don't buy that as a full explanation. Imagine the news they'd make for introducing something truly heinous. I think their genuine best move would just be to put a huge picture of Michael O'Leary's face, blown up massively and poorly aligned with visible JPEG artefacts, all over their fuselages. All of Europe would be furious. So why? Why is this the situation?

So what's the verdict? This may be the hardest decision I've made so far. The options here range widely. I'll lay them out.

If I were rating this based on pure visual appeal, I would give it a B-. I am dead serious - this is a visually pleasing, well-balanced livery, simple yet elegant. The detached tail is my only major complaint. But I think Saudia's planes are quite pretty and I graded them low because I think they fail at representing their airline or having a distinct identity, so this cannot be my sole criterion.

I almost want to give them an F because of just how un-Ryanair they are, like how Copa's livery is literally not the Copa livery, but that feels wrong because that's still the Ryanair livery, it's not just a refusal to design a livery at all.

Do I marry these two into a tepid union destined for either divorce or a dramatic act of arson after a seeming eternity of languishing in mutual dysfunction in Tallahassee? I really don't want to do that, because attempting to balance these factors betrays the fact of their contradiction, the mental strain I've been afflicted with over this simple, pointless choice with zero consequences except maybe one of my followers disagreeing with me, which is fine. Unlike certain individuals I will not call you swear words and say you're an idiot.

The final option is maybe my least favourite of them all, because it's capitulation. It's admitting Ryanair is special, just the most annoying golf-ball-sized hailstone in the blizzard of absurd and comical frustrations which is the airline industry. But I just don't know what to make of this miserable little pest, this plague on the patience and knees of the traveling public.

Z. FUCK YOU IT'S RYANAIR.

It defies categories by being good, but being Ryanair. I hate that. I hate it, I hate their beastly little CEO, and I dislike that their planes are sleek, elegant, and could easily pass for an airline that doesn't instruct stewardesses to kick their passengers' shins as they walk down the aisles. If I am buying a ten-pound plane ticket I do not think the plane should look like this, teleologically speaking. At the end of the day I just have no better way to quantify my feelings.

Prick.

[jarofstyles]

Appetency 2

Welcome to the other half of Appetency 🫶 I left it off wholesome, so I’ll give you the smut you deserve now lol. Thank you for such a good reception to it, I had no idea you guys would like them this much!

Part One

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WC- 8.9k

Warnings- smut, penetration and oral (both receiving) unprotected sex, soft Dom H, cum play, cockwarming, etc etc etc

Harry was warm.

After he had eaten and changed, he lounged back on her couch, making himself back at home at her place. He’d seemed to have no problem doing that. It had done something to her to see her make the furniture look smaller, but she recollected herself. When he patted his lap, however, she shocked him by crawling onto his thighs and sitting across them.

Back again, she was wrapped up in his arms as one of his hands dragged up and down her bare waist while the other sat leisurely on her hip.

He slid his hands down to her thighs, his palms warm against her bare skin. He loved having her like this, perched on his lap like a precious toy he could play with whenever he wanted. She hadn’t seemed to mind the manhandling as he shifted their positions, a giggled squeal all the protest she let out.

He pulled her closer, his body pressed up against hers. His hands continued to roam over her bare waist and brushed over the waistband of those stupid pants that had been working him up the whole night. Of course he’d been behaving the best he could, but the promise of kissing had held him to it. "You're feeling pretty naughty tonight, aren't you?"

“No.” She grinned, face completely opposing what her words said. “I just… I dunno.” She looked down to his chest. “You work out a lot, huh?”

Harry's smile widened as he felt her gaze shift to his chest. He was feeling rather smug, having her sitting in his lap like this after where they’d started. His hands slid further up her thighs, his fingertips tracing small circles against her warm fabric. "Yeah, I work out a lot. Do you like it?" he asked, trying to keep from feeling smug.

“Yeah. You’re just… I don’t know how to describe it. I feel safe with you like this. And I like when you hold me.”

Harry's smile softened at her words, the playfulness melding into true fondness. Of course he loved that she felt safe in his arms, and he loved that she even admitted it. It was a vulnerability in its own way, one that she hadn’t given him much of prior. He wrapped his arms further around her waist, shifting so that she was even tighter against his strong chest. "I like holding you, too." He murmured, his voice soft and low but audible over the TV.

It was hard to muster up the nerve to ask outright, but the ball was in her court. He had given her control in that regard and he wasn’t going to do anything without her saying so, but she could feel him looking at her lips. He’d been staring most of the night. “I think…” She’d been thinking all night, really. For days. But he didn’t know that part. “I think we should kiss. I think you’ve been really nice to me tonight and you deserve a reward for it.”

Harry's heart rate quickened at her words. He had been holding himself back for days, respecting the desire to go as slow as she needed to go. But now, hearing her actually say that she wanted him to kiss her was like a dream. Hands cupped her face, gently tilting it up to look at him. His eyes were darkened with a mixture of desire and affection as he looked down at her pretty face. "I think you're right." He murmured, his voice husky as he took the time to observe her the way he wanted.

Harry's thumb brushed across her lower lip, his touch gentle and yet solid. He had been craving the feeling of her lips against his, and now that it was about to happen, he could barely contain himself. The man had been so good, and now he was getting exactly what he needed. Good things came to people who wait, he was finding out.

It was slow as he leaned in, closing the distance between them. His lips found hers in a soft, slow kiss. It was gentle, tentative at first, as if he were afraid of going too fast and scaring her off. But as she responded, he deepened the kiss, his tongue delving into her sweet mouth to taste her the way he’d been desperate for.

Her response was all the encouragement Harry needed to let go of his restraint.

His tongue explored her, tangling with hers in a passionate kiss. He wanted more, needed more, and the feel of her perfect body pressed against his was driving him wild. It was something he’d been essentially edged on after the memory of how perfect it had been the first time, and it brought him right back. He shifted, pulling her up so that she was straddling him so he could have better access to those lips he’d been daydreaming about.

“Is this okay?” He paused to ask her, panting against her lips. “You’re alright?”

“Mhm.” She nodded with her eyes still closed, her nose brushing against his. “I’m so good. Keep kissing me.” The manhandling had made her want to scream in the best way. He’d handled her like a doll, and she loved every single second. For someone who was so loving of control in her life, it felt incredible to let him take the lead. Let him physically move her where he wanted, kiss her how he craved.

Sure, she knew they should probably be slower. Warm up, show more restraint, but she didn’t want to. She wanted him to kiss her like he wanted to. While he had been edged- so had she.

With confirmation, he captured her lips in another deep kiss, his tongue sliding against hers as he devoured her. It was clear that he wanted her. He wanted her so badly it was almost painful.

