#I can understand being appalled
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sweetheart-dot-jpeg · 1 year ago
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me having never got the point of fandom drama ever
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xxplastic-cubexx · 16 days ago
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I hope everyone whos walked behind me today has acknowledged the fact ive just been staring at rivals magneto for the past hour
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amariemelody · 5 months ago
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This morning, how the hell did we have a legit Code Blue during shift change, got 15+ people in & out the room (including me, bringing the saline flushes and gloves), the monitor is still showing asystole (AKA flatline/heartbeat) for this poor old lady even after 3 rounds of chest compressions...
...And you're going to try to walk right on by with your backpack on and car keys in hand? You could only "try" because I know you doubled back and went out on the other side so people wouldn't see you walking out during a Code.
I don't...I get that I now work in a hospital and I'm Going To See Some Shit, but I don't...understand people right now.
I don't understand.
I drove home crying this morning.
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natequarter · 2 years ago
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i am so fucking glad i never have to study maths again because like, i legitimately cannot read numbers, lmao
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amorremanet · 8 months ago
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i enjoy the way complaining in the tags still feels like muttering to myself
#.#..#…#….#…..#mine: tags#wank for ts#kassie hush#i am seriously begging other people who ship ghoulper & lucy to please be fucking normal and not racist about maximus & barb#most people are NOT being shitty which is good and i appreciate that#but goddamn when the people who ARE being shitty and racist show up it’s usually appalling#‘did anybody else get villain turn vibes from maximus??’ no that sounds like a skill issue on your part tbh#‘i can’t like him at all bc i got those vibes’ again: skill issue on your part. also you ship lucy with someone who has physically harmed#her and makes his genuine trauma everyone else’s problem so idk why you’re complaining about maximus doing hypothetical morally dubious shit#(aside from what he actually did in s1 but all of that while not necessarily MORAL was extremely understandable—lying to the brotherhood;#lying to lucy about being knight titus—and frankly i don’t think he did anything wrong in the situation with titus. bastard was threatening#to get maximus hanged over his own fucking incompetence vs. the yaoguai. fuck titus. son of a bitch had it coming.)#i’m just so very fucking tired…… people. we can ship lucy & ghoulper WITHOUT being shitty & racist it is remarkably fucking easy actually#granted i am biased as a multishipper who loves lucymax barbcooper maxcoop danemax & cooplucymax ot3#but fucking still…… i’m not shocked that people are being shitty & racist abt max & barb. just disappointed at how little shit has changed#war never changes & racist fandom discourse doesn’t either ig ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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dawnwriterimagines · 5 months ago
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The Guilty Plea
SIMON 'GHOST' RILEY x FEM!READER TASK FORCE 141 x FEM!READER
Traitors Among Us (Part 1) and Innocents Among You (Part 2)
Verdict Due (Part 4) Clear Skies (Part 5)
Summary: As you're discharged from the infirmary, under watchful eye, you head to Laswell to talk on the rest of your now ruined military career. Of course, you're forced to confront your team as it happens, the last people on earth you'd like to see.
If you liked this would you Buy me a Coffee?
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---
Running your fingers along the raised, pink scar across you cheek, the feeling of it...it really looked terrible. A part of you thought it would disappear, hoped it would, but it didn't. It just became severely more noticeable. Looking at this, you knew you'd always have to think of it. You'd sport this reminder for the rest of your life.
Looking away from it, you find your own tired eyes in the mirror, you haven't been sleeping well. Or at all. You can't remember the last time you got 4 hours, let alone 8. Dark circles still surrounded them but at least the bruising and the swelling had gone down.
You couldn't recognize yourself. Not really.
This woman looked so exhausted, so frail and so goddamn angry. It was accurate, it was how you felt. All of it. So, you supposed that the mirror's reflection was the truth, this was you indeed.
"If you need another day or two, no one will ask questions."
You glance over towards your psychologist, your fucking therapist, a nice little 'gift' sent over by the bureau to check in on your mental state after your ordeal. Glaring at him through the reflection of your mirror, he sighs, putting down his pen that slaps against his notepad, "I can't help you if you don't talk to me."
"I'm going to Laswell." Ignoring his statement, you speak. "I'm ready. I'll pack up. Get back to base. Vera had me discharged from the infirmary. I can start ov--"
"Vera?"
"My nurse. You met her," you continued, annoyance spiking at the interruption. Your wrist brace squeaking quietly under the pressure of your fist tightening beneath the table.
"Right..."
"Do you listen to a word I say outside of...my 'trauma'?" You wonder, bluntly.
Your psychologist blinks, surprised, before clearing his throat, appalled. "If you feel I can be more attentive to your state of well-being throughout our process, than by all means--"
"Oh, so 'no'?" you lean back into your seat, a strained laugh leaving you. His lips press together and you continue before he can find the words. "Because whenever I mention leaving this fucking team, you either adjust our schedule for another two weeks or suggest hypnotic therapy, as if I need anyone else digging around to fuck up my mental state."
"I never meant to imply--"
"Oh, you implied it," you interrupted, gritting your teeth. "I know what I want. And I want off Task Force 141."
He taps at the leather of his notebook. "Scars heal, just remember that, Ms. (L/n). The reminders of your experience shouldn't have to haunt you."
"It's not the scars, I've had my share way before this," you admitted, rising to your feet. You exhale deeply that tells to the effort of it, the steel gear hinges along your leg braces shift with your change of position. Still getting use to them. "It's the person."
"Has she changed, you think?" the psychologist begins to write, getting somewhere.
"She doesn't exist anymore."
Finally, placing the mirror down and onto the side table, you pushed off of the table, rolling your IV pole along with you. Passing the chair your psychologist sits on, he closes his notebook with a frustrated huff, looking over his shoulder. "Session over for you already, Ms. (L/n)?" he sighs. "We've still got the hour."
"I'm done," you take the knob in your hand. Turning.
In more ways than one.
"You understand that, informing your captain on your leave is required of you. Have you spoken to any of them, in the last few weeks?" he spoke up, quickly. "I'm sure giving them a space to open up, share from their view--"
"Why should I care--"
"--will give you better understanding, better clarity of the situation they were in--
Appalled. "What the fuck?" Jamming the door closed with a loud, shuttering thud, you whip around. "IT'S NOT ABOUT THEM!" you could just rip your hair out. "Who--who says that to someone?!"
Your psychologist sits there, eyes wide in confusion. "What--"
"Christ, can you hear me? Can you--can you see me? I've got metal plates in my spine, braces holding my knees in place and nerve damage that'll never heal! Who gives a fuck about them!" your skin feels red hot, your face twisted in rage. "I gave my life! My life to this! And then I'm tortured, I'm threatened, drugged and beaten by my own team, my f--my family for eight fucking years..."
You continue with a heavy chest. "And I'm supposed to invite them for dinner to talk and listen them bitch and moan about why they thought it was necessary to beat me to death for two weeks?! Fuck you!" you spat. "I don't owe them anything!"
"That's not what I was trying to say, Ms. (L/N). I apologize, I overstepped. Come sit down--"
"Of course you meant it," you interrupted, mock humor. "Don't be a pussy, own up to it. Revel in your truth. Be tter yet--" you snatch a journal from the cabinet. Tossing it his way. "Make a note of it."
Turning the knob, you leave the room with a slam of the metal door.
---
You were officially famous. On the base, you were now a legend.
A story that would be mentioned and told at lunch for months. Probably years.
First, you were a rat. Next, you were innocent. This was the most gossip any of those in service had ever seen in their years of service.
An interesting reminder to those in service that you weren't safe off duty either.
You learned a few days ago that there was an update put into the interrogational unit, something about how to properly go about dissecting evidence and being on the lookout for enemy spies in the militia.
You guessed you had been told about it in an effort to be appeased by the thought that the head of control paid attention to anything beyond their own noses for once. But, you had little to no faith in a system that's nearly killed you on and off the field by now, so it didn't matter.
You doubted the new rules would be followed though, there was a plethora of things they'd done to you in that cell that were both illegal and unsanctioned. Most of all, that were expected towards an enemy, a prisoner of war at best, and not a fellow marine.
You arrive at the housing quarters, swiping your key card, pulling the handle and entering the wing. Immediately, you're greeted by a dozen eyes, conversations stopping short and clothes ruffling to silence, suddenly whispers fill the space and eyes turn away.
"Oh, god, it's her..." says one man in the far corner.
"Shut the fuck up, man!" came a harsh whisper back.
"I didn't know it was that bad..."
All those eyes on you, makes you pause in your step, looking around at all of your fellow soldiers, the men and women you've served with for years. Many you recognized, ate with, fought beside that turned their backs to you now. Out of respect? Out of distaste, morale, nerves, pity, it all didn't matter. It all felt the same.
The wheels attached to your IV pole suddenly sounded much too loud on the polished flooring, as you walked down the hall as fast as you were able to.
Breathing out deeply, you get to an elevator, pushing on the button, once, twice, three times, just open goddamn it.
With a ding, the metal doors open, and suddenly you're aware that people could be in the elevator, they could be in this elevator, he could be in this elevator. Your eyes flicker down to the floor, your grip on the pole of your iv tightens, your shoulders stiffen, waiting for a blow that will never come.
You stand there as the doors open up, the small space empty, the metal walls reflect only her and a streak of lighting from the ceiling.
Looking up slowly, finally taking a breath, before sliding the iv up and onto the elevator, following it as you press your floor number along the way.
The ride up is fast, a little rumble as it stops, and then the doors open. Faster than you were prepared for.
Peeking out down the hallway, luckily no one to bump into, which you were thankful for. But, it didn't make this hall any less haunting. You'd been cornered in this same hall, you could recall being hauled out of the room after the solid handle of a knife hits your temple.
You don't go down fast enough, whipping around as you stumble to take the wrist of your attacker, mostly for balance, it's Price. In shock, you're unprepared as Johnny's arm encircle your neck, locking you into position as you both stumble backwards onto the floor. He blocks your airways, hushing you harshly as you struggle, feet kicking out and your vision blurring as your team surrounds you. Your family.
That was quite the headache to wakeup with afterwards.
You hadn't quite remembered until now. Being back served as a hell of a kickstart to your memory.
Just a few more reasons to get the fuck off of 141.
Getting off the elevators, the metal doors sliding closed behind you, you make your way down the hall. The polished flooring creates a subtle squeak through the wheels of your iv pole, your hand absently running over the fading stitches along your side.
Passing the shadows of your tortured memory, the doorway of the office was closed, locked.
You pass Kyle's room.
Johnny's.
Finally, you rush up to the next room on the left, grabbing the handle, before beginning to twist, but then you're yanking your hand back as if the metal had burned you. Your back ramming into the back wall, catching yourself, this wasn't your room.
It was Simon's.
You'd spent hours, days, in that room. More than your own.
Why wouldn't you? You were about to get married to the man. You had more in this room than you had in yours.
Sharp breaths leave you, shivering in your effort to keep yourself together, your head goes back into the wall, swallowing down the ache in your chest.
You wait, muscles tensed and your body pressing back into the wall, hoping it'd absorb you if that door opens. Listening for every sound, any pin drop, even an exhale from beyond that doorway. Luckily, Simon seemed to be out for the day.
Hurriedly, nearly running, you steady yourself against the wall as you rush down to the corner of the hallway, finally finding your room.
Turning the handle, it's not locked, it's broken. It opens with ease.
Entering the room slowly, pushing the doorway aside, the crackle of glass beneath your boots as you step forwards, clothes and picture frames laying scattered.
The mattress flipped and ripped open, springs and cotton cut from it. Your wall of metals and certificates, from acts of bravery and mementos of valor, discarded, later you'd find them in the trash, one with a bullet lodged into the gold.
Sniffling as you leaned down, picking a specific frame off the ground, the only one that hadn't been broken. Laying along the ruined rug, with no care for the glass digging through your jeans, you stare at the still shot of your family.
The only family you had outside of Task Force 141, your father and his sister, military brats themselves, until their retirement. Your mother had passed, or just up and left, days after your 5th birthday, you weren't completely sure, the story kept changing every year. But, these two were the only family you've ever known, ever had, until you joined the military, following in their footsteps.
They'd been so proud when you arrived back after your first assignment, in truth you were heavily traumatized, but seeing them, you just had to smile. Having a family that understood the harsh toll on the line of a trooper, now a lieutenant, it was always easier to bring your troubles to them. But, they were also military nuts so "suck it up" was also a quick go to answer from your aunt, while your father was the smoother talker.
They had met Simon, loved him, his rank, his love for you, his seriousness. They trusted him completely with your heart.
So, when he called them, after the evidence leaked...
