#Backwaters & Beyond

[stuckinapril]

The world has enabled anti-Arab racism in ways it has enabled nothing else. To be Arab is to be called a terrorist. To be Arab is to be seen as backwards, because your roots lie in backwater third world countries whose cultures have been—time and again—ripped apart by those unwilling to look beyond what they’ve been taught in ignorance. And yet all that pales in comparison to what has befallen Palestinians, who have had to watch their relatives get martyred over and over. As if that’s not enough, it was all recorded for the world to see.

All just for another Arab country to be terrorized by the US. The US and UK had no business bombarding Yemen, but they did. And they actively are. Biden was confident enough in his decision to disclose that on a world screen. And don’t get me started on how it’s all under the guise that they’re specifically targeting “pirates.” Arab blood continues to be shed under these ludicrous narratives, and it’s fucking grotesque.

Enough is enough with the enabling. Ceasefire now.

[wizard-finix]

LU Star Wars AU: Part 4

This time we got Twilight and Wild!

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

Wild

Wild doesn't look very old, but he was actually a Jedi Knight in service to the Republic Army back during the Clone Wars. He worked closely with the other Champions at the time; the five of them were on a mission to protect King Rhoam and the royal family of a Mid-rim planet when Order 66 was enacted and the Republic Army turned on them. The other champions were killed, and Wild was nearly fatally injured.

In a last-ditch attempt to save his life, Rhoam and Impa used an industrial carbon-freezer to put him in a state of suspended animation and keep him hidden from any Imperial scanners. He was found and unfrozen many years later by Purah and Robbie, and the hibernation sickness on top of his injuries gave him some degree of amnesia.

0/10 experience, he would not recommend it.

Nowadays, he works closely with Purah and Robbie. Flora, who wasn't even born yet at the time of the incident, met him properly for the first time after he woke up again. They didn't get along at first, but after finding out she was Rhoam's daughter he's determined to stick by her side.

His old lightsaber is broken beyond repair, so he picked up a habit of collecting various weapons. He's also wanted by a group of bounty hunters known as the Yiga.

Twilight

Twilight is from a backwater planet in the Ordonian system, working as a rancher in a farming village. He met Midna when Zant came to the planet and forcibly tried to take over.

Long story short, the kids of his village went missing, and he ran across some of Zant's forces in a bad way. He actually came in contact with a dark Twili artifact that granted the user the ability to change shape and got stuck. Midna, being a shapeshifting Twili, bailed Twilight out of trouble and taught taught him how to change back, but to do that he had to learn the basics of the Force. (It took a while. He's not very good at it, but he can do the basics.)

In exchange for her help, Twilight helped her with her own goals along the way; eventually, he learns that the reason Zant showed up is because he followed Midna's trail there. With the help of some local Resistance members, they eventually even managed to get rid of Zant.

Somewhere along the way, Twilight and Midna followed a rumor of an old weapon hidden deep in the woods on the planet. Eager for any advantage they could get, Midna insisted they find it; they followed the trail until it eventually led them to an old intact lightsaber that had been deliberately hidden away there.

Midna left very suddenly after everything with Zant was over. Twilight decided to look out for her through his new friends in the Resistance, and eventually came in contact with other members of the Chain that way.

[annelidist]

consistently one of the most interesting things to me about the bachelor is this: he is a mystic. he doesn't admit it, of course, not for one instant. daniil dankovsky positions himself against the world as the rationalist, the empiricist, the reasonable man. he doesn't believe in steppe man-eaters or little girls who talk to ghosts or mistresses or taglurs or foci or great slumbering bulls beneath the world. all of that is nonsense. backwater superstition. worthless as soil. what he does believe, starkly, shamelessly, as if unaware of the naked wizardry of the thing, is that he can cure death. this is the first fact the player learns about him and yet it's so easy to forget, so easy to let him wear his reasonable mask, as if he isn't as mad as an alchemist. i think, in the end, that's why he can walk the inner stair of the polyhedron, see the magic lantern: because the bachelor already believes in the impossible and the eternal, deeply, beyond question.

[baddest-batchers]

When It Rains, It Pours

My Tech brainrot continues in this little ficlet. This adorable, balding man has captured me so and is living in my head rent free, so I present to you all this piece that came to me in the middle of the night last night. Not completely proofread. Enjoy!

Summary: Tech x fem!reader! It’s torrentially raining and you and Tech get caught up in it. Feelings are revealed and kisses ensue! 🌧️

Word count: 1.7k

Tag warnings: MDNI, whole lotta fluff, whole lotta kissin’. Gets a little heated towards the end. Soft!Tech goodness below.

Taglist: @stellarbit @techwrecker @alegendoftomorrow

Divider by @general-ida-raven

It was pouring rain on the backwater jungle planet you and Clone Force 99 were running, yet another, questionable job for Cid. You and Tech were on your way back from the village when the rain started falling. Both of you were too far outside the village to find a warm place to wait out the storm so, instead you and Tech sought shelter from the downpour beneath some trees outside of the surrounding town. They provided little respite from the incessant rain but it was better than standing out in the open.

Both of you were drenched, clothes sticking to your skin. You internally cursed at yourself for deciding to wear such a lightweight shirt and you quickly crossed your arms over your chest in an attempt to maintain some of your body heat. Upon noticing you shivering from being completely soaked, Tech quickly undid the fastening of his blue vest, shaking it off of his shoulders and tossing it to the ground. With another swift movement he removed the white shirt underneath, it quickly becoming soaked through where his vest had covered his torso. Now only the top of his blacks remained and you watched with wide eyes and bated breath, wondering what in the stars he was doing, as he unzipped his collar down to its end just above his chest.

You quickly realized you were all but gawking at Tech as he was quickly removing the layers of his clothing and chose a spot on the ground to intently stare at so as to not make him uncomfortable as he undressed.

Tech stripped off the top of his blacks and held out his hand with the shirt bunched between his fingers. “Here, put this on.” He instructed. Your gaze met his, wide eyed and face flushed, as you reached for it, your fingertips grazing his as you took his shirt from him. Wordlessly you slipped it on over your own soaked civies top. After pulling your hair out from the collar, you began to roll the sleeves up, being that they were a bit too long on you given Tech’s height, your eyes flicked back over to him. He quickly began redressing himself, the white shirt clinging to his lean frame, blue vest now hanging unbuttoned on his shoulders.

Dropping your eyes again to the ground, you continued to roll the sleeves up. “Thank you, Tech. You really didn’t have to do that.” Your voice was thick with gratitude. You were thankful for the little warmth his shirt provided, but even more so it thrilled you because it smelled like him.

Tech took a moment to stop clasping the buttons on his vest to look at you. Drenched completely from the relentless rain, you were just as mesmerizing to him. He often found himself staring at you, taking in the way you walked or the way you focused on your tasks around the Marauder. It really didn’t matter to him what you were wearing, he always found you so beautiful. The kindness you showed to each of his brothers and the way you doted on his sister only made him fall harder. You were smart, resourceful, and caring beyond words. Tech realized in this very moment, gazing at you in the pouring rain and wearing his shirt no less, that he loved you.

You noticed Tech had ceased redressing himself and met his gaze with your own. You slowly stopped messing with the sleeves of his shirt. “Tech? Is..everything okay?” You searched his face, breath hitching slightly at the look in his eyes.

“Mesh’la..you are so beautiful.” His voice was the softest you had ever heard it. Combined with the sound of the rain and the hammering of his own heartbeat in his chest, he took one step closer to be sure you had heard him correctly. “You are the most beautiful person I have ever had the pleasure of knowing in my considerably short life.” Tech confessed, his eyes reflecting the sincerity of his words.

Your eyes blown wide and heat rising to your cheeks, you blinked the rain from your vision before realizing he had both your arms that were hanging at your sides in his firm grasp. “Tech, I…” The words wouldn’t come, your thoughts a complete and utter mess couldn’t formulate a single word to say back to him. Your eyes drifted down to his gentle grip on your arms then slowly, you brought your own hands to clutch the sopping white shirt that clung to his body at his sides. The tension between you was so palpable you felt as though you could reach out and touch it with your bare fingers.

“Forgive me if this is rather sudden and perhaps, you do not even feel the same way but I simply cannot hold back my feelings for you any longer. I love you. I have loved you for months and I am just now realizing it. I’m yours, and I believe I have always been yours, cyare.”

You blinked once, then twice, uncertain if you had heard him correctly or if you had somehow managed to dream up what was unfolding before you. You opened your mouth to respond but again words failed to form, so instead you reached up from his sides, releasing the grip on his shirt, and brought your hands to gently cup his face, pulling him down to your height and into a sweet and chaste kiss. Tech’s hands let go of your arms and slowly, so slowly, snaked their way around your waist, pulling you in to press against him.

You broke the kiss sooner than Tech wanted and stared up into his rain-streaked, goggled face, smiling up at him, you gently caressed his jaw with your finger tips. Tech leaned in further to kiss you again but you moved your index finger gently over his lips, stoping him from inching closer. His eyes met yours and something like worry and panic flashed in them. Had he over stepped your boundary? Was he being too hasty? But before he could ask any of those questions, you smiled up at him and sighed almost dreamily.

“Tech, I love you, too. I’ve always loved you.” Your eyes flit back and forth between his, taking in the way he’s staring back down at you from his height. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to tell you that.” You continue to smile up at him, cheeks flushed and eyes shining.