Her fingers tangled in his hair, tugging slightly on accident. She went to apologize, but there was quickly shown there to be no need. The response had been him letting out a low groan against her mouth, a surprise reaction. He’d liked his hair played with, but she’d not expected the hair pulling thing with him.

Harry was lost in the feel of her lips against his, that softness of her body pressed flush against his chest. But as soon as she pulled on his hair, the sensation sent a bolt of pleasure through his body. He let out a low groan, his hands flexing on her. He hadn't expected to love the feeling of fingers tangled in his hair so much, but there was something about it that had him feeling desperate for another taste.

"Do that again." he growled, the words low and needy. “Tug.”

Y/N needed no second command, repeating the action and feeling her tummy heat up as she watched his head fall back, face paint with pleasure as she tightened her grip. It was hot, so hot that she knew that she wanted to keep seeing him like this. “Yeah?” She whispered, letting her other hand run her nails over his scalp. “You like that?”

Another low moan fell from Harry's lips as she repeated the action, his head falling back against the couch and his eyes fluttering shut. He loved the way she was teasing him, the momentary spark of pain her fingers tugging in his hair sending sparks of pleasure shooting through him. "God, yes." he hissed, his voice dark and rough. "Keep doin’ that."

Harry's body shuddered as she continued to tease, his hands gripping her hips as he pulled her against him. The sensation of her touch was driving him wild, and he let out another low moan. His body was taut with tension, and he was clearly struggling to keep himself contained. “Fuck, baby.”

Y/N knew she was the one who said they had to behave, but that was before this. Before she was reminded how good he could kiss, how good his hands felt on her body, how gorgeous he was when she made him feel good.

Why had she wanted slow again?

Her poor core ached and she could feel him thickening underneath her, so she decided to give them both a little relief. Rolling her hips, she rubbed herself against the hardness that had grown obvious underneath her, lips pressing over his jaw as she continued tugging his hair.

Harry's eyes darkened as she rolled her hips against him. He couldn't help but push back against her, trying to get more friction. The man let out a low moan as she continued to rub herself against him, the lips on the sensitive spot on his neck, the feeling driving him wild. "God, you're driving me insane." he growled, his voice thick with desire. He tilted his head back, giving her better access to his throat. "Don't stop."

Letting out another low groan in his throat as she continued to roll her hips against him, he watched as she rubbed herself against his thickening length. “Fuck, that feels so good.” He urged, his hands gripping her hips tightly as he lifted his hips up to meet her own.

Harry was beautiful like this. Head tilted back against the couch, hands on her hips as he guided her against his thickening cock, the rocking nudging her clit each time through her thin leggings.

“Harry…” she whispered. “I know I said we should go slow… but this feels so good.” Her forehead pressed against his as she breathed him in, feeling his cock twitch under her.

The man groaned in agreement, his hips grinding up to meet hers as she rolled them against him.” I know what you mean…” he panted, his breathing heavy as he felt her clit through the thin fabric of her leggings. "I jus’ don't want to rush this..."

“Me either, but…” Pressing herself down harder, she let out a weak gasp, feeling all of her mental walls start to crumble. Part of her briefly wondered if she’d regret going past this, but she knew she wouldn’t. Harry had been proving himself time and time again as the days had gone on, never once complaining seriously about the speed she had asked to go… and their sex prior had been so good it was coming back in waves every time she thought about it. “God, I missed you touching me like this.”

He moaned at the feeling of her grinding down against him harder, the feeling almost too much to handle. "You were the one who wanted to take things slow... but fuck, you're making it so hard." he groaned, thrusting up against her as she mentioned missing his touch.

"Fuck, you're so hot..." he laughed under his breath as he continued to rock his hips up against hers, the friction from the movement starting to become unbearable. It felt too good, and he knew if he didn’t stop he could easily orgasm just like this.

It was when her hands tugged at his hair again, he finally lost the battle. Self control slipping, a loud groan escaped his lips as he thrust up against her, the movement causing their clothing to bunch up between them a little. "Fuck, baby… Please, like that. Kiss me" He cursed out, lips connecting with hers again.

Y/N let out a weak moan, let him move her on top of him. Their clothing was evil, she thinks. Evil and downright rude for keeping her from feeling him completely. The notion of slow, the mere thought of getting off of his lap had her whimpering into his mouth, grinding back against him the best she could. “You’re in control. It’s your turn.” she whispered. “I trust you.”

The words "I trust you" sent a surge of power through Harry. He felt like he had conquered something he’d been yearning after for ages, and finally getting the permission to show her just how much he wanted her. Gently pushing her back, he broke the kiss to look at her. His eyes were filled with adoration as he spoke. "Good girl... Y’can always trust me."

With a gentle smile, Harry carefully moved, lifting Y/N with him in his arms, laughing at the squeak of surprise as he shifted her on his lap, smoothing out her hair as he looked at her. "How far do you want this to go?” His cock was throbbing with need, but he wanted a limit before he indulged.

“All the way. Everything.” Y/N knew what she said, she knew she had been the one to pause all physical things between them but just a singular taste had reminded her of the immense chemistry between them. It was no wonder they had such an intense relationship before- even if it was negative. Passion had always been there- it just needed to be channeled a different way. “You can touch me however you want. I need it.” Her hand reached for his wrist. “Need you.”

Harry's heart skipped a beat at her words. He was drowning in desire for her- it would be a pleasant death. Slowly he let his his hand wrap around her wrist and brought it to his lips. He kissed her knuckles softly before speaking "Okay, Angel... I'll give you everything you need."

With a hand curled around her waist, he whispered in her ear, "This gonna be a fuckin' experience." He took her mouth in a deep kiss, tongue sliding against hers.

With her hand in his, he helped her move from her position to sit higher on top of him, groaning at the view he had been blessed with. Her little crop top exposing her tummy, leggings clinging to her legs, he couldn’t get enough. His hand settled on her waist as a slow smirk stretched across his lips. Looking her over, he let out a sigh, nose brushing against hers as he got closer. "Fuck, you're gorgeous, baby. M’gonna have so much fun with you ..."

Harry’s hands slipped further up her top, letting their breathing mingle as he approached her ribs- only to find the lack of bra. He’d been unsure if it was just a thin one, having seen her nipples hardened against the cotton, but it was abundantly clear that she had forgone the undergarment entirely.

Letting out a ragged breath, he couldn't help himself as he explored the lack of bra with his own hands. "Fuck, baby... no bra today?" His fingers grazed against the nipples, eliciting a soft gasp from her. He wanted more.

“No.” She whispered, breathing quickening as he brushed his thumbs rubbed back and forth over the hardened buds. It was surprising considering she wasn’t usually very sensitive with them, but something about the way he was touching them… maybe just him in general. it had her feeling hot, itching to get it off. “Take it off. please.”

