#all while refusing to use my name
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regular-lord-reckoner · 2 years ago
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well, in some good news i think i salvaged my hair and it turns out the provider i hate doing charts for more than goddamn anything has decided she no longer needs my services, lol
i'm free!!!
#it's just two providers again and referrals#it used to take HOURS to do those charts#and literally for no other reason than this provider needs to feel powerful#she's just known for doing this kind of thing like you can be doing the best job ever#do everything exactly the way she asks#and yet she'll find something that you are just doing horrendously wrong!!!#and she's bitching to my manager every other day about something i didn't do that should have been done!!!!!#all while refusing to use my name#she calls me 'the scribe'#she knows full and goddamn well who i am and what my name is she just needs me to know my place#which is also why she'll never communicate with me directly or just tell me what she wants#but goes running to our manager to whine and cry#which just kills me because one of the other providers i do charts for is also known to be pretty tough#he'll complain at the drop of a hat if something's even slightly not the way he wants it#and has no bones whatsoever about voicing his dissatisfaction over something#and yet in all the time i've done his charts he's only ever asked me to call him once#and it was just to ask me to start putting in something extra that i hadn't been trained to#but other than that everything was perfect!#and as far as i know he's never had a bad word to say about me or the job i'm doing so like....mmkay#and all my managers know too that this is bs and that i do good work#literally whenever one of my managers has to deal with this shit you can tell she's exasperated by this provider#and sometimes we'll be on the phone with each other combing through a chart and both of us are like#'yeah i can't for the life of me figure out what the fuck she's talking about'#so.....yeah#very very very happy to not have to do charts for her anymore#good riddance!!!#:3
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randomidiocyncrazies · 11 months ago
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twitter takes on toshiro makes me cry... bro was subjected to microaggressions for 5 HOURS and raised in a high-context culture (where you Do Not say negative things outright), and ppl are still like "no he's just a bad person bc he's mean to my boy laios"
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dykedvonte · 4 months ago
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I'm probably going to post about this on the MW subreddit, but I still find it pretty hilarious that most fans assume the "struggles" Jimbalaya was dealing with back on Earth were related to criminal acts (usually in order to demonize Curly) meanwhile most of the pieces of clues I've gathered from the HFIM dlc and the QnAs we got about the characters' lives have lead me to believe Jimbalaya's struggles were about poverty.
In the HFIM dlc we're pretty clearly playing a fish version of Jimbalaya, and the whole game is about how a capitalistic system ruins people (fish) and those that climb up help perpetuate the system and those that go down just get eaten. So it's pretty interesting to me that Jimbalaya fish even after consuming other fish and items... keeps going down.
But it was the third QnA that sealed it for me. Curly's hobbies are around a lot of friends and family that he could join interesting things. And of course play snow sports in Winter. Winter snow sports... which let's be honest is a pretty expensive hobby to have. Meanwhile, Jimbalaya can't afford any hobbies other than joining one with Curly.
I think this kinda just adds more fuel for Jimbalaya to both envy yet aspire to be like Curly.
I dunno, it's just fascinating to me watching so many fans claim the "struggles" were so obviously to do with crime when most of the current evidence I noticed seems to point towards money related issues.
-🌟 Anon
I think both are valid and valuable interpretations that’s the MW fandom makes but I think the major problem with it is the severity in which they make Jimmy out to be every factor wrong with men in society.
Like I think it’s interesting to use the idea he has some record, misdemeanors/petty stuff, that has complied to make his life more difficult. It’s all his own doing for his entitlement and general behavior but it can also be used to comment on Capitalism banking on desperation and envy. A lot of his actions are desperate because he knows his crimes on the Tulpar will make it virtually to climb any ladder, anywhere anymore due to their weight. Like in the end the problem is undeniably how the proverbial rat race creates environments that fosters Jimmy’s and creates ineffective systems like Curly represents.
Curly on the other hand benefits from the corporate part of it with his financial freedom, stability and prestige but he too is socially stagnant, deeply unhappy in the identities placed on to him and unrecognizable as anything other than a cog in the machine. I think this goes in tandem with the other members too as the identities placed onto them in the scenario all represent stages in capitalism and class discrepancies: Anya represents largely marginalized identities (particularly women in blue collar fields/harassment) and how they ultimately have to fend for themselves. Daisuke a sort of perception of both a class between Curly and the rest, protected no matter the effects of the establishment due to his home life but at the same time he is the metaphorical future gen, things stripped from him as the older generations squabble amongst themselves in private conversations leaving him unequipped. Then there’s Swansea being sort of those who have lived through it, knowing how it ends but ultimately still lack the skills, resources and want to change it, letting it cycle.
The entire thing with Jimmy circles back to the fandom ultimately wanting easy solutions to the events in the games, a face to blame and a weird black and white thinking to issues that are dangerous to view that way.
#an off tangent that is semi related is the idea of the crash happened Curly deserved some punishment I see in the fandom and while I agree#he needs to reflect and possibly build back the trust Anya lost in him the idea completely ignores the struggles he faced and the abuse he#faced and it’s like again the entire absolving the abuse of an imperfect victim as a factor in their behavior#but back to the ask the game tackles so many things and tries to not make it one note or stereotypical but conversations lead to that cuz#too many people are unwilling to admit how subjective good choices are and how environment affects places a big part in how we deal with#situations like everyone says what they will do and would but no one sits and thinks of the way it would be in the situation with the#dynamics at play and can’t see the other lenses or metaphors#mouthwashing#🌟 anon#ask#mouthwashing game#curly mouthwashing#jimmy mouthwashing#anya mouthwashing#swansea mouthwashing#daisuke mouthwashing#also if I get asks about Jimmy can you just use his name like a big part of why I think people can’t properly#engage in this game is the decentering of Jimmy as the main character and main perpetrator like he is the ultimate reason everything gets so#bad and no one wants to talk about him outside of we know he’s bad already like it’s immature and why guys can get away with it as we focus#on the men that don’t stop them and not stopping the men that do or their mentalities past a surface level amount of disdain#like say his name show his face don’t let him slip through the cracks like the game tries to show you he did#his whole mode of operation is in the dark and out of sight and it’s still perpetuating that because you refuse to show him#at least on my in box I’ll talk about him and analyze him and I would prefer if we didn’t speak about him like a forbidden word cause that’s#how the assault of victims gets looked or glossed over when you don’t say what it is or who did in all seriousness
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sweetandglovelyart · 1 year ago
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Knightfall in Dream Land - Page 6
Meta Knight begins his long fall to Popstar’s surface and passes by some familiar faces on the way down.
#Kirby#Kirby fanart#my art#comic#Meta Knight#Dark Meta Knight#Sailor Dee#Taranza#sorry it took me so long to finish this page but it’s finally done#I hope that the title of the comic makes sense to everyone now#I called it Knightfall in Dream Land because the knight fell into Dream Land lmao#the parts of the comic set in the present are occurring around the time of Return to Dream Land#so the gang hasn’t met Taranza yet and isn’t aware of Floralia’s existence#but since Meta has a long fall to the surface I’d imagine he’d probably crash through Floralia on the way down and pass by the mirror#I tend not to give specific ages/age numbers to Kirby characters in my fanart/fan AU#the first reason for this is that different characters probably age at different rates since they’re different species#and the second reason for this is that I don’t see years between game releases equating to years passing for the characters#I mean just look at Adeleine she’s still a kid in Star Allies even though that was released almost two decades after Crystal Shards lmao#instead of giving characters specific ages I headcanon them as being in certain age ranges#so in the present Kirby Bandee and Sailor are all kids (and Bandee and Sailor are a bit older than Kirby)#I also see characters like Gooey Adeleine and Ribbon as being kids too#while characters like Taranza Susie Magolor Marx and the Mage Sisters are young adults#and characters like Meta Knight Dedede Daroach Captain Vul and Hyness are older adults#but in the parts of the comic set in the past Meta Knight and Dedede are young adults and Taranza is a kid#and Kirby and the Dees are babies#the older spiders shown here with Taranza and Sectonia are OCs of mine who are their mothers#their names are Lady Theraphoza (Taranza’s mom) and Queen Rachnia (Sectonia’s mom)#I’m giving Taranza some backstory since HAL refuses to tell us anything about him except he’s sad about Sectonia lmao#this post has too many tags but maybe I’ll make a separate post with my Spider Lore#Knightfall in Dream Land
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nenoname · 1 month ago
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the experience of reading stan twins fics and being constantly haunted by a name
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autistic-shaiapouf · 10 months ago
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You know, the funniest thing I can say on Pouf's birthday is that I'm much more open about the fact that I had a fictive of him for at least 2 years
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buggiecrossing · 5 months ago
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nalu needs to stop reading stuff that makes hyr mad. friendly reminder to protect your peace and to not let your emotions overcome you to the point you sink to the opposing side's level. la paz sea contigo
#【☮️】— talking ☮︎#if you sui bait ANYONE dni#nalu means it#that is vile and inappropriate behavior shy will not encourage nor endorse in hyr space#if you make outlandish claims with no evidence dni#you are creating issues where there are none and it's very destructive and dangerous which nalu will not allow#if you arbitrarily alienate or callout members of your own community because you don't like them dni#that's childish and immature and nalu sincerely hopes you realize individuality exists and the earth doesn't revolve#around your experiences and preferences#if you under ANY CIRCUMSTANCE wish ill on anyone because of petty grievances dni#bun has no kind or useful words to describe the type of person to do that#anger is a flame that can easily consume if let it and it's up to you to make a#decision#do i let it engulf me or do i smother it where it burns#if you chose the first one nalu hopes you find peace and love somewhere greener#however that place will not be this blog#control your emotions and yourself#don't be the fire that burns everything down#healing is a choice you can choose to make and while i understand it's hard it's for the better#if your refusal of healing involves negativity and DEATH THREATS of all things stay for away from me and my friends#and family or so help me god above calling you out of your name with be the nicest thing i do#this will be the only time i get this riled up because it's not healthy or productive#i'm not particularly angry i just want to push the point across early#sincerest apologies for the negativity#peace and love folks 🫶🏾#cw sui bait mention#tw sui bait mention#tw sui bait#cw sui bait#tw negative
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gottagobuycheese · 2 years ago
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there’s got to be a faster way to play this game but How
#not that I don't absolutely love meandering my way around this world and chatting to all the NPCs#but I want to start octopath traveller ii when I still have time and before there are too many spoilers floating around#and I can't DO that when I'm barely even halfway through the first one#at this rate it's going to be years before I finish...#which is fine but like also. I want to Know What Happens#I could do this by just looking up the stories sure but I want to PLAY IT#but I want to play it faster >:(#<- says the person who learned you can fast-travel between taverns somewhere around hour 60 or so yet has refused to do so#‘~60.5 hours for the main game and maaaaaybe 100-ish for completionists’ BUT WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE WHO ARE BAD AT FIGHTING#WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE WHO NEED TO TRAVEL ON FOOT EVERYWHERE BECAUSE THEY'RE TOO WEAK TO MISS OUT ON ANY EXPERIENCE#WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE WHO FORGET WHERE ALL THE HIDDEN CHESTS AND SIDE QUESTS ARE AND HAVE TO RE-FIND THEM EVERY TIME#all these side quests are haunting me...yes this name sounds familiar no I do not know from when or where#good luck finding your lost lover sir#I'm pretty sure I've met her like 4 times but I can't remember where she is#and because I hit A too fast you will no longer tell me her name :/#could I simply look up this information? yes. but I want to bumble around authentically as much as possible like with botw#‘IS THERE A FASTER WAY TO DO THIS!!’ I scream while doing everything as slowly and inefficiently as possible#cheese plays octopath traveller#<- unlikely to be used more than once but Who Knows#I'm glad I actually got to play video games today though even if it didn't quite hit the level of enjoyment i was hoping for#two unexpected days of in a row man I never want to go back to work#but I also don't want to exist in my own head forever doing nothing#I don't want to move forward. but I also don't want to stay here#do you see the Dilemma#anyways time to go train h'aanit on the way back to whoever the heck's chapter 3 I was supposed to be getting to#while training for tressa's chapter 3 that I put on the backburner years ago because the boss was too hard#I LIKE to think our posse is strong enough to take it now but I feel like I keep disproportionately training certain people over others#it's so much harder to keep everyone on relatively equal footing in this game than in pokemon :(#Primrose my first ever companion how I miss thee </3 I'm sorry I so rarely need to use your skills for anything
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inkskinned · 2 months ago
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it's easier to apply for jobs than ever! so what if you lost your insurance, anyone can get a job these days, even without meds. everyone is hiring! there's a "good employee" shortage!
well you just need to revamp your resume, here's a paid app subscription that can read it for you. rewrite the cover letter they won't read. google jobs in my area and then scrawl through Monster/Indeed/worbly. did you want to save the search? this was posted 98 days ago. over 1 billion applicants! this position is trending.
jobs i actively like doing and get paid for. your search returned no results. easy-apply with HireSpin! easy apply with SparkFire! easy apply with PenisFlash! with a few short clicks, get your information stolen.
watch out! the first 98 links on google are actually scams! they're false postings. oopsie. that business isn't even hiring. that other one is closed permanently. find one that looks halfway legit, google the company and the word "careers". go to their page. scroll past brightly-lit diversity stock photo JOIN US white sans serif. we are a unique, fresh, client-focused stock value capitalism. we are committed to excellence and selling your soul on ebay. we are DRIVEN with POWER to INNOVATE our greed. yippee! our company has big values of divisive decision making, sucking our dicks, and hating work-life balances. our values are to piss in your mouth. sign here and tell us if you have gender issues so we can get ahead of the sexual harassment claim. are you hispanic although let's be real we threw out the resume when we saw your last name.
sign up to LinkHub to access updates from this company. make a HirePlus account to apply. download the PoundLink app. your account has been created, click the link we sent you in 15 minutes. upload that resume. we didn't read the resume, manually fill in the lines now. what is your expected pay grade. oh actually we want hungry people, not people driven by a salary. cut a zero off that number, buddy, this is about opportunity, and we need to be thrifty. highest level of education. autofill is glitching. here is an AI generated set of questions. what is your favorite part of our sexy, sexy company. how do you resolve conflict. will you get our company logo tattooed on your person. warning: while our CEO is guilty of wage theft, we will absolutely refuse to hire a nonviolent felon.
thank you for your interest at WEEBLIX. we actually already filled this position internally. we actually never had that posting. we actually needed you to have 9 years of experience and since you have 10 years we think it might be too many? we'll be texting you. we'll email you. we'll keep your resume. definitely absolutely we won't just completely ignore you. look at your phone, there's already a spam text from Bethany@stealyouridentity. they're hiring!
wait, did you get an interview? well that's special, aren't you lucky. out of 910 jobs you applied to, one answered, finally. and funny story! actually the position isn't exactly as advertised, we are looking for someone curious and dedicated. it's sort of more managerial. no, the pay doesn't change - you won't have any leadership title. now take this 90 minute assessment. in order to be a dog groomer, we need you to explain cell biology. in order to be a copyeditor, write a tiny dissertation about the dwindling supply of helium on the planet. answer our riddles three. great job! we just need to push this up to Tracy in HR who will send it to Rodney who is actually in charge. and then of course it's jay's decision and then greg will need to see you naked and if you survive you'll be given a drug test and a full anal examination.
and of course you'll be hungry this whole time, aren't you, months and months of the same shit. months of no insurance, no meds, no funding, barely able to afford the internet and the phone and the rent - all things you need in order to even apply for our thing. but do it again! do it again and again and again, until you flip inside out and turn into a being of pure dread!
you're not hired yet because you're lazy. there's over one million AI-generated hallucinated jobs in your area. don't worry. with zipruiter, hiring and firing is easier than ever. sign up. stay on-call.
in the meantime, little peon - why don't you just fucking suffer.