“Cyare…” Tech, his features softening again, trailed off in admiration, his eyes taking in every little detail of your features, “May I kiss you again? And if the answer is yes, will you be content if I never stop doing so?” His voice grew lower as he leaned in closer, his nose brushing against yours and his goggles just barely brushing above your eyebrows, but not pushing himself closer until you answered him.

“Maker, Tech, yes. Kiss me. And don’t ever stop…please.” You whispered your plea, then closed your eyes in anticipation of his lips on yours.

That’s all it took, your words snapped his self restraint into a million pieces as his lips crashed into yours, needy and almost desperate, as though if he stopped to catch his breath you’d vanish into thin air.

His lips moved against yours with fervor, and his tongue begged entrance into your mouth. You immediately granted his silent request and let him explore, letting out small moans as he did. The sounds he was pulling from you were only making him hungrier for you; he never wanted to not hear those sounds.

Suddenly, you felt your body being moved backwards as you continued kissing. You felt the tree you both had been standing under against your back and Tech’s knee gently parting your thighs as he pressed in closer to you.

“You have no idea how many times I have thought of this very moment.” Tech sighed into the sweet spot beneath your ear. “You have invaded my every thought, every dream, and my very soul.” He pulled the collar of his shirt that you were wearing down so that he could trail tender kisses down your neck. “I do not ever wish to be parted from you.” His voice was husky and conveyed every bit of desire he had pent up within himself.

“Tech…” You moaned into his mouth as it found yours again.

“Tech, my love, I—” His lips captured yours again, cutting you off sweetly. The sound of his name on your lips made the fire in his core burn even hotter.

He was so attractive like this, needy and wanting, drenched from the rain and his short curls sticking to his forehead. You ached to have him closer and closer still.

“Tech…I..I need y—” Your plea was cut off by Hunter’s voice coming through Tech’s commlink.

“Tech, what’s your position?” Hunter asked, his question begged urgency.

Tech reluctantly ceased his wanting and needy kisses and pulled his comm from his belt. You let out a quiet whine at him pulling away.

Raising the comm to his lips and without taking his eyes off of you, he spoke into it, “We were on our way back to the ship when the rain started. We stopped to wait out the storm but will be there momentarily.”

“Acknowledged. Hurry it up, the rest of the squad is waiting.” Hunter ordered and severed the connection. Replacing his comm to his belt, Tech leaned down and pressed a longing kiss to your lips and then to your forehead.

“We should go, but I hope we may continue this sometime later.” He said softly, cupping your face with one hand and tucking a strand of hair with his other hand that was stuck to your cheek behind your ear.

You reached up and placed your hand over his, leaning more into his palm and smiled up at him. “I’d love to continue this later on.” Your voice gave way to the desire that was still burning hot in your chest.

With your hand intertwined with his, both of you set off into the pouring rain, not even caring if it made you shiver because the heat with which Tech kissed you was enough to keep you warm all the way back to the Marauder.

•••

[specialagentartemis]

Inspired by @clonerightsagenda’s thoughts about the Ambiguously Brown Spacefuture trope, I kinda want to see more creativity with how Earth is treated in spacefuture sci-fi.

There are plenty of examples where Earth is the center of everything. Star Trek is the obvious one: it’s a bustling interstellar multispecies space society, and Earth is where Starfleet is headquartered and it’s often reflexively and unthinkingly treated by the narrative like it’s the most important planet in the Federation. (Most of our main viewpoint characters are Human, so it’s the most important planet to THEM because it’s their home, but even beyond that, Earth is treated as critically key to the Federation in a way that, say, Betazed is not.)

More recently, the common trope is that the centers of society and culture and economy and politics are elsewhere. Other planets are important, and Earth is either an unimportant backwater that no one really cares about, or galactic humanity has nearly forgotten about it entirely. This is explicit in Becky Chambers’s Wayfarers, strongly implied in The Murderbot Diaries, and one line in Ancillary Justice suggests that too. Ofc this isn’t entirely new—from what I understand it’s what’s going on in Dune too.

And they do this for obvious reasons: the authors are all interested in social and political worldbuilding that is not tethered to real Earth nations, politics, prejudices, and general baggage. Second-world fantasy authors are allowed to do this with no strings attached, but sci-fi authors who want to do social worldbuilding from the ground up have to justify why people don’t appear to identify as Chinese or Latino or Hopi or American anymore (and more often than not, not Jewish or Catholic or Muslim or Hindu or Baha’i or whatever either), why those identities don’t come into conflict with the new planetary identities and spacefuture religions the author wants to write about. It’s been so long that the origin of humanity is forgotten or irrelevant.

Star Wars is honestly underappreciated for the bold, creative, unique choice to have a bustling interstellar multispecies space society with lot of humans… and no Earth. At all. Where do humans come from? Irrelevant. Not Earth though.

And honestly I wish more sci-fi that wants to write in this space took more of a cue form Star Wars to just own it. (I actually thought the Imperial Radch HAD done the same thing—functionally a second-world fantasy, but in a spacefaring setting��until Kat pointed out the reference to arguing over which planet was the real origin of humanity.) If you posit your space future as our future, but Earth is no longer relevant and is generally forgotten… I guess it depends on how far out it is, but it strains my credulity that no one remembers or cares! The Jews in the spacefuture don’t know/remember/care where Jerusalem is? Muslims in the spacefuture decided that going to Mecca just kinda isn’t worth it? The spacefuture Papal seat is no longer in Rome and the future Catholics don’t know or care that it was ever anywhere else? All the Hopis left the Three Mesas and all the Navajos left Dinétah and all the Māori left Aotearoa and then just… forgot about it? Really? That isn’t true after hundreds and even thousands of years today; why would it be true hundreds or even thousands of years in The Spacefuture?

There are some works that do a little more complexity with spacefuture planetary societies and cultures vs. memory of Earth—the Vorkosigan Saga positions Old Earth as a culturally important memory even if it’s not a politically important planet, and The Locked Tomb makes Earth a holy center place that is mythicized more than it’s known or inhabited, for magic necromancy reasons.

I’d like to see more of that, Earth holding some sort of unique place in spacefuture humans’ culture in a historically informed way, even if you actually want to write about other things. Or go the Star Wars route and proudly proclaim that this takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, don’t worry about it.

[twola]

Devil's Backbone - Owanjila VII

Pairing: Arthur Morgan x FemOC/Reader POV 

Tags: Longfic, Slow Burn, Smut (18+), Violence, Canon-Typical Injuries

Limpany’s burning was a lot more than meets the eye. Deception, greed, and murder follow everyone touched by Leviticus Cornwall. A story where the Van der Linde gang gets even more inescapably involved in Cornwall’s dealings, with the survivor of the massacre at the heart of it all. Slow burn. Pre-Blackwater and beyond.

Owanjila VII: You, Amongst the Lupines

Time passes, and Arthur jumps at the chance to take you out of camp.

CW: References to child loss, violence, and Arthur being a big mean outlaw.

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Mud squelches under his boot. It is everything he is not to scowl at the sound. 

Ain’t no way that Genevieve was going to stay with him now. Not with him sent on this fool’s errand. He was supposed to stay on assignment in Saint Denis, not get his boots covered in mud and horseshit in this backwater town. Genevieve was far too cosmopolitan to be following him around anywhere but Saint Denis. 

Strawberry was just a blip on a map, no matter how the mayor of this town was trying to push it.

Angus Carmody kicks the muck from his boot against the wooden step up to the mail depot. He scowls as the stink of meat from the butcher’s tent wafts his way.  This was a goddamn fool’s errand. He knows that Milton has it out for him. How angry he is about that damned woman being in the wind. He knows also that his trekking around West Elizabeth is a punishment instead of leading the search back in Lemoyne. 

The Pinkerton steps up to the depot’s clerk, standing behind the counter full of mail and other parcels.

“Mornin’.” The man greets, shuffling between boxes and baskets of letters. His full mustache and beard certainly made him blend in with the rough and tumble nature of the town that the mayor was so desperately trying to rid of.

“Mornin’, sir. Agent Carmody with the Pinkerton Detective Agency.”

The clerk stops, setting down a pile of papers on the counter. He looks Carmody up and down, eyes lingering on his polished badge, pinned to his breast pocket.

“Hector Barlow. How can I help you, Agent?” He responds, measured and wary. Carmody is used to this. It is often, out in the West, that folk respond to him with caution and wariness rather than respect. Some sort of Western mistrust of government and authority, he always thought.

“You heard talk of a widow from that town that burned down on the Dakota?”

Hector Barlow strokes his mustache, nodding his head, “Heard about the fire, but not about anyone who survived it.”

“I’m tryin’ to find a Missus Shaw. She survived the fire and my employer is tryin’ to locate her to finalize some business items he had ongoin’ with her husband.” Angus responds, annoyed that this also seemed like a dead end. 

Barlow remains quiet for a moment, “I’ll keep an ear out. She supposed to be around here?”

Carmody pulls a stack of papers that he had tucked within his jacket, “Yes - petite woman, blonde hair if she finds herself up this way.”

“These also - a bunch of bounty posters we don’t got time to chase down.  A few thousand for these. Out of Blackwater. Some hillbilly could find ‘imself real rich if he tries hard enough.”  He shoves several crinkled pieces of paper forward on the worn finish of the counter. Hector nods, mumbling something about bringing them up to the sheriff’s office. Angus lifts his chin in response, before leaving the mail depot. The bright sunshine is an assault on his eyes as he steps outside.