Harry could feel her body temperature rising, heating up as he played with the nipples. It was unreal, finally getting to touch her again. The way she pleaded for it had his dick twitching in his pants, anticipation running through him. He took a deep breath, the words “please” leaving her lips had him inching his fingers up her sides before he hooked them in the soft blue fabric. Carefully, he trailed them up, past her ribs and up and over her tits before tugging onto the fabric and pulling it over her head, exposing her chest for his eager, hungry eyes.

His eyes widened as he took in the sight of her bare tits, the soft, smooth skin and the hardened nipples standing out. They were beautiful. There was no hesitation as he cupped them into his hands, letting out a shaky sigh at the feel of them. It was even better than his memory of them. He loved how they fit perfectly in his palms and how they bounced when he moved them…. They were exactly what he wanted.

“Do you like them?” Y/N could tell he did just by how he was staring, almost like he was in pain- But she wanted to hear it from him. His hands cupping them, warm and large, she ached for more. For his mouth, for him to play with her nipples, something. Anything. “Don’t know if you remembered them from last time…”

Harry's hands gently squeezed around her tits, his thumbs rubbing over the nipples in a slow, maddening circle. "I remember every fucking detail, baby," He whispered, his voice husky with desire. "These perfect tits, how they fit in my hands, how they look when you move f’me..."

Without warning, he lowered his head and suckled her right nipple into his mouth, the sensation enough to make her cry out, before letting go with a soft ‘pop’. "You taste so damn good, everywhere." His voice vibrated against her skin, barely pulling back.. Harry's mouth wrapped around her nipple again, his tongue swirling around it in circles before he suckled harder, his cheeks hollowing out as he pulled on the sensitive bud. He released it with a satisfied hum and moved to her other nipple, giving it the same treatment, his fingers tweaking and rolling the other one.

“Oh, fuck.” Y/N dragged out the curse, fingers returning to his hair as she sat up in his lap to give him better access to her. It hadn’t felt this good before, a new sensation to her as she pulled him in slightly into her plush chest. “That feels so fucking good.”

Harry groaned at the feeling of her soft tits pressed against his face, her fingers threading through his hair and pulling him closer. "Glad you like it," he said, before returning his attention to her nipple, sucking on it with more fervor this time.

Harry's hands were in constant motion, squeezing and massaging her breasts and teasing her nipples between his fingers. He was worshiping them, showing her just how much he loved them and how much he had missed them.

The man was honestly in heaven as he worshiped her tits, his tongue tracing the outline of her breast and his fingers tweaking and pinching her nipples. He couldn't get enough of them and he could spend hours just loving on them, but he knew they had other things to do. He would very much ensure he had hours dedicated just to her breasts later on down the line.

“Shit, baby.” Harry whispered against her skin, kissing up her clavicle. “You are perfect… but I know you need some more from me. Don’t you?” Fingers slipped down between them, cupping her poor, hot cunt through her leggings. “Oh.. my poor baby. S’aching, isn’t it?” Harry's cock throbbed as he kissed his way up her neck, his fingers teasing her through her leggings. He knew she needed some release and he was going to be the one to give it to her. "Do you want me to take these off, princess?"

“Yeah.” She mewled, rocking her hips against his hand. it was firm and his grip was solid, oddly arousing for her as he shifted his other hand from her breast to the waistband of her leggings. Taking the hint when he patted her hip, she stood in front of him to let him take them off. “Do it.”

Harry grinned at her eagerness and wasted no time sliding her leggings down her legs, revealing her bare, soaking wet pussy. "Fuck, Me," he growled, taking in the sight of her. “Jesus… did you just say ‘fuck it’ to all your underwear?” The minx wasn’t wearing panties, either. “Planned on doing this to me? Makin’ me lose my damn head and wanted me t’get my hands on this perfect cunt?”

Chuckling at her coy little smile in response, he got his answer. Of fucking course, she did. "I personally didn't plan on this happening, but I'm not complaining." He leaned in and kissed her tummy, his hands roaming her body. He broke the string of kiss and whispered against her silky skin. "You're perfect. Don’t think I can say it enough."

He took her in his arms again, his hard cock pressing against her bare wetness. Carefully, he lifted her off the ground and adjusted her to lay on the sofa, spreading her thighs out for him to get a good look at the glistening cunt he was about to get his hands on again.. His mouth nearly watered as he took her in, the slick little slit and groomed thatch of hair on her mouth. “Mm… I like this.” He ran his fingers over it.

“Harry.” Y/N whimpered, desperation coating the word. Making him wait hadn’t just effected him- no. She had edged herself, too. She was just as desperate for him to touch her, devour her with his mouth like he did so liberally with his eyes. “Please…”

“So polite.” He crooned, nose running over her mound. “Since y’have manners… let me take a taste of this.” With a low, hum of appreciation Harry’s head dipped fully between her thighs. He let out hot breaths against her folds before using his thumbs to spread her open. His tongue flicked out and lapped at her clit, making Y/N’s hips buck off the sofa with the sudden pleasure. Harry laughed against her wet heat but didn’t stop- He had only just gotten started. He lavished her cunt, worshiping every inch as if it was a religious experience.

Harry’s tongue flicked out, tracing her clit with a gentle touch before he sucked it into his mouth. Y/N couldn't help the way she moaned as his suction intensified, making her slowly grind her hips up against his face. She was making a mess of him, but he didn’t seem to mind at all. Even more so, he hummed happily against her clit, the sound of soft sucking filling the room. He was being gentle with it, but there was no doubt of who was running this show.

Harry spread her thighs even wider, baring the sweetest part of Y/N to his hungry mouth and roaming eyes as he began to properly eat her out. His tongue lapped at the plump glands of her labia, lathering the delicate skin with heavy strokes. His eyes were almost glazed over with his own pleasure, as if eating her out was a euphoria in itself. When he switched to sucking at her clit again, it was with even more vigor, and his tongue sucked and darted messily against the sensitive bundle of nerves.

Y/N's back arched off the sofa, her fingers tangled in Harry's hair as she held him against her throbbing cunt. She was making the whiniest, most desperate sounds as she rode his face, her juices dripping down his chin and neck as he sucked and licked at her clit with reckless abandon.

Her eyes rolled back in pleasure, her head thrown back as she moaned so loud she would be embarrassed if she was in her right mind and not in the depths of being licked out better than she had ever experienced. Her entire body trembled with need, hips bucking wildly as Harry continued his onslaught of wet and sloppy kisses all over her clit. The man looked up at her, his face drenched in her with pure lust in his eyes, his chin all wet and shiny and dripping. “You’re so beautiful.” he mumbled, swiping his tongue across his lips to taste her.

She couldn’t help it. Y/N reached for his face, pulling him up to kiss him. She didn’t care about the mess, tasting herself on him, anything- she just needed the intimacy.