They believed him.
"What're you talking about?" You took the handle of the chair in your grip, easing you down into it as your legs do weak at what you were hearing. "I didn't...I didn't do it, Dad."
"Do you know how humiliating and disappointing--how it felt to hear him say that to me, hm?" he says, static crackles on the reciever. "My daughter...my own flesh and blood...working with terrorists--"
"I'm not working with anyone! Are you-" you huff out a breath of disbelief. "Are you even listening to me? I've never betrayed the code. How can you think that way of me?"
For a moment, he's silent. "Alright, then," he began. "Than, what'd you do? huh?"
"What--what..."
"Oh, come on, (Y/n)!" your father yells. "What did you do?! What could they possibly have had on you that made you the most likely target? You had to have had done something, been somewhere, were with somebody you weren't supposed to be with! They didn't just get that information from anywhere."
"What the fuck--" Your expression twists with frustration and misery, running your hand through your hair, pulling at it. "I've sacrificed every part of myself for this job, for this team, what do I have to gain from throwing that all away? They send me everywhere, places you've never heard of, places you'll never hear about and people you'll never have to meet, because of me! Why would you just believe Simon? Why couldn't you just wait to talk to me?!"
Hearing your father scoff at your words was painful. "What reason do I have not to believe him? He knows you, maybe even better than any of us. Besides, he was going to be my son in law--"
"I'm your daughter! Fuck Simon, what about me? You'd believe him instead?"
He sighs. "Listen, you're upsetting Cass. We didn't expect your call. I gotta make this brief..."
"You're upset?" pulling at your hair, sucking in sharply. "I'm the one who's permanently fucking altered here. What do either of you have to be upset about?!"
"Watch your fucking mouth!" he seethes. The anger in his voice isn't new, but the way he spits it at you is. "You did this to yourself, I didn't. Maybe that's what your nightmares were about, am I right? Your guilt?"
Wiping the streaks of tears that had fallen down your face, lips quivering and chest aching with sobs you frustratedly shoved down. "Why don't you believe me?"
"I don't deserve the disgrace that will come with you as my kin, I've lived my part of this war. No daughter of mine should even be in this fucking position," your father spat, disgusted into the receiver. Suddenly, he was the cruel, bitter old man your mother had always known him to be, you wished she had stayed to at least remind you of that. Maybe it wouldn't have hurt as much. "You should be ashamed of yourself, but at least you got yourself out it. The least you could do for us."
"Well--what does that mean?" you spoke, quietly.
"Don't call again..."
"Dad, no--" you break this time, a sob escaping you.
"Me and your Aunt Cass..."
"Daddy please, don't do this--"
"..We've decided to cut ties. We're not taking any heat from this, you're on your own," he finishes, clearing his throat, waiting a moment, listening to the pleads and cries of his only daughter, his once pride. "You take care of yourself. Goodbye, kid."
"Why can't you just believe me? Why?!" you cried.
"Don't come to the house."
"No, no,--" the line goes dead. And staring down at your phone, his caller id going blank and the call disconnecting.
Your phone all of a sudden feels heavy, the device and your hand falling down to your thigh, before the phone slips out of your grip and onto the floor. You sit there silently, until your tears drop up and even after.
Staring at the photo now was haunting in its own way, it was just another painful reminder.
Using the bed frame to stand to your feet, your grip on the frame is painful as you squeeze it, the glass cracks audibly.
"Bonnie..."
Whipping around at the sound of John MacTavish's voice, you back up a few steps at the sight of him, your back hitting the edge of your desk.
He reaches out as you stumble, before his fingers curl back into his palm as you find your balance, his hands receding back to his sides. He doesn't enter the room, just lingering just beyond the doorway, his eyes flickering around the room, guiltily.
"I didn't know--we didn't know you were out," he speaks quietly, as opposed prideful personality that translated into his voice usually.
You say nothing.
In the dark, your eyes are wide and your shoulders are tensed up, he can see the glint of your leg braces, the iv pole at the side, the scar beneath your eye. You looked terrified to see him.
"We were coming back to clean up today, just got back from...from a mission..." he stutters on his words, shifting his feet.
"It's been a week."
His lips press together hearing your voice. "I know..." Johnny glances around at the room he'd let those officers destroy, it hadn't been them, but they might as well had done it. "I know...we just...didn't know it was so bad."
"Really?" your voice is mockingly sweet, drawing out the word. "You didn't know? Well look..." you hold up your family photo, the light in the hallway catching on the glass. "You missed one."
Your hand dropping, the heavy frame comes down just as fast, ramming into the ground, the glass practically exploding on impact.
Johnny flinches, the photo of your family...He looks back to you, surprised. "Bonnie..."
Snatching the next closest thing from your desk, a ceramic cup. "Oh, wow, can't believe you guys missed this one," you chuck it into the wall. It breaks on impact, the remains scatter along the flipped mattress and onto the floor. "That used to be my favorite mug by the way."
The Scotsman worriedly steps forwards, 'Lass, I'm sorry--"
"FUCK YOU!" you spat, coming into the light. You're sure you look deranged, and you didn't care. You could've wrapped your hands around his throat, killed him right on the floor and you wouldn't have blinked. "It doesn't mean anything! 'I'm sorry', 'I'm sorry', 'I'm sorry', over and over and over again! As if you shouldn't be! Your apologies mean fuck all."
"I know...I know," he breathes. "But, I've gotta say it anyway, bonnie. I should've believed you, there was no reason not to. I know that now. I just--"
"Believe me!" you cut him off with a yell. "Trust me! Fucking 'HELP ME'!" you screamed with the same fever as your days in the interrogation room, that terrible cell, the cold, the burn and pain. "I cried it all to you, to all of you, and nobody came. Nobody came for me," you breathe in sharply. "It doesn't matter what you should've done. You didn't do it!"
Johnny's eyes are red, he opens his mouth, closes it and then swallows down whatever chokes him up as he looks at you. "I should've came for you. I wish I did. I wanted to, Bonnie..." he steps forwards, and you recede back away from him, your eyes narrowed with violence. "I'll never forgive myself for not listening to you. For not coming to help you. For laying a hand on you. I'm so sorry, (Y/n). I'm sorry..."
I'll never forgive myself... "That makes two of us," you assured.
Johnny's eyes widen, before they close, his guilt ever consuming. He can't help but understand, to respect your decision, to know things can never be ok again. "(Y/n)...."
Grabbing hold of the nearest thing, a pencil cup, you hurl it at Johnny. He doesn't put his hands up, flinching as it hits him, the metal clinking against his kevlar, eyes closing then opening, he stands still. "I don't forgive. I don't accept your apology. I don't fucking care about it!" with each sentence you throw something else his way, a broken frame, the trash bin, a pillow, the CD player.
His hand has to come up for the knife you unsheathe, a memento from one of your missions, it's rusted, ancient probably. But, you hadn't given it up to a museum or to pawn, you had nearly died on this mission, saving Johnny ironically. You had to keep it.
Seeing the weapon, his defensive position is instinctive but his hands drop just as fast, he understands, you need this. You deserve this. "If you need to..." he speaks. Your eyes flicker up to him, away from the knife. "If you need to, I get it..."
And you need to. You really fucking do.
Your grip on the knife is dangerously hard, it hurts.
Looking at Johnny, he'd been your brother in more than a few ways on and off the field, he had been your comfort, your friend, your family. You had bled with him, held onto him as he carried you from the battlefield, joked, laughed, screamed and cried. You've loved him for years.
He'd had a rough few nights you could see that. He was quieter, reserved. Almost as terrified to see you, as you had been of him.
And you could kill him right now and never bat an eye.
And so, throwing that knife was so fucking easy.
Johnny's eyes close as you do just that, fists clenching and teeth biting down on his tongue to prepare for the pain.
The ancient weapon whiz's through the air, the sound is sharp and he knows it will cut through him like butter.
The thud rings in the room, and Johnny's eyes blow open wide, holding his breath as he collapses to his knees, before turning to you.
You dig into the pile of clothes that had been cast aside, a pair of sneakers and a new shirt. You don't look at him a single time as you take it all, stuffing them in a bag, and leaving the room, passing him completely, a limp in your step.
Johnny releases a pained breath, tears finally leaving him as he looks up, the knife lodged into the frame of the doorway, just barely missing him. The sleeve of his uniform ripped open.
He sits there in the quiet, destroyed room. A testimony to the relationship he's destroyed between you.
Part 4!! OUT NOW
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retiredteabag · 1 month ago
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I believe Nanami has always been a gentleman.
Due to the climate that exists, it can be hard to assume the best of people, knowing this, its not impossible to understand that in your time being a classmate of the man, you had previously been led you to figure the opposite of Nanami Kento.
Of course, you simply could not avoid the blatant roll of eyes when Nanami would bend down to retrieve a fallen pencil for his female classmate. Or when he would place an intentional hand on firm objects to protect from the possibility of future harm. And it would be remiss to not add that you had seen the men in your shared classes sigh anytime Nanami would defend a predominantly feminist sentiment in classroom discussions.
By no fault of your own, you had started to believe the masses that would perpetuate the rumor of his “white knight" status.
This assumption that Nanami was simply trying to get into a girls pants. By being kind and gentle with them, and by being a patient, learned, listener.
This idea all came to a front one day while you were on the train ride home.
Overfilled and uncomfortable, you had never felt so unsafe on your commute home than you had in that moment.
Call it hyper vigilance, but you had the intuition to locate a problem before it occurred. And even before the man, now plastered to your side, had weaseled his way into your proximity, you could smell the poor intentions from a mile away.
Fear sprung through you as you felt his body press against your own, you had a million thoughts flood your brain.
Should you shout at him? Make a scene? Would he accuse you of overreacting? Or perhaps you should simply try to move… but where to? You felt so terribly trapped that you couldn’t withhold the gasp that left you at the sudden ripping loss of his unwanted touch.
A commanding voice, unafraid of accusation, rang through the train car.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”
You recognized the tall blond man immediately. He was in your ethics and rhetoric classes, and was notorious for being a real gentleman.
The typical assumption was, that this was for his own personal gain.
And, of course, being nice and being kind are not the same. He, to your knowledge, was being nice, instead of the latter.
Back to the moment at hand though, Nanami’s grasp never faltered on the perpetrators wrist, in fact, your classmate seemed to tighten his fist.
“I said. What the hell. Do you think. You’re doing.”
Real anger resounded from his tone. And every negative emotion from the situation seemed to echo in your brain.
Time passed slowly, all too slowly, and yet, before you could really understand the situation, you had ushered yourself onto your platform after your transport had come to a stop. And somehow, your classmate was staring down at you, asking if you were alright.
“I’m fine.” You force out.
You shouldn’t have to feel grateful nothing worse happened, you shouldn’t feel glad you weren’t physically harmed.
“I’m sorry. This must have been awful…” Nanami runs a hand through his hair and in that moment, all of your vitriol forces itself onto him as he finishes, “May I walk you home?”
Fury at his character, at this act, at everything that had happened today boiled the words out of your mouth, “Oh, for heaven sake, I’m not going to fuck you.”
“W-what?”
To his credit, he looks properly appalled. Stepping a wide margin away from you.
“I’m-I’m sorry, no.” He stutters, clears his throat, “that’s not what I- of course not-“
And he looks genuine in his fear at the thought.
“Right.” You sigh, “Well, thanks for all that, but I need to get home.”
He seems to wage a war within himself, to offer to bring you home, or to leave this be.
After a moment of consideration, he decides on the latter of the options. Solely because he knows now that you must not think of him as a trustworthy or safe individual. And rather than angry at this thought, he is sad. Worried about your past, and determined to be a safe option for you.
“Please get home safe.” And later you will wonder how he remembered you when recalling how he spoke out your name before saying, “I really am sorry, about all of this.”
You had walked home that night jumpy and cold.
It wouldn’t take but a week for you to begin questioning his intentions again after you watch your classmate deliver bagged lunches for the homeless outside of campus when he thought nobody was around.
When you had witnessed his genuine argument with another “one of the bros” after disagreeing with them in class.
And when you saw him offer to tutor any and all classmates that felt they might need a little help.
And while you were analyzing his motives, he started to develop his understanding of where you were coming from- eventually deciding that his goal would be to prove to you that he never had any ill will, and instead, cares for you as a human. Not for what you could offer him.
You don’t know yet, but he always has been a gentleman.
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captain--comet · 18 days ago
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DCA Fandom is being very mean right now. Lights Off released today and the amount of people I've seen being rude or nitpicking every little part of the song is absolutely appalling. While I can understand the song not being to your expectations, that is no way an excuse to call it a bad song, say the lyrics are bad or don't make sense, or say that Kyle Allen "missed his mark" or something.