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terrestrialnoob · 2 months ago
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Gut Feeling
DPXDC
Commissioner Jim Gordon meets an odd kid in the precinct.
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“Come on, you really don’t have a way to directly contact Batman?”
Jim smiled. Kids came to the station and asked that all the time. Usually, it was just curiosity and showing them the signal was enough to get them to sign up for the Junior Police program. This one looked a little older than most, teenagers were often “too old” to believe in Batman, but again, give them a little faith now and they’ll never loose it.
“Lookin’ for the Bat, kid?” Jim asked, knowing he was about to make this kid’s –
Jim froze. The kid turned to face him and it was Bruce Wayne. Not playboy billionaire Bruce Wayne, but freshly a teenager Bruce Wayne. The Bruce Wayne who Jim had checked in on time and again from age eight until he ran off on a globetrotting trip to find himself. The little Bruce Wayne with too pale skin and dark bags under his eyes, and not enough love to make up for all the grief weighing him down. And he didn’t look like Damian either, where Bruce was obviously his father but there were distinct traits from his mother. This was a carbon copy of a boy Jim remembered vividly.
“I am.” He even sounded like teenage Bruce. All business, like he was on a mission.
“I might be able to help you, but it’ll take a while.” Jim said and the officer the kid had been talking too gave him an odd look. He waved her off and told the kid to follow him to the commissioner’s office. Normally, he’d be more dramatic, put on more of a show for the kid, but his gut told him this was different, this was important. He offered the kid a styrofoam cup of water then closed the door behind him. “So, what do you need to talk to Batman for?”
“It’s personal. I need to talk to him in person.”
Jim took a sip of coffee from his cup. “He doesn’t appreciate me calling for no reason in the middle of the day.”
“So you do have a direct line?” The kid nearly jumped out of his seat. “If he’s upset, it’ll be my fault, just call him, please.”
“Who should I say wants to talk to him?”
The kid hesitated. “He doesn’t know me, but I have to talk to him.”
Jim frowned. “What’s your name, kid?”
He swallowed and looked like he wasn’t going to answer for a moment. “Danny.”
“Danny…?” Jim wanted a last name but Danny kept quiet. Jim sighed, “He’s likely not going to show up until sundown.”
“I can wait, as long as you guarantee he’ll show.”
“And you’re not going to tell me why you need Batman?” Jim just got a glare in response. “What about one of the other heroes?”
“Only Batman, no one else can help.”
“You sure about that? Not even Superman?”
“Not unless Superman can get me in the same room as Batman.”
“Why’s it so important that you meet him in person?”
“It’s personal.”
Jim liked this less and less by the minute. “Do your parents know you’re here?”
Danny looked away but right when it looked like he wouldn’t say anything he mumbled. “They wouldn’t care anyway.”
After another moment to give the kid time to reconsider, Jim pulled out the Bat-phone. It was a normal Wayne-Tech cell phone, but Jim had been given very specific instructions on how and when to use it. The phone listed all the Gotham Vigilantes without visible numbers so they couldn’t be copied and handed out. He pressed the one for Batman.
“Stand outside, would you?” The kid gave him a look, but followed the request. Jim could see his shadow in the door’s window, not so subtle eavesdropping.
It rang a few times, and Jim sat there awkwardly with a teenager listening to his every move. Finally, a familiar voice picked up the other end of the line. “Commissioner Gordon.”
“Sorry to call you out of the blue Batman, but I’ve got a kid here who needs your help.”
“Who?”
“Says his name is Danny, that you’ve never met him but you’re the only one who can help him.”
“Why?”
“Refuses to tell me.”
“What’s your best guess, Commissioner?”
Jim looked at Danny’s shadow, it looked like he was straining his ears to try and hear what he was saying. Danny had given him almost nothing to work with. Just his name, that he’s never met Batman but needs to talk with him in person. But Jim was here because he listened to his gut. A feeling like when you see a random rock on your neighbor’s doorstep but you’d never go in without an invitation. A feeling like you know what’s in the present and are preparing your surprised face. A feeling like when you cheated on your wife and you know she knows.
“He looks like Bruce Wayne.”
A beat of silence. “What?”
“Danny looks exactly like Bruce when he was a teenager. Exactly the same.” Jim hoped Batman would get it, feel in his gut what Jim felt.
“And he wont say why he’s there?”
“No, and he demands to see you in person.”
“I’ll be there in an hour.”
“10-4.” The line cut off before Jim had finished saying it. He called Danny in again. “He’s on his way.”
Danny glared at him. “If he’s not, if you called some social worker or something, you’ll regret it.”
“I’m sure.” Jim sighed and downed the rest of his now cold coffee.
The sun hadn’t set, but only just barely. Jim ended up taking Danny up to the roof in the end after all, if only to save his window from being broken into. The kid had a red hoodie on, but he was still shivering in the autumn chill and it was just going to get colder by the minute as the sun made its way behind the horizon.
Jim checked his watch and, at exactly an hour from when he called, he acted surprised when Batman and Robin appeared out of nowhere. “Bats.”
“Commissioner.” Batman greeted but his eyes went straight for Danny. “Danny, I assume.”
“Yeah, I…” Danny hesitated, looking at Jim and Robin.
All it took was four words from Batman. “What do you need?”
The kid held out his hand with a flash drive in it. “I’m your clone. My par- The people who made me wanted to make a stronger version of you, but they got ahead of themselves. My DNA is degrading and I’ll die if I don’t get your DNA to stabilize me.”
Holy cow.
“You don’t expect us to believe that, do you?” Robin sneered at him.
“The flash drive has all the info on it. All the data about the cloning process and the, uh, relevant experiments after that.” Batman gave the kid a look. “I didn’t want to waste time on unnecessary data.”
“If what you’re saying is true, why are you here, alone? Are they working on a different solution?”
Danny’s shoulders hiked up. “I’ve been a failure for a while now, I’m not worth the resources and they’d learn more from an autopsy.”
Oof, kid. Jim looked at Batman who seemed to feel the same… if Jim was reading him right.
“So, you wont object to a DNA test?” Robin asked with a cocky head tilt, at least he was relatively easy to read.
“You can try.” Danny said, and then realized what that sounded like. “I mean I wont stop you, but my DNA degrades faster outside my body. You’ll have to take me to whatever lab you plan on using.”
“Then we will.” Batman said and jerked his head towards where they’d probably parked that ridiculous car of his. But then he looked at Jim with a nod. “Commissioner.”
“Batman.” Jim returned the nod. “You’ll tell me how things turn out, yeah?”
“I’ll give you a report.” Batman joked – Jim could tell, it was gut feeling.
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odorefal · 1 month ago
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◟♡ ˒ ʾʾ 𝗄𝖾𝗇𝗍𝗈 𝗇𝖺𝗇𝖺𝗆𝗂 hated himself every time he ended up arguing with you.
hell, even if it’s unintentional, he couldn’t bear to see you isolate yourself instead of communicating, knowing it was when you just want to be alone. but the awful thoughts in your head (like he had another woman) making him wish he could take them all out of your mind.
even though you told him to go away, and used his full name, nanami wouldn’t stop. he’d hold you and reassured you with kind, soothing words.
and if you did, he’d just hold onto you and speak soothingly to calm you down. he brought you to the bed and made sure you both got cozy. he leaned against the headboard while you were in his lap.
he’d wipe away the tears on your face and the ones gathering in your eyes. his other hand would softly brush your cheek, as he apologized for the hurtful words he didn’t intend.
he’d take your knuckle and kiss the marriage ring on your index finger. your heart fluttered, even though you couldn't stand him. kissing every spot on it, he would later rest your hand on his chest so you can feel his heartbeat, making sure you know he’s yours; all while looking at you with affection as his hand gently caressed your hair.
if he successfully comforts you, he won’t let you go, not even to use the bathroom. he’s refuse to sleep by himself, worried you might escape. he’d sleep on the couch, the bathtub, or even the cabinet, but for you? don’t expect too much.
and when you wake up tomorrow, you would notice a breakfast is already prepared beside the coffee table, with a little note “i’m sorry for yesterday’s occurrence, my love. i've to go to work, but i already kissed your forehead beforehand.”
you found yourself smiling widely at the sight.
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bi-writes · 4 months ago
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an eye for an eye | knight!ghost x f!reader
your husband bends to your will. men must learn from difficult lessons how far that bending goes.
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type: a continuation of a hand for a hand, but can be read stand-alone (11.6k), AO3
cw: 1600s au, dark!ghost, reader described as curvier/plus-sized, graphic depictions of war + violence, possessive!ghost, war-criminal!ghost, inaccurate historical settings probably, unprotected piv, cumplay, breeding kink, size kink, simon "i'd do anything for my wife no matter the devasting consequences" riley (18+)
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Your husband has an insatiable appetite. Such a big man he is; he towers over you, so much so that you must tip your head back always to look up at him. You had to make many arrangements in your house to accommodate his hunger–a pantry stocked full of eggs and less fabric for your skirts.
Your house isn’t like others. Neither you nor Ghost have ever lived in luxury. When he showed you your home for the first time, you had shaken your head–you didn’t believe that such a large place was supposed to be yours, and even now, sometimes you feel like a stranger, out of place when the maids ask you what you want for supper or where you’d like to take your afternoon tea. You don’t like the fuss, the asking, the women that curtsy when you come near, concentrated over the creases in your skirts or the loose thread of your sleeve or the wispy hairs that fall out of your braids. You are told all the time that you must behave like a duchess, that you must poise yourself with your new title and your new money, and you must do the things that duchesses do–but no one says the same to your husband.
He is still allowed to sleep in the barracks. Lick the blood off his gauntlets. Polish his sword in the dirt. He’s still allowed to be everything that you cannot be anymore, he still lives the life he had before.
He still kills; and he is still very, very good at it.
Your queen told you in a letter that the king is very pleased. Ever since your union, Ghost has been quite the conqueror. Bloodthirsty and very determined, your husband has been taking his men across the water. He is not any less impressive off land. Not even the pirates have tried to negotiate; they bend the knee or taste the salt water. You breathe shakily when you read your queen’s letters—her praise for your husband’s conquests, how blessed your family will be and how valuable you are to the crown, how grateful she is that Ghost is no longer a fiend in court but rather a little more polite and a little quieter.
All for your sake. Ghost’s name is now your own, and he refuses to embarrass you now that you have it.
You won’t lie; the bodies that Ghost has stacked since you’ve been wed do not scare you. He’s doing it for you. He has never said it out loud, never told you so, but you know it. He wants to show you what kind man that he is, what kind of soldier—you know he’s trying to prove himself worthy. If he killed a thousand men to have you, how many will he slaughter to keep you?
He sends you letters of his own. Not many, but he does send letters, and while Ghost seems to be ineloquent and entirely too brutish, he has quite the voice when he writes.
To my wife,
The sun falls quicker here. I’d like to come home. Tell me of your day, and I will tell you of mine. There were a fleet of ships that came to meet us at dawn. When we sank three, they begged for us to spare the rest.
I have you to think about now. So I burned them.
Simon
A poet, your beloved.
He signs his real name in his letters. Your eyes skim over most of it–you don’t even blink when he tells you what he does to them. Sometimes he writes in great detail about the screams of a hundred souls, the way burning flesh smells, the taste of dirt in a new place when you know it is finally yours. He doesn’t like having secrets. He tells you all his thoughts, even if they might scare you, because you are his wife, and he has discovered quite quickly that you have been cut from the same cloth.
Even when he is home, and he tells you these things all over again, he can’t help the way his cock hardens when you merely blink and ask him if he has added any scars to his collection.
Ravenous, naughty little duchess, and you are all his. He knows he picked well–he knows, he knows he wasn’t wrong when he saw you across the throne room hiding behind his queen, he knows now that he was right about what he saw in your eyes.
You do hate when he’s away. You’re not used to the maids helping you dress, and you secretly abhor the help. That is why when you hear the shuffle of your house early in the morning, your heart thuds in your chest knowing he’s home.
The staff get antsy when Simon is around. He is very good at keeping an estate for someone that has never had to or ever been taught to, but he leaves the responsibilities with you and only you every time he goes. He doesn’t trust anyone else to do it, and every time he comes back, he makes you sit on one big thigh as he teaches you something new that you need to remember for when he goes away. He demands much of those he employs, and they are eager to please him. Whether it is because they respect him or are afraid of him, you aren’t sure.
Perhaps it’s both.
You sit up as the bedroom door opens. You smile, big and wide and sleepy as he steps into the room. He shuts the door with his boot, slipping his hood off, and you sigh as he grips the clasp of his mask and unhooks it. He tosses it onto the floor, bare-faced, and as he makes his way towards the bed, he sheds the rest of his clothes until he’s completely naked.