Two other Pinkerton agents stand across the street, near the small town’s general store. Smoking cigarettes, the two men clad in bowler hats seem to stand out amongst the rough and tumble mountain men that peruse the muddy street. 

“Anythin’ here?” One pipes up as Carmody approaches, holding out a cigarette that Angus quickly takes. 

“Nothin’,” Carmody grunts, rooting around his pocket for his matchbook, “We’ll head north, to Wallace Station, to see if there is any word around there.”

He knows there won’t be, but alas, Carmody breathes out heavily before striking a match against his boot, he has his orders.

-

The cold mountain waters of the stream that feeds Owanjila are a shock to the system at first, but you figure that the clean, clear stream could do you no harm as you hoist your skirts to bare your calves, stepping ankle deep into the current.

A sob claws its way up from your throat, and you cover your mouth with one hand, one side of your skirts dipping under the stream.

“Ruth, what are you doing up here?” 

You sniff, wiping your eyes quickly, giving up on keeping your skirts dry as both of your hands cover your face. 

“Oh, sweet girl,” Hosea’s pace picks up as he walks closer to you, and he ignores the ache in his knees as steps down into the stream next to you where you stand, uncaring of the water starting to run over his boots.

“I- I just-”  You hiccup, dropping your hands and looking back into the rushing waters at your feet. 

“C’mon, let's get you out of the stream. Are y’still feelin’ ill?” Hosea pulls you, delicately, back to the shore, where the two of you step onto higher, drier ground.

“No- no, it’s just-” You let go of a shuddering breath as you feel his hand rub gently, slowly between your shoulder blades, “It’s…”

“Missin’ your husband?” Hosea offers.

“Y-yes…” You hiccup, closing your eyes again, unable to stop the tears from pouring forth, “And… and-”

Silence falls between you, interrupted only by the sniffles you cannot stifle and the bubbling of the creek waters as they rush down to collect in the lake. Another harrowing exhale, and you turn to look at Hosea, the older man’s silhouette blurred in your vision over your shoulder. 

“I look at Jack and… my…my little-” You sob, voice cracking,  “He came too early. I-in the winter - he… he just- he was so tiny…my boy-” 

Hosea’s hand immediately moves from your back to cup the back of your head, and he pulls you into his chest, you slightly stumble as you have to readjust your bare feet on the ground. The fur trim on his coat smells of the tobacco he smokes in his pipe. It’s something familiar - comforting - and the fight in you - what little you have left, leaves you as you sink into his embrace. You sob, the ache in your chest clawing its way out like a rabid animal. 

He holds you, rubbing your back, murmuring random words of comfort into your hair. 

-

The coffee is strong and bitter this morning. Maybe the off-handed threats he had been making to Pearson about the quality of his coffee finally sunk in. Or someone else had made it.

Arthur blows on the cup before taking another sip, trying to spare his mouth from getting burned.

His gaze floats, unknowingly searching for those soft golden curls amongst the women. He finds himself seeking out the soft-spoken widow. Missus Adler seethed in her grief. Missus Shaw, well, other than the time he certainly deserved her ire, didn’t seem to have a mean bone in her body. 

She’d been sick as of recent, catching whatever poor Jack had. Abigail was apoplectic, the lantern in the sick tent blazing at all hours of the night. It was only in the past few days he had seen her out of the sick tent for longer periods.

This morning, he was hell-bent on finally getting a new horse - the old Walker he had been riding got run down by an angry farmer and his mount when he and Javier had robbed a homestead the other day. Finally, after a few jobs, he had enough money to get a horse that he wouldn’t have to rustle - it was just taking the time to go over to Valentine to get one. 

Herr Strauss cornered him the other day, needing collection from a debtor on a ranch near Valentine. He figured he’d get it all done in one day, maybe swing by Strawberry before crossing the state line. For too long he’d been jumping from job to job - homestead robberies and coaches, even sheep rustling with John. That went swimmingly.

Maybe he’d grab Missus Shaw and take her out on the errands he has to do. He finally finds her, sitting across the way near the women’s lean-to, working on a pile of sewing. Arthur dumps out the last bit of his coffee before stowing his cup back in his satchel. He takes the first step toward the women’s tent before being stopped.

“Arthur.”

Arthur looks back toward the campfire as the occupant stokes it. Hosea looks up at him with that weathered look about him that only comes about when he is serious about something.

“She’s fragile right now.” His brow furrows, jaw set, “Don’t you go upsettin’ her.”

“I ain’t an idiot, Hosea.” Arthur bristles, scowling back at his surrogate father. He also scowled at the thought of being so damn transparent that Hosea was that quickly able to figure out where he was going.

“You sure as hell are sometimes.” Hosea points up at him, “You can be a real ass-”

A cough interrupts his retort, and Hosea turns his head to hack into his bicep. After he clears his throat, he looks back at Arthur with hard eyes, “I’m tellin’ you, Arthur. The poor girl doesn’t deserve any shit from you. She’s gotten enough recently.” 

Arthur shifts, his hand gripping the buckle of his gunbelt in agitation. He scowls again, the lines betraying his age and lifestyle set in on his face. He dismissively waves at Hosea, stepping past the man and continuing on his original journey toward the women’s area.

“Missus Shaw.”

You look up from the sewing that you are doing - one of John’s shirts that he tore the armpit open. You grabbed it from Abigail’s pile the other night as she was scolding him for his carelessness.

“Was wonderin’ if you wanted to get outta camp for a bit - y’haven’t had much of a chance lately,” Arthur asks, his large hands draped over the buckle of his gun belt.

“Oh, I mean… maybe after I finish this shirt.” You nod down toward the fabric you are holding in your hands.

“Marston’s shirt can wait. Especially because it's his.” Arthur reaches down and yanks the shirt from your hands, surprising you with his speed. He tosses the shirt back in the pile and you scowl up at him, aggravated at his impetuousness.

“I was in the middle of that!” You complain, but nonetheless take the thread and needle you were working with and store it in the tin next to your seat.

“Serves the dumbass right. Not like he ripped his shirt doin’ any work around here.” Arthur chortles, holding his hand out for you to take, “C’mon, I’m sure you’re sick of staring at the same thing every day. I have some errands to do in Strawberry and Valentine.”

-

From the banks of Owanjila, Arthur leads his horse up through the hills to Strawberry, claiming to need to stop by the General Store for something. He was scant on details but shooed you off to check the mail in the freight depot after he had hitched the horse outside the Trackers Hotel.

You check to see if there is any mail under the pseudonyms that Arthur gave you, and upon finding none, set to leave before the clerk calls out to you.

“D’ya mind bringing these down to the Sheriff’s Office, ma’am?”

You nod and feel a slight unease as the clerk’s gaze lingers on you. In the months since Frederick’s death, you have once again become wary of men - the leering and possessive glares that you receive when it is obvious you are untied to a man. Like those leering and possessive gazes you received before you got married. Those gazes your daddy warned you about, all those years ago. 

Taking the stack of papers, you nod a hushed farewell as you move out of the mail depot and back to the street, sidestepping mud puddles as you lift your skirt above your ankles with one hand to avoid completely ruining the hems.

Your curiosity gets the best of you and as you pass the staircase, you pull the papers back from your chest and look at the contents of the first page.

$5000 Reward!

For the Capture Dead or Alive of 

ARTHUR MORGAN

You bite your lip to keep from gasping. Glancing around, you crush the first poster to your chest for a moment before crumbling it into a little ball that you shove into your skirt. 

You look at the other posters as you quickly duck into an alley next to the hotel, where a large, flowering cherry blossom stands before the cliff face. Shuffling past the gardens, you take a seat on a small bench and warily leaf through the papers.

John Marston. Hosea Matthews. Micah Bell. Javier Escuella. Bill Williamson. Dutch Van der Linde. Each piece of paper that you look at shows fearsome renderings of the men of the gang that you have been living alongside for the last months.

Larceny. Horse Theft. Burglary. Train Robbery. Bank Robbery. Assault. Murder.

The pit in your stomach opens; fear clawing up through your chest into your throat. Hosea, who just this morning dried your tears and held you as you cried? John, who struggled with the pressures of being a young father? Javier, who swears he will get you to dance with him one night around the fire to Dutch’s phonograph, even after your declination, always with a smile. 

Even Dutch, who welcomed you into this motley group when you had nothing but the clothes on your back. 

And Arthur. Arthur, whose cold, angry face stared back at you from the poster, the man who has been teaching you to shoot, who took you out on his errands today - who braved the raging fire at the Adler ranch to save you-

The jingle of spurs makes you look up.

“Arthur-” You hiss as he lopes across the road, moseying as he lights a cigarette.  He gives a grin as he tosses the match to the muddy ground, breathing out a plume of smoke as he comes closer, eyeing the cherry blossoms that wave in the cool mountain breeze. “Get over here!”

You nervously look around you before reaching up handing him the crumpled-up wad of paper you had shoved in your pocket. 

He frowns, then snorts, half a grin as he takes the cigarette from his mouth, dropping it to the ground and mashing it underfoot.

“Five thousand, for little ol’ me?” He looks back to you with a hint of mischief in his eye, “God, that’s one ugly lookin’ drawin’.”

“Arthur-” You scold, completely taken aback at his nonconcern at the situation. 