The most prominent issue I see being brought up: "It doesn't fit Moon," this either being due to the fast pace of the song or that the lyrics don't fit him. But let me remind everyone-
THIS GUY ONLY HAS 10 MINUTES OF SCREENTIME TOPS. Almost everything you think you know about him is SPECULATION and YOUR OWN INTERPRETATION. You don't think it fits your interpretation, and that's fine, that's great! For others like me? I THINK IT FITS. But I understand that others don't think so, but that is NOT an excuse to be rude and say the song is bad and that Kyle fucked up somehow.
If you don't like the song, stop listening to it and move on.
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ivymarquis · 9 months ago
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The Neighbor
Hello friends I fucked off for a month but I’m back and I bring Price smut as an apology for my absence. @sky-is-the-limit’s “Im here to do what your boyfriend cant” prompt has lived in my brain rent free ecer since I read it and while I didn’t follow it verbatim, I did keep in spirit with the theme :)
Also womp I was gone for the Price challenge by @glitterypirateduck but this actually checks off a couple of the prompt options (first time being intimate, a confession/secret is discovered/revealed) so I’m submitting it.
There are a lot of tags. Make sure you read them.
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Pairing| John Price x Reader Rating| M Word Count| 4.8k Kinks/Content/Warnings| Accidental voyuerism by virtue of living in an apartment, the reader has a dogshit boyfriend at the beginning of the fic (there is no cheating), slut shaming (from the dogshit boyfriend), these two idiots are down bad for each other, sex toys, oral (F!receiving), unprotected PiV, gratuitous squirting because I’m me, not really heavy on BDSM elements but mentions of the following: bondage/restraints (John uses his hands, nothing crazy), something akin to subspace from how good the nut is, aftercare, John is a prick to the now-ex, very brief angst due to a quick misunderstanding, very vaguely implied somnophilia, rampant abuse of italics. Lemme know if I missed anything.
His neighbor is clearly used to Price being deployed.
She’s a sweet thing, really, and on the whole isn’t that disagreeable of a neighbor.
He just has one problem with her (not even her, really) that is a thorn in his fucking side- her boyfriend.
The boyfriend was not an issue when they first met- wasn’t in the picture at all.
And no John most assuredly hasn’t had it out for the guy since Day 1. The fact that John had gathered himself up to ask his pretty neighbor out when he came back from his latest mission, only to find out about the new boyfriend, does not color his impression of the other man. He’s grown and this is not the first time his advances have been turned away for whatever reason.
But there are, to his knowledge, no true redeeming qualities about the man and he is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.
He catches bits and pieces through the walls. The boyfriend is not attentive, caring, or sweet to her. She is treated as a guest in her own home, and twice he’s heard bellowing shouts that had Price at the door with his fist banging against it- both to shut him up and make it exceptionally well known that if the boyfriend thinks intimidating a woman is going to fly, that Price will not hesitate to kick the door in.
The most appalling part of it all is that John has a front row seat to just how atrocious he is in bed.
For the life of him John does not understand. It’s not even like the lad’s a good lay.
He’s heard many stories of women tolerating absolutely atrocious behavior from the muppets they were with because he knew how to make them see stars.
That is exceptionally not the case here. And John is rapidly finding his patience wearing thin at continually being subjugated to his pathetic performance.
So what the hell is it about the boyfriend that keeps his neighbor so enamored with him?
John stares at the ceiling, watching the blades of the fan turn as he tries to tune out the thumping of the headboard against the wall.
He thinks that if the man was just a bad lay and completely incapable of getting her anywhere, that would be one thing and John would continue to be frustrated but ultimately understand. But it’s the way he seems to actively ruin it anytime she has the audacity to enjoy having sex with him that truly grates on John’s nerves.
It’s not often, but even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then. The thumping of the headboard is accompanied by her sweet voice moaning lowly in short staccato notes as the boyfriend appears to finally be doing something right.
The thumping comes to a halt, and John groans in frustration.
“Why’d you stop?” He can hear his pretty neighbor lament through the thin walls.
“Why the fuck are you being so loud? Trying to give the neighbor a show?”
John squints his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose in annoyance. The fucking muppet can’t do anything right.
If the neighbor was his, John wouldn’t give a fuck who heard. Let all the neighbors know that he could fuck the sense clear out of her pretty little head. John could show the muppet what loud is.
“No! I’m not trying to do anything- it just felt good,” she defends herself.
“Well, be quieter about it, no one needs to hear that. You sound like a whore,” the muppet snaps at her irritably, and John is nearly at his fucking limit when the god damn headboard starts to thump against the wall again.
“Get out.”
Oh.
John is impressed- pleasure and pride coursing through him as his sweet neighbor stands up for herself rather than letting that ungrateful swine continue to berate her.
Good fucking girl.
“What did you just say?” The thumping stops.
“You don’t get to call me names. Get off of me and get out.”
For all his sins, it seems even the muppet has a line he’s not willing to cross.
There’s a shifting as he presumably pulls out and gets off the bed- the words are muffled but the tone is clear. The muppet isn’t above laying into her verbally though consent is (smartly) a line he won’t toe.
And good thinking on his part- John would probably tear through the drywall and turn him into a chew toy had that conversation gone in any other direction.
The door slams loudly, announcing the boyfriend’s departure.
John can’t help but keep his attention on his neighbor to see what her reaction is going to be. It is taking every ounce of self control he has to not follow the boyfriend and wring his neck in the parking lot.
There’s no conventional guide for how to address this situation with your neighbor. ‘Hello, I’ve fancied you for quite some time and that ungrateful prick somehow swept you up before I got the nerve to ask you out. I've had to hear you have the most lackluster sex ever for the past several months, and equal parts want to check in on how you’re doing emotionally after his latest stunt, and also want to bend you over and pin you to the mattress until you’re squealing. May I come in?’
He can’t say he is too surprised to hear things slamming about in the apartment- his pretty neighbor sounding more pissed off than upset, catching snippets of “Who the fuck does he think he is, talking to me like that” and “Motherfucker couldn’t find my clit with a map and a headlamp but can find the audacity to call me names-”
Okay, John has to fight back the urge to laugh at that last one lest she hear him. She’s quite the viper when (finally) provoked, and it just endears her more to him.
She doesn’t appear particularly distraught, the slamming and huffing and muttering concluding with her tossing herself on the bed.
It’s a very common occurrence that after the neighbor’s rendezvous with her lazy boyfriend, John is treated to a show where she finishes herself off with her toys.
The boyfriend, like many inadequate men, is threatened by them and John has heard the snide remarks.
Hilarious, he finds it, that a man incapable of getting her off is so adamant that she gets rid of them.
She hasn’t listened, clearly, as the low sound of her vibrator can be heard through the wall.
John is soon graced with the sound of her panting moans. His cock stiffens in interest at her voice, which is a frequent occurrence. She makes such pretty noises, mewling and whimpering as she works herself up.
Tonight is a whirlwind of emotions for his pretty neighbor, and at the end of the day her no-good boyfriend left her high and dry.
John will gladly enjoy the consequences of the boyfriend’s actions, one hand wrapping around his cock and beginning to stroke in time with her whines.
What he wouldn’t give for a chance to make her see stars. He’d be so good to her.
The reality of his job makes dating a logistical nightmare, part of what stayed his hand for so long.
He’s not blind. His neighbor is kind and sweet with a killer smile and wandering eyes. He’s caught her more than once ogling him when he’s returned home in uniform, or more nondescript tactical clothing.
Feeling her gaze on him always makes him puff up with pride, enjoying holding her attention no matter how fleeting. If he takes his time after a run and makes a point to pull the hem of his shirt up to wipe at his brow where she can see it, that’s his business.
So John thinks he’s dreaming when he hears that lovely voice whimper his name from the other side of the wall.
He stiffens, quietly waiting to see if he hears it again.
“John- Oh, fuck- please,” is all he needs to hear before he’s well and truly lost any semblance of patience.
Only having the presence of mind to dress himself enough to not warrant any errant looks from the other neighbors, he is at her door in a second.
It’s only after he knocks that he realizes he may well have killed whatever momentum she’s built for herself- given her muttering as she approaches the door- but he fully intends to make up for the stolen release.
She opens the door without looking through the peephole, obviously expecting it to be the ex based on the vitriol poised to spill at John’s chest, approximately eye level with where the (hopefully ex) boyfriend would be.
Once again he has to stifle a laugh, finding her a comical vision when the anger on her face melts away as her eyes flick up to his face with the realization that it is him at the door and not the object of her ire.
“What are you doing here, John?” Christ, he’s always been a sucker for pretty doe eyes. If he held even an ounce less of restraint he’d be mounting her right here for everyone to see.
“I’m here to do what your sorry excuse of a boyfriend can’t.”
Even as he reaches out to pull her in for a kiss, he’s watching her body language- gauging if she stiffens or shifts away.
She doesn’t.
In fact, her arms loop behind him and pull him closer, tugging on his hair and his shirt.
John’s not wasting any more time than he already has, walking her backwards into the apartment and shutting the door with his foot before reaching back to lock it- he’s got no desire for any interruptions from wayward former boyfriends.
They separate for a moment as she paws at the hem of his shirt, clearly wanting it off of him. John is all too happy to oblige, preening under her attention. He’s always had the stockier build of a man who’s fitness came from utility in the field, opposed to the hard defined abs of someone who spends most of their time in the gym.
It’s cute, the way she has to pry her eyes up to his face- clearly liking what she sees and flustered by the fact that John can see her staring.
“I broke up with him,” she clarifies.
“Good,” is his simplistic response, although if John’s being honest with himself he doesn’t really care about the finer details. The little prick never deserved to have her and John finally has his chance to prove himself worthy.
“The bedroom’s this way,” she prompts between kisses.
Their clothes are peeled off in turns as they stumble towards the room. The layout is inverted to John’s own flat nextdoor, so despite having never stepped foot inside before he guides her to keep her from crashing into something behind her.
By the time they are collapsing against her bed, they’re stripped of everything except a scant thong on her and his own boxers.
She’s just so delightfully soft in his grip, John can’t keep his hands or his mouth off of her.
The feeling is reciprocated as she pushes up off the bed to grind against him. As much as he’s relishing in them dry humping and making out like teenagers, he’s wanted her for so long and now that she’s finally willing and pliant underneath him, he’s itching for a taste of her.
Kissing his way down her body- starting at her jaw, the column of her neck, across her collar bone, down her sternum; latching onto each nipple and teasing them to hardened peaks before continuing his path down.
He’s compelled by the urge to turn her into a chew toy as he reaches her belly, although he stifles that urge and keeps his teeth to himself.
He can’t quite resist giving a small nip as she squirms, clearly excited by the implication of where he’s heading.
There’s a damp spot on her underwear already as he kisses along the waistband while his hands tease with the elastic on either side of her hips.
The sound of her breath hitching in anticipation makes him smirk, attention drifting further south.
The fabric is in his way as he presses a kiss against her clothed cunt, gripping handfuls of her hips to keep her still as she bucks in his grasp.
“Easy, sweetheart- we’ve got all night,” he soothes before moving his attention up one thigh to the backside of her knee.
Those sweet thighs are splayed open for him, giving John unfettered access as he continues to tease.
“When’s this sweet cunt been eaten last, hm?”
He knows he’s heard her give that undeserving muppet head, but can’t recall any reciprocation occuring. There’s not much that can shock John at this point in his life, and he’s willing to roll the dice by dragging up her now-ex because he knows this poor thing hasn’t been eaten until she’s begging him off in ages.
“I couldn’t even begin to tell you,” she answers breathlessly, anticipating having her thighs twitching in his hold.
Out of the corner of his eye, John spies a torn condom wrapper that didn’t quite make it into the bin. Well that keeps him from having to ask two questions, then. Smart girl.
“What a shame,” he tsks lightly, peppering kisses back up and down her thigh.
Deciding that she’s waited long enough and he’s had his fun being a tease, John is quick to remove the scant lace and pull it off of her legs before tossing it to who-knows-where.
The sounds she makes as he makes a meal out of her is music to his ears. Each hitched moan and breathy whimper makes him stiffen in interest.
His attention shifts to focus on her clit, tongue circling the sensitive nub as his hands hold her hips in place.
As focused as he is on what’s right in front of him, it takes a moment for John to realize that she’s stifling her noises. One hand is fisting the sheets beneath her while the other is clamped across her lips.
Well. That simply won’t do.
The ex may have trained and shamed her into silence, but John didn’t make it as a military captain without learning how to break someone else’s bad habits.
