#Build French Drain

[weathertek]

How to Build a Simple French Drain?

Water drainage issues can wreak havoc on your yard and foundation, leading to costly repairs if left unaddressed. One effective solution is to install a French drain, a simple yet efficient system designed to redirect water away from problem areas. This guide will walk you through the steps of building a French drain, whether you’re tackling yard flooding or protecting your home’s…

[springtyme]

51 ✨ for carmy 🐻

𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩 𝐀𝐭 𝐀 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 ♡

Thank you for the request, anon! I hope you like it 💕

Carmen Berzatto x reader || Carmy playlist || Main masterlist

51: “I can’t live without you.”

The strain of Carmy's new responsibilities at The Beef has taken a toll on your relationship, leaving you worried and questioning your place in his life. And you're scared, but not for the reason Carmy thinks.

Angst (with a happy ending). Hurt/comfort. Mention of what happened to Michael.

word count: 2.1k

You stand in the dimly lit hallway of your apartment, anxiously tapping your foot against the worn floorboards. It’s late, much later than Carmen had told you he would be home. The clock on the wall mocks you with its ticking, each second feeling like an eternity.

Your relationship with Carmen has been strained lately, the weight of his responsibilities after taking over The Beef after Micheal’s death has taken a toll on both of you.

You and Carmen had met in New York, about two years ago, when he had moved into the apartment next to yours. You had not looked for a relationship and neither had Carmen, but it was like fate had kept pushing the two of you together. 

It had just started out with a few chance encounters in the hallway or at the local grocery store, with him stumbling slightly over his words as he asked you about your day or offered to carry your groceries. 

But it had been a power outage which had left the whole building in darkness that really had brought you together. You had fumbled your way out in the hallway to figure out if it was just your apartment that had lost power or if it was the whole building. And that’s when you had bumped into Carmen, literally. His strong arms had wrapped around you instinctually, preventing you from falling on your ass. 

You had candles in your apartment, unlike Carmen so you had invited him in to share the light and wait for the power to be restored. As the hours passed, you two ended up talking and getting to know each other better. It was a simple yet intimate evening, and from that moment on, you felt a connection that you couldn’t ignore and a sweet friendship had blossomed between you.

He didn’t have much time off, literally working at one of the best restaurants in the world, but the moments you did spend together were cherished, and it hadn’t taken long before your connection had grown even stronger, evolving into something more than just friendship and eventually blossoming into a real and deep relationship. 

You had not hesitated to say yes to move back to Chicago with him after his brother had passed away.

You never got to meet Michael, Carmen didn’t really speak to him through all the time you dated, you've never fully understood what had happened between them, but you have a feeling that Carmen didn't really knew it either, and he has never really liked talking about his family in general, but you do know that he loved Michael a lot.

You had tried to convince him to go to the funeral, telling him that you would be there for him, but he had kept shooting the idea down. He kept excusing it by saying that he couldn’t, his contract at the French Laundromat hadn’t expired yet, and despite that being true, you had a feeling that going to the funeral would make the loss of his brother feel all the more real, and that was something he wasn’t ready for.

You also had the feeling that he didn’t want to see his mother, at least not in that setting, so you had just decided that you would let him grieve in his own way, and just be there for him in whatever way he needed you to.

It had been the same you had done with his job after all.  

You know that he had loved his job in New York, in his own fucked up way. It was a messed up, down right toxic, work environment, and it had hurt to see him come home every night, tired to the bone, both physically and emotionally drained, yet he kept doing it. His ineffable love for the culinary arts that just couldn’t be extinguished kept him going. It is just after you moved to Chicago a month ago that he told you that he would throw up every morning before work.

It crushed you to hear that Carmen was suffering silently, but you understood why he continued to push through. The restaurant industry was demanding and competitive, and Carmen was determined to prove himself. You had hoped that the move to Chicago would bring some relief, a fresh start away from the toxicity of his previous job. However, the weight of his responsibilities at The Beef seemed to have only deepened the strain on your relationship.

You love him, and you want to be there for him, no matter what. But the constant absence and distance have started to make you question where you stand in his life. But most of all you’re just sad that he is sad, or really it's more that you're sad that he is in a situation that should make him sad, it's like he doesn’t even really allow himself to be sad, and that really hurts to watch. 

You try to push away those negative thoughts, you try yo remind yourself that Carmen is just going through a difficult time, but that just makes the worried feeling in the pit of your stomach feel even heavier.

As the front door finally creaks open, your heart skips a beat. Carmen steps inside, his weary eyes meeting yours. The exhaustion etched on his face is painfully evident, and your worry intensifies, yet you're just so happy to see him. As he slides off his jacket his white t-shirt comes into view, it’s stained with sauces and his hands bear the marks of countless hours spent in the kitchen, but it’s the weariness in his eyes that tears at your heart.

“Hey,” he mumbles, his voice hoarse from lack of rest. “Why are you still up?

You muster a small smile, trying to hide your concern. “I couldn’t sleep,” you admit softly, stepping closer to him. “I was worried about you. You said you’d be home earlier.”

Carmen sighs heavily, running a hand through his unruly hair. “I know, I’m sorry, it was just... things got really busy tonight.”

You nod, biting your lip to hold back the words that threaten to spill out. You want to scream at him, not from a place of anger, but frustration, to make him understand that his health is more important than any sandwich on the menu. But you also know that he pours everything he got into the restaurant.  

“I’m just worried about you, Carmy,” you finally manage to say, your voice tinged with both frustration and concern. “You work yourself to the bone, and it’s taking a toll on you. I can’t bear to see you like this.”

He sighs, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I know,  but there is not much I can do about it, okay. I’m sorry for putting you through this. But I can’t just abandon the restaurant. If I don’t fix it Jimmy’s gonna sell it and turn it into a fucking Applebee’s.” 

Tears well up in your eyes as you take a step closer to him. “I get that, Carm. I do. But you need to take care of yourself too. It hurts seeing you like this.” 

Carmen looks at you, his tired eyes searching your face. There’s a mix of frustration and resignation in his gaze, as if he knows you’re right but doesn’t know how to change the situation. The weight of his responsibilities seems to visibly crush him, and it breaks your heart.

“I know, I know,” Carmen says, his voice tinged with defeat. “But it’s not that simple. The Beef is struggling, and I need to turn it around. I can’t just walk away.”

Your frustration builds, and you can’t help but argue back. “I understand that, Carmy, but you also can’t sacrifice your well-being for the sake of this restaurant. There has to be a way to find a balance, to take care of yourself too.”   

“I know I need to take care of myself, and I don’t want to keep putting you through this,” his voice taking on a more frustrating tone, he isn’t yelling, but there’s an edge to it. “But I just... I don’t know how to do that right now, okay”

The tone of his voice makes you pause for a moment, he has never talked to you like that before and you can’t help but slightly flinch. You know that he is just frustrated but it still makes you feel a deep pang of hurt. It’s not that you’re scared or anything, you know that he would never ever hurt you, you’re just sad that it has come to this. 

But seeing you flinch clearly affects Carmen, his frustrated expression softening, turning into an expression of guilt and regret instead.  

You swallow the lump in your throat and take a deep breath, trying to regain your composure before saying what you need to say. “I love you, Carmen, and I want you to be happy. But I can’t stand by and watch you destroy yourself in the process.” you’re taking a deep breath before continuing, “you’re scaring me.” 

Carmen’s gaze meets yours, the expression in his eyes breaking your heart. “I never wanted to scare you. And I-I would never hurt you.” 

This makes your heart break even more, yes you had flinched at his tone of voice, but not because you in any way had thought he would physically hurt you, never. The thing you’re scared of is that he’ll end up hurting himself…  

You reach out to take Carmen’s hand, wanting to assure him that you understand his intentions, but also wanting to convey the depth of your concern.

“I’m not scared you’ll hurt me, Carm. I know you’d never do that. I’m scared you’ll hurt yourself.” Tears are now streaming down your cheeks, your voice trembling as you’re about to unveil your biggest fear in all of this. “I just don’t want you to end up like Micheal, okay… I was scared that the reason you didn’t come home was because you had blown your brains out on a bridge somewhere.”  

Carmen’s eyes widen at your words, a mixture of shock and pain flashing across his face.

He reaches out to gently wipe away your tears, his touch warm and comforting. “I’m not going to end up like Michael,” he whispers, his voice filled with a mixture of determination and vulnerability. “I promise you, I could never do that to you.”

You hold onto his hand tightly, desperately seeking reassurance. “But Carmy, you’re pushing yourself so hard. You’re not taking care of yourself, and it scares me. I don’t want to lose you. I can’t live without you.”

He pulls you into a tight embrace, holding you as if he never wants to let go. “You don’t have to, I promise you.” His voice cracks with emotion, and you can feel his tears dampening your shoulder.

You hold onto him just as tightly, your heart breaking for the pain he’s been carrying alone and you’re just so happy that he is finally letting himself cry.  

Carmen pulls away slightly to look into your eyes, his expression a mix of gratitude and determination. “I don’t deserve you, but I’m so grateful to have you by my side.”

You smile through your tears, relieved to see him opening up and acknowledging the need for change. “We’ll figure it out together. We’ll find a way to make things work.”

“Yeah, we will,” he nods, before continuing. “I… I actually started going to Al-Anon, I go three times a week.” 

You’re taken aback by Carmen’s revelation, but also immensely proud of him for taking this step. You gently squeeze his hand, your love for him growing with each passing moment. “That’s amazing, Carm,” you say softly. “For how long?”

“I started going two weeks ago, I don’t know why I didn’t say anything earlier,” he admits, a hint of shame in his voice. “I guess I just needed to take it in my own tempo.” 

You shake your head, wiping away your remaining tears. “It’s okay, Carm, I’m just so glad you’re looking out for yourself.” 

Carmen takes a deep breath, his gaze filled with renewed determination. “I really don’t deserve you, thank you for not giving up on me, even when I pushed you away. I love you so much, and I promise I’ll find a way to make this work.”

You lean in and press a gentle kiss to his lips, feeling a sense of hope and unity. “I love you too, Carmy. And yeah, we’ll face this together, one step at a time.”

Thank you for reading! ♡ this is my first time writing for Carmy and I had such a blast writing for him, but I also was a little intimidated by this piece, so please let me know what you thought ♡

[genshingorlsrevengeance]

How would someone like Miko, Ei, and other high ranking officers react to an S/O with a long list of titles like Settra the Imperishable, King of Kings,-

(Genshin Impact) Yae, Ei, Sara, Kokomi, Furina, Jean, and Xianyun's S/O with an absurdly long list of titles

I've been building and painting a lot of Bretonnians lately, so dear readers, you will now become aggressively French.

By the Archons above, nothing was worse to Yae than having to be so serious during a ceremony,

Of all the things she could be doing, literally anything would be better than having to listen to some stuffy noble read their title.

So it was by chance S/O had to be present. She recognized their title was of Fontaine descent.

'The Red Hand of Brionne', 'The Red Duke', Something something Red.

...Wait, their titles were still being read off?!

(Yae) "My goodness, just how many titles with the color red can one have?"

Yae internally sighed as the list kept going. And going. And going.

All the while S/O stood perfectly still and respectful, not even batting an eye at the list of titles that probably would stretch from the top of the shrine all the way to the bottom.

Yae's head looks up to the sky momentarily, wondering how of all the people in the world she could have as a lover, it was the one who had to bore her to tears.

No doubt there were interesting stories of how the titles came to be, but this is not the way she wanted to find out.

And here Yae thought Ei had a lot of names to go by...

(Yae) "...Why is it still going?!"

Ei doesn't react too much at the titles being read off for S/O's form of address at first.

She had to deal with similar situations of people reading off her own titles, so it was only proper etiquette.

"Water-Knight," "The Holder of Secrets", "Keeper of the Way"

(Ei) "...Hm."

It was only now she noticed that the list actually exceeded her own titles.

Which surprised her more than anything.

As far as she knew, S/O was just a mortal. How many feats did they achieve in Fontaine during their short life?

She made a note to ask later, but now the list was starting to become a bit absurd.

...Maybe she should implement a law where only the most notable of titles are read off, because they would actually be here for eternity if this continued.

Sara gets jealous fast.

Not because S/O has more titles than her, she couldn't care less about that.

What really irked her, was they had the gall to own more titles than Her Excellency, the Almighty Narukami Ogosho!

Sara masks her annoyance well as she keeps reading off the list.

Line after line, name after name.

...Okay, who the hell even gave her this list, this was way too many!

(Sara) Leader of battles...? What kind of title even is that?!

She made that comment in her head as she droned on with the names.

With every single title read off, Kokomi's energy drained.

She loved her S/O dearly, but by the Archons, how the heck did they get that many titles while living in Fontaine?!

(Gorou) "Lionheart, The Lionhearted, High Paladin of the Breton Court-!"

As far as she was aware, there wasn't even any Knight Houses like this in Fontaine!

...Then again, this was Fontaine she was talking about. They did have their theatres.

Kokomi doesn't mention anything about their stupidly long list of names until after the formal ceremony.

She drops her head onto their shoulders, sighing loudly.

(Kokomi) "S/O...why did we need to have all your names read out...?"

The AUDACITY S/O had!

To have more titles than HER, FURINA?!

This transgression would never be forgotten!

...But they were some pretty cool names, she did have to admit.

'The Golden Paladin',' 'Lord of the Lance', 'Roi Breton'

(Furina) "Hmph, and where exactly did you acquire such names, S/O? More importantly, how does it nearly rival my own?! Hmph! Perhaps I should read all of mine so that we are on equal footing!"

Honestly, some of those were starting to sound like stage names, which wasn't fair at all!

If they could do that, then so could she!

Needless to say, the ceremony the two were attending dragged on for way too long.

By Barbatos, those were some extra titles.

'The Green Knight', 'Knight of the Glade', 'Heart of the Lion'

Though, she only had a few titles under her own belt, the sheer number S/O had was honestly staggering.

But it was also admirable.

It made her want to keep up, and wondered if she could ever live up to Vanessa, and apparently S/O.

Because at this point she was wandering in her mind, the list was still going, and probably outnumbered Vanessa herself.

(Jean) Well...I suppose we did say we were to refer to all forms of address...Maybe we should revise that.

Xianyun was no stranger to titles.

She did indeed go by many, but S/O seemed to go by even more.

Which both impressed, and honestly annoyed Xianyun.

How did a mortal go by more names than Rex Lapis?!

'The Sacremor', 'The Soul-Killer', 'Duke of Couronne'-

(Xianyun) "One has to wonder why you must have all your names read aloud? We could be doing something much better right now..."

Granted, she did recognize a few of these titles, but that was no reason for dinner to get cold now!

Xinayun pouts, adjusting her glasses as she tries to get comfortable as the reading continued.

One found this situation inane...