Harry happily obliged her, kissing her back with messy passion, sliding his tongue into her mouth to mingle their tastes. His wet cunt-soaked fingers trailed down her body and slipped between her thighs, slipping one inside of her entrance. Gently, he thrust his finger inside her, loving the way she moaned against his lips, still fucking her needy pussy with slow, steady strokes as he kissed her.

Harry pulled back slightly, plunged another finger into her wet, molten heat, and watched with rapt attention as she cried out, bucking her hips hungrily. Every single moment of this was a fantasy come to life. He hooked his finger upwards, finding her spot, swollen and tender with need for attention. “There you go, sweetheart. Work that pussy on my fingers.”

Y/N laughed in disbelief. Why had she waited for this? Her own fingers had absolutely nothing on him. His were thicker, longer, reaching where she couldn’t. In any other scenario, she’d be embarrassed by the squelching, how wet he was getting her, but from the pride on his face she really couldn’t.

Harry smirked as she writhed, hips moving into his hand as she whined against his mouth.. He knew he was good, but he didn’t realize how much different this would feel with someone he actually liked- someone he cared about. He loved how she moaned, gasping, how her cheeks got deliciously hot. When he took his hand away, he was surprised as she released a disappointed whine.

“No…” She pleaded. “I was so close.”

Harry shook his head, pulling away from the kiss. He was still fully clothed, and he didn’t like it. “No, no, baby- I want you to be close when you cum for me.” He murmured against her lips before sitting back further and stripping down completely. Dragging his shirt over his head, he smirked as she looked over his tattooed torso. “Waited for this, m’not gonna have you cumming unless its around my cock.”

Her mouth dropped open slightly, as she watched him strip. He was so much more than she imagined in all the right ways. The way his muscles rippled, the way his tattoos peeked out with intricate pictures and patterns, swirling and dancing across every part of him. Of course she had seen him before, she knew he was attractive, but with all her walls down and her attraction for him now in the open, she was seeing him for the first time unfiltered.

Their last hookup had been quick, mostly clothing on, so this was new. She’d seen his arms, she had glimpses of his tattoos from those slutty shirts he wore barely buttoned, but seeing it in all its glory was incredible. The tattoos that decorated his hips, leading towards his groomed pubic hair and base of his cock as he slowly pulled the shorts down- god, he was gorgeous.

He didn’t miss her observations at all.

Harry smirked, knowing exactly where her eyes had landed. “See somethin’ you like, baby?” He questioned, letting his shorts fall to the floor completely, leaving him fully nude in front of her. His cock was already straining towards her. It cock was long and thick, with a girth that made it look almost intimidating. None of her toys were as big as him, that was for sure. She could recall how stretched she had felt last time, but seeing it in the light had her mouth watering. She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to take it, but she was going to try.

She could see every vein in his shaft, pulsating from the tip to the base. The head was slightly flushed, a bead of precum already forming at the tip. Never had she considered a dick pretty before, but there was a first time for everything. Her eyes traveled upwards along every crevice of his toned core as she drank him in. Harry truly was gorgeous. “Love when you look at me like that, sweet girl.” Holding it in his hand, he gave the base a squeeze while his other hand stroked over the top of her head, smoothing out her hair. “Why don’t you give it a kiss, hm? You’ve been thinking about it. haven’t you?”

Harry let out a hum at her small ‘yes’ taking it as his sign to move forward. He took a small step closer to her, tapping the tip against her lips, smearing a little of his precum onto them. He chuckled, moving his hand to the back of her head and gripping her hair to tilt her head back.

Her breath stuttered, her lips parting slightly as she felt the precum smearing over her lips. Rubbing her thighs together to try and soothe the ache between them, she felt herself get hotter as he moved the tip of his cock over her lips. Ever so gently, her lips puckered and pressed to the tip. A soft kiss to his aching length, followed by another, and another, slowly trailing down as her eyes stayed on his face.

Harry's head rolled back momentarily at the gentle touch, his grip on her hair tightening slightly as he watched her kiss the tip of his cock like it was the most precious thing in the world. He let out a shaky breath, his other hand coming up to gently stroke her cheek as she kissed down his length.

“Like this?” she murmured against him, leading her kisses down to the base of his prick. “Is this what you like, H?”

"Fuck, yes," Harry groaned, his voice strained. "Just like that, princess. Keep kissing it like that. So sweet t’me." He looked down at her, his eyes filled with a mix of desire and adoration as she peppered kisses along his shaft. He couldn't believe how fucking good she was being. It was rewarding to have gone from her sneering and snapping at him to finally having the sweet girl he knew laid underneath that thick skin come to the surface for him. To have her trust this way, to have her eager to please him… it was a gift in and of itself.

Gently guiding her head back up to the tip, his precum starting to leak out and drip onto her lips. "Open your mouth, my good girl." He gently pushed the tip past her lips, the precum smearing her her lips again to make the prettiest picture imaginable. As he pushed further, he made sure to go slow, giving her time to adjust to the size. He watched in awe as her lips stretched around his girth, his heart racing with anticipation.

She didn’t stop him, hands settling on the back of his thighs as she urged him to continue. He continued to push his cock deeper into her mouth, the tip of it hitting the back of her throat. His grip on her hair tightened slightly as he took control of the pace. He could feel her gagging a little, but she didn't try to pull away. “S’that okay, baby?” He checked on her, slowly inching himself back. “Gotta tap my thigh if y’need me to stop, okay? Don't want to hurt you, yeah?”

“Mhm.” She nodded her head, catching her breath. Giving head usually wasn’t one of her favorite things but this… giving Harry head? It was actually nice. The weight of him on her tongue and his affection as he guided himself in, she felt appreciated. Yeah, it was a struggle- her jaw was going to ache- but it was going to be a reminder to her of how good she had made him feel.

He smiled at her reaction, his thumb brushing against her cheek one more time as he pushed back in slightly. “Good.” He praised, watching as she swallowed him down again. The way she gave into him was satisfying on a whole other level. “I know it’s big, but you’re doing perfect.”

Her hot mouth was a perfect fit for his thick cock. He was kicking himself for not getting his shit together earlier. He could have had her for much longer. Granted, all it took was one hook up for him to get his ass in gear. She was powerful that way.

She sucked on him eagerly, her lips wrapping around his girth and her tongue swirling around the head as she got into it on the pull back. It was something else, feeling her true desire for him put into physical action. The sound of her sucking and slurping filled the room, making Harry's eyes roll back in his head.

She felt so incredibly wet, she wouldn’t be surprised if she was staining the sofa. Harry's cock was making her drool in the best way. While she had her fears about being able to take it, his thick cock was a welcomed challenge, touching new spots in her throat. Enjoying giving head was still a new sensation, but seeing him throw his head back and hiss between his teeth as she let herself gag around him was even more arousing than she could have ever anticipated.