You cannot stop yourself from the shaky breath you take. He is all muscle and fat, strong and entirely too scary, but it’s hard to focus on what he really is when he stands before you like this. He has fat thighs, big shoulders, carved muscle of intense labor around his middle and along his biceps. He has large hands with calloused palms and split knuckles, and your eyes meet his own as he comes closer. He’s so gorgeous, even with a face like that. He has a long scar that stretches from one brow to his lower jaw, another that cuts his nose and splits his lip, but those eyes are dark and lovely, and you can’t help the warmth that comes over you when he catches you staring at him, closer, right to his cock that hangs heavy between his legs.
Just as he begins to lower himself onto the bed, you hold out a hand, giggling.
“Simon, if you think you are getting into this bed without a proper bath, you’re mistaken!” You laugh, and he raises a brow.
“Mmm…” He smacks his lips together. “Tha’ right, my lady?” He clicks his tongue. “This is my bed. ’s oll mine. Every blanket…every pillow…” He grips your ankle from under the covers and yanks you towards him. “And every part of you.”
You giggle again, shaking your head, “Please, Simon!” You push him away with your toes. “They only changed the sheets yesterday. You’ll dirty them…” You flutter your lashes. “Will you bathe if I join you?”
He grins wide, licking over his teeth.
“Can’t refuse an offer like tha’.”
You hold out your hand for him, and he takes it gently. You watch as he brings your knuckles towards his mouth, and you bite back a smile when he decides to kiss each one, slow. He tugs finally, pulling you up, and you wrap your arms around his neck as he hoists you up into his arms. You would worry about your weight normally, but Simon holds you so easily, barely even a grunt as he wraps your legs around his middle. You don’t waste another second, cupping his cheeks in your hands and kissing him softly.
It’s never just a kiss with Simon. He slides one of his hands up your back, into your hair, and you whine as he tips your head back just enough to slip his tongue into your mouth. Simon doesn’t just kiss, he consumes. What he did to get back to you, the things he endured, the places he has seen and the bodies he has buried and burned and scattered across the places he now calls country, it’s always to get back to this place.
To you.
“How’s my boy?” He asks when you pull away. He carries you to another room, to where the tub sits, and he rings a bell by the door to call the maids in. You snatch a robe off a hook and cover him with it as he sits with you, but all he does is put a few fingers under your chin and make you look at him again. “Oi. Asked ya question, luv.”
Your lip wobbles a little, and you look away.
“I…”  You wait until the maids have gone to fetch hot water to tell him. “I bled while you were gone. I…”  You smooth your hands over the robe, distracting yourself. “I’m…I’m sorry, Simon.”
You close your eyes as he leans close, resting his forehead against yours, and you shake a little as he lets out a warm breath against your lips. He moves a warm hand over your soft stomach, cupping you there, and you lean your head back a little at the tender touch.
“It will happen,” he says finally, and your mouth opens to respond, but he sticks his thumb between your lips to shut you up. He doesn’t want to hear you blame yourself. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s his, for not being here with you, for not be able to take care of you. You give in, suckling on the salt of him, and he grits his teeth as he watches you. “I know. Seen it in m’dreams.”
Simon has dreams. Lots of dreams, but he tells you that they are not dreams, they are glimpses into something that has already happened. When you asked if he was some kind of seer, the kind that the king used to have at parties, Simon doesn’t laugh.
He says the dreams are why he knows he won’t die. Why he is never afraid, because he knows somewhere behind his eyes what’s to come even if he didn’t see the entire painting of it. It is why he knew he would marry you; it is why he paid you so much attention, why he knew he would win his battles, why he always knows whose blood it is in his mouth because he has tasted their death before and relishes in the knowing of it all, in the certainty.
It’s never I think, it is always I know, and Simon is nothing if he is not the most honest man that you know.
So if he says you will have his babe, it is as good as truth. As green as the grass grows beneath his feet, as blue as his sky, and as red as the blood that is caked underneath his nails.
When the tub is filled with water, you let Simon sink into it first. You kneel beside it, picking up a glass of oil, pouring it into your palms before sinking your hands into his hair. It’s gotten longer since he left, in need of a cut, but you smile when he leans his head back into your shoulder. You can feel his content as he relaxes into you, and you admire his physique as you use the warm water and scrub the mud and grime off of him.
“I missed you, husband,” you whisper, and he only lets you massage his hair for a few more moments before he grips you by the wrist and tugs you forward, right into the bath. “Simon!” you laugh, “my night dress—oh!—it’s ruined!”
“Too far away,” he mutters, practically ripping the silk off of you as he tosses it besides the bath. “Mmm…” He cups your breasts with two big hands, smoothing his thumbs over your nipples, and you whine a little as he pulls at them just enough to make them stiffen. “Y’should be naked when I come home,” he says lowly. “I’ll soil y’r bloody gown next time, m’lady.”
You giggle, and he smiles. A real smile. As real as he’ll ever give anyone, maybe the only one that anyone has ever even seen. He has never shown his face in court, and while it angers the women and irks the men, you revel in the fact that all of this is only for you.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
You kiss him softly. The water sloshes, warm and inviting, and sometimes you forget your life used to be anything but joy. A year ago, you would not believe that you would be here, titled, wealthy, in a stone room lit by candles bathing with a blood hungry ghost.
A year ago, you trembled whenever he looked at you. You cowered when you heard his footsteps. What a stupid little girl you had been. What a fool. She had no idea what she could have, the kinds of things she could hold in her hand.
Real power wasn’t being able to command a room with your words. Real power was being able to say anything and have it be believed as truth. Real power was making someone look in one direction and have them see what you see, even if what you see isn’t real.
He lays you down in your bed afterward and eats. Your wet hair soaks the sheets, but you can’t seem to be really bothered as he fits your legs over his shoulders and bends you at the waist, his mouth suctioned to your clit as he eats you slowly. One of his hands is spread out over your tummy, the other you can hear making a squelch as he fists his own cock. It’s slow and methodical, and he slides his tongue between your folds firm, catching what dribbles from you on the tip of his tongue before he swallows it and leans in for more.
He has eaten you in nearly every room in your house. Frightened the cooks tossing you onto the dining table, given a servant a scare as he ducked under your skirts in the library, had the gardeners fleeing as he dropped you onto the grass near the lake and disappeared with a frenzy to eat your cunt during sunrise. It’s maddening, the kind of need that Simon requires, but it’s hard to refuse when you feel so warm and bubbly and happy after he’s finished. A pampered princess you are, never lifting a finger, only awake long enough when he’s home to eat until you’re full and cum until you fall asleep again.
Maybe that’s why you’re not pregnant yet. Simon likes to be here, between your thighs, mouth fixed on your wet pussy until he’s practically exhausted himself with a sore jaw and lax tongue.
He kisses you sloppy after. Licking into your mouth, practically spitting onto your tongue, wanting you to taste—tastes so good, luvvie, don’t ya see, yeah?—wanting you to know why he’s so eager to be on his knees all the time.
You sniffle, a little dizzy, shaking your head.
“’s not what I really want,” is all you whimper, and he nods, because he knows, he always knows.
“I know, luv. I know wot ya really need.”
“I must be broken,” you sob, cradling his face in your hands, and he shakes his head.
“Not broken,” Simon assures you. He speaks so surely that it’s hard not to believe him. “It wasn’t time.”
“You can’t see the future, Simon! You don’t know!” You cry, and he snarls a little, shaking his head again.
“You listen t’me,” he growls. You shake a little as he grabs your face with one hand, fixing your jaw under his grip as he holds onto you firmly. “Wot I say goes. Y’r my wife, so listen t’me, and listen t’me good. Y’r not broken. Not time. Say it back t’me.”
Your lip trembles, and he rattles your head a little.
“Say it,” he snaps, and you hiccup.
“It’s not time,” you whisper, and he plants a fat kiss onto your tear-soaked lips.
“Just need my cock, luv,” he murmurs. “Tha’s oll. Just need me t’fuck it outta ya.”
You nod, pressing your face to his, and he tuts, reaching down and spreading your legs wide to accommodate him between them as he lays over you.
“’s oll y’need,” he repeats, and you nod again.
You have to take another bath in the same morning; and this time, you weren’t able to walk there.
You like when Simon is home because it’s quiet. The only one that dotes on you here is Simon. The maids do not dress you or do your hair or moisturize your skin. It’s always Simon.
You smile at him in the mirror as you sit at your vanity. He has a brush in one hand, and he’s using it delicately to detangle your hair how you like. His hands are practiced and gentle, and when he finishes, he leans over you as he starts to part your hair to braid it. He did not have sisters, but his mother had him always do her hair after she lost the use of her hands with age. You don’t know where his mother is, but you assume she is not here anymore, because he never invites you to meet her.
He oils your skin. He slips the robe off of you, revealing your damp skin from the bath, and he slathers oil in his hands before using it to soften your skin. He takes his time, smoothing those big hands over your shoulders, down your back, along your arms. You tilt your head back when he warms your breasts, squeezing and fondling your tits. He murmurs in your ear the entire time, and he has to fuck you with his fingers to quiet you when he stops because just his hands on your tits has you wet all over again.
He dresses you, too. Helps you slip into your undergarments, fastens the cage for your skirts over your hips. He ties them skillfully, and after he layers your skirts over the farthingale, he gets you into your corset. It’s intimate as he does this. Even with your wide skirt, he comes closer, over your shoulder, and he tugs at the laces at your back, pulling it tight with firm grunts. You sigh when he buries his face into the crook of your neck, his hand skimming over your breasts as they sit nice and perky between stiff fabric and whalebone.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “Fuck, unnerving…the way ya look…”
You close your eyes, “S-Simon, please…I’m already dressed…”
He chuckles, “I know. I know.”
But when he has to leave again, you nearly come with him. You fasten his armor for him, help him slip each piece of leather on and click every piece of metal into place. You tie his cloak and slip his mask on, and you try and duck your head when you flip his hood up, but he catches you, tilting your chin up.
He huffs when he sees your face. Tears sliding down your cheeks, lips wet with them, eyes all glassy and red. He draws you up onto your toes, pressing his mouth to yours through the mask, and you hold onto him tightly, digging your nails into his chest armor and threatening to not let go.
“I want to go.“
“No.”
“Simon, let me go,” You gasp, begging, gripping his hood in firm fists and not caring that his armor is cutting into your front. “Let me go with you, I can’t do this anymore, I want to go, I can do it.”
You aren’t sure if Simon underestimates you. You think it’s more that he does not want you to see him in a place where he is most true. Where he wears the least of a disguise. He does not know he wears it the least with you, and that you have already seen his blood and how it curdles under his skin. You like it that way. You like him angry…and mean…and terrible. You like him when his sword is dirty and his armor needs polishing and his mind thinks of nothing else besides war. He should know this by now. He should know that you see him and see what he is even more than his king, more than his men.
He couldn’t scare you, even if he tried.
“War is not where women go,” Simon snaps. His tone is harsh, even for you, and you stiffen when he grips you by the jaw and rattles your head a little. “Especially not one like you, my love. War would eat ya, eat ya fuckin’ whole. Look at ya…” He huffs, deep, sliding that gloved hand down your throat to slip it beneath the neckline of your dress and fondle your breast with a firm grip. “Beautiful. Meant for my lips…for these dresses…meant to be held in my hands, not bleed from stray arrows, because tha’ is surely the least of wot they would do t’ya if they knew ya were my wife. Now ya will wipe these tears, ‘n see me off, and then ya will come back inside like a good girl, ‘n you will wait for me here until I come back.”
Your bottom lip trembles, and you scowl up at him. Not indifference, but frustration, and Simon doesn’t think it suits you.
“I’m sick of waiting for you, Simon,” you spit. “It’s all I ever do, wait. Wait for you to come back, alive or dead, I never know. And don’t say you do this for country, that is a lie.” You shove him backwards, but he barely budges when your hands touch his chest, a rigid wall that does not give. “You do it because you like it. You’re a bloodthirsty dog, and all you do is bend to our king’s will.”
A lie, but you tell it anyways, because you want something, and he will not give it to you.
“That is my duty.”
“Your duty is to me,” you snap. “Kings come and go, but I will not.” Simon stills. He glares down at you from behind his mask, and perhaps this might terrify his men, but that you are not. You are his wife, and you are protected by that title alone. The only man to ever lay a hand on you would not live to see another second, himself included. “Now you will let me join you, or so help me God, Simon, I will not be here when you return.”
You do not expect the full-bellied laugh that leaves him. His armor shakes with him, and you grind your teeth, narrowing your eyes. He uses his thumb to force his mask up, and then he cups the back of your head and draws you in for a sloppy kiss. You resist at first, but when he feeds you his tongue, you melt. You kiss him back, letting him draw you closer, and you sigh as he tangles his fingers into your hair and cradles you with those big hands.
There is nothing more to say. Simon neither confirms nor denies, but you taste it in his mouth, his devotion. Not wrong, not right, but just so–he has many responsibilities, but you are the only one that will remain the same. One day, his king will die, and he will serve another, but the space you have made beside him will never change. Even when you die, because he knows you will go before him, there will never be someone else to fill it. You and you only, the woman he found and made his, the one he demanded lest he kill his own country for it, it will always be you. Soft and sweet, you are, but the Lord knew Simon could only have one woman, and he made it be you; the one spitfire enough to defy her own king because she trusted his love enough for it.
Would you commit treason to save his life? Would you watch a king die if it meant your beloved lived? 
Would he?
He thinks about what you have said when he takes his fleet across the water. He runs his tongue over his teeth behind his mask, breathing deep when he thinks about your proclamations of duty. Of change. Of what remains when other things move, of the kind of life that waits for him when he comes and goes with a king’s order. He thinks about how easily he is taken away from you, and he knows there is truth in what you feel. It is not really Simon that sacrifices, it is what he leaves behind, and that is you.
It’s never angered him before. He had accepted the fact, as early as your wedding day, that he would leave and come back, then leave again. It has always been the way of his life, come desire or not, so it bothers him that of all the things that surprised him in his life, it would be missing someone that shocked him the most.
Missing his wife. Missing the serene perfection of one woman, and the perfect place between her soft thighs. Every day that he finds himself between them is the best day of his life, he reckons, so now he feels bitter about staring at a freezing ocean amongst his men because he will go weeks without her.
Her. Her. Her.
He is bitter, yes, until he is not.