[apocalypse-shuffle]

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆DROLTA TZUENTES⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺ | THE DEMONESS (castlevania: nocturne)

—

“Solar Prominences” (Drolta Tzuentes x Fem!Reader)

| Drolta has been going down a path, long enacting a plan, that you wish you didn’t have to take. Even still, you’d follow the love of your immortal life all the way to the end, even if it killed you.

| SFW, established relationship, angst, some comfort, murder, alatrism, Egypt, this reader-insert does not like Erzsebet, exposition heavy - vampire!reader

| Also not Drolta highkey being a soucouyant. I love it, don’t get me wrong, but I truly do not understand some of the design choices made for her character from a creature standpoint. SEASON TWO SPOILERS. (Pic source: Castlevania: Nocturne - “Devourer of Light” S1EP8)

| 2k+ words

Night Eternal.

The sun: eaten.

Wide eyes stare ceaselessly at the covered sun and darkened sky. Your gaze bouncing all over the stretched corners of Earth’s world above and all your brothers and sisters of the vein soaring through the air during what should’ve been noon.

On the rooftop you’ve since claimed a woman lands behind you.

You hear the jingle of Drolta’s jewelry before she properly announces herself.

The subtle clack of her hoofed heels and flap of her wings come next. Then the whoosh of her hair, the open sound of her flames dying down, registers to your ears.

Arms crossed, you drum the sharp points of your nails against the brown expanse of your skin, brows lifting.

“What did I tell you, my Sweet?”

Quiet, you swallow the residual blood in your mouth from the Noblewoman you’d snatched from her carriage the moment darkness overtook the sun. Earlier in the week she’d likened your hair to the ‘dirty’ swamp moss she’d encountered during her visit to Louisiana; cockier around you than she should’ve been despite knowing what you were, too caught up on her pretend version of what the ‘natural order of things’ was.

So ‘naturally’ you drained her gaunt, and then turned to her handmaiden because even after her you’d still found yourself peckish.

These French and their ridiculous dedication to aesthetics. Absentmindedly, you flick a bit of severed flesh from your cleavage; so unnecessarily skinny the lot of them. You missed when aristocrats (even dedicated to not washing as they were) weren’t afraid to have a little meat on their bones to showcase their upper status.

Originally, you’d been planning on snatching her from her sleep after a bit of antagonism once true nightfall fell later today but you couldn’t complain about cutting short the restless anticipation that had before now had nothing better to do than fester restlessly under your skin.

“To believe,” you say at last, still chasing faint crimson with your tongue. Blood had a tendency to get trapped in the grooves of your fangs.

To believe in her impossible woman. In her false Vampire Messiah and her aggrandizing power grab.

Your brows furrow back over your dark eyes all over again.

How many years had you been by her side before Erzsebet even came into the picture, only to be cast as second priority to Erzsebet’s blood thirst and unwavering desire for conquest?

“Yes,” the corner of Drolta’s lips twitch upwards; not quite a smile for you, not yet. “And do you finally? Believe in our Messiah?”

Belief.

Faith.

What nonsense dogma. Such hollow promises.

You’d watched Sekhmet burned by the Christians, temples fallen, and faithful followers scorned without mercy. And through it all no worship had helped, no amount of sacrifice, or fighting, or tears.

No, your only constant had been Drolta and then a smear of seemingly never ending darkness atop your soul.

By the end you had learned your lesson, and yet still Drolta had failed to follow your lead. She’d clung to hope of blood possession and resurrection after you’d found yourself displaced from the safety of your lover - from Egypt - and shipped off in stacks of blood and sorrow and feces.

Still, you step back to turn from the building's edge. Drolta has always craved a higher purpose as long as you’ve known her. A ruthless, hands on way to worship and be rewarded in turn; her insistence of the same now was really nothing new bar your less than tolerant reaction towards it.

You weren’t too cocky to be unable to admit that you were…impressed, however.

She’d managed a lot with her bloodthirst and ever present plotting, broke the sun even.

What a miracle she’d orchestrated.

A hundred plus years on this neverending plane and finally something had managed to surprise you.

To yourself, you smile. Hide the tiny upturned corners of your mouth as you turn to your lover, hand an extra barrier from her gaze as you pass it through the air to sweep your cloud of thick curls over your shoulder. It cascades down the length of your back till the tips hang just past the rise of your backside, purposefully the opposite of the types of updos the French thought so favorably of for their women because you were not one of them and held no desire to be so either.

To Drolta, you give a steady look.

Following hasn’t been your particular cup of tea for the better half of multiple centuries. It only took so many years of being beaten to kneel for you to grow an aversion to its systematic use and the often heavily adorned, sometimes pale, faces who’d looked down at you in the thick of it.

And even still you hardly kneeled for Drolta unless the exchange was neutral. A natural cycle of give and take. Power exchanged willingly, participation optional.

Submitting yourself to a God’s whims, false or not, was the type of uneven exchange you preferred not to buckle for. Not anymore.

Not, especially, when it was Drolta’s bastardized Messiah.

Drolta should know that better than any soul still alive enough to tell the tale. You had not been modest about your aversion to submission during her time snatching displaced disciples from the European islands, you’re sure even that very passion had been what had drawn her so succinctly back to you in the first place.

And yet she asks you for your belief with such poorly hidden satisfaction, like all you had needed to give yourself wholly to a bitch you didn’t trust as far as you could hurl her into the sun to burn forever was Báthory making a bigger spectacle of herself than usual.

Oh how you miss the days when you’d both only existed for fucking and fighting and being free. Gorging yourselves on blood and death, beholden by your love for one another alone, and slaughtering your way through sands and snow and the King’s poorly controlled conquests before returning back home.

The raiders had already come and Sekhmet’s body had since been lost. Drolta had survived their merciless slaughtering of her sisters, and you had been brought in down the line to help her lead. To help her search.

Drolta and you had been free even despite the weight that hung over you nonetheless.

Free until Drolta’s eventual push for Báthory to take control in the face of your unacceptable reality took precedence. Until the promises of grandeur that Drolta had fed you fell at your feet, the new faulty deity that she’d built up needing to make followers anew in her vampiric image.

You’d made a beautiful offering to Báthory’s corrupted version of the goddess you'd once sworn yourself to. Convenient as her first turned, loyal to a fault to her faithful emissary, and too precious for Drolta not to keep near even whilst her priorities shifted away from you harder than ever.

For years prior it had been Drolta who you’d wanted to turn you, blessed as she’d been by your actual goddess as her most favored and ruthless priestess. Drolta, less human than you by far, had sworn to you she’d become your Maker and then promptly pivoted to convince you to take vampiric blood from the vein of another instead; to be similarly blessed by your goddess.

Except Erzsebet was hardly any goddess, reborn or otherwise, you didn’t care how much goddess blood she consumed. A fact that you, quite frankly, couldn’t stress enough even if your demoness continuously refused to listen.

Fury led your partner to previously unthought of extremes, however, and shame at her failure to be a proper priestess made her ambitious enough to give herself wholly to aiding whoever took to Sekhmet’s blood without succumbing to death. Drolta would never stop trying to make up for losing your goddess’s body, no matter if it meant calling Báthory her mistress and mauling through armies and hordes to get her on a throne.

The bullheaded woman in question draws closer. Walking past your shoulder to settle standing beside where you just were, overlooking Machecoul in all its darkened overcast glory.

Despite everything she still captures your attention.

She takes a moment to look at the eclipse. Tilts her head up and raises her arms beside her to catch the sun’s nullified beams against umber skin, to feel the wind’s delicate chill across supernatural features and outstretched wings.

The radiant ends of her tight curls dance in the breeze, little embers of colorful fire carried away by the current so fresh from her having fully transformed.

When she turns to you her lashes flutter, fuchsia eyes meeting your scarlet and locking you in place.

For a moment it’s as if she’s yours again.

As if you being hers holds the weight of every deceleration ever all at once; accumulated into one large forever vow to keep you.

Ensnared in her aura as you are when she shifts to take a step closer to you, outstretched and still raised hand turning up to invite yours, you unlock and take two deft steps of your own without a second thought.

Meeting her in the middle is easy. Magnetic attraction to your demoness more a well worn muscle than breathing at this point. You’re too far removed from your fledgling days to have pantomimed breath as a crutch in forever, but the devotion you stood by is your only constant in this un-life.

Once she gets her hands on you Drolta pulls you in with a blur of movement, her grasp unrelenting. She settles your hands on her hips without waiting for you to make the decision yourself, moves one of her now free hands to dance spindly fingers up your side and then rest her palm securely over your unmoving ribcage.

Grand leathery wings encircle you in their strange icy heat, surrounding you with just her. Her and the soft, colored insides of her wings that press against your unnaturally unscarred skin so succinctly.

“Hm,” she reaches her other hand up to ghost the tips of her nails down the side of your face, eyes searching, “I expected a bit more excitement for the miracle I helped orchestrate, you know?”

“I’m…awed,” you argue, trying not to let your face screw up.

Drolta raises a singular brow, expression unflinching. She palms the side of your face, skin cool as the dead, and rubs the pad of her finger across your lower lip.

“Oh, is that the look you’re giving me…?”

The drag of her thumb drags your attention away, your mind wandering bitterly and gaze following suit.

Whether or not you were excited really didn’t matter here.

“It’s the only look I have.”

In hardly a second the corners of her lips tick down into a frown and the quick look she drags down your body is tentative. Her face loses any traces of that worry just as it registers to you at all, though, gone too quickly for you to address.

When her thumb passes over your lip for the last time is the exact moment you realize she’s not just touching you to be sentimental either.

Drolta snatches you up by the chin, thumb digging not uncomfortably into the divot of your jaw, and forces the entirety of your gaze back onto her. She smiles at the way you frown, at the way you don’t resist.

“Nonsense. The sun is gone, most humans will die without it soon enough, and we will reign over all that remains.” The fingers on your ribcage shift like a spiders’ legs against your body in tandem with her words. Whether in admonishment or the simple urge to touch, you couldn’t guess. “Almost makes you feel alive, no?”

In her hold you twitch, bumping lightly into her wings.

Possibly.

“You make it sound far simpler than it is,” you murmur. The hold on your jaw eases up, a nail scrapes lightly across your cheek.

Drolta scoffs, luminous eyes sparking.

“There’s no use dawdling about the inevitable, my Sweet. You know that. We will rule by Sekhmet’s side again, and they will all bow or be slaughtered for their disobedience.”

“…If you believe that to be true,” you say.

The woman doesn’t so much as hesitate.

“I do.”

Her hand lifts from your ribs and Drolta takes care to sink her restless fingers into your dark hair. Touch undemanding when she scrunches it fondly, nails scraping lightly over your scalp. You lean into her hold like a withering flower long denied light.

Oh, to be hers again. To bring terror beside her like during the good eras you both lived once upon a time.

The scrape against your plumper skin stings, and then it bleeds. A singular drop falling from the finely split skin of your cheek. You don’t react to it until your lover brings her hand up to taste that bead of liquid, a line of your blood dragged down the middle of her tongue that she savors with a meager groan.

Lashes fluttering, you eagerly press back into her returning hold on your face. When you shut your eyes your lids fall heavily. You make a low noise in the back of your throat that borders on a growl, biting back your own groan, but grit your teeth against it anyway.

“Truly?”

Even while eager to taste yourself against her tongue you can’t help but to be dubious. Vampires had ruled once already, had they not? Even Dracula’s dominion had fallen, lordship finally ended in an evening. Even Sekhmet had been overshadowed, worshipers depleted to a pathetic degree compared to what they once were.

When her wings close even more securely around you it feels transcendent, you gasp at the cooling feel of them.

“Truly,” she murmurs, leaning in, the brush of her plush lips against yours almost playful when she grins. You find yourself matching her grin, if only smaller, and she chuckles lowly, lidded gaze intent on you. “There is no reason to doubt.”

Drolta’s mouth presses to yours with abandon, presence demanding as it crashes over you. She drags you in with a tug on your hair and then pulls you flush to her after bringing that very same hand down to grip your hip.

The kiss is crushing. Filled with years worth of elation, of satisfaction. It drags on for its own mini eternity, your tongues clashing as she dives in to taste the stray traces of blood staining your gums. Moaning, you wrap an arm around her to drag her impossibly closer by the waist, not fighting her palm on your cheek even as you bring your other hand up to take hold of her chin. Determined, you make her give you more access to her mouth, loosen her jaw so you can rub the tip of your tongue across her fangs and feel her shudder against you.

You stamp down your doubt only because it is her asking. Only because you want her to be so very correct on principle, even if it means ceding to Erzsebet.

At the end of the day you were happy as your own god, your own control, and your own rule maker. One god had failed you already, and unlike Drolta you would not go tracking down another Master. But, still, you could not quit Drolta. Not now.

Maybe not ever.

Her gaze is smouldering once your kiss breaks, her grasp on you remaining possessive.

Running your dark knuckles down the side of her face, pace steady, you allow her another fleeting smile.

This one is even smaller than the last but Drolta doesn’t notice enough for it to make any difference. She’s too busy staring off into the distance. Staring in the direction of the château and the grand woman who corrupted its shadow, the all powerful gift giver who has given you this night.

Nonetheless it’s not gratitude that twists your smile into something less pleasant. Not reverence that makes your eyes freeze over a brighter, frostier red.

There was a time where you complemented one another.

Where you’d vowed to be mistresses of your own domains and bow only to each other.

Now you’re not so sure she wouldn’t bow to a different mistress - her ‘goddess’ - if she took it upon herself to tear you in two with her pale crystalline hands.

Your touch upon her cheek turns sharp when you turn your hand to cup the side of her face, the tips of your nails biting into her supple skin.

How well gorged she is.

When Drolta glances with lidded pink eyes back to you she’s smirking. She thinks you're playing— her and her damned insistence on games.

Expression smoothing out to something more bored than not, you raise a brow.

“Fly back with me,” she says. An answer to a question not asked. “Let us serve Erzsebet together.”

You stare.

Curse this world and its poison called belief.

You’d had a lover once.

The corners of your eyes crinkle. If you had tears you would be too inclined to shed them.

Blinded by her devotion as she is Drolta doesn’t notice your despair. She just laughs to herself, eager to serve, even more so than typical of her.

Eager to kill, more like it.

When she looks back out to her Messiah her eyes twinkle, and where once you’d scene sapparies you now only see coal.

How had you not noticed just how far she’d fallen?

That she’d been taken from you?

“Of course,” you lie, words coating your blood stained tongue like ash.

Drolta smiles wider, pretty fangs glinting in the moon’s light, before her wings expand and flap behind her.

Pink magic swirls and her arms circle your waist. Red - your red - rushes up to match it, though wings of your own do not sprout, and with your combined abilities you take flight.

Absent your usual synergy you're almost disappointed the unconnected swirls of your energies still work to carry you towards a woman you were steady wanting less and less to do with.

Sorrow grips your unbeating heart whole and despair eats at it as you follow Drolta’s lead anyway, her arms still around you like she could keep any of the promises you whispered into one another’s skin what feels like eons ago.