His reactions were everything she could have asked for and more. The way his eyes would roll back in his head, the way his breath would hitch in his throat, the way he would grunt and curse under his breath. It was all so fucking hot. She loved seeing him lose control like this, loved knowing that she was the one causing it. “Shit.” He grunted, watching her take him down the best she could. “Baby… it’s time to pull off. I need t’be inside of you.”

With a groan, he reached down to push her off, his cock soon popping out with a lewd trail of saliva and precum connecting from him to her lips. Her tongue stayed out, laying flat as he looked down at her with furrowed brows, lightly tapping the slick tip against the pink. “You are so fucking filthy, baby. Never expected this out of you.”

“I have a lot more where that came from.” Her grin was sly, spit dribbled down her chin as he pulled his cock away from her face. Her poor cunt was dripping, aching, desperate. The man had already edged her, and she needed him inside of her in a primal way. “Where do you want me?”

He chuckled darkly, his eyes raking over her soaked face and hair before landing on her needy cunt. “Laid back on the fucking couch, legs spread wide. I want to see that pretty little pussy of yours while I stretch you open.” His thumb brushed some of the spit from her chin, helping her up as she shakily laid herself down onto the cushions.

Panting heavily, he settled between her wide spread thighs, one hand supporting his weight while the other gripped his cock. He gave it a few strokes, eyes never leaving her cunt as he spat into his palm then coated himself in it.

His cock was a beautiful sight, thick and long with a prominent vein running along the underside as it laid against her swollen cunt. He gave it a few more pumps, smacking the fat head against her clit with a lewd smack. "Fuck, look at that, baby. My cock, against your little pussy. S’right where it should be, isn’t it?”

“Mhm.” Her eyes hooded, she looked like the picture of eroticism that he’d not anticipated. It blew his expectations out of the watch, seeing how beautiful she looked splayed out underneath him.

“I’m sorry for making you wait.”

He snorted, giving his cock another few pumps before guiding the tip against her soaked entrance. "Shut up, baby. You don’t have t’be sorry. I know what this means to you… and I hope you know it means the same to me.” His soft voice took on an edge, though, as his smirk turned mischievous. “I’d have waited as long as it took, But M’sure we’re gonna make up for lost time. aren’t we?”

“Yeah…” She nodded, feeling his body as he leaned over her. She felt safe, even with his taunt. Honestly? The safest she had ever felt during something like this. More eager than overthinking, that’s how she knew this was perfect- That she was making the right decision.

Grinning, he gave her a little squeeze before giving it to her. Harry slowly pushed his cock forward, inch by inch, until it was seated completely inside her. He hissed out a breath, pausing so he could gather his bearings before he started moving, the both of them perfectly still as he rested his forehead against hers.

Harry took his time with as he gave her a kiss, savoring it. It was slow and laced with the passion he’d been keeping under wraps, his lips pressed against hers gently but firmly, opening up to her tentatively before delving in completely. He could feel her chest rising and falling rapidly as she panted, feeling the same desperate need he did. Once he broke the kiss, he brushed her sweaty hair away from her face, beaming down at her and humming in pleasure to get her taste on his lips. "My god, you're perfect.” he praised, his voice husky and soft, full of awe.

"It was worth the wait.” He whispered, his eyes shining as he gazed at her. He leaned in to press another tender kiss to her lips before pulling back slightly to look at her again. “You're so fucking beautiful when you're waiting for me, good girl."

“Harry…” She pleaded, nails lightly digging into his shoulder as he ground himself into her, not yet thrusting. “I’m so full.” His cock filled her up to the brim in the best way possible.

Harry's breath caught as her nails lightly dug into his shoulder, making his cock twitch inside of her. He pressed a kiss to her neck and sighed in contentment. "I know, sweet girl," he murmured against her skin. “Do y’need some more?”

“Please. I can take it, I promise.” It was a need, now. Her cunt clenched around him, not fully adjusted but she didn’t care in the slightest. All she wanted was to feel him thrusting inside of her. Giving her what they both had been craving, the thing she had been holding them back from. All gloves were off now, and she wanted to feel every bit of it.

Harry groaned at her pleading, his hips moving of their own accord as he slowly began to thrust into her, each movement calculated as he started to claim her cunt as his own. He set a slow, steady pace, giving her what she needed as he looked down at her with hungry eyes. "I've been waiting for this for so fucking long, Y/N," Harry told her softly, his breath hot against her skin. His eyes searched hers, affection and pure desire shining in his gaze as he gave her exactly what she needed: him. “Longer than you even know. That one time?” He shook his head. “Just that taste was enough t’make me want to change my whole life. Wanted t’have all of you, all the time.”

He continued to thrust into her, each movement sending waves of pleasure through both of them. "Every day since then, I've thought about you, dreamed about you," he confessed, his voice trembling with emotion. "Wanted to be inside you so badly, to feel your tight little cunt squeezing my cock. Get as close as I could possibly be."

As he spoke, he picked up his pace slightly, his thrusts becoming a bit more urgent. "I've wanted to fuck you in every room of this house, in every bar, at every party- fuck, even the in the store, I wanted you. You don’t even know… Baby, look what you’re doing to me.” He growled, his hips moving deep and thorough against hers now.

Y/N looked up at him with hazy, lust-filled eyes, her mouth parted slightly as she panted for air. Her nails dug into his back as he continued to thrust into her, her body completely at his mercy as he took what he wanted from her.

As he fucked her, Harry's body was a beautiful mess of muscles and tattoos. His dark curly hair stuck to his sweaty forehead in messy strands as he rutted into her, hips moving with an enthusiasm that showed on his face. Harry's eyes were bright with pleasure - the same pleasure he was taking from Y/N. He could be so obnoxious and pushed the buttons outside the bedroom, but as he fucked her he was raw and unfiltered, all hard lines and moans and whispers of dirty words.

He whispered filthy praises into her ear as he fucked her, his hot breath making her shiver. "You're so fucking good for me. So fucking perfect. My sweet girl taking my big cock so well. You were made for me, weren't you?" His nose brushed her damp skin tenderly. As his words got sweeter, Harry's hand slid up her neck to gently wrap around it, never squeezing- just lightly putting pressure on her. It was a reminder of who owned her in this moment - and the words that followed only reinforced that fact. "Good girl for me. So fucking perfect."

Y/N's reaction was one of pure bliss. Her eyes rolled back in her head as he whispered sweet nothings into her ear and gently wrapped his hand around her throat. She felt so delicate and safe in his arms, completely at his mercy as he fucked her and praised her. being fucked by him was the best she had ever had. His cock was thick and heavy, stretching her cunt to its limits as he fucked her. The head of his dick pressed against her most sensitive spot with every thrust, making her see stars. She could feel every ridge and vein as he moved in and out of her, the culmination of it all driving her mad.