It comes in a letter from a messenger on horseback. They have been stationed in a foreign land for weeks now, watching slowly as the stone walls of a castle at their front crumples day after day from the stones filled with powder that ignite what is wood and break what is rock. The letter is sealed with wax, with the motif of a snake. It is given directly to Simon, whose name is scribbled in the letter, and when he reads it, he tastes ichor and smoke.
So the great phantom has come to seal my fate. I am not in the business of letting what is mine be taken. Even if you have brought your all, it won’t be taken from me.
I heard you have a beautiful new wife. I heard you paid for her in blood.
I shall do the same. I will hang your sword above our marriage bed.
Ghost is not someone that bends to the threats from foe he cannot look in the eye. Words are so empty. It is nothing like when he stands just a few meters apart from them, eyes fixed against one another, as they decide whether today they want to live or they want to die. The letter means nothing, but he’s surprised by the heat that bubbles under his ribs at the mention of his bride. He meant it when he said you were not meant for war, and that meant in this regard, too–nobody was allowed to talk about you, not like this, not ever.
When his king orders him home, Ghost crumples the note and tosses it into embers. He watches it burn, and then he orders his men to set to flame the ground around the stone walls.
So men like him can be goaded, it seems. His resolve is not as strong as he thought.
The weeks make you anxious. All you do is sit and collect dues and tell the maids which dress you want to wear and which you do not. It is peaceful and boring, and you wish Simon was here to make your days more exciting, but he is not.
His letters are the only things that keep you occupied, truly. He writes to you about war and loneliness, and you write to him about the mundane of domesticity and the ache he leaves behind. Sometimes, his letters come folded with pressed flowers he finds along the way, and you start to collect them, putting them away in small boxes or using them as bookmarks as you go through Simon’s library.
He has many books. His most loved books are those of war, of history, and you smooth your fingers over the pages he has dogeared and find comfort in reading the same words that he once did. You learn, as well. While in your studies as a girl, they made you learn arithmetic and the flowery bits of history and art, here in Simon’s house, you learn of strategy and weaponry and military tactic. Sometimes you disagree, and you write about these disagreements to Simon, and he writes back, pleased with your observations. He told you once that if you were a man, he would want you in that tent with him, beside him, deciding on which formations to take and when to strike. You responded saying that you could be that for him anyway. What did your sex have anything to do with whether you were right or wrong?
Simon agreed.
But I would never invite you here, dear wife. You have to understand that.
When your queen asks for your audience for dinner, you oblige easily; finally, you have something to do rather than add up numbers or sign a document on Simon’s behalf or read another fucking book.
You don’t want to wear all the costume your maids insist on, but you appease them after they repeatedly explain to you what your title means. With a drawn face, you let them tie your corset and layer your skirts, and you watch in the mirror as they braid your hair and drape large, obnoxious jewels over you. You grimace at the tiara they fit into your hair, and your elderly handmaid pinches your cheeks and tells you to put on a fair countenance, Your Grace, lest you make the Duke look ungrateful.
You bite your tongue from snapping at her. She should know that Simon would say nothing about your countenance; all he would do is fix whatever was bothering you until you smiled again.
You arrive early enough to have tea. Your queen is so excited to see you; she gushes when you meet her in the throne room, pulling you up from your curtsy so she can hug you tight, squealing. When you try to address her with a curt “Your Majesty,” she shakes her head, pressing her hands to your cheeks and giggling, “No need for formalities now. Call me Victoria.”
You hide your displeasure with a small smile. Now that you are no longer her lady-in-waiting, she allows you her name. Is it because she sees you more as equals, or because now you’re allowed to be somewhat of friends?
You must be some kind of friend. She sizes you up like you are one. She wears England’s colors this afternoon. A fire red dress adorned with gold accents, a dragon pin holding her shawl. She wears magnificent red and gold jewelry, but she’s looking at your dress, and you can see the slight twitch of her eye. You are wearing French lace, and she doesn’t like it. Or maybe she doesn’t like the color, the accents of navy blue and silver that you wear.
The skull motif that is woven into your tiara and printed on your coat and sewn into your dress. Does it insult her? That all your life, you wore nothing but browns and beiges and grays, were invisible to her, and now you represent your house, visit her as your guest, and bear an honorable name?
You were no one when you served her. Just a girl, no close family, no friends, just a distant uncle who gave you to the crown that hoped you could be of service. That was to be your duty for all your life–to serve the king’s wife until she wanted you no more or until she was gone. To cater to her every need and every wish, no matter the time of day or night.
Now you sit across her, more noble. Refined. Wearing a dress she despises, perhaps because she likes it more than her own.
Over tea, she gossips about the other ladies she has visit. You’ve heard this before, but you’ve never been included in the conversation. She talks to you, and she wants to hear your opinion, and you find yourself uneasy as you try to think of what to say. She is your queen, and you want her to like you. When you worked for her, you earned her favor by always warming up her jewels before she put them on, by making sure she had her tea ready in the morning at her bedside, by always holding the fan she so loved for when she inevitably had a hot flash. Now, as her friend, you weren’t exactly sure what to do. You suck in a soft breath and look at her, and then you purse your lips.
You think it best to agree with her. To be on her side. You might not be her direct servant any longer, but you still must fall under her favor. A queen’s favor can be just as powerful, especially if she occasionally has the ear of her husband.
“Well, that’s not very kind of her,” you say finally, and she laughs.
“No! She’s such a prude. I think her husband doesn’t sleep in her bed enough, if you know what I mean,” she winks at you. You giggle at that. “Speaking of husbands–” She pops another cake in her mouth. “How is yours?”
You reach up and tug at your necklace a bit, smiling nervously.
“Oh, uh…” You clear your throat, “He’s doing very well. I hear his latest campaign is quite the success. His majesty is very smart, heading for the east that way, I’m sure they will be victorious soon enough.”
Victoria smiles at the thought of her husband. His intelligence. She always used to talk to you about how many hours he worked, how she hated when he was away, how she wished he was home more so he could give her a son because she was so, so lonely.
“Wise words from the duchess, aye, my love?”
You jump a bit at the low voice from behind, and when you turn, you gasp, immediately standing and falling into a delicate curtsy. John Price waves his hand, coming further into the room, shaking his head.
“It’s alright,” he tells you. “Please, sit. You’re here as my guest.”
You stand and lift your head, trying to relax. You take a seat, smiling nervously, and Victoria smiles giddily at her husband. When he bends to kiss her cheek, she fawns, reaching for his hand and squeezing it before taking another piece of tart and eating it. John hums before motioning for one of the staff to fill your cup again with tea. He eyes you curiously, taking in your appearance. You sit up at that, performatively brushing off over the skull pattern on your corset. John runs his tongue over his teeth, smoothing a big palm down his wife’s long coils of hair.
“Since you’re here, I’d like a word, if that’s alright,” John says to you. His tone carries a little more authority now, and Victoria sighs, whining a little.
“John, please, she’s my friend. Can’t it wait–”
“That wasn’t a question, Victoria,” John bites. Her face falls a little. She swallows and tucks her hands into her lap. You’re reminded as you look at the slight wobble of her lip that there is no one truly above John Price, not even her. You keep your face neutral, but if you were invisible, you’d pity her.
What a shame her husband sees her as less than. How embarrassing. Your Simon would never. Your Simon waits until you finish speaking before speaking himself. Your husband kneels to take off your shoes, your husband tears your skirts to get a taste of you, your husband used his teeth to sever a man’s throat just to have your hand.
What did John Price do to get his wife? Who did John Price kill to have her hand? How many bruises did he earn around his knees on their wedding night from eating her out? As many as Simon, whose knees were black and blue by morning?
No, you suppose not. How unfortunate. How pathetic.
Victoria picks up her skirt and stands, pasting a big smile on her face. It doesn’t reach her eyes, and you can see the way her hands shake a little as she scurries off. She scowls as soon as she turns away from John, clearly annoyed.
“I’ll go check on dinner,” she says, but it is soft and unenthusiastic.
When she goes, the room falls quiet. At the nod of John’s head, the staff leave, and you keep still in your seat as John sits across from you, picking up one of the cakes in front of him and breaking off a piece to busy himself. He keeps his eyes on his task of cutting up the cake in small pieces, focused on his hands and how they work. You watch him carefully, steeling yourself.
You anticipate a conversation between man and woman, not a king and his lesser.
“Simon’s been away for some time. I bet that’s difficult for you.”
You straighten your posture, realizing what this conversation will be. By his tone, John seems to think you a bored, stupid housewife, perhaps. Uneducated. A woman, no thoughts in her head. You let your face relax, and you fold your hands in your lap. Maybe now is the time John should learn who you are and who you are not.
What you have become and what you no longer are.
“I do just fine, Your Majesty,” you say finally. You pick up a spoon and drop a cube of sugar into your tea, and you stir, picking it up to take a long sip. John is curious by your content. You have a quick tongue. “I could say the same to you, couldn’t I?”
John laughs. He narrows his eyes a bit at your clever response, taking a large bite of the cake and running a cloth over his beard. His eyes sparkle a little.
“So you know.”
“Know what, Your Majesty?”
“You know I gave Simon orders. And you know he didn’t listen to me.”
You purse your lips, but he sees the shine in your eyes. The lack of surprise. His face twitches a bit, and you shake your head. You blink slow, and it irks him to see you so calm. He is your king, and Simon answers to him, and you are his wife, so you must answer, too.
“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”
“I could have your husband’s head cut off for treason for that, you’re aware, aren’t you?”
You tilt your head to the side. What an odd thing for John to say. What an odd thing for John to contemplate, since it would never come to pass. “Don’t be daft, my king. You wouldn’t want to do that.”
John slams his fist on the table, making the plates and cups rattle with his frustration, but you do not even flinch. You blink, stone-faced, and it makes his nostrils flare. He recognizes that glare, he knows it well. He has seen it before, stared it down many times in rooms just like this. Only now, he is not fighting for land, he fights for control of the one man that he has always been able to rely on. Simon has followed him into battles outnumbered by a thousand men, and only now he ignores an order? Only now he chooses something different?
“Now, let’s be civil, Your Majesty,” you say softly. You smile at him, leaning your head in your hand. “Is there something that you need from me? I have a feeling you might have encouraged this dinner just so you could see me in passing, so why don’t you just ask me what you wanted to ask me?”
John lets out a deep breath, leaning his elbows on the table, lowering his voice. He leans towards you, and you admire how blue his eyes are. John is quite a handsome king, but he does not captivate you. It has been a long time since John has tasted blood, and he lacks the edge that you crave dearly.
“I need him back here, is what I need,” John murmurs.
“My king, I couldn’t get him back here any more than you could, even if I wanted to.”
“Now who’s being daft?”
You scoff, leaning back in your chair. John is not a stupid man. He created a beast of a man, and he is trying not to poke it too hard. You shift, brushing down your skirts, and you let out a low breath.
“Why did he refuse?” You ask finally.
“What?”
“Why does he ignore your order to come back?” You ask again. “I can’t think of a lot of reasons why he would stay. So why did he ignore you?”
John clicks his tongue, smoothing a few of his fingers over his beard. He averts his eyes, looking out the tall windows, frowning a little at the grim weather. The weather is always grim here, but it irks him at the moment, makes him scowl a little harder.
“I was…informed that there was some sort of letter,” John explains. “Some threat.”
“I don’t follow. He gets lots of threats. And terrible letters.”
“Was about you this time, Your Grace.”
You close your eyes at that, shaking your head. Simon would never be so foolish as to be baited by baseless threats. He barely bats an eye when someone even in front of him draws his sword. He is so comforted by his ability to win, by his dreams and his visions that have not yet happened.
“That’s absurd,” you breathe. “Simon wouldn’t…”
John chuckles, but there is no humor there. “Wouldn’t he?”
“I still don’t understand what you expect me to do,” you roll your eyes, looking away. “Simon is��he’s not…he doesn’t listen. It’s why he’s good at this, isn’t it? He doesn’t really take orders, he’s…I…”
John has never complained before about the way Simon chooses to lead. Oftentimes, it is an order ignored that has made it so that he delivered another crown at John’s feet. Simon asks for forgiveness, not permission, and John has barely batted at eye at it. He sees Simon as some kind of distant son, but this refusal bothers him so?
John leans forward. “You need to understand something here, Simon is a rabid dog,” he spits. “And sometimes I let him off his lead, but this isn’t like anything I’ve had to deal with. I need you to call him back here.” He scoots closer. “England needs you to call him back here. To me.”
You narrow your eyes a little. England needs you to call him back? What kind of sick sense of patriotism is he trying to instill in you? John is stupider than he looks, to think a woman like you would show loyalty to country. You are loyal to your husband, and nothing else, because what has king and country ever really done for a woman like you except for dispose of you?
You wear Simon’s colors, not John’s, and you will wear them to your deathbed.
“If I do this for you, my king, then you owe me,” you whisper. He laughs again, no humor, and he picks up a goblet and fills it to the brim with wine. He drinks half before slamming it down onto the table, spilling it over his hand.
“Kings do not owe their subjects.”
“Quite right, Your Majesty,” you agree, picking up your napkin and dropping it onto the table. You stand, giving him a polite curtsy. “But I am not doing this as your subject.”
“Everything you do is as my subject.”
“You put your entire right to the throne on the back of one man,” you say softly. You are not accusing him, you’re reminding him of a truth. “Simon is why…he’s why your counsel still listens to you. He’s why your people are free from famine, why…why your taxes get paid on time, why your kingdom is still standing, no thanks to your father who wasted this place’s fortune on women and liquor.” You shake your head. “You have an eye for conquest, Your Majesty, but you lack the execution of any plan you conjure.”
You are not wrong, and John knows this, and it’s why he hasn’t spoken up yet or interrupted you. The man before, his own father, was a drunkard who spent all their money. He drank himself into the grave, and the only reason John stands before you now is because of Simon. A man who he fought beside, who he commanded, who once John’s duty became reality took up the mantle and finished what his father never could.
John would be in the next history book you read because of Simon, and it’s Simon’s name that will never be written. They do not bestow legacy to men who serve other men.
“Where…Where did you learn to speak to men this way?” John scoffs. “I am your king.”
You must have hit a soft spot. John is defensive now, and men only deflect and insult when they are cornered with the truth. They don’t like being held in front of a mirror.