Your lover’s embrace has never felt so false and the moon’s face has never looked so foreign.

The love of your life had been stolen from right under your nose and you hadn’t even noticed, no longer yours alone. No longer your beloved - your Drolta - but a believer; a follower.

Erzsebet’s beloved emissary.

Truly it had been foolish of you to ever think that after all their centuries together Drolta’s loyalty to Erzsebet Báthory could ever be shaken by her love for you, by your devotion to her, or the two lives you’ve shared together— one life more than Erzsebet’s gotten, but still not a divine enough life for you to stay the only woman at Drolta’s side.

NOTES: Hope you enjoyed!!! Drolta’s ass was wrong the whole time, but pretty privilege is a bitch so here I am adding another evil woman to my collection anyway, I love this character bad.

Okay, I finally finished this show (in Nov 2024) and started getting some ideas by the last episode so here we go. And, really, my only serious complaint as of right now is the f-bomb crutch that impacted nearly every character’s dialogue; it really did get egregious at times. And keep in mind that I wrote this before season two dropped.

Also, me and Egypt are not familiar with one another so I kept things vague but if anything is super off (and outside of the boundaries set by the show) feel free to check me.

Also also, I made a True Blood reference if anybody caught it!

btw: if you’d like to leave a comment I’d very much appreciate it!

EDITED: 1/16//25 later in the day bcs I watched the first few episodes of season two.

[throneofsmut]

Bleeding Love

Poly!Feysand x Reader || WC: 2k || Warnings: Injury & Smut

Summary: Reader comes back from a mission with Azriel and got hurt and Feyre and Rhys find them and take care of them. Based off this req.

****

Azriel and you stumble as you winnow the both of you onto the street in front of the House of Wind. His chest rising and falling as he pants. Yours doing the same.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to fly you up?” He asks breathily.

Shaking your head, moving to lean against the bottom of the building. So exhausted that you were fighting not to slump down against it.

Opening your eyes when you hear leathers that weren’t yours rustling—he was leaning against the House of Wind now too. “Yeah,” you answer. “I can make it. Can you?”

He glances at you, bloody and bruised too. “My shadows can.” His shadows not his wings meaning he was too exhausted to fly.

“All right.”

“Sure you don’t want to come with me to see Madja?”

“Nah, it looks worse than it actually is,” you breathe, pressing your hand against your side. You’d healed your broken ribs, but were too drained to actually close the wound itself.

Azriel had a hand pressed against his own side and then let out a pained wheeze, “All right.”

A moment passed before both of you rose to your full heights—slightly swaying—and nodded to each other.

Then Az’s shadows swallowed him up and you winnowed.

It wasn’t possible to winnow into the House of Wind, but you could winnow onto it. . . sort of.

You winnowed ten feet above one of the balconies—the one that leads to your old room—and dropped, landing ungracefully onto it.

You’d meant to land on your feet. But, as soon as your feet touched the ground, your body gave out and you fell to your knees and then collapsed onto your side.

Pained groans slipping through your lips as you lay there on the ground, clutching your side, feeling something warm coating your fingers.

Looking down to find your hand covered in blood and beneath you on the floor of the balcony it was pooling swiftly. “Fuck,” you sigh under your breath. Followed by a wet wheezy cough that made you clutch your side tighter.

Your eyes closing as you continue to lay there trying to get the motivation to move. The steady drip of your blood and your heavy breaths echoing into your ears. Along with the voices of the people of Velaris on the streets below.

It could’ve been minutes or hours when you finally grit your teeth and roll over on your knees, a hiss escaping from you as you stand. Stumbling to the french doors of the balcony leading into your room.

Staggering in before leaning on the nearest wall to catch your breath and take in your surroundings. “Cauldron boil me,” you grumble when you see that you're actually in the dining room.

Blowing out a sharp breath, you push off the wall and make your way to your old room—the one before you started sharing one with Feyre and Rhys—stumbling and cursing the whole way. The walls being your only support.

You hope they’re not home right now. The townhouse is being renovated and they just started building the family home so Feyre, Rhys and you were currently staying in the House of Wind.

When you got close to your door, the house opened the door for you, letting you in, “Thank you,” you said to the house. And then the house lit, the fireplace and the door to your bathroom opened too. “Thank you, Windy,” you repeat again, this time using the nickname you gave to the sentient House of Wind.

Stumbling all the way in until you made it to the en-suite bathroom and held yourself up with one hand on the counter, the other still clutching your side. “Mother save me,” you sighed with your eyes closed.

Then you heard the soft clatter of a chair landing on the floor behind you and without opening your eyes you sat down. “Oh, how I love you, Windy,” you murmur affectionately.

Finally you open your eyes and take in your appearance in the mirror above the sink, “Gods, I look terrible.” Your left brow is cut and so is your bottom lip. Bruises are beginning to bloom on the right side of your jaw and your left eye. You’ll have a black eye for sure in a couple hours, even if you apply a healing balm.

And your knuckles are all cut up and bruised. Your legs are probably bruised up too and not to mention that your ribs are tender even though they’re not broken anymore. But, you do still have a large cut on them. “Fuck, I’m definitely gonna need stitches,” you say as you assess your side.

You clutch a hand to your wound again and with the other start to rifle through the cabinets in front of you under the sink.

Cursing under your breath when you can’t find the antiseptic you usually keep stored there. “Windy, have you seen—“ the House cuts you off by placing a bottle of rubbing alcohol on the counter in front of you. “Thank you, Windy.”

Dropping your hand from your side, you grit your teeth and inhale sharply. When you exhale you pull off the top of your fighting leathers in one quick motion. Your undershirt with it, leaving you in only your bra.

Before you lose your courage you unscrew the top of the rubbing alcohol and pour it directly over your side. A soundless scream ripping from your throat at the feeling. You don’t waste another second before threading the needle in your first aid kit and begin stitching yourself up.

Tying off the final stitch when you hear two sets of footfalls approaching.

The door to your bedroom swings open moments later, the door to your bathroom following soon after, two pairs of wide eyes pinned on you. One violet and one blue-gray.

Feyre and Rhys.

You give them a lazy grin, “Hello, my loves,” you say to both of them. And without missing a beat you pick up the bottle of alcohol again and pour it over your freshly sown stitches. Turning your face away from them, “Fucking hell,” you grit out through clenched teeth.

Feyre comes to stand by your side and brushes your hair away from your face, “You’re hurt.”

“I’m all right,” you reassure her, closing your eyes and leaning into her touch.

“You’re bleeding,” Rhys says from your other side. His voice deathly soft. His power filling the room.

You cut a glance to him, giving him a soft smile, “Relax, love.” Your voice is a gentle—soothing—command.

“How the fuck am I supposed to relax when. . . when your bleeding?”

“Because they’ll never hurt me or anyone else ever again.”

He visibly relaxes and places a kiss atop your head. But, then Feyre asks, “Are you sure?” Her voice sounds strained as if she’s holding back. And even though she hasn’t stopped brushing your hair back with her hand, her other, is curled into a fist.

“Yes, darling. Az and I made sure before we left,” you swear.

“Good.”

Without another word you get up and make your way to the shower and peel off your fighting leather. Slowly. Teasingly.

Feyre and Rhys remain by the sink as you continue to strip, then turn on the water, and finally wash yourself clean. Their eyes flick between yours and your body as the water and soap cover every inch of you.

Violet and blue-gray eyes that were once darkened by violence were now darkened by something else entirely.

Finally rinsing off the last of the soap, you dry yourself off and drop your towel on the floor, before making your way to your bed.

Half way into the room you stop, looking at Feyre and Rhys over your shoulder and that’s all they need before they follow.

You lay in the middle of the massive bed, holding yourself up with your elbows as the High Lady and High Lord of the Night Court make quick work of ridding themselves of their clothes. They all but ripped them clean off their bodies.

Rhys was already at attention when he started pumping himself in his large hand a couple times.

And Feyre’s tits were already tipped in hardened peaks. Her arousal made her cunt glisten in the firelight.

A bead of precum seeped from the head of Rhys’s cock and your tongue swiped out wanting to taste it, but before you could Rhys’s thumb swiped over it. Making you lick your lips instead.

His violet eyes gleamed as he continued to stroke himself, his thumb swiping over the head again, “Do you really think you deserve a taste, sweetheart?” He coos mockingly,

You opened your mouth to answer him, but Feyre beat you to it. The obscene noise of her playing with herself filled the room. One hand played with her tit while the other rubbed her swollen clit.

All of you letting out moans as you rubbed your thighs frustratingly together and they continued playing with themselves.

Feyre’s the first to speak, pinching and rolling her nipple between her fingers. She glances at Rhys, “I think our girl needs to rest. Then her gaze settles back on you. “Don’t you baby?”

Fine, if they want to play. You’ll play.

You scoot farther back on the bed so you’re leaning against the plush pillows. Then slowly spread your legs apart, thighs bent, baring yourself to them. Earning lewd groans from them.

Smirking at them in response, but you don’t stop there.

Sticking two fingers in your mouth, your tongue swirling around them, and then moments later lowering your hand. Running those same two fingers through your folds, now glistening with your arousal as you draw tight circles over your clit.

Throwing your head back in pleasure as a soft moan escapes your mouth and fills the air. Then you bring your freehand up to pinch your nipples and play with your tits. Eyes screwing shut as you get closer to falling over the edge.

“Oh, fuuuck,” you choke out in between gasping breaths. The fire pooling in your lower belly begins to spread to the rest of your body. You know you won’t last much longer, but then you're suddenly getting flipped over.

The only warning you get is Rhys’s wicked smirk before he splits you open, burying himself in your cunt in one quick thrust.

Feyre’s hands cup your face as she swallows your scream, kissing you hungrily, her hips settling over Rhys’s face.

His hands settle over your hips in a bruising grip as he sets a brutal—punishing pace. Another scream works its way up your throat, at the feel of the head of his cock hitting your sweat spot at this angle.

What, sweetheart? He purrs into your mind, mockingly innocent. Did you really think you could cum without us, hmm?

Fuck you. Even your mental voice sounds like a moan.

He chuckles darkly, You already are, sweetheart.

Feyre swallows your scream again before it can ever pierce the air, before pulling back. Her fingers dig into the soft skin of her thighs as they shake. No doubt from the assault of Rhys’s tongue on her sensitive clit.

Her teeth bite into her plush bottom lip as she writhes over his face. Then her head falls back and you know she’s going to scream. So before she can, you wrap a hand around her throat, pulling her towards you.

Swallowing her scream as you claim her lips in a bruising kiss.

Your fingers tighten around her throat as you lean forward just the slightest bit and with your freehand pinch and tug her at her nipples. Earning whimpers from her.

Then you drop your hand that’s on her tits and settle it on her ass. Slapping it a couple times—just like you know she likes it—and finally grabbing a handful of it.

Gods, she cries out mind to mind. Fuck, baby!

Rhys whimpers in your mind and then you feel it. His cock twitching inside you.

Your walls spasming and contracting in response, making him grip your hips tighter as he continues to fuck you both over the edge, while working Feyre over the edge with his tongue.

Not even a full minute later, with one last powerful thrust he spills himself inside you. His cock pulsing as your walls flutter around it. Milking him as you fall over the edge with him.

Rhys groans against Feyre’s clit as he comes and it’s the final push Feyre needs to fall over the edge with Rhys and you.

[wannabeschyulersister]

where’s that man who’d throw blankets over my barbed wire?

*another angsty carmy fic coming right up*

“Ma’am? I’m sorry but we will need the table if your guest hasn’t arrived yet,” the waiter told you. You could tell he felt embarrassed to have to practically kick you out after being stood up.

You set the nice white napkin that had been on your lap on the empty plate in front of you, “I understand. Thanks for keeping me company.”

The waiter helped you put your coat back on and you placed a nice tip on the table before walking out. It felt so humiliating to sit at that table for the past hour alone.

Carmen forgot your anniversary.

You had been perfectly fine celebrating your two year anniversary with him in your nice apartment but he was the one that wanted to go all out. He chose the fancy French restaurant and made the reservation.

He was also the one that didn’t show up.

At first, you began to panic, thinking that something had happened to him on his way to the restaurant. You must’ve texted him a dozen times. When you checked his location, you saw that he was at The Bear.

There’s no way that he would forget your anniversary. Right?

Well, he did.

You walked until you were able to find a cab. Part of you wanted to confront Carmen at The Bear but you didn’t want to make a scene. Despite how mad you were at him, you respected his place of business.

Instead of going there, you went to the apartment that you shared with Carmen to wait for him. You didn’t even bother changing out of the red dress that specifically bought for that evening when you made it home. Taking off your coat, you placed it on the hook and sat on the couch.

It was an hour later when you heard the jingle of keys and the front door open and close. “Babe? You here?”

You didn’t answer him as he walked into the living room.

He set his phone and keys down on the coffee table in front of you, “Hey, what are you all dressed up for?”

“Our anniversary dinner that was two hours ago.” You answered coldly.

Carmen froze as it dawned on him that he forgot, “Fuck. Babe, I’m so fuckin’ sorry. Things have been so hectic at the restaurant these last few days and it totally slipped my mind. My phone died a few hours ago. I’m so sorry.”

He sat down next to you and tried to grab your hand. You moved it out of his grasp. “I waited for you for an hour, Carmen. It was so embarrassing. The waiter made me leave because they needed the table. How could you forget?”

“I told you. It seemed like everything that could go wrong did today. We had three waitstaff out with the flu-“

You cut him off, “Syd could’ve taken care of things for one night so that you could go out with your girlfriend! Aren’t I important too?”

Carmen looked like that question pissed him off, “Are you seriously askin’ me that fuckin’ question?”

You stood up from the couch needing some space from him, “Yes, I am because this isn’t the first time! How many times have you had to reschedule our plans? How many days do I barely see you? We’ve been together for two years, Carmen and I feel like we are just two strangers at this point.”

“Why haven’t you said anything then if you feel that way?”

“I’ve tried to have date nights and I’ve even stopped by The Bear to see if you can go on a coffee break. You always turn me down because something more important is pressing.” You���d been dying to have this conversation with him for some time now.

After countless times of letting things go, you were blurting out everything that you’d want to tell him. It had all been weighing so heavily on you lately. You could feel it draining you.

“(Y/n), I inherited a mess from Michael. I had to look after everyone’s jobs and-“

You interrupted him again, “I’m not saying that you have to choose me or the restaurant, Carmen. That would be incredibly selfish of me. But…. it’s like you’re out building this life for yourself and I’m just here hoping that you give me an ounce of attention.”

“You’re making it sound like our relationship is horrible. I thought that we were doing good.”

That almost hurt you more than being stood up on your anniversary. He thought that things were good? He hadn’t noticed that the two of you were so incredibly distant?

“Things haven’t been good in a long time. When we first started dating, you were present and it seemed like you’d do anything to spend time with me.”

“That was before we remodeled the restaurant. I had more time but now-“

“Now, you’re too busy for me.”