She needed more. Falling into the primal headspace, the pleasure overwhelming her, she pleaded for more. “H-Harder.” she said breathlessly. “Give it to me, H.”

Harry's grip on her throat tightened slightly, his other hand reaching down to grip her hip and pull her onto his cock harder. He slammed into her, his balls slapping against her ass with loud smacks. "Fuck, you want it harder? You want my cock wrecking this perfect cunt?" His grin was slightly feral, something she had experienced during their hookup. This was the familiar part, his roughness. “Want me t’own it, baby?”

“Yes.” It came out as a squeak, hand holding his wrist as it held her firmly. “It’s yours. M’all yours.”

Who was he to say no when she asked so nicely?

Harry's thrusts became harder at her plea, his hips pounding into hers as he watched her tits bounce with every slam. He could see her hands gripping the couch, her head thrown back in pleasure. This was all he could have asked for. "Say it again..." He growled, his own body losing control.

“I wanna be yours. I wanna-“ Her eyes watered as she felt her orgasm cresting, building as he tightened his fingers at the spots on her throat to give her that head rush. Doing his best to give her what she wanted.

His fingers tightened at her throat, cutting off some oxygen as he felt her cunt clenching around him, a sign she was close to cumming. He kept his pace, the slick sloppy sound of her cunt getting fucked fueling him on. "Cum for me, baby." he crooned. “Give it t’me, my girl. show me.”

Her orgasm was a slow burn that started at her toes, creeping up her body until it took hold of her senses. Her hands gripped the couch so tightly her knuckles turned white. She tightened around his cock, her walls milking him as her pleasure washed over her. It started hot, making her legs quiver uncontrollably. She could feel herself tightening around his cock, her walls contracting and releasing around him repeatedly as he kept thrusting into her in a hard rhythm.

As she rode out her orgasm, Harry praised her nonstop, his words a steady stream of affectionate praises. It’s what she deserved, only the best. "Fuck, you're so fucking tight when you cum. Look at you, trembling for me, my good girl. You're so perfect, baby. So fucking perfect." His lips connected to hers, the thick, deep thrusts continuing. “Do you think you can give me another one? Hm?”

Y/N's reaction was one of complete surrender. She was giving herself over to him, finally giving in to her innermost desires. The ones she had been holding off for far too long as he proved he truly wanted her. She couldn't speak, could only manage to nod her head frantically as Harry asked if she could give him another one.

As she came down from her intense orgasm, Harry took a second to appreciate the beautiful sight before him. Her cunt was a perfect mix of them, soaking wet and clenching his cock tightly in a few different places as aftershocks of pleasure ran through her body. Her folds were puffy and shiny wet, swollen from the rough use and deep fucking he had given her. A mixture of their juices covered the length of his shaft as he continued to look down at their connection.

Harry could feel his own orgasm building, his balls tightening and his cock pulsing with each thrust. But he knew he couldn't let himself cum yet, not until he had her reaching another orgasm first. He needed to make sure she was completely spent before he allowed himself the release he so desperately craved.

His thumb found her swollen clit, rubbing it in tight, fast circles as he continued to pound into her. The little nub was throbbing under his touch, desperate for attention. He rubbed roughly, applying just the right amount of pressure to make her see stars. “C’mon, my baby. Give it t’me. Was mean and took one away before, I know… let me give you another one before I cum.”

“Harry, Harry-“ she didn’t get a break. from her orgasm he was hell bent on getting her there a second time. The thrusts were hard and his thumb rubbing at her clit, her sensitive cunt couldn’t take much more. “M’gonna… again.” she babbled. “S’almost there. it’s, I love it. Love it, Harry.” She rambled, pleasure overwhelming her.

“That’s it, princess. Let it happen. I wanna feel you come apart on my cock again.” Harry cooed, his own orgasm right behind hers. He rubbed her clit mercilessly, his thumb moving in lightning fast circles as he fucked deep. Give it t’me again, you can do it.”

Y/N’s whole body tensed again, shaking and trembling as a second, even more intense orgasm hit her. Truly, she wasn’t sure her first had ever stopped. She cried out, her back arching off the bed, her nails digging into Harry’s back.

Harry's orgasm hit him like a tidal wave, his balls drawing up tight as he pulled out of her and painted her swollen cunt in hot ropes of pearly cum. He shot ribbon after ribbon all over her pussy, coating her lips, her clit, and the sensitive folds inside. It dripped down her thighs, pooling on the fabric beneath her. They’d need to get that professionally cleaned, but it didn’t matter. Harry pumped his hips forward into his hand, ensuring every last drop of his load covered her. “Fuck… shit, baby.” he keened, milking every drop out of his cock as his mouth stayed slack, breathing fast. Her body laid limp, gaze lulled at she looked up at him, taking every bit he fave her. Her eyes were glazed over, her breath coming in soft pants as she looked down at the mess Harry had made of her. She could feel the warm, sticky cum coating her folds, dripping down her, making a mess that she hadn’t fully anticipated. It was so much, more than she had ever seen before. She should’ve known- everything with him was.

As soon as he finished, Harry immediately moved to gather her into his arms, holding her close and whispering praise and affection into her hair. "You are incredible. So fucking good. Look at what a mess I made of you." he cooed, brushing the sweaty hair from her forehead. it didn’t matter that they were sticky with sweat, he was going to tend to her.

Maybe it was a bit much, but she whined slightly. The empty feeling… it wasn’t what she wanted. “Back inside. please.” She peeped. Harry lifted her legs, wrapping them around his waist as he settled back, snug inside her. He took a sharp breath as his softening prick giving a weak twitch while the warmth enveloped him. "You are so fucking good to me, so beautiful. I want to worship you, make you feel so good.. You have no idea." He murmured, kissing her gently.

With her sitting on his lap, Harry's arms wrapped around her, holding her close to him, his hands gently caressing her back and hips. He was so tender with her, almost reverent in the way he touched her, as if she were something precious that could break at any moment.

Gentle words were whispered to her, letting their heart rates calm. It didn’t matter that they were a mess, that they needed to clean up, that they were sweaty and sticky. Y/N felt the most satiated she had ever experienced, safe and warm in his arms as he rubbed her back and caressed her cheek, like he couldn’t get enough of her. Couldn’t get close enough.

"You are so perfect, you know that? So fucking beautiful," He whispered, his fingers tracing the curve of her cheek and down her jaw. The skin was hot to the touch from how flushed her face was from the sex, but it was another reminder that it was real- this had actually happened. He couldn't help but feel a sense of awe at the way she looked at him, like he was everything to her in this moment. Especially after how far they’d shifted from their original dynamic.