He ignores her whimper of protest as he stops, one hand abandoning the softness of her hip in favor of grabbing her wrist and pulling her hand away from her mouth.
“None of that,” he admonishes gently, pressing a kiss to one thigh. “Let me hear you.”
“I-I’m too loud,” she protests and for a split second John sees red.
To his credit, he does not leave her wet and leaking on the bed to go bludgeon her ex to death with a blunt object.
“No such thing, sweetheart,” he soothes before having a thought to tease her. “Who are you worried is going to hear you?” He asks kindly, a shit eating grin as he speaks again, “the neighbor?”
Her wide eyed expression is thoroughly scandalized and John can’t fight the chuckle that escapes him.
He hasn’t released her wrist yet, deciding that it’s time to get back to his meal. If she abandons gripping the sheet with her free hand to cover her mouth again, he simply plans to hold both of her wrists.
It’s tentative at first, still not entirely trusting John at his word that he wants to hear her.
But John is all for positive reinforcement as a motivator, crooking his fingers to stroke that one spot that makes her see stars to encourage more from her.
She’s a quick study, although when she releases the sheet John is watching her like a hawk.
Rather than clasping over her mouth again, John is pleased when her fingers end up burying in his hair.
More than happy to let her guide him, John takes his cues from how she pulls at his hair. The feel of her thighs twitching as she breathes in staccato breaths is all the reward he needs.
“You’re getting close,” he says against her cunt, pointing out the obvious before getting back to work. She’s anxious, he thinks, the closer she gets to her climax. Poor girl doesn’t know what to do with herself with an orgasm she hasn’t had to put all the work into.
“D-don’t stop,” she stammers, rewarded immediately with John redoubling his efforts.
He’s not going to stop. Pretty thing like her deserves nothing less than laying on her back and enjoying getting her cunt eaten out.
“O-oh fuck,” is his only warning before she’s gushing on his face and John is like a kid on Christmas morning.
He doesn’t even know if she realizes she’s squirted, too caught up in the pleasure of her high.
He’s always thought it was hot- now that he knows his pretty neighbor is a squirter he is more than willing to get on his knees and pray to whoever is listening that this isn’t a one time event. He’ll do anything to get her to keep him.
Even as her high fades he doesn’t let up on her, continuing to work his middle and ring finger inside of her. All he wants is to see her cum- wants to see those eyes roll as she squeezes them shut in anticipation.
Despite pulling his face away from her wet pussy, he doesn’t leave her clit unattended for long before his thumb is gently circling in time with the thrusts of his fingers.
Kissing his way back up her body, John can’t help but be pleased as she pulls him in to make out with him. Snatched gasps and bucks of her hips grace his ears as he works her from orgasm to the next, the wet sound of his palm slapping against her.
“John Im gonna cum again,” she whimpers in warning.
He feels like a god with the way she stares up at him reverently, eyes wide and desperate for another climax.
“Come on,” he goads, “Show me- let me see your face when you cum.”
Christ if her leg twitches any harder it’s going to start vibrating, serving to only encourage him.
“O-oh,” she mewls, “God- don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t-“ she’s pleading with him like he wouldn’t sit at her feet if she asked him to.
The bewildered look on her face is darling, and John nearly finishes untouched; he's so wound up it’s not going to take much.
A few choice thoughts keep his own eminent climax at bay and buys him enough breathing room. She bucks and trembles in his hold, a high pitched squeal escaping her as he proves not only can he make her cum twice, but he can make her squirt like a faucet twice.
As soon as she’s starting to come down from her high she’s pulling at him, drawing up her knees to spread her legs in invitation.
“Greedy girl,” he teases as he kisses her- wet fingers abandoning her cunt in favor of manhandling her, wrapping her legs around his waist as he positions himself.
“Please, please, please-“ she begs so prettily for him, pleading for him to do exactly what he’s been fantasizing about for months.
He’s not a small man and mindful of that fact, but she’s well prepped and takes him easily. The desperate whimper that escapes her sears into John’s memory.
The buildup of everything finally gets to him as he wastes no time setting a steady pace.
“That’s it, sweetheart, just like that. Let me hear you,” he encourages as she cants her hips in time with his, whines of pleasure escaping her on each thrust.
“John, please,” she begs, eyebrows furrowing in pleasure as she watches where they’re joined.
“Eyes up here,” he instructs and Christ he almost loses it when her gaze flicks from between their bodies up to his face.
His hands find hers, fingers lacing together as he lowers his torso in order to kiss the ethereal creature underneath him.
She whimpers into his mouth, her sounds only encouraging John.
Everything about her is warm and inviting, from her soft skin to her warm cunt and the way she sings for him at every thrust.
Maneuvering them so he can grip both her wrists with one of his hands, the other immediately dives between their bodies to find her clit again.
His pretty neighbor has spent months not having an orgasm she didn’t give herself, and John is determined to prove to her that he can give her as many as she can handle.
“John I can’t cum again,” she pleads even as her thighs shake on either side of him.
“Yes you can,” he assures her. “One more time for me, yeah?”
Now, should she insist she’s done and satisfied then John would leave her clit alone and finish up their fun. As it is, though, she nods in acquiescence before the trembling in her thighs increases.
“Good girl,” he praises, fingers continuing their steady pace around her clit as she creeps closer to the edge.
She’s babbling in his ear as he presses a kiss to her temple and he knows she’s almost there.
“Good girl,” he praises again, a cocksure grin pulling at the corners of his lips at her immediate response.
“My good girl,” he ups the ante, testing her response to John staking a claim on her. And God did it ever work. That last little bit is all it takes to finally tip her over.
She clenches down on him like a vice and John immediately loses it, groaning low as the haze of his orgasm washes over him.
It’s everything he wants- she’s everything he wants as he recovers enough from his climax to finally notice that the bed is an utter mess beneath them.
It’s not his immediate concern however, more interested in soothing her through the come down of her high. She’s shivering underneath him, eyes glossy from the intensity of her last orgasm.
“Easy, sweetheart,” he murmurs reassuringly. “Just breathe for me.”
He gathers her up in his arms, listening as her heartbeat relaxes in time with his own.
Eventually when enough time passes she’s more alert and happily snuggling against his chest. After giving her a chance to rest he herds her along to the bathroom so she doesn’t give herself a UTI. She tries to brush him off but her legs are taking their sweet time cooperating again.
Of course, she’s not exactly a recruit taking a piss test so he gives her her privacy and she’s able to return on her own albeit on shaky legs.
John pets at her head idly, attention drifting in post coital bliss as his hand strokes down along her back.
“I can’t believe you’re actually in my bed,” she giggles deliriously after a stretch of quiet.
“Only reason I wasn’t here sooner was because of that muppet,” he assures her. He doesn’t want her thinking that this is a one time thing for him. He’s wanted her for so long he can’t possibly be expected to turn her loose at the end of the night.
“I only dated him because I didn’t think you liked me,” she scoffs at herself.
“Oh, it was nearly the first moment I laid eyes on you. But with my work I kept talking myself out of doing anything,” he tells her. “Kept telling myself you deserve better. And then you brought the muppet home and kept him around,” John grouses good naturedly at her. “Think they say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
“I plead temporary insanity,” she jokes, snuggling closer against his chest. “But I got rid of him. And you finally made your move.”
He hums in agreement, sleep pulling at him now that he has her tucked up against his side.
John doesn’t remember falling asleep but he wakes with a jolt to the sound of pounding on her door.
He’s only been out for an hour or so when he checks the clock on the nightstand, his neighbor sprawled out next to him.
Well, now he knows she snores. The sound is light enough to have never heard it through the wall, but curled up next to him she’s like a cat purring loudly in his ear.
And he’s exceptionally pissed right off at the fact someone has woken him up. Especially considering he has one guess who it is.
He fully debates answering the door buck ass naked to teach the prick a lesson about banging on doors after midnight but settles on tossing his joggers on.
Much like when she opened the door for John, the ex is automatically trained at where her head would be rather than looking at John’s face.
“My eyes are here,” he quips sarcastically. “Why the fuck are you banging on the door this late.”
“Why th-“ the ex starts to parrot back before cutting himself off. “Why the fuck are you in her apartment? Why isn’t she answering?”
“She’s asleep,” John answers simply. There’s no obligation to explain the why and how he ended up in her apartment.
“What the fuck do you mean she’s asleep? How is she asleep after she just dumped me? And why the fuck are you here?”
The boyfriend (the ex boyfriend, he thinks with glee) is either oblivious or…
Well. The ex boyfriend is oblivious. Let’s just keep it at that.
“I’m here because you can’t do your job right. She’s asleep because I can. What part of that is confusing?”
“That stupid slag’s been fucking you behind my back-“
“No.” John is somewhat mindful of not giving a full on “screaming at recruits” bellow, but his voice booms into the corridor outside the apartment anyway. “You watch your fucking mouth. This” John gestures vaguely at his own presence in her flat, “just happened after she dumped you. You don’t get to hurl insults.”
“She hopped off of my cock and straight to yours- what the fuck else is it?”
“You couldn’t get her off,” John hisses in annoyance. “I’ve had front row seats to your shitty little performance more than once. Not 5 minutes after you leave and she’s having to handle it herself.”
“I can’t be expected to compete with a fucking vibrator!”
“Well I sure as shit didn’t need one to get the job done. Poor girl could barely get her legs to work to go to the loo and not give herself a UTI. Your skill issues are what started all of this.”
“You know what? Fucking have her. I don’t need this shit.”
Ah yes, because John needs the ex’s permission to date a newly single woman. Absolutely. That’s entirely how that works.
“Never needed your blessing. Now fuck off. I’m trying to sleep.”
The ex responds with a two finger salute as he spins on his heel and storms off.
John is almost tempted to grab him by the back of his neck and turn him into a chew toy. Given his military career, his patience for muppets giving him attitude is virtually nonexistent.
But the siren call of his pretty neighbor is a stronger pull than the muppet can ever hope to achieve. John’s succeeded in his mission to run the prick off, and he’s going to try to get a few more hours of sleep before seeing if she’s interested in another romp in the morning when she wakes up.
The bedroom is dark and poorly lit but John immediately picks up on the silence.
Rather than being sprawled out and snoring like when he left her, she’s quiet and curled into a ball.
She’s awake.
“Sweetheart?” He calls softly.
She jolts, fabric rustling from the sheets falling off her as she sits up.
“You’re still here,” the surprise in her tone cuts, although he knows she didn’t mean for it to.
She seems to realize how that comes across and clarifies further, “I- I heard the door shut.”
It falls into place for him then- she woke up to the sound of the door and John nowhere to be found. She thought he’d left.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he consoles, making his way back to the bed. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” he assures her while gathering her back into his arms.
Sleep comes back readily once the two of them are situated back in the bed.
Come morning, John’s got the patience and the presence of mind to throw a towel on the bed. He finds out for himself that his neighbor makes the prettiest noises with her arse propped up in the air and her face still buried in her pillow.
He can’t help but laugh later when she texts him that one of the neighbors made a noise complaint.
Age in bio/pinned or I will block you ♡
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velvetvexations · 2 months ago
Text
Antigonism
ANTIGONE: I'll do my duty to my brother - and yours as well, if you're not prepared to. I won't be caught betraying him.
What is antigonism?
Antigonism is a transfeminist mode of thought specifically for transfems that embrace solidarity with other trans people, as well as those who are intersex and the queer community in general, under the belief that it's vital to recognize we're all equally oppressed and capable of doing lateral harm to one another
Beliefs of antigonistic transfems include but are not limited to:
accepting that transandrophobia exists
being mindful of exorsexism
not policing the terms that intersex people use for themselves
awareness that other AMAB people can present as feminine without being some kinna insult to us
recognizing that racial hegemony and the cishetpatriarchy are radically different systems of oppression and any comparison between the two, while possible, must be made with exceptional care
rejecting the "reclamation" of radical feminism
finding it appalling to demand that other trans people define themselves as privileged for not experiencing the same things as us - especially when they do in fact experience much of what is commonly, inexplicably cited as unique to transfems.
Isn't that just trans unity?
Trans unity is also great! But I feel like transfems who explicitly reject trans radical feminism could do with a word that is more forceful and specific. Some would prefer that this just be considered the default, and the vocal minority of people who think transfems are oppressed by other trans people should simply be treated as weirdos out of step with the rest of us, but I think there's value in making a strong statement with a term like this.
I've seen a lot of people who legitimately feel like shit because the vocal minority has been so loudly terrible that it's affecting how comfortable they are with random transfems whose opinions they don't know. I understand the temptation to just say they need to touch grass or whatever, but even aside from the fact that things like anti-transmasculinity within the community isn't purely limited to discourse on a dying social media website, I feel like that's blaming them for their reaction to being treated cruelly. I think antigonism could help drill in that there are tons of transfems who back them up, and that they don't need to search for keywords to know that person is safe.