He shook his head, “I’m not, (Y/n). I just had more time back then. Now, it’s all on me. I’m stressed out.”

“I don’t want to add to your stress, Carmen.”

“Wh-what are you trying to say?” He stood up and made his way closer to you. You could tell that he was anxious about where the direction of this conversation was going.

“I’m not happy. I haven’t been for a while. I’ve tried to make things better but I can’t do it alone. I deserve to be with someone who I don’t have to beg to want to be with me.”

“(Y/n), I don’t want to be without you. I’ll start coming home earlier and I’ll uh have Sydney and Marcus start taking some more responsibility. I will-“

“And in a month when things are super crazy at The Bear because of the holidays? We’re back in this situation again. What kind of promises will you make then?”

Carmen seemed confused, “Do you not want to work on things?”

“A month ago, hell even a few weeks ago, I would’ve said yes, but I’m tired, Carmen. Tonight felt like it was the last straw. Sitting alone, you not answering your phone, it was embarrassing and so painful. I love you so much. But I think for the both of us, it’ll be better if we weren’t together.”

“I don’t want us to break up, (Y/n). I love you.” Carmen said softly.

You pulled him closer. He rested his head against your shoulder, “We can both focus on ourselves. I’m so proud of everything that you’ve done. You deserve all of the praise that is coming your way.”

You wanted to appear strong but on the inside you were breaking as well. There was a point in time where you imagined spending the rest of your life with Carmen Berzatto.

Now, there was a strong possibility that he wouldn’t be in your future. Were you making the right decision?

It might’ve felt like you weren’t in the moment. You just wanted to feel wanted and happy and with someone who couldn’t get enough of you. Carmen was that man at first. Things changed for the better and for the worse.

“I hate that I took you for granted. I will regret it for the rest of my life.” You felt him kiss your neck softly.

“I’ll still be here if you need me. You know that right?”

He nodded as you both stood there wrapped around each other saying your goodbyes without words.

[sankofaspirit]

30 Ways Modern-Day Africans Still Exhibit a Colonial Mindset: A Garveyite Analysis

Marcus Garvey’s Pan-Africanist philosophy emphasized self-reliance, cultural pride, and the rejection of colonial influence. However, many Africans today still exhibit behaviours and attitudes rooted in a colonial mindset. Below are 30 examples, explained and analyzed in depth, from a Garveyite perspective:

1-10: Cultural Influence and Identity

1. Preference for European Standards of Beauty

Example: Many Africans prioritize lighter skin, straight hair, and European features over natural Black aesthetics.

Analysis: Skin-lightening creams and the global embrace of Eurocentric beauty ideals reflect internalized inferiority and rejection of African identity.

2. Disdain for African Languages

Example: African children are often discouraged from speaking native languages in favour of English, French, or Portuguese.

Analysis: Linguistic erasure ensures dependency on colonial languages for governance, education, and international relations.

3. Glorification of Western Education

Example: Degrees from European or North American universities are valued more than African ones.

Analysis: This reinforces the notion that African intellectual systems are inferior, perpetuating brain drain and dependency.

4. Adoption of Western Names

Example: Africans often give their children Western names instead of traditional African ones.

Analysis: This signifies a rejection of African heritage in favour of aligning with Western norms.

5. Colonial Religious Practices

Example: Christianity and Islam dominate African spiritual practices, while indigenous beliefs are demonized.

Analysis: Religion was used as a colonial tool to pacify and control, and its dominance reflects ongoing psychological colonization.

6. Rejection of African Fashion

Example: Western suits and dresses are deemed more "professional" than African attire in workplaces.

Analysis: Clothing reflects identity, and the preference for Western styles reinforces the idea that African traditions are primitive.

7. Accent Bias

Example: Africans with European or American accents are viewed as more intelligent or credible.

Analysis: This bias reflects internalized colonial superiority.

8. Neglect of African History

Example: African curricula prioritize European history over African empires like Mali, Songhai, or Great Zimbabwe.

Analysis: This erasure perpetuates ignorance about Africa’s rich heritage and contributions to civilization.

9. Worship of Western Entertainment

Example: Hollywood and European music dominate African media, sidelining local industries.

Analysis: This promotes cultural dependency and undervalues African creativity.

10. Desire to Migrate to the West

Example: Many Africans dream of emigrating to Europe or the U.S. for a "better life."

Analysis: This mindset undermines the potential of building strong nations on the continent.

11-20: Political and Economic Dependence

11. Reliance on Foreign Aid

Example: African governments often depend on Western aid for development projects.

Analysis: This fosters dependency and allows Western nations to control African policies.

12. Colonial Borders

Example: African nations still adhere to arbitrary colonial borders that divide ethnic groups.

Analysis: The refusal to renegotiate these borders reflects a lack of sovereignty and Pan-African unity.

13. Imitation of Western Governance

Example: African governments replicate Western political systems, often failing to adapt them to local contexts.

Analysis: Blind imitation undermines the development of systems rooted in African traditions and needs.

14. Dependence on Western Currencies

Example: The CFA franc, used by West and Central African nations, is controlled by France.

Analysis: This reflects continued economic colonization and inhibits financial independence.

15. Exploitation of Resources by Foreign Corporations

Example: Multinational companies exploit Africa's oil, minerals, and agriculture with little reinvestment.

Analysis: Africans prioritize Western partnerships over local ownership and control.

16. Outsourcing Security to Foreign Powers

Example: French troops stationed in Africa under the guise of fighting terrorism.

Analysis: This reinforces the narrative that Africans can not secure their own nations.

17. Preference for Imported Goods

Example: Imported clothing, food, and technology are seen as superior to local products.

Analysis: This devalues African production and stifles economic growth.

18. Neocolonial Debt Traps

Example: African nations take loans from institutions like the IMF, leading to perpetual debt.

Analysis: These loans come with conditions that undermine sovereignty.

19. Overdependence on Western Technologies

Example: Africa imports most of its technology rather than building local industries.

Analysis: This dependency stifles innovation and economic independence.

20. Election Interference by Western Powers

Example: Western nations influence African elections through funding or propaganda.

Analysis: This undermines democratic processes and reinforces external control.

21-30: Social and Psychological Patterns

21. Black Elitism

Example: Africans educated in the West often look down on those educated locally.

Analysis: This creates divisions within African societies and perpetuates classism.

22. Hostility Toward Pan-Africanism

Example: Resistance to efforts to unify Africa economically or politically.

Analysis: Colonial powers instilled fear of unity to prevent collective strength.

23. Undervaluing African Labour

Example: African workers are underpaid while foreign workers are overpaid for similar roles.

Analysis: This reflects an internalized belief in the superiority of non-African expertise.

24. Neglect of Local Agriculture

Example: African nations import staple foods like rice despite fertile lands.

Analysis: This prioritizes foreign economies over local food sovereignty.

25. Demonization of Traditional Medicine

Example: Preference for Western pharmaceuticals over indigenous remedies.

Analysis: This reflects distrust in African innovation and healing systems.

26. Preference for Colonial Languages in Art and Literature

Example: Writers and artists creating works in English or French to gain Western recognition.

Analysis: This marginalizes African languages and creativity.

27. Inferiority Complex Toward Western Nations

Example: Africans praise Western infrastructure while criticizing their own.

Analysis: This self-perception hinders the belief in African potential.

28. Overlooking the African Diaspora

Example: Africans often ignore the struggles and contributions of African Americans, Caribbeans, etc.

Analysis: Colonial divisions still separate the global African community.

29. Dependence on Colonial Education Systems

Example: African nations still use colonial curricula with minimal African content.

Analysis: Education is a tool of control, and this reflects ongoing intellectual colonization.

30. Hostility Toward Repatriation

Example: Africans discouraging descendants of the enslaved from returning to Africa.

Analysis: This reflects colonial teachings that Africa is undesirable or unworthy.

Garveyite Call to Action:

Marcus Garvey warned against mental colonization and called for:

Reclaiming African identity: Embrace African languages, cultures, and traditions.

Economic independence: Build industries, control resources, and support local economies.

Pan-African unity: Foster solidarity among Africans worldwide.

Rejection of Western validation: Recognize that Africa’s greatness does not depend on foreign approval.

“Liberate the minds of men, and ultimately, you will liberate the bodies of men.” – Marcus Garvey

[macfrog]

la petite mort sex on fire chapter four

bonsoir my children. it's your cool slutty daddy, ceo!joel, back for round two of paris trip. please enjoy, i hope this one causes less confusion but just as much heart failure as last chapter. love u guys long time. literally SO much. 💘✨💓

pairing: ceo!joel x fem!reader

summary: you spend your second day in paris being spoiled by joel, who buys you anything you set eyes on. you’ve a treat of your own in mind as a thank-you, later on

warnings: 18+ (minors dni!!!) another fucking confusing flashback, age gap (reader is late 20s, joel late 40s), cursing, workplace relationship, imbalanced power dynamic, semi-public sex, oral (f receiving), orgasm denial, more obscene spending, sexy french speaking, sugardaddy!joel, BIG flirting, alcohol consumption, sexy lingerie, lapdance, daddy kink, praise kink, unprotected piv sex, titty appreciation, assplay, double penetration, dom!joel, softdom!joel, ripping of expensive lingerie (rip), overstimulation, creampie, aftercare!joel, angst, themes of abandonment, fluff in the end i'm a romantic at heart

word count: 6.2k

series masterlist | main masterlist | playlist

“All mine?” he asks, pushing inside. He’s going slow. He’s making you answer him first. “Y-yeah,” you whine, head falling forward into the bedsheets. “All – yours.” “Spoiled, ain’t I? Such a pretty little pussy all to myself. You sure you don’t wanna share with anyone?” “No, daddy. Just – want – you.”

The late afternoon sun has dipped behind the clouds. The wind’s picked up, too. You’re standing on the terrace of your suite, elbows propped on the metal railing, watching the light slowly drain from the sky, and melt into tiny twinkling headlights on the roads below.

Paris stares straight back at you. Melancholy, in this light. A little faded, worn, a washed gray as she loses her fight with the slow-setting sun. Your eyes trace the skyline, jumping from buildings to streetlights, following birds in the distance as they loop and soar over the city. Free. Held down to nothing, and no one.

When you close your eyes, he’s on the couch beside you. Blue-eyed stare cloudy, eyes puffy and red with tears he’s doing everything to hold back. Calling you sweetheart, telling you we can work through this. He’s got your bare fingers in his, thumbs running across your knuckles, rubbing circles around the empty space on your third finger. You have an impulse to stand up and walk out. You think you might follow through with it.

You don’t even hear him come in, don’t hear him call your name. Only feel when his arm snakes around your waist and he turns you to face him. Your eyes flutter back open.

“Hey,” Joel says, leaning back to look you up and down. “Nice robe.”

His fingers toy with the belt, thumb running across the soft terrycloth.

“You smell like whiskey,” you mutter, hands resting on his chest. You take a deep breath, pushing the relief you feel now that he’s back, down to the pit of your stomach. And then you finally look him in the eye. “How was Jean-Marc?”

Joel shrugs. “Same as usual. Wants to meet you.”

“You mentioned me?”

He bypasses your question. “Said I’d check with you, but he wants to have us for breakfast tomorrow.”

You nod. “Sounds like a nice guy.”

Joel grumbles, his lips tighten, and he looks out over the view behind you. You tilt your head and his hands take yours, dropping them to your side. His eyes fall low, past the tie he was just messing with.

“You gettin’ ready to go?”

“I was about to, yeah,” you reply, breathing a laugh when he starts to kneel in front of you. “Joel.”

“Mhm?” he asks, but he’s not listening, is he? His hands run up your legs, starting at your knees, and push the edges of your robe apart the higher they go.

“We – gotta – Joel,” you sigh, head rolling back, hands gripping the railing.

Joel’s lips part on your inner thigh, his tongue runs along your skin, trailing northward. His hands precede, pushing under your robe now to cup your naked ass, when he lifts his chin and glances up.

“Nothin’ on under it, baby,” he whispers, tsking. “’m I gonna do with you?”

“We have–” you shudder when his fingers move between your legs, “–to go get ready.”

“So go.”

Fucker.

You lean back against the glass, eyes quickly scanning the hotel in front of you, searching the neighboring windows for any prying eyes, but in the slow-moving blanket of dusk, mixed with your will to care quickly depleting, you find none.

Your attention draws back to Joel, whose lips run dangerously close to your center.

“Open, baby,” he says, and you don’t think about it. Your body just does what he tells it to.

Your legs fall open, head lulls to one side, fingers move through his hair. His jaw lowers, breath gently tickling your soft skin, and then his lips cup around your mound.

You breathe a sigh of relief. Which quickly morphs into a moan, open-mouthed and broken, when Joel’s tongue sweeps over your clit.

“There,” you whisper, a little more serious than you intended, “do that – again.”

He obeys, wet tongue licking you again while his hands pull your thighs over his shoulders. Your weight shifts onto his body, back arching as he sucks on the sensitive bud.

Your hips roll, needing him a little more and a little further south. And he hears you, again. He takes a hand off of your leg, middle and ring fingers joining together to push up between your folds and inside you, dragging a whine from your lips.

“Yeah,” you moan, feeling yourself driving into his mouth and fucking yourself on his hand at the same time.

“Taste so sweet, pretty girl,” he mumbles, mouth preoccupied.

Your head falls back, body slung over the balcony, thighs spreading ever so slightly to have more of him on more of you. And then your head starts to dizzy, your body hums in pleasure, your cunt starts to throb.

But before it goes any further, he’s pulling away.

His lips leave first. Then he draws his hand from between you, sucks his fingers clean and stands. Is he fucking –

“– serious?” you ask, jolting back to life.

He smirks, tongue pushing around his cheeks. “Hurry up ‘n get ready. I wanna go down to the bar for a drink before the car comes.”

And then he’s turning on his heel, striding back inside.

“And what about me?”

“What about you?” he calls over his shoulder.

Your hands hit your thighs with a slap. “Fucking…sadist,” you hiss after him, following him into the warmly lit living room of your suite and down the hallway to the bedroom. Trying to ignore the ache between your legs which only grows worse the more you move.

“I’ll take good care of you later, angel.”

He sits back against the dresser at the foot of the bed, nods toward the black dress you’d laid out on the mattress an hour ago.

“Go on.”

“Go on what?”

“Show me the dress I paid three grand for on you, instead of it laying on the fuckin’ bed.”

You roll your eyes and storm by him, grabbing the black fabric, and lock yourself in the bathroom.

“’n don’t you think about finishin’ yourself!” Joel calls through the door.

“Fuck you!” you throw back, hearing his cocky laugh echo around the room.

You untie your robe in front of the mirror, letting it drop off of your shoulders into a pool of white cloth at your feet. Your eyes flit down your naked body – scanning from your shoulders over your breasts, around your tummy and down your thighs. You slip the black material over your head – a little stretch in it, just enough to mold around your body – and tug it down until it sits comfortably on your thighs.