“You are king because my husband made it so,” you correct him gently. “And Simon is a loyal dog, and that is good for your sake, because if he had any desire for your seat, it would be his.” You come closer, your heels sounding, and John glares down at you; but you glare right back because you are protected by your name and what you can do with it. John knows this, and it angers him, but he seems to have difficulty facing the truths of his own making. “But he is not your dog anymore. He’s mine.”
Your pen on paper is aggressive. You can tell because the splotches of ink are deep, bleeding black sinking into white as you put angry word to parchment. Not even a fortnight later, you are playing cards with Victoria, and you see Simon’s silhouette standing in the doorway, hood shadowing his masked face as he observes. When you look over your shoulder where John sits, and you meet his eyes, he looks away from you with a grim understanding.
Simon answers your call. Always.
At dinner, John is in better spirits. He drinks with a big smile, eats more than one plate, and he picks Victoria up by the waist to make her dance with him when he asks for the music to be played louder. Simon sits, fidgety, gloved hands moving in and out of fists as he watches you cut into your food and eat it with a blank face. He huffs beside you, his armor stiffening as he sits up straight, and you let your fork clatter onto your plate as you turn to glare at him.
“You were thinking with your cock, Simon,” you spit. “That is how men like you get killed.”
“You ‘ave no idea how men like me get killed because there are no men like me,” Simon growls. You roll your eyes, standing, and he grips your wrist angrily, tugging you close until you fall into his lap. You sigh, shaking your head, putting your hands on his broad shoulders and making him look at you.
“Maybe,” you whisper. “But I’m not wrong. It is how you’ll lose. You know better than that, Simon. To fight someone because they taunted you in a letter, it’s playing the fool.” You cup his cheeks, keeping his eyes on yours. “You don’t need me to tell you that, and yet here we are.”
He breathes slow, closing his eyes for just a moment. He thinks he came for this, just a little. For clarity. Reason. It comes from you in waves, and it’s comforting to hear. It is something he knew, and yet it only makes sense now that you have said it.
“I know,” Simon mutters. “I know. Y’r right. I’m sorry, luv.”
You ask him to apologize when he undresses you. You ask him to apologize again when he sinks into a hot bath with you. You ask him a third time when he is in your bed, a heavy weight between your thighs as he licks and sucks at the soft skin of your tummy. He begs, lowly, let me ‘ave it, and you will, but he has to say he’s sorry again.
“‘m sorry,” he breathes, sucking on your inner thigh, and you close your thighs around his head, forcing his mouth against your cunt.
“Again, Simon,” you whisper. “I wanna hear it again.”
“‘m sorry,” he slides a rough tongue between your folds, breathing shakily when he tastes the oil that he smoothed over your skin only moments ago. You taste so good, you smell so lovely, coming off of you like fumes blinding his senses so that nothing else but you makes any sense at all. When you open your eyes, you think about where you are, and you nearly come thinking about what you have wrapped around your finger.
Not even your king tells your husband what to do. Not even your king commands his men, they won’t listen, he’s not who they turn to when things go belly-up, it’s your husband, and your husband answers to you.
You weren’t sure about it until today. Seeing him when you asked him to come, it flooded you with something that hurt. You could tell from even so far away that Simon was salivating under that mask. You knew the only thing separating his mouth from your cunt were the other people around him (and they were not privy to seeing you naked).
It is such a thing to observe. John needed a lead on Simon when he was his dog. You need no such mechanism. Simon never strays, not with you. He sits proper when you ask, and he speaks when spoken to. He tears at unwanted flesh, and he comes when you call.
John cannot give him all that he desires. Perhaps he thought what Simon truly wanted was fame and fortune. Legacy. But like most things men do, John does not observe. He takes in only what is right in front of him, and he makes assumptions. Simon is not like other men. Fame and fortune do not matter. He does not care about legacy. What matters to Simon is what he can hold in his hands. The ground under his feet. The steel in his hand. The woman underneath him, spreading her legs, inviting him in.
You love Simon. You love Simon more than anything in the entire world, but it would be a lie to say that you are not at some advantage here. Simon is all-consuming. He is the pinnacle of duty and honor and everything that a man is supposed to be, but Simon is also weak. There is something that he wanted more than anything in the world, and now that he has it, he will do anything to keep it, and that makes him vulnerable. Subject to all kinds of new things. Revenge. Retaliation. Pain.
Manipulation.
Maybe you should feel bad about it. Maybe you should feel guilty, but it’s hard to feel anything like it when there’s a big bear of a man between your thighs slobbering on your pussy like dessert. It’s hard to feel anything but bliss when he’s tracing the letters of his name into your cunt and making you see stars and fucking you into the silk sheets like it’s the last time he’ll ever have you.
It is men who govern your world, and if this is how you must move in it, then so be it. You will not feel bad. You will not be sorry for doing what anyone else would do. John thought he could keep his hand there, muzzle his mutt, but you like him this way, and you’re certain John doesn’t fuck the way you do.
He’s mine.
It isn’t John that commands an army, it’s you; or maybe your cunt, but that belongs to you, too, so it is you, isn’t it? You’re the one that lets him inside, that whispers in his ear, that tells him things you know he wants to hear to make things move in your favor, so it’s you, right?
Not John. Not Victoria. Not their counsel. You. They have stepped on you your entire life. They have made you small and inferior and sad for all of your existence, and they gave you something feral knowing it could eat you alive, and now you are the hand that feeds, and they are forgetting that if they bite too hard, you have something that will surely bite harder.
A collar would suit him, you think. He would look so pretty. He already is, the terrible beast, prettiest thing you’ve ever seen (the necklace your drape over him does just fine, a pendant with his motif that you hope reminds him of you). You don’t care if people would say his face is quite ugly. It is, very much so, but you never see him this way. Whenever that mask falls, your stomach flips. He takes your breath away. His intensity, his raw form of love, the look on his face–there is nothing else in the entire world that will love you the way he loves you.
“You came back for me?” You ask. You have a leg tangled between his, and his fingers are between your thighs, a shadow of a smirk on his face as he feels the mixture of your cum and his. He grunts a little, and you tilt your head to look up at him, your chin on his chest.
“‘f course,” Simon mutters, and you kiss his chest gently, keeping your eyes on his.
“But not for John.”
He turns his head, looking down at you more intently, and he scoffs. You know it’s true, but you want to hear it, anyways. You want to hear Simon admit, unknowingly, that you are the tether.
“John is afraid, and I don’t listen to ‘im when he’s afraid. Makes bad choices.”
It’s almost adorable that this is what Simon tells himself. That he comes back for his own sake, and not for yours, even though they are one and the same, intertwined and inseparable.
“Simon,” you say softly, and he sighs, his eyes closing briefly when you kiss him gently. “You have to listen to your king when he asks you to come back. Making a…rash decision about war strategy is one thing, but…” You cup his cheek gently. “Make things easier for me, husband. If he asks you to come back, you come back.”
This time, at least. Just this time.
Simon snarls a bit, but you swallow it when you kiss him. You maneuver yourself over him, straddling his hips, and he grunts as you sink down on him. He swells hard again very quickly, releasing a deep breath as you give a slow roll of your hips.
“Make things easy for me, my love,” you whisper, and he leans his head back, putting two big hands on your ass and moving you with ease. “Appease your king, yes? For me?”
“Can’t say no when y’r pussy squeezes me like tha’, sweet’eart,” Simon groans, and you giggle, planting your hands on his chest and starting to move a little faster. You lean your head back, your mouth falling open, and you gasp when you sink down completely, your ass touching his thick thighs as you tighten around him. “Fuckin’ Christ–”
“I hate when you go,” you whine, digging your nails into his chest. He hisses, planting his feet on the bed, and he fucks up into you with a renewed fervor. “Hate when you’re not here, Simon, I-I miss you, miss this–”
“Nghh…fuck, I know,” Simon pants. “Can feel it. Feel you.” You squeal when he grips you by the waist and turns you over. He makes it seem so easy, tossing your weight underneath him, and your arms circle around his neck as you draw him closer, hanging onto him. “Y’r so fuckin’ pretty…”
“Simon–”
He kisses to devour. His jaw hinges wide to kiss you sloppy, breathing in the moans that you can’t contain. Simon always fucks so well, stretching your thighs as wide as they will accommodate so he can make room for the goliath of himself that he is. He suffocates, in a good way, and his cock never fails to stretch you for all that you are worth. Simon holds your jaw in place as he grinds into you, relishing in the wet smack of his hips against yours. The fat of you satisfies him. It makes him growl with delight when he grabs onto wide hips, your fat arse, the body that you hold that tells him you are fed and warm and content. It draws his grin wider, and it makes him drool thinking about having you again and again and again, until you beg him for reprieve and his heir sits in your womb.
Simon fucks for sport. He wants to see how stupid he can make you. He wants to know how long you’ll cry for, how fat he can make your tears. He wants to know how loud you will cry, how many times he can make you cum before you’re incoherent, he wants to know the extent to which he can use you that you will still be awake enough to say his name just one more time. Simon is not satisfied until he pushes your limits.
It is what a Riley does. They endure, and they eat, and they consume, and they take pleasure in the all-encompassing indulgement of things they have never been allowed to have. You are a woman, so he knows this will come easy for you. So often, he knows, women are not allowed to indulge at all, so he wants you to. He wants you to cry and moan and eat, and he wants you to do it bearing his name so that no one will ever tell you no.
Simon says no to kings, and they placate, or they die. His wife will be offered the same respect, and he’ll stand behind her with a sword to make it law. When you bear his children, he will expect the same of them–to give their mother utter devotion, lest they answer to his hand. There is no one above you, not God, not country, and certainly not blood. They will know what their father did to have you, and they will spill the same amount of blood to keep it that way. They will do it for you, and then they will do it for their own lovers, and if they don’t have the same sentiments, that love is not true, and Simon will not give his blessing.
Everything else is trivial. He knows this, understands it, because history repeats itself. It is cyclical, and you are right. Kings come and go. Sons die to other sons, fathers make bad decisions, and crowns are passed to bastards and back again, until lineage is merely spectacle and power changes hands often enough to lose generational merit. There is one thing that remains, and it is what you do while you are on earth, while you are standing on the ground you were born on. Even faiths change; when men find it suitable, they change the rules, and then you worship a different God, so Simon sees no point in staying loyal to any of it.
Instead, he is true to what he knows. To what he can see and what he can feel. With John, he remembers being a young man, fighting alongside him. He follows John, to an extent, because he knows what it is like to share blood with him on a muddy hill and take an arrow for him.
With you, time stands still. He saw you in a room, and he had to have you, and he brought nations to ruin to make certain no one would bat an eye when he asked for your hand. He saw you in a dream, too–he saw you laying in his bed of furs, wearing nothing but a tiara of his making, wet between the thighs because that is how it’s meant to be. He recognized you when he saw you that first time, and he doesn’t know how, but saying no to you, really saying no, will change that vision, and he couldn’t bear that.
Your voice echoes. You’re moaning, overstimulated, but he doesn’t stop. The hair around his cock rubs your clit too many times, and when you come around him, you’re a shaking, withering thing, back bowed and nipples pebbled. Your toes curl as you cry from the starry-eyed, hot pleasure, but he keeps moving, chasing something in the distance that he can taste, so close.
Yes, Simon ignored his king. Yes, Simon did not ignore you. Yes, Simon admits, he came when you called, and he doesn’t feel bad about it, he doesn’t care how it seems. He would do it again if he had the chance. John could give him the same answer as you in every timeline, but he will only move if the command comes from you, and yes, Simon knows it makes him a liability, but crowns come with costs, and this is the one John must pay.
Simon will fight any of John’s enemies, but he won’t fight fate. He won’t fight what has already been seen, and he won’t fight what he already knows will happen.
With Simon’s cock in your mouth, you can make him deliver on promises. Sucking on the girth of him, you can make him an honest man. Taking inside of your mouth what you can swallow, you can make Simon do your bidding, and it is a hard lesson that John learns.
“Do this for me,” you slobber against the underside of his cock, and Simon relents.
“Make me happy,” you say, swirling your fingers against your puffy pussy, and Simon kneels with an open mouth.
“Just this once,” you whisper with his cum on your tongue, and Simon seals his choice with his hands on your tits and the taste of himself in his mouth.
When you make eyes with John across the low lights of the throne room, he can’t help the way he admires you. You stand beside Simon, looking the essence of nobility and reverence in another intricate silver and blue dress. The train of your skirt glitters with delicate jewels hand sewn into the fabric, and the headpiece you wear adorns a skull insignia. Your corset has been tied just right, thanks to Simon’s hand, and your own fingers are clasped between his. Your corset and jewels are of exquisite detail–one of the newest designs from Paris, structured and elegant and accentuating every curve of soft skin.
You glow in the room. His wife must be wearing a dress just as expensive, probably more, and yet his eyes (and everyone else’s) cannot help but follow you. Your own eyes won’t leave Simon; you flutter your lashes whenever he looks down at you, big smile on your face, and even when there are people curtsying and bowing to you and giving Simon their gratitude between bites of cake and glugs of wine, your attention never really strays. 
John feels inadequate in his own fortress; suddenly, red and gold sicken him, and England tastes sour in his mouth.
In a few generations, John’s house will likely fall. He will make heirs that will fail him, he knows this. In a few centuries, his family will not sit in the same place, but a Riley will remain right where they are supposed to be. Banners of blue and silver will always fly. If Simon does not make sure of that, then you will.
It’s what happens when you force women like you to their knees. When they grow up invisible, always in the shadows, forgotten and sold to the next man who will pay a higher price, it’s what you learned to do. It’s all you’ve ever known, to make the best out of something terrible.
Simon is the same, in that sense. You understand him in a way his king will never be able to. Simon has nothing, and neither do you, and Simon was stepped on and berated and tortured to the point of no return. It is why blood does not scare him and why death doesn’t come knocking. Time will be the only thing capable of killing him, and everyone that stands up to him learns that when they eat his blade.
In the quiet of the evening, Simon undresses you. He sits behind you on the bed, fingers pinching the bows at your back and unraveling them. He traces your corset, thumb circling over the skull pattern of the belt around the small of your waist, and he tastes something warm in his mouth at the sight of it. You look so beautiful–more beautiful than he’s ever seen you maybe, decorated in his colors and wearing his motif and sitting so pretty.