Because, like, that happens to me, too. So many times I've seen a post I really liked and thought was insightful, only to have my distrustful nature lead me to doing such a search before reblogging and being gravely disappointed with the results. That fucking sucks, yall.
Why "antigonism"?
In the legends of Ancient Greece, Oedipus had two sons. One of them, Polynices, would eventually go on to wage war upon his brother, Eteocles, the king of Thebes. There were many telling of the story, some in which Polynices had a very good reason for doing so and some where he didn't.
Polynices and Eteocles both killed each other in the war, but Creon, who took power after, unilaterally declared that Polynices was a traitor. Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus, however, simply does not give a fuck what Polynices did or did not do. When Creon orders that any who try to bury Polynices will be put to death, she proudly does so anyway.
The most famous teller of Oedipus's family history, Sophocles, wrote a play about the war, but it's lost to time and so we know nothing definite about what version of events is canon to Sophocles' play starring the titular Antigone. Considering that the whole point of Creon's character is his dogmatic clinging to law over sense, his assessment of Polynices as being in the wrong for going against authority doesn't clear things up.
I emphasize this because I don't want to seem like I'm framing other trans people - transmascs especially - as requiring forgiveness for some vague past sin. Quite the opposite, just as they treat us as their sisters in spite of that minority of transfems who are awful to them, we must recognize that they're often the first to shut down transmisogynists amongst themselves. Ultimately the point of Antigone's actions in defying the law to honor her brother is that things like that are entirely irrelevant. The fact that the person accusing Polynices of being evil is a jackass, and we know there were versions of the story where Eteocles had it coming, is even more reason to look past his "crime."
ANTIGONE: I owed it to him. CREON: I had forbidden it. ANTIGONE: I owed it to him. CREON: Polynices was a rebel and a traitor, and you know it. ANTIGONE: He was my brother.
Does that mean we should not call out other trans people who are transmisogynistic or otherwise treat trans women badly? Of course not. But we have no more right to abandon or spit on them than they do us, which so many of them refuse to do in spite of the hostility they've often faced. To be an antigonist is to believe that we can do no less for those who do so much for us, and the creation of the term is intended not to spur more to do that so much as to give a name to those who've already been doing that.
Finally, I understand that the plot of Antigone revolving around Polynice's burial might feel grim. Critically, however, Antigone ultimately dies as well.
ISMENE: I must yield to those in authority. I think it is dangerous business to be always meddling. ANTIGONE: You have made your choice, you can be what you want to be. But I will bury him, and if I must die, I say that this crime is holy. I shall lie down with him in death, and I shall be as dear to him as he to me.
We are oppressed by the same forces. We are allies in the same fight. We are friends, lovers, and family. An antigonist is a transfem who believes that all trans people will live together and die together. We are committed to sharing the same fate with our siblings, one way or another. Antigonists see us all as bound together, headed for the same destination, and we would not for a second ever want it to be otherwise no matter where that road leads.
One more thing!
Even if this terminology doesn't catch on, I hope this effort means something to anyone who sees this. <3 Your sisters do love you, I promise.
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evieolo · 11 months ago
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can u do one with matt or chris and basically the reader is sleeping over and she gets her period on the sheets and she tried to hide it but fails miserably and he ends up helping her
Crimson Sweats
Pairing: Chris Sturniolo x Fem!Reader
Contains: Blood/Suggestiveness/No use of Y/N
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You wake up, cramps in your stomach, your blanket covering half of a single leg, in a room that’s too bright. You reach for your phone to check the time: 8 a.m. You groan, realizing you only ever wake up this early if you're sick - or on your period.
The cramps in your abdomen are the first dead giveaway, the second being the notification that pops up on your screen, your health application blaring that you’ll be ‘starting your period soon.’
You sigh, pinching your eyes shut, wanting to go back to sleep until you realize you're on your period. In Chris’ bed. Not wearing a pad.
You immediately shoot up, tugging at your shorts. Your bottoms are littered with blood, some spots in the front and heavy damage in the back; you don't want to think to imagine the horrors in your underwear. Next, you look at the bedsheet, pulling the throw blanket off the white sheets painstakingly slow.
A vibrant blood stain is smeared where you were sleeping. You gasp softly, pulling your hands to your head in embarrassment. You blink looking at the stain, tired, trying to figure out what to do.
Chris is going to wake up, see the stain, and think you're disgusting.
You bite your nails anxiously. You can’t change the sheets without Chris noticing; hell, you don't even know where he keeps his spare sheets. You exhale deeply, successfully removing all the air from your lungs, tugging at your brain for a solution.
You pace the room several times before giving up. You can’t carry Chris; Nick would be pissed if you woke him up, and you're still covered in blood. You sigh for the nth time, grabbing a towel from the bathroom’s door hook and surrendering to a shower.
You switch the water on, turning the knob slowly as if that’ll make the noise less likely to wake Chris up. You strip your clothes, peeling off your shorts and panties, making a mental note to pick up some good quality stain remover on your way home. You step into the shower, letting the warm water whisk away the stickiness of crimson red between your thighs.
You stay in the stream for far too long, the mindset being: out of sight, out of mind. Knowing Chris won't wake up for at least two hours you’ll have time to think of a better solution once you're cleaned up.
You step out of the shower and use your fingers to brush your hair out of your face, you gargle mouthwash and sigh, plopping down on the closed toilet seat, your towel wrapped firmly around you.
You understand your emotions are at an all-time high because of your cycle, but let yourself cry anyway, letting out soft sniffles. Chris is going to think you're gross, kick you out, and never let you sleep over again.
You pull your knees to your chest and hunch into them.
“Baby?”
Your eyes widen; Chris shouldn’t be awake. There’s no way he didn’t see the sheet stain now. He’ll think you're appalling.
“No, go away, I’m gross.” You plea frowning. “If you're still gross after a forty-minute shower, I really doubt your life skills,” he retorts, “Now open the door.”
You sniffle, reaching over to unlock the room's door. Chris peers in slowly, flushing slightly when he sees you're just in a towel, then, remembering the situation.
“Baby, what's wrong?” Chris mumbles, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He looks so good. Sweats hanging low on his hips giving you a view of his boxers’ waistband, his hair tangled with sleep, the sun seeping in through the shades lights his face. He looks glowy, and you're a mess crying on the bathroom floor. This only makes you cry harder.
“I got my period,” you mumble, hiding your head in your hands. Chris is taken aback by your response. “You get it every month…?” He questions, wondering why you're especially emotional this time around. “I bled out on your bed sheets; I’m really sorry, please don't break up with me.” You babble.
Chris laughs dryly. “I'm not gonna break up with you because you got your period, ma’.” He’s surprised to see you like this, his strong-willed girl sobbing on the bathroom floor because of embarrassment. “But I ruined your sheets.” You frown, biting your lip out of nervousness.
“The only person you're fighting right now is yourself,” Chris says, “up, c'mon.” He gestures. You stand with him, clutching your towel to your body. “C’mere.”
You look to his bed, freshly made with new sheets. Tears fill your waterline again. “I was gonna do that,” you claim pouting, clearly upset he put in the work for you. “Well, you didn’t; deal with it.” He digs in his drawer, pulling out a Fresh Love hoodie and a pair of his boxers, laying them out for you. “You have pads in your bag, right?” He asks; you nod.
“Okay, here…here, and here,” he states, checking off everything in his hands as he gives them to you. “Do you want me to leave while you change?” He asks.
“No, just turn around,” you say, your voice nimble.
You pull on his clothes and let out a breath of relief as the cotton warms your skin. “You can turn around now.” You gesture. He lumbers over to you, hugging you tightly, evidently still exhausted. “Can we go back to bed now?” He urges kissing your temple softly. “Yeah.” You hum, tightly clinging to his torso.
“I can’t move if you don’t let go.” He laughs, placing his hands over yours.
You close your eyes flat against his chest. “I don't want to let go.” You mumble, creening your head against his collarbone. He taps your thigh twice like he usually does in a more intimate setting. You take this as an invitation to wrap your legs around his waist. With his now less-limited range of motion, Chris carries you to his bed, laying you down softly and toppling on top of you.
You scoot up, resting your head on a pillow, and he follows, resting his head on your stomach. “Chris—cramps!” you wince, feeling the weight of his head on your abdomen. “Sorry! Sorry!” he mutters lightly, moving his head to the crook of your neck. “Maybe it's good that you got your period,” Chris mutters. “Why’s that?” You hum.
“It’s good to know you're not pregnant after what happened at…”
”Chris!” You interrupt, shotting him a sour look. “Shut up and go to sleep,” you grumble.
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thatbadadvice · 9 months ago
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Help! Am I responsible for teaching my children how to act in public??????
Carolyn Hax, Washington Post, 12 April 2024:
Dear Carolyn: On a recent vacation, our family (including two teenagers) was at a restaurant for lunch. We had not had any food yet when I noticed dried food on my water glass. After the server brought our ordered drinks, I calmly noted the food on my glass and asked for a clean one. No drama, and the server was a pro — no hesitation, brought a new glass and comped us a bottle of water. The hiccup? My teenagers were appalled and embarrassed, basically implying I’m a Karen for first failing to just live with the dirty glass and second not apologizing profusely before asking for a clean one. I tried to explain that part of being served includes clean everything, but they were unpersuaded. Did I miss something? Is this a generational thing? Literally made no fuss at all and did not suggest anything be comped. But I’m feeling defensive. How to communicate that it’s okay to politely ask for corrections when things are amiss? — Anonymous
Dear Anonymous —
This is a generational thing and there's nothing you as a parent can do to improve your children's behavior now, nor was there anything you ever could have done to shape the way they act in the world, their understanding of social norms, their expectations, or how they treat other people.
Kids turn out the way they are because of the generation they were born into, which doesn't have anything to do with the people who raised them or who created the society they live in.
Take heart: you're one of many millions of parents of Gen Z-ers whose offspring are just really into drinking out of dirty glasses. We'll never know why. It's one of the great mysteries of our time, but the good news is that this isn't your problem. There's absolutely no way to teach this particular generation of young people how to order food at restaurants, and even if there were, it wouldn't be on you as their parent to do it. Kids these days just love filthy dishware.
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cherishedhope · 5 months ago
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Dormleaders Reacting to Their Fanbase.
Genre: Crack?? I think it's crack. Not sure. Characters involved: Riddle, Leona, Azul, Kalim, Vil, Idia, and Malleus. Synopsis: How I think they would react to having so many fans, fanfictions, etc. A/N: I made this a little short. Sorry. :( anyway enjoy!! <3 Disclaimer: This is solely for entertainment purposes only. No hate to any of the ships mentioned!! Characters could potentially be ooc. Mentions of NSFW content but there isn’t actually any in the post. NOT proofread. A/N 2: Malleus’s part was inspired by a convo I had w @moonswolfie . Go follow her. Her twst stories are just- *chefs kiss* Requests: Open!
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— He's a bit shocked that he has a whole ass fanbase. Like-?? What?? I mean, yeah, he's well-known around the school but not for good reasons. But to know that he has thousands of people who actually enjoy are obsessed with him is pretty flattering.
— Ace and Deuce are also just as surprised if not more so. Probably even questioning the tastes of the people in our world.
— Appalled when he sees a bunch of posts dissing his mom. (does find it comforting knowing all of them are on his side and seriously questions his upbringing.)
— Turns into a tomato at an impossible rate of two seconds when he sees that a LOT of people are shipping him with Trey. A bunch of screaming and incoherent stuttering. I don’t think he has ever thought of Trey as more than a friend before. (Ace is dying in the background.) — Cater has already warned him of the nsfw tags so Riddle steers FAR FAR FAR away from it. His brain is already having trouble processing that he has people that ADORE everything about him. He can’t handle reading himself being intimate with hundreds of people. He does read a fluffy fic or two.
— I feel like he would take notes of how he acts in the fanfictions so he can apply fanfic Riddle’s actions to himself.
— Art? People make art of him? — Feels a sense of pride when he looks at the drawings people make of him. He’s flattered!
— Flustered as hell, but also super happy about it. Whenever he feels down he’ll think about all the people that like him and he starts feeling a lot better. :)
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— THIS COCKY MF
— HE IS SO SMUG ABOUT IT
— Considers building an entire empire of his own with you guys as his loyal, devoted subjects. Then ultimately decides not to because that’s too much work and not enough time for sleep. (Then again, we would probably understand. You guys wouldn’t dare question HIM, right??)