The smooth skirt sits perfectly on your hips, curving around your ass and pulling in at your waist. You adjust the thin straps, fixing your breasts into place above a cut-out, just revealing enough. Backless, of course, straps crisscrossing over your skin.

It's skimpy, and it’s sexy, and it’s enough to make you look expensive as fuck and also make Joel want to rip it off of you the second you two make it back to the suite.

Enough to make him want to rip it off you before you’ve even left the suite, going by his reaction when you step out of the bathroom. He catches you in the mirror whilst he buttons his shirt, and turns, mouth falling open, eyes dancing all across your body.

You wordlessly sit, slip your feet into the heels you’d chosen, and fish the diamond-encrusted jewelry Joel had bought you from its box – pull the necklace around your neck, clip the earrings into place, and push the bracelets over your wrist. Then, you sling your jacket over your arm, and stand.

“I’m ready.”

“You…” His eyes scan down you again, settling on your chest for a couple seconds. “Yeah, baby. Give me five minutes.”

----------

The hotel bar reflects perfectly the intimidating grandeur of your suite, despite being a small room. It’s intimate, and pleasant, lit in a warm glow, and as you stroll in on Joel’s arm beneath a huge, ornate chandelier, you feel a smile pull across your lips. You’re not fucking sure why.

He leads you over to two heavy leather stools, pulling one out and waiting for you to hop up on it before he sits beside you. He orders two glasses of red wine, and the waiter craftily pours a small drop into one glass, setting it down in front of you and waiting for you to take a sip and approve before he pours the rest.

“Pétrus,” the waiter says, focusing intently on filling Joel’s glass. “Most expensive wine in France.”

You shoot Joel a look, but he’s already lifting his glass, glint in his eye. You hesitantly pick yours up and bump it into his, taking another sip.

“Good?” Joel asks, licking his lips.

You nod. “A little too good.”

He laughs. Then he nods at the waiter, who smiles, turns to you, and winks.

You smile back, a little embarrassed. “Merci beaucoup.”

As the waiter leaves you both, Joel turns, a look on his face you’ve never seen before. “Nice accent,” he says.

You scoff. “I hope it’s a nice accent, I studied it for six years.”

“Studied French?”

You nod.

“When?”

“High school, and then all through college.”

“How did I not know that about you?”

“It’s on my resume,” you say into your wine glass, ��which I now know you didn’t read when you hired me.”

“Didn’t have to,” Joel replies. “I took one look at your pretty face ‘n decided you had the job.”

Him and his quick fucking wit. He almost catches you blushing, but you save it by shaking your head, and looking at the striped-wall room around you. There’s a framed picture of a horse on the wall behind Joel. Two men sit in animated conversation on the velvet couch below it, one of them clutching a wine that’s about to spill over.

When your eyes drift back to Joel, his are fixated elsewhere.

“Oh, be less obvious, Joel,” you mutter, corners of your mouth twitching.

“Can’t help it,” he finally draws his gaze from your chest, “they look so good. That dress is…” He shakes his head.

“You chose well.”

“Say somethin’ French to me.”

“Uh, no.”

“Uh, yeah. Tell me I chose well in French.”

“Tell me how the meeting went.”

Joel sits back, pushing air out of his cheeks. “Can’t do that.”

“Then no French.”

“Baby, c’mon. Just for me.”

You shake your head, pouting your lip. “Nope.”

Joel pleads a few more times, promises he’ll buy you more things, promises he’ll order more wine, even promises he’ll fuck you in the bathroom right now if you’ll just say one sentence in French to him.

You don’t relent.

Not until you’re a couple more wines deep, leaning into one another, your knees between his, pointing out other guests in the room and conjuring make-believe backstories for them.

“That one,” you say, hushed, shoulder brushing off of Joel’s, “in the corner, by the lamp. He’s waitin’ for a date, a Tinder date, who–”

Joel snorts. “A Tinder date?”

“–a Tinder date, who used photos of Cindy Crawford on her profile.”

Joel’s head tips back with laughter, his hand steadies himself on the bar. “If Cindy Crawford ends up walkin’ in here, you’re gonna be real sorry.”

You lean into his shirt, giggling into the cotton. When you lift your head, the two of you quietening again, you look into his eyes.

Blurry around the edges, a little too much wine in your system, you whisper: “Kiss me.”

Joel’s head cocks. He leans in, and you lift your jaw. His lips part, breath hot over your red lips, and he says, “You’re gonna get us into trouble, darlin’.”

“Je m’en fous,” you reply.

“Monsieur,” a voice from your right breaks between you, “your car is outside.”

Joel straightens up, clears his throat, and thanks the waiter with another nod. His palm runs along the bar toward your arm, which he takes, rubbing his thumb gently over your skin, and he nods again toward the doors.

----------

Dinner was as fucking extreme as all of this has been. Food you’d never seen before, a menu you could barely translate even with language experience. Waiters who arrived at your table if you so much as looked up at them.

And more wine. A lot more wine.

You both stumble back into the suite, arms linked, laughter chorusing against the beige walls. Joel keeps a vice grip on your hand as you spin around him, wrapping you up in his arms when you’re close enough, and runs a thumb across your cheek when you’ve stopped giggling.

“That was fun,” he says, and you nod.

“Thank you,” you whisper. “For all of it. I don’t even know what to say.”

He shakes his head in response. “You’re my guest.”

“Didn’t have to be,” you say, “could’ve brought Martha.”

“Oh, yeah, Martha. She’d be a fuckin’ hoot.”

He lets go of you, your laughter picking back up, and you split off. Joel wanders over to the minibar, and you…you wander off down the hall.

You’ve something in mind.

Safely in the bedroom, you slink over to your case and lift the bag you’d hidden in there earlier. You sneak into the bathroom, closing the door as softly as possible, and whip your little black dress over your head. You turn back to the mirror.

Same reflection as before. Same naked body. A little faded, a little unfocused, jewelry catching the light like stars in the night sky, but the same.

You reach into the white bag, like it’s a lucky draw, and lift out the soft black lace. One by one, you add each little piece – the bra cups your breasts, lifting them just the right amount. The panties sit on your hips, garter belt just above, hooked onto thigh-high, lace top stockings. And finally, the robe.

You tie it loosely at your waist, leaving it just open enough to reveal the balconette bra underneath. One last hazy look in the mirror, and you tumble back out into the bedroom and over to the door.

Your fingers clutch the gold handle, shaking a little. The cold metal bites against your skin, hot with adrenaline and determination. You twist, pulling gently on the door, and wander back to the living room.

The lights are still out, the room dark against the sparkling cityscape. There’s soft music playing, some seventies soul stuff. He’s on the balcony. The sliding doors open wide, sheer curtains swaying gently in the night breeze. His silhouette stands black against the glittering Eiffel Tower in front of him. He’s holding a whiskey.

You slip out from behind the door and let it close over gently, walking slowly across the soft carpet toward him. He can’t have heard you, you’re being too quiet, but he turns anyway, and spots you in the middle of the room.

His eyes rake down your figure, mouth falling agape. Whiskey almost spilling over from how limp his arms fall.

“Baby…” he whispers.

You take another step forward. So does Joel. Your hand reaches for the back of one of the chairs, tucked neatly under the dining table. You drag it along the carpet, setting it just in front of you, facing him, and stand back.

“Want you to sit.”

Joel nods, a voiceless Okay sneaks past his lips, and he sits back in the chair, placing the whiskey at his feet.

The song fades into a steady love song, string orchestra echoing in the background, slow, sultry. The smooth vocals fill the room, quiet and relaxing, and push you nearer him, rounding the back of the chair.

Your hands run over Joel’s shoulders as you curve around to face him, and slot in between his parted thighs. Watching as his eyes shift up and down your figure. Watching as his breath hitches, his chest shuddering anytime you move.

You’re ignoring the rise and fall of your own chest; nerves and desire and complete fucking disbelief at what you’re doing all fighting to break through. Your stomach is flipping, pulse jerking every time your eyes cross paths with Joel’s.

You nudge his legs open wider, lift his wrists, and place his hands on your waist. His fingers pull on the silk belt, loosening your robe until he’s slipping it over your shoulders, revealing every inch of lace and strap of satin to his lust-blown eyes.

“This all for me?” he asks, fucking…wonderstruck. His fingers dance along the garter belt, dipping where it clips onto your stockings.

You cock your head in a shrug. “You paid for it.”

He smiles. As if it’s Christmas and you just gave him the gift at the top of his wish list. And then you bend your knees, lowering between his thighs and dragging your hands down his front, stopping by his stiffening crotch as you go.

Joel hisses through clenched teeth, spurring you on. You palm him through his trousers, never touching his zipper, only letting him go so far as grinding his hips into your hands, before your palms slip down to his knees and you push yourself up.

Joel meets you halfway, leans forward to let your lips ghost across his. Your back arched, knees digging into the plush carpet, you trail your tongue from his chin down his bearded jawline, stopping when you reach the collar of his shirt.

And then you stand again, taking his hands and replacing them on your body. Anywhere on your fucking body. Feeling him on you is like feeling the soothing flicker of the fire after a walk in the freezing cold, and when his palms aren’t pressing against your ribcage, his fingers aren’t running between your thighs, that bitter cold bites back.

Joel hums, still taking you in through glassy eyes. “So…fuckin’ beautiful, babygirl.”

In response, you lift your knees, placing them one by one on either side of his hips. You settle against his body and push him back in the chair.

Your clothed heat lowers onto his waist, lace running across the rough fabric of his trousers, forcing a choked moan from your lips at the contact. Your skin alight, nerves burning with excitement and arousal, the slightest touch only fuels the fire more.

You grind down on him, hips rocking in time with the music. Letting his hands hold you around your back, letting him feel any part of you he fucking wants. His fingers knead roughly into your round ass, and he bucks up against your core.

You hover over him, running a hand from your stomach over your chest, stopping to squeeze your tits through your bra. And then back down again, to slip over the lace of your panties and relieve the tension there even if only for a second before you’re feeling down your thighs.

You link your arms back around Joel’s shoulders. “You gonna pay me back?” you whisper, head lowering to bury into his neck.

“No idea what you’re talkin’ about,” he slurs back.

You suck a mark into the hot skin, breathing against his pulse, “Think you do, daddy. You owe me one.”

His head rolls, bass of his laughter vibrating against your lips. “So fuckin’ slutty, darlin’. You want it that bad?”

“Mhm,” you mewl, lips still tight against his neck, fingers slowly unbuttoning his shirt lower and lower.

Joel told Martha he needed you here only to keep him right. Make sure he got everywhere on time, make sure things ran smoothly. Drop off drycleaning, pick it up before he had appearances. Get him pastries from that patisserie he loves around the corner for breakfast. There’s an empty suite downstairs that he made her book for you – an almost three grand per night suite that you both knew the entire fucking time you’d never set foot in. All to keep up with the story.

The story that you’re here strictly on PA duty. Seeing him off in cars, making sure he gets back to the hotel at night. And that’s it. Not buying lingerie with his card, and putting it on for him, and mounting him in the living room of his suite. Not letting him slip your panties to the side and run his cock through your folds, balcony doors wide open, moans escaping out into the late Parisian night.

But now his hands are on you, really on you; strong, wide hands, slipping around your waist, pressing down on the lace of your lingerie, massaging the softest parts of your body and scooping under your ass to align you to his length.

And you’re letting him.

Your hands are sifting through his hair as he breathes you in, his nose buried between your breasts. Your back arches when he finally enters you, giving you what you need most in the form of his thick cock pushing up into your warm cunt.

Like there’s nothing new, or weird, or different. Like this is all you know how to do; all you’ve ever known about him. You’re not in the office; he’s not your boss. He doesn’t tell you to shred files or organize his schedule.

This is what he does. This. He asks things of you with his hands and you fold every time. He runs his lips along the curve of your breasts and peels the delicate fabric of your bra down to wrap his mouth around your nipple, flick his tongue across it until your head rolls back and you’re moaning his name to the ceiling.

“Make yourself cum, baby,” Joel breathes against your hot skin.

His tongue is swirling around your nipple. Teeth grazing the pointed bud. He’s grinning to himself as he does it. He’s fucking lapping this up.

“So pretty when you’re wrapped around me.”

And then his fingers are toying with the clasp of your bra, and as you sink down over and over on his cock, he lets the cupped lace fall to the floor, lips instantly returning to their place on your tits.

You hold his head there, looking down and watching while you slowly bounce on his cock as he kisses, caresses, sucks.

The pleasure boiling between your legs starts to spill over, your body unable to take much more without releasing. And when Joel mumbles against your skin, “Can feel you, darlin’, squeezing me so tight,” you let go.

Your orgasm, nearly four hours in the making, rocks through your body in tidal waves, throwing your head back. Joel’s arms keep you safe on his lap as you writhe, gasping and moaning his name until you can think straight again.

When you come back to, he lifts you up. Carries you like you’re made of diamonds through to the bedroom and lays you down on the soft mattress, calling you angel, telling you you’re the prettiest fuckin’ girl he’s ever seen.

He dips his fingers and traces them along your panties, feeling the mess you just made, humming in amusement. He asks again if this is all for him and when you moan out a desperate Yeah, daddy, he tells you he’s gonna make you cum again.

He takes your waist and flips you over, propping you up on your knees in front of him. He peels the white shirt from his shoulders, tossing it somewhere in the dark room, and asks if that’s what you want – to cum again. Yeah, daddy.

And when he asks who this tight little pussy belongs to, leaning forward to align with your wet mess of a cunt, your thighs spreading to accommodate the size of him, every fucking nerve in your body on fire: You, daddy.

“All mine?” he asks, pushing inside. He’s going slow. He’s making you answer him first.

“Y-yeah,” you whine, head falling forward into the bedsheets. “All – yours.”

“Spoiled, ain’t I? Such a pretty little pussy all to myself. You sure you don’t wanna share with anyone?”

“No, daddy. Just – want – you.”

Every fucking time. Every mindless, depraved time, you do it for him. Only for him.

You cum again on his cock before he’s even five thrusts in. His words send you hurtling over the edge by themselves; the massive dick burying itself between your legs is just a bonus – and something to let your walls clamp around when your back arches, chest pushes into the mattress, and your orgasm floods over you.

Joel rocks his hips slowly as you come down, cunt swollen and almost agony. His hands run from your thighs up around the globe of your ass, massaging gently. You push back, wanting more pressure from his hands, and his fingers slip against your tight hole.

You jut forward with a moan. A moan Joel knows all too well.

“Easy, easy.” He holds you steady, replacing his fingers against your asshole, pressing delicately. “You like that?”

“Fuck,” you breathe, “mhm.”

“Yeah?”

You’re nodding, though you know he can’t see you in the dark.

“Baby?”

“Yeah,” you choke out. Desperate. Depraved.