“You wanna know something…funny?” You ask quietly. Simon finds the ties of your skirts and starts to undo them. He grunts in reply; he might sound standoffish, but you know he’s listening. “John…John made it…he makes it seem like you don’t really listen to him. He implied that…in the face of adversity, you might only listen to me.” You put your hands on the front of your corset to keep it from falling. “Isn’t that funny?”
“Wot’s so funny?”
You swallow, looking down. Your hands fidget, and you take a closer look at the ring you wear, the delicate gold band he gave you not so long ago.
“I…”
“Mmm…might be right, innit?” Simon snickers after a moment. You feel him stand, and you look over your shoulder as he peels his mask off and grins down at you. He tilts his head to the side, and you smile back at him a little. “Do anythin’ for ya. Disobeying a king…” Simon cackles, tearing your corset off, tossing it onto the floor as he walks you backwards. “Ignoring one…” He shrugs, “Oll in a day, love.”
“He can hang you for it,” you whisper. “Cut off your head. Cut off mine.”
Simon lays you back on the bed, spreading you out, climbing over you. You blink up at him, and he leans down, pressing his forehead to yours.
“I would ‘ave seen it. I would know.”
He would have seen it in a dream. It would have come to him in a reflection in a pool of blood on the battlefield. It would have come to him, the voices in his head, he would have heard them amongst screaming, or perhaps in the void that he finds his mind in when he’s between your plush thighs.
You can’t help the smile that graces your face when Simon kisses the curve where your jaw meets your neck. It is fun, you suppose. Fun to control the tides that set the courses of history. It is fun and almost unbelievable that a king bends to the will of one man’s wife just because it solidifies his name.
You wrap your hand around the twine that dangles from Simon’s neck. It twirls around your fingers, easy, solid. Simon’s eyes are dark, and they are yours, and when you smile, so does he, because this is where you are meant to be, forever and always.
“What if I want more?” You ask. Simon hums, low from within his chest, and you run your tongue over your teeth. “Did you see that in your dreams, Simon? Hmm? Do you know what I’m asking for? What it is that I really want?”
Simon smiles. A dark one, with teeth, and you know he hears it. What more means for a duke and his duchess. What more means when you have all the money you could ever want, all the land you could ever need.
What more means when you have climbed your way to the top and still desire more. More, more, more. There are not many steps left to climb. There are not many places left to take, not much more of the world that can really be yours, but Simon looks ravenous, and Simon looks hungry, and if you fuck him now, you’ll have him right where you want him.
When you tug on what hangs around his neck, Simon bends. Simon follows.
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ihopeinevergetsoberr · 3 months ago
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academic rivals request! viktor x fem!reader, nsfw
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request: @4-leafed pls... if u have time pls write a viktor x reader that r both geniuses at the academy but very much toe the line of rivalry and sexual tension...i love competitive smart people that fall in love when the rivalry becomes respect ... and they FREAK IT!!! possibly in a lab ! up to you : 3c
i liked this request so much that i ended up writing a decent-ish one-shot….
update: i wrote a part 2 because it was highly requested! you can read it here :)
rating: explicit
word count: 3,5k
warnings: academic rivals. LOTS of dialogue and bickering. dubious science because i skipped it in school, had to do some basic chemistry revision to write this pornographic catastrophe, so please pat me on the back. rough sex? rough… foreplay, that’s for sure. dirty talk, if you can call bickering that. penetration. reader tries to slap viktor, spits in his mouth and he cums in his pants. normally, i only write vanilla stuff, so i have no idea how it turned out THIS kinky (at least for me okay). not proofread (yet). nsfw under the cut:
“How do you take your coffee?”
His voice betrays the feeble intention of civility, fusing that polite inquiry into a hiss—a phonetic torture you didn’t even know could occur before. So much for killing you with kindness. Outstaging quips by desecrating courtesies. 
“I don’t care,” you mutter on autopilot. Can’t let him in on any personal preferences, no matter how insignificant. “Just don’t put arsenic in it.” 
Viktor scoffs. Puts the kettle away and peers at you over his shoulder, all wretchedly complacent. 
“So the rest of the periodic table is welcome, I presume?” 
Viktor. The local Nikola Tesla knock-off. Never a moment of peace with him; and the fierce taste of competition grows coppery in your mouth whenever he’s in your sight—the most handsome trigger of your cheek-biting reflex.
His name is an insult on your lips and you want to taste it. Chew it, crush it with your teeth and spit right out, preferably aiming for those poignant eyes seeking you in every classroom—so eager to light up with objection the second your opinion differs from his. 
Always the first prick to disparage your input. A never-resting generator of all the meticulous ways to denounce your projects. 
“If I may.” 
Sickeningly polite, too. With that lithe finger pointing in the air— so irritatingly comical. He may not, but there isn’t a chance he’ll shut up, now, is there?
And so he’d clear his throat, straightening his tie in that ridiculously solemn fashion. As if stepping on a pedestal to deliver a life-changing speech—not some shallow nitpicking regarding your circuit breakers. All eyes on him while his kept staring only into your soul. Special treatment, if you will. 
You will not.
“Using magnetic frames is careless,” he’d state. With his hand imposingly pointing to the blueprint on your slide. “Copper coils may oxidize. Not to mention the overheating. I would use thermoplastics. They’re significantly more efficient. And heat-resistant.”
Oh please. Like someone here gives a shit about what you’d use. 
But you can’t say that. Not in a room full of professors. And, judging from the countless nods of approval, the shits were, in fact, being given. 
“Too risky,” you oppose. “Thermoplastics often degrade at high temperatures. Electric insulation is not worth the damage of releasing hydrocarbons. I assumed that you’d be aware of that, Viktor. But I suppose that was an omission on my part.” 
More nods of approval, now in your favour. Here it goes again—the ever-lasting spectacle of hatred. Elegant, when entertaining the audience. Anything but discreet, in private. A perpetually drawn game of chess. By repetition, not agreement. Both of you refuse to retreat until checkmate. 
Oh yes, the sentiment was mutual. You and Viktor were notorious for tearing at each other's throats. The things you’d sacrifice to make that more than a mere metaphor, though. To pull him by that neat tie to sweet asphyxiation and hear him rasp for mercy with eyes full of pathetic condemnation. And he dreamed of that, too. His cane was itching to give you a smack—to paint your behind a plum so deep you’ll have troubles sitting without wincing. When it came to making metaphors literal, he’d pick being the pain in your ass.
However, your mentors couldn’t care less about the rivalry. The Collegiate Inventors Competition was coming up. And who could possibly make better candidates than two greatest minds of the engineering department, with academic excellence so accurately neck and neck that both of your names now occupy the honorary first place in every ranking table? 
That’s how you ended up with your sentence—three weeks of after-hours cooperation in the lab with the incorrigible bastard himself, a quarter of which you’d already successfully wasted on pointless bickering. Well, not without achieving some common grounds. The choice of prototype landed on one of your personal ambitions—a wearable exoskeleton for post-surgery rehabilitation, with plenty of robotics involved. Endorsed by Viktor, for once. The greater good must have swallowed even his dispute. Off to a nice start, if someone were to ask you.
However, the first issues struck early: on the very stage of development. Viktor volunteered for modelling: meaning, the framework would be custom, to accommodate his spine specifically. An object lesson for everyone involved, it would seem—but only in an ideal world. Which, considering what you had at hand (acrimony, bitterness, an entire picky bit of gall), was filtered out by default.
Now, five gruesome days and who’s-even-counting-anymore restarts later, you’re nowhere near close to at least a draft, yet borderline keen on murdering each other. And you’re certain the latter is approaching. He did just contemplate putting arsenic in your cup, after all. 
Viktor stirs the coffee. Watches his reflection smudge in the dark, whirly water, shooting you an askance glance from beneath thick brows when you start stirring yours—the spoon clanking a tad too loud, as if you were doing it on purpose. Which, you undoubtedly were. 
“Stop that,” he groans, almost leaping out of his chair. Heavy, disturbed gaze meets your cheeky simper. “You don’t have to stir it so thoroughly. It’s not like you take it with sugar anyway.”
“Of course.” You shrug. “I don’t drink slop.”
“Oh, I figured. There’s nothing sweet about you, so why would your coffee be any different?”
“There’s plenty of sweetness about me. I simply don’t squander it on entitled pricks.” 
That finally grounds him. And you’re giddy for the way his sturdy hand grips the cup so hard that it almost shatters into his palm, knuckles growing pale enough to match the porcelain. More so when you take a loud, languid sip, feigning innocence. Fully wallowing in his darling, defeated speechlessness. 
“Excuse you,” he mutters. “Entitled?!” 
“So you agree with the ‘prick’ part?” 
“Yes, and I take great pride in it. You may mark me flustered.” 
“Don’t forget to bust in your pants.”
Viktor sneers: chapped lip twitching, scowl growing defensive. Lanky legs untangle as he rises to his feet, towering above you in an angry lean on his cane—long frame transforming into your personal, scrawny menace, pissed exhale sharp and nasal above your head. And you admit to looking small beneath him—all hunched shoulders, weak smile finally tumbling lopsided. 
“Don’t you dare call me entitled,” he demands—and means it. It’s palpable in the way he twists the handle of his cane, the squeaky sound violently scratching your brain. “I sweated blood to achieve my privileges in this establishment.”
You huff, rolling your eyes. “So did I, and yet you keep ordering me around as if I’m some braindead apprentice. We’re counterparts, Viktor. You’re supposed to be mindful of my perspective.”
“I never see you being mindful of mine,” he counters.
And, well. You can’t argue with that. 
Your coffee break continued in avoidant silence, but the ambience simply reeked of hostility—stifling enough to make you leave the lab feet first. The deadline’s chokehold besieging your neck wasn’t of any help, either—you had to submit the draft for approval by Sunday. And, so far, you haven’t even agreed on the design plan. 
You shoot Viktor a reluctant glance. Pensive, he sat slouched over his parchment, emitting pure peril. Like his shoulder blades might stab you if you attempt a single tap, belligerently peeking through the thin shirt. You tucked your lip under your teeth, chewing hard, tongue running over every small, neurotic wound inside your mouth. Fruitless negotiations held a special spot amongst your least favourite endeavours, but this conundrum called for a desperate measure.
“Viktor.” You winced at how chocked up it came out. He noticed that, too—because of course he did—turning in his chair to nod at you, ever so shit-eatingly. Lancing eyes scrutinised their way up to your face. What an affront. 
“Yes?” Always chiding in that condescending tone of his. Hissy ‘s’ echoed in the lab, gnawing at your nerves. 
“We have to submit something by the end of this week. Let’s at least decide on the blueprint.” 
“Fine.” He shrugged, returning to his sketch. “We’re going with mine.” 
“No!” You snapped. “We’re coming up with a new one. Together.” 
Viktor hummed in mock consideration. The strand of hair he’s been twirling unraveled, claiming more attention than you deemed him worthy of. Sighing, he lazily reached for your graph, frowning as his eyes started skimming over the scribbles. You made your way to the desk, claiming a spot behind his shoulder. That required a tacit truce. 
“You really want to wield… hydraulic actuators?” He winced, looking up at you. Had your breath hitching at that respectful attempt, the effort prominent in the very way he uttered those words—as if struggling to filter out swear ones. 
“Yes,” you mustered. “For high power.” 
“But they’re so heavy.”  
“Well, what would you use?” 
He chuckled—rich and malicious. Flipped the page and finally averted those curious eyes, arching a bushy brow. 
“I thought no one gave a… crap about what I’d use.” 
Oh, well. It felt nice while it lasted. 
“How did you even—“
“You ought to be more discreet with your vitriol,” he retorted. “I’ll let you know that I’m a decent lip-reader.” 
“Then don’t stare at my mouth next time. What would you use, Viktor?” 
Now that left you both startled. His fingers stilled above the diagram, flexing in disbelief, hollow cheeks hued a puzzled rouge as you almost chomped your tongue off, showing an embarrassed curse back into the depth of your throat. 
“Ahem. Electric motors,” he chanted, pretending to overlook the slip-up. And for once, you were grateful for his tact. 
“I see. Well, er… put that down, please.” 
He instantly complied, fetching a pen. Left you to reflect on your misery to the rhythmic sound of his scrawling, pressing a sweaty palm to his forehead. 
“Right.” He sighed. “What about the power supply?”
“Rechargeable batteries?” You suggested weakly. “Lithium-ion.”
“Very well. Frame?”
“Something durable. Titanium?” 
“Absolutely not,” he scoffed, pushing the notes away. “Why must you always insist on using the heaviest equipment?”
“I don’t know, corrosion resistance?” You muttered back, hovering over him. “Biocompatibility?”
“That’s perfectly manageable with carbon fiber!”
“So it shatters after the tiniest bump? Bravo, Viktor, how ingenious.” 
He lurches forward—rigid breath quivering over yours. Close enough to crush that thick skull with your forehead—if only you ventured, that is. But, alas, you’re not as brave just yet. Some brief eye-stabbing is about all you’re good for. 
“Fine,” he agrees, pulling away. “We’ll use aluminium alloys. Corrosion resistant and easy to machine. No one wins. Does that suffice?” 
“Yes. Now will you finally let me take your measurements for the sketch?”
He doesn’t answer—at least not verbally. Merely stands up and nods to the measuring tape, face still heavily contorted with displeasure. But you don’t oblige just yet. How can you, when Viktor’s fingers suddenly reach for his collar, fumbling with the button? And—oh no—now they’re sliding lower, reiterating once, twice, thrice, until his chest (flushed, but that might just be wishful thinking) is fully peeking out, teasing the smooth scrap of ivory skin. 
“What… are you doing?” You mumble, utterly startled. 
“…Undressing?” He says matter-of-factly, looking up at you so askance as if you’d just asked him if the sky is blue. One more ministration and the shirt is neatly folded next to the parchment—waiting for you to be through with the measurements to be slid back on his bony shoulders. 
“That, I can tell,” you mumble. “Why did you undress?”
Viktor’s gaze daggers into you again. “Don’t tell me you were actually intending to measure me clothed? Can you not comprehend precision?”
“Precision?”
“The prototype is expected to cling to me. I don’t see how that’s achievable with my shirt on— I assumed that was rather obvious.”