There was one other question, though, that he needed to know the answer to. He hesitated for a moment, his heart pounding in his chest as he contemplated the question. He wanted to be her boyfriend so badly, to have her by his side. She said she didn’t want hookups and he’d been working to gain her trust, to show her he wanted more. Hopefully he had proven it enough for her to give it a shot. "Baby... Can I be your boyfriend? Like, officially?" He swallowed, approaching the subject with a gentle caution. It wasn’t like he didn’t know why she had made them wait for this- reflecting back, he had been a prick and didn’t give her any reason to believe he was being serious. But since he’d committed to proving how much he actually wanted her, he could only hope she would understand just how serious he was. “I know m’still proving myself to you, and I understand… but if I can’t call you mine for another day, I think M’gonna lose it.”

Y/N's heart skipped a beat as he asked. She looked at him, really looked at him, seeing the sincerity in his eyes, hearing the vulnerability in his voice. She felt the warmth spread through her chest, a feeling of safety and happiness that she had never experienced before. Even though she had been so hesitant about it before, she could feel his change. Had seen it first hand by how he had treated her, how he’d committed to doing everything she’d asked while still showing his personality to her. There had been no sign he had tried to deceive her since asking for this chance, and she couldn’t deny him. She knew he was being genuine and he had done everything he could to give her peace of mind. It was clear that she’d misjudged him in the past, because he was one of the best people she’d grown to know.

“I think we can make that happen.”

The moment she said yes, Harry felt like he was floating on cloud nine. Wrapping his arms around her tightly, he held her close as he buried his face in her hair. "Really?" he whispered as he pulled back to look at her. "Really, really?" He couldn't stop the goofy grin that spread across his face as she confirmed it, nodding her head. He laughed in pure joy, giving her a playful nudge. "Good girl, you said yeah."

“Oh, shut up.” She groaned, giving his shoulder a push. “I can take it back.” She wouldn’t, though. Y/N was far too happy In the moment. Maybe it was the orgasm, the endorphins, the high of being asked to be a girlfriend, but this could be the start of something new coming to fruition. Something she’d pushed away and he’d diligently worked for.

Harry's eyes widened as he fell back into the couch. "No way you're taking it back!" He scoffed grabbing her hand and bringing it to his lips, kissing the back of each one of her fingers softly before letting go. “Worked too hard for you, miss. You’re mine now. No take backs.”

[riverofrainbows]

I will never forget how my grandparents, when asked by me for more Lord of the Rings books for my birthday, managed to gift me one of the only two books by Tolkien that aren't actually about Middle Earth. The second one being Tolkien's collected letters. And they gave my sister "The little Hobbit", a shortened version of the Hobbit (which i find incredibly nonsensical to even exist in the first place since the book is a children's book already and not actually that long, so of course they had to buy it). Truly a unique talent for giving the worst gifts imaginable, one that is really shining here.

[gilverrwrites]

Fake Dating tropes with (some of) the birds and the bats. Ft. Babs, Bruce, Dick, Duke, Jason, Kate, and Tim.

GN!Reader, ≈200-250 words each CWs: None graphic mentions of sex, none-graphic injuries, none -graphic mentions of drugs, intentionally minipulative behaviours.🩷

Barbara

The two of you weren’t exactly not dating. Attached at the hip, making goo-goo eyes in person and inappropriate comments over the comms line when apart; it was obvious to anyone with eyes or ears that something was going on there, you just hadn’t put a name on it yet. It’s something the two of you had made plans to nail down and discuss during your sort of but not really a date-date tonight.

But you had only gone and got yourself shot during what should have been a simple trip to the bank. It wasn’t life-threatening, but you’d been rushed off in an ambulance, you’d need surgery, a lot of meds, and months, if not years of physio to get your arms back into shape.

Barbara didn’t know that at the time though, she’d been panic-stricken from the moment she found out. Emotions getting the better of her, brain running at 100 miles a minute as she rushed to the hospital.

“Partners and family only.” The nurse had told her. And without hesitation, she’d responded: “I am their partner.”

Her lie paid off, allowing her access to your bedside, as well as a full update on your status. There wasn’t another face in any universe you would have rather seen upon waking up from surgery. Now you just had to keep up the appearance of being a married couple until you were discharged, maybe longer.

Bruce

It’s a well-organised and thoroughly thought-out publicity stunt. Bruce needed someone new on his playboy roster, and you needed the media to circulate literally anything other than the less-than-flattering leaks that had been sold to them without your consent.

All you had to do was follow the itinerary. A couple of soft launch social media pics, a few whispers to the looser-lipped socialites of your circles, and some ‘private’ candid photo ops of the two of you dating:

Snuggling under the shade of an oak tree in Gotham Park, wearing matching caps and sunglasses that do little to hide your identities as you read a shared copy of Romeo and Juliet together.

Sitting in his car, in the parking lot of Big Belly Burger, munching on an unseemly large order of burgers and fries together. Nobody questions why the previously tinted windows of Bruce’s car are now clear.

Intimately and provocatively embracing, tastefully half nude on the balcony of your uptown apartment. The press didn’t need to know that you’re actually renting an Airbnb for the weekend, for exactly this purpose, and nothing more.

Everything was carefully planned, right down to the T for maximum impact and minimal effort. The only thing that hadn’t been accounted for was one, or both of you catching feelings in the time you’d spent together.

Dick

He’s never been able to say no to you, you know it, he knows it. So when you ask him in an act of desperation to be your fake-boyfriend for your ex’s wedding he’s quick to inform you that this is the dumbest idea he’s ever heard, and that he’s 110% on board.

He takes you shopping for matching outfits, picks you up on the day in Bruce’s flashiest car, suprises you with something pretty, compliments you loudly and romantically at every chance and won’t take his hands off you all the way through the ceremony. He's attentive and outwardly passionate. Not only is he playing the role of the world's best-ever (fake-)boyfriend, he’s making sure everyone in the vicinity knows you’re a (fake) couple.

It’s during the reception when that funny feeling really starts to settle in. The hairs on edge, butterflies in your belly feeling. Maybe it’s the happy, romantic atmosphere, the soppy music, the way his hands sit so perfectly on your hips as he sways you round and around on the dance floor. Maybe it’s the way he’s looking at you with those mesmeric blue eyes but damn if you don’t want to kiss him, right here, right now.

Duke

It was a stupid idea, and his family would give him so much shit if when they found out, but you’d argued that “we’ll never know if it might actually work unless we try” and that had sold him on giving it a go. Even if he thought about calling it off at every turn.

What was the stupid plan, and why was it necessary? Well, your ex was dating his crush, and you’d figured fake-dating might redirect their attention to the two of you. And if not, no harm done, right?

Big harm done. Over the next few months, Duke and yourself had spent most of your free time in close proximity. Sharing clothes, food, and ‘plan-related’ intimate details about each other. When you weren’t together you were glued to your phone, awaiting his texts, refreshing his socials.