He shoves the poster into his satchel and holds his hand out for the other ones, curling his fingers in request before you hand the pile to him. He takes them and thrusts them all into that seemingly bottomless satchel of his before turning his gaze back to you.

“Alright, alright. Let’s get. If these are comin’ from Blackwater we should get the whole gang outta West Elizabeth.” He reaches for your hand, almost gallantly, and pulls you up from your seat when you give it to him, “We’re gonna head toward Valentine. I gotta stop by a ranch out there for one of Strauss’s debtors. I’m gonna get a new horse and we’re gonna look for a new place to set up. Get on that side of the state line.”

He walks you out of the alley, back toward where his horse is hitched near the mail depot. He slows to allow you to try and duck the large mud puddles underfoot.

Through the main street of town, Arthur does not let go of your hand.

-

The ride to Valentine is long - long enough to be troublesome. You were able to convince Arthur to give you back the wanted poster of him, and you straighten it out as he guides the old Walker on the path out of the mountains and toward the Dakota.

You read the printed text, fearsome in its lettering, all capitalized, “Wanted for activities such as Larceny. Robbery. Burglary...”

Arthur snorts, interrupting, bemused.

“Gotta get money somehow.”

“Assault.” You reply, upping the ante.

“They usually deserve it.” He drawls in response.

“Murder.” You continue, stressing the severity of the crime.

“You’ve seen that. More than once.” Arthur nonchalantly replies, as if killing were the same as stealing a horse. 

It was true - from the O’Driscolls that he waylaid on the road the first day that you met him, the man threatening you at the campfire after the failed Blackwater job - he kills without hesitation. There is a pregnant pause as the poster crinkles under the tension of your fingers.

 “Have you ever raped a woman?”

Arthur stiffens in the saddle, then turns his entire torso to get the closest to facing you that he can. The easy conversation that you had been having immediately ended.

“No. Why the hell you askin’ that?”

“Seems like you’ve done everything else-” You defend your line of questioning, but immediately with that you hadn’t gone that far.

“Have I ever acted untoward to you?” Arthur interrupts, turning back to face the road. He bristles with agitation, rolling his shoulders as he tightly grasps the reins. The old Walker beneath you notices, and throws his head to the side, whinnying. 

“No….”  You try to push the intruding thoughts of Micah from your mind.

“Ain’t that type of degenerate.” He grumbles, “Sides, it wouldn’t speak highly of your smarts if you was out alone with a man who forces himself on women.”

You can tell he’s offended.

Unfortunately, the rest of the ride to Valentine is long, awkward, and silent.

-

By the time Arthur acquired himself a new horse, a strong and tall Kentucky Saddler mare, buttermilk-hide and blackmaned, his gruff silence makes you wish that you hadn’t come out with him at all. Wordlessly, he lifted you back onto the horse’s rump and mumbled something about a job he had to do on the way back to camp. Not far out of Valentine, Arthur guides the horse toward an old, ramshackle ranch house.

“Just stay here. Herr Strauss said this guy is tryin’ to weasel out of payin’.” 

Arthur approaches a thin, middle-aged man in the garden, “Mr. Thomas Downes…”

The man looks up, a hoe in his hand, and squints at the outlaw as he storms closer, “Yep, that’s me.”

“You owe me money.”

It is as if the floor was pulled out from underneath the man. He turns ghastly white in fear, stumbling backward from Arthur’s encroachment. The anger that radiates off the gunslinger is terrifying, even to yourself as an observer.

Downes holds the hoe in front of him as if to fight off the man twice his size, “Please, sir… I’m… I’ll…”

Arthur laughs cruelly, grabbing the hoe and throwing it across the garden. “Really? Threaten me, would you? How’s that debt looking now? You borrowed money from my business partner Herr Strauss. You owe him. You took the money. He wants it back. What’s not to understand?”

“I don’t have it all!”

You slide down from the horse as Arthur drags the man to the fence, throwing him against the post with frightening force.  You hurry toward the unfurling scene.

“Ruth-” Arthur growls as you push him away. Obviously, you could never move the man without his consent, but for some reason, he allows it.  You stand in front of this miserable man, who gazes up with fear-stricken eyes and a pale, clammy complexion.

“See, look, Mister Downes…. You could do this the easy way and give me the money now that we’re askin’ for it, or my friend over here can get the money from you the way he was gonna before.” You say over-sweetly, holding your hand out to help him up, “I think my way is better for you.”

“I… I don't have a-all of it.” Downes coughs, blood sputtering from his mouth as you recoil in surprise. God, this man was pitiful. 

“Then sell your place.” Arthur barks from behind you, having stepped closer as Downes goes into a coughing fit. 

“W-we already - hrgh - owe more than it’s worth.” The man coughs between words.

You frown, drawing your hand back from where the man wipes his mouth with his sleeve. You can feel Arthur tensing behind you, and one of his hands finds your waist, and you can tell he is about to yank you behind him. You brush away his arm before he has the chance to do so.

“Whatever you have is fine. We’ll give you more time for the rest. I’ll be sure to come - but Mister Downes-” You cross your arms, trying to look as composed as possible, “You do owe us.”

“Thomas-!” A woman rushes out of the house, followed by a teenage boy, and she falls to her knees next to the man, immediately taking a handkerchief and wiping the blood from his mouth.

“Can’t- can’t you see, my husband isn’t well, if we could just have more-”

Arthur does manage to grab you by the waist and maneuver you behind him, and you’re unable to move against his strength. He glares down at the woman and her pleading. “We ain’t nobody’s idea of charity.”

The woman frowns, desperate - “But-...”

“Give it to him.” The stricken man garbles, his breath heaving. With a set jaw, she reaches into her skirt and takes out a small wad of bills, standing up from her husband's side and shoving it into Arthur’s waiting hand. 

Arthur gives you a bemused look after he pockets the money. “Pleasure doin’ business with you.”

The gunslinger places his hand behind your back and pushes you back toward the horse, holding you upright as you stumble on the first step. 

“You’ll do alright, Missus Shaw.” His hands wrap around your waist like they have so many times before as he easily picks you up to place you on the horse’s rump, but you swear you feel his fingers pulse through the layers of fabric. You swear you feel his thumb press against the curve of the bottom of your ribcage.

Arthur swings himself up on the horse and urges it down the path leaving the ranch. With the horse’s jolting first steps, you wrap your arm around his waist to steady yourself before looking back toward the ranch.

You watch as the woman helps her struggling husband to her feet, and the teenage son stares after you with a vicious, hateful glare. You frown, before turning back around and pressing your forehead against Arthur’s back. They could have just as easily been you. These poor folks, already struggling, are now set back even farther.

The wave of guilt through your throat makes you swallow audibly.

Arthur’s large, gloved hand finds your own slung ‘round his waist, covering it with a gentle squeeze. His fingers press between your own, and for a selfish moment, all you can think about is how warm you feel. As Arthur leads the horse down the road to the east, the thoughts of the family whose miserable lives you just made worse flee from your mind.

How is it that all thought of the folk you just left more destitute than they had been left your mind as soon as Arthur touches your hand? How is it that you feel at ease pressed against a man who was just beating another one for money? How is it, that in this moment, with this murderer, you feel safer than you have felt in weeks?

Arthur hums, in a better mood than he had been all day. He holds your hand against the hard slab of muscle of his abdomen, and you lean further against his back to assuage the concern alight in your soul.

-

The ride northward along the Dakota is quiet. You surmise that Arthur doesn’t want to have further conversations about debt-collecting.  It is not until the two of you have ridden across Cumberland Falls and the pine forests of Big Valley have opened out to a large valley that he speaks again.

“C’mon, been riding for a while, let’s stop and stretch our legs.” He gruffly calls back as he leads the Saddler off of the trail and into the meadow, bright and sunny as the creek meanders through it.  The mountain air, cold and clean, burns your lungs slightly as you inhale, closing your eyes against the sun for a moment.

In that gentle, cold breeze, tall purple lupines sway among the grasses, reaching the horse’s knees as it slowly walks into the open plain. This place is so open and bright, its beauty takes you aback as Arthur slows the horse to a stop. Sliding out of the saddle, he immediately reaches up and takes you by the waist, as was customary, and helps you down.

“Nice out ‘here, ain’t it?”

“Beautiful,” you murmur, shielding your eyes from the sun as you survey the large valley.

Arthur pulls out a worn woolen blanket from his horse’s saddlebag. He lays it out upon the ground, nodding up at you to take a seat. You do so, and a comfortable silence falls between the two of you as Arthur sits opposite you and fiddles with his satchel, looping the strap over his head and hat, placing the bag next to him before flipping the lid open and searching around in it. 

You turn away and look on as a herd of pronghorn does graze in the distance.

“Saw this out the other day.”

You glance back at the gunslinger, to find him opening his leather-bound journal to a page and taking out a small, dried head of blossoms pressed between its pages. He holds it out to you, and your eyes widen as you gaze upon it - gaze upon the outrageousness of it all, the man with a five-thousand-dollar bounty, beating a debtor not two hours earlier, delicately holding the smallest, most fragile dried blossom between his thumb and trigger finger.

“That’s…” You trail off, incredulously.

“Never did tell me why you was named after a plant.”

You ignore the quip as you reach toward his gloved hand and the dried flower. The soft purple blossom, fragile and delicate, exchanges hands as he gently places it in your palm. His fingers linger for a moment, suspended in time.

The proper name, Latin, printed next to sketches in scientific books.