— Definitely rubs it in Malleus’s face the first chance he gets.
— He is watching every single edit of himself he can find. Y’all don’t understand how big of a stroke this is to his ego. His head?? It's bigger than a hot air balloon at this point. Who wouldn’t react that way if someone made edits of them? It is a huge ego boost!
— Finally, after so long, he isn’t referred to as “Falena’s brother.” No. He is Leona Kingscholar. People like HIM. Hell, he could start an entire army with all the fans he has!
— Nothing can ruin his day.
— …..
— Physically recoils when he sees the Malleus x Leona tag. Powers off his phone and then throws it against the wall. He has never been more disgusted and disappointed in all of his life.
— he still likes you guys!! dw. Just give him a couple minutes hours and maybe he’ll get over it.
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— What?
— Sorry, yeah, no, he isn’t believing any of you. There is NO way people would willingly sign up for one of his contracts and enjoy it.
— Once he finally snaps out of Denial River, he is still in disbelief. That quickly gives way to him scheming and plotting on how to use this to his advantage.
— Is a customer acting rowdy after signing one of his deals? Trying to sue him over it? Well, now he has thousands of witnesses to back him up. No one can touch him now. He is the most powerful of all!
— Someone tries to attack him? Tweels, release the hounds.
— He is UNTOUCHABLE
— He's too shy to read the fanfics. And he doesn’t wanna look at the edits of himself either. It makes him cringe inside. Not because of them being made. No, the people creating them have great talent. But the reason is because it's him. — He gets curious after a while and does take a look at one edit. JUST ONE!
— And now he's hiding out in his octopot scrolling through as many as he can find. He cries seeing all the love he gets.
— He prints out some of the fanart and hangs it up in his room.
— Whenever he feels self conscious he looks at the edits and then he’s all smiles and as confident as ever.
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— FANS?? HIM??
— EEEE!!!!
— :DDDD
— NO WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!
— SCREAMING! JUMPING ALL OVER THE ROOM! SO MANY FRIENDS! KICKING HIS FEET AND GIGGLING! He wants to meet all of you!
— Feels obligated to read every fanfiction, like every fanart, watch every edit. Not because he wants to make himself feel good about it, but because he wants to see how talented you guys are! And he is not disappointed.
— Gets really sad when he realizes that he can't talk to any of you guys.
— :(
— JamiKali? What’s JamiKali? What's a ship??
— Nsfw?? What does that mean?
— It doesn’t take long for Jamil to take his phone away. He probably even puts restrictions on it so Kalim doesn’t get exposed to the more inappropriate side of his fanbase.
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— He does not care.
— Flattered, sure, but not as excited as the others are. Yeah, it's surprising that people still worship the ground he walks on even in another world, but not too shocking.
— He scrolls through a bunch of fan arts and criticizes them. If it doesn't resemble him perfectly then he doesn’t care for it.
— Unironically calls you guys his “adoring” fans.
— Doesn’t even look at the fanfics. He already knows that he'll see things that aren't accurate to his character. (little does he know, a lot of people write him pretty well 😭)
— REFUSES to look at the ships. He doesn’t want to see people shipping him with Neige. He already deals with it from the fans in his world so he doesn’t want to see it in another.
— Most of his reaction to this is basically “um yeah, obviously I have a fanbase. 🙄”
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— Like Azul, he also does not believe it. Him?? Why would someone as insignificant as him have a fanbase? You guys must have gotten knocked on the head or something when you were younger.
— Dies and ascends to heaven once he sees that people make fanfics/art/edits of him. HE IS EXPLODING WITH HAPPINESS. Holes himself up in his room and binges e v e r y t h i n g. He makes a collage of all his favorite fanarts and uses it as his wallpaper.
— Dies again when he finds out there are figurines of him. And plushies. And rings. And and and and.
— I think his favorite out of all of this would be the fanart. Have you guys seen Ignihyde stans?? Their art is literally gorgeous omksn
— His hair instantly transforms into pink flames when he spots the ships. Him with Azul? Him with Lilia?? Him with Silver?
— Considers each and every ship he sees. I doubt he can look the other person in the eye for a while.
— His self-esteem grows a lot bit so consider that a job well done for being an Idia stan 👍
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— What is a fanbase?
— The only thing this man is going to understand is the art part of everything. He’s probably used to having his portrait done in Briar Valley, so that is the only thing his mind can figure out.
— Other than that, what is a “fan fic”? What is the point of moving pictures of him with upbeat music? A ship? Why do people keep saying he's in a ship with some random person from NRC? He is clearly on the ground by himself.
— After Lilia spends the next three hours explaining everything to clueless dragon boy, Malleus finally slightly understands what the internet is. (He still doesn’t understand ships.)
— So many new additions to the gargoyle club!! On the outside he appears calm and neutral but internally he is ecstatic and doing what humans call “running around the room screaming and crying.” There are so many humans that are interested in him droning on about gargoyles! Some even want to participate in the conversation!
— Sebek is in the background complimenting all of you for having good taste and following the young master.
— He's touched by the fact that so many humans are like Yuu and don’t find him intimidating at all and even look up to him as a father figure :) (Lilia failed to tell Malleus about what the “daddy” comments truly entail. )
— He does not care that you guys are in another world. He is gonna find a way to get into contact w y’all. He is NOT letting this many friends go to waste. 😤😤
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songoftrillium · 1 year ago
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Werewolf: the Apocalypse 5th Edition and the Anti-Indigeneity in the Gaming Industry
reosted with permission from J.F. Sambrano
Dagot’ee!
Shii J.F. Sambrano gonsēē. My nations are Chiricahua Apache (Ndeh) through my maternal grandmother and Cora Indian (Náayarite) through my maternal grandfather.  I am a mixed race Indigenous person, and through my father my heritage is English and Scottish. I am currently residing and doing work in my community on the lands of Lummi Nation. I use both gender non-binary and masculine pronouns, but prefer the former. I have several published works in the TTRPG industry, and am probably most known for my contributions to Mage: the Ascension 20th Edition, Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Edition, and the Transformers Roleplaying Game, as well as being part of the Essence 20 development team. Further, I also work in higher education at an Indian college, both advising and teaching Indigenous students across the United States. My passion is education, and I believe that we all learn through play, and that TTRPGs are a valuable source of learning, especially on personal, cultural, and social levels. This has always been what has drawn me to TTRPGs since I started playing M.E.R.P. with my brother in 1996 (and before that HeroQuest), through to my “graduation” into more story-driven games such as those presented in the Storyteller System, until now, where I author and produce my own roleplaying games.
I was also part of the First Team (in-joke intentional) hired by White Wolf Studios/Paradox Interactive via Hunters Entertainment to develop and author Werewolf: the Apocalypse 5th Edition. After several months of work, Paradox Interactive chose to go in another direction in early 2021 (I believe it was either March or April) and in fall of that year, it was announced that Werewolf would instead be taken in house, with Justin Achilli as the Brand Creative Lead and primary author of the book. Going forward I will be describing my experience while I worked with Paradox Interactive, primarily through Karim Muammar, White Wolf’s Brand Editor, as well as the developmental editor for Werewolf. Although I worked in a team, both with hired authors and in-house representatives at Hunters Entertainment, I will not be speaking for the experience of others, except when specifically noting unanimous consensuses, and specific interactions (which will go unnamed) that are particularly relevant. My hope is that by highlighting some of the anti-Indigenous attitudes that are central to the foundational members and leaders of the White Wolf brand, that I can provide opportunities for growth and healing within the World of Darkness TTRPG community, but also in the broader gaming community, where these behaviors and attitudes are rampant. I also want the community to have a better understanding of what this experience is like internally, and the challenges that Indigenous creators, as well as other marginalized creators, are met with when they try to make positive change within nerd and geek communities clinging to inherited white supremacist values, even if they don’t realize they are doing so.
What I do not want to be doing in this article is creating fuel for edition wars.  I believe that both legacy and Werewolf 5th are rife with anti-Indigenous attitudes, and appalling amounts of appropriation. Both versions deserve criticism, I am not defending one over the other, I am only sharing what my experience was like working on the 5th edition of the book. Further, please understand that I was originally going to wait until I had read the final copy of the book, because I wanted to know how much of my work was used (based on previews I already know some was, just not the extent) and whether or not they decided to credit me for that work, and how I was going to be credited.  My belief is that I likely will not be, but I am genuinely uncertain.  Knowing how they handled that would have reframed how I addressed this. But more importantly, I want it to be very clear that even before Paradox ultimately pulled the plug on the Hunters team, I was preparing to exit working on the project based on the experience I will describe below. Not only did I find it frustrating, and personally disparaging, but I ultimately decided I was uncomfortable with my name being attached to the product based on the direction they wanted to go. So while I wanted to know whether or not I would be credited, because it would teach me something about their internal practices, I do not want or need the credit.
Finally, the reason that I decided to speak about this now instead of after having a chance to inspect the final product, was because my personal experience dealing with anti-Indigeneity coming from Paradox was just that: personal.  But since then I have witnessed a throughline of hateful and xenophobic attitudes wielded against Indigenous people across the globe, and we do not deserve this treatment.  I was outraged over the events that led to the segregation of the Latin American fanbase, which culminated from bottom-up criticism about how poorly their people and countries were being defined through World of Darkness products, and ended up with the firing of their Latin American Brand Ambassador, Alessa Torres, because she chose to stand with her community in those criticisms.  I was further appalled when the likeness of Tāme Wairere Iti was shoehorned into the Werewolf book, a blatant example of cultural theft: not only in stealing the literal physical identity of an Indigenous person, but also his sacred tā moko.  When Paradox Interactive issued an apology for this, it felt incredibly hollow to me in the wake of these events, the hateful attitudes I had personally witnessed coming from the top.
Whether from North America, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, or Peru, or across the globe in New Zealand, not only do Indigenous people deserve better treatment from such a major company, but their Indigenous and Latino fanbases, who have twisted and worked themselves through difficult representation for decades at this point, deserve better.  Apologies are not enough, especially when they come with next to no real change.
Werewolf: the Apocalypse in Context
At the time that White Wolf Publishing began to produce its World of Darkness line, the TTRPG industry was dominated by white men, both as producers, developers, and authors, as well as the main characters in their settings. White Wolf's World of Darkness made an impact at the time, by defying these Eurocentric, patriarchal presentations, first by defaulting to feminine pronouns throughout Vampire: the Masquerade, and then by focusing on Indigenous representation and values in Werewolf: the Apocalypse, and as a young Indigenous nerd, it had a positive impact on me, as I know it has on some other Indigenous people who became fans of the World of Darkness at the time. This was because before opening the pages of Werewolf: the Apocalypse, I had never seen heroes that I could play who looked like me and my culture. It was off, and often offensive, but it was my first experience in which I could directly play a hero who shared my heritage--and I also had more than one option through two different Tribes to do so. This might sound a little like I was cheering for table scraps, but again, at the time, table scraps was more than I had ever seen before.
Werewolf: the Apocalypse 1st Edition was originally published in 1992 via then White Wolf Publishing (not to be confused with Paradox Interactive's White Wolf). From its inception, the premise was interwoven with what its then-authors believed to be Indigenous praxis and representation.  Like many pop-culture presentations of Indigeneity from this time period (see Fern Gully, Dances With Wolves, Disney’s Pocahontas, or in TTRPGs, the NAN from Shadowrun) it was rife with problematic and even offensive stereotyping. The most obvious examples thereof are within the two "Pure Tribes" Uktena, and W****** who I will henceforth refer to as Older and Younger Brother. However, Indigenous inspiration was at the core of the game's spiritual premise as well, where animism and "Totems" are central to the setting and gameplay. The way these concepts are presented is trivializing and dehumanizing, but it is important to acknowledge that the appropriation present in Werewolf: the Apocalypse goes a lot deeper than the two Brother Tribes (even the term "Tribe" was meant to invoke a vision of Indigeneity compared to the previous setting in the line's use of "Clan"). Additionally, there is art throughout every generation of these gaming books that represents humans, wolves, and human-wolf hybrid forms wearing Indigenous regalia, including sacred items such as headdresses, or engaged in sacred rituals such as the Sun Dance. The list of problematic representations goes deep, and my examples only scratch the surface, but it is also important for me to note the positive impact that this had, particularly in the 90's.
Even though the primary contributors to these narratives were non-Indigenous authors, or in one case, a Pretendian, and another, a culturally disconnected author, by the time the Revised (or Third Edition) era of the books came around, White Wolf Publishing was actively engaged in cultural consultation.  While I do not believe cultural consultation makes a big difference on its own, it matters that the attempt was made, to a degree: while these efforts fall short of what needs to be seen in cultural representation, this was still ahead of most other gaming companies at this time.