“Shut the fuck up.” 
“Ah, sweet civility. I even started worrying that other entitled pricks must’ve depleted your decorum, but it seems like you saved some up for me after all. I’m flattered, really—“ 
You don’t even register when it happens.
Next thing you see is Viktor seizing your wrist—sternly yanking your slap off his face before it gets the chance to land there in a flared handprint. Nothing but pure rage and prickliness—right where his short nails are lancing your skin, engraving an ugly bracelet you’ll wear for hours.
Well, maybe there is something else. Something inexplicable, and tremendous—deep in the way your eyes keep drifting south—where his pants sling low on defined hips, and the pretty trail of dark hair runs from navel to waistband—no doubt circling exactly what you manage to make out in the convex slope of his crotch. And you want to slap him for that, too—sonorous, and frenetic. Going in again with full force, but his force always turns out to be fuller—and in an instance he firmly twists your arm, pinning it behind your back—pale face barely five inches away from your flushed one. 
What happens next is beyond any explanations. Later, he’ll blame it on inertia—that stupid urge to maintain the speed, to stay in motion with your messy antics until some external force stops him—a simple need to claim you before the inevitable collision.
But there’s no inertia in escalation. In the way his free hand grabs you by the nape and clashes agape mouths together, teeth bumping hard enough to make you consider booking a dentist appointment later. Not a sign of inertia when you grab him, either—a little clumsy through the sharp pain in your twisted arm—bold fingers raking his scalp in a vengeful tug on his hair. 
And it’s more than a kiss. If anything, it looks like you’re trying to eat him—tongue out and thrusting into his throat so fiercely that he gags on it, almost tearing up. Now you know what sheer desperation sounds like, and it’s grunting against your mouth, suddenly pitching to a pathetic moan when you grab a handful of chestnut hair and pull so hard that his eyes roll back, lean frame shaking under your violent approach. You use that startled momentum to try and pry your arm free, but he still keeps it in place. 
“You’re hurting me!” You hiss, attacking his neck—the very one you always shamefully admitted to finding the sexiest any man can possess, and your teeth roughly pinch at his voice box, coaxing another whine. 
“Good.” He groans with spite. “I hope I am.” 
And yet, he releases your aching arm, trading it for a calculated squeeze of your waist. But the audacity overshadows his little mercy. You instantly use the unrestrained privileges to force a finger into his mouth—astounded at the way he instantly opens up, almost mockingly pliant. More so when you spit on his tongue, sparing no shame—as if trying to rile him up beyond recognition. Grinning, when your saliva dribbles down his chin. 
“Ah.” He huffs, instantly licking up the remnants. “Thank you. Ever so disrespectful.”
“You haven’t earned my respect,” you lie, nudging him towards the chair. Not even bothering to wait until he lands, impatient hands already messing with his belt—so treacherously earnest as you shake, unfastening the buckle, and the bastard chuckles at that, looking down at your eager work. 
“That’s a new low, then,” murmurs coyly, helping you into his lap, heavy head leisurely thrown back. “Sleeping with someone you don’t respect.” 
“Fuck you.” 
“Oh yes. You’re about to.” 
You glare at him from under heavy lids, but the anger refuses to linger—not when he stares back full of indignant awe, so clearly basking in your attention. With his cock half-springing out of undone pants, shamelessly twitching against your palm. And not a single breath was hitched to conceal his excitement. 
“Must you always be so insufferable?” You reproach, pushing his hair back—too domestic for your own liking, and yet it doesn’t feel unfitting. Especially when he leans into your hand, welcoming your touch on his sweaty forehead—like he wanted you to feel it fever up with want.
“No.” He shakes his head. “But if it can grant me this, I’ll triple the effort.” 
“What happened to new lows? You don’t have a fraction of respect for me, either.”
“You’re right.” He shrugs. “Fractions could never encapsulate my tribute to you.”
And his hand slipped under your skirt, shakily crawling home—precisely where you’d never confess to needing him a mere minute ago. But the sentiment did a decent job at diluting your rancour. There came no protest when he introduced two long fingers into your underwear, openly gasping at the evident dampness. And you allowed him that with no regrets. Moreover, you helpfully sank yourself knuckle deep, wincing at the brief burn, arms wrapping around his neck as he sweetly looked up, seeking your  permission. Which was instantly found in the pretty moan you spilled into his mouth, slick tongues back at their futile attempts to strangle each other. 
However, your patience was running thin. As much as you wanted to indulge in proper foreplay, whatever masochistic dance he exposed you to had you in agony ever since it started—and it was getting unbearable to ignore the ache, no matter how bad Viktor  craved to postpone the main course. 
Your thighs clenched hard as you crouched above him, fingers wrapping around the hilt to awkwardly line the tip up with your cunt—the slick sound of it slowly sliding down suddenly igniting some tender bashfulness. Like you didn’t just spit in his mouth with a vile smirk. Like he never had to confine you from slapping him in the face. 
That stretch felt different from the one after his fingers. Significantly richer, it made you whine—a pitiful sound reverberating against his skin as you held on tighter and allowed him to bottom out, savouring every little crevice inside you. Raw, yet neither of you seemed to care—that concern was pushed alongside your underwear, then forgotten altogether when your walls clenched him, offering tight bliss. 
“Move,” you demanded, grabbing him by the chin. Viktor rasped something back, but you didn’t catch it—already too busy tongue-fucking his pretty neck, turning your teeth into sharp tools ready to stain it mauve with bites. 
And he complied again. One hand trembled on your hip while the other crawled between your legs—first missing your clit in the chaotic pace of thrusts, then finding it again as it grazed his fingertips. So cheeky when he dared to pinch it, avenging every pull on his hair. Though, he couldn’t gloat in your wince. Not when it clearly was one of the pleasured kind. 
But you didn’t feel like letting him regain composure. You already missed his husky groans—ached to test what else fucking you could make him mutter. Fogy gaze found his face again, softening at the sight—all wet forehead full of concentrated creases and thin lips bitten to bloodless paleness. 
You took over. Let him lean back and rest as you roughly rode him into the chair—and for that he gave you a grateful moan, the insistent thumb toying with your clit never stopping even for an instant. Good with his hands, and he knew it—proudly grinned when you struggled to keep going, taut legs treacherously giving up astride him. 
That didn’t please you in the slightest. You wanted him to be close, too: slid a hand up his chest and angrily tugged at one nipple—chortling when his mouth dropped in a stunned gasp. Bewildered, but he didn’t mind it—amber eyes squeezed shut when his head lolled, and you finally got his lovely moans back—raspier than before, ravenous enough to make your head spin. 
You could already feel it, pulsing somewhere deep within. Blurry vision couldn’t make him out anymore, the lab smudging into a mess of weird shapes—you were about to cum, hard, and Viktor threatened to follow suit any second—his thumb failing to hold steady, and yet the pressure was still there, courtlesly helping you chase that sweet relief. Such a gentleman. 
“Close,” you chanted. “So, so close.” 
“I know,” he answered, choking on a groan. “Me too.” 
And you melted, almost crushing him with your weight. Quivering in a spasm so intense that it had him struggling to keep moving, and yet he was mindful of the risk—used the last fractions of his brain capacity to gently nudge you off his cock and pump it fast and hectic. Cumming in one endlessly thick rope, with a moan so vocal that it reached you even through the layers of foggy, ear-buzzing aftermath. Had you shuddering when you clung off his shoulder, glassy eyes wide with trembling astonishment. You stared at him through the approaching wave of disbelief. 
No signs of regret so far, or maybe it was simply still forming—for now, you silently admired not a snarky bastard, but a pretty, fucked out boy beneath you. 
“Oh, would you look at that.” Viktor chuckled, sheepishly looking down. “I didn’t forget.”
“What?” You mumbled in confusion, following his gaze.
And when it finally caught your attention—sticky and relentlessly staining his pants—you slammed a hand over your mouth, muffling the hysterical laughter. 
“And here I thought I finally fucked your remarkable memory out.”
“Oh, by no means. As, eh… intense as that was, that misery of mine is not going anywhere. However,” he trailed off, his hand skittishly moving towards yours, “sex clearly proved beneficial for our… dynamic.”
You smile, sliding your palm into his warm grasp. 
“Can it ensure us enough civility to win the competition?”
And Viktor scoffs, coyly looking you in the eye. 
“Why should we limit it to just that?” 
4K notes · View notes
liberalsarecool · 4 months ago
Text
I owe my Trump-supporting friends an apology. I’ve been critical of the Trump presidency and am still exhausted from the experience.
But to be fair, President Trump wasn’t that bad, other than:
• when he incited an insurrection against the government,
• mismanaged a pandemic that killed over a million Americans
• separated children from their families
• lost those children in the bureaucracy
• tear-gassed peaceful protesters on Lafayette Square so he could hold a photo op holding a Bible in front of a church
• tried to block all Muslims from entering the country
• got impeached
• got impeached again
• had the worst jobs record of any president in modern history
• pressured Ukraine to dig dirt on Joe Biden
• fired the FBI director for investigating his ties to Russia
• bragged about firing the FBI director on TV
• took Vladimir Putin’s word over the US intelligence community
• diverted military funding to build his wall
• caused the longest government shutdown in US history
• called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate”
• lied nearly 40,000 times
• banned transgender people from serving in the military
• ejected reporters from the White House briefing room who asked tough questions
• vetoed the defense funding bill because it renamed military bases named for Confederate soldiers
• refused to release his tax returns
• increased the national debt by nearly $8 trillion
• had three of the highest annual trade deficits in U.S. history
• called veterans and soldiers who died in combat losers and suckers
• coddled the leader of Saudi Arabia after he ordered the execution and dismembering of a US-based journalist
• refused to concede the 2020 election
• hired his unqualified daughter and son-in-law to work in the White House
• walked out of an interview with Lesley Stahl
• called neo-Nazis “very fine people”
• suggested that people should inject bleach into their bodies to fight COVID
• abandoned our allies the Kurds to Turkey
• pushed through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest but balked at helping working Americans
• incited anti-lockdown protestors in several states at the height of the pandemic
• withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords
• withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal
• withdrew the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership which was designed to block China’s advances
• insulted his own Cabinet members on Twitter
• pushed the leader of Montenegro out of the way during a photo op
• failed to reiterate US commitment to defending NATO allies
• called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries
• called the city of Baltimore the “worst in the nation”
• claimed that he single-handedly brought back the phrase “Merry Christmas” even though it hadn’t gone anywhere
• forced his Cabinet members to praise him publicly like some cult leader
• believed he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
• berated and belittled his hand-picked Attorney General when he recused himself from the Russia probe
• suggested the US should buy Greenland
• colluded with Mitch McConnell to push through federal judges and two Supreme Court justices after supporting efforts to prevent his predecessor from appointing judges
• repeatedly called the media “enemies of the people”
• claimed that if we tested fewer people for COVID we’d have fewer cases
• violated the emoluments clause
• thought that Nambia was a country
• told Bob Woodward in private that the coronavirus was a big deal but then downplayed it in public
• called his exceedingly faithful vice president a “p---y” for following the Constitution
• nearly got us into a war with Iran after threatening them by tweet
• nominated a corrupt head of the EPA
• nominated a corrupt head of HHS
• nominated a corrupt head of the Interior Department
• nominated a corrupt head of the USDA
• praised dictators and authoritarians around the world while criticizing allies
• refused to allow the presidential transition to begin
• insulted war hero John McCain – even after his death
• spent an obscene amount of time playing golf after criticizing Barack Obama for playing (far less) golf while president
• falsely claimed that he won the 2016 popular vote
• called the Muslim mayor of London a “stone cold loser”
• falsely claimed that he turned down being Time’s Man of the Year
• considered firing special counsel Robert Mueller on several occasions
• mocked wearing face masks to guard against transmitting COVID
• locked Congress out of its constitutional duty to confirm Cabinet officials by hiring acting ones
• used a racist dog whistle by calling COVID the “China virus”
• hired and associated with numerous shady figures that were eventually convicted of federal offenses including his campaign manager and national security adviser
• pardoned several of his shady associates
• gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two congressman who amplified his batshit crazy conspiracy theories
• got into telephone fight with the leader of Australia(!)