You smile, snorting lightly through your nose, “My mother… There was a heather bush outside her window on the farm she grew up on. Back in Ireland. She used to tell me seein’ those blossoms made her some kind of happy. Would tell me that when I was born, seeing me made her feel the same way. So, Calluna it was.”

There’s an ache in your chest. An ache of fondness. Not dissimilar to the ache that you felt when Abigail held your hand as you cradled her son to your chest in a feverish haze. Not dissimilar to the ache in your chest when Hosea held you to him when you sobbed on the banks of Owanjila. 

Someone thinking of you. These moments, they hack away at the depth of despair and loneliness that you have been drowning in. Maybe... Just maybe, you weren’t just Calluna Shaw, widow, alone in the world.

You look back up at Arthur, that ache fluttering up like a butterfly in flight.

“Thank you, Mister Morgan. You can be awful sweet.”

You smile, and with the way his battered heart aches in his chest, he knows he’s in trouble. He can feel the blush bloom across his cheeks and he looks away, desperate to save face. Movement in the distance of the meadow draws his attention.

“Look, how’s about we bring back somethin’ for Pearson’s stew, huh?” Arthur looks out past the waving lupines to where the creek meanders back and forth through the valley. In the soft light of sunset, he points about a hundred yards up the valley.

A pronghorn buck drinks from the stream, finally visible to you as you squint and pull a stray curl of hair back, tucking it behind your ear.

“Go on and shoot it.” He nods forward.

“Me?!”

“Yes you, Missus Shaw. Come on, here you go.” Arthur gets up from his seat and steps toward his horse, pulling out a rifle for you to take from his saddlebag. You carefully place the blossom on the blanket before standing up, dusting off your skirts as you step toward Arthur and the buttermilk-hided horse.

The firearm nearly drops from your hand when you grasp it, completely unprepared for the weight of the gun. Arthur snorts under his breath as you grasp the Springfield with both hands, holding it up in front of you, and pointing toward the pronghorn in the distance. You frown, the barrel of the rifle swaying as you try to point it. The gun is much heavier than the repeater that Arthur showed you to shoot with earlier.

“C’mere, little lady.”

Oh.

Before you can move, his arms quickly brace yours as he steadies the rifle, heavy in your grasp. Your back presses against his broad chest. A whole head taller than you, you just reach the curve of his shoulder.

You are positive you are blushing fiercely and extremely thankful that he cannot see your face as he leans over your shoulder to line up the sights of the gun. As he does so, you close your eyes, breathing softly out your nose. The leather of his worn jacket - the tobacco he so often smokes, the musk of horse, the tang of whiskey - they all invade your senses as your head spins.

You want to melt into his embrace - he’s tall and broad and handsome in a rugged way. He’s solid and warm and oh, how swept up you feel to be wrapped up in his arms - even if this is in no way intimate. 

You want. You want to keep your eyes shut, tilt your neck, and give him access to suckle at your skin. You want his arm to leave yours and his large hand to engulf your breast. You want to be covered by him, held and possessed, and smothered and cherished. Everything melts away. The debt earlier, Arthur’s anger and threats, the fearful man and his family. It all just…fades.

You want.

“Both eyes open, darlin’.”

At the term of endearment, you steady your arms, holding the firearm jointly with him. Arthur is warm and solid and oh, with his arms around you, you feel so safe.

The buck raises his head from the stream.

Arthur’s breath tickles your ear as his whiskered jaw brushes your temple.

“Now.”

You pull the trigger.

[samodivaa]

Winter Soldier x Asset!Reader You just returned from a mission—you provoke him, but the tension flicks from anger to fevered desire.

Warnings - smut, smut, he hasn't felt arousal for a long time ;)

Words - 2500

❆⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄❆⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄❆

Soldat wraps himself in anger, with a dash of annoyance, and at the bottom of it all is an icy center of pure horror—the intensity of this forgotten sensation, not bloodlust—it is pure human lust—his metal hand tightens around your neck.

"I'm sorry. Please, let me go now, please" but the trickling sounds of your pleas makes him feel thirsty for more.

It is not lust or infatuation—this is intoxication, a craven’s craving he can't explain nor control. He looks at your eyes—dainty blend of colors, lips are rosebuds, cheeks have the color of flamboyant flowers. You are Summer, he is Winter.

"Again"

"What-t?" Your voice is bewildering, and yet mysteriously beautiful.

"Beg. Again."

You poorly try to hide your shock. This is an unprecedented turn of events. The programmed machine inside you wants to block that, to scream for help, and the human inside you wants more.

"Please, please, Soldat"

"Fuck…" he mutters.

His eyes are nearly black, the pupils dilated as he pulls away and moves backwards. Winter stays still, but you see a tremor pass through him—as if he is waging a war with himself.

Hydra always plays with his mind, lies to him, but lust is what it is, it never lies—it is real and he feels it, but his apparatus is so rusted that he doesn’t understand what is happening fully.

And it is not only the faculty of love, lust which were sterilized, but also the faculty of imagination—he never imagined that he would do something like that. Now, he involves his mind in the abuse of imagination in erotic matters—fires of lust spring up for the first time and he groans like some baffled prowling beast.

“What is it, Winter?”

He wants to sin with you, to force you to sin with him and to exult with you in sin.

“Soldat?”

He feels the lust’s presence moving irresistibly upon him, a presence subtle and murmurous as a flood filling him wholly with itself.

“I need to touch you, I need—”

A litany. An enchantment. A curse.

He explores you from a distance as he makes several steps backwaters, with his unspoken desire, with the fear that touching you would set him to flame. And you want nothing more in that moment than to prove very much the opposite.

“Do it then”

It's enough for Winter, to hear the soothing whisper of comforting words countering the panic and the frostiness of darkness in his soul.

At that, he makes a harsh, low sound. His eyes exude insinuation and you know it.

You are both alone, surrounded by darkness and silence: and in that moment of supreme tenderness, he starts to transfigure—by his monstrous way of life, this seems—beyond the limits of reality.

He tries to bid his tongue so that he might seem at ease, watching you as you shamelessly undo your dirty cargo pants and shirt.

As he stands silent, watching you undress—you are breathtakingly beautiful as you stand there in the dark, the dim lights letting your skin look ghostly pale. When you make steps towards him, he instinctively tries to make several steps backward, but the wall behind prevents it.

You come over to him and you embrace him gaily and gravely, arms holding him firmly by the waist, his eyes couldn't help, but move down at your cleavage, exposing the flawless skin—dozens of inappropriate thoughts suddenly rushes through his head when you let out a small sigh of frustration.

Seeing his face lifts to yours—serious as he feels the warm, calm rise and fall of your breast.

“Samodiva—”

You suddenly kiss Soldat, his head tilting to meet your mouth, lips warm and mobile as they play against his own in a medley of light brushes and soft nibbles. The kiss lingers, each tantalizing caress is his answer which he is too afraid to say out loud. Gentle, but your kiss becomes deliberately seductive. Settling on his lower lip, you draw it into your mouth and suck at it softly, lips, tongue and teeth working in sensuous harmony as his cock jolts to life and you move your hips closer, framing the hardness.

It is too much for him.

He closes his eyes, surrendering himself to you, body and mind, conscious of nothing in the world but the dark pressure of both your hands and softly parting lips—his flesh shrinking from what it dreads and responds to the stimulus of your touch, his long forgotten sexual needs—purely a reflex action of the nervous system.

You catch yourself staring at the sensual curve of his lips, the impressive cut of his jaw, devouring every part of him with eyes.

And then, weakness, confusion and inexperience fall from him in that moment—your eyes bright with brutish joy meets his—ferocity burns in his gaze promising something primal—your soul shriveled up as he snatches you up around the waist and sits you on the metal table nearby.

You are in his hands—you have to comply.

It is the impatience of the way he tears your panties and bra from your body that really scares you: the lust getting the better of him and you spread your legs wide, exposing your overall and the fragrance of the essences permits in the air, he can smell it.

Reaching out, he grabs your chin

“Have you done this with the others?”

His human fingers dig into the skin, forcing a whimper from your parted lips.

Holding you in place, he awaits for a response

“Yes-s” your voice is quiet, almost lost in the helpless darkness of his presence.

Soldat haltes, blue eyes frosting.

He slams his metal fist down on the table

“I forbid you” he whispers before running the tip of his tongue along your neck, tasting the sweat that has just formed.

There is a stubbornness about you that never can bear to be frightened at the will of the Winter Soldier. Your courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate you, but this time you feel helpless as fear spreads to every part of the body.

The unmistakable flare of jealousy narrows his eyes—there is that infamous control of his hovering on the edge, balancing precariously on the point of a knife, it makes your breath hitch. 

The primal lust, the sheer need to claim you, quickly finding ways to express his sacred hunger to you in animal passion. He relishes that delicious feeling of freedom, the delirium of being human, his flesh is being born again.

This demon is made for you—his dark eyes and possessiveness have you hooked, his darkness frightens, soothes, but now that darkness is lustful—half god, half hell.

Soldat is a wraithlike observer most of his life, but he takes control for the first time and there is a theatrical quality about all this—he is irreparably damaged, but with your scent filling his nostrils there seems to be a some primitive male instinct as his throat tighten with a hunger he never experienced before—it draws him in deeply, imagining that was how hot sex smells.

“Ти си моя” he says low and quiet and as vicious—his fingers, caressing your tights simultaneously, spreading them further apart.