Somewhere amongst all the dinner dates, and ‘strictly-business’ public making out sessions, your plan worked; his crush took notice, how could they not, Duke was perfect.

Your ex did not. Not that you cared, you’d moved on, to someone who was about to become equally as unavailable.

Jason

He was trying to infiltrate an infamous drug ring so he could take it down from the inside and needed someone in the know who could double as arm candy to sell his story. You’d already been trying to get your foot in the door for weeks now, but lacked enough street cred for them to take a chance on you. It only made sense that you would join forces.

For a while it’s fun, hanging off his arm, letting his hands roam your body freely, loud-whispering all the things you wanted to do to him for anyone to hear. You really enjoyed pretending to be his devilish trophy partner. You enjoyed the nights where it wasn’t pretend even more. But all good things must come to an end.

He served his purpose of getting you where you needed to be, but now he was getting a little too close to building a compelling case against the ring, you couldn’t let that happen, you had much bigger plans for it.

What? You’d promised information, not loyalty.

Kate

You’re both socialites with fairly large internet followings who run in the same circles. Your relationship has always been that of friendly acquaintances until a photographer snaps an innocuous photo of you both entering the bathroom at the same time and the media goes crazy.

Despite putting out very clear, separate statements, clarifying that there is nothing going on, your respective followers grab the ball and sprint with it until you both innocently start to play along. Leaving flirty comments on each other selfies, acting appalled when the other is rumoured to be dating someone else, tagging each other in scenic snaps that could be considered romantic: graffiti hearts, colourful sunsets, starry skies from the candlelit table of a wine bar.

It’s completely harmless of course, it’s all a joke, until it’s not. Until you actually find yourself flustered by her comments, really wishing she was sharing your dinners, until you brace yourself and send the first DM.

Tim

He really is the whole package. Handsome, hardworking, dedicated, polite, and as smart as he is rich. You can understand why your grandma was so excited, calling you from across the country to confirm if you were the mystery person spotted out and about with Bruce Wayne’s second youngest. You hadn’t lied when you’d said yes, you’d just neglected to tell her that you were only friends. You figured it would get her off your back about finding a nice boy for a while. It kind of felt nice, talking to somebody other than yourself about your big fat crush on him and in your defence, you hadn’t expected things to escalate so quickly.

One minute she’s bragging about her grandchild’s new boyfriend to the ladies in her swim aerobics class, the next she’s booked a flight to come and visit so she can meet him.

If you’d known what she was planning you would have confessed, but she’d already forked out the cash for her plane ticket so you swallowed your pride and begged Tim to help. He wouldn’t even have to do much, just spend the weekend nodding and smiling at an old woman’s stories and then he could reap the rewards of your eternal gratitude. You’d promised 6 months of undisputed lording it over you and a lifetime of freshly made cold brew.

Smile and nod, that’s all you expect, but apparently, that was too easy. Tim just had to make what was already an embarrassing situation, a million times worse. ‘Perfect grandson-in-law’, your ass.

[neil-gaiman]

hello, apologies if you’ve already answered this but i couldn’t find it elsewhere

there’s a scene where aziraphale says he’s using a new cologne, recommended to him by his barber. why does he go to a barber? do celestial beings grow and subsequently have to trim their hair? do celestial being grow at all? do their corporeal forms require self hygiene/maintenance?

i also thought it was kind of odd that mr “wears exactly one outfit for decades at a time” fell would just switch up his cologne on a whim. out of curiosity, how long ago was that suggestion actually made to him? long enough for crowley to have noticed the change and already made peace with it, seemingly

thats all, ciao

No, celestial beings don't. But Aziraphale likes doing things that people do, and he likes being pampered. He'll have been going to the same barber's shop for over 200 years now, after all. Probably the last stocks of the cologne that he's been using since 1970 just ran out and they needed a new one...

[hussyknee]

Wonder how far I can prod libs into finishing their full thought bubble behind all this "harm reduction" "genocide is a single issue" "you don't care about marginalized people in the US" "dyou want fascism WITH genocide???" screeching.

Okay, class, say it with me: "I don't want to live in a third world country like the ones we keep destroying."

Because you know. The countries your war criminal leaders keep bombing and starving and destabilising and leeching dry? We don't have trans or gay rights or women's rights or disability benefits or environmental or labour protections. No one would want to live in our countries obviously. You'd kill yourselves before you had to live like we do. Sure, we're only like this because you keep us trapped in poverty and violence and we still have full, happy lives worth living despite it but that's because we're used to it! We don't know any better! Not like you! You know what you deserve and you shouldn't have to lose anything as a consequence of your own political choices! Your government is supposed to happen to other people! Not you! So like, yeah, it's bad that the poors are being massacred wholesale or whatever, but like. That doesn't mean you gotta die with them, y'know? And by "death" you don't mean actual genocide like what's happening over here but "death" as in "having to live like we do".

The trolley problem metaphor is so goddamn attractive to you because you see yourself outside the tracks, objectively assessing the situation and making the "tough" "moral" choice for the collective good. It's imperialist horseshit. You don't have a democracy and it's not a trolley. What you have is an imperial death machine running on an apartheid system that decides who gets fed to it and who gets fed by it. That's your "two tracks"— the colonized and the colonizer, the core and the periphery, the white and the coloured. "Harm reduction"? Have you counted how many fucking millions in and around the world your death machine eats to keep how many of you "safe"? But our losses are a foregone conclusion, a matter of course, a regrettable necessity. The only variable is yours.

Every political choice in 200 years of your settler colony has been "genocide AND". "Genocide AND women's rights". "Genocide AND workers rights". "Genocide AND fascism". "Genocide AND democracy". The difference is that for the first time in your history you're now watching it livestreamed to the entire world in real time 24/7, exactly as your colony is about to capsize under the weight of its own bloodlust. A sea change from when your parents threw parties watching bombs dropping on Baghdad and then spent twenty years watching movies about sad it made the soldiers.

How do you count the victims when we are numbers and you are people? You scream about trans rights in the US while Palestinian trans children don't have the right to reach puberty. OSHA for you but Congolese children have to die in mines. Reproductive rights for the US while Sudanese women are raped in millions. Yes, but it's always been "genocide AND" no matter what, right? Do we want to sabotage the party that has never fucking cared about us and don't now even with half their own country screaming at them on the off-chance they might possibly maybe one day do?? Why are we acting so mad like it's YOUR fault that you're fighting for your quality of life over our corpses?? Do we want YOU to lose your rights over it??

Yes, actually. We do. We want you to have a taste of the reality that generations on generations of your illegal illegitimate white supremacist occupation has inflicted on us just so your worthless hide can sit there and call our genocides a single fucking issue. And let's be real: that's what you're so fucking afraid of.