He lifts his hand and spits; you feel a bead of saliva dribble down your ass, only to be collected by the pads of his fingertips and dragged back up. Smeared over the ring of your ass, massaged into the sensitive skin around it.

“Daddy…” you moan, hips gyrating.

“’s a good girl,” Joel replies, “just relax, darlin’, you do that for me?”

You can hear in his voice he’s focusing. Eyes glued on your ass, watching as you open up around his first finger, pushing slowly inside.

Your whole body freezes as he enters you. Breath cuts short in your throat. Your mouth falls open, throat constricted around a moan.

“Breathe, babygirl.”

And you do. Well, it’s more of a gasp, a broken whine, and then a long, needy sigh, curled up at the end like it’s a request – a plea for Joel to keep going.

It’s tight. It feels…tender, and overwhelming, and good. More than good. Your hips move backward, pushing onto Joel; a swelling feeling overcoming you, the more of him you take.

“Good girl…” he whispers again.

You’re as fucking shocked as he is that you’re letting him do it – letting him slip inside both holes at once, exploring one while keeping the other content with lazy thrusts.

“Think you can take it, baby?”

“Yeah, daddy,” you tell him, body urging him to fuck you again.

So, he does. His cock picks up speed, finger knuckle-deep, curling around inside your ass. You’re gripping the bedsheets, whimpering softly into them, feeling your stomach tighten as your third orgasm begins to rise.

“Keep – doing – that,” you utter as his hips collide with yours, his thick finger picking up pace ever so slightly.

“Such a dirty girl. So fuckin’ dirty for me. You do this for all of ‘em, baby?”

The laugh you breathe answers his question. No, you don’t fucking do this – for anyone. You didn’t know until five minutes ago this was something you were into. It’s Joel. He’s the only one who could convince you – whether through his words, his expressions, or just his fucking body – to –

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum,” you whine.

“Know you are, pretty girl,” Joel says, “let me feel you. Cum all over me.”

Your body collapses when your high takes over. Electricity thrumming through you, contracting around Joel’s cock and his finger. He coos you through it, whispers words of praise and filth in your ear until you’re no longer screaming, no longer able to hold yourself up.

He slowly removes his finger, soaked with his spit. You whine as it leaves you, missing the feeling, but it’s not long before his hands are on you again, flipping you back over.

He drags the clothes from his legs and pushes you up the mattress, slotting between your hips, one hand coming down to grip the lace front of your panties. He rips it, tearing the material off of your body in one motion.

You gasp, equal parts aroused as you are fucking outraged. You liked those panties. You wanted to keep ‘em.

“Fuck, Joel!”

He pushes back against you, burying his face in the crook of your neck to dot kisses along your skin.

“Buy you more, baby.”

“This whole getup,” you moan, “it cost you a grand.”

He lifts his head. “Well, in that case,” he kisses your collarbone, “buy you ten more.”

Your eyes roll back and your head follows, sinking deep into the sheets under your body. You’re sure you know where this is going, what he’s about to ask of you. You’re not sure you can give it to him. Three orgasms deep, you can barely feel when he’s massaging your sex, never mind lining his cock to it and pushing the tip inside.

“One more, angel,” he utters, looking down to guide himself through your glistening folds. “Just one more.”

“Can’t, daddy,” you whimper, but he pushes your thighs up, bending your knees. It’s borderline painful, the stretch you feel when he’s barely an inch inside.

“Yes, you can. Know you can.”

He could fuck you and cum himself without asking you to – and you’d be okay with it. You know it. He knows it. Just a few tight, wet thrusts and he’d be coming undone inside you. But he wants to do it together. Loves the way you feel when you tighten around him, squeeze him, draw his release out of him. Loves the way your voices sound together, the way you grip onto him and pull him flush against your body.

And you’d be lying if you said you didn’t love it, too. The way he looks when he’s deep inside you, eyes shut, focused on nothing except the pretty noises you make and the sweet way you wrap around him, warm and snug. So you let him take you to the edge again, throw your arms around him, and fall.

Hard.

The shock of it surges through you, stars burst across your vision. You drive your nails into his shoulders, scream out into the night, moans mixed with curses and gasps and – fuck it – cries of daddy loud enough that the thought of a noise complaint at your door floats through your mind.

Joel lets out a deep groan when he cums, filling your tight cunt with his seed, face still buried in your neck. Your legs untense, thighs slip down his waist and onto the bed, your arms unlink from around his neck.

“Fuck, baby,” he moans into your skin.

You’re panting, chest lifting against Joel’s. He pushes into the mattress and rolls off of you, dropping in a heap to the bed at your side. You lay like that for a while, waiting for the fluttering feeling to subside, waiting for any feeling to come back to your body.

Joel pushes off of the bed and dips into the bathroom, still groaning anytime he moves. Water runs for a couple minutes, a gentle whirring as he cools his face and washes up, and then he’s back in the bedroom, sinking into the bed beside you.

He props himself up on his elbow and runs a hand across your damp forehead, unsticking your hair from your face. Intimate, vulnerable. You’ve slept together four times now, and this is the closest you’ve felt to him.

You push down an ache, different to the one he just satisfied – four times over. No, this is deeper. Somewhere more hidden. An ache for him to hold you, run his hands down your back until your body feels like yours again. An ache for him to take you in his strong arms and keep you still, keep you steady.

An ache that feels…dangerous. An ache you want to disappear. Now.

“You okay?” Joel asks, and you nod.

He studies you for a while, looking up and down your body, smiling to himself. This isn’t something either of you are going to forget for a while.

“What’s this?”

Joel takes gentle hold of the gold chain around your sweat-glistening neck, running it between his fingers until he’s holding one half of a broken heart.

“Notice you wearin’ it all the time.”

You take a deep breath before replying, watching as he looks at it intently in his hand. “My mom has the other half. It makes up a heart. We got ‘em when I was sixteen, right after…”

Joel’s eyes drift up to yours when your sentence crumbles. His soft gaze encourages you to continue.

“…right after my dad left.”

He almost winces.

You’d always hated Wednesdays. Wednesdays meant Math, and Math meant two hours of sitting in total confusion, dodging your teacher’s requests for answers and counting down the minutes until class ended.

But your dad told you that you should do well in it, so you were trying. For him.

One Wednesday, Miss Pepperman handed out the results of the previous week’s test. You’d scored well, maybe not as good as some of the others, but decent by your own standards. You snuck the test paper into your bag to take back home, show your dad. Make him…proud.

When you rounded the corner to your street, his car was in the drive, trunk wide open. Suitcases inside. You caught him leaving as you wandered by the beat-up Toyota.

Your mom wants you in the house, he’d said, a cardboard box of files in his clutches.

You tried to ask what the fuck was going on, but he’d yelled at you and thrown the box into his back seat. And then you brought up the test paper, twisted around to fish it out of your bag, like some stupid C would convince him to stay. He yelled louder, and you disappeared inside like a spooked cat.

Your mom was on the couch, face in her hands. She lifted her head, cheeks stained with mascara and tears. As you sat down beside her, you heard the engine of his car roll away. You never saw him again.

You don’t tell Joel all of this. He doesn’t need to know, and he doesn’t ask. Telling him about the C in Math risks telling him about the way your dad looked at you when you held up the crumpled paper, and that risks telling him about everything you’ve ever held back from saying to anyone, for fear of seeing that same bored, disappointed expression.

It feels like a hand you’re not quite ready to play just yet. An ace or two missing, only a couple of cards off of feeling confident enough to show him.

Instead, you shrug, and say, “That was…thirteen years ago now. And we just never take ‘em off. It’s like our little promise to, like…stay together, or whatever.”

He nods, letting the necklace rest back on your naked chest.

There’s something in the air between you. Quiet, unassuming. An understanding, though you’re not sure what of. But it feels comfortable, which you weren’t expecting when he asked the question. Nobody knows much about you and your dad – not even your closest friends. And here you are, naked and exhausted, letting the words tumble out to none other than your boss.

But he’s so blasé about it, so unperturbed by it that, if he hadn’t been the one to ask himself, you could mistake it for disinterest. He just listens, nods, and lets it pass over. Lets you drop it, when you’re done talking about it.

For the second time tonight, this time a little more sober but a little less guarded, you say, “Kiss me.”

And this time, he doesn’t ask you to speak French. Doesn’t make any witty quip, doesn’t warn you you’re walking dangerous territory. Doesn’t even hesitate, not for a beat. Just leans in, cups your cheek with one hand, and presses his lips to yours.

Warm, sweaty, almost quivering lips. Soft, and kind, and safe. You melt into him, wrapping both hands around his wrist, shutting your eyes and pretending just for a moment that you’re not teetering along a knife edge right now.

You pull back, losing your balance on the tightrope you’re walking, and Joel’s hand slowly drops from your face. His eyes ask if you’re okay, and you nod. I’m fine. This is fine.

“Alright,” he says, sitting up with a sigh. “You want a drink?”

You nod again. “Water, please.”

He strokes your thigh once and walks out of the room, leaving you in the quiet dark by yourself.

You bring your fingertips up to your eyes. Exhale deeply into the palms of your hands. Think about what just happened, and then tell yourself not to think much about it. Think about that fucking twinge in the bottom of your stomach, the one that felt like…yearning. And then tell yourself, fucking – order yourself not to read too much into it, or you’ll drive yourself up the wall.

Because the truth of it is: you’ve one more full day in Paris, and you highly suspect that what happened here tonight, is gonna happen all over again tomorrow. And that leaves room for that yearning feeling to come back. Resurface, like a silent predator in murky waters.

That won’t happen tomorrow. It can’t happen tomorrow.

You stand and throw that white terrycloth robe over yourself, heading for the living room.

----------

taglist:

@serenaxpedro @lizzyervs @bitchwitch1981 @brittmb115 @stormseyer @scarletthefierce @patti7dc @pattwtf @pascalpvnk @jediknightjana @mrsquill @uncassettodiricordi @gracieispunk @hellishjoel @nobodycanseeinsidemysoul @noisynightmarepoetry @@isimpforfictionalmen @lizzie-cakes @sarahhxx03 @tobuildahomeinthewoods @kittenlittle24 @suzmagine @adaslittleblog @bbyanarchist @whatsliferightnow @regalwhovianbrowncoat774 @casa-boiardi @msjarvis @totallynotastanacc @earthtogrogu @sexygaypalpatine @cool-iguana

(lmk if i’ve missed you out & check my taglist info for how to be added!)

[fuckyeahfluiddynamics]

The Art of French Drains

Civil engineers face a constant challenge trying to protect their structures from water -- both above and below the ground. Subsurface water can build up enough pressure to lift and damage structures, so engineers use subsurface infrastructure -- like French drains -- to control the water underground. (Video and image credit: Practical Engineering) Read the full article

[rottenpumpkin13]

A long time ago, you received an ask about what languages the Firsts would like to learn. It went something like "Zack wants to learn Spanish because of -insert reason-" "Sephiroth wants to learn Latin totally not because of One Winged Angel" "Genesis wants to learn French to sound better than everybody". But the one I actually remember is Angeal:

Angeal: "If I had to learn another language, I would like to learn English, because nobody understands when I say to PUT. YOUR DISHES. IN THE DISHWASHER. PUTTING THEM ON THE COUNTER BY THE SINK DOES NOTHING."

I would like to counter this response by saying I put all the dishes neatly in the dishwasher for years until a new member of my family straight up refused to learn how to do it right. If the bowls aren't balanced the right way, they won't get washed. If you put things in the wrong location, you waste a lot of useful space. But this man flat out said "I refuse to learn how to do this right because I don't care".

So out of SPITE, dishes now sit on the kitchen counter because I refuse to be bothered when no one else gives a shit. What does Angeal think about this if this is something one of his fellow Firsts did?

Angeal may try to project an image of humility and honor, but he combats petty with petty. If he realizes people who have the privilege of owning a dishwasher are being disorderly out of spite, he'll do things to be even pettier. This includes:

• One time he witnessed Sephiroth dump a perfectly good mug of coffee down the drain, and made it his personal mission to mess with him. Over a month, he methodically swapped all of Sephiroth's coffee with decaf and watched Sephiroth slowly descend into madness.

• When Genesis couldn't be bothered to wash his dishes in the break room, Angeal turned it into an art show. He'd collect the dirty dishes and created elaborate display outside Genesis' office, complete with angallery-style label like "Exhibit 17: A Study in Neglected Responsibilities"

• Changed all the settings on Zack's computer so it would autocorrect "SOLDIER" to "SHOULDER" in his official emails to Director Lazard. Lazard received three reports about "SHOULDER Second Class performance reviews"

• Orchestrated a three-week psychological campaign to convince everyone—including Sephiroth himself—that he was allergic to coffee. Every time Sephiroth took a sip, Angeal would squint and ask about non-existent rashes until even Sephiroth started second-guessing himself.

• Loves cooking extravagant meals just to send photos to his friends with captions like "Made your favorite dish… Not for you though" or "This could've been yours."

• Claims everyone's preferred spots, especially Sephiroth's cherished right-side aisle seat in their usual mess hall booth. He'll sit there with a straight face while watching Sephiroth's internal blue screen. (punishment for the coffee)

•Steals Sephiroth's favorite coffee mug, making it mysteriously appear in increasingly bizarre locations around the 49th floor. like inside the copy machine, balanced on top of the water cooler, in the middle of board meeting tables, and once inside the vents.

• Changes Zack's training sessions into "essential SOLDIER skills" that suspiciously look like chores, like organizing the filing room, polishing all the doorknobs in the building, alphabetizing Angeal's spice rack, and putting coffee beans in the air vent in Sephiroth's office, so that Sephiroth constantly smells coffee whenever he's working.

• Weaponizes his infamous lectures. Once subjected Genesis to a 45-minute lecture on "proper pizza etiquette and the spiritual implications of throwing out the crust." Gives Sephiroth an hour-long lecture about resource conservation whenever he spots him with coffee. Sephiroth is in hell

• Takes malicious delight in creatively misinterpreting Sephiroth's requests:

Sephiroth: The coffee maker needs cleaning. Angeal: *Completely disassembles the coffee maker and spreads all its parts across Sephiroth's desk and cleaning supplies* Sephiroth: *visibly fighting the urge to cry*

• Maintains a detailed "incident log" where he documents everyone's minor transgressions. Once pulled it out during a board meeting to remind Genesis about "The Great Stapler Misplacement of Last Tuesday." Adds a tally mark under Sephiroth's name every time he spots him with coffee.

• Started a rumor that his office plant can sense irresponsibility. Strategically moves it around the office to "watch" people. Zack is completely convinced it's judging him.

Zack: I swear it droops when I forget to hand in my reports! Angeal, watering plant: The voice of nature speaks the truth.

• Sephiroth has quit coffee.

[weathertek]

Learn step-by-step how to build a French drain in your yard to fix drainage issues, prevent flooding, and keep your outdoor spaces dry and functional.

[gunnrblze]

Reunion

Silly little unserious fic about the guys finding you in No Man’s Land. Had to get this sit-com bs out of my head lol.