You feel your heart beat faster, your face flush, and your ire rise, you avoid his cold stare, reeling at his words—you are mine—his hands gripping your hair firmly in a show of dominance, making you face him before Soldat quickly delves into a deep and possessive kiss, his lips are full and warm, soft against yours, but the kiss is hard and desperate.

"If Springtime crawls out of the wild mouths of flowers, then surely, Winter crawls out of mine."

He smirks against your lips when you can't hide your moans, your hands slowly snaking their way around his shoulders, pulling him closer, the intrusive need to be consumed by him.

“Be quiet”

He huffs nonchalantly, stalking closer to lick at the crook of your neck as he runs his hands along your sides, the flesh one stopping just below your breasts—but the metal one flicks your nipple with his thumb as he passes it. He rubs in a slow circular motion as he observes your reactions.

You don’t know when he moves his human hand, but his fingers down to your burning sex, separating your folds and running a thick finger over the slit. He could smell your arousal and knows he needs a taste of you—a groan tears out of his throat.

“Be quiet” you want to mock his own words, but you breathe out heavily and hard as you say them.

You thought he would have a clever reply — something to win, something to shut you up.

In a way, you guess he did.

Your hands tighten on his biceps as he inserts a second finger, your fingernails scrape into him, and the slight pain is pleasurable, knowing he is one giving you pleasure—hypnotized by your velvety moans—you are panting, mouth watering.

You keep your eyes open for as long as you can, hoping that your brainwashed, imperfect memory would capture even just half as much as his.

It suddenly occurred to him he doesn’t know your real name, he wants to call you something.

“Snezinka” His voice is deep and guttural, the word rumbling and vibrating against your neck. It caresses your skin almost sensually

“My snezinka” (snowflake) drawls in a voice too playful for the fear flooding your veins.

You moan quietly again, eyes finally fluttering close as he twists his hand just so, delving two fingers deep within your wet folds below and curling them.

You can feel him: his breath coming down on your neck in heavy, hungry pants, his fingers drawing out teasingly and forcing your hips to buck at the motion. With a hum of pleasure, he lets his fingers slide almost all the way out and his throat tightens at the feel of your channel bearing down, trying to hold on to him as he withdraws completely.

Winter reaches between your bodies and begins to unbuckle his pants. His breathing comes in louder and harder as he tries to control his emotions and movements.

His palm runs along his hardened length, stroking himself slowly—

You suddenly pull him by the straps of his harness and he needs to brace himself using the table on both sides of your body—he grunts at your aggressiveness and strength.

A tentative smile on his lips.

“Snezinka…I was not going anywhere” he taunts and presses his lips to yours.

He looks at you with a vicious smirk, as if he’d won something.

In a way, he supposes he has.

His husky voice reaches a playful tone he hadn't touched on in years, decades—he doesn’t know.

Winter holds his cock by the base of it, running the tip up and down your pussy, making sure to linger around your clit.

Your mouth opens and closes several times, your vocal chords struggle to produce words, but your lips simply move in silence, your hands winding through his hair. You wrap your legs, quivering from fear, sexual yearn at a height you never before felt, around his waist, pulling him to you as he poses and you whine, his head creeping in first before his whole penis is engulfed into your wet sex, your pussy stretching around him, he keeps his descent slow and torturous.

Painfully sweet, he moans—

feeling him impale you onto his cock, stilling in you for a moment so you could feel just how deep he is—enjoying how the metal hand grips your waist tightly.

You are not soft or feminine; you are a hard-edged and cold brainwashed machine, crowned in razor wire of hate. For him, you have always been a flower—he takes your thorns as a challenge. Winter will have you scorch with the savagery of his cruel passions and needs—until you are conditioned to bloom in his flames.

He groans, fucking into you harder now, the head of his cock hitting your cervix as your eyes, water up at the sensation of being so stuffed as he gives you more and more—him fuckin you like that flips your brain inside out and turns your cunt to pudding.

Winter leans near your ear, holding your jaw still, with flesh digits, as he speaks.

“Talk to me, snezinka, how do you feel?” he grunts and you shudder, lips pucker from the grip he has on you as you try to speak.

Gasping for breath, you writhe mindlessly in his grasp, only to find yourself easily restrained—all you can do is tighten your legs around him, trying to usher him to fuck you again.

You are annoyed at his cockyness   

That's why you sink your nails into his shoulders, scrabbling for purchase against the fabric, then fisting one hand in his hair. You pull hard on the wet locks, gasping when your violence earns you a particularly hard slam of his hips.

Sin is a lustful state—he actually likes it.

“Do it again” he commands—thrusts grow jerky.

You tug his hair again.

“Солдат-” (Soldat)

And that’s all he needs to hear before he starts ravaging what you’ve just called him—pounding into you, setting an unrelenting pace, clutching him hard as the pleasure spirals up and up.

He hisses, teeth gritting with the sole purpose of making you cum before he does.

The force of his thrusts is making the table quake, but your quiet moans of approval are so satisfying he keeps at it and you starts clenching around him—deliberately massaging his cock, orgasming wordlessly as he continues to fuck you right through it.

He hides his face in the crook of your neck, inhaling your scent sharply as he keeps rutting hard inside of you—your cunt convulsing around him, trying to milk his cock, is making his thrusts sloppy—several incoherent thrusts lead him to come inside, a roar rumbling in his chest.

He wraps his arms around you, and you sink into his chest, marveling at how easy this feels. You both don't accept touch easily, but with him, it seems natural.

Your newfound foundation is rocky, because you make a home in each other’s skin and memory—the damage is beginning to show. You are ready to self-destruct, there is very little left to kill anyway—which makes this tragedy less and more much, much more worse.

What actually led to this situation?

You always help each other undress after the missions, but this time your mind wanderers as you remove the small glove from his metal hand—flashing between images of various memories of killed people and imagined scenarios, you wouldn't have thought of outside of this hazy consciousness—but

Wanting makes the mind restless

He blinks at you, eyes looking perfectly indifferent—and yet, delight in yours; the moment you develop an idea is the exact moment you execute it—you give the hand a squeeze before the chemical desire to taste it overpowers everything in both your mind and body and you bring the fingers to your mouth, dipping two inside

His metal hand is an erotic necessity

—you feverishly lick, drenching them in your saliva, moving your tongue along his fingers all the while.

He suddenly moves, grabbing you by the neck hardly, demanding an explanation.

[darkfictionjude]

They say that small towns hide the darkest secrets. At least that’s what your mother always said about this one. You thought she meant how Father Simmons has a well-known drinking problem, how Mrs. Gladstone’s son looks more like his uncle than his father or that the mayor has been in power for 15 years because of voting fraud. Things everyone knows. Human Things.

But now as partially eaten bodies have been left in alarmingly rates all over this small town the world has no record of, you now know she meant something else.

Play as peculiar and disturbed individual surnamed Crown after the very town your ancestor founded, returning after a traumatic event two years prior that landed you in a psychiatric hospital. As your comeback coincides with a rapid increase of disappearances you find yourself embroiled in a town conspiracy, a past that’s more alive than ever and the ever shifting self interested motives of those who claim to be your allies.

Who can you trust? What’s the truth behind your family? What are things that you see in the dark?

Sometimes it’s hard to tell what shapes monsters come in.

Customize your MC from looks to gender

Reveal your sister’s disappearance

Rely on a group of complimentary polar opposites to find out the mystery and save your life

Befriend or romance a choice of three from enemies to lovers, childhood friends or an eternal admirer

Rating: 18+

Crown - Playlist

You. A person with some personal issues, some family issues and some murder issues.

Imre Duran - Playlist

Quintessential good-boy-next-door. The most most-liked teenager in town. As son of the mayor and pageant queen, Imre has an image cultivated by him and maintained through his status which is why his back door activities are his cherished secrets. He is rather eager to help you… isn’t he?

Nia Mir - Playlist

In the very real and present high school hierarchy Nia would be one of the nobles. As a wannabe doctor with a loathed father and an absent mother her dream is to leave behind this backwater town and all it’s weird phenomena that she doesn’t care to know more of. She liked you, once.

Lorcan Stark - Playlist

Every town needs its bad boy and so Lorcan has aimed to be as every bit worthy of that title. The shunned son of a murderer and his victim, he is not really thought of as having a future beyond prison and petty crime especially in a town like this. You don’t remember a time when he didn’t hate you.

Salvatore Crown

Your brother. The heir to whatever fortune your family has left and the only one of the family who seems to like you.

Orla Crown - Playlist

Your sister. No one ever knew what she thinking, a closed box full of unknowns. You knew she kept things, especially from you.

Mayor Duran

Seems like every other politician. Oddly enough no one ever really sees him, an entity watching over the town.

Mother

She never acted like one to any of her children. She’s never sober anymore.

Mrs. Mir

Disappeared years ago without a trance. No one remembers her first name. Was thought to have been clinically insane.