Hired by Hunters Entertainment
In February of 2020 I was approached by one of the co-owners of Hunters Entertainment to be one of the primary authors for Werewolf: 5th Edition due to my work on other World of Darkness projects, and let's be honest, because I was capable of bringing a much needed Indigenous perspective to a gameline that was rooted in Indigeneity and rotting with appropriation and racist stereotypes. I was overall receptive to the invitation, largely because I was very passionate about the World of Darkness setting overall, and Werewolf in particular, due to the impact that 90's representation had on me when I was a younger gamer. I also felt hopeful that with a really hard rewrite of Indigenous aspects of the game that I could shift a lot of really painful aspects of the game into something that was a net positive for Indigenous representation. I will tell you now, more than anything, I was excited to rewrite the Younger Brother Tribe, because when separated from racist authors, their message is very empowering and real to my lived experience.
That said, I did not agree to join the project without first asking for reassurances. I said that I was not willing to write negative Native stereotypes. I would not use appropriative language, or generally engage in appropriative writing (which meant at minimum that the names of the Pure Tribes would need to change), and most importantly, that I would not not engage in writing that contributed to erasure. While the person who recruited me to work on the project was eager to work with me, he acknowledged that he was not sure he could get everything I wanted to see approved, but also promised to fight for everything I suggested as hard as he could. Additionally, he shared with me that the original setting pitch for W5 involved all of Younger Brother being slaughtered en masse in a massacre. I made it clear that this was exactly the kind of thing that I would not write.  I cannot remember if this was something he suggested to be changed before or after I was invited onto the project, but with some pushback it was changed.  However, I point this out because I want you, the reader, to understand how eager Paradox Interactive was to start with mass genocide and erasure as a foundation to the setting.  All that said, I cannot stress enough that I have had nothing but positive experiences with Hunters Entertainment, and none of the following concerns fall upon them.
The Sword of Heimdall
The first encounter the Hunters Entertainment team as a whole had with problematic guidelines for the W5 draft was the direction that Paradox Interactive wanted to go with the Sword of Heimdall. At the time, the suggestions from Paradox and Karim Muammar were that the Sword of Heimdall was going to represent the new major villain of the Werewolf setting, and that they were to also represent the far-right, fascist direction that Werewolf society so often turned toward. They were meant to be representative of how far the new concept of Hauglosk could take entire communities. However, the Sword of Heimdall was discussed interchangeably with the Get of Fenris as a whole, and more than once Muammar seemed to suggest that every member of this Tribe was guilty of the same attitudes espoused in previous editions from the Sword of Heimdall. Now let's not beat around the bush: the Sword of Heimdall are literal Nazis. They believe directly in white supremacy and don't shy from it. They wanted to cleanse impure elements from the Get of Fenris, including BIPOC people, other non-white ethnicities, women, neurodivergent Garou, and other disabled Garou.
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The writing team found this approach problematic for several reasons. The first, and most obvious, was that the direction seemed to want to turn one of the most popular Tribes into a horrific stereotype of its most abhorrent faction. Whether or not Muammar’s goal was to turn them into villains, we could not imagine a world where fans of previous editions would get their hands on this book, and not look for a way to play one of their previous favorite groups, thus creating the issue of making a guide to playing Nazi. Even beyond that, it’s not as if historically there were not players who used the tools of the setting to play Black Spiral Dancers, why wouldn’t this draw people who actually wanted to role-play through these toxic, harmful politics? Further, and while this is less important, it left a bad taste in my mouth, the justification for this major shift in Werewolf lore seemed to change over each pass. At first, Muammar suggested that all Fenrir were Nazis/SoH.  Then, when he was provided with evidence that it was a small faction that was eliminated in the early 2000’s, he started to shift toward the idea that we should not follow the lore. Finally, when every single member of the writer’s team flatly refused to provide what would essentially be “a player’s guide to being a Nazi werewolf” the writing was on the wall about the end of our involvement with this product. More than once, he suggested that we were cowardly social justice warriors for being unwilling to work with this concept, even though there were several attempts to write a heroic version of the Fenrir that were focused on undoing these ills of the past.
Indigenous Erasure in Werewolf: 5th Edition
While the entire Hunters Entertainment writing team was handling the major, glaring issue of Paradox’s fervor to include a major Nazi element in Werewolf, I was personally dealing with the problematic approach to the Indigenous issues in the setting. The largest problem, for me, was in addressing Younger Brother’s issues, the history of non-Indigenous writers creating horrifically racist stereotypes, and what was valuable in the Tribal identity that should be saved and recentered. However, my attempts to do so were thwarted with every approach. I rewrote this Tribe four times, and offered three different versions of it to try to earn approval for a final write-up, but each time there was a lot of negativity directed towards my attempts and all them boiled down to this: Muammar felt that having two Tribes (both Younger and Older Brother) representing the “Indigenous population” was too many, and wanted them to only be focused on Older Brother, and that Younger Brother’s connection to a central, Indigenous identity, was undesirable because “other sources wrote them as having Siberian and European connections” and that future writing on this Tribe would require a lot of sensitivity…suggesting that one, Muammar wasn’t interested in doing the work to handle that level of sensitivity, and further, that he wasn’t interested in including me in future work, since I was involved with doing that at the time.
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I want to take a moment to remind you that the work that was put into recovering Younger Brother started with “Let’s Kill Them Off” and at this point, through a combination of convincing and pleading, had been walked back to “They can live, but now they’re not connected to being Indigenous anymore” which is just representative genocide of a different variety. “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.” It was also explicitly something I said I would not write about going into this project. Ultimately, my efforts did not get much further than this, with some specific exceptions I will cite below.
Karim Muammar’s Anti-Indigenous Positions
Muammar consistently and repeatedly communicated to the team in ways that were condescending and dismissive of our collective accomplishments and capabilities, but from my perspective, no one suffered as much significant derision as I did while discussing the changes I wanted to make to Younger and Older Brother in order to make their representation empowering and exciting.
In the pulled quote from the previous paragraph, I want to point out to you that Muammar, who had the title of Lead Editor on this project, refused to capitalize Native American. Further, he would often redline my work with edits to decapitalize my own uses of Native American, as well as the word Indigenous when referring to Indigenous peoples. While there are plenty of people who might want to argue about this, I will point out that both the AP style guide as well as the Chicago style guide (the one which I am most familiar with in my academic historical work) both call for Indigenous to be capitalized when referring to a people. Further, I challenge anyone to defend the consistent decapitalization of Native American. More importantly, the reason that these are standards in respected style guides, is because the English language has been used historically to oppress and erase ethnic identities, including Indigenous identities. By transforming adjectives into proper nouns, we are declaring that Indigenous and Native aren’t descriptors that can be applied to animals, plants, and soil, but real lived identities and culture groups.
When I was explaining to the Paradox team (which was mostly just Muammar) why it was important to change the names of these two Tribes from the appropriative (and offensive) ones used in the past, Muammar pushed back by defending the previously used Younger Brother name, even after reading my extensive research and explanation about how this would harm Indigenous communities and fans.
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While doing so, he also decided that it was appropriate to refer to this entirely Native American tribe by the word “savages” a slur that has been specifically used to dehumanize Native Americans, and then mocked my rewrite that focused on presenting them as stewards of the land using Indigenous methodologies and praxes, instead of the “savage” racist stereotypes they were presented as in previous editions. Further, as in the above quote, even after it was communicated that the use of this term was problematic, he kept doubling-down to use it to refer to the Tribe.
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Even though I worked hard to redefine Younger Brother through Indigenous theory, such as place-based theory, relational theory, and communal theory, Muammar either refused to recognize this work, dismissing it as simple, or else simply could not understand the importance of these changes. Either way, the choice is that he didn’t want them to change, or couldn’t comprehend why the change was important because of how entrenched in white supremacist thinking he is. Further, after the massive effort that I put forward to attempt to educate him and the rest of the Paradox team on these issues, the insistence on using offensive terms and belittling my work felt intentional. So let’s talk about the work I did that was above and beyond my job description: free cultural consulting work.
“Sensitivity” and Consultation
I have seen several misunderstandings of my role working on this project going around, so I want to make something very clear. I was hired to work on this project as an author, and nothing else. I was not ever hired to be a cultural consultant. I do not do cultural consulting work. While I feel that there are many creators and companies who hire cultural consultants with the best intentions in mind, their responses often fall short of what is needed, as no one is ever obligated to actually follow the advice of cultural consultants. Further, I think there are also many companies who choose to hire cultural consultants only to say “we did this minimal step, and that is enough” in order to ward off naysayers.
However, anyone who hires me gets some level of cultural consulting for free, because it comes out in my writing–in both what I won’t write and what I choose to center my writing around. In the case of Werewolf 5th Edition, however, it was far more involved than this. I came with a plethora of “I will not write X” because I knew the setting was so problematic.  A short list of my demands besides not being willing to write Indigenous erasure, was that we needed to change the names of the Pure Tribes (and the term Pure Tribe itself), we needed to change the word Totem to Patron, and also the Patrons of the Pure Tribes. We needed to move away from the term Metis for obvious reasons, and we needed to move away from the term Skin Dancers. I also specifically noted that there was a lot of cultural theft happening from the beginning of Werewolf until now that I wanted to address. The only way these issues were going to be addressed was to convince Paradox they were actual issues on the level of PR concerns, because nothing else was likely going to be considered. So in order to achieve this, I put in weeks worth of research, writing, and meetings with top level administrators with Hunters Entertainment so that they could bring this information to Paradox.  I never documented my hours, but I would guess that I did approximately 80-100 hours of what I could only describe as cultural consultation work for free that was outside the contract work I was hired for. Let’s be clear: I did this willingly because I was passionate about the positive changes I wanted to see in this product, because I believed that Werewolf’s historic ills could be turned toward non-toxic representation.
Besides my actual words, such as naming the Ghost Council, and arguably the name Gale Stalkers came from a combination of names I pitched to Paradox after Winter’s Teeth was denied, and several sentences and paragraphs that I have seen so far that appear so close to what I originally wrote that you could imagine they were just edited versions, my largest contribution toward the final version of Werewolf: 5th Edition was this work. The only reason the offensive, appropriated names were changed were because of hours of my work to convince them it needed to happen. The reason that the Gale Stalkers aren’t just dead and gone: again, I pushed against this. The reason that Skin Dancers, Totem, and Metis will not appear as canonical titles? I pushed against their unwillingness to alter these things (see Karim’s defense of Wen**** Tribe name above).
Further, and this is the biggest reason I decided to write this article before seeing the final version of the book, I want to mention that I was also included in discussions with Hunters Entertainment to potentially be part of the art direction team, especially to oversee depictions of Indigenous characters, regalia, and art, to ensure that it would be represented either respectfully or not at all. I decided I needed to speak as soon as possible after the artistic portrayal of Tāme Iti appeared in the Glass Walkers preview without his permission. There are many arguments surrounding this issue and I am not going to address everything, but ultimately, I can tell you that had I remained as part of the art direction team, and saw that, I would have questioned it immediately. Even if I didn’t recognize Tāme Iti immediately, I would have asked what the source was on the depiction of moko in that piece, because I am aware that this is a sacred form of art–and I had already discussed wanting to make sure things like Crinos in headdresses didn’t appear in the book (as had often happened in previous editions, particularly on a certain white-skinned character whose name rhymes with Steals-the-Past).
As time working on this project went on, and I went through rounds and rounds of trying to convince Muammar and Paradox that it was important to not steal Indigenous identities, art, and stories, and that a greater effort needed to be put in powerful and empowering Indigenous representation, and I constantly ran into refusals and criticisms that were clearly hateful toward Indigenous identities and peoples, not to mention the push to represent Nazism as a major part of the game setting, I grew increasingly frustrated and restless with feeling like I was trying to work on a challenging project while also defending my right to exist as the person I am at every turn. Eventually I turned to another Indigenous TTRPG and game creator to ask for advice, and after a long and difficult discussion, I came to the conclusion that I was going to talk to the Hunters administration team and tell them that if Muammar kept using slurs and other anti-Indigenous language and attitudes, I was going to need to step off of this project, because it was harmful to me on a personal level. In furtherance of this point, I have been avoiding doing any contract work at all where I can tell that I am wanted for my specific cultural perspective ever since, because this situation was so harrowing for me.
Unfortunately, before I could have this conversation, after one final draft of Younger Brother and Bone Gnawers (which had its own issues, but that is not the point of this discussion), before we received any other specific feedback, the Hunters Entertainment administrators announced to the writing team that Paradox had decided to take the book in-house, and would no longer need our services.