CW: slight suggestiveness, general talk of death ‘n stuff like that.

One probably wouldn’t assume that every day during a war would be the same, unpredictability and all. But that wasn’t quite your experience, considering you did the same thing every day. Every, single, day.

You wake up, curse men for being so stupid, for starting wars and killing one another for material things…scrounge for food and water, mourn your losses around noon, work on securing a shelter again for the impending nightfall, and tend to your more physical wounds, lest you get infected and all your hard work goes down the drain.

No Man’s Land was shitty, but you’d stumbled right into the cesspool itself, somehow. Your family passing away from whatever the fuck started falling out of the sky however many years ago was shitty too. Being left behind when you should’ve died already wasn’t sunshine and rainbows either. But you couldn’t focus on that too much when every turn you made could, literally, get you killed.

Armed fuckers everywhere, you were thankful you played too much hide and seek as a kid, cause you’d surely be dead if you didn’t somehow blend in with your bland surroundings. Unable to understand what anyone was even saying -doomed with trying to be quirky in Highschool and taking French instead of Spanish like everyone else wasn’t paying off, apparently-all you could understand from these dictator puppets was sí, nada, and rojo? You weren’t too keen on trying to understand why you kept hearing about stuff being red, maybe ignorance was bliss after all.

You’re not entirely sure though, it’s hard to pick up on spoken words when the blood rushing in your ears is the only sound you can hear, second to the gunshots and explosions booming everywhere. What were you even doing at this point? Surviving just so they didn’t give you a merciless ending? Was it worth it to live like this? You didn’t know that either, but you’d be damned if you simply gave up just because the going got tough. What is it that America’s so proud of? Freedom and bravery and what not?

Navigating abandoned and destroyed land for mere survival wasn’t on your lifelong bucket list, but here you were, sweating half to death behind a chunk of some random rubble in a desolated office building.

Shoveling the scraps of food you managed to find down your sore throat, eyes that had permanently grown in the back of your head always scanning for any lone beret who could knock your head off with a single bullet.

It wasn’t peachy or anything, but the sound of a whining dog made you forget all about it.

Shoving yourself as far behind the rubble as humanly possible, backpack squishing against the wall, you prayed -or talked, something like that, whatever- to whoever may be listening, that whatever Fed dog was sniffling around wouldn’t pick up your scent.

Unfortunately, your luck seemed to dwindle these days, as a massive German shepherd decided to knock over a nearby half broken-in door.

You took that time to suck down a breath, before figuring an escape route. You had no idea where your nationalist friends loomed, so like always, you hoped that crawling from post to post would keep you hidden for long enough.

As quietly as you could on broken chunks of tile, you crawled out from behind said chunk of rubble, to an adjacent one a few feet away. The sound of footsteps and distant voices ripped through any ounce of self confidence you’d gained, and you went back to the blinding fear for a moment. White hot and, confusing? Why weren’t they speaking Spanish?

“Shouldn’t be anybody round, place is trashed, boys” a deep, older sounding voice echoed. No, no, you don’t like the sound of that at all. You hoped maybe whoever this guy was talking to would agree, but alas, it seemed there was always a voice of bigger reason.

“I dunno, dad…Riley’s picking something up I think” his friend, or son apparently, shot back.

Riley? The furry battering ram? Maybe that was good…? These guys didn’t seem to be of Federation influence, perhaps they’d hear you out at least before splattering the insides of your skull onto the grimy tile.

The little pitter patter of dog paws got closer in range, and it made all the random joint aches and pains in your body more pronounced, bones vibrating with fear once you realized you couldn’t get out of this building. The knife you pulled from your bag only shook pathetically in your hand, more of a damn fidget toy than anything you could defend yourself with at this point.

Shoved back into a near corner, you already clocked the two voices, and there had to be more ‘boys’ with them, unless of course the older voice was including their door toppling canine in that group address.

“What is it, Riley? Go get it” the second guy spoke again, his distant words sending an even bigger pang of fear through your chest. Go get it. Go get you.

Apparently, Riley’s a good boy, because moments later the dog was sneaking right in front of your makeshift hideout. Barking ensued and it made you flinch on instinct, eyes wide as you heard all sorts of footsteps jogging your way. You could only sit there, backing yourself further into the corner, crouched behind the rubble as you stared into the canines beady eyes.

No Federation symbol on his little vest, though. Not that you could really process that, before a large man with a stupid little green beanie on came into view. The rifle in his grip didn’t phase you much anymore, only the fact that he was pointing it in your vicinity and that he donned a certain look on his face did.

You didn’t have much access to mirrors these days, but you knew being stuck in this desecrated, excuse for a city left you looking rather…gross. But this wasn’t that kind of look, of course.

“What the hell?” Beanie said a little louder than you preferred. “Who are you?” He followed up with, lowering his little killing machine when he seemed to deny your presence as an immediate threat.

If that broad ass statement wasn’t enough, the near geriatric sounding man you heard first ran up right next to him, followed by a blonder man that looked a little bit younger than Beanie himself.

You didn’t respond, naturally, what the fuck do you say to three armed men and their yapping German shepherd? They stared at you like a science experiment, before dad, you presume, spoke directly.

“What are you doing here? Where’d ya come from, kid?” His voice was sharper and more harsh than you typically enjoyed, but they didn’t seem to want to turn you to dust just yet.

It appeared they clocked the way your eyes flitted from corner to corner, wall to wall and door to door, your body screaming at you to run, but paralyzed with fear, and the harsh reality that you couldn’t escape these three.

“Relax, we won’t hurt you” Beanie so kindly assisted, seeming to understand your predicament a bit more. You didn’t trust your sore throat to speak, so you gulped instead, shaking like a leaf with that hunting knife in your grip while you picked up on more voices through their radio chatter.

They weren’t Federation, thank god, but that was almost just as scary. Because you didn’t know who they were yet, and they seemed to be quite interested in figuring you out. Dressed to the nines in tactical gear, obviously soldiers with the massive guns and all. American, with the west coast lilt that didn’t actually quell your fear, just create another problem for you to solve with the little resources you had.

You didn’t like the tone of the Geriatrics voice too much, he was understandably suspicious of you as he told you to put the knife down. Your body moved on its own accord, sheathing it in your backpack as you fully came to the realization that these people decided what happened now. Beanie asked more cursory questions, arms crossed like the brutes they seemed to be, and you feebly explained you were lost.

Lost. An idiotic answer. Stranded in No Man’s Land, you were obviously out of your element, due to the simple fact you were still alive and kicking it, disheveled as you were.

You weren’t keen on giving them your name, and Blondie seemed to understand that before you went silent at the question, nudging Beanie and sending some kind of telepathic message to him.

“Dad, they’re obviously not supposed to be here, we’ll just take them back to base, get them outta here at least?” Beanie said, his own uncertainty making the empty pit in your stomach blossom. Dad seemed to agree, but gave you a side eye that your own mother couldn’t even dole out that well.

You relented more quickly than any of you thought you would, including yourself. You knew it was game over the moment Riley The Dog spotted you. They seemed to hash out a plan rather immediately, and the idea of being helped, even by strangers, did seem a bit deserving on your end.

Your creaky knees burned as you stood up, tentative and unsure about this arrangement, despite your desperate need for assistance. You weren’t deciding to go back to this ‘base’ with them, you were being led back to this base with them. Beanie explained that they’re Army, and it still didn’t quite help. You shuffled along the split flooring of your abandoned little office shelter, checking every exit again, wondering about that escape shot one more time.

Blondie clocked you again though, apparently the silent and observant type, because he nudged his old man, who swiftly turned to you, his eyes expressing an unspoken knowledge. The knowledge that you were beyond outnumbered.

“We’ll get you back to our base, get you squared away from there” he said as if it were that simple, clearly trying not to bug out at the knowledge that someone survived all this. You wanted to explain there was no where to square you off to. That you were alone, but they seemed to already know that. They didn’t ask nearly enough questions, you thought. But then again, you didn’t have much to expand on.

The three of them moved like a unit. Water flowing through oil, smooth and sure, despite your awkward presence lingering shortly behind Geriatric, his offspring nearing either side of you. Caging you in. Riley The Dog seemed to skip ahead, content with scoping things out for them first.

Apparently, three -four- isn’t quite a party yet though, because two other sets of heavy footsteps sounded outside the building, the chatter on their radios picking up more. You hadn’t really listened to what Geriatric muttered into said radio when they’d first found you, too busy trying to tame your nervous system.

But apparently they valued a buddy system.

Two men, just as large and brutish, rounded the corner as soon as the four of you walked out of that broken down door, courtesy of the shepherd that trotted off to god knows where.

They seemed both surprised and unsurprised to see you. Expecting your tagging along back to base, from what you could tell, but still unprepared to witness a living civilian in No Man’s Land.

“What’s their name?” The bald one asked, a gruff in his voice that shouldn’t have been as attractive as it was. That’s how you knew your brain was scrambled, finding these square ass men attractive even in the slightest, when all they were offering was a little ‘help’ during arguably the worst time of your life, was a bit insane.

But you’d gone a little insane, so maybe it was understandable.

After Geriatric stepped off to the side with Baldy and the dude in the mask, whatever that get up was about, you only heard his more hushed voice. Discussing the pertinent problem you seemed to create just by existing.

The twin towers idled next to you, sharing silent looks as they combed over your appearance. Your hair ratty and clothes dirty, covering your battered up skin well enough, some stray cuts and scrapes that you weren’t able to take nearly good enough care of made you look straight out of a survivalist horror film. Donning a suspicious blood stain on the waistband of your cargo shorts, something everyone seemed to be thankfully ignoring.

Until now, at least.

“Are you hurt?” Beanie asked with some kind of concern, motioning to your blood stained pants that’d given you away long before you could even stand up and flaunt your crooked gait.

Your blank stare made everyone fall flat for a moment, all five men standing like robots, looks being shared and eyebrows being raised. Obviously you were fucking hurt, but not enough to mention it, in your opinion.

Your mere head shake didn’t extinguish Beanie and Blondies curiosity though, but their father seemed to want to get the show on the road, so long as you could actually walk down said road.

You trudged behind the five of them, making off putting eye contact with the masked one for a moment, his eyes lighting a path of unease down your spine, whether he meant to or not.

They cut off into the woods shortly after exiting the blown-to-bits plaza you’d wandered into. Beanie seemed to be concerned with your health, asking another time if you were sure you could walk. You’d be annoyed if it weren’t for the obvious hobbling and coughing you were doing with every step.

You insisted though, what was the alternative? One of the avengers would just haul you over their shoulder until you arrived on the scene where this ‘Kick’ fucker was apparently waiting for you all?

Yes, apparently so.

“Hesh, help them, son” the Geriatric called out without even turning around. First you noticed the name that was finally given up. Hesh didn’t sound any less silly than Beanie in your head, but you were forced to digress when said man stopped and turned to you, pointing to his back.

Apparently the grimace on your face was noticeable, a smirk cracking on his lips as he slung his backpack off, handing it to Blondie whose arm was already outstretched, standing to the other side of you.

“Familiar with the piggy back ride? We’ll be walking for a while, and you’ve clearly got something wrong under that bloodstain” he added as he motioned to your stained waistband, as if his knowing look wasn’t enough.

You felt silly, felt even sillier when your knee jerk reaction was the most petulant eye roll you’d ever given. But you found yourself digressing again. The large cut on your hipbone hurt too much to keep going like this. So you stepped closer as he squatted down, and climbed on his back like a monkey.

It wasn’t really funny, nothing about the situation was, but the absurdity made you roll your eyes again, earning a smirk from Blondie who picked right back up with the trek. In any other circumstance, you’d probably feel a stir down south with the way this man held onto you. Hands cupped under the backs of your knees to hold you up, was as innocent as innocent could be.

But again, you’d gone a little off your rocker the last several months, so being chest to back with a hot sweaty soldier who carried you like you were a sack of flour almost did something to you.

The three musketeers up ahead seemed to be chatting more, Baldy with a near permanent scowl on his face as the six of you moved through this too warm thatch of forestry. The masked one was quiet as he spoke to their Ringmaster, but not as quiet as Blondie was, who hadn’t even so much as muttered anything yet.

You willfully ignored all the aches and pains in your body up until now. The reprieve of being carried piggy back took pressure off your brittled bones and squeaky ass joints. Hesh didn’t seem to sweat having your weight on his back until the terrain got a bit more hilly.

Your insistence that you could walk again on your own was shut up very quickly by a shush from grumpy dwarf up ahead, everyone stopping at once. You peeked above Hesh’s head some more, only to see a group of berets in the distance. That not so funny feeling returning to your stomach, gut wrenching and definitely ruining the more pleasant one that’d somehow bloomed.

Your head shot down on instinct, wrapping yourself more around the green giant you were hanging off of, who seemed to have the same idea, securing your legs further around his waist as he crouched down.

Everything was a bit of a blur from then on, yelling and guns going off, your last view being the sunlight shining through the tree tops before you and Hesh fell over as a unit.

Not even cognizant enough to feel the intense ache on the back of your head, fortunately. Just a hand around your scraggly wrist and another somewhere near your waist.

And that goddamned dog barking.

[elbiotipo]

I am watching a video with criticism of geographical determinism in worldbuilding and realized that I don't really remember seeing any fictional stereotypic merchant state that relies on rivers.

Norse and Rus were whom I had in mind, but to my knowledge British and Japanese people also heavily utilized rivers for trade and I would be very surprised if Ancient Chinese people didn't.

I don't know about history of First Nations of North America and did they have trade in our understanding, but I heard that river system of North America is so convenient that the entire 19th century demand for transportation could have been covered by it alone, without trains.

Just some ideas

Freshwater systems are woefully underused in worldbuilding. The other day I was reading about the history of my region and I was amazed at how big and sophisticated native canoes were in the Paraná, the Paraguay and the Amazonas, and how virtually nobody talks about it. We are talking about ships that could hold about 30 people and some were bigger than Columbus caravels. For centuries into the colonial era, the Spanish and Portuguese hired or pressed into service native navigators for the rivers which were though to navigate as a sea. Still before that, they were the major arteries of commerce and trade through the continent, this is well known. Even Patagonian goods are reported in Corrientes (North of Argentina) which indicates that trade there got very far. As for the Chinese, not only rivers were important to the but also they boasted an amazing canal system but that's about all I know.

One thing I learned recently about rivers and cities is that cities were often founded on the side of rivers, yes, but almost never at their mouth. Look for example at Paris, Rome, London, the Egyptian capitals. They were founded by the river, but the mouth of the river next to the sea is where the delta is, and deltas always change and flood, carrying mud and slit, they aren't good places to build at all. Good river cities are built in the 'deep side' of the river where you can build ports, not in the side where sediment accumulates. Another issue with river cities are marshlands. For example, I remember reading that the marshlands of ancient Rome were drained at great cost. Ancient peoples knew that marshes were 'unsanitary' even if they didn't know why (it's because they host mosquitos and parasites, not because of anything bad wetlands have on itself) and they had to deal with them. There are some exceptions to this, like Venice which was basically built on a marshland (or the Netherlands).