Demo (updated 9/20) | Spotify | Patreon

To episode 5

[srbachchan]

DAY 6039

Jalsa, Mumbai Aug 30, 2024/Aug 31 Fri/Sat 2:20 am

🪔 ,

August 31 .. birthday greetings to Aashish Palod .. Ef Amit Bothra .. and Ef Rabia Qureshi from Miami 🇺🇸 .. 🙏🏻❤️🚩

August 30 .. belated birthday greetings to Ef Amit Kumar Joshi from Bikaner .. 🙏🏻❤️🚩

my greetings to all the 👆🏼 Ef .. and my sincere wishes for this day in their lives filled with happiness and joys of life ..

you cannot tear yourself away from the life and circumstances of the contestants at KBC .. we live in a World that is alien to theirs , as do they .. and the realisation of this phenomena is a revelation for both .. their innocence gives a look into their World of the unseen unknown World of today .. and we are the ones that have no sense of the existence of them that survive and exist in the backwaters of a tier that can only be described in words, but never in its truest form .. and when the two doth meet , an explosion of the true vision appears before us in real time .. and that is as wondrous and challenging filled with their desire to know , and ours of knowing, but not knowing in the true sense ..

the wonder in their eyes is the genuine feel of them that experience the world beyond theirs, for the very first time .. and in ours the striking questionnaire of how ever does this happen ..

but it does .. and when it does the admiration and awe that we in this World experience, simply weakens our own livings and belief .. for theirs is in greater feel ..

there is much to express and write and share .. but .. but .. there is hesitation .. for there can be much that needs to be understood before it can be expressed ..

interpreters sit about in anticipation of what can be picked up and conceivably made into exclusive make belief content ..

Amitabh Bachchan

[toska-writes]

“Where the stars can shine”

Summary: the fighting never stops, and it never will so it’s in everyone’s best interest to find the calm moments when you can.

Pairing: The Bad Batch x padawan!reader (OF COURSE THIS IS PLATONIC)

Warning: none just so much fluff!

Word count: 1261 (not proof read but what did you expect)

Notes: IM WATCHING THE NEW BAD BATCH SEASON AFTER THIS! So this is my way of manifesting everyone being alright to end the show 🥲

The war never ended, nor would it for anyone who has endured it and its intensity.

One fight always rolled into another and nothing could be done to stop it. The only way to get through it was to find the little cracks in all the bad. The place where the sun could shine and the flowers could grow.

Or in this case, the stars could twinkle.

"This is already too high for me." Wrecker stated loudly hauling himself up the side of the Marauder.

Crosshair, who was currently under Wreck scoffed to himself before clambering up the side like it was nothing. "You never seem to have that problem when we're in the air." He quipped.

"Well I'm inside then." He whined finally being assisted by Hunter who had the small hands of Omega making sure he didn't fall.

You could only laugh at the scene, leaning back on Echo you could feel him laugh too.

"Who do you think's falling off first?" You ask with a smile that was masked by the moonlight.

"The real question is," Echo leaned forward, surprised a little bit that the top of the marauders could fit 5 fully grown clones plus omega and the Jedi padawan. "Who's going to be pushed off first."

You looked back towards him and in an instant you spoke the same word together. "Tech."

Speaking of the devil, Tech's voice rang out as you looked over to where he had an arm pointing something out beyond the horizon.

"-and if you look there you'll be able to see Endor"

Omega's eyes lit up brighter than they have been in the past few days, nothing seemed to be going right for that bad batch no matter how much they tried.

"Have you guys been there?" Omegas eyes scanned the rest of her family that sat gazing with her. The sky on this backwater planet was surprisingly clear, clearer than you thought it would be.

"Eh once or twice." Hunter shrugged it off with a smile as all that Omega could do was gawk up at her big brother.

"Thats an understatement." Crosshair added quietly from beside you. With a nudge to your shoulder he added. "That meat-head over there blew up more than half the forest and got us kicked out. For life."

"Hey!" Wrecker let go of his strong grip of the Marauder with one hand to wave it at the sniper.

Omega giggled giving you a glance as you could help but laugh at the exchange. "Have you?"

You could only smile at the found memories the question brought you. Landing with your Master on a planet you've never even heard of at that time. The trees the towered over you and the abundant shades of green that you didn't even know existed. The faint sound of your master laughing as you stared up from the base of the tall trees fathomed by the hight.

"Yeah I went once I think during the Clone Wars. It was beautiful there." You spoke, the smiles spread from Omegas face to Hunters as he watched you retell the fond memories.

"Well I also did kinda crash into a tree there but other than that the rest was beautiful." Echo hide his laugh behind you as you told the more embarrassing part of the trip.

"I think I did hear about that one." The ex arc trooper spoke out. You shoved him back slightly as your gaze returned to the stars above.

"Now if you all turn your gazes eastward you can spot the Orion constellation which should also mean the Canis Major is pretty close." Tech pointed upward now, his own eyes locked tightly on the stars.

"That one has the brightest star in the whole galaxy right?" Omega filled in, whether Tech wanted to continue himself or not he could only beam down at the girl, who clearly heard this from him before.'

You smiled also recounting when Tech probably told the group for the first time.

The bounty hunters came from nowhere that day, Omega gripped on the back of Echo's armor plate  with tears streaking down her face clearly scared.

Tech stood above you the, a data pad scanned over you as Hunter tried to apply some pressure to a wound you sustained on your side. Wrecker and Cross stood around the group, the sniper's gaze fixed on the darken horizon beyond.

Panicked breath sounded out and flown into the barren night, as much as you didn't want to scare Omega more you really could help it. You were scared yourself.

"Do you see that over there." Tech took your free arm in his hand and pointed up to the looming sky with it. "That really bright star?"

You were pulled back from your thoughts with the slightest nudge from Crosshair who spared you a glance, nobody else seemed to notice his movements

"I want to go to all of those planets one day." The words were light from Omega, a smile still evident in her voice.

"You'll definitely need to learn to fly then." You added shooting a look at Tech who finally spared a glance at someone else and was immersed in taking pictures of the different planets and constellations.

"If you can find another ship." Tech said mater-o-factly with a finger in the air.

"Aweeee Tech." Omega did the only thing she could think of, huge tooka eyes found Tech and with the pout of her bottom lip you could almost see the moment Tech cracked.

"More contemplation will be needed for that"

Though Omega wasn't disappointed for long as Crosshair whispered to her. "That's practically a yes."

Hunter laughed now shoving Crosshair back into a lying down position. He noted that his brother looked quite different without his armor, but it was a sight he could get used to.

Opening his mouth Tech was about to defend himself before a snore racked through the air. 

"Put someone else to sleep too Techy." Crosshair jabbed a finger at wrecker who still seemed to gripped the ship tightly.

You couldn't blame him though, and is wasn't just because of Tech talking, but you did insist the stars and planets were best to see in the late night. A yawn stifled through you, Echo wasn't the warmest person but the arms that wrapped around you from the clone seemed to do it.

"It's not even that late." Omega protested but her heavy eyelids seemed to contradict her own words.

"No no, we all can't fall asleep up here or it's going to be a pain getting down." Omega curled up into Hunters chest as he spoke. He slowly started to get up.

"One of us should get Wreck." Your own eyelids battled against you as you fought to sit up.

"On it." Crosshair was the last person who you thought would offer but as his leg extended you watched Wrecker rolled over the side.

His startled yell was masked by the thud of him hitting the soft grass below. 

"See it wasn't even that far." The skipper shrugged pushing himself over the edge and landing gracefully with even using the side to get down.

You chuckled as you rolled your eyes at the brothers were up to their old antics.

The chill air was a good contrast to the heated days that came before, so much fighting it seemed that it would never end.

Moments like these would always be cherished, and surprisingly Tech wasn't the one to get pushed off the Marauder.

_____________________________________

Taglist:

@arctrooper69 @thereforepizza @padawancat97 @pb-jellybeans @floffytofu @verybadatwriting @solstraalaa @ray-rook @gregorsmissingarmor

[peachblossom-odyssey]

The Lanterns attending a gala to forge a diplomatic alliance with a valuable planet, though they’ve always had trouble with the planet’s inhabitants and it’s their last chance to swing things their way. But Hal gets bored so easily with all the stuffy diplomats and surface-level small talk, and in his boredom he accidentally has a bit too much to drink and becomes way looser and more talkative and less worried about diplomacy, sharing scandalous stories of his youth with high class ladies and getting way too comfortable patting people on the back and clapping their shoulders and calling them by their first names. The Lanterns in attendance are convinced this foolish human from that stupid backwater have completely ruined their chances and fucked up the mission beyond repair, even Hal’s friends are angry with him.

But then

The aliens love Hal.

It turns out that their culture values transparency, honesty, and hedonism, and the Lanterns being so unflinchingly professional and diplomatic had been what was sabotaging their efforts. Hal’s openness and sociability and likable crassness grabs the alien’s attention and admiration hook line and sinker, and suddenly the Lanterns have seized an invaluable alliance on from the jaws of defeat and in the next few days the Guardians receive no less than sixteen marriage proposals for Hal and thirty breeding requests.

Sinestro has been fuming since Hal started getting friendly with the locals and now he’s a man on the edge.