• had a Secretary of State who called him a moron
• forced his press secretary to claim without merit that his was the largest inauguration crowd in history
• botched the COVID vaccine rollout
• tweeted so much dangerous propaganda that Twitter eventually banned him
• charged the Secret Service jacked-up rates at his properties
• constantly interrupted Joe Biden in their first presidential debate
• claimed that COVID would “magically” disappear
• called a U.S. Senator “Pocahontas”
• used his Twitter account to blast Nordstrom when it stopped selling Ivanka’s merchandise
• opened up millions of pristine federal lands to development and drilling
• got into a losing tariff war with China that forced US taxpayers to bail out farmers
• claimed that his losing tariff war was a win for the US
• ignored or didn’t even take part in daily intelligence briefings
• blew off honoring American war dead in France because it was raining
• redesigned Air Force One to look like the Trump Shuttle
• got played by Kim Jung Un and his “love letters”
• threatened to go after social media companies in clear violation of the Constitution
• botched the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico
• threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans when he finally visited them
• pressured the governor and secretary of state of Georgia to “find” him votes
• thought that the Virgin islands had a President
• drew on a map with a Sharpie to justify his inaccurate tweet that Alabama was threatened by a hurricane
• allowed White House staff to use personal email accounts for official businesses after blasting Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing
• rolled back regulations that protected the public from mercury and asbestos
• pushed regulators to waste time studying snake-oil remedies for COVID
• rolled back regulations that stopped coal companies from dumping waste into rivers
• held blatant campaign rallies at the White House
• tried to take away millions of Americans’ health insurance because the law was named for a Black man
• refused to attend his successors’ inauguration
• nominated the worst Education Secretary in history
• threatened judges who didn’t do what he wanted
• attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci
• promised that Mexico would pay for the wall (it didn’t)
• allowed political hacks to overrule government scientists on major reports on climate change and other issues
• struggled navigating a ramp after claiming his opponent was feeble
• called an African-American Congresswoman “low IQ”
• threatened to withhold federal aid from states and cities with Democratic leaders
• went ahead with rallies filled with maskless supporters in the middle of a pandemic
• claimed that legitimate investigations of his wrongdoing were “witch hunts,”
• seemed to demonstrate a belief that there were airports during the American Revolution
• demanded “total loyalty” from the FBI director
• praised a conspiracy theory that Democrats are Satanic pedophiles
• completely gutted the Voice of America
• placed a political hack in charge of the Postal Service
• claimed without evidence that the Obama administration bugged Trump Tower
• suggested that the US should allow more people from places like Norway into the country
• suggested that COVID wasn’t that bad because he recovered with the help of top government doctors and treatments not available to the public
• overturned energy conservation standards that even industry supported
• reduced the number of refugees the US accepts
• insulted various members of Congress and the media with infantile nicknames
• gave Rush Limbaugh a Presidential medal of Freedom at the State of the Union address
• named as head of federal personnel a 29-year old who’d previously been fired from the White House for allegations of financial improprieties
• eliminated the White House office of pandemic response
• used soldiers as campaign props
• fired any advisor who made the mistake of disagreeing with him
• demanded the Pentagon throw him a Soviet-style military parade
• hired a shit ton of white nationalists
• politicized the civil service
• did absolutely nothing after Russia hacked the U.S. government
• falsely said the Boy Scouts called him to say his bizarre Jamboree speech was the best speech ever given to the Scouts
• claimed that Black people would overrun the suburbs if Biden won
• insulted reporters of color
• insulted women reporters
• insulted women reporters of color
• suggested he was fine with China’s oppression of the Uighurs
• attacked the Supreme Court when it ruled against him
• summoned Pennsylvania state legislative leaders to the White House to pressure them to overturn the election
• spent countless hours every day watching Fox News
• refused to allow his administration to comply with Congressional subpoenas
• hired Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer
• tried to punish Amazon because the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post wrote negative stories about him
• acted as if the Attorney General of the United States was his personal attorney
• attempted to get the federal government to defend him in a libel lawsuit from a women who accused him of sexual assault
• held private meetings with Vladimir Putin without staff present
• didn’t disclose his private meetings with Vladimir Putin so that the US had to find out via Russian media
• stopped holding press briefings for months at a time
• “ordered” US companies to leave China even though he has no such power
• led a political party that couldn’t even be bothered to draft a policy platform
• claimed preposterously that Article II of the Constitution gave him absolute powers
• tried to pressure the U.K. to hold the British Open at his golf course
• suggested that the government nuke hurricanes
• suggested that wind turbines cause cancer
• said that he had a special aptitude for science
• fired the head of election cyber security after he said that the 2020 election was secure
• blurted out classified information to Russian officials
• tried to force the G7 to hold their meeting at his failing golf resort in Florida
• fired the acting attorney general when she refused to go along with his unconstitutional Muslim travel ban
• hired Stephen Miller
• openly discussed national security issues in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago where everyone could hear them
• interfered with plans to relocate the FBI because a new development there might compete with his hotel
• abandoned Iraqi refugees who’d helped the U.S. during the war
• tried to get Russia back into the G7
• held a COVID super spreader event in the Rose Garden
• seemed to believe that Frederick Douglass is still alive
• lost 60 election fraud cases in court including before judges he had nominated
• falsely claimed that factories were reopening when they weren’t
• shamelessly exploited terror attacks in Europe to justify his anti-immigrant policies
• still hasn’t come up with a healthcare plan
• still hasn’t come up with an infrastructure plan despite repeated “Infrastructure Weeks"
• forced Secret Service agents to drive him around Walter Reed while contagious with COVID
• told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by”
• fucked up the Census
• withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic
• did so few of his duties that his press staff were forced to state on his daily schedule “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings,” allowed his staff to repeatedly violate the Hatch Act
• seemed not to know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican
• stood before sacred CIA wall of heroes and bragged about his election win
• constantly claimed he was treated worse than any president which presumably includes four that were assassinated and his predecessor whose legitimacy and birthplace were challenged by a racist reality TV show star named Donald Trump
• claimed Andrew Jackson could’ve stopped the Civil War even though he died 16 years before it happened
• said that any opinion poll showing him behind was fake
• claimed that other countries laughed at us before he became president when several world leaders were literally laughing at him
• claimed that the military was out of ammunition before he became President
• created a commission to whitewash American history
• retweeted anti-Islam videos from one of the most racist people in Britain
• claimed ludicrously that the Pulse nightclub shooting wouldn’t have happened if someone there had a gun even though there was an armed security guard there
• hired a senior staffer who cited the non-existent Bowling Green Massacre as a reason to ban Muslims
• had a press secretary who claimed that Nazi Germany never used chemical weapons even though every sane human being knows they used gas to kill millions of Jews and others
• bilked the Secret Service for higher than market rates when they had to stay at Trump properties
• apparently sold pardons on his way out of the White House
• stripped protective status from 59,000 Haitians
• falsely claimed Biden wanted to defund the police
• said that the head of the CDC didn’t know what he was talking about
• tried to rescind protection from DREAMers
• gave himself an A+ for his handling of the pandemic
• tried to start a boycott of Goodyear tires due to an Internet hoax
• said U.S. rates of COVID would be lower if you didn’t count blue states
• deported U.S. veterans who served their country but were undocumented
• claimed he did more for African Americans than any president since Lincoln
• touted a “super-duper” secret “hydrosonic” missile which may or may not be a new “hypersonic” missile or may not exist at all
• retweeted a gif calling Biden a pedophile
• forced through security clearances for his family
• suggested that police officers should rough up suspects
• suggested that Biden was on performance-enhancing drugs
• tried to stop transgender students from being able to use school bathrooms in line with their gender
• suggested the US not accept COVID patients from a cruise ship because it would make US numbers look higher
• nominated a climate change skeptic to chair the committee advising the White House on environmental policy
• retweeted a video doctored to look like Biden had played a song called “Fuck tha Police” at a campaign event
• hugged a disturbingly large number of U.S. flags
• accused Democrats of “treason” for not applauding his State of the Union address
• claimed that the FBI failed to capture the Parkland school shooter because they were “spending too much time” on Russia
• mocked the testimony of Dr Christine Blasey Ford when she accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault
• obsessed over low-flow toilets
• ordered the re-release of more COVID vaccines when there weren’t any to release
• called for the construction of a bizarre garden of heroes with statutes of famous dead Americans as well as at least one Canadian (Alex Trebek)
• hijacked Washington’s July 4th celebrations to give a partisan speech
• took advice from the MyPillow guy
• claimed that migrants seeking a better life in the US were dangerous caravans of drug dealers and rapists
• said nothing when Vladimir Putin poisoned a leading opposition figure
• never seemed to heed the advice of his wife’s “Be Best” campaign
• falsely claimed that mail-in voting is fraudulent
• announced a precipitous withdrawal of troops from Syria which not only handed Russia and ISIS a win but also prompted his defense secretary to resign in protest
• insulted the leader of Canada
• insulted the leader of France
• insulted the leader of Britain
• insulted the leader of Germany
• insulted the leader of Sweden (Sweden!!)
• falsely claimed credit for getting NATO members to increase their share of dues
• blew off two Asia summits even though they were held virtually
• continued lying about spending lots of time at Ground Zero with 9/11 responders,
• said that the Japanese would sit back and watch their “Sony televisions” if the US were ever attacked
• left a NATO summit early in a huff
• stared directly into an eclipse even though everyone over the age of five knows not to do that
• called himself a very stable genius despite significant evidence to the contrary
• refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and kept his promise
And a whole bunch of other things I can’t remember .
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mosabsdr · 22 days ago
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Holding On Because of You 💙
There are moments when it feels like the world has moved on, that the pain we carry is just another forgotten story. But your kindness has proven otherwise.
Today, we’ve reached $2,200 out of $90,000, and while it’s still such a long way to go, it’s proof that compassion still exists. That even in the darkest of times, there are people who refuse to turn away.
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💔 We lost 25 family members—loved ones who should still be here. 💔 We lost our home—the place that held our memories and dreams. 💔 We lost our sense of security—every day is filled with fear and uncertainty.
But through all of this, your generosity reminds us that we are not alone.
Every donation, every share, every kind word—it all makes a difference. If you can’t donate, just reblogging this post helps more than you know. You are keeping us afloat.
Thank you for standing with us. Thank you for caring.
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sukunasweetheart · 6 months ago
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Sukuna, a middle aged man jaded by the harsh realities of his life. He steps outside for a smoke nearby a convenience store, completely bored out of his mind.
A lady is handing out flyers nearby, although nobody is bothering to look her way, including sukuna himself.
You approach the man who's getting irritated by the lighter that refuses to work in his hand.
"Hello there, sir. Would you be interested in taking up classes for arts and craft?" You offer the cute flyer up.
Sukuna scoffs. Is she serious?
"No thanks."
"Are you sure? You look like you could use a bit more colour in your life."
He's too exhausted at this point to get angry at a random woman on the street.
"...You're not too far off, i suppose," sukuna mutters, still trying to get the spark to stay on his lighter. "Even so, I'm not interested in the likes of arts and craft. Do i look like a child to you?"
You withdraw your offer of your flyer, and inspect him for a moment.
"Arts and craft can be enjoyed by anyone, regardless of age. But moving past that... you seem a bit down. If you'd like to confide in a stranger for a night, I'm happy to listen."
What a strange, persistent woman. Sukuna gives up on his lighter, and takes out the unlit cigarette in his mouth to think back for a moment. One thing does come to mind.
"I'm not feeling down. But i remembered something, now that i think about it..." he confesses, feeling weirdly compelled to tell you about it.
"Today is supposed to be my birthday."
Birthdays have never been special to him. Nobody celebrated his birth as a child, and in turn, he's never paid attention to the birthdays of others.
"Oh, happy birthday. Are you doing anything special for yourself today?"
"No. I've never cared for birthdays. And I'm getting too old for that anyway."
"Well, that won't do... Hold on for a second."
Puzzled, sukuna looks back at you but you've already gone inside the convenience store. Whatever you're up to now, couldn't possibly be more enticing than getting in a proper smoke right now. Sukuna begins to zone out.
He only snaps out of it when something mildly cold grazes past his cheek, leaving a ticklish and moist sensation on his skin as it disappears upon impact.
Bubbles. Bubbles are flying past him, and floating away into the sky.
For a moment, he gets mesmerised by the swirl of colours that are harboured in each one. Even just from the light of this dingy street, they fly up while holding a multitude of different colours inside them. Time seems to slow for a split second, and he doesn't understand why.
His gaze follows the trail to identify it's source. And unsurprisingly, it's you, standing behind him. You blow a couple more out, and then grin at him childishly. He finally looks at your face properly for the first time.
"Birthday bubbles. For the birthday man," you chuckle sheepishly, knowing that you probably look a bit silly right now. You put the bubble wand back into the small bottle of the soapy mixture, and screw it tightly.
"Here, you can have it. Next time you're feeling a bit antsy, why don't you try blowing some yourself? They're pretty, aren't they?"
You also hand him a different small item.
"And i also threw in a little something else, while i was at it."
He looks down, and sees that it's a new lighter. He slowly pulls his hand out of his pocket to take both of them from your hands.
"I hope you get to do something more special next year. Birthdays are supposed to be joyful, after all," you comment.
"Thanks for putting up with my nosiness. Farewell."
And then you leave him after a quick wave.
Sukuna stares wordlessly as you walk off, wondering what to name this ticklish feeling rising in the pit of his stomach.
The small bottle in his palm reminds him of a moment in his childhood. Kids in the park bragging about their bubble wands that were gifted to them. the laughs that resounded as they all ran off to catch the fragile spheres as they blew away in the wind. The tiny feelings of envy in his heart.
The item he tucks away into his pocket is the lighter. And when nobody is watching, he blows a couple more bubbles into the night sky.
-
Every time he passes by that convenience store, the thought of you comes to his mind. A flashback of your smile in the back of his mind. Every so often, he comes to this particular store. Despite having closer options, he comes to this specific one.
At times, sukuna regrets not taking one of the flyers that you were handing out. He wouldn't have had to mope around a convenience store in hopes of running into you again.
Today is a rainy day, and this calls for a hot piping cup of instant ramen. He doesn't usually enjoy convenience store food, but he wants a reason to stay around inside for a bit longer.
He needs to wait five minutes for the noodles to soften. In this time, he stares out the glass frame of the store, and watches the various rows of people walking past with their umbrellas opened.
There appears to be one anomaly in the crowd, however. Running without shelter from the rain, clutching her bag as if it contains something important in there. Sukuna realises that it's you.
Forgetting about his instant ramen, sukuna grabs his umbrella and dashes out the door.
You're mildly panicking about being stuck behind the red light at the zebra crossing without anything to save you from the rain, but the sensation of the droplets hitting your body come to a stop all too suddenly.
You look up, and there's a black umbrella sheltering you, big and strong looking. You spin around and recognise the stranger with pink hair and sharp eyes. Seemingly out of breath.
He signals to the light that has now turned green behind you, and ushers you forward to cross the road before you can say anything to him.
Now safely on the other side of the road, you begin to converse with him.
"It's you! Hello. Thank you for sheltering me. How have you been?"
"... So-so. Nothing's changed since the last time we met."
"I see. You look better than last time, though." You get the feeling that his eyes have a little more light in them.
Sukuna doesn't really get what you mean, but he moves on.
"What’s in your bag that's so important for you to be protecting it like that?" He asks, effectively changing the topic.
"Oh, this? I literally just bought some brand new origami paper... i can't risk getting them wet and unusable. The children would be disappointed."
"Origami, huh? How original."
"Hey! That's not all... there's a lot of options i offer them. They voted on origami this time."
"You got a lot of people signed up?"
"Not really... but I'm sure it'll start picking up soon. Slowly, one at a time."
You smile up at him hopefully.
"...is the offer still open?"
You cock your head to the side slightly, confused. Sukuna grits his teeth, feeling a little bashful about having to ask more specifically.
"You know. Lessons for grown adults."
"Oh! Of course, anytime! Would you like to come sign up today?"
"Do you offer one-on-one sessions too?"
"Yes, I do."
"Alright. Let’s go."
Sukuna can't fathom the words that are coming out of his own mouth. But fuck it, what's the worst that could happen? You've somehow intriged him, and he can't think of a better way to approach you.
You chatter his ears off along the way, and he nods along while his shoulder gets wet from the way he leans his umbrella closer to your side.
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