And indeed rivers were (and still are! I see ships going up and down the Paraná every weekend!) a very efficient way of transportation. There's lots about it written in Europe, but river barges were basically the railroads of their time. Before the advent of railroads, people in Europe (and China) weren't thinking roads, but canals, the French built a lot of canals at great expense which became obsolete later by railroad.

Unfortunately the sources about river canoes and transportation in America (continent) are often tucked away in papers and history books, there really isn't that much accessible literature and illustrations about it. Which is a goddamn shame because learning about native canoes bigger than Spanish caravels (and they were still building them in Paraguay and Argentina during colonial times, according to my sources) blew my mind.

[nancy-xx]

Nancy and Sid

The Chelsea was a rather appropriate setting for the events of last week, which culminated in the arrest of Sid Vicious on a charge of murdering his girlfriend Nancy Spungen. When Swedish writer Stina Lindberg stayed there a couple of weeks ago, she was not surprised to find Sid and Nancy as fellow guests Naturally, she sought an interview...

SID VICIOUS Ex-Sex Pistol

Nancy Spungen, his girl friend. There's no mistaking Sid's black, spiky hair and his bovverboy aura. I only see the back of Nancy's head. She looks like an old woman. Hunchbacked. Tufts of almost white hair stick out from underneath her beret. Her coat is an ancient, ankle-length article. It's a Saturday, September 31.1 spot then in the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel on West 23d Street in New York. If you find yourself living at the same hotel as Sid Vicious, if you're a journalist and you like the new wave, you're an idiot not to try to talk to him. But it feels weird. The same evening, I see Sid play with ex-members of the New York Dolls at Max's Kansas City, haven of New York punks. Sid screams, makes faces, and spits. Grabs himself between the legs, doesn't look at the audience at all. They're all awkward on stage, the volume is insupportable, and the music is lousy. The paing audience is less than warm. The only ones enjoying the show are three pale peroxide blondes with fire-engine red lipstick sitting on the stage moving with the music. They're with the guys in the band, Sid seems to want to pack it in after three numbers, and splits. Nancy runs after him and brings him back. He spits, makes another face and starts playing again. He doesn't get through to the audience, and his half-hearted spasms just look pathetic. A lone, doped-out Japanese bops away frantically, but the rest of the audience is frozen. Sid is not a great musician, nor is he a genuine stage personality. Sid is a 21-year-old Englishman enlarged to the size of a Colossus by the mass media. Poor bastard. I ring Sid's room repeatedly to try for that interview. Finally he answers and agrees to talk to me the same evening. At nine p.m. I knock on his door. Room 100, ane flight up at the Chelsea Hotel. The hotel is the first New York building to have a cultural preservation order stamped on it. Brendan Behan, Dylan Thomas, Janis Joplin, Andy Warhol and many other artists and musicians have lived here. These days, there's a motley blend of prostitutes, pop musicians, near-destitute pensioners, French film teams and tourists. The door is yanked open. Nancy all but draga me into the room. Sid leaps up from the bed. He's wearing orange overalls and a chain around his neck. He checks me out nervously, then runs about the room, digging in his clothes and bags Nancy, dressed in a black net leotard and black leather trousers, holds my arm, hard, and babbles "What are we going to do? We don't know a thing. We just got to New York and don't know the score. Is five too much?" Sid searches nervously for something. The room is both bare and disordered. There's a big bed with a TV at the foot of it. A desk, a table, a chair. Two or three gold records are propped against the wall, and there are suitcases on the floor. Sid and Nancy have just changed rooms. The mattress caught fire in the other one. Suddenly I get it. They think I'm a dealer. God. I swallow, then explain who I am. Sid explodes a groan and throws himself onto the bed "Fuck' sighs Nancy. She lets go my arm and lies down with Sid. The TV drones on at maximum volume. I sit on the edge of the bed, laughing at the absurdity of everything. Sid points out that there's nothing to laugh at. I turn on my tape recorder "What do you think of New York?" "Very democratic. Do pretty much what you want. Not that you'd probably do anything much, but that's beside the point" turns out that Sid is trying to put together a band. It "I had a group going. Johnny Thunders. But Nancy smashed up Johnny's girl, so it went down the drain "Did you?" I asked Nancy. " "Yeah. She fed a lot of stupid stuff to me. I've been friends with Johnny Thunders for years. We had a lot of fun. And she couldn't take it. She started it, so I kicked her in the face," So Sid's looking for a new group, and plays with the ex-Dolls in the meantime We talk about the show at Max's Sid blames the audience, "My name's worth quite a bit of bread over here," he said.

"Isn't that because of the Sex Pistols? "No My name's worth a lot on it's own. It's worth more than any of the rest of them." Nancy agrees, and points out that Sid has had more press than any of the others. "Why?" "Because I'm what people call a bad boy. I do things that are outrageous,' he says, with what sarcasm he can muster. "Do you think that you're outrageous?" "No, but that's what they write about me. They're square "Do you think you're a free person?" "No. I'm on house arrest" "Who put you there?" "The world. But I'm going to try to get us free. I won't be able to do it, but if people get the idea for long enough, the idea that punk started off, it'll become like that eventually." We talk about punk's anti-racist side, and about Rock Against Racism, which Sid says he supports, and about England, which Sid reckons is the most boring country in the world-after Sweden, where I come from. America is okay. Sid Vicious is okay, and is doing fine However, the Sid Vicious I see in front of me seerns anything but. He and Nancy make me think of two animals caught in a trap and trying to claw their way. Desperately. out I ring the next day, and speak to Nancy. She doesn't seem to understand me, and thinks I'm trying to put her and Sid down. I tell her she's paranoid, but ask her for an interview. She seems to break down, and suddenly sounds genuine "It's not so strange that we get suspicious. Everybody's trying to get at us, trying to get Sid's money. Every bastard we meet wants to get famous through Sid. They've made a fortune off him here in the U.S., but we don't get anything. I'm a person, you dig? Not a dog" I ask her again about an interview, but she freaks when I say I can't pay her. "You think you can speak to us free?" suddenly she's hard-boiled again and go back to Sweden and make money because you met Sid Vicious? Get fucked!" I begin to see their dilemma. They think they can go on living off their fame, while they're in the process of buming out. Sid and Nancy sense that, I felt. What they didn't know was that the Swedish papers would pay more than any of us thought at the time because someone,   maybe Sid, stuck a knife into Nancy a week after I met them Sid's under real arrest. Nancy's dead. And the pop industry and mass media hysteria are doing okay.

[saucyjothoughts]

how do you think Nace would react to walking in on kris dressing up though

if he was anything like me he’d probably just like stop functioning cause I’ve stopped being able to think properly just thinking of that to be honest

At first they'd both freeze.

(nothing nsfw under the cut, I just don't wanna clog up your feed with a longish post)

Nace stares at Kris.

Kris stares at Nace.

Kris in his new black-and-red thing (most of his dress up stuff is white and gold or baby pink) and this time he's treated himself to the full halterneck bralette, french-cut crotchless panties, and suspender belt set. He even has stockings to go with it, one of which he's in the process of pulling up above his knee when Nace walks in, knocking but not waiting for an answer before he opens the door.

"I'm just going to step outside," Nace breaks the silence at last. All the colour is drained from his face and he clears his throat, his mouth suddenly dry. "Hang out for a minute. Then come back in again. Cool?"

Kris can't speak, can't move, can't even nod. But when Nace leaves, he can hear him screaming profanities from outside the building.

When Nace returns, he waits for an answer after knocking.

Kris is Kris again, his cheeks a little red but in jeans and a t-shirt, hair scruffy. He's put some masculine body spray on.

The two of them go about their afternoon but there's an elephant in the room and Nace is dying to poke it.

"How long have you-?"

"Nope." Kris shuts him down.

"Where did you get-?"

"Nope." They are not talking about this.

"Do you want-"

"Nope."

"You don't even know what I was going to ask!"

Kris puts his coffee down and lets out a sigh. He speaks through gritted teeth.

"What were you going to ask, Nace?"

Something gleams in Nace's eyes.

"Do you want me to do stuff to you while you're wearing it?"

It takes all of Kris's self control just to breathe. He looks Nace in the eye and he doesn't think he's joking. He doesn't think he's making fun of him.

"I don't hear a 'nope'," Nace laughs, and that's enough.

"We're done. Get out."

"Kris, I'm sorry!" But he's still laughing.

"Out!"

Nace knows better than to push Kris too far and dutifully gathers his things, puts on his shoes. They were pretty much done for the day anyway. He tells Kris that his secret is safe, that he doesn't judge and obviously no one else ever has to find out, while Kris is practically steaming with rage and embarrassment.

Nace has just enough time to turn around as he leaves, giving Kris a wink and a "think about it" before getting the door slammed in his face.

[snakegills]

Rambling about my fortnite fic (you're a king among the thieves) under the cut. Ignore or read i don't care

Idk if I've mentioned this but the title for this fic is from a song called Midas Touch by AURORA. The full line being "Midas, my dear/No wonder why you're scared/You're a king among the thieves/And your world belongs to me"

Like... cmon i had to! The placeholder title (Ghost's that don't know they are dead) is a line from devil house by John darnielle. Cool as fuck but it was always intended to be changed. Oh so I'm gonna jump right in now

So when it comes to characters like Montague saying that there is very little information about him is an understatement. It's been a bit so don't quote me but I'm pretty sure this freak has ONE line of dialog. Lucky for me characters like this are my specialty!

First off to build a character for what is essentially just a Skin In Fortnite I looked at basically everything epic released relating to him. Any blurb I could find on the society, every item description in his set, every item description in the OTHER society members set, and all the dialog from other society members. There really isn't too much canon that is gleaned from all this, mainly he's French and in charge. So from there i start to make logical connections.

Such as, looking at his character model gives you a lot of insight for what the designers want you to pick up on! For instance, Montague has a prominent eye scar, dual toned hair, and different colored eyes. The scars tell an obvious story, at some point he was injured. From there it can extrapolate that IF he has an eye injury and different colored eyes then one of those eyes could be fake. From there it can create a backstory for that injury, how he lost it, why he lost it, and what it means for him now.

Furthermore, in Montague's loading screen he's driving the society whiplash away from a trailsmasher. It's actually a nice piece of art work and Montague is even smiling in ot! I incorporated it into my fic by simply making Montague a very good driver.

Another example that is far more subtle is his lack of dialog. Because of that he does not actually talk to other characters unless he has to. Obviously as one of the main characters he has to talk, but when he's not in a negotiation or with Midas he typically keeps his sentence very short and direct. The svene in the car with Jules and pj is probably what most of his "conversations" are like. And that's why when I did a flashback scene to him as a child he was portrayed as selectively mute, only speaking when forced to by his mother.

All that aside when I was workshopping his character i wanted to really nail down a few traits that would endear him to, well myself mostly because I don't like him but yknow I wanted to make him have a good side to his bad. Something that draws Midas, and the reader, into wanting him to have a good ending.

So essentially Montague is a cunt. He's prideful, judgmental and selfish. He wants things his way and he does not like being told no or someone getting the best of him. He holds grudges, talks down to everyone, and is all round a draining guy to be around. (All yuppies and most French people are like this)

What makes him good? Well since he is a thief (and french) i wanted to give him a respect and appreciation of Art in all forms. Grand glacier is- was? Chock full of paintings and sculptures. A part of his backstory is him being a dancer and eventually finding his passion as a model because he recognizes the art that is high fashion. It never ended up being mentioned in the fic but him being a dancer is how he met Clara then eventually Valeria. Oh! I also decided to make him like animals, specifically because he's not very fond of people. I think it works because it shows that he is capable of kindness and understanding long before he shows that side to a person. (Maybe that's why he's trying so hard to recruit Silas, the snake and all)

I also wanted to humanize Montague by writing him with BPD (borderline personality disorder). This is not to say that this disorder is for evil people, but it is the reason he behaves so bitter and aloof towards well everyone. Montague thinks about everything people do. He over thinks he runs it around in his head he considers all angles because he has just had everything he worked for brought down by someone on the inside that he trusted. That would be difficult for anyone to deal with, and bcs the fic takes place directly after that it's Montague operates at his absolute worst. He's so suspicious of Midas and truly believes there is a ploy out for his life because the thought of being betrayed AGAIN by someone getting feels a genuine spark of interest in wracks him with anxiety. He doesn't eat he barely sleeps and he just goes one moment to the next until inevitable crash. Even though he is a jerk you cannot help but understand how that feels, and thus how BPD affects people in ways that aren't stereotypical yknow? Montague's BPD is not what makes him a bad person, its how he chooses to act around others. Arguably it's what makes him sympathetic, it makes him human

This leads me into Midas! Which is exciting because unlike Montague i actually like Midas. Idk if anyone's noticed but there is SIGNIFICANTLY more description of Midas' appearance than Montague's. No real reason i just think ascendant Midas is pretty and Montague is French.

Anywhoozers, Midas he has a lot more character things in fortnite and outside. Imagine that. So there's much more to work with and i dont have to construct a backstory for him because all that has already been written! When I started this fic I was very interested in the concept of him literally coming back to life from the Greek Underworld. Against my will I am very knowledgeable about Greek and Roman mythology so I had plenty build from.

My goal was to write the Midas in this fic a very specific way. I wanted him to read as wise but sort of youthful. I wanted his inner monolog to be the positive to Montague's dower.

Before he died he was a lot like how Montague is at the start of the fic. He's so driven by his need to understand the Zero Point that he will not let himself have a moment of rest. When he dies, he is at where Montague is right now. He has lost everything, even his life. In death he finally found peace, and was able to slow down.

When he comes back he carries this peace with him. Though he is vengeful that part is ostensibly taken care of (floor is lava), and the man we see is someone with literally a new lease on life. He meets Montague and doesn't want to fix him so much as be with him while he grows. I think it plays into my love of vampire things where I wrote Midas with the concept that he had been alive for thousands of years in the Zero Point as part of the IO. He's not so much more mature than Montague than he is more wise. Therefore he brings unconditional love and patience to their relationship which Montague desperately needs at this point.

This is what I think is so compelling about the two of them. Their relationship is held on a basis of mutual respect and a recognition of themselves in the other. Midas brings out the best in Montague, and Montague brings out the worst in Midas. They are not necessarily evil people, but they are very hard to love. That's just honest facts too. Some people are hard to love. Does Montague deserve Midas? No. He doesn't. But I am compelled to write a story in which, despite all odds, he finds someone that can love him and that he can love back.

Now, obviously, Midas is no saint. He has an ulterior motive and is willing to do an awful thing to get it because no matter what, he is STILL King Midas and will always be greedy. Montague is not incorrect in suspecting Midas wants something from him. He just doesn't realize that it's HIM Midas wants.