[sw33t-oubliette]

sorry your boyfriend died in a barfight, on some nameless backwater asteroid . yeah, after countless lifetimes of carving through every sensation its possible to feel, he was stabbed clean through the heart, and this time, for some reason, it stuck. yeah and when he realized what happened, he laughed for the first time in a millennia . witnesses said that they've never before seen someone so viciously excited to die. sorry

sorry your partner died, drunk as a skunk at the very end of time. yeah they were cast forward by a freak accident, and they watched as the stars winked out, and then they lit a cigar, the last point of illumination in the universe, and dropped the match into the gasoline as a final fuck you.

sorry your girlfriend's research became monotonous and her observations dull, she decided to partake in one final experiment. yeah she took a fragment of the ship once known as aurora, and she casted herself into that black hole. yeah beyond the event horizon there, maybe to die, maybe to learn something new one last time.

sorry your boyfriend felt the end coming for a while . his aim wandered by nanometers and his explosions seemed somewhat... lacklustre. yeah and he returned to a planet that he'd been saving up for a very special occasion . yeah the one that built the largest gunship existence would ever see . and he went on a final rampage . stars shattered at the thunder of his guns until, at last, he crashed into a space station. yeah sorry he wasnt wearing his seatbelt.

sorry your girlfriend tried to retire, and spent her final centuries on a small library planet with those books that meant so much to her . yeah unfortunately, the library did what they are so prone to and burnt in a pointless war . and she fell launching an escape pod piled high with ancient texts that scholars said were actually... quite a dull read.

sorry your boyfriend always approached the concept of immortality with a little bit more skepticism than the rest of them, so his end came as less of a surprise. yeah one day, at something of a loose end, he decided to check on the octokittens . unfortunately, the purring horde hadnt been fed in ... many decades , and devoured him . head to toe . in 11.7 seconds . at least, by my watch.

sorry your boyfriend missed his first beat, he knew exactly what it meant . he considered briefly the fire and bloodshed on his compatriots , but in the end the only thing that felt right was to complete the cycle . and he casted himself into the void . yeah his body will float there forever, far beyond the warmth of any stars .

sorry your partner, of course, well... it was never real to begin with . and, when all its friends were finally gone, it decided to stop pretending.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Just askin'. Since Shaftlands (I refuse to call them shiftlands unless a dev tell me otherwise) has "Fairest city", do you know is Harvestown has one similar? Or if Coral sea? Or even Afterglow Savanah.

I just ses the game through translates when it comes from JP server, since gacha games aren't really my thing (but I love Disney, Yana Toboso and hot mans).

Thats my question, you can respond to it if you don't mind!!

Are you asking if those other places also have cities...? Yeah, they probably do, seeing as most of them are entire countries. In the case of the Afterglow Savanna, we've been to Sunrise City in Leona's hometown event. We stay overnight at a luxury resort and pay a visit to various markets and a famous tourist destination, the Elephant Graveyard. I'm sure there are other bustling metropolises there. Harveston itself does not appear to be a country but rather is a backwater village located within the Shaftlands. Epel and his family mention that there is a city nearby where they sell their apples and apple products, and that people in their village do business beyond their hometown. This is why Epel's grandmother, Marja, as well as the Harveston mayor, can switch flawlessly between their Harveston dialect and a more standardized dialect.

The Shaftlands are shown to be quite expansive, so it also has several other cities and towns we have yet to explore. We have been to the City of Flowers/Fleur City for Glorious Masquerade, but there's still plenty of uncharted land for us (Jack, Cater, Trein, and Vargas’s hometowns, for example). Technically, Fairest City is not even Vil’s hometown—it’s just a hub for the entertainment industry that he visits for work on occasion. We still don’t know where exactly in the Shaftlands Vil was born. We also have yet to visit the Coral Sea, but I have no reason to believe why the clustering of underwater civilizations would be largely different than those of terrestrial societies (environment aside).

[folk-enjoyer]

Song of The Day/history of cotton eyed joe

do you want the history of a folk song? dm me or submit an ask and I'll do a full rundown

"Cotton Eyed Joe" Terry Callier, 1963

As a disclaimer, "Cotton Eyed Joe" is my least favorite American folk song and I'm going to talk about why, and I'm going to talk about why Terry Callier's version is subversive and good.

The Earliest date we have for the song's origins is from 1882 when it was Published in "Diddie, Dumps, and Tot, or, Plantation child-life" by Louise Clark-Pyrnelle. This book is a nostalgic recollection of her childhood as a plantation owner's daughter. She reminisces fondly about slavery, missing the old plantation days. Honestly, some of the quotes within this book are beyond parody, in one sentence she says "... My little book does not pretend to be any defense of slavery" and in the next sentence when referring to the morality of slavery she writes, "there are many pros and cons to that subject", later at the end of the chapter she laments about the forever lost emotional connection between the Masters children and the enslaved people. hate this woman and her little book.

It is also important to note that this book goes out of its way to caricature black people, throughout the book she exaggerates accents and dialects to dehumanize them. This is a recurring theme in early publications of this song. Another early publication of the song comes from Dorothy Scarborough in "On the Trail of negro folk-songs" 1925 who got it from her sister who also learned it on a plantation, in Texas. She writes "This is an authentic slavery-time song" This book, if you can believe it, is remarkably racist and dismissive of black music, even as a more "progressive" songbook of black folk songs.

In 1922, the song's history was documented a bit more extensively by Thomas W. Talley in his book "Negro folk rhymes". He writes that it has "deep roots in black traditional lore". Thomas W. Talley was also just a cool guy in general, this book is one of the first compilations of African American folk songs, and it has been a pioneering book in its field. Even today, this book is still one of the best sources for the history of African American folk songs.

So, this is a black song. This was a black song whose first wave of popularization was through the caricature of black people to be amusing for white folks. Let's move on to its second wave of popularization.

The song was first recorded in 1927 by "Dykes Magic City Trio" (all white band) then about a week later by Fiddlin' John Carson (white performer) then in 1928 by Pope's Arkansas Mountanaineers (all white band) then in 1929 by Carter Brothers and Son (all white band) and then it wasn't really recorded for a while because of the great depression and the war but the times it was recorded, it was by white people. We know this because it was mostly recorded by John Lomax and despite documenting southern folk songs, he almost went out of his way to avoid recording black people singing them. Then, in 1941, it was recorded by Burl Ives (painfully white).also covered by a few white country singers like Adolph hofner bob willis but I think you get the point. It wasn't until later that year that it would be recorded by a black person, performed by josh white in 1944-45, who covered it as a lullaby.

However, it wouldn't be until the 90s, during its 3rd wave of popularization that it became its most grotesque. "cotton eye joe" was recorded and released by Swedish Eurodance band Rednex in 1995 as a, to paraphrase reviews, 'Way to make fun of backwater southerners'. This song became incredibly popular throughout Europe and in the USA as well, charting as a number-one song in several countries, sometimes for weeks. Not only is this song incredibly classist, it is, whether by omission or deliberately, fundamentally racist, adding to the whitewashing of black folk and minstrelsy of black people. The attitude and humor derived from the Swedish version are the same as the version in 1882 when it was a "classic slave song".

So, why is Terry Callier's version important, why talk about it? Terry Callier's version is the first version of the song that I have heard and it is not a comedy. It isn't meant to be funny. It slows the melody down and draws attention to itself. It's almost a ballad, showcasing Joe as a tragic but mysterious hero, maybe a love song. His voice is angelic as well. Terry Callier once again, subverts expectations and creates something beautiful out of a song that has been so whitewashed and appropriated that no one remembers its tragic origins.

Thomas W. Talley

some other versions by black folks Josh white 1944-46 Nina simone 1959 The Ebony Hillbillies 2004 Leon bibb 1962 Ella Jenkins 1960 Josh White Jr 1964 Queen Ida 1985

[qsycomplainsalot]

Sooooo how about that Borderlands movie huh?

Might as well repost it here too.

One of the reason Borderlands 2 and this movie hit weird is because they take these player characters meant to not interfere in our experiencing the world of Pandora, and try to retroactively slap more personality and motives on them in a way that contradicts our playthrough. Not only do we feel robbed of our personal experience by having these characters take on a completely different lives, and even beyond the terribad decision of making them all joke-a-second-delivering hollywood funnymen, it actually takes away from said world. You should have a straight forward character for the environment to shine around, not four that seem to constantly fight for the camera's attention with cheap jokes. That's not the vibe Borderlands 1 had. I've jumped piss wash gully over a hundred times, it's funny because of how clearly everyone on this miserable backwater shithole hates it here, not because someone threw a bucket of piss in my face. Like... you're being less subtle than Borderlands. It's worrying. Furthermore, why do the Crimson Lance soldiers look like a competitive paintball team; why not use anything by Cage the Elephant, Jesper Kyd or DJ Champion for the soundtrack; if you're gonna blend different games why nOT USE HANDSOME JACK ??? Why does a movie that could so easily be carried by its setting need so many big name actors ? Why does it need THESE big name actors ??? Get Anya Taylor-Joy, Dave Bautista, Idris Elba and idfk John Leguizamo. Have them arrive on Pandora, get contacted by Angel, kill Nine-Toes pretty much as they step out of the bus leading them to Sledge and the first half of the vault key. Get them to the Rakk Hive for a set piece battle mid-movie that's not just a gun fight, but the other half of the key has been taken by the Crimson Lance already. After a failed ambush from them, the vault hunters go to the Eridian promontory to wrap up the movie. Cut all the fat and make a solid movie. Instead I'm assuming it's gonna be a bunch of meandering bullshit, and the only elements from the original story will be in the form of annoying nods that will make you wish you were playing the game instead of watching whatever this is.

Also they announced a cinematic universe so now it's bound to be shit.

[brotherscain]

i’ve got this fledgling of an idea for a fic where teenchesters sam and dean get involved in some backwater appalachian cult trying to hunt down a monster and it corrodes whatever tentative barrier’s been keeping them apart and it’s just a huge mindfuck and all swampy and disgusting and wrong and super delicious too 🫢🫶 like yes! get fucked up beyond repair! commit the sin you will never be able to utter the name of for years to come!