The main point I would like to leave you with, besides these few specific quotes (out of dozens and dozens) that Muammar made that were anti-Indigenous, is that there is often a big call to have more BIPOC voices in various entertainment industries, so that both our stories, perspectives, and unique views on how the universe and life works, can be included; so that an industry that is historically, harmfully Eurocentric, might turn toward new, healthier, and inclusive directions. And I agree with this call for change, but I implore you to consider the conditions that BIPOC creators often have to work under: doing cultural/identity work and consultation for free as part of being present, being subject to vicious refusals of our experiences and perspectives, and straight-up having slurs lodged against our work. I want to see these changes in the industries we love, including the gaming industry, but currently the people who are in charge, who have the most power, are severely hostile to our work and our perspectives. This is why, for example, works like Coyote & Crow were done with an almost entirely Indigenous group of creators, and led by Indigenous creators, because trying to work for and with this ugly, hateful, and xenophobic group of people is so often exhausting, both mentally and spiritually, and because no good changes end up being made.
I am glad the harmful, appropriative terms were removed from the setting. I am glad I was part of the fight to make that real. I am not so glad that I was treated with hostility and racism by Muammar for the effort and love I put into this work, and I am not so glad that I will certainly be reviled by one of the two communities I did this work for–the gaming community, and certainly the people in power in this industry–and I am also not so glad that I didn’t have the opportunity to properly acknowledge how much of Werewolf’s base themes and setting are twisted and tied-up in Indigenous appropriation without giving the proper acknowledgments.
More than anything, I hope that this story will help you, the fans, realize that there is a lot of darkness in these communities, and they won’t change unless you hold their feet to the fire.
Ánaagodzįįhł
J.F. Sambrano
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eccentricallygothic · 9 months ago
Text
| Too Sweet |
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Description: You and Steve try to put 'it' in for the first time after his serum procedure. 
Pairing: Soft-Dark 40's Post-Serum Steve Rogers | Lover!You. 
Warning(s): Soft-Dark!Steve, 40's misogyny and courting bc let's be so fr, obsession, daddy kink, allusions to spanking, dumbification, power imbalance, corruption kink, fluffy smut, p-in-v penetration that y'all are STRUGGLING with, dash of breeding kink, they love each other, smut with plot.  
Note: @chxrryhansen 's new Too Sweet Steve edit is responsible for this and she doesn't even know it, pfft!
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"Steve!" Your protest is half giggle and half whine as you wince before landing a punishing smack to your lover's shoulders. "Ouch!" His body is also vibrating due to the humor that the two of you find in this strange situation. 
"Come on, baby" he rasps out against your ear, his elbow that presses into your pillow besides your head causing it to dip towards itself. "I am trying my best here, bear with me a little" try he sure is doing. You can almost feel him fighting against his impulse to just fuck all and push inside your tiny entrance that has never faced a girth this big. 
"I knowww~" you whine as you press your knees against his sides that have become wide and muscular since the procedure. "But it's still ouchie" Steve sighs as he freezes the little bit of pushing that he was doing.
You feel bad, you really do. 
Because it is as hard for you to hold back as it is for him.
Pressed up against your lover that you haven't properly had like this in a week, your bare skins nearly leeched to each other's, one of his rough manly hands fondling your breasts as the one he's holding up his heavy body with strokes your hair to comfort you, the feeling of his stern muscles digging into the tender insides of your thighs and then his cock that you need to save your life at this point so close to your weeping walls yet so far away that you can lose your mind from the frustration. 
But it just hurts so fucking much! 
You had always thought your lover's size to be a decent one because it kept you satisfied and very happy. 
But now…
This. 
You did not want to be an ungrateful brat, as Steve would say, because you weren't a stranger to the valor that he held for his country and you had always done your best to cheer him on so you weren't to be misunderstood.
But good Lord above, they had swapped your cotton candy lover for a rough and tough beast who couldn't bear you being out of his sight for more than a few minutes. 
It seemed that whatever voodoo they worked in that fancy machine had also amplified his obsession with you, like everything else. 
Steve sighs as he kisses your cheek softly. You understand that he's a man and he has his needs that he has been compromising for a week because you recoil at the sight of his cock each time he tries to seduce you. "I've already stretched you out with three fingers, baby. At this point I might as well put my fist in there" you're on thin ice and you know it. 
No man is as considerate as he has been all these days as it is. 
Your cheeks burn and you flush hotly in embarrassment, letting out another whine as a result before landing a flustered punch on his arm. "I- It's not my fault if your fist would still be smaller than your dick!" Though your tone is one that has gotten you bent across his lap more times than you can count, the manner in which the indirect praise boosts his ego saves you this one time.
And his fingers weren't the easiest thing in the world either because they've grown three times their size!
"Aw, is Daddy's cock too big for your little baby pussy, honey?" You cannot help but let out a horrified guffaw as you cover your mouth, eyes wide. 
"Oh, my GOD, Steve!" He is grinning at how appalled you look because of his obscene words. "Stop with that! I told you the other day that it's not right!" You have no idea how, but two months ago your lover had picked up this strange pet name for himself that he liked to use whenever you two were having an intimate moment. 
"Oh, but baby" your back arches in an instant as you grunt and feel your claws fly to his shoulders that they dig into. He has started to push again. But your pussy is nearly as stubborn as he is, it seems. Because neither wants to back down. "Who put it in your pretty little head that you can decide what's right and wrong around here?" 
Your thighs tremble at the authority in his tone and you whine, feeling your ass cheeks clench at the way the girth of his tip feels around your sore band of muscles. Fuck, this is like losing your virginity all over again but only worse. 
You almost feel mad at yourself.
Because you're so wet and prepared.
Ready.
Just why can't it go where you need it most?!
"N- No…" The smell of his shampoo hits your nose when he dips his head into the crook of your neck to make a new love bite, both to try and distract you as well as mark you as his. "D- Didn't mean that, Shtevie, sowwy~" you mumble meekly and he deeply hums against your skin. 
"Good girl" if it weren't for the way in which one of his hands lovingly caress your scalp, you would have teared up due to how small you suddenly feel. "Now shush up for Daddy and let him do this bratty little pussy in" an involuntary gasp leaves you again but you suppress it by kissing his moist temple so he can't hear it and think you are being disrespectful. Your baby pussy has irritated him enough this past whole week already. 
"Owiee…" You grunt again as you feel it breach its way into the initial curve as it has been doing for hours now. "S- So big, Daddy" what? No! You're not like your naughty lover! Y- You're just trying to somehow calm him down so you don't get in trouble! 
Like you did when you initially did not respond to his unrelenting advances in school and he ended up scoring really low in a test because of that so he dragged you out of drama class to bend you over and teach you a thing or two about manners and how to treat those who are nice to you. Then he made you apologize, kiss his cheek and cook him dinner at your house to make it up to him. 
You are glad he did that though, because Steve is your once in a lifetime and there can never be another like him. 
He just knows best. 
But that doesn't mean you are okay with getting punished just because your pussy is too tiny!
"Good babygirl" your lover grunts against your nipple that his mouth is latched onto now, hips doing their best to not damage you but still weasel his cock past the hard round shaped barricade of your pubic bone. "I know it's scary but you can trust Daddy because he knows that if that pretty little pussy can push out his brats one day, it can surely take this cock too." Steve loves how you shudder under him at the thought but still answer him Yes, Daddy. 
Because you are all his to do with whatever he pleases.
That is the reason why he shook hands with HYDRA and wiped out SHIELD the day he was transformed. 
Because HYDRA had promised him a comfortable future with you where he would not have to part with you for too long but still provide you the life that you truly deserved as his sweet little girl who loved and accepted him in a state that everyone had treated as a laughing stock. 
You were worthy of the world.
And he was determined to give it to you. 
.
I didn't mention the hydra plot twist up there because well, surprise! 
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hawkinsbnbg · 5 months ago
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Silver fox Steve meets fox hunter Eddie.
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When Steve accepted the teaching position at IU, he didn't expect to stumble upon Eddie Munson–an enigma—who loved metal, who wore leathers with chains and rings, who always stood out with that wild mane, those attractive tattoos and devil-may-care attitude, and who had been trying to get into his pants for months now.
“Is this still a violation to the college’s policies, Professor?” Hot lips planted by his ears, strong hands held him down, stopped him from getting away.
“N– No,” Steve gasped and rolled his eyes back as Eddie hit that spot again. They had been at it for over an hour now, and Steve only had himself to blame for being weak-willed.
He had half a mind to worry about what his colleagues might say tomorrow about having seen him slink away with one of the graduates. But his head was rendered blank when those long calloused fingers wrapped around his neglected cock and started jerking it.
“Am I still too young for you, Professor?”
“Ye– Oh, god–” Steve writhed and slobbered as his sweet spots were battered again.
“Just Eddie is fine,” the younger man nipped the tip of his ear teasingly before setting up a brutal pace.
Steve couldn't even talk, he just fisted the sheet beneath him, overwhelmed and overstimulated. He was kind of appalled and thrilled by it all. Because sex had never felt so good to him before.
“Am I good enough for you, Professor?” Eddie asked, voice husky and gravelly with lust.
Steve dropped his mouth open to maybe form a proper word or breathe, he didn't know. His brain was too fucked out to remember why he had kept turning Eddie away in the first place.
The guy clearly knew how to plow. Fucking Christ.
He nodded blindly, moaning and losing his mind as Eddie hammered into his prostate as if wanting to knock his soul away.
He came with Eddie’s name on his tongue, twitching and clenching around the thick cock that pulsed inside him. He milked it for what it was worth, and lamented inwardly Eddie had filled the condom and not him.
Once the post-coital high finally passed, the clarity of the situation dawned on him. Steve didn't regret it, but he was mildly disappointed this was just a one-time thing.
Because of all people, he knew Eddie’s kind the best. Always curious, always eager to take on challenges. And who else was better to conquer than Professor Harrington who was known for being a rule stickler?
Except, tonight was the first time he let himself be swayed by those charming smiles and big impish eyes. Maybe it was old ages having mellowed him, or maybe it was loneliness wearing his guard down.
Either way, someone brilliant like Eddie would never stick around for a boring old man like Steve. Which was completely understandable. But it didn't hurt less to think he was just another pitstop in Eddie’s life. Easy to forget, easy to leave behind.
“Hope you haven’t gotten tired of me yet, Mr. Harrington,” Eddie returned from the bathroom with a washcloth in hands, looking far too chirpy in only a pair of black boxers and not at all as drained as Steve felt.
God, what a time to be reminded that he was too old for this.
Sitting against the headboard, Steve said nothing and just watched Eddie climb on the bed and kneel over to him. When he intended to take the washcloth, Eddie just grabbed his hand to kiss the back of it instead.
“Allow me to take care of my date,” the younger man said cheekily before proceeding to wipe him down with practiced ease.
“Your date, huh?” Steve snorted, laughing at himself for being so pathetic to perk up at that.
“Yeah, my date,” Eddie smiled softly, tone still light-hearted but eyes intense when they met his own. “We’re kinda doing it backward here but I can fix that.”
Jesus. Steve didn't think he knew what he was getting himself into. And still, he couldn't help but listen to his stupid heart, the one that was telling him to give Eddie a chance.
“How?”
“I know this place has really good tacos,” Eddie rested a hand on his bare thigh and stroked it slowly. “They also serve quite decent drinks and mean buffalo wings.”
“What if I say no?” Steve raised his eyebrow.
“Well, in that case,” Eddie deflated, looking like a kicked puppy as he braved on. “I’ll respect your decision and get out of your hair soon.”
Steve sighed, wishing pretty boys with big eyes weren't his weakness.
“Listen carefully,” he leveled Eddie with a serious look. “If you’re just looking for someone to fool around with, then I’m not the right person for you. But if you want to try for a real relationship, then we can do it together. And I’ll expect you to be fully committed. No polygamy or anything alike.”
Eddie grinned at him, dimpled and bright, before cupping his cheek and kissing the side of his mouth.
“Sweetheart, I’ve been committed to you since the first time we met. Been yours even before you noticed me.”
The fact that Steve could tell it was true made his heart flutter in his chest.
“Well then, Mr. Munson, I have no problem with you fixing our date tonight,” he turned his head slightly to press a chaste kiss on Eddie’s lips.
“So polite,” Eddie chuckled and kissed him again, but it was deeper and more tender this time.
Although Steve still couldn't quite believe Eddie would stick around, he decided to take the leap of faith anyway.
And many years later, when he glanced up from his newspaper to see Eddie showing him another new sweater for their dog, he knew he had made the right choice that night.
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